This is an outright lie. Imperial Painter, which was a strong contender until the printing of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, usually plays 3-4 Top as it is the only reasonable card selection tool and has strong synergy with some specific cards in the deck (Welder, Bridge). I won't even bother discussing other decks because the mere existence of Painter completely invalidates your argument.
He's changed 6 cards in his 75 since 2012, how much can he really have to say?
Are legacy matches - or matches with miracles and lands in particular running to time particularly frequently?
Most of the apes debating this don't even know what Null Rod does.
So assuming top is banned, what happens to Miracles? IE what becomes the best control deck? Does counterbalance strictly for value become a thing?
This is not an argument for or against banning Top, just curious what a good UWx control deck would look like without it.
Also, maybe a better argument Shaheen could make would be banning something like counterbalance or terminus. That way other decks can still play top, but not so many people would play top that it would gum up the works too much?
Really doesn't seem fair to the actually good Miracles players out there though. And this is from someone who plays combo pretty much exclusively, so I ought to be drooling at the thought of all this nerfing Miracles talk.
SCG DC this weekend didn't progress at that slow of a pace. Player meeting started at 10 pm and day 1 ended at 8:15 pm for 9 rounds of magic. Of the ~600 minutes it took to complete the event, 450 of it were spent in the 50 minute rounds themselves, leaving an average of ~18 minutes for players in turns, extentions, and pairings/reseating. That sounds fine to me when handling 500+ people.
Matt Bevenour in real life
That's one fringe tier 2 archetype that rarely places top-8 in any significant tournaments. And ask any Painter player if an SDT ban would make the deck unplayable - they'd probably tell you that as long as the Painter/Grindstone combo is in the format, and Imperial Recruiter and Pyroblasts are as well, then the deck is still playable as much as any fringe tier 2 deck is playable.
That's not what anecdotal means. Those were the actual start and end times for round 1 and round 9. Anecdotal is the defined as what the author is doing in this article
This isn't about slow play, activating top each turn isn't slow play. Failing to resolve the activation reasonably is. Dying to increments of 1 damage via punishing fire is not slow play.Originally Posted by From Author comments
Matt Bevenour in real life
Banning SDT would be fine. It was always questionable why it was banned for time reasons in other formats (Extended to be exact, Modern was a a preemptive ban at the beginning of the format), but not in Legacy, because that makes no fucking sense. Power level is a different topic, but that doesn't remove the time-consuming aspect.
Banning anything from Lands sounds incredibly biased and ludacrious.
At what point of blue meta penetration do you consider Belcher viable? Because it wasn't even a tier deck when blue was at 52% meta penetration.
... And then goes to argue to ban both Top and PF. The former I can understand, but the latter... Yes, I am biased, but come on! Suggesting banning non-U cards sound a bit... Oh, I don't know: trying really hard pointing towards someone else in the room, while farting, all the while stating 'it wasn't me' (Shaggy voice). It would only kill the format, and leaving the real problem unadressed: Legacy slowly turns into Vintage, part deux.
Slowplay, a important point in his article, is annoying and must be dealt with, yes, but what he is suggesting isn't really helping. It would only mean the end of Legacy to those not willing to play Blue. Some would say 'good riddance', others (like me) would be sad...
wizards also can ban t1 gimmicky combo decks if they ever become a problem. in fact this might even be a better situation than the one we're in now, where belcher is policed by the few, proud, diligent brainstorming blue mages but still just shows up and ruins a few peoples' days.
Painter plays top and it is quite important for the deck. Banning one of the only real card selection tools not in blue will never be a move i approve, despite it being time consuming
Well, Top was banned in those formats and not legacy because those formats are PTQ/Pro-tour formats. Meaning with a lot more players/events, especially when you factor in newer folks, top activations will eat up a significant amount of the clock. As long as Legacy remains in the hands of enthusiasts and not in the grinders hands, there was deemed little reason to change.
While I don't agree that the original SDT ban was acceptable (slow play people gonna slow play w/e decision you hand them, punish them not the card), that was the reason outlined if I recall correctly. Along those lines, SDT has to go if Legacy becomes a PTQ/pro-tour format or the philosophy leading to the decision has to be revisited.
Matt Bevenour in real life
Even though I can understand that SDT causes a lot of problems (and is generally a terribly-designed card across all formats due to it's durdliness), the rationale for banning in this article seems kinda weak. Some decks pass a certain, unacceptable "slowness" threshold and thus key cards should be banned from them to banish them from competitive play? Not a great argument, especially when the author goes after prison decks like Lands. In most cases, no the cards in your deck aren't good enough to escape from an established prison/lock and conceding early is the correct move given time constraints.
I can understand an argument for axing SDT (even if I'm not really in favor of it, despite my distaste for the card) simply because that's a card that has and will cause problems across Magic formats, but coming up with some sort of "deck speed" rule seems silly.
From dictionary.com:
anecdote
noun, plural anecdotes or for 2, anecdota [an-ik-doh-tuh] (Show IPA)
1.
a short account of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature.
2.
a short, obscure historical or biographical account.
You are giving a short account of a particular event (Washington DC SCG Open) with the imputation that your account of the event will bolster the counter-argument that implies that, in fact, Miracles and Lands may not be the problem after all, because, well: <anecdotal evidence of one event>.
Both of these cards promote longer rounds and slower play. Activating top each turn inevitably increases the amount of time expended in any given game of Magic, whether or not the player is intentionally "slow playing". The issue is tournament logistics as a whole, and not identifying a particular game action by the exact definition preferred the judging community.This isn't about slow play, activating top each turn isn't slow play. Failing to resolve the activation reasonably is. Dying to increments of 1 damage via punishing fire is not slow play.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)