All B/R update speculation.

[Mr Miagi]

Which aggro do you speak of?

[Quasim0ff]

Which aggro do you speak of?
You could argue that Delver is a legacy-iteration of aggro. A deck that focuses on the early game, with reach.

No, Delver is not zoo - hence the "non-linear" statement.

[Mr Miagi]

well, aggro is pretty much gone from legacy.

By all definitions I would consider delver a tempo deck, regardless if ti runs wasteland or not.

[MGB]

I think they should ban Thespian's Stage or Dark Depths.

RG Lands is simply too powerful a deck right now with this combo available to them. If they had to play the deck the way it used to be played pre-combo (i.e. strong but slower control deck that grinds them out with Barbarian Ring, or Mindslaver, or man-lands) it would still be strong but not nearly the best or second best deck in the format it is right now.

I'm completely serious when I say this. Lands crushes everything that isn't fast combo, and then boards into a sideboard full of hate for that combo *and* can combo out with its Marit Lage token fast enough to beat combo in one turn. The only thing that is stopping Lands from dominating every tournament is simply the lack of people playing the deck for various reasons (bias toward blue, lack of Tabernacles, etc).

[Lemnear]

well, aggro is pretty much gone from legacy.

By all definitions I would consider delver a tempo deck, regardless if ti runs wasteland or not.

You know that "tempo" is a Legacy-exclusive, blue subtype of the Aggro-concept, like the kinda outdated term of "sligh" is for "cheap, efficient creatures paired with burn spells"?

[Barook]

I think they should ban Thespian's Stage or Dark Depths.

RG Lands is simply too powerful a deck right now with this combo available to them. If they had to play the deck the way it used to be played pre-combo (i.e. strong but slower control deck that grinds them out with Barbarian Ring, or Mindslaver, or man-lands) it would still be strong but not nearly the best or second best deck in the format it is right now.

I'm completely serious when I say this. Lands crushes everything that isn't fast combo, and then boards into a sideboard full of hate for that combo *and* can combo out with its Marit Lage token fast enough to beat combo in one turn. The only thing that is stopping Lands from dominating every tournament is simply the lack of people playing the deck for various reasons (bias toward blue, lack of Tabernacles, etc).
If it's powerful enough, it's going to show its raw power sooner or later. People not properly metagaming for it can also be a reason why it does well. Player experience is also a thing.

[FoolofaTook]

Fastbond + Crucible of Worlds+any otherwise marginally playable self-sacrifice land like fetchland, wasteland, ghost quarter, cephalid coliseum, crystal vein, horizon canopy, archealogical dig, or city of traitors
is pretty derpy.

For example,
T1: Forest -> Fastbond -> Crystal Vein, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds ... hard cast Emrakul.

There's no draw in that sequence so you're talking a Magical Christmas Land 6 out of 7. The odds are at least as good of an insta-kill out of Storm combo turn 1.

There's no question that Fastbond would be a somewhat broken card if it was legal but that's true of a bunch of cards that are legal at this point and most of them interact better with Brainstorm than Fastbond would. Why not put some competing speed in the format to make it less Brainstorm-centric? This is why the Survival ban was so bad. Yes, it did work in Bant builds alongside Brainstorm however it also enabled a bunch of non-blue lists to be competitive. The argument from WotC as the time was that it created such consistency that we'd likely see top 8's that were 50% Survival oriented for the forseeable future. How is that different than the cantrip-cantrip-kill you that is prevalent now?

[FoolofaTook]

I think they should ban Thespian's Stage or Dark Depths.

RG Lands is simply too powerful a deck right now with this combo available to them. If they had to play the deck the way it used to be played pre-combo (i.e. strong but slower control deck that grinds them out with Barbarian Ring, or Mindslaver, or man-lands) it would still be strong but not nearly the best or second best deck in the format it is right now.

I'm completely serious when I say this. Lands crushes everything that isn't fast combo, and then boards into a sideboard full of hate for that combo *and* can combo out with its Marit Lage token fast enough to beat combo in one turn. The only thing that is stopping Lands from dominating every tournament is simply the lack of people playing the deck for various reasons (bias toward blue, lack of Tabernacles, etc).

Lands is doing what it is doing because it is an outlier list in which the player playing it has a lot of experience against various archetypes and the player being crushed has almost no experience against Lands.

Surgical Extraction, Tsabo's Web, Leylines of the Void, Suppression Field, Blood Moon and many other lesser options all offer significant protection against Lands. If Lands became a big thing people would metagame against it and learn the matchup and it would become a much slower combo-control list that frequently died to opposing hate.

[Lemnear]

The argument from WotC as the time was that it created such consistency that we'd likely see top 8's that were 50% Survival oriented for the forseeable future.

Stop spreading bullshit. WotC never made a prediction. Here is the official statement:


In recent months, Survival of the Fittest decks have been outperforming other decks in Legacy. This has caused the competitive format to become significantly less diverse. This has reached a point where the DCI concluded that it is appropriate to ban a card.

Other cards were considered, such as Vengevine. However some of the winning decks do not even play Vengevine; instead, they primarily rely on combinations with Necrotic Ooze. Also, Survival is a card that gives the decks a lot of resilience to potential answer cards. Some combination decks fail when they draw cards intended as answers to opponents' decks instead of cards that are part of their winning combination. However, with Survival of the Fittest on the battlefield, a drawn Qasali Pridemage can be replaced with any other creature in the deck for one mana.

Edit: Source (http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/122l)

The verdict of the three bolded parts is:

1) Survival decreased strategic diversity
2) Survival is resistant to answers
3) It's a repeatable Tutor for 1 mana

[Wilkin]

Stop spreading bullshit. WotC never made a prediction. Here is the official statement:



The verdict of the three bolded parts is:

1) Survival decreased strategic diversity
2) Survival is resistant to answers
3) It's a repeatable Tutor for 1 mana

Thank you. Sure, Survival dominated and was miserable to play against. It's a tutor card that is resilient vs hate. It could either tutor up an effect to deal with your Hate and even if it couldn't it could just hardcast Vengevines to beat you (especially if you mulled too hard for your Needle etc.).

Sure, there are more cards printed since the banning that are hateful towards Survival....Deathrite, Decay, RIP etc. I'm not sure that's enough.

I think Brainstorm is a crazy powerful card (and I can understand the arguments to ban it) but IMHO it wouldn't even be the top 2 cards I'd ban if I was given the option to. I'd probably be Show and Tell and Sensei's Divining Top. Show and Tell is gettting pretty insane, and WOTC aren't going to stop printing stupid cards so.... And Top, I hate matches going to time. Top is a big culprit as to why. Well, I guess Miracles specifically but annoying as it is, I don't think you can ban Counterbalance. Or Terminus.

And ban Dark Depths or Stage? Really? Why? Just because the deck did well at Worcester? It's a good deck. Can be extremely annoying. But it's not an autowin vs fair decks. I've done well vs deck. Including one at Worcester. He made a Marit Lage token. I dealt with it and dealt with the 2nd one 2 turns later.

[Chatto]

I think they should ban Thespian's Stage or Dark Depths.

RG Lands is simply too powerful a deck right now with this combo available to them. If they had to play the deck the way it used to be played pre-combo (i.e. strong but slower control deck that grinds them out with Barbarian Ring, or Mindslaver, or man-lands) it would still be strong but not nearly the best or second best deck in the format it is right now.

I'm completely serious when I say this. Lands crushes everything that isn't fast combo, and then boards into a sideboard full of hate for that combo *and* can combo out with its Marit Lage token fast enough to beat combo in one turn. The only thing that is stopping Lands from dominating every tournament is simply the lack of people playing the deck for various reasons (bias toward blue, lack of Tabernacles, etc).

The only reason RG Lands does well is because (and it has been stated already) no-one knows how to play against this deck. The reason for this (which also been stated) there are few players willing to invest in specific cards (Tabernacle being the biggest hurdle), and thus piloting this deck. It would very much surprise me if WotC would ban either Stage or DD. Hell, the deck isn't even dominating any meta!

(Of course I'm being biased, but come on! There are other cards being far more dominating)

[MGB]

The only reason RG Lands does well is because (and it has been stated already) no-one knows how to play against this deck. The reason for this (which also been stated) there are few players willing to invest in specific cards (Tabernacle being the biggest hurdle), and thus piloting this deck. It would very much surprise me if WotC would ban either Stage or DD. Hell, the deck isn't even dominating any meta!

(Of course I'm being biased, but come on! There are other cards being far more dominating)

This isn't really true.

As data has shown, RG Lands has the highest win percentage of all decks in Legacy. Which means that of the people that *are* playing it, they do better with it *as a whole* than any other group. It's not just David Long doing well with Lands.

The reason Lands isn't dominating Top8s completely is simply because not enough people play it. If everyone had access to the cards in the deck *and* alot of the top players wanted to play it over a blue-based shell, I think Lands would basically be 60% or more of any given Legacy Top 16.

As a whole, the Lands archetype, now that it has access to a one-turn-kill combo, is simply too powerful. It has the tools to crush every fair deck, it has a sideboard full of hate for combo, and it has its own fast, resilient one-turn-kill combo.

I'm perfectly OK with Lands as an archetype and a deck in this format, but I think that one of the two-three most powerful control decks in the format should not have access to a tutorable, recurrable, one-turn-kill combo as its win condition. Lands would still be a solid deck without Dark Depths and/or Thespian's Stage, it just wouldn't completely crush every fair deck it goes against.

[nedleeds]

Stop spreading bullshit. WotC never made a prediction. Here is the official statement:



The verdict of the three bolded parts is:

1) Survival decreased strategic diversity
2) Survival is resistant to answers
3) It's a repeatable Tutor for 1 mana


Thank you. Sure, Survival dominated and was miserable to play against. It's a tutor card that is resilient vs hate. It could either tutor up an effect to deal with your Hate and even if it couldn't it could just hardcast Vengevines to beat you (especially if you mulled too hard for your Needle etc.).

Sure, there are more cards printed since the banning that are hateful towards Survival....Deathrite, Decay, RIP etc. I'm not sure that's enough.


OK let's go to the WotC well then with respect to Derpstorm.



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.


He specifically calls out "blue decks". Eric Lauer.

Some people here claim a diverse field is 16 blue decks all playing 4 Brainstorm and most playing 4 Ponder / 4 FoW. Their perverse rationale is because the best aggro deck is blue, the best 2 card combo deck is blue, the best control deck is blue, the best momentum combo deck is blue that still makes for a wide open field full of innovation. Completely oblivious to the fact that you had a 48 card format (minus some Islands and fetches I guess ... #banisland).

He clearly correlates the preponderance of "blue decks" with a lack of diversity. Meaning having to play blue to compete is bad in their view, thus the card in question got banned. Every single argument he makes here applies to Brainstorm. He even calls the piece of shit out in his explanation.

Why they don't apply the same rationale to derpstorm is ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see a worse card like DTT or Ponder be the next sacrificial lamb at the altar of the holy one and it's a shame because Dig is an interesting card, it can be attacked from a number of angles, is bad in multiples in openers (without derpstorm to of course shuffle it back), and doesn't deserve to be banned.

[menace13]

OK let's go to the WotC well then with respect to Derpstorm.



He specifically calls out "blue decks". Eric Lauer.

blue decks

"But, color diversity is casual. Hurrrr."

[Gheizen64]

To be completely honest, i liked MM a lot. Sure it made the format absurdly slower and was a 4-of in almost anything (but who care, this isn't a criteria for banning a card for BS it shouldn't be for MM either), but it also made decks like MUD significantly better, and midrange in general. It also could be played in non-blue, while still being a blue card. Well whatever, it ain't coming back. The best part about MM was imho the possibility of unbanning some more cards because of how hostile the format would be against combo with it unbanned (was thinking about M. Vault)

[Barook]

It also could be played in non-blue, while still being a blue card.
The problem was, however, that it was better in blue decks than in nonblue decks, for various reasons (pitchable to FoW, castable without life investment, being able Brainstorm it away if dead).

This kind of hate card can't possibly work in the grand scheme of things. Symmetrical drawbacks are the only way blue decks keep their greedy clutches from cards that are supposed to fight blue.

[maharis]

He clearly correlates the preponderance of "blue decks" with a lack of diversity. Meaning having to play blue to compete is bad in their view, thus the card in question got banned. Every single argument he makes here applies to Brainstorm. He even calls the piece of shit out in his explanation.

MM was banned before Modern really took off (and they realized they could make money off it with Modern Masters). I think it would still be banned today, but they would carefully avoid criticizing color diversity because it is clear they see Legacy as a lost cause due to the reserved list or whatever. In the ban explanation for Treasure Cruise, blue-red Delver decks are specifically cited as the boogeyman, despite the fact that the deck underperformed at GPNJ and the best Treasure Cruise decks were clearly moving into the Stoneforge realm.

The upshot: Wizards used to care about color diversity because it needs a non-rotating format to keep its standard card values high. (If players get bit by the rotation dive too often, they won't stick around and buy more packs). Once Extended died and Modern came around, Legacy was even less necessary than before.


Why they don't apply the same rationale to derpstorm is ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see a worse card like DTT or Ponder be the next sacrificial lamb at the altar of the holy one and it's a shame because Dig is an interesting card, it can be attacked from a number of angles, is bad in multiples in openers (without derpstorm to of course shuffle it back), and doesn't deserve to be banned.

Dig's crime will be stated that it took two decks into the stratosphere (Miracles and Omnitell). Of course, the brainstorm-fetch engine is the only reason either of those decks play Dig Through Time.

Banning Ponder would be a colossal mistake as it would be pretty much admitting that they know the format is fucked but they don't have the stones to take Brainstorm down.

For what it's worth, I would be happy at this point if they at least started with Show and Tell and gave us back something that makes a new deck, like Earthcraft or Survival. There is a chance that a better engine that doesn't need Brainstorm to survive (though of course earthcraft and survival decks both could play brainstorm) could at least dent blue's metagame dominance.

[FoolofaTook]

The fact that the argument over Brainstorm is raging at this point in a format in which 70%+ of the best lists incorporate it has to be embarrassing to WotC on some level. My best guess is that Marketing, R&D and the people above them just don't have a clue what to do about the situation.

They don't want to do something that causes competitive attendance to decline however they also don't know how much the current competitive base is effected by the blue shells dominance. For every player who loves casting Brainstorm there's probably a player out there who hates playing endless blue shell mirrors and/or has a pet archetype that just isn't doable against a blue shell heavy meta.

Then you add in the likelihood that the longer the shell is allowed to dominate the more players become accustomed to it as the dominant presence in the meta. It's almost a situation where waiting has no downside for WotC unless attendance declines force their hand. It's not hard to shape a Legacy meta where the people who don't like the blue shell just go away, hopefully feeding into Modern in the process.

Flash-Hulk was a big winner in terms of spike publicity and then Flash got banned. Jace was a gold standard print that got everybody buzzing before it became buzzkill and got banned in Standard and Modern. Treasure Cruise drove a huge GP, although not quite up to the hype beforehand, and got banned. The point of all this is that blue and powerful has been both a blessing and a curse for WotC in the past. I'm guessing the people who make this decision just don't have a clue what to do about Legacy's sudden evolution into a very blue format.

[Ingo]

This isn't really true.
As data has shown, RG Lands has the highest win percentage of all decks in Legacy. Which means that of the people that *are* playing it, they do better with it *as a whole* than any other group. It's not just David Long doing well with Lands.

Actually, it is. You are referring to data (https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/3522py/scg_legacy_results_for_major_archetypes_dc/)which consists only out of just 130 matches. That's not much, considering that top 8-ing an event probably consists of about 15 matches played (Swiss + top8, just an estimate). As Long top8-ed 3 times in timespan DC-Portland, what huge percentage of the 130 matches should be attributed to him?
Also illustrating the relativity of the data, Food Chain Combo and MUD take place 2 and 3. Are these decks overpowered too then? I found the first DTB, Miracles, on spot number 13, the second, RUG Delver, on spot 17.

Point being, the data (https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/3522py/scg_legacy_results_for_major_archetypes_dc/)is just a snapshot of a limited timespan, and too limited to draw conclusions.
Same for the results of the last SCG event. A total of 6 landsplayers is way too narrow to draw conclusions, even if 4 of them make day 2.

[Barook]

I'm guessing the people who make this decision just don't have a clue what to do about Legacy's sudden evolution into a very blue format.
Except the evolution wasn't really sudden. The only major jump was after Delver (if we exclude the Misstep era), after that, it has been a gradual increase each year with each blue-related bullshit card they print.

Since they basically admitted that they don't stop printing blue bullshit as long as it's fine in Standard, the least thing they can do without banning a ton of blue cards is:

1) Stop printing dumb blue cards in Eternal products. Flusterstorm? Awesome. TNN? Fuck that.

2) Start printing more blue-related hate in Eternal products that is symmetrical. E.g. a Sulfur Elemental for blue creatures would go a long way to fight off blue since it kills everything relevant aside from flipped Delvers. Or maindeckable, symmetrical hate permanents that aren't sorcery speed and cost at least twice as much as the card they're supposed to answer, Brainstorm.

3) Print better consistency tools for nonblue decks that don't go well with blue deck. That is probably the hardest part.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

The fact that the argument over Brainstorm is raging at this point in a format in which 70%+ of the best lists incorporate it has to be embarrassing to WotC on some level. My best guess is that Marketing, R&D and the people above them just don't have a clue what to do about the situation.Except that no-one in any of those departments spends any time thinking about legacy. Do you honestly think the marketing team is considering legacy on a regular basis? Hell, the R&D team just released an article where they confirm that they don't actually do any modern testing at all.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/development-risks-modern-2015-05-22

Nobody is actively thinking about legacy within wotc.

[FoolofaTook]

Except the evolution wasn't really sudden. The only major jump was after Delver (if we exclude the Misstep era), after that, it has been a gradual increase each year with each blue-related bullshit card they print.

I'm not sure I'm on board with this characterization of the jump. I think Delver made a real impact but I also think we've seen a big impact in the last year. 50%+ in 2008-2009, 60%+ in 2011-2012, 70%+ in 2014-2015.

Ponder - Lorwyn (Oct 2007)
Vendilion Clique - Morningtide (Feb 2008)
Jace, the Mindsculptor - Worldwake (Mar 2010)
Preordain - M11 (Jul 2010)
Delver of Secrets - Innistrad (Sep 2011)
Omniscience - M13 (Jul 2012)
True-Name Nemesis - C13 (Nov 2013)
Treasure Cruise - Khans of Tarkir (Sep 2014)
Dig Through Time - Khans of Tarkir (Sep 2014)

Then you have the cards that are effectively blue given they work best in the blue shell:

Tarmogoyf - Future Sight (May 2007)
Ad Nauseum - Shards of Alara (Oct 2008)
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - (Apr 2010)

So I'd group the rise of the blue shell into three rough waves:

2008-2009 Tarmogoyf, Ponder, Vendilion Clique, Ad Nauseum
2010-2012 Jace, Preordain, Emrakul, Delver of Secrets
2013-2015 Omniscience, TNN, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time

Blue threats have outpaced the format sequentially and they've been joined by better cantrips and card selection as well. That's why we're where we are.

[Barook]

Except that no-one in any of those departments spends any time thinking about legacy. Do you honestly think the marketing team is considering legacy on a regular basis? Hell, the R&D team just released an article where they confirm that they don't actually do any modern testing at all.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/development-risks-modern-2015-05-22

Nobody is actively thinking about legacy within wotc.
The cantrip part was pretty interesting, since Legacy is exactly plagued by that:


Part of the reason that Ponder and Preordain are banned and Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions aren't, is that the latter two are just weaker and don't do as good of a job of letting people set up their draws quickly. The problem with putting too much card filtering in a format is that it drives too many of the games to play out exactly the same. There is some novelty in this, but I think it is less fun for a format that we want to be highly re-playable.

That's not to say we don't like consistency, it's one of the reasons we put so many dual lands in our sets, but there should be a reasonable tradeoff for consistency.

[sdematt]

Pretty easy - stop printing amazing blue cards and fucking everyone else.

-Matt

[Lemnear]

The problem was, however, that it was better in blue decks than in nonblue decks, for various reasons (pitchable to FoW, castable without life investment, being able Brainstorm it away if dead).

This kind of hate card can't possibly work in the grand scheme of things. Symmetrical drawbacks are the only way blue decks keep their greedy clutches from cards that are supposed to fight blue.

Unsurprisingly, I have to agree with all instances of this post. Printing non-drawback bullshit or easily splashable powercreep isn't going to do anything to break the cantrip safe haven. A deck like Deathblade shouldn't even be able to exist, but TNN and SFM doesn't even bother the manabase at all. What if SFM was WW and TNN 1WW? The format would have been a lot more balanced during 2014 for example.

[M+1]

The cantrip part was pretty interesting, since Legacy is exactly plagued by that:


Part of the reason that Ponder and Preordain are banned and Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions aren't, is that the latter two are just weaker and don't do as good of a job of letting people set up their draws quickly. The problem with putting too much card filtering in a format is that it drives too many of the games to play out exactly the same. There is some novelty in this, but I think it is less fun for a format that we want to be highly re-playable.

That's not to say we don't like consistency, it's one of the reasons we put so many dual lands in our sets, but there should be a reasonable tradeoff for consistency.

You left out this interesting part from the article about 'reasonable' consistency:


If you want a deck that never has color problems, then you can play mono-red. If you want to play a three-color aggressive deck, then you get to play way more powerful spells, at the cost of your life and your lands entering the battlefield tapped and messing up your curve.

By extension, if this applied to Legacy as well, which is obviously doesn't, but if it did, then we were looking at a dual-land ban just around the corner.

[Barook]

By extension, if this applied to Legacy as well, which is obviously doesn't, but if it did, then we were looking at a dual-land ban just around the corner.
Technically, you have to pay life if you want to fetch for duals. :tongue:

Tapped dual variants is their bullshit excuse to sell new cards and to slow down the format to make their overcosted crap more viable. Hence 5 mana Wraths & company.

[Lemnear]

I'm not sure I'm on board with this characterization of the jump. I think Delver made a real impact but I also think we've seen a big impact in the last year. 50%+ in 2008-2009, 60%+ in 2011-2012, 70%+ in 2014-2015.

Ponder - Lorwyn (Oct 2007)
Vendilion Clique - Morningtide (Feb 2008)
Jace, the Mindsculptor - Worldwake (Mar 2010)
Preordain - M11 (Jul 2010)
Delver of Secrets - Innistrad (Sep 2011)
Omniscience - M13 (Jul 2012)
True-Name Nemesis - C13 (Nov 2013)
Treasure Cruise - Khans of Tarkir (Sep 2014)
Dig Through Time - Khans of Tarkir (Sep 2014)

Then you have the cards that are effectively blue given they work best in the blue shell:

Tarmogoyf - Future Sight (May 2007)
Ad Nauseum - Shards of Alara (Oct 2008)
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - (Apr 2010)

So I'd group the rise of the blue shell into three rough waves:

2008-2009 Tarmogoyf, Ponder, Vendilion Clique, Ad Nauseum
2010-2012 Jace, Preordain, Emrakul, Delver of Secrets
2013-2015 Omniscience, TNN, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time

Blue threats have outpaced the format sequentially and they've been joined by better cantrips and card selection as well. That's why we're where we are.

It's close to lying if you exclude all the non-blue printings since 2008 which shaped what Legacy was since 2008 and is today. No talk about Decay, DRS, , Nettle Sentinel, Heritage Druid, Thoughtseize, Quasali Pridemage, Knight of the Reliquary, Wild Nacatl, Life from the Loam, Thalia, SFM, Craterhoof, GSZ, Dryad Arbor, Vengevine, etc. or even the fact that Emrakul was first adapted by Elves.

Don't act as if blue cardselection was the only aspect of the game which got better in the last 6 years. We still see D&T, Elves, Jund, Lands, etc as viable option in the metagame which also profited by the powercreep

[phonics]

It's close to lying if you exclude all the non-blue printings since 2008 which shaped what Legacy was since 2008 and is today. No talk about Decay, DRS, , Nettle Sentinel, Heritage Druid, Thoughtseize, Quasali Pridemage, Knight of the Reliquary, Wild Nacatl, Life from the Loam, Thalia, SFM, Craterhoof, GSZ, Dryad Arbor, Vengevine, etc. or even the fact that Emrakul was first adapted by Elves.

Don't act as if blue cardselection was the only aspect of the game which got better in the last 6 years. We still see D&T, Elves, Jund, Lands, etc as viable option in the metagame which also profited by the powercreep

I would say its more along the lines of Wizards giving blue the best low cost spells, and then printing cards that are extremely synergistic with said spells (delver, snapcaster, pyromancer, cruise, dig ect) that are blue or splashable. I think it is just the case that all other colors dont have access to cheap spells that are anywhere near as good as the blue package. Each color has a few, which is why there are so many variants of delver type decks that all run the same shell with those few decent spells in other colors.

[sjmcc13]

Then you have the cards that are effectively blue given they work best in the blue shell:

Tarmogoyf - Future Sight (May 2007)
Ad Nauseum - Shards of Alara (Oct 2008)
...


Goyf works well in ANY shell that runs green and more then just creatures, not just blue shells. People really need to get over this misconception that Goyf is a blue creature because it is splash-able. Heck in modern most of the decks it sees play in have no blue cards at all.
Also calling Ad Nauseum a blue card is laughable since the decks that run is are normally more black then blue, ANT runs BS, Ponder, Probe and Pre-ordain, normally maxing at 14-15 blue cards IIRC but almost never more then 16. and normally what 20-21 black spells. Sorry but if a deck is more black then blue, then calling it a blue deck is wrong, and that is the only way to justify calling Ad Nauseum a blue card. Or are you someone who looks at a deck, sees Brainstorm and other cantrips, then stops right there saying that is is a blue deck running the blue shell regardless of the rest of the decks cards.

