For Walter White, I think his transformation was more from that of a U character to UB like our friend Tezz at least on the surface. Whether he was a protagonist or antagonist, he was always profoundly blue in his approach to situations. The idea to preserve his family as his motivation does admittedly give me a bit of a W and also G vibe, but over the course of the show, I think he continues to realize that this is probably more of a facade. In the meantime, I like how UB contrasts with the law enforcement colors WR of Hank pretty well too. To get into an obvious BW character in the show though, we can call Saul.
I think Walter definitely has a blue aspect to him, but I don't think it's his motivation. Blue is definitely his methodology - logically assess the best move to make in a situation and then do it regardless of morality - but he's not motivated by knowledge, rather both by providing for his family and also by greed/love of power, and I think the blue remains constant throughout the course of the show.
Spoilers:
I think the big change is in his motivation from Wb to Bw. In season 1 episode 1, he already does some "evil" things, like blackmailing Jesse into working with him, killing the dudes in the RV, but I think his motivation is entirely to provide for his family at that point. By the end, he's clearly motivated mainly by his own love of power; "I'm not in the money business or the meth business - I'm in the EMPIRE business", but even in the last episode he makes sure that his family will be provided for, even if they'll never know the money came from him. That's still a selfless act and it still shows that caring about them remains a motivation.
I would agree that Saul is WB, though in a different sort of sense than Walter (he seems to have a much more defined sense of morality).
I always thought that Locke of the Lost series was en embodiment of WB. Somebody with ethics, honor, faith and belief who got tormented by his own low self-esteem, bitterness for his self-inflicted failures failure and resentment against the "unfairness of things".
The first person I think of is Walter White from Breaking Bad. He does awful things and commits unspeakable crimes, but his main motivation is his family and their welfare, which is a very white motivation. (You can definitely argue that he becomes more black and less white as the show goes on, but I think he remains both)
I find that this card almost never fails to make the final cut in my black decks. It's got an easy mana cost, it's a 2/3 that's hard to block in an aggro deck and a 2 mana creature that trades up in a control deck.
I prefer lagers to IPAs myself, especially on draft
But seriously, IPA is actually a great format. I have no nostalgia glasses because the first set I did any limited play at all for was Planar Chaos, and I still enjoyed the format immensely when it was on MTGO a year or two ago. Mana-fixing wise, that could be an interesting idea - I feel like it would go too far though and make 4 color/5 color decks dominant. Green would lose a lot of oomph in IPA if it didn't have the lion's share of the fixing.
...are also played a lot in casual constructed, which I would guess is probably the most popular format (although again that citation you imply you already have would be helpful in addressing both points). If not, certainly way up there, 2nd or 3rd or so
Well, if you start talking about casual, then the power level of the cards no longer matters. I assumed you were talking about competitive play, of which limited is most certainly at least a third. At least half of FNMs are draft, half of GPs are limited GPs, etc.
Yeah because they play one of the other 9 or so formats that aren't limited...
Having cards that are only meaningful in 10% of formats is really annoyingly wasteful. That's not usually true of any other formats. Even commander's influence on a higher number of legendary things doesn't make them USELESS in other formats, just less useful than they could have been in a playset.
"10% of formats" is extremely misleading, since limited is at least a third of all play, the statistic that's actually relevant. Not every card can be good enough to make it in to constructed. Also, the influence of Commander is not just making things legends, it's also making things big, expensive, splashy effects that are useless outside of a Commander game.
It's an interesting card for limited. It has a very strong effect, but also a prohibitive mana cost. So you'll want it strongly if you already have a lot of ramp, and it'll be worthless otherwise. Cards like that are far more interesting in limited than cards that are always good or always unplayable as they reward knowledge of your deck's archetype while drafting and building.
Just +1/+1 without any other effects is probably unplayable at any cost. Even Ranger's Guile and Burst of Strength were marginal at best and those had much stronger effects for 1 mana. At 0 maybe it would be okay just for the surprise factor, but +1/+1 is just not significant enough to spend a card on.
Yeah, most of those blockers are not fantastic against a pure heroic deck, but that deck is essentially a combo deck - either you answer their dude and win easily or you don't and they win since almost nothing can race them (maybe a god draw from a R/B minotaur deck). (That's why Phalanx Leader is so good - it's as explosive while leaving much more of a backup plan) U/B has the best matchup of any deck given that you can't race since it has the highest chance of answering a heavily suited creature. The blockers should see you through against any other aggressive deck though, and most of them (except Guardians) are still at least mediocre against control.
