Card Adv: A measure of a color's power
Bennie Smith
It occurred to me recently that green's historic
power struggle in Magic has been because green
has been seriously deficient in generating card
advantage. I mean, blue falls all over itself
generating card advantage-- card advantage
(ie. card-drawing) is one of it's frickin'
"themes." That's why Blue has so many banned
and restricted cards, but look on the other
end of the spectrum-- blue has so many card
drawers that it even has "bad" ones that no
one uses! It's this raw card advantage that
keeps blue at the top of the power heap.
But we can look at the other colors and see
plenty of other cards that can generate
card advantage. Black has Perish, Necro,
Yawgmoth's Will and Bargain, Evincar's Justice,
Dystopia, Contagion, and Bone Shredder.
White has Wrath of God, Armageddon, Cataclysm,
Replenish. Red gets Jokulhaups, Wildfire,
Earthquake, Fireslinger, Orcish Artillary,
Crater Hellion, Ghitu Slinger and Avalanche
Rider.
Green seems to accidentally get some card
advantage cards on occasion. We recently got
back the ever-popular Uktabi Orangutan, and
also Tranquil Grove has some potential.
Wall of Blossoms and Multani's Acolyte give
some "raw" card advantage to some degree.
We've always had Tranquility and now have Hush,
and they can potentially gain some card advantage,
but are rarely game breakers except against combo.
But when compared to the other colors, especially
green's "enemies" black and blue, green is truly
the loser. Green's best shot, traditionally,
has been to try and exercise "time control"
by mounting a fast attack; this strategy has
been viable at various times and remains so
today with Overrun and Might of Oaks. But
as the pendulum swings back towards control,
this narrow path towards victory becomes
increasingly dangerous. The King of Beatdown
himself forsake "Deadguy Green" to play Death
(I think) in Nationals. With the impending
exit of Tempest, I think relying on fast
beatdown will become an increasingly dangerous
gamble.
Wizards has given green some long overdue
potential card-advantage cards recently
with Yavimaya Elder and Plow Under. I find
it sad these come at the end of the Urza's
Cycle, instead of at the beginning, and I
wish there were more. Reprinting Fallow
Earth may help, too. But if Wizards is
truly serious about making green as powerful
as the other colors, then they are going to
need to look at the root level of power in
Magic, and that is card advantage. Green
needs more of it, or else it will remain at
the bottom of the heap, little more than a
solid support color for other color's power
cards.
Just some thoughts. Comments?
Bennie Smith
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Bennie Smith <bens...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Card Advantage: A measure of a color's power
>
> It occurred to me recently that green's historic
> power struggle in Magic has been because green
> has been seriously deficient in generating card
> advantage.
Hmmm - good point Bennie. Green does have
Hurricane and Whirlwind but they are less generally
useful than most of the others that you mentioned.
WOTC have experimented with giving green "draw - quality"
spells like Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile but Blue
does seem to be king in this area too.
Green also has some graveyard manipulation but this
always seemed to be better used by other colours.
The lack of green landwalkers as always struck me as really
odd since Forests should be where you can really avoid
detection.
For a while (read 3rd Ed and Fallen Empires) it looked
like Green was going to get a new mechanic that allowed
it to gain some control by turning lands into Forests. This
was fun for a while but they never properly developed it
or made enough forest walkers to make it truly useful.
Since WOTC have decided that green's strength lies in mana
acceleration and creatures - why dont they capitalise on
this by creating reusable spells or effects with either
an increasing mana cost or a cumulative upkeep.
Off the top of my head:
Master of the Saprolings 2/2 GG1 Summon Druid?
Cumulative Upkeep G
GG: Turn target land into a forest permanently.
Off course if they gave some forestwalkers as well....
This sort of mchanic is in keeping with the decreed
"flavour" of green and could not be abused by other
colours in some degenerate combo. It isnt however
card advantage per se, but then it would be hard to
be so and be within the decreed flavour. I dont
agree with the decree but it is afact of life.
--
Nigel
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Andrew Vance
Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
Other than the excelent Mirri, of course.
I agree with this. Puting land back, or making it forests, is much more
'thematic' than destroying it - except for nast evil islands, of course.