Thoughtseize is perfectly fine. Discard is part of Blacks color pie. Deal with it.
Besides compare Thoughtseize with Duress. Does the ability to snag creatures at the cost of 2 life make it suddenly overpowered? I dont think so, especially because Black has no problems dealing with creatures in the first place.
Also think that you guys should stop feeding a certain person. The style of his responses makes it clear what he is and what he wants to accomplish.
Considering the ability to strip lands from the opponent's hand as well as its early use generating strict card advantage, I think most anyone who has played with or against hymn and seen 3 land hands become 1 land hands and such should understand. Thoughtseize does not win the game. Sometimes hymn prettymuch will. This isn't to say one is strictly better than the other but it is definitely something that will outright win more games.
The problem with thoughtseize is in game 1. No matter how awesome your deck is, thoughtseize will remove the hardest to deal with threat from your hand for only 2 life AND it gives full information right away. So immediately the black player will know whether or not to play turn 2 pack rat. When to cast underworld connections, what cards to pitch etc etc. It's not that thoughtseize can't be beat, it gets beat all the time. It just is the #1 factor in mono black winning game 1 in most matchups. Take away jace, or verdict or chandra or domri or sphinx or brimaz, etc etc.....all for only 1 mana and 2 life. Now if lighting bolt was available in standard, i think i wouldn't have as much of a problem with thoughtseize, but it isn't and it's not fun.
If you took away thoughtseize, mono black players would have to play fairly just like everyone else. (And would probably no longer dominate as hard as it does current it).
The problem with thoughtseize is in game 1. No matter how awesome your deck is, thoughtseize will remove the hardest to deal with threat from your hand for only 2 life AND it gives full information right away. So immediately the black player will know whether or not to play turn 2 pack rat. When to cast underworld connections, what cards to pitch etc etc. It's not that thoughtseize can't be beat, it gets beat all the time. It just is the #1 factor in mono black winning game 1 in most matchups. Take away jace, or verdict or chandra or domri or sphinx or brimaz, etc etc.....all for only 1 mana and 2 life. Now if lighting bolt was available in standard, i think i wouldn't have as much of a problem with thoughtseize, but it isn't and it's not fun.
If you took away thoughtseize, mono black players would have to play fairly just like everyone else. (And would probably no longer dominate as hard as it does current it).
Spoken like a player who isn't that good at magic and has no concept of the color wheel. We should take away black's removal too. I mean it's not fair that I cast my big awesome guy and he just dies as soon as he hits the table. You should also remove blue's counterspells, red's burn, greens ramp and creatures, and white's life gain and creatures. Would totally be fair then right? Grizzly bears for all.
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Standard: Gave it up
Modern: Eldrazi Tron, UW Tron, GR Tron, BW Tokens, WU Death and Taxes
The problem with thoughtseize is in game 1. No matter how awesome your deck is, thoughtseize will remove the hardest to deal with threat from your hand for only 2 life AND it gives full information right away. So immediately the black player will know whether or not to play turn 2 pack rat. When to cast underworld connections, what cards to pitch etc etc. It's not that thoughtseize can't be beat, it gets beat all the time. It just is the #1 factor in mono black winning game 1 in most matchups. Take away jace, or verdict or chandra or domri or sphinx or brimaz, etc etc.....all for only 1 mana and 2 life. Now if lighting bolt was available in standard, i think i wouldn't have as much of a problem with thoughtseize, but it isn't and it's not fun.
If you took away thoughtseize, mono black players would have to play fairly just like everyone else. (And would probably no longer dominate as hard as it does current it).
They play fairly already. The can't interact with Enchantments or Artifacts at all. Without Thoughtseize other people could exploit that weakness so in a sense it makes the game fairer actually.
