Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
That's an interesting thought experiment, I might give it a run when I have a bit more time.Originally Posted by kinda
I actually thought I owned some, post-banning, but I was playing mainly Vintage, so I never really bothered to check. Once I did, they weren't exactly cheap and since it was banned I kept putting off buying them. I still think you got a pretty good deal, because as far as I can tell, via MTGGoldfish, the price was never really bellow about $20.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Even excluding power specifically I think you can get pretty far before you get to DRS
Duals
Fetches
Bazaar of Baghdad
Mishra's Workshop
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Yawgmoth's Will
Tolarian Academy
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Time Vault
Dark Ritual
Oath of Druids
Mental Misstep
Lotus Petal
Lightning Bolt
Swords to Plowshares
Snapcaster Mage
Strip Mine
Wasteland
Gitaxian Probe
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Balance
Sol Ring
Dig Through Time
Treasure Cruise
That's 25ish off the top of my head. Maybe a couple are arguable, but I think 20 is no issue at all. I would put DRS in the second tier of raw power at best. Talking cards like:
DRS
Dark Confidant
Stoneforge Mystic
Tinker
Tabernacle
Life from the Loam
Young Pyromancer
Monastery Mentor
Daze
Spell Pierce
Lion's Eye Diamond
Necropotence
Entomb
Mystical Tutor
Show & Tell
Reanimate
Chalice of the Void
Trinisphere
Arcbound Ravager
Ancient Tomb (maybe this should be in the top tier)
Again all off the top of my head so don't @ me with how i messed up/missed X card/am a moron
Obviously this is about curating a format though, where some of these cards aren't legal and that pushes up the relative value/power of the cards below it. Still I think where H and I (ha) tend to agree is that the DRS issue is not about raw power, but rather the overall texture of the format, which has a number of potential avenues to solve.
Strawberry Shortcake
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake
What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
#FreeNedleeds
Maybe I'm delusional...it was a long time ago, lol. Maybe I paid $20. It still surprises me that a card that really only sees play in EDH and Casual would be that expensive, to the point that it's $50+, but whatever. Ravnica Glimpse the Unthinkable was still at $20 before Iconic Masters and sees functionally zero competitive play.
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
@maharis I think you're right. I should have also excluded lands. A better question is probably what banned cards would be less format defining if swapped with Drs, and what non land legal cards are more format defining than Drs.
Tinker doesn't belong on the second list IMO.
I know I am in the minority when I say this. So I am not trying to convince anyone to take my side. But I feel that the legacy ban list should be as small as possible. So here is a list of cards I feel should be unbanned and banned to make legacy the format is should be.
Unban: Demonic Tutor, Earthcraft, Mana Drain, Mind Twist, Survival of the Fittest, Wheel of Fortune.
Ban: Deathrite Shaman, Show and Tell, Tendrils of Agony.
Slowing down combo decks, and removing the insane brokenness that Deathrite Shaman brings to the format, would allow more cards to be taken off the list. People will say..but but Demonic Tutor is broken! Well, it's barely better than infernal tutor or burning wish. And if you remove the insane combo cards out of the format, what will you be tutoring? High Tide? Exhume? Brain Freeze? These seem fair to me. Wheel of Fortune in a non tendrils format seems fair to me. Again, if the biggest combo decks in the format are High Tide and Reanimator, I think the control and tempo decks in the format can handle them. Whats the broken play in this format? T1 Entomb, T2 Dark Ritual Demonic Tutor Reanimate? T2 Ancient Tomb, Lotus Petal into Show and Tell is already more broken than that. And we come to Deathrite. A one mana birds of paradise, who is also graeyard hate, and is also a win conditon, is way too insane at one mana. Legacy has become a format where pretty much every fair, aggro, tempo, or midrange deck has to run Deathrite. I know everyones knee jerk reaction would be to say I'm crazy. But really think what this format would look like. Show me a deck that would be more busted than the decks already in legacy. Show me how I am wrong about how this format change would allow more diversity in the format.
Doubling Season
Right, my apologies for being disingenuous as I know what you meant. I just wanted to show that DRS is thriving in the current legacy context rather than just being brute-force good.
i want to start with your second question. First, Brainstorm and Force are obvious, because they are played more. (Ponder too, maybe?)
But what about the stuff that you have to plan for, but may never see? Talking cards like LED, S&T, Loam, Chalice, etc. If Chalice were banned, for example, the artifact removal spell of choice would probably be Nature's Claim. But Claim is nearly unplayable because one of the key artifacts you have to remove is Chalice at 1. Does the fact that Chalice's existence forces artifact removal into the 2cmc bracket indicate more of a format definition than the fact that it's at its best because of the DRS/cantrip decks spamming so many 1 cmc cards? Put another way, is Chalice format defining because it's great, or because there are so many 1 cmc cards out there?
