All B/R update speculation. [Archive] - Page 64

dte

12-07-2016, 09:41 AM

As I have played recently with Fauna Shaman, the card which is probably the closest to survival, I can assure you that survival is very far from being a safe unban. I am not sure that Y. will would be as bad.
Indeed, A T2 Fauna for two turns unanswered was most of the time translated into an easy win (sadly, most decks can answer a 2/2 very quickly). And survival is miles better, being unaffected by summoning sickness, activable multiple times per turn, killed almost only by decay (while letting you grab a witness to replay it next turn), etc...

Those saying that there is more potent gravehate now do not realize that this is actually not a problem for survival. You do not have to build with Vengevigne, Ooze or retainers. But the survival's opponent has to bring in gravehate as retainers+iona is a 2 cards-kill. And if the opponent land DRS/RiP, the survival player can just discard these 2 cards if he happen to draw them to go grab something that is not grave dependent, or go for Rec Sage - revoker to answer the gravehate.

Just grab the best hate against whatever you are playing against: magus of the moon/moat vs eldrazi, thalia/teeg/revoker vs storm, Sulfur Elemental vs D&T, Scavenging ooze vs burn (+fodder), Faerie macabre/DRS/sc ooze vs dredge/rea,...
They answer it? Repeat.

Lemnear

12-07-2016, 09:51 AM

Dice_Box

12-07-2016, 09:54 AM

It never had the right metagame/timeIt was never going going to get that. It was banned back when you could abuse its effect with jewelry and Sinkhole was a real card. It's effect is no longer one anyone cares about, because there are just no ways to effectively abuse it. When Pox was a half threat maybe. These days you can't effectively strand a Delver player on one or two mana. They are designed to play on that margin and Miracles often plays with next to nothing in hand.

Vise was always going to have no impact. It's expiry date has been and gone as the mana costs in the format hit the floor.

You can argue Vice needing the right meta, agreed, that meta was around in 2005.

I cant believe we go through Survival again. Are people trolling or just plain too stupid to look at the last time we had the topic in this thread? I am sure one could stumble over the discussion just about 20 pages backNot agreeing with you doesn't equal trolling or stupidity, it equals not agreeing with you. If you feel like you can't have a conversation on this topic without such comments or that you have already said your piece, your welcome to take a break from the thread

dte

12-07-2016, 09:57 AM

I cant believe we go through Survival again. Are people trolling or just plain too stupid to look at the last time we had the topic in this thread? I am sure one could stumble over the discussion just about 20 pages back

Well, it is a topic on bans/unbans. Given the "exchange prisoner" system, it is only logical that the 5-6 most unbannable cards appear often. Hence repetitions on Survival or Mind Twist, even if I agree with you that those are better on the list than off.

Lemnear

12-07-2016, 10:00 AM

Not agreeing with you doesn't equal trolling or stupidity, it equals not agreeing with you. If you feel like you can't have a conversation on this topic without such comments or that you have already said your piece, your welcome to take a break from the thread

There is no need for a conversation on the matter as we all just had one and the metagame as well as the arguments are the same as a few pages back.

So lets talk about a Necropotence unban, because its rarely a topic here and as Tomb into Chalice seems to be an interactive play, lets use Ritual into Necropotence to battle Hymn and Thoughtseize

iatee

12-07-2016, 12:05 PM

I at least was vehemently against a Vise unban but solely on the grounds that it had a strictly negative EV - ie. either no impact (likely and what thankfully ended up being the case) or if it had an impact it'd increase the amount of miserable games in the format and punish clunky but playable keeps more.

Yeah it's funny how people fighting for unbans don't actually seem to care about whether a card can be expected to make legacy more fun or skill-testing, it's just some moral battle to free a card from its undeserved oppression. Who cares if Mind Twist is rotting in a jail cell for crimes it didn't commit? We get hundreds of new cards a year to play with and legacy has more than enough problem cards that aren't fun or skill-testing.

rlesko

12-07-2016, 01:23 PM

This is not a valid argument. There's clearly a place in a varied metagame for an archetype that beats the Tier 1 and loses to enough Tier 2+ strategies to stay near 55-45 overall. You can't seriously be arguing that every Tier 1 deck must have an abysmal matchup with some other Tier 1 deck despite perfect play, otherwise it deserves a ban?

I can see the logic behind the "ban Top because it makes long tournaments miserable" argument. I can't see the logic behind the "ban top because it enables a control deck that isn't awful" argument. If you ban all the control decks you end up with a crap format like Modern where rounds either last 15 minutes or 55 because the only viable archetypes are aggro-combo and prison.

Yes, there is a place for an archetype like that. However, miracles is more powerful than what you just described. The only matchups it is fabled to be a dog in are cloudpost decks (which it has B2B and blood moon for) and possibly some fringe BGx (4c loam, nic fit). I never said anything about banning top specifically, by the way. And if so, that wasn't my reason. I like the utility that top provides other decks in the format. Something from miracles has to go, though.

I keep seeing people say landstill is favored vs miracles, though I fail to see how (and i've played the match up. Locally, there was an effort to make landstill work when DTT was legal). Miracles has what, 7 swords to plowshares + terminus? Try beating someone to death with some 2/2s against that. Not to mention, B2B and Blood moon out the board.

EDIT: Misread your post, Dice_box

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-07-2016, 02:55 PM

rlesko

12-07-2016, 02:59 PM

Standstill is basically a draw 3 in that MU (no creatures to worry about and the only thing you really have to worry about it top on turn 1, which you can force), you bury them in card advantage while they try and find the part of their deck that is relevant.

Or conversely, you just lose if they establish the fabled top/CB and its not exactly difficult for them to find removal. Or if they have top under standstill you're actually disadvantaged. Basically you either counter everything they do or lose, kind of like playing a tempo deck vs combo. Its just flat out not true that its hard for them to interact.

btm10

12-07-2016, 03:05 PM

I agree with this. Basically any time I see a control deck I think, is this better than miracles? And it's always no. Sure landstill is favored against miracles themselves, but they are much worse against much of the field. And yes I understand that pure aggro was pushed out before miracles, but miracles existing keeps it from ever even attempting a comeback. Terminus is the problem card other than the obvious Brainstorm. It gives miracles that catch all creature sweeper that is cheap and instant speed, and due to the nature of the card also forces you into the miracles shell. If there was reason to believe that maybe on a given day that EE, or pyroclasm, or supreme verdict were the best sweeper to play you could consider different control shells, but when you play those cards and you're essentially wrong because they aren't terminus, that's when it's an issue to me.

I actually think Terminus isn't as big a problem as Counterbalance since you can beat sweepers with "normal" cards like Painful Truths and threats like Batterskull and Mishra's Factory, as opposed to Counterbalance which largely stops the opponent from playing Magic. I'm still unconvinced as to whether or not a blue-based control deck is viable without both Counterbalance and Terminus, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that a tier 1 draw-go deck is be a cost worth paying to eliminate Counterbalance.

I keep seeing people say landstill is favored vs miracles, though I fail to see how (and i've played the match up. Locally, there was an effort to make landstill work when DTT was legal). Miracles has what, 7 swords to plowshares + terminus? Try beating someone to death with some 2/2s against that. Not to mention, B2B and Blood moon out the board.

Lam Phan's GP New Jersey list has a pretty fantastic Miracles matchup because its game 1 removal was less dead than Miracles', it had more hard counters, and because the only cards that Miracles ran that mattered were Counterbalance and Entreat. Having burn rather than Plows and Terminus made its Snapcaster Mages better, a s it got to run more raw card advantage tools and leverage its manabase. The only times I lost to Miracles with that deck (or Grixis landstill in the Dig era) was when they had Counterbalance with backup on turns 2-3 or if I flooded out on burn.

Lemnear

12-07-2016, 03:32 PM

We dont need to ponder about LandStill if it has no chance to come close to D&T, Eldrazi, Lands and Miracles as the decks it needs to stand up to. You cant gear it for all 4

rlesko

12-07-2016, 03:51 PM

True. So what part of miracles would you ban, Lemnear? Forgive me if you've already campaigned for a card, I don't want to read the past 50 pages :laugh:

Stevestamopz

12-07-2016, 04:12 PM

If Vengevince Survival turned out not good enough, it would probably just go back to being Bant Survival, which can regularly produce a turn3 Iona.

Turn 3 fatty? That's cute in 2016 Legacy.

rlesko

12-07-2016, 04:18 PM

Turn 3 fatty? That's cute in 2016 Legacy.

I think his point is, the plan is dynamic. Its the option to go the beatdown route or combo route, but I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth.

Lemnear

12-07-2016, 04:42 PM

True. So what part of miracles would you ban, Lemnear? Forgive me if you've already campaigned for a card, I don't want to read the past 50 pages :laugh:

Either you ban SDT and end the whole bullshit of playing the clock and timewalk UWx back to LandStill and Patriot or you pick the surgical fix of removing Terminus so Aggro-Control has more of a game and potentially returning to the format beyond the remains which is Grixis Delver.

Both options have their disadvantages in detail. Maybe Pyroclasm, Plows and SCM are enough to compensate the loss of Terminus and we are back with CounterTop+Sweepers dominating the field a few weeks later? Maybe banning SDT would strengthen combo and Eldrazis to the point that Uxx aggro-control, D&T, Lands.dec & Co. struggle to find their place between 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Tentacle-Eldrazis or Tentacles w/o Eldrazi (aka storm)?

I can not predict at this point. Maybe chopping SDT would bring more options back in the whole blue/white/red segment and various aggro-control and control decks would enrichen the metagame instead of my pessimistic point above.

My favorite option would be new printings to battle the whole lockout stuff rampant currently

Barook

12-07-2016, 05:00 PM

Either you ban SDT and end the whole bullshit of playing the clock and timewalk UWx back to LandStill and Patriot or you pick the surgical fix of removing Terminus so Aggro-Control has more of a game and potentially returning to the format beyond the remains which is Grixis Delver.

Both options have their disadvantages in detail. Maybe Pyroclasm, Plows and SCM are enough to compensate the loss of Terminus and we are back with CounterTop+Sweepers dominating the field a few weeks later? Maybe banning SDT would strengthen combo and Eldrazis to the point that Uxx aggro-control, D&T, Lands.dec & Co. struggle to find their place between 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Tentacle-Eldrazis or Tentacles w/o Eldrazi (aka storm)?

I can not predict at this point. Maybe chopping SDT would bring more options back in the whole blue/white/red segment and various aggro-control and control decks would enrichen the metagame instead of my pessimistic point above.

My favorite option would be new printings to battle the whole lockout stuff rampant currently
Wait, aren't you complaining about the rise of AD due to Countertop/Chalice? And yet your solution is to print more stuff like it? :really:

As for banning Terminus, it surely would weaken Miracle's options since they can't nuke everything at instant speed anymore. Sorcery speed + higher mana cost + off-color mana makes it more susceptible to mana denial, which they currently barely give a fuck about due to Super-Wraths for :w:.

What I don't get is your conclusion that banning SDT would strengthen Eldrazi. How would that work, compared to Terminus? If anything, Elves gets stronger since it loses on of its worst match-ups (that is omni-present in the format) either way.

taconaut

12-07-2016, 05:03 PM

struggle to find their place between 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Tentacle-Eldrazis or Tentacles w/o Eldrazi (aka storm)?

I move to change the name of the ANT thread to, "Non-Eldrazi Tentacles"

Lemnear

12-07-2016, 05:16 PM

Wait, aren't you complaining about the rise of AD due to Countertop/Chalice? And yet your solution is to print more stuff like it? :really:

It was a mere speculation that printing options to get around CounterTop in other colors than BG, could maintain it as an anti-combo tool without the stifling effect it has on the rest of the decks it pushed out of the metagame over the years

As for banning Terminus, it surely would weaken Miracle's options since they can't nuke everything at instant speed anymore. Sorcery speed + higher mana cost + off-color mana makes it more susceptible to mana denial, which they currently barely give a fuck about due to Super-Wraths for :w:.

Which was the idea as I said, but I sure can't claim that this would definitely fix the problem for aggro-control

what I don't get is your conclusion that banning SDT would strengthen Eldrazi. How would that work, compared to Terminus? If anything, Elves gets stronger since it loses on of its worst match-ups (that is omni-present in the format) either way.

I'd consider it a potential effect if Miracles is effectively removed, judging from pre Miracles metagame (because lacking other data atm) which had Patriot, Elves and Tempo decks which would still have issues with Chalice, Thoughtknot Seer and Friends.

For Elves in particular, both options (Terminus or SDT) would be great news

rlesko

12-07-2016, 06:23 PM

Either you ban SDT and end the whole bullshit of playing the clock and timewalk UWx back to LandStill and Patriot or you pick the surgical fix of removing Terminus so Aggro-Control has more of a game and potentially returning to the format beyond the remains which is Grixis Delver.

Both options have their disadvantages in detail. Maybe Pyroclasm, Plows and SCM are enough to compensate the loss of Terminus and we are back with CounterTop+Sweepers dominating the field a few weeks later? Maybe banning SDT would strengthen combo and Eldrazis to the point that Uxx aggro-control, D&T, Lands.dec & Co. struggle to find their place between 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Tentacle-Eldrazis or Tentacles w/o Eldrazi (aka storm)?

I can not predict at this point. Maybe chopping SDT would bring more options back in the whole blue/white/red segment and various aggro-control and control decks would enrichen the metagame instead of my pessimistic point above.

My favorite option would be new printings to battle the whole lockout stuff rampant currently

Personally I want to ban terminus. It allows you to attack counter top by playing 2 or 3 creatures before the lock is established and racing a potential sweeper, and such a sweeper would actually have to be played at sorcery speed. Additionally, there is no way to counter terminus (Except on the stack and super fringe cards like the RG Goblin- grenzo?) whereas things like golgari charm / boros charm in response to verdict are feasible, or bringing things back from the GY after a wipe.

nedleeds

12-07-2016, 08:31 PM

Turn 3 fatty? That's cute in 2016 Legacy.

Sure beats Petal Tomb Fuck You.

Re: Terminus

It only has text because of Brainstorm. Man if Miracles actually had to mulligan 2 Wrath, Brainstorm hands maybe it wouldn't have everyone crying so hard. Ban the enabler we cried as Survival died, same for Derpstorm.

Edit: inb4banisland and goplaymodern

Ronald Deuce

12-07-2016, 11:11 PM

My favorite option would be new printings to battle the whole lockout stuff rampant currently

I think that would be great.

I'm curious as to whether you or anyone else in the thread thinks Wizards has made ham-handed attempts to do that already. Cards like Subterranean Tremors and Ceremonious Rejection look like really lackluster attempts at doing just that.

rlesko

12-08-2016, 01:40 AM

I think that would be great.

I'm curious as to whether you or anyone else in the thread thinks Wizards has made ham-handed attempts to do that already. Cards like Subterranean Tremors and Ceremonious Rejection look like really lackluster attempts at doing just that.

Maybe burning tree shaman? not sure if top was a problem in ravnica block

Lemnear

12-08-2016, 01:46 AM

Sure beats Petal Tomb Fuck You.

Re: Terminus

It only has text because of Brainstorm. Man if Miracles actually had to mulligan 2 Wrath, Brainstorm hands maybe it wouldn't have everyone crying so hard. Ban the enabler we cried as Survival died, same for Derpstorm.

Brainstorm, SDT and Ponder have only text because of Fetchlands. Brainstorm Terminus and other Junk back on top of the deck without being able to shuffle it away for free? So "ban the enabler" means banning Fetchlands

Vicar in a tutu

12-08-2016, 06:52 AM

Brainstorm, SDT and Ponder have only text because of Fetchlands. Brainstorm Terminus and other Junk back on top of the deck without being able to shuffle it away for free? So "ban the enabler" means banning Fetchlands
What pushes fetchlands over the top? Dual lands. So ban the enabling dual lands ...

Quasim0ff

12-08-2016, 07:30 AM

What pushes fetchlands over the top? Dual lands. So ban the enabling dual lands ...

What pushes duals lands over the top? The broken spells, costing mana... Ban everything with UWRBG mana symbols in their CMC.

#EldraziFormat

Stevestamopz

12-08-2016, 07:31 AM

What pushes fetchlands over the top? Dual lands. So ban the enabling dual lands ...

And what do the Dual Lands enable? Magic.

We've worked it out team! The answer to all our problems.

we
ban
magic

Julian23

12-08-2016, 07:36 AM

I would love to see Fetchlands go. They're one of the most annoying, time-wasting mechanics we have in the game.

Zombie

12-08-2016, 07:50 AM

I would love to see Fetchlands go. They're one of the most annoying, time-wasting mechanic we have in the game.

RIP wallets.

twndomn

12-08-2016, 08:00 AM

I would love to see Fetchlands go. They're one of the most annoying, time-wasting mechanic we have in the game.

That's the essence of Eternal formats, shuffling deck after fetching.

The real question is what the meta would be, in absence of Miracles?

mistercakes

12-08-2016, 08:52 AM

i'd start with the decks that don't use fetchlands first :)

dredge
mud based decks
eldrazi
belcher
burn variants

maybe going back to merfolk etc. there's plenty of decks that don't utilize fetchlands that are played in legacy. would be interesting, although i feel like fetchlands and brainstorms allow people to have 1-3 sb cards to hate out the unfair decks a bit better.

would be interested in doing some kind of fun tournament without fetchlands.

