There is nothing stopping a player from casting a force of will or any other counterspell that can target creatures onto the stack targeting an uncounterable spell. Uncounterable does not mean untargetable by countermagic. It's a perfectly legal play to dispel an abrupt decay for example, sure all it does is put a dispel into the graveyard while abrupt decay still destroys whatever permanent it targeted, but you can still make that play.
In competitive REL and above the force of will would go to the graveyard and the card exiled to it would remain exiled as well as losing 1 life. In regular REL I'm not entirely sure if the force of will would stay in the graveyard or not, but I'd lean towards yes it would stay in the graveyard, the card exiled to it would remain exiled, and they would lose 1 life. Lord of atlantis would of course resolve.
You can play anything in any format, but playing the optimal decklist has always been the best choice for winning tournaments percentage wise. You *can* win a tournament with just shocklands, but doing so requires more luck than usual as against almost any deck taking 2 to have an untapped shock versus a tapped shock can be taken advantage of be it tendrils of agony to delver to even miracles as the less angels they have to make to lethal you means they win sooner. Even against lands with a 20/20 it can matter as shocking makes you die that much faster to punishing fire + grove of the burnwillows.
Intruder alarm locks you into a color that has crappy creatures that do nothing with it usually while this goes in anything and can easily go infinite with isochron scepter + manamorphse and other good cards like candelabra in legacy high tide means that high tide has basically infinite mana as untapping all your candles every spell you cast means you're tacking a turnabout onto every spell, which means you gain mana essentially with tide active. This card is very easy to break. Casting spells is one of the most done things in magic. Just look at snapcaster mage. Pretty easy to abuse this, whereas intruder alarm has never done anything absurdly broken in all the time we've had it in constructed whereas this has a solid chance.
It would be nice if they had that company wide discussion and said they could and would do it, but even if that happened it would be years before we saw snow duals in the hands of players though that's always the case with their printing schedules.
What if I don't stack my deck correctly when I mull to zero so I can get bazaar of baghdad first draw into double golgari grave-troll, then mulling again would be correct I kid I kid but yeah in vintage dredge if your lone card is narcomoeba on the mull to 1, I'd mull to zero as a narcomoeba in hand is worthless.
In terms of the isochron scepter idea + this, wouldn't you just want to imprint like a desperate ritual under scepter because that's infinite red mana and infinite storm with this out so then you just grapeshot them FTW. Or manamorphose draws your entire deck too since it's mana neutral and it can filter into any color as well.
If you had duals enter the battlefield tapped only when fetched they would be UNPLAYABLE in legacy, as they would be strictly worse then the fetch dual manabases that exist in legacy right now. You also wouldn't see people cut fetchlands for the new duals because fetches give a lot of cards in legacy their power like brainstorm, ponder, top, etc. etc. as well as fetchlands being able to fetch any color of mana in a deck whereas an underground sea in your hand can only tap for UB but not the R you need to cast past in flames, young pyromancer, lightning bolt, etc. etc.
The most simple way to get snow duals through would be to revise the reserved list to include supertype, as such a change would make snow duals with no drawbacks easy as **** to print because snow land is functionally different from land if supertype is included in the functionally identical clause. The best part is that no one can do anything about it lawsuit wise, as the list has been revised many times before with no lawsuits occurring.
I didn't even say the manafixing was bad in lorwyn standard...that was the best manafixing in standard, ever and I highlighted that by saying 5cc played cloudthresher and cryptic command in the same deck despite it being 5 colors.
So mono blue would be the de facto best deck if cryptic was reprinted and the manafixing sucked. Yeah. You sound so narrow minded there, glad you aren't a developer. Not to mention mono blue hasn't been good in basically forever and never will be good again due to creature power creep and mono blue having very little removal options.
MTG finance is always going to be ****ed unless WotC actively tries to do something big like reprinting cards to demand (crazy, I know.) It's an unregulated market, unlike wall street. The only 'regulation' is reprints, and look where those have gotten us. Buyouts still happen on ***** like mishra's bauble because it hasn't been reprinted and there are a bunch of cards like bauble that haven't been reprinted and are present in some modern legal set or they're on the reserved list.
WotC could easily make crappy colorfixing and still sell tons of product, as people ultimately buy packs for the cool new walkers or nifty rares/mythics that are included. It doesn't have to be all good manafixing all the damn time. 2 color decks are almost always possible anyways.
If the manafixing sucks in standard counterspell is already very fair because UU is a restrictive cost if the manafixing sucks, but WotC insists on printing good manafixing every set now because that sells packs. Take cryptic command for example. It was played in FIVE color decks consistently in standard alongside cloudthresher. Yet cryptic command is a fair card because the color requirements are extensive. Take cube for example, it's hard to even take and play cryptic command consistently because your manabase has to be insanely good usually. There are many ways of balancing a card beyond CMC. If WotC designers and developers at WotC can't think of that, that shows that they are bad at their job.
Capsize and rolling thunder were way fair back in tempest limited I heard too. But yeah pestilence can wreak havoc on a limited environment indeed where it's all about the toughness of your biggest versus theirs, and even then you don't auto win as you need the same or higher attack too or else it's attack, you block, activate pestilence until the weaker dude dies and the other lives.
