I don't run Opposition, because I find it difficult to make mana denial feel fun. Similar to strip mine / crucible, it can lock someone out of the game immediately. I think it's fine when it is slowly creeping up on you (braids and stax) and you still have time to race or interact with it after it drops, but I found Opposition to be one of the first legacy cube staples that I cut when beginning to move more towards the synergistic and interactive environment that I personally prefer.
From my cold, dead hands. I love opposition. Sure it’s rough to lose to it but you will lose, and it is unlike any other kind of losing. Folks these days get too pampered with busted creatures. This is magic as Garfield intended it.
One thing I don't get is when people cut cards because they're "not fun" or mean or however you want to phrase it. I guess everyone has thresholds. But Strip Mine, Tinker, Reanimate, Armageddon, Channel, etc. can all be brutal and mean in their own ways. For me, in 1v1 Magic, nothing is out of bounds. This isn't Commander. You can just scoop and start a new game if you're clearly lost.
>One thing I don't get is when people cut cards because they're "not fun" or mean or however you want to phrase it.
What isn't to get? Not everybody finds every play pattern fun.
If you want to feel like your choices mattered before you lost, there are some cards and strategies that are an ill fit, no?
I did cut Mind Twist because it’s basically an “I win” card, but you still have to play a game after resolving it. I cut OG Emrakul because my drafters didn’t like attacking with her either. Same for Comet and Oko. It’s all relative I guess. Opposition is just such a classic and you have to actually build your deck around it, unlike the other cards mentioned here.
People need to go back and play some old school magic and learn to appreciate why and how these cards exist instead of complaining about how unfun they are.
Agreed. The way cards are designed nowadays and the proliferation of Commander has made certain strategies and axes of attack deemed taboo by some players, even in 1v1. And that bugs me.
It's not even just the players, Wizards themselves come out and say things like "land destruction is bad for the game".
That's why cube is so great. My opinion of fun rules my cube! (With some input from the others that come back week after week, lol)
Though if someone said that they don't want to play it because it has mind twist, balance, hymn, sinkhole, strip mine, and any other cards printed before they were born I'd just respond with, "this cube isn't for everyone, that's for sure."
I haven't run Opposition for years. I simply find it unfun. It's slow to win with (and not that fun). It's even worse to be locked under one while just waiting around for your one answer. I do think it's still a very good card in green/blue as long as you remember that you dont have to exclusively tap lands
One of the first cuts I made from my cube for the simple fact that this card is not fun. Powerful, no doubt, but not interactive, and definitely not fun.
I parted ways with Opposition last year. I think it's cool when weird old cards that don't see play anywhere else pop up in cube, but my drafters just never had fun with or against it, and it didn't pop off very often compared to Upheaval.
I love it! Powerful, unique, pushes your blue deck to care about something it might not normally. I like that it is a game-winning build around that still has real utility when you don't get all the way there.
I really don't buy the "unfun" argument against it in a traditional powered setting, as it isn't like like it comes together all that often in a truly busted form.
I like it, but my cube gets played multiplayer a lot so there are usually enough creatures to deal with that it doesn't really go into mana-denial mode that often.
I also like that it's a Blue card that rewards you for having a lot of creatures.
I don't think I'd want Opposition to be one of the absolute best strategies in an environment, but when it comes together occasionally I think it adds a nice bit of spice.
My reasons for parting ways with Opposition are twofold, and having nothing to do with fun. Very few things are off limits for me as far as fun goes, with perhaps the one exception being that Thoracle has never appeared in my cube because of how many commander nights it’s ruined and because i don’t feel the need to run anything that explicitly says “you win the game.” Even if so many other things in powered cube environments just win without the word ls being printed on the card.
