I think the notion that better players gravitate to blue eventually because there's some kind of higher level of play going on is just a fallacy. I proxy up most of the winning lists from GPs and Opens, and they're surprisingly easy to play if you have decent knowledge of the format and opposing decks, and Misstep just makes it way easier. I just don't get how "counter anything that could kill you or your win-con" is that much harder than "play dudes, blow up anything in their way".
@FSK: Considering almost everybody claimed that Legacy was awesome and something along the lines of the perfect format, yes, people complain because they don't like the kind of style that comes with large amounts of countermagic.
IBA delivered some interesting numbers in the other thread that showed that the number of blue decks in Top eight was significantly higher this time than in the GPs preceding it.
I'm not going to use T8 numbers, though. In such a small sample of the field, I'd expect quite a lot of variance.
So just look at this
(from IBA making the claim blue had significantly risen in number)When Worlds had Legacy as a format in 2007, the decks that finished 4-1 or better in that portion were;
34/53 blue.
GP Providence had 21 out of 32 decks that can be considered blue. (Master Shake's numbers)
Seems very similar, imo (roughly 2:1). So really, all the complaining is aimed at a fact that has been true for years while most everybody called the format outstanding.
Also, one color being best isn't a problem, that will always be the case. When the other colors become non-viable is when you have a problem.
@Richard Cheese: Blue decks being harder to play correctly is a myth nearly as old as the game itself and has been wrong forever. When (well-informed) people say good players have a tendency to prefer blue decks because they allow their play-skill to matter more it is because of the following:
If you're better than your opponent, the most likely reason for you to lose the game is variance. Cheap library manipulation allows you to significantly decrease variance (you're significantly less likely to mana screw or flood, for example), which in turn means you're playing more real games instead of variance-induced blow-outs. If you assume you're better than a large percentage of your opponents, that is a quality that becomes very valuable.
That is also the reason why so many long-time players enjoy playing blue the most. Losing to variance feels really bad and decks with blue cantrips allow you to avoid this more often than decks without them.
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I will concede that blue, especially brainstorm and counters, does offer more decision-making, which may be more skill intensive than swing and burn, but no, there's very little to think about when you're able to go: Counter, counter, counter, Jace, win. Jace is such a proactive card when blue is usually so reactive. I can't believe it was printed.Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
After playing a lot of Deadguy Ale in testing lately with quad Chrome Moxes maindecked, I've decided that blue is probably in fact mortal after all (But by no means weak), but the format's probably going to take almost a year to adapt to the point of there being three or four highly competitive nonblue decks.
Split second cards are going to become better. Blue hate in sideboard is going to become par for the course. And stopping blue-based combo decks is going to be tricky. Faerie Macabre may become the new gold standard in graveyard hate, just for costing 0 mana and being uncounterable. Krosan Grip will be everywhere. Thrun, The Last Troll's going to be pretty sexy, too.
All of this said, Blue's still the strongest it's ever been in Legacy by miles. And if I thought any specific banning wouldn't throw the format into turmoil or that any specific unbanning wouldn't get abused by blue, I'd be all for it. But given the lack of amazing targets for a ban, I'm not sure that leaving things alone isn't the best bet right now.
Ironically, the most popular blue deck is mono-blue, plays nearly all blue creatures, plays Aether Vial, doesn't play Brainstorm, doesn't play Jace, and is the best deck for fighting other blue decks.
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/examin...ix-providence/
So, basically the meta is starting to shape up as this:
Merfolk
Zoo
Blue control
Blue combo
Blue aggro-control
Non-blue decks.
Yet the most popular blue deck doesn't run brainstorm or Jace.
Which furthers my point that you can't really point to one blue card as being the problem.
