All B/R update speculation.

[Justin]

So Mind Twist can come off, in my opinion.

Want to ritual, ritual Mind Twist me? Say hello to Daze/FoW/Pierce.

It's better than Hymn naturally on Turn 4, when I could just be casting Jace.

It's likely best in a deck playing it as a 1-2 of for a the late game blowout of "discard your hand," but is that even good enough? Unlikely.

-Matt

Mind Twist with Dark Ritual is not as great as it seems. Even if you resolve a Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Mind Twist for four. You only gain a +1 card advantage because of three of your cards are hitting the graveyard. If you get unlucky with your opponent's random discard and/or don't have much else to speak of in your starting hand, you will still lose a lot of games. IMO, Mind Twist would be most effective in Black MUD decks, in which you can accelerate your mana to cast a big Mind Twist and maximize your card advantage. Even then, I'm not sure that Mind Twist is too powerful to deserve its continued placement on the Legacy ban list.

[davelin]

Well, you can say Hymn would have that ability too, situationally. And I would agree. But it's a capped version of Twist with stricter color requirements. There is nothing new, fun, or skill testing about getting Twisted out of the game. Looking back at any match where twist took an entire hand away, it becomes easy to see that is what lost me the game. In certain top deck scenarios it is worse than hymn, but in the ones where it isnt? It's like playing a double Hymn.


It's very arguable that in situations where a 4-5 mana Mind Twist took your entire hand away, you were pretty far behind already.

[menace13]

It's very arguable that in situations where a 4-5 mana Mind Twist took your entire hand away, you were pretty far behind already.
Right, because. Wait.. What?

[davelin]

Right, because. Wait.. What?

What decks in Legacy by turn 4 or 5 still have a full grip and no way to protect it?

[btm10]

No, just no. It's a terrible design. If it wasn't for its nigh indestructibility, maybe, but being able to save it from removal (or at least getting CA out of it) is just plain dumb, especially for its cost. Sure, Needle, Revoker and Krosan Grip can stop it, but that doesn't make the design any better.

The design is great, as has been pointed out by other people. It's even nonblue (and playable with nonblue cards). It's not Top's fault that people are bad and slow at using it sometimes. It's also worth pointing out that the decks that want Top generally (though not necessarily) turn on more complex decision trees than most decks that don't run it, often because they force the pilot to constantly evaluate which cards go to his or her and vs. stay on top of the library and how each interacts with the opponent's board and hand, when it's time to fetch to have more mana vs. continuing to float important spells, and that's not even taking Counterbalance interactions with those decisions into account. Even if someone tanks on Top for a bit, it's not necessarily because they're bad. It might even be because they're good.


I have no clue why everyone brings up dark Ritual for that instead of something like Elves, 12-Post, MUD or, god forbid, Cabal Ritual ;)

I think (as someone who did it) that the Ritual -> Mind Twist opener is the fastest "scary" scenario that pops into people's heads. I agree that it's not very powerful when you actually stop and think about it. I went for accessible instead of good in the example. My bad. Nonetheless, if U/B Tezz or Elves or something decided to run Twist, I'm not sure it would be overpowered. Swamp, go followed by Ancient Tomb, Twist for 2 is the same as Swamp, Swamp, Hymn and costs life. Around turn 3 it does get (and stay) better, especially with stuff like Dimir Signet/Talisman of Dominance, but then you're committing a whole turn to Twist them and hoping that you have a threat or bomb to follow up. So there are shells powerful enough to make it good - but I'm not sure they're powerful enough to make it broken. In fact, if it nudges Tezz into the top tier, I think that's a win for everyone.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

The only really scary Twist scenario is turn1 Tomb->Monolith, go, turn2 Swamp, Mind Twist for a lot. Broken? Idk. It needs a pretty solid hand and still dies to Spell Pierce.
edit: or to Divert.

[Megadeus]

Yeah turn two twist for five is strong certainly. But the MUD player also could've been casting a Wurm coil, or a forge master or something

[iamajellydonut]

It's all great and well to say "oh, but we have counter magic", but I mean, if you guys really want to keep in a full suite of countermagic post-board against some shitty G/x/x aggro decks just because they have Mind Twist in the 75, that's fine by us.

[menace13]

What decks in Legacy by turn 4 or 5 still have a full grip and no way to protect it?
In games of magic. No one ever wins. Everything gets answered. All the time. Unban every card because statistical data proves every Legacy deck by turn 4 or 5 has a way to protect it. The opponent's deck doesnt exist.


Is it that far out of the ordinary that by those turns there are maybe 2-4 permanents in play and around 4-5 cards in any players hand? What if it is an aggro deck? That doesnt have counterspells. Can it protect its hand then? Obviously no, right? Is the deck with the Mind twist also a deck with a sweeper? You cant really just run out your hand then can you? Maybe even a combo deck didnt get all the pieces in time and/or was slowed down by counters just enough to get double hymned out of the game. Say it's 2 blue decks and a counter war ensues because it's most likely a must counter this or I lose scenario. They can have the bomb+protection which beats out countering the bomb.


It's all great and well to say "oh, but we have counter magic", but I mean, if you guys really want to keep in a full suite of countermagic post-board against some shitty G/x/x aggro decks just because they have Mind Twist in the 75, that's fine by us. Precisely. We can swap out G/x/x aggro decks with anything that could play a black dual land. Very little downside of trying to resolve one. Sure, it could have been a Jace, or another threat. But wouldn't it be better to wipe opponents hand then land that same threat? Or at worst it's a psuedo-duress that eats a counterspell/discard spell. The worst performance of it is an over-costed hymn. It's best is an entire hand wipe.

[btm10]

In games of magic. No one ever wins. Everything gets answered. All the time. Unban every card because statistical data proves every Legacy deck by turn 4 or 5 has a way to protect it. The opponent's deck doesnt exist.


Is it that far out of the ordinary that by those turns there are maybe 2-4 permanents in play and around 4-5 cards in any players hand? What if it is an aggro deck? That doesnt have counterspells. Can it protect its hand then? Obviously no, right? Is the deck with the Mind twist also a deck with a sweeper? You cant really just run out your hand then can you? Maybe even a combo deck didnt get all the pieces in time and/or was slowed down by counters just enough to get double hymned out of the game. Say it's 2 blue decks and a counter war ensues because it's most likely a must counter this or I lose scenario. They can have the bomb+protection which beats out countering the bomb.

Precisely. We can swap out G/x/x aggro decks with anything that could play a black dual land. Very little downside of trying to resolve one. Sure, it could have been a Jace, or another threat. But wouldn't it be better to wipe opponents hand then land that same threat? Or at worst it's a psuedo-duress that eats a counterspell/discard spell. The worst performance of it is an over-costed hymn. It's best is an entire hand wipe.

The worst performance of Twist is actually as bad Duress (for X = 1), but that's not really important. The larger point is that Legacy is already a pretty bomb-heavy format anyway - half of the decks in the top tier run Jace as part of the stock list, probably more than that run Liliana, and then you have archetype specific bombs like Ancestral Vision and Show and Tell. Another bomb won't ruin the format, and it probably won't increase the proportion of one-sided blowouts, either. If it does increase the number of blowouts, it will be because it made a new deck competitive rather than because it found an easy home in an existing deck. I don't see the UG Cloudpost players becoming BUG decks to support Twist, but maybe B/R (or Grixis) Mudpost would be a thing. Those sound like interesting decks. Let's throw them a bone. In the worst case, it's still re-bannable and there are worse things than a maybe-bad season of Legacy.


All that being said - it's probably better to just unban Earthcarft or Vise first because most people would agree that neither is likely to be high-impact and unbanning a single card at a time would make the impact of that one card clearer and allow the new metagame to settle quickly. I basically agree with nedleeds' list, with Earthcraft and Mind Twist's positions flipped. As much as I love Enchantress and want to bust my Korean Earthcrafts out, the deck is probably not quite good enough even with Earthcraft to be anything approaching bannable. And a few successful unbannings might allow something like Survival to come off experimentally. I don't think that it would be as bad as the detractors do, but let's get the low hanging fruit off of the list before pretending that Survival is as low on the potential-for-abuse scale as Vise or Earthcraft is.

[Lord Seth]

While I don't think Mind Twist would break anything, at the same time it's a spectacularly boring card. My issue with it is the randomness, which is incidentally the same problem I have with Hymn to Tourach. I greatly prefer discard spells that require choices from a player. With Thoughtseize, you have to pick which card to discard, and you can choose wrong. Even with something like Funeral Charm, where it's the opponent's choice, someone is choosing which card to discard, and they thus can make the wrong decision. That makes skill a factor. With Hymn to Tourach, you just cast it and hope you get lucky, skill being irrelevant. I suppose Mind Twist is slightly better in that you have to at least think a little about how much mana to invest into it, but I still don't like the randomness factor.

I wish there was a card that was the exact same as Mind Twist except without the word "random."

[Julian23]

With Hymn to Tourach, you just cast it and hope you get lucky, skill being irrelevant.

Hymn to Tourach is on the same skill level as Thoughtseize as it's much harder to find the correct moment to cast it. In Legacy, Hymn is much weaker than people give it credit for and if you just "skilllessly" cast it as soon as you get the option, you're not thinking enough about your play.

Also, the "I prefer decisions herp derp" attitude Lord Seth describes is something that keeps holding back any future development of playskill in a player. You want to actually improve instead of complaining about losing to what you perceive as skilless variance? Improve and incorporate variance into the way you play the game. Anybody who feels bad for winning a game due to variance never really understood how to play the game. Playing with variance is playing to win. Playing with "skillful decisions" is to 4-2 your weekly Legacy most of the time.

[Shawon]

The banned/restricted list update is supposed to be today. Checked the mothership (the new site) and no update for Monday's articles. http://magic.wizards.com/en

[Megadeus]

Maybe check back at like 1?

Update: Apparently with the new updates, the new articles go up at 11AM EST now the next day. Seems.... Bad

[bakofried]

In the morning? I'm still debating whether or not to snap order some Survivals.

[Megadeus]

In the morning? I'm still debating whether or not to snap order some Survivals.

This. Got em sitting in the TCG cart like... I should just in case since I work in the morning. I have no fucking clue what I will do with them if they dont get unbanned though lol.

[bakofried]

Eh...I still need more duals. I might just order a singleton for EDH. You could throw together that Applejacks vintage deck with a playset.

[btm10]

I thought the update happened next Monday.

[Dice_Box]

I thought the update happened next Monday.

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/09202012a

Prerelase was weekend past.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

This. Got em sitting in the TCG cart like... I should just in case since I work in the morning. I have no fucking clue what I will do with them if they dont get unbanned though lol.

Trade em, edh kids always have the most random shit

[Megadeus]

Thats the problem with trading with edh kids. They have valuable cards, it's all just unplayable edh garbage though. Like Minds Eye. That card is like almost 10 bucks LOL. Was thinking at work. I hope Vise gets unbanned. I wanna play 4x Probe, 4x Vise, 4x Pithing Needle, 4x Sinkhole, 4x Vindicate, 4x Wasteland.

[H]

I just hope something gets unbanned, Legacy has been getting to feel stale lately for me.

[bakofried]

I just ordered two played ones. Hedging my bets, that way if it does get unbanned it's much cheaper to finish a set, if not I've got one to use for EDH and one to trade, or I can just finish the set for proxy vintage or something later.

[datanaga]

nothing changes:(
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/july-14-2014-dci-banned-restricted-list-announcement-2014-07-14

[HSCK]

Why the sad face? That's good news.

[btm10]

An unbanning would've been nice. Earthcraft, Mind Twist, etc.

[nedleeds]

Miserable. 3 year anniversary of Delver coming up though!

[Zombie]

Yes! I get to see more fun well-designed cards like TNN and Council's Judgment and getting all the fucking splash damage from them despite not playing either <3

Rope, please?

[Barsoom]

I'll just copy/paste what i wrote 4 months ago on MTG Salvation.


I don't think Wizards care for the Legacy banlist anymore, the last change they make was 2 years ago, June 2012, Land Tax unbanned, and the previous unban was December 2010 for Time Spiral.
I would like to have some card come off from the list, like Earthcraft, Mind's Desire, Memory Jar, Black Vise, Mind Twist, Survival of the Fittest, Yawgmoth's Bargain (cause Griselbrand is better). I'm all for the "let's try to unban something, maybe 1-2 cards at a time, to see if it can works without breaking the format.
The last months i was waiting the banlist announcements hoping for something to shake up the format but all the time i was disappointed, so now i don't care anymore.

Legacy
No changes

My feeling is that they just care for Modern, and that's all. If nothing changed for the last 2 years, nothing will change for the next 2 years too.

So you remain with 2 ways you can follow:
Do you like play to play with/against Branstorm, in a stagnant format with 85% blue-based decks with a "set in stone" banlist?
Yes -> Play Legacy.
No -> Play Modern.

[HSCK]

From what tournaments are telling me this is easily the most open Legacy's ever been, I have no idea what the issue is except for, "BLUE!!!!!!"

[Phoenix Ignition]

Well this is a shame. Guess I'm waiting until the September update. In the meantime I'm sure I'll still turn on an SCG stream from time to time to laugh at the hilarity that is two decks hitting each other with equipped true-name nemesises.

[Darkenslight]

From what tournaments are telling me this is easily the most open Legacy's ever been, I have no idea what the issue is except for, "BLUE!!!!!!"

When a single color has in excess of 75% of the Top 16 of the vast majority of tournaments, that usually means something has gone wrong. However, the fact is that there are a vast number of viable decks, ranging from hard-aggro strategies, such as Burn, to hard-control decks, such as Miracles. Really, the primary issue is the strength of Blue as a color, with cards that are 15+ years old.

[Julian23]

I think everyone can agree that an arguement that is solely based on the dominance of a single colour is pretty much just as valid as one based on odd collector's numbers cards being more represented than even ones.

[btm10]

I think everyone can agree that an arguement that is solely based on the dominance of a single colour is pretty much just as valid as one based on odd collector's numbers cards being more represented than even ones.

Apprently this isn't something everyone can agree on. But we should.


From what tournaments are telling me this is easily the most open Legacy's ever been, I have no idea what the issue is except for, "BLUE!!!!!!"

Which is the reason to discuss unbannings, I think. At worst we can revert to a very healthy metagame by re-banning the offending card(s). I realize this is directed at the people who wanted something banned, but still.

[Adryan]

I'll just copy/paste what i wrote 4 months ago on MTG Salvation.



My feeling is that they just care for Modern, and that's all. If nothing changed for the last 2 years, nothing will change for the next 2 years too.

So you remain with 2 ways you can follow:
Do you like play to play with/against Branstorm, in a stagnant format with 85% blue-based decks with a "set in stone" banlist?
Yes -> Play Legacy.
No -> Play Modern.

Please explain why Legacy is more stagnant than Modern. If i remember correctly the release of TNN a while ago made this format a lot different. I would say Modern is more stagnant than Legacy.
There's Pod, BGx, Splinter Twin, Affinity and then the rest for guys who don't know what the good decks are.

In Legacy there is every archetype competitve, so you can win a tournament with it. If you dislike creatures and want to cast spells, well good luck being competitve and winning a tournament. Spoiler: Storm is not good in Modern. T1 Relic out of many decks is such a huge pain in the ass and so on.

If you somehow dislike Brainstorm ( i really can't understand that feeling because it's a fun card and reduces variance) there are still a lot of good choices. I mean the fact that a version of Death and Taxes (the 4 Spirit/ 4 Arbiter/ Ghost Quarter etc.) is favored against all forms of Combo except fast Combo and Creature Combo tells a lot of how awesome Legacy is. Mono White favored against Combodecks lol

A fun format is a format where every archetype and playstyle is competitve and can make you win a tournament. The fact that a color is more played than the others should not make for a worse playing experience.

[sjmcc13]

When a single color has in excess of 75% of the Top 16 of the vast majority of tournaments, that usually means something has gone wrong. However, the fact is that there are a vast number of viable decks, ranging from hard-aggro strategies, such as Burn, to hard-control decks, such as Miracles. Really, the primary issue is the strength of Blue as a color, with cards that are 15+ years old.

And since allot of those decks are 3 colors, 75% of the decks containing blue is not that bad seeing as it is in 6 of the 10 3 color combinations. blue is a very common colour, but allot of that is because it is the best support color in the game.

If you want to complain about a color being to strong, you need a much deeper analysis.

you need to look at not just how often the each color shows up, but also how often it each color is the primary focus of a deck, and how often it is just support.
and you need to do this for all 5 colours to show the discrepency.

you also need ot look at the different archtypes and do the same colour analysis on them, because tournament results are affected by player biases, and is allot of players are hung up on a specific card/stratagey (like say Delver) then it is going to show up in more succesful lists then a card/stratagey that is not as popular but just as strong will.

[sdematt]

I'm actually more excited when new sets come out in hopes that they release new cards to shake up Legacy since they seems to be SUPER FUCKING SLOW when doing sweet dick all to Legacy. Shake this up. Vintage has gotten more action than us. VINTAGE.

-Matt

[LOLWut]

Survival of the Fittest is a very cool card but I do think it's a little too strong (there are a couple legal cards that I think are too strong as well but that's another argument). I don't mean to turn this into a shitty card creation tangent, but I think the way to go is a "fixed" Survival. Not a creature like Fauna Shaman though; make the enchantment cost :1::g::g:, or make the activated ability cost :g::g:, or exile the cards instead of discarding them, or give it a cumulative upkeep, or something.

[btm10]

I'm actually more excited when new sets come out in hopes that they release new cards to shake up Legacy since they seems to be SUPER FUCKING SLOW when doing sweet dick all to Legacy. Shake this up. Vintage has gotten more action than us. VINTAGE.

-Matt

I think there are two (main) explanations fort this. First, some new, narrow cards like Dreadbore see minor play in Vintage but not in Legacy largely (I suspect) because more Vintage decks are 4 or 5 colors, largely driven by the restriction of Brainstorm and Ponder, meaning that fetch-light manabases with rainbow lands are more viable, so it's easier to splash a whole color to cover one weak point. This represents a relatively small number of decks (5c Stax, recent Keeper/5cc concoctions), but they add up. The other thing is that in Vintage a lot of decks have abundant colorless or off-color mana, meaning that 3 or even 4 can represent playable costs for a typical deck, especially if the card is blue or an artifact (in which case the cost can be even higher). Add in the smaller amount of removal (and fewer creatures overall) and fragile hatebears like Spirit of the Labyrinth or expensive creatures with powerful effects like Restoration Angel also become more viable. Also, the bar for a narrow artifact or narrow piece of artifact hate is much lower in Vintage than in Legacy (I'm thinking Trygon Predator, but I'm sure that there are other examples).

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Survival gets unbanned when brainstorm gets banned
#callingit


....would happily make that trade every day of the fucking week

[maharis]

Miserable. 3 year anniversary of Delver coming up though!

For real. It took them just over a year to can DRS from Modern. God forbid a non-blue card dominate a format.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I think everyone can agree that an arguement that is solely based on the dominance of a single colour is pretty much just as valid as one based on odd collector's numbers cards being more represented than even ones.

Then you are extremely bad at paying attention to the world around you.

[Julian23]

Honestly, IBA, you have a reputation for arguing emotionally instead of factually. I couldn't care less about your opinion on this.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

From what tournaments are telling me this is easily the most open Legacy's ever been

Is this like... a joke?


A few narrow midrange strategies with basically interchangeable parts, a couple combo decks, one control deck, almost all of them running the same basic blue shell; the same fringe strategies that are empirically not good but people will convince themselves to gamble with regardless because once in a while they make it through the Swiss rounds somehow (burn, infect, affinity, belcher, oops all lands,) almost no change in the past year in the metagame, barely any changes in the year before; all those changes pushing towards more splashable, interchangeable parts pushing towards de facto format homogeneity where "diversity" occupies an ever smaller slice of the decklists.

