All B/R update speculation.

[WashableWater1]

Ban:

Brainstorm
Ponder
Show and Tell
Dark Depths
Griselbrand

Even in the world where this was a change that would lead to a more balanced format, it would kill the format.

most of the debate is not around the same deck, but around the strategy that enables X decks. if you think this is a debate about the individual decks, it's not worth the discussion as most of those cards outside of the cantrips aren't inherently powerful. i think the exceptions are show and tell, infernal tutor, snapcaster mage and terminus.

non-blue decks need to jump through hoops for game plan consistency and mana consistency or for finding singleton cards. with xerox strategies, it becomes significantly easier. (and to a lesser extent how snapcaster mage enables them more.)

some prefer playing those strategies, others prefer to have raw power, and a third prefer to have synergies.

that is the entire debate.

we should really have a separate b/r thread for just brainstorm/ponder. i really liked when discussion about b/r had some different cards involved in it. now it's just a pissing contest about who understands statistics. (it doesn't matter, especially given wotc's view on brainstorm in legacy.)

Your non-blue decks fall into two categories, raw power (i.e. DnT) and tutoring (I.e. elves). These strategies are viable, but there’s a movement to misrepresent the format as them being not even close to viable compared to cantrip based strategies.

[mistercakes]

all decks are viable, given what matchups you have. you can find plenty of reports where someone wins with a non blue deck. most of the time if they aren't playing something that is explicitly good against blue, they just managed to dodge blue most of the day.

if everyone decided they would play blue, i'd be very reluctant to play one of those decks that doesn't explicitly hate on blue.

[Megadeus]

This is a great idea. I used to enjoy this thread, but it's been the same rubbish for the last few years now.

Kind of like legacy in general

[talpa]

We have a decade of data showing that the cantrip shell is the unquestionable king of the format
(...) [blah blah blah]
So the cantrip shell was overperforming relative to its metagame share

No it wasn't and this shows precisely my point.
My data was just a single tournament admittedly, but at least for THIS tournament it shows that when you CAN do the analysis, blue decks DO NOT overperform.
A top 32 presence of 62% when it was 58% of the field means blue decks performed precisely on average. Maybe there is plenty of people who don't understand statistics, variance, error
Your "unquestionable decade of dominance" is your prejudice of blue haters. Either that or misrepresenting on purpose.
Blue is strong. It's not the only strong thing to do in Legacy. Everything has to be "degenerate powerful" to be "competitive playable" in Legacy. Full stop.
And again you haven't defined what you mean with "king of the format": if you want to say "wins more", as I just showed, you have to do that with data which are not only WINNERS METAGAME. If you want to say "everyone plays that" that's another thing that requires different data (which again we have not).
OR.
You blue haters could all start wondering, if your results suck when you play the deck you love, if it's the deck who sucks or you at playing it (love you all <3 maybe it's just you are unlucky)

how about a new thread with: Ban list discussion other than Brainstorm/Ponder/Fetches?

THIS!!! but it would mean close this thread

most of the debate is not around the same deck, but around the strategy that enables *XEROX* decks. if you think this is a debate about the individual decks, it's not worth the discussion

And that's precisely why this thread looks dumb and dumber. Xerox (fixed that for you) isn't a deck, and isn't Survival of the Fittest or Flash.
The debate should be around DIVERSITY, which apparently each of us has a different way of defining.
But I have now accepted that people (here) seem incapable of understanding that if combo, control and aggro control each play a cantrip, that doesn't mean metagame is formed by a single strategy and the play experience feel the same. Again, if you are incapable of understanding the different play experiences, maybe it's not Legacy fault (or blue or xerox) but yours.



Yes I am being (very) harsh.
I don't have decades of data at hand. But I just showed data from one (BIG) tournament that showed:
1) NON BLUE DECKS are played by many people, even if less than blue decks. 60 - 40% I think is acceptable for a "blue" format, don't you?
2) NON BLUE DECKS win EXACTLY the same amount of blue decks in terms both of average points made by the players and top32 conversion.

Now what were the reactions?
- Deniers (LOL - and then THEY speak of understanding statistics)
- Ignorers.

But I am the one who has no rights to make ad hominem against blue haters ^_^

[mistercakes]

pulled some numbers from the last 22 legacy grand prix's. i think i missed 1 deck somewhere

