All B/R update speculation.

[Pippin]

Can you name a few of these that are no longer viable because of GB?

For example - Aggro Loam which was putting good results before Griselbrand decks. There are other examples of course.

[rxavage]

For example - Aggro Loam which was putting good results before Griselbrand decks. There are other examples of course.


Oh yeah thats right, back in 2009.

[salvor]

Oh yeah thats right, back in 2009.

Yeah (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8252), I've (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7915) never (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7943) seen (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7865) Aggro (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7667) Loam (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7572) in (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7511) top (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7506) of (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7319) an (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7333) event (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7268) recenly. (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7118)

It was inconsistent deck, yet very powerful one.

[rxavage]

Yeah (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8252), I've (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7915) never (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7943) seen (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7865) Aggro (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7667) Loam (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7572) in (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7511) top (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7506) of (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7319) an (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7333) event (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7268) recenly. (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7118)

It was inconsistent deck, yet very powerful one.


Was that supposed to prove something? A few placings over the past year does not mean the deck was consistently putting up good results.

[salvor]

Was that supposed to prove something? A few placings over the past year does not mean the deck was consistently putting up good results.

There were 15 Starcity legacy opens between January and Starcity:Providence.
Aggro loam had 5 top 16 finishes and two top 1 finishes.
For comparison: ANT had 7 top 16 finishes and 0 top 1 finishes in same set of events.

Maybe I'm wrong but Aggro Loam consistently was putting up good results, imo.

P.S. Nic Fit was a deck to beat couple of months before, and where is it now? It's also an example of a deck which was hated by Grisel. (I'm not a Nic Fit player, so I don't know if it can adapt to make their matchup better).

[Hopo]

Read Kibler's thoughts on Griselbrand from Starcitygames. Even Kibler is fed up with people crying over a card that didn't even top 8 GP Atlanta.

No doubt Griselbrand is a really good card which is somewhat difficult to deal with when it comes into play, but there is absolutely no evidence that it's unbeatable, oppressive or whatever happens to be your favorite hyperbolic term of the day.

Kibler mentions that it feels like that the people crying just seem to be the guys who don't know how to win Griselbrand. If your first thought when a powerful deck or synergy arises is "ban this, I can't deal with it", maybe competitive legacy with its almost infinite card pool just isn't your thing.

[caiomarcos]

Read Kibler's thoughts on Griselbrand from Starcitygames. Even Kibler is fed up with people crying over a card that didn't even top 8 GP Atlanta.

No doubt Griselbrand is a really good card which is somewhat difficult to deal with when it comes into play, but there is absolutely no evidence that it's unbeatable, oppressive or whatever happens to be your favorite hyperbolic term of the day.

Kibler mentions that it feels like that the people crying just seem to be the guys who don't know how to win Griselbrand. If your first thought when a powerful deck or synergy arises is "ban this, I can't deal with it", maybe competitive legacy with its almost infinite card pool just isn't your thing.

Is Bargain any more oppressive, unbeatable or whatever happens to be your favorite hyperbolic term of the day than Griselbrand?

[dontbiteitholmes]

Is Bargain any more oppressive, unbeatable or whatever happens to be your favorite hyperbolic term of the day than Griselbrand?

Bargain is much more castable, much harder to disrupt, allows you to draw one card at a time as opposed to in chunks of 7, ect...

Bargain is just as easy to get into play if not easier (see Academy Rector, Grim Monolith, Rituals) and is better in decks that aren't planning on winning through the attack phase. Griselbrand is in no way Bargain. They go in different decks, they lose to different things, they are put into play different ways, they end the game differently. In the end Bargain is better IMO but they are completely different cards. They are both black and both draw cards for life but that's basically the end of the similarities. If you have another argument that is fine but comparing Griselbrand to Bargain doesn't mean anything because it's not a valid comparison. So to answer your question yes Bargain is oppressive but that is irrelevant.

[Hopo]

Is Bargain any more oppressive, unbeatable or whatever happens to be your favorite hyperbolic term of the day than Griselbrand?

I wouldn't know, as Bargain hasn't been legal in this format and I don't follow vintage. But you should be aware that there's quite a difference in drawing a card per life to 7 cards per 7 life. Just because they both draw cards for life doesn't make them interchangeable.

If you are trying to imply that Griselbrand should be banned, then I'm just bored.

[Pippin]

Bargain is much more castable, much harder to disrupt, allows you to draw one card at a time as opposed to in chunks of 7, ect...

Bargain is just as easy to get into play if not easier (see Academy Rector, Grim Monolith, Rituals) and is better in decks that aren't planning on winning through the attack phase. Griselbrand is in no way Bargain. They go in different decks, they lose to different things, they are put into play different ways, they end the game differently. In the end Bargain is better IMO but they are completely different cards. They are both black and both draw cards for life but that's basically the end of the similarities. If you have another argument that is fine but comparing Griselbrand to Bargain doesn't mean anything because it's not a valid comparison. So to answer your question yes Bargain is oppressive but that is irrelevant.


Where to start?
First of all, Bargain isn't easier to cast/put into play than Griselbrand. Reanimate effects and Show and Tell (same speed) are direct proof of that.
Other thing is that Griselbrand is a wind condition in itself, there is no need to run Tendrils of Agony beside him, as you need to in a Bargain deck.
Griselbrand and Bargain comparison is a very valid one. If Griselbrand is legal, then please immediately unban Bargain (and possibly Necropotence). If one fears that this will give combo decks an edge, don't you worry - blue Griselbrand decks will still keep them in check.

[Kich867]

Read Kibler's thoughts on Griselbrand from Starcitygames. Even Kibler is fed up with people crying over a card that didn't even top 8 GP Atlanta.

No doubt Griselbrand is a really good card which is somewhat difficult to deal with when it comes into play, but there is absolutely no evidence that it's unbeatable, oppressive or whatever happens to be your favorite hyperbolic term of the day.

Kibler mentions that it feels like that the people crying just seem to be the guys who don't know how to win Griselbrand. If your first thought when a powerful deck or synergy arises is "ban this, I can't deal with it", maybe competitive legacy with its almost infinite card pool just isn't your thing.

It's annoying when people say vague undescriptive things like: "somewhat difficult to deal with" and that people essentially "don't know how to beat it".

What a genuinely stupid thing to say. Honestly. Here's how to deal with Griselbrand: kill it. But how do you kill it? That actually means, "I need either so many removal effects that their hand + 7-14 cards can't stop it" or "I need a removal, and enough counters to beat their hand of counters + 7-14 cards." How unrealistic is that?

The reason they don't show up in top 8's has absolutely nothing to do with Griselbrand or Emrakul being "beatable" cards. It's because the deck occasionally collapses on itself. It runs 8 ways to cheat 8 creatures into play. Sometimes if they have more counters than you you don't get there. Sometimes if your Show and Tell gets discarded and your ancient tomb gets wasted you just can't get the mana to cast Sneak Attack.

The creatures being beatable isn't even a consideration as to why the deck occasionally just flops. It's because much like any other deck that has a few issues with consistency over the course of a 2 day long event or a very long one day event odds are your deck just doesn't work a few times and you get fucked. That's it.

Decks that perform hyper consistently IE: maverick, rug, etc. will always appear more often in top 8's because it's far less likely that their deck fucks them, with even moderately good mulliganing it should be close to never.

But all of that doesn't change the fact that Griselbrand itself is a dumb card that actually is oppressive given resolution. A card's difficulty to play should have no bearing on it's objective power level. That should make sense, right? That while a card itself may be absurdly oppressive and overpowered, the deck that it is in may not be? That the card itself simply existing in it's current power is enough of a reason to ban it, and that it's difficulty to actually get into play should have no bearing on whether it should be banned? We're not talking about a deck here, we're talking about a creature that when it's in play is essentially game-ending. Killing it is a losing situation, not killing it is a losing situation, the odds of your opponent not being able to kill you in 7-14 cards is astronomically low and the resources you put forth in order to actually get him dead are great, only to have your opponent not run out of steam equally as quick.

A simple thought experiment: if a card existed that won the game as soon as it resolved and was unable to be answered, but had some absurd requirements in order to actually cast it, so much so that to play it required playing a deck that is unquestionably the hardest deck to play that has ever been created, should that card be banned? To me, I would say yes. To me it doesn't matter if it's difficult to get into play, or difficult to play the deck that plays it, if it wins with no realistic opposition, it should probably be banned. Feel free to get semantical on me over that, but the basic premise is this: if the card has no realistic answer and wins you the game, it should be banned.

[ESG]

Read Kibler's thoughts on Griselbrand from Starcitygames. Even Kibler is fed up with people crying over a card that didn't even top 8 GP Atlanta.

Reanimator came in 9th and 10th at the GP. That's only a hair away from top 8, and you should consider that it was against a field already skewed to beat Griselbrand. I mean, Gilded Drake in Goblins, man. Griselbrand hasn't destroyed the format, but he has unquestionably warped it.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Where to start?
First of all, Bargain isn't easier to cast/put into play than Griselbrand. Reanimate effects and Show and Tell (same speed) are direct proof of that.
Other thing is that Griselbrand is a wind condition in itself, there is no need to run Tendrils of Agony beside him, as you need to in a Bargain deck.
Griselbrand and Bargain comparison is a very valid one. If Griselbrand is legal, then please immediately unban Bargain (and possibly Necropotence). If one fears that this will give combo decks an edge, don't you worry - blue Griselbrand decks will still keep them in check.

Bargain is easier to cast, no discussion there.
Show and Tell puts Bargain into play too, or doesn't because there are better ways to do it so draw there.
RE: Reanimate - Every deck in Legacy has answers to graveyard games or plans to win before it matters. Griselbrand is a wincon in himself, but he isn't castable, so he's more of a combo piece. He's basically the Tendrils in that combo deck except he never wins the turn he comes into play.

Bargain doesn't need to enter play for you to win with Tendrils. You build the combo deck and add Bargain knowing you can win without casting it and if you do end up landing it you win on that turn pretty much always.

So if you want to continue to cry about GBrand please find a more convincing argument than "GBrand = Bargain and Necro, so if it's not banned immediately unban Bargain and Necro because that it not obviously flawed logic!!!!11!1!!"

Please name one deck where Griselbrand and Bargain or Necro are interchangeable, I'll wait...............................................

[caiomarcos]

Bargain is much more castable, much harder to disrupt, allows you to draw one card at a time as opposed to in chunks of 7, ect...

Bargain is just as easy to get into play if not easier (see Academy Rector, Grim Monolith, Rituals) and is better in decks that aren't planning on winning through the attack phase. Griselbrand is in no way Bargain. They go in different decks, they lose to different things, they are put into play different ways, they end the game differently. In the end Bargain is better IMO but they are completely different cards. They are both black and both draw cards for life but that's basically the end of the similarities. If you have another argument that is fine but comparing Griselbrand to Bargain doesn't mean anything because it's not a valid comparison. So to answer your question yes Bargain is oppressive but that is irrelevant.


You really think that there are more ways to cheat an enchantment into play then there are ways to cheat a creature?
Rituals and Monolith and any sort of acceleration also applies to Griselbrand. Harder of course, but if you are ramping to 6, it is not far fetched to go to 8. That makes Bargain a bit more castable, not much more.
Griselbrand is just as good in decks that do not plan on winning through the attack phase and just plain infinetly superior in decks that do plan winning through the attack phase.

Why is Bargain harder to disrupt?

Griselbrand is better IMO because he is easier to cheat into play and he is a kill condition himself and only swords to plowshares get rid of him and while killing the opponent he replenishes the life paid to draw cards by himself.

Bargain had to rely on Soul Feast or Delusions of Mediocrity in order to keep drawing cards. Griselbrand relies on himself and the attack phase.


Bargain is easier to cast, no discussion there.
Show and Tell puts Bargain into play too, or doesn't because there are better ways to do it so draw there.
RE: Reanimate - Every deck in Legacy has answers to graveyard games or plans to win before it matters. Griselbrand is a wincon in himself, but he isn't castable, so he's more of a combo piece. He's basically the Tendrils in that combo deck except he never wins the turn he comes into play.

Bargain doesn't need to enter play for you to win with Tendrils. You build the combo deck and add Bargain knowing you can win without casting it and if you do end up landing it you win on that turn pretty much always.

So if you want to continue to cry about GBrand please find a more convincing argument than "GBrand = Bargain and Necro, so if it's not banned immediately unban Bargain and Necro because that it not obviously flawed logic!!!!11!1!!"

Please name one deck where Griselbrand and Bargain or Necro are interchangeable, I'll wait...............................................

Casting a 4 mana creature, with Phyrexian Tower, High Market or whatever scruby way to sac it is better than show and tell? Or entomb -> exhume?

The logic is not that GBrand = Bargain, the logic here is GBrand > Bargain.

If you go back and take a look at the successful decks that ran bargain and compare them to Reanimator with Griselbrand, you won't try to interchange them you'll just stick to Griselbrand.

Like said above, it does not matter the decks, the card itself deserves a ban. It is as oppressive as a card can be.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Bargain had to rely on Soul Feast or Delusions of Mediocrity in order to keep drawing cards. Griselbrand relies on himself and the attack phase.

lol, yeah in Urza's block standard? RELEVANT...

Still waiting on that deck where Griselbrand and Bargain are interchangeable that I asked for otherwise I guess we can all agree they are very different cards and you guys can abandon that particular complaint and move into the realm of shit that is actually relevant to Griselbrand's power level and stop talking about Bargain.

[Awaclus]

You really think that there are more ways to cheat an enchantment into play then there are ways to cheat a creature?
Rituals and Monolith and any sort of acceleration also applies to Griselbrand. Harder of course, but if you are ramping to 6, it is not far fetched to go to 8. That makes Bargain a bit more castable, not much more.
It is indeed much more castable. For combo decks, the difference between 4 and 5 isn't big, but the difference between 5 and 6 is already worth noting. The difference between 6 and 8 is enormous. The fact that nobody's casting Griselbrands and doing well in tournaments proves this.

[caiomarcos]

lol, yeah in Urza's block standard? RELEVANT...

Still waiting on that deck where Griselbrand and Bargain are interchangeable that I asked for otherwise I guess we can all agree they are very different cards and you guys can abandon that particular complaint and move into the realm of shit that is actually relevant to Griselbrand's power level and stop talking about Bargain.

Exhume Bargain

1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Yawgmoth's Bargain
4 Soul Feast
4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Skirge Familiar
4 Exhume
2 Renounce
4 Radiant's Dragoon
4 Academy Rector
4 Grim Monolith
6 Swamp
8 Plains
2 City of Brass
1 Remote Farm
1 Peat Bog
2 High Market
2 Phyrexian Tower

There, happy? :D

[Hopo]

Why is Bargain harder to disrupt?


Are you kidding? Stifle? Gilded Drake? Karakas? Bounce?


only swords to plowshares get rid of him

You seem to have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.


Like said above, it does not matter the decks, the card itself deserves a ban. It is as oppressive as a card can be.
Yeah, a true Griselbrand-winter going on here. Atlanta is still a bit shocked on the amount of Griselbrand in top 8. I'd really like to hear more on this how something deserves to be banned. Slivers didn't dominate Atlanta, so maybe they should be banned as well.

You are a perfect example of a person who is crying for a ban based on shitty logic. Like Kibler said, you people are hard to take serious after all this.


Griselbrand itself is a dumb card that actually is oppressive given resolution

Legacy is full of cards that are "oppressive given resolution". That vaguest and most biased of terms applies to Emrakul, Tendrils of Agony, Hive Mind, Counterbalance, Nimble Mongoose, Goblin Lackey.. basically with each deck you are playing, there is a card that is "oppressive" to play against. I guess Griselbrand is your nemesis then. That is fine, now live with it.

I just see crying for bans to be the solution for the more simple minds, just like Kibler. Sometimes bans are absolutely necessary. Griselbrand is in no such positions.

I have a suggestion for all the criers. Start playing Griselbrand. By your own words, you will absolutely dominate the legacy scene of your area, because it's so super oppressive and dominant. One might even say ban-worthy. If that is not what you are saying, then why do you want it banned in the first place?

The thing is that if Griselbrand would be a true problem, it would be banned. It's not, therefore it's legal.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Exhume Bargain

1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Yawgmoth's Bargain
4 Soul Feast
4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Skirge Familiar
4 Exhume
2 Renounce
4 Radiant's Dragoon
4 Academy Rector
4 Grim Monolith
6 Swamp
8 Plains
2 City of Brass
1 Remote Farm
1 Peat Bog
2 High Market
2 Phyrexian Tower

There, happy? :D

Okay, can you get serious or give up? Bargain > Griselbrand in this deck as well... Don't waste your time though I'm done arguing with someone who is trying to convince everyone Griselbrand needs to be banned because of comparisons to Bargain and can't get the fuck out of Urza's Block Type 2 when assessing the power level of Bargain.

[Vacrix]

Maybe people will stop bitching about how broken Jizzlebrand is when they look up how fucking expensive the deck is to put together.

Are you seriously worried about a deck that costs like 2 grand to build? Yeah clearly this is going to show up a lot...

[Pippin]

Maybe people will stop bitching about how broken Jizzlebrand is when they look up how fucking expensive the deck is to put together.

Are you seriously worried about a deck that costs like 2 grand to build? Yeah clearly this is going to show up a lot...

You have provided us the answer why it's a non issue in a small PTQ local metagame (or even in a bigger event) like that which Hopo mentioned quite a few times as an argument.

Griselbrand is not harder to get into play than Y. Bargain. Fact, and not even graveyard hate helps all the time due to FoW's. Y. Bargain can be stopped with something like Pithing Needle and it does absolutely nothing, while with Griselbrand you're still left with a 7/7 lifelinking flying monster that is not easy to race.

Also, Stifle does nothing against a competent Griselbrand pilot. Is immediate draw for 7 life relevant against tempo decks ? NO it isn't, lifelink on a huge monster is. You'll wait and attack first to gain 7 life and then activate the ability, if needed. No wonder cards like that are being thrown about as an absolute solution. Almost the same like how Aintrazi tried to resolve Gilded Drake against a Griselbrand in play in GP Atlanta. Didn't end up too well.

Griselbrand is a dumb design of a card. Hell, it was initially remarked as a casual card by Wizards and it ended up banned in the most representative casual format there is - EDH. How can someone design something like that? They needed 2 badass monsters for the set, and so they made Avacyn completely crap while at the same time they upgraded Y. Bargain? :laugh:

[Vacrix]

They did not upgrade Y. Bargain. If they did, then it would cost 6, not 8. Thats a huge qualifier. Dark Ritual based storm combo would have a field day if Y. Bargain came back. I mean for crying out loud the deck would be called YES; Yawg's Enormous Shaft.

Cheating Jizz into play with Reanimate or SnT isn't nearly as powerful as black Rituals + the actual Y. Bargain. Also, there are tons of answers for Jizz, as previously mentioned. Its much harder to answer Yawg Bargain, namely because it comes into play WAY before Jizz ever would.

[Trailbreaker]

unban Wheel of Fortune ! :D

[Hopo]

You have provided us the answer why it's a non issue in a small PTQ local metagame (or even in a bigger event) like that which Hopo mentioned quite a few times as an argument.

what is this many times mentioned small ptq local metagame you are talking about? And can you state the massive problem it caused at the recent GP? Looks to me like you are just making stuff up and that's always a super-convincing way to contribute.

You just look really stupid and naive trying to tell that Griselbrand is dominating "smaller metagame" or even GP's when that doesn't seem to be happening. You are stating that things happen even when they don't and that is only retarded. Good luck trying to convince people how shit should get banned. Doesn't look to good so far but keep trying.

[Pippin]

what is this many times mentioned small ptq local metagame you are talking about? And can you state the massive problem it caused at the recent GP? Looks to me like you are just making stuff up and that's always a super-convincing way to contribute.

You just look really stupid and naive trying to tell that Griselbrand is dominating "smaller metagame" or even GP's when that doesn't seem to be happening. You are stating that things happen even when they don't and that is only retarded. Good luck trying to convince people how shit should get banned. Doesn't look to good so far but keep trying.

You're completely right. My arguments are not valid, while your polite vocabulary is obviously doing overtime work :laugh:

edit. please do try to read with a bit more comprehension

[Gheizen64]

They did not upgrade Y. Bargain. If they did, then it would cost 6, not 8. Thats a huge qualifier. Dark Ritual based storm combo would have a field day if Y. Bargain came back. I mean for crying out loud the deck would be called YES; Yawg's Enormous Shaft.

Cheating Jizz into play with Reanimate or SnT isn't nearly as powerful as black Rituals + the actual Y. Bargain. Also, there are tons of answers for Jizz, as previously mentioned. Its much harder to answer Yawg Bargain, namely because it comes into play WAY before Jizz ever would.


Bargain has a lot of flaws compared to reanimating Grizzy.

First, with Grizzy you don't have to play all the spells in the same turn. What i mean is that you can play T1 Entomb, T2 reanimation spell, and if the second is countered, you can just play another reanimation spell. With rituals it's harder. To play out Bargain you need 2 rituals + Bargain (or 1 with threshold), and bargain itself is a spell. That mean that when Bargain is countered you need a lot to start again. When a reanimation spell is countered, you need only another reanimation spell. It's a far less intensive mana investment. If you include orim's chant to dodge permission, it's a 3-4 cards, 7 mana investment. If you include free counterspells, again, it's a lot more card compared to what a Reanimator deck need to play its grizzy.

Second, Bargain is easier to hate out, just because it attack you from simply one angle. A needle stop Bargain completely cold, while it still leave a 7/7 lifelinker in the case of Grizzy. No, actually, it doesn't simply stop bargain, it stop bargain AND you skip your draw step. I would have nightmares playing Bargain off a SnT and seeing revoker on the other side of the table. That's game right there. Sure, you can point at graveyard hate and say how it is pretty cheap. I can point at the fact that Reanimator play way more permission and control cards that any storm list, and the fact that Thalia/CotV are far harder to win against when you're on storm. All in all, i still think Bargain would be easier to hate than a Grizzy (especially when you consider SnT decks and reanimator both as Grizzy decks and not just reanimator).

Third, SnT doesn't play as well with Bargain as it does with grizzy. Why? Because in a Bargain/ritual deck SnT would accellerate only bargain, and nothing else (or it would? I don't know, i guess you could play Griselbrand also, but it would be subpar to play Grizz from rits). In reanimator and SnT decks, SnT play grizzly, but also emmy, Iona or the bounce Djinn. SnT isn't anywhere as good in a Bargain deck as it is in a SnT/Reanimator one.

Ad Nauseam does mostly what Bargain do, at an higher average life cost per card, but costing less, at instant speed, and it's harder to hate with a simple needle/revoker. A Bargain deck would probably be a more efficient (less dead cards in the main) but easier to hate Hive Mind deck. It wouldn't break the format any more than Griselbrand did. Imho it would have even less impact. And no, i don't think Necro is comparable to Bargain in legacy. Necro can be played easily on T1, compared to T3/4 of Bargain.

Just my 0.02.

[Awaclus]

Bargain has a lot of flaws compared to reanimating Grizzy.

