The Legacy identity: why SDT was the wrong ban

[Gheizen64]

I'm not quite sure how long this post is gonna be, as i tend to rant a lot, but i hope i can condense and focus this just enough.

It's been a short while since the SDT ban, and while the ban certainly had rationale behind it (there was a sign at WotC parking lot asking for it so it had to be done), i had the feeling the ban was extremely misguided.

First of all, let's premise saying that i've always been in favor of unbans more than bans.

Second, on what the B&R list should achieve. I personally believe there should be only 2 goals, in orders of importance:

- deck diversity/unicity

- interactivity

For example, jewelries not only break deck diversity unicity as they fit everywhere, but they also decrease the interactivity of the format by massively speeding it up, and as such, decreasing the chances for interactions significatively and emphasizing too much going 1st vs going 2nd. As such, most people agrees that jewelries are better banned. On the opposite spectrum, even a card that promote interactivity can be banned if it is so ubiquitous to make the format effectively a 56 cards one (MM). This for many reasons, but mostly because it emphasize the starting hand too much, and in the end, what it may look like more interactivity is just compression and effectively decreased interaction in the long term because games effectively end on T1, aka with starting hands. Something like force otoh, set you down in card so it is not as good to defend a play as it is to respond to it, making so that even forcing an early play usually move the game to the following turns, unlike what often MM did and still does.

Now doing a big fast forward, how does SDT figure in this and why i believe its ban was a huge mistake.

First of all, SDT is a fairly unique card. It's library manipulation in colorless, comparable in power to something like portent or preordain rather than ponder , or god forbid, brainstorm. There are extremely few analogues, with the closest one, scroll rack, miles away in term of power level.
Even more unique than SDT as a card, is its interaction with Counterbalance. It gave birth to a unique archetype , control-prison, which has had basically no other representatives other than countertop. Traditional stax has always been much more prison than control or even aggro prison in the form of workshop aggro. Landstill is similar i guess, as it use a soft lock card to generate massive card advantage (real not virtual like countertop).
Many say that miracles stifled diversity as in: it made aggro obsolete, but i disagree. In theory, miracles was a positive effect on the metagame. As the top deck, a control deck with a softlock made all stupid decks hoping on non-interaction as the way to win much worse than they'd otherwise be. Its softlock working vs tight curves promoted non-creature threats and especially more diverse curves (especially in conjunction with AD).

The issue for miracle was purely one of power level. Everything it did, it did it a bit too well. It could have a fast wincondition, good mass removals and targeted ones, and both FoW and a prison softlock for combo and to outgrind other decks.
In this sense, banning SDT certainly make the deck not as good anymore, but more importantly, it remove it altogether as an archetype, as well as removing SDT itself from the game. SDT, which we posited early, is a fairly unique card with no clear replacements, especially in non-blue colors.

The only angle from which SDT is bannable in my opinion was the time one. But this is not an argument i believe has particular merit because :
- draws should be discouraged in general by giving them less points anyway relatively (aka 0.5 points for each draw)
- legacy is not a competitive sanctioned format anyway. We get 1 GP an year, some matches going to time once an year should not be an issue for the whole format, given that the majority of legacy nowadays is played online where time is a non-issue.
- if we were to ban on time issues, fetches would probably be, by far, the biggest time waster in any match ever on average in legacy.

With that said banning SDT, not only removed miracle fromthe format, it essentially eliminated an archetype by removing countertop. And it could've as well removed it from all magic since Legacy was the only format where such an archetype was viable.
This is, in my view, a real disaster because countertop was one of the decks whose strenght was much greater than the sum of its parts and not a generic "good cards.dec". You can see how lists already tended to be 4xbs+4xponder+4xfow+4xdrs+whatever else etc... it's starting to feel more like vintage where lists effectively are 20-25 cards. Granted, there still are several decks that don't fall under this fold, like elves, but , in general, the blue tempo/cantrip shell is so good that the format homogenize around it. Miracle as the top deck of the format suffered from this but not as much. Despite playing the infamous 4xbs + 4ponder +4fow it also played a suite of winconditions and lock cards that were unique to it, making it decisively more interesting, as well as being defined by its extremely reliable mana base.

There are two ways you could've gone to reduce the dominance of miracles without removing SDT:

Option 1: unbans
There are 4 cards that can easily be unbanned: mind twist, earthcraft, goblin recruiter and survival.
None of those cards go in miracles, and some are moderately good against it. Powering up more archetypes could diminish the dominance of miracles. More importantly, with the exception of mind twist, all those cards go in specific archetypes that can't run the blue tempo shell: earthcraft is a combo enchantment that need lots of creatures and forest, recruiter only goes in a goblin deck, and survival need around 30 creatures to be consistent. All of those cards would have created "different" strategies and shell and promoted diversity in the format. I have doubts, however, that any of those decks could've stopped miracle's dominance.

