Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
The problems with Spirit are manifold - it's a complete dud in combat, it still allows to circumvent certain the draw restriction to a certain degree and, the worst offender, it's way too fucking slow. At 2 mana sorcery speed, you aren't going to catch instant speed 1 mana spells. There's no "Gotcha!" moment with this. It's like you're trying to win against a racing car which has a head start while you're riding a tricycle. It just isn't going to work out. Instant speed would be the minimum requirement to be competitive, and either a 1-mana cost or being able to pitch cards to keep up with the speed. There's design space open that isn't used - and depending on the card design, it could help to reign broken bullshit in to a certain degree.
As for Chalice - not every deck is able to run it. E.g. D&T or Maverick run quite a few relevant one-drops.
What I never understood is why WotC chose "only 1 card per turn" for their draw jammers. I get that the "except the first card in the draw step, yada, yada, yada" is too wordy and inelegant, but why can't they choose a similiar wording which they've already used against discard?
Is there anything that isn't covered by this, like any replacement effects I'm missing? Because covering spells, activated and triggered abilities should cover the full spectrum of relevant draw.Spells and abilities can't cause players to draw extra cards.
As long as you haven’t actually drawn a card this turn, dredge is a replacement effect that is an untouchable way to avoid that wording.
So you want a 1 mana instant hoser instead? Like Veil of Summer...
The problem is blue decks can easily splash 1 mana instants. Either they're too weak to play, or they're good enough hosers that blue plays it too.
Red Elemental Blast probably sees more play in blue decks than nonblue decks. REB and Pyroblast have already existed for ages. If you want a 1 mana instant that doesn't just hose 1 card but has a permanent effect, that might be overpowered.
Pitch cards (0 cmc)...do you remember Mental Misstep? Cards with cheap costs are easy to splash in blue decks. The only way to keep them out of blue decks is to either give them prohibitive mana costs or give them drawbacks that punish blue players.
Deafening Silence is probably the most balanced 1-mana hoser that blue can't abuse (symmetrical). It sees a lot of play and should see even more.
A hypothetical card:
Nature's Will - G - Instant
Rebound
Players can't draw additional cards until your next turn. Sacrifice 3 Islands.
Ftfy. If you can't play Islands, I think you should still be able to draw cards. I don't think it's fair to give GW Maverick this card and then say that they can't play Sylvan Library and Painful Truths. It's only once that they can play it from outside the game, and early creatures on the board rarely survive long.
I like it.
Edit: They will just play it as a 4-of main, ignore companion and run it with Islands. I hate it.
You fail to see the same design trap over and over again - not that R&D is any better. Instants like Mental Misstep or Veil of Summer are design mistakes because they can be run best by the things they're trying to hate - with zero drawback for the deck that it runs. It's like you're trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline onto it.
Symmetrical permanent hate is the only solution that works here. Everything else will be run by blue decks to fuck over other blue decks if said card is good enough, mana costs be damned. Veil of Summer is the best example for that. Narset in Vintage was so oppressive that it had to be restricted. Mental Misstep made one of the most blue metas ever. Do Xerox decks abuse Chalice? No, they don't, because it would fuck them over.
Makes you wonder why a white "Leyline of Draw Hate" (symmetrical) isn't a thing yet. If Leyline of the Void can utterly destroy GY decks, I don't see why one for draw-abusing decks shouldn't exist.
I feel like Snapcaster Mage abuses the living crap out of Deafening Silence.
I fail to see the very thing I pointed out in my own posts?
Yeah, that's what I said earlier. Then I created a hypothetical card with a symmetrical effect that can't be run by the things they're trying to hate because "sacrifice 3 Islands", then "sacrifice 3 Islands again".Instants like Mental Misstep or Veil of Summer are design mistakes because they can be run best by the things they're trying to hate - with zero drawback for the deck that it runs.
Symmetrical 0-1 cmc permanent hate with Flash is arguably too powerful, just invalidating all other nonblue sorcery speed effects because it also acts as a counterspell. Rebound is one way to balance that... halfway in between a Flash permanent and an instant, giving you an effect for 2 turns.Symmetrical permanent hate is the only solution that works here.
Otherwise Deafening Silence is a better model for permanent hate. It's symmetrical and still fast enough to be relevant, but restricted by sorcery speed. Though Snapcaster Mage can still abuse it lol.
G - Enchantment
Each player may only draw one card per turn cycle.
What’s the mission statement for Legacy?
What is Legacy that it should not be?
What isn’t Legacy that it should be?
What problems ought to be solved?
Excluding nostalgia as a factor, were there periods in which Legacy was different or better than now?
I’ll have a stab at a partial mission statement, but I’m mainly curious about other people’s answers.
“Legacy is a format that houses very complex decks, since the card pool is so deep. The decks in Legacy have undergone years, in some cases more than a decade, of refinement. Legacy players appreciate these long-lived, well-crafted decks as works of art and often specialize in a single deck.
