Worlds day 2 format: Legacy

[Conan_Miller]

I didn't see this anywhere else, but by checking the worlds format page here, http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=events/magic/worlds-07format, it would seem legacy gets to be a thorn is the sides of pros again. Now only if we could get that PTQ season.

[Machinus]

Day 2 (Friday, December 7)
Booster Draft format – 1 Booster draft followed by 3 Swiss rounds
3 Lorwyn booster packs will be used for drafting
Legacy format - 5 Swiss rounds

Awesome! I already want to see decklists.

[Atwa]

That's cool.

Looking at what what for decks pro's will play is always cool, especially if they are forced to play Legacy, not when they simply enter a GP to crush some noobs.

Although I'm affraid the meta will be something like 50% Goblins, 40% Threshold and 10% Other.

[Machinus]

I have no idea what is going to be in Llorwyn but I am certain Storm is going to make an appearance here, much more than "10% other."

[Pinder]

10% Other.

Slivers!

Anyway, I thought this was interesting:



Players will be drafting from boosters that have had the foils cards replaced. Foils from Lorwyn boosters are replaced as follows: Common, uncommon, and rare foils are replaced by a random, unduplicated Lorwyn common card.


I suppose this is so they can't cheat by cutting to a foil card, etc.?

[freakish777]

Holy Crap, this is awesome. Since it's in NYC, I think anyone who'll be in the area should try to show up even if its just to watch some feature matches, I know I would try if I hadn't moved to the West coast again.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Intriguing. I think this is an important look at the format spread we can expect for the next several years; Wizards seems to be really enjoying the idea of having a wider range of supported format. I like that they're making competitive multiplayer Magic a reality too, even if it's not yet constructed (I suspect that we'll begin to see two-headed Standard, but they probably want to engineer the environment for it ahead of time).

[APriestOfGix]

Intriguing. I think this is an important look at the format spread we can expect for the next several years; Wizards seems to be really enjoying the idea of having a wider range of supported format. I like that they're making competitive multiplayer Magic a reality too, even if it's not yet constructed (I suspect that we'll begin to see two-headed Standard, but they probably want to engineer the environment for it ahead of time).

What do you think Peanut/Butter and Jelly/Donught are...

Two Headed Giant Constricted !!!

[Happy Gilmore]

Wow, just plain awsome....Plus they wont have the ability to simply pick up a broken deck like Flash. Everyone is going to have to prepare and test like the rest of us. That means more innovation, especially because, unlike GP: Columbus, every top pro will be there. That translates into one heck of an event.

[Pinder]

That translates into one heck of an event.

I completely agree with you there. I mean, we know the format inside and out, but I'm sure the pros can still bring a ton of innovation to the format. In a sense, we know so much about it that we often fall into preconceived notions (Blue deck? Run Brainstorm and Force), and I think it will be interesting to see people (especially pros) looking at it from a fresh angle.

[URABAHN]

I completely agree with you there. I mean, we know the format inside and out, but I'm sure the pros can still bring a ton of innovation to the format. In a sense, we know so much about it that we often fall into preconceived notions (Blue deck? Run Brainstorm and Force), and I think it will be interesting to see people (especially pros) looking at it from a fresh angle.

They'll probably look here for all the tech. I know I would. Could it be that the Legacy Community is kinda ahead of the curve on this one? Could we all be pioneers?

[Eldariel]

This is awesome! Some real high-level support...now I have faith in the Legacy PTQ season.

[ForceofWill]

Still you know some pros are going to be playing some amazing tech that for some reason no one ever saw anywhere and smash all 5 rounds..

[Cabal-kun]

Plus they wont have the ability to simply pick up a broken deck like Flash.

So I take it Szleifer won't be making an appearance?

[technogeek5000]

Is anyone here going to play in this. I dont even understand how this works. So theres three different tournaments every day? Do you play in all three or do you choose? Do you play in all of them? Can anyone make day 2?

[ForceofWill]

Is anyone here going to play in this. I dont even understand how this works. So theres three different tournaments every day? Do you play in all three or do you choose? Do you play in all of them? Can anyone make day 2?

