I'd love to see the format stabilize to a place where DRS is legal but not format-warping, but I have to agree that banning it is the easiest solution right now.
My problem with banning DRS is its good in other decks. I mean zoo has seen a slight resurgence do in part to DRS. JUND makes the card too good. why not just make jund so its not as good so DRS is not as good?
Are you talking the decks in Legacy or Modern? It seems Jund is pretty good in Legacy and if its mainly the same build that we see in modern, we can expect a ban or two from the modern Jund deck list. If the Legacy card pool cant keep Modern in check, I dont know how anyone can expect the Modern card pool to do it, even if Wotc unbanned all of the cards on the list.
I find it funny that we have a modern port in legacy lol. This was sort of what I was talking about some pages ago, except I didn't even know that a jund deck was running the table. I think the cat may just be outta the bag now.
My biggest concern is that if wotc does weaken jund without making any changes what happens to moderns combo decks? I am not all to sure that control is good enough to compete day in and day out even with jund weakened.
As you may have noticed, many liberals have been attacking the idea of patriotism. They argue that there is no logical reason to support the nation-state and that patriotism is "evil," because it promotes the idea that America is "better" than other countries. I'd like to take a few moments to express my views on the subject and then allow everyone here to voice their opinion as well.
I support America because we are a right-wing country. America is not just a geographical landmass or a cultural group, America is an idea. Freedom, republican government, an armed populace and constitutionalism are at the forefront of this idea. America is the idea that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed and fulfill the American Dream. I support America because I believe in this idea and I'm willing to fight for it if I must. Not every country in the world holds this is why I support the nation-state.
What do you think, is patriotism "evil" and/or "illogical?" And do you believe there is any reason to support the nation-state system?
First things first we where a right wing country. I am more than happy to burst your bubble but we are in fact a moderate country.
Liberals are not attacking the idea of loving our country. I am mostly liberal and I love our country. The problem with Nationalism(what your referring to as patriotism) is the fact that it breeds extremism. As shown by yourself in spades.
As a people we are really no better than any one else. Sure our country is better than Uganda(random country), but we are not better as a people. All people bleed, Most people feel. You can love this country without being a raving lunatic who is so narcissistic you can't see beyond yourself. Your OP could be taken as flaming IMHO and maybe you don't realize that your spouting out hated and ignorance.
though in all seriousness china is opressing the living crap out of Tibet and you dont hear a damn thing about it on the news. Though i dont know if i could consider it a war. But reguardless america is their cash cow. If they declqred war on america then it would actually be a good thing as far as our debt goes. We could just wipe the slate clean. Thou it would mean the end od deficite spending
That's actually a common misconception. China holds some of our national debt (they're the largest non-US holder, actually), but we hold the majority of our own debt. Most of our national debt is money owed by our government to our citizens, basically.
A war with China would wipe out that portion of our debt, but the costs of fighting a war with China would likely add up to far more than our current debt to China.
I know this about the debt portion. I've argued it several times on the debate forum here where some avid republican supporters blamed Obama for giving US's keys to China. So that much you are right.
But if we cut relationships with china those companies getting cheap labor over there would more than likely be expulsed and forced to pay for American workers. This would help the job market. Also the mass array of Chinese products would also no longer be sold in stores. American products would replace them. Someone has to make these products. Its a really good business endeavor. Taxes would have to go up if official war was declared.
Overall it would put our economy in hyperdrive by removing a portion of our national debt, removal of Chinese presence in our markets dismantles the competition, and lastly the products would have to be made here. I suppose a small bit of it would be made in Pakistan...but all of the "made in china" products would now say "Made in U.S.A".
Actually war with china would do nothing but good for our economy. BUT its a pretty devastating war and we can't be stupid enough to think that our military or homeland wouldn't go without some kind of threat.
That is an interesting idea. Unfortunately we also export a decent number of things to china. It is a decent idea though since IMO the biggest problem with our economy ATM is the fact that we are no longer based off of manufacturing like in the past. I am of the opinion that an economy not based primarily on manufacturing is destined to fail.
