Old School vs. New School

[Bongo]

During our last gathering, an interesting question came up:

In a vacuum, are the old cards better, or the new cards (with the new design)?

To specify the question: If you had to build decks solely with cards from Alpha to Scourge or from Mirrodin forward, what decks would you build (the current banned list applies)?
And which deck would be stronger?

We couldn't decide, my colleague was all for the old school, while I argued that the new sets had some really powerful cards and synergies that could beat the old-school.
What's your opinion?

[thefreakaccident]

New school...


As most combo decks in legacy nowadays revolve around newly printed cards (infernal tutor mainly, with other supplementing cards like newer rituals and cantrips/chrome mox)...


Hell, old threshold would suck in comparison to what we have nowadays (without CB/Top, ponder, thoughtseize, and lets not forget †armogoyf).



Even control decks require newer cards, such as krosan grip, explosives, crucible of worlds, life from the loam... etc.).


Anyways, I think that the newer sets have some more power (not literally) than the older sets.

[Frenger]

Have fun playing combo without tendrils, drit, cabal rit, lotus petal, etc

[thefreakaccident]

I am just saying that oldschool cannot play combo without the new sets and without the banned cards.

[Eldariel]

Hell, old threshold would suck in comparison to what we have nowadays (without CB/Top, ponder, thoughtseize, and lets not forget †armogoyf).

Are you telling me Force of Will, Daze, Swords to Plowshares/Stifle+Wasteland+Bolt/Whatever, Mongoose, Brainstorm, Fetches and company are less/equally important for Thresh as the additions of the new sets? Heck, the only new cards Canadian Thresh plays are Tarmogoyf and Ponder. Sure, Tarmogoyf is a huge improvement over Werebear and Ponder is better than Portent, but really now...

Goblins are almost all old (although two key cards in Warren Weirdings and Vial come from the new sets).

And it's fully possible to build a Storm-combo deck without Infernal Tutor (yes, the card will be missed, but the lack there-of won't make the deck unplayable). Heck, Fetchland Tendrils plays close to no cards from the new sets (modern versions include 0 Infernal Tutors). That puts it down to Ponder, which can be replaced by a dozen slightly weaker cards, and Top which admittedly is a huge loss, but still leaves the deck with 52 old cards.

Also, Landstill comes almost entirely from pre-Mirrodin era and Survival-decks, while getting some better creatures from the new sets, are otherwise composed mostly of old sets and wouldn't suck without the new ones in the print.


It seems to me like Legacy is still pretty much defined by old cards, Tarmogoyf, Life from the Loam, Sensei's Divining Top and Mirrodin. Sure, new sets see play, but just a glance at Extended goes to reveal the difference the pre-Mirrodin sets make (Onslaught obviously has Fetchlands, so if the cutoff were Odyssey-Alpha and Onslaught-Lorwyn, things would change a ton).

[thefreakaccident]

I say that the old and new both need eachother, and while some decks can be played fully without the other, they are generally weaker in that state.

Although, Elderiel, you did have a good point, which totally destroyed my argument, FT is almost totally intact.

But so is faeries :cool: ... just kidding.

[emidln]

I am just saying that oldschool cannot play combo without the new sets and without the banned cards.

I play my combo deck without any new cards save for some sb stuff and Ponder. If Ponder was banned tomorrow, I'd replace it with Sleight of Hand or Serum Visions and the newest card in my tendrils deck would become Sensei's Divining Top. My deck has been playable since 2004 with Ponder (and you didn't need KGrip back then because there was no CB). Since 2004/2005 Doomsday piles and combo theory have advanced a lot to make playing what is essentially a really old deck possible.

[Bongo]

This is what we have come up with:


Old-School Decks:

- Tendrils Combo
- Threshold UGW or UGR
- Goblins without Vial
- Survival
- Burn
- Pox
- Landstill
- Enchantress
- Aluren


New School:

- Affinity
- Counter-Top Goyf
- Faeries
- Zoo / Boros
- BG Elves
- Doran
- Gifts Tron


Obviously there are matchup issues, but overall I wouldn't say that the New School is necessarily weaker. Affinity may be an exception, but I have found that it pretty much tears apart the old-school decks (except Storm). New School Zoo is also no slouch either.

