It is exceptionally unfun to play against a deck that wins the game on turn 6 but doesn't kill you until turn 50.
If you have no outs to draw into then simply concede? I watched a game yesterday from the World Cup when a Kiln Fiend player was playing against Lantern Control. The latter established control and the former played for a turn or two more and then conceded.
Why does everyone complain about playing against counterspell but Inquisitons, THoughtsiezes and Liliana's are fine? And the best, most broken 2 drop beater in the game? And an excellent draw engine? And Abrupt Decay?
Or affinity and infect. Broken mechanics. Tron lands in conjunction with Eldrazi Temple. Broken. Dredge. Broken. Their very success stems from the fact that they're broken, if they weren't they wouldn't exist as decks at all!
But you don't hear complaining all the time about how unfun it is to play against them. When affinity smacks cranial plating onto an Inkmot, or a turn 3 Karn, that's somehow more "fair" and "fun" than a handful of counterspells...
Please...
1. Were you playing when Thoughtseize was in Standard? People complained about it pretty much nonstop. It very much has the same problem as counterspells in that it answers literally anything.
2. Inquisition, Abrupt Decay, and Liliana don't answer everything. Counterspells answer literally everything, so the only viable strategy against counters is to go under them, by playing threats that cost less than the counterspells do.
3. Once you get behind against a counterspell deck, it's over. You can't come back. You can't get lucky and draw a threat they don't have the answer to, because counterspells answer everything.
4. Broken mechanics have hate available to combat them. Counterspells do not, because they can just counter your hate card, because, again, counterspells answer everything.
It is exceptionally unfun to play against a deck that wins the game on turn 6 but doesn't kill you until turn 50.
But two people playing nothing but creatures and not attacking, because of a stalemate, until they get their one card that gives them the upper hand 15 turns later is? Look I can exaggerate too.
Yes, because until that last turn, both players were still in the game. Draw-go forced you to slog through 30+ turns of a game that you were about 99% likely to lose in the hopes that you would get a perfect series of draws allowing you to come back.
Print a lackluster anti-counter card and all the blue mages who are still pining for the days when you could run 20 counterpell.deck at every tournament come out and start decrying the color dead. Counterspells should never be amazing cards that are the foundation of the best decks in standard. There should never be more than 1 good and a few mediocre counterspells in standard, because it's awful for the health of the game and always has been.
Ever wonder why Hearthstone has literally only one card that does this and you can see it coming a mile away? Game design is why.
Funny how red players don't go into convulsions every time they see an obstinate baloth.
Control decks will kill this with spot removal, yawn, and move on. Stop freaking out.
I hate being the one defending blue as if its a turf war, but none of this makes sense.
Counter spells are "bad design" because you can't see follow the simple procedure of:
1. Look to see if there is open blue mana
2. Count the mana
3. Run a mental list of possible cards to cast with that mana
4. Prioritize value of cards in your hand
5. Play less valuable cards or a good card you have in multiples to bait out the counterspell.
6. Play your real threat after opponent spends mana. Or stack your hand with threats to barge through the counterspells a turn later
7. If you lost anyway either your deck is worse, or you drew badly/your opponent drew better
Problem?
Also Red players have no reason to go into "convulsions" - as far as I recall Mono red decks of some sort of other were always more or less competitive in the game.
When your argument boils down to, "counters are bad if you're a far better player than your opponent is," your argument is bad. Your opponent has a gigantic advantage in knowing what spells are going to kill him and which spells he can afford to let resolve, because he knows his own deck a lot better than you do.
Not that it's been a thing for awhile, but draw-go is probably the most toxic unfun archetype ever spawned by this game, and it's very much a good thing that WOTC makes sure it's killed dead.
I miss the days when people could play with whatever they wanted to without the player base whining and complaining that having their cards countered is "cancerous" or unfun.
I miss control because of the time period of magic it represents for me. When everybody didn't send wizards mad tweets and found ways to beat decks they didn't like outside of "ban it" "needs to be banned " "ruins my fun".
Old school control was "unfun" because you lost on turn 6 but they didn't actually kill you until turn 50. Also, if we're talking pre-Mirrodin, you simply didn't beat control in that era of MTG. If you weren't playing a Counterspell-based control deck, you were either playing a completely broken combo deck that was destined for banning or your plan against control was, "hope that they forgot your deck exists." If they made any effort towards beating what you were playing, you were getting rolled.
Like it not Trump is highly likely to win at this point. He's even getting evangelicals to vote for him in the primaries and there's basically no way he can lose if this demographic also votes for him in the general election. Democrats are getting really low turnout, and a pretty significant percentage of Sanders supporters absolutely despise Hilary Clinton and will not vote for her in the general election. The youth vote and the evangelical vote are the two biggest question marks on either side and the Democrats are not going to win if young people stay home and evangelicals show up. The Norpoth model predicts a 97% chance of a Trump victory.