This format is staid, stagnant and boring.

There's always a certain type of player who likes solved formats because they involve very little work, though, and will accuse those who want more of a challenge of "whining" or being noobs or whatever. Usually the same type that don't want to ban the obviously-need-to-be-banned cards like Flash or Mental Misstep in Legacy, Skullclamp and Jace in Standard. Brainstorm these days.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Honestly, IBA, you have a reputation for arguing emotionally instead of factually. I couldn't care less about your opinion on this.

This is a nonsensical complaint for two reasons.

1) What a format should look like, what's fun, etc., etc., are emotional questions, not factual ones.

2) I am pretty consistently the only person that is willing to compile and post data backing up claims of dominance etc., at least since the Hatfields stopped writing articles.

[Barook]

I think everyone can agree that an arguement that is solely based on the dominance of a single colour is pretty much just as valid as one based on odd collector's numbers cards being more represented than even ones.
I don't know about that one. The official reasoning behind banning Mental Misstep wasn't just "ZOMG 56 card decks!" as it was stated by other sources, but blue domination:


Legacy

Mental Misstep is banned.

Force of Will has long been thought of as a card that helps keep combination decks in check in Legacy and Vintage. However, it doesn't directly help decks that aren't playing blue. One idea that was floated was creating a similar card that could be played in nonblue decks. When Phyrexian mana was designed, it was an opportunity to create such a card. R&D wanted a card that could help fight combination decks, and could also fight blue decks by countering cards such as Brainstorm. Clearly printing a card like this has a lot of risk, but there is also the potential for helping the format a lot. The risk is mitigated, because if it turns out poorly, the DCI can ban the card.

Unfortunately, it turned out poorly. Looking at high-level tournaments, instead of results having blue and nonblue decks playing Mental Misstep, there are more blue decks than ever. The DCI is banning Mental Misstep, with the hopes of restoring the more diverse metagame that existed prior to the printing of Mental Misstep.
The better question is why the don't ban anything anymore despite blue being more dominant than ever before thanks to a bunch of horseshit cards. Color dominance is a ban consideration.

Probably they don't really care about Legacy anymore aside from tossing money rares into supplemental product which "shine" with "great" design like TNN or Council's Judgment.

[Michael Keller]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Probably they don't really care about Legacy anymore aside from tossing money rares into supplemental product which "shine" with "great" design like TNN or Council's Judgment.

This makes the most sense, honestly. The only money they can make off of Legacy players is by printing cards that are obviously designed for legacy, which generally will mean they are too good for the cash cow Standard, or be completely irrelevant to it. That mostly means that no Legacy players are going to be cracking packs open to get their cards, since singles are so much cheaper and probably not in high demand by the hordes of Standard players anyway.

So, print shit that causes nothing but headaches, True-Name Nemesis for example, and after people languish about how they're going to deal with something that stupid, print another mostly casual set of cards with a couple big cards obviously targeted to shut down that card [cards]Council's Judgment/cards]

[maharis]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

I agree with you to a point. There may be thousands of cards in the legacy pool, but there are only so many playable ones. With how tight and optimized certain lists are, it's very difficult to come up with a brew that can be even occasionally successful in a given metagame.

A legacy deck has to have plans against a Storm player trying to go off turn 2; a player going t1 Island, t2 City of Traitors, Show and Tell; a turn 1 flipped Delver with Daze/Wasteland backup; a Stoneforge in play and a Batterskull in hand. That considerably narrows the pool of cards you can choose from and open slots in a given deck

[Adryan]

This is a nonsensical complaint for two reasons.

1) What a format should look like, what's fun, etc., etc., are emotional questions, not factual ones.

2) I am pretty consistently the only person that is willing to compile and post data backing up claims of dominance etc., at least since the Hatfields stopped writing articles.

Even in science where people put lots of effort in and many years of hard work, they don't argue emotional. So why should we do that in a card game? I would really like to know when Legacy was more wide open than now, with data that supports it.

Avoid personal attacks please. Thanks. -zilla

[sjmcc13]

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't. I think there is also a skill/time factor.

People are not as good at building decks as they use to be, and do not put in as much time on testing decks. Causing them to rely too much on pre-built and "proven" lists. this leads to less innovation and more good_cards.deck.

It is also something that keeps people from playing the format, as you see players complain that Legacy is "too expensive" because they are looking at the proven Tier 1 lists and saying "I can not afford that" and not even consider a budget starter list which wil get you into Legacy so you can slowly build up a stronger list.

I netdeck, but I also know enough about deck design that I can make a decent deck if I have an idea I want to buld around. and can turn it is given a decent test gauntlet. I just rarely have any ideas that turn into playable decks.

[M+1]

I think everyone can agree that an arguement that is solely based on the dominance of a single colour is pretty much just as valid as one based on odd collector's numbers cards being more represented than even ones.
I don't know about everyone, but I agree.

It would be unreasonable to expect total color balance in a format with 20+ years of cards.
It is perhaps a little surprising that every color is playable.

[Barook]

So, print shit that causes nothing but headaches, True-Name Nemesis for example, and after people languish about how they're going to deal with something that stupid, print another mostly casual set of cards with a couple big cards obviously targeted to shut down that card Council's Judgment
TNN and CJ only had half a year between them. Wizards can't and doesn't react that fast. As I see it, that was planned from the very beginning. It wouldn't hurt that much if they didn't break a huge number of design basics AND the color pie each time they do it. Take Toxic Deluge for example - very powerful, but didn't break the format in half.


You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.
Just because thousands of limited cards or other overcosted crap are in the format doesn't mean they're viable. There are simply card choices that simply work better in the format - e.g. nobody runs Foil as a poor man's FoW because it sucks.

Sure, there's a chance your rogue deck choice works, but what are the chances that it can actually stand up against a majority of the major format suppressors, at least when the common Joe plays it? Non-blue decks normally struggle against the consistency Brainstorm provides in the long run, Terminus laughs at beatdown strategies, Delver is Delver, TNN is just plain dumb, as is Griselbrand, etc. - that's alot to cover. You can't be everything, but you should have a shot against a good chunk of said cards/strategies to be competitive.

Plus, why bother with a brew when you can faceroll your way to the top with a Burn deck? It's cheap, plus you can suck and still win. That's why Burn is currently a major contender in the Online metagame.

[Adryan]

TNN and CJ only had half a year between them. Wizards can't and doesn't react that fast. As I see it, that was planned from the very beginning. It wouldn't hurt that much if they didn't break a huge number of design basics AND the color pie each time they do it. Take Toxic Deluge for example - very powerful, but didn't break the format in half.


Just because thousands of limited cards or other overcosted crap are in the format doesn't mean they're viable. There are simply card choices that simply work better in the format - e.g. nobody runs Foil as a poor man's FoW because it sucks.

Sure, there's a chance your rogue deck choice works, but what are the chances that it can actually stand up against a majority of the major format suppressors, at least when the common Joe plays it? Non-blue decks normally struggle against the consistency Brainstorm provides in the long run, Terminus laughs at beatdown strategies, Delver is Delver, TNN is just plain dumb, as is Griselbrand, etc. - that's alot to cover. You can't be everything, but you should have a shot against a good chunk of said cards/strategies to be competitive.

Plus, why bother with a brew when you can faceroll your way to the top with a Burn deck? It's cheap, plus you can suck and still win. That's why Burn is currently a major contender in the Online metagame.

And you really think banning Brainstorm will make Delver, Miracles, Show&Tell and other decks disappear? They still have more consistency than nonblue decks, which is a design problem not a B&R list problem.

Edit: I think it's a very good thing that Wotc doesn't test and care a lot about this format. I mean they tested Standard internally for a lot of time and in my eyes this Standard is unbelievable boring in it's current state (pre m15, don't know about post m15). There are 3 decks: Mono U, Mono B and UWx Control. I really hope that they stay away from Legacy and don't try to shape a metagame they like. It would be a disaster.

Modern is also kind of fucked up. If you plan on winning a PTQ there are only 5 real choices: Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, BGx, Affinity and UWx variations. The rest don't have that many good MU's and are not as good as these 5. In my eyes modern is a complete failure and unfun and this is coming from a player who started playing Magic about 2 years ago. I would heavily prefer older Standard/Block formats, old Extended or Overextended over current Modern.

[JBlaze]

Non rotating formats have a tendency to stagnate. I wish they would be a lot more pro active in unbanning cards for Legacy and Modern.

[Barook]

And you really think banning Brainstorm will make Delver, Miracles, Show&Tell and other decks disappear? They still have more consistency than nonblue decks, which is a design problem not a B&R list problem.
Disappear? Certainly not, despite people claiming the sky is falling if Brainstorm isn't in the format. That's not even the goal here.

The decks would become weaker since they lose the following aspects compared to other cantrips

- discard protection
- Brainstorm in response to anything, be it to removal, a problematic spell or just plain mana denial
- the absurdness of Brainstorm + shuffle effects
- setting up stuff in certain match-ups (e.g. Delver, AV or a drawn miracle)

No other cantrip can compare to that. If we go just by filtering alone, Ponder can dig even deeper and yet it isn't close to Brainstorm's power level.


Non rotating formats have a tendency to stagnate. I wish they would be a lot more pro active in unbanning cards for Legacy and Modern.
There aren't too many cards that are save to unban, at least in Legacy.

[Sloshthedark]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

So true...

it's not just about budget, it's about time commitment, willingness to think and experiment

[btm10]

This is a nonsensical complaint for two reasons.

1) What a format should look like, what's fun, etc., etc., are emotional questions, not factual ones.

2) I am pretty consistently the only person that is willing to compile and post data backing up claims of dominance etc., at least since the Hatfields stopped writing articles.

1. I agree that emotion plays a role in determining what a format should look like, but I think that overall it's more a normative question rather than a purely emotional one. Our emotions have to be checked by some sort of judgement in this area. That's ostensibly what the DCI is for, but they clearly have other goals as well.

2. Your work on Brainstorm has shown that it's ubiquitous, sure. What a lot of people disagree on is whether or not that's a problem. I certainly don't think it's bad because it supports a wide variety of archetypes (combo, control, midrange, tempo, etc.) at the cost of forcing these decks to have a blue component. While this incentivizes the "blue core" of Brainstorm, Force of Will, Fetchlands, and enough other blue cards to support Force, it doesn't require it, as shown by the combo decks that run blue only for cantrips. In my evaluation, having decks with similar cores that all try to win the game using different strategies (if sometimes similar tactics) is a feature, not a bug. It means that the high cost of entry into Legacy is somewhat blunted because it's easy to move your blue core into a different deck while still being able to use your ~$2000 USD investment in Forces, Blue Fetches, and Blue Duals once you've bought in.


You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

If you think that this is a viable way forward, do it. Start putting up results in large events with wacky budget decks. To me, you sound like people whining about netdecks ca. 2003. At this point, with frequent large tournaments, there's plenty of testing and brewing going on. You're going to have to offer some compelling evidence like a non-established deck showing up to 100+ person events and going X-1-1 consistently before anyone takes this critique seriously.

[Megadeus]

If you think that this is a viable way forward, do it. Start putting up results in large events with wacky budget decks. To me, you sound like people whining about netdecks ca. 2003. At this point, with frequent large tournaments, there's plenty of testing and brewing going on. You're going to have to offer some compelling evidence like a non-established deck showing up to 100+ person events and going X-1-1 consistently before anyone takes this critique seriously.

Didn't Keller help popularize Manaless Dredge by doing well at events?

I'm pretty disappointed in no change. I would have liked to see Vise, Earthcraft, Twist, or Survival come off. I don't think legacy is incredibly stagnant right now, but I am sort of running out of ideas for things to brew up and play.

[btm10]

Didn't Keller help popularize Manaless Dredge by doing well at events?

I'm pretty disappointed in no change. I would have liked to see Vise, Earthcraft, Twist, or Survival come off. I don't think legacy is incredibly stagnant right now, but I am sort of running out of ideas for things to brew up and play.

He did; I apologize for suggesting otherwise, although Manaless Dredge is one of those decks that really only succeeds when people skimp on graveyard hate, so I suppose I should broaden my statement to qualify that while some of these other decks can succeed a few times, they're unlikely to keep doing so because they rely heavily on exploiting metagame vulnerabilities that people can adjust for in the existing shells.

[HSCK]

This is a nonsensical complaint for two reasons.

1) What a format should look like, what's fun, etc., etc., are emotional questions, not factual ones.

2) I am pretty consistently the only person that is willing to compile and post data backing up claims of dominance etc., at least since the Hatfields stopped writing articles.

I am calling BS, I've been compiling data for months now and posting it, the format is more fractured now than ever according to the same data sets The Source uses.

[gregtron]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

Yes, obviously the reason that certain decks perform better than others is because of herd mentality and net-decking sheople, not because the power level of some cards or strategies are higher than others, or because all the time people have put into tuning established archetypes has been used to narrow down and identify the cards that most efficiently perform their role in a deck.

And your previous success with obscure decks is definitely, absolutely because Legacy in the good ol' days was a format full of deck-building geniuses who were rewarded for their novel approach and creative flair, and not because you were playing suboptimal decks against other suboptimal decks.

It's seriously too bad that Starcity came along and brought a bunch of idiots to Legacy, which used to be a much more diverse format where people just picked their favorite cards and jammed them all day long. You know, back in 2004 when Legacy was born and the internet didn't exist and Wizards hadn't even bought computers to post GP and PT decklists because they knew the world was full of honor-less net-deckers.




I mean, come on, dude. Top 8 lists at large Legacy events that have taken place after SCG started the Open Series in 2010 are not worse and less diverse than top 8 lists from before then, even just looking at US results. Look:

GP Philadelphia, 2005. 7 archetypes, two copies of one archetype. 500 players.
GP Columbus, 2007. 5 archetypes, three copies of one archetype. 883 players.
GP Chicago, 2009. 8 archetypes. 1230 players.

GP Columbus, 2010. 8 archetypes. 1296 players.
GP Providence, 2011. 8 archetypes. 1179 players.
GP Indianapolis, 2012. 5 archetypes, three copies of one archetype, two copies of one archetype. 1214 players.
GP Atlanta, 2012. 7 archetypes, two copies of one archetype. 905 players.
GP Denver, 2013. 6 archetypes, two copies of one archetype, two copies of one archetype. 700 players.
GP DC, 2013. 8 Archetypes. 1698 players.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

Herd behavior has a part to play but it's pretty hard to argue that there's a secret reason why blue shouldn't be as dominant as it is (or more.)



Even in science where people put lots of effort in and many years of hard work, they don't argue emotional. So why should we do that in a card game? I would really like to know when Legacy was more wide open than now, with data that supports it.

I.... what? Try this on for size:

"Even in science, emotions aren't important. So why should they be in deciding on what flavor of ice cream to order?"

That's about as much sense as you make right now.

Science is literally the discipline of empirical observation. It contains no value judgments beyond ethical considerations in experimentation.

It is the furthest thing you can actually get from, "How do we make this pretendy fun time game of pretending to be wizards more fun?"


Offtopic: For me you're always the guy who thought Gifts Ungiven was better than Jace and argued very stupid and emotional.

Except you don't think it's off topic, you think it's relevant. You're also going to have to come up with a better definition of "stupid and emotional" than "making a wrong prediction about a card's power level."

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't know about everyone, but I agree.

It would be unreasonable to expect total color balance in a format with 20+ years of cards.
It is perhaps a little surprising that every color is playable.

If we pretended that Wizards were incapable of managing the format, we might be surprised by that, but since it's been an explicitly stated goal of bannings in the past...


And you really think banning Brainstorm will make Delver, Miracles, Show&Tell and other decks disappear? They still have more consistency than nonblue decks, which is a design problem not a B&R list problem.

This is nonsensical. Purely and totally incoherent. Design isn't some abstract concept in Magic; it can only be interpreted through individual cards, and specifically for our purposes through tournament playable cards. How is it "a design problen not a B&R list problem" when the problem is specific cards- and especially one card, Brainstorm- that could be banned, and have been banned in other formats?

Also, yes, Miracles not having a way to easily, you know, set up the titular mechanic, and Show and Tell not having a quick answer to both discard and hands full of the wrong combo component would drastically weaken both decks. Delver would have better odds, but Brainstorm is clearly the most powerful card in Legacy and it's simply dishonest to pretend that losing it wouldn't affect the decks playing it. If it didn't matter they wouldn't play it at all.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

1. I agree that emotion plays a role in determining what a format should look like, but I think that overall it's more a normative question rather than a purely emotional one. Our emotions have to be checked by some sort of judgement in this area. That's ostensibly what the DCI is for, but they clearly have other goals as well.

All normative questions are emotional ones. There is no other basis on which to set normative standards or even goals.


2. Your work on Brainstorm has shown that it's ubiquitous, sure. What a lot of people disagree on is whether or not that's a problem. I certainly don't think it's bad because it supports a wide variety of archetypes (combo, control, midrange, tempo, etc.) at the cost of forcing these decks to have a blue component. While this incentivizes the "blue core" of Brainstorm, Force of Will, Fetchlands, and enough other blue cards to support Force, it doesn't require it, as shown by the combo decks that run blue only for cantrips. In my evaluation, having decks with similar cores that all try to win the game using different strategies (if sometimes similar tactics) is a feature, not a bug. It means that the high cost of entry into Legacy is somewhat blunted because it's easy to move your blue core into a different deck while still being able to use your ~$2000 USD investment in Forces, Blue Fetches, and Blue Duals once you've bought in.

I don't think that's significant blunting, especially since that ubiquity helps drive the cost of those particular cards; a lot of that's getting into a separate supply issue though.

Regardless, you can feel free to say, "I don't think a blue-dominant metagame is a problem," fine, although I strongly disagree, my post was in response to the notion that 1) My arguments were based in emotion, and those of others implicitly weren't and 2) The idea that I in particular don't bring facts to the table which you admit is not true.

[Megadeus]

I'm perfectly fine with Blue being the best color. However at the point where it is like 80-85% of the top tables is when it becomes a tad ridiculous. I'm honestly astounded whenever a top 16 of an SCG is even 8/16 (and a lot of the time I bet those are the smaller tournaments which means less rounds for the non blue decks to get fucked by variance). Just give us another goddamn borderline unplayable card from the ban list. Is it that much to ask for?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Ban Brainstorm, unban Survival/Vise/MindTwist. Bamf. Done.

[Megadeus]

At this point, I'd take anything

[Dice_Box]

I really hope they don't Unban survival. Of all the cards people list as safe, this and Jar scare me the most. I just don't feel that they are safe. All the recent printings of powerful creatures only help to enhance that fear.

[btm10]

At this point, I'd take anything

As far as unbanning goes? Absolutely. I think almost the entire community is together on Black Vise and Earthcraft with an only slightly smaller group also agreeing on Mind Twist. Personally, I'd like to see Survival and Mental Misstep unbanned as well.

[rancOr_]

Voting for a ban on brainstorm is short minded.. It would make the format worse(way more combo). I can see unbanning Survival/(mind twist/black vise) though as the card quality went up and we have plenty of answers for cards like that now..

[Zombie]

Is the risk of the number of not-fun-for-most games increasing worth a line less on the ban list? So many people argue Vise/Twist should be unbanned because they would do nothing. But they do nothing just as surely on the ban list. Are there any actually positive arguments for them? How would the format become more fun if those cards saw the light of day? Delver decks with two playsets of Delver sounds fun, doesn't it?

[iamajellydonut]

I think almost the entire community is together on Black Vise and Earthcraft

It's like jailing teddy bears.

[Megadeus]

Is the risk of the number of not-fun-for-most games increasing worth a line less on the ban list? So many people argue Vise/Twist should be unbanned because they would do nothing. But they do nothing just as surely on the ban list. Are there any actually positive arguments for them? How would the format become more fun if those cards saw the light of day? Delver decks with two playsets of Delver sounds fun, doesn't it?

