And if you think 3G for a Naturalize is still playable, you're wronger than wrong.
And any self-mill deck requires the clairvoyance to know what's in all 24 packs, and that nobody else is drafting them either. Somehow I doubt that. It was, as it was intended to be, a tier-three deck.
(And I tried doing the Spider Spawning self-mill trick at our launch party and went 0-2 with a bye because someone had to leave. That's not a good record. For me, anyway.)
But my point remains that really, I don't see the point of Plummet. Nor do I see why green gets all these corner-case cards. Let some other color get the worthless cards for a time.
(And, BTW, how does a 2/3 with reach and deathtouch for 1GG violate the color pie? It's still worse than Nighthawk by a lot, but at least now somewhat playable. Unless you mean that decent creatures aren't in green's pie, in which case I'll agree with you.)
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
And if you think 3G for a Naturalize is still playable, you're wronger than wrong.
And any self-mill deck requires the clairvoyance to know what's in all 24 packs, and that nobody else is drafting them either. Somehow I doubt that. It was, as it was intended to be, a tier-three deck.
(And I tried doing the Spider Spawning self-mill trick at our launch party and went 0-2 with a bye because someone had to leave. That's not a good record. For me, anyway.)
But my point remains that really, I don't see the point of Plummet. Nor do I see why green gets all these corner-case cards. Let some other color get the worthless cards for a time.
(And, BTW, how does a 2/3 with reach and deathtouch for 1GG violate the color pie? It's still worse than Nighthawk by a lot, but at least now somewhat playable. Unless you mean that decent creatures aren't in green's pie, in which case I'll agree with you.)
I think you need to take a pretty serious introspective look with respect to your ability to evaluate limited cards, not to mention with respect to your ability to backpedal.
Calling Sylvok Replica a Naturalize for G3 is flat out absurd. That it comes on a body and devalues a lot of plays is incredibly relevant. I swept through the Swiss stage of a PTQ back when Scars was the limited set du jour, and the main reason was that I had three Replicas in my deck.
Self-Mill was far better than tier three, and it simply took a really good drafter and player to take advantage of it. It happened in that format pretty consistently, and if I were to take an educated guess, I'd say a good version popped up once every two or three drafts at least. Your statement that you need clairvoyance is one of the most ludicrous things I've read on these boards; that mentality essentially implies that drafting any archetype other than "23 good cards in a couple colors" is a poor strategy due to your inability to predict certain cards' availabilities. That's flat out bad limited theory. I'd go as far as to say that if you went 0-2 with a version of this deck, then either you drafted it and built it poorly, or you played it poorly.
Green is all about balance. It has more directly proactive cards than all other colors, mostly due to its color profile. The wilds are savage and strong, not reactive and calculative. Every set with a basic color pie profile has green represented with efficient, strong creatures and proactive combat spells. Every color has reactive options, and green's are more narrow, by the converse nature of its aggressively cost bodies. Blue is the exact opposite. Plummet does exactly what reactive green spells should do, and I appreciate its design and its role in limited games. Hell, green has very little chaff when compared with other colors in M14. If you're trying to imply that Plummet is a bad card in general, I doubt you'll find many people to agree with you.
The color pie point is about the fact that black has access to all three abilities on Nighthawk, which makes it a terrible card to compare to the Recluse. They cost spiders less aggressively, as they tend to slow games down in a way that would hurt the health of some formats, and they always remain careful with how they put Deathtouch on common creatures. Given that its power is irrelevant so long as it kills anything in combat, the only balance was to make it cost what it did. Costing less would make it stronger than just about any other common spider printed in the last 10 years. Giving it more toughness would make it far too strong in a limited setting. Just look at how strong Deadly Recluse is, and now imagine how annoying it would be were it able to survive combat with a 3/3, be it flying or otherwise.
Look, the points here are not absolutes about any color. Green has strengths and weaknesses, which always put it on a sliding scale given certain matchups and color combinations. As bateleur correctly asserted, seldom does green show up in isolation in limited decks, which allows drafters to trend toward balance and mitigation of green's problems with reactivity. You're 100% incorrect about the two primary points discussed here (the playability of the Replica and the Self-Mill deck in Innistrad), and there's more than enough proof on the internet if you're willing to take a step outside of your playgroup bubble to research it. That lack of good insight plagues your ability to evaluate cards well, be it from a design or limited power angle, and it's making it very clear that you need some serious expansion of your knowledge and perspective before we can have an appropriate conversation about green's place in comparison with the other colors in the game.
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And if you think 3G for a Naturalize is still playable, you're wronger than wrong.
This totally depends on the format. Is Sylvok Replica a great card? - not really. But in an artifact heavy block, it can do work, even if it's not Naturalize.
And any self-mill deck requires the clairvoyance to know what's in all 24 packs, and that nobody else is drafting them either. Somehow I doubt that. It was, as it was intended to be, a tier-three deck.
This is basically true of every draft archetype (e.g. RB sacrifice in M14). The question is whether 1) there is a high enough density of cards in the set that are powerful in the archetype but weak everywhere else and 2) whether you are able to recognize the presence of these cards at key points in the draft as a sign that the archetype is open.
(And I tried doing the Spider Spawning self-mill trick at our launch party and went 0-2 with a bye because someone had to leave. That's not a good record. For me, anyway.)