Nononono lol you have to Qualify for worlds (which none of us will do because you have to top 4 nationals to do that (which none of us will do)) and then you play in every day of the main event (standard, draft, legacy, two headed draft). We as normal legacy players cannot play those 5 rounds however there will be legacy side events for us.

[tivadar]

Still you know some pros are going to be playing some amazing tech that for some reason no one ever saw anywhere and smash all 5 rounds..

I disagree. While this may have been the case a year ago. I think the format has really been examined pretty well by people on this site. While I can see a deck or two which is not entirely repetitive, I really doubt anything highly innovative will come from this. One thing is certain though, it'll be interesting to see... The last pro player I played against was running FS, that was fun :-P.

[Joe Eigo]

Pro's usually aren't genius deckbuilders. But some Pro's like the Japanese have good people in this, Kenji Tsumura for example. These will surely try to find the optimal lists for the current Legacy decks. I doubt we see something new, but maybe some of them will make a few underplayed decks more competitive.

That's what i expect :]

Props to Wizards for this!

[tivadar]

Hey props to us Legacy guys as well. You have to wonder if this isn't at least partially in response to the huge turnout that GP: Columbus got. They were well over their expected numbers.

[Barook]

This is awesome! Some real high-level support...now I have faith in the Legacy PTQ season.
Problem is that there is a vast difference between a World Championship and a PTQ season, considering the amount of people who participate. There are simply not enough copies of the staples around to support a PTQ. :frown:

[TheAardvark]

Problem is that there is a vast difference between a World Championship and a PTQ season, considering the amount of people who participate. There are simply not enough copies of the staples around to support a PTQ. :frown:

Except that until 2002, duals, FoW, etc. were all legal in Extended, and they had a PTQ season for that every year.

Just saying.

[Koby]

The time is now to start getting serious about deck testing. There may not be many of us Sourcers who are qualified, but we all have friends or know people who are going. We know the format very well, and we can start by taking a gauntlet of Extended ports, as well as the DTB and testing. Metagame decks may work in this gauntlet, but must be tested heavily against DTBs.

I will be doing this for sure.

[Nightmare]

Imperial Recruiter
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Sea Drake
Rolling Earthquake

Those are the cards people would have a hard time finding (and really, only two of them see any significant play at all).

[Happy Gilmore]

I have faith that some pro deck builders will embrace the chance of beating their piers in a relatively new format where deck building and preparation = victory. Many many of the pros have been playing Magic for years, who wouldn't want to pick up some of their old favorite cards and play a serious event with them?

I want to see what Fujita comes up with.

[Machinus]

I just realized another cool thing about this. Depending on who actually makes it to this part of the tournament, we may be able to find Legacy decks from lots more famous pros. We already have cool lists from people like the Ruels, Pikula, etc., but imagine the possibilities with the PT crowd? I mean, hall of famers have almost permanent invites to the PT circuit; we could end up with Finkel Belcher or Maher Gro.

[APriestOfGix]

I just realized another cool thing about this. Depending on who actually makes it to this part of the tournament, we may be able to find Legacy decks from lots more famous pros. We already have cool lists from people like the Ruels, Pikula, etc., but imagine the possibilities with the PT crowd? I mean, hall of famers have almost permanent invites to the PT circuit; we could end up with Finkel Belcher or Maher Gro.

The real question is would Maher, play a deck Based around Dark Confidant?

[Ebinsugewa]

I'll be working at Worlds, so at worst I can try and do some matchup coverage and stuff.

[SilverGreen]

I'm certain WotC had finally realized how the recovery of the retired players of old is so important to Magic's healthy (moneywise speaking, I mean) than the formation of new ones. Legacy's an awesome tool to bring them back to the game, and I think that marketing initiatives like this one - a Legacy Invitational, wow! - are very effective ways to accomplish this goal.

[Bane of the Living]

Im pretty happy about this. I just hope people on The Source dont over react and freak out about what pro's bring to the table as though it were the Holy Grail of decklists. Seriously the only thing these guys are bringing to Legacy is playskill. Im doubtfull of innovation but I do hope to eat my foot.

[C.P.]

The real question is would Maher, play a deck Based around Dark Confidant?

Pikula played a deck based on Maher, so Now Maher will play Meddling Mage. That sounds fair to me.

