YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
Wow, I think people really need to stop whining about Goyf. Yeah, it is great, and yeah, it fits into a lot of decks, but, as wizards has said before, Goyf creates completely fair interactivity. It's not like when Goyf hits you once you lose (read: lackey), or like it makes games completely un-interactive and un-fun (read: uber combo engines, skullclamp affinity), or anything like that. It is a big vanilla creature that makes green as a color playable outside of loam decks and that makes the combat step relevant in a format where there is a lot of combo. Cmon people, stop complaining and adjust. Pack some more removal into your deck, maybe a couple Engineered Explosives to set at 2, etc. There are so many ways to deal with this guy that it isn't even funny.
Kronicler
Team Info-Ninjas: Catchphrases so secret, I don't even know what they are!
What you fail to account for is the "So what?" factor.
You've dug for your Wrath of God, and fought through his counterwall. The 5/6 beater finally died after dealing 10 to you. And next turn he combos off because he was playing Breakfast, and you had to waste your resources dealing with Goyf.
Or you deal with a 4/5 Goyf after a swing with StP. That's an 8 point life differential with card parity. And what if he plays another one next turn? Or finishes setting up Balance-Top?
Goyf isn't insane in the sense that Long.dec or Academy were insane. He's insane because it's four deck slots that require immediate response, and don't have to directly tie into the rest of the deck's strategy. That's stupid. There's almost no reason NOT to run Goyf.
Early one morning while making the round,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down;
I went right home and I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head.
In other words, Goyf is like transformational sideboarding ALL THE TIME.
While I don't disagree with you Grollub, I believe Nihil is right in a sense. And although a deck may not have been fine-tuned, discussed, or tested on here, we have the largest gathering of Legacy top8 info and decklists on the internet, so the odds of people netdecking a top8 list from here is substantially higher than from anywhere else. So, in some way or another, I believe we did have an impact on this tournament.
Regarding brazilian players preparation to the Legacy portion of Worlds, those players qualified asked us Legacy regulars for advice and decks. Not decklists, but actual decks. My UGw Thresh went to New york to a 3-2 result. The build was crap, as it had been tuned to the previous day 10-people tournament meta, but it was all I had in my backpack when the one taking it came to me desperate for a deck.
The reigning national champion asked openly in a portuguese forum for people to come help him playtest, by bringing Legacy staple decks. Probably no one actively peeked into the Source for lists when answering this call. Still, I brought Threshold, pretty much the staple build, while friends brought Ichorid, Cephalid, Landstill, Goblins and Bwg Deadguy.
Most of those decks either were created here or, since their creation, were kept in discuss, with constant updates and sharpening here. This is indirect influence, but a very strong one. The fact that most lists already existed, have a name or even a 10-page long thread shows how well developed the format actually is by its player base. That is the main point, imho. I have heard Legacy was played by amateurs and, therefore, underdeveloped. After creating their decks, the Pros arrived at the very same spots as we did. The rebuilt stuff. This must mean we are not that stupid.
Nonetheless, most of the players just hated playing Legacy, pointing that they find the format too match-up based. Given this is the very same response they had to Valencia Extended meta, I am not sure what their sugestion would be...
Well, to your last point about them not liking it and it being too matchup based, thats just whining IMO. That can be said in every format at one point or another. Personally, I'd rather complain that 7 of the top 8 decks were playing 'goyf, but I'll save that as we've all heard it. They're complaining because its change and its new, they don't normally play it, its not their focus or specialty so they have "fears" about it. Things like...
"It's underdeveloped"
"It's too matchup dependant"
"we aren't good at it"
Whatever they want to complain about they will. I personally think that it shows either how lazy or how little the talent of the pros is if they weren't able to innovate anything anymore than the decks we saw. If as was said the format was really that bad and we all didnt know what we were doing, we should have seen newer decks. In fact, I think we saw some pretty non-optimal builds of a lot of decks from looking through the decks lists. For example, while good UGb threshold was played to death, but if you look at the numbers here white and red are clearly better splashes.
Legacy, for my money, is the most balanced, fun, and competative format that wizards has right now. It has really powerful decks and cards, fast game play, tough matches, and contrary to what was said up there it rewards the play skill of the player more than the matchup. I think if the pros had played and tested their decks more than it sounds like they did, they'd be better players. Look at all the examples of why this is the case...
CounterSliver vs Landstill - this is a matchup that is definitely favored on the side of landstill, but a player who knows how to play countersliver well may very well win this matchup more than he's "supposed" to.
