Top 100 Day 2 meta for both Legacy GPs in US and Europe

[hymnyou]

The #skillintensive card, shocking.

The winner of the Prague GP was on Twitter complaining about Chalice.

The best part about this is he didn't even play against Eldrazi. Blue got the best tears.

[ironclad8690]

The best part about this is he didn't even play against Eldrazi. Blue got the best tears.

Haha! If there's any one thing I have learned about magic players, myself included, it is that nothing will stop them from complaining. Even if you win/do the best you can possibly do in terms of prizes etc, there is still something that is in place that "keeps" you from doing better more often, or playing the type of magic that you want to play.

[btm10]

And that (wrong) assumption is likely one of the main reasons why Eldrazi underperformed. Yes, it gets stupid monkey-level auto-pilot hands from time to time. Yes, sometimes games turn out extremely linear where either side of the table is just FUBAR. But other than that, there are alot of nuances to screw up that you might only recognize after a few hundred games/matches.

I actually don't think that lack of pilot ability explains much of why Eldrazi underperformed on day 2, since the first 9 rounds have substantially filtered the field by that point. It was definitely viewed as a threat going in, so everyone was gunning for it. There were three Diabolic Edicts between the two top 16s, whole lot of Dismembers, and maindeck answers to Chalice. Add to that that it didn't take a ton of playtesting to see that Eldrazi's BUG, 4c, and Grixis Delver matchups ranged from "highly play/draw dependent" to "not great" once, and you have a recipe for a bad outing for any deck.

[ironclad8690]

Yeah I think everybody gunning for it makes a big difference, especially when you consider that (since it doesn't run cantrips) it is not as consistent as many of the other decks that are occupying the top tables.

Maybe there is also a fundamental problem with the plan "I am going to shut off your consistency", whether it be that there is no way to fight over prison tools on the stack or that these tools are not as powerful against a wide enough variety of decks once they have actually resolved.

Edit: Now that I have seen the top 32 of Columbus, I think that the high number of Infect decks may have also been a factor. Even though Eldrazi seems good vs infect on paper, I found that games rarely played out as you would expect and I think I only won about 25% of my games vs Infect.

[Barook]

Edit: Now that I have seen the top 32 of Columbus, I think that the high number of Infect decks may have also been a factor. Even though Eldrazi seems good vs infect on paper, I found that games rarely played out as you would expect and I think I only won about 25% of my games vs Infect.

Maybe. I don't know how well the Colorless build does vs Infect. White-based lists with Displacer are heavily-favored vs Infect barring any nut draws twice in a row on their part.

[Finn]

Problem is that Legacy's control deck is too good... A terminus ban won't kill the deck. It'll just have to play Supreme Verdict like any other fair control deck in the history of magic.

I believe the top8s of the 2 recent Grand Prix were diverse EXCEPT for the fact that 37.5% of them were Miracles decks. That is way too high of a percentage and in any other format that would be considered a ban worthy level of dominance. Also thinking about it a Miracles ban would not push any deck over the top. Elves would get better but that deck can easily be hated out.

Now brainstorm is a card that I think should not be banned. When people say legacy is full of blue decks they fail to consider the fact that these blue decks aren't just blue decks they are BUG decks and UG decks and URB decks and UWR decks and UB decks and UR decks e.t.c What does Grixis Delver and UG Cloudpost have in common other than the fact that they are both blue decks? What do Shardless BUG and UG Infect have in common? Not Much... The dominance of blue does not mean that a format isn't diverse. Blue is a great color because it is naturally a skill-intensive color which is something that many like about legacy.

I want to say this as clearly, but as politely as is possible for the subject of your opinions about Brainstorm (and Terminus).

You would do best to remain mum on this entire topic unless you wish to research it first. For the short version, just go to the Banned and Restricted discussion. Start in late 2014. You can safely end in December of 2015. The topic goes round and round with no hope of convincing the other side of your perspective. You really do not have new ideas. Bringing up these same ideas with posts like this actually hurts to read. You are just going to anger people who are tired of the pain.

