Mirrodin block changed magic forever?

[Baron Sengir]

I've been talking with a few people around here, and it has come up in the conversation that the Mirrodin block has changed the playing style of Magic. I mean just look at when the last card was banned before Skullclamp. It has been said that the Mirrodin block has simply made the game a faster pace game than it was previously.

Obviously the purpose of this post is to see if you all feel the same, disagree, or strongly disagree.

[Baron Sengir]

I should also comment that in the conversation it was said that Mirrodin has changed how Magic will be played from now on. Meaning the fast-paced, win as soon as possible card game will rule forever. But it could be argued that it has always been that way.

[Volrath, the Fallen]

if you look at Kamigawa, its not like that. The fast pace is because of the artifacts. they don't stall the game if you have wrong colors.

[Maraxus of Keld]

First off, I have to ask with whom you had this conversation?

I don't think it's an accurate statement, at least not overall. Our regular playgroup (consisting of you, Volrath, Arcades, myself, and a few others, a.k.a. most of this board) began to play more aggressively after we started buying Mirrodin, Darksteel, and Fifth Dawn, but the sets themselves are not at all the cause.

It isn't as if Mirrodin created competitive play. Aggressive-style play has existed forever; how else do you think tournaments are played?

What's more, Mirrodin didn't cause the change in play style with us, either. I believe the reason we now play more aggressively stems from meeting people that play on a different level from us.

First I started playing against my friend Jordon out here at school, who walloped me every game because he plays competitively and I don't. Because of this I started to become a better player, which involves taking things like card advantage, mana curve, and game tempo into account, which I never used to give much thought to. This led to me improving most of my decks a bit, and everybody else started to get better with me.
Around this time we started to take an interest in Fifth Dawn, which was just about to come out, and we got the opportunity to buy those booster boxes. This is about the time we all started to play more aggressively, but it's because of the wider exposure to other players, not to the nature of Mirrodin itself.

If there is anything about Mirrodin that encourages more competitive play, it's because of the fact that artifacts don't require you to play with colored mana. And affinity is just so easy to build, anybody can make a decent affinity deck. Building a good artifact deck takes less thought than building a good multicolored deck. Perhaps that had a bit to do with it, but if so it was the means, not the cause.

[Baron Sengir]

Take it easy yo, its just a simple statement, no need to get your undies in a bunch. I never said it was my opinion, just that it came up in a conversation. And as far as who said it, I'll keep that information hidden.

[Baron Sengir]

Maraxus said:

If there is anything about Mirrodin that encourages more competitive play, it's because of the fact that artifacts don't require you to play with colored mana. And affinity is just so easy to build, anybody can make a decent affinity deck. Building a good artifact deck takes less thought than building a good multicolored deck. Perhaps that had a bit to do with it, but if so it was the means, not the cause.

Whether it is the means or the cause it still happened more so than other sets have done. I'm not blaming the players, Wizards created the artifact block not us.

[Maraxus of Keld]

But it would have happened regardless of what the current set was. The fact that the artifact block was the current thing means simply that the aggressive decks are easier to build, because most of the deck can be played with any color mana. This makes it easy to splash colors for little things like Disciple of the Vault, Shrapnel Blast, or Thoughtcast. Affinity pretty much builds itself.
However, if this had happened back in Odyssey then we'd still have been doing it; it would just have taken a little more thought in the deckbuilding because it's much harder to include cards from multiple colors when the majority of your deck isn't colorless.

If you want to lay the blame on the company that makes the cards, or on the cards themselves, then fine. But the fact is, even if Wizards had stopped printing new cards two years ago things would still be as they are now in our playgroup. Well, we probably wouldn't have bought as many cards, but the playing style would be the same.

[Volrath, the Fallen]

you have a point. The deck that Jordan kept beating you with was a green Madness deck, right? Thats an odyssey block deck. Very competitive from the time. I think the only thing that was beating it was Psychatog.

[Maraxus of Keld]

Which works on the same principle largely, but in different colors and with counters to support it.
But yeah, the deck I got trounced by was red/green Madness.

[Volrath, the Fallen]

well, i believe the competetive Wild Mongrel Madness deck was blue/green, so it had counters open to it, but i could be mistaken.

[CrimsonTears]

Oh the game has changed alright. But its due to the cards working better with eachother. Take Nourish for example. Great card and makes Naturan Springs kinda obsolete. More importantly that was made to go onto an Isochron Scepter. There is also the fact that the inpact of old and new cards mixing together creates combos so disturbing I won't mention them here. That is non existant in tournament play which is where a great deal of money comes from.

[Maraxus of Keld]

So you would say that the synergy of the cards has improved?

I'll grant you that point, but it's not exclusive to Mirrodin by any stretch of the imagination. Take a look at Odyssey for a minute. The same block with Psychatog and Wild Mongrel also brought us Madness, so you have cards that you can discard to fuel effects of cards that do something positive when you discard them, and then you can still play the cards you discarded, often at a cheaper cost than normal. Effectively, if you have Wild Mongrel in play, you can play Basking Rootwalla for free.

Or look at Threshold. How many cards were there that gave you quick threshold? Book Burning can do it 2nd turn with no outside mana acceleration. That makes for a 5/5 inflatable flyer on the 4th turn with Fledgling Dragon, and no downsides.

I would provide some more examples, but I'm really tired at the moment and can't think of any. So hopefully I've illustrated that, while synergy between cards has increased from what it was in the days of Mirage or Tempest, it isn't by any means unique to Mirrodin. It has existed for at least two years prior to Mirrodin, probably more.

[Baron Sengir]

The thing that the Mirrodin block has that was mentioned earlier is that it is an artifact block. And a lot of the decks run artifacts which are colorless, making the decks faster. That is the main thing I've been trying to say. Magic has gone back to its roots, b/c a lot of the OLD sets used artifacts, like the power nine uses a lot of artifacts, I'm not what is and isn't an artifact in the power nine, nor do I care but...

Again this isn't my opinion, I was trying to pose a question, and it seemed that it turned into a shoot me down post, not, shoot down the post.

[Maraxus of Keld]

That isn't it at all, I'm simply saying that I don't think Mirrodin block is to blame for the differences that we have noticed in the past few months. I am not trying to shoot the messenger in any way.

I'm simply saying that although the artifact-heavy nature of Mirrodin takes considerations of multicolored decks away, it doesn't make the decks necessarily faster, just easier to build that way. If you put a well-made Ravager-affinity deck up against a well-made Madness deck from Odyssey, they're a pretty even match. In fact, the deck that won the world championship this year was actually mostly Onslaught-based. It used Astral Slide, Decree of Justice, and such. The biggest Mirrodin cards in there were Eternal Witness and I think Solemn Simulacrum.

I'll try one last time to sum up my point: Mirrodin makes it easier to build fast decks because you can splash colored spells in without a problem due to the fact most of your stuff takes only colorless mana. Between that and things like Pentad Prism and Chromatic Sphere, you can easily get any colored mana you might need. The decks aren't faster, just more common because anybody can make them.

[Butcher Orgg(s)]

I was gonna add maturely to this discussion. But I can't. So:

MIRRODIN SUCKS!