Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
There's a lot to unpack here. I didn't see this conversation as revolving around blue-based strategies but rather the inherent 'broken-ness' of cheating Grizzle/Emmy into play. If Show and Tell gets banned I'm pretty sure Sneak Attack becomes the de-facto fatty cheater, or the format moves towards UB reanimator. I honestly think Goryo's Vengeance is only a ban away (Show and Tell) from becoming a legitimate strategy in Legacy. I don't think Show and Tell is worth banning, but this conversation isn't about blue-hate (not entirely.) It's about the degenerate power-level of the threats that can be cheated into play now. At one time in history, the best creature you could cheat into play was Akroma, Angel of Wrath. It's night-and-day different with Grizzle/Emmy. Depths is a good strategy, tier one even right now, but the inherent power level is lower in my honest opinion. I've beat this to death with my posts already, so I don't need to elaborate.
I actually think the slippery slope argument is valid when it comes to banning Show and Tell; it just pushes other cheaty strategies into the forefront (Entomb/Reanimate, Goryo's Vengeance, Sneak Attack, Polymorph, Natural Order.) Chopping off a head just makes another appear. As a legacy player my biggest fear from WOTC is this 'cut things off until the format levels out' strategy that has warped Modern to such a miserable format. I like modern but it's nowhere near as fun or challenging as Legacy. Legacy, as many others have stated, is a self-correcting format (for the most part.) As soon as one particular strategy takes advantage of the meta-game, out come the predators to that strategy. Using the Depths example, it was literally unplayable right after Deathrite Shaman was banned. The format was chock-full of natural predators to it. However, the format has evolved again other strategies, namely the resurgence of Dredge and Storm, have come back out to muddy the format. Now Depths can be viable again because the mix of decks has changed.
Round and round we go.
Am I alone in the stance that I think Legacy right now is fun, diverse, and exciting? I see no outliers in the format that are warping it. Miracles is good but not dominant. Delver strategies, same. Death and Taxes, Chalice decks, Storm, Dredge, Reanimator, Elves, Burn, and Depths are all playable and good. The only range of decks not really tearing up the format right now are the mid-range value decks like Mavrick, Jund, Rock, Stoneblade, or Shardless/Bug Midrange. I honestly think this will change within the next 2-3 months. It's actually getting a little annoying how few blue decks I face at local events lately, when it was much more likely a year ago to face 3-4 blue-based decks in a row every time I went.
Last edited by Mr. Safety; 12-20-2018 at 01:11 PM.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I don't really understand the hatred for blue in a vacuum. I don't see how any color's dominance could a huge problem from a gameplay standpoint.
One might argue that with the limited print run of duals that a color's dominance can limit the size of the format, and this is a legitimate issue for paper, but I don't see how blue being powerful makes the format itself poor.
I play the game for interesting matches and it doesn't in principle matter what colors my opponent or I are playing. Please, help me understand why blue being powerful is so bad. I understand that blue has a lot of cards that are frustrating to play against and very powerful. I don't understand the argument of blue being powerful == something is wrong with the format. It's easy to argue that some cards are too powerful, but I've seen too many posts along the lines of "blue has too many powerful things" and for now I don't see how such posts are useful.
Am I just misunderstanding the points some of you are trying to make?
As an aside, MTGGoldfish metagame analysis is not super accurate because of how WoTC reports decklists from leagues.
First off I'm not one of those people, so I may be out of my element.
I get the annoyance with the color "balance" since the beginning, since when each color was being handed out it's identity, somehow blue got to walk away with both 'draws cards' and 'counter spells'; which everybody can agree is just insane. The whole game is cards and spells, and one color gets both? The boon cycle almost seems parody at this point in how the power level compares. 3 damage is cool, 3 mana also neat, but 3 fucking cards? They're all cards, and you get 3 new ones. But hey, gain 3 life, right? It's dumb and everybody knows it, and they've all come out and said so, and made a point to articulate they'll do better in the future.
But then it gets into a vaudeville act from there.
We'll do better, here's Delver of Secrets
We've learned are lesson, here's Snapcaster Mage
We promise never again, here's True-Name Nemesis
oops
So it's the insincerity I empathize with the most. Those that for whatever person reason are allergic to tapping Islands are constantly fed news that just around the corner there's something for them, that they've been eating Counterspells for years and they get handed Great Sable Stag and called ungrateful for not bursting out in tears of joy. I get that. "Neat Scryb Ranger, anyway, end of turn Dig Through Time, then Show and Tell, Omniscience, cast Enter the Infinite, good luck in your future matches." Like if they just said blue is the best get over it, then it wouldn't be as bad for them.
