Although the B&R thread is a cesspool of circular arguments that never get anywhere, there was, what I found to be an interesting sub-current of the idea of color diversity. I don't want to get in whether or not this kind of diversity is a "good thing" or a "bad thing," that isn't the point I am looking to make or discuss. What it did was get me thinking about why we play certain colors (and so, don't play others), or what are we getting from playing those colors or color combinations. I love the "old school" idea of the color pie, as in, the colors have things they do well and things they can do, but very inefficiently, and things they can't do at all. However, within that paradigm, I feel like some kind of disruptive elements should be found (in some manner) across all the colors, flavored by what those colors do well.
In my thinking, is that every deck has some sort of "disruptive" element. Looking across Legacy's tier 1, 1.5 and even tier 2 decks, it is easier to list the decks that don't feature "disruption" than it is to run down the numerous examples of ones that do. In my mind it is clear that every deck in Legacy needs some kind of "disruptive" element and often the more varied types it has, the better. This is a large part of why most decks are 2-3 colors in Legacy (hand-in-hand with access to more powerful effects).
I think I aught to define what I mean by disruption. Disruption, in my book, is stopping, preventing, or denying your opponent a resource that is necessary for the execution of their game plan. Indeed, by my definition, even removal is a disruptive element. There are few permanents you would play that you actively do not want to keep in play, so your opponent removing it is indeed stopping your game plan. Now, there is the issue of significance, which is another reason why single dimension disruption is not often the best. For example, Burn is not often regarded as a "disruptive" deck, but it does heavily focus on denying the opponent both time and life, two important resources. This doesn't mean that that sort of disruption is always effective, as there are many decks that can win quickly and without regard to what their life total is. This is why many Burn decks have a sideboard full of cards to add another element of disruption, be it graveyard removal, counter-magic, etc.
I am being long winded here, but what I am getting at is how there is a very uneven amount of disruption spread across the colors of Magic. Like I said in the beginning, I don't believe that every color should have access to every effect and especially not highly efficient answers. Lets look at the ways in which you can "interact with your opponent" (i.e. disrupt them in some fashion) in each color (mind you, this list is not meant to be exhaustive or complete, just some ideas off the top of my head):
White is the color of removal. It as always had 2 of the historically best creature removal spells (Swords to Plowshares and Wrath of God) along with staples such as Disenchant. White can typically "deal" with any type of permanent, as the cost of not being able to interact with spells on the stack. White is not a very proactive color in terms of it's non-creature spells, instead getting most of the best reactive cards in the form of removal. White has also come to be the color of the "hatebear" and of "prohibition." Numerous small, often 2 or 3 CMC creatures that stop, delay, or deny the opponent the ability to do something have been printed in recent years, along with the moving of effects to White, such as Propaganda to Ghostly Prison and Arcane Laboratory to Rule of Law.
Blue has a very narrow, but very powerful "main" way of disrupting an opponent, counter-magic. Counterspell and it's ilk are probably the best "proactive" solution to the variety of things your opponent might be attempting to do. I use proactive in quotes, because counter-magic is only proactive in the sense that the spell never resolves, not as in it can be played out ahead and left to deal with a problem once it arises (Hesitation is the only proactive counter-magic I could think of off the top of my head and it's pretty bad). Blue's disruption is weak after this layer, since most interaction with permanents is only to return them to opponent's hand or library, but in balance terms this is probably correct for access to such powerful effect such as counter-magic.
Black also gets access to another relatively strong "proactive" effect, in discard. Taking a card from the opponent's hand with something like Thoughtseize is a pretty good way of disrupting an opponent's plan. Black also gets access to a reasonable suite of creature removal at the cost of having no good ways to deal with Artifacts and absolutely no way to deal with Enchantments. I think this is also a pretty fair balance, although I do feel that the way the pie breaks down, there should be a little room for Black to interact with Enchantments (as a counterpoint to Red's lack of interaction).
