[Article] Unlocking Legacy - A History of the Flash Fiasco

[AnwarA101]

This Machinus' latest article for SCG and I agree with virtually all of his statements.

The article (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14244.html)



If you play the format, it is essential that you engage Wizards of the Coast about how to proceed. In order to ensure that proper care is taken, we must be critical in our analysis of the format and of policy, and we have to provide feedback to those with power.


But I'm curious about how do we engage Wizards of the Coast? Do people like Aaron Forsythe read emails from players? How can players convey the gravity of the problem that Flash causes for the format?

[Tha Gunslinga]

But I'm curious about how do we engage Wizards of the Coast?

Email them.


Do people like Aaron Forsythe read emails from players?

Yes; I just got a response to my email from a few days ago. Let's just say things are going to change around here.

[dre4m]

This is probably the best article on the post-GP Flash situation I have ever read. Concise, correct, and unflinching, I love it. Of course, there will be people who deny the claims and say that Flash won't kill the format, but I am a stong supporter of what Chris had to say, and it was a great article.

[Eldariel]

Yes; I just got a response to my email from a few days ago. Let's just say things are going to change around here.

Forsythe has stated before that they were getting a lot of flak for Legacy's B&R list, but they hadn't had the chance to contemplate the changes before the previous B&R announcements, so they decided to do a format overhaul come June 1st.

[Horror Business]

I wasn't expecting this for my Thursday, but bravo Chris.
Is there a certain time the B&R list will be posted tomorrow or will it just go up randomly at some point in the day?

[AngryTroll]

Wizards is based in Seattle, so expect it to run on West Coast Time (East Coast - 3 hours....or midnight here is 3am there).

Its a perk of living on the West Coast....SCG puts up new articles at 9, and the B&R changes are around 12, instead of 12 and 3.

[Anarky87]

I thought it was a great article, enjoyed it, and agreed with everything you had to say. Aside from all the unfounded flaming in the forums, this was a superb and solid piece of work. Great job!

[Bardo]

Its a perk of living on the West Coast....SCG puts up new articles at 9, and the B&R changes are around 12, instead of 12 and 3.

For the last couple of cycles they've been pretty lax about posting it at Midnight EST, but given the publicity around the 6/1 update, I think they're going to be on top of it this time.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

This is probably the best article on the post-GP Flash situation I have ever read. Concise, correct, and unflinching, I love it. Of course, there will be people who deny the claims and say that Flash won't kill the format, but I am a stong supporter of what Chris had to say, and it was a great article.

I would say the Flores article is still better, but this was good.

A few things were ungenerous;

"To those who do not play Legacy regularly, the power and degeneracy of Flash is not obvious" is unfair to many, like Sadin and Flores, who recognized broken for what it was. While there were a few pundits in articles and on various forums trying to play off Flash as "fair", they were more vocal than actually numerous.

[Machinus]

A few things were ungenerous;

"To those who do not play Legacy regularly, the power and degeneracy of Flash is not obvious" is unfair to many, like Sadin and Flores, who recognized broken for what it was. While there were a few pundits in articles and on various forums trying to play off Flash as "fair", they were more vocal than actually numerous.

I am aware that some people understood the format before the event. I'm not saying no one did; I'm just saying it wasn't obvious if you haven't played Legacy. Sadin and Flores worked on the problem and arrived at the right answer.

[Volt]

Great article. Terrific, really. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of format we have tomorrow.

[Maldur Sven Vedukor]

Very good article. I completely agree with Chris.

[Tacosnape]

While I strongly disagree on there being more than three or four cards that deserve unbanning, the rest of this article is sound. The use of timelines was brilliant, as was calling out the misrepresentation of our format.

I think the fundamental point that Chris tapped on all along but never quite seized was that nobody in power to determine the B/R list seems to follow Legacy. I have a strong feeling this is why cards like Dream Halls remain banned while Flash and Empty the Warrens go free.

Debates abound over certain cards, but I think pretty much everyone's in agreement with the B&R list changing as follows:

BAN:
Flash

UNBAN:
Dream Halls
Mind Over Matter

Flash breaks the format. Dream Halls and Mind Over Matter are nearly unplayable due to their prohibitive costs. I certainly haven't heard anyone make any strong disagreement to these three changes.

There are some other propositions that aren't universally agreed upon, but are picking up steam nonetheless. These are:

BAN:
Empty the Warrens
Lion's Eye Diamond

UNBAN:
Replenish
Entomb
Land Tax

Regardless of personal stances (I'm for ETW, Entomb, and Land Tax all being/staying banned for eternity, LED staying legal, and unsure about Replenish), there need to be a couple of level-headed people in the DCI who sit around and try to seriously break all the cards listed in the current metagame. There's far too much nervousness in chaning the B/R list.

However, I think the call will be responded to sooner than later. Don't be surprised if as many as four cards wind up on the banned list and anywhere from four to six cards end up unbanned tomorrow. But don't count on anything happening other than Flash biting the dust, either.

[Drathro]

My gut reaction was, "Why the heck do we need yet another Flash article?" Then I realized the timing of this article sucks, with the format completely up in the air until tomorrow, so I guess another Flash article is as good as anything else at the moment.



Debates abound over certain cards, but I think pretty much everyone's in agreement with the B&R list changing as follows:
[...]
UNBAN:
Dream Halls
[...]

Hmmm... I guess I'm in the minority in this one. Admittedly without a concrete reason, unbanned Dream Halls seems like a bad idea to me, seeing as how it's, you know, Blue and all. On the other hand, I already own a playset, so, hey, whatever.

[Tom LaPille]

I replied to this article on the star city forums, and I wanted to repost it here too:


Chris, you seem to position yourself in articles like this as a kind of mouthpiece for Legacy. However, your attitude in these articles is one that shows extreme disrespect for anyone who is not part of the "Legacy Community," whatever that is, and you seem to be very afraid of any change. If you want to attract new players to your community, your articles need to be both more respectful to newcomers and more open to the change that will happen in a format when new people start playing it.

I think that you do a disservice to your adopted format with articles written in this tone and with this message. By comparison, Steve Menendian is an excellent representative from the world of vintage to the rest of Magic. His articles convey a sense of wonder and exploration about the format, and he embraces the inevitable changes that occur when new cards are printed and the format is explored by players new to it. This is in very direct contrast to your attitude; you seem to think that players new to legacy need to serve some kind of apprenticeship to learn the format before they should be allowed to innovate, and you really hate it when someone ignores that process and writes about legacy without going through your process. If you want to bring new players to your format, that's great, but you should be more welcoming of their ideas and more receptive to changes that will inevitably occur. If you don't want changes to happen to your format, then stop promoting it and you will get exactly what you desire.

It sickens me that everyone here is happy with this article. I found it to be extremely condescending to those who are not legacy specialists and to imply that any significant change in the legacy metagame that is not "approved" by the Legacy Community(tm) to be a disaster. This is very off-putting to the rest of us. If you don't want non-specialists to change your format, why the hell are you promoting it at all? Keep it tightly under wraps and you will get the stagnant metagame that you seem to want.

[Nightmare]

I replied to this article on the star city forums, and I wanted to repost it here too:



It sickens me that everyone here is happy with this article. I found it to be extremely condescending to those who are not legacy specialists and to imply that any significant change in the legacy metagame that is not "approved" by the Legacy Community(tm) to be a disaster. This is very off-putting to the rest of us. If you don't want non-specialists to change your format, why the hell are you promoting it at all? Keep it tightly under wraps and you will get the stagnant metagame that you seem to want.The most important part of your quoted message, and one you should have focused on, is that Chris tends to think he speaks for the format. Neither he, nor any other individual, does so, and Chris you really need to stop imagining that you do. It's extremely detrimental to both you and the format to continue this delusion.

[Finn]

Tom, even if Chris came off too strong (he did), I still want someone speaking out about the huge annoyance this entire thing has been to us. I think that his article was about two different things. Most people don't care about who wrote what, and which big shots said what to whom. We really just want to be sure Flash gets the boot.

@Mr.N, He does do this. So do a few other people, which can be a problem if these people are too obtuse. In this case, I am with him, atleast about how upset I am about Flash.

[AnwarA101]

It sickens me that everyone here is happy with this article. I found it to be extremely condescending to those who are not legacy specialists and to imply that any significant change in the legacy metagame that is not "approved" by the Legacy Community(tm) to be a disaster. This is very off-putting to the rest of us. If you don't want non-specialists to change your format, why the hell are you promoting it at all? Keep it tightly under wraps and you will get the stagnant metagame that you seem to want.

I think most of his dissatisfaction is directed at Wizards and the poor way they handled Flash's power-level errata.

What part are you unhappy with? Perhaps its the part, "Misrepresenting Legacy"? I think that part was directed at pretty much anyone who was saying that Flash was okay for Legacy. Anyone who has played the format would realize that Flash instantly became the best deck overnight and there is very little debating that considering what happened at GP Columbus. But there were people who were actively giving the impression that it was just fine. Its this type of misrepresentation that simply shouldn't be allowed to go unanswered. People like Mike Flores and Steve Sadin have agreed that Flash is way over the line for something in Legacy. I don't see how that is an insider vs. outsider issue? Perhaps you can explain it to me.

[Bardo]

To be fair, Chris is not saying "change is bad," categorically. He is objecting to the fact that the format was very confusingly (to be kind) or viciously (to be less so) turned on its head immediately prior to the largest Legacy event in the last 17 months.

I take the position that we're just arguing about a card game, awesome as it may be, and people need to chill out some, on all sides. Unless you can support yourself on tourney winnings, which very, very, very people can profitably do--this is a hobby, right?


I don't see how that is an insider vs. outsider issue?

You might be too close to see it. ;)

[Tom LaPille]

I believe that Chris failed to make that point becuase he was too busy spewing constant hyperbole and xenophobia. When I was done with the article, I was thinking about how reactionary and childish Chris's attitude was and how depressingly similar it was to the attitude of various other people who would assume the title of Legacy Spokesperson, not that Flash was too good. If you want to get your message about Flash made, you need to find a messenger who is not wildly confrontational and off-putting in tone.

EDIT: I used "childish" twice, which is bad style. Changed second instance of it to "off-putting".

[Pale Moon FTW]

It's funny to see how almost everyone here seems to like it while almost everyone at SCG disagrees with it.
I thought it was kind of meh. Didn't really get anything out of reading it, it seemed a little too whiny to be interesting. I don't like an article which is just whining and accusations amied at DCI (which most of the time, I think are unjustified), when reading an article I want to get new information, broaden my horizon or improve my play skill or know just something I didn't already and that article did nothing. Just an outburst from an angry player, many like it because they agree and are mad too, but the actual contents of the article are kind of lacking.
Don't get me wrong, I really want Flash to be banned... But that's just not a good article.

[Volt]

I take the position that we're just arguing about a card game, awesome as it may be, and people need to chill out some, on all sides. Unless you can support yourself on tourney winnings, which very, very, very people can profitably do--this is a hobby, right?

Although you never used the specific words, you are basically applying the old "In the grand scheme of things..." argument. I find it irksome when people employ this reasoning because, really, it can be endlessly extrapolated and applied to anything. After all, we're all just dust in the wind, and in a thousand years we'll all be long forgotten. In a billion years, the Earth will be a dried up husk. And the Earth is just a tiny speck in the vastity of the universe, anyway. Sigh. Why bother being passionate about anything?

