Why Have Direct Damage Spells Been Less Powerful, Recently?
General forum
Posted on April 14, 2022, 9:09 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I have noticed that direct damage spells have been less powerful, recently, in that they either can target only creatures and planeswalkers, but not players, or they can target anything, but are only sorceries; there are very few direct damage spells in recent sets that are instants and can strike any target; why is that? Are such spells too powerful? What does everyone else say about this?
I think red is being experimented on; it's gotten a huge boost in its non-burn aspects. The perennial Shock isn't Standard-legal right now, so burn is on the downswing. Burn spells aren't too powerful, it's just not their time right now.
April 14, 2022 9:20 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
Grubbernaut, legendofa, both of those explanations make sense, so I am now feeling better about the situation; that is similar to how WotC briefly had black cards deal damage, but then returned to that color causing life loss, which made more sense for it.
April 14, 2022 9:26 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #5
I was disappointed when I tried to reclaim the glorydays when Thermo-Alchemist got reprinted in Standard, and there was not enough support for mono red burn to be good enough for FNM. I did great with that deck when I started out doing FNM regularly in SOI Standard, but in the current format, it gets stomped by almost everything else.
April 15, 2022 12:47 a.m.
It's a conspiracy by the Lightning Bolt gang to always be relevant and not left too far behind by power creep.
April 15, 2022 8:06 a.m.
We got a strictly better Shock in one of the innistard sets
April 15, 2022 8:45 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #8
My guess is that the amount of “copy the spell again” cards can accidentally spill over into a lot of force damage if they weren’t careful. Not the primary reason, I bet, but those copy effect might be making someone nervous.
April 15, 2022 8:48 a.m.
RNR_Gaming says... #9
They probably want to give some of the cards they designed painstakingly for standard to actually see play in standard lol. Though the vast majority of them would likely be outclassed by a Searing Spear or Lightning Strike at least that was the case with neon dynasty.
Grubbernaut says... #2
They're there, they just aren't good. Making burn be a staple in every standard gets tiresome, imo.
April 14, 2022 9:12 p.m.