All B/R update speculation.

[ramanujan]

The new card is not time walk. People need to really get this. There are countless examples of how this is so.

Basically, Time walk can be used the turn in which you have access to it, the new card goes off next turn assuming that you can set it up.

The value of being able to take an additional turn imediately is much higher than being able to take one after your next turn. Even though there are many set up cards that can be used to get additional turns with the new card, it is still a multiple card combination instead of a one card combination. In the end, the new card looks the part of a format defining card, but it will probably not be nearly as good as it seems. My bet is that Wizards did thier homework here and that this card is no Delver of Secrets.

The new wheel of fortune could see some real play because its non miracle cost is pretty reasonable for a belcher or SI build, but that's just my opinion.

[DragoFireheart]

The new card is not time walk. People need to really get this. There are countless examples of how this is so.

- No there aren't. There are, however, countless examples like yours that state TM is not Time Walk just because of a couple hoops.



Basically, Time walk can be used the turn in which you have access to it, the new card goes off next turn assuming that you can set it up.

Temporal Mastery can be used at instant speed. The argument that the card needs some "set up" is a poor one as there are plenty of cards that need some setup to get the most out of them and they are banned (SoTF, Worldgorger Dragon, Goblin Recruiter).



The value of being able to take an additional turn imediately is much higher than being able to take one after your next turn. Even though there are many set up cards that can be used to get additional turns with the new card, it is still a multiple card combination instead of a one card combination. In the end, the new card looks the part of a format defining card, but it will probably not be nearly as good as it seems. My bet is that Wizards did thier homework here and that this card is no Delver of Secrets.

- Except that in some situations, it's BETTER than time walk, with those situations being that the player with TM is playing blue and SDT.

[ramanujan]

So, you think this card is that good. How about a bet. 6 month window. If the card is banned I'll give you an underground sea. If it remains unbanned, then I'll take an equivilant value card from you. I am willing to accept these terms, are you?

[DragoFireheart]

So, you think this card is that good.

- I think it's good and ban worthy.



How about a bet. 6 month window. If the card is banned I'll give you an underground sea. If it remains unbanned, then I'll take an equivilant value card from you. I am willing to accept these terms, are you?

- Why would I bet $120 with some stranger on a random website about a card being banned when there is no way to verify you'll even uphold your end of the deal? And even if you did, why would I uphold my end? Why would I even agree to such stupid terms to behind with*?

(rhetorical question)

[ramanujan]

We can arrange it with a trusted third party somewhere else, PM me if you are willing.

I have made my case. You disagree. You have made your case. I diagree. There is nothing more to do than wait and see. I am willing to put something behind my opinion which is more than words. Are you?

[DragoFireheart]

We can arrange it with a trusted third party somewhere else, PM me if you are willing.

I have made my case. You disagree. You have made your case. I diagree. There is nothing more to do than wait and see. I am willing to put something behind my opinion which is more than words. Are you?

http://izit.org/sites/izit.org/files/u4/129156.jpeg

[ramanujan]

I can see you are not interested in my offer, which was and remains sincere. Either way, I will post that I was right on October 17th.

I have no more to say on this issue

[JDK]

I tried playing Mind's Desire this whole week in various High Tide builds. It was inferior to Time Spiral in every way.

I don't know, it just sounds totally ridiculous in Spiral Tide (in combination with Time Spiral, not as a replacement). I didn't do any testing though, so you might be right.

[Awaclus]

The new card is not time walk. People need to really get this. There are countless examples of how this is so.

Basically, Time walk can be used the turn in which you have access to it, the new card goes off next turn assuming that you can set it up.

The value of being able to take an additional turn imediately is much higher than being able to take one after your next turn. Even though there are many set up cards that can be used to get additional turns with the new card, it is still a multiple card combination instead of a one card combination. In the end, the new card looks the part of a format defining card, but it will probably not be nearly as good as it seems. My bet is that Wizards did thier homework here and that this card is no Delver of Secrets.
You do get the extra turn immediately (unless you actually draw the card when you topdeck it instead of casting it), it's just that you aren't allowed to decide when to take it. It's not a Time Walk by any means, it's just probably the biggest tempo advantage that you can cast in Legacy.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Temporal Mastery can be used at instant speed. The argument that the card needs some "set up" is a poor one as there are plenty of cards that need some setup to get the most out of them and they are banned (SoTF, Worldgorger Dragon, Goblin Recruiter).

Survival of the Fittest does not require setup. It requires you to have one creature in hand in a deck that probably runs 20+ then it enables your entire deck.
How does Goblin Recruiter require setup? It stacks your entire deck for 2 mana. I don't even know what you are talking about. What setup is required? 2 lands in play?
Worldgorger Dragon is a combo peice, not a utility card. It requires setup but it also either wins or draws the game instantly with an Animate Dead. Taking an extra turn does not automatically end the game.

There's an easy way for one side to end this debate. Show me the decklists. I have yet to see one that doesn't suck. I'm willing to concede it is possible this card will be broken I just don't think it's very likely. I'm very open to changing my mind though the second I see a single shred of evidence that Mastery is going to break the format wide open. It's impossible for us to prove the card is not broke, but a single decklist could easily prove it is broken. Where is this decklist?

[DrJones]

Do you think a person with a decklist able to rape a legacy tournament is going to post it here for all people to see just so you can say if you agree with the card being too good or not?

Keep dreaming.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Do you think a person with a decklist able to rape a legacy tournament is going to post it here for all people to see just so you can say if you agree with the card being too good or not?

Keep dreaming.

This is exactly what people (myself included) did during the Flash debacle, because there was a real call to have it banned before the tournament and people wanted to make their case.

[Lord Seth]

Desire was actually a preemptive ban, it was banned before being released.Not quite. Scourge was released May 17. The banning/restriction was announced June 1. So it was banned/restricted two weeks after its release. It can still be considered preemptive, though, as it really had no chance to have an impact during that time period.

Though as I said in another topic, I do wonder if it would have been banned in Legacy had, at the time, Legacy existed as its own separate entity. Back then it was Type 1.5, which was just "Type 1 (Vintage), but everything restricted is banned instead" and thus its restriction in Vintage automatically meant banning in Legacy, which would not be true nowadays.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Not quite. Scourge was released May 17. The banning/restriction was announced June 1. So it was banned/restricted two weeks after its release. It can still be considered preemptive, though, as it really had no chance to have an impact during that time period.

Though as I said in another topic, I do wonder if it would have been banned in Legacy had, at the time, Legacy existed as its own separate entity. Back then it was Type 1.5, which was just "Type 1 (Vintage), but everything restricted is banned instead" and thus its restriction in Vintage automatically meant banning in Legacy, which would not be true nowadays.

Back in the day sets didn't become legal the day they were officially released. If I remember correctly there was a 2 week lag from release to legality, which would coincide with Mind's Desire entering Vintage banned.


Do you think a person with a decklist able to rape a legacy tournament is going to post it here for all people to see just so you can say if you agree with the card being too good or not?

Keep dreaming.

Keep Dreaming? LOL, I love getting a talking down to from the only Legacy player to ever call for the banning of Force of Will. The real answer is that if Temporal Mastery was a broken as is claimed we probably would have seen a list by now.

How about this then, does anyone actually have a list where Temporal Mastery is broken that they aren't sharing because they plan to win an event with it?

[(nameless one)]

I'm not siding with DrJones on this (I mean come on, FoW banned? What is this, ban all cantrips along with it ala Modern?) but just to prove a point, the Survival Vengevine strategy was shut downed and laughed at here at the Source before it took over the format post GP: Columbus.

[DragoFireheart]

Survival of the Fittest does not require setup. It requires you to have one creature in hand in a deck that probably runs 20+ then it enables your entire deck.

- It also requires you to have specific creatures to abuse it (Rootwalla, Vengevine, etc). SotF in an burn deck is crap. SotF in an elf deck is game-breakingly overpowered.



How does Goblin Recruiter require setup? It stacks your entire deck for 2 mana. I don't even know what you are talking about. What setup is required? 2 lands in play?

- You need a Goblin deck designed around it. It can't just be thrown in any deck. You also need to stack Goblins in the correct order. Mindlessly stacking goblins will result in failure.


Worldgorger Dragon is a combo peice, not a utility card. It requires setup but

- You admitted as least one the cards I listed requires setup, which was the entire point of listing those cards.



I'm not siding with DrJones on this (I mean come on, FoW banned? What is this, ban all cantrips along with it ala Modern?) but just to prove a point, the Survival Vengevine strategy was shut downed and laughed at here at the Source before it took over the format post GP: Columbus.

Yep...

It doesn't matter if someone DID post a deck list dontbiteitholmes. In fact, there is not a single deck list anyone could post. You have already made up your mind. Short of WotC banning the card before the set is even legal, you'll always believe it not ban worthy. So, don't pretend you're clever by asking for a deck list.

Honestly, the only thing we could agree on is that we disagree. Not that it matters: once the card is legal, we'll quickly find out how good/bad Temporal Mastery is.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Cross-posting this from the other thread.

Did some shitty, half-assed testing of Time Walk 2.0, and I have to revise my original opinion. The card isn't broken. Hell, I'm not even sure if it's great, as I really don't have much real experience at the helm of U/R Delver or Blue Tempo decks.

However, this card is so fucking annoying to play against. So if it does become a fixture, even a minor one, in the metagame, people will be screaming for a ban. The card allows you to break certain stalemates wide open and turn some losing situations around. An extra attack step, more time to beef up board presence, extra walker activations...it can be powerful. How often? Not sure, but boy does it stick in your mind as total shit.

Compounding on the swinginess factor is the ever-present Blue Issue; this is a Blue card that does bullshit things and can only be effectively fought through Blue means (mill, counterspells, Stifle). If this was a targeted effect, and other colors could theoretically do something, it might mitigate hate for this card. But since it doesn't target, and Blue means are the only way to really stop it, it's going to catch a lot of flak.

I don't think this is going to be broken anymore, but man do I hate this card and wish it wasn't printed. Overly swingy effects are some of my least favorite things to play/play against in Magic, and lately Wizards has been injecting a ton of them into Legacy, mostly through absurd fatties, but also through mechanics like Miracle. Not something I'm a fan of, because I don't have the resources nor drive/skill to adopt the detached, uber-pro mindset.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Not quite. Scourge was released May 17. The banning/restriction was announced June 1. So it was banned/restricted two weeks after its release. It can still be considered preemptive, though, as it really had no chance to have an impact during that time period.

Though as I said in another topic, I do wonder if it would have been banned in Legacy had, at the time, Legacy existed as its own separate entity. Back then it was Type 1.5, which was just "Type 1 (Vintage), but everything restricted is banned instead" and thus its restriction in Vintage automatically meant banning in Legacy, which would not be true nowadays.

Remember also that back then, there was a two week delay between a set's release and its legality for tournament play. I'd have to dig up a calendar, but I don't think there were even actual Vintage tournaments in which Mind's Desire could be legally played.

[Koby]

I don't care how irrational it is, ban Insectile Abherration. Card seriously needs to fucking go take a hike.

[Vacrix]

I'm still tweaking the list, but I won like 20 games in a row on the first turn with Reforge the Soul. A few fizzles, and a few bad mulligans aside, this card is a savage engine. Fuck the Miracle aspect of it, thats irrelevant; they printed a new storm engine that allows you to abuse red ritual acceleration.

Granted, its a glass house but I think the lists people are coming up with can be tweaked to be faster than even PSI. Does 80% turn 1 kills sound pleasant to you? And I don't mean 80% lol I have a bunch of goblins and win turn 3. I honestly don't know what WotC was thinking with this one. Do they have a ban for something planned? LED perhaps?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'm not siding with DrJones on this (I mean come on, FoW banned? What is this, ban all cantrips along with it ala Modern?) but just to prove a point, the Survival Vengevine strategy was shut downed and laughed at here at the Source before it took over the format post GP: Columbus.

Was it? I remember it being largely ignored, but I don't remember an overwhelming objection to it.

Also if you want to talk about peoples initial impressions of cards being wrong we have hundreds of examples on both sides. It wasn't but the last set when Grafdigger's Cage was preordering for $35 and people were claiming Dredge would be ruined. So that doesn't really prove anything that people have been wrong in the past. Everyone has evaluated a card incorrectly at one time or another but that door swings both ways.


- It also requires you to have specific creatures to abuse it (Rootwalla, Vengevine, etc). SotF in an burn deck is crap. SotF in an elf deck is game-breakingly overpowered.

- You need a Goblin deck designed around it. It can't just be thrown in any deck. You also need to stack Goblins in the correct order. Mindlessly stacking goblins will result in failure.

- You admitted as least one the cards I listed requires setup, which was the entire point of listing those cards.

Yep...

It doesn't matter if someone DID post a deck list dontbiteitholmes. In fact, there is not a single deck list anyone could post. You have already made up your mind. Short of WotC banning the card before the set is even legal, you'll always believe it not ban worthy. So, don't pretend you're clever by asking for a deck list.

Honestly, the only thing we could agree on is that we disagree. Not that it matters: once the card is legal, we'll quickly find out how good/bad Temporal Mastery is.

How many times have I said I'm not 100% certain it's not broken I just have yet to see evidence that it is and personally I don't think it will be. Seriously, look at my other posts. I tested it and found it lacking far more often then it was "OMG broken" but I'm only one person. If over 1/3 of the people here feel it's broken I want to know what they know that I don't. What other measure is there of a Legacy card except the decks it goes in? I see a lot of people here spitting out reasons Mastery is so much like Time Walk but where are the lists? I had a lot of trouble making this card even half descent and I get the impression other people are having a similar problem.

Your arguments about Survival, Worldgorger, and Recruiter have nothing to do with the matter at hand. Those are all combo cards that can quickly and powerfully end the game from a losing board position at any point in the game + I don't really follow your reasoning on why Recruiter requires setup when it's all creatures you would be running anyway and there is absolutely zero downside ever of playing Recruiter in Goblins. Apples and oranges anyways though enough of that.

[Vacrix]

Its a little unreal what TES can do with Reforge the Soul. They could Burning Wish for 1R for Reforge the Soul, then hide it on top of their Library with Brainstorm for U. Thats a 2 card investment with 1UR to go off drawing 7 cards on the following turn provided you have 2 perpetual manasources that tap for R. Thats not asking a lot from TES. Its definitely going to be the occassionally Burning Wish target when you need to 'oh shit' button into a new 7, but the setup applications scare me more. It means TES has yet another line of play that lets them recover from a failed attempt with a relatively low investment.

[Technics]

I'm still tweaking the list, but I won like 20 games in a row on the first turn with Reforge the Soul. A few fizzles, and a few bad mulligans aside, this card is a savage engine. Fuck the Miracle aspect of it, thats irrelevant; they printed a new storm engine that allows you to abuse red ritual acceleration.

Granted, its a glass house but I think the lists people are coming up with can be tweaked to be faster than even PSI. Does 80% turn 1 kills sound pleasant to you? And I don't mean 80% lol I have a bunch of goblins and win turn 3. I honestly don't know what WotC was thinking with this one. Do they have a ban for something planned? LED perhaps?

They learned with Necro don't ban the supporting cast, ban the damn card already. If Reforge the Soul is really that broken (And i think it might be) then it will get the axe, not LED or rituals etc.

[majikal]

This whole set is stupid on multiple levels. It reminds me of powered-up versions of all the obnoxiously good cards from Mirage, Tempest, and Urza's Saga blocks. I wouldn't be surprised if they have to ban something (or multiple somethings) in every major format.

[Vacrix]

The thing with Reforge though is that if its in a glasshouse that just chains them together, it will only 1up decks that don't play Force because any deck that does is just going to draw into it after the first or 2nd D7. The deck needs some form of protection and that dilutes the turn 1 kills.

I honestly don't think anything is going to get banned though. We think these cards are overpowered because they look juicy with Miracle costs at 1X. I think WotC has tested these cards thoroughly enough to know just how good each one is going to be.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't care how irrational it is, ban Insectile Abherration. Card seriously needs to fucking go take a hike.

If this entire block were wiped from existence, I'm pretty sure it'd be a net positive for the format.

[lavafrogg]

If this entire block were wiped from existence, I'm pretty sure it'd be a net positive for the format.

