All B/R update speculation.

[Lemnear]

I quote this post after 3 pages because i found it so true i needed to do it.

I read people here say that we are playing in a healty and diverse meta. Sure, healthy and diverse as long as you play 4 brainstorm 4 ponders and 4 force of will. Obviously this is not a healthy meta, the fact is just that people in legacy are by now so accustomed to this that it just seems normal, and people who actually like playing with said blue cards keep considering this meta healthy.

Obviously, wizards won't do anything (because they never do anything, because they don't care about legacy) so the format will slowly fade away and start resembling vintage. The restricted "elite" of people who like blue cards /blue decks will continue playing legacy, while everyone else will inevitably get tired of this shit and quit magic or start playing modern, that is basically what wizards wants.

Point me to the Storm, Lands, Elves, D&T, MUD, Burn, etc. running these three cards? Each of these archetypes make up for 2%-10% of the metagame despite not running these. Just saying

[HSCK]

I quote this post after 3 pages because i found it so true i needed to do it.

I read people here say that we are playing in a healty and diverse meta. Sure, healthy and diverse as long as you play 4 brainstorm 4 ponders and 4 force of will. Obviously this is not a healthy meta, the fact is just that people in legacy are by now so accustomed to this that it just seems normal, and people who actually like playing with said blue cards keep considering this meta healthy.

Obviously, wizards won't do anything (because they never do anything, because they don't care about legacy) so the format will slowly fade away and start resembling vintage. The restricted "elite" of people who like blue cards /blue decks will continue playing legacy, while everyone else will inevitably get tired of this shit and quit magic or start playing modern, that is basically what wizards wants.

If that's the case why has attendance been so strong?

[dte]

Point me to the Storm, Lands, Elves, D&T, MUD, Burn, etc. running these three cards? Each of these archetypes make up for 2%-10% of the metagame despite not running these. Just saying

Storm plays 2 of the 3 most played spells, and 3 out of 5. It just does not play FoW & DTT for obvious nombo reasons with their engines, and because discard is an effective protection for them (who mostly want to be protected against countermagic).

So, for the sake of the argument, you can remove them from your list. Then, the most played deck you listed makes 3% of the metagame.

Anyway, the best way to see the prevalence of these cards is to have a look at their %ages from mtgtop8:
Brainstorm 81 %
Force of Will 74 %
Ponder 70 %
The 3 most played cards.

You can argue that they enable a wide variety of archetypes, that's for sure, with both tempo, midrange, controle and combo strategies playing them.
You cannot argue against the fact than more than 60% of the decks play these 12 cards, and that more than 80% of the decks do rely on brainstorm.

[Lemnear]

Brainstorm 81 %
Force of Will 74 %
Ponder 70 %

The 3 most played cards.

You can argue that they enable a wide variety of archetypes, that's for sure, with both tempo, midrange, controle and combo strategies playing them.
You cannot argue against the fact than more than 60% of the decks play these 12 cards, and that more than 80% of the decks do rely on brainstorm.

I am not arguing against these numbers; I'm arguing that they present a must-have-core of 12 cards you cannot succeed without. Look at other formats:

Vintage:

Mox Sapphire 92 %
Black Lotus 87 %
Mox Ruby 78 %
Ancestral Recall 71 %
Mox Jet 71 %
Mental Misstep 71 %
Mox Emerald 70 %
Force of Will 70 %
Time Walk 69 %

Standard:

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 45 %
Windswept Heath 45 %
Hero's Downfall 44 %
Thoughtseize 40 %
Caves of Koilos 40 %

Block:

Scoured Barrens 62 %
Murderous Cut 62 %
Sorin, Solemn Visitor 62 %
Heir of the Wilds 60 %
Wingmate Roc 55 %
Utter End 50 %

Commander:

Command Tower 83 %
Wasteland 80 %
Polluted Delta 75 %
Misty Rainforest 75 %
Cavern of Souls 74 %
Windswept Heath 73 %
Flooded Strand 70 %
Wooded Foothills 67 %
Marsh Flats 65 %
Scalding Tarn 63 %

Let that sink in. The older/deeper the format the more limited via testing and experience is the to-go cardpool.

