That's a pretty bold statement, sir. Can you provide anything other than conjecture and opinion as to validate that claim?Originally Posted by Lancer
Team Albany: What's Legacy?
You cannot know the sweetness of Victory, without first dwelling in the agony of Defeat.
- They're crying about the combo decks from a week ago or so, crying about the aggro decks with SFM-BS that shit all over them, crying about the Snappys, and just crying in general.
Speaking as a Team America pilot who spent the weekend attending a couple of local events, protecting Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker against 4 StP, 2 Paths and 3 Snapcasters is a huge hassle. Seriously.
EDIT: Clarification: Not that it mattered in this case, because there were no Snapcasters in that list, but the SFM decks I played against this weekend all included Snapcaster, and SFM/Batterskull/SoFaF was a lot less threatening than Tiago.
Proof is history... Magic Backs, Creation of the Reserve List, Banning of Hymn and Memory Jar, etc... are based upon wizards making a judgement call upon hate mail.
wizards needs to prove otherwise.
Also... Legacy was created because of hate mail from the banning of Earthcraft (restriction in type 1) and the looming idea to restrict Mana Drain, Oath of Druids and Workshop to ban the cards from type 1.5.
Popular opinion and backlash != hate mail.
The things that you listed as history being proof were all, at the time, deemed to be in the best interest of the game. Of those the only one that is hurting the game (not really the game so much as Legacy and Vintage) is the reserved list. There is no proof that it was 'hate mail' that pushed any of those decisions.
If hate mail actually influence the DCI banned/restricted policy or WotC's policies regarding Magic: New card frames would have been abolished, the 10th edition change to all sets being black bordered (except for un-sets) wouldn't have happened, Lackey/Survival/LED would have been banned in 2004, the reserve list would have been abolished, etc...
It takes a lot of balls to state as fact that hate mail is the basis for the choices the company makes, as they have and will always make choices that contradict the piles of hate mail and threats to quit playing they get.
I also resent the thought that Legacy was created because of hate mail to the idea to restrict drain, oath, and workshop to ban them in 1.5 because they did not need to be banned in 1.5. If anything it was created because there were too many whiny people complaining that they didn't have the money for drains, shops, or bazaars and "couldn't compete." Similar to how people now are complaining about forces, wastes, and duals.
Team Albany: What's Legacy?
You cannot know the sweetness of Victory, without first dwelling in the agony of Defeat.
Seems to me that you're just trolling. Do you have a link to back up your claims?
MM Ban and some other decisions were made because wizards has no fucking clue about the game and employs idiots like LaPille and Rosewater
Are people still crying over MM? Geez, get over it already. The MM ban was one of the smartest moves in the history of this format, one that WotC should be applauded for. If the forum whiners actually put some thought in it, they would realise that as well.
Oh the irony.
And Vintage is probably less blue than legacy nowadays with all the MUD around + manaless dredge.
I see this degrading into another ban/unban thread. I am starting to get really annoyed that my favorite forum to go to is becoming less and less appealing.
I 'think' Lancer is a troll, but that's just me:
Players has been bitching about the card since wizards banned MM upon the announcement of Modern.
Also the most recent "major tournament" was won by Dredge (which was said to be dead because of MM)
Sure I have no evidence to support this; but wizards has always respond to players complains, the magic backs/expansion symbols, removing demonic symbols, the reserve list (Chronicles/4th edition) and the emergency banning of Memory Jar... [there are many others]
I prefer tournament results for a ban, not this speedy, emergency banning crap.
I also dont believe Wizards and DCI are the same entity... It's not right... especially when this game is played like a poker game.
He posts more about MTG being a gambling/poker game (wtf is wrong with poker anyway?!) than his posts about hatemails but I'm not going to dig those up :P. I just wasted 5min of my life digging this up :P
Anyway, back on topic: I really doubt Snapcaster Mage is going to be format warping. It's a flavor of the week thing all over again. Just like Delver of Secrets, it's a new card that fits only in certain decks. You can't universally play Snapcaster Mage without at least 8-12 maindeck instants (and they have to be cheaply costed too!) to flashback. It has some really sick interactions with Daze/Unearth/Cabal Therapy though so I can see even more lists being abused/developed. The thing is you can't just squeeze 2-4 Snapcaster mage in every list. Even in a deck choked full of instants like Solidarity, he isn't a huge impact that makes the deck warp the format.
