Yes
No
Would the banning of Tendrils force people to play different, more interesting combo decks that require a more complicated series of card interactions? Maybe.
Is it necessary to ban Tendrils to ensure the health of the format? Probably not. As many people in here have already noted, Tendrils combos make up such a small portion of the Legacy metagame that making that particular strategy unviable would do little to change the format as a whole.
Absolutely agree. That's not how the question was phrased, though. Obviously Tendrils isn't making Legacy UNhealthy; I just think it might be holding it back... a little.Originally Posted by MTG-Fan
Because one of the most played decks would prey on it. Instead, people look for aggro or other aggro-control decks to combat Counter-Top decks. Why do you think Zoo is doing well recently?
Also, I saw this idea proposed in here by somebody...
Banning Tendrils in Vintage is absolutely not the right thing to do either. I know this is the Legacy forums, but Vintage exists as a format where you can play anything you want. The only things that should ever be banned in Vintage are 1.) dexterity cards like Chaos Orb and 2.) ante cards. Period. That's why we have Legacy - to ban the broken stuff. So no, nothing playable should ever be banned from Vintage, despite the fact that combo in Vintage basically means Tendrils and nothing else.
Which is why Vintage has a restricted list: you can still play your $900 Black Lotus, but you only get to play 1, not 4.
Yeh, I should've said that Block doesn't count. However, what I said is true for all of the other formats.
Take a look at the current Standard: Tokens decks (both GW and BW), Kithkin (all splashes), Boat Brew, 5C Control, 5C Bloodbraid, Faeries, RB Aggro, Doran, Bant, Swans, Jund-based Control decks, Reveillark, Elves, Fog decks (I'm lumping Turbo Fog and Sanity Grinding together). Those decks have multiple PTQ Top 8's and at least one win. That's fourteen decks.
This past Extended season: Wizards, BG Loam (includes both builds with Death Cloud and those without), Elves, TEPS, Zoo, Bant, Burn, Swans (only at the beginning of the season), Affinity, NLU, AIR (only at the beginning of the season). Those decks have multiple PTQ Top 8's and at least one win. That's eleven, with Affinity, Swans, AIR, and Elves becoming nearly obsoleted after about the middle of the season. So, you really have Wizards, Loam strategies, TEPS, Zoo and Bant.
The disparity between last season's Extended and Standard is worse, since Dredge and Affinity were real decks and Counterbalance existed (which meant that fewer decks were actually viable - NLU, Dredge, Affinity, Tron (only towards the end of the season), Zoo, Doran, Death Cloud). Though, there was no Standard season last year, the Block season actually had a fair number of competitive decks: Faeries, Kithkin, Merfolk, Quick n' Toast, Red-based Aggro, Tokens decks, Elementals - which is the same number as Extended despite having less than twenty-five percent of the card pool!
Going back another year, it was even worse, since Dredge was a REALLY real deck. And while, yes, Teachings was insane, there were a a number of other competitive/viable strategies, more than there were in Extended.
Note, that by "competitive" and "viable", I mean decks that could actually win as the season developed - while people certainly played Tron and other decks I didn't list last season, and Ideal and TEPS two seasons ago, they certainly were not competitive.
I followed each of the last three years pretty closely and the rough numbers and decks I've provided are actually fact-based.
Even with all of the competitive/viable decks, some competitive/viable decks were clearly better than others. That's just the way every format is.
I didn't mean it in a literal Rock-Paper-Scissors sense. I mean that while you could build, say, a Mono Black Control deck or a Mono White Control deck or a Mono Blue Control deck, one of those is going to be found strictly better as time went on.This is a really simplistic and completely outdated mode of looking at Magic strategy. No metagame, not even the classic Keeper-Necro-Ernhamgeddon triangle is truly a Rock-Paper-Scissors format or has been, and it's only become less valid as strategy has developed and the power balance of colors and cards has come closer together.
Like, NLU was just strictly better than Spire Blue. Period. Zoo was just strictly better than RG Beats. Kithkin is just better than Merfolk. Faeries is just better than, well, everything.
I sure do follow them. The seasons are really only in flux at the beginning, say, the first month or so. After that, it becomes very clear what the best decks are. The only time when things get shaken up is when a new set is released or when someone discovers some insane new strategy (ie, Cascade Swans). But, then, the format always settles down.Then you don't follow Standard and Extended. Those formats are usually in constant flux, and they get plenty of pro attention.
I'm not saying they don't take it seriously. However, during PTQ seasons, PTQ players take the current format way more seriously and, as a result, you see the patterns which I described above occur.You also seem to underestimate the seriousness which Legacy players apply to their format.
*edit* I realize that I only compared Standard and Extended in my brief "analysis". The reason I didn't include Legacy is because I can't back up my argument with numbers. I will say, however, that it's very obvious that Counterbalance is the best strategy in the format.
I honestly believe that, if Legacy were to have something like a PTQ-season, you'd see only a small number - smaller than in Standard and Extended - decks rise to the top.
*edit* I also have a lot more I'd like to say, but it's five to five, and I'm leaving work to play Standard.
i think its just plain not fun to play against a combo deck like tendrils that has pretty good protection and can win by turn 3 almost every time.
its a lot more fun when games are really intense, and you have to think really hard to figure out what is best, what cards they have. and its not fun (hen you arent playing blue) and you get matched with tendrils, and all you get to do is sit there and ask "do you win? or do i win?"boring, same stuff over and over again.
And even if you are playing blue, half the time they play a chant, and you only have one countermagic card, and you cant counter both a chant and an AdN/ Tendrils.