This is what is known as small sample size. Added to this, the Spider Spawning archetype took a little while for most players to understand and correctly draft. Failing to succeed one time at a launch party is not a strong argument, especially when compared to the results of MANY other people over the full block.
But my point remains that really, I don't see the point of Plummet. Nor do I see why green gets all these corner-case cards. Let some other color get the worthless cards for a time.
As has been said before in this thread, green gets some corner case cards to help shore up some major weaknesses in its game plan. The idea is that it can deal with non-flyers without needing much direct removal. Every color has niche cards. And I think it's pretty clear that white has more "worthless" cards than any other color in M14.
(And, BTW, how does a 2/3 with reach and deathtouch for 1GG violate the color pie? It's still worse than Nighthawk by a lot, but at least now somewhat playable. Unless you mean that decent creatures aren't in green's pie, in which case I'll agree with you.)
It doesn't violate the color pie. But Magic designers strive to make a range of different power levels for cards in each color (and ideally at each rarity level). At higher rarities, they also widen this range. Vampire Nighthawk is obviously near the top of that range for a black uncommon. And most people I know would rate Kessig Recluse near the middle of the range of green commons (if not a little higher). This does not mean that green is inherently weaker than black - just that you're comparing apples and oranges. Do the devs always get the balance perfect? Of course not. But green has had it's time in the sun, and will again. And in M14 it does just fine, in my experience.
Yeah, but every time I saw that deck, whoever was playing it ran 0-3. It's something to draft because you want to draft it, not because you actually think you have a good shot at winning.
And you may not have noticed, but Replica isn't "when this ETB", it's "sacrifice this". A bit different.
Also, in Return to Ravnica, why no "walls matter" for white?
Luckily, you never mentioned my evaluation of Plummet as a crap card. Instead you're Gish galloping about everything else. My point is that Plummet has no reason to exist. The only reason green doesn't get flying is so Plummet can exist: It's a cause, not a cure.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
HL: Green doesn't get flying because it's not in Green's color pie. Not because of Plummet. Given that green's lack of flying (on the order of 'maybe one flying card per block') well predates the creation of Plummet, I think you have the wrong end of that stick.
I might also point out that the longest-running card in Magic core sets was Giant Spider. Are you still going to argue that Green's color pie should have flying and not reach?
Replica's 'sacrifice this' cost makes it work different from (say) Viridian Corruptor, because I don't have to keep it in my hand to make it worthwhile. Is this better? Depends. However, saying it's worse is just as bad as saying it's better.
You are seriously off-base in your evaluations here, and display a disturbing lack of perceptiveness when it comes to core elements of Magic such as the color pie.
Plummet is necessary because G has a glaring weakness: it is very weak to walls+evasion.dek. It's not a "crap card," it's just not an auto-include in every format. Many would argue that it is in M14, and the rest (should) argue that it is at least a great sideboard card. Much like Wild Guess, it attempts to patch a weakness in its color without discarding the color-pie entirely.
Also, it seems at this point you're clearly just arguing to win, and not debating to learn. Claims such as Sylvok Replica being bad in its format and Spider Spawning not being a worthwhile deck are so objectively wrong that it's hard to give credence to your other evaluations. No offense, but, seriously, listen. You don't like Plummet? Okay. Plummet is a crap card that has no business in Green? The community strongly disagrees and you should use this as a learning opportunity.
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Luckily, you never mentioned my evaluation of Plummet as a crap card. Instead you're Gish galloping about everything else. My point is that Plummet has no reason to exist. The only reason green doesn't get flying is so Plummet can exist: It's a cause, not a cure.
Situational cards are what make Magic what it is. The color pie is rock paper scissors. Green has big guys but little removal. Blue beats green through things like card advantage and evasion. But then Green has tools like Plummet and Giant Spider to deal with Blue.
If it was just 4/4 vs. 3/3 all day then the game would be boring. Even Doom Blade is conditional. Everything has a weakness.
Do you think Windstorm sucks, too?
This is all beside the point, since Green has Enlarge.
Situational cards are what make Magic what it is. The color pie is rock paper scissors. Green has big guys but little removal. Blue beats green through things like card advantage and evasion. But then Green has tools like Plummet and Giant Spider to deal with Blue.
If it was just 4/4 vs. 3/3 all day then the game would be boring. Even Doom Blade is conditional. Everything has a weakness.
Do you think Windstorm sucks, too?
This is all beside the point, since Green has Enlarge.
Yeah, um, Giant Spider is strictly worse than a lot of what blue gets, Azure Drake coming to mind immediately. But that's a development issue. (Also, Giant Spider doesn't put an unnecessary wrinkle in the color pie, another sign of bad design. But as I said, green only doesn't get flying because R&D really likes Hurricane; ironically, Hurricane itself is no longer in green's pie because it deals damage to players.)
But Doom Blade's not as conditional as Plummet. MostAll of the time, if you're drafting green for Plummet instead of drafting white or blue for flying, or black and red for real removal, you're doing it wrong.
(And I love when people tell me that it can kill Archangel of Thune and I'm like, "Dude, this is limited!")
