T
theBruce
Guest
Just finished Oscar Tan's "The Interactivity War." You know...I don't know who's 'right' and frankly I'm not sure that I care, but I certainly enjoy reading Oscar more than Bad Player Flores. Just my humble opinion, though.
I remember a few years ago during Masques T2 (back when I was fiercely competitive). My friend came up with a deck that had, if I recall, 24 land, 8 card draw spells (Fact or Fiction may have been among them), 2 win conditions and 26 counter spells. There was both Absorb and Undermine, Daze, Foil and Thwart, plus others I can't recall. Disrupt, maybe. The point being, it was NOT what my humble intellect would consider 'interactive.' It boiled to cast spell, counter or no?
Which is to say, I guess it WAS interactive in that I was casting spells and he was casting spells in response and that's how the game progressed. But, I never got a spell through, and would consequently sit there doing nothing, turn after turn, but get stomped down by Nether Spirit beats. And, that took a LONG time, let me tell you.
Did I yell and pull my hair and tell my friend he had to stop playing that deck? Heck, no. He came up with it, he should play it. I shouldn't go around pooh-poohing his deck because I couldn't deal with it. Or, at least, that's how I felt and still feel.
Instead, I noticed how he didn't even have to stop every spell I played. Some spells I played were just card-draw or somesuch, irrelevant to his game plan.
So, I thought...well, why not have a deck where he had to stop EVERY SINGLE SPELL? It was awesome, a work of beauty. I had 36 threat cards (as I called them back in the day), and he had to counter every single one or I would eventually win. And, it started on turn one with Seal of Fire and later Kris Mage.
This deck also ate Rebels alive, incidentally. But, anyway.
So, I heard they restricted or banned Trinisphere, basing it on reasoning that, even while I re-read it for content, makes no real sense to me. If I understand it, and admittedly I'm no genius like other internet writers, their reasoning was that Mishra's Workshop/Trinisphere was stopping too many games cold. What's to stop someone Force of Willing that play? Or Artifact Blasting it? Or Abolishing it? (all of which can be backed up with more Force of Will or other alternate casting cost counter-magic backup)
Now, take all this with a grain of salt, I play casual, now and casual only. I'm not concerned with a turn one kill except to see it in action, some day. So, if somebody at the dinner table drops Trinisphere, I have to admit that most of the folks (and we did adhere to T1 restrictions/bannings until recently) are going ignore the play as its going to annoy them at best or at worst affect them not in the slightest.
I don't know, but what I see from the sidelines is that WotC made another...odd choice in banning/restriction. Which, as an aside, has become a recurrent problem for WotC. Ravager Affinity killed with either Disciple or Ravager and nothing else. So, instead of banning the kill cards, they banned the land? What the Captain Crunch? Now, they restrict/ban a card that forces players to play slower? Instead of being able to cast fifty spells on turns one through three, they have to wait and play the slower game. Which...wasn't that what WotC wanted, in the first place? Bigger spells, more of a game? Well, wouldn't Trinisphere force people to play slower, bigger spells, or find themselves paying the same price for lesser spells? Wouldn't it force new deckbuilding?
Again, I don't know, the reasoning is lost on me. Maybe I'm just not getting it. If anyone else out there doesn't get it, or can in the spirit of friendly conversation use smaller concepts/words so that I can catch up, please respond. In the meantime, keep it casual, keep those Trinispheres in your decks!
I remember a few years ago during Masques T2 (back when I was fiercely competitive). My friend came up with a deck that had, if I recall, 24 land, 8 card draw spells (Fact or Fiction may have been among them), 2 win conditions and 26 counter spells. There was both Absorb and Undermine, Daze, Foil and Thwart, plus others I can't recall. Disrupt, maybe. The point being, it was NOT what my humble intellect would consider 'interactive.' It boiled to cast spell, counter or no?
Which is to say, I guess it WAS interactive in that I was casting spells and he was casting spells in response and that's how the game progressed. But, I never got a spell through, and would consequently sit there doing nothing, turn after turn, but get stomped down by Nether Spirit beats. And, that took a LONG time, let me tell you.
Did I yell and pull my hair and tell my friend he had to stop playing that deck? Heck, no. He came up with it, he should play it. I shouldn't go around pooh-poohing his deck because I couldn't deal with it. Or, at least, that's how I felt and still feel.
Instead, I noticed how he didn't even have to stop every spell I played. Some spells I played were just card-draw or somesuch, irrelevant to his game plan.
So, I thought...well, why not have a deck where he had to stop EVERY SINGLE SPELL? It was awesome, a work of beauty. I had 36 threat cards (as I called them back in the day), and he had to counter every single one or I would eventually win. And, it started on turn one with Seal of Fire and later Kris Mage.
This deck also ate Rebels alive, incidentally. But, anyway.
So, I heard they restricted or banned Trinisphere, basing it on reasoning that, even while I re-read it for content, makes no real sense to me. If I understand it, and admittedly I'm no genius like other internet writers, their reasoning was that Mishra's Workshop/Trinisphere was stopping too many games cold. What's to stop someone Force of Willing that play? Or Artifact Blasting it? Or Abolishing it? (all of which can be backed up with more Force of Will or other alternate casting cost counter-magic backup)
Now, take all this with a grain of salt, I play casual, now and casual only. I'm not concerned with a turn one kill except to see it in action, some day. So, if somebody at the dinner table drops Trinisphere, I have to admit that most of the folks (and we did adhere to T1 restrictions/bannings until recently) are going ignore the play as its going to annoy them at best or at worst affect them not in the slightest.
I don't know, but what I see from the sidelines is that WotC made another...odd choice in banning/restriction. Which, as an aside, has become a recurrent problem for WotC. Ravager Affinity killed with either Disciple or Ravager and nothing else. So, instead of banning the kill cards, they banned the land? What the Captain Crunch? Now, they restrict/ban a card that forces players to play slower? Instead of being able to cast fifty spells on turns one through three, they have to wait and play the slower game. Which...wasn't that what WotC wanted, in the first place? Bigger spells, more of a game? Well, wouldn't Trinisphere force people to play slower, bigger spells, or find themselves paying the same price for lesser spells? Wouldn't it force new deckbuilding?
Again, I don't know, the reasoning is lost on me. Maybe I'm just not getting it. If anyone else out there doesn't get it, or can in the spirit of friendly conversation use smaller concepts/words so that I can catch up, please respond. In the meantime, keep it casual, keep those Trinispheres in your decks!