This would probably make relations with china much worse which would equate to more military presence in the pacific and more counter-intelligence focused on china. which essentially mean more military spending.(Global markets and politics FTW)
I honestly hope that decent size cuts are going to be taken by our military. The amount of spending is just insane, illogical, and unnecessary.
Its a silly worry considering criminals rightly know not every weapon is registered nor every owner licensed.
So you're saying that people, even with the laws we have right now, are not registering weapons they might have?
This wasn't "registered weapons in the house". This w as people who have permits. Tell me, if you know which houses have permits, are you going to worry about stealing from those houses?
Assume you're going to burglarize a house. What's a prime target? The house with nobody in it. If we're talking petty burglary, it's a crime of opportunity. Obviously if you know that you're going to invade someone's home while the family is still inside, you want to invade the home of either the elderly, or the weakest people, in this case gunless homeowners, lets be real. You're invading the house that's empty because Dick and Jane went on vacation. Or when you know Bobby's working the night shift.
But how often does a criminal knowingly enter a house with someone inside? If this is your argument for all citizens should be armed, and not banning guns...I don't think anyone wants guns banned? We just want better regulatory laws and maybe certain restrictions on the laws are citizens are allowed to bare. If everyone has a shotgun, a rifle and a pistol, that's dandy. But I want there weapon to be registered, I want them to receive a thorough background check, and I'd prefer for them to be trained on all aspects of the weapon there wielding. Hell, pistols are inaccurate as is, hence cops unloading half a million shots at assailants during gunfights.
This is pretty much where I am. We need to clean up some of the laws we have now and maybe find some way to instil responsibility in a higher percentage of gun owners. I myself am a responsible gun owner, but I know others who are not. I don't know that many people, thus I can assume that if a decent portion of the people I know aren't quite responsible then it is quite logical that a decent amount of people in general are not as responsible as they should be.
I for one at least want to close the loophole that allows the purchase of firearms without background checks, require a safety license in the same vein as a drivers license, and better define safe storage and the laws that go with it.
Banning certain guns and requiring registration are both policies that could be debated. But IMHO it is hard for anyone to condemn the part that I have in bold. Whether or it not does much good could be debated I guess, but doing nothing is not doing any good so trying the minimalistic approach is the next logical step.
What's more, forum members should be encouraged to experiment with different colorations. James Searles was onto something. I believe it.
It's inevitable, really. Restoration is just as flexible as post-ban Cawblade. And there were seven million different colorations of that thing.
The problem with different color combinations(assuming adding a color or two since the core of the deck can't really be altered without making it a different deck) is you end up making it worse.
Adding in a full fledged 3rd color probably kills your ability to run tec edge/ghost quarters while also making you more susceptible to life loss from your mana base.(which makes your game against aggressive deck much worse)
I could see a slight splash of black for the flashback on lingering souls if you wanted it. Anything other than that hurts consistency and makes you take damage from your lands more than you really should. Its not like you can really afford EBT lands because you have to play things early to get ahead and follow your game plan.
@ path and tec edge in the same deck
I believe your looking at tech edge wrong. Your really not trying to deny mana as much as your trying to slow tron and kill man lands. Sure every once in a while you might be able to punish a greedy mana base, but really that is not the reason to play tec edge or your goal as a deck.
Looking at the deck and after testing it a bit I have came to conclusion that it sits on the line of tempo and disruptive aggro(like jund)
Using WOTCs definitions as follows.
A midrange deck usually starts out at 2-6(not including mana dorks) and is usually pretty aggressive and has a high number of threats vs disruption.
A tempo deck is a deck that runs a varied number of creatures(usually 10-18) combined with bounce, cheap counterspells, removal, and some times cantrips. The basic idea is to play 1-2 threats then protect them with your spells.
A control deck is a deck that tries to win on resource advantage instead of trying to develop the board. Generally speaking a control deck will be at least 20, but more often than not around 30 reactive and utility spells.
A disruptive aggro deck is a deck that uses efficient creatures(usually 16 or less) and couples that with discard, removal, or counterspells. Basically using your discard etc in between playing threats to hinder your opponents game plan enough to win.
In essence this deck is the aggro against combo decks, but the control deck in most other situations in a way similar to tempo decks while it also builds its board presence like disruptive aggro/midrange.