+1 The new un-killable non-interactive angel is already pissing me off. Let alone the aberration.

[Humphrey]

Can we have Misstep unbanned now? it reduces the crazyness with Brainstorm/Miracle and creatures can be save now with Caverns of Soul

[Lord Seth]

The new un-killable non-interactive angel is already pissing me off. Let alone the aberration.Avacyn is hardly unkillable and she's probably not going to have much if any impact on the format.

[mrjumbo03]

Avacyn is hardly unkillable and she's probably not going to have much if any impact on the format.

I think they are pertaining to the WG Hexproof, No sacrificing allowed 5/5 Angel.

[Lord Seth]

I think they are pertaining to the WG Hexproof, No sacrificing allowed 5/5 Angel.Ah, that makes more sense. Guess it's another reason for me to sideboard Phantasmal Image.

[Lemnear]

Its a little unreal what TES can do with Reforge the Soul. They could Burning Wish for 1R for Reforge the Soul, then hide it on top of their Library with Brainstorm for U. Thats a 2 card investment with 1UR to go off drawing 7 cards on the following turn provided you have 2 perpetual manasources that tap for R. Thats not asking a lot from TES. Its definitely going to be the occassionally Burning Wish target when you need to 'oh shit' button into a new 7, but the setup applications scare me more. It means TES has yet another line of play that lets them recover from a failed attempt with a relatively low investment.

Obviously you Never played TES or any storm combo. You realize that you play LED to power spells post-tutor? With your scenario you need 1UR + Wish + Brainstorm + another turn + 1R in upkeep. I cannot believe you seriously consider this. This has no advantage over Diminishing Returns.

[Vacrix]

What the fuck... I play storm combo as my decks of choice. I play Pact Spanish Inquisition and Solidarity. I frequently play TES on cockatrice and would play it regularly IRL if I had the Underground Seas. I've been playing storm combo for 6 years, for the record.. probably longer than you buddy.

There are certainly scenarios where this could be applicable. This is an example scenario.

To quote the part of my post that you clearly didn't read:

It means TES has yet another line of play that lets them recover from a failed attempt with a relatively low investment.

In play:
Gemstone Mine
Chrome Mox (RED)
Lotus Petal

Turn 1 on the draw, you cast Chrome Mox imprinting a red card, play Gemstone Mine, and Lotus Petal (to play around Daze) and tried to cast Ad Nauseam with a Rite of Flame and a Dark Ritual. Your opponent has Force of Will. You pass the turn with Brainstorm in hand as your only card. On the following turn you draw for the turn, and its a Burning Wish. You wish for Reforge the Soul and Brainstorm to put it on top of your library. You go off and draw 7 cards during the upkeep of the following turn.

Granted, you could wait to go off but say your opponent casts a turn 1 Delver, flipped next turn, followed by a Chain Lightning and a Vexing Devil. You might not have the turns you think you have against URx Tempo to just reassemble a combo turn that involves, rituals, LED, and a tutor.

I'd say it has an application over Diminishing Returns. Diminishing Returns requires you have a LED after Burning Wish. You don't always have a LED nor time to wait or cantrip into one.

[Humphrey]

Somehow everybody seems to think youre the only one who draws 7. The opp gets a full hand with force and/or daze too. Let alone Mindbreak Trap or Extracion
So without Chanteffects or Defense Grid the deck loses more to blue than Belcher.

[Vacrix]

Sure but its effect is congruent to Diminishing Returns and TES already plays that as an 'oh shit' button. It doesn't change much except now TES doesn't necessarily need LED to go to that line of play if it really needs to, given that Reforge is an much more forgiving RR rather than Diminishing Returns UU.

In the play above, you're pretty much fucked anyway. You have 3 mana sources. If you Brainstorm first... unless that card is LED and then you stack it so you can topdeck Rite of Flame or Dark Ritual... I don't see how you could win if the opponent is threatening a very fast clock. Its just a low investment 'oh shit' button play. It requires 2 perpetual mana sources, an IMS like Lotus Petal, 2 cards, and its a pass the turn play.

EDIT:
Also, its worth noting that you could well draw Chant in the 7 you draw off your Reforge the Souls.

[Lemnear]

The Point is that this play REQUIRE Brainstorm and passing a turn! Your opponent See this coming from miles ahead and can sculpt his hand.

[Amon Amarth]

I don't care how irrational it is, ban Insectile Abherration. Card seriously needs to fucking go take a hike.

Now if only they would ban cards for taking a giant fucking shit on the color pie then we'd be in business.

[Machahiko]

So, if you decide to go for it with TES against a player who might have a force of will and you have no protection at all you're taking a huge leap of faith. Sure, everything could just go well and you win, but if it doesn't work out, it won't be pretty. You've just played out your acceleration cards to cast ADN and it gets countered. Then you have to get burning wish and brainstorm together for this to work out, and even then if you draw brainstorm you'd most likely just play it out instead of hoping for burning wish.

To me Reforge the Soul seems to take a lot of setting up and then you can still just get your shit countered unless you also draw chant effect and play one in upkeep or rip a duress also to play the turn before reforging. Even then your opponent will get a new 7 besides you, and with your mana tapped etc. it'll be really hard to go off on the same turn I think.

I either need to see it in action to believe, or the deck should be changed drastically instead of just adding it into a currently existing decklist.

[DragoFireheart]

How many times have I said I'm not 100% certain it's not broken I just have yet to see evidence that it is and personally I don't think it will be.

- You're coming off as not wanting to believe otherwise despite what you claim. Just sayin.



Seriously, look at my other posts. I tested it and found it lacking far more often then it was "OMG broken" but I'm only one person. If over 1/3 of the people here feel it's broken I want to know what they know that I don't. What other measure is there of a Legacy card except the decks it goes in? I see a lot of people here spitting out reasons Mastery is so much like Time Walk but where are the lists? I had a lot of trouble making this card even half descent and I get the impression other people are having a similar problem.


- Like I said, your mind is made up. Discussing it further won't convince you. Seriously, look at MY other posts. I've posted plenty of arguments, but you claimed to have "tested it". You've made up your mind: arguing further is a waste of both of our time.

Look at Vacrix and a couple other people. They're all convinced of their own positions, but I guarantee you none of them will budge until tournament results show up. People are hilariously (more) stubborn on the Internet.

Agree to disagree because that's all we are going to agree on.

[Nihil Credo]

Now if only they would ban cards for taking a giant fucking shit on the color pie then we'd be in business.
The unintentional irony of making this complant in LEGACY - the format for those who love still playing with Dark Ritual and Red Elemental Blast and Sylvan Library - is difficult to overstate.

[DragoFireheart]

The unintentional irony of making this complant in LEGACY - the format for those who love still playing with Dark Ritual and Red Elemental Blast and Sylvan Library - is difficult to overstate.

Those are ok because they are not blue.

Edit:

You know what would be really hilarious? With Cavern of Souls being released, I wonder what drama would happen if WotC unbanned Goblin Recruiter...

[(nameless one)]

Those are ok because they are not blue.

Edit:

You know what would be really hilarious? With Cavern of Souls being released, I wonder what drama would happen if WotC unbanned Goblin Recruiter...

I hope they do it. This and Mental Misstep. Keep the format balanced!

[Rizso]

Imo the brainstorm and miracle is quite overrated tbh. A 2 card combo to take an other turn imo isnt that overpowered. However personal tutor for the red wheel miracle might be really strong for a some storm decks. We will see.

[kusumoto]

Reforge the Soul is just going to be a better Diminishing Returns for TES.

That's all it's going to do to TES. It's better than Diminishing Returns. They both give the opponent a new hand but...

Reforge the Soul doesn't exile any of your library and doesn't cause anyone to shuffle libraries. That sounds like an upgrade to me. It's one more mana, but it's more on color. I don't think TES generally cares about the miracle.

If anything is going to be scary broken with this card, it's going to be a new deck.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

- You're coming off as not wanting to believe otherwise despite what you claim. Just sayin.




- Like I said, your mind is made up. Discussing it further won't convince you. Seriously, look at MY other posts. I've posted plenty of arguments, but you claimed to have "tested it". You've made up your mind: arguing further is a waste of both of our time.

Look at Vacrix and a couple other people. They're all convinced of their own positions, but I guarantee you none of them will budge until tournament results show up. People are hilariously (more) stubborn on the Internet.

Agree to disagree because that's all we are going to agree on.

You are the one who clearly has made up their mind. I have tested this card myself and was really not overly impressed with what it did. You have no decklist to back up what you are saying, no results, no hard data. What you do have is a bunch of hypotheticals and your word that this card is broken. Maybe you should go read what Gerry T wrote in his article about the card, or how about what Owen Turtenwald said in his article this week. (spoiler alert: they say it's bad) If you want to actually want to change peoples opinion you are going to need something better then "because I say so."

[DragoFireheart]

You are the one who clearly has made up their mind. I have tested this card myself and was really not overly impressed with what it did. You have no decklist to back up what you are saying, no results, no hard data. What you do have is a bunch of hypotheticals and your word that this card is broken. Maybe you should go read what Gerry T wrote in his article about the card, or how about what Owen Turtenwald said in his article this week. (spoiler alert: they say it's bad) If you want to actually want to change peoples opinion you are going to need something better then "because I say so."

The irony is overwhelming.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

The irony is overwhelming.

LOL. Are you stupid. I have tested this card and posted about it, others have tested this card and posted similar results. Unless you have some different data this is all we have to work with.

[DragoFireheart]

LOL. Are you stupid. I have tested this card and posted about it, others have tested this card and posted similar results. Unless you have some different data this is all we have to work with.

Resorting to personal insults. Your ability to create convincing arguments is astronomically amazing!

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Resorting to personal insults. Your ability to create convincing arguments is astronomically amazing!

You still have nothing to support your argument.

[Asthereal]

How about this then, does anyone actually have a list where Temporal Mastery is broken that they aren't sharing because they plan to win an event with it?
I have one ready. Pretty sweet stuff. Not sure whether I will get the cards for it though. Getting playsets of Personal Tutor and Temporal Mastery seems like quite an investment for something I'm not completely sure of... :rolleyes:

[DragoFireheart]

You still have nothing to support your argument.

And neither do you.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

And neither do you.

I have testing results, so do other people.

[DragoFireheart]

I have testing results, so do other people.

No you don't. If you had them, you would have shown them already.

Edit: Either post your results or quit lying.

[Zilla]

Drago, you seem extremely sure of your position in this matter. Is there some reason you haven't bothered to test it yourself?

[TooCloseToTheSun]

No you don't. If you had them, you would have shown them already.

I posted it in the other thread, dontbiteitholmes has tested it, Jamaican Zombie Legend has tested it.


EDIT:
One Round of testing 3 games v.s. Junk:
Game 1 - I have a Jace in hand and I TM on my draw step and do some other stuff, go to my next turn. My opp misplays and puts in batterskull on the end of my first turn.
Second Turn, I play Jace and bounce his BSkull token and beat down with a 3/4 Goyf. I would not have one without his misplay.

Game 2 - This game was a blow out. I just tempoed way ahead and killed him quickly. Pitched TM to force a removal spell.

Game 3 - I took 3 extra turns, lost horribly. The first extra turn I took I setup with ponder and passed then my opp killed all my creatures. I was stuck exploring rather than having to hold a second TM in my hand with no Brianstorm. The other two were irrelevant just trying to buy time before I lost to Thrun.

Notes: Card is awful in your opening hand, even with Brainstorm. Being able to shuffle away two cards with Brainstorm is one of the reasons decks play it, when the extra card you get off of TM is one you didn't want it kind of negates the positives.

[DragoFireheart]

Drago, you seem extremely sure of your position in this matter.

- I am. Of course I could be wrong and I'm not so arrogant to pretend that I couldn't be. However, I'm also not going to pretend that I have hours of "testing" results and then proceed to troll people by not posting those results.




Is there some reason you haven't bothered to test it yourself?

- There's no real way to know how good it will be in an actual tournament setting. The keyword in this topic is speculation. I'm clearly speculating. Everyone else is (unless they are trolling with "test" results, which are dubious at best).

However, the fact that TM is very similar to TW, even with it's (minor) hoops, is enough evidence to not let it be legal. I think there is nothing wrong, at the very least, being wary of cards that are variations of Legacy banned cards. I've provided my reason throughout various topics.

[DragoFireheart]

I posted it in the other thread, dontbiteitholmes has tested it, Jamaican Zombie Legend has tested it.

Link to your post please. I'm genuinely interested.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Link to your post please. I'm genuinely interested.

I edited my other post to include it. That was just one of many I don't really think typing up the rest of my notes is worth it all the other rounds were quite similar.

[DragoFireheart]

I edited my other post to include it. That was just one of many I don't really think typing up the rest of my notes is worth it all the other rounds were quite similar.

So three games with Junk is your idea of testing?

I think testing a card in only three games against a single deck is a pretty awful way to determine if ANY card is good/bad/bannable.

[Lord Seth]

However, the fact that TM is very similar to TW, even with it's (minor) hoops, is enough evidence to not let it be legal.Just like how Ancestral Vision, Lotus Bloom, Mox Opal, Wheel of Fate, and Infernal Tutor were all so broken they should have been banned preemptively too, right?
I think there is nothing wrong, at the very least, being wary of cards that are variations of Legacy banned cards. I've provided my reason throughout various topics.From what I've seen, so far all you've said is that it's kind of like Time Walk, which is not by itself a decent argument to take a step that's been done with only two cards in the history of Magic.

[Snap_Keep]

I think Counterbalance should be banned, there are some ridiculous Stoneblade / Counterbalance brews out there that are undefeatable.

[DragoFireheart]

Just like how Ancestral Vision, Lotus Bloom, Wheel of Fate, and Infernal Tutor were all so broken they should have been banned preemptively too, right?

Waiting four turns after casting the spell for the same effect isn't even comparable. Infernal Tutor is fairly bad without Lion's Eye Diamond. All of those card, while similar, have a large enough drawback that keeps them in check.

TM lacks that. In fact, it's better than *Time Walk as you can cast it on your opponents turn. The fact that you have to cast it the turn you draw it as your first draw is a minor drawback, what with Brainstorm and Jace being in the format.



From what I've seen, so far all you've said is that it's kind of like Time Walk, which is not by itself a decent argument to take a step that's been done with only two cards in the history of Magic.

- It's close enough to being time walk AND having the potential to be cast at instant speed is what makes it a bannable card. 3 Rounds against a Junk deck isn't enough to determine how good or bad any card is though.

*Edit: In some situations.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Waiting four turns after casting the spell for the same effect isn't even comparable. Infernal Tutor is fairly bad without Lion's Eye Diamond. All of those card, while similar, have a large enough drawback that keeps them in check.

TM lacks that. In fact, it's better than Time Walk as you can cast it on your opponents turn. The fact that you have to cast it the turn you draw it as your first draw is a minor drawback, what with Brainstorm and Jace being in the format.



- It's close enough to being time walk AND having the potential to be cast at instant speed is what makes it a bannable card. 3 Rounds against a Junk deck isn't enough to determine how good or bad any card is though.


That was just one of many I don't really think typing up the rest of my notes is worth it all the other rounds were quite similar.
Could you pretend to read what I posted before you start talking about what I posted

[lordofthepit]

Cleanup on aisle 5!

[DragoFireheart]

Could you pretend to read what I posted before you start talking about what I posted

YOU were claiming to have DEFINITIVE proof of your position. Your currently presented proof is crap. Don't feed me bullshit that you have "others but i dun wunna post them". Also, your comment was vague: it could have been referring to other Junk rounds or other decks. Too much vagueness.

Don't half ass your "testing" results and what you post. If all you are going to give me is 3 rounds vs a Junk deck, don't be surprised if you catch some slack.

How many decks did you test against? How many rounds? What was your deck list? What were their deck lists? Did you test against all of the DTB? Did you test against other decks that are commonly showing up but aren't considered decks to beat?

Until you can answer those questions, don't bother posting your "test" results.

[joemauer]

Hey DragoFireHeart, go throw together a broken list using Temporal Mastery and please show us it. Should not be hard to do since it is so broken.

[DragoFireheart]

Hey DragoFireHeart, go throw together a broken list using Temporal Mastery and please show us it. Should not be hard to do since it is so broken.

