All B/R update speculation.

[H]

Witnessed an interesting conversation the other week, in which one of the participants argued that any card with ≥40% metagame penetration (whatever the hell that means) should be banned. I'd say "Discuss," but given the tenor of his arguments for such a proposition (and the obvious consequences of such an approach that we can predict with certainty), it'd probably be better if we didn't.

Do a thought experiment where every one of those cards is banned every month. How long do you think it would take to arrive at a format where there are only literal Grizzly Bears legal?

It's an absurd proposition that is a race to the bottom (which you allude to). It's why a data-only driven model is certainly a poor implementation if your intent is to have a sustainable format. See my post above for my expanded views.


Didn’t have to wait a month for people to say DRS wasn’t a problem.

Think that beats “top wasn’t a problem” by a month right?

It's been more than a month, pretty sure it's been two. But I said it before the ban and I'll still say it now, until something demonstrates to me otherwise.

Don't imagine I am the kind of person to not change my mind when presented with reasonable cases. Once upon a not so long time ago, I was even a post-Modernist like most everyone else here. But I realized it was a trap. And so I changed my position.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

It's been more than a month, pretty sure it's been two. But I said it before the ban and I'll still say it now, until something demonstrates to me otherwise.


*checks calendar* huh, guess I should cut back on the rum then. That said, I think it's a matter of perspective


There were few decks that could not, using maindeck cards, fight off Deathrite. Not that Deathrite wasn't very good. It was, it was the Brainstorm of utility creatures, exceedingly good. And it was highly played because of that. But, like Brainstorm, it did not, in a manner, promote one deck to the detriment of others, or any given strategy over others. It's a nuance thing, but that is my point, these decisions are all nuance. Analytically, Brainstorm should be banned. Except it isn't. Deathrite lay in that category to me.

You certainly aren't wrong, however, it homogenized the format tactically. Strategically the format was very diverse, except all the games played out the same way. Almost every deck went underground sea>ponder, or underground sea>deathrite shaman. While games certainly ended differently (be it, getting beat to death via delver, exceedingly large walking ballista, the same parasitic strix cast multiple times, etc), how they got there was exceedingly similar.




I have, as you know being in the Lands Channel, not wanted DRS gone over other more egregious (imo) creatures. So what do you label those of us who held this view months before the ban?

Misguided. DRS made cards like Leovold and your favorite merfolk much more castable than they would otherwise. Turn 3 TNN/Leo is much easier to handle than turn 2. True Name still sees play, but Leovold has almost disappeared from the format.

Admittedly this is only a couple of months out and Legacy moves at a snails pace so that is liable to change in a year.

[H]

*checks calendar* huh, guess I should cut back on the rum then. That said, I think it's a matter of perspective

Nah, lay it on man. :cool:

But you are absolutely correct. It is a matter of perspective. Because what inevitably does define Legacy is not set in any sort of stone. I don't preface all that I wrote above with the fact that it is solely my opinion, but it indeed is.


You certainly aren't wrong, however, it homogenized the format tactically. Strategically the format was very diverse, except all the games played out the same way. Almost every deck went underground sea>ponder, or underground sea>deathrite shaman. While games certainly ended differently (be it, getting beat to death via delver, exceedingly large walking ballista, the same parasitic strix cast multiple times, etc), how they got there was exceedingly similar.

Indeed a fact. However, minus Deathrite, we've extingiushed that line, but not the root cause of it. Delver decks are still a thing, just in non-BUG colors. Food Chain and Alluren are simply not particularly competitive things now, seemingly. So, in reality, we actually have less diversity, if we look at it this way. Which is to say, really, that this is also a matter of perception.


Misguided. DRS made cards like Leovold and your favorite merfolk much more castable than they would otherwise. Turn 3 TNN/Leo is much easier to handle than turn 2. True Name still sees play, but Leovold has almost disappeared from the format.

Admittedly this is only a couple of months out and Legacy moves at a snails pace so that is liable to change in a year.

I can't pretend that Leovold was probably a good idea to print, as is. However it still then saddens me to have lost Deathrite for keeping TNN/Leovold (which are, by my arbitrary metric, more degenerate and less of a positive for the format) then. Your second point though is what I point out though, that there is very little upside now to splashing Green over Red, which is why you see so few Leovold around. Simply, without Deathrite, Green has very little to offer, so the format now homogenizes around Grixis, since the pay-off of Red is better, for 'Blasts and Bolt. Again, you are correct that the format homogenized around Deathrite, but now it just homogenizes around the next best option, so where have we really gotten? Time will tell, I guess.

[talpa]

My point was that your comment makes no sense.
Mine was exactly the same. I simply chose, for once, not spending too many words in mocking your whining.
It's not like that specific post of yours was particularly rich in content, it was just you crying and complaining. On the contrary, after me being a dick, you immediately spent a few words more and made a very interesting meditation.



As for dissatisfaction. Feline is basicly gone, Einherjer is not really seen anymkre, Megadeus was agreeing with the stagnant nature of the format last page. Slowly, the old guard are fading away.
Wait. Are those pillars of the legacy community worldwide? USA wide? The legacy is dead if they are gone? OHHHHH MY GOOOOD
So sorry for you guys. But if instead you are referring to TheSource users, and that means that THE FORUM is dying, well, good luck have fun to you all and goodbye.
It just so it happens that in Italy the forum dedicated to eternal died three years ago (by the way I suspect Ehineriar came here from there when that one closed), and the legacy scene is still alive and kicking. Try to understand the difference between the forum and the format, the internet and the real life. And while you're there, as I already said, try to understand USA is not the fucking center of the world.



Yea, you where being a dick, I noticed.
Regards.

[Dice_Box]

I am talking about the format, not the site. I would be shocked if about 70% of Legacy based communication is not done though Facebook/Discord/other direct points of contact these days. (The rest on Twitter, Reddit or other public facing sites.) Facebook itself is so omnipresent now that there is no longer dedicated Aus eternal forums any more. I'm not complaining about that, it's the way of the internet now.

Also you say "Whining" I say answering a question asked.
Question: Hey, why ain't you all bitching about this T16 finish.
Answer: Becouse it wasn't news and Legacy is ecpected to be stale. You all already knew that and why.

You: You where whining.
Me: Nope, just answered a question about why I didn't bother to bitch about a T16 with 13 decks that all are built around the same ideal and thus are not shockingly unexpected in the T16.
You: Hey you said something else.
Me: Nope, still just rehashing old shit that I have said before.

I like to think that the most important thing I do is is fail to update the DTB correctly, not converse over this shit. But hey, who knows.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

And while you're there, as I already said, try to understand USA is not the fucking center of the world.


He's just mad his ancestors got sent to Australia and not the other, more free, british colony

[H]

He's just mad his ancestors got sent to Australia and not the other, more free, british colony

It's always those pesky ancestors!

Just like those jerks who thought Brainstorm was a good idea!

https://i.imgur.com/wv571I6.gif

[Dice_Box]

He's just mad his ancestors got sent to Australia and not the other, more free, british colony
To quote my uni professor: They got the Puritans, we got the Convicts. We got the better end of the deal.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

We don’t have a witchcraft problem at least

[ahg113]

We don’t have a witchcraft problem at least anymore
Ftfy

Another noticeable difference between former British colonies, the Americas do not attempt to kill humans with fauna and flora at every turn.

[Dice_Box]

Ftfy

Another noticeable difference between former British colonies, the Americas do not attempt to kill humans with fauna and flora at every turn.
Hey, they try and kill us, not the other way around.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

So you guys aren’t trying to weaponize your plant and wild life?

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Indeed a fact. However, minus Deathrite, we've extingiushed that line, but not the root cause of it. Delver decks are still a thing, just in non-BUG colors. Food Chain and Alluren are simply not particularly competitive things now, seemingly. So, in reality, we actually have less diversity, if we look at it this way. .


It's a trade off, we have less strategic diversity, but the decks are much more distinct from one another. They don't have deathrite to enable the extreme flexibility they once had to play seemingly any role they needed to. Sure Grixis Control/Delver/etc are going to have flexibility with cantrips but they won't have the mana flexibility to be able to play anything they need/want. I'd argue for as much that was loss strategically (basically all the creature-combo decks), the decks have become far more distinct. The format can be as strategically diverse as you want, but it means little if the games themselves all play out the same regardless of what the deck wants to do overall.

I also suspect there is likely a food chain/aluren shell out there that is decent but the relative obscurity of those decks means they are going to be developed much more slowly.

[Dice_Box]

So you guys aren’t trying to weaponize your plant and wild life?
Why would we need to, come here they will kill you for us.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNEeq5qGh8I

[Megadeus]

Good news, after about 3 years of consistently firing every week I heard the local event this week has dwindled to 4 people. Format is alive and skill intensive thanks to brainstorm!

[talpa]

Good news, after about 3 years of consistently firing every week I heard the local event this week has dwindled to 4 people. Format is alive and skill intensive thanks to brainstorm!

OH no! What happened once in Kennesaw (less than 30k people?) is surely representative of a worldwide tendency that will last forever!

Please continue with the USA vs Australia I was having fun (as for my ancestors I am simply happy they weren't British at all)

@dice sorry if I misunderstood, still thinking you were attributing an effect (less people) to the wrong cause (metagame instead of card costs and people aging). Which seems awfully like whining just because every occasion is good to complain about blue (even when the metagame is not stale)

[talpa]

Double posting: since everyone likes to share his own personal statistic, I'll write down mine.

In my city we have a weekly saturday afternoon event in a local shop with numbers ranging from 15 to 30 players. Every thursday evening a group of 15 people (only partially overlapping with the first one) goes to a pub for beer and legacy testing.
We have two cities in the range of an hour car drive who helds "leagues" of monthly legacy tournaments.

Last sunday we had an event with legacy and modern tournaments on a span of two days. Legacy main event reached higher numbers than modern; even if the timing of the tournament wasn't optimal (plenty of people still on holidays here) and there was some fear of failure, more than 140 people showed up for legacy.
I couldn't go there but a friends of mine shared (via whatsapp) the whole collection of each player, deck and their results.
Metagame considerations: the first in the swiss portion of the tournament was a Lands deck (they split in top8, I suppose in order to go have a beer).
My friend also calculated the "average tournament points" for each archetype (in order to have an idea of "the deck" strength in the metagame, trying to separate it for the single player performance). You know what the best deck was? Lands. The two worst? Miracle and Grixis Control. So much for the blue dominance.
The second best positioned deck? UB Death Shadow. Ok, this one plays blue: but it's a relatively new deck (so much for the metagame being stale) and a cheap one in comparison to others (so much for the format cost entry barrier). We also saw on coverage a budget turbo depths deck (no abu duals) who was on 5-0 at the moment (and depths on the average resulted the best performing combo deck, again so much for the blue dominance).

Finally I can't understand how you can complain when you have a circuit like SCG, which I'd love to have in Europe. Here we have MKM Series but they hold way fewer events... and personally, from my place in Italy, I think it's more difficult to fly to those locations.

Let's have a bit more optimism, please.

LEGACY
IS
NOT
"THE" (NOR "A")
DEAD
FORMAT


(at least not until it encounters some of the australian flora and fauna :tongue:)

PS:

I went into Grand Prix Richmond believing that Legacy was a diverse and balanced format. The tournament results bore that out, with seven distinct archetypes appearing in the Top 8



Reid Duke, today on CFB

[H]

It's a trade off, we have less strategic diversity, but the decks are much more distinct from one another. They don't have deathrite to enable the extreme flexibility they once had to play seemingly any role they needed to. Sure Grixis Control/Delver/etc are going to have flexibility with cantrips but they won't have the mana flexibility to be able to play anything they need/want. I'd argue for as much that was loss strategically (basically all the creature-combo decks), the decks have become far more distinct. The format can be as strategically diverse as you want, but it means little if the games themselves all play out the same regardless of what the deck wants to do overall.

I also suspect there is likely a food chain/aluren shell out there that is decent but the relative obscurity of those decks means they are going to be developed much more slowly.

And the issue, of course, is that I don't really value "distinction" as a realistic achievable goal. Consider how many decks begin with 4 Force, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder and go from there. The singled out issue though is that many also had 4 Deathrite. That is where the line was somehow passed? To me, the answer is no. You are free to disagree, but I'll still say that nothing of Deathrite moved it from simply exceptionally good to degenerate and ban-worthy.

[kinda]

And the issue, of course, is that I don't really value "distinction" as a realistic achievable goal. Consider how many decks begin with 4 Force, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder and go from there. The singled out issue though is that many also had 4 Deathrite. That is where the line was somehow passed? To me, the answer is no. You are free to disagree, but I'll still say that nothing of Deathrite moved it from simply exceptionally good to degenerate and ban-worthy.

Well brainstorm and ponder are "pillars of the format" and no one wants fow banned. So yes, drs in 40% of placing decks (per mtgtop8) was the line. Numbers that high suggest the card is objectively better than the rest of the cards in the format, as people are prepared for it but still can't beat it consistently. The same logic is used to break up monopolies or stop mergers in order to maintain acceptable levels of competition.

[Brael]

My perspective is that the format is currently less healthy than it was before the bans. Diversity seems to be down even further. We used to play unlimited proxy Legacy since only a couple of us had the cards. It just doesn't fire anymore. So I don't think it's a format cost issue, and instead has to do with the format itself... it's just not something people want to play, while they're happy to play proxy Modern all day long.

[Lemnear]

Well, I think Top was likely right in the grand scheme of things, but the Deathrite ban is a poor, poor precedent. For the first time, I actually dread Wizard's announcement, since the ideological precedent they set there is very dangerous to the idea of Legacy itself...

I think the judgement of either case is tied to the question of what they wanted to achieve. If neutering Miracles and breaking the BUG control/aggro-control/tempo circlejerk was the idea ans they just wanted to "reset" the cantrip shell like they did with the banning of DTT/TC, then they succeeded. However if anyone thought it's going to weed out the cantrip shells dominance, then he/she is plain naive.

P.S.

It might me only loosely related to the current topics here, but it's quite interresting to see how the shares within the blue shell moved around among supertypes since '11. The amount of combo and control supertypes seems to constantly get lower compared to aggro-control (aside from the outliners within these years like Miracles or Omnitell)

[colo]

DRS enabled unquestionably degenerate and colour-greedy manabases (I've seen 4C Deathblade with Wasteland, and seen Deathrite Shaman make it work), and made one of the format's safeguards against such abominations (Wasteland and Moon effects) much, much less effective. All while making x/1 attackers useless, and providing late-game inevitability, and casually pissing over graveyard-base strategies. If that little ugly fucker wasn't to eventually get the axe, I wasn't sure what would.

[H]

I think the judgement of either case is tied to the question of what they wanted to achieve. If neutering Miracles and breaking the BUG control/aggro-control/tempo circlejerk was the idea ans they just wanted to "reset" the cantrip shell like they did with the banning of DTT/TC, then they succeeded. However if anyone thought it's going to weed out the cantrip shells dominance, then he/she is plain naive.

Plausible, but my feeling is still that such a breaking up was unnecessary. Mainly because it now puts most decks in the position of simply having no reason to run Green at all. In other words, if you were running UBX before, Green was a reasonable consideration. Now, the default choice is clearly Red. I'd rather have a more homogeneous format where more choices are viable, than a less homogeneous format where less choices are viable. Obviously some other people disagree. They aren't wrong, but neither am I.


P.S.

It might me only loosely related to the current topics here, but it's quite interresting to see how the shares within the blue shell moved around among supertypes since '11. The amount of combo and control supertypes seems to constantly get lower compared to aggro-control (aside from the outliners within these years like Miracles or Omnitell)

A result of creatures simply getting better and better?

[Zulabnar]

I think the judgement of either case is tied to the question of what they wanted to achieve. If neutering Miracles and breaking the BUG control/aggro-control/tempo circlejerk was the idea ans they just wanted to "reset" the cantrip shell like they did with the banning of DTT/TC, then they succeeded. However if anyone thought it's going to weed out the cantrip shells dominance, then he/she is plain naive.

P.S.

It might me only loosely related to the current topics here, but it's quite interresting to see how the shares within the blue shell moved around among supertypes since '11. The amount of combo and control supertypes seems to constantly get lower compared to aggro-control (aside from the outliners within these years like Miracles or Omnitell)

I don't think is a problem of aggro\control tempo control control\combo nomenclature and percentage.
Is a problem of how big is the pool of cards and why people chose always the same shell of 8 blue cards in multiple copies.

Is pretty obvious that a shell that is dominating the format since '11 is overpowered compare to others, infact the others shell are build to restrain the blue one.

And also most of the deck, combo control or aggro control, use the same shell: brainstorm + ponder + fow + finisher (jace, show and tell, delver and tnn etc) + eventualy creatures. (Yes because good blue creatures now exists)

This is obvious because everyone wants to control what they draw (brainstorm+ponder) and prefer to have a counter against fast threat (fow)
To play fow 12 blue cards (minimum) are needed.
12 blue cards are 4 brainstorm + 4 ponder + or 4 creature that remove other creature (snapcaster or baleful strix) + finisher.

Those are the best all around cards in the pool.

So if Hasbro wants to hit the diffusion of blue shell have to hit the blue shell, not the other cards.



By the way:
Mtg, and legacy in particulare are like sports-
In American Sports (i have in mind NFL) there are some dinasty, but things changes quickly and everyone can find the right way to win.
In European SOccer there are always the same 2 team winning in their own nationals competition (Juventus\ Milan in italy, Barcelona\Real Madrid in spain, PSg in France, Bayer in Germany...)

At the moment the Legacy is more like European soccer than like NFL- The blue shell is the dominant team since years.

[Lemnear]

A result of creatures simply getting better and better?

No doubt about that point. I just took a quick look at the data and wondered if the cantrip shell getting more and more of a synonym of aggro-control rather than fueling a wider range of supertypes, is another integral factor of peoples "fatigue" im regards to the metagame.

[H]

No doubt about that point. I just took a quick look at the data and wondered if the cantrip shell getting more and more of a synonym of aggro-control rather than fueling a wider range of supertypes, is another integral factor of peoples "fatigue" im regards to the metagame.

Well, I actually think it has less to do with cantrips, that has been the "best" shell pretty much forever, but it's the result of them actually printing more playable cards in general. Which in turn, of course, get naturally adopted by cantrip shells. This isn't "ideal" but it is better than the opposite, where they print nothing but garbage and Legacy is truly stagnant. There is an alternative, where they print things that are playable, but antisynergistic with cantrips, but that is much more difficult and resultantly far less common.

I actually don't think the "average" Legacy player is fatigued by cantrips. In fact, I think it's plausibly just the opposite, the very reason for Legacy is to have a high-power, low-variance Eternal Format (where Vintage is a high-powered, high-variance and Pauper is low-power, low-variance (all relatively speaking, of course)). Cantrips actually fuel innovation, from enabling Tempo, to facilitating various Midrange combinations, to making many Combo decks viable. Again, it's a feature that Legacy is homogenous, not a bug. How homogenous it should be though is a qualitative subjective measure to which there isn't going to be a quantitative magical number though.

[talpa]

it's quite interresting to see how the shares [...] moved around among supertypes since '11. The amount of combo and control supertypes seems to constantly get lower compared to aggro-control (aside from the outliners within these years like Miracles or Omnitell)
It is interesting indeed. Where does the data come from? Care to share?
Not to say I disagree, I actually have a similar impression: I think both pure control and pure aggro are in bad shape, and then midrange aggro-controls arise. I don't see a combo decline (except maybe for the here and now, since a couple of months at most).



I don't think is a problem of aggro\control tempo control control\combo nomenclature and percentage.
Is a problem of how big is the pool of cards and why people chose always the same shell of 8 blue cards in multiple copies.

YES! We can start again with the misperception and the misrepresentation of what diversity is. Apparently people will never realise that the strategy a deck implements is NOT the same thing as the cards it plays (example, you can have different kind of prisons, different kind of control elements like discard, permission, board control, ecc) and quite obviously the opposite is also true: just because two decks play a certain card doesn't mean they are doing the same thing.
Let's warm up our polemic skills and our weapons.