Looking at the deck in general it is quite like delver-less delver. Thus it is more in the vein of midrange/tempo instead of control.
Today I was watching the legacy GP. First match I catch Is a BUGw deck that is 95%(land not inc) modern. That got me thinking if these cards are good enough for pros to play in legacy then they should surely be too good for modern.
The shell of the deck was BOB, GOYF, Thoughtsieze, DRS, and LotV.
That is 20 shared cards with jund. Then I saw a legacy jund deck that was like 30 shared cards. It is obvious that if that shell mentioned above is good enough to take to a legacy GP then it makes since that it is a bit strong for modern. I mean the whole reason reason(supposedly) wotc banned AV was because it was seeing some play in legacy. Seems like a double standard IMO since its blue and people whine and complain about blue for some dumbass reason.
That being said something really needs to be banned out of this shell. I have no qualms with BBE being banned itself because some maybe AV is too good with it and we really need av back.
I don't want DRS banned because it is in fact really good in zoo decks. I recently tested this and it helps give it a slim chance against some of the more harder to handle combo decks in the format. I think banning a creature in this format just because it may be too good in one deck, but fine in others is flawed. Bob and goyf and both sacred cows that wotc will never target.
This leaves us with thoughtseize and LotV.
thoughtseize never seemed too good any time I have played it. Sure it is a great card and a staple/pillar of the format, but it is always a 1 for 1 trade and is never degenerate.
Watching the BUGw legacy deck against a belcher deck honestly showed the power of liliana of the veil. The game went something like t-1 seize, t-2 goyf, turn 3 liliana, turn 4 +1 her again play other dudes and essentially win.
Afterwards Me and my friend threw the decks together guessing the mana base and not worrying about the sideboard. On trice we played the mirror match for probably 20 full matches and I noticed a trend. Who ever played liliana of the veil first ended up winning like 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time it was too late or was answered with a spell pierce.
Maybe it needs more testing and I should do some modern bug list mirror matches to use as comparison. However those legacy test where pretty conclusive.
I know from experience playing control against jund liliana of the veil is damn near impossible to beat. Common answers that are not abrupt decay is just one.(bolt)
If LotV can help shut out legacy combo decks then there is no doubt that it can do so to modern combo decks also. The mirror gave proof that it can shut down controlly decks pretty damn well also.
DRS is a bit too strong in jund, but just strong in other decks. Turn 2 liliana of the veil is one of the strongest plays it can make. Being a 1cmc 1/2 means that DRS dies to every removal spell that sees play in modern. Its just another must kill creature that jund runs. I mean more times than not I prioritize bob and sometimes goyf over DRS when I can't kill them both(or all). OFC this is in the eyes of a control deck and for the most part DRS does nothing to me other than making my snapcasters bad if DRS sits on board. 2 damage a turn is mostly negligible at least for a while. Also often times once the game stalls all of the food is gone from the graveyard and it becomes a 1/2 beater which is far from scary.
TL;DR
After watching and testing some games the basic shell of BUG/Jund is too strong together. DRS is just a creature in the same way that bob is just a creature. Banning DRS and not bob would be a joke. BBE could be banned to guarantee AV is safe from modern, while liliana of the veil is really strong and give jund that edge against many decks. It essentially can function as a soft lock for the board and hand while threatening its ulty which for the most part is GG.
I think we need ONE non-interative combo deck that is hard to interact with.
Pod, Twin, Storm?
pod and twin are fair. Storm should or should not be the only hard to interact with deck.
The reason Jund is dominant is because it has the disruption to mess with these decks. Control in this format is black. (Not judging whether or not that's right.) It has creature removal, disruption and the best card draw.
Jund is dominant because it has disruption with a decent clock. I can pack a control deck with 10 counterspells, and 10 discard spells and still lose 75% of the time to storm and eggs. Without SotM legit control decks don't really have a good way to win at instant speed, or for small amounts of mana at sorcery speed. Also counterspells being bad is a pain in the ass but it is workable. Oh and blue has the best control card draw. Bob is an aggro/midrange card.
