It´s Great
it´s okay
Not really
This is an important point. I don't mind playing decks that win by linear progression, and that's pretty much all I played during my days as a dirty casual player. But Legacy is the big leagues. This is where you've got decks that fire a Goblin of Arson Gun for 52 on the first turn, or sacrifice a land to make a 20/20 creature, or don't pay mana for any spell in the deck, or force opponents to draw hundreds of cards. I definitely don't think those should be the only ways to play, but I think it's a beautiful thing that those things are possible in Legacy. If all that stuff suddenly stops being viable, what's really separating Legacy from Modern? The tempo of the tempo decks? The fact that Green is the new Blue? The price tag?Originally Posted by Crimhead
I digress, but if someone with more time and sobriety cares to check my calculations, I did a quick count of banned cards from Legacy and Modern last night when I was getting turnt. Barring a number of cards that either are P9 or simply don't work in tournament play (i.e. ante cards, Chaos Orb, Falling Star, Shahrazad, Conspiracy stuff), Legacy had—I think—42 banned cards, and Modern had 35. So given the precept that the aforementioned cards don't count, for a cardpool with [EDIT: a bit more than] half the lifespan of Legacy, Modern has 5/6 as many banned cards. The goal is obvious, and I can understand the idea that it's a worthy endeavor to create a format that's guaranteed to give players games longer than four turns. But there are problems with that: the cards don't police themselves; Wizards hasn't picked up the slack; nobody likes watching their pet deck disintegrate because the Fun Police showed up; and almost every deck in the format is a linear value deck.
I bring this up in part because I think there's an inherent (necessary?) contrast between formats, and in part because I'm new to Legacy and a refugee of Standard (the real MtG money pit) and Modern (because one can only weather so many bans). I don't want to spread the fires of the Banlist Wars here, but I have no interest in seeing the same thing that's happened to Modern happen to Legacy. Our format is resilient enough to weather a terribly designed set. Our format is diverse. Our format is fair. Our format isn't. Our format caters to a huge number of viable strategies and axes on which a person can win.
Since before I started playing the format, there's been an obvious attempt to push certain decks and archetypes—which is to say, value decks—at the expense of other archetypes and strategies. I don't have a problem with those decks, but—and I don't mean offense to anyone when I say this—they don't feel like they define the format to me. I can attack into Tarmogoyf with a Knight of the Reliquary in Modern. I can play a 4/X with an EtB on turn 3 there, too. Taxing spells with a creature? Check. Paying one mana for a 3-power flyer? Ditto.
Now I'd think this was fine if the decks getting the boosts did anything to really upset the top deck in the format, which was there before I bothered to pay much attention to Legacy (and which I think is a fine deck, though I don't think I'd like to play it personally). Or, for that matter, if it kept a lid on combo decks and grindier control decks and provided an alternative to the prevailing currents of the metagame. Instead, these printings are boosting specific strategies that really feel quite a bit like the ones that predominate in Modern and Standard, and they've started pushing the other styles of play to the periphery (excepting, again, that one deck). And though it's good that people like to play that way, that's not the reason I started playing Legacy, and it's not what makes the format stand out to me.
Last edited by Ronald Deuce; 01-24-2017 at 02:43 AM.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
Well phrased question.
Perhaps it's rose colored glasses as some others have said, but I do not enjoy the format as much as I have in the past. However, I'm definitely enjoying playing legacy more than I ever have before.
Our legacy (and vintage!) community has exploded in the last several months. Between myself and the other players, I never worry about being able to play whatever deck I want. In fact, I borrowed ~75% of my legacy deck and all-but-the-power of my vintage deck for Eternal weekend with <24 hours notice. After most of our twice-weekly tournaments people get together for anything ranging from a couple drinks to hours of intense board gaming. We got "team" shirts because nedleeds wouldn't let me have a Tusk shirt. We had around 8 people at Eternal Weekend, Louisville, and it looks like we're on track to keep that running at GP Vegas.
Changes in Legacy since I started playing that I'm less than thrilled about:
* In 2008, built Merfolk off of two days worth of lunch shift tips and I did well with it. I miss Merfolk being a strong deck.
