Would the format be more interesting without Tendrils of Agony?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Because my post in the other thread seems to have been glazed over.

Although originally I had said that if anything should be banned alongside Tarmogoyf, it should be Lion's Eye Diamond, I've changed my mind.

Basically, Tendrils of Agony is a card that changed the way combo worked. In the old 1.5, which existed for about a year with Tendrils but which had no real fast mana aside from Dark Ritual and Elvish Spirit Guide, we had combo decks that were fast; they were primarily Food Chain Goblins and Dragon.

Food Chain Goblins functioned as an aggro deck that could occasionally explode into a turn three or four (once in a great while, turn two) kill with hasty piles of Goblins, using Goblin Recruiter and Ringleader to drop a lot of Warchiefs and Piledriver.

It was also stopped by such non-blue cards as Elephant Grass, Moment's Peace, Humility, Moat, and usually Engineered Plague.

Dragon was undisputably the best combo deck... and yet, every single color had cheap and ready answers to it. Cards like Abolish or Swords to Plowshares, Naturalize or Diabolic Edict, Chain of Vapor or Stifle could not only end the combo, but would leave the opponent with nothing in hand. Worst comes to worst you could run Tormod's Crypt, which stopped the combo but didn't remove all their lands from the game the way other answers did.

Now, if you didn't have those answers you were SOL, and Dragon could run cards like Duress and Unmask and Force and Avoid Fate and Orim's Chant of it's own, but generally speaking, you did not have to play blue or die without sideboard hate.

However... since then...

Combo has been redefined in 1.5. Combo, for the most part, no longer means traditional combo, a deck where two or more cards interact to kill you, most of which were permanents of some stripe.

Today's combo is a lot of mana and some tutoring effects into a very big burn spell.

What's more, although storm was designed to fight countermagic, in fact countermagic is the only strategy that's able to contain this threat effectively.

Here's my question:

Would the format be better without Tendrils of Agony decks? Solidarity would still exist but still be slow; CRET Belcher would still exist but be vulnerable to Engineered Explosives and Pernicious Deed and Pyroclasm.

And I know that Tendrils decks are not dominating the metagame, but I believe that, more than any factor besides possibly Tarmogoyf, they're indirectly responsible for the dominance of the color blue.

Moreover... speaking of LED... like Long.dec, as long as Tendrils is around, all fast mana and draw or tutoring cards require laser-like scrutiny. Sooner or later, if Wizards keeps printing such cards (which they should), something else will need to be banned. And then something else. But the problem, fundamentally, is Tendrils of Agony.

My personal thoughts are that Tendrils should go on the banned list and more vulnerable combos and enablers, such as Hermit Druid, Dragon, Entomb, Metalworker, should come off.

But right now I'm simply asking; Does Tendrils of Agony make the format more or less interesting.

[C.P.]

My answer would be yes it should be banned, seeing there are so many decks that are not viable only because of its bad Tendrils matchup. It makes Board control decks viable, and makes blue less dominant. It would certainaly be really interesting.

[rockout]

This isn't any different then the ban tarmogoyf argument. Stop the madness.

[Jak]

The only problem I have with Storm Combo is that you basically need to play blue to stop them unless you are packed full of discard (that isn't even that reliable because of Brainstorm...). However, combo hardly puts up results since blue is so heavily played. If something from blue did get the axe, then maybe banning Tendril would be the right call.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The only problem I have with Storm Combo is that you basically need to play blue to stop them unless you are packed full of discard (that isn't even that reliable because of Brainstorm...). However, combo hardly puts up results since blue is so heavily played. If something from blue did get the axe, then maybe banning Tendril would be the right call.

My argument is that Tendrils combo (Can we stop calling it "Storm combo" or "Dark Ritual decks" or whatever? It's Tendrils. That's the throbbing heart and soul of the deck, without which it's simply bad) is part of what's keeping blue dominant. Because blue generally is the only color that can rely on beating Tendrils, this gives players less incentive to run any other color, which tend to lose on the first, second or third turn without much they can do. Conversely, the lack of incentives to play a color outside of blue means that blue is rampant which means that less players feel inclined to run Tendrils. When people stray out of this formula, however, they tend to run into Tendrils one round and get completely demolished.

