MTG thread

I think a lot of players want modern to essentially be legacy without ABU duels, but WotC does not, and that's where a lot of the drama surrounding the format comes from.

I don't think we'll see counterspell in standard anytime soon. I'm pretty sure I read WotC thought reprinting thoughtsieze proved their concerns about those sort of powerful staples in standard were well-founded. Imagine a format with five mana wraths, three mana kill spells, and a two mana unconditional counter. Sure, if they move away from five mana wraths and three mana kills it changes the dynamic, but do you expect that to happen soon?

Legacy without duals would be so fucking great.

counterspell in standard would be bad... They'd either have to make all removal/control spells so bad, that straight aggro would wreck because midrange has no removal options, or control would be too strong. It'd be a nightmare to balance without it dominating the format.

If there was another way to get it into modern I'd be all for it, though.

Heylel_sl said:

I agree. I think that's modern's problem, honestly. People want a reasonably stable, slow changing format in which several interactive decks and a few linear ones are all more or less equally viable.

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Everyone dreams about a format like that but the added caveat for Modern is to do it with 50 or whatever sets worth of cards. It's not a trivial problem by any stretch.

enzie_sl said:

counterspell in standard would be bad... They'd either have to make all removal/control spells so bad, that straight aggro would wreck because midrange has no removal options, or control would be too strong. It'd be a nightmare to balance without it dominating the format.

If there was another way to get it into modern I'd be all for it, though.

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Thoughtseize and Lightning Bolt were both just fine in Standard and can reasonably be argued to both be more powerful than Counterspell. You just need a reasonable context for it in Standard and it would be fine.

It's also alot less fun to play against. Unconditional, cheap counterspells don't let the opponent play the game. They removed it because it was making the game less fun, and it was that kind of design philosophy that caused magic's growth.

Thoughtseize and Bolt both still allow your opponent to feel like they are playing the game, and thoughtseize was overall considered a mistake to reprint. It's highly doubtful they put 'counterspell' in standard. The closest thing we have ever gotten, silumgar's scorn, dominated standard for a brief period of time, and that had a heavy drawback to it, relatively.

Bring back Sinkhole I say.

Drtyrm_sl said:

Everyone dreams about a format like that but the added caveat for Modern is to do it with 50 or whatever sets worth of cards. It's not a trivial problem by any stretch.

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We already have one. It's called Legacy.

idk.. I realize it's just my opinion, but whenever I've played legacy it never feels super interactive. Even the decks that are 'control' or 'midrange' seem to be doing something broken, and it just means they have one or two pieces of disruption that delays their opponent a turn or two before they do THEIR broken thing. Miracles, the most control deck, is just trying to delay you till they set up counter top lock. That lock is basically a 2 card combo that wins the game, it just takes awhile to actually finish it.

It only feels interactive in comparison to the really linear decks, but it'd be considered very linear in any other format. I still think legacy is fine, I just don't agree that it's all that interactive. At least in standard, you can keep the 'wrong' hand and still have a chance in the game. If you keep a hand without a Force of Will against a fast combo deck, you basically lose. It's also often true for modern, except when a super dominant linear deck pops up, such as Eldrazi.

Legacy would definitely interest me if I could justify dropping thousands of dollars on a Miracles deck.

enzie_sl said:

idk.. I realize it's just my opinion, but whenever I've played legacy it never feels super interactive. Even the decks that are 'control' or 'midrange' seem to be doing something broken, and it just means they have one or two pieces of disruption that delays their opponent a turn or two before they do THEIR broken thing. Miracles, the most control deck, is just trying to delay you till they set up counter top lock. That lock is basically a 2 card combo that wins the game, it just takes awhile to actually finish it.

It only feels interactive in comparison to the really linear decks, but it'd be considered very linear in any other format. I still think legacy is fine, I just don't agree that it's all that interactive. At least in standard, you can keep the 'wrong' hand and still have a chance in the game. If you keep a hand without a Force of Will against a fast combo deck, you basically lose. It's also often true for modern, except when a super dominant linear deck pops up, such as Eldrazi.

