Could Black Have This Effect?
General forum
Posted on Sept. 16, 2020, 4:39 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
WotC finally printed a mono-black card that can unconditionally destroy enchantments, which I do not particularly like, since being unable to destroy enchantments was an intentional weakness for black, but I shall tolerate it, provided that it does not start a trend.
However, I feel that it would be much more appropriate for black to have a card that reads “destroy/exile target green or white permanent,” since white has Celestial Purge, which can exile permanents of white’s enemy colors, and black already has Deathmark, which can destroy creatures of black’s enemy colors.
What does everyone else say about this? Could black have an effect such as that?
LordBlackblade says... #3
As I recall, Wizards previously stated that they wanted to move away from color-specific hate effects. That was a few years ago I believe.
The issue with destroying a green or white permanent specifically is that it would stray into the really forbidden territory of black: destroying artifacts. Keep in mind, the number of colored artifacts has gone up drastically in the last few years. I just don't think design would do it, as they have also previously stated that not having a good way to deal with artifacts is one of black's major weaknesses.
September 16, 2020 4:57 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #4
Well, because most relevant enchantments are white and/or green, it works. Basically the difference is that the spell can kill Rhystic Study and such in Blue. Basically, the difference is that Black EDH players can now deal with some of the more annoying effects.
Now, I have a few arguments defending the card:
First, Black's color identity is about paying life and sacrificing creatures and discarding cards to do just about anything. In fact, the only real thing black can do without that is force opponents to discard and kill creatures. So this is perfectly within the color pie.
Second, when it comes to game design, you don't typically want to deny a playstyle a core game function. For instance, Green and Blue still have creature removal, just worse than the other colors. Blue can technically deal with any permanent, and can deal with spells. This is balanced. The problem is in Black and Red: neither could deal with Enchantments, and Black can't touch artifacts. They should be able to deal with said permanents, but in odd ways, like bouncing and fighting.
It's a great step. It's not something we need to see in every set, but it is something that is super relevant to nonStandard formats. Even if this card is just reprinted every once in a while, then Wizards has managed to balance Black's ability to deal with enchantments in a great way.
Don't focus on the color pie -- that's entirely there to prevent colors from being too same-y. Good game design means that everyone can do every core function, which means being able to remove all permanents. If some people have weaker ways to complete some core functions, fine, that can be balance. But if someone can't do something you make a lot of feelbad, and it forces players to use more colors. There's a reason 5c goodstuff isn't always a thing, and it's because you don't need 5 colors to attack every single strategy. You mainly want green and black or blue in most cases, because that setup can deal with everything relevant.
September 16, 2020 5:09 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #5
LordBlackblade Yeah... and they they still printed Veil of Summer, Aether Gust and all of that crap like a few sets after saying they wouldn't do that xD
September 16, 2020 5:17 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
RiotRunner789, that is an awesome card, and I am sad that it is on the Reserved List, since it definitely deserves to be reprinted; perhaps WotC could print a card that is similar to it, but with sufficient differences that it does not violate the RL; that effect on a creature would be quire awesome.
September 16, 2020 5:56 p.m.
RiotRunner789 says... #7
Is it actually on the RL? I may have to buy a few extra copies because this has proven to be a powerhouse in 90% of the EDH games I play it in.
September 16, 2020 6:21 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #8
TriusMalarky The entire point of the colour pie is to have each colour have strengths and weaknesses though. You can’t say ignore the colour pie.
Black has discard to proactively steal stuff from you that they can’t deal with when it’s on the board. I disagree that every color should be able to deal with every obstacle for it to be “good game design.” The colour pie is the good game design.
Also, the distinction you make DemonDragonJ between Celestial Purge and Deathmark is an important one. They are part of a cycle and are different for a reason. Again, black isn’t supposed to have unbridled access to destroying non-creature permanents.
September 16, 2020 7:02 p.m. Edited.
DemonDragonJ says... #10
MindAblaze, yes, that makes sense, so, do you feel that Feed the Swarm is a color pie break? Does it undermine black's weakness?
September 16, 2020 9:50 p.m.
DragonSliver9001 says... #11
you should probably mention the card you're talking about. i assume you mean Feed the Swarm, in which case it should be noted that its a sorcery and costs you life. i'm sure black decks will splash another color before opting for Feed the Swarm if they're that worried about enchantments.
September 16, 2020 11:43 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #12
Yes I do feel it’s a colour pie break. If you have problem enchantments in your environment it’s probably not going to be a terrible thing to slot into most mono-black decks. Otherwise, there are better options in other colours for getting rid of enchantments so it doesn’t hurt the game too much overall...it just sets an interesting precedent.
September 16, 2020 11:57 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #13
MindAblaze the color pie is half the reason some things are so broken and half the reason the game isn't extremely imbalanced.