eldrazi
red stompy
grixis delver
lands
delver blade
grixis control
grixis control
miracles
lands
shadow
miracles
rug delver
eldrazi
grixis control
stoneblade
red stompy
grixis delver
grixis delver
mud stompy
dredge
grixis control
grixis delver
czech pile
grixis delver
bug leovold
lands
miracles
grixis delver
czech pile
miracles
maverick
dnt
ur delver
grixis delver
lands
4c control
rug delver
grixis delver
show and tell
True name bug
r/b reanimator
grixis delver
miracles
dnt
bug delver
grixis delver
show and tell
show and tell
miracles
miracles
show and tell
dnt
elves
miracles
storm
infect
miracles
grixis delver
miracles
lands
reanimator
miracles
miracles
storm
miracles
dnt
grixis delver
threshold
grixis delver
shardless
show and tell
lands
ur delver
miracles
reanimator
shardless
ur delver
aluren
shardless
miracles
miracles
infect
junk
grixis delver
grixis delver
lands
junk
miracles
stoneblade
show and tell
storm
rug delver
show and tell
stoneblade
ur delver
stoneblade
infect
storm
miracles
landstill
mud stompy
stoneblade
ur delver
bug delver
miracles
reanimator
miracles
bug delver
deathblade
RW painte
miracles
RWU delver
show and tell
bant
dredge
bug delver
dnt
elves
stoneblade
dnt
rug delver
dnt
rug delver
merfolk
maverick
show and tell
bug delver
stoneblade
jund
jund
rug delver
bug delver
elves
stoneblade
miracles
storm
elves
show and tell
stoneblade
junk
maverick
miracles
miracles
rug delver
stoneblade
rug delver
stoneblade
belcher
maverick
goblins
bombardment
stoneblade
rug delver
maverick
spiral tide
rug delver
dredge
stoneblade
maverick
stoneblade
rug delver
storm
show and tell
bant
R painter
bant countertop
maverick
bant
show and tell
landstill
NO rug
standstill
zoo
merfolk
painter

feel free to do what you want with this list. it's probably worth noting that a lot of the decks only ran 4 brainstorm (no ponder towards the end of this list (excluding rug delver).

takeaway from this is that you should probably play brainstorm/ponder if you want a higher chance of winning. (would still need to know how many people are entering tournaments with these cards for it to be truly useful information, but if 1/2 the players entering are playing blue and 66% of t8's are blue, should then play blue. (this includes sneak and show, storm etc)

[JosefK]

takeaway from this is that you should probably play brainstorm/ponder if you want a higher chance of winning. (would still need to know how many people are entering tournaments with these cards for it to be truly useful information, but if 1/2 the players entering are playing blue and 66% of t8's are blue, should then play blue. (this includes sneak and show, storm etc)

While i probably agree with the conclusion anyways, i don't think this particular data tells us that.
If 50% of the field is blue, 66% of top 8 is blue, that does not infer that a single blue deck has the best conversion rate and thus is the best deck to play.
Extreme example, if the 50% non blue decks include 1% DnT, and DnT is 34% top8, then DnT is probably the best deck.

I do think that blue decks on average is better than non blue. But still there is a lot of blue decks that are worse than say, BReanimator/dredge/depths.
That's why i think it's meaningless to talk about "the blue shell"(unless we are discussing mario kart) instead of individual decks.

[WashableWater1]

No it wasn't and this shows precisely my point.
My data was just a single tournament admittedly, but at least for THIS tournament it shows that when you CAN do the analysis, blue decks DO NOT overperform.
A top 32 presence of 62% when it was 58% of the field means blue decks performed precisely on average. Maybe there is plenty of people who don't understand statistics, variance, error
Your "unquestionable decade of dominance" is your prejudice of blue haters. Either that or misrepresenting on purpose.
Blue is strong. It's not the only strong thing to do in Legacy. Everything has to be "degenerate powerful" to be "competitive playable" in Legacy. Full stop.
And again you haven't defined what you mean with "king of the format": if you want to say "wins more", as I just showed, you have to do that with data which are not only WINNERS METAGAME. If you want to say "everyone plays that" that's another thing that requires different data (which again we have not).
OR.
You blue haters could all start wondering, if your results suck when you play the deck you love, if it's the deck who sucks or you at playing it (love you all <3 maybe it's just you are unlucky)




THIS!!! but it would mean close this thread



And that's precisely why this thread looks dumb and dumber. Xerox (fixed that for you) isn't a deck, and isn't Survival of the Fittest or Flash.
The debate should be around DIVERSITY, which apparently each of us has a different way of defining.
But I have now accepted that people (here) seem incapable of understanding that if combo, control and aggro control each play a cantrip, that doesn't mean metagame is formed by a single strategy and the play experience feel the same. Again, if you are incapable of understanding the different play experiences, maybe it's not Legacy fault (or blue or xerox) but yours.



Yes I am being (very) harsh.
I don't have decades of data at hand. But I just showed data from one (BIG) tournament that showed:
1) NON BLUE DECKS are played by many people, even if less than blue decks. 60 - 40% I think is acceptable for a "blue" format, don't you?
2) NON BLUE DECKS win EXACTLY the same amount of blue decks in terms both of average points made by the players and top32 conversion.

Now what were the reactions?
- Deniers (LOL - and then THEY speak of understanding statistics)
- Ignorers.

But I am the one who has no rights to make ad hominem against blue haters ^_^

In 2-3 color format shouldn’t one expect each color to hover around 40-60% of the field?