I'm probably wrong though. Anyway Australia is OP in Risk, ban Australia.
I'd argue South America is the better continent. Sure, Australia is even easier to defend, but you're never going out of that hole. It's not like you're ever going to conquer Asia, are you ?
No, without question, South America is the better starting spot. It's still second-best at defense with only two ways in and allows you to expand to North America - which is the third-easiest continent to defend after Aus and SA yet gives you as much armies as Europe. And once you've got SA+NA, you've won the game.
Probably because the people complaining don't want to play blue but feel they are forced to because its the best color. I think it makes sense to have the colors relatively balanced. The problem is, as this game was originally designed, blue was by far and away the best color. They corrected that problem a while ago but that doesn't do much for eternal formats.
I'll quote this attempt I made to understand this back in April as we discussed banning Brainstorm (this was 6 days before Forsythe's comment on Twitter on it being a pillar of the format).
Edit: not disagreeing with the other explanations provided above.I think that a possible interpretation would be that the players in the pro-Brainstorm camp value the technical aspects of the playing experience higher, while players in the ban-Brainstorm camp value the format diversity and room for innovation in deck building higher. I think this is a relevant aspect to discuss, to better understand what people are arguing for.
Edit2: I also agree with previous comments that the format is evolving a bit, it seems. It does seem to go in circles, but sometimes things move around a bit and something new appears. Otoh, often we're back at the same decks, they change a few slots and then become the best deck again. It's complicated.
This is kind of close, but not the whole story.
I have a love of hard Prison, if the deck that did this best was Blue I would play that deck. The reason I stopped playing Vintage is because the Prison deck in the format turned into a Tempo one.
In Legacy the idea is meant to be that you have access to all these wide strategic options and that you can do more or less whatever you like. But that idea, while once true, has become increasingly less of a reality.
The format has stripped away its own identity to become piles of odds and ends held together with a unbreachable core that removes much of the soul of that "Do anything" identity we once had. Now, if you play, you have to accept the soul of the format is the Xerox shell and dammed if you don't like that. Regardless of the principles the format itself was founded on.
It leaves older players that use to reveal in more complex and interesting ideas to either let the old format die and move on, or struggle against the changes while remembering what was. Holding onto a time where we where not all ruled by one all encompassing monolith.
I not sure how well I have made my point here to be honest, I have likely made it better in older posts, but by the by. As the cardpool has grown much of the spirit and soul has been leached out as the format condenses, it's not that I want to complain, but I look back as what we lost and just feel sorrow. As cards that are not themselves Blue get pulled into shells that are, turning them into piles of cards with little unifying identity, unique character or complexity.
But I guess it's ok that the format lost its soul, because we have Turbo Depths and somehow that makes everything fine. Because thats the level of debate we are at now, "It sucks that the format has become so hybridised, but suck it up, you have 3 compenditive non Blue decks so everything is OK". But everything is not OK, and that is sad.
It's not that blue matches aren't interesting, they absolutely are and often provide for good Magic (discounting nonsense like the stuff S&T dumps in play nowadays, TNN etc). The issue is blue being pretty much the only thing there is. One thing I enjoy immensely about Magic are engines. They give decks a really unique feel to their technical play, and drive interesting, synergistic card choices. A Loam deck and a blue pile are likely to choose different midrange beaters, and you can see how eg. Glimpse+GSZ+NO and cantrips+rituals fuel two very different takes on a durdly engine deck that draws and replays a pile of cards and plays a bomb that just fucking kills you. There's a lot more appreciable difference there than "two colors of Storm".
The cantrips may fit most takes on the game, in terms of tempo or certain aspects of overall strategy (aggressive, value grind, A+B, engine, etc), but it's not totally neutral: The cantrip cartel itself drives card selection towards certain options, so the decks end up being more homogenous than if there were different engines. You'd see KOTR/Tracker in one deck, Angler in another, Vendilion Clique in the third. Instead, we get Snapcaster. It'd be one thing if the cartel was the engine of midrange play, and combo decks were more eccentric so you got different feels there, but you get Grixis Pyromancer into Storm.
It's like, you buy candy, or off the shelf not fancy cider. You know how they kinda have taste to them but then also don't really? Like, you eat a couple candies and your tastebuds go "yeah, that was candy" or "yup, that's cider all right". Then you grab something that isn't big brand, some small shop marmelade? Or proper French cider? Suddenly, bam. It's still sweet and candy, but there's something characterful and interesting in there, and the cider actually tastes like apples instead of bubbles and cidertaste. That's the kind of feeling the cantrip-drivenness of the format gives me: It's bland and monotone. It's not even bad, it just gets dull when there's a sameness to everything even though some stuff's strawberry and the other lemon. They're still candystuff.