First, with Grizzy you don't have to play all the spells in the same turn. What i mean is that you can play T1 Entomb, T2 reanimation spell, and if the second is countered, you can just play another reanimation spell. With rituals it's harder. To play out Bargain you need 2 rituals + Bargain (or 1 with threshold), and bargain itself is a spell. That mean that when Bargain is countered you need a lot to start again. When a reanimation spell is countered, you need only another reanimation spell. It's a far less intensive mana investment. If you include orim's chant to dodge permission, it's a 3-4 cards, 7 mana investment. If you include free counterspells, again, it's a lot more card compared to what a Reanimator deck need to play its grizzy.
Reanimator is not the deck you would play Yawgmoth's Bargain in anyway (I think so - I'm not a Reanimator player so I'm not sure). In a storm combo kind of deck, nobody's going to play Entombs and Exhumes just to draw 14 cards. The Reanimator's Griselbrand takes three turns to win the game, Bargain takes 0.


Second, Bargain is easier to hate out, just because it attack you from simply one angle. A needle stop Bargain completely cold, while it still leave a 7/7 lifelinker in the case of Grizzy. No, actually, it doesn't simply stop bargain, it stop bargain AND you skip your draw step.
Why would you even cast the Bargain when an opponent has Pithing Needle naming Bargain? Also, you win on the turn Bargain Resolves, so your opponent won't get a chance to cast a Needle unless he does it beforehand.



I would have nightmares playing Bargain off a SnT and seeing revoker on the other side of the table. That's game right there. Sure, you can point at graveyard hate and say how it is pretty cheap. I can point at the fact that Reanimator play way more permission and control cards that any storm list, and the fact that Thalia/CotV are far harder to win against when you're on storm. All in all, i still think Bargain would be easier to hate than a Grizzy (especially when you consider SnT decks and reanimator both as Grizzy decks and not just reanimator).
I would have nightmares even trying to run Show and Tell in a storm combo deck. Most of the time, the card does nothing, and when it does something, a ritual in its place would've probably done the same thing.

Bargain is relatively easy to hate, because it's a spell and it can get countered, but that's pretty much it. However, a storm combo deck can win the game without Bargain and is already used to dealing with counterspells.


Third, SnT doesn't play as well with Bargain as it does with grizzy. Why? Because in a Bargain/ritual deck SnT would accellerate only bargain, and nothing else (or it would? I don't know, i guess you could play Griselbrand also, but it would be subpar to play Grizz from rits). In reanimator and SnT decks, SnT play grizzly, but also emmy, Iona or the bounce Djinn. SnT isn't anywhere as good in a Bargain deck as it is in a SnT/Reanimator one.
And that's why you don't put in Show and Tell. Bargain is nuts even without it.


Ad Nauseam does mostly what Bargain do, at an higher average life cost per card, but costing less, at instant speed, and it's harder to hate with a simple needle/revoker. A Bargain deck would probably be a more efficient (less dead cards in the main) but easier to hate Hive Mind deck. It wouldn't break the format any more than Griselbrand did. Imho it would have even less impact. And no, i don't think Necro is comparable to Bargain in legacy. Necro can be played easily on T1, compared to T3/4 of Bargain.
Bargain lets you play FoWs in a storm combo deck, Ad Nauseam doesn't. You can run as many Bargains as you want without being in trouble when you draw a Bargain with a Bargain, but the number of Ad Nauseams should be at most 2. Turn 1 Bargains would be pretty rare, but turn 2 Bargains would be regularly seen if Bargain was legal. You're right - Necro isn't comparable to Bargain, because Necro is a card advantage engine and would be used in aggro, aggro-control and perhaps control decks and Bargain is a you-win engine and would be used in combo decks. Still, both cards are ridiculously powerful and neither should be unbanned.

[Gheizen64]

Reanimator is not the deck you would play Yawgmoth's Bargain in anyway (I think so - I'm not a Reanimator player so I'm not sure). In a storm combo kind of deck, nobody's going to play Entombs and Exhumes just to draw 14 cards. The Reanimator's Griselbrand takes three turns to win the game, Bargain takes 0.

? First, reanimator play Grizz, not Bargain. I'm not sure where u read that i'd play Bargain in reanimator, obviously it goes in Storm Combo or in a Hive Mind shell. Also, Griselbrand needing 3 turn to win and bargain needing 0 is a technicality. Drawing 7-14 with a Grizz on the board is my definition of winning on the spot.




I would have nightmares even trying to run Show and Tell in a storm combo deck. Most of the time, the card does nothing, and when it does something, a ritual in its place would've probably done the same thing.

Stop assuming i'm an idiot. When i present situations where you play SnT for Bargain it's obvious that i mean it in a Hive Mind shell, not a storm one.



Bargain is relatively easy to hate, because it's a spell and it can get countered, but that's pretty much it. However, a storm combo deck can win the game without Bargain and is already used to dealing with counterspells.

And needle effects, which Ad Nauseam is immune to.



And that's why you don't put in Show and Tell. Bargain is nuts even without it.

Again, arbitrary assumptions.



Bargain lets you play FoWs in a storm combo deck, Ad Nauseam doesn't. You can run as many Bargains as you want without being in trouble when you draw a Bargain with a Bargain, but the number of Ad Nauseams should be at most 2. Turn 1 Bargains would be pretty rare, but turn 2 Bargains would be regularly seen if Bargain was legal.

Is pact of Negation that worse in a deck that win on the fundamental turn and lose next turn anyway since you'll be at pretty low life anyway?

[frenchy-man]

Were survival.decks unbeatable ? No. Has sotf been banned ? Yes.
Are show.decks unbeatable ? No. Has show (or grisel) been banned ? No.

There is a problem with the unban/ban policy, clearly. There are no reasons to ban survival when show and tell is in the format. At all.

And don't tell me survival.decks trusted all the top 8, whereas show and tell.deck are not, because
a) in Europe we adapted to survival.decks. It was the best deck but had its predators, so that it was not dominating so much.
b) There were MUCH MORE people playing survival than show and tell players (due to the price/rarity of the cards and to the stupidity needed to play sneak.deck). That's why there are less in top 8s.

[Julian23]

I just saw someone suggested playing Griselbrand in Maverick! :eek:



Therefore, inspired by an all-time classic signature on The Source:

We got Griselbrand Reanimator, Show and Griselbrand and Griselstorm.
It probably won't end until we have decks like Grisel Stax, Griselbelcher, Griselchantress, Vial Grislings, Griselstill, Griselbrand from the Loam, Griselbrand Stompy, Grisel-Pox, Grisel Confinement, 8-Land Griselstompy, some deck built to abuse Griselbrand/Mirror Gallery/Soul Foundry/Mind over Matter/Cadaverous Bloom, and the Dave Gearhart classic, Griseldarity.
And Ichogriselrid, The Epic Griselbrand, 42land4Grisel.dec, Grisel Game and Ill-Gotten-Griselbrand.

[joemauer]

I agree with Frenchyman here.

The fact that Grisselbrand and Show and Tell are legal doesn't irk me that much. The fact that these two cards are legal while cards of similar power(or even weaker power!) remain on the b & r list. There is a serious mismanagement of the list currently.

[Kich867]

Legacy is full of cards that are "oppressive given resolution". That vaguest and most biased of terms applies to Emrakul, Tendrils of Agony, Hive Mind, Counterbalance, Nimble Mongoose, Goblin Lackey.. basically with each deck you are playing, there is a card that is "oppressive" to play against. I guess Griselbrand is your nemesis then. That is fine, now live with it.

This is absurdly untrue and I pointed out why in my post. Emrakul can actually be dealt with when cheated in or even sometimes when hardcast, Tendrils can be countered via flusterstorm or mindbreak trap or stifled, there's ways around pact triggers, enchantment destruction, sac effects, lightning bolt.

You should spend more time on your posts, not just knee-jerk a response off of one sentence.

The reason Griselbrand is oppressive to play against is because he is actually almost impossible to realistically deal with. Unless your opponent is already at something like 8 life, which is unlikely on turn 2 outside of reanimating him, any attempt to remove him is met by drawing anywhere from 7 to 14 cards and dealing with it. Did you honestly just put Goblin Lackey down as an oppressive card to deal with? Llanowar Elf trades with it, you can Gutshot it, sword it, bolt it, in no way shape or form is Goblin Lackey "oppressive" if it resolves. It's not even oppressive if it hits you the game is far from over.

Griselbrand on the other hand? You have to have more removal or more counters than they do in Their Hand + 7 or 14 cards. It's incredibly unrealistic to expect someone to have enough juice to kill Griselbrand in their ~4-5 card hand against an opponent with ~11-18 cards in hand.

[CorpT]

This is absurdly untrue and I pointed out why in my post. Emrakul can actually be dealt with when cheated in or even sometimes when hardcast, Tendrils can be countered via flusterstorm or mindbreak trap or stifled, there's ways around pact triggers, enchantment destruction, sac effects, lightning bolt.

You should spend more time on your posts, not just knee-jerk a response off of one sentence.

The reason Griselbrand is oppressive to play against is because he is actually almost impossible to realistically deal with. Unless your opponent is already at something like 8 life, which is unlikely on turn 2 outside of reanimating him, any attempt to remove him is met by drawing anywhere from 7 to 14 cards and dealing with it. Did you honestly just put Goblin Lackey down as an oppressive card to deal with? Llanowar Elf trades with it, you can Gutshot it, sword it, bolt it, in no way shape or form is Goblin Lackey "oppressive" if it resolves. It's not even oppressive if it hits you the game is far from over.

Griselbrand on the other hand? You have to have more removal or more counters than they do in Their Hand + 7 or 14 cards. It's incredibly unrealistic to expect someone to have enough juice to kill Griselbrand in their ~4-5 card hand against an opponent with ~11-18 cards in hand.

So why isn't Griselbrand dominating everything?

The fact is, people figured out a lot of ways to either deal with Griselbrand and/or prevent it from coming into play. You should look at recent results for examples of this.

[rxavage]

I'm a big fan of "Ill-Gotten-Griselbrand". Seriously we're back to this now?

[frenchy-man]

So why isn't Griselbrand dominating everything?

The fact is, people figured out a lot of ways to either deal with Griselbrand and/or prevent it from coming into play. You should look at recent results for examples of this.

Did you read my post just above ?

[CorpT]

Did you read my post just above ?

So Griselbrand should be banned because Survival was banned?

[Kich867]

So why isn't Griselbrand dominating everything?

The fact is, people figured out a lot of ways to either deal with Griselbrand and/or prevent it from coming into play. You should look at recent results for examples of this.

Refer to my previous post, we can't possibly keep going in circles like this. It's not that Griselbrand is easy to deal with or even realistically possible to deal with, it's that cheating him into play can sometimes be dealt with. They can't always have a perfect hand. Recent results show that the decks that run Griselbrand are actually pretty good and can make it pretty far.

Sneak and Show / Reanimator are decks that are intensely hated out and/or have some consistency issues. Sneak and Show occasionally just collapses on itself. But this is independent of Griselbrand.

People are too often looking at the deck this card is in and not the card itself, which doesn't make any sense. A card's power level is independent of the deck that runs it and can only be amplified by that deck. Griselbrand is an absurdly overpowered card outside of the decks that run him and gets even better when you play him for 1, 2, or 3 mana. The decks that run him may not be despite that because the deck itself's power level is only as good as it's ability to put Griselbrand into play. Sneak and Show is very all-in and after it casts Show and Tell or Sneak Attack they likely can muster up a Force of Will or if they were patient a FOW and a Spell Pierce. Some decks can actually deal with that relatively easily: depending on the turn you might be able to just pierce it, daze it, and pay for pierce on your own. They often blow their hand on it. That has nothing to do with Griselbrand though, Gbrand doesn't influence that outcome, right?

Same with reanimator. It's hated out. Sometimes it just can't get there because of a Scavenging Ooze or something. But Griselbrand has no influence on that situation. Him being in the deck doesn't elevate the deck to a dominating performance: only when he's actually on the table.

You see we have these cards that hate out strategies, but Griselbrand isn't a strategy, he's an enabler and a win condition simultaneously. In the event he does resolve, stopping him is nearly impossible. The only moderately good "answer" is karakas, which delays him, but really doesn't because he drew 7 in response. It's also unlikely to even run into your karakas unless you're Death and Taxes; Maverick would need, at best, turn 3 to be able to fetch it and use it, which is probably your best bet. However, drawing 7 to, in Reanimator's case: discard your xyz fatties / entomb/exhume more out and in Sneak and Show's case: drop sneak attack and overwhelm karakas.

So I mean is that clear enough of an explanation as to why I feel that he should be banned? That he is extremely overpowered, but the decks that run him aren't, and irrespective of the deck he's in, Griselbrand is just too powerful of a creature to exist? Like a lot of people are pointing to tournament results and yada yada--I don't really care about that, that isn't what is important, it's objectively analyzing this card and recognizing that at it's core it's way too fucking good and it's only a matter of time until someone finds a way to more realistically abuse him that doesn't kill themselves doing it, is very consistent, and/or isn't symmetrical.

[frenchy-man]

So Griselbrand should be banned because Survival was banned?

Read more of my post.

[CorpT]

Read more of my post.

Be more clear.

[Kich867]

Be more clear.

Can we all please stop with the shitty 3 word sentence posts? It actually -feels- socially awkward reading it and bleeds of basementism. It's embarrassing to the forum to see how many retarded witty-one-liner-gotcha's have populated the last few pages of this thread.

But hey, zingers! Got 'em!

..:rolleyes:

And, to be clear, Frenchy-man's post to me implies that he wants Survival to be unbanned because of the same reasons you are arguing that G-Brand shouldn't be banned. It seems ironic that you're hassling him about it.

[caiomarcos]

Okay, can you get serious or give up? Bargain > Griselbrand in this deck as well... Don't waste your time though I'm done arguing with someone who is trying to convince everyone Griselbrand needs to be banned because of comparisons to Bargain and can't get the fuck out of Urza's Block Type 2 when assessing the power level of Bargain.

Well, I wouldn't expect anyhting else then Bargain being better in a Bargain deck then Griselbrand. If Griselbrand was better then Bargain in a deck called Exhume BARGAIN then we wouldn't be discussing anything here.

The point with this list was to show that your requirements to compare both cards - them being interchangeable in any given list - is stupid.

Also, we do not have too many examples of Bargain decks, do we? There were Exhume Bargain, Sabre Bargain, Replenish Bargain, Turnabout Bargain... anything else? Therefore, you insisting on having an interchangeable list makes even less sense.
There is vintage but then yes, we can't compare those.

Enchantments are so much easier to remove then creatures that it is not even funny. Creatures have this mystical status in Magic that we have a R instant destroy target artifact, we have G instant destroy target enchantment amongst MANY other instant, cheap options while for creatures we are stuck with StP, a very good option indeed, but almost the only one.

[CorpT]

[QUOTE]Refer to my previous post, we can't possibly keep going in circles like this. It's not that Griselbrand is easy to deal with or even realistically possible to deal with, it's that cheating him into play can sometimes be dealt with. They can't always have a perfect hand. Recent results show that the decks that run Griselbrand are actually pretty good and can make it pretty far.

That's not true though. Vapor Snag, Path to Exile and Karakas are all very good answers. Even if they draw.



People are too often looking at the deck this card is in and not the card itself, which doesn't make any sense. A card's power level is independent of the deck that runs it and can only be amplified by that deck.

That's just ridiculous and flies in the face of real world results. If this was the case, everyone would just play the biggest, fattest cards they could regardless of cost. But that's not what happens. You have to look at everything. The card, the deck, the meta, the hate, etc... Otherwise, everyone would start saying that Omniscience should be banned.

[CorpT]

Can we all please stop with the shitty 3 word sentence posts? It actually -feels- socially awkward reading it and bleeds of basementism. It's embarrassing to the forum to see how many retarded witty-one-liner-gotcha's have populated the last few pages of this thread.

But hey, zingers! Got 'em!

..:rolleyes:

And, to be clear, Frenchy-man's post to me implies that he wants Survival to be unbanned because of the same reasons you are arguing that G-Brand shouldn't be banned. It seems ironic that you're hassling him about it.

What would be cool is if he could say that clearly instead of being ambiguous. Look, more than three words.

[ddt15]

Are you still going on about Grissy? Griselbrand doesn't have nowhere near enough top 8's to consider a ban. In fact, he hardly seems to make top 8 at all.

Maverick is in decline, and RUG is dominating more than ever.

Goblins are making a big comeback and Merfolk probably soon too with the new M13 lord.

In short the format is healthy, RUG is on top right now but may have big problems with the revival of Vial based decks.

[Kich867]

That's not true though. Vapor Snag, Path to Exile and Karakas are all very good answers. Even if they draw.

Apologies, I forgot about the dominating answers that are Vapor Snag and Path to Exile :rolleyes:. And that's the problem. I alluded to it with the Scavenging Ooze comment but forgot to elaborate on it. Griselbrand, and to an extent Sneak and Show in general, forces you to run hate specifically for him. When staring at a 2 day event, or a massive massive tournament, you can honestly tell me you'd put 3-4 Vapor Snag's in your sideboard just to deal with Griselbrand? They're sub-optimal answers that have narrow applications against anything else and aren't flexible enough to run in a sideboard / aren't good enough to run in the main deck, so you're left eating it to the face and just hoping you don't run into it.

An even greater problem exists when looking at Sneak and Show as a deck in general: while you can run those cards to specifically hate out Griselbrand, they do nothing in the face of Emrakul, Karakas is the only thing that actually answers both. I heard some non-white decks were actually running it just to help deal with him. It's by far the best answer to the deck, but it's unrealistic to ask every deck to run 3 or 4 of them or have ways to tutor it.





That's just ridiculous and flies in the face of real world results. If this was the case, everyone would just play the biggest, fattest cards they could regardless of cost. But that's not what happens. You have to look at everything. The card, the deck, the meta, the hate, etc... Otherwise, everyone would start saying that Omniscience should be banned.

Isn't that what reanimator and sneak and show do? My assertion wasn't actually incorrect I think you're just thinking about it too hard. Emrakul is pretty much the best creature ever printed. He's hard to actually get into play, so people find ways around that, but you can't really ignore the fact that he's a flying 15/15 who can give you an extra turn and can't be hit by spot removal and nukes the opposition when he swings.

There's a ton of absurdly powerful cards that people don't play, and they don't play them because there's something better. Sneak and Show found the 2 best creatures to ever exist (which was previously Progenitus and Emrakul, note that when a new best creature was printed they simply shifted that) and play them for very little mana.

[Kich867]

Are you still going on about Grissy? Griselbrand doesn't have nowhere near enough top 8's to consider a ban. In fact, he hardly seems to make top 8 at all.

Reanimator and Sneak and Show not having top 8's is more due to the ability to hate the decks out / their own inconsistencies. Griselbrand has no impact on the deck's ability to work until he is on the table.

[CorpT]

Apologies, I forgot about the dominating answers that are Vapor Snag and Path to Exile :rolleyes:. And that's the problem. I alluded to it with the Scavenging Ooze comment but forgot to elaborate on it. Griselbrand, and to an extent Sneak and Show in general, forces you to run hate specifically for him. When staring at a 2 day event, or a massive massive tournament, you can honestly tell me you'd put 3-4 Vapor Snag's in your sideboard just to deal with Griselbrand? They're sub-optimal answers that have narrow applications against anything else and aren't flexible enough to run in a sideboard / aren't good enough to run in the main deck, so you're left eating it to the face and just hoping you don't run into it.

Nah. No one would do that. (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8622&iddeck=62911)



Isn't that what reanimator and sneak and show do? My assertion wasn't actually incorrect I think you're just thinking about it too hard. Emrakul is pretty much the best creature ever printed. He's hard to actually get into play, so people find ways around that, but you can't really ignore the fact that he's a flying 15/15 who can give you an extra turn and can't be hit by spot removal and nukes the opposition when he swings.

There's a ton of absurdly powerful cards that people don't play, and they don't play them because there's something better. Sneak and Show found the 2 best creatures to ever exist (which was previously Progenitus and Emrakul, note that when a new best creature was printed they simply shifted that) and play them for very little mana.

Again, why isn't this dominating? If people know how to hate it out, why not just let that deal with it? Otherwise, you'd just keep banning the best fatty out there until people stopped playing fatties. What's the point?

[CorpT]

Reanimator and Sneak and Show not having top 8's is more due to the ability to hate the decks out / their own inconsistencies. Griselbrand has no impact on the deck's ability to work until he is on the table.

It's almost like it has a drawback and not just a free win....

[joemauer]

What would be cool is if he could say that clearly instead of being ambiguous. Look, more than three words.

Those crazy french men!

Everyone's argument to keep Show & Tell + Griselbrand in the format is that there are lots of answers to stop it. Fair enough. Survival of the Fittest had lots of answers but it got banned! Here is where the B & R list is horribly mismanaged.

So why ban SotF and not the new bargain combo? Both broken. Both easy to answer. Is it because one dominated some Starcitygames tourneys and the other did not? It seems the latter is not dominating because people are taking it serious and packing some answers. This is what the europeans did for SotF that we did not do.

What is the DCI's stance on banning cards in Legacy? It is so absurdly vague and intentionally mysterious.

Show & Tell and Griselbrand are both cards that meet the criteria to be banned, shown by past bannings. So the DCI should either take some more cards off the list(not just Land Tax that everyone knew should have came off years ago) or add these two to it. Perhaps if the DCI went card by card on the B & R and justified the banning of each of them while explaining the absent of other cards(tutors, show and tell, etc.) then everyone would understand where they were coming from.

It has become more and more apparent that the DCI is really a giant group of idiots that probably play more Yugio than Legacy format Magic.

[Awaclus]

Refer to my previous post, we can't possibly keep going in circles like this. It's not that Griselbrand is easy to deal with or even realistically possible to deal with, it's that cheating him into play can sometimes be dealt with. They can't always have a perfect hand. Recent results show that the decks that run Griselbrand are actually pretty good and can make it pretty far.

Sneak and Show / Reanimator are decks that are intensely hated out and/or have some consistency issues. Sneak and Show occasionally just collapses on itself. But this is independent of Griselbrand.

People are too often looking at the deck this card is in and not the card itself, which doesn't make any sense. A card's power level is independent of the deck that runs it and can only be amplified by that deck. Griselbrand is an absurdly overpowered card outside of the decks that run him and gets even better when you play him for 1, 2, or 3 mana. The decks that run him may not be despite that because the deck itself's power level is only as good as it's ability to put Griselbrand into play. Sneak and Show is very all-in and after it casts Show and Tell or Sneak Attack they likely can muster up a Force of Will or if they were patient a FOW and a Spell Pierce. Some decks can actually deal with that relatively easily: depending on the turn you might be able to just pierce it, daze it, and pay for pierce on your own. They often blow their hand on it. That has nothing to do with Griselbrand though, Gbrand doesn't influence that outcome, right?

Same with reanimator. It's hated out. Sometimes it just can't get there because of a Scavenging Ooze or something. But Griselbrand has no influence on that situation. Him being in the deck doesn't elevate the deck to a dominating performance: only when he's actually on the table.

