Why does Wizards hate black so much?
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Nov. 27, 2014, 3:47 p.m. by Psychonautical
(DISCLAIMER: This is a long rant that I have to get out. Frankly, I am not looking for any of you to be condescending or anything as none of this is to any of you, and I also don't care for you to read the heading and one or two lines and comment. If you want to be a part of this discussion, I ask you at least take the minute or two it takes to read all of this so you know what I am saying here.)
So ever since learning of MTG about a decade or so ago, I have had a strange infatuation with Black as a color. I always liked many of the effects the cards had, and the art is arguably the best on black cards.
However, as I have grown, gotten iser and better and playing and deck building, I noticed something very peculiar about the game...
Guys... Wizards RnD HATES Black.
Seriously. I mean, in all tournament play and even in casual, there is the old addage of blue being damn-near impossible to play against with its plethora of counters and numerous spells that, flavor-wise, REALLY need to be Sorceries instead of Instants.
But it goes way beyond that. I understand that each color sort of a has a theme and general play style. I understand that white, representing order, is going to exemplify humans the most, and humans being generally weak but organized, will offer the best 1-2 drops in general as far as creatures go.
But black doesn't seem to get a really consistent "best" of anything. Best answers/control go to blue, best weenies go to white, best fatties go to green, the fastest creatures go to red, and black... well hell, what exactly does black get?
And before you all scream, "NECROPOTENCE/PHYREXIAN OBLITERATOR!" yeah, I get that. But those are TWO extreme examples. How many "WTF that is a lot of power for one card at its mana cost" do the other colors have? I am thinking of Bonfire of the Damned and EVERY other miracle card (of which black has NONE), Baneslayer and a bunch of other Angels, Snapcaster mage and the Inquisitor Exarch's use with Splinter Twin (neither of those Black) and green with its near unfair mana-ramp and ridiculous creatures.
And I know many of you are thinking, "U mad bro LOL?" But no, I'm not mad. And I win plenty of games with my black design, but never as many as I SHOULD if the supposed brokenness of some of the cards are to be believed (you bet your arse I run foud Obliterators. What else am I to do?)
And it goes way beyond just Black sometimes having the no consistent advantages in its color (other than perhaps discard, a strategy that runs out of steam faster than burn since NO discard cards except for Surgical Extraction are instants and hands empty quick if you aren't playing blue.)
Like the Miracle mechanic. Okay, I get it, the theme of Innistrad evil taking over, and the last set was about the light restoring order, so I can see why they'd avoid any black "miracles."
But look at another keyword from the block: Undying. Undying is so obviously a black keyword that the very card that instantly grants it to any creature is the word followed by the word "EVIL." Undying. Evil.
And what does Wizard's do? They IMMEDIATELY make the BEST Undying creature green. Strangleroot Geist is a million times better than every other Undying Creature for its cost.
Hell, they even went as far as to make the best one-drop (ahem, ONLY one-drop) with it green. Young Wolf, while not quite as tribal as Butcher Ghoul, is still a whole mana cheaper. And for what? You couldn't give black, say, a 1/1 Undying Horror, Spirit, or Elemental even?
And take the block before Innistrad. What was the biggest keyword from it? Infect. Again, so OBNOXIOUSLY a black keyword, and what happens?
That's right. The best Infect creatures are f-ing Green and Blue. The Infect lord is black, as is the strongest and rarest Infect card, but Wizard's, full-knowing that Infect essentially says, "Hey, build your deck around this word and its like the opponent starts with ten life instead of twenty," went and made the black Infect creatures WAY too slow to bother with.
But my BIGGEST gripe isn't necessarily the presence of superior cards in other colors so much as the lack in one department: Planeswalkers.
What the hell guys? Why don't we get Planeswalkers?!
Blue has SO many Jace's for card advantage out the wazoo, but then, hey, let's give them a ridiculous blue Planeswalker to help artifacts. And you know what? Tamio, too, for MORE card advantage.
Green, while mainly Garruk, gets... well, Garruk, but then they have Nissa, and green is splashed with several other colors.
Don't even get me STARTED on how many White planeswalkers there are! Ajanai, Gideon, Elspeth, Nahiri, with about sixty different versions of each.
And red only has a few, but damn are they t least useful if costed well. Sarkahn, Chandra, even that dude from Romeo and Juliet makes up for his underhwelming power with an affordable mana cost.
Before I continue, here's the Planeswalker count per color:
Red (mono) - 7Red (splash) - 8Red (all) - 15
Green (mono) - 6Green (splash) - 7Green (all) - 13
Blue (mono) - 7Blue (splash) - 6Blue (all) - 13
White (mono) - 9!!!White (splash) - 5White (all) - 14
Black (mono) - 4!!! As in one, two, three FOUR!Black (splash) - 8Black (all) - 12
And Karn, who, while accessible to all colors, is also tied for the most expensive Planeswalker next to some incarnation of Garruk, and is thus not very viable in one of the slowest colors.
So what do we have in the way of Planeswalkers for black? Four near-useless cards, and one that is so overrated that other Planeswalkers laugh about it when it leaves the room.
