All B/R update speculation. [Archive] - Page 71

Andy_Prime

08-30-2017, 07:10 PM

And many people think fetches are a problem. But it's more likely one card gets banned rather than 10. Every time I see someone say that I facepalm mentally

Fetches are the problem, They enable all kinda issues for legacy (and any format they are legal in).

They make Brainstorm much more broken.
They make delve far better.
They make DRS almost always provide mana.
They enable 4 color decks with few mana issues.
They made top broken with the ability to shuffle stuff away easily, leading to its ban.
Fetches also add alot of shuffling and cutting the game. Shaving many minutes of time out of each round leading to more draws.
Fetches open up many opportunities for cheating because players get to handle the decks that much more often. That is how the Rookie of the year cheated and a few other people that year that got caught stacking their opponents deck while resolving a fetch. How many didn't get caught?

Is it unlikely that fetches will every get banned. Totally, will never happen. And yes it is more likely 1 card gets banned then 10. But that does not mean that fetches are not at the root of the issue.

Ronald Deuce

08-30-2017, 09:10 PM

Sidneyious keeping the "70-percenters" honest.

Dice_Box

08-30-2017, 11:22 PM

On the Salt Mine cast in the aftermath of Tops removal, I commented on Fetches. The talk about time wasted with Top (One of the issues stated it it's removal) at the time was seen as a joke, something to be shouted down. But it was a true criticism of the card. Yet it was a dual criticism. Top alone did not cause all the issues, top and Fetches did so and thus the comment on Top stood true. They were not going to remove fetches from the format, so Top was taken out.

The comment is also true for Brainstorm. The card is phenomenally weaker without fetches, but they are not going away. When pointing at Fetches and saying they are a problem, it's a dual standard, because every argument made about Brainstorm, sans time, can be made about Fetches. But yes, they are a problem.

But the defence of Brainstorm is, honestly, "People like playing it". I have made a more in-depth post about that here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31947-Podcast-Eternal-Durdles-Getting-the-Banned-back-together&p=1021875&viewfull=1#post1021875) and I feel like it's the most true statement in Legacy.

We have Pillars, we have 4, one exists because it has to:
Force.
One exists because it's the driving idea behind 1.5:
Duals
Two exist because of the outrage caused by their removal:
Brainstorm and Fetches

When someone says "X" is an issue, the question is whether you agree with it or not. But deflecting to "Y" really does not help anyone. Are fetches a blight on the format? No, I personally feel they add much for all. Is Brainstorm a Blight on the Format? That's a question I have answered my views on and others here know. Is talking about one to deflect from the other in any way honest? No, it's just changing the topic without meeting and debating the issues. There is no honesty in saying "Quick, look over there" and then running away.

Julian23

08-31-2017, 05:37 AM

I'd love to see Fetchlands go. It's the single kind of card I want removed from competitive play the most. I couldn't care less about Brainstorm.

Fetchlands waste so much time, it's among the Top5 worst things to ever happen to competitive Magic. Especially with regards to broadcasting. It's such a pain in the ass. The only "upside" is that probably 80% of people don't shuffle enough after a Fetchland, making it slightly more bearable as a spectator, but generally sucking even more with regards to the integrity of the game.

Barook

08-31-2017, 06:16 AM

Sidneyious keeping the "70-percenters" honest.
It's true for the Online metagame, though:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/legacy

taconaut

08-31-2017, 08:29 AM

juzamjimjams

08-31-2017, 08:41 AM

I don't know about everybody else, but I am super happy to be able to pay a couple life and a couple minutes to help make sure my mana is fine most of the time. It's really not that big a deal, whereas losing to mana/color screw/flood feels miserable. I get that it has attendant problems but I think they're generally worth the trouble.

I think the major issue people have with the fetches is the impact it has on game play in terms of search and shuffle time, as opposed to the color fixing (speaking in general terms here). Personally, I really enjoy playing with fetchlands, though I think that the impact it has on time consumption for tournament play - especially in terms of broadcasting - is a nightmare.

taconaut

08-31-2017, 09:11 AM

I think the major issue people have with the fetches is the impact it has on game play in terms of search and shuffle time, as opposed to the color fixing (speaking in general terms here). Personally, I really enjoy playing with fetchlands, though I think that the impact it has on time consumption for tournament play - especially in terms of broadcasting - is a nightmare.

I don't watch streams of Magic, so maybe that's why it doesn't irk me as much, but I feel like my opponents spend more time tanking in any given match than they do shuffling. I really don't think it impacts the clock that much. That being said, I feel like a lot of the people who object to them are also the people that think slow play warnings should be issued on every turn that takes longer than thirty seconds, so I might just be less sensitive to it.

Sidneyious

08-31-2017, 10:11 AM

I always keep the clock in mind and do stuff fast.

I used to watch gameplay footage but I get annoyed when I see them taking forever on a decision they already know what to do.

morgan_coke

08-31-2017, 10:22 AM

I always keep the clock in mind and do stuff fast.

I used to watch gameplay footage but I get annoyed when I see them taking forever on a decision they already know what to do.

If i'm playing modo and someone is taking too long, I will absolutely bail on the match.

Mr. Froggy

08-31-2017, 01:09 PM

If i'm playing modo and someone is taking too long, I will absolutely bail on the match.

I once told a guy on MODO, politely, to hurry up his play a bit. He legit blasted me and left.

CptHaddock

08-31-2017, 01:24 PM

I once told a guy on MODO, politely, to hurry up his play a bit. He legit blasted me and left.

I do the passive aggressive thing and give them the aggro question mark.

Crimhead

09-04-2017, 02:07 PM

When someone says "X" is an issue, the question is whether you agree with it or not. But deflecting to "Y" really does not help anyone. Are fetches a blight on the format? No, I personally feel they add much for all. Is Brainstorm a Blight on the Format? That's a question I have answered my views on and others here know. Is talking about one to deflect from the other in any way honest? No, it's just changing the topic without meeting and debating the issues. There is no honesty in saying "Quick, look over there" and then running away.

I don't think the format has any "issues".

But it is entirely reasonable to insist that any "issues" are the result of synergy/interactions between more than 1 card. This is not a deflection or dishonesty. It's simply a more sophisticated analysis of the format and why things are the way they are.

Cave

09-04-2017, 04:42 PM

edit: stupid content (answered a very old post)

Fox

09-07-2017, 07:51 PM

I just want to take a moment and point out the fun to be had reading the posts in the 700's pages (perhaps some in the 600s as well), where you'll routinely see the sentiment that Blade isn't good enough to compete in legacy and without CB there can be no control. Also, we all dodged a huge bullet with Path of Ancestry - the first time I read that one I thought wotc just printed a land that taps for no mana but gets to scry 1.

We can point to BS, DRS, Fetches as potential issues but each one creates more ways to play legacy than they inhibit. The color scheme may be skewed, but we're generally seeing more format diversity and more legacy players (because they keep cost of entry to the format down). We could tie all 3 cards to contributing to the price disparity of blue duals vs non-blue duals, but they all decrease the raw amount of dual lands (even non-blue) one might need to have regardless of color combinations - balance based on finance isn't great, but the barriers to entry are real and I don't see how banning any piece of that trinity (not that they all have to be played together) will result in me seeing more new players in my local meta. Just want to quickly clarify that cost of the format is specific to number of players, not trying to link cost of format with archetype diversity based on viability.

Diversity is a pretty healthy metric to measure cards and the balance issues they may create. If you want to talk about diversity issues in legacy, Counterbalance (which is currently totally irrelevant) poses the greatest latent risk to format diversity; after that we really need to start looking at Probe. Past those two, I think I'd still probably look at Surgical and maybe Ancient Tomb before Fetch/DRS/Bstorm. I'm sure we'll get someone saying CB is totally fine, but just ask yourself how likely you are [now vs then] to see someone play black without green & vice versa, how likely is it that an opponent can play USea or Bayou or USea + Bayou without having Decay, or how likely you are to see straight U/R or U/B.

I get the power level~amount of play is high on that group of three, but how is the state of legacy going to get better with an amount of them gone - what is your metric? Let's look past differences on ticking time bombs (CB/Probe), where is the format actually going if your ban happens?

Without DRS I see maybe format-slowing, color identity tightening, and much heavier reliance on poorly-designed yard hate (uninteractive you can't win stuff b/c one card). I don't think we'd see Delver moving away from Grixis presentation for instance; here I'd predict more midrange'y Delver + Wasteland meets Czech Pile's SCMs rather than everyone moving to BUG Delver. You ban Brainstorm and FoW use drops so immediately expect more B/R Reanimator style opponents and discard spells (sounds a little like modern, no?). You ban Fetches and legacy goes into a financial death spiral unless wotc is willing to abolish the RL. What differing conclusions are we arriving at?

FourDogsinaHorseSuit

09-21-2017, 11:39 AM

Nestalim

09-24-2017, 08:06 PM

My two cents are ont Deahtrite.

2018 will be rich in Legacy coverage, and with all of those DrS being rampant, I do believe that wotc will ban it just to prevent drs mirror from happening, as Bug or 4c match up zre just a boring grind fiesta and terrible to watch.

Ronald Deuce

09-25-2017, 02:12 AM

Not to rip on anyone, but if we're discussing the ban of (frankly) totally fair—though powerful—cards, why not axe Delver of Secrets?

Strongest attacker in all of Magic, pitches to Force of Will, pushes boatloads of creatures out of the 1-cmc slot, and homogenizes up to a quarter of the format into "Blue/X Value."

I get that banning Delver could be really stupid for a number of reasons and that other cards (for the purposes of this thread, Brainstorm and fetchlands) are components of a much larger number of decks, but if we're looking for a card that's stifling creativity and funneling deck-building into a really narrow set of builds with little variance, it seems to me that there's a pretty evident culprit.

After however long, I'm still not interested in a ban. It just strikes me that people are continuing to go after nuanced and versatile cards with plenty of potential (in the case of DRS, it's being realized) rather than the ones that threaten to turn Legacy into Expensive Modern. I post this more as a thought exercise than an attempt to push an agenda.

kombatkiwi

09-25-2017, 02:46 AM

I don't think they should ban anything. I don't think that any of the 'pillars' (BS/Force/Fetches/Duals) should be banned for format identity reasons.
DRS is the next most ubiquitous card, and while it is powerful it doesn't produce any particularly obnoxious gamestates and is easy to answer (unlike CB/Top for example).
Ban DRS and people will simply move on to the next best FoW/Brainstorm deck and start to complain about whatever card features in that (Delver, Show and Tell, etc). (This is not exactly a fresh take but I think it's worth repeating).

2018 will be rich in Legacy coverage, and with all of those DrS being rampant, I do believe that wotc will ban it just to prevent drs mirror from happening, as Bug or 4c match up zre just a boring grind fiesta and terrible to watch.

I would much rather watch blue mirrors where there are typically interesting decisions every turn than a lopsided matchup like Storm vs Goblins or something.
If I had a tinfoil hat I would probably suggest wotc wants to make legacy look like shit considering their decisions around the recent euro tournaments...

Dice_Box

09-25-2017, 03:13 AM

If Wizards was ok watching Miracles drag its heels for the better part of 3 years without issue, there is no one 12 months of DRS is going to force action.

Crimhead

09-25-2017, 01:53 PM

If Wizards was ok watching Miracles drag its heels for the better part of 3 years without issue, there is no one 12 months of DRS is going to force action.

I think there is a real possibility that WotC's attitude to eternal format management is changing.

rlesko

09-25-2017, 04:43 PM

Lol, ban delver.

I have been saying for a while deathrite is a bannable card. Its just now getting the format penetration to show how stupidly busted it is. If you're concerned about what nonblue decks will do against GY combo, don't be. The graveyard is the most hated area in all of magic, and there are main deckable cards like scooze and countless SB options.

If you were going to ban a blue creature, true name nemesis would be the best one to ban. Complete violation of the color pie, was a commander card anyways, and promotes uninteractive magic. People might actually have to dust off their tarmogoyfs.

Dice_Box

09-25-2017, 04:43 PM

I think there is a real possibility that WotC's attitude to eternal format management is changing.
I am not sure. I know we have seen a lot of change in Vintage of late but that is to do with a sudden influx of data. If you put 150 people in a room, just thanks to the amount of cardstock available there will be a limit on some decks. Online does not have that issue and thus we have seen changes we would not have seen without the new meta. As for Legacy I have seen no large change in Wizards actions of late. Action against one card that had a large weight of evidence against it is not what I would view as much of a change in their management. Unless you see something I don't, which is not unlikely since I am spending less time on magic since work picked up, I am not sure much has or would change.

Claymore

09-25-2017, 05:04 PM

Wizards is likely putting all their energy into Magic: the Hearthstone anyway. They only banned Top because people starting putting signs in their parking lot, problem became too big to ignore.

No way they ban anything.

Closest we got to a ban was the release errata on Hostage Taker. Which, you know, is another sign of how incredible Wizards is doing right now.

Crimhead

09-26-2017, 07:13 AM

I am not sure. I know we have seen a lot of change in Vintage of late but that is to do with a sudden influx of data.

The reason WotC is getting so much more data is that there are a lot more people playing eternal formats than ever before. WotC seems very keen to capitalise on this - hence the increase push of Masters sets.

I think the question we should be asking is why Legacy and Vintage have traditionally been exempt from the "fun policing" that they impose on Modern; and do those reasons still make sense from a business perspective?

btm10

09-26-2017, 07:55 AM

The reason WotC is getting so much more data is that there are a lot more people playing eternal formats than ever before. WotC seems very keen to capitalise on this - hence the increase push of Masters sets.

I think the question we should be asking is why Legacy and Vintage have traditionally been exempt from the "fun policing" that they impose on Modern; and do those reasons still make sense from a business perspective?

Because Legacy isn't/wasn't a Pro Tour format. Even now that it'll be part of the Team Pro Tour, I doubt that they care enough. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see bans to shake things up from a purely personal perspective (and to eliminate some noxious cards like Gitaxian Probe and Show and Tell), but no action is justified based on actual results, and most people would be hurt by bannings to pseudo-rotate the format.

09-26-2017, 08:26 AM

Legacy (and Vintage, to a certain degree) are able to adapt to most shifts in the meta-game via it'd deeper card pool. It takes a lot to have a deck keep it's top position, like Miracles, in the face of repeated great performances. Miracles was able to keep itself outside of the "natural" cycle of the meta-game through a combination of factors, not the least of which was the resiliency of Top itself and the printing of Monastery Mentor.

More often than not, Modern cannot adapt in the same way, because there are numerous holes in it's card pool that could help to contain problematic strategies. For example, the lack of Wasteland leads pretty directly to the success of Tron-style decks, where Ghost Quarter is a rather poor substitute. Other examples can be Force of Will, or even Deathrite Shaman.

In other words, without the pressure of a Pro Tour to consider, Wizards is generally apt to allow the meta-game "police" itself.

taconaut

09-26-2017, 09:13 AM

...Gitaxian Probe...

BOOO :mad:

...Show and Tell...

YEAH GET 'EM OUTTA HERE

But actually though, I think this is a good distinction to make - Gitaxian Probe and Deathrite Shaman strike me as powerful, but ultimately reasonable cards, which is what we (or at least I) want in legacy - they are very strong, sure, and in a way that is generic enough to warrant their inclusion in many different decks, but one is a cantrip and the other is soft graveyard hate/ramp/decent threat in a pinch.

By contrast, Show and Tell is very unfair, and breaks the rules in a more fundamental way. Plus, it can only get dumber as the game goes on and wizards continues to print nonsense duders to put in with it (though I'll admit Griselbrand and Omniscience are already pretty high bars for dumbness level).

I feel like bans should only happen in a format like legacy when there is something that breaks the actual nature of the game, not merely for cards that are "best in class," so to speak.

(Aside: I do have some level of cognitive dissonance with this, as I enjoy Storming people, but somehow the texture of that feels different than, "show and tell, griselbrand, plus I have the force" to me. I guess I would like the opportunity to do broken things, but at least sufficiently complex broken things?)

Rekk

09-26-2017, 10:27 AM

Legacy is ruled by decks that abuse deathrite or abuse the decks that use deathrite (bloodmoon decks).

Aggro deck - grixis delver
Control - Czech pile
Combo - Elves

It's either on the boundary of what is acceptable or banable
what is undeniable is that it is format warping

Show and tell is a fine card- not fun really (and horrible game design) but really it's just a very very very good ritual.

morgan_coke

09-26-2017, 10:42 AM

I'd say ban it all. Just clean up the format.

Brainstorm
Gitaxian Probe
DRS
Delver
TNN
Leovold
Show and Tell (the card itself is fine, the level of big dumb monster/spell they continue to print makes it broken)

Do that and you'll have something interesting to play again.

taconaut

09-26-2017, 11:07 AM

Show and tell is a fine card- not fun really (and horrible game design) but really it's just a very very very good ritual.

Yeah, I'm not saying it needs a ban, just that it fits the archetype of "bannable card" in legacy, in that it messes stuff up in a fundamental way, rather than merely being very powerful. Personally, I think the card could be fun - if someone Showed, like, a Draco, or Krosan Cloudscraper, or Polar Kraken, or Thing From the Deep, or whatever dragon/demon/cool guy, it might be pretty sweet, and I've had fun when people cast it in EDH - but in actual practice it's just stupid griselbrand or emrakul or something else that wins you the game on the spot.

Problem4tic

09-26-2017, 04:49 PM

apple713

09-26-2017, 08:42 PM

Play combo decks and then dont give a fuck about drs. Sure hes good but so are alot of legacy cards. If you are losing to him play better cards. Legacy is a format that is not short of really good cards.

Fox

09-26-2017, 08:57 PM

Eh, keep in mind that DRS is used in diverse ways. I think a lot of people gloss over Stifle/Wasteland you out of game that would happen with DRS banned - and probably most DRS haters intrinsically rage about no lands/can't play magic even more. The card is great and it enables a ton of strategies, which points to it being a healthy card. It also stacks up quite poorly vs SCM/StP further enabling white to be played if 2-3 other colors are scrambling to include it.

The only really annoying part of the card is being on the draw vs DRS and knowing that no matter if you play a land that casts the kill spell or Waste their dual, you're still getting Hymned. That annoyance is less common than the more oppressive Probe -> Sea -> Therapy, btw Pyromancer coming down soon.

Barook

09-26-2017, 09:19 PM

Eh, keep in mind that DRS is used in diverse ways.
Yeah, that's the reason why like ~90% of the deck that run DRS are BUG decks. Much diverse. Such wow. Aside from Elves, which has at least some meta representation, what other nonblue decks use it? Basically just fringe decks like Nic Fit and Maverick.

Megadeus

09-26-2017, 10:54 PM

All DRS has really done is take mana dork strategy from green and make UBx the best mana dork colors. Basically simultaneously weakened green and strengthened blue.

Fox

09-27-2017, 12:27 AM

Yeah, that's the reason why like ~90% of the deck that run DRS are BUG decks. Much diverse. Such wow. Aside from Elves, which has at least some meta representation, what other nonblue decks use it? Basically just fringe decks like Nic Fit and Maverick.

Yes, and how many decks that use black or green without blue don't start with DRS? There's also a pretty key 2nd level look at SCM/StP and how that plan is indirectly advanced by DRS penetration. You can definitely have lots of DRS, they can disproportionately help blue, but we're still enabling other strategies & color combos. The card doesn't force you to stop playing whatever strategy you want to just to throw out creative space, diluting a deck for the sole purpose of aiming cards at enemy DRS specifically (this kind of cancer is specific to cards like Counterbalance).

DRS is a really good card, it's highly played...but all that really happened in legacy since Top got banned is Shardless types went to Czech and Git. Probe became the best Delver deck - why the sudden outrage? Now sure, people stopped using DRS to cast Decay right after because, without Counterbalance, you can actually play something proactive (SCM, K-Comm, Leovold, etc...). Note how that proactive thing they're doing probably pitches to FoW, which leads back to the cantrip cartel, which is actually just the natural state of legacy being heavily blue and low to the ground (not taking a side on the cantrip cartel stuff, it's just what wins games and is thus heavily represented).

The amount of people in legacy who find getting LD'd out of games to be acceptable/healthy is far fewer than those who really hate when they "can't play magic." So you ban DRS, and what they just start playing Birds or Noble...and getting blown out by yard strats, Strip Mined out of games, and losing to decks like Infect even more??? It's not really about naming off decks that use it differently @Barook, I just know that most of the people who want DRS banned are going to be the same ones whining about the fallout as they're forced to play a lot more land-based interaction. I don't think banning DRS ends up increasing the playerbase because it [a DRS ban] doesn't let them play the kind of magic they want to (they're wrong, LD is the greatest thing ever, and losing to combo is perfectly fine....but they outnumber those of us with that mindset by a lot).

