I'll try to bottom-line it:
1. The conceit of this thread is that while Grixis Delver and Czech Pile are strategically different, the amount of crossover in cards between the two is not creating a diverse enough play experience. ("The format is stale.")
2. Deathrite Shaman is identified as the reason for this staleness by some. It is a classic "enabler" -- mana ramp and utility in a color identity that has not had those effects in such efficient combination before. Other people target Brainstorm, or fetchlands, as the enabler of greedy mana bases and "goodstuff" piles.
3. But Deathrite Shaman on its own is simply a 1/2 with summoning sickness that advances by one mana -- it's not that much more powerful than things that have been around since the beginning.
4. So let's say you're building a fair deck. You probably want Deathrite, sure. What other cards do you want?
5. You could build Jund. Jund would share fewer cards with Grixis Delver or Czech Pile than they share with each other. (DRS, maybe a discard spell and some removal)
6. But your Deathrite is "only" ramping into Tarmogoyf, BBE, maybe a planeswalker. And you have no way of controlling your draws, so you need to increase your land count to make sure you make land drops.
7. Why would you ever use Deathrite to ramp into these combat-only, removal-vulnerable creatures, when you could just jam TNN and/or Leovold, which will ensure that your three-mana investment pays off in some way? Why would you try to stick a Dark Confidant or Sylvan Library to control your draws when you could play 8 1-mana library manipulation spells and Baleful Strix on top of it? You can still play all the efficient utility -- Bolt, Thoughtseize, Hymn, whatever -- but also get the best horizontal answer for combo in Force and creatures that don't just eat a plow and move on?
Putting so much virtual and actual CA into blue creatures is what pushed cards out of the format. Now we all play the same cards.
The question that then comes up is whether a diverse spread of midrange decks is enough to change up the play pattern enough to make fair vs. fair more interesting. Some may disagree with that. But it gets back to the original conceit of THIS thread -- does the format feel stale because Delta->Usea->DRS is 40% of decks' openers? Would you feel different if it was Mire->Badlands->DRS or Catacombs->Bayou->DRS more often? (Or, be still my heart, Heath->Savannah->DRS)
Griselbrand is a mistake because it's both the payoff and the rebuild. Enough decks have trouble with a 7/7 lifelinker that you don't need to draw 7 (though you probably should, that's on the first page of Understanding Griselbrand). It is much harder to get blown out when you just rip a whole new hand off the top.
I feel like you should know the difference between probe and peek. I actually don't think it's that big a deal but Probe is also too good in the fair decks so it would also introduce a dimension of choice to deck selection.
The effective mana cost of Legacy always trends toward 0. This is, incidentally, why I loathe Gurmag Angler. A 5/5 for B with no effective drawback is beyond the pale. Even if it had the Serra Avenger clause, it would be busted -- though at least Chalice would hit it.
But there's more to efficiency than just low mana cost. There's also rate for the effect. Patrick Chapin is a goon but he did a really good podcast on this topic talking about why Energy was so busted in standard. And Patrick Sullivan touched on it as well in his infamous Ravenous Chupacabra rant. The cost for certain effects has dropped so considerably that an arms race develops. Who can get the most value for the least investment?
Baleful Strix is an overpowered card. For two mana, you get a flying blocker that is almost always a two-for-one (barring something like first strike, a sweeper or planeswalker that can kill it). Yes it's "only" a 1/1. Yes it's "only" Elvish Visionary with upside. Yes two can get killed by the same Ancient Grudge. To put it another way, cycling generally costs 2 mana on its own. Killing an attacker, also 2 mana. A 1/1 flyer, 2 mana. You are basically getting 5-6 mana worth of effects for 2 mana and one card.
Bloodbraid Elf is great when you get 7 mana for 4. But you have to get to 4 first. You can be dead or effectively dead by then very often in Legacy.
Leovold, for 3 mana, gets you draw hate (at least 2 mana, compare Chains and Spirit of the Lab, neither of which is one-sided) a 3/3 (2 mana, compare watchwolf) and its targeting effect (Rayne Academy Chancellor, 3 mana). That alone is a better rate than BBE -- which isn't even always 7 mana for 4 (sometimes it hits Thoughtseize).
The rate on these cards is simply too good. It may not feel right to ban them, but it's the only way to introduce choice back into deck construction, ESPECIALLY given the already heavy incentive to play U for cantrips and force. Again, in the context of the complaint "The format is stale," this matters.