Whitefaces

12-08-2016, 08:53 AM

Blood Moon would be pretty obnoxious.

Megadeus

12-08-2016, 10:07 AM

RIP wallets.

Right? Suddenly every deck needs 12 or more duals. Hello $1000 revised underground seas

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-08-2016, 02:27 PM

If fetches were banned, I don't think I could buy enough wastelands

nedleeds

12-08-2016, 09:03 PM

What pushes fetchlands over the top? Dual lands. So ban the enabling dual lands ...

Sigh, the ignore function only helps so much. Yes fetches are busted so lets ban every deck manipulation spell as well as actual lands. Stop defending Brainstorm with straw men and go back to 'I'd quit if they banned it.', 'They killed vintage.', 'Skill intensives' and the time honored 'Pillar of the format'. Terminus is obscene because Brainstorm is inexplicably not banned, the end. You could hardly justify playing 4 of those 6cc bricks without it.

Dark Ritual

12-09-2016, 01:25 AM

Did someone actually say that yawgmoth's will would be safer than survival of the fittest a page or two back? In a format with 4 burning wish, 4 demonic tutor, 4 lotus, 4 dark ritual, and 4 lotus petal? I don't give a shit how good gravehate gets. They could print this and I would still sling will in legacy:

Tormod's recall 0
Instant
Exile all cards in target player's graveyard. Draw 3 cards.

Ban fetchlands, yeah let's make manabases horrifically bad and weak to wasteland and blood moon. Sounds good. While we're at it, how many dual lands do you own? Because I know a guy who owns over a 100, and sea being worth the same amount as power 9, workshop, bazaar, etc. etc. sounds terrific for those with dual lands but for those without...yeah no one would ever be getting into the format again.

Ban original duals? Play modern or legacy without reserved list cards included, if you ban duals in legacy the format is heavily likely to die due to how pissed off the playerbase would be and it would be chronicles level of outrage on a gallon of steroids.

Unban earthcraft and mind twist? Yes. Has been yes for a long while on both. Will it happen? Sure, when the next treasure cruise/DTT is printed.

Black vise will never, ever, EVER have the correct meta for it in legacy for it to be oppressive as fuck. Delver just shits on the card as it's black vise that isn't conditional in a format with such good cantrips and brainstorm as well as a fantastic complementary suite of countermagic and other efficient dudes. It's really hard to push delver out of the metagame and obsolete it.

nedleeds

12-09-2016, 03:50 AM

<golf clap for mini rant>

Yeah for starters unban about 4 cards that are literally shitcakes compared to Brainstorm, Ponder, Show and Tell and Delver. Like Earthcrap, Mind Twist, Recruiter and even Frantic Search at this point.

Lemnear

12-09-2016, 04:25 AM

Sigh, the ignore function only helps so much. Yes fetches are busted so lets ban every deck manipulation spell as well as actual lands. Stop defending Brainstorm with straw men and go back to 'I'd quit if they banned it.', 'They killed vintage.', 'Skill intensives' and the time honored 'Pillar of the format'. Terminus is obscene because Brainstorm is inexplicably not banned, the end. You could hardly justify playing 4 of those 6cc bricks without it.

Putting words into peoples mouth, wanting cards banned because you dont run them and wanting the culprints stay because you use them yourself. Its like pointing to Entreat just to distract from Counterbalance/SDT/Terminus. Intellectual dishonest at its best only topped by the legendary Dr.Jones

Did someone actually say that yawgmoth's will would be safer than survival of the fittest a page or two back?

No one did. No one ever would.

ban fetchlands, yeah let's make manabases horrifically bad and weak to wasteland and blood moon. Sounds good. While we're at it, how many dual lands do you own? Because I know a guy who owns over a 100, and sea being worth the same amount as power 9, workshop, bazaar, etc. etc. sounds terrific for those with dual lands but for those without...yeah no one would ever be getting into the format again.

As if people realistically still get into the format at these times of ridiculous card speculation.

The joke is that Sam rants about sculpting perfect hands and dodging discard in terms of brainstorm, but dont wants to see that sculpting perfect mana and dodging landdestruction with fetchlands is the same optimization just in another gamezone, which is intellectual dishonest, especially given the fetchlands are the reason SDT, Brainstorm, Ponder, etc are actually playable.

You can pick the Yawgmoth's Will/SotF joke as an extension, where using a broken yard-engine seems fine to some people if its about Retainers+Emrakul/Grisel/Iona, but not if its about Tendrils of Agony. We dont need either in legacy

Sidneyious

12-09-2016, 06:33 AM

I'm curious about what decks these "ban enablers dot Dec" play.

nedleeds

12-09-2016, 07:18 AM

Do some of you actually post from branches? A land can be played as a special action, Brainstorm requires a blue mana. There is a colossal difference. We all accept the mostly true need to play lands because they are the primary resource as defined by the fucking creator. Stop comparing the two, its apples and oranges. #banislands ...

Ronald Deuce

12-09-2016, 11:19 AM

Who knew so many Legacy players hated good cards so much?

CptHaddock

12-09-2016, 12:29 PM

thefringthing

12-09-2016, 02:16 PM

Wait, aren't you complaining about the rise of AD due to Countertop/Chalice? And yet your solution is to print more stuff like it? :really:What doesn't make sense about this? People feel railroaded into playing Abrupt Decay because it's the only way to fight the current lock-based metagame. The format might be made more fun and interesting if there were a better diversity of options.

iatee

12-09-2016, 02:40 PM

People play Abrupt Decay because it's a really flexible card that can be easily fit into any deck that already plays the best 1 mana creature in legacy. It is an answer to the vast majority of threats in the format, not just Chalices and Counterbalances. If you feel 'railroaded' into playing Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay, you should blame Wizards for printing cards that are so much better than the alternatives.

thefringthing

12-09-2016, 03:11 PM

Not everyone who plays Abrupt Decay plays Deathrite Shaman. And again, the problem isn't that Abrupt Decay is too much better than the alternatives, it's that the alternatives are so bad, and the stuff you need Abrupt Decay against is so good.

Lemnear

12-09-2016, 03:40 PM

As I wrote in my big, previous post: I do think the format would be a lot more open if the most viable safety net against countertop/chalice would not lock people into BG

rlesko

12-09-2016, 03:51 PM

Spell snare answers both cards very cleanly...just pray you have it when they cast it :laugh:

Megadeus

12-09-2016, 04:13 PM

As I wrote in my big, previous post: I do think the format would be a lot more open if the most viable safety net against countertop/chalice would not lock people into BG

I actually agree here.

ahg113

12-09-2016, 04:48 PM

Blood Moon would be pretty obnoxious.

I hear that and am confused, as if Counterbalance isn't already obnoxious. If not counterbalance, then Terminus, or show'n'tell.

Lemnear

12-09-2016, 04:56 PM

I hear that and am confused, as if Counterbalance isn't already obnoxious. If not counterbalance, then Terminus, or show'n'tell.

... or Loam+GhostQuarter

Whitefaces

12-09-2016, 04:58 PM

I hear that and am confused, as if Counterbalance isn't already obnoxious. If not counterbalance, then Terminus, or show'n'tell.

I meant that in regards to fetchlands being taken out of the format.

nedleeds

12-09-2016, 08:48 PM

Who knew so many Legacy players hated good cards so much?

I love Mishras Workshop and Ancestral Recall, big fan of Time Walk also ... All good cards, lets unban them.

Crimhead

12-10-2016, 07:23 AM

Yeah it's funny how people fighting for unbans don't actually seem to care about whether a card can be expected to make legacy more fun or skill-testing, it's just some moral battle to free a card from its undeserved oppression. If WotC bans cards on a basis of what they consider "fun", we end up with a high powered Standard.

Who cares if Mind Twist is rotting in a jail cell for crimes it didn't commit? We get hundreds of new cards a year to play with and legacy has more than enough problem cards that aren't fun or skill-testing.We get a lot of hate-bears and other cards which promote playing with creatures. When was the last timke they printed Legacy playable discard (TKS doesn't count)? 2007?

People feel railroaded into playing Abrupt Decay because it's the only way to fight the current lock-based metagame. What even plays Abrupt Decay?

Shardless
Delver
4c Loam
Jund Lands
Elves (on the side)
Other fringy decks
Whereas D&T, Infect, Storm, Sneak-Show, Eldrazi, Miracles, Reanimator, and R/G Lands do not play Abrupt Decay and seem to do alright. It turns out There are lots of ways to fight the meta without being "railroaded" into running one particular answer.

You don't like a meta where lock pieces are actually good? Cry me a Rain Of Tears because this is Legacy and you're expected to have more patience and a thicker skin than Standard or Modern players.

Edit - can you imagine what this thread would look like if Pox and Geddon-Stax were tier-one decks?

Megadeus

12-10-2016, 09:09 AM

Lemnear

12-10-2016, 09:27 AM

It is enlightening to see that arguments are made and perspectives a shared without a fucking clue about what the metagame looks like.

Storm, Infect, Reanimator and Lands are known to have Decays or Krosan Grips, so your point is "Eldrazi, D&T and Miracles can win without these cards, so there is no problem"

Ronald Deuce

12-10-2016, 12:49 PM

Whereas D&T, Infect, Storm, Sneak-Show, Eldrazi, Miracles, Reanimator, and R/G Lands do not play Abrupt Decay and seem to do alright. It turns out There are lots of ways to fight the meta without being "railroaded" into running one particular answer.

As a Storm player, I never leave home without four Decays. It's far and away the best answer to Counterbalance, though I don't think it's all that great against Chalices and it goes a bit pear-shaped against Thorn.

Lord Seth

12-11-2016, 03:38 AM

There is no need for a conversation on the matter as we all just had one and the metagame as well as the arguments are the same as a few pages back.

So lets talk about a Necropotence unban, because its rarely a topic here and as Tomb into Chalice seems to be an interactive play, lets use Ritual into Necropotence to battle Hymn and Thoughtseize
Sure.

What would Necropotence be used in? The BBB is actually a hard cost to make; not counting combo decks, I can't really see any of the notable decks running the card. Maybe some kind of BG deck could run it, as the 2-color manabase would make Necropotence easier to handle, but I have trouble seeing something like BUG running it. Sure, they could try to run Dark Ritual, but Dark Ritual has the problem of not ramping into much of anything else in the deck (sure can't cast Shardless Agent off of it). If there's going to be a deck that runs Necropotence, I think it'd have to be running Dark Ritual already.

That leaves us with Reanimator and Storm. Reanimator is a deck I'm not terribly familiar with so I can't really comment on that one. As for Storm... it's a tricky one there. The problem with Necropotence is that you don't get the cards until the end of your turn, and you can only keep 7 (you can't even try to discard to fill up your graveyard because it all gets exiled). In other words, you cast Necropotence, and can only use it to go off on your next turn, which seems a bit slow, plus you have to use up life--yes, Ad Nauseam does that also, but Ad Nauseam wins you the game the turn you cast it. Sure, the only life point that matters is your last, but paying a bunch of life so you can try to win the next turn seems like a potentially dubious strategy in Legacy. Now, granted, I expect that if you cast Necropotence and make it to your next turn, you're extremely likely to win the game... but if you cast an Ad Nauseam you're also extremely likely to win the game, and you don't have to wait until a turn after you cast Ad Nauseam.

So the big question on Necropotence seems to be if it would be troublesome in Storm and Reanimator. The fact you don't actually get to do anything with it until your next turn (I suppose Reanimator can try to Entomb if they happen to draw it, but they still can't reanimate until the next turn) makes it seem a bit dubious. It's a powerful card, but it also requires you to wait to get usage out of it. It's not like Yawgmoth's Bargain where you can go off on the spot with it.

nedleeds

12-11-2016, 03:51 AM

You know what some other interactive plays are? Disenchant, Meltdown, Naturalize, EE for zero, Powder Keg, Ratchet Bomb, Spell Snare, QPM, Spell Pierce, Steel Sabotage, Ancient Grudge, Kohlagan's Command, Hull Breach, Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, another 1,000 red cards. You want to interact, win the roll and Thoughtseize a Chalice player there's a good chance he'll be tasting your ass because his hand is likely a one threat pile. Oh you have to win the roll to have a chance? Welcome to Chalice Land ... we all get together after round 4 for mall Chinese! Come join us!

Fucking pussies crying about Chalice are the biggest babies ever. You get to play the must savagely busted one drops while the poor chalice ape needs a 2 card combo in hand on the play with zero library manipulation. He also needs it for 15 rounds. Good fucking luck! There were Eldrazi *everywhere* on the ground the first 2-3 rounds at Chiba. Like 1/4 of the field. Not one top 8. The card isn't even remotely oppressive in the events that matter. Yes, you might top 8 a 4-7 round event with a chalice deck if Jesus shines his bright light on you that day but it's clearly not an oppressive tactic in longer events.

Edit: GTFO with Necro

Lord Seth

12-11-2016, 03:52 AM

If WotC bans cards on a basis of what they consider "fun", we end up with a high powered Standard.

We get a lot of hate-bears and other cards which promote playing with creatures. When was the last timke they printed Legacy playable discard (TKS doesn't count)? 2007?
A few months ago in the form of Collective Brutality.

Granted, Collective Brutality really only sees play in Reanimator due to it having unique synergies with that deck, but it's still a discard spell that's obviously playable in Legacy.

If we're talking about a more general purpose discard spell, i.e. it goes into multiple decks, then probably Inquisition of Kozilek (2010).

Though there's more creative room for hatebears than there is for discard. The problem for something as simple as discard (and counterspells) is how simple they are as mechanics. Generally speaking, the only way to make one "playable" is to make it just better than what's already in the format because the function is so simple. It's not like hatebears where there's a lot of different possible functions and abilities; discard is very simplistic. When you've already got Thoughtseize, you basically have to top Thoughtseize, and that's no easy feat considering how powerful that card already is. Unless you happen to hit upon a special synergy like Reanimator has with Collective Brutality, the only way I can see of doing it that doesn't involve just making a better Thoughtseize is to have a discard spell with some kind of other restriction on it instead of the life loss... and even that's tough. The important thing about discard in a format like Legacy is being able to hit everything; Force of Will would be a whole lot worse if it only countered spells or only countered creatures. Inquisition of Kozilek manages to sort of make it in because the low mana curve makes it hit most relevant spells, but people still default more onto Thoughtseize.

Hatebears, on the other hand, can hate in a variety of different ways. For example, Containment Priest, while also being a hatebear, does something quite different than Thalia does. There's more room to make a playable hatebear because unlike discard, it doesn't have to just be a better version of a hatebear, it could be playable simply because it does something different.

Lemnear

12-11-2016, 08:04 AM

You want to interact, win the roll and Thoughtseize

Thats pretty much current Legacy in a nutshell.

Ronald Deuce

12-11-2016, 11:59 AM

the poor chalice ape needs a 2 card combo in hand on the play with zero library manipulation.

A Storm player needs a ten-card combo in hand on the play. Or disruption, which reduces the odds of being able to pull off a ten-card combo in the first two turns before TKS or another prison card comes down.

Are you beginning to see the problem with Chalice?

Dice_Box

12-11-2016, 12:07 PM

Are you beginning to see the problem with Chalice?
Yes, I can only play four.

Lemnear

12-11-2016, 01:08 PM

Yes, I can only play four.

I could swear Eldrazi can play 8+ SolLands and SphereOfResistance/Chalice/Thorn if they want

thefringthing

12-11-2016, 02:58 PM

Necropotence would cause an interesting shift in the way Tendrils decks are built. You'd play three or four Tendrils and probably zero engines other than Necropotence, hope to Tendrils on turn two or three for less than lethal, reload, Tendrils again the next turn.

Megadeus

12-11-2016, 03:51 PM

A Storm player needs a ten-card combo in hand on the play. Or disruption, which reduces the odds of being able to pull off a ten-card combo in the first two turns before TKS or another prison card comes down.

Are you beginning to see the problem with Chalice?

What a miserable card. It completely hoses a deck trying to completely not interact with its opponent.

I've beaten chalice many times with storm. But if you've built your deck with 24 one drops, of course you're getting hosed by chalice. I don't think storm players have a leg to stand on while complaining about non interactive cards

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-11-2016, 04:56 PM

Can we talk about how unfun wasteland is, stops me from casting spells.

Admiral_Arzar

12-11-2016, 05:01 PM

Can we talk about how unfun wasteland is, stops me from casting spells.

Forget Wasteland, Force of Will always shows up whenever I try to make a game-breaking play. You don't even have to spend mana for that!

thefringthing

12-11-2016, 05:05 PM

Comparisons to Force of Will and Wasteland mean either that you don't understand what's being argued, in which case you should probably not post here, or you're being disingenuous, in which case you should probably not post here.

Lemnear

12-11-2016, 05:12 PM

I've beaten chalice many times with storm. But if you've built your deck with 24 one drops, of course you're getting hosed by chalice. I don't think storm players have a leg to stand on while complaining about non interactive cards

1) There are still more ways to interact with storm than with CounterTop

2) The chance for storm to essentially win the game before the opponent got to play a spell is worlds lower than combining a SolLand + Resistor in Eldrazi

3) Combo players just switch to S&T and drop Emrakul in the face of Chalice @ 1 like in Chiba, so people can whine how uninteractive that play is.

