The Color Wheel

[Dr. Sylvan]

Could you please edit out the card idea? Thanks.

One note to all potential respondents before I get to the delicious "content": NO CARD IDEAS ALLOWED HERE. As I understand it, R&D cannot read anything with card ideas in it for legal reasons. In my dream of dreams, R&D would read what I've got to say and like it, so I don't want to do anything to prevent them from doing so. We're talking about colors and abilities generally, with examples of past cards. That's all.

When I say army I primarily mean tokens (Mobilization, Decree of Justice, or Sacred Mesa)---more like a control finisher---backed up by rule-setting utility creatures (flavored as Clerics, most often) and/or Angels in the air. The Sliver/tribal mechanics might make WW and the color in general better, but it wouldn't change its fundamental "fairness". Anything that encourages additional board commitment only exacerbates a key reason WW doesn't work in the modern era. Noncreature support spells that aren't just combat tricks are the key to color pie equilibrium, because that is what Green and White have always been lowest on.

[Matt]

When I say army I primarily mean tokens (Mobilization, Decree of Justice, or Sacred Mesa)---more like a control finisher---backed up by rule-setting utility creatures (flavored as Clerics, most often) and/or Angels in the air. The Sliver/tribal mechanics might make WW and the color in general better, but it wouldn't change its fundamental "fairness". Anything that encourages additional board commitment only exacerbates a key reason WW doesn't work in the modern era. Noncreature support spells that aren't just combat tricks are the key to color pie equilibrium, because that is what Green and White have always been lowest on.

Yeah, absolutely none of that sounds in any way powerful, or in any way helps to revitalize white. Token creatures are almost universally horrible - ETW and Decree are almost the sole examples. Outpost would never have been played except for being uncounterable (and you might say that about Decree too), and Sacred Mesa is really only a minor card compared to the Serra's Sanctum that powers it.

I think you're missing the point. Does Goblins suffer from "encouraging additional board commitment"? Nonsense. The goblins, like the slivers, are almost universally individually horrible - but when they're together, ON THE BOARD TOGETHER, they are extremely powerful. Synergy is one thing white has always lacked more than any other color.

The problem is that no one is scared of a 2/2 for 2cc, and white is not allowed to have guys which are straight up larger than that - that is green's domain. One severe problem with WW is that all its fancy combat stuff right now can be trumped by simply being larger.

[Ephraim]

Token creatures are almost universally horrible - ETW and Decree are almost the sole examples. Outpost would never have been played except for being uncounterable (and you might say that about Decree too), and Sacred Mesa is really only a minor card compared to the Serra's Sanctum that powers it.

I would add Raise the Alarm to this short list.  Yes, the tokens are just weak little 1/1's, but arriving at instant-speed makes them very versatile.

The problem is that no one is scared of a 2/2 for 2cc, and white is not allowed to have guys which are straight up larger than that - that is green's domain. One severe problem with WW is that all its fancy combat stuff right now can be trumped by simply being larger.

Dare I say it, but this seems like as good an argument as any to bring back banding.  It was a complicated mess, but both mechanically and thematically, it really did convey the idea of multiple creatures fighting as a cohesive unit.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Ephraim: MaRo has explained banding's replacement here in the response to the first letter. It ain't coming back, and if it did, it wouldn't help make White win.

Matt: It is true that Goblins are powerful despite playing lots of permanents. However, Goblins is also an aggro powerhouse almost on par with Affinity (better in some formats). If translated into White, it would have White abilities. First strike instead of haste. +1/+1 instead of +2/+0. The Elite Archer rangestrike ability over Gempalm Incinerator. This would weaken the strategy substantially, and that's the only way it will see print. We've already seen a number of "walking Crusades" from Pianna, Nomad Captain to Auriok Steelshaper to Coldsnap's Field Marshal (the latter also grants first strike, like Knighthood). Catapult Squad essentially gave Soldiers rangestrike (and I bet most of you had to look it up). Frontline Strategist is a one-sided Fog.

They have obviously not pushed the mechanic like they did with Goblins, and I don't think that they're likely to want to. Extraordinarily good aggro decks aren't healthy, so turn four is probably as fast as it can get, if that. They aren't going to give them Sliver pricing or breadth of abilities, because the Slivers are handicapped by being polychromatic. They've given White synergetic teams from the en-Kor to the Nomads to Soldiers, but the difference is that development made each batch except Rebels fair, whereas Affinity and Goblins were so closely tied that they were broken. (Goblins was arguably less beyond-the-pale, but still outrageously strong in every single Constructed format save Type One---even there it did T8 repeatedly.) Rebels is less a case of "tribal", since they didn't grant each other abilities, than simple uncounterable tutoring. The mechanic was much like being allowed to play two dozen narrow, no-discard Survival of the Fittest.

Beside that, as I have argued in the past, printing really viable, strong White aggro makes very little flavor sense. When Red attacks, it feels natural; practically the whole color is about bloodlust (the "Zergling rush" style). White is supposed to be contemplative; only Blue is on par with its desire for serenity/balance. Aggro decks feel like unprovoked attacks. This is why I believe the key is in the support spells. Whether it be more enchantments, instants/sorceries, or both, making those better will resolve the issue that waves of WW 2/2s never have. White should win in the endgame, like Blue, by which point a White mage is sufficiently irked by the opponent's continued disturbances to kill him. Many of the best White spells, historically, have fit into this flavor---the White mage getting increasingly pissed that the other guy just won't obey the rules and leave him alone (Wrath of God, Decree of Justice, Balance).

Exactly what kind of support spells I recommend will be an ongoing topic as I continue deeper into my analyses, and those are where you'll see what I think should be White's best stuff.

[Matt]

Beside that, as I have argued in the past, printing really viable, strong White aggro makes very little flavor sense. When Red attacks, it feels natural; practically the whole color is about bloodlust (the "Zergling rush" style). White is supposed to be contemplative; only Blue is on par with its desire for serenity/balance. Aggro decks feel like unprovoked attacks. This is why I believe the key is in the support spells. Whether it be more enchantments, instants/sorceries, or both, making those better will resolve the issue that waves of WW 2/2s never have. White should win in the endgame, like Blue, by which point a White mage is sufficiently irked by the opponent's continued disturbances to kill him. Many of the best White spells, historically, have fit into this flavor---the White mage getting increasingly pissed that the other guy just won't obey the rules and leave him alone (Wrath of God, Decree of Justice, Balance).

Naturally, I disagree with almost all of this. First off, you're assuming white can or should only have one side to it. No. Second, you're assuming aggro decks have to win fast which is not the case; they're aggro as long as they're attacking and the opponent is forced to defend. Third, why should white be contemplative? As I see it, the 2nd place 'contemplative' color is GREEN not white. Green wants harmony; white wants its way or the highway. White is the martial color. Red is unfocused rage and anger, and doesn't much care WHO that anger is directed at. White is the color of armies; red is the color of mobs.

Armies marching to war. Martial flags flying, swords clattering. Steel and glory. Crusaders ridding the world of evil. Highly trained cavalry supporting legions marching in lockstep, backed up by archers. WHITE. How can you say white aggro doesn't make sense. It makes far more sense than, say, green.

[Polynomial P]

Thanks for answering why White should not have Goblin-like abilities from my post #10. Ive been waiting to hear your answer, for three months.

I am going to have to agree with Matt though, White could easily be seen as an aggressive color in that it would use its armies to bring law and order to the world. Think of the Roman army. They would absolutely be White in color and were an offensive juggernaut for centuries. 

When I say army I primarily mean tokens (Mobilization, Decree of Justice, or Sacred Mesa)---more like a control finisher---backed up by rule-setting utility creatures (flavored as Clerics, most often) and/or Angels in the air. The Sliver/tribal mechanics might make WW and the color in general better, but it wouldn't change its fundamental "fairness". Anything that encourages additional board commitment only exacerbates a key reason WW doesn't work in the modern era.

One of the reasons that Goblins is so successful, especially in Legacy, is that it is able to recover from mass removal thanks to cost lowering effects of warchief, card advantage of ringleader, tutoring of Matron, and piledriver being a 7/2 for 2 mana with 3 other goblins out. Either the ability to rebuild after mass removal should be deemed "too good for aggro", remade into a fair version (although it might be tough to get right), or given, in part, to white.

[Matt]

One reason WW gets no respect is that wizards has been focusing on making The Best 2/2 instead of making the best Team of 2/2s. Even the best 2/2 is going to pack it up against a 4/4, and most will curl up and die to a vanilla 3/3.

Teamwork is the great unexplored white strength. I think it would be interesting to have white be remade as the tribal color, with many tribes - but most every creature is part of one (supported) tribe or another. The rebel tribe uses their teamwork for uncounterable card drawing, the soldier and knight* tribes use their teamwork to win any fight, the cleric tribe uses their teamwork to do whatever it is clerics do. Angels can be like knigihts, but flying. Notice that all the preexisting white tribes are classes, not races. Humans could be any of those three. Cats could be too. So diversity of flavor can still exist.

*In some sense, Knight shouldn't exist, because it is a bad fit except for the Euro-centric fantasy origin of Magic. Knight just doesn't fit as well into other cultures the way Soldier does.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Polynomial: Sorry to leave you hanging; I must not have parsed your prior post as inviting a response when I first read it way back when. Oops.

Matt: No color should have only one side to it. My argument is that White should be first and foremost a controlling color, as is Blue.

As for whether aggro decks need to win quickly, I think that once a deck diverges from going for the throat, it enters the land of aggro-control. Consider the differences between two major examples of competitive tribal decks: Goblins and Slivers. Goblins loves to win as fast as possible. It is clearly aggro. Slivers are slower, and so the competitive archetype also loaded up on counterspells. It was an aggro-control deck. We've already seen what a slow aggro deck that doesn't employ control elements looks like; it's what WW has been stuck with so often. I would be plenty happy if White could field an aggro-control deck without it being primarily Blue. (An aggro-control deck would also have means to recover from mass removal that aren't as broken as Polynomial's examples from Legacy Goblins.)

[W]hy should white be contemplative? As I see it, the 2nd place 'contemplative' color is GREEN not white. Green wants harmony; white wants its way or the highway. White is the martial color. Red is unfocused rage and anger, and doesn't much care WHO that anger is directed at. White is the color of armies; red is the color of mobs.

The Selesnya article explains why I see White as more contemplative than Green:

With allied color pairs, there's an easy trick to figuring out the [conflict between the two colors]. Take a look at the enemy color combination that pits one color's ally against the other's. Once again, I'll use green/white as an example. Other than eachother, white's ally is blue while green's is red. This means we want to focus on the blue/red conflict. It is this conflict that forces the two colors to choose different sides.

The blue/red conflict is that of intellect versus emotion. Of thinking versus feeling. Of action versus reaction. Of nurture versus nature. Blue is cool and calculating. Red is passionate and impulsive. Blue thinks before it acts. Red acts before it thinks. White takes blue's side in this conflict, choosing to use its brain to plan ahead and strategize. Green take's red side, acting on its gut and instinct.

Additionally, in the Orzhov article, MaRo points out that White/Black share a disgust for "mindless instinct" and an absence of thinking. In the Azorius article, White/Blue is "thoughtful", "far-looking", etc. Only when crossed directly with Red does White gain an aggressive aspect.

White is also the color second only to Blue in preventing others' actions or the undesireable consequences of those actions (e.g., "taxing", Pacifism, damage prevention, Rule of Law, protection). I'll grant that Green has untargetable, but remember that untargetability is also incorporated into protection, and there are White precedents in this area as well (Hanna's Custody, Leonin Abunas, and partial credit for Sterling Grove).

Armies marching to war. Martial flags flying, swords clattering. Steel and glory. Crusaders ridding the world of evil. Highly trained cavalry supporting legions marching in lockstep, backed up by archers. WHITE. How can you say white aggro doesn't make sense. It makes far more sense than, say, green.

Now, as the one who's opening the MaRo-quoting can of worms, I am aware that, in the same paragraph where he says, "White wins the game by controlling the environment. It takes a defensive stance and then uses the tools at its disposal to stop the threats of the enemy. Once the threats are contained, white’s army can then win the day", he adds, "From time to time, white will use its aggressive attack as a preemptive defensive maneuver. (This strategy is popularly known as "white weenie.")" I feel that this second sentence is a forced add-on thrown in to conform to precedents R&D cannot let go of. "From time to time" has become "all the time".

To demonstrate this, look at some of the characters MaRo selected to exemplify White: Superman and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: TNG). Can we imagine either of them attacking unprovoked? Before they will lay down the law on someone, that someone has to break the rules. A repeated theme of MaRo's color explanations is that White wants peace and cooperation. White is the color I can see naming something "Department of Defense" instead of "Department of War". They would rather never leave their castles and fortresses as long as they are left alone. For a Magic storyline example, Benalia wasn't in a perpetual war against Shiv or Urborg; I don't believe expansionism was ever included in their portrayal. Nor did Serra's realm want to find and invade Phyrexia; they just wanted their serene, perfect realm to be undisturbed.

An army is clearly White, but in order to use it, White must see something that offends it and which must be excised. In-game, this means that as the opponent does more and more, White will be increasingly free to eliminate him---White believes in the proportional response (hence redirection effects and cards like Eye for an Eye or Honorable Passage). White, like Blue, has a lot more to do when the opponent is acting. Even the combat abilities of WW fall under this umbrella---first strike is useless if the opponent doesn't have creatures entering combat against it.

As a result, a White aggro deck doesn't make sense to me as the primary focus of the color. This is not to say that I think White should become creature-low or feature only Draw-Go-style archetypes. I think that the Clerics/whatever with enchantment-like abilities built in (e.g., Kataki, True Believer, Mindcensor, Glowrider, Loxodon Gatekeeper, and Windborn Muse) are a good direction. If they could find a way to make them tribal and/or mutually-reinforcing without screaming "Wrath Me", that'd be great. I just don't think Goblin Piledriver has the slightest thing to do with White's flavor.

[Anusien]

White also tends to be the color of some of the more autocratic forms of government (there are even Autocrat Magic cards).  A dictator that wants law and order absolutely is most certainly white, even if they tend to kill people who get in their way.  The Operative from Serenity is a White card. 

Let's not use real-world examples; that's far too close to a religious/political discussion. Edited.
-Jacob

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Prevalence Distortion by Artifacts

Today's topic is one of the many, many ways that Blue's power level is consistently underestimated, and another reason why the prevalence percentages of PT Top 8s that I posted recently are not as simple as they seem.

Artifacts are a slippery concept when it comes to the color wheel. MaRo's explanation of R&D's stance is that giving an ability to artifacts gives it to the color that is least-good at that ability. Now, what color has a set of abilities which overlaps least with the other four? Blue. And what color has the closest ties to artifacts? Blue. (If you said "Goblin Welder' or "Mishra's Workshop", you're close, but those are not colors.) Those two factors together promote color abilities bleeding toward use by Blue (obvious example: Nevinyrral's Disk, succeeded by Powder Keg).

Among all the cards that put artifacts into play from your library*, Blue is obviously dominant---Red and White get to fetch Equipment cards once in a blue moon. Among all the cards that put artifacts into play from your graveyard**, it's quite a bit more fair. Blue is probably the worst graveyard color, so this provides us with some hope. I could go on like this, but we know Blue is closely tied to artifice (Artificer's Intuition, affinity for artifacts, Fabricate, etc.).