Anyway, getting back to the matter at hand... It's not like we're rioting in the streets, throwing rocks, and knife-fighting. There's nothing wrong with a good amount of healthy argumentation.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I replied to this article on the star city forums, and I wanted to repost it here too:



It sickens me that everyone here is happy with this article. I found it to be extremely condescending to those who are not legacy specialists and to imply that any significant change in the legacy metagame that is not "approved" by the Legacy Community(tm) to be a disaster. This is very off-putting to the rest of us. If you don't want non-specialists to change your format, why the hell are you promoting it at all? Keep it tightly under wraps and you will get the stagnant metagame that you seem to want.

There's a difference between being against any change and being against change that is obviously damaging. I'm not aware of too many people, besides apparently Tacosnape, who were upset that Empty the Warrens based combo was becoming a top contender in Legacy, because that deck is more or less fair. You might consider banning LED, but I for one wouldn't want to ban EtW itself, as it merely makes the archetype viable, not broken.

But Flash didn't "change the metagame"; it destroyed the metagame.

For comparison, take Karsten's review of metagame decisions from his last article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/fk41). Columbus was a field approximately 70% "anti-Flash", with at most only 20% being random aggro/combo decks Hulk-Flash will completely annihilate. But Hulk-Flash was in reality still the correct choice because it consistently beat most of the decks designed to hate it. If most metagames are like rock-paper-scissors, then Flash is like reality; in reality, rock smashes scissors and then it smashes paper, because it's a fucking rock.

[Peter_Rotten]

There was a time that I was hesitant to voice negative opinions about any Legacy articles; I figured that we had such a dearth of material that any press was good press. However, with the weekly articles from SCG (thank you!) and the May's support from WotC (and Flash), I'm not as gun shy about criticizing a Legacy piece.

I feel a bit of the same way that Tom LaPille feels. The article seemed a little over the top - slightly arrogant and much too accusatory. Tom, don't be sickened :frown: . Not everyone here was happy with the article.

Ultimately, I hope that tomorrow brings Flash's banning so we can move on from this whole May Flash debacle.

[Bardo]

Although you never used the specific words, you are basically applying the old "In the grand scheme of things..." argument. I find it irksome when people employ this reasoning because, really, it can be endlessly extrapolated and applied to anything. After all, we're all just dust in the wind, and in a thousand years we'll all be long forgotten. In a billion years, the Earth will be a dried up husk. And the Earth is just a tiny speck in the vastity of the universe, anyway. Sigh. Why bother being passionate about anything?

I'm using my terms in a reasonable manner. My comments should not be read or extropolated to think I passively condone murder, rape and general mayhem because we're just "dust in the wind" blowing around a cold and indifferent Universe. I am simply stating: "Have some perspective and relax."


Anyway, getting back to the matter at hand... It's not like we're rioting in the streets, throwing rocks, and knife-fighting. There's nothing wrong with a good amount of healthy argumentation.

I would not describe the arguments in the SCG forums for this article as "healthy," in any sense that I would or have used that word.

[Anarky87]

If Flash was 10% of the attendance (I've heard 10% tossed around a lot), that means 88 people were playing the deck. The other 90% were decks attempting to beat Flash, or decks that didn't care about their chances. So about 794. With only 88 people playing Flash and fighting through 794 decks of hate, it still managed to compose almost 50% of the T8. Out of the other 794 decks, only a pathetic 5 (a little more than half a percent) managed to barely crack 50%. Then Flash goes on a rampage and destroys the Top 8 to come home with the gold.

With 5 Non-Flash decks to the 3 Flash decks, the Non-Flash decks had better chances of pulling it out, considering Flash was a completely "fair deck, and if you hear otherwise, that's a load of crap." That's what pisses me off most and why I believe Chris has merit. To sit there before the GP, writing articles that tried to play off Flash as anything but a fucking atom bomb to the format was an absurdity. While Chris does have the tendencies to go on the attack, I think some people are still being equally ignorant about this whole situation.

This isn't about, "Oh, Legacy players are whiny bitches because they can't cope with a format change before an event." This is about dumping a deck into the format that's strictly better (there's literally no argument to say otherwise) than any other deck. And it proved its power by being the minority deck of the tournament, and still crushing everything it came across, putting up better numbers than every other deck in the format.

What irks me more is this whole, "There's no such thing as bad press." shit. Do people out there actually buy that? If your name is in the headlines all over the nation and in the news about being an avid child molester, do you actually believe things are looking good for you because, "There's no such thing as bad press"? It's not about Legacy getting mentioned or making article news, it's the reason Legacy is making the headlines. People whined about how Legacy was only a '3 Deck Format,'....And...how did Flash change that exactly and make it a good thing? Now we have a Flash, Anti-Flash, and decks that beat Anti-Flash. Seems kinda like a Big 3 to me...

That's all I have to say about this crap. I'll be glad when the changes come tomorrow and put aside this garbage and we can all go back to playing cards.

[Volt]

I'm using my terms in a reasonable manner. My comments should not be read or extropolated to think I passively condone murder, rape and general mayhem because we're just "dust in the wind" blowing around a cold and indifferent Universe. I am simply stating: "Have some perspective and relax."

I would not describe the arguments in the SCG forums for this article as "healthy," in any sense that I would or have used that word.

Well, "reasonable" in not easily quantifiable. I would grudgingly agree that "murder, rape and general mayhem" are not reasonable. However, I think debate - even heated debate - is perfectly reasonable. Healthy, even.

I just really dislike it when someone jumps into a discussion and says "Hey, get some perspective. There are more important things in the world." Well, yeah, no matter what the topic at hand, there's always something more important. It's an unfair thing to say.

[Tom LaPille]

It mystifies me that everyone is acting so surprised by what happened at the grand prix.

Many legacy players seem to think that magic formats are happy, idyllic places where every card has a right to roam free, and that when this is not the case because one or two best strategies are apparent, something is wrong. This could not possibly be further from the truth.

The idea of a magic format being a happy idyll where every card available holds hands and sings together while the sun shines through rainbows is preposterous. A more appropriate mental image would be a war zone or a wild west frontier town in mid-shootout. In the real world, cards fight tooth and nail with each other for the right to see play, and they see competitive play commensurate with how good they are. This is the natural order of things. When I see a format that looks on the surface like the happy idyll I described above, I smile to myself and anticipate the fallout that will inevitably occur, driving the weakest strategies to extinction.

Before this grand prix, I thought that Legacy had the looks of that happy idyll, and I wondered how long it could last. The fallout finally hit in Columbus. Before the grand prix, one might not be faulted for believing that he could play pretty much any deck in legacy and have a real shot. Since the grand prix, we know that this is not the case. Essentially, two strategies succeeded in Columbus. The first was broken combo, with Flash being the obvious best implementation of that strategy. The other successful strategy was fish, in the sense of small creatures backed by very fast disruption. The two black decks used Wasteland, Duress, and Cabal Therapy; Threshold and UWB Fish use Meddling Mage, Stifle, Daze, Force of Will. All three of these decks are different implementations of the same strategy that end up taking the same role. The "other" successful deck was Goblins, but Owen's goblin deck gets a free pass since it is actually pretty good at playing the fish role against Kiki-Jiki flash.

Whether or not this is "healthy" or "good" or anything, it doesn't surprise me. We all played Legacy that weekend, which means that all kinds of crazy cards were legal. Eventually, something was going to break. It takes an event like a grand prix to motivate people to actually break it, but with so many cards in the environment, something is going to give. When that happens, your options are going to become to either be broken or fight the broken. That is what happened at this grand prix: we found out why the format was broken, and no one who ignored that succeeded. The fact that there is outrage and disappointment with this is what mystifies me.

If there was a vintage grand prix at some point, I would expect the only successful decks to be stupid combo decks that did not interact all that much. Such decks might take the form of Ichorid, or Gifts, or Flash, but they are all just stupid combo decks with disruption backup. It's not likely that a fish or Stax deck could survive fifteen rounds of high-level vintage. This is just what happens when you put every card in play. If a vintage grand prix were run, and the top eight contained all stupid combo decks, any outrage about that would be laughable.

It is true that the Flash errata was handled awkwardly by Wizards. However, I think that even if the broken combo du jour isn't Flash, something like Flash would have been the best deck. Aluren is essentially the same deck, but slower. When that happens, the best ways to fight it are going to be blue counters, black discard, and wasteland. If you don't like that, why are you playing legacy?

My point here is that playing an eternal format seriously is asking for broken to happen. If you want to play a wide-open format in which games are interactive and the cards are often powerful but still somehow fair, may I suggest Extended, Standard or Block Constructed?

[Volt]

My point here is that playing an eternal format seriously is asking for broken to happen. If you want to play a wide-open format in which games are interactive and the cards are often powerful but still somehow fair, may I suggest Extended, Standard or Block Constructed?

Two months ago, Legacy was "a wide-open format in which games are interactive and the cards are often powerful but still somehow fair." Tomorrow, it will be again, so you will have one more format that you can add to your list of suggestions. If the format gets broken again somewhere down the line, we'll worry about it then. I don't accept your Inevitable Destiny Theory.

[Cabal-kun]

I believe that Chris failed to make that point becuase he was too busy spewing constant hyperbole and xenophobia.


It mystifies me that everyone is acting so surprised by what happened at the grand prix.

Many legacy players seem to think that magic formats are happy, idyllic places where every card has a right to roam free, and that when this is not the case because one or two best strategies are apparent, something is wrong. This could not possibly be further from the truth.

The idea of a magic format being a happy idyll where every card available holds hands and sings together while the sun shines through rainbows is preposterous. A more appropriate mental image would be a war zone or a wild west frontier town in mid-shootout. In the real world, cards fight tooth and nail with each other for the right to see play, and they see competitive play commensurate with how good they are. This is the natural order of things. When I see a format that looks on the surface like the happy idyll I described above, I smile to myself and anticipate the fallout that will inevitably occur, driving the weakest strategies to extinction.






Whether or not this is "healthy" or "good" or anything, it doesn't surprise me. We all played Legacy that weekend, which means that all kinds of crazy cards were legal. Eventually, something was going to break. It takes an event like a grand prix to motivate people to actually break it, but with so many cards in the environment, something is going to give. When that happens, your options are going to become to either be broken or fight the broken. That is what happened at this grand prix: we found out why the format was broken, and no one who ignored that succeeded. The fact that there is outrage and disappointment with this is what mystifies me.

If there was a vintage grand prix at some point, I would expect the only successful decks to be stupid combo decks that did not interact all that much. Such decks might take the form of Ichorid, or Gifts, or Flash, but they are all just stupid combo decks with disruption backup. It's not likely that a fish or Stax deck could survive fifteen rounds of high-level vintage. This is just what happens when you put every card in play. If a vintage grand prix were run, and the top eight contained all stupid combo decks, any outrage about that would be laughable.

It is true that the Flash errata was handled awkwardly by Wizards. However, I think that even if the broken combo du jour isn't Flash, something like Flash would have been the best deck. Aluren is essentially the same deck, but slower. When that happens, the best ways to fight it are going to be blue counters, black discard, and wasteland. If you don't like that, why are you playing legacy?

My point here is that playing an eternal format seriously is asking for broken to happen. If you want to play a wide-open format in which games are interactive and the cards are often powerful but still somehow fair, may I suggest Extended, Standard or Block Constructed?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you are arguing that since there are so many cards available in an eternal format, it will eventually become broken, and you just have to deal with it. It also sounds like you are saying that since Vintage is filled with stupid combo decks and is an eternal format, it is only natural that Legacy follow suit, since it is an eternal format. So the argument looks like this:

If Legacy is filled with stupid combos, then it is an eternal format because Vintage is an eternal format that is filled with stupid combos.

Vintage is an eternal format that is filled with stupid combos.

Therefore, Legacy is filled with stupid combos (or should be because it's an eternal format like Vintage).

Or an argument structure to that effect. This is a logical fallacy called affirming the consequent, or is something close to it.


