Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

  1. #1

    [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    New article is up!

  2. #2
    Member

    Join Date

    Aug 2011
    Location

    Italy
    Posts

    780

    Re: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    I only want to say that even though the card isn't ban worthy in terms of power level still, it kind of pigeonholed the whole combo archetype into a S&T decks variety. I wouldn't like to see the card gone because being able to play with or against such powerful cards is always exciting, yet the staleness of the combo archetype could use a little adjustment.

  3. #3
    Member
    Barook's Avatar
    Join Date

    Mar 2007
    Location

    Germany, Germering, Munich
    Posts

    7,491

    Re: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    While Wizards is currently on the roll when it comes to stupid shit at ridiculous mana costs (Enter the Infinite being the latest entrance), I have to ask if they can go even more stupid anymore to push S&T into ban territory.

    S&T would also be less problematic if the amount of hate cards wasn't so limited/narrow, with Karakas/O-Ring being the best choices.

  4. #4
    Vintage

    Join Date

    Apr 2005
    Location

    West Coast Degeneracy
    Posts

    5,135

    Re: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    Quote Originally Posted by Barook View Post
    While Wizards is currently on the roll when it comes to stupid shit at ridiculous mana costs (Enter the Infinite being the latest entrance), I have to ask if they can go even more stupid anymore to push S&T into ban territory.

    S&T would also be less problematic if the amount of hate cards wasn't so limited/narrow, with Karakas/O-Ring/Confusion in the Ranks being the best choices.
    FTFY, because who doesn't love more narrow and limited answers to ridiculous cards?!
    West side
    Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
    * Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
    My Legacy stream
    My MTG Blog - Work in progress

  5. #5

    Re: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    Quote Originally Posted by Barook View Post
    While Wizards is currently on the roll when it comes to stupid shit at ridiculous mana costs (Enter the Infinite being the latest entrance), I have to ask if they can go even more stupid anymore to push S&T into ban territory.

    S&T would also be less problematic if the amount of hate cards wasn't so limited/narrow, with Karakas/O-Ring being the best choices.
    Angel of Despair is not a bad choice. Gilded drake is pretty good too.

  6. #6

    Re: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    "the people at Wizards when this card was first printed probably overlooked the fundamental idea that over time as newer cards are printed it would just become more and more powerful."

    ^^^This^^^

    The S&T will run into the same problem as Survival of the Fittest - eventually, Wizards of the Coast will print something too powerful and it will require Show and Tell to be banned. It may very well be possible that we've already passed that mark between: Griselbrand, Emrakul, Omniscience (which also includes Enter the Infinite & Burning Wish > Petals of Insight > Grapeshot) - not to mention Dream Halls, Sneak Attack and Hive Mind. I only see two major differences the two archetypes. S&T is essentially a two card combo; S&T plus whatever you're putting into play. Survival was technically a two card combo, but was less dependent on what it had in hand needing only a creature to go off. In this respect, Survival was even more resilient than Show and Tell. The second is results. Survival of the Fittest was consistently populating top eights of events with 2-3 copies of the deck. Show and Tell has accomplished this, but with a great deal less consistently than Survival did. I'm not sure if the meta-game was simply ill equipped to handle Survival of the Fittest decks, but the fact that Survival is still outpacing Show and Tell kind of shocks me.

  7. #7
    That's not my play, I'm just choosing to reveal it
    lochlan's Avatar
    Join Date

    Oct 2011
    Location

    Portland, OR.
    Posts

    221

    Re: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    Quote Originally Posted by Fossil4182 View Post
    The S&T will run into the same problem as Survival of the Fittest
    Essentially your argument boils down to "any enabler will be banned if the things it enables will get better."

    The key points you fail to acknowledge, however, are that:
    1) Survival's drawback (discarding a card) actually helps enable Vengevine shenanigans
    2) Show and Tell's drawback (its symmetry) opens it up to uncounterable hate cards from the opponent (such as Oblivion Ring)

    Regarding the other enablers you mentioned: Sneak Attack, Dream Halls, and Hive Mind all seem fine at four, five, and six mana respectively. The reason Show and Tell gets so much flak is that three mana is very, very easy to make--a Lotus Petal and a "sol" land on turn one, for instance. But considering how easy the card is to hate out without even casting a spell, it seems fine to me.

