Mass LD discussion isn't that related here IMO.

At blogatog, MaRo sites Blasphemous Act specifically on numerous time as the bend, and it's mass hitting spell unlike Shivan Meteor.

> http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/search/+Blasphemous+Act

Good points though. I've to mull on this.

It's a red board wipe that doesn't destroy lands. That's it. It's a cheaper boardnuke that doesn't destroy lands or enchantments. This is something that is already in red's colour pie. Worldfire, Decree of Annihilation, Bearer of the Heavens, Obliterate, Apocalypse and most on target Jokalhaups

Red is already tertiary in board wipes provide they also destroy all lands. The the limitation that stops red getting these effect regularly is that destroying all lands are unfun. And even in the modern colour pie occasionally red gets these effects and this is less of bend that Star of Extinction is since it also hits artifacts.

Red destruction spells are only bends if they target a single creature. Shivan Meteor is bend while Decree of Annihilation isn't. The bend here is not also destroying any land.

Note that in Mark Rosewater's two part colour redistribution in Planar Chaos article he explained he was taking board wipes out white and shifting them into both Black and Red. This is just taking an effect that's tertiary in one colour (red) and primary in another colour (white) and reversing them. Red get's destroy everything nukes (Planar Cleansing) while black instead gets Damnation that only effects creatures (or planeswalkers). It would be bend for red to get a 4/5 cmc nondamage board wipe but at six and up red gets board wipe provide that hit everything.

In the original planar chaos this was shown by moving Armageddon into red as Bust. However since mass land destruction is unfun your giving red nukes that hit everything nonland (while not hurting enchantments since that's one of red's major weaknesses.).

Dealing damage is seen as 's way to remove creatures. The extent of keeping between damage and straight-up destruction different is such that even spells that deal insurmountable amounts of damage (ie. 13 or so) are seen as bends. This also blends with the idea of trying to make and distinguishable from each other since the two colors already share so many features.

Giving red creature destruction / wraths of this nature would go against these principles.

I would like to hear some reasonings for what role this theoretical shift is supposed play in this alternative color pie. From Reduce to Bones I know that white isn't no longer getting these, but that would be just a part of the suggested change here since IMO at least some part of the issue here lies with the role of burn in general and how this would conflict with that.

Red variant of Akroma's Vengeance

> "If it was destroyed this way, search ..."

> "If you do, search your..." ?

Still not a fan of ramp. With this flavor I would just turn the land into a swamp, like in Contaminated Ground. If it really needed to ramp, then I would rather have it be an aura that turns the land into a swamp and takes control of it (Annex / Conquer).

This is card advantage btw, so it would be red flagged as a common.

Planeshifted Mwonvuli Acid-Moss (with slightly altered wording) to make a ramp spell that feels more black that my previous attempt.

Yeah. It's in the current black colour. The main goal overall goal is to give black creature board wipes and not give them to white (which a change in the planar chaos colour pie). Except showing an absence is hard until you get a complete set.

The notartifact clause is supposed to be topdown to the card as artifacts don't have flesh to stripped away. This and the skeleton tribal are supposed to be planar chaosy. (black removal kept it's weakness to artifact creatures and skeletons are now the default black race instead of zombies. These are two roads that magic could have taken but didn't.).

The major dilemma of this set is to risk either sticking to closely to the colour pie and being overly conservative or making to many bends/breaks.

This is not Planar Chaos-ly, not anymore at least.

Black now frequently gets cards like Zombie Apocalypse, Crux of Fate, and Bontu's Last Reckoning.

The nonartifact clause is a bit Time Spiral-y (as in the set, not the block).

For what it's worth, I've thought two mana land ramp was too good for a while now. It lets control decks skip to later stages of the game, instead of forcing them to play out round three with three mana. Makes control decks repetitive, and reduces the variety of cards control needs to play. That said, players expect mana acceleration as a strategy, and would be miffed if they couldn't skip parts of the game. I wonder if MaRo has my same beef.

I've been thinking about this for couple of days now and I have to say that I just don't "see it."

If anything I would rather have rituals see a small return to black since they at least kind of play into it flavorfully. Black can do burst of mana certainly it tries to evoke some kind of ritual, but creating stability isn't it (Midnight Oil).

Ramping for lands to me describes abundance and overflowing life. It's certainly something black wants (flavorfully and mechanically, more on that later). Black grasps at life with utter greed, but isn't able to produce it per se - it mostly stoops into stealing it parasitically. Green excels in this passive activity since it's "without ego" and "serene" and all that. Black pretty much IS the ego.

Personally, mono-black control is close to my heart, and one thing I can tell you that one of the dangers of that deck is not hitting your lands. Not being able to remove artifacts or enchantments is a minor nuisance compared to that. Especially in EDH, I fear that black ramp spells would push the color too far. Like, if I'm constructing a black control deck, and I would consider adding green to it, to me, the most reasonable reason to do so would be to ramp (obviously individual cards play into this, but here I'm just referring colors to as abstract collections of mechanics).

As for tutoring the color's own basic lands to hand, I would expand the tithe effects of white to do that since it has that "slow and steady" feeling of building a community. Also, a phrase like "Endless Plains" keeps popping up in my mind.

Some of those blogatog links are quite funny at times - you're referencing to them as though they were out of some scientific research with statistics and stuff.

For example:

> * mcpowless-chang asked: Is a two mana land ramp spell (rampant growth) too good for standard?

> * MaRo: Not a developer but maybe.

And what you take out of that is that "We live in a world where Rampant Growth is too strong for standard". That's hilarious!

But yes, it seems that MaRo at least doesn't consider Liliana irksome though I had hoped I could have agreed on that with him.

Also, I think having ramp spells in all colors would just be dumb. This is one of the multitude of reasons why I think many of the artifacts push the color pie waaayyy too much.

As a disclaimer, it might be worth of note that I also would not have drawbackless tutors in black either, so perhaps I'm not really the person you want to convince?

For whatever reason I have always found black to be the easiest color to design cards for.

Anyway, maybe other people have something more sensible to say. I'm not honestly very good at expressing myself verbally, that is, trying to explain what I'm "understanding" (too much of the procession is happening at intuitive levels).

Hopefully it isn't too irritating that I'm pairing color pie with flavor, but from to me, the flavor is why the color pie and the game itself exists. Obviously you can "justify everything" with flavor, but not all those "flavor justifications" are created equal - or those same cards could still be expressed with the current color pie and so on.

Like here, with a name like "Fester the Blight" I would expect some kind of constant life loss, or buff from creatures dying or something. Swamps themselves don't feel that nasty to me. They're functional quite identical to the other basic lands.