You see we have these cards that hate out strategies, but Griselbrand isn't a strategy, he's an enabler and a win condition simultaneously. In the event he does resolve, stopping him is nearly impossible. The only moderately good "answer" is karakas, which delays him, but really doesn't because he drew 7 in response. It's also unlikely to even run into your karakas unless you're Death and Taxes; Maverick would need, at best, turn 3 to be able to fetch it and use it, which is probably your best bet. However, drawing 7 to, in Reanimator's case: discard your xyz fatties / entomb/exhume more out and in Sneak and Show's case: drop sneak attack and overwhelm karakas.

So I mean is that clear enough of an explanation as to why I feel that he should be banned? That he is extremely overpowered, but the decks that run him aren't, and irrespective of the deck he's in, Griselbrand is just too powerful of a creature to exist? Like a lot of people are pointing to tournament results and yada yada--I don't really care about that, that isn't what is important, it's objectively analyzing this card and recognizing that at it's core it's way too fucking good and it's only a matter of time until someone finds a way to more realistically abuse him that doesn't kill themselves doing it, is very consistent, and/or isn't symmetrical.
Why would you do that?

If the card isn't doing anything bad for the health of Legacy metagame, why ban it? Legacy ban list isn't a list of powerful cards, it's a list of cards that are bad for the format.

[Gheizen64]

Why would you do that?

If the card isn't doing anything bad for the health of Legacy metagame, why ban it? Legacy ban list isn't a list of powerful cards, it's a list of cards that are bad for the format.

No? There were so many cards that were bad for the format on it, like illusionary mask, Mind over Matter, Dream Halls, Grim Monolith, Metalworker, Land Tax, Time Spiral, man i can't understand how they are all legal nowadays.

Tip: the banned list is nothing like you suggest. The banned list is largely made from the merge of old extended and legacy lists, and then some random choices that the DCI made based on their complete inability to understand the fundamentals of the game.

[Kich867]

Why would you do that?

If the card isn't doing anything bad for the health of Legacy metagame, why ban it? Legacy ban list isn't a list of powerful cards, it's a list of cards that are bad for the format.

And I posit that Griselbrand is bad for the format for reasons I've already listed. I'm not advocating banning Emrakul, or Progenitus, or Iona, or any other pretty hard to deal with big dumb creature to bring out / reanimate.

As I pointed out in my thought experiment I posted previously: if there was a card that had no answer and won you the game upon resolution, but could only fit into the hardest, most complicated deck that has ever been constructed to play, I would advocate the banning of that card despite it having poor performance given the deck's difficulty to play.

I am also not a fan of cards that are both win conditions and enablers. In history, cards that are banned are generally enablers and they leave the win conditions alone. Griselbrand is both.


It's almost like it has a drawback and not just a free win....

I thought we went over this already. :rolleyes:

[rxavage]

Is claiming that the DCI and WotC are incompetent a real argument for bannings? I see a lot of projecting in this thread.

[Vacrix]

Editted for truth. Jizzlebrand creates a much more hilarious set of names.


I just saw someone suggested playing Jizzlebrand in Maverick! :eek:

Therefore, inspired by an all-time classic signature on The Source:

We got Jizzlebranimator, Show and Jizzlegrams and Jizzlestorm.
It probably won't end until we have decks like Jizzle Stax, Jizzbelcher, Jizzlebrantress, Vial Jizzlings, Jizzstill, Jizz from the Loam, Jizz N' Stomp, Jizz-Pox, Confinement with Jizz, 8-Land Jizzlestomp, some deck built to abuse Jizzlebrand/Mirror Gallery/Soul Foundry/Mind over Matter/Cadaverous Bloom, and the Dave Gearhart classic, Jizzidarity.
And Jizzorid, The Epic Jizz, 42land4Jizz.dec, Jizzle Game and Ill-Gotten-Jizz-all-over-your-face-with-Lion's-Eye-Diamond.


Also, whats this nonsense about Griselbrand being better than Y. Bargain? NONSENSE!! Y. Bargain is leagues better.



First, with Grizzy you don't have to play all the spells in the same turn. What i mean is that you can play T1 Entomb, T2 reanimation spell, and if the second is countered, you can just play another reanimation spell. With rituals it's harder. To play out Bargain you need 2 rituals + Bargain (or 1 with threshold), and bargain itself is a spell. That mean that when Bargain is countered you need a lot to start again. When a reanimation spell is countered, you need only another reanimation spell. It's a far less intensive mana investment. If you include orim's chant to dodge permission, it's a 3-4 cards, 7 mana investment. If you include free counterspells, again, it's a lot more card compared to what a Reanimator deck need to play its grizzy.

I guess you don't recall the deck known as Trix. Nothing requires you to win on that turn if you cannot for whatever reason; you simply draw enough cards to remove whatever is stopping you and pass to the next turn (at a safe life total) if you have to and then just win because your draw engine doesn't go away like it does with Ad Nauseam. Also, you'd probably build the deck with SnT anyway so Emrakul would be an option. It only has to be a 3-4 card 7 mana investment if you don't know what you're doing. If this concept were true, TES would see virtually no play at all given that everything you are talking about applies to Ad Nauseam, costing only 1 less mana. Goblin Charbelcher, costing the exact same amount of mana, but without protection. Also, in this case, its one kind of hate compared to another. Reanimation spells are counterable AND the creature can get removed before you have a chance to bring it into play. Storm decks don't have this problem.


Second, Bargain is easier to hate out, just because it attack you from simply one angle. A needle stop Bargain completely cold, while it still leave a 7/7 lifelinker in the case of Grizzy. No, actually, it doesn't simply stop bargain, it stop bargain AND you skip your draw step. I would have nightmares playing Bargain off a SnT and seeing revoker on the other side of the table. That's game right there. Sure, you can point at graveyard hate and say how it is pretty cheap. I can point at the fact that Reanimator play way more permission and control cards that any storm list, and the fact that Thalia/CotV are far harder to win against when you're on storm. All in all, i still think Bargain would be easier to hate than a Grizzy (especially when you consider SnT decks and reanimator both as Grizzy decks and not just reanimator).
The fact that Needle stops Bargain means nothing. Sure he can attack under an active Needle. But thats just one kind of hate. You can't look at it in a vacuum. With a single Relic out, Mr. Grizzy can't do jack shit, while my Bargain can draw me 7+ cards and shit all over your cards with glee. Also, it was already mentioned, but you don't skip your draw step if Needle is in play because if its already in play you don't play Bargain, and if Needle comes into play after Bargain hits play then congratulations you've won the Darwin awards this year.

Also, something that you've missed; storm decks that can play Force of Will sounds pretty good. If you can replace Ad Nauseam as an engine with Y. Bargain, you'll potentially have a protection countersuite just as good as Reanimator's. Also, the ability to play SnT, Emrakul, Yawg. Bargain (which you can cast without the enabler, unlike Jizz), Force, Brainstorm..... all in one deck, would cause a serious medical condition in storm players, i.e an erection lasting more than 24 hours.

There isn't any instant speed reanimation so to mention stuff like Thalia and such is a bit unfair considering that Scavenging Ooze was not mentioned as a hard counter to any sort of Reanimation--> Griselbrand strategy. However, points here go to Y. Bargain because its castable via SnT, or rituals in a storm shell... and its going to win turn 1 or turn 2 on the play before those bears come down. That, or you can just Force the bear, Daze the bear, Thoughtseize the bear, etc.


Third, SnT doesn't play as well with Bargain as it does with grizzy. Why? Because in a Bargain/ritual deck SnT would accellerate only bargain, and nothing else (or it would? I don't know, i guess you could play Griselbrand also, but it would be subpar to play Grizz from rits). In reanimator and SnT decks, SnT play grizzly, but also emmy, Iona or the bounce Djinn. SnT isn't anywhere as good in a Bargain deck as it is in a SnT/Reanimator one.
Wrong. Don't think of Y. Bargain as 'Ad Nauseam 2.0'; rather, Ad Nauseam is Y. Bargain 2.0. You could build a deck with Y.Bargain in a multitude of ways. You could run Doomsday, Emrakul, Shelldock Isle, etc. either in the maindeck or the post-board.

Also, think about it... You have an enabler to get Y. Bargain into play for 3.. And then you can ALSO ritual accelerate into Y. Bargain, or just cast it naturally. You cannot do these things with Grizz. Counter the enablers, and he sits in your hand smiling at you with that devilish grin of his.. and thats all he does.


Ad Nauseam does mostly what Bargain do, at an higher average life cost per card, but costing less, at instant speed, and it's harder to hate with a simple needle/revoker. A Bargain deck would probably be a more efficient (less dead cards in the main) but easier to hate Hive Mind deck. It wouldn't break the format any more than Griselbrand did. Imho it would have even less impact. And no, i don't think Necro is comparable to Bargain in legacy. Necro can be played easily on T1, compared to T3/4 of Bargain.
This means Force of Will can be played along side your storm engine. Turn 1 discard/cantrip, turn 2 Bargain Force protection? Every game? Pretty much.

Don't compare it to Hive Mind. Thats far from accurate. Y. Bargain is on color with Dark Ritual, unlike Hive Mind. This deck would be far faster, could run Force of Will. Hell you'll probably also see versions that run both Y. Bargain and Charbelcher. I know I would try to make it work. Its a degenerate card. Griselbrand might be a shitty card to play against because its so damn powerful if it resolves. Its still much easier to stop from resolving and when it does resolve, there are more than plenty of answers for it. People maindeck Scavenging Ooze, Karakas, even Goblins has maindeck Matron-->Stingscourer. Its not like the opponent just folds like they do when your opponent gets up on the table and shits all over your side of the table with Y. Bargain. Also, Gilded Drake is a fantastic answer. I've been playing it for a while now as a sideboard card in various decks. Don't know why it took so long to catch on. There are plenty of other answers as well, not limited to spot removal spells. Removing an enchantment is much more difficult to remove as most decks play spot removal for creatures; enchantments, not so much.

[evanmartyr]

Anyone else think it's weird that this thread explodes with commentary right after a B/R change, but for some reason doesn't see much activity at all right before?

And stop comparing a creature that generally uses a specific enabler spell and/or the graveyard to hit play to Yawgmoth's Bargain, you're embarrassing yourselves.

[Gheizen64]

Anyone else think it's weird that this thread explodes with commentary right after a B/R change, but for some reason doesn't see much activity at all right before?

And stop comparing a creature that generally uses a specific enabler spell and/or the graveyard to hit play to Yawgmoth's Bargain, you're embarrassing yourselves.


Nice argument :rolleyes:

[joemauer]

Anyone else think it's weird that this thread explodes with commentary right after a B/R change, but for some reason doesn't see much activity at all right before?

And stop comparing a creature that generally uses a specific enabler spell and/or the graveyard to hit play to Yawgmoth's Bargain, you're embarrassing yourselves.

So because Yawgmoth's Bargain doesn't use a specific enabler spell to hit play they are incomparable?
I believe people are comparing the two because they both draw cards for life or perhaps I am incorrect here and embarrassing myself now.

Anyway, historically Necro effects have been bad. This is the primary reason people are a little upset about Griselbrand.

[evanmartyr]

Nice argument :rolleyes:

It wasn't an argument, it was me saying the differences are vast and they should be readily apparent to anybody who's actually bothering to read the Source. But here, I'll help people out:

Creatures, that cannot be reasonably hardcast, that are wrecked by the Legend rule, that are target-able, that do not have haste, and that are inflexible in their activated abilities and generally require the graveyard to enter play do not compare to a much cheaper enchantment that is extremely flexible in its activated abilities.

The only upside I can see in using Grizzlebrand as a threat is that you don't have to storm out, you can just draw counterspells and start attacking...but how often is that relevant? How often does your opponent not have removal?

So stop comparing the two. They're not comparable. If anything, compare Grizzlebrand to the previous reanimator target of choice which I guess would have been Jin-Gitaxis? Obviously Grizzlebrand is a step (or three) up, but all the downsides of being a removable creature still apply and are enough to not push reanimator or sneak/show to a dominant position because it's extremely weak to hate.

[evanmartyr]

So because Yawgmoth's Bargain doesn't use a specific enabler spell to hit play they are incomparable?
I believe people are comparing the two because they both draw cards for life or perhaps I am incorrect here and embarrassing myself now.

Anyway, historically Necro effects have been bad. This is the primary reason people are a little upset about Griselbrand.

Certainly that's the reason people are upset, but they don't need to be because Griselbrand is so much worse than Bargain in nearly every aspect.

And yes, that's why people are comparing the two but we shouldn't be, because their differences outweigh their two similarities (cards->life, and both like Show and Tell), and worse, the differences are all extremely relevant in deck construction and ease of hating them out.

[menace13]

There is so much wrong with Grisselbrand and it has nothing to do with drawing cards. Lifelink should have been strictly for Black colors from a Flavor standpoint, I mean it is a drain effect and that isn't really what Holy magic does. Also why call it lifelink when it's draining you. So as we can see it ruins the color pie balance. Speaking of flavor. Also, Why arent there any female Demons? Angels get to be chicks, why not demons? We all know women are evil and If you have a mother, Sister, or Girlfriend you'll know this to be a universal truth. That is what I find wrong with Grisselbrand.

TLDR: It should have been a woman and and Drain Life should only have ever been on Black or white, not both.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Well, I wouldn't expect anyhting else then Bargain being better in a Bargain deck then Griselbrand. If Griselbrand was better then Bargain in a deck called Exhume BARGAIN then we wouldn't be discussing anything here.

The point with this list was to show that your requirements to compare both cards - them being interchangeable in any given list - is stupid.

Also, we do not have too many examples of Bargain decks, do we? There were Exhume Bargain, Sabre Bargain, Replenish Bargain, Turnabout Bargain... anything else? Therefore, you insisting on having an interchangeable list makes even less sense.
There is vintage but then yes, we can't compare those.

Enchantments are so much easier to remove then creatures that it is not even funny. Creatures have this mystical status in Magic that we have a R instant destroy target artifact, we have G instant destroy target enchantment amongst MANY other instant, cheap options while for creatures we are stuck with StP, a very good option indeed, but almost the only one.

I'm not the one trying to compare Bargain and Griselbrand. So the point of me asking for a deck where they are interchangeable was supposed to illustrate how different the cards were when you couldn't do it (also feel free to invent a list where they are interchangeable in the world where Bargain is unbanned in Legacy). The point is stop talking about Bargain, it has nothing to do with GBrand being banned or unbanned.

[Richard Cheese]

Stuff

There isn't any instant speed reanimation



Goryo's Vengeance and Shallow Grave would like a word.



Also, think about it... You have an enabler to get Y. Bargain into play for 3.. And then you can ALSO ritual accelerate into Y. Bargain, or just cast it naturally. You cannot do these things with Grizz. Counter the enablers, and he sits in your hand smiling at you with that devilish grin of his.. and thats all he does.


So...you can cast rituals and get to 7 but not 8? Also other than replenish, what digs Bargain out of your graveyard and puts it directly into play? There are at least 5 ways to do this with Grizzlebee, in addition to Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, and Through the Breach, Loyal Retainers, etc.



This means Force of Will can be played along side your storm engine. Turn 1 discard/cantrip, turn 2 Bargain Force protection? Every game? Pretty much.


Can't do that with Griselbrand?



Its a degenerate card. Griselbrand might be a shitty card to play against because its so damn powerful if it resolves. Its still much easier to stop from resolving and when it does resolve, there are more than plenty of answers for it. People maindeck Scavenging Ooze, Karakas, even Goblins has maindeck Matron-->Stingscourer. Its not like the opponent just folds like they do when your opponent gets up on the table and shits all over your side of the table with Y. Bargain. Also, Gilded Drake is a fantastic answer. I've been playing it for a while now as a sideboard card in various decks. Don't know why it took so long to catch on. There are plenty of other answers as well, not limited to spot removal spells. Removing an enchantment is much more difficult to remove as most decks play spot removal for creatures; enchantments, not so much.

I agree that Bargain is probably a stronger card overall, but it seems like you're just looking at him as another fatty and missing the combo applications. Karakas, StP, Drake are all fairly inconsequential when you plan on winning the turn Griz hits play. I just don't think people are giving him enough credit as a combo piece. The simple fact is that he's only 1 extra mana over Bargain, has far more ways to cheat into play, can draw you up to 21 cards immediately, and can reduce your needed storm count by 3-4.

[dontbiteitholmes]

So...you can cast rituals and get to 7 but not 8?

I agree that Bargain is probably a stronger card overall, but it seems like you're just looking at him as another fatty and missing the combo applications. Karakas, StP, Drake are all fairly inconsequential when you plan on winning the turn Griz hits play. I just don't think people are giving him enough credit as a combo piece. The simple fact is that he's only 1 extra mana over Bargain, has far more ways to cheat into play, can draw you up to 21 cards immediately, and can reduce your needed storm count by 3-4.

Bargain costs 6 chief, RTFC.

[joemauer]

There is so much wrong with Grisselbrand and it has nothing to do with drawing cards. Lifelink should have been strictly for Black colors from a Flavor standpoint, I mean it is a drain effect and that isn't really what Holy magic does. Also why call it lifelink when it's draining you. So as we can see it ruins the color pie balance. Speaking of flavor. Also, Why arent there any female Demons? Angels get to be chicks, why not demons? We all know women are evil and If you have a mother, Sister, or Girlfriend you'll know this to be a universal truth. That is what I find wrong with Grisselbrand.

TLDR: It should have been a woman and and Drain Life should only have ever been on Black or white, not both.

The biggest problem with Grislebrand is his spelling. Who made up such a counterintuitive spelling that won't ever get fixed with spell checkers?

[menace13]

The biggest problem with Grislebrand is his spelling. Who made up such a counterintuitive spelling that won't ever get fixed with spell checkers?

That must be the British and yet another way that they have contributed to ruining the world.

[from Cairo]

The biggest problem with Grislebrand is his spelling. Who made up such a counterintuitive spelling that won't ever get fixed with spell checkers?

... it's spelled Griselbrand.

While I agree the card is great. I will even give it that it's format-warping, top 8 evidence is showing it to be beatable, apparently by a plethora of decks because results are showing archetypes as diverse as ever. Stop crying about the demon and start tuning lists that can interact with him.

[joemauer]

... it's spelled Griselbrand.

While I agree the card is great. I will even give it that it's format-warping, top 8 evidence is showing it to be beatable, apparently by a plethora of decks because results are showing archetypes as diverse as ever. Stop crying about the demon and start tuning lists that can interact with him.

There are plenty of beatable cards that are banned in Legacy. Why are they staying on the banned list while Grizelbrand and Show & Tell remain legal? Seems bizzaro to me.


Also, Grisslebrand is spelled about a dozen different ways in these forums. Anyone else notice that?

[Vacrix]

Goryo's Vengeance and Shallow Grave are instant speed Reanimation that see exactly 0 top8's. There's instant speed discard too but people still talk about it being printed for a reason.

7 vs. 8 can be huge. Just do the math on black rituals. Also, getting to 7 for Belcher easy each because you use LED to go the rest of the way. IT + 2 mana + double LED is a lot easier than 4 mana + IT + double LED. That means you need IMS, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, IT, + LED x2, vs. IMS, IMS, LED x2, IT.... Basically, Griselbrand is crap without an enabler and he's not coming into play off ritual acceleration.

Griselbrand gets played in a deck that plays Force of Will... yes.... Keep in mind it also doesn't win on THAT turn. It draws a bunch of cards to find some protection but Y. Bargain does win. You can even break their inevitability by playing Grieselbrand after it comes down, but thats much harder to do when Y. Bargain is geared to win the turn it comes down, though you can slow play with it just as easily as you can with Griesel. Also, being able to pay 1 life vs. pay 7 can be huge if you are at 7 or less life and need a few cards to get there against a non-R deck.

As a combo piece, Grieselbrand securs your win much in the same way that Jin-Gitaxsis does, only its a much better fatty. I don't know of a deck that allows you to win the turn Grieselbrand comes down. If you are looking at them in some sort of vacuum where you drop either one off SnT, and then draw a storm deck.... sure. But you have to keep this is not the case. You can't reliably cast Jizz; you need an enabler. You can reliably cast Y. Bargain. Hell you could do it with Lands and IMS's if they tried to cut you off ritual acceleration with Spell Pierce, Daze, etc.



Also, take a look at how Y. Bargain differs from Ad Nauseam in terms of going off. If you have even like 9+ life.. you have an ensured kill. Play, sacrifice it for BBB, draw another card... can't do this with AdN and it makes going off a hell of a lot easier.

[evanmartyr]

There are plenty of beatable cards that are banned in Legacy. Why are they staying on the banned list while Grizelbrand and Show & Tell remain legal? Seems bizzaro to me.


Also, Grisslebrand is spelled about a dozen different ways in these forums. Anyone else notice that?

Probably because they're not creatures. Honestly. (Almost) Every time a stupid powerful creature gets printed, it gets to stay legal, because despite Legacy having a reputation as a combo-ridden format, a massive portion of competitive decks still rely on the red zone to win. Creature removal is a thing in this format. For the most part, Erase and Disenchant are not, and forcing people to find faster answers to more varied threats leads to a format where the "problem" has to be answered and no-one can have a rounded sideboard and reasonable chances against their other bad matchups.

Earthcraft is acceleration for Solitaire that ends up as part of a win condition. It's not legal almost entirely for that reason alone; most decks would have to remove it but that would mean most decks would have to play narrow answers to it, in a format that discourages narrow answers to anything.

Land Tax, at least, is slow, play-aroundable, and about the most effective thing you can do with it is throw 6 damage around a turn with Seismic Assault. That's not ban-worthy.

That's not to say that Show and Tell shouldn't get the axe. The card has been enabling simplistic strategies for far too long, and every time they print another OP permanent it gets closer and closer to being the Yawgmoth's Will of Legacy.

[Richard Cheese]

Goryo's Vengeance and Shallow Grave are instant speed Reanimation that see exactly 0 top8's. There's instant speed discard too but people still talk about it being printed for a reason.

7 vs. 8 can be huge. Just do the math on black rituals. Also, getting to 7 for Belcher easy each because you use LED to go the rest of the way. IT + 2 mana + double LED is a lot easier than 4 mana + IT + double LED. That means you need IMS, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, IT, + LED x2, vs. IMS, IMS, LED x2, IT.... Basically, Griselbrand is crap without an enabler and he's not coming into play off ritual acceleration.

Griselbrand gets played in a deck that plays Force of Will... yes.... Keep in mind it also doesn't win on THAT turn. It draws a bunch of cards to find some protection but Y. Bargain does win. You can even break their inevitability by playing Grieselbrand after it comes down, but thats much harder to do when Y. Bargain is geared to win the turn it comes down, though you can slow play with it just as easily as you can with Griesel. Also, being able to pay 1 life vs. pay 7 can be huge if you are at 7 or less life and need a few cards to get there against a non-R deck.

As a combo piece, Grieselbrand securs your win much in the same way that Jin-Gitaxsis does, only its a much better fatty. I don't know of a deck that allows you to win the turn Grieselbrand comes down. If you are looking at them in some sort of vacuum where you drop either one off SnT, and then draw a storm deck.... sure. But you have to keep this is not the case. You can't reliably cast Jizz; you need an enabler. You can reliably cast Y. Bargain. Hell you could do it with Lands and IMS's if they tried to cut you off ritual acceleration with Spell Pierce, Daze, etc.


