[Article] TCRF: Griselbanned?

[Esper3k]

actually alderon, Time Stop would answer that.

And Meddling Mage effects too!

[Barook]

Name an unbeatable card. Just one.

Every card can be answered. If there was a card:

All I Do is Win 1
Instant
All I Do is Win can't be countered.
All I Do is Win can't be target of spells or abilities while on the stack.
Remove all permanents from the game. You win the game.

Now that's unbeatable. The problem with banning creature like Griselbrand is that every time they print a huge monster that wins the game when it hits the table, people are going to want it to be banned.

Stuff like Meddling Mage would also stop it.

[SpikeyMikey]

For those that think Deathrite takes care of reanimator, I suggest testing Tin Fins against any of those decks. Deathrite really isn't very hard to win through.

Thanks for the article - provided a good overview of the deck and I think a good picture in to the "cheating" of permanents into play in Legacy. I'm actually not sure if banning Entomb, however would be enough to make Tin Fins go away. Honestly, the deck is pretty good off of a Show and Tell as well as the reanimation plan.

Also glad you mentioned the parallels with Lich...

Makes me want to get with Richard Cheese and actually finish off the Tin Fins primer...

I just want to point out that I beat it with Zoo. I mean, not that I don't think it's a playable deck, but its not like some format destroyer.

[Koby]

I just want to point out that I beat it with Zoo. I mean, not that I don't think it's a playable deck, but its not like some format destroyer.

With speaks more to the variance of the deck/format than it does the strength of either deck. Sample Size: 1.

[.dk]

I just want to point out that I beat it with Zoo. I mean, not that I don't think it's a playable deck, but its not like some format destroyer.

And for reference, Richard Cheese was running an older list without Children of Korlis. The deck has gotten a LOT better since then.

[slave]

LOL

[Michael Keller]

Glad you all liked it!

I don't personally think it's an unbeatable deck, but giving something like Griselbrand haste and drawing your deck seems pretty good no matter what format you're playing.

[ESG]

Also I want as many different viable decks as possible and banning Griselbrand would significantly hurt the mentioned combo decks.

Catmint, surely the existence of Tin Fins, Reanimator, Sneak and Show and Hypergenesis pushes out or marginalizes far more than four decks from the format (essentially the slow, non-blue decks). Whether you view those decks as being less worthy of these four combo decks is another issue. Speaking hypothetically, if Griselbrand were banned, the only deck that would drop off the map would be Tin Fins. The others existed before Griselbrand. They certainly would take a hit from Griselbrand's exit, but they would still be fast and viable decks.

[troopatroop]

Survival is fine. You have to cast what you get with it, or attack (eventually), with non-evasive 4/3's subject to all the grave hate that's been printed in the last 1.5 years. It's no worse than Entomb which was banned for years.

This isn't funny to me. Survival was awesomely Tier-2 in Legacy for so long until Iona and Vengevine, but they killed it with those two printings. I'm VERY bitter.

[catmint]

Maybe with less combo more non-blue midrange decks would be viable, but this is not what legacy means to me. The only non-vintage format where you have to worry about combo. If you don't like that there are 2 other formats you can play. Anyway I am not even sure if more non-blue midrange decks (or slower) would make it to tier status, because there seem to be dominant ones like jund, maverick which occupy this spot.

Anyway if GY combo (reanimator, dredge) is "pushed out", show&tell is "pushed out" (Sneak Attack was not really a deck before and the other show&tell variants are slower, worse 3 card combos and/or would also get hit by loosing griselbrand), there is only storm based combo left you have to worry about. Now, despite a lot of hate thrown at it skilled pilots have success, but if there is much less other combo in the meta to worry about I can dedicate more slots hating out the view combo decks left weakening combo as a whole.

Not sure if my thinking is right, but the format feels very healthy and diverse to me. Comparing that to the mental misstep area, where so much stuff was pushed out and it was all about Stoneblade and Natural Order, this is surely better.

