i find it funny that "red mages" whine about blue when the only deck that's been continuously playable and top tier throughout the diferent standard seasons is RDW (Red deck Wins... you know, a mono-red deck).
So i'll whine a bit too since it bugs me that a deck can pull wins out of it's arse just by beeing fast and straighforward.... it can even win against strategies it shouldn't win against if it's lucky enough.
also, look at some of the good cards red is getting (specially considering how red got a good boost out of m12)
Jumping from Lightning Bolt to Shock isn't something I would call a "good" boost. Apart from that, I would have to agree with the rest.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
According to this article, blue is supposed to be slow. Then why does blue specialize in FLASH?! Red should be flash.
Well, it doesn't take but basic knowledge of the game mechanics and color pie to answer that: Blue's main specialisation is counter spells - as in counter-"needs to be instant speed to be anything but silly"-spells.
This leads directly into blue being the color of instants, instant speed and finally flash.
And actually flash is slow in a sense: All the spells that come out immediately during your turn without flash, they come much later during the time you actually need them or certain end steps if they have flash.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I think a few people here have touched upon the "problem" with blue. Blue is typically a deck where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The draw/manipulation spells adds so much flexibility, which in itself is powerful. This flexibility is something the most skilled players utilize to its fullest.
In a vacuum blue cards can look unimpressive, but alongside the right cards and piloted by a skilled player the blue deck becomes a terrifying force. I think this is also why the true power of blue cards often takes a while to discover.
If you made this topic during the Urza's block I would've agreed with you. Blue has historically been the colour that got the most love, but that comes from WotC inexperience.
Nowadays, they're a lot better at spreading the love around all the five colours. In newer formats the colours have been pretty even. Besides, Snapcaster Mage might be a powerful creature, but it's definitely not as strong as Stoneforge Mystic, Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf, all of which are nonblue creatures. Hell, it might not even be as strong as Grim Lavamancer or Goblin Guide.
The set hasn't been fully spoiled yet. I'm sure there'll be some awesome red card in the 264 cards that Innistrad has.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Special thanks to Hakai Studios and SushiOtter for the sig!
Legacy:UR Sneak and Show IUBG Team America IX Metalworker MUD Modern:UBR Blue Jund IWBX Eldrazi Processors IX Affinity IWRG Nacatl Burn IGR Tron IUBR Grishoalbrand
Sounds like you should switch colors if red is so bad. Funny how you complain about artifacts and blue when you have good artifact removal, lightning bolt, 2 of the best 1 drops (guide and lavamancer), good inevitability with koth and shrine of burning rage, and decent tools to beat a lot of decks. Not to mention "fast mana" in red for modern
Red has been a component of a lot of decks in standard right now. RDW, goblins, valakut, vampires, splintertwin, rug/pod, pyromancer and a lesser extend of boros and kred. And lets not forget how bad blue was pre-wwk, when blue had terrible counters and answers to BBE cascade into blightning, and the best blue card vs jund was spreading seas.
Seriously, I'd complain more about the power of white than blue. Timely reinforcements is a beating, hawks, sun titan and gideon and leyline are tough.
My point is magic goes in cycles, and while blue has been good, it hasn't always been the best color during standard, no use in complaining about the ebbs and flows of the game, there are plenty of points when X color sucks and Y color is too good.
For older formats you have a point, before R&D really defined the color identities and blue had most of the cool/interesting abilities (the things that were more or less left over and didn't fit the identities of other colors and knowledge = drawing cards), like stealing things, bouncing, countering spells (and doing so without spending mana), taxing attacking, tapping things, untapping things.
A perfect example of this is the alpha boons and alliances pitch spells where they weren't really understood from a tournament perspective but were "balanced" in design according to the original color identities.
It's ridiculous that blue is considered to be "thought-provoking, wise, and strategic." This is a STRATEGY game, for heaven's sake. If the point of the game is to win, you can't make "win" the flavor of a color. It's ridiculous. Red, on the other hand, has underpowered random effects, which is the exact opposite of anything anyone wants to do in any strategy game.
This is a very good point. Descriptions of blue magic always get my eyebrows raised.
Illusions, wind and wave, mental magic, ok. Gotcha.