Wow. Worlds Legacy. Awesome. PTQ seems unlikely, but I really wish it could come true.

[revenge_inc]

Huge Props to Wizards for this. My guess is there will be lots of innovation and news decks running around however the pros will need to consult sites like this one and the decks created by ordinary players to get up to speed on the metagame. Hopefully fast combo decks like Belcher won't pwn everything.

My bet is that someone is going to play a deck with Phyrexian Dreadnought and break the format like Flash did and we will all hate MaGo for his love of erratas. (Joke aside, I think you can do some pretty dumb stuff by adding it to Faerie StOmPy and maindecking Stifles but this is not the place to discuss that).

[Tosh]

My bet is that someone is going to play a deck with Phyrexian Dreadnought and break the format like Flash did and we will all hate MaGo for his love of erratas.

Yeah, but at least the combo won't be quite as obvious this time, and not everyone will pick it up because it's so obivously broken. I can handle one dude with a broken combo, but not everyone. Even if they win with it, it will be because it's innovative, and not retarted.

Of course, I don't think such a combo actually exists, but then, I'm not a pro ;).

[andrew77]

This is great news. I hope this leads to a legacy ptq season. I like formats with large cardpools and expensive decks. Plus since most of my collection is type 1 or legacy based it would easily double in price : )

[Clark Kant]

I don't think the prices would rise that dramatically because of a PT tour. Virtually anyone that wants to can build a solid legacy deck for very cheap.

Most of the best cards in legacy Swords, Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm are all very cheap.

Duals and FoWs were legal in extended till 2003. And shock duals make perfectly decent replacements for the duals if necessary.

There's a lot of competitive decks out there that don't need any superexpensive cards.

My cheapest competitive legacy deck costed me around $60. I bought two ebay auctions containing a 4x set of all Mirrodan commons for dead cheap, bought 4 Ravagers and a couple of uncommons and commons (bonesplitter and arcbound workers) and wound up with a perfectly tuned Affinity deck.

Combo decks are cheap to build.

And if you use a bit of creativity, you can make budget decks that are almost as good as the decks they are mimiking (Sui Black similar to red death or deadguy for example), a UG gro deck etc.

[BreathWeapon]

Intriguing. I think this is an important look at the format spread we can expect for the next several years; Wizards seems to be really enjoying the idea of having a wider range of supported format. I like that they're making competitive multiplayer Magic a reality too, even if it's not yet constructed (I suspect that we'll begin to see two-headed Standard, but they probably want to engineer the environment for it ahead of time).

Have people pushed for a Highlander format at all? That would be a sweet constructed format to splash around in to.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Highlander, while fun, actually reduces the skill element rather than merely adding variety to it. Legacy and Two-Headed Giant, the once "casual" formats we've seen high level support for now, merely add new elements to the game. I suspect that this is why Vintage won't see any more high level support, even moreso than the price issue.


And keep in mind that prices rise when there's a PTQ season. If you want to know why it's impossible, I'll make it simple; Dual Lands. Dual Lands are already pushing the 20-35 range, and that's with far less need.

[Cabal-kun]

And shock duals make perfectly decent replacements for the duals if necessary.

So the tempo loss of putting them into play tapped doesn't hurt you that much? How about the -2 life if you choose to not to put them into play tapped? Could you build a deck, say Threshold, with all shocklands and expect to be able to compete? (Opponents rolling on the floor laughing at your manabase doesn't count.)

[BreathWeapon]

Highlander, while fun, actually reduces the skill element rather than merely adding variety to it. Legacy and Two-Headed Giant, the once "casual" formats we've seen high level support for now, merely add new elements to the game. I suspect that this is why Vintage won't see any more high level support, even moreso than the price issue.


And keep in mind that prices rise when there's a PTQ season. If you want to know why it's impossible, I'll make it simple; Dual Lands. Dual Lands are already pushing the 20-35 range, and that's with far less need.

How so? Is decreasing people's options indicative of reducing the skill of a format? That's like saying Standard is less skill intensive than Extended, Legacy or Vintage etc. Or is just running a deck that consists of 1x some how easier to build and play than a deck that consists of 4x?

I don't necessarily disagree with your notion, because I only play Highlander casually, but I've never heard of an argument for adjusting the min/max of the cards in a game that concluded that it also reduced the skill of the game along with it.