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Miracles plays CounterTop, but that's hardly the central interaction in the deck. The real power is Top in conjunction with the namesake cards. Turns out 1 mana instant Wrath of God that doesn't leave a body in the graveyard is pretty strong.

As for Force... it's a necessary format policeman and something Modern would strongly benefit from having. I've played a LOT of non-blue legacy. Probably more than blue decks. I spent two solid years on Maverick well after it was the deck to beat in the format. You give up some game to the turn 1 combo decks like Belcher, but you'd be very surprised how far a couple of hatebears will get you. Plenty of decks just can't win through Thalia + Wasteland.

That kind of reinforces my point though. Some decks are basically locked out from playing the game if you get thalia down. That's not interactive at all.

I understand that Force is necessary evil in Legacy, but it also kind of sucks that it is at the same time. Thats often the only card that matters in certain matchups.

Honestly, when modern first started, after a few rounds of bans for balancing, it was pretty interesting. The card pool was a little smaller, so you really did get to just play suped up standard decks for the most part. I wouldn't mind seeing them bring back something like extended that's between standard and modern. 4-5 years of sets, so you get to keep playing your favorite standard deck longer, but a little more powered up, and test it against previous dominant standard decks. Mono-black devo against abzan. U/W sphinx's rev against U/B snapcaster/nephalia control (ok, that one would be pretty boring to watch..) But, history has taught me I'm probably in the minority there.

They're not locked out though. It just means they can't win on the spot. I've lost count of the number of games I've played vs unfair decks where Thalia squeaked out a win half a turn before the other deck exploded. Those games are *very* interactive. The number of legacy matches which end in the first 3 turns is probably a lot smaller right now than in modern, to be honest.

I'm not talking about the speed of the format exactly. A faster format often has less interaction, as it boils down to having that one key piece of disruption or not, but not always. I'm saying there's too many things that invalidate certain strategies. Vintage has more interaction then many think, it just happens in the hand/top of library instead of in play, and that's odd to get used to. But, most strategies have enough card draw/library manipulation, to find their interaction, whether it's duress/thoughtseize, force of will, etc.. when they need it.

Winning a tournament in legacy often comes to simply dodging certain things, as you really do auto lose to them. I hate those situations. It's not fun to play against at all, and it's less fun then winning with a deck where you actually outplayed your opponent. (but hey, winning is winning and winning is still fun )

On a different note.. just saw the Shadows over Innistrad leaks/spoilers.. Madness is back? Interesting..
Investigate and Delirium seem like kind of clunky mechanics to have. Making an artifact with 2, sac: Draw a card is just.. idk. I like the idea of giving card draw to different colors, and in play it's probably fun, but it just seems so inelegant on paper. Delirium is an attempt to 'fix' threshold/tarmogoyf mechanic, and I bet it'll still either be broken or worthless for constructed.

Investigate, Delirium, Madness and Skulk = Cthulhu Mythos = the Emrakul theory is true?

I like the investigation mechanic because it theoretically lets them cost cantrip-spells as fine stand alone spells, since the cantrip part has its own separate cost part later. Also, Shape Anew shenanigans in Modern.

Madness coming back is going to be hilarious with Jace.

Also, tracking whether your graveyard had 7+ cards was apparently bad design, but tracking 4+ different card types is somehow not?

I didn't know they thought it was bad design, so much as over powered cause it was trivial to get 7 cards in GY.
Plus, players seem to like graveyard as a resource mechanics, so maybe they changed their mind if they thought it wasn't good before.

Tracking P/T for Goyf is like the worst part of Modern. No wait, it's fetchlands. Goyf tracking is #2.

"Hey, what's the power/toughness of your 'goyf?"
"THIS ISN'T MTGO I DON'T HAVTA TELL YOU"

Hate that ruling. Hate everything about it.