[Lemnear]

No it wasn't and this shows precisely my point.
My data was just a single tournament admittedly, but at least for THIS tournament it shows that when you CAN do the analysis, blue decks DO NOT overperform.

As mentioned, several big tournaments in the past have published full metagame data and the result is always the same: Blue top decks overperform every fucking time and i dont really want to nicpick if its UBR or 4c, control or aggro-control, 5% or 20% overperformance.

A top 32 presence of 62% when it was 58% of the field means blue decks performed precisely on average. Maybe there is plenty of people who don't understand statistics, variance, error

As you said, its ONE tournament of many with the T32 blue percentage being higher than its share in the field. We have seen these gap being as big as 24% in the past, as some people may remember being topic in this thread. So if you want to argue that the 4% are neglectable for this case, I won't disagree. I am talking about it being a constant phenomena and the gap partly being absurdly large to the point of being hard to ignore.

Your "unquestionable decade of dominance" is your prejudice of blue haters.

Pal, this is nothing than a hilarious ad homiem targeting someone who knowingly slings cantrips himself. I am an unfitting target for "you're just hating blue!".

Blue is strong. It's not the only strong thing to do in Legacy. Everything has to be "degenerate powerful" to be "competitive playable" in Legacy. Full stop.
And again you haven't defined what you mean with "king of the format": if you want to say "wins more", as I just showed, you have to do that with data which are not only WINNERS METAGAME. If you want to say "everyone plays that" that's another thing that requires different data (which again we have not).

More than half of the format plays blue, most tournament T8 in the last decade are mainly blue, most winning decks are blue, most of the successful non-blue decks prey hard on blue cantrip decks (see: Chalice & other Resistors)

It'd hard to argue that the format is NOT warped around and by Ponder/Brainstorm/Fetchlands/FoW.

You blue haters could all start wondering, if your results suck when you play the deck you love, if it's the deck who sucks or you at playing it (love you all <3 maybe it's just you are unlucky)

Again, this is contributing nothing to the discussion. Its just a mere personal attack to discredit other peoples observations and concerns.

[Zombie]

pulled some numbers from the last 22 legacy grand prix's. i think i missed 1 deck somewhere


feel free to do what you want with this list. it's probably worth noting that a lot of the decks only ran 4 brainstorm (no ponder towards the end of this list (excluding rug delver).

takeaway from this is that you should probably play brainstorm/ponder if you want a higher chance of winning. (would still need to know how many people are entering tournaments with these cards for it to be truly useful information, but if 1/2 the players entering are playing blue and 66% of t8's are blue, should then play blue. (this includes sneak and show, storm etc)

Crunched some numbers:




Notes:
I did not count Brainstorm + 2 Ponders as a Cartel deck
I did not count Ancestral Vision decks as Cartel decks unless they packed a lot of Ponders.
Sylvan Library, Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage, Elvish Visionary and the like are not treated as cantrips.
Lands is classified as an RG-colored Prison/Combo deck. The numbers would be different if we could differentiate RUG control lands and RG Combo lands.
Stoneblade and Standstill decks are probably older, and thus not treated as Cartel decks even if the more recent examples are.
Deathblade decks are not counter as Cartel decks.

Deck counts:
24 miracles
15 grixis delver
14 stoneblade
12 show and tell
11 rug delver
7 maverick
7 dnt
7 lands
6 bug delver
6 storm
5 ur delver
4 elves
4 grixis control
3 shardless
3 junk
3 dredge
3 bant
3 infect
3 reanimator
2 eldrazi
2 red stompy
2 mud stompy
2 landstill
2 merfolk
2 jund
2 czech pile
1 deathblade
1 delver blade
1 shadow
1 bug leovold
1 4c control
1 goblins
1 bombardment
1 True name bug
1 r/b reanimator
1 threshold
1 RWU delver
1 aluren
1 RW painte
1 belcher
1 spiral tide
1 bant countertop
1 R painter
1 NO rug
1 standstill
1 zoo
1 painter

[talpa]

As mentioned, several big tournaments in the past have published full metagame data and the result is always the same: Blue top decks overperform every fucking time and i dont really want to nicpick if its UBR or 4c, control or aggro-control, 5% or 20% overperformance

Actually, how much you suppose they are overperformin is pretty relevant for at least two reason:
- a little overperformance is arguably a problem
- a little overperformance could just be "noise" in the data, as in

the 4% are neglectable for this case, I won't disagree

Glad you finally admitted it.

We have seen these gap being as big as 24% in the past, as some people may remember being topic in this thread. (...) I am talking about it being a constant phenomena and the gap partly being absurdly large to the point of being hard to ignore

I am not following this thread since a decade ago, nor I have re-read it whole. When was this 24% and how long did this "dominance" last?
Because if it was, for example, during the treasure cruise era, I'd say it doesn't mean anything for the Legacy of 2019.

