Maro: "We have no attention of returning to “Draw, Go” type of control decks(...)"

Pre-posting Edit: My argument here is taking this statement as a reinforcement of their previous statements - that they don't want strong counterspells in Standard. They have said they prefer cards to be destroyed after entering the battlefield, and in this statement, they don't want "(almost) everything... countered."

Magic's greatest strength (when compared to its largest competitor) is Instant speed interaction on the stack.

If you were forced to make a distinction between Magic and Hearthstone, I would argue that Magic is the "better" (stronger/more involved/more skill-testing) game because players can interact with you on your turn.

Draw-Go is the epitome of that mantra. They will try to do very little BUT interact with you on your turn.

I don't think it would be healthy for Standard to have a tier-0 Draw-Go deck, but a tier-1 or tier-2 deck seems more than just desirable to me - it seems like a good way to highlight Magic's strength - interplay between players.

Some players just want to sit down and do their own thing. They feel sad when the opponent stops them from doing "their thing". Counterspells "feel bad" to new players because they never even got to finish doing their thing.

The problem is that in Magic, if you let the opponent do what they want to do (and you are not also faster than them), you are going to lose.

In Modern we see this - with so many linear decks all trying to be faster than one another, and relatively few decks taking the time to be slower and prevent the opponent's plan from working.

Black has targeted discard - effects like [[Thoughtseize]] or [[Duress]] which are catch-all answers. You invest one mana to their 0, but prevent them from doing what they want to do. In blue you invest 2 mana to their X (where X is the cost of the spell they cast) to prevent them from doing what they want to do. Blue forces you to keep mana open every turn. It's harder to do it against instant-speed threats, and you don't get to see the contents of their hand by doing it.

By comparison, blue's countermagic continues to be just as strong against the top of their deck.

Part of the colour pie's inherant balance is that blue relies on countermagic as a key part of its interplay. It's not typically faster than other colours (in fact it's typically the slowest colour, in terms of a traditional goldfish-style kill), and the main tools it has to interact with the opponent are "bounce" spells and countermagic.

Bounce spells are typically a huge amount of card disadvantage. Unless they seriously re-invent the wheel, blue NEEDS a strong counterspell to keep up with the likes of [[Sylvan Advocate]], [[Thalia's Lieutenant]] or [[Bedlam Reveller]].


Blue could try and become just as fast as the other colours - more blue prowess, cards like [[Thing in the Ice]] and similar - the problem is that it requires more than one or two key cards. Right now in Standard blue has a bunch of cards that "do nothing" and just play for time. Without a really fast threat to take advantage of the time bought, it does nothing.

I don't like blue in this Standard, and the recent two sets have done very little to help it. The lack of a strong counterspell is hurting blue more than anything else.

Blue needs countermagic like red needs burn. Without them, a huge number of other things need to change in the background to make the colour pie continue to be balanced.

/r/magicTCG Thread Link - markrosewater.tumblr.com