From a personal standpoint, I'm definitely on board for a new golden age of LD, fair auto-loss to combo (particularly in g1), and death to the mindless 'good stuff' grindfests (especially the 4c ones)...but I just don't think DRS checks enough of the boxes to get itself banned. It's miserable, but probably beneficial overall (I would put Chalice in the same camp).

Dice_Box

09-27-2017, 12:27 AM

My little opinion, unban everything except moxes, black lotus, timetwister, ancestral recall and time walk, wait 6 months and then let's see how it goes...today i can see only "fair" decks using deathrite shaman do more broken things than unfair decks...
Some cards in the legacy banlist are innoque nowdays... something has to change...drs is "killing" the format imo...

While I understand the idea, you would have to run a more restricted list. Things like Bazaar, Shop, Academy and Tutors would all have to stay on the list or the format would be disgusting to play in. Because I can tell you how it will go if you give me 4 Academy, 4 Shop and Bazaar. Add on the remaining artifact mana, Sol Ring, Crypt, vault as 4 ofs and I can tell you, I would be a happy to build Terra Nova.

The sentiment though, I agree with it. Strip 4 cards off the list and see what happens. Do it again until something breaks, ban what is broken and stop.

maharis

09-27-2017, 12:21 PM

Sadly, banning Deathrite will likely do nothing to stop the Grixis stew from being the best thing going. There's just too much efficiency and value in that card pool.

Megadeus

09-27-2017, 12:44 PM

rlesko

09-27-2017, 12:49 PM

Did someone really just say DRS is used in diverse ways? LOL

Megadeus

09-27-2017, 12:57 PM

Did someone really just say DRS is used in diverse ways? LOL

Yeah man. It's used in Spanish Inquisition as a summoner's pact target that can be pinned under chrome mox to produce black mana.

Problem4tic

09-27-2017, 01:03 PM

While I understand the idea, you would have to run a more restricted list. Things like Bazaar, Shop, Academy and Tutors would all have to stay on the list or the format would be disgusting to play in. Because I can tell you how it will go if you give me 4 Academy, 4 Shop and Bazaar. Add on the remaining artifact mana, Sol Ring, Crypt, vault as 4 ofs and I can tell you, I would be a happy to build Terra Nova.

The sentiment though, I agree with it. Strip 4 cards off the list and see what happens. Do it again until something breaks, ban what is broken and stop.

I agree with you, some cards are just so powerfull and unique that will get banned after a week of unban...but Wizard went in the wrong way for too long, and that's my point: as soon as the meta shifted from maverick/goblin dominant to combo quasi dominant they get immediately the banhammer on mistycal tutor....at the time was a good move in my opinion couse the deck was way too fast and consistent for the meta.
Then the genius at the Wizard started to print all the possible hate for combo decks especially grave hate(and we all know that most of the combos use the graveyard in part or tatally):surgical ex, Deathrite shaman, Ooze and so on...
That way they thought to shif the meat in a Fair way...but cards that interact with the grave were plenty and good at the time, then they printed Flusterstorm (just to say:NO COMBO, U SHALL NOT WIN! Gandalf like....) then the madness: thay want to print BETTER CREATURES.... okay it's fine, and the first that comes to my mind is Mr.Tarmo.... a nice card.... lowercosted beater but okay is green who cares?... and then they went out of the rail...they printed Delver Of Secrets...a card that should have been RED or GREEN like Mr.Tarmo insted it's blue....Tempo decks party!! yuppe!! but that was not enough! more FAIR GAME...let's give Black a mana dork that interacts with the opponents graveyard and costs one mere Green OR BLACK mana...easy to splash in a blue build of tempo ( grixis and bug delver) and allow to splash a 4th color without issues...that's not good for Magic...everyone who played at least one draft knows that going up to a 3rd colour make some trouble with the manabase...but it's all FAIR magic no?? :D
I can countinue the listing with the thorn of amethyst with the legs....(u wanna play prison decks??...go artifact then! creatures are creatures no lock pieces IMO) then let's say... True Name Nemesis that say counter me or die in 7 turns...nice Pokemon broh... and then the bigger mistake IMO Leovold... lockpiece undercosted for its abilities and in colours with deathrite shaman...what to say...? NICE JOB WIZARD! YOU MAKE A BETTER GAME! :D

p.s if we can't beat Deathrite Shaman, we shall ally with him :D (until he gets banned,i hope)

Problem4tic

09-27-2017, 01:06 PM

Sadly, banning Deathrite will likely do nothing to stop the Grixis stew from being the best thing going. There's just too much efficiency and value in that card pool.

I think that the Grixis (lets be real it's all the blue cards fault) stew is very good, but I think without deathrite you get to slow that down a turn from having it's busted draw of like T1 DRS, T2 Pyromancer, Probe, Therapy every important card from your hand. Although yes the deck is still dumb because it gets free information, 1 mana 5/5's, and a million cantrips.
Megadeus ir right, the deck will be still good but not as good as it is now...

Yeah man. It's used in Spanish Inquisition as a summoner's pact target that can be pinned under chrome mox to produce black mana.
Lol yes :D but i prefer it to get away from the format, sorry spanish inquisition... :P

Megadeus

09-27-2017, 01:12 PM

Lol yes :D but i prefer it to get away from the format, sorry spanish inquisition... :P

SLitherhead will rise again. Just like The South

maharis

09-27-2017, 01:32 PM

I think that the Grixis (lets be real it's all the blue cards fault) stew is very good, but I think without deathrite you get to slow that down a turn from having it's busted draw of like T1 DRS, T2 Pyromancer, Probe, Therapy every important card from your hand. Although yes the deck is still dumb because it gets free information, 1 mana 5/5's, and a million cantrips.

The unfortunate thing is that we know that Wizards doesn't have the stomach to go after the cantrips or the cantrip-synergistic cards with any conviction. Barring some sort of major breakthrough, I think this is the format from now on, Deathrite or not.

I'm resigned with the fact that DRS will be the next card banned. I used to say it was unfair to take a non-blue card to solve a blue problem AGAIN (after Top got the axe). Now I just don't think there's anything better to do from a fair-deck perspective, DRS or not, besides jamming all the best UB cards with a splash of your choice.

Fox

09-27-2017, 01:38 PM

Did someone really just say DRS is used in diverse ways? LOL
Hate to break it to you man, but not everyone untaps with DRS to play a 3 mana card. It's making the cut in a lot of other decks primarily because it's a better Cursed Scroll providing untargeted life loss and allowing different cards to be played because there's this card that can marginalize hyper-efficient creatures like reanimator targets and Goyf (all while hedging against lower to the ground mana denial strategies). No one forces people to play DRS like generic good stuff deck using it to cast LotV, Leo, Shardless, etc on turn two (but yes, that will be one of the common uses).

I get that people are annoyed by turn 2 three-drop, multicolored thing out of 4c deck; but DRS does more than that for the rest of the format. The ability of good stuff deck to do this consistently due to DRS can certainly feel miserable, but it's not a reason to ban. This card lets people play magic; so until people accept that getting Wasteland'd out of games, completely unable to cast cards from hand, is normal and healthy, the the ban isn't gonna happen. Again, it doesn't stop there, without DRS you lose to Infect and yard-combo so much more - and while those are perfectly legitimate losses people should just accept, they won't - it's all whining. When you advocate a ban which creates far more discontent among the playerbase than existed before, you better have solid power level arguments. DRS is a really good creature, and people aren't blackmailed into running 4x Decay anymore - why are we suddenly interested in banning it because good stuff deck using it to cast a proactive card?

You're basically saying ban fetchlands, which is fine (unrealistic, but fine) as it would stop all the BS/DRS collusion. The root problem is one that is highly unlikely to change; I don't see how going after all the problems* that will inevitably rise up b/c we have fetchlands is a healthy course of action.
*whose power level issues all stem from fetchlands

jimmythegreek

09-27-2017, 01:58 PM

Yeah man. It's used in Spanish Inquisition as a summoner's pact target that can be pinned under chrome mox to produce black mana.

I refuse to imprint DRS....Odious Trow is way better.

Lord_Mcdonalds

09-27-2017, 02:30 PM

I guess we’re at the point where I can copy and paste old arguments for keeping top because painter and replacing top with DRS and painter with Maverick.

Dice_Box

09-27-2017, 02:32 PM

RIP Painter. It hurt me to list my Reciters.

CptHaddock

09-27-2017, 02:40 PM

RIP Painter. It hurt me to list my Reciters.

Miracles players are complaining about their worthless blue staples and i'm just sitting here shuffling my playset of recruiters.

Ronald Deuce

09-27-2017, 04:47 PM

Much as I'm glad Miracles took a hit—seriously, people were choosing to play objectively sub-optimal win conditions like Venezuelan Legends, and they'd still knock over tournaments with them—I'm really sad to see Painter implode like this. That was one of the decks that piqued my interest in Legacy, though I'd never have had the money for Recruiters.

Sidneyious

09-27-2017, 11:25 PM

Mtg has and always been a good stuff game.
If you're annoyed with good stuff go play where there is bad stuff that's good.

I hate every top deck I decide to get into when I'm almost done it gets a ban and is useless.

So I lose money because wotc hates popularity, combo and solid control.

rlesko

09-28-2017, 05:05 PM

Hate to break it to you man, but not everyone untaps with DRS to play a 3 mana card. It's making the cut in a lot of other decks primarily because it's a better Cursed Scroll providing untargeted life loss and allowing different cards to be played because there's this card that can marginalize hyper-efficient creatures like reanimator targets and Goyf (all while hedging against lower to the ground mana denial strategies). No one forces people to play DRS like generic good stuff deck using it to cast LotV, Leo, Shardless, etc on turn two (but yes, that will be one of the common uses).

I get that people are annoyed by turn 2 three-drop, multicolored thing out of 4c deck; but DRS does more than that for the rest of the format. The ability of good stuff deck to do this consistently due to DRS can certainly feel miserable, but it's not a reason to ban. This card lets people play magic; so until people accept that getting Wasteland'd out of games, completely unable to cast cards from hand, is normal and healthy, the the ban isn't gonna happen. Again, it doesn't stop there, without DRS you lose to Infect and yard-combo so much more - and while those are perfectly legitimate losses people should just accept, they won't - it's all whining. When you advocate a ban which creates far more discontent among the playerbase than existed before, you better have solid power level arguments. DRS is a really good creature, and people aren't blackmailed into running 4x Decay anymore - why are we suddenly interested in banning it because good stuff deck using it to cast a proactive card?

You're basically saying ban fetchlands, which is fine (unrealistic, but fine) as it would stop all the BS/DRS collusion. The root problem is one that is highly unlikely to change; I don't see how going after all the problems* that will inevitably rise up b/c we have fetchlands is a healthy course of action.
*whose power level issues all stem from fetchlands

You went off in the weeds here quite a bit. I'm not saying ban fetchlands at all. Don't project your logical fallacies on me.

DRS is not used in diverse ways. He is extremely bannable.

You mentioned he is used in a lot of the decks because hes a "better cursed scroll". Name ONE of these decks. Whatever deck that is would have to not play fetchlands. It doesn't exist.

No one forces people to play DRS like generic good stuff deck using it to cast LotV, Leo, Shardless, etc on turn two

You forgot to mention pyro + therapy, hymn + wasteland, kolaghan's command, strix + ponder, etc.

No one forces anyone to play anything. But players get tired of bringing a knife to a gun fight. Which is what DRS is turning games into.

morgan_coke

09-28-2017, 05:52 PM

The unfortunate thing is that we know that Wizards doesn't have the stomach to go after the cantrips or the cantrip-synergistic cards with any conviction. Barring some sort of major breakthrough, I think this is the format from now on, Deathrite or not.

I'm resigned with the fact that DRS will be the next card banned. I used to say it was unfair to take a non-blue card to solve a blue problem AGAIN (after Top got the axe). Now I just don't think there's anything better to do from a fair-deck perspective, DRS or not, besides jamming all the best UB cards with a splash of your choice.

Agreed. This will be the case until Brainstorm goes away. It's sad, I used to like playing the non-blue decks that could still compete, *cough* SLIDE, B!@TCHES! *cough* but, it's just not there anymore.

Zombie

09-28-2017, 07:58 PM

Agreed. This will be the case until Brainstorm goes away. It's sad, I used to like playing the non-blue decks that could still compete, *cough* SLIDE, B!@TCHES! *cough* but, it's just not there anymore.

Dunno if it's enough. Brainstorm is the greatest offender by far, obviously - articles have been written about it being the best thing to do in Legacy for years - but the core issue is not so much Brainstorm as Xerox deckbuilding being a thing in the first place. You can see the influence in Cantrip Cartel decks, obviously, but also in the multilayered GBWu-based creature combo decks that exist in Highlander formats (Pattern-Rector in German, Boonweaver/Hulkweaver (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/hulkbear-combo-copy/) in EDH) and even the Boros Tokens/Monarch archetype (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/774697#paper) in Pauper - that thing has not a hint of blue in sight but packs 8 proper cantrips and 15 Baleful Strixes maindeck. The EDH Hulk decks and Boros Monarch are pleasant exceptions in that nonblue xeroxy stuff tends to suck in Legacy and most formats in general, but they're absolutely instances of the same thing - just highly competitive nonblue ones.

Fox

09-28-2017, 09:40 PM

You went off in the weeds here quite a bit. I'm not saying ban fetchlands at all. Don't project your logical fallacies on me.
DRS is not used in diverse ways. He is extremely bannable.
You mentioned he is used in a lot of the decks because hes a "better cursed scroll". Name ONE of these decks. Whatever deck that is would have to not play fetchlands. It doesn't exist.

You forgot to mention pyro + therapy, hymn + wasteland, kolaghan's command, strix + ponder, etc.

No one forces anyone to play anything. But players get tired of bringing a knife to a gun fight. Which is what DRS is turning games into.
The reason DRS & Brainstorm are played (particularly together) is fetchlands. If fetchlands were banned, the representation of these cards would plummet. This is why it's hard to buy into the idea that DRS itself has any power level problems because it all arises from the existence of a secondary party. That kind of banning philosophy requires constant management of symptoms, while never attempting to treat the disease. It is highly doubtful that fetchlands are ever getting banned b/c it would become a total amount of and cost of dual lands problem - this comes back to needing wotc to start reprinting the reserved list for long term format solvency. The take home message here though, is that DRS by itself is only barely playable without fetchlands - so why are we going after cards like these citing power level issues?

Plenty of decks in legacy get wins by paying black and tapping DRS. It is not any decks build-around go-to strategy, but it is quite common and against certain strategies it might be the only card in your 75 that can kill an opponent (specifically because it doesn't target, and it's life loss). Saying a deck that is interested in activating DRS with black "would have to not play fetchlands" doesn't make sense; DRS is a Grim Lavamancer that goes straight after life totals - it can do more than that [providing interaction where there was none or extra mana], but this is the main reason DRS is played over Birds/Noble: it goes upstairs.

Yes, when we talk about Czech Pile it is assumed people know they have those cards you've listed off. The cmcs are higher, and the color reqs are all over the place - so yes, we know that 'good stuff' decks are primarily using DRS to make both the colors & amount of mana work. It's annoying, it's offensive, and it's miserable to play against - but that doesn't mean ban DRS. It is okay to have cards and decks that are miserable to play against, as long as they aren't overpowered. I do understand the sinking feeling of "I'll have to play value stuff like them to compete," but this isn't a new phenomenon, we have had Shardless for years and Czech Pile is the same thing by a different name.

Megadeus

09-28-2017, 09:57 PM

The reason DRS & Brainstorm are played (particularly together) is fetchlands. If fetchlands were banned, the representation of these cards would plummet. This is why it's hard to buy into the idea that DRS itself has any power level problems because it all arises from the existence of a secondary party. That kind of banning philosophy requires constant management of symptoms, while never attempting to treat the disease. It is highly doubtful that fetchlands are ever getting banned b/c it would become a total amount of and cost of dual lands problem - this comes back to needing wotc to start reprinting the reserved list for long term format solvency. The take home message here though, is that DRS by itself is only barely playable without fetchlands - so why are we going after cards like these citing power level issues?

Plenty of decks in legacy get wins by paying black and tapping DRS. It is not any decks build-around go-to strategy, but it is quite common and against certain strategies it might be the only card in your 75 that can kill an opponent (specifically because it doesn't target, and it's life loss). Saying a deck that is interested in activating DRS with black "would have to not play fetchlands" doesn't make sense; DRS is a Grim Lavamancer that goes straight after life totals - it can do more than that [providing interaction where there was none or extra mana], but this is the main reason DRS is played over Birds/Noble: it goes upstairs.

Yes, when we talk about Czech Pile it is assumed people know they have those cards you've listed off. The cmcs are higher, and the color reqs are all over the place - so yes, we know that 'good stuff' decks are primarily using DRS to make both the colors & amount of mana work. It's annoying, it's offensive, and it's miserable to play against - but that doesn't mean ban DRS. It is okay to have cards and decks that are miserable to play against, as long as they aren't overpowered. I do understand the sinking feeling of "I'll have to play value stuff like them to compete," but this isn't a new phenomenon, we have had Shardless for years and Czech Pile is the same thing by a different name.

I think the issue with DRS and BS decks (as in in the same deck is that the play patterns are all the same. Sure sometimes you play red instead of say white to get bolt instead of path, or you play BUG for Leovold rather than Grixis for Pyromancer, but the games don't really play out that much differently. You can say yeah the third color is different and therefore the deck is different, but the reality is that most games go the same way. T1 DRS, T2 cast a cantrip, play a threat or answer a threat. Next turn play a thing, cast a cantrip, counter your opponents spell. DRS allowing the non green blue decks to get to do multiple things on turn 2 while advancing the board is what makes the card so insane imo, and it really changed how powerful being on the play is. Turn 1 Sea DRS, daze your removal, untap waste you and play another threat and the game is essentially over at that point. IDK. Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty tired of Deathrite and I'm someone who has been playing the card since it got printed.

I also hate that with DRS, Delver, and Show and Tell for actual game ending threats has really taken away from the format and made it so synergy based decks are not good. You are forced to be playing good stuff decks essentially because with how efficient the threats have become you can't afford to durdle around doing nothing.

Nielsie

09-29-2017, 02:48 AM

Brainstorm is at 60% but DRS is the problem and should be banned? *facepalm*

If something should be banned it should have the color blue. Lots of targets over there with Brainstorm and Ponder leading the way but for my part you could also try to get rid of some of the blue creatures that blue should never have gotten: Snapcaster, TNN, delver or the new hotness Leovold. If snapcaster had been red it would have been banned years ago...

People against the Brainstorm ban are advocating that other colors should get new fancy tools. But every time something non-blue actually gets used a lot, it should be banned??

Anyway, DRS is a fricking creature without any protection. It dies to almost everything... get over it and play some removal...

Gheizen64

09-29-2017, 03:52 AM

Yes, yes, after Top, let's ban DRS.

Then fetchlands. Then anything but Brainstorm. Then i will be finally able to play my 4 brainstorm , 34 grey ogres and 20 lands deck.

Ronald Deuce

09-29-2017, 08:41 AM

I think the issue with DRS and BS decks (as in in the same deck is that the play patterns are all the same. Sure sometimes you play red instead of say white to get bolt instead of path, or you play BUG for Leovold rather than Grixis for Pyromancer, but the games don't really play out that much differently. You can say yeah the third color is different and therefore the deck is different, but the reality is that most games go the same way.

Then ban Delver. It's not like those decks are going to go away if you axe Deathrite or Delver, but at least a Delver ban would force them to find new (or old?) tools for the 1-cmc attacker slot. You also wouldn't have collateral damage against stuff like Elves or Mav.

Or just don't ban anything and wait to see how the format shakes out. People are really trigger-happy in this thread.

Lord_Mcdonalds

09-29-2017, 08:51 AM

MrFrowny_

09-29-2017, 10:36 AM

I think one of the major problems with unbans in Legacy, or hell any format, is that Wizards doesn't like making mistakes. For example; Golgari Grave Troll was banned in modern for a long time, and people complained because there wasn't a good dredge deck in modern and that it didn't deserve to be banned. So after awhile, Wizards unbanned the Troll and nothing happened for awhile, but they printed several cards over the course of 2-3 sets that made a dredge deck in modern tier 0 and eventually had to reban the Troll.

So in my opinion, there are things that can be unbanned in Legacy, like Survival of the Fittest because DRS is rampant, but Wizards is hesitant to unban anything because they don't want to make a mistake and release a tier 0 deck that's all their fault.

Crimhead

09-29-2017, 10:49 AM

Or just don't ban anything and wait to see how the format shakes out. People are really trigger-happy in this thread.

I think people who aren't craving a ban have less incentive to post here.

Rekk

09-29-2017, 11:22 AM

Unban Mind's Desire it will be fine.

jandax

09-29-2017, 11:27 AM

RIP Painter. It hurt me to list my Reciters.Turned mine into a piece of power [emoji23] figured the money would be safer. Am sad to see the deck die, we had a good run

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Ronald Deuce

09-29-2017, 11:34 AM

This reminds me of the arguments for keeping top, in fact...after replacing some key words, I’m pretty sure you can find a post almost exactly like this if you go back a few pages.