[FoolofaTook]

Goyf works well in ANY shell that runs green and more then just creatures, not just blue shells. People really need to get over this misconception that Goyf is a blue creature because it is splash-able. Heck in modern most of the decks it sees play in have no blue cards at all.
Also calling Ad Nauseum a blue card is laughable since the decks that run is are normally more black then blue, ANT runs BS, Ponder, Probe and Pre-ordain, normally maxing at 14-15 blue cards IIRC but almost never more then 16. and normally what 20-21 black spells. Sorry but if a deck is more black then blue, then calling it a blue deck is wrong, and that is the only way to justify calling Ad Nauseum a blue card. Or are you someone who looks at a deck, sees Brainstorm and other cantrips, then stops right there saying that is is a blue deck running the blue shell regardless of the rest of the decks cards.

Goyf works best in the blue shell. That's when he's at his best as a threat. If he worked better in Jund or Junk or Naya then those lists would be in a better place than they are right now. If he didn't work in the blue shell then those lists would be better right now. He works better in RUG and BUG than anywhere else and that's where he has the highest impact.

Ad Nauseum is not played in any lists that I am aware of that do not run at least 10 blue cantrips alongside it. It's played as a 1-of with 10+ blue spells to find either it or the black tutors that will find it.

And yes, if I see a lot of blue cantrips it's a blue shell list. The cantrips are a much bigger effect on the metagame right now than the permission or the creatures in blue. They're the effect that tells almost all of the archetypes that depend on a heavy load of non-blue spells to GTFO.

[rlesko]

Goyf works best in the blue shell.

stopped reading here. is DRS a blue card? SFM? Bob?

[FoolofaTook]

stopped reading here. is DRS a blue card? SFM? Bob?

You're making my point for me though. You're right, all of those guys work better in the blue shell than in shells based around their color also.

The point about Goyf is that before he showed up the blue shell didn't have an aggro wall easily available. Werebear, Nimble Mongoose and Mishra's factory were as close as you came for the shell. They all had flaws of one sort or another, none of them had the impact that Goyf did both in stabilizing and then in turning hard on the opponent when the opportunity presented itself.

2 mana for a 4/5 or 5/6 beater is a great thing. It's greater in the blue shell than anywhere else and that's unfortunate.

[Kanti]

It is amazing how many good blue cards they have printed lately. It's like having Survival legal and not only printing Vengevine, but like 4-5 other functional reprints. Can't say I'm impressed.

[FoolofaTook]

It is amazing how many good blue cards they have printed lately. It's like having Survival legal and not only printing Vengevine, but like 4-5 other functional reprints. Can't say I'm impressed.

It's not just blue cards. Where are Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Gurmag Angler and Murderous Cut going to be used to best effect? In a blue shell with lots of fetches and cantrips hitting the graveyard early enough to make them valuable.

The blue shell is still going to be much better than anything else running even if they did ban Brainstorm. It will be weaker but it's way above the power level of the format at this point and a single ban isn't going to change that.

[Chatto]

This isn't really true.

The reason Lands isn't dominating Top8s completely is simply because not enough people play it. If everyone had access to the cards in the deck *and* alot of the top players wanted to play it over a blue-based shell, I think Lands would basically be 60% or more of any given Legacy Top 16.

(...)

I'm perfectly OK with Lands as an archetype and a deck in this format, but I think that one of the two-three most powerful control decks in the format should not have access to a tutorable, recurrable, one-turn-kill combo as its win condition. Lands would still be a solid deck without Dark Depths and/or Thespian's Stage, it just wouldn't completely crush every fair deck it goes against.

Dude, if Lands would really be dominating (which, I'm pretty sure will never happen), just pack the appropiate SB-hate. People are just unprepared and inexperienced against this deck. You don't have to believe me, but this deck is easy to beat with the right cards. I mean, Blood Moon or Surgical Extraction are still cards. With your reasoning decks that can go off multiple times per game have elements that are ban-worthy. Note that Lands has the interact by attacking with Marit Lage, which can be blocked... untill the end of times.

[Varal]

If they unbanned Mishra's Workshop, it would put a big contender against the blue cantrip shell.

[Admiral_Arzar]

If they unbanned Mishra's Workshop, it would put a big contender against the blue cantrip shell.

Unbans of Memory Jar and/or Mana Vault would have a similar effect I think.

[Lemnear]

If they unbanned Mishra's Workshop, it would put a big contender against the blue cantrip shell.

If you want to see a format which is Workshop vs. blue pile vs. Dredge, I honestly recommend you picking up Vintage. Playing against Turn 1 Spheres and Lodestones so you potentially never get to CAST a spell isn't for everyone

[LeoCop 90]

The fact that the argument over Brainstorm is raging at this point in a format in which 70%+ of the best lists incorporate it has to be embarrassing to WotC on some level. My best guess is that Marketing, R&D and the people above them just don't have a clue what to do about the situation.

They don't want to do something that causes competitive attendance to decline however they also don't know how much the current competitive base is effected by the blue shells dominance. For every player who loves casting Brainstorm there's probably a player out there who hates playing endless blue shell mirrors and/or has a pet archetype that just isn't doable against a blue shell heavy meta.

Then you add in the likelihood that the longer the shell is allowed to dominate the more players become accustomed to it as the dominant presence in the meta. It's almost a situation where waiting has no downside for WotC unless attendance declines force their hand. It's not hard to shape a Legacy meta where the people who don't like the blue shell just go away, hopefully feeding into Modern in the process.

I quote this post after 3 pages because i found it so true i needed to do it.

I read people here say that we are playing in a healty and diverse meta. Sure, healthy and diverse as long as you play 4 brainstorm 4 ponders and 4 force of will. Obviously this is not a healthy meta, the fact is just that people in legacy are by now so accustomed to this that it just seems normal, and people who actually like playing with said blue cards keep considering this meta healthy.

Obviously, wizards won't do anything (because they never do anything, because they don't care about legacy) so the format will slowly fade away and start resembling vintage. The restricted "elite" of people who like blue cards /blue decks will continue playing legacy, while everyone else will inevitably get tired of this shit and quit magic or start playing modern, that is basically what wizards wants.

[Lemnear]

I quote this post after 3 pages because i found it so true i needed to do it.

I read people here say that we are playing in a healty and diverse meta. Sure, healthy and diverse as long as you play 4 brainstorm 4 ponders and 4 force of will. Obviously this is not a healthy meta, the fact is just that people in legacy are by now so accustomed to this that it just seems normal, and people who actually like playing with said blue cards keep considering this meta healthy.

Obviously, wizards won't do anything (because they never do anything, because they don't care about legacy) so the format will slowly fade away and start resembling vintage. The restricted "elite" of people who like blue cards /blue decks will continue playing legacy, while everyone else will inevitably get tired of this shit and quit magic or start playing modern, that is basically what wizards wants.

Point me to the Storm, Lands, Elves, D&T, MUD, Burn, etc. running these three cards? Each of these archetypes make up for 2%-10% of the metagame despite not running these. Just saying

[HSCK]

I quote this post after 3 pages because i found it so true i needed to do it.

I read people here say that we are playing in a healty and diverse meta. Sure, healthy and diverse as long as you play 4 brainstorm 4 ponders and 4 force of will. Obviously this is not a healthy meta, the fact is just that people in legacy are by now so accustomed to this that it just seems normal, and people who actually like playing with said blue cards keep considering this meta healthy.

Obviously, wizards won't do anything (because they never do anything, because they don't care about legacy) so the format will slowly fade away and start resembling vintage. The restricted "elite" of people who like blue cards /blue decks will continue playing legacy, while everyone else will inevitably get tired of this shit and quit magic or start playing modern, that is basically what wizards wants.

If that's the case why has attendance been so strong?

[dte]

Point me to the Storm, Lands, Elves, D&T, MUD, Burn, etc. running these three cards? Each of these archetypes make up for 2%-10% of the metagame despite not running these. Just saying

Storm plays 2 of the 3 most played spells, and 3 out of 5. It just does not play FoW & DTT for obvious nombo reasons with their engines, and because discard is an effective protection for them (who mostly want to be protected against countermagic).

So, for the sake of the argument, you can remove them from your list. Then, the most played deck you listed makes 3% of the metagame.

Anyway, the best way to see the prevalence of these cards is to have a look at their %ages from mtgtop8:
Brainstorm 81 %
Force of Will 74 %
Ponder 70 %
The 3 most played cards.

You can argue that they enable a wide variety of archetypes, that's for sure, with both tempo, midrange, controle and combo strategies playing them.
You cannot argue against the fact than more than 60% of the decks play these 12 cards, and that more than 80% of the decks do rely on brainstorm.

[Lemnear]

Brainstorm 81 %
Force of Will 74 %
Ponder 70 %

The 3 most played cards.

You can argue that they enable a wide variety of archetypes, that's for sure, with both tempo, midrange, controle and combo strategies playing them.
You cannot argue against the fact than more than 60% of the decks play these 12 cards, and that more than 80% of the decks do rely on brainstorm.

I am not arguing against these numbers; I'm arguing that they present a must-have-core of 12 cards you cannot succeed without. Look at other formats:


Vintage:

Mox Sapphire 92 %
Black Lotus 87 %
Mox Ruby 78 %
Ancestral Recall 71 %
Mox Jet 71 %
Mental Misstep 71 %
Mox Emerald 70 %
Force of Will 70 %
Time Walk 69 %


Standard:

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 45 %
Windswept Heath 45 %
Hero's Downfall 44 %
Thoughtseize 40 %
Caves of Koilos 40 %


Block:

Scoured Barrens 62 %
Murderous Cut 62 %
Sorin, Solemn Visitor 62 %
Heir of the Wilds 60 %
Wingmate Roc 55 %
Utter End 50 %


Commander:

Command Tower 83 %
Wasteland 80 %
Polluted Delta 75 %
Misty Rainforest 75 %
Cavern of Souls 74 %
Windswept Heath 73 %
Flooded Strand 70 %
Wooded Foothills 67 %
Marsh Flats 65 %
Scalding Tarn 63 %

Let that sink in. The older/deeper the format the more limited via testing and experience is the to-go cardpool.

[sjmcc13]

I read people here say that we are playing in a healty and diverse meta. Sure, healthy and diverse as long as you play 4 brainstorm 4 ponders and 4 force of will. Obviously this is not a healthy meta, the fact is just that people in legacy are by now so accustomed to this that it just seems normal, and people who actually like playing with said blue cards keep considering this meta healthy. Sorry, but this still allows for a healthy meta.

Health and Diversity have to do with the range of deck archetypes, a healthy meta will contain a decent % of each of combo, control, and aggro decks. and it will have multiple decks (strategies) in each category. meaning there are multiple distinct decks. Most of them using the 2 best support cards in the format (BS and Ponder) has little to do with diversity as they are strictly support, and not how the deck wins.

You are equating Diversity with color balance but they are not the same (from my experience allot of the player base misunderstands and miss uses terms, "fair" being the worst example of a term the player base uses for something other then what it actually means), and while blue is the most played color, every color is playable. Color diversity is the worst stat to lok at for the health of a format, because it leads to looking at goodcard.decks decks that follow the same basic game plan with a different set of cards and slight alterations between them, and saying that the format is healthy and diverse because the colors are playable, even though the level of strategy and play-style diversity of the format is horrible.

[MGB]

Question: would it not be better for the format if Sensei's Divining Top was banned?

- It would drastically reduce the number of draws in tournaments, as Miracles players (particularly those who do not use Top efficiently) are primarily responsible for these draws. You can argue that people need to get better at using Top, but that is simply too idealistic - there will always be a larger percentage of slower Miracles players than faster ones as long as new players continue to adopt the deck.

- It wouldn't neuter the Miracles deck completely, as versions with 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm and possibly 4 Preordain would still be good enough to set up the Miracle spells. It wouldn't be as dominating as the SDT versions have been, but that's precisely the point - Miracles is too good of a control deck and stifles development of most aggro in the format.

- It would allow more diversity of control decks and aggro decks. Right now there is very little incentive to play a control deck in this format that isn't Miracles or Lands. If Miracles didn't have access to SDT, it would only be a "good" control deck instead of the de facto *best* control deck. You would see more players experimenting with traditional U/W control, and you would see a renewed interest in Landstill archetypes. Additionally, you would see more aggro decks other than simply Ux Delver decks, because the reduced number of Terminus in the format would allow aggro to thrive. Diversity is always good for the format!

The only people that would be upset with a Sensei's Divining Top ban are some of the hardcore Miracles players that primarily play this deck in Legacy. Everyone else would benefit - aggro players, players of different control archetypes, tournament organizers, the judges, combo players, new players who want to get into Legacy but are intimidated by either playing Miracles or against Miracles...

A Sensei's Divining Top ban is one of the best things that could happen to Legacy, imho.

[rlesko]

You're making my point for me though. You're right, all of those guys work better in the blue shell than in shells based around their color also.

The point about Goyf is that before he showed up the blue shell didn't have an aggro wall easily available. Werebear, Nimble Mongoose and Mishra's factory were as close as you came for the shell. They all had flaws of one sort or another, none of them had the impact that Goyf did both in stabilizing and then in turning hard on the opponent when the opportunity presented itself.

2 mana for a 4/5 or 5/6 beater is a great thing. It's greater in the blue shell than anywhere else and that's unfortunate.

Just because you say something many times- that doesn't make it true. This is all just rhetoric. "its better in the blue shell"- what are your hard facts to back up a statement like this? And actually Dark Confidant is not good in a blue shell because you can't play him in conjunction with cards like force of will and dig through time. DRS is better in a blue shell? I think elves, maverick, and Jund would disagree.

[maharis]

Question: would it not be better for the format if Sensei's Divining Top was banned?

- It would drastically reduce the number of draws in tournaments, as Miracles players (particularly those who do not use Top efficiently) are primarily responsible for these draws. You can argue that people need to get better at using Top, but that is simply too idealistic - there will always be a larger percentage of slower Miracles players than faster ones as long as new players continue to adopt the deck.

- It wouldn't neuter the Miracles deck completely, as versions with 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm and possibly 4 Preordain would still be good enough to set up the Miracle spells. It wouldn't be as dominating as the SDT versions have been, but that's precisely the point - Miracles is too good of a control deck and stifles development of most aggro in the format.

- It would allow more diversity of control decks and aggro decks. Right now there is very little incentive to play a control deck in this format that isn't Miracles or Lands. If Miracles didn't have access to SDT, it would only be a "good" control deck instead of the de facto *best* control deck. You would see more players experimenting with traditional U/W control, and you would see a renewed interest in Landstill archetypes. Additionally, you would see more aggro decks other than simply Ux Delver decks, because the reduced number of Terminus in the format would allow aggro to thrive. Diversity is always good for the format!

The only people that would be upset with a Sensei's Divining Top ban are some of the hardcore Miracles players that primarily play this deck in Legacy. Everyone else would benefit - aggro players, players of different control archetypes, tournament organizers, the judges, combo players, new players who want to get into Legacy but are intimidated by either playing Miracles or against Miracles...

A Sensei's Divining Top ban is one of the best things that could happen to Legacy, imho.

Banning Top would be bad because it would pretty much take card selection away from non-blue decks that still have a punchers chance, like Painter or some Nic Fit decks. Those decks also don't take as long with their Tops as Miracles does.

The reason top is spun so much is Counterbalance. That is the card that should be banned. It is overpowered (compare Chalice of the Void), unfun, encourages durdly drag-outs, and requires decks to play a narrow set of answers in order to function (Abrupt Decay had to be printed because of CB).

You could also ban the actual miracle cards themselves but I think making it easier to rebuild after a wrath (by taking Counterbalance away) mitigates the effect of getting Terminused. I mean, sure it's a one-mana instant-speed super wrath, but those qualities are rarely relevant. And ETA is a bomb like any other that can be easily dealt with as long as every answer doesn't just ram into the Counterbalance maw.

[Barook]

- It wouldn't neuter the Miracles deck completely, as versions with 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm and possibly 4 Preordain would still be good enough to set up the Miracle spells. It wouldn't be as dominating as the SDT versions have been, but that's precisely the point - Miracles is too good of a control deck and stifles development of most aggro in the format.
SDT IS Miracles. Resolve a Pithing Needle on their Top and watch their deck miserably fall apart. And no, cantrips can't fix that. It also kills their Counterbalance locks which means it gets molested by various combo decks.

[maharis]

Just because you say something many times- that doesn't make it true. This is all just rhetoric. "its better in the blue shell"- what are your hard facts to back up a statement like this? And actually Dark Confidant is not good in a blue shell because you can't play him in conjunction with cards like force of will and dig through time.

BUG decks that don't play DTT play Bob. FOW is tough to hit, but then again, they also have BS/Ponder to keep it off the top off the deck.


DRS is better in a blue shell? I think elves, maverick, and Jund would disagree.

What is the best DRS deck right now? Is it any of those, or is it BUG Delver/Deathblade? Maybe it's elves, but that doesn't seem true in this current meta. Elves has lost a lot of market share since the delve cards were printed. Maybe Julian has a good explanation of why.

What FOAT consistently says, and he is right, is that the only way for new cards to enter the format is for them to synergize in some way with the blue cantrips + fetches base that most decks are built on. If DTT gets the axe, we will be down to Monastery Mentor and Tasigur as legacy-playables from the Khans block, and neither of those is more than a 2-of in any current T1 deck.

[MGB]

SDT IS Miracles. Resolve a Pithing Needle on their Top and watch their deck miserably fall apart. And no, cantrips can't fix that. It also kills their Counterbalance locks which means it gets molested by various combo decks.

I think that Miracles would still be playable without Top, but definitely much less powerful. Which is fine, and exactly what Legacy needs - more diversity among its control decks and not a single overpowering control deck ruling the format and squeezing out aggro.

As I said, banning SDT would bring back an interest in all different flavors of Ux control and force people to try different things instead of just defaulting to SDT + Counterbalance + Terminus.

[MGB]

Banning Top would be bad because it would pretty much take card selection away from non-blue decks that still have a punchers chance, like Painter or some Nic Fit decks. Those decks also don't take as long with their Tops as Miracles does.

The reason top is spun so much is Counterbalance. That is the card that should be banned. It is overpowered (compare Chalice of the Void), unfun, encourages durdly drag-outs, and requires decks to play a narrow set of answers in order to function (Abrupt Decay had to be printed because of CB).

You could also ban the actual miracle cards themselves but I think making it easier to rebuild after a wrath (by taking Counterbalance away) mitigates the effect of getting Terminused. I mean, sure it's a one-mana instant-speed super wrath, but those qualities are rarely relevant. And ETA is a bomb like any other that can be easily dealt with as long as every answer doesn't just ram into the Counterbalance maw.

Counterbalance and Miracles are perfectly reasonable cards. They were not designed to be abused in conjunction with Top, however.

The problem really is the Top. It enables far too much card selection at too low of a cost. Even if you banned Counterbalance and/or Miracle spells, Top would still be played and drag out matches and eventually combo with something else printed down the line.

SDT is like Survival of the Fittest - strong on its own, but broken with certain additional pieces - this time, any card that profits from manipulation of the top of the library. What broke Survival was Vengevine, and instead of banning Vengevine and then dealing with more Survival shenanigans down the line, Wizards did the right thing and just banned the engine. In this case the correct choice again is to ban the engine and not the support pieces. The engine of Miracles degeneracy is Sensei's Divining Top.

And honestly, the argument that banning top is bad for non-blue decks holds about as much water as the argument that banning Mental Misstep was bad for non-blue decks because they had a colorless counterspell. Sensei's Divining Top helps blue FAR MORE than it helps any other color, just as Mental Misstep simply helped blue far more than it helped any other color.

[rlesko]

BUG decks that don't play DTT play Bob. FOW is tough to hit, but then again, they also have BS/Ponder to keep it off the top off the deck.


This is true, but no more than 2. Contrast this with Bob showing up as 4 of in things like Maverick and deadguy, and I feel pretty comfortable saying this is not a blue card.



What is the best DRS deck right now? Is it any of those, or is it BUG Delver/Deathblade? Maybe it's elves, but that doesn't seem true in this current meta. Elves has lost a lot of market share since the delve cards were printed. Maybe Julian has a good explanation of why.

What FOAT consistently says, and he is right, is that the only way for new cards to enter the format is for them to synergize in some way with the blue cantrips + fetches base that most decks are built on. If DTT gets the axe, we will be down to Monastery Mentor and Tasigur as legacy-playables from the Khans block, and neither of those is more than a 2-of in any current T1 deck.

He could be right, but he could be wrong. I'll say it again -where are the facts? WHY are these cards better in a "blue shell"? Goyf, bob, SFM, DRS, etc. are all highly splashable. some blue decks utilize them, some nonblue decks do as well. I swear, people on this forum would be happy to see all blue cards get banned.

Khans block was pretty nutty for legacy. We got fetches reprint, swiftspear, cruise, dtt, siege rhino, mentor, tasigur, ugin (I think thats it). How many quality legacy playable cards do you want them to print in 1 block?

[sdematt]

Sure, but banning Top does nothing for the rest of the format, it just takes Miracles out of the equation, leaving Omni and various flavours of Delver and Blade to rise up. All of these decks are running the very common DTT. It's a bit more ubiquitous in the format than I expected, to say the least.

-Matt

[MGB]

Sure, but banning Top does nothing for the rest of the format, it just takes Miracles out of the equation, leaving Omni and various flavours of Delver and Blade to rise up. All of these decks are running the very common DTT. It's a bit more ubiquitous in the format than I expected, to say the least.

-Matt

It actually does alot for the format. It speeds up tournaments, creates less draws, makes Legacy more enjoyable. I'd rather lose to combo than a durdly control deck and that sentiment is probably echoed by most players.

And I don't think that removing Miracles turns Legacy into a Combo-Fest, either. There will still be control decks. I predict, if SDT is axed, that we see a resurgence of Landstill decks and various other UWx or UGx control decks.

And the most important result of banning SDT would be forcing control decks to rely on less efficient sweepers than the completely degenerate Terminus. This would let more aggro decks slip into the format. Aggressive non-blue aggro decks that play hatebears for combo, or even Zoo-like aggro decks that play some hatebears and/or burn and/or discard that can present a fast clock for combo decks backed up by some light disruption. These types of decks are basically completely squeezed out of the format by Miracles Counter-Top + Terminus plan.

[Finn]

Health and Diversity have to do with the range of deck archetypes, a healthy meta will contain a decent % of each of combo, control, and aggro decks. and it will have multiple decks (strategies) in each category. meaning there are multiple distinct decks. Most of them using the 2 best support cards in the format (BS and Ponder) has little to do with diversity as they are strictly support, and not how the deck wins.

You are equating Diversity with color balance but they are not the same (from my experience allot of the player base misunderstands and miss uses terms, "fair" being the worst example of a term the player base uses for something other then what it actually means), and while blue is the most played color, every color is playable. Color diversity is the worst stat to lok at for the health of a format, because it leads to looking at goodcard.decks decks that follow the same basic game plan with a different set of cards and slight alterations between them, and saying that the format is healthy and diverse because the colors are playable, even though the level of strategy and play-style diversity of the format is horrible.I love people presenting their opinions as fact. Good thing we have someone here to set us all straight on these ideas and definitions.


Health and Diversity have to do with the range of viable tactics, a healthy meta will contain a decent % of each of combo, control, and aggro decks. and it will have multiple decks (strategies) in each category. meaning there are multiple distinct decks. Most of them using the 2 best support cards in the format (BS and Ponder) has everything to do with lack of diversity in fundamental deck composition , regardless of how the deck wins.

You are equating Diversity with different win conditions but they are not the same (from my experience allot of the player base misunderstands and miss uses terms, "diversity" being the worst example of a term the player base uses for something other then what it actually means), and while every color is playable, blue is by far the most prominent feature of winning decks. Win condition is the worst stat to lok at for the health of Legacy, since the tactics to get there are largely the same across decks that follow the same basic game plan with a different set of cards and slight alterations between them, and saying that the format is healthy and diverse because the support colors are playable, even though the level of tactics and play-style diversity of the format is horrible.

[sdematt]

I think that if you think SDT is the problem with the format at large, you may be a little off. I understand your point on tournament draws and such, but I encourage you to play more games against more decks. The Ponder build is far less derdly, as well.

-Matt

[MGB]

I think that if you think SDT is the problem with the format at large, you may be a little off. I understand your point on tournament draws and such, but I encourage you to play more games against more decks. The Ponder build is far less derdly, as well.

-Matt

SDT isn't the only problem with the format, but it offers very little for anybody but the core group of Miracles pilots. Even hardcore control fanatics would still have plenty of blue control decks to play in the absence of SDT. I am all for diversity and fun - SDT adds very little fun and stifles diversity, and removing it would increase both diversity (in both control and aggro decks) and fun.

[LeoCop 90]

maybe it is my fault because i should explain everything i say extremely deeply in detail, so i will just repeat my opinion here expanding more. I think that a meta where you have to play 4 force of will 4 ponders and 4 brainstorm is not healthy and something should be done, and....

-- Lemnear : obviously i'm aware that not EVERYONE plays 12x of the cards i listed , but ALMOST EVERYONE plays them. this is enough for me to consider legacy a bad format right now

--- Scjmcc : well, i respect your opinion, but please don't speak like it is the only truth. If you are so convinced of your definitions of healthy and balanced, then i won't use this terms at all, i will just say that the format is bad. i hope you won't try and explain me also the exact definition of bad.