Then it goes too far with how intelligent it is and comes off like it's the most sensible choice.
While true, this sure narrows the scope of the game.
The 'slowest color' business is all hogwash, too.
My god, I'm just so sick of it. Artifacts, counterspells, card draw, etc. Blue is the best color in magic, and they keep making it better. You would think that they would know how to balance a game after almost 20 years.
How appropriate that blue has the weakest colors for enemies, the next strongest colors for allies, and the two card types it associates with (artifacts and instants) are the most versatile out there, with the former practically its own color (colorless). The latter is outright superior to sorcery and the difference often makes or breaks a card for competitive play.
Blue has the lion's share of the color pie. Arguing otherwise carries so little weight it's laughable.
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
It's good, it's very good, but it's not that good.
Even if it isn't the best thing ever like I think it is, U only needed 1 more very good card to seal the door on the possibility of not playing the color.
Blue also tends to lack win-cons. It's not like there aren't sphinxes Consecrated is amazing, but blue tends to have very few creatures worth playing. Red has direct damage which is far from being random. Lightning bolt is extremely powerful. Blue can counter it yes, but blue doesn't always have counterspells or even creatures to block, nor does it have mass creature removal. Notice how in modern most of the good decks seem to be zoo or mono-g 12post. Blue in my opinion is the best support color, but not necessarily the best color overall. Look at frost titan. If I remember correctly he saw the least play out of any of the titans.
EDIT: another issue i think is that blue is one of the easier colors to hand more power to without breaking the game. Imagine something like...
Lightning Storm R
Instant
~ deals 4 damage to target creature or player.
Thats the level of upgrade they might consider in blue, but in red that has the potential to destroy the game. With 4 mana you could take out 4/5th's of your opponents life total.
Look at the black summer. That was a meta composed of black. Thats it. It mutilated everything.
I swear I first read it as Wingbonger...something tells me that "As Long as Wingbonger is paired with another creature, both creatures have weed." wouldn't be as good. Seems solid for limited.
I wouldn't say Blue has been the strongest color in Standard. It had the Strongest card (Jace The Mind Sculptor), but I think overall White was the strongest color. Blue was splashed for Jace, Mana Leak, and other such cards, but a lot of the power was certainly white based (Stoneforge Mystic, Gideon Jura, etc.). The Opening Post also ignores the Jund decks from Alara, as well as Kuldoltha Red, Red Deck Wins, and Valakut. Blue gets splashed a lot, but by itself I don't believe Blue is the strongest color.
There are 6 colors in Magic, and only 4 of them have "power".
Thoughs four are in order of most powerful too least
Artifact
Black
Blue
white.
Red and green have historically and almost always been the weakest colors, That is because they are liner, Where Black/blue/white are exponential. Example what can red do with 5 mana maybe 8 damage?? very little, but White/black/blue can wipe the field.
Black is more powerful then blue, Cards like Necro, Bargin,Will,Rit ect are some of the most powerful in the game. Black is the most powerful because its area of expert is utilising extra free resources (your life total, and your graveyard)
Countering isn't a powerful manic its a flexible mechanic, you trade versatility for timing. Its a color about thinking and the best players in the game use their brain, Its NOT hard too play through a counterwall. not hard at all.
Blue isn't bad, it's incredibly boring to fight, but it's beatable. It's not Blue's fault it gets a couple weapons of mass destruction, it's Wizard's. But I've noticed there is something else going on.
I don't think Red has is all that bad, heck, I think it's tied with Green as the second-best color in Standard. I'm actually waiting for the day that Green becomes the most hated color in magic at the rate it's gaining incredible new abilities. The real losers of recent times are Black and White, both these colors have been more or less dependent on splashing to be relevant.
When was the last time Black or White had Standard shaking mono-colored decks? Lorwyn? And I don't think even Black had one then (In a black intensive set like Shadowmoor...). There was a time when both these colors could easily go toe-to-toe with Blue within their own colors. Heck, Black used the be the most format warping color ever before there was a 'color pie', it had every freaking ability in the game!
