Banned List discussion - not 2 weeks before

[anonymos]

So I’ve been thinking. Why do all the articles about how Wizards should change the banned & restricted list appear 1-2 weeks before they announce the change? Wouldn’t one think that if they were being logical (here’s hoping), that they would have their changes more or less figured out by then. I’d guess it is closer to a continuous process in figuring out what should go on the list. I’m proposing an educated discussion starting now so that we can help steer the list for the format that we love. I’ve broken down the B&R list into several sections for ease of viewing. I could easily be wrong on several accounts, but this is how I view them.


Ante Cards:

Amulet of Quoz
Bronze Tablet
Contract from Below
Darkpact
Demonic Attorney
Jeweled Bird
Rebirth
Tempest Efreet
Timmerian Fiends

The things that will never come back (due to cost constraints):

Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Time Walk
Timetwister
Bazaar of Baghdad
Illusionary Mask
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Mishra's Workshop

Cards Requiring Dexterity:

Chaos Orb
Falling Star

Broken Tutors/Card Drawing:

Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Gush
Imperial Seal
Memory Jar
Necropotence
Skullclamp
Time Spiral
Tinker
Vampiric Tutor
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Yawgmoth's Bargain

Evil Combo Pieces:

Dream Halls
Earthcraft
Entomb
Flash
Goblin Recruiter
Hermit Druid
Mind's Desire
Worldgorger Dragon
Yawgmoth's Will

Fast Mana:

Channel
Fastbond
Grim Monolith
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Metalworker
Sol Ring
Tolarian Academy

The Leftovers:

Balance
Black Vise
Frantic Search
Land Tax
Mind Twist
Oath of Druids
Strip Mine


Sure, I’ll be quick to admit that the ante cards, cards requiring manual dexterity, and the expensive cards will probably never come back. Wizard actually put a couple cards on the Legacy banned list due to the monetary value of the card, not because it was considered “overpowered” (i.e. Illusionary Mask). That gives us reason to believe that they will not return. Of the rest of the list, there are a few cards that I think could see the light of day again. Windfall, Dream Halls, Entomb, Fastbond, Grim Monolith, Mana Vault, Metalworker, Land Tax, Mind Twist, and Strip Mine all seem feasible to come back to us.

**Removed bad idea**

Dream Halls was once a nasty standard combo piece. I believe that our format is fast enough to not make this card a threat. I don’t believe that it belongs on the restricted list in vintage either, but that’s another story all together. I would love to see a Dream Halls deck that can compete in the current Legacy Metagame, but since I do not believe it to be feasible, I think we could safely get it removed from the list.

Entomb is another black sheep that got a bad rap because of a combo deck. Worldgorger Dragon got this card axed before the Legacy and Vintage lists were split. Since the Dragon is no longer available to us, why can’t our reanimator have Entomb back?

**Removed bad idea** (fastbond)

**Removed bad idea** (mana vault / grim monolith)

Metalworker was given the axe because it was banned in extended and Wizards wanted to make sure it didn’t run rampant in their “newly revisted” Legacy format. Now that we’ve had our list separated for a couple of years, does anyone see this card actually rearing it’s head outside of AngelStax? I don’t see it being feasible.

Land Tax is a very solid card that I don’t think would throw anything off. Sure, it works faster than Eternal Dragon, but who really runs enough basic lands anymore to make this card scary other than Rifter? Sure, it interacts with Scroll Rack to draw 3 extra cards per turn, but beyond that does this card really seem that overpowered anymore? I know I’d still be sticking to my duals and fetches.

Mind Twist is unbanned in Vintage. They have a greater chance at an overpowered start that would abuse it than we do. Why can’t we play with it too?

**Removed bad idea**

I’ve defended my positions for things that should come off of the list. I really don’t see anything currently that should go onto the banned list. There are a couple of cards I’m keeping an eye on. Keep in mind that Mana Drain was axed while it held a price of around $75. I know that there are a couple of cards from the newly added Portal sets that are approaching that value. The only other card I could see as “warping” in any way is Empty the Warrens. I don’t think that Warrens is the culprit there as much as the fast mana is though.

**Editing for wiser people than me** I'm currently looking for the article from when they split Legacy and Vintage's B&R lists. I distinctly remember them saying that they axed stuff because of their monetary value. I don't see them doing it again, but when they seperated the formats, that was the reasoning they gave.

Thoughts?

~Anonymos

[The Rack]

This is a good thread you have started here anonymos.

I for one would like to see Strip Mine back in play because it would severely shut down the combo turn 1-2 win rate but might give a little too much power to Stax lists.

I think Black VIse should come back because the worst it does is deal 5 (usually 4) damage if you drop it turn one. Decks drop their hands pretty quickly nowadays so I don't think this should be banned IMO.

my 2 cents

[Silverdragon]

Strip Mine is probably the most arguable choice on my list. I have no doubt in my mind that it is. I think that bringing back Strip Mine would slow down the format. The fragile manabases that our dominant decks currently have would make room for control to have a chance when it normally wouldn’t. Maybe I’m just dreaming, but I seriously think that bringing back Strip Mine could be a viable option.

I just wanted to note that having a format with 4 Strip Mines and 4 Wastelands would obsolete any and all archetypes except for super fast combo and prison. "Uh, nice basic land you got there. Guess what now I have 4 uncounterable free ways to screw you instead of waiting for my Armageddon."
Strip Mine does not punish fragile manabases, it punishes playing any lands at all!
Btw. Exploration is currently played as a 4-of in Enchantress lists and it is lightyears weaker than Fastbond.
The problem with unbanning acceleration like Grim Monolith or Mana Vault is that they are strong but not broken in a vaccuum however whenever the acceleration available in a format reaches a critical mass brokeness happens. Academy is "only" acceleration as is Mishras Workshop. Ban all playable artifacts and suddenly the broken Academy can be played as a 4-of...

Personally I'd like to see the impact of Land Tax and/or Metalworker in Legacy. The rest can stay where it is. Maybe ban LED to cut down on the acceleration.

[C.P.]

Windfall - This is nonsense. It is Burning Wishable Draw 7. Considering How good Dreturns already is in TES, Windfall is very dangerous. Also, Spring tide will not just sit there not abusing this card. It is sorcery speed Meditate at worst.

Dream Halls - It may look reasonable card to come back, but our format just got replenish back recently, and it is very powerful card, and Probably can be broken. Through testing should be done.

Entomb - I'm not an Ichorid expert, but wouldn't Ichorid abuse this card quite a bit?

Fastbond - Please get off whatever Crack you're on. I can replace Explorations and wild growth in my enchantress with these and break the hell out of the format. Not to mention that it is probably the weakest use of the card.

Grim Monolith / Mana Vault – We just got Mind over matter back. Also, we can play 4 Voltaic keys alongside with it. We also Have 4 3sphere. See a trend?

Metalworker - since Legacy players knows how to deal with swingly creaturs in early turns anyway, It might be OK to bring it back.

Land Tax - It would be pretty good in the format without being broken. However, AF's Argument against unbanning it was pretty reasonable, so There.

Mind Twist - I think I'll will make control more unviable then it is. The fact that it is very splashable makes me worry.

Strip Mine - Please get off whatever medicine you're on. Really.

To sum it up:

Sheer nonsense (What the hell are you smoking, again?)
Strip mine, Fastbond, Mana Vault, Windfall


Doable, but let's not risk it.
Entomb, Grim Monolith, Mind Twist, Dream Halls.

Can be considered as reasonable choice
Metalworker, Land Tax


Now, my own choice of debate would be unbanning of Hermit Druid and Gush. Gush may be bit over the top, but hermit druid? Can't anyone deal with 1/1 in a deck that runs Wasteable, Priceable Manabase?

[Clark Kant]

I think the cards that obviously didn't belong on the list, Mind over Matter and Replenish, were taken care of. All the cards still left on the list including Land Tax and Entomb, a good case can be made that they are too abusable (Land Tax with Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond & Scroll Rack; Entomb with Auriok Salvagers combo) just as one can be made that they are not.

I think more likely, depending on how Black Vise, Mind Twist and maybe even Gush fare in Vintage, I could see all of them perhaps coming off the list in Legacy too.

Yes I know Vintage isn't like legacy, but the cards were banned from both formats for the same reasons, and those reasons are no longer pertinent in either format.

Mind Twist is a lot stronger in vintage where even noncombo decks could get lots of mana very early on thanks to the power nine.

Black Vise was broken when keeper variants dominated. But it would suck against modern combo and many other decks in the format so I can't see it being an automatic candidate for maindeck inclusion.

Gush is a strong card, but broken strong, I can't say for certain.

[C.P.]

We need a lot more interaction then Vintage, that much is certain. That's what the format is about. Black vise is not a reasonable card for such a format. It came off the list beacuse It did not matter in vantage. But Legacy? Ok, Are we trying to nail the coffin here? Control is already hard pressed to do what it does, since the format is incredibly diverse. Now you're going to give aggro new tools to fight it even Better? just throw 4 Vise in Affinity and see how it feels like to play against it.

[Bovinious]

Hermit Druid, Dream Halls and Land Tax can come off, the rest of the list is pretty fair imo. Windfall is a draw7, Entomb isn't banned b/c of reanimator its banned because in many decks its a better Vampiric Tutor, Metalworker makes too much mana too fast, and Mind Twist would be a vicious and unfair card in Legacy. Grim Monolith could come off maybe, but like C.P. said we do have 4 key, 4 3sphere, and MoM, maybe its best to leave it banned just it case.

[Slay]

Windfall is bad in Vintage because unless you play it first turn on the play, your opponent can spend a turn unloading 2-3 cards worth of Moxen and lands, thus making you draw half as much cards, which means you may only get a 1-2 card benefit out of it - not exactly dealbreaking for a 3-mana sorcery in Vintage. In Legacy, however, we don't all play fast mana, so decks designed to abuse it would be routinely able to get a 3-5 card advantage out of it. That's dumb.

Fastbond would break Enchatnress so hard they'd find it difficult to not win on turn 3.

Grim Monolith/Mana Vault. No. Combo is this close to being completely ridiculous already, and they have to play cards like Simian Spirit Guide to round out the deck. Giving them powerful mana options just makes them about a zillion times more consistent. No thanks.

Entomb: Maybe. It's really powerful, and incredibly powerful tutors that cost tiny amounts can break formats very easily. I vote no.

Mind Twist/Metalworker: These could be unbanned, and some decks would get very powerful. Not format-breakingly powerful, IMO, but then again I'm not a deckbuilder.

Dream Halls: NO

Strip Mine: NO

Land Tax: No, for the reasons AF described.
-Slay

[Team-Hero]

The only card that I would consider supporting in becoming unbanned is Metalworker; although I am still a little scared in what it can do in an artifact deck.