The fact that so many raw-power cards in Legacy (and Modern for that matter) have been banned is the reason the lists are such so contentious. When you take the obviously busted stuff out, what you're left with is stuff that's busted in a certain context. The big difference between modern and legacy is that modern at least has something resembling a stated goal: No turn 3 kills. Legacy has no such mission statement, so to speak.
Everyone knows that the last 3 banned cards died for the sins of untouchable "staples": Brainstorm and fetchlands. Changes seem to come down to how much the bear (Wizards) is poked. They tried to let us have DTT when it was nuked alongside Cruise in both Modern and Vintage, and I can see why: It's a 2 mana 2 for 1 and Hymn to Tourach has always been legal in this format. Maybe Omniscience actually broke it but it's not like there wasn't a smattering of good DTT decks across several archetypes.
A 3+ mana engine card like Survival is also questionable for being banned at this point. I feel like a lot of people remember when it was legal and think it's unsafe, but there's a deck that consistently turn 1s griselbrand with protection. Turn 3 Griselbrand is passe. Combo w/backup plan is done by Food Chain and Aluren with no ill effects. What would Survival do better?
The point to all this is to say that this argument about DRS is more about emotion and feel than any sort of objective evaluation of its power. Most ban arguments in Legacy will be because of the nature of the format.
Yeah, I mean, DRS doesn't rank with some of the super powerful engines that are banned in Legacy, but DRS' ubiquity is a sign of a larger "problems." DRS solves three issues, at minimal cost: one, mana fixing; two, maindeckable Graveyard hate; three, a noncombat source of damage. Is DRS pushed? Yes. Was it a mistake? Probably yes, as printed. Is it overpowered in Legacy? No. It simply is a very versatile answer to things Legacy decks are looking do. Just like Tarmogoyf was in decks of yesteryear, when Blue decks were hungry for a beater and an easily splashable, two-mana, possibly 5/6 (on average) was just what the doctor ordered.
Is Grixis Delver really all that much more powerful than the rest of the format? No, it is (probably) a couple percentage points better than the closest deck, which, manifested over a long tournament will probably equate to an extra win. So, was it a surprise to see so many copies recently top 8? No, especially not when the deck is often touted as "the best deck in Legacy" which means that numerous people probably switch from other Delver decks to it and some probably put down other decks just to play that one.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Perhaps I'm just remembering this website with somewhat nicely-tinted glasses, but there was a time when this website seemed to be less whiny. People wanted WotC to unban things, rather than being so quick to scream 'BAN ___!' because they didn't enjoy a certain card. Now maybe it's because WotC has been printing stupid cards the last decade, but people seem to ignore that Legacy's card pool contains answers to everything an opponent can do. You can choose to play those answers and should you not want to, then that's your choice. Don't cry that you don't play an answer so a card should be banned. Heck, why come on here to bitch about something you seem to hate, rather than just letting those who enjoy it do so in peace? There are so many people in this thread who have written in the past that they've 'quit Legacy' and yet they continue to log on and just talk shit. These people stand out to me because they are on my Ignore list. I guess I'm just annoyed, why isn't there an Ignore Thread option?
TL;DR stop being turds
For those interested in the latest Ancient decks (and the format in general) visit: http://ancientmtgdecks.blogspot.ca/
Insert Phil Hellmuth: "If there weren't luck involved, I would win every time."
Only substitute "luck" with "OP cards that should be banned."
Why does this happen more now? Well, we are all getting "older" as a community and I think that leads to more of the Dunning–Kruger effect than before. Plus, there is a great-deal of post-modern thought going into the idea that somehow since there are something like 17,000 legal cards in Legacy, there should be some huge number of viable decks. This, of course, is utter nonsense, because 99% (or probably even more) are terrible. The entire point of Legacy is to play with the best of the best-plausibly-allowable-4-of-cards possible. As I said in my previous post, it's absurd to think that we should ban Underground Sea to "allow" Jwar Isle Refuge to see play. So, for the same reason, it's rather absurd to me to ban Deathrite so you can play whatever the hell you think that will make viable, Goblin Lackey?
There aren't an infinite number, or even an arbitrarily large finite one (like 7.269254386685E+171 seeming simple combinations) of viable Legacy approaches. That isn't a bug, it's a feature. Things should only be banned if they present themselves as unreasonably more viable than anything else. I don't see that happening now and I don't think it is going to happen. I think the historical lesson of Tarmogoyf is really apt here.
