For those Blue mind-benders.

C

CanadianBrad

Guest
Disclaimer: I DO NOT play Blue. Ever. Blue generally irritates and annoys me. I am very Red in personality, and my comfort zone(which I am quite happy to remain in) is with Red, Black, and White(and not a lot of Black, really). Therefore, this is theoretical. I have never tested this.

Sea's Claim

Looks pretty at home in a deck brimming with islandwalk creatures(maybe Merfolk tribal?). Slap a playset into your islandwalk-filled deck, and now you're really an irritation to that opponent who's playing red/white and figured your islandwalk was just a crappy party trick with no real ramifications in the current game(that's me, by the way).
 
Killer Joe

Killer Joe

New member
I once hated blue.....years ago when I was a young derpling (okay I was like 36) I played in a type II tournament up in Syracuse, I was playing the classic green stompy deck

Senor Stompy
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Rogue Elephant
4 Ghazban Ogre <-- :)
3 Harvest Wurm
4 Spectral Bears
2 Whirling Dervish
2 Jolrael's Centaur
2 Uktabi Orangutan
3 Lhurgoyf
4 Giant Growth
2 Bounty of the Hunt
4 Winter Orb
2 Heart of Yavimaya
16 Forest

and my opponent was playing the then popular UG Tradewind Blossom deck. He sent back all of my creatures and killed me so very slowly, grrr...

Within a years time I began to embrace the concept of blue's powers and and though I like other colors, too, I could see how blue was so "KEY" to my newly developed playstyle "control"

My first tournament deck after I was enchanted with blue was a UW Control deck:
4x Counterspell
4x Mana Leak
2x Dismiss
4x Wrath of God
4x Propaganda
4x Gerrard's Wisdom
3x Millstone
2x Capsize
4x Whispers of the Muse
4x Disenchants
1x Avenging Angel
24x Land

I always rained on somebody's parade when I played this deck and so began my long and twisted road to playing UX and eventually UXx control decks.
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I like all the colors too, although I do play favorites with them...

I've never been a huge landwalk fan, but changing enemy's lands for landwalkers used to be a pretty common strategy. One time in the old Microprose game I got my butt kicked by a deck called "Swamp Thing." I forget what deck I was playing, but this strategy caught me off-guard. Here's Swamp Thing...

Swamp 22
Scathe Zombies 4
Zombie Master 4
Bog Wraith 4
Lost Soul 4
Will-O'-The-Wisp 2
Bad Moon 4
Evil Presence 4
Blight 4
Drain Life 2
Raise Dead 2
Ashes to Ashes 2
Black Vise 4
 
C

CanadianBrad

Guest
I think most people generally have preferences toward certain colours, but I think dislikes toward specific colours(or at least pronounced dislike) is uncommon. I've mentioned to many players my dislike of blue, and typically received a cocked-head, quizzical look. Just one of those things, I guess.
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I don't recall ever having said it, but I've long been sort of impressed with the people that work on Oracle texts. There are a whole lot of cards in the game now and they usually manage to keep everything straight. I have to wonder what the hell they were thinking with the template on War Barge. The original printed text from The Dark is...

Target creature gains islandwalk until end of turn. If War Barge leaves play this turn, target creature is buried.
Click to expand...
The Oracle text is...

Target creature gains islandwalk until end of turn. When War Barge leaves the battlefield this turn, destroy that creature. A creature destroyed this way can't be regenerated.
Click to expand...
The change from "play" to "the battlefield" is standard fare, as is the dropping of the "bury" keyword. But then there's the change from "if" to "when." There have been a lot of nuanced changes to triggers in the rules over the years and I sure haven't kept track of all of them. But "if" just makes sense here. "When" obviously implies that is will happen. It's the wrong word for this, and if the comprehensive rules have a section on triggers that make it the right word, they need to change that, because it's completely inane.
 
turgy22

turgy22

Nothing Special
"When" is used pretty frequently for things that aren't necessarily inevitable. When such-and-such a creature dies, something happens. Who says my creature's going to die? There's even a fair number of cards that refer to when something dies this turn and most don't sound particularly odd. It probably just seems strange on War Barge because it's such an unlikely trigger event, which really has nothing else to do with the rest of the card.

I also don't think it would be wise to change it. When and if have two very different meanings in rules text. When is used almost exclusively as a trigger condition. If, when not being used in comparisons (e.g. If creature's power is greater than X), is usually reserved for times when a player makes a choice (e.g. You may look at the top three cards of your library. If you do, you may put them back in any order.)
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I'm skeptical that the cards that refer to "when" something dies "this turn" (unless they also specified some condition that would kill the card) don't sound odd. Also, I don't see any reason that "if" couldn't be a trigger condition. Maybe the issue is that players looking for trigger conditions would see the word in instances where it was not one and be confused?
 
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