If you want to play a wide-open format in which games are interactive and the cards are often powerful but still somehow fair, may I suggest Extended, Standard or Block Constructed?

If you want to play an eternal format in which the games are non-interactive and all but a few cards are banned, may I suggest you make your own format called Vitage Lite?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Many legacy players seem to think that magic formats are happy, idyllic places where every card has a right to roam free, and that when this is not the case because one or two best strategies are apparent, something is wrong. This could not possibly be further from the truth.

Many Tom LaPilles think that putting your hand into the middle of a fire is an enjoyable experience for any intellectually minded individual. In fact, doing so is quite painful- this absurd notion that placing your hand into an open flame is pleasurable could not be further from the truth.

If we're all quite done with our straw man arguments, let's move on.


Essentially, one strategy succeeded in Columbus. The first was broken combo, with Flash being the only possible implementation of that strategy. The other proportionately unsuccessful strategy was fish, in the sense of small creatures backed by very fast disruption.

I fixed your post for you.


Whether or not this is "healthy" or "good" or anything, it doesn't surprise me. We all played Legacy that weekend, which means that all kinds of crazy cards were legal. Eventually, something was going to break. It takes an event like a grand prix to motivate people to actually break it, but with so many cards in the environment, something is going to give. When that happens, your options are going to become to either be broken or fight the broken. That is what happened at this grand prix: we found out why the format was broken, and no one who ignored that succeeded. The fact that there is outrage and disappointment with this is what mystifies me.

Speaking of ludicrous fantasy worlds, allow me to pop your bubble.

You seem to be suggesting that broken combos constantly lurk beneath the surface of Legacy, and that it took an event like a Grand Prix to motivate people to find the combo.

What actually happened was that an unerrata that quickly became public knowledge that everyone and their mother was aware of took over the format. It was not some secret but inevitable development; everyone saw it coming, and it happened only because Flash was unerrated.

Are there lots of unknown combos in Legacy? Probably. But they didn't start storming tournaments until they won the game for the cost of an Impulse.


If a vintage grand prix were run, and the top eight contained all stupid combo decks, any outrage about that would be laughable.

Umm, yeah, that's why Vintage is a dumb format that no one plays.


My point here is that playing an eternal format seriously is asking for broken to happen. If you want to play a wide-open format in which games are interactive and the cards are often powerful but still somehow fair, may I suggest Extended, Standard or Block Constructed?

If you want a format that comes down to dumb cards that obviously should be banned that win the game turn 1-2, might I recommend Vintage? Because almost no one actually has an interest in such a format.

[Amon Amarth]

It mystifies me that everyone is acting so surprised by what happened at the grand prix.

Many legacy players seem to think that magic formats are happy, idyllic places where every card has a right to roam free, and that when this is not the case because one or two best strategies are apparent, something is wrong. This could not possibly be further from the truth.

The idea of a magic format being a happy idyll where every card available holds hands and sings together while the sun shines through rainbows is preposterous. A more appropriate mental image would be a war zone or a wild west frontier town in mid-shootout. In the real world, cards fight tooth and nail with each other for the right to see play, and they see competitive play commensurate with how good they are. This is the natural order of things. When I see a format that looks on the surface like the happy idyll I described above, I smile to myself and anticipate the fallout that will inevitably occur, driving the weakest strategies to extinction.

Before this grand prix, I thought that Legacy had the looks of that happy idyll, and I wondered how long it could last. The fallout finally hit in Columbus. Before the grand prix, one might not be faulted for believing that he could play pretty much any deck in legacy and have a real shot. Since the grand prix, we know that this is not the case. Essentially, two strategies succeeded in Columbus. The first was broken combo, with Flash being the obvious best implementation of that strategy. The other successful strategy was fish, in the sense of small creatures backed by very fast disruption. The two black decks used Wasteland, Duress, and Cabal Therapy; Threshold and UWB Fish use Meddling Mage, Stifle, Daze, Force of Will. All three of these decks are different implementations of the same strategy that end up taking the same role. The "other" successful deck was Goblins, but Owen's goblin deck gets a free pass since it is actually pretty good at playing the fish role against Kiki-Jiki flash.

Whether or not this is "healthy" or "good" or anything, it doesn't surprise me. We all played Legacy that weekend, which means that all kinds of crazy cards were legal. Eventually, something was going to break. It takes an event like a grand prix to motivate people to actually break it, but with so many cards in the environment, something is going to give. When that happens, your options are going to become to either be broken or fight the broken. That is what happened at this grand prix: we found out why the format was broken, and no one who ignored that succeeded. The fact that there is outrage and disappointment with this is what mystifies me.

If there was a vintage grand prix at some point, I would expect the only successful decks to be stupid combo decks that did not interact all that much. Such decks might take the form of Ichorid, or Gifts, or Flash, but they are all just stupid combo decks with disruption backup. It's not likely that a fish or Stax deck could survive fifteen rounds of high-level vintage. This is just what happens when you put every card in play. If a vintage grand prix were run, and the top eight contained all stupid combo decks, any outrage about that would be laughable.

It is true that the Flash errata was handled awkwardly by Wizards. However, I think that even if the broken combo du jour isn't Flash, something like Flash would have been the best deck. Aluren is essentially the same deck, but slower. When that happens, the best ways to fight it are going to be blue counters, black discard, and wasteland. If you don't like that, why are you playing legacy?

My point here is that playing an eternal format seriously is asking for broken to happen. If you want to play a wide-open format in which games are interactive and the cards are often powerful but still somehow fair, may I suggest Extended, Standard or Block Constructed?

What was the most suprising from the GP was the lack of Flash decks in the top 8 and how many people choose not to run the best deck.

Cards/Decks warp metagames. For example, Goblin Lackey forced decks to have an answer to it first turn or ignore it and win the game. All of these answers were available in every color. These are tournament viable cards like Mongoose, Swords, Bolt, Infest, Chain, Stifle, whatever.

Flash did much more than warp the metagame, it destroyed it.

What Flash did was make it so the only disruption that mattered was countermagic, or discard. Basically eliminating three other colors from the game.

What was the most disturbing thing about Flash was it's ability to just smash through any hate decks aimed at it. I can't recall how many times I read about other people beating the ever loving crap out of Fish because it had no clock. Flash wasn't just a Combo deck it was Combo/Control. Because of the nature of the Combo, the deck was able to cram in all the disruption Fish had but with a MUCH better finish. Hell the best anti-Flash deck was the one geared to beat the mirror. 16 MD disruption spells or Counterbalance/Top is pretty good in that regard and also smashing the crap out of any hate decks like Fish.

If the Pros had tested the deck and there was a few weeks worth of more development there would have been a Top 8 full of Flash. Wasn't it Sadin who made a mistake against a random Goblins opponent comboing off and still won the whole thing? He picked up the deck with little experience and won the whole tournament.

For some reason people just did not realize that Flash was the best deck. And the results show that. If decks can finish just outside of the Top 8 and play narrow boards cads maindeck such as Leyline of the Void or Red Elemental Blast(!) then something is seriously wrong here.

[Bardo]

Well, "reasonable" in not easily quantifiable.

It doesn't need to be, to reasonable people. :wink:

[kirdape3]

With the exception of the three Grands Prix, Jack, even less people played Legacy.

I actually agree wholeheartedly with Tom's assessment, if not the severity of it. What Flash did was evolve the format into it's final form multiple years earlier than was likely (even at the Grand Prix level) otherwise. There were inklings of this before Flash was broken; the GPT (singular only because Flash was the next weekend and why play strictly a combo deck when you can play the best combo AND the best control deck?) where Belcher was the best deck by far due to Empty the Warrens is an example of how the format was liable to evolve anyways. We have seen increasing numbers of broken silly decks across the board anyways - Belcher's liable to be very good still, and that's just the first deck that I can think of (Aluren's on the rise but was not so much more degenerate in terms of raw power than say, High Tide and is devilishly hard to play) that is possible.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

With the exception of the three Grands Prix, Jack, even less people played Legacy.

Far more people play diverse, interesting formats that involve strategic metagaming than play Vintage.


What Flash did was evolve the format into it's final form multiple years earlier than was likely (even at the Grand Prix level) otherwise.

Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Formats don't have final forms. Any argument built upon this supposition is inherently and unequivocally wrong.


There were inklings of this before Flash was broken; the GPT (singular only because Flash was the next weekend and why play strictly a combo deck when you can play the best combo AND the best control deck?) where Belcher was the best deck by far due to Empty the Warrens is an example of how the format was liable to evolve anyways.

There were multiple GPTs before Flash broke, you know. CRET Belcher might have been the strongest deck in that format, but it certainly wasn't invincible and certainly didn't stomp on hate decks designed to beat it. You'll notice that no CRET Belcher decks did very well in the Columbus metagame designed to hate on combo, for instance.


We have seen increasing numbers of broken silly decks across the board anyways - Belcher's liable to be very good still, and that's just the first deck that I can think of (Aluren's on the rise but was not so much more degenerate in terms of raw power than say, High Tide and is devilishly hard to play) that is possible.

Yeah, umm, okay. So at some point in the future some other deck will become so good that some part of it will have to be banned. Point?

[Mad Zur]

Tom, I'm not sure I understand your point. Do you think that Flash should remain legal? If so, what would you consider acceptable reasons for banning a card?

[Tom LaPille]

@Bear:

Instead of "Many legacy players" in the paragraph where you called me out on straw man, imagine it said "Alarmists like Chris Coppola." Then it all still works.

What I was saying was that Legacy has a very high power level becuase of how many cards are available. Stupid things are going to happen. If you aren't okay with stupid things happening every once in a while, then don't get in the water. That was my point. Eternal formats mean that you are playing with fire. I don't see how that's controversial.

By the way, I don't actually think that vintage is stupid at all. Games tend to be interactive and full of interesting decisions despite lasting only 3-5 turns. However, I do think that the dominant strategy by far is combo enabled by Bazaar or Yawgmoth's Will. The point there was that vintage players embrace the crazy that warps their format, while the legacy community seems to ignore the craziness that can happen in theirs.

[Volt]

It doesn't need to be, to reasonable people. :wink:

*reaches through monitor and throttles Bardo*

:tongue:

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

@Bear:

Instead of "Many legacy players" in the paragraph where you called me out on straw man, imagine it said "Alarmists like Chris Coppola." Then it all still works.

What I was saying was that Legacy has a very high power level becuase of how many cards are available. Stupid things are going to happen. If you aren't okay with stupid things happening every once in a while, then don't get in the water. That was my point. Eternal formats mean that you are playing with fire. I don't see how that's controversial.

By the way, I don't actually think that vintage is stupid at all. Games tend to be interactive and full of interesting decisions despite lasting only 3-5 turns. However, I do think that the dominant strategy by far is combo enabled by Bazaar or Yawgmoth's Will. The point there was that vintage players embrace the crazy that warps their format, while the legacy community seems to ignore the craziness that can happen in theirs.

I and a number of others thought that CRET Belcher was a great deck for the metagame. I don't mind crazy combo. I just think it should have a weakness. Flash didn't.

[Tom LaPille]

Acceptable reasons for banning a card are for it being so good that fully zero other strategies could be correct, or that the legality of the card hurts magic in the long term (see Ravager and artifact lands in standard).

However, that's not actually material to my point. The main point that I have is that when something new and broken happens in vintage, the reaction is normally "Man, this is new and crazy and interesting! what happens now?" as opposed to "the format is suddenly awful! someone ban something!"

Basically what I'm saying is, playing a format with a giant card pool leads to some crazy things happening. I don't understand why this is hated rather than embraced.