Also, take a look at how Y. Bargain differs from Ad Nauseam in terms of going off. If you have even like 9+ life.. you have an ensured kill. Play, sacrifice it for BBB, draw another card... can't do this with AdN and it makes going off a hell of a lot easier.

Oh right, if it doesn't top 8, it doesn't exist.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24184-Day-2-with-Count-Chocula!

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24179-86th-at-GP-Atlanta-with-Tin-Fins-(or-Reanimator-Storm)

Both made day 2 at Atlanta, brand new decks, relatively untested. Maybe that's not as significant as I think it is, but I still think he deserves more consideration in a combo context than as just another fatty.

My bad on the 6 vs. 7 thing, thanks for advancing the conversation though, chief!

[rxavage]

We all know women are evil and If you have a mother, Sister, or Girlfriend you'll know this to be a universal truth. That is what I find wrong with Grisselbrand.

TLDR: It should have been a woman and and Drain Life should only have ever been on Black or white, not both.

QFT

Thanks for the sig.

[Julian23]

Can just please continue discussing the spelling of said card instead of its applications? That was much more fun!

Ok, without looking, I'll try: Griselbrand, amidoinitrit ?!

[Tammit67]

As I pointed out in my thought experiment I posted previously: if there was a card that had no answer and won you the game upon resolution, but could only fit into the hardest, most complicated deck that has ever been constructed to play, I would advocate the banning of that card despite it having poor performance given the deck's difficulty to play.

I am also not a fan of cards that are both win conditions and enablers. In history, cards that are banned are generally enablers and they leave the win conditions alone. Griselbrand is both.


Sounds a lot like doomsday to me

[dragonwisdom]

stop banning cards. They need to unban them.

Griselbrand is fair

If you don't play graveyard hate, that is the price you pay.

ShowNtell is also balanced.

Not only do you lose a card but your opponent gets to put something down for free. You payed 3 mana for it.

Survival needs to be unbanned. Earthcraft needs to be unbanned and maybe just maybe mind twist.

[Kich867]

stop banning cards. They need to unban them.

Griselbrand is fair

If you don't play graveyard hate, that is the price you pay.

ShowNtell is also balanced.

Not only do you lose a card but your opponent gets to put something down for free. You payed 3 mana for it.

Survival needs to be unbanned. Earthcraft needs to be unbanned and maybe just maybe mind twist.

Show and Tell would be a lot more balanced if the thing the other guy put into play was as powerful as what you were putting into play.

So I guess it's balanced in the sense that a see-saw is balanced when a fat kid is on one side and a skinny kid is on the other. That seems to be a skewed sense of balance.

I don't see how people can make the logical leap that because Reanimator / show and tell are balanced decks that Griselbrand is by extension balanced. Those decks are balanced around the concept of not letting that fatty resolve, you're arguing that he's balanced because he isn't in play...to me it just makes the inverse true.

[dragonwisdom]

So if your playing zoo or maverick, you need to play knight of the reliquary.
or wait you can play Oblivion ring in the main.

There are many powerful cards, but legacy is full of them and there are answers to just about everything.

Stax will play ensnaring bridge
control will play humility and karakas
maverick will play knight and karakas

As far as the seasaw goes, that is the combo. They play with 8-10 dead cards in their deck, while every card in Maverick or Rug is optimal.

[Tammit67]

Show and Tell would be a lot more balanced if the thing the other guy put into play was as powerful as what you were putting into play.


Well, to be fair, they have to have show and tell and something to put into play, so should you answer what they have, you are up in CA. I don't think we are at the point where the deck is unanswerable.

Does it require specific attention when choosing a 75? Of course. That's what a tiered deck does

[Kich867]

Well, to be fair, they have to have show and tell and something to put into play, so should you answer what they have, you are up in CA. I don't think we are at the point where the deck is unanswerable.

Does it require specific attention when choosing a 75? Of course. That's what a tiered deck does

I don't believe the deck is unanswerable, I feel that Griselband is very close to it though.

[Pippin]

So if your playing zoo or maverick, you need to play knight of the reliquary.
or wait you can play Oblivion ring in the main.

There are many powerful cards, but legacy is full of them and there are answers to just about everything.

Stax will play ensnaring bridge
control will play humility and karakas
maverick will play knight and karakas

As far as the seasaw goes, that is the combo. They play with 8-10 dead cards in their deck, while every card in Maverick or Rug is optimal.

All the above mentioned answers aren't reliable enough to have them as "absolute answer". You need a specific scenario for them to work - aka Griselbrand player being on low life (Maverick case), or Griselbrand player having no permission/disruption. It does happen, but it's not reliable.


stop banning cards. They need to unban them.

Griselbrand is fair

If you don't play graveyard hate, that is the price you pay.

ShowNtell is also balanced.

Not only do you lose a card but your opponent gets to put something down for free. You payed 3 mana for it.

Survival needs to be unbanned. Earthcraft needs to be unbanned and maybe just maybe mind twist.

Completely agree. With Griselbrand staying legal we can have both Yawgmoth's Bargain and Necropotence coming of the ban list. As dragonwisdom put it - "There are many powerful cards, but legacy is full of them and there are answers to just about everything." We have counterspells/pithing needle effects to deal with Necropotence. Lets take it from the ban list, amrite?
And for those saying that Necropotence/Y. Bargain is easy to put into play - so is Griselbrand, and this doesn't involve just reanimation effects.

[DLifshitz]

With Griselbrand staying legal we can have both Yawgmoth's Bargain and Necropotence coming of the ban list.

Yeah, that should get us rid of all those worthless aggro players. Since all they ever do is whine about cards/decks they think they can't beat, and they're too obstinate to adapt to the evolving format, it's just going to make the it a more pleasant experience for the rest of us. There's been too much bending over backwards to please them scum anyway, between banning MT, Survival, and MM, perfectly fine cards all of them.

[caiomarcos]

Would a "fixed" Bargain, costing 4BBBB, be legal in this format?

[Ignithas_]

Completely agree. With Griselbrand staying legal we can have both Yawgmoth's Bargain and Necropotence coming of the ban list. As dragonwisdom put it - "There are many powerful cards, but legacy is full of them and there are answers to just about everything." We have counterspells/pithing needle effects to deal with Necropotence. Lets take it from the ban list, amrite?
And for those saying that Necropotence/Y. Bargain is easy to put into play - so is Griselbrand, and this doesn't involve just reanimation effects.
Necropotence is so much stronger than Griselbrand. For 3 Mana you most of the time win the game. You can't reliably play Griselbrand in Storm and Tempo decks, but you can play Necropotence in both and Bargain in Storm.

When they really decide to unban these cards (that would rise the powerlevel of the format and basicly kick out fair decks) I will rise my voice for Balance and Mishras Workshop, so that not only Tempo and Combo decks can have their fun.

[CorpT]

Would a "fixed" Bargain, costing 4BBBB, be legal in this format?

Make it a Planeswalker that can be activated multiple times so it can't just be Show and Telled in.

[Awaclus]

Would a "fixed" Bargain, costing 4BBBB, be legal in this format?
If they printed it, they wouldn't ban it.

[xeraseth]

All the above mentioned answers aren't reliable enough to have them as "absolute answer". You need a specific scenario for them to work - aka Griselbrand player being on low life (Maverick case), or Griselbrand player having no permission/disruption. It does happen, but it's not reliable.



Completely agree. With Griselbrand staying legal we can have both Yawgmoth's Bargain and Necropotence coming of the ban list. As dragonwisdom put it - "There are many powerful cards, but legacy is full of them and there are answers to just about everything." We have counterspells/pithing needle effects to deal with Necropotence. Lets take it from the ban list, amrite?
And for those saying that Necropotence/Y. Bargain is easy to put into play - so is Griselbrand, and this doesn't involve just reanimation effects.
Have you ever played Vintage before? Landing Necro is basically game over. There is no way they can unban Necro. Bargin I think should also be banned, 6 vs 8 is a big difference when ritualling to it. Just saying.

[Koby]

Have you ever played Vintage before? Landing Necro is basically game over. There is no way they can unban Necro. Bargin I think should also be banned, 6 vs 8 is a big difference when ritualling to it. Just saying.

Have you played Vintage? Landing Necro is a death sentence. I've beaten the Necro player close to 80% of the time. Necro is only good on turn 1 on the play against non-Workshop. Good luck. It's quite powerful, but in no way consistent. Bargain and Griselbrand are much more powerful, and costed appropriately for their power.

[Vacrix]

Autopsy reveals Grieselbrand topic beaten to death; blunt force trama to the head, repeated strikes, a crime of passion. Note to detectives: may have a connection to an unsolved dead horse case, in which horse was beaten post-mortem.

In short...

- Grieselbrand can be powered out quickly via various enablers such as a reanimation package, Sneak/Show, or (apparently) a combination reanimation package and black rituals storm package.
- Decks that power out Grieselbrand can do so anywhere from turn 1 to turn 3 rather consistently with Force of Will back up in addition to various configurations of the blue countermagic protection suite.
- There are multiple means by which to fight Grieselbrand as well as its enablers and/or its enabler packages, not limited to Scavenging Ooze, Karakas, Stingscourer, Knight of the Reliquary (into Karakas), Liliana of the Veil, Jace the Mindfucker, any spot removal, and graveyard removal... Emrakul is a stronger drop in a lot of cases.
- The concentration of such decks is limited due to the deck's massive pricetag, somewhere around $2000 (in Sneak/Show's case).. meaning the deck is going to do much better in a small event than at a larger one.
- Given that WotC likes printing giant cool creatures that you'll never actually hardcast outside of EDH, we'll likely either see a Show and Tell ban because its the enabler... or (something nobody has mentioned for some reason) new hate printed specifically targeted at the SnT/Reanimator archetype. It happened with storm combo so there's nothing to stop it from happening here.
- Grieselbrand is not an improved Yawgmoth's Bargain nor is it really comparable. Each card is enabled in entirely different ways, Bargain both by SnT and black rituals (honestly I don't know how those Grieselstorm decks made day 2...) would most likely be a superior deck to current Grieselbrand decks, and definitely something worth bitching about.
- Unbanning things and wizards printing new cards is probably healthier for the format than banning more cards because WotC fucked up. Grieselbrand isn't even close in powerlevel to something like Mental Misstep. Neither is Show and Tell. I really doubt either gets banned. We already have decks that play maindeck resources to fight it. I'm sure more decks will have access to such resources within the next few sets.

[dontbiteitholmes]

So...

In related news to every throwing a shit fit over a card/deck then the format adjusting, I can say with a good amount of certainty after this weekend in St. Louis that Reanimator isn't really a tier 1 deck now that people know about it and prepare for it. Also Sneak and Show is now officially a horrible deck. Both decks were absolutely everywhere and both went absolutely nowhere. After the first 3 rounds the bottom tables were full of said decks.

Also Merfolk is legit again, prepare for it or prepare to lose to it. So I guess what I'm saying is, In before "BAN MASTER OF PEARL TRIDENT."

[Einherjer]

...remember...we do not ban new cards:"BAN LORD OF ATLANTIS"

[dontbiteitholmes]

On another note Standard is now FUBAR. Wizards was pretty dumb to print a land that makes creatures uncounterable, a bunch of insane bomby creatures, and a card that basically wins the game everytime you topdeck it after turn 4 in the same rotation. Who fucking knew...

[Vacrix]

Merfolk is going to be a phase. It will come back for a few months and fall to the way side. Maverick already rapes blue too hard. It fills Merfolk's niche, and beats Merfolk.

A single lord isn't going to improve what Merfolk lacked; library manipulation and spot removal. It might make their clock a little stronger and their Maverick game a bit better but is that going to hold up when the metagame makes a few adjustments?

[joemauer]

On another note Standard is now FUBAR. Wizards was pretty dumb to print a land that makes creatures uncounterable, a bunch of insane bomby creatures, and a card that basically wins the game everytime you topdeck it after turn 4 in the same rotation. Who fucking knew...

Well at least no one has to play against "not fun stuff" like land destruction, counterspells, or any combo decks. It is good to see WotC has their priorities in order.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Merfolk is going to be a phase. It will come back for a few months and fall to the way side. Maverick already rapes blue too hard. It fills Merfolk's niche, and beats Merfolk.

A single lord isn't going to improve what Merfolk lacked; library manipulation and spot removal. It might make their clock a little stronger and their Maverick game a bit better but is that going to hold up when the metagame makes a few adjustments?

Yeah, Legacy is cyclical. We will have to worry about little blue men for a couple months then it's back to people calling for a ban on GSZ again.

[xfxf]

This might be the tipping point where DCI finally decides to ban Islands to put out the ban cries once and for all.

[dontbiteitholmes]

This might be the tipping point where DCI finally decides to ban Islands to put out the ban cries once and for all.

The people who cry for bans every time a new deck pops up will never stop crying that cards are broken because then they would have to face the real reason they aren't winning.

[Vacrix]

I wish it were cyclical... Storm combo hasn't been good in a long time. I mean fuck when you have to deal with 3 maindeck Thalia, and 4 GSZ, and 1 Teeg, they usually have that bear 2nd turn... in the fucking maindeck. Its bullshit.

Seriously.. Thalia is the most bullshit card they've printed in a long time. A bear... that can be run in the maindeck. That puts a lot of pressure on storm combo players to set up to play around it, make them discard it before it comes down, or go off before it comes down.

They really need to give storm combo something. Its been way too long. Past in Flames was good but it wasn't GREAT. Thalia, on the other hand was GREAT, as was Flusterstorm, Snapcaster, Delver, GSZ... shit. Storm combo has practically fallen to the way side and I still hear people bitch about how busted LED is. How many different choices do people have for hating storm whilst also hating something else? Its not even dedicated sideboard hate anymore; you can port it between matchups or run it maindeck. Its getting a little ridiculous.

Yeah well you can split Maverick into eight 7 card hands and every single one of those hands is playable.

So yeah. Where's my damn Zombie Spirit Guide?



In terms of cycles, definitely glad to see Dredge back in DTB.

[joemauer]

I wish it were cyclical... Storm combo hasn't been good in a long time. I mean fuck when you have to deal with 3 maindeck Thalia, and 4 GSZ, and 1 Teeg, they usually have that bear 2nd turn... in the fucking maindeck. Its bullshit.

Seriously.. Thalia is the most bullshit card they've printed in a long time. A bear... that can be run in the maindeck. That puts a lot of pressure on storm combo players to set up to play around it, make them discard it before it comes down, or go off before it comes down.

They really need to give storm combo something. Its been way too long. Past in Flames was good but it wasn't GREAT. Thalia, on the other hand was GREAT, as was Flusterstorm, Snapcaster, Delver, GSZ... shit. Storm combo has practically fallen to the way side and I still hear people bitch about how busted LED is. How many different choices do people have for hating storm whilst also hating something else? Its not even dedicated sideboard hate anymore; you can port it between matchups or run it maindeck. Its getting a little ridiculous.

Yeah well you can split Maverick into eight 7 card hands and every single one of those hands is playable.

So yeah. Where's my damn Zombie Spirit Guide?



In terms of cycles, definitely glad to see Dredge back in DTB.

You can thank Tom Lapile for that. He hated storm combo, remember.

[Julian23]

You ain't seen nothing yet. Once people start running Great Sable Stag in the main, Storm combo will completely disappear.

[nedleeds]

This might be the tipping point where DCI finally decides to ban Islands to put out the ban cries once and for all.

I'm thinking Brainstorm might go before Island ...

[Barook]

and a card that basically wins the game everytime you topdeck it after turn 4 in the same rotation. Who fucking knew...
What card are you talking about?

[Amon Amarth]

Merfolk is going to be a phase. It will come back for a few months and fall to the way side. Maverick already rapes blue too hard. It fills Merfolk's niche, and beats Merfolk.

A single lord isn't going to improve what Merfolk lacked; library manipulation and spot removal. It might make their clock a little stronger and their Maverick game a bit better but is that going to hold up when the metagame makes a few adjustments?

An extra lord does help it do what it does best: beat up on Blue decks. He's the best card in the deck and getting another 4 copies of Lord of Atlantis makes you more resilient to spot removal. It's subtle, but I think it helps a lot.

[ahg113]

gotta be entreat the angels or possibly bonfire, those are "I win" type miracles.

[Julian23]

Only someone who's never really played Merfolk would say that Lord of Atlantis was the best creature in it.

[troopatroop]

After Silvergill Adept? I mean, it's at least firmly in second place.

[menace13]

Only someone who's never really played Merfolk would say that Lord of Atlantis was the best creature in it.

I would prefer another 2cc lord over any creature in that deck, including Adept.

[Amon Amarth]

Only someone who's never really played Merfolk would say that Lord of Atlantis was the best creature in it.

It is. Otherwise you can't hope to race Blue decks with Goyf, SFM, etc. You just lose. There are cute card like Silvergill Adept but those don't make decks. They don't radically change matchup percentages.

[Julian23]

As I said, I disagree. Lord is pretty good, but Silvergil gets the edge in comparison. But who even cares? I just realized this ain't the Merfolk thread :eek:

[Ignithas_]

I wish it were cyclical... Storm combo hasn't been good in a long time. I mean fuck when you have to deal with 3 maindeck Thalia, and 4 GSZ, and 1 Teeg, they usually have that bear 2nd turn... in the fucking maindeck. Its bullshit.

Seriously.. Thalia is the most bullshit card they've printed in a long time. A bear... that can be run in the maindeck. That puts a lot of pressure on storm combo players to set up to play around it, make them discard it before it comes down, or go off before it comes down.

They really need to give storm combo something. Its been way too long. Past in Flames was good but it wasn't GREAT. Thalia, on the other hand was GREAT, as was Flusterstorm, Snapcaster, Delver, GSZ... shit. Storm combo has practically fallen to the way side and I still hear people bitch about how busted LED is. How many different choices do people have for hating storm whilst also hating something else? Its not even dedicated sideboard hate anymore; you can port it between matchups or run it maindeck. Its getting a little ridiculous.

Yeah well you can split Maverick into eight 7 card hands and every single one of those hands is playable.

So yeah. Where's my damn Zombie Spirit Guide?

In terms of cycles, definitely glad to see Dredge back in DTB.
I laughed so hard reading it. An well trained TES player has a 40% chance of winning T1 and with Belcher every bob can pull a T1 combo off. I'm playing DnT with 4 Thalia and 3 Phyrexian Revoker MB with 4 Wasteland and 3 Rishadan Ports. After the first match I side in 1 Revoker, 2 Mindbreak Trap, 2 Ethersworn Canonist, 4 Enlightened Tutor and 1 Chalice and the winchance after boarding isn't even better than 50% to beat it . White could get thousand hatebears against Storm and it wouldn't change that TES is favored against non U decks.

[dontbiteitholmes]

What card are you talking about?

Obviously Bonfire.

So many matches end with Bonfire off the top for like 6 damage and one sided Wrath.

When I watched a match for top 8 decided by Bonfire and the opponent raged dude's response was, "Hey, I didn't tell Wizards to print a card that wins the game everytime I draw it."

[Vacrix]

I laughed so hard reading it.
I was referring to TES, ANT, and DDFT. Belcher isn't technically storm combo.. and SI doesn't have much trouble beating Maverick.

Yeah sure, 40% T1 kills 60-40 matchup, post-board IoK, EtW, etc. I know how it all works bro. The point is pre-Thalia they didn't have maindeck hate. Hate-bears are a serious problem; usually play 8 maindeck ways to get a bear on turn 2. They also usually have more hate in the post-board via an Enlightened tutor package. The Maverick thread puts the storm combo matchup at like 40-45% but it could be even higher depending on additional hate in the post-board. Before Thalia, decks like Maverick and DNT would need to take up a significant amount of sideboard space to reach these percentages.

Granted, Maverick replaced Merfolk as the deck that beats up blue so that matchup went from 50-50 to 60-40. And yet.. Maverick is one of the top tier decks while TES is performing about as well as Burn. Sneak Attack and Reanimator are better combo decks right now and they're mindless compared to the skill level it takes to play TES.

From the DTB thread:
http://i.imgur.com/FGAY7.png

I know that Wizards hates storm combo but it bothers me that they've printed SO much storm specific hate and comparatively very little for auto-pilot combo decks like Sneak/Show and Reanimator. They're hatred for storm combo seems a bit unfounded when the skill cap to play TES effectively is much higher than 'Cheat a Jizzle into play'.

Grafdigger's Cage and Surgical Extraction were good but then they also printed Snapcaster, Flusterstorm, and Delver. Also, I haven't really seen too many people play Cage, usually opting to play Extraction instead.

Tempo decks playing Brainstorm/Force have always been good in Legacy. Why did they need to get Snapcaster/Flusterstorm/Delver when storm combo gets IoK and PiF? And do we really want to count Reforge the Soul? Kind of a half-assed attempt to make Belcher better.

I'd like to see greater balance by balancing the format with a really solid discard based aggro deck. Like Black Aggro. The deck already has access to solid disruption and removal spells, Confidant, and good post-board cards to fight against various matchups. What it doesn't have is a solid way to compete with the powerlevel of creatures in Maverick and UGr Thresh variants.




In regards to Merfolk making a comeback.. somehow I doubt this. Goblins just got Krenko and apparently he's way more nuts than people initially thought. Its definitely approaching DTB status again. I don't see Merfolk coming back when it gets raped by Maverick and Goblins. Ultimately, beating up the blue decks is a niche thats already filled by decks that beat Merfolk. Granted, Islandwalk is really fucking good right now but is it enough?

[Ignithas_]

To say that WotC hates storm is a little bit misleading. ANT makes consistently good results (the month you have showen is an exception). I play DnT and I would be glad if the deck would make such good results like it.

That Tempo decks got pushed too much lately is correct in my opinion. I also would apreciate a B aggro deck to have good results, but I seriously doubt that as long as there isn't free discard, B is friendly to an agressive strategy because of the tempo loss you get from casting discard. What I would apreciate would be cards that improve monocolored decks, so beginner could get easier into Legacy.

I personally have a problem with the current storm decks. Don't understand me wrong, I don't mind a player needing a 10 minute turn to kill me. I only hate that Storm can so consistently kill me without letting me a chance, even with hate in my hand. It's somewhat alright in Belcher, because they normally have to go all in and therefore I can mulligan agressivly into Mindbreak Trap. But the current TES and ANT builds are so extremly consistent even with MB hate. There was only one Storm deck against which it was a pleasure to play. It was somewhat like ANT, but the key card was PiF instead of ANT and the deck was slower than the current storm decks, but more resilent against hate, especially from U. I lost the match, but not because I didn't have the time to play my hate cards. I lost because he stripped my hand and has answers to my threads (Lightning Bolt, Deathmark). It was very cool to interact with Storm and therefore I wouldn't mind that WotC would improve storm decks that let me survive 2-3 turns to actually play my hate cards.

[DLifshitz]

Obviously Bonfire.

So many matches end with Bonfire off the top for like 6 damage and one sided Wrath.

When I watched a match for top 8 decided by Bonfire and the opponent raged dude's response was, "Hey, I didn't tell Wizards to print a card that wins the game everytime I draw it."

To be fair, Bonfire is frustrating, but the creatures you get in Standard all seem to have undying, regeneration, hexproof and/or flash. A red sweeper worse than Bonfire would be a bad joke.