[Lemnear]

maybe it is my fault because i should explain everything i say extremely deeply in detail, so i will just repeat my opinion here expanding more. I think that a meta where you have to play 4 force of will 4 ponders and 4 brainstorm is not healthy and something should be done, and....

-- Lemnear : obviously i'm aware that not EVERYONE plays 12x of the cards i listed , but ALMOST EVERYONE plays them. this is enough for me to consider legacy a bad format right now

--- Scjmcc : well, i respect your opinion, but please don't speak like it is the only truth. If you are so convinced of your definitions of healthy and balanced, then i won't use this terms at all, i will just say that the format is bad. i hope you won't try and explain me also the exact definition of bad.

The point is that "this is enough for me to consider legacy a bad format right now" is an honorable, personal opinion, but not a compelling reason for a ban, especially if the sheer tournament attendence hints at the opposite.

[Admiral_Arzar]

SDT isn't the only problem with the format, but it offers very little for anybody but the core group of Miracles pilots. Even hardcore control fanatics would still have plenty of blue control decks to play in the absence of SDT. I am all for diversity and fun - SDT adds very little fun and stifles diversity, and removing it would increase both diversity (in both control and aggro decks) and fun.

As someone who often plays Imperial Painter, and has played Nic Fit, Doomsday, etc. I would really like for one of the few card-quality tools that non-blue decks have access to to remain legal. If you have a problem with Miracles (I know I do), the cards to look at are Terminus and Counterbalance.

[MGB]

As someone who often plays Imperial Painter, and has played Nic Fit, Doomsday, etc. I would really like for one of the few card-quality tools that non-blue decks have access to to remain legal. If you have a problem with Miracles (I know I do), the cards to look at are Terminus and Counterbalance.

The difference is that Imperial Painter wins because of the Painter-Grindstone combo and its Moon effects. A banning of SDT would basically do little to nothing to its viability as a deck. The last three Imperial Painter lists (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16480&iddeck=123224, http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16397&iddeck=122627, http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16217&iddeck=121157) that placed decently at SCG events each played only 2 SDTs in their lists, and easily could substitute something else for those Tops and still be powerful decks.

Let's look instead at tcdeck's listing of decks that use SDT in their main deck:
http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=0&nhigh=0&dlow=0&mlow=0&ylow=0&dhigh=0&mhigh=0&yhigh=0&player=&dname=&format=Legacy&aname=&main=sensei%27s+&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on

The vast majority of that list is Miracles decks. The fact of the matter is that there is only *one* deck in Legacy which uses Sensei's Divining Top as an integral part of its core strategy. The random fringe BGx deck might use it as a source of card selection, and the stray Painter list might use it as a tertiary tool. All of those decks can still be just as good without Top and a banning of Top would not affect their core strategy at all. Miracles, however, derives most of its degeneracy from using Sensei's Divining Top to set up the Counterbalance lock and to pay one white mana for unconditional board sweepers. That is the problem with Top - it only really benefits Miracles, and it harms the diversity of control and aggro in the format.

[.dk]

As someone who often plays Imperial Painter, and has played Nic Fit, Doomsday, etc. I would really like for one of the few card-quality tools that non-blue decks have access to to remain legal. If you have a problem with Miracles (I know I do), the cards to look at are Terminus and Counterbalance.

Yes. SDT has a place in many non-control decks. I realize that they are mostly fringe strategies, however it can play a big role in these decks that are also fun to play. I would hate to see them banned out of existence even further. But, that's just because I like playing stuff out of left field. :)

[Lemnear]

As someone who often plays Imperial Painter, and has played Nic Fit, Doomsday, etc. I would really like for one of the few card-quality tools that non-blue decks have access to to remain legal. If you have a problem with Miracles (I know I do), the cards to look at are Terminus and Counterbalance.

Without any interrest to fuel the discussion here on SDT: It is the reason Terminus, Entreat and Counterbalance are that strong and all the repeated arguments in regards to "Brainstorm messing with Discard as a viable tool" apply even more to SDT (see: floated Flisterstorm against ANT for example)

[FoolofaTook]

SDT is clearly a broken card in Miracles. It's one of the few cards in the format where the opponent resolving it turn 1 of game 1 will make me consider conceding the game immediately to have a realistic chance at winning 2 games in the match. Obviously a blue-white control list should not have access to a card that gives it a high percentage chance of winning if it is resolved on turn 1. Think about it.

[Darkenslight]

SDT is clearly a broken card in Miracles. It's one of the few cards in the format where the opponent resolving it turn 1 of game 1 will make me consider conceding the game immediately to have a realistic chance at winning 2 games in the match. Obviously a blue-white control list should not have access to a card that gives it a high percentage chance of winning if it is resolved on turn 1. Think about it.

I have. Your logic is flawed. IT's sort fo the difference between Tom Ross and Jim Davis playing the exact same lists; both will think things through considerably, but one will then play quite quickly. SDT is an enabler of slower players, but IMO, there's nothing wrong with the card in and of itself. The problematic part is the interaction with Miracle cards (specifically Terminus) and the soft lock with CB. Honestly, I'd go after CB before I'd go after Top if I were to ban something out of Miracles.

Just because a card is extremely strong in a single archetype doesn't mean it warrants banning; however, the case against other such cards (namely, Mind's Desire) is somewhat different, as SDT doesnt' allow a player to cheat on mana expenditure. Smart, efficient play with the card flat-out reduces the chances of drawing with the card in your deck.

[maharis]

Counterbalance and Miracles are perfectly reasonable cards. They were not designed to be abused in conjunction with Top, however.

The problem really is the Top. It enables far too much card selection at too low of a cost. Even if you banned Counterbalance and/or Miracle spells, Top would still be played and drag out matches and eventually combo with something else printed down the line.

SDT is like Survival of the Fittest - strong on its own, but broken with certain additional pieces - this time, any card that profits from manipulation of the top of the library. What broke Survival was Vengevine, and instead of banning Vengevine and then dealing with more Survival shenanigans down the line, Wizards did the right thing and just banned the engine. In this case the correct choice again is to ban the engine and not the support pieces. The engine of Miracles degeneracy is Sensei's Divining Top.

And honestly, the argument that banning top is bad for non-blue decks holds about as much water as the argument that banning Mental Misstep was bad for non-blue decks because they had a colorless counterspell. Sensei's Divining Top helps blue FAR MORE than it helps any other color, just as Mental Misstep simply helped blue far more than it helped any other color.

What do you think about Brainstorm? It fits a lot of the same criteria you're talking about.

If you ban Top to kill Miracles, you also eliminate several other decks that lean on it for "fair" card selection. In fact I think it's funny that you say there's plenty of U control decks to choose from. Well, there can be non U control decks as long as top is around and UW control has been the best deck in Magic since 1993. I would much rather ban cards that only support that archetype to the elimination of others.



This is true, but no more than 2. Contrast this with Bob showing up as 4 of in things like Maverick and deadguy, and I feel pretty comfortable saying this is not a blue card.

...

He could be right, but he could be wrong. I'll say it again -where are the facts? WHY are these cards better in a "blue shell"? Goyf, bob, SFM, DRS, etc. are all highly splashable. some blue decks utilize them, some nonblue decks do as well. I swear, people on this forum would be happy to see all blue cards get banned.

Khans block was pretty nutty for legacy. We got fetches reprint, swiftspear, cruise, dtt, siege rhino, mentor, tasigur, ugin (I think thats it). How many quality legacy playable cards do you want them to print in 1 block?

These points are related. The point is that, sure Bob is a 4 of deadguy and jund, and Goyf appears in Zoo (lol) and jund, but the best decks that play these cards are blue. SFM (D&T) and DRS (Elves) have tier-one-ish non-blue appearances but even those decks rotate in and out of tier one while blue decks stick around.

Sylvan Library might be the best green card that's legal in Legacy, and it's not played at all in any top deck other than the occasional sideboard appearance from RUG or BUG.

As for the cards the block gave us... fetches are a REPRINT, so they do not count. Swiftspear died with TC. Only the occasional insane loonie like me or sdematt plays Siege Rhino in Legacy. And Mentor/Tasigur/Ugin are just bit players in already established blue decks. I think 1-2 cards a set are necessary to keep the format fresh, but each one that makes any sort of real impact just pushes blue decks so much that it ends up having to be banned.

[porcupinetreeman]

IMO

Ban

Show and Tell + Brainstorm

cards are just too powerful, will make for healthier format

[FoolofaTook]

IMO

Ban

Show and Tell + Brainstorm

cards are just too powerful, will make for healthier format

Terminus too. The card sits on any list planning to play creatures for profit in the attack step.

[FoolofaTook]

I have. Your logic is flawed. IT's sort fo the difference between Tom Ross and Jim Davis playing the exact same lists; both will think things through considerably, but one will then play quite quickly. SDT is an enabler of slower players, but IMO, there's nothing wrong with the card in and of itself. The problematic part is the interaction with Miracle cards (specifically Terminus) and the soft lock with CB. Honestly, I'd go after CB before I'd go after Top if I were to ban something out of Miracles.

Just because a card is extremely strong in a single archetype doesn't mean it warrants banning; however, the case against other such cards (namely, Mind's Desire) is somewhat different, as SDT doesnt' allow a player to cheat on mana expenditure. Smart, efficient play with the card flat-out reduces the chances of drawing with the card in your deck.

SDT is an enabler of fast spikes these days. It just lets them play lists that will win 80% of the time if they get to turn 4.

A card that wins when resolved on turn 1 as often as SDT does is broken. Unlike most such cards all you have to do is play a land and the spell and the field has tilted sharply in your favor against most lists.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Terminus too. The card sits on any list planning to play creatures for profit in the attack step.

Wait why would you want both terminus and brainstorm banned?

[FoolofaTook]

Wait why would you want both terminus and brainstorm banned?

Because SDT, Ponder and Preordain would keep Terminus sitting on creature aggro. There'd be additional inconsistency in the form of hands with a Terminus or two in the opening hand but it'd still be a kill card against aggro creature strategies that did not include counters or taxing mechanisms to forestall an early board wipe. Swords to Plowshares, Snapcaster Mage and Supreme Verdict are enough to fairly handle creature aggro. If they're not then Path to Exile and Wrath of God can supplement. A 1 mana board wipe in which the creatures aren't even sent to the GY is too powerful for non-blue creature aggro strategies to fight through, even the ones that try to win by turn 3.

[Stevestamopz]

Because SDT, Ponder and Preordain would keep Terminus sitting on creature aggro. There'd be additional inconsistency in the form of hands with a Terminus or two in the opening hand but it'd still be a kill card against aggro creature strategies that did not include counters or taxing mechanisms to forestall an early board wipe. Swords to Plowshares, Snapcaster Mage and Supreme Verdict are enough to fairly handle creature aggro. If they're not then Path to Exile and Wrath of God can supplement. A 1 mana board wipe in which the creatures aren't even sent to the GY is too powerful for non-blue creature aggro strategies to fight through, even the ones that try to win by turn 3.

Miracles isn't the only deck keeping "aggro" out. Quite literally everything else is as well.

[dte]

I do not get at all why some people would want to ban SDT because miracle presence is obnoxious, either because of game experience, metagame considerations or draw issues.

SDT supports and can support other strategies than miracle: non-U control (pox like, nic-fit,...) and some combo decks (painter, doomsday).

If you want to decrease miracle's presence, why not ban cards which would severe miracle power, like CB or/and terminus? Banning SDT would anyway make these cards near useless, so the effect in term of miracle decrease (in power and metagame representation) will be the same, while letting some people play with the powerful SDT without locking away someone from the game (CB) or having instand speed one mana wrath effects.

[lavafrogg]

Instead of banning blue cards, I would be more interested in in the printing/unbanning of cards that cannot play blue. We have combo elves, why not give us recruiter for combo goblins?

Give charbelcher channel and see how blue handles it.

Earthcraft would give creature decks a boost, especially that elves deck that doesn't play blue.

Skullclamp also plays well with more creatures than spells and also bring aggro back.

I am not saying any of these cards would never see play in a blue deck, but it would give rise to new non blue decks.

Even go as far as create a cycle of overpowered cards with a new mechanic "primal" you can't play instants or sorceries.

Right now I feel like the best deck is always the deck that abuses the best blue cards in the most effective way.

I would just appreciate more diversity.

And no- the small outlier of death and taxes doesn't count.

[Echelon]

Skullclamp also plays well with more creatures than spells and also bring aggro back.


Concerning Skullclamp: Have you considered a UWR shell with Delver, SFM & Young Pyromancer..? Nowadays one doesn't need to build an entire deck around it to abuse it anymore. Skullclamp cannot be unbanned. In the worst case it'd make a Delver a 4/1 flyer that gives you 2 cards when it dies. Otherwise, you give every spell in a tempo deck kicker :1: to draw 2 cards. So yeah...

[phonics]

Instead of banning blue cards, I would be more interested in in the printing/unbanning of cards that cannot play blue. We have combo elves, why not give us recruiter for combo goblins?

Give charbelcher channel and see how blue handles it.

Earthcraft would give creature decks a boost, especially that elves deck that doesn't play blue.

Skullclamp also plays well with more creatures than spells and also bring aggro back.

I am not saying any of these cards would never see play in a blue deck, but it would give rise to new non blue decks.

Even go as far as create a cycle of overpowered cards with a new mechanic "primal" you can't play instants or sorceries.

Right now I feel like the best deck is always the deck that abuses the best blue cards in the most effective way.

I would just appreciate more diversity.

And no- the small outlier of death and taxes doesn't count.

This is how balance should be approached in the game, banning just upsets people and leads to an overall weaker format in terms of power, which no one wants. Printing good cards, ways for other colors to have some kind of manipulation like Sylvan Library, SDT will allow decks to be more consistent without having to go blue. This way it feels like everyone gets to play with very strong cards that balance each other out in the end. Of course Wizards don't care or don't know how to do this and will inevitably print broken blue cards time and time again.

[YamiJoey]

Cantrips and Force of Will are the reasons why Blue is on top. Whenever you play a non-Force deck that doesn't have a T1 kill, you accept that you cannot beat some decks like Storm and Belcher. You accept that your games against other combo will also be iffy at best. In a format like Legacy that's not acceptible. You're going to walk into those MU's all the time.

Give us a non-Blue replacement for Force and we have the problem solved. Thalia does this for DnT.

[Barook]

Give us a non-Blue replacement for Force and we have the problem solved. Thalia does this for DnT.
Thalia stops combo on your T0? That's news to me.

I agree that part of the problem is the lack of super-early combo hate in other colors, though.

[Lemnear]

If you ban Top to kill Miracles, you also eliminate several other decks that lean on it for "fair" card selection. In fact I think it's funny that you say there's plenty of U control decks to choose from. Well, there can be non U control decks as long as top is around and UW control has been the best deck in Magic since 1993. I would much rather ban cards that only support that archetype to the elimination of others.

Excuse me. Which decks "lean" on SDT? Do you count Imperial Painter which run 0-2 SDTs in their deck or the weekly flavors of 12-Post Jeremiah presents? Does RG Lands or MUD, possibly the only decks I'd count as non-blue control decks, run SDT at all?

The gap between SDT and Braknstorm in terms of enabling/supporting different decks/strategies is comically huge to even bring up.


Skullclamp also plays well with more creatures than spells and also bring aggro back.

Even go as far as create a cycle of overpowered cards with a new mechanic "primal" you can't play instants or sorceries.

Skullclamp is dumb; like hilariously dumb. People complained about Treasure Cruise and you want to see Young Pyromancer + Skullclamp legal *Bangs HeadAgainstTheWall*.

I like the idea of "primal" on a creature: 3/3 - G - Primal (you cannot play non-creature spells as long as ~ is on the battlefield).


Miracles isn't the only deck keeping "aggro" out. Quite literally everything else is as well.

Correct. That's why I think the calls for a Terminus ban are totally pointless in regards to resurrecting linear aggro decks. These decks still get crunched by SFM/TNN/S&T/ToA. For all other aggro variants like aggro-control (Delver) or aggro-combo (Elves), the potential ban of Terminus isn't much of a gamechanger if Terminus would be replaced by Pyroclasm for example.


Because SDT, Ponder and Preordain would keep Terminus sitting on creature aggro. There'd be additional inconsistency in the form of hands with a Terminus or two in the opening hand but it'd still be a kill card against aggro creature strategies that did not include counters or taxing mechanisms to forestall an early board wipe. Swords to Plowshares, Snapcaster Mage and Supreme Verdict are enough to fairly handle creature aggro. If they're not then Path to Exile and Wrath of God can supplement. A 1 mana board wipe in which the creatures aren't even sent to the GY is too powerful for non-blue creature aggro strategies to fight through, even the ones that try to win by turn 3.

Honestly, dood ... whats wrong with you? We're back to "Miracles w/o Brainstorm" as your point to argue? Do I have to repeat the discussion on this ridiculous stupid idea of you every three pages? Is there a learning disorder, I should have known from the start, to not have an infinite loop of discussing the matter?


IMO

Ban

Show and Tell + Brainstorm

cards are just too powerful, will make for healthier format

You're here for 10 years and only come up with an empty phrase like "healthy" like this being a TV Shopping Show trying to sell fat-reduced sausages?


edit:

Thalia stops combo on your T0? That's news to me.

I agree that part of the problem is the lack of super-early combo hate in other colors, though.

I could swear that Pyroblast is red, Discard is black, Mana Tithe is White, Mindbreak Trap costs no mana and Sol-Land + Thorn is colorless. There are options, but there not necessarily tailor-made ones so people skip on the available option and rather whine

[Barook]

I could swear that Pyroblast is red, Discard is black, Mana Tithe is White, Mindbreak Trap costs no mana and Sol-Land + Thorn is colorless. There are options, but there not necessarily tailor-made ones so people skip on the available option and rather whine
Neither of those can stop T0 combo (with the exception of Mindbreak Trap - sometimes; a card that is completely dead otherwise, unlike FoW).

Pyroblast being run in maindecks is an abomination of the format by itself (just showing how warped the format is now) and Mana Tithe is unplayable (show me a blue deck archetype that runs Force Spike as maindeck staple - no, Daze doesn't count). Sol decks also prefer to go for Chalice + Trinisphere in Legacy, mainly because the acceleration isn't the same without power + Workshops, like in Vintage.

[Lemnear]

Neither of those can stop T0 combo (with the exception of Mindbreak Trap - sometimes; a card that is completely dead otherwise, unlike FoW).

Pyroblast being run in maindecks is an abomination of the format by itself (just showing how warped the format is now) and Mana Tithe is unplayable (show me a blue deck archetype that runs Force Spike as maindeck staple - no, Daze doesn't count). Sol decks also prefer to go for Chalice + Trinisphere in Legacy, mainly because the acceleration isn't the same without power + Workshops, like in Vintage.

So you don't want to count Pyroblast because it's so damn effective in the current metagame? You don't want to run hate against T1 combo decks because it's not as flexible as FoW? You deny the fact that Imperial Painter does run Thorn of Amethyst to not mess with it's own low-cost spells? You disagree that Thorn is an underplayed tool for creature decks to fight spell-based decks, despite its place in Elves SBs at times? You dismiss the fact that you can run acceleration yourself to get hate online earlier (Starting with Simian Spirit Guide + Pyroblast)?

You can say there is no TAILOR-MADE hate you LIKE TO RUN, but saying there is a SHEER LACK of options in non-blue is false

[maharis]

Excuse me. Which decks "lean" on SDT? Do you count Imperial Painter which run 0-2 SDTs in their deck or the weekly flavors of 12-Post Jeremiah presents? Does RG Lands or MUD, possibly the only decks I'd count as non-blue control decks, run SDT at all?

The gap between SDT and Braknstorm in terms of enabling/supporting different decks/strategies is comically huge to even bring up.

The reason SDT isn't played more in non-blue/light blue decks is because Brainstorm is so powerful. SDT is tempo loss, card disadvantage, and mana hungry. If your plan is to use it to select, you need to catch up. That means playing some sort of bomb like Eldrazi, Nic Fit beaters, Painter/Stone. Most Top decks are soft to fast combo and strong denial draws like RUG's nut hand for that reason. If you're just filling your deck with as many textless cards as possible like Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, you don't need to waste time on Top.

Miracles gets to pair Counterbalance with Top and even has the ability to blind-lock people out of a turn and get even more insanity online, while surviving early turns in a way Top decks without Counterbalance can't. Counterbalance is the reason any deck plays 4 tops, and it's the best thing to be doing with SDT while other SDT strategies are far behind. Therefore, Counterbalance should be banned rather than Top, because it is either unplayable dreck or an asymetrical lock that requires little effort to build around other than "jam SDT+CB into your existing UW control shell of counters, cantrips, plows and finishers"

If Brainstorm, Ponder, and Counterbalance were banned (and I'm not advocating all these bans at once, just a thought experiment), SDT would be played quite heavily, the diversity of "strategies" in legacy would still be so, but there would be more non-blue versions, perhaps even of existing strategies. SDT is a great card when you don't have to spin it 9 times a turn for your Counterbalance, and when it actually competes with other cards for consistency.


I like the idea of "primal" on a creature: 3/3 - G - Primal (you cannot play non-creature spells as long as ~ is on the battlefield).

I do too, it might be too limiting on its face to do any work in Legacy but then again you have things like Evoke that can be workarounds.


Correct. That's why I think the calls for a Terminus ban are totally pointless in regards to resurrecting linear aggro decks. These decks still get crunched by SFM/TNN/S&T/ToA. For all other aggro variants like aggro-control (Delver) or aggro-combo (Elves), the potential ban of Terminus isn't much of a gamechanger if Terminus would be replaced by Pyroclasm for example.

I also agree with this. Zoo isn't coming back unless we do a real Legacy housecleaning, and we should be working to add cards to the format, not remove them.


I could swear that Pyroblast is red, Discard is black, Mana Tithe is White, Mindbreak Trap costs no mana and Sol-Land + Thorn is colorless. There are options, but there not necessarily tailor-made ones so people skip on the available option and rather whine

None of these are even close to as good as FOW. Mana Tithe, really? Thats not even the best solution in white. Dryad Militant is probably better against any potential turn 0/1 combo since it beats cards like Dread Return and Rite of Flame.

Even then, I am fine with having decks that can't beat turn 0/1 combo since blue decks aren't even really locks to beat these decks either. However they should be good against other decks and nonblue decks simply can't keep up.

[Barook]

So you don't want to count Pyroblast because it's so damn effective in the current metagame? You don't want to run hate against T1 combo decks because it's not as flexible as FoW? You deny the fact that Imperial Painter does run Thorn of Amethyst to not mess with it's own low-cost spells? You disagree that Thorn is an underplayed tool for creature decks to fight spell-based decks, despite its place in Elves SBs at times? You dismiss the fact that you can run acceleration yourself to get hate online earlier (Starting with Simian Spirit Guide + Pyroblast)?

You can say there is no TAILOR-MADE hate you LIKE TO RUN, but saying there is a SHEER LACK of options in non-blue is false
We're talking about maindeckable (T0) combo hate here, since you seem to mix it up.

- If you run red, yes, you can run Pyroblast. That doesn't mean it's any less stupid. That's like saying running 4 Leyline of the Voids during the Flash era is a good thing.
- There's a difference between FoW and cards that suck. Suggesting that Mana Tithe is appropriate, maindeckable combo hate is ludicrous and you should know better than that.
- Imperial Painter doesn't run Thorn in the maindeck, and looking up the data, it doesn't seem like the most stellar sideboard card either, like you try to make it look like.
- Creature decks that want the Thorn effect maindeck already run Thalia since it's the better card. Creature decks and Sol Lands don't go too well together, either, due to consistency issues.
- Elves don't run Thorn in the maindeck either. Again, looking at the data, it's basically seeing zero play as a SB card, either.
- There's exactly one deck that does the Blast + Guide thing, but Imperial Painter can get away with it because it has an entire strategy build around that, including a fast combo kill. Or are you really suggesting that everybody should now run MD Blasts + SSG to get a crappy FoW equivalent?

[Quasim0ff]

Every deck has access to Mindbreak Trap.

Not every deck has access to FoW, which is a significant investment, as it's always a 2-1. It also requires about 17 blue spells (besides FoW) to be consistent.

[Barook]

Every deck has access to Mindbreak Trap.

Not every deck has access to FoW, which is a significant investment, as it's always a 2-1. It also requires about 17 blue spells (besides FoW) to be consistent.
If Mindbreak Trap is that good, why does it see zero maindeck play and just occasional SB play? Because it's way too narrow and dead in most match-ups, unlike FoW. E.g. A+B combo normally need only one spell (maybe two) a turn to completely ruin you, while Trap sits uncastable in your hand.

[iamajellydonut]

The reason SDT isn't played more in non-blue/light blue decks is because Brainstorm is so powerful.

And here I am thinking it was because Sylvan Library brings home more bacon.

[Quasim0ff]

If Mindbreak Trap is that good, why does it see zero maindeck play and just occasional SB play? Because it's way too narrow and dead in most match-ups, unlike FoW. E.g. A+B combo normally need only one spell (maybe two) a turn to completely ruin you, while Trap sits uncastable in your hand.
Because t1 combo aren't dominant, due to the existence of FoW...?

[Stevestamopz]

Because t1 combo aren't dominant, due to the existence of FoW...?

No it's because the card is terrible. Let's say you somehow miraculously get ANT/TES Game 2 with Mindbreak Trap because for some reason they didn't bother playing a spell that looks at your hand. Do you honestly think they're going to run headfirst into it Game 3?

