Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Could Shepherd even make green midrange viable? I think there is untapped potential.
Once cards like Primeval Titan, Collected Company, Green Sun's Zenith, Titania, Priest of Argoth all can't be countered, that must open up design space.
It was explained to me that Allosaurus Shepherd was a Chalice @ 1 answer first and foremost. When I asked about helping against counterspells, the reply was essentially, "oh those? yeah sure whatever those too"
Maybe non Elves lists can use them to stop blue magic but it didn't seem to be a major issue anyways to Elves players.
Now they talked about running Shepherd for Calice and Collector Ouphe as GSZ answer for all other artifacts, and end they days of being dead to running Chalices when a single naturalize effect is your only answer.
I tentatively agree; I'm not sure Oko needs a ban, but of all the 'offenders', it seems the easiest for WOTC to justify based on it's being banned in other formats.
I'm arguing that new powerful cards push other cards out of the format, and unless we continually ban things (ie like Modern) the inevitable end is a Vintage-like format with only a few competitive decks. I don't advocate for bans, and WOTC is generally reticent to ban cards in Legacy, so this is my prediction. I don't usually buy into the 'slippery slope' argument, but in this case it's like a really long slippery slope to me.
Good discussion, I can agree to say busted is the same as degenerate.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
That's probably correct, I'm certainly not an expert on Elves and I can see Chalice being a big issue, but having glimpse and natural order uncounterable, both often leading directly to a win, seems like a huge advantage.
I must agree, there may be some untapped potential (lol) there. Shepherd + Natural order could be ran with mother/giver in a maverick deck for example, allowing it to get progenitus vs control decks or something else powerful.
In a way new powerful cards always replace weaker, old cards. But, if it strengthens a noncompetitive archetype then it's effectively increasing the amount of competitively playable cards. So, new powerful printings can also lead to a more varied metagame. If they keep printing more and more powerful cards, on a higher powerlevel, leaving old cards behind, then yeah, the format narrows around them. That's certainly a possibility too, can't disagree.
I think non competitive archetypes are usually non competitive because they either lack the consistency or power, the problem lies in printing cards that address those issues that dont fit into the decks that are already more consistent (blue cantrip) or more powerful (chalice/ combo). Printing more powerful cards works, but even though power levels can increase indefinitely there are hard coded limits that they play around which causes the game to break when they go up against them, which they have with increasing frequency. It is like how burn as a strategy essentially has a hard ceiling on its power because it is designed around players having 20 life. Similarly, companion cards were broken because they essentially they gave people +1 cards (and more) in hand for little cost. When you push the power level as they have for the past decade they eventually reach a point where pushing it further just breaks things because they pass the limits of the games built in restrictions.
I think design in general is too far gone at this point because they messed up and in trying to fix design errors they have warped design around those mess ups which leaves them in the position where the only way out is power creep. Many pros have discussed this issue at length, where power creep in threats necessitates power creep in answers which disincentivizes risk (bombs) which then drives design towards threats that work through removal (etb/ death effects or other ways to get value even if they are answered) or are so busted that they are worth the risk because they swing the game immediately by a large margin. All of this narrows the playable design space further so in non eternal formats I think the only solution is depowering the format, but everyone hates that(see Masques after Urza's block) so design will never go in that direction, especially with how they have demonstrated they want growth over health the past few years.
Eternal formats are different because the cards never go away, so they can either ban problems or inflate them away via power creep which then causes its own problems as stated above. Things like giving blue access to good creatures and spells for limited cost is something you cant take back. You could give every other color blue-tier card selection and stack interaction, otherwise you are printing super powerful, narrow cards that fit into things like chalice or all in combo decks which feeds back into the power creep problem. I think most of their design has fallen into one of those three camps. Also printing stronger combo pieces inadvertently makes blue stronger as well since nothing else can interact on the stack to the same degree, or don't have the card selection to find sideboard cards as easily, pushing them out of the format. Simply creating new archetypes is also super difficult because they have to fit somewhere on the continuum between cantrip decks with superior card selection and combo/ chalice decks with superior power, a desolate area relegated to a couple midrange creature decks(vial/ elves) and tier 2+ meme decks people play for fun. They have to print really strong, non combo spells that gives midrange decks a reason not to run cantrips (or the blue package) or sol lands and chalice, which seems like a pretty big ask. Companions were a major missed opportunity because they were probably the first time a while where they could have printed something very strong with the restriction that the deck didn't have islands, or something in that vein to give other colors things that couldn't be easily co-opted by the cantrip shell. They are probably going to break the format many more times before they find a solution.
