All B/R update speculation.

[Rizso]

Currently dont see any cards that are to strong to be banned in the format atm.

Think its very strange still no maindecked gravehate when decks to beat are UW-stoneblades with snapcaster, Dredge, Reanimator, Treash with Snapcaster, Teamamerica sometimes packs snapcaster and maverick that uses KotR, loam and Ooze to abuse graveyards. What more have to abuse graveyards to be played maindecked?

[Gui]

Currently dont see any cards that are to strong to be banned in the format atm.

Think its very strange still no maindecked gravehate when decks to beat are UW-stoneblades with snapcaster, Dredge, Reanimator, Treash with Snapcaster, Teamamerica sometimes packs snapcaster and maverick that uses KotR, loam and Ooze to abuse graveyards. What more have to abuse graveyards to be played maindecked?

This is true, but there's this thing the players consider when adding a hate card to their decks, which is how useful it will be if it can't do what they are supposed to. The only exception seems to be creature removal, which is often dead and still played, because a big part of the decks do play creatures that must be answered.

In this situation, the best maindeck hates are Scavenging Ooze, and to a minor extent Faerie Macabre and Relic of Progenitus. Ooze is played, and a great GSZ target. Relic couls see more play because it cantrips itself, but on the other hand, it prevents yourself from abusing grave. Faerie is meh...

[I am the brainwasher]

And all those cards are blanks to Show and Tell from Reanimators sideboard... .
That is the problem I was trying to explain.
The thing is that Show and Tell allows both Hive Mind and Reanimator to be resilient to particular hate.
This problem might be solved through disruption in the form of Counterspells or Discard, but it is just hilarious that each deck should be able to pack those, especially if Leyline of Sanctity is a common sideboard card in Hive Mind.
At the end of the day some decks that have a bazillion tricks (like GW Maverick) and are not blue will be able to steal a game here and there but those MU stay horrible.
I am just annoyed how those decks (especially Reanimator) are keeping so many decks away from beeing played.
There is no clear way to go for non-blue decks to have a shot at winning against those decks postboard (lets not talk about preboard, srsly) because the hate-cards that are ment to pull the MU into someones favour can be highly ignored due to Show and Tell.
And this is all besides the fact that it really is not fun to play against Reanimator, Sneak Show and Hive Mind, mostly because of the lack of interaction.
Dont get me wrong here, no interaction is also fact when playing against Stormcombo or Dredge most of the time, but these decks have real weak spots in comparison, same is true for Painter.

I have to admit that I never was a fan of 2 card combos, but there really should be a limit to the powerlevel of those.
When the result is that so many decks arent even able to be played because of the existence of them, it IS unhealthy, even if the number of Reanimator/Show and Tell based combo decks isnt that dramatic as for example Survival.
Opening up the format and keeping it diverse is the part of R&D's job and I am truly disappointed how they messed that up as a whole with New Phyrexia (Jin, Batterskull, Mistep).
Having a shitload of top 8's that look like Combo, Tempo, Control means death to so many decks and this isnt just based on the SCG-copy-cat factor, which R&D might consider the most when it comes down banning cards.
The devils in the detail and players should really think about which cards create the situation Legacy is in right now.

[ddt15]

1: Show and Tell banned. Explanation why Magic isnt about decks that require the IQ of an drunken monkey and that this is the reason why Reanimator cant be hated out effectiveley. Plus beeing the most redicolous 2 card-combo-piece and rofl why Earthcraft was banned while S&T beeing legal.

2: Snapcaster Mage banned. Apologize that they even thought about this card beeing blue and had the impudence to really let that happen.

1) No.
2) Yes! That card is just wrong on so many levels and obnoxious.

My prediction:
No changes.

[crovakiet]

Don't think anything deserves to be banned at the moment

[DragoFireheart]

My prediction: Brainstorm is banned.

Reason: WotC tries to coerce Legacy players to play Modern.

[Mr. Safety]

Legacy? Probalby no changes.

Modern: oh they'll find some way to make it even more fucking boring...you'll see.