Proof it won't happen (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/quarterfinals_jim_davis_vs_bry.html)

[Lemnear]

The reason SDT isn't played more in non-blue/light blue decks is because Brainstorm is so powerful. SDT is tempo loss, card disadvantage, and mana hungry. If your plan is to use it to select, you need to catch up. That means playing some sort of bomb like Eldrazi, Nic Fit beaters, Painter/Stone. Most Top decks are soft to fast combo and strong denial draws like RUG's nut hand for that reason. If you're just filling your deck with as many textless cards as possible like Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, you don't need to waste time on Top.

It's no card disadvantage at all. You invest mana and time to significantly increase the quality of your cards and reduce dead daws to zero, which alone is more than just making up for the tempo/mana loss in the early game, it wins games on it's own which you can clearly see everytime Miracles players board out their Counterbalances in certain matchups. If a player with SDT in play untaps more than two times with the artifact in play, their opponent is on their road to ruin.


Miracles gets to pair Counterbalance with Top and even has the ability to blind-lock people out of a turn and get even more insanity online, while surviving early turns in a way Top decks without Counterbalance can't. Counterbalance is the reason any deck plays 4 tops, and it's the best thing to be doing with SDT while other SDT strategies are far behind. Therefore, Counterbalance should be banned rather than Top, because it is either unplayable dreck or an asymetrical lock that requires little effort to build around other than "jam SDT+CB into your existing UW control shell of counters, cantrips, plows and finishers"

In addition to my precious example of SDT winning games based on sheer card quality (which people hate brainstorm for also), you can reverse the argument for Terminus & Entreat, calling SDT the reason both Miracles are not just playable, but format defying powerhouses. We hopefully agree that SDT is the anchor to hold together the Card Quality, the Stack control, the board control and the finisher in Miracles.dec.


If Brainstorm, Ponder, and Counterbalance were banned (and I'm not advocating all these bans at once, just a thought experiment), SDT would be played quite heavily, the diversity of "strategies" in legacy would still be so, but there would be more non-blue versions, perhaps even of existing strategies. SDT is a great card when you don't have to spin it 9 times a turn for your Counterbalance, and when it actually competes with other cards for consistency.

We discussed this in this thread ... like 4 times before now, thus I make it short:

1) Decks with conditional cards -> dead -> reductiin of viable archetypes
2) DtB = Deck with almost no conditional cards but great redundancy
3) SDT + Preordain >>> every other available tools for card-selection/-quality
4) Everyone is playing SDT + Preordain + SFM + TNN
5) Streamlining of the metagame


None of these are even close to as good as FOW. Mana Tithe, really? Thats not even the best solution in white. Dryad Militant is probably better against any potential turn 0/1 combo since it beats cards like Dread Return and Rite of Flame.

Even then, I am fine with having decks that can't beat turn 0/1 combo since blue decks aren't even really locks to beat these decks either. However they should be good against other decks and nonblue decks simply can't keep up.

You mistook me. The talk was that you have to play blue for early interaction with combo, which is wrong. There was never the talk about quality or versatility or I would have not named cards like Mana Tithe with a sense of sarcasm at all ;)


We're talking about maindeckable (T0) combo hate here, since you seem to mix it up.

- If you run red, yes, you can run Pyroblast. That doesn't mean it's any less stupid. That's like saying running 4 Leyline of the Voids during the Flash era is a good thing.
- There's a difference between FoW and cards that suck. Suggesting that Mana Tithe is appropriate, maindeckable combo hate is ludicrous and you should know better than that.
- Imperial Painter doesn't run Thorn in the maindeck, and looking up the data, it doesn't seem like the most stellar sideboard card either, like you try to make it look like.
- Creature decks that want the Thorn effect maindeck already run Thalia since it's the better card. Creature decks and Sol Lands don't go too well together, either, due to consistency issues.
- Elves don't run Thorn in the maindeck either. Again, looking at the data, it's basically seeing zero play as a SB card, either.
- There's exactly one deck that does the Blast + Guide thing, but Imperial Painter can get away with it because it has an entire strategy build around that, including a fast combo kill. Or are you really suggesting that everybody should now run MD Blasts + SSG to get a crappy FoW equivalent?

There was NEVER the talk about being maindeckable till now. In your last post you switched the precious "super-early" to "Turn 0" after I answered your question: I remind you once more: Don't change the questions everytime I give you an answer you don't like.

- You call Pyroblast stupid, but I call it smart running a card MB or SB which can deal with combo (S&T), Control (Counterbalance) and Aggro (Delver, TNN) at the same time. I get that you don't like the answer, but it's an accurate answer to your earlier asked question.
- There was never the talk about GOOD, VERSATILE, MAINDECKABLE, TURN 0 combo hate in your previous posts, but the initial statement that there is a "lack of super-early combo hate in other colors" than blue, which is wrong. You can't be mad at me for bringing up such a card like Mana Tithe just to make a point with a :wink:
- Creature decks that want Thorn do not always run Thalia, because it's a colored card which matters at times
- MUD (not Forgemaster variants) is by my definition a "Creature deck" which runs Sol-Lands, Post-Mana and Resistors like Thorns. I'd say Wurmcoil, Batterskull and Londestone go well with such a manabase
- I remember Elves with Thorns, but as they already run Black you can choose to run Discard instead which is another, mentioned, non-blue angle to attack "super-early" combo decks. Quod erat demonstrandum.
- You build around FoW (blue count), AN (cmc), Vial (Creatures, cmc), Counterbalance (cmc), etc. all day, but complain if people build their deck around Painter naming blue for example? If you want to play mono-red in a field full of blue, then yeah, run your Pyroblasts maindeck. It's not my fucking business that most Goblin players never thought about running the trinity of Warren Instigator/Simian Spirit Guide/Pyroblast to deal with the metagame. It's also no my problem if people are to peacocky to run Mindbreak Traps in their Sideboard to bridge the gap between turn 0 and them dropping a Thorn/Thalia/etc.

You are asking for a non-blue card THAT DOES EXACTLY THAT FOW DOES against combo for no opportunity-cost in running ... while we're at it ... can I get a blue Dark Ritual and Infernal tutor as well, because I don't want to have splash black in Storm...


edit:

No it's because the card is terrible. Let's say you somehow miraculously get ANT/TES Game 2 with Mindbreak Trap because for some reason they didn't bother playing a spell that looks at your hand. Do you honestly think they're going to run headfirst into it Game 3?

Proof it won't happen (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/quarterfinals_jim_davis_vs_bry.html)

The idiocy is that some people still think MBT wins them the game. MBT can ONLY close a window in which you are vulnerable, but has to be followed up with more hate

[Stevestamopz]

It's not my fucking business that most Goblin players never thought about running the trinity of Warren Instigator/Simian Spirit Guide/Pyroblast to deal with the metagame.

Dear god please stop encouraging Goblin players to play Warren Instigator. It is such a fucking horrible card, there isn't a single matchup I would want that hunk of shit in. Also playing 4x Simian Spirit Guide and 4x Pyroblast maindeck in Goblins is a way to lose every matchup you actually have a chance in. If you want to beat Combo, Goblins isn't the deck for you.


The idiocy is that some people still think MBT wins them the game. MBT can ONLY close a window in which you are vulnerable, but has to be followed up with more hate

In that Bryant Cook vs Jim Davis match I posted earlier, it took Piledriver and friends + Thalia + Mindbreak Trap just to win a single game.

It's not "idiocy" it's just ignorance. If someone has never played Storm before, I can see why that person would think that MBT is the be all and end all. I played ANT alot during the Treasure Cruise era and that really opened my eyes as to how it operates and as a result how to attack it.

I can't believe we agree on something. Pigs will be flying tomorrow.

[Barook]

There was NEVER the talk about being maindeckable till now. In your last post you switched the precious "super-early" to "Turn 0" after I answered your question: I remind you once more: Don't change the questions everytime I give you an answer you don't like.

- You call Pyroblast stupid, but I call it smart running a card MB or SB which can deal with combo (S&T), Control (Counterbalance) and Aggro (Delver, TNN) at the same time. I get that you don't like the answer, but it's an accurate answer to your earlier asked question.
- There was never the talk about GOOD, VERSATILE, MAINDECKABLE, TURN 0 combo hate in your previous posts, but the initial statement that there is a "lack of super-early combo hate in other colors" than blue, which is wrong. You can't be mad at me for bringing up such a card like Mana Tithe just to make a point with a :wink:
- Creature decks that want Thorn do not always run Thalia, because it's a colored card which matters at times
- MUD (not Forgemaster variants) is by my definition a "Creature deck" which runs Sol-Lands, Post-Mana and Resistors like Thorns. I'd say Wurmcoil, Batterskull and Londestone go well with such a manabase
- I remember Elves with Thorns, but as they already run Black you can choose to run Discard instead which is another, mentioned, non-blue angle to attack "super-early" combo decks. Quod erat demonstrandum.
- You build around FoW (blue count), AN (cmc), Vial (Creatures, cmc), Counterbalance (cmc), etc. all day, but complain if people build their deck around Painter naming blue for example? If you want to play mono-red in a field full of blue, then yeah, run your Pyroblasts maindeck. It's not my fucking business that most Goblin players never thought about running the trinity of Warren Instigator/Simian Spirit Guide/Pyroblast to deal with the metagame. It's also no my problem if people are to peacocky to run Mindbreak Traps in their Sideboard to bridge the gap between turn 0 and them dropping a Thorn/Thalia/etc.
It's not my fault that you misinterpret my post to your own liking and despite the same context from the beginning (T0 = super-early; the context was also the lack of FoW-speed answers in other colors, assuming you read the full post I was refering to in my quote). Hence the clarification.

- You call it smart, I call it stupid and a warped format. But you're also fine with a format that has 80+% Brainstorm penetration. Different opinions, I guess.
- Even without your misinterpretation, Mana Tithe is a horrible card.
- But how many creature decks realistically want Thorn? Even Goblins would rather splash white for Thalia maindeck than running Thorn.
- MUD without Forgemasters sounds like an outdated build. It also depends what your definition of a creature deck is. Besides, Batterskull is technically not a creature and gets also taxed by Thorn.
- If Elves cut Thorn for the black splash, maybe it isn't effective enough for the meta?
- Who's complaining about the way Painter is built? SSG + Blasts as a poor-man's FoW is a terrible suggestion for the general meta that only works in Painter due to the way it is built. And Mindbreak Trap still isn't necessarily enough to bridge the gap against combo, especially A+B combo.


You are asking for a non-blue card THAT DOES EXACTLY THAT FOW DOES against combo for no opportunity-cost in running
I do? Where?

Opportunity cost is an absolute requirement and I would be fine with e.g. another set of pitch cards to do in-color things to punish combo. Such cards without any restrictions would just end up being the second coming of Mental Misstep.

[MGB]

What do you think about Brainstorm? It fits a lot of the same criteria you're talking about.

If you ban Top to kill Miracles, you also eliminate several other decks that lean on it for "fair" card selection. In fact I think it's funny that you say there's plenty of U control decks to choose from. Well, there can be non U control decks as long as top is around and UW control has been the best deck in Magic since 1993. I would much rather ban cards that only support that archetype to the elimination of others.


I don't mind Brainstorm at all. It's the hallmark card of Legacy and the single card that gives Legacy its own unique status among all of the formats, as it is only playable in Legacy as a 4-of. Brainstorm is incredibly powerful and tilts the game in blue's favor but I don't mind that. Eternal formats will always be tinted blue and that's fine.

What I do mind is a single control deck with a 1-mana sweeper and a 1+2 mana combo that locks out most decks on the stack. The presence of Miracles powered by SDT locks out a ton of diversity and a ton of archetypes in this format. Brainstorm simply makes most blue strategies more attractive to the advanced player, but it doesn't completely lock out alot of aggro and control archetypes like SDT does.

SDT's presence simply makes tournaments longer, makes matches longer, and crushes the diversity of aggro and control.

SDT is simply a bad card that offers very little fun for the format as a whole. The very mechanics of the Top are cumbersome and clunky. The interaction of Top with the Miracles spells removes all of the "Miracle" flavor from those spells and simply transforms them into dumb, absurdly efficient control tools with little to no intrigue or flavor.

If SDT were to be banned, Brainstorm and Ponder could still set up a Miracle spell, but with reduced certainty, the flavor of a "Miracle" would more often be relevant, and perhaps the deck would never see play again, but I think it would still be good, just not soul-crushingly powerful as it is now.

[MGB]

Correct. That's why I think the calls for a Terminus ban are totally pointless in regards to resurrecting linear aggro decks. These decks still get crunched by SFM/TNN/S&T/ToA. For all other aggro variants like aggro-control (Delver) or aggro-combo (Elves), the potential ban of Terminus isn't much of a gamechanger if Terminus would be replaced by Pyroclasm for example.


I just want to point out here that Terminus is in a completely different ballpark compared to every other anti-aggro strategy.

Aggro decks can beat Stoneforge Mystic/Batterskull and TNN by powering out bigger dudes, or playing artifact/creature removal. They can pack hate in the sideboard for Show and Tell. Aggro decks cannot easily beat a Terminus that wipes the board completely clean at instant speed.

An unconditional instant-speed sweeper that puts creatures not in the graveyard but back in the deck that only costs one white mana... gives the control player an answer to everything on the board. It's simply ridiculously powerful. If you had to replace Terminus with more expensive (Wrath of God/Supreme Verdict/Pernicious Deed) or more conditional (Pyroclasm, Rough//Tumble, Firespout) sweepers, the control deck loses a huge chunk of its power and is far more fair.

[Stevestamopz]

What I do mind is a single control deck with a 1-mana sweeper and a 1+2 mana combo that locks out most decks on the stack.

Here's an idea... build your deck so that the average CMC isn't 0.7 and then you won't have to worry about being locked out the second Counter-Top gets assembled.

Isn't adapting to the metagame part of Magic?

[Quasim0ff]

No it's because the card is terrible. Let's say you somehow miraculously get ANT/TES Game 2 with Mindbreak Trap because for some reason they didn't bother playing a spell that looks at your hand. Do you honestly think they're going to run headfirst into it Game 3?

Proof it won't happen (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/quarterfinals_jim_davis_vs_bry.html)
You do realize that there's a 60% chance the opponent doesn't have FoW in their opening hand, right?

Mindbreak trap can be a necessity, if you don't have access to FoW. If you do, and most people do due to Island being the better land than rest, there's no reason to run Trap.

*Just read some of your other posts. Obviously a troll.

[MGB]

Here's an idea... build your deck so that the average CMC isn't 0.7 and then you won't have to worry about being locked out the second Counter-Top gets assembled.

Isn't adapting to the metagame part of Magic?

So you are telling me we should all just stop playing the best spells in the format? Maybe we should go play Standard instead if we don't want to make use of all the 1cc and 2cc spells available in Legacy.

[Stevestamopz]

So you are telling me we should all just stop playing the best spells in the format? Maybe we should go play Standard instead if we don't want to make use of all the 1cc and 2cc spells available in Legacy.

What you said sounds a lot like "I refuse to change what I'm doing to solve my problems, everyone else should change instead."

[MGB]

What you said sounds a lot like "I refuse to change what I'm doing to solve my problems, everyone else should change instead."

This is the same line of thinking that people championed when Survival of the Fittest was in the format - "Just play more answers! Deal with the Vengevival decks! Adapt to the combo!"

There are times to adapt, and then there are times when a single card is just too good for the format and makes a *single* deck too dominating, and most importantly, doesn't add much value to the format to offset this dominance. It was that way with Survival of the Fittest when Vengevine was printed, and it is that way now with the interaction of SDT with the Miracles spells and with Counterbalance.

And guess what? The banning of Survival killed a whole archetype. Did people miss it? Maybe for a little bit, but in the end, the format was far better for it. There was more diversity, and more fun. Banning SDT would have the exact same effect - it would potentially kill the Miracles archetype, but the format would see more diversity in aggro and control decks, less tournament draws, faster tournament matches overall, and would be far better for it.

[FoolofaTook]

Miracles isn't the only deck keeping "aggro" out. Quite literally everything else is as well.

Miracles is the list that is making Little Bear aggro hopeless unless it's taxing heavily. Even the bear designed to stop people from drawing too many cards does nothing at all against an EoT Terminus off of a top.

It's true that the blue shell's ability to find and promote Tarmogoyf, Delver of Secrets, SFM, DRS, etc hurts creature aggro badly however Terminus is the nail in the coffin.

[maharis]

And here I am thinking it was because Sylvan Library brings home more bacon.

Yes, that is true. Thank you for pointing out that I misrepresented my point. What I really meant was, "The reason SDT isn't played more in non-blue/light blue decks is because Brainstorm is so powerful that there's no reason not to just do that if you're serious about winning."

And the same is actually true of Sylvan Library. The card is awesome, as awesome as it is, it still has some major weaknesses. First, it is far slower than 12x U cantrip. Second, you get no immediate benefit. Third, it is super awkward in multiples but you always want to hit it because it's such an insane card, so playing it as a 3- to 4-of gives you dicey openers.

Sylvan Library is at its best in G-based non-U midrange/control strategies. Trouble is, very few of these are anything close to viable. Yes, Jund/Junk/Aggro Loam/Maverick are T2 occasionally but most people would rather just play all the good cards you would play in those decks anyway with the U suite because it's that much better at consistency.

And in Nic Fit variants, SDT is better because you play Deed.

So basically, the point is that there are definitely decks that could exist and do powerful, Legacy-level stuff that would definitley need SDT because they want to split with Library or not play G/U or dodge something or other, but there's no real reason to even try because why lean on your redundant SDTs/Libraries for consistency when you could just do something U?


It's no card disadvantage at all. You invest mana and time to significantly increase the quality of your cards and reduce dead daws to zero, which alone is more than just making up for the tempo/mana loss in the early game, it wins games on it's own which you can clearly see everytime Miracles players board out their Counterbalances in certain matchups. If a player with SDT in play untaps more than two times with the artifact in play, their opponent is on their road to ruin.

You may think that the impact on card selection makes up for the tempo/mana loss, but in a pure evaluation of the card, it does not. You pay 1 and put a card on the table at sorcery speed and do not replace it until you flip the Top. Then you pay mana each turn to activate it. There's just no other way to describe that than card/tempo disadvantage. Cantrips are not card disadvantage, and they're slight tempo disadvantage but on the other hand you are resolving a spell, not activating an ability that will net you +0 cards over what you would've had otherwise.

An unanswered Aether Vial is also strong, but it's still card disadvantage.


In addition to my precious example of SDT winning games based on sheer card quality (which people hate brainstorm for also), you can reverse the argument for Terminus & Entreat, calling SDT the reason both Miracles are not just playable, but format defying powerhouses. We hopefully agree that SDT is the anchor to hold together the Card Quality, the Stack control, the board control and the finisher in Miracles.dec.

Well, that gets to the argument: Do you ban Show & Tell because every ridiculous permanent that comes out breaks it more, or do you ban Griz/Omni for being uninteractive, derpy I win buttons with S&T? And further, do you ban Brainstorm, or Delver/TNN/DTT/Treasure Cruise/Terminus?

Sure SDT makes the Miracles deck ridiculous. That's because it's crammed with ridiculous cards. Honestly, though, Miracles take work to execute, and if you don't have a way to counter all their stuff for free while you dig around for your Terminus or Entreat the deck is significantly weaker. I know that sometimes Miracles boards out Counterbalance, but how many decks can beat Counterbalance now anyway?


1) Decks with conditional cards -> dead -> reductiin of viable archetypes
2) DtB = Deck with almost no conditional cards but great redundancy
3) SDT + Preordain >>> every other available tools for card-selection/-quality
4) Everyone is playing SDT + Preordain + SFM + TNN
5) Streamlining of the metagame

Yes, we have discussed this. I am not seriously advocating the ban of BS and Ponder out of hand. However, I disagree that doing so results in a reduction of viable archetypes. IMO it opens up new archetypes and makes different engines viable.

Often people reduce the pro-ban argument to "YOU JUST WANT ZOO TO BE VIABLE". Thats actually not the case. I have mentioned a couple times the Zombie deck that was successful for a minute between Dark Ascension and Return to Ravnica. I decided to get into legacy because of that deck -- I loved that it played a healthy mix of old and new cards, notable powerhouses and forgotten gems, and was built on synergy rather than raw power. The key card in that deck was Faithless Looting, of course, but the power of that engine was completely nerfed by DRS + Rest in Peace in the next set. There are probably tons of untapped engines in Legacy that are dwarfed in power by the blue cantrips, and that is where I would hope the format would go in the event of a revamp.

[maharis]

I don't mind Brainstorm at all. It's the hallmark card of Legacy and the single card that gives Legacy its own unique status among all of the formats, as it is only playable in Legacy as a 4-of. Brainstorm is incredibly powerful and tilts the game in blue's favor but I don't mind that. Eternal formats will always be tinted blue and that's fine.

What I do mind is a single control deck with a 1-mana sweeper and a 1+2 mana combo that locks out most decks on the stack. The presence of Miracles powered by SDT locks out a ton of diversity and a ton of archetypes in this format. Brainstorm simply makes most blue strategies more attractive to the advanced player, but it doesn't completely lock out alot of aggro and control archetypes like SDT does.

SDT's presence simply makes tournaments longer, makes matches longer, and crushes the diversity of aggro and control.

SDT is simply a bad card that offers very little fun for the format as a whole. The very mechanics of the Top are cumbersome and clunky. The interaction of Top with the Miracles spells removes all of the "Miracle" flavor from those spells and simply transforms them into dumb, absurdly efficient control tools with little to no intrigue or flavor.

If SDT were to be banned, Brainstorm and Ponder could still set up a Miracle spell, but with reduced certainty, the flavor of a "Miracle" would more often be relevant, and perhaps the deck would never see play again, but I think it would still be good, just not soul-crushingly powerful as it is now.

There's a lot of opinion in this and not a lot of fact.

The fact is that Brainstorm is played in 80% of decks. It is clearly the best option for consistency in Legacy and not playing it is worse than playing it by a long shot.

In most other SDT decks, which barely exist because playing SDT is generally worse than just playing Brainstorm, you don't get people deep in the tank, spinning it multiple times a turn, trying awkwardly to sequence the abilities to get the hand state you want. As a pure selection tool available to multiple colors and strategies, it's fine. It's in the context of the Miracles deck that it is OP and durdly.

Miracles is able to succeed because players are forced to play 8-12 one-mana blue cantrips to make their deck consistent, and once Countertop is down those cards are DOA. Miracles has lots of trouble beating, for example, a Sylvan Library, or a Bitterblossom, or a Thopter Foundry, or a planeswalker -- something that it can't just flip top to counter and provides advantage every turn.

But 2+ mana sorcery-speed permanents that provide incremental advantage can't compete against the other decks that all play 8-12 cantrips and are sculpting the perfect hand and/or board proactively while you try to resolve your sorcery-speed incremental advantage cards.

I am fine with Legacy having a blue tinge too. This is more than a tinge at this point, though. It's a complete bluewash. No other engine will ever be as good as Brainstorm + friends + fetches, and as long as that's the case, decks like Miracles and D&T that target that strategy specifically will be able to succeed.

Jacob Kory said it best on the last EE podcast: If any discussion of the Legacy banlist doesn't start with "What are we doing about Brainstorm" it's not serious. If we are keeping brainstorm because pillar of the format, then we are going to have to get serious about banning cards that are powerful on their own, like Terminus, Counterbalance, Show & Tell, and more that just take the blue strategy and run with it.

[MGB]

There's a lot of opinion in this and not a lot of fact.

The fact is that Brainstorm is played in 80% of decks. It is clearly the best option for consistency in Legacy and not playing it is worse than playing it by a long shot.


I don't have a problem with this at all. Brainstorm is the defining card of the Legacy format. It amplifies the power of blue in many different decks and many different archetypes. Does it give Legacy a blue tint? Of course. But it doesn't obviate entire strategies like Miracles does.



In most other SDT decks, which barely exist because playing SDT is generally worse than just playing Brainstorm, you don't get people deep in the tank, spinning it multiple times a turn, trying awkwardly to sequence the abilities to get the hand state you want. As a pure selection tool available to multiple colors and strategies, it's fine. It's in the context of the Miracles deck that it is OP and durdly.


It sees play in a few (i mean, less than a handful) of fringe decks in small numbers, and it does *not* see play as a core card in ANY deck other than Miracles. Any non-Miracles deck that plays SDT in any numbers could cut them tomorrow and feel very little impact on their list.



Miracles is able to succeed because players are forced to play 8-12 one-mana blue cantrips to make their deck consistent, and once Countertop is down those cards are DOA. Miracles has lots of trouble beating, for example, a Sylvan Library, or a Bitterblossom, or a Thopter Foundry, or a planeswalker -- something that it can't just flip top to counter and provides advantage every turn.


That's great... That doesn't change the fact that 1 mana instant speed Hallowed Burials are bad for the format as a whole, and that a combo that locks out most 1cc-3cc spells when it is assembled is additionally bad for the health of the format.



But 2+ mana sorcery-speed permanents that provide incremental advantage can't compete against the other decks that all play 8-12 cantrips and are sculpting the perfect hand and/or board proactively while you try to resolve your sorcery-speed incremental advantage cards.

I am fine with Legacy having a blue tinge too. This is more than a tinge at this point, though. It's a complete bluewash. No other engine will ever be as good as Brainstorm + friends + fetches, and as long as that's the case, decks like Miracles and D&T that target that strategy specifically will be able to succeed.

Jacob Kory said it best on the last EE podcast: If any discussion of the Legacy banlist doesn't start with "What are we doing about Brainstorm" it's not serious. If we are keeping brainstorm because pillar of the format, then we are going to have to get serious about banning cards that are powerful on their own, like Terminus, Counterbalance, Show & Tell, and more that just take the blue strategy and run with it.