What Flash did was make it so the only disruption that mattered was countermagic, or discard. Basically eliminating three other colors from the game.

Vintage is essentially a fight between blue/black decks, artifact decks, and decks that don't spend mana, and it's still interesting. Why couldn't legacy be the same way? In fact, with so many cards and so many potential combos, doesn't it strike you as odd that it wasn't already a fight between blue and black decks? I personally think it's pretty amazing that basic mountains get played in legacy still.

[Tom LaPille]

I think the basic thing here is that you seem to want to judge the "health" of the metagame somehow, and I feel that doing so is not useful. Is vintage healthy? I think so, and the fact that I can't play Nimble Mongoose in my deck doesn't take away from that for me. Essentially, I feel that you are imposing yourself and your ideas about what a "healthy" metagame is on the format, and I think that is presumptuous and meaningless.

[Bryant Cook]

What he said

Why not just play type two? I mean you just killed combo, control sucks, and aggro is overly dominate. Very much like type two, combo is healthy for the format, allowing a rock, paper, sissors triangle.


I'm all down for the unbanning of Yawgmoth's Will. We had a serious discussion on it on the way to ohio, the only decks that would really abuse it would be combo decks and gifts. Control -> Flashback Wrath it might as well say. Aggro -> DOUBLE LIGHTNING BOLT! Combo - Insert 10,000,000 possibilies. TES would never leave the LMF.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Acceptable reasons for banning a card are for it being so good that fully zero other strategies could be correct, or that the legality of the card hurts magic in the long term (see Ravager and artifact lands in standard).

However, that's not actually material to my point. The main point that I have is that when something new and broken happens in vintage, the reaction is normally "Man, this is new and crazy and interesting! what happens now?" as opposed to "the format is suddenly awful! someone ban something!"

Basically what I'm saying is, playing a format with a giant card pool leads to some crazy things happening. I don't understand why this is embraced rather than hated.



Vintage is essentially a fight between blue/black decks, artifact decks, and decks that don't spend mana, and it's still interesting. Why couldn't legacy be the same way? In fact, with so many cards and so many potential combos, doesn't it strike you as odd that it wasn't already a fight between blue and black decks? I personally think it's pretty amazing that basic mountains get played in legacy still.

Not really. It would be hard to over-state how different Vintage is than Legacy; something a ton of Vintage players don't get. Yes, a ton of the defining cards are one-ofs, but moving from one-ofs to zero-ofs drastically alters the nature of the beast. Without broken one-ofs, Black really isn't that strong.

The format with five colors is just more interesting to me. There's a lot more possible answers to the metagame and a lot more correct strategies. Combo is weak enough against certain archetypes that it's actually a viable strategy to lose to combo and beat other things.

Vintage has never seen such a radical shift in it's metagame. Any card that doesn't win the game all by itself for one or two mana is another splash in the pool to Vintage. In Legacy, any of a dozen decks legal in Vintage would completely warp the environment- and Hulk-Flash is and was arguably stronger than any of those Vintage decks. It's all well for Vintage players to talk about how well they adjust to change, but in proportion they're simply not the same. The only apt recent comparison is the addition of Skullclamp to Type 2, which did completely destroy the format and make many people quit said format.

[kirdape3]

He didn't address that point at all.

What he's saying is that eventually Legacy will be a battle of degenerate decks versus anti-degenerate decks (the final form of which I speak). Flash jumped that process and is itself overpowered, but that Grand Prix? That's what he's saying was inevitable anyways. Goblin Lackey and Lion's Eye Diamond are obscenely powerful accelerants that have been constrained in other formats and break the hell out of this one. That trend is liable to continue simply because the degenerate cards are THAT GOOD. I simply see Legacy ending up as a format that's simply natural deck versus anti-strategy deck.

4 Gush GAT and anything during the first couple of months of Mirrodin asploded the Vintage metagame completely. Long.dec, GAT, $T4KS (the original variation on a theme with 4 Trinispheres), Psychatog, and other decks simply took what was known and destroyed it.

[hi-val]

What Flash did was make it so the only disruption that mattered was countermagic, or discard. Basically eliminating three other colors from the game.


Actually, I saw Tom almost bubble to day 2 on the backs of Goblins, which runs neither discard nor countermagic. The fact that Goblins made second place opens up so many questions that I don't even know where to start.

[Mad Zur]

The main point that I have is that when something new and broken happens in vintage, the reaction is normally "Man, this is new and crazy and interesting! what happens now?" as opposed to "the format is suddenly awful! someone ban something!"
These two reactions are not mutually exclusive. Most people I know thought Flash was very interesting but believe that it is broken and needs to be banned.

This format has gone through a lot of changes with few to no people calling for bannings. I think it's ridiculous to call Legacy players xenophobic because they reacted this way to one specific change, particularly when the card fits your own criteria for banning.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

He didn't address that point at all.

What he's saying is that eventually Legacy will be a battle of degenerate decks versus anti-degenerate decks (the final form of which I speak). Flash jumped that process and is itself overpowered, but that Grand Prix? That's what he's saying was inevitable anyways. Goblin Lackey and Lion's Eye Diamond are obscenely powerful accelerants that have been constrained in other formats and break the hell out of this one. That trend is liable to continue simply because the degenerate cards are THAT GOOD. I simply see Legacy ending up as a format that's simply natural deck versus anti-strategy deck.

You've described every metagame ever, including every iteration of Legacy. Of course it comes down to proactive decks versus reactive decks. What else is there? Offense versus defense, with every variation in between. What are the strongest threats? What are the strongest defenses? What beats the field? This isn't the final state of anything; this is the only state that a metagame can take.

[Finn]

Vintage is essentially a fight between blue/black decks, artifact decks, and decks that don't spend mana, and it's still interesting. Why couldn't legacy be the same way? In fact, with so many cards and so many potential combos, doesn't it strike you as odd that it wasn't already a fight between blue and black decks? I personally think it's pretty amazing that basic mountains get played in legacy still.Don't you get it? That is why we like Legacy so much. The decks are powerful, and yet you can actually explore deckbuilding. Until you move away from "Legacy should be OK about being Vintage Lite", you never will.

[Tacosnape]

Why not just play type two? I mean you just killed combo, control sucks, and aggro is overly dominate. Very much like type two, combo is healthy for the format, allowing a rock, paper, sissors triangle.

How exactly does banning Flash and Empty the Warrens equate to killing combo? Iggy Pop, Aluren, Gamekeeper Salvagers, Solidarity, Belcher, and more all existed and thrived before these two cards were introduced to the format.

The problem with your assessment is that Legacy is nothing at all like a Rock-Paper-Scissors triangle. Aggro is overly dominant? Hardly. Only two aggro decks have consistently posted numbers in Legacy: Goblins and Affinity. Cases can be made for Goblins being strictly because it's the most played deck in Legacy, and Affinity thrives when people forget that being able to kill an artifact is a good thing.

Several control decks have risen and fallen from Landstill to Rifter to Loam Control, and more combo decks than you can shake a stick at post numbers as well. Aggro control decks like Threshold and Fish and Deadguy Ale show up their fair share as well. Prisony-decks like Stax, and whatever you classify Enchantress as, even show up.

Flash needs to be banned, obviously.

As for Empty the Warrens, I personally think it makes too many Turn 1-2 kill combo decks too hard to stop. If they don't ban it, Legacy will go on. It's not in the tier of Flash, by any means whatsoever. But it's forcing decks to dedicate anywhere from 8 to 11 sideboard cards specifically for combo due to the lack of cards that can work against every combo deck in the format. It's also putting people in holes they can't get out of before they've had their first turn, which I find unhealthy.

And Yawgmoth's Will? I don't think reshaping the format to make your personal pet deck Tier 1 constitutes as a valid argument.

[kirdape3]

I don't mean 'proactive versus reactive' so much as 'stupid silly things versus things that beat the stupid silly things that happen'. Extended this last season had tons of both proactive and reactive decks, but there wasn't any real completely degenerate action in the entire format. Standard has a lot of decks, but you don't see any real deck whose sole focus is to beat the degenerate ones lying around. Vintage certainly has decks that aim solely to beat the stupid natural decks. Legacy does too to a large extent - Threshold isn't nearly as ridiculous unless there are combo decks to feast on.

If Will gets unbanned, I'm immediately Burning Wishing for it and cracking Lion's Eye Diamond in response. Thanks for the games!

[JACO]

Vintage has never seen such a radical shift in it's metagame. Any card that doesn't win the game all by itself for one or two mana is another splash in the pool to Vintage.
Umm, yeah, that's why Vintage is a dumb format that no one plays.
For someone who mentions Vintage multiple times, you don't seem to have a clue what you are talking about. Vintage tournaments regularly draw more people than any Legacy tournaments aside from the Grand Prixs. If you would like to argue this point, please do so I can make you look even more foolish. Vintage has seen many radical shifts, mainly at the advent and success of decks such as TNT, Chapin's original Gro deck from GenCon, GroATog, T1T, Long, Stax (both the original MUD lists from Europe, as well as the unrestricted Trinisphere laden variants a bit later), Pitch Long, as well as all of the Gifts variants. When great new decks appear they tend to push out weaker strategies altogether. That is how Magic works in all formats.


I actually agree wholeheartedly with Tom's assessment, if not the severity of it. What Flash did was evolve the format into it's final form multiple years earlier than was likely (even at the Grand Prix level) otherwise. There were inklings of this before Flash was broken; the GPT (singular only because Flash was the next weekend and why play strictly a combo deck when you can play the best combo AND the best control deck?) where Belcher was the best deck by far due to Empty the Warrens is an example of how the format was liable to evolve anyways. We have seen increasing numbers of broken silly decks across the board anyways - Belcher's liable to be very good still, and that's just the first deck that I can think of (Aluren's on the rise but was not so much more degenerate in terms of raw power than say, High Tide and is devilishly hard to play) that is possible.

I also agree with Tom LaPille's sentiments here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=135608&postcount=28). The thing that most Legacy players don't seem to understand is that THIS IS NOT YOUR FORMAT. Type 2 isn't the Standard players' format, and Block Constructed isn't either. The reality is that the DCI can do whatever they want, and they will take their sweet time in cleaning up the format, and providing whatever support they want. You didn't see a lot of Pros bitching about Flash, did you? That's because they understand that it's their job to break formats and come up with effective strategies and counter-strategies, while some of you just can't get over the fact that you can't play your crappy Mono White Control, Faerie Stompy, or Enchantress decks competitively in big time tournaments.

For all the people bitching about how Flash was so bad for the format, look back and ask yourself when was there a time in recent Legacy history when there was any motivation for people to play Fish with any seriousness, or MONO BLACK with fucking PUMP-KNIGHTS. To me, that is insanely cool. In a format without decks like Flash, Belcher, and other powerful cards, you're left with Goblins and Threshold again. I guess now you guys can have your same boring format back.


I think the basic thing here is that you seem to want to judge the "health" of the metagame somehow, and I feel that doing so is not useful. Is vintage healthy? I think so, and the fact that I can't play Nimble Mongoose in my deck doesn't take away from that for me. Essentially, I feel that you are imposing yourself and your ideas about what a "healthy" metagame is on the format, and I think that is presumptuous and meaningless.
You and I don't belong on this website apparently. We're too forward thinking.

[Tom LaPille]

<borat> high five? </borat>

By the way, JACO said everything I wanted to say way more elegantly with this:


The thing that most Legacy players don't seem to understand is that THIS IS NOT YOUR FORMAT. Type 2 isn't the Standard players' format, and Block Constructed isn't either.

You don't own your format. Wizards does. If you are acting and thinking that way, stop, because it is stupid and quixotic.