It's a similar feeling I'd imagine many of you had when you started seeing the curves of Standard aggro decks rise and control decks implementing more and more creatures: They just start feeling more samey with the midrange decks and some of us old grumps start complaining about kavus.
I've played a lot of Overwatch recently, and the realtime kinda physical nature of the game's clarified this a lot for me, that playfeel matters a ton. The game has a jetpack-equipped lady with a rocket launcher and an old grump with an assault rifle, and both play with very similar strategic parameters: They're aim-oriented and play distance. Yet once you actually play them, there's a world of difference in aiming slow rockets and in the twitchy tracking style that's needed for the machinegun's rapid firerate and lack of travel time. Same words, distance, aim, damage, mobility, but drastic differences in practice. Blue's the COD ripoff assault rifle, I'd like my rocket launcher, thanks.
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I think people make too much of a buzz about what artworks and nanes their lands have or what icon is in the top right corner of cards. In a format with so much colorfixing its plain irrelevant what color the cards have as they all get absorbed into the ever same shells, which is the source of the fatigue people feel with Legacy. It's not about color and abilities in color slices, but about decks doing the same thing over and over forever. The format would be in no better condition if they point Red preordains and Ponders, because the format has degenerated into a Xerox mirror a long time ago, which has no viable compeditor or alternative. Everyone just fetches and cantrips into the killcondition of choice no matter if its TNN, SnT or whatever the new fancy is. The format is solved and WotC keeps carving it into stone with the nonstop bannings around the obvious offenders.
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What about the four decks I listed above, all of which don't play cantrips, and plenty of which don't play fetches?
I feel like a lot of the people who complain about the format being same-y just aren't looking at the facts. I'm certainly not the arbiter of whether or not you have fun playing legacy; that's up to you. But the argument that Legacy lacks strategic variety is demonstrably untenable.
I just want to respond quickly by saying your post is thorough and much appreciated. I feel that the propaganda approach of 'play blue or lose' keeps players from entering into the format when the exact opposite is reality. There exists plenty of non-blue decks that are interesting and competitive. I see a lot of skilled Modern players locally that would be incredible legacy players, regardless of what deck they piloted. Growing the scene would defintely make the format and community better.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I think, by pointing to the average Top8 currently "only" consisting 5 Brainstorm decks instead of the usual 6-7 and undermining the facts that this is a) just an outliner within the history of cantrip-shell dominance in Legacy and b) the non-blue decks run Chalice and prey on the cantrip decks, there is no reason to celebrate "variety".
We have seen Survival and Eldrazi pushing back the cantrip shell for weeks just for it to adapt easily because mana/colors is barely any limitation or hurdle. I have seen people praising many decks as the great equalizer in the past but the cantrip shell always reclaimed the throne. There is no indicator that it will be different and for people seeing the same shell for a decade on top of a format, a few weeks of Chalice stiring up the pot every now and then doesnt make up for years and years of 60-82% Brainstorm/Ponder decks.
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They should colorshift all the blue toys into non-blue colors:
-Red Snapcaster
-White Daze (return a Plains or tap a white creature, old school style)
-Green Ponder?
But really, looking at newer spoilers in recent years, it seems that Blue's color identity is just being really, really good at magic. Black comes in as a moderately distant second. Just look at supplementary products such as Commander, UB always seems to get the best toys to play with and everything else is garbage. Leovold, Kess, Yuriko, Artisan... meanwhile Mardu gets that shitty vampire and Boros doesn't seem to get anything outside of "Whenever X attacks". Even powerful non-UBx cards are usually old cards such as Library or Pyroblast regarded as overpowered, color-pie breaking abominations by R&D. Meanwhile White gets tossed the generic 2-3 mana hatepiece and should be grateful to get to play it as a 1-of in the SB.
I don't know why that is. For all we know, since WotC seems to only distantly care about Eternal Format, they could be thinking that only Blue players enjoy Legacy and only Blue toys should be given to it.
I have to disagree. There have been numerous powerful non-blue cards in recent sets that see play in eternal formats. I'd even argue that White is the color that has received the most toys in the last few years. Look at Monastery Mentor, Recruiter of the Guard, Palace Jailer, Brightling, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Sanctum Prelate, Containment Priest, Council's Judgment, Fragmentize, Eldrazi Displacer. All recent white cards that see play in Vintage and/or Legacy.
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