[sjmcc13]

I read people here say that we are playing in a healty and diverse meta. Sure, healthy and diverse as long as you play 4 brainstorm 4 ponders and 4 force of will. Obviously this is not a healthy meta, the fact is just that people in legacy are by now so accustomed to this that it just seems normal, and people who actually like playing with said blue cards keep considering this meta healthy.

Sorry, but this still allows for a healthy meta.

Health and Diversity have to do with the range of deck archetypes, a healthy meta will contain a decent % of each of combo, control, and aggro decks. and it will have multiple decks (strategies) in each category. meaning there are multiple distinct decks. Most of them using the 2 best support cards in the format (BS and Ponder) has little to do with diversity as they are strictly support, and not how the deck wins.

You are equating Diversity with color balance but they are not the same (from my experience allot of the player base misunderstands and miss uses terms, "fair" being the worst example of a term the player base uses for something other then what it actually means), and while blue is the most played color, every color is playable. Color diversity is the worst stat to lok at for the health of a format, because it leads to looking at goodcard.decks decks that follow the same basic game plan with a different set of cards and slight alterations between them, and saying that the format is healthy and diverse because the colors are playable, even though the level of strategy and play-style diversity of the format is horrible.

[MGB]

Question: would it not be better for the format if Sensei's Divining Top was banned?

- It would drastically reduce the number of draws in tournaments, as Miracles players (particularly those who do not use Top efficiently) are primarily responsible for these draws. You can argue that people need to get better at using Top, but that is simply too idealistic - there will always be a larger percentage of slower Miracles players than faster ones as long as new players continue to adopt the deck.

- It wouldn't neuter the Miracles deck completely, as versions with 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm and possibly 4 Preordain would still be good enough to set up the Miracle spells. It wouldn't be as dominating as the SDT versions have been, but that's precisely the point - Miracles is too good of a control deck and stifles development of most aggro in the format.

- It would allow more diversity of control decks and aggro decks. Right now there is very little incentive to play a control deck in this format that isn't Miracles or Lands. If Miracles didn't have access to SDT, it would only be a "good" control deck instead of the de facto *best* control deck. You would see more players experimenting with traditional U/W control, and you would see a renewed interest in Landstill archetypes. Additionally, you would see more aggro decks other than simply Ux Delver decks, because the reduced number of Terminus in the format would allow aggro to thrive. Diversity is always good for the format!

The only people that would be upset with a Sensei's Divining Top ban are some of the hardcore Miracles players that primarily play this deck in Legacy. Everyone else would benefit - aggro players, players of different control archetypes, tournament organizers, the judges, combo players, new players who want to get into Legacy but are intimidated by either playing Miracles or against Miracles...

A Sensei's Divining Top ban is one of the best things that could happen to Legacy, imho.

[rlesko]

You're making my point for me though. You're right, all of those guys work better in the blue shell than in shells based around their color also.

The point about Goyf is that before he showed up the blue shell didn't have an aggro wall easily available. Werebear, Nimble Mongoose and Mishra's factory were as close as you came for the shell. They all had flaws of one sort or another, none of them had the impact that Goyf did both in stabilizing and then in turning hard on the opponent when the opportunity presented itself.

2 mana for a 4/5 or 5/6 beater is a great thing. It's greater in the blue shell than anywhere else and that's unfortunate.

Just because you say something many times- that doesn't make it true. This is all just rhetoric. "its better in the blue shell"- what are your hard facts to back up a statement like this? And actually Dark Confidant is not good in a blue shell because you can't play him in conjunction with cards like force of will and dig through time. DRS is better in a blue shell? I think elves, maverick, and Jund would disagree.

[maharis]

Question: would it not be better for the format if Sensei's Divining Top was banned?

- It would drastically reduce the number of draws in tournaments, as Miracles players (particularly those who do not use Top efficiently) are primarily responsible for these draws. You can argue that people need to get better at using Top, but that is simply too idealistic - there will always be a larger percentage of slower Miracles players than faster ones as long as new players continue to adopt the deck.

- It wouldn't neuter the Miracles deck completely, as versions with 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm and possibly 4 Preordain would still be good enough to set up the Miracle spells. It wouldn't be as dominating as the SDT versions have been, but that's precisely the point - Miracles is too good of a control deck and stifles development of most aggro in the format.