I'm just saying, I've more often been clobbered by creatures without flying (or creatures with flying and pro-green/hexproof/indestructible) with a Plummet sitting in my hand when I really wanted a threat of some type (I stopped counting the 100th time.) than flying hate has actually mattered in the course of the game (exactly zero). I've also drafted green and eschewed flying hate completely, even in flying-heavy environments like AVR, and placed first. A lot. (Though that might have something to do with the fact that black removal was the same problem as Plummet in AVR.)
Maybe if they gave green a Lure effect more often, I wouldn't have this issue. (Even then, the best Lure effect ever isn't green.)
Colorpiewise, they tend to ignore the rules for WU. White got a lot of powerful card draw effects from ROE to ISD: I know they're all just giving other cards the cantrip ability, but that stacks. Blue has some (admittedly expensive) creature removal in M14. But for those colors, it's perfectly fine to give the color pie a giant middle finger.
(And FTR, I know about the color pie. I was saying that a 2/3 with deathtouch and reach could cost 1GG at common if the same with flying and lifelink in addition costs 1BB at uncommon. Note that it would still be strictly worse than Nighthawk.)
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Your responses tackle such disparate points that it's difficult to say anything salient. it almost has to be a long winded response to cover every eclectic leap in topic. So far i'm getting:
Flying is better than reach. Mostly true since it can block as well as reach while also attacking evasively but taken in the context of what else blue or green is offering up it can be the same or worse. For instance in the Giant Spider vs Azure Drake comparison, azure drake can be plummeted or targeted by air servant's ability while the spider cannot, and many of blue's common and uncommons are variations on wind drake, which giant spider eats, while many of green's are meaty beaters that can force past an azure drake. I never played m11 limited which is the only set they both appear in but a quick gatherer search shows 7 common and uncommons in green that can't be stopped by an azure drake while only 4 of blue's creatures can say the same about giant spider. This doesn't make green a good color in m11 or giant spider a better creature than azure drake but is the kind of thing you need to keep in mind evaluating cards, you have to take a color as a new whole each set. A canyon minotaur is good for red in most formats even if it is strictly worse than a centaur courser because a 3/3 means something else in red's pool than it does in green's.
Next is doom blade vs plummet. Doom blade is better, it's one of the best removal ever printed and no one is saying plummet is even a main deckable card in most formats. But they aren't really competing directly. Not even green's biggest proponent would recommend a first pick plummet because it is so situational, you can and will pick them up late, both have their place. You main deck doom blade then if you wind up against the mono black deck you side it out in the very rare instance it isn't good. Plummet you keep in the side board then bring it in against any deck running a high volume of flyers or maybe just a few very problematic flyers. As far as a deck relying on serra angel or air servant to finish are concerned, in game 2 a black deck with smaller creatures and 2 doom blades is less of a problem than a green deck with bigger creatures that just sided in 2 plummets.
Plummet cannot save me because it doesn't hit all the things. In the entire history of common and uncommon magic there are exactly 2 creatures with flying and hexproof, 4 creatures with flying and pro green, and 1 that has flying and indestructible. There are some 1000+ common/uncommon flyers that do die to plummet. Plummet is not a main deck card in most formats, there are a lot of things that it will not save you from. You're comparing it to doom blade but compare it to shrivel instead. You don't main deck shrivel but there are several cases where you are very glad you have a shrivel in your side. Black is not a worse color for having shrivel. Green's doom blade equivalent uncommon would be kolonain tusker, which while also not as good as doom blade because nothing really is, it's pretty rad. Green's big threatening guys demand other color's premium removal, and other color's premium threats are almost all flyers that you can side in plummet against.
The color pie stuff is largely inconsequential or subjective. Vampire nighthawk is one of the most efficient creatures ever printed, kessig recluse has never appeared in the same set and was not really a pushed constructed card, it was just very good at stopping attacks in dark ascension which is all it was ever supposed to do. 2 different cards from 2 different colors from 2 different sets built for very different formats is like comparing hunted ghoul to wasteland viper. It's meaningless. White and red aren't supposed to get a 3/3 for 3 as that's green's schtick, but combine red power with white toughness in a pushed hybrid rare and you get a boros reckoner who is a 3/3 for 3 and more. It's all subjective to its environment.
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I'm not sure if this has entirely degenerated into a context-independent discussion, but bringing it back to M14 it seems impossible to argue that green's weak. Kalonian tusker is possibly the best agressive creature in the format, and all of its 4/4s (counting rootwalla) are difficult to outclass. It's an awesome supporting colour for blue - trained condor + "green creatures" is one of the easiest and better "combos" in the set - and the GR deck is a not-terrible agressive deck even though the format is fairly hostile to agression. Trollhide is a card which is excellent on many boards, deadly recluse is one of the best two drops in the set and between windstorm, bramblecrush and naturalise green gives you access to great sideboard answers. Howl of the nightpack is also a genuinely good finisher for a heavy green deck.
In short, green's pretty darn good in M14, I don't think anyone who's played it any amount would argue otherwise.
Psychobabble: Quite clearly, there's someone who is willing to argue otherwise. Of course, when said someone uses the strawman argument that a person 'drafts blue for flyers, but green for Plummet', it's quite difficult to take them seriously.
@Actinium: My initial point was that Plummet has no purpose in the game today.
Again, Plummet is irrelevant. You're justifying flying hate's existence with flying hate's existence. Highly illogical. I just don't understand why green, and only green, is still running Alpha-quality creatures, at the same rarity and everything.