[ironclad8690]

So why do you guys think there were so few midrange decks?

Are Delver and Miracles just more resilient answer-based decks, or perhaps the issue was the decrease in consistency compared to the combo decks/Miracles/delver?

Discuss.

[btm10]

So why do you guys think there were so few midrange decks?

Are Delver and Miracles just more resilient answer-based decks, or perhaps the issue was the decrease in consistency compared to the combo decks/Miracles/delver?

Discuss.

My guess (and it's very much a guess) is that the people on midrange strategies came in underprepared (either from a testing or deck construction standpoint) for their Miracles and Delver matchups since those tend to be favorable already. Despite it also being favorable, playing against Infect takes practice to get to the point where you do well consistently, and if reports of it being well represented at the top tables are true I could see it just getting a bunch of unprepared people on Shardless/Jund/Loam/Deathblade. Lands was also well represented at the top tables (as well represented as it ever is, anyway), and most midrange decks really struggle against it.

[Machinus]

WotC already has no idea what they are doing when it comes to B/R (read my archives if you don't know what I am referring to).

So it's not a good idea to whine and complain publicly about banning cards. You would think they would have a better system for making decisions than listening to random whining and "feelings"...but they don't.

So please be careful. You don't get to decide how they mess up the format next, but all that negative energy gets noticed and directed somewhere.

Be happy we have GPs in North America that non-pros can do well in. That may not last.

[Fox]

I actually don't think that lack of pilot ability explains much of why Eldrazi underperformed on day 2, since the first 9 rounds have substantially filtered the field by that point. It was definitely viewed as a threat going in, so everyone was gunning for it. There were three Diabolic Edicts between the two top 16s, whole lot of Dismembers, and maindeck answers to Chalice. Add to that that it didn't take a ton of playtesting to see that Eldrazi's BUG, 4c, and Grixis Delver matchups ranged from "highly play/draw dependent" to "not great" once, and you have a recipe for a bad outing for any deck.

The point that was initially made about pilot ability with high power floor decks like Shardless and Eldrazi was more about how few lines of play the decks will present (even in deep tournament play) to distinguish a proficient pilot from an expert. The observation that 1/4th of the top 200 earned 1/16th of the top 8 slots points to something going awry...and while hate cards can certainly account for some of that, I find it more likely that these decks are not succeeding at preferentially/disproportionately advancing their best pilots on a consistent basis.

[btm10]

The point that was initially made about pilot ability with high power floor decks like Shardless and Eldrazi was more about how few lines of play the decks will present (even in deep tournament play) to distinguish a proficient pilot from an expert. The observation that 1/4th of the top 200 earned 1/16th of the top 8 slots points to something going awry...and while hate cards can certainly account for some of that, I find it more likely that these decks are not succeeding at preferentially/disproportionately advancing their best pilots on a consistent basis.

And again, I'm going to disagree with that, at least as far as Shardless is concerned. The wheels clearly came off the Eldrazi wagon in both events, but there seem to have been larger systemic issues with the Columbus metagame given the massive enrichment of Miracles toward the top end. My best guess (aside from something low probability like all of the Shardless players coming in at 7-2 or 6-3 and then a significantly larger than expected number of them losing round 10) is that the best players in the US gravitated toward Miracles and Delver, somwe're seeing the skill differential more than anything.

[kentheide]

You all forget one important aspect;

The players who choose to play Miracles and go to day 2 are most likely overall better players than the ones who choose to play Eldrazi. Since Miracles so highly rewards tight and skillfull play players who are extremely experienced will choose this deck. Most likely they have been playing this deck for YEARS in comparison to Eldrazi players who have had probably a maximum of 6 months practice with their deck.

The important difference is that if you are a subpar player Miracles will make you an ever worse player, but if you are a very good player Miracles will reward you. Other decks can actually help you win if you are subpar. Decks like burn and Eldrazi are two of them and they were pretty popular atleast at GP Prague.

This issue is more complicated than the actual deck. Who's behind the deck needs to be taken into consideration.