(Oh, and "my team" is Juventus -even though I don't care so much for FOOTBALL- so I don't have any problem with some teams or decks being superior to others :laugh:)

[BirdsOfParadise]

We can start again with the misperception and the misrepresentation of what diversity is. Apparently people will never realise that the strategy a deck implements is NOT the same thing as the cards it plays (example, you can have different kind of prisons, different kind of control elements like discard, permission, board control, ecc)
I think the words "misperception" and "misrepresentation" suggest that one person is wrong and another person is right, but this seems like too narrow a viewpoint. Imagine if the following decks reached the top spots in a tournament:
UBR Control
UB Death's Shadow
Omnitell
Miracles
RUG Delver
UWb Stoneblade
Person A could feel that this is diverse because combo, tempo (more than one kind), and control (more than one kind) are all represented. Person B could feel that this is not diverse because of the substantial overlap in the cards used between all the decks. To me it seems that neither person is incorrect, since these are both reasonable ways of measuring diversity,* but that the two people have different tastes. (Person B may understand Person A's preference, and understand the difference between these two ways of considering diversity, while still disagreeing with Person A.) If you'll entertain an analogy, the reason the discussion has gone in circles many times is the same reason it is difficult for a large family to order pizza. People have different ideas of what they want, but the solution that must be arrived at (a fixed number of pizzas with various specific toppings on them) is one that will apply to everyone equally. Last time, my dad surreptitiously left the room and ordered some pizzas while everyone was still deeply engaged in discussing toppings. You could say that in this analogy, my dad is Wizards of the Coast. It's not about whether my uncle or grandmother had incorrect preferences; my dad was simply the one holding the phone.

*From your posts, I gather that you feel Person B's way of measuring diversity is not reasonable. To me, agreeing with (what I interpret to be) your opinion would carry the implication that for any value of X, it is not inherently undiverse if all top decks share X cards, as long as they have different strategic aims. If this is truly your position (or a fair logical result of your position), I have to disagree. As X increases, I expect that more and more people will feel that diversity is low. If X became 30 overnight, I think the meta would not be very diverse, even if there were still Delver decks and Emrakul decks and control decks with light splashes of different colors. I am not saying that X is 30 at present, but merely speculating that a majority of players would find X to be a relevant measure in extreme cases, and that deciding whether the present real-life case is extreme is a matter of personal preference.

Side note: From a perspective of game theory, I think that X (number of cards shared across all top decks) or format penetration (however it should best be defined) is a useful quantity to consider. A lot of the fun of Magic is in deckbuilding. If you decrease the number of card slots that can plausibly be varied, along a path from 60 variable card slots to 0 variable cards slots, the fun of deckbuilding begins to suffer somewhere along that path. However, I agree that this is not the only useful way to measure diversity. Person A in my example above also has a good point. You could in theory have great diversity among cards, with 10+ tier-one, equally competitive decks that share no cards between them, and have every one of those decks be a linear aggro deck once format equilibrium was reached. At present Legacy is the reverse of that, with quite a lot of cards in common between most top decks but a respectable diversity among strategies in the top decks --- especially considering that, although we use artificial examples for argument, nonblue decks such as Lands and Death & Taxes do compete and can have very interesting methods of play. I don't think anybody wants to go straight from real-life Legacy to the linear aggro example I gave.

[Lemnear]

It is interesting indeed. Where does the data come from? Care to share?
Not to say I disagree, I actually have a similar impression: I think both pure control and pure aggro are in bad shape, and then midrange aggro-controls arise. I don't see a combo decline (except maybe for the here and now, since a couple of months at most).

I just looked over the usual suspects like MtgTop8 & Co (thus only going back to 2011) and threw a quick glance at the shares in the respective years as well as over certain known combo keycards like SnT, Infernal Tutor and the likes. It's just an impression I got and wonder if I should really crunch the numbers. I also need to specify that i don't list all the BUG control stuff & Co over all these years as "control" but "aggro-control" as they imo should.

[Megadeus]

LookLook at it from a modern perspective. If the format were Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, and RG tron as the top decks and there were no good ways to fight them (no ghost quarter, stone rainrain, field of ruin) then the format would be fucking miserable despite the being an aggro, control, and ramp deck as different styles being the top decks. Without a good way to fight the cantrips then you're either forced to resort to playing it or getting fucked. Chalice and Thalia are the two best ways to fight the cards. Both create miserable experiences for people (though I enjoy both personally). The format looks like the family tree of the average Crimson Tide fan. It's warped around either play thesethese cards or hate them out. I just hate when the retarded power level of cantrips is under stated because they aren't blatantly powerful to the layman. Whatever though. Format is fucking miserable. Attendance is going down while prices go up. Enjoy the shitfest while you can

[KrzyMoose]

My vote is to ban Delver, Snapcaster, and Terminus. You can throw TNN in there, as well.

Alternatively, ban things until Wild Nacatl is good. And then don't ban Wild Nacatl.

[Brael]

I think the judgement of either case is tied to the question of what they wanted to achieve. If neutering Miracles and breaking the BUG control/aggro-control/tempo circlejerk was the idea ans they just wanted to "reset" the cantrip shell like they did with the banning of DTT/TC, then they succeeded. However if anyone thought it's going to weed out the cantrip shells dominance, then he/she is plain naive.

P.S.

It might me only loosely related to the current topics here, but it's quite interresting to see how the shares within the blue shell moved around among supertypes since '11. The amount of combo and control supertypes seems to constantly get lower compared to aggro-control (aside from the outliners within these years like Miracles or Omnitell)

The DRS ban made sense to me. It was doing a lot of damage to the format in terms of the manabases it enabled. The format isn't in a great place right now, but at least mana is beginning to matter again and that's a step towards recovery.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

LookLook at it from a modern perspective. If the format were Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, and RG tron as the top decks and there were no good ways to fight them (no ghost quarter, stone rainrain, field of ruin) then the format would be fucking miserable despite the being an aggro, control, and ramp deck as different styles being the top decks. Without a good way to fight the cantrips then you're either forced to resort to playing it or getting fucked. Chalice and Thalia are the two best ways to fight the cards. Both create miserable experiences for people (though I enjoy both personally). The format looks like the family tree of the average Crimson Tide fan. It's warped around either play thesethese cards or hate them out. I just hate when the retarded power level of cantrips is under stated because they aren't blatantly powerful to the layman. Whatever though. Format is fucking miserable. Attendance is going down while prices go up. Enjoy the shitfest while you can


TL:DR
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/225/041/tumblr_lwudgwhIJv1qh87wbo1_1280.jpg

[talpa]

Enjoy the shitfest while you can
I will


I think (...)
You robbed me of all the fun. Of course my usage of words was like trolling. If I am forced to be serious, I have to admit I agree with almost all you wrote.

And the difference between persons A, B and C is not only about how they measure diversity but also about what they are looking for in the game in order to enjoy it. Of course if, as you pointed out, one's goal is to be a creative deckbuilder, then being "limited" by the existence of "the best option" would sound bad.
But I still agree with myself :cool: and don't think every point of view is equal.

For example, person C who loves deckbuilding, actually isn't limited by the existence of the best option (let's say, the cantrip cartel).
It's only when he adds a second requirement that things start to go wrong, that one being "I also want my creative deck to be competitive". Sorry: that's not possible. But not because I personally like this, or because Wizards is poorly managing the ban list. It is so by the very nature of the game (maybe of many games if you start reasoning with a game theory approach): "best" things tend to emerge when the metagame begins to be solved. So actually person C is being unreasonable in requesting two mutually exclusive concept, like an unstoppable force and an unmovable resistance. "build whatever you like" and "win with whatever you like" can't go together. Very sorry, but not the fault of person A.
Also compare Legacy metagame in the last few years with standard metagame in the last few years and try again convincing me that the card pool and the power level are the problems.

As for the quantification of the number of cards overlap before it being "too much", I think we almost already are in the 30 cards range, but I don't see the problem; there is still people who enjoys Vintage, you know, and if you forget for a moment MUD and Dredge (big things to forget) your overlap between decks could go up to 50 and you could still find people who can appreciate diversity.

TL;DR I think people who focus mostly on card diversity (instead of strategic diversity), while still claiming that the thing they appreciate most is the gameplay experience*, are unable to appreciate subtleties, even if of course they are entitled to their opinions.

(*both requests are reasonable if taken alone, they just don't go together necessarily, and they happen to be mutually exclusive in legacy)

[pettdan]

If the format were Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, and RG tron as the top decks and there were no good ways to fight them (no ghost quarter, stone rainrain, field of ruin) then the format would be fucking miserable despite the being an aggro, control, and ramp deck as different styles being the top decks.


TL;DR I think people who focus mostly on card diversity (instead of strategic diversity), while still claiming that the thing they appreciate most is the gameplay experience*, are unable to appreciate subtleties, even if of course they are entitled to their opinions.

Megadeus explained the irrelevance of strategic diversity as a goal in a way I think no one should be able to fail to understand. If you understand the example, then you also understand why strategic diversity is an irrelevant, narrow concept that can only be used to qualify the bare minimum quality of a good format.

In relation to Talpa's comment (if I understood it), I would say the opposite is more plausible. Players who are satisfied with strategic diversity don't seem to appreciate format diversity; there is no reason to believe the opposite, that appreciation of format diversity is in conflict with appreciation of playstyle, play patterns etc. All this is naturally included in a diverse metagame.

[kinda]

My vote is to ban Delver, Snapcaster, and Terminus. You can throw TNN in there, as well.

Alternatively, ban things until Wild Nacatl is good. And then don't ban Wild Nacatl.

This.

[morgan_coke]

Yeah, I've said it for awhile now, just ban stuff until Wild Nacatl is playable. Or until Goblins is Tier One again. I mean, that's basically the same thing.

I think the printing of Delver more than anything else is when the format really took a left turn into bullshit. Blue should just not, under any circumstances, have the best aggro one-drop.

[H]

While we are wish-listing bad shit we wish was playable, we should ban everything until Dust Elemental is playable, then all quit because no one wants to play my shit format formulated on the poor taste of sour grapes. :wink:

[Megadeus]

Nobody said ban everything until Nacatl is good seriously. Just ban the one card that should've been banned 7 or more years ago. You could probably stand to unban at least a few cards in the wake of the great unmulliganer

[ahg113]

My vote is to ban Delver, Snapcaster, and Terminus. You can throw TNN in there, as well.

Alternatively, ban things until Wild Nacatl is good. And then don't ban Wild Nacatl.

Put on your war paint, this is the fight that should be happening. Blue should have NEVER gotten such efficient aggressive creatures. Delver, Snappy, TNN, V. Clique, should have been printed in different colors. Terminus is fine, it's a bitch, but the hoops to make it work, I'm fine with it. Tucking is better than exiling, so many different ways to shuffle the library.

Cantrip-cartel or efficient beaters, blue shouldn't have both.

[Megadeus]

Put on your war paint, this is the fight that should be happening. Blue should have NEVER gotten such efficient aggressive creatures. Delver, Snappy, TNN, V. Clique, should have been printed in different colors. Terminus is fine, it's a bitch, but the hoops to make it work, I'm fine with it. Tucking is better than exiling, so many different ways to shuffle the library.

Cantrip-cartel or efficient beaters, blue shouldn't have both.

And for some reason we consider decks with the best aggressive creatures, the best broad answers, and the best cantrips to be "skill testing"

[ahg113]

And for some reason we consider decks with the best aggressive creatures, the best broad answers, and the best cantrips to be "skill testing"

But can they durdle? Being able to durdle, and still win a game, that's a true test of skill.

[phonics]

Put on your war paint, this is the fight that should be happening. Blue should have NEVER gotten such efficient aggressive creatures. Delver, Snappy, TNN, V. Clique, should have been printed in different colors. Terminus is fine, it's a bitch, but the hoops to make it work, I'm fine with it. Tucking is better than exiling, so many different ways to shuffle the library.

Cantrip-cartel or efficient beaters, blue shouldn't have both.

When Canadian thresh first came onto the scene it had to run green beaters because blue had shit all to offer and barely had enough blue to make force work. Now blue has one of the best aggressive creatures (delver), evasive creatures (TNN) and a ton of efficient, versatile creatures like snapcaster and clique. The problem now is that giving other colors stronger cards wont do shit because in order to be playable they have to be cheap, if they are cheap they can be splashed, and since cantrips are the only game in town when it comes to card consistency (loam/elves/library/or whatever else is a distant second in this regard), and consistency is really important, they will always have a home there, which is basically what delver and midrange lists have become nowadays.

[talpa]

Megadeus explained the irrelevance of strategic diversity as a goal in a way I think no one should be able to fail to understand (...)
In relation to Talpa's comment (if I understood it), I would say the opposite is more plausible. Players who are satisfied with strategic diversity don't seem to appreciate format diversityNice try :cool:
I am not understanding what you mean with "format diversity" as opposed to "strategic diversity". I suppose you mean there can't be different playstyle, different play patterns, a diverse metagame UNLESS there is also card diversity. I disagree. And I don't think I am failing to understand Megadeus example:

If the format were Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, and RG tron (...) would be fucking miserable despite the being an aggro, control, and ramp deck as different styles being the top decksBecause it's simply an exaggeration. Even though I don't know modern and Tron enough to even evaluate if what he said isn't completely wrong in regards to the assignation of an archetype (maybe they are all three ramps, full stop) surely legacy is not in that exact situation, so what he wrote is irrelevant and an obvious straw-man.

I am not saying you should stop telling you love CARD diversity. You should just stop using false arguments like "that is detrimental to format diversity" to support your preferences. Just count the archetype that can be considered tiers and this is a sufficient demonstration that legacy does not lack format diversity. Of course if we disagree on the goals we can never agree on the means to reach it. Just stop pretending you share the same goals :tongue:



And for some reason we consider decks with the best aggressive creatures, the best broad answers, and the best cantrips to be "skill testing"
They can very well be. Power level alone is not a sufficient reason to say a thing can't be skill testing. Nor it would be an hypothetical lack of format diversity: the mirror match can be skill testing too.

That doesn't mean I don't see why delver or TNN can't be considered a design "failure". But still I don't think they could ever be considered ban worthy.

[Zulabnar]

When Canadian thresh first came onto the scene it had to run green beaters because blue had shit all to offer and barely had enough blue to make force work. Now blue has one of the best aggressive creatures (delver), evasive creatures (TNN) and a ton of efficient, versatile creatures like snapcaster and clique. The problem now is that giving other colors stronger cards wont do shit because in order to be playable they have to be cheap, if they are cheap they can be splashed, and since cantrips are the only game in town when it comes to card consistency (loam/elves/library/or whatever else is a distant second in this regard), and consistency is really important, they will always have a home there, which is basically what delver and midrange lists have become nowadays.

This.

Is pretty simple to see, and i wrote the same some months ago.

There are some people like Talpa, that maybe for their own nature (talpa in italian means Mole, the animal) can't see this.:laugh:

Talpa You can call a first dish of Pasta in a lot of way, maybe Alfredo (even if in italy does not exist) but in the end is the same carbohydrates.

Same thing with blue shell. You can build a different deck around, beatdown with shadow instead of tnn, remove creature with fatal push or kolaghan or stp, but is the same blue shell.

Now lots of player has less interest in playing legacy because if they don't want to use that shell, they have to: or run with a combo, or build a deck that has only cards to disrupt that blue shell, in that case You have to run awfull situational cards, and you expose your deck at variance because of lack of manipulation.

That in the ends means if i want to beat blue shell i have to be lucky at drawning.


That is not so attractive. -> format is not attractive -> hope something change.

just my 2 cents.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

TL:DR
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/225/041/tumblr_lwudgwhIJv1qh87wbo1_1280.jpg

Do you have this picture saved somewhere? Because you should get a better one.

[Ronald Deuce]

I think the printing of Delver more than anything else is when the format really took a left turn into bullshit. Blue should just not, under any circumstances, have the best aggro one-drop.

I've made the same argument with a strong dose of irony in the past, but you're absolutely right. Delver's what's causing homogeneity—both in card choices and in play strategy—so if you want Boros Goodstuff and Darklands to come back, that's your target.

[pettdan]

Nice try :cool:
I am not understanding what you mean with "format diversity" as opposed to "strategic diversity".
So, based on Megadeus's example I found it apparent that strategic diversity is possible while still having very low diversity in the format. Or, in other words, a strategically diverse format can still be very monotonous and boring for every single legacy player regardless of their preferences. So, I didn't attempt to define diversity, and I'm using the term widely in a way that includes all legacy players' idea of what diversity is. I think when we try to raise our understanding of format diversity beyond strategic diversity is when we are discussing something more relevant. Strategic diversity is great as a lowest bar of requirement for diversity, but if we want to have a meaningful understanding of diversity it needs to go beyond strategic diversity.


And I don't think I am failing to understand Megadeus example:
Because it's simply an exaggeration. Even though I don't know modern and Tron enough to even evaluate if what he said isn't completely wrong in regards to the assignation of an archetype (maybe they are all three ramps, full stop) surely legacy is not in that exact situation, so what he wrote is irrelevant and an obvious straw-man.

Exaggeration or not, it proves the point. It is irrelevant if it is an exaggeration. It is an example that shows you easily that the requirement of strategic diversity for a good format is not a sufficient requirement for a good format.


I am not saying you should stop telling you love CARD diversity. You should just stop using false arguments like "that is detrimental to format diversity" to support your preferences. Just count the archetype that can be considered tiers and this is a sufficient demonstration that legacy does not lack format diversity. Of course if we disagree on the goals we can never agree on the means to reach it. Just stop pretending you share the same goals :tongue:

I didn't fully understand this, will read it again. I think however it would be good to try to write down what I think good format diversity could look like [edit: I think it would be good if we all reflect on what level of format diversity we want/need/require; just arguing for more or less of it is so abstract and can be hard to relate to. And also to specify what the proposed changes, bannings etc, might result in]. I'll consider that for the coming weeks, although it doesn't need to be very extensive I just try to focus on other things (like work).

[taconaut]

Now lots of player has less interest in playing legacy because if they don't want to use that shell, they have to: or run with a combo, or build a deck that has only cards to disrupt that blue shell, in that case You have to run awfull situational cards, and you expose your deck at variance because of lack of manipulation.

That in the ends means if i want to beat blue shell i have to be lucky at drawning.



What deck do you want to play that you currently can't? Why do you think it ought to be competitive?


I think when we try to raise our understanding of format diversity beyond strategic diversity is when we are discussing something more relevant. Strategic diversity is great as a lowest bar of requirement for diversity, but if we want to have a meaningful understanding of diversity it needs to go beyond strategic diversity.

It is an example that shows you easily that the requirement of strategic diversity for a good format is not a sufficient requirement for a good format.


This makes no sense. Strategic diversity is the only relevant measure of diversity, because it is what makes matchups interesting and varied.

Consider a format in which the legal cards are exactly:

1W: 2/2
1U: 2/2
1B: 2/2
1R: 2/2
1G: 2/2
WU: 2/2
WB: 2/2
WR: 2/2
.
.
.
RG: 2/2

That is, the 15 different costs you could give a bear. Technically, this format would be more "diverse" by your measure than a format that had only the five monocolor bears, but it would be a vacuous distinction because all of the games would play out the exact same way. Having an arbitrary number of differently named and colored pokemon is not a relevant characteristic when evaluating meaningful differences between decks.

If, instead, what you're trying to say is that you prefer formats with higher variance than Legacy has, I am pleased to introduce you to Modern, Standard, and Limited, all of which have much flatter power levels and are much more draw and matchup dependent than Legacy. Fortunately, because we have these formats, we don't have to make Legacy, one of the few magic formats where a reasonable level of consistency can be employed/expected, into more of a high variance format.

Also, I know it's an exaggeration, but "banning everything until Wild Nacatl is playable" would make for easily the most horrible eternal format. The banned list for that format would be long enough that you could make a format out of just the cards on the list, and I guarantee it would be more awesome than the "Wild Nacatl is playable" format :laugh:

[Star|Scream]

What deck do you want to play that you currently can't? Why do you think it ought to be competitive?

Also, I know it's an exaggeration, but "banning everything until Wild Nacatl is playable" would make for easily the most horrible eternal format. The banned list for that format would be long enough that you could make a format out of just the cards on the list, and I guarantee it would be more awesome than the "Wild Nacatl is playable" format :laugh:

If the ban blue folks got their way I would play the heck out of a format that only had cards from the Legacy banned list.

[taconaut]

If the ban blue folks got their way I would play the heck out of a format that only had cards from the Legacy banned list.

"Only-Banlist Modern" is practically already there :laugh:

[Zulabnar]

What deck do you want to play that you currently can't? Why do you think it ought to be competitive?


just some combination of color is not possible it means more diversity.

white red
white green
whit black
red green
red black
green white


salut

[Mr. Safety]

I spent a ton of time bitching in this thread, but honestly, I really like where the current environment stands. It was really fun watching GP Richmond.

[Star|Scream]

just some combination of color is not possible it means more diversity.

white red
white green
whit black
red green
red black
green white


salut

There are tier decks that use these color combinations, however they do not use them in the way you feel they should. That is the problem. I believe many people who complain about lack of diversity only want to play midrange slugfests with Knight of the Reliquary and Wild Nacatl. It seems to be similar to older people who only enjoy the music they grew up with; Neural Nostalgia.

The fact is to get back to those types of decks we'd have to ban 5-10 Blue Legacy cards, and at that point (I feel) that fast combo would take over--forcing more bans.