After Option 1, and only if that doesn't work:

Option 2: ban a miracle (either Entreat or Terminus)
Removing one of the miracles would've had the effect of leaving the archetype alive while reducing its all-around goodness. Terminus going, especially, would've surely made the deck have some real bad MUs against creature strategies, especially go-wide ones. However, i think this ban would've been wrong because:
- it's bad optic to ban the 4th or 5th best card in a deck
- it reduce the amount of unique cards played. Lateral sinergies are the big appeal of big card pools, and miracles , like countertop, are an example of that.

Option 3: ban the elephant in the room
If wotc had banned brainstorm instead of top we'd have:
- miracle still an actual deck, while significantly neutered, meaning the control-prison archetype still exist in the format. Would move away the deck from multiple entreats and 4x terminus though, and it would have more difficulties outgrinding value creatures.dec and the format would have more game against it.
- tempo shell made significantly smaller. Instead of starting at 12 cards, you'd start at 8. Yes, preordain and portent are cards that exist, but are nowhere as powerful as brainstorm is. More importantly, there would be arguments for cards like thought-scour in decks heavy in delve-cards (and therapy), portent in miracle lists, preordain in combo ones etc... Suddendly, there's no longer an all questions one answer card
- discard get significantly better against combo as you can't protect key combo pieces as well anymore. Clunkier combos like SnT also get substantially worse, while not losing the unicity of the SnT card and archetype.
- you get no decrease in deck diversity. This because unlike SDT, there are way more equivalent substitutes to brainstorm (preordain/portent/thought scour) than SDT. As such, no deck would "die" outright from losing brainstorm, but you'd see more cards played in its place as each has pros and cons in different shells. At the same time, fringe decks using SDT (nic-fit/painter etc...) are unchanged by the ban.
- you get increased card diversity. One big deal about brainstorm is the ability to play multiple colors and wastelands with a relatively small drawback. Non-BS cantrips can't shuffle away bad mana hands, while still fixing your draw. As such, 4-color decks get less viable, and in turn decks get less homogeinized because you can't just play "all the good cards". Again, make deckbuilding more interesting, and you don't lose an archetype.


Similar arguments can be made for a ponder ban, however a ponder ban would not impact miracle significantly enough to move it from the throne of the best undisputed deck of the format, and as such is not a viable alternative to the SDT ban.


In short:
Banning SDT removed countertop from the format. Even though i never played it personally, i can't help but be sad that another historical card combination signature of the format is lost, and the format move more toward "best cards.dec" instead of "sinergies.decs" which are infinitely more interesting in my view. There were alternatives to the bans of SDT that wouldn't have removed the countertop sinergy from the format while weakening miracle relatively, including a series of possible unbans. Instead , wotc went for removing the powerful two-card combo, making the format more and more about trading cards 1-for-1 instead of having powerful interactions answered by equally powerful answer cards, making interaction more linear, deckbuilding more homogeneous, and the format as a whole less interesting. I liked this format for transversal strategies that are kept in check by powerful and general answers (fow, mana denial, discard, tax effects, grave denial), not for its tempo mirrors.

/rant

[catmint]

Don't agree with everything you say but I also would have preferred Terminus banned instead of SDT.
(see my post from March)

I am very often against bannings, but I think we have seen enough and tried enough over the years. I miss the times, where you had a couple of "best deck" choices and much more variety of Tier2/3 decks, so I would also appreciate if something would be done about Miracles.

The question what to ban could be seen as a tough one, because you cannot really weaken the deck without destroying it. If you don't ban an essential part (Top, CB, Terminus) - it won't change anything because UWr has sooo many options/angles to keep it's dominant position.

I am in favor of correcting sick mechanics that have not been developed/tested for legacy (see DTT, TC) instead of talking about CB, top. CB/Top used to be very skill intensive and not OP before the miracles mechanic and we have a lot more tools against that now than back then.

So it is pretty obvious that Terminus would be the best choice. DTT & TC was not for legacy because in legacy you can fill up your gy way too easy to cheat on your mana. And the same goes for managing the top of your library. It is way too easy in legacy and spending W for a wrath is cheating a lot on mana. In addition to that you can also cheat on the effect usually being a sorcery.

Simple conclusion - W (sorcery/instant) instead of 4+ mana sorcery speed for the tradeoff of playing 12 library manipulation cards (which are the best/among the best legacy cards by themselves anyway) and the in game miracle condition has been proven to be too strong.

