This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Off Topic: Coloring Counterspells. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
This is perhaps the worst article I've ever read, and I think I may have actually become actively worse at Magic for having read it. Here's why:
1) Blue does not get removal. Black gets removal, White gets removal, and Red gets removal (and Green is just a terrible color, but even green sometimes gets removal). Blue's removal is in the form of countermagic. You are claiming that every color should get countermagic and every color except blue should get removal. How is that "fair" by any stretch of the imagination?
2) The reason the color pie exists is so that Magic doesn't devolve into Yu-Gi-Oh. In Yu-Gi-Oh, you have cards that are ridiculously expensive because LITERALLY EVERY DECK runs those cards. Not a "dominating" 35% of the field, not even an "absurd" 50% or a "degenerate" 70%. Actually 100% of decks in Yu-Gi-Oh run that card. Is that the game you want to play?
3) Blue control's popularity/power level in recent Standard has nothing to do with the power level of counterspells and everything to do with the failure of Aaron Forsythe as director of R&D. Aaron Forsythe (and Tom LaPille, and most of the rest of R&D, but I'm blaming Aaron in particular because he's the boss) hates linear combo. You know, the types of decks that make Legacy balanced. To analogize, what Forsythe has done is to take the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors and claim that Rock is broken, so Rock is now banned. What happens when you play a game of RPS where you can't choose Rock? You play Scissors and you smash all the people who like playing Paper because "it's fun and different". To bring this back to Magic, the analogy is the "Aggro-Combo-Control" metagame where aggro beats combo, combo beats control, and control beats aggro. If there's no combo, then nothing beats control, so control beats everything. You will notice that all the dominant decks in Standard in the past 5 years (with the exception of Jund since there was literally not a single playable blue card in the format for about 6 months) have been blue-based control decks.
4) Not every color needs to be able to beat everything. This is how deckbuilding strategy works. When you have a single color that can answer every threat, you have no need to play an inconsistent strategy. If you have to play blue countermagic, green creatures, and black removal, all of a sudden you have to play Bayous instead of basics and you open yourself up to getting beaten by Wasteland. It's give-and-take. If you remove the take and leave only give, then you destroy the game balance.
It seems to me like you do not want to play Magic. You seem to want to play Yu-Gi-Oh. If you want to play Yu-Gi-Oh, go play Yu-Gi-Oh. That's what it's there for. I think you will have a lot more fun playing that game, as it seems to contain all the facets you enjoy: The ability to play any deck you want without considering resource management, the ability for any deck to answer any problem, and cards that you actually need to own to be able to play in a tournament without being laughed out of the room.
I agree in part, and disagree in part. I do think the game would benefit from Counter magic - and other interactive spells - being more fairly distributed amongst the colors. But it won't substantially change anything unless another serious overhaul is made. Specifically, tying all counter spells and removal to spell size (see: Smother, Spell Snare, Dead Weight). As it stands right now, Counter magic and removal are the two great mistakes still left in magic design, and R&D is too afraid of the mess they've made to risk trying to clean it up.
Cards like Cancel and Doom Blade are problems for the health of the game, no matter what colors they appear in. But Wizards is afraid not to print them, because they need generic answers to everything to always be present in formats. This is because they are - rightly - afraid they might screw up and print something that's too powerful. When / if that happens, having cheap, generic answers available helps to mitigate the damage, and can keep the format from degenerating.
The problem with cheap, generic answers, however, is that they drive power creep. When you print cards like Doom Blade and Cancel, you set the bar for creature power. Creatures and other spells must be good enough to play despite the existence of these answers. And since these answers only cost 1-3 mana to handle any size threat, that means the creatures they print have to be absurdly efficient in order for anyone to consider playing them.
In a format with Doom Blade and Cancel, Craw Wurm is terrible. In a format with only Shock and Spell Snare, however, Craw Wurm is a beast. The existence of the generic answers closes off huge swaths of design space, and renders 99% of all creatures ever printed completely unplayable. The only way to resolve the issue is to push creatures until they are good enough to play despite the fact that your opponent can remove or counter them for virtually no investment. And that is what Wizards has done.
But now that they've made creatures so efficient, they can't print lackluster answers. It's a vicious cycle, and it's slowly but surely making games shorter, more brutal, and less interactive. Eventually Wizards has to resolve the issue; the only way forward for Magic is to rely on printing balanced cards. They can only keep printing deliberately unbalanced cards in the hopes that they'll serve as a safety net against other unbalanced cards for so long before the power creep becomes completely ridiculous.
I actually like how Magic has built on its roots, regardless of how 'outdated' they may seem.
The way they have spread abilities over the colours is fantastic, and I enjoy the push and pull of colours being dominant over different periods of time. Standard has always been about what Wizards wants to push at that moment in time, and it may be that some colours don't have good answers to certain powerful things. I'm happy to let Wizards be in the driving seat in this matter.
In Legacy however, each colour has answers available to them for pretty much everything, which is comforting. Counterspells everywhere aren't really needed.
Well, I gotta give you props at the very least for not being afraid to make bold claims.
I do agree with you that sharing the counterspell love with other colors (at least in a limited fashion) is a good idea. That was exactly what Wizards was trying to do with Mental Misstep (unfortunately, it didn't work). Where you lost me was your argument that we ought to throw out the color pie. Your argument seems to be that the color pie is unhealthy for Magic because it limits the options available to each color--if we abolish it, each color will theoretically be on an even playing field, resulting in a healthier game.
Here's the problem: In your hypothetical scenario, you refer to each color getting different forms of card drawing. If this is the case, aren't we still using the color pie to determine the frequency/type of mechanics available in each color? I don't see what it could possibly be based on otherwise. The only way you could truly get rid of the color pie is by setting no limits on what is available to each color--but this is clearly an awful idea. At that point there's no reason to pick a particular color over another other than personal taste in card frames. Magic would lose its identity--why bother playing anything other than the approximately 36 best cards in the format plus the mana base to make it work?