If the New School had Fetchlands, I would even dare to say that it would be stronger overall.

[yawg07]

Stick Dragonstorm under new school.
If we are just going by released sets after Scourge, it was Time Shifted.
If we are going by FRAMES, the FTV:Dragons one is new frame.

[Eldariel]

Zoo/Boros/company tend to play old creatures too (Savannah Lions, Kird Ape, Grim Lavamancer - do we count reprints?) and especially old burn (Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Incinerate, Price of Progress, etc.). Without those they become much worse. Especially Price of Progress is a card that makes or breaks the decks. Also, old duals are damn important in race MUs.

Also, remember the first Legacy GPs (Lille and Philly)? The dominant decks were Goblins and Threshold (the old variant) with tons of pros piloting Affinity and failing to even Day 2. I don't think it's exaggeration to say Affinity can't hang with the top decks you could build with the old cards (admittedly Goblins without Vial are a different animal), and if it could, it would simply get hated out since the old sets offer the most brutal Affinity-hate in the format.


Gifts Tron, Doran, BG Elves, are those even Legacy-decks? Rock without Deed just doesn't really seem playable, and Gifts Tron isn't really competitive in a format with as much non-basic hate as Legacy experiences. BG Elves doesn't seem relevantly better than mono-G Elves, and cards like Elvish Champion, Caller of the Claw, Quirion Ranger, Fyndhorn, Priest of Titania, Sylvan Messenger and so on seem too important in Elves to build in the new pool.

Faeries without Force/Brainstorm don't seem too impressive and Countertop-based decks without Force, Brainstorm and Daze just plain die to storm, Goblins, Thresh and well, anything... Then there's the fact that Landstill and Dreadstill are both almost entirely composed of old cards and kick the living out of basically all the decks on the "new decks"-list.

It's also worth noting that almost all land disruption worth playing (Wasteland, Stifle, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Sinkhole, Price of Progress, Vindicate) comes from the old sets.


It just doesn't seem to even be close. The speed of the format mostly comes from the old sets as well as the support spells worth playing. Of course decks become better when you allow more sets, but a format without the new sets is much faster and seems to have much higher average powerlevel than a format without the old sets.

You could toss stuff like Enchantress, Landstill, Dreadstill and MUC to the list of "old stuff". And Aluren. And so on. The new sets compound decks, but hardly create new ones (and even the decks based around new cards tend to draw heavily on the older cards). So new sets do improve Legacy-decks as a whole by a ton, but they make few new decks (out of the Legacy Metagame-forum, Aggro Loam is the only one predominantly based on new sets and even that one really draws heavily on Odyssey to function) and really none of the competitive Legacy-decks can be built without significant losses of only new sets (and if they could, they'd be dominating Extended as we speak). Affinity is the only one that really has power and can be built out of solely the new sets, and it's repeatedly proven itself too weak to truly be a tier 1 deck (also, some key cards are always from the old sets - Fling/Berserk/Force/whatever you toss in the last slots tend to invariably be old cards).

[Arkham]

I'd say it'd be harder to make a competent deck from Mirrodin forward unless the entire format succumbed to that same limitation. In which case, I'd place my bets on Affinity being top dog again.

Also, who decided Onslaught, Scourge, etc to be considered old school? They have fetchlands, cycle, etc and were just a set behind Mirrodin. If anything, if you were seperate the two to create a balance between powers, the Oddessy Block should be the end of old school. :tongue:

In any case, I think either side would be fine for Legacy if a bit hard to adjust to. New School only would essentially become extended pre-this year's rotation minus some banned cards, while Old School would be prior to the advent of equipment. Neither seem that appealing alone when you can have both of them together.

EDIT: Where do Core sets fall into this?

[Bongo]

To specify - with New School I mean the cards with new card frames.


One would have to look at Extended after Onslaught Block rotates out to accurately say which decks are the best. Currently, Old School has 41 sets (including core sets and Portal), while New School has 20 sets (including core sets) to work with, so one would have to wait till the number is even and then compare decks again. If you would cut down the Old School to 20 sets, things would be a lot closer.

