All B/R update speculation.

[thefringthing]

I think people are arguing different points and calling both interactivity:

1. Chalice and the like are interactive, because they force opponents to care about each other (as a storm player, I don't care what you're doing as long as I can resolve nine spells and then tendrils; Chalice interacts with me and makes me interact because I now care about your boardstate)

2. Chalice and the like have a limited number of answers, making certain decks unable to deal with them reasonably outside of sideboard cards.

I think many of the people saying debating that chalice is uninteractive (i.e., contesting #1) are really arguing #2. The question is, does requiring particular answers or mana curves to beat qualify a card for banning? I would say no, presuming it isn't completely oppressive.

You might be on to something here, but even if the problem is only that there isn't a great enough variety of good answers to cards like Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void, the only option is a banned list change. WotC isn't going to intentionally print new cards just to try to address an issue with the Legacy metagame. That just isn't something they really do.

[Zombie]

You might be on to something here, but even if the problem is only that there isn't a great enough variety of good answers to cards like Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void, the only option is a banned list change. WotC isn't going to intentionally print new cards just to try to address an issue with the Legacy metagame. That just isn't something they really do.

That's exactly what they did with Decay. It was deliberately printed as an answer to Counterbalance.

[CutthroatCasual]

Thats the critical point. The only decks which are supposed to have a really good miracles matchup, get slapped by SB back to basics or bloodmoons

4c Loam can play around nonbasic hate pretty well. And has great game against every blue deck in the format.

[Lemnear]

Lemnear, I'm really surprised that you're on that side of the argument, because Storm pressures the metagame in exactly the same way. It requires specific constraints in deckbuilding to combat it (cheap or free stack interaction, lock pieces, or discard) and we always say "if you play a deck that can't beat storm, you deserve to lose to it." How is Chalice and friends any different? And both Storm and Chalice decks have a percentage of games where even if you came prepared, you'll still lose. Maybe I had Force force Flusterstorm and he shredded my hand and went off, maybe I had 2 decays and he had T1 Chalice into t2 Lodestone and I never got to cast them. That's just variance.

You mistake me. I am ALL FOR more maindeckable hate against combo decks like storm and stuff, so non-blue/black decks (Thalia & Eidolon aside) have options to interact with combo decks and break the format more open.

There is no need to "fix" the ~10% T1 kills of Storm by killing the whole remaining format diversity with effective T1/T2 lockouts.

I mean, its funny that people point at deckbuilding as a fix. If you play 1cc spells to get under Thorn/Thalia, you get fucked by Chalice/countertop; if you play higher costs to dodge Chalice/Countertop, you get fucked by Thorn/Thalia/Wasteland. Pick your medicine.

We are slowly but steadily get into a similar position Vintage was in during the 6+ years of Oath vs MUD metagame which killed everything else with T1 blowouts

P.S.: And before some smartass comes up with "stable manabase": Lands & D&T adapted Ghost Quarter.

[Octopusman]

I think that Chalice, Thalia, and Counterbalance are all very interactive cards. Anyone who says they just scoop to them G1 has made a choice NOT to interact and now they're getting salty about it. No one is forcing you to build decks that fold to these kinds of effects. Yes, 1cmc cards are good, but by playing cards of varied mana costs (and in the case of Thalia/Sphere, playing creatures) you get to dodge or eliminate the hate. Your choice whether to interact with Chalice and company or not happens not in game, but before the game even begins, while you're making your deckbuilding decisions. And that's a really awesome thing that only really exists in Legacy.

Lemnear, I'm really surprised that you're on that side of the argument, because Storm pressures the metagame in exactly the same way. It requires specific constraints in deckbuilding to combat it (cheap or free stack interaction, lock pieces, or discard) and we always say "if you play a deck that can't beat storm, you deserve to lose to it." How is Chalice and friends any different? And both Storm and Chalice decks have a percentage of games where even if you came prepared, you'll still lose. Maybe I had Force force Flusterstorm and he shredded my hand and went off, maybe I had 2 decays and he had T1 Chalice into t2 Lodestone and I never got to cast them. That's just variance.