[dontbiteitholmes]

To be fair, Bonfire is frustrating, but the creatures you get in Standard all seem to have undying, regeneration, hexproof and/or flash. A red sweeper worse than Bonfire would be a bad joke.

Yes, I agree. Shitty creature designs require shitty miracles to answer.

In the mean time I just got 3rd at a PTQ with Infect and my friend running the same list got 6th, so yeah Standard is pretty dumb right now IMO. I was killing people on turn 3, because fuck waiting to get Bonfired out of the game and fuck stupid green creatures that shit out tokens while gaining life. God I hate Standard right now. Rancor, Rancor, Titanic Growth, Mutagenic Growth and eat a dick Thrangtusk.

[Vicar in a tutu]

To say that WotC hates storm is a little bit misleading. ANT makes consistently good results (the month you have showen is an exception).
UBr ANT just won GP Ghent. 2nd place: Elves. No RUG Delver in top 8. No Griselbrand in top 8.

[Dia_Bot]

UBr ANT just won GP Ghent. 2nd place: Elves. No RUG Delver in top 8. No Griselbrand in top 8.

Also, 7 different deck types in top 8. This is how a diverse format should look like!

[Gheizen64]

Honestly i'm surprised Land Tax isn't dominating tournaments, i mean, WotC said the card was too good for years, so it had to be.

[xfxf]

This week's weekly Brainstorm burning and stomping on the ashes session is cancelled due to the GP standings. Next week's event is tentative and will be announced based on the SCG results during the weekend. We'll keep you updated.

[joemauer]

This week's weekly Brainstorm burning and stomping on the ashes session is cancelled due to the GP standings. Next week's event is tentative and will be announced based on the SCG results during the weekend. We'll keep you updated.

A deck with brainstorm got first place at GP Ghent!
Ban it!

[Squirrel]

OMG the Combo Winter is coming!

Ban all the Enablers ( Yes ,also Glimpse of Nature!! )

[Vacrix]

Honestly i'm surprised Land Tax isn't dominating tournaments, i mean, WotC said the card was too good for years, so it had to be.
Wizards also hasn't paid attention to Legacy for years. Like close, dedicated attention... versus neglectful parents attention.

[Amon Amarth]

ChannelFireball has a new video up regarding this topic: http://www.channelfireball.com/home/magic-tv-top-8-legacy-cards-wed-like-to-see-unbanned/

[rxavage]

ChannelFireball has a new video up regarding this topic: http://www.channelfireball.com/home/magic-tv-top-8-legacy-cards-wed-like-to-see-unbanned/


After watching this video I have a new respect for Martell. It seems like he really appreciates legacy now.

[menace13]

After watching this video I have a new respect for Martell. It seems like he really appreciates legacy now.

Martell is a technically superb player. He doesn't make many mistakes. I get more of a feel of that when watching his cube drafting and playing than from him on Legacy.

Although I dont really think he has played with some of the cards on the list frequently enough to consider unbanning them. Some spells are just hard to play against because they swing entire games on one pivotal turn.

I believe Mana Drain to be one of those cards. I'm fine with it but he doesn't think it will be that good because you can't Drain into many spells not currently played. That seems wrong and up until it is legal people can't play a bunch of 4 -5 mana spells. Beside it is still a ritual and most any deck with Islands will play it. Probably won't be RUG or Merfolk and maybe some other tempo decks.

Currently played cards that could be Drained into increasing the speed and protection of a deck playing; Jace, Batterskull, Hardcast Terminus, Humility, Time Spiral/Turnabout, SnT/Dream Halls/Hive Mind/Sneak.

[rxavage]

Martell is a technically superb player. He doesn't make many mistakes. I get more of a feel of that when watching his cube drafting and playing than from him on Legacy.

Although I dont really think he has played with some of the cards on the list frequently enough to consider unbanning them. Some spells are just hard to play against because they swing entire games on one pivotal turn.

I believe Mana Drain to be one of those cards. I'm fine with it but he doesn't think it will be that good because you can't Drain into many spells not currently played. That seems wrong and up until it is legal people can't play a bunch of 4 -5 mana spells. Beside it is still a ritual and most any deck with Islands will play it. Probably won't be RUG or Merfolk and maybe some other tempo decks.

Currently played cards that could be Drained into increasing the speed and protection of a deck playing; Jace, Batterskull, Hardcast Terminus, Humility, Time Spiral/Turnabout, SnT/Dream Halls/Hive Mind/Sneak.


Wouldn't you get the mana for the full cmc of Terminus even if it was miracled?

[Amon Amarth]

There is most likely a deck out there that becomes absurd with Mana Drain. Drain into a turn 3 Wurmcoil Engine with FoW backup? Fuck yeah. Control Slaver seems pretty good. May make Welder very good.

Edit: Drain into FoF or Thirst? OH GOD YES PLEASE!

[Lemnear]

Honestly i'm surprised Land Tax isn't dominating tournaments, i mean, WotC said the card was too good for years, so it had to be.

Maybe most People realized via testing that tax is too slow (especially with rack) for todays meta: every Tempo or Combo Deck opperates smooth with 2-3 Lands atm. Tax-rack goes online turn 3 ... Turn 3 ... Team America has already stripped your Hand, RUG beat you half-dead and screws your tax-tigger by Not playing lands, Combo already killed ya, Aggro is a turn Away frim killing you, etc.

Unless we find a much better Card than rack to combine tax with, i cannot See it Making a Splash. Tax is a card from an age there the average Games had 2-3 turns more per Player.



@mana drain

Really stupid suggestion. Before the list Split i remember Crazy Shit with landstill and drain. I can imagine hilarious plays like:

- Drain a knight turn 3, Drop Land in your turn and Play SFM + skull hardcast
- turn 3 Drain, turn 4 Drop jace the walletsculptor, jacestorm, Drop land and have UU and Drain up again

Totally handleable? I have doubts. I don't Even want to discuss FoF, Gifts, S&T, dream Halls, timespiral, etc. It would Warp the meta with force, hell, i Even think Y.Will or Bargain would be healthier unbans than drain

[menace13]

Wouldn't you get the mana for the full cmc of Terminus even if it was miracled?

Yes, if you drain FoW you get 5 mana, same with miracle costs. Iwas just saying some cards played now that could use added Drain mana

Edit; His opinion on Mind Twist I would agree on. In the same vein I see SnT. A card that just herps whatever you were planning and wins. That variance increase is not healthy and requires less skill to compete.

[rxavage]

Yes, if you drain FoW you get 5 mana, same with miracle costs. Iwas just saying some cards played now that could use added Drain mana

It was the explicit "hardcast" part of your post that solicited the inquiry.

[Gheizen64]

Drain yes but Bad Vise and Bland Twist no?

That is some blue loving.

[joemauer]

Drain yes but Bad Vise and Bland Twist no?

That is some blue loving.

Also, probably gush is fine?


Black Vise isn't as bad as he made it sound. On the draw it does one or two damage first turn. It is a dead top deck which is brutal in aggro decks. I guess three on turn one via Dark Ritual equals nine damage, possibly, but still not that scary.

Mind Twist destroying the format! Hymn + Mind Twist = Good Game

[Vacrix]

@mana drain

Really stupid suggestion. Before the list Split i remember Crazy Shit with landstill and drain. I can imagine hilarious plays like:

- Drain a knight turn 3, Drop Land in your turn and Play SFM + skull hardcast
- turn 3 Drain, turn 4 Drop jace the walletsculptor, jacestorm, Drop land and have UU and Drain up again

Totally handleable? I have doubts. I don't Even want to discuss FoF, Gifts, S&T, dream Halls, timespiral, etc. It would Warp the meta with force, hell, i Even think Y.Will or Bargain would be healthier unbans than drain
Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls will be much better in a format where everyone wants to play Mana Drain. Against Tempo decks, however, Spell Snare has a juicy target and Mana Drain doesn't have much to counter that costs a lot of mana outside of Force of Will.

I doubt that every deck playing blue would play this card; few blue decks are currently willing to play Counterspell. Even with the acceleration it affords, Spell Snare will just get played more in the side and Spell Pierce at Mana Drain means you have to pay 4 so early on its not going to let you accelerate into anything ridiculous unless your opponent has an acceleration light hand AND you have something to cast with it.

Mana Drain is a safe unban but blue really doesn't need any help right now solidifying its position in DTB. It already got Snapcaster, Delver, Jace, and Flusterstorm. Its time to improve mono-black.

[dontbiteitholmes]

That video had me LOLing.

Martell is like, "Yawg Will, yeah seems fine. Mana Drain, it wouldn't be too bad. Gush, could be okay in some deck."
Then he's like, "HOLY SHIT, BLACK VISE AND MIND TWIST SHOULD NEVER BE UNBANNED."

He still has a lot to learn about Legacy it seems.

[Tacosnape]

That video had me LOLing.

Martell is like, "Yawg Will, yeah seems fine. Mana Drain, it wouldn't be too bad. Gush, could be okay in some deck."
Then he's like, "HOLY SHIT, BLACK VISE AND MIND TWIST SHOULD NEVER BE UNBANNED."

He still has a lot to learn about Legacy it seems.

This.

While I personally don't think the unbanning of Vise is good for magic in any way shape or form, anybody who advocates the unbanning of Yawgmoth's Will in Legacy has absolutely no idea what's going on. Especially over Mind Twist, which I think would be a high-powered staple that hovers right on the line.

Ditto for Gush, which would just make RUG Delver so tier 1 that the abortion rates across the world would rise sharply due to mothers not wanting their children to grow up in a world where every deck was RUG Delver.

[KevinTrudeau]

Martell is a technically superb player. He doesn't make many mistakes. I get more of a feel of that when watching his cube drafting and playing than from him on Legacy.

I disagree.

http://www.twitch.tv/tommartell/b/324629059

Game start: 51:56

End-over-end punt despite absolutely ridiculous start: 55:49

An exception to the rule for certain, as Martell is a tremendous player, but still, pretty bad; he tends to "play scared" a lot in his style of gameplay, this being far and away the worst case I've ever seen (playing around two cards, Ancient Tomb->Living End, instead of seeing he was dead on-board unless he ripped an answer to the unblockable Sworded dude the following turn). Also, anyone who says Will should be unbanned has no firm grasp of what they are speaking of.

[Hopo]

Let us ban Griselbrand, as it effectively always wins the game and invalidates for example green tribal decks and storm combo.

Also, let us not look things in retrospect and ponder whether it was truly justified to cry for ban of obviously not ban-worthy cards, or if was just our impatience and inability to look at the bigger picture.

Also, let's ban storm pieces and elves, since they obviously invalidate Delvers and Griselbrands.

[Vacrix]

If Gush got unbanned, I have a feeling that Emidln would break the format with Doomsday.

[Lord Seth]

Honestly i'm surprised Land Tax isn't dominating tournaments, i mean, WotC said the card was too good for years, so it had to be.Enh...it might have been at one point. Kind of like how Mind Twist was once considered so bad it was outright banned in Vintage, but nowadays it sees very little play.

[Lemnear]

Also, probably gush is fine?


Black Vise isn't as bad as he made it sound. On the draw it does one or two damage first turn. It is a dead top deck which is brutal in aggro decks. I guess three on turn one via Dark Ritual equals nine damage, possibly, but still not that scary.

Mind Twist destroying the format! Hymn + Mind Twist = Good Game

I guess in terms of Vice you have to put it beneath Cards like Delver, goblin guide, nacatl or Even burn-spells.

If you led with Vice instead of delver it's a much faster damage output unless your Opponent empties His Hand very fast (combo, weenie, burn, etc) and People are already rightfully ranting about a Blue 1cc Source that Deals 3 damage each turn. Vice does the Same but being an artifact and colorless, which is harder to remove and easier to cast. Sure it gets worse the later you draw it but that is true for a Lot of compeditive Cards in todays Legacy (Lands, hierarch, spell pierce, goblin guide, Even delver).

Vice is 1cc = 5+ damage (opening 7). That's a benchmark hard to beat in tempo, burn, aggro.



@Twist: lol, it's a crap card. No moxen, no cry
@bargain: better ad nauseam so i can Play FoW? Oooookay
@recruiter: stacking, stalling, cheating card; Never wanna See in anything less explosive than vintage
@earthcraft: elves and enchantress would like that. I do Know a Lot of permaments which like to Be untapped several Times per turn. Cute ones: Fauna shaman+ birthing pod
@hiermit: 1-Card combo but fragile. Possible
@gush: lol again. Tempo and doomsday surely need more free draws + manafix in legacy. No 3rd land? Tap 2 lands, gush, replay land: 3 mana + 2 fresh cards + 1 Card advantage 4 free.

[sdematt]

After seriously playing with Mana Drain lately while trying my hand at Vintage, and back in 1.5, I don't want to see it back again.

Mind Twist? Sure. It's pretty slow, and isn't good unless you were running it in MBC or BUg Control.

Black Vise? Control doesn't need more nails in its coffin.

-Matt

[Pippin]

Let us ban Griselbrand, as it effectively always wins the game and invalidates for example green tribal decks and storm combo.

Also, let us not look things in retrospect and ponder whether it was truly justified to cry for ban of obviously not ban-worthy cards, or if was just our impatience and inability to look at the bigger picture.

Also, let's ban storm pieces and elves, since they obviously invalidate Delvers and Griselbrands.



Well what is wrong with first statement? Griselbrand single-handedly warped and changed the meta and pushed some decks on the fringes of playability. Last time something like this happened was when Mental Misstep was printed. Before that it was Vengevine. How did that end up?

I'm ok with Griselbrand staying - IF we'd stop being hypocrits and unban Y. Bargain, Necropotence, Survival of the Fittest, Mental Misstep etc since they are obviously fair cards and don't warp the metagame... oh right.

[menace13]

Last time something like this happened was when Mental Misstep was printed. Before that it was Vengevine.

I'm ok with Griselbrand staying - IF we'd stop being hypocrits and unban Y. Bargain, Necropotence, Survival of the Fittest, Mental Misstep etc since they are obviously fair cards and don't warp the metagame... oh right.
Just in time for the last stretch of summer we bring you:
When formats gone wild!

That damn format warping gone too far again? Then clearly, calling for the banning of the card that isn't winning, is what I would do to curtail all those 60%-match-up-rates-half-of-every-top-8-32-in-every-top-8-4-of-in-every-deck thing that is going on recently.

[Dzra]

When you get right down to it, the card that really needs to be banned is Island. Talk about format-warping. Sheesh!
Throw in Undergrounds and Trops just for good measure.

[xfxf]

If Gush got unbanned, I have a feeling that Emidln would break the format with Doomsday.

If Gush got unbanned I'm sure Menendian would write a 360pg book which would be available both in hardcover and Kindle.

[wcm8]

If Gush got unbanned I'm sure Menendian would write a 360pg book which would be available both in hardcover and Kindle.

Which boils down to 'try to play it on your third land-drop turn or later, but earlier is okay too in certain situations'

The deck would be different in Legacy though, with having access to 4 Brainstorms, and potentially 4 Merchant Scrolls. However I think it would be not *quite* as broken since you don't have access to Yawgmoth's Will, Fastbond, or incredibly powerful 1-card combos like Tinker. It would obviously be incredibly good, but without having as ridiculous of a shell surrounding it I'm not so sure it would be broken. An interesting card to consider unbanning.

[xfxf]

I think Gush would push RUG over the top. RUG is currently very good, it doesn't have a way to generate actual card advantage but makes use of its resources in such an efficient way that by the time it almost empties its hand and traded resources with the opponent, it will be in an advantegous position, probably 1-2 steps ahead. If you give this deck a way to generate actual card advantage on top of that, RUG will trade off resources more efficiently than everyone else, empty its hand and fill it again to make sure that you can never come back. In other words I think the deck would be imba.

[Gheizen64]

Which boils down to 'try to play it on your third land-drop turn or later, but earlier is okay too in certain situations'

The deck would be different in Legacy though, with having access to 4 Brainstorms, and potentially 4 Merchant Scrolls. However I think it would be not *quite* as broken since you don't have access to Yawgmoth's Will, Fastbond, or incredibly powerful 1-card combos like Tinker. It would obviously be incredibly good, but without having as ridiculous of a shell surrounding it I'm not so sure it would be broken. An interesting card to consider unbanning.

Gush has essentially no drawback and can be played everywhere. Dodge wastes, draw 2 for 0 or even +1 mana sometimes? I'd unban half of the list before Gush honestly.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Well what is wrong with first statement? Griselbrand single-handedly warped and changed the meta and pushed some decks on the fringes of playability. Last time something like this happened was when Mental Misstep was printed. Before that it was Vengevine. How did that end up?

I'm ok with Griselbrand staying - IF we'd stop being hypocrits and unban Y. Bargain, Necropotence, Survival of the Fittest, Mental Misstep etc since they are obviously fair cards and don't warp the metagame... oh right.

Yes Griselbrand has warped the metagame so much it put one player into top 32 at GP Ghent. It warps the meta so hard it put a total of 3 players in top 32 in Atlanta. It's so format warping it's had a grand total of one SCG top 8 this month.

So obviously Griselbrand is as broken as Necro, Bargain, Survival (+Vine), and as format warping as Misstep... OH RIGHT.


Switching gears, if anyone thinks Gush is ever close to fair they are forgetting everything about the card.
It's free, the lands can be tapped to float mana in response, it can generate mana, it generates + 3 card advantage, it nullifies Wasteland, it can be hardcast in a pinch or pitched to Force... Nothing about Gush is fair.

[Blitzbold]

Which boils down to 'try to play it on your third land-drop turn or later, but earlier is okay too in certain situations'

The deck would be different in Legacy though, with having access to 4 Brainstorms, and potentially 4 Merchant Scrolls. However I think it would be not *quite* as broken since you don't have access to Yawgmoth's Will, Fastbond, or incredibly powerful 1-card combos like Tinker. It would obviously be incredibly good, but without having as ridiculous of a shell surrounding it I'm not so sure it would be broken. An interesting card to consider unbanning.

As much as I usually appreciate your opinion, I think you are dead wrong on this one. Did you play Extended just before Ravnica came out? That old format with Tempest and Masques Block legal? There was a grow deck using the Onslaught fetches, but obv. no legal fetchable dual lands. With Gush unbanned this would be my starting point for further development:

4 Quirion Dryad
2 Meddling Mage
2 Psychatog

4 Mox Diamond
3 Exploration
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gush
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Misdirection / Foil

2 Merchant Scroll
2 Cunning Wish
1 Fire / Ice
3 Swords to Plowshares

3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn

There might be better options nowadays besided Meddling Mage and Tog, but those are the ones we used at that time. As much as I'd love to play with Gush in Legacy, I think it would be ridiciously strong and would be pushing a lot of strategies to the sidelines.

[Koby]

Ugh Exploration is trash in GroATog. Youre fine with Mox Diamond alone. Also your list runs 2 too many lands.

[(nameless one)]

What about Lorescale Coatl as another threat in that MiracleGro list? I mean you're gonna be drawing cards from Gush and Brainstorm?

Then again Goyf just outclasses it in that kind of build.

[Bahamuth]

If Gush got unbanned I'm sure Menendian would write a 360pg book which would be available both in hardcover and Kindle.

And he would probably still be running a bad list.

I personally don't think unbanning Drain would create a single dominant deck at all. Drain is not a very good card against RUG for instance. However, I wouldn't unban it because of price issues. People might say that shouldn't be an issue, but in reality it is a huge one.

[wcm8]

As much as I usually appreciate your opinion, I think you are dead wrong on this one. Did you play Extended just before Ravnica came out? That old format with Tempest and Masques Block legal? There was a grow deck using the Onslaught fetches, but obv. no legal fetchable dual lands. With Gush unbanned this would be my starting point for further development:

Psychatog? Quirion Dryad? I would just jam Gush into RUG and call it a day. Something like the following:

19 Lands (with probably one being a basic Island)
4 Goyf (or -1, +1 Scavenging Ooze)
4 Mongoose
4 Delver
4 Bstorm
3 Ponder
4 Gush
4 FoW
3 Spell Pierce
3 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Forked Bolt
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Vapor Snag//Echoing Truth

OR I would run it in Team America

20 Lands
4 Goyf
4 Delver
3 Tombstalker
1 Sylvan Library
4 FoW
4 Gush
4 Bstorm
3 Ponder
3 Thoughtseize
3 Daze
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Liliana otV
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Vapor Snag//Echoing Truth

Gush would make Choke a laughably bad SB card, make it easier to nullify opposing Wastelands, possibly nullify opposing Submerges (via bouncing your own Tropicals), and give tempo decks a true, reliable form of card advantage. It would also make it easier to fight against combo decks, because you can tap out on your turn but still have the ability to draw into FoW/Daze. Actually considering all of this, it may indeed simply be too powerful in Legacy, further pushing tempo strategies as -the- solidified tier 1.

[rufus]

...e. Actually considering all of this, it may indeed simply be too powerful in Legacy, further pushing tempo strategies as -the- solidified tier 1.

It seems like Gush could be equally unfair in combo (e.g. the aforementioned Doomsday) or more controllish decks (Land Tax + Gush anyone?). I guess it's a type of temp deck, but burn with Volcanic Islands, Steam Vents, Fetches, and Gush should work pretty well too.

[rxavage]

Ok, I have a compromise, unban Survival and Gush.

[Lord Seth]

Yes Griselbrand has warped the metagame so much it put one player into top 32 at GP Ghent. It warps the meta so hard it put a total of 3 players in top 32 in Atlanta. It's so format warping it's had a grand total of one SCG top 8 this month.

So obviously Griselbrand is as broken as Necro, Bargain, Survival (+Vine), and as format warping as Misstep... OH RIGHT.Indeed. I actually went and compared the dominance of Misstep to Griselbrand in a few tournaments. There was only one Legacy Grand Prix in which Mental Misstep was legal (Providence 2011), but Mental Misstep was in 7 out of the 8 top decks. In the most recent Legacy Grand Prix, Griselbrand was in...0 out of the 8 top decks. Huh. Yeah, that 0% Griselbrand is as dominating and warping as the 87.5% Mental Misstep.

As an alternative comparison, the most recent SCG Open also had 0 Griselbrands in the top 8. The SCG Open that occurred approximately one year before that one (Seattle) had 7 of the top 8 having Mental Missteps (5 had them maindecked, 2 had them sideboarded). Again, 87.5% is pretty different than 0%. Even if you extend it to the top 16 for them, it becomes 12.5% Griselbrand and 75% Mental Misstep. That's still a pretty big difference.

So...yeah. Claiming that Griselbrand's supposed "warping" is anything close to what Mental Misstep did seems almost comical in how incorrect it is.

[mishima_kazuya]

I am probably the only one that misses Mental Misstep Legacy...:tongue:

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I miss Mental Misstep.

Also I don't know why anyone would compare Mental Misstep to Griselbrand; the cards are fundamentally incomparable in terms of what you expect them to do.

Griselbrand is a cornerstone card in any deck. It does not get accidentally put in; it is a or the key win feature and an engine in its own right, more comparable to Survival of the Fittest, Life from the Loam, or Jace than anything else.

Mental Misstep is a nuts and bolts type of card; it fulfills a role and nothing more, making it more akin to Brainstorm, StP, Wasteland, Force, etc.; and these type of cards always see more play in Legacy as a category than individual engine cards, because the latter go in a narrower range of decks.