( * : Transmute Artifact; Reshape; Tinker; Arcum Dagsson; Mishra, Artificer Prodigy; Godo, Bandit Warlord; Taj-Nar Swordsmith; Reweave; Eternal Dominion; Acquire; Thought Dissector)

( ** : Argivian Restoration; Trash for Treasure; Goblin Welder; Salvaging Station; Bringer of the White Dawn; Sword of the Meek; Scrounge; Beacon of Unrest; Roar of Reclamation; Mishra, Artificer Prodigy)

Now, much as I have discussed "tilt" among multicolor cards and decks, I'm going to argue that artifacts also lean specifically toward Blue. Take this Mike Flores quote about a Time Spiral Block Constructed U/B deck for example:

Coalition Relic allows this sort of deck to go absolutely greedy on the role players. Ancient Grudge (red and green) in my B/U deck? Why not? What about Return to Dust? He's got them. Color discipline? There is very little reason to pay attention to that old nagging voice when Coalition Relic lets you splash, say, WW in your B/U.

And then add in a MaRo quote about typical artifact abilities (bold in original):

This is the part where the color wheel comes back into the discussion. Because artifacts have generic mana it becomes very hard to create them without upsetting the color wheel. The way we like to think of it in R&D is that any ability you give to artifacts you are giving to the weakest color in that ability. Take enchantment destruction. Black and red are horrible at enchantment destruction. Any enchantment destruction given to artifacts is essentially being given to black and red. This is why artifacts tend not to have any enchantment removal abilities.

So what do you do if you can't do many of the basic effects that are used to define the colors? You stick to the basics:

1. Mana Production – There's nothing more universal than mana. Every color has access to mana. This is why artifacts have pounced on mana production with a vengeance.

2. Mana Fixing – While this is green's domain, Magic is just more fun if players have access to more colors. This allows R&D to justify pushing mana fixing a little stronger than it does other abilities.
[...]

These two quotes, together, say to me that artifact mana fixing can promote radical splashes. And in what color(s) is(are) a radical splash most optimal? Blue and Black, thanks to their nearly total control over moving cards from the library to the hand (the Card Catalog 210s). Draw/search maximizes the utility of radical splashing by allowing small numbers of situational cards to be played on-demand, minimizing dead cards in hand. Head Developer Devin Low has discussed this phenomenon to some extent.

This means that a great deal of the time, the better and more numerous the artifacts are---particularly mana-fixers---the closer they get to acting as Blue cards and Blue-promoters. This is a little subtle looking at numbers for something like PT Kobe 2004, where actual Blue cards were few (3.9%), but artifacts and Red each broke 40% of nonland cards. The thing is, what colors did the two Affinity decks use to complement their colorless bombs? Blue and Black, of course---both Affinity decks played 4 Seat of the Synod and 4 Vault of Whispers.

This doesn't mean that Ravager Affinity should be counted in the same manner as a mono-Blue deck. It does, however, mean that a raw count underestimates how much use Blue makes of this relationship. MaRo's quote mentions a classic, rarely-violated rule of the color wheel (weak R/B enchantment destruction), but Blue is also supposed to have gaping weaknesses, like the inability to destroy permanents at all. Artifacts, both directly through cards like Oblivion Stone, and indirectly through mana fixing that allows easy access to other colors' utility spells, lessen the need to actually play those other colors.

When looking at the color pie and artifacts, each artifact should be scrutinized on the basis of what it gives to Blue, the color which has the most to gain from the "bleeding" of other colors' abilities. Otherwise, we'll have more repeats of Time Spiral block's high-quality Blue decks.

[Matt]

So why isn't Coalition Relic being used to splash UU cards in W/G?

[Jacob Orlove]

Like he said, Blue and Black are the colors of card draw, tutoring, and card manipulation. That makes it much easier to find the correct combination of splash cards and splash mana without disrupting your tempo.

[Dr. Sylvan]

(First, I didn't reply to Matt's last post because Jacob posted the exact thing I was going to say. Just an FYI.)

The Color Wheel: The Mixed Messages of Tenth Edition

Base sets are not just a mechanism for keeping a mass of reprints in Standard, but also an introduction to the fundamental abilities of each color for new players. As such, moving cards into it, at least in the modern, color-pie-centered era of Magic design, is tantamount to canonization. Tenth Edition should summarize what the colors do at a basic level. (Note: This is not strictly the same as saying that by omission a color does not do something, due to the complexity constraints of non-Expert-level rules.)

Aside
One of my ambitions with the Card Catalog has long been to examine the distribution of abilities among the colors over time, but, after spending those three months classifying all those cards, I can honestly say that even the thought of a comprehensive, point-by-point review remains exhausting to me, so it may take some time to get to that point. In the interim, I'm working on partial reviews like this one, and probably subsequent posts concerning the history of individual abilities (sort of breaking it down into smaller chunks).
End Aside

To place the color pie message of Tenth Edition into stark relief, I am setting it side-by-side with Alpha (technically, Unlimited), which should show what, exactly, Wizards has moved heavily from one color to another.

(Notation Note: Asterisks * in front of a number indicate that a card is listed under more than one function. Hopefully the lists show up for all of you like they do for me, in small blocks with scroll bars rather than full-length.)

Artifacts and Lands

To start off each color, I'll look at slots that overlap very closely, although they may not be the exact same cards. For instance, the "lucky charms" have been updated, but they fulfill the same function, so I consider them to be a trivial change.

Code:

Alpha / Tenth
*104 Library of Leng / 104 Spellbook
211 Howling Mine / 211 Howling Mine
211 Jayemdae Tome / 211 Jayemdae Tome
555.9 Icy Manipulator / 555.9 Icy Manipulator
556.7 The Hive / 556.7 The Hive
593 [full 10 duals] / 593 [full 10 painlands]
595 Basalt Monolith / *595 Mind Stone
911 Crystal Rod / 911 Kraken's Eye
911 Iron Star / 911 Dragon's Claw
911 Ivory Cup / 911 Angel's Feather
911 Soul Net / 911 Fountain of Youth
911 Throne of Bone / 911 Demon's Horn
911 Wooden Sphere / 911 Wurm's Tooth
931 Rod of Ruin / 931 Rod of Ruin
*943 Gauntlet of Might / 943 Coat of Arms
1001 Juggernaut (1001) / 1001 Juggernaut (1001)

The rest have some differences, most notably the manlands being quite a step down from the Moxes in power level and the removal of highly influential color bleeds like Nevinyrral's Disk. Artifacts have also gotten a downgrade in direct damage prevalence.

Code:

Alpha
110 Glasses of Urza
131 Disrupting Scepter
*139 Library of Leng
157 Illusionary Mask
531.9 Chaos Orb
531.9 Nevinyrral's Disk
553.5 Cyclopean Tomb
553.7 Jade Statue
553.7 Kormus Bell
555.5 Winter Orb
555.7 Meekstone
*592 Gauntlet of Might
592 Mox Emerald
592 Mox Jet
592 Mox Pearl
592 Mox Ruby
592 Mox Sapphire
592 Sunglasses of Urza
594 Black Lotus
594 Celestial Prism
595 Mana Vault
595 Sol Ring
800 Time Vault
835 Helm of Chatzuk
931 Ankh of Mishra
931 Black Vise
931 Copper Tablet
931 Dingus Egg
935.1 Conservator
935.1 Forcefield
*935.24 Living Wall (1006)
937 Jade Monolith
1001 Clockwork Beast (1001)
1001 Obsianus Golem (1001)
*1006 Living Wall (1006)

Tenth
%52.9 Pithing Needle
099 Platinum Angel (1001)
211 Phyrexian Vault
*211.19 Chromatic Star
*211.19 Mind Stone
219 Citanul Flute
232 Millstone
255 Terramorphic Expanse
355 Crucible of Worlds
404 Steel Golem (1001)
*452 Whispersilk Cloak
502.6 Sculpting Steel
541.9 Legacy Weapon
553.7 Chimeric Staff
*553.7 Faerie Conclave
*553.7 Forbidding Watchtower
*553.7 Ghitu Encampment
*553.7 Spawning Pool
*553.7 Treetop Village
*592 Faerie Conclave
*592 Forbidding Watchtower
*592 Ghitu Encampment
*592 Spawning Pool
*592 Treetop Village
*594 Chromatic Star
594 Composite Golem (1001)
*595 Quicksand
599 Doubling Cube
*835 Whispersilk Cloak
911 Bottle Gnomes (1001)
*911 Loxodon Warhammer
931 Razormane Masticore (1001)
*941 Loxodon Warhammer
943 Leonin Scimitar
*943 Quicksand
1001 Colossus of Sardia (1001)
1001 Mantis Engine (1001)
1001 Ornithopter (1001)

Black

Black has a pretty strong overlap, with a few cards tweaked in power level (down from Mind Twist to Head Games, up from Zombie Master to Lord of the Undead, etc.). A surprising number of Black cards appeared in both sets.

Code:

Alpha
131 Hypnotic Specter (1000) / 131 Hypnotic Specter (1000)
132 Mind Twist / 120 Head Games
219 Demonic Tutor / 219 Diabolic Tutor
311 Raise Dead / *311 Recover
357 Animate Dead / *357 Beacon of Unrest
357 Nether Shadow (1000) / 357 Doomed Necromancer (1000)
531.5 Sinkhole / 531.5 Rain of Tears
531.7 Royal Assassin (1000) / 531.7 Royal Assassin (1000)
531.7 Terror / 531.7 Terror
835 Fear / 835 Fear
*911 Drain Life / *911 Consume Spirit
*931 Drain Life / *931 Consume Spirit
*935.2 Zombie Master (1000) / *943 Lord of the Undead (1000)
943 Frozen Shade (1000) / 943 Looming Shade (1000)
943 Nightmare (1000) / 943 Nightmare (1000)
943 Sengir Vampire (1000) / 943 Sengir Vampire (1000)
943 Unholy Strength / 943 Unholy Strength
1000 Bog Wraith (1000) / 1000 Bog Wraith (1000)
1000 Lord of the Pit (1000) / 1000 Lord of the Pit (1000)
1000 Scathe Zombies (1000) / 1000 Scathe Zombies (1000)

The non-overlap slots surprised me---I had expected that the original Black would have approximately the same discard and creature kill prevalence as contemporary Magic, but apparently iconic cards like Mind Twist and Terror defined much larger shares of what followed than they did in Alpha. Specific mechanics lost include fast mana (Dark Ritual).

Code:

ALPHA
N/A Darkpact
N/A Demonic Attorney
099 Lich
102 Word of Command
211 Lich
217 Contract From Below
*403 Deathlace
431 Deathgrip
*503.9 Deathlace
531.5 Demonic Hordes (1000) 
553.5 Evil Presence
555.7 Paralyze
592 Dark Ritual
592 Sacrifice
835 Nettling Imp (1000)
*835 Zombie Master (1000)
*911 Simulacrum
931 Cursed Land
931 Pestilence
*931 Simulacrum
931 Warp Artifact
941 Howl From Beyond
943 Bad Moon
943 Weakness
955 Gloom
1000 Black Knight (1000)
1000 Drudge Skeletons (1000)
1000 Plague Rats (1000)
1000 Scavenging Ghoul (1000)
1000 Will-O'-The-Wisp (1000)
1005 Wall of Bone (1005)

TENTH EDITION
099 Mortal Combat
099 Phage the Untouchable (1000)
120 Agonizing Memories
131 Distress
131 Mind Rot
131 Ravenous Rats (1000)
131 Thrull Surgeon (1000)
*139 Megrim
211 Graveborn Muse
*211.19 Afflict
211.19 Phyrexian Rager (1000)
*211.19 Recover
311 Gravedigger (1000)
*311 Lord of the Undead (1000)
311 No Rest for the Wicked
*356 Beacon of Unrest
501.7 Sleeper Agent (1000)
531.7 Assassinate
531.7 Deathmark
531.7 Knight of Dusk (1000)
531.7 Nekrataal (1000)
531.7 Plague Wind
532.7 Cruel Edict
532.7 Grave Pact
556 Midnight Ritual
*911 Essence Drain
*911 Highway Robber (1000)
*911 Soul Feast
915 Contaminated Bond
*915 Highway Robber (1000)
*915 Soul Feast
915 Stronghold Discipline
*931 Essence Drain
*931 Megrim
931 Underworld Dreams
941 Hate Weaver (1000)
941 Vampire Bats (1000)
*943 Afflict
943 Ascendant Evincar (1000)
943 Festering Goblin (1000)
943 Mortivore (1000)
943 Nantuko Husk (1000)
943 Relentless Rats (1000)
1000 Dross Crocodile (1000)
1000 Drudge Skeletons (1000)
1000 Dusk Imp (1000)
1000 Hidden Horror (1000)
1000 Mass of Ghouls (1000)
1000 Plague Beetle (1000)
1000 Severed Legion (1000)
1000 Spineless Thug (1000)

Blue

R&D has successfully weakened most of the absurdity out of the Blue Alpha pantheon---Counterspell to Cancel, Control Magic to Persuasion, Time Walk to Time Stretch, Blue Elemental Blast to Flashfreeze, etc. They've also condensed three slots devoted to "hacking" down to just Mind Bend (though without the on-stack mutation).

Code:

Alpha
211 Ancestral Recall / 211 Counsel of the Soratami
211 Braingeyser / 211 Tidings
*431 Blue Elemental Blast / 431 Flashfreeze
431 Counterspell / 431 Cancel
431 Spell Blast / *431 Discombobulate
501.7 Control Magic / 501.7 Persuasion
502.7 Clone (1000) / 502.7 Clone (1000)
*503.9 Magical Hack / 503.9 Mind Bend
*503.9 Sleight of Mind / 503.9 Mind Bend
*503.9 Thoughtlace / 503.9 Mind Bend
511.7 Unsummon / 511.7 Unsummon
553.7 Animate Artifact / 553.7 March of the Machines
555.9 Twiddle / *555.9 Twitch
800 Time Walk / 800 Time Stretch
835 Flight / 835 Shimmering Wings
1000 Air Elemental (1000) / 1000 Air Elemental (1000)
1000 Mahamoti Djinn (1000) / 1000 Mahamoti Djinn (1000)
1000 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident (1000) / 1000 Fugitive Wizard (1000)
1000 Sea Serpent (1000) / 1000 Sea Monster (1000)
1005 Wall of Air (1005) / 1005 Wall of Air (1000)

Blue's notable losses include direct damage, the ability to force the opponent to tap out, and the absolute brokenness of its early cards (the downgraded versions are at least not blatantly unfair). However, besides direct damage, the mechanical core of Blue---card drawing, counterspelling, and bounce---has remained intact, indeed, draw and bounce have been expanded a great deal.

