Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
All I can say is that I'm so glad that SDT was banned. The Legacy metagame, even though it's still predominantly blue, is still better and more diverse than it was with Miracles running the format. People still play Miracles, but now it's Just Another Decent Blue deck instead of being the best blue deck in the format by far.
And paper tournaments are SO much faster. No more waiting for 6-7 Miracles players to finish their matches EVERY SINGLE ROUND. Now we actually finish rounds in a big tournaments with time to spare!
- 'Pathy' on MTGO
- Eastern PA player
I disagree with top being the right ban, but I do think Legacy is diverse at the moment (though it was before the top banning, too).
I think this is inaccurate, or at least overstated. I have not perceived any real difference in round length post-miracles banning, and certainly haven't encountered rounds where no one goes to time (one match in turns is enough to delay the round, miracles or not, which is why I always found this accusation against miracles in particular dubious).
The only major event that I've played in since Top got banned was Eternal Weekend, but I did not notice a difference in round times. Every round went about 15 minutes over, which felt about the same as when Top was legal. I have no doubt that less rounds went to time, but it only takes one.
Rounds are always going to go to time, certainly as long as people are rewarded for playing piles of battlefield kill spells and discard. As far as U/W do-nothing decks go, CB is still the better ban than SDT - but it should now be more readily apparent that any kind of opponent (combo, control, or aggro) that they should generally concede to double Library of Alexandria, once assembled (JTMS + Azcanta), whereas CB generates dumb gamestates of "I can still topdeck Decay, and pretend it'll matter against ever worsening odds each time Decay topdeck doesn't come."
Rounds going to time is generally the fault of Hymn (Shardless/Czech) and Snapcaster (U/W)....still only takes 1 game to delay rounds (or a long judge call, potentially including an appeal); this isn't a problem you can really ban away by hitting the main culprits. The only thing that made SDT a reasonable ban on the grounds of delaying rounds was the ethical issue of floating a win with ETA endlessly to win g1 and force a draw g2 - this again only worked b/c the opponent is locked out by CB.
Since the glaring ethical issue has been dealt with, the highest yield way to reduce round times is probably a policy of running more events at comp REL or defining a cap beyond which comp REL must be enforced (like say 17+)...at least then there will be a higher chance that both players and judges will be better equipped to quickly resolve issues and cut down on extension times. Not that most legacy players really care, but that policy could instead be to double PW points for any event past 'x' size where comp REL was enforced.
Straight up: No
CB is no lock without a reusable tool to manipulate the top of your deck, which is part of the reason they chopped SDT instead of CB. The main issue with SDT wasn't floating wincons or extending your hand by essentially 3 cards, but the whole...
EoT Top, look at top 3 cards, tank, rearange, put the 3 cards back, untap, draw, activate Top, look at top 3 cards, tank, rearange, put the 3 cards back, drop fetch, crack fetch, search for land, (pile) shuffle, activate Top, look at top 3 cards, tank, rearange, put the 3 cards back, pass...
... which is repeditive and legal way of easily stalling 5min out of every turn.
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So here's the thing about CB and SDT, one of the cards is broken (CB) and the other is the enabler (SDT). The power of those two is way too high together and there was a very real ethical problem of floating wincons to intentionally go to time forcing a 1-0-1 result. There is no other deck that went to time spamming SDT activations as a systemic problem, because you don't have much reason to unless you're sitting behind CB. Now when you talk about which one do you ban, the only reason to hit SDT over CB is ethics b/c it's clearly not the one that needs banned on power level grounds.
In the greater scheme of legacy, discard in non-combo decks and decks sitting behind battefield kill spells are the main culprits of rounds going past time b/c the intent of these cards is to deliberately delay games without providing intent to win in a timely fashion. SDT by itself (no CB) punishes discard as a strategy - this shortens games; you have to take that into account as well with SDT's design. It's not a well-designed card, but like delve spells, it disincentives Hymn bullcrap.
Now it was possible to play like a total scumbag and deliberately try to waste time with completely unnecessary SDT activations, but you still have to actually play to win at least one game to get rewarded for that kind of crap and also dodge slow play calls - the thing is though, that's not a recipe for success unless you can hide behind the infinite turns provided by Counterbalance. Floating wincons with the impunity only a card like CB can provide made that ethical problem a winning strategy going into any event - if banning SDT only stopped one thing, it was this: rewarding players for deliberately pursuing a [winning] strategy of forcing rounds to go over time.
Last edited by Fox; 11-07-2017 at 12:23 PM.
My experience with legacy is that round times have always taken a while, with or without top. This includes 8 man events with storm and high tide.
I’ve also noticed legacy tends to be full of codgy old fucks who can’t be bothered to learn to play faster and hipsters that need 45 seconds to resolve brainstorm but since when do we ever point the finger at the problem around here?
You know, it seems like a golden standard here that rounds going to time is bad, but I actually like it when the rounds take longer to finish (not my rounds, obviously). This gives me more time to use the bathroom, get something to eat/drink, or to at least get a little bit of a mental break before the next match.
EDIT: I'm not saying that rounds going to time is good for the game. I'm saying that I appreciate the extra time between rounds.
Check out my Legacy UBTezz Primer. Chalice of the Void: Keeping Magic Fair.
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Playing since '96. Brief forced break '02-04. Former/Idle Judge since '05. Told Smmenen to play faster at Vintage Worlds.
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Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy', as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. This is an idiotic metric.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
I watched Stoneblade/Splinter Twin vs. Eldrazi go to time at the local last Sunday. Therefore, Swords to Plowshares, Endless One, and Brainstorm are ruining the format.
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