------------

Its cool that we answer uninteractive cards like Counterbalance or Chalice with uninteractive cards like Decay or Emrakul or Cavern and call that interaction /s

Ronald Deuce

12-11-2016, 05:38 PM

What a miserable card. It completely hoses a deck trying to completely not interact with its opponent.

I've beaten chalice many times with storm. But if you've built your deck with 24 one drops, of course you're getting hosed by chalice. I don't think storm players have a leg to stand on while complaining about non interactive cards

I'm not complaining; I just think that getting tilted over T1 Chalice is warranted. Just like it's warranted to rage out if someone dumps their library and Lab Mans you, or chains four Rituals and LED into Infernal Tutor.

It takes a lot less work to play a land and a Chalice than it does to pull off a hand like the one I just mentioned, because it requires fewer cards. So though I don't mind ridiculous plays (this is Legacy, after all), it just doesn't make sense for people to complain about not interacting with Storm or call Storm players who hate Chalice sore when there's a two-card combo that blanks it and a number of other decks, many of which can't make plays if they don't start the game with a Force in hand and require a whole lot more than two cards to win the game on the spot.

[EDIT: Dice_Box, that response was gold.]

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-11-2016, 09:17 PM

Finn

12-11-2016, 09:31 PM

I just think that getting tilted over T1 Chalice is warranted.

This reminds me of children. A kid can easily rile another kid with harsh words ("poopie head"). But those same words really have no power at all when directed at an adult or even an older child. In fact, if those words are spoken out of anger, it is entirely clear to their target how useless they are as a weapon.

Chalice of the Void is only worth the effort if your opponents are going to reliably play too many cantrips. If Chalice comes out on turn one, but you stepped up to the table with something that does not fold to it, the card and the silly deck that has been perverted from its most efficient form to power it out become rather lackluster and silly. It is a narrow card that punishes a format of inbred decks that all have the same features. They have been boinking their sisters for generations, and that shit ain't right.

You are enabling the card. Want to no longer get bent out of shape about Chalice?
Fuck someone else's sister.

iatee

12-11-2016, 11:15 PM

ahg113

12-11-2016, 11:32 PM

I got a bridge for sale if you're interested.

Is it a bridge, from below?

ahg113

12-11-2016, 11:41 PM

Chalice is an easily beatable card, but the less that t1 Chalice affects you, the softer you are to decks that do lose to t1 Chalice - they play more mana-efficient magic than you do. A tier 1 Chalice deck creates a rock-paper-scissors meta where you get punished both for playing mana-efficient magic (via Chalice) and for not playing mana-efficient magic (via Wasteland/Thalia/Delver/Daze/Fast Combo).

Some people might prefer a rock-paper-scissors meta. If you're a below average player, you have more chances to beat good players because you brought rock and some of them brought scissors.

Chalice in a vacuum is not the most powerful legacy legal card, it probably isn't even in the top 10. But it creates the greatest number of 'non-games' and helps turn legacy into a format that isn't as rewarding to the stronger players, similar to modern.

What you said is opinion. Whether or not someone values that opinion, up to the consumer.

In regards to Rock-Paper-Scissors, I thought that's what Legacy was supposed to be. What happened to the control - aggro - combo dynamic? It's turned into 50-55% vs. the field. So pardon those who enjoy the r-p-s and find that attempting to win games one isn't favored in a good test of skill.

No matter your argument, it's reversible. Anyone complaining about Chalice, is like a Dega player complaining about Brainstorm, or a Dredge player complaining about grave hate, no sympathy.

Ronald Deuce

12-12-2016, 01:09 AM

This reminds me of children.

My point was that you're free to get tilted about Brainstorm, too.

I can't imagine why (or how the only things weak to Chalice are cantrips), but it's up to you.

Universally punishing efficient cards is format-warping. Is that necessarily a problem? No; MUD's been doing it for ages, and Miracles has been for some time. Is it a problem when two decks drive a whole lot of other ones to the periphery? Yes.

Brainstorm doesn't do that. Force of Will doesn't do that. MUD doesn't do that. Thalia.dec doesn't do that. Does fast combo? To a point. Does graveyard hate? To a lesser extent.

I'm not upset about any of these, but it's pretty stupid to suggest that people are "enabling" Chalice players by not playing Impulse and Peer through Depths instead of Brainstorm and Ponder. Or by playing blue cards instead of white cards. I can only hope you know where your line of reasoning leads.

Stevestamopz

12-12-2016, 01:40 AM

Dice_Box

12-12-2016, 01:46 AM

I have been playing Chalice for years. The third deck I built in Legacy was Dragon Stompy. 8 Sol lands, 4 Spirit guides, 3Ball, 8 Moons and of course Chalice. This shit has been happening for years and I am glad it's finally an effective deck.

I find it amusing that now people throw a tantrum about Chailce, only because hey, they might have to fucking think because Turbo Xerox might not be the best idea now. These are often the same people that tell me to "Adapt or play Modern" over Brainstorm. Irony.

I guess it's your turn to adapt. Or you could go play Modern. I know thats not helpful, but hey, it's your advice. Take it.

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 02:22 AM

I think these last few pages may actually be the worst few pages in this thread's history. The same dude who has written >5 articles about how fun it is to cheese people out on turn 1 or 2 is complaining how non-interactive Chalice and Decay and Cavern of Souls are :eyebrow:

Ok, you still don't WANT to adress the point made that you can battle storm with yardhate, counters, discard, hatebears, etc aka several angles to pick for several decks, while the only answers to CounterTop are Decay/Grip.

All I see that the discussion floats around Chalice in a vacuum, for no other reason that its easier to argue with deckbuilding restrictions the card requires, while sweeping Wasteland/Thorn under the rug, which are the reason you can't just run 2-3cc cards to battle chalice on a reliable base.

I am fine if you think that storm is highly uninteractive because of its ~8-10% T1 kills and that you have to run some cards out of the large selection of options to interact, but having Chalice/Counterbalance as the police.decs only results into more Emrakuls/Griselbrands as the response from Combo afficionados.

I hope the meta enjoys the "interactivity" and "adjustments" of casting S&T instead of Dark Ritual

Stevestamopz

12-12-2016, 05:00 AM

Ok, you still don't WANT to adress the point made that you can battle storm with yardhate, counters, discard, hatebears, etc aka several angles to pick for several decks, while the only answers to CounterTop are Decay/Grip.

Which hatebear should I play in my R/G Goblins decklist to beat TES? ANT? even High Tide?
Also which is the best discard spell to use against the ape playing Past in Flames and lots of rituals? Still in my R/G deck
Which graveyard hate should I play against the deck that will likely just t2 Ad Nauseam me? Yep, we're still in my R/G deck.

I'm sure your answer will be "lol ur dekk sux, move on from 2006 lol look at this poor person who can't afford a new deck," which will then of course be applicable to your whining about chalice decks and counter-top. Can't beat em? Go buy a new legacy deck.

Cartesian

12-12-2016, 05:46 AM

Which hatebear should I play in my R/G Goblins decklist to beat TES? ANT? even High Tide?
Eidolon of the Great Revel.

Also which is the best discard spell to use against the ape playing Past in Flames and lots of rituals? Still in my R/G deck
Discard is an almost exclusively black mechanic. You don't want discard, spend all your resources dealing damage.

Which graveyard hate should I play against the deck that will likely just t2 Ad Nauseam me? Yep, we're still in my R/G deck.
Tormod's Crypt, original and best. As for Ad Nauseam, your best answer to that is damage - e.g. Fireblast.

I just wanted to adress these three interesting questions. I am not really in this thread.

Quasim0ff

12-12-2016, 06:05 AM

Eidolon of the Great Revel.

Discard is an almost exclusively black mechanic. You don't want discard, spend all your resources dealing damage.

Tormod's Crypt, original and best. As for Ad Nauseam, your best answer to that is damage - e.g. Fireblast.

I just wanted to adress these three interesting questions. I am not really in this thread.

These are all burn cards, besides the crypt.

Stevestamopz

12-12-2016, 06:32 AM

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 07:19 AM

This discussion has taken a twist for the stupid.

"Which kind of discard can I run in my RG deck?"

Pls

Quasim0ff

12-12-2016, 07:42 AM

This discussion has taken a twist for the stupid.

"Which kind of discard can I run in my RG deck?"

Pls

That is not what he was arguing. He was arguing that decks have to evolve, and that being stuck in the past because that was the legacy you liked doesn't make sense; Counterbalance, Decay and chalice is present, so not acknowleding that and changing your deck to fight it is just a mistake.

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 08:10 AM

That is not what he was arguing. He was arguing that decks have to evolve, and that being stuck in the past because that was the legacy you liked doesn't make sense; Counterbalance, Decay and chalice is present, so not acknowleding that and changing your deck to fight it is just a mistake.

Which is a fair point, but the result, according to GP Chiba, is the rise of S&T. In no way more interactive, fair or enjoyable than storm, but a result of the fact that the only ways to beat Chalice/Countertop is either sidestepping the lock or Abrupt Decay.

One may point me at how the metagame got more interactive and exciting with the development that one player is dropping Chalice @ 1 and the opponent follows up with a Griselbrands/Emrakul for the scoop

Quasim0ff

12-12-2016, 08:24 AM

Which is a fair point, but the result, according to GP Chiba, is the rise of S&T. In no way more interactive, fair or enjoyable than storm, but a result of the fact that the only ways to beat Chalice/Countertop is either sidestepping the lock or Abrupt Decay.

One may point me at how the metagame got more interactive and exciting with the development that one player is dropping Chalice @ 1 and the opponent follows up with a Griselbrands/Emrakul for the scoop

You basically just want to be able to play Tendrils, because you have git probe and cabal therapy, and thus being highly interactive?

Storm as a deck is literally as uninteractive as SnS: One deck plays duress, the other plays force of will.

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 08:59 AM

You basically just want to be able to play Tendrils, because you have git probe and cabal therapy, and thus being highly interactive?

Storm as a deck is literally as uninteractive as SnS: One deck plays duress, the other plays force of will.

You are delusional to think, I did not already switch decks and keep bashing my head against the wall with storm.

Its quite handy to have Chalice & Countertop push Delver and fast combo slowly out of the format if you play S&T.

P.S.: Good job not adressing my arguments, but going for my person instead using a strawmen claim.

Ace/Homebrew

12-12-2016, 09:20 AM

Which is a fair point, but the result, according to GP Chiba, is the rise of S&T.

I was under the impression the Japanese just really loved them some Show and Tell. Kinda like how if you are a combo player in the Northeast US, you are probably playing Storm...

I just wanted to address that point. I am not really in this thread. (I never realized this was an option!)

Quasim0ff

12-12-2016, 09:27 AM

I was under the impression the Japanese just really loved them some Show and Tell. Kinda like how if you are a combo player in the Northeast US, you are probably playing Storm...

I just wanted to address that point. I am not really in this thread. (I never realized this was an option!)

That is exactly why SnT was popular in Japan. It always is.

Dice_Box

12-12-2016, 09:35 AM

I think the issue here is we are all looking for different things. I am a Prison enthusiast, so from my point of view Chailce is fine. What you seem to seek is an idealised format where there are no Prison elements and no one is seeking to shotgun their opponent. (Not seeking to put words in you mouth Lem, just the impression I get from your posts.) But there is not a format in existence that is like that. There will always be a group who shew interactive play for something like Combo or hard control.

Answers are often picked for their resistance to interaction. Grip is picked because of Split Second, Decay because of its inability to be counted, same for Cavern. If I want to kill a problematic permanent, I don't wish to let you decide if that permanent sticks around. As options increase, people will move to what works.

The thing is, it's not like we are talking about some massive shift in the way the format is played. For a very long time one of the top decks, Thresh, was made to remove the opponents choices and interactions. Stifle, Waste, Daze and Force used to keep the opposing player from doing anything of value.

And again, I do not see why we are bitching about it now. Chalice was printed more than a decade ago, Sol lands were around before then, Stompy was a deck long before Though-knot was spoiled and played to much the same plan.

To put it simply, I don't know what golden age of interaction your after. The age where Goblins Wasted and Ported you while ignoring everything else you did, the time Thresh was Wasting, Stifling and Dazing you out or the time Maverick was looping Wastelands and killing you with a 12/12? I don't see it. I guess at some point Iggy Pop did give you 4 cards back as they tried to kill you. Interactive.

Anyway. Not everyone enjoys playing with Force, Daze and Brainstorm. That means we are not going to seek massive stack fights and will find answers elsewhere. For some that's Thalia, for others its Wasteland or Gaddock. For me it's Loam and recurring Land destruction. But since I want a break from that right now it's switched to Smokestack and Chailce. You don't have to like that, you don't have to play that, but that's an option open to me and I will take it. You can call that non interactive play, I call it Legacy.

iatee

12-12-2016, 09:49 AM

It's true that people want different things out of a format, and that's ultimately at the root of all the disagreements in this thread. I think if your idea of good magic is dropping a turn 1 prison piece and winning while your opponent casts literally 0 spells, playing Vintage is just a better way to achieve that. Vintage players seem to enjoy those games more and the format provides you with better cards to do it.

Finn

12-12-2016, 09:54 AM

You are correct, Dice. And you are correct to say so. But you should not have to. This position should be the obvious ground upon which all the rest of these arguments are built.

Here's some more of that wisdom:

-Decks do not have a right to exist. Every complaint about card x hosing deck y is foolish.

-All combo decks seek to reduce interactivity. You are really complaining that the deck is too good at what it does. Complaining that it is not your idea of fun is just foolish.

-I should know better than to get involved in here. Commenting on these emotion-laced arguments is equally as foolish.

Dice_Box

12-12-2016, 09:56 AM

Oh I do both. My plan for GP Brisbane is:
Friday, Legacy: Stax.
Saturday, Modern: Lantern.
Sunday, Vintage: Rich Shay's Stax.

I enjoy Prison. If you don't have an answer, that's on you. If you do have an answer you should win easily. I don't play Prison because it's the best option, I play it because I like it. No one I know will argue Stax is a T1 deck.

l33twash0r

12-12-2016, 10:36 AM

iatee

12-12-2016, 10:43 AM

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 10:43 AM

I am a Prison enthusiast, so from my point of view Chailce is fine.

Except its current, and primary use (The cards primary function in Legacy is just the same which got it restricted not too long ago in vintage) isnt within a prison deck which usually have to combine several elements, but in an aggro deck. No judgement, just observation on that part. I have no problem with Chalice per sé as non 1cc removal is available.

wht you seem to seek is an idealised format where there are no Prison elements and no one is seeking to shotgun their opponent. (Not seeking to put words in you mouth Lem, just the impression I get from your posts.)

I have no problem with prison elements as I played Uba Staxx in Vintage at its time and it needed several parts to lock out an opponent which was a nice dance. What we currently have in Legacy with TKS+Chalice+Thorn is no different from the MUD vintage variant which got Chalice restricted and given the playable Legacy cardpool, its as devaststing as Workshop into Trinishphere for most decks.

As mentioned in the past with Terminus as a potential ban, I have no trouble with Chalice + Counterbalance in the metagame as long there is a balancing factor like viable aggro(-control) decks, but as long as Terminus and turn 2 4/4 eldrazi keep any aggro(-control) deck on the side lines and the only cards to remove Counterbalance through a potential FoW being Decay/Grip, it is tad ridiculous to talk about an open metagame.

Its disturbing that people welcome that Delver & Co get pushed out, with the result of more blowouts in form of Chalice/Countertop/Terminus/S&T/SneakAttack and call that "interactivity". The fact of matter is that the omnipresence of these lockout components did not cause people to "adapt", but to switch decks for a further streamlining of the metagame.

Especially you should know what I am talking about if you look at the DtB data every month.

but there is not a format in existence that is like that. There will always be a group who shew interactive play for something like Combo or hard control.

Thats why its important to keep adding anti-combo tools to the metagame. On the other hand (and as mentioned) it would be handy if there would be also added anti-Chalice/-Counterbalance options which are NOT green.

answers are often picked for their resistance to interaction. Grip is picked because of Split Second, Decay because of its inability to be counted, same for Cavern. If I want to kill a problematic permanent, I don't wish to let you decide if that permanent sticks around. As options increase, people will move to what works.

At this point we are playing Black Jack looking for cards our opponent can simply not trump by any realistical means, which brings me back to the "ideal format" which goes forth and back between players instead of "trumping" 4/4 Eldrazi with 15/15 ones and call that "interaction"

The thing is, it's not like we are talking about some massive shift in the way the format is played. For a very long time one of the top decks, Thresh, was made to remove the opponents choices and interactions. Stifle, Waste, Daze and Force used to keep the opposing player from doing anything of value.

There is a mayor difference. Thresh has always traded 1-for-1 and opted to gain strategic advantage with those trades. Countertop and Chalice trade 1-for-20 against most decks preboard and make me wonder why WotC even bothered to ban Mental Misstep which countered just ONE 1cc card instead of ALL FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.

and again, I do not see why the bitching about it now. Chalice was printed more than a decade ago, Sol lands were around before then, Stompy was a deck long before Though-knot was spoiled and played to much the same plan.