[lordofthepit]

I predicted Survival of the Fittest and Mental Misstep getting the banhammer (and haven't incorrectly predicted anything else getting banned in the meantime), so I thought it'd be fun to try again.

Prediction for 12/20: No new bannings.
I'll concede the following cards have a very small possibility of getting the axe, roughly in decreasing order: Brainstorm (already discussed ad nauseam), Snapcaster Mage (not sure why, I don't even think it's that great), Show and Tell (certainly not dominating, but probably the most fundamentally broken enabler effect legal right now). However, I don't think any of them will get banned this time (or in the future).

Once again, not sure about unbannings. I never try to predict these since they feel pretty random. If I had to pick a few possibilities, in roughly decreasing order: Land Tax, Black Vise, Earthcraft, Worldgorger Dragon, Mind Twist.

[Surging Chaos]

Here's a recent tweet from Forsythe: https://twitter.com/#!/mtgaaron/stat...18640905838593

I can't help but imagine that SFM (and maybe GSZ, though it sounds more like SFM) is in jeopardy of being banned, considering R&D already hates tutoring to begin with... especially a really powerful tutor like SFM. Am I being paranoid from a random tweet or is this something to be actually worried about?

[Intet's Attendant]

Here's a recent tweet from Forsythe: https://twitter.com/#!/mtgaaron/stat...18640905838593

I can't help but imagine that SFM (and maybe GSZ, though it sounds more like SFM) is in jeopardy of being banned, considering R&D already hates tutoring to begin with... especially a really powerful tutor like SFM. Am I being paranoid from a random tweet or is this something to be actually worried about?

SFM I could easily see being banned.

Wizards also forgets that Snapcaster Mage is a tutor too - a reverse tutor.

[Zilla]

That tweet is actually extremely worrisome. Maverick is one of the best placed non-blue decks in the format to keep blue-based aggro control in check. It's a very strong deck, but it's not overpowered, imo. It would be a shame to see it take a hit when it provides such a strong option to players who don't want to play blue.

[Wilkin]

I don't really expect anything to get banned in legacy. Although I get annoyed that Blue always seems to get the best cards when new sets come out. I finally had to wait until Innistrad for a playable black planeswalker to come out.

LOL, at least I'm not a red player as all the Chandra versions suck.

Out of the list I see that you can vote on, I'd pick Sensei's Divining top. It combos with counterbalance which i find annoying but also mainly it EATS up so much time.

My wish is for R&D to print cards in colours other than blue that are legacy viable, and also print cards that give other colours other dynamics. Eg. Faithless looting is a start. I laughed when some people complained that red is going to get card filtering....all red has at the moment is burn. Even their creatures for the most part aren't that good, aside from a few exceptions like Lavamancer.

I will have to say though that Force of Will and brainstorm are great cards but shouldn't be banned. Force of will's existence prevents the really broken combo decks from running rampant. If i could ban some blue cards, it certainly wouldn't be those 2.

[Zunam]

The Forsythe comment on Maverick really worries me (and no, I am not playing the deck).
The deck has the best game a Aggro-deck could have against a combo deck (even if still not favored) exactly because of it's tutoring power.
Powering out a Teeg or a Canonist on turn two with some consistency is really good.

I really hope they don't ban GSZ. That would be just bad.

Banning SFM would also be bad in my opinion. The Stone-Blade decks were the first Control decks viable in Legacy after a long time with almost no Control in the Meta. However I could understand the point for banning it (actually the first thing I thought when seeing the card was: "What the f....? I thought they didn't want to print cheap tutors anymore and now they print one on a stick that allows cheating the tutored cards into play in addition")

[Oibade]

That tweet is actually extremely worrisome. Maverick is one of the best placed non-blue decks in the format to keep blue-based aggro control in check. It's a very strong deck, but it's not overpowered, imo. It would be a shame to see it take a hit when it provides such a strong option to players who don't want to play blue.

According to TC Decks, Maverick is the top deck at the moment (20 top 8s this month).

A non-blue deck having some results? Unaccettable.

[DrJones]

According to TC Decks, Maverick is the top deck at the moment (20 top 8s this month).

