Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
How long do you think it will be before the format re-homogenizes around the best choices? More to the point, aren't we just ending up with the same decks with the same structures with the same 4–10 cards switched out for the same 4–10 other cards? What would such a ban accomplish?
I hope I don't sound rude when I say this, but we're back where we started.
It appears you're arguing a separate point here. I agree that a diversity of decks and strategies is key to making Legacy the dreamland I'd always hoped it would be. But that's a substantially different argument from the one you're making about card diversity.
It strikes me that your arguments contradict each other to a point: card diversity does not indicate deck diversity, and enforcing a standard of card diversity doesn't necessarily produce more diverse decks and strategies. (It's worth mentioning that Mental Misstep poses questions about "play-pattern diversity," as does Gitaxian Probe, but that's pretty close to being a non-starter.) It certainly can, but I think you're going out on a limb when you equate the two as you appear to have done in your post.
Time to derail the discussion! Now that all these Chalice decks have stomped half the format into oblivion, Miracles is still Miracles, and Delvers continue to run over anything that gets put in their way, can we admit that banning Probe solved nothing?
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Sorry, Lemnear, I missed your response.
Ah, I see. They make an interesting point, but I agree that that's probably an exaggeration. I agree that it's quite likely that decks would narrow their manabases in the context of a fetch ban, which I personally wouldn't like, but I can see why people might. You're correct that I was assuming you referred to the argument about Moon in Czech Pile, etc., so thanks for clearing that up.
This touches on a point that's been at the back of my mind for a while. There are two possible outcomes to banning Brainstorm (that we know about):
—My big fear: banning Brainstorm neuters blue control decks, ostensibly paving the way for faster combo decks to expand with a relative lack of impediment.
—My other big fear: former "Brainstorm decks" continue trucking along without Brainstorm, ostensibly bringing into question the rationale for banning Brainstorm in the first place.
As a fast-combo enthusiast and a fan of Brainstorm (at the same time!) I don't see how either of those outcomes would accomplish anything. I'm not assuming you're taking either side in this discussion, but just thought I'd throw in my two cents.
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It depends on how neutered you think blue decks would become if such a ban occurred. Historically (maybe a little less than a decade ago) when cantrip shell decks comprised a significantly smaller portion of the meta (~50% compared to the ~75% now or before drs ban, rough estimate), fast combo decks weren't destroying the format as far as I remember. Dredge was maybe played more back then, and ANT was really good until mystical was banned, but considering Maverick was one of the best decks right around that time, fast combo couldn't have been that oppressive. I don't think anyone wants to make blue useless, they just want the gap between blue (or maybe just the cantrip shell in particular) and every other deck/ engine to be not as pronounced. Sure there are probably better solutions, like WOTC printing better card consistency engines in non blue colors, but they don't seem interested in that. The cantrip shell always had consistency, but it didnt always have access to the amount of powerful spells it has now. A combination of printing powerful blue creatures/ spells, and all other colors getting powerful and efficient spells that it can use has really propelled the shell far ahead of any other.
No sweat. Life's more important than a web stranger like me :)
As a former vintage veteran, i have seen the deckbuilding structure with and without the stability of 4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder, especially in context of combo and how the "vintage apocalypse" damaged the format. However, I try to not let that get in the way. I am more concered with how raising prices and a format with one oppressive deck/strategy affected the health of Vintage in the following years and I fear we'll see the same for Legacy at some point. You sure know, I share your enthusiasm towards both things as well, but for the longterm health of the format, I try to remain open for alternative takes.
Its funny that you bring up context and references now, but dismiss both concepts whenever I make a post? How handy.
Also a poor attempt to justify a bunch of false claims you made, like me mentioning "Fetchland" in that post (do we need to discuss the concept of quotation marks?) or "using demonic tutor as comparison" to fetchlands.
I made my personal points several times in the past and other dear users chimed in with their own ideas, criterias and feedback. Who i am to decide which points are relevant for this large and complex topic? I am thankful for every new angle on the matter like the monetary aspects on both sides. My original point didnt even touch the point of what is "too good".
It wasn't my post I was refering to in regards to "generalistic", but no, that's not the post i meant
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Is there a reason Earthcraft is still banned? Would love to understand someone's perspective if they feel it should stay banned.
Same with Mind Twist.
Bant Infi-Squirrels. Can't wait!
There's really only two reasons for Earthcraft to be banned:
1) The combo with Squirrel's Next (this was the original reason it was banned).
2) The possibility of putting Elves over the top.
The first is nothing to worry about. It's a 2-card combo with no redundancy that doesn't do anything until the next turn (unless you have Concordant Crossroads, I guess, which turns it into a 3-card combo). It's just worse than the combos already in the format, certainly worse than Sneak and Show which only has to resolve one of its combo cards and has redundancy.
The second is a little more worrisome, but I'm a bit dubious that it really fits that well into Elves, though perhaps someone better versed with the deck can weigh in on that.
Earthcraft in Elves seems weak. Heritage Druid (and Birchlore Rangers) do a much better job of turning your elves into hasty mana dorks while being cheaper, GSZ targets, and not diluting the deck.
The deck that probably benefits the most is Enchantress, which is still going to be the world's slowest combo deck, Earthcraft or not. A quarter turn faster on average...woo fucking hoo, now it's almost as fast as Solidarity!
The only effect an unban would have is fleecing a bunch of chumps out of their money as they panic buy a la Land Tax or Black vise.
Crossroads or another haste effect doesn't win on the spot. The squirrels need to tap to generate another squirrel.
I know it's original banning was due to the two card combo (see reason worldgorger was banned) but it feels very suboptimal now.
The only interaction I see being viable is as a 2-3 of in enchantress to allow argothian to untap a basic with auras on it or to generate a ton of Mana with opalescence.
Why do people want to reinstate cards that aren't likely to see much use anyway?
I mean, Mind Twist seems cool in Dredge, but it still gets countered, and that deck doesn't really want Dark Rituals.
I guess it pitches to Unmask.
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Frantic Search being banned is another more laughable one.
Like compare the "power" of Frantic Search to any of these cards:
Brainstorm
Ponder
Faithless Looting
Which seems bannable on power level? the 3 mana one that's card disadvantage and needs a build around to do anything special? lololol
Requiring to build around has never stopped a card from being banned. With this reasoning you would unban oath of druids, yaugmoth's will, mind's desire, windfall...
I played the card about ten years ago in peasant high tide and it was insane. Filtering + producing mana is exactly what you want. No one can say if the metagame could handle it, but for sure it would be really, really strong. In the high tide deck it would probably be better than brainstorm. Definitely superior to ponder.
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I can.
- Frantic Search is still bad pre-combo. Spira Tide does not really want to cast a -1 card when looking for gas. Therefore it would be a combo-card. It's not like Spiral Tide would have access to an extra xerox.
- Frantic Search would be very good when comboing: it's basically a better candelabra/turnabout. Spiral Tide would be more consistant in comboing off T3, with less fizzle chances, and that would put the deck a better spot in the meta.
- However, we already have at least one t3 consistant storm deck (ANT). It's been there for a decade and the metagame has managed to handle that just fine.
- Also, we already have at least one t1-t2 storm deck (TES). The metagame handles that too.
- Lastly, we already have a consistant T3 blue-centered combo deck (omnitell) that works in a more efficient way and requires less calculations and unnecessary interactions than spiral tide does, and we're not seeing 3-4 omnishow per top8.
The only reason why Frantic Search is staying banned is because people want to keep playing their candelabras
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