Code:

ALPHA
217 Timetwister
*403 Magical Hack
*403 Sleight of Mind
*403 Thoughtlace
*431 Power Sink
501.61 Steal Artifact
502.61 Copy Artifact
502.7 Vesuvan Doppelganger (1000)
*531.5 Volcanic Eruption
*531.9 Blue Elemental Blast
553.5 Phantasmal Terrain
*555.5 Drain Power
555.5 Mana Short
*555.5 Power Sink
*594 Drain Power
811.9 Stasis
835 Invisibility
835 Jump
*835 Lord of Atlantis (1000)
835 Siren's Call
911 Lifetap
931 Creature Bond
931 Feedback
931 Pirate Ship (1000)
931 Power Leak
931 Prodigal Sorceror (1000)
931 Psionic Blast
931 Psychic Venom
*931 Volcanic Eruption
*943 Lord of Atlantis (1000)
1000 Phantasmal Forces (1000)
1000 Phantom Monster (1000)
1000 Water Elemental (1000)
1005 Wall of Water (1005)

TENTH EDITION
*110 Peek
110 Telepathy
211 Arcanis the Omnipotent (1000)
211 Plagiarize
211 Thieving Magpie (1000)
211.19 Aven Fisher (1000)
*211.19 Peek
*211.19 Twitch
212 Merfolk Looter (1000)
212 Sift
213 Telling Time
220 Aven Windreader (1000)
*220 Discombobulate
220 Sage Owl (1000)
230 Ambassador Laquatus (1000)
230 Dreamborn Muse (1000)
230 Traumatize
240 Scalpelexis (1000)
320 Reminisce
356.2 Academy Researchers (1000)
402 Twincast
431 Remove Soul
431 Spiketail Hatchling (1000)
452 Robe of Mirrors
501.62 Aura Graft
501.7 Rootwater Matriarch (1000)
511.61 Hurkyl's Recall
511.7 Evacuation
511.7 Sunken Hope
511.9 Boomerang
511.9 Cephalid Constable (1000)
513.7 Denizen of the Deep (1000)
513.9 Vedalken Mastermind (1000)
555.7 Dehydration
555.7 Deluge
555.7 Puppeteer
555.74 Horseshoe Crab
800 Time Stop
835 Crafty Pathmage (1000)
835 Sky Weaver (1000)
1000 Cloud Elemental (1000)
1000 Cloud Sprite (1000)
1000 Fog Elemental (1000)
1000 Lumengrid Warden (1000)
1000 Phantom Warrior (1000)
1000 Rootwater Commando (1000)
1000 Snapping Drake (1000)

Red

The overlap slots for Red are about what you'd expect, with some power tweaks (obv Bolt to Shock) and some slots showing a focus shift (Two-Headed Giant of Foriys to Viashino Runner, for instance) that I felt made them "overlaps".

Code:

Alpha
531.5 Stone Rain / *531.5 Cryoclasm
531.61 Shatter / *531.61 Smash
*835 Goblin King (1000) / *835 Goblin King (1000)
931 Disintegrate / 931 Blaze
931 Fireball / 931 Cone of Flame
931 Lightning Bolt / 931 Shock
931 Manabarbs / 931 Manabarbs
931 Orcish Artillery (1000) / 931 Orcish Artillery (1000)
941 Dragon Whelp (1000) / 941 Furnace Whelp (1000)
941 Firebreathing / 941 Firebreathing
941 Shivan Dragon (1000) / 941 Shivan Dragon (1000)
941 Wall of Fire (1005) / 941 Wall of Fire (1005)
*943 Goblin King (1000) / *943 Goblin King (1000)
1000 Earth Elemental (1000) / 1000 Earth Elemental (1000)
1000 Goblin Balloon Brigade (1000) / 1000 Goblin Sky Raider (1000)
1000 Hill Giant (1000) / 1000 Hill Giant (1000)
1000 Ironclaw Orcs (1000) / 1000 Goblin Piker (1000)
1000 Mons's Goblin Raiders (1000) / 1000 Raging Goblin (1000)
1000 Two-Headed Giant of Foriys (1000) / 1000 Viashino Runner (1000)

The non-overlap intrigued me with the no less than monomaniacal focus on damage in Tenth Edition. In Alpha, 8 of 46 Red cards were "931s", i.e., dealt damage outside creature combat. Tenth Edition brings us 25 burn cards out of 61 Red cards total (40.9%). That is a borderline insane level of focus on one mechanic. (Not even counting Furnace of Rath.) Message to new players: check and double-check.

Code:

ALPHA
217 Wheel of Fortune
402 Fork
*403 Chaoslace
*431 Red Elemental Blast
*503.9 Chaoslace
531.5 Flashfires
531.5 Tunnel
531.7 Dwarven Demolition Team (1000)
*531.9 Red Elemental Blast
*552.7 Earthbind
555.7 Smoke
594 Mana Flare
835 Burrowing
835 Dwarven Warriors (1000)
835 False Orders
835 Raging River
835 Stone Giant (1000)
*931 Earthbind
931 Earthquake
931 Power Surge
941 Orcish Oriflamme
942 Granite Gargoyle (1000)
943 Keldon Warlord (1000)
943 Rock Hydra (1000)
943 Sedge Troll (1000)
1000 Fire Elemental (1000)
1000 Gray Ogre (1000)
1000 Hurloon Minotaur (1000)
1000 Roc of Kher Ridges (1000)
1000 Uthden Troll (1000)
1005 Wall of Stone (1005)

TENTH EDITION
*139 Guerrilla Tactics
*211.19 Smash
*211.19 Stun
212 Goblin Lore
*250 Warp World
311 Squee, Goblin Nabob (1000)
450 Shunt
501.7 Threaten
*520.9 Warp World
531.61 Shatterstorm
531.9 Demolish
552.7 Rage Weaver (1000)
556.7 Dragon Roost
*556.7 Siege-Gang Commander (1000)
830 Relentless Assault
835 Duct Crawler (1000)
*835 Stun
*835 Uncontrollable Anger
*931 Arcane Teachings
931 Beacon of Destruction
931 Bloodfire Colossus (1000)
931 Bogardan Firefiend (1000)
*931 Cryoclasm
931 Flamewave Invoker (1000)
*931 Guerrilla Tactics
931 Incinerate
931 Kamahl, Pit Fighter (1000)
931 Lava Axe
931 Lavaborn Muse
931 Mogg Fanatic (1000)
931 Prodigal Pyromancer (1000)
931 Pyroclasm
931 Seismic Assault
931 Shivan Hellkite (1000)
*931 Siege-Gang Commander (1000)
931 Soulblast
931 Spitting Earth
931 Sudden Impact
932 Furnace of Rath
941 Fists of the Anvil
*943 Arcane Teachings
943 Flowstone Slide
943 Goblin Elite Infantry (1000)
*943 Uncontrollable Anger
1000 Anaba Bodyguard (1000)
1000 Bloodrock Cyclops (1000)
1000 Lightning Elemental (1000)
1000 Scoria Wurm (1000)
1000 Rock Badger (1000)
1000 Spark Elemental (1000)
1000 Thundering Giant (1000)
1000 Viashino Sandscout (1000)

Green

Green hasn't really lost much, though it did drop to number two at enchantment removal simultaneous with its ascension to number one at artifact removal. (Arguably, Green also has the best enchantment removal because enchantments are usually so bad that Naturalize is inherently more playable than one-type removal.) Post-Alpha Green has always been the tertiary land destruction color, which is a downgrade---in Alpha you can argue convincingly that Red was third-best, and Green competitive for first or second with Black. Mana production, blocking fliers, fatties, one-turn stat boosts---many staple effects remained constant.

Code:

Alpha
155 Fastbond / 155 Skyshroud Ranger (1000)
311 Regrowth / 311 Recollect
531.7 Thicket Basilisk (1000) / 531.7 Sylvan Basilisk (1000)
592 Llanowar Elves (1000) / 592 Llanowar Elves (1000)
592 Wild Growth / 592 Overgrowth
594 Birds of Paradise (1000) / 594 Birds of Paradise (1000)
835 Lure / 835 Lure
*835 Web / *835 Treetop Bracers
911 Stream of Life / 911 Natural Spring
931 Hurricane / 931 Hurricane
935.2 Regeneration / 935.2 Regeneration
943 Aspect of Wolf / 943 Blachwood Armor
943 Giant Growth / 943 Giant Growth
1000 Craw Wurm (1000) / 1000 Craw Wurm (1000)
1000 Elvish Archers (1000) / 835 Might Weaver (1000)
1000 Force of Nature (1000) / 955 Avatar of Might (1000)
1000 Giant Spider (1000) / 1000 Giant Spider (1000)
1000 Grizzly Bears (1000) / 1000 Grizzly Bears (1000)
1000 Ironroot Treefolk (1000) / 1000 Spined Wurm (1000)
1000 Shanodin Dryads (1000) / 1000 Rushwood Dryad (1000)
1000 War Mammoth (1000) / 1000 Rhox (1000)
1005 Wall of Wood (1005) / 1005 Wall of Wood (1005)

Among non-overlap slots, Green has gotten a little less defensive---but then again all colors except White have a reduced wall count from Alpha. The temporary pump exemplified by Giant Growth has become one of the major themes, as have artifact kill, mana production, and a theme---less-emphasized in the base set---of anti-blue abilities like shroud and uncounterability. Reprinting Quirion Dryad and Joiner Adept plus the longtime staples Rampant Growth and Birds of Paradise show off Green's play-well-with-others side. Overall, certain abilities have expanded and some have diminished, but Green has stayed close to the same. Even Commune With Nature (the "Green Impulse") has some Alpha-dated precedent in Natural Selection.

Code:

ALPHA
211 Verduran Enchantress (1000)
223 Natural Selection
*403 Lifelace
431 Lifeforce
*503.9 Lifelace
531.5 Ice Storm
531.5 Kudzu
531.5 Tsunami
531.62 Tranquility
531.7 Cockatrice (1000)
*552.7 Instill Energy
553.7 Living Lands
555.5 Ley Druid (1000)
*555.7 Instill Energy
592 Channel
835 Camouflage
911 Living Artifact
931 Wanderlust
935.1 Fog
941 Berserk
*942 Web
943 Fungusaur (1000)
943 Gaea's Liege (1000)
1000 Scryb Sprites (1000)
1000 Timber Wolves (1000)
1005 Wall of Brambles (1005)
1005 Wall of Ice (1005)

TENTH EDITION
150 Hunted Wumpus (1000)
157 Elvish Piper (1000)
*211.19 Aggressive Urge
211.19 Kavu Climber (1000)
213 Commune With Nature
218 Abundance
219.5 Civic Wayfinder (1000)
219.5 Sylvan Scrying
255 Rampant Growth
257 Llanowar Sentinel (1000)
430.9 Gaea's Herald (1000)
513.7 Stampeding Wildebeests (1000)
531.6 Naturalize
531.61 Viridian Shaman (1000)
531.9 Creeping Mold
555.9 Root Maze
555.9 Seedborn Muse (1000)
556.7 Verdant Force (1000)
590 Upwelling
594 Joiner Adept (1000)
*835 Elvish Champion (1000)
*835 Overrun
835 Primal Rage
931 Femeref Archers (1000)
*943 Aggressive Urge
943 Elvish Berserker (1000)
*943 Elvish Champion (1000)
943 Might of Oaks
943 Molimo, Maro-Sorceror (1000)
*943 Overrun
943 Quirion Dryad (1000)
943 Rootwalla (1000)
*943 Treetop Bracers
943 Yavimaya Enchantress (1000)
1000 Canopy Spider (1000)
1000 Elven Riders (1000)
1000 Enormous Baloth (1000)
1000 Karplusan Strider (1000)
1000 Mirri, Cat Warrior (1000)
1000 Pincher Beetles (1000)
1000 Scion of the Wild (1000)
1000 Stalking Tiger (1000)
1000 Tangle Spider (1000)
1000 Troll Ascetic (1000)

White

In Alpha, 19 of 46 White cards were life gain or damage prevention/redirection. Four life gain, nine straight prevention, one regeneration, five protection (Wards), and two redirectors (Healing Salve and Reverse Damage count toward two categories). In Tenth Edition, 19 out of 62 fall into this category. Ten lifegain, seven prevention, and two redirection. 41.3% to 30.7% of all White cards. Fourteen years of progress, ladies and gentlemen. No applause necessary, my favorite color still has to suffer from a third of its cards being in a known-horrible ability (eventually I'll show how this affects the expansions as well).

There have been significant upgrades in these cards (Farmstead to Soul Warden, Personal Incarnation to Pariah, the Circles of Protection to Story Circle), but they are still mostly at the periphery of playable Constructed cards, and presumably always will be. No other color labors under the heavy weight of its core mechanic sucking quite this hard or over such a wide swathe of its spell slots (the Alpha/Tenth overlap list doesn't include most of them only because they were repurposed and reshuffled so much). The competition gets card drawing/counterspelling/bounce, discard/creature destruction, direct damage, and mana acceleration/creature pump. White gets life gain/damage prevention, to this day. Hunh?

Code:

Alpha / Tenth
357 Resurrection / 357 Reya Dawnbringer (1000)
531.6 Disenchant / *531.6 Aura of Silence
531.7 Wrath of God / 531.7 Wrath of God
*541.7 Swords to Plowshares / *520.7 Condemn 
835 Blaze of Glory / 835 High Ground
911 Farmstead / 911 Soul Warden (1000)
*911 Healing Salve / *911 Reviving Dose
*911 Reverse Damage / 911 Spirit Link
*911 Swords to Plowshares / *911 Condemn
935.1 Circle of Protection: Black / 935.1 Story Circle
935.1 Circle of Protection: Blue / 935.1 Story Circle
935.1 Circle of Protection: Green / 935.1 Story Circle
935.1 Circle of Protection: Red / 935.1 Story Circle
935.1 Circle of Protection: White / 935.1 Story Circle
935.1 Samite Healer (1000) / 935.1 Samite Healer (1000)
937 Personal Incarnation (1000) / 937 Pariah
937 Veteran Bodyguard (1000) / 937 Kjeldoran Royal Guard (1000)
942 Holy Armor / 942 Honor Guard (1000)
943 Blessing / 943 Icatian Priest (1000)
943 Crusade / 943 Glorious Anthem
943 Holy Strength / 943 Holy Strength
943 Righteousness / 943 Righteousness
1000 Mesa Pegasus (1000) / 1000 Wild Griffin (1000)
1000 Pearled Unicorn (1000) / 1000 Benalish Knight (1000)
1000 Savannah Lions (1000) / 1000 Tundra Wolves (1000)
1000 Serra Angel  (1000) / 1000 Serra Angel (1000)
1000 White Knight (1000) / 1000 Steadfast Guard (1000)
1005 Wall of Swords (1005) / 1005 Wall of Swords (1005)

I think we can conclude here that White has not changed all that much from the old days. Lifegain, damage prevention, mass-pumping... all there. White has gained flying (how broken) and, um, Pacifism? Some signs of the "rule-setting" power have made it to the base set (Rule of Law, True Believer, Windborn Muse), but only in a tame way that doesn't rock the boat.

Code:

ALPHA
*132 Balance
*403 Purelace
*452 Consecrate Land
*503.9 Purelace
531.5 Armageddon
*531.59 Consecrate Land
531.9 Northern Paladin (1000)
*532.9 Balance
553.5 Conversion
835 Animate Wall
835 Island Sanctuary
835 Lance
931 Karma
935.1 Guardian Angel
*935.1 Healing Salve
*935.1 Reverse Damage
935.2 Death Ward
935.3 Black Ward
935.3 Blue Ward
935.3 Green Ward
935.3 Red Ward
935.3 White Ward
942 Castle
1000 Benalish Hero (1000)

TENTH EDITION
*211.19 Bandage
*211.19 Reviving Dose
311.61 Treasure Hunter (1000)
356 Nomad Mythmaker (1000)
404 Rule of Law
452 True Believer (1000)
531.62 Aven Cloudchaser (1000)
531.62 Demystify
531.62 Tempest of Light
531.7 Loyal Sentry (1000)
555.7 Loxodon Mystic (1000)
556.7 Mobilization
*835 Angelic Blessing
*835 Field Marshal (1000)
835 Pacifism
*835 Serra's Embrace
911 Ancestor's Chosen (1000)
911 Angel of Mercy (1000)
911 Angelic Chorus
911 Beacon of Immortality
911 Starlight Invoker (1000)
911 Venerable Monk (1000)
931 Ballista Squad (1000)
931 Hail of Arrows
*935.1 Bandage
935.1 Cho-Manno, Revolutionary (1000)
935.1 Heart of Light
935.1 Holy Day
935.1 Luminesce
942 Spirit Weaver (1000)
*943 Angelic Blessing
*943 Field Marshal (1000)
943 Ghost Warden (1000)
*943 Serra's Embrace
943 Warrior's Honor
*955 Aura of Silence
955 Windborn Muse (1000)
1000 Paladin en-Vec (1000)
1000 Skyhunter Patrol (1000)
1000 Skyhunter Prowler (1000)
1000 Skyhunter Skirmisher (1000)
1000 Suntail Hawk (1000)
1000 Voice of All (1000)
1000 Youthful Knight (1000)
1005 Angelic Wall (1005)

All in all, a discouraging lack of major shifts. The set is much more elegant and beginner-friendly, and does convey the current color pie. Unfortunately, that's not a very balanced tale to tell. The Core Set may not be the only factor to the color pie, and I'm far from saying that this alone definitively dismisses all of R&D's efforts, but clearly it matters to Standard that some colors get 40+% burn from 10th and others get 30+% prevention, even if the expansions are more nearly equal-quality.