    Survival, meanwhile, is two mana and has no drawback in a properly constructed deck.

    You don't see how one of these cards is inherently better than the other as an enabler? Wizards keeps printing cards, most or all enablers are going to get better as time goes on.

  8. #8

    Re: [Article] The Cutting Room Floor: Nobody Rides For Free

    Quote Originally Posted by lochlan View Post
    Essentially your argument boils down to "any enabler will be banned if the things it enables will get better."

    The key points you fail to acknowledge, however, are that:
    1) Survival's drawback (discarding a card) actually helps enable Vengevine shenanigans
    2) Show and Tell's drawback (its symmetry) opens it up to uncounterable hate cards from the opponent (such as Oblivion Ring)

    Regarding the other enablers you mentioned: Sneak Attack, Dream Halls, and Hive Mind all seem fine at four, five, and six mana respectively. The reason Show and Tell gets so much flak is that three mana is very, very easy to make--a Lotus Petal and a "sol" land on turn one, for instance. But considering how easy the card is to hate out without even casting a spell, it seems fine to me.

    Survival, meanwhile, is two mana and has no drawback in a properly constructed deck.

    You don't see how one of these cards is inherently better than the other as an enabler?
    The key points outlined that were supposedly missed are already accounted for in the general argument that "any enabler will be banned if the things it enables [become too good]". Conceding that Survival's "drawback" enabled Vengevine only serves as an example for the argument "any enabler will be banned if the things it enables [become too good]. When WotC printed Vengevine, Survival of the Fittest's drawback (discarding a creature card) became a mechanism to not only tutor one's win condition, but also cheat it into play at minimal cost (not to mention being difficult to disrupt and quite fast). Even though Show and Tell is symmetrical from a textual point of view, its "symmetrical" in the same way Balance was in the old Balance decks. The Show and Tell deck is designed to cheat into play larger, more powerful cards while the opponent's deck will almost always put something into play that is inferior (unless one is playing the mirror).

    There are specific cards which answer can be used to stop Show and Tell: Oblivion Right, Gilded Drake, Karakas, etc. However, those cards are aren't keeping pace with the power of new printings. Omniscience seems to be the preferred enchantment to cheat into play with Show and Tell which Oblivion Ring does a fine job answering since most of the kills associated with Omniscience are sorcery speed. However, the Hive Mind variant can win in response to the Oblivion Ring's enter the battlefield trigger. Should decks need to back 3-4 Sundial of the Infinite if Show and Tell builds move toward the Hive Mind kill? Griselbrand can still allow the Show and Tell player to draw 7 - 14 cards in response to any of the abilities which seems to negate most of the answers. Gilded Drake provides a little bit of value against Griselbrand but none against Omniscience, Hivemind and/or Dream Halls. What happens when the next Griselbrand has Shroud or Hexproof? Are sideboards going to start with 3-4 copies of Phyrexian Metamorph? As the power of the cards being enabled increases, the answers to those cards are becoming more and more narrow. The argument is true that specific strategies deployed by Show and Tell can be easily hated out. However, it is difficult to sideboard against Show and Tell decks because of the sheer variety of strategies they can deploy; this variety negates many sideboard options because there isn't a lot of cards that can interact with multiple strategies.


    Quote Originally Posted by lochlan View Post
    Wizards keeps printing cards, most or all enablers are going to get better as time goes on.
    If you are conceding that WotC will continue to print cards that make enablers more powerful overtime, isn't there a point at which the enabler becomes too power? Isn't the logical conclusion that enabler will be banned?. I do not think anyone is going to argue the trend toward printing increasingly powerful cards is going to stop soon. The problem is that even though future printings could solve by providing new "tech" to keep the enabler in check, WotC doesn't design or test with Legacy in mind so I don't see this as a guarantee or check on the enablers.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)