A non-blue deck having some results? Unaccettable.

It looks that way to the untrained eye. The problem is that you haven't taken into account that the same blue tempo strategy with the same core of cards yet with different color splashes have different deck names, and as such they look like they aren't as prevalent even though their joined number is 6x times higher, even after adding all the Zoo tops to Maverick to compensate.

Also, Maverick gets to Top 8, but it's really hard to find any relevant tournament where it gets to Top 4 or better. I know because I've done the research and I would like to believe it's a good option against blue, but the data contradicts it as it loses against their "favored matchups" at the top tables. The only nonblue deck I've seen that repeatedly crushes blue in the Top 8 matches is Red Painter, which would be my choice of deck to bring to a tournament if I had 3 byes and could afford 4x Imperial Recruiters. But as a single Imperial Recruiter costs more than a playset of FoWs, it's a waste of time, effort, and money to go that route when you can play a blue deck instead and beat all the decks in the meta. And I'm not even sure that Red Painter could win against blue if these decks actually packed hate against it in their sideboard.

[Admiral_Arzar]

The only nonblue deck I've seen that repeatedly crushes blue in the Top 8 matches is Red Painter, which would be my choice of deck to bring to a tournament if I had 3 byes and could afford 4x Imperial Recruiters. But as a single Imperial Recruiter costs more than a playset of FoWs, it's a waste of time, effort, and money to go that route when you can play a blue deck instead and beat all the decks in the meta. And I'm not even sure that Red Painter could win against blue if these decks actually packed hate against it in their sideboard.

Imperial Painter is fucking brutal against blue decks, due to the many angles it attacks them from (maindeck blasts, Moon effects against fragile manabases, SSG to play around Daze, combined with the threat of extremely fast kills is very difficult to answer). Builds with Welder also have very scary inevitability. Off the top of my head, the only blue deck I can say is actually favored against Painter (ironically) is Spiral Tide. I would totally put Painter together if Recruiter was actually a reasonable price though.

[from Cairo]

It's a very strong deck, but it's not overpowered, imo.

I could see the argument that it overshadows other agro decks, but I don't like the idea of where that would leave the format if DCI were to take action against Green Sun's Zenith.

Maverick has better threat density than any agro deck the format has seen. For instance thinking back to Goblins being a primer agro deck - it's Lackeys lose substantial power as the board develops and Vial has always had the drawback of being lackluster in multiples. Maverick's ramp - Noble's triggers and obviously more-so GSZ's utility both hold value so much better in the midgame.

In this sense I think it does put a lot of pressure on other agro decks. When one thinks about sleeving up some variation of Jund, Zoo, Goblins, etc I think they're noticeably out classed, but without Maverick there's still a pile of Legacy decks that are stronger than these options.

That said, I don't think this deck is unbeatable - it's performance at major events doesn't indicate this to be the case either. This is a format where Storming an opponent out or dropping Emrakul on them is an option before they've made their 1st Land drop, I feel like DCI'd be on a bit of a trip if they drop the ban hammer on GW dorks.

[conboy31]

Here's a recent tweet from Forsythe: https://twitter.com/#!/mtgaaron/stat...18640905838593

I can't help but imagine that SFM (and maybe GSZ, though it sounds more like SFM) is in jeopardy of being banned, considering R&D already hates tutoring to begin with... especially a really powerful tutor like SFM. Am I being paranoid from a random tweet or is this something to be actually worried about?

Am I mouth breathing too hard? How does he come up with "18 maindeck tutors, 8 of which are reusable, and 2 more in the 'board. "

edit- link to the list: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=42681

[dsck]

Am I mouth breathing too hard? How does he come up with "18 maindeck tutors, 8 of which are reusable, and 2 more in the 'board. "

Fetchlands (lol), reusable with Witness and Loam.


EDIT: Gerry might now have played witness though.

[Gheizen64]

Man, imagine everyone whining about blue being 80% of the T8 of every tournament and they go banning GSZ to make it 100%.
That would seriously kill the format. Like for real.