Shouldn't Red be able to "burn" spells instead of copying them?

[Gheizen64]

This suddendly came up to me when i was looking at some old Red cards, and Red color's Pie. Red storically had some interaction with instants or sorceries on the stack, from Fork, Reverberate, Chandra, the Firebrand, Radiate, Wild Ricochet, Reiterate, Increasing Vengeance, Molten Influence. You could also include the blasts here i guess.

Honestly however, i see little in Red flavor justifying actually "copying" spells. That seems more of a blue thing to do (copying is almost the definition of an act of trickery). What i'd find much more in flavor for Red would be something like this:


SpellFlare RR
Instant
Counter target instant or sorcery spell with converted mana cost 3 or less. If the spell is countered this way, spellflare deal 3 damage to that spell controller.
Sometimes spell fizzles, sometimes they explode

This feel exactly like burn for spells. While blue is more subtle about countering their opponent's spells and can counter everything, Red just use burn magic to destroy the spells. This is represented by the fact that you are limited in CMC of the spell of you counter, as it represent its "toughness" against burn. This is also a relatively unexplored style of cards. Aside from some exceptions like Mental Misstep and spellblast, most blue counters are Tax counters (which fit also white but this isn't a discussion about it) or just flat counters with eventual conditions (a-la spell snare).

This seems pretty logical to me after thinking about it. Red has storically interacted with instant and sorceries on the stack, but copying should be less Red, while "burning" those spells (a Spell "shock", aka counter Cmc 2 or lower, then deal 2 damage would be probably be too good at R, but a RR Spell "bolt" feel fine in power level) feel much more red, and give red some more effects to work with since it's the most 1-dimensional color in the game.
Another interesting point for the mechanic is that, like blue's counterspells, there is a lot of space to make them relevant and playable in different enviroments, differently from burn where it's more "play bolt, rest sucks", as most burn spells are usually extremely comparable and almost all burn spells are just strictly worse bolts.
Something like SpellFlare would be the "baseline" spell burn , but you could make less damaging version that are however more versatile because they have included limited artifact/creature removal in it:


Charm of Sparks R
Instant
Choose one: deal 1 damage to target creature or player, or , destroy target artifact with cmc 1 or less, or, counter target instant or sorcery spell with converted mana cost 1 or less

This could be a good spell in vintage, counter ancestrals, cantrips, destroy moxens.

A spell snare variant?


Lightning Snare R
Instant
Counter target instant or sorcery with CMC 3. Deal 3 damage to that spell controller.

This could be a sideboard card against SnT. Pretty narrow but also pretty powerful, even if blasts are way more versatile.

A Blaze/Spellblast variant?


SpellBlaze XR
Instant
Counter target instant or sorcery with cmc X or less. Deal X damage to controller.

Playable in slower formats like Modern or Standard i guess. A pretty good lategame topdeck against decks which run plenty sorceries and instants.

A variant on the blasts:


Crimson Elemental Blast R
Instant
Counter target blue instant or sorcery, or target instant or sorcery with converted mana cost 1 or less. Deal 1 damage to that spell controller.

I mean i'm not a designer and i could come up for millions of variants of this effect that would feel perfectly red, much more than fork effect for sure. Pyroclasm variants that burn all 2 cmc spells and deal 2 damage to all creatures, counters that counter higher CMC if the target is blue/white, or deal more damage if the target is blue/white as hate cards, Earthquake variants that burn creatures, players and spells alike, a Force of Will variant in Red, flash creatures that burn spells as they enter into play, etc...

They would also be naturally better in eternal than in non-eternal formats because of the nature of the format being less focused on creature, and as such, you could easily print variants of those cards just "ok" in standard but really good in legacy.

Would you think such a mechanic would fit red? Would it benefit it? Should WotC go there? Or is this just a bad idea and i should feel bad for it?

[Stan]

I like it. It's obvious that red needs some doping to keep up with the other colours in legacy, and this would do just fine. It wouldn't ge good enough to warrant a red splash for just the spellburn, but it'd allow red decks to pack some extra protection without splashing for blue.

[Barook]

Personally, I would prefer spell "stealing" (e.g. Commandeer) more as a mechanic - red already has copy and redirection effects to mess with spells and they have creature steal like Threaten.

E.g.


Spell Theft
Instant
Gain control of target instant or sorcery spell with converted mana cost 2 or less.

Can hijack Brainstorm and other goodies. Not sure about the mana cost, though, as it can almost certainly generate card advantage.

Edit: Activated/activated ability hijacking is a completely unexplored field and has quite the potential. Imagine something like this:


Ability Hijack :r::r:
Instant
Gain control of target activated or triggered ability. You may choose new targets for it.

Steal Fetchland/Wasteland activations, redirect Annihilator triggers, steal storm triggers, etc.

[Dice_Box]

If this where to happen (and that's a big if since most of those cards feel blue) the card in question should have a pain option. Like Browbeat.

"Gain control of target spell. Any player may lose 5 life to counter ~. This life loss can not be prevented. "

[TsumiBand]

If this where to happen (and that's a big if since most of those cards feel blue) the card in question should have a pain option. Like Browbeat.

"Gain control of target spell. Any player may lose 5 life to counter ~. This life loss can not be prevented. "

That's exactly the problem with Red though, right? This punisher junk. It only works when (a) the opponent's worst option is their only option; (b) you somehow create a false choice (c) their best option is always your best option as well.

There are a ton of stinger cards in Red, like Ash Zealot and Molten Influence and junk. They are all pretty much garbage.

Unfortunately, what you've suggested is little better than Dash Hopes, and I don't think Red would even want such a spell.

[Dice_Box]

I know what you mean. Sadly tho this is the design of the game. Reds most powerful effect is Blood Moon and rather than try and make some aspect of blue red, I want to see more unique and powerful effects like moon.