Multiplayer and Two Headed Giant aren't really constructed formats, they're almost entirely different games that use the same cards. I guess you could say the same thing about Highlander, but it's the closest thing resembling a traditional constructed format I've seen and more interesting than Peasant or that other jazz.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Vintage and Highlander reduce the skill in the game because the odds of getting any given card become highly more randomized. Thus whether or not you draw your best cards or your worst determines the outcome of the game in a more swingy way than normally.

On the other topic, I dare someone to try playing 3 or 4 color Landstill with Shocklands.

[C.P.]

Vintage and Highlander reduce the skill in the game because the odds of getting any given card become highly more randomized. Thus whether or not you draw your best cards or your worst determines the outcome of the game in a more swingy way than normally.

On the other topic, I dare someone to try playing 3 or 4 color Landstill with Shocklands.

I actually have seen a guy making thresh out of shocks. And I dropped the Ankh in front of him. Then Price of Progressed him. It was funny how He took 7 from playing fetch, fetching breeding pool, playing it untapped to play a cantrip.

[capewestgames]

Prices are already climbing on some of the legacy staples. Gencon has the Legacy championship in about 3 weeks so Lions Eye Diamonds have jumped from $7 to $11. I bought a set of Chrome Moxes for $25 at the beginning of this year and I now see them at about $40.This new development will start the speculators on buying some of the top Legacy cards also. Should be interesting to watch.

Mike

[APriestOfGix]

Pro's arn't going to build their decks... SIMPLE!

Many fourms have been working for years to build great decks, ergo they will rip lists off The Source/Port from Extended/Not do well

yes, yes, yes, there will be someone with an original list that top eights, but come on, they know people at the source and the mana drain have been making legacy lists for what like 4 years? why would they not come here to find a list to start with.


Although it might be fun to see how they twike our decks to make the better/metagame them/ruin them?

[Anusien]

Pro's arn't going to build their decks... SIMPLE!

Many fourms have been working for years to build great decks, ergo they will rip lists off The Source/Port from Extended/Not do well

yes, yes, yes, there will be someone with an original list that top eights, but come on, they know people at the source and the mana drain have been making legacy lists for what like 4 years? why would they not come here to find a list to start with.
Winning Worlds is the single most significant honor in Magic (second maybe to winning the Invitational or being Kai/Finkel). It also gets you automatic invites to everything including the Invitational, a bunch of money and helps your Nationals team out (I believe). In other words, it's the event the qualified pros are most likely to test for. Now, it's more likely the pros will focus on the T2 or drafting than Legacy, since Legacy comes last and it can be the least important to top-eighting for high end players, but it's still significant. For comparison, people like CF's Domain Zoo deck last year defined the Extended season.

You can expect deckbuilders like these to turn their hand towards Legacy:
Miharo, Shouta, Mori, Maher, Morita, Oiso, the Ruels, Wafo-Tapa, Herberholz are all qualified
And they bring Kenji, Itaru, and Shimizu

[TheDarkshineKnight]

The only way a Legacy PTQ could ever work is if the format had a greater playerbase. The only way to create such a playerbase, methinks, would be to make packs with reprints of important, but hard to get cards that are only legal in Legacy. Mebbe put an L symbol on all of them to denot their legality.

[andrew77]

The only way a Legacy PTQ could ever work is if the format had a greater playerbase. The only way to create such a playerbase, methinks, would be to make packs with reprints of important, but hard to get cards that are only legal in Legacy. Mebbe put an L symbol on all of them to denot their legality.

Having a ptq season would increase the player base. For example I wouldn't play block were it not for the ptq season and neither would most of my friends. Creating a legacy ptq season would attract a lot of people to the format. The reason why it won't happen is because prices of cards would skyrocket. This really shouldn't be a problem though since standard cards are always overpriced. If ravnica weren't rotating out soon most shocklands would still be 12-15 dollars which is just a little cheaper than the price of nonblue duals. Introducing a legacy ptq season would only mean that force of wills and dual lands jump in price a bit and a few cards like imperial recruiter and sea drake becoming very expensive for the format.

