currently there is a very large difference between unrestricted mishra's workshops and even as a one of or zero of. The whole landscape of vintage would change if mishra's Workshop was restricted or banned. In Legacy I know I'm biased but I don't think that a ravager shops deck is as well positioned as a prison version of a colorless deck or eldrazi version of an aggro colorless deck. A big prison colorless has pieces that negate common hate and slow down Decks that may be faster than them or keep them from implementing their strategies. eldrazi goes so big so fast and also has creatures that give disruption without getting hit by no rod command recall and other common hate pieces
We speak for no one, we hear no one, we see no one
and I'm not saying I know anything about vintage, because I don't know nearly as much about as I do about Legacy
We speak for no one, we hear no one, we see no one
The problem isn't (so much) workshop, the problem is manacrypt, solring and 5 moxen in a deck that doesn't care about color. In artifact decks off-color moxen act as mox diamonds. So, workshop decks can more consistently ramp into relevant spells via jewelry as compared to how colored decks leverage jewelry. Only after this primary reason for the success off artifact decks in vintage, does Mishra's Workshop come into play, just adding to that consistency.
You can't cast an Ancestral Recall off of a Mana Crypt or Mox Ruby, you can cast a Chalice of the Void for 1 off of a Mana Crypt or Mox Ruby (provided you have at least 1 land).
Chalice of the Void was restricted a long while ago now, but there's something to say about it that is relevant. One of the reasons why Chalice was so powerful was because on the play, you got to play all your jewelry and then throw a chalice of the void at 0 on the table to lock your opponent out of playing their jewelry.
I have even seen brews with Serum Powder and Leyline of Anticipation that would cut off your first turn play by dropping jewelry + sphere / chalice in the upkeep when you're on-the-play.
Because vintage shops is essentially a tempo deck, and vintage mana enables the deck to get far enough ahead where it is able to thrive. It probably wouldnt be playable in vintage if dropping some combination of multiple threats or resistors on the first turn wasnt possible.
The best cards in the deck are the ones that cost a fortune and are illegal in legacy. That deck starts with “I have all this broken colorless mana acceleration. What’s the cheesiest cheese I can do with it?
When you take away the accelerator, you are left with just the cheese. Sitting in your hand while your opponent curves out.
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Feels like the major problem with Shops in Legacy is that you lose access to five Lotuses, which is what makes the deck good.
One of the basic tenets of keeping a hand with vintage stax is "3 lock pieces by turn 2." legacy stax can't do that without workshop or moxen.
The conclusions in this thread point to 7x mox opal/mox diamond + artifact land + sol land as a starting point for emulating a sphere based deck. But if you go mox diamond you must have access to crucibles, since card advantage is already terriblly hard to come by in a deck like this. I really hate mox diamond..
You're not going to get the drop on people in legacy without accelerators (you're down 11-12 cards: Workshop, Moxen, Crypt, Sol Ring, +/- Lotus). Your prison will be much less effective, and you'll never really have free reign to safely assemble alpha strikes out of nowhere (Ravager/Ballista + Moxen) versus a locked out opponent. You'll also importantly lack the artifact count on board to pull it off even if opponent is locked out; we're probably talking about giving opponent an average of 3 more turns to recover. Your creature suite will be limited to Ravager, Ballista, Revoker...and while you could try to unreliably cast the best Juggernaut (currently Lodestone), you're probably better off with Smuggler's Copter. There are better, and importantly more, Sol Lands available to Eldrazi, which is just as effective at cheese'ing out wins on the back of Chalice while also being a vastly superior Thorn deck. Sphere is an incredibly dangerous card for a non-basic based deck to run in legacy, particularly b/c you lack a single land that can deploy 2-drop cards through it. The other card that you can't run in legacy is Foundry Inspector.
Dies to removal, by which I mean the following:
0) Removal is played more in Legacy than in Vintage
1) The net loss of parity when removed by Swords, Push, or Bolt is -2. This, although not great, would be forgivable if the following weren't also true.
2) Only effective once before it is removed, and that is a fairly minor effect (retain priority, cast an Artifact for 1 less).
Though Foundry Inspector itself might be able to find a home in some kind of Ponza Stompy list with Wasteland and maybe Rishadan ports: being able to cheat the cost of Lodestone, Trinisphere, and Thorn of Amethyst seems like it'd go well with mana denial. However it won't be Ravager Shops.
Have to mind twist yourself to cast this in legacy on turn 1. Assuming you could even turn one this guy, that will be the entirety of your turn. The reason this card is ok in vintage is tap Workshop, deploy, then play Mox, then play Sphere effect. It is highly unlikely this card would see any play in vintage if it cost 4 mana and was anything smaller than Juggernaut; even with a 5/3 stat line, it'd probably remain unplayed due to a cost of 4. In a legacy stompy deck the hardest mana point to overcome is between 2 and 3, while going from 3 to 4 is rather trivial comparatively (we're assuming the stompy player isn't running 8 Moon stripping half mana from own Sol Lands). Past the 2 cmc point (plus number of Sphere in play), you are competing with Lodestone/Trinisphere or a card that threatens to gain massive amounts of mana: Metalworker. You're tapping Ancient Tomb quite a bit more in legacy, so you'll need to eventually answer the lifeloss problem; here is where Metalworker + Wurmcoil begins to make sense, alternatively Urborg to allow Tomb tapping for 1 mana (similar to Moon in red stompy). Once you go down the Urborg path, it's probably easier to attempt a Dark Depths combo with Mirage Mirror (competing again at the 3cmc point). The life point issues arising from heavy Ancient Tomb usage is why we don't see Porcelain Legionnaire - despite the stats, you're already losing the race to Delver.
Do you even know what a good dies to removal argument looks like? I mentioned parity directly and alluded to both the capacity to use said card before it gets removed and the capacity to take over the game if it doesn't get removed. A 3 mana card that discounts a single artifact spell by 1 if it is immediatedly removed is bad in a format full of removal.
Metalworker and Knight take over games when they survive. Delver and Thalia 1.0 die at parity or better (unless Gut Shot). And Snapcaster does something when it enters the battlefield, meaning removal doesn't really work.
So before you insult my logical reasoning again, I suggest you learn what 'dies to removal' actually means: here's a good article (although in the context of Modern).
http://modernnexus.com/eldritch-moon-thalia-bolt-test/
Took me a while to get the point (and I'm still not sure tbh), but this just goes to show how weak Foundry Inspector is in the Legacy format; if it isn't threatening enough to be removed and yet still dies to removal badly (read at parity loss with no real impact with or without removal) if it was, then it isn't good in the format in question.
It's a support card, not itself a threat. It's not meant to be a threat but it can be extensively threatening. It's not alone a strong effect, like playing Signal Pest in Modern, but when it's properly supporting the correct framework its value increases.
A more relevant example of this in Legacy would be Rishadan Port. It itself is not very threatening but when it's used in the correct shell it's effective enough you want to remove it asap.
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