Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
I've though of something like that, but I'd rather DRS be the same card but only castable off G and only produce G/B (or maybe Jund if it was printed in a set that supported Jund) that way the green/black decks keep their really powerful card while blue doesn't get it unless they want to play BUG (with more than a light green splash)
I have a question that doesn't really line up with what everyone else has been saying for the past 2 pages.
Someone a few pages back (seriously, ≥2 pages of posts in one workday; damn) said that the deck to beat right now is 4c, and that the problem with banning Top was that it essentially allowed a new deck to take an even larger share of the metagame. I don't agree with that interpretation, but I do think it's true that 4c value builds are currently "the right way" to be playing the format if one wants to win consistently. Similarly to the difficulty with Miracles, that subset of builds has become a gestalt, though not nearly to the degree that Miracles had. (if you want to complain that 4c has a bigger share of the meta than Miracles did, all I can do is tell you to re-examine the persistent refusal of Venezuelan Legends to die in the face of objectively better decks that deviated from it by fewer than five cards. We've got it much better than we had it a year ago.)
So what does The Source think? I genuinely do believe that the 4c supertype has reached gestalt status (assuming it hadn't reached that point ages ago, just with an even more ridiculous deck's taking the top slot). People complain about Deathrite, or Brainstorm, or fetchlands, or Delver, or duals, or Tarmogoyf, or whatever, but I'm interested to know whether any one ban from among those cards would really change the [EDIT: fact that 3–4c Value would be the best deck]. (It may be neither here nor there, but I do think Brainstorm is an exception. Losing that without gaining anything comparable for control decks would almost certainly cause Poops, Charbelcher, and BReanimator to take over everything, and you can quote me on that.)
A followup question: if I'm right, what's the solution? Are there unbans that would be safe enough to change the balance?
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Funny how you can deduce what people are playing based on what they hate about the format... myself, for instance, I think True-Derp shouldn't have been printed. Maybe that doesn't scream D&T by itself, but whatever. That was clearly an "Oops, our brains weren't entirely functioning there" kind of printing. Like the senior design staff took the day off and let the intern design a blue creature that forces politics in multiplayer formats. Unless it was intentional and Wizards knew it was going to get played in duel formats, in which case they're just trolling us until we decide to go play Modern or Standard. Yuck.
I wouldn't miss fetchlands. Do I think they're bannable? No. They do more for opening up diversity than just about any other cycle of printed cards. Do I think Wizards needs to print stronger ways to punish greedy manabases? Hell fucking yes. #MakeLandDestructionGreatAgain
TNN would've been cooler in multiplayer if it had protection from everyone but the chosen opponent. Just pick some guy playing mono green ramp and go to town with your creature no one can target. There's enough sweepers in multiplayer to deal with it and 3 damage a turn isn't as much a clock there.
So after a few posts/responses, the new poll would look like this:
1 -Deathrite Shaman
2- Brainstorm
3-True-name Nemesis
4- Griselbrand
5- Emrakul
6- Show and Tell
7- Terminus
8- Fetchlands
9- Chalice of the Void
10- Lion's Eye Diamond
Just some initial thoughts if each were banned:
1) Mana-bases move to more stable configurations, 4c takes a big hit, some Grixis Delver players switch to Grixis Pyro/Control, Wasteland and Blood Moon get more prevalent because they get better
2) The world as we know it ends (j/k), Blue-based decks attempt to slot in Preordain (not sure how successful this would be), targeted discard/Hymn get better/more prevalent, combo (storm, S&T) likely just slots in Preordain and suffers a slight decrease in consistency.
3) Each deck using it replaces TNN with a different/more of other threats, like Lingering Souls/Geist of Saint Traft/Anglers/Tasigurs/Jace.
4) Sneak/Show gets significantly worse, possibly even killing the deck outright. Collateral damage of Tin-Fins and Br reanimator, both dead without it. Sneak/Show might try and go Progenitus, but make no mistake, the thrill is gone. Full set of Omniscience might close some of the gap.
5) Sneak/Show I think carries on with Griselbrand being the obviously better threat, slots in Progenitus or Omniscience, changes the form of the deck but not necessarily the function. Slows it down by about a turn, I would wager.
6) Sneak/Show dead, Mono-Red Sneak Attack becomes creature-feature deck of choice.
7) Aggressive decks would make at least a small resurgence, like Goblins and Merfolk. Not sure about Zoo (Stoneforge into Batterskull/Jitte still fucks it sideways.) Sweepers would become Supreme Verdict/Toxic Deluge, which are still just as effective if not as efficient. Miracles loses some ground but I guess would drop some cantrips/manipulation for Verdicts. It certainly makes board wipes more Predictable (see what I did there?) and I think the format would adjust fairly quickly.
8) Massive panic ensues, the legacy rules of mana-base construction go out the window. Welcome back to City of Brass as a legitimate color-fixer in non-combo decks. Stock in budget duals goes way up, likely the fastlands being the first to skyrocket, and the buddy lands (a la Sulfur Falls) also go up in value. Wasteland becomes incredibly good in the format again because holding up fetches for basics isn't an option, you have to naturally draw them now. Get your $200 Blood Moons while you can! Stifle becomes almost unplayable in the format, not that it's making huge waves now. True duals I predict will actually go up in price because we need full sets of them now. Shocklands get more prevalent, no doubt. Delve threats get significantly worse as graveyards don't fill as quickly, ditto with Tarmogoyf.
