Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
I don't know why you need that smiley there, that is almost insulting, but whatever... Yes, for me legacy is defined by the engines. The engines is what makes decks tick and different from each other. Engines will define how to build your deck, engines are what give your deck the biggest strengths and the biggest weakness. Why the hell is Chalice played? Because it hoses all the cantrip decks when it sticks. You don't play Chalice to hose combo, you play it to hose the cantrip engine or other engines built around efficient one mana spells (like burn). Why do you play rest in peace? To stop combo? No, to stop engines that use the graveyard.Originally Posted by Crimhead
I get that a lot of people are fixated engines (to the point where they pretend engines are the primary defining factor in a deck), but the rest of us are not.
Most of the times engines will also represent archetypes and engines will actually change how you need to play a certain archetype or strategy. DnT and Maverick are two creature control decks but there engines are different and their play lines and decision trees are completely different. It's Vial/Flicker vs GSZ/Knight.
Decks that share an engine but not an archetype follow a much more similar game plan than two decks that share an archetype but differ in engine. Cantrip decks all start with just using the cantrips to sculpt their hand for the matchup, followed by a kill of their choosing. Shardless will use cantrips with uber cantrip visions as their engine while Jund goes for Bob and sylvan library. The consequences this has for deckbuilding and in-game decision trees is huge.
Anyway, in 2012 we did not only have different engines, we had also many archetypes. Miracles was actually there in 2012 for hard control, Metalworker was as viable as a stompy deck as todays moon or eldrazi decks...
The implication that a deck's engine does not define how the deck plays is, quite frankly, baffling. You play Lands. You know there's a level of difference between the engine of that deck (Loam/Gamble/Exploration/Diamond/Rotation) vs. Aggro Loam (Loam/PFire/GSZ/Knight/Diamond).
If you're going to nitpick then at least be consistent in your scrutiny.
I know you're about to go on a tear about strategy vs. tactics so allow me to skip to the part where I respond: it has been said time and again that the leathality of win conditions has improved to the point where the actual execution is less important than the set-up. Yes. Storm CAN use its cantrips in a different way than Miracles. But in the base level they SERVE THE SAME FUNCTION IN BOTH DECKS. You say we do not define decks by their engine. There are at least 3 different (bad) decks that run the same core, and use different utility cards and win conditions, but by and large the community refers to them all as "Enchantress." (Solitaire GWx "classic" Enchantress, Witch House GWb Living Wish builds, Combo GU Words of Wind, GW Helm).
I actually think this is a meaningful distinction, but I think it's overstated here, and I think the proponents of this argument privilege the fair creature decks they prefer when making the distinction.
To wit: ANT and Miracles. same Engine (Cantrip), different Archetypes (Combo and Control), wildly different play styles. I have played both, and the way you play cantrips in ANT is completely different than the way you play them in Miracles.
Another example: Elves and Maverick - same Engine (GSZ), different Archetype (Combo and fair beats/mana denial).
Bonus outdated example (RIP Top): Painter and Moon Stompy - same Engine (Sol Lands, Artifacts, Blood Moon) different Archetype (Combo and Stompy)
Sometimes it feels like the people who dislike cantrips just lump all the decks together that play them when it makes no sense to do so - like, okay, your opponent tapped an island and looked at three cards, then drew one. Why is that so painful? They didn't even do anything to you. I feel like the cantrip camp is more willing to acknowledge distinctions between decks, including the non-blue non-cantrip decks, than the other camp is.