My opinion on Black nowdays is that Wizards took away Dark Ritual effects and gave them to Red. Even worse, Red doesn't even use those that often. Black needs that to be scary again, it doesn't have to be full blown Rit, just something that can land it a littler further along in it's turns.
White Weenie and Mono White Control are long gone from standard. White is usually too busy swimming in Blue's wake to remain relevant by itself. White has had it bad for a while. it has many abilities but none of them really make it a force to be reckoned with.
I really think these colors have lost their luster over the years in Standard. Their individual card values have not diminished (Squadron Hawk, Stoneforge in White for example), but try to make something competitive with them without splashing. I sense an imbalance in the color pie.
Hopefully Innistrad will work this out.
-----
Complaint #2
What the **** happened to competitive toolbox mid-range in Standard? Blue getting a couple insane cards by accident has had a large hand in enabling the environment to only work in extremes. In order to combat EXTREME Control use you need to use EXTREME Aggro to kill it. Mid-Range just dies in the cross-fire with meta like that.
Blue may very well be more powerful than the other colours in the pie. However, playing a blue-based control or combo deck is significantly more nerve-wracking and difficult than playing a typical aggro strategy. Ever notice that whenever discussing Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, etc, that there is always an accompanying "When is it proper to play this card?" discussion?
For example, Pondering, Preordaining, or Brainstorming isn't always appropriate turn 1, despite the cards being single-mana spells. It's actually, in my opinion and play experience, much more difficult to play reactively as opposed to proactively. Laying threats is not as difficult as determining what to counter/when to draw/what to bounce/etc. (Not that playing aggro strategies or whatever is for simpletons or easy across the board, mind you.) Control players, I think, care more about what the board looks like than the typical aggro player. We have different means to accomplish our goals which involve clearing the board of threats, gaining card advantage, stabilising, etc, whereas most aggro decks just plow through.
I don't think it's fair to say that blue is leagues above the other colours, simply because the most powerful cards in the game aren't always blue. Tarmogoyf is probably the best creature ever printed, for example. But that doesn't make green more powerful than the other colours. Likewise, Garruk Wildspeaker was arguably the best Planeswalker before JTMS. Why? Because he made Jund run. Jund was the most powerful deck in the format when Alara was legal. But I wouldn't have said that green was the most powerful colour.
The point is, the colour pie goes through fluctuations of power and focuses. By the time Innistrad block is complete, will blue be as strong? Maybe not. It's a very black-flavoured block. We may see a rise of mono black sligh strategies and mono black control strategies that trump blue. Remember, blue's strength is very recent. I remember a year ago every control player on this forum complaining about blue's weakness. Now blue has strength and every non-control player is complaining about blue's strength. Wizard's does a very good job at giving players what they want and they do a very good job at balancing things. Unfortunately, not everyone can be satisfied at once.
Card draw shifted from blue-only to blue primary/green secondary already over the last few blocks.
If they finish the shift to green primary/blue secondary it will balance the color pie without changing character of the game, especially since green is currently the weakest of all colors, it's even worse than red.
I believe red is a lot weaker than green. Red practically never gets awesome effects like Snapcaster Mage or Vengevine. You can at least build an amazing mono-green survival of the fittest deck. All red has is either a goblin assault or lightning bolts. That's why it's so pathetic.
There are 15 blue cards that are restricted in vintage (I included Tolarian Academy), but only 2 red cards (Burning Wish and Wheel of Fortune). That should tell everyone something.
Blue dominates eternal formats. Standard not so much. Modern not so much. The color gets weaker every year, excepting Jace, TMS. Remember Jund? Valakut? Caw is more white than anything else. What does blue have post rotation right now? Mana Leak? Maybe Ponder?
First of all, if you don't want to see whining, don't read, don't post, and gtfo of this thread. You've been warned.
It's a forum if you think you won't be corrected, you gtfo. Any who you may begin.
Seriously, all I ever see are good blue cards. It's ridiculous that blue is considered to be "thought-provoking, wise, and strategic." This is a STRATEGY game, for heaven's sake. If the point of the game is to win, you can't make "win" the flavor of a color. It's ridiculous. Red, on the other hand, has underpowered random effects, which is the exact opposite of anything anyone wants to do in any strategy game.