[Nihil Credo]

Heh. I just remembered this little piece: sorry, Raph, you're gonna have to deal with it.

Ask the Pro - May 26, 2007
Q: I was wondering what pros think of the Eternal formats, especially Legacy. Do you see it as a "good" format or do you not care about it? Do you keep up with what is happening in Legacy and Vintage? I would like to know because Wizards is giving Legacy a little push with the few Grand Prix, but there hasn't been a Pro Tour for any Eternal format. Would you like to see an Eternal Pro Tour?
- Simon

A: Hi Simon,
Pros are basically interested in anything that is played competitively. If Wizards announces a Vintage Pro Tour tomorrow, pros will try to catch up with everything they have missed. I don't think that will ever happen, unless Wizards wants pros to spend all the money they win from the tournaments to dealers for Power 9 cards. There are very few pro players who play Vintage seriously. Like any other format, it takes a lot of preparation to master, and for no real reward. They'd rather put their efforts into the next Pro Tour's Constructed format.
Legacy is a wide format, and by the time you read this answer, Grand Prix–Columbus will be in the books, and we'll know the impact Flash (javascript:autoCardWindow('Flash')) decks had. Legacy doesn't exactly have the financial constraint Vintage has. Dual lands are a lot easier to get a hold of than Moxen and you'll probably find people around you who won't need the cards you'll want to play (so they can lend them to you) ... once again, unlike Moxen. And even then, they are many very competitive decks that don't cost a thing, like Goblins for example.
A Grand Prix once in a while isn't that a big deal, but a Pro Tour would be. Not being able to playtest on Magic Online would probably be a real issue.
I don't play either format. I do read a few things about both, just to keep track of what's going on, more because it's entertaining than because I have a real interest in them. Would I like to see a Pro Tour in any of these formats? Honestly? Not really!

[Whit3 Ghost]

I'm not even gonna lie about this, I really want to see if the Japanese have anything up their sleeves.

Ruel and others have shown up at GPs, but as far as I know, not too many, if any of the japanese pros have gone to the GPs.

[Nihil Credo]

I just hope Richard Feldman either qualifies or has a friend who qualifies for Worlds, because I want to see him design another Legacy deck. I enjoy his work so much I'll now be going to masturbate over his SCG archive. Again.

[APriestOfGix]

point made.

I was just on MWS, and testing against a pro going to worlds (goes by the name Hiroshima)

The three decks he was thinking of playing...

U/G/w Threshold
U/G Madness (slight changed from Roland Chang's version, as he admitted)
High Tide Combo


Guys this is pathetic, Thresh is the ONLY deck worth actually playing, i really wanted to see a pro pick up TES, or CRET Belcher, or Pox, or something and break it, i didn't want to see them use our lists...

[andrew77]

point made.

I was just on MWS, and testing against a pro going to worlds (goes by the name Hiroshima)

The three decks he was thinking of playing...

U/G/w Threshold
U/G Madness (slight changed from Roland Chang's version, as he admitted)
High Tide Combo


Guys this is pathetic, Thresh is the ONLY deck worth actually playing, i really wanted to see a pro pick up TES, or CRET Belcher, or Pox, or something and break it, i didn't want to see them use our lists...


Whats really pathetic is that madness is trash and so is solidarity atm and threshold with white splash is inferior to the red splash. IMO TES, red thresh, and aluren are really great choices.

[Pale Moon FTW]

Don't expect the pros to innovate a lot. Their focus is on standard and draft, for legacy most of them will probably just pick up Goblins because that's "the best deck".

[APriestOfGix]

Heh. I just remembered this little piece: sorry, Raph, you're gonna have to deal with it.