For the same reason Chalice was fine in vintage before Lodestone and Thorn... or CounterTop was before Terminus.

to put it simply, I don't know what golden age of interaction your after. The age where Goblins Wasted and Ported you while ignoring everything else you did, the time Thresh was Wasting, Stifling and Dazing you out or the time Maverick was looping Wastelands and killing you with a 12/12? I don't see it. I guess at some point Iggy Pop did give you 4 cards back as they tried to kill you. Interactive.

I hope you dont seriously compare the slow KotR Wasteland-lock of Maverick with Loam+GhostQuarter or T1 chalice, T2 TKS with the old Goblin Port-Tricks

Not everyone enjoys playing with Force, Daze and Brainstorm. That means we are not going to seek massive stack fights and will find answers elsewhere.

Sure. We DO need alternatives to the cantrip galore. The current path however has lead us down the road into:

Player A: "Tomb, chalice @ 1! GG? LOL"
Player B: "Nah. Petal, Tomb, S&T. EMRAKUL! GG? LOL"
Player A: "GG"

Sorry, that as dumb as Vintage was at MUDs prime

AznSeal

12-12-2016, 11:21 AM

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 11:56 AM

Adapting to the current metagame means Decay or playing something that dodges Chalice/Counterbalance like S&T. The first option locks you into (black&)green decks and the second into an even less interactive deck.

In any case the valid deck options in the metagame got narrowed down. Seemingly people welcome it simply because among the top performing decks there is only 1 blue one, which of course doesnt stop certain people to yell for a Brainstorm ban

Fox

12-12-2016, 12:10 PM

Ronald Deuce

12-12-2016, 12:20 PM

I think the main issue here is people want to be able to play their own decks, and want their own decks to be "tier 1", but are unwilling to adept. I can only speak from an Elves perspective, but with the inclusion of Caverns, Planeswalkers, and "Chaos" elves, it made the miracles matchup more bearable.

Likewise if Chalice aggro decks ever became omnipresent, I would have no problems playing maindeck Reclamation Sage or Abrupt Decays. People just need to adapt IMO.

That's a good point, but I feel like there's been a really long stretch in which the Legacy top slot's been held by a specific pair of cards: Counterbalance and Sensei's Divine Topdecks. And I know that those can't pull shenanigans without other cards (Miracles, Force, cantrips, etc.), but there's been ample time for decks to adapt to that pair—many have, and some haven't needed to—yet they're still the cornerstone of what is far and away the strongest deck in the format. So I guess my question is what to do when one's faced by a pair of cards that blanks so many strategies. This, I think, speaks to Lemnear's point, which is that a lot of decks' only option is to run Abrupt Decay or lose. I think the format's beginning to see the same problem with Chalice of the Void, though not to the same extent because more decks are live against T1 Chalice and/or have answers to Chalice's followup.

I'm relatively new to Legacy; three years ago, I never would've dreamed I'd own quad-LED, quad-Force, and a number of dual lands. I'm not particularly sentimental about specific decks, and I'm reaching the point that I have the card-base to vary my strategy by playing substantially different decks (largely tied together by Lion's Eye Diamond), but I don't think it's realistic to just say that all people need to do is adapt when there's been a whole lot of time (years longer than I've played the format) and energy devoted to adapting and it still hasn't dented the top slot. Hell, for a short while, I was hopeful that [EDIT: Miracles; hoping contextually that the point still came across] had met its match in Non-Grixis Tentacles, even though said Tentacles dump on my preferred Tentacles.

So should I just run Dredge at every tournament because it scoffs at CounterTop and Chalice? Should I start #YOLOing again because there's no hope (and because, on occasion, it can be friend-losing levels of fun)? How is slotting in a quad of the silver bullet for Counterbalance and Chalice (mostly Counterbalance) ideal? Sure, it's adaptation, but is that really what we want to see going forward? Feels like a winnowing of the metagame to me, and though I don't necessarily have a problem with that, it's got to stop somewhere, and I've always thought greater vibrancy made the format more interesting—nowhere but Legacy can you win by playing no lands and milling yourself out, or a mono-red control deck can win the game by making all the cards in the game blue. If we end up losing that stuff to adaptation, I don't think that's a good direction for the game to go.

Still opposed to bans and in favor of better design going forward; I'm trying not to be too partisan, but nobody's perfect.

Zombie

12-12-2016, 01:27 PM

Better design doesn't solve existing binary effects: The correct approach is to ban the binary shit and print more Goldberg-esque lock pieces and hate cards and combo engines.

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 01:34 PM

...Goldberg-esque...

I am not familiar with that term :/

Ace/Homebrew

12-12-2016, 01:36 PM

I am not familiar with that term :/

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-11-04-1446623954-787395-Goldberg1-thumb.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Goldberg

AznSeal

12-12-2016, 01:45 PM

There is a difference between adapting and making a strictly worse deck, except when it's up against CB. When decks like R/G Lands and SnT are running maindeck Boseju, everything BG and fair on maindeck + postboard Decay, Cavern/Vial spam...there is a problem. This isn't adapting, it's maladapting, to a card that shouldn't be in the format.

You either have absurd mana costs, or you're don't playing magic if CB lands. In terms of the Time Vault~CB analogy, "adapting" to it as you have described is akin to having wincons designed to function without receiving turns.

But is it actually objectively worse if the meta game calls for it? In vintage, oath and dredge is a real thing that some hatebear decks run maindeck containment priests. Objectively speaking, cards like SFM or something is a "better card" but in the context of the meta, priest is the right choice.

thefringthing

12-12-2016, 01:58 PM

The worst thing about this thread is that it's making me agree with Lemnear about anything. Ugh.

Also, Ronald Deuce is a good person with good ideas and you should listen to him.

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 02:08 PM

The worst thing about this thread is that it's making me agree with Lemnear about anything. Ugh.

Also, Ronald Deuce is a good person with good ideas and you should listen to him.

You can still hate me. I am however glad that you differ between the arguments and the Person behind. :)

Stevestamopz

12-12-2016, 03:56 PM

I enjoy Prison. If you don't have an answer, that's on you. If you do have an answer you should win easily.

I don't think it should be that difficult to understand that many people don't like playing this style of magic - whether they win or lose. I typically play decks that aren't soft to Trinisphere style prison but I still don't like being paired against it because even beating it is boring way to spend 50 minutes. Our cards play themselves, nobody makes any meaningful decisions. We're playing the card game 'War' but with fancier pictures on the cards.

Last I checked you played DnT. What do you think Mother of Runes, Thalia + 8 manadenial lands and now my new favourite abortion in Sanctum Prelate do? DnT is the best prison deck of all time.

There is a difference between adapting and making a strictly worse deck, except when it's up against CB. When decks like R/G Lands and SnT are running maindeck Boseju, everything BG and fair on maindeck + postboard Decay, Cavern/Vial spam...there is a problem. This isn't adapting, it's maladapting, to a card that shouldn't be in the format.

The same argument could be applied to every good card ever printed. Griselbrand, Emrakul, DRS, Delver, SFM, hell, even Goyf! Where do you want to draw the line?

Its disturbing that people welcome that Delver & Co get pushed out, with the result of more blowouts in form of Chalice/Countertop/Terminus/S&T/SneakAttack and call that "interactivity". The fact of matter is that the omnipresence of these lockout components did not cause people to "adapt", but to switch decks for a further streamlining of the metagame.

If you think Delver is being pushed out by the deck that has 1 party trick in it's entire game, you are mistaken.
DnT is the deck that will push out Delver (if such a thing is possible), not Eldrazi or Miracles. I had a t2 TNN against DnT on the play in the semifinals of a tournament last weekend. I still lost and of course I did, when I was playing DnT I equated playing against Delver to be a bye.

Player A: "Tomb, chalice @ 1! GG? LOL"
Player B: "Nah. Petal, Tomb, S&T. EMRAKUL! GG? LOL"
Player A: "GG"

Show and Tell should've been banned years ago. IIRC you told me to move on and play a better deck because show and tell.dec wasn't doing anything.

Lemnear

12-12-2016, 04:24 PM

Show and Tell should've been banned years ago. IIRC you told me to move on and play a better deck because show and tell.dec wasn't doing anything.

Can not comment on that in detail, but I am convinced that there are more (different) options to fight S&T than fighting countertop.

Am I mistaking if I suspect that most arguments against S&T would also fit for CounterTop and Chalice?

btm10

12-12-2016, 04:58 PM

But is it actually objectively worse if the meta game calls for it? In vintage, oath and dredge is a real thing that some hatebear decks run maindeck containment priests. Objectively speaking, cards like SFM or something is a "better card" but in the context of the meta, priest is the right choice.

That's true, but only up to a point. They aren't contorting their whole strategy to beat those decks, they're making a judgement about the relative need for supremacy in "normal" creature matchups and the need to have game 1 plans against Dredge and Oath. You can imagine (somewhat) plausible meta shifts where those decks make up a small enough portion of the meta where a hatebears player opts for some number of Stoneforge Mystics and additional equipment.

The difference between that meta call and the one that the combination of Chalice and CounterTop poses is that there are more Legacy decks that punish running the second-best (or second-most-efficient) spell to achieve something than there are Vintage decks that punish running a hatebear over SFM. We're also talking about two fundamentally different metagame adaptations. One is deliberately slowing yourself down to the point where you might not be able to compete against Chalice or CounterTop decks' non-lock game plan anymore, another is hedging against what would otherwise be particularly bad matchups preboard at some cost to your more even matchups.

Adapting to the current metagame means Decay or playing something that dodges Chalice/Counterbalance like S&T. The first option locks you into (black&)green decks and the second into an even less interactive deck.

Decay isn't the easiest card to interact with, but there are definitely responses to it: Divert and Misdirection weren't uncommon in North America in late 2013/early 2014 as tools for Delver decks to fight BUG and Jund. And even when Decay thwarts interaction, in the current meta the disease is far worse than the cure. My suspicion is that we won't see nearly as much Sneak and Show at GP Louisville as we did in Chiba. That one is probably a regional metagame fluke. This isn't to say that we shouldn't ban something from Miracles.

tescrin

12-12-2016, 05:03 PM

S&T is annoying but it's easy to counter to a reasonable degree. Thalia 2.0 or Revoker + Karakas and you're done. You can do that in Maverick or Junk. You can run LotV + Needle for the same effect. Clique counters their deck. Ensnaring Bridge. Done; while countering Reanimator and Eldrazi, and in colorless.

You can counter it with garbage cards too; like Fleshbag Marauder.

Difference?
There is *one* card in magic as a whole; and it's dual colored; that deals with Countertop. A card that's almost a sideboard card at this point due to the Eldrazi/Angler/JtMS.

Playing against S&T can at least be interesting. "What do they have? What should I be searching for?" With miracles it's basically "decay. Oh. You have another CB? Gg." It comes down to whether or not they can draw one more copy of their 4-of vs. you getting enough of your 4-of to deal with it; except they get to search while you're locked out.

D&T is annoying; but at least it's a game. At least you can just win if you run various red removal (Forked Bolt, Pyroclasm, etc..) At least that *feels* like a game. It's also weak to storm like nobodies' business. Miracles shits on everything equally and to good effect.

Chalice is something that you can safely say is "just adapt" because 0 mana, 1 mana, 2 mana, and 3 mana cards, in several colors or in colorless, all deal with it. it's also not run by Blue decks which is huge. CB doesn't even allow you to FoW it 40% of the time.

CB defies the comparisons. It has less hate cards. It has no bad matchups that are worth mentioning. The ones it has Terminus bypasses all possibility of you reliably doing it. Terminus is the White Force of Will.

There is a single deck that reliably has stayed in every meta: Miracles. It survived Omni-show era of delve. It survived Viking Funeral. It survived Shardless and D&T and Eldrazi. It existed fine in ANT and against S&T.

What happens with ANT is on the rise? Reanimator enters and pummels it. What happens when Delver runs rampant? Elves laughs in it's face; as do BGx and D&T. What happens when S&T is everywhere? Reanimator and D&T show up.

What happens when Miracles appears?
It wins.

Again, at the risk of repeating myself: We get it. You like that your deck is the best and has been uncontestedly the best for years. We get that you don't want to run a deck that has bad matchups.

You know what you call units that have no good counters in an RTS? OP
You know what you call must-pick heroes in Mobas/Overwatch? OP
You know what you call the AK, AWP, and M4 in Counterstrike? OP
You know what you say to people who run the obviously-best-deck-for-years-on-end? "Lol those kids should just adapt!"

If this game was balanced/monitored hardly at all by the devs; this deck would've been banned when it first showed it wouldn't die to Eldrazi; a deck that completely ignores it's schtick, runs counterspells and hate cards for the deck in the main, etc.

There is no "Tier 1" right now; unless you say that to mean Miracles. Everything else is tier 1.5 or worse. We've known this since before TC . Cruise showed us that no matter how fast and card-drawy you got, Miracles could survive and take down tournies. DTT showed us that even a fast combo that insta-gibbed you on the stack and casted 3+ cost cards for most of it's life; yep Miracles lived just fine. Eldrazi shows us that you can ignore the deck and have reasonable interaction on the angles it attacks you on, and still go 50-50.

It's been "adapted" to for years; and has barely had to change whatsoever. Entreat->Mentor. And what.. it ran a few pyroblast for awhile?

Stevestamopz

12-12-2016, 10:07 PM

Can not comment on that in detail, but I am convinced that there are more (different) options to fight S&T than fighting countertop.

Am I mistaking if I suspect that most arguments against S&T would also fit for CounterTop and Chalice?

I'll let you do the mental gymnastics on this one, because I can't see how Show and Tell is easier to fight that Counter-Top (e.g you can't decay anything Show and Tell does etc etc).

I also don't understand what arguments against Show and Tell would fit for Counter-top and Chalice other than that they provide free wins sometimes with Show and Tell being right at the very top of skill testing freewins with consistency with chalice being at the very bottom of that category. MUD has been playing Chalice and 3ball for years. It's also always been a pile of shit and always will be.

As for Tescrin... DnT is favoured against Miracles, Thalia does nothing against Show -> Omni -> Emrakul, or even better Show -> Omni -> Grisel, draw 14, cast Emrakul, 22 you. How are you surprised that Miracles has a good matchup against the deck that beats Omni/Show (aka Delver)?

Your comments about Miracles being tier 0 are way off, it has predators in Shardless and DnT and it's matchup against Sneak and Show is not fantastic either. Again though, if the format wasn't forced to fend off derp combo every 2 minutes, the format wouldn't look like what it looks like now. Delver decks are horrible at fighting fairer decks, they usually do nothing. Miracles is just the ultimate fair deck.

Fox

12-13-2016, 12:19 AM

Stevestamopz

12-13-2016, 01:28 AM

There are very few decks which would choose to run maindeck uninteractive cards [Cavern, Boseju, Vial, Decay] in the absence of CB. The main offender in terms of current over-representation is Decay, and it's especially unfortunate as this card will never win a game nor advance how a deck wins (it's also a really poor answer to CB everywhere you look at it which isn't on the stack).

Why would I not run Cavern in my tribal deck against a sea of blue decks?
Why would I not run Vial in my Merfolk/Goblin/Humans deck?
Why would I not run Decay in my b/g/x deck when it kills almost every non-land permanent in the format, at no risk?

Why play disenchant and smother when for BG, I can get the effect of both? Why would you dedicate 7 slots to kill different things when you can just play 4 copies of the one card and it will kill Thalia, blow up Jitte and destroy Cop: Black all the same? Seriously, come on.

Lemnear

12-13-2016, 01:35 AM

I'll let you do the mental gymnastics on this one, because I can't see how Show and Tell is easier to fight that Counter-Top (e.g you can't decay anything Show and Tell does etc etc).

Tescrin just wrote an excessive wall of text explaining it in detail

also don't understand what arguments against Show and Tell would fit for Counter-top and Chalice other than that they provide free wins sometimes with Show and Tell being right at the very top of skill testing freewins with consistency with chalice being at the very bottom of that category. MUD has been playing Chalice and 3ball for years. It's also always been a pile of shit and always will be.

Both are producing dumb, free wins. Period. Adressing the "skill level" depending on if you kill with 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Eldrazis or 20/20 Marit Lage is absolutely pointless

Pointing to Legacy MUD is totally misleading. Eldrazi isnt running slow and crappy stuff like Grim Monolith or Metalworkers which is the reason MUD keeps stumbling over its own inconsistency

Thalia does nothing against Show -> Omni -> Emrakul, or even better Show -> Omni -> Grisel, draw 14, cast Emrakul, 22 you. How are you surprised that Miracles has a good matchup against the deck that beats Omni/Show (aka Delver)?

Do you even read what he wrote? How are you attack for 22 with tapped down creatures?

The decks which keep S&T in check are currently pushed out of the format by Chalice/Countertop, which means that S&T has only D&T as a mediocre matchup among the DtBs.

your comments about Miracles being tier 0 are way off, it has predators in Shardless and DnT and it's matchup against Sneak and Show is not fantastic either. Again though, if the format wasn't forced to fend off derp combo every 2 minutes, the format wouldn't look like what it looks like now. Delver decks are horrible at fighting fairer decks, they usually do nothing. Miracles is just the ultimate fair deck.

Shardless and D&T are no predators for Miracles at all. There is no collection of T8 to prove that claim.

P.S.: I really look forward to S&T crushing Eldrazi/Miracles in the upcoming GP.