I've found that there are so many early defense cards that they don't really need to be prioritized that much. Omenspeaker, Returned Phalanx, Guardian of Meletis are all cards that pretty much nobody else wants outside of dedicated control (and Returned Phalanx few people want outside of UB) so you can pick them up pretty late and all do a pretty decent job of holding the fort early (not quite as much Omenspeaker, but that has the scry plus-side).
Heroic decks operate on an entirely different axis, you either need removal for their giant threat or you lose. Psychic Intrusion is not the best against them and I might side it out (if they're at all slow, it's still fine since they generally rely on combinations of cards which Intrusion can disrupt, but it's not stellar against a fast white heroic deck), but they should be one of UB's stronger matchups anyway since U and B are the two colors with the most removal for large heroic threats.
I would also say that the heroic deck really needs white to be good and so only at most 2 people can be in it in a draft.
It's not really comparable to Brainbite since the card you draw off it is much stronger than a random card from your deck.
At five mana UB wants to play Gary. Or Bestow a Naiad. Or play a Scrymera. Or a Lash. Or Keepsake Gorgon or Sealock Monster.
I play UB more than anything else, and when it wheels I feel a moderate amount of pleasure. I much prefer Returned Phalanx to wheel.
If I already have the board stalled, which any decent U/B deck should have done by turn 5, I'd rather Intrusion than any of those except Scrymera, or Gary if I already have good devotion. You all seem to be forgetting that if your opponent already emptied his hand, he probably has good things in his graveyard. I think you all are drastically overrating the speed of the format, especially when playing a control deck. A Returned Phalanx and a Guardians of Meletis are enough to keep the board locked down against most decks until turn 5/6.
Another red 3-drop attempt. Trying not to consistently make OP stuff, and I feel like this might fail at that too.
Destruction2R
Destruction's power and toughness are equal to the total number of land cards in all graveyards.
When Destruction enters the battlefield, each player sacrifices a land.
Evoke R
*/*
You probably want this to be "as Destruction enters the battlefield" since otherwise if you play it with no lands in graveyards, it'll die immediately before its trigger resolves. Or make it a */*+1
I think Walter definitely has a blue aspect to him, but I don't think it's his motivation. Blue is definitely his methodology - logically assess the best move to make in a situation and then do it regardless of morality - but he's not motivated by knowledge, rather both by providing for his family and also by greed/love of power, and I think the blue remains constant throughout the course of the show.
Spoilers:
I would agree that Saul is WB, though in a different sort of sense than Walter (he seems to have a much more defined sense of morality).
The first person I think of is Walter White from Breaking Bad. He does awful things and commits unspeakable crimes, but his main motivation is his family and their welfare, which is a very white motivation. (You can definitely argue that he becomes more black and less white as the show goes on, but I think he remains both)
But seriously, IPA is actually a great format. I have no nostalgia glasses because the first set I did any limited play at all for was Planar Chaos, and I still enjoyed the format immensely when it was on MTGO a year or two ago. Mana-fixing wise, that could be an interesting idea - I feel like it would go too far though and make 4 color/5 color decks dominant. Green would lose a lot of oomph in IPA if it didn't have the lion's share of the fixing.
Well, if you start talking about casual, then the power level of the cards no longer matters. I assumed you were talking about competitive play, of which limited is most certainly at least a third. At least half of FNMs are draft, half of GPs are limited GPs, etc.
"10% of formats" is extremely misleading, since limited is at least a third of all play, the statistic that's actually relevant. Not every card can be good enough to make it in to constructed. Also, the influence of Commander is not just making things legends, it's also making things big, expensive, splashy effects that are useless outside of a Commander game.
I would also say that the heroic deck really needs white to be good and so only at most 2 people can be in it in a draft.
It's not really comparable to Brainbite since the card you draw off it is much stronger than a random card from your deck.
If I already have the board stalled, which any decent U/B deck should have done by turn 5, I'd rather Intrusion than any of those except Scrymera, or Gary if I already have good devotion. You all seem to be forgetting that if your opponent already emptied his hand, he probably has good things in his graveyard. I think you all are drastically overrating the speed of the format, especially when playing a control deck. A Returned Phalanx and a Guardians of Meletis are enough to keep the board locked down against most decks until turn 5/6.
You probably want this to be "as Destruction enters the battlefield" since otherwise if you play it with no lands in graveyards, it'll die immediately before its trigger resolves. Or make it a */*+1