Its a resilient combo. It can generally go off with nothing but crank on the board and 6 lands, without being open to creature removal, not even sudden death does a thing. Its not the fastest combo ever, but its not vulnerable. Its not a 3 card win condition, the 2 cards on their own can win if they were all you had and lands. A 3rd card can speed it up, but all it takes is a ghost quarter that you were going to play anyway, or any of the numerous control spells you should have in the shell.
seems both slower and less resilient than scapeshift. For this to be viable it needs to do something better than other combo decks, or be a mixture of different aspects that works well. As far as I can tell this just doesn't do it yet. Also it is super weak to discard.
How is twin a fair combo, in any way? How and why is it more fair than storm? Because it's creature bsed, is that what makes it fair? Genuinely curious here.
Also, I'm in favour of either ponder or preordain being unbanned, preferring preordain of the two.
Fair and unfair have too different meanings as far as magic goes.(not considering the whiners who call any deck they lose to unfair)
The first definition:
An "unfair" deck is one that does not win in the normal ways of building an army and swinging with them(aggro/midrange) or through resource denial(tempo/control)
A fair deck is one that wins in the "normal" ways.
Then you have a fairness or unfairness of "unfair" decks.
A more fair combo(aka "unfair") deck is generally one that can be interacted with WITHOUT using narrow hate cards. Twin is one of the most fair combo decks because it is quite susceptible to common cards such as discard, spot removal, and counterspells.
Now compare it to storm, or eggs. removal does next to or nothing against these decks. Often times a small amount of discard does nothing to these decks because of how much of their deck they see or the built-in graveyard interactions. Often times counterspells do nothing because they can easily reload or work around them with built in synergies.(and the fact that counters are so bad in modern)
That is the difference between "fair" and "unfair" decks and the difference between a "fair" and an "unfair" combo decks.
Remind me again: Why am I playing a deck that's "fair?" Wouldn't I want to have an advantage?
"fair" and "Unfair" have nothing to do with power levels or one deck having some special powers or something like that. A fair deck is not always balanced(jund) and an unfair deck isn't always playable.(like ad naseum combo in modern)
as per my post just above here are the numbers I have found. These are done by a non-partisan group who got numbers from several countries. Not all countries participated, by a vast amount of developed nations did.
Hammer meet nail. Definitely part of the problem. When did we become so self-fulfilling? Where did this all go wrong? When each of us is born. Sad to say that narcissism and even violence are part of human nature. I have 0 ideas for how to curve it. Rationally some things make sense, but like bocephus said once the cat is outta the bag....
This very narcissism is part of the reason we might not be able to fix these problems. It would require us to once again believe we(as a nation and species) are not the center of the universe. It will also take us to forget the "me, myself, and I" stance on everything and think about each and every other member of our society and species.
Other than what is mentioned above Jay13x also had great points about the other parts of violence.
Poverty is one of the biggest factors related to it. Look at the numbers from countries with higher poverty numbers. There is almost a 1 for 1 correlation between being in poverty and becoming violent.
As a country how do we fight poverty? We give each person the chance(and sometimes some help and a push) to succeed. Those that have insane amounts of wealth as well as those who are living comfortably need to help more to fight such issues. Free Higher leaning would go a long way as numbers from other countries show us. Then we need to find some way to make even the lowest paying jobs good enough to live outside of poverty.
We also need to look at why we have poverty. Some poverty will always exist within the disabled and those who are mentally disabled. Basic probability also states that some people will always be poor because those with wealth need someone to benefit from. Its just how the system works.
The single most contributing factor to being poor is being born into poverty. The old saying goes " you need money to make money" is mostly true. There are people who are born poor and end up doing well for themselves, but these are pretty rare. About as rare as those who are born into entitled lives becoming impoverished.
Several other causes of being poor like Jay13x said are tied to drugs and the drug trade. Getting caught with even miniscule amounts of illegal drugs can essentially ruin your life. We have all heard the stories of someone who goes to jail for possession and ends up in a life of violence and crime.
Complete decriminalization and partial legalization of all illicit drugs is a necessary step to helping poverty. As well as better rehabilitative services that are free or cheap enough that anyone could afford them that needed them. There is a free web movie called "Breaking The Taboo" that you can google and watch. It shines a ton of light on drug issues, the failure of the war on drugs, and the social issues and impact they have.