Landtax to me is scary because it is so easy to cast and if you are on the draw you can totally take advantage of this card. Lets say your deck consists of three colors: on your second turn you just received all three of those colors in basic land form which in my opinion is better than dual lands. The tempo is insane and people will find some way in abusing a fat hand.

All other cards should stay in the banned list.
Strip Mine? HEEEEEELLLLL NO!

[HPC]

Black Vise - Should come back. It's a thorn in the side of any deck that likes to keep a full hand. So it might hurt control, but so does Aether Vial at the same CC. It might possibly open up a new variation on the control arch-type making a short term control strategy viable with Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, Stasis, etc.... It's definitely unbannable and could help Control as much as hurt it.

Dream Halls - could probably come off in 6 - 12 months. It shouldn't affect the format much and there's no need to rush it.

Metalworker - In a vacuum, Metalworker isn't much different than Lackey and a deck with MetalWorker in it wouldn't be significantly different than Reanimator (except you'd be casting big creatures from your hand rather than pulling them back from the grave). My biggest concern with unbanning it is Metalworker might make a strong deck with Goblin Tinkerer. Not to mention that artifacts have a significantly larger card pool than goblins. People pushing for the removal of Metalworker from the B&R list are risking a broken format.

Land Tax - It wasn't broken in the format before it was banned. Wizards doesn't have a good reason to keep in on the B&R list now. The worst it does it combine with Scroll Rack to form a 2 card combo that doesn't win the game.

All the rest of the cards belong on the B&R list. But just to respond to the crazy people....

Grim Monolith / Mana Vault - I'd love to see fast accessible mana, like Dark Ritual, available to all colors. But you've got to be kidding if you think unbanning these cards will do anything but turn the format into some crazy cousin of T1.

Strip Mine - You must like Ichorid if you want this unbanned. It wouldn't slow the format down at all. It would fuck it up.

[dahcmai]

I played during the days of unrestricted Strip Mine and when it had it's not-so-horrid counterpart Wasteland at the same time.

When it was Strip by itself, it just sucked. You could literally just topdeck your way to a win just because you drew more than 1. This was with decks mostly made up of Basic land. Think about how bad Wasteland is when you're playing a deck full of non-basics. It's not over the top powerful, but it sure swings the game into their favor real quick if you don't replace those lands fast. Most of the time drawing more than one strip just won you the game due to mana screw.


When Wasteland joined it, it was just plain silly. Put it this way, that's when I decided to upgrade all my dual lands to Alpha/Beta because the price on them was actually dropping. Who wanted lands that died to everything? No one in their right mind played any less than the full complement of strips/Wastes.



The only ones I would like to see make a comeback are Land Tax and Grim Monolith. Monolith will never happen and the only reason I liked it was because of Angel Dust. Unfortunately, it is a combo god card and will never see Legacy again.

Land Tax, well I just don't agree with people over this one. I agree it's powerful, just not broken by any means. I actually expected it to come off before Replenish. Replenish was way worse in standard than Land Tax was. Even in the Bazaar Reanimator Legacy days, Land Tax wasn't overpowered. I bet Goblins would enjoy it today. Scroll Tax was good in it's day, but a little slow by today's standards. That argument of it not being fun is kind of lame.

[Raider Bob]

Fastbond - Fastbond/Fetchland/Crucible/Zuran orb/2 Land = Turn 1 Infinant Life/Infinant Mana. Fastbond is one of those cards that is just pure excelleration. It wont see the light of day due to the pure power that it would enable decks. Wasteland/Ghost Quarter = Land Lock. Wasteland/Mishra Factory/Mishra Factory = 1 Huge creature. With Zuran Orb legal and Crucible of Worlds you will never see this card more than on the restricted list for type 1.

[BreathWeapon]

From a combo perspective, one of the interesting disparities between this format and Classic is the unbanning/restriction of Mind's Desire despite an otherwise similar card pool (minus Lotus Petal, plus Vampiric Tutor and in a format with out Force of Will no less). I'm curious to see just how "broken" this card is in combo, because I have a suspicion that a 4 Mind's Desire deck wouldn't be as good as the other alternatives in this format. It would be an interesting Burning Wish target for certain, but the question still stands as to how Mind's Desire is an after thought for a format that has Lion's Eye Diamond, Vampiric Tutor and doesn't have Force of Will, but a taboo here. I'm not saying Mind's Desire should come off, it's just one of those observations that begs certain questions about what principles govern the banned lists of different formats.

On a similar note, I feel the same about Timespiral, where Timespiral is worse than Diminishing Returns short of High Tide, and even then how broken could Sorcery speed High Tide be? Windfall would be too over powered tho', I'd run that card as a 4x in combo with out a moment of hesitation.

Earthcraft is garbage, and Metal Worker and Land Tax are both salvagable.

I don't see a problem with Mind Twist, because control could use the boost, but Black Vice would just be the coffin nail for control. Gush is just too good, I don't want to see another format filled with GAT and I guarantee it's broken in Doomsday to.

Unbanning Strip Mine would be a bad idea, let's not turn the format into Crucible/Loam lock decks.

After the recent errata to Phyrexian Dreadnought, Illusionary Mask should definitely come off of the banned list. You can't errata Phyrexian Dreadnought in order to make it a threat and then allow another card to remain banned when it has the same effect as Stifle at the same price as Time Vault.

I never understood the reason Worldgordger Dragon was banned for, it's not even that good with out Bazaar of Baghdad or Entomb.

Edit: Hermit Druid should never come off, because it became a one card combo after Narcomoeba. I don't care if it is a 1/1 creature with summoning sickness, that card just wins the game by itself after it resolves. Shuko and Cephalid Illusionist are about as fair as that combo gets, and even those two cards are rather unfair.

[Machinus]

The upcoming UL is on this topic. Look for some serious analysis by me next week.

[hi-val]

Windfall is bad in Vintage because unless you play it first turn on the play, your opponent can spend a turn unloading 2-3 cards worth of Moxen and lands, thus making you draw half as much cards, which means you may only get a 1-2 card benefit out of it - not exactly dealbreaking for a 3-mana sorcery in Vintage. In Legacy, however, we don't all play fast mana, so decks designed to abuse it would be routinely able to get a 3-5 card advantage out of it. That's dumb.


Just a minor clarification here. Windfall as a 1-of isn't amazing in Vintage, but as a 4-of, I can assure you that it would be the only card in the format. Historically, we had Draw-7, which ran 3-4 Diminishing Returns. Windfall would slot into that deck easily, giving the format a really strong storm deck that also had Force of Will maindeck.

One of the strongest ways to beat storm combo in Vintage is with Stax, but Windfall's "drawback" becomes a stupidly good advantage because of Hurkyl's Recall. One can sit on fetchlands until they Hurk's the Stax player at the end of the turn, and then Windfall into thirteen new cards, plus another draw-7 or another Windfall. Any draw-7 that pulls you into one of your 4-of Windfalls also turns on Windfall. Time Spiral made Windfall insane in Academy T2.

Windfall, like Grim Monolith and Entomb, isn't amazing as a 1-of but pretty stupid as a 4-of (with Monolith, think Belcher decks).

[C.P.]

...

...Am I reading this correctly?

So you are saying Mind's desire is questionable, and Time spiral is Bad so It can come back? Also, Dragon and Mind twist is Fine for the format when you think Gush and Hermit druid is too broken?

....Am I reading this correctly?

Mind's desire is very unfair card, and we have just about every tool ever printed to abuse it. We have Burning wish to run 7 of them, Rituals and Artifact Mana to Have fun with it on turn 2, and Whatnot. ETW alone is making people worried, and you are talking about the most powerful Storm card ever printed. I do admit I'm not a combo expert, and you may know better than me about combo. But what I know is that hitting 4UU on Turn 1, 2 with reasonable storm count is not very hard, and the card is just better than diminishing returns in every single way.

Time spiral is a very, very ridiculous card. In spring tide, It is Broken. I happen to like spring tide in casual, and played 4 TS just for the heck of it one day. It probably is not the best way of abusing it, and yet it was pretty ridiculous. Due to its mana cost, It might not fit into combo as we know it. But it is powerful enough to make its own type of combo. Oh and you are advocating unbanning of Dram halls as well. So we get MoM, Time Spiral and Dream Halls, and supposed to have a fun and safe format? I'd like to hear how that is possible.

Now, to the Dragon. I played a lot of Old 1.5, and our legion happen to lack Power cards like Bazaar(or, it used to). And it still did not matter. Dragon is little over the top by itself. Sure, GY hate beats it, and StP or any other Target removal Wins the game. But you still get a slim combo package with capability of running a lot of disruption. You know what does that sound like to me? Flash. Although I do admit that Flash is much better than the Dragon. So you think any decks in the format other than thresh or fish can handle storm and Dragon combo at the same time?

Gush may be bit too broken for the format. But not much more than the cards that you are advocating. Same goes for hermit druid. If you think Druid + Moeba combo is more broken than Dragon, you are on crack.

[Gheizen64]

I for one think that the only safe choice is Metalworker. A three mana, 2 toughness creature that need to UNTAP AND to have a lot of card in hand to be effective would downright suck in legacy. Yes, we could have broken start like turn 1 Mox + Tomb + Metalworker. It would make 8 mana under a complicated set of circumstance aka:

Have only artifact in hand
Opponent didn't Naturalize-Bolted-Sworded-Edicted-Burned-Countered the Worker
Had got mox+ land+tomb+worker in hand to begin with
Opponent didn't cast duress on you (stripping you of the win-card that you would have casted) or Hymned, or someting else.

As i see it, given how complicated are the circumstance to make it really strong, i would say it's not so strong. There are much better card available. No reason to see it banned imho.

Hermit Druid is another card that i would love to see unbanned, but probably it's too high on power level. With the printing of Narcomoeba and such stupid enabler, an untap from druid is an auto-win. Maybe's that's too much for a 2-mana creature.

I would have liked also Tax, but they decided not to unban it for a precise reason, and i understand it. Other card are too dangerous for my taste (maybe Monolith is another card on the edge...) but given how Wizard have unrestricted Gush in Vintage, i don't know what to expect really:rolleyes:

[Di]

Did someone seriously just say Fastbond could be taken off the list? Oh gawd please give me Fastbond. Turboland would be nearly tier 1. Horn of Greed, Fastbond? Sure, I'll draw my deck. Crucible, Fastbond? Sure, I'll waste your entire board. Throw Zuran Orb in the mix? Why not. Throw Glacial Chasm in the mix? That's absolutely retarded. I can go on if you like.

