It seems to me that WotC is largely off when it has to determine how much a double or triple colored mana cost influence the power level of a card. Most of the recent powerful cards are splashable, and i struggle to find a format staple that has more than a 1/2 colored mana to total mana cost ratio and a cmc greater than 1 obviously (notable exceptions: LoA and the new merfolk lord, KotR).
WotC often repeat that Dual lands are too powerful, but honestly i'm starting to think that is not that Dual are too good, but that most of the best cards are super splashable bombs. Looking at all the recently printed staple cards: Dark Confidant, SFM, Goyf, Snapcaster mage, MM, Delver, Extraction etc...
If, for example, Goyf costed GG, Thresh and all its variants would have much more difficulty splashing a third color, duals or not. When the best cards in a color start to cost 1CC or CC, then suddendly wasteland become much more powerful, and decks with 20 lands and 3 colors suddendly aren't that hot (Maverick is almost always 2 colors and run 21+ land also because of this).
WotC is always repeating how much the original duals are overpowered, but i think they're missing the point as why.
Especially when the heavy colored cards we see are on the powerlevel of Phylacterium Lich, it seems obvious to me when they're still not seeing how much of a drawback an heavy colored cost really is. They want people to play multicolor and they make big splashable bombs for this reason, instead of giving us better duals and start pushing for more colored mana costs, which would achieve a similar, if not better effect (because the card itself would determine when it is playable in a multicolor deck instead of depending on the land of the format, and so you'd have a better control on which card would be played in which deck and which not).
Another consequence of this is seeing how most multicolor cards sucks. The only multicolored staples are Pernicious and KotR. That's pretty strange considering how multicolored cards "should" be balanced around a format with much worse duals and they still are mostly underpowered even in a format with the best duals around. KotR was the only exception in years, and it spawned a new deck all by itself.
We need more cards like KotR imho, more cards to give us reasons to explore color pairs that are currently underdeveloped. RB, RG and RW are all color pairs that see really scarce play. Imagine a card like this:
Blazing apparition RB
Creature - Specter
Flying, Haste. When ~ enter into play, target player discard a card at random.
Sacrifice Blazing apparition at Eot.
3/3
This would give players a reason to try and explore the RB color combination, not a card like Terminate that it's only slightly better than Doom Blade or Go to the throat.
CCC mana costs should define incredibly powerful and iconic effects for the color. Flavor is also achieved through mana costs.
+1
worse is when the cards are not used in decks of their own color. Goyf is a prime example, or black tutors. What am I supposed to tutor for in my black deck? The only card worth the tempo loss
was necroptence. mystical stoneforge is a far better tutor, intuition too, which shows black tutors are crap. they only work in decks that ignore the tempo loss, like ANT. And no amount of tinkering with color cost will change that.
R&D had no idea how powerful any of those cards would end up being, and they don't really care how powerful a card is in legacy anyway. Goyf was a $1 junk rare at release.Originally Posted by Gheizen64
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Well, that's what they said about SFM/Batterskull and Snapcaster after the fact, but they probably did realize they would be among the best, if not the best, things available in Standard. They just went ahead with these cards anyway. Goyf and Delver, on the other hand, were reportedly genuine oversights.
While I agree with the general idea laid out by the OP, I want to point out they're already doing this sometimes (Geralf's Messenger, Gatekeeper of Malakir - black gets a lot of those, Strangleroot Geist).
Also, it's worth bearing in mind that a splash-unfriendly mana cost does not balance out a low converted mana cost. As OP says, it does restrict the number of decks that have access to a card (which to WotC probably translates as lower sales). But even with a splash-unfriendly mana cost, you can still end up with a very powerful card that ends up being played in 2-3 color decks if the converted mana cost is low enough. Prime example, from outside Legacy: Cryptic Command.
I'm not entirely convinced that this discussion is relevant at this point in Magic. I agree that many spells should probably have been costed differently for their time and maybe even the block they were released in would have been spared a little pain if guys like SFM were WW - but on the whole, in Legacy there's so much fixing around that the only thing this would actually do is force a couple more fetches/shocks into everyone's deck. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, I don't think it offers any reprieve in an Eternal format for this problem.