It's unfortunate to your nostalgia, but blue creatures haven't been as weak as you remember in a long time. They are never going to go back to man'o'war no matter how much you complain.

[NeckBird]

There are tier decks that use these color combinations, however they do not use them in the way you feel they should. That is the problem. I believe many people who complain about lack of diversity only want to play midrange slugfests with Knight of the Reliquary and Wild Nacatl. It seems to be similar to older people who only enjoy the music they grew up with; Neural Nostalgia.

The fact is to get back to those types of decks we'd have to ban 5-10 Blue Legacy cards, and at that point (I feel) that fast combo would take over--forcing more bans.

It's unfortunate to your nostalgia, but blue creatures haven't been as weak as you remember in a long time. They are never going to go back to man'o'war no matter how much you complain.

There are definitely cards I think that can and should be banned in Legacy and the format would improve as a whole. However, it isn't unfair to want there to be more viable non-blue fair decks with or without bans. It's not actually asking much. Wizards should take the opportunity to print busted aggro creatures in supplemental products like Conspiracy and Battlebond since that sort of design space is pretty unexplored for older formats anyway.

Thankfully, Wizards has printed a few pretty good Goblins in the past couple sets and that new Goblin they spoiled today is excellent.

[non-inflammable]

we'd have to ban ONE Blue Legacy card yes, just one.

dig through time, treasure cruise, sensei's divining top, deathrite shaman, gitaxian probe and several other cards that can be unbanned.

don't be a shill for brainstorm...

[talpa]

just some combination of color is not possible it means more diversity.

white red
white green
whit black
red green
red black
green white


LOL the biggest epic fail :laugh:
There are tier decks for this color combinations :cool:
Also I'd love to understand what difference do you mean to underline between "white green" (2nd in your list) and "green white" the last in your list :laugh::laugh::laugh:

WR - Red Taxes - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28017&iddeck=227321) Nick Tucker 18th/810 SCG Open Worcester
WG - Maverick - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28498&iddeck=233820) Tristan Pölzl 6th/194 MKM Series Paris
WB - Deadguy Ale / Pikula - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=27759&iddeck=223897) Owen Watson 16th/187 SCG Duel for Duals
RG - Belcher (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28141&iddeck=229113)

Scapeshift - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=26389&iddeck=207252) Billy Smith 21th/621 SCG Team Constructed Dallas

Lands - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28427&iddeck=232836) Lucien Longlais finalist/843 at the last GP Richmond
RB - Walking Dead (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28362&iddeck=231930) or Team Italia (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28117&iddeck=228748) (of course they also play white, why shouldn't they? all that matters is that they don't play blue, isn't it?)


Anyway considering only the color pairs really doesn't mean anything, unless you want to say that UB Death Shadow is the same as UB Ad Nauseam-Tendrills, or that UR Burn is the same thing as Sneak and Show.





it isn't unfair to want there to be more viable non-blue fair decks with or without bans
See above. They already exist; of course one could never stop asking more and more :tongue:

[Star|Scream]

yes, just one.

dig through time, treasure cruise, sensei's divining top, deathrite shaman, gitaxian probe and several other cards that can be unbanned.

don't be a shill for brainstorm...


I was responding to the cries to ban Delver, TNN, Etc.

P.S. banning brainstorm isn't going to make Wild Nacatl good again.

[LeoCop 90]

LOL the biggest epic fail :laugh:
There are tier decks for this color combinations :cool:
Also I'd love to understand what difference do you mean to underline between "white green" (2nd in your list) and "green white" the last in your list :laugh::laugh::laugh:

WR - Red Taxes - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28017&iddeck=227321) Nick Tucker 18th/810 SCG Open Worcester
WG - Maverick - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28498&iddeck=233820) Tristan Pölzl 6th/194 MKM Series Paris
WB - Deadguy Ale / Pikula - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=27759&iddeck=223897) Owen Watson 16th/187 SCG Duel for Duals
RG - Belcher (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28141&iddeck=229113)

Scapeshift - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=26389&iddeck=207252) Billy Smith 21th/621 SCG Team Constructed Dallas

Lands - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28427&iddeck=232836) Lucien Longlais finalist/843 at the last GP Richmond
RB - Walking Dead (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28362&iddeck=231930) or Team Italia (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28117&iddeck=228748) (of course they also play white, why shouldn't they? all that matters is that they don't play blue, isn't it?)


Anyway considering only the color pairs really doesn't mean anything, unless you want to say that UB Death Shadow is the same as UB Ad Nauseam-Tendrills, or that UR Burn is the same thing as Sneak and Show.





See above. They already exist; of course one could never stop asking more and more :tongue:


More than half the deck you listed are not viable competitive options. Maverick? Deadguy Ale? Scapeshift? Belcher? Team Italia? Come on...
It would be nice to be able to play in a somewhat competitive manner a midrange deck that isn't grixis or sultai. Instead, rather than doing something to make different color combinations more appealing, they print shit that strengthens the same old shells like assassin's trophy (that should have definitely been b/w, but is golgari because by some inexplicable reason only golgari gets good cards in ravnica sets).

[Bithlord]

While we are wish-listing bad shit we wish was playable...

We've come a long way when we can say that Wild Nacatl is "bad shit we wish was playable".

[H]

We've come a long way when we can say that Wild Nacatl is "bad shit we wish was playable".

Yes we have. Even Snapcaster is light-years ahead of where Nacatl is/was. The HMS Nacatl has sailed and sunk, but constantly been dredged back up as some paragon of playabilty, or of pillar of power-level.

[Star|Scream]

More than half the deck you listed are not viable competitive options. Maverick? Deadguy Ale? Scapeshift? Belcher? Team Italia? Come on...
It would be nice to be able to play in a somewhat competitive manner a midrange deck that isn't grixis or sultai. Instead, rather than doing something to make different color combinations more appealing, they print shit that strengthens the same old shells like assassin's trophy (that should have definitely been b/w, but is golgari because by some inexplicable reason only golgari gets good cards in ravnica sets).

Finally someone is being honest about what they really want.

Many of the combinations you listed are viable but none of them are midrange (RB Reanimator, RG Lands, etc.) I'm glad non-blue midrange isn't that great in Legacy. When that happens you wind up playing against Chains and The Abyss, which are miserable to play against (imo.)

[NeckBird]

Finally someone is being honest about what they really want.

Many of the combinations you listed are viable but none of them are midrange (RB Reanimator, RG Lands, etc.) I'm glad non-blue midrange isn't that great in Legacy. When that happens you wind up playing against Chains and The Abyss, which are miserable to play against (imo.)

Chains, maybe. And that's a good thing. It'd be nice to have a bit more diversity among anti-cantrip cards besides just Chalice of the Void and Thalia.

The only deck that plays The Abyss is Tezzerator, which is not a midrange deck. Midrange decks would rather play Deluge. And how is The Abyss miserable to play against, but you list RG Lands as a viable option which is a deck that plays Tabernacle?

I mean, you also list RB Reanimator as if playing against Griselbrand is less miserable to play against than Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant. The fact that few non-blue fair midrange decks, or aggro decks for that matter, are not viable in Legacy is a perfectly legitimate critique of Legacy.

[Star|Scream]

Chains, maybe. And that's a good thing. It'd be nice to have a bit more diversity among anti-cantrip cards besides just Chalice of the Void and Thalia.

The only deck that plays The Abyss is Tezzerator, which is not a midrange deck. Midrange decks would rather play Deluge. And how is The Abyss miserable to play against, but you list RG Lands as a viable option which is a deck that plays Tabernacle?

I mean, you also list RB Reanimator as if playing against Griselbrand is less miserable to play against than Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant. The fact that few non-blue fair midrange decks, or aggro decks for that matter, are not viable in Legacy is a perfectly legitimate critique of Legacy.

Please stop. You're twisting words and adding thoughts that I didn't type.

I'm sorry you can't play the deck you think you should be able to play in this format, but the format has evolved and it would take banning several cards (yes, more than just brainstorm) to allow midrange (let alone non-blue midrange) to have an equal footing. As a parallel, Modern has much fewer cards than Legacy but yet midrange is already dying there in favor of Aggressive decks, combo decks, and hard control. Those decks have access to all the same creatures (Nacatl, Confidant, Goyf) sans Stoneforge and those cards are nearly unplayable.

[Bithlord]

Yes we have. Even Snapcaster is light-years ahead of where Nacatl is/was. The HMS Nacatl has sailed and sunk, but constantly been dredged back up as some paragon of playabilty, or of pillar of power-level.

Snapcaster should have been red, and is exemplary as to why player designed cards are a bad idea.

The biggest reason we have cantrip shell dominance is because they powered up *all* creatures, and at the same time depowered everything else. So all (or pretty much all) the old creatures are invalidated, but none of the old spells are. Couple that with "modern design sensibilities" which dictate that all colors get roughly equal powerlevel creatures, and blue suddenly jumps to the top because it used to get the best spells, and now gets just as good a creatures.

It is what it is, but I'd just once like to see them make an "oops that was way too powerful" mistake that *isn't* blue.

Edit: que argument over whether DRS was one such mistake :P.

[Ronald Deuce]

The only deck that plays The Abyss is Tezzerator, which is not a midrange deck.

I—uh, what?

[H]

The biggest reason we have cantrip shell dominance is because they powered up *all* creatures, and at the same time depowered everything else. So all (or pretty much all) the old creatures are invalidated, but none of the old spells are. Couple that with "modern design sensibilities" which dictate that all colors get roughly equal powerlevel creatures, and blue suddenly jumps to the top because it used to get the best spells, and now gets just as good a creatures.

I don't think the historical record reflects the idea that the Blue was ever not the best color in Magic.


It is what it is, but I'd just once like to see them make an "oops that was way too powerful" mistake that *isn't* blue.

Edit: que argument over whether DRS was one such mistake :P.

Deathrite was a mistake. That doesn't mean ban-worthy though.

There are plenty of mistakes, they are in general the highly playable cards in Legacy. There are plenty of non-Blue examples too, Jitte, Aether Vial, Emrakul, Griselbrand, Terminus, Sneak Attack, the list goes on and on (and there are plenty more examples that are actually on the Banned list too). Granted, because of the nature of Legacy, Blue adopts those tools pretty often. That doesn't mean that Blue is the only color the gets really good cards. It's just the fact of the matter that Legacy is, has always been, and will always be the best color in Magic.

[talpa]

More than half the deck you listed are not viable competitive options. Come on...

Second big epic fail aka I don't want to admit the obvious aka deny the evidence.

Strangely I saw this objection coming and the answer is already there, in the names and tournaments results: those deck were chosen by strong players and piloted to strong finish in big events.

So if you continue to complain you are wrong and the reason you do that can be:
either you like to complain
Or you hate blue
Or you fail to admit it isn't your favorite deck that sucks but the player
Or you pretend to dictate what others should play

Legacy has tiers but you can put up results with many decks, players just follow their tastes like they follow fashion

[MorphBerlin]

Second big epic fail aka I don't want to admit the obvious aka deny the evidence.

Strangely I saw this objection coming and the answer is already there, in the names and tournaments results: those deck were chosen by strong players and piloted to strong finish in big events.

So if you continue to complain you are wrong and the reason you do that can be:
either you like to complain
Or you hate blue
Or you fail to admit it isn't your favorite deck that sucks but the player
Or you pretend to dictate what others should play

Legacy has tiers but you can put up results with many decks, players just follow their tastes like they follow fashion

I respect your efforts, but the ban-everything-until-maverik-is-great-again crowd will never stop bitching how unfair good blue is. (You can also insert another bad pet deck there)

I mean do these people now 4c-Loam? It's like a competitive, good maverick :laugh: But I guess it's too unfair because of Mox Diamond and Chalice, these people only enjoy the pure Maverick expirience.

Edit: The denial of the competitiveness of the decks you lsitet even when you provided data of TopX finishes at big events made me laugh as well :laugh: Ban everything until this one guy, how probably just sucks at magic can top 8 an event with his pet deck :laugh:

Also no word about D&T which has always been competitive and get's new playable creatures in like evey set... Also to unfair because of the Taxing/Controlling Elements I guess.

[Brainstorm Ape]

I respect your efforts, but the ban-everything-until-maverik-is-great-again crowd will never stop bitching how unfair good blue is. (You can also insert another bad pet deck there)

If we're gonna talk about unfairness and blue let's talk about how many shitty pet decks have been made even shittier as key cards from them get banned so that WotC and people who jerk off to/with Brainstorm can pretend that Legacy is a serious, competitive format while preserving their sacred cow.

Brainstorm's still 80% of the top tables, but now instead of Pile, Delver, and Miracles, we have U/B/R Control, Shadow, and Miracles. What a change!


I mean do these people now 4c-Loam? It's like a competitive, good maverick :laugh: But I guess it's too unfair because of Mox Diamond and Chalice, these people only enjoy the pure Maverick expirience.

People probably don't play Loam for the same reason they don't play Lands all that much.

[Dice_Box]

Strangely I saw this objection coming and the answer is already there, in the names and tournaments results: those deck were chosen by strong players and piloted to strong finish in big events.
Your always going to have outliers, that's why we notice them. The idea when using data is not to hand pick points, but to look at trend lines. I can agree each of these decks individually in the hands of skilled individuals did well, but again, single points of data do not an argument make or help anyone in isolation.

I can hand pick data to make a point too, look at the times Lands had done well to argue its the best deck in the format. If you ignore all the other data points it would seem I am right. But I would be wrong. It's a good deck but, regardless of my desire for it to be, it's not the best.

[JosefK]

I can hand pick data to make a point too, look at the times Lands had done well to argue its the best deck in the format. If you ignore all the other data points it would seem I am right. But I would be wrong. It's a good deck but, regardless of my desire for it to be, it's not the best.

How can you refute the point that "these decks are unplayable" without handpicking data? It's not argued that they are the best decks, its argued that the statement that they are unplayable are false.

[talpa]

The idea when using data is not to hand pick points, but to look at trend lines

First of all, as already said by JosefK, when you are willing to refute a universal proposition you need just one counter-example.
The whining was "you can't play this deck and have success" (hell, it was even worse, it was "it doesn't exist a deck in this color-pair") and showing that the deck can win a big tournament is enough.

Then, as I said, I don't believe in trends: people follow personal tastes, fashion etc. and is limited by deck availability. So the fact that a deck is more played than another doesn't strictly demonstrate anything. For example, in Europe we knew how strong miracle was (and how the ponder list was the better) ages before US people realized that. Also, why are european, american and asian metagames so different if the format is the same? :D
Why is online magic different than paper one? Because a deck "strength" isn't the only parameter (nor it even has meaning in a vacuum without considering the metagame).

Last but not least, you actually don't have data to infer a deck strength if you can only look at top lists. Without considering the skill of a player, if you wanted to assess "a deck" performance, you should have access to all results. Which only wizard can do, on MTGO.
If you instead look only at the "winners" and can't compare who they are with "how many of them there were in the metagame", you have a distorted perception. Because if the metagame in a certain tournament was dominated by a deck, it could have a predominance in the top by mere chance (big numbers) and not because it was strong.

I know some people that do this kind of analysis when they have access to ALL decklists in a certain tournament... and as I said, the last big tournament in Italy showed a WORSE result for miracle and grixis than others archetypes (average points of all players aggregated by deck type).
And yes, Lands is a strong deck in general, won that tournament in particular and even had a good average point between all those who played it.

[kinda]

LOL the biggest epic fail :laugh:
There are tier decks for this color combinations :cool:
Also I'd love to understand what difference do you mean to underline between "white green" (2nd in your list) and "green white" the last in your list :laugh::laugh::laugh:

WR - Red Taxes - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28017&iddeck=227321) Nick Tucker 18th/810 SCG Open Worcester
WG - Maverick - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=28498&iddeck=233820) Tristan Pölzl 6th/194 MKM Series Paris
WB - Deadguy Ale / Pikula - example list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=27759&iddeck=223897) Owen Watson 16th/187 SCG Duel for Duals

So...um...to clarify...all a deck has to do in order to be considered competitive with miracles etc. in your opinion is get 16th/187 at 1 event? I've got a sweet competitive deck then for you to crush your next event with: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=19908&d=328765 .

[pettdan]

So...um...to clarify...all a deck has to do in order to be considered competitive with miracles etc. in your opinion is get 16th/187 at 1 event? I've got a sweet competitive deck then for you to crush your next event with: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=19908&d=328765 .

Agreeing with your point, of course..

I think we can all agree, after a little bit of reasoning, that the competitiveness of a deck is not defined by its ability to be good on a single occasion, but rather to be consistently good. Of course a deck with 20 Forests and 40 Grizzly Bears could win a 15 round tournament vs decks with 20 lands and 40 spells if these decks only draw their spells and no lands. It just needs to get lucky. Winning a single tournament, maybe once a year even, is not a necessarily a testament of a deck's strength and competitiveness. Regularly winning tournaments, on the other hand, is. This is also a large part of the reason why Brainstorm defines most competitive decks in the format.


I respect your efforts, but the ban-everything-until-maverik-is-great-again crowd will never stop bitching how unfair good blue is. (You can also insert another bad pet deck there)

I don't know but I have the impression that only a subset of the people who want to improve format diversity are longing for a travel back in time in terms of meta changes. There are some who do, I for example don't see it that way.


I mean do these people now 4c-Loam? It's like a competitive, good maverick :laugh: But I guess it's too unfair because of Mox Diamond and Chalice, these people only enjoy the pure Maverick expirience.

I don't know why, I could guess that if you want a Chalice strategy then Eldrazi is better and if you want a Loam strategy then Lands is better. Personally I like Maverick better, it seems to me that it should be more consistent and maybe unique and in my view more fun, but none of that really matters in this context.


Edit: The denial of the competitiveness of the decks you lsitet even when you provided data of TopX finishes at big events made me laugh as well :laugh: Ban everything until this one guy, how probably just sucks at magic can top 8 an event with his pet deck :laugh:

See my comment above! This is, in my view, a misunderstanding of what competitiveness means.


Also no word about D&T which has always been competitive and get's new playable creatures in like evey set... Also to unfair because of the Taxing/Controlling Elements I guess.

There has been plenty of word about D&T in relation to Brainstorm. Thalia is often referred to as one of the few cards that can interact in a meaningful way with Brainstorm.

[talpa]

So...um...to clarify...all a deck has to do in order to be considered competitive with miracles etc. in your opinion is get 16th/187 at 1 event? I've got a sweet competitive deck then for you to crush your next event with: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=19908&d=328765 .

What do you mean with the phrasing "competitive with?" As strong as X? Good against X?
I'm not doing comparisons (like in more (less) competitive than). I'm simply saying that a deck that makes top16 in a big event is "competitive", by the very definition of "competitive" as "being able to win". Even more so if few people play it. You just CAN'T BE LUCKY FOR 15 ROUNDS CONSECUTIVELY with a "non competitive" deck
Also, as we already explained, we weren't "saying" anything. We were just "refuting" an obvious idiocy (choose yours: "a legacy GW deck does not exist", "maverick is not a deck", "maverick can't win a tournament" etc etc).
EDIT: Oh! And of course I like the deck you linked.



I think we can all agree
No I don't. And I think you are purposely denying the evidence and choosing a straw man to fight with.



Of course a deck with 20 Forests and 40 Grizzly Bears could win a 15 round tournament
Really? Please show me the historical record. I think this actually proves MY point.



Regularly winning tournaments, on the other hand...
...depends (not only, but surely also) on how many people play it.


the competitiveness of a deck is not defined by its ability to be good on a single occasion, but rather to be consistently good
No, this is a definition of how consistent a deck is.

This is also a large part of the reason why Brainstorm defines most competitive decks in the format.
Yes, Brainstorm gives consistency. Not competitiveness. (Brainstorm is not the only way to have consistency, but it is a [very] good one).
A deck that has consistency and strength is more likely to put up results. A deck that is consistently bad just looses. Plenty of way to put 4 brainstorm in a shitty deck and make it shittier.
Also if you were the best player of the world and were playing the most competitive and consistent deck in a Grand Prix and I had to bet between you winning it, or anyone else of the other 800 players winning it I'd bet against you. If everybody plays brainstorm, of course brainstorm shows up in top8.
(I'm not saying brainstorm isn't good of course; why everybody is playing brainstorm is a completely different question. But when someone doesn't, he can still win; and of course we had two dragon stompy in birmigham, didn't we? How many brainstorm deck do you think were there and how many dragon stompy?)

[pettdan]

It's always funny how Italian people seem to like to be provocative, or I think they like it, well I like it too.. ;)

I think some of your arguments fall all by themselves, like Brainstorm not being related to competitiveness is a point I think you will have a hard time driving home among anyone playing this format for a couple of years.