It started out as a 'good game design' guideline for the game, but because of how Magic was biased to certain colors early on it ended up screwing sections of the game over. You can't ignore it, but you can't ever hold it as a 'holy grail that cannot be broken' because it is a damaged, imperfect wreck of a system.
And no, you can't ever exclude a playstyle(or color in MtG, or character in some games) from a core game mechanic. Saying "Black and Red can't hurt enchantments" means that 2/5ths, almost an entire half, of any given metagame(given that it's balanced between colors, which it's not, so it's literally half because white is dead) cannot deal with a fifth of permanent types. That's incredibly imbalanced.
Now, here's the primary reason it's imbalanced: In the context of mono color decks or decks that just don't run the colors that can deal with enchantments. They're few and far between, because it's literally black/red or one or the other, but they exist. This one spell allows mono black to better function in older formats.
And also, although black and blue both have 'before it is cast' removal for everything, blue still has effective ways to get ANY permanent off the board. Black doesn't. Of course, any ways to deal with permanents should stay within color pie -- like if black were to kill artifacts, it's gotta be 'target opponent sacrifices an artifact', which is 100% within its pie -- but it still needs the effect. Badly. Not because black is bad without it, but because the lack of options means that more players are jipped and more players have feelbad moments when they realize that their favorite strategy will be forever dead because of one card that the deck's color pie can't deal with.
This sort of happened with T3f. One of my favorite strategies is mono blue Delver with too many counterspells. Even with countermagic, it loses to a resolved T3f. Even if I practiced and got good with the deck and anticipated T3f, it would still lose to a resolved T3f and having to play around said card would be too much energy for the deck to be fun.
We can't let that happen to other people. Red and black need enchantment hate, and Black needs artifact hate. Additionally, White needs to start getting more non-EDH relevant cards, because the last good just White card for Modern and such was probably Path or some Humans piece.
Don't screw over a color 'because it fits the color pie'. Not only would you be defending a corrupted, drunken mess that needs repairs, but you'd be actively campaigning against many player's fun.
September 17, 2020 9:33 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #14
TriusMalarky I agree and disagree. The answer for most of M:TG is to splash another color. It decreases consistency but adds utility. This allows black decks to splash green and remove that pesky enchantment or artifact. It's not a perfect solution, but adds a real cost to having the answer to a threat.
Red and black don't, well, mostly, need enchantment hate. It's perfectly okay not to have it in your deck. There are risks, but weigh those risks with losing consistency and you have a balanced game. EDH is where this philosophy doesn't work. I'd agree with you, toss up a bit of the pie for EDH. I don't even care about the color pie, just that assuming if you like black you can never deal with enchantments is a really silly idea.
Half the metagame? Multicolored decks don't exist at all?
Let's do the math. Modern has what percent of decks that don't include any bant colors:
5% - Rakdos Lurrus
3.27% - Mono-Red Aggro
2.12% - Eldrazi Tron (They actually run Karn, Ugin, All is Dust, Thought-Knot Seer..., but for benefit of the doubt)
0.77% - Rakdos Midrange
0.58% - The Rack
0.19% - Red
Total - 11.93% (Data from MTGGoldfish)
Yes, at less than 12% of the metagame, you'd say it's 50%? Doing it for Pioneer I got 22.14%, Pauper has 9.10%, Legacy has 1.98%. Less than 2%
Standard? Well, for some reason MTGGoldfish is acting up if you click standard rn, but MTGDecks says it is 9.09% that don't have any bant colors.
So, what, a percentage of the playerbase doesn't want to have enchantment removal, so they don't splash, so they don't get a specific ability? that tradeoff is so fine by me I'd say it's what makes this game run, alongside it's land system. You want colors to have tradeoffs, and for colors to have downsides as well.
That's not an issue for me. EDH players should get some options, if limited. I don't mind this effect at all, but I wouldn't say it was necessary for the color xD
September 17, 2020 10:27 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #15
Okay, I mismathed. But I wasn't referring to any metagame, at least not entirely.
While metas are mostly balanced and it won't impact them, the big point is the thousands upon thousands of players who don't play competitively, and don't even go to an LGS. The Walmart players. The people who would actually care.
Now, for most people, splashing is easy. That's great. But the number of people who still don't run more than 3 color because their manabase includes seven random guildgates and three Evolving Wilds(for their whole collection), the number of people who run specifically(for instance) mono black decks for whatever reason, etc etc, is pretty big.
Completely jipping colors makes the true casuals, the people who only know kitchen table, the people who aren't even talking online when it comes to Magic, a little sad. I've been there, and out of all my friends who play magic I have ONE, count them, ONE person who actually plays competitively and maybe 5-10 who've ever even walked into an LGS. I know more people who play entirely casually than have been at the largest event at my LGS at one time. I'd even say that a quarter of the people who attend my LGS are this way.
