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There is a conversation brewing with the release of Shards of Alara and the entire change of the Wizards of the Coast print policy. In that discussion, people pointed out how the old ways were better, but then some people counter pointed, and now the conversation has begun to include whether or not the game itself was better in the present, or back in the day. Would Necro crush Tog? Would Faeries be able to outpace Stasis? Would a Reveillark build be able to do anything against the Prison? I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I do have a strong opinion on this particular part of the conversation. Step inside to find out what my opinion is and see if you are for, or against me and my Perspective of the History of Magic.
A common argument that a player of today has against the Old School is that cards like Erhnam Djinn (Ernie) and Serra Angel were dominant in their times not because of their innate power, but because of the lack of good removal and other quality creatures in their environment. There is some validity in this argument; however, there is something that is being missed in the works of this argument and from what I have seen, has not even been presented. Being the storyteller that I am, I simply can’t tell you that missing piece; that just isn’t my style. Instead, I must tell you the point in story fashion. Bear with me. I recently had a conversation with my good friend Bill, who played only during the old times. We were discussing items that were apparently boring him: my magazine plans, MDV Idol planning, Christian’s temper tantrums, etc. Finally, I began telling him about the newest Magic set, Shards of Alara. When I mentioned colored artifacts, he responded with a comment I would not have expected, as everything I had mentioned until then had been a snore-fest item. Instead of shrugging it off, he replied with, “It’s about time.” Puzzled, I began probing my friend’s mind about this. During the Onslaught days, Bill had made a few pit stops into our store to watch a few tournaments play out. One thing that he always commented on was the fact that I didn’t run enchantment/artifact hate main. “What? Why not? What are some of the bad artifacts in the environment?” “Mirari is the worst, but there are some other non-playables out there.” Again he was perplexed. Why was I not running Disenchant with a Green dress? “What about enchantments?” “Glorious Anthem (Crusade with a backpack of bricks on it), Worship, Squirrel’s Nest...” “What do you do then?” “Kill the creatures in play first, then the player.” He just sat back, further perplexed at the apparent idiocy of the then present player that I was portraying. Fast forward to today, and Bill would probably smack some of us around. I have Breaking News…
There are a lot of playable artifacts and enchantments in current standard. I mean… A LOT! With that said, are we running mainboard hate? Nope! Why? Because just as much as today’s player can say the creature pool of old was full of crap, sprinkled with Ernie, Autumn, and Pump Knights, I too can say that your artifact and enchantment pool is equally as full of crap. (Not to mention your instant pool.) True, while your creature pool is exceedingly amazing, and probably rivals other games (like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, and VS), it really does fall behind in what actually defined the origins of Magic. Artifacts.
I am here to tell you: if you did not have at least three cards in your deck that could kill an artifact in game one in those days, you might as well have conceded said game. Look at the strongest artifacts of that time in just Standard (Type 2 then):
While you are digesting that list, add this list to it:
That’s right, the second list contains popular enchantments that were running rampant at the same time. Our old aggro decks would run only around 16-18 creatures, where as today’s decks are running nearly 22-24. (Our decks were able to run 18-20 lands too… for some reason Magic is experiencing inflation.)
Point being made here is that if I could kill that damn Black Vise, I wouldn’t be as bad off. Heck, when I first started playing competitively, I remember a common play being a first turn Dark Ritual landing two Vises and a one drop like Will-o-Wisp, which would be pumped next turn by Bad Moon. Another example of a desperately needed Disenchant (which the poor sap didn’t draw in time) was when a local celebrity played his infamous first turn: double Dark Ritual into a Black Knight, enchanted by Soul Kiss. The following turn he began beating on the removal hindered fellow with a 6/6 Protection from White (Oh, by the way, he was playing White Weenie ((trying to play)) during the Necro days… bad times man). The next turn it was an 8/8 Protection from White. That is 14 damage from one creature, in two turns. Not bad even today with your inflated creatures, eh? How could I forget about Sylvan Library in my list above? Talk about needing a way to kill an enchantment. If you let Ernie-geddon land a traditional beginning (turn one Land Tax, turn two Sylvan Library, turn three Ernie through a Tinderwall, and turn four Armageddon)and don’t stop it, you could be staring at an “inefficient” 4/5 with only two other permanents on the board… my Land Tax and my Sylvan Library. It is pretty hard to recover from that, especially on turn four. Just looking at that scenario (I will because this was my deck of choice) for a moment, what do you do as the opponent? Do you play a land, knowing that on my turn I will hunt for three basic lands in my library? Do you not play a land and eat Ernie’s fist knowing that on my turn I will just draw one of the top three cards of my library? Well, what do you do? If we fast forward a few sets, we get a new list of problems that only a nice Disenchant could deal with:
Nasty! So while today, you can focus on playing your creature and killing your opponent’s creature, back in my day, I had to also deal with this and my opponent not wanting to play patty-cake with me and trying to steal my innocence. Those days were brutal. Not like today where you trade playing creatures during your turn and maybe playing a trap or a spell, whether it's a normal, continuous, equip, or a ritual spell – which is required to summon ritual monsters (It says so right here on this site). Congratulations on losing your edge and what defined you as you. WE! are a group of players who decimated each other using strategy, speed, and brutality. WE! are a group of players who used diverse cards and spell types to be able to work around different concepts. WE! came prepared to survive any attack type, not relying on games two and three to help me out with a pesky Oblivion Ring. "OH NO! They played a card I can’t deal with!" It’s a single card that deals with a single card! Today, players can barely recognize a card being played. Ask two different guys what double strike does, and you will get two different answers. Wait, Breaking News again…
Double strike does NOT mean you kill the creature then hit the player. That is what trample does… double strike just hits the creature and then kick its dead corpse afterward. Hold on, more Breaking News!
As I was saying, the increase of new players into the game is great, but today’s player has no interest in teaching the new players the ropes of the game. WE! would take great pride in not only getting a new player up and running, WE! would help get his collection started by spotting him our extra draft stuff that WE! didn’t need, knowing that he needed the commons and uncommons to get his decks filled out. WE! spent the time during our playtest sessions to coach guys and even put ourselves out there to have our minds picked between rounds of a tournament by people WE! didn’t even know! Yet today’s player can’t even manage to be polite during a game that they are winning, let alone help someone out. Proof needed? When was the last time you were playing on Magic Workstation and didn’t quit because the guy was taking a little time figuring things out? Maybe you didn’t quit, but did you offer assistance? Did you leave the guy your email address and tell him to ask for help any time? Did you tell him about MDV and tell him he would find a lot of help here? Probably not. It was all about you and your playtesting, not about someone else getting better at your expense. This is a black and white contrast of ‘Then vs. Now’. Obviously, this is a jaded correspondent piece by a Magic Old Timer, but I’d like to get a real conversation with these points put into the argument about how the game is better today than it was in the olden days. You’ve heard my rant, and now I want to hear yours. Are you in agreement with me? Why? Do you have differing opinions? Why? cpn
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If
you look at the very first restricted list, you will see why I can say that with
confidence:
For
the most part, the player who went second in a match was going to be starting
the game at 14 life.
The
controller of the source of damage chooses if the damage goes to the player or
planeswalker, not the guy controlling the planeswalker.