Eldariel is mostly right, but I still want to defend the New School - Faeries, Affinity and BG Elves/Doran managed to steal quite a few games against Old School Legacy decks. Of course, the sample size is too small to accurately predict results, but this was still noteworthy and shows that the power level of creatures has been higher than in the past.

Affinity is also a real beast. Playing against Goblins without Vial, I have found that I won the majority of games. Also, I don't think that Threshold has a good pre-board matchup against Affinity. Post-board is a different story with Energy Flux and Serenity.

[dahcmai]

Eh, old school would tear up things.

Not to mention, you have to think that if you're going back to Alpha that means you get some seriously good stuff. Moat, oh baby.


Gimme some Null Rods for your Affinity, a Moat or two and fill the rest in with the usual control elements and no problem.

There's just to many choices to make decks out of the older stuff.

If anything, Threshold alone practically is all old school. Ok, so we go back to the Werebear instead of goyf.

[FoolofaTook]

This is what we have come up with:


Old-School Decks:

- Tendrils Combo
- Threshold UGW or UGR
- Goblins without Vial
- Survival
- Burn
- Pox
- Landstill
- Enchantress
- Aluren


New School:

- Affinity
- Counter-Top Goyf
- Faeries
- Zoo / Boros
- BG Elves
- Doran
- Gifts Tron


Obviously there are matchup issues, but overall I wouldn't say that the New School is necessarily weaker. Affinity may be an exception, but I have found that it pretty much tears apart the old-school decks (except Storm). New School Zoo is also no slouch either.

If the New School had Fetchlands, I would even dare to say that it would be stronger overall.

This list looks like old school would school new school.

Landstill would be the strongest deck by far in the entire meta. Just my opinion.

[kilukru]

Let's be frank, he who control the land control the world!

Old school have Fetch AND Dual, nuff said

New school best weapon would be a little guy named Magnus of the Moon, ironicly (how in hell do you spell that word!) an old school wannabe.

[TeenieBopper]

Alpha to Scourge? Well no shit that's better. There's like 10 more sets in there than Mirrodin forward. Having access to the mistakes of magic plus the solid cards of newer sets, without being forced to use the god awful chafe from early sets makes this whole thing inherently unfair in favor of "old school." If you really want to compare old school vs. new school, you have to compare any given block or T2 format. If you were to rank those decks in order of power, I'd be willing to bet there's an almost direct correlation to reverse chronological order. There would obviously be exception (Affinity and Urza's era T2 come to mind), but the new decks are going to be more powerful than the old ones.

Credit goes to Frogboy too since I'm basically paraphrasing one of his posts that I'm too lazy to go find and quote.

Also, for the record, new school, in terms of card design, began around Invasion block. Average card power level is significantly higher post Invasion than pre-Invasion.

[FoolofaTook]

This is a tangential question to the argument above:

Which current tier 1 Legacy deck is composed of the oldest cards and has evolved the least recently?

My guess would be Landstill in the U/W/x archetype.

[DeathwingZERO]

To balance out the concept a little more, I think you should go from the 2003 Extended rotation. Drop everything from Invasion on into New School, and Old School is everything Mercadian block back. This would also give New School 7th through 10th editions, while OS has everything up to it.

That might actually give you a better idea of what "old school" really is, in terms of what us Magic old timers consider the "new era". A lot of players came back during Invasion, after leaving in either Urza's or Mercadian.

EDIT: Ironically, that leaves the LED-less builds of Ichorid nearly completely untouched. Combo FTW?

[mogote]

Where would High Tide decks fit into that theoretical metagame? Would Solidarity be good without Remand?

[sunshine]

The mana base is one of the biggest issues here, Ravnica duels are nearly functionally equivalent to the originals. But you really can't replace onslaught fetch lands.

[dahcmai]

Now the vote would be is the original Legends set more or less powerful than what's spoiled in Shards so far? It's actually kind of a tough choice, but I have to go with Shards sadly enough. They seem very similar to someone who played back then. Huge gigantic virtually unplayable gold cards and some bombs here and there. Kind of amusing if you think about it.

[Lifeless]

Now the vote would be is the original Legends set more or less powerful than what's spoiled in Shards so far? It's actually kind of a tough choice, but I have to go with Shards sadly enough. They seem very similar to someone who played back then. Huge gigantic virtually unplayable gold cards and some bombs here and there. Kind of amusing if you think about it.