Does that make the argument invalid, though?

Regarding DRS and Brainstorm, I understand why people don't like them. I just don't think banning them will solve the lack of variance between decklists: people will keep gravitating toward the best cards. (I also think that banning cards that enable broad strategies is worse than allowing them to appear in 60% of top-8 decks.)

I think DRS is actually a lot worse for this than Brainstorm is. Sure, Brainstorm and the rest of the "cantrip cartel" skeleton are everywhere, but they're part of a much wider variety of deck types and lists than Deathrite is. Deathrite lets people just go "4-Color Value Town" and run the same permission spells (and cantrips!) all the way down the list.

rlesko

09-29-2017, 01:53 PM

Then ban Delver. It's not like those decks are going to go away if you axe Deathrite or Delver, but at least a Delver ban would force them to find new (or old?) tools for the 1-cmc attacker slot. You also wouldn't have collateral damage against stuff like Elves or Mav.

Or just don't ban anything and wait to see how the format shakes out. People are really trigger-happy in this thread.

Maverick can still play Noble Hierarch / BOP and has access to GSZ for silver bullets like scooze and teeg. Just because Deathrite is black / green doesn't mean that banning it hurts black / green decks the most. It hurts Grixis / 4c decks the most because green can easily replace deathrite whereas grixis can't play any mana dorks besides the shaman.

Regarding DRS and Brainstorm, I understand why people don't like them. I just don't think banning them will solve the lack of variance between decklists: people will keep gravitating toward the best cards. (I also think that banning cards that enable broad strategies is worse than allowing them to appear in 60% of top-8 decks.)

I think DRS is actually a lot worse for this than Brainstorm is. Sure, Brainstorm and the rest of the "cantrip cartel" skeleton are everywhere, but they're part of a much wider variety of deck types and lists than Deathrite is. Deathrite lets people just go "4-Color Value Town" and run the same permission spells (and cantrips!) all the way down the list.

This post honestly seems like a response to your previous post. The best deathrite decks don't even play delver. Delver can only attack, it doesn't ramp you and then drain you for 2 life a turn later in the game, all the while stonewalling 1/1s.

Sidneyious

09-29-2017, 07:50 PM

Try this, remove delver from any percentage list of bs/fow and see what the top cards are.

How many people that get pissed off about brainstorm are people that lose to a delver deck?

Sidneyious

09-29-2017, 07:52 PM

dunstilbrejik

09-30-2017, 10:53 PM

Dice_Box

10-01-2017, 03:05 AM

I think each card has its own reason for being hated. For me, the card I hate the most in Legacy is TNN.

Delver, effective but honestly not a problem.

Brainstorm, broken in half but untouchable.

DRS, a mistake played in the two formats where mistakes are often a prerequisite for play.

TNN. A pain to play with or against and my personal bug bear.

SnT. A mistake in a format full of mistakes that enables the use of other mistakes. Will likely be banned someday.

In all honesty, I feel the drive to truly ban a card lost a lot of steam with Top taken out of the format. Yes, people want DRS gone, but I don't feel the push is the same. Also, on record, I won't cry if it goes but would not be my first choice.

MGB

10-01-2017, 05:10 PM

Will all Pirates be emergency banned next?

Or just Hostage Taker?

Megadeus

10-01-2017, 05:45 PM

Will all Pirates be emergency banned next?

Or just Hostage Taker?

eh?

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-01-2017, 05:57 PM

Not even the slack jawed hooligans in Georgia respect the pirate menace?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!???!!!

Megadeus

10-01-2017, 06:17 PM

Not even the slack jawed hooligans in Georgia respect the pirate menace?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!???!!!

You havent lived until your opponent played a rishadan cutpurse on turn 2 after you ponder. I respect only that

Fox

10-01-2017, 06:18 PM

Will all Pirates be emergency banned next?

Or just Hostage Taker?

That card was already errata'd; cannot infinitely target self:
When Hostage Taker enters the battlefield, exile another target creature or artifact until Hostage Taker leaves the battlefield. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.

They have already overridden the infinite loop concerns and we're no longer banning cards like Worldgorger for these types of reasons.

btm10

10-01-2017, 08:21 PM

But actually though, I think this is a good distinction to make - Gitaxian Probe and Deathrite Shaman strike me as powerful, but ultimately reasonable cards, which is what we (or at least I) want in legacy - they are very strong, sure, and in a way that is generic enough to warrant their inclusion in many different decks, but one is a cantrip and the other is soft graveyard hate/ramp/decent threat in a pinch.

By contrast, Show and Tell is very unfair, and breaks the rules in a more fundamental way. Plus, it can only get dumber as the game goes on and wizards continues to print nonsense duders to put in with it (though I'll admit Griselbrand and Omniscience are already pretty high bars for dumbness level).

I feel like bans should only happen in a format like legacy when there is something that breaks the actual nature of the game, not merely for cards that are "best in class," so to speak.

(Aside: I do have some level of cognitive dissonance with this, as I enjoy Storming people, but somehow the texture of that feels different than, "show and tell, griselbrand, plus I have the force" to me. I guess I would like the opportunity to do broken things, but at least sufficiently complex broken things?)

Sorry to not respond for days. You basically got the reasons right - Storm decks (like most Deathrite decks) are fundamentally interactive in a way that Reanimator/Dredge/Show and Tell aren't (Lands is right on the line). Both players take actions that have meaningful counterplay from their opponent, and non-games are comparatively rare. Jamming with Storm decks comes at a real cost, while jamming with Show and Tell is basically free since the deck is so redundant. DRS likely does more good than harm simply by making graveyards much easier to interact with than they ordinarily would be, which both frees up sideboard slots and reduces the incentives to run linear graveyard decks in the first place. My issue with Probe is primarily that it creates too much free velocity in fair decks, and the information makes that even better.

Lemnear

10-02-2017, 03:45 AM

I see the thread hasn't much changed in the last months other than the tone thankfully being less hostile. In addition to the usual suspects, it appears that Probe and DRS are the hot sauce discussed atm.

Tbh, I can see the issues people have with either, but I am not convinced that banning either would really make a difference other than chopping the Hydras head just to make space for a new Best-in-Slot emerging.

Probe is an annoying card to play against (coming from one who slings it in every deck) so I understand that the free check for counters and the interaction with Cabal Therapy is a gamewrecker for decks which rely on "the scare game". I however doubt that removing Probe from the pool just for more cantrips/disruption to inherit the open slots would make decks like Grixis, Storm, S&T, etc significantly easier to battle, given Probe can be used against these decks as well. We are not even (yet) down the road of non-blue decks abusing it to estimate their plays like dropping a hatebear vs dropping a threat based on info provided by Probe.

I think we agree that DRS is a 1cc Planeswalker and lovechild of Grim Lavamancer, Withered Wretch and Birds of Paradise. Hands down: I love that manadorks and creatures in general finally got more versatile than just attacking/blocking like they did during the rise of Tarmogoyf and maindeckable hate is what makes creature.dec playable in a format with combodecks around. DRS has opened up so many options in Legacy for creature.dec being more than just D&T + Delver/Stifle and I think, we should give the card some credit for making 3cc cards playable again and fight back the Wasteland/Stifle/Daze chokehold as well as Graveyard combos. The only arguments I am on board with is, that the creature has too much Toughness to act as a blocker and that the essentially non-existant color restriction for cost & generation is not only pushing blue as a color, but has caused a further streamlining of decks. I am actually baffled that combo decks like Storm or S&T haven't picked up DRS to fight back against Daze and opposing DRS at this point.

Megadeus

10-02-2017, 04:15 AM

3CC creatures weren't hurting before deathrite. Maverick was doing alright. DnT was good. All deathrite has done is to give blue decks the power of a mana dork that they don't have to commit to green for and further make it less necessary to play non blue decks and threats, especially combined with the dumb fucking 3 drops like leoturd and true ape

morgan_coke

10-02-2017, 04:09 PM

Zombie

10-02-2017, 05:38 PM

Underground Sea shouldn't be able to cast Birds of Paradise. But thanks to DRS, it can. That's the real problem with it. Replace the black with white and the card is fine. Well, not really, but better at least.

If DRS's ability to convert stuff in a GY to mana belongs in any color but green, that color is black. The problem is just that DRS costs 1.

rlesko

10-02-2017, 06:03 PM

If DRS's ability to convert stuff in a GY to mana belongs in any color but green, that color is black. The problem is just that DRS costs 1.

There are many problems with DRS, that is the difference between a powerful legacy card and a banworthy one.

He should be 0/1, 1/1 the most. Instead, he is 1/2

He should be castable off of green only. Instead, he is castable off of G/B (so, Underground Sea as this has been mentioned many times)

He should probably only produce green or black mana. Instead, he produces any color

Fox

10-02-2017, 07:11 PM

If DRS's ability to convert stuff in a GY to mana belongs in any color but green, that color is black.

That's a tough case to make. If you want to go back to the beginning you have to contend with Channel and any number of green cards that gain life by counting 'x' in the yard or when 'x' dies gain 'y' life. Technically speaking, mono-green is better equipped than most to convert yard to life and then life to mana.

This is a black and green card so on the one hand you have unconditional tap to add mana (generally have to overcome summoning sickness) and on the other you have pretty stark conditions which can include life loss, sacrifice, discard, etc - either approach (G/B) can net mana and convert color. DRS being a black and green hybrid naturally can net mana and rainbow it, but it's always conditional...so the flavor of combining the two colors into a mana dork is actually fine.

We can talk about smaller issues like the cmc or stats, but I don't think that's productive. For example: Cavern of Souls should tap for any color of mana (or colorless), that mana should only be usable cast the tribe (and only the tribe, to include tribal spells), and make creatures of the tribe cast uncounterable - regardless of what you or I think about that fix for Cavern, it doesn't matter because the card is already printed; a sweeping overhaul like that is only going to be done by ban & replace. People seem to have a lot of feelings about DRS, and we're not going to get anywhere by arguing the green vs black flavor of DRS being a core issue - you say it's black @Zombie, the next post @rlesko says no mana dorks off Usea, and we can read above in my post and go with DRS flavor is technically a solid fusion of these two colors. What have we accomplished here debating flavor wins - we're talking about a game where Maze of Ith can target and affect Minotaurs.

What's the logic behind wanting DRS banned that people can relate to (and either rationally agree or disagree with)? You read through the DRS stuff and most of the arguments are based on subjective dislike that the mana of Czech Pile is working and the deck wins. Those arguments are tunnel-visioned on the mana generation and fixing of DRS in that 4c deck, but that's an oversimplification of the card. There's a lot of good content on the DRS debate, but the color-flavor stuff falls short. Poorly executed cards are played disproportionately in legacy (that's why they see play); needs to be better reasons behind ban arguments than this.

Zombie

10-02-2017, 07:42 PM

All I'm saying is that if DRS would be any other color than green, that color would be black. Not that it'd be a good idea to print the card as castable with B, I don't really think it's not. It's kind of in the same territory as printing Counterspell at {U/B}{U/B} or Bolt at {R/W}. Can make sense? Yes. Could be a nice effect on a card that's not priced as aggressively as possible? Sure. At the top of the line? No, at that point it really starts dismantling color identity and just generally throwing deckbuilding decisions into the trash can unless the card is something you naturally want in huge quantities.

I don't want a DRS ban nor do I think it should be banned even if I wanted it, there's about ten worse atrocities on the chopping block before that IMO. But mana dorks are a very fundamentally green color identity card and seeing 4c not-green piles play it is a worse situation than not seeing it.

Raizen884

10-03-2017, 09:24 AM

Yeah the design of DRS is screwed off...

it should be 0/1 with G casting cost and the same abilities it has now, with the clause of only being able to generate G or B, that I think would balance it much more and make much more sense in the color pie.

Anyway, brainstorm is by far the most broken spell in the format, period. Brainstorm is not just a cantrip, it with fetches makes virtual card advantage while digging for other cards and that at instant speed for 1 mana, it is THE most broken card on the format. The thing is, BS is like what defines legacy today, so I find it hard for them to ban it, it would flip the format upside down, which could be good or... not.

I don't think they will ban too soon DRS, but that is probably the first card on their list to take away from the format, BS would change a bunch of decks if they taked it away, but i don't think that's ever going to happen.

PirateKing

10-03-2017, 09:32 AM

Raizen884

10-03-2017, 10:09 AM

Nah just make all 3 abilities Sorcery speed and that would bring the power level back down to reality. I mean the first ability isn't a mana ability anyways, so who cares if it's sorcery speed? Then the 1/2 body isn't as relevant because it'll either be blocking or doing anything useful.

It doesn't make a whole bunch of difference, but it does make some difference it being 1/2, because it dodges losing 2 creatures to forked bolt, Izzet Staticaster and non-kicked marsh casualties. I play elves, so there are times opp looks to the 1/2 and goes why the hell this has 2 toughness looking at his sided forked bolt/Izzet Staticaster/marsh casualties. Just something more to the already broken DRS, it wouldn't make that much difference he being 0/1, but there is no reason he is a 1/2.

Lemnear

10-03-2017, 11:54 AM

Underground Sea shouldn't be able to cast Birds of Paradise. But thanks to DRS, it can. That's the real problem with it. Replace the black with white and the card is fine. Well, not really, but better at least.

I can't see how such a "white DRS" into Mentor or Meddling Mage is any more reasonable than the current use to cast Pyromancer or Leovold

Dice_Box

10-03-2017, 12:24 PM

If DRS is going to be a dual colour card the other colour should be Red. It is the other colour that can produce mana though spell and creature effects theses days. Burning Tree sitting as an example of what I mean.

Bryant Cook

10-03-2017, 12:27 PM

I've heard a lot of rumblings about Rite of Flame being banned.

Dice_Box

10-03-2017, 12:36 PM

I've heard a lot of rumblings about Rite of Flame being banned.
Ha. Who did you stomp and piss off?

DarthVicious

10-03-2017, 12:59 PM

Scryb Sprites should probably be banned too.

Nestalim

10-03-2017, 03:07 PM

While I find DrS too good for Legacy, I am not sure that the format would be better without it. DrS gave a lot of possibility for creature.deck and helps to keep delver in check (well, I know, Grixis Delver is playing DrS but fine).

People tends to argue that DrS is a blue dork, which would be the problem. I don't think than cutting DrS would balance the color pie, as a lot of non blue deck like maverick or jund would be crushed down without DrS. There is a lot of non Drs deck that are doing fine right now, like Stoneblade, Miracle or D&T.

Cutting DrS would probably makes some decks better, like Canadian ***** or Reanimator, but I'm fine with keeping those decks at Tier 2 Bay.

I really need to be convinced than banning DrS would make the format more healthy and more diverse.

JackaBo

10-03-2017, 03:22 PM

A banning of DRS will make legacy less fun.
With DRS you have a small chance versus Reanimator G1 and you can fight them with tight play using counters, discard and surgicals off the board, as a fair blue deck. That makes the match up fun and interactive. Without DRS you will need to put more SB cards towards "real" GY-hate and legacy decks will look more like vintage decks - running 4 leylines. Now the Reanimator match up will be so borlng: you will loose G1 then play the game "mull to hate" versus "mull to artifact/enchantment removal". And GY decks will Rise with a banning of DRS.
That also means sideboard cards will be taken from other matchups and that will make those matchups more coin-flippy as well.
DRS is one of the reasons you can even play a reactive fair deck in legacy - without it the proactive plan will prevail.
If they print a worse (green? 0/1?) DRS then I'm ok with a ban otherwice i think it's a bad idea.
My biggest problem with DRS is that it blocks and nullifies goose and lackey. My 2 c.

Megadeus

10-03-2017, 03:54 PM

GY decks weren't an issue before DRS, don't see why they would be after it

JackaBo

10-03-2017, 04:29 PM

GY decks weren't an issue before DRS, don't see why they would be after it

You are correct, I was not on point. I mean, yes they were not an issue cause fair decks packed actual hate. Now you can play less narrow cards to complimfnt the DRS in fighting graveyard strategies. I think it would come down to "did you guys bring your leylines today cause I'm on BR Reanimator?" Either i go 4-0 or 0-4 depending on if people skimp on the hate or no. To me DRS is one of the control elements that make non white decks actually playable in a combo meta - without being utterly bad versus the fair decks.

CptHaddock

10-03-2017, 04:36 PM

What is up with the graveyard abusing decks will rise argument? People were saying that combo decks would come back in force after Top got banned and for the first week they did (who would have guessed that powerful linear strategies would be that popular in a format where people are still trying to figure out things right?) but things have normalized. Graveyard abusing strategies function in the same way, the more yard hate that people are running the less likely they are to do well. It's not really a single piece of hate that beats most of these decks but a combination of hate pieces. Having maindeckable yard hate is going to get there sometimes but i've had a fair number of games where I was either on the draw or my DRS got killed before I could stop my opponent. Having to board in hate for these decks is no different than trying to combat other combo decks with their respective hate pieces.

I'm not sure how DRS is keeping delver in check? I guess it gets to gain you life if it doesn't die? Keeping tempo decks in check is the same regardless of whatever era we are playing in. You play around soft counters, kill their things and eventually their deck fizzles out. The format isn't going to become any better because DRS is banned. The format isn't going to be any more diverse because you ban the card, you clowns will just compare about whatever fills it's void.

I support the ban on rite of flames. Pls ban wotc.

rlesko

10-03-2017, 04:41 PM

You are correct, I was not on point. I mean, yes they were not an issue cause fair decks packed actual hate. Now you can play less narrow cards to complimfnt the DRS in fighting graveyard strategies. I think it would come down to "did you guys bring your leylines today cause I'm on BR Reanimator?" Either i go 4-0 or 0-4 depending on if people skimp on the hate or no. To me DRS is one of the control elements that make non white decks actually playable in a combo meta - without being utterly bad versus the fair decks.

Eh, I don't really agree with this. Deathrite isn't the reason BR reanimator is kept in check - as deathrite is usually summoning sick while they combo off. Surgical extraction is already like a 2-3 of in every sideboard. So what cards are you referring to that are "less narrow"? God draws from reanimator are always unbeatable, they just don't happen consistently enough to warrant a ban. As stated before - graveyard strategies were never overpowered before deathrite, and we only have gotten much better tools since hes been printed (RIP and Cage).

JackaBo

10-03-2017, 05:39 PM

Eh, I don't really agree with this. Deathrite isn't the reason BR reanimator is kept in check - as deathrite is usually summoning sick while they combo off. Surgical extraction is already like a 2-3 of in every sideboard. So what cards are you referring to that are "less narrow"? God draws from reanimator are always unbeatable, they just don't happen consistently enough to warrant a ban. As stated before - graveyard strategies were never overpowered before deathrite, and we only have gotten much better tools since hes been printed (RIP and Cage).

I guess my problem is that i dont find leyline RIP and cage being interactive and fun way to combat GY strategies. They just says no.
I would have to play a bunch of those cards if i wanted to beat GY decks without shaman. With shaman i can get away with less poweful but broader cards and still have a chance. That leaves me with a more varied sideboard, more slots for other match ups, resulting in more 50/50 match ups that promote tight play rather than mulliganing to hate.
I think that proactive strategies will be stronger if DRS goes away.

rlesko

10-03-2017, 05:53 PM

I guess my problem is that i dont find leyline RIP and cage being interactive and fun way to combat GY strategies. They just says no.
I would have to play a bunch of those cards if i wanted to beat GY decks without shaman. With shaman i can get away with less poweful but broader cards and still have a chance. That leaves me with a more varied sideboard, more slots for other match ups, resulting in more 50/50 match ups that promote tight play rather than mulliganing to hate.
I think that proactive strategies will be stronger if DRS goes away.

This is the second time you've referenced "less powerful but broader cards", can you provide an example of what you're talking about?

What deck are you playing? Blue can beat any combo with just stack interaction. Nonblue has consistent ways to find hate cards (GSZ, crop rotation, KotR). Everyone can (and already does) run surgical extraction.

GY combo won't overtake the meta. I understand your concerns about games becoming too mull dependent, I just don't see why that would be the case since wizards has printed stronger graveyard hate as of late and GY combo has not dominated historically.

Megadeus

10-03-2017, 06:21 PM

I think you're issue is you are trying to make games between Reanimator or Dredge interesting and interactive. Those decks don't try to be interactive and produce a bunch of boring games anyway, so why not just drop a Leyline and we all get on with our lives

Nestalim

10-03-2017, 06:35 PM

The GY argument is pretty bad for sure. DrS doesn't beat single handly any GY, or perhaps Dredge landless which can't beat the card without Phantasmagoria or Street Wraith.

DrS is good againt Delver, as the life and the mana it provides help to keep in the tempo. Being able to remove also instant/sorcery is good against any ******** deck or against Angler as well.