Brainstorm simply incentivizes good players to play blue shells. It doesn't completely crush aggro strategies or non-traditional control on its own. The different with SDT is that its presence alongside Miracle spells and Counterbalance makes a.) non-Delver aggro most unviable and b.) makes it pointless to explore non-Miracles blue control decks. Additionally, it is a clunky, slow card that causes a range of issues in tournament formats where time is a valuable resource. And the question is: what does it add to the format other than allowing a few players that enjoy playing Miracles to play their deck? Nothing.


The bottom line for me is:

- You can argue all you want about whether or not banning Brainstorm would make the format healthier. It could, or it could not. There is no clear resolution here. We could experiment with a banning to see where it takes us, but I'd rather just let Brainstorm continue to see play for the time being. I'm not opposed to a future Brainstorm ban, but I'm simply not clear on how that ban would affect the health of the format.

- However, there is a *clear* resolution if we ban Sensei's Divining Top. Miracles becomes a lot less powerful and consistent which leads to: a larger variety of aggro decks become more viable, a larger variety of control decks become more viable, and tournament organizers, tournament players, and judges benefit from less draws and less slow play. The only downside is that a handful of players who are completely wedded to the Miracles deck no longer get to crush the opposition as easily. Oh well.

Banning Brainstorm results in an unknown quantity, while banning Sensei's Divining Top results in almost entirely a positive effect on the Legacy format.

[Quasim0ff]

Miracles is the list that is making Little Bear aggro hopeless unless it's taxing heavily. Even the bear designed to stop people from drawing too many cards does nothing at all against an EoT Terminus off of a top.

It's true that the blue shell's ability to find and promote Tarmogoyf, Delver of Secrets, SFM, DRS, etc hurts creature aggro badly however Terminus is the nail in the coffin.
I'm pretty sure gaddock teeg backed with Karakas is pretty impossible to beat for Miracles.

[Chatto]

Banning SDT would be aweful for those non-Blue decks whose only way of deck-manipulation is SDT -it being easy to include in your 75-. I understand peoples reasoning, but to me -and probably many others- those non-Blue 'fringe' decks give Legacy it's appeal.

It would be a shame if SDT would be banned, and I would really question if it would take down Miracles. Could it be that SDT would just be replaced?

To me and some others, banning STD would be a big thing, but that is really a personal opinion. I do understand the need of containing Miracles, and SDT would be the obvious choice.

[Barook]

I'm pretty sure gaddock teeg backed with Karakas is pretty impossible to beat for Miracles.
Add Mother of Runes into that equation. Otherwise they'll just double StP his ass, especially the Snapcaster builds.

And even then, they can still bounce it with their own Karakas. Or Venser him if they run the Legend build. Or force you to bounce it with Council's Judgement.

Teeg not on the field = their advantage; it's really good against Miracles, but far from game over.

[FoolofaTook]

I'm pretty sure gaddock teeg backed with Karakas is pretty impossible to beat for Miracles.

Impossible? The guy with counters is going to control when the opponent puts Teeg back in their hand and then they'll do whatever they needed to do at that point. It's a good place for Maverick to be when it happens but impossible is a pretty strong word. Not to mention the Miracles player can just drop Karakas and wait...

The Legends build of Miracles is in a pretty strong place against any hatebear build that isn't messing with it's mana and costs in a big way. Venser gets around Teeg completely and Karakas is in the main list plan.

[iamajellydonut]

Teeg not on the field = their advantage; it's really good against Miracles, but far from game over.

It's also worth noting that you can't attack with Gaddock Teeg in the event that they have an Ambush Viper prepped. You have to have something of a clock to present alongside the Teeg. It's like playing against ANT with things like RIP and Force of Will. You can't just Thoughtseize them thirty times and expect it to work. They just cantrip and sculpt a hand until they feel like blowing you out of the water.

[MGB]

Banning SDT would be aweful for those non-Blue decks whose only way of deck-manipulation is SDT -it being easy to include in your 75-. I understand peoples reasoning, but to me -and probably many others- those non-Blue 'fringe' decks give Legacy it's appeal.

It would be a shame if SDT would be banned, and I would really question if it would take down Miracles. Could it be that SDT would just be replaced?

To me and some others, banning STD would be a big thing, but that is really a personal opinion. I do understand the need of containing Miracles, and SDT would be the obvious choice.

This is such a myth. Show me decks that are NOT Miracles that have recently placed in the top-16 of major tournaments that depend on SDT as a core part of their strategy.

The entirety of these decks is the stray Painter deck that plays 1-2 SDT, or the stray BGx deck that tosses in SDT but doesn't depend on it to execute its strategy.

SDT is only really integral to the Miracles deck. Banning SDT would be mourned by exactly one group of people: those that are accustomed to crushing people with Miracles.

[Chatto]

@ MGB: learn to read. I only tried to explain that SDT has some value for fringe decks which are fun, because some people also like to play for fun. I also said I understand the banning of STD for Legacy as a whole, not just personal feelings.

[MGB]

@ MGB: learn to read. I only tried to explain that SDT has some value for fringe decks which are fun, because some people also like to play for fun. I also said I understand the banning of STD for Legacy as a whole, not just personal feelings.

That's understandable. But the bannings affect tournament play more than anything else. If you're playing for fun at your kitchen table or with your play group, you can basically just enforce your own custom banlist and still play with SDT.

[kinda]

On Top...Quinn would get hosed. I would be sad. Counterbalance is dum but that's why they printed decay, krosan grip, the land that makes creatures uncounterable etc. I agree with banning terminus. That card is over the top.

[wonderPreaux]

On Top...Quinn would get hosed. I would be sad. Counterbalance is dum but that's why they printed decay, krosan grip, the land that makes creatures uncounterable etc. I agree with banning terminus. That card is over the top.

More floated with the Top, amirite?

[solidbass]

If I didn't know any better, I'd say there is somewhat of consensus to ban something from miracles! Is there any way to set up another poll and see where people's feelings lie? I'm not too sure if anyone still feels goblin guide should be banned...

[Admiral_Arzar]

This is such a myth. Show me decks that are NOT Miracles that have recently placed in the top-16 of major tournaments that depend on SDT as a core part of their strategy.

The entirety of these decks is the stray Painter deck that plays 1-2 SDT, or the stray BGx deck that tosses in SDT but doesn't depend on it to execute its strategy.

SDT is only really integral to the Miracles deck. Banning SDT would be mourned by exactly one group of people: those that are accustomed to crushing people with Miracles.

I've played a ton of Imperial Painter and I almost always play 4 Top. It's the card you want to see when your hand isn't explosive, and without it the deck is incredibly inconsistent. Being able to filter your draws in a deck based off of Sol Lands is rare, and it's one of the reasons why Painter is better than most other decks based off of that shell (not so much right now due to the two best decks being bad matchups, but you know what I mean). A lot of games in Painter come down to finding bombs like Moon and Bridge, and SDT does that far better than any alternative. I'm aware that Painter is little more than a fringe deck now, again due to bad matchups being omnipresent, but it was a solid Tier 2 deck that put up some numbers as recently as last summer. My point is, SDT is a lot more necessary to that archetype than you seem to understand. I much prefer bans that nerf Miracles to be targeted and not contain unnecessary collateral damage. Thus, Terminus/Counterbalance.

[Kanti]

Yeah, Top has really shone these last few years in non-blue lists. Painter, Nic Fit, and many random BGW rocks decks make use of it. It's the only way to keep up with BS decks. With that said, Top makes Terminus, Entreat, and Counterbalance terrible, terrible cards to sit across from. CB-Top was annoying before, but at least my opponent would have to tap two of his lands to resolve a Goyf. Now they just EOT shit on my deck.

[Lord Seth]

12-Post usually plays 3-4 copies of Top.

[Lormador]

I believe the most trenchant quote on Miracles is from Philipp Schoenegger, who described the deck as "hilariously overpowered" on an Everyday Eternal podcast. While I don't take the position that any card from the deck necessarily needs to be banned, and don't think that Philipp's claim necessarily implies such a position, I happen to agree that the deck is better than anything else I could be playing right now... and I definitely win more games when I'm piloting Miracles than anything else.

If a card should be banned from this deck, I don't think it should be Top. That would just completely hobble and destroy a deck that a lot of people have really come to enjoy playing, and which furthermore isn't what put Miracles over the top in terms of power in the first place. It is the one mana instant wrath that pushed Maverick out of the meta and keeps the Elves matchup so one-sided.

The other strategies that use Top might not be mainstream or tier 1 material right now, but I think the pilots of those decks needn't be stripped of a unique and essential tool if the goal is simply to make Miracles not the best deck anymore. Removing either of the two miracle cards would accomplish that with minimal collateral damage.

I'm not sure whether the metagame direction following a banning like that would be positive, however. We might end up with pointy-eared tree-hugging overlords, a pestilential insect infestation, and vast hordes of silverware-packing merfolk rogues.

[Finn]

Uhh, the repetition.

I don't know that Legacy needs pure aggro. But Miracles is not responsible for its absence. I am absolutely certain of this because in this very thread you can find people complaining about it before Terminus existed. I wrote an article on it in like 2010 or something when Delver of Secrets came out. Whomever the people are that are pushing this idea need to stop.

Honestly, Elves is pretty much what pure aggro has to look like in Legacy. We have not had a nonblue aggro deck since 2009. Legacy actually has that right now. And even D&T has 26 creatures. Miracles is demonstrably not preventing creature strategies from functioning. As good as Terminus is, Legacy can clearly handle it.

I like playing Brainstorm. I like facing it. And if you ban it, Miracles is no more. This topic has been explored with examples and Miracles players acknowledging this consequence, again in this same thread. But I ask why does Miracles have to go?

There will always be a best deck. Are we on a crusade to bring down the beast simply because it is a beast? The idea of banning Divining Top because it is slow is another topic, but banning it due to its effect in Miracles is a fool's errand.

In a format that is absolutely commanded by hyper efficient blue card quality engines, you guys want to take out the one colorless one. Look past your noses, boys.

[Barook]

We have not had a nonblue aggro deck since 2009. Legacy actually has that right now. And even D&T has 26 creatures. Miracles is demonstrably not preventing creature strategies from functioning. As good as Terminus is, Legacy can clearly handle it.
- Wrong. Zoo was a thing during the Mental Misstep era, which was in 2011.
- D&T is a control deck, not an aggro deck. You, out of all people, should know that.
- Miracles pretty much wipes the floor with any strategy based around creatures (meaning more than just a few finishers) that doesn't run counters or Aether Vial. If you run neither of those two, you're shit out of luck.

[kinda]

@finn: Good points. Terminus clearly is not the sole reason zoo, merfolk, goblins, elves, infect, affinity, etc are fringe decks. I also am not an expert in the miracles vs dnt matchup but my guess is dnt is a deck to beat in spite of the matchup not due to it. According to mtgtop8, 31% of the Meta right now is running terminus, show and tell, or tendrils of agony. Banning show and tell or tendrils would eliminate an entire deck. However, you can remove terminus and dramatically increase the aggro matchup vs 10% of the meta.

[TheFlyinGutchman]

The issue with these discussions is that some do not understand that Miracles in a form that remotely resembles its current concept ceases to be viable without SDT. It's literally the beating heart of the deck. "Ban SDT" is extremely close to "Ban Miracles." Which just seems like QQ to me. Brainstorm isn't going anywhere I don't think, and it really shouldn't be going anywhere In my opinion. I'm fine with a dig through time ban(though I don't think it is needed). It brings miracles and omnitell back to pre khans essentially. SCG Worcester showed how prevalent dig has become. Many games are about resolving dig, similar to how treasure cruise was. Dig ban seems reasonable to me.

[Finn]

- Wrong. Zoo was a thing during the Mental Misstep era, which was in 2011.
- D&T is a control deck, not an aggro deck. You, out of all people, should know that.
- Miracles pretty much wipes the floor with any strategy based around creatures (meaning more than just a few finishers) that doesn't run counters or Aether Vial. If you run neither of those two, you're shit out of luck.

I only said that D&T has 26 creatures.

Terminus was printed in 2012 so I am not going to argue how shitty zoo had to be in 2011 to be considered "a thing" or not. We both know it was dead by the time Miracles became a winning deck, so what are we discussing?

[MGB]

Uhh, the repetition.

I don't know that Legacy needs pure aggro. But Miracles is not responsible for its absence. I am absolutely certain of this because in this very thread you can find people complaining about it before Terminus existed. I wrote an article on it in like 2010 or something when Delver of Secrets came out. Whomever the people are that are pushing this idea need to stop.

Honestly, Elves is pretty much what pure aggro has to look like in Legacy. We have not had a nonblue aggro deck since 2009. Legacy actually has that right now. And even D&T has 26 creatures. Miracles is demonstrably not preventing creature strategies from functioning. As good as Terminus is, Legacy can clearly handle it.

I like playing Brainstorm. I like facing it. And if you ban it, Miracles is no more. This topic has been explored with examples and Miracles players acknowledging this consequence, again in this same thread. But I ask why does Miracles have to go?

There will always be a best deck. Are we on a crusade to bring down the beast simply because it is a beast? The idea of banning Divining Top because it is slow is another topic, but banning it due to its effect in Miracles is a fool's errand.

In a format that is absolutely commanded by hyper efficient blue card quality engines, you guys want to take out the one colorless one. Look past your noses, boys.

Except that that one colorless card quality engine is used almost exclusively in competitive Legacy by the premier blue control deck.

Again, please read this link:
http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=0&nhigh=0&dlow=0&mlow=0&ylow=0&dhigh=0&mhigh=0&yhigh=0&player=&dname=&format=Legacy&aname=&pos1=on&pos2=on&pos34=on&pos58=on&main=divining&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on

This is a listing of top-8 appearances of Legacy decks that feature Sensei's Divining Top since March 22, 2015. Of the 100 decks tcdeck has listed via that search query, only 37 are not Miracles decks.

Of those 37 decks:
- 10 are blue-based ANT combo decks that feature no more than one SDT in their list. Not only are they non-essential to the game plan, they are included to give a blue deck more consistency.
- 4 are UW Stoneblade lists that added the SDT-Terminus-Counterbalance package.
- 3 are Imperial Painter lists that play anywhere from 2-4 SDT.
- 2 are Sneak and Show lists that play 1-2 SDT almost as a throw-in.
- The rest are miscellaneous decks such as 12 Post, Burn, BGx Control, Mono Black, Nic Fit that play an average of 1-2 SDT as random throw-ins. Of these decks, no more than 4 of them play more than 2 SDT.

So what exactly are we losing if we ban SDT? Other than weakening Miracles, obviously, we no longer get to throw 1-2 Sensei's Divining Tops into our Ad Nauseum Tendrils decks (oh no), we no longer get to play SDT in our Painter lists (that will be a loss, but honestly, is Painter going away because it lost Top?), and we no longer get to throw 1-2 SDT into random tier 2 decks.

There is this myth that banning SDT will weaken other archetypes - that is simply false. The only deck in competitive Legacy that depends on SDT as a fundamental part of its core strategy is Miracles. Period.

[Zilla]

If I didn't know any better, I'd say there is somewhat of consensus to ban something from miracles! Is there any way to set up another poll and see where people's feelings lie? I'm not too sure if anyone still feels goblin guide should be banned...
Go ahead and make a thread/poll for it if you want. As long as it stays on topic with regards to how a particular ban would affect Miracles specifically, it can stay open. I suspect it will quickly devolve into a duplicate of this thread, at which point it will be closed, but I don't mind if you want to give it a shot.

[jmonk]

Go ahead and make a thread/poll for it if you want. As long as it stays on topic with regards to how a particular ban would affect Miracles specifically, it can stay open. I suspect it will quickly devolve into a duplicate of this thread, at which point it will be closed, but I don't mind if you want to give it a shot.

I actually disagree with you, I don't think miracles should have anything hit. I think the card that should get hit is show and tell. its not that hard to play against counter top. over the last few years of the format we have seen show and tell decks make counterbalance decks adapt away from their more traditional curve focusing on ones and twos to a curve that leaves out twos almost entirely.show and tell decks have in a way done the same thing that mental misstep did, it moved the center of gravity in the format. from what we have experienced that is usually a bad thing.

[Lemnear]

I make this quick and leave out responses to earlier posts because I'm on my way to a wedding


- D&T is a control deck, not an aggro deck. You, out of all people, should know that

It's an aggro-tempo concept all over and cards like Thalia, Wasteland, Port and Flickerwisp should make it clear that the decks plan is to choke your opponent on mana to kill him/her in the meanwhile which is the same fundamental concept Daze/Stifle/Wasteland/FoW do for Delver-tempo variants.


@finn: Good points. Terminus clearly is not the sole reason zoo, merfolk, goblins, elves, infect, affinity, etc are fringe decks. I also am not an expert in the miracles vs dnt matchup but my guess is dnt is a deck to beat in spite of the matchup not due to it. According to mtgtop8, 31% of the Meta right now is running terminus, show and tell, or tendrils of agony. Banning show and tell or tendrils would eliminate an entire deck. However, you can remove terminus and dramatically increase the aggro matchup vs 10% of the meta.

Any proof? Any evidence? Any logic line of thought behind that conclusion?

There is nothing! It's pretty cocky to throw around numbers, if you don't have any fucking hint, why people should pickup an aggro deck rather than a combo, Tempo or Midrange archetype in case of Terminus' banning. Why should non-blue aggro decks get any significant boost in playability, if they were barely viable before Terminus got even printed thanks to combo and SFM? Has the position of aggro got any better in the meanwhile as TNN, DTT and stuff saw print? No, it sure has not.

[Barook]

Go ahead and make a thread/poll for it if you want. As long as it stays on topic with regards to how a particular ban would affect Miracles specifically, it can stay open. I suspect it will quickly devolve into a duplicate of this thread, at which point it will be closed, but I don't mind if you want to give it a shot.
Is it possible to make a thread with a poll and closing it, while the poll stays up? If not, what harm is done if that kind of thread stays open for e.g. a week to get at least the poll results?


I actually disagree with you, I don't think miracles should have anything hit. I think the card that should get hit is show and tell. its not that hard to play against counter top. over the last few years of the format we have seen show and tell decks make counterbalance decks adapt away from their more traditional curve focusing on ones and twos to a curve that leaves out twos almost entirely.show and tell decks have in a way done the same thing that mental misstep did, it moved the center of gravity in the format. from what we have experienced that is usually a bad thing.
Why not collect poll entries before that?

E.g.

- Dig Through Time
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Counterbalance
- Terminus
- Brainstorm
- Show & Tell

since those are some of the most-discussed items. That would leave us with 4 other options for a multiple choice poll.

[Zulabnar]

The question should be : "How Aggro deck could be viable?"

MAgic is a game of aggro control and combo each in many ways.

nowadays are combo, control combo, pure combo etc

control, aggro control, board control etc

aggro is not viable, because of some reason: first of all combo decks are too damn easy to play: S&T -> emrakul bye. but this is normal, combo > aggro since 1996.

The fact is that aggro > Control is no more true.

The best cards are all blue, and so suited for control and combo, or tempo.

Brainstorm, Ponder, probe, Dig trough time, Treasure cruise, even the creature TNN is fuckin blue.

So is important to empower aggro, or banning some cards, or printing something new.

[Quasim0ff]

What is this interest in playing aggro?

Aggro, as an archetype, isn't fun. It's linear, but more boring than linear combo. I'd much rather play versus a linear combo deck (Sneak and Show? Burn?) than Zoo. It just opens for much more interesting games.

[Crimhead]

- However, there is a *clear* resolution if we ban Sensei's Divining Top. Miracles becomes a lot less powerful and consistent which leads to: a larger variety of aggro decks become more viable, a larger variety of control decks become more viable, and tournament organizers, tournament players, and judges benefit from less draws and less slow play.The only downside is that a handful of players who are completely wedded to the Miracles deck no longer get to crush the opposition as easily. Oh well.

Banning Brainstorm results in an unknown quantity, while banning Sensei's Divining Top results in almost entirely a positive effect on the Legacy format.
You want to ban Miracles to bolster control?
Legacy has all of two pure (aka, not creature based) control decks. One is obscure thanks to Tabernacle, and people want the other one banned?

Incidentally, Miracles isn't even all that strong. It has a win-rate (last data I saw is a month old) of actually less than 50 per cent! The deck sees good results due to sheer force of numbers. This of course makes it appear strong, and even more people want to play it. But the fact is it's very beatable and nowhere near dominant.

Edit - just found updated data. Miracles has a win-rate of 53 per cent post TC ban. This is hardly cause for alarm!

http://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/37lfon/scg_legacy_results_for_major_archetypes_dc/

[Zombie]

You want to ban Miracles to bolster control?
Legacy has all of two pure (aka, not creature based) control decks. One is obscure thanks to Tabernacle, and people want the other one banned?

Incidentally, Miracles isn't even all that strong. It has a win-rate (last data I saw is a month old) of actually less than 50 per cent! The deck sees good results due to sheer force of numbers. This of course makes it appear strong, and even more people want to play it. But the fact is it's very beatable and nowhere near dominant.

Miracles is a deck that needs a pilot who's experienced enough to play it fast to not drown in draws. The upper bound of a deck's raw strength and the average quality of its pilots are shouldn't be equated like you do.

[Crimhead]

Miracles is a deck that needs a pilot who's experienced enough to play it fast to not drown in draws. The upper bound of a deck's raw strength and the average quality of its pilots are shouldn't be equated like you do.We can speculate, or we can look at hard data. Beating Miracles also requires skilled piloting. We can't account for pilot skill. Also, do unfinished matches somehow hurt the miracles player? It sounds like you are saying Miracles plays better post board than pre board? Can you back this up?

Incidentally, how else do you measure a decks power? You can go by top finishes. But that has the same problem of not accounting for pilot skill, plus the additional problem of favouring the more densly played decks! Win-rates are by far the best data we have to measure a deck's positioning in the meta.

[Crimhead]

What is this interest in playing aggro?

Aggro, as an archetype, isn't fun. It's linear, but more boring than linear combo. I'd much rather play versus a linear combo deck (Sneak and Show? Burn?) than Zoo. It just opens for much more interesting games.
Aggro may be dull on the surface, but matches involving aggro vs something more controlling are usually very interesting. More viable play-styles makes a better meta.
Sometimes I think Burn would see a much stronger win-rate if it were not the go to deck for budgeted newbs, and if it were not shunned by so many experienced players. But I can only guess.

It would be nice to see Affinity on the map - maybe if WotC ever gets off their behinds and unban Black Vise...

[Quasim0ff]

Miracles may be dull on the surface, but matches involving miracles vs something more tempo-oriented are usually very interesting. More viable play-styles makes a better meta.

[Crimhead]

I'm not sure what you are implying. I'm in favour of Miracles in the meta - as I said it is one of the only tier one (pure) control decks in the format! I do not advocate the banning of any cards!

I would appreciate not being misquoted, though.

[Quasim0ff]

I'm not sure what you are implying. I'm in favour of Miracles in the meta - as I said it is one of the only tier one (pure) control decks in the format! I do not advocate the banning of any cards!

I would appreciate not being misquoted, though.

I merely meant it as a future reference, not to put words in your mouth :) It's just pretty funny, all the arguments speaking for more aggro in the meta, every single argument can be said with regards to every deck in every format.

[Crimhead]

I merely meant it as a future reference, not to put words in your mouth :) It's just pretty funny, all the arguments speaking for more aggro in the meta, every single argument can be said with regards to every deck in every format.To be fair, aggro is less of a thing than any other style. Prison and control are close seconds, though, and mostly I aggree with you. It would be nice to have an aggro presence, but not at the cost of killing control! Especially considering that there is zero reason to believe the absence of Miracles would open the door for linear aggro decks.

On the other hand, there are plenty of aggressive control decks and disruptive aggro decks, so I don't think we need any more aggro/control!

Burn and Affinity are the strongest linear aggro decks in the format, so to bolster aggro WotC should unban (or print anew) something that will help those decks but not find a home in tempo or midrange.

[Dice_Box]

Am I the only one who thinks Fish is an Aggro deck?

[Quasim0ff]

Am I the only one who thinks Fish is an Aggro deck?
Well, it's a tempo deck... So no, you're not.

[Barook]

Well, it's a tempo deck... So no, you're not.
What makes it a tempo deck? Free countermagic? Vial? Most current iterations don't even run Wasteland anymore.

[Quasim0ff]

What makes it a tempo deck? Free countermagic? Vial? Most current iterations don't even run Wasteland anymore.
And wasteland isn't synonymous with a tempo deck. The overall strategic purpose of most fish (which are usually BANT) is that of a tempo deck.

[Gheizen64]

If you really all want to see aggro played just unban recruiter and Survival. Vengevine survival would be a legit aggro deck in current legacy alternative to elves!, at least until people start running a bit more hate for it (needle would kill top and SotF, RiP would hate both delve and SotF etc...). I'm not convinced that food chain gobs is that much better than regular gobs, but it's worth a shot. Both those cards are pretty unsinergistic with most top decks (don't go in most blue decks, can't fit in elves, SnT, Lands etc...)

[Zombie]

If you really all want to see aggro played just unban recruiter and Survival. Vengevine survival would be a legit aggro deck in current legacy alternative to elves!, at least until people start running a bit more hate for it (needle would kill top and SotF, RiP would hate both delve and SotF etc...). I'm not convinced that food chain gobs is that much better than regular gobs, but it's worth a shot. Both those cards are pretty unsinergistic with most top decks (don't go in most blue decks, can't fit in elves, SnT, Lands etc...)

