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.
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.
So you're refuting my argument that blue is the best color because natural order is green? Someone must have forgotten that time walk is blue, ancestral recall is blue, and tinker—the artifact equivalent of natural order that costs one mana less and has no color restrictions—is blue.
And then you go on to say that blue isn't OP because, although the best deck runs primarily blue, that it's not impervious to losses? Be reminded that there is no deck that is impervious to losses. It's called making the slight effort to ban the staples of a deck that dominate the format.
It's not that blue got a great card, it's that blue got a ****ing amazing card that is pretty much guaranteed to join the eternal formats club while black, red, green, and white haven't gotten anything yet.
I think people are overreacting too much. Yes, Snapback Mage is completely fantastic. It is also an invitational card. They are supposed to be amazing.
I'm not arguing whether or not blue is the best color in Magic(it is, by a significant margin).
I"m just saying that Invitational Cards are supposed to be good. This one just happened to be blue.
And I really don't see what the big deal is. This card will most likely be least relevant in Standard(vs. other Constructed formats). And older formats have access to whatever mana they want, so anyone that wants to can simply play this card.
I miss Torment B, when you had exile, card draw, mana accel, graveyard recursion, hand fixing. All for a price, making it hard to play, but ultimately worth the effort.
I hoped ISD would be like that, but we once again give all the control power to U, and all the anti-aggro power to it's little sister W.
We've got the best titan, and Liliana may be good, but for ****'s sake they give us **** like Sorin's Vengeance instead of competent, early game draw and strong utility creatures.
Blue has been the best color in magic since the start but they have clearly been trying harder in the last few years to balance the colors. That being said blue will still get some bomby cards occasionally.
This guy would have been awesome in red since red had Recoup. Red also needs to have some stuff added to its repertoire it has what burn and haste creatures. While blue has card draw, counters, artifact-love, copy effects etc. It seems like every color has several more defining characteristics then red.
My rant is more of a make Red more interesting please then I hate Blue
Why is everyone freaking out over this Mage? Hell, I'm a freaking GREEN mage and I love it! It's easily splashable, at that. All I have to do is run the U/G dual land, and I can run this guy, maybe with a couple of Islands, with 4x Incinerate in my deck, and some recursion. Huh, that's good red.
Oh hey, he works with all of White's really good control, too
Oh and I can put him in G/U, and suddenly Wistful Selkie becomes more relevant, and I can cast my Groundswells twice.
And oh man, this guy in BLACK? That's going to be insane!
Mono blue? ...I guess you could draw some extra cards...or counter an extra spell.
Green and Black, honestly, if they're splashing blue(Which is always a good idea, blue makes a wonderful support color) are going to get a great boost from this guy. White and Red can use it too, very well. Timely Reinforcements just got better, congrats white.
If this is a thread discussing this new card, I say I think he is a very fair card, and that with a lot of good blue rotating out of standard, I'll be happy to see them getting a boost, as long as this is close to the peak of it. Ifthis isn't a discussion about this card, but about Blue as a whole...I think it has taken some time, but I think Wizards is working to try and balance things. Green got Harmonize, Red can cast Deus of Calamity on turn one, White got Oblivion Ring and Timely Reinforcements, red got Koth of the Hammer and green got Terra Stomper.
I don't think the color pie is balanced, but, for all my hatred of how powerful blue is? I can't say it's undefeatable, and I refuse to believe other colors are as weak as everyone makes them out to be. I bet if the people getting Top-8's started focusing on Green decks, we would suddenly start seeing some super intense Green play. It's really just whatever is being focused on at the time, and right now, it appears to be mono-U/UW control.
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Love the card concept. Very interesting, and it makes flashback a lot cooler as a returning mechanic. Dralnu is an awesome Commander, so this just makes me even more excited.
I would have preferred this card in Red, but that's just because I like Red better than Blue. Both colors have gotten "bringing back non-permanent spell cards from your graveyard" effects. I guess Flash is what makes this lean over to Blue more.
Also, anyone claiming that Blue is not the best color or one of the best colors on a regular basis probably lives in Egypt. Alara/Zendikar was an anomaly. Blue only really suffers in limited formats.
I invite you to look at a Legacy or Modern tournament to see how much love other colors have been getting over the past 5 years. Almost every playable non-blue creature has been printed in the past 5 years. There's been creature power creep like none other, yet blue's countermagic has gotten worse and worse since the days of Counterspell and Force of Will. Even 80-90% of all removal played in older formats has been printed in new card frames.