* Tarmogoyf used to be the nuts. The first duals I bought were Tropical Islands ($60/ea) so I could play Tarmogoyf ($48/ea) in my Merfolk deck - and that was pretty standard
* Delver means no more Zoo.
* Miracles (the cards) created a clear-best Counterbalance deck. I like the presence of Counterbalance/Top in the format but I don't like it being dominant. I'm going to bring my CounterThopters deck with E-Tutor, Moat, and Humility to our Thursday legacy this week for a bit of a throwback.
* Thespian's Stage did something similar. It turned lands from a slow deck that insane people (I wanted to be one of them) piloted to a combo control deck that anyone could pilot and do okay with.
Less cards, more outside factors that changed for the worse:
* No SCG coverage means the format develops much more slowly. Additionally, I think some people who might have played for the hope at a sliver of fame aren't pushing themselves.
* When modern prices spiked, a lot of people sold out and bought into legacy. While it's hard for me to argue against expanding the format, I think since then there's been a lot more bitching and moaning about what's wrong with the format instead of how to address it. Stop telling me CB/Top should be banned and start telling me what you're doing to hedge your pre-board games against it.
I like the current state of Legacy.
For me Leovold changed a lot.
It is such a strong hatebear. It is Zenithable and fits in a lot of decks. It makes a lot of BUG Versions stronger. Can be splashed into Zenith Decks. Makes random Decks like food chain a way better.
And its a card against Brainstorm :D :D
I am very happy about this card in the format!
This discussion is basically repeating what Dice, Barook and I had last year in the B&R thread pointing at the "Miracles vs Decay vs. Chalice" metagame structure. You play either one of the softlock.decs, a deck which gets around them due to cmc of your cards or you play Decay. Period.
What most likely frustrates the people despite the fact that we have several viable supertypes like tempo (D&T), combo (S&T), control (miracles) and aggro (Eldrazi) is that ALL OF THEM aim to achieve ZERO INTERACTION with the player sitting across the table. There is no dance of trading cards forth and back if you are locked out by Thalia+Wasteland or Chalice+TKS or Counterbalance+SDT or T1 Tendrils or Emrakul+SneakAttack or Griselbrand+S&T. Legacy developed from a format where players were fighting for small advantages and stability of the board to a vintage-esque stage for various blowouts (often by 2-card-combos).
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
Good point indeed. There are too many cards that are hard to interact with and the overall powercreep brought legacy to this "still okay, befascue it's legacy, but then again not really okay, we had way better times" level.
On a side note, you should give pauper a try. It has many good elements you are missing in legacy ;)
I can only speak from the Elves perspective, but I enjoy playing against Storm a lot. DRS gives the matchup more depth than fair decks used to have in the past.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
I think most decks, besides Eldrazi and SnT, are heavily invested into interaction.
Delver is bigger than it ever was, DnT is a deck fundamentaly based around interaction, Miracles is, unless you are dead to the lock in turns 2 or something, a deck based around interaction.
Storm as an archetype is much less goldfishy than it used to be.
The only part I actively dislike about the format is Gitaxian Probe. That card is, in every single way, fucking frustrating to play against.
"Miracles vs Decay vs. Chalice" - DnT, Infect and BR Rea, 3/6 of the DTB at the moment don't fall under your metagame structure. Lands was in the DTB for a while too. I wouldn't call them decks with diverse enough CMC to get around CotV/CB either, they get under them with Cavern/Vial or speed. At any rate, even if you want to argue that they do, 'a deck which gets around them due to cmc of your cards' is a hugely broad term, hardly a good argument. See the rise of SnS recently, that's because people are reacting to this CotV/CB metagame by playing decks that are good vs them!
Never heard DnT be called tempo before
Thalia + Wasteland is absolutely interaction, it's mana denial. If they weren't doing it you would be able to play spells, but since they're INTERACTING with you you can't. It's not enjoyable interaction, but is nonetheless. Chalice has largely been adapted to and that's noticeable by the results, or lack of, Eldrazi has been putting up recently. It's still a boring card, but far from the GG it was when Eldrazi entered the format. TKS is just a creature. Pushed, yes, but you can put removal spells in your deck.