Not so sure about Elves. It might not be a 1-1 trade upgrade, but Survival Elves was a thing back in the day (try to find a list, it was a beautiful thing), and if Elves has a problem, it is that its engines have tension with each other and with the best cards to solve the deck's problem matchups. NO, GSZ, Therapy want stuff on the field, Glimpse stuff in hand, Glimpse, NO to play (small green) creatures and not interactive cards, cards like Teeg sabotage the deck's primary threat against combo, etc.

The Vengevival engine could prove pretty useful in defusing those tensions and open more sideboard cards for inclusion as well. Not saying that it will, but the potential is there.

[Lemnear]

If you really all want to see aggro played just unban recruiter and Survival. Vengevine survival would be a legit aggro deck in current legacy alternative to elves!, at least until people start running a bit more hate for it (needle would kill top and SotF, RiP would hate both delve and SotF etc...). I'm not convinced that food chain gobs is that much better than regular gobs, but it's worth a shot. Both those cards are pretty unsinergistic with most top decks (don't go in most blue decks, can't fit in elves, SnT, Lands etc...)

Did you just ignore that Survival did to linear aggro the last time it was legal? It streamlined all creature-strategies into a single Aggro-Combo core and eradicated all linear aggro decks like Zoo, Goblins or Meerfolk at that time. Survival was never a card to push "aggro" but to hand creature-centric decks a combo finish and card-quality/-advantage tool.

WotC clearly stated that they banned StoF because hate CAN'T GET HOLD of it, because you can tutor answers to hate in response or sidestep certain angles of hate like graveyard-solutions simply by not using the combo-package SotF provides but the card-advantage/-selection more only. The idea to really control Survival at any point of the game is plain absurd with Reclamation Sage/Eternal Witness around and the Survival Package so Compact that you can squeeze it in any aggro deck and just smash faces if your opponent focuses on fighting Survival. We have seen all that before and it did not work out well. Is it too much to ask if you guys learn from the past?

The same is true for Recruiter. You guys complain that games against SDT take forever but are fine if your opponent can use Recruiter to sort oh and stack their deck (room for cheating) for minutes several times per game? Never wondered why WotC never bothered to unban Recruiter? Logistic reasons might be the most obvious ones. I know all that bullshit from Vintage and old Extended

[Gheizen64]

Did you just ignore that Survival did to linear aggro the last time it was legal? It streamlined all creature-strategies into a single Aggro-Combo core and eradicated all linear aggro decks like Zoo, Goblins or Meerfolk at that time. Survival was never a card to push "aggro" but to hand creature-centric decks a combo finish and card-quality/-advantage tool.

WotC clearly stated that they banned StoF because hate CAN'T GET HOLD of it, because you can tutor answers to hate in response or sidestep certain angles of hate like graveyard-solutions simply by not using the combo-package SotF provides but the card-advantage/-selection more only. The idea to really control Survival at any point of the game is plain absurd with Reclamation Sage/Eternal Witness around and the Survival Package so Compact that you can squeeze it in any aggro deck and just smash faces if your opponent focuses on fighting Survival. We have seen all that before and it did not work out well. Is it too much to ask if you guys learn from the past?

The same is true for Recruiter. You guys complain that games against SDT take forever but are fine if your opponent can use Recruiter to sort oh and stack their deck (room for cheating) for minutes several times per game? Never wondered why WotC never bothered to unban Recruiter? Logistic reasons might be the most obvious ones. I know all that bullshit from Vintage and old Extended

Learn from the past, so let's ban SnT, Time Spiral, Disciple of the vault etc...

SotF has lost a lot of power in the last year since nothing better than Vengevine has been printed to abuse it, and nothing better than Iona, meanwhile other decks gained a lot in power and a lot of cards incidentally good against it are commonly run now (DRS, AD, Terminus), as well as decks which just ignore it (SnT based ones). But i guess you just can't see it and you'll ignore this extremely simple and clear-cut point that was presented to you dozens of times because of your intellectual dishonesty, as always.

This said, i'm done. All i've ever read from you on this argument were snarky one liners and flames towards all people that ever presented a different opinion than yours, no matter how many facts and lists and testing they eventually brought, all was "obviously stupid and dishonest" to you. I'm done being flamed after trying to conceive lists and tests as arguments in the discussion only to have to read whatever snarky remark you had toward posters that did not fit into the perfect world cantrip cartel format worldview. I'm done repeating the same points and bring the same arguments time and time again only to be dismissed by "it would clearly be broken and you're stupid if you can't see why" claiming intellectual superiority never actually brininging a single decklist that supported ur claims. At least IBA flamed but he brought out lots of different lists and interesting testing in B&R discussions. At least he, like me, was able to change his opinions after seeing lists , like the case in the channel and fastbonds debates. You're just not interested in this discussion, only in stifling it and feel superior while doing it. Ignore list it is.

[Crimhead]

SotF has lost a lot of power in the last year since nothing better than Vengevine has been printed to abuse it, and nothing better than Iona, meanwhile other decks gained a lot in power and a lot of cards incidentally good against it are commonly run now (DRS, AD, Terminus), as well as decks which just ignore it (SnT based ones). Would SotF be containable in today's meta? I'm not sure. I can assume it wouldn't be as bad as it was, but it still looks dangerous for now. There are safer cards to unban first, at the very least.

Regardless, I do agree that Survival will not help linear aggro. Any deck running it becomes aggro/combo almost by definition I would think.

[Lemnear]

Learn from the past, so let's ban SnT, Time Spiral, Disciple of the vault etc...

SotF has lost a lot of power in the last year since nothing better than Vengevine has been printed to abuse it, and nothing better than Iona, meanwhile other decks gained a lot in power and a lot of cards incidentally good against it are commonly run now (DRS, AD, Terminus), as well as decks which just ignore it (SnT based ones). But i guess you just can't see it and you'll ignore this extremely simple and clear-cut point that was presented to you dozens of times because of your intellectual dishonesty, as always.

Calling me out on Intellectual dishonesty while talking about Disciple which was never banned outside of Standard in terms of "learning from the past" is funny.

Yeah, the game never saw TNN, DRS, Griselbrand, SFM, etc. got printed since SotF saw the banhammer, just to name a few. Tutoring for an Emrakul or Iona with S&T on the Stack is nothing you consider possible, because you choose to "ignore these extremely simple and clear-cut points presented to you dozens of times, because you're intellectual dishonest, as always."

[Echelon]

I'd want to build a SotF TinFins-ish build. Bin a Griselbrand, tutor a Children of Korlis, reanimate Griselbrand, ???, fun!

Don't know if it's viable, but it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

[Finn]

Except that that one colorless card quality engine is used almost exclusively in competitive Legacy by the premier blue control deck.

Again, please read this link:
http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=0&nhigh=0&dlow=0&mlow=0&ylow=0&dhigh=0&mhigh=0&yhigh=0&player=&dname=&format=Legacy&aname=&pos1=on&pos2=on&pos34=on&pos58=on&main=divining&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on

This is a listing of top-8 appearances of Legacy decks that feature Sensei's Divining Top since March 22, 2015. Of the 100 decks tcdeck has listed via that search query, only 37 are not Miracles decks.

Of those 37 decks:
- 10 are blue-based ANT combo decks that feature no more than one SDT in their list. Not only are they non-essential to the game plan, they are included to give a blue deck more consistency.
- 4 are UW Stoneblade lists that added the SDT-Terminus-Counterbalance package.
- 3 are Imperial Painter lists that play anywhere from 2-4 SDT.
- 2 are Sneak and Show lists that play 1-2 SDT almost as a throw-in.
- The rest are miscellaneous decks such as 12 Post, Burn, BGx Control, Mono Black, Nic Fit that play an average of 1-2 SDT as random throw-ins. Of these decks, no more than 4 of them play more than 2 SDT.

So what exactly are we losing if we ban SDT? Other than weakening Miracles, obviously, we no longer get to throw 1-2 Sensei's Divining Tops into our Ad Nauseum Tendrils decks (oh no), we no longer get to play SDT in our Painter lists (that will be a loss, but honestly, is Painter going away because it lost Top?), and we no longer get to throw 1-2 SDT into random tier 2 decks.

There is this myth that banning SDT will weaken other archetypes - that is simply false. The only deck in competitive Legacy that depends on SDT as a fundamental part of its core strategy is Miracles. Period.

Why did you bother with all that? I don't care which decks have Tops in them since the card is perfectly benign. Try to get this in your head because I hate repeating it...if what you want is to assassinate Miracles, ban Brainstorm and Miracles will die. Or don't. There is nothing wrong with Miracles, only the stupid homogeneity of the card quality engine it shares with 3/4 of the format. Other methods of quality control are entirely outclassed, and that shit is monotonous.

[Lemnear]

All i've ever read from you on this argument were snarky one liners and flames towards all people that ever presented a different opinion than yours, no matter how many facts and lists and testing they eventually brought, all was "obviously stupid and dishonest" to you. I'm done being flamed after trying to conceive lists and tests as arguments in the discussion only to have to read whatever snarky remark you had toward posters that did not fit into the perfect world cantrip cartel format worldview.

You called me "intellectual dishonest" several times for not seeing everything in regards to B&R matters in clear-cut black & white, but ponder about potential side effects of certain bannings and whine about flaming, if I respond to your bold and empty arguments with snarky comments? You haven't seen me flaming at all and I'm not in the mood either. I just tend to call people out for showing at least a logic line of thought which lead to their ideas with at least a grain of self reflection of ideas, which I rarely get in this thread. If you want an example take the "we would have 10% more aggro decks without Terminus!" Stuff earlier today.

You talk about "facts, lists, and testing" at the same time you deny that DRS, GSZ, TNN, Griselbrand and other cards which are pretty easy fits for the Survival concept saw print post Survival ban. Dood, your definition of "facts" is pretty iffy, if I dare to say. Did you present us any lists or testing which take all these newer printings into consideration at all? You did not. Never. I only remember a user (and I'm not sure if it was you or another dear Sourcer) tried to point out how "FAIR" SotF is against todays metagame BY RUNNING STRICTLY PRE-BAN SURVIVAL LISTS AND CARDS. Intellectual Dishonesty much? It's like makin points about Necropotence with the help of lists from '96 played against todays Miracles/S&T while ignoring Infernal Tutors or Storm cards printed years later. We had the discussion in this thread and I consider these so-called "lists" and "testing" still hilarious. I hope most other users reading this would agree that all testing of Survival lists against the current meta is invalid if the mana-acceleration grounds on Birds of Paradise rather than DRS

[Bobmans]

Is there a way from hiding specifically this annoying thread?

[M+1]

The same is true for Recruiter. You guys complain that games against SDT take forever but are fine if your opponent can use Recruiter to sort oh and stack their deck (room for cheating) for minutes several times per game? Never wondered why WotC never bothered to unban Recruiter? Logistic reasons might be the most obvious ones. I know all that bullshit from Vintage and old Extended

Nope, you know nothing. Please read and learn why Recruiter is banned: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?14662-All-B-R-update-speculation&p=882997&viewfull=1#post882997

I made that post 10 days ago, and it is now 16 pages away. The posting rate of some individuals in this thread is... unreasonable.

[TsumiBand]

I made that post 10 days ago, and it is now 16 pages away. The posting rate of some individuals in this thread is... unreasonable.

Did you not know? Post quality is measured in the same way as DPS.

[frogczar]

I can't imagine why people want Survival of the Fittest unbanned. The card is absolutely bonkers and should have been banned way back at the start of the format. I've hated that card since I saw it at the Exodus Pre-release. Take your copies and burn em up, it's broke in half and it isn't getting unbanned. It's incredibly unfun to play against.

[Julian23]

It's incredibly unfun to play against.

A lot of people in this thread are making a case for that not being an argument because "there will always be a best deck."

[FoolofaTook]

Survival of the Fittest is a whole different thing when people are playing main list disenchant effects (Abrupt Decay and Council's Judgement) and when Rest in Peace is available and commonly played in sideboards. Spell Pierce is a 2-of in most aggro-control lists. Thalia makes SotF cost 3 to play when the SotF player is on the draw. Elves would be slower with SotF than they currently are and the Plan B aspect wouldn't work well because they rely on heavy concentrations of elves to actually win games.

SotF was a problem in a meta where GY hate was Relic of Progenitus and Tormod's Crypt, both one shot deals, and Leylines of the Void, which was a hard card for many lists to jam as GY hate. It's going to face a different reality if it's ever unbanned.

[Crimhead]

A lot of people in this thread are making a case for that not being an argument because "there will always be a best deck."
It's not an isslue of whether or not survival would be the best deck (nor is it an issue of whether or not Survival would be fun to play against). The question is whether or not the format will become extremely narrow with very few competitive decks. That's why it was banned in the first place. The environment is likely more hostile to SotF than it was then, but it's uncertain if this would be sufficient to keep SotF at bay.

[FoolofaTook]

It's not an isslue of whether or not survival would be the best deck (nor is it an issue of whether or not Survival would be fun to play against). The question is whether or not the format will become extremely narrow with very few competitive decks. That's why it was banned in the first place. The environment is likely more hostile to SotF than it was then, but it's uncertain if this would be sufficient to keep SotF at bay.

Assuming Miracles doesn't get nerfed somehow Survival of the Fittest is going to be dealing with putting 2 Vengevines on the bottom of their library during their attack step.

More hostile isn't the way to describe the changes. Completely new meta with new assumptions is the way to describe them. Dredge was a great deck back in the day too, only limited by the number of people willing to win game 1 and then take their chances against hate games 2 and 3. Now the hate is so strong that Dredge doesn't even win game 1 reliably.

[Blastoderm]

I can't imagine why people want Survival of the Fittest unbanned. The card is absolutely bonkers and should have been banned way back at the start of the format. I've hated that card since I saw it at the Exodus Pre-release. Take your copies and burn em up, it's broke in half and it isn't getting unbanned. It's incredibly unfun to play against.

"It's incredibly unfun to play against."

By that logic, let's ban Show and Tell, Belcher and Bridge from Below.

[dte]

Assuming Miracles doesn't get nerfed somehow Survival of the Fittest is going to be dealing with putting 2 Vengevines on the bottom of their library during their attack step.

I guess this kind of lines is what some people refer as considering Survival with old lists / poor plays: if you play against miracle with an active survival, you are actually close to have already won. Against instand speed terminus, why didn't you shut up this top with revoker? where is your Teeg + sylvan safekeeper / MoR?
And even if you didn't, they would have used a terminus while you can grow back 8-12 power of hasty creatures without even resolving a single spell.
A counterbalance is annoying? I can have creatures at any ccm, let alone tutoring for reclamation sage (which protect you vs RiP, revoker, needle, ...).

People argue that DRS will be good against survival, without looking at how good it will be WITH survival.

[Zulabnar]

Burn and Affinity are the strongest linear aggro decks in the format, so to bolster aggro WotC should unban (or print anew) something that will help those decks but not find a home in tempo or midrange.

That's it.

Print a more viable Eidolon is good for aggro for example r/g r/g as cc instead of RR as

Print a good AGGRO solution to countertop

Print a good AGGRO solution against 2nd turn Emrakul

This is why aggro can't win now: everyone ha solution to aggro creatures, aggro should have 3 colors at least to have solution to each single deck. Black for combo, red for blue decks, green to pressure...etc etc while Terminus fit perfectly against any creature in the meta.

OR wizzard slow the meta, banning some speedy cards like brainstorm (that saves you from having a bad hand to fix with topdeck) or printing something good for aggro decks.

I can't immagine how could be a fight on the board in combat phase more boring than, brainstorm, ponder, divining top -> find my solution
or to Jace i lock your topdeck
or s&t -> Omin -> Emrakul oh look i win

[MGB]

Why did you bother with all that? I don't care which decks have Tops in them since the card is perfectly benign. Try to get this in your head because I hate repeating it...if what you want is to assassinate Miracles, ban Brainstorm and Miracles will die. Or don't. There is nothing wrong with Miracles, only the stupid homogeneity of the card quality engine it shares with 3/4 of the format. Other methods of quality control are entirely outclassed, and that shit is monotonous.


Why do we have to ban Brainstorm just to weaken Miracles?

Banning Brainstorm is another argument entirely - if you have a problem with Brainstorm, then you aren't the first, but I don't think it's necessarily bad to have in the format.

I want to knock Miracles down a peg to let other control decks and other aggro decks breathe a little easier. The best way to do this is to ban Sensei's Divining Top. Banning Brainstorm would also have a similar effect, but that would have far too much collateral damage. Banning SDT hurts Miracles and only Miracles, and that is exactly the point I was trying to make with that tcdecks breakdown.

Banning SDT = little to no collateral damage or tampering with the integrity of Legacy as a whole. Very simple outcome: Miracles is weaker.

Banning Brainstorm = tons of collateral damage, a veritable ****storm of possible outcomes. Very complex outcomes that are hard to predict.

[FoolofaTook]

That's it.

Print a more viable Eidolon is good for aggro for example r/g r/g as cc instead of RR as



A really good aggro card that was printed at r/g r/g instead of rr would just fold into RUG Delver. Think about it. Volcanic Island, Tropical Island, win.

[kinda]

You called me "intellectual dishonest" several times for not seeing everything in regards to B&R matters in clear-cut black & white, but ponder about potential side effects of certain bannings and whine about flaming, if I respond to your bold and empty arguments with snarky comments? You haven't seen me flaming at all and I'm not in the mood either. I just tend to call people out for showing at least a logic line of thought which lead to their ideas with at least a grain of self reflection of ideas, which I rarely get in this thread. If you want an example take the "we would have 10% more aggro decks without Terminus!" Stuff earlier today.

You talk about "facts, lists, and testing" at the same time you deny that DRS, GSZ, TNN, Griselbrand and other cards which are pretty easy fits for the Survival concept saw print post Survival ban. Dood, your definition of "facts" is pretty iffy, if I dare to say. Did you present us any lists or testing which take all these newer printings into consideration at all? You did not. Never. I only remember a user (and I'm not sure if it was you or another dear Sourcer) tried to point out how "FAIR" SotF is against todays metagame BY RUNNING STRICTLY PRE-BAN SURVIVAL LISTS AND CARDS. Intellectual Dishonesty much? It's like makin points about Necropotence with the help of lists from '96 played against todays Miracles/S&T while ignoring Infernal Tutors or Storm cards printed years later. We had the discussion in this thread and I consider these so-called "lists" and "testing" still hilarious. I hope most other users reading this would agree that all testing of Survival lists against the current meta is invalid if the mana-acceleration grounds on Birds of Paradise rather than DRS

How did you misinterpret my post? I clearly did not say banning terminus would increase aggro decks by 10%. I said terminus is played in 10% of decks and alluded to how potent the card is vs aggro. Not understanding what people are saying could be misinterpreted as dishonesty.

[Watersaw]

Why do we have to ban Brainstorm just to weaken Miracles?

Banning Brainstorm is another argument entirely - if you have a problem with Brainstorm, then you aren't the first, but I don't think it's necessarily bad to have in the format.

I want to knock Miracles down a peg to let other control decks and other aggro decks breathe a little easier. The best way to do this is to ban Sensei's Divining Top. Banning Brainstorm would also have a similar effect, but that would have far too much collateral damage. Banning SDT hurts Miracles and only Miracles, and that is exactly the point I was trying to make with that tcdecks breakdown.

Banning SDT = little to no collateral damage or tampering with the integrity of Legacy as a whole. Very simple outcome: Miracles is weaker.

Banning Brainstorm = tons of collateral damage, a veritable ****storm of possible outcomes. Very complex outcomes that are hard to predict.

I'm just stepping in to say that adding or removing a single card from the format, EVEN IF it only effects one deck on the surface, will never have a simple outcome. There are too many moving parts in the game to consider ANYTHING a simple outcome (deck construction, established meta, theoretical changes to what the decks to beat are, behavior of the players themselves, cards that already exist but have not had their time to shine, cards that are already set to be printed it future sets that will benefit greatly due to possible changes, etc.)

Also, is the lack of other control decks the fault of Miracles being that good? Or is it that the rest of the current Tier1 decks are that good and Miracles is the only control deck that can reasonably keep pace with them?

Or it could just be that it's the most popular and thus had the most representation.

[FoolofaTook]

Also, is the lack of other control decks the fault of Miracles being that good? Or is it that the rest of the current Tier1 decks are that good and Miracles is the only control deck that can reasonably keep pace with them?

Or it could just be that it's the most popular and thus had the most representation.

Miracles tends to top other control lists. It's a turn faster at getting setup than most control lists and it's really hard to win through the creature removal if you're playing just a few high impact creatures, even if they're hard to interact with.

I don't think other control lists have declined because they're not as good at managing the metagame. I think they've declined because they're not as good at managing the metagame AND they tend to have problems beating Miracles.

One of the things about Miracles that goes largely unrecognized is that it's a combo and control list. SDT/CB, SDT/Entreat, SDT/Terminus, then the Legends builds with Karakas/Vendilion Clique and Karakas/Venser. That's two card combos winning many of the games that Miracles wins. Jace is mostly responsible for the rest.

[LOLWut]

A really good aggro card that was printed at r/g r/g instead of rr would just fold into RUG Delver. Think about it. Volcanic Island, Tropical Island, win.

There are a billion ways to design aggro cards that wouldn't work in RUG.

[btm10]

Miracles tends to top other control lists. It's a turn faster at getting setup than most control lists and it's really hard to win through the creature removal if you're playing just a few high impact creatures, even if they're hard to interact with.



You realize this is just patently false, right? Other control decks, especially other control decks that don't run 8+ cards that are dead game 1, tend to have even-to-favorable matchups against Miracles. The 4-TNN BUG Control deck that had success on the SCG circuit last spring had a fantastic Miracles matchup. Ur Landstill during the Treasure Cruise era had a comically favorable Matchup against Miracles. The Grixis Landstill deck in the New & Developing forum's game against Miracles is almost as good as Ur's was. Grixis Pyromancer Control has the worst Miracles matchup of any of the decks I've named, and even there Miracles is even at best. The big thing that Miracles has working to its advantage as the only major pure control archetype is that there's little reason not to play Terminus and Entreat once you're running CounterTop, and CounterTop is the only way that pure control can reliably beat combo.

[Finn]

Why do we have to ban Brainstorm just to weaken Miracles?

Banning Brainstorm is another argument entirely - if you have a problem with Brainstorm, then you aren't the first, but I don't think it's necessarily bad to have in the format.

I want to knock Miracles down a peg to let other control decks and other aggro decks breathe a little easier. The best way to do this is to ban Sensei's Divining Top. Banning Brainstorm would also have a similar effect, but that would have far too much collateral damage. Banning SDT hurts Miracles and only Miracles, and that is exactly the point I was trying to make with that tcdecks breakdown.

Banning SDT = little to no collateral damage or tampering with the integrity of Legacy as a whole. Very simple outcome: Miracles is weaker.

Banning Brainstorm = tons of collateral damage, a veritable ****storm of possible outcomes. Very complex outcomes that are hard to predict.I hear you, mate. You are coming at this from the angle of "Miracles must go." I keep telling you that I don't see why. I'm pretty sure that getting rid of Top would simply end the deck rather than knocking it down a peg. But your reasons as stated in this quote are extremely flimsy. It looks as though you just don't like the deck because it beats you or edges out your favorite pet deck or something. I dunno. Maybe you might want to state them clearly for us. But really Miracles is not doing anything oppressive. Just being the best is not a crime.

Also, it is not as if there are other pure (nearly pure, Foolofatook - nothing is pure in the brothel that is Legacy) control decks waiting in the wings. There has not been another viable pure control deck since 2005 or something like that. Years ago, we all wanted there to be some way that such a deck could exist in such a fast and varied environment as Legacy. The idea that we have one, and that there is now this witch hunt to bring it down is pretty crazy in the grand scheme of things. As best decks go, it is very mild.

You: Miracles is a problem and must go. I say we take Top.
Me: If you are going to ban something, take the actual culprit; Brainstorm.

So, you can see that I disagree with where you are coming from, so our views on which card to get rid of are going to be different as a result. I don't think you can just ban Brainstorm, but I am quite certain that it is the boogeyman of the format. If you did though, Miracles would be amongst the first decks to completely fall apart due to the number of dead cards you would routinely have in your opening 7. Bring on the complex outcomes.

[Lemnear]

Nope, you know nothing. Please read and learn why Recruiter is banned: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?14662-All-B-R-update-speculation&p=882997&viewfull=1#post882997

I made that post 10 days ago, and it is now 16 pages away. The posting rate of some individuals in this thread is... unreasonable.

Then it's good, that I NEVER talked about why Recruiter was BANNED but why I SUSPECT it wasn't UNBANNED in the meanwhile. Reading is tech

[dte]

Funny how there seems to be a consensus about that Miracle is the only control deck, while it's not even the most played nor the most sucessful.

I will be sad if miracle disappears (not because it's my petdeck, I play mostly elves), it is a deck which as an original gameplay and which brings interesting plays from both sides of the table in most MUs.

Also I feel like there is as much differences between ponder miracle and legends miracle than between UR delver and RUG delver or BUG delver.

[Barook]

Funny how there seems to be a consensus about that Miracle is the only control deck, while it's not even the most played nor the most sucessful.
Except Miracles has been THE top control deck since ages and is a top contender of the format, quite often being THE best performing deck of the month.

And that doesn't even include MODO where it has an iron grip on the format.

[KobeBryan]

I think miracles just need an errata. They shouldn't let you miracles a sorcery card on an opponent's turn.

[Zulabnar]

There are a billion ways to design aggro cards that wouldn't work in RUG.

example

"If you contorl an island when this come into play sacrifice it"

gg

[Barook]

example

"If you contorl an island when this come into play sacrifice it"

gg
Except they wouldn't print it because it would be "inelegant design" or whatever Maro would call it.

