I am 100% in favor of banning Chains of Mephistopheles for exactly that reason. Cards shouldn't be so complex that they require the mental agility equivalent of Chaos Orb skills to be playable. Having effects going on that the majority of players don't/have difficulty understanding is bad for the game.Originally Posted by Smmenen
Chromatic Sphere was replaced with Chromatic Star simply due to the sheer counterintuitiveness of being able to use Sphere to get the blue mana to play Thoughtcast AND simultaneously get the Affinity bonus from it.
I'm not arguing against complex card interactions, I'm arguing against overly complex hard to understand exceptionally re-errated card interactions. Chains, Mask, and Vault all fall into this category. Humility is very close. And I like Humility, but if it has six pages of oracle text, errata, clarifications, and corner case rulings, the game could probably do without it.
Chromatic Sphere could also make you draw a card after breaking LED.
You can do that with Sphere or Star. Costs are locked in when you announce the spell; you may use mana abilities afterward.Chromatic Sphere was replaced with Chromatic Star simply due to the sheer counterintuitiveness of being able to use Sphere to get the blue mana to play Thoughtcast AND simultaneously get the Affinity bonus from it.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong corner case then, but I remember there was one Affinity trick you could do with Sphere but not with Star that was just.. weird. I thought it was the Thoughtcast one because of the separated clauses, but I'm willing to admit I might be wrong. Which just goes to prove my point: Overly complex and rules-lawyery cards are bad. The most extreme examples of the breed - cards such as Chains/Vault/Mask - should be banned for incomprehensibility.
But they aren't incomprehensible. Time Vault is very simple. Chains and Mask aren't incomprehensible, they just have long text.
Why should magic be dumbed down?
I believe with the Sphere you draw the "resolution" of the mana ability, while the Star has a triggered ability that goes on the stack on top of the spell cast.
When Dragon draws the game it creates on honest to goodness infinite loop, not an arbitrarily repeatable loop. Deciding to stop the loop after some arbitrary number of iterations doesn't work within the rules of the game.
Time Vault's current errata is very simple right now. That hasn't always been the case, and if history is any guide, won't always be the case. The problem with cards like Chains and Mask and to a lesser extent, Humility is that you need a detailed intimate knowledge of the rules to understand how they work. And I'm talking beyond the knowledge needed for say a level one judge. (SBE Layering order? Seriously? Ugh.)
I don't want the game dumbed down, but I do want it to not be made overly complex. I also want the cards to work either as they're written, or at least pretty close to it. You shouldn't need a copy of Oracle on hand to play a tournament. You can do a lot of very complex things that reward knowledge of the rules in the game without getting silly about it with cards that judges and TO's regularly refer to as rules nightmares.
If a card only works after repeated errata, addendums, and can only be fully understood after undertaking extensive research into the comp rules, then its probably a bad card design that should be thrown out.
Exhibit A (Nice helpings of hyperbole thrown in to up the knee-jerk ante. Emphasis added.):
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
Thanks guy for proving exactly what I was trying to say. Seems all of you misread:
but I'm nevertheless glad you proved my point exactly. None of you sat down, built a Legacy Oath deck and tested it thoroughly against other decks in the format, and instead you're using your imagination to conjure up some reasons that are not based on playtesting.
@ Forbiddian, I actually didn't talk about Charbelcher's consistency, I said it was fragile. I think I would rather come across as someone who knows nothing than someone who thinks they know everything.
@ Everyone, I still think that if Forsythe and the DCI want to start considering unbanning cards that appear to be powerful, they need to thoroughly test them, and not base their decisions on statements that begin, "imagine . . . "
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
For the same reason that they changed the rules in M10. To take a game of intellect and skill and mass market it to retards. Don't you want Johnny Casual playing Legacy with you? Complex rules might make his head hurt.
For the record, I built a Mana Drain deck. If anyone wants to playtest against the rough draft, email me at spikeymikey1981@hotmail.com. That way, my Blackberry will flash a little red light at me telling me that I have a message, which is significantly better than a PM here that I won't see for a few days or any sort of messenger which would require me to log on. I'm sure it's not the most busted use of Drain, but it seems to work out ok in testing.
I played against Dragon. It was the strongest deck in the format when Bazaar was also legal, but I think without Bazaar it's pretty managable.
Not any worse than Reanimator at any rate.
1) The tournament is not timed, so it doesn't matter. Also, there's an auto-shuffle on MWS that takes like <1s.