The historical lesson of Affinity tells us that it is almost always better to "do the thing" than try to be the one "stopping people doing the thing." Right now, Deathrite is the thing and so more people are doing it. This is why no one maindecks Rest In Peace, unless that's their "thing." But we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, because if we imagine that there should be a culling of the "top card(s)" it will never end. The whole point of Legacy is that the power-level is high enough and the approaches diverse enough that even when things are marginally better than others, there isn't oppression by an archetype.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
That's one random and inconsistent list. Once you suggest to chop the enabler, the other time the killcon.
You dont wanna get blown out by S&T but by Mindtwist or DT is ok. You hate DRS' graveyard shenanigans but want SotF legal, which would have to deal with DRS, if you didnt decide to remove the SotF-combo-hate from Legacy regardless. You suggest banning ToA in exchange for Demonic tutor while storm can easily kill you with Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot or Brainfreeze? Literally EVERY storm player will gladly make the trade.
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Bless your heart.
That's an interesting suggestion but two things jump out at me at the same time.
1. If you plan to unban Survival you don't ban DRS in the same announcement. Survival is more graveyard dependent than most, leave the hate live.
2. Wheel is bad. Like really bad. You want to take Tendrils out while leaving Empty? OK. That's fine. With a Red draw engine like that I would be playing TES anyway. Add in Demonic...
On other topics, Mana Drain would make Miracles suck to play against but I don't think it would break open anything. Earthcraft is beyond a talking point now, no one has ever made a good argument for its remaining banned that I have seen. Agreed with it too.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Im neither on the ban Deathrite nor on the brainstorm side. If anything, get gitaxian Probe! Why?
1. No more virtual 56 card decks
2. Slightly nerf delve
3. No more turn 2 escalation from young pyromancer going nuts
4. No more perfect Info Games, actual skill is required to judge the game state. There is Nothing more boring than those Games where you get Probed turn 1 and then they can easily cantrip into the according counter strategy. This can take place but should require skill and not a dumb "free" cantrip.
And on the way you give a slight nerf to grixis, ant and some Show and tell builds, without killing those decks.
Imho gitaxian Probe adds Nothing positive to the game
My 2 Cents
OK, I'm going to bat for Probe. Janchu, I'm not trying to attack you specifically, you just conveniently collected many of the arguments I've seen for banning it, so I'm quoting you.
If this is such a big deal, why isn't everyone playing Manamorphoses? Street Wraiths? Baubles?
I believe the impact of this is strongly overstated, and cards like this impact your mulligan decisions and constrain how many copies of other cards you can include. One of my buddies has this same complaint and thinks everyone should be playing four Probes for the same reason, but I've never seen him register his BUG lists with more than zero copies, so clearly he thinks other stuff is more important.
Honestly this is probably a fine reason, but I honestly don't think it's a big deal. Angler is pretty good, but I don't think it's format defining, and the format warping delve spells have already been banned.
"My opponent totally went nuts on me last round, he got an almost-free merfolk of the pearl trident"
Hyperbole aside, is this really that big of an issue? Probe plus flashback Therapy is literally Thoughtseize. Where are all the people mad about Thoughtseize? It gives you as much information as probe, PLUS gets rid of their best card.
Followup from the Therapy discussion - Probe gives you exactly as much information as any hand-reveal discard spell. What is the big difference that makes everyone so mad about Probe?
Additionally, things that are more boring than probe by a huge margin:
- getting chaliced on one
- Show and Tell
- literally everything DnT does
- Hymn to Tourach
- many, many things that are not as innocuous as someone playing a cantrip
Moreover, it is not "perfect" information. It changes as soon as you have a draw step, or cast a brainstorm, or have tutors, or a million other things. It gives you a snapshot that does inform your decisions, which is an advantage that scales with skill - a person can play a probe in their first game of legacy, see their opponent's hand, and not have any idea what to do about it. Knowing what potential targets your opponent could get with their GSZ or Crop Rotation, for instance, is a Legacy-context-knowledge dependent skill.
Plus, why is it somehow more skillful to have your plan be, "well, they don't know what's in my hand, so maybe they'll make a mistake?" To me, that sounds way looser than taking a look and preparing accordingly. If your plan falls apart when your opponent knows what it is, maybe it's just a bad plan.
In my opinion, chalice offers basically nothing positive to the game, but I also understand that there has to be some sort of interaction for cantrip-based decks, so I try to prepare for it instead of calling for a ban. I feel like sentiments like the one we're discussing with Probe is why wizards prints very few interesting things anymore; if you like engine combo or reactive control decks or prison strategies, well, that is unfortunate, because Wizards doesn't and will take every chance they get to tell you so. There are so many midrange-mélange formats; let's keep Legacy cool and interesting.