Edited to address Watersaw, he disputed my first example so I wanted to elaborate:
They perform meaningfully different functions:
For Storm, cantrips are used to:
- find specific Threats
- build the storm count using excess mana (admittedly, Mentor muddies this distinction)
- shuffle away additional lands
- keep important combo pieces in the right zones (put back the Ad Nauseam/PiF/ToA to be able to tutor for it, etc)
- ensure the right balance of mana (as in rituals, rather than lands)/business
Usually, they're used aggressively to build an unbeatable hand quickly. By contrast, in Miracles, they:
- find specific Answers
- Find additional lands so that the land density in the deck can be low, but still make all land drops
- hide important answers from the opponent's discard, and set up counterbalance triggers of the appropriate number
Usually, they're used sparingly, so that as the game state changes, the Miracles player can address emergent problems. For ANT, the most valuable brainstorm is the one that lets you put away two lands and gives you a discard spell to go with your IT and LED turn two to kill your opponent; for Miracles, the most valuable Brainstorm is the one that gives you the terminus or the flusterstorm at the last possible second, because you've been waiting for the right moment to exhaust your opponent of resources.
The differences here are subtler than the differences between, say, DnT and Goblins, but they are there and they are real.
You don't play Chalice to hose cantrips. You play Chalice to hose hyper efficiency, which is the norm in an eternal format, with or without cantrips. Most decks, even non-blue decks, play a large number of 1cc spells. Also, let's not forget that Chalice can be played for numbers other than 1.
Preempting this by saying I know brainstorm won't be touched.
Arguments about cantrips that are not brainstorm are kind of pointless.
Brainstorm is the only problematic cantrip, as it provides much more functionality than adding consistency. It just happens to do that as well.
-rob
Got to agree with this. If I against Elves, Burn or against Pile I'm happy to see Chalice. It's market saturation has something do with Cantrips, but you remove cantrips and I would still see it as a common force in Legacy.
That said, I personally play it in Lands to dump on Miracles.
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?
So they both find stuff and smooth draws. So they serve the same function
For Storm, cantrips are used to:
- find specific [I
To the people equating decks that use cantrips all being the same, regardless of the archetype (combo, control, aggro, tempo, midrange, or some hybrid of those)... you sound as silly as saying all decks that play mana producing lands are the same.
If you're deck is using a mana producing land engine, you're deck is the same... 8-10 fetches, 4-8 duals, possibly some number of basics... it's the same configuration for 90% of the decks in the format! How boring. Legacy is so horrible. The sky is falling and I can't get up. Wahhh.
Engines matter. Archetypes and strategies matter. However, if you honestly think there is no difference between ANT and Delver, there is no reasoning with you.
It all looks the fucking same. Delver and ANT, the kill is different but it all looks the same. Set up, set up, find something, do something. What happens after the setup is different but it's still the same road to get there.
It's like saying there is a difference between a hatchback and a sedan. Sure, they are different in body but ultimately do the same dam thing.
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?
This is just not true - in addition to the distinctions I made above, Delver uses cantrips to set up/increase the odds of delver flips, get value from pyromancer, power out gurmang, increase blue count for FoW, and bottom extra lands so that they don't flood. These are materially different things than ANT is using them for, and the timing is different.
The car example is also strange, as a hatchback and a sedan do have different functions - you trade potential passenger space for additional ease of use of the trunk. To extend your analogy, if ANT and Delver are the hatchback and the sedan, what is Lands? A Boat? Is Eldrazi a train? These comparisons don't make sense, and cantrip decks can have meaningful variety even while they share some number of cards.
It's all the same. You draw your card off the top for the turn, play your land drop for the turn, play some dudes and turn them sideways. Doesn't matter if it's Merfolk, Goblins, Zoo, Maverick, or Death & Taxes, it's still the same road to get there.
It's like saying there is a difference between a semi-truck and a go-cart. They do the same thing. You turn them on, push the gas, the axle spins which turns the wheels, and they propel you forward.
tl;dr you guys are being rediculous.
Quick thoughts, with no realistic intent behind them for my own amusement.
Eldrazi is a mining dump truck, Lands is a gravity feed roller coater and everything else is getting shat on by Brainstorm and its apologists?