On your comment of combo, sure, they exist and have done for a long time. Not sure what your point is here? They're not dominating the format because people play INTERACTION to stop them.
This is all spoken like you're more content to moan about the state of the format (which is pretty obvious), rather than play it and adapt to what's going on.
just to play devil's advocate here: can you provide some examples where i am interacting with an opponent? i just need to better understand where the bar is being set for "interaction" before i can make a comment regarding what playable decks still interact.
-rob
BR Reanimator can be an Abrupt Decay deck as well. The list that got in the finals of GP Horsebarn before losing to Reid Duke ran 3 copies in the SB."Miracles vs Decay vs. Chalice" - DnT, Infect and BR Rea, 3/6 of the DTB at the moment don't fall under your metagame structure. Lands was in the DTB for a while too. I wouldn't call them decks with diverse enough CMC to get around CotV/CB either, they get under them with Cavern/Vial or speed. At any rate, even if you want to argue that they do, 'a deck which gets around them due to cmc of your cards' is a hugely broad term, hardly a good argument. See the rise of SnS recently, that's because people are reacting to this CotV/CB metagame by playing decks that are good vs them!
Never heard DnT be called tempo before
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/542214#online
D&T isn't tempo, it's a control deck.
Edit: The latest paper results for December (DTB doesn't account for this yet) has exactly one deck that doesn't fit the "Miracles/Decay/Chalice" meta, which is Grixis Pyromancer at #5. The next one is Burn at #9.
MTGO has S&T at 6.49%, D&T at 2.60% and Infect at 1.62% in the Top 17, which accounts for 78.57% of the total metagame. The share of decks that don't fit into one of those 3 categories isn't that great anymore.
Can =/= is, it's far from a SB staple. Most lists run Reverent Silence to answer CB, rather than Decay. Decay is just a super flexible answer to lots of things like Shaman, Cage, Chalice etc, it's not necessarily played for its uncounterability (is that a word?) like Delver decks do.
Agree on DnT.
Fwiw, most people run Reverent Silence to answer Leyline, not cb =)
Other than that I agree.
*B/R Reanimator is 100% not a decay deck. It's a deck that can include decay because it's a clean answer to a lot of problems for the deck, but it is in no way a guarentee in that deck.
You're right about Silence, but I'd assume they board it in vs Miracles? If not, someone tell me to shut up and I'll drop this point
I agree with most of these points. Especially the lands point. Lands used to be an incredible interesting deck that has turned into a pile of snoozefest.
Your last point though about what are you bringing to beat CB Top, the issue I have is that a majority of the time the answer is, I play abrupt decay. The color restrictive part of the card is nice, but you basically end up like what Reid Duke said in his article. I want to play brainstorm because I have to to win. I'm in blue. I want to have good answer to counter balance, but not play counter balance myself. I'm BUG. Boom. From there you already have 75% of a deck build simply because when you're in those colors you have to play certain cards. It's homogenizing and it kind of sucks
I said you are either part of the Miracles/Chalice/decay triangle or have a gameplan to get around the softlock. Infect, Reanimator, D&T and Lands all fit, especially as the later is running Chalice itself. S&T with its 3cc/4cc enablers is another example of that
Is there a technical difference to Delver.dec at all? You pound your opponent with small creatures, while manadenial and taxing effects like Daze, Port, Wasteland, Stifle or Thalia delay their gameplan.Never heard DnT be called tempo before
Ensuring your opponent can't play spells at all is no sign of promoting interaction. As for that it does not matter if you get killed by T1 Tendrils or die in 5 turns against TKS + Chalice with a hand full of 1cc cards.
While we are at TKS: Running removal is nice, but TKS exiles it from your hand anyways
Which results into cards like Boseiju or Caverns being maindecked to dive deeper into the no-interaction rabbithole of Legacy
Bad assumption here. I switched to S&T because its so easy to get free wins off a 3cc sorcery rather than trying to durdle with storm. It just doesnt mean I have to enjoy the path of dumbing down the game to my opponent pretty much slamming tomb into chalice and expecting the fold just to die to an Emrakul the next turn
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
I'm not sure I follow this line of reasoning.
Your posts suggests that you don't like the combo because it's too powerful or uninteractive?