The other thing I read once and quite liked was the idea of giving red a "Null" power. There was a blue card on one of those half and half cards. Said target creature looses all abilities till end of turn. That kind of thing I think should be red. I agree with the article I read. Red Cross an burn out some things skills. Pain makes them forget. So someone casts Snapcaster but you hit him with something and he loses track of his thought process.

Really red needs a brand new unique red ability. Something cool and put on a goblin, so I can make use of it.

Card I was talking about was turn: http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=369080

Can't find the article.

[Slag]

I'm on board with you; in fact, I once idly speculated on a "spellblaze" myself. I think the idea of red reacting to spells by punching them to death goes along with the color's flavor pretty well.

[rufus]

WotC has traditionally overpriced the 'choice' spells and abilities.

That said there are some interesting possibilities:


Twisted Pyromancer
Human Wizard
RR
Sacrifice ~: Target opponent chooses a spell. You may either copy the spell, or counter it. If you copy the spell, you may choose new targets for the copy.
2/1


Thematically I kind of want to see high power / low reliability red stuff. That includes stack manipulation:


R
Instant
Flip a coin. If it comes up heads, copy target spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.

or


:r::r:
Instant
Flip a coin. If it comes up heads, you gain control of target spell. You may choose new targets for it.


I also think the 'subgame' aspect of :r: could reasonably be explored on stack manipulation cards with more reasonable CC:


:r:
Instant
Target player may discard a card at random. If that player discards a card this way, you may discard a card at random to repeat this process, otherwise, you may exile a spell or ability that player controls.


Although they haven't explored it much recently, :r: is thematically about card disadvantage for power. So:


:3::r::r:
Force of Madness
Instant
Discard a card at random. If you do, you gain control of target spell. You may choose new targets for it.
You may discard a card at random instead of paying this spell's mana cost.


On a similar theme of trading power for drawbacks. I think they could explore the extra turns with drawbacks stuff a little better.


Time Warp
:r::r::r:
Sorcery
Each opponent takes a additional turn after this one.
Take an additional turn after this one.

[HPB_Eggo]

There are a ton of stinger cards in Red, like Ash Zealot and Molten Influence and junk. They are all pretty much garbage.

While technically correct, your statement isn't necessarily one that examines the potential of this sort of card. For instance, before the printing of Thalia you could have stated that taxation on anything but an artifact was bad in Legacy, and you would have been correct.

As an example, something I posted in another thread:

Fanatic Guard RW
Haste, First Strike
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls targets a permanent you control, Fanatic Guard deals three damage to that opponent.
2/1

There's a good stinger card. Alternatively, imagine if you had something similar to Ash Zealot that hit an opponent for one every time they cast any spell. Or a three CMC Ruric Thar equivalent with lower damage. All of those would be potentially very strong cards, and all would support an archetype that is otherwise completely gone in terms of Legacy - aggro.

Now, more back on topic...

Red being able to interact with the stack outside of theft or misdirection would be nice, but I don't think it works particularly well with how WotC imagines the color divisions. Best you can hope for might be something like this...

Look! Over There! RR
Change the target of target spell or ability with a single target.

Or, alternatively, something like this...

Mine! Mine! Mine! 1RR
Gain control of target spell.

Both of which would be pretty good, but would just be eaten up by U/R decks rather than really doing a whole lot to help Red itself. You want to help Red? Help aggro. If WotC prints a bunch of decent stinger cards that also have good P/T and low CMC then aggro could be a thing, and that would make me pretty darn happy. All this fancy stuff is just going to start making red-heavy blue decks better, while decks like Goblins, Boros, and Zoo might have slightly better SB options - not a terrible thing to have happen, but it's certainly not going to start making red a color you want to be basing most decks around.

EDIT: Actually, since I completely failed to respond to the OP because I'm a terrible person...

Dealing damage while countering spells is a solid idea, but you have to make everything cost more than the blue equivalent. Otherwise it just doesn't work (Red having counters at the same CMC that also deal damage? Blasphemy!), and at that point the CMC starts making things unplayable.

For instance, Spellblaze would have to be at least XRR to not be straight better than all those XU counters that are out there.

[TsumiBand]

While technically correct, your statement isn't necessarily one that examines the potential of this sort of card. For instance, before the printing of Thalia you could have stated that taxation on anything but an artifact was bad in Legacy, and you would have been correct.

As an example, something I posted in another thread:

Fanatic Guard RW
Haste, First Strike
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls targets a permanent you control, Fanatic Guard deals three damage to that opponent.
2/1

There's a good stinger card. Alternatively, imagine if you had something similar to Ash Zealot that hit an opponent for one every time they cast any spell. Or a three CMC Ruric Thar equivalent with lower damage. All of those would be potentially very strong cards, and all would support an archetype that is otherwise completely gone in terms of Legacy - aggro.

Now, more back on topic...

Red being able to interact with the stack outside of theft or misdirection would be nice, but I don't think it works particularly well with how WotC imagines the color divisions. Best you can hope for might be something like this...

Look! Over There! RR
Change the target of target spell or ability with a single target.

Or, alternatively, something like this...

Mine! Mine! Mine! 1RR
Gain control of target spell.

Both of which would be pretty good, but would just be eaten up by U/R decks rather than really doing a whole lot to help Red itself. You want to help Red? Help aggro. If WotC prints a bunch of decent stinger cards that also have good P/T and low CMC then aggro could be a thing, and that would make me pretty darn happy. All this fancy stuff is just going to start making red-heavy blue decks better, while decks like Goblins, Boros, and Zoo might have slightly better SB options - not a terrible thing to have happen, but it's certainly not going to start making red a color you want to be basing most decks around.