My problem with banning DRS is its good in other decks. I mean zoo has seen a slight resurgence do in part to DRS. JUND makes the card too good. why not just make jund so its not as good so DRS is not as good?
Also Bob > DRS by miles.
I find it funny that we have a modern port in legacy lol. This was sort of what I was talking about some pages ago, except I didn't even know that a jund deck was running the table. I think the cat may just be outta the bag now.
My biggest concern is that if wotc does weaken jund without making any changes what happens to moderns combo decks? I am not all to sure that control is good enough to compete day in and day out even with jund weakened.
First things first we where a right wing country. I am more than happy to burst your bubble but we are in fact a moderate country.
Liberals are not attacking the idea of loving our country. I am mostly liberal and I love our country. The problem with Nationalism(what your referring to as patriotism) is the fact that it breeds extremism. As shown by yourself in spades.
As a people we are really no better than any one else. Sure our country is better than Uganda(random country), but we are not better as a people. All people bleed, Most people feel. You can love this country without being a raving lunatic who is so narcissistic you can't see beyond yourself. Your OP could be taken as flaming IMHO and maybe you don't realize that your spouting out hated and ignorance.
That is an interesting idea. Unfortunately we also export a decent number of things to china. It is a decent idea though since IMO the biggest problem with our economy ATM is the fact that we are no longer based off of manufacturing like in the past. I am of the opinion that an economy not based primarily on manufacturing is destined to fail.
This would probably make relations with china much worse which would equate to more military presence in the pacific and more counter-intelligence focused on china. which essentially mean more military spending.(Global markets and politics FTW)
I honestly hope that decent size cuts are going to be taken by our military. The amount of spending is just insane, illogical, and unnecessary.
This is pretty much where I am. We need to clean up some of the laws we have now and maybe find some way to instil responsibility in a higher percentage of gun owners. I myself am a responsible gun owner, but I know others who are not. I don't know that many people, thus I can assume that if a decent portion of the people I know aren't quite responsible then it is quite logical that a decent amount of people in general are not as responsible as they should be.
I for one at least want to close the loophole that allows the purchase of firearms without background checks, require a safety license in the same vein as a drivers license, and better define safe storage and the laws that go with it.
Banning certain guns and requiring registration are both policies that could be debated. But IMHO it is hard for anyone to condemn the part that I have in bold. Whether or it not does much good could be debated I guess, but doing nothing is not doing any good so trying the minimalistic approach is the next logical step.
The problem with different color combinations(assuming adding a color or two since the core of the deck can't really be altered without making it a different deck) is you end up making it worse.
Adding in a full fledged 3rd color probably kills your ability to run tec edge/ghost quarters while also making you more susceptible to life loss from your mana base.(which makes your game against aggressive deck much worse)
I could see a slight splash of black for the flashback on lingering souls if you wanted it. Anything other than that hurts consistency and makes you take damage from your lands more than you really should. Its not like you can really afford EBT lands because you have to play things early to get ahead and follow your game plan.
@ path and tec edge in the same deck
I believe your looking at tech edge wrong. Your really not trying to deny mana as much as your trying to slow tron and kill man lands. Sure every once in a while you might be able to punish a greedy mana base, but really that is not the reason to play tec edge or your goal as a deck.
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Island
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Marsh Flats
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
~19 CREATURES
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Restoration Angel
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Wall of Omens
2 Blade Splicer
1 Baneslayer Angel
4 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
4 Spell Snare
2 Dismember
2 Cryptic Command
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Celestial Purge
2 Negate
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Rest in Peace
2 Spellskite
3 Stony Silence
2 Supreme Verdict
Deck list for discussion.
Looking at the deck and after testing it a bit I have came to conclusion that it sits on the line of tempo and disruptive aggro(like jund)
Using WOTCs definitions as follows.
A midrange deck usually starts out at 2-6(not including mana dorks) and is usually pretty aggressive and has a high number of threats vs disruption.
A tempo deck is a deck that runs a varied number of creatures(usually 10-18) combined with bounce, cheap counterspells, removal, and some times cantrips. The basic idea is to play 1-2 threats then protect them with your spells.
A control deck is a deck that tries to win on resource advantage instead of trying to develop the board. Generally speaking a control deck will be at least 20, but more often than not around 30 reactive and utility spells.