Someone has spoken of trends, saying you should not just look at single data. I'd agree for the second part; except, in order to speak of trends, you should be sure you were speaking of THE SAME THING evolving in time. This is not the case for Legacy. You can hardly say that the format is the same now as it was before shaman and Top ban. Was Miracle overpowered? To me it's clear, it's a tier even after being hit by the ban.
Since the format is "new" potentially after each new print, (potentially even without new sets, just because of rotation of the metagame), and for sure is a new thing after each ban, I really don't care of past comparisons and trends going on for years, except I can understand people feelings, like a subjective perception of "nothing changes"... but it would be nothing more than that, a misguided perception not based on actual facts. If we try to speak of objective things, I consider this Legacy as born just a few months ago with the last ban, and I won't agree of dominance if not shown recent datasets (and since somebody spoke of MTGO, I'd say I'd take into account only paper big events and data that show metagame into top conversion rates).

It'd hard to argue that the format is NOT warped around and by Ponder/Brainstorm/Fetchlands/FoW

Since they are "pillars of the format", and someone (like me) could even say they are the very definition of what Legacy is and should be, definetely I wouldn't find surprising if a clever deckbuilder took this into account when choosing the appropriate list
Personally, while choosing what to play, I take into account just as well the existence of chalice of the void (it would have been the most played "archetype" in my last big event, as I said, if someone was foolish enough to make a big category so rough... almost as rough as speaking of "blue decks"), wasteland, aether vial, natural order, golgari grave troll, terminus, targeted or random discard, reanimate, (blood moon) etc. (to be more clear: I'd say each of these "warps" the format too, they hardly prey upon "blue shells" -even chalice is more preying on the fact that legacy has a low mana curve than on cantrip themselves- and none of them is "blue").

[Mr. Safety]

I feel like i'm watching a creationism debate with this thread. Can we just accept reality, that blue cards are a dominant force in legacy? Complaining about your religious beliefs giving you comfort, while the rest of us live in reality, doesn't help your case.

[Lemnear]

I am not following this thread since a decade ago, nor I have re-read it whole. When was this 24% and how long did this "dominance" last?
Because if it was, for example, during the treasure cruise era, I'd say it doesn't mean anything for the Legacy of 2019.

I mainly analyzed the Miracles era so I took that as the example, but you are free to look at the TC or DRS eras to see if these were able to top these numbers. I think that the TC era with its ~81% Brainstorm penetration won't deliver reliable data because you would pretty much constantly need 32 Brainstorms in a T8 to even gauge any overperformance anymore.

Someone has spoken of trends, saying you should not just look at single data. I'd agree for the second part; except, in order to speak of trends, you should be sure you were speaking of THE SAME THING evolving in time. This is not the case for Legacy. You can hardly say that the format is the same now as it was before shaman and Top ban.

That's the main point of disagreement recently in this thread. It's a point of view to claim that Grixis Control is a totally different deck than 4c Control, but for others who follow the formats development for so many years, notice that most top strategies boil down to the ever same deck core. I dont know if there is a way to build a bridge between these camps. It's a matter of how far you are willing to boil down decks and if it matters to you, if all defining decks of the last decade start with the same set of 20-30 cards, so to speak.

Was Miracle overpowered? To me it's clear, it's a tier even after being hit by the ban.

If you agree on "performance relative to representation over time" being an or outright THE defining parameter, then Miracles was indeed overpowered.

Since the format is "new" potentially after each new print, (potentially even without new sets, just because of rotation of the metagame), and for sure is a new thing after each ban, I really don't care of past comparisons and trends going on for years, except I can understand people feelings, like a subjective perception of "nothing changes"... but it would be nothing more than that, a misguided perception not based on actual facts.

As stated, I don't blame anyone to see change and something new in Grixis from pre-ban to post-ban. For others, these inevitable and ongoing changes are so marginal through all the years, that it's barely worth the buzz, especially if the fundamental core of these decks essentially never changes, not even between aggro-control, control, tempo and combo.

If we try to speak of objective things, I consider this Legacy as born just a few months ago with the last ban, and I won't agree of dominance if not shown recent datasets (and since somebody spoke of MTGO, I'd say I'd take into account only paper big events and data that show metagame into top conversion rates).

Thus we speak of that dominance in regards to years and cores, rather than about decks and timeframes slimmed down to weeks. If we'd be picky with timeframes and metagame changes, we could question all metagame data ever claiming that the meta has not settled down because of a certain ban/expansion/etc. which happened X weeks ago. We cant talk metagame and trends if we dont ignore some of the shakes and focus on the quakes instead.

[Zombie]

Engine counts from mistercakes' listing:

116 Cantrips
13 Knight
11 Redundancy
8 Vial
7 Loam
6 Ancestral/Cascade
4 Elves
4 Oddball
3 Standstill
3 Dredge

All the non-cantrip engines combined (which includes blue Brainstorm decks, mind you, and nonviable nonsense like Goblins and Standstill) add up to 59 lists. That means 34% of the sample overall, and 51% of the total count of cantrip lists. The Brainstorm% of for the sample is 73%.