We're long gone from the format-warping metagame that is Survival. Even Mystical Tutor wasn't really warping the format because WotC did not even give MTutor enough time to warp the format. They banned it when they sensed that ANT/Reanimator was becoming too consistent/strong but those decks were never allowed enough time to determine what is format warping. IN all honesty, MM should probably be left unbanned for another 6-12months before the banhammer, but it's pretty clear that the format was defined by MM (FoWless lists are entirely possible without MM because both the card MM and the metagame defined by MM allowed FoW to not exist i.e. combo being neutered heavily.)
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
I can see Snapcaster Mage (SCM) warping decks already and the format eventually. SCM has already replaced Tombstalker in Team America. There's no reason to play Standstill/Mishra's Factory now because SCM/SFM+Batterskull together in U/W are a powerhouse. I did not support the banning of MM but I can only imagine that aggro and combo will both cease to exist with SCM + MM around, except for Hive Mind. Aggro remains weak even without MM because of the printing of SCM. Vial can be FoW'd, Lackey StP'd, SCM-StP flashback or SFM into Batterskull are equally devastating to Aggro. It's obvious that Zoo/Merfolk are more unfavorable now. Except for Ichorid which has a better chance because it can do unfair things early. Natural Order was also affected by the absence of MM to protect their creatures and SCM flashbacks did hurt the deck.
As a storm player, I'd rather see Snapcaster any day over MM.
So at the beginning of this thread blue was too powerful(again!)........now blue needs Mental Misstep back?
Did I miss something there?
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Reprint a fixed Misstep that only hits Instants/Sorcs so that aggro can compete with combo. The options aggro has post board vs. combo are laughable compared to the sideboard options available to every other matchup in the format. If it makes them sleep better at night the alternate CC can be "If you control no Islands you may pay 2 life to play ~this card~ without paying it's casting cost, not that blue would likely run it anyways with Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce being better complements to FoW.
There is no good reason to take Aggro to a large 8+ round event over a blue deck if you are trying to win. The blue decks have maybe at worst a 40/60 matchup with aggro and plenty of SB options and hardcore aggro has around a 30/70 matchup with combo and very few good SB options. If they combo out before your second turn most times you have all of two real options Leyline/Mindbreak, both of which are incredibad. Even if combo is a terrible metagame choice you can still get an unlucky pairing round 1 then end up losing to some little kid playing Beltcher in a room full of Force of Will decks and there's not much you can do about it. One bad pairing and you might as well get a headstart on driving home. Blue decks can SB for their bad matchup aggro out the ass, so if they run into 3 Zoo decks in 8 rounds they still have a fair chance of succeeding. If the Zoo player hits a good storm combo player in 8 rounds he has to just hope that the combo player gets unlucky because there is not much he can do about turn 1-2 Tendrils or ETW. If he hits 2 good combo players the chances of winning both games are abysmal no matter how much he sideboards (within reason, I mean obviously you can't run 10x cards that are only good vs. 2-3 decks).
Bottom line, I would rather go into an 8 round event with a blue deck, knowing I'm going to be playing vs. 4 Zoo decks and 4x random matchups than go into the same 8 round event with a Zoo deck, knowing I'm going to be playing vs. 2x fast combo decks piloted by good players and 6x good matchups. That's how bad the situation is for non-blue decks.
big links in sigs are obnoxious -PR
Don't disrespect my dojo dude...
Sweep the leg!
Why should aggro be able to compete with combo?
Do you also feel like there's been a lot less activity in deck threads lately, and way more in speculation threads like B/R update, SCD, etc.? Just feels like we're all just waiting to see the next SCG T16 and letting that define the community as a whole.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Having 4x fixed Mental Misstep's is not going to make combo a favorable matchup, but right now aggro practically scoops to combo. When people talk about a Rock/Paper/Scissors metagame it's obviously just a simplified way to describe the favorable matchups, but when Paper beats Rock 70% of the time and there are no good SB options and Rock only beats Scissors 55-60% of the time depending on MD/SB, why the fuck would anyone ever throw Rock?
Ironically I think a fixed Mental Misstep would make combo a better choice overall. People got reminded in Indy what happens when you sleep on combo. Now expect to see blue decks out the ass.
A lot of people still won't play Zoo or other aggro in a large event because you have to dodge combo for 8-10 rounds or get lucky as a champ, even if they know going in that 70% of their opponents will probably be playing blue. It's not worth having a slightly favorable matchup to blue to give up a completely hopeless matchup vs. combo. I mean literally right now your overall best option vs. Tendrils or Beltcher with Zoo is too just hope they can't combo off before you get to 2 mana after SB and that you have a hate bear on turn 2, for 2 games in a row. So since people are so incredibly gunshy about running aggro, blue decks go almost completely unchecked.
Ironically I think having a fixed Misstep makes combo better.