A disruptive aggro deck is a deck that uses efficient creatures(usually 16 or less) and couples that with discard, removal, or counterspells. Basically using your discard etc in between playing threats to hinder your opponents game plan enough to win.
In essence this deck is the aggro against combo decks, but the control deck in most other situations in a way similar to tempo decks while it also builds its board presence like disruptive aggro/midrange.
Looking at the deck in general it is quite like delver-less delver. Thus it is more in the vein of midrange/tempo instead of control.
Today I was watching the legacy GP. First match I catch Is a BUGw deck that is 95%(land not inc) modern. That got me thinking if these cards are good enough for pros to play in legacy then they should surely be too good for modern.
The shell of the deck was BOB, GOYF, Thoughtsieze, DRS, and LotV.
That is 20 shared cards with jund. Then I saw a legacy jund deck that was like 30 shared cards. It is obvious that if that shell mentioned above is good enough to take to a legacy GP then it makes since that it is a bit strong for modern. I mean the whole reason reason(supposedly) wotc banned AV was because it was seeing some play in legacy. Seems like a double standard IMO since its blue and people whine and complain about blue for some dumbass reason.
That being said something really needs to be banned out of this shell. I have no qualms with BBE being banned itself because some maybe AV is too good with it and we really need av back.
I don't want DRS banned because it is in fact really good in zoo decks. I recently tested this and it helps give it a slim chance against some of the more harder to handle combo decks in the format. I think banning a creature in this format just because it may be too good in one deck, but fine in others is flawed. Bob and goyf and both sacred cows that wotc will never target.
This leaves us with thoughtseize and LotV.
thoughtseize never seemed too good any time I have played it. Sure it is a great card and a staple/pillar of the format, but it is always a 1 for 1 trade and is never degenerate.
Watching the BUGw legacy deck against a belcher deck honestly showed the power of liliana of the veil. The game went something like t-1 seize, t-2 goyf, turn 3 liliana, turn 4 +1 her again play other dudes and essentially win.
Afterwards Me and my friend threw the decks together guessing the mana base and not worrying about the sideboard. On trice we played the mirror match for probably 20 full matches and I noticed a trend. Who ever played liliana of the veil first ended up winning like 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time it was too late or was answered with a spell pierce.
Maybe it needs more testing and I should do some modern bug list mirror matches to use as comparison. However those legacy test where pretty conclusive.
I know from experience playing control against jund liliana of the veil is damn near impossible to beat. Common answers that are not abrupt decay is just one.(bolt)
If LotV can help shut out legacy combo decks then there is no doubt that it can do so to modern combo decks also. The mirror gave proof that it can shut down controlly decks pretty damn well also.
DRS is a bit too strong in jund, but just strong in other decks. Turn 2 liliana of the veil is one of the strongest plays it can make. Being a 1cmc 1/2 means that DRS dies to every removal spell that sees play in modern. Its just another must kill creature that jund runs. I mean more times than not I prioritize bob and sometimes goyf over DRS when I can't kill them both(or all). OFC this is in the eyes of a control deck and for the most part DRS does nothing to me other than making my snapcasters bad if DRS sits on board. 2 damage a turn is mostly negligible at least for a while. Also often times once the game stalls all of the food is gone from the graveyard and it becomes a 1/2 beater which is far from scary.
TL;DR
After watching and testing some games the basic shell of BUG/Jund is too strong together. DRS is just a creature in the same way that bob is just a creature. Banning DRS and not bob would be a joke. BBE could be banned to guarantee AV is safe from modern, while liliana of the veil is really strong and give jund that edge against many decks. It essentially can function as a soft lock for the board and hand while threatening its ulty which for the most part is GG.
Esper charm. Not exactly blue, but yeah. Thirst for knowledge is right on the edge of playablity, and gifts is card draw also.
Again add chrome mox and every card mentioned here just gets better.(especially thirst)
I think we need ONE non-interative combo deck that is hard to interact with.
pod and twin are fair. Storm should or should not be the only hard to interact with deck.
