All B/R update speculation.

[Dice_Box]

To make counts on the basis of the frequency in the top8 it is necessary to unbias the numbers for the number of subscriptions.

If Miracle pilots were 70% of the total and Eldrazi players were 1% of the total to have just one of both in the top 8 would give a totally different lecture to the data (even tough it's still the same: 1 and 1).

We need more data. This said: I love blue since I was 9 but Sorcery speed cantrips (unless it's mana free) just sounds as a time walk for the opponent and I have never like it.

I fail to understand the popularity of Ponder. Dig Through Time was huge because it was Instant. Treasure Cruise was huge because for U netted you three cards, but Ponder.. I don't really understand

We have been down this rabbit hole before. To repeat what I said last time, more data is always better but that does not mean I will not work with what I have. Now just because I do not have everything does not mean I can not draw statistically significant conclusions from trend lines shown in that data. That said, this is a talk that normally happens in the B/R thread. I do not know how long this thread is going to last before it goes fully down that path itself.

[rufus]

... To repeat what I said last time, more data is always better but that does not mean I will not work with what I have. ...

I think Poron's comment was intended as a critique of Finn's argument rather than as commentary on the DtB section.

WotC has been pushing the creature / value axis pretty hard of late. I wouldn't be too surprised if something from Kaladesh pushes the meta a bit more toward combo again.

[Lemnear]

This year's EE top 8 was:

3x Miracles
Infect
Grixis Delver
Reanimator
Punishing Maverick
Death & Taxes

Thsts an impressive 37.5% of the T8. Whats the decks current metagame share? Did it drop or rose since I collected the data. I just read that Eldrazis share rose by 37% to current 9% total

I fail to understand the popularity of Ponder. Dig Through Time was huge because it was Instant. Treasure Cruise was huge because for U netted you three cards, but Ponder.. I don't really understand

I am confused that you are confused.

Ponder - U
SORCERY
cherrypick one of the top 3 cards of your library. You may sac a fetchland afterwards to not draw the remaining two cards. If you dont cherrypick, shuffle your library and draw a 4th option instead.

[maharis]

The share of top 8s is relevant information for anyone who's goal is to win a tournament. Take a 100-player tournament: One player riding his brew to the top 8/16 is a nice story but Magic is a game of variance. Looking at what tops a wide range of tournaments is the best way to identify what you should prepare for, and it influences your own deck selection as well.

Thsts an impressive 37.5% of the T8. Whats the decks current metagame share? Did it drop or rose since I collected the data. I just read that Eldrazis share rose by 37% to current 9% total

Not quite sure what time frame/data you are working with but a cursory glance at sites that provide metagame data put Miracles at anywhere from 10% to 14% of the metagame, with Eldrazi coming in at anywhere from 7%-11%.

[Poron]

isn't a Snapmaster Mage a Mentor a Counterbalance a Thoughtseize a Show and Tell all better draws?

When you have a Top on the field or a Sylvan Library Ponder is good just with Mentor or for FoW pitching.

Also, to shuffle every deck nowadays plays 8 fetchlands..

[Megadeus]

If you can't see the power of ponder I don't know what to tell you. Replace all ponders with impulse and check your win % afterwards I guess.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I think the format is clearly narrower than its ever been in the 4-ish years I've been playing it regularly. Eldrazi has basically soaked up all the space for non-blue midrange decks and Chalice decks, while Miracles pushes out longtime stalwarts like tempo, Stoneblade decks of all colors, and any other deck leaning on a low curve.

But isn't this the natural progression for a meta?. A newcomer steps in and steals an unexploited share of the format. The format contracts while players figure out how to deal with the newcomer. Then time passes and players tinker creating new spins on it. Some of these become siblings of the original deck while others fill a new niche and are more like cousins. Over time the cousins may no longer look anything alike.

I see that now as Eldrazi gets tinkered with and White Eldrazi becoming a thing.