I don't consider it healthy. I like combo being strong, but I feel that Tendrils is a bad combo from a metagame perspective. Dragon and Entomb being unbanned would introduce a much healthier combo, I think.

[Dark_Shakuras]

Every once in a while Wizards fucks up. They admit, and everyone knows it.

Sometime they make cards just too powerful. But I think Storm is just too powerful.

Storm changes the way the game is played. The 5-6 playable storm cards are all way overpowered in what they do. Sure in standard, they were nice and fair, but even in Extended cards like Mind's Desire, were one of the upper tier Combo decks.

I think wizards would be best to do the following.

In Leagcy:

Ban: Tendrils, Grapshot, Brain Freeze, Empty the Warrens.
Unban: all the "combo" stuff. Imagine how many cards are no longer broken as fuck when your have to accelerate into a combo thats actually counter able and, surprise surprise actually a COMBINATION!

In Vintage it harder, as Restricting Tendrils does little to stop Storm, as most decks only play 1-2.

I think it might be actually ok to ban the card there.

[sroncor1]

I don' think you need to play blue to control combo. Dragon Stompy does a more than capable job of it. I guess the other options besides blue are extremely limited though, basically being Magus of the Moon, Chalice and Trinisphere, and two of those cards can be used in any color deck. Although to truly take advantage of their power they can not be splashed, so maybe you do have a point as there is little splashable hate.

[lebarion]

I don't think banning Tendrils alone would be any good to the format.
It wouldn't make people play less Goyfs and FoWs. I believe it would make aggro more viable, and as a consequence, board control, too.

However, I believe that, despite the "healthy" of the format, it's time to shake things up a little bit by unbanning a couple of cards.
Yes, I know that there's a lot of viable archetypes and decks, I know that the format is balanced and almost every single deck has its bad matches, I know that every now and then Wizards presents us a few playable cards. But I fell the discussions about the format are becoming less and less interesting and this discourage people from keep playing legacy (or maybe I'm just sad that there are too few championships nearby ).

[mujadaddy]

Much more interesting without Tendrils.

Actually errata that changed the wording of the card might be enough -- if it were damage instead of loss of life, that would open up a TON of answers and make more decks in more colors able to withstand it.

On the subject of , it's not like counters are suddenly going to disappear if Tendrils disappears. Counters work against everything. But if Tendrils disappears, Combo gets a minimum of 1-2 turns slower, which gives aggro a big boost.

I find combo boring, to face and to run. It works, but jeez, wake me if you fizzle.

[Elfrago]

Sure, because right now combo is everywhere. Everybody and their little brother is playing combo. People are actully shitting tendrils instead of, you know, crap.

[/sarcasm]

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't want either the color blue or combo as an archetype to disappear; I'm actually fond of both.

I'm aware that a certain reaction to this sort of poll will be to assume that it's the anger of a Timmy (or some similarly banile generalization) who simply wants to get rid of all the decks that beat... (I used to be able to insert a given tribal deck in this slot, but those have stopped sucking dramatically. Let's say 9land Stompy, then).

However, I think there are desirable amounts and forms of both blue and combo in the format. Although the two issues aren't intrinsically related, my desirable form of blue doesn't involve a two mana 5/6, and the desirable form of combo, I think, involves an actual combination of cards, at least one of which is a permanent.

I quite like the Cascade-Hypergenesis combo, for instance, which I think may be vulnerable; but it's also vulnerable to any deck that can drop a lot of permanents out of it's hand, or that can play Wrath or Damnation early; I beat it with Quinn, for instance, by just dropping Runed Halo, O-Ring, O-Ring. Moat would have been even better, to say nothing of Humility.

Another combo I like is Life, which can be quite powerful but relies on creatures, and further has difficulty beating decks with a powerful milling option, whether that's Solidarity or Train Wreck.

Cephalid Breakfast is both blue and a combo, but ultimately quite fair and healthy for the metagame, being vulnerable to creature hate as well as graveyard hate (while having tools to fight through both, as well as the usual counters and such).