That's just that deck too. Think Enchantress, Loam, etc. It'd be absurd.

I'd put down whatever you are smoking if I were you.

[MattH]

Fastbond would break Enchatnress so hard they'd find it difficult to not win on turn 3.
If you think Enchantress or trash like Turboland would break Fastbond, you haven't tried it in High Tide. Oh my holy fucknut is it broken there.

Time Spiral is the card I would be most interested in seeing come off. Land Tax is a lot fairer, but it's boring IMO. Spiral is really only useful when your lands tap for a lot, and since Academy is banned, that means High Tide only (and Spring Tide at that). Which is a deck that honestly could use a shot in the arm.

[Pale Moon FTW]

I don't get why everyone wants to unban a lot of cards. Legacy is already getting faster and faster and if it's to stay the format where survival can be played they should be banning not unbanning (I don't really think any cards need to be banned at the moment, but better leave the list as it is). Okay Land Tax and Dream Halls could come off, but anything else I think would change the format for the worst and especially cards like Strip Mine and Fastbond would be madness, but that's already been said.

[BreathWeapon]

...Am I reading this correctly?

So you are saying Mind's desire is questionable, and Time spiral is Bad so It can come back? Also, Dragon and Mind twist is Fine for the format when you think Gush and Hermit druid is too broken?

....Am I reading this correctly?

Mind's desire is very unfair card, and we have just about every tool ever printed to abuse it. We have Burning wish to run 7 of them, Rituals and Artifact Mana to Have fun with it on turn 2, and Whatnot. ETW alone is making people worried, and you are talking about the most powerful Storm card ever printed. I do admit I'm not a combo expert, and you may know better than me about combo. But what I know is that hitting 4UU on Turn 1, 2 with reasonable storm count is not very hard, and the card is just better than diminishing returns in every single way.

Time spiral is a very, very ridiculous card. In spring tide, It is Broken. I happen to like spring tide in casual, and played 4 TS just for the heck of it one day. It probably is not the best way of abusing it, and yet it was pretty ridiculous. Due to its mana cost, It might not fit into combo as we know it. But it is powerful enough to make its own type of combo. Oh and you are advocating unbanning of Dram halls as well. So we get MoM, Time Spiral and Dream Halls, and supposed to have a fun and safe format? I'd like to hear how that is possible.

Now, to the Dragon. I played a lot of Old 1.5, and our legion happen to lack Power cards like Bazaar(or, it used to). And it still did not matter. Dragon is little over the top by itself. Sure, GY hate beats it, and StP or any other Target removal Wins the game. But you still get a slim combo package with capability of running a lot of disruption. You know what does that sound like to me? Flash. Although I do admit that Flash is much better than the Dragon. So you think any decks in the format other than thresh or fish can handle storm and Dragon combo at the same time?

Gush may be bit too broken for the format. But not much more than the cards that you are advocating. Same goes for hermit druid. If you think Druid + Moeba combo is more broken than Dragon, you are on crack.

Not all of it,

I'm not advocating that Mind's Desire should be unbanned, rather I'm questioning on what grounds Mind's Desire can exist in a format that has the same acceleration as we do, sans Lotus Petal, Vampiric Tutor and no Force of Will to keep it in check, and how it can be taboo to suggest unbanning it in a format where Force of Will exists. There seems to be a clear disconnection between the banned lists of two different formats that for all intents and purposes mirror each other in their general intent to provide an eternal environment.

I'm not certain whether or not unbanning Mind's Desire would be as bad as people make it out to be, because unlike Vintage our format doesn't have restricted bombs for it to reveal, so the deck has to be built around the card as an engine, and it's not dominating Extended in that form either. It's more than possible that unbanning Mind's Desire would create a threshold of cards for combo that would just be more than the format could handle, which is the reason I wouldn't unban the card with out consideration, but I do think the reasoning that the card is banned for should be scrutinized in an effort to establish our policy for the banned list. Yes, it's restricted in Vintage, but it's not banned in Extended, so why did that contradiction lead to its banning in Legacy? Why is it banned in Legacy and unbanned in Classic? There's no clear argument for it other than "OMG, Mind's Desire!" from most of the people I've talked to.

Time Spiral isn't good in TES, because there's no means of abusing the untap effect, and you're seriously lucky if you even get to recoup your mana from casting it instead of a Diminishing Returns. I'm not certain whether or not it's broken with High Tide, but I'm willing to be it's not, because it's almost worthless with out High Tide and draws the opponent into his permission. I'm sure it would be good, but people wouldn't drop TES/Belcher to go play High Tide or anything.

Mindtwist isn't even good in Vintage right now with a full set of moxen, what do you honestly think this format can do with it that they can't? It's just an over priced discard effect until you hit four mana, at which point you'll probably ask yourself why you aren't just playing Persecute.

Dragon is alright, but it's not broken or anything. It's more like Gamekeeper than Flash, and a combo deck that has to deal with Swords to Plowshares, Disenchant, Blue Elemental Blast, Pithing Needle and Tormod's Crypt in addition to the rest of the anti-combo cards in the format isn't threatening to turn the format upside down or anything. Compare Dragon to Ichorid, and I think you'll see that Ichorid is more abusive than Dragon, because it has the same affect of differentiating people's hate between Storm combo and "graveyard" combo. The difference is there are a lot of MD and SB cards that don't target the graveyard that can already deal with Dragon, where Ichorid couldn't care less about them.

I don't think there are decks in the format other than Threshold and Fish that can even handle Storm combo most of the time, non blue decks just tend to lose to combo. Even still, adding "graveyard" combo to the environment is probably the safest bet, because Ichorid is already a consideration and graveyard hate was generally used before that. I don't think you can really use differentiating hate as an argument against bringing back Dragon, or any other combo for that matter, because there are already other 2 card combos out there that don't use the graveyard to win the game. No one is crying bloody murder over Mizzium/Vault etc.

Yes, I do think Hermit Druid is worse than Dragon, because Dragon is a two card combo that is vulnerable to enchantment removal and Blue Elemental blast that loses the entire board as a result of those cards, while Hermit Druid is a one card combo for 1G that wins the game as soon as it is activated. I don't care if the deck has to deal with Mogg Fanatic, that's way too good. Even the Polar Express looks better than Dragon to me in all honesty.

I'm not saying Dragon sucks, but I don't see anything about Dragon that deserves its place on the banned list. With out Bazaar of Baghdad's draw and Entomb's tutoring, the combo is more than fair as combo goes.

Edit: I didn't mean to advocate Dream Halls, I get that card confused with Mind over Matter all of the time for some reason, and I didn't even remember they unbanned Mind over Matter already.

[emidln]

Mindtwist isn't even good in Vintage right now with a full set of moxen, what do you honestly think this format can do with it that they can't? It's just an over priced discard effect until you hit four mana, at which point you'll probably ask yourself why you aren't just playing Persecute.

Comparing the formats of Legacy and Vintage is retarded. The speed of Vintage isn't so much the issue as the presence of Force of Will, Misdirection, and Mana Drain. If you cast a Twist right now you either invested a lot into it (unless it's off Drain mana) which would make Force alone disastrous, Misdirection game over, and Mana Drain setup for game over. (Do you really want T1T/BPS/GAT variants going crazy with 5-6 mana. I don't.) More importantly, Mind Twist is likely to be completely useless if your opponent has already dropped most of their hand due to their own moxen/fast mana and they happened to win the dice roll.

In legacy, the format is significantly different. Not only are we afforded amazing opportunities to actually abuse the card (the only decks with fast mana are combo (which won't play it) and Prison/Prison-Aggro (which will dominate with it, but we'll get to that)), we get to do so while under the protection of Trinisphere. In Legacy, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, Chrome Mox, and Mox Diamond make this can unbannable. The prospect of facing Mind Twists on turns 2-4 that you cannot respond to because of Trinisphere is truely scary. Given that these decks already play fast clocks in the form of Juggernaut/Razormane Masticore/Sea Drake/Serendib Efreet/Phyrexian Negator or Smokestack you are in for a serious problem. Added in that these decks generally play Crucible/Wasteland, possibly in addition to other mana-development hampering cards (Smallpox comes to mind in black-infused variants, Magus of the Moon in red version), you end up with extremely one-sided games.

As to why Mind Twist over Persecute, look at their casting costs and then what they do:

Attribute Mind Twist Persecute
Colored Mana B BB
Scalable Effect yes no
Discard Type random spells of a given color

Mind Twist causes random carnage, of a scalable effect. It hits lands, creatures, and anything else indiscriminately. A near perfect hate card.

As to the current environment, what about Goblin Lackey? Who cares if your opponent has no cards in hand. Same with Aether Vial. Saving up for an EOT bounce spell to untap and win with combo? With what hand?

Mind Twist is completely degenerate when you can put reusable mana into from synergistic accelerants. I, for one, would never consider playing a deck that didn't have at least 4 Ancient Tomb, 4 City of Traitors, 4 Moxen in it if Mind Twist were legal.

[C.P.]

Let's start with Mind Twist first. Mind Twist is not very impressive in Vintage, because there is much less interaction. In Legacy, however, Mind twist can create swingy card advantage in midgame or lategame. I'm not a Vintage Expert by any means, but I don't think there is such thing called need for a lategame plan in vintage. I have no idea how people just see the card as something that you have to invest fast acceleration to use it early. Of course, discard is better if it is used early. However, It can clearly be good if you can just get 3 for 1 on midgame with your leftover mana. How is that fair to control decks?

Regarding Time Spiral, I gave more thought on the card after my first reply and I can see how the card can be reasonable in the format. I still think it is in line of metalworker or such, but I can see where your argument is coming from.

But Hermit is better than Dragon? Ok, I know Dragon is harder to assemble now(after FS), but Dragon can Stick to a stable manabase, where as Hermit needs sketch one, composed entirely of nonbasics. Dragon also has ability to draw the game on your face if things are not going well. As a crature, Hermit is more fragile than Dragon, and both them have hard time dealing with with GY hate. Also, Dragon is Based on Black, Which is arguably better color in combo then green(at least in non-belcher combo). I just don't see how format breaking the hermit is. Dragon, at least can take much more resilient shell of UB control with reasonable amount of Distruption.

[Fred Bear]

@ BreathWeapon

Man, I'm not sure where to start responding to your argument/question of Mind's Desire. If you are arguing that it isn't banned in extended so it must be ok here in legacy, your logic is flawed. The acceleration available in extended is putrid compared to the acceleration available in either eternal format. You're a combo player so you know the differences, but I'm guessing that you would be able to pump out a Desire easily 1-2 turns earlier than extended with, on average, 1-2 more storm. If you've ever run a Long variant in Vintage playing Desire as a 1-of, you should know that when you cast it - you have pretty much won. (In fact a lot of vintage storm lists cut it as a win-more card). Giving it to this format would inevitable jump Desire.dec to the forefront. (And why does Force of Will even matter - it won't stop the storm).