Considering I was never claiming to have such a deck list, no.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

YOU were claiming to have DEFINITIVE proof of your position. Your currently present proof is crap. Don't feed me bullshit that you have "others but i dun wunna post them".

Don't half ass your "testing" results and what you post. If all you are going to give me is 3 rounds vs a Junk deck, don't be surprised if you catch some slack.

I never claimed to have DEFINITIVE proof. I claimed to have tested the card and claimed in my testing it was far from broken. Then you freaked the fuck out claiming that it was broken and that everyone who had played the card in actual games was just wrong because you say the card is broken. You have offered nothing to support your position and when asked to do so you just brushed it off. If you want anyone to take you seriously offer something that contradicts what I am saying besides "because I said so."


I was playing the list from this article. (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/recurring-nightmares-manipulation-or-mastery/) You should read the rest of it and maybe you can get a better understanding of what this card does because obviously you have no experience with it. After you have read that then you should read this, (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/owens-a-win-of-miracles/) and maybe even this (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23906_The_Return_Of_The_Legacy_Bucket_List.html). There has to be a reason none of these people are agreeing with you.

[joemauer]

Considering I was never claiming to have such a deck list, no.

This is where your argument falls apart. If TM is as broken as claimed(in need of the emergency banning) then it should be easy to throw together a list that just blows apart all the top decks.

[DragoFireheart]

I never claimed to have DEFINITIVE proof. I claimed to have tested the card and claimed in my testing it was far from broken. Then you freaked the fuck out claiming that it was broken and that everyone who had played the card in actual games was just wrong because you say the card is broken. You have offered nothing to support your position and when asked to do so you just brushed it off. If you want anyone to take you seriously offer something that contradicts what I am saying besides "because I said so."

First of all, I've provided plenty of reasons in this topic and various others. Just because I don't have test results doesn't make my arguments more or less valid.

Second, if you think I'm freaking out, then you need to take it less personally. I'm attacking your arguments and evidence, not you. If you feel like I attacked you I apologize.

Finally, your evidence is lacking. I bold various questions for you to answer. If you and others have tested said decks with TM, answering them should be easy. If you can't answer those questions, then your testing is not sufficient. I don't think what little you posted in this topic would be even considered in topics in the DTB section.




This is where your argument falls apart. If TM is as broken as claimed(in need of the emergency banning) then it should be easy to throw together a list that just blows apart all the top decks.

This is clearly a fallacy. SoTF wasn't considered broken for quite some time. It wasn't until it caught on that people finally saw how powerful it was.

The same can easily apply to TM. It may not seem strong at first, but enough tournaments results will show how broken/crappy it is.

[LOurs]

Imo, whatever the number of test already done at the moment, it is clearly not enough to get a clear opinion about the card.
This is really really too early right now to argue that the card is good or not on empirical basis, just really too early, let's be honest.
Now, it doesnt prevent anyone from having on opinion on it, but, right now, it remains pure feeling.

[joemauer]

This is clearly a fallacy. SoTF wasn't considered broken for quite some time. It wasn't until it caught on that people finally saw how powerful it was.

The same can easily apply to TM. It may not seem strong at first, but enough tournaments results will show how broken/crappy it is.

Survival was always a strong card. Vengevine broke it. Then wizards realized it probably isn't a good idea having a reusable, difficult to remove tutor in Legacy.

If you want to compare Temporal Mastery to anything because of it's subtle power then compare it to brainstorm.

Anyway, Time Walk is good when cast. A conditional Time Walk is only good in certain conditions.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Just because I don't have test results doesn't make my arguments more or less valid.


Yes, yes it does.




Second, if you think I'm freaking out, then you need to take it less personally. I'm attacking your arguments and evidence, not you. If you feel like I attacked you I apologize.


LOL, why would I need to take it less personally, you are the one freaking out.



Finally, your evidence is lacking. I bold various questions for you to answer. If you and others have tested said decks with TM, answering them should be easy. If you can't answer those questions, then your testing is not sufficient. I don't think what little you posted in this topic would be even considered in topics in the DTB section.


My evidence might be "lacking" but you have NONE.

Edit:
Also can you list your "reasons"

[DragoFireheart]

I was playing the list from this article. (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/recurring-nightmares-manipulation-or-mastery/)

No wonder you did poorly. Doesn't look like the deck is designed to take advantage of TM. Also, I find it disappointing that those articles barely talked about using Sensei's Divining Top or Personal Tutor with it.

Obviously if I slap SotF into a burn deck it will do poorly. Doesn't change the fact SoTF is banned.



My evidence might be "lacking" but you have NONE.

Edit:
Also can you list your "reasons"

I can see that you have no actual intent of validating your results. I'll take it that you're done arguing with me...?




Survival was always a strong card. Vengevine broke it. Then wizards realized it probably isn't a good idea having a reusable, difficult to remove tutor in Legacy.

If you want to compare Temporal Mastery to anything because of it's subtle power then compare it to brainstorm.

Anyway, Time Walk is good when cast. A conditional Time Walk is only good in certain conditions.

SoTF was a tier 1.5 card for quite a long time. It was tier 1 here and there but it was never an overwhelming powerful card.

A conditional Time Walk that can be cast at instant speed sounds pretty good to me.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

No wonder you did poorly. Doesn't look like the deck is designed to take advantage of TM. Also, I find it disappointing that those articles barely talked about using Sensei's Divining Top or Personal Tutor with it.

Obviously your list is better, where was that posted again? Caleb Durward talks about Personal Tutor here (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-of-miracles-and-justice/), he thinks that interaction is over hyped.



I can see that you have no actual intent of validating your results. I'll take it that you're done arguing with me...?


I would like to see your results, but you have none.

[DragoFireheart]

Obviously your list is better, where was that posted again? Caleb Durward talks about Personal Tutor here (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-of-miracles-and-justice/), he thinks that interaction is over hyped.

First, I never claimed to have a list. If I did, you might have a point.

Second, Channelfireball is not the infallible word of Magic the Gathering.

Third, since everyone and their mother wants me to do so, I'll try and make you all a vague deck list of something that can abuse personal tutor* in the deck post.

Edit: Temporal Mastery, not personal tutor.

[Koby]

The onus is on those claiming "Ban" to show the card/deck is broken. The status quo is easy enough to demonstrate that a card/deck is fair in the format.

[JDK]

TM lacks that. In fact, it's better than Time Walk as you can cast it on your opponents turn. The fact that you have to cast it the turn you draw it as your first draw is a minor drawback, what with Brainstorm and Jace being in the format.
Better than Time Walk, you heard it first on Drago FM.


:rolleyes:

[joemauer]

A conditional Time Walk that can be cast at instant speed sounds pretty good to me.

Yeah it does sound good. Who doesn't like extra turns?
Does it sound as good as drawing half your deck with Ad Naseum?
Does it sound as good as dredging half your deck with breakthrough?
Does it sound as good as casting green Sun's zenith for whatever hatebear will screw up your opponent?
Does it sound as good as cards like Hymn to Tourach, Life from the Loam, or Snapcaster Mage? Cards that have strong effects at the same mana cost with no set up required.


The argument wasn't even whether or not the card is good. Is it broken?

[DragoFireheart]

Since so many of you asked me for my "decklist" (which I never claimed to have), I'll give you something so you can berate me on how awful it is. Off the top of my head:

First, we're going blue. Here's a starting shell for it:

4 BS
3 JTMS
4 FoW

We're going for a more controlling base since we already have Jace. 22 lands of some configuration.

22 Lands
4 BS
3 JTMS
4 FoW

We now want Temporal Mastery. Multiples is bad, so 4 is not the number. Lets try three for now:

22 Lands
4 BS
3 JTMS
4 FoW
3 TM

To fully abuse it, we want tops. This isn't counterbalance so we don't want the full set. Lets do three.

22 Lands
4 BS
3 JTMS
4 FoW
3 TM
3 SDT

39 slots are filled, leaving us with 21 to fill. Lets say we wanted to try and fit this in a Blade Control deck. 4 SFM, 4 SCM, 1 Batterskull, 4 StP, 1 Jitte sounds good?

22 Lands
4 BS
3 JTMS
4 FoW
3 TM
3 SDT

4 SFM
4 SCM
1 BSkull
4 StP
1 Jitte

That leaves us with 7 slots. Lingering souls is popular, lets put in 4:

22 Lands
4 BS
3 JTMS
4 FoW
3 TM
3 SDT

4 SFM
4 SCM
1 BSkull
4 StP
1 Jitte
4 LingerS

For the last 3 slots, lets put in Spell Snare since we need more counters.

22 Lands (some configuration of Tundras and Underground seas with other lands)

4 Brainstorm
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
3 Temporal Mastery
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Snapcaster mage
1 Batterskull
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Lingering Souls
3 Spell Snare

Alright, have fun telling me how terrible I am. :smile:

[TooCloseToTheSun]

First, I never claimed to have a list. If I did, you might have a point.

I know you don't.




Second, Channelfireball is not the infallible word of Magic the Gathering.

I never said they were, I was just saying that some high level players have expressed the same opinion as me. But I mean that was a cool strawman (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=10613).



Third, since everyone and their mother wants me to do so, I'll try and make you all a vague deck list of something that can abuse personal tutor in the deck post.

Good luck with that.

[DragoFireheart]

I know you don't.

Ok...? lol?



I never said they were, I was just saying that some high level players have expressed the same opinion as me. But I mean that was a cool strawman (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=10613).

You seem to put them in high regard. You were using the articles as some sort of evidence of whether TM is good or bad. You shoudln't. They're just articles of someones opinion.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

You seem to put them in high regard. You were using the articles as some sort of evidence of whether TM is good or bad. You shoudln't. They're just articles of someones opinion.

Why is their opinion less valuable than yours?

[CorpT]

Drago, what they're saying is: put up or shut up. And you're refusing to put up...

[DragoFireheart]

Why is their opinion less valuable than yours?

They're not less valuable than mine, but they aren't anymore valuable then my opinion. Everyone's opinion is of equal value at this point.

This is why I asked you all of those questions on the previous page regarding your test results. Those will hold more weight and than anyone's opinion.



Drago, what they're saying is: put up or shut up. And you're refusing to put up...

Oh boy, it's CorpT. I'm in trouble now!

What exactly am I "putting up" again? My mysterious deck list? The crystal ball showing when TM will be banned?

[CorpT]

Oh god, it's CorpT. I'm in trouble now!

What exactly am I "putting up" again? My mysterious deck list? The crystal ball showing when TM will be banned?

The decklist and testing results against Tier 1 decks proving that your new deck is completely busted and destroys the field and will continue to once decks react to your busted deck.

[DragoFireheart]

The decklist and testing results against Tier 1 decks proving that your new deck is completely busted and destroys the field and will continue to once decks react to your busted deck.

I don't remember claiming any of that, but I did Brainstorm a deck list off the top of my head on the previous page. :cool:

EDIT FOR RESULTS:
One Round of testing 3 games v.s. Junk:
Game 1 - I have a Jace in hand and I TM on my draw step and do some other stuff, go to my next turn. My opp misplays and puts in batterskull on the end of my first turn.
Second Turn, I play Jace and bounce his BSkull token and beat down with Snappy beats. I would not have one without his misplay.

Game 2 - This game was a blow out. I just tempoed way ahead and killed him quickly. Pitched TM to force a removal spell.

Game 3 - I took 3 extra turns, won amazingly. The first extra turn I took I setup with SDT and passed then my opp killed all my creatures. I was stuck exploring but I got my SDT to set up two TM. Took a few extra turns, swarmed him. Pretty amazing.

Notes: Card is awful in your opening hand, but that wasn't a huge issue all of the time. Being able to shuffle away two cards with Brainstorm is one of the reasons decks play it. being able to play it at instant speed was a life saver game three since I had full mana for two turns in a row.

This is a parody!!!111

[TooCloseToTheSun]

They'r not less valuable than mine, but they aren't anymore valuable then my opinion. Everyone's opinion is of equal value at this point.

This is why I asked you all of those questions on the previous page regarding your test results. Those will hold more weight and than anyone's opinion.

So why did you tell me not to listen to their opinions if everyone has an equally valid opinion? Not that I really believe that everyone's opinion is equal, because that is just not true. As for the rest of my test results, all the notes are at home so I can't post them right now. But in general the card was very underwhelming. I remember playing against Mav, Esper, and this wierd UB thing my friend plays with Lilian OTV and Jace. There may have been more than that but that is all I can remember off the top of my head.

[CorpT]

So you're going to continue your typical "argument" tactics. Have fun with that.

[DragoFireheart]

So you're going to continue your typical "argument" tactics. Have fun with that.

Yes, my typical "argument" tactics on a discussion board where people argue their opinions. Such super secret tech!

[TooCloseToTheSun]

I don't remember claiming any of that, but I did Brainstorm a deck list off the top of my head on the previous page. :cool:

EDIT FOR RESULTS:
One Round of testing 3 games v.s. Junk:
Game 1 - I have a Jace in hand and I TM on my draw step and do some other stuff, go to my next turn. My opp misplays and puts in batterskull on the end of my first turn.
Second Turn, I play Jace and bounce his BSkull token and beat down with Snappy beats. I would not have one without his misplay.

Game 2 - This game was a blow out. I just tempoed way ahead and killed him quickly. Pitched TM to force a removal spell.

Game 3 - I took 3 extra turns, won amazingly. The first extra turn I took I setup with SDT and passed then my opp killed all my creatures. I was stuck exploring but I got my SDT to set up two TM. Took a few extra turns, swarmed him. Pretty amazing.

Notes: Card is awful in your opening hand, but that wasn't a huge issue all of the time. Being able to shuffle away two cards with Brainstorm is one of the reasons decks play it. being able to play it at instant speed was a life saver game three since I had full mana for two turns in a row.

Your list is esper stoneblade where you cut some disruption for win more cards. :laugh: Just the worst.

Nice results, now if you could post something that actually happened instead of more hypotheticals. I guess that is just never going to happen.

[DragoFireheart]

Your list is esper stoneblade where you cut some disruption for win more cards. :laugh: Just the worst.

Hey, you asked for it.

[JDK]

They're not less valuable than mine, but they aren't anymore valuable then my opinion. Everyone's opinion is of equal value at this point.

So the opinion of a professional in a given field, about his profession, (namely: Magic) is not more valuable than the opinion of a casual player?

Please excuse my ignorance, if you are a professional player yourself.

[Amon Amarth]

The unintentional irony of making this complant in LEGACY - the format for those who love still playing with Dark Ritual and Red Elemental Blast and Sylvan Library - is difficult to overstate.

I was only facetiously suggesting that they ban it. Delver is separated from the cards you mentioned by over a decade. Wizards should definitely have known better to print it (modern R&D, FFL, a defined color pie, etc.) because Blue should never get creatures of this caliber.

[CorpT]

Guys, he's a troll. That's about all he does.

[DragoFireheart]

So the opinion of a professional in a given field (namely: Magic) is not more valuable than the opinion of a casual player?

Please excuse my ignorance, if you are a professional player yourself.

I find it hard for anyone to have a professional opinion on a card that hasn't seen any tournament play. It would be one thing if I said Maverick is not a tier 1 deck and the article showed otherwise (clearly I'd be wrong). It's another when bother parties are speculating about a card that hasn't seen any play yet.

[DragoFireheart]

Your list is esper stoneblade where you cut some disruption for win more cards. :laugh: Just the worst.

Nice results, now if you could post something that actually happened instead of more hypotheticals. I guess that is just never going to happen.

See, here is the problem. I asked the same of you yet you didn't provide. Why should I do anything different?

I'll agree to disagree on whether this card should be banned or not.

[Tammit67]

Clearly everyone does NOT have an equally valid opinion. I would rather consult a doctor with what their preferred way to deal with my recurring collapsed lungs than my mother.

On a similar vein, when well regarded players' opinions/results line up with my own testing in the more obvious shells, the card is not obviously broken. (Note not saying obviously not broken).

From multiple sources, some with testing, some without, most with a ton of experience with magic: Miracle time walk too inconsistent to want to dilute your deck. Additionally, even when it is easily cast, it is not often more than a free explore. Or the slot would be better spent on a card that progresses your board state

[TooCloseToTheSun]

See, here is the problem. I asked the same of you yet you didn't provide. Why should I do anything different?

