All B/R update speculation.

[Backseat_Critic]

You suggest reverting the format back to Miracles vs Deathrite+Decay once again which has shown for 4 years that it's toxic? Miracles has put 2 people into a GP Top8 recently afaik, so how do you justify that it needs a boost?

To be honest, top would definitely give miracles a boost, but I don't think the gap is even as big as everyone thought when it was banned. Even before the top ban, miracles was moving toward a more cantrip heavy build. If other decks get new toys too, I think it may even or some. Also, terminus survival/vengevine will pretty ll prey on terminus.

Like I said, I don't know if this would be good for the format. Just a theorycraft for discussion.

[DarthVicious]

Hi all,

I'm no legacy expert, but ...

My idea would sound mostly crazy, but ...

Here's what I'd propose:

Ban:
Nothing

Unban:
Sensei's Divining Top
Survival of the Fittest
Mind Twist
Frantic Search
Goblin Recruiter
Earthcraft

Maybe Unban:
Dig through Time
Mana Drain
Mystical Tutor
Yawgmoth's Bargain

Longshot Unbans:
Balance
Gush
Tinker

The chances of this happening is not likely, and it just might completely break the format.

I'll admit I never saw Gush in action in a competitive format, so I have no comment there, but those other two longshots are never coming off the list. I do remember Gush enabled the 'other Forces' though, but 12-16 available free counterspells sounds like too much to me. (The 'other Forces' being Foil and Thwart, not to mention Daze)

Neither are any of the maybes ever coming off. I knew they'd ban Mystical when I was playing AnT, I Mystical'd for AdN and cast it in my draw step, opponent Mystical'd for Force and brainstormed into it. If Bargain ever comes off the list... well... I got a few ideas that'd get it banned right away again. Dig and Drain are way too much.

I'm glad the stupidness that was CounterTop is no more, good riddance. I would've also been glad to see Terminus go instead.
The rest... might be ok.

Banning DRS with all the answers printed available for it seems harsh... but what I'm hoping for a B&R update is this:
Legacy: True-Name Nemesis is banned. The lack of interactivity it creates in games is not in line with what we want to see in competitive formats, combined with the lack of solid answers to a resolved mini-Progenitus in nonblack decks. We realize it only has one toughness, and isn't completely destroying the format by itself, but it was created with a multiplayer format in mind, with the intent on forcing political decisions and player interaction on a social level. It has accomplished the opposite of this in duel formats, almost forcing players to twist and contort their decks to deal with it, at the cost of ruining the entire experience.

What I'm expecting for a B&R update:
Legacy: No changes.

[niv]

I personally would be really happy to see a Legacy B/R update like:
BAN:
True-Name Nemesis
Delver of Secrets
Terminus

UNBAN:
Sensei's Divining Top
Earthcraft
Mind Twist
Goblin Recruiter
Frantic Search

Possible future unbans in this hypothetical:
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Survival of the Fittest

This is quite similar to Backseat_Critic's list, but I'd like to at least try to explain why I think this is a good idea (not that it will ever happen, but I digress).

tl;dr: I feel the above 3 cards to be hypothetically banned are too mana efficient in many ways, and I feel the format wouldn't be worse off without them. Of the 5 cards to be unbanned, 4 have been on the list for quite some time, and I feel the format is simply more efficient than when they were banned, and they wouldn't cause problems. 1 is an exchange for terminus that I feel is simply a much more interesting card and has many more applications in decks. Possible unbans are cards I feel might be a bit too much due to how much the 3 bans would likely shift the format.