The reality is, people always want something to ban. They want to shake up things.

Edit : Why does TRE SHOLD is banned ?

Fox

10-03-2017, 08:25 PM

DrS doesn't beat single handly any GY

That's what we call actually interactive - decisions can matter and the hate isn't perfect. I would encourage anyone who does not think that a single DRS, by itself, changes play patterns on the side of reanimator to watch those matchups or play them. (for the record, I don't like Chancellor which enables B/R reanimator. It's definitely effective, but B/R fails to capture the real spirit of the archetype where one constantly evaluates which deck they are going to play at any given time, theirs or the opponents)

Cards like Leyline, RiP, Cage, and CP are inherently uninteractive. There's not much point debating "you can't win anymore 1-card combos" vs "your deck is linear and I can't interact." What is worth noting though, is that the more someone is required to lean on uninteractive sideboard hate, the more legacy will feel like modern (the non-game format). This is a complex issue, color diversity is great but non-blue & non-black (countermagic and discard) pretty much abandon the stack as a zone of interaction and expect to be rewarded for it with perfect hate cards to cover those shortfalls. The problem with pointing all your interaction at the battlefield (particularly when forgoing mana denial) is that you're going to get destroyed by TNN, Leo, and the whole stack of 4c 'good stuff' since they just play the kill the battlefield game better than you ever could (while still interacting on the stack).

At the end of the day, there's just not much point in balancing legacy for the creature-feature decks b/c without the threat of combo pushing out TNN/Leo, we predictably have lots of TNN/Leo. The creature-feature deck doesn't want to lose to either strategy, but it's always going to be one or the other, so we're in some eternal pointless struggle. It's not that the creature-feature strategy is inferior or invalid, just that it requires too much upkeep to provide them an unassailable place in the meta. Their strategy also leads to rather large misunderstandings of what is overpowered; we saw this with the whole ban Terminus bandwagon - it's a white card, wotc is gonna keep printing white cards (Entreat, Mentor, hell even Wrath to Exile aka Terminus 2.0 aka Settle the Wreckage)...and the only way you get people to stop hiding behind a wall of white cards in the U/Wx shell is depriving them of a win button vs combo (CB).

Perfect hate cards appear to help the non-blue fair decks who are otherwise pretty defenseless vs combo, but they predictably create the uninteractive fair game problem. It would be nice if these fair decks could have genuinely interactive, decision intensive matches vs combo, but it's mostly a pipe dream. All the problems with DRS aside, this card grants real interaction with combo - it may not always work, but it was a step in the right direction. I think the point of @JackaBo was making is that (putting the misery of playing against Czech with another fair deck) two players are more likely to have a real game of magic in a format where DRS is legal. If you're a DRS-using fair deck, it's part of your proactive game plan; being able to stay on that plan while maintaining the ability to interact [imperfectly] decreases the use of non-game cards.

The whole ban DRS stuff might sound great, but you'd be signing up for multiple bans. The first card you'd have to go after is Invigorate - if we live in that ideal world where Usea isn't deploying the 1/2 mana dork and instead we're getting an 0/1 from a green source, we just need a quick reality check: are you really throwing that 0/1 out to block Glistener Elf as a matter of course? The answer is no; so are you ok dying on the spot? Also a no - to the pitchforks we go again. (this would be happening while also getting butchered by Delver's mana denial; but sure, maybe Czech Pile loses red and goes back to something more similar to Reid Duke's Turbo-TNN BUG list)

@Megadeus makes a reasonable point about boring play patterns (a page or so back), but even he reverts to the sentiment of "eh, just Leyline 'em." Isn't this play pattern even more boring than what DRS was doing? It's still fetchlands causing the problems here; ignoring them puts us on a predictable path of banning one thing after another.

Megadeus

10-03-2017, 11:16 PM

Sure just playing Leyline is boring. But playing Reanimator is boring in itself so fuck it. If your opponent is playing that mindless deck they deserve all the boredom that comes to them. I know many locals have built and played the BR deck and despite its success stopped playing it because it's just dull.

As for combo being unable to get past the blue stew decks, Leo being a hate bear for cantrips is incredibly relevant in combo match ups. I mean it's not the end all, I show and telled in omniscience the other day against opposing Leo and just used preordain as scry 2 to find emrakul and win anyway, but it's still pretty good, especially turn 2 on the play. It's simultaneously really good against the blue stew fair decks and the blue stew combo decks as well as the blue stew control decks. Basically it's just really good against brainstorm.format

Emurian

10-03-2017, 11:18 PM

I have the feeling this post wont be loved by many ;).

While reading through these pages, it seems I am the only one that actually LOVES DRS as a MTG card.

Imo, I would like to see more cards that are like DRS in terms of utility. Its a card that lets you make choices (mana fixing/ lifegain or go on the offensive) opening up more routes to play out the game. I like having choices in MtG. When your having a mirror with these types of cards it doesnt feel as predictable due to the utility of the card itself.

DRS is NOT broken in my opinion, a recurring statement I see is that it fixes rainbow colours, it gets slotted into the Blue Shell. What I seem to read between the lines is that people dont want DRS to be played in a Blue shell. I haven't seen a single post here that stated its broken because the way its used in Maverick, or Elves (whereas DRS in Elves is on friggin steroids in combination with Quirion + Bayou) Would people here be still bashing DRS if it wasn't used in a Blue shell?

DRS on itself is not a problem, it can be removed, it doesn't say ''I win'' when it lands and it can be dealt with from multiple angles. I do not get it why so many people are bashing DRS but I see near none here stating that S&T should go which IMO is totally busted due to the cards that where printed in the years following it. (Emrakul and Omniscience) I honestly friggin hate the ape play: T1 tomb petal S&T into Emrakul. Yes I know these ''god hands'' only occur x% of the time, but they DO happen, and when they do its more or less lights out without giving the (non blue) opponent a chance to recover and get himself back into the game. (Now a similar thing can be said about combo in general, but when I lose from Storm I accept it, its a deck that actually requires a certain critical mass to get there, not some 2 card combo)

This, is what I seem to be concluding the main factor why people don't like him, the blue shell is able to use it (if not better then the non blue shells.). Some state: well its T1 DRS into T2 Leovold / TNN. Is DRS the problem here? Or are it the things that get played with the help of the mana accel? Im sorry to say but IMO ''stupid cards'' like TNN and Leovold are the real problem here, not the DRS. Its the mana accel into anything CMC 3 that seems to be ticking off people. Would DRS still be hated that much if WoTC makes another stupid mistake like some Chrome mox making any colour, or a 1 CMC artifact that makes any colour?

I have to restrain myself and bite my tongue whenever I see a post coming up in thread X where some Blue lover states: Well Legacy is blue, and all non blue decks are shit to start with. (You would be suprised how many share this sentiment if you take off your pink biased glasses) Blue is the best colour in Legacy, agreed, but Blue is near always used in conjunction with another colour (Aside High Tide, which sadly isn't played enough, and Merfolk, which although a fine deck, is not a deck thats as diverse in playstyle as a blue + X colour deck.) If there is a problem with Legacy, its that the Blue shell is to present in the meta game. Card filtering / advantage? (Cantrips / Ancestrall Visions) check, flawless info what your opponent has in his hand? (Probe) check, best 1 CMC beater in field? (Delver) check, best way to stop a combo from happening (Counterspells) check, ''best creature'' of the format without cheating it into play (TNN) check. The list just goes on . .

The only thing that Blue on itself has problems with is removing something that has been resolved. Aside that, anything that players want in general can be found in that part of the colour pie.

So instead of axing DRS, ban something that dents the blue shell. (Which has us coming back to the whole Brainstorm / cantrip discussion) If they don't wanna adress the cantrips, then axe another part of the Blue shell which is used in general to make it more appealing for people to pickup another colour. Would the % of blue decks still be the same if it where reduced to what blue should be? I never got it why blue in Legacy has some of the best creatures for their CMC whereas the general ''lore'' explains that blue has below average strenght creatures which is partly compensated by Evasion.

I know that this post seems me hating on blue, and yes it partly is, I am just done with the BS of people wanting to ban DRS while the card on itself is fine (At least in my opinion)

Dice_Box

10-04-2017, 12:13 AM

Oh boy.

OK. I can't be arsed cutting your post up to quote you on a phone, so please forgive me for just cut and pasting your points:

Imo, I would like to see more cards that are like DRS in terms of utility. Its a card that lets you make choices
These are not exactly equal points, utility and choice, but I agree with you. A one mana Guteral Response is not going to see as much play as REB because Blast has more utility. Same here.

DRS is NOT broken in my opinion
It really is. The issue with DRS is not just that it supplies Black with a mana dork but that it's effective at any stage of the game. The issue with mana dorks like Birds is they tend to do sweet fuck all when you draw them on turn 7. So you have to balance out early game advantage for late game air. DRS does not force you to make this choice.

Would people here be still bashing DRS if it wasn't used in a Blue shell?
Yes. Modern proved that. As for why its not complained about in Maverick or Elves, out of sight, out of mind. Maverick has done nothing of relevance in years and Elves is not as popular as it once was. Put both these decks on the top tables consistently and watch the bitching commence.

DRS on itself is not a problem, it can be removed, it doesn't say ''I win'' when it lands and it can be dealt with from multiple angles.
DRS is an enabler of early aggressive starts while offering a way out of stalled board states. It in fact does say 'I win' and often does. It just doesn't do the winning on a single turn. Also 'Dies to removal' is a terrible point.

Some state: well its T1 DRS into T2 Leovold / TNN. Is DRS the problem here?
Not directly. I would argue Leo is a mistake as much as DRS is, but Leo would be much harder to play without the fixing DRS grants. That said, DRS into 'Insert development mistake here' isn't really much of a point in Legacy. The format is full of mistakes.

Im sorry to say but IMO ''stupid cards'' like TNN and Leovold are the real problem here, not the DRS.
Man they are all stupid cards, all problems and mistakes, some are just more grievous than the others. On that list, TNN is my personal bug bear. Fuck that guy.

I know that this post seems me hating on blue, and yes it partly is
Welcome to the ball, your club membership card can be picked up over by the punch bowl nedleeds is passed out under. We welcome all who are willing to join us.

OK. Getting real time:
DRS is a fuck up, it's a fuck up I dislike and it's a fuck up that's hard to point to and say 'This thing is fine'. Here's the thing, welcome to the format of fuck ups. While a card like TNN exists in the format, where it comes down and just blanks an entire game, I have little care for banning DRS. Sure, it's a mistake that enables other mistakes, but so it SnT, Sneak Attack, Lotus Petal, Grave Troll and any other amount of stupid shit that we play with. At this point all I ask for is that if we really do have to see DRS go, we scrape some of the other shit stuck to our shoes at the same time.

Still would rather lose to a DRS than a turn two Sneak Attack.

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-04-2017, 01:21 AM

DRS is a fuck up, it's a fuck up I dislike and it's a fuck up that's hard to point to and say 'This thing is fine'. Here's the thing, welcome to the format of fuck ups. While a card like TNN exists in the format, where it comes down and just blanks an entire game, I have little care for banning DRS. Sure, it's a mistake that enables other mistakes, but so it SnT, Sneak Attack, Lotus Petal, Grave Troll and any other amount of stupid shit that we play with. At this point all I ask for is that if we really do have to see DRS go, we scrape some of the other shit stuck to our shoes at the same time.

Still would rather lose to a DRS than a turn two Sneak Attack.

A format of fuck ups is fine (which is most of the appeal of legacy), the problem is when one of the gets a stranglehold on decks when surrounded by them, it's a testament to how good the card is when people in this forum (in this thread and on another) have unironically suggested Deathrite Shaman in decks that nominally have no interest in the card (combo), at some point, somethings gotta give. We've gone from a format where casting a color intensive card was brave to relatively common and unremarkable in the face of wasteland, loam and stifle, while also being nothing for said decks to splash them.

It's a card that is literally too good at being fair.

Dice_Box

10-04-2017, 01:59 AM

It's a card that is literally too good at being fair.
Since my return to Magic in 09, we have had that same argument made for two other cards, Knight and Goyf. While I will conceded that DRS is a different beast, it feels like the same old rotation of the wheel.

I could be convinced that DRS is a problem, but even then it's one that won't see action. Because Wizard's would not have taken action on Top if not for the convenience of a 'Timing issue'. They said so themselves. DRS is not anywhere close to as hated at Top was and it's rarely more than an image that they try and change in Legacy, not an actual format shift.

For the record, I do believe DRS is a problem, just not one I would ban.

JackaBo

10-04-2017, 03:55 AM

This is the second time you've referenced "less powerful but broader cards", can you provide an example of what you're talking about?

What deck are you playing? Blue can beat any combo with just stack interaction. Nonblue has consistent ways to find hate cards (GSZ, crop rotation, KotR). Everyone can (and already does) run surgical extraction.

GY combo won't overtake the meta. I understand your concerns about games becoming too mull dependent, I just don't see why that would be the case since wizards has printed stronger graveyard hate as of late and GY combo has not dominated historically.

Ok I will be super clear: i play food chain mostly. I run 4 shamans and 4 fow md that are relevant versus Reanimator. But i also run a bunch of cards that are okay-ish in buying time such as 4 strix, 3-4 decay (kills animate dead even through chancellor), 2 Leovold (prevents gris from drawing and makes discard worse). If i get to buy time DRS can stabilize the game without taking over it (i.e looting 2 fattys then exhume plays around it). Now if i stay alive until 'half combo' they have a hard time winning since i can block forever and negate lifelink from griselbrand. My G1 i is usually bad but fow into DRS can win sometimes.
Post board i bring in 2 surgical, a scooze or relique, 2 flusterstorms and 2 thoughtseize. I have pretty good win% even if i really skimp on actual hate-cards. Surgical is broader than i e RIP since it's also a part if the plan that combo decks get only one shot at going off then I extraction the enbler.
DRS is what makes this sideboard plan possible. Without it i would have to play an additional grafdiggers cage and relique plus scooze. That would cut in to my cards for other match ups making the deck over all more either great or bad instead of 'i have a chance against most decks'

I will take another example. I have been playing a bit of top less miracle. It's a powerful deck in the way that it plays a bunch of very powerful card. But the deck suffers from being split in two halves. You run 8 cards that are stellar versus creature decks but utterly worseless against non-creature decks. Same can be said for the other half of the deck. For this reason i believe new miracle will never be top tier. People used to say that top "Held the two sides together" and portent doesnt fill that role. That's why i think check pile is the better control deck: every card is versatile and have relevant text in different match ups. The prime removal (strix) isnt completely dead versus storm - it attacks and cantrips. Not saying it's good but it's better than StP. The ca engine isnt specific cards (predict) but generated by almost every card. Kcommand, hymn and so on are all flexible cards and seldom totally dead. IMO a reactive control deck in legacy need to play these broad cards that have applications in a lot if matchups and are rarely dead. Without flexible cards i think blue based control is not a viable deck-type. DRS is such a flexible card. I think it gives more to the format than it takes. As many if you have said, it doesnt HOSE GY strategies, it merely is a way to fight them. The only strategies DRS hoses are non-deathrite tempo decks (canadian) and goblins and that's because it's a 1/2 that prevents threshold mainly.

Watersaw

10-04-2017, 07:45 AM

Ok I will be super clear: i play food chain mostly. I run 4 shamans and 4 fow md that are relevant versus Reanimator. But i also run a bunch of cards that are okay-ish in buying time such as 4 strix, 3-4 decay (kills animate dead even through chancellor), 2 Leovold (prevents gris from drawing and makes discard worse). If i get to buy time DRS can stabilize the game without taking over it (i.e looting 2 fattys then exhume plays around it). Now if i stay alive until 'half combo' they have a hard time winning since i can block forever and negate lifelink from griselbrand. My G1 i is usually bad but fow into DRS can win sometimes.
Post board i bring in 2 surgical, a scooze or relique, 2 flusterstorms and 2 thoughtseize. I have pretty good win% even if i really skimp on actual hate-cards. Surgical is broader than i e RIP since it's also a part if the plan that combo decks get only one shot at going off then I extraction the enbler.
DRS is what makes this sideboard plan possible. Without it i would have to play an additional grafdiggers cage and relique plus scooze. That would cut in to my cards for other match ups making the deck over all more either great or bad instead of 'i have a chance against most decks'

I will take another example. I have been playing a bit of top less miracle. It's a powerful deck in the way that it plays a bunch of very powerful card. But the deck suffers from being split in two halves. You run 8 cards that are stellar versus creature decks but utterly worseless against non-creature decks. Same can be said for the other half of the deck. For this reason i believe new miracle will never be top tier. People used to say that top "Held the two sides together" and portent doesnt fill that role. That's why i think check pile is the better control deck: every card is versatile and have relevant text in different match ups. The prime removal (strix) isnt completely dead versus storm - it attacks and cantrips. Not saying it's good but it's better than StP. The ca engine isnt specific cards (predict) but generated by almost every card. Kcommand, hymn and so on are all flexible cards and seldom totally dead. IMO a reactive control deck in legacy need to play these broad cards that have applications in a lot if matchups and are rarely dead. Without flexible cards i think blue based control is not a viable deck-type. DRS is such a flexible card. I think it gives more to the format than it takes. As many if you have said, it doesnt HOSE GY strategies, it merely is a way to fight them. The only strategies DRS hoses are non-deathrite tempo decks (canadian) and goblins and that's because it's a 1/2 that prevents threshold mainly.

So basically the solution is to play blue for counters and black for discard, right? I don't think DRS needs to be banned, but if anything enabling this ridiculous Swiss-army knife sideboard via off-color splashing is an argument that something is wrong. If you're not playing the one mana planeswalker you have to resort to worse options, period.

Fox

10-04-2017, 11:41 AM

...but if anything enabling this ridiculous Swiss-army knife sideboard via off-color splashing is an argument that something is wrong. If you're not playing the one mana planeswalker you have to resort to worse options, period.
We're talking about Food Chain here, they're only casting BUG cards. You need to look at the amount and types of basics in that stock list (I want to say it's a minimum of 4 basics) - that deck has mana reqs for UB, BUG, UU, and BG in a deck that's trying to maximize blue card selection. We should be clear on this point: Food Chain can do all it does without DRS, but they are going to be playing into Wasteland big time in his absence, to the point that executing its combo isn't going to be very realistic. For Food Chain specifically, DRS means you get to hide behind a wall of basics that provides the theoretical baseline you need to ensure for worst case scenarios to be competitive.* I guess we can take a moment to also highlight Gurmag & DRS as ways to get Mistohollows back into exile.
*competitive here being a function of casting optimal spells at optimal times despite fetching basics.

It's important to appreciate a DRS ban in terms of how much of the format would become unplayable due to a perfect storm of mana denial, turn one 0/1s being bad blockers of Glistener, and lost percentage points vs yard-centric combo. DRS the card is rife with mistakes and it plays really nicely with the cantrip cartel, and that's annoying and offensive. At the end of the day though, DRS is doing more good than harm (but yes, it's still doing harm b/c of fetchlands); this guy is a necessary evil, and it's just gonna suck that the cost we all have to pay is the existence of 4c good stuff...but the alternative is worse (in theory).

As a very minor point, if DRS was banned then Snuff Out is going to kill basically everything relevant in the format outside of a threat presented by a combo deck. Just something to think about if you want to theorycraft what post-DRS legacy looks like, and how to spot problems before they exist.

Ephemeron

10-04-2017, 01:40 PM

As a very minor point, if DRS was banned then Snuff Out is going to kill basically everything relevant in the format outside of a threat presented by a combo deck. Just something to think about if you want to theorycraft what post-DRS legacy looks like, and how to spot problems before they exist.

Except for TNN. And Angler. And Batterskull token. And Strix. And Leo. And...

I'm not too concerned about the power of Snuff Out in a hypothetical post-DRS world.

Bryant Cook

10-04-2017, 01:49 PM

Except for TNN. And Angler. And Batterskull token. And Strix. And Leo. And...

I'm not too concerned about the power of Snuff Out in a hypothetical post-DRS world.

Agreed, I would be worried about my opponent generating RR for R.

mistercakes

10-04-2017, 02:17 PM

Or RRRRR for R
#rubystorm

Megadeus

10-04-2017, 03:43 PM

All this talk of if DRS would be banned all of these other things would pop up as problems are the same bad argument of why fast combo will pop up if miracles got banned. The format was fine before these things, don't see why it wouldn't be after them

mistercakes

10-04-2017, 04:39 PM

if only we had a free counterspell that could counter only 1cc cards! oh well. i for one welcome our new elf shaman overlords.

Crimhead

10-04-2017, 05:26 PM

If DRS's ability to convert stuff in a GY to mana belongs in any color but green, that color is black.

I'd never thought of this, but it makes perfect sense. Black has Spoils Of Evil, Songs Of The Damned and Black Market (not to mention Organ Harvest).