You had me up until here:
I'm with you that Probe doesn't need a ban, but you can't seriously argue that playing blind is equally-as- or less-skill-intensive than playing with perfect information.
Or....maybe they were on the draw and you went turn 1 threat, and if they see exactly what's in your hand then the highest variance line of blindly Wasteland from behind has all risk removed. Maybe it was a similar scenario where they went turn 1 threat, and without a plan to address that threat you see their hand and know the best play is to discard from behind before even committing any of your mana for the turn. Maybe they see the coast is clear for Daze. Maybe they see their turn 1 threat needs to wait for land #2 to protect it...There are too many scenarios to casually proclaim that a plan is bad because it lost to Probe and overlook the winning lines of play it opened up. Even knowing something as simple as what to grab with a fetch, and if your fetch is threatened by Stifle, has game-altering implications.
It's not about a plan not being good or not, it's more about the cumulative effects of perfect information throughout a long event. Not only do you get access to otherwise clairvoyant lines of play, but turn zero Probe -> Sea -> Therapy ends a lot of games of legacy before they even began (this is more true in a non-combo deck like Grixis Delver). Points like fueling delve, perfect information, and exacerbating first player advantage are not insignificant. When you freely get to know how best negate opponent interaction, the card can be said to be both inherently uninteractive [opponent's point of view] and unfairly advantageous as it informs the Probe player how to most effectively interact. The purpose of Probe is to create non-games, beginning at the first main phase; not every deck is designed to capitalize on it's inclusion, and not every deck that employs it will use it in the same way.
As a thought experiment, imagine that Brainstorm is not in the format. If, after Ponder, your backup cantrip is Preordain instead of Probe, you're probably looking at a lower win percentage; doubling up the ability to dig rather than gaining access to perfect info is almost certainly worse. The tricky part with identifying how significant the free info is in legacy currently is that Brainstorm fixes hands, Ponder finds lands, and if you took Ponder out for Probe (rather than adding Probe on top of the other two) it wouldn't matter if the free info revealed that you're about to face mana denial since you don't have the cantrip that finds lands anymore.
Certainly not - what I'm disputing is that the information is "perfect" (it changes as soon as they draw a card, or brainstorm, or if you don't know their deck contents and they have a tutor) and that playing with perfect information makes it impossible to employ skillful play. For instance, Go and Chess have perfect information, and no one is asserting that Chess grandmasters lack skill. The data you get is only as good as your ability to employ it.
For example, I lent my friend my dredge deck for his first Legacy tournament, and in the first few rounds, he therapied his opponent and named something like Ponder (which is not horrible, but not really as relevant when you are trying to Dread return someone). His opponent asked, "why didn't you just name Force?," and he said, "well, I don't really know what I'm doing." Similarly, people Thoughtseize me all the time while I'm playing ANT, and many of them pick the wrong card to discard, so I kill them anyway - even though they had all necessary information, they did not have the skill to convert it into actual game impact.
The point I was making there, is just that "taking risks" isn't any more inherently skillful - if some guy is the Maverick player or something and he's mad that his ANT opponent gets to probe him and see a mitt full of green cards that don't do anything and then they just kill him, it's not probe's fault for letting them know that, it's on Maverick guy for hoping that having unknown cards in hand is some kind of defense.
Why are any of these things bad? I guess maybe they just don't bother me as much? What if they just made the correct decisions without probing you? Plus, they still have to be at least good enough to know that what they see should alter their line of play in some way.
Again, the information is perfect for a turn at most. Also, the bolded line is literally thoughtsieze. Why does everyone lose it over probe + therapy, but not thoughtsieze? If all these people playing Probe + Therapy are secretly scrubs that would have no idea what to name if not for their cantrip, then what are they doing in all of the games where they don't draw probe and therapy together in their opener? Surely that would offset some of the percentage they gain from the ones where they do get to look, and they'd be better off with Thoughtsieze, right?
Probe makes games more interactive, not less, because of the dynamic you're describing - if I know what I need to play around/have to beat, I have to make an effort to counteract it. Grixis delver is fundamentally interactive, that's one of the reasons many skillful players are drawn to it, and if you want to take probe away to stop them from planning their turns, it's not that you want more interaction, it's that you want them to have to guess at what you have.
I think the last sentence is a great example of why Probe shouldn't be banned - if it's not in every deck, and matters differently for the decks that do employ it, is it really oppressive?
Edited to address your last point:
If that's the case, why doesn't Miracles play Probe?
You already acknowledged that there are deck-specific reasons to use one or the other, and not every blue deck plays Probe, implying that the card is powerful and flexible, but not format-warping, and therefore not banworthy.
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