Restrict Mana Drain?

[Anonymous]

I don't see the arguement in why bother to run a card at all if its restricted. I agree yes some cards are much more effective restricted in a deck than others, for example Yawgmoths Will this creates so many "i win" situations that even though its restricted a single Will tutored for can be devastating.

But then again consider Fact of Fiction when it was unrestricted it allowed the user to push through his deck drawing more land and counters than previous to its realase, resulting in more than a single morphling to be accomadated in the deck, thus it was restricted. But even though it is now restricted and it isn't a  "i win" card like yawgmoths will a single copy of Fact or Fiction is run in most blue archetypes. Simply because Fact or Fiction is often better than say an Impulse, like Ancestral Recall isso much better than Brainstorm and like in many circumsatnces mana drain is better than a counterspell. So yes, seemly as proven in the past a reason for running a single copy of most restricted cards, and i expect a single copy of mana drain would be run if (unlikely) it was restricted.

As for mana drain effecting the card choices based on converted mana cost. Yes it is true that when building a deck you always consider somthings effect on tempo if it where to be drained, this is one of the biggest reasons why green accelerate fattie decks don't exist in type1.

But this dons't mean that all cards that are 4cc are nether run in type1, a player will often wiegh up the chance/effect of a card being drained next to iits potential if it where cast or the chance it will sucessfully be cast. Mana drain can only effectively be run in a dominantely blue stratergy or one that can support the 2 blue, and after all blue is no longer the only colour in type 1  . There are many powerfull aggro decks that a player will have to also consider when making card choices. For example as for most effective aggro deck running exclusively 3cc creatures we now this is not true, TnT, stacker and stacker 2, prove this wrong. What was ment there is Zoo, sligh and stompy all make card choices below 3 cc.

So proving that the fear of mana drain dosn't push all card choices below 3cc and surely there must therfore be other reasons governing card selection, such as mana curve related tempo/speed. If this is the case then Mana Drain could be argueed to have less influnce on moden type1 than many might express and so it restriction cirtainly couldn't be warrented with out also considering serveral other type1 cards.

Whoever mentioned Force of Will, was spot on. As far as broken countermagic goes this is at top of my list. Ok force of will dosn't change the tempo of the game, and yes to cast it you have to give up precious card advantage, but it is the only counterspell that can counter say a first turn Duress before you have dropped your first island and generic mox. All good players will know how a first turn duress can be quite hit when it clears away your only misdirection, as the vangard attack for the Hymn to Tourach.( and no iam not saying that it is a better card than mana drain but it certainly is underated, what other spell and stop any first turn combo going off with no mana sources out).

[Zherbus]

Force of Will is THE ONLY card that holds this format from crumbling beneath the dictatorship of combo decks. Do people honestly think that if Force of Will goes away, their budget decks are actually going to win anything? No!

[Anonymous]

I never said that Force of will holds the world togther form death to combo, of course not, but as far as i am aware please enlighten me if i am wrong but  Force of will is the only card you can cast out of turn with zero mana avalible that can stop anything with viable consequnces. (Ok so we have foil and abolish, aboish will only stop enchantments, whilst foil makes a big dent in your hand)

Still my piont was that Force of Will gets shadowed by manadrain soley because of the potential it has to swing the games temp massively in your favour.

[Zherbus]

There is Misdirection as well, which stops a good chunk of what FoW stops, but does it better. My point is that FoW is a counterspell and all it does is fundimentally trade one card for another, or 2 cards for 1 which isn't very nice. As a control player, I rarely take pleasure in pitching a blue card to stop something with FoW.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you totally on that one, only I see it from the otherside of the coin though as my pet deck has always been sui. When I cast Duress on turn one, my opponent will often Force of will it because of the damage a Hymn can do or because they don't want to reveal thier hand. But as i usally piont out to the often over smug control player (not directed at anyone) is that by countering Duress, ok i don't see your hand but you have been forced to trade 2 cards for duress instead of 1. If the pitch card had to be a counterspell all the better, if not then i take comfort in that you are going to run out of effective pitch matarial eventually for any potential misdirections you are carring.

Force of wills power in type1 therefore comes when the consquences of an action out wieghs the lose of card adavantage, which can happen quite often  against agressive or combo stratergies. For example isn't it better to trade 2 cards if it means stoping a turn 1 Phyrexain negator, or a Worldgorgerdragon turn one victory(rare now without 4 emtomb) knowing that a your stratergy possibly dosn't have a effective answer to such a early threat if it gets past your counters. My piont is that Force of Will can provide a degree of "Zero tolorence" control against threats like mr Negator where as manadrain can't.

My experinece of Misdirection is often the "only if that was a Force of will" but then again my metagame is somewhat retarded and aggro mad.