TNN/Delver bans:
I really dislike the absolute raw efficiency of these cards...and the fact that simply some of the best aggressive creatures ever printed are now blue and not red/green is somewhat astonishing.
On True Name Nemesis:
The lack of proper interaction* with TNN is extremely disappointing, and really just feels like the best thing to be doing at 3 mana turn 2 since there's not terribly much your opponent you can do about it. I do, in some ways, like the pressure it puts on an opponent to do something about it (this kind of pressure makes for very interesting games in my opinion), but most typical removal does nothing to it, so it feels very lopsided to me. I feel like the fact that Sword of Fire and Ice has seen an uptick in play partially because of this card is notable (However, it's likely that's not the only reason it's played).
Delver:
I simply think it's just too efficient at what it does. It's possibly the best aggressive creature ever printed. Indeed, the condition to flip imposes quite some deckbuilding constrants at the first look, but I feel it's interesting to compare decks like Grixis delver to, say, Burn:
GP Trial - April 7, 2018
There is a burn list and a grixis delver list. Burn has less creatures (-1) and more instants and sorceries (+2) than the delver list...This might not mean much, but I think it's an interesting comparison, considering both are decks that could easily be considered quite aggressive. Maybe the 'constraint' to flip delver really isn't much of a deckbuilding consideration at all? Nay, maybe the best kind of decks already lend themselves to such a list that will already be able to flip delver without much issue?
I feel like that getting rid of these cards would pull some of the aggressive power away from blue, and hopefully cut some of the mana efficiency of the format away
Terminus:
Simply put, a sweeper at that doesn't even put creatures into the yard feels far too strong. Of course, it must be drawn to be cast for that cost, but there is so much deck manipulation that it never seemed to be much of an issue. I'm going to simply use the 'Too mana efficient' argument here, as I don't think under any conditions should a control deck be able to sweep the board for .

*: Really, the only things that get rid of TNN are boardwipes (Terminus or Wrath of God types, of which WoG is not really played) or global -x/-x effects...or really strange stuff like Drop of Honey/Porphyry Nodes/Council's Judgement. First of all, my problem with Sweeper and -x/-xs are that they are complete parity...If you were ahead on board, the opponent can simply drop a TNN and suddenly block your best creature for free until they can find an answer. The only way to get rid of it, then, is possibly to harm your own board.
With the last category, these cards are extremely rare...Not in literal scarcity, but simply cards that choose permanents and remove them are simply not printed often, and when they are it's rare that they're even played. Hell, Drop is really only played BECAUSE of TNN (to some extent leovold as well, but not nearly as much). CJ is the only other card that really sees play in this category that removes it, but it's mana parity at that point, which really isn't where you want to be with an otherwise vanilla 3/1.
Hopefully this explains my positions on these thoroughly. I'm sure it will be easy for many to poke holes in them if anyone bothers reading this, but what it comes down to is:
I simply think the format is too mana efficient. I feel the format would be better, in my opinion, if we could tune it back a notch on this axis. There are already a great many of viable decks and archetypes, but there is always room for improvement, right?

Unbanned stuff:
I honestly don't have as much to say on these as the above, but here goes:
Sensei's Divining Top:
Not nearly as bad without Terminus. Counterbalance was a thing in legacy for quite some time before it. I know wizards generally likes to ban enablers (and they had an easy 'causes matches to go to time' excuse handy), but I really liked how this card glued a lot of silly decks together.
Earthcraft:
Been on the banlist since the format's inception if I'm not mistaken. For all intents and purposes, I think [card]Cryptolith Rite[/card] is simply a better version of it that doesn't make infinite squirrels...
Mind Twist
Antiquated at this point, very likely that unbanning this would do much. I think the format can handle this one.
Goblin Recruiter
Again, I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that this was banned due to time constraints? If not, I apologize, but I don't think I put the crux of my argument on this fact, anyhow.
I simply think it's not even necessary to 'stack your deck' with this card in goblins, honestly. I just feel that it would give the deck a little push to compete with the efficiency of the format nowadays.
Frantic Search

Possible unbans in the future in this hypothetical:
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Simply a (much) better ad nauseam, in many ways. I've commented on this in the past here, but I think that it might be just a little bit risky to pull off since it's not like storm style decks are in a horrible place or anything. I think it would be fun, and wouldn't be at all back-breaking to the format at large. I don't think the push it gives to storm decks would be enough to put it 'over the edge' in the current meta, but in this hypothetical scenario (With the above three cards banned) it might be a little too much.
Survival of the Fittest
Same as the above, really I think nowadays it might not be too bad (creatures overall are much stronger, but answers to permanents such as these are very strong also), but in this hypothetical it might warrant some waiting to see how creature decks shape up after loosing aggressive tools such as Delver and TNN.

