[Legacy Lessons] A Word On Force of Will

[Infinitium]

From point #2:

It’s sometimes very hard to contain the happiness I feel every single time as this means that I’m not only more likely to win any counter war in the future but also that I will most likely not have to worry about a lot of additional disruption, enabling me to resolve the spells that make sure I don’t die, like Terminus or Swords to Plowshares. This counter baiting is a very delicate game of skill but keep in mind, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

Resolving the spells that makes you not lose the game is important, I agree. That was not the point I was trying to make though. As an example, which spell would you say is more valuable: the Force of Will targeting Flash OR the Force of Will targeting the FoW targeting Flash?

[Cire]

Out of curiosity what are all the cards that would have to be banned off the bat if FOW is itself banned? (Not-counting future cards that might be printed).

[Ace/Homebrew]

Out of curiosity what are all the cards that would have to be banned off the bat if FOW is itself banned? (Not-counting future cards that might be printed).

You could probably get away with just banning the fast mana.

I cannot think of any game ending 1 CMC spells off the top of my head.
Once the opponent gets 1 Island into play, stuff like Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Flusterstorm, etc. go live.

[Cire]

Instead of fast mana I was thinking just about the win conditions?


Goblin Charbelcher
Grapeshot
Tendrils of Agony
Narcomoeba

[Ace/Homebrew]

Instead of fast mana I was thinking just about the win conditions?

What about Empty the Warrens?

Or decks like Rogue Hermit?
Or Cheerios?
Or Hypergenesis?
Or Tin Fins?

Not to mention prison strategies...
And it would restrict design because anything that would win the game if played turn 1 through fast mana would have to be auto-banned.


All the cards you mentioned are safe if you ban the fast mana.
It also makes for a cleaner list (ante, dexterity, format warping, fast mana).

[Cire]

Fair enough - which mana though would you consider too fast? Any fast mana or anything that can give +2 in mana like Dark Ritual? Would Rite of Flame, Culling the Weak, Cabal ritual, or Lion's eye diamond be considered on that list despite the restrictions on their use? How about Seething song - would its cost which requires the use of other fast mana put it on that list. How about the 2-mana lands like Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors?

[Ace/Homebrew]

Fair enough - which mana though would you consider too fast?

If the goal is to keep the list as short as possible, and still allow for broken plays once the opponent actually has a chance to interact (in a hypothetical world where Force of Will doesn't exist), then I would argue anything that gets you to 2 mana on turn 1 would have to be banned and anything after that is fine.

So off the top of my head:
Simian Spirit Guide
Elvish Spirit Guide
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lotus Petal
Mox Diamond
Chrome Mox
Mox Opal
Rite of Flame
Dark Ritual

The Sol Lands seem harmless if you cannot generate a 3rd mana of a color. Two mana into 3 and higher mana also seems safe once non-FoW stack interaction and discard becomes usable.

Edit: Ugh... The Sol Lands would be a problem because of stuff like Chromatic Sphere... So I guess you'd either have to ban the Sphere effects or Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, and Crystal Vein.

2nd Edit: Culling the Weak would probably be a problem too due to mana dudes... The list of cards on my banned list is a lot larger than I initially imagined, but I'm still thinking it is the better way to go RE: banned list in a format without FoW.

[iatee]

I think just banning the spirit guides and lotus petal probably is sufficient to kill *most* t1 combo without completely eliminating fast combo in legacy. Storm would still have turn one hands once in a while, but I don't think you can ban dark ritual/LED too without completely destroying the deck, and without lotus petal the deck is already much so much weaker that it's probably not t1 anymore.

The difference between moxen/rituals/LED and lotus petals/spirit guides is that they have a cost (discard a land, discard a card/your hand, pay a mana) whereas petal and spirit guides are just 100% one free mana. So I think you could maybe draw a conceptual line there.

The better solution would probably be to create more non-blue stack interaction but I don't think 'print maindeckable 0 mana counterspells for green' is on Wizard's to-do list.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I think just banning the spirit guides and lotus petal probably is sufficient to kill *most* t1 combo without completely eliminating fast combo in legacy.

That is possible. Fortunately we have FoW, so this is all very hypothetical.

It depends on how consistently the fast combo decks could win on turn 1. If they are guaranteed to win if not disrupted then die rolls become very important as well as mulligans to Daze/Pierce/Discard on the play. If they are 50% to win on turn 1 if not disrupted, the community may find that acceptable. The fast combo pilot would basically be guaranteed to win 1 out of 4 games (is my math right there? They win half the games on the play and are on the play about half the time.).

[Cire]

@ Ace/Homebrew: Hahaha so the choice for us is: Force of Will or Banning Simian Spirit Guide, Elvish Spirit Guide, Lion's Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mox Opal, Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Culling the Weak, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, and Crystal Vein. . . . man that is a huge list. I wonder how the format would look like?

[jrsthethird]

The better solution would probably be to create more non-blue stack interaction but I don't think 'print maindeckable 0 mana counterspells for green' is on Wizard's to-do list.

They tried that, failed miserably.

[Crimhead]

I completely agree with what you have said here. Legacy is at its best when 8 different decks top 8 with more than half of them being weird shit like Lands, Imperial Painter, D+T, Dredge, storm, etc.

I mostly agree, but expecting eight different decks consistently in the final table is unrealistic. All we can really ask is for a large number of competitive decks (more than half of them being "weird shit") to each have a good chance of making top eight in any given event.

But even in a perfect world (with a dozen or more tier one decks all equally competitive and equally representeted), having doubles in the top eights is inevitable.

I can't disagree with the article's contents, but I'm not exactly in love with Force of Will being the only viable, maindeck option to stop fast combo/prison.

You'd think in a format as "deep" as Legacy, there would be more than one way to effectively police degenerate combo, but nope, only Force exists and pushes the player heavily into one color.

There are lots of ways to fight prison - in fact fast combo is usually a prison decks worst match!

As for needing more ways to fight degenerate combo, such decks are a pretty small part of Legacy. The ability to stave off Oops, Belcher, etc isn't the most important thing when selecting a deck!

It's shitty that "diversity" translates into "play Blue or get rolled by fast combo"...

...the idea of sleeving up a pet deck for a tourney and being wholly dependent on the matchup lottery to be able to actually play Magic is a real drag.

I'd say you're either being a touch dramatic or hugely overestimating the significance of the glass-cannon combo MUs. Every deck has its bad MUs. If your bad MUs happen to be all-in combo decks, that doesn't make your deck inherently weaker or more dependant on pairings! It only means your losses might leave you with a sour taste in your mouth.

I'd argue that the texture of the meta game is profoundly affected my the desire of many players to avoid feel bad losses.

That is possible. Fortunately we have FoW, so this is all very hypothetical.

Amen.

Let's shake this format up by expanding the banned list and eliminating completely a meta-game strategy. No thanks!