BLue has the most suck cards per color in the game. If you look at the mass. If anything it needs more good cards. Yes I'm aware it's power is amazing but it has alot crap to.
I'm especially pissed because the newest spoiled card is better than everything else that's been spoiled, and I think it'll turn out to be like that for the rest of the set.
Snapcaster Mage - 1U
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Flash
When Snapcaster Mage enters the battlefield, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost.
2/1
Illus. Volkan Baga
According to this article, blue is supposed to be slow. Then why does blue specialize in FLASH?! Red should be flash.
I'm sick and tired of red quick kill. Harumph.
My god, I'm just so sick of it. Artifacts, counterspells, card draw, etc. Blue is the best color in magic, and they keep making it better. You would think that they would know how to balance a game after almost 20 years.
Blue is the worst color in magic. Outside of the dullards who go out and get 1000 dollar decks blues generally annoying at best LOL. Get over yourself.
I'm still waiting for my one mana hard couterspell with no drawback or restriction. Yet that will never come to be because WOTC learned that giving blue so potent tools throws the balance of the game out of whack.
If one color got nothing but it's specialty good stuff like Blue over the course of nearly two decades you get Legacy or Vintage.
It shows how new of a player that the OP is when he/she has no memory of the Black summer, how long Charbelcher was the dominate deck, and what color Natural Order is. Right now the most dominate deck in Legacy may be in U/W, that doesn't make it the best deck, as it has some bad matchups as well. Sure there mat be a popular one in U/W in Standard, but this has not always been the case. Last summer it was all about Valakut. That's a Green deck with a few mountains in it. Before that it was Jund. Before that it was 5CC. There are good cards in every set for every color.
Also, Purge is in White. You can't make a half***ed comment about it being a hate card in U decks when it takes 1W to cast it. This happens every release, Blue get's a decent card, and someone starts crying about it.
Blue dominates eternal formats. Standard not so much. Modern not so much. The color gets weaker every year, excepting Jace, TMS. Remember Jund? Valakut? Caw is more white than anything else. What does blue have post rotation right now? Mana Leak? Maybe Ponder?
This is simply not true, it's only been recently that U has had any decent decks in Legacy. Zoo is by far the most popular and dominant deck in that format. Dredge is also a very powerful deck, and it has what 4 Blue cards if that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy Decks
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
Jace may have dominated the last 2 years but before that it was a RG elf that dominated before that it was a even match between UB faeries and BG elf's.
I cannot remember what dominated the timespiral meta, but I guess goyf had a big part in it. Seems a good give and take between the beatdown metas and controllish metas
Green has least ways to answer opponent's threats of all colors. The only sort of playable monogreen decks are combo. Anyway, both green and red are way weaker than blue and nobody can seriously question that.
this.
Removal in Green is mostly targeting Flying, Artifacts, and Enchantments. Since green has a lesser amount of removal, this does leave it at a severe disadvantage when playing mono-colored. (Mana and land fetching makes it good in multicolor)
As for red being weaker... depends on the player. Red decks tend to be a lot less complicated than other decks to pick up and learn to use, so it seems like it would attract more below par players than other colors. which is actually fine, given that it draws people in, and that if you take the time to learn, there's a bit of skill to playing Red than you would think at first glance. (Targeting, mostly. Do you take out your opponent's creature, or send that bolt to your opponent's face?) Granted, given how Red is, it's also easier to stall out until they run out of gas. However, with it's many burn spells, Red can be fairly effective at control, and is highly useful in a multicolor deck.
Out of the revealed cards so far, only 4 blue cards stand out: The Abomination (13/13 trampler is a nice finisher), the Invisible Man (new sword holder. Down with CawBlade, up with InvisiBlade), Rooftop Storm (Only if Zombies are worth playing though), and Snapcaster (Who i see paving the way for UR to become a powerhouse.)
Let's look at what the other colors get so far:
- White gets a 2/2 for WW with first-strike, vigilance, and protection from 3 now relevant creature types, a new faceless butcher, a very nice card draw engine, and a steel overseer that works for all creatures you control.
- Black... so far has Liliana...
- Red gets an evasive Silth and a couple nice werewolves
- Green has Garruk, a sort of 'Groyf, and also a couple nice werewolves.