All strategies deserve a shot in Legacy. If you're sick of losing to Chalice or Countertop play a deck that shits on them. But be aware that like everything else, there's an opportunity cost.

Excellent post, thank you.

[Stuart]

You mistake me. I am ALL FOR more maindeckable hate against combo decks like storm and stuff, so non-blue/black decks (Thalia & Eidolon aside) have options to interact with combo decks and break the format more open.

Maybe this is straying too far from B&R discussion, but what would that even look like? It's hard for me to picture a maindeckable combo hate card that's interactive, non-blue, not discard, not countermagic, and not a permanent lock piece that either shuts off everything (Chalice, Teeg, Prelate, Canonist, RIP) or taxes everything. Cards like Needle and Surgical seem like a good start, but aren't usually quite enough to really stop your opponent from comboing off.

[Fox]

This I'm not sure about - for instance, the nature of BUG or Jund in a lot of formats, including Legacy to an extent, is to play a lot of un-linked, individually powerful cards, and those decks are as interactive as they come.

When talking about un-linked cards, I meant uninteractive cards that indefinitely say opponent can't win unless they remove this [like RiP or Leyline from previous example]. Chalice will always be a better designed card because it has stipulations to accompany wide implications. In the same way a card like Yixlid Jailer is a healthy hate card which takes nothing to sustain, has no demands on deck construction, and is incredibly narrow b/c of how easy it is to fire and forget.

[Lemnear]

This I'm not sure about - for instance, the nature of BUG or Jund in a lot of formats, including Legacy to an extent, is to play a lot of un-linked, individually powerful cards, and those decks are as interactive as they come.

I think people are arguing different points and calling both interactivity:

1. Chalice and the like are interactive, because they force opponents to care about each other (as a storm player, I don't care what you're doing as long as I can resolve nine spells and then tendrils; Chalice interacts with me and makes me interact because I now care about your boardstate)

2. Chalice and the like have a limited number of answers, making certain decks unable to deal with them reasonably outside of sideboard cards.

I think many of the people saying debating that chalice is uninteractive (i.e., contesting #1) are really arguing #2. The question is, does requiring particular answers or mana curves to beat qualify a card for banning? I would say no, presuming it isn't completely oppressive.

I can get fully behind that, but moaning about lacking interactivity also implies that there are no ways for the players to do so.

Sure Decay is an answer to chalice and counterbalance, but its THE ONLY ONE we realistically have in Legacy and thats why near everyone who wants to resolve 1cc/2cc spells in this metagame uses the card. If there actually were alternatives (also colorwise less restrictive) there would be less of an issue

Edit:

Maybe this is straying too far from B&R discussion, but what would that even look like? It's hard for me to picture a maindeckable combo hate card that's interactive, non-blue, not discard, not countermagic, and not a permanent lock piece that either shuts off everything (Chalice, Teeg, Prelate, Canonist, RIP) or taxes everything. Cards like Needle and Surgical seem like a good start, but aren't usually quite enough to really stop your opponent from comboing off.

I really dont want to go into card creation after WotC did an excellent job with Thalia, DRS, Revoker and Leovold, showing how to make "hatebears" maindeckable to fight combo decks on a permanent base.

[dte]

Sure Decay is an answer to chalice and counterbalance, but its THE ONLY ONE we realistically have in Legacy and thats why near everyone who wants to resolve 1cc/2cc spells in this metagame uses the card. If there actually were alternatives (also colorwise less restrictive) there would be less of an issue.

I beg to disagree on the "only one": engineered explosives is an excellent answer to both and is fairly unrestrictive colorwise, and Rec Sage/GSZ are also quite fine answers.
Both cards have good utility beside CotV and CB.
Aether vial, cavern of souls and bosejiu are also interesting ways to go around them.

[Stuart]

I really dont want to go into card creation after WotC did an excellent job with Thalia, DRS, Revoker and Leovold, showing how to make "hatebears" maindeckable to fight combo decks on a permanent base.

