All B/R update speculation.

[menace13]

Metal Misstep was banned for converging the colours, flash is broken, as is Black Lotus in this format. I don't see your point.

Any card on the list is broken, as in black lotus in this format. I dont see your point.


Flash only had one tournament. In that GP is took 3 top 8s. Banned shortly after. How did we see it is broken? How did the format attempt to adjust? Was it banned because it was too powerful and made the games UNFUN? Couldnt possibly be any correlation to fun and health and balance to a format? Only an idiot wouldnt see this. Why not unban Black Lotus? It's certainly fun to play with, isnt it? Right.

This is much of an I'm casual fun, keep my pet deck good as it is an I'm on crutches keep my pet dominant. Which is to say it isnt.

We're mostly all adults here or not young children. We all compete, we will all play the best deck we can to maximize our chances of winning. What you and Tesz seem to not be able to grasp is No one is even talking about that. It's like, a discussion on cards turns into You dont like it dont play.. Well then unban everything because I like it all, is perfectly reasonable in that regard as an other extreme.

Any argument predicated on the notion that a call for banning means that the people involved are only interested in casual Magic can be and should be dismissed out of hand as ignorant straw-manning.

Their posts aren't the brightest.

[btm10]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault? I could easily be wrong about this, but it seems that current Storm decks are sufficiently color intensive and already stocked on Rituals that they wouldn't be totally thrilled to have an effectively one-shot mana rock/colorless Dark Ritual. For the same reason, I doubt that UB or UBR Tezzeret would run it. That (in my estimation) leaves Affinity and MUD as potential homes for it, and neither of those decks is exactly dominating the metagame. Am I totally off base? Is this just going to result in Affinity ruining everyone? Or would unbanning Vault just make Affinity and MUD more competitive?

[Undomian]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault? I could easily be wrong about this, but it seems that current Storm decks are sufficiently color intensive and already stocked on Rituals that they wouldn't be totally thrilled to have an effectively one-shot mana rock/colorless Dark Ritual. For the same reason, I doubt that UB or UBR Tezzeret would run it. That (in my estimation) leaves Affinity and MUD as potential homes for it, and neither of those decks is exactly dominating the metagame. Am I totally off base? Is this just going to result in Affinity ruining everyone? Or would unbanning Vault just make Affinity and MUD more competitive?

Chalice is also probably just better than Vault in a Tezz build.

[jamis]

My initial thought is that Mana Vault makes a turn one Trinisphere far too easy.

[rufus]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault?...

Reasonable to discuss, sure. Safe to unban? IMO not so much.

The fact that the vault stays in play is a big deal for cards like Goblin Welder or Trash For Treasure. is useful for casting a bunch of strong cards like Goblin Charbelcher,Birthing Pod,Past in Flames, Faith's Reward, Gifts Ungiven, Dream Halls or Empty the Warrens. Heck, it's a fine accelerant to use for Intution or Show and Tell.

Edit: I wonder about the potential of Retract/Hurkyl's Recall with it as an artifact storm engine.

[[SLAYER]chaos]

The problem is in decks that would abuse vault it doesn't have a real drawback. It's just a strict upgrade to Grim Monolith and powers out super broken things on turn 1 at worst, and at best ends the game with belcher or storm fairly easily. Plus I don't think we don't want to go down the vintage route of having turn 1 lodestone golem be a thing that shows up too often.

[btm10]

Reasonable to discuss, sure. Safe to unban? IMO not so much.

The fact that the vault stays in play is a big deal for cards like Goblin Welder or Trash For Treasure. is useful for casting a bunch of strong cards like Goblin Charbelcher,Birthing Pod,Past in Flames, Faith's Reward, Gifts Ungiven, Dream Halls or Empty the Warrens. Heck, it's a fine accelerant to use for Intution or Show and Tell.

Edit: I wonder about the potential of Retract/Hurkyl's Recall with it as an artifact storm engine.

The thing with those cards is that Welder currently doesn't have a home in any major archetype other than Painter, and he's far from broken there. Trash for Treasure isn't played in any deck, as far as I know. It is relevant for Belcher, but Belcher would still be a glass cannon even with Vault, so I'm not sure that it becomes a problem.