Without being a Delver historian, I will go out on a limb and say RUG Tempo Threshold was the first to truly exploit the card. Then, once it had been proven, we started to see U/R Delver, BUG Delver, and Patriot Delver. U/R and BUG clearly have found their niche while Patriot seems to have dwindled.

Before that we saw a similar thing with Stoneblade, initially being U/W then moving towards Esper.

[Poron]

I will try it even though I prefer counters in the 2cc slots, I think I will try to put card advantage at the 3mana slot.

in a list with 4 Top and 4 Brainstorms I wouldn't play more than 2 Ponders. You'll have turn 1and 2 too weak else.

Better 1 Spell Snare and 1 more Counterspell.

If only there was a way ti give Jace Flash...

The only positive thing: I see only 1 Delver deck (in case the Grixis list was playing it). Finally.

The most retarded creature ever

[rufus]

...
If only there was a way ti give Jace Flash...
...

There is - Leyline of Anticipation but the benefit doesn't seem to justify playing it.

[Lemnear]

Without being a Delver historian, I will go out on a limb and say RUG Tempo Threshold was the first to truly exploit the card. Then, once it had been proven, we started to see U/R Delver, BUG Delver, and Patriot Delver. U/R and BUG clearly have found their niche while Patriot seems to have dwindled.

Before that we saw a similar thing with Stoneblade, initially being U/W then moving towards Esper.

Delver was riduculous obvious to include in tempo and RUG was the established Tempo deck. It was a mindless deed to throw in Delver and no way near an achievement "to make it fit". There was zero deck development.

UR Delver wasnt a thing before WotC powercreeped red and blue creatures with snapcaster/Delver/TNN/Swiftspear and later Treasure Cruise, with the Sorcery also being a totally obvious fit in cantrip+fetchland.dec.

Patriot was just en vogue because SFM+Equip outclassed the classic Tarmogoyf aggro in the format and the move away from the Stifle towards a midrange focus was a result of the more stable manabases. Everyone was playing SFM at that time so it was just a matter of time until blue delver decks absorbed white and dropped green.

BUG Delver was nothing new either. Tombstalker and Hymn were around for ages and played by tempo as a two-off. What made the deck actually good in the long run were Decay and DRS. Shardless is actually a direct successor to BUG Delver, dropping the tempo aspect of Delve-Creatures and Daze for their signature card advantage engine. Shardless and Patriot are similar midrange traits of their BUG/RUG ancestors if you want to see it that way.

Edit:

isn't a Snapmaster Mage a Mentor a Counterbalance a Thoughtseize a Show and Tell all better draws?

When you have a Top on the field or a Sylvan Library Ponder is good just with Mentor or for FoW pitching.

Also, to shuffle every deck nowadays plays 8 fetchlands..

Please tell me how you legally play more than 4 S&T? Ponder is a redundancy tool. Pointing at SDTs card selection is misleading as it straight up ignores every aspect of tempo and mana. Looking at the top 3 with Ponder and shuffling afterwards is 1 mana, with SDT the same costs you 2 mana and a fetchland

PS: I cannot believe I have to point out why ponder is extremely powerful and why it got banned in Modern and restricted in Vintage

[PirateKing]

The share of top 8s is relevant information for anyone who's goal is to win a tournament. Take a 100-player tournament: One player riding his brew to the top 8/16 is a nice story but Magic is a game of variance. Looking at what tops a wide range of tournaments is the best way to identify what you should prepare for, and it influences your own deck selection as well.

What you should prepare for, yes, I agree.

So this isn't saying anything to your point proper, but many players take the top8 results as a short list of the best decks. Seeing Miracles take a 100 man tournament reinforces the notion that it's the best deck, but when you see that 50 players showed up with the same list, meanwhile that homebrew took second place; might just be lucky breaks or maybe there is something there. But just saying "variance" and walking away doesn't render an accurate representation of the reality.

[Ronald Deuce]

I may be going out on a limb here, but it sounds like there's a degree of "we don't like cards that make decks work well" in this thread. It's a lot easier to throw a bunch of static-effect permanents into a deck than it is to make a combo work, so I don't really get why it's bothering people (not everyone, but a few posters) that Brainstorm is used so widely. Especially because T1-T2 Brainstorm is rarely a play that says, "you don't get to play cards anymore," the way that a number of hatebears/hate-rocks are.