@Ertai: your response seems a bit extreme... I'd tone it down a bit. Also magic is not rock-paper-scissors and any attempt to reduce it to control beats aggro beats combo or something similar is such a ridiculous simplification that it is meaningless and does nothing to increase understanding of the game. The first tourney in the new t2 was topped by 2 red aggro decks; this talk of control dominance is overblown. The real issue is any deck archetype such as faeries, jund, caw-blade, or ravfinity where other archetypes are just not competitive to play and when a deck such as those dominates R&D has failed to do their job.
@Meyou: Interesting article; overall I disagree with most of it, namely the abandonment of the color pie (with out it there might as well not even be colors; there's not much arguing this though if you feel there is I'd be happy to elaborate as to why its a color pie or no colors). That being said I agree counter spells should appear in more colors. Not universal counterspells like blue's but counterspells that fit into the flavor of the respective color.
'Counter' as an action in magic is similar to 'destroy'. 'Destroy' is not black's and in the same way 'counter' does not have to be solely blue's. But in the same way blue should not get 'doom blade', black should not get 'cancel'. The key here is to make the counter fit the color it is printed in: white should get counter spells against spells that target permanents it controls, and black can get limited counterspells, or with additional costs (discarding cards, paying life, sacrificing permanents, etc...). There are a number of ways (many more than I alone could come up with) that this could be done if development had the will to implement it and one day, much like we're seeing an increase in finding ways to give green flavorful removal (long overdue), we might see counterspells spread out from the domain of blue.
I have a problem with the article in general, but I can only find a tangible way to argue with something in the conclusion:
Quote from You »
When I sit down to play Magic, I want every color to be able to play control, aggro or combo. I don't want to sit down and be forced to play some Red Deck Wins packed full of silly little aggro guys.
Why do you want every colour to play control, aggro and combo? The fact of the matter is that you can play control, aggro or combo (assuming a vacuum). Why do you want to be able to play every colour as well? Why does it matter what colour the decks are? Why does it matter if you're playing Red Deck Wins or Blue Deck Wins? Mono-black control and mono-green control? If the cards are going to be the same, there's no difference at all.
What I see in this article is you complaining that the colours are limited in what they do. I see someone whose RL favourite colour is green but wants to play control. You're complaining that your green deck can't stop your opponent's Lightning Bolts, or that your burn deck dies to Leyline of Sanctity. But that's the point. They do. If you want your deck to be able to deal with everything, do what was meant to happen - play another colour. Splash into R/W aggro-control so you can Disenchant those Leylines. Go G/U ramp and play Hydroblast.
If every colour does everything, as you seem to want to suggest, there's no point in gold (which I might be biased about because it's my favourite idea ever). In fact, if every colour does everything, there's no point in colours at all. If blue gets a really good counterspell, some decent creature control and a good card draw spell, and white also gets a really good counterspell, some decent creature control and a good card draw spell, what's the difference? Answer: there isn't one. They become the same. They all turn grey.
I know I'm calling to the past, but Magic is a game built on five different colours. That is a fundamental part of Magic, and that's not going to change. I mean, I'm fine with a flavourful counterspell or direct damage or creature removal sneaking its way into other colours. Making it open to everyone is just wrong.
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Part of what makes magic magic is the color pie. Why mess with something that has been working for 2 decades? If every color could do everything, what prevents magic from becoming "bick the best of everything and put it in a deck." That eliminates creativity.
I think the restrictions are bled a bit too much already. What really makes the game interesting and makes deck-building require creativity and careful thought is that you (usually) have to choose carefully between mono-coloured and dual-coloured decks.
For example, if you love green you can still:
play pure mana-ramp into fatties (G)
add in counterspells (UG)
add in spot creature removal (BG, WG and maybe even RG).
add in straight-to-the-face burn (RG)
add in tool-kit removal (spot creature, artifact & enchantment removal; and/or mass destruction) (WG).
play aggro (GW, GB or GR)
play control (GW or GB for removal based control; GU for permission control)
play combo (whatever the top GX combo is)
I much prefer having to consider what'll work from 15 colour combinations (plus whatever three-or-more-colour decks are available at the time) than just working with 5.
Ok, I have used this site for years, and this article has prompted me to finally make an account. While I understand what you're getting at you're looking at it the wrong way.
For the record, I quite enjoyed Planar Chaos the reasons being;
-It makes sense for Red to get trample,
-It makes sense for Blue to be able to interact with lands, (other than cards relying on them being Islands or turning them into Islands)
-It makes sense for Black to have first strike,
-It makes sense for White to (occasionally) have decent counterspells,
-It made all the sense in the world for Black to finally have a kill all creatures effect,
-It made sense for Green to have some card draw
-It made sense for Black to have a lot of extortion effects, Dash hopes is one of my favorite cards ever.
However giving all the colors counterspells, in my opinion, is tantamount to to killing MAGIC. Counterspells and card draw are all blue gets (well, and bounce) if you were to take those away or give them to the other colors you've neutered blue. Blue gets horrible creatures, bad removal, (other than bounce which is still pretty piss poor removal) and its an expensive color in general. to put things in a better context...
Black Red has never had, and will never have a way to deal with enchantments.
The reason for this? If Black Red had answers to enchantments no one would play anything else.
-Black has creature kill,
-Red has direct damage,
-Black has card draw,
-Red has fast, aggressive, and cheap creatures,
-Black has MASSIVE MEAN late game effects,
-Red has acceleration, (Black used too, god I miss Dark Ritual)
-Black has graveyard recursion,
-Black has hand destruction,
-Red used to have land destruction, (and again Black used to have that too, What the hell Wizards?!)
Did I miss anything? THAT'S why Black Red never gets an answer to enchantments.
Its been said once before in this thread but I'll say it again Yu-Gi-Oh! is a lot like that, and as far as I'm concerned Yu-Gi-Oh! is to Magic what Checkers is to Chess. (Or What Command and Conquer is to Starcraft.)
The author of the article should go and read any of the many, many pieces written by Mark Rosewater about the colour pie and why it is central to the game and so important to the ongoing health of Magic.
The essence of it is: restriction breed creativity.