Please let me know what you thought of this kind of comparison and if you can think of a better way to apply it to the expansions.

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Why I Still Don't Like the New Frames

Concerning a different aspect of the game's aesthetics, I feel that I have given the 8th Edition frames more than enough of a "cooling-off" period for my rational side to seep in, and I still don't like them. Now, I'll admit, I'm an old fogey even at age 21, as proven by my continuing to refer to 8E as the "new" frames some four years hence. However, I can tell I'm being reasonable by contrasting my current reaction with that of a pre-Saga player whom I have just recently reintroduced to the game.

I showed him one Green creature from old, 8E, PC, and FS frames. (I would have come up with a full color array but it was hardly a scientific survey.) I also loaded up MaRo's article on the reasons for the new frame and read him some of the points about why they made the change---I made sure to emphasize that the changes were based on market research the company has done with new players showing that the clarity of the old frames was not what it needed to be. I even found an old-frame White creature to show the maximum unreadability of the white font on slightly-not-white background.

He hated all of the new ones. He said categorically that anyone, even someone who'd never seen Magic cards before, would pick the old frame as the best-looking. He added that anyone who had trouble reading from those cards probably couldn't have understood the rules anyway. (When I later showed him When Cards Go Bad, he summarized the "Different Cards Appeal to Different Players" section as "we make bad cards for the sake of morons who don't understand the game". As you may discern, he is something of an uber-Spike with little sympathy for Johnny and Timmy, whom he tried to convince me didn't exist and/or matter.)

Contrasted with this, I feel like some kind of compromising company shill when defending changes like the power/toughness box and the dark text-light background switch. However, as a result of this conversation, I did articulate a number of the things which I don't think make the card more functional, but do make it much uglier.

(1) Border Lightness - This is the hugest. I put Exodus and 10E Seismic Assaults next to each other, and wow, the new border is practically white. I understand and welcome the expansion of the text box and art frame, but I have no idea why the frame can't be much darker (the art attribution and copyright/collector number can be made whatever shade is readable off the darkened versions). I feel that this is the primary reason why the WotC forums containing the MtG.com after-article threads feature many signatures with a campaign to make Planar Chaos timeshifted frames the permanent Magic frames. The color richness is one of the biggest changes between the 8E and PC frames.

(2) Framing On Text Boxes - Around the card name and type boxes, there is a moderately thick border in addition to a simple black line. I think it would be better to have the art and text boxes run right up to those lines, with a pixel or two of black line plus the round right and left side edges to preserve the increased focus on that text that makes the 8E frames so beginner-friendly. I have no problem with the P/T box as-is; someone more professionally competent at graphics/aesthetics should decide the importance of keeping all boxes' borders identical. (But how different would Magic look if creature P/T had been put in the type line leaving expansion symbols to the lower right corner? I find this hypothetical very interesting, but certainly not something I'd like to see implemented now.)

(3) Artifact Borders - This silver thing still hasn't stuck with me. I know that artifact and land borders were similar colors in the old days, and I'm sure n00bs were routinely confused by this. But couldn't lands have become some bland shade of gray and artifacts stayed awesome? I assume that this ship has sailed even moreso than the others, because silver is now the entrenched incumbent. It just makes me sad that new artifacts are all so hideous and uncool, even the ones that have the most eye-salivatingly gorgeous artwork. This is a severe flavor loss for no functional gain---the current mottled-neutral-color land border is more than different enough that solid brown could have remained distinctively for artifacts.

As for the chances these will happen, I'm not hopeful. It'll probably be several years before they change the border to a new "permanent" version, and I doubt it will be to implement the preferences of this old player.

[Ephraim]

Phil, I just want to take this moment to note that your article here in the Adept Chronicles forum is routinely one of my favourites.  That said, I must disagree with you on some of the points you've made in this post.

I'll admit that I agree with you regarding the silver border of new-style artifacts.  I appreciated that they cleaned it up in Fifth Dawn so that it wasn't so similar to white.  That said, I have a slight preference for the brown border and an overwhelming preference for the polychromatic text box of olden days.

I also agree that the Planar Chaos timeshifted frames are beautiful.  They are visually bolder than the 8th Edition frames, both in terms of colour saturation and texture.  It would be interesting, I think, if they were to use the 8th Edition frames for core sets, which are kind of/sort of supposed to be bland and then use the PC-timeshifted frames for expert sets, that would be kind of appealing.

I do not, generally speaking, like the old frames, though.

He added that anyone who had trouble reading from those cards probably couldn't have understood the rules anyway.

This statement is completely unfounded.  My eyesight happens to be pretty good.  My dad, however, who also plays, is decidedly middle aged.  Having a card frame that he's able to read easily can only be a good thing.  Good eyesight has nothing to do with one's ability to understand the rules of the game.  Sure, I enjoy visually appealing cards, but I am of the opinion that the first job of the card is to convey information.  I'm glad that it doesn't have to be pure black text on a white background to do that effectively, but if it did, that's a sacrifice I'd happily make for the comfort of players with bad eyesight.

One other thing that I'd like to note is that the new frames look much nicer with white-bordered cards than the old frame did.  Black borders still look better in general, but I find core set cards much more visually appealing with the new frames than I did with the old ones.

[Dr. Sylvan]

For clarification, I didn't mean to imply that I agreed with this other player's assertions about the old frame's superiority---if anything I meant to portray a contrast with my own views, as I can perfectly understand the functional motivations behind the 8E frames. The issues I've listed have left me in a limbo where I find myself displeased with all the versions, including the old, nostalgia-saturated original frames and even the pretty PC ones.

And white borders are irredeemable regardless of frame---if BB duals wouldn't bankrupt me I'd try to go cold turkey on them!

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Reading Forsythe's Tealeaves

Despite my constant quoting of and linking to Mark Rosewater articles, I also keep up with and immensely enjoy the Development article by Aaron Forsythe on Fridays. His latest is a retrospective on Onslaught block, or more specifically the MtG.com articles written about it. This is my quick reaction to a few of his ruminations.

Apparently R&D thought that Hystrodon was going to be good. However, I suspect that what broke Ophidian was Forbid, not itself. Thieving Magpie has not exactly been the bee's knees in Constructed, and Shadowmage Infiltrator is decent due to the CMC-three plus evasion combo. Bleiweiss' long-ago article hyped the low morph cost of 1GG. Sure, Exalted is good and it costs more, but Exalted is among the better anti-aggro cards ever. Hystrodon gets you cards over time if the opponent doesn't have a way to deal with a creature. Blue "saboteur" draw abilities are better because they can protect the creature in a way that Green can't. Fortunately, they saw a more appropriate cost for Ohran Viper.

Aaron goes on to say (emphasis mine),

"Goblins with Guns" by Randy Buehler

Goblin Sharpshooter is an awesomely designed card, no doubt about it, and it is also really fun to play with, at least for a few games. When I see the card now, however, I just lump it in with the mass of overpowered Goblins that came out of Onslaught Block and terrorized Block Constructed, Standard, and Extended, and continue to strike fear in the hearts of men in Legacy. At some point during that year, Goblins ceased being funny and cool and instead became annoying and mean in the eyes of many players. When people concede at the sight of a one-mana 1/1 in the Casual Room in Magic Online, you know that a deck has struck a nerve.

I'll say it now, Goblins are in Lorwyn. Handling them was difficult; at this point, whether you like the Goblin deck or not, you have expectations of what Goblins should be capable of, which leaves us between a rock and a hard place. If we matched those expectations, it would be bad for the health of the game and people would just start hating them again. If we don't match expectations, then the cards just feel disappointing.

Aaron Forsythe is a pretty strong pick as a source for what is unbalanced in Magic, so I'll call this a support of my verdict that they couldn't/wouldn't repeat the Goblins' power level for Soldiers in any effort to make White tribes more synergetic. We'll have to wait a few weeks to see what Lorwyn does for the fate of Tribal and my favorite dead horse, White Weenie. I personally hated the linearity of the tribal theme in Onslaught, so I expect this block to be ho-hum for me compared to the last two (both home runs in my book). Hopefully there's enough off-theme stuff that it'll captivate me anyway.

[Matt]

Hystrodon was bad because it cost SIX, thus completely dooming it to not seeing play in Extended or bigger. It might have worked in standard if it wasn't in direct competition with Goblins and Affinity, and facing control decks ready and willing to destroy millions of creatures if need be.

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Pro Tour Sideboard Ratios

One of the things that I think I under-emphasized when analyzing Type One in ages past was the importance of the sideboard compared to the maindeck. Many of my numbers act as though there is little distinction between them, but obviously that oversimplifies. So for my PT data, I tracked it. This matters because the difference between the maindeck and the sideboard is that the former is the deck's primary plan, while the latter is situational. I'm going to outline why I think that a difference in color prevalence between maindeck and sideboard matters for the balance of the colors.

As Rob Dougherty taught the masses in "The Way of the Sideboard", more than half of tournament games are sideboarded (he suggests assuming at least 58% from a 50/50 split of two- and three-game matches). It is impossible (barring some powerful data-gathering implementation in MTGO, if it exists) to know what portion of a deck's games any given card is in the library, just as we don't know how often each card is cast. However, we can assume that the cards in the sideboard are there because the deckbuilder expects to bring them in against some subsection of opponents, and cards in the maindeck are there because they will be retained against most opponents.

A very simplified example will show what I mean: let's start from assuming a rock-paper-scissors metagame, where all decks are played equally (33.3%), and, for simplicity's sake, each of them has five sideboard cards for each matchup, including the mirror. On average, each sideboard card would then be included in 58+% of games in 33.3% of matches (19.1% of all games). If different quintets of maindeck cards would be taken out each time, those cards would be in the library for 80.9% of games. Even if there are cards maindeck that would be sided out against two of the three archetypes (i.e., hate cards for the third matchup), they would be in 61.8% of the time. Obviously, this is unexact, but you can see that it should be rare for maindeck cards to be in the deck for less than a majority of games, and just as rare for any sideboard cards to enter a majority of games. The sideboard as a whole is relevant in the majority of games, but individual cards are not.

This makes disproportionate presence of a color's cards in the sideboard an indication that it is used secondarily, as a situational solution to specific problems (whether shoring up a deck's weakness or exposing that of an opponent). Colors with more cards in the maindeck are expected to be useful more of the time; they are more flexible and/or more powerful. Thus, even if a weak color's prevalence rises, if it is confined disproportionately to the sideboard then it exists in service to the other colors, rather than as its own force.

Here is the data. (Gold cards listed separately for this purpose; I'm doing a follow-up where they are split by color, elaborating on my points below.) Remember that the lower the number, the more disproportionately the color is maindecked. Since we're looking at a large group of Pro Tour Top 8s (or Worlds undefeated days---I refer to both as "events"), we can reasonably expect that the lists are as near to optimized as possible. In this table, lower numbers mean more cards in the maindeck, which I've roughly equated with being more central to a deck's plan.

Code:

Sideboard Ratios In Top PT Decks 
(% of cards that were in the sideboard by color, uppermost available decklists)
(Gold cards listed separately; Artifact Lands counted only as Lands)
(Quad-underscores (____) means no cards present; _0.0 means all were maindecked)

Blue, Wht., Green, Red, Blk., Gold, Art., Land - Event (Format, # of decks)
20.0, 55.0, 27.3, 31.8, 18.2, _0.0, 30.0, _1.2 - Worlds 1997 (5E+IA-WL, 4)
47.5, ____, 21.6, 39.1, 50.0, ____, _4.8, _2.0 - PT New York 1999 (UrzaBC, 8)
28.4, ____, 24.6, 36.5, 27.3, ____, 19.2, _6.6 - Worlds 1999 (Standard, 8)
14.1, 30.4, 19.5, 37.5, 25.8, _7.7, 40.4, _0.6 - Worlds 1999 (Extended, 8)*
27.8, 54.0, 19.6, 38.5, 18.8, _0.0, 28.6, _1.1 - PT Chicago 1999 (Extended, 8)
27.5, 30.6, 27.3, ____, ____, ____, 38.5, _1.6 - PT New York 2000 (MercBC, 8)
28.8, 37.5, 15.2, 28.6, 27.3, ____, 27.9, _0.5 - Worlds 2000 (MercBC, 8)
42.9, ____, 23.0, 31.4, ____, ____, 17.6, _0.0 - Worlds 2000 (Team Standard, 8)
---------------------------INVASION
31.4, 31.9, 21.4, 54.4, 100., 25.5, _0.0, _0.0 - PT Chicago 2000 (Standard, 8)
28.0, 50.0, 32.3, 17.9, 50.8, 22.2, ____, _0.0 - PT Tokyo 2001 (InvBC, 8)
_0.0, _5.4, _8.7, 57.5, 35.3, 26.5, _0.0, _1.0 - Worlds 2001 (Standard, 4)
24.7, 15.5, 22.6, 23.8, 100., _0.0, 35.3, _0.5 - Worlds 2001 (Extended, 9)**
18.6, 39.6, 13.9, 78.1, 27.5, 16.7, 31.6, _0.0 - PT New Orleans 2001 (Extended, 8)
25.2, ____, 26.2, ____, 34.2, _0.0, ____, _0.0 - PT Osaka 2002 (OdysBC, 8)
25.3, 100., 19.0, 12.5, 52.2, 27.8, ____, _0.0 - Worlds 2002 (Standard, 3)
24.7, 33.9, 30.2, ____, 30.6, _0.0, ____, _0.5 - Worlds 2002 (OdysBC, 9)
21.3, 87.5, 23.5, _0.0, 27.9, 30.6, 69.2, _3.3 - PT Houston 2002 (Extended, 8)
____, 28.4, 34.7, 27.2, 44.4, ____, ____, _1.0 - PT Venice 2003 (OnslBC, 8)
21.5, 44.9, 43.3, _6.1, 78.6, _0.0, 20.0, _0.0 - Worlds 2003 (Standard, 6)
29.5, 100., ____, 75.0, 40.7, 40.0, 20.1, _0.0 - PT New Orleans 2003 (Extended, 8)
25.0, _0.0, 37.5, 34.5, 42.9, ____, 17.0, _3.8 - PT Kobe 2004 (MirBC, 8)
_0.0, ____, 62.2, 25.4, 38.5, ____, _6.6, _7.9 - Worlds 2004 (MirBC, 6)
27.6, 31.4, 36.6, 47.1, _0.0, ____, _6.0, _1.8 - Worlds 2004 (Standard, 8)
31.8, 32.1, 20.8, 17.7, 43.3, 15.8, 12.7, _1.2 - PT Columbus 2005 (Extended, 8)
34.2, 32.1, 18.3, ____, 46.9, ____, _0.0, _1.1 - PT Philadelphia 2005 (KamiBC, 8)
---------------------------RAVNICA
14.8, 63.8, 28.6, 23.4, 80.0, _0.0, 22.2, _0.6 - PT Los Angeles 2005 (Extended, 8)
14.3, 39.6, 18.0, _4.0, 59.4, 13.3, 80.0, _2.2 - Worlds 2005 (Extended, 4)
17.7, 20.0, 29.2, _0.0, 72.7, 10.5, 28.6, _0.0 - Worlds 2005 (Standard, 4)
20.5, 16.7, 32.4, 40.0, 33.3, 31.0, 26.2, _0.0 - PT Honolulu 2006 (Standard, 8)
17.2, 62.1, 20.7, 32.8, 55.0, 22.2, 21.7, _1.1 - PT Charleston 2006 (RavBC-Team, 12)
20.4, 34.6, 29.4, 26.9, 25.0, 18.4, 32.5, _0.0 - Worlds 2006 (Extended, 7)
16.7, 36.3, ____, 17.5, 35.3, 18.4, 36.4, _1.3 - Worlds 2006 (Standard, 7)
17.9, 70.0, 13.9, 39.7, 29.7, _8.7, 35.1, _3.0 - Yokohama 2007 (TSpBC, 8)

* : Two full sideboards are listed as Missing.
** : There were nine 6-0 and 5-0-1 decks based on my comparison of the Standings at the end of Rounds 12 and 18.