Geez, the thoughtseize haters make a lot of assumptions like having it first turn, having a pack rat, etc. And really. Discard spells take away good cards. Its like the revelation that kills spells kill good creatures. It does it efficiently... just like a good kill spell or a good creature. And while it gives information, against a good player, it costs a slightly smaller amount of information. Heck, even going second against aggro starts to make you grimace as you play thoughtseize. I see a firedrinker turn 1. Take a thoughtseize so no zealot. Then they get hit for 2 and another creature drops anyway. Sure there likely wasn't something else to play turn 1 but 1 for 1s for something that hasn't been played yet is exactly what aggro would like you to do when it costs life. So what we don't hear in the case against thoughtseize is that its nice against control and midrange game 1 but is far less good against aggro. Compound that with the fact that drown in sorrow is borderline the opposite and thus often relegated to the sideboard and the nature of the mainboard removal and the very card that you claim to be the number one reason for their victory game 1, Mike, is reinforcing their loss in a bunch of others. Being a card that you basically don't use after a certain point aside pitching it to pack rat is not a downside to shrug at and not consider.
Spoken like a player who isn't that good at magic and has no concept of the color wheel. We should take away black's removal too. I mean it's not fair that I cast my big awesome guy and he just dies as soon as he hits the table. You should also remove blue's counterspells, red's burn, greens ramp and creatures, and white's life gain and creatures. Would totally be fair then right? Grizzly bears for all.
That's what Duress is for.
I think Thoughtseize is under costed to be in standard. The effect is fine, but the cost should be BB or discard a card and not 2 life. That way they don't hurt in multiples, and an opponent still has a chance if they mulliganed.
Part of me wonders what would happen if Thoughtseize wasn't in Standard and was replaced by Inquisition of Kozilek. Would people still cry when Pack Rat followed Inquisition on a removal spell?
What if neither were in Standard, and people just went Duress into Rat?
Thoughtseize is incredibly strong, don't get me wrong. But we can't just play in a format where there are no powerful cards. Might as well hand everyone a pile of Bears and Forests and say go ahead. Its certainly not on the level of Jace, the Mind Sculptor in my opinion. Not banworthy, just a strong card - one you need to be aware of when building your deck and making your plays throughout a match, the same way you had to be aware of Jace or Restoration Angel in the past.
The only way I ever loose is thought seize or duress. That says a lot about their power. I don't like getting hit with them but I can counter it if it doesn't come turn 1 or do, so I don't find it unfair, just a nuance.
The only way I ever loose is thought seize or duress. That says a lot about their power. I don't like getting hit with them but I can counter it if it doesn't come turn 1 or do, so I don't find it unfair, just a nuance.
Only way you ever lose huh? What's it like never losing to mana screw or a bad matchup or heck even a decent matchup where you just draw poorly? I expect to see you in the finals of the next SCG or GP.
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Standard: Gave it up
Modern: Eldrazi Tron, UW Tron, GR Tron, BW Tokens, WU Death and Taxes
Normally I tend to scoff at those "must be a pro" type statements but that one has a degree of correctness, if a little facetious. To never lose to mana screw or flood means you have little experience and have been continually lucky or have simply been exceedingly lucky. To never lose to a bad matchup is either attributed to an extreme degree of luck or a really pathetic play group. In a game like chess, superior skill could leave you with a pretty obscene win streak though if you haven't lost, you need to find a bigger pond. In a game like this where the element of chance is so present, there is a great degree of weight to skill and preparation but anyone who's been around the block can tell you that there will just be those times where luck takes the driver's seat whether it is when your deck just decides it doesn't want to let you win and those times when your opponent's deck just gets that god hand that you don't have the answer for.
As for the thoughtseize and inquisition bit, I'd think the inquisition would be well complained about, possibly even more than thoughtseize given the kind of thinking of the complainers that I imagine. However, duress would be a bit less so in the fact that it has a high chance to miss against a fair number of decks.
I feel like the problem with Thoughtseize is that it is too flexible too early in the game. Duress is fine because it only targets non-creature non-land stuff. A variant of Duress that only targets creatures I'd be fine with. But I think Thoughtsize, regardless of the life loss drawback, will always be too powerful for a 1 mana cost card. It's better than a counterspell, which has to be more limited at 2 mana, because it is more proactive, and grants information on the opponent's hand as well as targeting their best option, rather than having to play guessing games. Do you think wizards would be okay with creating a hard counterspell that always works at 1 mana with a drawback of losing 2 life, or something like that? Because yeah, Thoughtseize is _still_ better than that, since you get to see their hand and use it before they get a chance to do anything, possibly even before they've had a turn and thus a chance to play any lands to do anything about what you are doing.
