Top 8
Seems like Countertop is back Oo
I was also wondering that there is no combo at all, except that lone ANT.
Saw many High Tide players day 1 tough.
Thoughts on that?
True strength lies in action. Let the weak react to me! -Kamahl, Pit Fighter
Here is the entire Top 32.
There is more combo further down, but there are also a lot of blue tempo and aggro-control decks. It's worth noting that many of the combo decks are things like Sneak Attack that require different hate from non-blue decks, hence why there are few non-blue, non-combo decks in the top 32 (I'm counting five, excluding Elves and Painter).
I wonder how much of this meta is Europe being Europe and how much of it is people still coming off the high of MMS getting banned. I would like to know what the Day One and Two metagame compositions are.
Hive Mind in top 4. Imperial Painter top 8.Originally Posted by ThoSha
x2 Sneak/Show top 16. TES, Doomsday, and Dredge in top 32.
8 out of 32 doesn't seem all that low, but still lower than some recent US tournys.
Is it possible that combo is more popular state-side? Or maybe combo was pushed out by a field saturated with tempo and control strategies.
Anyone got the scoop?
The decks that I saw most of on the top tables in my half day-1 were Reanimate, Canadian Thresh, BUG, Dredge and Storm Combo. All the reanimate, thresh and bug might have kicked the storm players out of the top-8. CounterTop didn't seem to exist in the tournament and I think that one guy had just been getting good matchups or something.
There's only 2 Storm decks in the T32:
Abel Planting - TES (TNT) (23rd)
Christoph Alsheimer - DDFT (28th)
I finished 37th with UBw ANT.
But as mentioned there's a few other combo decks such as Hive Mind, Painter, Elves and Sneaky Show as well.
It seemed like a healthy metagame apart from the lack of aggro decks with only Maverick doing well (as well as a fair few aggro-control decks). But I don't really mind if Goblins isn't viable anymore to be honest.
My bad, seems like a wasnt looking carefully enough.
Of course Hive Mind and Painter took top 8 too.
I was just surprised on the outcome, as i saw lots of Reanimators and High Tide on Day 1. Threshold was doing quite well too, but this Top 8 was still kind of unexpected.
True strength lies in action. Let the weak react to me! -Kamahl, Pit Fighter
I think you forgot Elie Pichon, 4th place with ANT
I don't like to repeat myself, but as i suspected combo is on a rise, goblin is still dead and pure control decks (UW stoneforge) and NORUg decks are dead too (midrange however still placed one in T8, picture me surprised). I expected Liliana to place at least a copy in this T8 though. Maybe the meta is just too fast for Liliana now, and NO strategies apparently disappearing aren't helping the card either.
And lol at those Nimble Mongoose! It's 2008 all over again.
Shocking, there are 1,000 Brainstorms in the top 16 decks. Yet the card never gets a sniff when ban time comes ... but Earthcraft is banned.
Not this shit again please.
Yea, there were zero earthcrafts in the top8, so it's clearly not very useful.
Anyway, I'm kind of surprised that reanimator didn't manage to break top32. I thought it was one of the better combo decks right now.
Of course not, it's a skill testing card tht requires islands; we'd hate to see it go. God forbid you couldn't fix your hand for one blue and a fetch. Isn't ubiquity a criteria? Or is it just whining volume?
Edit: Hahahhahaha ... 23 of the top 32 had 4 Brainstorm, let me know how the sand tastes while your head is wedged in it. Insane some of the banned cards we still have when this thing is still running wild after all these years.
That's clearly some messed up shit. At first, it wasn't specifically brainstorm that annoyed me, but the amount of blue (and with an obvious pattern - pretty much always the same cards) instantly caught my attention. It's like Vintage where you start every decklist with the same staple power cards. In legacy you pretty much start with 4 brainstorm, 4 fow and then continue from there.
There have always been a prevalence of blue, but what we saw in amsterdam is just too much. Actually, the problem is not "too much blue" but "too little everything-else". Hopefully it is just this one tournament and then things will balance a little more.
EDIT: C'mon! People are playing counterspell!!! There's something really tilting things in blues favor.
"Want all, lose all."
Step1: Whine about Brainstorm. Step 2: They print a card that can handle Brainstorm. Step 3: Whine about said card until it gets banned. Step 4: go to Step 1.
If thats what you want to do, fine. I for myself think the meta is very diverse right now, and it's fine as it is. Lots of different decks are viable right now, even non-blue strategies.
If people wanted to play a format where Brainstorm was banned they would play Modern.
Look--I love Brainstorm as much as the next guy, and I'm not sure this is even the thread for this debate, but if you're going to argue that Brainstorm doesn't need to be banned, I'm sure you can come up with something better than "Anyone who thinks that Brainstorm could/should be banned is just whining and the card will never be banned because I like it too much and would quit if I couldn't play it."
I would argue that Brainstorm isn't banned because brainstorm isn't unfun to play against, doesn't hose options, and is simply a best of class in what it does much like other cards. It's not a combo enabler, it's not a broken win condition, it's a hand fixer cantrip.
It shows up frequently because it's a very good card in a popular color. Dark Confidant is in almost(insurance) every black deck that doesn't run tombstalker or isn't combo and I've seen ANT sideboard him.
It's fun to conjecture and cite singleton reasons as to why a card should be banned and ignore others; quite frankly, most good staples in the format see frequent play in top8, top16 decks, and there's nothing wrong with that.
What this guy said.
I would totally agree with this sentiment, except than an overwhelming number of Legacy players feel this way about Brainstorm, so it's actually a relevant argument in this case.
Here's the deal: Brainstorm is overpowered. There's a reason it's played everywhere; it literally improves every deck with blue mana in the format with the arguable exception of Merfolk. That said, for being the most powerful card in the format, it's relatively innocuous. It doesn't automatically win the game when it resolves. It doesn't force you into any one playstyle - it's equally at home in combo, control, and aggro strategies. It's not a win condition. It just makes every deck it gets put into more consistent.
It can be argued that lowering randomness and increasing consistency across the board makes for a format that rewards play skill more than any other. Would you rather win the game because you made the right choices over the course of a game, or because you got lucky draws? Most Legacy players will answer the latter, and that, I think, is why Brainstorm is so well regarded by the majority of Legacy's community.
As incredibly strong as Brainstorm is, I think it could do irreparable harm to the format to ban it. I suspect people would leave the format in droves if it got the axe.
I actually agree wholly with your conclusion. The issue I had was that the only argument against the banning of Brainstorm in this thread was "Stop whining and play Modern." Brainstorm is overpowered, like you say. When a card puts up numbers like this and you know that the card is a key component in propelling these decks to where they are, if someone wants to call into question whether this presence is merely ubiquity or something outright dangerous, the only defense people seem to have for this card is "Don't start that shit because I love Brainstorm." But at the end of the day, I think the perception that everyone has that Legacy would take a heavy blow from losing the card is enough to stop it from being banned, because you have to cater to your audience when it comes to the game, and it's clear that most of the audience wants Brainstorm. Hell, I might even quit if Brainstorm were banned; I just don't think that I have the right to act like Brainstorm is actually undeserving of some action against it, nor do I believe that it is so untouchable that I would attack the character of someone who thinks it could be banned.
As a friend of Abel Planting (23rd) I can tell you he played at least 7 blue opponents on day 1 (one bye, one round I'm not sure because I got in extra time).
On day two, he played twice against a nonblue deck.
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