[Premium Article] Six Cards to Unban in Legacy (VOTE!)

[Cthuloo]

Not directly discussing the merit of the unbanning of any single card, I want to point out an interesting observation someone already made before.
Unbanning a card makes sense if it makes new archetypes or strategies viable (or brings back old strategies that have disappeared), especially now that the format seems healthy and there's no need to ban/unban something to balance things. Of course, then one should think of how do we want the format to look like. Making other combo enablers legal can be a dangerous move. Not only because of the possibility that one or more of the decks resulting from the unban could be broken. The sheer number of different combo strategies can be a problem for the format. By now we already have many different combo archetypes. To cite the most prominent:

- Storm Combo
- Charbelcher Combo
- Dream Halls
- Reanimator
- Painter/Grindstone
- Dredge (less and less combo, nowadays, but still worth to be mentioned)

Each deck requires different hate: grave hate stops dredge and reanimator - but does nothing to the other decks - canonist may stop Storm, Belcher and Dream Halls (the latter not completely) - but is dead against painter/stone or reanimator - needle is strong against belcher (that has a backup storm plan, though) and painter - but useless otherwise - etc.
Of course there's one piece of combo hate that hurts them all: Force. The massive amount of viable combo strategies can make non-blue decks struggling to fit all the hate they need or simply die to a deck they were unprepared to face. I don't think anybody wants a field divided into blue vs. combo. This is why I would be reluctant to unban cards like Hermit Druid or Time Spiral (not even mentioning stuff like Oath): they may or may not give rise to broken archetypes, but at the moment I think there's enough combo in the format.

On the other hand, control almost disappeared in the last months. I think it could be nice to give control players some new weapons to fight. I don't know if Mana Drain, LoA or Balance are broken or not (the first two are maybe already too expensive), but if I was to test some unbanning, I will begin from those kind of cards.

[DrJones]

Each deck requires different hate: grave hate stops dredge and reanimator - but does nothing to the other decks - canonist may stop Storm, Belcher and Dream Halls (the latter not completely) - but is dead against painter/stone or reanimator - needle is strong against belcher (that has a backup storm plan, though) and painter - but useless otherwise - etc.
Of course there's one piece of combo hate that hurts them all: Force. The massive amount of viable combo strategies can make non-blue decks struggling to fit all the hate they need or simply die to a deck they were unprepared to face. I don't think anybody wants a field divided into blue vs. combo. This is why I would be reluctant to unban cards like Hermit Druid or Time Spiral (not even mentioning stuff like Oath): they may or may not give rise to broken archetypes, but at the moment I think there's enough combo in the format.

I agree with this, I even used the same exact argument last time we discussed the banned list, and it's sad that we have to keep repeating the same arguments over and over again (for both sides) because they are not stored anywhere for easy referencing. A deck can only have so many "answer spells", and if you can only fit 12, it's hands down better to have 12 counterspells that answer everything, than 6 creature removal spells and 6 cards to answer non-creature permanents. Well, one could say that it's okay as long as the more limited cards are cheaper to play or more efficient, but it just happens the opposite here. Counterspells in eternal formats are cheaper (FREE!) and stronger than the next better removal spell (swords to plowshares). Hell! Blue mages even have counterspells that answer lands and doubles as land destruction (stifle), being at that miles better than the second best land destruction spell in the format (Sinkhole)!! This is simply stupid and I wonder why R&D allows blue to be so over the top without nerfing it down a bit. It looks like R&D tries to compensate their mistakes by printing ridiculous cards like Ad Nauseam and allowing other ridiculous cards like Entomb and Aether Vial, to raise the bar of power in the other colors so they can overcome the monster of blue-based aggro-Control decks. It's not by happenstance that Stoneforge Mystic, one of the strongest white creatures recently printed, specifically has an ability that evades counterspells, and the reason Qasali Pridemage was printed was precisely to reduce the number of slots needed in non-blue decks against non-creature threats.

That's it. I'm saying that if we have stupid, er, "smart" combo decks like Ad Nauseam is because blue decks are so strong. Would otherwise Wizards print a card so obviously and stupidly powerful without banning it in eternal? Have you ever wonder why Ad Nauseam is okay, but Mind's Desire gets preemptively banned?

For people saying that Force of Will keeps the format safe from degenerate combo decks, please return to reality. Almost all banned cards in this format were used in decks packing Force of Will. The explanation is simple: if a broken deck plays <answer card of choice> and it's obviously better than the rest of the format, you will win more games playing that broken deck that playing any other deck that also uses <answer card of choice>.

[menace13]

For people saying that Force of Will keeps the format safe from degenerate combo decks, please return to reality. Almost all banned cards in this format were used in decks packing Force of Will. The explanation is simple: if a broken deck plays <answer card of choice> and it's obviously better than the rest of the format, you will win more games playing that broken deck that playing any other deck that also uses <answer card of choice>.