Why should cards be banned for fun level? If that were the case High Tide would be super banned because that is simply not an exciting deck to play against. There would be decks that would play these cards, but not dominate the meta. Best case, they help to make a prison strategy/aggro a bit more viable, worst case it does nothing? Like Land Tax. Sure it doesn't do anything on a massive scale, but it got people excited to try it out, and I know a few locals still play it because it is an interesting build around card. It isn't like any effort is exerted in unbanning a card.

[(nameless one)]

Voting for a ban on brainstorm is short minded.. It would make the format worse(way more combo). I can see unbanning Survival/(mind twist/black vise) though as the card quality went up and we have plenty of answers for cards like that now..

I'm pretty sure Brainstorm + Fetchlands is great for finding combo pieces.

Why can't we just ban Fetchlands? Fetchlands nerf Brainstorm, SDTop, Deathrite Shaman, Super Jace, and to some extent Goyfs.

It also makes Wasteland and Blood Moon better.

[HammerAndSickled]

A smaller banned list is in my opinion a good thing intrinsically, so any decisions which seemingly "do nothing" should default to an unban. A card being banned should mean that said card is intrinsically harmful to the format, and I don't believe the current list exemplifies that at all. In addition to the obvious Earthcraft/Twist/Vise that are commonly spoken of, I think Windfall is entirely safe, and perhaps even Bargain or Mind's Desire, which need extensive testing but instinctually I believe they aren't notably better than current options.

[Megadeus]

A smaller banned list is in my opinion a good thing intrinsically, so any decisions which seemingly "do nothing" should default to an unban. A card being banned should mean that said card is intrinsically harmful to the format, and I don't believe the current list exemplifies that at all. In addition to the obvious Earthcraft/Twist/Vise that are commonly spoken of, I think Windfall is entirely safe, and perhaps even Bargain or Mind's Desire, which need extensive testing but instinctually I believe they aren't notably better than current options.

No idea on Windfall, but I'm not sold. Bargain is kinda meh. On the fence. Mind's Desire on the other hand... Completely insane.

[Dice_Box]

I'm pretty sure Brainstorm + Fetchlands is great for finding combo pieces.

Why can't we just ban Fetchlands? Fetchlands nerf Brainstorm, SDTop, Deathrite Shaman, Super Jace, and to some extent Goyfs.

It also makes Wasteland and Blood Moon better.
Please no. Banning Brainstorm would not make me leave the format, killing my land base on the other hand, will. The greatest part of Legacy is the complex interactions that come from all these moving pieces and I really don't want to feel like a Neanderthal slinging shit around like some standard player.

[btm10]

Is the risk of the number of not-fun-for-most games increasing worth a line less on the ban list? So many people argue Vise/Twist should be unbanned because they would do nothing. But they do nothing just as surely on the ban list. Are there any actually positive arguments for them? How would the format become more fun if those cards saw the light of day? Delver decks with two playsets of Delver sounds fun, doesn't it?

Vise might make an artifact prison deck or aggro-Tezz deck better; Earthcraft has a very good chance of making Enchantress tier 1.5 rather than a useless relic. Mind Twist could fit into a Tezz-control strategy or be slotted into BUG Control as a mid- or late-game bomb.


A smaller banned list is in my opinion a good thing intrinsically, so any decisions which seemingly "do nothing" should default to an unban. A card being banned should mean that said card is intrinsically harmful to the format, and I don't believe the current list exemplifies that at all. In addition to the obvious Earthcraft/Twist/Vise that are commonly spoken of, I think Windfall is entirely safe, and perhaps even Bargain or Mind's Desire, which need extensive testing but instinctually I believe they aren't notably better than current options.

I agree that a smaller banned list is a worthwhile goal in and of itself. I think that Bargain is pretty scary, but I'd entertain arguments. Windfall I think is even scarier but that might be colored by how it gets used in Vintage; in Legacy, our combo decks have a harder time making blue mana, don't generally run Draw7s, and don't have Yawgmoth's Will. That being said, a deck with 4 LED, 4 Windfall seems pretty busted. Mind's Desire is broken, broken, broken. Short of banning all of Legacy's spell-based mana acceleration, I can't think of how to make that card safe.

[Scott]

He did; I apologize for suggesting otherwise, although Manaless Dredge is one of those decks that really only succeeds when people skimp on graveyard hate, so I suppose I should broaden my statement to qualify that while some of these other decks can succeed a few times, they're unlikely to keep doing so because they rely heavily on exploiting metagame vulnerabilities that people can adjust for in the existing shells.


...
And your previous success with obscure decks is definitely, absolutely because Legacy in the good ol' days was a format full of deck-building geniuses who were rewarded for their novel approach and creative flair, and not because you were playing suboptimal decks against other suboptimal decks.
...


I think he also innovated and placed in large events with the difficult to hose from the sideboard The Gate, with the not obscure deck Imperial Painter, and very recently with Manaless Dredge, to address the various idea that his deck innovations were easily hoseable, suboptimal and now irrelevant, or happened in a different era.

[Teveshszat]

Hello,

please try to quit the thinking that a ban list is there to make the fromat more fun. A ban lists one and only goal should be to balance
the tournement scence to a level were as fiew as possible things like the egg deck or flash can happen.
Saying that this card is unfun in the most of the games toaly pointless becasue in non tournement games you have the desscion to not
just ban this card for your casual games every moment.

In this context banning brainstorm is not a good option because it increases consitency and therefore the skill level needed to play whil derceaseing
the luckfactor and frustrating unlucky tournement drops like round 7 manascrew with a 6/1 and 8 rounds for Top 8.
Also fetchlands are the same increasing consitency is a good thing if you look for tournement play so fetchlands are fine too.

If you want to ban something that bad because you feel blue is to strong ban the TNN because this card does not provide any advantage in the great
picture but again there are answers against it allready which just wanted to be played if you refuse then you should overthink what you expect from
the game you play.

For the smaller banned list I have to agree if after enough testing a card is refered as not totally broken like Mental Missstep then you can just unban this card
and get a smaller list while providing more cards to experiment with.

best Regards Teveshszat

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I'm pretty sure Brainstorm + Fetchlands is great for finding combo pieces.

Why can't we just ban Fetchlands? Fetchlands nerf Brainstorm, SDTop, Deathrite Shaman, Super Jace, and to some extent Goyfs.

It also makes Wasteland and Blood Moon better.

Literally no one wants this, people enjoy having consistent mana and playing their spells, it makes for much more enjoyable and interesting games than "whelp. lost cause I couldn't draw a x mana source"

[Jon]

Hello,


If you want to ban something that bad because you feel blue is to strong ban the TNN because this card does not provide any advantage in the great
picture but again there are answers against it allready which just wanted to be played if you refuse then you should overthink what you expect from
the game you play.

best Regards Teveshszat

We can deal with TNN easily as it costs 3 mana. Delver is a different story.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Why should cards be banned for fun level?

Because- and I know that this is a shocking and controversial premise for some- Magic is a game.



Hello,

please try to quit the thinking that a ban list is there to make the fromat more fun. A ban lists one and only goal should be to balance
the tournement scence to a level were as fiew as possible things like the egg deck or flash can happen.

Is this goal distilled from the raw aether of space and time? Did you uncover the moment of creation, ex nihilo, and find it embedded in universal first principles?

I am assuming not so you are going to have to explain why this should be the goal, and why those reasons are unrelated to people having fun.

[Teveshszat]

Hello,


Is this goal distilled from the raw aether of space and time? Did you uncover the moment of creation, ex nihilo, and find it embedded in universal first principles?

I am assuming not so you are going to have to explain why this should be the goal, and why those reasons are unrelated to people having fun.

so you go the complex way for an asumtion like that necassary but don´t know why I state that fun is something unrealted to a ban and restricted list?

Ok I try to explain it.


Fun is something you have you you don´t you will chose were you get it and were not. You can have fun when playing tournmenets or not and maybe if you don´t you avoid them.
But don´t confuse going to a tournment wihtout proper preperation and mindset( play to win and do anything neccassary) and complaining about the bad results and not having fun in the tournement becaucse card X is to strong. A quick example is TNN there are a number of ways (Council Jugdement, Terminus, Lilana etc) which solve this you just have to play them.
But most of the time this problem happens and then we have an escalating ban threat with wishes to ban cards which are not basicly overpowered but just very strong.
Because the first thing is most of the time what happend and the cards which are to strong for the tournements are allways banned as soon as possible see mental missstep or flash.
Most players like me who take fun in tournements acutally draw this out of the comeption and the way of learning and optimizing their decks until they can beat the other and will play the most effient deck in my prefered category to win.

There are other people who are don´t thinkinking it is fun to only play the most optimal choice and take fun in playing other decks then the DTBs. This people try to get their in equal games in private rounds were some cards are to broken to use.

But a banned list is nothing what should try to enhance the kitchentable but theoffical tournements for which you pay an extra sum of money to get there and therefore should help to establish a frame in which magic can played at this level without the danger of getting to hard out of control like it did in the Urza T2 times were people just rolled dices to know who would win the game instead of playing and to a certain degree in the times of flash and mental misstep.

If this is not clear and I think sicne i am writing in a foreign language this two articles shoudl help to understand what I am trying to say

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

Best regards Teveshszat

Ps I want a prufe for you assumtion that I not indeed uncovered all this and just don´t see a reason to tell the people.^^

[clavio]

Trained Armodon. Wooooooooooooo

[JBlaze]

Is this goal distilled from the raw aether of space and time? Did you uncover the moment of creation, ex nihilo, and find it embedded in universal first principles?

I am assuming not so you are going to have to explain why this should be the goal, and why those reasons are unrelated to people having fun.

Because "Fun" is far to subjective a concept. Brainstorm is a great example, I like Brainstorm I think it is a fun card you think it's not. There is no right and wrong it's a matter of opinion, everyone is entitled to theirs. Now if you want to talk about power level or ubiquity in high level play those are things that we can gather data to support arguments and as such have a framework the enables us to actually have a reasonable debate.

[bakofried]

Folks, as much as we spend on Magic, we have to realize it's a game. Games can be competitive, but we're not in the Olympics here; it's a trading card game. A decent estimate of fun is the viability of a wide number of decks: after all, that's why we pick Legacy and not some boring format like standard.

Which wraps around to my real point: if you enjoy the decrease of variance in the format, fuck off and play Mono-Black Devotion mirrors. I want to see more combo and more aggro, not Delver and midrange forced down my throat.

[Megadeus]

Because- and I know that this is a shocking and controversial premise for some- Magic is a game.




Is this goal distilled from the raw aether of space and time? Did you uncover the moment of creation, ex nihilo, and find it embedded in universal first principles?

I am assuming not so you are going to have to explain why this should be the goal, and why those reasons are unrelated to people having fun.

Fun is subjective. I really love LD. Recurring Wastelands, Sinkhole, Vindicate, Stone Rain (in modern) are some of my favorite things to do. That isn't "fun" to most people. So should we ban things like Sinkhole and anything that can recur a Wasteland because some people don't think it is fun?

[Teveshszat]

Hello,

Tournements are competetive it doesn´t matter if we play a card game like magic poker or L5R or if we play chess or League of Legends or Counter Strike or Streetfighter or throwing a Disk if you paticipate you want to win and you have fun in trying to achive this.


Folks, as much as we spend on Magic, we have to realize it's a game. Games can be competitive, but we're not in the Olympics here; it's a trading card game. A decent estimate of fun is the viability of a wide number of decks: after all, that's why we pick Legacy and not some boring format like standard.

And there we go.
That exactly what I mean. You are totaly right when you are only talking about what you are playing in private circles. When you going to a tournment you are wrong because each tounement is started with the intend of a competition and each player who participates acept that the he want this with all consequences like
playing to win and playing a comeptitive decks.

So i would suggest we acept that if we go to a tournement we play to win and from this on we can discuss about competetive card power levels which we can prove and not about a fun or unfun score.

Best Regards Teveshszat

[Lord Seth]

So should we ban things like Sinkhole and anything that can recur a Wasteland because some people don't think it is fun?I don't think those need bannings, not because they're unfun, but because (in current Legacy) they're not particularly good. Decks with land destruction as the primary focus haven't been viable for quite some time.

[menace13]

So i would suggest we acept that if we go to a tournement we play to win and from this on we can discuss about competetive card power levels which we can prove and not about a fun or unfun score.
Well, to be fair. It's not like any card currently considered not fun is a weak card in power level. Like, no one is saying Chub Toads are not fun. Quite the contrary. Chub Toads are loads of fun. See?

[HrishiQQ]

So i would suggest we acept that if we go to a tournement we play to win and from this on we can discuss about competetive card power levels which we can prove and not about a fun or unfun score.

One could argue that a format where everybody plays the same deck could be the most competitive since variance in lowered (deck choice).

I don't suppose anybody would enjoy such a format, however competitive it might be. This is why you cannot simply look at the competitive aspect and not at other things.

[ESG]

Fun is subjective. I really love LD. Recurring Wastelands, Sinkhole, Vindicate, Stone Rain (in modern) are some of my favorite things to do. That isn't "fun" to most people. So should we ban things like Sinkhole and anything that can recur a Wasteland because some people don't think it is fun?

WOTC basically already did this, which is why Stone Rain is never coming back. If you want to blow up a land, you're going to be paying 4 or more for it.

For Legacy specifically, the best land destruction spell costs U.

[sjmcc13]

Well, to be fair. It's not like any card currently considered not fun is a weak card in power level. Like, no one is saying Chub Toads are not fun. Quite the contrary. Chub Toads are loads of fun. See?

That would be because the cards people complain about under the pretense of being 'unfun' are almost always cards that they do not run and either shut their deck down (as they see it), or help their opponent win in ways they do not like.

It also has a tendency to be used as a scapegoat for a players own failings/weakensses. Counterspell is a classic example of a "unfun" card because to many people can not stand having their spells not resolve, exagerate the effects of it and zero in on it as the "reason" that they lost when they could have won had they played better (I have seen way to many rants over the years about "unfun decks" that "counter everything" when they have 6 or less counters main deck).

One of magic's greatest strengths as a game is that you can make different decks that attack your opponent from different angles and along different axies of play. However too often players complain about decks that do not interact the same way they do (drop creature, turn it sideways) as being "unfun" and "unfair" because those decks tend to have a defense and attack from an angel that they are not prepared to defend against, even when there are ways they could easily defend against those decks.

[bakofried]

Hello,

Tournements are competetive it doesn´t matter if we play a card game like magic poker or L5R or if we play chess or League of Legends or Counter Strike or Streetfighter or throwing a Disk if you paticipate you want to win and you have fun in trying to achive this.



And there we go.
That exactly what I mean. You are totaly right when you are only talking about what you are playing in private circles. When you going to a tournment you are wrong because each tounement is started with the intend of a competition and each player who participates acept that the he want this with all consequences like
playing to win and playing a comeptitive decks.

So i would suggest we acept that if we go to a tournement we play to win and from this on we can discuss about competetive card power levels which we can prove and not about a fun or unfun score.

Best Regards Teveshszat

It seems you missed the second part of my post. Can I interest you in the varied intricacies of the Mono-Black Devotion vs. Mono-Blue Devotion match up?

I don't know where the idea shifted: when the brainstorm supporters were saying that it was fun to them I could respect it, even if I thought otherwise. Now the trend is to say that fun doesn't matter? Jesus H Christ, that's a load of horseshit. Competition isn't at odds with fun. You can have a high powered and diverse meta. If you're really so afraid of tournament variance, go play standard.

[menace13]

That would be because the cards people complain about under the pretense of being 'unfun' are almost always cards that they do not run and either shut their deck down (as they see it), or help their opponent win in ways they do not like.

It also has a tendency to be used as a scapegoat for a players own failings/weakensses.

However too often players complain about decks that do not interact the same way they do (drop creature, turn it sideways) as being "unfun" and "unfair" because those decks tend to have a defense and attack from an angel that they are not prepared to defend against, even when there are ways they could easily defend against those decks.
Could also be that cards people deemed unfun are played because theyre the best slot by far. Polarizing deck lists to answer them, run them, or lose to them. Too many times players crutch on to something dominant because lack of skill to not be hand held by outright stifling design of ubiquitous cards and decks. Fearful of bans because theyll no longer have such a parachute to make up for failing in play skill. Easily defending against a deck doesnt make anything less powerful. The decks and cards in discussion are almost always backed by perpetual blue shells. The fact that the b&r list for legacy has more blue cards banned on it than any other color is telling.

[davelin]

That would be because the cards people complain about under the pretense of being 'unfun' are almost always cards that they do not run and either shut their deck down (as they see it), or help their opponent win in ways they do not like.

It also has a tendency to be used as a scapegoat for a players own failings/weakensses. Counterspell is a classic example of a "unfun" card because to many people can not stand having their spells not resolve, exagerate the effects of it and zero in on it as the "reason" that they lost when they could have won had they played better (I have seen way to many rants over the years about "unfun decks" that "counter everything" when they have 6 or less counters main deck).

One of magic's greatest strengths as a game is that you can make different decks that attack your opponent from different angles and along different axies of play. However too often players complain about decks that do not interact the same way they do (drop creature, turn it sideways) as being "unfun" and "unfair" because those decks tend to have a defense and attack from an angel that they are not prepared to defend against, even when there are ways they could easily defend against those decks.

Is it truly hard to believe that folks can deem a subset of cards as "unfun" without scapegoating? I think you underestimate many players or just play with those who complain a lot. I'm sure there are many delver.dec players who agree that a card such as Wasteland or Hymn could be considered not very enjoyable to play against, even though they are running such cards themselves.

Regarding your argument of different angles of attack, years of design and card choices has narrowed down those viable ways to attack to a smaller subset of cards to even the point where no interaction between the pieces has to be really considered. With cards such as Delver, Stoneforge, Goyf, Wasteland, Bolt, StP, Brainstorm, Force, etc. you can just jam these most efficient and effect threats in a deck and call it a day.

[Dice_Box]

Just a thought, but when I am playing for money, your fun doesn't mean a dam thing to me. On a Tuesday night, yea I will play for fun. But on a Sunday fucking get with it. I am going to play the meanest, most effective thing I can. I don't care if I waste everything you have, Stifle everything and smack you to death with a Goyf, on that day, winning is everything and your just in my way.

So when someone talks about fun in legacy, I tune out, because on a weekday game at your local store I assume we are all there for fun, but at an event, sit down, shut up and play the dam game. Because at that point, fun is not even in this solar system.

[Teveshszat]

Hello


bakofried
I don't know where the idea shifted: when the brainstorm supporters were saying that it was fun to them I could respect it, even if I thought otherwise. Now the trend is to say that fun doesn't matter? Jesus H Christ, that's a load of horseshit. Competition isn't at odds with fun. You can have a high powered and diverse meta. If you're really so afraid of tournament variance, go play standard.

this Idea never shifted for me I just removed the excuses out of it for both sides. Playing Brainstorm for fun is as much as an excuse as saying counterspell is unfun to play against for the lack of a better stratgy against it.
Also I think you don´t want to understand or are not able to do because I allready said that it actually makes fun to play in competition but this requires the right mindset which is not I go with my pet deck their and expect to win, ok if you pet deck is a deck to beat this can happen, but go their to win and play the deck out of the competitive ones which suits yiu the most. This will also prevent whining about the seminlgy to strong card etc.


menace13
Could also be that cards people deemed unfun are played because theyre the best slot by far. Polarizing deck lists to answer them, run them, or lose to them. Too many times players crutch on to something dominant because lack of skill to not be hand held by outright stifling design of ubiquitous cards and decks. Fearful of bans because theyll no longer have such a parachute to make up for failing. [Quote]

That is simply not right I mean if you play in a cometition there is no fear there is only one thought which decks are the most efficient ones and which of them I can play to the best of my ability to win. That is the reason why you don´t see so much diversity because proven consitensy is higher evaluated.
If someone actually invent a new gvreat deck this would happen before a tournement and the testing too.