[Lemnear]

I knew how this pans out before even clicking on the thread. What I didn't expected to read is the claim that Survival doesn't go into blue shells despite we have a format history to prove the complete opposite.

[Echelon]

However much I hated Miracles, I think banning Terminus would've been a fine first attempt at reigning in Miracles.

I fear that banning Brainstorm instead of a Miracles-specific card would've only made Miracles stronger in the long run, so I'm glad WotC didn't go for that option. Other blue decks'd have a harder time without Brainstorm than Miracles (in part b/c of SDT and Miracles could probably get away w/ running Preordain in lieu of Brainstorm).

[Dice_Box]

As I said on The Salt Mine, you can disagree with the choice, but it was always going to be Top going by Wizards MO. Flash, Survival, Second Sunrise, Pod, Twin and Summer Bloom, beside the Pillars in Vintage (Something I think Gush should have been given the title of) Wizards always attacks the virus and not the symptoms.

The argument of if should it be Top, Counterbalance or Terminus went out the window once the decision to act was made. One of them is the enabler. Those are the targets.

[Lemnear]

banning Terminus would've been a fine first attempt at reigning in Miracles.

I am actually glad that WotC doesn't even durdle around cutting the enabled cards rather than the obvious enabler. You don't have to ponder about if Counterbalance or terminus or Entreat have the most effect on the deck & meta overall and eventually end up banning more pieces afterwards just to look like a clueless, tinkering idiot in charge of the R&R list. You don't go for Vengevine just to have to ban Loyal Retainers 3 months later followed by necrotic ooze another 3 months in. You grab the enabler, chop it and call it a day.

[Julian23]

It's funny how many of the former "just adapt your pet deck to Miracles" are now that their pet deck is gone suddenly in a place where new Legacy has already taken shape.

I don't think anyone has anyone idea what Legacy will look like before something like 6-12 months has gone by.


And that's not even touching on how cool the current first indicators of what the metagame might eventually shape into look to me.

[Nestalim]

I have never been a big fan of Countertop, the thing I enjoyed in Miracle was in fact, Miracle.

So the SDT ban hurted me and hurted my fun, but I always found that Countertop was too op. It is good whatever your opponent is trying to do and whatever the game was in early, mid or late game. It has to leave, but Counterbalance would have been better for me, as preying on creature deck is a good strategy that will let you really weak to combo, so that was ok.

Still, Draw Go deck aren't dead, and Terminus is still easy to setup. The Predict engine is way too good and very easy to setup. There is a lot of thing to do right in Draw Go, and many style are blooming on the net, and one day someone will break the code.

I will never be fine with the Top ban, and forever I will consider that Wotc is not clever enough. But I have to move with that, and I will continue to prey on your ridiculous 1/2 PW.

[mistercakes]

so much crying going on. the format is a lot better without miracles being tier 1. osmano also went 5-0 with a miracles list using terminus and entreat. it's innovative and probably doesn't crush everything (which is obviously better for the format as a whole).

i was getting very tired of throwing abrupt decay in every non black or non green deck just so i could have a shot of beating that deck. i played doomsday and nicfit and do miss top, but not as much as i hated playing against a deck that spent 5 minute turns doing nothing. (certainly a hypocrite playing those other two decks from time to time, but it's better for everyone in the end).

for reference:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/648213#paper

seems fun with unexpected + jace/predict/clique/surgical

[danyul]

The format is more exciting and dynamic than it has ever been.

Local attendance at our Legacy events is higher than its been in months.

You no longer need Decay in every damn deck.

SDT was the correct ban.

I love Legacy again.

[tescrin]

The format is more exciting and dynamic than it has ever been.
Local attendance at our Legacy events is higher than its been in months.
You no longer need Decay in every damn deck.
SDT was the correct ban.
I love Legacy again.

As the man says, essentially, anyone seeing the result of banning Top would be forced to pull the trigger.

People say it killed painter but MonoR Painter just topped a Japanese tourney. People said it would be BUG everywhere, and instead Grixis delver is actually Grixis now that people don't have to run 2-4 Decay main. In my last 3-4 locals, I was against Sneakshow, Infect x2, Elves x2, Esper control, 4c control, Dark Bant, Stoneblade, Lands, UR Standstill, and a few others.

What's more important however, is that we're going to see cyclical trends again. The way legacy was; where what you brought changed with the seasons (or what others brought anyway) and that's important for staving off stagnation.


EDIT: in reply to Synergies vs. Good cards. Miracles is one of the decks that really enforced the notion of Synergy being garbage. Why? Because you need multiple cards for that. Terminus being so easy to set up says "not only do I literally ignore all text that has ever been printed on a creature card and gain CA and tempo, but I additionally will ignore all possible synergies and table you anyway." Even D&T, a deck that historically ran 4 Mother of Runes all the time was starting to cut Mom because who needs it against stuff that ignores her anyway while also prompting you to fill your board.