For my two cents, much as blue is the main card drawing colour and green is secondary (compare instant, quality card draw like Jace's Ingenuity with conditional, creature based spells like Hunter's Insight), I think white should have more conditional counters like Lapse of Certainty. White is the most likely colour pie accurate colour for "bad" counter spells.
And the guy who claimed red only got trample in Time Spiral: nope, every colour gets trample -- green at all rarities, the rest at rare and mythic, and only on giant fatties (Demon of Death's Gate, Ludevic's Test Subject, Leviathan, both Akromas).
I can understand and agree with some of your points in your article:
Yes, counterspells should be blended into other colors. And they should allow for more ideas to blend the color pie as to not create degnerate meta games where a green deck plays 4 rounds against control decks and loses every time. But to counter your argument, look to Dismember. There is definitely a limit to what they can do with giving destruction to other colors besides black. As for the color pie, while we look at it from a standpoint as players playing the game, the R&D guys have another aspect of developing magic cards that some of us don't pay attention to:Flavor.
We all like the flavor of some cards, but they have the color pie for not only developing mechanics, but developing those mechanics that fit the flavor or the color they are in. so dismissing the pie is a bad idea. but Your idea about making counterspells in the flavor of the color they are in is something that I want to see from Magic more often.
As a side note; If you really want to put the blame on R&D(or Aron Forsythe specifically), try to put yourself in their shoes. Not only do they not have access to pros like Chapin, Nassif, LSV, Nakamura or anyone on that competitive level, they have a finite time when developing a set. SO, cards like Stoneforge or Mental Misstep(I'll concede Jace, he's freaking nuts) that literally break formats are made in more of a vaccum than we can perceive. I will admit that some times they make mistakes and I won't argue with that, but they don't have the time(and possibly the skill) to look back at blazing shoal when developing inkmoth nexux and see that possibility. They just don't have the time. So try not to bash them too hard for something that they may not be able to realize because they cannot break formats like the pros can.
your suggestion would minimize the point of choosing a color. wizards has been putting their efforts in making that decision matter, as they have written in some articles (one of them explaining why they don't make flame slashes all the time: it plays like a black card).
if what you said was applied, people would go multicolor for redundancy and mono-color for variety. this way, control decks would end up being mono-color, because there would be removal, counterspells, good creatures... and tell me, if a 3-color control can be good, what would be better than a control deck of nowadays only with basics?
I've been playing Magic a long time and can see both sides of this issue, although I tend to be more on the "color pie matters" side.
Each color has something it is known for primarily, so completely throwing it out the window ruins the uniqueness of the colors and makes this, as others have pointed out, a lot like Yu-Gi-Oh. However, I don't have a problem with bleeding the pie a little bit, where it makes sense. Case in point:
Let white have "taxing" counters (Mana Tithe, move Mana Leak to white). This moves white into a realm of allowing opposing players to do something if the opposing player pays a toll for it.
Give black "sacrifice" counters (something like "BB and Pay 2 Life: Counter Target Spell"). This fits into black's idea of sacrificing part of one's self for power.
Red and Green get no counterspells.
The same could go around the pie for other abilities such as removal. Black could have -X/-X removal (Disfigure, Dead Weight) or "destroy creature with power X or less" removal, white gets "destroy target attacking (or defending) creature, red gets damage-based removal and blue can have sorcery-speed "exile" removal; green continues to get screwed.
3) Blue control's popularity/power level in recent Standard has nothing to do with the power level of counterspells and everything to do with the failure of Aaron Forsythe as director of R&D. Aaron Forsythe (and Tom LaPille, and most of the rest of R&D, but I'm blaming Aaron in particular because he's the boss) hates linear combo. You know, the types of decks that make Legacy balanced. To analogize, what Forsythe has done is to take the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors and claim that Rock is broken, so Rock is now banned. What happens when you play a game of RPS where you can't choose Rock? You play Scissors and you smash all the people who like playing Paper because "it's fun and different". To bring this back to Magic, the analogy is the "Aggro-Combo-Control" metagame where aggro beats combo, combo beats control, and control beats aggro. If there's no combo, then nothing beats control, so control beats everything. You will notice that all the dominant decks in Standard in the past 5 years (with the exception of Jund since there was literally not a single playable blue card in the format for about 6 months) have been blue-based control decks.
Judging by the points made here, you do appear to have gotten hilariously bad at magic by reading this article. Some food for thought
A) Comparing Magic to RPS is about as relevant as comparing it to football. The aggro combo control triangle is one of the most simplistic ways to explain a metagame to new players, and other than that should be left to rot and die.
B) What world are you living in that aggro beats combo and combo beats control? Go watch people play Belcher against Goblins and then against Countertop, and see if you still think that aggro beats combo.
C) So you're saying blue based control has dominated for the past five years because there hasn't been, say, a two card combo that kills on turn four with no setup? Or perhaps some deck that only needs to resolve a single creature and attack with it to win? Or perhaps some sort of strange deck that did nothing but play draw spells until it found an enchantment that allowed it to cast all it's spells twice?
D) And lastly, I seem to recall hearing that that Jace, the Mind Sculptor fellow was playable, and Jund appeared to have done well after his printing.
So basically, everything you said was wrong. Except that part about Forsythe being in charge. That was probably right.
Giving each color a counterspells just leads to more annoying problems, as we see in Legacy with Mental Misstep it simply shows that this "reduces" the actual amount of viable decks even further ; to the point were everyone plays the card just to compete.
Counterspells per definition are not really crazy broken ; its just that in the past the mechanics were not made to be "viable" against counterspells.
Counterspell for example was a UU answer to anything that did not cost 1 mana.
Force of Will has actual a drawback and isnt totally stupid strong in controll decks ; however it gets problematic if a beatdown deck can simply have a counterspell without mana.
The "real" drawback of counterspells is actual that you have to keep the mana and "Hope" the opponent does something ; if they do not, you did nothing ; so by this all instant stuff gets more and more important for this type of "draw-go" decks.
To balanace the fact that other colors do not really interact with combos or the stack in general should not be done with counterspells to everyone.
Theirs plenty of design space to work with the game that each color could get.