I'll agree to disagree on whether this card should be banned or not.

I thought I gave you some of my real testing results. Isn't that what you based your little parody on?

[JDK]

I will tell you a secret: People can use a proxy or a program like Cockatrice to test the card before it is actually released as a real Magic card. They can also think about possible applications and situations, to find the strong and weak points of a card.

Please don't give away this secret, or Wizards might ban me for giving insiders an unfair advantage.

@CorpT
Trolls aren't supposed to make fools of themselves in order to just look stupid...so I doubt he is trolling.

[DragoFireheart]

Clearly everyone does NOT have an equally valid opinion. I would rather consult a doctor with what their preferred way to deal with my recurring collapsed lungs than my mother.

- In regards to speculation within the context of a new magic card, everyones opinion is more or less worthless.



On a similar vein, when well regarded players' opinions/results line up with my own testing in the more obvious shells, the card is not obviously broken. (Note not saying obviously not broken).

From multiple sources, some with testing, some without, most with a ton of experience with magic: Miracle time walk too inconsistent to want to dilute your deck. Additionally, even when it is easily cast, it is not often more than a free explore.

I don't think anyone can claim either way with any certainty that the card is or is not broken. I strongly believe it should be banned, but that's just my belief.

[DragoFireheart]

I thought I gave you some of my real testing results. Isn't that what you based your little parody on?

I already told you that 3 rounds against Junk isn't enough. That wouldn't be enough for any card. Extensive testing results is all I'm interested in.

[Snap_Keep]

I thought I gave you some of my real testing results. Isn't that what you based your little parody on?

But it sounded so real! I think that happened IRL, no way he made that up to save face.

Just to be clear, is there anyone here who still actually thinks Temporal Mastery should be banned before we get to play with it / against it?

[DragoFireheart]

But it sounded so real! I think that happened IRL, no way he made that up to save face.


It wasn't obvious that I posted a parody? I did that on purpose. People can't be this dense...

[Snap_Keep]

Why on Earth would you do that? Make a "parody" of someone else's testing?

Speak more politely, please. I won't be condescended to.

[Tammit67]

- In regards to speculation within the context of a new magic card, everyones opinion is more or less worthless.



I already told you that 3 rounds against Junk isn't enough. That wouldn't be enough for any card. Extensive testing results is all I'm interested in.

Man. So every opinion is worthless right now but you need proof? And if the opinions (Is it really opinion when testing results have been involved?) are worthless, then why would you post in this thread?

The card is not good enough in the shell TooCloseToTheSun/ChannelFireball provided. Or the one you provided. This is fact, not opinion.

[DragoFireheart]

Why on Earth would you do that? Make a "parody" of someone else's testing?

Speak more politely, please. I won't be condescended to.

- The point of the parody was to illustrate that posting some light details on one round/game is not really testing it. If he was going to show results, he would have a link to a details doc showing us:

- Deck lists he tested the deck with TM. (more than one)
- Deck lists of the decks he fought.
- Number of rounds.
- Games with sideboarded cards.

Basically, the extent should be of a length like some of the articles he posted. For someone to claim to have results this early is silly. This is something I would expect someone to have ready after the card has been out for 2-3 months.



Man. So every opinion is worthless right now but you need proof? And if the opinions (Is it really opinion when testing results have been involved?) are worthless, then why would you post in this thread?

- It's not enough for someone to say they tested it and then claim that their word is fact. A detailed document/article is what should be posted.



The card is not good enough in the shell TooCloseToTheSun/ChannelFireball provided. Or the one you provided. This is fact, not opinion.

-Ok, so that is two decks it doesn't work in. What's your point?

[DrJones]

I think that Time Walk is pretty busted, but so are many mistakes that WotC has printed in the latter blocks and that has refused to ban. I think this card would deserve one, but I feel the red wheel of fortune is actually more powerful.

I don't think the best way to play this card is to play bs + jace + sdt or even personal tutor. As a deckbuilder, I call it the "coward" strategy and feel that worrying about minimizing the risks of a card ever being a disadvantage is as wasteful as playing circle of protection black to prevent the damage from your pestilence activations.

That doesn't mean bs, jace or sdt aren't good fits for this card, it just means that you aren't forced to play a ton of them for this card to be good. In my experience, you only need to play 2-3 copies of TM in a tempo shell alongside with cards that let you recycle dead draws for it to shine. Playing the card as intended (topdecking it) is 99% of the time awesome on a tempo deck. It might be actually detrimental to specifically setup this card due to the tempo and resources you spend to place it in the top of your library, a tempo deck must keep the initiative in order to be effective.

Personally, I think this card would work great in a U/R Delver list with 4x Brainstorm, 2-3x Temporal Mastery and 3-4x Firestorm and either FoW or Misdirection. I would even try to add some copies of the other miracles (Thunderous Wrath and Fade Away). Another option that would be worth exploring is an U/G build with Brainstorm, Fade Away, and Mirri's Guile, as the latter is better in a tempo build than Sensei's Divining Top and the extra turns offset the card disadvantage of Mirri's Guile.

[Tammit67]

We are just people trying to share our results with the rest of the community. If you do not accept our results, then good luck with your own.

Collectively we should stop trying to prove things to each other. We are really here to congregate testing and data that we cannot do ourselves. There really isn't a point to posting when you invalidate other peoples experiences and conclusions based on said experiences.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

People should stop responding to Drago.

[Vacrix]

...I feel the red wheel of fortune is actually more powerful.
This... minus the part where Temporal Mastery should be banned.



To put things in perspective.. you guys are complaining about how broken a card is in control decks when they are in a winning position... Instead of talking about how any deck not playing Force of Will is going to roll over and die to our good friend Reforge the Nuts. I've been playing the deck and the Miracle aspect of the card is pointless and practically irrelevant. Seriously if you guys want to point fingers at something and complain, its Reforge trust me. You'll literally feel retarded in a few months when you realize what you're doing. In glass house, I've finally tweaked my build to a solid 60% turn 1 kills, pretty much as solid as SI in terms of speed, slightly slower than PSI. The list also exposes you frequently to the possibility of Force of Will and post-board Mindbreak Trap due to the D7's, however, this is not always the case as sometimes you can take a different line of play. I haven't even tried tweaking a Belcher list to incorporate it yet but let me tell you, non-FoW players, be afraid. I anticipate its going to get much faster. Keep in mind that post-board you can likely answer Belcher players either with Force or the fact that they win on turn 3 because the usually Empty the Warrens for like 10-12 tokens. That means you have time to do something about them, like Etutor into Explosives by turn 3, or land a Deed for 0, Malestrom Pulse, etc. You don't have that option against Reforge the Nuts because they straight up kill you turn 1. Also, the deck in no way needs to use its life total as a resource, much like Belcher.

[joemauer]

I believe Grislebrand to be the most busted card to be spoiled as of yet. Creatures are easy to cheat into play. Necro effects are powerful, especiay when tied to 7/7 flying lifelinker.

Reforge the soul has potential to be busted. Draw seven for two mana is indeed greater than extra turn for two mana.

[DrJones]

The problem is not as much Temporal Mastery as all the other blue cards that place blue on top. Accelerating blue tempo one extra turn is always a bad idea, haven't we learned the lesson from Mental Misstep (the 'free timewalk')?

Also, Reforge the Souls is broken even in Cavius' "Smart" burn (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17399-Smart-Burn). :tongue:

[Sims]

This... minus the part where Temporal Mastery should be banned.



To put things in perspective.. you guys are complaining about how broken a card is in control decks when they are in a winning position... Instead of talking about how any deck not playing Force of Will is going to roll over and die to our good friend Reforge the Nuts. I've been playing the deck and the Miracle aspect of the card is pointless and practically irrelevant. Seriously if you guys want to point fingers at something and complain, its Reforge trust me. You'll literally feel retarded in a few months when you realize what you're doing. In glass house, I've finally tweaked my build to a solid 60% turn 1 kills, pretty much as solid as SI in terms of speed, slightly slower than PSI. The list also exposes you frequently to the possibility of Force of Will and post-board Mindbreak Trap due to the D7's, however, this is not always the case as sometimes you can take a different line of play. I haven't even tried tweaking a Belcher list to incorporate it yet but let me tell you, non-FoW players, be afraid. I anticipate its going to get much faster. Keep in mind that post-board you can likely answer Belcher players either with Force or the fact that they win on turn 3 because the usually Empty the Warrens for like 10-12 tokens. That means you have time to do something about them, like Etutor into Explosives by turn 3, or land a Deed for 0, Malestrom Pulse, etc. You don't have that option against Reforge the Nuts because they straight up kill you turn 1. Also, the deck in no way needs to use its life total as a resource, much like Belcher.

This. All of this.

I found it hilarious to the point of falling out of my chair laughing when I saw Miracle Walk preselling for 39.99 and Reforge preselling for 4.99. Maybe that's the difference between Mythic and regular Rare, but it's going to make all those people dropping 40 bucks on a mediocre mythic cry when someone beats the ever living out of them with their 5 dollar rare.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

- The point of the parody was to illustrate that posting some light details on one round/game is not really testing it.

So you can claim this card is "better than time walk" with nothing in support, but I can't say "it isn't that good" because my testing isn't good enough? You can see how dumb that sounds right?

[CorpT]

So you can claim this card is better than time walk with nothing in support, but I can't say it isn't that good because my testing isn't good enough? You can see how dumb that sounds right?


People should stop responding to Drago.

You're just encouraging him to continue to make really dumb statements.

[Tao]

Cavius' "Smart" burn (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17399-Smart-Burn)

OMG! This is the by far best deck ever!

[DragoFireheart]

We are just people trying to share our results with the rest of the community. If you do not accept our results, then good luck with your own.

- I don't mind people sharing results. My problem is when the results are sorta iffy and/or incomplete.



Collectively we should stop trying to prove things to each other. We are really here to congregate testing and data that we cannot do ourselves. There really isn't a point to posting when you invalidate other peoples experiences and conclusions based on said experiences.

- I'm not trying to invalidate his conclusions/experience, I merely want him to expand on them. By all means, post your results, but a short summary on a single 3-round game against junk leaves much to be desired.

[DragoFireheart]

So you can claim this card is "better than time walk" with nothing in support,

- I posted my reasoning and the logic supporting my reasoning.



but I can't say "it isn't that good" because my testing isn't good enough?

- No, I just want you to post all of your testing. You did test other decks, right? I believe that you tested it, but I wouldn't be doing you any favors by just agreeing without some feedback. If I didn't care about your opinion I wouldn't be giving you so much of my attention.

I also don't think the channelfireball list was any good. I think before we determine if the card is good or bad, we should find it a proper home. SoTF is obviously terrible in burn but it's amazing in Elves and U/G madness style decks.

Lets make a proper deck-list first that we can all agree on being the best we can think of, test it, and then make a conclusion. I think that is the best way to determine if it's even viable as a card. How does that sound?

[TooCloseToTheSun]

- I posted my reasoning and the logic supporting my reasoning.

Reasoning and logic with no experience with the card is worthless.

[DragoFireheart]

Reasoning and logic with no experience with the card is worthless.

- I agree.

[LOurs]

the results of tests are valuable when the reader has all the informations to appreciate the test. If the debate is around competitive playability, and i think it is, so only tests at a competitive level are interesting and valuable. Which means that it requires complete information about this test such as a full decklist, opponents (and tournament conditions...), decklist, pre/post sb and so on...
That kind of test is valuable and deserves to be used as an argument to say if the card is good or not. If these informations are not available, using the "test" arguement remains only a feeling to me. At this point, I have no idea if the cards will or wont have a big impact, but my feeling is they will. And I also remain very sceptic on any test results before they enter into tournaments, so I also disagree with the idea to ban them now.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

the results of tests are valuable when the reader has all the informations to appreciate the test. If the debate is around competitive playability, and i think it is, so only tests at a competitive level are interesting and valuable. Which means that it requires complete information about this test such as a full decklist, opponents (and tournament conditions...), decklist, pre/post sb and so on...
That kind of test is valuable and deserves to be used as an argument to say if the card is good or not. If these informations are not available, using the "test" arguement remains only a feeling to me. At this point, I have no idea if the cards will or wont have a big impact, but my feeling is they will. And I also remain very sceptic on any test results before they enter into tournaments, so I also disagree with the idea to ban them now.

Being skeptical is probably the best position to take if you have not tested the card in anything. My position is, and always has been, that the card was not broken in the testing I have done, and no where near better than Time Walk.

Will the card see legacy play? I don't know, but probably. I have not yet seen a list that can really take full advantage of the extra turn, but maybe in time some one can brew that up.

[DragoFireheart]

Being skeptical is probably the best position to take if you have not tested the card in anything. My position is, and always has been, that the card was not broken in the testing I have done, and no where near better than Time Walk.


Have you tested it with other decks besides the one in the ChannelFireball article?

[Lord Seth]

The onus is on those claiming "Ban" to show the card/deck is broken. The status quo is easy enough to demonstrate that a card/deck is fair in the format.Indeed.
Number of cards preemptively banned: 2.
Number of cards NOT preemptively banned: 10,000+.

Cards not being preemptively banned is the norm. The burden of proof should therefore be on the people who think it should be preemptively banned. And the proof should be more I am seeing being offered so far.

Even if you say "well, sure, only 2 were preemptively banned, but others should have been in retrospect," the number of banned cards is less than 1% of all Magic cards ever printed, meaning the argument still stands.

[DragoFireheart]

Indeed.
Number of cards preemptively banned: 2.
Number of cards NOT preemptively banned: 10,000+.

Cards not being preemptively banned is the norm. The burden of proof should therefore be on the people who think it should be preemptively banned. And the proof should be more I am seeing being offered so far.

Even if you say "well, sure, only 2 were preemptively banned, but others should have been in retrospect," the number of banned cards is less than 1% of all Magic cards ever printed, meaning the argument still stands.

- The level of proof you/others want is not something that can be realistically achieved at this time (not that I ever claimed to have such proof/evidence). If your claim is "you lack suffice testing to show this needs a preemptive ban" then you are obviously correct. I don't think I was ever implying otherwise.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

- The level of proof you/others want is not something that can be realistically achieved at this time (not that I ever claimed to have such proof/evidence). If your claim is "you lack suffice testing to show this needs a preemptive ban" then you are obviously correct. I don't think I was ever implying otherwise.

You said "it is better than time walk."

I just want a list that I can test that can post similar results to flash/hulk.

Also, I played your list against maverick. All I can say is, the format is still not broken.

[DragoFireheart]

You said "it is better than time walk."

- I said "it's better than time walk in some situations".



I just want a list that I can test that can post similar results to flash/hulk.

- I don't have one and I never claimed to have one.



Also, I played your list against maverick. All I can say is, the format is still not broken.

- I believe you.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

- I said "it's better than time walk in some situations".


This is exactly what you said:

TM lacks that. In fact, it's better than Time Walk as you can cast it on your opponents turn. The fact that you have to cast it the turn you draw it as your first draw is a minor drawback, what with Brainstorm and Jace being in the format.




- I don't have one and I never claimed to have one.


Of course you don't because then we all would think its broken.

[DragoFireheart]

This is exactly what you said:

- Ah, I meant otherwise. Thank you for that and I apologize for not making that point clear. I sorta assumed people knew what I meant but I didn't post my thoughts clearly. Edited my post and I'll clarify here: the point I was trying to make was that because you have the ability to cast it on your opponents turn with some setup, you can have two-full turns will all of your mana open. In this way it's better than Time Walk: you can only ever cast Time Walk at sorcery speed. Time Walk is clearly a better card, but Temporal Mastery is better than it in some ways.

You can achieve this with Sensei's Divining Top. Spin the top to draw a card on your opponents turn with TM on top, cast TM ala it's miracle ability, bam: two turns in a row with all of your mana.




Of course you don't because then we all would think its broken.

- Well yeah, that is obvious.

[dontbiteitholmes]

- Ah, I meant otherwise. Thank you for that and I apologize for not making that point clear. I sorta assumed people knew what I meant but I didn't post my thoughts clearly. Edited my post and I'll clarify here: the point I was trying to make was that because you have the ability to cast it on your opponents turn with some setup, you can have two-full turns will all of your mana open. In this way it's better than Time Walk: you can only ever cast Time Walk at sorcery speed. Time Walk is clearly a better card, but Temporal Mastery is better than it in some ways.