I'm sorry but I just can't see what you're seeing; it screams of JtMS-OP syndrome, which you should've recovered from 3 months ago.
ive been on the haterade train for Blue since Jace was printed and Black got zero playable PWs, but honestly, Blue by itself rarely has the power to win games (except Fish, and except Vintage)
It's just about the only color that always needs other colors to bat cleanup. Yeah sure you can draw forever, counter their best spells, take control of their stuff sometimes, play the same spells over and over, thats all great, but do you win like that? No usually in standard at least, and modern now that bans happened correctly (Cloudpost should really be banned as well but w/e) Blue needs support colors.
Green wins on its own, Red is known for being a solitary color, Black has nearly as many solitary cards as Red, and White does EVERYTHING, so it always has tools and power cards, it only lacks adequate draw.
Blue makes everything else better, but it needs everything else to be good.
Power wise. Blue has more powerful cards over the history of magic than any other color. Balance in white is pretty amazing, as is Cataclysm.
I would say Red and Green have the least most powerful cards over the history of magic, and even that's debatable as I know several well experienced players put white on the lowest peg and give red more credibility than I do.
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
Blue needs all the help it can get as it's behind the other 4 colors in T2 come rotation (*possibly tied w/ green), IMO.
LOLWUT?
Here's a great idea: Don't make claims that a color is going to be good or bad post-rotation until you know all the cards in the set. Before the Mage and Garruk were spoiled, most people were calling the Invisible Man the best card in the set.
Uh... When was this, exactly? I guess Elfball is okay, but mono-Green is much less effective than mono-Blue on average. And mono-Blue ain't even that great outside of Fish.
I was speaking more of just anti-blue. I can play my terra stomper on turn 4, and it can't be countered. an 8/8, uncounterable trampler on turn 4 is...terrible? I'm confused by this.
And...I have to agree, White is definitely getting some Standard love right now~ Timely Reinforcements and Oblivion Ring are awesome!
And everybody got Dismember. We should all hug our copies of Dismember and thank them for giving everybody a great removal spell~
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I was speaking more of just anti-blue. I can play my terra stomper on turn 4, and it can't be countered. an 8/8, uncounterable trampler on turn 4 is...terrible? I'm confused by this.
You pretty much sum up all the anti-blue players with statements like this. Yea Terra Stomper is clearly the nuts. /sarcasm. You obviously are a pretty bad magic player (like most anti-blue players) so instead of Wizards catering to good players they cater to bad players like all you blue haters and whenever a decent blue card is spoiled we get threads like this.
It's a joke honestly. Blue was terrible in Onslaught block (wizards were a joke), awful in Alara and Zendikar, and cannot stand up on its own. If you don't know how to play against blue (aka think as you're playing a strategic card game) instead of whining about it, how about trying to get better?
I'm guessing they didn't make it red because 1RR for an instant 2/1 with lightning bolt would've been too much. Still, red is my fav color and I hope they make a great card like this for red.
Spike - Well, I'm sorry you feel so strongly about me already. And to think, we were just getting to know each other.
I'm also confused as to why you think I'm whining o.o I'm trying to say that, while Blue does exceptionally well, there are answers to it, and Terra Stomper was just a small example. Forgive me for not listing every single card ever that stops Blue.
Actually, that post came off as a bit whiny. You took the latest post, quoted it, and made fun of it, then threw a fit about Blue sucking, but not sucking, and other colors being bad, but not, and how this is a strategy game, but not... I'm not really sure what that post was supposed to mean, sorry ^^; You used a post that was part of my small chain of posts saying that blue wasn't unbeatable, and then tried saying that I was whining about it being unbeatable, and then went on to say that most people who try and beat blue are bad players, and that's why Wizards makes amazing cards for everyone but blue. Right...
You even go on to argue that Blue can't stand on its own(which is false, much of the time), as a counter to me, when I had just said that Blue was a good support color, as I believe blue shines most when it is used to support a different color.
So, if your comments were directed at me, I implore you, go read bak a little instead of just overreacting. If your rather harsh words are towards the entire thread, then I must ask a few things of you:
1- Don't quote me again, or now.
2- Actually read the things you respond to.
3- Try and think like a non-blue mage, and THEN tell everyone who isn't one what a bad player they are.
Thanks~
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Again, was just naming a card that seemed super-anti blue :xd: Those cards named are all more staple than Terra Stomper obviously. It was just a simple example of "Look, this card is made with blue in mind~!" as green seemed to be getting tagged as the "Yeah, stands no chance against blue" color of note haha
Another card specifically tailored to hit Blue in green: Guttural Response
Also a terrible, terrible card to put in a mainboard, but I keep them sideboarded sometimes, just in case.