White has a real nice way to protect itself pro-active against combo, with the Player Protection enchantments that the combo has to deal with in first hand.
Black has nice no mana graveyard removal against any combo that needs the grave ; and pitch removal against creature combos.
For green it should be a fundamental thing that green "should" really be the creature color ; in fact it is not, especially as cycles like Titans totally mess with this, as each color gets the same Titan just with different abilities.
Also the ability to produce mana and more "regrowth" like effects / including Vengevine like come back mechanics help to give green an actual meaning that can compete against counterspells without the need of a stupid interaction like the Primeval Titan (which is a horrible card, as it makes green decks evolve around it for years right now, and this decks are so horrible boring).
Elves and stuff like that are combo decks themself ; and pure green combo decks is something that makes sence in a balance sence, its really : "If you can't interact with them, join them."
The traditional Archetypes exist pretty much in every set:
Mono Colored Archetypes:
Mono Red / Burn
Mono Blue / Draw-Go-Counterspells
Mono Black / Heavy Swamps
Mono White / White Weenies
[Mono Green ? missing !]
This shows a fundamental problem ; green as a mono color only works in very special szenarios , like Onslaught with Elves and as green lacks a real identity itself it more or less requires you to play another color, especially to utilitize its color fixing ability (which gets kinda outclassed if every color has access to multi color lands, fetchlands, dual lands and that things; greens mana fixing should be strong enough that it really gives you something to work with the other colors do not have).
UW
UB
UR
UG
Are viable archetypes ; so blue is very good in working together with other colors , as it has nice card draw and nice early filtering cards, making it a color that works especially well to make your deck more stabilized and less luck.
Since storm and the shift from black mana rituals to red, UR is nearly allways a combo color combination if its really successfull, while this does not mean the UR "controll" isnt working or good aswell, but combo decks are more or less "designed" for this color combination in the last amount of years as the mechanics for combo decks (mana rituals, card filtering) are mainly here.
Broken singel cards will make combo decks in every color, but you should get the point.
In my view, green lacks the most identity, it does not require a way to interact with spells at all ; but then it should at least have a viable way to outrace an opponent with mana ramp and cards that hinder the opponent, if green is the combo color that works with creatures, why not ? That would make more than sence.
Dear Clairval, (You took a debate class at some point didn't you?)
First and foremost, you misunderstand me. I would LOVE it if Black got enchantment removal, Its my color after all, I have to root for it. I was using Black Red as example of how the color pie tries to preserve balance.
I like Dash Hopes specifically because its an extortion effect and because it is so unique.
I think Black does have room for the occasional counterspell but i don't think they should ever be better than Dash Hopes.
I agree with you Hunter's insight is a far better example of Green card draw than Harmonize I just see Harmonize used far more often.
Plague Winds and Mutilate were both great. It just always bothered me that white had the best kill everything spell.
And yes, whites other answer methods are very good, but I wouldn't cry if White got a counterspell (Mind you not a very good one!) every other set or so.
I know Black has had first strike from time to time, I just appreciated the higher frequency it appeared in Planar Chaos.
The Blue land manipulation card I was thinking of was specifically Dreamscape Artist. With themes like perception becomes reality and teleportation central to the "higher mind" trope in Fantasy and Sci-Fi it made sense.
Granted red has always been tramples fall back color, but given Reds general themes I personally would like to see trample on cheaper creatures with lower rarities.
And as for green getting efficient flyers, why not? Greens whole schtick is nature and good creatures. There's a lot of flying things in nature. Plus, lets face it, green isn't exactly the strongest color it couldn't hurt to give it access to some, oh I don't know GOOD CREATURES?
I'm OK with the color pie bleeding a bit around the edges, but I would be very annoyed if wizards printed:
NO!!! RR
Instant
Counter Target Spell.
But so long as black and/or white doesn't get more than one counterspell that the opponent doesn't have a chance to stop every other set or so, I wouldn't be particularly upset, no.
I must respectfully disagree with the thought that "Every color needs to be able to do what every other color does". I'm jumping in late on this forum ( and its my first post ) so I realize that much of what I want to say has already been stated pretty much ad nauseum.
But I would like to add one thing, if I may. I have been playing Magic since I was in high school back in the mid '90s. Two things, I have noticed, have remained absolutely and undeniably consistent with this game since the beginning.
First: The game is inevitably going to change in varying degrees. You bring up some good examples of this in your article when you list all of the "counterspells" that colors other than blue have received over the years. But, how many of those have stuck with the game? How many are utilized at an anywhere near consistent level? And honestly, how many of them were actually EVER useful?
Second: The colors have all maintained their basic philosophy of play, no matter how many little twists and turns may have been thrown into them in moderation through sets. Each color has its own iconoclastic and intrinsic functionality that is based, not only on the cards it was given when it was created and what they did, but also based on the basic understanding that in a fantasy environment some "colors" just simply illicit certain ideas and emotions on an intrinsic level.
Red: Anger, hate, rage, fury, fire, passion
Black: Fear, death, loss, sorrow,
White: Purity, hope, peace,
Green: Growth, Strength, Perseverance,
Blue: Depth, Mystery, Expanse, Curiosity
Each color is what it is and does what it does. There is no reason, at all, to move the game into a direction in which every color does what every other color does. This would lead to the loss of distinction and identity which make Magic what it is.
And I hope nobody is offended. All opinions are respected.
-Richard
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My favorite quote from an opponent who went first,
"God! Are you done with my upkeep yet?"