@ Discussion in General

I like prison decks, so I won't argue if Land Tax, Metal Worker, or Strip Mine come off the list. But all 3 will significantly decrease the interaction at the gaming table (I'm, of course, not suggesting that they will all be in the same deck) and that's more than likely why they will stay on the Banned List - Wizards likes to promote interactive formats and I can see how each of these will easily fit into very non-interactive stax/prison decks (and I'm no Pat Chapin). I'm by no means suggesting that these cards would be 'broken', but I think a deck utilizing them would easily become Tier I and strongly influence the diversity of the format.

On another note, I personally don't think anything should be on the list due to 'cost constraints' as I believe that is wildly subjective. Mox/Lotus/Workshop are broken acceleration, Recall/Twister/Library/Bazaar is broken draw, and Time Walk is undercosted for the effect. But Mask and Drain should not be banned for 'cost'. Both can be found for the same price of less than the cost of a Grim Tutor which is a legal 4-of. I'm by no means advocating for their unbanning, but I think that if there is no better reason to ban a card than its cost in the secondary market - we've got problems. I mean, seriously, would we ban Mon's Goblin Raiders if they cost $175.00?

Fred Bear...

[Cait_Sith]

On the Classic note:

Classic is a much younger format than Legacy and has fewer players working hard on it as Legacy does. When the formats were first split the house now known as Vial Goblins was barely even dreamed of. ATS, a deck now considered to be far from playable, was on top. People stuck with what they knew would work. As innovation expanded, so did the format, the number of decks, and the strength of decks.

Comparing Legacy to Classic just doesn't really work as well because of this fact.

[C.P.]

@ BreathWeapon
(And why does Force of Will even matter - it won't stop the storm)

FoW does matter, since it can counter the crucial acc spell or Bwish to stop them from casting Desire.


On another note, I personally don't think anything should be on the list due to 'cost constraints' as I believe that is wildly subjective.

...

But Mask and Drain should not be banned for 'cost'. Both can be found for the same price of less than the cost of a Grim Tutor which is a legal 4-of. I'm by no means advocating for their unbanning, but I think that if there is no better reason to ban a card than its cost in the secondary market - we've got problems. I mean, seriously, would we ban Mon's Goblin Raiders if they cost $175.00?

I don't believe that the Mask will ever be good in the format, so I would not argue with the mask. However, Drain is a very Powerful card that is on the list due its brokenness. Drain is going to warp the format more than we'd like if it comes again. No thanks to turn 3 brokenness.

[Machinus]

Time Spiral can't come off. I'm sure the DCI has thought about that one.

[Fred Bear]

FoW does matter, since it can counter the crucial acc spell or Bwish to stop them from casting Desire.



I don't believe that the Mask will ever be good in the format, so I would not argue with the mask. However, Drain is a very Powerful card that is on the list due its brokenness. Drain is going to warp the format more than we'd like if it comes again. No thanks to turn 3 brokenness.

Yes, Force can counter the acceleration, but I don't think there is any way to reach 6 mana (2 blue) on turn 1 in extended (which is the only format Desire is NOT banned or restricted) and cast the Desire (is there?) which means that Force Spike or Disrupt would have the same effect (not to say it's the same power level obviously, but you would have access to mana and counters).

And to clarify what I said about Drain, I don't argue that it doesn't deserve its place on the banned list. I just feel that if it's there because of cost - take it off. I tend to agree with you, though, and I believe that it would easily push a deck into Tier I and probably warp the format.

Fred Bear...

[Sanguine Voyeur]

...but I don't think there is any way to reach 6 mana (2 blue) on turn 1 in extended...Land, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Chromatic Sphere, Chromatic Sphere, Mind's Desire.

Desire for seven on turn one.

[Fred Bear]

Land, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Chromatic Sphere, Chromatic Sphere, Mind's Desire.

Desire for seven on turn one.

Ok, it can be done (The odds of it are NOT good). But that includes 1 draw, so either (a) you take a massive chance - the second sphere, 4th rite, or Desire must be what you draw off the first or second sphere, (b) you cheat - and know what's on top of your deck, or (c) you're lucky, but on the draw, and what I said about your opponent having mana to cast Disrupt or Force Spike is basically valid.

Fred Bear...

[Bryant Cook]

Give me Desire, I'll give you a new format.

[edgewalker]

Honestly, I think these debates are pointless, the only card that needs to come off the list is Land Tax, it wasn't broken before the list seperation, it isn't broken now. I creates a 2 card combo that doesn't win the game, this format is filled with those. I mean you could stop playing lands to draw crazy amounts of super sweet basic lands, but then your hand is filled with basic lands because you haven't played lands to cast spells. Seriously, I challange anyone who thinks tax is broken to build me a deck that would distort the format.

[C.P.]

Give me Desire, I'll give you a new format.

QFT.

[BreathWeapon]

Comparing the formats of Legacy and Vintage is retarded. The speed of Vintage isn't so much the issue as the presence of Force of Will, Misdirection, and Mana Drain. If you cast a Twist right now you either invested a lot into it (unless it's off Drain mana) which would make Force alone disastrous, Misdirection game over, and Mana Drain setup for game over. (Do you really want T1T/BPS/GAT variants going crazy with 5-6 mana. I don't.) More importantly, Mind Twist is likely to be completely useless if your opponent has already dropped most of their hand due to their own moxen/fast mana and they happened to win the dice roll.

In legacy, the format is significantly different. Not only are we afforded amazing opportunities to actually abuse the card (the only decks with fast mana are combo (which won't play it) and Prison/Prison-Aggro (which will dominate with it, but we'll get to that)), we get to do so while under the protection of Trinisphere. In Legacy, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, Chrome Mox, and Mox Diamond make this can unbannable. The prospect of facing Mind Twists on turns 2-4 that you cannot respond to because of Trinisphere is truely scary. Given that these decks already play fast clocks in the form of Juggernaut/Razormane Masticore/Sea Drake/Serendib Efreet/Phyrexian Negator or Smokestack you are in for a serious problem. Added in that these decks generally play Crucible/Wasteland, possibly in addition to other mana-development hampering cards (Smallpox comes to mind in black-infused variants, Magus of the Moon in red version), you end up with extremely one-sided games.

As to why Mind Twist over Persecute, look at their casting costs and then what they do:

Attribute Mind Twist Persecute
Colored Mana B BB
Scalable Effect yes no
Discard Type random spells of a given color

Mind Twist causes random carnage, of a scalable effect. It hits lands, creatures, and anything else indiscriminately. A near perfect hate card.

As to the current environment, what about Goblin Lackey? Who cares if your opponent has no cards in hand. Same with Aether Vial. Saving up for an EOT bounce spell to untap and win with combo? With what hand?

Mind Twist is completely degenerate when you can put reusable mana into from synergistic accelerants. I, for one, would never consider playing a deck that didn't have at least 4 Ancient Tomb, 4 City of Traitors, 4 Moxen in it if Mind Twist were legal.

Comparisons between the two formats aside for the moment, and I think you're wrong about that, because the average amount of acceleration in any deck is definitely an issue, this argument comes down to Mind Twist cast under the protection of Trinipshere is powerful. Of course Mind Twist cast under the protection of a Trinisphere is powerful, so is Persecute, Nether Void or a list of other four + casting cost cost cards under the protection of a Trinisphere.

At B it's worthless
At 1B it cycles
At 2B it's equal to Hymn to Tourach
At 3B it starts to become a serious threat.

So I think it's fair to state that the card isn't a ban(able) threat in a blue shell, but if the card is a ban(able) threat in a prison shell, then leave it on the banned list. Persecute is good enough at doing the same thing as Mind Twist at the point at which it becomes a serious threat in Demon Stompy, so I couldn't care less one way or the other.

@People

I'm not certain how much I'm going to have to say this, but I wasn't saying "unban Mind's Desire," I was saying "why is Mind's Desire banned?" There's a difference, and I think it's important to answer that question in order to set the principles that govern the banned list in stone, because "Vintage restricted list, plus Extended banned lists and pricey cards" isn't a policy you can stick to for the future of the format. There are a number of cards you can really ask that question about, from Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mana Drain, Oath of Druids, Vampiric Tutor etc. but I think it's clear that those cards were banned in order to define the format. The reason Mind's Desire was banned really isn't as clear, and I'd argue that it was an arbitrary decision, even tho' it's a stupidly powerful card.

[kirdape3]

The genesis for the banning of Mind's Desire comes from the original articles and vision that Forsythe laid out at the conversion. If you want a fair format, combining a powerful card like Mind's Desire with the acceleration that was left in the format is not the way to go about it. The acceleration stayed (probably a mistake honestly), but Mind's Desire definitely was not going to be allowed in a fair format.

[anonymos]

The genesis for the banning of Mind's Desire comes from the original articles and vision that Forsythe laid out at the conversion. If you want a fair format, combining a powerful card like Mind's Desire with the acceleration that was left in the format is not the way to go about it. The acceleration stayed (probably a mistake honestly), but Mind's Desire definitely was not going to be allowed in a fair format.

I'm looking for that article. But I'm looking using a dialup connection that's shared by 3,000 of my closest friends, and drops it's connection every time someone breathes the wrong way. Behold the power of the Aircraft Carrier. *mews*

I've had some sense talked into me. I agree with the points made about Fastbond, Grim Monolith, Windfall, and Strip Mine.

[MattH]

I think it is usually a mistake to talk about unbanning more than one card at a time. All banned cards have at least SOME power to shape the format, should they be unbanned (and that statement is more and more true the more cards come off), and so unless you want a giant jolt, cards should come off basically one at a time (MoMa was an exception).

[dontbiteitholmes]

Stripmine, what? This is why these threads always turn to garbage.

Dream Halls doesn't seem that scary at this point but you have to remember part of the reason for some bannings staying in place is future development. If it sucks it won't get played or it could be broken and we would wish it never got unbanned and it would always be something that could get retarded anytime a new set came out. It cheats mana and it's blue, for the sake of future development alone it should stay banned.

Land Tax should have been unbanned a long time ago, it sucks but could see minimal play, maybe even some kind of sideboard bullet in the future, who knows. Seriously doubt it would ever be broken, 99% safe.