- It would allow more diversity of control decks and aggro decks. Right now there is very little incentive to play a control deck in this format that isn't Miracles or Lands. If Miracles didn't have access to SDT, it would only be a "good" control deck instead of the de facto *best* control deck. You would see more players experimenting with traditional U/W control, and you would see a renewed interest in Landstill archetypes. Additionally, you would see more aggro decks other than simply Ux Delver decks, because the reduced number of Terminus in the format would allow aggro to thrive. Diversity is always good for the format!

The only people that would be upset with a Sensei's Divining Top ban are some of the hardcore Miracles players that primarily play this deck in Legacy. Everyone else would benefit - aggro players, players of different control archetypes, tournament organizers, the judges, combo players, new players who want to get into Legacy but are intimidated by either playing Miracles or against Miracles...

A Sensei's Divining Top ban is one of the best things that could happen to Legacy, imho.

Banning Top would be bad because it would pretty much take card selection away from non-blue decks that still have a punchers chance, like Painter or some Nic Fit decks. Those decks also don't take as long with their Tops as Miracles does.

The reason top is spun so much is Counterbalance. That is the card that should be banned. It is overpowered (compare Chalice of the Void), unfun, encourages durdly drag-outs, and requires decks to play a narrow set of answers in order to function (Abrupt Decay had to be printed because of CB).

You could also ban the actual miracle cards themselves but I think making it easier to rebuild after a wrath (by taking Counterbalance away) mitigates the effect of getting Terminused. I mean, sure it's a one-mana instant-speed super wrath, but those qualities are rarely relevant. And ETA is a bomb like any other that can be easily dealt with as long as every answer doesn't just ram into the Counterbalance maw.

[Barook]

- It wouldn't neuter the Miracles deck completely, as versions with 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm and possibly 4 Preordain would still be good enough to set up the Miracle spells. It wouldn't be as dominating as the SDT versions have been, but that's precisely the point - Miracles is too good of a control deck and stifles development of most aggro in the format.

SDT IS Miracles. Resolve a Pithing Needle on their Top and watch their deck miserably fall apart. And no, cantrips can't fix that. It also kills their Counterbalance locks which means it gets molested by various combo decks.

[maharis]

Just because you say something many times- that doesn't make it true. This is all just rhetoric. "its better in the blue shell"- what are your hard facts to back up a statement like this? And actually Dark Confidant is not good in a blue shell because you can't play him in conjunction with cards like force of will and dig through time.

BUG decks that don't play DTT play Bob. FOW is tough to hit, but then again, they also have BS/Ponder to keep it off the top off the deck.

DRS is better in a blue shell? I think elves, maverick, and Jund would disagree.

What is the best DRS deck right now? Is it any of those, or is it BUG Delver/Deathblade? Maybe it's elves, but that doesn't seem true in this current meta. Elves has lost a lot of market share since the delve cards were printed. Maybe Julian has a good explanation of why.

What FOAT consistently says, and he is right, is that the only way for new cards to enter the format is for them to synergize in some way with the blue cantrips + fetches base that most decks are built on. If DTT gets the axe, we will be down to Monastery Mentor and Tasigur as legacy-playables from the Khans block, and neither of those is more than a 2-of in any current T1 deck.

[MGB]

SDT IS Miracles. Resolve a Pithing Needle on their Top and watch their deck miserably fall apart. And no, cantrips can't fix that. It also kills their Counterbalance locks which means it gets molested by various combo decks.

I think that Miracles would still be playable without Top, but definitely much less powerful. Which is fine, and exactly what Legacy needs - more diversity among its control decks and not a single overpowering control deck ruling the format and squeezing out aggro.

As I said, banning SDT would bring back an interest in all different flavors of Ux control and force people to try different things instead of just defaulting to SDT + Counterbalance + Terminus.

[MGB]

Banning Top would be bad because it would pretty much take card selection away from non-blue decks that still have a punchers chance, like Painter or some Nic Fit decks. Those decks also don't take as long with their Tops as Miracles does.