The original color pie is a simple classification of what each colour can do:
White: Taxing effects, small creatures, enchantment removal
Blue: counterspell, card drawing
Black: creature removal, discard
Red: direct damage, LD, small creatures
Green: fattie, ramp
The problem isn't the color pie; it is that what blue gets is so absurdly more powerful than other colors. Counterspell and card drawing is very important; one is the only defense to powerful sorceries and instants, another keeps you fueled for a long game. Comparatively, the effects of other colors are very conditional (aka sucks) in nature.
well on a personal note Magic was never meant to be played with a 1 color deck.Why do you think commander works so well and is the funnest format in the game(my personal opinion).The topic has its ideas but if your talking about standard format then it won't work.The R@D department has to think about all formats all the time and changing something that does not need to be changed would ruin the game of magic.If you suggest they change magic they should just make a new card game altogether.They do throw a monkey wrench in the mix once in awhile.Its what makes magic fun and very competitive by knowing what color is weak against what if everything becomes the same then magic will lose it edge of being the most competitive card in the world.
well on a personal not magic through the years has not changed because certain cards in the game will never lose there power.Its apparent that whats good in 1 format is not good in another so if you change the way the game is played now you will kill certain formats that depend on old school magic as it is right now you can't change magic for the future if magic has formats that rely on cards from the start like vintage and legacy because if you change magic as a game now these formats would never change and eventually would die due to the lack of change and they are the biggest formats for people that been playing from the start and it keeps them in the game.Its really hard to cater to old and new magic players and I don't think they will change magic at least the way you wrote your article.If they are going to make changes they would be small and happen over time your article does make sense but to rush it would not be a good thing.
A) Comparing Magic to RPS is about as relevant as comparing it to football. The aggro combo control triangle is one of the most simplistic ways to explain a metagame to new players, and other than that should be left to rot and die.
Depends on the topic of discussion. For the purposes of this discussion, I am talking about Standard. That is why I brought up the discussion of R&D; R&D doesn't manage Legacy, they leave Legacy to mostly manage itself. They do micromanage Standard heavily, and in Standard the aggro-combo-control triangle models things quite well.
B) What world are you living in that aggro beats combo and combo beats control? Go watch people play Belcher against Goblins and then against Countertop, and see if you still think that aggro beats combo.
When was the last time Belcher or Countertop was legal in Standard? Oh wait, I forgot, it WASN'T. Nice strawman argument, but I'm not buying.
C) So you're saying blue based control has dominated for the past five years because there hasn't been, say, a two card combo that kills on turn four with no setup? Or perhaps some deck that only needs to resolve a single creature and attack with it to win? Or perhaps some sort of strange deck that did nothing but play draw spells until it found an enchantment that allowed it to cast all it's spells twice?
Basically, yes. None of those things were true until about 6 months ago, and lo and behold, for those 6 months blue-based control didn't dominate the format! Huzzah!
Oh, and because you're obviously going to nitpick with me, yes I do realize Valakut was legal for about a year before that. The problem is that pesky "attacking with it" thing. Turns out control decks don't really let you get around to that part.
D) And lastly, I seem to recall hearing that that Jace, the Mind Sculptor fellow was playable, and Jund appeared to have done well after his printing.
Fine. There was 1 playable blue card in the format. I seem to recall the 56 Island 4X Jace deck was pretty solid.
you make the claim that they have to push the red deck to make it competitive in a combo format that uses enchantments, but R&D will typically instead make a 3rd deck viable, maybe a control deck capable of running cards like annul, or the versatile and main deckable O-Ring that can have a good matchup against the combo but a bad matchup against red. that being said, I feel that i am really upset with ratchet bomb, because unlike powder keg, the card it was based on, IT ANSWERS ENCHANTMENTS. and an even more threatening card that never has seen standard play but i am sure will be in legacy sideboards of RDW is chaos warp. Looking at your list of counters, the only ones that are recent (recent meaning lets say modern format, but i know they are actually further before that) are white, a color R&D talks about bleeding counterspells into, guttural response, a card that is mostly an answer to cryptic command, but a VERY narrow counterspell, lose hope, which was planar chaos (dont even get me started), and avoid fate, which could have functioned even better if it was just "target permanent gains hexproof until end of turn" and not been a "counterspell" at all.
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1) Blue does not get removal. Black gets removal, White gets removal, and Red gets removal (and Green is just a terrible color, but even green sometimes gets removal). Blue's removal is in the form of countermagic. You are claiming that every color should get countermagic and every color except blue should get removal. How is that "fair" by any stretch of the imagination?
2) The reason the color pie exists is so that Magic doesn't devolve into Yu-Gi-Oh. In Yu-Gi-Oh, you have cards that are ridiculously expensive because LITERALLY EVERY DECK runs those cards. Not a "dominating" 35% of the field, not even an "absurd" 50% or a "degenerate" 70%. Actually 100% of decks in Yu-Gi-Oh run that card. Is that the game you want to play?
3) Blue control's popularity/power level in recent Standard has nothing to do with the power level of counterspells and everything to do with the failure of Aaron Forsythe as director of R&D. Aaron Forsythe (and Tom LaPille, and most of the rest of R&D, but I'm blaming Aaron in particular because he's the boss) hates linear combo. You know, the types of decks that make Legacy balanced. To analogize, what Forsythe has done is to take the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors and claim that Rock is broken, so Rock is now banned. What happens when you play a game of RPS where you can't choose Rock? You play Scissors and you smash all the people who like playing Paper because "it's fun and different". To bring this back to Magic, the analogy is the "Aggro-Combo-Control" metagame where aggro beats combo, combo beats control, and control beats aggro. If there's no combo, then nothing beats control, so control beats everything. You will notice that all the dominant decks in Standard in the past 5 years (with the exception of Jund since there was literally not a single playable blue card in the format for about 6 months) have been blue-based control decks.
4) Not every color needs to be able to beat everything. This is how deckbuilding strategy works. When you have a single color that can answer every threat, you have no need to play an inconsistent strategy. If you have to play blue countermagic, green creatures, and black removal, all of a sudden you have to play Bayous instead of basics and you open yourself up to getting beaten by Wasteland. It's give-and-take. If you remove the take and leave only give, then you destroy the game balance.
It seems to me like you do not want to play Magic. You seem to want to play Yu-Gi-Oh. If you want to play Yu-Gi-Oh, go play Yu-Gi-Oh. That's what it's there for. I think you will have a lot more fun playing that game, as it seems to contain all the facets you enjoy: The ability to play any deck you want without considering resource management, the ability for any deck to answer any problem, and cards that you actually need to own to be able to play in a tournament without being laughed out of the room.