Just stop..stop right now no one believes you..ever.

[jrsthethird]

Degenerate combo decks (Hermit Druid, Worldgorger Dragon, etc.), decks that win with only like 2 cards, can support Force because they can put it in a nice blue shell. Belcher doesn't run Force because it doesn't have enough blue to support it, and neither does ANT. I'm actually kind of surprised those lists don't run Pact of Negation in the board or something to stop opposing Forces on the winning turn.

[Lothian]

[quote]For people saying that Force of Will keeps the format safe from degenerate combo decks, please return to reality. Almost all banned cards in this format were used in decks packing Force of Will. The explanation is simple: if a broken deck plays <answer card of choice> and it's obviously better than the rest of the format, you will win more games playing that broken deck that playing any other deck that also uses <answer card of choice>. [quote]

You sound like a smart and articulate man Dr. So how can you come up with something so off the mark regarding R&D? Let's say you have no FOW, no daze, no Blue hard counter for 2 turns.. Then you are finished with control altogether, combo kills everything and aggro is gone too. So it will be a battle between belcher, ANT, dredge, and who starts is the one who wins.

That explains the very existence of blue, permission.

While I agree, and we all agree that blue is the best color of older sets, therefore the price of anything blue (power 9 has 3 blues and 6 artifacts, seas etc..), they have to raise the bar of other colors. Hence the usually dreadfull set of blues in the latest few sets, since Urza's joke.

On the other hand, creatures of any colors get stronger and stronger by the day in their mana/strenght ratio (Tarmo), making aggro an interesting bet as good as ever.

R&D know exactly what they are doing, and they don't cater for Legacy scene anyway. When people say FOW holds T1 and Legacy together you surely should listen a bit more. R&D major concern is the balance between colors and style as well as making sure that a game lasts a minimum of turns to allow strategy AND interactions between players.

Would you play in a format decided in the first 2 turns? And I mean 2 TURNS.

You should be thankfull that FOW keeps combo at bay (a bit) so aggro can exist also.

Magic is made of 2 pies: 6 colors, Aggro-Combo-Control

That's the way Garfield created it as a great probabilist, and that's the way it should stay if you want magic to thrive

[Cabal_chan]

That's it. I'm saying that if we have stupid, er, "smart" combo decks like Ad Nauseam is because blue decks are so strong. Would otherwise Wizards print a card so obviously and stupidly powerful without banning it in eternal? Have you ever wonder why Ad Nauseam is okay, but Mind's Desire gets preemptively banned?

It might have something to do with the lifeloss.

[cjva]

DrJones: Imagine a format without FoW. What kind of format would that be? First of we would need to ban everything that gives you access to acceleration. So, no Dark ritual for mono-b sui/aggro. No acceleration for dragon stompy, aso, aso.

Have you ever played with FoW? Have you ever played FoW against a aggro deck? Then you should understand that FoW'ing random threats against Zoo often are a bad plan. You lose 2 cards and 1 life, he lose one card for 1-2 mana. Bad equation.

FoW allow combo of different sorts to be a viable strategy, and if you don't want to play in a format with combo as a strat, i strongly advice you to try out standard. No combo and a mid-range aggro deck as the best deck in the format.

And on to the subject.

When it comes to banning/unbanning cards in legacy I think entomb is a good example on what WotC should do. Unban a card that make a new deck viable without harming the format in a deranged way.

I believe that TIme spiral is safe, to expansive for what it does, and not at all good in solidarity as somebody said before. Its a sorcery.

Land tax might open up lands edge or something similar as a viable strat, i don't know. But i don't believe that access to basic's can be used in a to deranged way.

I don't believe that Dragon would be bad for the format. Bounce/removal/counters and GY-hate takes care of it, and it might even be good if another GY-based combo becomes viable. More use of the GY-hate.

Timespiral is meh, but WotC could try out to unrestrict Tax and see what happens, and work on the list slowly. Slow but steady with the main goal to unban as many cards as possible.

And just a side note when people talk about LoA and Drain being to expensive to get unbanned. It's just a bad argument, almost as bad as "they should ban duals cause they are to expensive". Open up the possibility if its believed that the format can handle it and see where it leaves us.

[Gheizen64]

Wouldn't it be more interesting if we discussed cards that actually aren't super swingy and do something good for the format, like slowing it down by pushing control (tax, loa), push higher casting cost cards without favoring combo (monolith), or, again, make midrange more viable (Twist maybe?). I don't think discussing cards like Spiral or frantic search is a good thing. Even if they don't degenerate right down the format, they're still annoying in the sense they make combo and faster decks even better. Unless Wizard print another version of Force that's good enough agains combo deck, i don't see more combo cards coming out from the restricted list, not soon anyway, after the unban of Entomb/Halls.

