[Free Article] The Best Card in Legacy

[voltron00x]

Trinisphere is like a ghost on the scg open circuit, and v clique hasn't been as popular as it should be in my opinion.

[Cenarius]

I believe the article is OK. Dark Confidant and Jace, the Mindsculptor should definitely be mentioned, but that's already mentioned in previous posts so I won't go any further in that.
I'm pretty sure that Counterbalance was top 10 material for a long time, before the new additions of Goblins and Zoo and the Merfolk-era shortly before that. Therefore I believe that Counterbalance should not be mentioned as top 10 material, though the card is really good. That cannot be denied.

The rest of the cards are prettty straightforward and therefore you made an almost perfect top10 (which is always subjective and therefore always differ for other people).

Greetings

[Gui]

Pretty good article! Who didn't ever made such list? =)

Btw, I want to suggest something before commenting: you should get a RSS feed for your articles, I'd greatly apreciate that. ^^

Ok, now comments (note: just my opinions. nothing against yours)

a) I prefer FoW in the spot of Brainstorm.
While I know how amazing BS is, I believe that the only other possible card to be Top1 is FoW, and you gave me another reason to keep FoW as my #1 with the GP fact.
It's the first argument for everything you try to do in the format: "ok, but what if he FoW your ...". Besides, brainstorm is made better because of FoW for 2 reasons - Fetches for FoW and pitches for FoW.

b) BS could be well used in decks not using it.
BS could be used in merfolks, and would still be good. they are linear, but fetching a counter, fixing land, and protecting things are still good usages, even without fetchlands, IMO. Besides, Merfolks can run fetchlands as well.
BS could as well be used in Dredge - It's more stable than Breakthrough, and draws more than Careful Study. I'm currently working on increasing dredge draw spells, and BS is making the cut for it.

c)Cheating too much on lands due to Brainstorm is wrong
I keep telling people this, they tend to never listen. When I add more lands to the tempo decks I build, looking to avoid BS-into-land move, I look forward using BS for WAY, WAAAY better uses it might have.
Agreed with you there, just to say ^^

d) Brainstorm >>> Ponder or Preordain
Just plain agreement here too. Brainstorm sculpts the hands miles better than these two.

e) Honor roll, cards in list, controversies
IMO, bob should be @ the honor roll. Also, Chalice should be there too. These are less niche than other cards within the roll, and even if they are not putting results, you always have to think about decks running these.
Lackey is too niche for the roll, but so is glympse, imo.
A card that I'd say to be there too was Life from the Loam, but these days it's less used, so, ok.
Jace could probably see some honor roll too. I believe him to be a better kill con than Dreadnaught
And I'd switch Counterbalance with Dark Ritual, from honor to top 10

This is all I got, it's a fine crafted list, and really good reading. just made my thuesday better ^^

[Mr. Safety]

Wow, solid read. I enjoyed the article...and I agree with it almost 100%...

I saw the article as explaining not only the raw power level of the cards, but the way in which they provide that power. Brainstorm makes any deck that plays it BETTER. Bob can't do that. I saw the list through this lens: decks that play the card (whichever it may be) would be sub-optimal without them, but WITH them, they become top tier in power level. Team America would play 8 Brainstorms if it could, which is why it usually supplements it with Ponder and/or Preordain.

I sometimes forget that Brainstorm is a conditional Ancestral Recall at instant speed...and we all know how powerful Ancestral Recall is. Sure you don't get to keep all the cards in hand, but honestly, you don't always WANT to. You still get 3 new cards available and you get to stack your top cards. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I really see what the guy is saying.

I for one LOVE to see a first turn Brainstorm...it tells me they are fishing for land. Awesome! That means playing Mental Misstep on a turn 1 Brainstorm could potentially put you WAY AHEAD in that game. I have gotten out of the (bad) habit of keeping 1-land hands with Brainstorm.

Jace I feel is too new to really make top 10. I feel that there is still something that will be printed that will break him WIDE OPEN, yes, even more so than he already is. SDT didn't explode until Counterbalance was printed.

What would people put as the 11-20 most powerful cards in legacy? That seems to me to be more in contention than the top 10. I would probably put these there (in no particular order really, just 10 cards in contention):

Jace, the Mind-Sculptor
Dark Confidant
Tombstalker
Natural Order
Glimpse of Nature
Dark Ritual
Burning Wish
Sylvan Library
Knight of the Reliquary
Stifle


Just more discussion fodder...

[Tim the Enchanter]

So one could argue that, say, LED, Entomb, and Vengevine are theoretically more powerful than Bob.

Those are all strong cards but they have to be built around. Dark Confidant doesn't. You can throw him in almost any deck that plays black with or without Top, although obviously better with Top.

LED only sees play in a handful of decks and, while I can't research right now because I'm at work, I'm pretty sure it's had less T8 appearances than Bob recently.

[bakofried]

Brainstorm doesn't necessarily make any deck better. Lists which have a lot of redundancy (read: Merfolk) don't need Brainstorm, and in fact, Brainstorm would, in all likelihood, make the deck worse.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Interesting list, although I do agree with the Bob - lobbyists in this thread. It's nice to see somebody finally give Lion's Eye Diamond the respect it deserves though, it is the single most powerful combo card in the format (although recent meta shifts have caused the decks that run it to fade into the shadows).

[Amon Amarth]

I think Bob shoulda maybe been in the Top 10 but I agree with your Top 20 so I wont give you any flak. Good article.