I also don't wanna go down the card creation rabit hole, and I like the cards you've referenced. The only problem I see is that when Wizards keeps printing hate bears, we see a limited range of decks getting boosted, and formats become more homogeneously focused on permanent-based hate (e.g. Vintage). I was just curious if there's potential for Wizards to design maindeckable combo hate that's not obnoxiously strong, could fit in a wide array of non-blue decks, and doesn't lead to boards clogged up with hatebears, Thorn affects, etc (3/4 of the cards you quoted are hatebears, and the other is arguably a design mistake).

But yeah we can just drop this topic.

[Lemnear]

I beg to disagree on the "only one": engineered explosives is an excellent answer to both and is fairly unrestrictive colorwise, and Rec Sage/GSZ are also quite fine answers.
Both cards have good utility beside CotV and CB.
Aether vial, cavern of souls and bosejiu are also interesting ways to go around them.

There is a reason, I advocate for more RecSages in Elves ^~^

Maybe this is straying too far from B&R discussion, but what would that even look like? It's hard for me to picture a maindeckable combo hate card that's interactive, non-blue, not discard, not countermagic, and not a permanent lock piece that either shuts off everything (Chalice, Teeg, Prelate, Canonist, RIP) or taxes everything. Cards like Needle and Surgical seem like a good start, but aren't usually quite enough to really stop your opponent from comboing off.

I would be ok with split second discard or pyroblasts too to get around "Brainstorm in response"

[rlesko]

I get his point. If you are playing Storm against a deck that cannot interact on the stack, YOU are trying to win as fast as possible without interaction. If I play Chalice @ 1, I am interacting with you by shutting you down instead of losing myself. In that sense, I added a layer of interaction that otherwise wouldn't have been there.


The two are not mutually exclusive, both can be true. Not all players that scoop to Chalice are salty about it, but not all of them do it to save time (but ARE salty).

Interaction via uninteraction it is now more clear to me what he was originally trying to say, though. I agree that some players who lose to chalice get salty af. But its not fair to characterize people being whiny as a whole about getting chalice'd when in 90% or more of scenarios it is the correct thing to scoop game 1 to it.

[rlesko]

There is no need to "fix" the ~10% T1 kills of Storm by killing the whole remaining format diversity with effective T1/T2 lockouts.

I mean, its funny that people point at deckbuilding as a fix. If you play 1cc spells to get under Thorn/Thalia, you get fucked by Chalice/countertop; if you play higher costs to dodge Chalice/Countertop, you get fucked by Thorn/Thalia/Wasteland. Pick your medicine.

Pretty much this x1000.

[Lemnear]

Interaction via uninteraction it is now more clear to me what he was originally trying to say, though. I agree that some players who lose to chalice get salty af. But its not fair to characterize people being whiny as a whole about getting chalice'd when in 90% or more of scenarios it is the correct thing to scoop game 1 to it.

Yeah, if you scoop game 1 before your opponent saw what deck you actually play and to not lose time in a game you cannot win, you get labeled as "whiny bitch" in this forum. A classic discussion

[btm10]

Someday one hopes people will realize how ridiculous it is to claim that putting "can't be countered" on a card is anything but bad design. Or that stopping one-mana cards wholesale with one lock-piece is anything else either. Or to claim that decks capitalizing on zero- or one-mana cards "can't compete anymore," or that that'd be a good thing.

I'm not holding my breath.

There's been an increasing trend toward cards that themselves are intended to sidestep interaction altogether starting with Time Spiral block (Split Second), and though few see play in Legacy, the ones that do are becoming increasingly important because there's little one can do against singular cards that blank over half the cards in combo decks like Storm from the first turn.

I don't blame people for playing the cards; they're in the format, and they answer those kinds of combo decks. But wiping out a deck on the first turn (without winning the game, in case it wasn't irksome enough as it was) isn't interactive, and playing responses to which there is definitionally no answer (aside from Time Stop or Sundial) isn't creative, interesting, or interactive. Now that's not a problem when the deck that runs those cards needs to screw around for a while in order to actually put together a win, but the prime offenders in this day and age don't need to do that. They either hulk out right away with equally poorly designed cards or they just keep playing lock-pieces of sufficient diversity that there's no way to break through.