Jund is dominant because it has disruption with a decent clock. I can pack a control deck with 10 counterspells, and 10 discard spells and still lose 75% of the time to storm and eggs. Without SotM legit control decks don't really have a good way to win at instant speed, or for small amounts of mana at sorcery speed. Also counterspells being bad is a pain in the ass but it is workable. Oh and blue has the best control card draw. Bob is an aggro/midrange card.
seems both slower and less resilient than scapeshift. For this to be viable it needs to do something better than other combo decks, or be a mixture of different aspects that works well. As far as I can tell this just doesn't do it yet. Also it is super weak to discard.
Consistency in losing:cool2:
When looking at peoples remarks towards "frogify" it seems that wotcs numbers of new players who started playing over the last few years may be true.
"Oh 1 mana blue removal...elation"
and
"oh look pongify again....disappointment"
Shows the wide gap similar to what wotc says.
maybe the next time we get spoilers we will get something spicy.
Fair and unfair have too different meanings as far as magic goes.(not considering the whiners who call any deck they lose to unfair)
The first definition:
An "unfair" deck is one that does not win in the normal ways of building an army and swinging with them(aggro/midrange) or through resource denial(tempo/control)
A fair deck is one that wins in the "normal" ways.
Then you have a fairness or unfairness of "unfair" decks.
A more fair combo(aka "unfair") deck is generally one that can be interacted with WITHOUT using narrow hate cards. Twin is one of the most fair combo decks because it is quite susceptible to common cards such as discard, spot removal, and counterspells.
Now compare it to storm, or eggs. removal does next to or nothing against these decks. Often times a small amount of discard does nothing to these decks because of how much of their deck they see or the built-in graveyard interactions. Often times counterspells do nothing because they can easily reload or work around them with built in synergies.(and the fact that counters are so bad in modern)
That is the difference between "fair" and "unfair" decks and the difference between a "fair" and an "unfair" combo decks.
"fair" and "Unfair" have nothing to do with power levels or one deck having some special powers or something like that. A fair deck is not always balanced(jund) and an unfair deck isn't always playable.(like ad naseum combo in modern)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/14/schoo-shooting-how-do-u-s-gun-homicides-compare-with-the-rest-of-the-world/
Hammer meet nail. Definitely part of the problem. When did we become so self-fulfilling? Where did this all go wrong? When each of us is born. Sad to say that narcissism and even violence are part of human nature. I have 0 ideas for how to curve it. Rationally some things make sense, but like bocephus said once the cat is outta the bag....
This very narcissism is part of the reason we might not be able to fix these problems. It would require us to once again believe we(as a nation and species) are not the center of the universe. It will also take us to forget the "me, myself, and I" stance on everything and think about each and every other member of our society and species.
Other than what is mentioned above Jay13x also had great points about the other parts of violence.
Poverty is one of the biggest factors related to it. Look at the numbers from countries with higher poverty numbers. There is almost a 1 for 1 correlation between being in poverty and becoming violent.
As a country how do we fight poverty? We give each person the chance(and sometimes some help and a push) to succeed. Those that have insane amounts of wealth as well as those who are living comfortably need to help more to fight such issues. Free Higher leaning would go a long way as numbers from other countries show us. Then we need to find some way to make even the lowest paying jobs good enough to live outside of poverty.
We also need to look at why we have poverty. Some poverty will always exist within the disabled and those who are mentally disabled. Basic probability also states that some people will always be poor because those with wealth need someone to benefit from. Its just how the system works.
The single most contributing factor to being poor is being born into poverty. The old saying goes " you need money to make money" is mostly true. There are people who are born poor and end up doing well for themselves, but these are pretty rare. About as rare as those who are born into entitled lives becoming impoverished.
Several other causes of being poor like Jay13x said are tied to drugs and the drug trade. Getting caught with even miniscule amounts of illegal drugs can essentially ruin your life. We have all heard the stories of someone who goes to jail for possession and ends up in a life of violence and crime.
Complete decriminalization and partial legalization of all illicit drugs is a necessary step to helping poverty. As well as better rehabilitative services that are free or cheap enough that anyone could afford them that needed them. There is a free web movie called "Breaking The Taboo" that you can google and watch. It shines a ton of light on drug issues, the failure of the war on drugs, and the social issues and impact they have.