They are not the same deck by any reasonable definition. They share some pivotal Legacy cards, but the strategies are completely different.
One is trying to deal 20 damage, the other is trying to establish control.
All the heavy dual decks can start to feel the same from a Lands perspective after a while. Granted having Jace or not having Wasteland can change things, but dual into DRS followed by whatever all starts to call for the same lines of attack.
Not speaking for others, but I can see how they would feel alike.
People commenting on how inbred MTGO is...is that because people like Grixis decks, or because MTGO is a place where card prices and availability can't artificially make the format seem more balanced than it is/a place where more competitive players congregate, etc.? I've been wondering this for a while--my local metagame doesn't seem as miserable as people are making things out to be, but I question if that's because people are exaggering, because we have people playing Goblins and UR control and other decks they like with little regard about if they can win or not, or because Underground Sea has been out of the price range of many players here for a long time.
A factor to consider is that if you’re looking to grind out games for value, there are a couple things to consider. Playing fast decks will get you more value than slow decks (faster games=more per hour). Because of this decks like BR reanimator and other combo decks pop up more. Decks like Delver and Pile, which have pretty even matchups across the board are popular choices because you’re less likely to lose matches to variance (I.e. I play elves and get paired against moon stompy or sneak and show so I’m very unlikely to win). It makes sense to play decks with close to 50% matchups across the board for more consistent performance.
This should be emphasized more. It's an easy thing to frame two different things in a manner that renders their differences insignificant.
Are they the same deck? No. But depending on what you're playing, they could appear to be so. If they have the same problem cards for you, if you exploit the same weaknesses, if your sideboard plan is the same, then it doesn't matter the difference in your eyes.
Fetchlands are too strong. Feeds graveyards, shuffles, dodges wasteland, enables drs and greedy manabases, all for 1 life. Grixis delver/ 4cc just abuse them to their maximum potential.
If duals weren't already stupid expensive I'd be fine with fetch ban. At this point it's not feasible due to prices of duals imo. I hate that all other duals basically are unplayable because fetches exist and it's just better to play a pile of fetches, 4-6 duals and some basics. That said I also enjoy some of the interaction that they create with stuff like land fall, crucible, and triggering revolt. Unfortunately those are all interactions that never actually happen
But this is actually ignorant. Both those decks approach the lands match up differently and if you see them as the same deck that may mean you have % points to claim, learning the difference.
-one of the decks plays no basics
-one of the decks may play blood moon off the board
-one of the decks play daze and are more likely to keep fow after board
-one of the decks are equipped to repeatedly deal with ML after board
- one of the deck may try to aggro you out then burn the last damage
- one of the decks play Leo, making waste, pfire and maze worse
- one if the decks play 4 wastelands
In common both play DRS and cantrips
Dice's point is true though. Usually all DRS decks have an unstable manabase and lack Plows, making the strategy versus all these decks alike: burn DRS, punish the unstable manabase, or swiftly make a token vs a plowless deck. When Lands does what it's designed to do, the follow up cards don't matter that much.
The only BUG-DRS deck that's truly different for Lands is Food Chain, because of the amount of basics, the addition of an enchantmentbased combo and eternal chumpblockers.
The question is, if you are really feel facing different decks, if the usual Sea+DRS opener is either followed by Hymn off the one deck or Pyromancer+Therapy off the other deck. We could spin it futher looking at the turn 3 and the differences of casting Leovold, TNN or Snapcaster to close out games
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+1
Do you really think someone is buying your poorly consturcted min-max Example?
Are you facing different decks, if you can play a removal spell on DRS T1 OTD without hesitation or if you have to think about daze, do you face diffenrent decks if you can deliberatly fetch any land you want or have to worry about gettin stifled/wasted out of the game?
I am aware it is an oversimplification, but it is not ignorant. Playing either of these decks means your plan is the same at the start and mine is too. Since the direction a game is going to take tends to work itself out in the first 2 turns that is important. I fully understand they are different but that does not change a thing in my planing, my reaction and my goal for the first 3 or so turns. Do you have a DRS? Yes? Kill it. No, work on your mana and slow you down. Do you have a threat that will take over? Yes? Kill it. No? Focus on your mana again.
The finer points happen later. The end game looks different but how I get there is the same. Do I need to worry about a Jace? Sure, but that is on turn 5 or 6 most likely, so I have time to dredge away and get what I need. Do I have to worry about burn? Yes? Well that is not going to matter until later, so I will keep this Glacial in hand and play it when the game is hitting its end point? Do I need a Tab... All these questions are answered the same way, I do the same things. Flip them and ask them about either deck, my goal is to do the same motions with slightly different targets and cause the same outcomes. The decks are not the same in decklist sense, but they ask for the same reaction from me.
Now I can not speak for Finn, I have never play DnT in my life, but I would say that people asking what he's on miss that for non Blue decks, often plans against these style of decks don't change. Stompy wants to do what it wants to do, its effective against both decks. Lands, again the same. Elves? Well its been a long time since I played Elves so... DnT could be the same away.
Oh and as for repeating dealing with my Mistress after sideboard. Tracker has died for Mistress more than once in the face of someone who thought that an edict was going to save them. Amusingly enough.
The biggest issue is Young Pyro and TNN together. I want to kill TNN with Drop, Young kills that plan. Makes me work for it. If you go DRS into Young Pyro we are playing a game. Because I have likely already had to start playing on your terms. So yes, in that situation they feel very very different. It was not a statement set in iron, I understand the decks are not the same. The thing is at most points I am going to treat them the same. But they can make me pick different paths. It just does not matter which of the paths they make me walk, but end plan against both is the same. Unlike against say, DnT or Deathblade where my plan is very very different.