As for basic lands as a metric -- this has to do with Turbo Xerox theory. TX is the only viable mana-base construction for fair decks. It incentivizes low land counts and high cantrip counts. This makes cards like moon and Chalice overly impactful on those decks -- fewer lands means more duals/nonbasics and more 1-mana spells.
But the TX decks don't care because the relative value of one card in their deck is so high in the fair vs. fair MUs that it is willing to give up other percentage points because the right draw can swing a game faster. Someone choosing to not play U has a lower density of less powerful cards. It pushes that kind of deck out completely and creates a samey play experience. For some at least.
Solution: Ban DRS and if you just want to hit Grixis ban Probe.
Reasoning:
Zero CC spells have been problematic across formats. Especially in a highly aggressiv shell like Grixis, Probe does so much for adapting ones playstyle to individual situations and maximize your spell effeciency that it would be the most reasonable ban candidate with some but still bearable collateral damage to other archetypes.
DRS reduces fair deck building options tremendously so that there is simply no point not to run TNN, Angler or Leovold in addition in some numbers. This pushes BUGx far beyond what other color combinations have to offer. DRS is not just a 1/2 with upsides. It is the best 1 mana creature ever printed and good at any stage of the game. As a side effect it cripples some long-time legacy staple strategies mainboard like mana denial or using GY as a source of card advantage. So Grixis and Czech pile as different as they are in terms of playstyle are both offsprings to the same BUGx phenomenon.
Fun fact: The same reasoning for DRS applies to the legacy inherent U dominance and the card Brainstorm as a spearhead of evil. However my feeling about that and also fetchlands is that up to the Miracles ban Legacy was a happy place where U dominance was simply a widely accepted fact. So changing something as fundemental which has defined the format from the start feels far worse than losing more recent design mistakes.
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You mean like Turbodepths? If your talking about Elves its not showing up a ton right now no. What we do have are "Predator" decks. The 5 big non Blue decks right now either are faster than you (Depths) Want to lock you out (Eldazi and Steel) want to Lock you down (Lands) or want to do both of the last two (Red Stompy).
You have it backwards. TNN and Leo are so far above the curve that there’s no reason not to play DRS in order to easily cast them.
This is not true. Source: We are discussing two decks in this thread. One plays 4 wasteland, 4 Daze and 1-2 Spell Pierce. (Mana denial). The other plays 4 Snapcaster mage and 2-3 Kolaghan’s Command (GY for card advantage).
It’s the blue top end that is reducing the diversity around cards like Wasteland and Kolaghan’s Command.
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I mean if you think probe is generally not an offensive card then I ask you to explain why it is banned in modern and restricted in vintage. The card is a blight on card design
What Dice said; plus, to respond in good faith:
For Vintage, I believe the answer is that they were trying to tone down Mentor a little bit before outright restricting it; unfortunately, Mentor still turned out to be too busted and had to be restricted separately later. Also, I believe that in Vintage, the marginal utility of shrinking your deck at the cost of life is much higher than in Legacy - having a 1/56 shot at drawing your moxen and timetwisters is a bigger deal than whatever we're drawing in Legacy. Plus, Mental Misstep is legal in Vintage, so it's clear that the Phyrexian Mana isn't an issue in that case. I actually personally think Mental Misstep is orders of magnitude more miserable to play with/against than Probe, but whoever manages the Vintage list disagrees, so really I don't think what happens there has any bearings on Legacy.
Similarly, the reason it is banned in Modern is because anything and everything can be and is banned in Modern. The modern banlist contains:
- a 4-mana red Aura
- Seething Song
- Preordain (??)
- Stoneforge Mystic (??!)
And until relatively recently with respect to Magic's lifetime, a creature that was essentially a vanilla 3/3.
What happens in Modern has no bearing on how Legacy is managed (thank god) because they are driven by completely different philosophies. Again, if you think the philosophy that governs modern list management is more coherent, I cordially invite you to play it; many people enjoy it! I don't like it quite as much, which is why I'm happy Legacy is available as it currently exists (though I'll admit I'd prefer to have Top back).
Edit: You're also notably mum on the topic of Dark Depths, Green Sun's Zenith, Punishing Fire, and Umezawa's Jitte also being banned in Modern, if that ban list is so great a barometer.
While the Modern Ban List is certainly laughable.
Lets not pretend for one second that the Legacy banned list is some paragon of reasonability that is meticulously curated. It's laughable too.
One is over maintained, the other is undermaintained.