To me combo is a like a flower:
- It can shine for a day drawing all the attention to it (see hypes and flame "bad xyz" threads)
- There are certain season where flowers have a really hard time (metagame cycles)
- If the environment becomes to hostile flowers die (too much hate & bannings)

Perception is very subjective, but to me thinking long-term combo is more "endangered wildlife" rather than a virus "killing everything else". Also to keep combo alive it has to be something open to many people (beginners) and not only those hardcore lovers spending a couple of years practice into Storm or Dredge so they can succeed despite all the hate throwen at them. Easier Stuff like Show&Tell variants and TinFins are therefore very welcome.

[Azdraël]

To me combo is a like a flower:
- It can shine for a day drawing all the attention to it (see hypes and flame "bad xyz" threads)
- There are certain season where flowers have a really hard time (metagame cycles)
- If the environment becomes to hostile flowers die (too much hate & bannings)

That deserves a quote!

[Kich867]

Offtopic, but why exactly was Mental Misstep so good for NO-Pro? What 1 cmc card blew that deck out? And why was the blue response not to just drop spell pierce and spell snare for mana-leak or counterspell?

[Esper3k]

Offtopic, but why exactly was Mental Misstep so good for NO-Pro? What 1 cmc card blew that deck out? And why was the blue response not to just drop spell pierce and spell snare for mana-leak or counterspell?

It wasn't that MM protected cards in NO RUG so well. It's that MM slowed down the format so much and killed the decks that ran a bunch of 1-drops (fast combo, etc.) and allowed the slower NO RUG to be playable.

[AEnesidem]

Good article, it was a fun read.
To people crying for a ban again, go home. It's always the same, everytime a combo deck doinates, something has to be banned. Last month it was SnT, now it's entomb or griselbrand itself? it's not dominating the format, it's not warping it. There's no problem. Legacy is as fun and diverse as it has always been.

[Kich867]

It wasn't that MM protected cards in NO RUG so well. It's that MM slowed down the format so much and killed the decks that ran a bunch of 1-drops (fast combo, etc.) and allowed the slower NO RUG to be playable.

Ah gotcha.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Good article, it was a fun read.
To people crying for a ban again, go home. It's always the same, everytime a combo deck doinates, something has to be banned. Last month it was SnT, now it's entomb or griselbrand itself? it's not dominating the format, it's not warping it. There's no problem. Legacy is as fun and diverse as it has always been.

I'll admit I'm still a bit new to Legacy (only one event under my belt so far), but looking at the DtB section:

3/7 Combo
5/7 Blue decks with potential for counterspells (lumping both Team America together and including Reanimator)
4/7 Black decks with potential for discard (see above, though unsure if Reanimator even runs discard)
3/7 Blue-AND-Black decks with potential for both counterspells AND discard
1/7 Decks that are neither blue or black (again, unsure if Elves do pack disruption now)
0/7 Decks that non-blue, non-black, and non-combo

To me, this seems like it is warped: either you play traditional disruption (and by that, I mean disruption that works on either the stack or the hand), combo, or both.

The reason for this, or so I believe, is the family of SnT decks as a whole is impossible to hate out without traditional disruption. You have Sneak Attack (and it's more volatile cousin, Omniscience), Hypergenesis, and Reanimator. Sneak Attack and Hypergenesis overpower the hate (as does SnT into G-Brand itself to an extent), and Reanimator can cheat from multiple zones.

Not calling for a ban on anything mind you: just more effective hate to be printed so that decks without traditional disruption have viable sideboard options to hate-out SnT-based decks.

[AEnesidem]

I'll admit I'm still a bit new to Legacy (only one event under my belt so far), but looking at the DtB section:

3/7 Combo
5/7 Blue decks with potential for counterspells (lumping both Team America together and including Reanimator)
4/7 Black decks with potential for discard (see above, though unsure if Reanimator even runs discard)
3/7 Blue-AND-Black decks with potential for both counterspells AND discard
1/7 Decks that are neither blue or black (again, unsure if Elves do pack disruption now)
0/7 Decks that non-blue, non-black, and non-combo

To me, this seems like it is warped: either you play traditional disruption (and by that, I mean disruption that works on either the stack or the hand), combo, or both.