When it comes to competitiveness, we can consider different levels or types of competitiveness. Splitting hairs like this is however not meaningful for this discussion. If you want to define every deck that ever won a tournament as competitive, that is fine, I think 99.9% of the users in this forum will have a different perspective than you. You can have that perspective, it just isn't very useful when discussing the format. I'll provide two links below to threads where you can read up on decks that the forum in general considers competitive, these are two methods for deciding on competiveness of decks and probably the best ones we have access to right now with the limited data we have. I suggest you ask them to add your definition of competitiveness in these threads and see how they respond.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32532-Results-and-Meta-Post-DRS-Probe-Banning

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?5460-DTBF-Philosophy-amp-Deck-Selection

[talpa]

I think 99.9% of the users in this forum
Don't care. When everybody says 1+1=3 everybody is just wrong.
Also maybe that's precisely why this forum doesn't have any more real interesting contents on the competetive threads.
Oh, and by the way I'd bet you are speaking of those WHO WROTE, not of "everybody who plays legacy" LOL


these are two methods for deciding on competiveness
No, as I already said these can define which decks are winning, which doesn't mean ANYTHING if you don't know the distribution of how many of each one was playing in the first place.



I think some of your arguments fall all by themselves
Yeah, yeah. Refute them. No, you are just shifting the discussion from "maverick is not a deck" to "brainstorm is good" which was not the question.

[Bithlord]

I don't think the historical record reflects the idea that the Blue was ever not the best color in Magic.


I agree, but historically that dominance was on the back of it's spells, and it's creatures were generally pretty meh.

Now, that dominance is on the back of it's new creatures and it's old spells.

That was pretty much my entire point. If other colors had spells to the level of blues spells, then blue wouldn't be dominant, because the creatures are all about the same now, and are waaaay ahead of what they used to be.

[taconaut]

It is what it is, but I'd just once like to see them make an "oops that was way too powerful" mistake that *isn't* blue.

Edit: que argument over whether DRS was one such mistake :P.

This was an interesting statement to me - I wonder if part of the reason this never seems to happen is that it is much harder to make a creature in other colors that is extremely powerful, but not in an obviously busted way, and not in a way that would break standard.

This sort of thing came up in the Shitty Card Creation thread the other day - if the prompt is, "design a guy that would make Plateau competitive," the things that would come close are just completely unprintable on first reading, like:

RW, 5/5, Human Knight; Haste, Vigilance, Creatures and Lands your opponents control enter the battlefield tapped. Non-creature spells your opponents control that target ~ cost 1 more to cast.

Like, that card maybe could be good enough for a Legacy beatdown deck, but it can still get countered, plowed, pushed, etc., and BUG would probably still be the place to be. Like an earlier poster said, many of the playable cards in Legacy are the "mistakes," and the mistakes that would follow the color pie in non-blue colors are just much more obvious, and less likely to make it through development. By contrast, R&D looks at something like Delver and figures, "man, this is pretty hard to flip, right? Seems fine" without ever trying it with brainstorms/forces/dazes in their deck, or looks at TNN and goes "Oh yeah people will have three opponents with 40 life when they play this guy, surely one of the other two will help out?"

Deathrite Shaman may have been the perfect example of this phenomenon: they figure, "oh, lands are rarely in the grave, this might fix once in a while" and "two damage a turn isn't all that much, we print guys with much bigger power than that, plus you need instants and sorceries and there aren't a ton of those either" and then it turns out to be nuts in formats where neither of those assumptions hold.

All that being said, I feel like it's only a matter of time before they print, "1W, 2/2, Human Advisor; Your opponents can't play noncreature spells." Someone at wizards has a huge boner for hatebears...

[H]

I agree, but historically that dominance was on the back of it's spells, and it's creatures were generally pretty meh.

Now, that dominance is on the back of it's new creatures and it's old spells.

That was pretty much my entire point. If other colors had spells to the level of blues spells, then blue wouldn't be dominant, because the creatures are all about the same now, and are waaaay ahead of what they used to be.

A fair point, but Wizards is not going to forsake Blue in every other actually supported format, just for the sake of Legacy.

Not to mention that if Blue creatures weren't any good, Blue decks just use other color's creatures, just like they did pre-Innistrad and even all the way back to the original Thresh decks. See this very thread years ago about how Tarmogoyf should be banned as well.

The only solution is to ban nearly every cantrip that is worth playing. And honestly, that is a shitty solution, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that there are actually people who like them. It doesn't really matter if you frame it as people like liking OP shit, people like powerful cards in any Constructed format. There is even a whole format predicated on the idea that people like to play degenerative stuff, because it's powerful (Vintage). If you don't, then you play Limited.

[Dice_Box]

How can you refute the point that "these decks are unplayable" without handpicking data? It's not argued that they are the best decks, its argued that the statement that they are unplayable are false.
You show trends. On a technical level they are all playable, they are legal in the format. My issue is not with the point but with picking out single data points and arguing they mean anything in isolation. That is not have stats work. You want a large sample size and then find the trends. We have a very large sample size (The amount of games we see reported is very high) with no trend towards these decks seeing any kind of widespread success. (Other than Lands.) WR DnT was a thing, then they got a White Recruiter and it went away.


Then, as I said, I don't believe in trends: people follow personal tastes, fashion etc. and is limited by deck availability.
You what? Really? Yes, there are limits due to external factors, but you really want to debate trends? I would suggest that the price of Tabernacle shows a trend in the uptake of Lands upon its success. The spike in City after Eldzari hit it big... People follow these trends. I get what your saying, that external factors play a large part in peoples choice and directions, but trends are a thing. Like, you don't have to believe in them, wont stop them any. I don't have to believe in cars, I think its best that I still should check for them before I cross the road.


I know some people that do this kind of analysis when they have access to ALL decklists in a certain tournament... and as I said, the last big tournament in Italy showed a WORSE result for miracle and grixis than others archetypes (average points of all players aggregated by deck type).
Got a link for that? Sounds like my kind of time waster for tonight. Would be cool to dig though. Thanks.

[colo]

The fact that cantrips and card selection (and, more broadly speaking, "draw cards"-abilities) only really and relevantly exist in Blue is a problem that eternal formats will have to live with, I guess. But that problem is compounded by the fact that the other "best" abilities and effects in the game are also to be found in Blue, or have been absorbed/cannibalized by Blue, over the last years. The original sin is, of course, stack interaction/being able to counter spells and abilities. Unless instant speed discard (quite ridiculously only to be found in Blue via Piracy Charm) becomes a thing, there's no better way to not make your opponent fuck you up with a single, yet crucial spell, that the other colours simply cannot match. WotC's answer to that - printing "can't be countered" bioler-plate on various cards - is a shitty band-aid "solution" for that particular problem, although I admit don't know how to fix it either. That cat's been out of the bag for too long already. However...

Blue has superior protection and evasion (True-Name Nemesis and all the "can't be blocked"-shit), often comes with Flash and Flying tacked on, and has hexproof on some of its critters to boot. What do the other colors get that blue won't? Haste, First and Double Strike, Trample, mana production built-in, Delve (ignoring the banned U clusterfuck of cards from a few years ago, Blue still gets the "better" kind of Delve on one of its fatties: on Cryptic Serpent). Did I forget anything relevant?

I think something's gotta change in how properties that WotC perceives to be OK on Blue cards are distributed over the colour pie, historical precedent be damned. And they need to do so in a way that precludes (predominantly) Blue decks from splashing those cards.

[Bithlord]

Honestly, there's lots of "cute" attempts to make a force of will cycle that gives each other color the ability to counter things it's good at fighitng against. But, you know what/ F that.

We need a legit "force of..." cycle.

Force of hate: 3BB. You may discard a black card and pay one life to play this spell without paying it's cost. Counter. Target. Spell.
Force of fire.
Force of unity.
Force of (nature is already taken).

hell, you want to show how "superior" blue is, fine. Take away the casting cost, and may the discard and pay life the only way to cast it. Literally nobody casts force for 5 mana anyway...

But, like you noted, stack interaction AND card draw are "locked in" to blue's part of the pie. So, while blue gets to eat little bits of everybody elses pie, nobody gets to share in blue's part.

[talpa]

On a technical level they are all playable, they are legal in the format
Well, that's a way of understating it. Are they "just legal" in the format as it would be something like 20 forest and 40 2/2s for two mana, or can we agree they are just a tiny bit better? :cool:


You what? Really? (...) I get what your saying, that external factors play a large part in peoples choice and directions
So we understand each other. Let's avoid pretending the contrary.


Got a link for that? Sounds like my kind of time waster for tonight. Would be cool to dig though. Thanks.
No I don't. I can post an image with the elaboration, though
https://imgur.com/a/p4613LV
https://imgur.com/a/p4613LV

[Barachai]

Literally nobody casts force for 5 mana anyway...

Hasn't played enough miracles.

[Dice_Box]

So we understand each other. Let's avoid pretending the contrary.
Your looking at half of what I am saying. Your claiming people don't follow trends, they just play entirely on external factors. I am saying that I agree those factors exist, but that also trends matter. Regardless of your personal belief in them.


No I don't. I can post an image with the elaboration, though
https://imgur.com/a/p4613LV
https://imgur.com/a/p4613LV
Thats good enough, thanks.

[talpa]

Your looking at half of what I am saying. Your claiming people don't follow trends, they just play entirely on external factors. I am saying that I agree those factors exist, but that also trends matter. Regardless of your personal belief in them.

No, I was implying that I was exaggerating when saying trends don't exist at all. I just think that the REAL trends in magic are way more difficult to exactly identify than someone seems to think

[Zulabnar]

All Talpa argument's are personal arguments, theory that has to be proven (italy metagame data where are? prove wiht an aggregate data please) and his own percpetion so it's just moving the focus from the point.



At the moment the point is:

Is blue shell always in more than 50% of the top8? why?
Is blue shell chosen by more player than other shells? why?
Is the format wrapped around blue shell? why?

[Dice_Box]

No, I was implying that I was exaggerating when saying trends don't exist at all. I just think that the REAL trends in magic are way more difficult to exactly identify than someone seems to think
No, I don't think so. Not to sound like I am against you on everything, I just, I don't think so.

Avacyn Restored comes out May of 2012. Miracles gets 163 points that month (Its more Countertop Control then real Miracles). Mav and Threash get the lion share. This holds kind of steady for long time, no one really having worked out the best shell for the deck. Early 2014 this changes. People know what the build is, shit turns and the trend picks up. The deck flys and it will leave the DTB totals twice until the removal of Top from the format. You can see where the tread starts, where it picks up and where it is adapted.

That was not hard for me to work out, I just opened my spreadsheet and had a look. Trends in Magic are not hard to spot. Card Prices, deck retention, win percentages and other decks dropping off are all really easy to see in the data. Because we have so much of it. Would you like a copy of what I have? You might find it all useful.

[Star|Scream]

All Talpa argument's are personal arguments, theory that has to be proven (italy metagame data where are? prove wiht an aggregate data please) and his own percpetion so it's just moving the focus from the point.



At the moment the point is:

Is blue shell always in more than 50% of the top8? why? Blue is historically the best color in magic, and this is an eternal format. Why wouldn't you want to play the best cards? Also FOW gives you a fighting chance game 1 against almost any deck.
Is blue shell chosen by more player than other shells? why?Blue is historically the best color in magic, and this is an eternal format. Why wouldn't you want to play the best cards? Also FOW gives you a fighting chance game 1 against almost any deck.
Is the format wrapped around blue shell? why?Blue is historically the best color in magic, and this is an eternal format. Why wouldn't you want to play the best cards? Also FOW gives you a fighting chance game 1 against almost any deck.

[talpa]

All Talpa argument's are personal arguments, theory that has to be proven (italy metagame data where are?
LOL Again: just posted


just moving the focus from the point.

You are. If you had wrote "blue is good" I wouldn't have bothered responding. But you said "this and this are unplayable color pairs". That was wrong obviously. And I just refuted that (and easily so)



Trends in Magic are not hard to spot. Card Prices, deck retention, win percentages
If you want to share it could be interesting thanks.
But I still don't think those kind of trends indicate so easily what the "best" deck is.
I agree miracle was OP and deserved a ban. But for example our (from Italy) perception was completely different from what you just summarized. You were "late" from our POV on each phase of the deck life. First of all we had deck with terminus as soon as it was printed. We identified the 4ponder list as the best quite soon. We had a few among the greatest players winning everything with that deck and others developed early a personal and strong hate against the deck. We hoped for a ban two years before it happened; when they finally hit top we were actually no longer expecting and both metaga and opposing deck lists were adapted to confront miracle dominance and had been so for long time.

[Dice_Box]

If you want to share it could be interesting thanks.
But I still don't think those kind of trends indicate so easily what the "best" deck is.
I agree miracle was OP and deserved a ban. But for example our (from Italy) perception was completely different from what you just summarized. You were "late" from our POV on each phase of the deck life. First of all we had deck with terminus as soon as it was printed. We identified the 4ponder list as the best quite soon. We had a few among the greatest players and others developed early an hate against the deck. We hoped for a ban two years before it happened; when they finally hit top we were actually no longer expecting and both metaga and opposing deck lists were adapted to confront miracle dominance and had been so for long time.
I was not debating the best deck point, just that these trends are easy to see. Standard and price changes almost always show the way things are going. I can tell you what is likely to be the most popular deck in Standard just by looking at inflections in price data. Not that I can tell you what that deck would itself be doing. That would mean giving a shit about Standard and I don't.

As for late on the data points, likely yes. But I was using only one set of data, my DTB spreadsheet without looking at lists themselves, how they changed or other external factors that would be used to adjust ones understanding of the situation. Now imagine your a 22 year old kid playing Standard hopping to make it big, your going to be tuned into all these other data points. (That I doubt you or I personally give a shit about, because who's trying to go pro playing Legacy?) Hell just think about the amount of data teams pour over before a PT. Testing and looking at the lines. So much shit in such a small space.

Lastly, I am not talking about what needed a ban, just the data. I picked Miracles because it has a defined start and end point on my data that makes for the cleanest point of reference, not to make a statement on the deck itself.

Spread sheet link (https://www.dropbox.com/s/cvcgp8ydzz4qqps/DTB%20Data1.xlsx?dl=0). Its all really basic and public info. There is nothing here that should be new to anyone but the data is all in one place. I do like this sheet.

[Lemnear]

If other colors had spells to the level of blues spells, then blue wouldn't be dominant, because the creatures are all about the same now, and are waaaay ahead of what they used to be.

Sorry to jump in here, but I don't think this is true. I would even claim otherwise and call the available, format-relevant blue creatures these days BETTER than most you find in other colors.

It's quite hard to find anything better than Delver, Snapcaster, TNN, Leovold, etc in their respective roles without blue mana symbol.

So to double-down on the matter: I think there is a base to argue that after DRS' ban, blue has the best cardselection tools, best permission AND the best creatures of the format.

[Ronald Deuce]

It's quite hard to find anything better than Delver, Snapcaster, TNN, Leovold, etc in their respective roles without blue mana symbol.

So to double-down on the matter: I think there is a base to argue that after DRS' ban, blue has the best cardselection tools, best permission AND the best creatures of the format.

This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?

I feel like in addition to the general confusion over (or the simple failure to acknowledge) the difference between card diversity and strategic diversity, there's a popular assumption that a card's presence in X% of the top decks is evidence that the card is busted, when it's at least as likely that the other 56 cards in those lists are already excellent without it.

And I'm totally not telling what I (a total pro, for super serial) think is the best card in Legacy, except to say that it isn't Brainstorm.

[Dice_Box]

This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?
It is the best card at what it does. Other cards would replace it but its a step down in power. Its like losing Swords and replacing it with Oust. Sure it fits in the slot, but the power level has changed in your decks.

[Ronald Deuce]

It is the best card at what it does. Other cards would replace it but its a step down in power. Its like losing Swords and replacing it with Oust. Sure it fits in the slot, but the power level has changed in your decks.

Thanks for the response!

I'm in total agreement, but I'm wondering how much of a difference it would actually make to replace Brainstorm with the next-best cantrip. I'm interested in discussing the degree to which the power level of "Brainstorm decks" (not necessarily your words; I'm just being expedient) would actually fall if Brainstorm were banned. At this point, I'm not sure it would really do that much, but I also tend to think in terms of the worst-case scenario.

[phonics]

This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?

I feel like in addition to the general confusion over (or the simple failure to acknowledge) the difference between card diversity and strategic diversity, there's a popular assumption that a card's presence in X% of the top decks is evidence that the card is busted, when it's at least as likely that the other 56 cards in those lists are already excellent without it.

And I'm totally not telling what I (a total pro, for super serial) think is the best card in Legacy, except to say that it isn't Brainstorm.

Its just that we have reached a convergence where Blue almost has direct access to the best of everything, and what it doesn't it can splash fairly easily and brainstorm is the best card in the format. Roughly a decade ago when blue decks weren't as prevalent, blue was played because it answered combo (force) and had the best consistency. With that, if played well, they could maneuver around other strategies that often had stronger cards but weaker consistency. At the time, brainstorm still was like 45-50% of the top table meta (compared tot he 70+% earlier this year, don't know what it is like now). Now that these other decks have lost favor since blue has gotten access to much better cards, majority of the format is just these blue decks splashing the best cards dancing around each other until one exhausts their resources or one top decks better after both have exhausted their resources.

[Dice_Box]

Thanks for the response!

I'm in total agreement, but I'm wondering how much of a difference it would actually make to replace Brainstorm with the next-best cantrip. I'm interested in discussing the degree to which the power level of "Brainstorm decks" (not necessarily your words; I'm just being expedient) would actually fall if Brainstorm were banned. At this point, I'm not sure it would really do that much, but I also tend to think in terms of the worst-case scenario.
Storm would likely be a goner and Miracles would take a gut punch. All the Control (Who dont need to set up top decks) and Tempo decks I feel would be fine. Not happy, but they would live.

[Lemnear]

This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?

The fact that Brainstorm is 53%, Ponder 51%, Polluted Delta, 47%, Scalding Tarn 35%, Misty Rainforst 31% and Flooded Strand 29%, pretty clearly shows that the format has no problem in form of Brainstorm but with a whole core.


Now that these other decks have lost favor since blue has gotten access to much better cards, majority of the format is just these blue decks splashing the best cards dancing around each other until one exhausts their resources or one top decks better after both have exhausted their resources.

The event horizon of the degenerstion of Legacy was the printing of Ponder. That literally doubled the amount of high quality card selection in decks as you no longer had only a ~41% chance to find a fixer for your draws in your starting grip. The moment it was legal tempo dropped mental note and control dropped stuff like Fact or Fiction. Everything melted into one core

[Dice_Box]

The fact that Brainstorm is 53%, Ponder 51%, Polluted Delta, 47%, Scalding Tarn 35%, Misty Rainforst 31% and Flooded Strand 29%, pretty clearly shows that the format has no problem in form of Brainstorm but with a whole core.
While this is true at some point you have to pick your battles. The you can't honestly want to take out all the cantrips just because they do work. You have to accept that's part of Legacy.

My issue is that Brainstorm itself I feel is too powerful, but I accept that the shell will remain. I feel removing Ponder or Preordain is stupid and I would argue against such actions. Not because I don't think these cards would not just slot in, I know they would, but because the power drop is enough. We don't need to kill Legacys identity.

[phonics]

The event horizon of the degenerstion of Legacy was the printing of Ponder. That literally doubled the amount of high quality card selection in decks as you no longer had only a ~41% chance to find a fixer for your draws in your starting grip. The moment it was legal tempo dropped mental note and control dropped stuff like Fact or Fiction. Everything melted into one core

I pretty much agree with that, but it also makes me wonder why portent was essentially unplayable (and largely still is outside of miracles), I assume part of it was that the value of consistency wasn't as high back then, and the card efficiency overall wasn't low enough to benefit from having that much consistency, and also that portent doesn't give you any card velocity, or the ability to chain multiple cantrips in a turn like ponder does.

[Lemnear]

While this is true at some point you have to pick your battles. The you can't honestly want to take out all the cantrips just because they do work. You have to accept that's part of Legacy.

My issue is that Brainstorm itself I feel is too powerful, but I accept that the shell will remain. I feel removing Ponder or Preordain is stupid and I would argue against such actions. Not because I don't think these cards would not just slot in, I know they would, but because the power drop is enough. We don't need to kill Legacys identity.

You know that I am not in favor of removing Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain or however deep you wanna go to weed out the cantrips, because it's a deep, deep hole you have to dig to achieve a parity to other colors cardselection tools.