[QUOTE] Dice_Box
So when someone talks about fun in legacy, I tune out, because on a weekday game at your local store I assume we are all there for fun, but at an event, sit down, shut up and play the dam game. Because at that point, fun is not even in this solar system.

That is totally right and at the local Gamestore event you can just agree to ban so called unfun cards to provide a frame were everybody can have fun but then you would lose one opportunity to test your deck for the real competition. So here you have to descide but when you decide against the ban again don´t come and say the card x is unfun because actually only your deck is lacking at answers and then you shoud solve this problem first instead of making excuses.

Best Regards Teveshszat

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

If your motivation to play Magic is to win money, especially Legacy, you are unfathomably bad at decision making and optimization and you should probably just give someone else power of attorney over everything you do for the rest of your life because it's going to be damn close to impossible for them to do a worse job of it than you.

Winning money is a side effect of being good at Magic that a pretty small number of people enjoy on anything like a regular basis, and a much larger number of people aspire to, usually pretty shittily and grumpily.

But it is a side effect.

There are lots of tournament scenes where you could make money and lots of other more profitable career options for that matter. Try again. You don't play Magic to make money, at any level of competitiveness. So why?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

There's a bunch of posts saying, fun is subjective so we can't do anything with it, so I'll just briefly reply to them all:


So what? What the fuck are you talking about? Everything normative is subjective. It is a subjective opinion that it is better to live than die. "Good" is not less subjective than "fun," but "good" is the guiding principle in personal morality and ethics and decision-making, in state policy, in law. In things a lot more important (in a subjective analysis) than a game of Magic.

And the idea that banned list decisions aren't made on the basis of fun ignores Wizards' stated reasons for every banned list decision ever. Fun is indeed their primary motive (well their primary motive is profit, but to that end our fun is presumed to be our primary motive, correctly.)

HrishiQQ basically demolishes this argument, which is why everyone seems to have ignored his post:


One could argue that a format where everybody plays the same deck could be the most competitive since variance in lowered (deck choice).

I don't suppose anybody would enjoy such a format, however competitive it might be. This is why you cannot simply look at the competitive aspect and not at other things.

[Dice_Box]

I don't play magic to win money, I play for a few reasons. It is good for meeting people, it helps with critical and lateral thinking, it offers me a challenge and I enjoy that challenge. That's why I play Legacy over kitchen table. Because there is real challenge there.

But I separate those two. There is no reason that Legacy itself must be this the pinnacle of all fun. It's a format made for a challenge, made to test you mentally and I guess monetary. It's something that, I can enjoy playing on a Tuesday night with whatever I have at hand, but on Sunday I play for keeps. That's the separation. It's fun when it's social. When you and your mates are hanging out, when the guy that brings SnT gets heckled and everyone else has a great time. That's where the fun is. But when we are playing on a Sunday, your all in my way.

Because on that day, I am there for the challenge, bring your best, bring your toughest. Bring the most broken shit on that day. Because then, we are all playing for keeps and then nothing is sacred. That's what I mean. Yes I am playing for money, but that only heightens the tension. The prize is a goal, but not the ends itself. That challenge, metal, social, that's what it's about. I am not there to make you have fun, I am there to beat you into the floor.

To me, that feeling mixed with the real challenge of it, that's why I play. Because I am happy to throw a game on a weekday. Have fun, enjoy it and all be friends. But that rush, when I can get it, now that's why I play. Fun be dammed. I play to beat you. Your just another body o have to step over, go get out of my way.


Hope I answered your question.

Sent from my mobile, forgive spelling and grammatical errors.

[menace13]

That is simply not right I mean if you play in a cometition there is no fear there is only one thought which decks are the most efficient ones and which of them I can play to the best of my ability to win. That is the reason why you don´t see so much diversity because proven consitensy is higher evaluated.
If someone actually invent a new gvreat deck this would happen before a tournement and the testing too.
It's actually totally right. What the fuck does fear have to do with any of this? Obviously we ARE all going to play the best deck that we can. The reason why we dont see diversity is because of design of certain cards that are just plainly better than counterparts. Some people cannot see this and cling to their crutches because of lack of play skill. They need something that gives free win % points.



That is totally right and at the local Gamestore event you can just agree to ban so called unfun cards to provide a frame were everybody can have fun but then you would lose one opportunity to test your deck for the real competition. So here you have to descide but when you decide against the ban again don´t come and say the card x is unfun because actually only your deck is lacking at answers and then you shoud solve this problem first instead of making excuses
I dont know how you can be more wrong. Maybe you misunderstood because there is a language barrier. No one here is saying we cant beat this so ban it. That is simply false. Very rarely is something so oppressive it must be banned. Even in times of something being so warping people play cards to beat it. This narrows down the deck pool and stifles creativity because it is simply much better than everything else all around. Take Mystical Tutor. It was in the 2 best decks at the time of it's banning. Why was it banned? Think slowly.


Just a thought, but when I am playing for money, your fun doesn't mean a dam thing to me. On a Tuesday night, yea I will play for fun. But on a Sunday fucking get with it. I am going to play the meanest, most effective thing I can. I don't care if I waste everything you have, Stifle everything and smack you to death with a Goyf, on that day, winning is everything and your just in my way.

So when someone talks about fun in legacy, I tune out, because on a weekday game at your local store I assume we are all there for fun, but at an event, sit down, shut up and play the dam game. Because at that point, fun is not even in this solar system.
Many cards are unfun. Misstep to most was unfun and narrowed down the field to mostly blue decks. To me this is great fun, less diversity makes it easier for me to sb, meta against, and test/prepare for. Apparently an entire field of blue decks is unfun for most of our player base, so... Youre lacking insight and clearly spouting off erroneously. Take Flash as another example. Was it banned because it dominated the format. Or did they not allow it and took swift action against turn 1 capable blue decks? Right.

[Dice_Box]

Metal Misstep was banned for converging the colours, flash is broken, as is Black Lotus in this format. I don't see your point.

What I am saying is you can say "Brainstorm is bad for the format because of X" and I will read what you have to say, but if you say "Brainstorm is not fun for me" then I don't care. Because that is subjective and should not be a measuring stick I should have to use. Because I am not you and I likely play the game for different reasons to you. This means saying a card is unfun is to me like saying "All cards in the new boarder should be banned because I don't like it." That's not a valid reason and opinions change dependent on who you ask.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Because on that day, I am there for the challenge, bring your best, bring your toughest. Bring the most broken shit on that day. Because then, we are all playing for keeps and then nothing is sacred. That's what I mean.

I have no doubt you believe this but it isn't true. I know it's not true because there are many games that are more challenging than Magic. No less an authority than Jon Finkel, for instance, observed that one of the prime reasons people play Magic is because of the large luck element, because random scrubs can beat him, whereas a game like chess it's all skill.

Not to mention any number of other games that are about equally skill-testing as Magic, some with much larger EVs in dollar terms for skill.

I know it sounds good to you and to others in this thread to say, "I'm not about having fun, I'm here for some kind of pure raw spirit of abstract competition" or whatever, but no.


I am not there to make you have fun, I am there to beat you into the floor.

It would be easier to take you seriously if you didn't throw out internet tough guyisms like this.

Anyway, okay, you get a dopamine rush from serious competition. Hint: That's a form of fun.

There is a competitive vs. casual split in fun, but that is not what anyone itt is talking about. No one has suggested making the format more casual-friendly particularly, so this is a non-sequitor.

The argument is about making the game more fun. And stagnant metagames, while some people might find them comfortable because they don't require testing several areas of skill like adaptability, gauging the meta, creative deck design and sideboarding- are and have generally been viewed historically as "not fun," precisely because they don't test those skills.

You might be right that it maximizes your chances of winning to keep the format stagnant if those are skills you're worse at- but then really you're the one begging for the format to stay less competitive, less skill-testing, in order to give you an advantage.

Also:


Metal Misstep was banned for converging the colours

What? First of all, no, it explicitly wasn't; Wizards was very clear that they thought the card was problematic for increasing blue presence in the meta. Second of all, how would that be problematic in a fun-less perpsective?


flash is broken, as is Black Lotus in this format. I don't see your point.

What the fuck do you mean by "broken"?

[Lord Seth]

One could argue that a format where everybody plays the same deck could be the most competitive since variance in lowered (deck choice).

I don't suppose anybody would enjoy such a format, however competitive it might be. This is why you cannot simply look at the competitive aspect and not at other things.Actually, quite a number of people loved Caw-Blade Standard for the reasons you just gave.

Granted, a substantially higher number of people didn't like that Standard environment, but the level of skill required in the Caw-Blade mirror was something some players really enjoyed.

[Teveshszat]

Hello,

first I thank you for the great posts because its makes my day better.

But now I have to move to the scond part


menace13
I dont know how you can be more wrong. Maybe you misunderstood because there is a language barrier. No one here is saying we cant beat this so ban it. That is simply false. Very rarely is something so oppressive it must be banned. Even in times of something being so warping people play cards to beat it. This narrows down the deck pool and stifles creativity because it is simply much better than everything else all around. Take Mystical Tutor. It was in the 2 best decks at the time of it's banning. Why was it banned? Think slowly.

Nope I there is no language barrier in understanding but in writing thank for my grammar problem. Ang again I think you don´t get the point I want to make that there is a other mindset for competetive events then for just the dayly duels.

So I explain it this time as clear as possible

Mindest 1 ( Play to Win)

I want to win so I will evaluate each card after their strenght and play the best card in the given slot. Therefore I play the best given deck in my category to be able to
win. This also includes not to blame a card to be to stong but find an answer against it or if it is stronger then most other cards play it myself because the only important thing is the win. This not includes that you will not have fun because if you have this mindset winning=Fun and so are hard strugles against euqal decks.

Mind Set 2 (Play for fun)

this mindset is given to most player which want to play normaly but not regularly on greater events. Here you search for an entertaining way to be with your friends and
get time going. You evaluate cards after their strenght but sometimes decide to not play them because they are to strong or make the game against the decks which are playing them not fair for your current deck you want to play like the Counterspell stopping linear strategys which are based on 1 spell resolving.

So for tournments you will clearly be better of with mindset 1 and then you will have fun again because you now will not have the problem of thinking cards are to strong when they are not.


TheInfamousBearAssassin
I have no doubt you believe this but it isn't true. I know it's not true because there are many games that are more challenging than Magic. No less an authority than Jon Finkel, for instance, observed that one of the prime reasons people play Magic is because of the large luck element, because random scrubs can beat him, whereas a game like chess it's all skill.


I have to ask you not forget the grade of information in your example. Chess is a game with perfect information you can see, if skilled enough, all possible moves of the opponent. Magic in contrast to it is agame with incomplete information and mainly a sytsem were you win through resource management (cards,mana,life etc). What you think is luck is just possibility and is the reason why Recall, Brainstorm, Fetchlands,Top and Jace are so good because they increase consistency reduce variances and help you to play the game in your terms. Luck is hardly the reason you lose but your deck and how you bulided it is and ofcourse how you use the recources you have. Yes I addmit luck is not completly out of the spectrum of reasons why you lose but is not that often this reason as you might think.



what? First of all, no, it explicitly wasn't; Wizards was very clear that they thought the card was problematic for increasing blue presence in the meta.

That is right but not in the way you might thinnk. Yes the blue precence increasded drasticly but because of each deck was able to play Missstep thanks to the Mana cost and this led to the ting that all decks were partly blue even if they would normaly be mono Red Goblins.
That a counter which is able to counter any first turn play and camn played by all deck in addtion to starts like mountain lacky or Island top etc problamatic
is clear and therefore it was a reason to ban Missstep.

Ah for the onyl one deck discussion it was ver cool to play Ravanger back in Mirrodin Type 2 because the mirror was one of the hardest to play I can imagine in Type 2.
Also I don´t like Type 2 at the moment only because of the reason that Wizzards gave in to the no spell based deck whining and is printing not good Control and Counterspells anymore which kicked out the archetype I like to play ( creature less control).

Best Regards Teveshszat

[Dice_Box]

I have no doubt you believe this but it isn't true. I know it's not true because there are many games that are more challenging than Magic. No less an authority than Jon Finkel, for instance, observed that one of the prime reasons people play Magic is because of the large luck element, because random scrubs can beat him, whereas a game like chess it's all skill.

Not to mention any number of other games that are about equally skill-testing as Magic, some with much larger EVs in dollar terms for skill.

I know it sounds good to you and to others in this thread to say, "I'm not about having fun, I'm here for some kind of pure raw spirit of abstract competition" or whatever, but no.

Believe what you will, to me there is Competition and that is what draws to to COMPETITIVE magic over "four mates at a table" magic.



It would be easier to take you seriously if you didn't throw out internet tough guyisms like this.

I am not trying to be tough, I am trying to show what my mindset is. I am not out to fight anyone, be crazy guy whom you all think is going to beat you into the floor literally. I have had no fights since I left school and I am proud of that.

Anyway, okay, you get a dopamine rush from serious competition. Hint: That's a form of fun.

There is a competitive vs. casual split in fun, but that is not what anyone itt is talking about. No one has suggested making the format more casual-friendly particularly, so this is a non-sequitor.

The argument is about making the game more fun. And stagnant metagames, while some people might find them comfortable because they don't require testing several areas of skill like adaptability, gauging the meta, creative deck design and sideboarding- are and have generally been viewed historically as "not fun," precisely because they don't test those skills.

You might be right that it maximizes your chances of winning to keep the format stagnant if those are skills you're worse at- but then really you're the one begging for the format to stay less competitive, less skill-testing, in order to give you an advantage.

This is one of the reasons that having things change up so much when money is on the line is fun. Because people pull out diffrent, more powerful and crazy decks. The Meta changes and no one knows in what direction it will go for that one afternoon. That's part of the thrill.

Also:



What? First of all, no, it explicitly wasn't; Wizards was very clear that they thought the card was problematic for increasing blue presence in the meta. Second of all, how would that be problematic in a fun-less perpsective?

Conversion of the colours, into Blue. As for how is that problematic, because competition gets stifled and the format warps itself around that conversion.


What the fuck do you mean by "broken"?

I have not the faintest clue, why don't you look up the word. I am sure there is a few places where you can Google "Mtg" and "Broken" and you will come up with a sufficient answer.

Anyway, I have said what I wanted to say, I think mostly in my last post before this one. So I will part from this talk here. If you wish to continue this discourse, feel free to PM me.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You know the irony is that when Hulk-Flash was legal, there was a substantial contingent- even after the disaster of GP Columbus- that accused anyone who thought the card should be banned for being, as you say, "busted," of being casual n00bs who should go back to the kitchen table.

Any argument predicated on the notion that a call for banning means that the people involved are only interested in casual Magic can be and should be dismissed out of hand as ignorant straw-manning.

[menace13]

Metal Misstep was banned for converging the colours, flash is broken, as is Black Lotus in this format. I don't see your point.
Any card on the list is broken, as in black lotus in this format. I dont see your point. :rolleyes:


Flash only had one tournament. In that GP is took 3 top 8s. Banned shortly after. How did we see it is broken? How did the format attempt to adjust? Was it banned because it was too powerful and made the games UNFUN? Couldnt possibly be any correlation to fun and health and balance to a format? Only an idiot wouldnt see this. Why not unban Black Lotus? It's certainly fun to play with, isnt it? Right.

This is much of an I'm casual fun, keep my pet deck good as it is an I'm on crutches keep my pet dominant. Which is to say it isnt.

We're mostly all adults here or not young children. We all compete, we will all play the best deck we can to maximize our chances of winning. What you and Tesz seem to not be able to grasp is No one is even talking about that. It's like, a discussion on cards turns into You dont like it dont play.. Well then unban everything because I like it all, is perfectly reasonable in that regard as an other extreme.




Any argument predicated on the notion that a call for banning means that the people involved are only interested in casual Magic can be and should be dismissed out of hand as ignorant straw-manning.Their posts aren't the brightest.

[btm10]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault? I could easily be wrong about this, but it seems that current Storm decks are sufficiently color intensive and already stocked on Rituals that they wouldn't be totally thrilled to have an effectively one-shot mana rock/colorless Dark Ritual. For the same reason, I doubt that UB or UBR Tezzeret would run it. That (in my estimation) leaves Affinity and MUD as potential homes for it, and neither of those decks is exactly dominating the metagame. Am I totally off base? Is this just going to result in Affinity ruining everyone? Or would unbanning Vault just make Affinity and MUD more competitive?

[Undomian]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault? I could easily be wrong about this, but it seems that current Storm decks are sufficiently color intensive and already stocked on Rituals that they wouldn't be totally thrilled to have an effectively one-shot mana rock/colorless Dark Ritual. For the same reason, I doubt that UB or UBR Tezzeret would run it. That (in my estimation) leaves Affinity and MUD as potential homes for it, and neither of those decks is exactly dominating the metagame. Am I totally off base? Is this just going to result in Affinity ruining everyone? Or would unbanning Vault just make Affinity and MUD more competitive?

Chalice is also probably just better than Vault in a Tezz build.

[jamis]

My initial thought is that Mana Vault makes a turn one Trinisphere far too easy.

[rufus]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault?...

Reasonable to discuss, sure. Safe to unban? IMO not so much.

The fact that the vault stays in play is a big deal for cards like Goblin Welder or Trash For Treasure. :3: is useful for casting a bunch of strong cards like Goblin Charbelcher,Birthing Pod,Past in Flames, Faith's Reward, Gifts Ungiven, Dream Halls or Empty the Warrens. Heck, it's a fine accelerant to use for Intution or Show and Tell.

Edit: I wonder about the potential of Retract/Hurkyl's Recall with it as an artifact storm engine.

[[SLAYER]chaos]

The problem is in decks that would abuse vault it doesn't have a real drawback. It's just a strict upgrade to Grim Monolith and powers out super broken things on turn 1 at worst, and at best ends the game with belcher or storm fairly easily. Plus I don't think we don't want to go down the vintage route of having turn 1 lodestone golem be a thing that shows up too often.

[btm10]

Reasonable to discuss, sure. Safe to unban? IMO not so much.

The fact that the vault stays in play is a big deal for cards like Goblin Welder or Trash For Treasure. :3: is useful for casting a bunch of strong cards like Goblin Charbelcher,Birthing Pod,Past in Flames, Faith's Reward, Gifts Ungiven, Dream Halls or Empty the Warrens. Heck, it's a fine accelerant to use for Intution or Show and Tell.

Edit: I wonder about the potential of Retract/Hurkyl's Recall with it as an artifact storm engine.

The thing with those cards is that Welder currently doesn't have a home in any major archetype other than Painter, and he's far from broken there. Trash for Treasure isn't played in any deck, as far as I know. It is relevant for Belcher, but Belcher would still be a glass cannon even with Vault, so I'm not sure that it becomes a problem.

I guess it would get played in Show and Tell decks because it's good for both Dream Halls and Sneak Attack, but both of those strategies are already built to be slower than they have to be in order to be more resilient, and I'm not sure that Vault changes that. Gifts Ungiven isn't played at all anymore, nor is Faith's Reward (which I'm not sure was ever widely played in Legacy). So sure, it accelerates two Storm cards, but is it better for Storm decks than Rite of Flame or Dark Ritual? I guess you could build some sort of blue/artifact Storm deck that used Chromatic Sphere for color fixing, but I'm not sure that would be good enough to keep Vault banned.

So there are legitimate concerns, and I think Vault would see play, but I'm not convinced that it's still banworthy. It's not an obvious candidate for unbanning like Black Vise or Earthcraft, but it's debatable like Mind Twist, Mental Misstep, or Survival.


My initial thought is that Mana Vault makes a turn one Trinisphere far too easy.