When you turn the key in a sedan or a hatchback the same fucking thing happens. When you sit across from someone who came to just masterbate in front of you they all do the same thing, tap Island cast Brainstorm, prove why underground sea and volcanic Island cost so much more than Bayou and Taiga.
We can do this dance all night and I am bored at work. Dance with me.
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?
Someone needs a Snickers.
No need, I have a large pile I get from all my Fuel Rats rescues.
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?
If your read my post you would have seen that I wrote: You don't play Chalice to hose combo, you play it to hose the cantrip engine or other engines built around efficient one mana spells (like burn).
Sure the one mana thing is wrong because you can put chalice on 0 to screw affinity or cheerios. But I didn't say it only hoses cantrips, it hoses efficiency engines.
I was responding to Crimhead who is saying that engines don't matter and he would take today's cantrip dominated meta over metas that have a ton of differing engines. For me engines are the most crucial part of legacy because they have a bigger impact on playlines and deckbuilding than archetypes do. But in essence: I agree with you on this. The best meta would be one with all kinds of different viable engines, archetypes and strategies. Because the combination of those things is the formula to an interesting format.
Today's meta may have different archetypes, but one engine is so dominating it just makes for a boring experience.
OK, so, serious time here. I've thrown some deliberately crazy ideas into this thread, but this one is something I actually genuinely believe:
The Mystical Tutor ban was, despite all the crap people give it, rooted in truth, and the thing people really hate about "Legacy these days" is not Brainstorm, or "the cantrip shell", or any of the stuff being complained about in this thread. What they hate is the truth of the Mystical Tutor ban, now on display for everyone to see.
Legacy -- back in the good old golden age y'all are nostalgic for -- was not really a format where people played to win. Sure, it had its moments, but with Legacy GPs being relatively rare, it was mostly a format where people played to have fun with their fun old cards. The gentlemen's agreement was in effect almost all the time: you let me get away with playing my Taigas and Kird Apes, I'll let you get away with playing your Aether Vials and Goblin Matrons, and nobody will have to get hurt.
Then SCG started going all over the US offering cash money almost every week to anybody who was willing to play to win, and that was that. Given the incentive of cold hard cash, people put away their pet decks and brought out their knives. And that is the difference between Legacy then and Legacy now. Now, people are showing up with decks designed to win as efficiently and as consistently as possible, and they're playing to win. Ban Brainstorm, it won't matter. Ban every blue cantrip ever printed, and ban True-Name and Delver while you're at it. It won't matter. What changed was not the cards. What changed was how we approached and played them.
The era of the gentlemen's agreement is over and will never come back. For years we willingly played with one arm tied behind our backs, and ran decks that weren't as ruthless or efficient as they could have been, because that wasn't how civilized people play Legacy. "Power creep" had been happening for years; we just didn't take advantage of it. But the knives have come out now and we can't put them away, not ever, because now the first guy to put away his knives will be the first guy to get stabbed.
If you want the feeling of old Legacy back, Commander -- casual, Batman-villain Rube-Goldberg-contraption Commander, the way the rules committee promotes it -- is about as close as you can get today. It's a high-power format where a social compact discourages people from trying to win too efficiently or too consistently, which is what Legacy was. Emphasis on the past tense.
I am glad you said it's a theory, because it's not true. The issue was not a lack of willingness to win, in competition players it never has been. It was not the players who where different but the decks, strategy and card available.
If you want proof of this have a look at Goblins now. Those of us who miss the deck (And still own it) don't often play or now. If we where in it only for the feels we would likely be playing it. But we moved on as the situation changed. We kept looking for ways to play in the meta, attack the meta, win games. I moved into Elves speaking for myself.
The "Gentlemans agreement" comments where seen as bullshit then, good luck finding someone to defend them now. We have hit a point where I am glad Mystical is gone but not the way it happened. If someone has said to me "There is a Gentlemans agreement in matches where power is on the line" (a common prize at the time) I would have laughed. Trust me, we were all playing to win that prize.