You can achieve this with Sensei's Divining Top. Spin the top to draw a card on your opponents turn with TM on top, cast TM ala it's miracle ability, bam: two turns in a row with all of your mana.

Or if it was Time Walk instead of Mastery you could have more easily drawn and casted Time Walk last turn.
Time Walk - 1 Mastery - 0

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Or if it was Time Walk instead of Mastery you could have more easily drawn and casted Time Walk last turn.
Time Walk - 1 Mastery - 0

Exactly. Either way you lose a turn with that mana.

[DrJones]

Temporal Mastery is only marginally better than Time Walk in that it can't be countered with Spell Snare. Even if you get to play it at instant speed with Sensei's Divining Top, you don't get any board advantage in doing so.

Time Walk is in most cases better than this card because it doesn't exile itself, so you can recast it again and again with some combos.

[Lord Seth]

- The level of proof you/others want is not something that can be realistically achieved at this time (not that I ever claimed to have such proof/evidence).Well the thing is, the cards that were pre-emptively banned or restricted (Mind's Desire and Memory Jar) were able to be proven to be too strong that early.
If your claim is "you lack suffice testing to show this needs a preemptive ban" then you are obviously correct. I don't think I was ever implying otherwise.If you haven't been calling for a preemptive ban and instead are just speculating it might become strong enough to warrant banning, then I apologize for misunderstanding you. My issue is not that people say it might deserve banning (technically, almost any card might turn out to need banning if someone stumbles upon a sufficiently strong combo of some kind), but the claim that it deserves a pre-emptive banning.

[Vacrix]

My god I can't believe how much time people have spent arguing about theory instead of just testing the god damn card and seeing how it actually performs. Fuck this pre-emptive ban shit its not worth your time. Just test the card please and then we can stop bickering about something that nobody really understands yet with the exception of talking about what looks good on paper.

"Damn dude my engine looks so sick. My car must be really fast."
"Seriously man? It could just be a really big, inefficient engine. Just drive the car."
"No dude this engine is definitely like the greatest engine ever. Just look at the thing. Imagine what I could do what an engine this big. Is this even street legal?"
"Dude you have no idea how fast your car goes. Just get in the car and drive."
"No dude I'm admiring my absurdly large and clearly illegal engine."
*leaves

[JDK]

Wow, thanks for the Smart Burn list, now I have a lot of brainstorming to do. :laugh:

[DragoFireheart]

So, how does everyone feel about paying one white for a Wrath of God?

Will Brainstorm survive this set?

[joemauer]

So, how does everyone feel about paying one white for a Wrath of God?

Will Brainstorm survive this set?

The fact that it is better than wrath of god irks me.

With all the potentially broken non sense this set has to offer, this is the card I hate the most. Nice board position, but guess what my Sensei's Top was hiding from you? That is right a one mana f'ing wrath of god. I don't care that you have Vengvines in play or a Scavenging ooze in your hand to recoup with because I did not kill your creatures. I put them somewhere irrevelent.

If I lose one match to this son of bitch removal card I will probably just rip my deck to shreds and give my opponent the finger. I guess won't have to worry about losing to this card again because I will only play combo decks while it is legal. Or control.

I would actually rather play against and/or with the former king of board sweepers: Balance. That card at least feels symmetrical(even though I know it is not). This card feels like an ultimate creature rape. WTF wizards of the coast, WTF!

Anybody else kinda feel the same way or am I the only one here?

[DragoFireheart]

The fact that it is better than wrath of god irks me.

With all the potentially broken non sense this set has to offer, this is the card I hate the most. Nice board position, but guess what my Sensei's Top was hiding from you? That is right a one mana f'ing wrath of god. I don't care that you have Vengvines in play or a Scavenging ooze in your hand to recoup with because I did not kill your creatures. I put them somewhere irrevelent.

If I lose one match to this son of bitch removal card I will probably just rip my deck to shreds and give my opponent the finger. I guess won't have to worry about losing to this card again because I will only play combo decks while it is legal. Or control.

I would actually rather play against and/or with the former king of board sweepers: Balance. That card at least feels symmetrical(even though I know it is not). This card feels like an ultimate creature rape. WTF wizards of the coast, WTF!

Anybody else kinda feel the same way or am I the only one here?

It's funny you mention SDT because they can WoG you on your turn...

...at the end of your turn.

Imagine this: a U/W miracle deck with tops and BS and Temporal Mastery and Terminus. For UW1, they WoG you on your turn and take two turns after the fact.

LOL!

[joemauer]

It's funny you mention SDT because they can WoG you on your turn...

...at the end of your turn.

LOL!

That just pisses me off more. This card even invalidates haste creatures.

[DragoFireheart]

22 Lands (some configuration of Tundras and Underground seas with other lands)

4 Brainstorm
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
2 Temporal Mastery
2 Terminus
1 Entreat the Angels
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Snapcaster mage
1 Batterskull
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Lingering Souls
3 Spell Snare


This is of course me speculating a list that could use these miracle cards.

[Lord Seth]

At a local Legacy tournament someone told me that Wizards apparently said on Twitter that they were considering an emergency ban on one of the miracle cards (they said Wizards didn't specify which one). But dailymtg (that's the main Twitter account for Magic, right?) doesn't seem to have such a tweet. Did Wizards or a member of R&D say that somewhere else or was the claim that it was said incorrect? Can anyone confirm this?

[Lemnear]

At a local Legacy tournament someone told me that Wizards apparently said on Twitter that they were considering an emergency ban on one of the miracle cards (they said Wizards didn't specify which one). But dailymtg (that's the main Twitter account for Magic, right?) doesn't seem to have such a tweet. Did Wizards or a member of R&D say that somewhere else or was the claim that it was said incorrect? Can anyone confirm this?

There won't be an emergency ban. People who have not tested the miracle cards just piss their pants and heared the story about memory jar ... rest is the result of internet-rumor in which a "if it's too strong they may Ban it like Jar" becomes "they'll Ban it like Jar".

[majikal]

At a local Legacy tournament someone told me that Wizards apparently said on Twitter that they were considering an emergency ban on one of the miracle cards (they said Wizards didn't specify which one). But dailymtg (that's the main Twitter account for Magic, right?) doesn't seem to have such a tweet. Did Wizards or a member of R&D say that somewhere else or was the claim that it was said incorrect? Can anyone confirm this?
It wasn't on Twitter AFAIK. One of the guys at the WotC booth at PAX East said the red Miracle card would likely be banned in Legacy before it got out of hand.

[resum]

It wasn't on Twitter AFAIK. One of the guys at the WotC booth at PAX East said the red Miracle card would likely be banned in Legacy before it got out of hand.

But I want to reforge some souls :(

[DrJones]

Actually, he didn't say it was the red miracle. He said it was a nonblue miracle. There are a lot of reasons to believe it was reforge the souls, but he didn't specifically stated so.

[mrjumbo03]

If it's non-blue, it'd have to be either Reforge the Soul or Terminus.

[JDK]

If it's non-blue, it'd have to be either Reforge the Soul or Terminus.

Yep. I guess it's Reforge the Soul, given Smart Burns recent success.

[(nameless one)]

That's really unfortunate if it's Reforge the Soul because I can't wait for it in my MUD build.

[Bruticus]

I'm convinced it's Reforge the Souls. Why do they tease us so. :frown:

[joemauer]

I don't think it is reforge the soul. It is kind of tough to abuse in combo decks and most other decks can't or don't want to use this card. Not saying it is bad, but don't think the card is going to be widespread or broken enough to warrant a ban.

I think it is Terminus. Invalidating creatures swarms doesn't seem to be a good thing for legacy. Brainstorm sure will help it but Sensei's top will push this card over the top. Hiding in the top three cards until you need it is huge for a control deck. Being able to cast it for one mana is huge. Control decks often lose to swarms before reaching that magical four mana. It is easier to not worry about wasteland or daze when your sweeper is one mana. This card is huge. Control has long been repressed in the format, but this card may have been too aggressively costed.

@anyone comparing wrath of god to Terminus: Terminus does not trigger Bridge from the Below, Ignores Vengvines, and has no disadvantage against Reanimator. Also, it could potentially be cast on your opponents turn to trump haste creatures.

Terminus does all these things for the same mana cost of Swords to Plowshares.

The fact that WotC wants to push creatures(in all formats) befuddles me as to why they printed this non sense of a card.

[colo]

Terminus does seem totally insane. I expect it to wreak havoc on the format. Uw control will be nigh unbeatable unless Reforge the Soul breaks combo even more absurdly.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Reforge the Souls is absolutely insane in combo vs. Non-Blue decks, at the same time it gives blue decks even more chances to blow you out with FoW. For that reason I don't see it becoming a staple. Terminus is just stupid. I'm not going to say it's broken, it's just why the hell would they print that card?

[Erdvermampfa]

I've played with Terminus and I say it's a fair card.

[DragoFireheart]

I've played with Terminus and I say it's a fair card.

Deck list please. I don't believe you.

[CorpT]

Deck list please. I don't believe you.

That's really funny.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Deck list please. I don't believe you.


That's really funny.

...hilarious

[Erdvermampfa]

// Lands
4 [OD] Island (4)
2 [US] Plains (3)
2 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [B] Tundra
3 [REW] Wasteland
1 [B] Plateau

// Creatures
3 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage

// Spells
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
2 [AVR] Entreat the Angels
4 [FNM] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [AVR] Terminus
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
2 [IA] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [M12] Oblivion Ring
SB: 1 [DS] Pulse of the Fields
SB: 3 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [NPH] Surgical Extraction


This has been doing well so far, especially against G/W Maverick of course. U/W Control decks really profit from Avacyn Restored I guess. While you have a cheap sweeper now that isn't that vulnerable to Daze (compared to Wrath, Terminus is also fine against Delver and Thresh), Entreat the Angels solves the issue of the too ponderous Win Condition because it can turn the board situation significantally when you've reached a sufficient land count. I feel that we might want to choose an approach with Entreat the Angels as the main Win Condition because Planeswalkers have been doing bad lately, mainly because of all that Burn and flash creatures. Nevertheless, my concern is that the list above lacks a bit of card advantage. I used to run 3 Ancestral vision in place of 1 Pierce and 2 Counterspell but found that cutting CS isn't very helpful and snapcaster mage evolves its full potential with these 1 mana counters. Also Ancestral Vision isn't that impressive neither except you run Time Walk in conjunction but Time Walk seems to be rather bad because we simply can't capitalize on the additional attack phase.

[DragoFireheart]

That's really funny.

If you guys can do it, why can't I?

I actually posted a deck list even though I never claimed to have played with the card. But nice try. :laugh:

[DragoFireheart]

This has been doing well so far, especially against G/W Maverick of course. U/W Control decks really profit from Avacyn Restored I guess. While you have a cheap sweeper now that isn't that vulnerable to Daze (compared to Wrath, Terminus is also fine against Delver and Thresh), Entreat the Angels solves the issue of the too ponderous Win Condition because it can turn the board situation significantally when you've reached a sufficient land count. I feel that we might want to choose an approach with Entreat the Angels as the main Win Condition because Planeswalkers have been doing bad lately, mainly because of all that Burn and flash creatures. Nevertheless, my concern is that the list above lacks a bit of card advantage. I used to run 3 Ancestral vision in place of 1 Pierce and 2 Counterspell but found that cutting CS isn't very helpful and snapcaster mage evolves its full potential with these 1 mana counters. Also Ancestral Vision isn't that impressive neither except you run Time Walk in conjunction but Time Walk seems to be rather bad because we simply can't capitalize on the additional attack phase.

Alright... you didn't really convince me that it was unfair. Mostly what I see is that it's a "good card". Why do you feel that Terminus is not unfair? I could at least understand the argument for the Time Walk not being that great in a control shell because we can't abuse it as well as say, a combo deck. Something like Sneak&Show would rather have the exra turn as opposed to UW Landstill. I'm not seeing it for Terminus since:

A- Casting it for W isn't hard.

B- "Kills" many things that swords can't for the same amount of mana.

C- Can be done on your opponents turn ala top.

[Tacosnape]

The following could also be said of Terminus:

1. It's completely dead against certain decks.

2. Like every single other Miracle card except for Temporal Mastery (And Thunderous Wrath possibly in certain decks), if you happen to topdeck it outside of your manipulation, there are times when you aren't actually going to want to play it.

Not that I don't think Terminus is amazing. It is. But UWx Control's been needing an answer like this. Over the last couple blocks, Hexproof and uncounterability have gotten out of control. I don't even think Terminus is enough to save this archetype from the savage facemelting that is Cavern of Souls, which will make decks like Goblins and MUD a nightmare. Terminus is what's needed for it to stay on par for the course.

[DragoFireheart]

I don't even think Terminus is enough to save this archetype from the savage facemelting that is Cavern of Souls, which will make decks like Goblins and MUD a nightmare. Terminus is what's needed for it to stay on par for the course.

Those decks weren't doing well before. If anything, Cavern of Souls is what is needed to stop blue decks from melting their faces.

And by blue I mean Stoneblade, Sneak&Show, and Canadian Thresh / RUG Tempo / Tempo Thresh.

[matunos]

I don't even think Terminus is enough to save this archetype from the savage facemelting that is Cavern of Souls, which will make decks like Goblins and MUD a nightmare. Terminus is what's needed for it to stay on par for the course.

Why would MUD want Cavern of Souls? Each of their creatures are of a different type, and they want mana acceleration in the form of Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors (and Metalworker, once he's in play).

True, tapping for colorless is more useful for MUD, but is the small advantage of getting one un-Forceable(*) creature worth dropping some of the lands they already play?

Again, let me point out that the current dominant form of Stoneblade has weakened its counter suite for discard.

[DragoFireheart]

Again, let me point out that the current dominant form of Stoneblade has weakened its counter suite for discard.

I think this was done more in response to Storm/Sneak&Show decks and not so much that blue is "weak".

Discard is generally better against Storm: proactively getting rid of key-combo pieces will slow them down more rather than waiting for them to go off.

As for sneak&show, most counterspells are bad against them. Spell Snare doesn't hit much, Counterspell is a turn too slow, and Spell Pierce doesn't work as they can get enough mana to play around it.

Stoneblade splashes black for Lingering souls anyways.

[(nameless one)]

Why would MUD want Cavern of Souls? Each of their creatures are of a different type, and they want mana acceleration in the form of Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors (and Metalworker, once he's in play).


I've always wanted to play Chalice and Goblin Welder together on the same build. With Caverb of Souls, you can actually put a Chalice on one without worrying about your Welder.

So you get dual protection from Chalice and Welder (since Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile) is a beating.

Also, against blue decks, you can actually go ramp>ramp>threat, without worrying about it getting FoWed. (because seriously, why would you FoW the ramp if you know you can 2 for one your opponent).

[Gheizen64]

Why would MUD want Cavern of Souls? Each of their creatures are of a different type, and they want mana acceleration in the form of Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors (and Metalworker, once he's in play).

True, tapping for colorless is more useful for MUD, but is the small advantage of getting one un-Forceable(*) creature worth dropping some of the lands they already play?

Again, let me point out that the current dominant form of Stoneblade has weakened its counter suite for discard.

Because gettings bombs countered is a big deal for MUD. It also allow you to go for CotV AND Welder more consistently, even if i still don't know how consistently so.

[Vacrix]

Its worth mentioning that Maverick still has Teeg and GSZ to stop the opponents from sweeping with Terminus, and GSZ to recover. In that sense, Deed is a bit better at board sweeping in that you can drop it through Teeg at a convenient 3cc. It will be good in UW Control but I have a feeling that BUG Control will retain its own niche in the heavy control archetype.

[DragoFireheart]

Its worth mentioning that Maverick still has Teeg and GSZ to stop the opponents from sweeping with Terminus, and GSZ to recover. In that sense, Deed is a bit better at board sweeping in that you can drop it through Teeg at a convenient 3cc. It will be good in UW Control but I have a feeling that BUG Control will retain its own niche in the heavy control archetype.

The thing is Terminus is a hell of a lot cheaper than Deed.

