All B/R update speculation.

[Crimhead]

Storm, D&T, Elves, and Lands don't run that package. If you don't like FOW and filters, try one of those maybe?

In Legacy I find the diversity to be strategic. I have to radically altered my approach to a game depending on what I am facing - even though many of those decks happen to run counter-magic and some cantrips to smooth out their draws.

[Zombie]

Storm, D&T, Elves, and Lands don't run that package. If you don't like FOW and filters, try one of those maybe?

"If you don't like FoW and filters, actively sabotage yourself over the course of a long event maybe? (except if you chose Storm, which runs half the package)"

[LOLWut]

"If you don't like FoW and filters, actively sabotage yourself over the course of a long event maybe? (except if you chose Storm, which runs half the package)"

Ahhhhh at the notion that Elves and Lands have less consistency tools over a long event compared to decks with blue filters.

Now, if you want to say that having more elite decks with consistency tools without blue filters would be a positive addition to a great format, I'm on board.

[plowshares]

"If you don't like FoW and filters, actively sabotage yourself over the course of a long event maybe? (except if you chose Storm, which runs half the package)"

Elves and lands just got 2nd and 3rd at a 15 round, 500+ person event. I really doubt Jessup and Long registered their decklists expecting to be "sabotaged" by their choices. They chose these decks because they believed they gave them the highest chance of success.

[Quasim0ff]

"If you don't like FoW and filters, actively sabotage yourself over the course of a long event maybe? (except if you chose Storm, which runs half the package)"

That's just nonsense. D&T and Elves are among the most consistent decks in the format.

[Jain_Mor]

Storm, D&T, Elves, and Lands don't run that package. If you don't like FOW and filters, try one of those maybe?

In Legacy I find the diversity to be strategic.

So if I want to be competitive in legacy tournaments, my core deck construction choices are D&T, Elves, Lands or blue FoW+filters?

Wow, that's a wide open format for deck construction. so diverse, four whole distinct deck cores! And one of them even makes up 70% of the format! so it's actually more like:

D&T, Elves, Lands, blue FoW+filters, blue FoW+filters, blue FoW+filters, blue FoW+filters, blue FoW+filters, blue FoW+filters or blue FoW+filters for your deck core deck construction cards. :P

Do I cast this cantrip or THIS cantrip into my threat, FoW his DTT and then DTT to recover,? Now THATs strategic diversity! :)

[Crimhead]

"If you don't like FoW and filters, actively sabotage yourself over the course of a long event maybe? (except if you chose Storm, which runs half the package)"

Storm has a post TC ban win-rate of 51%. Elves is the same, and D&T is very close at 50%. Lands rocks a 63% win-rate! But by all means keep yourself willfully ignorant!

I just don't get it. People want to see top decks without cantrips and FOW, yet they routinely shun such decks!

So if I want to be competitive in legacy tournaments, my core deck construction choices are D&T, Elves, Lands or blue FoW+filters?

MUD has a solid win-rate too. Apparently CotV is good against cantrip decks. Deadguy is at 53% - tied with Miracles.Dredge has a better win-rate than Omnitell.

Do I cast this cantrip or THIS cantrip into my threat, FoW his DTT and then DTT to recover,? Now THATs strategic diversity! :)

If you use the same strategies playing Infect, Miracles, Storm, Omnitell, etc, I don't think you understand this format very well. Keep playing and reading, and you'll discover no end of angles and subtleties which make this format rich.

[LeoCop 90]

Men, no one is arguing that competitive non-blue decks don't exist, but they are extremely few. You don't need to point out that i can play lands elves or death and taxes if i don't like the blue shell .... i know it, i think everyone here knows it, but this doesn't change the fact that almost every deck is blue and runs a lot of the same cards, and anyway non-blue decks are overall worse than blue ones because they can fall victim to variance much more often.

If most of the legacy community is ok with it, so be it. I just think in the long run this will make people quit legacy because they want to play in a format where you can choose between more cards/decks. The last time i said this the answer was that attendance is very high right now so everything is ok.... well, i could also argue that right now, given the fact that also starcitygames almost stopped covering legacy, big legacy events are so few that attendance is obviously high. At least in my area, i am experiencing more and more people heading towards modern.


The best solution is just to ban brainstorm ponder dig through time and probe and make 40 cards legacy decks, so that everyone has access to extreme consistency without having to play the above cards. This is just a joke, but it should make people reflect, because effectively playing all the cantrips is like having a 40 cards deck, that in the end reduces variance to a minimum and makes magic look like chess.

[maharis]

Storm has a post TC ban win-rate of 51%. Elves is the same, and D&T is very close at 50%. Lands rocks a 63% win-rate! But by all means keep yourself willfully ignorant!