I would be very careful with the "identity of Legacy", as many users consider the cantrip shell as such, which ultimately means that nothing should be done and we all just accept that "cantrip shell + killoption of choice" is supposed to stomp everything else. It's not hard to see that pretty much a decade of stagnant Ponder/Brainstorm/Fetch dominance has already bored out far too many players and will hurt the format even more due to prices as an additional factor. "Boring and expensive" isnt a cool mix too keep a format thrieving


I pretty much agree with that, but it also makes me wonder why portent was essentially unplayable (and largely still is outside of miracles), I assume part of it was that the value of consistency wasn't as high back then, and the card efficiency overall wasn't low enough to benefit from having that much consistency, and also that portent doesn't give you any card velocity, or the ability to chain multiple cantrips in a turn like ponder does.

You had opt, serum visions, Mental note, Impulse and predict to fill the role. All got essentially replaced by Ponder and even the classic control draw a la Fact or Fiction or Standstill got pushed out because they were no longer good enough.

[Bithlord]

To be honest, I'd prefer that they raise the other colors up to parity, rather than ban blue down to parity. But, there is no way that will ever happen because how could you do it without jsut making the blue cards in other colors?

I think Force should get in other colors, because that's more or less the only way to stop turn 1 decks.

[Purple Blood]

Thanks for the response!

I'm in total agreement, but I'm wondering how much of a difference it would actually make to replace Brainstorm with the next-best cantrip. I'm interested in discussing the degree to which the power level of "Brainstorm decks" (not necessarily your words; I'm just being expedient) would actually fall if Brainstorm were banned. At this point, I'm not sure it would really do that much, but I also tend to think in terms of the worst-case scenario.

The ceiling on Brainstorm is so much higher than any of the other cantrips. We shouldn't even really be calling Brainstorm a cantrip; its a whole different beast because it let's you shuffle away bad cards.


The fact that Brainstorm is 53%, Ponder 51%, Polluted Delta, 47%, Scalding Tarn 35%, Misty Rainforst 31% and Flooded Strand 29%, pretty clearly shows that the format has no problem in form of Brainstorm but with a whole core.

Right. But the idea wouldn't be to eliminate that whole core. The point would be to remove the best part of the core so that other sets of cards could compete with it.

[hermit_druid]

Just checking everyone is aware that the only thing that has been discussed in the last 5 millennia in here is Brainstorm/Ponder, and that WotC have explicitly said they won't ban Brainstorm. Maybe it'd be more interesting/useful to discuss other cards?

[Lemnear]

But the idea wouldn't be to eliminate that whole core. The point would be to remove the best part of the core so that other sets of cards could compete with it.

This is a pointless and jaring discussion as countless posts in this thread have outlined a hundred times, that this approach results into you having to ban 5-12 cards and even more over time.

[Megadeus]

The ceiling on Brainstorm is so much higher than any of the other cantrips. We shouldn't even really be calling Brainstorm a cantrip; its a whole different beast because it let's you shuffle away bad cards.



Right. But the idea wouldn't be to eliminate that whole core. The point would be to remove the best part of the core so that other sets of cards could compete with it.

This seems to be something many don't seem to get. Brainstorm is far and away much better than ponder. Those of us that think brainstorm should be banned don't think ponder and preordain should also go, just the one that is clearly busted.

[kinda]

This seems to be something many don't seem to get. Brainstorm is far and away much better than ponder. Those of us that think brainstorm should be banned don't think ponder and preordain should also go, just the one that is clearly busted.

I think it's because we call brainstorm/ponder/serum visions etc. all cantrips. Brainstorm isn't a cantrip, it's a 1 mana edh style partial mulligan you can take at any stage of the game. It's very different than all the spells like ponder/green Sun's Zenith/portent which charge a 1 mana premium in exchange for you getting to choose what you want the card to be.

@Hermit_druid: There is no way you finished reading the nourishing lich thread already...stop slacking. There will be a quiz tomorrow.

[Zombie]

I used to be of the opinion that Ponder/Preordain would be fine, just axe Brainstorm and we'll be fine, we have Library and Loam and GSZ and Bob as competition and it should be fine. Over time, I've come to think it won't be enough. These are, as best as I can tell, facts of life:

Observation 1: Every card game ever printed with custom decks has "see a lot of cards" as the best strategy, or a fundamental pillar of the best strategy. Whether it's a MTG, whether it's Netrunner, whether it's a deckbuilder. Doesn't matter.
Observation 2: Cantrips "underread": That is, cantrips that look really bad can actually still be very competitive with cards with other functions that read a lot better. Consistency isn't exciting, but it is insanely powerful.
Observation 3: Brainstorm is by far and away the best card in its class, and articles have been written for ages about how it's the best thing to be doing in Legacy, before Innistrad was even released and changed the format forever.

Now, what that means:
Corollary: Cantrips are of a proper power level when they look like they suck.
Corollary 2: If you are excited about reading a card selection spell or a draw spell (and it's not a CA-neutral card that costs at least 2), it's probably busted.
Corollary 3: That said, if there is a problem, it has to be with cantrips as a class because of the above. Every other engine just falls short, and by Observation 1, will define the best strategies and leave us where we are.


I like Ponder, I like Preordain. They're fun cards. They're also completely bonkers, and the format overall would probably be better off with them being axed in addition to their big brother. This should ideally not be done in one fell swoop - I'd like a competitive cantrip shell. But it probably has to read like a boring pile of jank to be appropriate.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

This is a pointless and jaring discussion as countless posts in this thread have outlined a hundred times, that this approach results into you having to ban 5-12 cards and even more over time.

So?

[Lemnear]

So?

We already know how such things work out, respectively don't.

[CptHaddock]

We already know how such things work out, respectively don't.

So?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

We already know how such things work out, respectively don't.

For example:

[Lemnear]

For example:

Vintage Apocalypse? Just look at the players feedback, crashing player numbers, format "health", sellouts, 6y long reign of Workshops, etc.

The Format was repeatingly chopping the head of the cantrip core for years like in Legacy, but when they decided to restrict the whole blue core, the format as such took a huge hit in general as they also removed the ability of decks to fight back the onesided games of Lodestone Golem + Chalice. Blue decks only started to become viable again with the release of Dack and Co.

What I am trying to say is that you have several options:

- keep chopping the hydras head just like WotC does since forever in Legacy (TC, SDT, DTT, DRS, etc.) and just accept that Fetches/BS/Ponder are there to remain the best core period,
- ban Brainstorm and watch how the blue decks streamline even more without significantly improving the situation for other cores because Ponder/Preordain/FoW are still better than Sylan Library/Nissas Oath,
- hammer the whole bunch of blue cantrips from Brainstorm over Ponder to Preordain in order to leave Legacy with Modern powerlevel of cantrips and alienate most of the playerbase like it happened in vintage and deal with the fitting description of Legacy as "Modern with ABU Duals and FoW"
(- ban fetchlands and unban all the cards which are just banned because free shuffle/yardfill effects broke them, leaving Brainstorm & Co suddenly as very fair cards)

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Vintage Apocalypse? Just look at the players feedback, crashing player numbers, format "health", sellouts, 6y long reign of Workshops, etc.


This is a pointless and jaring discussion as countless posts in this thread have outlined a hundred times, that this approach results into you having to ban 5-12 cards and even more over time.
Looks like they forgot the other part. You'll have to find another example.

[Glass House]

To be honest, I'd prefer that they raise the other colors up to parity, rather than ban blue down to parity. But, there is no way that will ever happen because how could you do it without jsut making the blue cards in other colors?

I think that this is the crux of the problem. As Zombie pointed out, card selection is one of the most inherently powerful actions in any sort of card game. Every color should have access to good card selection, not only Blue (possible exception being White, since they touch on everything else on the pie, so it's sensible for them to have a major downside in weak card selection). WotC has realized this and recently has been trying to hand it out to every color, each with their own twist (for example, Red's exile from top). The problem is that until other colors receive cards in the same power level of Brainstorm and Ponder, there is no reason not to run Blue.

On another topic, I think that fetchlands are the worst thing that has ever happened to the game for multiple reasons but I understand that banning them is even more unreal than banning Brainstorm.

[colo]

I think it would be enough to not outright ban "the cantrip shell" or any sizeable part of it, but to print accessible, relevant and individually strong (as in, Legacy playable in principle, even if they did not have this cantrip-nerving effect/ability) cards that make playing a cantrip-heavy game, or relying on cantrips doing their job properly, a liability. Stuff like Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Spirit of the Labyrinth kinda work in that direction, but the first one is just stupid (oughta be symmetric, so it doesn't find its way into Xerox to only fuck the opponent), and Spirit is too weak.

[Purple Blood]

I think it would be enough to not outright ban "the cantrip shell" or any sizeable part of it, but to print accessible, relevant and individually strong (as in, Legacy playable in principle, even if they did not have this cantrip-nerving effect/ability) cards that make playing a cantrip-heavy game, or relying on cantrips doing their job properly, a liability. Stuff like Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Spirit of the Labyrinth kinda work in that direction, but the first one is just stupid (oughta be symmetric, so it doesn't find its way into Xerox to only fuck the opponent), and Spirit is too weak.

W
1/1
If a card would cause a player to draw a card except the first one they draw in their draw step each turn, that player does not draw that card.

or

1W
Enchantment
If a card would cause a player to draw a card except the first one they draw in their draw step each turn, that player does not draw that card unless they pay (2).

[kinda]

W
1/1
If a card would cause a player to draw a card except the first one they draw in their draw step each turn, that player does not draw that card.

or

1W
Enchantment
If a card would cause a player to draw a card except the first one they draw in their draw step each turn, that player does not draw that card unless they pay (2).

Those are both atrocious vs half the format that doesn't run brainstorm. The card needs to be fine vs non brainstorm decks I would think. Put that text on wild nacatl maybe?

[PirateKing]

Chains of Mephistopheles is a card that exists that does a lot of what you're looking for.
If availability wasn't a factor I think you'd see it more often.

[pettdan]

I own two Chains and whenever I try playing them (this is just my experience), they end up hurting me more than the opponent. In theory it seems great, but you need to give up card draw in your own deck (very bad) and in general the opponent can negate the disadvantage by cantripping in response, using removal on it, countering it or ignoring it anyway to just destroy you with whatever. (Edit: and like Kinda says they are very bad vs some popular decks). Similar to Chalice, the deck building cost seems too steep even if it occasionally wins you a game. Chalice is more powerful though.

Edit: I'll repeat that I think a 2/2 creature with cost WG and hexproof and an effect saying that players can only draw one card per turn would do the trick. Being green makes it Green Sun's Zenithable which means it's worth playing as a one of, since you get 5 virtual copies in your list with 4 GSZ's, while only 1 in the matchups where it's useless (it can still be a 2/2 should you need it). And it's not answered by StP, bolt or Snapcaster Mage. This would be an efficient but not too powerful answer to Brainstorm. And good creature to put equipment on. Only a few decks would play it but it would offer a way to take blue decks down just a little bit, enough for other decks to be more relevant, relatively. But I may be far off on this...

[Bithlord]

Edit: I'll repeat that I think a 2/2 creature with cost WG and hexproof and an effect saying that players can only draw one card per turn would do the trick. Being green makes it Green Sun's Zenithable which means it's worth playing as a one of, since you get 5 virtual copies in your list with 4 GSZ's, while only 1 in the matchups where it's useless (it can still be a 2/2 should you need it). And it's not answered by StP, bolt or Snapcaster Mage. This would be an efficient but not too powerful answer to Brainstorm. And good creature to put equipment on. Only a few decks would play it but it would offer a way to take blue decks down just a little bit, enough for other decks to be more relevant, relatively. But I may be far off on this...

Why WG specifically? White Green already has a huge hate warehouse to pull from - spread the hate to other colors.

{R/G}{R/G}
hexproof.
2/1
When a player draws a card, other than the first card of their draw step, ~ deals 2 damage to that player.

[pettdan]

@Bithlord: you have a point but this card would just be a combination of features, and creatures, that already exist in these colors. For red-green we could wish for a hexproof Eidolon of the Great Revel, that could also do the trick.

Edit: I'm an idiot, I just read what you wrote, again. To answer your question, WG could be included in a few decks that are already popular but not good enough, they need some help forward to open up the meta more. A green-red creature might not be played in any deck and so the effect would be wasted. I'd love to see it though.

[mistercakes]

Would also be cool to see a chains on legs. Maybe 2/1 for 1B, and give it a downside like you lose 1 life in your upkeep.

[Bithlord]

@Bithlord: you have a point but this card would just be a combination of features, and creatures, that already exist in these colors. For red-green we could wish for a hexproof Eidolon of the Great Revel, that could also do the trick.

Edit: I'm an idiot, I just read what you wrote, again. To answer your question, WG could be included in a few decks that are already popular but not good enough, they need some help forward to open up the meta more. A green-red creature might not be played in any deck and so the effect would be wasted. I'd love to see it though.

To be fair, the creature I made is also GG and RR (it's hybrid!). But, I think that's more my point -- White is able to come to the table without the cantrip package precisely because it has all the hate. What we need, assuming the cantrip package is locked into blue, is the hate to be spread to the other colors as well. (in my opinion of course).

[Purple Blood]

Those are both atrocious vs half the format that doesn't run brainstorm. The card needs to be fine vs non brainstorm decks I would think. Put that text on wild nacatl maybe?

1 CMC 3/3 with hate attached? That seems broken. It could be a 2/2 for 1W Chains on a stick. That way it at least doubles as a threat. Alternatively could make it GW as people suggested so it can be tutored with GSZ.


Chains of Mephistopheles is a card that exists that does a lot of what you're looking for.
If availability wasn't a factor I think you'd see it more often.

I'm aware of the card.

[Lemnear]

Looks like they forgot the other part. You'll have to find another example.

You mean like TC, DTT, Chalice, Lodestone and Probe, which all followed?

Including the original incident, at least 10 different cards have been restricted. Is that enough for you?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

You mean like TC, DTT, Chalice, Lodestone and Probe, which all followed?

Including the original incident, at least 10 different cards have been restricted. Is that enough for you?

I can't keep up with these rocket powered goalposts.

[kinda]

1 CMC 3/3 with hate attached? That seems broken.

:frown: ...it really wouldn't be though. Wild nacatl is a running joke in this thread for a reason and it's not even modern viable. Adding the anti cantrip text to make it situationally better might make some people interested in zoo again (which is the goal right?) but miracles/stoneblade/sneak and skill would certainly still be better decks.

[Purple Blood]

:frown: ...it really wouldn't be though. Wild nacatl is a running joke in this thread for a reason and it's not even modern viable. Adding the anti cantrip text to make it situationally better might make some people interested in zoo again (which is the goal right?) but miracles/stoneblade/sneak and skill would certainly still be better decks.

Nacatl isn't played because Naya colors are not good; not because the card itself is underpowered. If it was BUG/Grixis/RUG colors I'm sure it would be one of the most played threats for the tempo decks.

[Lemnear]

I can't keep up with these rocket powered goalposts.

Where did I lost you? I was hinting that mass-bans don't present a lasting "fix" and delivered an example of 1) a format pretty much ruined for the playerbase due to a mass ban, which you claimed lacks the follow-up bans, except that history proves, that 2) more was banned, because (unsurprisingly) there is always a best deck. Being a bit less cryptic about what you want from me would be really helpful, as it's hard to adress questions consisting of "so?".

[Ronald Deuce]

Where did I lost you? I was hinting that mass-bans don't present a lasting "fix" and delivered an example of 1) a format pretty much ruined for the playerbase due to a mass ban, which you claimed lacks the follow-up bans, except that history proves, that 2) more was banned, because (unsurprisingly) there is always a best deck. Being a bit less cryptic about what you want from me would be really helpful, as it's hard to adress questions consisting of "so?".

He just wants to find a way to make Chalice the best card in the format (it's not; again, Brainstorm's obviously not either), and he's not interested in entertaining the idea that you'd have to cut half the viable decks out of Legacy to make that happen.

FourDogs, it sounds like you're deliberately disregarding what he's saying regardless of its veracity.

[Lemnear]

He just wants to find a way to make Chalice the best card in the format (it's not; again, Brainstorm's obviously not either), and he's not interested in entertaining the idea that you'd have to cut half the viable decks out of Legacy to make that happen.

The problem with the rabbithole of bannings is that you remove more and more viable decks while being unable to fix the problem of "best deck" and complaints about it anyways.

WotC tried both Variants of banning approaches, with just chopping in Legacy whatever floats on top of the cantrip shell, no matter if it was TC, DTT, SDT, DRS or else; and in vintage with a mass banning. Neither case solved the "best deck" issue and both cases resulted in further bans anyways.

So the question is, if we just stick with the cantrip shell as the clear best option and keep just killing the top card every 1-2 years, ban every cardselection and anti-RNG mechanic until Eldrazi Aggro (or the like) become a problem itsel or, just remove Brainstorm and with it the tempo supertype and many combo subtypes to create an even more homgenous metagame.

I see no option which wields a desireable outcome in any case. My personal best-case-scenario of WotC establishing SEVERAL EQUALLY COMPEDITIVE cores is a pipe deam anyways.

[mistercakes]

i think the main approach here for wotc would be printing cards that have synergies, but aren't very good on their own. eldrazi is a good example of this. even though it's not the most interesting deck, it's nice to see a chalice deck that has some consistency.

[Mr. Safety]

I'm kind of diggin' the new 'fair' approach to dredge they are attempting in the new set. They brought back Narco, they added a dredgy Lava Spike, and surveil as a mechanic seems really cool (basically a new keyword for an already existing effect.) The filtering while adding graveyard synergy seems very promising. None of this really has an impact on Legacy, but it shows that even formerly 'bad' mechanics (dredge) aren't off-limits to innovation from a design perspective. Combine that with some fairly predictable legacy playables like Assassin's Trophy and it seems that Wotc might, might, finally have taken their thumb out of their ass. Even Unmoored Ego is a fairly direct answer to Tron lands in modern without banning them (not that Tron is worthy of a ban.) Assassin's Trophy also hits problematic lands efficiently.

I was skeptical of the DRS ban, but overall it seems like a fairly decent effect on the format. Adding relevant new cards to the mix really helps, in my opinion. I wish they would have given us some unbans as well, but we'll see if they pull the trigger at the next ban announcement on those.

[taconaut]

I'm in total agreement, but I'm wondering how much of a difference it would actually make to replace Brainstorm with the next-best cantrip.

I am really surprised by this perspective given that I know you play/have played Storm.

Brainstorm is head and shoulders above all the other cantrips; it just does so many more things. Fixes bad draws, is instant speed against discard, lets you put back one-ofs, can get you multiple distinct cards at once as opposed to a single specific card, sets up the top of your deck if that's relevant, etc, etc.

Getting rid of brainstorm might be enough to put me off ANT, and that would be a huge bummer (though a little while ago I bought cradles so I could have Elves and still play engine combo in case they banned Probe...figured they'd do Deathrite or Probe but not both, look where that got me....:cry:) I don't think they should ban brainstorm because the card is just so sweet and fun to play with, but I think it would be way more reasonable if it were "draw two, put back one" - could still set up terminus and get your Ad Nauseam or Tendrils back in your deck, but would "unmulligan" considerably less.



Edit: I'll repeat that I think a 2/2 creature with cost WG and hexproof and an effect saying that players can only draw one card per turn would do the trick.

Yes, that's what Magic needs - more miserable, tutorable, binary hatebears...



{R/G}{R/G}
hexproof.
2/1
When a player draws a card, other than the first card of their draw step, ~ deals 2 damage to that player.

I actually like this, because it applies pressure without being just a binary switch of, "oh, now your deck doesn't work at all" like many of the white hatebears/chalice. I do think hexproof is a really, really dumb mechanic, though.

Also, there are other options against turn one combo that are color ambivalent, like the leylines/mindbreak trap/surgical/faerie macabre/etc; I don't think just straight up printing force in other colors makes sense, and it would muddy the color pie. I'm not saying there aren't opportunities to print more early interaction for other colors, but there's no reason it has t be pitch counterspells.


it's nice to see a chalice deck that has some consistency.

....is it, though? :eyebrow:




(no, those decks are boring and ask nothing of their pilots.)

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

He just wants to find a way to make Chalice the best card in the format (it's not; again, Brainstorm's obviously not either), and he's not interested in entertaining the idea that you'd have to cut half the viable decks out of Legacy to make that happen.

FourDogs, it sounds like you're deliberately disregarding what he's saying regardless of its veracity.
Well, I'm sure it looks like that to you a guy who thinks I want Chalice to be good.

[Lemnear]

I am really surprised by this perspective given that I know you play/have played Storm.

Brainstorm is head and shoulders above all the other cantrips; it just does so many more things. Fixes bad draws, is instant speed against discard, lets you put back one-ofs, can get you multiple distinct cards at once as opposed to a single specific card, sets up the top of your deck if that's relevant, etc, etc.

Getting rid of brainstorm might be enough to put me off ANT, and that would be a huge bummer.

I think out of the many combo decks in Legacy, AnTs core is the one most likely to survive without Brainstorm, due to how the deck core is constructed.