All I'm really trying t osay is that Blue is, yes, the most powerful card in everything but Standard, usually. But, not unbeatable, and definitely not the best color in standard after rotation. That's just my opinion, though, and we all have different ones based on our experiences.
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It's a joke honestly. Blue was terrible in Onslaught block (wizards were a joke), awful in Alara and Zendikar, and cannot stand up on its own. If you don't know how to play against blue (aka think as you're playing a strategic card game) instead of whining about it, how about trying to get better?
Blue was doing well until Alara Reborn (See: 5 CC, Faeries), and during Onslaught standard Blue made due with its extremely powerful cards from Odyssey block and Mirrodin block.
So yeah, the only time when Blue really was in the pits was Alara/Zendikar Standard, since at that time Blue didn't have any good support from either of the blocks.
You can't rate colors on a block-by-block performance unless you play Block Constructed or Limited.
Blue has been the best color in magic since the start but they have clearly been trying harder in the last few years to balance the colors. That being said blue will still get some bomby cards occasionally.
This guy would have been awesome in red since red had Recoup. Red also needs to have some stuff added to its repertoire it has what burn and haste creatures. While blue has card draw, counters, artifact-love, copy effects etc. It seems like every color has several more defining characteristics then red.
My rant is more of a make Red more interesting please then I hate Blue
Red is really one dimensional. It has some good cards, but really only does 1 thing, deal damage to things and that's not always that exciting. Red seems to get most of the crappy "block mechanic" enchantments, but blue gets it's fair share of them too. It also gets the goofy random overcosted enchantments and sorceries, bangchuckers, weird utility guys like bazaar trader.
I'd have to agree it would be nice to see interesting red stuff that isn't burn or haste X/1s. Stonerain would be nice to have back, REB, or even good 2 drops (really red has some of the worst 2 drops ever). Even better, have red and blue switch roles for a block, they've certainly had stuff like psionic blast, fork, pingers, land denial, bouncers across both red and blue over the years.
There's not really any good "value" cards for red - no fauna shaman, no timely reinforcements, hawks. With that said you can't ignore the good cards like bolt, lavamancer, koth, hero of oxid ridge, goblin guide and shrine or when jund ruled standard.
To OP blame the color pie for red's linear nature.
It's really, really easy to kick blue down a level. Do not put Mana Leak in M13. Do not give blue universal countermagic at 2 mana. Give them Essence Scatter and Negate.
Magic players as a whole like blue more than any other color. Blue is the color of nerds. When blue isn't good, magic players are not happy and they are vocal about it. Were you on these forums back when zendikar was out and the massive number of threads complaining how blue sucks? You don't get that with any other color.
Honestly, I love Psychic Barrier and Negate, I even like Mental Misstep. They're cheap and efficient, but rather conditional. I'd like counterspells to be more like that, or Cancel even.
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It's nice to see wizards expanding on the other color's share of the pie. Green gets (better than most blue) card draw, black gets incremental advantage, red gets rituals, and white gets, well, all the best cards.
I'm glad to see this, and it will go a long way to balancing the game. I do have to agree that red still got the short end of the stick. Burn spell, 2/x for r creature, fireball variant, act of treason variant, maybe a ritual, the core of the block's janky combo deck, and then variants of those. Red almost never gets anything good. I'm so upset to see pyromancer ascension leave standard, as that really was something special for red.
I love Izzet combo decks, so the lack of innovation in red bothers me. As to the op, this card is only as good as what it recurs. That means mana leak and dismember. It's not that over powered in standard. I would compare it to gatekeeper of malakir in standard. In legacy this thing is just maddening.
I think wizards could go along with the whole graveyard as fuel mechanic. Delve, grim lavamancer, and others are a perfect example, and I think this could help make the color a little more interesting. And it fits the pie perfect.
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So you're refuting my argument that blue is the best color because natural order is green? Someone must have forgotten that time walk is blue, ancestral recall is blue, and tinker—the artifact equivalent of natural order that costs one mana less and has no color restrictions—is blue.
And then you go on to say that blue isn't OP because, although the best deck runs primarily blue, that it's not impervious to losses? Be reminded that there is no deck that is impervious to losses. It's called making the slight effort to ban the staples of a deck that dominate the format.
It's not that blue got a great card, it's that blue got a ****ing amazing card that is pretty much guaranteed to join the eternal formats club while black, red, green, and white haven't gotten anything yet.
And I'm the newbie? Laughable.
I'm not arguing whether or not blue is the best color in Magic(it is, by a significant margin).