(We might note that Brainstorm has had and continues to have a performance about as good as any Misstep ever did.)

[rufus]

Indeed. I actually went and compared the dominance of Misstep to Griselbrand in a few tournaments. There was only one Legacy Grand Prix in which Mental Misstep was legal (Providence 2011), but Mental Misstep was in 7 out of the 8 top decks. In the most recent Legacy Grand Prix, Griselbrand was in...0 out of the 8 top decks. Huh. Yeah, that 0% Griselbrand is as dominating and warping as the 87.5% Mental Misstep.

...

So...yeah. Claiming that Griselbrand's supposed "warping" is anything close to what Mental Misstep did seems almost comical in how incorrect it is.

There's a difference between utility and combo cards: Flash was only in 3 of the top 8 decks at GP Columbus, IIRC, but most people would say Flash is more deserving of its ban than Mental Misstep.

It should be pointed out playing Ad Nauseam or Griselbrand as combo elements has the fundamental weakness that less-than-lethal damage matters a lot to them. That means they're much more interactive against aggro and tempo decks than the classic combo decks.

[Lord Seth]

(We might note that Brainstorm has had and continues to have a performance about as good as any Misstep ever did.)I don't know about that. Someone would obviously need to do some more calculation than I did to really determine it, but I did look at some top 8's when Mental Misstep was legal, and there were more decks with it than there have been (recently) decks with Brainstorm.

Obviously Brainstorm is incredibly popular, but it doesn't seem to be played as often as Mental Misstep. Though to be fair, part of that depends on how you count it, as Brainstorm is invariably a 4-of whereas decks with 2-3 Mental Missteps were not rare.

[Vacrix]

Brainstorm can't be compared to Mental Misstep because you have to splash a color to play Brainstorm.

Also, Mental Misstep + Snapcaster would be way too nutty; keep in mind the mana cost has an alternative cost so you can still pay 2 life or U.



Cards I want to see come off in the near future, in no particular order and not all at the same time:
Mind Twist - Rarely going to be better than Hymn to Tourach. The only card that might potentially break this is Dream Salvage and somehow I doubt it. By the time its better than Hymn to Tourach, your opponent in most cases will be sitting on a number of cards that would make it basically an overcosted Hymn or slightly better than Hymn.
Survival of the Fittest - This card was fun to play with and against... til Vengevine. I'd say switch the two on the banned list.
Earthcraft - It might get played but it won't wreck anything.
Black Vise - Its about time we had a solid, easily splash able hate card for blue decks. Reanimator might be a lulz inevitability turn 2 so WotC will print a splashable 1cc hate card (Cage) as well as Dredge, but blue has solidified a permanent position in the DTB. It would likely be good against slow control decks but Tempo decks can comfortably sit out of range at 4 cards.
Mind's Desire - Discussed to death, but safe. Worse than Time Spiral in High Tide combo and wouldn't even get played along side it as Meditate is better is more situations, while Ad Nauseam is a better engine for Dark Ritual combo. At most TES would get a new Wishboard toy but we'd have to consult Mr. Cook on that.
Frantic Search - This one doesn't get nearly enough attention in the B/R threads. It got unbanned in Vintage, perhaps its safe for Legacy as well. It would make Solidarity an actual deck again, which would be nice considering Spiral Tide got, well, an engine. Spiral Tide would also play it but Solidarity would probably be better as the deck wouldn't have to run Candelabra's, and run into Pithing Needles, QPM, etc. while its setting up. You can't really Snapcast Frantic Search unless you're already sitting on 5 lands, so I don't think Tempo would play this, especially since its a cantrip that gets easily Pierced/Dazed. Ponder is way better in Tempo. Frantic Search would likely be played in Reanimator, Dream Halls, SnT.
Worldgorger Dragon - Reanimator is already stupid enough but its GG if you resolve a creature like Iona, Jizzlebrand anyway. You hate it with the same cards either way and we've acquired much better post-board hate for Reanimator since Dragon was legal.

Not so sure:
Oath of Druids - May I refer people who want to protest this choice to Show and Tell which for 3 mana basically does the same thing. Would having both in the same format suck? Perhaps but an enchantment can be dealt with via QPM/GSZ before he has mana to activate it, unlike SnT. I'd like to hear thoughts on this one.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Frantic Search - This one doesn't get nearly enough attention in the B/R threads. It got unbanned in Vintage, perhaps its safe for Legacy as well. It would make Solidarity an actual deck again, which would be nice considering Spiral Tide got, well, an engine. Spiral Tide would also play it but Solidarity would probably be better as the deck wouldn't have to run Candelabra's, and run into Pithing Needles, QPM, etc. while its setting up. You can't really Snapcast Frantic Search unless you're already sitting on 5 lands, so I don't think Tempo would play this, especially since its a cantrip that gets easily Pierced/Dazed. Ponder is way better in Tempo. Frantic Search would likely be played in Reanimator, Dream Halls, SnT.

Worldgorger Dragon - Reanimator is already stupid enough but its GG if you resolve a creature like Iona, Jizzlebrand anyway. You hate it with the same cards either way and we've acquired much better post-board hate for Reanimator since Dragon was legal.

Not so sure:
Oath of Druids - May I refer people who want to protest this choice to Show and Tell which for 3 mana basically does the same thing. Would having both in the same format suck? Perhaps but an enchantment can be dealt with via QPM/GSZ before he has mana to activate it, unlike SnT. I'd like to hear thoughts on this one.

Covered a million times but Frantic Search is a huge nope. Every combo deck that goes past turn 2 regularly would run it, because hey free filter spell. Nothings suck more than having Frantic Search chained into Frantic Search into another Frantic Search.

Oath of Druids is also a no. Talk about turning the format on it's head. You wouldn't be playing Legacy anymore, you'd be playing Oath vs. anti-Oath vs. Storm.

Dragon can come off the banned list as soon as it learns how to not draw the game. Swing get you to 5 pass the turn with lethal on board. Animate Dead -> Dragon move to game 5... Yeah that seems like something I want to be a part of...

[AEnesidem]

Brainstorm can't be compared to Mental Misstep because you have to splash a color to play Brainstorm.

Also, Mental Misstep + Snapcaster would be way too nutty; keep in mind the mana cost has an alternative cost so you can still pay 2 life or U.



Cards I want to see come off in the near future, in no particular order and not all at the same time:
Mind Twist - Rarely going to be better than Hymn to Tourach. The only card that might potentially break this is Dream Salvage and somehow I doubt it. By the time its better than Hymn to Tourach, your opponent in most cases will be sitting on a number of cards that would make it basically an overcosted Hymn or slightly better than Hymn.
Survival of the Fittest - This card was fun to play with and against... til Vengevine. I'd say switch the two on the banned list.
Earthcraft - It might get played but it won't wreck anything.
Black Vise - Its about time we had a solid, easily splash able hate card for blue decks. Reanimator might be a lulz inevitability turn 2 so WotC will print a splashable 1cc hate card (Cage) as well as Dredge, but blue has solidified a permanent position in the DTB. It would likely be good against slow control decks but Tempo decks can comfortably sit out of range at 4 cards.
Mind's Desire - Discussed to death, but safe. Worse than Time Spiral in High Tide combo and wouldn't even get played along side it as Meditate is better is more situations, while Ad Nauseam is a better engine for Dark Ritual combo. At most TES would get a new Wishboard toy but we'd have to consult Mr. Cook on that.
Frantic Search - This one doesn't get nearly enough attention in the B/R threads. It got unbanned in Vintage, perhaps its safe for Legacy as well. It would make Solidarity an actual deck again, which would be nice considering Spiral Tide got, well, an engine. Spiral Tide would also play it but Solidarity would probably be better as the deck wouldn't have to run Candelabra's, and run into Pithing Needles, QPM, etc. while its setting up. You can't really Snapcast Frantic Search unless you're already sitting on 5 lands, so I don't think Tempo would play this, especially since its a cantrip that gets easily Pierced/Dazed. Ponder is way better in Tempo. Frantic Search would likely be played in Reanimator, Dream Halls, SnT.
Worldgorger Dragon - Reanimator is already stupid enough but its GG if you resolve a creature like Iona, Jizzlebrand anyway. You hate it with the same cards either way and we've acquired much better post-board hate for Reanimator since Dragon was legal.

Not so sure:
Oath of Druids - May I refer people who want to protest this choice to Show and Tell which for 3 mana basically does the same thing. Would having both in the same format suck? Perhaps but an enchantment can be dealt with via QPM/GSZ before he has mana to activate it, unlike SnT. I'd like to hear thoughts on this one.

But oath doesnt require you to have a creature in hand. Ald with all the counters and cantrips those decks can run they can protzct it easily. I think that oath would be a strict upgrade to show n tell in some decks.

[Koby]

Let me tell you a story about Show & Oath...

4 Oath of Druids
4 Show and Tell
4 Emrakul
2 Dragon's Breath
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
2 Beast Within
18 land including Forbidden Orchard

[Guy I Don't Know]

I think mind twist and earthcraft are the next two to come off. Neither are degenerate and may see fringe play at best. Earthcraft can go enchantress and MUD could splash Mind Twist maybe??(If a deck can play hymn it will over mind twist I think)

I remember the good days when I played chatter of squirrels squirrel mob and deranged hermit with squirrel nest and earthcraft. Ah.... Those were the days!

[menace13]

The format doesnt need Mind Twist. Maybe People underestimate it because it doesn't see Vintage play? Hands with broken accelerators tend to empty out much quicker than formats that have to play land drops making that sort of effect less desirable.

It does not add anything to the format. It is a mindless "opps-look-did-I-win?" card. Doesn't involve any setup and a Hymn for 3 to 4 cards is going to be YOUR ENTIRE HAND.

[Vacrix]

Covered a million times but Frantic Search is a huge nope. Every combo deck that goes past turn 2 regularly would run it, because hey free filter spell. Nothings suck more than having Frantic Search chained into Frantic Search into another Frantic Search.
Perhaps.. but Ad Nauseam combo wouldn't play it as 3cc. I see it making SnT decks, Reanimator, Faerie Stompy, and High Tide a little better. Then again, I'd prefer a format where Show and Tell was banned anyway. Without SnT, it still might facilitate turn 3 Dream Halls with Tomb/City and 2 Islands. But that deck needs Show and Tell if it wants to be competitive anyway. Also, its worth mentioning that Tempo decks probably wouldn't play it as they tend to play off fewer lands.

Perhaps FS would be safe to unban if Show and Tell were to get banned.

Also, keep in mind that they would have to find something to cut. Its not just an auto-include in a vacuum. What is it replacing in these decks? Ponder? Careful Study (Reanimator)? These cards are better because they can be played within the first few turns of the game and while you are short on lands, unlike Frantic Search. Otherwise, you're cutting protection spells, which is just wrong if you want to have a game plan against the various control decks played currently. These combo decks might have room for like 2 copies. Also, you shouldn't demonize cards because they would be played but because they would make the format unbalanced and I don't think Frantic Search would create that situation. At the worst High Tide decks get better than they already are. Solidarity hasn't been competitive forever and has a high skill cap while Spiral Tide lately has been performing as well as Doomsday, Stax, Dreadstill, and Ubgx Landstill. Also, Candelabra's still cost a shit ton so there is a price cap on that deck as well, especially if it gets popular after a Frantic Search unban.

Its more abusable in decks that can untap a land that adds a bunch of mana, like in High Tide combo. Not the greatest comparison... but compare the card to Gitaxian Probe for a minute, which is also free (2 life) but it can be cast early and lets you see the opponents hand.. instead of drawing you +1 card and making you discard 2 of them while costing 3 mana. You can Daze/Pierce a Frantic Search but if you Daze/Pierce Ponder, they aren't completely tapped out for the rest of the turn and can protect their cantrip with their own Spell Pierce if they choose. Also, Probe has actually been played recently in decks like Sneak Show and TES because it lets you see if the coast is clear or if you have enough protection to get there. Is the application of seeing the opponent's hand worth it when juxtaposed with draw an additional card and discard 2 of them? I think Probe has its own niche as a cycler and actually works better in most of these combos decks that might run FS.. while not costing 3 and actually replacing itself unlike FS which leaves you with -1 card post-FS.

I'm open to the idea of Frantic Search being completely busted, but frankly I don't see it.

[Gheizen64]

The format doesnt need Mind Twist. Maybe People underestimate it because it doesn't see Vintage play? Hands with broken accelerators tend to empty out much quicker than formats that have to play land drops making that sort of effect less desirable.

It does not add anything to the format. It is a mindless "opps-look-did-I-win?" card. Doesn't involve any setup and a Hymn for 3 to 4 cards is going to be YOUR ENTIRE HAND.

Twist for 3-4 doesn't involve any setups? May as well say that hardcasting emrakul doesn't involve any setups. Costing 4-5 is an huge point in a format that sit on 3 lands, has a super-low curve and has pierce everywhere.

If you want a real blowout play at 4-5 you should play Jace. The other card that are actually hardcasted at 4 mana are Sneak attack, and GSZ for KotR (other may include: stax cards that don't win anything and Nic Fit fatties that are Z-tier too). All those decks are designed to take maximum advantage of said cards and those cards are all bomby win conditions (GSZ is good even at 1, and the deck play +8 1-mana accelerants , SnT win as you untap and Jace is protected by permission and removal that ensure u arrive at turn 4-5 alive and well). How you'd design a deck around Mind Twist? It's not always a good play and it's bad in the lategame, something you'd never want from an X-spell. Versatility of the X if 90% of the case it would be just a worse Hymn. It isn't a very good win condition either, since it need other cards after it to work, whereas GSZ and Jace win on their own. Well unless you play a fine card like the Rack and then we're back to 1999 town and i'll answer your the rack with a Jamyeadae Tome.

p.s. i also heard that FoF and Gift Ungiven do everything that Twist do, better, at instant speed, and are never played.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Mind's Desire - Discussed to death, but safe. Worse than Time Spiral in High Tide combo and wouldn't even get played along side it as Meditate is better is more situations, while Ad Nauseam is a better engine for Dark Ritual combo. At most TES would get a new Wishboard toy but we'd have to consult Mr. Cook on that.

I would say that the chief difference is that Ad Nauseam can be countered.


Frantic Search - This one doesn't get nearly enough attention in the B/R threads. It got unbanned in Vintage, perhaps its safe for Legacy as well. It would make Solidarity an actual deck again, which would be nice considering Spiral Tide got, well, an engine. Spiral Tide would also play it but Solidarity would probably be better as the deck wouldn't have to run Candelabra's, and run into Pithing Needles, QPM, etc. while its setting up. You can't really Snapcast Frantic Search unless you're already sitting on 5 lands, so I don't think Tempo would play this, especially since its a cantrip that gets easily Pierced/Dazed. Ponder is way better in Tempo. Frantic Search would likely be played in Reanimator, Dream Halls, SnT.

High Tide decks with ~8 counters don't need to go off reliably on turn 3, which is what Frantic Search would enable.


Oath of Druids - May I refer people who want to protest this choice to Show and Tell which for 3 mana basically does the same thing. Would having both in the same format suck? Perhaps but an enchantment can be dealt with via QPM/GSZ before he has mana to activate it, unlike SnT. I'd like to hear thoughts on this one.

I think Natural Order, Hypergenesis, SnT, and Sneak Attack are enough ways to cheat Emrakul and friends into play; the format doesn't need another card like these in particular, much less one that costs only two mana.

Other than these three, I agree with your list.

[thefringthing]

Oath is too good. You only need one card instead of two, two mana instead of three, and you can trivially win the game on the spot if it triggers even once.

[Vacrix]

I would say that the chief difference is that Ad Nauseam can be countered.
In most cases, but not since post-board Flusterstorm (and Snapcaster to play it again) which sees quite a bit of play. In modern times control players can even answer Empty the Warrens.

I've tried to play it in existing decks as well as Desire specific builds and it simply requires a storm count that is too high for it to be on par with the other storm engines. If you slow down, then the deck runs into the problem of being comparable in speed with SnT and Reanimator, since both can play Force of Will and your friendly neighborhood cantrips.. in which case, why are you playing Desire?

In High Tide, Time Spiral also double as an untap spell, though Desire would likely hit one; however, Time Spiral also requires 0 storm investment. Desire is only good later in the spell chain in High Tide. I've tested it and even preferred Meditate to a single copy of Desire; whenever Desire won the game, Meditate would have done the job as well while there were a lot of hand where Desire was dead or an overcosted Meditate.

If you ran it along side Ad Nauseam in the maindeck, then thats -6 when you are drawing with AdN. Also, the storm count has to consistently be 7+ for it to be a kill. Decks like TES have a lot of trouble getting to this storm count going off from 7 cards, and you can always brick and hit lands with it. Also, though you can counter AdN it requires 0 storm investment, is on color with Dark Ritual, and its would be rare to go for Mind's Desire instead of Ad Nauseam.

In terms of reaching +7 storm and getting a kill, it functions most effectively in a glass house Belcher-esque list that plays stuff like Manamorphose. Even there, it wasn't better than Belcher or SI.


High Tide decks with ~8 counters don't need to go off reliably on turn 3, which is what Frantic Search would enable.
I don't disagree with this. It would certainly replace Turnabout and create a pretty reliable turn 3 combo. However, does this make the deck overpowered? SnT and Reanimator can pretty reliably go off on or by turn 3 and gain inevitability playing a similar sized protection suite and those decks are far easier to play. Also, control has Flusterstorm and a larger countersuite to fight back.. not to mention the fastest evasive Tempo clock we've seen in Legacy ever via a flipped Delver of Secrets. And then there's decks playing white maindecking Thalia which High Tide decks cannot stop with Pact of Negation, Flusterstorm, or Spell Pierce (in Spiral Tide). They need Force if they want to avoid playing around it with Cunning Wish and getting to their 4th land drop, going off turn 5. Playing devil's advocate.. I guess GSZ--> Teeg will do absolutely nothing to Solidarity after they can drop Turnabout.


I think Natural Order, Hypergenesis, SnT, and Sneak Attack are enough ways to cheat Emrakul and friends into play; the format doesn't need another card like these in particular, much less one that costs only two mana.Agreed. I was just throwing it out there for comparison to Show and Tell/Sneak Attack really.


Other than these three, I agree with your list.Indeed sir.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Agreed. I was just throwing it out there for comparison to Show and Tell/Sneak Attack really.

There is no comparison between Show and Tell and Oath of Druids. One requires 2 mana and that you run maybe 2 fatties the other requires 3 mana and you need to run at least 7-8 fatties and lets your opponent drop a permanent for free.

[menace13]

Twist for 3-4 doesn't involve any setups? May as well say that hardcasting emrakul doesn't involve any setups. Costing 4-5 is an huge point in a format that sit on 3 lands, has a super-low curve and has pierce everywhere.

If you want a real blowout play at 4-5 you should play Jace. The other card that are actually hardcasted at 4 mana are Sneak attack, and GSZ for KotR (other may include: stax cards that don't win anything and Nic Fit fatties that are Z-tier too). All those decks are designed to take maximum advantage of said cards and those cards are all bomby win conditions (GSZ is good even at 1, and the deck play +8 1-mana accelerants , SnT win as you untap and Jace is protected by permission and removal that ensure u arrive at turn 4-5 alive and well). How you'd design a deck around Mind Twist? It's not always a good play and it's bad in the lategame, something you'd never want from an X-spell. Versatility of the X if 90% of the case it would be just a worse Hymn. It isn't a very good win condition either, since it need other cards after it to work, whereas GSZ and Jace win on their own. Well unless you play a fine card like the Rack and then we're back to 1999 town and i'll answer your the rack with a Jamyeadae Tome.

p.s. i also heard that FoF and Gift Ungiven do everything that Twist do, better, at instant speed, and are never played.
Involving no set up means getting to 4 or 5 lands in a decks that cast 4 to 5 mana spells. Seems simple enough, no? It doesn't need anything else in hand or in play. Emrakul needs 15 mana or another card. Not the same.

You do not design a deck around around Mind Twist. Take the Blade decks that play Black and add 1 or 2 Twists. There it goes now with all those neat little things you said about permission and removal.

It isn't a win condition. It puts you into a winning position.

It's a blowout card when it resolves. Not up for debate, unless you are an expert at playing without a hand and 2 to 3 lands in play. Clearly, you must be a pro at this. Sure the game isn't technically over after you get Twisted but it's really over. What are you going to do? Go Runner, Runner, Runner off the top?

Now maybe all you can envision is you windmill slamming down those Jaces, S&T and Green Suns and winning, but what If Twist hits before that? What then? At least Jace leaves me with Answers in hand(not many in print, but w/e). Guess what Against Show and Tell I get to Show something from my hand...

Are we clear on how important a hand is?

Ok, now I'm not always in your world of "Oh but I get to cast these things first and have all these things to stop yours and even if you do I have threats in play that go all the way despite my empty hand". That can make anything look good or bad, really it means shit.

It is a card that increases variance and reduces the skill requirement to win.

[Infinitium]

Is it Cavius Day already?

[Vacrix]

There is no comparison between Show and Tell and Oath of Druids. One requires 2 mana and that you run maybe 2 fatties the other requires 3 mana and you need to run at least 7-8 fatties and lets your opponent drop a permanent for free.
And an upkeep to activate. You could run into QPM or Krosan Grip before the triggered ability goes on the stack.

They both enable fat dudes so I think they can be compared. The deck structure for Oath.dec is definitely more relaxed because you can play fewer dudes in the maindeck. Currently Oath would be complimented by Show and Tell but in that situation where SnT was banned and Oath legal (something I mentioned), you'd have to play Enlightened Tutor or something to find it or else you are chasing a single 4'of with cantrips to go off while Sneak/Show can play more enablers maindeck and go off with minimal sculpting. The deck structure would certainly allow the deck to play a slower game with disruption, but I think a slower combo deck like this that gives the opponent time to GSZ out a QPM, find Karakas with KoTR, play Thalia, would be more balanced than having the option to win with Show and Tell or Sneak Attack with Force of Will back up before the opponent even gets a chance to play some disruption.

Oath lets you play Reanimator/SneakShow without having to maindeck 7 fat guys and also not having to have one in hand; however, the format might be ready for Oath if Show and Tell gets banned. Oath would be a slow control/combo deck that is occasionally very explosive. Also, you can Spell Snare --> Oath, but not Show and Tell or Sneak Attack (and they were never legal in Legacy at the same time). I'd imagine that if Oath were legal blue players would drop post-board copies of Flusterstorm for Spell Snare. That might make storm a little better but Spell Snare counters IT/BW in TES so its not like you are removing storm hate, just replacing it with something that does more against the format.



Also, I forgot to mention on my list that Mana Drain is probably an unsafe ban in the future, but not right now. Blue is good enough as it is without getting another toy to play with.

[Infinitium]

Card Name:
Oath of Druids
Mana Cost:
1G
Types:
Enchantment
Card Text:
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player chooses target player who controls more creatures than he or she does and is his or her opponent. The first player may reveal cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals a creature card. If he or she does, that player puts that card onto the battlefield and all other cards revealed this way into his or her graveyard.

It's still as slow as S&T given that it waits until next upkeep, but the entire 1-card-combo-vs-most-decks-in-legacy angle pushes it safely over the event horizon as far as unbannings are concerned imo.