This is a very long post, so I wouldn't be too surprised if no one cared to read it, but my main argument is in the tl;dr above.

What do you think?

[Megadeus]

When was the last time we had a legacy grand Prix have something like this?

"There were 13 players who finished the day undefeated, with eight archetypes that break down as follows:

3 Bogles
2 Humans
2 Affinity
2 Mardu Pyromancer
1 Hollow One
1 Burn
1 Jund
1 Red-Green Tron"
All very different archetypes with different engines and win conditions. It's hilarious how legacy has so many more thousand cards available and yet it's so much less diverse

[grimfield]

I think Mana Drain should be unbanned to foster more actual control, rather than midrange or tempo decks. WOTC reprinting it makes me think they have entertained this possibility. Yeah, it's a strong card; however, the average CMC of spells in legacy is quite low.

Counterspell is played only in passing, sometimes SB. Allowing control decks to turbo out their Jace or Auriok Salvagers (my biased preference haha) would be cool. I might even play Consecrated Sphinx in my deck, though probably not because it dies to REB. Drain is hardly played in Vintage! I'm old and I don't really like having to use creatures in my control deck to win. I would prefer Mishra's Factory beatdown or a morphling/baneslayer style card.

[Lord Seth]

Earthcraft:
Been on the banlist since the format's inception if I'm not mistaken. For all intents and purposes, I think [card]Cryptolith Rite[/card] is simply a better version of it that doesn't make infinite squirrels...

I don't disagree that Earthcraft would be perfectly fine to unban (Squirrelcraft is fairly mediocre by modern combo Standards, and the main deck it could benefit--Enchantress--is Tier 4 right now), but even setting aside the combo potential, it's better than Cryptolith Rite for two major reasons:
1) In Earthcraft, Earthcraft is tapping the creature, whereas Cryptolith Rite requires the creature to tap itself. This is important because it means that (excluding creatures with haste), Earthcraft can be used with a creature the turn it's played whereas Cryptolith Rite requires you to wait a turn.
2) Enchantress, the main deck Earthcraft would see play in, plays Abundant Growth and Wild Growth, which combine significantly better with Earthcraft than Cryptolith Rite.

[Lemnear]

I'll admit I never saw Gush in action in a competitive format, so I have no comment there, but those other two longshots are never coming off the list. I do remember Gush enabled the 'other Forces' though, but 12-16 available free counterspells sounds like too much to me. (The 'other Forces' being Foil and Thwart, not to mention Daze)

The point about Gush is that Delver and other decks with low landcounts can enter their turn 3 with 2 lands in play and none in hand, float 2, Gush to draw two cards and then replay one of the lands. It reads:

0 mana - draw 2 cards, add one mana any of your Island cards can produce to your mana pool.

Of course it gets even more stupid with the likes of Fastbond, Exploration and the likes of Regrowth, Merchant Scroll, etc

[Crimhead]

What exactly do you mean by "true combo decks"? What makes deck like Scapeshift or Storm in Modern not "true" combo decks?

I mean deck that must go off to win. In Legacy, ST or Storm must combo to win; where Elves or Lands don't have to and are considered hybrid combo decks.

I would figure in order for such a deck to be relevant, it would need to gold fish faster than the midrange and aggro decks. Otherwise they can lose a footrace or via disruption. When these decks are allowed to be fast, they have an interesting impact on the meta because they force even the most aggressive fair decks to play "control"

AFAIK Modern, those decks fit my definition of "true combo". I didn't realise they were actually good, though! If I were to ever play Modern, Scapeshift is totally the deck I'd choose.

Modern doesn't really have a Tier 1 prison deck, true. Some have argued that Lantern Control is actually a much better deck than its Tier 2 status would indicate (after all, "tiers" aren't really measures of strength, but of results, which is a combination of strength and popularity), though.

I totally get that about tiers. Lantern sounds like the real deal (and if it remain unpopular it may never get hit with the hammer).

