Funny to read those WoTC comments when this is the most reprinted Alpha card with nineteen reprints. Giant Growth has only eighteen reprints.
But then again GG will be reprinted many more times when it seems that SR is dead as a Dodo.
Posted By:
tavaritz
(5/22/2011 2:41:43 AM)
You can put this in any Red deck. It never fails to be useful.
Posted By:
Mulmaster
(3/19/2010 3:54:35 AM)
How many players have cursed because of this card over the years?
Posted By:
joemercer
(10/14/2010 5:17:15 PM)
Aaron’s Random Card Comment of the Day #58, 1/19/11
Yes, I know this entry is out of order numerically. That's what happens when I switch between my home and work machines. Anyway...
As much as this card was a part of the first several years of Magic, R&D really doesn't like it any more. Trust me, I tried putting it in some number of recent Core Sets--you know, poke the bear and all that--and it never works out. Blowing up lands for the sake of preventing spells from being cast is pretty frustrating.
I know how it all works. I won a fair bit of money playing mana-denial decks featuring obnoxious stuff like Rishadan Port and Plow Under. I've had opponents scoop without ever casting a spell. At that particular point in time, that type of play actually felt noble because if you let the top-tier decks in Standard get to four or five lands, they'd start casting things like Replenish, Opposition/... (see all)
Posted By:
Aaron_Forsythe
(1/20/2011 12:59:55 AM)
Land Destruction at its finest... and vanillaist...
Posted By:
Gako
(10/12/2009 3:07:43 PM)
Has no one at R&D seriously ever thought of THIS as an alternative?
Stone Flood
Sorcery, 3R
Destroy target land. Stone Flood deals 1 damage to each creature the land's controller controls.
I mean, Stone Rain's original art shows people being damaged! Seriously, someone MUST have had this idea; why was the card never printed? Instead we get Seismic Spike, a card that I tried so VERY hard to like for its awesome flavor, but which just plain wasn't ever even remotely usable (at least not back when there was mana burn!).
Originally posted 06/05/11.
EDIT - Dark Ascension shows something close to what I was proposing in Scorch the Fields, though it's tribe-specific and overpriced.
Posted By:
willpell
(1/28/2012 12:35:56 AM)
I joined Wizards of the Coast in March of 2007. 10th Edition was already at the printers, but I hadn't seen it yet. My first weekend there was a crash course of the next several months of Magic -- here's Future Sight! Here's Lorwyn! Here's 10th Edition! -- and I'm flipping through and I notice that Stone Rain was gone. Wait, Stone Rain was gone?!
That Monday, my second week in the pit, I got into a heated discussion about how horrible it was that Stone Rain was being killed from Magic. "Shouldn't Red have the ability to be control, too?" I was so very sure that I was right.
I wasn't right. Stone Rain can't cost three mana -- because it will always be able to be cast on turn 2 with green's help. And when I Stone Rain your only land, you can't possibly be having fun.
WotC has taken several steps towards making usable Land Destruction since then -- Fulminator Mage is as close to "powerful" as you are likely to see, and even he is out of Standard for a while... (see all)
Posted By:
Andrea2s1
(1/20/2011 5:18:34 AM)
Usually fails to be useful in a multiplayer free-for-all, actually.
Posted By:
Kryptnyt
(2/28/2011 9:15:57 PM)
For God's sake, WOTC, just reprint this freaking card.
I know that Mark Rosewater has said Power creep isn't real and all that jazz (which is so stupid a statement it hurts), but you have a deck like Tempered Steel running around and doing major damage to people... and the deck doesn't ever even want to have to play a 4th land.
The point is that Stone rain has never been very good as a weak subtheme and only used at all in a fairly dedicated LD deck.
Well... you couldn't even play such a deck nowadays.
Thanks to your stupid Titans on the high end, the other spectrum has to be ABSURDLY fast beatdown decks (or a combo deck that can win on turn 4 or whatever). A card like Stone Rain just won't ever even work at all in such a format. This would have been the perfect time to bring back Stone Rain.
Posted By:
Malachorn
(8/1/2011 8:47:15 AM)