That's what we used to think of in terms of "combo" decks. Combinations of cards. Now combo has come to mean Tendrils of Agony. It... irks me.

[emidln]

It would seem to me that banning Tendrils combo would have nearly 0 effect on the dominance of blue. Counterbalance decks aren't good because they keep combo in check. Counterbalance decks are good because Counterbalance is fundamentally broken. I'd still play Counterbalance without Tendrils in the format because my Counterbalance decks have exactly 0 cards against Tendrils outside of CB/Spell Snare/Force of Will. This is very similar to many other NLU-type decks because deckbuilders expect to run into other CB decks (because CB is so good) and aggro decks, not the 5% of players who pick weird combo that they probably can't pilot through hate.

All it would do is free up sideboard slots for aggro decks because they get to run more specific anti-control cards rather than genera stuff like Chant/Pillar/Teeg (although Teeg might still see play).

This seems to make the format a lot less interesting for the combo deckbuilders and hardly affect anyone else (outside of paranoid crazy guy's 60 cards of storm combo hate who now can't even go 1-5 in an event).

[caiomarcos]

This seems to make the format a lot less interesting for the combo deckbuilders and hardly affect anyone else (outside of paranoid crazy guy's 60 cards of storm combo hate who now can't even go 1-5 in an event).

I have to disagree. Without Tendrils players would actually look for combos, not a way to reach 10 storm faster. Said that, and being a combo-lover myself since ProspoBloom, I agree with IBA when he says that we don't have combo anymore, we have Tendrils. Any 'combo' deck other then the ones with Tendrils kill sucks. First because Tendrils is by far the best option when you have such fast mana like we do in Legacy, 2nd because everyone is packing CB, FoW, Daze, Chalice etc in order to combat those Tendril combos.
Tendrils stifles real combo deckbuilding just like Tarmogoyf stifles aggro and control deckbuilding and variety.
Don't get me wrong thou, I think Legacy is quite healthy now, but it could be much more interesting without the amazing dominance over their respective archetypes that those two cards have.

[Piceli89]

I can't get why the hell should Tendrils would be banned. I mean, combo has, in legacy, a reasonable amount of hate.Free Counters,Stifle, Counterbalance,Chant, Discard, Teeg/Mage effects, Chalice and Trini, even Blood Moon and LD hurts it as well. Tendrils, if considered alone, is a weak card; what makes it THE kill con in the majority storm combo decks is the dedicated engine behind it. If that engine goes on having several hate cards against it (most of which are effectively solveable, ok, but still require a lot of time and resources to get rid of them, delaying what an usual build of storm combo aims for, to win within the range of a certain number of turns), then Tendrils is just a mere output of something which is way more complicate than just "RAWR 10 SPELLS TENDRILS YA!". Moreover, even if this may seem as an inconsistent reason, we're playing in an Eternal format, where Storm combo, since its birth, has had and always have an important role among the archetypes this format offers.
I also don't share the argument " combo has denied some decks to rise or even to be born because of their lack of answers to it". Combo, first of all, isn't the dominant archetype of legacy, for all the cards i quoted above, which are way too common in here, so i get the feeling it's a poor argument to say that decks like GW fatties+enchantments.dec have been smothered by the presence of storm combo, since they'd probably be rolled over by Landstill or other control decks as well; and , if we want to keep this sort of argument, let's apply it to a certain few cards which have really hindered or even murdered the development of certain strategies.
-White weenie has been killed by Tarmogoyf, and, in laeast measure, Counterbalance.
-Red Death has been killed completely to Tarmogoyf.
-ALL the decks that were run into legacy using Blue and Red were slaughtered by that green piece of shit (I remember , for example, UR landstill, yes, that's pretty a crappy example, but i was very displeased with it);
-Let's be honest, all the aggro decks not packing Tarmogoyf are way penalized, and must deal with it.
But i don't want to move the discussion to the usual "Tarmogoyf is a shit, it has broken Legacy and now half of the decks function around it" issue. But i want just to make understand that it's extremely less likely that , when someone build a new dec, be it blueless too, he will renounce to it because of the "it loses/has no answers to storm combo" fact. On the contrary, people tend to build a deck keeping in sight very carefully if it can get rid or face a 5/6 cc2, and this seems to happen even more when people tune their decks for a tournament, where I'm noticing that the really broken cards of the current time ( Tarmogoyf and Counterbalance, no one ever tries to deny that they are not unbalanced) are having more and more impact.
I have tried to be as objective as possible. I am not claiming not to ban Tendrils because i'm a storm combo player, but because it seems that Tendrils.dec is already been handled very well by LOTS of card in the current cardpool, which are NOT only blue. Plus, storm combo has usually randomic problems of inconsistency, since piling 10 spells isn't always that simple as it could seem.

