I'm about to do something that I was beginning to think I'd never do:

Stand up for Magic R&D.

Oh, the horror!

I just got to thinking about the cards that have come out since October, and well, while a lot of them are not up to par, to say the least, it made me wonder why things had taken a nosedive.

It seems to have started with the Rath Cycle and the Tempest stand-alone. Coming right out of an era in which slow board-controlling decks had been strong (some with countermagic like CounterPost, some without, like Maro-Geddon), Tempest was like cardboard caffeine as far as stepping up the speed notch.

But, like most sets, the cards that would go on to define the format at the time didn't immediately jump off of the spoiler list at you.

Cursed Scroll? Who plays with that crap? Three mana and I have to show you a card at random? Not only am I giving away my hand, but the two damage isn't even guaranteed!

Heaven forbid anyone actually *gasp* shows you a card from their hand, right?

Then, people began to see that you had to dump your hand to use it effectively, and since the set made it easier than ever to dump a bunch of cost-efficient weenies into play... well, we know how this story ends. Many other cards were treated the same way...no one saw the inherent power of cards like Tradewind Rider or the usefulness of a card within a deck's context such as Sarcomancy until months after the set was out.

About a year later, with the public still hopped-up on power card frenzy, Urza's Saga came out, and the general opinion of many was that the cards were either too powerful or just plain crap. There was no middle ground.

A couple weeks after that, there was a deck posting to a website. Someone had previously posted a deck that used Mind Over Matter to untap Lotus Vale over and over again... they were comparing it to the most current dominant combination deck, Prosbloom, and how the Bloom deck turned each card into two mana, the Vale deck turned each card into three. Now with Tolarian Academy, Time Spiral and Stroke of Genius available, the deck could graduate from a fun casual deck into the horror that began the downward spiral of T2 in the Fall and Winter of 1998.

How do I manage to mention Prosbloom and Academy in every other article I write? Well, at least I haven't mentioned Necro any, right?

DOH!

Anyways...

R&D, I think, saw how well received the Tempest block was, and with Urza's Saga, they tried to do more of the same, trying to see how much they could get away with... they just overstepped the boundaries a bit. Ok, they overstepped them a LOT.

So, after every card in every combo deck was banned by the spring, a mighty roar came up from the crowd. People could play creatures again, people partook of wine and honey, and all was well in the land.

Then during the summer, the rumblings began... Tempest rotates out in the fall! Whatever will we do? People went into spasms of withdrawal even months before their beloved cards were taken away. People were hoping that the new stand-alone, Mercadian Masques, would fill its shoes as best as possible...

And we know how this story ends as well.

So what happened? It's simple.

You wanted the worst... you got the worst.

People complained for ages about power cards ruining various formats. As I said before, Urza's Saga can be summed up as containing cards which are either ridiculously powerful or complete chaff.

So when people complain, what was left for R&D to do?

They just gave us the chaff.

That's what we wanted, right? We were all sick of cards that let us pay life to draw more cards, or cards that untapped lands that generated more mana than one apiece, right? This IS what we wanted, right?

R&D isn't a bunch of mindreaders. They just have to try to base a set that will somehow alter the current state of things. When games drag and end in fifty turns or more, they design speedy sets. When things get too fast to be healthy for the environment, well, they release stuff like Mercadian Masques.

What IS a power card anyways? I mean, we all know the Rules of Brokenness (anything that draws seven cards, etc.), but how do you define a power card? Everything is powerful only in relation to something else. If boosters contained nothing but stuff like Nevinyrral's Disk or Nether Void, it'd be nice, sure, but what would playing be like? We won't truly know how good some of these newer cards are until their superior counterparts rotate out. While I find myself strangely liking Rackling, why would I play him when I've got Masticore? Wait until this fall... THEN we can see if Jeff Donais was right.

If he's wrong, well, we'll just... Blame Canada! Blame Canada!

Can you believe THAT SONG got nominated for an Academy Award?! I mean, I loved the movie, but that's mindboggling!

Anyways...

One more quick thing before I wrap this puppy up. I've been hearing Chris Pikula's Necro quote coming up more and more as this Extended season goes on, and I think the problem at hand relates somewhat to the banning of the combo cards in T2 during late '98 and early '99.

I love Necropotence, and I might be biased towards the card, but Necro isn't the problem... the freakin' problem is Illusions of Grandeur and Donate! For God's sake, quit banning the rest of the deck components and just take care of the stupid cards that cause the problems! Is THAT so hard? Let's see, a two-card mono-color combo that costs seven mana total... how can I get quick mana... Dark Ritual, Mana Vault... ok, let's ban Necropotence!

It took the DCI months to ban cards in T2 left and right before they finally isolated the true problem (MoM). Surely, we can avoid that problem this time around, I hope. Just don't call me Shirley.

I'm certainly not saying to ban Illusions or Donate...cause I mean, c'mon, by themselves, are they horrible cards or what? But in conjunction, well, that's a different story.

I don't know which is more mindboggling, "Blame Canada" being nominated for an Academy Award or people stumbling over themselves trying to trade for Donate.

But banning Necropotence does nothing to solve the problem. The best solution (aside from designing cards in a later set to hose the combo) would be to errata Illusions of Grandeur come March 1st:

Illusions of Grandeur 3U
Enchantment
Cumulative Upkeep:2
When Illusions of Grandeur comes into play, if you played it from your hand, gain 20 life.
When Illusions of Grandeur leaves play, if you played it from your hand, lose 20 life.

There. That way if you still want to gain the 20 life and draw 20 cards, you're good to go, but you can't kill someone with a card that doesn't even belong to them (well, you know what I mean).

Maybe the quote should go, "Ban everything until combo is good..."

Until next time,

Carl J.
Zeke2517 on IRC (if anyone cares)
jarrel19@marshall.edu OR...
jarrell1@inetone.net
The King of Greyhound