The thing is that you would need to have two very specific four-ofs (Trinisphere and Vault) and a land to make it work, and then you're not very far ahead unless you led on a Sol land or have one to follow up your first land. The thing that got Trinisphere restricted in Vintage isn't that it could come down on turn 1, it's the fact that a huge proportion of hands out of Workshop decks were capable of dropping Trinisphere on turn 1, basically ending the game there because the acceleration was either cheap, reusable artifact mana (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Moxen) or Shop itself, making the effect even more asymmetric than it otherwise would be. We don't have either of those issues in Legacy, and the decks that are interested in turn 1 Trinisphere aren't being kept out of tier 1 for lack of consistent turn 1 Trinisphere. And this ignores the fact that if you did lead on Sol land, Vault, Trinisphere, you're down 3 cards in hand, and both Sol lands have significant drawbacks from this point, whether it's Wastelanding yourself for your second land drop if you led on City, or having an artifact that pings you every turn in addition to your Ancient Tomb damage.

tl;dr - Turn 1 Land, Trinisphere is way less likely and way more symmetrical in Legacy than it is in Vintage, even with Vault.

Edit: The same argument basically applies to Lodestone Golem, although Lodestone is harder to play on turn 1 (you need to have all of Sol land, Vault, Lodestone in your opener) but leaves you in a much stronger position than Trinisphere.


Chalice is also probably just better than Vault in a Tezz build.

That's probably true.

[iamajellydonut]

The thing is that you would need to have two very specific four-ofs (Trinisphere and Vault) and a land to make it work, and then you're not very far ahead unless you led on a Sol land or have one to follow up your first land.

Edit: The same argument basically applies to Lodestone Golem, although Lodestone is harder to play on turn 1 (you need to have all of Sol land, Vault, Lodestone in your opener) but leaves you in a much stronger position than Trinisphere.

So, what you're saying is that Mana Vault is only absolutely incredible if the deck sees one of eight lands and another card?

[nedleeds]

To change the subject, briefly - is it reasonable to discuss unbanning Mana Vault?

What? Let's just unban Sol Ring.

You'd be giving dark ritual to every color in addition to making any kind of MUD deck pretty oppressive. Consider that MUD plays Grim Monolith which is a super shitastic Mana Vault. I understand it's utility wanes with a chalice on one which is another goal of MUD. Any sol land and mana vault is LSG. Storm deck would absolutely play it, it's a 1-3 mana ratio. You could probably just storm kill with Hurkyls Recall with 4 x Vault, 4 x LED, 4 x Petal.

How about turn 2 planeswalker of your choice with varying levels of soft counter mana to spare. Island, Mana Vault. Untap Island Tezzeret the Seeker. -1 find another Vault. Trinisphere. Miss my land drop next turn and +1. Cast Karn with Daze backup in case opponent has Spirit guide Spirit Guide Daze.

How about Mana Vault go ... untap Sneak Attack?

All of this is more interesting than Derp Delver. Derp Hoof and Derp Show and Tell but it's still broken.

[HammafistRoob]

All of this is more interesting than Derp Delver. Derp Hoof and Derp Show and Tell but it's still broken.
I don't think you even like Legacy.

[btm10]

So, what you're saying is that Mana Vault is only absolutely incredible if the deck sees one of eight lands and another card?


What? Let's just unban Sol Ring.

You'd be giving dark ritual to every color in addition to making any kind of MUD deck pretty oppressive. Consider that MUD plays Grim Monolith which is a super shitastic Mana Vault. I understand it's utility wanes with a chalice on one which is another goal of MUD. Any sol land and mana vault is LSG. Storm deck would absolutely play it, it's a 1-3 mana ratio. You could probably just storm kill with Hurkyls Recall with 4 x Vault, 4 x LED, 4 x Petal.

How about turn 2 planeswalker of your choice with varying levels of soft counter mana to spare. Island, Mana Vault. Untap Island Tezzeret the Seeker. -1 find another Vault. Trinisphere. Miss my land drop next turn and +1. Cast Karn with Daze backup in case opponent has Spirit guide Spirit Guide Daze.

How about Mana Vault go ... untap Sneak Attack?

All of this is more interesting than Derp Delver. Derp Hoof and Derp Show and Tell but it's still broken.

It is absolutely broken - but we already allow all sorts of broken things in this format. The power level of the plays you described above isn't out of line with reanimating Griselbrand on turn 1 with Daze/Force backup, or Derp Show and Tell, or RUG opening with Land, Delver into blind flip Delver, Waste you, Stifle your fetch. I'm fine with all of this, and I absolutely want more broken things in the format - I just want to it be more interesting broken things. MUD is one of those decks that's tantalizingly close to being on a par with the DTB decks, and it does things that no other deck in the format does. It's not a me-too Stoneforge/Delver/goodstuff deck, so why not give it a boost. It'll put another powerful deck into the top tier at the cost of...being broken on a similar level to everything else. If it pushes a new Storm deck over the edge, sounds good to me.

By all means, start the unbannings with things like Vise and Earthcraft, but is there any point in discussing either of those cards anymore? The holdouts on thinking they're still too good are unlikely to have their minds changed except by having the cards unbanned and seeing that nothing happened.

[rufus]

...
The thing with those cards is that Welder currently doesn't have a home in any major archetype other than Painter, and he's far from broken there. Trash for Treasure isn't played in any deck, as far as I know. It is relevant for Belcher, but Belcher would still be a glass cannon even with Vault, so I'm not sure that it becomes a problem.
...

Mana Vault might fit into Painter's Servant decks. (Or in their sideboard.)



...So there are legitimate concerns, and I think Vault would see play, but I'm not convinced that it's still banworthy. It's not an obvious candidate for unbanning like Black Vise or Earthcraft, but it's debatable like Mind Twist, Mental Misstep, or Survival. ...


Imagine, for a moment, a deck that features

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song

That's getting close to enough to loop Reforge the Soul.

[HrishiQQ]

I don't think you even like Legacy.

If legacy's powerful things are only supposed to be delver or show and derp, sure.

[btm10]

Mana Vault might fit into Painter's Servant decks. (Or in their sideboard.)



...So there are legitimate concerns, and I think Vault would see play, but I'm not convinced that it's still banworthy. It's not an obvious candidate for unbanning like Black Vise or Earthcraft, but it's debatable like Mind Twist, Mental Misstep, or Survival. ...


Imagine, for a moment, a deck that features

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song

That's getting close to enough to loop Reforge the Soul.

I think you're missing the point I made above - I understand that unbanned Mana Vault would enable broken things. I don't think an unbanned Mana Vault would enable things that are more broken than things that are currently part of routine Legacy play. And yeah, it might find its way into Painter.

[jamis]

The thing is that you would need to have two very specific four-ofs (Trinisphere and Vault) and a land to make it work, and then you're not very far ahead unless you led on a Sol land or have one to follow up your first land. The thing that got Trinisphere restricted in Vintage isn't that it could come down on turn 1, it's the fact that a huge proportion of hands out of Workshop decks were capable of dropping Trinisphere on turn 1, basically ending the game there because the acceleration was either cheap, reusable artifact mana (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Moxen) or Shop itself, making the effect even more asymmetric than it otherwise would be. We don't have either of those issues in Legacy, and the decks that are interested in turn 1 Trinisphere aren't being kept out of tier 1 for lack of consistent turn 1 Trinisphere. And this ignores the fact that if you did lead on Sol land, Vault, Trinisphere, you're down 3 cards in hand, and both Sol lands have significant drawbacks from this point, whether it's Wastelanding yourself for your second land drop if you led on City, or having an artifact that pings you every turn in addition to your Ancient Tomb damage.

tl;dr - Turn 1 Land, Trinisphere is way less likely and way more symmetrical in Legacy than it is in Vintage, even with Vault.

Edit: The same argument basically applies to Lodestone Golem, although Lodestone is harder to play on turn 1 (you need to have all of Sol land, Vault, Lodestone in your opener) but leaves you in a much stronger position than Trinisphere.
This is a fair point. I don't think it should be looked at as needing two specific four-ofs in the deck, since these decks are already capable of playing turn one Trinisphere via Grim monolith + Sol Land, or Sol Land and Mox Diamond or whatever. Mana Vault just raises the consistency of this. However, you raise a good point about Land into Vault into Trinisphere being much more symmetrical. You would need to follow up with a turn 2 Sol land to get a double Time Walk from the Trinisphere (and still need something to do with your mana, as well), so maybe it still isn't consistent enough to push such a deck over the edge of what's acceptable.

[Megadeus]

Mana vault is a fairly insane card. I definitely don't think it is safe. Having 7 mana on T2 with Sol lands (more consistently than now), or 5 mana (with color) on T2 is insane. Add in Monolith and you have yourself a fairly consistent insane ramp deck. It would however clash with MUD's Chalice of the Void, but it is probably still worth running. I just don't see this being something safe to un-ban. And like nedleeds said, it may be nutty in storm as well.

[nedleeds]

I don't think you even like Legacy.

I can't stand legacy right now, it's stale as a day old fart.

[iamajellydonut]

However, you raise a good point about Land into Vault into Trinisphere being much more symmetrical. You would need to follow up with a turn 2 Sol land to get a double Time Walk from the Trinisphere (and still need something to do with your mana, as well), so maybe it still isn't consistent enough to push such a deck over the edge of what's acceptable.

Wait, how can Land->Vault->Sphere be considered "meh" when Land->Grim->Sphere is impossible? Power-plays aside, consistency goes through the roof with Vault and there are many times when "unimpressive Sphere" is still incredibly desirable or at the very least better than no Sphere at all.

[btm10]

Wait, how can Land->Vault->Sphere be considered "meh" when Land->Grim->Sphere is impossible? Power-plays aside, consistency goes through the roof with Vault and there are many times when "unimpressive Sphere" is still incredibly desirable or at the very least better than no Sphere at all.

Sol Land, Monolith, Sphere is possible now; it happens with the exact same frequency with which MUD with Vault would open Sol Land, Vault, Lodestone in the hypothetical world where Mana Vault is unbanned. The former clearly isn't enough for MUD to be a dominant strategy, or even a consensus tier 1 deck. The latter is very strong, but is likely the deck's strongest opening. I just don't see the deck being dominant when its most broken starts are only as broken as the most broken starts other top decks are capable of, and objectively weaker than cheating Griselbrand into play, with protection, on turn 2, which is currently allowed.


Mana vault is a fairly insane card. I definitely don't think it is safe. Having 7 mana on T2 with Sol lands (more consistently than now), or 5 mana (with color) on T2 is insane. Add in Monolith and you have yourself a fairly consistent insane ramp deck. It would however clash with MUD's Chalice of the Void, but it is probably still worth running. I just don't see this being something safe to un-ban. And like nedleeds said, it may be nutty in storm as well.

I think it would power MUD up to a point where it's a legitimate tier 1 deck, but I don't see it overwhelming the format. The deck's actual nut draw probably kills on turn 3 by Forgemastering into Blightsteel and having natural Greaves, but it's unlikely that that would happen with any sort of consistency and would be easily disrupted. It's also not like a mono-brown MUD list would run much in the way of draw or manipulation, so 2-for-1s like Ancient Grudge would be exceptionally good at fighting back. And if you say "but [cards]Thirst for Knowledge/cards]...", remember that the more colored spells a deck runs, the worse all of that colorless mana gets. If an unbanning turns a Dack Fayden/ Welder deck into more of a thing, I say we all win.

And if a card simultaneously improves MUD's position and Storm's position, I think that MUD will keep Storm in check.

[iamajellydonut]

Sol Land, Monolith, Sphere is possible now

Sol Land is what you just said. What was previously talked about is "land". Wasteland, Island, Mountland, Glimmerland, Doesn't-Matter-Land, you can cast Trinisphere with Mana Vault. Something you implied was weak, but in actuality is something that you cannot do with Grim Monolith, and something that provides a huge amount of consistency.

[btm10]

Sol Land is what you just said. What was previously talked about is "land". Wasteland, Island, Mountland, Glimmerland, Doesn't-Matter-Land, you can cast Trinisphere with Mana Vault. Something you implied was weak, but in actuality is something that you cannot do with Grim Monolith, and something that provides a huge amount of consistency.

I didn't imply that it was weak. I explicitly said it wasn't broken enough to warrant a ban because it's on the same power level of what the top decks in the format are doing. I apologize for misreading your point; I was responding to the far more troubling scenario of Sol Land, Vault, Lodestone Golem that I imagined you brought up because I assumed that the weakness of randomly 3balling on turn 1 is considerably worse than it appears unless you have a strong and castable follow-up was apparent by this point in the discussion.

[Dark Ritual]

Mana vault was discussed at one point. Here's what I would love doing to wreck people on turn 1: Land, dark rit, mana vault, ad nauseam. Or sub ad nauseam for LED + infernal for ad nauseam with 1 floating. The card is batshit bonkers. And it isn't ever being unbanned before earthcraft and all the other shitty cards on the list that remain there still.

I love how everyone measures cards against show and tell griselbrand or reanimating griselbrand somehow. Griselbrand is way too good, end of story. In eternal griselbrand was bound to be broken but WotC printed it anyways to see if they could make a balanced yawg's bargain. Oh right, paying 1 life to draw a card is still busted in half what a surprise.

[Lemnear]

Mana vault was discussed at one point. Here's what I would love doing to wreck people on turn 1: Land, dark rit, mana vault, ad nauseam. Or sub ad nauseam for LED + infernal for ad nauseam with 1 floating. The card is batshit bonkers. And it isn't ever being unbanned before earthcraft and all the other shitty cards on the list that remain there still.

I love how everyone measures cards against show and tell griselbrand or reanimating griselbrand somehow. Griselbrand is way too good, end of story. In eternal griselbrand was bound to be broken but WotC printed it anyways to see if they could make a balanced yawg's bargain. Oh right, paying 1 life to draw a card is still busted in half what a surprise.

Yeah, drawing 1 card for 1 life is busted ... So add a 7/7 flying, lifelinking Body to it.

[btm10]

Mana vault was discussed at one point. Here's what I would love doing to wreck people on turn 1: Land, dark rit, mana vault, ad nauseam. Or sub ad nauseam for LED + infernal for ad nauseam with 1 floating. The card is batshit bonkers. And it isn't ever being unbanned before earthcraft and all the other shitty cards on the list that remain there still.

I love how everyone measures cards against show and tell griselbrand or reanimating griselbrand somehow. Griselbrand is way too good, end of story. In eternal griselbrand was bound to be broken but WotC printed it anyways to see if they could make a balanced yawg's bargain. Oh right, paying 1 life to draw a card is still busted in half what a surprise.


Cheating Griselbrand into play is a pretty good measure for what "the line" is - if it's better than that, it's too good. And I explicitly acknowledged that Mana Vault was more deserving of a ban than Vise, Earthcraft, Mind Twist, Survival and Mental Misstep. But those cards have been debated to death, so let's push the argument further. I'm confident that unbanning those cards is safe but think that it should be done one at a time, with probably a year in between each unbanning just to be sure. Of the cards on the banned list but not already mentioned, Vault really does seem like the safest - Storm is the "problem" deck that could make the best use of it, while MUD would also get a major boost and likely be able to keep Storm from getting out of hand.

I'm largely ( though not entirely) playing devil's advocate on Vault. I think it's a card about which serious discussion can be had and that there are good arguments for leaving it banned as well as for unbanning it.

[Dark Ritual]

Cheating Griselbrand into play is a pretty good measure for what "the line" is - if it's better than that, it's too good. And I explicitly acknowledged that Mana Vault was more deserving of a ban than Vise, Earthcraft, Mind Twist, Survival and Mental Misstep. But those cards have been debated to death, so let's push the argument further. I'm confident that unbanning those cards is safe but think that it should be done one at a time, with probably a year in between each unbanning just to be sure. Of the cards on the banned list but not already mentioned, Vault really does seem like the safest - Storm is the "problem" deck that could make the best use of it, while MUD would also get a major boost and likely be able to keep Storm from getting out of hand.

I'm largely ( though not entirely) playing devil's advocate on Vault. I think it's a card about which serious discussion can be had and that there are good arguments for leaving it banned as well as for unbanning it.

Mental misstep wasn't safe without snapcaster. With snapcaster? I shudder to see what would emerge from that potent combination. It isn't safe now. It will likely never be safe as it is insane, pay 2 life to gain a mana on your opponent as well as counter half their deck.

Vise, craft, and twist are so safe it isn't funny agree with that. They could unban all 3 at once and nothing major would happen.

Survival is one I disagree with greatly though. It would be everywhere in legacy. And it only gets better with each new set/as more creatures are printed. Nothing has changed to make survival fair since it was banned. Everyone auto points to deathrite like it's unbeatable for survival. Hint: it isn't. Decay sounds nice until they tutor e witness in response to it/effectively counter decay.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I agree that Survival would be good, but disagree that nothing has changed since it was banned. Things that have changed:

Surgical Extraction, Abrupt Decay, Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman, Phyrexian Revoker.

[Lemnear]

I agree that Survival would be good, but disagree that nothing has changed since it was banned. Things that have changed:

Surgical Extraction, Abrupt Decay, Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman, Phyrexian Revoker.

Tbh, there was a lot of stuff against SotF available before too, but it was pointless as the Shell was ab aggro deck. Hate out the graveyard? No problem. Deal with me dropping Goyfs and KotR each round!.

It would be hilarious seeing DRS and Shardless Agent being run alongside SotF to Tutor for Griselbrand and Loyal Retainers to cheat the Demon into play ... Also stuff which wasn't available during the second Survival era

[btm10]

Tbh, there was a lot of stuff against SotF available before too, but it was pointless as the Shell was ab aggro deck. Hate out the graveyard? No problem. Deal with me dropping Goyfs and KotR each round!.

It would be hilarious seeing DRS and Shardless Agent being run alongside SotF to Tutor for Griselbrand and Loyal Retainers to cheat the Demon into play ... Also stuff which wasn't available during the second Survival era


Mental misstep wasn't safe without snapcaster. With snapcaster? I shudder to see what would emerge from that potent combination. It isn't safe now. It will likely never be safe as it is insane, pay 2 life to gain a mana on your opponent as well as counter half their deck.

Vise, craft, and twist are so safe it isn't funny agree with that. They could unban all 3 at once and nothing major would happen.

Survival is one I disagree with greatly though. It would be everywhere in legacy. And it only gets better with each new set/as more creatures are printed. Nothing has changed to make survival fair since it was banned. Everyone auto points to deathrite like it's unbeatable for survival. Hint: it isn't. Decay sounds nice until they tutor e witness in response to it/effectively counter decay.

I think that the format wasn't given enough time to adapt to Mental Misstep. It had what, three months before getting the axe? In January of this year people were still whining about True-Name Nemesis, which forced people to alter their deckbuilding (and to a lesser extent, playing) in a much less fundamental way than Misstep did, so the short-run impacts were significant. But by now, 9 months in, we've got a pretty solid handle on TNN - RUG is even back in the Decks to Beat forum. I think that a card should have to be problematic for a minimum of 6-9 months, and preferably a year, before a ban is considered for Legacy. R&D fortunately has learned not to make cards like Memory Jar and Mind's Desire that require emergency bans, so it's unlikely that any real disasters would crop up in that period and people would have time to adjust.

On Survival - I don't think it would be as ubiquitous as either of you do. Aside from the fact that a Shardless Agent Survival list might be a top deck (and I emphasize might), I hardly see it being a totally dominant strategy. I think you're writing off the quality of graveyard hate that's been printed since the card was banned too easily. Cage shuts down the Reanimation variants just as well as Rest in Peace does and costs less while fitting into any deck other than Manaless Dredge. So the not-fragile versions of Survival (or a Survival deck's backup plan) would be UGX or GXY value creatures. I just don't see it becoming a huge problem if we're given time to adjust to it.

[bakofried]

If the bar is Griselbrand, I don't think Survival's ban is warranted anymore.

[Lemnear]

If the bar is Griselbrand, I don't think Survival's ban is warranted anymore.