Mind Twist, wow. Okay I guess every deck that loses to Control will be splashing black and sticking 4 of these sideboard, what a nightmare. As if Control isn't hurting enough already, remember when Rifter was descent for like a month, never ever could have happened if Mind Twist was legal. Such a bad idea... Mind Twist is not a "shitty Hymn" at 3, Hymn costs 2 black and isn't scalable. Twist could always be held until it rips the whole grip, the only upside would be black wouldn't suck as much as it does now as a whole.

Dragon is just leaps better then any combo currently out and combo has never been stronger in Legacy (note I don't count the month of Flash as Legacy). Pithing Needle also exists now so Tormod's Crypt has even less signifigance. Disruption + Needle + Dragon sounds like a lot of fun, but only if you're playing Dragon.

Entomb, once again look to the future. Wizards has been making the graveyard more important every set. This card was really good pre-Rav, now it's even better (possibly broken). Future Sight mechanics made it clear the graveyard is only getting more powerful, it can already grab a free creature (Narcomeoba), free discard (Therapy), any number of dredge engines, Replenish is back, Bridge, more shit then I can even list and who knows what someone would think up for this card or how it will eventually get more broken (because it will). Keep Entomb banned.

[FoolofaTook]

the only card that needs to come off the list is Land Tax, it wasn't broken before the list seperation, it isn't broken now. I creates a 2 card combo that doesn't win the game, this format is filled with those.

The reason that was given for the continuation of the Land Tax ban was a valid one. As a veteran of type 1 and then early type 2 I can attest to the game-changing nature of Land Tax simply played as a turn 1 spell. If Land Tax was resolved on turn 1 the advantage in the game swung heavily towards the player who got it off as very few decks were capable of playing on 1 land effectively and waiting for a Disenchant or other 2CC removal device to appear.

There's no question that Land Taxes strength in Legacy would be less than it's strength in the old formats, however it would still exert a warping effect on the meta that would work against many of the decks trying to get to tier 1 while not bothering a mainstay like Vial Goblins much if at all. Obviously many of the Belcher variants would be promoted instantly as well since needing only 1 land in play to trigger a turn 1 or 2 win would become an even more valuable attribute in a deck.

1 mana for a permanent that then warps the rest of the game into something almost unrecognizable in many matchups is just too much of a break in the meta.

[edgewalker]

The reason that was given for the continuation of the Land Tax ban was a valid one. As a veteran of type 1 and then early type 2 I can attest to the game-changing nature of Land Tax simply played as a turn 1 spell. If Land Tax was resolved on turn 1 the advantage in the game swung heavily towards the player who got it off as very few decks were capable of playing on 1 land effectively and waiting for a Disenchant or other 2CC removal device to appear.

There's no question that Land Taxes strength in Legacy would be less than it's strength in the old formats, however it would still exert a warping effect on the meta that would work against many of the decks trying to get to tier 1 while not bothering a mainstay like Vial Goblins much if at all. Obviously many of the Belcher variants would be promoted instantly as well since needing only 1 land in play to trigger a turn 1 or 2 win would become an even more valuable attribute in a deck.

1 mana for a permanent that then warps the rest of the game into something almost unrecognizable in many matchups is just too much of a break in the meta.


The problem with that theory, is I played in old Legacy too and land Tax did nothing. You also forget that for landtax to work, you need have less lands than your opponent. So you don't actually see the benefits until the turn after you play it, and that's only if your on the draw. Not only that, but as the Lad Tax controler, you must stop playing the lands you draw in order to keep the engine going. So you end up with a hand full of basic lands and spells you can't ast because you weren't playing lands.

The card is definately, game warping, but only if you're dumb enough to play such a crappy card. Why would belcher play Land Tax when it runs 1-2 lands anyways? Theres no point. You could make a shittier belcher but why reinvent the wheel. There just aren't any logical reasons why Land Tax should stay banned.

[Slay]

The problem with that theory, is I played in old Legacy too and land Tax did nothing. You also forget that for landtax to work, you need have less lands than your opponent. So you don't actually see the benefits until the turn after you play it, and that's only if your on the draw. Not only that, but as the Lad Tax controler, you must stop playing the lands you draw in order to keep the engine going. So you end up with a hand full of basic lands and spells you can't ast because you weren't playing lands.

The card is definately, game warping, but only if you're dumb enough to play such a crappy card. Why would belcher play Land Tax when it runs 1-2 lands anyways? Theres no point. You could make a shittier belcher but why reinvent the wheel. There just aren't any logical reasons why Land Tax should stay banned.

Because nobody wants to play against Land Tax.

[Pale Moon FTW]

Dream halls is really the best candidate for an unbanning IMO, because it affects the opponent as well turning any countermagic he might have into FoW. And most important any deck playing green will just destory it the moment it comes into play with a pitch-casted Krosan Grip post-SB. It really doesn't look scary.
Also generating :3::u::u: is pretty tough compared to just winning instantly for :7: with belcher.

[Turbographics]

Yeah, one of the problems I have with land tax, is that in a deck like geddonstax (where I feel like it would thrive) you can go:
Turn 1- plains, tax,
Turn 2- ancient tomb, 3sphere
This forces them to HAVE to drop another land to do anything, in which case you are just drawing 3 (or 3 more depending on whether you drew/played first)cards that help you with stax in play/help to thin your deck so you can draw lock cards/get cards that you shouldn't.

Never mind it's abuse-ability with mox diamonds in which you can simply drop a turn 1 diamond on a one land hand and then tax, guaranteeing you a decent draw. Besides, in any deck with barbarian rings et al. you can easily drop below their lands in order to thin/catch back up. Enchantress might run it as another way to keep Confinement on the board while thinning "bad enchantress draws" out their library. It can fill up your hand on the draw to recover from a potentially devastating Hymn, or other disruption. The card is truly awesome and a very powerful, cheap answer to a lot of land/hand denial strategies.

Not to mention someone will invent a stupid combo deck with land tax and like... planar birth or something.

[HPC]

Yeah, one of the problems I have with land tax, is that in a deck like geddonstax (where I feel like it would thrive) you can go:
Turn 1- plains, tax,
Turn 2- ancient tomb, 3sphere
This forces them to HAVE to drop another land to do anything, in which case you are just drawing 3 (or 3 more depending on whether you drew/played first)cards that help you with stax in play/help to thin your deck so you can draw lock cards/get cards that you shouldn't.

Never mind it's abuse-ability with mox diamonds in which you can simply drop a turn 1 diamond on a one land hand and then tax, guaranteeing you a decent draw. Besides, in any deck with barbarian rings et al. you can easily drop below their lands in order to thin/catch back up. Enchantress might run it as another way to keep Confinement on the board while thinning "bad enchantress draws" out their library. It can fill up your hand on the draw to recover from a potentially devastating Hymn, or other disruption. The card is truly awesome and a very powerful, cheap answer to a lot of land/hand denial strategies.

Not to mention someone will invent a stupid combo deck with land tax and like... planar birth or something.

The cards for these decks were around before Land Tax was banned, and Tax was never really used. It has the potential to be strong, but it's just not broken. If you're playing a turn 1 Land Tax in Stax then I have 2 questions:
1) What cards are you replacing? There's not even room in the deck for Suppression Field, now.
2) What plays are you missing out on turn 1 to play: Plains, Land Tax, Go? The deck has 8 - 10 two mana lands and 4-6 Moxes to allow turn 1 3-Sphere or other devastating effect. I'd rather see Land Tax than anything else in that deck hit the board turn 1. I know I wouldn't have a reason to Counter a turn 1 Land Tax.

I don't know much about Enchantress, but I assume that it would have the same problem finding space for it. It will affect the format just like it did before it was banned... it'll be a good card that won't make it into most decks.

[Turbographics]

The cards for these decks were around before Land Tax was banned, and Tax was never really used. It has the potential to be strong, but it's just not broken. If you're playing a turn 1 Land Tax in Stax then I have 2 questions:
1) What cards are you replacing? There's not even room in the deck for Suppression Field, now.
2) What plays are you missing out on turn 1 to play: Plains, Land Tax, Go? The deck has 8 - 10 two mana lands and 4-6 Moxes to allow turn 1 3-Sphere or other devastating effect. I'd rather see Land Tax than anything else in that deck hit the board turn 1. I know I wouldn't have a reason to Counter a turn 1 Land Tax.

I don't know much about Enchantress, but I assume that it would have the same problem finding space for it. It will affect the format just like it did before it was banned... it'll be a good card that won't make it into most decks.

Well, in my defense, my stax list might be quite outdated ;_; (or bad :P)

It's kind of a mish-mash between angel and geddon stax. The geddon shell with angels thrown in instead of EE. There's not a lot of counter in my meta so it runs over almost all the decks there without a turn 1 3sphere, etc.. Jumping the gun a little, I do agree that it's not "optimal" so I was kind of biasing my opinion of land tax based on my own experience in a very narrow meta. Though, in an area without a lot of counter, I feel turn 1 land tax is a very strong play for the version I run.

As a "what I would reduce" well... my version runs 26 land, So I'd say 3 land.

Maybe I am just wishfully thinking back to the days of Scroll Rack/Land Tax when it was still powerful and overestimating the potential of the card's effect on our current legacy format.

[FoolofaTook]

The problem with that theory, is I played in old Legacy too and land Tax did nothing. You also forget that for landtax to work, you need have less lands than your opponent. So you don't actually see the benefits until the turn after you play it, and that's only if your on the draw. Not only that, but as the Lad Tax controler, you must stop playing the lands you draw in order to keep the engine going. So you end up with a hand full of basic lands and spells you can't ast because you weren't playing lands.

The card is definately, game warping, but only if you're dumb enough to play such a crappy card. Why would belcher play Land Tax when it runs 1-2 lands anyways? Theres no point. You could make a shittier belcher but why reinvent the wheel. There just aren't any logical reasons why Land Tax should stay banned.

Actually my suggestion was that Belcher would be promoted as a deck if other decks were playing Land Tax, as would Vial Goblins, since neither of those decks are pressured by having to play with only one land, quite the contrary.

Type 1 saw a number of degenerate Land Tax decks prior to the type 1/type 2 split and after the Zuran Orb was printed they became a real threat because the Land Tax deck could basically guarantee being able to empty the library of land very early on.

In type 2 Land Tax was just broken and threatened to give enormous card advantage for very little mana. The card that combo'd with it most often was Brainstorm given that Land Tax allows you to shuffle your library every turn that you can use it. The degeneracy is apparent in a slower format that doesn't have a lot of card-drawing capabilities.

[C.P.]

Actually my suggestion was that Belcher would be promoted as a deck if other decks were playing Land Tax, as would Vial Goblins, since neither of those decks are pressured by having to play with only one land, quite the contrary.

