The colors don't need access to every mechanic to be balanced. Three out of four decks in the Proven section in Standard don't play Blue. Evidently, non-Blue colors are playable, because they stopped printing stuff like Ancestral Recall and started printing Jace's Ingenuity, which is a balanced card-draw spell. Many people play non-Blue EDH decks. Not having access to specific mechanics doesn't make colors unplayable. Giving one color access to cards that cost 1/5 of what they should makes the other colors unplayable.
The color pie makes the game more interesting. If you want to play Red, you have to accept that you're not going to get much card draw. Burn decks are really strong in Modern right now. Some use Treasure Cruise, some don't, and the ones without it are doing just as well.
Well, it is one thing for design to say that they're going to tone down some mechanics in some colors. 3 of 4 top deck in Modern are non-Blue? I'm surprised it's not 4/4. After all, they could just remove card draw and countermagic from the game entirely, or put it entirely into one creature (Bob), if they wanted to. It's another thing to say that it's "good for the game" that any sort of Blue-based Control is Tier 2 at best in Modern, Jund dominates the format for years ongoing, and every year a new ban is necessary.
Yeah, anything I just said in favor of Blue in Legacy could be said by Blue in complaint of other colors. Blue's history in Modern supports that case, rather than contradicting it. But, I would rather play Hearthstone or SolForged than Modern. The point is, rationing out essential functions like card advantage and mana production to different colors makes for a situation that's impossible to balance. So, you can't have both balance and color based restrictions, i.e. the color pie. With the choice between one or the other, Wizards has obviously chosen game balance. Maro is reminiscing.
Well, it is one thing for design to say that they're going to tone down some mechanics in some colors. 3 of 4 top deck in Modern are non-Blue? I'm surprised it's not 4/4. After all, they could just remove card draw and countermagic from the game entirely, or put it entirely into one creature (Bob), if they wanted to. It's another thing to say that it's "good for the game" that any sort of Blue-based Control is Tier 2 at best in Modern, Jund dominates the format for years ongoing, and every year a new ban is necessary.
Yeah, anything I just said in favor of Blue in Legacy could be said by Blue in complaint of other colors. Blue's history in Modern supports that case, rather than contradicting it. But, I would rather play Hearthstone or SolForged than Modern. The point is, rationing out essential functions like card advantage and mana production to different colors makes for a situation that's impossible to balance. So, you can't have both balance and color based restrictions, i.e. the color pie. With the choice between one or the other, Wizards has obviously chosen game balance. Maro is reminiscing.
Any situation where you can play different cards will be unbalanced. Wizards has chosen color based restrictions over perfect balance by including color-based restrictions. Even if they give all mechanics to all colors, some colors will have better cards and therefore be better. The only way to make the colors perfectly balanced is to give them all identical cards, at which point there's no reason to have different colors.
It's impossible to achieve perfect balance in Magic without removing colors from the game altogether. Hearthstone is no different, with each hero having their own ability and unique cards. Restrictions make the game more interesting, and the game can still be fairly balanced with them.
The difficulty is mostly that the balance needed for commander is different than the balance needed for standard and modern. In order to print the kinds of cards necessary to let aggro compete with combo or control in EDH, they would probably blow everything out of the water in modern. Red is going to draw the short straw here because its best cards are based around early damage and trading cards for damage - effects that aren't worthwhile for EDH. The game is principally balanced for standard, modern, and legacy, so the balance will always be out of whack in EDH, even ignoring broken old cards available in the pool.
The difficulty is mostly that the balance needed for commander is different than the balance needed for standard and modern. In order to print the kinds of cards necessary to let aggro compete with combo or control in EDH, they would probably blow everything out of the water in modern. Red is going to draw the short straw here because its best cards are based around early damage and trading cards for damage - effects that aren't worthwhile for EDH. The game is principally balanced for standard, modern, and legacy, so the balance will always be out of whack in EDH, even ignoring broken old cards available in the pool.
What percentage of the field in competitive Modern and Legacy has blue in the deck? I'm not so sure there is a balance in other formats aside from standard, and standard can be relative to the times.
What percentage of the field in competitive Modern and Legacy has blue in the deck? I'm not so sure there is a balance in other formats aside from standard, and standard can be relative to the times.
There's a pretty big portion playing Delver, which is blue. Burn also has a large share of the meta, and some burn lists are splashing blue for Treasure Cruise, but it sounds like adding blue to Burn isn't making a big difference in its performance. Both the decks play red, because Lightning Bolt is amazing and Modern has traditionally been filled with super-greedy mana bases that use fetchlands to get shocklands and basically start the game at 15 life.
Delver, of course, is largely strong because of Delver of Secrets, which is supposed to be the kind of thing that Blue doesn't get. So that's why you can't have one color get everything, and also why you really shouldn't print 1-drops that have 3 power and almost no downside.
Another thing is that the numbers vary greatly between paper and online. Burn and Delver make up something like half the metagame online, but it's much more balanced in paper.
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Well, it is one thing for design to say that they're going to tone down some mechanics in some colors. 3 of 4 top deck in Modern are non-Blue? I'm surprised it's not 4/4. After all, they could just remove card draw and countermagic from the game entirely, or put it entirely into one creature (Bob), if they wanted to. It's another thing to say that it's "good for the game" that any sort of Blue-based Control is Tier 2 at best in Modern, Jund dominates the format for years ongoing, and every year a new ban is necessary.
Yeah, anything I just said in favor of Blue in Legacy could be said by Blue in complaint of other colors. Blue's history in Modern supports that case, rather than contradicting it. But, I would rather play Hearthstone or SolForged than Modern. The point is, rationing out essential functions like card advantage and mana production to different colors makes for a situation that's impossible to balance. So, you can't have both balance and color based restrictions, i.e. the color pie. With the choice between one or the other, Wizards has obviously chosen game balance. Maro is reminiscing.
Any situation where you can play different cards will be unbalanced. Wizards has chosen color based restrictions over perfect balance by including color-based restrictions. Even if they give all mechanics to all colors, some colors will have better cards and therefore be better. The only way to make the colors perfectly balanced is to give them all identical cards, at which point there's no reason to have different colors.
It's impossible to achieve perfect balance in Magic without removing colors from the game altogether. Hearthstone is no different, with each hero having their own ability and unique cards. Restrictions make the game more interesting, and the game can still be fairly balanced with them.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
What percentage of the field in competitive Modern and Legacy has blue in the deck? I'm not so sure there is a balance in other formats aside from standard, and standard can be relative to the times.
There's a pretty big portion playing Delver, which is blue. Burn also has a large share of the meta, and some burn lists are splashing blue for Treasure Cruise, but it sounds like adding blue to Burn isn't making a big difference in its performance. Both the decks play red, because Lightning Bolt is amazing and Modern has traditionally been filled with super-greedy mana bases that use fetchlands to get shocklands and basically start the game at 15 life.
Delver, of course, is largely strong because of Delver of Secrets, which is supposed to be the kind of thing that Blue doesn't get. So that's why you can't have one color get everything, and also why you really shouldn't print 1-drops that have 3 power and almost no downside.
Another thing is that the numbers vary greatly between paper and online. Burn and Delver make up something like half the metagame online, but it's much more balanced in paper.