9) Stompy decks die. The format leans a lot heavier towards 1 mana spells, that's for sure. Ironically that would make Counterbalance significantly better as the format drives towards a leaner curve. Storm decks get significantly better for a bit, then Counterbalance comes back to slow them down again.
10) This is a tough one to predict. It slows down Storm in a big way, but I don't think it dies outright. Dark Petition gets a little better and Infernal Tutor gets a little worse. Red probably becomes more prominent even in ANT in order to have access to Rite of Flame as another fast mana option. Chrome Mox gets a lot more important. Dredge becomes at least a turn slower, possibly even killing the traditional Dredge deck and leaving only the mana-less version still standing.
Just some quick thoughts.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Staying on-theme with my previous comments: this misunderstands what happened to Goblins. Goblins is not bothered by Terminus at all, and back when people still played it, Goblins was seen as a terrible matchup for Miracles. The wider variety of mana costs in the deck plus multiple ways to cheat on casting made the Counterbalance lock much less of a lock, and Goblins reloads extremely quickly after a sweeper by holding either a Ringleader or Matron (to go get Ringleader) in hand.
What killed Goblins was a one-mana creature that profitably blocks Lackey and fights Port/Wasteland. Also known as... Deathrite Shaman.
I forgot that; I had seen the matchup a while ago in the Top era, and now I remember Goblins murdering Miracles (it was a VS video on SCG, I think BBD vs Todd Anderson.) It was just generalization, and I admit an incorrect statement. Thanks for the correction. I also think, however, that people would view the lack of Terminus as an opportunity to play Goblins again. Whether it was a good matchup or not, some people will think "no Terminus? I'll play a creature-centric deck!", because they may be under the same incorrect assumption as me.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Broken record here, but: traditionally when incredibly greedy mana bases have become popular, the format has self-policed by playing more Wastelands and Blood Moons. What we're seeing now is a combination of the Top ban, which as a side effect nerfed several of the format's better Blood Moon decks, and Deathrite Shaman giving the greedy decks a fixer that isn't a nonbasic land. Deathrite doesn't completely prevent attacking their mana, of course, but it does just enough of a job of fixing that the usual fun-police tactics aren't working.
These days I'm mostly playing U/R Delver as a remedy, and straight-up murdering people with Price of Progress, but I'd prefer not to have to go to that approach.
Goblins was certainly finished off by DRS (Oct '12). I don't think it was True Name. Goblins made a brief surge with Dark Ascension when it mainboarded Thalia (Feb '12) to try and fight combo decks better, but when TNN came out (Nov '13) Goblins was already dead.
Not sure about Griselbrand, but Goblins had a bad combo match up already as far as I know. Flooding the meta with a 1/2 that completely negated everything that Goblins tried to do was what eliminated its early game. Piledriver has Pro-Blue anyway to get past True Name.
Now that I think about it, Goblins might have already been on the down swing when Innistrad came out...not sure.
Maybe Delver decks had a better tempo game than Goblins and took their meta share? At that time it was RUG Delver that was the big deck.
If there's going to be a new updated poll, please include gitaxian probe. That card is an atrocity to the game.
Yeah, people are going to keep giving their opinions on what should be in a new poll, so I'll also give it. Pretty much the same as everyone else's though. Before banning anything, I'd unban Earthcraft at the very least.
- Deathrite Shaman
- Griselbrand
- True-Name Nemesis
- Leovold, Emissary of Trest
- Ponder
- Gitaxian Probe
- Show and Tell
- Dark Depths
- Chalice of the Void
- Lion's Eye Diamond
If Legacy were a new format, I'd put Brainstorm on this list too, but it's just not gonna happen.
The Doomsday Codex
We're catching bullets in our teeth,
Its hard to do but they're so sweet.
And if they take a couple out,
We try to work things out.....
Meow.
The only cards I think that can be unbanned are Earthcraft, Mind Twist, and maybe Frantic Search. Earthcraft makes Enchantress better and maybe some brew becomes viable. I don't think Elves needs the card anymore with Green Sun's and NO-Hoof. Mind Twist is pretty annoying with fast mana, but requires decks to be built around it. Maybe Nic Fit will play it.
People can argue for Goblin Recruiter to be unbanned, but it shouldn't be - not for power level reasons, but logistical ones. Do you want to play against a newer legacy player that picks up Goblins and try to resolve a Recruiter trigger? It's a bigger offender than Top was so I don't see WotC ever unbanning Recruiter. Frantic Search is sort of the same as Recruiter in this regard. I wouldn't be shocked if the reason Search were still banned is because Judges asked Wizards not to so they don't have to deal with judging High Tide matches. That being said, I doubt High Tide gets that much better. The benefit for Search would be GU Post decks. They're dead in the water with Top gone, so it would be a fine replacement.
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