I dont think that it is any fun at all for either player. and it takes away a lot of interaction between players, and makes the game less fun for everyone.
The other storm cards, however, can be countered in all the same ways a tendrils combo can but:
ETW: can be powder kegged or Explosivesed away, as well as EPlauged, or ghostly prison or propaganda or elephant grass, any of the wide variety of pyroclasm or wrath effects, moat.
Grapeshot: is about as hard as tendrils to stop, but is much less practical because of the 18-20 storm count you need to produce to make it work. The fact that its red also means that stuff like chill or blue elemental blast( to hit the acceleration) can also disrupt it pretty good.
Brain freeze: Needs a storm count up in the 17-18 range like grapeshot, and can also be beat by stuff like feldons cane.
I think that without tendrils in this format, blue wouldnt be such an essential and powerful color (but still pretty powerful) that three out of the four decks to beat wouldnt always be blue at any given time, and that those three decks wouldnt always be running 8-12 cards that are the same, so that our format could be more diverse and exciting!
Honestly, if Tendrils wasn't here, you'd all be complaining just as badly about these cards. Hands down.
I personally don't see any reason to have Tendrils banned. If Tendrils is banned, then Counterbalance should be banned as due to a similar logic (aggro-control decks with CB >without CB). After that, we can easily move on to other staples like Wasteland and Goyf. In the end, it's safe to say this kind of process is going to leave us with 9land Stompy as a DTB.
Tendrils isn't putting up huge numbers of T8's. This should indicate that it is definitely not too strong, ergo does not deserve to be banned. In the same way, two-card combo's are hardly putting up any T8's (Aluren anyway? Imperial Painter? Breakfast?) anywhere. This is not because of Tendrils. This is because the decks are too weak. They are too slow to deal with some decks, too clunky to deal with others and too bad to deal with most. If any two-card combo could compete in the absence of Tendrils, it would also be able to compete in its presence. Perhaps to a lesser extent, but it would at least attract attention- something Breakfast (to mention the probably strongest one) hasn't done in a while.
tendrils would not be anywhere near as competetive without Ad Nauseam, that card made storm insane again. Banning cards like LED and Dark ritual would effect the format more and completely neuter combo altogether. tendrils is the most eligant win condition in storm decks. Do we really want to take it away?
TEAM AWESOME
Well, at least we smell better
I don't really agree with you, since Ad Nauseam really gave storm another powerful tool but imho it wasn't the power of AN that pushed storm over the top. It's just the fact that people realized how viable storm actually is, and even more important, it makes playing stormcombo a hell of a lot easier. I've been playing storm before and it's always been a hard time playing this deck, since you had to do lot's of math even against deck with little protection. But with AN you just have a random "oups, I win" button.
BTT:
I don't think Tendrils should be banned. What would be the benefit for the format if Wizards did so? Stormcombo isn't a great part of the metagame anyways, and before the printing of AN storm was actually quite dead (tough actually competetive) So removing Stormcombo (besides Solidarity) from the meta would just free a few sideboard slots. I don't think people would stop playing blue or anything.
/sigh
Do you see it? Anyone? Why do you think people play blue? Oh, that's right: it can compete with aggro and prey on combo. I can guarantee you that if Wizards banned Force of Will and Stifle from Legacy, storm combo would be swamping T8 constantly.
So long as blue can hate out combo with ease while still being able to compete with other decks, it will be played. Other aggro-control (Loam) / control (Landstill) / aggro (Zoo, Goblins, Merfolk) decks will then try to prey on these blue aggro-control decks (Counter-Top).
One of the positive elements of having a slower game is the ability to play higher mana cost cards. While I would never expect Nicol Bolas PW to become competitive, however having PW ultimates being able to activate every so often is a positive aspect of the game.
Then there are also more opportunities for random "barely won with xth card" interactions with the most unlikeliest of scenarios. There are good points to know what you're playing against when they drop a land, but there's also the counter point of knowing what to do with a strange board scenario. A longer game encourages more of these instances rather than placing all the interactions up to the initial first turns or so or else lose.
Longer games allows more cards to come into play and function against other cards.
I play half of my deck every game, alright. I know how to allow more cards to come into play.
Fun is a matter of perspective. I'm having fun figuring out how to win and get out of tough situations. Playing creatures and swinging is boring to me.
Lawl, I got a hate IM. I'm like 50% sure this is Bryant.
[20:41] Pernicious Deed: you fucking whiney (bundle of sticks) (female dog).
[20:41] Pernicious Deed: why dont you shut the (procreation) up with your inane (procreation) polls.
[20:41] Pernicious Deed: (bundle of sticks)
[20:41] Pernicious Deed: (female dog)
[20:41] Doomska: lawlocopter
[20:41] Pernicious Deed: http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/132...heassassin.jpg
[20:42] Pernicious Deed: lol at that you (bundle of sticks)
[20:42] Doomska: lawlocopterx9
[20:42] *** Error while sending IM: This user is currently not logged on
eta:
Profanity changed to protect the innocent.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Generally, when people are challenged to think outside their comfort zone for... anything, they become hostile and aggressive, tapping into their inner stupid to lash out at the things that might threaten their comfort zone.
There's a simpler explanation.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Honestly wasn't me.
Perhaps, but the other end of the stick isn't so much the amount of cards played but rather the interactions between different permanent types such as enchantment, artifact, PW, and ect. Speed deligates to what sort of permanents see effective play, slower decks allow for more permanent types and thus more permanent based interactions.
Why should this be the only way to play magic?
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