When debating issues in court, sometimes before making a ruling a judge will take something to its most extreme conclusion to see what happens when you try and break an idea. This gets to look like a farce sure, but stretching something to the ends tests it, forces thought and shows weakness. Sometimes we have examples of this actually happening and crafting the seeds of change "What if the king wants a son and is willing to start his own religion to get what he wants" Becomes "Maybe the king should not be a law onto himself?" As an example of this shit taken to the extreme.
But not everyone cares about these details the same. After a while these issues can blend into one. I am not saying they are the same deck, I am saying you may choose to react to them in ways that can blur them together and that can cause the viewpoint that they feel very much alike. ANT and TES are not the same deck, but play against a deck without Force and they can sure as hell feel like they are 90% of the time.
Agree to an extent. It would make more different types of dual lands viable, however aside from rare cases the Rev duals are still going to be the best ones for your deck and the ones you start out with 4 ofs and you'll supplement with others from there depending on your deck and its mana requirements. Honestly choke and merfolk would be the only reason to really fear not playing the Red Duals anyway that I can think of. Or in a white deck playing around massacre.
Brainstorm is way overpowered, and absolutely a problem. Pretty much everyone can agree on that. The difficulty is, it's a load bearing problem. You take it away and the format collapses. I would argue the same is true about Fetchlands (or, more specifically, the fetch + dual interaction).
I would like to see attempts to address this problem, without removing the problem cards outright. Ponder and pre-ordain could have been perfect opportunities to address it for brainstorm by banning brainstorm alongside the release of its less powerful replacement. Instead they were like "brainstorm is a bit too powerful, so lets make some more versions of it that aren't quite as good...but keep brainstorm around because lols".
Basically, they've painted themselves into a corner where a very few number of cards and interactions have become "defining characteristics" of the format, so they can't ban them without the format collapsing--even when they are clearly too powerful.
I am not one of the "clowns" who would sell out, but for many people, "cast brainstorm" and "play legacy" are strongly related, if not synonymous; you can't do it in any other format. It's a feature, not a bug.
I think TNN and Leovold are poorly designed and quintessentially boring magic cards, but are we really worried about "Trained Armodon with upside" in Legacy? Something about these bans just seems strange to me (I suppose that's really your point though, right - if we didn't have the cantrip incentive to play blue, maybe people would play other threats? I'm not sure).
I also hate Griselbrand as much or more than the next guy, but I don't get why everyone thinks combo has to be the one doing the guesswork - in eternal formats, your deck should be prepared to manage unfair strategies. If your preparation is, "well, I can maybe beat him as long as he isn't playing Peek," then you deserve to get combo'd out.
The opportunity cost for playing combo is that there exist powerful answers to your deck, and games where your opponents draw their hate are much more difficult. If you play something like Grixis or Czech or Miracles instead, you get to have game against anyone, but have fewer blowouts in either direction.
Again, I don't get why these things are necessary or an improvement - even if you did make the bans that you mention, mana costs will not become more diverse (Legacy, as a large eternal format, puts a premium on efficiency, and as Ace showed above, decks like Czech already play a diversity of mana costs) and basic land counts will not be higher (why is this a metric for anything?) because Legacy's mana is still among the strongest in all formats.
I think this just isn't true - why would you play a filter land over a dual if you were actually trying to be competitive?
Banning fetches wouldn't make other lands better, it would make more duals actually necessary, and the prices would go even higher.
(note: For the purpose of clarity, "dual land" in this message refers specifically to the original ones)
The removal of the fetchlands would increase the usage of non-dual, non-fetchland lands, but it would do absolutely nothing to decrease the amount of dual lands seeing play... in fact, it would probably increase them. Because the fetchlands are functionally dual lands (as they can search them out), you often don't need to play a full set of duals. But without the fetchlands, there's really no reason to not start out with 4x of them.
For example, let's take a look at this Grixis Delver deck. It doesn't run the full set of any of its dual lands; it doesn't need to, because again the fetchlands essentially are dual lands because of their ability to search them out. But without the fetchlands, you have every incentive to maximize the number of dual lands you're running because they have less drawback than any other 2-color land in the format.
So the removal of the fetchlands would do the opposite of what you claim: It would make people run more of them and increase the price of the format. It would cause other lands to see more play (e.g. checklands) but they would only be seeing play after you've maximized your number of dual lands for that color (i.e. you wouldn't be running Razorverge Thicket unless you already had 4x Savannah).
What removal of Fetch lands would allow them to do (even though we all know them doing it is as likely as them actually removing fetchlands from the format) is print different lands that don't violate the reserve list but are *just as good as* the Reserve list lands. Even the exact same land, but without land types would be (outside of very few corner cases) just as good as the reserve list land. Suddenly Volcanic Island becomes U/R lands 5+ and "volcanic island 2.0" becomes U/r lands 1-4 in the *vast* majority of decks that want it.
The other thing that happens is, even if you don't solve the dual cost issue by printing viable replacements, you reduce (but not eliminate) the power gap between OG duals modern dual lands. Razorverge thicket is a good example - you are absolutely right that nobody is going to try and win a legacy GP with it instead of Savannah. But, Razorverge becomes a playable alternative because the power level gap is much lower -- allowing players entry to the format with more playable lands even if they aren't the best lands.
But, all this is nonsense since they aren't going to ban fetchlands, and they aren't going to ban brainstorm.
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