The first important step after knowing what percent of each color's cards were sideboarded is to determine what we would expect if a color was strictly average or all colors were equal. Initially, I caught myself thinking that the "natural" ratio would be four maindeck to one sideboard, but then, of course, there are lands. I just so happen to know the land prevalence for each event as a side effect of the color prevalence analysis, so here they are. They're fairly steady; the range is 27.2-35.8%, mostly right in the middle. Averaging them all elicited the magic number: 31.0% (= 1021.8 / 33). Remember that is 31% of 75 cards (= 23.25), not of 60.

Code:

Land Prevalence
(% of total cards in uppermost available decklists)
Lands - Event (Format, # of decks)
27.5% - Worlds 1997 (5E+IA-WL, 4)
32.7% - PT New York 1997 (UrzaBC, 8)
33.0% - Worlds 1999 (Standard, 8)
31.8% - Worlds 1999 (Extended, 8)*
----------------INVASION
29.9% - PT Chicago 1999 (Extended, 8)
33.1% - PT New York 2000 (MercBC, 8)
32.6% - Worlds 2000 (MercBC, 8)
30.2% - Worlds 2000 (Team Standard, 8)
32.1% - PT Chicago 2000 (Standard, 8)
31.7% - PT Tokyo 2001 (InvBC, 8)
32.3% - Worlds 2001 (Standard, 4)
28.0% - Worlds 2001 (Extended, 9)**
27.9% - PT New Orleans 2001 (Extended, 8)
35.8% - PT Osaka 2002 (OdysBC, 8)
31.1% - Worlds 2002 (Standard, 3)
31.1% - Worlds 2002 (OdysBC, 9)
31.5% - PT Houston 2002 (Extended, 8)
34.5% - PT Venice 2003 (OnslBC, 8)
34.0% - Worlds 2003 (Standard, 6)
27.3% - PT New Orleans 2003 (Extended, 8)
31.0% - PT Kobe 2004 (MirBC, 8)
31.2% - Worlds 2004 (MirBC, 6)
29.9% - Worlds 2004 (Standard, 8)
27.2% - PT Columbus 2005 (Extended, 8)
31.1% - PT Philadelphia 2005 (KamiBC, 8)
----------------RAVNICA
30.3% - PT Los Angeles 2005 (Extended, 8)
31.0% - Worlds 2005 (Extended, 4)
30.6% - Worlds 2005 (Standard, 4)
29.8% - PT Honolulu 2006 (Standard, 8)
30.8% - PT Charleston 2006 (RavBC-Team, 12)
27.2% - Worlds 2006 (Extended, 7)
30.1% - Worlds 2006 (Standard, 7)
33.5% - Yokohama 2007 (TSpBC, 8)

* : Two full sideboards are listed as Missing.
** : There were nine 6-0 and 5-0-1 decks based on my comparison of the Standings at the end of Rounds 12 and 18.

The reason lands should be excluded is that they are rarely included in sideboards---the record high for land-sideboarding is around Mirrodin because of the Artifact Lands (listed only as Lands), with a more typical range of 0-2%. If we exclude 31% of cards, we're looking at 51.75 (= 75 * 0.69) nonland cards, minus 15 in the sideboard is 36.75 maindeck, or 2.45:1. The average sideboarded percent for a color (weighted by its prevalence) at an average land-prevalence PT should be 29.0%. I was going to determine a different expected percentage for each event, but the most important information is what colors had relatively different averages from the others (it would've ranged from 27.4-31.3%, if you care).

To avoid a potential distortion without running the risk of simply presenting numbers that happen to make my point better, I'm removing events where a color was completely absent from the denominator for the average. However, I'll also show what the number would be if they were treated as if they had 0% sideboarded cards (i.e., all cards of that color were maindecked). It affects the standings most in the pre-Invasion set, where White wasn't even played in three of the eight events. I think that removing those from the denominator is closest to the truth, but if you like the other way, I'm open to suggestions.

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, pre-Invasion
(Gold separated, each color averaged for events w/ >0 cards present)
(%, Worlds 1997-Worlds 2000, 8 events)
41.5% White (5)(8-event average: 25.9%)
34.8% Red   (6)(8-event average: 30.4%)
29.6% Blue
27.9% Black (6)(8-event average: 20.9%)
25.9% Artifact
22.3% Green
2.6% Gold   (3)(8-event average: 1.0%)
1.7% Land

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, Invasion-Saviors
(Gold separated, each color averaged for events w/ >0 cards present)
(%, Chicago 2000-Philly 2005, 17 events)
46.7% Black
42.2% White (15)(17-event average: 37.2%)
34.1% Red   (14)(17-event average: 28.1%)
28.2% Green (16)(17-event average: 26.5%)
23.1% Blue  (16)(17-event average: 21.7%)
18.3% Artifact (12)(17-event average: 12.9%)
17.1% Gold  (12)(17-event average: 12.1%)
1.3% Land

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, Ravnica-Planar Chaos
(Gold separated, each color averaged for events w/ >0 cards present)
(%, LA 2005-Yokohama 2007, 8 events)
48.8% Black
42.9% White
35.3% Artifact
24.6% Green (7)(8-event average: 21.5%)
23.0% Red
17.4% Blue
15.3% Gold
1.0% Land

What surprised me most out of this is just how bad Black's situation is. I did a double-take, then looked back at my raw prevalence numbers (in Reply #22 of this thread) and saw that Black was second-lowest (to White) in Invasion-Saviors and lowest in Ravnica-Planar Chaos! Rest assured I will not leave this issue unexplored.

For now, though, let us focus on Blue, the most maindeck-disproportionate monocolor in Invasion-Saviors and Ravnica-Planar Chaos data. Hilariously, Blue was pretty average sideboard-wise before they ever started trying to weaken it---its prevalence was #1, though, so we're merely on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone's municipal border. Red and Green have remained pretty unchanged near or below the expected average*; White has always sucked; Black apparently crashed into support color status after Dark Ritual and Necropotence were removed from the game.

( * : Further evidence that Green players everywhere may just be bitter that too many Timmies play their color. )

Gold has a very low average, which I interpret as a sign that the cards are more flexible and/or powerful because R&D puts fewer limits on cards when they've already made you fix your mana to play it (examples: Vindicate, Terminate, Pernicious Deed). Artifacts swing all over the place, historically, which is an especially difficult factor to read considering how many decks based on them were later subject to multiple bannings. It's also the only "color" that is intentionally given way, way different power levels from one block to another, so it doesn't matter how close it is to any average as long as it's checked by B&R policy.

The short version is: White and Black are stuck as other colors' backup, and it isn't balanced. Despite the improvement in White's (not Black's) raw prevalence post-Ravnica, this and other factors I have posted about describe reasons why that number just isn't good enough, and doesn't mean what it seems to. The issue is not resolved.

As I'll post in a few days, the Gold-integrated numbers do not contradict this picture. In fact, they only further reinforce certain other arguments I've made in this thread.

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Golden Sideboard Ratios

Let's try this again with Gold cards factored into each of their component colors.

Code:

Sideboard Ratios In Top PT Decks 
(% of cards that were in the sideboard by color, uppermost available decklists)
(Artifact Lands counted only as Lands)
(Quad-underscores (____) means no cards present; _0.0 means all were maindecked)

Blue, Wht., Green, Red, Blk., Art., Land - Event (Format, # of decks)
17.9, 55.0, 27.3, 28.0, 18.2, 30.0, _1.2 - Worlds 1997 (5E+IA-WL, 4)
47.5, ____, 21.6, 39.1, 50.0, _4.8, _2.0 - PT New York 1999 (UrzaBC, 8)
28.4, ____, 24.6, 36.5, 27.3, 19.2, _6.6 - Worlds 1999 (Standard, 8)
13.8, 27.9, 19.3, 33.3, 22.9, 40.4, _0.6 - Worlds 1999 (Extended, 8)*
26.1, 49.1, 19.2, 27.8, 16.7, 28.6, _1.1 - PT Chicago 1999 (Extended, 8)
27.5, 30.6, 27.3, ____, ____, 38.5, _1.6 - PT New York 2000 (MercBC, 8)
28.8, 37.5, 15.2, 28.6, 27.3, 27.9, _0.5 - Worlds 2000 (MercBC, 8)
42.9, ____, 23.0, 31.4, ____, 17.6, _0.0 - Worlds 2000 (Team Standard, 8)
---------------------------INVASION
29.7, 38.3, 23.0, 44.2, 100., _0.0, _0.0 - PT Chicago 2000 (Standard, 8)
19.3, 28.6, 34.9, 23.0, 34.6, ____, _0.0 - PT Tokyo 2001 (InvBC, 8)
12.5, 40.7, 20.0, 43.8, 22.6, _0.0, _1.0 - Worlds 2001 (Standard, 4)
23.5, 13.9, 22.6, 23.8, 100., 35.3, _0.5 - Worlds 2001 (Extended, 9)**
17.6, 39.6, 15.7, 64.1, 26.4, 31.6, _0.0 - PT New Orleans 2001 (Extended, 8)
23.1, ____, 26.2, ____, 32.6, ____, _0.0 - PT Osaka 2002 (OdysBC, 8)
23.5, 100., 26.1, 27.8, 43.8, ____, _0.0 - Worlds 2002 (Standard, 3)
24.7, 31.8, 29.5, ____, 30.6, ____, _0.5 - Worlds 2002 (OdysBC, 9)
23.3, 81.8, 23.9, _0.0, 27.8, 69.2, _3.3 - PT Houston 2002 (Extended, 8)
____, 28.4, 34.7, 27.2, 44.4, ____, _1.0 - PT Venice 2003 (OnslBC, 8)
21.5, 38.5, 28.9, _6.1, 78.6, 20.0, _0.0 - Worlds 2003 (Standard, 6)
30.1, 100., ____, 60.0, 45.5, 20.1, _0.0 - PT New Orleans 2003 (Extended, 8)
25.0, _0.0, 37.5, 34.5, 42.9, 17.0, _3.8 - PT Kobe 2004 (MirBC, 8)
_0.0, ____, 62.2, 25.4, 38.5, _6.6, _7.9 - Worlds 2004 (MirBC, 6)
27.6, 31.4, 36.6, 47.1, _0.0, _6.0, _1.8 - Worlds 2004 (Standard, 8)
30.4, 25.8, 13.8, 18.1, 43.7, 12.7, _1.2 - PT Columbus 2005 (Extended, 8)
34.2, 32.1, 18.3, ____, 46.9, _0.0, _1.1 - PT Philadelphia 2005 (KamiBC, 8)
---------------------------RAVNICA
13.1, 44.8, 25.5, 19.1, 53.9, 22.2, _0.6 - PT Los Angeles 2005 (Extended, 8)
11.4, 37.1, 41.5, _2.7, 17.8, 80.0, _2.2 - Worlds 2005 (Extended, 4)
17.7, 13.8, 25.0, _0.0, 60.7, 28.6, _0.0 - Worlds 2005 (Standard, 4)
22.8, 17.1, 34.3, 39.7, 29.7, 26.2, _0.0 - PT Honolulu 2006 (Standard, 8)
21.1, 24.7, 24.2, 30.9, 34.0, 21.7, _1.1 - PT Charleston 2006 (RavBC-Team, 12)
21.5, 33.3, 20.8, 24.6, 19.2, 32.5, _0.0 - Worlds 2006 (Extended, 7)
16.7, 32.6, 27.3, 17.4, 35.7, 36.4, _1.3 - Worlds 2006 (Standard, 7)
17.8, 66.7, 12.0, 36.2, 26.7, 35.1, _3.0 - Yokohama 2007 (TSpBC, 8)

* : Two full sideboards are listed as Missing.
** : There were nine 6-0 and 5-0-1 decks based on my comparison of the Standings at the end of Rounds 12 and 18.

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, pre-Invasion
(Gold included, each color averaged for events w/ >0 cards present)
(%, Worlds 1997-Worlds 2000, 8 events)
40.0% White (5)(8-event average: 25.0%)
32.1% Red   (7)(8-event average: 28.1%)
29.1% Blue
27.1% Black (6)(8-event average: 20.3%)
25.9% Artifact
22.2% Green
1.7% Land

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, Invasion-Saviors
(Gold included, each color averaged for events w/ >0 cards present)
(%, Chicago 2000-Philly 2005, 17 events)
44.6% Black
42.1% White (15)(17-event average: 37.1%)
31.8% Red   (14)(17-event average: 26.2%)
28.4% Green (16)(17-event average: 26.7%)
22.9% Blue  (16)(17-event average: 21.5%)
18.3% Artifact (12)(17-event average: 12.9%)
1.3% Land

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, Ravnica-Planar Chaos
(Gold included, each color averaged for events w/ >0 cards present)
(%, LA 2005-Yokohama 2007, 8 events)
35.3% Artifact
34.7% Black
33.8% White
26.3% Green
21.3% Red
17.8% Blue
1.0% Land

This isn't very different from before. Blue is still most-maindecked since Invasion, Black still goes from most-maindecked pre-Invasion to worst in both Invasion-Saviors and Ravnica-Planar Chaos periods. Nothing from my previous analysis is dramatically undermined by these changes. (I kinda cheated though, and wrote the earlier stuff after making both sets of tables.)

Indeed, the largest changes support my contentions. Let's see that last part again, in a comparison of the difference between this version and the mono/gold-separated one. The negative numbers mean that Gold cards including that color were more maindecked than its mono cards. Down to -1% or so, this is the expected result because Gold has a lower average sideboarded share. Past that, the Gold cards are outperforming mono cards, indicating that they, collectively, lean toward the other color(s). Positive numbers indicate that the mono cards are outperforming the Gold cards of their color---the color is stronger alone than when blended, despite the power push R&D gives gold cards to make them playable despite their demanding costs.