It's the unspoken 'minority', who in all likelihood is extremely huge. The people that still think Dreadmaw is legitimately a broken card. The people that use Auras and Equipment because they're cool. It's them that need to be taken into consideration here.
Again, don't screw over a color when it comes to removal. There are thousands of people you'll never see and who will never buy much more than some packs from Walmart and bulk boxes, a huge portion of which would really care about that. It doesn't have to be competitively viable at all, because that's not its target demographic.
September 17, 2020 11:05 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #16
TriusMalarky Well, if they have 3 colors, they are fine? They have to have one of the three colors that allow them artifact and enchantment removal. That argument literally doesn't work on the premise you had set.
And now, it appears (as much as I dislike it) that Arena is their target demographic. That is, just like Hearthstone, etc., a competitive environment.
September 17, 2020 11:34 a.m. Edited.
DragonSliver9001 says... #17
TriusMalarky i'm guessing you play mono black? players are SUPPOSED to feel "jipped" for certain mechanics if they only play 1 color. its not "imbalanced" when every color has things they do much better than the other colors. wotc isn't telling anyone to run mono color decks. thats the players choice. i'm not gonna run a non-blue deck and then whine that the card draw in my colors is crap, because it was my choice not to run blue.
September 17, 2020 11:48 a.m.
MindAblaze says... #18
I still have to disagree. If anything EDH is the arena that people should be looking at the colour pie most closely for solutions in colour. That’s the entire point of having colour restrictions for your deck isn’t it...why “colour identity” is a thing? As MaRo says “restrictions breed creativity.”
Also...FYI “jipped” is a racial slur that refers to Gypsies ripping people off.
September 17, 2020 12:43 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #19
Woops, I'll remember that slur so I don't accidentally insult anyone.
I guess I just wasn't able to convey my point. Nevermind, it doesn't matter, but I still think we can't use color pie as a reason to restrict a color's ability to deal with artifacts/enchantments.
September 17, 2020 1:08 p.m.
DragonSliver9001 says... #20
TriusMalarky you conveyed your point just fine. we all understood, we just don't agree. black does have ways to deal with artifacts and enchantments, and it does so in a way other colors just can't do. discard spells. every color has ways of dealing with permanents, they just do it differently. thats what makes it balanced. what black may lack in enchantment removal, it makes up for by being the best at creature removal. conversely, green is the best at enchantment removal, but the best it can do for creature removal is the crappy fight mechanic.
you're trying too hard to let every color do everything well. might as well just eliminate color altogether at that point. or you could give Yugioh a try.
September 17, 2020 1:30 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #21
Ah, no, if I had conveyed my point correctly there wouldn't be replies referencing things I didn't mean to say and didn't realize I had put in.
Case in point: "you're trying too hard to let every color do everything well. might as well just eliminate color altogether at that point. or you could give Yugioh a try." I don't want every color to be able to do everything well, I want every color to be able to do almost everything in some form.
Feed the Swarm is a really bad enchantment removal spell. But is it being considered? Yes, because it's the best Black Enchantment Removal. Personally, as long as this or a functional version is printed every once in a while, Black is now capable of destroying enchantments in a relevant enough way that I am happy.
It doesn't matter if the removal is barely playable or borderline garbage, just as long as it's not more than 3 mana and one card. There doesn't need to be hundreds of Black Red enchantment hate spells -- there can be one fairly bad one in each color. That's all we need, and all I'm asking for.
Also, just realized Chaos Warp acts as a form of enchantment hate in EDH. Just need a black Artifact removal spell and we Gucci.
September 17, 2020 1:52 p.m.
DragonSliver9001 says... #22
TriusMalarky you're really contradicting yourself. why so adamantly stick to a mono color deck to run a card that is "borderline garbage" when you could just add green and play Assassin's Trophy? why be satisfied with just "one" in each color when there are tens of thousands of cards in the game? thats hardly making a significant deck. the amount of people who would be so adamant to stick to mono black when they know enchantments will be a problem are no doubt the extreme minority. most people will have the common sense to adjust to their meta.
September 17, 2020 2:11 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #23
I can't continue this conversation, because I'm obviously incapable of communicating my actual point. See, the points you think I'm making are all bullcrap and don't hold up to anything, and I know it, but the one point I've failed to make might not be garbage. I just can't English.
September 17, 2020 2:23 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #24
TriusMalarky Dude, artifact removal has been in black early on, just at the cost of sacrificing creatures.
Phyrexian Tribute and Gate to Phyrexia. You don't care if it is trash, right? Now you Gucci, right? No need to complain anymore.