[Bryant Cook]

How exactly does banning Flash and Empty the Warrens equate to killing combo? Iggy Pop, Aluren, Gamekeeper Salvagers, Solidarity, Belcher, and more all existed and thrived before these two cards were introduced to the format.

The problem with your assessment is that Legacy is nothing at all like a Rock-Paper-Scissors triangle. Aggro is overly dominant? Hardly. Only two aggro decks have consistently posted numbers in Legacy: Goblins and Affinity. Cases can be made for Goblins being strictly because it's the most played deck in Legacy, and Affinity thrives when people forget that being able to kill an artifact is a good thing.

Several control decks have risen and fallen from Landstill to Rifter to Loam Control, and more combo decks than you can shake a stick at post numbers as well. Aggro control decks like Threshold and Fish and Deadguy Ale show up their fair share as well. Prisony-decks like Stax, and whatever you classify Enchantress as, even show up.

Flash needs to be banned, obviously.

As for Empty the Warrens, I personally think it makes too many Turn 1-2 kill combo decks too hard to stop. If they don't ban it, Legacy will go on. It's not in the tier of Flash, by any means whatsoever. But it's forcing decks to dedicate anywhere from 8 to 11 sideboard cards specifically for combo due to the lack of cards that can work against every combo deck in the format. It's also putting people in holes they can't get out of before they've had their first turn, which I find unhealthy.

And Yawgmoth's Will? I don't think reshaping the format to make your personal pet deck Tier 1 constitutes as a valid argument.

Look at how many of those combo decks suck without LED and ETW. Iggy Pop is trash, Belcher will suck once again, Salvagers will die, Alluren is uneffected, and we get the slowest combo deck back in tier one(Solidarity).

Legacy was and still very well may be Rock, Paper, Scissors. It dates back very far as do other formats. Landstill, FCG, Dragon| Landstill, ATS, Solidarity| Landstill, Goblins, Solidarity| Threshold, Goblins, Solidarity. Very much a Rock, Paper, Scissors triangle; right now may be different who knows.

My first post on "Aggro overly powerful" was is you kill of combo as you suggested, aggro will flurish and it is no different from type two. Slow bad control decks and aggro with 0 playable combo decks.

I'm not defending flash whatsoever, "We no need no water, let the mothafucka burn."

Forcing the metagame to adapt is too much to ask for? I mean everyone was willing to do so for Goblin Lackey, what's so different about ETW? Both are answered with 1 card, neither decks pack Force or too much disruption to get them through. Recall people back when Vial Goblins first came out? "Ban Goblin Lackey!" We all learned to adapt and evolve around the card to th epoint that it is no longer the be all end all card. It's no different from what people should do for ETW.

@ Yawgwill- Only combo decks will play the card, I hardly see it as "Reshaping the format" it's just a better Ill-gotten gains.

[Bardo]

The thing that most Legacy players don't seem to understand is that THIS IS NOT YOUR FORMAT.

Between all of the debate on multiple sites about this article and similar "community issues," I think this is one of the most salient and succinct points I've read. Agreed.

[Cabal-kun]

Vintage is essentially a fight between blue/black decks, artifact decks, and decks that don't spend mana, and it's still interesting. Why couldn't legacy be the same way? In fact, with so many cards and so many potential combos, doesn't it strike you as odd that it wasn't already a fight between blue and black decks? I personally think it's pretty amazing that basic mountains get played in legacy still.

Maybe because Legacy is supposed to be a different format from Vintage? Not Neo Vintage, not Vintage Lite, not Diet Vintage, and not Vintage 2.0 Optimizer Beta. Legacy is supposed to be Legacy.

You say you don't understand why people simply don't embrace the change. I don't understand why you insist Legacy mirror Vintage. There was no fight between blue and black decks, and basic mountains are played because the format is Legacy, not Vintage It has nothing to do with which colors or cards are best. It has to do with the identity of the format. What would happen if rotations in Extended or Standard stopped, and a B&R list similar to Legacy's or Vintage's was used instead for those formats? Would they still be Extended and Standard, or would they instead mirror Legacy and Vintage?

[Tom LaPille]

Tacosnape, that kind of discussion is exactly what is stupid. Stop trying to own your world, and just play in it. Wizards is not going to listen to calls to ban random cards that you don't like for random reasons.

[Tom LaPille]

Cabal-Kun: I'm not saying that legacy "should" resemble vintage; I am saying that any value judgment about what a format "should" look like is entirely meaningless.

[hi-val]

Have you ever heard of a deck called Napster? Everything that can would run Will. Goblins would splash for Black for Will. But that's a discussion for another time. 4 Yawgmoth's Wills in a format that includes Dark Ritual, Grim Tutor and Cabal Ritual is too stupid for words.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

For someone who mentions Vintage multiple times, you don't seem to have a clue what you are talking about. Vintage tournaments regularly draw more people than any Legacy tournaments aside from the Grand Prixs. If you would like to argue this point, please do so I can make you look even more foolish.

Yeah, yeah, you're cute. Again, the comparison wasn't between Vintage and Legacy; the comparison was between Vintage and formats that encourage balance and interactivity, which can be largely summed up as: "Every single other format besides online Emperor".


Vintage has seen many radical shifts, mainly at the advent and success of decks such as TNT, Chapin's original Gro deck from GenCon, GroATog, T1T, Long, Stax (both the original MUD lists from Europe, as well as the unrestricted Trinisphere laden variants a bit later), Pitch Long, as well as all of the Gifts variants. When great new decks appear they tend to push out weaker strategies altogether. That is how Magic works in all formats.

Yeah. What doesn't happen is that one deck knocks out every other deck in the format at once. Try to find a time in Vintage where such a change occurred. Until then, you're attacking points that were never made. Again all change =/= healthy change.


I also agree with Tom LaPille's sentiments here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=135608&postcount=28). The thing that most Legacy players don't seem to understand is that THIS IS NOT YOUR FORMAT. Type 2 isn't the Standard players' format, and Block Constructed isn't either. The reality is that the DCI can do whatever they want, and they will take their sweet time in cleaning up the format, and providing whatever support they want.

And the players can do whatever they want, which can include either telling the DCI they're retarded or quitting Magic. What's your point, exactly? Where are you going with this? Who are you? Why are you here? Is time really real, or is this all just an illusion? Do Eric Darland's pants make me look fat?


You didn't see a lot of Pros bitching about Flash, did you?

Who cares?


That's because they understand that it's their job to break formats and come up with effective strategies and counter-strategies, while some of you just can't get over the fact that you can't play your crappy Mono White Control, Faerie Stompy, or Enchantress decks competitively in big time tournaments.

I suppose the fact that those decks actually won tournaments in the old format is irrelevant? Wait, let me guess- "That's just a sign of how undeveloped the metagame was!"

I'll never cease being amused at people who actually think that decks can be objectively good or bad. The only good deck is the deck that wins in the format it's in. The only bad decks are ones that fail to do this. That's all. Leave your preconceived notion that every deck must run Brainstorm and Force of Will at the door.


For all the people bitching about how Flash was so bad for the format, look back and ask yourself when was there a time in recent Legacy history when there was any motivation for people to play Fish with any seriousness, or MONO BLACK with fucking PUMP-KNIGHTS. To me, that is insanely cool. In a format without decks like Flash, Belcher, and other powerful cards, you're left with Goblins and Threshold again. I guess now you guys can have your same boring format back.

If you actually familiarized yourself with Legacy top 8s, you'd embarrass yourself less. Legacy tournaments routinely put up diverse results- actually diverse deck archetypes, not simply the same list of singletons with six or eight card differences with a different deckname slapped on it.


You and I don't belong on this website apparently. We're too forward thinking.

You know, I recently decided to follow Christ, and that all men are my brothers, and that I wouldn't nurture feelings of hatred and contempt and all that good jazz.. You're making this really fucking difficult. I need you to help me not hate you by not saying things that are insanely arrogant and stupid simultaneously. Pick one of those adjectives and focus on it, and we can hopefully wittle this down. We can do this. I just need you to try to be smart for a bit. I will take all necessary steps to help you.


I don't mean 'proactive versus reactive' so much as 'stupid silly things versus things that beat the stupid silly things that happen'.

To some extent, this is superfluous. The only really objective measure of such brokeness is the fundamental turn- if you don't even get one, or the other person gets twice as many as you before the game is over, there's a problem. But the fundamental turn wasn't that low in old Legacy. And decks where it was were generally easily disrupted.


If Will gets unbanned, I'm immediately Burning Wishing for it and cracking Lion's Eye Diamond in response. Thanks for the games!

Yeah, that's a little silly.




I think the problem is that a lot of the people see calls to ban Flash, and they think that that means that those making said calls are unwilling and unable to deal with decks simply because they're viewed as "cheap". This could not be further from the truth. The fastest way to summarize this argument is to advise everyone to go read this article (http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm).

Hulk-Flash is Akuma. It's not the strongest option. It's the only option.

[Cabal-kun]

Cabal-Kun: I'm not saying that legacy "should" resemble vintage; I am saying that any value judgment about what a format "should" look like is entirely meaningless.

Then why not get rid of formats all together? Why not have one giant cardpool where everything is unrestricted? Somebody somewhere decides what the formats should look like.

Also, what sense does it make to have two formats that are nearly identical in flavor? I.e., degenerate combos?

[Tom LaPille]

Somebody somewhere decides what the formats should look like.

That person is not you, nor is it anyone who posts on this forum.

[Cait_Sith]

Then why not get rid of formats all together? Why not have one giant cardpool where everything is unrestricted? Somebody somewhere decides what the formats should look like.

It was in a discussion on this very topic that I got my "Utterly ViLE" moniker, ViLe being the first to Letters of VIntage and LEgacy put together.

I have seen a surprisingly large amount of arguments for giving Legacy a banned AND a restricted list, but the problem is can anyone show me 5 cards on don't benefit combo massively, or even enable sick combos? Replenish, Mind over Matter... That is all I got, can anyone actually come up with 3 more?

If Wizards decided only to ban Flash and change NOTHING else, then they will have done Legacy no ill. The format is massively diverse and new innovation is constantly appearing. Someone in the N&D forum recently posted good results off a small tournament with a Marit Lage deck, something most people dismissed as unplayable jank. People still work on Fluctuator, the absolute worst fast combo deck in the format. I can still play MUC, Trix, Goblins, Solidarity, TES, Thresh, Rifter, and a host of other decks I like (including one I am working on making now, so PLEASE be banned Flash) without knowing that I am going to automatically lose the tournament because every deck there is a bad match up of some sort.

Also, you say that more people go to Vintage tournaments than Legacy ones. With approximately 10-15 decks that have a decent chance at competition and all of them decks being combo (with a few exceptions), it is easy to predict what is going to happen in a metagame. Playing Legacy means that you have to mentally prepare yourself and your deck for whatever you think will show up. This can require a massive amount of work.

Ex: Last tournament you took Vial Goblins with a White splash and got steam rolled by the prevalence of TES. This time around you know those TES players, who took second and fifth, will be back and will probably bring TES again. Do you bring Goblins when it such a poor match up? Do you hope to luck around them? You could switch decks and bring Red Death instead, but you know Calosso Fuentes will be there and he ALWAYS brings Goblins, so maybe Black splash Vial Goblins instead, or you could sneak 2-3 Maindeck Enginnered Plague, like Deadguy does; you can replace Wretched Anurid since he is terrible against Goblins anyway. The question would then be 2-3 and where would those other 1-2 slots come from? Will there be a prevalence of Goblins? They took 1st (the Black Splash) and 7th last time, so they will be back. Of course, Red Thresh is good vs Goblins and TES, so it could work out well, just as you don't run into the guy playing Wombat (he always plays Wombat in some build or another, so he would take you as a bye).