If Zoo/other aggro wasn't a completely lost cause vs. combo more people would run it and it would make blue decks slightly less favorable, which would push some of combo's natural enemies out of the metagame, which would make combo a better choice overall because the Zoo/aggro matchup would still be favorable even with 4x fixed Missteps. What's better, the Zoo/combo matchup would be decided more by skill postboard instead of "Can I combo off? Okay, *dead*" With a fixed Misstep their would actually be a risk/reward to trying to combo off turn 1 and potentially getting stopped by Misstep 2.0 or waiting until a turn or 2 later when you can play around Mistep 2.0 but you might have to face down a hate bear. Right now there is no downside to throwing all in vs. Zoo on turn 1. Only completely terrible players run Mindbreak Trap.
big links in sigs are obnoxious -PR
Don't disrespect my dojo dude...
Sweep the leg!
Quit whining. "Oh no I wanna play zoo but I'm not ok with the fact that combo is supposed to beat aggro, boo hoo pity me" suck it up. Thats the way magic is. Control beats combo, combo beats aggro, aggro beats control. Get over it. And the tools that aggro has to beat combo are far from "laughable", players just refuse to acknowledge that its a matchup that they are supposed to lose. If I take zoo to a big tourney I will always have at least 10 sb cards. Period. Its what has to happen if you have any expectation of turning a 20% chance to win into a 50+%
One of the allures to playing fast combo is the ability to beat non blue decks. Giving all decks an edge against storm.decks might not really help combo much.
They have been slowly helping aggro out versus storm lately. Trap being the most notable. Also, revoker is good versus LED. And of course gaddock Teeg and Canonist are nice guys to have on your side.
I think a one mana hate bear might help out aggro(please make it red or green). But you really don't want something too strong against combo printed. The TES/Ant players aren't going to be able to fight through force of will decks and zoo decks with powerful card in theory.
First off I don't want to play Zoo I just want a balanced format because I think it's more fun when Aggro/Combo/Blue are balanced and right now blue is way ahead because it's matchup vs. aggro is WAYYY more manageable in the side than Aggro vs. combo. I mean no one can deny that combo vs. aggro is a give away match and aggro vs. blue is only slightly favorable for aggro. I'm not saying make aggro have a 50+% matchup vs. combo just that it should be able to sideboard cards that are relevant turns 0 and 1 when combo is usually busy winning the game to turn a complete blowout into at least a slight test of skill for both players.
If combo has a fistful of options that negate counterspells or discard and make it's matchup vs. blue close to if not over 50% post board, why can't aggro have one good option postboard vs. combo? Is that not a valid argument? WotC realizes this is a problem, hell they came out and said Misstep was an attempt to give aggro viable options vs. combo but obviously they messed up by making it hit perms, which is largely irrelevant vs. combo but gave blue 4x extra FoWs vs. combo and aggro.
Teeg and Canonist are nice but you are still more or less helpless vs. the turn 1 blowout which is almost a sure thing with Beltcher and not hard when you are talking 2 post board games with Tendrils. Storm decks have tons of tools vs. blue, blue decks have tons of tools vs. aggro, aggro has a bunch of 2 cmc bears vs. combo and Mindbreak Trap/Leyline which are both ass. Don't even get me started on the things Orim's Chant/Discard or bounce can do to your plan of drop a hatebear turn 2 even when they don't go off before you hit 2 mana. Why can't aggro have even 1/4 of the tools vs. combo that blue and combo have vs. it? I mean a fixed Misstep is still not going to make combo a favorable matchup. Discard/Chant still exist and you are still going to lose game 1 most of the time. It's still a worse matchup post board than combo vs. blue when combo gets to bring in 4x Xantid Swarms and possibly negate every answer in the blue players deck with a one drop. Someone please tell me how that is any more fair than one good answer for combo that is relevant before turn 2. Combo already plays to cards that allow it to play around a potential Misstep from aggro, if those answers aren't enough combo can easily sb cards that bounce/destroy most of aggros relevant creatures and buy the combo player additional turns to combo out and make the matchup more favorable again.
Bottom line you still only get 15 sideboard slots, I just want to format to be more about who prepares the best, who picks the best deck, who plays the smartest, and who most wisely uses their SB space. For the large part it already is that, it's just that aggro is by far a worse choice than blue or combo because of it's abysmal matchup vs. combo. For the record I hate playing aggro, I find it boring. I just think the format would be a lot more interesting if the rock/paper/scissors wasn't so imbalanced.
big links in sigs are obnoxious -PR
Don't disrespect my dojo dude...
Sweep the leg!
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