All B/R update speculation.

[Fox]

Lurrus is far more interesting to play against than SDT/CB, Hymn/Snapcaster, Probe/Therapy, and dumb PWs like Oko and Wrenn. As a companion, you can‘t even hide what is pretty much your deck‘s only credible payoff card. Lurrus decks don‘t just magically win when opponents pursue coherent, multi-turn gameplans focusing on turning it into a Pyknite.

This card isn‘t hard to interact with; it‘s not an enchantment (like Breach) or a PW (like Wrenn), and they have pretty telegraphed mana patterns for Wasteland to exploit. These decks either have Bolt (a bad card vs Oko and Uro), or they have no credible non-creature wincons (forced to play into board control/wrath); the best they can do outside this is spam the should-be-banned Counterbalance which comes in at the cost of losing access to every single PW. If you can‘t interact on these levels, you probably have a deck construction error - and even then you can still throw in the towel and get away with absolute yard hate like Leyline.

Unless there is some crazy world where Lurrus + LED allows Storm to hate out every fair deck to the levels that Breach and Dig Through Time did, then it‘s fine. Choose cards that allow you to isolate Lurrus and turn him into Pyknite and you‘ll do just fine. Eventually WotC will have to print more playable cards with errata‘d processor mechanic (ex. Wasteland Strangler) to allow you to eat companions from the whatever zone they hide in.

Complaining about Daze decks that maindeck Karakas + either Bayou or Badlands or Plateau...

[Wrath of Pie]

They could easily slap some Commander-related clause onto them to make them functionally different (as printed), but working the same as normal Duals in Legacy. What they can do and what they won't do are two different pairs of shoes.

You remember the Reverberate fiasco, right?

[Barook]

You remember the Reverberate fiasco, right?

I do - and people should stop being whiny bitches. Not only was the RL a mistake, but this "spirit of the RL" has to stop, since it's complete horseshit and their to-go argument to asspull any reason for not printing cards.

[Mr. Safety]

I don't mind a changing format. It's just not changing in a way that I like or think is good.

Adding decks to the format? Great. Adding different cards to improve archetypes? Awesome! Making entire swaths of the format unplayable? No bueno.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

You remember the Reverberate fiasco, right?

Hey hey hey!
Reverberate don't even turn the copy red!

[Whoshim]

You remember the Reverberate fiasco, right?

What if the new lands were something like:

Blessed Bayou

Land — Swamp Forest

When Blessed Bayou enters the battlefield, each opponent gains 1 life.

({T}: Add {B} or {G}.)

They are functionally different from the originals, but practically the same from a play perspective, as they would likely add 3 or fewer life to the opponent each game.

[Fox]

What if the new lands were something like:

Blessed Bayou

Land — Swamp Forest

When Blessed Bayou enters the battlefield, each opponent gains 1 life.

({T}: Add {B} or {G}.)

They are functionally different from the originals, but practically the same from a play perspective, as they would likely add 3 or fewer life to the opponent each game.

Not really the right forum for this but effectively reprinting duals should be done with purpose.

Step 1: make it worse than a dual, only one Fetchable land type (taps for 2c still).
Step 2: when the land taps for mana put a thaw counter on up to one target snow permanent [this permanent is no longer snow].

Make the game better, lower cost of entry, and call it a day.

[Wrath of Pie]

What if the new lands were something like:

Blessed Bayou

Land — Swamp Forest

When Blessed Bayou enters the battlefield, each opponent gains 1 life.

({T}: Add {B} or {G}.)

They are functionally different from the originals, but practically the same from a play perspective, as they would likely add 3 or fewer life to the opponent each game.

Obviously too good for Standard, and likely too good for Modern as well, so you have to hope that this would sneak into a Commander-related product. Even there, this would probably have an enter-the-battlefield-tapped clause added to it or they up the lifegain to something more reasonable (probably 4 life minimum) so it isn't just an upgraded shockland.

[Whoshim]

Sorry I didn't expound more upon my ideas. Here is what I was considering.

The main contributors to the high barrier of entry are the mana bases that use duals - and that problem won't go away until they print alternatives that don't have drawbacks that make them worse than the originals (think of Commander-related stuff which is irrelevant for Legacy).

The issue with obsoleting duals is that doing so violates the Reserved List, and lawyers are expensive (and they will be involved, someone will sue), so it is better for them to simply not do so.

That is what I was thinking about when I wrote my post. I think that we can do better than shocklands without violating the Reserved List. I think we have to do better than the shocklands if there will be a lowering of the barrier to entry in Legacy.

I think the idea is that fetchs and duals are the main drivers of expense in Legacy. Certainly, there are cards that are super expensive, but the game can still be played at a high level without Tabernacle, for example. It is hard to compete without a decent manabase though.

Now, I personally think that WotC doesn't want Legacy around anymore, and they also want to get away from Modern. So I don't expect that we will see any movement in regards to the manabase situation, so Legacy will remain out of the budget of most people (standard is expensive too, but people generally do not seem as willing to drop the equivalent of a standard deck on one dual land).