EDIT: Actually, since I completely failed to respond to the OP because I'm a terrible person...

Dealing damage while countering spells is a solid idea, but you have to make everything cost more than the blue equivalent. Otherwise it just doesn't work (Red having counters at the same CMC that also deal damage? Blasphemy!), and at that point the CMC starts making things unplayable.

For instance, Spellblaze would have to be at least XRR to not be straight better than all those XU counters that are out there.

To be fair, I was strictly responding to Dice_Box's suggestion, which was tantamount to just another printing of Dash Hopes. The OP's suggestions actually don't leave the caster with a choice; they are hard counters for Instants/Sorceries that also damage the opponent.

In fairness, if there were going to be such a spell nowadays, it would probably have to have some kind of way of being dealt with via protection. I mean maybe I am reading between the lines but that's why the OP didn't suggest "counter target creature spell", because a creature doesn't have Protection from Red while it's on the stack (unless a rule changed again, again, and no one told me ha) so that would be a cheeky shitty way to easily get around it. Something like -

Lava Leak :r::r:
Instant

-this- deals 3 damage to target opponent. If it does, counter target noncreature, nonenchantment spell.

"Flavor text is for clowns." - Sylvia Plath

So in this way it's along the same lines of Red's weakness to "not dealing damage to things", and it doesn't counter stuff that Red has no business dicking with. I guess it hard counters planeswalkers, but boohoo. (This is one of a dozen reasons why I don't work for WotC.)

I suppose one could scale up to hard counters, though given the New World Order of things, it would have to cost a bunch.

Up In Smoke :2::r::r:

Instant

Target spell loses all text and types and becomes a Red Instant that reads, "This spell deals damage equal to its converted mana cost to its controller. Exile this spell."

"Ohshi I didn't expect that at all." - Abraham Lincoln

There are probably cleaner ways to do it, but it also creates a positively nasty image, right? This spell just blew up in your lap and it is now a burning piece of crap and it's coming right for you. Deal.

[rufus]

Up In Smoke :2::r::r:

Instant

Target spell loses all text and types and becomes a Red Instant that reads, "This spell deals damage equal to its converted mana cost to its controller. Exile this spell."

"Ohshi I didn't expect that at all." - Abraham Lincoln

There are probably cleaner ways to do it, but it also creates a positively nasty image, right? This spell just blew up in your lap and it is now a burning piece of crap and it's coming right for you. Deal.

A 4 cc counterspell is pretty terrible. I think I posted a cycle in one of the 'design cards' threads. How about:



Wild Feedback
Instant
:r::r:
When you cast this spell, all spells become copies of it. Each spell's controller may choose new targets for that spell.
Wild Feedback deals 2 damage to you.


(I was thinking something like 'Gain 3 life' for white, 'Lose 1 life' for black, 'Discard a card, if you do, draw a card' for blue, and 'put a 1/1 squirrel token into play' for green.)

[Lemnear]

Pathetic

Everyone complains about counters (at least WotC says so lol) and that Legacy Players only play red cards which have "deal damage" in it's textbox and you come up with counterspell-variants which deal damage.

Red need more depth but not vomit blue's abilities

[Lord Seth]

That's exactly the problem with Red though, right? This punisher junk. It only works when (a) the opponent's worst option is their only option; (b) you somehow create a false choice (c) their best option is always your best option as well.

There are a ton of stinger cards in Red, like Ash Zealot and Molten Influence and junk. They are all pretty much garbage.

Unfortunately, what you've suggested is little better than Dash Hopes, and I don't think Red would even want such a spell.
How is Ash Zealot in any a "stinger" card like Browbeat or Molten Influence? I don't see any connection other than that it can deal direct damage. For that matter, it's hardly a garbage card anyway.

[Gheizen64]

EDIT: Actually, since I completely failed to respond to the OP because I'm a terrible person...

Dealing damage while countering spells is a solid idea, but you have to make everything cost more than the blue equivalent. Otherwise it just doesn't work (Red having counters at the same CMC that also deal damage? Blasphemy!), and at that point the CMC starts making things unplayable.

For instance, Spellblaze would have to be at least XRR to not be straight better than all those XU counters that are out there.

Since you're the only one that actually responded :P

The counter is for instant-sorceries only, and Spellblast has hystorically been underpowered compared to Mana sink. That's why i think it's a pretty balanced alternative. Especially in a world dominated by creature spells, those are pretty narrow. You can't even counter Pod with it just instant and sorceries. How many instant/sorceries you see played in Modern for example? As far as i know they play a relatively narrow amount of them. Even in legacy, decks like maverick play GSZ, Swords, then what? Only permanents iirc. Force is also never a valid target for one of those spells.
You can't either use them on a whim if your opponent known that you have one of those in hand because he'll just refrain from playing instants/sorceries. And they don't work as burn if the spell isn't counterable (i know i worded it differently, but it's intended to be a "what if" effect, i just didn't write it except on the first example because it was too long).

The reasons i made it counter only instant/sorceries is because to me it felt that "copying" shouldn't be the way red interact with those. Copying feel much more blue to me, while "burning" those spells feel ok. This also the reason i made this mechanic affect only instant and sorceries, because fork effects work only on instant and sorceries.



Pathetic

Everyone complains about counters (at least WotC says so lol) and that Legacy Players only play red cards which have "deal damage" in it's textbox and you come up with counterspell-variants which deal damage.

Red need more depth but not vomit blue's abilities

Personally, i never complained about counters as i find them essential for the game (good answer cards almost always are), and albeit i complained that red have only "burn" spells, this isn't burn, this is conditional permission . I reasoned this was much more red than "fork" spell, and as such, this could've been a red mechanic. This is also an ability that in blue has seen play on how many cards? Gatherer give me back: Spellblast, Spell Burst, Spellstutter sprite, Liquefy, Thoughtbind, and Spell Snare. That's exactly 6 cards in all of the history of the game. This is not exactly a "blue" mechanic honestly. The name "Spellblast" itself suggest an act of brute magic, as it is even exemplified by its flavor text (brutal mage way of thinking on Spell Burst).