[DrJones]

Tendrils of Agony is a combo taking the entire deck. If it were just a 1-card combo, as you imply, I might be able to put four copies in any deck packing black and start winning tournaments with it.

Also, the deck doesn't even appear on the DTB forum, but in any case, here's a list of non-blue cards that I found that can stop the combo:

white

• aethersworn canonist
• orim's chant
• gilded light
• solitary confinement
• true believer
• children of korlis
• mana tithe
• Glowrider
• order of the sacred torch

black

• discard (duress, thoughtseize, etc.)
• false cure
• lich
• simulacrum (lol)
• word of command (double lol)
• Thrull wizard (triple lol)

Green

• Refreshing Rain (if tendrils is not big enough)
• Nourishing Shoal (if tendrils is not big enough)
• Lifeforce

Red

• Pyrostatic Pillar (maybe)
• Ricochet (lol)

Other than that, Red has to accelerate into the high cost cards that protect against that combo.

Multicolor

• Gaddock Teeg

Artifacts

• Circle of the Void
• Sphere of Resistance
• Trinisphere
• Thorn of Amethyst

By reading that list, I can conclude that the best non-blue deck against Tendrils has to be nourishing lich!!

[4eak]

If we aren't willing to ban cards like Brainstorm, Goyf, LED, Vial, etc., then I would say Tendrils makes the format more interesting.

Interesting format = Format with choices that test skill, both through a high degree of interaction and a metagame with depth and diversity.

Tendrils of Agony doesn't make the format less interesting by being so broken that it completely warps the metagame (as some combo decks have previously done in so called 'winters'), but its existence certainly modifies the metagame (as any good deck should). Most importantly, Tendrils doesn't muscle out more competition than it creates. Tendrils is fast enough to keep Ichorid (a slightly slower, but fairly non-interactive combo), a few very strong aggro decks, and dedicated board control decks in check.

Alongside its raw speed, I have no problem with ToA's resistance to many forms of control, in fact, that aspect of the card and archetype is exactly what I think is necessary for the format. I've even had to reverse my opinion on Tendrils enablers like Ad Nauseam, which have effectively lowered the skill requirements to play the deck, allowing Tendrils to have a stronger influence on the format (despite the strength of CB). I want ToA's influence on the format.

Tendrils makes blue and chalice decks a necessary part of the metagame, and I think that is a good thing for diversity and skill-intensive interaction. The speed and resilience of Tendrils promotes the use of other decks which are designed to interact with the format because it requires the metagame to have a certain amount of Force of Will and other permission.

Storm combo makes Aggro-Control the best archetype in the format, which basically means: a deck with no dedicated, focused role is the best. When I sit down and think about it, I'm glad Thresh is statistically the best because it doesn't win by enormous margins against every deck in the format, it just has decent or good odds against most decks. Tendrils is just good enough that it makes Aggro-Control the best deck in the format, and I think the general metagame is more open and interesting when people are gunning for aggro-control while weighing the other matchups. Good metagamers should appreciate the ability to reasonably throw the combo match in favor of having much greater odds against other archetypes.

I also have no problem with the fact that Tendrils obsoletes many other combo decks, by a large margin. None of those decks would be good enough to make the same impact in the metagame and put aggro-control at the top. Tendrils is good for diversity, while the other real combo deck, Ichorid, would not be good for diversity.

