The new Legacy metagame

[Dice_Box]

Still shows a 2:1 win-rate (for what that much data is worth).

Would you agree Infect was strongly favoured?

Will I agree its favoured? Appears so. Strongly? No.

Also I wasn't looking at the win rate, I was looking at the situations that the decks created. The claim that it was an auto loss for Miracles was false. High Tide is basically an auto loss for Land's. Delver is basically an auto loss for Beltcher. Miracles was not happy to see Infect, but there was nothing like the reaction I have when someone sits across from me playing Reanimator and I am playing Land's.

[Whitefaces]

it was virtually an auto-loss for Miracles is all.

And this is based off...Tom Ross saying he only lost to it once?

[Webb]

And this is based off...Tom Ross saying he only lost to it once?

While it was certainly a bad matchup for Miracles, I think once is an exaggeration. I watched a friend beat him with Miracles at an SCG Open, unless that is the once he's referring to. Tom also won that open with that being his only match loss I believe.

[Megadeus]

I think it is generally accepoted that Infect is favored against miracles. I wouldn't go and say it's a bye, but I've heard from most people (though maybe they just parrot Tom Ross word for word) that it is good for them.

[Whitefaces]

Yeah, Infect is favoured. To say it's an auto loss is absurd.

[maharis]

Yeah and Infect eats it to any deck that could block or play wasteland which is like 60% of the format outside Miracles. So congrats on that slightly favorable Miracles matchup. Like everyone knows they can't win if they don't have a guy, right? Play removal.

There was way too much rationalizing Miracles with stories about how X deck was 61% against it therefore all is well. "Just play 12-post!" That's the definition of format-warping.

Miracles is dead now and good riddance. Considering it was suffocating the format for close to three years I think Legacy deserves maybe 6 months to a year to see what happens before lamenting the loss of the only "control" (actually it was prison but w/e) deck and griping about 50% Deathrite decks and the "oppression" of a 3/2 that dies to freaking Pyroblast. "Wah people use creatures to win!" Like getting curbstomped by 32 power of Angels is somehow different than taking 3 at a time off Wild Nacatl.

[apple713]

Counterbalance being dead means a few things:

- Chalice is your premiere lock card, and it doesn't see play in Brainstorm decks. Decks like Eldrazi and Loam get marginally better but still suffer from consistency issues that will keep them from going the distance in big tournaments.

- As others have noted, the most logical deck to build toward for Miracles players is some sort of Stoneblade or Mentor build. These will see a bump, but the lack of Counterbalance to give you long-term control means durdling isn't that rewarding. If you don't have some kind of clock, you will get ground out eventually, so you have to be more aggressive.

- Control players are sad, as no true control deck exists or can exist anymore. The format is not unlike Modern now, where midrange is your best bet for playing a longer game because you have more tools to be proactive, and being proactive shortens the game and means you lose to random shit less often. Counterbalance saved people's asses from a lot of "I'll sculpt a perfect hand and then kill you through Force" gameplay, and there's no equivalent now.

- Aggro gets mildly better, but not really. Midrange will still choke the life out of it, so pure aggro decks like Affinity, Zoo, or Sligh are still kind of garbo. UR Delver is probably the most aggressive you can safely get without being Just Dead to a significant chunk of the format.

- Combo is back! Decks like Storm that were too difficult / draining to pilot through a sea of Counterbalances and counterspells get better because now the raw density of disruption goes down. I expect more Storm to show up at top tables.

You have done an excellent job at reading my mind. Your post sums up my thoughts. Additionally, I think that new decks will be created / start showing up more because miracles was more or less oppressive to creativity since it set a fairly high bar for new decks to enter the format.

[Lemnear]

Will I agree its favoured? Appears so. Strongly? No.

Also I wasn't looking at the win rate, I was looking at the situations that the decks created. The claim that it was an auto loss for Miracles was false. High Tide is basically an auto loss for Land's. Delver is basically an auto loss for Beltcher. Miracles was not happy to see Infect, but there was nothing like the reaction I have when someone sits across from me playing Reanimator and I am playing Land's.

I suspect its the same type of hyperboling which was made in terms of "Miracles sometimes loses to some fringe decks, so Miracles is totally not overpowered in regards to the meta!". /s

[Crimhead]

And this is based off...Tom Ross saying he only lost to it once?

I have played around with Infect a little (not competitive play). I only played the Miracles match once (inexperienced Miracles pilot), but I've played many long and interactive games against good Miracles pilots with other decks.
I've watched the Miracles vs Infect match a couple times too.

Ross's sentiment is supported by my comprehension of the decks. My knowledge of those decks is limited, but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion if I didn't make sense to me.

Yeah and Infect eats it to any deck that could block or play wasteland which is like 60% of the format outside Miracles. So congrats on that slightly favorable Miracles matchup. Like everyone knows they can't win if they don't have a guy, right? Play removal.

I guess we should remove Infect from the DTB section because you've clearly established bad against the field.

[tescrin]

Stuff about storm vs leovold

The problem with this entire argument is that Storm has a harder time going off through:
* Thalia
* Cannonist
* Prelate
* Teeg
* Meddling Mage
* etc..

Leovald is a strictly worse card in everything but power:
* Costs more to get out -> often a turn slower or less mana open
* Doesn't actually stop them. This means that a storm player can play through him in the same way they do against Thalia & Co. except rather than lose mana (which they care about) you draw a card, making Leovald a Baleful Strix that they occasionally have to kill.
* It assumes that a 2-3 of Hatebear matters


As someone who faces a lot of storm and has come to intimately understand the Storm v Hatebear dynamic; it's rarely fast enough to get it T2 if they have interaction, especially if you didn't draw any/much other interaction. Leovald makes this even worse by costing 3 mana, making the "perfect hand" all that much more difficult to get. I don't see a storm player blinking an eye and just decaying him before killing you. The number of times I've gone:
Discard->Hatebear and they went "Decay, kill you" is huge.


