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by Andrew Walker
The Great Color Conspiracy As anyone who has ever played Magic: the Gathering knows, each different color offers its own unique abilities and restrictions on game play. That is common knowledge. With new expansion and stand alone sets continually coming out, we would expect some changes in game play. The current D C I Type 2 environment shows this more than any other format, with what has been called by some "The Rise of Burn". With that, I present my theory on "The Color Conspiracies." or, "What WOTC tried to do, and failed." If you've been playing recently, or seen any current tournaments you should know what I'm talking about. Those fast, burn-filled, mono-red decks. For some reason these decks can now win over almost any other type 2 deck. The only real exceptions to this are: well made Stasis, and total land-kill decks. The rapid rise of these burn decks is, of course, bound to be expected - mainly because anyone can play them. While all other decks require a higher level of strategy and thought, the brainlessly easy to play burn decks have begun to take over the Type 2 scene. I would, at first, like to blame the people who play these mono-red decks, but how can you blame someone for using what works? It's WHY this deck now works so effectively that bothers me - and the explanation for that lies with the men who make the cards. For some time now, new expansion sets have all been evolving the game of Magic:the Gathering toward its current status where a mono-red burn deck can actually win consistently at tournaments. The reason is the current card pool. New card pools have added tremendously to the power and effectiveness of red spells. From having only a few fast direct damage spells before (Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning ) there is now a whole new batch of these low cost spells (Incinerate, Guerilla Tactics, Thunderbolt, Death Spark, Fireblast, and Hammer of Bogardan, to name most of them). Not only have these direct damage spells been improved and become more common, but with the addition of creatures that cost under 4 mana to summon, and can deal 3 to 6 damage in the turn they are brought into play (Ball Lightning, Viashino Sandstalker), are also contributing to the effectiveness of these mono-red speed decks. No matter how you look at it they're not a force to be taken lightly. So how can someone play against a deck that can deal over 20 damage within 5 turns? Turn to massive life gaining? Total resource denial? Damage prevention? That is what seems to be demanded by the situation, and unfortunately the new card pool answers all these things with a single color : White. With Circles of Protection, Gerrard's Wisdom, and the numerous other prevention / life gaining spells of white combined with the massive control spells such as Armageddon, and Wrath of God, white is becoming more widely played all the time. It is the two foils that these colors are being formed into that bothers me more then people playing cheese, because, face it, cheese is just a name we give to things that work well. As the card pool has constantly changed, adding to the power of red and white cheese, something has been lost.... What happened to the creature power of green, or the counters in blue, and the card advantages in black? They have been changed, replaced and watered down significantly. These other colors seem to have been left behind, as the war between massive damage and massive life gain takes off. I'm not saying that the elemental abilities of these colors have disappeared. Far from it. They are, in fact, growing as well, but along a different path, and on a different pace than red and white are traveling. The things that have been so dominant for a long time in the history of the game are now being halted or slowed, replaced by weaker versions - no matter how you look at it this can't be denied. Is a forced discard really so powerful to warrant both red and white anti-discard spells? It is the over-compensation in the attempt to even the power of every color that has added to red and white, leaving the other colors a double step behind. Black has little going for it. There is no fast way to gain life, as watered down discard is no longer fast enough to drain red of its speed and hitting power. Even with what remains of discard, the absence of key cards, like The Rack, take away most of black's finishing power. Blue can seemingly no longer stand on its own, and permission is dying, if not dead. With creatures that are alive one turn, and gone the next, back to the hand or to the grave, the spells of card stealing have lost most of their power. Even a watered down Control Magic is useless against a Yavimaya Ants, or a Ball Lightning. Upkeep required by creatures makes control ineffective. Counter is still present, and getting a small boost from each set, but the casting cost of counterspells are also increasing to a point where it isn't worth it to play them. By the time 5 lands are out and you can cast an Abduction, or a Force of Will without discarding another counterspell, it is often too late. If you've been playing awhile, then you can see that permission is dead in type 2. Those who used to play it are forced to turn to a mixture of white or red with their remaining counters, in the hopes of getting a lock or combatting the speed in so many of the new prevalent decks. Yet, even with counters being so powerful before, the over-compensation has not ended. Red has the Hammer of Bogardan, a re-castable direct damage spell. Countering it is next to useless, because it will come back the next turn and get you again if your opponent has the mana. There is also Kaervek's Torch, a variable burn spell that takes 2 extra mana to target with an interrupt, making it that much harder to stop. With all of the hype that WOTC has made over changes in the card pools, and evening out the different colors, I believe that they have focused too much on what WAS good, making it weaker, while continuing to add to the power of decks that never used to be able to hold their own. This has gone on so much that a point has been reached where they have reversed positions. Colors that once were added to a deck to filling an absence for direct damage, or life replenishment, have turned into independent decks that play and win as easily as the old, once powerful ones did.... but with half the skill, and a quarter of the originality of the now dead colors. Of course, this is just what I'm seeing. I may be blind, so look for yourself and see if I'm close. Andrew Walker
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