[Dice_Box]

....is it, though? :eyebrow:
Good God yes. It's good to have something running around attacking the meta the way it does. Chalice, Choke (Though Plug has vanished.) and Moon are all important cards.

[rufus]

... I don't think just straight up printing force in other colors makes sense, and it would muddy the color pie. I'm not saying there aren't opportunities to print more early interaction for other colors, but there's no reason it has t be pitch counterspells. ...

I still want to see a version of Misdirection in red.

[pettdan]

Edit: I'll repeat that I think a 2/2 creature with cost WG and hexproof and an effect saying that players can only draw one card per turn would do the trick.


Yes, that's what Magic needs - more miserable, tutorable, binary hatebears...

You're entitled to not like hatebears, but do you really think any hatebears are making the format miserable? In my view, hatebears allow permanent based strategies to interact with spell based strategies. And if they are good enough they force spell based decks to play some answers to them. This makes for more interactive games and a more varied metagame, not less. If spell-based decks get to ignore permanents, that makes for more miserable games in my view..

Edit: dividing decks into spell-based vs permanent based decks is an oversimplification, I don't define them because I'm guessing the general idea is clear anyway. Hope that is fine, or else we shall discuss!

Edit2: I can see why you wouldn't want hatebears to have shroud though, and that is perfectly reasonable..

[Ronald Deuce]

I think out of the many combo decks in Legacy, AnTs core is the one most likely to survive without Brainstorm, due to how the deck core is constructed.

Dark Ritual wins games.


I still want to see a version of Misdirection in red.

That would be awesome. Actually, why HAVEN'T they done that?

FourDogs, I realize I was being a bit trashed and indecorous in my previous post. Sorry about that.

EDIT: The discussion of hatebears is interesting to me. I agree that it would be cool to see more of them in slightly different colors, but that raises some issues in red and black because Rituals are real.

One thing I've noticed is that of all the lockpieces Wizards has printed over the past few years, few of them are strong enough to replace tools that are already there in their colors. But doubtless, there will come a time that someone figures out how to jam all of them into a viable 60, and printing more would only hasten that. I don't necessarily think that would be bad for the format, but I can't say I'd be happy to see it given that I'm a combo junkie. Designing hatebears is tough because it's difficult to make them viable but not totally patently busted.

I'd also like to mention that one of Legacy's strengths (compared to every format except maybe Commander) is that combo is a robust supertype in the format, and I don't think I'd be the only person to seriously consider cashing out if that were to change. I'll Burn 'em out as readily as the next guy, but there's something special about decks that don't do what Magic decks are supposed to do.

[Bithlord]

I actually like this, because it applies pressure without being just a binary switch of, "oh, now your deck doesn't work at all" like many of the white hatebears/chalice. I do think hexproof is a really, really dumb mechanic, though.

I'd be all about shroud instead. But, WotC in their "infinite" wisdom, has decreed that mechanics with both upsides and downsides are "not fun", and therefore are not allowed.

I'm a big fan of taxing things, rather than prohibiting them. Because, like you noted, it doesn't turn off a deck, just makes it weaker.

[Mr. Safety]

I still want to see a version of Misdirection in red.

Ricochet Trap is about as close as we have now...and it has to be triggered by blue, and still costs R to cast. It's an underutilized gem, but I get what you mean. We need pitch cards like Force of Will that aren't terrible, and Misdirection effects fit a lot better in red.

[taconaut]

I think out of the many combo decks in Legacy, AnTs core is the one most likely to survive without Brainstorm, due to how the deck core is constructed.

I'm sure some version of the deck would still be playable, but I think it would be much, much worse. I have won so many games I had no business winning because a topdecked brainstorm turned my hand of a ritual and three bricks into a game-winning line that it's hard to believe that losing the "hand reconstruction" effect wouldn't severely weaken the deck.

Wouldn't something like SnT, where you just have to find busted pokemon A + cheaty enabler B just be better at that point?


Good God yes. It's good to have something running around attacking the meta the way it does. Chalice, Choke and Moon are all important cards.

So, I don't dispute that cards like Chalice, Choke, and Moon are important regulatory valves to particular excesses, but I do dispute that their viability is something "good to see."

Stompy decks make for some of the absolute most binary, random, boring "games" (if you can call them that) of magic you can get, and then after you randomly lose to them having Chalice into TKS two games in a row, they go ahead and lose several rounds after knocking you out because they didn't get the sol land into dumb lock piece draw, so they just feel like random pairings landmines.

I don't think they need to be banned or anything, but if I never got paired against a Chalice deck again in Legacy, it would be too soon.


I still want to see a version of Misdirection in red.

This actually sounds sweet.


You're entitled to not like hatebears, but do you really think any hatebears are making the format miserable? In my view, hatebears allow permanent based strategies to interact with spell based strategies. And if they are good enough they force spell based decks to play some answers to them. This makes for more interactive games and a more varied metagame, not less. If spell-based decks get to ignore permanents, that makes for more miserable games in my view.


I actually don't really disagree with this all that much, it just feels like they're constantly printing new idiots that just make it impossible to do anything interesting. I get that duder decks need a way to interact with combo, but why are they all these functional gates where it's either:

1. Don't draw Thalia/Teeg/Canonist, etc, get run over.
2. Draw one, opponents deck is now a ham sandwich.

For instance, they're never gonna print, like:

1U

At the beginning of your upkeep, each of your opponents mills two.

Creatures can't attack.

Or:

1B

All creatures get -2/-2.

That's what cards like Thalia or Teeg feel like to combo decks, if you were a creature deck. The second one doesn't even attack! Still never seeing the light of day.


Dark Ritual wins games.


YASSS



I'll Burn 'em out as readily as the next guy

OH GOD VOMIT REACT


but there's something special about decks that don't do what Magic decks are supposed to do.

This is what makes me want to play magic.

[Dice_Box]

I don't think they need to be banned or anything, but if I never got paired against a Chalice deck again in Legacy, it would be too soon.
Want a game? I got Stax ready to go and it's really fun. It's quite an active deck, well, when it doesn't self distruct.

[pettdan]

@Taconaut: I see, I wouldn't want to push combo decks out of the format or bring them too much disadvantage. I imagine a hexproof, or shrouded, card draw preventing hatebear would often be ignored by combo decks as they can win right through him and in addition both Ponder, Preordain, Intuition and Impulse work relatively well through it, while combo decks can, and often do, play sweepers that would remove it - and both Omnishow (splashing red) and TES have maindeck wishes that can find removal, sweepers, for it. It would be more relevant vs the fair decks that depend on spot removal to get rid of opposing creatures, these decks are not threatened much by Spirit of the Labyrinth and they could still Daze, FoW or just race the hexproof/shrouded hatebear with their Delvers or Gurmags or Mentors or whatever. And they can play edict effects and sweepers. I can see how many would object to the printing of such a powerful (I'm not sure how powerful it would be) hatebear but I think it perhaps might help some green, nonblue decks get on more even ground with the blue ones. And that alone would open up for other decks that would be good vs these green decks (like the combo decks, perhaps, and even other strategies). Well, this is just what I imagine and probably would be way off..

[Lord Seth]

Combine that with some fairly predictable legacy playables like Assassin's Trophy and it seems that Wotc might, might, finally have taken their thumb out of their ass. Even Unmoored Ego is a fairly direct answer to Tron lands in modern without banning them (not that Tron is worthy of a ban.) Assassin's Trophy also hits problematic lands efficiently.Field of Ruin, Damping Sphere, Alpine Moon, Assassin's Trophy, and now this. If Wizards is this intent on hurting Tron (even though it's never actually been the best deck in Modern), it'd be nice if they'd actually toss some hate towards the decks that are consistently outperforming it. When are we going to get an Engineered Plague reprint as anti-Humans tech already?

[Dice_Box]

Field of Ruin, Damping Sphere, Alpine Moon, Assassin's Trophy, and now this. If Wizards is this intent on hurting Tron (even though it's never actually been the best deck in Modern), it'd be nice if they'd actually toss some hate towards the decks that are consistently outperforming it. When are we going to get an Engineered Plague reprint as anti-Humans tech already?
Just reprinting EE so Modern players could buy it would really help.

[MorphBerlin]

You're entitled to not like hatebears, but do you really think any hatebears are making the format miserable? In my view, hatebears allow permanent based strategies to interact with spell based strategies. And if they are good enough they force spell based decks to play some answers to them. This makes for more interactive games and a more varied metagame, not less. If spell-based decks get to ignore permanents, that makes for more miserable games in my view..

Edit: dividing decks into spell-based vs permanent based decks is an oversimplification, I don't define them because I'm guessing the general idea is clear anyway. Hope that is fine, or else we shall discuss!

Edit2: I can see why you wouldn't want hatebears to have shroud though, and that is perfectly reasonable..

Yeah the good old interactive hexproof hatebear. What a joke.

It's really funny how you can complain that there are not enough good hatebears with Thalias, Gadog Teag and their friends, and yeah Mother of Runes and Karakas make them super interactive... All while there are getting new bears printed every set, while good spells are actually really rare.

[pettdan]

@MorphBerlin: maybe it would just clog up boards and make the format worse, but I tried to explain in my last post why I don't think that would be the case. May be completely wrong.

Edit: I guess another way to see it is by asking yourself the question: when did I last see Gaddock Teeg in a top 8? Thalia apparently is a different story, but a white-green hatebear probably wouldn't see much play in a mono-white mana denial deck (and actually they already have access to Spirit of the Labyrinth which does not see much play, I believe). One can also compare this white-green hatebear with Leovold, the latter poses strong limits on all interaction with the player and his permanents (and still sees very little play in top 8's, it seems to me). I'm not sure if the proposed white-green hatebear would be better than Leovold.

[Brainstorm Ape]

As someone who has played both sides of the Storm/Teeg matchup, I can't say I've ever had a good, interesting, SKILL INTENSIVE game when this happened. Can't blame people for not wanting to expand that type of "gameplay". Yeah, it's a legit strategy and no-one's wrong for playing what wins (except Griseltards), but Legacy players, and the format managers, clearly value gameplay quality more than just pure competition.

Unfortunately Wizards has the boneheaded idea that fundamental concepts of the game, like drawing cards or interacting with the stack, have to be overwhelmingly represented in only one or two of the five colors.

There would be plenty of color pie kosher ways of introducing stack interaction to other colors. For example:


Whatever the fuck 1W
Instant

Target player or permanent gains protection from the CARDNAME of your choice until end of turn.

You may exile a white card in your hand instead of paying whatever the fuck's mana cost.

Or some other folks were suggesting a Red Misdirection variant:


Fuck your shit up 2RR
Instant

Change the target or target Instant, Sorcery, or activated ability with a single target

You may exile a Red card in your hand instead of paying this shitty card creation thread card's mana cost

Look ma, doesn't even interact with local Enchantments anymore; good for the color pie now MaRo.

But no, we'll just get more dudes that turn sideways, pushed U/B/G shit, and shitty johnny cards.

[MorphBerlin]

@MorphBerlin: maybe it would just clog up boards and make the format worse, but I tried to explain in my last post why I don't think that would be the case. May be completely wrong.

Edit: I guess another way to see it is by asking yourself the question: when did I last see Gaddock Teeg in a top 8? Thalia apparently is a different story, but a white-green hatebear probably wouldn't see much play in a mono-white mana denial deck (and actually they already have access to Spirit of the Labyrinth which does not see much play, I believe). One can also compare this white-green hatebear with Leovold, the latter poses strong limits on all interaction with the player and his permanents (and still sees very little play in top 8's, it seems to me). I'm not sure if the proposed white-green hatebear would be better than Leovold.

Gaddock Teeg sees top8s alot in 4cLoam. The problem is that you want specifically a GW Hatebear that makes your (see signature) Maverick Tier 1. DnT and 4C-Loam are totally fine Tier1/2 options imo and are proof that hatebear-decks can top8 easily. Obviously you like to play fringe decks (see signature) which is totally fine, but to complain that there are not enough good Hatebears to make your petdeck top8 regularly is totally biased and selfish.

For your Leovold Comparison: he does not see alot of top 8 play because after all his mana cost is very prohibitive (fyi: even though people were complaining about his shitty design nonstop here as well) and Grixis is currently just better than BUG. If that changes with A.Trophy you will see Leovold again. A good comparision to me would be sanctum prelate which is insanely powerful imo and sees play. It just happens to be not GSZable. 3cmc is just alot in legacy.

[pettdan]

@MorphBerlin: I don't argue for the decks I play, I argue for the overall health of the format. I think you're mistaken if you try to read other things into my arguments.

[MorphBerlin]

@MorphBerlin: I don't argue for the decks I play, I argue for the overall health of the format. I think you're mistaken if you try to read other things into my arguments.

So what specific problems does legacy have, that are solved by a GW hatebear (anti-blue? antispell?)?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I think there's enough cheap hexproof creatures without giving them good abilities on top of everything.

[Lemnear]

I agree with Morph and Ape, the format does not get better if WotC just prints more and uninteractive hatebears. The amount of these white and red got over the last 6 years is ridiculous and one dimensional. What colors like red, white and green need, is a way within their colorpie to INTERACT with spells on the stack. A red misdirection, a white pitch-spell to gain protection/indestuctible/hexproof/etc are all completely reasonable. There is no reason only blue gets zero-mana stack interaction.

[taconaut]

Want a game? I got Stax ready to go and it's really fun. It's quite an active deck, well, when it doesn't self distruct.

I think we disagree on a lot of things related to Magic philosophy, but I do get the sense that I would enjoy having a beer with you given the opportunity. If I'm ever down under I'll be sure to PM you :laugh:


I imagine a hexproof, or shrouded, card draw preventing hatebear would often be ignored by combo decks as they can win right through him and in addition both Ponder, Preordain, Intuition and Impulse work relatively well through it

These cards do use "draw," and thus would be stopped by your proposed design.


It would be more relevant vs the fair decks that depend on spot removal to get rid of opposing creatures. I can see how many would object to the printing of such a powerful hatebear but I think it perhaps might help some green, nonblue decks get on more even ground with the blue ones. And that alone would open up for other decks that would be good vs these green decks (like the combo decks, perhaps, and even other strategies).

I think the effect would need to be symmetrical for it to help GW more than GUx, because one W could still be splashable. If it were good enough to see play, a cheaper leovold would be a relatively easy splash for the three-color piles (though it might be cool to see a Bant pile, which this might enable if not symmetrical).

I like the idea of creating an in-between deck to create prey for some of the combo decks, but it seems a little unlikely to me. Could be wrong though.



It's really funny how you can complain that there are not enough good hatebears with Thalias, Gadog Teag and their friends, and yeah Mother of Runes and Karakas make them super interactive... All while there are getting new bears printed every set, while good spells are actually really rare.

This is always what makes me a little sad. Plus, the Thalia Karakas Vial interaction just feels awful (pretty cool for DnT pilots though; that deck actually is sweet, as much as I hate it...).


I don't argue for the decks I play, I argue for the overall health of the format.

I do think you are genuine about what changes you think would improve legacy, but I also think Morph could be forgiven for noting that a great deal of those proposed changes would also improve the viability of non-blue midrange-ish decks, which do seem to also be what you want to play.

[pettdan]

I do think you are genuine about what changes you think would improve legacy, but I also think Morph could be forgiven for noting that a great deal of those proposed changes would also improve the viability of non-blue midrange-ish decks, which do seem to also be what you want to play.

Just a short reply here, I started replying to MorphBerlin and Lemnear to but works call, anyway, I actually have mostly shied away from most decks that don't play Brainstorm and as of now all my stupid, fun decks play Brainstorm.

[kinda]

I think it's time we just agree that brainstorm is for legacy players who self describe as needing a handicap to win and let them be :wink:.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I think it's time we just agree that brainstorm is for legacy players who self describe as needing a handicap to win and let them be :wink:.I'm sorry, but that description has already been reserved for the players who run Chalice of the Void.

[Ronald Deuce]

I think it's time we just agree that brainstorm is for legacy players who self describe as needing a handicap to win and let them be :wink:.

What's a card that props up utterly unplayable chunderbucket piles and makes the whole world miserable?

HINT: It's not blue.

[non-inflammable]

What's a card that props up utterly unplayable chunderbucket piles and makes the whole world miserable?

HINT: It's not blue.

i'm just gonna go with "island".

lets play blue mirrors until we all have elo chess ratings...

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I'm sorry, but that description has already been reserved for the players who run Chalice of the Void.
What's a card that props up utterly unplayable chunderbucket piles and makes the whole world miserable?

HINT: It's not blue....

[MorphBerlin]

I think it's time we just agree that brainstorm is for legacy players who self describe as needing a handicap to win and let them be :wink:.

Oh yeah, let's light a candle for all the 200iq non-brainstormdecks in the format. So unfair!

[CptHaddock]

What's a card that props up utterly unplayable chunderbucket piles and makes the whole world miserable?

HINT: It's not blue.

Veteran explorer, and i'd extend that to anyone who posts in that thread too.

[CptHaddock]

Flickerwisp and all things related is a close 2nd imo.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Veteran explorer, and i'd extend that to anyone who posts in that thread too.

Shots fired!

[Megadeus]

Chalice would be borderline unplayable without brainstorm and company creating a need for hyper efficiency

[Brael]

Veteran explorer, and i'd extend that to anyone who posts in that thread too.

I would go with Cabal Therapy.

[MorphBerlin]

What's a card that props up utterly unplayable chunderbucket piles and makes the whole world miserable?

HINT: It's not blue.

Good Race betweeen Chalice, Vial and Wasteland I would say

[mistercakes]

We could just ban all 3 and then we could all play the same deck.

[Tylert]

It's either ancient tomb or city of traitors :)
Without this acceleration a whole lot of decks would not be playable and these decks make you miserable by either dropping a flying nearly hexproof monster very early or a lock piece like blood moon or chalice on T1.
What did i won?

[Mr. Safety]

What's a card that props up utterly unplayable chunderbucket piles and makes the whole world miserable?

HINT: It's not blue.

Jesus fucking Christ, you know there are people who play non-blue, non-chalice decks right? We aren't miserable, not by a long shot. I might be a loser for playing Depths, Rock, Deadguy Ale, Nic Fit, and janky homebrews, but for fucks sake, I'm not miserable. The only demographic that really thinks Chalice is miserable is the hyper-efficient blue crew.

By unplayable I think you are implying 'not competitive'. That might be true of non-chalice, non-blue decks, but this is a game of choice. If winning were the only motivation for playing we'd all be BlueButtholes that shit all over the best part of the game: self-expression.

Have a nice day. I'll be over here drinking coffee, messing with my unplayable chunderbucket decks, in my not-so-miserable life.

[morgan_coke]

I think they should ban Delver of Secrets.

[MorphBerlin]

I think they should ban Delver of Secrets.

Reasoning and goals?

If helping non-blue midrange is the goal I think Snapcaster and TNN hurt them much more (soon maybe Leovold again)

[NeckBird]

Reasoning and goals?

If helping non-blue midrange is the goal I think Snapcaster and TNN hurt them much more (soon maybe Leovold again)

Delver is obviously more ubiquitous than either Snapcaster or TNN, but MorphBerlin is correct.

Swords-Snap-Swords, Bolt-Snap-Bolt, and even Ponder-Snap-Ponder allows blue decks to use their resources far more liberally than they could in the past. Many attribute Delver to the downfall of a deck like Zoo, but it was really Snapcaster generating an insane amount of value.

TNN is a truly embarrassing design. At least if it were a Merfolk exclusive card by giving it an ability like "You can't cast TNN unless you control a Merfolk" it would be reasonable. The fact that fair non-blue midrange and aggro decks can't even block a blue creature while that creature trades with nearly every fair creature in the format holds back a fair amount of strategies.

This is the major issue with giving blue the best/better midrange and control threats: the opportunity cost to playing Force of Will goes down dramatically. The same blue spells have always been played, but blue decks still need a minimum number of blue spells to actually play Force. When blue creatures become that much better than non-blue ones, it's easy to jam Force into your maindeck.

[Lemnear]

Delver was the end of Zoo, because you no longer had to choose between running the blue shell OR a quick aggro deck.

The problem with TNN, Snapcaster & Co was, that they gave the blue tempo decks tools to "go big" and become very successful in the midrange slice of the field, pushing out classic midrange decks like Maverick. It didnt help that Shardless Agent and SFM were chopping in the same notch.

[Ronald Deuce]

Have a nice day. I'll be over here drinking coffee, messing with my unplayable chunderbucket decks, in my not-so-miserable life.

I wasn't insulting any of the decks you listed. (In fact, I think a lot of brews don't get the credit they deserve.) I just find it funny that someone called Brainstorm a crutch when there are plenty of decks that absolutely have to slam a different, specific card in the first couple of turns to function against the field, and that card happens to be really obnoxious.