Solidarity vs Deadguy - Another matchup where one deck isnt favored, I've seen some good players win with solidarity in this matchup. So, while this is a bad match for one deck, its still not unwinable
These were the first 2 examples I could think of, but the moral of the story is the same, the format definitely supports play skill. There are always going to be good and bad matchups, but the format definitely allows for play skill
QQ more, seriously. Any situation can make something ridiculously broken... For example:
You're goblins playing against landstill and you're in the process of ramping up. You've played 1/2 goblins for the past two turns while he's playing factories. Then it happens, your chance to swing for half of his life and win on your next turn. That is until he untaps and draws Wrath of God. Until this your turns and resources were used to vamp up your offense and then that sunofab**ch draws and plays a wrath of god. All he had to do was pay 4 mana and blow up everything while you had to waste your turns playing creatures out one by one, it's totally unfair.
You see what I did there?? Tarmogoyf is perfectly stable in this format. If you look back before he was printed everyone was up in arms as to why green was one of the least played colors (expect for thresh) and now after he was printed he's helped green out tremendously. In my opinion all tarmogoyf he's done to this format is make people play removal not named lightning bolt. And because of him the format is much more diverse. You don't always see 2x thresh, 3x combo and 3x goblins in a tournaments top 8. Paying 1G for a beater (on average a 4/5) is just as fine for this format as paying 2WW to blow up an entire army or 1BG to destroy an entire board.
Where?
If he had been GG this would have been true. He hasn't helped green; he's helped multi-colored strategies.and now after he was printed he's helped green out tremendously.
QQ more, seriously. Any situation can make something ridiculously broken... For example:
You're goblins playing against landstill and you're in the process of ramping up. You've played 1/2 goblins for the past two turns while he's playing factories. Then it happens, your chance to swing for half of his life and win on your next turn. That is until he untaps and draws Wrath of God. Until this your turns and resources were used to vamp up your offense and then that sunofab**ch draws and plays a wrath of god. All he had to do was pay 4 mana and blow up everything while you had to waste your turns playing creatures out one by one, it's totally unfair.It's usually something like 4BG.In my opinion all tarmogoyf he's done to this format is make people play removal not named lightning bolt. And because of him the format is much more diverse. You don't always see 2x thresh, 3x combo and 3x goblins in a tournaments top 8. Paying 1G for a beater (on average a 4/5) is just as fine for this format as paying 2WW to blow up an entire army or 1BG to destroy an entire board.
Are you really comparing Tarmogoyf to Wrath of God? I have class, and before I waste time pointing out all the reasons they don't compare, I want to make sure you're being serious.
Early one morning while making the round,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down;
I went right home and I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head.
You know before Tarmogofy green was still viable in the format. There are plenty of solid green 2 drops that used to exist ... Wild Mongrel, Werebear, Quirion Dryad, etc etc. Those cards are extremely potent. Also, goofy costs 1G, which means that he's not really supporting green, he's saying splash green for me and another creature and then play good cards from other colors to fill in the gaps.
Worse than that is, I'll agree that green was not fighting for the top spot in the format before goofy. The problem is that he's completely negated entire colors or aspects of entire colors from being playable essentially.
Red? Why bother, they don't have a single spell that can take out Tarmogoyf that is even remotely reasonable to play. And even though I realize that as I type this that Burn is a DTW we all know it isnt consistant enough to bring red back up in the format. Now, red was ridiculously powerful for a long while (gobbos we're looking at you) so maybe this is balanceing, but in my opinion a lightning bolt, red's 1 cost removal, should be able to hit a 1-2/3 drop and be useful.
White? Ok, splash for StP, but after that what do you need white for. Meddling Mage doesnt count either. White's creatures that used to be the smallest and most efficient in the 1-2 mana cost range are now fairly useless. Why play white creatures when you could just play tarmogoyf? White's best beater is probably Jotun Grunt (which can hose goyf) but on its own it actually has a draw back, something that goofy realistically doesnt have.
I don't know if anyone here remembers playing in standard with Umezawa's Jitte in the format, but we have this situation now in every format. The best answer to goofy is one of your own. If your playing any aggro or aggro-control there are lots of spot removal spells that kill it, but none of those are as good as you just having them in your deck too. In standard you had to have the jitte's because they'd remove your opponents jitte and if the didnt have one then you did, which is good. Naturalize is only good for 1 jitte. Same thing here, might as well just play one of your own instead of playing a removal spell. In my opinion thats a sign of a broken card, when the "control" cards for it aren't even worth playing over it.
