My Letter to Wrath of God and Damnation

gmoney · Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 24

Dear Wrath of God and Damnation,

Maybe nobody else has but I have noticed a major drop in your playability. Especially on the tournament fronts. T2 is dominated by creatures! Now I am not saying that neither one of you are unplayable. But Firespout is MORE PLAYED THEN BOTH OF YOU COMBINED. Gaddock Teeg pwnz you both, persist was made to combat you! But, the biggest reason I can't play you guys is that 3/4's of my opponents have manlands that don't even care about you! This has been quite stressful for me personally because of my love affair with you both. Wrath I'll never forget the first time you were dropped on a table in front of me and destroyed my 3x Avatar of Might! The awe from that one play has made you my favorite card magic has ever printed!!! Damnation, if Wizards ever did anything right it was the way they previewed you. I called friends IM'd them like a kid in a candystore. It used to be fairly accepted advice in my circles to suggest to fresh players to pick up a playset of each if they wanted to invest there money wisely and now those friends are coming back to me complaining about how now they got em and they don't need em and nobody wants them! Regardless of what happens with Magic, my life, etc. you guys will always be my chase rare..... Anyways hopefully you guys that read this enjoyed I am semi-talented as a writer and if I get some positive feedback I'll spend more time and energy and even proofread.

center · Joined: 06 May 2006 Posts: 386

Pretty good, needs more spacing.

Trotsky1 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 942

It does seem wrong that wog and dam are not the tournament staples that they use too be. Overall i think its a sign of the times no one is over extending anymore, players are getting better, creatures more powefull you need less creatures on board overall compared to days gone buy to set as quick a clock, so there is less reason to over extended.

Blue is having a harder and harder time, finally being told well if your spells can just stop anything then we are going to have to print spells as quick or quicker than your earliest counter that are not just an insignificant 2/1 but powerfull enough that they can actually win a game unchequed.

And I am glad. Why? because if winning by card advantage was once orignal and creative now it is the most tired and repeated trick in the book. Think of some other way to win than by sheer mathmatics something more brave more orignal. Card advantage is the box of modern magic anyone who can read and comprehend can build a deck to win that way it takes far more creativity to build a deck where quality and synergy amount more than the tired formular off attrition we have become use too winning prize after prize. Yes card advantage is good but show me something new, something I did not take as a given, well wrath of god is not good anymore I never thought that would be the case Amen.

center · Joined: 06 May 2006 Posts: 386

Orlandu · Joined: 25 Sep 2004 Posts: 197

The problem is counters to wrath of god/damnation. I'm not talking about counterspells, though those are available, but rather the ability for aggro decks to truly punish you for wrathing. Last year at regionals I decided to play Dralnu (not the best decision since my regionals was almost all blue..) since, at the time, I figured I'd win all my dragonstorm matchups, be able to outplay the control decks I came against, etc. In testing I found that against gruul (the baseline aggro deck I tested against) casting damnation often lost you games as often as it won them. I'd damnation, and if they were smart and expected it, they'd then get to resolve whatever they wanted, the worst of which being giant solifuge. If not that, then something else that was just bad times. As a result I moved them to the board, then off the deck entirely. Cleared the space for some piece of tech or other.. not relevant.

Another case in point: I remember a few years ago you couldn't keep a wrath of god in your trade binder. Just couldn't do it. You'd put em in there and get rid of em the first tournament you went to. Since then, and especially since damnation was printed, I have 12 of em in the book and no one's asked about em in months.

Basically U/W and U/B control are just not as dominating as they were. Green decks have the tools to fight through permission via low costing game winning beat sticks (i.e. goyf, wren's run vanquisher etc.), and through cards like cloudthresher that make your opponent make decisions when he'd rather not. The printing of bitterblossom hasn't helped the case for wrath/damnation either, and the fae in general just bend wrath/damnation over a barrel. "Wrath!", "Ooh, spellstutter sprite, eot scion of oona swing. GG!".

That's not to say that blue hasn't gotten some amazing cards in cryptic command and.. uh.. hrm. Well that's besides the point, blue is still good, it's just that we're in a different deck building era is all. I wouldn't throw away your damnations yet. Fairly sure they're gonna go in 11th over wrath. Then there will finally be no reason to play white Wink

shadow483 · Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 57

I think a reason why Wrath and Damnation don't see much play anymore is that there aren't that many control decks floating around. The way I see it, there are 4 good ones in the format right now, Fairies, Revelark, merfolk, and Quick n toast(although I have yet to figure out what it really is) and of these decks, only revelark tends runs wrath main. Lorwyn/shadowmoor seem to be more centered around aggro strategies, while ravnica seemed control based and time spiral was control/tempoish.

To put this into perspective, lets look at standard when it was Ravnica, time spiral, Coldsnap and 9th. The decks then were incredibly diverse and there were plenty of control decks.
Too name a few:
Izzettron
Dranlu
U/W tron
martyrtron
Anglefire
solar fire
Solar flare
U/G pickles
Mono-blue pickles
Korlash control
I know I'm forgeting some

Now some of these ran wrath and damnation some didn't and after 10th a few more decks popped up. Now when we take out ravnica whats left?

Lorwyn/Shadowmoor turned the meta into an aggro format and as such all of the control decks vanished.

tfunk1940 · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 64

it seems like thats the problem though. i don't like playing aggro at all, so i find this format really boring. i was always a huge fan of the tron decks and the dralnu deck, but now i just feel that i am always so far behind in every game i play if i try to play a control deck.

Shagrath · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 212

Dont forget elves

TugaChampion · Joined: 26 Jan 2006 Posts: 419

Martyrtron and any other deck abusing martyr of the sands are a disgrace to magic. Martyr of the sands should have never be printed.

And I don't see why people complain. Control has dominated magic for years except when affinity was broken. A change once in a while doesn't hurt at all. The best players can play control, aggro and combo not just one.

Stucco · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 563

Cheers to the letter! It was certainly enjoyable Very Happy

Orlandu · Joined: 25 Sep 2004 Posts: 197

Interesting enough, whether control decks are amazing at the time or not, an aggro deck has won every standard pro tour (not counting worlds, obviously.).

shadow483 · Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 57

On that note, at worlds last year there was one blue based control deck and that was a mannequin deck that lost to peleg in semis.

Avata · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 376

Souljah · Joined: 05 Oct 2004 Posts: 226

Hands down the only reason those cards are bad is because of man lands. Wrath and damnation aren't very good when you're opponent is attacking for 6 the turn after you cast it. Both cards are also horrible against faeries, the biggest deck in t2.

Manipulation · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 294 Location: Oxnard