But keep in mind that this is so far. As in: We still have about 190 cards left unspoiled. Red or Green still have the chance to have a card that just flat-out wins everything forever (including Irony (:cookie: to whoever gets the reference)), and causes someone to whine about how one of those colors are now the overpowered. Just wait until prerelease at least before making these kinds of posts.
Blue does have access to some of the very most powerful effects, though. Card draw is insane. Stopping people from playing things is insane. With blue, you twist the fundamental rules of the game. Tutoring and recursion do these things, too, but all colours have had tutors and recursion of varying strengths and scopes. Card draw and counterspells have been a bit more limited, particularly good ones.
Tarmogoyf isn't the most powerful creature ever printed, by the way. It's the most efficient muscle ever printed. Sheer power would be won by some combo enabler or a card draw engine like Dark Confidant.
True, blue does access to some of the most powerful effects. But keep in mind, blue doesn't have any of the defining cards such as Counterspell, Force of Will, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Brainstorm, Time Warp/Time Walk, and various other cards that make blue really powerful (In the context of Standard, of course). Nor does blue have any cards that are even close to that powerful, at this point. Mental Misstep and Mana Leak are REALLY GOOD, but they don't equal the power of just Counterspell or just Force of Will, even collectively. Wizards has determined that players don't like having their spells countered, so fewer good counterspells are going to be printed. And after Ponder and Preordain (neither of which are as good as Brainstorm), it doesn't look like blue will ever get anything as good as Brainstorm again. And certainly, players don't like not getting their turn so Time Warp effects probably won't see a lot of print in the future. And furthermore, nobody likes playing against a card as powerful as JTMS, so it's unlikely that blue will ever get a Planeswalker that powerful, ever again.
I wouldn't say that blue is getting an extreme amount of love. I would say it has gotten nerfed a LOT in the past year. Granted, we still have the rest of Innistrad so its really unfair to say that any colour is being neglected or getting too much love anyway. Besides, red players, Stromgard Noble is the nuts.
Also, blue is far outside the days of having really great creatures. There are three blue legends in Standard right now, none of which are even playable. No Teferi or non-Planeswalker Venser to be found here! Which kind of saddens me, lol.
I mean that Tarmogoyf is strongest in the sense that:
A) If a deck plays green, he's in it.
B) If a deck doesn't play green, it plays green for Tarmogoyf
C) By itself (combos and other such things aside), there really aren't any creatures that have as high of a power level, especially for a cost of 1G, I don't think. I could be wrong though.
Jumping from Lightning Bolt to Shock isn't something I would call a "good" boost. Apart from that, I would have to agree with the rest.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Well, it doesn't take but basic knowledge of the game mechanics and color pie to answer that: Blue's main specialisation is counter spells - as in counter-"needs to be instant speed to be anything but silly"-spells.
This leads directly into blue being the color of instants, instant speed and finally flash.
And actually flash is slow in a sense: All the spells that come out immediately during your turn without flash, they come much later during the time you actually need them or certain end steps if they have flash.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
In a vacuum blue cards can look unimpressive, but alongside the right cards and piloted by a skilled player the blue deck becomes a terrifying force. I think this is also why the true power of blue cards often takes a while to discover.
Blue-10
Black-8
White-8
Green-8
Red-6
Nowadays, they're a lot better at spreading the love around all the five colours. In newer formats the colours have been pretty even. Besides, Snapcaster Mage might be a powerful creature, but it's definitely not as strong as Stoneforge Mystic, Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf, all of which are nonblue creatures. Hell, it might not even be as strong as Grim Lavamancer or Goblin Guide.
The set hasn't been fully spoiled yet. I'm sure there'll be some awesome red card in the 264 cards that Innistrad has.
Special thanks to Hakai Studios and SushiOtter for the sig!
Legacy: UR Sneak and Show I UBG Team America I X Metalworker MUD
Modern: UBR Blue Jund I WBX Eldrazi Processors I X Affinity I WRG Nacatl Burn I GR Tron I UBR Grishoalbrand
Red has been a component of a lot of decks in standard right now. RDW, goblins, valakut, vampires, splintertwin, rug/pod, pyromancer and a lesser extend of boros and kred. And lets not forget how bad blue was pre-wwk, when blue had terrible counters and answers to BBE cascade into blightning, and the best blue card vs jund was spreading seas.