Except that Survival would give every Gx deck the ability to slam Emrakul, Griselbrand or Vengevines, a toolbox and a Source for constant threat establishing.

I don't see why you guys think that the format needs even more Griselbrands, but this time in Form of a "single card combo" (+random creature) instead of Griselbrand/Emrakul + S&T/SneakAttack, which also does it's dirty work if your graveyard is shut

[btm10]

If the bar is Griselbrand, I don't think Survival's ban is warranted anymore.

I'm just speculating on that, but it seems like the DCI is fine with Griselbrand showing up sometimes on turn 1 or 2 and reliably on turn 3 out of Reanimator decks and reliably on turn 4-5 out of Sneak and Show. I can't think of any situations that they allow that are less fun or more broken, so that's the standard I'm arguing from, and trying to be consistent about it.

Edit: I fail to see how a Survival-Griselbrand (or Emrakul, or Iona) strategy would operate if its graveyard was shut down. Sure, it would still have the ability to hardcast Vengevines and Knights, but that's hardly OP. Vengevine is actually one of the harder cards to deal with in that situation because it can't be Abrupt Decayed, but it dies to everything else.

[Lemnear]

I'm just speculating on that, but it seems like the DCI is fine with Griselbrand showing up sometimes on turn 1 or 2 and reliably on turn 3 out of Reanimator decks and reliably on turn 4-5 out of Sneak and Show. I can't think of any situations that they allow that are less fun or more broken, so that's the standard I'm arguing from, and trying to be consistent about it.

Edit: I fail to see how a Survival-Griselbrand (or Emrakul, or Iona) strategy would operate if its graveyard was shut down. Sure, it would still have the ability to hardcast Vengevines and Knights, but that's hardly OP. Vengevine is actually one of the harder cards to deal with in that situation because it can't be Abrupt Decayed, but it dies to everything else.

You fail to see how having to deal with the graveyard AND a constant stream of creatures like TNN and cardadvantage (Squee) at the same time puts quite SOME pressure on the defending player?

[Zombie]

You fail to see how having to deal with the graveyard AND a constant stream of creatures like TNN and cardadvantage (Squee) at the same time puts quite SOME pressure on the defending player?

Uh, you deal with the graveyard, you deal with Squee/Genesis?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Also that list sounds like it operates like crap without Survival or in the face of RIP/Cage.

[nedleeds]

I'm just speculating on that, but it seems like the DCI is fine with Griselbrand showing up sometimes on turn 1 or 2 and reliably on turn 3 out of Reanimator decks and reliably on turn 4-5 out of Sneak and Show. I can't think of any situations that they allow that are less fun or more broken, so that's the standard I'm arguing from, and trying to be consistent about it.

Edit: I fail to see how a Survival-Griselbrand (or Emrakul, or Iona) strategy would operate if its graveyard was shut down. Sure, it would still have the ability to hardcast Vengevines and Knights, but that's hardly OP. Vengevine is actually one of the harder cards to deal with in that situation because it can't be Abrupt Decayed, but it dies to everything else.

The survival can be decayed, revoked, etc.. If it comes out fast and gets nuked then it's a pretty miserable play. Survival is a non-blue (though it might end up getting played with brainstorm anyway because it's also a shuffle effect) card quality engine. The 'combo' aspect of it is just inferior to other 2 card derp combos already legal, and relies on the graveyard. You sink a turn into casting Survival in exchange for being able to get a better creature for the current game state. It's a fantastic card, requires intimate knowledge of your deck, lets you play some corner case creatures because there's a chance you can bin them in exchange for a better creature. It's also a decent hedge against Show and Tell if you power it out fast enough and leave a green up. A deck like combo elves really has no use for it since Green Sun's was printed and Hoof Derp got printed. You maybe could argue survival is better vs. teeg, but it's also worse vs revoker and decay. I think sometimes people forget it doesn't say: G, Discard a Man: Put a man from your library onto the battlefield. You still have to cast what you find. The Vengevine argument is a fucking joke at this point given the printings since it was banned. Would a W/g creature deck like "Maverick" play it? Maybe ... that's really a mana denial deck with Thalia, a low curve and Knights to find more Wastelands. Mother can't protect it. It costs 2G with Thalia. It can find whites assuming you have a card in hand ... which GSZ can't but again GSZ just slams the man down. Survival should be unbanned, it's a fantastic card and makes for an interesting game; far more interesting than derp show and tell, derp whoops hoof you, derp flame rift you, derp delver, daze everything you play natural flip derp. Nothing survival is doing is any more broken than one mana super wrath, griselbrand, or natural order into my whole board are super Dreadnaughts.

[btm10]

Uh, you deal with the graveyard, you deal with Squee/Genesis?

That's part of it.


You fail to see how having to deal with the graveyard AND a constant stream of creatures like TNN and cardadvantage (Squee) at the same time puts quite SOME pressure on the defending player?

Yeah, it does apply pressure, but not an insurmountable quantity of it. We're seeing a ton of sweepers in top decks right now (Miracles, Lejay's Shardless list with Deluge, Golgari Charm, Marsh Casualties, etc.), and graveyard hate helpfully pulls double duty by weakening creatires like Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary. If you think that Basking Rootwallas and Arrogant Wurms are going to overrun the format, I'm going to disagree. It's worth pointing out that all of this is extremely mana intensive, and Green mana intensive at that. So if you're slotting TNN into the deck you'll need lots of blue and green mana
at the same time.

[Megadeus]

Everytime someone argues against Survival they just assume that the survival player has an answer to everything, has near infinite green mana, and is never running out of creatures to discard. It's unsafe because of the vengevine combo. You know, thats way better than 2U for a Shopw and tell when your combo costs 1GGGGGG and attacks with vanilla 4/3's and loses to any piece of hate.

[jamis]

The format is incredibly more powerful than it was 4 years ago. The decks SotF was making unviable have now either died of natural causes (forget about Zoo, when was the last time you played against New Horizons?), or have received a significant boost in power. Looking back, the decks that shared the top 16 with survival decks in SCG Charlotte (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t[C1]=leg&start_date=2010-10-31&end_date=2010-10-31&event_type=SCLO) are now almost laughably bad (Gerrard's Verdict? Really?!) If you'd removed SotF from that meta and replaced it with current versions of RUG Delver or Miracles, I'm sure you'd see the same levels of dominance. SotF was certainly too powerful of an engine at the time, but the meta that deck existed in really looks nothing like the current legacy meta, so for that I could see the argument for an unban.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Uh, you deal with the graveyard, you deal with Squee/Genesis?

Cage does very little against Squee, unless you plan to Loyali Retain him, and even in that case your trouble isn't in Cage but in the number of drinks you had.
Idk, I think SotF is safe to unban. I need to pick up one in case I'll find use for it in some EDH, before the price rises.

[nedleeds]

Everytime someone argues against Survival they just assume that the survival player has an answer to everything, has near infinite green mana, and is never running out of creatures to discard. It's unsafe because of the vengevine combo. You know, thats way better than 2U for a Shopw and tell when your combo costs 1GGGGGG and attacks with vanilla 4/3's and loses to any piece of hate.

BuT if they terminus you can do it agIIIIIIN nxT turn !!!! FRRR only 1GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG???!?!??!?! TOO STRONG. GO PLAY MODERN!

[JBlaze]

We're big boys so let us play with our toys. Let Modern be the format where the everything is carefully controlled.

Is Survival too good? Maybe, maybe not. The only way to know for sure is to unban it at see what happens. I put it in the same category as Time Spiral or Entomb powerful card, would spawn a new archetype, but not anymore broken then what the format already allows. Legacy has evolved a ton in the last few years . My gut tells me Survival would be alright. If it's not then just ban it again in 3-6 months. I for one would welcome the experiment.

Legacy is not a PT or PTQ format we get like three GP's a year so just let us do our thing.

[Megadeus]

Exactly. At worst, the card becomes a problem and it gets banned again. If nothing else, at least give it a shot. It isn't like it messes up the PT or anything. And I doubt that it would hurt attendance, which in the end is what WOTC really cares about right?

[Holly]

They can't just unban and ban a card again a few months later..
Well theoretically they could but can you imagine the whine and hate they'd recieve if they unban Survial, it shoots up to I-don't-know-how-much and then ban it again a couple weeks later?
Dear god no, from a buisness standpoint thats absolute nonsense.

Similiar to a bank which removes costs for a normal account and later wants to add it again because they realized it was a mistake and they can't manage it.. Tons of customer will switch their account to another bank even if they paid in the past because they had some free months and got used to it.

[JPoJohnson]

They can't just unban and ban a card again a few months later..
Well theoretically they could but can you imagine the whine and hate they'd recieve if they unban Survial, it shoots up to I-don't-know-how-much and then ban it again a couple weeks later?
Dear god no, from a buisness standpoint thats absolute nonsense.

Similiar to a bank which removes costs for a normal account and later wants to add it again because they realized it was a mistake and they can't manage it.. Tons of customer will switch their account to another bank even if they paid in the past because they had some free months and got used to it.

I agree with the whining, but it doesn't have a plethora to do with a business standpoint - WOTC makes little/no money on the secondary market.

[Dice_Box]

You can't Unban a card and then reban it without at lest having the "Oh but the meta did not have time to adapt" crew sing to the heavens about how it should have had more time and was not broken but would have been ok if only we had more time.

Also, the comment about RIP being the answer. Not everyone plays white. Saying X single card is the answer is foolish, what happens when you don't have access to that card?

[Megadeus]

You can't Unban a card and then reban it without at lest having the "Oh but the meta did not have time to adapt" crew sing to the heavens about how it should have had more time and was not broken but would have been ok if only we had more time.

Also, the comment about RIP being the answer. Not everyone plays white. Saying X single card is the answer is foolish, what happens when you don't have access to that card?

Phyrexian Revoker? #IDon'tPlayLandsThough

[Lemnear]

Phyrexian Revoker? #IDon'tPlayLandsThough

Yeah and Needle was available during Survivals second era too ... Did it help? No, because Survivaldecks are not dependant on the enchantment but your opponent HAS TO ANSWER IT regardless

[[SLAYER]chaos]

The answers have gotten very good and universal though. Surgical, grafdiggers, and revoker are all colorless. Pithing needle is still a great card. RIP is crazy good against it. Deathrite really does work in tuning down the power level. Even something like batterskull really inhibits them to an extent if they can't constantly recur vines or the reclamation sage gets countered. Aslo, reclamation sage is now a thing to kill enchantments. And you know what would be a fantastic tool to fight against the insanity of a white wrath? Being able to recur your creatures again and again.

Survival is not only 100% safe, it would improve the metagame by giving miracles what should be a unfavorable matchup, therefore lessening the raw strength of the 4 terminus plan on other green based aggro decks.

[Dice_Box]

Reclamation Sage would be half the problem in a Survival format. "Revoker on the stack? Ok, just one sec let me grab Sage. RIP? Same. Oh I did not draw Survival? Well lucky I still have a good working midrange deck. You just don't win.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

RIP? Same. Oh I did not draw Survival? Well lucky I still have a good working midrange deck

Hand: Bayou, Fetch, Fetch, Deathrite Shaman, Squee, Griselbrand, Genesis.


Such deck, very good working midrange, wow.

[maharis]

Hand: Bayou, Fetch, Fetch, Deathrite Shaman, Squee, Griselbrand, Genesis. Such deck, very good working midrange, wow.

Dat turn 2 squee, OP

There is no logical way to defend Survival's ban as long as S&T is legal.

[Dice_Box]

So you want to start throwing hands around. Here pick any 7 cards and let me totally ignore you, because we all get good hands and bad ones. Shit happens.

If built right, a Survival deck should not be dead without the card and should be explosive with it. Much like Pod is. You don't need Pod, but when you get it, you get the ball rolling hella fast.

[Lemnear]

Hand: Bayou, Fetch, Fetch, Deathrite Shaman, Squee, Griselbrand, Genesis.


Such deck, very good working midrange, wow.

and we are now sculpting worst case scenarios with cards no one seriously suggestioned like Genesis? Wow.

Shall we continue with RUG Delver and a hand without green mana but werbears to make a point of how bad the concept of tempo is?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

That's not even close to the worst case scenario.

Survival already has lots of dead cards to draw; jamming in a bunch of extra situational cards like people are suggesting here (the Griselbrand/Retainer package etc.) would increase the tendency to get shit hands.

RGSA was built to work without Survival but that was its gimmick, it's dishonest to pretend that all these lists doing powerful things without Survival would be omg still sooooo good if they didn't stick the card.

[Lemnear]

That's not even close to the worst case scenario.

Survival already has lots of dead cards to draw; jamming in a bunch of extra situational cards like people are suggesting here (the Griselbrand/Retainer package etc.) would increase the tendency to get shit hands.

RGSA was built to work without Survival but that was its gimmick, it's dishonest to pretend that all these lists doing powerful things without Survival would be omg still sooooo good if they didn't stick the card.

For my taste this sounds like claiming that Tinker and Oath of Druids are fine because you can draw shitty hands with Blightsteel Colossus or Griselbrand too. I'm sure that the potential 1-2 dead draws are outweight by the advantage if you can assemble Survival + random creature. :/

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Then compare Survival + random creatures to Show and Tell or Oath or whatever.

I think it usually comes off pretty fair in those comparisons, due to the sheer amount of mana it takes to set up any of these combos. Survival decks have historically been more durdly/resilient than aggressively combotastic.

[Lemnear]

Then compare Survival + random creatures to Show and Tell or Oath or whatever.

I think it usually comes off pretty fair in those comparisons, due to the sheer amount of mana it takes to set up any of these combos. Survival decks have historically been more durdly/resilient than aggressively combotastic.

That is correct. My point however was that Survival is not only a combo enabler like S&T but much more flexible in it's use like creating cardadvantage or as a repeatable Tutor. I don't think it deserves a ban for the pure axis of enabling a combo but for the versatility it provides for every deck running green and trying to win via the combat step. I guess we can agree that not running Survival within a green shell with plenty of creatures would barely make sense and that it would limit the diversity of Legacy midrange even more than it already is.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't see what's changed in the time since Survival was banned that would make decks like Thresh, Zoo and Elves want to run it when they didn't before.

It would displace probably a very small range of decks (probably just Jund and Shardless Bug) and replace them with a variety of interesting, more unique and engaging decks instead.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I don't think that Survival will be allowed anymore, it's a repeatable tutor (although a conditional one), and WotC dislike such cards. They'd rather print some legendary enchantment creature planeswalker flying trample herptouch 13/18 protection from you transform card.

[Megadeus]

That's not even close to the worst case scenario.

Survival already has lots of dead cards to draw; jamming in a bunch of extra situational cards like people are suggesting here (the Griselbrand/Retainer package etc.) would increase the tendency to get shit hands.

RGSA was built to work without Survival but that was its gimmick, it's dishonest to pretend that all these lists doing powerful things without Survival would be omg still sooooo good if they didn't stick the card.

This. Everyone is saying it's so good because it's versatile. Sure. It's a good deck. And it would probably be T1 in legacy. Is that bad? It didn't seem to absolutely ruin the format before, and now with the plethora of answers readily available to fight it off it seems fine.

[Lemnear]

This. Everyone is saying it's so good because it's versatile. Sure. It's a good deck. And it would probably be T1 in legacy. Is that bad? It didn't seem to absolutely ruin the format before, and now with the plethora of answers readily available to fight it off it seems fine.

WotC thinks it's bad, that they would have to design creatures with the question "how this would interact with Survival?" in the back of their heads as having it legal would prohibit any creatures interacting with the graveyard or any absurdity like Emrakul from seeing print. In the last 8 years the game became so creature-heavy that SotF's various modes became absurdly good in fighting off hate.


I don't see what's changed in the time since Survival was banned that would make decks like Thresh, Zoo and Elves want to run it when they didn't before.

It would displace probably a very small range of decks (probably just Jund and Shardless Bug) and replace them with a variety of interesting, more unique and engaging decks instead.

When I mention that "creature heavy midrange" would be unplayable without SotF, you bring up Thresh and Zoo? Wanna tell me that DRS + TNN + SotF would not annoy the hell out of people, especially after BG decks got a boost with Return to Ravnica overall and Griselbrand saw print?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I think the continued legality of Show and Tell negates any argument that Wizards actually spends time worrying about Legacy impact seriously.



When I mention that "creature heavy midrange" would be unplayable without SotF, you bring up Thresh and Zoo? Wanna tell me that DRS + TNN + SotF would not annoy the hell out of people, especially after BG decks got a boost with Return to Ravnica overall and Griselbrand saw print?

Yes?

That decklist sounds terrible.

Please show me what you're thinking about playing.

[menace13]

chaos;823561']

Survival is not only 100% safe, it would improve the metagame by giving miracles what should be a unfavorable matchup, therefore lessening the raw strength of the 4 terminus plan on other green based aggro decks.
It may lessen 4 Terminus plan for Miracles. It will also greatly increase the 4 Survival plan against those very same green based aggro decks that you're wishing to promote. Which i don't think are better in a head to head match up against It.




That decklist sounds terrible.

Please show me what you're thinking about playing.

It has to be slightly better than your

Hand: Bayou, Fetch, Fetch, Deathrite Shaman, Squee, Griselbrand, Genesis.


Such deck, very good working midrange, wow.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It's not a rhetorical question.

Produce one of these busted Survival lists. I don't expect a perfect spit-polish, but I want an idea of what people are so scared of.

[Feaor]

It's not a rhetorical question.

Produce one of these busted Survival lists. I don't expect a perfect spit-polish, but I want an idea of what people are so scared of.

The list Caleb settled on after doing some testing for his banned list series was:

3x Mother of Runes
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Loyal Retainers
4x Vengevine
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Fauna Shaman
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Scryb Ranger
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Knight of the Reliquary

3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Survival of the Fittest
3x Spell Pierece

4x Wasteland
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Karakas
1x Dyrad Arbor
2x Forest
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Savannah
2x Tropical Island

Basically his analysis was that with SotF you basically just crush all of the fair decks in the format because they can't keep up with the advantage Survival gives you. Cards like Aburpt Decay and Deathrite Shaman don't really matter all that much, they're pretty easy to play around. The only thing that would theoretically keep Survival in check would be the unfair decks since Survival is a bit durdley since you need to play a bunch of dorks and random idiots like Rootwalla. However its probably not a good thing to have one deck that embarrasses all of the other fair decks in the format.

[Tylert]

The list Caleb settled on after doing some testing for his banned list series was:

3x Mother of Runes
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Loyal Retainers
4x Vengevine
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Fauna Shaman
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Scryb Ranger
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Knight of the Reliquary

3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Survival of the Fittest
3x Spell Pierece

4x Wasteland
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Karakas
1x Dyrad Arbor
2x Forest
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Savannah
2x Tropical Island

Basically his analysis was that with SotF you basically just crush all of the fair decks in the format because they can't keep up with the advantage Survival gives you. Cards like Aburpt Decay and Deathrite Shaman don't really matter all that much, they're pretty easy to play around. The only thing that would theoretically keep Survival in check would be the unfair decks since Survival is a bit durdley since you need to play a bunch of dorks and random idiots like Rootwalla. However its probably not a good thing to have one deck that embarrasses all of the other fair decks in the format.

Phyrexian revoker namig survival of the fittest? game won for D&T :)

[menace13]

Gerry T has a ooze list. Although this one is easier to stop the combo with DRS.

2 Basking Rootwalla
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Necrotic Ooze
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Phyrexian Devourer
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Shield Sphere
1 Shriekmaw
1 Triskelion
4 Vengevine
1 Wispmare
Creatures [29]
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Thoughtseize
Spells [13]
4 Bayou
1 Forest (246)
3 Savannah
1 Tree of Tales
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
Lands [18]
SIDEBOARD
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Extirpate
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Nature's Claim
1 Null Rod
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Also few lists of SCG placing lists in Flores article here
http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/114

[Bobmans]

OMG, screw unbanning SotF if there the only thing you come up with is Vengevine crap....