Anyways, the moral of the story is that one card has essentially negated a lot of strategies of a lot of decks and deck styles because WoTC and players refuse to believe that a creature might actually be TOO powerful.
Please see the standings from Worlds SEVEN of Eight of the top 8 were playing 'goyf in Legacy. FIVE of the Eight in the standard top 8 were playing 'goyf. I don't remember the PT results, but I know one deck that did win it had 'goyf. I believe when reading about their rules for banning a card it said something to the extent of if a card is so good that it dominates the format to such a degree to make other archetypes unplayable it needs to be banned. Well, what do we have here? I digress..
It's rather odd to see the format with the highest concentration of playable neutralization spells in every color is the one with the most advocates clamoring the banning of a creature that is simply undercosted, rather than an enormous mana cheat (such as Lackey). Every color has them, every color can reasonably defend them or overload a limited counterwall, and I'm not sure how 'warping' a creature that is eminently stoppable by anyone and doesn't absolutely win the game the turn after it hits play (Hermit Druid absolutely did this, Goblin Lackey does this much less) actually is.
Lackey and Druid are both paper dragons. They're explosive, but they're much more high commitment. Each advances one specific strategy, and only that strategy. Each of those strategies requires the majority of your decklist to be predetermined. Each has a toughness of one. It makes more sense to run foils to those strategies than to run them; you don't answer Lackey by running Lackey. You answer lackey by running cheap creature removal, or a creature with a toughness of 2 and a cc of 1. Or mass removal. They're not really comparable.
As cheddar pointed out, Goyf is closer to Jitte, or I would say, Skullclamp. Different, but they're the closest precedent.
Early one morning while making the round,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down;
I went right home and I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head.
I think it's because you either are forced to (a.) play Goyf, or (b.) play something, like StP/Smother/etc, to deal with Goyf immediately. If you don't, you will most likely lose. Combo decks are the only exception to this, as they try to win on turn 1-3, and don't really care what you're putting on the table (unless it directly effects the combo).
I mean, if you play creatures as kill conditions, there's no reason not to splash green for Goyf. And if you aren't going to splash for Goyf, you're required to include removal that will deal with Goyf. Red Death is a good example of a deck that has fallen off the map due to Goyf. Can it add balck removal to deal with Goyf? Of course. But that's the whole point; Goyf forces you to add things to your deck to deal with it immediately, or you will lose. Or if you don't have removal, chances are that you are running Goyf already.
I don't think we've seen the decks where Tarmogoyf is ridiculously broken yet. It's warping in the general meta but not to the point of breaking the meta in the same way that Vial/Lackey used to be in Goblins.
What are we going to see that's worse than the decks that currently use Goyf? I don't know, but I keep wondering about combo decks that want to fill the graveyard early on and exploit dredge mechanics, that might use Goyf as a pressure cooker early on to be a pre-alternate win condition. You know, drop the Goyf on turn two and if your opponent is still alive on turn 4 or 5 then combo off...
Is Goyf in Cephalid Breakfast yet?
If so it kind of makes the point, I guess.
I was kind of thinking about Goyf as a precursor to Sutured Ghoul to clear all those annoying StP and FoW away before the nasty big thing lands.
Goyf isn't just a creature, Goyf is the best creature ever printed, in print or that will ever be printed within reason. The analogy to Umezawa's Jitte is sound, altho' at least Umezawa's Jitte came with the restriction of having a creature to equip it to, there's no reason to run a removal card for Tarmogoyf when you can run Tarmogoyf, or run Tarmogoyf and a removal card for Tarmogoyf and even a Control Magic etc. card for Tarmogoyf, and that is both A) ridiculous and B) apparent from every format the card is legal in sans Vintage, and it may end up being apparent there to.
There is a point at which an under costed, splashable and self contained threat is degenerate. Tarmogoyf is clearly restraining the format, and what's worse is that it doesn't require a real commitment. If I had to choose between Tarmogoyf and Goblin Lackey running a muck, I'd rather have Goblin Lackey, because Goblins are easier to deal with as a whole and there is a tier one deck with out Force of Will in the meta game again.
Just because Tarmogoyf is a vanilla creature and there is no precedent for banning a vanilla creature doesn't mean that Tarmogoyf hasn't created a unique case for banning that needs to be considered. If you banned Tarmogoyf, the format would be more diverse, and that was/is the ultimate goal of the format.
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