Seriously, I'd complain more about the power of white than blue. Timely reinforcements is a beating, hawks, sun titan and gideon and leyline are tough.
My point is magic goes in cycles, and while blue has been good, it hasn't always been the best color during standard, no use in complaining about the ebbs and flows of the game, there are plenty of points when X color sucks and Y color is too good.
For older formats you have a point, before R&D really defined the color identities and blue had most of the cool/interesting abilities (the things that were more or less left over and didn't fit the identities of other colors and knowledge = drawing cards), like stealing things, bouncing, countering spells (and doing so without spending mana), taxing attacking, tapping things, untapping things.
A perfect example of this is the alpha boons and alliances pitch spells where they weren't really understood from a tournament perspective but were "balanced" in design according to the original color identities.
This is a very good point. Descriptions of blue magic always get my eyebrows raised.
Illusions, wind and wave, mental magic, ok. Gotcha.
Then it goes too far with how intelligent it is and comes off like it's the most sensible choice.
While true, this sure narrows the scope of the game.
The 'slowest color' business is all hogwash, too.
How appropriate that blue has the weakest colors for enemies, the next strongest colors for allies, and the two card types it associates with (artifacts and instants) are the most versatile out there, with the former practically its own color (colorless). The latter is outright superior to sorcery and the difference often makes or breaks a card for competitive play.
Blue has the lion's share of the color pie. Arguing otherwise carries so little weight it's laughable.
"OH GOD MY BRAIN IS EXPLOADING AT HOW BAD THE ART IS ON MY OWN CARD"
-A friend's first impression of Ancestral Recall
10/10, I tapped.
Even if it isn't the best thing ever like I think it is, U only needed 1 more very good card to seal the door on the possibility of not playing the color.
EDIT: another issue i think is that blue is one of the easier colors to hand more power to without breaking the game. Imagine something like...
Lightning Storm R
Instant
~ deals 4 damage to target creature or player.
Thats the level of upgrade they might consider in blue, but in red that has the potential to destroy the game. With 4 mana you could take out 4/5th's of your opponents life total.
Look at the black summer. That was a meta composed of black. Thats it. It mutilated everything.
RIP Mike McArtor. The Mothership won't be the same.
Legacy
GG Aggro Elves GG
Thoughs four are in order of most powerful too least
Artifact
Black
Blue
white.
Red and green have historically and almost always been the weakest colors, That is because they are liner, Where Black/blue/white are exponential. Example what can red do with 5 mana maybe 8 damage?? very little, but White/black/blue can wipe the field.
Black is more powerful then blue, Cards like Necro, Bargin,Will,Rit ect are some of the most powerful in the game. Black is the most powerful because its area of expert is utilising extra free resources (your life total, and your graveyard)
Countering isn't a powerful manic its a flexible mechanic, you trade versatility for timing. Its a color about thinking and the best players in the game use their brain, Its NOT hard too play through a counterwall. not hard at all.
but seriously, its not a big deal. stop being butthurt, its a game, and if memory serves RDW has been pretty relevant for a while now. its just good.
blue tends to have great individual cards, red is more about the sum of its parts. tho there are obviously exceptions to both sides.
me personally, i love red/blue decks, but so few are ever any good >.<
Blue isn't bad, it's incredibly boring to fight, but it's beatable. It's not Blue's fault it gets a couple weapons of mass destruction, it's Wizard's. But I've noticed there is something else going on.
I don't think Red has is all that bad, heck, I think it's tied with Green as the second-best color in Standard. I'm actually waiting for the day that Green becomes the most hated color in magic at the rate it's gaining incredible new abilities. The real losers of recent times are Black and White, both these colors have been more or less dependent on splashing to be relevant.
When was the last time Black or White had Standard shaking mono-colored decks? Lorwyn? And I don't think even Black had one then (In a black intensive set like Shadowmoor...). There was a time when both these colors could easily go toe-to-toe with Blue within their own colors. Heck, Black used the be the most format warping color ever before there was a 'color pie', it had every freaking ability in the game!