Thoughtsieze's main drawback is that it only works effectively on turn 1, but it breaks the meta and power curve in similar ways to the Leylines or miracle costs on certain stuff.
With the more limited pools to draw from in Standard, making a lot of deck designs slower and less reliable, Thoughtsieze is a lot more powerful in Standard than it is in eternal formats like Modern, and thus it severely weakens colors who have limited choices against black's strong options (like Pack Rat) and almost single-handily shuts down most combo decks with ease.
Nothing that costs 1 mana should shut down all your opponents' important options in a format like Standard where reliability and redundancy is reduced due to smaller card pools to draw from.
IMO, Thoughseize is fine in Modern and such, and should have been reprinted in Modern Masters, rather than Theros. It especially shouldn't be in Standard at the same time as something like Pack Rat, which is hard for lots of deck archetypes to deal with, and keeps numerous deck types from becoming competitive because they can't deal with pack-rat, even if they can deal with a lot of other parts of the meta well. I think the main reason Pack Rat and thoughtseize aren't causing mono-black devotion to completely dominate the format is the combination of Mutavault, blue having out of color beat-stick ability that is super efficient to create mono-blue devotion, and the existence of a lot of really good tools for Control in the current standard, particularly Aetherling, certain planeswalkers, Sphinx's Revelation, Supereme Verdict, and Detention Sphere. I'll be glad when Pack Rat leaves standard, even if control is losing all those neat tools, although I'm a bit worried at how crazy Mono-Blue looks like it might stay. There is no individual format-breaking card that I can point to in mono-blue devotion that stands out to me, it's more the assemblage of enough stuff that is just slightly outside of the power levels blue is supposed to have in exchange for it's control elements and ability to do card advantage stuff like drawing easily and such.
Lol. A cmc 1 hard general counterspell that costs you 2 life? Not as good as thoughtseize? Please. Its much, much, much stronger than thoughtseize. Seeing the hand is nice but such a counterspell doesn't cost you potential tempo in that your opponent paid at least as much for their spell as you in terms of mana and that such a card wouldn't have an expiration date unlike thoughtseize. Proxy a fake one up and play it against thoughtseize. Pretty soon, you'll find yourself pull it with thoughtseize nearly every chance you get and breathe a sigh of relief to do so. It is that strong and would only be stronger in the eternal formats, kind of like how thoughtseize is stronger in the eternal formats than it is in standard there's a simple reason being that combo is more present there than in standard.
If you think that standard can't have high reliability and redundancy, look again. They can have it and have it in spades. Heck, they even have it just after rotation. Its not quite like an eternal format but it can be very redundant and very consistent.
Pack rat is a good card but the answers are there and it is simply a good card in standard atm. It isn't oppressive, nor does having thoughtseize in standard make it busted. In a strict sense, if the rat was so strong that a hand hate and a rat won the game, we'd be seeing some duress too to act as at least thoughtseizes 5 and 6. But we don't. It doesn't shut out any reasonable deck from being competitive. If anything, the presence of popularity does that more than any particular card combination. If you worry about pack rat, either be a deck that moves quickly and doesn't care, outsizes the rat for all reasonable amounts of time, or has removal. White can get rid of it. Black can get rid of it. Red can get rid of it. Blue doesn't get rid of it well but does its thing despite the rat well. Green should be able to move quick enough or grow big enough. So what's being shut out by the presence of rat and thoughtseize that isn't simply weak and dies to most of the rest of the field? Good cards exist. That doesn't inherently make them oppressive the way you make it sound.