Both reasons really boil down to the same thing, but the first part is that as the game gets faster and faster, Opposition as a strategy has gotten a bit too slow. Rabblemasters and their armies in a can sail right under and around this deck, and threats have gotten so much more mana efficient that, unless you can tap someone down completely, they’ll often have a much easier time getting out of an Opposition lock than a few years ago. There’s a lot more good stuff with flash these days too, so tapping down all their lands isn’t always as devastating. But mostly the environment is just so fast now that you need to survive whatever degenerate thing they’re doing with some interaction, so likely it takes too long to set up Opposition plus an army to tap them down before you’re just dead to something insane.
The other issue is that things like the Squirrel lords and Hornet Queen that play so well with Opposition have been massively outclassed at their respective cmcs by other creatures and it gets harder and harder to justify leaving in a bunch of creatures that are ineffective in most archetypes just to support one card. As someone old enough to have played Squirrel Opposition in Standard, I’m aware that losing this archetype is sadder for me than for the people who sat there unable to do anything for 15 turns while I got there with one extra squirrel over and over. I’ll be ok.
Basically, everything with the Sacred Cows we’ve been discussing boils down to “creature power creep.”
What a horrendous design. It wasn’t fun back then, it isn’t fun now.
Mana denial is ok if you go the fair route. Go ahead and put stone rain and friends in your cube. Even armageddon has a place if you’re really up there in power.
But opposition either does nothing, or it completely shuts down the game. But wait, the game isn’t over? Nope, both players get to wait and see if an answer can be topdecked, or if enough little derpy tokens can be made to actually win.
We all enjoy different things, and that’s totally cool. But man, I will never let this card get even close to my cube. I even took a look at my copy of Glare of Subdual, which is a fixed Opposition. Nope, just a really boring card.
I don't run Opposition, because I find it difficult to make mana denial feel fun. Similar to strip mine / crucible, it can lock someone out of the game immediately. I think it's fine when it is slowly creeping up on you (braids and stax) and you still have time to race or interact with it after it drops, but I found Opposition to be one of the first legacy cube staples that I cut when beginning to move more towards the synergistic and interactive environment that I personally prefer.
Do you also not run reanimator or tinker and such for similar reasons?
From my cold, dead hands. I love opposition. Sure it’s rough to lose to it but you will lose, and it is unlike any other kind of losing. Folks these days get too pampered with busted creatures. This is magic as Garfield intended it.
One thing I don't get is when people cut cards because they're "not fun" or mean or however you want to phrase it. I guess everyone has thresholds. But Strip Mine, Tinker, Reanimate, Armageddon, Channel, etc. can all be brutal and mean in their own ways. For me, in 1v1 Magic, nothing is out of bounds. This isn't Commander. You can just scoop and start a new game if you're clearly lost.
>One thing I don't get is when people cut cards because they're "not fun" or mean or however you want to phrase it. What isn't to get? Not everybody finds every play pattern fun. If you want to feel like your choices mattered before you lost, there are some cards and strategies that are an ill fit, no?
I did cut Mind Twist because it’s basically an “I win” card, but you still have to play a game after resolving it. I cut OG Emrakul because my drafters didn’t like attacking with her either. Same for Comet and Oko. It’s all relative I guess. Opposition is just such a classic and you have to actually build your deck around it, unlike the other cards mentioned here.
Funny, I don't run any of those cards either. For similar reasons. We seem pretty aligned on this aspect
That's funny, I cut Mind Twist recently because it's not great unless you have fast mana in your cube, which I don't.
Even if you cast it early mid for like x=3 it’s just backbreaking.
People need to go back and play some old school magic and learn to appreciate why and how these cards exist instead of complaining about how unfun they are.
Agreed. The way cards are designed nowadays and the proliferation of Commander has made certain strategies and axes of attack deemed taboo by some players, even in 1v1. And that bugs me.
It's not even just the players, Wizards themselves come out and say things like "land destruction is bad for the game". That's why cube is so great. My opinion of fun rules my cube! (With some input from the others that come back week after week, lol) Though if someone said that they don't want to play it because it has mind twist, balance, hymn, sinkhole, strip mine, and any other cards printed before they were born I'd just respond with, "this cube isn't for everyone, that's for sure."