Still, counting it as Tier 2, stop and consider what the Tier 1 prison deck in Legacy is: Death & Taxes. I won't argue it's not technically a prison deck, but it's hardly what comes to mind when someone says "prison deck." In terms of more classic ideas of a prison deck, I feel like Lantern Control is higher tier than any "classic" prison deck in Legacy. Also, while 8Rack is fairly fringe, Ponza's actually become pretty good lately thanks to Bloodbraid Elf.

I would argue D&T is aggro/prison hybrid. In essence, it feels like a cross between Geddon Stacks and white Weenie-Geddon. I do consider Lands tier-1 as well. It's also less popular, but dollars-to-doughnuts says it's actually overrepresented at the top tables. RG Lands I consider a combo/prison hybrid, but blue lists with EE, Crucible, and fewer "combo" lands certainly lean more towards prison. So Legacy lacks a classic prison deck, but does have prisony options.

And if we want to pull the "where is the Tier 1 <insert archetype here>?" question, then where is the Tier 1 aggro deck in Legacy?

Touché! Some say Eldrazi plays like Zoo, but I feel the reliance on ramp pieces makes "Stompy" a unique style. Fish puts up numbers occasionally. It looks tier-2, but also suffers from lack of popularity (and some consider it more Tempo - especially Daze builds). I tend to think Burn is a lot better than the numbers suggest (lack of skilled pilots), but I actually agree that a lack of linear aggro is the biggest gap in the Legacy meta.

"Weird" is far too vague of a term for me to respond properly. But if we're just talking combo, then yeah, there's Scapeshift, Storm, Krark-Clan Ironworks. If we want to talk about something that's not really combo but is just weird in a more general sense, there's Lantern Control and Hollow One.

The weirdest decks in Legacy are Dredge (which doesn't cast spells) and Lands (which wins with lands and mostly only plays enablers). But I meant anything that throws a wrench in the game for "normal" decks and forces a different approach to strategy. These would tend to be fast combo or denial decks.

Modern certainly sounds like it's come a long way from the "midrange" format of which it once bore the stigma. I do have a hard time understanding how a turn-4 combo deck can be good though.

[Crimhead]

The point about Gush is that Delver and other decks with low landcounts can enter their turn 3 with 2 lands in play and none in hand, float 2, Gush to draw two cards and then replay one of the lands. It reads:

0 mana - draw 2 cards, add one mana any of your Island cards can produce to your mana pool.

Or,

0 mana - Counter target ability activated by a permanent named Wasteland or Rishadin Port, draw 2 cards.

[Lemnear]

Or,

0 mana - Counter target ability activated by a permanent named Wasteland or Rishadin Port, draw 2 cards.

In Legacy, absolutely.

And again, I wonder why we talk about Gush, SDT & Co in this thread atm, as if the top decks wouldn't just get stronger.

[kinda]

When was the last time we had a legacy grand Prix have something like this?

"There were 13 players who finished the day undefeated, with eight archetypes that break down as follows:

3 Bogles
2 Humans
2 Affinity
2 Mardu Pyromancer
1 Hollow One
1 Burn
1 Jund
1 Red-Green Tron"
All very different archetypes with different engines and win conditions. It's hilarious how legacy has so many more thousand cards available and yet it's so much less diverse

As long as brainstorm + ponder + fow + more cantrips and protection + some win cons.deck is by far the best deck we won't get this diversity. It'll just be this deck and thalia and chalice and glass cannon combo.

[DarthVicious]

The point about Gush is that Delver and other decks with low landcounts can enter their turn 3 with 2 lands in play and none in hand, float 2, Gush to draw two cards and then replay one of the lands. It reads:

0 mana - draw 2 cards, add one mana any of your Island cards can produce to your mana pool.

Of course it gets even more stupid with the likes of Fastbond, Exploration and the likes of Regrowth, Merchant Scroll, etc

Allowing them to play around things like Choke and Winter Orb also. Gush is too many tricks in one barrel.