And that is just the beginning. You can put quite a bit of thought in choosing your deck and are more often than not rewarded with it. This isn't the kind of mental work many people do not like doing. (Also, Legacy can get much more expensive than Vintage due to proxy tournaments. If those were to vanish tomorrow then it is very possible that Legacy tournaments would swell.)

Edit: And neither, Tom LaPille, will it EVER be you. I can tell you who it is, it should be obvious; this format is decided by the ones who put their time and energy into it. Who enjoy it, who nurture it, who work to make it a diverse and healthy existence so that anyone who becomes fed up with the constant unpredictable shifts of Standard and Extended want a play of stability and gentle change can came. WE decide what this format looks like. WE know what the price of progress is (often 8-10 life). WE know what we are doing, simply because we are doing it.

[Tom LaPille]

And neither, Tom LaPille, will it NEVER be you. I can tell you who it is, it should be obvious; this format is decided by the ones who put their time and energy into it. Who enjoy it, who nurture it, who work to make it a diverse and healthy existence so that anyone who becomes fed up with the constant unpredictable shifts of Standard and Extended want a play of stability and gentle change can came. WE decide what this format looks like. WE know what the price of progress is (often 8-10 life). WE know what we are doing, simply because we are doing it.

You are missing the point. It is obvious to me that Wizards is the one who controls the format. They tell us what cards we can play. You may wish that you could tell other people what they can play, but you can't. Wizards can. Any player who is presumptuous enough to think that they "control" a Magic format is fooling himself.

Also, the first sentence in that quote is hideous, grammatically speaking. I like how you even capitalized the offending word for us.

[kirdape3]

That answer is incorrect. Who determines the shape of the format? The DCI. Unless of course you want unsanctioned events.

In the extraordinarily vast majority of cases, I am wholly convinced that nobody on this site can say 'I know what I'm doing' with regards to Legacy.

[Mad Zur]

The DCI decides what formats should look like, and people who play those formats point it out when they do not look like that. What's wrong with this?

The thing that most Legacy players don't seem to understand is that THIS IS NOT YOUR FORMAT.What basis do you have for claiming that most Legacy players disagree? Why is this relevant to whether or not Flash should be banned?

[Cait_Sith]

Any player who is presumptuous enough to think that they "control" a Magic format is fooling himself.

"If you follow a fool in his folly, you will be wise." -William Blake



Also, the first sentence in that quote is hideous, grammatically speaking. I like how you even capitalized the offending word for us.

An ad hominem attack based off a typo made at 11:00 EST. Wow, you sure got me.

[mikekelley]

The DCI is stupid and makes stupid mistakes regularly

[Tom LaPille]

Any player who is presumptuous enough to think that they "control" a Magic format is fooling himself.

"If you follow a fool in his folly, you will be wise." -William Blake


What in the blue hell is that supposed to mean?

[Cait_Sith]

The DCI is stupid and makes stupid mistakes regularly

So do all of us. They are lucky enough to have a thousand people screaming out their every mistake so they can see them easily.

Edit: It should be self evident. Mayhaps the wrong one is taking the advice.

[AnwarA101]

However, that's not actually material to my point. The main point that I have is that when something new and broken happens in vintage, the reaction is normally "Man, this is new and crazy and interesting! what happens now?" as opposed to "the format is suddenly awful! someone ban something!"

Basically what I'm saying is, playing a format with a giant card pool leads to some crazy things happening. I don't understand why this is hated rather than embraced.

The problem is that in Vintage these crazy things happen because the cards themselves interact this way. In Legacy, Flash exists because Wizards decided to change the card. That's why Flash exists. Vintage has several decks that have the same power-level that makes playing something like Gifts over Pitch Long acceptable, but that isn't the case in Legacy currently. Flash is actually just better than everything that isn't Flash. That makes this situation different than Vintage. So you are wondering why people aren't excited? Its because this format was basically created by the stroke of someone's pen and not because someone came up with a new deck.

[Volt]

You are missing the point. It is obvious to me that Wizards is the one who controls the format. They tell us what cards we can play. You may wish that you could tell other people what they can play, but you can't. Wizards can. Any player who is presumptuous enough to think that they "control" a Magic format is fooling himself.

I think the point has already been made that while we (the so-called Legacy Community) don't directly control what is and is not on the B/R list, we do have input. We can discuss things publicly and privately, and let the DCI know how we feel about certain cards. Hopefully, they listen, weigh, and consider what we have to say, even if they don't always act on it. Your point seems to be that the DCI is some deific entity that cares not a bit for such peons as we, and that if they give us shit on a plate we should eat it with a smile. And make no mistake, a Hulk Flash dominated metagame is shit on a plate. Sure, it made for an interesting GP and possibly even attracted a few curious newcomers who wondered "I wonder what it's like to eat shit?" or "I wonder what it's like to make other people eat shit?" That's all fine and dandy, but I'll be glad to say "Good riddance!" to Flash when I wake up tomorrow.

[Cait_Sith]

To be fair Anwar, they really didn't except this disaster to happen. They have been removing power level errata on a fair number of cards to no ill effect (some cards once broken are too weak to be playable in Legacy: ex: Palinchron). It can be hard to test all possible interactions and the tech that makes Hulk Flash at its strongest (Kiki kill + Body Snatcher) wasn't discovered for over a week after the deck's inception, despite the deck creating a massive amount of interest.

[Goblin Snowman]

Well, as enlightening as this all is, most of it is just rehashed arguments that we've heard in every Hulk Flash thread. I'm going to state a few things here, that should be obvious to everyone;
1) Legacy isn't the DCI's top concern - Even if we had the most players, we wouldn't be, because they don't control the secondary market.
2) Preventing these situations is what the DCI is there for - What's the point of refusing to ban/unban cards when you can change their wording and make (effectively) whole new cards? (See; Flash, Time Vault, Cloud of Faeries, Grim Monolith). Why is it so hard for them to just change wordings of cards not breaking the format in half at certain times, like, I don't know, June 1st.
3) Yelling at each other about something none of us have any control over seems like a waste of time. Wait until tomorrow, until then, shut up. Don't worry, your E-Penis is not going to run away from you.

This likely isn't remotely grammaticly correct, talk to World of Warcraft about my spelling problems when typing late at night. I'll edit this tomorrow.

[Tom LaPille]

Cait_Sith, I literally have no idea what you were trying to convey with the William Blake quote. Please use your own words, since it is not self-evident at all.

Anwar: Blame Steve Menendian for bringing up the power level errata thing, it's his fault! :laugh:

To be fair, they were changing the card back, not changing the card. But I understand the gripe. I guess I have felt that the reaction from many people I have seen has been more along the lines of "My god, I can't just play whatever pet deck I have been working on for a year and a half anymore! Ban something!" as opposed to "Flash is a little too good, can we kill it now?" I'm sympathetic to the latter, but I do not respect the former at all. I would classify "Flash makes three of the colors bad," "Flash obliterated the metagame," and "We had a beautiful metagame before but now all the diversity is gone and I am sad" as statements of the former type.

[dre4m]

In the extraordinarily vast majority of cases, I am wholly convinced that nobody on this site can say 'I know what I'm doing' with regards to Legacy.

What exactly do you mean by this?

[Mad Zur]

I guess I have felt that the reaction from many people I have seen has been more along the lines of "My god, I can't just play whatever pet deck I have been working on for a year and a half anymore! Ban something!" as opposed to "Flash is a little too good, can we kill it now?" I'm sympathetic to the latter, but I do not respect the former at all. I would classify "Flash makes three of the colors bad," "Flash obliterated the metagame," and "We had a beautiful metagame before but now all the diversity is gone and I am sad" as statements of the former type.
I disagree. Observing that Flash makes most or all other decks obsolete ("obliterating the metagame", "making three colors bad", or "removing diversity") is the same as observing that Flash is too good. I would classify those as statements of the latter type (though perhaps without the word "slightly").

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

You are missing the point. It is obvious to me that Wizards is the one who controls the format. They tell us what cards we can play. You may wish that you could tell other people what they can play, but you can't. Wizards can. Any player who is presumptuous enough to think that they "control" a Magic format is fooling himself.

Also, the first sentence in that quote is hideous, grammatically speaking. I like how you even capitalized the offending word for us.

You don't seem to understand the point of "formats".

The DCI did indeed decide what Legacy would be, when they created it, 2 and a half years ago. Those of us who played then may have had fits with the change from 1.5, but they laid out their vision for what their desired power level was in the format, and what its nature was.

Since you seem to have no understanding of what the intended vision of Legacy is, I suggest you read Mr. Forsythe's original article following the creation of the format.

Some quotes

"But with the impending rotation of the Extended format next year, we felt the need to make sure there was a reasonable format available where players could use their old cards (everything from dual lands to Ice Age cards to Rebels) that was not just a toned-down version of Vintage. We tried to strike the fine balance between accessibility and, well, balance of play."

"Not every card that has ever been banned in Extended is banned in this new format, but we felt the most powerful ones had no place here. These include Earthcraft, Goblin Recruiter, Hermit Druid, Land Tax, Oath of Druids, Replenish, and newly exiled Skullclamp and Metalworker. With “1.5” now a little less like Vintage and a little more like Extended, it makes sense that the banned list is a compromise between the two. Most of these cards are very cheap combo enablers that are hard to defend against."

What many uninformed people fail to understand(and how could they, when they don't WANT to?) is that there is an acceptable power level for this format. That we DO have a frame of reference to judge what should and shouldn't be in this format.

Flash rapes cards like Replenish and Earthcraft like there's no tomorrow. Defending the card's "fairness" or what it does to the format is pointless because it flies in the face of existing DCI policy.


Vintage is essentially a fight between blue/black decks, artifact decks, and decks that don't spend mana, and it's still interesting. Why couldn't legacy be the same way? In fact, with so many cards and so many potential combos, doesn't it strike you as odd that it wasn't already a fight between blue and black decks? I personally think it's pretty amazing that basic mountains get played in legacy still.

Are you a Pastafarian?

That's all this supposed "inevitability" of blue and black in Legacy is. The argument is in no way based on any valid game theory or proof. It's this mysterious tea kettle floating in the asteroid belt, that only the enlightened people who've never done anything can see.

It's truly amazing.


In the extraordinarily vast majority of cases, I am wholly convinced that nobody on this site can say 'I know what I'm doing' with regards to Legacy.

Well then you'd better sit on your enormous pile of completely relevant and real accomplishments and throw spitwads at the rest of us down below.

Who do you think you are?

[AnwarA101]

Anwar: Blame Steve Menendian for bringing up the power level errata thing, it's his fault! :laugh:

To be fair, they were changing the card back, not changing the card. But I understand the gripe. I guess I have felt that the reaction from many people I have seen has been more along the lines of "My god, I can't just play whatever pet deck I have been working on for a year and a half anymore! Ban something!" as opposed to "Flash is a little too good, can we kill it now?" I'm sympathetic to the latter, but I do not respect the former at all. I would classify "Flash makes three of the colors bad," "Flash obliterated the metagame," and "We had a beautiful metagame before but now all the diversity is gone and I am sad" as statements of the former type.

I have no problem with idea of removing power-level errata in theory, but the timing was terrible and easily avoidable. Couldn't such changes have been made after Grand Prix, especially considering the fact that Flash had actually been a problem before. Isn't it reasonable to think that it might be a problem again? To me these seem like fairly obvious conclusions any reasonable person could draw about what would happen by making this change to Flash.

Flash deserves to be banned because it becomes the only deck worth playing not because it invalidates any specific deck because it invalidates all of them except Flash .