Back in the day it was like you paid a premium for the privilege of casting a gold card. It's the opposite philosophy now, there is an understanding that making 3 colors of mana is hard and should be rewarded (see Wooly Thocator versus, let's say, Ragnar). Even considering nobody pays retail for 8 mana creatures, I think it's obvious that Shards will be considerably better card for card. Axelrod Gunnarson would crap his pants if he ever saw a Hellkite Overlord.

[mercenarybdu]

old and new need each other. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to build KC.

[Wigglytuff_Rimjob]

old and new need each other. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to build KC.

I hope I dont immediately regret this...but what is KC?

[dahcmai]

Back in the day it was like you paid a premium for the privilege of casting a gold card. It's the opposite philosophy now, there is an understanding that making 3 colors of mana is hard and should be rewarded (see Wooly Thocator versus, let's say, Ragnar). Even considering nobody pays retail for 8 mana creatures, I think it's obvious that Shards will be considerably better card for card. Axelrod Gunnarson would crap his pants if he ever saw a Hellkite Overlord.


True, but your not going to see stuff like The abyss or Moat in Shards and that's a heavy swing point for Legends.

[3duece]

Also, for the record, new school, in terms of card design, began around Invasion block. Average card power level is significantly higher post Invasion than pre-Invasion.

Not bashing in any way, I was just wondering if you could expand on this concept. I played from revised to planeshift and quit, and just picked things back up after lorwyn. Now, I notice some very powerful cards around that weren't here before like mind's desire, gifts ungiven, fetchlands and counterbalance. But the power cards seem more sprawled in a sea of draft-oriented sets. Standard looks more like how limited looked back in the day to me.

Before I initially stopped playing, we considered tempest through planeshift 'contemporary.' Looking at those sets, the density of very powerful cards is much greater than it is today. Even cycles like mirrodin don't compare to urza cycle.

[dahcmai]

Wizards pretty much figured out if they stick in crap it gets regarded as exactly that. They decided to make at least every card fairly useful so limited play was better.

There may not be super powered cards like the old days, but overall the sets are playable in some degree.

[DeathwingZERO]

Not bashing in any way, I was just wondering if you could expand on this concept.

Expanding upon it is simple, albeit sounds like a conspiracy theory. If you want to hear more about it, PM me and I can elaborate. I had it all written down here, but decided to just cut to the chase, and elaborate for those actually interested in private.

In short, Invasion was when the game became "new" again. Urza's broke everything in half, Mercadian shot any concept of fun straight out of the game in hopes of slowing things down, and Invasion is where both strategy and power level met at a balance again.

Things like the return of multicolored strategies (Invasion's "tap-lands", Apocalypse bringing out the enemy painlands, and a plethora of gold spells that were amazing), good mechanics, and a mixture of power between all colors both on their own and mixed, it brought everything back into place, so to speak. It also allowed for future sets to start that power creep trend, where they can test new boundaries of the game.

[Atwa]

Where would High Tide decks fit into that theoretical metagame? Would Solidarity be good without Remand?

Solidarity was considered a DtB even before Remand got printed.

[ParkerLewis]

Now the vote would be is the original Legends set more or less powerful than what's spoiled in Shards so far? It's actually kind of a tough choice, but I have to go with Shards sadly enough. They seem very similar to someone who played back then. Huge gigantic virtually unplayable gold cards and some bombs here and there. Kind of amusing if you think about it.

What ? Legends ? You mean that absolute pile of utter crappy cards ?

I mean, except for like what, 5 cards, the set is filled with crap. Or at least what would today be considered as crap (and i mean at the very very least).


Back in the day it was like you paid a premium for the privilege of casting a gold card. It's the opposite philosophy now, there is an understanding that making 3 colors of mana is hard and should be rewarded (see Wooly Thocator versus, let's say, Ragnar). Even considering nobody pays retail for 8 mana creatures, I think it's obvious that Shards will be considerably better card for card. Axelrod Gunnarson would crap his pants if he ever saw a Hellkite Overlord.

You said it best. Lots CDE and the like casting cost for shitty 1/1 with narrow and useless abilites. Or stuff like vanilla 4/4 for 4CD.