Ask the Pro - May 26, 2007
Q: I was wondering what pros think of the Eternal formats, especially Legacy. Do you see it as a "good" format or do you not care about it? Do you keep up with what is happening in Legacy and Vintage? I would like to know because Wizards is giving Legacy a little push with the few Grand Prix, but there hasn't been a Pro Tour for any Eternal format. Would you like to see an Eternal Pro Tour?
- Simon

A: Hi Simon,
Pros are basically interested in anything that is played competitively. If Wizards announces a Vintage Pro Tour tomorrow, pros will try to catch up with everything they have missed. I don't think that will ever happen, unless Wizards wants pros to spend all the money they win from the tournaments to dealers for Power 9 cards. There are very few pro players who play Vintage seriously. Like any other format, it takes a lot of preparation to master, and for no real reward. They'd rather put their efforts into the next Pro Tour's Constructed format.
Legacy is a wide format, and by the time you read this answer, Grand Prix–Columbus will be in the books, and we'll know the impact Flash (javascript:autoCardWindow('Flash')) decks had. Legacy doesn't exactly have the financial constraint Vintage has. Dual lands are a lot easier to get a hold of than Moxen and you'll probably find people around you who won't need the cards you'll want to play (so they can lend them to you) ... once again, unlike Moxen. And even then, they are many very competitive decks that don't cost a thing, like Goblins for example.
A Grand Prix once in a while isn't that a big deal, but a Pro Tour would be. Not being able to playtest on Magic Online would probably be a real issue.
I don't play either format. I do read a few things about both, just to keep track of what's going on, more because it's entertaining than because I have a real interest in them. Would I like to see a Pro Tour in any of these formats? Honestly? Not really!


Tehy are reprinting old amazing cards...

wounder WHY they might want to reprint FoW???


LOOK!!!!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/magiconline/article072007a

[FoolofaTook]

Don't expect the pros to innovate a lot. Their focus is on standard and draft, for legacy most of them will probably just pick up Goblins because that's "the best deck".

I'd be really surprised if professional players picked a deck that was DOA against good combo and likely to be looking in the mirror a lot of the time. Flash-Hulk was a different story because it was only DOA against Fish, and then only slightly so, and Fish was not going to win GP Columbus.

I'm betting the Pros will lean really heavily towards a fast deck that they can fit 4 Force of Will into, that probably means Threshold.

[Lego]

While I hope I get to eat my words in a few months time, I really don't think we'll see anything spectacular coming out of this event. I don't expect a single new deck. I do, however, expect a couple of nice innovations on current decks. One of the things we've seen the Japanese do really well in recent years is take a good, established deck, do something crazy to it, and rock the format. Barring the format rocking, the pros are usually good at tweaking those last four or five cards and coming up with a truly close-to-optimal decklist. I'd expect that to happen at this event, but I wouldn't expect anything new and big.

[Anusien]

I was just on MWS, and testing against a pro going to worlds (goes by the name Hiroshima)

The three decks he was thinking of playing...

U/G/w Threshold
U/G Madness (slight changed from Roland Chang's version, as he admitted)
High Tide Combo
Yes, and I played against a Level 17 judge the other day who told me he can tap my lands with Icy Manipulator in response to me playing spells to counter them.

Expect the pros to test on their own. They have a strong investment in the format (as per my previous post) since they want to win worlds, and are likely to take it seriously. Even though a lot of pros simply played BDW last year, a lot also did some really innovative work.

[Clark Kant]

It depends on just how much time pros spend learning about Legacy.

If they take a lot of time, I expect they would realize the best built fast combo decks have strategic superiority over and a very favorable matchup versus Goblins and there won't be too much goblins in the tournament.

In such a case, my guess would be a lot of the metagame would be composed of Fairie Stompy, Fish, Thresh or fast combo as they have the very few unfavorable matchups and good matchups against all the other commonly played decks in the format.

And assuming that, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the deck that has a good matchup versus Fairie Stompy, Thresh and Fish decks, a decent combo matchup and no really bad matchups, like Vodka Pox running 3 MD Tabernacle and 2 MD Trini/Chalice places some people into the top 8.

But that might just be wishful thinking.

[Anusien]

If they take a lot of time, I expect they would realize the best built fast combo decks have strategic superiority over and a very favorable matchup versus Goblins and there won't be too much goblins in the tournament.
I don't think that term means what you think it means. </Inigo Montoya>

Anyway, all I'm saying is don't count the pros out.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Pros very, very rarely just pop new decks out of thin air in any format that's been at all explored. What they do very well is to tweak and innovate the existing strongest decks, or take a deck that's overlooked as tier 3 or even lower and make it strong. I don't expect Worlds to be the source of new decks, but I do expect there to be some new drift towards consensus about the best builds of the top decks as we see what gets cut and what remains in Gro, Goblins, and a handful of other tier 1-2's.

