Crazy news. TSG had by far the best on-screen personality at CB and made a lot of unwatchable content somewhat bearable. Their videos will take a significant hit in quality but what can be done.
Good to see Tom Martell getting a larger role, but this was not the best way for that to happen...
Ya I don't agree at all. LSV was the good part of the Mashi/LSV magic TV, and the good part of the pairing with TSG. Any of the pros on the site did better MTGO event videos.
The guy gave me the corporate shill-speak heebie-jeebies. TSG, Mashi and Evan Erwin are all cut from the same untrustworthy, un-enjoyable, useless cloth.
I'm happy to see this one gone for good. Two to go.
dragon seems interesting in a tibalt control/counterburn deck, draw it late and just keep it in your hand till tibalt or ravings dumps it, draw it early and it punishes aggression. Might not be good enough but it's worth testing I think.
Ya I don't get this guy, why does blue need more aggro? Isn't a key problem with the state of color balance that blue has both good aggro and the best control cards? The most problematic archetypes in constructed have been for some time now the blue based tempo decks. Their existence stifles out far too many other archetypes and forces the meta to meta relative to their dominance. I do not want to see these kinds of cards around anymore for blue.
Well since we had the other thread locked for straying off point, I'm starting another to continue the point we obviously really wanted to talk about: What is the proper role of countermagic in Standard? Do you think there should at all times be a tier one deck that includes a universal counterspell like Mana Leak or do you think it's undesirable to ever have that be the state of standard or something in between? Should countermagic be relatively narrow, 3cmc or over if it's universal or perhaps attached to powerful effects that make t meatier but less flexible?
Theres also nothing wrong with control not relying on counterspells. people don't like them, they are not needed to have the game be intelligent and strategic(I argue they produce the opposite effect), Wizards agrees with me, IE people who want counterspell backed blue control to be teir one lose the argument and the march of history. There will be plenty of metagame viable countermagic and situational countermagic,your color won't lose it's flavor. You will have to adapt to change however, but since you're all such good tourny players I expect you'll be just fine.
People arguing against counterspells are NOT arguing from the side of aggro and prime time, stop using it as the backbone of your argument to make your point.
I enjoy a good argument but that wasn't a good argument. That actually managed to irk the hell out of me. At least when I argue with the usual people I argue with on here I can be proven wrong from time-to-time. Gah.
I'm really starting to think that people who are like him hate blue because they're awful players who make play mistakes and build bad decks and nothing punishes you for bad deck design and bad decisions like a counter spell.
Sure, your argument style is all class lol, "Anyone who disagrees with me it's because they're bad at magic!"
There are few metagames where playing the best counterspells punishes you by more than 40:60 win loss ratio (assuming you DONT suck at magic), Building the aggro deck will give you similar results fairly often. You actually have to know what you're doing to build a midrangy synergy toolbox deck without counterspells and not get destroyed. Sometimes you can make it work for an event and you'll actually be favored for that moment in the metagame. Once that midrangy synergy deck is known however the aggro and counter control decks hate it out of existence and continue to drudge along, continuing not to punish people much for netdecking last weeks winners and hardly having to test and think critically since it's essentially the same shell you used last month, last year, 5 years ago...
Oh, boy, you got me. Guess I'm not the guy saying Delver is the biggest color pie mistake of all time and SCM should have been printed for eternal use only.
Oh wait, I am that guy.
You can stop arguing with me right now since you've clearly quit and resorted to blue hating bias again.
Sure, its not a problem with the color over it's entire history just a few recent mistakes, other than those, it's been perfectly respectable. I'd love to hear your stance on police brutality... lol
Oh, sure, sure, man. You're totally right. Let's all play with Grizzly Bears and Grey Ogre. Let's go back to that. No one wants to play with that garbage. Powerful stand alone cards make magic interesting and what a lot of people would consider fun. It's entitled wimpy cry babies who complain about stone rain, mana leak and thoughtseize because they stop their stupid as hell johnny mid range strategies from functionally properly.
If Prime time were good in blue decks you'd be defending it up the wizoo, no point talking to you about it, you might as well be a fundamentalist defending their religion.
