MtG: Color Philosophy Thread!

[Man_Over_Game]

First mill based blue control was definitely a big part of what i was taking a slice at. But there's also a couple of related concepts i was taking a swing at. There's the blue prision decks that have a very limited rnage of win conditions, (usually restricted to 4 copies of a single card at ost). if they don't draw that early enough or under the right boardstate they'll deck themselves before they achieve the win or otherwise run themselves out of options releasing you to act and kill them. You don't win because you did anything right but because whatever long odds win condition they where playing towards didn't happen. You won because they lost the RNG toss.

I'd also say that the issue is worse at lower power levels. The lower down the scale you get the more colour identity becomes an issue. As a result only blue and red have real tempo answers, and thats it a lot easier for blue to maintain enough answers to shut down anything your doing. And they generally don't need as powerful a win condition. And the main way to keep a blue control from locking you down is to have enough tempo they can't have an answer for everything.

Honestly what it comes back to is agency. A player needs to feel like they're doing somthing, if their every option is so completely shut down that none of their cards even hit the board the effect on an emotional and perceptional level is very different to killing them off or shutting them down after they hit the board. Of course some of that also has to do with enters and leaves the battlefield type effects and the way very little hoses all permanent types after they hit the battlefield. Regardless of the reality players feel their cards they played got to do somthing before they where countered. Thats also wy like blues tap and return to hand/library effects much more, they give more time for whatever card you play to have an effect. Blue can buy a lot of time, but they can't completely shut you down eternally that way.

Makes me wonder about a mechanic that specifically helps Blue players win when they counter or manipulate things, but not in a way that's overly oppressive.

Like "When a creatures leaves the battlefield without going to the graveyard, put a +1/+1 counters on this creature. While this creature has a +1/+1 counter on it, it has flying and lifelink. When this creature dies, instead put it in your hand".

Or "Whenever an opponent taps a permanent for a mana ability, put a Manashock counter on that player. At the start of their turn, remove all that player's Manashock counters and deal that much damage to them. If a player casts a spell, they remove all Manashock counters on them" (So blue counterspells deal damage until you're able to play something).