[Morrison103]

I would rather not slow down the format. I dont like playing control decks and while i dont mind them being part of the meta i dont want the balance tilted in favor of control. I play legacy to play with bad ass cards in a sanctioned enviornment, where not only are the cards good but there are alot of good decks. If i want a slower pace ill go play standard. That is why I favor a high number of unbannings. If an unbanning created a flash situation you could always ban it again, I would rather unban cards and see what happens.

[Fuzzy]

@Mind Twist: The last Standard season had Mind Shatter and no one played that. Why anyone thinks it would degenerate Legacy?

Seriously, i'm fine with that.

[Meekrab]

I'd like to be able to play 4 Balance in some sort of Stax deck for 3 months, who do I have to pay off to make that happen? I don't even care if it wins any tournaments, I just want people to rage that control isn't supposed to be good in Legacy.

[morgan_coke]

@Mind Twist: The last Standard season had Mind Shatter and no one played that. Why anyone thinks it would degenerate Legacy?

Seriously, i'm fine with that.

Riiiiiiiggghhht. Because XB = XBB. One is totally splashable and efficient, one isn't. Not like what I'm saying matters, the only reason anyone would even attempt to compare Mind Shatter in Standard and Mind Twist in Legacy is straight up trollery. Congrats, you've been fed. Now go back to your bridge and accost some more billy goats.

[evanmartyr]

Riiiiiiiggghhht. Because XB = XBB. One is totally splashable and efficient, one isn't. Not like what I'm saying matters, the only reason anyone would even attempt to compare Mind Shatter in Standard and Mind Twist in Legacy is straight up trollery. Congrats, you've been fed. Now go back to your bridge and accost some more billy goats.

Eh...it's not that far off. Standard is ridiculously slower than Legacy (or tends to be, exceptions exist). When you take the speed difference into account, and think of it as a mana difference, they're remarkably similar. I think the argument he meant to use, is that aside from the difficulty in splashing, neither are efficient in the environments we're thinking of them in.

[Bahamuth]

Also, we tested a while back two hermit druid decks, one like the current reanimator deck with a lot of counters and discard effects, the other with red and haste-granting effects. Both were totally nuts. A Hasted Hermit Druid is almost unstoppable because as soon as you play it you activate it and then there's nothing the opponent can do because he doesn't even get priority.

I'd like to see those lists. It's just not true at all you can't to anything once the opponent plays a hasted Hermit Druid.

Also, what the hell? You're forced to play Darkblast? Like we are forced now to play Counterbalance to beat ANT? There's no way. As you know just as well as I do, ANT loses to more than just Counterbalance, and this is even more true for Hermit Druid.

[Amon Amarth]

I'd like to see those lists. It's just not true at all you can't to anything once the opponent plays a hasted Hermit Druid.

Also, what the hell? You're forced to play Darkblast? Like we are forced now to play Counterbalance to beat ANT? There's no way. As you know just as well as I do, ANT loses to more than just Counterbalance, and this is even more true for Hermit Druid.

I'm not so sure what the big deal is wih Hermit Druid. It seems like it's an Enotmb that's twice as expensive, in a worse color, has summoning sickness, eats it to bolt and every other removal spell, much more vulnerable to GY hate... I mean if Reanimator is a great deck but even it isn't breaking the format. Who cares about a card that for all intents and purposes a worse Entomb?

[deadlock]

Interesting that people are so focused on the aspect to what sorts of spells Hermit Druid dies to. In my opinion this is only a minor point. The amounts of possible answers to the combo is always relative to other factors aswell, which are more or at least equally important:

-Its a one card combo basically, which is a big difference to say reanimator (needs two cards). This makes it even easier to assemble than say Flash (but not easier to succesfully activate).
-It kills instantly, compared to Reanimator, where your opponent still has a chance to do something (sometimes ;)
-Its quite cheap mana-wise and easy splashable in different shells (example below). As the deck is forced to run none-basic land only, Lotus Petal could provide both speed and mana stability, which would make a first turn Druid possible.
-The combo is smaller than the Reanimator combo. A loose comparison:

Reanimator:
8 Reanimate spells
8 Discard spells
6 creatures to reanimate.
--
22 cards

Hermit Druid (there may be more efficient ways, please tell me if you think this is supoptimal. Note there is also the Kiki combo as a possibility).
4 Druid
3 Moemba
1 Dread Return
1 Ghoul
1 Dragons Breath
1 Lord (if there is no other fodder creature)
--
11 cards

- As the combo is so small, there quite some possibiltes to fill the last slots. I asume that each version would run these (with small deviations):

4 FoW
4 Daze
4 BS
4 Ponder (maybe fewer with SDT)
2 Cabal Therapy (to clear the way after a Druid activation)
4 Worldly Tutor
--
22 + lets say 20 mana (more likely a little less, if we compare this to Reanimator, which runs 18 mana most of the time)
--
53 cards total with already 10 disruption spells in the deck!