...Both of them are already very good Legacy decks. I don't see how they would be promoted. What you mention happened like how many years ago? Formats change, and the game changed a lot. Replenish was REDIC in T2 and Old extended. Do you see it breaking any format now? Cards change. Basing your argument with data from long ago is not an accurate way considering its effect on the format. I'm against the unbanning, but only because I bought AF's argument against it. I don't believe it is a broken card anymore.

[FoolofaTook]

...Both of them are already very good Legacy decks. I don't see how they would be promoted.

They'd be promoted in the presence of a good deck that featured Land Tax because the meta would move towards lower casting cost decks so that people could shrug off a turn 1 Land Tax and maintain tempo on the caster.

[edgewalker]

@Fool: I think what I missed earlier is that you're going way way way back. You mention Land Tax was busted when Zuran Orb was printed (way back in Ice Age) Thankfully, we've come along way since then.(I'm sure ZOrb Tax was real busted before Necro became big) Right before the list seperated I think the most degenerate Land Tax ever got was in PMS and Parfait (going 0-0-1 each round is so busted) If board control decks are so busted why isn't Rabbit Wombat or Rifter doing so well right now. The reason being is that combo is the real issue, creature based decks aren't an issue anymore, even goblins is losing a bit of it's strength to combo. TES, Iggy, and Belcher play almost zero lands and threshold plays such a low land count anyways Land Tax won't even affect it's game.

The fact of the matter is you're not drawing 3 extra cards, You're drawing three extra basic lands, which kinda suck when what you really need are answers. Sure you're thinning you're deck, but you don't see much of an effect until late in the game(see the arguement about fetchlands) Sure theres "neat" combos like Tax+Rack but that doesn't win games or some crazy combo between Land Tax+Seismic Assault+Planar Birth+Trade Routes but that just sucks. Everyone has brought speculation to the table, if it's so busted bring proof. I recall we had a thread about putting banned cards in decks and testing them. Do more of that, test the card out before becoming chicken little. It wasn't busted when it was legal, it's not busted now.

Seriously, I think slay is the only one who has said anything reasonably logic regarding Land Tax, "it's banned because it sucks."

[Nantuko88]

If Land Tax is banned because it sucks, then there are a whole bunchof cards out there that need to be banned: i.e. Vizzerdrix.

Land Tax, unbanned, would pose no threat to Legacy. I think WOTC just wants to wait and slowly unban things, first lets see what the non-exsistant effect of Replenish will be.

[jazzykat]

IMO Metalworker, Time Sprial and Land Tax should be let back in. The whole format figured out how to deal with the 1/1 for R that spelled doom, I am pretty sure they can adapt to dealing with a 1/2 artifact creature for 3.

Metal worker would normally come down on turn 2 and gives Stax the ability to explode on Turn 3. I don't think it is unfair to let a deck have an average turn of 3 to drop a bunch of bombs. Remember that even while the metalworker is amazing you will have to remove lockpieces or other acceleration for him.

Some might argue that because Stax slows the game down he is relevant in later turns but if stax has slowed the game down sufficiently there is a good chance it won any way and you would rather have a lock part then a 1/2 creature, with almost no hand and most of your artifacts already on the board.

WRT Time Spiral: I am going to cop out and say refer to Matt H's post on that. it could be really "cool" at least.

Land Tax...errr...scroll rack...yeah...I'm quaking in my boots.

[jazzykat]

The cards for these decks were around before Land Tax was banned, and Tax was never really used. It has the potential to be strong, but it's just not broken. If you're playing a turn 1 Land Tax in Stax then I have 2 questions:
1) What cards are you replacing? There's not even room in the deck for Suppression Field, now.
2) What plays are you missing out on turn 1 to play: Plains, Land Tax, Go? The deck has 8 - 10 two mana lands and 4-6 Moxes to allow turn 1 3-Sphere or other devastating effect. I'd rather see Land Tax than anything else in that deck hit the board turn 1. I know I wouldn't have a reason to Counter a turn 1 Land Tax.

I don't know much about Enchantress, but I assume that it would have the same problem finding space for it. It will affect the format just like it did before it was banned... it'll be a good card that won't make it into most decks.

Don't forget CoTV coming down on Turn 1, for 1. I don't know about you but I am a lot more afraid of a chalice than some basic lands.

[FoolofaTook]

@Fool: I think what I missed earlier is that you're going way way way back. You mention Land Tax was busted when Zuran Orb was printed (way back in Ice Age) Thankfully, we've come along way since then.(I'm sure ZOrb Tax was real busted before Necro became big) Right before the list seperated I think the most degenerate Land Tax ever got was in PMS and Parfait (going 0-0-1 each round is so busted) If board control decks are so busted why isn't Rabbit Wombat or Rifter doing so well right now. The reason being is that combo is the real issue, creature based decks aren't an issue anymore, even goblins is losing a bit of it's strength to combo. TES, Iggy, and Belcher play almost zero lands and threshold plays such a low land count anyways Land Tax won't even affect it's game.

The fact of the matter is you're not drawing 3 extra cards, You're drawing three extra basic lands, which kinda suck when what you really need are answers. Sure you're thinning you're deck, but you don't see much of an effect until late in the game(see the arguement about fetchlands) Sure theres "neat" combos like Tax+Rack but that doesn't win games or some crazy combo between Land Tax+Seismic Assault+Planar Birth+Trade Routes but that just sucks. Everyone has brought speculation to the table, if it's so busted bring proof. I recall we had a thread about putting banned cards in decks and testing them. Do more of that, test the card out before becoming chicken little. It wasn't busted when it was legal, it's not busted now.

Seriously, I think slay is the only one who has said anything reasonably logic regarding Land Tax, "it's banned because it sucks."

Believe me, Land Tax would be broken in so many different ways that it's hard to count them. It would give painless discards to decks built around themes where you discard for advantage. It would give decks that want 7 cards in hand a lot better chance of maintaining that. It would give decks that want to swap hand for library easy choices in that process.

The bottom line is that being able to add 3 cards to your hand unless your opponent chooses essentially to do nothing early on is a pretty broken thing. My guess is that Land Tax would slide right into Landstill and make people miserable.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I think people give the pro-Land Tax banning side too much leeway when they say things like, "It'd be strong, but..."

Bullshit. Absolutely nothing has the power to make Land Tax strong. Make any list you like with Land Tax, I will gladly play it ten games against Goblins, Thresh, and Belcher. Land Tax isn't going to be relevant in a single matchup. I'll let you trigger it all day long. If you want more basic plains, you can have them. Have plenty of basic plains. It really doesn't matter. While you're assembling your clunky draw engine, I'll be winning the game.

[Slay]

I think people give the pro-Land Tax banning side too much leeway when they say things like, "It'd be strong, but..."

Bullshit. Absolutely nothing has the power to make Land Tax strong. Make any list you like with Land Tax, I will gladly play it ten games against Goblins, Thresh, and Belcher. Land Tax isn't going to be relevant in a single matchup. I'll let you trigger it all day long. If you want more basic plains, you can have them. Have plenty of basic plains. It really doesn't matter. While you're assembling your clunky draw engine, I'll be winning the game.

That's not really the point. The point is that Land Tax sucks, but it's a powerful effect in and of itself, so it could have the potential to get strong, and when it does, nobody will want to play the format ever. Besides, it's Land Tax. The less I have to play against shitty, annoying cards, the better.
-Slay

[Nightmare]

I think people give the pro-Land Tax banning side too much leeway when they say things like, "It'd be strong, but..."

Bullshit. Absolutely nothing has the power to make Land Tax strong. Make any list you like with Land Tax, I will gladly play it ten games against Goblins, Thresh, and Belcher. Land Tax isn't going to be relevant in a single matchup. I'll let you trigger it all day long. If you want more basic plains, you can have them. Have plenty of basic plains. It really doesn't matter. While you're assembling your clunky draw engine, I'll be winning the game.Says the guy putting Bandage in a mono-white parfait deck. If Wombat can't use it, no one can.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Wombat can't use it. No good MWC list could use Land Tax.

[Machinus]

I think people give the pro-Land Tax banning side too much leeway when they say things like, "It'd be strong, but..."

Bullshit. Absolutely nothing has the power to make Land Tax strong. Make any list you like with Land Tax, I will gladly play it ten games against Goblins, Thresh, and Belcher. Land Tax isn't going to be relevant in a single matchup. I'll let you trigger it all day long. If you want more basic plains, you can have them. Have plenty of basic plains. It really doesn't matter. While you're assembling your clunky draw engine, I'll be winning the game.

Jack, you're right, but shut up until my article comes out on Friday :(

[Finn]

No he isn't. I have built and played the deck using Land Tax that pounds everything except combo. No I will not relate the deck again. I am tired as hell of this topic.

[Lukas Preuss]

I have built and played the deck using Land Tax that pounds everything except combo.

So it's basically as good as Rabid Wombat, right?

[T is for TOOL]

No he isn't. I have built and played the deck using Land Tax that pounds everything except combo. No I will not relate the deck again. I am tired as hell of this topic.
Are its matchups as good as Dirts?

[My Name Is Scott]

Are its matchups as good as Dirts?
Strictly better actually. Dirt's Dirt matchup is much worse than Finn Land Tax's Dirt matchup.

[Bovinious]

Are people actually saying Land Tax is overpowered? Seriously, someone needs to show me (and every other person who knows Land Tax sucks) a list in which you can break the 3 basic lands a turn. Itd be nice if it actually, you know, won the game also, not just Scroll-Racked into more land tax/scroll rack/plains/whatever God-awful cards your playing in a white deck with Land Tax and Scroll Rack. People think that drawing cards is really good with Scroll + Tax I assume, but forget that drawn cards are only good if you can actually use them to win the game, or do SOMETHING. Id like to see how a white deck with basic plains can take advantage of the 3 plains a turn, PATROL HOUND ANYONE??? Seriously, I'm sick of people claiming Land Tax is busted just because WOTC (mistakenly) banned it, then they dont even show a list or really explain at all. Infuriating.

[Bane of the Living]

I really think Clamp could come off the list.

Think about it before you hit quote and freak out on me.

We have Pithing Needle, Force of Will, Engineered Explosives, Empty the Warrens, Goblin Charbelcher, Counterbalance. Tons of answers to it.

It doesnt win the game when it resolves, it needs to have creatures to equip to and needs them to die. Your always investing 2 mana and -1 card advantage to draw the first two cards.

I think Legacy is prepared for it.

It doesnt see love in Vintage and it makes me sad to see it unplayed when things like turn two kills happen even in Legacy now.

I would also like to make a motion to free Entomb. Its my favorite Spike/Johnny card of all time and I want it back.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Skullclamp would break the fragile Tarmogoyf vs. Tarmogoyf stalemate holding our metagoyf together.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Are its matchups as good as Dirts?
Still loses to Thunderbluff.