[Vacrix]

It is a card that increases variance and reduces the skill requirement to win.
If this was WotC approach to the banned list, then why is Show and Tell still legal? Mind Twist is a blow out when it resolves but by the time your opponent lets it resolve what did you cut for it that wouldn't have also blown the opponent out had it resolved? Phyrexian Obliterator comes to mind around the same mana cost. There are plenty of other examples. Liliana. Deed perhaps. Jace if you're in U/B. There are cards you could play in its place that not only put you in a winning position from a neutral position, but either a neutral position from a losing position or a winning position from a losing position. Mind Twist mostly helps you go from neutral to winning and rarely anything else.

It might put you in a winning position, but not in all cases. Just like Hymn to Tourach is great, but not when you are behind or in the mid to late game. This card can't replace Hymn and if you run it along side Hymn you are playing more dead cards in your mid to late game after you've put yourself in that winning position.

I have a feeling that Mindtwist will be best suited to decks with good library manipulation. So likely decks like BUG Control w/ SDT. That looks like the best place for it. It would get played.. as a 1'of perhaps. It would be good, but it wouldn't be overpowered or format wrecking, especially since you don't want to 3-4'of an XB spell thats bad against a bunch of decks past turn 4-5.

[menace13]

If this was WotC approach to the banned list, then why is Show and Tell still legal? Mind Twist is a blow out when it resolves but by the time your opponent lets it resolve what did you cut for it that wouldn't have also blown the opponent out had it resolved? Phyrexian Obliterator comes to mind around the same mana cost. There are plenty of other examples. Liliana. Deed perhaps. Jace if you're in U/B. There are cards you could play in its place that not only put you in a winning position from a neutral position, but either a neutral position from a losing position or a winning position from a losing position. Mind Twist mostly helps you go from neutral to winning and rarely anything else.

It might put you in a winning position, but not in all cases. Just like Hymn to Tourach is great, but not when you are behind or in the mid to late game. This card can't replace Hymn and if you run it along side Hymn you are playing more dead cards in your mid to late game after you've put yourself in that winning position.

I have a feeling that Mindtwist will be best suited to decks with good library manipulation. So likely decks like BUG Control w/ SDT. That looks like the best place for it. It would get played.. as a 1'of perhaps. It would be good, but it wouldn't be overpowered or format wrecking, especially since you don't want to 3-4'of an XB spell thats bad against a bunch of decks past turn 4-5.
Most of the decks that play Jace will want a Twist and can support it easily.

It is a very good card.

Show and Tell is exactly that type of card and I veiw them the same. Differences being Show and Tell needs to be built around. It is a cornerstone of the deck. Ad Naus is a blowout card but I cant just stick it into a deck. As much as I would love to go "Ad Naus-->> Look at all theze Jaces"!! It won't work.

Not every deck will play it, I dont think it will be a 4 of. But it is leagues better than Hymn. It doesnt need to be in BUG only. One black mana and x makes it splashable.

Very few games can be won once Twist hits a hand. Most decks will have around 4 cards in hand by turn 4 or after and even 3 cards half your hand at best. I mean there are exceptions and of course different scenarios always and I might be more biased because i dont like playing against the card.

Edit: Which brings me to Show and Tell and Planeswalkers. Why won't they errata this already? Maybe even Cataclysm?

[dontbiteitholmes]

And an upkeep to activate. You could run into QPM or Krosan Grip before the triggered ability goes on the stack.

They both enable fat dudes so I think they can be compared. The deck structure for Oath.dec is definitely more relaxed because you can play fewer dudes in the maindeck. Currently Oath would be complimented by Show and Tell but in that situation where SnT was banned and Oath legal (something I mentioned), you'd have to play Enlightened Tutor or something to find it or else you are chasing a single 4'of with cantrips to go off while Sneak/Show can play more enablers maindeck and go off with minimal sculpting. The deck structure would certainly allow the deck to play a slower game with disruption, but I think a slower combo deck like this that gives the opponent time to GSZ out a QPM, find Karakas with KoTR, play Thalia, would be more balanced than having the option to win with Show and Tell or Sneak Attack with Force of Will back up before the opponent even gets a chance to play some disruption.

Oath lets you play Reanimator/SneakShow without having to maindeck 7 fat guys and also not having to have one in hand; however, the format might be ready for Oath if Show and Tell gets banned. Oath would be a slow control/combo deck that is occasionally very explosive. Also, you can Spell Snare --> Oath, but not Show and Tell or Sneak Attack (and they were never legal in Legacy at the same time). I'd imagine that if Oath were legal blue players would drop post-board copies of Flusterstorm for Spell Snare. That might make storm a little better but Spell Snare counters IT/BW in TES so its not like you are removing storm hate, just replacing it with something that does more against the format.

Also, I forgot to mention on my list that Mana Drain is probably an unsafe ban in the future, but not right now. Blue is good enough as it is without getting another toy to play with.

Yes congratulations you named 2 cards that beat a card that defines an entire top tier archetype in Vintage and has been banned in Legacy since the inception after ruining a season of Extended. I guess it's not broken after all. Oh you want to play Black Lotus okay, Null Rod comes down first turn off Ancient Tomb and I can play Chalice for zero on the play, unban Lotus.

Oh and good lucky accelerating into a turn 2 Pridemage activation or Grip on the draw against Oath (Which runs counters and possibly discard by the by).

Oath would ruin the format, stop playing yourself.

[Koby]

I wish people would build decks to highlight how stupidly absurd the banned cards are, then claim they should be banned or unbanned.

Theorycraft is bubkis.

[Vacrix]

Yes congratulations you named 2 cards that beat a card that defines an entire top tier archetype in Vintage and has been banned in Legacy since the inception after ruining a season of Extended. I guess it's not broken after all. Oh you want to play Black Lotus okay, Null Rod comes down first turn off Ancient Tomb and I can play Chalice for zero on the play, unban Lotus.

Oh and good lucky accelerating into a turn 2 Pridemage activation or Grip on the draw against Oath (Which runs counters and possibly discard by the by).

Oath would ruin the format, stop playing yourself.
Vintage also plays a lot of 1cc tutors that this format does not have and fast Mox mana to accelerate an early oath as well as support the splashes. Enlightened Tutor in Oath? Perhaps. You aren't landing it turn 2 every game though so you don't need QPM by turn 2 every game to beat Oath, you'd probably have time quite often to GSZ for QPM as well as slow down their sculpting with Thalia. If KoTR comes down you can find Karakas. Oath will come down turn 2 sometimes, but other times it will get countered or discarded. Where's the deck's backup plan when discard brings in Surgical Extraction? Show and Tell? I'd only be remotely comfortable with Oath in the format if Show and Tell was banned anyway.

Also, Oath isn't even restricted in Vintage. Add on Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, and yeah I can see it hitting play early game quite often when you can run 7 virtual copies of it with so much fast mana.. and Time Walk to walk right into Emrakul. But this isn't Vintage. Jace can come down turn 4 on the play and bounce Emmy. Liliana can make you sacrifice him. Karakas can bounce him; KoTR can find Karakas. Then there's shit like Innocent Blood. Emmy also can't attack until turn 4 as you don't get the extra turn, same as if you cast SnT turn 3. Grafdigger's Cage one shots the deck and is completely splashable and can come down before Oath can even activate on turn 3. Cage isn't even Oath specific hate, it can be applied against Reanimator, Dredge, and a few other decks. And again, post-board Spell Snare would probably see more play as its another 1cc answer to Oath. Surgical Extraction in discard decks also turns off the decks primary engine, not to mention you could also play this in a deck with a countersuite and just Surgical a countered Oath. If you want to get fancy and beat tehh countermagicz, you can always play Extirpate.

Likely Oath.dec would replace SnT variants if it got banned but Legacy doesn't have the resources to make Oath as overpowered as it is in Vintage. It would be really good, probably Tier 1 like SnT. I'm not suggesting we unban it immediately. I'd like to see Show and Tell get banned before WotC even looks at Oath. Also, by that time, there will likely be more cards that can answer Oath, much like Cage, Spell Snare, QPM, Grip, and Surgical Extraction have been printed since Oath has been banned. We'll likely acquire something else to shrink its power level some more. I don't, however, think it should fall to the way side and be compared to Black Lotus.

[Koby]

Vintage might have Vampiric, Demonic, and Imperial Seal (lol?), but it also only has 1 Brainstorm and 1 Ponder. These are clearly just as strong in Legacy (and evidently Modern) that all the argument that :b: tutors are better is a wash. Being able to consistently and repeatedly filter the top of your deck with psuedo-Ancestrals is good enough when your deck is already built with redundancy.

See also, Sneak Show's cantrip engine.
See also, ANT's cantrip engine.
See also, Spiral Tide's cantrip engine.
etc

Replace the black tutors with blue cantrips, eliminate a color of exposure, and now you still have a tier 1 strategy that is faster than any possible Show & Tell strategy currently in Legacy. It completely invalidates all aggro options as early as turn 1. This is unacceptable.

[Justin]

I'm still thinking that Mind Twist is a safe unban. Maybe someone could show me a theoretical decklist in which it is broken. I think it works best in decks with Sol Lands. And sure it is strong if you resolve a Mind Twist that you pumped four or five mana into, but then again you can say the thing about the other commonly played four and five drops in this format.

Mind Twist is often not as good as it seems, even with Dark Ritual. If you are on the play and go, Swamp, Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Mind Twist for 4, you've only got three cards left in your hand to do anything with (and that's if you didn't mulligan). It's only a plus-one card advantage (a four for three), which is hardly broken. If you don't draw mana and threats soon, your opponent will have time to catch up. Your opponent loses four cards, but still has three in hand and will draw a fourth during his turn. It also hurts if you run it into Force of Will.

I can understand people not liking the card because of the element of "randomness." If it randomlly hits the key cards, you win off it, but you can get unlucky with it too. But none of that means that the card is broken.

[Michael Keller]

I'm still thinking that Mind Twist is a safe unban. Maybe someone could show me a theoretical decklist in which it is broken. I think it works best in decks with Sol Lands. And sure it is strong if you resolve a Mind Twist that you pumped four or five mana into, but then again you can say the thing about the other commonly played four and five drops in this format.

Mind Twist is often not as good as it seems, even with Dark Ritual. If you are on the play and go, Swamp, Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Mind Twist for 4, you've only got three cards left in your hand to do anything with (and that's if you didn't mulligan). It's only a plus-one card advantage (a four for three), which is hardly broken. If you don't draw mana and threats soon, your opponent will have time to catch up. Your opponent loses four cards, but still has three in hand and will draw a fourth during his turn. It also hurts if you run it into Force of Will.

I can understand people not liking the card because of the element of "randomness." If it randomlly hits the key cards, you win off it, but you can get unlucky with it too. But none of that means that the card is broken.

Something like this sequence I can see it working best - or at least most reasonably:

On the play:

T1: Ancient Tomb, Grim Monolith, Mox (Diamond or Opal).
T2: Land (Potentially an Artifact Land), Voltaic Key, Tap Monolith/Activate Key - Mind Twist @ X=7 (or 5 if you suspect Spell Pierce. If they're tapped out, 6 is acceptable as a holdout for Daze).

That's a thrashing. You also have access to an abundance of mana resources while your opponent could be wiped out before getting their second turn. It's a reasonable set of circumstances (aside from the potential Voltaic Key influence on the outcome) and I think MUD would be the best deck to abuse it because of its inherent ability to overwhelm an opponent with resources to begin the game. Granted, you'll be depleted of your hand and at the mercy of the top of your deck, but I would still take a start like that any day of the week with a ridiculous amount of mana and my opponent stuck on a single land and single card in his or her hand before their turn two.

Point is, Mind Twist requires an investment. In a deck like MUD, I can see it as an acceptable two-of with maybe a third in the board. Even a 1/1 split would work fine.

[Lord Seth]

Dragon can come off the banned list as soon as it learns how to not draw the game.A judge told me that as long as there is another possible target for Animate Dead, someone can't draw the game with Worldgorger Dragon because the player will be required to at some point choose a different target so it doesn't draw. Granted, it'll still draw if there's no other target, but if there's something else for Animate Dead to animate in either graveyard, then it's not a draw.
I would say that the chief difference is that Ad Nauseam can be countered.On the other hand, it can't be Stifled.

But even ignoring that, Mind's Desire requires you to set up Storm for it to be worth anything, when it's supposed to be the thing that sets up the Storm for you. It's kind of like, instead of paying money to buy something, you instead pay money so that you can pay money to buy something. It also costs more mana than Ad Nauseam and is off color. So I don't really think it'd be that dangerous.

[Darkenslight]

But even ignoring that, Mind's Desire requires you to set up Storm for it to be worth anything, when it's supposed to be the thing that sets up the Storm for you. It's kind of like, instead of paying money to buy something, you instead pay money so that you can pay money to buy something. It also costs more mana than Ad Nauseam and is off color. So I don't really think it'd be that dangerous.

You've never played with Desire, then, I'm guessing. The fundamental difference between the two is that Desire allows you to cast those spells for zero mana. A Desire for 8 usually means that's game RIGHT THERE without an immediate answer. AdN simply puts the cards in your hand. I think that Desire might be unbannable in Legacy, given the number of Tempo decks around, but I wouldn't be 100% comfortable with it.

[dontbiteitholmes]

A judge told me that as long as there is another possible target for Animate Dead, someone can't draw the game with Worldgorger Dragon because the player will be required to at some point choose a different target so it doesn't draw. Granted, it'll still draw if there's no other target, but if there's something else for Animate Dead to animate in either graveyard, then it's not a draw.On the other hand, it can't be Stifled.


Yes I know how Dragon works, it can draw the game so my point stands. If there is a non-dragon creature in the yard it's going to be Ambassador Laquatus or something else that is going to end the game anyways.

That's the point though. If the opponent can't kill you with the combo they can half-ass a combo that draws the game to force a restart, sometimes multiple times in a match.


Something like this sequence I can see it working best - or at least most reasonably:

On the play:

T1: Ancient Tomb, Grim Monolith, Mox (Diamond or Opal).
T2: Land (Potentially an Artifact Land), Voltaic Key, Tap Monolith/Activate Key - Mind Twist @ X=7 (or 5 if you suspect Spell Pierce. If they're tapped out, 6 is acceptable as a holdout for Daze).

That's a thrashing. You also have access to an abundance of mana resources while your opponent could be wiped out before getting their second turn. It's a reasonable set of circumstances (aside from the potential Voltaic Key influence on the outcome) and I think MUD would be the best deck to abuse it because of its inherent ability to overwhelm an opponent with resources to begin the game. Granted, you'll be depleted of your hand and at the mercy of the top of your deck, but I would still take a start like that any day of the week with a ridiculous amount of mana and my opponent stuck on a single land and single card in his or her hand before their turn two.

Point is, Mind Twist requires an investment. In a deck like MUD, I can see it as an acceptable two-of with maybe a third in the board. Even a 1/1 split would work fine.

What the hell? For 8 mana you could win the game. The strength of Mind Twist isn't in the first 2 turns, it's when you hit the control player for x=4 in a control mirror. That matchup barely exists anymore though, so it's probably safe to unban, but you never know.

[Michael Keller]

What the hell? For 8 mana you could win the game. The strength of Mind Twist isn't in the first 2 turns, it's when you hit the control player for x=4 in a control mirror. That matchup barely exists anymore though, so it's probably safe to unban, but you never know.

I was just simply answering a question as to what the best line of play could potentially be with a deck sporting Mind Twist from an opinionated standpoint. I also stated a use of a maximum two main-deck; eight mana in Legacy isn't necessarily always going to win you the game outright, but it can from a virtual standpoint, which is where I think this card shines.

I do, however, believe it's a fallacy to assume that Mind Twist's greatest strength lies within specific match-ups, especially Control mirrors. A Mind Twist for four on turn two is the same as a Mind Twist for four on turn six no matter what deck you're playing against, as long as you are able to maximize the amount of cards you're hitting - as in here the said four cards. It creates card advantage with multiple accelerators, which is what you want. I believe its greatest strength lies within timing and effort and the randomizing application the card provides. If you're able to legitimately cripple an opponent that early, there is absolutely no reason not to. I would much rather enjoy ramping up and blowing out an opponent's hand - including lands - than sit back with an opponent already with some semblance of an established board-state and try for what would then be a simply worse Hymn to Tourach, which is another card best used in the early game.

And in a deck that has access to an overabundance of resources, there's no reason to assume at the very least a card like Mind Twist can't be effectively utilized. I'm not saying it is optimal in a MUD variant, but I believe that it is a card predicated on soaking up mana and just crippling an opponent before he or she has a chance to do anything relevant. That is the only reason I would ever even consider playing the card: for the novelty blowout.

[Gheizen64]

I wish people would build decks to highlight how stupidly absurd the banned cards are, then claim they should be banned or unbanned.

Theorycraft is bubkis.

Problem is this is possible with actually good cards, but it's impossible to break a mediocre card. I tried to explain this to a guy that believed Black Vise was the stone cold nuts and that it would be worse for the format than Oath. What it happened? Each list i provided was "trash" and "stop joking around you're purposely throwing around bad lists".
He obviously never ever dared of throwing a list himself and disappeared after my 5th-6th list with Black Vise and people realizing the card was shit.

There are lists however with Channel, Fastbond and Mana Vault that are broken as shit in the B&R decklist challenge.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I wish people would build decks to highlight how stupidly absurd the banned cards are, then claim they should be banned or unbanned.

Theorycraft is bubkis.

Since it seems one of the ones that's up for dispute:

4 Brainstorm
4 Opt
4 Impulse
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
2 Flash of Insight

4 High Tide
4 Reset
4 Frantic Search

1 Brain Freeze

4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
3 Twincast

8 Islands
9 Fetchlands

[Silent Requiem]

Since it seems one of the ones that's up for dispute:

4 Brainstorm
4 Opt
4 Impulse
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
2 Flash of Insight

4 High Tide
4 Reset
4 Frantic Search

1 Brain Freeze

4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
3 Twincast

8 Islands
9 Fetchlands

You can't imagine how much I that list to be legal.

Which probably means that I can't really be trusted to be impartial when I say:

That looks totally fair!

:laugh:

Edit: I'd probably run Snapcaster over Twincast, though. True, it has poor synergy with FoI, but I think it would probably be worth it, at least in game 1, where we are unlikely to see any graveyard hate.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You can't imagine how much I that list to be legal.

Which probably means that I can't really be trusted to be impartial when I say:

That looks totally fair!

:laugh:

Edit: I'd probably run Snapcaster over Twincast, though. True, it has poor synergy with FoI, but I think it would probably be worth it, at least in game 1, where we are unlikely to see any graveyard hate.

I would run Twincast over Snapcaster for the same reason I would run Solidarity over Spring Tide; I'd be more worried about the mirror than much else. And Twincast totes trumps Snapcaster in the mirror.

[Justin]

I was just simply answering a question as to what the best line of play could potentially be with a deck sporting Mind Twist from an opinionated standpoint. I also stated a use of a maximum two main-deck; eight mana in Legacy isn't necessarily always going to win you the game outright, but it can from a virtual standpoint, which is where I think this card shines.

I do, however, believe it's a fallacy to assume that Mind Twist's greatest strength lies within specific match-ups, especially Control mirrors. A Mind Twist for four on turn two is the same as a Mind Twist for four on turn six no matter what deck you're playing against, as long as you are able to maximize the amount of cards you're hitting - as in here the said four cards. It creates card advantage with multiple accelerators, which is what you want. I believe its greatest strength lies within timing and effort and the randomizing application the card provides. If you're able to legitimately cripple an opponent that early, there is absolutely no reason not to. I would much rather enjoy ramping up and blowing out an opponent's hand - including lands - than sit back with an opponent already with some semblance of an established board-state and try for what would then be a simply worse Hymn to Tourach, which is another card best used in the early game.

And in a deck that has access to an overabundance of resources, there's no reason to assume at the very least a card like Mind Twist can't be effectively utilized. I'm not saying it is optimal in a MUD variant, but I believe that it is a card predicated on soaking up mana and just crippling an opponent before he or she has a chance to do anything relevant. That is the only reason I would ever even consider playing the card: for the novelty blowout.

That's a pretty nice example of how MUD can use Mind Twist. Of course, they could also cast a turn two Karn Liberated, which can be just about as devastating if your opponent lets it resolve that early in the game. And the MUD player's starting hand isn't going to be that powerful most of the time.

[Tacosnape]

I'mma just say this about Mind Twist. I played with and against this card for years, way back before Legacy was a thing. And everybody I see discuss it, either way, seems to be talking about the card like it's designed to be used on turn 2 or 3, for as high as possible as fast as possible. This isn't where Mind Twist usually breaks games.

Mind Twist is at it's absolute best around turn 4-5. A lot of games of magic, even in Legacy, involve battles for board stability and incremental advantages for the first few turns. In a near stalemate or even from a slight disadvantage, the Mind Twist for 3+ is game over.

The neat thing about it, though, unlike Jace, is that it isn't confined to being a 4-drop. It can be a 6-drop later than turn 4, it can be a slightly slower Hymn. It's maximum-power disruption that you can adjust the timing and potency of to suit your curve.

I'd personally love to see what a Deadguy Ale shell or Zombardment list could do with this. Something where the entire deck has an extremely low curve and is meant to cap the quick board development with a dreamcrushing Mind Twist. Not to mention, Dark Confidant loves the card.

[joemauer]

Something like this sequence I can see it working best - or at least most reasonably:

On the play:

T1: Ancient Tomb, Grim Monolith, Mox (Diamond or Opal).
T2: Land (Potentially an Artifact Land), Voltaic Key, Tap Monolith/Activate Key - Mind Twist @ X=7 (or 5 if you suspect Spell Pierce. If they're tapped out, 6 is acceptable as a holdout for Daze).

That's a thrashing. You also have access to an abundance of mana resources while your opponent could be wiped out before getting their second turn. It's a reasonable set of circumstances (aside from the potential Voltaic Key influence on the outcome) and I think MUD would be the best deck to abuse it because of its inherent ability to overwhelm an opponent with resources to begin the game. Granted, you'll be depleted of your hand and at the mercy of the top of your deck, but I would still take a start like that any day of the week with a ridiculous amount of mana and my opponent stuck on a single land and single card in his or her hand before their turn two.

Point is, Mind Twist requires an investment. In a deck like MUD, I can see it as an acceptable two-of with maybe a third in the board. Even a 1/1 split would work fine.

Turn one Delver.
Neither of us have cards in hand and all you are going to topdeck is mana accelerants and Mind Twists.
Good Game.

[Tacosnape]

I don't know about you, but in the Knight/Cradle shell that is Maverick, I can't help but think it'd go in here, Thalia or not. Some scenarios quite capable of happening:

Turn one Land, Mother.
Turn two Land, Thalia.
Turn three Land, Knight.
Turn four fetch a Bayou, Knight for Cradle, Mind Twist for 5 (Including the +1 for Thalia.)

Me personally? I think this wins a lot of games.

[Lord Seth]

Well, I think one thing to remember is that whether Mind Twist should come off the ban list isn't a matter of whether it might be a good card or see play. It's whether it's actually broken to the point that it should stay on it. For example, cards like Time Spiral, Entomb, and Metalworker were unbanned and see play in competitive decks, but I don't see people complaining that they need to be rebanned.

