Playing with Eldrazi I have embraced the Eldrazi and can say that I love the Eldrazi decks. Finally being able to play a viable workshop aggro deck in legacy was my goal for years. I came from the vintage community and had access to all the decks but played dredge and workshop nearly exclusively. Brewing endlessly in the legacy MUD thread, trying out different Stax builds, building Red MUD inspired by Red Shop Aggro and welder stax decks, failing, succeeding, then failing some more.
Now that the Legacy Workshop decks are finally here, it suddenly dawned on me. This may have been an inside job to sabotage legacy. Was it by design? And I don't mean RND simply knew that the cards were good, I mean RNDs intent was to stifle the legacy meta-game to drive people to modern. Let me explain.. I remember vintage. Vintage was a great and diverse place until Worldwake was released. Lodestone Golem single handedly kept the format in its clutches for years and it sort of still does with 23% of the meta represented on mtgtop8.com.
Legacy's Lodestone Golem is Thought-Knot Seer. It too, is a turn 2 play often following a turn one Chalice of the Void. A play sequence familiar to vintage players: Turn one Sphere (and sometimes chalice on 0 in addition) into turn 2 Lodestone Golem is a notoriously common start. In doing so, Lodestone Golem prevents players from casting spells in the first place. This is exactly what TKS does, but it is executed through a different mechanic.
So my hypothesis is that wizards released this behemoth with the intent of shifting the legacy meta game into a similar static state as vintage in order to increase the demand for Modern. By the time we all figure this out, Eternal Masters is released and it will probably proof to be a financial success. All these new eternal cards may essentially be dead, dead because the Eldrazi may have poisoned the card-pool, and everybody is drinking the same source. As for what's happening in modern... The collateral damage on Modern was unavoidable and will get handled with bans. Pretty soon, we'll be casting spells for their madness cost via Jace in modern anyway.
So, the effect is that the metagame is in uproar. Blue is pushed back and fringe decks day 2'd in philly. I hope not, but given time, perhaps we'll see that the Eldrazi is just too strong of an archetype with the effect that the entire meta-game warps around them. The diversity of the field may suffer from this and we may end up in a similar triangle like vintage:
- Dredge
- Eldrazi
- Rest
Note: Do take it with a grain of salt. This is just a very speculative hypothesis.
If this was a sabotage it has failed. Eldrazis Shops is awesome, but has its shitty MUs.
I think youve been living with disappointment so long you simply front dare to rejoice.
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I honestly hope you are right.
I've seen this before. Worldwake was released, I snap bought 4 foil Lodestone Golems, and then attendance levels for vintage tournaments started dropping locally because people didn't like playing against oppressive workshop decks anymore. It took years for vintage to evolve its meta-game and the format never flourished the same way it did before Lodestone Golem.
Snap bought 4 foil Thought-Knot Seers and I see the same things happening. At the modern FNM 2 days ago, I manhandled a guy with good Eldrazi hands and he rage-quitted so hard he didn't want to talk to me anymore, walking off ranting that he'll be back in 2 months after the ban. This is what Lodestone Golem in vintage did for a lot of people in the past (note: vintage was not a creature format back then, so bolts weren't played). I hope legacy players can handle the Eldrazi decks.
Meanwhile, I'm going to rejoice :)
Machinations like this are beyond the scope of Wizards. You're giving them way too much credit. When it comes to WotC, the primary rule is:
"When in doubt, blame Wizards' incompetence."
They explored some previously untapped design space instead of recycling the same stuff at higher mana costs ad nausem. Whenever this happens, chances are it spawns either underpowered shit or some cards that are pushed until they're broken - because they don't know any better due to lack of previous designs. Phyrexian mana comes into mind. Or the return of Delve. C isn't any different from that.
They didn't test the set for Modern or anything Eternal. Long story short, they fucked up once again, at least as far as Modern is concerned. But I'm not too worried about Legacy. The meta will adapt. Expect more Wasteland (recursion) and Dismembers in the future.
Anything to bring down the number of miracle decks.
I'm so damn bored of playing against that deck.
It was either irresponsible or intentionally reckless to print stupidly pushed cards such as Thought-Knot Seer in the latest set. They either didn't care about the effect such cards, alongside Eldrazi Temples, Eye of Ugins, and the like, would have on older formats (possible), or they intentionally designed them to be powerful in those formats, perhaps to force new cards to see play in older formats with the intention of marketing the latest set.
I personally think that there is a strong push from Hasbro on the Wizards development team to find new ways to boost product sales even higher and that printing "sure-fire" Modern/Legacy playables is one strategy they devised to sell more Magic product to a wider player base. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to Modern and Legacy players recently who have actually told me they have cracked booster boxes / cases of the new sets not only to find Expedition lands but because the sets have featured obviously eternal-playable cards.
When they print to legacy-viable cards there are complaints. So when they do print them...even more complaints?
I think a lot of it is just residual modern anger. It's cool that eldrazi can compete, it's far from unbeatable and the people who weren't playing it weren't preparing for it so I'm not surprised it ran some people over.
Never put down to malice, that which can be explained by stupidity.
Also I for one welcome a new deck. It's about fucking time something changed. We had the same old dead format, a break thanks to delve and then the same old dead format. Now I can play Shops in two formats and I am loving that.
If your deck can't play well against Shops, well, cry me a river. You have all had the best manipulation, control and creatures in Blue for years with little recourse. This was needed and it's about time. Lands, Eldrazi and Painter, come forth my loves, the format needs you.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
Originally Posted by Spam
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Well put Bruizar, well put.