I still don't like banning anything, but it's pretty obvious that the Kantrip Kings aren't worthy of it—especially not right now—and that Wizards is pushing one type of strategy, prison-control, really hard right now, and that's bad for fun, bad for the format, and bad for the game.

It's interesting to see that there's so little consensus about which cards should be banned, and I think it has to do not simply with the diversity of decks people who post here play, but with the fact that people are using different criteria to gauge whether they think cards should be banned. Chief among them, it seems, is whether a card angers people because they don't like to deal with it, which isn't a valid criterion. Enables/forces slow play? Maybe valid. Stifles format-diversity? Probably valid. "I don't like it because it's good but I can't play it in my pet deck/because a lot of people play it?" Not so much.

While I'd be thrilled if we banned Cavern of Souls and Boseiju for precisely the reasons you say, I think that Split Second cards and Abrupt Decay are interesting because they promote interaction despite being uninteractive by themselves: the primary reason anyone plays Krosan Grip over Naturalize or Sudden Shock over another burn spell is because they're trying to answer specific problem cards that aren't efficiently interacted with using their more interactive counterparts. If I'm packing Sudden Shocks over or in addition to Lightning Bolts, it's because I expect to have to slog through Mother of Runes or Vines of the Vastwood. If I'm running Grips over Naturalizes there's strong chance that someone is using Artifacts or Enchantments to try and stop me from playing the game at all, and I expect the lock pieces to protect themselves.

I still think, pointing at the 1 Entreat the deck might runs is nothing more than bait, given its Mentor which overtook both Entreat and Jace as the prime kill condition.

Looking at the last major Legacy tournaments on mtgtop8, Mentor seems to be far more favored as a primary win condition in Europe as compared to the US or Japan. Since Eternal Extravaganza, 3/9 Miracles lists that top 8'ed 15 round events that ran Mentor an MD win condition in the US and Japan, and that's counting lists that run a 2/1 Mentor/Entreat split MD as Mentor decks, which I find sort of dubious. Regardless of how you classify those decks, it's nearly impossible to know (from the BGx/grindy midrange side) whether your opponent has access to Entreat or not, which forces you to hedge both in your sideboarding and in how you play postboard games, and that information asymmetry is ultimately what makes those matchups close to even postboard.

The second part essentially demands that CounterTop + Terminus should remain legal that there has to be a Ux deck which crushes Combo and Aggro, aka leaving everything as it is. I see no argument for why an UNTRADITIONAL control deck like Miracles should get special protection, as traditional control decks are not supposed to beat every aggro deck with ease.

'Crushes' aggro and combo is a bit of a stretch. The whole problem with Miracles isn't that it wins too many lopsided non-games, it's that it's become obvious Miracles is ~55% to win against the field and there's not much to be done about it short of banning something.

As for a Ux Control deck with an acceptable matchup profile, I'm not even convinced that one exists without Terminus and CounterTop. It's not like Wizards is printing great new control cards every set. I'm not even sure that Top+Terminus gets there without Counterbalance providing enough permission to justify running 8-9 removal spells, and the non-Terminus sweepers definitely push a deckbuilder away from CounterTop as a primary gameplan because they're much more mana-intensive than Terminus, making Top itself worse, and CounterTop less effective against aggro/tempo since tapping out to Wrath means that spinning in response to a follow-up 2-3 CMC threat can't happen.

[Megadeus]

While I'd be thrilled if we banned Cavern of Souls and Boseiju for precisely the reasons you say, I think that Split Second cards and Abrupt Decay are interesting because they promote interaction despite being uninteractive by themselves: the primary reason anyone plays Krosan Grip over Naturalize or Sudden Shock over another burn spell is because they're trying to answer specific problem cards that aren't efficiently interacted with using their more interactive counterparts. If I'm packing Sudden Shocks over or in addition to Lightning Bolts, it's because I expect to have to slog through Mother of Runes or Vines of the Vastwood. If I'm running Grips over Naturalizes there's strong chance that someone is using Artifacts or Enchantments to try and stop me from playing the game at all, and I expect the lock pieces to protect themselves.