Many Legacy decks have no analog in other formats. Players enjoy the process of ongoing refinement, so the occasional small ripple or big change in the format is desirable. Legacy is a deep puzzle, however, and if big changes come in quick succession, there will not be enough time for players to work on each puzzle before the next change.”
Thinking about it this way, the issue isn’t what’s actually on the ban list. What makes the format feel crummy and arbitrary is having things change so fast that there’s no time to process the last change.
Also, I told my wife about players’ reaction to the companions. She said, “They sound like a bunch of whiners.”
You guys are working really hard to just not ban brainstorm.
Spirit's best asset back then was the random game win when your opponent still drew their cards as normal. This was key to David McDarby winning SCG Portland in 2014.
Vs. 12-Post:
On his main phase, he used Karakas to bounce my Gaddock Teeg and then cast Repeal on my Thalia. I said "resolves," and he immediately drew a card. The only problem was that I still had a Spirit of the Labyrinth in play. We then called a judge, as we both knew what had just happened, and my opponent got a game loss during a game that we both knew I was going to lose.
Then, later on, vs. Death & Taxes:
I didn't think I could lose game 1. I had everything I could ask for. Except we were racing, and then Mirran Crusader hit the table. I couldn't attack into it, block it, or kill it very easily. I was barely treading water by chumping with my few white creatures when Spirit of the Labyrinth struck again: this time with a freshly drawn Horizon Canopy that my opponent immediately cracked when he played it. We both realized it right as the card got to his hand, and he immediately went to put it back. While I explained to the judge that I was positive the card that was put back was indeed the correct card, the deed had been done, and we went on to game 2.
http://old.starcitygames.com/article...and--1st-.html
Here's what I don't get.
In Vintage, blue has to be the best color. You could restrict every blue card, and blue would still be a pillar of the format. Workshop is stupidly broken, but leaving it unrestricted (and then restricting every artifact ever) is a way to cram a second pillar into the format. Bazaar is stupidly broken, but leaving it unrestricted is a way to cram a third pillar into the format. You can't escape blue being the best color, and two of the most ridiculous cards are left unrestricted just so nonblue can have a fighting chance.
In Legacy, blue doesn't have to be the best color. Legacy doesn't restrict, it bans. Now, the only tier-0 decks in Legacy have been blue Brainstorm decks, and the majority of tier-1 decks as well. Why should this situation persist for over a decade? A decade is a long time. I see two possibilities:
(1) WotC specifically wants the only tier-0 decks, and most of the tier-1 decks, to be blue Brainstorm decks.
That's a weird thing to specifically want. I imagine they might want it if they think most Legacy players specifically want it. Maybe they think that Legacy players feel smart when they're resolving Brainstorm and smarter when they use it to beat other Legacy players who are not using Brainstorm. I think this is the reason.
(2) WotC doesn't care at all about balance.
I actually wish this were the case. If it were, instead of banning Lurrus and Zirda, they could have:
(*) unbanned Survival (there's plenty of graveyard hate, and Vengevine decks can't play Lurrus)
(*) unbanned Yawgmoth's Bargain (who cares, we have Griselbrand and Ad Nauseam, and Bargain decks can't play Lurrus)
(*) unbanned Mind Twist (nobody makes 4 mana in Legacy, and when they do, it's to win)
(*) unbanned Tinker (the best deck will now be blue? Oh no! At least Tinker decks can't play Lurrus, unless the wincon is Painter)
(*) unbanned Earthcraft (lol)
(*) unbanned Hermit Druid (slightly less lol, but lol)
(*) unbanned Oath (see Tinker)
(*) unbanned Mystical Tutor (what's it gonna fetch, Tinker? Sounds like a non-Lurrus deck, unless it's Painter)
(*) unbanned Bazaar of Baghdad (probably not a companion deck? Plenty of gravehate anyway, Bazaar can be *a* DTB but it gets hated out if it's *the* DTB)
(*) unbanned DRS (why not, right? I mean what's the worst that could happen?)
(*) unbanned Necro (can't run Lurrus, can't be that good)
(*) unbanned Wrenn and Six (can't run Lurrus and W6 and Brainstorm... right? Anyway it'll keep those Hermit Druids in check)
(*) unbanned Flash (can't run Hulk with Lurrus)
(*) unbanned Memory Jar (can't run it with Lurrus)
(*) unbanned Skullclamp (I dunno what people would do with this but I kind of want to see, and anyway it sounds hate-able. Is it YP with FoW backup? doesn't that win anyway if not answered?)
If the worst-case scenario here is that some very powerful blue deck with BS+force+fetches is tier 0 for the next several years, all I can say is, with these wincons that deck will at least close out a game faster than Miracles used to.
I honestly have no idea what they're actually trying to do with the Legacy ban list. It looks like they want to ensure that Brainstorm is tier 0 forever, but you could do that with a much shorter ban list.
Just real quick point there, Lurrus can run and recur W&6.
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