The way that WotC has messed up design wise and it has nothing to do with NWO is to buff creatures to extreme heights while neutering the crap out of removal and countermagic at the same time until only creatures are really playable while the creature kill and such is utter jank. I understand that creature kill and countermagic was vastly superior to creatures, but it is possible to have powerful creatures alongside powerful creature removal and countermagic. It's very possible to make a standard in which counterspell is not overpowered.
Krishnath is correct. Making a snow dual does make it functionally different as it can activate rimescale dragon and such. Also if they couldn't do it without violating the RL, why did MaRo even pose the question in regards to eternal formats if they can't print snow duals when they can, they just haven't done so.
Also, please don't spread fallacies about alpha and beta cards tanking due to reprints. If that was the case why can't I go out and buy alpha shivan dragon, birds of paradise, etc. etc. for like $20 apiece. Sealed boxes like antiquities and beta are never tanking because they are one of the most scarce things in the market. Now revised duals would tank if they printed snow duals, but that's because revised cards are ******* ugly and not collectors items' like beta and alpha.
Uhhhh, did you guys even read the twitter thread? This isn't about snow basics, this is about snow underground sea with the same text everywhere as underground sea except with the supertype snow. Yes, snow duals fix legacys biggest problem because the landbase has always been the most expensive part of a legacy deck. Sure it doesn't 100% fix legacy seeing as how lion's eye diamond is on the reserved list and storm is an archetype in legacy, but it's far, far better than where legacy currently stands in terms of accessibility.
I like the intro deck tezz more than this one. Actually produces card advantage with his + and while his -3 isn't quite agent of bolas ultimate damage output it can still seal a game. Ultimate is good too.
Freyalise in EDH is light years ahead of this tezz. Both + abilities ramp, but her + makes a dude that can block or attack and has more synergy with ultimate. Don't get me started on how valuable disenchant is in EDH where people will run so many busted enchantments and artifacts you won't even have enough time to nuke them all with her -. Her ultimate draws cards/great in a singleton format.
They don't design walkers for EDH because usually walkers are just good enough there, but even this walker I would not run in an artifact themed deck as there are far superior options in terms of synergy and power.
Uhhhhh...thanks for telling me that artifact based planeswalkers do nothing without artifacts in your deck or in play. Anyone who didn't know this likely hasn't played a single game of magic or has super poor reading comprehension as even if I had never played magic I could comprehend that tezz, agent of bolas requires artifacts to do anything.
In competitive REL and above the force of will would go to the graveyard and the card exiled to it would remain exiled as well as losing 1 life. In regular REL I'm not entirely sure if the force of will would stay in the graveyard or not, but I'd lean towards yes it would stay in the graveyard, the card exiled to it would remain exiled, and they would lose 1 life. Lord of atlantis would of course resolve.
The most simple way to get snow duals through would be to revise the reserved list to include supertype, as such a change would make snow duals with no drawbacks easy as **** to print because snow land is functionally different from land if supertype is included in the functionally identical clause. The best part is that no one can do anything about it lawsuit wise, as the list has been revised many times before with no lawsuits occurring.
So mono blue would be the de facto best deck if cryptic was reprinted and the manafixing sucked. Yeah. You sound so narrow minded there, glad you aren't a developer. Not to mention mono blue hasn't been good in basically forever and never will be good again due to creature power creep and mono blue having very little removal options.
MTG finance is always going to be ****ed unless WotC actively tries to do something big like reprinting cards to demand (crazy, I know.) It's an unregulated market, unlike wall street. The only 'regulation' is reprints, and look where those have gotten us. Buyouts still happen on ***** like mishra's bauble because it hasn't been reprinted and there are a bunch of cards like bauble that haven't been reprinted and are present in some modern legal set or they're on the reserved list.
WotC could easily make crappy colorfixing and still sell tons of product, as people ultimately buy packs for the cool new walkers or nifty rares/mythics that are included. It doesn't have to be all good manafixing all the damn time. 2 color decks are almost always possible anyways.
The way that WotC has messed up design wise and it has nothing to do with NWO is to buff creatures to extreme heights while neutering the crap out of removal and countermagic at the same time until only creatures are really playable while the creature kill and such is utter jank. I understand that creature kill and countermagic was vastly superior to creatures, but it is possible to have powerful creatures alongside powerful creature removal and countermagic. It's very possible to make a standard in which counterspell is not overpowered.
Also, please don't spread fallacies about alpha and beta cards tanking due to reprints. If that was the case why can't I go out and buy alpha shivan dragon, birds of paradise, etc. etc. for like $20 apiece. Sealed boxes like antiquities and beta are never tanking because they are one of the most scarce things in the market. Now revised duals would tank if they printed snow duals, but that's because revised cards are ******* ugly and not collectors items' like beta and alpha.
Freyalise in EDH is light years ahead of this tezz. Both + abilities ramp, but her + makes a dude that can block or attack and has more synergy with ultimate. Don't get me started on how valuable disenchant is in EDH where people will run so many busted enchantments and artifacts you won't even have enough time to nuke them all with her -. Her ultimate draws cards/great in a singleton format.
They don't design walkers for EDH because usually walkers are just good enough there, but even this walker I would not run in an artifact themed deck as there are far superior options in terms of synergy and power.