That's my argument. I am saying we aren't just getting Fatal Push that replaces Ghastly Demise, we are getting Oko that replaces Jace, *and* True Name Nemesis. We're getting Uro that replaces Tarmogoyf *and* nimble mongoose. We are getting Veil of Summer that literally replaced Thoughtseize and Duress in TES (yes I know they play Defense Grid, too.) My examples aren't perfect, but I think you understand what I mean. We aren't getting upgrades, we're getting cards that obsolete multiple other cards.
We can 1) advocate for continual banning to keep this power creep from turning the format into Vintage 2.0, or 2) accept that Legacy will eventually become Vintage 2.0 and keep the banlist at a minimum.
Also, these are just my opinions as well. I'm open to being wrong, it's just how I see it. Wouldn't be the first, nor will it be the last, time I was completely wrong.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Cards like Ancient Stirrings and Once Upon a Time seem like a great step in that direction, in addition to Allosaurus as already mentioned. Of course there is already GSZ, but there's other cards that can do this as well, such Faithless Looting and Light Up the Stage.
They can literally print entirely new archetypes like Eldrazi if they want to, and despite that specific example falling into the Chalice dynamic, they can also print other cards that don't. Tribal itself is a pretty easy area to do so, but they can print cards like Thespian's Stage that spawn new archetypes too. In that case it falls into combo, but they regularly print cards that are good in Vial decks like D&T, or other aggro decks like Maverick, etc.
Expecting aggro decks to not want Vial, mana dorks, or some other way to accelerate or cheat on mana just isn't feasible because they need to be able to keep up with the speed of the rest of the format.
Expecting decks to not want to build around combos when possible also isn't feasible, because the ability to assemble them within the card pool offers too much payoff for the cost/investment.
That doesn't mean that new archetypes can't pop up, but I agree that the generic archetype definitions have been mostly fleshed out at this point, so most new things are just current or old concepts that are updated to a competitive level based on newer printings. A deck like Goblins is an example of that, but Slow Depths is as well (basically an evolution of B/G Rock).
I don't really see the problem here. There is enough variation in archetype between the various blue decks, combo decks, aggro decks, and Chalice decks to make for a diverse metagame as it is. You still have fun ramp decks like Cloudpost and Lands, and there are plenty of competitive hybrid decks that mix combo, aggro, and/or control to keep the format interesting, like Elves.
Looking through various top 8's on mtgtop8, I see a pretty diverse spread of decks from month to month, with plenty of new archetypes popping up all of the time. Even if some decks become flavor of the month for a little while, while older decks fade away for a little while, doesn't mean that those decks aren't still competitive or viable. People sometimes get bored of the same old thing and like to try something new; other times, new card printings invigorate interest in something people have forgotten about.
If you want to talk about stale metagames, most Standards usually have like 3 or 4 decks that are light-years better than everything else, which usually results in a rock paper scissors situation. Legacy isn't remotely close to coming to that, and I doubt it ever will.
There is still plenty of design space to make new things, or put dramatic spins on existing things. Legacy just isn't a popular enough format to drive that sort of innovation as fast as newer cards keep getting printed, unfortunately. Newer card printings driving new innovation instead is not necessarily a bad thing, though. Legacy will always be a format with enough freedom to brew, while still having some collection of popular decks considered to be DTB. It's been like this since I started playing Legacy in 2006.
People like to constantly complain about the state of Legacy no matter what the situation or actual state of things is. After a while, you learn to ignore the banter and enjoy the format for what it is at each given point in time.
I trimmed a little, but I really agree with this post. I've enjoyed legacy at each stage since I started playing, which was right before Survival was banned. I'm ok with legacy becoming vintage 2.0, because the direction WOTC is obviously going doesn't allow for the bans needed to slow the inevitable change. Just my opinion, but I really think it will happen.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
According mtggoldfish, and results from the last big event I cared about Legacy is over 50% brainstorm, and to me, when one half of your format is one card your format is unhealthy and needs fixing.