While many decks can't interact with Tendrils, the deck itself forces the metagame to adapt, making the metagame overall more interactive and capable of diversity. Tendrils also keeps in check decks that would otherwise be too powerful. Without a very fast, control-resistant, yet often interactive combo deck in the metagame, dedicated board control archetypes, Ichorid and Goblins would be too influential in Legacy.





peace,
4eak

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Saying that Tendrils does nothing by itself misses the actual history of combo. Prior to Tendrils, we had all the other elements of the same deck; and yet no combo deck in Vintage or 1.5 was set up to function anything like Long.dec. Immediately after Tendrils was printed this became the dominant strategy in Vintage, and the primary strategy in Legacy once the lists were separted and mana acceleration beyond Dark Ritual was either unbanned or printed.

I compare the effects of Tendrils on Legacy to the effect of Raffinity in Mirrodin Block Constructed. Raffinity was not the dominant deck. The dominant decks were red or green centric and ran cards like Molder Slug, Arc-Slogger, Electrostatic Bolt and Viridian Shaman. They preyed on Raffinity decks and had enough strengths versus the rest of the field that they dominated the metagame. However, these decks were not actually busted in and of themselves. What kept them on top was having a decent game versus the rest of the field and crushing the deck that would knock other archetypes out of the running. This is also similar to the strategy lots of people tried to take with Fish against Hulk-Flash at GP Columbus, with the unfortuante cliff note that Flash was far too powerful for this to work.

Tendrils is not as powerful as Hulk-Flash was, but it is powerful enough to serve the same role as Raffinity did in Mirrodin Block; although not dominant, it tends to devour anything that's not the foil. to that strategy.

Lastly, I didn't say I wasn't willing to ban cards like Tarmogoyf and Brainstorm. I would rather take a liberal approach to the Legacy banned list. I think it's been stagnant for entirely too long. However, not everyone agrees with this philosophy. This is an inquiry thread to gauge public opinion about whether or not Tendrils' presence helps or hurts the format.

It's also possible that Ad Nauseum does render this conversation pointless. Ad Nauseum is certainly the most busted enabler in combo, and a prime target for banning anyway, as we all realized the second it was printed. I'm not sure, then, that that should singlehandedly derail the main topic, since Ad Nauseum is relatively easy to ban (having only been legal a brief time), it's banning wouldn't shock anyone and without it, Storm combo most definitely could not survive the loss of Tendrils without a serious loss in strength, except in the form of a deck like CRET Belcher (unreliable) or Solidarity (slow).

[GreenOne]

I'm usually a combo player, and combo definetly has a fairly interactive game against anything but monogreen.dec
People is running chalices, discard, countermagic, istant damage sources (for AN), graveyard hate (for IGG), etc. Even if the game is usually not even fair against non-blue decks this doesn't mean there are no choices to be made by the players considering what the other player is doing.

However, even banning Tendrils, combo decks are usually able to make >10 storm especially when working with AN. The aggro matches would be still unfair using Brain Freeze / Grapeshot.

I guess I can still 8-2 any goblin deck with a TES list with -1 Tendrils +1 Grapeshot, and maintain almost the same percentages against black disruption decks, aggroloam, etc.

It's not the win, it's the engine. Maybe you'll have to adjust your deck to fit in some more IGG or some doomsdays, but still, the game is going to be unfair against those ones.

the desirable form of combo, I think, involves an actual combination of cards, at least one of which is a permanent.

Yeah, I know those combos! One involves LED+Mystical tutor and the other one Doomsday+SDT! :)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'm going to dismiss, categorically, the argument that Storm Combo would be as strong with Brain Freeze or Grapeshot.

Or if Grapeshot combo does become big, I'm going to start boarding in Scars of the Veteran.

[DragoFireheart]

I'm going to dismiss, categorically, the argument that Storm Combo would be as strong with Brain Freeze or Grapeshot.

Or if Grapeshot combo does become big, I'm going to start boarding in Scars of the Veteran.

Going to have to argee. Both Grapeshot and Brainfreeze need almost double the storm count that Tendrils requires to goldfish.