There is real synergy in D&T and Mav, and we'll see it crop up in time elsewhere (TNN and SFM are honestly, while pretty lame, a good synergy.) Legacy synergy is also probably largely ignored when you're int he format. Grixis is good synergy with good cards. DRS doesn't belong in Delver, until you realize that it allows you to have an aggressive creature that also makes your Dazes/Wastelands one-sided, and funny enough, blocks opposing DRS from mana abilities if needed.

We may find this synergy to be low hanging fruit because we're super intellectuals, but DRS + mana-denial is actually a pretty elegant synergy. Wasteland puts lands in the yard, leaves you with 2+ mana next turn so you don't lose tempo, etc, and makes your opponent more reliant on DRS if they have one out, making you able to block them as well. DRS also enables Pyro (basically at all) by giving you non-cheaty ways of casting stuff over Pyro without going into RUG (which doesn't run DRS because the black-activation is his biggest feature, and thus doesn't run accelerators because the deck wants aggressive dudes.)

[Megadeus]

As I said on The Salt Mine, you can disagree with the choice, but it was always going to be Top going by Wizards MO. Flash, Survival, Second Sunrise, Pod, Twin and Summer Bloom, beside the Pillars in Vintage (Something I think Gush should have been given the title of) Wizards always attacks the virus and not the symptoms.

The argument of if should it be Top, Counterbalance or Terminus went out the window once the decision to act was made. One of them is the enabler. Those are the targets.

I mean basically this. They simply did what they traditionally do, ban the enabler. I mean the real enabler is brainstorm, but I digress.

I also really disagree with your statement of now the format is homogenized towards the cantrips plus force. Which is dumb because that was already the way the format has been. Plus, and you even acknowledged it, miracles ran the whole shell as well, but you tried to pass that off as okay because miracles ran some different win conditions from the other decks.

[Machinus]

Yeah but Aaron Forsythe said it made rounds take longer. So that should explain it.

[twndomn]

You can't turn the clock backwards. Either innovate, which means you can still be competitive with Miracles cards, or just move on to something else.

[Minniehajj]

You can't turn the clock backwards. Either innovate, which means you can still be competitive with Miracles cards, or just move on to something else.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with you, but yes. Move on, it's not happening. Legacy feels kind of fresh right now, to be honest, and after my initial despair, I'm kinda excited to have fun and be innovative playing random Tundra piles. I plan to keep throwing shit at a wall, and seeing if something sticks.

[Richard Cheese]

I mostly agree, but in the end I'm happy with the results, even if I don't necessarily agree with the methods.

[Tormod]

Top was obviously busted. Show me what combination of cards can do what top did at any mana cost.

It was hyper efficient.
Was a mana accelerator for miracles
Was a key part of a combo control lock
Continuous card filtering and looks,
Resilient, almost impossible to kill.
Delayed games and tournaments, slow play, logistically a nightmare.
Warped the format.

Legacy so fresh again

[Nicklas]

Top was obviously busted. Show me what combination of cards can do what top did at any mana cost.

That alone shouldn't be a ban-reason though. Legacy is the format of busted cards. What's the next best Aether Vial? What's the next best Griselbrand? What's the next best Brainstorm? Okay, I guess I crossed a line with the last one... sorry... :>

[DarthVicious]

https://youtu.be/Gk4Ntcq5uNg

https://youtu.be/mkd6JkfI4yk

https://youtu.be/Sjx-T7_CGQA

Countertop existed for far too long for me to resist making fun of the people that lament its absence.

[Fox]

SDT ban doesn't really matter, it temporarily has effectively banned Counterbalance (this card still has to be banned, but it's not currently a problem). What happened here is we banned Voltaic Key (SDT), but left Time Vault (Counterbalance) unbanned.

I hate to break it to you but miracles is 56 cards that largely didn't matter and 4x Counterbalance, which among other things allowed miracles to get away with 11-12 slots invested into SCM/StP/Terminus (great cards if your plan is to lose over and over to combo). The grand illusion is that if Terminus was banned, fair decks would fix the format...and that's almost certainly untrue. The most important thing about the banning is this: [effectively] banning Counterbalance has had a tremendously positive effect on the diversity of the format, and it really started with having ~7 or so control decks you can now play (color combos of Blade or Standstill) and every third deck in legacy no longer has to play Decay. You just can't be pro-diversity and pro-CB/Top, b/c even in the control archetype it pretty much killed off every other strategy.