Originally Posted by Morbid-
"Gimme yo shit, shawty." I approve.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Might you be confusing competitive and professional? I think it's objectively true that Legacy is not a PTQ format, but seeing that it has not only Wizards' sponsored large events like Grand Prixs, but also other large tournaments (for example SCG $5K and Bazaar of Moxen) that have their fair share of professional players who attend, Legacy can and should be labelled competitive. These events are competitive enough that someone like LSV scrubbed out of both GPs. He also couldn't even win the MTGO Legacy Daily Events he joined in the run up to GP: Columbus. So, I think it's true that players who only play Legacy when it comes to sanctioned constructed tournaments may be considered amateurs, but I don't think that equals non-competitive.
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
Dtrooper is right. You've got some mammoth-sized junk, jumping into this thread where there are maybe 2 people who don't want to tar and feather you and no one who is on your side. You're somehow under this mistaken impression that you understand the format and we don't. Doesn't that strike you as a bit arrogant? We ARE the old school. We are the guys who taught you to play. We are the guys who did the footwork so that you would understand what a mana curve is and why you scarf up removal in limited. I was writing articles for Brainburst and SCG before your balls dropped. No lie.
I can only speak for myself, but I quit playing T2 because of the direction that Wizards is trying to go with it. You want to talk about a semi-casual format, there it is right there. A bunch of guys beating each other with 5+ mana fatties. It's like the guy in Starcraft going "5 minutes no rush, guys!" A format where a blue based "control" deck might run 4 counterspells and 3 draw spells. If I wanted to play Yu-Gi-Oh, I would. Just. Play. Yu-Gi-Oh. It's lame and it's not Magic. Sure I want to have fun. Because winning IS fun.
Now like I said before, I think your logic was fine, but you're working from a number of flawed premises, namely that you have a grasp of how the Legacy metagame works, that you understand the mentality of the players who exclusively (or damn close to) play Legacy and that those bannings would lead to a healthier format. The format is so healthy and diverse it makes my eyes bleed and makes baby jeebus cry. And tinkering with it when you don't longstanding and intimate understanding of it doesn't work. The DCI banned Mystical in an effort to stomp on combo (and make it more casual friendly like T2) and combo had its best major tournament on US soil in years because people got complacent about it. But you want to ban half a dozen cards, half of which you suggest banning because of expected consequences? When anyone can see the fresh example of unintended consequeces the DCI just presented to us? Your game skills may be fine, but you need to do a lot of brushing up on eternal deck construction and theory skills before you start suggesting wild changes to the people who eat, sleep and breathe this stuff.
Christ, and all that after I just got done ripping on others for not being nicer. Some days you're just bound to make a hypocritical asshole out of yourself...
Way to out-arrogant the arrogant. He Arrogant Bolts you and you Arrogant Blast him in response.
Just because I used to read the Dojo doesn't mean I have a better grasp of the format than a newcomer. Formats change and evolve as has Magic and I don't think swinging your age-based e-peen around is the right way to go about this. Sometimes newcomers bring new and fresh perspectives that old stogy veterans can't see or refuse to admit. It's what they call a psychic prison. That's why emic and etic views are both essential for getting a clear understanding of anything.
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
I'm not against unfavorable match ups, but when for a deck's end game involves it sitting around 10 minutes twiddling its thumbs while the opponent can't do anything and couldn't really do anything earlier that didn't result in that deck not playing the game, is that what you think people want?
Most formats it doesn't matter what people want. Legacy, I feel it does.
Also, as to your earlier comment, I can't speak to the future, but I was buying packs of Urza's Saga when it came out and I have PTQ top 8's dating to when Rochester draft still existed. If you want to go after lack of experience, I think you will be disappointed.
Whether it's Aluren, Doomsday, or Ad Nauseam, I don't think it matters. The correct thing to do is scoop.
When people play Yawgmoth's Wil in Vintage, people generally don't sit around for 10 minutes. They scoop.
And most people think Legacy is great. If the DCI tinkers with Legacy, they are as likely to make it worse as they are better, despite the best of intentions.
Most formats it doesn't matter what people want. Legacy, I feel it does.
Fair. But my point wasn't that you didn't have experience, it was about your perspective.
Also, as to your earlier comment, I can't speak to the future, but I was buying packs of Urza's Saga when it came out and I have PTQ top 8's dating to when Rochester draft still existed. If you want to go after lack of experience, I think you will be disappointed.
In competitive chess if you've lost you scoop...unless your opponent is going to flag. Same principle applies in magic...you can sit around and hope for your opponent to blunder, but if you do no one wants to hear you complain about sitting there.
What people want is important in every format...wizards has a vested interest in maintaining people's interest in the game...
Ari, I think you would have been fine if you'd presented your article as the answer to, "How do we ban storm combo without imbalancing the format?" That is essentially what you've written about, but by trying to present it as anything but a thought experiment, you've ended up pissing off a lot of Legacy players who see the format being just fine as-is. Really, arguing that the format is out of balance now is insane, given that one Tier I deck made top 8 (two, if you count Counterbalance as a deck and not just as a combo). The remainder of the top 8 was made up of Tier II decks or decks that were premiering at the event. How is that anything but the sign of a healthy format?
Also, the "time bomb" argument is not an argument. It's an excuse that translates as, "most of what I'm saying flatly contradicts reality, but I'll hedge my bets by putting a potential told-you-so clause here in case the shit hits the fan somewhere down the road." Given the balance and innovation possible in the format right now, it's more likely that it will implode due to card availability and price issues than to any inherent imbalance.
Furthermore, future printings and errata could blow the format up at any time: no one even looked at Flash as a potential sideboard option until MaGo suddenly made it a one-card win condition.
Also, way to be part of the problem instead of the solution, Mr. LED-Is-A-Hopeless-Loss-But-I-Played-Storm-Combo-At-The-GP-Anyway.
Not going to touch the arrogant thing. I was damn arrogant, although in this instance I feel it was justified. Newcomers can have potent insights. I don't think Legacy wouldve ever stumbled onto Thopter Sword had it not been tearing up Extended. And us stodgy old timers are generally resistant to new ideas. I think it's a major flaw in the majority of the Magic community but it affects Eternal formats more strongly than more fluid formats, probably, when you trace it back, because the power level is so high. There are 100 wrong ways to build a deck for every workable variation on a theme and subpar deck construction matters a lot more in a format where 2 or 3 turns can be an eternity. So people tend to dismiss new things that don't work quickly instead of tweaking until they do work.
But the thing with newcomers is that the signal to noise ratio tends to be low because this format is more complex than any other format, even moreso than Vintage. So without spending a long time immersing yourself in the format and studying card and deck interactions, you're going to have a hard time producing anything meaningful. The format has a tough learning curve. The thought process was fine, laudable even. But it betrayed a lack of understanding of the balances and interactions that make Legacy not just balanced but stable. The banning of MT affected the format but not catastrophically so. Banning Loam/LED etc. Would make Zoo stronger, but it would quickly drop back to the power level it's at now. Big Zoo would beat Zoo, non-aggro would pack more EE and the format would rebalance itself. Nacatl would not need a banning.
So while I can appreciate the logic Ari provides, it's based in flawed premises and therefore his conclusions are flawed. Good thought process, bad starting point and poor knowledge of counters and balances. But it's one thing to come out and say something wrong and another thing to come back after you've been corrected and continue to argue bad information is silly.
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