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, pre-Invasion
(difference in % between gold-included and mono-only)
(Worlds 1997-Worlds 2000, 8 events)
-0.1% Green
-0.5% Blue
-0.6% Black (6 events w/ >0 cards: -0.8%)
-0.9% White (5 events w/ >0 cards: -1.5%)
-2.3% Red   (7 events w/ >0 cards: -2.7%)

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, Invasion-Saviors
(difference in % between gold-included and mono-only)
(Chicago 2000-Philly 2005, 17 events)
+1.9% Red   (14 events w/ >0 cards: -2.3%)
+0.2% Green (16 events w/ >0 cards: +0.2%)
-0.1% White (15 events w/ >0 cards: -0.1%)
-0.2% Blue  (16 events w/ >0 cards: -0.2%)
-2.1% Black

Average Sideboard Ratios By Color, Ravnica-Planar Chaos
(difference in % between gold-included and mono-only)
(LA 2005-Yokohama 2007, 8 events)
+4.8% Green
+0.4% Blue
-1.7% Red
-9.1% White
-12.1% Black

Most of these swings are trivial, except the ones post-Ravnica, where the Top 8s were veritably paved with Gold, so the changes were bigger (Invasion simply didn't have these Gold counts). Blue barely changed, and Red only somewhat moreso. Green's mono was actually better than the Gold, and viewed either way it's typically better than average. White and Black got a lot more mileage out of Gold than mono. In the parlance of my previous multicolor card analysis, the W/B Gold appearance post-Ravnica "tilts" predominately away from those two colors; they are the albatross around the neck of better colors' cards.

Combine the proof I've presented that Blue cards are disproportionately in the maindeck, the draw/search synergy with artifact mana, and the evidence that Black and White (especially monocolor cards) are often in the sideboard. Consider what I've said about color prevalence in a lower-multicolor environment than Ravnica produces. This is practically a recipe for Blue-based control decks. And indeed, Time Spiral Block Constructed PTQ Top 8s are Blue-heavy (#1 prevalence greater than the #2 and #3 colors combined).

My best explanation for why this is goes back to two of my previous points. First, just as artifacts are most prone helping Blue thanks to its draw/search strength (discussed in reply #39), so are the other colors. Blue gets more mileage from conditional sideboard cards because it can make them relevant more often by seeing more of its library. This affects a major variable highlighted in Dougherty's sideboard discussion, namely the power of the maindeck card sided out compared to that of the card sided in to replace it. Any way you look at it, having the most draw/search biases this toward Blue, because you can side out fewer cards to greater effect---incidentally needing fewer board slots per matchup since they will be drawn more often.

Moreover, because of which zones the colors are best in (discussed in reply #11), Blue inherently subordinates others to its needs. Blue dominates the stack and the library, giving it a stranglehold on the avenues for cards to enter play. Other colors are heavily focused on dealing with cards already in play. So Blue gets to suppress its pick of the litter before the cards' abilities come online, and then search for the tools of other colors to catch what made it through. In a deck based in another color, Blue sideboard cards are dramatically less beneficial, since you have few tools to dig for them and Blue primarily answers spells. The things Blue is best at (counterspells, draw) are so broadly good that it doesn't make sense to board them. How fair is that?

Now in progress: so many things that I don't even know which I'll finish first!

[Dr. Sylvan]

I got this PM shortly after the previous post.

Hi,

I've proven too lazy to take the Full Member exam, so I can't reply directly, but are you taking the the gold cards into consideration when you deduce that black and white are albatrosses around the other colors' necks? It could be that they simply need each other, and I do seem to remember Orzhov being popular and many of its best cards being gold...

This exposes something I had thought about going over in the main piece, but didn't because I got too excited about what I'm planning for the next few weeks. However, now that it's been specifically questioned, I might as well. I quickly threw together data from the 2005-2007 seasons' Gold cards, shown here.

WB / Total Gold
0.0% - 0 / 19 Columbus 2005
0.0% - 0 / 0 Philadelphia 2005
0.0% - 0 / 41 LA 2005
3.3% - 1 / 30 Worlds 2005 Extended
0.0% - 0 / 19 Worlds 2005 Standard
36.6% - 26 / 71 Honolulu 2006
17.7% - 51 / 288 Charleston 2006
0.0% - 0 / 38 Worlds 2006 Extended
23.7% - 9 / 38 Worlds 2006 Standard
0.0% - 0 / 23 Yokohama 2007

Most of the time, there are no B/W Gold cards, and I imagine that this would hold if I dug further since Apocalypse only introduced a couple of B/W playables. When it does show up, it's roughly between a fifth and a third of Gold cards, so perhaps my "albatross" statement was a bit of a reach in the absence of a more detailed breakdown. I think the broader point about power levels stands.

[Grand Inquisitor]

The things Blue is best at (counterspells, draw) are so broadly good that it doesn't make sense to board them. How fair is that?

Hopefully this isn't a useless question.  I've been following along, and this is very interesting stuff.  You've done a great job outlining your case that there's a problem, but as we ask in the policy world, what would you do to fix it?  You've mentioned some ideas on how to increase white's power, but do you really expect to be able to bring down blue's ability to trump?  Especially when they're still printing stuff like ponder?

[Ephraim]

Ponder is not the extent of the problem, either.  Suppose that from the very beginning, instead of Counterspell, Mana Drain, or even Cancel, there had been nothing but Dismiss and Discombobulate for hard, universal counters.  Suppose that we'd only ever gotten Force Spike and not Mana Leak.  What if we had Spell Blast but not Power Sink?  In other words, what if counterspells had been designed from the beginning to be tools of extreme discipline?  Even in Type 2, unless you're playing 'Tron, there's no reason to touch Spell Burst when you have access to Cancel, Remand, and Spell Snare.  The expectation of blue countermagic is pretty high.  It is pretty evident to me that Cancel, even at a cost of 3, is still sufficient to be a serious hindrance to an opponent.  You are quite right that the flip side to white's weak mechanics is blue's universally good mechanics.  (Card drawing and [disciplined] counterspelling are never poor strategies.)

One important question that one may ask, however, is that if WotC were to weaken blue's grasp on those mechanics, temporarily or permanently, what should blue get in return?  To refer back to the basis of this whole discussion, what needs to happen to the colour pie for this to happen?  One thing that I would readily endorse would be white losing efficient fliers to blue, but in exchange, gaining a subset of soft counters.  White got Mana Tithe in Planar Chaos.  Why not a white variant of Mana Leak?

[Dr. Sylvan]

The way I see it, for other colors to catch up, Blue has to be divested of mechanics. MaRo has specified in the first bolded part of the quote below that color pie repair is primarily driven through moving already-existent abilites to another color, rather than adding new ones. Up until now, all attempts to confine Blue's power level have left untouched what I like to think of as the sacred cows of the color pie: counterspells and draw/search. Few other abilities have been shared so little. I like to hope Planar Chaos signals a longer-term plan, but I'm skeptical that the printing of Teferi et al was an accident.

Up until now, this thread has been, first and foremost, about proving the existence of the problem. I felt that was essential given signals from R&D like the second bolded segment in the MaRo quote below. It indicates that they, at least for some period, stopped "hosing Blue"---although I think that could only be said to have happened during Onslaught block. He wrote that in March 2005, around Betrayers of Kamigawa, which probably coincided with the end of Ravnica-block design and the beginning of Time Spiral design. Based on signals like that, I made my first mission to show the magnitude of their miscalculation. Your posts signal that I should begin to shift focus toward proposing solutions (though I still have at least one probable heavy-hitter in the "prove problem exists" lineup).

Not uncoincidentally, some time next week should see the rollout of my complete draw/search breakdown by category, color, and chronology. In this will obviously be proof of Blue's stranglehold on virtually all types, but also notes on a large array of specific spells and what color they should be moved to.

Finally, to make sure I give at least a preliminary answer to your question, GI: Blue's power to "trump" is invincible in Vintage, but in Standard, the trumping is based on how Blue gets a chance to answer anything, but the rest are confined to the "unclever" route of putting things into play that are by and large powerless to affect Blue's major mechanics from operating unopposed. By broadening access to flavorful aspects of Blue's sacred cow abilities, the trump will be eroded---other colors will be able to affect Blue's spells and/or defend their own. (For more on this, stay tuned!)

---------------------------
Here is MaRo's forum-post recap/rewrite of "The Troubled One", which I will reproduce here in full because it's kind of buried and is a pretty good read in its own right:

MaRo  -  03-21-05, 06:45 PM
Hello everyone,

I learned an important lesson today. When you're talking about something that might upset a number of your readers, don't present it in a cutesy way.

Here is my (kind of) short recap of the article translated into serious mode.

The Topic was Why Is R&D Hosing Blue. As many people have pointed out it is more accurately, Why Has R&D Been Hosing Blue. Note the date on the letter. This article talks about what R&D has been doing for the last three years to fix the "blue problem".

So why *has* R&D been hosing blue?

Here are the five major reasons:

#1 - Blue Was Too Powerful - Historically, blue has always been the most poweful color in Magic. (And while the article doesn't get into it, black is no slouch in second place.) And whenever the power level spikes in the game, blue always seems to be leading the pack. R&D has lowered blue's power level over the years, but never enough that it was truly equal in power to the other four colors.

To solve the power issues, R&D have had to come to grips with what blue's true power level is. Card drawing, for example, is a very potent power. So much so that we decided that we needed to dial it down. This is why, for example, that all mass card drawing (drawing two or more cards) are now sorceries.

#2 - Blue Too Easily Got Other Color's Abilities - R&D refers to this as the "Sneakiness Problem". Blue's flavor is sneakiness. This means it gets to do anything that's worthwhile in the game. You see, thing X is sneaky. Or it's blue messing with the very mechanics of the game. Or it's got something to do with the brain or knowledge or being intelligent. In short, blue managed to get its hand into just about every facet of the game. The Tim ability is the perfect example. Blue is supposed to be the one color that's bad a permanent destruction because of its stranglehold over permission and bounce. What in the world is it doing with direct damage?

Yes, the "tim" ability has perfect flavor. That's blue's problem. It always have perfect flavor. My point of showing blue's non-combat damage spells is showing how natural it was that blue did something it had no right doing. Part of evening up the colors was majorly cutting back on what blue got to do. The extra abilities were then divided up among the other colors. (And don't worry, black got the same treatment to a slightly lesser extent.)

#3 - Blue Got Too Much Favor From R&D - Blue is the color that the experienced players gravitate to. Partly because it's so powerful; partly because it played into the way that more serious players enjoy playing; and partly because it was the color that got to mess with how things worked. R&D is no exception. It's just too easy to make cool blue cards. And then it's very easy to push its power level because it seems like fun.

Nobody tempts like blue. R&D has had so much trouble with it over the years because it keeps getting seduced into doing things that the rational side knows aren't good ideas. The card links I included in this section (each section has card links woven into it that show examples of the point I was making in that section) are all blue cards from cycles where blue got the best card by a silly margin.

The key to solving this is to recognize what fun things blue was doing and spread some of that around to the other colors. Stealing and changing things is fun. We realized that red also had a flair for making the unexpected happen (more the trickster flavor than blue's sneaky flavor) and thus moved the temporary tricky effects into red; leaving blue the permanent versions.

#4 - Blue Had Too Much of The Color Pie - Not only did blue have the most poweful abilities, it also simply had more abilities than any other color. In order for the color pie to do its job, it needs balance. This means that each color should get it's 20%. This doesn't mean they get the same number of mechanics. Clearly some mechanics have a much bigger design space than the others. What it means is that each color should have a chunk of the pie that is equal in quality to the other colors.

Most of R&D's color pie shifting of the last few years was taking blue and black abilities and finding new homes for them in white, red and green. Now, many readers stressed that instead of taking away from blue, we should just add to the other four colors. My response to that, is where do you think we're getting those new abilities from? Yes, over time we add little pieces here and there to the color pie, but nothing at the rate that we could catch up all the colors to blue in our lifetime. Remember that most mechanics are filters that we use to use to play with old pie abilities in a new way. Buyback, for example, didn't add to the color pie as much as it let us use existing abilities in a new light.

#5 - The "Blue Problem" Is A Hard One To Fix - R&D has understood that blue was too good from the beginning. The fact that it was still an issue almost a decade later is scary. What it boils down to is that blue got many of the most powerful pieces of the color pie. Some of it had to be given away and others had to be handicapped to adjust its power level.

Everytime R&D felt we were making progress, some new ability we didn't understand would show up in constructed and, of course, it was good friends with blue. The reason R&D has been so harsh in the last couple years is that we had to be if we hoped to fix the problem.

This brings us to the present. Have we gone too far? I don't think so. I think blue needed some serious power deflation. In fact, I'm not sure we've done enough, but I think R&D is willing to take a step back and watch the environment before we take any more drastic measures. Are we going to continue to hose blue? No, unless, of course, it proves that we didn't do as good a job as we hoped.

This article isn't a warning to blue mages that we're going to weaken their favorite color but rather an explanation of why we've been so aggressive these last few years. R&D hopes we're getting close to having blue be at a reasonable place. Are we there yet? We're not sure. But for once in the history of the game we've chosen to shoot a touch under rather than over. And if time shows us that we've overshot on toning down blue (something we've never done mind you), we'll bring it back up some.

I think the real message to the blue mages is that R&D is taking a real effort to make blue equal in power to the other four colors. This sucks if you liked where blue was, but is fair if you take a moment to think about where it should be for the longterm health of the game. Remember, Magic is a game with ebb and flow. Blue will have its time on top again. (Knowing our track record probably sooner rather than later.) Take the time to enjoy the view from a new vantage point. It should give you a better appreciation for how the mages of the other colors have fared over the years.

And that is why R&D is hosing (aka have been hosing) blue. In a straight forward answer. And in the future, I'll try to apply today's lesson to other columns.

Have a good day.

Mark Rosewater

P.S. If anyone reading this could point other people to it I would appreciate it. Many people only read threads once and don't go back.

[Anusien]

I think there is a lot of room in the advancement of small creatures, more well designed draw, and fliers.

Small creatures I think you've covered before, but Merfolk are back.  What makes Merfolk more interesting is that they are a tribe of situational evasion; they traditionally are very strong on Islandwalk.  I think Wizards is doing a good job of defining some of what white does in creatures, with things like the recent 3/1 for 1W, Serra Avenger or Isamaru.  I think the main issue here is printing something like Tarmogoyf, especially since there are few good white evasion creatures.  Green gets good creatures and utility creatures; why can't White get some sort of Riftsweeper?  Although I think it is not unreasonable to see Spirit Link filter down onto smaller creatures, as Wizards is trying to push lifegain in subtle ways.
Wizards has a lot of room with Merfolk.  First off, I think effects like Looter il-Kor and even the Merfolk Looter type effects are a better direction to go with blue, as much as I hate to admit it.  (See also: Sinbad).  What makes blue more interesting is that it traditionally has Islandhome and Islandwalk effects, which are like flying only more swingy.  Where White has its 1/1 fliers for W, blue has Grayscaled Gharial, Merfolk Raiders, and Lord of Atlantis (I could have sworn there were more cheap blue islandwalkers).

The other thing is fliers.  All the best creatures to come out of past few blocks are ground pounders.  Sure we have Serra Avenger, but I'm looking at Dark Confidant, Jotun Grunt, Tarmogoyof, Epochrasite, Watchwolf, Isamaru, etc.  I think this might be because Wizards is still trying to sort why White gets Serra Avenger and blue gets Serendib Efreet and why white gets Serra Angel and blue gets Mahamoti Djinn (or whatever).  I think firmly establishing the color identities with fliers will help sort a lot of these issues out.  The problem is that blue lacks a strong identity outside of counters, draw, and tricks.

[Jacob Orlove]

Blue also plays well with artifacts, which is awful.

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Flexibility (Direct Draw)

Flexbility---talk about biting off a big topic. I mean, seriously, who does Phil think he is, Flores? No, my hubris is firmly grounded, for the most part. The flexibility I want to talk about is the kind that has made Blue "the Troubled One", the power to simply see more cards. Here for your examination is how much and in what ways players can draw cards, manipulate libraries, search for things... anything. If it starts in the library and ends up in your hand, the mechanism of its deliverance should be in this set of posts. More importantly, the color that should've gotten that card will be focused upon.