Looking at the last major Legacy tournaments on mtgtop8, Mentor seems to be far more favored as a primary win condition in Europe as compared to the US or Japan. Since Eternal Extravaganza, 3/9 Miracles lists that top 8'ed 15 round events that ran Mentor an MD win condition in the US and Japan, and that's counting lists that run a 2/1 Mentor/Entreat split MD as Mentor decks, which I find sort of dubious. Regardless of how you classify those decks, it's nearly impossible to know (from the BGx/grindy midrange side) whether your opponent has access to Entreat or not, which forces you to hedge both in your sideboarding and in how you play postboard games, and that information asymmetry is ultimately what makes those matchups close to even postboard.



'Crushes' aggro and combo is a bit of a stretch. The whole problem with Miracles isn't that it wins too many lopsided non-games, it's that it's become obvious Miracles is ~55% to win against the field and there's not much to be done about it short of banning something.

As for a Ux Control deck with an acceptable matchup profile, I'm not even convinced that one exists without Terminus and CounterTop. It's not like Wizards is printing great new control cards every set. I'm not even sure that Top+Terminus gets there without Counterbalance providing enough permission to justify running 8-9 removal spells, and the non-Terminus sweepers definitely push a deckbuilder away from CounterTop as a primary gameplan because they're much more mana-intensive than Terminus, making Top itself worse, and CounterTop less effective against aggro/tempo since tapping out to Wrath means that spinning in response to a follow-up 2-3 CMC threat can't happen.

I mean that's kind of the point right? To not let miracles be able to have their cake and eat it too? What's so bad about miracles having to make actually deck building restrictive decisions like all of the other decks? Take out some removal for counters, slightly worsen creature match ups. Take out counters for more removal, weaken combo match ups. Seems fine to me. I know that playing maverick I had to choose to take out some Thalia for decays which made me better against fair decks and worse against combo. What's wrong with forcing a deck to possibly have to run a nonbo or two? I don't particularly enjoy running teeg when I have a 4 mana walker, batterskull, and 4 green Sun, but I am making a trade off

[btm10]

I mean that's kind of the point right? To not let miracles be able to have their cake and eat it too? What's so bad about miracles having to make actually deck building restrictive decisions like all of the other decks? Take out some removal for counters, slightly worsen creature match ups. Take out counters for more removal, weaken combo match ups. Seems fine to me. I know that playing maverick I had to choose to take out some Thalia for decays which made me better against fair decks and worse against combo. What's wrong with forcing a deck to possibly have to run a nonbo or two? I don't particularly enjoy running teeg when I have a 4 mana walker, batterskull, and 4 green Sun, but I am making a trade off

The problem is that I don't think any blue-based control deck, not just Miracles, can hang with the current DTBs + Delver/Infect and combo without CounterTop and Terminus (in the sense that it keeps its matchups close to even across the board). Without both pieces, the deckbuilding requirements just don't pull you toward running CounterTop + 4 Verdict + 4 Swords, or Top to enable Terminus alongside regular counterspells. You end up in either a Stoneblade or Mentor shell (which is both a worse midrange deck and a worse control deck than Shardless while barely moving the needle on combo and Lands) or Landstill (which struggles against the quality of modern 1-drops, has a disastrous Eldrazi matchup, is unfavored against Lands and Shardless, and historically didn't have a great combo matchup because it's so slow). Miracles absolutely needs to be made a little worse, but we stand to completely kill the macro-archetype of blue-based control if we break up Terminus + CounterTop.

[Megadeus]

That's all completely theoretical. Miracles effectively pushes out every other control deck, plus every aggro deck. If miracles were to be nerfed it may bring back a few other decks that can keep standstills bad match ups at bay, the same way force of will can keep non blue bad match ups down.