It is all hypothesis, but i really fear that Eldrazi Stompy is going to be bad news for the format. I am not against the archetype itself, but an MUD player for years. But the power of this is an unhealthy one. Great perspective to place it Bruizar.
Even at the cost of the format?
Kagu-Tsuchi カグツチ (Jund NicFit)
Rhino's Abbondanza (Junk NicFit)
4c Aggro Loam
Meh, Legacy will adapt. There are still decks that can handle Eldrazi just fine. Those decks have their weaknesses and so on and so on. Heck, it might even spawn a few new decks!
Regarding the bolded part:
Can you support this claim by anything other than gut feeling? I mean even if you can point to an actual decline in Vintage turn out can you prove a significant correlation between that and the printing of Lodestone Golem? I'm genuinly interested and not trying to be cheeky.
It's a scary proposition and I personally detest playing against hard prison pieces and so if something along those lines are in store for Legacy I do worry.
But I accept that for some people, locking your opponent out of the game - preferably turn 1 - is fun.
I can't statistically validate my anecdotal vintage experience. What I do know is that I went to Bazaar of Moxen 3 in may 2010 (Worldwake was release in March 2010) and attendance was very good. The big European tournaments gained traction but the smaller local tournaments started to lose support because of shops' oppression. Before this time we had 40-60 player vintage tournaments on a monthly basis, ranging from decks like dredge, stax, mud to bomberman, oath, TPS, MS Paint, Dragon, Goblins, Tropical Storm (Gushbond), Control Slaver and a bunch more decks. I believe Lotus Cobra was played to try and counter the taxing effects of Lodestone Golem in gushbond decks, but TPS and Gush decks just couldn't compete against the barrage of spheres anymore. A similar fate happened to other decks. The overall power level of the format was bumped as a whole, and more decks were pushed out of the format.
I shifted focus to legacy by that time, so what happened after that I don't really know but when I look at vintage today it has become an efficient creature format and Hangarback Shops still oppresses even after the Chalice of the Void restriction.
The numbers dwindled to 15-20 player tournaments and then to no tournaments at all. It seems nowadays the only vintage tournaments left are the big tournaments that are combined in long weekends where you can also play modern and legacy, such as BoM.
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Thus far it looks as though Eldrazi can be beat in the legacy format and it looks to have only positive effects on the meta game in the short term, but I wonder if that will remain true once the lists are optimized.
The same holds true for when people figure out the most effective way for their decks to deal with Eldrazi. It works both ways.
Well yes and no. Neither is a given. It might not be that there is much more room to develop the Eldrazi list (though probably there is) but it is also not a given that decks that were hithero fine in the Legacy habitat but are now hunted prey will be able to develop relevant countermeasures.
Take storm - a deck that I'm very familiar with. I'm currently testing Hurkyl's Recall and Ancient Tombs in the sideboard - a la vintage storm - but I would posit that even if I were to run them in the main deck that wouldn't push me to within reach of having an even matchup vs Eldrazi. And the cost would likely be greater in my other matchups.
I'm not saying that that proves anything, but right now people are scrambling (in both Modern and Legacy) to find tech that beats Eldrazi in a meaningful way and the answers so far have been to either play decks that have a natural strong(ish) gameplan vs Eldrazi (and there aren't that many in the current main stream) or incorporate stuff like Worship and Ensnaring Bridge which does feel a bit like trying to use a bandaid on a broken leg.
I agree with what you're saying. On the other hand it might just mean that we could lose Storm but gain some other (at the moment still unknown) deck in return. It'll probably become one big circlejerk. Storm might get pushed out by Eldrazi, the next thing comes along and kills off Eldrazi and that thing in turn folds to the resurgence of Storm and so on and so on.
Also, isn't it the nature of Legacy that some decks eventually go the way of the dodo? It sucks for those piloting the deck in question, absolutely, but that's just the nature of the game. Cardboard Darwinism.
No I'm not disagreeing and I think Darwinism is an apt analogy. I merely wanted to point out that exact thing actually, which is, that decks don't just adapt. Some will die out (read: move down the teirs). I just find it disappointing that the next step in evolution involves Chalice@1. But that's personal opinion.
Yeah, I can only imagine the dodo wasn't all too happy about going extinct either. Fucking humans.
cmon you guys! there was no way brainstorm was getting banned, so this is the next best thing! you spent so much time punishing us WITH your efficiency, now you have a deck punishing you FOR your efficiency you get to complain?
Grixis, play innocent blood! BGX has decay, board deed! I'm miracles boo-hoo i can't play my cantrips "Sob" You have Terminus, Stp and blood moon in the board. Playing combo? Play faster combo!
"But Wordslinger, now i cant consitently find those answers every game becauwse my eldrazi opponent is using his taxing effects to disrupt my cantrips-"
HAHAHAHAHA
Cry me a river. Honestly this thing making blue decks have to account for it in the meta is the best thing to happen to nonblue decks.
sorry if this comes across as unfocused but a lot of what people are saying comes across as not wanting to have to slaughter sacred cows to adjust to meta changes.
You don't even have to overcommit! just make your removal more catchall. Set Adrift! Murdurous Cut! AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHH tooo many eldrzzzi the sky is falling the sky is falling ban ban ban ban-
I laughed :D.
Now the blue players can feel what its like to live off the top of your library. I expect Sylvan Library to gain traction in order to circumvent chalice on one.
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