Because whats the point of having different colours if they aren't different? May as well just play something like hearthstone where everything costs generic mana. It's one of the many distinct features what makes magic the game it is. The more contrasting the colours are, the more complex the game becomes. The more one colour bleeds into another's territory, the more simple the game becomes. Complexity is what makes magic the tcg king imo.
Also, its not like destroying enchantments is impossible in red as suggested. There are plently of colourless things that any deck can dip into to overcome any challenge but with greater effort than a colour that has it in it's pie
While I believe Magic, as a whole, should always have answers, I really don’t believe that giving red enchantment destruction
then we are on the same page I think red should get either the ability to temporally "shut off" an enchantment for a turn or just exile it until the end phase, not strong enough for it to invalidate white as a color but not worthless enough to where mono red isn't viable.
Likewise for artifacts and black maybe temporary theft?
Well red does have the ability to steal enchantments via Frenzied Fugue or Word of Seizing then sacrifice them through means like Crack the Earth. Though admittedly, those cards are a tad costly.
Someone earlier mentioned reds inability to deal with whites CoP. Yeah, that’s never actually been a real problem, especially with sheer hate cards like Oman of Fire or just laying waste to the field with Jokulhaups.
As for black dealing with artifacts. Nevinyrral's Disk has been a black staple for so long, I’m quite frankly surprised that similar “destroy everything that’s X and everything else be damned” haven’t already appeared more often for black.
The reason mono decks are supposed to fold to fold to certain strategies is to encourage you to play multiple colors. That's why it isn't rock paper scissors. Because some people rocks fold to scissors rather than paper and some people have stone scissors that beat the other three but loses to stone paper. Every mono color decks loses to something different.
That just sounds like playing rock paper scissors but with extra steps to me.
While I believe Magic, as a whole, should always have answers, I really don’t believe that giving red enchantment destruction
then we are on the same page I think red should get either the ability to temporally "shut off" an enchantment for a turn or just exile it until the end phase, not strong enough for it to invalidate white as a color but not worthless enough to where mono red isn't viable.
Likewise for artifacts and black maybe temporary theft?
Red can burn them; black destroys them or forces their sacrifice; white exiles or destroys; blue counters, bounces, or steals; and green either fights them or just out-competes them through larger, more efficient creatures of your own.
I kinda pointed this out in the comment directly above you but I'll just assume you were typing when I posted that.
actually most of your comment I already said my reasoning on in that comment so I won't bother with that however
Turn to Frog, Diminish, Kasmina's Transmutation all fit a similar design, just on a single target basis (and this design space is shared by Snakeform and Godhead of Awe, even though they are multicolor). I'm sure we'll continue to get more of these in the future.
I was talking about more in the sense of a card that is a "board wipe but shapeshifting instead of blowing" when I said "only card that does what it does" but I didn't know diminish or transmutation were cards so thanks for pointing those out to me.
What would differentiate between the colors if all the colors had answers to anything another color has?
The difference would be how and what impact that has mechanically I'm just going to be using 3 mana or less creature removal as an example since that is something every color has access to.
Blue: Either will counter spell said creature with something like Remove soul bounce it away for a turn with unsummon or just change it into something less threatening with pongify.
White:Swords to plowsharescongrats your creature is now a land or also likely dispatchand now it's gone for what is most likely good.
Black: Ulcerateif it's a weak creature, Doom blade if it's nonblack and Chainer's edict if they can't get a better way to kill it and it's all you got.
Green: Prey upon and either beat it over the head with a bigger creature or a deathtouch creature, Beast within and now it's a less threatening creature.
It isn't supposed to be "Well I have a weakness but it doesn't really matter because I can choose to ignore that weakness if it's ever a problem." That isn't a weakness it's an inconvenience.
again that's not what I'm getting at I'm suggesting colors get more windows of oportunity to respond to things that would normally be game-enders again if you look at my blue example this is already a thing blue is allowed to do white and green are allowed to do it to a lesser extent. black and red though? yeah not happening. That's specifically what I'm suggesting is more windows of "alright that's annoying but I can still win" rather than just "I'm playing mono red. oh you play story circle? gg"
Eternal formats have a problem of power level where things are so broken
2 things
1. A game should be able to stand up with it's entire card pool minus some very obvious mistakes of game design (i.e the banlist) if that's not the case then you need to either bump up weaker strategies by giving them new tools or admit you ****ed up and ban cards that make said strategies non-functioning. Mono-red is too weak in commander you say? find a way to buff it or nerf Sultai good-stuff/whatever is making it impossible for mono red to play.