No it doesn't. Merfolk is a hate deck. If blue weren't so popular, Merfolk would be a lot worse. If Brainstorm were banned, presumably blue's popularity would go down and as a result, so would Merfolk.
eta: Also, for the nth time I'm going to reiterate that my position isn't to ban Brainstorm now, but that people should be spending whatever quality time they feel they need to with the card now, as there's a very real possibility that in the oncoming months it's going to need to get killed.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Merfolk isn't really blue, it's tribal. Honestly when I hear people say blue is dominating I really don't think Merfolk. I think U/X with jace, fetchlands and blue draw. It's like, okay I have my blue shell, now do I want CA with bob and goyf or do I want stoneforge and equipment or do I want to play hive mind combo?
By itself, that's fine. There are a bunch of cards that are usually found together (thoughtseize & hymn to tourach) but when blue has such a leg up because you can add 18-20 cards and then just splash whatever win condition you want, AND those decks then are able to beat every other deck... I don't think this is healthy. do you?
I guess some people do.
they all have misstep in them
writing is on the wall, even though I really like the card. It's making the format "more" blue than ever.
Wow! By this logic of we unban Mind's Desire, Combo will become stronger and more hardcore control would be played to battle combo and with more specialised control in the meta, Zoo and Goblins could take those out and win tournaments! So Mind's Desire makes Zoo better in tourneys? I can't see why meerfolks stance in the meta as a "cheap" Aggro-control deck should suffer if you Ban a card it doesn't play ... It's not like their prey (Pre-misstep countertop) is around atm.
@StarScream
Do I have to mention that you can splash "any Win-condition" in a black discard shell, a green mana-ramp shell, a white board control shell, etc. as well as it it possible in a blue Counter shell? What's the point?
You want to point at misstep (they ran Islands too but we had the "ban Island" Diskussion älteste somewhere Xp)? Doesn't every Gobbo have his 4x Lackeys? Misstep is a reactive card to stop "turn 1 you are dead plays" like vial people are used to ride safe from blue. Are you one of the guys I recently played against running 17 lands and praying for his noble hierarch or GSZ to resolve or loosing the game to manascrew, insulting misstep to be overpowered (obviously caused by "misbuilds" his deck) or have you any evidence that this narrow and reactive card broke the format?
Either your critical cc moves away from 1 or you play like 20 1cc cards like the Zoo List Carsten posted in his article and look how efficent counterspell vs. 2-3 One-mana-plays per turn is or if Jace is omnipotent facing Kitty, Kird Ape, Lavamancer and Liam Lion when He hits the Stage
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-ITT: Merfolk is only good against blue control decks. Has nothing to do with the fact that it runs powerful tempo cards, free counter magic, and creatures that further disrupt and synergy well with each other. Nope, merfolk is AWFUL against combo decks, AWFUL against other non-blue control decks, AWFUL against decks with fragile mana bases, and is AWFUL against Goblins.
-Brainstorm is as likely to be banned as Wasteland, Force of Will, Tarmogoyf, Swords to Plowshares, and Lightning Bolt.
-Goblins isn't red, it's tribal.
Burn isn't red, it's combo.
Spiral Tide isn't blue, it's combo.
Dredge isn't a graveyard deck, it's a aggro/combo deck.
Uh.
No, that's not the logic at all.
If you remove a deck's favorable matchups from the metagame, it's clear that the deck will do worse. If you strengthen a deck's unfavorable matchups, it's also clear that the deck will do worse. So the same logic would be, "If you unban Mind's Desire, Zoo will do worse."
I mean this wasn't hard. I can draw a chart if you need a chart.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
No one said that. You're flailing against a strawman.
Moving on from your blatant dishonesty, Merfolk tends to beat blue decks and combo and lose to most other decks. It is awful against Goblins, for instance.
You might not be aware of this, but Wasteland, Force of Will, Tarmogoyf, StP and Lightning Bolt haven't been banned from any formats before. Brainstorm has.-Brainstorm is as likely to be banned as Wasteland, Force of Will, Tarmogoyf, Swords to Plowshares, and Lightning Bolt.