The reason top is spun so much is Counterbalance. That is the card that should be banned. It is overpowered (compare Chalice of the Void), unfun, encourages durdly drag-outs, and requires decks to play a narrow set of answers in order to function (Abrupt Decay had to be printed because of CB).

You could also ban the actual miracle cards themselves but I think making it easier to rebuild after a wrath (by taking Counterbalance away) mitigates the effect of getting Terminused. I mean, sure it's a one-mana instant-speed super wrath, but those qualities are rarely relevant. And ETA is a bomb like any other that can be easily dealt with as long as every answer doesn't just ram into the Counterbalance maw.

Counterbalance and Miracles are perfectly reasonable cards. They were not designed to be abused in conjunction with Top, however.

The problem really is the Top. It enables far too much card selection at too low of a cost. Even if you banned Counterbalance and/or Miracle spells, Top would still be played and drag out matches and eventually combo with something else printed down the line.

SDT is like Survival of the Fittest - strong on its own, but broken with certain additional pieces - this time, any card that profits from manipulation of the top of the library. What broke Survival was Vengevine, and instead of banning Vengevine and then dealing with more Survival shenanigans down the line, Wizards did the right thing and just banned the engine. In this case the correct choice again is to ban the engine and not the support pieces. The engine of Miracles degeneracy is Sensei's Divining Top.

And honestly, the argument that banning top is bad for non-blue decks holds about as much water as the argument that banning Mental Misstep was bad for non-blue decks because they had a colorless counterspell. Sensei's Divining Top helps blue FAR MORE than it helps any other color, just as Mental Misstep simply helped blue far more than it helped any other color.

[rlesko]

BUG decks that don't play DTT play Bob. FOW is tough to hit, but then again, they also have BS/Ponder to keep it off the top off the deck.

This is true, but no more than 2. Contrast this with Bob showing up as 4 of in things like Maverick and deadguy, and I feel pretty comfortable saying this is not a blue card.

What is the best DRS deck right now? Is it any of those, or is it BUG Delver/Deathblade? Maybe it's elves, but that doesn't seem true in this current meta. Elves has lost a lot of market share since the delve cards were printed. Maybe Julian has a good explanation of why.

What FOAT consistently says, and he is right, is that the only way for new cards to enter the format is for them to synergize in some way with the blue cantrips + fetches base that most decks are built on. If DTT gets the axe, we will be down to Monastery Mentor and Tasigur as legacy-playables from the Khans block, and neither of those is more than a 2-of in any current T1 deck.

He could be right, but he could be wrong. I'll say it again -where are the facts? WHY are these cards better in a "blue shell"? Goyf, bob, SFM, DRS, etc. are all highly splashable. some blue decks utilize them, some nonblue decks do as well. I swear, people on this forum would be happy to see all blue cards get banned.

Khans block was pretty nutty for legacy. We got fetches reprint, swiftspear, cruise, dtt, siege rhino, mentor, tasigur, ugin (I think thats it). How many quality legacy playable cards do you want them to print in 1 block?

[sdematt]

Sure, but banning Top does nothing for the rest of the format, it just takes Miracles out of the equation, leaving Omni and various flavours of Delver and Blade to rise up. All of these decks are running the very common DTT. It's a bit more ubiquitous in the format than I expected, to say the least.

-Matt

[MGB]

Sure, but banning Top does nothing for the rest of the format, it just takes Miracles out of the equation, leaving Omni and various flavours of Delver and Blade to rise up. All of these decks are running the very common DTT. It's a bit more ubiquitous in the format than I expected, to say the least.

-Matt

It actually does alot for the format. It speeds up tournaments, creates less draws, makes Legacy more enjoyable. I'd rather lose to combo than a durdly control deck and that sentiment is probably echoed by most players.

And I don't think that removing Miracles turns Legacy into a Combo-Fest, either. There will still be control decks. I predict, if SDT is axed, that we see a resurgence of Landstill decks and various other UWx or UGx control decks.

And the most important result of banning SDT would be forcing control decks to rely on less efficient sweepers than the completely degenerate Terminus. This would let more aggro decks slip into the format. Aggressive non-blue aggro decks that play hatebears for combo, or even Zoo-like aggro decks that play some hatebears and/or burn and/or discard that can present a fast clock for combo decks backed up by some light disruption. These types of decks are basically completely squeezed out of the format by Miracles Counter-Top + Terminus plan.