Stevestamopz

12-13-2016, 01:56 AM

Both are producing dumb, free wins. Period. Adressing the "skill level" depending on if you kill with 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Eldrazis or 20/20 Marit Lage is absolutely pointless

Pointing to Legacy MUD is totally misleading. Eldrazi isnt running slow and crappy stuff like Grim Monolith or Metalworkers which is the reason MUD keeps stumbling over its own inconsistency

You are misunderstanding me (what's new) my dear friend. I did not say that I like Eldrazi. I played the deck for one game, declared it dumb and moved on with my life. Right now we are talking at each other about Chalice of the Void being bannable (at least that's what I think you're saying), and what I'm saying is :confused::confused::confused::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Do you even read what he wrote? How are you attack for 22 with tapped down creatures?

The decks which keep S&T in check are currently pushed out of the format by Chalice/Countertop, which means that S&T has only D&T as a mediocre matchup among the DtBs.
Read this card for me please. I have put it in your mothertongue so that there can be no confusion.

http://magiccards.info/scans/de/roe/4.jpg

Now, please tell me how THC stops Show and Tell -> Omni -> Grisel -> Emrakul.

It was also just said by Tescrin that Miracles has no bad matchups. Now you're saying it has a mediocre matchup against Show and Tell. Which one dude?
Eldrazi also only made 1 t8 at the recent big events: Eternal Weekend Trump, Eternal Weekend Europe (the BoM thing) and GP Chiba. The rest of it looked pretty blue and interesting. How sweet is 4 colour internet delver?!

Shardless and D&T are no predators for Miracles at all. There is no collection of T8 to prove that claim.

P.S.: I really look forward to S&T crushing Eldrazi/Miracles in the upcoming GP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UwUD1zSO0k

Because the website won't let me code 2 videos, here's another badboy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OdHE4MWxaA

As for S&T crushing, I hope so too. Maybe finally that turd will be banned and we can finally get something unbanned.

Dice_Box

12-13-2016, 03:09 AM

This is wrong place to ask this, but why Stax over Pox?I personally enjoy Stax. The main driver is the Crucible loops with Inventor’s Fair.

I don't think it should be that difficult to understand that many people don't like playing this style of magicAt am not suggesting you should like it, only that I do and I shall continue to play it. My argument about Chalice is not that "You should shut up and like it" it's "This is an answer for a problem". Like Bloodmoon is an answer to a subset of decks, so is Chalice.

Except its current, and primary use (The cards primary function in Legacy is just the same which got it restricted not too long ago in vintage) isnt within a prison deck which usually have to combine several elements, but in an aggro deck. No judgement, just observation on that part. I have no problem with Chalice per sé as non 1cc removal is available. Chalice is playing the same role it has for a decade. The issue is not what it does, it's how often you have to face it now. It's primary home in Legacy have always been Stompy decks. Aggressive strategies. I remember once getting punched by a Pit Dragon with Double strike. Thats an aggressive deck, this is not new.

Its disturbing that people welcome that Delver & Co get pushed out, with the result of more blowouts in form of Chalice/Countertop/Terminus/S&T/SneakAttack and call that "interactivity". The fact of matter is that the omnipresence of these lockout components did not cause people to "adapt", but to switch decks for a further streamlining of the metagame.

Especially you should know what I am talking about if you look at the DtB data every month. I have had this argument with Crimhead before, that I don't argue against Meta shifts. At one point Aggro was a large part of Legacy's meta, then when Fish, Goblins and Zoo died, it vanished. What your arguing is that I should be worried about change. I am not. You can predict a meta that may arise while I can predict a different one. But unless you have a crystal ball I lack, we are not going to get anywhere of value.

Now while you may argue that the change you see is bad, I personally disagree. Too long have a substantial amount of this format run on the same core. Changing that is a shock yes, but in my mind not a detriment.

Perhaps on this one, we can agree to disagree. Because I am unlikely to change my views.

Thats why its important to keep adding anti-combo tools to the metagame. On the other hand (and as mentioned) it would be handy if there would be also added anti-Chalice/-Counterbalance options which are NOT green.No argument from me on all counts.

At this point we are playing Black Jack looking for cards our opponent can simply not trump by any realistical means, which brings me back to the "ideal format" which goes forth and back between players instead of "trumping" 4/4 Eldrazi with 15/15 ones and call that "interaction"If the format shook out as you see it, I would seek to play Tez and UR Painter as answers. The issue you could argue, and I would accept, is that I look at the format and try and lock things down. It's true. But I still feel like I could adapt to these changes fairly easily with a bunch of T2 decks. Not a terrible situation to have, more oddballs that are effective.

There is a mayor difference. Thresh has always traded 1-for-1 and opted to gain strategic advantage with those trades. Countertop and Chalice trade 1-for-20 against most decks preboard and make me wonder why WotC even bothered to ban Mental Misstep which countered just ONE 1cc card instead of ALL FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.You misunderstood what I was saying. I am not arguing they way they achieve their goals are the same, I am arguing that Thresh and Eldrazis game plan is the same:
Stop the other guy doing anything relevant and punch him to death. Eldrazi is not doing anything new.

For the same reason Chalice was fine in vintage before Lodestone and Thorn... or CounterTop was before Terminus.This is a tangent, but it's relevent so here goes:
Chalice was fine in Vintage. The issues with Shops came from decks playing 14 or less lands and a mix of 8 or more Mental Misstep, REB and Flusterstorm. When you build you deck with 8 blanks against a deck, you don't get to bitch when it shits on you. You also don't get to bitch about mana when you don't play any.

I hope you dont seriously compare the slow KotR Wasteland-lock of Maverick with Loam+GhostQuarter or T1 chalice, T2 TKS with the old Goblin Port-TricksAgain, I am saying an Aggro lock control/Lock out strategy is nothing new. Am I suggesting they are equivalent in power? No. Because if they were Goblins would still be playable. I am just saying Eldrazi does nothing new.

Sure. We DO need alternatives to the cantrip galore. The current path however has lead us down the road into:

Player A: "Tomb, chalice @ 1! GG? LOL"
Player B: "Nah. Petal, Tomb, S&T. EMRAKUL! GG? LOL"
Player A: "GG"

Sorry, that as dumb as Vintage was at MUDs primeI think I have answered all your points here above.

I typed this all on my mobile. Please forgive spelling errors and shit.

Ronald Deuce

12-13-2016, 03:11 AM

I'll let you do the mental gymnastics on this one, because I can't see how Show and Tell is easier to fight that Counter-Top (e.g you can't decay anything Show and Tell does etc etc).

In addition to its comparable weakness to any and all stack interaction, Show and Tell provides built-in outs to itself. (Trust me; play Belcher, Dredge, or Reanimator/BReanimator/Tin Fins against it.) That's not the case with CounterTop.

Your comments about Miracles being tier 0 are way off, it has predators in Shardless and DnT and it's matchup against Sneak and Show is not fantastic either.

Dredge has a pretty good matchup against Miracles; does that make Dredge as good a deck as Miracles is?

Every deck can be beaten by other decks. Storm hoses Lands; Lands hoses Eldrazi; Eldrazi hoses Storm harder. The problem is that certain decks are inordinately well prepared to fight an inordinately large portion of the field—because of a very small number of cards—and statistical evidence suggests Miracles is far and away the best deck against the most other decks for that reason. I don't think that warrants a ban (at least, not yet), but it's illogical to deny that a deck is exceptionally powerful simply because it can be beaten.

Why would I not run Cavern in my tribal deck against a sea of blue decks?
Why would I not run Vial in my Merfolk/Goblin/Humans deck?
Why would I not run Decay in my b/g/x deck when it kills almost every non-land permanent in the format, at no risk?

I don't think that's really the crux of the argument, though I don't mean to twist Fox's words.

Cavern, Vial, etc. aren't crucial answers—without peer—to the specific two or three cards that knock over a large number of decks that otherwise play very well. Abrupt Decay is.

Sure, Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial are excellent cards that shore up a number of decks against countermagic and removal, but most of that stuff isn't of the same caliber as CounterTop or Chalice. Cavern and Vial are extremely important for a number of decks because they stop other specific cards from knocking those decks off balance; those decks often still have plays even if something important eats The Force. Force doesn't blank 30–50% of cards in most(?) decks in the format every turn starting on resolution, and though Cavern and Vial answer things that do, lots of decks can't run them—and they're nowhere near as versatile as Abrupt Decay.

This means that Decay is an absolute necessity for a ton of decks simply to survive those few cards—not to make value plays, develop their own game plans, or answer overarching strategies or varying deck types. (It also happens to point-kill most relevant nonland permanents, for what it's worth, without relying on stack interaction.) There really isn't anything comparable. So nobody's arguing that you shouldn't play good cards to answer strategies that cause your decks to have problems. It's that a small number of cards are performing inordinately well against the field, and there's a single answer to those cards that has no equal. Whether that's a problem is in the eye of the beholder, but I'm not thrilled.

Also, Ronald Deuce is a good person with good ideas and you should listen to him.

*long-distance high-five*

Lemnear

12-13-2016, 03:48 AM

I am arguing that Thresh and Eldrazis game plan is the same:
Stop the other guy doing anything relevant and punch him to death. Eldrazi is not doing anything new.

Yes, both are tempo strategies. One is running Wasteland/Stifle/Daze, the other one Chalice/Thorn/Wasteland. One deck of them simply upgraded their Delvers and Mongoose to 4/4 Thoughtseize with legs.

Its the same development we had with S&T and Survival which were fair cards before the Creature Powercreep kicked in.

What disturbs me in this thread is the endless pointing to the past with "Chalice/Countertop were around for years before the cards which broke them were printed, so they are fine", but the same can be said for every card from Brainstorm to LED to S&T as well.

Crimhead

12-13-2016, 04:07 AM

It's funny how conveniently everybody "forgets" about Infect when discussing Miracle's supposed lack of poor matches.

Asthereal

12-13-2016, 05:24 AM

It's funny how conveniently everybody "forgets" about Infect when discussing Miracle's supposed lack of poor matches.
This is probably mostly due to the fact that the Infect matchup really isn't that bad for Miracles.

Whitefaces

12-13-2016, 05:33 AM

Thought-Knot Seer is just Nimble Mongoose with kicker.

Stevestamopz

12-13-2016, 05:45 AM

Thought-Knot Seer is just Nimble Mongoose with kicker.

This is only barely relevant (and not at all to this discussion) but there is a great anecdote that goes with Eldrazi.
GP Melbourne was one of the Modern "Eldrazi Winter" (it was summer here) GP's.
One of the local players decided to play Modern despite not knowing any of the new cards. He was also stoned out of his eyeballs.

Come to one of the later rounds, and he's paired up against one of the Japanese pros, who's Eldrazis are all in Japanese.

Japanese pro casts a Reality Smasher and attacks. Jimbo (not his real name, and also still very very stoned) casts Dismember on the Smasher.

Japanese Pro says "dis-card?" to which Jimbo responds "yeah, this card." Japanese pro says "no, dis-card? and Jimbo again repeats "yes this card." Eventually a judge was called to get it sorted it out because they were going absolutely nowhere.

In respect of this great anecdote, I declare Reality Smasher to be the new Nimble Mongoose.

Lemnear

12-13-2016, 05:51 AM

A great anecdote. I lol'd

Mr Miagi

12-13-2016, 06:03 AM

that was a great story :laugh:

Julian23

12-13-2016, 06:04 AM

Reminds me of the Italian Dredge player I faced at Ovinogeddon. At a random point during his turn, he pulled Dread Return from his graveyard, put it on the table and asked:

"Dread Return?"

I confirmed that it was Dread Return. He repeated "Dread Return?" but looked otherwise quite lost.

Eventually we had to call a judge because he didn't know how to properly announce a spell and put the Bridge triggers on the stack. Probably not the best disposition to play Dredge. I ended up decking him.

DarthVicious

12-13-2016, 08:37 AM

Man, I sure do hate Golgari Charm. They should ban that card. I mean, why should I be forced to play against strategies that counter my own? It's not fair at all that people can play cards that counter specific strategies. #BanGolgariCharm2017

/Sarcasm

RobNC

12-13-2016, 08:59 AM

Gheizen64

12-13-2016, 09:08 AM

Just unban survival and MM. All hail the new format, even more fair than before! Better creatures and countermagic for everyone!

Lemnear

12-13-2016, 09:19 AM

Just unban survival and MM. All hail the new format, even more fair than before! Better creatures and countermagic for everyone!

Mental Misstep gets countered by Chalice but not the other way round ;p

Spam

12-13-2016, 09:22 AM

Fox

12-13-2016, 12:42 PM

Why would I not run Cavern in my tribal deck against a sea of blue decks?
Why would I not run Vial in my Merfolk/Goblin/Humans deck?
Why would I not run Decay in my b/g/x deck when it kills almost every non-land permanent in the format, at no risk?

Why play disenchant and smother when for BG, I can get the effect of both? Why would you dedicate 7 slots to kill different things when you can just play 4 copies of the one card and it will kill Thalia, blow up Jitte and destroy Cop: Black all the same? Seriously, come on.

You have named some of the few decks which will run Caverns and/or Vial regardless of CB being legal or not, which were alluded to in my last post.

Decay is the sausage of legacy, it looks great on the stack but you don't want to know how it made it there...the questionable manabase/fetching decisions, the presupposition of 2 mana, complete and utter dead space in a hand until opponent plays a target. I mean we're talking about what might be the least proactive card in the format. I'm afraid that the reason Decay is so over-used is that if there is any [non-Misdirection or exile from stack] way to stop you from killing Counterbalance, then the answer isn't good enough...because if it ever fails, you are no longer playing magic. Just like the other non-interactive cards Decay would see some play with CB banned, but sleeving it up means you're signing on for a deliberately slow and grindy game - and that's a much better reason to use it than being literally unable to play magic through CB without it.

Removal for the sake of removal is the antithesis of magic from the standpoint of combo. Removal-based mindsets are the domain of fair decks and control. The uncounterable clause and effect of Decay is powerful, but analyzing the card only from the removal-based mindset, and unilaterally determining how great the card is, is somewhat tunnel-visioned analysis.

Ronald Deuce

12-13-2016, 01:59 PM

Decay is the sausage of legacy, it looks great on the stack but you don't want to know how it made it there...

This is too good not to sig.

tescrin

12-13-2016, 04:47 PM

As for Tescrin... DnT is favoured against Miracles, Thalia does nothing against Show -> Omni -> Emrakul, or even better Show -> Omni -> Grisel, draw 14, cast Emrakul, 22 you. How are you surprised that Miracles has a good matchup against the deck that beats Omni/Show (aka Delver)?

Your comments about Miracles being tier 0 are way off, it has predators in Shardless and DnT and it's matchup against Sneak and Show is not fantastic either.

Are you really arguing that D&T isn't an absolute predator of S&T? It's literally the deck that pushed SneakShow out (not omnishow.) You also move the goalposts on Lemnear when you answer him; because you realize it literally takes a god hand for S&T to beat D&T. Not only does it take S&T, Omni, and Emmy, but it takes basic lands, no porting, and good chance of requiring 4 mana. What's it take D&T? Any combination of 2 of like 20 cards in their deck. Revokers, Wisps, Karakas, Thalia 1.0 to slow things down, Thalia 2.0 shutting down Sneak. You get the idea. This is a well defined "Worst matchup ever." Please don't. Sanctum Prelate seals the deal on S&T also.

I also really don't think D&T "preys" on Miracles and the Shardless/Miracles threads imply that it's not as bad as it's made to be. If you were correct on D&T or Shardless, why would they not have equal standing in the Top 8s? Are they all just worse players than the Miracles players?

It was also just said by Tescrin that Miracles has no bad matchups. Now you're saying it has a mediocre matchup against Show and Tell. Which one dude?

We're not a monolith. I have no issue with Chalice F.E., I have an issue with something that is ubiquitously known as the best deck that has no viable predators. I could've talked about 12-Post but it's obviously not performing.

The problem is that I perceive Legacy as solved. There's an ubiquitously considered/known best deck. A deck that has shown itself to be so for years on end. We can disagree on that being a good reason or not; but I am pretty sure we agree on the premise.

EDIT: I also don't think S&T is particularly good against Miracles. If the meta adjusts; miracles just hot-swaps a couple cards back to pyroblast and continues. If anything S&T would chase out Shardless; leaving Miracles in a similar situation as it is now relative to number of mediocre MUs. If you have an S&T/Miracles/x/y/z format, you'll have a lot of blood moons running around again. This is all just armchair spitballing at this point though.

iatee

12-13-2016, 04:50 PM

If you were correct on D&T or Shardless, why would they not have equal standing in the Top 8s? Are they all just worse players than the Miracles players?

Yes. This is genuinely the reason.

tescrin

12-13-2016, 04:55 PM

iatee

12-13-2016, 05:03 PM

Even if you think your own 'one sentence quip' is really clever, you undermine yourself by saying stuff like 'Did I win the argument by using a one sentence quip!?' If you want to do that, I would actually suggest making a second account here so you can instead have a hype man who follows up your posts with 'DDAAMN. tescrin just won the argument with a one sentence quip.' (relevant animated gif)

Crimhead

12-13-2016, 06:13 PM

This is probably mostly due to the fact that the Infect matchup really isn't that bad for Miracles.It's an atrocious match for Miracles. Also it doesn't run Abrupt Decay.