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Cards like Cancel and Doom Blade are problems for the health of the game, no matter what colors they appear in. But Wizards is afraid not to print them, because they need generic answers to everything to always be present in formats. This is because they are - rightly - afraid they might screw up and print something that's too powerful. When / if that happens, having cheap, generic answers available helps to mitigate the damage, and can keep the format from degenerating.
The problem with cheap, generic answers, however, is that they drive power creep. When you print cards like Doom Blade and Cancel, you set the bar for creature power. Creatures and other spells must be good enough to play despite the existence of these answers. And since these answers only cost 1-3 mana to handle any size threat, that means the creatures they print have to be absurdly efficient in order for anyone to consider playing them.
In a format with Doom Blade and Cancel, Craw Wurm is terrible. In a format with only Shock and Spell Snare, however, Craw Wurm is a beast. The existence of the generic answers closes off huge swaths of design space, and renders 99% of all creatures ever printed completely unplayable. The only way to resolve the issue is to push creatures until they are good enough to play despite the fact that your opponent can remove or counter them for virtually no investment. And that is what Wizards has done.
But now that they've made creatures so efficient, they can't print lackluster answers. It's a vicious cycle, and it's slowly but surely making games shorter, more brutal, and less interactive. Eventually Wizards has to resolve the issue; the only way forward for Magic is to rely on printing balanced cards. They can only keep printing deliberately unbalanced cards in the hopes that they'll serve as a safety net against other unbalanced cards for so long before the power creep becomes completely ridiculous.
@ Ertai - blue gets bounce.
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
The way they have spread abilities over the colours is fantastic, and I enjoy the push and pull of colours being dominant over different periods of time. Standard has always been about what Wizards wants to push at that moment in time, and it may be that some colours don't have good answers to certain powerful things. I'm happy to let Wizards be in the driving seat in this matter.
In Legacy however, each colour has answers available to them for pretty much everything, which is comforting. Counterspells everywhere aren't really needed.
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Tell that to Primeval Titan.
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I do agree with you that sharing the counterspell love with other colors (at least in a limited fashion) is a good idea. That was exactly what Wizards was trying to do with Mental Misstep (unfortunately, it didn't work). Where you lost me was your argument that we ought to throw out the color pie. Your argument seems to be that the color pie is unhealthy for Magic because it limits the options available to each color--if we abolish it, each color will theoretically be on an even playing field, resulting in a healthier game.
Here's the problem: In your hypothetical scenario, you refer to each color getting different forms of card drawing. If this is the case, aren't we still using the color pie to determine the frequency/type of mechanics available in each color? I don't see what it could possibly be based on otherwise. The only way you could truly get rid of the color pie is by setting no limits on what is available to each color--but this is clearly an awful idea. At that point there's no reason to pick a particular color over another other than personal taste in card frames. Magic would lose its identity--why bother playing anything other than the approximately 36 best cards in the format plus the mana base to make it work?
@Meyou: Interesting article; overall I disagree with most of it, namely the abandonment of the color pie (with out it there might as well not even be colors; there's not much arguing this though if you feel there is I'd be happy to elaborate as to why its a color pie or no colors). That being said I agree counter spells should appear in more colors. Not universal counterspells like blue's but counterspells that fit into the flavor of the respective color.
'Counter' as an action in magic is similar to 'destroy'. 'Destroy' is not black's and in the same way 'counter' does not have to be solely blue's. But in the same way blue should not get 'doom blade', black should not get 'cancel'. The key here is to make the counter fit the color it is printed in: white should get counter spells against spells that target permanents it controls, and black can get limited counterspells, or with additional costs (discarding cards, paying life, sacrificing permanents, etc...). There are a number of ways (many more than I alone could come up with) that this could be done if development had the will to implement it and one day, much like we're seeing an increase in finding ways to give green flavorful removal (long overdue), we might see counterspells spread out from the domain of blue.
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Why do you want every colour to play control, aggro and combo? The fact of the matter is that you can play control, aggro or combo (assuming a vacuum). Why do you want to be able to play every colour as well? Why does it matter what colour the decks are? Why does it matter if you're playing Red Deck Wins or Blue Deck Wins? Mono-black control and mono-green control? If the cards are going to be the same, there's no difference at all.
What I see in this article is you complaining that the colours are limited in what they do. I see someone whose RL favourite colour is green but wants to play control. You're complaining that your green deck can't stop your opponent's Lightning Bolts, or that your burn deck dies to Leyline of Sanctity. But that's the point. They do. If you want your deck to be able to deal with everything, do what was meant to happen - play another colour. Splash into R/W aggro-control so you can Disenchant those Leylines. Go G/U ramp and play Hydroblast.
If every colour does everything, as you seem to want to suggest, there's no point in gold (which I might be biased about because it's my favourite idea ever). In fact, if every colour does everything, there's no point in colours at all. If blue gets a really good counterspell, some decent creature control and a good card draw spell, and white also gets a really good counterspell, some decent creature control and a good card draw spell, what's the difference? Answer: there isn't one. They become the same. They all turn grey.
I know I'm calling to the past, but Magic is a game built on five different colours. That is a fundamental part of Magic, and that's not going to change. I mean, I'm fine with a flavourful counterspell or direct damage or creature removal sneaking its way into other colours. Making it open to everyone is just wrong.
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For example, if you love green you can still:
For the record, I quite enjoyed Planar Chaos the reasons being;
-It makes sense for Red to get trample,
-It makes sense for Blue to be able to interact with lands, (other than cards relying on them being Islands or turning them into Islands)
-It makes sense for Black to have first strike,
-It makes sense for White to (occasionally) have decent counterspells,
-It made all the sense in the world for Black to finally have a kill all creatures effect,
-It made sense for Green to have some card draw
-It made sense for Black to have a lot of extortion effects, Dash hopes is one of my favorite cards ever.
However giving all the colors counterspells, in my opinion, is tantamount to to killing MAGIC. Counterspells and card draw are all blue gets (well, and bounce) if you were to take those away or give them to the other colors you've neutered blue. Blue gets horrible creatures, bad removal, (other than bounce which is still pretty piss poor removal) and its an expensive color in general. to put things in a better context...