[Finn]

Health and Diversity have to do with the range of deck archetypes, a healthy meta will contain a decent % of each of combo, control, and aggro decks. and it will have multiple decks (strategies) in each category. meaning there are multiple distinct decks. Most of them using the 2 best support cards in the format (BS and Ponder) has little to do with diversity as they are strictly support, and not how the deck wins.

You are equating Diversity with color balance but they are not the same (from my experience allot of the player base misunderstands and miss uses terms, "fair" being the worst example of a term the player base uses for something other then what it actually means), and while blue is the most played color, every color is playable. Color diversity is the worst stat to lok at for the health of a format, because it leads to looking at goodcard.decks decks that follow the same basic game plan with a different set of cards and slight alterations between them, and saying that the format is healthy and diverse because the colors are playable, even though the level of strategy and play-style diversity of the format is horrible.

I love people presenting their opinions as fact. Good thing we have someone here to set us all straight on these ideas and definitions.

Health and Diversity have to do with the range of viable tactics, a healthy meta will contain a decent % of each of combo, control, and aggro decks. and it will have multiple decks (strategies) in each category. meaning there are multiple distinct decks. Most of them using the 2 best support cards in the format (BS and Ponder) has everything to do with lack of diversity in fundamental deck composition , regardless of how the deck wins.

You are equating Diversity with different win conditions but they are not the same (from my experience allot of the player base misunderstands and miss uses terms, "diversity" being the worst example of a term the player base uses for something other then what it actually means), and while every color is playable, blue is by far the most prominent feature of winning decks. Win condition is the worst stat to lok at for the health of Legacy, since the tactics to get there are largely the same across decks that follow the same basic game plan with a different set of cards and slight alterations between them, and saying that the format is healthy and diverse because the support colors are playable, even though the level of tactics and play-style diversity of the format is horrible.

[sdematt]

I think that if you think SDT is the problem with the format at large, you may be a little off. I understand your point on tournament draws and such, but I encourage you to play more games against more decks. The Ponder build is far less derdly, as well.

-Matt

[MGB]

I think that if you think SDT is the problem with the format at large, you may be a little off. I understand your point on tournament draws and such, but I encourage you to play more games against more decks. The Ponder build is far less derdly, as well.

-Matt

SDT isn't the only problem with the format, but it offers very little for anybody but the core group of Miracles pilots. Even hardcore control fanatics would still have plenty of blue control decks to play in the absence of SDT. I am all for diversity and fun - SDT adds very little fun and stifles diversity, and removing it would increase both diversity (in both control and aggro decks) and fun.

[LeoCop 90]

maybe it is my fault because i should explain everything i say extremely deeply in detail, so i will just repeat my opinion here expanding more. I think that a meta where you have to play 4 force of will 4 ponders and 4 brainstorm is not healthy and something should be done, and....

-- Lemnear : obviously i'm aware that not EVERYONE plays 12x of the cards i listed , but ALMOST EVERYONE plays them. this is enough for me to consider legacy a bad format right now

--- Scjmcc : well, i respect your opinion, but please don't speak like it is the only truth. If you are so convinced of your definitions of healthy and balanced, then i won't use this terms at all, i will just say that the format is bad. i hope you won't try and explain me also the exact definition of bad.

[Lemnear]

maybe it is my fault because i should explain everything i say extremely deeply in detail, so i will just repeat my opinion here expanding more. I think that a meta where you have to play 4 force of will 4 ponders and 4 brainstorm is not healthy and something should be done, and....

-- Lemnear : obviously i'm aware that not EVERYONE plays 12x of the cards i listed , but ALMOST EVERYONE plays them. this is enough for me to consider legacy a bad format right now

--- Scjmcc : well, i respect your opinion, but please don't speak like it is the only truth. If you are so convinced of your definitions of healthy and balanced, then i won't use this terms at all, i will just say that the format is bad. i hope you won't try and explain me also the exact definition of bad.

The point is that "this is enough for me to consider legacy a bad format right now" is an honorable, personal opinion, but not a compelling reason for a ban, especially if the sheer tournament attendence hints at the opposite.