What i have complained about, however, is how blue is the only color that has ways to control the stack, and to a lesser extent, to have card quality cards. You simply can't leave every other color outside of an aspect so important of the game, especially not when the supposed "weak" part of color pie of blue has extremely good creatures, and good alternatives to creature removal (bounce, control magic, ovinize effects).

What i proposed feel much more "red" than blue, as i think fork feel much more "blue" than red, and if anything, you should be (what's the word here, disgusted?) by the fact that Red has in his pie an effect that is so blatantly blue, of what is an extremely cunning act of trickery, or copying something (blue has clone afterall, and had for years, and it also had copy artifact). This also fit with the fact that Red has hystorically been good with removal, but only in earlier turns, because their burn don't scale with creature's toughness. The same could be said about a "SpellBurn" mechanic which are good early on, but tend to be ass against big bombs, exactly how like Bolt become a bit worse against big ass creatures.
I just feel that this mechanic fit much more into's red flavor compared to some of the things it already has, and with Red having an extremely limited slice right now , i think something like this could be needed.

Why i think this also feel more red than the "Browbeat" Mechanic

What is exactly red about giving people a choice? If anything, the flavor of giving people tricky or questionable choices would be black (you may get this, but pay this, greed examples), or blue (tricky choices, something like Fact or Fiction). From my point of view, Red wouldn't be behind giving people a choice.
Vexing Devil is one of the few cards that give choices that feel red to me, because the choices are actually so close that is easy to recognize them both as a slightly different way of the same concept (dealing a lot of damage, but the opponent can decide in which form such damage will come in). Still, even Vexing Devil would be perfectly fine as a black card, and in fact, some black creatures are controllable by opponents if they sacrifice resources (Desecration Demon), showing that this is also a black concept, and for me, feel more black than red (red really shouldn't be about giving choices, i feel this couldn't be further from red phylosophy of being a straight-forward color, and being the "chaos" color doesn't mean giving choices to the opponent, it means that sometimes the choices you do are not exactly controllable).

[FieryBalrog]

What i have complained about, however, is how blue is the only color that has ways to control the stack

Frankly, this is a flaw with the game's basic design. It's not unfixable, but it requries admitting there is a problem, and that something needs to change, which with the current playerbase and R&D team, I don't see happening.

Think about it: 3 of the 5 colors have almost no way to interact with instants or sorceries at all. That is frankly ridiculous. Imagine if 3 out of 5 colors couldn't interact with permanents at all. Black has some limited interaction via discard- very, very limited compared to counterspells- and the other 3 colors are basically fucked when it comes to dealing with spells, having options so incredibly narrow or easily circumvented that they basically don't exist at all.

It's even a problem with creatures in newer formats where a huge portion of a creature's value is on an ETB trigger or something. Once again, 3 out of 5 colors have almost 0 options for interacting with that kind of ETB value explosion, and discard loses 95% of its value past turns 2 or 3.

It's not as if the color pie in Alpha is sacrosanct. The designers did a brilliant job but did not anticipate all future issues including game design issues based on years of analyzing how the game works. Even the concept of a TCG itself was new at the time. And R&D has done some work to address how color pie design was crippling certain colors (particularly, green). In the beginning Green had very little way to interact with anything at all. Spells or permanents. The disenchant mechanic wasn't in green, the bramblecrush mechanic wasn't in green, and the fight mechanic didn't exist either. They fixed this by re-arranging the basic color pie itself, so the thing is not a sacred testament from Lord Garfield- it's something that is open to change in order to fix design flaws.

[HPB_Eggo]

They've been trying to give red ways to deal with deck stuff via filtering. Faithless Looting is arguably among the five strongest commons printed in the last few years, and it is a stronger Brainstorm when you stick it in the right sort of deck.

Outside of that, Green has its occasional stuff a la Sylvan Library and is loaded with tutors, Black just draws more cards (actually has more/better straight "draw" than blue in many cases), and White gets the shaft but has its own pluses and minuses.

Specifically manipulation of the top of the deck should stay Blue, and it more or less has. CA, CQ, filtering, and tutoring are everywhere, and those effects are all equally strong. Counters are really the only thing blue has that no other color can match.

Well, that and Delver, but Delver is Delver is Delver.


The counter is for instant-sorceries only, and Spellblast has hystorically been underpowered compared to Mana sink. That's why i think it's a pretty balanced alternative. Especially in a world dominated by creature spells, those are pretty narrow. You can't even counter Pod with it just instant and sorceries. How many instant/sorceries you see played in Modern for example? As far as i know they play a relatively narrow amount of them. Even in legacy, decks like maverick play GSZ, Swords, then what? Only permanents iirc. Force is also never a valid target for one of those spells.

All fair points.

There are a couple problems, though...

1) Red counters with burn attached simply cannot be as good as blue counters. This applies specifically to Spellblaze, which would have to cost slightly more simply for color balance reasons.

2) I actually like Spell Flare and Lightning Snare. They look like good, reasonably costed cards that don't out-do any generic blue counters. Problem here is that those cards simply aren't good for red decks - they're mostly good for red-heavy blue decks. Great SB material for 'real' red decks, I suppose, but none of them are worth sticking in the MD for anything other than, say, Imperial Painter.

Maybe I'm totally wrong there? Not sure, TBH. Just my gut feeling without really trying to come up with a lit or anything of that sort.

[TsumiBand]

How is Ash Zealot in any a "stinger" card like Browbeat or Molten Influence? I don't see any connection other than that it can deal direct damage. For that matter, it's hardly a garbage card anyway.