Honestly, some people act as if this concept of blue being too good is something that just sprang into existence in Legacy amongst a few deranged individuals. It's actually the oldest problem in Magic and one that Wizards is quite aware of. Every card that's been banned in Legacy since its inception has been blue. If you don't think Wizards is tracking the problem you're deluded. And if you don't think the strongest card in the format, and one that's been banned in Vintage, is on a short list of potential axe targets you may justly boast yourself inaccessible to the light.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Survival is not blue, to my knowledge, unless you mean they are "blue" in the sense Tarmogoyf is "blue." Just a nitpick.
And the Merfolk/Goblins MU has been shifting closer to even for a while now, and it may already be there.
Uhm, where exactly are all these U/X control decks that dominate the format so much? Sure, there were a number of Jace decks in the top 8 of the last four big tournaments. None of them even made it to the finals. I call anti control bias. If you ignore Fish there is no case whatsoever for blue being dominant. And before that gets brought up, no, running two Jaces in your Bant deck full of creatures doesn't suddenly make it blue control.
If you disregard Merfolk, the claim for dominant blue becomes very flimsy indeed. Even taking ALL decks using the cantrips together (and that includes such different decks as ANT, Hive Mind, Bant, Team America and Landstill), they didn't make up even 40% of the Providence day two metagame. Adding up all the decks playing white in a similar way gives you roughly the same percentage and adding up green comes in closely behind these two at roughly 35% (and the number of non StP non Goyf cards of those colors seeing play is steadily increasing, so please don't try to argue it's only people splashing for those cards. The winning deck from providence is more of a green deck than it is a blue deck, judging by both strategy and color-counts). If you don't believe me, check the link posted by Drago (Master Shake's article). The only thing making it so that blue is overrepresented is the 20+% Merfolk that inflates the number of blue decks significantly.
Now, blue is contributing a large number of cards to the decks that use it, that doesn't mean Bant and Hive Mind are suddenly the same deck any more than playing Lightning Bolt makes Zoo and NO RUG the same deck.
@IBA: actually, Merfolk is not terribad against anything but combo and blue decks. At least in my testing it isn't. And I hate that deck and would love if it lost to anything under the sun that isn't blue. That way fewer people would play it and I'd have easier matches. The metagame may have a large blue component but it is far from large enough to explain Merfolk's success if the deck were just dead in the water to anything but blue.
I don't have low self-esteem, I have low esteem for everyone else. -Daria
Proud member of Team CAB
High Priest of the Church of BLA
CAB JaceTM
My articles
Nope, I was just being wrong. I don't consider Survival blue, although I do consider Fish blue. The only card I'm really willing to flub is Mental Misstep, which I don't think is really blue in particular so much as people just lack the balls, for the most part, to play it in decks that can't hardcast it.
From my testing, absolute rubbish.And the Merfolk/Goblins MU has been shifting closer to even for a while now, and it may already be there.
Granted, there is an unusually high discrepancy between how good Goblins is usually versus when someone who actually knows how to play the deck pilots it, more than with most decks, due mostly to the widespread belief that Goblins is supposed to always go aggro when in fact it makes a fantastic control deck against other creature-based strategies (also a possible contributor to the widespread idea that Batterskull is anything but dead weight against Goblins).
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Really? There's gotta be some secret tech going on, then, because lately I haven't felt out of the game at all against Goblins.*
*Most of my testing comes from games against myself, online, and the 1 to 2 games picked up when I can get them. But even then, I'm a fairly competent Goblins pilot, and am aware of Goblins strength as a board control deck.
Your research and format analogies obviously offer no justification to waste paper drawing charts.
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I mean God forbid they go old school and run 4 Piledrivers, but even without Mr. I-single-handedly-end-you showing up in trips, it's a terrible matchup. Not as bad as Zoo but strongly unfavored, I would say in the realm of 60% and up, with variance for different builds. Even that is assuming a weak manabase. And not counting a Mental Misstep build.
That doesn't even make sense, although I suspect you were attempting to change the topic. Not sure exactly.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
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