My opinion on Black nowdays is that Wizards took away Dark Ritual effects and gave them to Red. Even worse, Red doesn't even use those that often. Black needs that to be scary again, it doesn't have to be full blown Rit, just something that can land it a littler further along in it's turns.
White Weenie and Mono White Control are long gone from standard. White is usually too busy swimming in Blue's wake to remain relevant by itself. White has had it bad for a while. it has many abilities but none of them really make it a force to be reckoned with.
I really think these colors have lost their luster over the years in Standard. Their individual card values have not diminished (Squadron Hawk, Stoneforge in White for example), but try to make something competitive with them without splashing. I sense an imbalance in the color pie.
Hopefully Innistrad will work this out.
-----
Complaint #2
What the **** happened to competitive toolbox mid-range in Standard? Blue getting a couple insane cards by accident has had a large hand in enabling the environment to only work in extremes. In order to combat EXTREME Control use you need to use EXTREME Aggro to kill it. Mid-Range just dies in the cross-fire with meta like that.
~"Whatever happens, happens"
---
Blue may very well be more powerful than the other colours in the pie. However, playing a blue-based control or combo deck is significantly more nerve-wracking and difficult than playing a typical aggro strategy. Ever notice that whenever discussing Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, etc, that there is always an accompanying "When is it proper to play this card?" discussion?
For example, Pondering, Preordaining, or Brainstorming isn't always appropriate turn 1, despite the cards being single-mana spells. It's actually, in my opinion and play experience, much more difficult to play reactively as opposed to proactively. Laying threats is not as difficult as determining what to counter/when to draw/what to bounce/etc. (Not that playing aggro strategies or whatever is for simpletons or easy across the board, mind you.) Control players, I think, care more about what the board looks like than the typical aggro player. We have different means to accomplish our goals which involve clearing the board of threats, gaining card advantage, stabilising, etc, whereas most aggro decks just plow through.
I don't think it's fair to say that blue is leagues above the other colours, simply because the most powerful cards in the game aren't always blue. Tarmogoyf is probably the best creature ever printed, for example. But that doesn't make green more powerful than the other colours. Likewise, Garruk Wildspeaker was arguably the best Planeswalker before JTMS. Why? Because he made Jund run. Jund was the most powerful deck in the format when Alara was legal. But I wouldn't have said that green was the most powerful colour.
The point is, the colour pie goes through fluctuations of power and focuses. By the time Innistrad block is complete, will blue be as strong? Maybe not. It's a very black-flavoured block. We may see a rise of mono black sligh strategies and mono black control strategies that trump blue. Remember, blue's strength is very recent. I remember a year ago every control player on this forum complaining about blue's weakness. Now blue has strength and every non-control player is complaining about blue's strength. Wizard's does a very good job at giving players what they want and they do a very good job at balancing things. Unfortunately, not everyone can be satisfied at once.
GBW Nic-Fit GBW
UBRWG Dredge UBRWG
Modern:
R RDW R
UBW Esper Control UBW
EDH:
BG Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord BG
I believe red is a lot weaker than green. Red practically never gets awesome effects like Snapcaster Mage or Vengevine. You can at least build an amazing mono-green survival of the fittest deck. All red has is either a goblin assault or lightning bolts. That's why it's so pathetic.
There are 15 blue cards that are restricted in vintage (I included Tolarian Academy), but only 2 red cards (Burning Wish and Wheel of Fortune). That should tell everyone something.
Then they print cards like Kor Firewalker and Timely Reinforcements so people can choose to beat it whenever they want to.
It's a forum if you think you won't be corrected, you gtfo. Any who you may begin.
BLue has the most suck cards per color in the game. If you look at the mass. If anything it needs more good cards. Yes I'm aware it's power is amazing but it has alot crap to.
I'm sick and tired of red quick kill. Harumph.
Blue is the worst color in magic. Outside of the dullards who go out and get 1000 dollar decks blues generally annoying at best LOL. Get over yourself.
^^.
If one color got nothing but it's specialty good stuff like Blue over the course of nearly two decades you get Legacy or Vintage.