The reason for this, or so I believe, is the family of SnT decks as a whole is impossible to hate out without traditional disruption. You have Sneak Attack (and it's more volatile cousin, Omniscience), Hypergenesis, and Reanimator. Sneak Attack and Hypergenesis overpower the hate (as does SnT into G-Brand itself to an extent), and Reanimator can cheat from multiple zones.

Not calling for a ban on anything mind you: just more effective hate to be printed so that decks without traditional disruption have viable sideboard options to hate-out SnT-based decks.

The DtB section is just a picture of how legacy currently looks. Legacy is cyclical. Maverick, jund, goblins and zoo have all been succesful decks and are decks that can or will eventually come back when the meta allows it. Legacy has always been blue based though, why? because force of will keeps combo in check and brainstorm is too good to in conjunction with fetchlands. Black has been a weak color for very long and wasn't played that much anymore till Deathrite shaman and Abrupt decay came into the picture.
SnT style decks aren't the reason for the presence of "traditional style disruption". The blue disruption has always been there because it keeps comb in check ad black is there now because BG got a power boost. efore SnT and reanimator decks were good there were still other combo decks: High tide, ANT, TES, these are all strong combo decks that need to be kept in check. If you give all the decks equal tools to fight against everything you'll end up choking combo out of the format. Every deck has its weakness. For example: Miracles really can't win against 12-post, Bant has an autoloss to elves, RUG has a hard time dealing with maverick, combo has a hard time against tempo decks and other disruptive decks and finally maverick and jund die to combo. That last part is crucial. These decks are strong against all the fair things and their weakness for unfair decks is what keeps the format cyclical and everchanging. That is the very reason why we don't get stuck with Jund dominating the format or with show'n tell dominating for ever. Every deck has it's weakness which is much needed to keep balance.

I know it's frustrating as a maverick player to lose to combo and have a bad deck in your hands when the meta is in a combo phase but if not for combo we would be stuck with powerful midrange decks like modern is at the moment.

[catmint]

The reason for this, or so I believe, is the family of SnT decks as a whole is impossible to hate out without traditional disruption. You have Sneak Attack (and it's more volatile cousin, Omniscience), Hypergenesis, and Reanimator. Sneak Attack and Hypergenesis overpower the hate (as does SnT into G-Brand itself to an extent), and Reanimator can cheat from multiple zones.

Not calling for a ban on anything mind you: just more effective hate to be printed so that decks without traditional disruption have viable sideboard options to hate-out SnT-based decks.

Hypergenesis is a deck like belcher. You have your hand and your draws... try to resolve a spell with maybe a counterspell backup and thats it. This means you have high power - low consistency. This type of deck can have a good run, but a deck like maverick or esperblade while having much lower power are among the most consistent decks of the format.

Sneak & Show is a lot more consistent altough you still have a lot of clunk in your deck and it sometimes goes Ponder: shuffle-miss, Ponder: shuffle-miss: draw, die. The deck is not overpowered because it does happen a fair amount of the time and comboing out does not result in an unconditional win. If they are on low life and you have a supreme board position them showing or sneaking a monster is often enough not a win.

Also I don't know what you mean with "traditional hate" beeing not effective. The decks you mentation can usually be attacked by discard, countermagic & wasteland - the most traditional form of hate. If you run white weenies or burn you might need to use some specific hate, but there are also some good options available if a certain combo deck becomes very popular in your meta, but mainly you have to accept those matchups as unfavourable.

So summing up: Good and enough hate is available for everyone & combo suffers from consistency issues making them more fair on the long run than your experience might be if they combo off turn 1 with protection.

[GoboLord]

You can stop there though.

A one card combo shouldn't be compared to a 2 card combo ever, especially when the one card costs 2 mana.

Apples and Oranges so find another comparison.

Talking about Hermit Druidand one-card combos...How are these two any different?

I mean, wow, they cost 1 mana more to have the same effect, but then again they provide the effect IMMEDIATELY and dont need to wait a whole turn....
Is there any combo that can be anabled with Hermit Druid, but not with the rogues above?

[Koby]

There is also a myth that in any format there needs to be a color balance. This is wrong, as evident by the cards printed by R&D set after set. For the purpose of format discussion, assume each card is colorless - then find the most effective and powerful strategies.