I"m just saying that Invitational Cards are supposed to be good. This one just happened to be blue.
And I really don't see what the big deal is. This card will most likely be least relevant in Standard(vs. other Constructed formats). And older formats have access to whatever mana they want, so anyone that wants to can simply play this card.
I hoped ISD would be like that, but we once again give all the control power to U, and all the anti-aggro power to it's little sister W.
We've got the best titan, and Liliana may be good, but for ****'s sake they give us **** like Sorin's Vengeance instead of competent, early game draw and strong utility creatures.
This guy would have been awesome in red since red had Recoup. Red also needs to have some stuff added to its repertoire it has what burn and haste creatures. While blue has card draw, counters, artifact-love, copy effects etc. It seems like every color has several more defining characteristics then red.
My rant is more of a make Red more interesting please then I hate Blue
Oh hey, he works with all of White's really good control, too
Oh and I can put him in G/U, and suddenly Wistful Selkie becomes more relevant, and I can cast my Groundswells twice.
And oh man, this guy in BLACK? That's going to be insane!
Mono blue? ...I guess you could draw some extra cards...or counter an extra spell.
Green and Black, honestly, if they're splashing blue(Which is always a good idea, blue makes a wonderful support color) are going to get a great boost from this guy. White and Red can use it too, very well. Timely Reinforcements just got better, congrats white.
If this is a thread discussing this new card, I say I think he is a very fair card, and that with a lot of good blue rotating out of standard, I'll be happy to see them getting a boost, as long as this is close to the peak of it. Ifthis isn't a discussion about this card, but about Blue as a whole...I think it has taken some time, but I think Wizards is working to try and balance things. Green got Harmonize, Red can cast Deus of Calamity on turn one, White got Oblivion Ring and Timely Reinforcements, red got Koth of the Hammer and green got Terra Stomper.
I don't think the color pie is balanced, but, for all my hatred of how powerful blue is? I can't say it's undefeatable, and I refuse to believe other colors are as weak as everyone makes them out to be. I bet if the people getting Top-8's started focusing on Green decks, we would suddenly start seeing some super intense Green play. It's really just whatever is being focused on at the time, and right now, it appears to be mono-U/UW control.
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I would have preferred this card in Red, but that's just because I like Red better than Blue. Both colors have gotten "bringing back non-permanent spell cards from your graveyard" effects. I guess Flash is what makes this lean over to Blue more.
Also, anyone claiming that Blue is not the best color or one of the best colors on a regular basis probably lives in Egypt. Alara/Zendikar was an anomaly. Blue only really suffers in limited formats.
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I'm sorry but I just can't see what you're seeing; it screams of JtMS-OP syndrome, which you should've recovered from 3 months ago.
blue gets good cards. so do other colours.
It's just about the only color that always needs other colors to bat cleanup. Yeah sure you can draw forever, counter their best spells, take control of their stuff sometimes, play the same spells over and over, thats all great, but do you win like that? No usually in standard at least, and modern now that bans happened correctly (Cloudpost should really be banned as well but w/e) Blue needs support colors.
Green wins on its own, Red is known for being a solitary color, Black has nearly as many solitary cards as Red, and White does EVERYTHING, so it always has tools and power cards, it only lacks adequate draw.
Blue makes everything else better, but it needs everything else to be good.
Format wise, blue is not always the best color.
Power wise. Blue has more powerful cards over the history of magic than any other color. Balance in white is pretty amazing, as is Cataclysm.
I would say Red and Green have the least most powerful cards over the history of magic, and even that's debatable as I know several well experienced players put white on the lowest peg and give red more credibility than I do.
P.S. Terra Stomper is terrible.
White is the color getting absolutely insane love right now in T2.
LOLWUT?
Here's a great idea: Don't make claims that a color is going to be good or bad post-rotation until you know all the cards in the set. Before the Mage and Garruk were spoiled, most people were calling the Invisible Man the best card in the set.
Uh... When was this, exactly? I guess Elfball is okay, but mono-Green is much less effective than mono-Blue on average. And mono-Blue ain't even that great outside of Fish.
Thanks to Syndarion of Aeternal Studios for my sig!
And...I have to agree, White is definitely getting some Standard love right now~ Timely Reinforcements and Oblivion Ring are awesome!
And everybody got Dismember. We should all hug our copies of Dismember and thank them for giving everybody a great removal spell~
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If OP thinks blue is so powerful, then he should be playing blue.