It's a one-off of the punisher cards, but it's the same in that it tries to restrict a player's choices by saying, "If you do this, you're going to take damage." There's really not a choice involved with Ash Zealot, but it hardly matters because it doesn't restrict your actions, so you just play through. Ash Zealot is not actually preventing you from casting anything from your yard until you're at 3 (which by then, you probably just tutored for an answer, and if it was a real threat you were playing graveyard-dependent combo and so you proceed to Just Win) and Molten Influence should never counter anything if the opponent is above 4 life. If Browbeat really drew 3 cards on the regular, it would be *so* much more prevalent. And so on.

I tried quick searching for a relevant Legacy decklist with Ash Zealot and didn't really see anything. I'm sure it's a house against Yawg-Will, but that implies it resolved. So really, I don't know how from a Legacy POV it isn't just another cute-but-unplayable.

I'd submit that it isn't half as good at its job as Ethersworn Canonist. First strike and haste have nothing to do with anything. The control aspect is the primary factor. No one is playing artifacts as spells from the graveyard, so neither Zealot nor Canonist affect things which don't exist. That leaves 'spells being played per turn' as the only critical factor. Canonist affects that in a very lopsided way. Meanwhile, one just 'plays through' Ash Zealot until it is dead.



A 4 cc counterspell is pretty terrible.


No shit? I prefaced it by saying WotC would probably NWO it to pieces. It's a non-blue hard counter. Blue hardly gets hard counters above 3 mana anymore, and that's fucking Blue, the poster child for counterspelling all the spells. It might be terrible but it's a hard counter, so by design those are terrible now. Not really my rules :( At :1::r::r: it just makes babies cry in Standard b/c their beloved fiveDrop.dec has no chance to play anything. Any lower, and it's arguably more potent than Counterspell. Maybe :r::r::r: is fine, but that's squarely mono-red, and mono-X control doesn't have a great track record in Legacy. Like I said, it's more of a gross mental image than anything. "Chameleon Colossus, I choose you...! Wait what the... oh dammit."

[Aggro_zombies]

There's very little in red's flavor to justify outright countering spells. Most of these cards are just, "Well, red gets to do this because BURN and also because red is shitty and needs some help" which isn't really a sound color pie reason.

Then again I guess we can argue that color pie doesn't matter, in which case where's my red Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorm, and Thoughtseize?

[Gheizen64]

There's very little in red's flavor to justify outright countering spells. Most of these cards are just, "Well, red gets to do this because BURN and also because red is shitty and needs some help" which isn't really a sound color pie reason.

Then again I guess we can argue that color pie doesn't matter, in which case where's my red Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorm, and Thoughtseize?

What is it in red's flavor to justify copying then? I'm just not seeing how "copying" instant or sorceries is more red than "destroying" them.

[Aggro_zombies]

What is it in red's flavor to justify copying then? I'm just not seeing how "copying" instant or sorceries is more red than "destroying" them.
Red is the most impulsive, short-sighted, here-and-now color. It's also the prankster color. While blue's trickery is based on subterfuge and carefully thought-out mind games, red is the color of dropping a cherry bomb in the toilet in the school's staff bathroom and running away, gleefully cackling. In that sense, copying spells is perfect: it's a way to take something your opponent is doing and fuck around it with it because it looks like fun.

Counterspells don't really have that flavor. Flavorfully, they're about a mage deciding which magics are and aren't permissible, a careful planning exercise for which red has no patience. Mechanically, counterspells are entirely reactive, which encourages a sit-and-wait game outside of red's flavor. Spells like Fork can always be used on your own spells to produce a big, "Hey, look at this!" moment that's very much in red's flavor.

Red is basically the Jackass of Magic, and counters are a little too intelligent for it.

EDIT: Which is not to say that red shouldn't have stack interactions. I like red as the color of "spell fuckery" (copying, redirecting, or gaining control like Barook suggested), white as the soft denial color (Mana Leak-style soft counters, or Remand-style counters - things that basically allow your opponents to have their spells if they try hard enough), and blue as the color of actual hard counters. It could share Intervene-style counters with white on occasion since white already has protective magic.

[TsumiBand]

Red is the most impulsive, short-sighted, here-and-now color. It's also the prankster color. While blue's trickery is based on subterfuge and carefully thought-out mind games, red is the color of dropping a cherry bomb in the toilet in the school's staff bathroom and running away, gleefully cackling. In that sense, copying spells is perfect: it's a way to take something your opponent is doing and fuck around it with it because it looks like fun.

Counterspells don't really have that flavor. Flavorfully, they're about a mage deciding which magics are and aren't permissible, a careful planning exercise for which red has no patience. Mechanically, counterspells are entirely reactive, which encourages a sit-and-wait game outside of red's flavor. Spells like Fork can always be used on your own spells to produce a big, "Hey, look at this!" moment that's very much in red's flavor.

Red is basically the Jackass of Magic, and counters are a little too intelligent for it.

EDIT: Which is not to say that red shouldn't have stack interactions. I like red as the color of "spell fuckery" (copying, redirecting, or gaining control like Barook suggested), white as the soft denial color (Mana Leak-style soft counters, or Remand-style counters - things that basically allow your opponents to have their spells if they try hard enough), and blue as the color of actual hard counters. It could share Intervene-style counters with white on occasion since white already has protective magic.

I agree - much like statistics, a "flavor-based argument" can be made for just about anything.


- Green should be able to counter things, why? Because it prefers the natural order to anything else, and some of that mess you're trying to pull just ain't natural. Why would you ever summon anything that wasn't dependent on the land, as all of Green's creation is?

- Black should be able to counter things, why? Because Black is the color of power at any cost and death. Under the old rules, Black could pay any amount of life to achieve any end it saw fit.