Red truly lacks a diverse set of disruptive elements, but it does get the added benefit in that it's creature removal can often be directed at the opponent's life total, in order to deny them either time or life as a resource. That is also the same idea behind the Red "punisher" cards, such as Manabarbs or Eidolon of the Great Revel. Red does get some disruption in the form of Artifact removal, while paying for that in having almost no way to interact with Enchantments. Red also does occasionally see a spell to change the target of a spell or ability, but that is often split between Blue and itself. Lastly is Blood Moon, which is probably the best Red disruption spell, which just happens to fit well into the meta game.
Green is no a very disruptive color at all. In fact, it is often difficult to even think of an actually competitively played Green card that is disruptive. I would classify Sylvan Safekeeper as on, since it can deny your opponent the ability to interact with your creatures. City of Solitude is a good example, but it's effect has more often be shifted to White, as in Grand Abolisher. I applaud the arrival of Green flavored creature removal in the form of "Fight" cards. Although they are highly inefficient, it's good that they exist. Even Green's artifact and enchantment removal has largely been shifted to White. Green was supposed to be the color of creatures, but as Zoo's inability to compete exemplifies, disruption is necessary. While Gaddock Teeg is a great card, he is only half Green and so I am excluding this on that basis. I am only focusing on mono-colored effects.
TLDR; While it seems I continue to babble on and on, my point is that Green has by-and-large gotten the shaft on disruption. If you were a designer, what would be some on-color, on-flavor disruptive effects for Green that could meaningfully disrupt your opponent? Is there even room in the color pie for Green disruption? Or, perhaps, am I just an idiot for typing all this?
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I think it's safe to say that green still has the bulk of the artifact/enchantment kill cards, and reclaimation sage is a good example of that. The problem is that artifact kill is a lot more narrow than discard, countermagic, or burn. If green were to have some more on-color/flavor disruption (aside from the "destroy things by growing mushrooms on them" or "triggered ability that probably involves a creature token" that is sometimes played with), I wonder if there is not some room to explore disrupting mana production. Green has a lot of cards that deal with producing mana, so perhaps a card that can change the color of mana produced by a player might offer some disruptive potential:
Mirri's chant. {g}
Instant
Until end of turn, all mana added to target player's mana pool is colorless.
Or maybe
Harvest Moon. {2g}
Enchantment
Nonbasic lands produce only green mana
It would probably be a major rules headache, though.
Ah, yes, when I first went to type that all up, I was thinking of Desert Twister and all it's descendants (like Beast Within), but failed to mention them. Cards like Creeping Mold or Bramblecrush count too. However, they are still very limited and not very efficient at all, especially if your opponent isn't playing Artifacts or Enchantments, but at least Branmblecrush can hit Planeswalkers. Four mana Stone Rain isn't very exciting in the competitive sense.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Well, there is Root Maze as a disruptive card against mana. I can't remember similiar green cards, tho.
I don't think the first one would be too good, I guess it's like a Green version of Silence. The second would probably be decent as a Green Blood Moon.Originally Posted by Slag
Root Maze is a great card, but it is largely incomparable with the other disruptive elements you are almost forced to use in a mono-Green deck, since multiple colors with Root Maze is pretty bad. Root Maze with Chalice is bad and Root Maze with Trinisphere is terrible. That is part of why I made this thread, I was curious what people felt could be cards to run with something like Maze.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Green has a bunch of disruption spells that prevent the opponent from countering spells in one way or the other.
Gaea's Herald
Gaea's Revenge
Leyline of Lifeforce
Summoning Trap
Thrun, the Last Troll
Vexing Shusher
Dosan the Falling Leaf
The problem is most of them are creature based and creatures are weak as a disruptive device because every list in Legacy is either too fast to be easily disrupted or has several ways to remove creatures.
What you want is a Gaea's Herald that costsand has hexproof. Maybe a Dosan the Falling Leaf that costs
Best of all would be a Vexing Shusher at
I'd settle for a Teeg that didn't fuck my own green deck up ;__;
If disruption is simply stopping the execution of the plan, Green gets an amount of hexproof, which has shown itself to preclude interaction to the point of tedium (though arguably guys like Geist of Saint Traft and/or True Name Nemesis are better at this, pound-for-pound). Notably, Vines of Vastwood has maintained its old wording, which is subtly different from hexproof enough that it matters -- you can cast Vines of Vastwood on an opponent's creature in response to their own spell/ability to counter it, because VoV says "can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control". Not that there's much of that going around Legacy these days, but w/e.