I guess it would get played in Show and Tell decks because it's good for both Dream Halls and Sneak Attack, but both of those strategies are already built to be slower than they have to be in order to be more resilient, and I'm not sure that Vault changes that. Gifts Ungiven isn't played at all anymore, nor is Faith's Reward (which I'm not sure was ever widely played in Legacy). So sure, it accelerates two Storm cards, but is it better for Storm decks than Rite of Flame or Dark Ritual? I guess you could build some sort of blue/artifact Storm deck that used Chromatic Sphere for color fixing, but I'm not sure that would be good enough to keep Vault banned.

So there are legitimate concerns, and I think Vault would see play, but I'm not convinced that it's still banworthy. It's not an obvious candidate for unbanning like Black Vise or Earthcraft, but it's debatable like Mind Twist, Mental Misstep, or Survival.

My initial thought is that Mana Vault makes a turn one Trinisphere far too easy.

The thing is that you would need to have two very specific four-ofs (Trinisphere and Vault) and a land to make it work, and then you're not very far ahead unless you led on a Sol land or have one to follow up your first land. The thing that got Trinisphere restricted in Vintage isn't that it could come down on turn 1, it's the fact that a huge proportion of hands out of Workshop decks were capable of dropping Trinisphere on turn 1, basically ending the game there because the acceleration was either cheap, reusable artifact mana (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Moxen) or Shop itself, making the effect even more asymmetric than it otherwise would be. We don't have either of those issues in Legacy, and the decks that are interested in turn 1 Trinisphere aren't being kept out of tier 1 for lack of consistent turn 1 Trinisphere. And this ignores the fact that if you did lead on Sol land, Vault, Trinisphere, you're down 3 cards in hand, and both Sol lands have significant drawbacks from this point, whether it's Wastelanding yourself for your second land drop if you led on City, or having an artifact that pings you every turn in addition to your Ancient Tomb damage.

tl;dr - Turn 1 Land, Trinisphere is way less likely and way more symmetrical in Legacy than it is in Vintage, even with Vault.

Edit: The same argument basically applies to Lodestone Golem, although Lodestone is harder to play on turn 1 (you need to have all of Sol land, Vault, Lodestone in your opener) but leaves you in a much stronger position than Trinisphere.

Chalice is also probably just better than Vault in a Tezz build.

That's probably true.

[iamajellydonut]

The thing is that you would need to have two very specific four-ofs (Trinisphere and Vault) and a land to make it work, and then you're not very far ahead unless you led on a Sol land or have one to follow up your first land.

Edit: The same argument basically applies to Lodestone Golem, although Lodestone is harder to play on turn 1 (you need to have all of Sol land, Vault, Lodestone in your opener) but leaves you in a much stronger position than Trinisphere.

So, what you're saying is that Mana Vault is only absolutely incredible if the deck sees one of eight lands and another card?

[nedleeds]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault?

What? Let's just unban Sol Ring.

You'd be giving dark ritual to every color in addition to making any kind of MUD deck pretty oppressive. Consider that MUD plays Grim Monolith which is a super shitastic Mana Vault. I understand it's utility wanes with a chalice on one which is another goal of MUD. Any sol land and mana vault is LSG. Storm deck would absolutely play it, it's a 1-3 mana ratio. You could probably just storm kill with Hurkyls Recall with 4 x Vault, 4 x LED, 4 x Petal.

How about turn 2 planeswalker of your choice with varying levels of soft counter mana to spare. Island, Mana Vault. Untap Island Tezzeret the Seeker. -1 find another Vault. Trinisphere. Miss my land drop next turn and +1. Cast Karn with Daze backup in case opponent has Spirit guide Spirit Guide Daze.

How about Mana Vault go ... untap Sneak Attack?

All of this is more interesting than Derp Delver. Derp Hoof and Derp Show and Tell but it's still broken.

[HammafistRoob]

All of this is more interesting than Derp Delver. Derp Hoof and Derp Show and Tell but it's still broken.

I don't think you even like Legacy.

[btm10]

So, what you're saying is that Mana Vault is only absolutely incredible if the deck sees one of eight lands and another card?

What? Let's just unban Sol Ring.

You'd be giving dark ritual to every color in addition to making any kind of MUD deck pretty oppressive. Consider that MUD plays Grim Monolith which is a super shitastic Mana Vault. I understand it's utility wanes with a chalice on one which is another goal of MUD. Any sol land and mana vault is LSG. Storm deck would absolutely play it, it's a 1-3 mana ratio. You could probably just storm kill with Hurkyls Recall with 4 x Vault, 4 x LED, 4 x Petal.