It's worth pointing out that the most degenerate, ridiculous, lightspeed, (un?)fun combo decks play neither Brainstorm nor Ponder.

If anything, Brainstorm and Ponder make the format more diverse—and, I would argue, more interesting—rather than less so. I've never appreciated the "cantrip cartel" argument because a) the "cartel" takes up only between 8 and 16 cards in decks, depending on whether you count fetchlands, and b) the decks that use the cantrips use them to such widely differing ends. As an example, a T1 Island into Ponder indicates a whole lot less about what you're facing than, e.g., Savannah into Mother of Runes or Ancient Tomb into Chalice.

No offense intended to anybody; I just think the argument that Brainstorm and Pals are ruining diversity or are unfair is unfounded.

[lavafrogg]

As much as I love the fact that there is only one blue deck in the DTB section, it only takes a quick scan of the DTB Philosophy thread to see that the format is about as diverse and interesting as we have ever seen. In broad generalizations the format has switched to a three headed monster of Blue, Prison and Combo Decks with aggro decks being non existent in a format as powerful as Legacy. This is almost as clear cut as the original Solidarity/Threshold/Goblins that everyone is always nostalgic about.

The blue shell is by far and away the strongest shell in legacy and has been for years, the ability to find/filter through your deck for minimal cost is clearly the best thing you can do in legacy, add counter magic and the best win condition in the game and it is easy to see why blue is the most played color. This month shows just how far the other shells have come in the past (few)years in that they can almost go toe-to-toe with the great blue menace. even if we have to do some "Hollywood" accounting it is an impressive showing.

Making cards that are powerful but cannot be assimilated by Blue is a tough task, and one that WotC has been fighting for years. DnT and Eldrazi are perfect examples of decks that Wizards has pushed for the format to increase the diversity, even the Stage/Depths combo is a recent addition to the format that pushed Lands from fringe to playable.

I for one am very happy that the format isn't just 4 different Delver variants, 4 Stoneblade lists of varying color combination, 3 different Deathrite decks and 2 guys playing whatever Show and Tell list is best for the meta. (notice that most of these decks share 75% of the same cards[not a real percentage])

[Lemnear]

I for one am very happy that the format isn't just 4 different Delver variants, 4 Stoneblade lists of varying color combination, 3 different Deathrite decks and 2 guys playing whatever Show and Tell list is best for the meta. (notice that most of these decks share 75% of the same cards[not a real percentage])

Instead the format is now 3 different flavors of "you can't play your spells" ... sounds fun

[lavafrogg]

Instead the format is now 3 different flavors of "you can't play your spells" ... sounds fun

You have never been able to play your spells at least now there are different ways to stop spell casting... really mixes it up.

Countermagic vs Chalice vs Waste/Port...disruption game is strong. Discard is left out of the mix pretty hard but I am not sure how they could improve discard without it just becoming "blue" or broken.

[Brael]

Snappy title...eh?

I think it's a combination of factors. I know the deck I play which is a Nic Fit variant has better draw/filtering power than the typical blue deck due to things like Bob, Sylvan Library, SDT, Tireless Tracker and others. Not everything plays those specific cards obviously, but there's just a lot of options these days, helped in large part by SDT. On top of that, some decks just take over a game. They have powerful proactive plans that simply don't care about trying to find answers, or they have a few generic answers like Eldrazi.

I'm really liking the spot Legacy is in right now. I do have to echo another poster though that I think part of it is due to there being less large competitive events. Over a smaller number of rounds, decks with higher variance have more potential.

[Lemnear]

You have never been able to play your spells at least now there are different ways to stop spell casting... really mixes it up.

Countermagic vs Chalice vs Waste/Port...disruption game is strong. Discard is left out of the mix pretty hard but I am not sure how they could improve discard without it just becoming "blue" or broken.