I'll be glad when Pack Rat leaves standard, even if control is losing all those neat tools, although I'm a bit worried at how crazy Mono-Blue looks like it might stay. There is no individual format-breaking card that I can point to in mono-blue devotion that stands out to me, it's more the assemblage of enough stuff that is just slightly outside of the power levels blue is supposed to have in exchange for it's control elements and ability to do card advantage stuff like drawing easily and such.
Frostburn Weird, Nightveil Specter, Tidebinder Mage, Judge's Familiar, Cloudfin Raptor, and Mutavault will all be rotating out. That will certainly hurt the deck somewhat, especially Tidebinder and Specter since those can just give you free wins by themselves sometimes and they give good devotion. I'm sure it will be a strong deck since they'll still have Master and Thassa, but it's losing quite a bit
Heres the bottom line: EVERY deck you play on mtgo standard 6 dollar cost tournaments on the winning side of the bracket has black in it. Pack Rat is the card that is exceptionally strong but doesn't effect the meta. Thoughtseize should be banned. You can't argue with this:
It ruins entire parts of the game before you even start playing...the mulligan...your deck building. It makes half the theros abilities unplayable. Have a constellation or two you want to build around? thoughtseized. Want to build around one or two heroic abilities. Thoughtseized hero. Thoughtseized or duressed protection spells. Master of waves in blue. thoughtseized. Many people were excited about Goblin Rabble master when it came out. Until they remembered thought seize. They could come out with more offensive staples like those just stated to over power thoughtseize but then there would be absolutely no long range decks or mill decks.
In response to most articulated argument on this page by Nev(that coincidently doesn't even argue against thoughtsieze in standard): "If you worry about pack rat, either be a deck that moves quickly and doesn't care, outsizes the rat for all reasonable amounts of time, or has removal." Well, that gives us two option...plus I have removal but when you have thought seized my best cards I can't even come back after I get pack rat.
And that is IF I happen to have that removal on the exact turn pack rat is played (because you know its going to populate itself in response). Oh, so I need two removal, and no strong card to follow it because it has been thoughtseized away
Here is my personal reason for writing this: I came back into the game wanting to play standard. It's what personally appeals to me. My only thoughts (And I have NEVER been into roleplaying or "into the backstory"" kind of guy) was that I didn't want to play black, I wanted some white heroes, and separately, I wanted to be competitive(I always am). Now I can't play. bye Wizards. Thanks for taking my money on the non-black, semi white standard decks I built and shoving it up my rear.
Again, Every competitive standard player has black in there deck now.
So really, bye. Everyone who defends standard thoughtseize can have fun playing in a dwindling game that is losing money and popularity everyday...oh and that means those boosters your winning are dwindling in value everyday too.
The poll at the top is poorly phrased. Notice how there is only one option for "it should be banned" and six others. The key point is that EVERYONE thinks it's a "special" part of the meta. The fact that the word meta is used without people getting pissed off means this is a poorly managed game. Wizards of the coast can do better than this. Judging by how poorly the online version is administered and how whole formats are so off balance I'd say some serious personal changes needs to be made at WOtC.
Thoughtseize is a good card, but I don't mind it if you can't combine it with something like a T2 pack rat. As long as it's just a 1-for-1 in a similar vein as Downfall I don't see it being anything super special in this format where decks are pretty redundant value midrange.
Thoughtseize is seriously overpowered; it has a hidden static ability that says "The laws of probability don't affect this card. It will appear in your opening hand 100% of the time instead of 40%."
I don't see it being anything super special in this format where decks are pretty redundant value midrange.
The format is dominated by redundant value midrange because of thoughtseize. You can't have a synergy-based gameplan in a meta with thoughtseize and no actual answer to thoughtseize. At least now they're printing stubborn denial so there's one actual answer to it in the format somewhere.
It's not like modern where there are a zillion and a half ways to answer thoughtseize. It's totally fine in that format. It's just plain dumb in standard.
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Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
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Besides compare Thoughtseize with Duress. Does the ability to snag creatures at the cost of 2 life make it suddenly overpowered? I dont think so, especially because Black has no problems dealing with creatures in the first place.