2.This is more the case in vintage than modern.
Your mono-green deck is supposed to fold to certain strategies,
Why? Why should any deck automatically lose to any strategy? At that point why shouldn't I just go find a rock paper scissors tournament if that's the case? Do you think there shouldn't be counter play?
If you monored deck is locked out by a specific deck that has a specific enchantment that isn't a bug but a feature. Mono color decks are supposed to be weak to specific problems otherwise the slight land advantage of running only one color would easily snowball into a much larger advantage.
Again I'm not saying red should just be able to kill enchantments for example just be able to buy themselves a window of opportunity. I'm not saying green should get "counter target instant or sorcery spell" just some means of not loosing because you couldn't stop the storm player from popping off outside of siding leyline of sanctity or pithing needle and hoping they aren't playing removal for it. basically what I'm saying is I would like more interaction between players and giving players rather than turning the game into "do you have x permanent? no? gg".
again you can have a weakness to something without that thing automatically stopping you. Example: blue can play around skylasher with cards like Polymorphist's jest or gravitational shift even though it is safe from blue's primary methods of dealing with threats.
Okay first off thanks for giving me an actual answer as opposed to answering my question with a "that's just how things are"
The game has historically been balanced around the color pie. When cards like beast within are printed, they tend to break the game more often then not because you have one color that just runs away from the pack. This card was just recently recast as a white card in generous gift in MH1 for example. The green version isn't going anywhere, but destroying anything is something white does.
Okay that's a fair point I just think beast has lead to more interesting game states the few times I've had someone play it against me and causing a creature to go savage is kinda a neat thing I wish green did more but I can see why green doesn't do it as often.
A) the format breaks down to that deck, or decks that beat that deck. When the removal or payoffs are even too strong after that the format becomes that deck and versions of itself to beat itself. We started seeing this with the Hogaak bridgevine decks maiming 4 copies of leyline of the void.
But would expanding the pie for a few more colors cause that type of problem? From what I can tell hogaak is only doing what you would expect green/black decks to do.
B) distribution becomes an absolute nightmare. When a card is out of line like jace, the mind sculptor in standard it becomes increasingly harder to find product that is priced as it should be. There was a point before his standard ban that buying a box and pulling a Jace netted a gamestore money...excluding the rest of the contents. The product was drying up and it wasn't making it to the players. They also cut the print run eventually which causes more headaches. We are seeing this again with MH1 staples just absolutely skyrocketing to try and justify the cost of a box to the end consumer.
Again I don't see how this pertains to changing the color pie especially because Jace is a textbook blue card, just a ridiculously broken one at that.
C) every color can have each macro effect, but it has to have it in a way that is resonant in that color. The game leans hard on resonant themes that expect the player to have some knowledge of a thing or setting prior to sitting down. I don't have to teach you what a zombie is, and zombies that mechanical do something in the graveyard like gravedigger are easy to understand. The game builds on this further by its age, colors tend to dip into the same thematic waters over time. For example green does get creature removal, but it's the fight mechanic.
So moving this to my example: red shutting off enchantments for a turn would be resonant to reds them of impulsively ignoring rules out of anger since enchantments are often used to represent rules or a status quo right? the big examples I can think of are Blind obedience and Martial Law.
D) it actually entices players to go more than one color, which introduces more variance, and makes for better games. If you the have resources to answer all the threats or present the most potent threats then you're firmly the favorite to win before you even sit down. I'll point you to the khans of tarkir block as an example, the mana was so good that running 4-5 colors was actually the norm. It allowed players to play whatever the best suite of cards were and completely circumvent the weaknesses of each color. The result was the silly 4c collected company / rally the ancestors deck that could instant speed you out of nowhere the second you tapped out. The deck has mainboard answers to any relevant permanent type. The saheeli rai 4 color combo deck in kld/aer standard is another offender that had great mana and a very good threat suite. The deck ran almost no artifact gate because it didn't need to, there were no artifacts that really threatened it. It could have though, with little impact to its game plan.