I could and probably will do a whole article on this, but it is key to bear in mind for this topic: I believe that different aspects of the same ability can appear in all colors without degrading the resource management that drives Magic. This is not the same as the straw man version of my position, that colors should all have equal access to any particular ability. It would be dumb if every color had Concentrate, Naturalize, Cancel, and Terminate. However, one color isn't even playing the same game as the rest because of its share. Honestly, it looks like a vampire and four hemophiliacs from where I'm sitting. So let's at least consider the following changes.

Formatting

For this presentation, I'm generating lists from my Card Catalog, minus the numeric labels that don't mean anything to you guys, and then sorting them by color and set. The Catalog is flawed at least insofar as I am, so if I missed a couple things out of the 10K+ cards it hopefully won't offend too badly or distort the overall picture. Portal II and Three Kingdoms are still not included. (I believe their inclusion would make Black look better in the tutor section, but since that's only Vintage/Legacy-relevant, I wouldn't sweat it.) This is going to be pretty long, broken up into a few posts, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Block-By-Block (not to be confused with Dark Ritual) presents cardname counts incremented into, you guessed it, blocks. I figured forty-odd sets would be kinda hard to look at, but a dozen or so blocks (in a canonical order you'll see me use pretty consistently for my projects) were parseable without resorting to even more screen-filling tables. It will appear as one line for each color of each section like this, with bolding on epoch transitions for ease-of-reading:

Block-By-Block: [Alpha], [Arabian Nights-Fallen Empires], [Ice Age/Homelands/Alliances], [Mirage], [Portal], [Tempest], [Urza's Saga], [Mercadian Masques], [Invasion], [Odyssey], [Onslaught], [Mirrodin], [Champions of Kamigawa], [Ravnica], [Coldsnap], [Time Spiral]

And, not to worry, all of the summary lines will be laid out next to each other in a comparison at the end, which is when I'll discuss Blue's comparative dominance. For now, the other colors' lists, plus proposed shifts out of Blue.

211 Library--Draw to Hand--Direct Draw

Code:

Land
arabn	Library of Alexandria
onsl 	Seaside Haven
svkgw	Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
cold   	Scrying Sheets

Land Direct Block-By-Block: 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0

Every once in a while, lands draw cards directly. The recent ones... not so great.

Code:

Gold
legnd 	Xira Arien (1000)
legnd  	Lord of Tresserhorn (1000)
IA   	Phelddagrif (1000)
mirg    Reparations
mirg    Harbor Guardian (1000)
mirg 	Malignant Growth
visn    Femeref Enchantress (1000)
inv  ***Sleeper's Robe //GREEN/Black
plsft 	Questing Phelddagrif (1000)
apoc  	Quicksilver Dagger
apoc 	Fungal Shambler (1000)
odys ***Shadowmage Infiltrator //GREEN/Black
rav  	Consult the Necrosages
rav    	Twisted Justice
rav  	Dimir Guildmage
rav 	Grave-Shell Scarab
rav    	Dimir Cutpurse
gldpt  	Cerebral Vortex
gldpt  	Invoke the Firemind
gldpt 	Squee's Revenge
gldpt  	Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind (1000)
gldpt   Glint-Eye Nephilim (1000)
dissn 	Research // Development
dissn 	Swift Silence
dissn 	Biomantic Mastery
dissn 	Lyzolda, the Blood Witch (1000)
dissn 	Sky Hussar (1000)
dissn 	Coiling Oracle (1000)
dissn 	Momir Vig, Simic Visionary (1000)
dissn 	Azorius AEthermage (1000)
cold 	Garza Zol, Plague Queen (1000)
plc  	Dormant Sliver (1000)

Gold Direct Block-By-Block: 0, 2, 1, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0, 4, 1, 0, 0, 0, 18, 1, 1

Until Ravnica, the only one of these that didn't include Blue was Femeref Enchantress, printed in 1996. Grave-Shell Scarab, among no less than 17 other Gold draw spells in the block, is clearly not a big precedent-setter, particularly given its mana cost.

You'll see that I highlighted Sleeper's Robe and Shadowmage Infiltrator as potentially G/B cards, reflecting the Hystrodon/Ohran Viper shift. This ability is an example of something that typically sucks in Type One but can be really good in slower formats. Plus, it has mechanical synergy with trample.

Code:

Artifact
alph	Jayemdae Tome
alph	Howling Mine
antq	Urza's Miter
tdark	Book of Rass
FE 	Conch Horn
FE  	Ring of Renewal
IA  	Vexing Arcanix
allnc	Soldevi Sentry (1000)
mirg	Phyrexian Vault
wthlt	Well of Knowledge
tmp  	Fool's Tome
strg	Horn of Plenty
exds	Mindless Automaton (1001)
usg 	Barrin's Codex
usg 	Grafted Skullcap
ulg 	Urza's Blueprints
udt 	Scrying Glass
merc	Bargaining Table
merc	Credit Voucher
merc	Mercadian Atlas
proph	Well of Discovery
onsl	Slate of Ancestry
mrdn	Serum Tank
mrdn	Tower of Fortunes
mrdn	Liar's Pendulum
mrdn 	Mind's Eye
mrdn 	Farsight Mask
mrdn	Mindstorm Crown
dkstl	Serum Powder
dkstl	Arcane Spyglass
dkstl	Geth's Grimoire
dkstl	Well of Lost Dreams
dkstl	Skullclamp
dkstl	Sword of Fire and Ice
fdwn	Etched Oracle (1001)
fdwn	Staff of Domination
chkgw	Sensei's Divining Top
svkgw	Scroll of Origins
rav 	Bloodletter Quill
rav 	Bottled Cloister
dissn	Walking Archive (1005)
tsp 	Candles of Leng

Artifact Direct Block-By-Block: 2, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 0, 0, 1, 14, 2, 3, 0, 1

Artifacts have always drawn cards, especially in Mirrodin. These are typically quirky and very niche, but a number have seen Type One play, usually thanks to Mishra's Workshop. Exception: Skullclamp. These, like lands, are already colorless, so I don't have too much to say. They also frequently inhabit artifact-specific abilities, like mana-intensive "tomes" (Jayemdae Tome, Urza's Blueprints) and the all-in build-around-me cranial paraphernalia (Grafted Skullcap, Mindstorm Crown... but not Skullclamp).

Code:

Red
antq	Goblin Artisans (S: 433.9, 1000)
hmld	Winter Sky
apoc	Illuminate
trmnt	Browbeat
mrdn	Fiery Gambit
fts 	Shah of Naar Isle (1000)

Red Direct Block-By-Block: 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0

Red, historically, does not draw cards. Illuminate only draws cards with the Blue kicker, Browbeat is a direct damage spell, Fiery Gambit draws only after a triple-coin-flip win, and the Shah gives the opponent cards. Their predecessors are either from Homelands or are Goblin Artisans, both with coin-flips built in.

Code:

White
tdark   Martyr's Cry
legnd   Petra Sphinx (1000)
hmld   	Truce
allnc   Inheritance
prtl 	Temporary Truce
strg 	Pursuit of Knowledge
merc   	Armistice
merc   	Spiritual Focus
inv  	Dismantling Blow
inv  	Benalish Heralds (1000)
plsft 	Sunscape Battlemage (1000)
onsl 	Oblation
onsl  	Convalescent Care
plc    	Mesa Enchantress (1000)

White Direct Block-By-Block: 0, 2, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 3, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1

Would you believe that White direct card draw has actually declined from two of the most forgettable cards from two of the most forgettable/forgotten sets ever*? (Martyr's Cry in The Dark and Truce in Homelands... a way to cycle all of my White creatures from play at sorcery speed and a two-card Prosperity effect, with potential lifegain attached!) The "surge" of White draw in Invasion block is a phantom; you have to pay Blue mana for all three of them. Mesa Enchantress is just the reprint of Verduran Enchantress, which itself was only sometimes playable before Enchantress's Presence was printed---after that, not so much. I think it would be fair to say that White currently has no slice of this ability.

( * : I know that this will cause fans of The Dark to begin CCing me on their MaRo hate mail concerning any negative words about the set. )

Code:

Green
alph  	Verduran Enchantress (1000)
legnd  	Sylvan Library
IA    	Freyalise's Charm
mirg 	Preferred Selection
visn  	Rowen
wthlt 	Nature's Resurgence
tmp     Recycle
tmp   	Fugitive Druid (1000)
exds  	Bequeathal
usg 	Fecundity
usg 	Argothian Enchantress (1000)
ulg  	Multani's Presence
udt   	Compost
merc 	Collective Unconscious
inv    	Kavu Lair
plsft   Pygmy Kavu (1000)
apoc  	Symbiotic Deployment
onsl   	Overwhelming Instinct
onsl 	Wall of Mulch (1005)
onsl   	Bloodline Shaman (1000)
onsl  	Enchantress's Presence
onsl   	Hystrodon (1000)
onsl  	Wirewood Savage (1000)
scrg   	Primitive Etchings
chkgw 	Glimpse of Nature (S: 751.21135)
chkgw  	Seshiro the Anointed (1000)
svkgw 	Reki, the History of Kamigawa (1000)
rav     Primordial Sage (1000)
cold    Ohran Viper (1000)
plc  	Harmonize
plc  	Fa'adiyah Seer (1000)
plc    	Magus of the Library (1000)
plc  	Psychotrope Thallid (1000)
plc 	Keen Sense
plc 	Citanul Woodreaders (1000)
fts 	Heartwood Storyteller (1000)
fts     Llanowar Empath (1000)
fts 	Rites of Flourishing

Green Direct Block-By-Block: 1, 1, 1, 3, 0, 3, 4, 1, 3, 0, 7, 0, 3, 1, 1, 9

There have been two surges of raw card-drawing for Green, Onslaught and Planar Chaos. The latter was an intentional distortion of "reality". In Onslaught, I think it would be fair to describe the Green draw as overcosted, mostly in terms of how much effort the designers were expecting before the player gets even a single card. You either have to have lots of Walls (or just make Wall of Mulch a terrible Wall of Blossoms, I guess), or you have to have multiple attackers in addition to the three-cost enchantment (Overwhelming Instinct), or you have to spend six on Hystrodon and face no blockers, etc. It's just a lot of work, and Constructed decks only do difficult things if they win the game near-immediately.

That said, I think Planar Chaos shows that a lot can happen, and the way it was followed up in Future Sight makes me think that R&D may be moving triggered draw into Green long-term. As Heartwood Storyteller---possibly my favorite card in its set---implies, this is a rich potential vein.

Code:

Black
alph  	Lich
legnd 	Greed
IA  	Oath of Lim-Dul
IA    	Necropotence
allnc 	Fatal Lore
mirg  	Infernal Contract
wthlt 	Infernal Tribute
prtl 	Cruel Bargain
tmp   	Dregs of Sorrow
exds 	Necrologia
usg	Reprocess
udt   	Yawgmoth's Bargain
apoc  	Phyrexian Gargantua (1000)
apoc 	Phyrexian Arena
odys  	Skeletal Scrying
odys  	Nefarious Lich
odys 	Gravestorm
onsl 	Syphon Mind
lgon 	Graveborn Muse (1000)
scrg  	Skulltap
scrg   	Decree of Pain
mrdn  	Promise of Power
fdwn  	Night's Whisper
chkgw  	Seizan, Perverter of Truth (1000)
svkgw  	Pain's Reward
rav    	Dark Confidant (1000)
dissn 	Nihilistic Glee
dissn 	Ragamuffyn (1000)
cold   	Phyrexian Etchings
plc   	Null Profusion
fts   	Minions' Murmurs

Black Direct Block-By-Block: 1, 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 2, 0, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 1, 2

I was surprised to learn that Black has an overall lower quantity of cardnames for this than Green. The contrast is that while Green got two sets with a lot of weak draw, several of Black's more steady supply are insanely good, not least among them 2005's Dark Confidant.

Code:

Blue
alph  	Ancestral Recall
alph 	Braingeyser
antq 	Sage Of Lat-Nam (1000)
IA  	Brainstorm
IA   	Mesmeric Trance
IA 	Krovikan Sorceror (1000)
IA  	Sibilant Spirit (1000)
IA    	Mystic Remora
allnc	Soldevi Heretic (1000)
allnc 	Arcane Denial
allnc   Lat-Nam's Legacy
allnc 	Library of Lat-Nam
mirg 	Teferi's Imp (1000)
visn  	Inspiration
visn ***Prosperity //WHITE
visn  	Foreshadow
visn	Betrayal
wthlt ***Ophidian (1000) //GREEN
wthlt  	Psychic Vortex
prtl  ***Balance of Power //WHITE
prtl  	Touch of Brilliance
prtl   	Baleful Stare
prtl  	Withering Gaze
tmp ***Meditate //RED
tmp 	Whispers of the Muse
tmp    	Mnemonic Sliver (1000)
tmp   	Insight
exds ***Theft of Dreams //WHITE
exds 	Treasure Trove
exds   	Keeper of the Mind (1000)
exds ***Curiosity //GREEN
usg	Stroke of Genius
ulg 	Opportunity
ulg 	Archivist (1000)
udt ***Thieving Magpie (1000) //GREEN
udt  	Private Research
udt     Rayne, Academy Chancellor (1000)
merc ***Gush //WHITE
merc ***Trade Routes //WHITE
merc ***Indentured Djinn (1000) //RED
merc ***Chambered Nautilus (1000) //WHITE
merc ***Saprazzan Heir (1000) //WHITE
merc ***Coastal Piracy //GREEN
nemes 	Accumulated Knowledge
proph 	Rhystic Scrying
proph 	Excavation
proph ***Rhystic Study //WHITE
proph ***Heightened Awareness //GREEN
inv 	***Teferi's Response //WHITE
plsft   Allied Strategies
odys 	Concentrate
odys ***Plagiarize //WHITE
odys  	Words of Wisdom
odys  	Predict
odys 	Cephalid Scout (1000)
odys ***Standstill //WHITE
odys  	Unifying Theory
odys   	Pedantic Learning
trmnt  	Deep Analysis
jdgm ***Keep Watch //WHITE
onsl  	Trade Secrets
onsl 	Airborne Aid
onsl  	Arcanis the Omnipotent (1000)
lgon	Crookclaw Elder (1000)
lgon  	Riptide Director (1000)
lgon ***Synapse Sliver (1000) //GREEN
scrg     Rush of Knowledge
scrg  	Aphetto Runecaster (1000)
mrdn ***Temporal Cascade //WHITE
mrdn 	Thoughtcast
mrdn   	Psychic Membrane (1005)
mrdn ***Slith Strider (1000) //WHITE
dkstl  	Vedalken Archmage (1005)
fdwn 	Bringer of the Blue Dawn (1000)
chkgw  	Petals of Insight
chkgw  	Counsel of the Soratami
chkgw   Jushi Apprentice (1000)
chkgw  	Azami, Lady of Scrolls (1000)
chkgw 	Myojin of Seeing Winds (1000)
chkgw  	Floating-Dream Zubera (1000)
chkgw 	Sire of the Storm (1000)
chkgw 	Honden of Seeing Winds
brkgw  	Heed the Mists
brkgw  	Ribbons of the Reikai
brkgw ***Ninja of the Deep Hours (1000) //GREEN
svkgw  	Soramaro, First to Dream (1000)
svkgw 	Rushing-Tide Zubera (1000)
svkgw ***Kami of the Crescent Moon (1000) //GREEN
rav   	Flow of Ideas
rav  	Flight of Fancy
gldpt 	Train of Thought
gldpt ***Hatching Plans //WHITE
dissn	Skyscribing
dissn ***Vision Skeins //WHITE
dissn	Ocular Halo
dissn   Novijen Sages (1000)
dissn   Psychic Possession
cold ***Perilous Research //RED
cold 	Vexing Sphinx (1000)
cold ***Drelnoch (1000) //WHITE
tsp 	Ancestral Vision
tsp ***Ophidian Eye //GREEN
plc    	Aeon Chronicler (1000)
fts 	Fathom Seer (1000)

Blue Direct Block-By-Block: 2, 1, 9, 7, 4, 8, 6, 11, 2, 11, 8, 6, 14, 9, 3, 4

Here is the meat of this section, which is why I left it for last despite my usual color order.