While it matters a lot less in Legacy than other formats, abilities which prevent the death of the creature (Undying/Persist/Regeneration) may as well be a one-shot tempo effect for removal that doesn't exile.
You also get effects like Savage Summoning, which are a little obvious and not nearly as reactionary as you might like. But they do pre-empt a counterspell, so there's that.
Xantid Swarm is a thing but I think it's relegated to anti-combo combo tech. If what you really mean is being able to "reach across the table" as it were and stay the opponent's hand, Swarm is about it, in mono-green anyway.
I don't believe this is what H is talking about though...
Countering your spells is disruption. Discard is disruption. Spell per turn limitations is disruption. Damage per spell is disruption.
Not having your stuff countered isn't really disruption. It just lets you NOT be disrupted. (Hah! Gaea's Herald not being uncounterable is a fail...)
So going back to H's TL;DR summation, where does disruption even fit in to Green's game plan?
So green is about creatures... but we knew that already.
It seems inevitiable that this will become a very specific "Shitty card creation" thread...
Surprise
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever an opponent plays a non-creature spell, you may put a creature from your hand into play.
Ugh, even that is terrible because it is still reliant on you having a disruptive (probablyor
Perhaps another question to ask is: "Is it bad that Green doesn't have disruption?"
Should all colors be able to do all things?
Green does see the occasional off-color card like Stunted Growth,Hornet Sting, unlike out-of-slice blue cards, they tend to be terrible.
Green "should" definitely be the color least likely to reach over and flick a dude on the ear for trying to do stuff.
As far as I can reckon Green is less about disruption and more about just not giving a shit because your stuff is fucking staunch. Like, hey nice Lightning Bolt, just two more and you might actually kill my guy. Or, cool chump blockers - so I assign 1 damage to each of them and trample over for 5, right? What're you at?
The obvious problem being the same as a combo deck that only self-durdles; if you can't actively make the opponent's plan fail, then that means they might be succeeding in spite of you. That's a bad thing.
For my part I wish that jank like Cabal Therapy + Undying Green guys had actually worked out as well as it seems like it would. Maybe it's just that Young Pyromancer is straight better at that trickery (while also getting mileage out of just plain casting spells). But the Therapy + Undying thing, that seems like Green's "contribution" to disruption; I wreck your hand, I don't care because it makes my dude bigger than before instead of just dead, crush your face now.
Well, yeah, I wouldn't say that everyone else's responses have been off-topic, but indeed, what I was looking for doesn't have to be "card creation" but instead I was struggling to even think of what Green disruption would look like. I think that fleshing out what Green disruption is right now is fine so we can see what has been done, so we might see where we might go.I don't believe this is what H is talking about though...
Countering your spells is disruption. Discard is disruption. Spell per turn limitations is disruption. Damage per spell is disruption.
Not having your stuff countered isn't really disruption. It just lets you NOT be disrupted. (Hah! Gaea's Herald not being uncounterable is a fail...
So going back to H's TL;DR summation, where does disruption even fit in to Green's game plan?
So green is about creatures... but we knew that already.
It seems inevitiable that this will become a very specific "Shitty card creation" thread...
Surprise
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever an opponent plays a non-creature spell, you may put a creature from your hand into play.
Ugh, even that is terrible because it is still reliant on you having a disruptive (probably
Perhaps another question to ask is: "Is it bad that Green doesn't have disruption?"
Should all colors be able to do all things?
By my hastily made and probably overly broad definition, keeping your things from being countered is a pretty narrow and usually bad form of disruption, unless it comes built in, like on Abrupt Decay.
I think your last point is a good one, I'm not sure if it is bad that Green doesn't get much playable disruption. It feels bad to me, but I'm not sure if maybe I am just a bleeding heart here.