The point is, Leovald is *worse* than every single other hatebear, because he doesn't actually prevent the combo or buy you time, he expects you to lucksack into interaction, and costs more to boot. Getting him T2 off DRS and drawing 10 into your flusterstorm doesn't give you a win; because you have no mana.


The reason storms numbers are down are a mix of Chalice Spam and Balance spam IMO. Chalice->Go is such an obnoxious problem for them by comparison to "Go, go, Leovald" because it screws up the cantrips in a timely fashion, screws up the ramp cards, and all while getting taxed, Thoughtseize-Eldrazi'd, or punched for 4+ at a time. That deck is actually obnoxious for storm to navigate because it main-decks the type of hate people normally sideboard, and has a fast clock.

There is no way it was Leovald IMO

[Whitefaces]

I have played around with Infect a little (not competitive play). I only played the Miracles match once (inexperienced Miracles pilot), but I've played many long and interactive games against good Miracles pilots with other decks.
I've watched the Miracles vs Infect match a couple times too.

Ross's sentiment is supported by my comprehension of the decks. My knowledge of those decks is limited, but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion if I didn't make sense to me.

I guess we should remove Infect from the DTB section because you've clearly established bad against the field.

'but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion'

By your own admission, that's what you've just done? You don't have any meaningful experience in the matchup. The lands vs Miracles matchup is completely different, I don't see how that bares any relevance at all?

I've played both decks a fair amount, in and out of tournaments. Infect is favoured, but far, far from the landslide you've been led to believe.

No idea what to make of your last statement.

[twndomn]

The problem with this entire argument is that Storm has a harder time going off through:
* Cannonist

A person who's a cannon. Or are you thinking canonist?

[out51d3r]

Infect was definitely advantaged against Miracles, though I wouldn't call it an auto win. It's strength against Miracles was one of the reasons it broke into DTB fairly often, but not the only one. It wasn't a "stomps on Miracles but loses to everything else" like 12post. More like "advantaged against Miracles and decent/good against lots of other things".

Hopefully "advantaged against Elves and decent/good against lots of other things" will give it a similar position in the new meta as it had in the old one.

[morgan_coke]

I think Astral Slide will end up with a strong place in the new metagame.

[Ephemeron]

The problem with this entire argument is that Storm has a harder time going off through:
* Thalia
* Cannonist
* Prelate
* Teeg
* Meddling Mage
* etc..


There is no way it was Leovald IMO

The problem with the list of cards you've presented compared to Leovold is that Leovold is actually played maindeck in most midrange decks that even remotely have a chance to cast him on time. About the closest comparison you can make is Thalia, and that's still only played in D&T (a great deck for sure, but an acquired taste that will probably never occupy a big metagame portion), Maverick (no one played this seriously) or White Eldrazi (extremely fringe deck). Prelate is a 1 of in a deck with limited ways to find him on command, Teeg is only played in GSZ decks which are rare right now, Canonist is a fringe sideboard card, Meddling Mage sees roughly 0 play, etc.

It's easy to say you just abrupt decay a hatebear and move on with your life, but you don't have that luxury game one, and in sideboarded games, you get a way to deal with Leo but the BUG deck gets more hate too. I don't think Leo killed storm or anything, but sticking a game 1 Leo against storm is still a tremendous play and makes it harder to win game one against BUG midrange than it used to be.

TL;DR Leo is just a hatebear against storm but it's a hatebear that a lot of decks can and do play game one and that alone is enough to make playing storm a more miserable proposition than it was before.

[Noctalor]

it was virtually an auto-loss for Miracles is all.

Is this a joke?

[Crimhead]

'but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion'

By your own admission, that's what you've just done? You don't have any meaningful experience in the matchup. The lands vs Miracles matchup is completely different, I don't see how that bares any relevance at all?

- I've watched the match.
- I've tested it once.
- I've saw reddit win-rate data that was being collected a couple years ago
- I heard statement from the top Infect player

Maybe I was wrong, but I wasn't mindlessly regurgitating whatever I happened to hear (aka, "parroting".

Also I have had tournament matches vs Miracles with Enchantress and Dredge as well various Lands configurations.

No idea what to make of your last statement.

Sarcasm. maharis saw fit to liken Infect to 12-Post as a viable deck.

[CutthroatCasual]

Is this a joke?

An exaggeration not far from the truth is called hyperbole. Ironic that you wouldn't know the meaning.

[Leovold]

It was a combination of factors but the final nail in the coffin was Leo.

[Noctalor]

An exaggeration not far from the truth is called hyperbole. Ironic that you wouldn't know the meaning.



It was a combination of factors but the final nail in the coffin was Leo.

Not far from the truth you say?

I think it is pretty far from the truth, you guys still trying to defend miracle even after the deserved ban are overdoing it, miracles had not a single unwinnable MU, miracle was the unwinnable MU for a lot of decks.

And I am not saying that because I was salty about miracles or bad at playing against it, when i decided that enought was enought I picked up the deck myself and literally facerolled everything, I am pretty sure that you guys who have played that deck since forever are not even aware of what an unwinnable MU feels like, because if you saw the meta during the years only by playing miracles it's pretty easy to not understand how insanely easy it was for the deck to fight at least evenly against the rest of the field.

[Scott]

Just as the first very, very tiny bit of data, the three 5-0 decks in today's MTGO Competitive Legacy Constructed League were Aggro Loam, Sneak & Show, and a BUG thing with Delver, Jace, Snapcaster, Hymn, etc.