[Mr. Safety]

I wasn't insulting any of the decks you listed. (In fact, I think a lot of brews don't get the credit they deserve.) I just find it funny that someone called Brainstorm a crutch when there are plenty of decks that absolutely have to slam a different, specific card in the first couple of turns to function against the field, and that card happens to be really obnoxious.

Fair statement, but I have the sense you were thinking of a specific card based on how you worded the statement. Someone intimated it was Chalice, although you never revealed the specific one it was (hint: it's not blue.)

Is there any deck in legacy without a crutch though? Aether Vial (D&T), Brainstorm (Tons), Chalice(Red/Steel/Eldrazi Stompy), Dark Ritual (Storm), Entomb (Reanimator). Legacy decks are built around broken shit, there's no way around it. Long story short, if I understand your intent correctly, I agree that it's foolish to call Brainstorm a crutch. Every legacy deck has a crutch, a fundamental card or interaction that makes it work.

[Ronald Deuce]

Is there any deck in legacy without a crutch though? Aether Vial (D&T), Brainstorm (Tons), Chalice(Red/Steel/Eldrazi Stompy), Dark Ritual (Storm), Entomb (Reanimator). Legacy decks are built around broken shit, there's no way around it. Long story short, if I understand your intent correctly, I agree that it's foolish to call Brainstorm a crutch. Every legacy deck has a crutch, a fundamental card or interaction that makes it work.

Haha, that's a much better point than either of us who were pointing fingers at cards was making.

[CptHaddock]

I would go with Cabal Therapy.

Why? At least when my opponent casts Cabal Therapy with a non veteran explorer deck I might have a fun an interactive game. With veteran explorer I know that I 100% will not enjoy a 30 minute grindfest against someone who can barely afford dual lands and believes that their deck can cast a 10 mana 8/8.

[JosefK]

who can barely afford dual lands
Hate those people

Btw, legacy is really great now!

[Bithlord]

Jesus fucking Christ, you know there are people who play non-blue, non-chalice decks right? We aren't miserable, not by a long shot. I might be a loser for playing Depths, Rock, Deadguy Ale, Nic Fit, and janky homebrews, but for fucks sake, I'm not miserable. The only demographic that really thinks Chalice is miserable is the hyper-efficient blue crew.

I play burn. Chalice is pretty miserable there too.

[Mr. Safety]

I play burn. Chalice is pretty miserable there too.

Burn is polarizing; it's either miserable or fucking incredible. There is no in-between, and the meta-game decides that for you (unfortunately.) Cross your fingers and hope for Pox and Rug Delver each round.

[Megadeus]

Why? At least when my opponent casts Cabal Therapy with a non veteran explorer deck I might have a fun an interactive game. With veteran explorer I know that I 100% will not enjoy a 30 minute grindfest against someone who can barely afford dual lands and believes that their deck can cast a 10 mana 8/8.

You're welcome to scoop to a deed you chode

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Why? At least when my opponent casts Cabal Therapy with a non veteran explorer deck I might have a fun an interactive game. With veteran explorer I know that I 100% will not enjoy a 30 minute grindfest against someone who can barely afford dual lands and believes that their deck can cast a 10 mana 8/8.

Guillotines are cheaper than duals. Pass it on.

[kinda]

Why? At least when my opponent casts Cabal Therapy with a non veteran explorer deck I might have a fun an interactive game. With veteran explorer I know that I 100% will not enjoy a 30 minute grindfest against someone who can barely afford dual lands and believes that their deck can cast a 10 mana 8/8.

:laugh:...I didnt realise anyone hated nic fit.

[Brael]

Why? At least when my opponent casts Cabal Therapy with a non veteran explorer deck I might have a fun an interactive game. With veteran explorer I know that I 100% will not enjoy a 30 minute grindfest against someone who can barely afford dual lands and believes that their deck can cast a 10 mana 8/8.

Good Nic Fit decks play reasonable cards, the archetype just attracts a lot of people who don't really understand what is and isn't playable in the format.

Great news for you though, if the deck is designed poorly you'll win most games.

[Ronald Deuce]

Good Nic Fit decks play reasonable cards, the archetype just attracts a lot of people who don't really understand what is and isn't playable in the format.

Great news for you though, if the deck is designed poorly you'll win most games.

Not once I Rector out Triskaidekaphobia with three Punishing Fires in the graveyard.

[Lord Seth]

Delver was the end of Zoo, because you no longer had to choose between running the blue shell OR a quick aggro deck.Delver hurt Zoo, but I feel was the "end" of it was the double punch of Terminus and Griselbrand, which together pushed out all non-disruptive aggro decks.

[Lemnear]

Delver hurt Zoo, but I feel was the "end" of it was the double punch of Terminus and Griselbrand, which together pushed out all non-disruptive aggro decks.

We are talking the same block which dropped Delver, Terminus and Griselbrand among other nasty stuff. The first major metagame hit for Zoo still occured after delvers release. Its fair to discuss, what follow up printing drove the final nail into Zoos coffin.

I personally dont care if "turn-sideways" vanished as a viable archetype, as effort/results should be in a certain relation, but i mourn that the pretty new/renewed non-blue midrange archetypes got invalidated by blue options thanks to SCM & TNN

[Mr Miagi]

You are all forgetting that first blow to Zoo was after Batterskull got printed. Final nail in the coffin was the Innistrad brokeness but it was Batterskull that was first.

[Lemnear]

You are all forgetting that first blow to Zoo was after Batterskull got printed. Final nail in the coffin was the Innistrad brokeness but it was Batterskull that was first.

You are right here. SFM + Batterskull were a tough pill for aggro decks.

[kinda]

I personally dont care if "turn-sideways" vanished as a viable archetype, as effort/results should be in a certain relation

:eek:..you can't just drop this and not explain it. Is dragon stumpy an effort deck? What about ub deaths shadow? Death and taxes?

Personally I don't understand the logic. If you want to win a big tournament you want a deck with a very high win percentage rate that is very easy to pilot. If you have two decks with the same win % vs. the field, the one that requires more decisions (meaning the one where you can make more mistakes) is the worse deck...not the better one.

Edit: Jim Davis has a wonderful article on the topic: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36719_Bringing-The-Chuckler.html .

[Lemnear]

:eek:..you can't just drop this and not explain it. Is dragon stumpy an effort deck? What about ub deaths shadow? Death and taxes?

Sure, i can elaborate. For me its about tradeoffs and weaknesses you accept for running decks. Many stompy decks suffer from high variance draws/plays as a natural balance to their powerlevel and linear aggro decks like Zoo are soft to combo decks. Zoo lost the balance and had too many weaknesses at some point.



I don't understand the logic. If you want to win a big tournament you want a deck with a very high win percentage rate that is very easy to pilot. If you have two decks with the same win % vs. the field, the one that requires more decisions (meaning the one where you can make more mistakes) is the worse deck...not the better one.

The problem is that one can't expect to be in a great position with a one-trick-pony, which can't interact with any combo or control deck. Even Burn adapted to the metagame with Eidolon, Pyrostatic Pillar & Co, but Zoo even refused to run Thalia and Teeg.

We are not talking about two decks with similar win% and the easy choice to take the one which is easier to pilot, but a deck which has pretty much no game against anything dropping a Tendrils, Griselbrand, Pyromancer, TNN, SFM and more. I don't think we need to be surprised that such a deck vanishes if its unable/-willing to adapt. I double-down: It has no right to remain viable without adaption to a changing metagame



Edit: Jim Davis has a wonderful article on the topic: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36719_Bringing-The-Chuckler.html .

I'll give it a read later. Thanks for the link.

[kinda]

I agree with all of your points :smile:. I should have clarified that my second paragraph/rant had nothing to do with zoo in particular (I didnt even think it was a good choice back in 2009), just that I find the effort/skill arguments perplexing. Either someone is trying to win a big tournament and they should be playing the deck that gives them the best chance to win regardless of how simple it is, or they're not and I don't understand any deck choice decision that is more complicated than 'this is what I feel like playing'. Sometimes the best deck is complicated and will reward practice/understanding...but sometimes it's a simple deck that's just good and eliminating it as an option on principle just seems absurd to me. Deck selection is a huge part of this game...

Edit: point is I think b/r decisions should be based on eliminating overly dominant cards regardless of if they are "skill" intensive.

[ESG]

Even Burn adapted to the metagame with Eidolon, Pyrostatic Pillar & Co, but Zoo even refused to run Thalia and Teeg.

The Big Zoo offshoot did, in fact, run these cards. I seem to recall IBA running a small/classic Zoo list with Teegs, too, so it had nothing to do with willingness to think outside the box. Big Zoo was one of my highest-winning decks in the era before True-Name. The problem was that Zoo became pulled in too many different directions by powerful strategies that couldn't elegantly be answered without countermagic. Teeg is great against Storm, but it's terrible against True-Name. Ditto for Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist. But counterspells can cover almost anything. This is, in my opinion, the biggest reason why people play the blue shell to begin with. Brainstorm is a busted card, but the flexibility of countermagic is what allows those decks to have so few bad matchups. WOTC's refusal to bleed countermagic or similar stack interaction into other colors is why decks like Zoo are naturally weaker than Delver decks. Consider how this could be different with something like a red or green Stubborn Denial with Ferocious at 3 power.

[Zulabnar]

The Big Zoo offshoot did, in fact, run these cards. I seem to recall IBA running a small/classic Zoo list with Teegs, too, so it had nothing to do with willingness to think outside the box. Big Zoo was one of my highest-winning decks in the era before True-Name. The problem was that Zoo became pulled in too many different directions by powerful strategies that couldn't elegantly be answered without countermagic. Teeg is great against Storm, but it's terrible against True-Name. Ditto for Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist. But counterspells can cover almost anything. This is, in my opinion, the biggest reason why people play the blue shell to begin with. Brainstorm is a busted card, but the flexibility of countermagic is what allows those decks to have so few bad matchups. WOTC's refusal to bleed countermagic or similar stack interaction into other colors is why decks like Zoo are naturally weaker than Delver decks. Consider how this could be different with something like a red or green Stubborn Denial with Ferocious at 3 power.

This is true.
Is also true that me and other zoo lovers tried Dark zoo for thoughtseize\duress\
Or Maverick for thalia and other
then jund to maximize card advantage

But this deck sucks because poor card selection and no all around replies to multiple direction threat (like counterspell you say)

in the end with blue is easier especially now that you can be

Blue red aggro UR delver
Blue black aggro UB shadow
blue white black esper stoneblade midrange
Blue / Blue black combo Omnitell
Blue / Red combo Sneak and Show
Blue white control Miracle
Blue red black control Grixis.


Y

[taconaut]

I find the effort/skill arguments perplexing. Either someone is trying to win a big tournament and they should be playing the deck that gives them the best chance to win regardless of how simple it is, or they're not.

Sometimes the best deck is complicated and will reward practice/understanding...but sometimes it's a simple deck that's just good and eliminating it as an option on principle just seems absurd to me. Deck selection is a huge part of this game...


This contention makes sense from a strictly competitive perspective, but I (and many others) would like it if, in general, the "EV scaling with skill" versus the "EV scaling with inherent power" were related in such a way that the former dominates the latter at the highest levels of competition.

That is to say, we hope that learning a deck that requires a lot of decisions is more rewarding than playing a "slam-it-and-forget-it" deck. That's why I didn't mind when Miracles and Grixis were on top, because sure, they were the best deck, but you couldn't just sit down and play them the way you could Eldrazi or something. You actually had to understand matchups/the metagame/individual card interactions/etc.

To answer your questions directly - stompy is not an effort deck, shadow is more of an effort deck, and DnT is the hardest of the three you mentioned. The point is, high-level Magic should involve decision making, because that's what makes games and matchups interesting - if every game is, "slam a lock piece, slam a dude, get in that red zone" there isn't really a lot of nuanced differentiation that can occur.

[Aside: there are formats that can use the "hump dudes into one another" as a basis for the interaction that can be competitive and skill-testing, but they are typically lower power level, so the combat/trades/etc are more involved and there aren't things like combo or prison to complicate the relationships. For me at least, Legacy is the coolest format because strategies that don't revolve around crunchy combat are available, so I would prefer Legacy bannings target low-skill, high-power cards that obviate the need to learn anything.]

[Zulabnar]

This contention makes sense from a strictly competitive perspective, but I (and many others) would like it if, in general, the "EV scaling with skill" versus the "EV scaling with inherent power" were related in such a way that the former dominates the latter at the highest levels of competition.

That is to say, we hope that learning a deck that requires a lot of decisions is more rewarding than playing a "slam-it-and-forget-it" deck. That's why I didn't mind when Miracles and Grixis were on top, because sure, they were the best deck, but you couldn't just sit down and play them the way you could Eldrazi or something. You actually had to understand matchups/the metagame/individual card interactions/etc.

To answer your questions directly - stompy is not an effort deck, shadow is more of an effort deck, and DnT is the hardest of the three you mentioned. The point is, high-level Magic should involve decision making, because that's what makes games and matchups interesting - if every game is, "slam a lock piece, slam a dude, get in that red zone" there isn't really a lot of nuanced differentiation that can occur.

[Aside: there are formats that can use the "hump dudes into one another" as a basis for the interaction that can be competitive and skill-testing, but they are typically lower power level, so the combat/trades/etc are more involved and there aren't things like combo or prison to complicate the relationships. For me at least, Legacy is the coolest format because strategies that don't revolve around crunchy combat are available, so I would prefer Legacy bannings target low-skill, high-power cards that obviate the need to learn anything.]


Combat phase is the hardest part of magic dude.

I see many "i'm fucking skilled combo player" that when use creatures and abilities don't even know how the combat phase work.

[Ronald Deuce]

I see many "i'm fucking skilled combo player" that when use creatures and abilities don't even know how the combat phase work.

Definitely cuts both ways.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Stompy is not an effort deck.

If every game is, "slam a lock piece, slam a dude, get in that red zone" there isn't really a lot of nuanced differentiation that can occur.
Stompy requires more decision making than you give it credit for. And these decisions can be hugely rewarding or devastating to the outcome of the game. I'll give that the effort is skewed towards pregame decisions and the initial turn, but that doesn't mean the deck is mindless.

In a hand with Blood Moon and Chalice, and the ability to play both, which do you choose? The correct answer won't always result in a game win. A hand with Vial and 1-drops makes that first turn Blood Moon look pretty stupid. Meanwhile letting Elves crack that basic in favor of a Chalice @ 1 opens them up to GSZ their way out of anything you do.

Lead with a Trinisphere? Better hope your opponent doesn't have a Wasteland for that single Sol Land you're banking on. Got a winning Blood Moon, but your Chrome Mox has to imprint either a Simian Spirit Guide or a Goblin Rabblemaster? If you choose the Guide, you'd better hope your opponent doesn't have Daze. If you choose the Goblin, it might take 10 turns for the Ape to get there.


You say my deck is a mindless pile. I say my pile gives you a break from thinking so hard. Enjoy the 40 minutes til the next round and grab yourself a Coke. :tongue:

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Look clearly Sneak//Show is the most skill intensive ancient tomb deck in the format, there is no amount of mental gymnastics that will change that. The nuance of playing show and tell dwarfs your blood moon and chalice deck.

[Megadeus]

The Big Zoo offshoot did, in fact, run these cards. I seem to recall IBA running a small/classic Zoo list with Teegs, too, so it had nothing to do with willingness to think outside the box. Big Zoo was one of my highest-winning decks in the era before True-Name. The problem was that Zoo became pulled in too many different directions by powerful strategies that couldn't elegantly be answered without countermagic. Teeg is great against Storm, but it's terrible against True-Name. Ditto for Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist. But counterspells can cover almost anything. This is, in my opinion, the biggest reason why people play the blue shell to begin with. Brainstorm is a busted card, but the flexibility of countermagic is what allows those decks to have so few bad matchups. WOTC's refusal to bleed countermagic or similar stack interaction into other colors is why decks like Zoo are naturally weaker than Delver decks. Consider how this could be different with something like a red or green Stubborn Denial with Ferocious at 3 power.

Agreed. I tried many zoo lists with main board Thalia/Teeg/ Eidolon/ Scab Clan Berserker. The problem was the blue creature decks outclassed the green creature decks. When your combo opponent could just kill you before the hate bear came down, or you drew the wrong bear or your True Name opponent played a turn 3 Blue Abyss that can attack and carry a jitte or their snapcaster got to trade with a dude and plow another, or delver opponent simply races you. Blue creature power creep has beenbeen pretty fucking stupid

[taconaut]

Combat phase is the hardest part of magic dude.

I see many "i'm fucking skilled combo player" that when use creatures and abilities don't even know how the combat phase work.

So, I actually don't necessarily disagree with this, and did put an aside that I noted at the bottom of my post.

The difference is that in legacy, most of the combats don't really have that complexity because of the nature of the threats - if you're getting attacked by marit lage or griselbrand or TNN or a delver backed up by hyperefficient spells, it's typically more about finding the correct answer than it is about creative and risky attacks and blocks. You do get it sometimes; for instance, DnT and other equipment decks can have cool fights and tricks with other fair decks, but it isn't the norm. I'm specifically calling out the decks that use the attack step but only because it's the simplest way to go from "my chalice stops my opponent from doing anything relevant, how do I get them from 20 to zero" and things like Thought Knot Seer just have a whole bunch of things tacked onto it without asking anything of you as a player (which is also what people hate about TNN).

Also, I don't think of myself as being some savant because I play ANT - in fact, I think the deck is easier than a lot of people claim - but I do think the deck has a lot of nuances that lead to interesting games.


Stompy requires more decision making than you give it credit for. And these decisions can be hugely rewarding or devastating to the outcome of the game. I'll give that the effort is skewed towards pregame decisions and the initial turn, but that doesn't mean the deck is mindless.


I feel bad that you felt you had to defend it Ace, because I really like your contributions to these threads and didn't mean to attack you on it. Also, I totally acknowledge that there are choices to make playing stompy, and you have some good examples of forks; sometimes I exaggerate it for effect in these kinds of threads (because some days it does just feel like the guy goes tomb > chalice twice in a row and then you get sea draked or hanweir watchkeeped or whatever and you wish you never registered for the tournament).

I don't think the deck is mindless, but the distinction I'm trying to make is how much experience and knowledge tracks with success with various archetypes. For instance, at various times, both Eldrazi and Grixis Delver could be considered to have a good matchup against Storm, but if you took two guys whose first event was the Dominaria prerelease and handed each of them one of those two decks and sat them down across an ANT player, the dude who ended up with spaghetti would fare much better in a much shorter amount of time. The Grixis player could get better, and eventually have a good matchup there and against the field, but he would have to learn more to get there, and I think that sort of trajectory is good for legacy, and makes for more interesting games.

It's not that there's no value in having some decks that are more straightforward and binary, or that those decks are somehow lesser, but that it's ultimately better for the game overall if the decks that offer the best possible rewards demand more investment and rely on multiple marginal decisions rather than singular make-or-break calls. It makes the game more like chess than rock, paper, scissors, which I think is good. Obviously we don't want it to be exactly chess, variance is good for player retention/replayability/accessibility/excitement/etc, but feeling like decisions matter, even many small ones, is good.


Look clearly Sneak//Show is the most skill intensive ancient tomb deck in the format, there is no amount of mental gymnastics that will change that. The nuance of playing show and tell dwarfs your blood moon and chalice deck.

I can't tell if this is satirical or not - personally, I find Sneak//Show to be approximately as demanding as other tomb decks, including stompy, and perhaps even more forgiving because it has cantrips and Force of Will to bail you out. At least the Red/Ramen Stompy players have to commit to their line and the top of their deck :tongue:

[Ronald Deuce]

Agreed. I tried many zoo lists with main board Thalia/Teeg/ Eidolon/ Scab Clan Berserker. The problem was the blue creature decks outclassed the green creature decks. When your combo opponent could just kill you before the hate bear came down, or you drew the wrong bear or your True Name opponent played a turn 3 Blue Abyss that can attack and carry a jitte or their snapcaster got to trade with a dude and plow another, or delver opponent simply races you. Blue creature power creep has beenbeen pretty fucking stupid

We don't agree about much, but I'm absolutely with you about this. Blue's pushed creatures are what's pushed a lot of conventional strategies out of Legacy. I doubt it's the only thing, and I still hate clamoring for a ban, but that's where my money is on "constructive bans" at this juncture.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I feel bad that you felt you had to defend it Ace, because I really like your contributions to these threads and didn't mean to attack you on it.
You're good dude! It was pretty evident you had Eldrazi in mind. I invited myself into the conversation to give you a good natured hard time.

Remind me next time we play, winner owes the loser a Coke! :wink:

[taconaut]

Remind me next time we play, winner owes the loser a Coke! :wink:

Deal! :laugh:

[Zulabnar]

So, I actually don't necessarily disagree with this, and did put an aside that I noted at the bottom of my post.