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You'd be surprised. A few of the Question Marks apparently think Plummet is a good first pick. (Spoiler alert: It's not.) Or even Leaf Arrow. Do note that even classic Bolt would've been lousy in ROE limited.
In short, this summarizes my feelings about Plummet. Literally everyone forgets that Doom Blade kills Baneslayer.
Psychobabble: Quite clearly, there's someone who is willing to argue otherwise. Of course, when said someone uses the strawman argument that a person 'drafts blue for flyers, but green for Plummet', it's quite difficult to take them seriously.
Strawman argument? You know nothing about logic. (And that's not an ad hominem, before you claim it is. You presented my argument as a strawman, and then called it a strawman.) I said you don't draft green for Plummet. You draft WU for flyers, or BR for real removal.
The only reason green doesn't get real evasion is so these flying hate cards can exist, creating a wrinkle in the color pie that doesn't need to be there, and things that don't need to be there are by MaRo's own definition bad design, ergo cadere delendum est.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
No, the reason green doesn't get real evasion is because of two primary (and pretty darn obvious) reasons:
1. Flavor. Green is about brute strength, not grace. Given that green always represents the creatures of the forest, and given that the only creatures in the forest that tend to fly are bugs and birds (which green hashad), green flyers can't ever be more than a flash in the pan in terms of how significantly they show up. Additionally, the wildness of the color's identity is far better represented through large, dumb guys, which green still does better than any other color, and certainly better than it did in Alpha (are you really trying to make such a ludicrous claim?). It took years for green to have common 4/4 guys for 5, and now we have one for 4 with no real drawbacks. No other color offers that kind of hassle-free power/toughness-to-cost ratio, even within the world of power creep.
2. Balance. If green is to be represented through raw aggression, be it through aggression or size, it has to eschew evasion, as evasion is always a representation of finesse in some way. Intimidate is the closest green can get to evasion that makes flavor sense, and it's still far easier to justify efficient beef than tricky evasive guys to your average Vorthos. Green uses finesse to accelerate, pump, and occasionally use nature to gain knowledge. That's way more reasonable than your expectation that green lose the Plummets and spiders in favor of flyers and intimidators.
Your arguments are becoming insanely foolish, regardless how many terms you throw in from high school debate rhetoric. You're flat out wrong about why green doesn't get real evasion. The actual reasons are completely clear and should be obvious to someone as skilled, knowledgeable, and reasonable as you seem to think you are.
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I'm just saying, I've more often been clobbered by creatures without flying (or creatures with flying and pro-green/hexproof/indestructible) with a Plummet sitting in my hand when I really wanted a threat of some type (I stopped counting the 100th time.) than flying hate has actually mattered in the course of the game (exactly zero). I've also drafted green and eschewed flying hate completely, even in flying-heavy environments like AVR, and placed first. A lot. (Though that might have something to do with the fact that black removal was the same problem as Plummet in AVR.)
I'd avoid touting your success in your playgroup at this stage. Your group is behind the eight ball, as evidenced by your claims that the Spider Spawning deck was "tier 3" and that green was flat out bad in Innistrad block. The rest of us aren't speaking in terms defined by a closed-in group of drafters; we're discussing concepts holistically, using evidence from personal experiences, pro play, and trends across multiple regions and levels. Also, using Avacyn Restored as an example of anything in terms of design or limited playability is like using Spam as an example of fine meat products.
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Maybe if they gave green a Lure effect more often, I wouldn't have this issue. (Even then, the best Lure effect ever isn't green.)
A. While lure effects fit into green's color slice, they're hardly iconic at all in terms of flavor. That they don't print them often is perfectly fine and defensible.
B. How the hell can you possibly equate Master Warcraft with a lure effect? That's form-fitting your argument in the most foolish way possible. If Master Warcraft is a lure effect, then Death Cloud is merely an edict effect.
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I'd justify flying hate's existence with the fact that flyers exist. You can't see value in an evasive creature and then ignore the ability to flat negate those threats. 'Alpha Quality' is a real weird sentiment because last time i checked shivan dragon, clone, nightmare, sengir vampire, and serra angel are all considered some of m14s best limited picks and they are all from alpha. They are also all the kinds of things you side in plummet for, except sometimes clone.
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I'm still not sure what hyalapterouslemur is saying. All I see his him ragging on plummet, which seems fairly irrelevant to a discussion of green's power level even in a vacuum, and esp if we're talking about M14 (which seems to be a pretty relevant discussion seeing as it's the currently drafted set and green is either the second or third best colour). every colour has some sort of "sideboard only" or niche strategy that it does. White gains life and destroys enchantments sometimes artifacts, red destroys artifacts and lands, black has graveyard hate/interraction and discard, blue has milling and -x/-0 effects and green kills flyers and naturalises. Judging the overall power level of a colour by reference to plummet makes about as much sense as judging other colours by looking at demolish, tome scour, duress or solemn offering.
Judging the overall power level of a colour by reference to plummet makes about as much sense as judging other colours by looking at demolish, tome scour, duress or solemn offering.
But don't you see? Solemn Offering IS the reason why white is the weakest colour in M14. If only they had printed it as what it was meant to be (either Empirial Armor, Seraph of Dawn or Heavy ballista) then white would have been fine....
