Magic: the Gathering - Have you been following the Eighth Edition Rollout?

[Urban Ranger]

Thanks

[Urban Ranger]

Oh no! Zur's Weirding!

Nasty! Both Millstone and Vexing Arcanix.

[Mr. President]

This is going to be a fun edition.

[Urban Ranger]

Defense Grid + Arcane Laboratory make a great lockdown deck.

[Mr. President]

Mark Rosewater admitted on MagicTheGathering.com that they're hosing blue at the moment - which I think everybody figured out anyway.

No Counterspell, plus deadly hoser cards for green, plus Defense Grid (even if Counterspell was around, it'd cost 3UU to stop someone's Blaze )! What do you make of it?

I say it's about time.

[Urban Ranger]

I say Rosewater is a sore loser who got his arse kicked too many times by people playing blue.

Besides, who needs Counterspell when you can use Deflection?

[Urban Ranger]

Also, Defense Grid screws other colours worse than Blue anyway, because Blue can counter artifect spells at normal cast, while other colours can only destroy it at +3.

[Mr. President]

Actually, Rosewater is always talking about his favorite deck mechanic, namely Delusions of Grandeur + Donate.

Doesn't Defense Grid say that during each player's turn, other players' spells cost 3 more? Most land destruction happens at sorcery speed, so that isn't affected. The cards that like to be played during other people's turns are counter-magic, unsummonation (sic?), and creature destruction (Dark Banishing). Those strategies get evil-hosed by Defense Grid.

It is a rare card, though, which probably means I'll never see one. I suppose I could rob Andorra's treasury department and buy every box in Europe, but I won't. Yet.

[SnowFire]

Yeah, precisely the reverse, UR. Rosewater was the guy who has, by his own admission, made the most number of broken cards. At least in the modern era (Perhaps you can fault Garfield more, but not all of them were broken initially). He's also quite the Blue Mage, hence many of the broken rule-shifting cards are in Blue. Randy Buehler, the current head of R&D, apperantly played almost exclusively blue back when he was a player. It's just that they've favored blue for so long, they figured they might as well give it a break. Something understandable, though I'll still miss Counterspell. It'll be back eventually.

Speaking of which, anyone else agree that one of the great artistic war crimes is the new Vexing Arcanix? The old one had a great picture. The new one is stunningly bland.

[Az]

Is that art from MtG on your avatars, Mr. President, and Dino?

If it is, it's great for avatars.

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by Azazel
Is that art from MtG on your avatars, Mr. President, and Dino?

If it is, it's great for avatars.

Yep. Mine is from Copper-Leaf Angel. There's tons of kick-ass art in Magic.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Mr. President
Doesn't Defense Grid say that during each player's turn, other players' spells cost 3 more? Most land destruction happens at sorcery speed, so that isn't affected.

As I see it, most people will try to get Defense Grid out because nobody wants to be the only one that gets screwed. So it balances out at the end.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by SnowFire
It's just that they've favored blue for so long, they figured they might as well give it a break.

Not really, unless you are talking about Type I decks. For other sorts of play, Blue just doesn't have the offensive power and is usually tight on mana.

[Ben Kenobi]

I would definitely use defense grid with blue in one of my decks..



Nothing stopping the adept wizard from locking the game down.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by obiwan18
I would definitely use defense grid with blue in one of my decks..

Would Decree of Silence be overkill with defense grid?