Seriously, pile of shit. Except for Giant Slug which is probably one of my favorite cards of all time. Its ability is really undercosted.

[Shugyosha]

We should make a Source tourney out of this. I would laugh my ass off every time you New Schoolers will use one of your shitty post onslaught fetches to get basics and shock yourself with duals while I fetch on Tundra, Swords your Goyf and Daze your Cancel...

[Eldariel]

Bleh, but if we talk about post-Invasion and pre-Invasion, pre-Invasion would be in seriously pickle as it lacks any decent draw (Fact, Standstill and Visions all came since) for control, any decent beaters (Threshold beaters, Goyf, Goblins, etc. all came since), most combo-cards (Storm, Mirrodin, Aluren-pieces and all that was printed since), etc. Oh, and fetchlands. Seriously, the only decent pre-Invasion decks I can think of are Counterslivers, some Sligh-variant and some weird MUC-Phid (or UW - white still has Moat, StP, Humility and company so it's not worthless, but the mana-base would be tough and without Fetches, I don't think you could pack Back to Basics anymore). Then again, Counterslivers could still be overpowering thanks to being able to play Force, StP and Daze.

I think, if anything, this exercise goes to show how huge Odyssey and Onslaught are for Legacy. Invasion has less quantity, but a few big hitters (Deed, Fact, Meddling Mage, Vindicate pretty much in that order - oh yeah, and Cavern Harpy).

[DeathwingZERO]

A small list of what we get from those two blocks (bear in mind, this is just a few things, off the top of my head, giving an idea just how crucial they are)

Heavy hitters from Odyssey:

Threshold
Wishes
Standstill
Coliseum
Ichorid
Cabal Therapy
Cabal Ritual
Decree of Justice (and Annihilation? Maybe? Naaah)
Flash of Insight

Heavy Hitters from Onslaught:

Fetchlands
Exalted Angel
Akroma
Stifle
Storm
Goblin Warchief
Goblin Piledriver
Siege Gang Commander
Goblin Sharpshooter
Gempalm Incinerator

I know for certain there's more, but this alone is clutch for decks currently bouncing around in the upper tiers. Realistically, if we were going to look at the difference between old and new school, wherever these two sets fall will pretty much close the argument. They are just too crucial to either side.

[3duece]

Bleh, but if we talk about post-Invasion and pre-Invasion, pre-Invasion would be in seriously pickle as it lacks any decent draw (Fact, Standstill and Visions all came since) for control, any decent beaters (Threshold beaters, Goyf, Goblins, etc. all came since), most combo-cards (Storm, Mirrodin, Aluren-pieces and all that was printed since), etc. Oh, and fetchlands. Seriously, the only decent pre-Invasion decks I can think of are Counterslivers, some Sligh-variant and some weird MUC-Phid (or UW - white still has Moat, StP, Humility and company so it's not worthless, but the mana-base would be tough and without Fetches, I don't think you could pack Back to Basics anymore). Then again, Counterslivers could still be overpowering thanks to being able to play Force, StP and Daze.

I think, if anything, this exercise goes to show how huge Odyssey and Onslaught are for Legacy. Invasion has less quantity, but a few big hitters (Deed, Fact, Meddling Mage, Vindicate pretty much in that order - oh yeah, and Cavern Harpy).

You're definitely right on the point that old-school's beaters were weaker, but they were all weaker so it was okay.

But card draw? Necropotence, yawgmoth's bargain, stroke of genius and prosperity were all heavily played. And combo was a powerhouse many times. Prosbloom was a deck to beat for a long time, and tolarian academy (i guess the original solidarity) was had eight cards banned. Plus you had trix and donate variants that all did well too.

And yes, countersliver and sligh were good. But Necropotence was good enough to get banned in extended and oath of druids was the best deck in that rotation and there were still great versions of white weenie/janke/3deuce as well as hatred decks running around.

But looking at the environment now, you're right in that onslaught and odyssey blocks were very important for old extended/legacy, especially for goblins and control.

[Eldariel]

3duece: We're talking about Legacy and sets' impact in it. The good old card draw is banned and the bad old card draw is...well, bad. Much of what once was broken isn't now due to the lack of broken mana engines, the faster formats or whatever.