[Tom LaPille]

He probably thinks he is Rian Litchard. I agree with his assessment. Who are you? I'm Tom LaPille. It's nice to meet you.

That aside, thank you for clarifying where all this vitriol comes from. I didn't realize that they actually set out a vision like that. I think it is a bizarre vision, but I now actually understand why everyone is mad. I guess I just think that it's kind of silly to expect a format to be not hideously warped when you allow almost every card to be played.

If that idea of the format is what they want, then I think they need to go even further to achieve their vision. Were I Wizards, I would probably ban Lion's Eye Diamond as well as Flash. That pretty much puts the kibosh on every really dumb combo deck that makes Legacy stupid after flash, and then you *really* have a format where everyone is fighting fair. I just think that acting as though we have a right to decide that is rather silly.

[Zherbus]

I don't mind crazy combo. I just think it should have a weakness.

Then it isn't really "crazy combo" if it has a weakness. A weakness greater than the ones Flash has, by your definition.


Well then you'd better sit on your enormous pile of completely relevant and real accomplishments and throw spitwads at the rest of us down below.

Who do you think you are?

I don't think he was saying "noone knows how to build, metagame, or play Legacy". I think he was saying that if the B/R list was up to The Source collective, things could get ugly. The same goes for the B/R list for Vintage at TMD... often times the players don't know what's best for them. And most of all, I don't think Rian excludes himself from people on the list.

See? Things don't always have to be so personal. Just like Flash, it's not a slap in the face to "Legacy players" personally. It's more of someone opening the door on you suddenly and nailing you in the nose. Either that someone will apologize for not looking first, or your face was so ugly to begin with that it decides it did no harm.

[IndyTerminator]

I don't think he was saying "noone knows how to build, metagame, or play Legacy". I think he was saying that if the B/R list was up to The Source collective, things could get ugly. The same goes for the B/R list for Vintage at TMD... often times the players don't know what's best for them. And most of all, I don't think Rian excludes himself from people on the list.

I have to agree with this. Everytime the announcements for changes to the B&R list have come around people start thinking they know what's best and that "such and such" card should be unbanned because it would do nothing. Now, I'm not going to get into whether this is right or wrong because I don't care. My point is that people start getting into pissing matches about it. I have seen very little good discussion about B&R changes in ANY format. So, I agree with this statement. I'll let the DCI handle the changes to the B&R, but they really need to be precise in the way they handle changes to the format. I don't mind power level errata but they really need to think about the repercussions of removing errata before introducing it.

[Tacosnape]

Tacosnape, that kind of discussion is exactly what is stupid. Stop trying to own your world, and just play in it. Wizards is not going to listen to calls to ban random cards that you don't like for random reasons.

If you actually read other people's posts, you might realize that I made my initial post in this forum strictly repeating what other players have been calling for. It was merely meant as an insight as to what's been being called for by the Legacy community. Since you don't know me or the history of my stances on the B&R list, I'll clue you in on the following:

1. The only card I've ever campaigned for the banning of in the entire history of Legacy is Flash. As I stated, I personally happen to think banning Empty The Warrens would be nice, but I'm not campaigning for it. Legacy will be fine either way.

2. I have never campaigned for the unbanning of a card.

Therefore take your long-winded and unfounded claims about my inability to "just play in it" and keep them to yourself. Your attacks on me are unfounded and wrong.

Now, on to to arguing with people that I actually like.


Look at how many of those combo decks suck without LED and ETW. Iggy Pop is trash, Belcher will suck once again, Salvagers will die, Alluren is uneffected, and we get the slowest combo deck back in tier one(Solidarity).

I agree, nixing Lion's Eye Diamond would neuter these. However, I don't think LED needs to go. I was merely bringing up that several people have talked about it. I admit to being one of these people for awhile, but we both agree LED is a needed combo staple. Empty the Warrens I disagree with you on.


My first post on "Aggro overly powerful" was is you kill of combo as you suggested, aggro will flurish and it is no different from type two. Slow bad control decks and aggro with 0 playable combo decks.

Ah. I misunderstood. I agree aggro would strengthen in such a format. I think you might see the return of sellout control (Rifter as an example) rather than complete aggro domination. However, this suggests aggro would be supremely dominant and thereby validates your point.

However, again, I don't call for the banning of Lion's Eye Diamond, and I think that if Empty the Warrens were to be banned (along with Flash but not Lion's Eye Diamond), aggro would not completely overwhelm.



Forcing the metagame to adapt is too much to ask for? I mean everyone was willing to do so for Goblin Lackey, what's so different about ETW? Both are answered with 1 card, neither decks pack Force or too much disruption to get them through. Recall people back when Vial Goblins first came out? "Ban Goblin Lackey!" We all learned to adapt and evolve around the card to th epoint that it is no longer the be all end all card. It's no different from what people should do for ETW.

Goblin Lackey can be stopped by a trillion cards that are good otherwise, a lot of which only cost one mana. Swords to Plowshares comes to mind, as does Nimble Mongoose. 1-drops with 2 toughness like Carnophage, Isamaru, and Plated Sliver sometimes can. Even Affinity finds itself dropping an Ornithopter in Lackey's path on occasion. What's more, all of these cards perform this function if you're going second.

Therapy, Stifle, BEB/Hydro, and even Chalice for 0 are all awesome against ETW, but only when you go first. What single card stops Empty the Warrens for 1 mana when your opponent goes first (besides the obvious Force of Will)? ...Sandstorm? Engineered Explosives and Pyroclasm can do it, but only if you hit 2 mana. Otherwise, you're going to be taking between 10-16 on average before you can even cast that spell. That's a heavy price. Manageable perhaps due to ETW decks sucking at recovery, but heavy nonetheless.

Third, the decks don't pack disruption now. So what? Decks evolve. Who's to say that in four months a deck won't emerge that can drop 12-14 goblins on turn one with backup in the form of, say, Duress. Or god help us all, Leyline of the Meek.

I agree with you that the format is far better with Lion's Eye Diamond, and far better without Flash. It will probably be fine with Empty the Warrens too. I just personally think it'd be better without.

(And no, Tom, this isn't me "Making ridiculous calls for bans to wizards." So keep that one to yourself also.)

[Cait_Sith]

Flash is gone and we got MoM and Replenish back! LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Then it isn't really "crazy combo" if it has a weakness. A weakness greater than the ones Flash has, by your definition.

I just looked up the Encyclopedia Britannica definition of "Crazy Combo", and by Jove, you're right.[/sarcasm]

No, seriously. What are you talking about? Where are you drawing this definition? I can list a dozen combo decks in Legacy that could break Extended (much less) Standard in half. But they're mostly fair. Although I'm borderline on agreement with Tom about banning LED, but that's actually debatable; it's not like Flash which is simply a no-brainer to anyone who doesn't want to see Legacy become Vintage Lite.


I don't think he was saying "noone knows how to build, metagame, or play Legacy". I think he was saying that if the B/R list was up to The Source collective, things could get ugly. The same goes for the B/R list for Vintage at TMD... often times the players don't know what's best for them. And most of all, I don't think Rian excludes himself from people on the list.

Any unilateral decision making process tends to result in ugliness. Erratas on Flash and Time Vault, for instance. However, a mixture of testing and analysis on the part of the DCI with player feedback seems pretty multilateral to me.

[Tacosnape]

Sweet! Legacy resumes! Apparently they do listen to us after all.

Can't believe they left Dream Halls banned.

[Zherbus]

First, congratulations. Flash is over.

Secondly, you implied that Flash didn't have a weakness to speak of. You also implied that combo was okay, provided a weakness. Since Flash DID have a weakness, I drew the conclusion that you're definition of a "crazy combo" with a "weakness" had to be something more vulnerable than what Flash has. I don't call that "crazy combo", I call that "fair combo". Historically, "fair combo" is barely worth playing.

[MattH]

The most important part of your quoted message, and one you should have focused on, is that Chris tends to think he speaks for the format. Neither he, nor any other individual, does so, and Chris you really need to stop imagining that you do. It's extremely detrimental to both you and the format to continue this delusion.
You know what? Not only do I agree with that, but to be consistent, I also think it applies to Anusien (to a lesser degree but not lesser enough). Both of you, stop it.

There's a couple more people who do this but they don't have publishing gigs with SCG, so they get a pass this time.

I think the fact is that a lot of the larger Magic community (and some segment of the Legacy community) is LOOKING for someone to be The Legacy Spokesman, so until and unless we decide a) we want one and b) who it is, we all need to be vigilant about letting people assume that mantle.

I think we've had a cultural bridge moment. Can you feel the love, I know I can.


However, with the weekly articles from SCG (thank you!)
You're welcome. (Little-known fact: it was my idea to round up some writers on TMD to push SCG for a weekly column when they announced their reorg.
AND NOW YOU KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY!)

And another thing!
If 50% of the tournament was Fish, that was about 450 players. It simply was not possible for more than 1.7% of Fish players to make T8. Good to keep in mind!


What he's saying is that eventually Legacy will be a battle of degenerate decks versus anti-degenerate decks (the final form of which I speak).
This is the old "critical mass" argument in new language. One thing to remember is that because Legacy can ban cards instead of just restricting them, even if you think that eventually the format will degenerate between broken and stop-the-broken, it doesn't have to stay that way for long.


Vintage has never seen such a radical shift in it's metagame.
It has now. Oh my dear sweet gods.

[Machinus]

(Little-known fact: it was my idea to round up some writers on TMD to push SCG for a weekly column when they announced their reorg.
AND NOW YOU KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY!)


For the record, I was already in communication with SCG about getting some kind of Legacy content up, with at least myself as a writer. Dan's proposal sort of absorbed mine, so we never followed through on that.

[IndyTerminator]

Wow, I was quite surprised that they unbanned Replenish and Mind over Matter. I can understand them being unbanned but I figured they would take a conservative approach and ban Flash at the most. I'm glad to see it and hopefully something can come of these changes.

On an unrelated note, HOLY COW Wizards really made some moves in Vintage. I am quite surprised but intrigued.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If that idea of the format is what they want, then I think they need to go even further to achieve their vision. Were I Wizards, I would probably ban Lion's Eye Diamond as well as Flash. That pretty much puts the kibosh on every really dumb combo deck that makes Legacy stupid after flash, and then you *really* have a format where everyone is fighting fair. I just think that acting as though we have a right to decide that is rather silly.

I agree with this in theory. There's no way that LED won't ultimately end up on the banned list. It's probably the card in Legacy most begging to be broken.

I'm not sure it's there yet, but I'm not sure I want it to get there either. If I were making the decisions, I would also knock out LED before it becomes too powerful.

[Bryant Cook]

Knock this talk off, as I've stated before combo is healthy for the format. It may be powerful, but it is disruptable. Change your decks to adapt, now lets end the whole "Lets ban LED" discussion.

[Cait_Sith]

Knock this talk off, as I've stated before combo is healthy for the format. It may be powerful, but it is disruptable. Change your decks to adapt, now lets end the whole "Lets ban LED" discussion.

I really have to agree here. LED should stay on the list, just as Lackey, Vial, and the rest of Gobs should. Having to deal with solid and consistent decks ensures that a person must be able to deal with things like this when building a deck.

As long as a deck cannot combo out with an auto win turn 1 consistently I don't see it being a problem in the format. If someone figures out how to do this with LED, then it should be banned. Until then, TES doesn't like Duress, Chalice, Pyroclasm, Trinisphere, Force of Will, Null Rod, or a large number of other hate cards and so is not tremendous danger to the format.

[Phantom]

Knock this talk off, as I've stated before combo is healthy for the format. It may be powerful, but it is disruptable. Change your decks to adapt, now lets end the whole "Lets ban LED" discussion.