...aaaand so on.

I do think that counterspells are inherently reactive, though. It is not hard to picture a twitchy Red mage that is ADD as shit and unwilling to let anything that she doesn't immediately recognize touch the battlefield. This doesn't ever happen anymore ever, but think back to the times when first-person shooters were new to the world and not everyone had good Internets to write up the zerg-rush version of how to play through without even trying. You know you had at least one encounter in like Doom 2 where you walked into a room and the door went "errrrrkvvvsht" and suddenly there's a new monster you've never seen and like 6 more for some reason and it jumps out and doesn't die to the first shotgun blast and so you just shoot at every-fuck-thing and you're so distracted by all the weirdness that you didn't even think to switch to the rocket launcher or the chain gun, you just held the left mouse down and ran backwards going "FUCK WHAT THE WHAT". THAT is a Red counterspell.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

There's very little in red's flavor to justify outright countering spells. Most of these cards are just, "Well, red gets to do this because BURN and also because red is shitty and needs some help" which isn't really a sound color pie reason.

Red, in the color pie, is the second best at spellcraft; all that pyromancy teaches you a few things, I guess. Why shouldn't it be able to do more metamagic like countering spells, especially Instants and Sorceries? That seems very much in the mechanical flavor of Red.


Then again I guess we can argue that color pie doesn't matter, in which case where's my red Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorm, and Thoughtseize?

I dunno, but Blue can pretty much kill any creature for U, and they have instant-speed hand-disruption on an efficient, evasive body, so I don't think Wizards really has a problem bleeding the color pie.

[Adryan]

Counter target instant or sorcery and kill target planeswalker. sounds broken. one thing for sure: it would kill BUG Standstill (the deck i enjoy the most in mtg) and push Burn (the deck i hate the most because it's a really stupid deck). Maybe it would also make R the second best color in MTG and kill all non red Control decks.

I really hope they don't print something like that. They can keep on printing overcosted Dragons for Red (which they'll keep on doing because that will sell more packs than printing broken red counters).

They are afraid of printing good counters for Standard so i really doubt they'll print such an unfun mechanic in red.

[Slag]

What is it in red's flavor to justify copying then? I'm just not seeing how "copying" instant or sorceries is more red than "destroying" them.

I was thinking about this earlier, and while I believe the knee-jerk overreaction of a damage-dealing counterspell makes more sense as a red ability, you might be able to justify it as a kind of "eye for an eye" response; the red mage, presumably in the state of constant, jittery mania that they always seem to be in, decides to hit the offending spellcaster with his own spell. I'll agree that you can probably justify any ability in any color using flavor, but red does need a few new toys.

[nedleeds]

Ask Richard Garfield. His game, he said red should copy and / or bounce the spell around. See Fork and Backdraft.

[Slag]

Ask Richard Garfield. His game, he said red should copy and / or bounce the spell around. See Fork and Backdraft.

I tried, but he ridiculed me for playing any deck without twenty copies each of black lotus, time walk, and ancestral recall.

[MGB]

This is actually a really cool idea and perfectly in keeping with the flavor of the color pie. Instead of coldly calculatingly countering the spell like blue red should instead have an unpredictable and unreliable but dangerous way to interact with spells on the stack. Like sAy for example:

Scattering Blast RR
Instant
Remove all targets from target spell. Scattering Blast does 4 damage to each of those targets.

This spell would screw with an opposing Mage but in an unpredictable and red-like way. It punishes a certain type of spell with fire, but red is too scatterbrained and impulsive just to have the ability to outright counter anything.

[Aggro_zombies]

Well, here's a general outline of things I would like to see:

White:
White is the color most focused on civilization and the community. Deep down, white believes that everyone deserves a chance, and as such is the color least likely to kill. However, white has no qualms about being strictly authoritarian, or eliminating those who oppose its agenda; if it gave you a chance and you fucked it up, then you must be eliminated. Mechanically, that translates to:

White has the best protective magic: damage prevention, redirection, and things that protect individual creatures or armies (indestructibility, blink, countering targeted spells);
White's removal often is itself answerable - things like Pacifism and Oblivion Ring can be removed to get the creature back because white really doesn't want to kill someone if it doesn't have to;
White gets Mana Leak and Remand-style stack interactions. You can have your spell if you really must, but you need to jump through some hoops to get it;
White doesn't get card drawing very much as it doesn't value pursuit of knowledge. It is the best at tutoring (and recurring) artifacts and enchantments, though.


Blue:
The problem with blue is that being the best color at magic means you've got a pretty healthy head start on being the best color in a game about magic. Blue should have the best stack interactions, but it should also have the weakest board interactions:

Blue gets to keep hard counters and draw that generates raw card advantage
Blue's only answers to permanents are to tap or bounce them. It can exchange permanents of the same type (think Switcheroo), but gaining control of them outright is rare;
Blue loses Polymorph-style effects because they too often play as, "I'll kill your best creature but give you something I don't care about to compensate," which really solves one of blue's major weaknesses;
Blue loses most of its Mana Leak-style counters, although it may get some occasionally for small values;
Blue's creature-based Magic mostly involves deception, either making your creatures invisible (hexproof) or allowing them to slip behind enemy lines (evasion-granting);
Blue is the best color at tutoring for instants or sorceries.


Black:
Black has been historically underpowered in part because its "stack interactions" are actually not that - they're pre-emptive discard spells - and in part because much of its fortunes have been tied to killing or recurring dudes. Until recently, dudes have been generally weaker and stack interactions have mattered relatively more, so black really only got there on the strength of its mistakes: stuff like Necro or Will.