[Dice_Box]

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you, had an issue on Discord by the name of Wumpas. It is why you can not find and active invite to the Lands channel right now. Sigh.

OK, so the point you're making is that, historically, the DTB months, taken together as a data set, do not support my point?

No, the point I am making is one data point is not useful for holding and defending an argument. But I think we have gotten past this now.

As a counter point, I went through the DTB back to page 4, looking at the four lists I cited as things you could do in Legacy that aren't cantrips or blue (Elves, DnT, Eldrazi, Depths). Here's what I found:

Elves: 16 appearances, made it in every year since 2014, which even includes plenty of months where Sensei's Divining Top was legal
DNT: 35 appearances, made it in every year since 2014
Eldrazi: 20 appearances, notably out of a possible 35 (as February 2016 is as early as we can expect the deck to show up, as that is when Khans is released)
Depths: 4 appearances (this one, I must admit, surprised me, given that the combo and most of the relevant cards for the deck have been available since the m14 rules changes. I will concede that this one is not as storied as the others, but I still contend that it is a perfectly reasonable 75 to bring to a Legacy event.)

I think this clearly supports the notion that Elves, Eldrazi, and especially DnT are legitimate, respectable legacy decks that have no cantrips or blue in them.

Depths got kicked. I did not see that coming. Also I agree its a fine choice if thats what you want to play, but I would not pick it over Grixis.
Elves does not suprise me, I have always said that if you want to play non Blue you need to try and play Demonic Tutor, Recal and Tinker. Elves has all three.
Eldrazi just eats the format. I do not even bother with it anymore, its going to play on its axis and I actually do not like playing the deck. I love playing against it, but not with it. It is the apex of hating out the taget and removing options, but it feels so very basic and brutal. There is no grace to this deck.
DnT is the odd one out and it is in my view the one non Blue deck that you can hold up and say its almost always good. The issue is that again, its a deck that feeds off the Blue shell to win. Its strength comes from attacking a known metagame.

In short I see one deck that is doing its own thing, I see one deck playing 3 Banned cards and I see two decks that feed off Blues dominance in the format. DnT and Eldrazi. I would say they show in bright relief the issue, not themselves being a suggestion against them. We have really only two decks here I feel are "Independent" of Blue. You can say I am moving the goalposts, sure, but the point stands.

Now, I do want to acknowledge some of you point as well - essentially every appearance of these decks also saw the inclusion of Miracles, Grixis, or both.

I want to be clear: I am not saying these decks are better than Miracles or Grixis. I am not saying that Miracles and Grixis are not strong.

What I am saying is, there are certainly things to do in Legacy that aren't blue. Yes, blue is A Thing. But it's not The Only Thing.

Just because a deck comes in and out of the DTB doesn't mean it doesn't have staying power, or isn't a useful consideration for deck selection. ANT came in and out of the DTB almost as much as DnT did, but I still feel good bringing it to tournaments. Just ask CyrusCG.

But this is not the kind of format I quoted, its decks that are Blue and it is suggested decks made to attack Blue. Goblins, Mav and Zoo where not custom built from the ground up to answer RUG for example, but DnT and Eldrazi really kind of are. Its sad thats the world we are in now.

What decks do you want to play against? If you're cleaning house with Lands, the decks are clearly beatable. Why do you think people don't switch? I think as much of it has to do with the relatively high cost of the format as it does Grixis being some sort of unbeatable format breaker.

Honestly, these days I do not know anymore. I would be happy to play 5 rounds against 5 different things if able and not 3 rounds of Blue Midrange. I guess thats my answer? Not much of one I know.

Also, for what it's worth, I would've reported this post and the last one if you weren't already a mod.

Then report me. If you feel I am out of line, and I may be, then send it up the chain. I am not the top of the food chain, you have others you can talk to. Feel free to do so, I don't mind.

I understand statistics just fine, and I don't take shots at you for misspellings/using "adjective" when you mean "objective," etc, because I know what you mean and it doesn't add anything for me to mention it. I know we all employ some hyperbole in this thread, and I know you clearly stated it wasn't a dig specifically at me, but I just wanted to ask that you address the argument charitably.

Then please do not use one data point like that. Its not just you, I have ripped into Lem in the past for this as well when he quoted a SGC with 8 Brainstorm decks. I am not making this argument so I can smack one side over the head and ignore the other. I just really really hate when people do this. Its like nails on a chalkboard to me.

I tried to address the point you were making more specifically above; I was trying to make a point using the current DTB because it's the format we're currently living with, whereas you were making a point about the history of the format. Both are important and worth discussing.

Feel free to make comments about the current meta, but don't wave one post about like its the be all and end all. Like I said, if you look at one post and ignore everything else you can end up thinking Deaths Shadow is the next big thing. That worked out well.