[Samshire]

I really think Clamp could come off the list.

Think about it before you hit quote and freak out on me.

We have Pithing Needle, Force of Will, Engineered Explosives, Empty the Warrens, Goblin Charbelcher, Counterbalance. Tons of answers to it.

Seems like Skullclamp and Empty the Warrens would be pretty good...


I would also like to make a motion to free Entomb. Its my favorite Spike/Johnny card of all time and I want it back.

Why not? Most of the other 1 mana tutors are unbanned now...

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I think GRAH should be unbanned. It'd shake up the meta-game.

For Sirius though...I used to be for unbanning Clamp, but I think there's more going for it than against it in the intervening cardpool. EtW and Glimpse of Nature especially.

[Bovinious]

I'm not so sure about 'Clamp. Its one of those cards that might or might not be okay to have around. WOTC isnt going to gamble that it wont be broken so most likely it will stay. The only cards that will come off are cards that WOTC feels have no chance of becoming broken, such as Land Tax and hopefully Dream Halls.

[Finn]

It really does amaze me how certain personalities come out of the woodwork when they smell fresh meat. Once again you have displayed that you know more than the person who has actually bothered to test. At Salvation we had a contest concerning building and playing decks with banned cards, and I did. I built several.

Ya know, back when I caught hell for reporting on Dirt, a deck that did things like nearly autowin against certain decks such as Threshold, I figured that eventually the folks who "knew" I was making it up would eventually learn the truth. Some people did.

IBA, for example, went through the trouble of messing with BGW control and quickly came out with a deck of his own, some tournament reports, and statements like "Threshold- Autowin. No, seriously. I know I said Train Wreck was a near autowin, but..." and I assumed that anyone who payed attention would soon figure it out for themselves. But amazingly there are ostensibly repected members of this community who still think they are funny when they mock my observations that have been independently corroborated over and over.

Goog God, ppl. Have some self respect.

[Raider Bob]

Dream Halls - Do we not remember Zvi's turn 2 type 2 kill deck where the turns took 30 minutes to kill you cause he removed every card in your library from the game? Anytime you can draw multiple cards for free you have a decicive advantage over anyone If Dream Halls read Remove from the game rather than discard, this card would not be as broken.

[kirdape3]

MWC's problem was never drawing cards; Eternal Dragon did the same thing that Land Tax would do except it cost 7 mana to buy it back for one card rather than one mana for 3 cards potentially every turn. MWC's problem is that it can't control the stack except in limited circumstances (Orim's Chant/Abeyance, Mana Tithe if you wanted, Rebuff the Wicked if you wanted), and therefore is at the complete mercy of the combination decks. Oh, nice Humility. It costs 4 mana which you didn't hit because I killed you on turn 2. Land Tax doesn't help that deficiency.

I'm pretty sure though that converting lands that you draw off of Land Tax into useful cards isn't so hard; look at Devastating Dreams from Aggro-Loam for an inspiration.

[Bovinious]

It really does amaze me how certain personalities come out of the woodwork when they smell fresh meat. Once again you have displayed that you know more than the person who has actually bothered to test. At Salvation we had a contest concerning building and playing decks with banned cards, and I did. I built several.

Ya know, back when I caught hell for reporting on Dirt, a deck that did things like nearly autowin against certain decks such as Threshold, I figured that eventually the folks who "knew" I was making it up would eventually learn the truth. Some people did.

IBA, for example, went through the trouble of messing with BGW control and quickly came out with a deck of his own, some tournament reports, and statements like "Threshold- Autowin. No, seriously. I know I said Train Wreck was a near autowin, but..." and I assumed that anyone who payed attention would soon figure it out for themselves. But amazingly there are ostensibly repected members of this community who still think they are funny when they mock my observations that have been independently corroborated over and over.

Goog God, ppl. Have some self respect.

I assume (at least in part) you were talking about my post. If you thought it was inflammatory, well it was and it was supposed to be. I find it very hard to respect somebody who thinks Land Tax is broken, and even harder when they provide no evidence to this non-fact. Again, I invoke anyone to show me a list "abusing" Land Tax, I'd be impressed if it could actually use Land Tax en route to winning a match, let alone being broken.

[Finn]

Nope, not you. :)

EDIT: Why would you assume the deck even remotely resembled MWC? That strategy is well-trodden.

[Whit3 Ghost]

He's talking about me and Tool.

Seriously, Dirt vs Threshold =/= autowin.

Train Wreck runs 3 Damnation, 3 Punishment, 2 Decree of Pain, 3 Edict and 4 deed along with big creatures and Haunting Echoes.

Dirt runs what, 4 Deed and Living wish-> Withered Wretch?

[chmoddity]

Seriously, Dirt vs Threshold =/= autowin.

Train Wreck runs 3 Damnation, 3 Punishment, 2 Decree of Pain, 3 Edict and 4 deed along with big creatures and Haunting Echoes.

Dirt runs what, 4 Deed and Living wish-> Withered Wretch?I think that quote comes from the Truffle Shuffle thread.

TS and Dirt are both very good against Thresh btw. But I don't see what that has to do with how crappy Land Tax is.

Machinus' article is up btw. He has some interesting ideas about the affect it might have.

[cheddercaveman]

Has anyone thought about cards that NEED to be banned in the current format? Wizards has said many times that they ban a card when it entirely shapes a format, do you want to know what 2 cards do that?

Aether Vial and Goblin Lackey. Almost any deck has to have 8 answers to a turn 1 Lackey. How is that not format shaping? Yes, I realize a lot of people play StP anyways, or FoW, etc, but that is still a format swinger. Vial pretty much says every deck needs to have 3 needles in the sideboard because otherwise goblins end up on the table and there's nothing you can do. While I'm hating on the gobos, I'd actually be fine with the above cards, if Ringleader didnt exist, seriously when did we decide that red gets better draw than blue or black with a 2/2 haster attached? Its normally 3 cards, plus the 2/2, red isnt supposed to be able to do that, its what keeps it in check. Now, I realize I'm complaining, but Goblins is no where near as bad as something like Flash, still it does shape the entire format and I think its something that should be looked at seriously.

[Whit3 Ghost]

I think that quote comes from the Truffle Shuffle thread.

TS and Dirt are both very good against Thresh btw. But I don't see what that has to do with how crappy Land Tax is.

Machinus' article is up btw. He has some interesting ideas about the affect it might have.
I'm aware of that, but what Finn was saying is that because Jack improved an incredibly favorable matchup, that his stating that Trainwreck vs. Threshold was an autowin was the exact same thing as the matchup percentages for dirt.

[FoolofaTook]

Has anyone thought about cards that NEED to be banned in the current format? Wizards has said many times that they ban a card when it entirely shapes a format, do you want to know what 2 cards do that?

Aether Vial and Goblin Lackey. Almost any deck has to have 8 answers to a turn 1 Lackey. How is that not format shaping? Yes, I realize a lot of people play StP anyways, or FoW, etc, but that is still a format swinger.

Needing to deal with a creature on turn 1 is not format-shaping, it's just Magic and it always has been that way.


Vial pretty much says every deck needs to have 3 needles in the sideboard because otherwise goblins end up on the table and there's nothing you can do.

There are a lot of different solutions to turn 1 Vial. It's just that the current meta frowns upon cheap dedicated artifact removal and thus has to over-engineer by requiring a more general solution, like Pithing Needle or Engineered Explosives.

Neither Lackey nor Vial are remotely as format-shaping as Land Tax would be because people have to have solutions to a turn 1 artifact or creature anyway. At the moment nobody needs to have a solution to a card that gives permanent card advantage unless you modify your play drastically to counter it.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

...as format-shaping as Land Tax would be...How exactly would Land Tax shape the meta? Machinus just wrote an article (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14528.html) about Land Tax I think you should read.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

MWC's problem was never drawing cards;

No, that's exactly the problem, actually.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

No, that's exactly the problem, actually.That and a horrible combo match up.

Land Tax aside, does Frantic Search need to stay on the ban list? It's card disadvantage, it cost three, and is free only if you have three lands or two lands and a High Tide. It would see play in Solidarity and Spring Tide, neither of those decks are great right now, and Frantic Search wouldn't put them over the edge. I don't even know why it was banned in the first place, Tolarian Academy?

[Machinus]

Frantic Search wouldn't put them over the edge.

Yes it would.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Care to elaborate? The worst thing that could happen is a possibility of a turn two win or more consistent turn three wins.

[Atwa]

Care to elaborate? The worst thing that could happen is a possibility of a turn two win or more consistent turn three wins.

I've once tested Frantic Search in a Solidarity build (some time ago, the list was far from optimal) and it scared the shit out of me. Do you really want a reliable turn 2 combo deck which can win in response to anything you do?

People were scared of it when it had a turn 4 clock, remember?

I personally think if anything would have to be done about the Banned list at the moment, it should be unbanning Land Tax, which would have no effect to the competive part of our format at al (sure people would play with it, but they'll hardly win) and ban Lion's eye Diamond.

LED is a very cool card, but I feel the printing of Infernal Tutor (and to a lesser degree the Wishes) have pulled it over the edge. The fairness of LED was that you hardly could cast any spells with it, but combo decks are now using it as 4 Black Lotusses.

The format has becommen at least a turn faster than it was ayear ago, and while this shouldn't be a bad thing, LED fuels at least 3 combodecks which can win turn 1.

In my opinion LED is simply too strong to keep into the format. Survival of the Fittest should at least be playable, and it won't until combo gets some serious hits.

[MattH]

If you ban LED, what will combo look like? Or will it just be all dead?

[Whit3 Ghost]

If you ban LED, what will combo look like? Or will it just be all dead?
If they banned LED, I could see an unbanning of Mind's Desire.

That and infy more ETW.

[emidln]

I would be completely okay with LED banned. Grim Iggy would go out the door, but I'd continue playing SI. I cut the card anyway.

[Illissius]

If you ban LED, what will combo look like? Or will it just be all dead?

Solidarity, likely Belcher, Cephalid Breakfast, Buried Alive, Replenish... those kinds of things.

Personally, if it comes to that, I'd rather axe Tendrils, Freeze, and either Warrens, Belcher, or both. They're not going to stop printing fast mana, so trying to keep the format under control by banning some of it is a lost cause. It's Storm which is just fundamentally broken in these decks; I don't know why so few people realize it. The current model of sticking a bunch of fast mana, cheap tutors, and a couple of Storm spells together in a deck simply falls apart without the Storm itself. You can chain twelve spells together, breaking even or getting slightly ahead on mana, leaving you with 4-6 in your pool and a single card... and then what? Nothing. Storm is the only thing which can turn this kind of activity profitable. In olden days, engine combos actually had to get 20-60 mana the hard way so they could lethally Torch or Stroke their opponent, making clever use of cards which let you trade one resource for another; merely breaking even wasn't enough. I wouldn't mind returning to those days.