I just don't get it. People want to see top decks without cantrips and FOW, yet they routinely shun such decks!

MUD has a solid win-rate too. Apparently CotV is good against cantrip decks. Deadguy is at 53% - tied with Miracles.Dredge has a better win-rate than Omnitell.

If you use the same strategies playing Infect, Miracles, Storm, Omnitell, etc, I don't think you understand this format very well. Keep playing and reading, and you'll discover no end of angles and subtleties which make this format rich.

I see you are using that Reddit data to back up your point. While the project is admirable, the data are far from scientific. If MUD truly had a 63% win rate against the field consistently it would be played more by the pure spikes in the format.

Deadguy at 53% -- well, that's pretty much just Wilkin, right? He is very good and definitely exceeds the average player's results with the deck.

[Spam]

If most of the legacy community is ok with it, so be it. I just think in the long run this will make people quit legacy because they want to play in a format where you can choose between more cards/decks. The last time i said this the answer was that attendance is very high right now so everything is ok.... well, i could also argue that right now, given the fact that also starcitygames almost stopped covering legacy, big legacy events are so few that attendance is obviously high. At least in my area, i am experiencing more and more people heading towards modern.

In the long run the real problem for legacy is money and events.
Cards are reaching ridiculous prices and we don't have many tournaments anymore. In my local area there's always modern tournaments every week, nothing more (only one legacy event per month). Would you really build a legacy deck for a format that we play once in a while? In this few legacy events I'm able to lend some decks and nobody ever complained about casting brainstorm or ponder, not even once; as a matter of fact people were super happy to try something new, something only legacy has, but the problem still lies on money and events, and they're right. Besides, modern is still freaking expensive and people do not change decks all that often as many people claims.

[sjmcc13]

...If MUD truly had a 63% win rate against the field consistently it would be played more by the pure spikes in the format.
...

All most people look at are top8#'s and if a deck wins most matches but sees very little play then it will account for a very small % of those numbers.
Plus most of the articles about the format are more propaganda pieces geared towards selling the pricy cards for the popular decks, which due to their popularity will win more and be played more.
As well If a deck does something people do not like (which any deck that can drop a T1 3sphere falls under) people will be less likely to be willing to play against it outside tournament matches, which can make these decks harder to test and learn as a result. The pure spikes play the deck they feel they have the best chance to top with, and that is normally the deck they know the matchups of the best, which will be one of the decks they are able to test the easiest.

The problem we have to realize with Legacy (and probably most constructed formats) is that the meta game is more defined by propaganda and popularity then by what decks are actually the best. The decks people like to play and the ones people see winning are the easier decks to learn as they have more discussion, examples, testing opportunities, etc. Decks that people do not like for some reason can lead to negative reputations in smaller meta-games which can lead to people not building or playing unpopular decks as there is actual pier pressure to not play them as many people will not play side games with the 1 guy playing a stasis deck.

The North American meta is dominated by SCG, and the attitude that you need Brainstorm to win, which in turn leads to more Brainstorm decks in top 8's because more people run the card. Serious players only test against the decks they expect to play against so those are the decks they become familiar with, and will be more likely to play.

[Lord Seth]

If most of the legacy community is ok with it, so be it. I just think in the long run this will make people quit legacy because they want to play in a format where you can choose between more cards/decks. The last time i said this the answer was that attendance is very high right now so everything is ok.... well, i could also argue that right now, given the fact that also starcitygames almost stopped covering legacy, big legacy events are so few that attendance is obviously high. At least in my area, i am experiencing more and more people heading towards modern.

In what way has Star City Games stopped covering Legacy? Just like before, they have a big Legacy event each week of the Open Series. It might technically be a Premier IQ now most of the time rather than an Open, but there's been no reduction in the number of Legacy events they have.

I guess if by "covering" you mean video coverage and the like, but again that's produced no reduction in the number of Legacy events they do.

The best solution is just to ban brainstorm ponder dig through time and probe and make 40 cards legacy decks, so that everyone has access to extreme consistency without having to play the above cards. This is just a joke, but it should make people reflect, because effectively playing all the cantrips is like having a 40 cards deck, that in the end reduces variance to a minimum and makes magic look like chess.

I'm pretty sure that's not the best solution so much as one of the worst. That simultaneously manages to annoy everyone who likes Brainstorm in the format and almost everyone who wants it banned (as few of the supporters of banning Brainstorm want things to go that far). And then any of the Brainstorm ban supporters who would actually be interested in bans that extreme probably wouldn't like the sudden 40-card Legacy deck rule. That's not making Legacy better, that's essentially killing the format in one fell swoop by annoying everyone (well, except for maybe mill players) in the process.