Obviously too good for Standard, and likely too good for Modern as well, so you have to hope that this would sneak into a Commander-related product. Even there, this would probably have an enter-the-battlefield-tapped clause added to it or they up the lifegain to something more reasonable (probably 4 life minimum) so it isn't just an upgraded shockland.

I did envision the land design above as a Commander product. It would certainly be something nice for commander players to have, and it would make people able to get into Legacy at a lower price point.

We just got fetchable tri-lands that enter tapped, but they won't make an impact. The 2 life loss for shocklands is too harsh. There needs to be some sort of dual like I or Fox suggested or this problem will not go away.

[Watersaw]

We just got fetchable tri-lands that enter tapped, but they won't make an impact. The 2 life loss for shocklands is too harsh. There needs to be some sort of dual like I or Fox suggested or this problem will not go away.

Having a dual-like isnt enough, you need a card that is situationally BETTER than a dual so there's a real reason to run it as a side-grade. ETB untapped, produce two colors, and fetchable is the baseline. Maybe the Lorywn lands could be the inspiration, having some deckbuilding constraint on entering untapped while having an additional benefit. But you'd probably want at least one dual in the deck anyway in case you can't trigger for whatever reason.

EDIT: this would also (in theory) give a much needed boost to synergistic piles as they would (again, in theory) be able to exploit them more consistently than goodstuff.dec

[jmlima]

Vintage is facing the same issue.



The issue with obsoleting duals is that doing so violates the Reserved List, and lawyers are expensive (and they will be involved, someone will sue), so it is better for them to simply not do so.

The solution here is Magic Online, actually, because no Reserved List applies there, but I doubt that would go well with the paper players having Magic Online-exclusive cards.

IMO, at this point I think the lawyer argument is a quixotesque attempt at hiding the obvious. Why on earth would wotc make formats like legacy vastly popular? They have two formats that they want popular, one is standard the other is limited, constructed is an attempt at making players not feel so bad about pumping money into standard and limited with the 'but you can use those cards elsewhere' meme. On the same theme, it's pretty obvious that making these new cards super-relevant in the old formats not only draws the attention to that meme, but is also a way to monetize in one way or another those old formats. If you seriously believe hasbro would not be able to out-lawyer at will whatever collectors tried to sue them them you are really not getting the definition of corporation. Worse, I've read people thinking that shops (that largely depend on wotc products and their ability to source them for survival) would sue wotc over this. Yeah, sure, if are willing to close shop afterwards and get nothing for that.

[jmlima]

... Legacy's appeal to me is a stable format that doesn't need constant tuning; we haven't had that in a long time.

I'm with you, but I feel we are a minority.

[Mr. Safety]

I'm with you, but I feel we are a minority.

I think most of the folks that feel this way are paper-only players, like myself. I don't know if you do MTGO, but I have never gotten into it. The visceral feel of shuffling and flipping cards will always be where my love of the game lives. Players that stick to MTGO do not have to invest heavily into new cards; quite often cards are more affordable online than in paper (I know there are exceptions to this rule, just a general statement. Nobody is spending $400 online for an Underground Sea.)

I stick to my sentiment that if WOTC wants to force people to play Commander with companions, I'll just switch over to Commander and have the real deal. I actually put together 2 commander decks this weekend with cards on hand, goldfished them, and had a freakin' blast doing it. I can't play at the LGS right now, and likely won't be able to in quite some time, so I am leaning towards creating a small playgroup of Commander players. My state has a maximum gathering of 10 people currently, which may go up to 50 in June. Whether my LGS makes it that long is the real question. If it does, and people are willing to go out and play, I'll make an attempt at the format if Lurrus is banned, but otherwise I'm out. If the store closes there isn't another store less than a 2 hr drive away to play at that does Legacy. Standard, Modern, and Pioneer hold no appeal for me.

Once LGS's start closing en masse we are looking at the demise of paper magic, outside of casual play. Yes there will still be Leaving a Legacy tournaments and other big events, but without anything but MTGO to test decks I think the Legacy scene will suffer greatly. I'm in the Jerry Mee camp: until something is done about Lurrus, I have no interest in the format at all. I was just starting to adapt to Veil of Summer, Oko, and Uro when this new set came out (after just adapting to Underworld Breach.) I have officially caught CurmudgeonVirus-2020.

[Seymour_Asses]

I have officially caught CurmudgeonVirus-2020.

I'm in the same boat. Symptoms include:

-Yelling at clouds

-Kids on lawn

-Sexy dames and plenty of em

-MAAAAAAAATTTLOOOCK

[bruizar]

Magic is a paper game for me, if I'm going to play videogames, I'm not gonna be sitting on the computer playing glorified patience, I'll be playing some triple A titles instead.