Lemnear

12-13-2016, 06:20 PM

It's an atrocious match for Miracles. Also it doesn't run Abrupt Decay.

It just runs Krosan Grip and loses hard to Eldrazi. All cool

tescrin

12-13-2016, 06:20 PM

My point was you put up a one sentence quip, so I did that too; showing that they are both equally meaningless.

Your "point" in that post was an unfalsifiable claim that is mired by correlation/causation problems if you attempted to prove it. You can't, so you moved the goalposts from "It's not the best deck" to "Well I mean it's only the best deck in the hands of the best players"; which isn't even a refutation.

Ace/Homebrew

12-13-2016, 06:50 PM

I would actually suggest making a second account here so you can instead have a hype man who follows up your posts with 'DDAAMN. tescrin just won the argument with a one sentence quip.' (relevant animated gif)

It's called a 'sock puppet'.

http://i56.tinypic.com/jqkp5t.jpg
DDAAMN Ace! You the man!

Stevestamopz

12-14-2016, 05:18 AM

With Sneak Attack back on the forefront of the format, a new natural (kind of-) predator of Miralces has (re-)emerged, which is something that most of us like to see.

Now who said that Miracles had a good Sneak and Show matchup again?
Source (http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/writers/philipp-sch%C3%B6negger/legacy-lessons-5-lessons-from-grand-prix-chiba)

I am just not going to argue over Abrupt Decay. It is the most efficient and universal removal spell in this game. Ban Miracles and everyone will still play 3-4 in their BGX deck.

Julian23

12-14-2016, 05:42 AM

Now who said that Miracles had a good Sneak and Show matchup again?

What are you alluding to? Miracles has never had a good Sneak Show matchup.

Stevestamopz

12-14-2016, 06:01 AM

What are you alluding to? Miracles has never had a good Sneak Show matchup.

People were saying that Miracles was favoured to beat absolutely everything, even SnS. If the miracles ubermensch can't change people's minds, nothing can. I still believe this thread to be valuable and worthwhile having, even if it is just venting 90% of the time, and I treat it as such.

Chatto

12-14-2016, 06:33 AM

I still believe this thread to be valuable and worthwhile having, even if it is just venting 90% of the time, and I treat it as such.

This thread is not only valuable, it is hilarious. If people don't blame deck W or card X for being OP, they will blame deck Y or card Z for being OP.

Dice_Box

12-14-2016, 06:35 AM

I still believe this thread to be valuable and worthwhile having, even if it is just venting 90% of the time, and I treat it as such.Agreed. Makes Modding the site much simpler to have the dumpster fire contained to one location.

Richard Cheese

12-14-2016, 01:08 PM

Agreed. Makes Modding the site much simpler to have the dumpster fire contained to one location.

We should probably make this thread visible only to registered users if we haven't already. That way unsuspecting folks just trying to learn more about the format won't stumble across it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj0Tj8dnrYw

Star|Scream

12-14-2016, 01:22 PM

This thread is not only valuable, it is hilarious. If people don't blame deck W or card X for being OP, they will blame deck Y or card Z for being OP.

Whatever, that's just your opinion. Card Z has been busted for years now.

Ronald Deuce

12-14-2016, 01:24 PM

I am just not going to argue over Abrupt Decay. It is the most efficient and universal removal spell in this game. Ban Miracles and everyone will still play 3-4 in their BGX deck.

That's true, but that's not the way things are working right now. Decks are splashing a fourth color for a sideboard card for which there's no substitute, and they're doing it because there are two or three cards that define what the metagame is right now for which there are no comparable answers. That's not good, especially because those decks are solid or excellent without contorting themselves for Decay against any number of decks that don't run those two or three cards.

People were saying that Miracles was favoured to beat absolutely everything, even SnS. If the miracles ubermensch can't change people's minds, nothing can. I still believe this thread to be valuable and worthwhile having, even if it is just venting 90% of the time, and I treat it as such.

Don't remember who said that, but again, even if a deck has bad matchups, that doesn't make it a bad deck. Every deck has bad matchups. That doesn't mean that some of those decks aren't better than others.

iatee

12-14-2016, 02:07 PM

Maybe we should just ban Abrupt Decay?

Crimhead

12-14-2016, 03:04 PM

It just runs Krosan Grip and loses hard to Eldrazi. All cool
Okay. First there is a claim that too many decks are running Decay (even though only one of the five DTBs normally runs it, and three of the other four never run it). Now you have an issue with a couple decks running Grip in the SB? Wow dude!

It just runs Krosan Grip and loses hard to Eldrazi. All cool
Everything loses to something. Most of us consider Infect to be a tier one deck - or at least awfully close.

I think the issue with Infect is that people who want to play Daze, FOW, and Brainstorm are typically "fair deck" players and would rather play a Delver than Berserk Stompy. These are probably the same people who count Infect as a combo deck! :rolleyes:

Aggro Loam is in a similar boat. It's a good deck with a great Miracles match (and no slouch against Eldrazi either), but people who want to play Goyf and KotR don't want to play a Loam engine or a "Chalice deck". Aggro Loam should be the go-to archetype for anybody who wants to play something like Maverick or Jund midrange; but I sometimes think the only people who actually play it are wannabe Lands players who are one Tabernacle short!

This is what we mean by "adapt". If you're having trouble winning with Thresh, switch to Pyromancer or Infect. If Maverick or Jund aren't getting results, switch to Loam. Or stick with a tier-two deck and accept your handicap - just don't go looking for any sympathy!

People were saying that Miracles was favoured to beat absolutely everything, even SnS.I know, right? Somebody even told me Miracles does okay against Infect! :laugh:
The lack of objectivity on behalf of disgruntled Legacy players is unreal. This thread is worse than Reddit sometimes.

lavafrogg

12-14-2016, 03:05 PM

I think you are missing the real problem here. The game has been in shambles ever since the ridiculous and uncalled for un-banning of Kird Ape, an atrocity that has never been remedied.

Crimhead

12-14-2016, 03:43 PM

I'm also not buying the idea that the occasional "non-game" means Legacy is not an interactive or skill intensive format.

Look at Texas Hold 'em poker. Unless you are playing against total push-overs, you have to muck a lot of hands before the flop - often before anybody has even made a bet! This is completely non-interactive and takes less skill than tapping land for mana. Does this mean Texas Hold 'em is not interactive or skill intensive? Not at all! because no amount of pre-flop folding can take away from the depth of a contested pot. Legacy is the same. There might not be meaningful interaction every single time you pick up a hand, but with a little patience and a bird's-eye-view of the game, it's easy to see that there is really a lot going on.

Edit - before anybody wants to nit-pick this analogy (and completely miss the point in the process), make the game heads-up seven stud (with a bring-in) instead of a hold 'em ring game.

Ace/Homebrew

12-14-2016, 03:57 PM

That's true, but that's not the way things are working right now. Decks are splashing a fourth color for a sideboard card for which there's no substitute, and they're doing it because there are two or three cards that define what the metagame is right now for which there are no comparable answers. That's not good, especially because those decks are solid or excellent without contorting themselves for Decay against any number of decks that don't run those two or three cards.
This isn't new... :eyebrow:

Goblins had to splash white for Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to combat combo. She's not on-color or on-tribe.
Merfolk had to splash black for Engineered Plague.
Burn splashes green for Destructive Revelry.

Bryant Cook

12-14-2016, 04:22 PM

This isn't new... :eyebrow:

Goblins had to splash white for Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to combat combo. She's not on-color or on-tribe.
Merfolk had to splash black for Engineered Plague.
Burn splashes green for Destructive Revelry.

Not that I really want to jump into this shit show, but their point was three color decks adapting a fourth just to manage against Counterbalance & Chalice of the Void.

What you're describing is mono-color decks splashing which is much more manageable.

Lemnear

12-14-2016, 04:39 PM

I'm also not buying the idea that the occasional "non-game" means Legacy is not an interactive or skill intensive format.

Except its Storm and its ~8-10% T1 kills which people play against, then its cancer.

Okay. First there is a claim that too many decks are running Decay (even though only one of the five DTBs normally runs it, and three of the other four never run it). Now you have an issue with a couple decks running Grip in the SB? Wow dude

Since twisting words and moving goalposts gets kinda annoying, let me make it clear:

I never fucking hinted at Krosan Grip being a problem! Where the actual fuck do you read that? On the same page you read that Storm isnt running Decays?

Krosan Grip is similar to Decay and Infect gets pretty much fucked over by the whole DtB section atm, showing that Krosan Grip isn't cutting it as an out to the current metagame situation, despite the similarities.

Stevestamopz

12-14-2016, 04:42 PM

Not that I really want to jump into this shit show, but their point was three color decks adapting a fourth just to manage against Counterbalance & Chalice of the Void.

What you're describing is mono-color decks splashing which is much more manageable.

They get DRS, don't worrry about it. 4 colour decks are the new 3 colour decks.

Also Gobs already had to splash Green because artifact destruction isn't a red thing apparently.

Ronald Deuce

12-14-2016, 04:50 PM

Goblins had to splash white for Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to combat combo. She's not on-color or on-tribe.
Merfolk had to splash black for Engineered Plague.
Burn splashes green for Destructive Revelry.

True, but those decks all don't splash the same color for the same card in order to deal with the same specific pair/trio of cards.

The only reason the list of decks that splash for Abrupt Decay isn't longer is that a number of those decks also want to get the most out of Deathrite Shaman.

Again, I'm not upset about Miracles, and I snapped up a quad of Decays as quickly as I could because they're awesome. But there's only so much adaptation most decks can stand. Finn's right that no deck has a right to exist, and the natural rise and fall of decks resulting from metagame pressure is probably a good thing that the format needs. But it's a problem when a number of decks get pushed out by a pair of specific cards—in what has long been the format's dominant deck—that require a specific card to answer them. Unless, of course, they all do the same gymnastics with their mana to run the same card.

Now the format also has a clear runner-up deck comprised largely of cards printed in the past year, and it's exacerbating the problem. This may well mark a sea-change, and I think that's probably worse than having a static cluster of top-slot decks that can't be unseated. In any case, neither is good.

I love Storm. Storm may go the way of the Dodo, and I can't change that (nor do I really think I'd want to). I'm not complaining that my favorite deck might not be able to adapt to the new metagame; I'm saying that there's a clear problem when singular cards with no substitutes start to have such a big impact.

Put it this way: Force of Will is a catchall answer to fast combo. Are decks splashing blue to play it? No, because fast combo isn't what defines the format. Are decks 'boarding in quads of the significantly more splashable Mindbreak Trap? For the same reason, mostly no. Are people 'boarding in quads of Leyline of the Void and Surgical Extraction to stop Dredge? Probably not—even though those cards are really easy to play off-color—because Dredge doesn't define the format, either. Those decks are integral to the metagame, but they aren't dominating most others (in theory and practice) by using one or two cards.

CounterTop does. Eldrazi is beginning to do the same thing. There are reams of evidence for this if you read tournament reports, and I can't get behind the argument that everyone who plays something else should just deal with it or switch decks.

Lemnear

12-14-2016, 04:51 PM

Also Gobs already had to splash Green because artifact destruction isn't a red thing apparently.

Ridiculous, isnt it?

Crimhead

12-14-2016, 05:04 PM

I never fucking hinted at Krosan Grip being a problem! Where the actual fuck do you read that? On the same page you read that Storm isnt running Decays? You are the guy who brought up Grip, and I'm not sure what your issue is with that card.

Regarding Storm and AD, I'm willing to forget you said Infect runs Decay (you'll note I let you slide on that) if you'll forgive my slip-up.

Krosan Grip is similar to Decay and Infect gets pretty much fucked over by the whole DtB section atm, showing that Krosan Grip isn't cutting it as an out to the current metagame situation, despite the similarities.Lands normally runs Grip and does just fine (AD builds are the exception).

Infect destroys Miracles and D&T, and is no cake walk for Lands either. Eldrazi is bad news for Infect. I honestly don't now much about Infect vs Shardless, but I have a hard time imagining it's really all that bad. Infect being fucked by the whole DTB section is flagrantly false.

Ace/Homebrew

12-14-2016, 06:00 PM

What you're describing is mono-color decks splashing which is much more manageable.

I don't disagree with that premise, but in a fetch/dual manabase the difference in application is negligible...

When I played Goblins, I had 1 Plateau (maybe 2 occasionally). When I played Burn, I ran a single Taiga. Keeping the splash a secret may have been the stressor, but the result is the same.

How is running a single Tropical Island over a fetchland significantly different?

Ronald Deuce

12-14-2016, 06:20 PM

When I played Goblins, I had 1 Plateau (maybe 2 occasionally). When I played Burn, I ran a single Taiga. Keeping the splash a secret may have been the stressor, but the result is the same.

How is running a single Tropical Island over a fetchland significantly different?

In AnT, at least, the Tropical (or Bayou) replaces a basic land. Goblins and Burn run more basic lands; it's really hard to get a tricolor deck to function with a large number of basics, but on 14-16 solid mana sources, you're really vulnerable to Wasteland if you run fewer than three.

Ace/Homebrew

12-14-2016, 06:42 PM

In AnT, at least, the Tropical (or Bayou) replaces a basic land. Goblins and Burn run more basic lands; it's really hard to get a tricolor deck to function with a large number of basics, but on 14-16 solid mana sources, you're really vulnerable to Wasteland if you run fewer than three.

Plateaus and Taigas aren't vunerable to Wasteland? :eyebrow:

Or is your point that ANT's strategy is so hyper-focused on mana efficiency that it has difficulty defending against a meta with multiple ways to attack it (both Wasteland and Chalice/Counterbalance)?

Crimhead

12-14-2016, 07:30 PM

Or is your point that ANT's strategy is so hyper-focused on mana efficiency that it has difficulty defending against a meta with multiple ways to attack it (both Wasteland and Chalice/Counterbalance)?Yeah, if anything Storm splashing a fourth colour might be indicative of the deck not having a favourable meta at present. Sucks, but that happens. :frown:

On a related note, combo is down to 25% of the meta (according to MTGtop8) and is excluded from the DTB section. Maybe Sneak Show will rise again? But the worse combo is, the safer it becomes to unban Frantic Search. High Tide (with a little extra push) might be a more appropriate answer for the current meta than a Tendrils based Storm deck. It runs counter-magic galore as well as Wipe Away; and is generally focused on protection because it prefers to go off a turn or two later. It won't run Abrupt Decay, and it would give Storm players something to do with their hands (at least those Storm players who are willing to adapt). Off course then we'd have non-stop bitching that High Tide is a miserable deck to play against I guess. :tongue:

Zombie

12-14-2016, 08:00 PM

I'd infinitely prefer to play or play against High Tide than S&T, for what it's worth, pretty much regardless of what I play.

jimmythegreek

12-14-2016, 08:22 PM

I'd infinitely prefer to play or play against High Tide than S&T, for what it's worth, pretty much regardless of what I play.

Meh. I'd rather die to a bullet to the head than sucumb to a fatal case of syphilis.

Stuart

12-14-2016, 08:40 PM

While I would happily never play against Sneak Show ever again, there's no way High Tide's coming back. Ignoring the fact that very few players will buy Candle, the deck is just bad. It struggles with CounterTop, and you can easily spend 3-4 turns setting up a perfect hand just to Spiral into something like 3 Islands, 2 pieces of countermagic, a High Tide and a Turnabout. Show and Tell into Griselbrand is a much better use of your time.

thefringthing

12-14-2016, 09:00 PM

I like that in this conversation about how dominant Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void are, we're now discussing the conditions under which High Tide could make a comeback.

Ronald Deuce

12-14-2016, 09:18 PM

Plateaus and Taigas aren't vunerable to Wasteland? :eyebrow:

I probably didn't phrase what I was saying very well; what I meant was that replacing basics with nonbasics is a problem when you're only working with a maximum of three basics to begin with (out of 14–16 lands total; there's no room for more). It's not that any duals aren't vulnerable; it's that the whole manabase becomes vulnerable with fewer basic lands, especially when you've got fewer chances to find added lands because there are fewer lands in total than there are in most decks.

I highly doubt AnT is the only deck with this problem, though I haven't piloted enough decks in Legacy to say for sure.

nedleeds

12-14-2016, 09:23 PM

If you were correct on D&T or Shardless, why would they not have equal standing in the Top 8s? Are they all just worse players than the Miracles players?

Yes. This is genuinely the reason.

Better players and most try hards enjoy Miracles. Idiots play SnT because a literal ape fetus can sack wins with it. DNT is a new player deck as is Eldrazi and other food stamp decks. Take Chiba, the first 3 rounds were a sea of DNT, Burn and Chimpdrazi. And anecdotally the couple dozen matches I interacted with were new players.

Zombie

12-14-2016, 09:29 PM

Elves' mana base is awful. It's a monocolor deck practically, but the mana sucks.

btm10

12-14-2016, 10:02 PM

I'd infinitely prefer to play or play against High Tide than S&T, for what it's worth, pretty much regardless of what I play.

Seconded. At least the High Tide player is trying, and it's a budget-able deck (Candelabra is probably optimal, but from my conversations with proficient Hight Tide pilots, not having one isn't the end of the world).