Black Red has never had, and will never have a way to deal with enchantments.
The reason for this? If Black Red had answers to enchantments no one would play anything else.
-Black has creature kill,
-Red has direct damage,
-Black has card draw,
-Red has fast, aggressive, and cheap creatures,
-Black has MASSIVE MEAN late game effects,
-Red has acceleration, (Black used too, god I miss Dark Ritual)
-Black has graveyard recursion,
-Black has hand destruction,
-Red used to have land destruction, (and again Black used to have that too, What the hell Wizards?!)
Did I miss anything? THAT'S why Black Red never gets an answer to enchantments.
Its been said once before in this thread but I'll say it again Yu-Gi-Oh! is a lot like that, and as far as I'm concerned Yu-Gi-Oh! is to Magic what Checkers is to Chess. (Or What Command and Conquer is to Starcraft.)
The essence of it is: restriction breed creativity.
For my two cents, much as blue is the main card drawing colour and green is secondary (compare instant, quality card draw like Jace's Ingenuity with conditional, creature based spells like Hunter's Insight), I think white should have more conditional counters like Lapse of Certainty. White is the most likely colour pie accurate colour for "bad" counter spells.
And the guy who claimed red only got trample in Time Spiral: nope, every colour gets trample -- green at all rarities, the rest at rare and mythic, and only on giant fatties (Demon of Death's Gate, Ludevic's Test Subject, Leviathan, both Akromas).
Seriously, go read MaRo's stuff.
Yes, counterspells should be blended into other colors. And they should allow for more ideas to blend the color pie as to not create degnerate meta games where a green deck plays 4 rounds against control decks and loses every time. But to counter your argument, look to Dismember. There is definitely a limit to what they can do with giving destruction to other colors besides black. As for the color pie, while we look at it from a standpoint as players playing the game, the R&D guys have another aspect of developing magic cards that some of us don't pay attention to:Flavor.
We all like the flavor of some cards, but they have the color pie for not only developing mechanics, but developing those mechanics that fit the flavor or the color they are in. so dismissing the pie is a bad idea. but Your idea about making counterspells in the flavor of the color they are in is something that I want to see from Magic more often.
As a side note; If you really want to put the blame on R&D(or Aron Forsythe specifically), try to put yourself in their shoes. Not only do they not have access to pros like Chapin, Nassif, LSV, Nakamura or anyone on that competitive level, they have a finite time when developing a set. SO, cards like Stoneforge or Mental Misstep(I'll concede Jace, he's freaking nuts) that literally break formats are made in more of a vaccum than we can perceive. I will admit that some times they make mistakes and I won't argue with that, but they don't have the time(and possibly the skill) to look back at blazing shoal when developing inkmoth nexux and see that possibility. They just don't have the time. So try not to bash them too hard for something that they may not be able to realize because they cannot break formats like the pros can.
if what you said was applied, people would go multicolor for redundancy and mono-color for variety. this way, control decks would end up being mono-color, because there would be removal, counterspells, good creatures... and tell me, if a 3-color control can be good, what would be better than a control deck of nowadays only with basics?
Each color has something it is known for primarily, so completely throwing it out the window ruins the uniqueness of the colors and makes this, as others have pointed out, a lot like Yu-Gi-Oh. However, I don't have a problem with bleeding the pie a little bit, where it makes sense. Case in point:
Blue can be the only color to have "hard" counters (Counterspell, Cancel, even Spellstutter Sprite).
Let white have "taxing" counters (Mana Tithe, move Mana Leak to white). This moves white into a realm of allowing opposing players to do something if the opposing player pays a toll for it.
Give black "sacrifice" counters (something like "BB and Pay 2 Life: Counter Target Spell"). This fits into black's idea of sacrificing part of one's self for power.
Red and Green get no counterspells.
The same could go around the pie for other abilities such as removal. Black could have -X/-X removal (Disfigure, Dead Weight) or "destroy creature with power X or less" removal, white gets "destroy target attacking (or defending) creature, red gets damage-based removal and blue can have sorcery-speed "exile" removal; green continues to get screwed.
Just some initial thoughts on the matter.
Judging by the points made here, you do appear to have gotten hilariously bad at magic by reading this article. Some food for thought
A) Comparing Magic to RPS is about as relevant as comparing it to football. The aggro combo control triangle is one of the most simplistic ways to explain a metagame to new players, and other than that should be left to rot and die.
B) What world are you living in that aggro beats combo and combo beats control? Go watch people play Belcher against Goblins and then against Countertop, and see if you still think that aggro beats combo.
C) So you're saying blue based control has dominated for the past five years because there hasn't been, say, a two card combo that kills on turn four with no setup? Or perhaps some deck that only needs to resolve a single creature and attack with it to win? Or perhaps some sort of strange deck that did nothing but play draw spells until it found an enchantment that allowed it to cast all it's spells twice?
D) And lastly, I seem to recall hearing that that Jace, the Mind Sculptor fellow was playable, and Jund appeared to have done well after his printing.
So basically, everything you said was wrong. Except that part about Forsythe being in charge. That was probably right.
Counterspells per definition are not really crazy broken ; its just that in the past the mechanics were not made to be "viable" against counterspells.
Counterspell for example was a UU answer to anything that did not cost 1 mana.
Force of Will has actual a drawback and isnt totally stupid strong in controll decks ; however it gets problematic if a beatdown deck can simply have a counterspell without mana.
The "real" drawback of counterspells is actual that you have to keep the mana and "Hope" the opponent does something ; if they do not, you did nothing ; so by this all instant stuff gets more and more important for this type of "draw-go" decks.
To balanace the fact that other colors do not really interact with combos or the stack in general should not be done with counterspells to everyone.
Theirs plenty of design space to work with the game that each color could get.
White has a real nice way to protect itself pro-active against combo, with the Player Protection enchantments that the combo has to deal with in first hand.
Black has nice no mana graveyard removal against any combo that needs the grave ; and pitch removal against creature combos.
For green it should be a fundamental thing that green "should" really be the creature color ; in fact it is not, especially as cycles like Titans totally mess with this, as each color gets the same Titan just with different abilities.