Yuhuuuuu finally even the mods have subscribed to the unpolite mode, if not to the trolling mode.

Mod, I am one Mod. Also man really, you must read almost nothing I post in here. Being a dick is kind of my thing. Lastly, this is what you picked to quote? Come on man, look though shit I have said, this is tame as fuck. Put some effort into your work. Gezz.

So THIS is what all that screaming about "statistics!" actually was about...
It was never a discussion about how anybody can be "scientific", how data can be interpreted. Instead, it was the usual complaint about xerox.

No, it was about using a single data point to make an argument. I have been having issues with this since about 2016 according to my post history and I have had a go at both sides. Its not that I am unwilling to talk, I just hate seeing this done. As I said, I ripped into people when they where using single SCG finishes to make points when those top 8's where all Brainstorm decks. Its the act, not the side, that I have issue with.

non-blue decks need to jump through hoops for game plan consistency and mana consistency or for finding singleton cards. with xerox strategies, it becomes significantly easier. (and to a lesser extent how snapcaster mage enables them more.)

some prefer playing those strategies, others prefer to have raw power, and a third prefer to have synergies.

that is the entire debate.

Yes, for a long time the non Blue decks that did well where all playing some combo of Tinker, Recal and Tutor. Land's and Elves come to mind. That or you have to be hating out the meta. Painter, Moon, DnT or Eldrazi for example. There is almost no or no middle ground. You hit a point where you have to be doing something totally nuts to hold a candle to someone playing 1cmc blue spells and you are still not as consistent.

Deniers (LOL - and then THEY speak of understanding statistics)

Would be nice if the stats where used correctly.


Here is some stats for you all.
We argued for a long time about if Miracles needed to be taken down. But since the printing of the mechanic the deck has only missed DTB status 12 times. Part of that includes after a ban that hit it. 54 months. With a long unbroken stretch save one odd month that nothing happened. 82% of the decks life has been in the DTB section of this site and people still debate if it needed a ban. It was as high as 85% before the ban hit. We are way past being even remotely close to ever agreeing with one another if to some people that is ok. And yet some of you do. I can not understand how.

[Ronald Deuce]

Not going to argue that blue isn't really powerful (EDIT: or that the Miracles problem has been solved), but if more people playing blue than people not playing blue show up to a tournament, it's illogical to say that having more blue decks than nonblue decks in a given top-8 indicates the color's dominance—it just shows that cards in a majority of decks are statistically likely to show up in a majority of the top slots, all other things being equal.

I, for one, play decks with blue cantrips and decks without them. The monetary cost of the blue decks is largely sunk into RL lands that are easily transferrable between aggro/combo, straight-up combo, and control decks, which is why I play multiple decks with the same card-advantage engine. As a corollary, if one were to compare the prices of the decks I play, the blue ones are also the most expensive, though they're nowhere near as expensive as Legacy decks can get. I can't just shell out to build Lands unless I drop everything I'm doing and sell all my cards. I think that's an aspect of this that people are overlooking: you can buy your Underground Seas and your Blood Oceans, or you can buy your Cities of Traitors and your lockpieces, or you can buy your Cradles and your Bayous, but it's really difficult to buy more than one of those things for a lot of people. Why would I buy into decks that have few transferrable cards and that only really afford me the opportunity to build different flavors of Chalice.dec when I could buy cards with greater versatility and play with more widely differing strategies? (This is anecdotal, but I have a friend who plays lots of City of Traitors-Ancient Tomb manabases. He doesn't have Underground Seas for the same reason I don't have Cities and Chalices. It's not a lack of interest: it's a lack of feasibility.)

[WashableWater1]

All attempts to “fix” color balance (I.e. give every color the same metagame share) will be ultimately fruitless. If blues metagame percentage dips too low, fast combo comes and takes over. Have fun playing Jund in a belcher/reanimator meta.

[talpa]

I feel like i'm watching a creationism debate with this thread. Can we just accept reality, that blue cards are a dominant force in legacy? Complaining about your religious beliefs giving you comfort, while the rest of us live in reality, doesn't help your case

Thank you for your very positive post! Just throw name at people, attack some straw man, and don't bother giving some real argument.
I feel exactly the same from the opposite point of view: people just denying reality. Nobody here dared to say blue cards aren't strong. We just point out that there exist plenty of non-blue strategies that are equally strong, too. While it seems there is someone who denies this too.
Legacy is blue, sure. But blue is not the only thing you can do (and win with) in Legacy, simple as that.

Eldrazi just eats the format. DnT is in my view the one non Blue deck that you can hold up, (...) a deck that feeds off the Blue shell to win. Its strength comes from attacking a known metagame.
(...)
In short I see one deck that is doing its own thing, I see one deck playing 3 Banned cards and I see two decks that feed off Blues dominance in the format. DnT and Eldrazi. I would say they show in bright relief the issue, not themselves being a suggestion against them. We have really only two decks here I feel are "Independent" of Blue.