Regardless, I don't think any of this colour pie talk is particularly relevant. There is zero precedent for banning cards on account of being off colour! Also this is the format with REB and Drop Of Honey.

Fox

10-04-2017, 07:49 PM

Except for TNN. And Angler. And Batterskull token. And Strix. And Leo. And...

I'm not too concerned about the power of Snuff Out in a hypothetical post-DRS world.

These aren't early game plays where we see the same play patterns. By @Megadeus:

I think the issue with DRS and BS decks (as in in the same deck is that the play patterns are all the same. Sure sometimes you play red instead of say white to get bolt instead of path, or you play BUG for Leovold rather than Grixis for Pyromancer, but the games don't really play out that much differently. You can say yeah the third color is different and therefore the deck is different, but the reality is that most games go the same way. T1 DRS, T2 cast a cantrip, play a threat or answer a threat. Next turn play a thing, cast a cantrip, counter your opponents spell. DRS allowing the non green blue decks to get to do multiple things on turn 2 while advancing the board is what makes the card so insane imo, and it really changed how powerful being on the play is. Turn 1 Sea DRS, daze your removal, untap waste you and play another threat and the game is essentially over at that point.

You can definitely cast and keep Strix alive early assuming you could both meet the mana reqs and resolve it, but the rest are coming down quite a bit later (particularly vs mana denial). Unless you're dropping Goose or Veteran Explorer, you're not making a relevant turn 1 play. You get up to 2 cmc and the only creature you deploy that would need to be answered, which Snuff Out cannot, is Dark Confidant. At 3+ cmc you've broken through the early game's redundant play patterns. The reason Snuff Out isn't seeing heavy play (particularly alongside Gurmag) is that there's a very high chance that creature you needed to kill early was black (and green).

Also at higher cmcs, you begin to need a plan vs Blood Moon, which will affect a number of the cards you've listed @Ephemeron.

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-05-2017, 06:59 AM

Have you considered snuff out simply may not be that good?

Whitefaces

10-05-2017, 07:26 AM

#bansnuffout

Fox

10-05-2017, 11:09 AM

Have you considered snuff out simply may not be that good?
It's a minor point, but these are things you have to consider when saying "ban DRS" - there is no other (fair) black turn one, 1-drop creature in legacy that has to be answered. Without DRS in the format, Snuff Out is gonna see a lot more play - and that whole boring early play pattern Megadeus described, it's all the same b/c Snuff Out is free, the mana disparity easily continues to exist. Is Snuff Out worse than DRS in say a combo matchup, absolutely - but the people who want DRS banned here are mostly annoyed by DRS + BS in 4c good stuff vs [insert fair strategy].

If you're on a non-blue fair deck post-DRS ban, what's your plan for getting out from under Wasteland/Daze/Delver? What creature do you cast to that survives (assuming it resolved) vs Snuff Out, thus punishing them for running that card? Do you think you can possibly take advantage of the fact that they paid 4 life, given that they are still on pace to turn 3 Gurmag reliably (i.e. not deviating from their game plan)? You might be sick of playing against 4c good stuff deck, but how is your life getting better when the Wasteland plan gets a massive situational boost?

Claymore

10-05-2017, 11:18 AM

Ban Disciple of the Vault.

Bryant Cook

10-05-2017, 11:27 AM

Snuff Out saw very little play pre-DRS. A banning wouldn't change anything.

Fox

10-05-2017, 11:33 AM

Snuff Out saw very little play pre-DRS. A banning wouldn't change anything.
It's before I played legacy, but I would guess Goose was running rampant then. Assuming it was, I doubt it's returning to that level of play; and when you talk about free spells, you need pretty compelling reasons not to play them. We're still talking about minor points, but there's a lot of playable cards and the go to reason you wouldn't run them is often times b/c DRS exists.

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-05-2017, 11:36 AM

Goose was most certainly loose back then, and had Knight cock blocking it.

maharis

10-05-2017, 11:56 AM

I would be interested in seeing if there's actually any major long-term change in the kinds of decks that are popular if DRS is banned. I still fully believe that Grixis goodstuff will be the best deck because of it's raw efficiency and I honestly don't think it's that hard to play 2 Trops and still jam Leovold.

The deck to keep an eye on in the post-DRS world is Bant imo, since Hierarch can still support TNN and Stoneforge easily, but I think that K-Command + Therapy etc will hold that down, and Marsh Casualties and other sweepers like Deluge post-SB will be a major blowout.

RUG will be better but experienced and smart players will be able to assemble wins. RUG can have some really shit opening hands and TNN and Strix and Angler are still huge roadblocks vs. Goose. Honestly I think the RUG vs. DRS-deck matchup is closer if the RUG player leans on the side of more removal and just prioritizes killing Deathrite (I play 7 pieces MB plus a couple more side when I jam Canadian).

The stew that is cantrips + disruption + strix + snap + angler + tnn + your choice of YP or Leo honestly doesn't lose all that much from getting rid of DRS. DRS is just removal bait anyway so you can just Thoughtseize their removal instead.

The thing that is consolidating decks is that the removal in legacy is too efficient so your creatures at >1 CMC need to have innate protection or relevant ETB in order to be good. All the czech creatures are way better at that than alternatives. There's a reason you don't see Tarmogoyf or SFM too much anymore.

Barook

10-05-2017, 12:24 PM

maharis

10-05-2017, 12:41 PM

I don't think a 4C build would be vey viable anymore without DRS. You get significantly weaker to mana denial, be it Wasteland or Blood Moon. Taxing effects would also hit harder without DRS.

But the cantrips mitigate that a whole lot. If you have 2 leos, 2 trops, 10 fetches and 8-14 cantrips (depending on how one defines Strix) you can just bury your splash cards until you really need them to lock up the game.

Ramping into a resolved Leo on t2 happens about as often as T2 Show and Tell, I don't think that's as big an issue as the fact that once you get past DRS all the other creatures up the curve essentially blank point removal. So you play point removal to kill DRS but it's not relevant against the other creatures. And, if DRS was banned, they could just thoughtseize your way to deal with Angler/TNN/Leovold, then snap-thoughtseize your other relevant spells....

I really think this is an issue of power in a certain shell and not just of one card. I play against czech pile a lot (like most of us here.) They often tap lands to cast their spells because I nuke DRS on sight. If the contention is that "all DRS decks tend to play out the same," which I agree with, that isn't going to go away when it's banned. There are just too many efficient and resilient tools in that deck's toolbox that don't reward color variation.

Edit: And none of this is to say necessarily that DRS shouldn't be banned, at this point I don't care. I'm just saying that there is no reason to expect a significant meta shift as a result. UNLESS they also unban Top and ban CB. But that ship has sailed.

MorphBerlin

10-05-2017, 04:19 PM

Ramping into a resolved Leo on t2 happens about as often as T2 Show and Tell, I don't think that's as big an issue

Finally someone is saying this...

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-05-2017, 05:24 PM

What pile are you playing that is stone cold to turn 2 leovold?

I mean show and tell puts in a Griselbrand and grunts wildly at least.

MorphBerlin

10-06-2017, 03:34 AM

You mean me? I was not be sarcastic once :laugh: I really think T2 Leo or TNN is not a problem and is just an hyperbole used in this debate.

I am playing 4C so I am defentily biased in this discussion, but it's really funny to me, how a 1/2 creature is a problem when my opps e.g. put indestructible 20/20s into play without even casting a spell, while having a bunch of 1 and 2 mana tutors for their deck and all the other shit that is going on in Legacy. I also can't realize how people think playing against gitaxian probe is fine but DRS is an offender.

Would be funny if everyone has to write their deck in the signature, I am not entierly sure but I see alot of Lands, Blood Moon etc players commenting here. Where coincidently DRS is a good way to fight their shenanigans.

mistercakes

10-06-2017, 03:38 AM

I'd also prefer probe banned to DRS.

Mr Miagi

10-06-2017, 04:30 AM

So much whineing about probe.. but where is it really played. Storm, grixis delver, infect. I don't see any grounds to ban this card. These three decks are not troublesome.

Crimhead

10-06-2017, 04:45 AM

.
Would be funny if everyone has to write their deck in the signature, I am not entierly sure but I see alot of Lands, Blood Moon etc players commenting here. Where coincidently DRS is a good way to fight their shenanigans.
I play Lands almost exclusively (for almost 4 years now). I do not think DRS needs a ban, and I think the format is healthy and good. Just look at MTG Top8 with the Modo "data" filtered out and it's pretty hard to deny the diversity of this meta-game. In fact, I can't remember the meta ever looking this rich and varied:

http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=le&meta=72

Things to note:

42% of the meta consists of decks with a 3-4% share.
No deck is above 8%.
A huge variety of unique decks are relevant. Infect, Burn, D&T, Eldrazi, Dragon Stompy, Elves, Lands, Maverick, Miracles, and more.

So much whineing about probe.. but where is it really played. Storm, grixis delver, infect. I don't see any grounds to ban this card. These three decks are not troublesome.
Manaless Dredge! :tongue:

Gheizen64

10-06-2017, 04:55 AM

Whatever they ban, it must not be blue. Cause blue is legacy.

Crimhead

10-06-2017, 05:22 AM

Whatever they ban, it must not be blue. Cause blue is legacy.
Whatever they unban...
:wink:

There seems to be a mentality that a Legacy ban is imminent. Yes, WotC are marketing eternal more aggressively, and yes, the did ban Top. That doesn't mean they plan to issue frequent "shake-up" bans or that they are going to axe everybody's pet hate cards.

Mr. Safety

10-06-2017, 07:12 AM

Here's my two cents, for whatever it's worth: wotc won't ban DRS because Wasteland gets better in the format without it, and wotc hates land destruction, citing it as one of the mechanics that makes for un-fun game experiences. If Czech pile had to rely on its lands harder to splash green it becomes fairly easy for Wasteland to become more effective (not saying it shuts the deck down.) I don't think anybody will seriously start using Noble Hierarch or Birds of Paradise to replace DRS, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. For this reason (keeping DRS in the format) is why Mind Twist won't be unbanned, simply because it allows the acceleration into a Hymn for 3+ early enough to matter without expending too many resources to get there (Dark Ritual, etc.) I mention Mind Twist because its one of the recurring cards brought up for unbanning. I actually think the format is pretty good right now. I lament the loss of traditional agro like Zoo, or more tribal deck prevalence like gobbos/merfolk, but that's just nostalgia.

taconaut

10-06-2017, 08:24 AM

I also can't realize how people think playing against gitaxian probe is fine but DRS is an offender.

Gitaxian Probe is fine. But so is Deathrite Shaman (and so was Top, if you ask me, but that ship has sailed).

Also, it surprises me that you care about it as a Czech player - so you get probed, and they see...a bunch of goodstuff value? Like, what information asymmetry are you trying to establish?

Fox

10-06-2017, 08:52 AM

Gitaxian Probe is fine. But so is Deathrite Shaman (and so was Top, if you ask me, but that ship has sailed).

Also, it surprises me that you care about it as a Czech player - so you get probed, and they see...a bunch of goodstuff value? Like, what information asymmetry are you trying to establish?

Well, pay 2 life, draw a card, +1 delve mana for one. Gitaxian Probe exacerbated the effect of cards like DTT and TC; the card enables no mechanics that make legacy better.

taconaut

10-06-2017, 09:52 AM

Well, pay 2 life, draw a card, +1 delve mana for one. Gitaxian Probe exacerbated the effect of cards like DTT and TC; the card enables no mechanics that make legacy better.

See, that just seems so innocuous to me - plus, TC and DTT are banned, so I see where you're coming from, but in this context they're not relevant to the Legacy we're discussing.

As for the second part, I don't think there has ever been a game improved in any way by Chalice of the Void, or Thorn of Amethyst, or Griselbrand, but I don't think they need to be banned either.

Fox

10-06-2017, 10:08 AM

So the issue with Gitaxian is more that if it isn't a problem, then it's lurking around until it can make itself a problem. The same can be said of Counterbalance, massive lurking problem but currently no supporting piece. These cards will never stop trying to blight the format; the mechanical problems they create when combined with other cards only exist b/c of the original cards [CB, Probe]. The example could be expanded to DRS and Brainstorm; it's actually the mechanics of fetchlands that made the problem possible. It doesn't make much sense to not ban the actual problem, but keep banning all the cards (that they are going to keep printing) which can exploit the mechanical flaw.

The bit about fetchlands comes with an asterisk, their absence would create irreconcilable financial death spiral until such a time that the RL policy was rescinded.

Chalice/Thorn are a function of Ancient Tomb being legal. Grisel is enabled, in the most offensive form (B/R reanimator), by Chancellor of the Annex being legal [also SnT]. I don't think these two are pressing issues, but if approaching these as problems to be solved, I'd begin analysis here.

As an opinion, I don't mind broken things in legacy, but I do want there to be a reasonable expectation that gamestates break down and devolve somewhat to the point that a matchup was at least interesting if not genuinely interactive. There was nothing thought provoking or interesting with U/R TC Delver, OmniTell w/ DTT, nor CB/SDT lock.

Dice_Box

10-06-2017, 10:12 AM

As for the second part, I don't think there has ever been a game improved in any way by Chalice of the Void, or Thorn of Amethyst
I beg to differ. These cards offer the same advantages to the format that Bloodmoon, Back to Basics or Rest in Peace do. They punish you for building in a hyperfocused, linear way. If we are going to accept that playing decks with 8 to 12 one drop "Air" cards in them for filtering is ok, we need to accept an answer also needs to be available.

I will agree is sucks to be on the receiving end of these cards, God knows I have likely lost to a Bloodmoon more than any of you have to a Chalice, but these cards are a safety valve for those times the format becomes too inbred and insular

taconaut

10-06-2017, 10:50 AM

I beg to differ. These cards offer the same advantages to the format that Bloodmoon, Back to Basics or Rest in Peace do. They punish you for building in a hyperfocused, linear way. If we are going to accept that playing decks with 8 to 12 one drop "Air" cards in them for filtering is ok, we need to accept an answer also needs to be available.

I will agree is sucks to be on the receiving end of these cards, God knows I have likely lost to a Bloodmoon more than any of you have to a Chalice, but these cards are a safety valve for those times the format becomes too inbred and insular

Yes, I totally agree, that's why I think they should remain legal. My point was that "subjectively unenjoyable play experiences" are not necessarily a ban criteria for Legacy, and that I feel most of the arguments against GP or DRS fall into this category (where people just don't like playing against them, not that they're broken).

JackaBo

10-06-2017, 12:04 PM

I beg to differ. These cards offer the same advantages to the format that Bloodmoon, Back to Basics or Rest in Peace do. They punish you for building in a hyperfocused, linear way. If we are going to accept that playing decks with 8 to 12 one drop "Air" cards in them for filtering is ok, we need to accept an answer also needs to be available.

I will agree is sucks to be on the receiving end of these cards, God knows I have likely lost to a Bloodmoon more than any of you have to a Chalice, but these cards are a safety valve for those times the format becomes too inbred and insular

I totally agree. What I love about legacy is the battle between popular stategies and strategies praying on popular strategies. As long as the anti-cards exist no strategy can be too dominant. Chalice, thalia et al, blood moon and rest in peace are such cards.. They are valuable for the format's health!

Megadeus

10-06-2017, 12:12 PM

And probe adds nothing valuable to the format, only taking away the skill needed to play the game and exacerbating the blue stew

JackaBo

10-06-2017, 12:35 PM

And probe adds nothing valuable to the format, only taking away the skill needed to play the game and exacerbating the blue stew

I agree. But then they need to functionally reprint Street Wraith cause I wanna keep playing Manaless Dredge.

Dice_Box

10-06-2017, 12:53 PM

Yes, I totally agree, that's why I think they should remain legal. My point was that "subjectively unenjoyable play experiences" are not necessarily a ban criteria for Legacy, and that I feel most of the arguments against GP or DRS fall into this category (where people just don't like playing against them, not that they're broken).
That's fair, but I do wish to debate one thing. I run Chalice and Sphere in the side of Lands. Used to be Thorn but Aluren punched me and I adapted. I would argue that combo matches have been improved by putting a gate up and forcing a reaction in place of a goldfish. I don't think it's much fun for an ANT player to win without ever facing a single speed bump or question.

In place of counters, hand disruption or Mindbreak cards like Chalice, Thorn or Sphere do allow for some games to be far more interesting and interactive than they otherwise would have been. Because they grant both the player using them and the player who sideboards right against them a game of cat and mouse, knowing when to react and what you need to win. Games improved by these Artifacts.

I agree. But then they need to functionally reprint Street Wraith cause I wanna keep playing Manaless Dredge.
Just don't make it Modern legal.

taconaut

10-06-2017, 01:17 PM

I would argue that combo matches have been improved by putting a gate up and forcing a reaction in place of a goldfish. I don't think it's much fun for an ANT player to win without ever facing a single speed bump or question.

In place of counters, hand disruption or Mindbreak cards like Chalice, Thorn or Sphere do allow for some games to be far more interesting and interactive than they otherwise would have been. Because they grant both the player using them and the player who sideboards right against them a game of cat and mouse, knowing when to react and what you need to win. Games improved by these Artifacts.

Yup, still agree - I just think people make it out like Probe is a zero skill card, which is false, especially in the context of, "welp, here's a sol land and a chalice, hope you didn't need any of your one-drops" as though playing those cards somehow makes them more skillful than players that like cantrips. :really:

So many of the posters seem to just call for everything to be banned, but never talk about what the ideal games of their desired format would be. If people just want to ram non-blue duders into each other/each other's removal and have top-deck wars to see who wins, there are actually a ton of magic formats that focus on just that kind of play. In legacy, sometimes you have to play against strategies you don't personally enjoy; in exchange, you can play any strategy you do personally enjoy. (Edit: well, except maybe non-tempo aggro? Certainly, decks come in and out of vogue, especially now that Miracles is much weaker.)

That's why I focus on Chalice and its ilk as a Storm player: are they miserable, reductive cards that seem to lack any particular nuance or skill? Maybe to me personally, but my opinion on that doesn't matter, and I understand they are valuable to the format for the reasons you've stated that I agree with on a high level. Thus, I don't think they should be banned.

Ultimately, what I'm getting at is that all of these cards are fine. One of legacy's strengths is its diverse strategic options, and I think calling for ever more bannings only risks losing those choices.

Thresh84

10-06-2017, 01:28 PM

If people just want to ram non-blue duders into each other/each other's removal and have top-deck wars to see who wins, there are actually a ton of magic formats that focus on just that kind of play. In legacy, sometimes you have to play against strategies you don't personally enjoy; in exchange, you can play any strategy you do personally enjoy.

+1

Sidneyious

10-07-2017, 06:28 PM

free velocity

It costs a single blue or 2 life.
It's not even an instant, I'd love to hear the salt if it was.

For drs to be a manadork a grave needs a land, something that is not a constant.

tescrin

10-08-2017, 12:52 PM

Probe being banned would basically (probably) swap Grixis Delver for BUG Delver, Grixis Control for BUG Control (.. maybe*) and.. that's about it.

The main thing about Probe is that it makes the parts of the game that are not supposed to be deterministic become deterministic and it lowers the skill threshold of decks that use it. The things it enables in Legacy are also only bad:
* Pumps graveyards (routinely a problem)
* It costs 0 mana (routinely a problem)
* Thusly boosts Oops, Dredge, and Belcher -> These are things nobody wants; even those players ;p
* Is an Instant/Sorcery for Delver that is never bad (barring Chalice/D&T)
* Makes Cabal Therapy *ridiculous* instead of just "Still usually the best discard"

Like.. Storm is still a deck without Probe, as is S&T, as is Grixis Delver etc.. but they no longer get the free ride they currently get. It's obnoxious that you can have a hand like Stifle, Force, Waste, (Ucard) and that be insufficient hate because the storm player saw it before using discard for "0" mana T1, fetched a basic despite needing a USea and knows that it takes 2+ discard to go off. It makes S&T less interesting because instead of presuming they can go off, they just *know*.

Card games are supposed to be somewhat non-deterministic, and GProbe not only has major traits of problem cards (and has been banned as such in the other formats) but it makes the "Card game" aspect no longer a thing. It removes bluffing for no mana, no tempo, no cards. It drops the skill level of your opponent on top of it.

I don't know if it's "Worthy" of a ban yet, but it's certainly obnoxious and has all the hallmarks of one. It *will* break something if it hasn't already. It's probably not causing Legacy to Hemorrhage players yet, so that's enough for me to be "meh" on it; but I certainly won't shed a tear if "Pyro, Probe, Cabal Cabal Go" isn't a thing on T2.

Crimhead

10-08-2017, 01:30 PM

* Thusly boosts Oops, Dredge, and Belcher -> These are things nobody wants; even those players ;p

I don't imagine there is a single Dredge player who dislikes the Boost the deck gets from G-Probe. Dredge is struggling, and I can't understand why you think Dredge players would want the deck to struggle even more.