[H]

On the one hand, I am happy to see new, powerful cards. On the other, over-powered cards are far from ideal. Frankly, I don't think Lurrus was a good idea at all, but on the other, Fathom Seer is now worth playing a playset of, so I am torn, .

[Mr. Safety]

Update: found out today that my LGS is closing down permanently. It won't be the only one to do so. I now have no outlet for paper Legacy. Maybe something will open up again in a year or so, but that is wishful thinking.

Lurris didn't cause this, but I figure someone needs to take the fall. Damn cat!

[FTW]

Sure, Lurrus is beatable, but is this a healthy result? This is like Mental Misstep in its ubiquity and forcing the format to warp around it.

I watched Bryant Cook's stream taking TES to Sunday's Legacy Challenge Finals:
Round 1 vs Lurrus Delver (Jeskai)
Round 2 vs Lurrus WW
Round 3 vs Lurrus Grixis Control
Round 4 vs Lurrus Grixis Control
Round 5 vs Lurrus Delver (Jeskai)
Round 6 vs Lurrus Miracles
Round 7 vs Lurrus Delver (Grixis)
T8 vs Lurrus Delver (Grixis)
T4 vs Lurrus Doomsday
T2 vs Lurrus WW

10 matches of Lurrus vs Lurrus.


Saturday's Legacy Challenge Top 32
Winner: Lurrus Miracles (AnziD)
Lurrus count: 17
Lurrus Miracles: 3
Lurrus Delver (Grixis): 5
Lurrus Delver (BUG): 2
Lurrus Delver (UWR): 1
Lurrus Elves: 2
Lurrus Storm: 2
Lurrus & Taxes: 2
Lurrus was 100% of the top 4

Sunday's Legacy Challenge Top 32
Winner: Lurrus White Weenie (Ultimar)
Lurrus count: 23
Lurrus Miracles: 3
Lurrus Delver (Grixis): 4
Lurrus Delver (BUG): 2
Lurrus Delver (UWR): 2
Lurrus Grixis Control: 3
Lurrus Storm: 3
Lurrus & Taxes: 3
Lurrus UW Tempo: 1
Lurrus Slivers: 1
Lurrus s-No-Oko: 1
Lurrus was again 100% of the Top 4

At least there are diverse archetypes of fair decks, but the format has warped around 1 card that players always have every game.

[kinda]

Sure, Lurrus is beatable, but is this a healthy result? This is like Mental Misstep in its ubiquity and forcing the format to warp around it.

I watched Bryant Cook's stream taking TES to Sunday's Legacy Challenge Finals:
Round 1 vs Lurrus Delver (Jeskai)
Round 2 vs Lurrus WW
Round 3 vs Lurrus Grixis Control
Round 4 vs Lurrus Grixis Control
Round 5 vs Lurrus Delver (Jeskai)
Round 6 vs Lurrus Miracles
Round 7 vs Lurrus Delver (Grixis)
T8 vs Lurrus Delver (Grixis)
T4 vs Lurrus Doomsday
T2 vs Lurrus WW

10 matches of Lurrus vs Lurrus.


Saturday's Legacy Challenge Top 32
Winner: Lurrus Miracles (AnziD)
Lurrus count: 17
Lurrus Miracles: 3
Lurrus Delver (Grixis): 5
Lurrus Delver (BUG): 2
Lurrus Delver (UWR): 1
Lurrus Elves: 2
Lurrus Storm: 2
Lurrus & Taxes: 2
Lurrus was 100% of the top 4

Sunday's Legacy Challenge Top 32
Winner: Lurrus White Weenie (Ultimar)
Lurrus count: 23
Lurrus Miracles: 3
Lurrus Delver (Grixis): 4
Lurrus Delver (BUG): 2
Lurrus Delver (UWR): 2
Lurrus Grixis Control: 3
Lurrus Storm: 3
Lurrus & Taxes: 3
Lurrus UW Tempo: 1
Lurrus Slivers: 1
Lurrus s-No-Oko: 1

At least there are diverse archetypes of fair decks, but the format has warped around 1 card that players always have every game.

There's no way it doesn't get banned once they've rolled out the set in paper. This is the most obvious ban since mystical tutor.

[Fox]

There's no way it doesn't get banned once they've rolled out the set in paper. This is the most obvious ban since mystical tutor.

The real question is how inbred the online meta is - what is the split of these events of total decks with and without companions?

Kinda need paper-sized events to corroborate. Also probably best not to begin a trend of banning cards that never got tested in paper.

Another very important point is that Lurrus companion cannot run Oko/Uro, so it's on the pro-diversity side of things. That is not a comment on whether or not its overpowered, just that it represents starkly different decks within the Fetchland family. The other thing we can easily say at this point is that unlike Breach, this dies to removal - a style of card in every fair deck ever. Not killing fair decks without contest is another point in Lurrus' favor.

Edit: there are other ways to fix companions simply with rules. If an opponent declares a companion and you don’t, all mulls should be made at -1 card penalty. Fixed.