@Actinium: My initial point was that Plummet has no purpose in the game today.
Again, Plummet is irrelevant. You're justifying flying hate's existence with flying hate's existence. Highly illogical. I just don't understand why green, and only green, is still running Alpha-quality creatures, at the same rarity and everything.
No, he's justifying flying hate's existence with flying creature's existence. There's a significant difference.
You'd be surprised. A few of the Question Marks apparently think Plummet is a good first pick. (Spoiler alert: It's not.) Or even Leaf Arrow. Do note that even classic Bolt would've been lousy in ROE limited.
Your first statement here is just crazy talk. I have NEVER seen or heard of a respectable player taking Plummet early in a pack, let alone P1. To me this speaks much more to the "Question Marks" that you play with than the value of Plummet.
Your second argument (that the format doesn't support Plummet as a playable card) also does not match my experience. Yes, there are games where Plummet can only kill the opponent's Deathgaze Cockatrice, and not the Accursed Spirit that you really need to get rid of. But there are very few decently drafted decks in the format that don't usually have 3+ fliers in them. The only archetype I've seen that lacks fliers is RG aggro (and even there you'll occasionally need to get rid of a Dragon or a Shiv's Embraced guy. It's not ideal to maindeck Plummet, but it's rarely a dead card in your deck.
In short, this summarizes my feelings about Plummet. Literally everyone forgets that Doom Blade kills Baneslayer.
Um, no we don't. (And I'm 90% sure that this is an argument for Doom Blade, not an argument against Plummet). The problem here (and at other points in this thread) is that you're comparing superficially similar cards that actually serve very different roles in most decks.
Instead of comparing Doom Blade to Plummet, I would compare Doom Blade to Briarpack Alpha and Plummet to Armored Cancrix. Doom Blade and Briarpack Alpha are premium uncommons with similar power levels that will always make a deck in their colors (and are sometimes worth splashing). Plummet and Armored Cancrix are borderline playable commons that are very useful in certain matchups.
To clarify this, let me use your own argument:
I said you don't draft green for Plummet. You draft WU for flyers, or BR for real removal.
And you draft gx for big, fat beatdowns and powerful combat tricks. (As Semantics points out in his post). Yes, you have to pair it with another color to reliably get evasion or removal. But no other color comes close to producing the big, efficient bodies that green has.
The only reason green doesn't get real evasion is so these flying hate cards can exist, creating a wrinkle in the color pie that doesn't need to be there, and things that don't need to be there are by MaRo's own definition bad design, ergo cadere delendum est.
Again, no. The reason green doesn't get much real evasion is so that it can explore the design space of "bigger" rather than "better." And to balance out the colors in a reasonable fashion, green must then get another way to interact with evasive creatures. Thus, Plummet, Windstorm, Spiders, etc. Cards like these do need to be here for green to be a unique and balanced color.
"The reason Red doesn't get artifact synergies is so these artifact hate cards can exist, creating a wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there."
"The reason Blue doesn't get real removal is so these counterspells can exist, creating a wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there."
"The reason Black doesn't get enchantment removal is so cards like Dark Prophecy can exist, creating a wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there."
"The reason White doesn't get direct damage is so cards like Celestial Flare can exist, creating a wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there."
The 'wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there' is the colour pie.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
The 'wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there' is the colour pie.
I think he was using 'wrinkle' in its litteral sense, like any good physicist would do: as a portal to an alternate universe where things are almost, but not quite the same as our own.
(Disclaimer: as Zac Hill would say, I am not a motion scientist.)
And any self-mill deck requires the clairvoyance to know what's in all 24 packs, and that nobody else is drafting them either. Somehow I doubt that. It was, as it was intended to be, a tier-three deck.
(And I tried doing the Spider Spawning self-mill trick at our launch party and went 0-2 with a bye because someone had to leave. That's not a good record. For me, anyway.)
But my point remains that really, I don't see the point of Plummet. Nor do I see why green gets all these corner-case cards. Let some other color get the worthless cards for a time.
(And, BTW, how does a 2/3 with reach and deathtouch for 1GG violate the color pie? It's still worse than Nighthawk by a lot, but at least now somewhat playable. Unless you mean that decent creatures aren't in green's pie, in which case I'll agree with you.)
On phasing:
I think you need to take a pretty serious introspective look with respect to your ability to evaluate limited cards, not to mention with respect to your ability to backpedal.
Calling Sylvok Replica a Naturalize for G3 is flat out absurd. That it comes on a body and devalues a lot of plays is incredibly relevant. I swept through the Swiss stage of a PTQ back when Scars was the limited set du jour, and the main reason was that I had three Replicas in my deck.
Self-Mill was far better than tier three, and it simply took a really good drafter and player to take advantage of it. It happened in that format pretty consistently, and if I were to take an educated guess, I'd say a good version popped up once every two or three drafts at least. Your statement that you need clairvoyance is one of the most ludicrous things I've read on these boards; that mentality essentially implies that drafting any archetype other than "23 good cards in a couple colors" is a poor strategy due to your inability to predict certain cards' availabilities. That's flat out bad limited theory. I'd go as far as to say that if you went 0-2 with a version of this deck, then either you drafted it and built it poorly, or you played it poorly.