Trump's threatened trade war is the scariest part of his candidacy and that's not a fight we're going to win even if the numbers say we can. A trade war with China would be an absolute disaster. In China, the political party responsible for a >50 million person genocide is still in power. They will have no problems convincing their population to endure the hardship of a simple economic depression. That's most certainly not the case over here, and we'll be throwing in the towel and looking like idiots the moment things start getting really bad.
Flip jace replaced jtms in vintage. That should tell you something about its power level
Brainstorm and Ponder are restricted in Vintage which means Jace's card filtering is much stronger. In Legacy you already have Brainstorm and Ponder to trade cards you don't need for random ones off the top, Jace is redundant. Also in Vintage you have lots more mana available to you than you do in Legacy, in Legacy you can't afford to drop a two mana card that dies to Lightning Bolt without giving you anything. The 1-mana tempo loss is a huge deal in Legacy.
Nissa is a stupidly ridiculous powerhouse. Borderland Ranger was a constructed staple, this Borderland Ranger has a planeswalker attached. If you cast it on turn 7, you can immediately play the land you just fetched and either draw another card or put a 4/4 into play.....and you still have four mana to use that turn. It's also pretty comparable to Mulldrifter, another Constructed powerhouse, in that you can play it either early or late.
Esper Dragons, despite being the most represented deck at a whopping 28%, overperformed and HALF the top 16 was Esper Dragons.
Well, I guess this is what happens when you reprint Counterspell in standard.
Alright, enough doomsaying and hyperbole.
I'm hopeful it won't stay this absurd for long though, nothing has been consistently the best deck since Delver, although Mono Black Devotion tried its best. Hopefully Esper Dragons won't remain king for long.
- Salty Midrange Player
And people still think that Counterspell could be reprinted some day.
Good they are not in charge
Force of Will is a much safer reprint than Counterspell. Force of Will was only really broken in the days when card drawing was very overpowered so it was trivial to take the 2-for-1. These days the 2-for-1 is a real cost.
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1. Were you playing when Thoughtseize was in Standard? People complained about it pretty much nonstop. It very much has the same problem as counterspells in that it answers literally anything.
2. Inquisition, Abrupt Decay, and Liliana don't answer everything. Counterspells answer literally everything, so the only viable strategy against counters is to go under them, by playing threats that cost less than the counterspells do.
3. Once you get behind against a counterspell deck, it's over. You can't come back. You can't get lucky and draw a threat they don't have the answer to, because counterspells answer everything.
4. Broken mechanics have hate available to combat them. Counterspells do not, because they can just counter your hate card, because, again, counterspells answer everything.
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Yes, because until that last turn, both players were still in the game. Draw-go forced you to slog through 30+ turns of a game that you were about 99% likely to lose in the hopes that you would get a perfect series of draws allowing you to come back.
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When your argument boils down to, "counters are bad if you're a far better player than your opponent is," your argument is bad. Your opponent has a gigantic advantage in knowing what spells are going to kill him and which spells he can afford to let resolve, because he knows his own deck a lot better than you do.
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Old school control was "unfun" because you lost on turn 6 but they didn't actually kill you until turn 50. Also, if we're talking pre-Mirrodin, you simply didn't beat control in that era of MTG. If you weren't playing a Counterspell-based control deck, you were either playing a completely broken combo deck that was destined for banning or your plan against control was, "hope that they forgot your deck exists." If they made any effort towards beating what you were playing, you were getting rolled.
1
Trump's threatened trade war is the scariest part of his candidacy and that's not a fight we're going to win even if the numbers say we can. A trade war with China would be an absolute disaster. In China, the political party responsible for a >50 million person genocide is still in power. They will have no problems convincing their population to endure the hardship of a simple economic depression. That's most certainly not the case over here, and we'll be throwing in the towel and looking like idiots the moment things start getting really bad.
3
Brainstorm and Ponder are restricted in Vintage which means Jace's card filtering is much stronger. In Legacy you already have Brainstorm and Ponder to trade cards you don't need for random ones off the top, Jace is redundant. Also in Vintage you have lots more mana available to you than you do in Legacy, in Legacy you can't afford to drop a two mana card that dies to Lightning Bolt without giving you anything. The 1-mana tempo loss is a huge deal in Legacy.
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Force of Will is a much safer reprint than Counterspell. Force of Will was only really broken in the days when card drawing was very overpowered so it was trivial to take the 2-for-1. These days the 2-for-1 is a real cost.