MtG is unbalanced

>storm
You take that back.

>storm requires you to do a lot of work for a decent payoff
>cascade literally staples a random spell in your deck onto it for free

ummmmm

You what? Storm is great for screwing over faggots pulling overly long and complex card combos.

>rituals and cantrips.dec
>a lot of work
>Storm is great for pulling overly long and complex card combos.
fixed that for ya sport

>phasing
nothing wrong with that though

everything is wrong with phasing.

for example?

when a permanen phases out you treat it like it's been removed from the game. except it's not in exile, and in fact doesn't change zones at all. unless it's a token, in which case you do treat it like it changed zones, and it ceases to exist. or you were playing before they updated the rules, in which case phasing out was treated like a zone change, but phasing back in wasn't. speaking of phasing in, it happens at the start of the untap step, when no one gets priority and nothing is supposed to happen. even before the game action of untapping your shit, you know, the first thing that happens on your turn. unless you have phasing.

I haven't been playing that long but still I don't see what's wrong with it.
i don't feel like it's overpowered or anything.

it's not overpowered, it's needlessly complex and incompatible with the game, but still muscles the rules into letting it exist. phasing was a mistake.

it's easier to explain it this way:
you and your opponent are playing a game of MtG in a parallel universe too.
when a permanent phases, it moves from this universe to the other.
since no other cards are being played there, it's the most boring match ever, and nothing will happen to your permanent (or so we hope).
it will soon come back. in the meanwhile, it hasn't really changed zones, because of quantuum superimposition it was in both zones at the same time.
as a courtesy to the parallel universe, we don't consider the card as being in this universe at all. after all, those are the only MtG cards they get, let them play!

wait, what do you have against banding??

it's the reason we have bands with other.

those lands would be great if they could just produce even colorless mana

no, they would just be slightly less crap. this guy, on the other hand, is irredeemable

just reading this doesn't make it seem overly complex, but I can see where you're coming from.
with other triggers and effects on the stack it can get pretty messy.
still, it's not too bad imo, at least not as bad as banding. don't know what islandhome is though.

banding gets a worse wrap than it deserves. banding just lets you optionally make your creatures easier to block, and lets you assign combat damage when blocking instead of the attacker.

island home is "this creature can't attack unless the opponent controls an island and sacrifice this creature when you control no islands" technically the ability is landhome, as there was at least one creature printed with foresthome.

I mean great in EDH

islandhome means can't attack unless the opponent controls an island.
it's flavorful, and in older formats everybody plays islands anyway, but it just makes good creatures into situational shit.
how are you supposed to play it? waste cards and mana to make their lands into islands? put a wincon in the sideboard? there are better creatures out there.

i'm pretty sure you're baiting, but they'd still be crap. even if they tapped for colored mana they'd be crap. a land with no text box is not functionally much worse than their current incarnation.

>islandhome
Can't attack if opponent has no island
Dies if you have no island

my playgroup uses shit where controlling attacker/blocker damage is useful i.e. fat tramplers/Blightsteel

yes it is.

The reminder text - aka the shorthand version that cuts out some parts to make it more readable - fills almost the entire card, leaving enough room for maybe one evergreen keyword on the same line as Banding.
And because fucking nobody knows what Banding does, even when Banding was still being put on cards, a card with Banding would require the reminder text.

Well Merfolk plays spreading seas for Islandwalk.

I violently hate mill.

>landhome

Jesus christ, how did this game get so popular with shit like this in it?

why

you do understand that "bands with other" is not the same as "banding" right

It takes options away before they even come out.
It can kill three or four creatures without you even knowing they're close to being drawn, assuming you have particularly bad luck.
They usually cost what feels (to me anyway) way less then what they should - I'm looking at you Tome Scour, taking away 5 of my cards on turn 1 is just rude.

In general it's not very practical, but it frustrates me more than it actually has any reason to.

Mill literally doesn't effect your initial chance of getting those cards and doesn't actually hurt you (unless you're running tutors) until you're completely milled out. If anything it helps you because you know what cards you are more likely to draw

Does fuck over scryers a little

Worst mechanic is planeswalkers that turn into indestructible creatures I don't mind the idea of turning into creatures but outside an exile heavy opponent the indestructible is just bullshit.

It's more of a nuisance than an actual threat really.

Then...kill them on your own turn? What's the problem here?

>play tons of EDH
>everyone uses indestructible commanders
>now I slot in various wraths and removal to get around that nonsense
Indestructible is meh. Hexproof is bullshit. Indestructible hexproof is pretty much just as bad as hexproof.

Not to mention it actually helps certain deck types.

Here's a way around those pesky hexproof/indestructible creatures.

ok.

Counter spell.

And this is how EDH metas chase their own tail.

Well, if you can't play around/through counter spells, then nothing you play will matter anyway.

Because it dooms most UB cards to be shit since mill is all WotC wants that color pairing to do these days.

Eh, you only have only so many card slots. Also this guy is having trouble with hexproof. The obvious answer is boardwipes, then the obvious answer to the boardwipes becomes counter spells, which becomes the uncounterable (a pretty fiscally expensive route), or playing around (which if you're doing boardwipes you may have to be wary of 1 mana open). These both become tricky. I mean no tactic is foolproof.

Why doesn't Wizard just do fateseal rather than mill because that stays with the mind manipulation theme but is actually effective.

