No Counterspell in 8th...

[NorrYtt]

No, there is no proof that Mystic Decree will be in Mirrodin.

All I have are these hints:

• The notorious Randy Buehler, who knocked a mana off Fact or Fiction, prices a vanilla hard-counter at 1UU. This makes it fall in sync between the current soft counters (1U Mana Leak, 1U Flash Counter) and the current hard counters (2UU Rewind, 2UU Discombobulate). He had a poll and everything. He seemed pretty content that 1UU was correct. Maybe because FFL's been playing it that way for a year now. Mystic Decree is still a good counter.
• The lack of a vanilla hard counter, to me, is very inelegant in design. All the color's base mechanics need to work off a model card. I consider Stone Rain, Demistify, Holy Day, Giant Growth, Naturalize, Inspiration, Unsummon, and Shock to be model cards for mechanics of the color wheel.
• There is an anomaly when an environment hits a 'critical mass' of countermagic. R&D tries to avoid this, for example during Invasion-Odyssey-7th Type II, which is why Fervent Denial isn't 2UU, 4UU flashback. There was already too much good countermagic with Counterspell, Force Spike, Memory Lapse, Absorb, Undermine, Dromar's Charm...
• Whenever I see something suddenly nerfed, I think of it as paving the way for improvements later. This is why I think Invasion Tap-duals in 8th are fine, since we already have Ons fetchlands, but there might be another excellent set of dual lands in Mirrodin (policy says allied colored duals always are printed in the big expansion of each block to facilitate multicolor play).

I thought it was obvious that Counterspell wouldn't make 8th, for many of the above reasons.

 

[train]

Are these your own points ... or those of an insider at WOTC...

Taking them as your own - I can see Decree in...

But it's not on any list as of yet... and all reprints for sets back to Visions have been listed to my knowledge...

 

[Spiderman]

I mentioned it in another thread but since this one seems devoted to talk about Counterspell in 8th (or lack of)...

I have an article from rakso that Mana Drain will be reprinted in 8th. Haven't actually read the WOTC stuff about that particular set though and haven't read the spoiler to see if it's in there though.

 

[train]

replacing with drain is just turning insult to injury...

 

[Spiderman]

At least it means they'd be more available... I still probably won't buy any boosters but more should be up for trade

 

[train]

I'll trade some to you if I get some...

 

[Spiderman]

I read the article and it's just him answering some mail... I'm not sure why he put it in the title, although it does say "Part 1"...

 

[Nightstalkers]

Now where's the Nightstalker?!....

Ta-Da!

Eh? For the wierdest reason back a few years ago I used to place that stupid Mystical Denial in me decks for T2 and kept getting it replaced by a land from the Mot... No matter how much I argued I would always lose the fight

Now I can go back and say "I told ya that they would reprint it in 8th!" And nobody believes in psychic powers

Nowadays blue have been clogged by crap counter like Ixidor's Will, Spelljack (Cost!), etc. Don't get us wrong now, didn't say that its doomed, just watered down a bit... !! (I made a funny!)

And Black gets super powered? Are the developers goths?

 

[Mikeymike]

Nice posts by both Rooser and NorrYtt. That's all I have to say, I'll go back in my hole now.

Hey don't forget that Blue now has Stifle for another 1.25 years in Type 2, so not all the counters are junk. At least its rare.

 

[Nightstalkers]

So is Mind Bend, but don't get too excited about the death of blue