[Mr. Safety]

Brainstorm doesn't necessarily make any deck better. Lists which have a lot of redundancy (read: Merfolk) don't need Brainstorm, and in fact, Brainstorm would, in all likelihood, make the deck worse.

Agreed...merfolk excluded. Hell, some fish decks are dropping Cursecatcher for Mental Misstep. They aren't going to play MORE 1-mana spells, just BETTER ones.

[evanmartyr]

LED only sees play in a handful of decks and, while I can't research right now because I'm at work, I'm pretty sure it's had less T8 appearances than Bob recently.

I'm sure it has. I think the thing holding combo back right now is a reduction in consistency introduced by a large percentage of blue decks with Daze/FoW/(and now, MMS) backup, as well as lacking something really amazing to wish/tutor for. The storm decks like TES and Belcher and such need something like that to be truly good...Yawgmoth's Will comes to mind. Until then, they'll be a significant enough portion of the metagame to crap all over decks that don't take them into consideration, and vary in power and consistency enough not to top-8 with significant regularity. My point! I knew there was one! My point is that LED is one of the things, probably the most important thing, making these decks degenerate, so until combo's matchups become unbearably bad, you'll see a lot of LEDs in Legacy, even if they will only occasionally populate the top tables.

Trinisphere is like a ghost on the scg open circuit, and v clique hasn't been as popular as it should be in my opinion.

I see a fair enough amount of Cliques, but there's a lot of Bant and CB played locally.

Trinisphere is noticeably less frequent, but then again if you're playing metalworker, dragon stompy, or any flavor of stax, you're playing at least 3 and more likely 4 in some combination between the main deck and the sb. It's a pillar of that kind of resource denial deck, and the one thing shutting it out of the metagame is being a turn too slow (with most readily available mana sources) to effect decks when it most needs to. MMS shores up these decks almost as well as it did for Gerry T's Landstill deck this weekend. So your point is taken, but I don't think it's a result of people not understanding how good the card is, but understanding its limitations.

When I read your article, I respected your opinions (most of them), but I certainly appreciate the discussion that's arisen because of it. So, if not a great job on the actual thing, the thing it spawned deserves kudos.

[Skeggi]

I just read the article, not this thread, just wanted to set one thing straight:

Each tournament has a bit of its own flavor; consider that Madrid had no Aether Vial and no Wasteland in the Top 8

Sven Dijt's Zoo list in the Madrid top 8 played Wastelands. It was the reason why he almost won to the reanimator deck, who got lucky and won in the quarter finals to this deck. Just to add some nuance to the story

[jandax]

That didn't stop him from letting Saito resolve that Ad Nauseum lol

[troopatroop]

I can't agree with Sensei's Divining Top at #4. I'm alone, but I don't think it's that good of a card on it's own.

Dark Confidant and Jace are both more powerful, imo.

[lorddotm]

Interesting list, although I do agree with the Bob - lobbyists in this thread. It's nice to see somebody finally give Lion's Eye Diamond the respect it deserves though, it is the single most powerful combo card in the format (although recent meta shifts have caused the decks that run it to fade into the shadows).

Lol, metagame shifts... Except by that you mean card printings.

[Rico Suave]

Bob is good, but still worse than every card on that top 10 list in Legacy.

[voltron00x]

I just read the article, not this thread, just wanted to set one thing straight:


Sven Dijt's Zoo list in the Madrid top 8 played Wastelands. It was the reason why he almost won to the reanimator deck, who got lucky and won in the quarter finals to this deck. Just to add some nuance to the story

Good catch, that's my bad for not double-checking.

[voltron00x]

One more card that should more play: Misdirection.

Have you ever Misdirected a Hymn to Tourach? God it feels good!

[conboy31]

Divert is also particularly dirty.

[Grollub]

Note that I am not including duals or fetches because it is my list, and I make the rules.

Aw. I was looking forward to see the top 10 list being:
1-8: Various Duals and Fetchies.
9: Brainstorm
10: Force of Will

I actually kind of agree with the entire list, with a few switches (Vial <--> Top for instance), but still think you should have included the lands (duals+fetchies) they are so important to the legacy format that ignoring them, obvious as they may be, seems a little odd - just lump them alltogether as "superlands" at #1 and I'd be happy. ;-)

Rather than making a top 10 of all card types, wouldn't it make more sense to have it rather be in catagories: Best Removal, Best Creature, Best Combo Enabler etc. In a general "best card" listing you're kind of comparing apples, oranges and bananas.

Who is the target audience? I dont really see anybody from the eternal community giving a crap about this and its not too helpful for new players.

I know I certainly didnt give a crap. Brainstorm gets played alot? Wasteland is good against greedy manabases? Fuck me sideways!

I dunno, I always like to read other players thoughts on cards even if they are more or less the same as mine or the general consensus. But I agree it's as a whole not really helpful for new players to just get a list of strong cards without putting them into context - another reason why I would have preferred the list be split up into catagories, that'd also give a much more precise metric to determine the individual cards (removal vs. removal) and probably be much more helpful for an aspiring Legacy player. :-)
- Plus probably be more interesting for an adept too.

Bob is good, but still worse than every card on that top 10 list in Legacy.

Agreed, and this is also exactly why I think "best cards lists" would be better being in catagories.


But my little rant aside, I thought it was a nice little article.

[voltron00x]

Divert is also particularly dirty.

Indeed, it is. You can also use Divert to counter a Mental Misstep, which is nice. I wonder if my set is still around somewhere.