Too complex.

what about zombies?

imbalanced

Do people in your playgroup play mill? I thought it got pretty weak since Emrakul and suchlike. I play a casual UB self-mill deck with Skaab Ruinator and Laboratory Maniac if things don't go as planed, though.

degeneracy like storm is the only thing keeping mtg interesting

I'd actually like to see that. I think it's very fitting to U and also B - just remember this little bastard.

best answer to hexproof / shroud is still pic related

You know how getting screwed in your draw sucks because you're just sitting there unable to do anything?
Well, what if your opponent catalyzes this.
At least thats what MaRo says.
It's pretty much the same reason as why land destruction has been toned down so much.
Its frustrating if you dont get play anything during the game.

Fateseal is one of the main reasons why JTMS is so frustrating to play against. How would you like drawing nothing relevant for the rest of the game?

It served a purpose once. It was pretty much only printed on big blue beaters, because blue doesn't get fatties without major drawbacks. Blue wasn't supposed to win by just dropping big creatures, since that's green's thing. Blue was supposed to win through dickery and small creatures with evasion.
So, a blue fatty with Islandhome was functionally a Defender in most games, but it gave you a brute force option if you were playing against another blue deck that might otherwise turn into a stalemate.

Of course, the game's changed since then.

Check out Lantern Control.

>overly long and complex card combos

There is no such thing.

4 horsemen, Doomsday and Oops

For complex I don't know but for overly long you have eggs

But I love silly decks like that. Laboratory Maniac is one of my favourite cards, after all.

I love them too. That user was saying they didn't exist. He probably only plays standard or modern.

No, I wrote that post as well. It was the "overly" part I objected to, as it implies that long and complex combos are somehow a bad thing.

Why can't you understand that Rare=Better in every TCG?

Laughing Delver of secret.jpg

The thing about mill is that if you're using it as a wincon then you're basically playing a burn deck with opponents deck size as their life, except burn decks only have to deal 20 damage while mill has to get rid of the entire 40 or 60 card deck so you've essentially doubled or tripled your opponents life total.

So lets assume you're using 40 card decks and use Lightning Bolt as the measuring stick for how much time and mana it takes to kill you. It takes 7 lighting bolts to kill you so a burn deck can kill you in about 4 turns assuming they do nothing but drop lands and throw Lightning Bolts at your face. Since players don't start with all 40 cards in their decks and you draw each turn, in order for a mill deck to kill you in 4 turns they need to mill about 4-5 cards per mana. If you're playing against a 60 card deck like in most constructed formats this goes up to 7 cards per mana.

This isn't why mill is usually bad though. There are 2 main problems with mill. The first is that statistically milling has an equal chance of helping your opponent as hurting them, yeah you could put a bunch of their really good cards into the graveyard or you could have milled a whole bunch of dead draws or gotten them closer to drawing the cards they really need. The second problem is that mill doesn't let you control the board at all, you can't kill your opponents creatures like you can with burn so you can't stop your opponent from setting up whatever strategy he's using. Combine these with the fact that there are decks where milling them is just straight up helping them like a zombie deck and cards like Emrakrul and and Elixir or Immortality that absolutely hose mill decks, and mill just isn't all that good a strategy.

I can't wait till they reprint this as a mythic in vintage masters electric boogaloo edition

...

It's highly demoralizing though. Seeing your power cards go down the drain without ever getting a chance to use them kills the man.
and that's why I love playing mill

>It's highly demoralizing though. Seeing your power cards go down the drain without ever getting a chance to use them kills the man.
>and that's why I love playing mill

Mill is popular in casual and EDH where you are only likely to have 1 of a specific card in your deck. In eternal formats it's pretty shit.

>My friend when he realizes he's playing his mill deck against my dredge deck

>Oh no, you milled my Jin Gitaxias and newlamog T3, whatever will I do?
>victimize

Nothing is more infuriating then having a carefully planned turn that can still go off well if one thing doesn't get bombed and an opponent blows every counterspell/removal in his hand just to fuck your entire turn.

>counter spells

News flash: counter magic isn't the be-all answer to every problem you encounter in the game. In my Talrand Sky Summoner commander deck I run 16 counter spells, and half the time im either tapped out or I don't see them often enough when I need them to stop all of the threats to the board and myself. They're good, but a smart player knows how to bait a blue mage into using them (or just run guttural response).

DID SOMEONE SAY MILL?

>someone tried to mill me out while I was playing UB Angler Delver in pauper

it was a rough time for him

>someone tried to mill me when I was playing Grixis Delver

Gee user, how come you have 4 anglers?

One of my friends told me that someone was playing mill at a Legacy Open and got paired against Manaless Dredge

What is this thread? Like, what are we doing? Are we just posting cards we don't like? Here's my vote.

The only mill I know of is Painter's Servant, which outright kills you. If so, the dude better have brought some spicy anti-gy tech main decked

Pretty much, yeah

I didn't hear specifics other than it was a spicy UB glimpse the unthinkable kind of deck

Man, I can't get mad at some minor value because the flavor is perfect.

Anyway, here's another card I hate.

>What if we threw a flashback party
>...and EVERYTHING got replayed

Fucking playing Cabal Coffers from the graveyard. It is demoralizing.

Anyway, this guy is less bad than the other two, but still can go fuck itself.

nice quads

don't worry WOTC hates it too

>grimjars

Honestly, as someone who on the whole likes weak cards over powerful ones, I tend to agree with WOTC on a lot of this sort of thing.

Why are you tapping out in a blue deck?

because in future sight development it was deemed one of the most unfun mechanics they've ever made

banding is fucking great. It's casuals like you that fucked this game.

I feel banding would've been remembered more fondly if creatures weren't god awful back then.

I love using it with effects like Sarpazzan Heir.