Well, there is a difference between traditional denial/disruption/etc (counters, discard, etc) which traded cards for cards and the uneven state in current Legacy where one side not only "stops spells from casting" but does it a) with a permanent aka static effect and b) creates massive, virtual cardadvantage because one card blocks several of the opponent.

Pardon me, but I dont see ANY difference between Chalice and countertop in being locked out from resolving spells completely and permanently.

[lavafrogg]

Well, there is a difference between traditional denial/disruption/etc (counters, discard, etc) which traded cards for cards and the uneven state in current Legacy where one side not only "stops spells from casting" but does it a) with a permanent aka static effect and b) creates massive, virtual cardadvantage because one card blocks several of the opponent.

Pardon me, but I dont see ANY difference between Chalice and countertop in being locked out from resolving spells completely and permanently.

While the ends might not feel the same on the opposing end of a lock, the way the cards are built around, implemented and countered are vastly different. I don't need to explain the actual differences between Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void any you have to agree that a deck that plays Chalice cannot(or would not) want to play Counterbalance and visa versa.

Traditional disruption has always been the golden standard for years and as blue disruption vastly overpowered black based disruption the blue shell became the best shell to disrupt your opponents plans. Now that permanent based disruption is a viable strategy the way that we trade cards for cards has to adjust to be able to interact with the disruption which is being played. Cards like Abrupt Decay and Krosan Grip are more and more popular as they are instant answers to Counterbalance and Chalice.

Maybe the actual revelation of this thread will be for the community to realize that mainboard, versitile, artifact and enchantment hate is something that needs to be considered seeing how every deck in the DtB fourm(and most of the Established decks as well) have main board targets.

[maharis]

While the ends might not feel the same on the opposing end of a lock, the way the cards are built around, implemented and countered are vastly different. I don't need to explain the actual differences between Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void any you have to agree that a deck that plays Chalice cannot(or would not) want to play Counterbalance and visa versa.

Traditional disruption has always been the golden standard for years and as blue disruption vastly overpowered black based disruption the blue shell became the best shell to disrupt your opponents plans. Now that permanent based disruption is a viable strategy the way that we trade cards for cards has to adjust to be able to interact with the disruption which is being played. Cards like Abrupt Decay and Krosan Grip are more and more popular as they are instant answers to Counterbalance and Chalice.

Maybe the actual revelation of this thread will be for the community to realize that mainboard, versitile, artifact and enchantment hate is something that needs to be considered seeing how every deck in the DtB fourm(and most of the Established decks as well) have main board targets.

To me the issue now is that it seems like it's Abrupt Decay vs. the meta. I play a lot of other cards, I had Trygon Predator in Bant and BUG decks I played, and I like playing Kolaghan's Command in Jund because it nukes Chalice and brings black something I chumped an Eldrazi with. Both are solid against D&T as well. But the upshot is you want to be playing Abrupt Decay right now and that narrows the range of playable decks and preys on other things.

I'm glad non-blue decks are doing well but we aren't seeing a lot of diversity right now any more than we did with the random non-DTT decks that would make their way into T8s. Honestly, I would've liked to see DTT in the same meta as Eldrazi.

[ChaosOS]

The issue with black disruption is that "the cantrip cartel" is incredibly powerful at nullifying the effects of it (See: Thoughtseize/IoK in modern) and that non-blue decks tend to empty their hands fast enough that discard doesn't do anything after turn 4/5. Do we really think we can get that much more powerful than Unmask, Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach, and Cabal Therapy?

I'll just contrast this by talking about discard in modern. One, modern is a faster format with generally more fragile strategies, making discard powerful due to its proactivity and giving hand vision. Two, decks have a harder time recovering from discard since the cantrip options simply aren't that good (Have any of you even played with Serum Visions?). Three, the counterspells in the format are a lot worse, making discard one of the better options for answering "odd" strategies, plus there's no good prison like countertop to help secure the late game for reactive decks. Instead UWR is stuck playing Nahiri as a slower Mentor without a way to lock the opponent out prior to dropping her.