The difference is that in legacy, most of the combats don't really have that complexity because of the nature of the threats - if you're getting attacked by marit lage or griselbrand or TNN or a delver backed up by hyperefficient spells, it's typically more about finding the correct answer than it is about creative and risky attacks and blocks. You do get it sometimes; for instance, DnT and other equipment decks can have cool fights and tricks with other fair decks, but it isn't the norm. I'm specifically calling out the decks that use the attack step but only because it's the simplest way to go from "my chalice stops my opponent from doing anything relevant, how do I get them from 20 to zero" and things like Thought Knot Seer just have a whole bunch of things tacked onto it without asking anything of you as a player (which is also what people hate about TNN).

Also, I don't think of myself as being some savant because I play ANT - in fact, I think the deck is easier than a lot of people claim - but I do think the deck has a lot of nuances that lead to interesting games.




I agree, combat in legacy NOW is very straight forward with TNN Emrkaul Grislbrand Marit Lage. But combat in legacy was lesser straight forward years ago.
This is why i would like to have a more interactive game on the ground, creatures, trick, abilities, removal etc.

I think that the ban hammer has to it decks that refuse to interact with opponent, and oblige the opponent to dig the deck (by brainstorm ponder and other digging effect) to find that solution that they should have (i.e Abrupt decay to counterbalance or COTV) or they lose.
I like combos like ant because you can find a lot of way to decelarate them, but they have answers to your hatebears. Is fair, is deckbuilding, is strategy.

If you put a second turn omniscience fixing your hand with brainstorm\ponder first turn and having backup force and daze i think this is to easy, as it was in T1 with flesh and tinker so many years ago... when the dice roll declare the winner.









It's not that there's no value in having some decks that are more straightforward and binary, or that those decks are somehow lesser, but that it's ultimately better for the game overall if the decks that offer the best possible rewards demand more investment and rely on multiple marginal decisions rather than singular make-or-break calls. It makes the game more like chess than rock, paper, scissors, which I think is good. Obviously we don't want it to be exactly chess, variance is good for player retention/replayability/accessibility/excitement/etc, but feeling like decisions matter, even many small ones, is good.




I agree, the problem is that some card reduce the variance some much (brainstorm, ponder, impulse, preordaing, Jacestorming, for example Miracle is a deck that draws until finding the correct answer. Only dig, remove, dig, jace, dig entreat the angels.

Same for other decks that have 8 tutor for the combo like turbo dephts, too easy.

At the same time eldrazi has creature so strong, but a terrible manabase...is fair.

Ant has a lot of speed but can be slowered

The problem is that is to easy to fix hands for solutions, and to easy to deckbuild, i repeat my self but every strategies (contro, tempo,l combo or aggro) now can be done by blue deck thanks to hand fixing cards.

This is the reason why i think that there is only one card that allows this to be possible, is Brainstorm, i think this is the card that is putting homogenity in Legacy, this is the card that i would like to see banhammered.

[Mr. Safety]

Well, the B&R announcement snuck up on me this time, it's today (likely around 11:00am). Predictions?

Mine are:
Standard - no change
Modern - no change
Legacy - Earthcraft and/or Mind Twist unbanned
Vintage - no change

Reasoning behind unbans: control and mid-range decks are really stomping the format right now, which makes for a pretty fun atmosphere (in my opinion). Letting a couple of mediocre cards off the banlist seems fine and would likely generate even more innovation without breaking the format. Earthcraft is a combo card but is safe with all of the copies of Thoughtseize and Terminus being played. Mind Twist is a card that needs big mana to be useful, so it's really more of a prison card than actually 'fair'. Hymn will still be the card of choice I think, just for efficiency's sake. Could it go in Grixis control? Yes, but 'would it' is the question.

[H]

Well, the B&R announcement snuck up on me this time, it's today (likely around 11:00am). Predictions?

As much as I'd like to see something comes off the list, seems very unlikely they will do anything before they see what Trophy does.

[Lemnear]

Well, the B&R announcement snuck up on me this time, it's today (likely around 11:00am). Predictions?

Totally forgot about this. I bet WotC did too, therefore NO CHANGES. See you in Fall 2019 when the next DRS, SDT, TC, DTT, etc gets washed up to float on top of the cantrip tide

[Barook]

My money is on no changes at all.

If there's going to be some change, Vintage is probably the most likely candidate.

[Mr. Safety]

My thinking is that they just printed an instant speed Vindicate with a minimal drawback against combo decks. Not only will Spell Snare see more play (which hits Earthcraft) but Assassin's Trophy neatly deals with Earthcraft. The format is already saturated with blue control decks, some that play Wrath of God for W, others for 1WWU.

I'm not a betting man, but Earthcraft is safe. They surprised us with WGD and Black Vise; I think after the pro tour they might see that Earthcraft is fairly underpowered compared to what the format is doing.

[Brael]

Well, the B&R announcement snuck up on me this time, it's today (likely around 11:00am). Predictions?

Mine are:
Standard - no change
Modern - no change
Legacy - Earthcraft and/or Mind Twist unbanned
Vintage - no change

Reasoning behind unbans: control and mid-range decks are really stomping the format right now, which makes for a pretty fun atmosphere (in my opinion). Letting a couple of mediocre cards off the banlist seems fine and would likely generate even more innovation without breaking the format. Earthcraft is a combo card but is safe with all of the copies of Thoughtseize and Terminus being played. Mind Twist is a card that needs big mana to be useful, so it's really more of a prison card than actually 'fair'. Hymn will still be the card of choice I think, just for efficiency's sake. Could it go in Grixis control? Yes, but 'would it' is the question.

I think we're unlikely to see a Legacy unban. Mind Twist seems particularly egregious in the right deck, but maybe it's what the format needs. Hymn requires double black, imagine a deck like elves playing Mind Twist since the black splash is easy. Even something like Maverick could run it.

There's no way Standard sees anything since it's the start of the format.

Vintage might see another shops piece hit, but I don't know much about that format.

Modern has several unbans waiting for it, GSZ, SFM, Preordain, and Birthing Pod would all be reasonable in the format at this point. I think no changes is more likely but the format has a few unbans it can support at this point.


As much as I'd like to see something comes off the list, seems very unlikely they will do anything before they see what Trophy does.

I would bet good money that Trophy does nothing. It will be at most a 2 of in Modern, and I can almost guarantee it's a 0 of in Legacy, where the opponent can always fetch a basic, get a free spell on that turn, then untap and have even more mana. Trophy is no doubt versatile, and 2 mana is great, but you don't want too much of that downside.

[Dice_Box]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/october-1-2018-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2018-10-01???fcd

Nuda. Zip. Zilch. And no one is shocked.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Yea...I think I'm going to stay away from legacy for a while.

[Zombie]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/october-1-2018-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2018-10-01???fcd

Nuda. Zip. Zilch. And no one is shocked.

I was shocked at the Daily MTG title font. That thing is absolutely hideous.

[Mr. Safety]

Yea...I think I'm going to stay away from legacy for a while.

:eyebrow: :eyebrow: :eyebrow:

Format is incredible right now.

[Tittliewinks22]

:eyebrow: :eyebrow: :eyebrow:

Format is incredible right now.

Feels sluggish to me.

[Mr. Safety]

Feels sluggish to me.

What you call 'sluggish' I call fun; games are super interactive. The format is stabilizing into a pretty good one, I think. The top decks are Miracles, Grixis Control, Grixis Delver, Death and Taxes, UWx Stoneblade, Death's Shadow, RG Lands, and Sneak and Show. Aside from Herp-Derp for combo, the format is pretty fair (Lands is arguably a combo deck as well.) It's only a matter of time before everyone is trying to 'next level' the fair metagame with bigger decks that fold to fast combo, so the cycle starts again. I'm very optimistic, it seems like the way legacy should be.

I honestly would love to see some unbans, but there is no clearly bannable card ATM, and that's fantastic in my opinion.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

:eyebrow: :eyebrow: :eyebrow:

Format is incredible right now.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Tittliewinks22]

...but there is no clearly bannable card ATM, and that's fantastic in my opinion.

Except cantrips.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Except cantrips. Jesus H. Christ. Just ridiculous.

[MorphBerlin]

Except cantrips.

I would argue Cantrips are what is keeping fair Decks in the Metagame. Because in contrast to combo decks, fair decks looking to interact have the "wrong half Problem" (eg drawing Removal against combo). Finding answers is also harder than pursing a proactive gameplan (see Modern)

Combos decks have Tutors and other stuff to dig and achieve consistency (look at BR Reanimator, BG Depths, Lands, Elves) in my experience these decks don't seem that much less consitent than the blue decks tbh.

The Problem is that non-blue fair decks kind of get the short end of this because blue fair decks are just better versions of what they are trying to do. Exeptions are DnT and 4c Loam because they include Prision/Tax Elements.

It's pretty clear to me that at some point in eternal formats you have to apply one of these strategies (Combo/xerox/prison) to compete but some people still live in the glorious zoo vs maverick past.

[Brainstorm Ape]

Non-blue fair decks always had the problem of bad combo matchups, but could make up for that with good rates against blue decks by being more aggressive or going bigger than them.

But 6+ years of retarded blue creatures (plus cards like Terminus) have made it so something like Zoo, Jund, Junk, Maverick have not only bad combo matchups, but aren't all that favored against the fair blues either. Hard to go faster than Delver and no matter how big your Knight is, Strix and True Ape will stonewall her. Want to go into a grindy CA battle? Good luck against Snapcaster, Strix, and Jace; Bob, Bloodbraid, and, I dunno, Elspeth have nothing on them.

It makes for a dull metagame when fair Blue decks can beat their traditional predators without much, if any sacrifice, in their good matchups. If they were forced to make sacrifices, one way or the other, we'd see the old-style (pre Innitarded block) Legacy where the meta had an ebb and flow. Fair blue decks would beat combo, which would open up an opportunity for non-blue decks to go over/under them, and then combo could come back and the cycle would mostly repeat.

Much better than years of blue pretty much much dominating everything, with some token finishes for stax and combo.

[MorphBerlin]

Non-blue fair decks always had the problem of bad combo matchups, but could make up for that with good rates against blue decks by being more aggressive or going bigger than them.

But 6+ years of retarded blue creatures (plus cards like Terminus) have made it so something like Zoo, Jund, Junk, Maverick have not only bad combo matchups, but aren't all that favored against the fair blues either. Hard to go faster than Delver and no matter how big your Knight is, Strix and True Ape will stonewall her. Want to go into a grindy CA battle? Good luck against Snapcaster, Strix, and Jace; Bob, Bloodbraid, and, I dunno, Elspeth have nothing on them.

It makes for a dull metagame when fair Blue decks can beat their traditional predators without much, if any sacrifice, in their good matchups. If they were forced to make sacrifices, one way or the other, we'd see the old-style (pre Innitarded block) Legacy where the meta had an ebb and flow. Fair blue decks would beat combo, which would open up an opportunity for non-blue decks to go over/under them, and then combo could come back and the cycle would mostly repeat.

Much better than years of blue pretty much much dominating everything, with some token finishes for stax and combo.

So you agree that cantrips are not actually the problem for non-blue midrange?

[Mr. Safety]

Non-blue fair decks play blue hosers that are worthless in combo matchups, without ways to find those hosers or appropriate cards, that's what causes the most trouble (generally). Their most powerful cards in some matchups aren't generally good against the metagame-at-large. How do non-blue fair decks actually beat blue decks? Choke, Bitterblossom, Sylvan Library. The only real generally good cards are discard, like Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach, which are a generally good cards against the metagame but in particular have overlapping value against combo and control. The problem arises when non-blue gets great disruptive starts but no threats to apply pressure, thus giving blue decks the ability to cantrip into what they need. Blue decks disrupt, then cantrip into more disruption or threats, either achieving their primary goals.

If I were to summarize my experience on why cantrips are so good, I would put it this way: they are incredibly effective at capitalizing on windows that opponents grant them. Non-blue fair decks always need the nuts while blue decks can live with mediocre plus a cantrip or two.

Is the lack of cantrips the real problem with non-blue fair decks? Not specifically Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain, no. However, leaving your deck open to random draws is foolish when every one else is 'cheating' the system. Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library aren't the same as the cantrips, but jesus Christ, if you don't have access to cantrips find a way to get something into your deck to increase consistency. You can't complain about having a headache if you haven't at least tried taking something for it, not without coming across as a whiny bitch.

[Hardcore]

And we did. Then they banned top.

[Zulabnar]

So you agree that cantrips are not actually the problem for non-blue midrange?

I think you are misunderstading.

Is a combination of problems.

Blue has good creature and removal (tnn jace strix delver Vendillion)
Good counters (only blue has)
Good cantrips


If hasbro does not print better cards against blue bullets format is blue, or high variancy hate decks.

Now You have no strategy that does not relate on blue except Hate strategy.

You have aggro U based deck
You have tempo U based deck (team america, Rug, canadian)
You have control U based deck (Miracle grixis)
You have combo U based deck (SnS, omniscence, UB reanimator)

You could also play Aggro Loam prison deck 4 color . Very happy to blue Back to Basic, or Red Price of progress

YOu can play combo like Dark Depths or Reanimator without blue or lands and try the variance effect.


I guess that or Hasbro reduce the blue power or empowered the other colors (green over others) printing something that has bad matching with blue, even with destroy effect if You control island.

I know that lots of player love to reduce variancy with Sylvan or other. But the difference is in the pool of cards and sinergy with others.

Brainstorm + Delver is not the same that Sylvan + XXX because the power level of green cards is low compared to blue

Just take creatures, Tarmogoyf was a king, then TNN comes and Tarmo is gone.
Nimble moongose was a must, now is delver

[Mr. Safety]

And we did. Then they banned top.

Ouch...for some reason I forgot about that, lol. One of the many sacrificial lambs unto the Blue Gods of Legacy.

[LeoCop 90]

Of course top banning wast the stupidest thing they could ever have done to legacy. We have a format in which only blue decks are cometitive because of the consistency provided by cantrips? Well, let's ban the only good card non blue decks can use to emulate the effect of cantrips. What a joke.

[non-inflammable]

One of the many sacrificial lambs unto the Blue Gods of Legacy.

Blasphemer! there is only one true blue god = BS :rolleyes:

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Blasphemer! there is only one true blue god = BS :rolleyes:Brainstorm, God of Selection.
Force of Will, God of Restriction.
Truly-Named, God of Destruction.
Delver, God of Tempo.

[H]

Brainstorm, God of Selection.
Force of Will, God of Restriction.
Truly-Named, God of Destruction.
Delver, God of Tempo.

https://i.imgur.com/7W7jzXC.gif

[MorphBerlin]

I think you are misunderstading.

Is a combination of problems.

Blue has good creature and removal (tnn jace strix delver Vendillion)
Good counters (only blue has)
Good cantrips


I am not misunderstanding anything, I said not cantrips are the problem as is claimed in this threat 24/7 (at least in the psot I was refering to). I agree the the trio of Strix, Snap and TNN is what pushes blue decks over the top. Delver is actually fine in this context imo.




If hasbro does not print better cards against blue bullets format is blue, or high variancy hate decks.

Now You have no strategy that does not relate on blue except Hate strategy.

1. Hasbro just pulls money out of WOtC, WotC prints cards.

2. Omg we absolutly don't need more hate cards... How much more hate than Chalice, Choke, Bloodmoon, etc. do you need? I am glad that as poor as people working at wotc come across at times they still seem to be much more intelligent than the shouting mob you find in threats like these. Hate piece make for stupid unfun gameplay, which is why I would doubt youl will see alot of new stuff. Even though something as obnoxious as Prelate was printed recently in COnspiracy 2 aka DnT: the set

3. So any fast combo deck qualifies as "hate strategy"? That's a funny definition and pretty much bs imo.


[QUOTE=Zulabnar;1057751]
You have aggro U based deck
You have tempo U based deck (team america, Rug, canadian)
You have control U based deck (Miracle grixis)
You have combo U based deck (SnS, omniscence, UB reanimator)

You could also play Aggro Loam prison deck 4 color . Very happy to blue Back to Basic, or Red Price of progress

YOu can play combo like Dark Depths or Reanimator without blue or lands and try the variance effect.


1. For anybody that understands how magic works, its clear that one mana cantrips will slide into most decks because they are the most versatile. The format for bad blue cantrips is modern (red and green have the best filtering there)

2. Wow so you dismiss a totally competitive deck because of two hatecards? How about you try to find a way to beat those cards... how does anybody play blue against chlaice and choke?

3. In my opinion BG Depths, BR Reanimator and Lands are super consistenst. The only thing more broken then cantrips are tutors and all of those decks have them. BR is actually running the best imaginable cantrip for them in Looting. How are dekcs with so much redundency and tutors worse than blue?




I guess that or Hasbro reduce the blue power or empowered the other colors (green over others) printing something that has bad matching with blue, even with destroy effect if You control island.

I know that lots of player love to reduce variancy with Sylvan or other. But the difference is in the pool of cards and sinergy with others.

Brainstorm + Delver is not the same that Sylvan + XXX because the power level of green cards is low compared to blue

Just take creatures, Tarmogoyf was a king, then TNN comes and Tarmo is gone.
Nimble moongose was a must, now is delver

Tarmo is dead because of Angler, push and strix. It's a 2cmc creature that does nothing on etb, do you actually belive the stuff you write yourself?

Goose is dead because of angler and strix.

[Lord Seth]

Just take creatures, Tarmogoyf was a king, then TNN comes and Tarmo is gone.The primary reason Tarmogoyf has left the format isn't True-Name Nemesis; it's Fatal Push. Before the only playable removal that could take it out for less than it costs was Dismember and Swords to Plowshares, both of which have a disadvantage and the former of which isn't played much. Then Fatal Push came along and not only was a drawback-less kill spell against Tarmogoyf, it was in Black so non-White Black decks could run it. Even worse for Tarmogoyf, it has anti-synergy with Tasigur and Gurmag Angler, which are stellar against Fatal Push.

This same effect is in Modern, in fact; Tarmogoyf sees substantially less play in that format than it used to, and there is no True-Name Nemesis in that format. I'm not saying True-Name Nemesis didn't also hurt Tarmogoyf, it did, but nowhere near as much as Fatal Push and the Delve cards did (which, incidentally, see considerably more play than Tarmogoyf).


Nimble moongose was a must, now is delverThe primary deck Nimble Mongoose saw play in was Canadian Threshold (now perhaps better known as RUG Delver), a deck that was made into a major staple of the format exactly because of Delver of Secrets. Sure, RUG Delver isn't that much of a thing now, but it sure as heck wasn't Delver of Secrets that pushed Nimble Mongoose out when Delver of Secrets was basically the reason Nimble Mongoose was a mainstay.

Wild Nacatl would've made more sense to appeal to here.

[Dice_Box]

Omg we absolutly don't need more hate cards.
This is wrong. We need more. There is not enough until Stax is a top tier deck and I am the only one having fun.

[mistercakes]

Hate cards are fine as long as they are narrow.

[kinda]

This is wrong. We need more. There is not enough until Stax is a top tier deck and I am the only one having fun.

+1...

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

This is wrong. We need more. There is not enough until Stax is a top tier deck and I am the only one having fun.

Fun is overrated, misery and suffering is where it's at.

[MorphBerlin]

This is wrong. We need more. There is not enough until Stax is a top tier deck and I am the only one having fun.

I see why you don't like Lands position in the metagame an therefor legacy as a whole anymore :laugh:

[Erdvermampfa]

Brainstorm.

[adrieng]

I am personally convinced tinker is a good unban while memory jar is banned. All you get is card answred by swords to plownshares/edict except for inkwell leviathan which is a three turn kill slow
compared to NO=> progenitus. In a format of 20/20 flying for 2cc tinker is not that good. There is no good artifact to abuse with. Yeah sundering titan can be problematic... Maybe

[kinda]

I am personally convinced tinker is a good unban while memory jar is banned. All you get is card answred by swords to plownshares/edict except for inkwell leviathan which is a three turn kill slow
compared to NO=> progenitus. In a format of 20/20 flying for 2cc tinker is not that good. There is no good artifact to abuse with. Yeah sundering titan can be problematic... Maybe

Helm of obedience :cool:.

[JackaBo]

As with all tutors they are just as strong as their targets. I also think Tinker is fine in legacy. Time for unbans IMO.

[Mr Miagi]

Unban tinker, becasue we definetly need more degenerate combos.. yea.. sure... Show and smell the Griselchimp is enough.. (presonally I'd say too much).

[JackaBo]

Unban tinker, becasue we definetly need more degenerate combos.. yea.. sure... Show and smell the Griselchimp is enough.. (presonally I'd say too much).

Combo decks are not really performaning well. I dont see any problem introdcing more combo enablers.