So my position* is unchanged from the previous thread this discussion was in:

ban Goblin Lackey
ban Tendrils of Agony
ban Brain Freeze
ban Empty the Warrens and/or Goblin Charbelcher

How would the format evolve with these changes, one might ask? Well, it would obviously slow down, to begin with. The major deck left untouched would be Gro/Thresh/Goyf, so with that as a starting point, I think the rest of the metagame would evolve towards things like slow board control decks and Affinity to beat up on Goyf, and combo decks (like Gamekeeper-Salvagers, High Tide sans Freeze, Replenish, Breakfast, and such) to beat up on those in turn. And then things like Stax, Survival, and a weakened Goblins could put in an appearance as well. (And Ichorid, but that doesn't ask "what deck are you running?" so much as "how much graveyard hate does it contain?".)

*To clarify, because it -is- nuanced:
- If it becomes apparent that some action needs to be taken to slow the format down, I think the above would be the correct actions to take;
- and while I would personally prefer if the format were slowed down, I don't think it's obvious yet whether or not it needs to be. Wait for some major tournaments and see. I already much prefer the current format to the former one dominated by Goblins, but it could be better still.

[FoolofaTook]

In olden days, engine combos actually had to get 20-60 mana the hard way so they could lethally Torch or Stroke their opponent, making clever use of cards which let you trade one resource for another; merely breaking even wasn't enough. I wouldn't mind returning to those days.

The 20+ mana often was gotten on turn 1 or turn 2 at the latest using Fastbond and nearly infinite recursion of Timewalk and Timetwister.



How would the format evolve with these changes, one might ask? Well, it would obviously slow down, to begin with. The major deck left untouched would be Gro/Thresh/Goyf, so with that as a starting point, I think the rest of the metagame would evolve towards things like slow board control decks and Affinity to beat up on Goyf, and combo decks (like Gamekeeper-Salvagers, High Tide sans Freeze, Replenish, Breakfast, and such) to beat up on those in turn. And then things like Stax, Survival, and a weakened Goblins could put in an appearance as well. (And Ichorid, but that doesn't ask "what deck are you running?" so much as "how much graveyard hate does it contain?".)

Slow control (sit-back and wait 15 turns U/W) is never going to make a comeback because the things that drove it out of the meta were not restricted just to the speed increases in the evolving meta. The other huge factors were ability to actually finish a round in time without drawing and enormous vulnerability to two weak but played deck types, discard and landkill.

[MattH]

The 20+ mana often was gotten on turn 1 or turn 2 at the latest using Fastbond and nearly infinite recursion of Timewalk and Timetwister.
That's pretty much impossible without Fastbond, though. I guess Tolarian Academy could do it but that's banned too. How would you ever do this in Legacy's cardpool, even theoretically? Elves?

[Bane of the Living]

That's pretty much impossible without Fastbond, though. I guess Tolarian Academy could do it but that's banned too. How would you ever do this in Legacy's cardpool, even theoretically? Elves?

Salvager would be quite powerfull in a world without Storm. They can actually achieve infinite mana as early as turn 2.

But leaving LED and taking storm away would leave the metagame plagued by Bridge from Below.

[FoolofaTook]

That's pretty much impossible without Fastbond, though. I guess Tolarian Academy could do it but that's banned too. How would you ever do this in Legacy's cardpool, even theoretically? Elves?

I don't know enough of the cards yet to know if there's anything that's near-infinitely broken on turn 1 without LED. The old environment really only had one turn 1 recursion enabler and that was the Fastbond/Timewalk combo. It wasn't perfect, I saw people take 10 minute turns in the old untimed tournament structure and still not win because they couldn't find Channel-Fireball in all of the recursion and they were flat when it finally petered out.

The maximum number of turns that I ever saw an opponent take before I got to play was 11.

[Illissius]

Slow control (sit-back and wait 15 turns U/W) is never going to make a comeback

Slow control does not equal Weissman's 1996 version of The Deck, in the same way that when we say aggro control, we don't mean Merfolk, and "combo" doesn't translate to "Fruity Pebbles". Slow control means, well, any number of Jack Elgin decks. The Rock. Landstill. Survival. Rifter. Loam. That sort of thing.

[kirdape3]

Monowhite control never stops drawing cards. They may in fact be lands, and it might cost a fortune, but that card drawing engine does exist and you will be using it or you're not winning the game. Eventually you'll be in a position to buy back Eternal Dragon and use it every turn, adding an extra card per turn to your hand. Sounds like a card drawing engine to me! Especially in a deck that wants to hit every land drop between turns 1 and 20.

[DragoFireheart]

I personally think that the free mana cards, such as Lions' Eye Diamond and such should be banned. Getting a Turn 1 kill with belcher and other storm combo decks should be left with the Type 1 format. I personally feel that turn-1 kills should not be in this sort of format.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

Oh no! if you ban the free mana you could play extendet!

[Atwa]

Oh no! if you ban the free mana you could play extendet!

Extended doesn't have:
- Swords to Plowshares
- Force of Will
- Goblin Lackey
- Lotus Petal
- Dark Ritual
- Meditate
- Bargains
- Ill Gotten Gains
- Need to go on?

This format is nothing like Extended. At least in extended you can play Mind Desire. I'm pretty sure that's not because it has all of legacy's fast acceleration.

[Jak]

I hope they do ban LED because I feel the format is pretty stale, Aggro-control and combo is no fun. Having to play a form of control in an aggro deck is no fun. The format was fun back with Solidarity. It allowed so many other decks to be playable.

If I had to take something off, I would want something to help tendrils combo out so the format would have a variety of combo decks. But I don't know what.

[Atwa]

I hope they do ban LED because I feel the format is pretty stale, Aggro-control and combo is no fun. Having to play a form of control in an aggro deck is no fun. The format was fun back with Solidarity. It allowed so many other decks to be playable.

If I had to take something off, I would want something to help tendrils combo out so the format would have a variety of combo decks. But I don't know what.

You want to ban LED, since you don't want this format to resolve round fastr combo, but at the same time you want to help Storm combo? Somehow this sounds a little contradictive.

I agree with the fact that combo is getting out of control at the moment. Storm is maybe the most broken mechanic ever and it's the main reason combo is big.

Remember the time when solidarity was the combodeck to beat? That deck won around turn 4/5. Combo with Tendrills wins turn 1/2 now (Iggy and TES). And you want to help it? Combodecks are fun and health for the format, as long as they can be kept in check. Having to run blue if you want to have a chance to win against them really sucks.

I somewhat agree with th assumption LED is the biggest thread to a fun format at the moment, since it enables these combodecks to win. I'm a big fan of banning engine pieces and not the winconditions.

This time around however, I'd really like LED to stay, since it also enables decks like Ichorid, and those deck are fair. TES could also run some other acceleration and maybe lose 1/2 a turn in speed, so this time I feel it would be better for Tendrills and EtW to get the axe (if any), just to make sure they won't return.

Combo should be about card interactions again, not trying to play as many spells as possible. Decks like Bloom, Trix and Replenish should be able to get some decent play.

[Tacosnape]

Why not just ban Tendrils itself?

[Bryant Cook]

Because I'll cry? Knock this banning combo pieces crap off, wizards might listen to you.

[Atwa]

Because I'll cry? Knock this banning combo pieces crap off, wizards might listen to you.

Maybe, but what would be the big problem with that? A lot of other decks could be viable if storm combo would be non-excistend.

[FoolofaTook]

Maybe, but what would be the big problem with that? A lot of other decks could be viable if storm combo would be non-excistend.

They don't need to ban Storm to make those decks viable, they just need to have some very hostile to Storm decks emerge as leading contenders.

The reason combo hasn't taken over the format completely is because there are matchups out there against which it is largely DOA. Storm-based combo is more resilient against some of those decks given that counters mean little against it once the effect is in play.

I have to admit that I never thought I'd see the day when it was more important to counter the dark ritual than the thing it produced.

[Jak]

The thing about also giving combo something back is so there is combo outside of Solidarity and Belcher. I know it sounds weird to ban something to weaken a deck and then unban something to make said deck stronger, but LED is just too broken in TES and Belcher with Infernal and Wish. I don't want to totally wipe combo off the map either so giving them something back would help. I am just talking about slowing the format down.

[FoolofaTook]

The thing about also giving combo something back is so there is combo outside of Solidarity and Belcher. I know it sounds weird to ban something to weaken a deck and then unban something to make said deck stronger, but LED is just too broken in TES and Belcher with Infernal and Wish. I don't want to totally wipe combo off the map either so giving them something back would help. I am just talking about slowing the format down.

UU - Counterstorm - Instant

Counter target spell that has a Storm effect. If you do so then remove all spells from the stack.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

UU - Counterstorm - Instant

Counter target spell that has a Storm effect. If you do so then remove all spells from the stack.You mean something like Hindering Touch? Combo runs disruption to get rid of things like the already useful Stifle or Orim's Chant.

[FoolofaTook]

You mean something like Hindering Touch? Combo runs disruption to get rid of things like the already useful Stifle or Orim's Chant.

Hindering Touch is a bit expensive to be effective against the kind of combo I'm seeing at the moment. In truth UU is also a bit expensive for that. Stifle works wonders. 3 Stifle in the maindeck and 2 or 3 Counterstorm in the sideboard would make Storm-based combo very vulnerable to blue control. I think having that effect in the meta would pretty much guarantee that Storm wasn't going to take us all by storm in the near future.

[DrJones]

We don't need to unban something to make Combo viable, as this was already done in the last bannings rounds. I already know of 3 strong hyper-fast combo decks that don't run Lion's Eye Diamond/Empty the warrens.

In fact, I think it would be wise to ban more combo cards.

[goobafish]

We don't need to unban something to make Combo viable, as this was already done in the last bannings rounds. I already know of 3 strong hyper-fast combo decks that don't run Lion's Eye Diamond/Empty the warrens.


Name them. I don't know of 1 besides Breakfast.

[C.P.]

Name them. I don't know of 1 besides Breakfast.

QFT.

Other decks that does not run LED and ETW are slow and more oriented to the Combo/Control. The fastest those decks get is turn 3, which is a full turn slower than LED/ETW storm combo.

[goobafish]

I can't think of a worse idea for legacy than to ban combo cards. Althrough combo is the most talked about and worked on archetype, it is quite weak in legacy, and does not post nearly enough results to warrant banning.