People played to win then as much as they do now, the difference is not the players will to win its the changing pool of playable cards.
Edit:
I think the difference is best summed up this way. "Peoples intentions was the same, peoples tools where different. I miss those days, I liked that playground."
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?
I think similarly to Dice_box, mostly, but differently on the topic of the gentlemen's agreement. I'll post my response to ubernostrum here, me too. It's a bit rough but polishing arguments tends to make them irrelevant as the focus of the discussion moves on.
@ubernostrum:
This is a nice narrative but I don't agree with it. Whenever there's a tournament, today or ten years ago, the opportunity of winning a thousand dollars is going to encourage people to win perhaps as much as the joy of winning for the sake of competition. By the way, the latter is probably what draws about 99% of people to this game and legacy, if you don't care about winning you are more likely to play EDH. I've been enjoying the competitive element for 20+ years, it was not introduced over the last ten years for sure. When people played Kird Ape, it was most probably because it was a strategy that had a good chance to win. Otherwise, why did people suddenly stop playing them? It's an iconic card that many would enjoy playing. Apparently it became irrelevant.
The gentlemen's agreement is still there, as described in the common quote from Richard Cheese that I'm very fond of (I've been taking shitty brews and tier 2 decks to tournaments and losing with them for years now. Welcome to the club. We meet for cocktails after round 6.). One part of the reason for the diversity in the format is, probably, some people trying to have fun and/or being limited by money to choose the best deck [edit: the best competitively viable deck close to their preferences in play style]. Still, people don't choose decks that have very little chance of winning because it won't be a good experience. Even the suboptimal choices people make, to provide fun for themselves and others, are limited by what is competitively semi-viable.
I think what seems to me to be missing from the discussion is an understanding that the pro-ban people want a more diverse meta which should in the end be a more enjoyable experience for everyone. The anti-ban people think that someone wants to ruin their fun, which is not the case. This is however probably an oversimplicifation and misunderstanding from my part...
Edit: oh yeah, one more thing. My feeling is that the meta is much more open now than it was during the years when Miracles was the best deck, still I think it could be even better.
Sometimes the simplest ways of looking at something end up being the most clear. I agree with this completely.
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?
I'm sure you believe that.
But, y'know, I was also around and seeing a lot of this stuff, as a player and as a judge. I can even pinpoint exactly when I realized Legacy had changed: it was the SCG Nashville Open in 2011. I finished 18th place with Deadguy. It was a diverse event by today's standards. Lots of combo in the room, most of it Natural Order, but also a lot of random stuff. Top 8 had a Merfolk, an Elves, a Maverick-ish Bant Knight of the Reliquary deck, a Deadguy player who went X-1-1 to my X-2, and four blue decks. One U/W Stoneblade, one U/B that felt like a Team America minus green, one actual Team America, and one more BUG.
My first loss was to eventual champion Todd Anderson, who straight-up crushed me (and then crushed the top 8 Deadguy player 2-0 in the semis). It wasn't just a knife-at-a-gunfight situation, I'd brought a dull spork to a nuclear exchange. Since there were no Delvers in the Nashville top 8, you can't lay the blame at its power-creeping feet. Snapcaster Mage was popular, but people hadn't quite got the feel of it yet and were mostly playing it because it looked like it had to be a good card. Still, those blue decks were, for all their faults (four blue "cantrip shell" type decks in the top 8, with three copies of Ponder between them?), leagues better than anything else in the room.
Incidentally, the very next Open -- Baltimore -- had three RUG Delver in the top 8. Nashville really was the turning point, but it wasn't Innistrad power creep that did it. The SCG circuit was finally established enough that players started optimizing for both halves of the weekend, and the good players noticed real quick that some cards in Legacy are just better than others, so why bother playing anything else?
That was the end of Legacy as y'all wanted to play it. And it wasn't because Wizards suddenly started printing good cards; it was because people suddenly started being serious about the good cards that already existed.
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