On average Legacy and Modern have a perfectly maintained list! Why would you want to change that? :P
Thank you -- I enjoy these discussions even if they can get circular. I will try to respond to your reactions in a sensical way.
Again, this has to be taken in the context of this thread, which is asking the question: Are these decks too similar to the point where it's clear that action must be taken to preserve the playability of the format?
You'll notice I haven't really offered an opinion on it. I am of two minds. One is that I do find the format a little stale and restrictiveas a person who likes to brew mostly fair-style decks. (To the extent that any deck in Legacy is "fair.") On the other hand, I don't trust them to do anything but ban DRS and call it a day. And if I had to choose between this format and this format minus DRS, no other changes, I'd take what we have now. At least Mardu is somewhat playable.
These all kind of point to the same philosophical perspective, which I respect: That over time, in a non-rotating format, certain cards will rise to the top. The question is the distance between the best-in-class spell and the next-tier choices. It is possible that tier 1 is a certain spell, but tier 2 is 6-7 or more other spells.
For example, Lightning Bolt is the best 1-mana burn spell. But were it banned, you would see a lot of different cards see play in its stead. Offhand, there's 2-mana 3-damage spells like Incinerate and buddies, Shocks with upside based on other synergies like Galvanic Blast and Wild Slash and Forked Bolt and Firebolt, 1-mana 3-damage sorceries like Chain Lightning or Rift Bolt.
This gets back to the "rate" that I was talking about. 1 mana for 3 damage at instant speed is the baseline. But there are lots of ways to put variation on that with slight tweaks. 2 damage for 1 with upside, 3 damage for 1 with timing tradeoffs, 3 damage for 2, etc. That's why some of these spells are actually already played in the format because the desire for Bolts 5+ drives you to look for those alternatives already.
My contention is that there are a number of 2 and 3 drops that would compete for space in that slot were Leovold and TNN (and Strix, which is also a really dumb card we don't need but I digress) not in the format. And some of them wouldn't just instantly synergize with the best consistency engine in the format (or provide a high enough relative payoff to make another consistency engine viable). They also wouldn't be a plan unto themselves like Leovold is. This would provide a more varied play experience, even with DRS still being a key cog in fair decks.
But the rate is so good on these cards that even if the stars align and you can get Tireless Tracker to take over a game, you're still probably better off just jamming more TNNs and Leovolds and Striges.
Honestly, I think the only reason G Probe isn't played more is because people are starved for a different experience and want to play another card in its stead. There's enough of them running around as it is.
D&T is solidly second-tier if not lower, and is also somewhere between a corner case and just another version of the dedicated cantrip-and-nonbasic-hate deck. It's not really competing for meta space with Jund, it's competing with Big Red.
But seeing 4 cards a turn is still better than seeing 1. The margins are so thin in the format that one brick draw step can be the end of a game. Even if your deck is mostly air, as long as the haymakers are over the top you only need to find one. Not to mention you can chain cantrips easily if you are flooded on them and lands. If you're not, you are playing your business spells. It's low opportunity cost.
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A point I want to make too: We discuss a lot of cards in these threads that were printed in supplemental products. I am very disappointed that Wizards has chosen to add cards to legacy that do nothing to broaden the format but only cement certain archetypes. Strix, Leovold, TNN, Fiery Confluence, Sanctum Prelate, Recruiter of the Guard have all come from supplemental sets and all those cards are key reasons we are in the situation we are now. And Leovold supplanted Shardless Agent, which also came from a supplemental set.
It does suck to see a card added to the format when it is obviously powerful and hadn't really been tested in 1v1 formats, like true name, but I'm glad we have a way to put powerful cards in the format without them being scared of them dominating standard or Modern. I guess legacy is a format full of mistakes, but god damn do the mistakes always have to benefit blue? Oops we made flying lifelink bargain for show and tell. Oops we made a walking chains/ value creature for BUG. Oops we made a monk blue Progenitus. Oops we made a flying Wild Blue Nacatal
I would be willing to argue that Walking Ballista was a mistake to print. I hindsight Stage as well.
I know a lot of these things have been Blue, part of that is TNN, Dig and Cruise, but I also think part of it is a lack of flexibility in non Blue shells that Blue has. You could print a 3 mana Enchantment in Green that breaks the game, but Lands and Elves both likely would not run it main because unless it fits in their plan its not worth it. Print a Blue spell that breaks shit? Well the Blue shell is made to be flexible. No issue absorbing that new toy.
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