How about turn 2 planeswalker of your choice with varying levels of soft counter mana to spare. Island, Mana Vault. Untap Island Tezzeret the Seeker. -1 find another Vault. Trinisphere. Miss my land drop next turn and +1. Cast Karn with Daze backup in case opponent has Spirit guide Spirit Guide Daze.

How about Mana Vault go ... untap Sneak Attack?

All of this is more interesting than Derp Delver. Derp Hoof and Derp Show and Tell but it's still broken.

It is absolutely broken - but we already allow all sorts of broken things in this format. The power level of the plays you described above isn't out of line with reanimating Griselbrand on turn 1 with Daze/Force backup, or Derp Show and Tell, or RUG opening with Land, Delver into blind flip Delver, Waste you, Stifle your fetch. I'm fine with all of this, and I absolutely want more broken things in the format - I just want to it be more interesting broken things. MUD is one of those decks that's tantalizingly close to being on a par with the DTB decks, and it does things that no other deck in the format does. It's not a me-too Stoneforge/Delver/goodstuff deck, so why not give it a boost. It'll put another powerful deck into the top tier at the cost of...being broken on a similar level to everything else. If it pushes a new Storm deck over the edge, sounds good to me.

By all means, start the unbannings with things like Vise and Earthcraft, but is there any point in discussing either of those cards anymore? The holdouts on thinking they're still too good are unlikely to have their minds changed except by having the cards unbanned and seeing that nothing happened.

[rufus]

...
The thing with those cards is that Welder currently doesn't have a home in any major archetype other than Painter, and he's far from broken there. Trash for Treasure isn't played in any deck, as far as I know. It is relevant for Belcher, but Belcher would still be a glass cannon even with Vault, so I'm not sure that it becomes a problem.
...

Mana Vault might fit into Painter's Servant decks. (Or in their sideboard.)

...So there are legitimate concerns, and I think Vault would see play, but I'm not convinced that it's still banworthy. It's not an obvious candidate for unbanning like Black Vise or Earthcraft, but it's debatable like Mind Twist, Mental Misstep, or Survival. ...

Imagine, for a moment, a deck that features

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song

That's getting close to enough to loop Reforge the Soul.

[HrishiQQ]

I don't think you even like Legacy.

If legacy's powerful things are only supposed to be delver or show and derp, sure.

[btm10]

Mana Vault might fit into Painter's Servant decks. (Or in their sideboard.)

...So there are legitimate concerns, and I think Vault would see play, but I'm not convinced that it's still banworthy. It's not an obvious candidate for unbanning like Black Vise or Earthcraft, but it's debatable like Mind Twist, Mental Misstep, or Survival. ...

Imagine, for a moment, a deck that features

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song

That's getting close to enough to loop Reforge the Soul.

I think you're missing the point I made above - I understand that unbanned Mana Vault would enable broken things. I don't think an unbanned Mana Vault would enable things that are more broken than things that are currently part of routine Legacy play. And yeah, it might find its way into Painter.

[jamis]

The thing is that you would need to have two very specific four-ofs (Trinisphere and Vault) and a land to make it work, and then you're not very far ahead unless you led on a Sol land or have one to follow up your first land. The thing that got Trinisphere restricted in Vintage isn't that it could come down on turn 1, it's the fact that a huge proportion of hands out of Workshop decks were capable of dropping Trinisphere on turn 1, basically ending the game there because the acceleration was either cheap, reusable artifact mana (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Moxen) or Shop itself, making the effect even more asymmetric than it otherwise would be. We don't have either of those issues in Legacy, and the decks that are interested in turn 1 Trinisphere aren't being kept out of tier 1 for lack of consistent turn 1 Trinisphere. And this ignores the fact that if you did lead on Sol land, Vault, Trinisphere, you're down 3 cards in hand, and both Sol lands have significant drawbacks from this point, whether it's Wastelanding yourself for your second land drop if you led on City, or having an artifact that pings you every turn in addition to your Ancient Tomb damage.

tl;dr - Turn 1 Land, Trinisphere is way less likely and way more symmetrical in Legacy than it is in Vintage, even with Vault.