Also think that you guys should stop feeding a certain person. The style of his responses makes it clear what he is and what he wants to accomplish.
If you took away thoughtseize, mono black players would have to play fairly just like everyone else. (And would probably no longer dominate as hard as it does current it).
The Standard card pool must be sh*tty if it can't deal with that card.
- H. L. Mencken
French Duel Commander
WBR Kaalia of the Vast WBR
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer RUG
Spoken like a player who isn't that good at magic and has no concept of the color wheel. We should take away black's removal too. I mean it's not fair that I cast my big awesome guy and he just dies as soon as he hits the table. You should also remove blue's counterspells, red's burn, greens ramp and creatures, and white's life gain and creatures. Would totally be fair then right? Grizzly bears for all.
Modern: Eldrazi Tron, UW Tron, GR Tron, BW Tokens, WU Death and Taxes
They play fairly already. The can't interact with Enchantments or Artifacts at all. Without Thoughtseize other people could exploit that weakness so in a sense it makes the game fairer actually.
That's what Duress is for.
I think Thoughtseize is under costed to be in standard. The effect is fine, but the cost should be BB or discard a card and not 2 life. That way they don't hurt in multiples, and an opponent still has a chance if they mulliganed.
What if neither were in Standard, and people just went Duress into Rat?
Thoughtseize is incredibly strong, don't get me wrong. But we can't just play in a format where there are no powerful cards. Might as well hand everyone a pile of Bears and Forests and say go ahead. Its certainly not on the level of Jace, the Mind Sculptor in my opinion. Not banworthy, just a strong card - one you need to be aware of when building your deck and making your plays throughout a match, the same way you had to be aware of Jace or Restoration Angel in the past.
Modern: U Living End
Standard: UW Approach of the Second Sun
Only way you ever lose huh? What's it like never losing to mana screw or a bad matchup or heck even a decent matchup where you just draw poorly? I expect to see you in the finals of the next SCG or GP.
Modern: Eldrazi Tron, UW Tron, GR Tron, BW Tokens, WU Death and Taxes
As for the thoughtseize and inquisition bit, I'd think the inquisition would be well complained about, possibly even more than thoughtseize given the kind of thinking of the complainers that I imagine. However, duress would be a bit less so in the fact that it has a high chance to miss against a fair number of decks.
Thoughtsieze's main drawback is that it only works effectively on turn 1, but it breaks the meta and power curve in similar ways to the Leylines or miracle costs on certain stuff.
With the more limited pools to draw from in Standard, making a lot of deck designs slower and less reliable, Thoughtsieze is a lot more powerful in Standard than it is in eternal formats like Modern, and thus it severely weakens colors who have limited choices against black's strong options (like Pack Rat) and almost single-handily shuts down most combo decks with ease.
Nothing that costs 1 mana should shut down all your opponents' important options in a format like Standard where reliability and redundancy is reduced due to smaller card pools to draw from.
IMO, Thoughseize is fine in Modern and such, and should have been reprinted in Modern Masters, rather than Theros. It especially shouldn't be in Standard at the same time as something like Pack Rat, which is hard for lots of deck archetypes to deal with, and keeps numerous deck types from becoming competitive because they can't deal with pack-rat, even if they can deal with a lot of other parts of the meta well. I think the main reason Pack Rat and thoughtseize aren't causing mono-black devotion to completely dominate the format is the combination of Mutavault, blue having out of color beat-stick ability that is super efficient to create mono-blue devotion, and the existence of a lot of really good tools for Control in the current standard, particularly Aetherling, certain planeswalkers, Sphinx's Revelation, Supereme Verdict, and Detention Sphere. I'll be glad when Pack Rat leaves standard, even if control is losing all those neat tools, although I'm a bit worried at how crazy Mono-Blue looks like it might stay. There is no individual format-breaking card that I can point to in mono-blue devotion that stands out to me, it's more the assemblage of enough stuff that is just slightly outside of the power levels blue is supposed to have in exchange for it's control elements and ability to do card advantage stuff like drawing easily and such.