But given the dominance of the blue package, don't we need more of these powerful, nonblue interactions?
Because synergy with lands (like crop rotation, Loam, etc) is usually found on green cards, it's hard to combine them with FOW.
RUG Lands is one of the only decks running blue but totally lacking any of the usual blue cards.
On the other hand, blue decks have a hard time including Stage/Depths, as they rely on shuffle-effects and are too mana-efficient to include non-mana-producing lands.
Stage/Depths is a combo that perfectly suits nonblue strategies, and launched Lands and Turbo Depths (and to some degree 4cLoam?) just below T1 status.
Isn't that what we need, more diversity besides brainstorm/ponder/FOW?
I see two problems with Lands: First its that anfles to interact with the deck are fringe and pretty much boil down to yardhate and second, the absurd pricetag of the niche cards the deck needs to run. The deck can't really go the way of Budget like D&T
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
Lobby your local shop to host a fringe deck night where only fringe decks are allowed.
Or if that won't fly, lobby them to offer a price for the fringe decks that performed the best each night, a deck that doesn't share 90% of its cards with stuff on Mtgtop8, Mtggoldfish, SCG top 8s, decks to beat on this forum.
Or just play more fringe decks and ask your friends and local players to do the same.
There's plenty of fun interactive powerful decks in legacy that can and do win tournaments.
NicFit
Food Chain
Dark Depths
Aluren
Dozens of other alternative decks that routinely put up top 8s.
Or alternatively, just don't obsess with winning every tournament and play something for fun like say Dragon Stompy or Pox, Geddon Stax, The Gate, Quinn, Zoo, Twisted Metal, Stoneblade, Tradewind Rider, Affinity, Goblins or Oracle Opposition or if you miss Canadian Thresh play that or whatever strikes your fancy. Visit the Developmental forum once in a while if you want some new ideas to try.
There are literally hundreds of effective strategies in legacy. I bring my Gamekeeper deck of all things to my local shop and do pretty well with it most
Mtgtop8, Mtggoldfish, SCG top 8s, decks to beat on this forum should not define the metagame. We the players should. If people didn't obsess over always playing the "best deck" even in local 20 person tourneys with a weak price pool, legacy is by far the best format in the history.
Calling Counterbalance "interaction" sounds really weird when it makes for games where one player often pass on multiple turns without action because he's been locked out. It's in the same league as Chalice.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
Er, sure? There aren't many decks that don't fall under that huge blanket statement. CB and Chalice are part of the format, if you're weak to them by having a low curve, play answers for them. If you're not, don't. Lands rarely runs more than one CotV in the SB anyway, it's hardly a 'chalice deck'.
There's a huge difference to DnT and Delver, I'm very surprised you're even asking.
Of course it's interacting, maybe our definitions differ then, but they're stopping you from doing things by interacting...I don't know how else to put it. Would you also argue that Storm is not an interactive deck?
If you're dying to a TKS with all 1cmc cards in hand, put other cards in your deck! Have you seen how Delver decks have adapted to more CotV in the meta, or how Miracles are playing MD EEs now? The format changes, and people adapt. Moaning about hyperbolic situations won't solve anything
TKS exiles, TS discards...these are all interacting, you know you can cast a removal spell in response to the TKS trigger? You're not ALWAYS tapped out, and they don't ALWAYS have it T2. I can't remember the last time I lost to Eldrazi with Grixis Delver playing online since I put removal spells in the deck that get around Chalice.
That's a crap excuse. Whatever your personal reasons, and that's what you've just said, SnT has become a lot better in the metagame while storm has gotten worse. The skill behind the deck shouldn't be a factor in this, I do agree SnT is a deck a monkey could play though.
I will admit, CB is a much tougher card to beat than Chalice and falls into Lemnears theory. Whether it's healthy interaction is debatable, but it's still interacting as without the CB they're casting spells. I think CB is leagues ahead of Chalice in promoting bad gameplay.
EDIT - Probably worth pointing out that I hate CB, it doesn't promote good gameplay in the slightest, thankfully Decay is in the format. But I don't see it being banned in the near future, if ever, so rather than moan it's better to be prepared for it.
Last edited by Whitefaces; 01-24-2017 at 09:08 AM.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