Black is #1 at creature recursion and becomes #3 at recurring instants and sorceries, usually by attaching a life payment to getting back the spell or recasting it. It has no recursion for non-creature permanents in graveyards;
Black retains discard and "Capping" - searching libraries for cards directly and exiling them. However, it gets more Misinformation-style cards that manipulate the top of the opponent's library, to differentiate it from blue, which does that to itself only;
Black is the king of unconditional removal and gets better sweepers. It can also gain control of creatures, moving up to #1 in that slot;
Black's card draw involves some sort of resource payment to generate raw card advantage, usually but not always life. It is the best color at unconditional tutoring.


Red:
Red has the most room to grow, but it needs to stay in line with red's flavor as the most impulsive and short-sighted of the colors (in stark contrast to its enemies white, the most reserved and controlled, and blue, the most far-seeing and thoughtful). I'd propose this:

Red becomes the color of "spell fuckery": it gets all of the redirection, most of the copying, and most of the "gain control of an instant or sorcery." However, to differentiate the last one from redirecting, taking the spell usually doesn't allow you to change its targets;
Red gets Polymorphing from blue, flavoring it as chaos. You can hit any type of permanent with these spells, but they will always find the same type of permanent - no turning enchantments into lands like Chaos Warp can;
Red retains burn as its answer to creatures, and maintains its weakness to enchantments and strength against artifacts and lands. It keeps Threaten-style abilities;
Red's card draw can't create raw card advantage. However, it does get looting plus Chandra 4's middle ability ("Exile this card, you have to cast it this turn or it's gone forever");
Red is great at using instants and sorceries in the graveyard, but it does so through various flashback-esque tricks. Unlike blue or black, you can't recur spells multiple times with red.


Green:
They've done a lot to make green a real color in recent years. I don't have much to change here.

Green is the best at interacting with the board - it can kill creatures via fighting them and can unconditionally kill targeted non-creatures. However, to compensate, it has the worst stack interactions;
Green's card drawing is tied to creatures, either via Ophidian-style abilities or by scaling off of creature number or size. It is the best at tutoring for creatures;
It is the second-best color at recurring permanents of any stripe, but it can't get back instants or sorceries;
It is the best color at powering up a single creature, whereas white prefers whole-army or small personnel buffs.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This is an educational video about the death and return of Superman. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PlwDbSYicM)

Mostly it's not related to this thread, but if you want to neglect your education and skip to about 15 minutes 18 seconds, you'll get to my opinion on arguing what colors "should" be able to do based on "flavor."

Although (trigger warning: hypocrisy) I would like red to be able to gain control of spells. Especially instants and sorceries.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Red needs more creatures with flash.

Everytime WotC prints another fucking life gain bomb red gets a little worse and lately they have been printing just a TON of life gain.

[Lord Seth]

In the beginning Green had very little way to interact with anything at all. Spells or permanents. The disenchant mechanic wasn't in green, the bramblecrush mechanic wasn't in green, and the fight mechanic didn't exist either.
How strictly are we defining "in the beginning"? It wasn't Alpha, but in Arabian Nights Green had Desert Twister, which could destroy any permanent. In fact, it wasn't until nearly 8 years later when Vindicate got printed that any color other than Green could do this.


It's a one-off of the punisher cards, but it's the same in that it tries to restrict a player's choices by saying, "If you do this, you're going to take damage." There's really not a choice involved with Ash Zealot, but it hardly matters because it doesn't restrict your actions, so you just play through. Ash Zealot is not actually preventing you from casting anything from your yard until you're at 3 (which by then, you probably just tutored for an answer, and if it was a real threat you were playing graveyard-dependent combo and so you proceed to Just Win) and Molten Influence should never counter anything if the opponent is above 4 life. If Browbeat really drew 3 cards on the regular, it would be *so* much more prevalent. And so on.
But you're completely misunderstanding why people play Ash Zealot. The appeal of the card is that it's a 2/2 hasted first striker for just 2 mana. Which, while admittedly not impressive in Legacy, is reasonably strong in smaller formats such as Standard. The 3 damage thing is just a bonus. People play Ash Zealot because it's an efficient creature for an aggro deck that sometimes you get lucky with when running into a deck playing flashback spells.


I tried quick searching for a relevant Legacy decklist with Ash Zealot and didn't really see anything. I'm sure it's a house against Yawg-Will, but that implies it resolved. So really, I don't know how from a Legacy POV it isn't just another cute-but-unplayable.
I was talking more in terms of Standard, to be fair (remember, Legacy isn't the only format in the game!). But again, Ash Zealot is nothing like cards like Vexing Devil or Browbeat and thus the comparison makes no sense. Sure it's not good in Legacy, but that's because if you're playing Red Deck Wins then you're playing much more powerful cards like Goblin Guide.

Red needs more creatures with flash.

Everytime WotC prints another fucking life gain bomb red gets a little worse and lately they have been printing just a TON of life gain.
In fairness, they did print Skullcrack recently.

[TsumiBand]

This is an educational video about the death and return of Superman. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PlwDbSYicM)

Mostly it's not related to this thread, but if you want to neglect your education and skip to about 15 minutes 18 seconds, you'll get to my opinion on arguing what colors "should" be able to do based on "flavor."

Although (trigger warning: hypocrisy) I would like red to be able to gain control of spells. Especially instants and sorceries.

I haven't clicked on this yet, but if it is that sfdebris guy talking about Superman's power creep, it's dead fucking on. The sheer number of abilities that guy can just watch once and copy - or just, like, invent on the spot and they don't make any fucken sense - puts every single comic book character ever to complete shame. He died and came back; it is pretty much his fault that every other superhero that has died has been able to come back because the guy who like monitors the "door between life and death" or whatever said that Supes forgot to close it on his way out. Plus his uniform pitches to Force. What a dick.

[dontbiteitholmes]

In fairness, they did print Skullcrack recently.