I mean, what's the real upshot of a format that has a GG Goyf, a WW SFM, a BB Confidant and an RR Snapcaster? There are so fucking many mana fixers over the last 20 years, that people would just play more of them. Basics go down, nonbasics go up. Wasteland may actually be a little less effective than it was before in terms of keeping people off a color, effects like Back to Basics and Price of Progress have a slightly increased playability, and every once in a while a control player takes 1 - 4 extra damage from either shocklands or painlands or both before they finally just have enough of the "good" duals in play that this doesn't matter anymore. Shit, even the m10 taplands are good enough in a deck full of duals, but I doubt that aggro is even so good in this format that people would need to risk the potential tempo hit of playing a lot of cards that lead to a first turn ETBT land, only to get Wastelanded.
Also consider that in blocks like Ravnica, the creation and continued use of hybrid mana costs basically implies that at the end of the day, they really do just want us casting our spells for great justice. I don't think it's an accident that Richard Garfield was involved with Ravnica and they oops out comes a series of new duals AND spells that fix their own mana. The creator of the game is involved directly with a set that basically lets you get about as loose and crazy with your manabase as there has been in a long long time. I could be reading too much into it but that always felt like a "hint hint" to me.
At any rate, I think that this argument is entirely valid, but I don't think it applies to Legacy or any other Eternal format not named Modern.
ForI would rather have 3 damage instant speed "deathtouch" burn or 3 damage sorcery speed burn which also duresses the opponent if aimed at the player.
I wonder why that design space wasn't explored yet.
Goyf, I could understand, but Delver? Who thought that a 3/2 flyer with little to no drawback forwas a good idea?
Because the former basically reads, "Choose one - Destroy target creature, or do the last three damage to target player," while the latter basically reads, "Choose one - Better-Blightning target player or I guess you can do damage to a creature if you're desperate or something."For
I wonder why that design space wasn't explored yet.
R&D underestimated how easy it would be to flip it with library manipulation. I think Forsythe has talked quite a bit about how it was a mistake.Goyf, I could understand, but Delver? Who thought that a 3/2 flyer with little to no drawback for
They also completely missed how good Stoneforge Mystic was going to be.
That's the reason the OP is silly; the OP has problems with those cards because they were mistakes, not because they were undercosted in CMC or colored mana. They're undercosted because they're mistakes. If R&D had correctly valued them they'd be completely different or wouldn't exist at all.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Just get rid of colorless mana costs at CC<3
Knight of the Reliquary, Hymn to Tourach, Qasali Pridemage, JTMS are all cards I would consider staples to the format that require double colored mana costs.
Scavenging Ooze also might as well cost multiple G as well.
I like the idea of the thread, and I generally agree. However, some effects should be more splashable than others. I mean, tarmogoyf is just a vanilla fatty. Green should be able to splash this effect into other colors fairly easily. Running green at all is already a reasonable cost, especially in standard.
Cards like troll ascetic or thrun, which actually have "green" abilities, are appropriately much harder to splash, and they aren't paired with blue decks as often in legacy. While the thread makes a valid point, I think that it is somewhat exaggerated.
The other classic problem is that blue is much more capable of splashing than any other color because of cards like brainstorm and ponder. Are there any 3-color decks in legacy that don't use blue? The only ones that I can think of use life from the loam or knight of the reliquary and are necessarily land-centric. Wizards might not be using enough colored mana symbols, but clearly blue decks are reaping the benefits much more than any other color.
I know what you're trying to say, but saying "GW, RG and RB are underdeveloped color pairs" is hilarious because they're allied. (RW is an exception, sure).
The problem is that Legacy doesn't rotate.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
A little off the topic, but it is kinda relevant. Everyone always says that wizards has no idea that card x would be powerful in what ever format. I live in the Seattle area and know/talk with some of the wizards guys about cards and for the most part they know when a card is good or not. They want to print cards that people want to buy and even if they think a card is going to be good or not it can always be banned.
As for the topic I agree I wish they print cards that are better for the color they are in instead of splashing for everything. But the problem isn't the duals it is the fetches to get the color you need. I remember back before fetches and having to run all duals to get colors. Splashing is what makes magic fun, just sucks when all the decks splash for the same stuff
Erm ... Zoo?
Moreover, strange point. Running 3 out of 5 colors and not using blue for card selection/mana fixing is a high barrier to overcome and barely proves anything.
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Didn't your hear? Zoo got pushed out of the meta because it wasn't running any blue in it.
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