Personally Dredge is the only reason I particularly like the card (although I don’t think there's any good reason to ban it).

MorphBerlin

10-08-2017, 03:10 PM

Gitaxian Probe is fine. But so is Deathrite Shaman (and so was Top, if you ask me, but that ship has sailed).

Also, it surprises me that you care about it as a Czech player - so you get probed, and they see...a bunch of goodstuff value? Like, what information asymmetry are you trying to establish?

Because it puts any slower deck, that can't afford to run it, at an huge disadvantage to combo and tempo, because their whole play becomes deteministic and 100% plannable for 0 cost (in their deck) which pisses me off

Crimhead

10-08-2017, 05:39 PM

because their whole play becomes deteministic and 100% plannable for 0 cost (in their deck) which pisses me off
Unless G-Probe enables the accurate prediction of every card either player will draw till the end of the game, play is not deterministic. There are still possibilities that need to be accounted for. G-Probe reveals a lot of information, but it doesn't remove the element of chance from the game any more than a Thoughtseize does.

Because it puts any slower deck, that can't afford to run it, at an huge disadvantage to combo and tempo
Any slower deck not running CotV? :p

Regardless I'm not sure I believe every midrange and control deck in the format is a dog to Storm, S&T, and Delver. That sounds far fetched.

Lemnear

10-09-2017, 03:36 AM

Because it puts any slower deck, that can't afford to run it, at an huge disadvantage to combo and tempo, because their whole play becomes deteministic and 100% plannable for 0 cost (in their deck) which pisses me off

I don't think I can agree here as I don't see which decks "can't afford to run it" given the card is as unrestrictive as Mental Misstep which made it even into non-blue decks back in the days. In fact, decks like D&T haven't even explored to use Probe to determine if they should drop a Thalia or SFM turn two, for example.

Given that in like 60% of matchups across the meta you play against other decks with Cantrips, its quite a stretch to argue that a single Probe is able to reveal the opponents plays to come. Similar is true for non-blue matchups which include engines like Loam or any topdecking in general.

jandax

10-09-2017, 04:35 AM

Lemnear

10-09-2017, 05:07 AM

Meta-question : Wouldn't a Legacy restricted list mitigate most of the conflict betweem proponents and opponents of certain cards?
Definitively not saying it should happen but through the prism of a restricted list, like a watchfog of the format, Legacy could stay stable despite any printings to come.

The format which is managed that way over the last years is widely known as "Vintage". A selected, inbreed group of people bitch about a card and then it gets restricted to have less of an impact

Barook

10-09-2017, 09:50 AM

The format which is managed that way over the last years is widely known as "Vintage". A selected, inbreed group of people bitch about a card and then it gets restricted to have less of an impact
Neither of the "Eternal" formats have a very stellar B&R management:

Modern: Too many bans too fast - while it has slowed down, they were pretty trigger happy when it was a PT format
Legacy: The exact opposite - they can't be assed to ban shit even when it's blatantly obvious that something is broken. 1 year to ban DTT and 3 years of Miracle's dominace are just the "latest" examples for that.
Vintage: Randy Buehler's friends complain on Twitter that they don't like card X and it gets restricted.

Crimhead

10-09-2017, 10:28 AM

Neither of the "Eternal" formats have a very stellar B&R management:

Legacy: The exact opposite - they can't be assed to ban shit even when it's blatantly obvious that something is broken. 1 year to ban DTT and 3 years of Miracle's dominace are just the "latest" examples for that.

Being fair, DTT didn't see heavy play until after the cruise ban. 6 months was not an unreasonable amount of time to give the meta a chance to adjust and police itself.

Miracles is a different story because not everyone agrees it even deserved a ban. WotC themselves said power level alone was not sufficient for a ban. I'm of the opinion it was only borderline OP.

Edit - of course I have no interest in debating the SDT post mortem. Just saying that your assertion that Miracles should have got a ban much sooner is not a cut and dry fact.

Fox

10-09-2017, 10:53 AM

Being fair, DTT didn't see heavy play until after the cruise ban. 6 months was not an unreasonable amount of time to give the meta a chance to adjust and police itself.

This is correct, U/R TC Delver was tier 0. The timing window vs this deck was likely too narrow for DTT OmniTell to assert itself. Until TC was banned, DTT was not actually a ban-worthy card in anything but theory. In either case though Git. Probe was far and away the main enabler and should have been banned before either of the delve spells.

DarthVicious

10-09-2017, 01:56 PM

Gitaxian Probe was far and away the main enabler and should have been banned before (Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time ).

Am I reading you correctly here? A free Peek is a stronger card than Ancestral Recall at sorcery speed, and Ancestral Memories for two mana at instant speed?

Fox

10-09-2017, 02:35 PM

Am I reading you correctly here? A free Peek is a stronger card than Ancestral Recall at sorcery speed, and Ancestral Memories for two mana at instant speed?

The reason you could cast TC that quickly was Gitaxian Probe (and again, fetchlands). That's not a controversial statement.

Probe +1 delve mana. Draws a cantrip. Fetch. Cantrip for 1 mana. 3 in yard, pass turn. Opponent plays delve hater DRS, pass turn (we'll assume it resolved). Land, double cantrip, between 5 and 6 in yard before DRS ever got a crack at challenging the engine - situation exacerbated if they found Probe #2. This is how DTT OmniTell worked; the same idea with TC U/R Delver except they are flinging Bolts every which way and deploying Delver or Swiftspear on way to TC.

Ancestral Recall has zero build-around. It is a mistake to look at what DTT and TC do and ignore how they have to be enabled to unlock that effect [Probe primarily]. Again just like DRS and Brainstorm, what they do doesn't matter - it's a second party at fault [fetchlands here].

MorphBerlin

10-09-2017, 03:41 PM

I don't think I can agree here as I don't see which decks "can't afford to run it" given the card is as unrestrictive as Mental Misstep which made it even into non-blue decks back in the days. In fact, decks like D&T haven't even explored to use Probe to determine if they should drop a Thalia or SFM turn two, for example.

Given that in like 60% of matchups across the meta you play against other decks with Cantrips, its quite a stretch to argue that a single Probe is able to reveal the opponents plays to come. Similar is true for non-blue matchups which include engines like Loam or any topdecking in general.

Obviously my statment was hyperbolic regarding probe but this is the b&r threat after all.

Yes obviously decks that would run mistep cant afford to run probe. Missteps actually stops you opp from doing something, so any reactive deck would happily exchange 2 life to counter something in Legacy, the 1drop fromat. These card are not the same, still probe is annoying as fuck because making games into an ape contest for tempo and especially combo.

@Crimehad: I didn't say those decks are dogs, I said they are put at a fundermental disatvantage because they can't play porbe which gives the named decks free information and a 56 card deck. And comparing Probe to Thoughtseize is just a joke, the don't even have colse to the same purpose. I hope I don't have to draw that out.

DarthVicious

10-09-2017, 04:32 PM

The reason you could cast TC that quickly was Gitaxian Probe (and again, fetchlands). That's not a controversial statement.

Probe +1 delve mana. Draws a cantrip. Fetch. Cantrip for 1 mana. 3 in yard, pass turn. Opponent plays delve hater DRS, pass turn (we'll assume it resolved). Land, double cantrip, between 5 and 6 in yard before DRS ever got a crack at challenging the engine - situation exacerbated if they found Probe #2. This is how DTT OmniTell worked; the same idea with TC U/R Delver except they are flinging Bolts every which way and deploying Delver or Swiftspear on way to TC.

Ancestral Recall has zero build-around. It is a mistake to look at what DTT and TC do and ignore how they have to be enabled to unlock that effect [Probe primarily]. Again just like DRS and Brainstorm, what they do doesn't matter - it's a second party at fault [fetchlands here].

Probe being one of the many cards that enabled the broken delve cards does not make Probe itself broken. Baubles enable delve too, are they broken? The interaction between Probe & Therapy isn't exactly broken either. Strong, yes. If Probe was broken, more people would consider Glasses of Urza.

Fetchlands are another issue entirely. That I'm not going into, other people have gone into that often enough and I might get some kind of magical internet STD from going in there myself.

Fox

10-09-2017, 05:04 PM

Probe being one of the many cards that enabled the broken delve cards does not make Probe itself broken. Baubles enable delve too, are they broken? The interaction between Probe & Therapy isn't exactly broken either. Strong, yes. If Probe was broken, more people would consider Glasses of Urza.
Baubles don't pitch to FoW, draw the same turn, trigger YP, nor tell you what to search for with that cantrip chain. Baubles also increase the clock enemy Goyf would present (still relevant consideration before Fatal Push). They are not broken because a deck with Baubles isn't going to combo off on opponent's upkeep after they pick up a card; they also aren't going to make a land drop on time with Bauble's draw.

Nielsie

10-09-2017, 11:03 PM

And uhm, people in the DnT thread are actually considering Glasses of Urza...

Lemnear

10-10-2017, 05:41 AM

Oh come on Fox ... you can't point to Probe being the reason that TC & DTT were OP, if every deck which ran these started with 8 Fetches, 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder by default to cycle 10% of their deck into the yard by turn 3.

Megadeus

10-10-2017, 05:46 AM

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-10-2017, 08:23 AM

Clearly it was thoughtscour that should’ve been banned, that card was Blue Ritual in those decks.

MorphBerlin

10-10-2017, 08:33 AM

Crimhead

10-10-2017, 09:13 AM

@Crimehad: I didn't say those decks are dogs, I said they are put at a fundermental disatvantage because they can't play porbe which gives the named decks free information and a 56 card deck.
A deck that is disadvantaged is an underdog. A deck that has the advantage is a favourite.

If all your saying is that Probe decks have a strength that other decks don't, that's hardly worth mentioning because every deck has strengths that other decks do not.

And comparing Probe to Thoughtseize is just a joke, the don't even have colse to the same purpose. I hope I don't have to draw that out.
As far as imparting perfect information and making play deterministic, they both do this to the same extent. Hope I don’t have to draw that out.

taconaut

10-10-2017, 09:29 AM

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

This sounds like you're just mad that you didn't have adequate protection - if those probes were discard spells, you still lose both games, and they still get to see your hand - what makes probe so special? If they probe you and see Daze, Fluster, Force, Pheldagrif, Mindbreak Trap, they can have all the information in the world and still lose because you came prepared. Plus, if you're playing a storm player that doesn't probe you there AND doesn't have discard, but takes the correct risk to make you have it with low information, you still don't win either of those games. I'm not sure what you expect - what would a skilled combo game look like?

ph88

10-10-2017, 09:57 AM

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

Wait. So g2 you're OTP with BS, FOW, land, and 4 other non-blue no-interaction cards. You don't mulligan (questionable, but possibly correct depending on what deck you're on), then BS, spending your only blue card, MAIN PHASE? If you'd just held your BS until after he probed he might have been too scared to go off. Hell, if you just didn't BS at all you would have been fine since he didn't have any discard!

I certainly don't like the card, but you can't blame this one on probe.

Rascalyote

10-10-2017, 10:47 AM

MorphBerlin

10-10-2017, 10:57 AM

jandax

10-10-2017, 11:00 AM

taconaut

10-10-2017, 11:13 AM

@ph88

No I kept, 4 lands BS Pyro Spellbomb, bad hand but better then 6 in my mind, blast his t1 BS, play bs main because of the chance to hit Thoughtseize, only find fow without blue card. Die on his turn. Might have played suboptimally but that's easy to say in hindsight. If it was a discard spell I get another turn because of the mana.

@taconaut

What makes probe special? Its a 0 mana card that puts you at a big advantage information wise. I would play the hack out of a 0 mana peek that lets ne play 56 cards. I am pretty sure a Strom deck with 6 discard and 4 probe is much stronger than a 10 discard storm deck. Because there would be some hell of clubky draws but probe just recycles itself every time.

That hand is pretty marginal, it relies heavily on getting a good brainstorm. I see why you kept it, but I think a six could potentially be better (depending on what you're playing, not sure what deck you're on). If it's a discard spell, in this specific case, you don't even get to brainstorm and just get super hosed; in the general case, sometimes it gives you an extra turn, but I've had plenty of games where I can deploy discard and go off in the same turn.

I agree that 6 discard/4 probe is probably better than 10 discard, but, if you're saying:

- zero mana peek is too strong, and you would play four
- zero mana peek exists and is Gitaxian Probe

then why are you not playing it already? If the answer is that it is not optimal for your deck to do so, then one of the above postulates must not be true. I would argue that both of them are untrue; gitaxian probe is not free (though I agree it's as close to free as something gets in Magic) and it's not broken in the way that you say, otherwise every deck would play it, and we know they don't.

MorphBerlin

10-10-2017, 11:35 AM

DarthVicious

10-10-2017, 11:54 AM

Baubles don't pitch to FoW, draw the same turn, trigger YP, nor tell you what to search for with that cantrip chain. Baubles also increase the clock enemy Goyf would present (still relevant consideration before Fatal Push). They are not broken because a deck with Baubles isn't going to combo off on opponent's upkeep after they pick up a card; they also aren't going to make a land drop on time with Bauble's draw.

So it's a versatile card that has various applications, and not all of them include casting it. The same could be said of many other cards. Probe being used to enable delve only highlights how broken of a mechanic delve can be.

Also: It's a cantrip. Most, if not all, of them pitch to Force, draw the same turn, trigger Pyromancer, increase your own as well as an enemy Goyf, help combo off on an opponent's turn, and help make land drops on your own turn by finding land. Knowing what to search for in any given matchup can be made easier with knowing the format and observing your opponent, Probe just gives you that information the easy way. Just like spot discard spells.

And uhm, people in the DnT thread are actually considering Glasses of Urza...

I was one of them for a time, but it was never given serious consideration based on testing results. Information is powerful, and perfect information all the time is even more so, but it may not be worth the slot in enough matchups.

Oh come on Fox ... you can't point to Probe being the reason that TC & DTT were OP, if every deck which ran these started with 8 Fetches, 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder by default to cycle 10% of their deck into the yard by turn 3.

And probe was just exacerbating the issue by being another cog in the retarded blue stew

Exactly my point.

taconaut

10-10-2017, 11:54 AM

Well you see probe does the same as a discard spell but 4 probe is better then 4 more discard spells so you got your own logicical inconsequences mate ;)

I think 0 mana peek is too strong yes and probe is as close to it as it gets. And in these shells it is 0-Mana peek

My main reason for complaint is not power level though, it's just the dullness of that card that takes away something basic from the game

It's not the same, it's similar; the point of that discussion is that people are objecting to the hand info, which discard also provides. Probe can be both similar to and more optimal than the marginal utility of additional discard spells without any inconsistency.

It is close, but not quite the same. It is not an instant, and it costs two life. That can be relevant in matchups like burn or other beatdown decks, and specifically in the case of storm, it competes with Ad Nauseam and Fetches for your life total.

However, all of that is irrelevant if your main complaint is that you find it "dull." Again, I submit that dullness is not a ban criteria, as evidenced by the fact that Show and Tell and Chalice of the Void remain legal, despite being among the dullest cards ever printed. None of these cards need to be banned.

Ace/Homebrew

10-10-2017, 12:22 PM

As of this post, the DTB are:

- Elves!
- Czech Pile
- Grixis Tempo
- Sneak and Show
- Death and Taxes

The only deck among them using Probe is Grixis Tempo, and it appears lists waffle between 3 and 4 copies...
Fine card is fine.

Bryant Cook

10-10-2017, 02:22 PM

iatee

10-10-2017, 02:54 PM

Probe will be banned one day, whether or not it is currently breaking legacy doesn't really matter. Letting people play with perfect information makes Magic worse / the card is banned/restricted in every other format, so there's been precedent. It will continue to enable busted things in the future with cards that haven't been printed yet and maybe it won't be banned until the next Young Pyromancer or whatever appears, but you'd be nuts to bet against it happening.

It's more of a sure-thing ban than DRS - eventually - because DRS is an overpowered fair card and Probe is an overpowered unfair card. They might decide that DRS is just built into the format like Brainstorm, but Probe is going to be a problem that just gets worse.

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-10-2017, 03:46 PM

What cards does Probe enable that weren't already good-busted?

Julian23

10-10-2017, 03:50 PM

I think you're misunderstanding the call for a Probe ban when you think about it in terms of which decks it enables.

iatee

10-10-2017, 04:07 PM

What cards does Probe enable that weren't already good-busted?

Cabal Therapy and Young Pyromancer are fine without Probe - strong but not busted. All Delve and Prowess cards are better with Probe. Wizards likes making spells-matter mechanics and the free spell that gives you perfect information will always be the best enabler for those mechanics.

Bryant Cook

10-10-2017, 04:20 PM

Cabal Therapy and Young Pyromancer are fine without Probe - strong but not busted. All Delve and Prowess cards are better with Probe. Wizards likes making spells-matter mechanics and the free spell that gives you perfect information will always be the best enabler for those mechanics.

But these effects aren't harming the format. Monastery Mentor, Swiftspear, and Young Pyromancer aren't dominating MTGO Leagues.

Meanwhile, DRS is in 60%+ of winning lists online.

Calling for a banning of a card that's played in two decks that isn't hurting the format is foolish because "what it could do". If that was the case, Show and Tell would've been banned years ago.

Crimhead

10-10-2017, 04:29 PM

I think you're misunderstanding the call for a Probe ban when you think about it in terms of which decks it enables.
If you are not thinking in terms of which decks a card enables, you are misunderstanding the entire B&R list.

However, all of that is irrelevant if your main complaint is that you find it "dull." Again, I submit that dullness is not a ban criteria...
+1

I wish people calling for bans would tell us up front if they want a ban because the card is not fun. It would save a lot of wasted keystrokes.

iatee

10-10-2017, 04:42 PM

But these effects aren't harming the format. Monastery Mentor, Swiftspear, and Young Pyromancer aren't dominating MTGO Leagues.

Meanwhile, DRS is in 60%+ of winning lists online.

Calling for a banning of a card that's played in two decks that isn't hurting the format is foolish because "what it could do". If that was the case, Show and Tell would've been banned years ago.

So ban both Probe and DRS? And ban SnS too. "There are lots of cards in legacy that are horrible for the format" isn't actually a good reason for Probe not to be banned.

Perfect information makes Magic worse and takes away one of the competitive advantages that better players have. When you can't bluff anything and/or if you aren't rewarded for being able to read your opponent, Magic isn't as interesting, suddenly it's just about reading your cards and reading their cards and making sure that you don't do something stupid.

There is more to a format than whether or not one deck or card currently happens to be wrecking house. e.g. Modern is on one metric 'healthier' than Legacy right now - there is a far wider spread of tier 1 decks and it's hard to predict what any given t8 will look like. But the gameplay lacks a lot of the nuance in legacy and the fundamental problems with the format - hyper linear strategies that can only be answered with SB cards - mean that it's still actually not that interesting and it is unhealthy on a deeper level. One thing that did make it a little better, however was getting rid of Probe.

The goal for any format shouldn't just be "We need to put out all the forest fires." The goal should be to have a meta that's dynamic/fun/interesting. Probe is none of those things - it's just a sugar rush for a certain style of deck - and it's always going to be a problem. (Until it's not.)

Bryant Cook

10-10-2017, 04:59 PM

So ban both Probe and DRS? And ban SnS too. "There are lots of cards in legacy that are horrible for the format" isn't actually a good reason for Probe not to be banned.

Perfect information makes Magic worse and takes away one of the competitive advantages that better players have. When you can't bluff anything and/or if you aren't rewarded for being able to read your opponent, Magic isn't as interesting, suddenly it's just about reading your cards and reading their cards and making sure that you don't do something stupid.

There is more to a format than whether or not one deck or card currently happens to be wrecking house. e.g. Modern is on one metric 'healthier' than Legacy right now - there is a far wider spread of tier 1 decks and it's hard to predict what any given t8 will look like. But the gameplay lacks a lot of the nuance in legacy and the fundamental problems with the format - hyper linear strategies that can only be answered with SB cards - mean that it's still actually not that interesting and it is unhealthy on a deeper level. One thing that did make it a little better, however was getting rid of Probe.

The goal for any format shouldn't just be "We need to put out all the forest fires." The goal should be to have a meta that's dynamic/fun/interesting. Probe is none of those things - it's just a sugar rush for a certain style of deck - and it's always going to be a problem. (Until it's not.)

Perhaps you should play Modern then. Where anything remotely powerful is banned, Death & Taxes will be very strong for you there.

iatee

10-10-2017, 05:03 PM

Perhaps you should play Modern then. Where anything remotely powerful is banned, Death & Taxes will be very strong for you there.

Some of us are capable of having these discussions without coming across like lawyers with a legal obligation to represent our deck's best interests.

Julian23

10-10-2017, 05:15 PM

Probe has never been about powerlevel. It's about how it makes the format less exciting to play. If we could stop the "Probe too powerful" strawmens, that would be nice.