[Bryant Cook]

I'm curious as to what pros can do with combo, as a good combo player myself. If a pro top 8's with TES or Belcher they're probably very good, since most pros generally don't play extremely challenging decks for several hours.

[Clark Kant]

I don't think that term means what you think it means. </Inigo Montoya>

Anyway, all I'm saying is don't count the pros out.

For you to make that claim, you have to know what I think strategic superiority means in the first place.

I take strategic superiority to mean that two decks try to achieve the same thing (in this case, both goblins and fast combo aim to win the game quickly rather than try to control the board like control and fish decks try to do), but one does it in a quicker less disruptable manner than the other.

It is up for debate whether fast combo does indeed have strategic superiority over goblins. But atleast from my experience and encounters with both decks, fast combo not only wins faster than goblins, but is less prone to, and more easily recovers from hate cards due to it's draw and tutoring. Fast combo is much more likely to be able to tutor/draw into bounce to send back Chalice or Trinisphere than Goblins is to randomly topdeck the disenchant or wasteland needed to destroy Ghostly Prison and Tabernacle of Pendral Vale.

That's why I believe combo has strategic superiority to goblins.

[Anusien]

For you to make that claim, you have to know what I think strategic superiority means in the first place.

I take strategic superiority to mean that two decks try to achieve the same thing (in this case, both goblins and fast combo aim to win the game quickly rather than try to control the board like control and fish decks try to do), but one does it in a quicker less disruptable manner than the other.

It is up for debate whether fast combo does indeed have strategic superiority over goblins. But atleast from my experience and encounters with both decks, fast combo not only wins faster than goblins, but is less prone to, and more easily recovers from hate cards due to it's draw and tutoring. Fast combo is much more likely to be able to tutor/draw into bounce to send back Chalice or Trinisphere than Goblins is to randomly topdeck the disenchant or wasteland needed to destroy Ghostly Prison and Tabernacle of Pendral Vale.

That's why I believe combo has strategic superiority to goblins.
At the risk of going off-topic, that's a great concept and probably somethign we need a term for. However, that's not what strategic superiority is.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/6984.html
This probably deserves a thread or a mini-article going over a lot of common and mis-used terms.


Seth's deck had what we call Strategy Superiority over the Decks to Beat. If Seth's deck operated normally, and either Necropotence or Oath of Druids operated normally, Seth's deck would win, because his baseline strategy could operate while simultaneously stymieing the baseline strategies of his opponents. He doesn't have to do anything special in order to make life difficult for Necropotence and Oath. When you see the reverse happening, for example, when Hacker with the Free Spell Necro beat Jay Elarar with Pooh Burn, it was because Hacker played a wildly different base strategy, and also fooled Elarar (Hacker played as a pure Masticore/creature elimination deck and raced Elarar, who did not realize he could kill Masticore with Incinerate due to the then-fresh 6th Edition Rules).
The classic example is how Oath has strategic superiority over normal RDW builds (which prompted them to switch to Sandstalkers for a while during Oath's reign of Extended) or how Reset Tide has strategic superiority over Iggy. A deck's baseline plan as a natural trump to another deck's plan = strategic superiority. This does not necessarily equate to deck advantage (who is ahead in the matchup); Oath has strategic superiority over decks with creatures, but it can still lose to those decks.

[Clark Kant]

Interesting. You're right, I guess I had been misusing the word.

Regardless, my point was that I believe combo to be superior to goblins and should be played more for the reasons I posted, whatever you want to call those reasons, goal superiority seems like a good word for it off the top of my head.

[Nightmare]

BDM's Article today (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/bd290) discusses the reasoning behind Legacy at Worlds. As it turns out, it's convenience, more than a push for the format. He also fails to mention the Legacy community's role in this at all - he mentions the excellent turnout for Columbus in passing as proof that Pro's are interested.

Oh, and Smennen gets a name-drop. Must be nice.

[CynicalSquirrel]

Yeah, BDM's article was kind of disappointing. It was kind of funny the huge number of formats they went through before they finally had to settle on Legacy, including various strange casual formats etc. I can't really complain though, the bottom line is Legacy will be at Worlds and it should be pretty cool.