Deed is 3 mana investment. You need to speend at least another mana to hit CMC1 creatures. To hit most things in Maverick (KotR), you need to spend 6 mana total (3 for casting, 3 for sac). That's 6 there.

Meanwhile, Terminus costs 6 without setup and 1 with some setup. Teeg can stop it, but that still doesn't change the fact of how powerful Terminus is. Terminus also hits ANY that Sneak-n-Show can throw at you. Even if they try to pull a fast one, it's possible for you to cast Terminus on their turn to stop an Emrukul if somehow you fail to counter their Sneak/Show. Deed can't do much about Sneak-n-Show decks.

I'm not sure why you brought up BUG control. Does BUG control have a better Maverick matchup or is it a better anti-control deck/preys on UW control decks?

[feline]

Deed does have X in it's CMC, so it has to be out before the teeg comes out. >^,^<

[mrjumbo03]

Deed does have X in it's CMC, so it has to be out before the teeg comes out >^,^<

Deed doesn't have X in its CMC.

[Vacrix]

The thing is Terminus is a hell of a lot cheaper than Deed.

Deed is 3 mana investment. You need to speend at least another mana to hit CMC1 creatures. To hit most things in Maverick (KotR), you need to spend 6 mana total (3 for casting, 3 for sac). That's 6 there.

Meanwhile, Terminus costs 6 without setup and 1 with some setup. Teeg can stop it, but that still doesn't change the fact of how powerful Terminus is. Terminus also hits ANY that Sneak-n-Show can throw at you. Even if they try to pull a fast one, it's possible for you to cast Terminus on their turn to stop an Emrukul if somehow you fail to counter their Sneak/Show. Deed can't do much about Sneak-n-Show decks.

I'm not sure why you brought up BUG control. Does BUG control have a better Maverick matchup or is it a better anti-control deck/preys on UW control decks?
It is a heavy investment at 3 against aggressive decks, but its advantage over Terminus is that it can kill stuff like Equipment, something UW Control has trouble answering without countermagic.

You don't have to pay 6. You can afford to wait until turn 4 to blow it if you can land it turn 3. Also, you have other stuff to slow them down like Innocent Blood and a good countermagic suite that often includes the traditional Counterspell and Spell Snare.

You might beable to Terminus in response to Sneak Attack. I admit its better there, however, you can still draw 14 cards with Grizzlebrand in response to Terminus and thats big trouble for a slow control deck. Terminus won't always get there in that matchup.

BUG control is fantastic against control decks, and I'd say it has a good Maverick matchup.

[Pippin]

As per latest big tournament results... seems like B/R is fine and no bans are needed.

Maybe it would be good for those that are amongst the frontrunners for random banning to actually stop next time and decide to hold their wisdom for themselves. Last few weeks were seriously chaotic due to massive overreactions.

[Reagens]

After some intensive testing the past few days with the cards of the new set I think show and tell might be on the list soon.
Both sneak/show and reanimator benefit greatly from this card and are pushing out control as a feasible strategy in legacy. Control (landstill is a prime example) has always had difficulty with fast combo and both sneak and show and reanimator give you little to no time for interaction.
I also base this on the fact that the most powerful creature you could show and tell in quite a few time ago was a 10/10 protection from everything and that doesn't even make the cut now. Griselbrand (especially lifelink) make does decks go over the top power level wise and if not it's just a matter of time that it will get out of hand (if not this set it will be the next). Show&Tell is clearly the enabler for both decks (reanimator needs it do dodge gy hate post-board and would become vulnerable to hate pb without it) and would probably get the axe if Wizards decides action is warranted.

[dontbiteitholmes]

After some intensive testing the past few days with the cards of the new set I think show and tell might be on the list soon.
Both sneak/show and reanimator benefit greatly from this card and are pushing out control as a feasible strategy in legacy. Control (landstill is a prime example) has always had difficulty with fast combo and both sneak and show and reanimator give you little to no time for interaction.
I also base this on the fact that the most powerful creature you could show and tell in quite a few time ago was a 10/10 protection from everything and that doesn't even make the cut now. Griselbrand (especially lifelink) make does decks go over the top power level wise and if not it's just a matter of time that it will get out of hand (if not this set it will be the next). Show&Tell is clearly the enabler for both decks (reanimator needs it do dodge gy hate post-board and would become vulnerable to hate pb without it) and would probably get the axe if Wizards decides action is warranted.

Yeah it's almost like WotC is trying to break Show and Tell.

First it was 10/10 untouchable, what could be better? Then it was 15/15 flying annihilator untargetable by spells what could be better? Now it's 7/7 YawgBargain with Lifelink, what could be better?

We'll have to wait and see though, Emrakul couldn't put Show&Tell over the top, so the bar is set pretty damn high.

[lordofthepit]

After some intensive testing the past few days with the cards of the new set I think show and tell might be on the list soon.
Both sneak/show and reanimator benefit greatly from this card and are pushing out control as a feasible strategy in legacy. Control (landstill is a prime example) has always had difficulty with fast combo and both sneak and show and reanimator give you little to no time for interaction.
I also base this on the fact that the most powerful creature you could show and tell in quite a few time ago was a 10/10 protection from everything and that doesn't even make the cut now. Griselbrand (especially lifelink) make does decks go over the top power level wise and if not it's just a matter of time that it will get out of hand (if not this set it will be the next). Show&Tell is clearly the enabler for both decks (reanimator needs it do dodge gy hate post-board and would become vulnerable to hate pb without it) and would probably get the axe if Wizards decides action is warranted.

Show and Tell is pretty broken, but if it hasn't been banned already, why now? Reanimator is a dead deck (at least for now). Hive Mind and Dream Halls don't see much play (zero placements in the SCGRI Top 32). Sneak Attack is a DTB, but it's probably the weakest of the DTBs (although Griselbrand shoudl improve it a lot); even then, it only placed 1 deck in the Top 32 of SCGRI.

Of course, these data are not completely representative of the overall metagame, but Show and Tell has never been a weaker strategy than it is right now. Too many decks are currently running Spell Pierce, in addition to all the other normal hate.

[Reagens]

Show and Tell is pretty broken, but if it hasn't been banned already, why now? Reanimator is a dead deck (at least for now). Hive Mind and Dream Halls don't see much play (zero placements in the SCGRI Top 32). Sneak Attack is a DTB, but it's probably the weakest of the DTBs (although Griselbrand shoudl improve it a lot); even then, it only placed 1 deck in the Top 32 of SCGRI.

Of course, these data are not completely representative of the overall metagame, but Show and Tell has never been a weaker strategy than it is right now. Too many decks are currently running Spell Pierce, in addition to all the other normal hate.

There are no current data available since in my opinion Griselbrand will be the creature that puts both decks over the top.
Spell pierce is barely an option since 5 mana turn 3 is easily possible (petals were inlcuded in our test list). And take into account that griselbrand doesn't need an attack fase to be effective because of it's draw effect. It also refills sneak attacks hand (which was a consistency issue) and can be used as a chump blocker (block, draw seven or gain 7 life anyone??) while reanimate needs to expend a lot of life to do something over the course of a game and that is of course solved with a 7/7 lifelink flyer.

[lordofthepit]

There are no current data available since in my opinion Griselbrand will be the creature that puts both decks over the top.
Spell pierce is barely an option since 5 mana turn 3 is easily possible (petals were inlcuded in our test list). And take into account that griselbrand doesn't need an attack fase to be effective because of it's draw effect. It also refills sneak attacks hand (which was a consistency issue) and can be used as a chump blocker (block, draw seven or gain 7 life anyone??) while reanimate needs to expend a lot of life to do something over the course of a game and that is of course solved with a 7/7 lifelink flyer.

That's a fair opinion, but we should wait for the fallout before banning.

Not sure Reanimator benefits too much from Griselbrand:
- Against RUG, you have trouble reanimating your creatures, but most creatures you reanimate (besides Jin) probably win you the game.
- Against Stoneblade, Griselbrand is probably as good as it gets, so big addition here.
- Against Maverick, Griselbrand is much better than Jin, but worse than Sphinx (because of Karakas), so it depends on what you cut. However, Jin also pitches to Force of Will, which is really important, since you can't beat Ooze, Knight, or an early GSZ for either.

Sneak Attack gets ridiculous with Griselbrand, of course.

[dragonwisdom]

unbanning survival.

If they banned the ooze combo. Is survival vengevine really that broken?

[Leftconsin]

I'm still solidly of the belief that Survival can come off in about 2014 and be safe. Survival for the health of Legacy should have gone away, but it shouldn't have been permanent given that Legacy's power level is still rising. Unfortunately, bannings are really hard to undo, and most cards that come off only come off when they are completely impotent.

[majikal]

Is survival vengevine really that broken?
Yes. It is. And this is coming from someone who played the fuck out of it the entire time it was legal.

Survival can come off with Vengevine still legal when every color has an amazing card that is good on its own but is also, incidentally, savage graveyard hate.

[Koby]

I had a thought today about how to relive TEES, and it involved a bunch of bad cards that still wouldn't work well together. Concordant Crossroads + Fauna Shaman is no SotF. Keep it banned for the health of Legacy's sake.

[Blitzbold]

Yes. It is. And this is coming from someone who played the fuck out of it the entire time it was legal.

Survival can come off with Vengevine still legal when every color has an amazing card that is good on its own but is also, incidentally, savage graveyard hate.

Doesn't Surgical Extraction fit this? I doubt it's enough, though.

I'd love to see Survival back in the format as it was part of different strong decks throughout the history of the format and therefore kind of belongs here in my view.

Who didn't liked ATS when it was good? However, I doubt that we'll see SotF anytime soon again.

WotC probably has a good idea how cards in the nearer future will look like. Although they don't mention this as a selling point when giving reasons for bannings, but I developed some kind of scepticism over the years. Maybe they even knew that Miracle cards would be pretty good in a format with Mystical Tutor legal? ;)

[feline]

Deed doesn't have X in its CMC.

Omg why did I confuse that! LMAO.

[Vacrix]

I wonder how the Miracle mechanic will affect Mana Drain's power if it gets unbanned (or considered). Now people have a method of casting spells that cost like 5 to 7 for a significantly reduced cost. Terminus, Retreat the Angels, and Devastation Tide are all legacy playable (and perhaps Thunderous Wrath and Temporal Mastery).. Decks could counter these spells and then have access to enough mana to cast their own Miracle spells they are holding in hand. Frankly, Mana Drain into Retreat the Angel seems like it could be pretty fucking amazing. UW Control would love itself some Mana Drain right now.

I bring this up because previously people were saying that there isn't much that you want to cast with Mana Drain right now, but with stuff like Retreat the Angels.. perhaps Mana Drain could have some applications in Legacy. Also, Force and Jace aren't going anywhere so there are still some pretty high costed cards that make Mana Drain strictly better than Counterspell in the control mirror. Also, Nic Fit is doing pretty well right now and that deck hard casts stuff at like 6cc... Perhaps an unbanning of Mana Drain would even allow decks to play cards they don't normally play simply because they will have access to tons of mana in certain matchups. Temporal Mastery, being one such card. Also, there is Fireblast which sees play in Burn and UR Delver.

Other plays I could see being made with Mana drain are Drain into Batterskull, other equipment, Jace (to leave some lands untapped for cantrips/countermagic/removal), Deed activations at costs that can destroy stuff like Sneak Attack/Hive Mind/Dream Halls or even fatties if you have enough mana with lands, and in a deck like Faerie Stompy you could cast a bunch of Stax pieces with it too.

Mana Drain would primarily be good in the control mirror and against decks like Nic Fit and Show and Tell variants because they have spells that cost more than 4 where you can actually profit well from a Mana Drain. It could also be good against UR Delver which often plays both Fireblast and Force of Will. Also, Spell Snare still exists for the post-board and with Vial AND Cavern, I can't see this hurting aggro too much. I'd say with most of the Legacy control power resting with Tempo decks ATM, unbanning Mana Drain is safe and could potentially add some balance to the format.

[Aggro_zombies]

Doesn't Surgical Extraction fit this? I doubt it's enough, though.

I'd love to see Survival back in the format as it was part of different strong decks throughout the history of the format and therefore kind of belongs here in my view.

Who didn't liked ATS when it was good? However, I doubt that we'll see SotF anytime soon again.

WotC probably has a good idea how cards in the nearer future will look like. Although they don't mention this as a selling point when giving reasons for bannings, but I developed some kind of scepticism over the years. Maybe they even knew that Miracle cards would be pretty good in a format with Mystical Tutor legal? ;)
A couple of things.

1) Strong graveyard hate existed during the Survival-Vengevine era. That didn't stop Survival from acting as a perfectly good tutor engine in an aggro-control shell. If you went overboard with graveyard hate, they'd get you with dudes; if you went overboard with dudes hate, they'd Fireball you with Vengevines.

2) Avacyn Restored wasn't in development when Mystical Tutor was banned. IIRC Design is about two years ahead of where were are now and Development is about a year ahead of where we are now.

One of the stated reason for the Mystical ban was that it limited R&D's ability to make interesting and strong spells or spell mechanics; anytime a really good spell came out, Mystical would be there to abuse the shit out of it in Legacy. R&D would rather see the common denominator enabler banned for several reasons:

1) They could ban each of the cards it enables, but they got burned once by this with Necropotence;

2) They want people to buy new cards and banning them in Eternal formats disincentivizes this;

3) Having new cards continuously enter the format is one of the few ways to keep Eternal formats from stagnating. If the new cards were constantly getting banned, the format would likely reach a point wherein the underlying architecture is always the same but the format might deviate from it every now and then until a ban happened.

Mystical and Survival both fall into a category of cards that push players to behave in ways R&D doesn't like for the above three reasons. Sure, Survival might be fine with Vengevine banned, but VVine showed that Survival is easily pushed into "overpowered" territory with the right type of card and therefore can be re-broken at any time. But this argument is already rather played out.

I realize most Legacy players would rather play with old toys than new ones, but I think a dynamic format is better than one wherein people continue to mash the same stale decks against each other for years.

[frenchy-man]

Well, I also think that survival could deserve to be unban.

First, they have created surgical extraction. This card fits perfectly well in the sideboards of every decks, and perfectly deals with those vengevine which were the main kill of the best survival decks. I think that this is the most important reason to unban survival. When sotf was banned, the only gravehate available to everyone was relic/tormod/faerie (and ligne ley that I don't take into account because of it's randomness). And it was very easy to dodge with those hate cards. Surgical seal the deal with vengevine plan.

What's more I think that almost every deck improved it's clock/redundancy.
Tempo decks obtained delver, dredge faithless, reanimator and sneak-noob.deck got griselbrand, storm got past in flammes...
That said, I think that all those decks, with these new weapons for them, could handle survival.decks more easily.

Waiting for your answer.

frenchy

[Malakai]

The following cards will never, ever be unbanned in Legacy:


Ante cards
Power 10
Mystical, vampiric, demonic tutors and imperial seal
Balance
Earthcraft
Flash
Gush
Hermit Druid
Library of Alexandria
Mind's Desire
Mishra's Workshop
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Shahrazad
Skullclamp
Strip Mine
Sol Ring
Survival of the Fittest
Tolarian Academy
Windfall
Wheel of Fortune
Yawgmoth's Will


Making a case that any of the above cards should be unbanned is at best wishful thinking and at worst self-delusion.

A note on Survival of the Fittest: If you do not understand what makes this card unsafe then you need to work on your understanding of the fundamentals.

[nedleeds]

As per mods moving shitty attempt to argue for unrestricting other less ubiquitous cards in the face of Brainstorms stifling dominance.

Bazaar of Moxen 6: Brainstorm 7/8 top 8
SCG: Brainstorm 7/8, 10 or top 12

[Tacosnape]

Brainstorm doesn't exert "Stifling dominance." Some cards can show up everywhere without exerting stifling dominance. If 32 Wastelands showed up in a Top 8, would you call for the banning of it? (Has this ever happened? I've seen 28, but not 32) Ditto for Force of Will (It's happened), Noble Hierarch (I've seen 28), Swords to Plowshares (I've seen 28), Cabal Therapy (I've seen 24), Lightning Bolt (I've seen 24), Island, etc. Some cards are just the glue that holds things together, and some card is -always- going to be the best card that shows up more than the rest.

I'm personally more concerned that top 8's are averaging 12-16 Show and Tells, in three different Show and Tell combo decks.