[Zulabnar]

Except they wouldn't print it because it would be "inelegant design" or whatever Maro would call it.

Also you could make it cost 3 more if you control island, it could be a mechanic, and is pure speculation

just to say that wiz can print aggro cards not blue base deck fitting if they want with just a simple mechanic

[FoolofaTook]

There are a billion ways to design aggro cards that wouldn't work in RUG.

This is probably true but giving them a split cost of non-blue is not one of those ways. If it was Abrupt Decay wouldn't have folded into BUG like a bug in a rug.

The obvious design type would be a more extreme adaptation of one they already used with Sea Drake. Give the spell or creature a "When %t is played sacrifice 2 fetchlands. When %t enters the battlefield sacrifice 2 Islands." That would *probably* keep it out of the blue shell.

Just as a side note my BUG Control list beat Dredge, ANT, Burn and Enchantress last night and lost to Miracles *again*. I've played variants of this list since Treasure Cruise was banned and it beats the living crap out of just about everything it faces but loses to Miracles every time I play it.

[Crimhead]

Except Miracles has been THE top control deck since ages and is a top contender of the format, quite often being THE best performing deck of the month.

Let's examine this more closely. Here are the stats for Miracles matches at major events post TC ban:


Miracles vs:

Burn: 9-0
Death and Taxes: 21-18-4
Deathblade: 8-6-2
Dredge: 3-4-1
Elves: 18-6-2
Grixis Control: 6-9-1
Infect: 8-9
Jeskai Delver: 3-4-1
Jeskai Stoneblade: 5-9-1
Maverick: 7-2
Mirror: 31-31-14
MUD: 1-3
Omnitell: 11-5
Reanimator: 7-7-3
RG Lands: 5-10-4
Shardless Sultai: 8-15-3
Sneak and Show: 5-8-1
Storm: 16-12-10
Sultai Delver: 20-24-4
Temur Delver: 13-17-3
Twelvepost: 6-6
Other: 95-79-13
Overall non-mirror: 256-230-50

Top contender my ass (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=smart+ass)!


I want to knock Miracles down a peg to let other control decks...
...breathe a little easier

Miracles tends to top other control lists.
Fortunately I've brought stats on Miracles vs other control decks (including control-ish midrange decks):

vs Grixis Control: 6-9-1
vs RG Lands: 5-10-4
vs MUD: 1-3
vs Shardless Sultai: 8-15-3
vs Deathblade: 8-6-2
vs Death and Taxes: 21-18-4

Apparently Miracles is bad against most of these decks, and hardly crippling against the others! The suggestion that Miracles is keeping other control decks down is baseless and false. The biggest factor keeping other control decks down is the $800.00 price tag on Tabernacle.

[Stevestamopz]

Let's examine this more closely. Here are the stats for Miracles matches at major events post TC ban:

Get out of here with your arguments backed by facts, miracles is opressing us all and should be banned out of existance without hurting our own blue decks
/s

[FoolofaTook]

Fortunately I've brought stats on Miracles vs other control decks (including control-ish midrange decks):

vs Grixis Control: 6-9-1
vs RG Lands: 5-10-4
vs MUD: 1-3
vs Shardless Sultai: 8-15-3
vs Deathblade: 8-6-2
vs Death and Taxes: 21-18-4

Apparently Miracles is bad against most of these decks, and hardly crippling against the others! The suggestion that Miracles is keeping other control decks down is baseless and false. The biggest factor keeping other control decks down is the $800.00 price tag on Tabernacle.

The only list there that really qualifies is Grixis Control. RG Lands has the percentages it does because nobody metagames against it. Very few people know how to play against it. Rest in Peace and Pithing Needle basically tell Lands to go away but even the lists that play RiP and Needle in the sideboard rarely have more than 3 slots combined for those options. That's because those lists don't see either card as important enough to really invest in given the current meta.

MUD and D&T are both Prison Control and both have issues in the wider meta. They both die to their own inconsistency and MUD has real problems against any list that can reliably control Metalworker even with the prison elements in play.

Shardless BUG isn't a control list. It's too random in play and it folds to things like Blood Moon and is light on counters to prevent those things from happening. It's more an aggro control list on steroids that occasionally has "oops" misfires with Shardless Agent. When I play BUG Control (no Shardless Agent) against Shardless I win about two-thirds of the time because unless he's hitting Ancestral Visions with the agent I just don't care and that list has a lot of other things it can randomly hit instead. Ancestral Visions itself is a poor substitute for Ponder in this meta because it is slow when you suspend it and leaves a lot to be desired in the opening hand.

[Dice_Box]

Just as a side note my BUG Control list beat Dredge, ANT, Burn and Enchantress last night and lost to Miracles *again*. I've played variants of this list since Treasure Cruise was banned and it beats the living crap out of just about everything it faces but loses to Miracles every time I play it.
I don't see how this is a problem, everything has to lose to something. I mean I am not going to cry about my deck running one basic and 33 other lands losing to the deck running 6 main deck Bloodmoons.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't see how this is a problem, everything has to lose to something. I mean I am not going to cry about my deck running one basic and 33 other lands losing to the deck running 6 main deck Bloodmoons.

The problem is that Miracles is pervasive in the meta and a very high percentage of the top tables, particularly the draw bracket, will be Miracles. That aggro lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established at this point. That combo lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established. I think most of the impression that Miracles suffers to opposing Control is false. I think the only lists that really do well against it that are both Control and commonly played are the Grixis lists and those are a fairly recent phenomenon.

Lands is an outlier matchup. I suspect that if the good Miracles pilots saw it as a priority to beat it wouldn't be hard to achieve that result. It would require a couple of wastelands in the build somewhere alongside RiP, Pithing Needle and the realization that 1 angel token is enough to kill even a good control list that is a step slow to an answer.

[Crimhead]

The only list there that really qualifies is Grixis Control....Which kick's Miacles' ass (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74327)!

So exactly which control decks are being held back?


The problem is that Miracles is pervasive in the meta and a very high percentage of the top tables, particularly the draw bracket, will be Miracles.Blame the player base for liking it so much and/or believing (as you do) that it is stronger than it really is. When 20% of the field is Miracles, it's no surprise that it makes 3 spots in the top 16! That's actually less than 20%.


That aggro lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established at this point.
Did you even look at the stats I just posted? I don't thibnk so, because you seem to be saying Miracles is good against everything except Grixis!


Lands is an outlier matchup. I suspect that if the good Miracles pilots saw it as a priority to beat it wouldn't be hard to achieve that result. It would require a couple of wastelands in the build somewhere alongside RiP, Pithing Needle and the realization that 1 angel token is enough to kill even a good control list that is a step slow to an answer.This is wrong on so many levels.
For Miracles to meta against Lands like you describe, it has to cut back on things it currently runs which allow it to hold its own against the rest of the meta. Also, have you tested this, or did you just make it up? Lands can answer or play around those things - they'll improve the match for Miracles, but not shore it up.

[dte]

That aggro lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established at this point. That combo lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established. I think most of the impression that Miracles suffers to opposing Control is false.

Fool: "That aggro lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established at this point:"

Infect: 8-9
Jeskai Delver: 3-4-1
Maverick: 7-2
Sultai Delver: 20-24-4
Temur Delver: 13-17-3

It seems to me that Delver decks (maybe they are not aggro decks, like shardless is not control?) CAN beat miracles.

Fool: "That combo lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established."

Dredge: 3-4-1
Elves: 18-6-2
Omnitell: 11-5
Reanimator: 7-7-3
Sneak and Show: 5-8-1
Storm: 16-12-10

It seems to me that a lot of combo lists can beat miracle. Only elves is really weak to miracle (or is it that with a 43% win-rate, storm -it's a combo deck, right?- can't beat miracle?).


Fool: "I think most of the impression that Miracles suffers to opposing Control is false."

Death and Taxes: 21-18-4
Deathblade: 8-6-2
Grixis Control: 6-9-1
Jeskai Stoneblade: 5-9-1
RG Lands: 5-10-4
Shardless Sultai: 8-15-3



The only list there that really qualifies is Grixis Control.

Sure, if you exclude every list here, saying that it's not control, it's better. It does not prevent miracle to lose to these decks. But can you please describe what you call a control deck? Because if you say that "Shardless BUG isn't a control list", I have no clue about how we discuss other control lists.


Anyway: Overall non-mirror: 256-230-50.
If miracle cannot be beaten by aggro nor combo lists and have an edge against opposing controls (which do not exist), These 47% matches that miracle loses, it's against what?

[FoolofaTook]

...Which kick's Miacles' ass (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74327)!

So exactly which control decks are being held back?

UW non-Miracles Control
BUG Control
Junk
RUG Control (yes, actually existed with Natural Order until Terminus came along, would exist again in a heartbeat if Terminus or SDT was banned)
Various Thopter builds (not as efficient on defense and 4/4 Angels that you can produce with Brainstorm even through a Null Rod are better)

Many, many more, I'm not going to go digging through historical results of just a couple of years ago to make the point that a single mechanic - Miracles - invalidated a wide spectrum of control strategies that were employed in a much more diverse meta.

For all the people saying "power creep, get over it" just realize that if they printed a 20/20 shroud creature with flying who cast for 3 with some easily achievable hoops to jump through the same argument would apply.

There's power creep and then there's flat-out overpowered and format stifling as a result. Miracles has at least 3 cards in it that are in the latter category when combined.

[Dice_Box]

I forget because remembering the fun I had playing it makes me cry, but what was Goblins classified as and how was it's match against Miracles?

[FoolofaTook]

Fool: "That aggro lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established at this point:"

Infect: 8-9
Jeskai Delver: 3-4-1
Maverick: 7-2
Sultai Delver: 20-24-4
Temur Delver: 13-17-3

It seems to me that Delver decks (maybe they are not aggro decks, like shardless is not control?) CAN beat miracles.

Fool: "That combo lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established."

Dredge: 3-4-1
Elves: 18-6-2
Omnitell: 11-5
Reanimator: 7-7-3
Sneak and Show: 5-8-1
Storm: 16-12-10

It seems to me that a lot of combo lists can beat miracle. Only elves is really weak to miracle (or is it that with a 43% win-rate, storm -it's a combo deck, right?- can't beat miracle?).


Fool: "I think most of the impression that Miracles suffers to opposing Control is false."

Death and Taxes: 21-18-4
Deathblade: 8-6-2
Grixis Control: 6-9-1
Jeskai Stoneblade: 5-9-1
RG Lands: 5-10-4
Shardless Sultai: 8-15-3




Sure, if you exclude every list here, saying that it's not control, it's better. It does not prevent miracle to lose to these decks. But can you please describe what you call a control deck? Because if you say that "Shardless BUG isn't a control list", I have no clue about how we discuss other control lists.


Anyway: Overall non-mirror: 256-230-50.
If miracle cannot be beaten by aggro nor combo lists and have an edge against opposing controls (which do not exist), These 47% matches that miracle loses, it's against what?

Miracles piloted by a mediocre player is a 40/60 list. A lot of mediocre players pilot Miracles. It has a long learning curve and when you make mistakes you lose games. Obviously the information isn't out there to validate this but we all know it's true.

We also know that the aggro lists you listed are a vanishingly small percentage of what aggro really is. They're all blue shell lists except Maverick, which i would argue is an aggro control list and clearly Maverick, which is the best of the non-blue aggro control lists can't keep up with Miracles.

The combo lists you listed are also blue shell with a couple of exceptions, one being Dredge which is an outlier that people do not plan to face at this point, and the other being Elves which Miracles walks all over.

The Control lists are more blue shell with the exception of Death and Taxes, which Miracles beats more often than not, and RG Lands which again is an outlier that is hard for anybody to beat without having a really dedicated SB plan to achieve that.

Miracles sits so hard on non-blue aggro, combo and control that those lists have mostly been pushed out of the meta or into irrelevance if they're occasionally played. More than any other list in the meta Miracles is responsible for the move to a full blue shell meta. It is the primary predator that pushes non-blue lists out.

[FoolofaTook]

I forget because remembering the fun I had playing it makes me cry, but what was Goblins classified as and how was it's match against Miracles?

I believe Goblins has declined over the last 4 years because the ultimate turn has moved from 4 to 3, or maybe verging on 2 at this point. Burn has also declined over that timespan but it shares enough common cards with Modern Burn that it is a reasonable buy for a player coming into Legacy.

I don't think Goblins was pushed out by Terminus. I think it was pushed out gradually by Terminus, Delver of Secrets, a bunch of good blue cantrips, Tarmogoyf (it was a big deal for the blue shell when Goyf was printed if you remember) and a few key counters and removal that were printed from 2009 onwards.

I think Goblins could come back with just a few bans and be very effective. It's gained Rabblemaster to give additional mid-game power options, the problem is the mid-game is a turn earlier than it used to be. I actually think Goblins could be very effective right now in the right meta but it's one of the lists that the blue shell squats on and so it is hard to find that meta.

[Teluin]

Obviously the information isn't out there to validate this but we all know it's true.

Ever since that dude with the pony avatar left, you've consistently been the worst poster on these forums and it's because of shit such as this. Stop talking about things you don't know about as if they were fact. New Legacy players are bound to come here and they might not know you're talking out of your ass, whether it be about 'stats' or your numerous misunderstandings about a mechanic and/or the general rules of the game.

[Barook]

Let's examine this more closely. Here are the stats for Miracles matches at major events post TC ban:


Top contender my ass (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=smart+ass)!



Fortunately I've brought stats on Miracles vs other control decks (including control-ish midrange decks):

vs Grixis Control: 6-9-1
vs RG Lands: 5-10-4
vs MUD: 1-3
vs Shardless Sultai: 8-15-3
vs Deathblade: 8-6-2
vs Death and Taxes: 21-18-4

Apparently Miracles is bad against most of these decks, and hardly crippling against the others! The suggestion that Miracles is keeping other control decks down is baseless and false. The biggest factor keeping other control decks down is the $800.00 price tag on Tabernacle.
I never said that Miracles had the highest win percentage. (that one goes to RG Lands, due to lack of metagaming against it. Plus, broader playerbase --> more bad people playing the deck --> lower overall win percentage compared to a few "experts" piloting the deck.)

My statement still stands:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy#online
http://tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy&fecha=2015-3
http://tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy&fecha=2015-4
http://tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy&fecha=2015-5

[Crimhead]

Miracles piloted by a mediocre player is a 40/60 list. A lot of mediocre players pilot Miracles. It has a long learning curve and when you make mistakes you lose games.And this only applies to Miracles? As though Miracles results are held back by mediocre pilots, but never propped up by mediocre opponents? :laugh:

What you are doing is dismissing swaths of hard data from tournaments on the grounds that maybe the players on one side of those matches might have been weak. Can't blame you for trying, I guess. :rolleyes:


Plus, broader playerbase --> more bad people playing the deck --> lower overall win percentage compared to a few "experts" piloting the deck.)Where is the evidence than newer/weaker players gravitate to popular decks more so than good players or average players?


Plus, broader playerbase --> more bad people playing the deck --> lower overall win percentage compared to a few "experts" piloting the deck.)
My statement still stands:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy#online
http://tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy&fecha=2015-3
http://tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy&fecha=2015-4
http://tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy&fecha=2015-5
These stats don't measure a deck's power. They measure it's prevalence, which is a function of it's power and of it's representation. Your statement was that Miracles has been a top performing deck. It has not. Your data shows only it's successes but not it's failures, which are as much a apart of the decks overall performance.

Let me put it this way:
I play 100 poker tournaments in a year, and win 10. You play 50 and win only eight. I'm obviously a stronger player!
More kids with IQ between 101 and 115 graduate every year than kids with an IQ over 140. Clearly kids with just-above-average intelligence out perform geniuses!
I hope you see the flaws with this "logic". In (1), we should compare our wins in proportion to our entrants. If we do, we see the whole picture, and realise that you are a stronger player. In (2), we should compare the number of graduates from each group against the number of drop-outs, and we'll see that geniuses actually graduate at higher rates.

The data you site counts only the total number of Miracles top8s, and doesn't consider this in proportion. It therefore does not support your position any more than the bogus arguments I gave above support their bogus (and preposterous) conclusions.

There is a reason in baseball they look at batting average instead of total hits. They want to compare batters' rates of hitting, not total hits over a varying number of attempts! I hope you understand why.

[Julian23]

My little spies tell me there's a "banless" Legacy tournament at GP Chiba this weekend. Not sure what exactly that means, but it should be fun to see the results of it :laugh:

[supremePINEAPPLE]

I think miracles just need an errata. They shouldn't let you miracles a sorcery card on an opponent's turn.I was thinking about something like this as well. Lands was brought back into the fold partially by a rules change.

That's definitely a perilous knob to try and tune the format with though. I think that would be a narrow enough change to not ripple outside of miracles but it would also effectively kill the current miracles deck which is a bummer. I don't think that it should be banned out of the format, just weakened.

Show and tell can suck it though.

[Barook]

Where is the evidence than newer/weaker players gravitate to popular decks more so than good players or average players?
It's a matter of Gauss distribution. The more players play a deck, the more likely it becomes that the results are going to average out since there are more average than top players.


These stats don't measure a deck's power. They measure it's prevalence, which is a function of it's power and of it's representation. Your statement was that Miracles has been a top performing deck. It has not. Your data shows only it's successes but not it's failures, which are as much a apart of the decks overall performance.
I get where you coming from, but that was not my point because you're too fixated on your definition of "performace". Call it prelevance, performance, whatever. The top tables are crowded with Miracles and not other control decks and I don't think it's just a matter of herd mentality.

Take the latest Open for example: The field was roughly 10% Miracles on Day 2, yet 7 decks placed in the Top 32 (22%). I take "prevalence" over raw win percentages every day as long as the sample size is too small like the RG Lands player pool.

E.g. when Tom Ross was pretty much the only player who played Infect and roflstomped the SCG Invitational twice in a row, the deck should have a pretty insane win-ratio. But that doesn't mean it's the best deck in the format. Other people who pick up the deck and aren't as experienced as the "deck expert" Tom Ross won't replicate the same performance or win percentage. Otherwise the Top 8s would be choke-full with Infect decks.

[Dice_Box]

My little spies tell me there's a "banless" Legacy tournament at GP Chiba this weekend. Not sure what exactly that means, but it should be fun to see the results of it :laugh:
http://www.hareruyamtg.com/gp/en/#event_schedule


■Banless Legacy
Entry Fee ¥1,000
Registration 15:30～16:00
Format Legacy, Swiss Tournament
REL Casual
Prizes Winner earns a Foil Mythic Rare Uncut-Sheet of Modern Masters(2015 Edition), 2nd and 3rd place earn Foil Rare Uncut-Sheet of Modern Masters(2015 Edition).
Other prizes awarded to top players in accordance with performance.
Notes
All cards banned in Legacy( Legacy Banned List ) are un-banned except for these cards:

・"Ante" Cards: Amulet of Quoz, Bronze Tablet, Contract from Below, Darkpact, Demonic Attorney, Jeweled Bird, Rebirth, Tempest Efreet, Timmerian Fiends
・"Conspiracy" Cards: Advantageous Proclamation, Backup Plan, Brago's Favor, Double Stroke, Immediate Action, Iterative Analysis, Muzzio's Preparations, Power Play, Secret Summoning, Secrets of Paradise, Sentinel Dispatch, Unexpected Potential, Worldknit
・"Power 9": Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Timetwister, Black Lotus, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald
・"Manual Dexterity", "Subgame"Cards: Chaos Orb, Falling Star, Shahrazad
These cards are still banned.

Wow. Wish I was there. Want to know what I could do with MUD playing Shops, Sol rings, Crypts and Vaults.

[iamajellydonut]

So, 100% MUD?

[Barook]

http://www.hareruyamtg.com/gp/en/#event_schedule
Wow. Wish I was there. Want to know what I could do with MUD playing Shops, Sol rings, Crypts and Vaults.
That sounds pretty hilarious. 4x Shops, 4x Sol Ring, 4x Crypt, 4 Mana Vault with 4x Trinisphere should be pretty good. Oh yeah, also 4x Time Vault combo.

But there are also other competitors like Bazaar Dredge or whatever crazy crap you could do with 4x Fastbond or 4xYawgWin.

[Dice_Box]

So, 100% MUD?

I do not think so. You have a lot of options with Tinker, Bargain and Will in storm, crazy other brews with Balance (which I really think is only effective when you have 4) and some other toys. I would play MUD though because I think Shops is the most powerful deck in Vintage. But hell, think of this mana base: 4 of Shops, Acadamy, 8 SOL lands, Sol Ring, Vault and 2 Crypt (I would not run 4). Even as a Vintage Shops player, that is a mana base to envy. So much wrong with that it's just not funny. You could drop City for Factory and I would still call that overly stable and totally broken. Fuck I want to play this. So busted.

As a test I like it, I can not see how much real testing you would do with that kind of deck running around though.

Edit:

That sounds pretty hilarious. 4x Shops, 4x Sol Ring, 4x Crypt, 4 Mana Vault with 4x Trinisphere should be pretty good. Oh yeah, also 4x Time Vault combo.

But there are also other competitors like Bazaar Dredge or whatever crazy crap you could do with 4x Fastbond or 4xYawgWin.
Oh yea, I know. Fuck I want to be there so much. If I had of known this was a thing I would have bought tickets. I mean its only like 6 hours away. Wow.

Edit again:
Jar. Tinker. Will. Bargain. Fuck yes. I like broken things.

[btm10]

Yeah, this just seems like a totally reasonable format. Shops is probably the "right" deck, but I'd have a hard time passing on 4 Fastbond, 4 Gush, 4 Scroll.

[Lord Seth]

Fool: "That aggro lists can't beat Miracles is pretty well established at this point:"

Infect: 8-9
Jeskai Delver: 3-4-1
Maverick: 7-2
Sultai Delver: 20-24-4
Temur Delver: 13-17-3

It seems to me that Delver decks (maybe they are not aggro decks, like shardless is not control?) CAN beat miracles.Delver decks are not aggro decks. They're tempo decks. So yeah, aggro can't beat Miracles. Though to be fair, aggro can't beat much of anything anymore.

[iamajellydonut]

I do not think so. You have a lot of options with Tinker, Bargain and Will in storm, crazy other brews with Balance (which I really think is only effective when you have 4) and some other toys.

Oh, no, definitely. My plan would likely be Flash. But I'd be figuratively willing to stake dosh on MUD being the field favorite after you account for the people just bringing whatever they have on-hand.

[sjmcc13]

Yeah, this just seems like a totally reasonable format. Shops is probably the "right" deck, but I'd have a hard time passing on 4 Fastbond, 4 Gush, 4 Scroll. ...4 Minds Desire....

[MGB]

Delver decks are not aggro decks. They're tempo decks. So yeah, aggro can't beat Miracles. Though to be fair, aggro can't beat much of anything anymore.

Delver decks are kind of the definition of "aggro-control" decks, and some Pro Players (like Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa) even argue that Legacy Delver decks are the definition of "aggro" and not even "aggro-control":

From http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pvs-playhouse-aggro/ :



A third approach is the Aggro with Disruption - those decks do not have any reach, but they have answers, and they can stop the opponent from doing whatever it is they want to do. There are two main forms of disruption - counterspells and discard. Aggro with Discard has fallen a little out of favor since Suicide Black became bad, and now the closest we have to that is Jund, though Jund is not really a pure aggro deck. In the counterspells department, we have a lot more examples - UW humans with Mana Leak is one. The place you’ll find the most Aggro with Disruption is not Standard, though, it’s Legacy - take Caleb’s deck from the last GP:

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
2 Chain Lightning
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Forked Bolt
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
1 Predict
4 Stifle
1 Thought Scour

This deck might look like aggro-control, but it really isn’t - it’s an aggro deck. “But PV, it has counterspells, card drawing and removal, why isn’t it aggro-control?” - Because you don’t ever use those elements to control the game! You see, terminology is not actually important - you don’t get match points for correctly identifying what a deck is called. If you want to call any deck with creatures and counterspells aggro-control, be my guest - as long as it makes sense to you, it’s fine. What you do get points for, however, is playing your deck correctly, and this deck will not play like an aggro-control deck, it will play like aggro. Every control element that you have you’re using to kill them. You don’t want the game to go any long, you want it finished as soon as possible, because, much like aggro, your cards get a lot worse in the late game. In fact, I’d say Standard Delver itself is already on the verge of being an aggro deck to me, since it shares a lot of those traits (though ultimately I think it has enough control in it that it plays like aggro-control, otherwise nothing would be aggro-control).

[dunk]

crazy other brews with Balance (which I really think is only effective when you have 4)

Tell me how and you will get a Golden Ticket. You could unrestrict it in Vintage without much effect, but even considering such a hard-to-build-around-yet-still-infinite-variance-attached-to-it in a world with consistent t1 kills and Shops... yeah, get the Golden Ticket.

[rufus]

Tell me how and you will get a Golden Ticket. You could unrestrict it in Vintage without much effect, but even considering such a hard-to-build-around-yet-still-infinite-variance-attached-to-it in a world with consistent t1 kills and Shops... yeah, get the Golden Ticket.

We're getting off-topic here, but I was wondering how strong leyline combo would be as a metagame choice in that format, and that kind of deck could do all sorts of nasty stuff with turn 1 balance. On reflection, I'm not sure that anything is going to be able to compete with academy decks that can use 4x Tinker, Memory Jar and Windfall.

[JPoJohnson]

Delver decks are not aggro decks. They're tempo decks. So yeah, aggro can't beat Miracles. Though to be fair, aggro can't beat much of anything anymore.

I feel like Merfolk does just fine against Miracles, it just gets wrecked by other aggros in the format right now .