How good would an aggressively costed Stunted Growth effect be? I want to believe it would be awesome, but I have a feeling it still might not be playable.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Isn't Hidden Gibbons the ultimate in green disruption?
You'd better not play an interrupt or I'll get an ape!
That card is just so good.
-----
Edit for an actually meaningful comment - How about something like:
I dunno... Whatever
Instant
Counter target spell. It's controller puts an X/X creature into play where X is the spell's CMC.
Yeah it says 'counter', but it also says 'creature'!
First of all you should define disruption:
I see it as: "cards which break opponent game plan".
Game plan can be defined as all cards played in sequence to aim goal which is winning the game. You can do it on several ways:
- Win the game - decrease your opponent life to 0 or mill your opponent deck.
- Make your opponent doesn't realize his game plan, while you can - then your winning plan is one second stage.
To analyze disruptions kinds you should categorize game plans.
Let take data from DtB (alphabetical order) and some other popular construction to get diversity:
1. BUG Delver (Team America) - winning via creatures (Shaman, Delver, Tarmogoyfs) while disrupt opponent game plan controling stack, hand and recources enough long to deals enough dmg to win
2. Death & Taxes - similar to Team America game plan - beat down with tempo but control opponent resources and tax casting noncreature spells, supporting creatures with equipments
3. Elves ! - get critical mass of creatures via Glimpse to cast/cheat with NO Craterhoof and win via alpha strike
4. Micracles - Control the game with CB/Top until cast EtA for enough to ride with Angels or Control the game until Jace Ultimate to deck opponent
5. ANT - cast sequence of spells to bump storm count and finding Tendrils of Agony to kill opponent directly
6. Sneak & Show - cast S&T or Sneak Attack to cheat Emrakul or Griselbrand to play, then clean opponent table via anihilator
That's their game plans.
Now take them and wrote disruptions vs each game plan.
1. A lot of crature removal (some of can be countered), stable mana base (few nonbasics, and fetches more basics)
2. Similar to 1. - creature removal but its more focused on cheap CMC, stable mana base or other mana sources, artifact removal
3. Elves - recursive removal, blocking spell sequance like Ethersworn canonist or simple stack control with counters
4. Miracles - Enchantment removal (Counterbalance lock) o high CMC to ignore them, mass token creature removal like EE or direct answer vs Jace.
5. ANT - blocking spell sequance or blocking buisness spell (like Gaddock), controling stack and hand or control their life or gy to close some generators like Ad N or Past in flames.
6. Sneak & Show - Blocking Sneak Attack activation, controling spells on stack, or answering put in to play fatties - like Humility or Karakas
Now we can categorize them on two ways, first one was mention by You - proactive and reactive. Proactive answer their game plans bofore they started to realize them (casting them), second one answer after they casting (or in-time of casting).
1. Stable mana base will be proactive disruption, Suflur Elemental will be also proactive disruption, while removal will be reactive disruption.
2. Similar like upper, Leyline of Sanctity can be proactive disruption vs their disruption, while uncounterable can be reactive disruption which can't be disrupted while you also have proactive Leyline of Sanctity
etc..
that should be shorter post..
all in all best disruption will be disruption which they can't disrupt. But most Tiers construction have answers vs most situation (if not they should consider changing sb). So when we look on other categorize - color pie we can see similar thing which you mention:
Blue - is mostly reactive - and probably one of the best disruption since its - universal, versus most spells (only few can't be countered), can also act as protection since it can also protect your game plan to resolve. On what cost ? Mostly been reactive - this mean you must wait until your opponent starts to realize his game plan, but history shows that best counters are "free on mana" on some conditions - mostly board state or card advantage - (Daze, FoW, Thwart, Foil) if you can effort to stop opponent game plan and realize your until your hand will be "out of gas" you simple win - that's the best definition of tempo strategy (looking on history of magic - best one). Maybe a coincident but also Blue has best CA to refill your hand, and best card selection to not getting out of gas. Now let connect it with actually best aggressive creature which has flying..
Red - it has probably one of the best reactive cheap creature removal, which can also be removal vs plainswalkers and a game plan (burn), it can also punish playing spells - proactive (Eidolon) or many non-basics Price of Progress - reactive. It also have one of the best reactive disruption vs Blue - pyroblast and red elemental blast.. that's probably enough of disruption to so blue centric meta.
