Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
I played both Dredge and certain Chalice decks (mostly Faerie Stompy, also Angel Stax; never tried Dragon Stompy nor the Troll Ascetic deck).
Dredge is really suspectible to its own inconsistency and the fact that its combo is unpredictable and random due to the very nature of dredge mechanic. That's even pre-board...
The main annoyance with Chalice-based decks (and Stompy in general) is that Wasteland is omnipresent and I found myself pretty often without necessary lands once the opponent got rid of the one threat I had. (Granted, once I had two of them, or Drake/Efreet with SoFI, things were less grim and I simply did not care of being Wasted out). This was in times when Pernicious Deed was a widely played card, so the prospect of trying to win the attrition battles against Wasteland that further destabilizes my clunky base and Deed that washes away the threats, was pretty unwelcome. I sold the Chalice/Stompy cards a week after Abrupt Decay became legal.
I don't think that Faerie Stompy is especially bad deck, and I was a moron that I haven't played set of Jaces alongside the usual set of threats+answers, as it perfectly fits the deck. Nvm.
At the end I decided that there's no point in bothering with suboptimal choices and played only Brainstorm decks.
Btw, it's amazing how Pernicious Deed became a nonexistant card except for fringe decks like NicFit.
I'd love to know what should happen to make you consider that Legacy isn't healthy. So far you affirmed us of your hatred of DTT, but otherwise you seem fine with a 48cards format.
Your comment makes sense, however the situation is still stated that- a singular artifact, with narrow focus, is a good metric to contain a perceived problem, but will fold when it becomes showcased. It's flawed in the manner Finn alluded to, and Lemnar by comparison to Pyroblast. It nerfs an engine, but is not an engine. The hate isn't as strong as the engine, and decks based upon it will still be weaker than their targets.
A lot of banning brainstorm comes from weakening one engine, so that others seem like a more viable choice. There is no other engine as consistent and appealing, except maybe storm, elves and d&t (with a lil luck and a lot of energon). Flirting in and out with a cycle of inbred blue < chalice < X < inbred blue, isn't a solution. It's a delayed response of the status quo, which some folks want changed.
I love Dredge (Manaless), play it way too much to be considered healthy. With DTT in the fold, RiP has become a forgotten sb card. Sooo many decks play , they obviously want their graveyards to fuel DTT's. I thought the path way was clear for unprepared decks to get got. Well, Manaless Dredge is still the pits, because the engine (seriously, why no love WotC?) is slow, and the deck is so variable. It'll have it's moments, but fringe deck is still fringe, by a wide margin. Specific examples seem like cherry picking to fit a narrative. Tammit67, not accusing you of baiting, but that example doesn't hold a lot of water. Meta shifts sure, but Chalice & Cantrip-cartel is more than just meta gaming. Otherwise, from 8 months to a year+ back, when Stompy Painter was making the rounds beating on blue, that would've stuck and remained the case. That deck, full of red blasts is prime to prey, and yet it still does not see wide usage or top performances. Specific corner case is loaded.
I'd really love to know how you'd view a healthy legacy.
Apperently it's not healthy when chalice decks are excellent (because chalice is a symptom of something being broken, I assume?) and it's not healthy when there's a dominant colour, that promotes several different archetypes.
Huh?
I never wrote anything else on Chalice decks than my above post which deals with the fact that Chalice decks are tier2 at the very best and that they suck in Waste/Decay environment, because these two cards have great effect against the deck, as Wasteland further destabilizes the clunky 8Tombs manabase and Decay easily removes the main lock piece and there's very little to be done about that, except for Misdirection, a card that stinks.
Stop with "there's a dominant colour, that promotes several different archetypes", please, as it's far too obvious what you're trying to do and I'm not gonna feed you. But if you honestly meant what you wrote, than ok, fine, enjoy your format of 4-6 archetypes that share 16+ cards.
This is where most of the arguing in this thread should have ended a long time ago
Some people think that the variety among the 70-80% of decks which are cantrips heavy plus the variety brought by the other 20-30% of the meta makes for a sufficiently diverse format. Other people do not. This is highly subjective - obviously there is some diversity amongst the top decks. Whether or not there is enough for the format to be enjoyable or "healthy" is a matter of personal tastes.
It's okay for people to like different things and have different desires for their gaming experiences.
What gets me is when people who do not like Legacy very much (in it's current state) resort to innacurate statements in attempt to paint a picture of an unhealthy meta. Assertions to the effect that there is zero variety between decks running cantrips, and that blue-less decks (which make up 20-30% of the top8s) do not contribute to format diversity at all for one hoky reason or another (eg, that they are "anti-blue" decks and thefore dont count).
This sort of hyperbole makes intelligent conversation about the state of the meta impossible. I really think a lot of people don't want intelligent conversation here - they want to make a lot of noise in hopes WotC is listening. Good luck with that.
I suppose i shouldn't even need to answer crimhead comment, but since this thread is all about obvious things returning over and over, i will say the obvious: personal taste doesn't matter, but data matters and the fact that some blue cards are played by 70% or more decks makes evident that something should be done to weaken the blue shell if legacy is considered a format with a future (hint:it isn't). Since obviously the most powerful of the ubiquitous cards is brainstorm (by a mile), it should be banned and then see what happens : if blue dominance doesn't change at all then proceed to ban ponder,dig ....... and so on.