That's been the case since the beginning of Legacy. It's a ubiquitous card that fits easily into nearly any deck. It fits in aggro, control, and combo, as well as various hybrids of those. It's not like we're talking about a card like Flash, that literally defines a single deck. You can make other cases for why or why not it should be banned, but basing it strictly on the amount of decks that run it is one if the loosest arguments against it. Should we also be banning other ubiquitous cards that see play in multiple different decks, like Wasteland or Force of Will?
Misty Rainforest sees more play than Marsh Flats or Hungry Hungry Heifer. Take out all tha sacred cows!
Yes, that is why they have allowed the problem to persist so long.
If they get to be as big as brainstorm yes.
It's actually one of the tightest arguments because how ubiquitous a card is is simply a numbers game. Numbers we can readily compute. We can set a threshold and ban anything other than basic lands that meet that threshold.
The problem is that I'm not enjoying the format and judging by the 8 trillion legacy-centric podcasts that are out there right now, not many other people are either. I wrote my post to see if it was just me and again it seems it's not just me.
I note that no one had any issues with the Pre-War/MH meta either.
Legacy is as fine as it always was. Any time something fun an interesting comes along and shakes up the format it usually gets banned. Outside of these fun interludes [things like DTT, Breach, and Lurrus eras] legacy returns to the same boring orbit of Tarmogoyf [until Snapcaster was printed], then total hand destruction [Shardless/SCM + Hymn, CB +/- SDT, Probe/Sea/Therapy in Grixis Delver], and now Oko [currently the only thing preventing legacy’s regression to total hand destruction crap].
When Goyf was unchallenged you had to suffer through a card that can’t even kill itself in a 1v1; “if you can’t beat em, join em” doesn’t work in the face of such horrid card design. When total hand destruction reigned, you had to deal with up to 3 flavors of overpowered nonsense at the same time [only 2 after Probe ban]. Now you deal with just one card, your hand isn’t getting devastated, and unlike Goyf, Oko is a card you can play effectively if you chose the “can’t beat em, join em” path.
The cast and crew around these underlying problems rotates with power creep, but at it’s heart is the same cheese where people are exploiting something that clearly shouldn’t be legal. This nonsense rides around 20-30% at any given time. While Oko most certainly needs to be banned, it is quite enjoyable watching the previously total hand destruction exploiters getting a taste of their own medicine. Unlike CB and Hymn, Oko is a card that can be shoveled back in their faces from Fetchlands (Maverick, Infect, Aluren/Food Chain, Delver), Loam/Mox (Lands, AggroLoam), Sol Land/Chalice (some Echo Cannon decks), and hybrids like SnT. The only archetype that can’t really shovel Oko back is Cavern/Vial.
Watching the previous exploiters suffer, being denied their 1-sided easy mode, is a delightful silver lining during the reign of Oko.
I think that 50% is actually historically relatively low/average, the lowest I remember was when maverick was top tier, I think around when ZEN came out, when brainstorm was around 40% iirc. The highest was like 75-80% when around Khans when Treasure Cruise and DTT were in the format. Discussion about BS is irrelevant anyways since they have basically established that banning it is not even on the table.
Maybe that's the case for you and for some others right now, but I've heard people say the same thing throughout the many years I've been around.
People are always unhappy and want something banned. Back in 2006 it was Goblin Lackey. In 2007 it was Tarmogoyf. Sometimes people scream loud enough and cards do get banned, like Sensei's Divining Top and Deathrite Shaman did.
I'm personally happy with the current format, as I have been happy at every other iteration that Legacy has gone through. Other people are never happy with it. Luckily, there are a number of other formats that can cater to those people.
If you're happy with every format ever, this raises a couple of questions.. Can you even evaluate format health (image of dog in burning house comes to mind)? Legacy has been quite bad at times. Why not let others have their changes if it doesn't matter to you, you'll be happy regardless. With that said, of course one can join the discussion for the sake of discussion anyway, nothing wrong with that.
No, people aren't always unhappy, we wrote about this on at least two places on this page, I'll write it a third time, basically everyone was very happy before WotS, the statement of complainers never being content is clearly wrong, it actually seems like irrational complaining (how ironic). Discontent is widespread and strong in the community, now there are players who don't care about format diversity, they don't play the decks that are hurt by the bad printings and they don't understand that there's a problem because their style of decks (maybe something with a combo in it or brainstorm+fow) isn't affected. If you don't understand the problem it's of course ok, but I think you should be able to recognise widespread discontent.
Last edited by pettdan; 09-17-2020 at 06:27 AM.
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