From the Director's Chair: How powerful is Overrun in limited?

19th July 2011

Link reblogged from From the Director's Chair with 23 notes

From the Director's Chair: How powerful is Overrun in limited? →

A few weeks ago, I got into a reasonably-friendly back-and-forth on Twitter with Marshall Sutcliffe (@MarshallLRCast), host of the “Limited Resources” podcast, about the fact that Overrun was reprinted in M12 at uncommon.

In his second post on tumblr, Aaron Forsythe explains why he considers Overrun to be a fair card to be placed in M12.

Many people have shared their distaste for Overrun from a Limited standpoint, as when it is played its caster generally wins the game on that turn. Although this is true, that doesn’t mean that this card is overpowered. Sure, you only play this card when it wins you the game, but I have played countless Limtied games where I just held Overrun in my hand and was beat down. It’s a very good card, but it’s far from overpowered.

Compare Overrun to Mind Control. In most situations that you play Overrun, Mind Control will also be good enough to win you the game. Both break stalemates and both essentially remove blockers. Mind Control can be played no matter what the board position is, and it will always remove an opponent’s biggest threat while giving you the biggest creature on the board.

I guess the reason losing to Overrun hurts more is because it comes out of nowhere. One spell and the whole game is over unexpectedly. When you get Mind Control played on you, you’ve still usually got a turn or two to draw cards and play spells before you lose. You don’t really feel like it came out of nowhere and you don’t always realize that Mind Control took over the game as much as it did.

Tagged: mtg Magic the Gathering

Source: mtgaaron

M:t Gathering

From the Director's Chair: How powerful is Overrun in limited? →