The list is long, so I'll break it down by what I want to move into each color.

Red
tmp    Meditate
merc     Indentured Djinn (1000)
cold    Perilous Research

Red will get most of its boost in a subsequent section, but some direct draw is in-flavor, too. Giving up a turn or a permanent could conceivably be argued as Black, but there's no denying that Final Fortune and Fireblast are quite, quite Red. At any rate, these cards are obviously not Blue besides longstanding design reflex.

Green
wthlt    Ophidian (1000)
exds    Curiosity
udt    Thieving Magpie (1000)
merc   Coastal Piracy
proph    Heightened Awareness
lgon   Synapse Sliver (1000)
brkgw    Ninja of the Deep Hours (1000)
svkgw   Kami of the Crescent Moon (1000)
tsp    Ophidian Eye

Saboteur-draw is 100% Green for me, and should have been from the beginning. If the Magus cycles had included Howling Mine, I think it would've clearly been Green; I don't know what they were thinking with Kami of the Crescent Moon, but Rites of Flourishing backs me up.

White
visn    Prosperity
prtl     Balance of Power
exds    Theft of Dreams
merc    Gush
merc     Trade Routes
merc    Chambered Nautilus (1000)
merc    Saprazzan Heir (1000)
proph   Rhystic Study
inv    Teferi's Response
odys   Plagiarize
odys    Standstill
jdgm     Keep Watch
mrdn    Temporal Cascade
mrdn     Slith Strider (1000)
svkgw     Soramaro, First to Dream (1000)
gldpt   Hatching Plans
dissn    Vision Skeins
cold   Drelnoch (1000)

White would get some substantial themes here, including draw-when-blocked (Chambered Nautilus), enchantments that yield cards when their equilibrium is upset (Standstill, Hatching Plans), Prosperity effects, "don't mess with me" (Keep Watch, Rhystic Study), and the elegant self-land-bounce mechanic (Gush). All of these fit into the essential White flavors of protectiveness and maintaining the status quo. Some of them could arguably be Green, but I think they fit better for White, particularly the Gush-type effect. When you think about it, it trades one part of a turn (the draw phase) for undoing another (the land drop)---it maintains a balance that a White mage could appreciate, and can be tied into White's Tithe mechanic.

--

One of the interesting results of this is the almost entirely mis-flavored draw selection from Masques block. Not that Masques needed any more good White cards, but in a world that made sense there wouldn't have been a weenie deck for White to abuse anyway. You can see how the all-encompassing mechanical monopoly on card drawing gave Blue the ability to draw cards in every way, shape, and form, with Perilous Research as a great example of how out-of-flavor it has gotten. Sacrificing permanents in the general case would be considered Black/Red, but tacking on card draw makes it a fair Blue cost. And Balance of Power doesn't go in the color of balance? Puh-leeze.

Coming up: Cantrips, Cycling, Draw/Discard, Filtering, Draw 7s, Tutoring, and even a dose of what I do when I actually play Magic these days.

[Matt]

I should note that from the description of the kithkin on today's mtg.com update, my plan of "white guys that support each other" seems to be exactly what R&D are doing. Too bad it had to be lame dorks like kithkin and not soldiers, but whatever.

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Finding a Format

(Consider this a break from nonstop color whining.)

My frequent displeasure with actually playing Constructed formats (because Spike makes Magic unfun) has led me to define a sort of "Type Fun" environment which I can play at home with no expectations of wider applications. Fortunately, after years of pouring money into SCG's coffers (there was a brief window where they had paid me more for my fortyish articles than I had paid them for cards, but that window is long past), my collection is quite deep without resorting to proxies. At the moment I have no less than twenty-five decks together, with several more skeletons filling out.

Most of the friends I play with at the moment are ex-players or players who otherwise simply prefer not to invest in the game. Their participation does increase my spending, however, as without them I would have little reason to get new cards at all. I'm simply the one who's willing to pay to play, as long as there's someone to play with. It helps that I'm employed full-time with great benefits, in an area with a low cost-of-living (Urbana-Champaign, IL), with the fiscal trifecta of no car, no kids, and no debt. (If they all graduate and I'm still here, I'll probably take a more serious interest in local stores; there's apparently an FNM nearby. Standard... eww. I'll have to upgrade their tastes.)

Thus, my environment is defined by my collection. The self-limiting nature of the format should be obvious: my collection is deepest in cards I enjoy playing with, as well as certain Type One staples and second-tier cards. Most importantly, besides eliminating Power, it lacks the huge, huge numbers of dual lands and fetches I would need to build an array of Vintage/Legacy-level mana bases. (I don't even have a complete set of the forty originals; I'm missing Badlands, Scrublands, and Bayous, plus one Underground Sea. Painlands and shocklands are much less complete.) So those twenty-five decks I mentioned have widely dispersed shares of my best cards, making it all much more interesting and less broken but still full of decks executing stronger plans than are possible in either Limited or its big brothers, Block and Standard.

Let's see if I can list them all, with some definitive cards that should hint at the rest of the deck:

Burn //Grim Lavamancer, Seismic Assault, Lava Spike, etc.
Stompy //Gather Courage, Jungle Lion, Viridian Zealot
Empyrial WW //Empyrial Armor, Cataclysm, Soltari Priest
Traditional WW //Order of the White Shield, Order of Leitbur
Draw-Go //Think Twice, Counterspell, Teferi
UR/Izzet //Niv-Mizzet, Gelectrode, Fire/Ice, Impulse
TnT //Goblin Welder, Survival of the Fittest, Juggernaut, Grove of the Burnwillows
UG Madness //Aquamoeba, Wild Mongrel, Arrogant Wurm, Circular Logic
Psychatog //Psychatog, Accumulated Knowledge, Intuition
Enchantress //Enchantress's Presence, Sylvan Library, Sacred Mesa, Replenish
Geddon-derm //Armageddon, Blastoderm, Calciderm
R/G Beatz //Ball Lightning, Horned Kavu, Tin-Street Hooligan
Mono-White Control //Pariah, Orim's Chant, Mageta the Lion
Miracle Gro //Quirion Dryad, Werebear, FoW, Brainstorm
Bad Rock //Treetop Village, Pernicious Deed, Stormbind, Nantuko Monastery
Artifacts (U/R) //Masticore, Thran Dynamo, Tangle Wire
Rainbow Survival //Joiner Adept, Wall of Roots, Survival of the Fittest
Astral Slide //Astral Slide, Life From the Loam, Lightning Rift, Decree of Justice
Post-Ravnica Standard Mono-White //Akroma AoW, Wrath of God, Condemn
Boros //Boros Swiftblade, Lightning Helix, Magus of the Scroll
Corrupt Mono-Black //Corrupt, Urborg Syphon-Mage, Necropotence
Bees of Titania //Unyaro Bees, Priest of Titania, Commune With Nature, Enshrined Memories
Rebels //Lin Sivvi, Ramosian Sergeant, Bound In Silence
U/B //Dralnu, Truth or Tale, Duress
Mono-Black //Diabolic Edict, Night Whisper, Hymn to Tourach

And I'm already planning to put together Oath of Druids, Fish, and Wildfire. Some of the double playsets are actually four real copies and four from World Championship gold-bordered decks (e.g., Survival of the Fittest). This helps create different versions of decks that all call for the strongest stuff.

The power-level differences are hard to iron out, especially as I've started to make less well-explored decks. Obviously decks like MiracleGro, even suboptimal versions of it, have a lot of oomph. I also have the challenge of the playgroup including an uber-Spike who not only doesn't understand why these suboptimal decks exist, but also thinks Constructed should never be played because it's less skill-testing than Limited. (It's like I brought him back into the game and in doing so created a monster. I tried to articulate that Limited is 90% boring mundanity whereas Constructed is 90% cool tricks and synergies, but he's monomaniacal about skill in gaming. Oh well. He plays!)

I find this to be a fun approach to the game---who cares if I'm playing more than one Crop Rotation with Crucible of Worlds as long as I'm not playing Strip Mine or Wasteland? (Sacrificing Riftstone Portal to fetch Nantuko Monastery---broken!) It also lets me take a fresh archetype, or at minimum unusual cards, against more well-established benchmarks. For instance, I'm eager to pit the post-Ravnica Standard White deck against a really high-pressure aggro deck. I can't imagine my R/G, Stompy, and WW are any less vicious than what Standard will ever offer. Eventually I might even bother using other Standard-legal decks, but then I'd have to get Tarmogoyfs, which is frowns, and exclude old favorites.

(I'll likely be returning on an intermittent basis to my continuing adventures of actually playing Magic, but don't doubt that my chronic adoration for data tables will continue unabated.)

[Dr. Sylvan]

The Color Wheel: Flexibility (Draw/Discard)


212 Reserve Deck--Put Into Hand--Draw/Discard (See also: 134, 135)

Code:

Land
arabn	Bazaar of Baghdad
odys	Cephalid Coliseum

Land Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

Secret Ichorid tech: Blue mana!

Code:

Gold
mirg	Unfulfilled Desires
plsft	Treva's Charm
plsft	Urza's Guilt
apoc	Last Stand
cold	Vanish Into Memory

Gold Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0

Unfulfilled Desires is actually kinda good, on the surface. Having a mana cost is probably the dealbreaker. Anyone wanna break a faux Bargain?

Code:

Artifact
arabn	Jandor's Ring
antq	Jalum Tome
visn	Anvil of Bogardan
tmp	Emmessi Tome
mrdn	Mask of Memory

Artifact Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0

Back in high school, a guy I played with had an Anvil of Bogardan/Megrim deck that was absolutely savage. I think that was when I realized that I dislike playing Black.

Code:

White

White Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

Never. Honestly, not a single time.

Code:

Green
usg	Greater Good
trmnt	Nantuko Cultivator (1000)

Green Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

What's really bizarre is how out of nowhere these cards are. Why do it two times three years apart and then never revisit the concept? My best guess is that in Saga they weren't paying attention to Greater Good as an ability bleed, and then they allowed Cultivator because of the intentional discard-bleeding in Odyssey block.

Code:

Red

Red Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

This got a "WTF?" out of me, since this is the color where I thought it actually made sense. Goblin Lore (ported to real Magic via 10th Edition from Portal (Get it? Ported from Portal. You didn't like that?)) and Control of the Court would bring this list up to two identical cards, with built-in, triple, random discard.

Code:

Black
allnc	Casting of Bones

Black Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

One idea R&D hasn't returned to from Alliances.

Code:

Blue
arabn	Sindbad (1000)
IA	Krovikan Sorcerer (1000)
hmld	Forget
allnc	Soldevi Sage (1000)
wthlt	Merfolk Traders (1000)
prtl	Owl Familiar (1000)
strg	Sift
exds	Merfolk Looter (1000)
usg	Catalog
usg	Attunement
ulg	Frantic Search
udt	Mental Discipline
merc	Customs Depot
proph	Rhystic Scrying
inv	Probe
inv	Vodalian Merchant (1000)
apoc	Ceta Sanctuary
odys	Careful Study
odys	Laquatus's Creativity
odys	Cephalid Broker (1000)
odys	Cephalid Looter (1000)
tmrnt	Breakthrough
trmnt	Compulsion
trmnt	Cephalid Sage (1000)
jdgmt	Hapless Researcher (1000)
onsl	Read the Runes
scrg	Riptide Survivor (1000)
mrdn	Thirst For Knowledge
mrdn	Lumengrid Augur (1000)
dkstl	Pulse of the Grid
fdwn	Thought Courier (1000)
chkgw	Sift Through Sands
chkgw	Soratami Cloudskater (1000)
svkgw	Ideas Unbound
rav	Compulsive Research
rav	Lore Broker (1000)
gldpt	Drowned Rusalka (1000)
tsp	Careful Consideration
tsp	Looter il-Kor (1000)
plc	Wistful Thinking
plc	Magus of the Bazaar (1000)
fts	Bonded Fetch (1005)

Blue Draw/Discard Block-By-Block: 0, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 4, 2, 3, 8, 2, 4, 3, 3, 0, 5

This is a prime example of R&D inertia based on early cards. Something outrageously influential like Necropotence permanently staked out a Black draw mechanic. If Careful Study had been printed as a Red card in Ice Age, it, too, might have made a permanent dent.

This was worsened by a decision to sit Red out in Odyssey block. I can only assume it was intentional, because with Torment specifically devoted to Black (and accidentally Green), Judgment specifically devoted to Green/White, and Odyssey implicitly devoted to Blue/Green, Red had no room at all. Plus, forced self-random discard is a pretty good way to inhibit tournament viability. By dampening Red in OTJ, discard was moved further away from it.

You might have noticed that I didn't highlight individual cards for shifting. This is because I think the mechanic should be about 80+% shifted into Red, with the rest reserved for rare bleeds, artifacts, etc. Since we're working on the dismantling of a sacred cow, this is at first difficult to grasp, especially in how it would change the game's feel.

First I'll address flavor, because abilities have to be grounded in something or it's just arbitrary. Red is best-known for throwing away the future to advance itself in the present. This directly contradicts putting any card-drawing into the color on any broad scale. However, when connecting flavor to mechanics, we should consider whether a color's "tagline" has a broadening bias or a narrowing bias.

The best example of the former is Blue, with its "manipulate magic and time itself to achieve greater understanding" flavor---about as broad and inclusive as it could possibly be. Under such an umbrella, anything can feel Blue, because the library is a symbol of knowledge, all spells are magical, and all mana costs relate to time. Red's tagline of "and then all was laid to burnination" has, by contrast, a narrowing bias, leading all Red cards straight into burn mechanics, with obligatory artifact removal for Blue players' sideboards and appropriately watered-down land destruction. Burning things is great, but it's a little monothematic, as my previous post on Tenth Edition Red mentioned.

Magic would be more interesting if all of the colors had strategic variability. Red, while not a distressed color in terms of prevalence, has pretty low variability, and moving draw/discard effects in would be a strong step in letting it play differently than its typical berserker rush.

Above, my mention of Necropotence as a precedent-setter highlights how ill-defined the borders of Blue draw's drawbacks are. If a card has an added cost of paying life, you immediately think Black. But if a card has the added cost of discarding cards, what color comes to mind? What color literally throws resources away to get ahead now? Red, Red, Red. However, Blue has received essentially all of this mechanic, because no Red equivalent to Necro broke the default tendency to give the ability to Blue.

I doubt that this would bring on a flood of Red decks that never run out of steam. By devoting deck space to these cards, the kill tempo would change dramatically. Instead of playing a fast flurry, decks that would want to dig deeper wouldn't need to maximize homogeneity to keep decks consistent---there is a built-in incentive to include answers as well as a pile of every decent aggro card you can find. Also, a declining number of draw-discard spells even yield positive card advantage (and I'm sure R&D would keep +CA spells to a minimum in Red to amplify the throwing-away feeling). However, it would allow Red mages to build decks that felt less straightforward and more clever.

(PS: I'm not ignoring Matt's comment about Gaddock Teeg, but I'm waiting for the full spoiler to discuss the design choices of Lorwyn.)