If you think that standard can't have high reliability and redundancy, look again. They can have it and have it in spades. Heck, they even have it just after rotation. Its not quite like an eternal format but it can be very redundant and very consistent.
Pack rat is a good card but the answers are there and it is simply a good card in standard atm. It isn't oppressive, nor does having thoughtseize in standard make it busted. In a strict sense, if the rat was so strong that a hand hate and a rat won the game, we'd be seeing some duress too to act as at least thoughtseizes 5 and 6. But we don't. It doesn't shut out any reasonable deck from being competitive. If anything, the presence of popularity does that more than any particular card combination. If you worry about pack rat, either be a deck that moves quickly and doesn't care, outsizes the rat for all reasonable amounts of time, or has removal. White can get rid of it. Black can get rid of it. Red can get rid of it. Blue doesn't get rid of it well but does its thing despite the rat well. Green should be able to move quick enough or grow big enough. So what's being shut out by the presence of rat and thoughtseize that isn't simply weak and dies to most of the rest of the field? Good cards exist. That doesn't inherently make them oppressive the way you make it sound.
Frostburn Weird, Nightveil Specter, Tidebinder Mage, Judge's Familiar, Cloudfin Raptor, and Mutavault will all be rotating out. That will certainly hurt the deck somewhat, especially Tidebinder and Specter since those can just give you free wins by themselves sometimes and they give good devotion. I'm sure it will be a strong deck since they'll still have Master and Thassa, but it's losing quite a bit
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
It ruins entire parts of the game before you even start playing...the mulligan...your deck building. It makes half the theros abilities unplayable. Have a constellation or two you want to build around? thoughtseized. Want to build around one or two heroic abilities. Thoughtseized hero. Thoughtseized or duressed protection spells. Master of waves in blue. thoughtseized. Many people were excited about Goblin Rabble master when it came out. Until they remembered thought seize. They could come out with more offensive staples like those just stated to over power thoughtseize but then there would be absolutely no long range decks or mill decks.
In response to most articulated argument on this page by Nev(that coincidently doesn't even argue against thoughtsieze in standard): "If you worry about pack rat, either be a deck that moves quickly and doesn't care, outsizes the rat for all reasonable amounts of time, or has removal." Well, that gives us two option...plus I have removal but when you have thought seized my best cards I can't even come back after I get pack rat.
And that is IF I happen to have that removal on the exact turn pack rat is played (because you know its going to populate itself in response). Oh, so I need two removal, and no strong card to follow it because it has been thoughtseized away
Here is my personal reason for writing this: I came back into the game wanting to play standard. It's what personally appeals to me. My only thoughts (And I have NEVER been into roleplaying or "into the backstory"" kind of guy) was that I didn't want to play black, I wanted some white heroes, and separately, I wanted to be competitive(I always am). Now I can't play. bye Wizards. Thanks for taking my money on the non-black, semi white standard decks I built and shoving it up my rear.
Again, Every competitive standard player has black in there deck now.
So really, bye. Everyone who defends standard thoughtseize can have fun playing in a dwindling game that is losing money and popularity everyday...oh and that means those boosters your winning are dwindling in value everyday too.
The poll at the top is poorly phrased. Notice how there is only one option for "it should be banned" and six others. The key point is that EVERYONE thinks it's a "special" part of the meta. The fact that the word meta is used without people getting pissed off means this is a poorly managed game. Wizards of the coast can do better than this. Judging by how poorly the online version is administered and how whole formats are so off balance I'd say some serious personal changes needs to be made at WOtC.
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The card is warping the meta, there's probably no doubt about that. We'll know in a couple of weeks if its impact is particularly egregious.
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The format is dominated by redundant value midrange because of thoughtseize. You can't have a synergy-based gameplan in a meta with thoughtseize and no actual answer to thoughtseize. At least now they're printing stubborn denial so there's one actual answer to it in the format somewhere.
It's not like modern where there are a zillion and a half ways to answer thoughtseize. It's totally fine in that format. It's just plain dumb in standard.