Infect destroys Miracles and D&T, and is no cake walk for Lands either. Eldrazi is bad news for Infect. I honestly don't now much about Infect vs Shardless, but I have a hard time imagining it's really all that bad. Infect being fucked by the whole DTB section is flagrantly false.

Destroys Miracles is a stretch. It's favored, but the matchup isn't 70/30 in Infect's favor or anything. Shardless has a great Infect matchup, however. Unlike against normal combo decks, every card in Shardless has relevant text. In my experience playing the Shardless side, the Infect matchup is better than most Delver matchups.

Chatto

12-15-2016, 01:53 AM

grimfield

12-15-2016, 02:28 AM

Infect destroys Miracles and D&T, and is no cake walk for Lands either. Eldrazi is bad news for Infect. I honestly don't now much about Infect vs Shardless, but I have a hard time imagining it's really all that bad. Infect being fucked by the whole DTB section is flagrantly false.

I'm not sure which deck(s) you generally play, but I find this comment to be off base. I'm also not sure why I decided to post in this terrible thread, but I have been drinking and feel compelled. Since the printing of become immense, I have probably played ~100 sanctioned matches with infect. Miracles is favorable, but only slightly -- it varies on build. Ponder/predict is the easiest, whereas legends builds are only slightly in infect's favor. Uncounterable venser, multiple flying blockers, izzet staticaster etc, make this matchup not as easy you believe.

Lands I actually find to be rather easy as infect. You can vines your thing precombat to beat maze, or run reality ripple like a champ and say sayonara to glacial chasm. Crop rotation into karakas buffers the solution further.

DnT is actually not as good as you believe. Sure, sometimes you win on turn 2 or 3 with elf and they have no permission and you are like :rolleyes:. Generally I view this matchup as fairly even though. Infect runs one basic land. DnT has many blockers on the ground, runs 4 swords, and basically shuts off inkmoth nexus with 8 MD lands you can't interact with. Infect does not run very many lands or colored sources in total. Basically it's agent or bust if your hand isn't quick. Jitte is game, and due to the presence of chalice, it is no longer feasible to run 1 CMC answers such as nature's claim. Casting Kgrip can be a challenge, and DnT players will often bring in Canonist if they are intelligent.

TLDR; I don't feel like infect is very well positioned right now, and have been playing 4c delver or reanimator.

On topic: let's unban skullclamp because screw it, 1 cmc spells are unplayable due to CB/top and Chalice right? I want sweet value with my elemental tokens, and I'm sure my elf pilot friends would enjoy it. Also cheeri0s is now super enjoyable to pilot. SFM should be searching out broken stuff, not whammyskull5000.

Lemnear

12-15-2016, 02:55 AM

Regarding Storm and AD, I'm willing to forget you said Infect runs Decay (you'll note I let you slide on that) if you'll forgive my slip-up.

Doesn't sound like me. May point me to that claim?

I think you are going the Donald Trump way of just flinging dirt at your conversation partners

Lanfs normally runs Grip and does just fine (AD builds are the exception).

Yeah, because it runs Chalice too

Crimhead

12-15-2016, 03:33 AM

there's no way High Tide's coming back. Ignoring the fact that very few players will buy Candle, the deck is just bad. It struggles with CounterTop, and you can easily spend 3-4 turns setting up a perfect hand just to Spiral into something like 3 Islands, 2 pieces of countermagic, a High Tide and a Turnabout. Show and Tell into Griselbrand is a much better use of your time.I was speaking of a Frantic Search unban, which would point to Reset builds.

Speedbump

12-15-2016, 04:36 AM

I don't see a metagame where High Tide becomes viable, even with Frantic Search unbanned, outside of banning one of/both Chalice of the Void and Countertop. The deck just doesn't have the raw power to get there, unless your name is Feline Longmore.

Burn splashes green for Destructive Revelry.Eh, usually not. Most Burn players either run Red Elemental Blast effects, or run Vexing Shusher, as those cards combat the cards Burn is actually concerned about. (Counterbalance locks in particular) Unless the metagame switches to 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard, Destructive Revelry isn't worth the slot in the metagame.

Megadeus

12-15-2016, 07:49 AM

Eh,burn just gets under you and burns you and then finishes with a 6CMC spell or an uncountable exquisite fire craft to dodge counter balance. And they're in red so they can beat artifacts

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-15-2016, 08:47 AM

Then proceed to 1-2 drop because that's what burn does.

Ace/Homebrew

12-15-2016, 09:40 AM

Eh, usually not. Most Burn players either run Red Elemental Blast effects, or run Vexing Shusher, as those cards combat the cards Burn is actually concerned about. (Counterbalance locks in particular) Unless the metagame switches to 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard, Destructive Revelry isn't worth the slot in the metagame.

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=21559&iddeck=165430
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=21452&iddeck=164524
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=21278&iddeck=162968
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=21178&iddeck=162080

People definitely do, but it certainly isn't typical. That was mostly my point though, you splash to adjust to a meta where your deck has deficiencies.

rlesko

12-15-2016, 10:09 AM

iatee

12-15-2016, 10:34 AM

Dice_Box

12-15-2016, 10:49 AM

Playing Lands, if against Infect we are still playing after turn 3 I am winning that game. Unless they smack me fast I feel like the game is favoured. I have Ghost Quarter for their only basic, Wasteland for everything else, Tabernacle then caused hell and Punishing Fire forces them to cast shit on my terms. But, all of that said, a top deck buff can kill, and has more than once.

Sidneyious

12-15-2016, 11:23 AM

So people here have a hate for

Cantrips
Counterspells
Prison effects
Taxes
Additional fees
"Free"
Hate/hoser
Free wins
Long games
Short games
Splashing
Interaction
Noninteraction
Cheating into play

No one answered my question.

If you hate a specific deck or set of cards what deck do you play?

Dice_Box

12-15-2016, 11:34 AM

If you hate a specific deck or set of cards what deck do you play?Simply? Whatever they own. The price of cards in Legacy these days means people are normal pressed into what they have. I have a very understanding wife, so I get more freedom than most, but I would be shocked if the majority of Legacy players had more that 2 substantially different decks.

Ace/Homebrew

12-15-2016, 12:04 PM

I'm curious about what decks these "ban enablers dot Dec" play.
That wasn't rhetorical? :eyebrow:

I'd imagine they play a deck that gets hosed by the particular enabler they are griping against.

If you hate a specific deck or set of cards what deck do you play?
Wouldn't you play a deck that has the highest probability of beating the offending deck or set of cards?

Fox

12-15-2016, 12:27 PM

No one answered my question.

If you hate a specific deck or set of cards what deck do you play?
If you want to contribute in a meaningful way to pan-topics like B/R, yours is a question that won't be answered. When you read into someone's analysis and infer what deck they are on [i.e. advocating for] should be all the information you need. It's more a question of whether or not the metrics of their analysis has successfully divorced themselves from a biased starting point.

We're generally discussing potential bans which shape the current meta-game, how then is it useful to potentially ascribe higher value to posts of the current tier 1 perspective (which is potentially only tier one directly or indirectly due to a card being discussed)?

Stevestamopz

12-15-2016, 03:47 PM

I want brainstorm and show and tell banned. I play 4c Delver and DnT. They both have exceptional Sneak and Show matchups. You can get off your high horse now.

Sidneyious

12-15-2016, 04:31 PM

Simply? Whatever they own. The price of cards in Legacy these days means people are normal pressed into what they have. I have a very understanding wife, so I get more freedom than most, but I would be shocked if the majority of Legacy players had more that 2 substantially different decks.

I'm using simply what I own and I'm not complaining.

That wasn't rhetorical? :eyebrow:

I'd imagine they play a deck that gets hosed by the particular enabler they are griping against.

Wouldn't you play a deck that has the highest probability of beating the offending deck or set of cards?

No, and if we all wanted to think you you say "highest chance" then we would all be on 5 decks.

I could sell 2 decks and build miracles or storm but I don't want to play thoes decks.

Yes I lose but I also win, I'm not complaining about any one particular card, I'm complaining about how some here are complaining.

If you want to contribute in a meaningful way to pan-topics like B/R, yours is a question that won't be answered. When you read into someone's analysis and infer what deck they are on [i.e. advocating for] should be all the information you need. It's more a question of whether or not the metrics of their analysis has successfully divorced themselves from a biased starting point.

We're generally discussing potential bans which shape the current meta-game, how then is it useful to potentially ascribe higher value to posts of the current tier 1 perspective (which is potentially only tier one directly or indirectly due to a card being discussed)?

So far all I see is complaining and no I don't see what deck they are on.

I am trying to contribute in a meaningful way, I'm not crying about cards, or weather or not this or that is interactive.

I want brainstorm and show and tell banned. I play 4c Delver and DnT. They both have exceptional Sneak and Show matchups. You can get off your high horse now.

I don't have a horse and thank you for actually contributing to.my question.

---------

I ask because I don't know everyone's decks, pet decks, or what they are trying to accomplish in legacy.

Legacy was defined because it was cheaper than t1.
Now we approach t1 levels is bonkers we have people complaining more about this and that than price.

I actually don't see any factual information as to why 30 of the pillars of legacy should be banned in anyway other than you don't like it.

That's what I see when I read most of this topic, if we were going to ban cards based on popularity and performance then land should be the first to go.

These cards are inherent and have been around for years and now people just start wanting to p&m about these cards?

Don't give me any jive like "but this card broke it", that's hogwash and you know it.

Now we are going to have someone say "strawman attempt" instead of actually talk to me like a decent human being.

If you think I'm on a horse then the way you talk to me or each other for that matter you all have many horses to be sitting on.

This site is supposed to be the pillar of mtg information, I don't see any actual information in this topic.

Your friendly neighborhood observer.

rlesko

12-15-2016, 05:11 PM

Infect is absolutely favored vs DnT. In Tom Ross' guide to Infect he calls it, 'a pretty easy matchup'.

It's winnable for DnT, not comparable to Elves, and sideboard Ethersworn Canonists help a lot. But I've played the matchup hundreds of times and there are some pretty obvious patterns. DnT is removal light, so there are very few ways to interact with Blighted Agents or a fast combo hand. Even when DnT has a StP, Infect just needs to set up a combo hand with protection. T1 Noble Hierarchs ramp Infect past a lot of the taxing effects.

Did you completely neglect to mention umezawa's jitte? yes you identified the problem card in blighted agent but inkmorh and glistener are easily dealt with. The number of times you have a turn 2 kill on the play is extremely low...

Ace/Homebrew

12-15-2016, 05:13 PM

Now we are going to have someone say "strawman attempt" instead of actually talk to me like a decent human being.
Sharing just because you might find it interesting: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/eng207-td/Logic%20and%20Analysis/most_common_logical_fallacies.htm

Strawman is listed towards the bottom. When people say that it isn't (typically) to dismiss the opposition without actually responding, it would be because the opposition isn't honoring the gentleman's agreement of debate (that you argue logically).

This site is supposed to be the pillar of mtg information, I don't see any actual information in this topic.
I think you misunderstand the purpose of this thread. It's a contained garbage fire, not a place to have any kind of meaningful discussion.

iatee

12-15-2016, 05:31 PM

Did you completely neglect to mention umezawa's jitte? yes you identified the problem card in blighted agent but inkmorh and glistener are easily dealt with. The number of times you have a turn 2 kill on the play is extremely low...

Unless DnT's opening is exactly Mom -> Jitte, DnT can't have a Jitte online until turn 4. Generally goes t2 SfM, t3 float it in or play a creature, t4 equip and attack. So when Infect is on the play, they get 4 turns to do whatever they want with little disruption, not 2. They don't need to win on t2 with an Elf, they can win on t4 with an Agent. Infect may not have many t2 goldfish wins, but they tend to be able to figure out a way to win by t4. When they're on the draw, Jitte is gonna come down faster, and DnT is a little less unfavored, but g2/3 most Infect players will have quite a few Naturalize or Needle effects anyway, so the easy Jitte wins are generally going to only be g1, DnT on the play, Infect has a slow hand. It's not like that never happens, like I said it's not like the matchup is unwinnable for DnT, but I've playtested this matchup with friends, playing dozens of games in a row (pretty easy because the games are fast) and DnT is absolutely unfavored.

Ronald Deuce

12-15-2016, 06:08 PM

Crimhead

12-15-2016, 07:15 PM

That's a really important point. One reason I don't think it's realistic to tell people to just sack up and adapt is that it's not easy to drop everything and play something substantially different for a lot of people.Sure, some people can't afford to adapt. And it sucks. But is it fair to ban cards to favour their tier two decks? This is just going to pass the buck onto people who get hit by the ban. Then what? Ban even more cards because they can't afford to adapt either?

@Sydney
I play RUG Lands or RG Land; with or without a black splash. I currently don't want anything banned. I am very happy with the wide range of play-styles among competitive decks.

Ronald Deuce

12-15-2016, 07:56 PM

Sure, some people can't afford to adapt. And it sucks. But is it fair to ban cards to favour their tier two decks? This is just going to pass the buck onto people who get hit by the ban. Then what? Ban even more cards because they can't afford to adapt either?

I think this is also an important point. I don't support bans generally for this reason (I remember finishing Modern Storm around the same time every card that made the deck go 'round got banned) among others.

I feel like Wizards has made it clear that they don't prioritize banning cards in Legacy. I think that's great, and I hope they don't take the road they've chosen for Modern, which has repeatedly discouraged me from getting into the format. I can understand why they do it; it's easy to print a card that accidentally collapses a "turn-4-at-earliest" format. But Legacy's got a much more stringent threshold for a card's playability, meaning that something has to really make waves to even enter the format as a playable card.

What Wizards has also made clear is that it's still interested in manipulating the Legacy format, even if it's not particularly interested in supporting it or really taking the time to test cards for it. I'm irked that they green-lit Prelate, both Thalias, Thought-Knot Seer, and Reality Smasher (and, of course, Recruiter of the Guard; promo Imperial Recruiters remain, as of the last time I checked, cheaper than snazzy original printings). Clearly with these cards, they were either oblivious to a pretty catchable flaw in their set design (TKS, Smasher), or they were actively promoting a Legacy deck that I would argue didn't need the help (Prelate, Thalias, Recruiter). But they also printed Delver of Secrets and Past in Flames. It has cut both ways in the past.

Assuming the Legacy playability of these cards was countenanced, this is a pretty rollercoastery, slipshod method of manipulating Legacy, but I still prefer it quite a bit to bans. I'm holding out hope that they'll throw us dirty combo-players a bone, but I'm also willing to acknowledge that quick fixes and bannings have consequences that reach beyond the format to its players.

Dice_Box

12-15-2016, 08:47 PM

I'm using simply what I own and I'm not complaining.False Equivalence fallacy. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence)

btm10

12-16-2016, 05:19 PM

What Wizards has also made clear is that it's still interested in manipulating the Legacy format, even if it's not particularly interested in supporting it or really taking the time to test cards for it. I'm irked that they green-lit Prelate, both Thalias, Thought-Knot Seer, and Reality Smasher (and, of course, Recruiter of the Guard; promo Imperial Recruiters remain, as of the last time I checked, cheaper than snazzy original printings). Clearly with these cards, they were either oblivious to a pretty catchable flaw in their set design (TKS, Smasher), or they were actively promoting a Legacy deck that I would argue didn't need the help (Prelate, Thalias, Recruiter). But they also printed Delver of Secrets and Past in Flames. It has cut both ways in the past.

Assuming the Legacy playability of these cards was countenanced, this is a pretty rollercoastery, slipshod method of manipulating Legacy, but I still prefer it quite a bit to bans. I'm holding out hope that they'll throw us dirty combo-players a bone, but I'm also willing to acknowledge that quick fixes and bannings have consequences that reach beyond the format to its players.

I think they knew exactly what they were doing with regard to Death and Taxes - it's the best deck that requires no Reserved List cards and they're pretty clearly doing their best to support the format without killing the RL (which is totally rational from a business perspective). This could honestly be part of the reason that they haven't taken action against Miracles: other than Duals, which it runs relatively few of, the whole deck can be reprinted as needed (sideboard cards like Moat notwithstanding). EMA and Conspiracy 2 also gave us reprints of combo staples in Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, Entomb, and Animate Dead, and those decks work pretty well without duals as well.

Crimhead

12-17-2016, 06:16 AM

EMA and Conspiracy 2 also gave us reprints of combo staples in Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, Entomb, and Animate Dead, and those decks work pretty well without duals as well.I Think when he said "throw us dirty combo-players a bone" he meant something that makes a combo deck actually a little bit stronger - not just easier to acquire. Legacy just wouldn't be Legacy without combo decks (which are actually well positioned), and I think a new toy is long overdue. My gut tells me Mystical Tutor is too good, but I think the meta could handle FS. And of course a new printing would also be welcome!

In other news, Infect is now DTB again. I hope we can lose the BS about Miracles having no predators // bad match-ups.

thefringthing

12-17-2016, 12:24 PM

Mystical Tutor is too good, but only because it's nuts with Show and Tell or Counterbalance or both.

Megadeus

12-17-2016, 12:42 PM

Mystical Tutor is too good, but only because it's nuts with Show and Tell or Counterbalance or both.