Green is all about balance. It has more directly proactive cards than all other colors, mostly due to its color profile. The wilds are savage and strong, not reactive and calculative. Every set with a basic color pie profile has green represented with efficient, strong creatures and proactive combat spells. Every color has reactive options, and green's are more narrow, by the converse nature of its aggressively cost bodies. Blue is the exact opposite. Plummet does exactly what reactive green spells should do, and I appreciate its design and its role in limited games. Hell, green has very little chaff when compared with other colors in M14. If you're trying to imply that Plummet is a bad card in general, I doubt you'll find many people to agree with you.
The color pie point is about the fact that black has access to all three abilities on Nighthawk, which makes it a terrible card to compare to the Recluse. They cost spiders less aggressively, as they tend to slow games down in a way that would hurt the health of some formats, and they always remain careful with how they put Deathtouch on common creatures. Given that its power is irrelevant so long as it kills anything in combat, the only balance was to make it cost what it did. Costing less would make it stronger than just about any other common spider printed in the last 10 years. Giving it more toughness would make it far too strong in a limited setting. Just look at how strong Deadly Recluse is, and now imagine how annoying it would be were it able to survive combat with a 3/3, be it flying or otherwise.
Look, the points here are not absolutes about any color. Green has strengths and weaknesses, which always put it on a sliding scale given certain matchups and color combinations. As bateleur correctly asserted, seldom does green show up in isolation in limited decks, which allows drafters to trend toward balance and mitigation of green's problems with reactivity. You're 100% incorrect about the two primary points discussed here (the playability of the Replica and the Self-Mill deck in Innistrad), and there's more than enough proof on the internet if you're willing to take a step outside of your playgroup bubble to research it. That lack of good insight plagues your ability to evaluate cards well, be it from a design or limited power angle, and it's making it very clear that you need some serious expansion of your knowledge and perspective before we can have an appropriate conversation about green's place in comparison with the other colors in the game.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
This totally depends on the format. Is Sylvok Replica a great card? - not really. But in an artifact heavy block, it can do work, even if it's not Naturalize.
This is basically true of every draft archetype (e.g. RB sacrifice in M14). The question is whether 1) there is a high enough density of cards in the set that are powerful in the archetype but weak everywhere else and 2) whether you are able to recognize the presence of these cards at key points in the draft as a sign that the archetype is open.
This is what is known as small sample size. Added to this, the Spider Spawning archetype took a little while for most players to understand and correctly draft. Failing to succeed one time at a launch party is not a strong argument, especially when compared to the results of MANY other people over the full block.
As has been said before in this thread, green gets some corner case cards to help shore up some major weaknesses in its game plan. The idea is that it can deal with non-flyers without needing much direct removal. Every color has niche cards. And I think it's pretty clear that white has more "worthless" cards than any other color in M14.
It doesn't violate the color pie. But Magic designers strive to make a range of different power levels for cards in each color (and ideally at each rarity level). At higher rarities, they also widen this range. Vampire Nighthawk is obviously near the top of that range for a black uncommon. And most people I know would rate Kessig Recluse near the middle of the range of green commons (if not a little higher). This does not mean that green is inherently weaker than black - just that you're comparing apples and oranges. Do the devs always get the balance perfect? Of course not. But green has had it's time in the sun, and will again. And in M14 it does just fine, in my experience.
And you may not have noticed, but Replica isn't "when this ETB", it's "sacrifice this". A bit different.
Also, in Return to Ravnica, why no "walls matter" for white?
Luckily, you never mentioned my evaluation of Plummet as a crap card. Instead you're Gish galloping about everything else. My point is that Plummet has no reason to exist. The only reason green doesn't get flying is so Plummet can exist: It's a cause, not a cure.
On phasing:
I might also point out that the longest-running card in Magic core sets was Giant Spider. Are you still going to argue that Green's color pie should have flying and not reach?
Replica's 'sacrifice this' cost makes it work different from (say) Viridian Corruptor, because I don't have to keep it in my hand to make it worthwhile. Is this better? Depends. However, saying it's worse is just as bad as saying it's better.
You are seriously off-base in your evaluations here, and display a disturbing lack of perceptiveness when it comes to core elements of Magic such as the color pie.
Also, it seems at this point you're clearly just arguing to win, and not debating to learn. Claims such as Sylvok Replica being bad in its format and Spider Spawning not being a worthwhile deck are so objectively wrong that it's hard to give credence to your other evaluations. No offense, but, seriously, listen. You don't like Plummet? Okay. Plummet is a crap card that has no business in Green? The community strongly disagrees and you should use this as a learning opportunity.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Situational cards are what make Magic what it is. The color pie is rock paper scissors. Green has big guys but little removal. Blue beats green through things like card advantage and evasion. But then Green has tools like Plummet and Giant Spider to deal with Blue.
If it was just 4/4 vs. 3/3 all day then the game would be boring. Even Doom Blade is conditional. Everything has a weakness.
Do you think Windstorm sucks, too?
This is all beside the point, since Green has Enlarge.
Yeah, um, Giant Spider is strictly worse than a lot of what blue gets, Azure Drake coming to mind immediately. But that's a development issue. (Also, Giant Spider doesn't put an unnecessary wrinkle in the color pie, another sign of bad design. But as I said, green only doesn't get flying because R&D really likes Hurricane; ironically, Hurricane itself is no longer in green's pie because it deals damage to players.)
