Blue spell and turn control, I'm surprised it's not more popular. Black was pretty weak in mirrodin, and nothing special onslaught (can't comment on this new block).

Also, Red being so unpopular was a surprise. Red is probably the fastest colour out there (bar affinity). Blue affinity is also great. I think you people are mixed up, heh.

Though I can see why white isn't a popular colour. I think green and black are far too slow to play effectively. Of course people don't generally play 1 colour at the moment.

side note: I personally want to let you all know my disdain for unhinged players. Yes the set is funny. Yes an unhinged deck is cool to pull out and play a game with. But I am sure we can all agree on our hatred for that one person we know who combines a couple of unhinged cards, to create a totally overpowered deck, and refuses to play anything else.

edit: Someone want to make another poll, I think would be interesting. Along the lines of favourite deck type to play
blue control
white (wrath-type) control
black control
swarm decks

Just a thought. Considering most people play all colours and like them equally, but we probably all have a deck strategy we like the most =)

I happen to love my "Sparkfiend", "Censorship" and "The Cheese Stands alone" from Unglued, thank you very much.

But I agree, stupidly overpowered.

Damn...turbo...slug...things.

Also, I don't HAVE money for MTGOnline. So apprentice is the only way to go. (MTG Workshop or whatshisface kills my PC something awful.)

Blue is arguely the best color to work with in the series. Statis Orb, Entangling Bridge, Icy Manipulater, and splash in a little white for Argarian Dig or Orim's Chant with the new rod for total control. You can't play spells, you can't attack, your cards don't untap, but I can untap mine with an Icy. Throw in a few Temporal Adepts, Pariah, and maybe make yourself untargetable, and you control the game... Horribly.

I use to play Magic for years, all the way from when Slivers was brand new and Toram's Chant (I think this is right..) where too much fun. I quit for a few years after Urza's since the game had become whoever went first won. Black Lotus, Fork, Fireball anyone? But I recently became involved again due to the new set striking my interest. I'm always up for a challenge from anyone, maybe even set up some online dueling via the net if I have any takers. I don't use instant win decks anymore, as I've found the glories of Dragon Roost, infinite mana...

You might mean Orim's chant? 0_o Or hymn to tourach? I've never heard of Toram's chant, and it doesn't show up on gatherer.

For some reason, I think Black has been tweaked since Mirrodin. Or at least one of Black's major mechanics has been becoming more obsolete, thanks to Indestructuble (my Shadow/Mercenary deck is very obstacled by Indestructuble, because it mostly relies in targeted kills). Now a good black deck probably has to focus on discard, tutoring, syphoon, reanimation, and graveyard defilement (to try hurt other reanimator decks) and mechanics like fear. Also, mass creature removal has become a bit rare in black and more active in White...

Um, yeah. Anyway, it seems like people at Wizards are shifting some mechanics from one color to the other.

Symmetrical creature removal was generally white, not black. Or red actually.

Indestructible isn't as good as you think, though. Most of the stuff it's on is kinda lame. (DS Gargoyles, DS Brutes, Koda Konda...)

Well... Wrath of God is the first destroy all creatures I remember of, followed by Juckolhops(spelling?) in Ice Age for Red. But then mass killing was more and more moved to black. Simple destroy all creatures, or all creature target player controls, destroy all creatures of the chosen color, destroy all creatures of the chosen type, whenever a creature is dealt damage destroy, destroy, destroy, destroy... Basically Black was the Death deck. With White having remove creature, or some destroy creature if it is attacking or blocking (or and in a very rare occasion Mageta: a Wrath of God that leaves only himself alive). With Red having the occasional Obliterate like spells. Though Red's destruction is important to differentiate... because it is total destruction. I think almost of all Red's destruction cards target either lands, artifacts, or seemingly absolutely everything. Look at Red's Decree of Annihiliation, Black's Decree of Pain to notice how different both destructions are. Red IS Destruction, Black IS Death.


And you know, it isn't like Indestructuble is a complete pain for Black. Because with Black you still spells that make someone Sacrifice a creature, or tuning a creature a */0 forcing a player to sacrifice that creature. The point is, that giving something -X/-X to kill is more complicated, and forcing someone to sacrifice something is a bit rare in Black, now. So you have millions of Destroy target creature spells turned useless against indestructible. It was already a challenge dealing with untargetable creatures or the protection creatures, black didn't need indestructuble Or, at least give black more "Target player sacrifices a creature of your choice"-

Please tell me there are other oldies like me who miss channel/fireball and the turbo stasis decks!

Black was always, to me anyway, about self sacrifice. Often bad stuff happened to you but in exchange you did something worse to the opponent. Because hey, Life is overrated.

EDIT: Or of course black was about annoying coffin bint, hyppie, royal assasin decks.

Channel Fireball was just grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Turbo Stasis was almost as annoying, I solely used to carry reset switches to stop people using really dumb speed combos. Incidently there is a new card in betrayers, cant remember the name, which is basically start teh game again with you both on 7 life.

I miss hyppie!!! and Hymn to Tourach!!

You people are making me want to play that damn game again....almost

Yep. Black is always the scheming color with the personal agenda that HAS to be accomplished with whatever it takes. Giving way to sacrificing your own health and creatures... but like you said, for Black life is overrated. Just look at all the Lich(s) in Black histories. Basically you don't die for loosing all your life And of course, black doesn't care about creature's life because they are useful for zombification. That is why Black is Death. Just look at the Mana symbol, it is a skull, sign of the Grim Reaper.

Something star related. It costs like 8UU though, it's not exactly a super spell.

And yeah, I hate swift decks like that...channel fireball...ngrarhghgrhh.

Yes.

At least play the damn game, not just throw a load of cards down in a specific order and win in 20 seconds. Also, I love those sacrifice spells. I always seem to have insect/saproling/whateverthehellelse tokens out when people throw that crud at me.

Right now it seems most burn decks are built around Goblins. With about four mana you can already have an army of critters out... and really, I don't wish to list the immense load of burn spells Red has, but of most convinient use are Shock and Glacial Rays. To me, part of the fun is removed when the duel was complete just in a matter of a few seconds...

I like to prolong my duels... I remember once being stuck from 12 am up to 5am enganged on some miserable duels. No one wanted to concede, so we kept on dueling

And yeah, token creatures are awesome. I specially love the Saprolings. Not only because they give you sacrificing material but with green you can pump them up to be HUGE.... Imagine being overrun by an army of ten 7/7 Saprolings with trample!

Yay for Saprolings!

I had a friend in fits once because somehow I managed to pwn the 12 zombies or so she'd summoned with...two squirrels. I think I had a lot of mana going spare. 0_o'

I played Magic for like a year when it first came out, but soon got tired that the only way to -really- be good was to have the best cards, which you had to buy at a card shop for outrageous prices. I did have a bunch of cool cards though, mostly old school like Force of Nature and Royal Assassin, the glory days of magic.

No paying with apprentice.

Probably the best deck I saw was Dias'. It was mostly commons and uncommons. The only rares that ever went in were raven guildmasters. It beat down almost every deck, especially massive combo based ones with black lotus' and crap in it.

Probably cost him about 30$ to build, and it beat decks that play 1000$ on the first hand. Totally owned everyone in a type 1 tournament, gaining first place easily. Sad thing was, it started loads of blue control decks coming out in the city. Oh yeah, and those token creature, they were totally awesome to wash out.

Ooh! Ooh! That reminds me! Wrath of God+Regeneration = fun! That is, of course, if you dont have thorn elementals. They attack through blocking as if you werent blocking. They are mine. All mine. *eye* You cant have them.