2) If they unrestricted Necropotence on MTGSalvation, at least a third of the people would go, "Lol, why would I pay life just to draw cards? That's exactly what the burn player wants." These aren't the best players in the world and I doubt any good designers are bothering to make a Land Tax deck.
If Land Tax could be broken, there's no way that a few random people on MTGSalv would be able to break it.
3) Also, since the tournament is still ongoing, very few people are actually talking about the matches. Certainly they wouldn't complain about a specific card like Land Tax.
EDIT: At why Mana Drain is banned:
Mana Drain was banned because it was the strongest non-restricted card in Vintage. Original Legacy was more akin to Odyssey-era Extended. The fundamental turn was 3-4 and skipping over three turns AND getting countermagic is just nuts.
I'm pretty sure it would still be broken unbanned now.
The fact that current decks aren't constructed in such a way to abuse it (cards like The Abyss, Fact or Fiction, and Intuition --> AK combo aren't too far out of playable (and Counterspell isn't too far out of playable either), but aren't played at all, yet combo with Mana Drain in profoundly warped ways). I mean, true: No current deck, -4 random cards, +4 Mana Drain would be broken, but it's not hard to see that players would change their decks to take advantage of Mana Drain.
Playing against Mana Drain was very risky, because any time your opponent had UU, you risked losing the game if he was able to counter one of your spells. Even a spell costing 1 or 2 getting Drained would allow him the oxygen to blow past your deck. Although it's true back then the power level (relative to modern times) lay pretty far toward the Control Player side, but the fact that vanilla Counterspell still sees occasional play makes me think that Mana Drain would be broken.
I can attest to that.
Mana Drain is utterly ridiculous, and actually dominates Vintage. I'm not sure why you'd want a card that dominates Vintage to be legal in Legacy. Mana Drain decks are usually well over 30% of top 8s.
Draw the game on a stick = not fun. Same reason why Shaharazad is banned. Not power level reasons, fun reasons.
Not allowable. You can't just skip ETB triggers/LTB triggers willy nilly. They need to go on the stack and they need a target. If there is another creature in a graveyard, then sure, he can make 1000000 mana by repeating the loop so many times and finally end by Animating your creature but if there's no other target the game is a draw.
The Oracle is there to make things less confusing. I'm sure if Illusionary Mask was banned they would clean up the errata to make it as intuitive as possible. There's not much they can do about Humility, the problem with the card's complexity is embedded in the game rules. Chains is very simple to understand if you read the Oracle.
So can the Star. What's your point?
So someone shouldn't need an explanation when someone drops a Waterfront Bouncer next to Lord of Atlantis and swings for 4? There are more cards than you or I could name that have some sort of non-trivial errata, which Oracle is essential to clarify.
The issue with Chromatic Sphere, and the reason why they replaced it with Star, is that it makes you draw a card as part of a mana ability, which is all sorts of "wut." Look at the card: the draw is part of the same block of text as the mana ability.
Mana Drain would be about the only card capable of making control a real deck again. Of course, it would destroy the format, but you would actually be able to justify playing a control deck over an aggro-control deck at that point.
If I had my way these are the cards I would unban:
Black Vise
Earthcraft
Frantic Search
Goblin Recruiter
Grim Monolith
Gush
Hermit Druid
Illusionary Mask
Imperial Seal
Land Tax
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Mind Twist
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Skullclamp
Time Spiral
Windfall
Worldgorger Dragon
I consider myself pretty radical when it comes to accepting suggestions for the banned list changes, but I've already been categorized and judged twice just by addressing what people say in their post. Leave your preconceptions behind people! Let's work to improve the format instead of being closed!
@jrsthethird: You're right, that was not the difference I meant. Actually I wanted to say "you draw the card before you get the mana fixed by the sphere", neither cares about LED breaking but about when the filtered mana can be used.
Actually, you absolutely should. Every judge is supposed to be able to give you oracle text on any card upon request. With rules changes, templating changes, and all kinds of mechanics, having oracle on hand is a necessity.
Dear sweet Jesus that format would be funny. Not much fun after the first few games, but funny.
Is Black Vise really that bad? And what kind of deck abuses Hermit Druid? I know it can tutor practically your whole deck into the yard but what do you do with it then?
Reanimate one of two things and swing for the win:
- Sutured Ghoul with Dragon's Breath on it
- Flame-kin Zealot and probably 8+ Zombie tokens
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