Note this is copy and pasted from The Geek Show forums but future articles will be written fresh.
Just click the words to see the cards, saves you having to load a million pictures.
Now way back when in Magic's dark past there was a cycle of cards printed which has caused more smug faces and angry words than almost any other.
They were printed from Alpha through to 8th Edition and they were commons almost the whole time.
They can totally negate some decks and require little to no thought to use normally.
Infact there was a popular tournament deck which just 4 copies of those 5 cards, 20 lands, some board clearers and 4 Serra Angels, hell if you go far back enough there is a varient that ran 4 of each, 1 Serra Angel and 19 Lands.
I'm talking about Circles of Protection, or CoP for short, and it's varients.
There's currently 20 different CoP-like cards in print and I'm going to cover the best, worst and inbetween along with why they annoy me and so many others.
The originals all follow the same simple rule 1W for an Enchantment which prevents damage from the named color for 1. Blue and White are argueably useful but are still good for preventing face beatings. But the Black, Green and Red Circles were worth more than their weight in gold. Combined with the fact that you could put multiple instances of their ability on the stack and prevent future damage that turn if they were destroyed ment tricksy tournament monkeys could annoy you even when the card was gone.
If I had 10p for every time my goblin deck lost because of that DAMM ENCHANTMENT AND DANNY'S SMUG GRIN I'd be a rich man. Considering mono-red has all of 7 ways to deal with it back then, none of which I owned. You can imagine how much fun games were when they tended to run like this:
My Turn 1: Play a Mountain then either a Bolt, a Shock or a Raging Goblin and Swing for up to 3 damage.
His Turn 1: Play a Plains and Heal the Damage.
My Turn 2: Play a Mountain then either something I've already played up to twice or Volcanic Hammer, Vaishino Sandscout, Goblin Raider, Goblin Warbuggy, Goblin Piker, Goblin Bully, Incinerate or Goblin Glider and Swing for up to 6 damage but usually 2-4.
His Turn 2: Play a Plains and Drop CoP:Red.
My Turn 3: Proclaim BOLLOCKS loudly. Play a Mountain and then either something I've already listed or Ghitu Slinger, Goblin Medics, Goblin Matron, Goblin War Drums, Goblin Chariot or Goblin General and swing for maybe 6 damage or sometimes as high as 8.
His Turn 3: Play a Plains and proceed to lock me out of the game until he could play his Serra Angel and win.....
EVERY DAMM TIME. I later realised he used to cheat like a mad man but at the time it was the most frustrating thing you can imagine.
For anyone who enjoys beating face like I did then having to think your way around a CoP is frustrating in the extreme. I know I could have beaten him in a variety of ways but it never occured to my tiny moley brain that there was a way to do it.
Fortunately Wizards realised that as it stood CoP basically covered all the bases. They expanded it a little to protect against a couple of other things like Shadow and Artifacts so all was right with the world.
Prismatic Circle was printed, allowing the odd player to put a single CoP into their deck to cover a shortfall but mostly it didn't see play due to it's increased cost and Cumulative Upkeep making it nigh on impossible to keep on the table against an opponent with half a brain.
Righteous Aura allowed blanket protection but at the cost of life, useful against big one-off spells and creatures but useless in the long run, this was another card that rarely saw play but can still be annoying at the right time.
In the Urza block Wizards decided to change up the CoP idea and created the Runes of Protection which covered just about everything, cost the same, could be cycled to draw cards if they're dead space and the only draw back was they have a cost of W instead of 1 to activate. Not really that much of a draw back in a mono white deck, they also completed the sphere of total immunity for white allowing them to protect against Red, Green, White, Blue, Black, Artifacts and even Lands randomly. Other than some dodgy art I replaced my CoPs with these once they were printed and never looked back.
Wizards seemed to think that people didn't like CoPs enough so they printed the ultimate CoP. Story Circle. It allowed the canny white player to protect against whatever his opponent was playing just by naming a colour. It has also had some of the best art for a CoP in it's various printings....ignoring the original print. This card has been a sideboard staple whenever it's been legal for those decks that want protection against big aggro decks and mono-colour beats. This is basically as good as it gets for CoPs.
Rhystic Circle and Protective Sphere are the also-rans of the CoP world, conditional costs and life loss basically makes them annoyances rather than anything else so other than the odd sealed deck that needed an extra card they have basically never seen competitive play.
So there we have it, one of the things that nearly made me quit magic as a newbie. What do you people thing? Circles of Protection are the greatest thing ever? Too overpowered? Coasters at best? Post in this thread and see what others think.
Blimey, it's been so long since I played magic, I forgot half the stuff that was ever in it!
ReplyDeleteI never actually used CoPs, but then again my decks were never particularly cunning. I just used to play whatever cards I liked the look of. I do remember playing you at the final of a sealed deck tournament at Dreamdealers some years ago though!
You were jammy enough to get an Iridecent Angel, which I thought I had no defence against. I only realised later that I had the perfect defence sitting on the side in the form of an Artefact that deal something like X damage to the next creature to attack you (or something)! Doh!
Ironically mate the topic of this Friday's update is exactly that, the importance of knowing every aspect of the game you're playing.
ReplyDeleteI christ I remember that tourny, I believe Andy still tells people I cheated when he forgot I cast Moments Peace preventing all combat damage for the turn and he did some massive combo to oneshot me......which was prevented. Once again, knowing what's going on is very important, if not the most important thing.