You don't want equality of power. You want blue watered down because of Geist of Saint Traft, SCM, Delver and Mana Leak apparently while not saying anything about green having Prime Time and other amazing cards like Huntmaster, Zenith, Strangleroot and Beast Within while White has Geist AND Lingering Freaking Soul's, which sees Legacy play. Not to mention bullcrap overpowered as hell eternal staple Equipments.
There will never be equality in standard. There will never be a perfect balance. Get. Over. It. All of you. The card pool is too small and profit margins are too important.
If you were paying attention to things I've actually said you'd have noticed that one of the things is that OVERPOWERED STANDALONE CARDS ARE NOT GOOD FOR THE GAME. (Though I see no problem with strangleroot or beast within, as far as I know neither have been great but briefly)
you can play ghost quarter with Aven Mindcensor, Suppression Field and Leonin Arbiter, I've had some success with that approach to hatebears, that was the closest thing i could find to budget viability in the format though and when I ran the deck I had wasteland in it as well so...
I just hope the absurd blue creatures lately were a way to soften the blow to blue players that counterspells were being phased out of maindeckability, give them delver and geist and snapcaster, then take those away as "mistakes".
A tempo deck sticks threats early and slows down the opponent in order to win before card advantage becomes an issue, it usually involves bounce and counterspells and some of the best 1-3 mana creatures a format has to offer, and does not rely on swarming the opponent so much as winning with a few good threats backed up by stall effects (see UG madness from odyssey block).
In an aggro dominated standard, like the one we have now, Remove Soul is just as good as Leak, even better as it's a hard counter unless CoS is in play.
There is a remove soul in Standard, it's called Psychic Barrier but then i's appropriately costed at UU and only hitting creatures is a big fail, mana leak in delver is infinitely better since it works against anything in the early game, not just opp's creatures, when delver plays vs control (which ramp is essentially) psychic barrier won't cut crud for mustard, it would even be annoying for them to cast.
Ya I don't agree at all. LSV was the good part of the Mashi/LSV magic TV, and the good part of the pairing with TSG. Any of the pros on the site did better MTGO event videos.
The guy gave me the corporate shill-speak heebie-jeebies. TSG, Mashi and Evan Erwin are all cut from the same untrustworthy, un-enjoyable, useless cloth.
I'm happy to see this one gone for good. Two to go.
If people don't complain problems don't get fixed. Way to wave the status quo go flag though.
People arguing against counterspells are NOT arguing from the side of aggro and prime time, stop using it as the backbone of your argument to make your point.
Sure, your argument style is all class lol, "Anyone who disagrees with me it's because they're bad at magic!"
There are few metagames where playing the best counterspells punishes you by more than 40:60 win loss ratio (assuming you DONT suck at magic), Building the aggro deck will give you similar results fairly often. You actually have to know what you're doing to build a midrangy synergy toolbox deck without counterspells and not get destroyed. Sometimes you can make it work for an event and you'll actually be favored for that moment in the metagame. Once that midrangy synergy deck is known however the aggro and counter control decks hate it out of existence and continue to drudge along, continuing not to punish people much for netdecking last weeks winners and hardly having to test and think critically since it's essentially the same shell you used last month, last year, 5 years ago...
Sure, its not a problem with the color over it's entire history just a few recent mistakes, other than those, it's been perfectly respectable. I'd love to hear your stance on police brutality... lol
If Prime time were good in blue decks you'd be defending it up the wizoo, no point talking to you about it, you might as well be a fundamentalist defending their religion.
If you were paying attention to things I've actually said you'd have noticed that one of the things is that OVERPOWERED STANDALONE CARDS ARE NOT GOOD FOR THE GAME. (Though I see no problem with strangleroot or beast within, as far as I know neither have been great but briefly)
Wanting equality of power is not bias, but opposing it is...
There is a remove soul in Standard, it's called Psychic Barrier but then i's appropriately costed at UU and only hitting creatures is a big fail, mana leak in delver is infinitely better since it works against anything in the early game, not just opp's creatures, when delver plays vs control (which ramp is essentially) psychic barrier won't cut crud for mustard, it would even be annoying for them to cast.