But Doom Blade's not as conditional as Plummet.
MostAll of the time, if you're drafting green for Plummet instead of drafting white or blue for flying, or black and red for real removal, you're doing it wrong.(And I love when people tell me that it can kill Archangel of Thune and I'm like, "Dude, this is limited!")
I'm just saying, I've more often been clobbered by creatures without flying (or creatures with flying and pro-green/hexproof/indestructible) with a Plummet sitting in my hand when I really wanted a threat of some type (I stopped counting the 100th time.) than flying hate has actually mattered in the course of the game (exactly zero). I've also drafted green and eschewed flying hate completely, even in flying-heavy environments like AVR, and placed first. A lot. (Though that might have something to do with the fact that black removal was the same problem as Plummet in AVR.)
Maybe if they gave green a Lure effect more often, I wouldn't have this issue. (Even then, the best Lure effect ever isn't green.)
Colorpiewise, they tend to ignore the rules for WU. White got a lot of powerful card draw effects from ROE to ISD: I know they're all just giving other cards the cantrip ability, but that stacks. Blue has some (admittedly expensive) creature removal in M14. But for those colors, it's perfectly fine to give the color pie a giant middle finger.
(And FTR, I know about the color pie. I was saying that a 2/3 with deathtouch and reach could cost 1GG at common if the same with flying and lifelink in addition costs 1BB at uncommon. Note that it would still be strictly worse than Nighthawk.)
On phasing:
Flying is better than reach. Mostly true since it can block as well as reach while also attacking evasively but taken in the context of what else blue or green is offering up it can be the same or worse. For instance in the Giant Spider vs Azure Drake comparison, azure drake can be plummeted or targeted by air servant's ability while the spider cannot, and many of blue's common and uncommons are variations on wind drake, which giant spider eats, while many of green's are meaty beaters that can force past an azure drake. I never played m11 limited which is the only set they both appear in but a quick gatherer search shows 7 common and uncommons in green that can't be stopped by an azure drake while only 4 of blue's creatures can say the same about giant spider. This doesn't make green a good color in m11 or giant spider a better creature than azure drake but is the kind of thing you need to keep in mind evaluating cards, you have to take a color as a new whole each set. A canyon minotaur is good for red in most formats even if it is strictly worse than a centaur courser because a 3/3 means something else in red's pool than it does in green's.
Next is doom blade vs plummet. Doom blade is better, it's one of the best removal ever printed and no one is saying plummet is even a main deckable card in most formats. But they aren't really competing directly. Not even green's biggest proponent would recommend a first pick plummet because it is so situational, you can and will pick them up late, both have their place. You main deck doom blade then if you wind up against the mono black deck you side it out in the very rare instance it isn't good. Plummet you keep in the side board then bring it in against any deck running a high volume of flyers or maybe just a few very problematic flyers. As far as a deck relying on serra angel or air servant to finish are concerned, in game 2 a black deck with smaller creatures and 2 doom blades is less of a problem than a green deck with bigger creatures that just sided in 2 plummets.
Plummet cannot save me because it doesn't hit all the things. In the entire history of common and uncommon magic there are exactly 2 creatures with flying and hexproof, 4 creatures with flying and pro green, and 1 that has flying and indestructible. There are some 1000+ common/uncommon flyers that do die to plummet. Plummet is not a main deck card in most formats, there are a lot of things that it will not save you from. You're comparing it to doom blade but compare it to shrivel instead. You don't main deck shrivel but there are several cases where you are very glad you have a shrivel in your side. Black is not a worse color for having shrivel. Green's doom blade equivalent uncommon would be kolonain tusker, which while also not as good as doom blade because nothing really is, it's pretty rad. Green's big threatening guys demand other color's premium removal, and other color's premium threats are almost all flyers that you can side in plummet against.
The color pie stuff is largely inconsequential or subjective. Vampire nighthawk is one of the most efficient creatures ever printed, kessig recluse has never appeared in the same set and was not really a pushed constructed card, it was just very good at stopping attacks in dark ascension which is all it was ever supposed to do. 2 different cards from 2 different colors from 2 different sets built for very different formats is like comparing hunted ghoul to wasteland viper. It's meaningless. White and red aren't supposed to get a 3/3 for 3 as that's green's schtick, but combine red power with white toughness in a pushed hybrid rare and you get a boros reckoner who is a 3/3 for 3 and more. It's all subjective to its environment.
In short, green's pretty darn good in M14, I don't think anyone who's played it any amount would argue otherwise.
Again, Plummet is irrelevant. You're justifying flying hate's existence with flying hate's existence. Highly illogical. I just don't understand why green, and only green, is still running Alpha-quality creatures, at the same rarity and everything.
"See how my reasoning goes in a circle? It's airtight!"
-Stephen Colbert
You'd be surprised. A few of the Question Marks apparently think Plummet is a good first pick. (Spoiler alert: It's not.) Or even Leaf Arrow. Do note that even classic Bolt would've been lousy in ROE limited.
In short, this summarizes my feelings about Plummet. Literally everyone forgets that Doom Blade kills Baneslayer.