Didn't this deck only work because Collected company was such a good card in the first place though. Again I'm not saying wizards should remove the color pie just that they should make it less rigid. Like could you say if red had temporary answers to enchantments people wouldn't run a boros deck? People still run azorous decks even though blue has an answer for basically everthing just because blue can't deal with things permanently if it misses it's window of opportunity and the white tends to burn it's hand out too quickly.
E) the cards you're looking for are printed, but they're sly about it. Generic hate for specific mechanical decks does show up in artifacts. pithing needle for activated abilities. dampening sphere for storm or xerox decks. relic of progenitus for graveyards. There are a bunch.
Only thing I can think of for red and blacks weakness to non-creatures is ratchet bomb unless I'm mistaken and often times it just takes long enough for the player who played the card ratchet bomb is being used as an out for to win (ignoring the fact that most of the time ratchet bomb gets blown to hell). So all this system does is give you a free win against certain colors. Source: I play pox and use leyline of sanctity to stop red decks completely.
F) card draw isn't something that should be stapled to every card. treasure cruise started warping legacy/modern in short order as everyone just started forcing a manabase that supported blue simple for the draw effect. dig through time wasn't far behind. Drawing extra cards is really a huge deal in the game and it's one of the effects new players tend to grossly undervalue.
I know I have a blue/green deck that's built around cards that give you free draws when played. I'm not saying white should get that, I'm talking about more explore or investigate style of effects when I say conditional card draw. Also I've been playing since Time spiral granted that was with my dad and I only started playing semi competitively since return to ravnica before taking a break for a bit.
G) you mentioned some specific card types/colors like black and artifacts. It's so some decks can present a threat that is harder to answer. If black just 1-1 or 2-1 you all day with removal, you probably aren't going to be able to stick anything meaningful. Having an artifact that can cause a speedbump for then helps because then it's an actual game. That artifact shouldn't win the game on the spot, but it needs to help. Same with red and enchantments. Note that GB can deal with anything in a number of cards.
Like I said earlier more often than not artifacts tend to be more of a brick wall rather than a speed bump the same thing goes for red.
I noticed the color pie causes a lot of issues game play wise for the game specifically when talking about the competitive side of the game in eternal and semi eternal formats. I'll just say modern is the format I notice this the most
Specifically the issues I've noticed are:
Why doesn't red have a way to deal with enchantments that stop damage? (Scour from existence does not count for this discussion unless you can point me to a really slow competitively viable mono red deck). Why not give red a way to temporarily remove the effects from enchantments?(like an instant that last until the end of turn or an aura with vanishing).
Why doesn't black have a way to deal with artifacts or enchantments?
Why can't green interact with instants? Why doesn't green get more Beast Within style of effects?
Why does white not have more situational card draw?
I have no issues with blue except for the fact polymorphist's jest is the only card that does what it does in blue.
I get they want each color to feel different game play wise but there are other ways to do that then say "red cannot deal with enchantments other than by damaging the player who has them"?
also in case it wasn't clear I'm talking about why these effects aren't in mono color I know cards like putrefy exist
Covered both of these above not repeating myself
in modern though?
That just sounds like playing rock paper scissors but with extra steps to me.
then we are on the same page I think red should get either the ability to temporally "shut off" an enchantment for a turn or just exile it until the end phase, not strong enough for it to invalidate white as a color but not worthless enough to where mono red isn't viable.
Likewise for artifacts and black maybe temporary theft?
I kinda pointed this out in the comment directly above you but I'll just assume you were typing when I posted that.
actually most of your comment I already said my reasoning on in that comment so I won't bother with that however
I was talking about more in the sense of a card that is a "board wipe but shapeshifting instead of blowing" when I said "only card that does what it does" but I didn't know diminish or transmutation were cards so thanks for pointing those out to me.
The difference would be how and what impact that has mechanically I'm just going to be using 3 mana or less creature removal as an example since that is something every color has access to.
Blue: Either will counter spell said creature with something like Remove soul bounce it away for a turn with unsummon or just change it into something less threatening with pongify.
White:Swords to plowsharescongrats your creature is now a land or also likely dispatchand now it's gone for what is most likely good.
Black: Ulcerateif it's a weak creature, Doom blade if it's nonblack and Chainer's edict if they can't get a better way to kill it and it's all you got.
Green: Prey upon and either beat it over the head with a bigger creature or a deathtouch creature, Beast within and now it's a less threatening creature.
Red: Lightning bolt or fireball one way or the other it will die or you will die.