For the last 7 (some more if you cut down on other spells) some examples:
- Bob
- Goyf (as alt win and Ghoul fooder)
- 2 Nought and 4 Stifle (Ghoul fooder, disruption and alt win)
- CB / Top (disruption / protection).
- Thoughtseize

This forms a very potent deck, which gives your opponent very little breathing room. Please do not criticize my example deck list / possibilties, its just there to illustrate my case.

[Amon Amarth]

Interesting that people are so focused on the aspect to what sorts of spells Hermit Druid dies. In my opinion this is only a minor point. The amounts of possible answers to the combo is always relative to other factors aswell, which are more or at least equally important:

-Its a one card combo basically, which is a big difference to say reanimator (needs two cards). This makes it even easier to assemble than say Flash (but not easier to succesfully activate).
-It kills instantly, compared to Reanimator, where your opponent still has a chance to do something (sometimes ;)
-Its quite cheap mana-wise and easy splashable in different shells (example below). As the deck is forced to run none-basic land only, Lotus Petal could provide both speed and mana stability, which would make a first turn Druid possible.
-The combo is smaller than the Reanimator combo.

Why play a combo deck that scoops to a resolved Grim Lavamancer? People play combo decks so they can ignore decks not running Blue or a certain subset of cards (discard, Chalice, etc.) To say that the combo kills instantly is misleading because you play Hermit Druid and still have to pass the the turn. Post board it gets really bad because everyone is prepared for GY based decks, in addition to the spot removal in most maindecks. While it does kill much faster than Reanimator, a 2nd turn Iona is often tantamount to winning. The glaring weakness to Wasteland, Blood Moon and Co. is significant as well. Also, there are quite a few blanks in there too that you never want to draw. I'm not convinced.

[Greenpoe]

Wouldn't it be more interesting if we discussed cards that actually aren't super swingy and do something good for the format, like slowing it down by pushing control (tax, loa), push higher casting cost cards without favoring combo (monolith), or, again, make midrange more viable (Twist maybe?). I don't think discussing cards like Spiral or frantic search is a good thing. Even if they don't degenerate right down the format, they're still annoying in the sense they make combo and faster decks even better. Unless Wizard print another version of Force that's good enough agains combo deck, i don't see more combo cards coming out from the restricted list, not soon anyway, after the unban of Entomb/Halls.

This guy has everything right. Slowing down the format and making control more viable makes the format more healthy. Slowing down the format=more cards become viable=more strategy and variety.

[menace13]

Why play a combo deck that scoops to a resolved Grim Lavamancer? People play combo decks so they can ignore decks not running Blue or a certain subset of cards (discard, Chalice, etc.) To say that the combo kills instantly is misleading because you play Hermit Druid and still have to pass the the turn. Post board it gets really bad because everyone is prepared for GY based decks, in addition to the spot removal in most maindecks. While it does kill much faster than Reanimator, a 2nd turn Iona is often tantamount to winning. The glaring weakness to Wasteland, Blood Moon and Co. is significant as well. Also, there are quite a few blanks in there too that you never want to draw. I'm not convinced.

Log on to MTGO, I have it built and will playtest a few games with you or anyone pm. The deck is fast, disruptive and has counter backup..its good in legacy take my word for it.

[Lurker101]

I don't have as much familiarity with legacy as most of the people here (I'm primaraily a vintage player) here are the cards I would be behind getting unbanned:
Hermit Druid (slower and more disruptuptible than Oath and not really a replacement for survival)
Earthcraft
Time Spiral (make High Tide good again please!)
Frantic Search (which should also be legal in Vintage IMO)
Worldgorger Dragon (maybe, the whole idea of drawing a game so easily does make me hesitant here)
Land Tax
Grim Monolith
Illusionary Mask (wasn't this originally bannned for financial reasons? That's no way to ban a card. Also, stifle is a more versatile option)
Mind Twist
Goblin Recruiter

Cards that should stay banned:
Mana Drain (This is a defining card for vintage, I think the vintage pillars aside from dark ritual and null rod should stay out of legacy. It's a card that defines Vintage and like workshop and bazaar should stay banned)
Oath of Druids (The thing that drives me to legacy in the first place is the viability of aggro decks when compared to vintage, I like Hermit Druid and Survival I would rather see them flourish in a format then have Oath be another defining deck in eternal. Oath is fine in Vintage but let legacy play with a healthy aggro environment)