So I guess the mere fact that Mind Twist might actually be a good card doesn't mean it's actually broken in the format anymore.

[Awaclus]

Well, I think one thing to remember is that whether Mind Twist should come off the ban list isn't a matter of whether it might be a good card or see play. It's whether it's actually broken to the point that it should stay on it. For example, cards like Time Spiral, Entomb, and Metalworker were unbanned and see play in competitive decks, but I don't see people complaining that they need to be rebanned.
The following is a conclusion drawn from recent discussion in The Source's Format & Article Discussion forum: Nobody's complaining about Time Spiral and Entomb because they are being ran in decks that also use Brainstorm, and people would rather see Brainstorm banned first. Nobody's complaining about Metalworker because it isn't blue, so it isn't a big deal even if it does well.

[Gheizen64]

The following is a conclusion drawn from recent discussion in The Source's Format & Article Discussion forum: Nobody's complaining about Time Spiral and Entomb because they are being ran in decks that also use Brainstorm, and people would rather see Brainstorm banned first. Nobody's complaining about Metalworker because it isn't blue, so it isn't a big deal even if it does well.

? What the hell are you saying? No one is complaining about Worker because it's inconsistent as shit and was a rare presence in the recent years. Worker is also rarely hated for, and some of the strongest hate cards in the game are for artifact (Hurkyll's Recall, Shattering spree etc...).

Comparing that to BS presence at the top of the meta over the years?

[Vacrix]

I would run Twincast over Snapcaster for the same reason I would run Solidarity over Spring Tide; I'd be more worried about the mirror than much else. And Twincast totes trumps Snapcaster in the mirror.
Or you could forgo Reset entirely and then be able to play the Snapcaster/Snap engine with Frantic Searches and still play a few copies of Twincast for the mirror. Which would mean the deck could win at Instant speed or on your own turn.



Edit:
In regards to Mind Twist, I wonder if people will use it for more than Tacosnape's boss Maverick line of play, or Hollywood's MUD line of play. Perhaps.. with Dream Salvage and cards that delay the game to keep the opponent's hand full.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

That'd open you up to removal though. Plus you'd need a Snapcaster for Snap to actually turn on, putting you at a disadvantage.

I haven't heard a good argument against unbanning Goblin Recruiter.

[Zilla]

I'd be so stoked to play Food Chain Goblins again.

[Gheizen64]

That'd open you up to removal though. Plus you'd need a Snapcaster for Snap to actually turn on, putting you at a disadvantage.

I haven't heard a good argument against unbanning Goblin Recruiter.

Makes match go to time ez.

[dontbiteitholmes]

That'd open you up to removal though. Plus you'd need a Snapcaster for Snap to actually turn on, putting you at a disadvantage.

I haven't heard a good argument against unbanning Goblin Recruiter.

So you haven't read any of my posts?




It's not that it's a turn 3 kill with the combo. It's that even without the combo you are still a top tier aggro deck and the combo is a very solid plan B. Any deck that can't deal with Food Chain is just going to get crushed and any deck that can't deal with a possibly uncounterable turn 2 Recruiter stacking your deck is going to get crushed. If you go for a turn 3 win with most decks and I stop your combo you have to recover, instead here you are still playing a really good aggro deck. If I put up a superior board position early vs. most aggro decks I'm in a commanding lead, here you can just topdeck a Food Chain and have a blow out randomly a lot of times (think Goblin Matron + Recruiter + Ringleader and Food Chain, pretty good odds you are going to be able to pull some whacky shit).

Lot's of decks can deal with Goblins attacking, lots of decks can deal with Food Chain type combos, not a lot of decks can deal with both at the same time when it's super easy to stack your deck. Recruiter absolutely pushes Goblins to another level entirely. Goblins with and without Recruiter are 2 completely different decks. It's like comparing Vine-Madness with Survival to w/o Survival, there is no comparison.

[Lemnear]

I don't know about you, but in the Knight/Cradle shell that is Maverick, I can't help but think it'd go in here, Thalia or not. Some scenarios quite capable of happening:

Turn one Land, Mother.
Turn two Land, Thalia.
Turn three Land, Knight.
Turn four fetch a Bayou, Knight for Cradle, Mind Twist for 5 (Including the +1 for Thalia.)

Me personally? I think this wins a lot of games.

I'm sure, your First 3 turns would "win a Lot of games" alone. Why discard their cards if you can waste-Lock your Opponent with thalia and knight so their cards are dead anyways?

A Classic Win-more

[majikal]

So the theoretical nightmare scenario of Show and Tell/Omniscience/Griselbrand decks is happening right now at the SCG Open.

Brace yourselves for incoming shitstorm.

[Erdvermampfa]

So why is this that much of a surprise? I think everyone knows that Show and Tell and/or Griselbrand should have been banned in June, altough its admittedly hard to justify a banning after that little time...

[rxavage]

So the theoretical nightmare scenario of Show and Tell/Omniscience/Griselbrand decks is happening right now at the SCG Open.

Brace yourselves for incoming shitstorm.



The nightmare of getting a rd3 feature match? I don't even want to imagine the shitstorm if the deck top8's. I really don't think the deck is better than Dream Halls or SneakShow just different and its exploiting that.

[xfxf]

I think it's weaker than Sneak&Show in the sense that it solely relies on casting Show and Tell and doesn't have a secondary castable win condition like Sneak Attack. But after the S&T->Omniscience resolves it's stronger and more flexible than Sneak&Show because it has both creature based and storm based kills whereas you can hate out Sneak&Show with cards like Humility and Ensnaring Bridge.

[Lord Seth]

I think everyone knows that Show and Tell and/or Griselbrand should have been banned in June,Is this sarcasm?

[Vacrix]

Ok seriously I've been trying for the past week to build a decent black aggro deck.. Its fucking impossible.


Seriously WotC.. if you ever read these forums, its about time black got some solid power-creeped creatures. Treacherous Pit-Dweller's is a joke, and I tried to break it already with Torpor Orb; Tarmogoyf is just straight better. Please try harder because if discard comes back as an actual thing, or even Pox, it will seriously diversify the metagame because you will have control decks and combo decks having to deal with discard and creatures that can compete with stuff like Delver, Goyf, Nimble Mongoose, etc. If these decks don't have to technically splash a color for their creatures, I don't see why black should.

Ideally, I'd like to see something that interacts well with Death's Shadow. I've been trying to build something with Lurking Evil and such but Lurking Evil would have to be like an 8/8 flying if it were gonna cost BBB for that kind of draw back.

Besides, Zombies are fucking lame. Start printing, Demons, Shadows, and Horrors. All the cool kids in standard will feel like badasses and thats what you want right? Right??

I know they've printed Demons quite a bit but they've all been bad. We need gnarly one and two drop Demons to roll with Dark Ritual and Thoughtseize/Duress or Hymn.

[rxavage]

Ok seriously I've been trying for the past week to build a decent black aggro deck.. Its fucking impossible.


Seriously WotC.. if you ever read these forums, its about time black got some solid power-creeped creatures. Treacherous Pit-Dweller's is a joke, and I tried to break it already with Torpor Orb; Tarmogoyf is just straight better. Please try harder because if discard comes back as an actual thing, or even Pox, it will seriously diversify the metagame because you will have control decks and combo decks having to deal with discard and creatures that can compete with stuff like Delver, Goyf, Nimble Mongoose, etc. If these decks don't have to technically splash a color for their creatures, I don't see why black should.

Ideally, I'd like to see something that interacts well with Death's Shadow. I've been trying to build something with Lurking Evil and such but Lurking Evil would have to be like an 8/8 flying if it were gonna cost BBB for that kind of draw back.

Besides, Zombies are fucking lame. Start printing, Demons, Shadows, and Horrors. All the cool kids in standard will feel like badasses and thats what you want right? Right??

I know they've printed Demons quite a bit but they've all been bad. We need gnarly one and two drop Demons to roll with Dark Ritual and Thoughtseize/Duress or Hymn.

I can fully get behing this, heh heh. Seriously though, black is being seriously neglected. I also tried to get Pit-Dweller to work but like most other black creatures it sucks. The only good black creature, Bob, barely see's play, one of the best creatures ever printed doesn't even see play. Something is wrong with that. We need cheap instant speed discard, efficient beaters, some card draw of old like black was know for or atleast a decent tutor with a resonable drawback. Unbanning Mind Twist would also help but I'd rather the focus be on strengthening black as a whole first.

[majikal]

I don't even want to imagine the shitstorm if the deck top8's.
It did. *opens up umbrella*

[Ignithas_]

I can fully get behing this, heh heh. Seriously though, black is being seriously neglected. I also tried to get Pit-Dweller to work but like most other black creatures it sucks. The only good black creature, Bob, barely see's play, one of the best creatures ever printed doesn't even see play. Something is wrong with that. We need cheap instant speed discard, efficient beaters, some card draw of old like black was know for or atleast a decent tutor with a resonable drawback. Unbanning Mind Twist would also help but I'd rather the focus be on strengthening black as a whole first.

I don't like the idea of instant discard at one mana. I personally think that the fact that discard spells are useless as a topdeck makes up for their incredible usefullness in the early/mid game. Especially in Nic Fit, BUG Control, Team America and Esper Stoneblade you can see how much discard spells contribute to the deck, especially against combo.

Furthermore I don't think that B is generally a bad color. They have very strong tools: Bitterblossom, Bob, Liliana, Hymn, Gatekeeper, Tombstalker, with W Tidehollow Sculler and Vindicate and with G Pernicious Deeds. What it lecks is resilence against agressive decks splashing R. And the top deck, RUG is such a deck and therefore it fell out of favor. So I don't even think that the splash color B would need better cards right now.

But what I do think is that monocolored strategys, including mono B, need some more tools. Goblins got theirs with the Cavern, Merfolk got their new lord. And now I think Gate should also get something that compliments their strategy.

[Shawon]

You know black discard is at an all-time low when the best discard spell is a BLUE instant-speed 'discard' spell that attacks for 3. And flies. Ain't that a bitch?

I think a good direction for black discard in the future is WotC printing cheaper versions of this card:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=116727&type=card

There are two big reasons why black discard sucks right now: topdecks and Brainstorm. Ignoring Psychotic Episode's mana costs, you can clearly see that its effect not only targets your opponent's hand, but it also targets your opponent's topdeck or a card that your opponent Brainstormed on the top. I think if modern black discard targeted the topdeck in addition to your opponent's hand, Brainstorm wouldn't be as powerful a solution to discard as it is now and black would be a stronger color.

[Vacrix]

There are two big reasons why black discard sucks right now: topdecks and Brainstorm. Ignoring Psychotic Episode's mana costs, you can clearly see that its effect not only targets your opponent's hand, but it also targets your opponent's topdeck or a card that your opponent Brainstormed on the top. I think if modern black discard targeted the topdeck in addition to your opponent's hand, Brainstorm wouldn't be as powerful a solution to discard as it is now and black would be a stronger color.
This is an interesting idea. Still, I feel like Black's protection package is good enough. Considering Dark Ritual, if they got a few undercosted black creatures to compete with cards like Delver, Goyf, KoTR, etc. then the color could come back.

[Hopo]

SCG Open Washington's top 16 shows us the oppressing nature of Griselbrand. Once again. My guess is that people believe after reading this thread that the card actually is banned, and just stopped playing it.

[Vacrix]

Pretty sick seeing Loam toolboxes via Entomb. You can Entomb Loam, or a drawn Entomb after you have Loam gets you whatever land you want for the matchup. Kinda sick. The lands list could also find Worm Harvest or Raven's Crime while the Loam Pox list could find Nether Spirit or Raven's Crime.

Also, yeah, Griselbrand was definitely super hyped, but I don't think its gone. The fact that you have to pay life means its harder to play Reanimate in Reanimator, so Jin-Gitaxis is probably better. Also, it makes the opponent's handsize nothing so they have no way to recover. I'd still think that he's the better choice in Sneak/Show over Progenitus. I'm surprised that card got played at all. Perhaps because it has protection from Karakas? Lol.

[menace13]

Also, it makes the opponent's handsize nothing so they have no way to recover. I'd still think that he's the better choice in Sneak/Show over Progenitus. I'm surprised that card got played at all. Perhaps because it has protection from Karakas? Lol.

Prog is a necessary evil when facing Drakes, Krakakas, and Jaces.

[KobeBryan]

Pretty sick seeing Loam toolboxes via Entomb. You can Entomb Loam, or a drawn Entomb after you have Loam gets you whatever land you want for the matchup. Kinda sick. The lands list could also find Worm Harvest or Raven's Crime while the Loam Pox list could find Nether Spirit or Raven's Crime.

Also, yeah, Griselbrand was definitely super hyped, but I don't think its gone. The fact that you have to pay life means its harder to play Reanimate in Reanimator, so Jin-Gitaxis is probably better. Also, it makes the opponent's handsize nothing so they have no way to recover. I'd still think that he's the better choice in Sneak/Show over Progenitus. I'm surprised that card got played at all. Perhaps because it has protection from Karakas? Lol.

I dont' think Grisel is that bad...the meta again has shifted. There isn't a sneak attack show and tell deck in the top 8.

Games adjust...stop asking for bannings.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Can we make a rule that if you argue aggressively for banning a card and the meta ends up self correcting you get a warning, then second time it happens you can't argue for the banning of a card for a year. That would be just awesome.

[Awaclus]

Can we make a rule that if you argue aggressively for banning a card and the meta ends up self correcting you get a warning, then second time it happens you can't argue for the banning of a card for a year. That would be just awesome.
This would be awesome, if there also was some kind of a reward for being correct. Otherwise, this rule would probably kill the discussion after the most active people already had their first warnings.

[dontbiteitholmes]

This would be awesome, if there also was some kind of a reward for being correct. Otherwise, this rule would probably kill the discussion after the most active people already had their first warnings.

Yes, it would stop the same 20 people from repeatedly crying wolf, I fail to see the problem. Also notice the not so subtle difference between debating the power level of a card and aggressively arguing for bannings.

[Lord Seth]

Can we make a rule that if you argue aggressively for banning a card and the meta ends up self correcting you get a warning, then second time it happens you can't argue for the banning of a card for a year. That would be just awesome.Well I don't know, how would you really quantify/qualify that? And what if the meta self corrects itself but then a few months later the card returns in full force and dominates the format even worse?

[Einherjer]

Well I don't know, how would you really quantify/qualify that? And what if the meta self corrects itself but then a few months later the card returns in full force and dominates the format even worse?

What? The card never dominated anything!! Maybe your minds.

Greetings

[Koby]

SCG Open Washington's top 16 shows us the oppressing nature of Griselbrand. Once again. My guess is that people believe after reading this thread that the card actually is banned, and just stopped playing it.

More likely, Karakas is everywhere (o hai Mavriq) and still beating the shit out of Show & Tell -> Legend half the time. Or Spell Pierce on Show & Tell from Merfolk / RUG Delver. Word on the street is that Merfolk in large numbers helped to suppress the efficacy of Combo during this tournament, but this has yet to be substantiated.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Well I don't know, how would you really quantify/qualify that? And what if the meta self corrects itself but then a few months later the card returns in full force and dominates the format even worse?

Name the last time that happened without a new card being printed that changed the formula.

[evanmartyr]

I want Black Vice back so I can play Stasis. Mmmmm....stasis...

[Koby]

Name the last time that happened without a new card being printed that changed the formula.

That's a hard criteria to meet. New cards are added at least every 3 months.

Otherwise, if we slacken those requirements,
Entomb in the era prior to Mystical Tutor ban (early Summer 2010).
Entomb in the era past the Mental Misstep ban (late Summer 2011).

[dontbiteitholmes]

I was being rather tongue in cheek. The main point being the same 10-20 people cry endlessly about banning cards and are wrong 95% of the time, and these people need to shut the hell up.

[Vacrix]

Mmmmm....stasis...
Stasis flavor is the best flavor.

[Tammit67]

More likely, Karakas is everywhere (o hai Mavriq) and still beating the shit out of Show & Tell -> Legend half the time. Or Spell Pierce on Show & Tell from Merfolk / RUG Delver. Word on the street is that Merfolk in large numbers helped to suppress the efficacy of Combo during this tournament, but this has yet to be substantiated.

Tribal was very prevalent from what I saw, though as the day went on it wasn't near the top tables.

I can't wait to see the TMI the Hatfields post on this one, especially considering they were there themselves.

[DragoFireheart]

Can we make a rule that if you argue aggressively for banning a card and the meta ends up self correcting you get a warning, then second time it happens you can't argue for the banning of a card for a year. That would be just awesome.

- Yes, lets kill all banning related discussion because people are afraid of getting banned.

Worse idea I have ever seen on this forum.

[kwis]

Stasis flavor is the best flavor.

I agree with boss mode stasis.

[Chikenbok]

*nthgthdgdcrtdstss*

If anyone can tell me what video game cheat code this is referencing, you win all the prizes on the internet.

Oh and also, just to stay on topic, I'd like Mystical Tutor back please.

[Koby]

*nthgthdgdcrtdstss*

If anyone can tell me what video game cheat code this is referencing, you win all the prizes on the internet.

Oh and also, just to stay on topic, I'd like Mystical Tutor back please.

Let's do a trade:
Unban Mystical Tutor
Unban Earthcraft
Ban Entomb
Ban LED

Fair?

[Vacrix]

Unban Mystical Tutor

Fair?
Only people playing Show and Tell would have a field day.

[Darkenslight]

Only people playing Show and Tell would have a field day.

You Forget MT's interaction with Delver. T2 guaranteed flip? YESPLOX!

MT needs to stay away a little longer.

[(nameless one)]

Unban Miracle Tutor? Really?

[KobeBryan]

You Forget MT's interaction with Delver. T2 guaranteed flip? YESPLOX!

MT needs to stay away a little longer.

That scenario is not that good. This deck already runs nearly 30 instants/sorcery, thats almost a 50% chance of a delver flip. Why waste 4 slots on tutors...what are you really going to tutor? Lightning bolt?

[Koby]

Good points about new interactions with Spell on Top:

Imagine being able to tutor up Temporal Mastery EOT. This would make baby Jesus shed a tear. It might make Temporal Mastery worth more than a $6 burger.

[trivial_matters]

You Forget MT's interaction with Delver. T2 guaranteed flip? YESPLOX!

MT needs to stay away a little longer.

Obviously Delver would have to be banned first before Mystical Tutor came off.

Them Delvers are ruining everything.

[Shawon]

Unban Miracle Tutor? Really?

Yes, because consistent turn 2-3 Terminus and Show and Tell is exactly what we need right now :rolleyes:

[dontbiteitholmes]

- Yes, lets kill all banning related discussion because people are afraid of getting banned.

Worse idea I have ever seen on this forum.

Worse than screaming at the top of your lungs to preban Temporal Mastery?

The irony, it hurts.

[joemauer]

Remember when all those people were screaming for Survival of the Fittest and Mental Misstep to be banned while saying Land Tax needed to be unbanned?

Yeah, I get tired of people discussing cards that should/should not be on the B&R list. They are wrong 95% of the time!

[rxavage]

Remember when all those people were screaming for Survival of the Fittest and Mental Misstep to be banned while saying Land Tax needed to be unbanned?

Yeah, I get tired of people discussing cards that should/should not be on the B&R list. They are wrong 95% of the time!


Ever hear the saying " even a broken clock is right twice a day"? Land Tax was an obvious unban.

[joemauer]

Ever hear the saying " even a broken clock is right twice a day"? Land Tax was an obvious unban.

If Land Tax was so obvious, then why did it take so long for it's unban?

[rxavage]

If Land Tax was so obvious, then why did it take so long for it's unban?

Was that meant to come across as immature and asinine? Repeat that question out loud to yourself, does it make sense yet? Why is the sky blue... neener neener neener:tongue:

see how silly that is...

[Vacrix]

You know which card has an interesting ban history..? Entomb. When it came off, nobody was calling for its unbanning, nobody was saying it was safe. I think most people went 'holy shit reanimator is tier 1 again'? And it pretty much has been. Surprising no? Entomb gets unbanned.. really only played in one deck, a combo deck, where one player puts an overpowered creature into play so the opponent can't actually play the game. The only other deck I've seen it played in regularly is Lands and Loam Pox. Why did this card get unbanned? They didn't know about Karakas back then. And all the other methods of getting rid of a fat guy. Hell, they printed Iona shortly afterwards.

[Koby]

You know which card has an interesting ban history..? Entomb. When it came off, nobody was calling for its unbanning, nobody was saying it was safe. I think most people went 'holy shit reanimator is tier 1 again'? And it pretty much has been. Surprising no? Entomb gets unbanned.. really only played in one deck, a combo deck, where one player puts an overpowered creature into play so the opponent can't actually play the game. The only other deck I've seen it played in regularly is Lands and Loam Pox. Why did this card get unbanned? They didn't know about Karakas back then. And all the other methods of getting rid of a fat guy. Hell, they printed Iona shortly afterwards.

Dave Humphreys (spoken in the same manner as Matt Damon). More R&D shenanigans. Clearly they wanted it legal to print $30 foil boxed sets to sell to Timmy's.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Remember when all those people were screaming for Survival of the Fittest and Mental Misstep to be banned while saying Land Tax needed to be unbanned?

Yeah, I get tired of people discussing cards that should/should not be on the B&R list. They are wrong 95% of the time!

I assume you are trying to be sarcastic but even if you account for Misstep and Survival they are still wrong 95% of the time if not more. Just in the past 12 months... Show and Tell, Hive Mind, Griselbrand, Green Sun's Zenith, Temporal Mastery before it even became legal, Brainstorm, and all those cards had at least a small bandwagon. That's not even including stuff cards like Snapcaster Mage and Stoneforge Mystic and several others here and there that had detractors as well.

Just from S&T, Hive Mind, GBrand, GSZ, Temporal Mastery if we give credit for Survival and Misstep that's still a 71.5% miss rate. Now include all the cards I left off that list and go back some number of years and all of a sudden crediting the "ban" crowd with a 5% success rate actually starts to look really generous.



If Land Tax was so obvious, then why did it take so long for it's unban?

Talk to Wizards. If it were up to the community at large it never would have been on the banned list to start. Even back at the beginning of Legacy it was a joke.



Look obviously I was tongue in cheek about banning people who constantly ask for bannings. The main beef I have with the whole process is the idiocy that comes along with it. Does anyone remember when there were basically 3 threads going talking about how "OMG insane" Temporal Mastery was and a poll to petition Wizards to pre-ban it before it ruins Legacy? Oh and let's not forget this gem of a thread http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23939-Adapting-to-Griselbrand-Show-and-Tell-Decks&highlight=griselbrand. Someone made a thread about how to metagame against Griselbrand decks like Reanimator and Sneak/Show and then it got derailed by people coming in and using it as a soapbox to complain about Griselbrand meanwhile in this thread people were saying stupid shit like "How is Griselbrand legal but Necro and Bargain are banned? Obviously it only makes sense to either ban Griselbrand or unban Bargain!!!1!"

In the end of course the real solution is just to moderate the hell out of people that advocate banning outside of the B&R update thread.