Edit: Colorless: titan's presencewanna play a game of who's bigger?
again that's not what I'm getting at I'm suggesting colors get more windows of oportunity to respond to things that would normally be game-enders again if you look at my blue example this is already a thing blue is allowed to do white and green are allowed to do it to a lesser extent. black and red though? yeah not happening. That's specifically what I'm suggesting is more windows of "alright that's annoying but I can still win" rather than just "I'm playing mono red. oh you play story circle? gg"
2 things
1. A game should be able to stand up with it's entire card pool minus some very obvious mistakes of game design (i.e the banlist) if that's not the case then you need to either bump up weaker strategies by giving them new tools or admit you ****ed up and ban cards that make said strategies non-functioning. Mono-red is too weak in commander you say? find a way to buff it or nerf Sultai good-stuff/whatever is making it impossible for mono red to play.
2.This is more the case in vintage than modern.
Why? Why should any deck automatically lose to any strategy? At that point why shouldn't I just go find a rock paper scissors tournament if that's the case? Do you think there shouldn't be counter play?
Again I'm not saying red should just be able to kill enchantments for example just be able to buy themselves a window of opportunity. I'm not saying green should get "counter target instant or sorcery spell" just some means of not loosing because you couldn't stop the storm player from popping off outside of siding leyline of sanctity or pithing needle and hoping they aren't playing removal for it. basically what I'm saying is I would like more interaction between players and giving players rather than turning the game into "do you have x permanent? no? gg".
again you can have a weakness to something without that thing automatically stopping you. Example: blue can play around skylasher with cards like Polymorphist's jest or gravitational shift even though it is safe from blue's primary methods of dealing with threats.
Okay that's a fair point I just think beast has lead to more interesting game states the few times I've had someone play it against me and causing a creature to go savage is kinda a neat thing I wish green did more but I can see why green doesn't do it as often.
But would expanding the pie for a few more colors cause that type of problem? From what I can tell hogaak is only doing what you would expect green/black decks to do.
Again I don't see how this pertains to changing the color pie especially because Jace is a textbook blue card, just a ridiculously broken one at that.
So moving this to my example: red shutting off enchantments for a turn would be resonant to reds them of impulsively ignoring rules out of anger since enchantments are often used to represent rules or a status quo right? the big examples I can think of are Blind obedience and Martial Law.
Didn't this deck only work because Collected company was such a good card in the first place though. Again I'm not saying wizards should remove the color pie just that they should make it less rigid. Like could you say if red had temporary answers to enchantments people wouldn't run a boros deck? People still run azorous decks even though blue has an answer for basically everthing just because blue can't deal with things permanently if it misses it's window of opportunity and the white tends to burn it's hand out too quickly.
Only thing I can think of for red and blacks weakness to non-creatures is ratchet bomb unless I'm mistaken and often times it just takes long enough for the player who played the card ratchet bomb is being used as an out for to win (ignoring the fact that most of the time ratchet bomb gets blown to hell). So all this system does is give you a free win against certain colors. Source: I play pox and use leyline of sanctity to stop red decks completely.
I know I have a blue/green deck that's built around cards that give you free draws when played. I'm not saying white should get that, I'm talking about more explore or investigate style of effects when I say conditional card draw. Also I've been playing since Time spiral granted that was with my dad and I only started playing semi competitively since return to ravnica before taking a break for a bit.
Like I said earlier more often than not artifacts tend to be more of a brick wall rather than a speed bump the same thing goes for red.
okay but you can still make difficulties without making it impossible for said difficulties to be overcome.
Specifically the issues I've noticed are:
Why doesn't red have a way to deal with enchantments that stop damage? (Scour from existence does not count for this discussion unless you can point me to a really slow competitively viable mono red deck). Why not give red a way to temporarily remove the effects from enchantments?(like an instant that last until the end of turn or an aura with vanishing).
Why doesn't black have a way to deal with artifacts or enchantments?
Why can't green interact with instants? Why doesn't green get more Beast Within style of effects?
Why does white not have more situational card draw?
I have no issues with blue except for the fact polymorphist's jest is the only card that does what it does in blue.
I get they want each color to feel different game play wise but there are other ways to do that then say "red cannot deal with enchantments other than by damaging the player who has them"?
also in case it wasn't clear I'm talking about why these effects aren't in mono color I know cards like putrefy exist