Strawman argument? You know nothing about logic. (And that's not an ad hominem, before you claim it is. You presented my argument as a strawman, and then called it a strawman.) I said you don't draft green for Plummet. You draft WU for flyers, or BR for real removal.
The only reason green doesn't get real evasion is so these flying hate cards can exist, creating a wrinkle in the color pie that doesn't need to be there, and things that don't need to be there are by MaRo's own definition bad design, ergo cadere delendum est.
On phasing:
1. Flavor. Green is about brute strength, not grace. Given that green always represents the creatures of the forest, and given that the only creatures in the forest that tend to fly are bugs and birds (which green has had), green flyers can't ever be more than a flash in the pan in terms of how significantly they show up. Additionally, the wildness of the color's identity is far better represented through large, dumb guys, which green still does better than any other color, and certainly better than it did in Alpha (are you really trying to make such a ludicrous claim?). It took years for green to have common 4/4 guys for 5, and now we have one for 4 with no real drawbacks. No other color offers that kind of hassle-free power/toughness-to-cost ratio, even within the world of power creep.
2. Balance. If green is to be represented through raw aggression, be it through aggression or size, it has to eschew evasion, as evasion is always a representation of finesse in some way. Intimidate is the closest green can get to evasion that makes flavor sense, and it's still far easier to justify efficient beef than tricky evasive guys to your average Vorthos. Green uses finesse to accelerate, pump, and occasionally use nature to gain knowledge. That's way more reasonable than your expectation that green lose the Plummets and spiders in favor of flyers and intimidators.
Your arguments are becoming insanely foolish, regardless how many terms you throw in from high school debate rhetoric. You're flat out wrong about why green doesn't get real evasion. The actual reasons are completely clear and should be obvious to someone as skilled, knowledgeable, and reasonable as you seem to think you are.
I'd avoid touting your success in your playgroup at this stage. Your group is behind the eight ball, as evidenced by your claims that the Spider Spawning deck was "tier 3" and that green was flat out bad in Innistrad block. The rest of us aren't speaking in terms defined by a closed-in group of drafters; we're discussing concepts holistically, using evidence from personal experiences, pro play, and trends across multiple regions and levels. Also, using Avacyn Restored as an example of anything in terms of design or limited playability is like using Spam as an example of fine meat products.
A. While lure effects fit into green's color slice, they're hardly iconic at all in terms of flavor. That they don't print them often is perfectly fine and defensible.
B. How the hell can you possibly equate Master Warcraft with a lure effect? That's form-fitting your argument in the most foolish way possible. If Master Warcraft is a lure effect, then Death Cloud is merely an edict effect.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
But don't you see? Solemn Offering IS the reason why white is the weakest colour in M14. If only they had printed it as what it was meant to be (either Empirial Armor, Seraph of Dawn or Heavy ballista) then white would have been fine....
No, he's justifying flying hate's existence with flying creature's existence. There's a significant difference.
Your first statement here is just crazy talk. I have NEVER seen or heard of a respectable player taking Plummet early in a pack, let alone P1. To me this speaks much more to the "Question Marks" that you play with than the value of Plummet.
Your second argument (that the format doesn't support Plummet as a playable card) also does not match my experience. Yes, there are games where Plummet can only kill the opponent's Deathgaze Cockatrice, and not the Accursed Spirit that you really need to get rid of. But there are very few decently drafted decks in the format that don't usually have 3+ fliers in them. The only archetype I've seen that lacks fliers is RG aggro (and even there you'll occasionally need to get rid of a Dragon or a Shiv's Embraced guy. It's not ideal to maindeck Plummet, but it's rarely a dead card in your deck.
Um, no we don't. (And I'm 90% sure that this is an argument for Doom Blade, not an argument against Plummet). The problem here (and at other points in this thread) is that you're comparing superficially similar cards that actually serve very different roles in most decks.
Instead of comparing Doom Blade to Plummet, I would compare Doom Blade to Briarpack Alpha and Plummet to Armored Cancrix. Doom Blade and Briarpack Alpha are premium uncommons with similar power levels that will always make a deck in their colors (and are sometimes worth splashing). Plummet and Armored Cancrix are borderline playable commons that are very useful in certain matchups.
To clarify this, let me use your own argument:
And you draft gx for big, fat beatdowns and powerful combat tricks. (As Semantics points out in his post). Yes, you have to pair it with another color to reliably get evasion or removal. But no other color comes close to producing the big, efficient bodies that green has.
Again, no. The reason green doesn't get much real evasion is so that it can explore the design space of "bigger" rather than "better." And to balance out the colors in a reasonable fashion, green must then get another way to interact with evasive creatures. Thus, Plummet, Windstorm, Spiders, etc. Cards like these do need to be here for green to be a unique and balanced color.
"The reason Blue doesn't get real removal is so these counterspells can exist, creating a wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there."
"The reason Black doesn't get enchantment removal is so cards like Dark Prophecy can exist, creating a wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there."
"The reason White doesn't get direct damage is so cards like Celestial Flare can exist, creating a wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there."
The 'wrinkle in the colour pie that doesn't need to be there' is the colour pie.
I think he was using 'wrinkle' in its litteral sense, like any good physicist would do: as a portal to an alternate universe where things are almost, but not quite the same as our own.
(Disclaimer: as Zac Hill would say, I am not a motion scientist.)