[frenchy-man]

The following cards will never, ever be unbanned in Legacy:


Making a case that any of the above cards should be unbanned is at best wishful thinking and at worst self-delusion.

A note on Survival of the Fittest: If you do not understand what makes this card unsafe then you need to work on your understanding of the fundamentals.

Just saying that the deck dominated only in the US. In Europe, the deck was very powerful, just as TT nowadays. The card was banned because of some american whiners. We adapted to the deck in Europed.

[rufus]

The following cards will never, ever be unbanned in Legacy:
...
Making a case that any of the above cards should be unbanned is at best wishful thinking and at worst self-delusion.
...

You can add Channel and Fastbond to that list.

Mind's Desire seems like an odd inclusion in a list where all other cards banned for power level have an effective casting cost of at most 3. (Nothing at 4cc, and Gush at 5 is clearly there because of the alternative casting cost.)

[LOurs]

Just saying that the deck dominated only in the US. In Europe, the deck was very powerful, just as TT nowadays. The card was banned because of some american whiners. We adapted to the deck in Europed.

I'm european, I love SotF and this is a pretty nice story but this just isnt true, satistics easly show you're wrong, including with european tournaments results. Let's be realistic : a tutor engine at 1G was just not compatible anymore with the average powerness of recently released creatures. This could be said also with SnT, but the main difference is that SotF does provide to the the ability to search your deck the right solution to a difficult situation, but SnT does not. SotF was much much more versatile, less impressive in theory, but stronger in reality.

[joemauer]

I'm personally more concerned that top 8's are averaging 12-16 Show and Tells, in three different Show and Tell combo decks.

WotC probably printed Grislebrand so they could have a good excuse to ban Show and Tell.

I think Show and Tell will eventually get banned due the nature of card though. Sooner or later.

[menace13]

I'm personally more concerned that top 8's are averaging 12-16 Show and Tells, in three different Show and Tell combo decks.

Good to know that now it isn't Delvers and GSZeniths any longer.... :/

[kusumoto]

The following cards will never, ever be unbanned in Legacy:

Ante cards
Power 10
Mystical, vampiric, demonic tutors and imperial seal
Balance
Earthcraft
Flash
Gush
Hermit Druid
Library of Alexandria
Mind's Desire
Mishra's Workshop
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Shahrazad
Skullclamp
Strip Mine
Sol Ring
Survival of the Fittest
Tolarian Academy
Windfall
Wheel of Fortune
Yawgmoth's Will

Making a case that any of the above cards should be unbanned is at best wishful thinking and at worst self-delusion.

A note on Survival of the Fittest: If you do not understand what makes this card unsafe then you need to work on your understanding of the fundamentals.

Earthcraft? Really? I don't even understand why people are scared of this card. I bet nobody can produce a list of anything that goes over the top with this. So Elves might be good? That's fine isn't it?

I'm also a tad sick of people thinking Hermit Druid is the Bogey Man. Is there something other than a Cephalid Breakfast deck with a few less colors and dead cards that this guy can be used in? That's all I see and it isn't very scary.

[Vacrix]

Well... the fact that you could play GSZ into Hermit Druid seems pretty good because then it dodges counters and allows you to run virtual copies. Also, Hermit Druid is the breakfast refined. He allows you to save a lot of deck space, allowing you to play more cantrips, protection, etc.

Also, with access to something like Cavern of Souls (naming Human), this deck could play Hermit Druid through Countermagic, not to mention Vial.

Not saying it would bust the format up but it seems like it would be REALLY powerful.

[Aggro_zombies]

Well... the fact that you could play GSZ into Hermit Druid seems pretty good because then it dodges counters and allows you to run virtual copies. Also, Hermit Druid is the breakfast refined. He allows you to save a lot of deck space, allowing you to play more cantrips, protection, etc.

Also, with access to something like Cavern of Souls (naming Human), this deck could play Hermit Druid through Countermagic, not to mention Vial.

Not saying it would bust the format up but it seems like it would be REALLY powerful.
There's nothing wrong with that, I think. Reanimator and Dredge are both strong, graveyard-based linears; Show and Tell decks (of various flavors) and Reanimator are both strong blue-based combo decks with cantrips and disruption. The format could probably stand a Hermit Druid deck.

[kusumoto]

Well... the fact that you could play GSZ into Hermit Druid seems pretty good because then it dodges counters and allows you to run virtual copies. Also, Hermit Druid is the breakfast refined. He allows you to save a lot of deck space, allowing you to play more cantrips, protection, etc.

Also, with access to something like Cavern of Souls (naming Human), this deck could play Hermit Druid through Countermagic, not to mention Vial.

Not saying it would bust the format up but it seems like it would be REALLY powerful.


You save four slots. You also now have to wait for summoning sickness. If you try to come up with any nonsense solutions to that, those are just taking back those slots you just saved.

You need to pass the turn with a 1/1 green creature. Cavern sounds good and all, but it doesn't cast very much else. GSZ for the druid costs 3 mana.

I'm not saying it would be horrible. Really all he would do is make breakfast less bad. It would still be a deck that loses to all removal and graveyard hate and pithing needle.

Again, this is assuming there isn't something better than breakfast that can be done with him.

[dontbiteitholmes]

These cards could probably be unbanned.

Black Vise - Only concern = Stasis, which I would play because I'm a dick, so maybe not.
Earthcraft - Extremely Meh card. Does nothing on it's own and maybe only goes in Enchantress as a 1x if it goes anywhere.
Land Tax - Terrible card. Embarrassment to the ban list.
Mind Twist - Maybe
Mind's Desire - Worse than other options.
Shahrazad - This card was never a problem when it was played. If you have the balls to run this you should be able to.
Survival of the Fittest - You have a powerful card that was really good but not broken for 10 years, then you have a shitty card that breaks it and does absolutely nothing else. Fix your mistake WotC, ban Vine, unban Survival.


Earthcraft? Really? I don't even understand why people are scared of this card. I bet nobody can produce a list of anything that goes over the top with this. So Elves might be good? That's fine isn't it?

I'm also a tad sick of people thinking Hermit Druid is the Bogey Man. Is there something other than a Cephalid Breakfast deck with a few less colors and dead cards that this guy can be used in? That's all I see and it isn't very scary.

There are several ways to do it, but the end result is the same. Hermit Druid taps, and the game ends. He was considered broken in a time before Narcomoebas and Dread Returns and things have only gone more in his favor since then. Hermit Druid, a few combo peices, and the rest of the deck is disruption and non-basic lands. He has pretty good synergy with Cabal Therapy.

[I am the brainwasher]

Survival of the Fittest - You have a powerful card that was really good but not broken for 10 years, then you have a shitty card that breaks it and does absolutely nothing else. Fix your mistake WotC, ban Vine, unban Survival.

I'd like to see that also. I am quite fed up with Control beeing 45-55% of the meta.

[kusumoto]

There are several ways to do it, but the end result is the same. Hermit Druid taps, and the game ends. He was considered broken in a time before Narcomoebas and Dread Returns and things have only gone more in his favor since then. Hermit Druid, a few combo peices, and the rest of the deck is disruption and non-basic lands. He has pretty good synergy with Cabal Therapy.

A few combo pieces =
3 Narco
1 Redcap
1 Dread Return
1 Mimeoplasm
1 Lord of Extinction
4 Hermit

That's 11 cards, 7 of which you basically never want in your hand. Hermit druid taps and you try to make the game end. It does work well with cabal therapy, but they can still just surgical your dread return in response to that cabal therapy.

The breakfast combo is SO easy to disrupt and he actually makes it easier to disrupt because of summoning sickness. With the current deck you combo as soon as the second guy hits.

All Hermit Druid does is take the breakfast combo from total trash to a good deck. It wouldn't even be a DtB. It would be good, but it would still lose to every piece of disruption ever conceived just like breakfast does now.

[rufus]

...
There are several ways to do it, but the end result is the same. Hermit Druid taps, and the game ends. He was considered broken in a time before Narcomoebas and Dread Returns and things have only gone more in his favor since then. Hermit Druid, a few combo peices, and the rest of the deck is disruption and non-basic lands. He has pretty good synergy with Cabal Therapy.

Alternatively, he's in the sideboard in game 1, and then tries to steal game 2 or 3.

[ThomasDowd]

I'd like to see that also. I am quite fed up with Control beeing 45-55% of the meta.

but is it really? even still what percentage would you like to see it at? I think that number is fine considering that most combo decks I would consider as aggro. I don't really consider combo a pillar I personally think there are just two approaches: beatdown and control, and the combo decks fall into one of those camps. mostly beatdown.

[ThomasDowd]

A few combo pieces =
3 Narco
1 Redcap
1 Dread Return
1 Mimeoplasm
1 Lord of Extinction
4 Hermit

That's 11 cards, 7 of which you basically never want in your hand. Hermit druid taps and you try to make the game end. It does work well with cabal therapy, but they can still just surgical your dread return in response to that cabal therapy.

The breakfast combo is SO easy to disrupt and he actually makes it easier to disrupt because of summoning sickness. With the current deck you combo as soon as the second guy hits.

All Hermit Druid does is take the breakfast combo from total trash to a good deck. It wouldn't even be a DtB. It would be good, but it would still lose to every piece of disruption ever conceived just like breakfast does now.

If you untap with hermit druid you draw your entire deck and win, how is that not broken? he goes in things other than breakfast as well, any graveyard based combo basically.

[frenchy-man]

Concerning survival :

Absolutely, the card is not broken. Strong but not broken. It was played in several decks before its ban, decks that were not dtb.
They edited vengevine and the a new survival appeared. A very powerful deck. So powerful that the metagame has had to shift or else was outdated (like merfolk).
In Spain and France, check out for the results at that time, the deck was dominating, but just like is doing TT currently...
But let's presume the deck was still too strong. The problem is VV is the deck, we all agree on this don't we ? ('cause as I said other survival decks had been played for years).
They edited surgical extraction. THE answer to vengevine. Available to everyone. A card that is also good in many other MUs. Isn't it enough to deal with the deck ?

What's more, many other decks got pretty cards since then... Delver, faithless, past in flammes, thalia... I think that many DTB could actually beat the UG survival that lay thought to be to powerful.

Peace

frenchy

[Vacrix]

There's always the potential to board out those 11 cards and then you can completely transform in the post-board after your opponent boards in a bunch of graveyard hate that will be completely dead against you. It could even be a transformation post-board strategy after game 1 when your opponent doesn't expect it (and then I guess you could transform back in game 3 if you lost game 1 to dodge hate and make them play dead cards).

[frenchy-man]

I do agree with you, but you'll probably agree with me on the fact that the natural order plan is a bit outdated in the current meta don't you ? (loooots of stifle/waste/burn to kill little dudes/spell pierce/daze/...)

[Vacrix]

I don't think it would transform into a Natural Order strategy. It really depends on the rest of the maindeck and the colors (UG being given). Likely it would transform either into aggro with some additional removal/countermagic or a more control oriented approach with a broader countersuite (especially good if you maindeck Jace), removal, and sweepers. Transformations are underplayed often but this one in particular has a mere 11 cards which means you still have 4 slots for another matchup (likely countermagic for combo).

[kusumoto]

I don't think it would transform into a Natural Order strategy. It really depends on the rest of the maindeck and the colors (UG being given). Likely it would transform either into aggro with some additional removal/countermagic or a more control oriented approach with a broader countersuite (especially good if you maindeck Jace), removal, and sweepers. Transformations are underplayed often but this one in particular has a mere 11 cards which means you still have 4 slots for another matchup (likely countermagic for combo).

Perhaps people here haven't played breakfast or are remembering it with some kind of illogical nostalgia.

The power of the deck is largely based on it's speed. You run a low land count with lots of tutoring, manipulation, and disruption. If you're doing silly things like maindecking Jace, you're going to need a bunch of lands (all nonbasics btw) that will slow you down. Being slow with things like Jace and GSZ increases your odds of drawing all those dead cards that you now need to get rid of to win. It also gives your opponent more time to disrupt you. Remember EVERYTHING disrupts you.

I'm open to hearing what non breakfast strategy could possibly benefit from the 2cc 1/1 summoning sick green guy.

Transformational boards aren't played much because they're bad.

[Hanni]

Breakfast? I thought they were talking about Survival Vengevine... which could easily board into some Maverick-style deck with Survivals postboard...

[kusumoto]

Breakfast? I thought they were talking about Survival Vengevine... which could easily board into some Maverick-style deck with Survivals postboard...

No I was talking about Hermit Druid coming off the list not survival.

Survival is a whole different story.

[dragonwisdom]

survival can come off the banned list if they ban ooze combo.

vengvine survival is fair in today's meta.

[JamieW89]

I can see SotF staying banned and SnT being banned eventually due to the design limitations. This is a shame in SotF's case (even with vengevine it never dominated in Europe, and now we have Surgical) but I couldn't care less about SnT and its derpy decks.

I'd also like to see Black Vise, Earthcraft, Land tax and Mind Twist coming off. Cards like Mind's Desire are probably safe, but I don't think they'll even consider it. In fact, I somewhat wonder if they'll even unban much at all any time soon since they could have done it earlier if they wanted.

[Tacosnape]

WotC probably printed Grislebrand so they could have a good excuse to ban Show and Tell.

I think Show and Tell will eventually get banned due the nature of card though. Sooner or later.

Griselbrand was a flavor fix. Until now, there weren't good demons in magic. There were niche demons that could do some serious damage, but there wasn't just "The Demon." Not one that inspired fear into the hearts of players. Griselbrand does that. Doesn't mean Griselbrand was a good idea (Not being able to stop that trigger from getting to the stack is bad for everything ever), but I see the flavor logic.

But it does seem like you're right about Show and Tell. It does fundamentally unfair things, and the more they print cards that were never meant to be hardcasted (Emrakul, Griselbrand, Progenitus, etc.), the more unfair Show and Tell gets. Non Show and Tell-type decks can't run these cards, and therefore can't hang with the unfairness of the spell.


Good to know that now it isn't Delvers and GSZeniths any longer.... :/

The three aren't comparable in their power levels.

Now, don't get me wrong, Delver's pretty amazing, but he has drawbacks, and there's a billion ways to answer him. Red eats Delvers for breakfast. Anything can Gut Shot or Dismember him. White has tons of removal for him. As does Black. The point is, while he's efficient, he can be stopped. Quite easily. You also have to play him in a deck that can regularly flip him. I won't argue what the magic number is, but simply put, the less instants/sorceries you run, the less amazing he is.

Green Sun's Zenith is half of what Survival players got to be appeased with the banning of Survival (Fauna Shaman being the other half.) It's very versatile, very useful, but let's compare it to Show and Tell for a second: Show and Tell, for three mana, is going to win the game unless your opponent has a narrow answer set. Green Sun's Zenith, for that same three mana, isn't going to get you much better than a Qasali Pridemage or Scavenging Ooze. Now, obviously, you have to have the Show and Tell target in your hand and the opponent has to not have something equally horrifying, but this is still a huge discrepancy in potential power level.

Delver and GSZ are also answerable or beatable by every color in many feasible ways. With Show and Tell, this isn't the case. Green and White have very, very little to deal with it, and Red doesn't have much outside of REB/Pyro.

[Malakai]

I wasn't positing a list for discussion. Literally no card on that list will come off. A few can, but none of them will.

The strength of Hermit Druid isn't in a deck like breakfast; why would you even think that? Instead, think of Stoneblade, except instead of a Batterskull they win the game.

Earthcraft makes Enchantress consistently win on turn 3, through multiple pieces of hate. I know this because I played in a tournament where you could choose a non-power 10 card to come off the banned list for your Legacy deck. Everyone thought storm would just win because of Yawg Will, but the me and the other three undefeated enchantress players who are now a couple dual lands richer would beg to differ.

The best Survival deck crushed every other deck in the format. It was as fast as storm, and as resilient as Maverick. Just because you didn't play against people with the correct list does not mean it was safe. Had they not banned it when they did you would have seen Hulk-Flash all over again. Survival is fundamentally broken, and will only become more so as more cards are added. Stop lying to yourself and just admit you miss playing in an environment with Survival.

[kusumoto]

I wasn't positing a list for discussion. Literally no card on that list will come off. A few can, but none of them will.

