Blue Rare - Tidal Erosion

[dandan]

In the grand tradition of Blue LD I present

Tidal Erosion
1UU
Enchantment
Non-basic lands gain Upkeep 1 or 1 life
The tide will turn.....

Is that better than Erosion or Back to Basics? I guess it could be viewed as a cheap Primal Order or a savage sideboard card vs Affinity. Remember that Red got Ruination for 3R and nobody ever used that. Personally I'd see it as a slow overcosted Price of Progress.

As for the colour pie, all colours should be anti-non-basic but in different ways (Red destroy, White convert, Green help creatures, Blue mental effort, Black life loss)

[Jacob Orlove]

Blue shouldn't really have anti-nonbasic land cards. B2B was a mistake (just like most of the rares in that block).

[dandan]

Why? Why shouldn't Blue cherish purity? Pure magic, pure research, untainted by greed or faith, ignoring the 'rules' of Nature and overcoming the chaos that disrupts knowledge.

I think Green should be the colour that is best at resisting non-basics (BtB should have been Green) but this is either a weak LD spell (in the finest traditions of Blue) or a weak way of hurting a non-basic user. Think of it as a slow Price of Progress that gives an opponent the choice of paying mana, life or land and you understand the difference, Red mindlessly damages, Blue makes life complicated in order to gain an advantage over those who are incapable of deep thought.

Note that the UU in the CC avoids the BtB splash problem. This really only works in monoblue or very heavy Blue decks (getting UU from multilands isn't a great idea!).

This is Blue land destruction:
1. Slow
2. Can't affect all lands
3. The LD can be avoided by paying mana
4. The LD can be avoided by paying life
5. Affects its controller too

Despite all of this it still has the potential to be a powerful card in the right circumstances. It is way worse at blowing up lands than Mana Vortex and even the funky Shimmer.

[walkingdude]

The LD can't really be avoided by paying mana. If I need to pay 1 to keep my land where is the 1 coming from? Answer: from tapping the land to get mana to pay to keep it. To some extent this is like a back to basics that taps down your land by itself without waiting for your opponent to play spells. The only way around it is to have a bunch of moxen to pay to keep your lands in play (or to play basics).

On a broader level though this card just goes against what wizards want to do. WoC does not like land destruction of mana denial. People like to play spells, the game is not fun if you can’t play spells. Consequently Woc has (ever since MM) made a strong effort to keep LD weak and mana strong. Example, dampening matrix specifically exempting mana abilities.  Further, woc has been trying to encourage multi color play (after MM where most everything was mono) and to do that has made a point of having a cycle of playable non basics in every block. A strong non basics hoser goes against that idea.

[dandan]

I disagree with Wizards in several areas. I think that non-basic hate is OK as long as it is not mindless.
This suggestion is not as damaging as Back to Basics, you can pay mana to get around it (standard LD practice is to shut off one colour at a time, this card cannot do that, you can choose to pay with any mana to keep the coloured mana you need, you can pay life to get around it (so you can get out of the lock). Remember that Blue is traditionally behind on life so against aggro they just ignore the effect (effectively making non-basics into painlands).
Remember this card gives you 3 choices - sac the land, pay 1 mana or pay 1 life. Red has a card that destroys all non-basics for 1 mana more that nobody ever uses!!!

[Fish]

Honestly, this card seems like it would fit a lot better in black than in blue.

Life loss, high upkeep costs, these are very much black.

Besides, blue already has Back to Basics, red already has blood moon.

And both cards are strictly superior to this one.

So, no I don't think the card is over powered, especially not since both blue and red have superior versions of it.

Perhaps each of the colors should get a 3 casting cost nonbasic hoser that's weaker than B2Bs and Blood Moon. They could reprint both to make for a very interesting cycle.

[walkingdude]

Type two is all about decks with non basics. This card would utterly ruin the format. Go to brainburst and check out decklists. The only thing that would stop this from running rampant is that blue sucks and it wouldn't ahve the cards to support it.

My basic objection to this card is fairly simple. Non basic lands are far more interesting and fun than global land hate.  There is no reason for this to exist.  Even if it could somehow get by without trouble, why take the risk. Good mass LD is like trying to fix necro, even though most fixes suck (phrexian arena) nothing good can come of it.

[Fish]

This card is certainly not nearly as powerful as bloodmoon or back to basics because it gives the player a choice whether to use the nonbasics to generate mana or to pay a life.

Even if you always choose to pay life, it'll rarely deal more than a couple of points of damage to your opponent.

So unless you want to argue that blood moon and back to basics are broken and distort the format, there really isn't any reason to fear that this card is overpowered.

I do believe that the ability fits into black better. Blue doesn't do life loss and it already has back to basics so it's simply unneccesary.

I think you should change the casting cost to 1BB.

[dandan]

I agree that life loss is Black's thing although funnily enough Green got the card that deals damage based on the number of non-basics you control!! Blue has a long history of Power Leak effects that punish you if you don't pay to keep your stuff around.
I think forcing you to make uncomfortable choices is a Blue thing even if one of the 3 choices is a Black thing (which is an allied colour after all). Look at it like this - Blue is tricky, it wants to blow up your land but it can't, it tries to tax you (White ability - allied colour), if you refuse it tries to cause you pain (Black - allied colour) and only if you turn down these options can sneaky Blue manage to achieve its objective of destroying your land. Note that its controller is affected too but Blue likes decision making, it is an opportunity to show how clever it is.

There is also the question of erosion's fine heritage!!
(since when has the sea been bad at land destruction?!!)

1BB would be fine as a Black Enchantment without the mana payment option - your land or your life. Note that this is much better than the Blue version I have proposed.

I think it is becoming clearer that this is not that strong in power level. Even against Affinity, is it a good idea for Blue to tap out on turn 3 to do 2-3 damage to Affinity next turn? (assuming the Affinity player doesn't want to pay any mana or lands)

[dandan]

I seem to be sailing into a headwind. People dislike LD, hare non-basic hate and don't like Blue getting any new toys.

I think it is a shame but I'd rather close this thread than push a concept card that is so far out of line with what the rest of you think (or at least out of line with what the active posters think). I am glad that you can see that power level is not an issue with this card as it is basically a very slow weak Price of Progress or a weak Power Short that lasts longer.