[Tyrio]

The list Caleb settled on after doing some testing for his banned list series was:

3x Mother of Runes
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Loyal Retainers
4x Vengevine
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Fauna Shaman
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Scryb Ranger
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Knight of the Reliquary

3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Survival of the Fittest
3x Spell Pierece

4x Wasteland
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Karakas
1x Dyrad Arbor
2x Forest
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Savannah
2x Tropical Island

Cards like Aburpt Decay don't really matter all that much, they're pretty easy to play around.

How do you figure? Without a Survival in play this is pretty much a terrible Maverick deck with no removal, mediocre men, no equipment and no ability to actually find Survival. Are you supposed to just hold your Survival until you have 4+ mana, then get it eaten by a Thoughtseize to play around Decay/Daze/Revoker/whatever?

[btm10]

The list Caleb settled on after doing some testing for his banned list series was:

3x Mother of Runes
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Loyal Retainers
4x Vengevine
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Fauna Shaman
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Scryb Ranger
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Knight of the Reliquary

3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Survival of the Fittest
3x Spell Pierece

4x Wasteland
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Karakas
1x Dyrad Arbor
2x Forest
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Savannah
2x Tropical Island

Basically his analysis was that with SotF you basically just crush all of the fair decks in the format because they can't keep up with the advantage Survival gives you. Cards like Aburpt Decay and Deathrite Shaman don't really matter all that much, they're pretty easy to play around. The only thing that would theoretically keep Survival in check would be the unfair decks since Survival is a bit durdley since you need to play a bunch of dorks and random idiots like Rootwalla. However its probably not a good thing to have one deck that embarrasses all of the other fair decks in the format.

After watching most of those videos, I'm not sure that I agree with his analyses. This seems like it's more vulnerable to targeted graveyard hate like DRS or Surgical Extraction (or even Extirpate) than is Reanimator, and if something like Rest in Peace comes down, it's left with a pretty shitty backup aggro plan.


Gerry T has a ooze list. Although this one is easier to stop the combo with DRS.

2 Basking Rootwalla
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Necrotic Ooze
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Phyrexian Devourer
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Shield Sphere
1 Shriekmaw
1 Triskelion
4 Vengevine
1 Wispmare
Creatures [29]
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Thoughtseize
Spells [13]
4 Bayou
1 Forest (246)
3 Savannah
1 Tree of Tales
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
Lands [18]
SIDEBOARD
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Extirpate
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Nature's Claim
1 Null Rod
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Also few lists of SCG placing lists in Flores article here
http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/114

I...really don't see how this deck being allowed is bad for the metagame. I'm not even sure that it would be the preferred Survival list were Survival unbanned.

So just to clarify - the best lists people have offered are soft to exactly the same hate people have offered up as being capable of keeping Survival in check.

[Lemnear]

I would look into unburial Rites, LED, Survival, Enlightend Tutor, BGW shell with Griselbrands, Retainers, Jin Gitaxias' and the usual Entomb and Reanimation stuff

Basically Burning Reanimator without Looting and Wish but more creatures, Tutors and Survival.

Maverick is dead to graveyard removal shrinking Goyf and KotR. Survival is the same axis and therefore far from ideal. Of you want to rebuild Survival as an Aggro-combo deck it has to be done without gofy or kotr

[Megadeus]

All of these theorized lists so far look in no way broken, and a big argument that people have made were, "Oh hurr durr if you decay the survival in response they tutor up EWitness to get it back". And Neither of these lists plays that card. All I know is that with my current iteration of Deadguy, I feel decently confident in my ability to be at least 50/50 against these proposed lists of decks that "crush all other fair decks".

[Megadeus]

I would look into unburial Rites, LED, Survival, Enlightend Tutor, BGW shell with Griselbrands, Retainers, Jin Gitaxias' and the usual Entomb and Reanimation stuff

Basically Burning Reanimator without Looting and Wish but more creatures, Tutors and Survival.

Maverick is dead to graveyard removal shrinking Goyf and KotR. Survival is the same axis and therefore far from ideal. Of you want to rebuild Survival as an Aggro-combo deck it has to be done without gofy or kotr

This deck sounds like it REALLY gets hosed by Deathrite shaman.

[Erdvermampfa]

The biggest issue is that people seemingly haven't noticed that all this (un)banning discussion is pretty much pointless as Wizards has clearly abandoned Legacy long ago.

[nedleeds]

Well let's just lock this thread then, or maybe you shouldn't click on it?

[bakofried]

Even accepting that Survival could tutor up an answer in response, what's wrong with that? It requires another two turns to get Survival back on the field. E-Witness and Sage are good, yeah, but really slow.

[Scott]

The biggest issue is that people seemingly haven't noticed that all this (un)banning discussion is pretty much pointless as Wizards has clearly abandoned Legacy long ago.

Even if that were the case, it's like a child being abandoned by an abusive parent. Kid's better off.

[Zombie]

Even if that were the case, it's like a child being abandoned by an abusive parent. Kid's better off.

Nah, we're getting all kinds of fun stuff like SnT cheatables, TNN, Judgment and stuff. It's like abandoned except with a poison injector built in and no medical coverage.

[nedleeds]

Even accepting that Survival could tutor up an answer in response, what's wrong with that? It requires another two turns to get Survival back on the field. E-Witness and Sage are good, yeah, but really slow.

You also have to ... you know ... cast the answer for it's mana cost.

[bakofried]

You also have to ... you know ... cast the answer for it's mana cost.
That was the point of my post. Accepting turn one dork, turn two survival (on the play, leaving mana open), opponent casts Abrupt Decay on their turn two, you get to tutor for Eternal Witness, cast it on the following turn, and then have mana for 1-3 activations, assuming your opponent hasn't once again disputed you. Against something like BUG Delver, you're likely to just get raced at that point.

[Megadeus]

Watching Todd anderson cast no cantrip and have a natural turn 2 Show and Tell for whatever he wants with force back-up makes me wonder some more why some of these other cards are still banned.

[adrieng]

Just 4 sotf 4 vengevine and some fauna shaman in ELF cutting glimpse and some others elfs.
You have acces to survival+NO ftw

[Megadeus]

Just 4 sotf 4 vengevine and some fauna shaman in ELF cutting glimpse and some others elfs.
You have acces to survival+NO ftw

That seems... Horrible. Feel free to test it and prove me wrong though.

[Dark Ritual]

Right BUG delver racing turn 2 survival with a G open. Delver is a 6 turn clock at the fastest unless your opponent really deals themselves a lot of damage. And if they're committing more threats to the board instead of blowing up survival you just have more mana to use with it/you have 4 vines in play on turn 4 swinging for 16.

Deathrite is answerable by survival if it really is a problem. They tutor up fire imp, revoker to name, it, etc. etc. and poof it does nothing. As for the lists posted not running e wit those lists are not remotely optimized. Every single survival deck should auto include at least 1 e wit without question as it is a powerful effect.

As for needing mana to cast e wit and such, who cares? Most things in legacy cost mana last I checked. Even brainstorm does. Wasteland costs you mana even because it uses up your land drop if you play it and blow up a land with it immediately.

You think deadguy has a 50/50 shot against survival? You're terrible at matchup evaluation then. Survival is designed to beat the crap out of fair strategies and it does so quite effectively. It beats combo too. Tell me, how much do you want to resolve a show and tell against a survival with a G open? Oh right survival tutors up fatty of choice in response and puts it into play off your show and tell. Or they put in survival itself off show and tell and get access to their whole deck/they can very likely answer what you dropped off show and tell. The only reason this sounds good is because of how much I hate show and tell as a magic card for being so mindless.

[menace13]

There is also Josh Layton's Elves Survival List.

Maindeck (60)
14 Forest
4 Gaeas Cradle
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Regal Force
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Vengevine
2 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Cloudstone Curio
4 Glimpse of Nature
1 Primal Command
4 Survival of the Fittest
Sideboard (15)
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Tormods Crypt
2 Viridian Shaman

I remember a few lists playing LED with their Survival. Cant recall off hand, it's been many years since I've seen them.

[Megadeus]

Right BUG delver racing turn 2 survival with a G open. Delver is a 6 turn clock at the fastest unless your opponent really deals themselves a lot of damage. And if they're committing more threats to the board instead of blowing up survival you just have more mana to use with it/you have 4 vines in play on turn 4 swinging for 16.

Deathrite is answerable by survival if it really is a problem. They tutor up fire imp, revoker to name, it, etc. etc. and poof it does nothing. As for the lists posted not running e wit those lists are not remotely optimized. Every single survival deck should auto include at least 1 e wit without question as it is a powerful effect.

As for needing mana to cast e wit and such, who cares? Most things in legacy cost mana last I checked. Even brainstorm does. Wasteland costs you mana even because it uses up your land drop if you play it and blow up a land with it immediately.

You think deadguy has a 50/50 shot against survival? You're terrible at matchup evaluation then. Survival is designed to beat the crap out of fair strategies and it does so quite effectively. It beats combo too. Tell me, how much do you want to resolve a show and tell against a survival with a G open? Oh right survival tutors up fatty of choice in response and puts it into play off your show and tell. Or they put in survival itself off show and tell and get access to their whole deck/they can very likely answer what you dropped off show and tell. The only reason this sounds good is because of how much I hate show and tell as a magic card for being so mindless.

What survival deck is playing Fire Imp? get outta here with that garbage. The more narrow cards you play to answer specific situations, the less consistency and more awkward hands you have to keep and the more your deck relies on Survival. Delver can easily play things like Spell Snare, and force and such like they already do to answer survival.

[Megadeus]

There is also Josh Layton's Elves Survival List.

Maindeck (60)
14 Forest
4 Gaeas Cradle
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Regal Force
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Vengevine
2 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Cloudstone Curio
4 Glimpse of Nature
1 Primal Command
4 Survival of the Fittest
Sideboard (15)
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Tormods Crypt
2 Viridian Shaman

I remember a few lists playing LED with their Survival. Cant recall off hand, it's been many years since I've seen them.

Why not simply play Green Sun in place of Survival?

[menace13]

Why not simply play Green Sun in place of Survival?
Probably because of Vengevine plan. IDK. I just posted some deck lists that placed during Venge-Survival's tenure. I don't play Surv nor would I, I hate creatures, so

[Megadeus]

Probably because of Vengevine plan. IDK. I just posted some deck lists that placed during Venge-Survival's tenure. I don't play Surv nor would I, I hate creatures, so

Don't think Green Sun existed when that list came out. That is another card that usurps Survival in a lot of decks, especially one as already incredibly tuned and efficient as current elves builds.

[HrishiQQ]

I'm really skeptical about Survival being a problem when we have a legal flying lifelinking Yawgmoth's bargain with legs running around.

[HSCK]

Don't think Green Sun existed when that list came out. That is another card that usurps Survival in a lot of decks, especially one as already incredibly tuned and efficient as current elves builds.

Are you seriously saying GSZ has the power level of Survival? GSZ is great, sure, it's not Survival.

[Meekrab]

I'm really skeptical about Survival being a problem when we have a legal flying lifelinking Yawgmoth's bargain with legs running around.
Every Survival, Earthlink, Hermit Druid, Mind Twist, Frantic Search, etc. reduces the viability of "fair decks" by forcing them to compete with another instant win.

On the other hand, Mana Drain gives them another tool to respond but is pretty much never considered for unbanning. Probably because combo decks would use it.

[nedleeds]

Are you seriously saying GSZ has the power level of Survival? GSZ is great, sure, it's not Survival.

Its better in many decks.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Yeah, I mean what we're seeing here is why I asked for actual decklists, a replay of the old Toad/Psychatog problem that we were making fun of with Thunder Bluff; it's easy to say, "Survival decks can be so good, they can do this, or that, or this other busted thing, and have all these answers to hate and removal, and run all these other backup cards so it's still good even if they don't have Survival."

But they can't do all those things at once. There isn't space. So you get lists full of holes and vulnerabilities like the ones people are producing right now.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

What survival deck is playing Fire Imp? get outta here with that garbage. The more narrow cards you play to answer specific situations...
It's a removal on a body. It can't be that bad. After all, there are decks that play Stinkscrunger and nobody argues that it's narrow card that should be switched for Lightning Bolt.

[btm10]

It's a removal on a body. It can't be that bad. After all, there are decks that play Stinkscrunger and nobody argues that it's narrow card that should be switched for Lightning Bolt.

It's still 2RG and two cards to kill a creature. If you're trying to kill a DRS with it, I doubt that you have an active Squee. Also, you basically spend a turn doing it because of the cost.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

It's still 2RG and two cards to kill a creature. If you're trying to kill a DRS with it, I doubt that you have an active Squee. Also, you basically spend a turn doing it because of the cost.

It costs 2R. All other costs are costs of other cards.
Look, I'm not saying SotF is busted coz of Fire Imp. I'm defending Fire Imp, because it's a 2/1 dude that kills DRS and Delver, creatures that make like 80 % of Legacy meta. Imho Fire Imp is solid for Dragon Stonpy deck, as every time I won against that pile of crap was when I played Devler, flipped it and flied all over the Moons and Trinispheres and Gathan Riders and whatnot.

[Technics]

Yeah, I mean what we're seeing here is why I asked for actual decklists, a replay of the old Toad/Psychatog problem that we were making fun of with Thunder Bluff; it's easy to say, "Survival decks can be so good, they can do this, or that, or this other busted thing, and have all these answers to hate and removal, and run all these other backup cards so it's still good even if they don't have Survival."

But they can't do all those things at once. There isn't space. So you get lists full of holes and vulnerabilities like the ones people are producing right now.

You take that back IBA! Thunder Bluff was the best Legacy deck I have even played. Hell Flash Hulk was even a positive matchup for it. I still think Anuba Grunt should be banned today, just due to the possibility of someone picking Thunder Bluff back up and 9-0ing a 7 round SCG.

[AggroControl]

Can Survival of the Fittest be unbanned now that Abrupt Decay sees so much play?

The problem that WotC saw with SoTF when they banned it was that it created too much consistency for the lists that used it since they could replace a creature that didn't fit a given situation for another that did for just :g: and at instant speed. It was also problematic for a lot of lists to deal with once it landed because the main deck removal for enchantments was kind of limited at that point.

Now we have a turn 2 answer for SoTF that is played in about 25% of the lists in the meta as a main deck option. Is that enough to get it back off the list? It wouldn't become broken in Show and Tell type lists because of the reguirement that you have a creature in hand to activate it. Play enough creatures to make it good and your blue count goes way down as does your denial and other search options. It wouldn't be broken in Reanimator because it's too slow to be an improvement over what that list already does.

It seems like it would be a reasonable card at this point.

[swoop]

No.

[Rune]

Can Survival of the Fittest be unbanned now that Abrupt Decay sees so much play?


Yes. The format has gotten significantly stronger overall since it was banned, and there have also been printed a non-zero amount of cards that are good against it. I'm thinking Decay, Revoker and Extraction... more? DRS and Cage don't really count since those can be beaten by the Survival engine alone.

I doubt it's a card that Elves is really interested in, but it could give Maverick-esque decks a chance to compete again. Also, it's a card that you can't just easily jam into a shell with Brainstorm/FoW.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Full list of banned cards that are pretty clearly weaker than cards that are currently legal:

Bazaar of Baghdad
Black Vise
Channel
Earthcraft
Fastbond
Frantic Search
Goblin Recruiter
Hermit Druid
Mana Drain
Memory Jar
Mental Misstep
Mind Twist
Mind's Desire
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Shahrazad
Survival of the Fittest
Timetwister
Tolarian Academy
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Worldgorger Dragon
Yawgmoth's Bargain

This is by no means advocating for all these cards to come unbanned, just that if any one of them was unbanned it would less relevant than cards like Brainstorm or Griselbrand.

[rufus]

Full list of banned cards that are pretty clearly weaker than cards that are currently legal...
This is by no means advocating for all these cards to come unbanned, just that if any one of them was unbanned it would less relevant than cards like Brainstorm or Griselbrand.


If you make an assertion like that, you could, at least, give the example better card. That said, several of the cards on that list - like Wheel of Fortune and Timetwister - are easily as bad as Flash.

[Dice_Box]

What? Really? Your going to start with saying "These are the cards that can be unbanned, Vintage Dredge" and then expect anyone to think your not crazy? Man sometimes you come up with well thought out (and dickish, but at lest well thought out) posts. This, this is not one of those times.

[menace13]

I'm pretty sure I could beat 95% of legacy decks that don't pack 6~ dedicated GY hate cards, with Bazaars and 4 LEDs. Easily.

Dedicated does not include DRS.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

I'm pretty sure the thrust of the post by IBA wasn't to say that X/Y/Z are totally safe safe to unban as much as it was about stating the power-level considerations for the B&R list don't make a whole lot of sense when cards like Griselbrand, Gaea's Cradle, Brainstorm, LED, and Ad Nauseum are running around free. Many of these cards easily eclipse banned cards in raw power level, yet will likely not be banned.

Makes sense to me.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

What? Really? Your going to start with saying "These are the cards that can be unbanned, Vintage Dredge" and then expect anyone to think your not crazy? Man sometimes you come up with well thought out (and dickish, but at lest well thought out) posts. This, this is not one of those times.

I really get tired of people I don't fucking know on this site trash-talking me like we're old friends or rivals or I give a shit about them or something. I don't give a shit what your opinion of me is, stop trying to tell me about it.

Bazaar would be an awful card to unban... but people would just start maindecking better hate and run the sideboard cards that cripple Dredge, and the deck would languish in the maybe 10% of the metagame at most segment. Even assuming it weren't intrinsically crippled by availability issues.

The point isn't, "Bazaar wouldn't create an oppressive metagame," the point is, we already have an oppressive metagame.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'm pretty sure the thrust of the post by IBA wasn't to say that X/Y/Z are totally safe safe to unban as much as it was about stating the power-level considerations for the B&R list don't make a whole lot of sense when cards like Griselbrand, Gaea's Cradle, Brainstorm, LED, and Ad Nauseum are running around free. Many of these cards easily eclipse banned cards in raw power level, yet will likely not be banned.

Makes sense to me.

Awesome, some people can read.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

If you make an assertion like that, you could, at least, give the example better card. That said, several of the cards on that list - like Wheel of Fortune and Timetwister - are easily as bad as Flash.

I am not a storm expert admittedly but given that like 50% of the decks in the field, and 75% at the top tables, are running Force of Will, this seems pretty categorically not true.

[Dice_Box]

Welcome to the internet, where I am more than free to voice my views, just as you are. If you do not like it, you know where the real world is, go hang out there and be a dick to others there. You know, when they can tell you to stop being a dick to your face. Anyway, lets have a look at your list.

Bazaar is just fucked, I can honestly think of no good reason to make Vintage dredge a legal Modern deck. If in Vintage, unpowered Bazaar decks can beat powered decks with a large amount of hate packed, then thats not a Legacy safe card. "Run more hate" is not an answer to "Broken in half" because if it was, you would not want Brainstorm gone.

Channel... Really? Lets just not go there.

Fastbond with all the land decks running around? Sounds fair.

Recruiter is safe, will stay banned on time constants alone.

Memory Jar, Draw seven is not safe, not this easily. No.

MM... Please god no.

Minds Desire. Storm into Ominshows Win con with a single card... Yea. No.

Necropotence. I don't like it, but I can not just shoot it down. This one I would like to see tested.

Oath of Druids happens to be the best deck in Vintage. Lets not.

Shahrazad... Look I know your a SWELL GUY and like to SWELL GUY people, but honestly, no. Come on, even you can not truly be as much of a dick as it takes to play this fucking thing.

Survival of the Fittest. I do not think this is safe, but I am willing to see it tested and then have a second look.

Timetwister. Because playing "I do not care what you kept, now you have to Mull" is always fun. Add on High tide, storm, anyone playing blue... Draw 7 for 3 mana. No. Just not safe.

