The new Power Nine

[Ferret]

(sorry about the tone of this rant, folks. In a mood, right now and I need to vent)

I sit and I read Zvi's new Type I articles and hear him whining because the cards that he paid a fortune for can't be used in the Pro Tour...waaaaah! You want a tissue?

Take a look around: most of the "Power cards" have been reprinted in forms that are more balanced. All those cards that were banned and restricted in Type I (and II and I.V and blah blah blah) for a reason: they degenerated the game to whoever has the most expensive deck wins. So WotC and their enlightenned R&D tried to come up w/ "lighter versions of the Classics (pun intended)

Let's look at them:

Black Lotus: the bad boy - play anything that cost four mana on your first turn - Six if you've got a Dark Ritual...this card was just evil, so they replaced it w/ Lion's Eye Diamond...same effect, but you can't use it for cards in your hand - still works w/ Yawgmoth's Will...ewww! In Tempest they thought a lighter version (Lotus Petal) would be a good idea - it wasn't. The same problem came back to haunt us...

The five Moxes (I refuse to call them Moxen - what are they, cows or something?): these things were worse than the Lotus because they stuck around! WotC got wise and gave us the five Diamonds in Mirage (and Classic). They weren't cheap and they came into play tapped. Now, that's balanced...and then WotC got dumb and gave us Mox Diamond...too fast, too versatile...

Next up is every blue player's favourite: Time Walk: two mana for a free turn...let that sink in. First they got smart: Mirage's Final Fortune. They made it Red and threw in a condition: win next turn or lose. Pretty Simple and once again, they got dumb: Time Warp. It's time walk plus three mana. Blue has control again and w/ Petals and diamonds they can be cast by blue rather quickly.

and we round out our trip down Nightmare Lane w/ Time Twister: this was the freaking Energizer Rabit of cards - your evil cards just kept coming back - and if you're playing Blue, you've got a lot of Evil. WotC decided to re-introduce it in Alliances w/ Dimishing Returns - you get all your cards back in your library - except those seven you had on top. This was balance and no one in their right mind played it. R&D was stunned by this. "Why don't people like our 'improved' Twister?" so in Urza's Saga they gave us Time Spiral and it openned up a few billion combos that once again degenerated the environment...

So basicaly, you have nine sick little cards (there were more, but we're just talking about the BIG ones) and WotC tried to reintroduce them - their initial tries usually failed, so they tried newer versions and these were too often WORSE than the original.

Perosanally, I'm glad the Power Nine were taken out of print. I just wish WotC shared my sentiment. They need to realise that the game should be slowed down. People should be enjoying themselves - not just watching some guy across from him shuffling his deck for the eightieth time durring his FIRST TURN. Yes, it is a game and games are about winning and losing, but let's at least try to keep it a little more sane...

We've got enough problems as it is w/o the Power Nine being reprinted - again!

-ferret

"whew! That felt good. Hmm, that would make a nice article...any word from Mr Doust, Tony?"

 

[Ed Sullivan]

Umm, Ferret, about those nine cards you listed, you only listed 8. you forgot Ancestral Recall. But they already reprinted it. It's called Yavimaya Elder.

And then, for Black Lotus, we already have Lotus Blossom and Lotus Vale... and Blacker Lotus!!

-mike
Yavimaya Elder foils are cool!

 

[Zadok001]

Well, that was certainly a cool rant!

However, I disagree. Time Spiral was entirely unbalanced, and in many cases, better than the Twister.

But I see no problem with Lion's Eye Diamond. It is entirely balanced, the fact that it combos well with Yawgmoth's Will is irrelevant. You still lose your hand (everything you discard is removed from the game). Shreiking Drake combos well with Earthcraft, but no one has complained about that. Combos are a fact of life, we can't stop all of them, only the most degenerate ones.

Ok, Mox Diamond was a mistake, but the diamonds were basically useless except in some Prison decks. Now, if they had all had the same '1, T, sac: Draw a card' mechanic as Mind Stone, I wouldn't have minded as much, but as they are, they suck.

Next up, Time Warp. It's not even remotely unbalanced, IMHO (though my local metagame is BLAZING FAST). It costs 5 mana, it's hard to splash well, and (though this is blasphemy) and extra turn ain't that great. That's one extra attack (not too important in Blue), one extra card (my name is Whispers of the Muse), one extra untap (by far the best bonus of this card), and one extra land drop (worthless). Wow. What a card. 5 mana. Wow. I've seen it used as a kill w/ Palinchron in one deck, but that's it. It's a good card, well valued on the market, but not a broken card.

Anyway, I'm not trying to bash you, I'm just pointing out that some of those cards aren't as broken as they look.

--Zadok001, aka Greater Good fanatic

 

[Zadok001]

Ed, you beat me by just a few minutes! I didn't see your post until after I put my really long one down.

--Zadok001, aka Greater Good fanatic

 

[Tobold]

I don't agree with Yavimaya Elder being an Ancestral Recall. It costs 5 mana to use, 2 of them green so it can't be easily splashed. Of the three cards you get, at least two are lands. This is nice at the start of the game or if your opponent play land destruction. But when you are in a situation where you have sufficent land the Elder effectively gives you only 1 card you can use.

Still, the Yavimaya Elder is very good card and a bomb with Masticore. But I wouldn't call him broken.

 

[Ferret]

Ooops! Forgot Recall - Well, there were a few other cards printed to allow you to draw three cards (that were Blue), but they were for the most part balanced...

As for the rest, the point I was making that most of the time WotC tried to reprint the card and it was perfectly balanced, but the second versions were sick!

If WotC had left well enough alone and never reprinted those cards the game might have been easier to take, but they hear everyone whining "I want the Power Nine, but I can't afford them - reprint them! Waaaaah!"

We've seen it in many articles and often uttered from our own lips.

-ferret

"...and don't get me started about horrible 'I win' cards like Masticore..."