Bryant Cook

10-10-2017, 05:15 PM

Some of us are capable of having these discussions without coming across like lawyers with a legal obligation to represent our deck's best interests.

Coming from the guy who wants to ban a card played in combo decks that happen to be very good against his white weenie deck?

Bryant Cook

10-10-2017, 05:21 PM

It's about how it makes the format less exciting to play.

Honestly, if Probe were banned tomorrow I wouldn't be heartbroken. But I think the information thing is kind of bullshit as that information has always been available in the form of hand disruption (Duress/Thoughtseize). The exchange between Probe is card nuetral, where with Seize or Duress, both players are down a card.

Games with Probe are rarely "less fun" because I got to see my opponents hand.

iatee

10-10-2017, 05:30 PM

Your problem here is that you're operating under the assumption that everyone else thinks like you do, like it's impossible for someone to not be lobbying for self-interest. I think SnS should be banned too and if they did that DnT players across the world lose their very best matchup.

And beyond that - Probe is not particularly good against DnT. Decks that play Probe sometimes are, and Probe is a good card in those decks, but those aren't the same thing. Maximizing the amount of info you have is way more important vs decks that can cast counterspells. You can generally Storm off blind vs DnT regardless. Fair decks playing Probe often find themselves painfully cycling it for 1 mana and 2 life vs a Thalia in play.

Games with Probe are rarely "less fun" because I got to see my opponents hand.

Yes...they are not less fun...for you.

Crimhead

10-10-2017, 05:40 PM

Probe has never been about powerlevel. It's about how it makes the format less exciting to play. If we could stop the "Probe too powerful" strawmens, that would be nice.

When people call for a ban it's assumed to be based power level because they've never banned a card out of Legacy for any other reason (logistic concerns notwithstanding).

Excitement is a very personal thing. Saying "card x makes Legacy less exciting" equates to saying "I personally dislike card x"; which is not even an argument and doesn't deserve a logical rebuttal. It's just bitching and ranting.

Yes...they are not less fun...for you.
But if you don’t care about what other people find fun, why should anybody care about what you find fun?
If people could keep this subjective garbage to themselves maybe this thread wouldn't be a hot pile of rotten spam.

Lemnear

10-10-2017, 06:03 PM

DRS is an overpowered fair card and Probe is an overpowered unfair card.

I read this 3 times and it still makes no sense for me. How is a Peek, you can alternatively pay 2 Life for, "unfair" in what it does, while a 1cc Planeswalker with essentially 4 abilities is reasonable?

Bryant Cook

10-10-2017, 06:05 PM

When people call for a ban it's assumed to be based power level because they've never banned a card out of Legacy for any other reason (logistic concerns notwithstanding).

Excitement is a very personal thing. Saying "card x makes Legacy less exciting" equates to saying "I personally dislike card x"; which is not even an argument and doesn't deserve a logical rebuttal. It's just bitching and ranting.

But if you don’t care about what other people find fun, why should anybody care about what you find fun?
If people could keep this subjective garbage to themselves maybe this thread wouldn't be a hot pile of rotten spam.

PREACH.

Your problem here is that you're operating under the assumption that everyone else thinks like you do, like it's impossible for someone to not be lobbying for self-interest. I think SnS should be banned too and if they did that DnT players across the world lose their very best matchup.

And beyond that - Probe is not particularly good against DnT. Decks that play Probe sometimes are, and Probe is a good card in those decks, but those aren't the same thing. Maximizing the amount of info you have is way more important vs decks that can cast counterspells. You can generally Storm off blind vs DnT regardless. Fair decks playing Probe often find themselves painfully cycling it for 1 mana and 2 life vs a Thalia in play.

Yes...they are not less fun...for you.

I find Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance to be very unfun and they both create boring gameplay. You don't see me spouting off that I think they need to be banned, because they don't and they don't have the numbers to back it. Very similar to Gitaxian Probe, it's also easy to assume I only think about my self interest with TES. I care most about format health, because without Legacy, there is no TES. Gitaxian Probe isn't a format issue, unlike Deathrite Shaman.

DarthVicious

10-10-2017, 06:06 PM

If people could keep this subjective garbage to themselves maybe this thread wouldn't be a hot pile of rotten spam.

I refer you, sir, to the title of the thread.

"Banned List Speculation"

iatee

10-10-2017, 06:11 PM

I read this 3 times and it still makes no sense for me. How is a Peek, you can alternatively pay 2 Life for, "unfair" in what it does, while a 1cc Planeswalker with essentially 4 abilities is reasonable?

The terms unfair and fair mean something different in this context. I will give you an example to help you work this one out.

"High Tide is an unfair deck."

It is not a good deck. It's not even an okay deck. But it is an unfair deck.

PREACH.

I find Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance to be very unfun and they both create boring gameplay. You don't see me spouting off that I think they need to be banned, because they don't and they don't have the numbers to back it. Very similar to Gitaxian Probe, it's also easy to assume I only think about my self interest with TES. I care most about format health, because without Legacy, there is no TES. Gitaxian Probe isn't a format issue, unlike Deathrite Shaman.

I also think Chalice should be banned, because it creates unfun gameplay. The only number you need to back up that statement with is "Chalice on 1." And like Probe, I think it's only a matter of time, since they're going to print more and more pushed colorless cards over the years.

Crimhead

10-10-2017, 06:49 PM

The terms unfair and fair mean something different in this context. I will give you an example to help you work this one out.

"High Tide is an unfair deck."

It is not a good deck. It's not even an okay deck. But it is an unfair deck.

Probe is played in Storm and Dredge, but it's also played in "fair" decks like Delver and Infect.

I refer you, sir, to the title of the thread.

"Banned List Speculation"

Speculating about the banned list =/= griping about pet hate cards which are not OP.

taconaut

10-10-2017, 07:15 PM

Lemnear

10-10-2017, 08:08 PM

The terms unfair and fair mean something different in this context. I will give you an example to help you work this one out.

"High Tide is an unfair deck."

It is not a good deck. It's not even an okay deck. But it is an unfair deck.

So your argument is that one OP card with 60%+ penetration is fine because its played in decks you may like and another OP card, with much lower numbers, is not because it's played in decks you don't like.

Can we stop this "I don't like Delver & Combo, so pls ban Probe" non-argument here?

iatee

10-10-2017, 08:09 PM

Probe is played in Storm and Dredge, but it's also played in "fair" decks like Delver and Infect.

Speculating about the banned list =/= griping about pet hate cards which are not OP.

Fair decks don't win on turn 2.

iatee, what does your ideal legacy game look like? It sounds like we at least agree that chalice is miserable, though you also hate probe; which cards do you like/think make for good legacy games?

I think interesting games of Magic are highly interactive games of Magic. Legacy is great because it creates games with a wide variety of forms of interaction - interaction with creatures, lands, planeswalkers, the stack, graveyards, hands, libraries. One of the better defenses of DRS is that it gives decks a form of graveyard interaction with a zone that's usually impossible to interact with game 1. I don't think creature decks should just have to autoscoop to Lands or Reanimator g1. (OTOH - DRS is obviously a bit too good / pushes out other strategies.)

Chalice is obviously not a good card for interactive Magic - it's actually a turn 1 combo card. Chalice decks 'basically win' on turn 1, whether you're attacking with Reality Smasher or Rishadan Cutpurse doesn't matter that much. The fact that you can actually just throw a random word in front of 'Stompy' and it's kinda a viable legacy deck highlights the reason why Chalice should (and I think eventually will) be banned.

Probe pushes uninteractive decks in a lot of ways - free storm, free information, free card in your yard. Against decks that can't interact with the stack, it just allows you to win faster. And against decks that can interact with the stack, it increases the chance that that doesn't even matter, because your combo deck can operate with perfect information and play past them.

I think games where one person didn't get to make any meaningful game actions are super boring, including the games like that that I win because I managed to win the die roll and resolve a Thalia on turn 2. When it doesn't matter how good the players are because the cards play themselves, what's the point of even sitting there and doing this? You're just a vessel that a Storm deck uses to go off with perfect information or a Stompy deck uses to ensure the other guy plays 0 spells.

I am obviously more pro-ban than most people here and I think there's some weird form of Magic libertarianism in a lot of legacy players that prioritizes card-freedom over whether or not a format is actually creating interesting games / rewarding skilled play.

Lemnear

10-10-2017, 08:32 PM

You preach wine and serve water.

I have my troubles to take a speech about interactive games for serious, if it comes from one who usually piles up resistors and Landdestruction so his opponents just don't get to play the game at all ;)

Purple Blood

10-10-2017, 08:47 PM

Chalice only completely locks out decks when they play all one cost spells. This is a check on deck construction. There's an easy way to avoid a full lockout from cards like Chalice and Blood Moon - play with different cards.

iatee

10-10-2017, 08:57 PM

It's not a check on deck construction. Nobody is going to stop playing Brainstorm, Ponder and DRS strategies because they might face a Chalice. Nobody builds their deck considerably differently to beat Chalice g1. Wasteland being in 50% of Legacy decks ensures that you are going to be punished for playing expensive spells more often than you are punished for playing one drops - people build decks to survive in a meta filled with Wasteland/Daze/Thalia. And because of that, once in a while you're punished from the other direction.

Chalice players basically go around hoping to win their die rolls and randomly steal games from people - nobody loses to a Chalice deck and says "Well, I learned my lesson, maybe I should play more two drops." That would actually be a terrible lesson to learn. They say "That sucked, I lost to a guy who probably won't even make t8."

Crimhead

10-10-2017, 09:45 PM

I think there's some weird form of Magic libertarianism in a lot of legacy players that prioritizes card-freedom over whether or not a format is actually creating interesting games / rewarding skilled play.
People have different opinions about what makes Legacy interesting and what sort of skill sets they want it to focus pn (mulliganing, meta-gaming, adjusting to different opposing decks, etc).

The "libertarianism" basically means that since we can't agree what makes this game good, we need a better reason than enjoyability to tell somebody they can't play the cards we don't like.

nobody loses to a Chalice deck and says "Well, I learned my lesson, maybe I should play more two drops." That would actually be a terrible lesson to learn.
But if your meta is heavy with Chalice decks you might chose something that plays well against it. Or at least something that has a bit of game (ie, TA > Thresh, SS > Storm, etc).

Rascalyote

10-10-2017, 10:27 PM

Dice_Box

10-10-2017, 10:29 PM

I also think Chalice should be banned, because it creates unfun gameplay. The only number you need to back up that statement with is "Chalice on 1." And like Probe, I think it's only a matter of time, since they're going to print more and more pushed colorless cards over the years.

I beg to differ. These cards offer the same advantages to the format that Bloodmoon, Back to Basics or Rest in Peace do. They punish you for building in a hyperfocused, linear way. If we are going to accept that playing decks with 8 to 12 one drop "Air" cards in them for filtering is ok, we need to accept an answer also needs to be available.

I will agree is sucks to be on the receiving end of these cards, God knows I have likely lost to a Bloodmoon more than any of you have to a Chalice, but these cards are a safety valve for those times the format becomes too inbred and insular

death

10-10-2017, 10:58 PM

I agree with purple. If you start every deck list with 4 probe 4 ponder 4 brainstorm it's on you to adapt when you lose to chalice of the void, not cry for it's ban. Brainstorm is the best thing you can be doing in legacy, there should be a strong hate card for it.

Again as much as I hate brainstorm I won't be mad to see it stay (which it will), but I'd be pretty upset if they banned another card that's good in non-blue decks and leave the best card untouched.

Still upset about the Top ban? Card is obnoxious.

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

Probe has been in the format since 2011 and you're complaining about it now?

Rascalyote

10-10-2017, 11:04 PM

Still upset about the Top ban? Card is obnoxious.

I never really played it and I can see the logistic reasons for it being banned, still feel bad for people who put a lot of time into decks like painter to see a card from it banned though :(

Dr_D

10-10-2017, 11:14 PM

RIP DDFT. Can't find a reason to play it over TES or ANT now. It's been nice for my store credit stash though.

Nielsie

10-10-2017, 11:30 PM

Meanwhile, DRS is in 60%+ of winning lists online.

Calling for a banning of a card that's played in two decks that isn't hurting the format is foolish because "what it could do". If that was the case, Show and Tell would've been banned years ago.

I don't know where your numbers come from but I don't need to know the source to know what other card is in those lists with an even higher representation. Why are we not banning that monstrosity first in place of a stupid creature that dies to almost everything??? Oh, I know why, because it's blue and has big pile of BS arguments about being some kind of pillar... bunch of BS...

kombatkiwi

10-11-2017, 12:05 AM

'Chalice is fine because it's like Rest in Peace for 1-drops'

This argument only makes sense if you think that playing generic efficient cards is "building in a hyperfocused, linear way" in an equivalent fashion to 'Return Ichorid, trigger Prized Amalgam' or 'Tap 3 Cloudpost: Ulamog'.

Why do decks that plan on playing an interactive normal magic need a 1-card way to be shut out of the game?

If you expect that the field is going to have a lot of Miracles, you can play Cloudpost. If you play against Miracles you will be favoured but you will get punished for it if people are playing Delver or Combo. This is therefore a decision with some kind of critical thought involved.

If you expect that the field is going to have a lot of good cards, you can play Chalice of the Void. If people are playing good cards you will be 'favoured', but you will get punished for it if people are playing bad cards. This is not an interesting decision with critical thought involved, because you can say with some certainty that people will be showing up to the tournament with good cards and not bad ones. The reason why it is still not generally a winning strategy to play Chalice decks is because they're so inconsistent and it's therefore miserable to receive a loss from one of these decks knowing that the shitty roulette wheel happened to land on 00 just as you put your money down.

You can argue that losing to chalice is no different to losing to Belcher/RB/Ooops/ any of these other relatively-inconsistent obnoxious turn 1 decks, but these are much more susceptible to counterspells and other dedicated SB hate and they don't enforce this stupid deckbuilding paradigm of 'you will have a higher chance of winning if you don't play as many good cards'

Dice_Box

10-11-2017, 12:40 AM

Why do decks that plan on playing an interactive normal magic need a 1-card way to be shut out of the game?
Because they are the most efficient ways to solve a given issue. If I am building a Patriot coloured deck, I am likely going to run in the Side both Moon and RIP. Those two cards, along with my filtering should let me win a large number of games alone. RIP will answer things like Dredge, RUG Delver, Lands or Reanimator all on its own. Sure, I am playing an inactive deck, but if I can land a card and win, sucks to be you. Shit, throw in a Moat into the side of this Patriot deck and you have a lovely set of silver bullets that just destroy some decks. Yay interaction.

Oh and Miracles did that.

If you expect that the field is going to have a lot of good cards, you can play Chalice of the Void. If people are playing good cards you will be 'favoured', but you will get punished for it if people are playing bad cards. This is not an interesting decision with critical thought involved, because you can say with some certainty that people will be showing up to the tournament with good cards and not bad ones.
So, if you expect the format to be heavily slanted in one direction you can play an answer? This is not exactly news. I mean, right now you could show up to an event with Blue Moon and I think you would do more damage than you would with Chalice. The format is so imbreed around 3 or 4 colour decks that use DRS to cover their stability that you could wipe them out with a card.

As for critical thought, people play SnT at big events without much complaint. Let's not pretend a lot of thought is needed to win an event.

You can argue that losing to chalice is no different to losing to Belcher/RB/Ooops/ any of these other relatively-inconsistent obnoxious turn 1 decks, but these are much more susceptible to counterspells and other dedicated SB hate and they don't enforce this stupid deckbuilding paradigm of 'you will have a higher chance of winning if you don't play as many good cards'
No, it's more a situation of "Hey I have the answer to your deck". People are just pissed the answer is so effective. What does it matter if the answer is Force for Dread Return or a Chalice for your cantrips? The fact is we are arguing that a card shuts down a large percentage of a single kind of deck without asking why that is even an option in the first place.

Fact is, Chalice is getting stronger only because of a race to the bottom. When I was playing Goblins in 09, the RUG players where not all that bothered by Chalice and more worried about Lackey. If you plan to play a deck that loses to a card that's your choice and something you have to accept. I run a playset of Enchantment removal in my sideboard for Bloodmoon and RIP. I accept I have a weakness and I try to amend that, I don't cry about the fact that I lose to Bloodmoon, RIP, Storm, Reanimator, SnT, Beltcher, Opps, Prelate, TNN...

If you are weak to a card, plan for it. I mean it's obvious that Chalice is a format warping issue, that's why Eldrazi has done nothing of note in months.

kombatkiwi

10-11-2017, 01:51 AM

Because they are the most efficient ways to solve a given issue. If I am building a Patriot coloured deck, I am likely going to run in the Side both Moon and RIP. Those two cards, along with my filtering should let me win a large number of games alone. RIP will answer things like Dredge, RUG Delver, Lands or Reanimator all on its own. Sure, I am playing an inactive deck, but if I can land a card and win, sucks to be you. Shit, throw in a Moat into the side of this Patriot deck and you have a lovely set of silver bullets that just destroy some decks. Yay interaction.

Oh and Miracles did that.
I don't mind chalice in the SB of decks, I am opposed to the fact that it exists as a semi-viable G1 strategy

So, if you expect the format to be heavily slanted in one direction you can play an answer? This is not exactly news. I mean, right now you could show up to an event with Blue Moon and I think you would do more damage than you would with Chalice. The format is so imbreed around 3 or 4 colour decks that use DRS to cover their stability that you could wipe them out with a card.
Maybe I am being too nitpicky but targeting decks with 4+ colors using a card that costs 3 mana doesn't seem comparable to neutering every single spell that costs 1.

As for critical thought, people play SnT at big events without much complaint. Let's not pretend a lot of thought is needed to win an event.
If we determine by a certain metric that Chalice is not good for the format then maybe by the same arguments there are other cards that are not good for the format, sure.

No, it's more a situation of "Hey I have the answer to your deck". People are just pissed the answer is so effective. What does it matter if the answer is Force for Dread Return or a Chalice for your cantrips? The fact is we are arguing that a card shuts down a large percentage of a single kind of deck without asking why that is even an option in the first place.

Fact is, Chalice is getting stronger only because of a race to the bottom. When I was playing Goblins in 09, the RUG players where not all that bothered by Chalice and more worried about Lackey. If you plan to play a deck that loses to a card that's your choice and something you have to accept. I run a playset of Enchantment removal in my sideboard for Bloodmoon and RIP. I accept I have a weakness and I try to amend that, I don't cry about the fact that I lose to Bloodmoon, RIP, Storm, Reanimator, SnT, Beltcher, Opps, Prelate, TNN...

Cards in legacy that cost a lot of mana are bad because of Pierce/Force/Daze/Stifle/Wasteland etc etc
As more sets get printed we get more good cards to choose from that cost less, i.e. 1
We replace the expensive cards with the new cards that cost 1
Decks now have more cards in them that cost 1
Why is this "a race to the bottom?"

If you are weak to a card, plan for it. I mean it's obvious that Chalice is a format warping issue, that's why Eldrazi has done nothing of note in months.
The problem is that 'plan for chalice' means what exactly? If I plan for Combo then I will want to play a blue deck.
If I plan for Sneak and Show then I will want to play Death and Taxes
If I plan to play against Chalice of the Void then I can play a shit deck with no 1 mana spells in it?

Of course you can argue that it's no different whether a deck gets hosed by Chalice or RIP or any other card but
a) Chalice locks you out when you are TRYING to play a minimally-exploitable less-powerful 'fair' strategy that can be interacted with on every other standard axis
b) Chalice is generally played in shells with minimal opportunity for decision making or interaction that don't contribute much to what I think makes legacy enjoyable
c) There isn't any way to strategically avoid it except by increasing your mana curve and making your deck significantly worse against everything else

Nielsie

10-11-2017, 02:20 AM

Why do decks that plan on playing an interactive normal magic need a 1-card way to be shut out of the game?

What is interactive normal magic in Legacy?? Nothing is normal magic in Legacy, everything is busted... Is it because your cards are blue it's suddenly normal magic?

Cards in legacy that cost a lot of mana are bad because of Pierce/Force/Daze/Stifle/Wasteland etc etc

So what? How is this different from saying: Cards in legacy that cost one mana are bad because of Chalice/Thalia/Trinisphere/Sphere of Resistence etc etc

If you build your deck full of 1 mana cantrips just live with the fact it can be hated out. It isn't any different from any other strategy. Why would super-efficient-1-mana-cantrips.deck be allowed to live without any hate cards while graveyard strategies, artefact strategies, land strategies, etc. all should have hate cards? I really don't get this. Well actually I do, but it's absurd, it's because some spikes think that the only correct way to play magic is to use blue cantrips and counters... Magic is more than just blue cantrips, it's just that blue cantrips is heavily protected against any possible bans while all other strategies have to face being banned or drown in hatecards...

Dice_Box

10-11-2017, 02:22 AM

I don't mind chalice in the SB of decks, I am opposed to the fact that it exists as a semi-viable G1 strategy
You can't have one without the other. Moon is a viable Main deck choice too.