I agree with all of this too (except maybe the "change your decks to adapt" as that could be said about any broken deck) and this is coming from a combo hater.

Many seem to think that LED is going to be uber broken soonish, but everyone probably thought this when the format began two years ago. Why not wait until it warps the format, then make a push for its banning?

Until then, I'm more than happy to let the TIER TWO decks that run it exist.


@ Spat: I was so angry reading this thread, then I read your post on the last page about the foundation of the format. Best post ever! Consider yourself mancrushed.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I actually have to agree with offing LED. It's what allows easy first turn wins with Belcher, and it even makes Daze pretty bad at times. CRET Belcher's borderline busted. I'm not calling for an emergency ban or anything, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if most people wanted it gone by September.

[Tacosnape]

I actually have to agree with offing LED. It's what allows easy first turn wins with Belcher, and it even makes Daze pretty bad at times. CRET Belcher's borderline busted. I'm not calling for an emergency ban or anything, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if most people wanted it gone by September.

To me, though, killing Empty the Warrens would make Zomg Belcher settle the hell down too. ETW is when all these decks started going off the charts. Before then when it was just LED, all you had to deal with was Iggy Pop and GK Salvagers. There are just far too few cards that simultaneously hate on main kill conditions and ETW.

[Eldariel]

On one hand, I really don't like LED for its sheer powerlevel, but I do like it for all the weird decks it enables (&#220;bermadness, pseudo-manaless Friggorid, Salvagers Game) so maybe killing Empty the Warrens would be more interesting as LED offers such a variety of interesting decks with Empty only makes combo more resilient. LED actually sort of has an opposite effect, as once you use it and get hit by a counter, you aren't coming back. Oh, one other point against banning LED, at least in my opinion, is that it'd lessen the efficiency of Chalice of the Void and Null Rod as anti-combo tools since the amount of playable artifact mana would drop to 8 max. That'd make it much harder for non-blue/black/white decks to combat the remaining combo-decks if LED got axe. Then again, the most efficient way to slow the format down would be banning LED. I think it's a really hard dilemma, but I think the format really would be better off a turn or two slower.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't think EtW makes the decks unfair though. Hell, EtW can be beaten with Deed, Slice and Dice, Wrath, Tabernacle... lots of things. Being able to consistently get ten 1/1s on turn 1 is really good, but against non-aggro decks it's really not that broken. And even Vial Goblins can side in Brightstone Ritual, and have maindeck Sharpshooter. EtW is actually a really good card for combo to have for all parties, as it's strong without being non-interactive. There's lots of ways around the card. Hell, it makes first turn Dark Ritual- Engineered Plague on Goblins a lot better call blind.

[Zilla]

I don't think EtW makes the decks unfair though. Hell, EtW can be beaten with Deed, Slice and Dice, Wrath, Tabernacle... lots of things.
Right. These are all cards which are utterly, one hundred percent useless against the other kill conditions in these combo decks. That's where the danger lies for EtW: it's making combo extremely resilient to hate by virtue of versatility. If I want to build a sideboard that beats first and second turn combo, I now not only have to consider cards like Chalice, Trinishpere, Glowrider, Pithing Needle, Crypt, etc, I also have to figure out how I'm going to deal with 12 1/1 creatures coming at me on second turn.

As I said in this week's Adept Q&A thread, the thing that makes combo reasonable is that it has an inverse relationship between power and consistency. The faster it is, the less stable, the slower the more consistent. EtW offers stability, versatility and consistency without slowing combo down at all. LED, on the other hand, provides very powerful accelleration, but at the cost of stability and resilience to hate.

Eventually, LED may be worth banning on the basis of raw power. At the moment though, EtW seems to me to pose a much bigger threat to the health of the format. I'm not calling for a banning, but I definitely think it needs to be watched.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

LED fuels Belcher, which is the only alternate kill I'm really worried about in that deck. Tendrils might not be stopped by Pyroclasm, but it's stopped by itself pretty well.

[MattH]

Thing is, without LED a lot of other, fair decks get massacred. Gamekeeper-Salvagers is obviously dead, but Iggy Pop also is probably slowed into oblivion (i/e/ not being faster than Tide or even Goblins), and TES too.

If Belcher is worrying you, I'd rather ban Land Grant. If storm in general is too good, Lotus Petal. I'd rather simply weaken the decks, not kill them outright if possible.

[AnwarA101]

The problem with banning either LED or ETW is that decks utilizing them haven't dominated the metagame yet. There is no consensus or real data that shows that CRET Belcher is too good. You can combine its success with TES, but then you only have about 2 tournaments with 50 people each that show both these decks maybe very good. The problem is that we need more time and more data to determine if either of these decks is really broken. I suspect that in the coming months that if both CRET Belcher and TES come to dominate the Legacy Metagame then some move maybe appropriate, but why worry about it now?

[Phantom]

The problem with banning either LED or ETW is that decks utilizing them haven't dominated the metagame yet. There is no consensus or real data that shows that CRET Belcher is too good. You can combine its success with TES, but then you only have about 2 tournaments with 50 people each that show both these decks maybe very good. The problem is that we need more time and more data to determine if either of these decks is really broken. I suspect that in the coming months that if both CRET Belcher and TES come to dominate the Legacy Metagame then some move maybe appropriate, but why worry about it now?

I think we can all agree that it's premature to campaign for the banning of LED or ETW until they have proven themselves format warping, but I don't think anyone is actually doing that. I think we're just talking about what the future may bring and the possible consequences.

With that said, if Belcher or TES get out of hand, I'd probably be on the ban ETW side of the fence. The only problem being that down the road, LED might have to go, and then do you bring ETW back?

[Illissius]

Thing is, without LED a lot of other, fair decks get massacred. Gamekeeper-Salvagers is obviously dead, but Iggy Pop also is probably slowed into oblivion (i/e/ not being faster than Tide or even Goblins), and TES too.

If Belcher is worrying you, I'd rather ban Land Grant. If storm in general is too good, Lotus Petal. I'd rather simply weaken the decks, not kill them outright if possible.

I don't think I agree with this. If something is posing a problem, and you want to get rid of it, you make absolutely sure you're getting rid of it, by banning the most broken card(s). Shoot to kill. This is the policy the DCI usually follows, because it's bitten them in the ass whenever they didn't.

I've always been a fan of banning Tendrils and Freeze (and EtW or Belcher), taking the perspective that Rituals are Rituals; Storm is Necro. LED might be an enticing option, though, because it's only one card, but it doesn't deal with the problem directly. (And collateral damage isn't something you should probably take into account with banning decisions, unless it's really huge, but Gamekeeper doesn't seem onerous). I do long for the days when combo decks required cool and inventive interactions, not just slapping fast mana and Storm together and calling it a deck.

[Machinus]

I have to second Anwar's question. Where did all this anxeity about Combo come from? Since when is combo so relevant at tournaments? Where are these broken decks winning, exactly?

[URABAHN]

I have to second Anwar's question. Where did all this anxeity about Combo come from? Since when is combo so relevant at tournaments? Where are these broken decks winning, exactly?

Maybe *shudder* Menedian was right, the format was heading in that direction before Flash, now it's going to explode all over our faces! TES and CRET WILL BUKKAKE GOBLIN TOKENS ALL OVER OUR FACES!

Bah, enough speculation, only time will tell. I know Kadi wants to do a DLD near the end of the month, there's the Legacy Event in Roanoke July 7th, and World Championships Mid-August. We'll know more after the dust settles.

[MattH]

I have to second Anwar's question. Where did all this anxeity about Combo come from? Since when is combo so relevant at tournaments? Where are these broken decks winning, exactly?
CRET Belcher is testing very well for me. I expect to see good things come from it soon. I would guess that this is true for others as well.

It's certainly too soon to ban things but its never too soon to start thinking about things.


I don't think I agree with this. If something is posing a problem, and you want to get rid of it, you make absolutely sure you're getting rid of it, by banning the most broken card(s). Shoot to kill.
If you REALLY wanted the deck dead, wouldn't you advocate banning ETW or Belcher, or really anything but the enabling LED? Banning either of those cards would be "shooting to kill". Banning LED is just one of many "shooting to wound" options, and I think it's actually the worst such option because of all the collateral damage it causes.

It also depends on what you think the problem is. IBA cares more about Belcher than ETW and if you agree with that then banning Land Grant completely solves your problem: kills Belcher, leaves Iggy standing.

R/g Belcher seems like it's getting the 'goblin problem' all over again - no particular card can be pinpointed as THE PROBLEM CARD because the real problem is not knowing which cards to prepare for.

[Illissius]

If you REALLY wanted the deck dead, wouldn't you advocate banning ETW or Belcher, or really anything but the enabling LED? Banning either of those cards would be "shooting to kill".

Isn't this what I said? ;)

I've always been a fan of banning Tendrils and Freeze (and EtW or Belcher)

(They're only in parentheses due to the context of the sentence; until recently, Belcher wasn't the combo deck du jour, hence there wasn't a reason to want them banned).


And yeah, all of this is just speculation; "if combo gets out of hand...".

[Cait_Sith]

And yeah, all of this is just speculation; "if combo gets out of hand...".

Then Lorwyn is pretty freaking amazing.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The problem with banning either LED or ETW is that decks utilizing them haven't dominated the metagame yet. There is no consensus or real data that shows that CRET Belcher is too good. You can combine its success with TES, but then you only have about 2 tournaments with 50 people each that show both these decks maybe very good. The problem is that we need more time and more data to determine if either of these decks is really broken. I suspect that in the coming months that if both CRET Belcher and TES come to dominate the Legacy Metagame then some move maybe appropriate, but why worry about it now?


but it wouldn't surprise me at all if most people wanted it gone by September.

The human ability to anticipate the future?


CRET Belcher is testing very well for me. I expect to see good things come from it soon. I would guess that this is true for others as well.

It's certainly too soon to ban things but its never too soon to start thinking about things.

Yeah, that one.



R/g Belcher seems like it's getting the 'goblin problem' all over again - no particular card can be pinpointed as THE PROBLEM CARD because the real problem is not knowing which cards to prepare for.

With a card pool as large as Legacy's, I think that's going to be a perennial problem. I think most competitive decks are going to have multiple avenues to victory. LED is still the only card I can pinpoint in Belcher as being fundamentally broken.

[Peter_Rotten]

With a card pool as large as Legacy's, I think that's going to be a perennial problem. I think most competitive decks are going to have multiple avenues to victory. LED is still the only card I can pinpoint in Belcher as being fundamentally broken.

I agree to an extent. But sometimes, like Goblins, too many pieces just fit too perfectly together.

EtW
LED
Burning Wish

All three could use some significant monitoring, IMO. But honestly, sometimes the deck just gets some crappy streaks of mulligan luck - more so than decks with more traditional mana bases.

[MattH]

With a card pool as large as Legacy's, I think that's going to be a perennial problem. I think most competitive decks are going to have multiple avenues to victory. LED is still the only card I can pinpoint in Belcher as being fundamentally broken.
It seems to me that being able to run a deck with only two lands breaks the rules of Magic a lot more than getting three mana for a drawback. LED sure looks like it would be broken, but then Survival looked pretty broken at one point too. Looks don't count for much.

I mean, what does LED actually do in the deck? It makes Burning Wish hands (even more) vulnerable to Force of Will, it does nothing but storm count when your business spell is a MD ETW, and it activates Belcher, usually about one turn faster than normal. I just don't see how you're concluding that LED is the broken piece, or even the broken-est piece among many pieces which are only pseudo-broken.

LED is certainly not broken in any other combo deck, unless you consider letting a combo deck outrace aggro too powerful. LED certainly doesn't help too much against control or disruption.