I have no clue where the "48cards" come from which I like explained if you make an argument out of it. I'm an old Vintage player so I don't have a childish illusion of 20 Decks to beat per format and the current Legacy is a lot more balanced and open than during the time Goblins/Thresh/Solidarity were the only reasonable choices to take to a tournament. I don't need more than half a dozen top decks to think the format is fine overall and tournament attendence supports this imo. What I personally dislike, and I'm not in a 24/7 rampage because of that, is if a certain core reduces deckbuilding basically to choosing the killoption like we had it in Vintage at a certain point and I felt that DTT is creating.
are your arguments boil down to hyperboles again?
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To have a different view or opinion is childish illusion now? Bringing back ten years old metagame from the dawn of format qualifies as an argument now? DTT turned the very really much healthy format into the one where you only choose the kill conditions? are your arguments boil down to hyperboles again?
Running a different set of removal doesn't turn all those Delver decks into a different ones, they just use Bolts instead/alongside of Decays.What gets me is when people who do not like Legacy very much (in it's current state) resort to innacurate statements in attempt to paint a picture of an unhealthy meta. Assertions to the effect that there is zero variety between decks running cantrips, and that blue-less decks (which make up 20-30% of the top8s) do not contribute to format diversity at all for one hoky reason or another (eg, that they are "anti-blue" decks and thefore dont count).
Also, I'm not sure if playing against 4 Delvers, 2 Miracles is to be considered diverse experience, but it seems that it's enough for the competitive bots, so w/e.
I plan to wirte a bit more on what I think about current Legacy, but I'm like totally lazy now, so you must wait.
Basically this. Apply previous reasons that WotC used to ban a card, and those situations currently apply to Brainstorm. That Brainstorm isn't banned is confusing to some folks, as to why WotC is inconsistent with their application of "reasons". A case can be made to ban brainstorm, saturation point, and yet nothing is done.
and the required data is simply NOT available.
Top x data is next to useless, because there are more factors contributing to that then just the strength of each deck/card.
Popularity and Propaganda have more of an effect on top x data then most are willing to admit.
The data used needs to correct for player preference, it needs to correct for player skill differences, it needs to correct for metagame familiarity, and a bunch of other factors.
Remember in Legacy deck strength matters, player skill matters, matchup familiarity matters (If I know how my deck and my opponents work, but he only knows how his deck works, that is a huge factor in my favour), luck matters, and a bunch of other things.
The only way to get the proper data is by running a large scale gauntlet (not just the current top decks, but as many different decks as possible) where for each matchup tested both testers are as close in skill as possible, swap decks every so many games to minimize any skill/style quirks, play a large enough # of game to minimize the effects of variance on the results, and the first so many games are not counted but treated as both testers getting familiar with how the deck interact.
Without flaming, where was this elusive data collected from to make similar decisions for Flash, SotFittest, or MMisstep?
Point being, collecting data from the Top 8, and comparing that with the collected decklist info from the beginning of the same large scale event should be efficient, without finding that perfect data.
Which does not work, because the data that comes out of those events re-enforces the biases that are already present.
Why, because most players do not innovate or create decks, and discard any deck that is not currently tier 1 or 1.5, so they just pay the decks that are winning, which F-ing leads to those decks placing more because they are played in such high #s.
you also need to account for how many players are making choices based on fears/assumptions that might or might not be true, how many of those cantrip+FoW+Daz players are running Fow+Daze because they are afraid of fast combo like Belcher... These meta choices affect the decks played, which affects the final tournament results.
The only thing that is useful from event results is deviations from the norm, what decks under and over perform relative to the number of copies of that deck being played. and then we still need to factor in the skill of the pilots of those decks...
Simply put to much of the player base are simply chasing bandwagons, and thus the results of events are not good enough to properly discuss what is stronger then it should be. and as a result results do not contain the information needed to judge if a card needs to be banned, as they include strength, skill AND popularity, and banning should only be based on 1 of those 3.
Proper data did not exist for Flash, they banned it after 1 event that is not enough time to see if the metagame can adapt. SotF and Mistep I am not certain if they did their research or not, or just reacted to player outrage.
It tells you some things, but not everything, and requies multiple events to provide usable data, in some cases it does say enough for high levels of confidence, but in other cases the other factors involved in deck selection out way its usefulness. Right now Legacy is at a point where the data is at minimal usefulness, while back in Mistep the data was likely much more informative when comparing pre and post mistep deck lists.
What you are saying is that the density of cantrip decks is going to kill the game? This is pure conjecture based on assumptions about the personal tastes of the player base. My assumption is that if the dozen or so whiners on the internet were all to quit (and each convinced a friend to quit too), Legacy would go just as strong.
Assumptions aside - the fact that 70%+ of the meta are blue heavy decks does not prove that the format is unhealthy or unfun! That is a matter of personal tastes, and if you bother to read these forums it should be apparent that there is no consensus within the community. For some the format is sufficiently diverse, for others it is not. There is no objective metric for this; just opinions.
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