Also the ability to produce mana and more "regrowth" like effects / including Vengevine like come back mechanics help to give green an actual meaning that can compete against counterspells without the need of a stupid interaction like the Primeval Titan (which is a horrible card, as it makes green decks evolve around it for years right now, and this decks are so horrible boring).
Elves and stuff like that are combo decks themself ; and pure green combo decks is something that makes sence in a balance sence, its really : "If you can't interact with them, join them."
The traditional Archetypes exist pretty much in every set:
Mono Colored Archetypes:
Mono Red / Burn
Mono Blue / Draw-Go-Counterspells
Mono Black / Heavy Swamps
Mono White / White Weenies
[Mono Green ? missing !]
This shows a fundamental problem ; green as a mono color only works in very special szenarios , like Onslaught with Elves and as green lacks a real identity itself it more or less requires you to play another color, especially to utilitize its color fixing ability (which gets kinda outclassed if every color has access to multi color lands, fetchlands, dual lands and that things; greens mana fixing should be strong enough that it really gives you something to work with the other colors do not have).
UW
UB
UR
UG
Are viable archetypes ; so blue is very good in working together with other colors , as it has nice card draw and nice early filtering cards, making it a color that works especially well to make your deck more stabilized and less luck.
Since storm and the shift from black mana rituals to red, UR is nearly allways a combo color combination if its really successfull, while this does not mean the UR "controll" isnt working or good aswell, but combo decks are more or less "designed" for this color combination in the last amount of years as the mechanics for combo decks (mana rituals, card filtering) are mainly here.
Broken singel cards will make combo decks in every color, but you should get the point.
In my view, green lacks the most identity, it does not require a way to interact with spells at all ; but then it should at least have a viable way to outrace an opponent with mana ramp and cards that hinder the opponent, if green is the combo color that works with creatures, why not ? That would make more than sence.
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First and foremost, you misunderstand me. I would LOVE it if Black got enchantment removal, Its my color after all, I have to root for it. I was using Black Red as example of how the color pie tries to preserve balance.
I like Dash Hopes specifically because its an extortion effect and because it is so unique.
I think Black does have room for the occasional counterspell but i don't think they should ever be better than Dash Hopes.
I agree with you Hunter's insight is a far better example of Green card draw than Harmonize I just see Harmonize used far more often.
Plague Winds and Mutilate were both great. It just always bothered me that white had the best kill everything spell.
And yes, whites other answer methods are very good, but I wouldn't cry if White got a counterspell (Mind you not a very good one!) every other set or so.
I know Black has had first strike from time to time, I just appreciated the higher frequency it appeared in Planar Chaos.
The Blue land manipulation card I was thinking of was specifically Dreamscape Artist. With themes like perception becomes reality and teleportation central to the "higher mind" trope in Fantasy and Sci-Fi it made sense.
Granted red has always been tramples fall back color, but given Reds general themes I personally would like to see trample on cheaper creatures with lower rarities.
And as for green getting efficient flyers, why not? Greens whole schtick is nature and good creatures. There's a lot of flying things in nature. Plus, lets face it, green isn't exactly the strongest color it couldn't hurt to give it access to some, oh I don't know GOOD CREATURES?
I'm OK with the color pie bleeding a bit around the edges, but I would be very annoyed if wizards printed:
NO!!! RR
Instant
Counter Target Spell.
But so long as black and/or white doesn't get more than one counterspell that the opponent doesn't have a chance to stop every other set or so, I wouldn't be particularly upset, no.
Good debate skills by the way.
But I would like to add one thing, if I may. I have been playing Magic since I was in high school back in the mid '90s. Two things, I have noticed, have remained absolutely and undeniably consistent with this game since the beginning.
First: The game is inevitably going to change in varying degrees. You bring up some good examples of this in your article when you list all of the "counterspells" that colors other than blue have received over the years. But, how many of those have stuck with the game? How many are utilized at an anywhere near consistent level? And honestly, how many of them were actually EVER useful?
Second: The colors have all maintained their basic philosophy of play, no matter how many little twists and turns may have been thrown into them in moderation through sets. Each color has its own iconoclastic and intrinsic functionality that is based, not only on the cards it was given when it was created and what they did, but also based on the basic understanding that in a fantasy environment some "colors" just simply illicit certain ideas and emotions on an intrinsic level.
Red: Anger, hate, rage, fury, fire, passion
Black: Fear, death, loss, sorrow,
White: Purity, hope, peace,
Green: Growth, Strength, Perseverance,
Blue: Depth, Mystery, Expanse, Curiosity
Each color is what it is and does what it does. There is no reason, at all, to move the game into a direction in which every color does what every other color does. This would lead to the loss of distinction and identity which make Magic what it is.
And I hope nobody is offended. All opinions are respected.
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White: Taxing effects, small creatures, enchantment removal
Blue: counterspell, card drawing
Black: creature removal, discard
Red: direct damage, LD, small creatures
Green: fattie, ramp
The problem isn't the color pie; it is that what blue gets is so absurdly more powerful than other colors. Counterspell and card drawing is very important; one is the only defense to powerful sorceries and instants, another keeps you fueled for a long game. Comparatively, the effects of other colors are very conditional (aka sucks) in nature.
Depends on the topic of discussion. For the purposes of this discussion, I am talking about Standard. That is why I brought up the discussion of R&D; R&D doesn't manage Legacy, they leave Legacy to mostly manage itself. They do micromanage Standard heavily, and in Standard the aggro-combo-control triangle models things quite well.
When was the last time Belcher or Countertop was legal in Standard? Oh wait, I forgot, it WASN'T. Nice strawman argument, but I'm not buying.
Basically, yes. None of those things were true until about 6 months ago, and lo and behold, for those 6 months blue-based control didn't dominate the format! Huzzah!
Oh, and because you're obviously going to nitpick with me, yes I do realize Valakut was legal for about a year before that. The problem is that pesky "attacking with it" thing. Turns out control decks don't really let you get around to that part.
Fine. There was 1 playable blue card in the format. I seem to recall the 56 Island 4X Jace deck was pretty solid.
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