Sorin Markov himself is so trash. At 6 CMC, his first ability is meh as 2 life each way is barely an advantage at that point in the game, and his second ability is ONLY useful if you yourself are at less than 7 life, as any opponent should be past or too close to ten to bother, and you'd gain 2 life with his first ability anyways. You wouldn't even get to use his ultimate because either A) by the time you got there, your opponent should be long gone, or at least have so little to do as far as their own cards go that "controlling your opponent for the next turn" may as well read, "Take an extra turn after this one. Your opponent draws a card." or B) before he go to 7, YOU would be long gone because if you haven't at at least stopped your opponents strategy in their tracks by turn 7, your deck is garbage and they are gonna win.
The next CMC down is the 5 CMC, Liliana Vess, is a shame because she seems useful but again, its too little too late. For 5 CMC, you get the advantage of causing opponent's-choice discard likely while they are already topdecking anyways, or you can suspend a Diabolic Tutor, except you also blow a draw step.
Next up, another Liliana, this one from the Dark Realms. At 4 CMC, she is at least somewhat easier to cast, yet more useless than her 5 CMC version. She has arguably the best removal of any Planeswalker, but comes with the huge drawback of only getting to use it a single time if you need it the same turn you cast her. Her first ability can at least be useful to thin out decks, but at the same time, I don't know about you guys, but I always ever only needed 4 lands to make a black deck work, so getting an extra one when I should draw one anyways is so so on the way to using her for what I really want. And her ultimate? quadruple mana? For WHAT?! On turn NINE, I get to attack with any creature I have killed or let die on my own IF my opponents hasn't exiled it first, such as with Treasure Cruise. SNORE.
And then there is the best Planeswalker that Wizard's could drum up for us, and honestly, I am not that impressed.
I don't know why every freaks out about her. For her cost and longevity, I'd rather just sideboard some Geth's Verdicts or other removal OR some hand destruction cards that LET ME PICK. I can't believe that so many cards get trashed for having an effect that let's your opponent pick, yet this gal has THREE and somehow sees tournament play.
Plus, in a Modern (and standard back when it was in) meta where there is (what seems like) a 30% chance that your opponent with have a Loxodon Smiter or Obstinate Baloth, you are often doing them a HUGE favor by racking up her Loyalty.
And then her other effect? A Geth's Verdict without the life loss? That's ONLY useful if they have a REALLY dangerous creature out and NOTHING ELSE. WHY IS SHE SO POPULAR?!
So do you folks get my point? There is a CLEAR favoritism going on with Blue, white, and to a lesser extent Green with Red sort of being left out but not nearly as much as black. At least Red gets you somewhere and counterspells in Blue can be useful the whole game as sometimes players cast from other places if they have no cards.
But blacks specialty of hand disruption fades REALLY quick, and is really only useful if you dedicate a huge chunk of your slots to it if not build your whole deck around it, at which point you dead-draw into discard spells when your opponent's hand is empty and the only option is to mainboard a few Pack Rats just in case.
If anyone reading this works at Wizards, or knows someone who does, tell them that its time for a REAL Black block. Not one that teases us with black abilities only to see those abilities work better in other colors. Not one that offers ONE Planeswalker here and there that still pales in comparison to every other color.
No. Its OUR turn. Its time for Black Mages to have our day (or night). We have Necropotence, Phyrexian Obliterator, Surgical Extraction and Bob. That's not good enough when blue and white dominate with their Snapcaster Mages and Angels, respectively.
Rant over.
This thread is dumb and I'm mad that someone brought it back. Summoning vampirelazarus. Was little more than 2 weeks, but whatever.
@vishnarg: Can you give me the link to that GIF? I may have a use for that sometime in the future.
December 21, 2014 10:49 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #3
I cant put it on my list, because the entry would read "Dead from December 2014 - December 2014"
December 21, 2014 10:56 p.m.
Hickorysbane says... #4
That's a shame, cause this one was rough the first time around. I saw it in the feed (or whatever) and prayed that it was a different one xP but alas...twas not to be. or..twas. eh.
December 22, 2014 12:08 a.m.
shinobigarth says... #5
i think this thread is already in somebody's "retarded threads" list anyway.
December 22, 2014 3:58 a.m.
vampirelazarus says... #6
My list isn't "retarded threads" its "necrod threads" to show the higher ups that necroing is a problem we have.
December 22, 2014 4:02 a.m.
shinobigarth says... #7
i know i wasn't talking about your list, i think someone else made another list that instead of necros is for dumb threads
December 22, 2014 4:30 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #8
That would probably be VampireArmy. Unless I am sadly mistaken.
December 22, 2014 8:55 a.m.
VampireArmy says... #9
Yes i would like to begin to collect ridiculous funny threads.
December 22, 2014 11:32 a.m.
Guys , blue is not the best color . Let me give you all a freaking history lesson . all colors are just as good a each other . they all have goodies . if you like blues reactive stuff , well then listen to this . why did japan lose WWII ? because they were reacting to the allies for the last 80% of the war . if you react to an opponent , they have done something , and you have done something that didn't put you forward. so the lesson : all colors = just as good
December 23, 2014 6:03 p.m.
Vault ? come on. second history lesson. Agro=Blitzkreig Blitzkreig + a brain = almost taking over the world need i go on with WWII examples
December 23, 2014 6:15 p.m.
SkyRaider42 says... #14
I feel like after 9 pages of discussion everything that needs to be talked about has been, and we can finally let this thread die.
APPLE01DOJ says... #1
Green is the best support color though... (in regards to modern & my own experience with standard)
December 21, 2014 3:07 p.m.