You pretty much sum up all the anti-blue players with statements like this. Yea Terra Stomper is clearly the nuts. /sarcasm. You obviously are a pretty bad magic player (like most anti-blue players) so instead of Wizards catering to good players they cater to bad players like all you blue haters and whenever a decent blue card is spoiled we get threads like this.
It's a joke honestly. Blue was terrible in Onslaught block (wizards were a joke), awful in Alara and Zendikar, and cannot stand up on its own. If you don't know how to play against blue (aka think as you're playing a strategic card game) instead of whining about it, how about trying to get better?
I'm also confused as to why you think I'm whining o.o I'm trying to say that, while Blue does exceptionally well, there are answers to it, and Terra Stomper was just a small example. Forgive me for not listing every single card ever that stops Blue.
Actually, that post came off as a bit whiny. You took the latest post, quoted it, and made fun of it, then threw a fit about Blue sucking, but not sucking, and other colors being bad, but not, and how this is a strategy game, but not... I'm not really sure what that post was supposed to mean, sorry ^^; You used a post that was part of my small chain of posts saying that blue wasn't unbeatable, and then tried saying that I was whining about it being unbeatable, and then went on to say that most people who try and beat blue are bad players, and that's why Wizards makes amazing cards for everyone but blue. Right...
You even go on to argue that Blue can't stand on its own(which is false, much of the time), as a counter to me, when I had just said that Blue was a good support color, as I believe blue shines most when it is used to support a different color.
So, if your comments were directed at me, I implore you, go read bak a little instead of just overreacting. If your rather harsh words are towards the entire thread, then I must ask a few things of you:
1- Don't quote me again, or now.
2- Actually read the things you respond to.
3- Try and think like a non-blue mage, and THEN tell everyone who isn't one what a bad player they are.
Thanks~
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Another card specifically tailored to hit Blue in green: Guttural Response
Also a terrible, terrible card to put in a mainboard, but I keep them sideboarded sometimes, just in case.
All I'm really trying t osay is that Blue is, yes, the most powerful card in everything but Standard, usually. But, not unbeatable, and definitely not the best color in standard after rotation. That's just my opinion, though, and we all have different ones based on our experiences.
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Because this card is awesome, and I want 4.
Blue was doing well until Alara Reborn (See: 5 CC, Faeries), and during Onslaught standard Blue made due with its extremely powerful cards from Odyssey block and Mirrodin block.
So yeah, the only time when Blue really was in the pits was Alara/Zendikar Standard, since at that time Blue didn't have any good support from either of the blocks.
You can't rate colors on a block-by-block performance unless you play Block Constructed or Limited.
Thanks to Syndarion of Aeternal Studios for my sig!
Red is really one dimensional. It has some good cards, but really only does 1 thing, deal damage to things and that's not always that exciting. Red seems to get most of the crappy "block mechanic" enchantments, but blue gets it's fair share of them too. It also gets the goofy random overcosted enchantments and sorceries, bangchuckers, weird utility guys like bazaar trader.
I'd have to agree it would be nice to see interesting red stuff that isn't burn or haste X/1s. Stonerain would be nice to have back, REB, or even good 2 drops (really red has some of the worst 2 drops ever). Even better, have red and blue switch roles for a block, they've certainly had stuff like psionic blast, fork, pingers, land denial, bouncers across both red and blue over the years.
There's not really any good "value" cards for red - no fauna shaman, no timely reinforcements, hawks. With that said you can't ignore the good cards like bolt, lavamancer, koth, hero of oxid ridge, goblin guide and shrine or when jund ruled standard.
To OP blame the color pie for red's linear nature.
Magic players as a whole like blue more than any other color. Blue is the color of nerds. When blue isn't good, magic players are not happy and they are vocal about it. Were you on these forums back when zendikar was out and the massive number of threads complaining how blue sucks? You don't get that with any other color.
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I'm glad to see this, and it will go a long way to balancing the game. I do have to agree that red still got the short end of the stick. Burn spell, 2/x for r creature, fireball variant, act of treason variant, maybe a ritual, the core of the block's janky combo deck, and then variants of those. Red almost never gets anything good. I'm so upset to see pyromancer ascension leave standard, as that really was something special for red.
I love Izzet combo decks, so the lack of innovation in red bothers me. As to the op, this card is only as good as what it recurs. That means mana leak and dismember. It's not that over powered in standard. I would compare it to gatekeeper of malakir in standard. In legacy this thing is just maddening.
I think wizards could go along with the whole graveyard as fuel mechanic. Delve, grim lavamancer, and others are a perfect example, and I think this could help make the color a little more interesting. And it fits the pie perfect.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
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