Look, either you think Eldrazi eats the format or you think eats blue.
I, personally, disagree completely with your idea that these decks are tuned against blue in particular. Let's see, Tapping and Destroying every lands of the opponent while Vialing in your creatures works only against blue? Chalice of the Void counters only blue spells, or having a low curve is a feature of the whole format? Doesn't Elves also struggle against Chalice, for example?
So this is where the objective analysis ends and it starts becoming subjective, in my (not so) humble opinion. You have to tune your deck against the metagame, who is (very wide and) not so completely blue that you can disregard everything else. I'll quote myself again:

Personally, while choosing what to play, I [do not consider only cantrips and Fow, but I] take into account just as well the existence of chalice of the void (it would have been the most played "archetype" in my last big event), wasteland, aether vial, natural order, golgari grave troll, terminus, targeted or random discard, reanimate, (blood moon) etc. (to be more clear: I'd say each of these "warps" the format too, they hardly prey upon "blue shells" -even chalice is more preying on the fact that legacy has a low mana curve than on cantrip themselves- and none of them is "blue").

But this is not the kind of format I quoted, its decks that are Blue and it is suggested decks made to attack Blue. Goblins, Mav and Zoo where not custom built from the ground up to answer RUG for example, but DnT and Eldrazi really kind of are. Its sad thats the world we are in now.

This is where we disagree. The point is these decks are not made to attack blue but to attack the metagame. (By the way it was the same with Maverick, it was made to attack Zoo which was the tier 1 of the time). To say they are made to attack blue is the same as saying the whole metagame is blue (and of course I mean the tournament metagame as a whole, not the winners one). Which I think is proven false without doubt (at least in paper, I don't know on MTGO; and of course different countries can experience different things): you can't confuse the whole metagame with its blue part (even if using a so rough division as blue/nonBlue could have meaning, which I think it has not). Anyway it's a logical fallacy where you assume since the beginning what you should be trying to prove.

Honestly, these days I do not know anymore. I would be happy to play 5 rounds against 5 different things if able and not 3 rounds of Blue Midrange

Another anecdotal evidence (which we all agree is almost no evidence). In my last big event (still referring to the same one as above, we had people coming from all Europe and even some from USA) I played 4 times against "blue decks" and 5 times against non blue decks. A little strange since the probabilities were the opposite (almost 60-40 in favour of blue) but still, this narration that "you always play against blue midrange every turn" is simply false. If the most played deck doesn't reach the 10% of the metagame, you can't even expect to play against it twice.
Oh, and by the way the blue decks I played against were two combos, one Grixis Control and one Grixis Delver. I didn't feel the same play experience, since the strategy you have to employ against each one of them is very different (you can't do the same plays against delver and against control, too). In the last two round of swiss (I ended up in 10th place, by the way) I played against two variations of Eldrazi. During the tournament I played against Dragon Stompy too. If I had to point out a boring experience, is playing against a blood moon turn1 after a mulligan or chalice t1. I would say that was the most recurring experience of the tournament, and also the most boring one (it would be the same as playing against belcher or all spells, i.e. National Coin Flip Championship Experience). Since sometimes there is justice, they still lost

Another one anecdotal evidence, still subjective, but a little more profound in time. I keep track of all my paper tournaments pairings. My "personal" metagame was very different even from what you would expect. The deck I played against the most this year is BUG Delver... isn't this a dead thing? Followed immediately by Turbo Depths, Show and Tell, Grixis Delver, Death and Taxes, Lands. I played almost the same number of matches against each of them, and the metagame % of each one is between 5% and 6% (the first one too is below 7%). I really don't see any recurring string of identical matchup one after the other.

you can end up thinking Deaths Shadow is the next big thing. That worked out well

I think that's a problem of people don't playing it enough. As I said, our data suggests it's one of the best performing decks at the moment. I think it's a matter of people following what's in vogue and/or already having some decks and don't wanting to change (also because of the cost barrier of buying other cards, even tough I think this should be one of the less expensive decks).

Come on man, put some effort into your work. Gezz.

Sorry to disappoint you, I don't think you are so much in my thoughts to spend too much time while trolling. I'd rather spend it for real discussions.

You hit a point where you have to be doing something totally nuts to hold a candle to someone playing 1cmc blue spells and you are still not as consistent.

I already said if you want to be competitive in Legacy you should be doing very powerful, almost ban worthy, things.
In each color, not only blue.
And the part "not as consistent" still has to be proven (if you want to do something that is a little more objective than a personal feeling, which I could even agree with). If by "consistent" you mean "conversion rate from the metagame to the winners", of course. If you mean "as consistent in following the plan the deck was built to", I find difficult to say Elves, BR Reanimator, Eldrazi, Death and Taxes, Lands, Aggro Loam, etc. are less consistent than playing cantrips. They are built with redundancy, and they do some broken things (you yourself compared them to tinker and demonic tutor, I could add that Life From the Loam makes a good approximation for a recurring Ancestral Recall, and Gamble and Crop Rotation aren't so different from Vampiric Tutor; Eldrazi could be compared to Vintage MUD and Aether Vial to the Moxen in the way it cheats the mana).