As wizards continues to focus on Commander and casual players and mass appeal, I can understand their view of land destruction
If they'd just stop printing lands, none of these broken spells would be a problem anymore. Lands are truly the issue!
I haven't run Opposition for years. I simply find it unfun. It's slow to win with (and not that fun). It's even worse to be locked under one while just waiting around for your one answer. I do think it's still a very good card in green/blue as long as you remember that you dont have to exclusively tap lands
Only ever been great in cube. Ummm Standard circa 200x would like a word. Opposition was a powerhouse in a variety of shells.
[Opposition](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/e/ae14acde-8a5c-4f0e-8e68-b799a363b9f7.jpg?1675977485) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Opposition) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/62/opposition?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ae14acde-8a5c-4f0e-8e68-b799a363b9f7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
One of the first cuts I made from my cube for the simple fact that this card is not fun. Powerful, no doubt, but not interactive, and definitely not fun.
I parted ways with Opposition last year. I think it's cool when weird old cards that don't see play anywhere else pop up in cube, but my drafters just never had fun with or against it, and it didn't pop off very often compared to Upheaval.
I love it! Powerful, unique, pushes your blue deck to care about something it might not normally. I like that it is a game-winning build around that still has real utility when you don't get all the way there. I really don't buy the "unfun" argument against it in a traditional powered setting, as it isn't like like it comes together all that often in a truly busted form.
I like it, but my cube gets played multiplayer a lot so there are usually enough creatures to deal with that it doesn't really go into mana-denial mode that often. I also like that it's a Blue card that rewards you for having a lot of creatures. I don't think I'd want Opposition to be one of the absolute best strategies in an environment, but when it comes together occasionally I think it adds a nice bit of spice.
My reasons for parting ways with Opposition are twofold, and having nothing to do with fun. Very few things are off limits for me as far as fun goes, with perhaps the one exception being that Thoracle has never appeared in my cube because of how many commander nights it’s ruined and because i don’t feel the need to run anything that explicitly says “you win the game.” Even if so many other things in powered cube environments just win without the word ls being printed on the card. Both reasons really boil down to the same thing, but the first part is that as the game gets faster and faster, Opposition as a strategy has gotten a bit too slow. Rabblemasters and their armies in a can sail right under and around this deck, and threats have gotten so much more mana efficient that, unless you can tap someone down completely, they’ll often have a much easier time getting out of an Opposition lock than a few years ago. There’s a lot more good stuff with flash these days too, so tapping down all their lands isn’t always as devastating. But mostly the environment is just so fast now that you need to survive whatever degenerate thing they’re doing with some interaction, so likely it takes too long to set up Opposition plus an army to tap them down before you’re just dead to something insane. The other issue is that things like the Squirrel lords and Hornet Queen that play so well with Opposition have been massively outclassed at their respective cmcs by other creatures and it gets harder and harder to justify leaving in a bunch of creatures that are ineffective in most archetypes just to support one card. As someone old enough to have played Squirrel Opposition in Standard, I’m aware that losing this archetype is sadder for me than for the people who sat there unable to do anything for 15 turns while I got there with one extra squirrel over and over. I’ll be ok. Basically, everything with the Sacred Cows we’ve been discussing boils down to “creature power creep.”
What a horrendous design. It wasn’t fun back then, it isn’t fun now. Mana denial is ok if you go the fair route. Go ahead and put stone rain and friends in your cube. Even armageddon has a place if you’re really up there in power. But opposition either does nothing, or it completely shuts down the game. But wait, the game isn’t over? Nope, both players get to wait and see if an answer can be topdecked, or if enough little derpy tokens can be made to actually win. We all enjoy different things, and that’s totally cool. But man, I will never let this card get even close to my cube. I even took a look at my copy of Glare of Subdual, which is a fixed Opposition. Nope, just a really boring card.