Or storm. Mystical is completely fucking bonkers. Especially as long as probe is legal

Zombie

12-17-2016, 01:09 PM

Ah the days when you could crack LEDs on upkeep, Mystical, float to draw step and AdN them dead.

Megadeus

12-17-2016, 01:23 PM

Now you just tutor for PIF, cast probe, break LED, cast pif and do it all again. Cars is completely retarded with probe

I would just splash white in show and tell and have a misers terminus to tutor up

Lemnear

12-17-2016, 02:51 PM

Mystical, Vampiric, Imperial Seal and Demonic are too critical to be unbanned ever. They dont come with any deckbuilding restriction and wield the ability to include silver-bullets in any deck running black or blue.

I do not think it would be a MAYOR improvement for Storm in particular, but giving tutors to all sort of decks would be warping the metagame in a bad way. Mystical in particular would be abused in Miracles, S&T and Storm and I don't see a reason to do so

thefringthing

12-17-2016, 05:44 PM

I've played Personal Tutor in Storm to try to do Past in Flames tricks like that. It isn't that good; you can't actually ever resolve a one-drop after turn one right now.

Megadeus

12-17-2016, 11:49 PM

Your tutor is much better when it can come down end of turn and can also fetch any ritual as well as ad nauseam itself.

Crimhead

12-18-2016, 09:03 AM

Lemnear

12-18-2016, 10:06 AM

Yeah, well I mentioned Mystical as a card which wasn't safe to unban. FS is probably fine, and would be good for Reset Tide. I'm not sure what else could be unbanned that would help combo; unless of course Mind Twist would give Elves an extra push.

Foremost the card unbanned should not create a miserable experience like creating blowouts. Thats a reason I am very sceptical about Mind Twist. It either does nothing or creates a blowout when legal in the format. Imo there is no need to risk it unnecessarily

Crimhead

12-18-2016, 10:20 AM

Foremost the card unbanned should not create a miserable experience like creating blowouts. Thats a reason I am very sceptical about Mind Twist. It either does nothing or creates a blowout when legal in the format. Imo there is no need to risk it unnecessarilyI think blow-outs is a concern for Standard or Modern, not for Legacy. This is the format where you can play Belcher, Sneak-Show, Geddon Stax, Pox, etc.

Also, you see this as too much black & white. eg, Elves could play a Twist on turn two or three to deplete the opponent's hand and buy them time to deal with a lock piece before getting overrun. Losing your hand doesn't always equal a blowout. Especially if you've already put relevant cards onto the board.

Lemnear

12-18-2016, 10:25 AM

I think blow-outs is a concern for Standard or Modern, not for Legacy. This is the format where you can play Belcher, Sneak-Show, Geddon Stax, Pox, etc.

I think ot makes one hell of a difference if you build the whole deck around certain ways to blow your opponent out of the water or just need to slip in 4 cards in an existing shell to achieve the same without any design restictions.

Crimhead

12-18-2016, 10:28 AM

I think ot makes one hell of a difference if you build the whole deck around certain ways to blow your opponent out of the water or just need to slip in 4 cards in an existing shell to achieve the same without any design restictions.
Nobodies going to build a dedicated Twist deck because it would suck. Maybe Elves and/or Tezz could slip four (or fewer) into their "existing shell" and it might help bail them out of trouble (which is the opposite of a blowout).

DarthVicious

12-19-2016, 09:00 AM

I think ot makes one hell of a difference if you build the whole deck around certain ways to blow your opponent out of the water ...

*puzzled look around at the decks available in this format*

Lemnear

12-19-2016, 09:53 AM

Nobodies going to build a dedicated Twist deck because it would suck. Maybe Elves and/or Tezz could slip four (or fewer) into their "existing shell" and it might help bail them out of trouble (which is the opposite of a blowout).

I cant imagine that MindTwist works as a "recovery or comeback mechanic" against an established countertop lock or a board full of Eldrazi. Twist is a pure and optional blowout technto run away with a favorable gamestate PREVENTING the opponents ability to recover from your favored position.

Whitefaces

12-19-2016, 10:00 AM

I cant imagine that MindTwist works as a "recovery or comeback mechanic" against an established countertop lock or a board full of Eldrazi. Twist is a pure and optional blowout technto run away with a favorable gamestate PREVENTING the opponents ability to recover from your favored position.

Hardly. If you're talking about it in Elves, Terminus comes from the top of the deck. What you're describing sounds winmore.

Crimhead

12-19-2016, 10:28 AM

I cant imagine that MindTwist works as a "recovery or comeback mechanic" against an established countertop lock or a board full of Eldrazi.Counter-top lock doesn't always come down by turn two - sometimes Miracles players need to find a piece, and Twist will slow them down.

Same goes for Eldrazi (or Loam). The idea is to get a Twist off after Chalice but before they fill the board with creatures, allowing the Elf player more time to find a Rec Sage or GSZ before getting overrun.

Obviously against a fully assembled counter-top lock or Chalice plus "a board full of Eldrazis" this won't be enough, but I was thinking before the game-state gets quite so lopsided. despite what you might think of this format, games are not always so totally one sided.

Dice_Box

12-23-2016, 04:05 AM

l33twash0r

12-23-2016, 05:01 AM

I know this has come up before, but I don't have time to look for it right now. Other than Dual Lands, what cards are played in Legacy that are on the list? I had a thought after Maro asked about Snow lands on Twitter and I want to write about their impact, and who they will help and who they will not.

Tabernacle, chains, abyss, nether void, candelabra, transmute artifact, eureka, moat, Lions eye diamond, city of solitude, null rod, aluren, mox diamond, cradle, sanctum, time spiral, recurring nightmare and cursed scroll. I think I missed few.

Lemnear

12-23-2016, 05:02 AM

Dice_Box

12-23-2016, 05:15 AM

Thanks.

The ideas I have seen are Snow, Legendary and Fast Dual Lands. I plan to explore each and the decks they would and would not help as well as the reasons for that. I have not actually seen a breakdown on how these cards would help those who are new enter the format. I think the impact will fluctuate largely and some decks will be much better off than others. Obviously.

When looking at the good that new Duals would bring, it would be amiss not to look at the balance issues other Listed cards would create. Not that I deem that as a reason not to print Duals, but it's something I wish to explore. For example, handing someone three Taiga does very little to help with building Lands thanks to other cards, but handing someone a set of Sea, Bayou and Tropical will help make Shardless. So in will have a large impact in some key locations.

Not to say this is even going to happen, but Maro really did not seem to understand how the printing of Snow Duals would help us, so if there is any chance this might actually happen, I want to pen an article as to how it would help and why it's a good idea. Also thats not a dig at Maro. He was asking real questions and getting real answers to which he would then ask reasonable (for a Legacy outsider) questions looking for clarification. I think this is worth exploring for those who can make these choices could use good information.

Lemnear

12-23-2016, 07:15 AM

Crimhead

12-23-2016, 07:20 AM

City of Traitors, LED, Tabernacle are more which come to mindAlso Cradle (and Mox Diamond). In other words every viable combo deck except Reanimator, as well as every prison deck that's not white-weenie. Also Aggro Loam and 12 Post.

Unlike Duals, printing quality replacements for these has a big impact of allowing some decks to double up. Eight LEDs in Dredge/Storm? Two Tabernacles in play for Lands? This is potentially a lot less benign than simply running 5-8 dual lands I think.

The ideas I have seen are Snow, Legendary and Fast Dual Lands.Of course the Official Reprint Policy would need to be changed to allow Snow Duals at all - currently super types are not considered sufficient distinction according to that policy.

Not to say this is even going to happen, but Maro really did not seem to understand how the printing of Snow Duals would help us, so if there is any chance this might actually happen, I want to pen an article as to how it would help and why it's a good idea.It's a double edged sword, because the format could experience tremendous growth, but the meta would be skewed heavily towards fair decks.

I'd certainly welcome it, but my preferred printing would be a Dual that can't be run as a foursome (three maximum per deck). There is a precedent for rules text which alters the four-max rule already, and they'd be effectively as good as actual Duals for almost every deck. Even decks that run four (like Infect) could be built with only one ABUR Dual or built in budget form with a minimal setback.

Dice_Box

12-23-2016, 07:32 AM

Snow duals and the like are cheap attempts to get around the RL and all those would hurt are the Stores and Collectors. While I have no respect of people, who want a stock-market-light which requires less knowledge but wield a bigger profit %-wise, I fear it will hit resistance because of the dirty connection of WotC with the big stores.
I have a playset of each Dual and I want this to happen. Will it hurt stores? In the short term perhaps, but if Legacy is suddenly more popular I think it would help them in the long term. Will it hurt Collectors? No. I am a collector, I have a collection, I play with it. I want this. Will it hurt horders? Why the fuck should I care?

Also, as Crim points out, more duals available doesn't cause major issues to the way the format is exists. The only deck I have ever see run a shock as "Dual number 5" is Dead Guy. No one else would do that. What they would do is spread out their duals in competitive decks to dodge things like Surgical and that's about it.

l33twash0r

12-23-2016, 07:53 AM

Some UR delvers did run steam vents as volc number 5

Crimhead

12-23-2016, 07:56 AM

Personally I'm okay with decks running a fifth on-colour dual. I don't think it would push any decks to busted power levels. Basics are good in this format.

Ronald Deuce

12-23-2016, 09:34 AM

Unlike Duals, printing quality replacements for these has a big impact of allowing some decks to double up. Eight LEDs in Dredge/Storm?

I can confirm that that would be a catastrophic success.

Functional reprints opens up a discussion about what cards would suddenly go over the moon with the printing of buddies 5-8, and though I'm interested in having/seeing it, I don't think Wizards is likely to test thoroughly enough to prevent some kind of ridiculous shenanigans. If they know their limitations, they probably wouldn't want to consider functional reprints.

I guess there's always the strategy of saying "if you have [RL card] in your deck, you may not play this card [i.e. the facsimile]," but that's goofy even without considering the logistical and gameplay issues that might cause depending on how they handle it.

Dice_Box

12-23-2016, 11:31 AM

This is going to take a while, I need to talk and not pratel. My essays all have that same problem. I will get this done though.

Stevestamopz

12-23-2016, 07:02 PM

Eight LEDs in Dredge/Storm? Two Tabernacles in play for Lands? This is potentially a lot less benign than simply running 5-8 dual lands I think.

Nah it's real simple mate.

They print Jizz-glazed Eye Diamond, and they ban Lions Eye Diamond.

Problem solved. Thank me later.

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-23-2016, 09:56 PM

Bukkake Diamond is only appropriate with Tentacles of Agony

Lemnear

12-24-2016, 05:00 AM

Nah it's real simple mate.

They print Jizz-glazed Eye Diamond, and they ban Lions Eye Diamond.

Problem solved. Thank me later.

Yeah, aside the fact that they would look like full retards to ban LED and leave the functional reprint legal for whatever reason

Stevestamopz

12-24-2016, 10:11 AM

Yeah, aside the fact that they would look like full retards to ban LED and leave the functional reprint legal for whatever reason

Well two things..

1: wotc already are apes

2: they would look like bigger retards if they did good for the format and got around the RL issue but then allowed people to play with 8 Lions Eye Diamonds, thus not actually solving the RL issue.

Stevestamopz

12-25-2016, 12:21 AM

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0f3QxNUAAApgs3.jpg

Merry Christmas from all of us at the Salt Mine (www.thesaltminesite.com - new ep out today)

Namida

12-25-2016, 09:58 PM

Bukkake Diamond is only appropriate with Tentacles of Agony

Fun fact: Tendrils of Agony translates to "Tentacles of Anguish" in Japanese, so we're already halfway there.

Ronald Deuce

12-28-2016, 05:17 PM

Fun fact: Tendrils of Agony translates to "Tentacles of Anguish" in Japanese, so we're already halfway there.

I've heard that Empty the Warrens has a pretty funny translation, too.

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-28-2016, 10:47 PM

Is it drain the swamp per chance?

Ronald Deuce

12-29-2016, 11:33 AM

Is it drain the swamp per chance?

LOL!

I found the link that had some pretty great translations if you Google Translate it: http://www.bigmagic.net/bmo05/legacy/03.html

Highlights include "Regular Work" for Preordain, "Goblin of Arson Gun" for Charbelcher, "Glyceraldehyde Brand" for Griselbrand, "Squirting the Tyrant" for Tidespout, and "Crimson Hell" for Pyroclasm.

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-29-2016, 04:00 PM

Squirting the Tyrant sounds like a hentai I've (likely) watched

Lord Seth

12-29-2016, 06:45 PM

I know "Greater Good" was apparently mistranslated as "Better Merchandise" but I can't remember which language that was in.

Barook

12-29-2016, 08:19 PM

"Crimson Hell" for Pyroclasm.
Google Translate tells me it's "Crimson Breast". :laugh:

Other stuff:
"Ceremonial Ceremony / Cabal Ritual"
"Congress of Congress / Council's Judgment"
"Behind the Beatles / Craterhoof Behemoth"

And Jace is appearently called Jerry in Japan.

CutthroatCasual

12-29-2016, 10:29 PM

Anyone read that SCG Premium article? I know we're boycotting that store so... if there's some way :cool::wink:

wsurugby10

12-29-2016, 11:20 PM

Anyone read that SCG Premium article? I know we're boycotting that store so... if there's some way :cool::wink:

I don't have premium. What was it about?

Stevestamopz

12-30-2016, 01:57 AM

Anyone read that SCG Premium article? I know we're boycotting that store so... if there's some way :cool::wink:

If only there was a way to be more specific... seriously, there are like 10 a day.

Namida

12-30-2016, 02:03 AM

Squirting the Tyrant sounds like a hentai I've (likely) watched

The Japanese translation for Tidespout Tyrant literally means that kind of squirting (the word they use is the same one for a geyser eruption, but it's slang for a *different* kind of geyser). People at my local store normally scream something obscene everytime one hits play.

Dice_Box

12-30-2016, 02:51 AM

This is, without compare, the best use of this thread bar none.

CutthroatCasual

12-30-2016, 08:50 AM

I don't have premium. What was it about?

Neither do it, I just read the 2 paragraph preview. The talked about "Miracles dominating Legacy."

If only there was a way to be more specific... seriously, there are like 10 a day.

The one by Sam Black titled "My Banned Wish List."

Lord_Mcdonalds

12-30-2016, 09:33 AM

That is actually mindblowing knowing that and I now need a set of Japanese Tyrants on the off chance I play them xD

Ronald Deuce

12-30-2016, 10:38 AM

Jerry

"Jerry, Jace, the Mind Sculptor." "Jess, Jess, Jace, the Mind Sculptor." "Jerus, Jess, the Mind Sculptor." "Vincent's Shadow, Jayce." I can't maintain.

Regarding the banlist wish list, has anyone read the whole article? Interested to hear what else (if anything) it says about Legacy. I'm guessing the preview version said everything there is to hear, but still.

Megadeus

12-30-2016, 10:54 AM

Does anyone on here actually pay for star city premium so they can read these useless articles? Seriously. You're paying money to read "better content" but you end up with some dudes wish list on cards he think should be banned. I could write a blog post that is equally meaningful

ramanujan

12-30-2016, 11:14 AM

Lets play a minigame. Find the broken card. 4 possible starting hands:

http://i.imgur.com/iIJ4SJZ.png

http://i.imgur.com/MaMl3Y5.png

http://i.imgur.com/OHV5STd.png

http://i.imgur.com/5vVcHZX.png

I choose misty rainforest, seriously.

Lemnear

12-30-2016, 11:30 AM

I choose misty rainforest, seriously.

Of course its misty Rainforest in all these examples. Its the card which powers ever Ponder, Brainstorm, TC. Its essentially what I say since forever: The enabler is not Brainstorm but fetchlands

thefringthing

12-30-2016, 03:00 PM

I get the sense from the comments that Sam Black's article is mostly about Modern, but he does argue for banning Sensei's Divining Top in Legacy on the basis that 1) Miracles is too dominant in Legacy, and has been for a long time, 2) the Counterbalance/Sensei's Divining Top lock is too miserable to play against, and 3) Sensei's Divining Top uses up too much clock time. He specifically states that it should have been banned in Legacy when it was banned in Extended for reason 3 alone, but alleges that it was left alone because WotC doesn't particularly care about the health of Legacy.

Seraphix

12-31-2016, 06:06 PM

An anecdote for the cantrip haters:

At my FNM last night I played a degenerate 20-land 8-cantrip Stoneblade deck with 4 drops.

I got paired against Maverick, which I think is a bad matchup for Stoneblade. I ended up winning the match 2-0. How did it happen?

My opponent had reasonable hands and played well to the best that I could tell from the other side. I was definitely on
the ropes in several spots. But throughout the match I cast infinite cantrips (hiding fetchable lands and Equipments and shuffling them away like a skillful Blue player) and always found the timely land, the timely Wear/Tear, the timely Supreme Verdict, the timely True-Name Nemesis. There were cards my opponent could have that would mean trouble for me. But he could only hope to draw them naturally, without the assistance of Skillstorm and Pondurdle.

I guess all I'm really saying is "yup, cantrips are stupidly good". While I'm not advocating a particular ban, it is definitely interesting to imagine a Legacy format where you couldn't build the kind of deck I played. I'd like to think that right now we are at a point where the format has adapted to discourage this kind of deckbuilding with Chalice, Counter-Top, Thalia, etc.