White - its focused on proactive answers - like Thalia - its so good bacause it can't be so easily answered (disrupted) with reactive disruption - removal - even 1 CMC removal will cost same as you paid for Thalia (if you Vial it you get tempo advantage), that is probably only proactive answer which is hard to answer - others are suffering or simple been permanents and waiting until opponent find answer for them (if they resolved, and not been discarded), the other side is creature and permanent removal - good reactive answer - that's why its one of the most splashed colors to blue.
Black - Discarded - yes black can attack easily spells before they can be played - its ... proactive - problem is you disrupt some of the routes your opponent would play wasting your resources, while your opponent need to find other way to realize his game plan using available resources - so deck with many redundancy will always win vs discard 1 for 1. They other problem is that you can't discard cards which your opponent just draw (only few cards do that - and mostly non-selective) so any library manipulation (blue) can break your disruption - or simple disrupt it.
Green - More mana sources then lands, redundancy with tutors (GSZ), card advantage via Glimpse that are Green "disruption" spells - so basically it is disruption vs opponent disruption - still proactive - until your opponent find the other way to disrupt them, or answer proactive vs your "disruption".
We we see Color Pie is not a Pie.. its mostly 1-color blue-centric reactive most powerful disruptions, second color - red which can hated that one color, 100% proactive (white) with 1 card which is playable and also disrupt they answer (not always counterspell is enough), and with reactive removal - good for splash to blue same as red, Black - discard as was pointed out isn't good enough, and Green which could be good but it just to easy to disrupt mostly - only big redundancy like elves can be competitive on long range vs "blue" decks.
Conclusion - last sentence was little "too frustrated" but any non-blue deck can disrupt mostly proactive this mean it is not so universal, while blue can answer reactive - reactive answer can be "disrupted" only by reactive answers mostly so the wheel is closed. Redundancy doesn't helps now while blue also is best library manipulation / card quality and best card advantage color. Don't forget that we live in a color world so mixing colors is natural in building decks - printing one mana wrath of god helps a lot for diversity of colors to give any deck with good library manipulation reactive answer to disrupt all of the "non blue" proactive disruptions.
Edit: Sorry for my English - written late and in a rush :)
Well, I'd be OK with that principle of "hey-I'm-Green-and-I'm-just-going-to-smash-your-face" if only Green creatures were actually demonstrably better than other colors so you could actually execute that plan. As it is, your creatures are possibly slightly better and you have slim pickings of disruption to back it up...
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Your English is 100% better than my Polish! But my mind is like a child's AND I think I'm funny...
'To analize' something is completely different than 'analyzing' it.
Well, let's try to keep it at least mildly constructive,
Why I say it "feels bad" that Green disruption sucks is that you could run a pretty decent mono-color deck for each color, but the Green one would probably be the worst of all of them (mind you, I applaud Lejay's work on his new Green Stompy). Indeed, your sources of disruption aren't even really going to be Green, but Artifacts, which, again, just feels bad to me. Death and Taxes, Pox, Burn and to a lesser extent mono-Blue Control are archetypes that can survive on their own colored cards (OK, OK, I am probably embellishing on MUC, but my point still stands).
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Uh, I think we have a basically monogreen deck in the DTB atm...Well, let's try to keep it at least mildly constructive,
Why I say it "feels bad" that Green disruption sucks is that you could run a pretty decent mono-color deck for each color, but the Green one would probably be the worst of all of them (mind you, I applaud Lejay's work on his new Green Stompy). Indeed, your sources of disruption aren't even really going to be Green, but Artifacts, which, again, just feels bad to me. Death and Taxes, Pox, Burn and to a lesser extent mono-Blue Control are archetypes that can survive on their own colored cards (OK, OK, I am probably embellishing on MUC, but my point still stands).
I actually disagree, without Black for Decay and Deathrite, plus discard from the board, I don't think Elves would be a formidable.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I'm with you. It's a difficult life we lead.
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2
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