[Barook]

That's just nonsense. D&T and Elves are among the most consistent decks in the format.

You obviously don't play D&T. Because its players would probably sacrifice their firstborn to get better consistency tools.

While D&T has some cards that follow the same plan (Wasteland, Port, Thalia, Revoker in certain match-up against mana sources), it has zero library manipulation aside from SFM (and Imperial Recruiter if you run the red splash). D&T gets its performance more from raw power (against blue decks) than high consistency.

If your deck decides to give you lemons, you certainly aren't going to make lemonade with D&T.

The North American meta is dominated by SCG, and the attitude that you need Brainstorm to win, which in turn leads to more Brainstorm decks in top 8's because more people run the card. Serious players only test against the decks they expect to play against so those are the decks they become familiar with, and will be more likely to play.

Nobody tells people on MTGO what decks to play since there are plenty of players around the world who give a crap about the NA meta. Yet it's the most blue meta out of all of them. Budget certainly isn't the reason for that anymore.

[Blastoderm]

After reading this thread for the past couple weeks, I think the solution is as follows:

Ban Dig Through Time. The next step is for wizards to print cards for different colors that interact with the stack but fit their color pie. "Stack interaction" can be interpreted loosely though... Thalia, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Trinisphere, Eidolon are examples. However, I think Spirit of the Labyrinth being black would have fit the color pie better. White currently has all the hate bears except for most recently Eidolon in red. I won't come up with suggestions for card design though, I'll save that for the Shitty Card Creation thread.

Edit: Cards providing consistency in different ways in other colors would also help. Green Sun's Zenith is a great example.

[BTY]

Edit: Cards providing consistency in different ways in other colors would also help. Green Sun's Zenith is a great example.

Green Sun's Zenith is a great example but even then there are a lot of problems with it. Green Sun has a very specific deckbuilding cost of playing with a lot of Green Creatures. Green decks like Jund or Junk don't want the card a lot of the time simply because they either don't want to play that many creatures, or that many green ones. There is also the problem that no other color besides blue has anything comparable to GSZ, and it doesn't solve the problem of drawing too many lands, too many removal spells, etc. The cantrips are so good simply because they can go into any deck that is playing Blue, something you probably want to be doing regardless anyway, without any real cost.

[Blastoderm]

Green Sun's Zenith is a great example but even then there are a lot of problems with it. Green Sun has a very specific deckbuilding cost of playing with a lot of Green Creatures. Green decks like Jund or Junk don't want the card a lot of the time simply because they either don't want to play that many creatures, or that many green ones. There is also the problem that no other color besides blue has anything comparable to GSZ, and it doesn't solve the problem of drawing too many lands, too many removal spells, etc. The cantrips are so good simply because they can go into any deck that is playing Blue, something you probably want to be doing regardless anyway, without any real cost.

I agree. However I was merely providing example and the main reason why GSZ is so strong is the ability to get Dryad Arbor turn 1. It's a start but it doesn't really measure up against bluecantrip.dec.

[JPoJohnson]

Anyone think there is a strong chance DTT will be banned?

[Dice_Box]

Anyone think there is a strong chance DTT will be banned?

I would be shocked if anything was banned in the next 2 years or so. We just had a banning, holding your breath on a new one is foolish. Also if WoTC was to ban something, I am not sure what they would pick since they have another reason to aim at SnT, they might take it.

I have been enjoying Collected Company in Modern of late and I was thinking, if it had cost 3 it would be pushing a new Legacy deck. Maybe that is what we need? I mean I have already tested a brew with it at a Legacy event and liked it, it just costs a touch too much mana.

[Barook]

I would be shocked if anything was banned in the next 2 years or so. We just had a banning, holding your breath on a new one is foolish. Also if WoTC was to ban something, I am not sure what they would pick since they have another reason to aim at SnT, they might take it.

They only didn't ban DTT because it wasn't popular enough during the TC era. They should have banned it alongside TC as they did in Modern.

I would be shocked if DTT isn't banned asap in the next announcement. Not only does it promote cancerous gameplay, it also made the meta more blue than ever before (we're somewhere in the 80-83% range right now, tendency: rising).

Two years of this horseshit without any interesting printings would have a good chance to seriously damage the format.

[Jain_Mor]

I have been enjoying Collected Company in Modern of late and I was thinking, if it had cost 3 it would be pushing a new Legacy deck. Maybe that is what we need? I mean I have already tested a brew with it at a Legacy event and liked it, it just costs a touch too much mana.

They should have printed it in one of the other sets as 6GG with delve. Blue got two dumb card draw spells and black some undercosted beatsticks and green gets giant giant growth and a smaller beat stick. #sosalty