Regardless, I could have said Pharika's Libation already existed and was just printed, making this card unnecessary even in your fever-dream mindset where every color needs every ability, but you now want to make it seem like you have a beautiful vision us simpletons just can't see through your fantastical language. I may not understand what you are writing between lines, but I respond to what you say.
September 17, 2020 3:01 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #25
We’re talking about opinions here anyway. I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong...
September 17, 2020 3:27 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #26
SynergyBuild I didn't know those cards existed. I now have nothing to complain about. Also, sorry if I came across like that, I was trying to imply that I had included details I didn't need and weren't relevant to my actual point, and forgotten some relevant details, and because of that my point was muddied and unclear from within my mess of an argument.
September 17, 2020 4:09 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #27
TriusMalarky, I personally believe that Chaos Warp is either a color pie break or a severe bend, since it allows red to remove enchantments and creatures, which it is not supposed to be able to do, which may clash with my belief that Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are acceptable, since they specifically affect only blue permanents.
Also, as long as I am discussing this subject, and I have said this before, I believe that Pongify, Polymorph, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift break the color pie, since they allow blue to unconditionally remove creatures, which it is not supposed to be able to do; even if all of those cards provide a new creature in exchange, they still can unconditionally remove a creature; if all of those cards instead said "target creature's owner shuffles it into their library," they would be perfectly acceptable, in my mind, since blue is allowed to have that effect.
September 17, 2020 4:34 p.m.
DragonSliver9001 says... #28
TriusMalarky my points are not bullcrap, you just dont understand them. They absolutely hold up. You cant say you want to win badly enough to demand answers in your colors, but not badly enough that you wont add another color that has an even better answer. Its your points that dont hold up.
September 17, 2020 5:07 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #29
DragonSliver9001 that's what I said -- the points I accidentally made were bullcrap. I wasn't talking about anyone else's points.
September 17, 2020 5:09 p.m.
gavriel1136 says... #30
Did you guys not read the card? Feed the Swarm is not unconditional. It only targets enchantments/creatures an opponent controls. This specifically does not undermine Black's weakness, because black cannot destroy its own "risky" enchantments, such as Lich cards. That is an intentional rider on the card which does not undermine the color pie at all.
September 17, 2020 8:13 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #31
gavriel1136, yes, that is a good point, but I feel that, if there are further black spells that can destroy enchantments, they should always have a drawback, such as life loss, discarding cards, or sacrificing creatures.
September 17, 2020 9:48 p.m.
gavriel1136 says... #32
So, exactly what this card does? You said it shouldn't be unconditional; it isn't. You say it should have a drawback like life loss; it does. I don't understand where the issue is.
September 17, 2020 9:56 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #33
gavriel1136, my main issue is that it is something new and unusual; why did WotC wait until now, after 27 years of this game, to give black the ability to destroy enchantments? Why did they feel that now was the appropriate time to do that?
September 17, 2020 10:33 p.m.
DragonSliver9001 says... #34
DemonDragonJ: they probably waited 27 years cuz thats how long it took for people to start complaining about it. each color is supposed to have things it can't do well, or even at all. plus we've had Scour from Existence for 5 years now. so at a bare minimum, every color has had access to unconditional removal for any permanent, even lands, for at least 5 years.
September 17, 2020 11:02 p.m.
gavriel1136 says... #35
Mark Rosewater, Magic's head designer, said on his blog that the reason for the change was because they didn't like that, unlike artifacts and creatures, only 2 colors could destroy enchantments. So they found a way to allow a third color to do so. There's no vast conspiracy. They explained quite clearly why they made that decision.
September 18, 2020 12:03 a.m.
DragonSliver9001 says... #36
gavriel1136 i dont think anyone said anything about conspiracies, but ok lol
September 18, 2020 12:07 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #37
DragonSliver9001 Honestly Idk why people like Trius even complained, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is literally in standard, we have colorless permanent removal and have had it for a long while xD
September 18, 2020 1:47 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #38
I forgot half those cards existed.....
I'm not super intelligent xD
September 18, 2020 10:01 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #39
DragonSliver9001, SynergyBuild, I have no problems with those two cards, because WotC has said that colorless cards can do anything that colored cards can do, but they need to be much more expensive than their colored equivalents (compare Scour from Existence to either Vindicate or Utter End).
September 18, 2020 12:25 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #41
magwaaf, WotC has been very clear that red is not supposed to be able to destroy enchantments (but I feel that Red Elemental Blast is acceptable, because it can destroy only blue permanents); instead, it has effects such as Enchanter's Bane and Aura Barbs, which punish players for using enchantments.
September 27, 2020 10:26 a.m.
Demondragonj
It was a joke... and they need them in red lol
RiotRunner789 says... #2
I feel it being stapled to life loss makes it ok. But yes, more Dystopia effects would be grand.
September 16, 2020 4:54 p.m.