[rlesko]

Yeah, if you scoop game 1 before your opponent saw what deck you actually play and to not lose time in a game you cannot win, you get labeled as "whiny bitch" in this forum. A classic discussion

Wow, I've been missing out on so much fun all this time!

The problem is that I don't think any blue-based control deck, not just Miracles, can hang with the current DTBs + Delver/Infect and combo without CounterTop and Terminus (in the sense that it keeps its matchups close to even across the board). Without both pieces, the deckbuilding requirements just don't pull you toward running CounterTop + 4 Verdict + 4 Swords, or Top to enable Terminus alongside regular counterspells. You end up in either a Stoneblade or Mentor shell (which is both a worse midrange deck and a worse control deck than Shardless while barely moving the needle on combo and Lands) or Landstill (which struggles against the quality of modern 1-drops, has a disastrous Eldrazi matchup, is unfavored against Lands and Shardless, and historically didn't have a great combo matchup because it's so slow). Miracles absolutely needs to be made a little worse, but we stand to completely kill the macro-archetype of blue-based control if we break up Terminus + CounterTop.

What you're really saying is- "If miracles gets banned out of existence, what other control deck can exist and have even to favorable match ups across the board?". WHICH IS THE DAMN PROBLEM! The whole point of people arguing for a miracles ban is there shouldn't be a deck that has even or favorable match ups with legit every other tier 1 deck in the format. Every other deck in the format has bad cards in certain match ups, hence the whole point of a sideboard. Your last sentence is pure speculation.

That's all completely theoretical. Miracles effectively pushes out every other control deck, plus every aggro deck. If miracles were to be nerfed it may bring back a few other decks that can keep standstills bad match ups at bay, the same way force of will can keep non blue bad match ups down.

Exactly this.

We don't know what people can come up with until we are forced to change. No one is brewing control decks because its just worse miracles. For 4+ years now

[Crimhead]

Miracles effectively pushes out every other control deck, plus every aggro deck.

Gotta call BS on this:

1. When Miracles first became a thing, there were already no tier one aggro decks! Linear aggro had been pushed out by midrange and tempo decks like Maverick, Blade, and Thresh. Goblins, Merfolk, and Zoo had long since been outclassed by these more efficient and versatile aggro/control decks. Hate-bears are in part to blame, but more generally the power creep WotC has been dumping on creatures has not promoted pure aggro strategies.
2. We actually have a tier one aggro deck, it's called Eldrazi.

Basically, what the heck are you even talking about? You're blaming Miracles fora perceived injustice which was already the case before Miracles existed but is no longer even true.

What you're really saying is- "If miracles gets banned out of existence, what other control deck can exist and have even to favorable match ups across the board?". WHICH IS THE DAMN PROBLEM!

Way to twist the man's words! He clearly said "close to even across the board" Close to even does not mean even to favourable. It means slightly favourable to slightly unfavourable. And this is exactly where Miracles sits vs the other DTBs! Miracles is slightly unfavourable vs Eldrazi and Shardless, while maybe slightly favourable vs D&T and Lands. Your assertion that Miracles is 50/50 at worse vs the other tier one decks is a complete load.

If you recall, a few months ago in this thread we looked at Miracles performance within the top8 brackets (aka, mostly against good opponents on tier one decks) and found it was actually slightly less than 50/50.

Of course this depends how we define tier one. If we count Aggro Loam and Infect, Miracles is well beyond slightly unfavoured. If we only count DTBs, see above.

If you play 1cc spells to get under Thorn/Thalia, you get fucked by Chalice/countertop; if you play higher costs to dodge Chalice/Countertop, you get fucked by Thorn/Thalia/Wasteland. Pick your medicine.

It sounds like you want to bring a deck which will always function as intended regardless of what strategy your opponent brings to the table? This is basically Zac Hill's vision of Standard when he decided Prison, Combo, Draw/Go and LD because they led to unfun, non-interactive games.

This is great if the goal is to keep newbs coming back to FNM and opening product, but these sentiments are not generally welcome in Legacy. In this format, whatever deck you play, there is somebody ready to pull the rug out from under your feet.