Maybe I am being too nitpicky but targeting decks with 4+ colors using a card that costs 3 mana doesn't seem comparable to neutering every single spell that costs 1.
Either way you lock out a deck, the how is not that important to the person who is locked out. Also it's not like 3 mana has ever stopped me from casting Moon turn one.

If we determine by a certain metric that Chalice is not good for the format then maybe by the same arguments there are other cards that are not good for the format, sure.
That wasn't the point I was making, but agreed.

Cards in legacy that cost a lot of mana are bad because of Pierce/Force/Daze/Stifle/Wasteland etc etc
As more sets get printed we get more good cards to choose from that cost less, i.e. 1
We replace the expensive cards with the new cards that cost 1
Decks now have more cards in them that cost 1
Why is this "a race to the bottom?"
So, it's ok to accept that your going to get squeezed but someone else playing Blue but if someone builds a deck, totally devoid of 1 drops and fucks their own consistency, then uses an Artifact to Tempo you its not ok? Daze is fine, Force is fine, Stifle is fine, locking you out with these cards and beating you down with a Delver is fine, but please don't fuck yourself over consistency wise and Chalice me? Meh.

Let's say, if we accept that Daze, Force and Stifle are ok then Chalice is 'Flanking' an existing weakness. As for a Race to the bottom, I simply mean we are chasing the lowest curve possible. It's not an insult, it's an observation.

The problem is that 'plan for chalice' means what exactly?
Run shit that can destroy it in the sideboard. I have a sideboard that consists of 6 pieces of hate for a deck playing Lotus Petal (They all hurt) 4 for Artifacts and Enchantments and 5 "Free" slots. If you biggest weakness is Chalice, plan accordingly.

iatee

10-11-2017, 09:32 AM

Dice_Box

10-11-2017, 09:38 AM

My advice was never to play more expensive spells, but to play answers to the questions that are asked of you. I don't know how many times I have to say "Hey look, I have to deal with this shit thanks to Bloodmoon and RIP, so I run answers" for people to understand that, put simply, Chalice is just a different version of the same problem others already had to deal with.

If you build your 75 in such a way that you can't answer a 2 drop artifact that's on you not the format.

iatee

10-11-2017, 09:49 AM

Dice_Box

10-11-2017, 10:00 AM

Totally agree. And if your playing a deck that is running 8 to 12 cards that do nothing but filter, and the hyper aggressively structure the rest of your deck around that shell, it might not be a bad idea to defend your shell from a known quantity that attacks it.

Alternatively you could whine, bitch and complain about how unfair it is that your not just given a free pass to play your abusive hyperlinear strategy that revolves around playsets of the same 2 or 3 cards everyone else is playing?

Chalice, meet your haters, haters, meet a two drop artifact that dies to effects 3 colours have easy access to.

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-11-2017, 10:36 AM

TL:DR of Dice_Box last few posts

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/l3HMALfodb8/hqdefault.jpg

maharis

10-11-2017, 10:40 AM

Deathrite Shaman is not in 60% of winning decks, unless we are using a different data set than either of these two:

MTGGoldfish: 48.15%

MTGtop8: 34.3% (last two weeks)
39.6% (last two months)
36.2% (live tournaments last two months)

That's high, but even then, ubiquity has never been a ban criteria in Legacy.

I get the argument about game play/deck construction, but I don't find it particularly more egregious than the same impact from allowing Brainstorm and Ponder to be in 40%-60% MORE decks than Deathrite Shaman. I don't see how we get more deck/gameplay variety if Deathrite is banned.

That's not to say it can NEVER be banned, but if you are looking for more meaningful decisions at the point of deck construction or more variation in game play, you have to look other places. And, there needs to be some amount of unbannings/new printings that don't just push UB value piles into the stratosphere.

There is a card on the banlist that is problematic, but if the format was tuned a little better could enable a LOT of powerful synergies to exist that may not need/want Deathrite. That card is Sensei's Divining Top.

But because god forbid they ban a card that says "counter spell" on it, we lost one of the best glue cards the pool has available, which could be used by ANY deck. "But people tanked!" Looking 1-2 times per turn cycle in order to fix your draws is different than having to float cards and respond to triggers. Rounds STILL go way past time regularly. There is STILL a terminus deck. Banning Top instead of banning the card that broke it and enforcing slow play had a lot of unintended consequences.

Dice_Box

10-11-2017, 10:49 AM

morgan_coke

10-11-2017, 10:51 AM

maharis

10-11-2017, 10:53 AM

Sadly, MTG Goldfish data can no longer be used for debate. Thanks to Wizards policy of not releasing any meaningful data from MTGO Goldfish is sadly too flawed to be statistically useful.

Also, fuck my spelling was terrible. Love you auto correct.

I know, but the point is that there's no backup anywhere for the claim that DRS is in 60% of winning decks. Goldfish had lots of other problems too, like being unable to filter a certain time period or live vs. online.

You can play leagues where it's all DRS decks or you can play leagues where you play against 0. Same with weeklies/other paper tournaments. 60% is overestimated.

Lord_Mcdonalds

10-11-2017, 10:53 AM

If the %of the format that used top and wasn’t Miracles was greater than 2%, I would honestly be shocked.

maharis

10-11-2017, 10:57 AM

If the %of the format that used top and wasn’t Miracles was greater than 2%, I would honestly be shocked.

The % of the format that plays DRS and not Brainstorm is similarly low. But the DRS + Brainstorm decks are better than the DRS w/o Brainstorm decks by a lot. Same was true of decks that played Top + CB vs. Top w/o CB.

It's a shell that's a problem, not a single card.

Ronald Deuce

10-11-2017, 11:06 AM

If you build your deck full of 1 mana cantrips just live with the fact it can be hated out. It isn't any different from any other strategy. Why would super-efficient-1-mana-cantrips.deck be allowed to live without any hate cards while graveyard strategies, artefact strategies, land strategies, etc. all should have hate cards? I really don't get this. Well actually I do, but it's absurd, it's because some spikes think that the only correct way to play magic is to use blue cantrips and counters... Magic is more than just blue cantrips, it's just that blue cantrips is heavily protected against any possible bans while all other strategies have to face being banned or drown in hatecards...

I'm not the person with whom you were arguing, but I think the difference is that Chalice rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I still don't see a reason to ban it, but when a card punishes people for obeying the cardinal rule of deckbuilding (play better cards for lower costs), it's bound to draw a lot of hate from people who don't play it. It's not just blue-X decks that suffer from Chalice. There's also the fact that good control cards tend to irk people who don't play them simply because being told you can't do what you want to do is never something about which people are happy.

Also, I'm not saying the card is overpowered (at least, not in comparison to the rest of the format), but "dies to removal" still isn't a valid argument.

There is a card on the banlist that is problematic, but if the format was tuned a little better could enable a LOT of powerful synergies to exist that may not need/want Deathrite. That card is Sensei's Divining Top.

But because god forbid they ban a card that says "counter spell" on it, we lost one of the best glue cards the pool has available, which could be used by ANY deck. "But people tanked!" Looking 1-2 times per turn cycle in order to fix your draws is different than having to float cards and respond to triggers. Rounds STILL go way past time regularly. There is STILL a terminus deck. Banning Top instead of banning the card that broke it and enforcing slow play had a lot of unintended consequences.

Totally agree with you on this, and I didn't play much Sensei's Top. Definitely the wrong ban and a winnowing of the format.

Dice_Box

10-11-2017, 11:25 AM

Also, I'm not saying the card is overpowered (at least, not in comparison to the rest of the format), but "dies to removal" still isn't a valid argument.
I am going to let this go, so take this as a more broad statement on the format as a whole over one or two cards.

"Dies to removal" or "Can be ignored" have been Legacy's go to view points for non creature permanents* since the dawn of the format. There really are no other choices. You can't block an Enchantment, you either null its effect or you kill it. This is actually a flaw in my view of one of the early rules changes. The difference between Artifacts and Enchantments feels very small now, a feeling that has further diminished since coloured Artifacts became a thing. At one point if you tapped an Artifact you turned it off, a legacy seen in Winter and Static orbs, alongside 3Ball with the text now printed on those cards to reproduce that old effect.

I feel that, since you are granted a lack of other options, you have no real other option when it comes to cards like Chalice, Moat, RIP or Moon than to kill them or try and play though them. Thus you should plan ahead to do that. This is also one of the reasons Decay is such a strong card as it lets you answer these effects when you otherwise had to counter them or try and brute force though them.

I would be happy to stand corrected here if I have gotten something wrong.

*Just remembered you can punch a Walker, for what that's worth.

DarthVicious

10-11-2017, 11:52 AM

The time thing with Top just proved that a lot of people abuse the play speed rules. Just institute a goddamned chess clock already. We've had one online for forever and it's a great thing. Forces people to actually win games, and if they want to durdle around wasting time, cool, enjoy the loss.

I've decided I'm going to count silently to ten, then begin audibly counting upwards while staring at my opponent if they go into a deep tank without the board state changing. Some people try too hard to be that computer from Wargames and plan out every scenario that could possibly come from every situation, then change that plan every time something changes.

Ten seconds is fine. Even twenty. One minute? Too long. Its a card game, its not international cold war politics.

Whitefaces

10-11-2017, 12:17 PM

A chess clock is impossible to implement in real life mtg games, there is too much hidden information and priority passes.

Barook

10-11-2017, 01:46 PM

Chalice, meet your haters, haters, meet a two drop artifact that dies to effects 3 colours have easy access to.
Every color has access to EE@0 - that makes the whining about Chalice even sillier.

Raizen884

10-11-2017, 02:29 PM

Some opinions,

The chalice debate is not even reasonable, for one reason, legacy is about unfair strategies. We do separate unfair and fair decks, but today all tier 1/1.5 fair decks also are doing something that either tries to lock the opponent from turn 1 or 2, or puts a huge pressure like Chalice/Blood Moon/DRS. Some examples, delver strategies are all considered fair, but if you played with or against and saw something like, T1 delver, daze/FoW on your turn, T2 flip delver wasteland your 1 land.. That's the delver opening, and is totally trying to lock you out from playing your game, or DnT that goes t1 Vial, t2 and on, Rishadan/Wasteland while ticking up vial or it can be The swiss knife DRS on 4c Control. Legacy is full of broken mechanics, and the most of them is not DRS, Chalice or Blood Moon, but Brainstorm into fetchlands giving virtual card Advantage and cantriping at the same time at instant speed. Even stoneblade is built around a broken creature that cheats out equipment, there are no decks that are playing fair, so why is Chalice a bigger deal than Aether Vial + wasteland/eternal rishadan port on your upkeep?

MTGtop8: 34.3% (last two weeks)
39.6% (last two months)

Anyway, the numbers of DRS are going down because 4c Control is already losing its hype. It is definitely strong, but not even close to what top Miracles was, so like "new" decks when people discover they exist, by people I mean net deckers, heck even Eldrazi Aggro had absurd numbers last year and now isn't even considered a tier 1 deck. I think the hype is gone from the deck, and it should stay at about 6-8% of the meta which for me is pretty healthy, and for me the discussion of DRS is because of Czech Pile sudden peak.

I think following how the banlist evolves from legacy, if DRS/Probe/Chalice/SnT is not making any deck suffocate the meta like Miracles did, than they will not be banned because of the bunch of broken cards/mechanics available in the format.

Ronald Deuce

10-11-2017, 02:58 PM

I am going to let this go, so take this as a more broad statement on the format as a whole over one or two cards.

"Dies to removal" or "Can be ignored" have been Legacy's go to view points for non creature permanents* since the dawn of the format. There really are no other choices. You can't block an Enchantment, you either null its effect or you kill it. This is actually a flaw in my view of one of the early rules changes. The difference between Artifacts and Enchantments feels very small now, a feeling that has further diminished since coloured Artifacts became a thing. At one point if you tapped an Artifact you turned it off, a legacy seen in Winter and Static orbs, alongside 3Ball with the text now printed on those cards to reproduce that old effect.

I feel that, since you are granted a lack of other options, you have no real other option when it comes to cards like Chalice, Moat, RIP or Moon than to kill them or try and play though them. Thus you should plan ahead to do that. This is also one of the reasons Decay is such a strong card as it lets you answer these effects when you otherwise had to counter them or try and brute force though them.

I would be happy to stand corrected here if I have gotten something wrong.

*Just remembered you can punch a Walker, for what that's worth.

Oh, I totally agree with you about all this. (I also wish they'd kept the distinction stronger between artifacts and enchantments, too; it feels a lot like they're two things that do the same type of stuff but have an arbitrary designator that makes some spells good against some of them and other spells good against the others.)

My main point was that I don't think it's valid to say "Just run answers," especially when people do, and it's still often not enough. I've died to a Chalice with a Decay in hand and several lands but no way to pay for it; I've fought through two Chalices and beaten Eldrazi with an Ad Nauseam from seven life. I've also just said "screw it" and Dredged Chalice decks (and CounterTop decks) into oblivion. I don't see any reason for a ban there (or, for the time being, elsewhere), but I can absolutely understand why people don't like it and want it gone. I just think saying "deal with it" only goes so far because, well, it's not like people aren't dealing with it (or, in your case, with Blood Moon) the way things are now. When the go-to answer for a card is in specific colors, that does warp the metagame—just look at Force of Will.

Undomian

10-11-2017, 04:10 PM

Crimhead

10-11-2017, 04:21 PM

iatee

10-11-2017, 04:25 PM

I can't believe that people are throwing a fit about Chalice when what is arguably the best deck in the format has long since had main deck copies of a way to combat it, whether that be by happenstance or not. Seriously, some of the people placing well with Czech Pile recently are playing three (3!) copies of Kolaghan's Command in their 60! My local metagame has even seen people playing Abrade in the main of their UWr lists recently. Reasonable answers to these things do exist, it might be time for other decks to start doing the same thing that Czech did.

Nobody has ever argued that there aren't answers to Chalice. Sometimes people have them. Sometimes people have FoW. Sometimes Chalice players play against a match-up that doesn't care about Chalice.

The argument is turn 1 Chalice frequently leads to non-games (that's the whole reason there's an entire range of decks built on it.) Non-games suck, are basically a waste of time for everyone and we should aim to have fewer of them. One reason people are afraid of playing Legacy is that they think the format is nothing but non-games. That is not actually true, for the most part legacy games are super interactive. But when it's true, it's really true.

Watersaw

10-11-2017, 05:36 PM

Nobody has ever argued that there aren't answers to Chalice. Sometimes people have them. Sometimes people have FoW. Sometimes Chalice players play against a match-up that doesn't care about Chalice.

The argument is turn 1 Chalice frequently leads to non-games (that's the whole reason there's an entire range of decks built on it.) Non-games suck, are basically a waste of time for everyone and we should aim to have fewer of them. One reason people are afraid of playing Legacy is that they think the format is nothing but non-games. That is not actually true, for the most part legacy games are super interactive. But when it's true, it's really true.

If we're banning cards for creating non-games then we might as well hit Wasteland, Force, Belcher, Show and Tell, Reanimate, Cabal Therapy, Daze, Thalia, Leovold, Blood Moon, Rest in Peace, Gaddock Teeg, Suppression Field, Back to Nature and Tendrils of Agony, because all of those have games where they just read "you lose."

If your deck dies to a single card then it's 100% on you to not let that happen.

Problem4tic

10-11-2017, 05:55 PM

Nobody has ever argued that there aren't answers to Chalice. Sometimes people have them. Sometimes people have FoW. Sometimes Chalice players play against a match-up that doesn't care about Chalice.

The argument is turn 1 Chalice frequently leads to non-games (that's the whole reason there's an entire range of decks built on it.) Non-games suck, are basically a waste of time for everyone and we should aim to have fewer of them. One reason people are afraid of playing Legacy is that they think the format is nothing but non-games. That is not actually true, for the most part legacy games are super interactive. But when it's true, it's really true.

Chalice is not a Unfair card and does not need to be banned....deathrite shaman is...and all this spike of moonstompy.deck is caused form people going into all those deathrite shaman.deck, and whoever is playing such strategies can't bitch about finding 3 out of 10 chalice decks in a 8 tound tournament.

Do you wanna see an interactive game of magic?Keep deathrite shaman and #unban Mystical Tutor then ;-) and let's see what happends.

P.s. nongames in my opinion are when you already know that if you don't play the 1 mana planeswalker you are gonna start every mu 40_60...and that's not good for a format like legacy where creatures nowdays are better than any spell u can cast (apart brainstorn). My 2 cents...

Rascalyote

10-11-2017, 07:46 PM

Nielsie

10-11-2017, 11:32 PM

You deal with hate cards because you play an abusive hyperlinear strategy that doesn't play anything close to normal Magic and wrecks decks that do. If strong hate cards didn't exist for Lands, it would be banned. "I have to deal with cards that attempt to prevent me from recurring Wasteland/Ghost Quarter and making infinite copies of an indestructible 20/20" is not the same as "I have to deal with a card that randomly prevents me from playing a normal fair Magic deck with a tight curve."

Again I read this thing about 'normal fair Magic'. Explain to me what this means in Legacy for how I see it: every strategy in Legacy is busted. Some do it by abusing the graveyard, some by abusing lands, some by abusing creatures, some by abusing timmy-cards with sol-lands or blue acceleration, some by abusing hyper-efficient 1 mana spells, etc.

So really, what is fair normal Magic? It's just an excuse to keep playing cantrip.deck full of busted card-avantage stuff...

The argument is turn 1 Chalice frequently leads to non-games (that's the whole reason there's an entire range of decks built on it.) Non-games suck, are basically a waste of time for everyone and we should aim to have fewer of them. One reason people are afraid of playing Legacy is that they think the format is nothing but non-games. That is not actually true, for the most part legacy games are super interactive. But when it's true, it's really true.

So what? The purpose of every Legacy deck is to shut you down one way or another. Some do it by trying to win on turn 1-2, others try to do it by countering, removing or blanking everything you try to play or want to try and play... Play Delver, daze your thing, waste your land -> welcome to a non-game, let's ban all the cards...

jandax

10-12-2017, 04:51 AM

Fair decks don't win on turn 2.

Chalice is obviously not a good card for interactive Magic - it's actually a turn 1 combo card. Chalice decks 'basically win' on turn 1, whether you're attacking with Reality Smasher or Rishadan Cutpurse doesn't matter that much. The fact that you can actually just throw a random word in front of 'Stompy' and it's kinda a viable legacy deck highlights the reason why Chalice should (and I think eventually will) be banned.

While this hits a vein of truth, it's no good reason to ban a card. Chalice decks are sorcery speed decks, their decision trees aren't intertwined with interaction from the opponent. Were chalice one sided then yes, let the banhammer striketh it down.

What do you imagine the format to look like were Chalice to get banned? Just curious

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Lemnear

10-12-2017, 06:33 AM

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get duressed my force. Two turns later Duress again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, Duress> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Fixed.

In all honest, the overall scenario is the same no matter if your opponent has 4 Probes, 3 Duress, 3 Cabals sleeved up or 4 Duress, 4 Throughtseize (in a hypothetical post-Probe build). Heck, not even the selfinflicted lifeloss would change.

Problem4tic

10-12-2017, 07:06 AM

Your last point just isnt true, miracles doesnt go 40-60 against elves, it ranches them with their spells.

Honestly people complain that in the "new age" (m10 area - around when mythic came out) that spells are garbage and creatures are too good, lets fact check that.

2 blue delve spells busted in half and banned quicklyish, oh not creatures. Misstep isnt a creature, miracle non-creature spells caused countertop to dominate for years ( and no its not countertops fault as that was already a tier 2 deck it was the fact you had 1 mana instant speed hallowed burial or 3 mana serra angel with flash and multikicker W make another one)

When was the last time a newish creature destroyed legacy and got banned? Ill wait

I am speaking of this metagame man, miracles is no more the tier 0 deck...the sinergy between Top, cBalance...miracle cards....was just tood god for any other deck to fight through... and nowday i can see a little bit of this problem with deathrite shaman because it blanks many strategies while ramping you;making clock while distrupring your opponet graveyard strategy(not attacking-->no combat interaction= removal or die to his clock...and that's why this "soft lock" is so good especially vs combo strategies that plays no removals maindeck) and gaining you life...does it seem a balanced card? I don't think so...

If you play shaman you have to know that opponents are gonna play anti shaman strategies and that's totally fine because it is the card that shaped this metagame...

The spells you mentioned are bombs...no question....
But i have to ask you....do your opponents run werebear or delver of secrets in theyr tempo lists? Do your opponent run t1 goblin lackey or t1 shaman?

Bad cards calls bad cards as well, delver...thalia...tnn...leovold...shaman....put those and many other silly cards together and then tell me if fair strategies are still fair...
Wotc doesn't like combo in meta so enjoy shaman vs chaliche,moon metagame bois...