Edit: The same argument basically applies to Lodestone Golem, although Lodestone is harder to play on turn 1 (you need to have all of Sol land, Vault, Lodestone in your opener) but leaves you in a much stronger position than Trinisphere.

This is a fair point. I don't think it should be looked at as needing two specific four-ofs in the deck, since these decks are already capable of playing turn one Trinisphere via Grim monolith + Sol Land, or Sol Land and Mox Diamond or whatever. Mana Vault just raises the consistency of this. However, you raise a good point about Land into Vault into Trinisphere being much more symmetrical. You would need to follow up with a turn 2 Sol land to get a double Time Walk from the Trinisphere (and still need something to do with your mana, as well), so maybe it still isn't consistent enough to push such a deck over the edge of what's acceptable.

[Megadeus]

Mana vault is a fairly insane card. I definitely don't think it is safe. Having 7 mana on T2 with Sol lands (more consistently than now), or 5 mana (with color) on T2 is insane. Add in Monolith and you have yourself a fairly consistent insane ramp deck. It would however clash with MUD's Chalice of the Void, but it is probably still worth running. I just don't see this being something safe to un-ban. And like nedleeds said, it may be nutty in storm as well.

[nedleeds]

I don't think you even like Legacy.

I can't stand legacy right now, it's stale as a day old fart.

[iamajellydonut]

However, you raise a good point about Land into Vault into Trinisphere being much more symmetrical. You would need to follow up with a turn 2 Sol land to get a double Time Walk from the Trinisphere (and still need something to do with your mana, as well), so maybe it still isn't consistent enough to push such a deck over the edge of what's acceptable.

Wait, how can Land->Vault->Sphere be considered "meh" when Land->Grim->Sphere is impossible? Power-plays aside, consistency goes through the roof with Vault and there are many times when "unimpressive Sphere" is still incredibly desirable or at the very least better than no Sphere at all.

[btm10]

Wait, how can Land->Vault->Sphere be considered "meh" when Land->Grim->Sphere is impossible? Power-plays aside, consistency goes through the roof with Vault and there are many times when "unimpressive Sphere" is still incredibly desirable or at the very least better than no Sphere at all.

Sol Land, Monolith, Sphere is possible now; it happens with the exact same frequency with which MUD with Vault would open Sol Land, Vault, Lodestone in the hypothetical world where Mana Vault is unbanned. The former clearly isn't enough for MUD to be a dominant strategy, or even a consensus tier 1 deck. The latter is very strong, but is likely the deck's strongest opening. I just don't see the deck being dominant when its most broken starts are only as broken as the most broken starts other top decks are capable of, and objectively weaker than cheating Griselbrand into play, with protection, on turn 2, which is currently allowed.

Mana vault is a fairly insane card. I definitely don't think it is safe. Having 7 mana on T2 with Sol lands (more consistently than now), or 5 mana (with color) on T2 is insane. Add in Monolith and you have yourself a fairly consistent insane ramp deck. It would however clash with MUD's Chalice of the Void, but it is probably still worth running. I just don't see this being something safe to un-ban. And like nedleeds said, it may be nutty in storm as well.

I think it would power MUD up to a point where it's a legitimate tier 1 deck, but I don't see it overwhelming the format. The deck's actual nut draw probably kills on turn 3 by Forgemastering into Blightsteel and having natural Greaves, but it's unlikely that that would happen with any sort of consistency and would be easily disrupted. It's also not like a mono-brown MUD list would run much in the way of draw or manipulation, so 2-for-1s like Ancient Grudge would be exceptionally good at fighting back. And if you say "but [cards]Thirst for Knowledge/cards]...", remember that the more colored spells a deck runs, the worse all of that colorless mana gets. If an unbanning turns a Dack Fayden/ Welder deck into more of a thing, I say we all win.

And if a card simultaneously improves MUD's position and Storm's position, I think that MUD will keep Storm in check.

[iamajellydonut]

Sol Land, Monolith, Sphere is possible now

Sol Land is what you just said. What was previously talked about is "land". Wasteland, Island, Mountland, Glimmerland, Doesn't-Matter-Land, you can cast Trinisphere with Mana Vault. Something you implied was weak, but in actuality is something that you cannot do with Grim Monolith, and something that provides a huge amount of consistency.