Also, Purge is in White. You can't make a half***ed comment about it being a hate card in U decks when it takes 1W to cast it. This happens every release, Blue get's a decent card, and someone starts crying about it.
This is simply not true, it's only been recently that U has had any decent decks in Legacy. Zoo is by far the most popular and dominant deck in that format. Dredge is also a very powerful deck, and it has what 4 Blue cards if that.
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
I cannot remember what dominated the timespiral meta, but I guess goyf had a big part in it. Seems a good give and take between the beatdown metas and controllish metas
Insert witty phrase here
this.
Removal in Green is mostly targeting Flying, Artifacts, and Enchantments. Since green has a lesser amount of removal, this does leave it at a severe disadvantage when playing mono-colored. (Mana and land fetching makes it good in multicolor)
As for red being weaker... depends on the player. Red decks tend to be a lot less complicated than other decks to pick up and learn to use, so it seems like it would attract more below par players than other colors. which is actually fine, given that it draws people in, and that if you take the time to learn, there's a bit of skill to playing Red than you would think at first glance. (Targeting, mostly. Do you take out your opponent's creature, or send that bolt to your opponent's face?) Granted, given how Red is, it's also easier to stall out until they run out of gas. However, with it's many burn spells, Red can be fairly effective at control, and is highly useful in a multicolor deck.
Out of the revealed cards so far, only 4 blue cards stand out: The Abomination (13/13 trampler is a nice finisher), the Invisible Man (new sword holder. Down with CawBlade, up with InvisiBlade), Rooftop Storm (Only if Zombies are worth playing though), and Snapcaster (Who i see paving the way for UR to become a powerhouse.)
Let's look at what the other colors get so far:
- White gets a 2/2 for WW with first-strike, vigilance, and protection from 3 now relevant creature types, a new faceless butcher, a very nice card draw engine, and a steel overseer that works for all creatures you control.
- Black... so far has Liliana...
- Red gets an evasive Silth and a couple nice werewolves
- Green has Garruk, a sort of 'Groyf, and also a couple nice werewolves.
But keep in mind that this is so far. As in: We still have about 190 cards left unspoiled. Red or Green still have the chance to have a card that just flat-out wins everything forever (including Irony (:cookie: to whoever gets the reference)), and causes someone to whine about how one of those colors are now the overpowered. Just wait until prerelease at least before making these kinds of posts.
True, blue does access to some of the most powerful effects. But keep in mind, blue doesn't have any of the defining cards such as Counterspell, Force of Will, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Brainstorm, Time Warp/Time Walk, and various other cards that make blue really powerful (In the context of Standard, of course). Nor does blue have any cards that are even close to that powerful, at this point. Mental Misstep and Mana Leak are REALLY GOOD, but they don't equal the power of just Counterspell or just Force of Will, even collectively. Wizards has determined that players don't like having their spells countered, so fewer good counterspells are going to be printed. And after Ponder and Preordain (neither of which are as good as Brainstorm), it doesn't look like blue will ever get anything as good as Brainstorm again. And certainly, players don't like not getting their turn so Time Warp effects probably won't see a lot of print in the future. And furthermore, nobody likes playing against a card as powerful as JTMS, so it's unlikely that blue will ever get a Planeswalker that powerful, ever again.
I wouldn't say that blue is getting an extreme amount of love. I would say it has gotten nerfed a LOT in the past year. Granted, we still have the rest of Innistrad so its really unfair to say that any colour is being neglected or getting too much love anyway. Besides, red players, Stromgard Noble is the nuts.
Also, blue is far outside the days of having really great creatures. There are three blue legends in Standard right now, none of which are even playable. No Teferi or non-Planeswalker Venser to be found here! Which kind of saddens me, lol.
I mean that Tarmogoyf is strongest in the sense that:
A) If a deck plays green, he's in it.
B) If a deck doesn't play green, it plays green for Tarmogoyf
C) By itself (combos and other such things aside), there really aren't any creatures that have as high of a power level, especially for a cost of 1G, I don't think. I could be wrong though.
GBW Nic-Fit GBW
UBRWG Dredge UBRWG
Modern:
R RDW R
UBW Esper Control UBW
EDH:
BG Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord BG