[rufus]

My little spies tell me there's a "banless" Legacy tournament at GP Chiba this weekend. Not sure what exactly that means, but it should be fun to see the results of it :laugh:

Does anyone have a link to those?

[btm10]

I feel like Merfolk does just fine against Miracles, it just gets wrecked by other aggros in the format right now .

I'm also not sure why we're conflating "aggro being a tier 1 archetype" and "a healthy format".

[sjmcc13]

I'm also not sure why we're conflating "aggro being a tier 1 archetype" and "a healthy format".
I guess is depends on how one defines Aggro, but there are decks that are more aggro then combo/control that are strong so aggro should meat the health levels for most players.

Though legacy is a format where you need to be able to interact on more levels then just creature combat, so decks like most delver lists are probably what aggro NEEDS to look like in legacy, and I guess some people do not like that "drop creatures, turn them sideways and nothing else" decks are not strong, because they do not meet the player interaction requirements of Legacy.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Though legacy is a format where you need to be able to interact on more levels then just creature combat, so decks like most delver lists are probably what aggro NEEDS to look like in legacy, and I guess some people do not like that "drop creatures, turn them sideways and nothing else" decks are not strong, because they do not meet the player interaction requirements of Legacy.

I don't think so. The point of playing aggro was never to beat combo, that should be well understood. The point of playing it was to beat up on blue decks that were geared more towards beating combo and/or each other. The problems with the format have a lot to do with blue decks getting to the point where they could beat aggro AS WELL AS combo. Thus, the part of blue predator is now filled primarily by fringe prison decks like Lands and MUD (and of course DnT, which is widely considered a control deck despite its high creature count).

[Lemnear]

I don't think so. The point of playing aggro was never to beat combo, that should be well understood.

The history of this thread and recent posts disagree with the sound logic of your post. Haven't you read all those complaints about only blue/black being able to meaningfully interact with T1/2 combo decks and the talk about S&T over the last year(s)? If the crowd in question would accept that combo is a bad matchup for (linear) Aggro, we wouldn't have the sheer Volume of discussion, but focus on the following matter:


The point of playing it was to beat up on blue decks that were geared more towards beating combo and/or each other. The problems with the format have a lot to do with blue decks getting to the point where they could beat aggro AS WELL AS combo.

Since the days of Tarmogoyf/CounterTop this idea is outdated imo. The whole history of blue midrange decks that followed after (Bant Countertop, Bant Aggro, etc.) and printings like SFM and TNN cemented the Position of blue decks being able to battle (linear) Aggro with tools which the later decks were unable to profit from equally and caused a decline of pure aggro since then. Miracles is the first full control deck since the days of Landstill which shaped the metagame around it's mayor presence and gave linear aggro a space to shine they did not have for years.

The discussed idea that the removal of Terminus would give BUG Delver and Shardless a better Miracles matchup (despite Vial.dec having a good Miracles matchup) shows how idiotic the discussion has become, if the goal has ever been to promote non-blue strategies in the first place. I honestly have the impression the whole discussion on Terminus harming non-blue decks is a trojan horse for Delver/blue midrange losing to a 1 mana Wrath they cannot Daze/Pierce properly.


Thus, the part of blue predator is now filled primarily by fringe prison decks like Lands and MUD (and of course DnT, which is widely considered a control deck despite its high creature count).

Can we stop using the term "blue" as if it means anything? Your sentence gets really iffy depending if you read "blue" here in the context of Miracles, OmniTell, Storm, Delver or Blade decks for example and especially in regards to the historic circumstances why aggro was able to beat blue decks back in the day (sweepers were too slow, there were no creatures which made aggro/control or blue midrange playable) which are simply no longer the case and most Aggro decks these days have to pickup a tempo subtype to win against blue midrange (see Chalice, Thorn, Wasteland, Thalia, Flickerwisp, Port, Lodestone, Daze, etc.) or feature a combo finish

[Zombie]

Can we stop using the term "blue" as if it means anything? Your sentence gets really iffy depending if you read "blue" here in the context of Miracles, OmniTell, Storm, Delver or Blade decks for example and especially in regards to the historic circumstances why aggro was able to beat blue decks back in the day (sweepers were too slow, there were no creatures which made aggro/control or blue midrange playable) which are simply no longer the case and most Aggro decks these days have to pickup a tempo subtype to win against blue midrange (see Chalice, Thorn, Wasteland, Thalia, Flickerwisp, Port, Lodestone, Daze, etc.) or feature a combo finish

I don't agree with the "blue doesn't mean anything" part, but the rest is good. You can speak of preying on "blue" in the context of decks like D&T, Merfolk, Painter, MUD that prey on the omnipresent cantrip engine and/or running Islands. But macro archetypes like aggro, tempo, midrange, combo etc. attack general weaknesses of other macro archetypes (or try to "go over the top" within theirs, ie. Elves+NicFit to Shardless/Jund, Reanimator/TinFins to Storm/Elves/Tide/S&Derp, BUG to RUG, etc.), not specific colors.

[Lemnear]

I don't agree with the "blue doesn't mean anything" part, but the rest is good. You can speak of preying on "blue" in the context of decks like D&T, Merfolk, Painter, MUD that prey on the omnipresent cantrip engine and/or running Islands. But macro archetypes like aggro, tempo, midrange, combo etc. attack general weaknesses of other macro archetypes (or try to "go over the top" within theirs, ie. Elves+NicFit to Shardless/Jund, Reanimator/TinFins to Storm/Elves/Tide/S&Derp, BUG to RUG, etc.), not specific colors.

I consider it a mayor difference if we talk about "blue" (and counterstrategies) in terms of "decks chaining cantrips" or about "running islands" (like Legend Miracles, Meerfolk, Sea Stompy, Aluren, Foodchain, etc.) in a general way and in regards to the role/potency of (linear) aggro in the respective matchups. You can't label Miracles, Blade, Delver and Storm together as "blue decks" in regards to how Vial Goblins fare against "blue decks today". We should seperate strickly here in my opinion and thats all I wanted to highlight in the discussion which is too dumbed down for my taste at times.

[maharis]

From Philipp Schönegger's Reddit Q&A. The question: "What are your thoughts on the dig through time based control decks like Golddigger?"

Answer (emphases mine):

Dig Through Time based Control decks like Golddigger or Grixis have traditionally been simply inferior to Miracles due to one card. And that's Counterbalance. If Miracle didn't have Counterbalance, then there's no way on earth to ever win a match. I mean, a fast Entreat can win a game or two, but you cannot rely on that. When I'm playing against these decks, then all comes down to Counterbalance. Do I have it and manage to resolve it? Well, then this game is going to be very enjoyable (unless they have EE+Ruins) - should I not be able to find and/or resolve Balance in time, then a Dig Through Time Control deck is clearly favored against Miracles.

I mean, they're probably more entertaining to play, though they lack the cost/effect ratio of Balance+Terminus. These two cards just make Miracle work, make it flexible and fast enough to withstand the constant onslaught of a blisteringly fast format like Legacy. If the format was slower, then Dig Through Time (+ a way to deal with balance, like EE+Ruins) would be a better control deck. But this isn't the case. You need to wipe the board as soon as turn 2, which is about the same turn you want your balance-lock to be set up. Maybe I'll write an article on the fundamental turn in Legacy at some point. :)

Basically, while Sensei's Divining Top is the reason Miracles exists, it's not the reason it's (theoretically) oppressive, thus banning SDT is not the right solution to target Miracles specifically, if that's what we need to do to broaden the format. Taking Counterbalance or Terminus (I lean toward the former) would impact the deck enough to open up the field while not having collateral damage. It's having both of these cards in the deck that leads toward "Top abuse."

[nedleeds]

Does anyone have a link to those?

They ran an interesting one a few years back at another Japanese GP where you could choose a non power nine card and have it as a 4 of. Brainstorm was still the most played card, and Mental Misstep was #2. #expected. I'll try to dig up the results link.

Edit: The Internet.

http://amclegacy.sakura.ne.jp/FSL1.html

[MGB]

From Philipp Schönegger's Reddit Q&A. The question: "What are your thoughts on the dig through time based control decks like Golddigger?"

Answer (emphases mine):

Basically, while Sensei's Divining Top is the reason Miracles exists, it's not the reason it's (theoretically) oppressive, thus banning SDT is not the right solution to target Miracles specifically, if that's what we need to do to broaden the format. Taking Counterbalance or Terminus (I lean toward the former) would impact the deck enough to open up the field while not having collateral damage. It's having both of these cards in the deck that leads toward "Top abuse."

Except that:

a.) Terminus and Coutnerbalanace would be basically unplayable or only fringe playable without Sensei's Divining Top. Just like Vengevine was unplayable without Survival of the Fittest, but without Vengevine Survival would still be powerful and probably broken down the line with further new printings. Similarly, SDT will always be powerful tool for control decks that have ways to abuse knowledge of the top 3 cards of their library. If you ban Terminus, CounterTop rears its ugly head at some point in the right deck. If you ban Counterbalance, SDT+Terminus is still a huge detriment to aggro decks.

b.) There is no "collateral damage" from banning Top. Or if there is, it's very negligible. The only decks that lose anything (other than Miracles) are the stray Painter deck that plays 1-2 SDT, the stray ANT deck that plays 1-2 SDT, and a random BGx deck that uses 2-3. And all of these decks are eminently playable, and even just as powerful, without a single SDT in their deck.

[nedleeds]

Except that:

a.) Terminus would be basically unplayable or only fringe playable without Brainstorm.



fixed this.

[MGB]

fixed this.

But so would 50%+ of the rest of the format as we know it.

The results of banning Brainstorm would be too unpredictable, make too many sweeping effects, and would generate far too much collateral damage.

The results of banning SDT are very simple to predict: Miracles instantly goes from Tier 1 to Tier 2, and a set of new control decks springs up to take its place, increasing diversity in the format. Additionally, more aggro decks that used to fold to Terminus spring up once again and bring even more diversity to the format.

[M+1]

I don't find Miracles oppressive, but if it was, the solution would clearly be to unban Goblin Recruiter.

[Ingo]

I don't find Miracles oppressive, but if it was, the solution would clearly be to unban Goblin Recruiter.

Honestly, I wish they would, as it would probably bring goblins back to the tables. If printing cards that suppress variance in nonblue colors is part of the brainstorm-issue, this one's a non brainer (just like using top, experienced players should be able to stack their decks in an acceptable amount of time)

[Stevestamopz]

But so would 50%+ of the rest of the format as we know it.

The results of banning Brainstorm would be too unpredictable, make too many sweeping effects, and would generate far too much collateral damage.

The results of banning SDT are very simple to predict: Miracles instantly goes from Tier 1 to Tier 2, and a set of new control decks springs up to take its place, increasing diversity in the format. Additionally, more aggro decks that used to fold to Terminus spring up once again and bring even more diversity to the format.

Aggro decks that used to fold to Terminus will then get to fold to Abrupt Decay and Toxic Deluge and True Name + Jitte/Batterskull and Swords Snapcaster Swords... aka literally everything else in the format.



I don't find Miracles oppressive, but if it was, the solution would clearly be to unban Goblin Recruiter.

I can only get so erect.

[Spam]

In my opinion, the only problem legacy has right now is Dig through Time. It's not at the level of Cruise unfairness, but it's slowly warping the format to a point were most of the top tier decks runs it and games do end wen one or more copies are cast.

[MGB]

Aggro decks that used to fold to Terminus will then get to fold to Abrupt Decay and Toxic Deluge and True Name + Jitte/Batterskull and Swords Snapcaster Swords... aka literally everything else in the format.



But they don't. The difference between:

- a one mana, instant speed, unconditional Hallowed Burial

and

- conditional 1-for-1 removal (Abrupt Decay, Swords), multiple card combos that can die to artifact hate (equipment+X)... is a CHASM.

[Stevestamopz]

But they don't. The difference between:

- a one mana, instant speed, unconditional Hallowed Burial

and

- conditional 1-for-1 removal (Abrupt Decay, Swords), multiple card combos that can die to artifact hate (equipment+X)... is a CHASM.

Different road, same destination; 1 for 1, 1 for 1, draw some cards, pull ahead and win.

What aggro deck is playing something with a cmc> 3?
What aggro deck is playing Black knight to get past Swords to Plowshares?
They're not even close to conditional removal spells against "aggro" decks.

I drew a match against Esper Deathblade because my 15/2 Piledriver attacking through his Batterskulled-True Name wasn't enough for lethal. Good luck beating that with Wild Nacatl (y)

[iamajellydonut]

unconditional Hallowed Burial

Except it's not unconditional. The same people who purport this are the same people who say "Delver is a 3/2" and then complain when they can't get him to flip.

[Lemnear]

In my opinion, the only problem legacy has right now is Dig through Time. It's not at the level of Cruise unfairness, but it's slowly warping the format to a point were most of the top tier decks runs it and games do end wen one or more copies are cast.

What me bothers most at this point is that OmniTell and Grixis, which are now both DtBs, run a shared core of...

4 FoW
4 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe

...despite different finishers/gameplans. This is an awkward and dangerous development I was talking about before. We need to watch this closely. It cannot be that the format steers towards a ~20 Lands/24 blue card core with various kill-conditions. I hope this is just a current abdomination and not a lasting fundament

[Julian23]

The Gitaxian-Probe-Fetchland-DTT-engine is probably the most powerful thing you can do it Legacy right now, rivaled only by the Miracles mechanic.

Fully expecting DTT to be banned after GP Lille.

[btm10]

The Gitaxian-Probe-Fetchland-DTT-engine is probably the most powerful you can do it Legacy right now, rivaled only by the Miracles mechanic.

Fully expecting DTT to be banned after GP Lille.

I wouldn't be surprised either. Though depending on the top 8/16, I could also see the banhammer falling on Top. I don't think we need the second action, but the first is almost surely needed.

[Crimhead]

What me bothers most at this point is that OmniTell and Grixis, which are now both DtBs, run a shared core of...

4 FoW
4 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe

Grixis doesn't run GProbe, nor does it run the full twenty of the other cards.

[btm10]

Grixis doesn't run GProbe, nor does it run the full twenty of the other cards.

Most Grixis Control lists run 4 Probe.

[iamajellydonut]

Grixis doesn't run GProbe

This is actually completely false.

[nedleeds]

Brainstorm, Fetch, derp is more powerful than any of this. Brainstorm will outpace every card and only Ponder and Force will make a run at it's overwhelming ubiquity. Keep up the Necro ban strategy and ban every surrounding shitty card while the format degenerates.

[Spam]

What me bothers most at this point is that OmniTell and Grixis, which are now both DtBs, run a shared core of...

4 FoW
4 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe

...despite different finishers/gameplans. This is an awkward and dangerous development I was talking about before. We need to watch this closely. It cannot be that the format steers towards a ~20 Lands/24 blue card core with various kill-conditions. I hope this is just a current abdomination and not a lasting fundament

I do agree. However, in my opinion, the real hint of this problem lies in all the other decks that have Dig regardless of their capability of "fueling" it.
For example, if we take a look at SCG Worcester, and we do not look at Grixis or Omnitet, it's not unusual to see Miracles, Deathblades and other deck lists with some Digs, regardless of their ability to play it with maximum efficiency.

Edit:

Dig. Also invalidate one of the best strategy for fighting combo and control decks: discard.
Without Dig, non 2 cards combo strategies or control decks had real issues against heavy discard based decks (omnitell) and were forced to take them to account. With Dig this is no longer a problem because discard actually fuels their strategy.
An example:
Last week I was playing TES against Miracles. I had a kill in my hand, so I proceeded to duress my opponent that had X dead cards a force and a dig. He also had SDT in play, 2 untapped islands and 5 cards in the graveyard.
I had two options there:

1: Take Force
2: Take Dig.

Force had to go sice I couldn't play around it, and the chances of him having a blue card on the top 3 were to hig to take a risk. So I left him with Dig that he casted finding the force and the blue card he needed (he had a blue card in the top 3)
Now, this can be bad luck, sure, but the problem lies on my discard that made him able to cast Dig.
Hope I was clear. I don't hate card, but there's no denying that we are moving to a meta were most decks must run Dig or must close the game before the card is castable.

[nedleeds]

You lose that game against Brainstorm also. He hides Force and draws with top. If the game has gone long enough for the control player to have that many resources you are losing anyway. At least dig is off turn 1, 2 and mostly 3.

[Spam]

I do agree, but brainstorm doesn't allow you to put cards you don't want at the bottom of your deck by its own. Besides, if he had only a blue card in the top 3 that brainstorm would have been dead.
I'm not here to argue whether or not brainstorm has the same power of Dig in this situation. I just wanted to give a scenario where Dig still bypasses your discard spells by doing nothing and actually profits from it where brainstorm dose not.

[Crimhead]

Most Grixis Control lists run 4 Probe.
My bad - I meant Preordain.

[eays]

What me bothers most at this point is that OmniTell and Grixis, which are now both DtBs, run a shared core of...

4 FoW
4 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe

...despite different finishers/gameplans. This is an awkward and dangerous development I was talking about before. We need to watch this closely. It cannot be that the format steers towards a ~20 Lands/24 blue card core with various kill-conditions. I hope this is just a current abdomination and not a lasting fundament

I agree with you that this is an ugly trend, and I don't think this is a flavor of the week. I think if nothing is done, this will be the look of Legacy for a long time to come. Dig is just a card that delver, blue midrange control, miracles, and omnitell can throw in their decks with almost zero downside, and it automatically ensures that they have an upper hand in any game that isn't over in the first 4 turns and that they are able to find silver bullets to break a board stall and also have the raw card advantage to take the upper hand. When you then BUILD around the card, you get an incredible "card advantage engine in a can" that is extremely hard to hate out and then you basically get to pick your win conditions of choice.

One thing that frustrates me - when the best comparable thing black can due is cast Hymn to RANDOMLY take 2 cards from your hand (and is also a TERRIBLE mid-late game top deck), and also simultaneously fuel Dig, you know there is a problem. For the same mana investment blue gets to SELECT 2 cards 7 cards deep in their deck and also have the upside of it being an incredible top deck any time turn 4 and beyond. Oh and they get to do it at instant speed, which might not seem like a big deal but in game it really is.

This general core, even with tweaks, is incredibly potent, and is ALL over MTGO, and paper is catching on more and more week by week. I've seen this same general core run in tempo, midrange, and control decks, and it basically ensures that in all stages of the game, you're going to have solid game. I think this is the best thing you can be doing in legacy right now. I'm interested to see if it remains in the format.

[Kanti]

Goddamnit no my High Tide deck is going to get weaker. Please stop this guys. On a side note at least Dig isn't a 4-of in every list, because it really doesn' cost 2 mana. But yeah, Dig is pretty busted. One way to fight it is obviously more gy hate, RIP being the premier card here.

[Crimhead]

I agree with you that this is an ugly trend, and I don't think this is a flavor of the week. I think if nothing is done, this will be the look of Legacy for a long time to come.Decks don't run all those cards, though. Omnitell does, because it's a two card combo and can afford to run twenty four card filters/draw spells. No other deck runs that many cantrips.

Also, none those cards aren't play-style defining. If all the decks with blue run (most of) those cards to accomplish different goasl; and if we continue to see roughly 30% blueless decks, I don't see how format diversity is in any danger.


Dig is just a card that delver, blue midrange control, miracles, and omnitell can throw in their decks with almost zero downside, and it automatically ensures that they have an upper hand in any game that isn't over in the first 4 turns...I play Lands, and I assure you midtrange and tempo decks are not favoured in the long game. Against combo decks, midrange, tempo, and control are supposed to be favoued in a longer game! What matches are you referring to?

[Amon Amarth]

Honestly, I wish they would, as it would probably bring goblins back to the tables. If printing cards that suppress variance in nonblue colors is part of the brainstorm-issue, this one's a non brainer (just like using top, experienced players should be able to stack their decks in an acceptable amount of time)

My philosophy is I'd rather add to the format than take anything away. If you want to nerf Miracles then Goblin Recruiter makes Miracles his bitch but doesn't make the deck obsolete. of course, it strengthens the deck against other blue decks in general but that's a desired consequence too.

[Quasim0ff]

My philosophy is I'd rather add to the format than take anything away. If you want to nerf Miracles then Goblin Recruiter makes Miracles his bitch but doesn't make the deck obsolete. of course, it strengthens the deck against other blue decks in general but that's a desired consequence too.

Goblins usually have an excellent blue matchup. Terminus is just a wrath on roids.

[Lemnear]

Grixis doesn't run GProbe, nor does it run the full twenty of the other cards.

edit 1:
My bad - I meant Preordain.

edit 2:
Decks don't run all those cards, though. Omnitell does, because it's a two card combo and can afford to run twenty four card filters/draw spells. No other deck runs that many cantrips.


Right in your face! 10th Place at StarCityGames.com Premier IQ on 5/17/2015 (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=84956)

[Zombie]

Also, none those cards aren't play-style defining. If all the decks with blue run (most of) those cards to accomplish different goasl; and if we continue to see roughly 30% blueless decks, I don't see how format diversity is in any danger.

Actually, playstyle defining is exactly the term I'd use to refer to the blue core, or cantrip cartel(+DTT) at least. You can play whatever strategy you wish, but the style in which that is accomplished is monotone and stale. The format has tons of other interesting engines that would lend a very different feel to decks with the same strategy, but none can reliably compete.

ie. Elves, Storm => Similar strategy, different style
RUG, Miracles => Different strategy, similar style

[Dice_Box]

Goblins usually have an excellent blue matchup. Terminus is just a wrath on roids.
Terminus is not the biggest issue in the world for Goblins. Thanks to the Goblins going back into your deck you just Matron for a Ringleader and your back off to the races. That's why you held your Matrons against Miracles, it was you spare magazine so to speak.

[Blastoderm]

*Yawn*. Miracles isn't even that good, stop complaining and put some Extirpate and Choke in your SB. Sidenote: Goblins completely crushes Miracles.

Omnitell is worse than sneak/show. It's flavor of the month.

Summary: Git gud

[Julian23]

*Yawn*. Miracles isn't even that good, stop complaining and put some Extirpate and Choke in your SB. Sidenote: Goblins completely crushes Miracles.

Omnitell is worse than sneak/show. It's flavor of the month.

Summary: Git gud

Seldomly has there been so little truth in one post.

Playing Sneak Show is fine if you enjoy it. As a competitive player, OmniTell or even more specific Dig Through Time is where it's at.

I don't even know why I'm replying to this, but now I already hit the button and feel committed: It's nice that Goblins has a slightly favorable matchup against Miracles. It doesn't help the deck though, that it itself is the one being crushed by the rest of the metagame. Unless we see some insane new printings or bannings, the age of Goblins is over.

[MGB]

Different road, same destination; 1 for 1, 1 for 1, draw some cards, pull ahead and win.

What aggro deck is playing something with a cmc> 3?
What aggro deck is playing Black knight to get past Swords to Plowshares?
They're not even close to conditional removal spells against "aggro" decks.

I drew a match against Esper Deathblade because my 15/2 Piledriver attacking through his Batterskulled-True Name wasn't enough for lethal. Good luck beating that with Wild Nacatl (y)

Except that Terminus is far more than a 1 for 1. It's a sweeper. It generates card advantage and leads to blow-outs vs. aggro. That's kind of the point.

Absorbing a Swords to Plowshares or Abrupt Decay on a single dude is at most 1-for-1 trade that nets both players comletely even on card advantage. That's perfectly fair for the deck casting the Swords or the Decay. Aggro decks should be able to win in the face of 1-for-1 removal.

It's a 1 mana *sweeper* that can get rid of as many dudes as you have in play, that can be cast at instant speed, that is much harder for aggro to combat.

[sjmcc13]

It's a 1 mana *sweeper* that can get rid of as many dudes as you have in play, that can be cast at instant speed, that is much harder for aggro to combat.

Except it is NOT a 1 mana sweeper.
The only point Terminus costs 1 mana is if it is your draw for your turn, every other point it required you to jump through some hoops to cast it for cheap, and those hoops are adding to the cost of actually casting Terminus.
Sure I can drop top (next turn) spin top see terminus put it on top draw with Top on my opponents turn, but that is 3 mana and 2 cards to cast Terminus, not 1 mana.

Pretty much every scenario that involves miracling a terminus (or any Miracles card to be fair) involves the investment of mana to set up the trigger, and using it as instant speed requires at least 1 mana investment just to get the trigger. The difference here is you can pay the costs of setup over a couple turns.

[MGB]

Except it is NOT a 1 mana sweeper.
The only point Terminus costs 1 mana is if it is your draw for your turn, every other point it required you to jump through some hoops to cast it for cheap, and those hoops are adding to the cost of actually casting Terminus.
Sure I can drop top (next turn) spin top see terminus put it on top draw with Top on my opponents turn, but that is 3 mana and 2 cards to cast Terminus, not 1 mana.

Pretty much every scenario that involves miracling a terminus (or any Miracles card to be fair) involves the investment of mana to set up the trigger, and using it as instant speed requires at least 1 mana investment just to get the trigger. The difference here is you can pay the costs of setup over a couple turns.

Nononono. Did you really just go there? "Jump Through Hoops"? This is laughable.

And the extra mana you spend on Topping is not really just an added cost for the Miracle spell - you would have spent your spare mana topping anyway. Miracling after a Top activation is simply an incidental benefit, similar to young Pyromancer generating creatures for spells you would have cast anyway, or Tarmogoyf for growing after you put cards in your graveyard that you otherwise would have put anyway.

The combination of Sensei's Divining Top, Ponder, Brainstorm, and Jace all make Miracles ridiculously easy to cast for their Miracle cost. That is the entire point of the SDT ban idea : if we ban the most *reliable* way to set up Miracle spells, the deck will no longer be Tier 1.