Academy... With Crop Rotation this thing would not be fun. Its like cradle, only a lot worse and it makes Blue. That's great. You don't have Jewellery but it is just as breakable in this format as it is in Vintage. If you want to add Timetwister to that too, well, fuck that.

Wheel. Timetwister but I get to Brainstorm cards back onto the top of my Library and draw them? Hell yes, totally safe.

Yawgmoth's Bargain. Yea, please let me play this over Ad Nauseam. Whatever could go wrong when I no longer have to limit the CMC of my cards?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Welcome to the internet, where I am more than free to voice my views, just as you are. If you do not like it, you know where the real world is, go hang out there and be a dick to others there. You know, when they can tell you to stop being a dick to your face. Anyway, lets have a look at your list.

So brave of you to become a martyr for free speech just because someone told you they didn't give a shit about your random unsolicited opinions.


Bazaar is just fucked, I can honestly think of no good reason to make Vintage dredge a legal Modern deck. If in Vintage, unpowered Bazaar decks can beat powered decks with a large amount of hate packed, then thats not a Legacy safe card. "Run more hate" is not an answer to "Broken in half" because if it was, you would not want Brainstorm gone.

Channel... Really? Lets just not go there.

Fastbond with all the land decks running around? Sounds fair.

Recruiter is safe, will stay banned on time constants alone.

Memory Jar, Draw seven is not safe, not this easily. No.

MM... Please god no.

Minds Desire. Storm into Ominshows Win con with a single card... Yea. No.

Necropotence. I don't like it, but I can not just shoot it down. This one I would like to see tested.

Oath of Druids happens to be the best deck in Vintage. Lets not.

Shahrazad... Look I know your a troll and like to troll people, but honestly, no. Come on, even you can not truly be as much of a dick as it takes to play this fucking thing.

Survival of the Fittest. I do not think this is safe, but I am willing to see it tested and then have a second look.

Timetwister. Because playing "I do not care what you kept, now you have to Mull" is always fun. Add on High tide, storm, anyone playing blue... Draw 7 for 3 mana. No. Just not safe.

Academy... With Crop Rotation this thing would not be fun. Its like cradle, only a lot worse and it makes Blue. That's great. You don't have Jewellery but it is just as breakable in this format as it is in Vintage. If you want to add Timetwister to that too, well, fuck that.

Wheel. Timetwister but I get to Brainstorm cards back onto the top of my Library and draw them? Hell yes, totally safe.

Yawgmoth's Bargain. Yea, please let me play this over Ad Nauseam. Whatever could go wrong when I no longer have to limit the CMC of my cards?

Okay so these were all variants of "nuff said," did you have any actual arguments or what.

And no, this is discussion about individual cards, it's not about what the format would look like with half the list unbanned simultaneously; that's pretty unanswerable.

[Dice_Box]

If you can say what's on you mind, I have the same right. Anyway, I really don't want all my posts deleted, so I will drop this part of the conversation.

What I would like to know is how you feel cards like Bazaar, Timetwister, Academy and Wheel are safe. In the format, as it is right now, how would unbaning any of those four cards make the format better? Not even touching things like MM which would make the format even more blue. How would opening the option of playing those cards as a four of in Legacy help the format? Please, tell me, because I can not think of a single thing it would do other that fuck us all.

[sjmcc13]

Full list of banned cards that are pretty clearly weaker than cards that are currently legal:

Bazaar of Baghdad
.
.
.
Goblin Recruiter
Hermit Druid
.
.
.
Mind's Desire
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
.
.
.
Timetwister
.
.
.
Wheel of Fortune
Umm, ya I have to strongly disagree that these cards are weaker then currently legal cards.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

If you can say what's on you mind, I have the same right.

Well there's a hell of an irrelevancy.


What I would like to know is how you feel cards like Bazaar, Timetwister, Academy and Wheel are safe. In the format, as it is right now, how would unbaning any of those four cards make the format better?


I have highlighted the words that illustrate that you are not grasping the premise of the conversation.

[rufus]

I am not a storm expert admittedly but given that like 50% of the decks in the field, and 75% at the top tables, are running Force of Will, this seems pretty categorically not true.

Flash/Hulk is beatable too, but it polarized the format into flash and anti-flash decks. FWIW, those draw-7s don't have to be in a combo deck to do stupid things. Wheel readily slots into Dragon Stompy or dredge strategies too.


Shahrazad... Look I know your a troll and like to troll people, but honestly, no. Come on, even you can not truly be as much of a dick as it takes to play this fucking thing.
In IBA's defense, Shrahrazad is banned for reasons other than its power level.

[Dice_Box]

No, I understand. You are claiming that there are cards that equal or do more harm than the ones listed. I am saying that, if this was the case, if there are really cards that equal or exceed the power level of the listed cards, than they must be capable of being unbanned. So if your point is, the format already deals with worse (a false statement) then these you are by extension claiming that the format can handle these cards too.

Thus is not a point I agree with and I do not think that a card like Brand can be put next to a card like Wheel just because they both say "Draw 7". I also disagree that this logic can be equally compared to Cradle or Ad Nauseam.

Edit.
Yea, I know it's banned for other reasons. I hope it stays that way. But I must ask, what card in Legacy does something comparable to it that it should find its place on a list such as this?

[Jander78]

Thread is being closely monitored by the Mod staff. Warnings and bannings will be handed out with further flames / insults flying around. Keep it on topic and civil.

[menace13]

Thus is not a point I agree with and I do not think that a card like Brand can be put next to a card like Wheel just because they both say "Draw 7". I also disagree that this logic can be equally compared to Cradle or Ad Nauseam.

I'm not so sure that Draw 7 lists would be better than Reanimator. Definitely not in a head to head at least. Maybe not even better than Sneak Show lists. Does any of the Draw 7s make storm lists better than what we have already? Maybe the draw 7s make High Tide better.



Yea, I know it's banned for other reasons. I hope it stays that way. But I must ask, what card in Legacy does something comparable to it that it should find its place on a list such as this?
Cbalance + Top :laugh:

[Dice_Box]

Haha. Ok. Ok. It's not quite the same, but yea, it can feel like it. You sir, get a gold star for making me laugh.

Edit.
Diminishing Returns is used in some storm builds with quite an effect. If you give us Wheel, yes, I would see play in TES and it would hurt the format.

[rufus]

I'm not so sure that Draw 7 lists would be better than Reanimator. Definitely not in a head to head at least. Maybe not even better than Sneak Show lists. Does any of the Draw 7s make storm lists better than what we have already? Maybe the draw 7s make High Tide better

All in belcher-style storm (though vulnerable to counters) is absurd with the addition of Wheel of Fortune. Things get a bit more involved when you start looking at aggro/combo/control approaches.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Wheel was funny in the old RG Beats. Once you ran out of creatures and burn, you made a new hand and kicked the opponent out of game before he untapped. It was also pretty sick with Storm Seeker, although one needed Sol Ring or Tinder Wall to make things happen fast enough.
Alas, the time of my high school are long gone. I don't expect to see the Wheel anytime soon.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

All in belcher-style storm (though vulnerable to counters) is absurd with the addition of Wheel of Fortune. Things get a bit more involved when you start looking at aggro/combo/control approaches.

There's already several very consistent turn 1/2 combo decks that are only kept in check by the existence of Force of Will, "though vulnerable to counters" is a pretty big hand-waive.

[Amon Amarth]

There's already several very consistent turn 1/2 combo decks that are only kept in check by the existence of Force of Will, "though vulnerable to counters" is a pretty big hand-waive.

What do you mean by "hand-waive"?

I do think that Wheel would be the best Draw-7 if all of them were unbanned because of stocking your graveyard with cards is good as well as red rituals being a thing. I think its more than a little amusing that it's probably much better than any blue variants.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I mean saying a deck would win consistently turn 1/2 but be vulnerable to counters is pretty irrelevant since that already describes a bunch of legal decks.

[Dice_Box]

Think about Burn with Wheel, think about a deck like Beltcher being able to just instantly reload and have a second go after the first attempt meets resistance. Think about being able to force a mull against Combo and control and totally ruining their hand. Think about filling your grave while refilling your hand with a deck like Reanimator or Young Frankenstein. There is much more than just Beltcher getting a boost here to think about, much much more.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Think about Burn with Wheel, think about a deck like Beltcher being able to just instantly reload and have a second go after the first attempt meets resistance.

So... Belcher pilot shot their load but you had FoW or whatever to keep from dying. Let's say Belcher already used their Land Grant to find the singleton Taiga. They top-deck Wheel of Fortune. How exactly do they play it?

Banned card should stay banned, but not because of Belcher. :wink:

[Zilla]

No, I understand. You are claiming that there are cards that equal or do more harm than the ones listed. I am saying that, if this was the case, if there are really cards that equal or exceed the power level of the listed cards, than they must be capable of being unbanned. So if your point is, the format already deals with worse (a false statement) then these you are by extension claiming that the format can handle these cards too.
That's not his point at all, which he made pretty clear in the last sentence in the post to which you're responding.

His point isn't that those cards are less powerful than legal ones so they should be unbanned. His point is that those cards are less powerful than legal ones so those legal ones should probably also be banned.

[Dice_Box]

But I disagree with the premise, what legal card is more powerful than wheel, Bazaar or oath?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Ad Nauseam, Brainstorm, Show and Tell.

Bazaar is probably more "powerful" than those actually, but Bazaar decks are fragile and it's basically impossible for them to dominate a metagame over time. Graveyard hate is too cheap/good.

[Dice_Box]

Bazaar can make it quite easy to fire off a deck faster than RIP can hit the table. You need to have 0 cost hate, or be faster. I do not agree that the hate out there for the Grave is honestly fast enough without other solid disruption. Bazaar would kill decks that don't have that completely. There is no way it is safe. It is also not comparable to something like Brainstorm, because it can be used as Engine to just do busted things as well as dig you out of punishing situations. Brainstorm is also not repeatable, is easier to interact with and can punish you badly for playing it wrong. There is not often times where you get punished for playing Bazaar wrong. It's kind of hard to fuck it up.

Oath is not at all comparable with Ad Nauseam. The building restrictions are very different, oath let's you do more broken things than any other deck I have ever played against. I honestly think this is the best deck on Vintage. Not playing with a large amount of creatures is hardly a draw back and having a fist full of control to back yourself up alongside things like E tutor is crazy.

SnT, well, we agree on something, that card is busted as shit. You will get no argument from me here.

[Teveshszat]

Hello,

I see it like dicebox Brainstorm is a really strong card but it is the only exception of a playable card which is
stronger then the cards on the banned list excluding power twister and Libary and all other thing that generate more
Mana then you need to play them.

But for all other cards i hav to ask which exsisting card boosts dregde more then Bazzar?
Which counterspell iks strictly better then Mana dRain which enables an huge Entreat or other stupid ramrant stuff.
How can Ad Nauseum be better then Bargain or Will because here you pay only 1 life but not 1-4.
Is there any better stalling card as Sherazad?
Any better Brainstorm and Sword Counter then MM which only costs 2 life and is playable in all decks?
Is there any better Combo piece then Mind desire?

The question on this answer is clear no. All cards are the most powerfull in the resprected fields they would cover
if unbanned and tend to be broken in this fields and the reason why they were banned is because they would
create oppressive decks or siuations like Sherazad stalling the whole second game preventing you opponenent from
even having the chance to win (I personaly like this card but I see why it is better to leave it on the banned list).

So Brainstorm is a more powerfull card then most of them but is not creating such an oppresive siuation or deck like
Vintage Dregde that you have to ban it for this. Yes it makes decks strictly better which play it but since it costs
only 1 blue you can splash it or play Sensei´s to compensate it to a certain degreee.

The conclusion is that the power of the card is not avaluated from her own design but how it works togetehr with
other cards and which drawbacks and advantages it creates whilce concider recources like, life, handcards, mana etc.
If you do this you cn come to the conclusion that most of the cards a more powerfull then cards which are legal
excluded examples like jitte, top, or Skullclamp.

Best Regards Teveshszat

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Bazaar can make it quite easy to fire off a deck faster than RIP can hit the table. You need to have 0 cost hate, or be faster. I do not agree that the hate out there for the Grave is honestly fast enough without other solid disruption. Bazaar would kill decks that don't have that completely. There is no way it is safe. It is also not comparable to something like Brainstorm, because it can be used as Engine to just do busted things as well as dig you out of punishing situations. Brainstorm is also not repeatable, is easier to interact with and can punish you badly for playing it wrong. There is not often times where you get punished for playing Bazaar wrong. It's kind of hard to fuck it up.

RIP isn't really the big issue with Dredge, it's not common enough. Dredge already tends to overwhelmingly win g1. Even through Deathrite.

The problem is the existence of these nuclear bombs that are free and wipe it out. Crypt, Leyline, Extraction, Ravenous Trap.

In this sense Bazaar Dredge is roughly comparable to something like Oops All Spells, or for that matter Elves, which are dreadfully consistent and fast, but not really strong at resisting silver bullets.

Trust me when I say that having played 1.5 when Bazaar was legal, I am not at all dismissing its power as an engine.


Oath is not at all comparable with Ad Nauseam. The building restrictions are very different, oath let's you do more broken things than any other deck I have ever played against. I honestly think this is the best deck on Vintage. Not playing with a large amount of creatures is hardly a draw back and having a fist full of control to back yourself up alongside things like E tutor is crazy.

SnT, well, we agree on something, that card is busted as shit. You will get no argument from me here.

Oath is more comparable to Show and Tell. But I think it tends to lose that comparison.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Hello,

I see it like dicebox Brainstorm is a really strong card but it is the only exception of a playable card which is
stronger then the cards on the banned list excluding power twister and Libary and all other thing that generate more
Mana then you need to play them.

But for all other cards i hav to ask which exsisting card boosts dregde more then Bazzar?
Which counterspell iks strictly better then Mana dRain which enables an huge Entreat or other stupid ramrant stuff.
How can Ad Nauseum be better then Bargain or Will because here you pay only 1 life but not 1-4.
Is there any better stalling card as Sherazad?
Any better Brainstorm and Sword Counter then MM which only costs 2 life and is playable in all decks?
Is there any better Combo piece then Mind desire?

The question on this answer is clear no. All cards are the most powerfull in the resprected fields they would cover
if unbanned and tend to be broken in this fields and the reason why they were banned is because they would
create oppressive decks or siuations like Sherazad stalling the whole second game preventing you opponenent from
even having the chance to win (I personaly like this card but I see why it is better to leave it on the banned list).

So Brainstorm is a more powerfull card then most of them but is not creating such an oppresive siuation or deck like
Vintage Dregde that you have to ban it for this. Yes it makes decks strictly better which play it but since it costs
only 1 blue you can splash it or play Sensei´s to compensate it to a certain degreee.

The conclusion is that the power of the card is not avaluated from her own design but how it works togetehr with
other cards and which drawbacks and advantages it creates whilce concider recources like, life, handcards, mana etc.
If you do this you cn come to the conclusion that most of the cards a more powerfull then cards which are legal
excluded examples like jitte, top, or Skullclamp.

Best Regards Teveshszat

I don't want to be a dick here, and I know English is your second language, but your posts here are pretty close to unreadable. I'm not trying to nitpick syntax or grammar or whatever, it's just actually really difficult to figure out what you are trying to say. If you could get a friend to proof read this stuff it'd make things easier, especially longer posts like this.

I am aware that cards are powerful based on how they interact with resources that's, really not even an insight. Being aware of this, no, I did not come to that conclusion. I'm not sure why you're lumping Jitte and Top, which are not banned, with Skullclamp, which is. The answer is not a "clear" no, not even only because I'm not entirely sure what your questions are. There's not a counterspell that's strictly better than Mana Drain, but the same could be said about Circular Logic or Cryptic Command, neither of which is in any danger of being banned as far as I know. Force of Will is clearly more powerful than Mana Drain though.

The fact that you're going out of your way to defend the power level of Shahrazad, which by Wizards' own admissions is strictly a logistical ban, suggests that you are operating mainly out of a prejudice towards the status quo I think.

[apple713]

Ad Nauseam, Brainstorm, Show and Tell.

Bazaar is probably more "powerful" than those actually, but Bazaar decks are fragile and it's basically impossible for them to dominate a metagame over time. Graveyard hate is too cheap/good.

Not sure why bazaar is in quotes. Its flat out one of the most powerful lands in the game. The speed at which bazaar allows you to function is faster than legacy decks really have time to combat it effectivly. Itsca land drop and cant be countered.




Oath is not at all comparable with Ad Nauseam. The building restrictions are very different, oath let's you do more broken things than any other deck I have ever played against. I honestly think this is the best deck on Vintage. Not

SnT, well, we agree on something, that card is busted as shit. You will get no argument from me here.

Oath is unhealthy because its creates little interaction and is mainly just 1 sided. Its also for the most part a 1 card combo.

Show and tell will probably never be banned because it allows for interaction with your opponent.

[HSCK]

Oath and its variants would break the format, and I love Oath. Oath Storm with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Lotus Petal, and 4 Ponder would be overly destructive.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Not sure why bazaar is in quotes. Its flat out one of the most powerful lands in the game. The speed at which bazaar allows you to function is faster than legacy decks really have time to combat it effectivly. Itsca land drop and cant be countered.

I assume you mean powerful. It was distinguishing quotes. Bazaar is powerful but not resilient.


Oath is unhealthy because its creates little interaction and is mainly just 1 sided. Its also for the most part a 1 card combo.

Show and tell will probably never be banned because it allows for interaction with your opponent.

I can't possibly put enough quote marks here but let me try.


"""""""""""""""""""""interaction"""""""""""""""""""""

[Dice_Box]

I guess. I just don't think that you can place something like Bazaar next to anything legal and state "Here is any kind of sane argument for anything really." The power of that card is head and shoulders above anything in Legacy today. Now if you wanted to place a card like Brainstorm next to a card like Recall, then we can have a discussion. While it takes some work to do, I am more than happy to draw parallels between the two and that is a more realistic point to make.

As for Oath being like SnT. I guess, to a point, but acting as a tutor and as a SnT is something else entirely. SnT is busted, Oath is busted, the two can be put near one another on a scale, but I still think that Oath is a poor argument when pointing at SnT. If you want to make an argument about SnT, just point at SnT. Nothing else required.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Although any extended convo about SNT vs Oath is going to basically be about how absurd Griselbrand's existence is.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I guess. I just don't think that you can place something like Bazaar next to anything legal and state "Here is any kind of sane argument for anything really." The power of that card is head and shoulders above anything in Legacy today. Now if you wanted to place a card like Brainstorm next to a card like Recall, then we can have a discussion. While it takes some work to do, I am more than happy to draw parallels between the two and that is a more realistic point to make.

As for Oath being like SnT. I guess, to a point, but acting as a tutor and as a SnT is something else entirely. SnT is busted, Oath is busted, the two can be put near one another on a scale, but I still think that Oath is a poor argument when pointing at SnT. If you want to make an argument about SnT, just point at SnT. Nothing else required.

Dude, Ancestral Recall is like way more powerful than Bazaar and Brainstorm put together. There's not really room for argument here, if AR was legal it would be a 4 of in every competitive deck.

I mean in the Bazaar deck vs the Recall deck, the former might get game 1, but game 2 is going to be like, "Extraction, Recall myself, untap cast Snapcaster targeting Extraction get fucked."

As for the latter point I think it's pretty relevant that a card that's banned that basically no one wants unbanned is comparable in all ways to a card that's legal that people are really struggling to defend not banning.

[Dice_Box]

I know it is more powerful, but more than one person is willing to concede that with a fetch, Brainstorm is as close to Recall as you can get without actually playing the card. Hell, even SCG streams they sometimes make that distinction. Granted that's far from the best place to get your legacy knowledge, but it shows how prevalent the view is.