Which is still a shit answer to getting hit in the face with a Batterskull then not being able to swing back unless you want them to gain another 4 life.

[TsumiBand]

Which is still a shit answer to getting hit in the face with a Batterskull then not being able to swing back unless you want them to gain another 4 life.

...in fairness, Red blows up artifacts like a motherfucker. Did they play around the Shatter-esque thing? Cuz that would mean they had :4::w: so I hope you won before they got :4::w:, Red playa

[Quasim0ff]

Dear god, Charm of Spark would be insane.

[Zombie]

A long list of stuff I agree with.

What I'd add:

More Flash to red, less of it to blue.
Blue as the haven of instant speed card draw, and draw without heavy colour cost.

Solidify "can't be countered" as a very green thing - it's a proactive colour just inevitably doing it's thing.
Green ought to have sorcery-speed raw draw (I fucking hate "reveal=>grab creature or land" spells because hey, Green has goddamn spells too), a la Harmonize to emphasize the druidic, contemplative side, too, not just hunting and being the critter colour. Both uncounterability and green draw spells ought to have an emphasis of needing green mana to be cast. GG in cost, minimum.

[Dice_Box]

What I'd add:

More Flash to red, less of it to blue.
Blue as the haven of instant speed card draw, and draw without heavy colour cost.

Solidify "can't be countered" as a very green thing - it's a proactive colour just inevitably doing it's thing.
Green ought to have sorcery-speed raw draw (I fucking hate "reveal=>grab creature or land" spells because hey, Green has goddamn spells too), a la Harmonize to emphasize the druidic, contemplative side, too, not just hunting and being the critter colour. Both uncounterability and green draw spells ought to have an emphasis of needing green mana to be cast. GG in cost, minimum.
"Hay lets make Cradle even better...." I do agree though, but I do not want to lose my 4 investments...

Flash I think suits red. The fast, hit now, hit hard, mantra works with Flash. Red has it's flavor and speed is one of the biggest parts of it.
I would like to see a "Red Snapcaster" printed.


Harth, the Dire Mage. 1,R
Flash
~ Can only be played if an opponent has played a spell this turn.
When ~ enters play, change a targeting spell's target. The new target must be legal.
2/1


A solid drawback that is not too hard to fulfill with legs and a useful ability.

[troopatroop]

Honestly, Counterspell would be fine in RR

[Dice_Box]

Maybe, but the blue masses would never let it fly. Also it would rip up Modern, the only game that WOTC care about so its not going to see print.

[TsumiBand]

Honestly, Counterspell would be fine in RR

As a Sorcery, maybe.

I mean, Legacy can handle whatever, they could print a :g::w: 3/3 creature with Flash that counters target spell, and we'd still be all "k. Daze, Force, w/e still got all deez". But apparently that kind of counter can't exist in Modern or Standard. Insert rant about how the terrible Modern banned list would be far less terrible if Counterspell were a thing.

[Gheizen64]

As a Sorcery, maybe.

I mean, Legacy can handle whatever, they could print a :g::w: 3/3 creature with Flash that counters target spell, and we'd still be all "k. Daze, Force, w/e still got all deez". But apparently that kind of counter can't exist in Modern or Standard. Insert rant about how the terrible Modern banned list would be far less terrible if Counterspell were a thing.

Modern has Negate and no one ever whined about it. I think you're seriously underestimating how big of a drawback not countering creature is in modern formats (modern+standard). I honestly think no one would ever whine if red got more anti-instant/sorcery counterspells just because of how underwhelming they would be in those formats.

[troopatroop]

As a Sorcery, maybe.


How does counterspell.... Sorcery.... esplain..

[TsumiBand]

Modern has Negate and no one ever whined about it. I think you're seriously underestimating how big of a drawback not countering creature is in modern formats (modern+standard). I honestly think no one would ever whine if red got more anti-instant/sorcery counterspells just because of how underwhelming they would be in those formats.

I... think we're kinda saying the same thing actually? Modern Magic doesn't 'want' a 2cmc Answer To Everything, :1::u::u: is as low as it gets for hard counters these days, and all Troopatroop said was "Counterspell would be fine at RR", which just takes the problem of "no hard counters at 2cmc" and puts it in Red instead of Blue. Maybe Troop was inferring that it should be strictly Sorcery/Instant spells and I just didn't pick up on it.

The fact that Negate exists in Modern and yet they still have an atrocious banlist is I think proof enough that better counters would do better things to their banlist. Negate exists and Wild Nacatl is banned. That's awful, right? In fact I think that banned list wins the "Most Banhammered Commons" award; 31 banned cards - none of them say 'ante', 'subgame' or 'height' - and 11 of them are commons. That's right around 35%. And that's post NWO, which is supposed to be aimed primarily at commons. Just like, whatever man :)

Besides, I think that it is fairly clearly indicated in recent-ish years that if non-Blue, little-to-no-conditions-attached counterspelling were going to show up anywhere, it'd be in White. In Modern, there are like 14 non blue counters. One is Not of this World so yay it's for everyone, I guess kind of Jester's Scepter can be too, so yaaay - but 6 are White. Of those 6, one requires a Blue activation cost to counter things and the other 5 are fairly conditional, like just taxing or Memory Lapsing, and the only true hard counters are when the spell targets you or a permanent you control. Meanwhile, Gruul gets Guttural Response. Black gets Dash Hopes. Also, most of the cards are from Time Spiral, so it's all kinds of "alternate future" and shit. That doesn't mean it isn't worth talking about what a Red counter could or should look like, it just means that if we're really sitting around trying to imagine efficient counters in Red, it's so theoretical it's not even funny.



Originally Posted by TsumiBand
As a Sorcery, maybe.

How does counterspell.... Sorcery.... esplain..


http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/483/894/463.jpg