[talpa]

Double posting since you edited yours after mine above

That's the main point of disagreement recently in this thread. It's a point of view to claim that Grixis Control is a totally different deck than 4c Control, but for others who follow the formats development for so many years, notice that most top strategies boil down to the ever same deck core. I dont know if there is a way to build a bridge between these camps. It's a matter of how far you are willing to boil down decks and if it matters to you, if all defining decks of the last decade start with the same set of 20-30 cards, so to speak.

I think you have highlighted the core of the disagreement. (By the way I am following the format since I started playing again in 2010, and I began playing with Alpha )
I can agree that there is not so much difference between Grixis Control and the previous 4c Control. I would strongly disagree that a core of 20 cards would identify the same deck. You can't boil down Show and Tell, ANT, Miracle and Grixis Control to all playing islands and brainstorms and ponders (and Fow 3 out of 4). And I don't think this is so subjective, I think those who deny this either don't appreciate the (not-so-subtle) differences in play experience with or against each one of them, or they are plainly lying to make their point. They can appreciate different things than play experience (like deckbuilding, which I can't really understand) but they always seem to go a little too far in their saying "it's all the same thing again and again".

Thus we speak of that dominance in regards to years and cores, rather than about decks and timeframes slimmed down to weeks. If we'd be picky with timeframes and metagame changes, we could question all metagame data ever claiming that the meta has not settled down because of a certain ban/expansion/etc. which happened X weeks ago. We cant talk metagame and trends if we dont ignore some of the shakes and focus on the quakes instead.

You have your points. It's simply difficult to draw the line, because on the other hand obviously you can't consider Legacy with or without Treasure Cruise as being the same (and I'd say the same goes for with or without Sensei's Divining Top, and who knows, given enough time I think things will change again).

[Lemnear]

Double posting since you edited yours after mine above

When i made the post i meddled the quoting and didnt check it immediately afterwards, leaving an unreadable post, I had to fix.

I think you have highlighted the core of the disagreement. (By the way I am following the format since I started playing again in 2010, and I began playing with Alpha )
I can agree that there is not so much difference between Grixis Control and the previous 4c Control. I would strongly disagree that a core of 20 cards would identify the same deck. You can't boil down Show and Tell, ANT, Miracle and Grixis Control to all playing islands and brainstorms and ponders (and Fow 3 out of 4). And I don't think this is so subjective, I think those who deny this either don't appreciate the (not-so-subtle) differences in play experience with or against each one of them, or they are plainly lying to make their point. They can appreciate different things than play experience (like deckbuilding, which I can't really understand) but they always seem to go a little too far in their saying "it's all the same thing again and again".

I dont think anyone claims that SnT and Grixis are the same, but after all the years in the format, I can see why and how the usual play procedure of all these decks in the form of "fetch -> ponder -> fetch -> brainstorm -> fetch" while sitting on free counterspells barely differs between combo, control and aggro-control decks and leaves the "similar" taste mourned by players. To go one step further, I can imagine that it barely matters, if you get blown out Turn 3 by Tendrils or Omniscience after 2 turns of cantripping and fetching by your opponent either. Similar applies to the various aggro-control decks in the last years which either dropped a Leovold or TNN (just to close the gap to a previous discussion). Sure there is a difference in deckbuilding and detailed strategy, but how much of an individual identity is really left, if the most important turns of a game is nearly identical for majority of decks? I can't blame people if they feel that this particular deck core creates a very similar early game for most of the successful strategies in the format and over an absurd long time.

You have your points. It's simply difficult to draw the line, because on the other hand obviously you can't consider Legacy with or without Treasure Cruise as being the same (and I'd say the same goes for with or without Sensei's Divining Top, and who knows, given enough time I think things will change again).

I am not disagreeing that there is change caused by quakes like the SDT ban or beginning of the delve era, but cards like TC, DTT, SDT and DRS all only float atop of the ever same shell and earlygame plays. I can merely understand that there is some fatigue of seeing the same sequences 5+ rounds each tournament for years, them being more successful in average as well while also getting a free pass from WotC no matter if a card or core reaches a 81% metagame share, while other cards get banned for ~40%

[porcupinetreeman]

Ban:

Brainstorm
Ponder
Show and Tell
Dark Depths
Griselbrand

Even in the world where this was a change that would lead to a more balanced format, it would kill the format.





Your non-blue decks fall into two categories, raw power (i.e. DnT) and tutoring (I.e. elves). These strategies are viable, but there’s a movement to misrepresent the format as them being not even close to viable compared to cantrip based strategies.

This would not kill the format, it would open it up for more viable decks. Many decks in the new and developmental would be playable.