[Megadeus]

As long as brainstorm + ponder + fow + more cantrips and protection + some win cons.deck is by far the best deck we won't get this diversity. It'll just be this deck and thalia and chalice and glass cannon combo.

Sad but true. We should just rename legacy "Magic: The Gathering Blue Edition"

If people just want to watch each other jerk off with cantrips every single round I guess that's fine

[Crimhead]

...we won't get this diversity.

Looking at individual top-8s invites a lot of randomness. If we look at the last 4 major events, we see top-8s for:

- Crisis Tempo
- Elves
- Miracles
- Eldrazi Stompy
- Lands
- Dragon Stompy
- Storm
- Death blade
- Miracles
- S&T
- Leo-BUG
- Czech
- Maverick

If you don't see diversity there, you aren't looking.

...brainstorm + ponder + fow + more cantrips and protection + some win cons.deck...

The most tired mantra of this thread.

If our analysis of archetypes is so superficial we can see Miracles, ANT, Delver, etc, as a a single deck, we will never experience diversity. MTG is a collectable game, but it's also a strategy game. Try looking at decks as not a collection of cards, but as a range of strategic options. Big difference.

[Cartesian]

Birds are characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. As long as this is by far the best type of bird we won't get diversity in birds. It'll just be this bird.

[Rascalyote]

Birds are characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. As long as this is by far the best type of bird we won't get diversity in birds. It'll just be this bird.

I'm sick of penguins being tier 2, they should have flying!!!

[non-inflammable]

Try looking at MY decks as not a collection of BRAINSTORM cards, but as a range of BLUE strategic options.

Don't be a shill for brainstorm...


collateral damage protecting the "pillar" of the format:

Sensei's Divining Top
12-Post
Doomsday
Painter
Old Miracles?

anyone else want to add to this list, go ahead...

[Crimhead]

Birds are characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. As long as this is by far the best type of bird we won't get diversity in birds. It'll just be this bird.

Sure, we got penguins, emu, songbirds, owls, and everything in between.
We also have an alligator, a Whale, a human, and a hive of killer bees.

But until we get some four-legged mammals, I do not acknowledge diversity. I want my favourite pet, damn-it! Not these f'ing "specialty" animals.

[Crimhead]

Try looking at MY decks as not a collection of BRAINSTORM cards, but as a range of BLUE strategic options.

• Strategies are not colour-coded. Jund and Shardless use essentially the same strayegies. Only the tactics vary a little.
• My deck doesn't cast BS or any other blue spells. So kindly address my ideas rather than attacking my (fabricated) motivations. Cool?
  Edit - funny how different Legacy looks if you actually enjoy any of the various non-cantrip decks...

[Watersaw]

Looking at individual top-8s invites a lot of randomness. If we look at the last 4 major events, we see top-8s for:

- Crisis Tempo
- Elves
- Miracles
- Eldrazi Stompy
- Lands
- Dragon Stompy
- Storm
- Death blade
- Miracles
- S&T
- Leo-BUG
- Czech
- Maverick

If you don't see diversity there, you aren't looking.



The most tired mantra of this thread.

Not to be pedantic, but this is one event vs 4. (it's also 13 decks vs. what 32?). And even looking at the engines we see
Cantrip engine
GSZ
8 Tombs
Loam
4 total between the 13 archetypes. 8 of them use the cantrip engine, and half of those could be classified as goodstuff piles (Maverick is the loan goodstuff deck that doesn't play it, and the only non-cantrip deck that doesn't have a way to end the game as early as turn 2). Frankly the mantra is tired because time and again it's proven true, cantrips win games.
Meanwhile when I look at the single Modern event (which, as a GP should theoretically filter out the bad decks and pilots ) I see a clear difference in how they win as well as how they execute their plan.

And if people complain that Chalice decks aren't consistent enough, why don't they run more Serum Powders?

Hang on. This is getting off topic but isn't there some real logic to this? Not even just Chalice decks; if we accept that most games are decided turn 3 then having better starting 7's across the board should translate to better results, even if every 15th card is a brick. Hell you can even Brainstorm+fetch it away if you need to.