Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
I personally really hate top just because it feels like a really sloppy design. I wouldn't mind if they made a fixed version. I'm not sure what exactly that would entail, but having a 0 Mana way to protect itself probably is too good
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
speaking of Nedleeds, I saw on Twitter that his LGS is swapping Legacy out for hyperextended.
I also heard of another LGS owner who is concerned that their local legacy scene is "stale."
And yet another player told me that their local legacy events are struggling to fire suddenly. (Though that may be seasonally related)
All of these stores are in different time zones. These aren't isolated issues.
Well, at least we can get excited about our Legacy GP on freaking Easter/Passover.
Yes. Next Thursday instead of legacy we will be doing hyper extended. I don't get out to legacy every week, but the past few times I've gone we've gotten right around 8.
I think weeks I haven't gone they just haven't fired often.
Last hyper extended event we did we got I believe around 26? I think a combination of legacy being stale for older players and newer players being priced out is what is wrong at least as far as our LGS. We did a 30 proxy legacy monthly the weekend after Christmas and got almost 30 people with only 5 or so being regular local legacy players. That shows to me that people have interest it just isn't feasible financially. If the reserve list sticks around I think proxy events will become the norm soon.
That's interesting. Still, there should be enough players to run both Legacy and Hextended in that market, no?
The fact that people are making the choice not to play Legacy reflects poorly on the format. And we're seeing it here, too, thousands of miles away. A couple people have sold cards but mostly people are just like "whatever" and doing other stuff. (In fact, I lent a deck to a player who sold his cards last year because he actually wanted to play a couple weeks ago)
I often wonder if more proxy tournaments will encourage more or less innovation. On one hand people can access the $5000 top-tier decks, on the other, it makes it easier to move stuff around. Right now though, I don't think it's a matter of people not wanting to innovate -- just that most innovations are swingy/DOA.
The format has gotten to a point in efficiency that innovation is either impossible or very very difficult. Our 26 man 30 proxy event I think a BUG Explorer Rock variant, an enchantress player, and me on Steel Stompy were the only sort of outliers in the room. Most everyone else was on DnT, Belcher, Moon Stompy, UW Control of some sort and Depths.
I have experienced the opposite locally; there is a burgeoning scene that allows for legacy twice a week, 3 times if they are willing to travel to a different shop. We average between 12-15 at the weeklies with a decent cross-section of decks. Oddly, Lands is overrepresented locally with 3-4 players regularly in the mix playing that deck at larger events.
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
Again, when it comes to top it was not about that card itself, it was about banning one card in the place of having to ban two. You can disagree that if CB or Terminus ate it that the other could have gone untouched, but WOTC was not going to test the waters and go again. The optics of that is just shit for them. So they take out the card that enables the others and moves on with their lives.
We here even thought it had worked for a while, then the deck came back. Dam its resilient.
It is quite likely we, eventually, will see top unbanned. After all the reason for the ban was miracles, and that is deck is not dead in any way.
Given wizards tendency of printing abusable cards I expect the deck to climb back to the top sooner or later.
can i just say i'm super happy probe is banned after seeing all these phoenix decks get attention?
-rob
I agree, probe would have become an even bigger problem. Regarding Miracles, I have come around to the conclusion that Top was the correct ban. I thought originally that Terminus was the culprit, but I don't think so. Looking at Miracles now it is a good deck, tier 1 even, but nowhere near as dominant as when Top was legal. If it gets there again then the conclusion should be 'ban another card, it's still too good'. I doubt this will happen, but it's possible I guess.
The B&R announcement will be coming in the first of February right, when Allegiance is released? No changes again?
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 mean, that's possible, but I think the dominant factor in round length is "Odds that a game has gone to time," not, "time required once in rounds." With a deck like Eggs that actually requires a potentially very large number of actions, "time required" might be a relevant consideration, but I am still doubtful.
I think the "Odds that a game has gone to time" are still very close to 1 for large events; top being gone hasn't really changed it much. When you have that many players, it's just going to happen. I feel like I've seen just as many Lands/Stoneblade/Aluren/etc decks after the buzzer as I have Miracles decks, but nobody seems to want to ban loam or SFM.
I get that Probe would be bananas in that deck, but this still bums me out. Probe did nothing wrong.
Honestly, it's sad on one end because terminus is pretty much the only true sweeper playable in the format (both verdict and deluge are a joke), and it felt pretty good to play a real control deck fully enabled.
On the other hand miracle was absolutely disgusting, while playing the deck I truly felt pretty much unbeatable and most of the times the game was over on turn 2 because there was no chance your opponent could do anything relevant past that, mostly because you were playing the best answers to everything + infinite manipulation.
In my entire experience playing this game I never felt a deck was that good, it was the closest thing to a real tier 0 I ever experienced in eternal, and I played basicly every single deck in legacy and most decks in vintage.
I can't see how people can deny that, while playing miracles, pretty much half of the meta was a free win, the other half was mostly 50/50 at worst and you had like 1 or 2 relevant bad MUs (which were like 40/60 against omnitell, 40/60 against small eldrazi and 20/80 against big eldrazi pretty much).
The main reason why the deck was that good was top, playing the entire game with constant manipulation and being able to sweep instant speed was enough to beat most of the decks already, the solution was either remove terminus, which would have made the deck unplayable entirely (again, verdict is a joke, you cant rely on that so you have to move to a more midrange solution such as blade or play a 4 mentor + another board presence card list) or remove top.
The fact that the deck is still a tier 1 even with its core card removed should be enough to prove how insane it used to be, and asking for a top unban is ridicoluos.
"You either die a Onesto-Player, or live long enough to see yourself become a Dredger"
the only deck as good as miracles with top was probably necro donate in old extended. glad to see it gone!
-rob
Verdict and Deluge are a joke compared to Terminus, but they would be the best sweepers if Terminus didn't exist. At the least Deluge is mana efficient at 3 mana and Verdict is uncounterable, both big upsides compared to Wrath of God. However, if Terminus didn't exist isn't it natural to just play 4x Snapcaster and 1+ Path to Exile? Who needs a wrath when you can play 10 copies of the best spot removal. Snapcaster is the real deal.
I share in your melancholy about not having a legitimate control deck that isn't too good {EDit} with top in the format. It would be great to have a super-charged control deck like Top Miracles without it being too good. I would love to have a real agro deck back in the format like Zoo, but that ship has sailed as well. The closest thing to true agro now are the Delver variants.
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
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