The strength of Hermit Druid isn't in a deck like breakfast; why would you even think that? Instead, think of Stoneblade, except instead of a Batterskull they win the game.

Earthcraft makes Enchantress consistently win on turn 3, through multiple pieces of hate. I know this because I played in a tournament where you could choose a non-power 10 card to come off the banned list for your Legacy deck. Everyone thought storm would just win because of Yawg Will, but the me and the other three undefeated enchantress players who are now a couple dual lands richer would beg to differ.

The best Survival deck crushed every other deck in the format. It was as fast as storm, and as resilient as Maverick. Just because you didn't play against people with the correct list does not mean it was safe. Had they not banned it when they did you would have seen Hulk-Flash all over again. Survival is fundamentally broken, and will only become more so as more cards are added. Stop lying to yourself and just admit you miss playing in an environment with Survival.

What are you even talking about with hermit? You dont just magically win when your library goes to your graveyard. How are you winning exactly? What is with people thinking druid just magically wins the game without even beginning to consider what you have to do with a deck to make that happen?

[menace13]

The three aren't comparable in their power levels.

Now, don't get me wrong, Delver's pretty amazing, but he has drawbacks, and there's a billion ways to answer him. Red eats Delvers for breakfast. Anything can Gut Shot or Dismember him. White has tons of removal for him. As does Black. The point is, while he's efficient, he can be stopped. Quite easily. You also have to play him in a deck that can regularly flip him. I won't argue what the magic number is, but simply put, the less instants/sorceries you run, the less amazing he is.

Green Sun's Zenith is half of what Survival players got to be appeased with the banning of Survival (Fauna Shaman being the other half.) It's very versatile, very useful, but let's compare it to Show and Tell for a second: Show and Tell, for three mana, is going to win the game unless your opponent has a narrow answer set. Green Sun's Zenith, for that same three mana, isn't going to get you much better than a Qasali Pridemage or Scavenging Ooze. Now, obviously, you have to have the Show and Tell target in your hand and the opponent has to not have something equally horrifying, but this is still a huge discrepancy in potential power level.

Delver and GSZ are also answerable or beatable by every color in many feasible ways. With Show and Tell, this isn't the case. Green and White have very, very little to deal with it, and Red doesn't have much outside of REB/Pyro.
Concerned with a card that doesn't show up anywhere near the amount of the other decks?
The 3 different SnT decks compared to 8 of the same Delver and Maverick decks in every top 16. They are the for the most part still the top 2 decks to beat.
Delver is the best 1 drop of all time. It beats Nacatl. In a tempo deck it plays extremely well with Daze and Wasteland(doesnt have land limits like Nacatl), it flys, it's blue, and it shows up everywhere at the top.

Grisslebrand improved Sneak Show and may give rise to Next Level Reanimator decks, but there isn't really any good reasons statistically to begin the ban SnT Thread. I am more concerned with RUG and Maverick swallowing half the prize spots.

[dontbiteitholmes]

No I was talking about Hermit Druid coming off the list not survival.

Survival is a whole different story.

I was working on a deck with Hermit Druid right before 1.5 turned into Legacy and it got banned. You have to run 4 Druids and around 7-8 other cards to make the combo, maybe 18 lands which is around 30 cards. Then I'd run Tutors or some mix of Tutors and Brainstorm (depends what color I'd go with), and the entire rest of the list would be protection, so 20-26 protection spells and you only need to keep a 1/1 on the board for a turn to win most of the time.

[kusumoto]

I think anybody worried about druid should make a list and test it aginst top decks. I think you will be surprised.

[menace13]

I was working on a deck with Hermit Druid right before 1.5 turned into Legacy and it got banned. You have to run 4 Druids and around 7-8 other cards to make the combo, maybe 18 lands which is around 30 cards. Then I'd run Tutors or some mix of Tutors and Brainstorm (depends what color I'd go with), and the entire rest of the list would be protection, so 20-26 protection spells and you only need to keep a 1/1 on the board for a turn to win most of the time.

The speed of Hermit is faster than Breakfast since the requirements are a single card. Doesn't need to waste slots with Shuko, Vial or Nomads freeing up more space for disruption. Has a billion direct tutors(Worldly, GSZ). Elvish Spirit Guide maybe Petals for accel lowering land count to under 18. The deck is good. It is really good. is it the best deck ever? No. But it isn't something to take lightly. It will win a lot.

[dragonwisdom]

I will stand with what I said, if you ban ooze combo survival is fair. Remember before vengevine and ooze combo. Did survival even make it to top 32? Is survival vengvine really that broken.

[Hanni]

Regardless if you ban Ooze, Survival Vengevine is still fair by todays standards. The power level of this format continues to grow larger with each set they print. The reason why Surivival Vengevine is fair right now is the same reason why Survival continues to get more powerful. Power creep on creatures is getting nutty, and having a multiple-use tutor is really strong. Sure, there are answers to Vengevine itself right now, but Knight of the Reliquary is a pretty good backup plan.

Basically, think of it like this. Maverick continues to dominate Top 8's. It's a G/W Aggro deck. Imagine cutting some chaff and fitting in 4 Survival, 4 Vengevine, 1 Basking Rootwalla, 1 Memnite, 1 Squee. If you're in blue, 1 Wonder. Now you have the Survival/Vengevine plan that is going to beat unprepared opponent's, or you can just as easily Survival up a Squee and drop a Knight of the Reliquary every turn if they decide to Surgically Extract your Vengevines. Or, you know, Loyal Retainers into Elesh Norn or "insert scary monster here" if you'd prefer.

I'm on the fence on whether or not I think it can be safely unbanned, not because of the power level of Vengevine, but because of the power level of every new set they print that can easily break Survival wide open. That, and it makes Maverick that much stronger.

[nedleeds]

A few combo pieces =
3 Narco
1 Redcap
1 Dread Return
1 Mimeoplasm
1 Lord of Extinction
4 Hermit

That's 11 cards, 7 of which you basically never want in your hand. Hermit druid taps and you try to make the game end. It does work well with cabal therapy, but they can still just surgical your dread return in response to that cabal therapy.

The breakfast combo is SO easy to disrupt and he actually makes it easier to disrupt because of summoning sickness. With the current deck you combo as soon as the second guy hits.

All Hermit Druid does is take the breakfast combo from total trash to a good deck. It wouldn't even be a DtB. It would be good, but it would still lose to every piece of disruption ever conceived just like breakfast does now.

The deck only works with 4 brainstorm ... same with Show and Tell ...

[nedleeds]

I will stand with what I said, if you ban ooze combo survival is fair. Remember before vengevine and ooze combo. Did survival even make it to top 32? Is survival vengvine really that broken.

Nobody even tried to hate it out. It was banned pre GSZ, pre surgical extraction, pre grafdiggers cage. Survival was a SCG internet crying ban. Look back at those top 8s people werent running Spell Snare or Needle, or Disenchant. SotF burns a turn and 4 spots. GSZ puts a man right into play ... and recycles. SotF is just slow and requires a heavy green commitment.

If you are keeping ubiquitous haymakers like Brainstorm around, unban some non ubiquitous stuff.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I think anybody worried about druid should make a list and test it aginst top decks. I think you will be surprised.

It's a one card combo that costs 2. You need to play one card and keep it in play one turn. What good could possibly come from ever unbanning something like that.


Regardless if you ban Ooze, Survival Vengevine is still fair by todays standards. The power level of this format continues to grow larger with each set they print. The reason why Surivival Vengevine is fair right now is the same reason why Survival continues to get more powerful. Power creep on creatures is getting nutty, and having a multiple-use tutor is really strong. Sure, there are answers to Vengevine itself right now, but Knight of the Reliquary is a pretty good backup plan.

Basically, think of it like this. Maverick continues to dominate Top 8's. It's a G/W Aggro deck. Imagine cutting some chaff and fitting in 4 Survival, 4 Vengevine, 1 Basking Rootwalla, 1 Memnite, 1 Squee. If you're in blue, 1 Wonder. Now you have the Survival/Vengevine plan that is going to beat unprepared opponent's, or you can just as easily Survival up a Squee and drop a Knight of the Reliquary every turn if they decide to Surgically Extract your Vengevines. Or, you know, Loyal Retainers into Elesh Norn or "insert scary monster here" if you'd prefer.

I'm on the fence on whether or not I think it can be safely unbanned, not because of the power level of Vengevine, but because of the power level of every new set they print that can easily break Survival wide open. That, and it makes Maverick that much stronger.

Pretty much the same thing I said about Hermit Druid applies to Survival if Vengevine is legal, except it's a heavier mana investment but a better plan b. It's one card and if it stays in play for a turn the game is usually going to end very quickly. I wish they would just ban Vine and unban Survival. We tried Vine, we gave it time, and it was too strong for us dumbass non-French Americans (or Storm is just a way worse choice to foil Survival when the American meta is far more hostile to combo, see the 20% of kids still playing Merfolk like nothing was happening). Without Vine, Survival is a great card I'd like to have back.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Nobody even tried to hate it out. It was banned pre GSZ, pre surgical extraction, pre grafdiggers cage. Survival was a SCG internet crying ban. Look back at those top 8s people werent running Spell Snare or Needle, or Disenchant. SotF burns a turn and 4 spots. GSZ puts a man right into play ... and recycles. SotF is just slow and requires a heavy green commitment.

If you are keeping ubiquitous haymakers like Brainstorm around, unban some non ubiquitous stuff.

People ran Spell Snares, they just weren't making it to the top 8. It's not like if you countered Survival once the deck just rolled over.

[edgarps22]

Actually it didn't roll over at all, it waited until next turn, dropped a Mongrel, discarded Vine anyways, and aggro'd you down. It was a very very nasty deck, very fast, with disruption. I do believe decks are stronger now than they were, but at the same time, it might just be too stifling to the current meta. See Loyal Retainers into (insert good legend here). Grissy scares me more than Elesh does honestly. That is the problem with tutors. They scale with what they can get. And creatures have gotten VERY powerful. That makes Survival extremely dangerous.

[majikal]

It would appear that Delver is still the elephant in the room. I mean, it's just a guy, right? But it is still wrecking every tournament, and the decks that are supposed to beat up on blue decks aren't doing their job. It has consistently adapted to all the hate that people can throw at it and has been putting up dominant numbers on a global scale for the past couple of months. People adapted to Maverick pretty handily, but Delver seems to be a different kind of beast all together.

So I guess the question is... how far should people have to go to adapt to a threat like that? Eight sideboard slots? Maindeck Corrosive Gale? How warping does a single card have to be to draw the ire of the DCI? I guess an alternative is just wait for some new, insane power creep dude to outclass it and hope it can't be played in the same deck? Is it time to consider banning a guy that does nothing but beat face or is the very thought offensive to the essence of Legacy?

I'm not saying anything needs to happen just yet, but I mean hell they banned Wild Nacatl in Modern because it was too efficient, so clearly creatures are not off-limits to them, and they said they figured Delver was fine because Legacy could probably adapt to it... but it hasn't. So what now? Let's say Delver dominates the GP as well. What then?

[nedleeds]

Actually it didn't roll over at all, it waited until next turn, dropped a Mongrel, discarded Vine anyways, and aggro'd you down. It was a very very nasty deck, very fast, with disruption. I do believe decks are stronger now than they were, but at the same time, it might just be too stifling to the current meta. See Loyal Retainers into (insert good legend here). Grissy scares me more than Elesh does honestly. That is the problem with tutors. They scale with what they can get. And creatures have gotten VERY powerful. That makes Survival extremely dangerous.

By the time you land it through counters, not have it blown up, cycle through your men with enough green mana you are already dead from a Delver that always flips courtesy of Brainstorm.

[nedleeds]

Let's say Delver dominates the GP as well. What then?

Unban stuff.

Delver is winning and placing in freaking Vintage tournaments ... that's how good he is.

[rxavage]

Should unban mental misstep so every deck has an answer to delver:wink:

[nedleeds]

Should unban mental misstep so every deck has an answer to delver:wink:

Mistep is the definition of a miserable ubiquitous card ... like a Brainstorm for every color.

[Tammit67]

Unban stuff.

Delver is winning and placing in freaking Vintage tournaments ... that's how good he is.

So is trygon predator/loadstone golem/ steel sabotage/bloodbraid. Your argument is invalid

[trivial_matters]

I don't like Delver having been printed bla bla but really? It dies to any removal ever and right now is only playable in RUG with 25+ instants/sorceries. Play a deck which beats RUG or or something...

[menace13]

I don't like Delver having been printed bla bla but really? It dies to any removal ever and right now is only playable in RUG with 25+ instants/sorceries. Play a deck which beats RUG or or something...

That's not how it works. If only everything was that simple.

Finding a deck that beats the best deck and does not lose to the rest of the field is a lot harder than just simply saying "Play a deck which beats it"

Fact is RUG has very few bad match ups and can randomly beat anything when it draws nuts and has been at the top for months.

[dontbiteitholmes]

It would appear that Delver is still the elephant in the room. I mean, it's just a guy, right? But it is still wrecking every tournament, and the decks that are supposed to beat up on blue decks aren't doing their job. It has consistently adapted to all the hate that people can throw at it and has been putting up dominant numbers on a global scale for the past couple of months. People adapted to Maverick pretty handily, but Delver seems to be a different kind of beast all together.

So I guess the question is... how far should people have to go to adapt to a threat like that? Eight sideboard slots? Maindeck Corrosive Gale? How warping does a single card have to be to draw the ire of the DCI? I guess an alternative is just wait for some new, insane power creep dude to outclass it and hope it can't be played in the same deck? Is it time to consider banning a guy that does nothing but beat face or is the very thought offensive to the essence of Legacy?

I'm not saying anything needs to happen just yet, but I mean hell they banned Wild Nacatl in Modern because it was too efficient, so clearly creatures are not off-limits to them, and they said they figured Delver was fine because Legacy could probably adapt to it... but it hasn't. So what now? Let's say Delver dominates the GP as well. What then?

I feel Maverick is still favorable over Delver. The main problem for Maverick recently is everyone's decided to break out the Show and Tell decks again, and it's pretty dead to them. RUG has game against Show and Tell decks and slightly unfavorable matchups vs. Maverick while Maverick has slightly favorable matchups vs. RUG and a terrible matchup vs. Show and Tell. The more people ditch Mav for RuG/BUG/even Merfolk (but still bleh) or start metagaming for the Show/Tell Matchup the worse deck choice that becomes and the meta will shift again.

I don't think the current Show and Tell decks are the end of the world, but if anything does end up breaking S&T it has to be Griselbrand. I know I say this every time we get a new battleship, but I seriously don't see any creature in the near future making S&T any better than it currently is. Still way too early for "ban S/T" which I thankfully am seeing very little of so far.

Recap: Right now I think it's Show and Tell more than Delver keeping Maverick down, but still to early to panic about any S/T banning (don't forget last time this happened and it passed as quickly as it came).

[edgarps22]

By the time you land it through counters, not have it blown up, cycle through your men with enough green mana you are already dead from a Delver that always flips courtesy of Brainstorm.

The trick is Survival Vine is MUCH faster than Delver. And the margin is not even close. A flipped Delver will kill you eventually, an active Survival for a single turn might just end the game that turn or the next, due to how big and fast Vines are. Delver is a tempo deck that has to make some headway and fast before its opponent gets bigger. And Survival Vine gets a lot bigger MUCH faster, even without Survival, with just a Mongrel and the right hand, which they run Intuition to help set that up, it gets very dangerous very quickly. That is just the aggro plan, much less the combo plans. You forget this deck also has free counters and can play the tempo game as well, it just has a MUCH faster clock and bigger threats, that can fly with a Wonder in the yard, so your evasion is meaningless. Delver is good, but not nearly as powerful as Survival Vine was.

[Malakai]

Everyone who is claiming Survival wasn't that bad is ignoring half the deck. Survival's plans were as follows:

Resolve Survival, killing you with Necrotic Ooze the next turn, typically on 3.
Resolve Survival, make a bunch of Vengevines, kill you.
Grind you out by recycling Vengevines until you can setup plan 1 or 2.


And all of this has to be done through Force of Will, Daze, and Cabal Therapy.

I find it intersting that people are complaining about Show and Tell, despite the fact that Survival does the same thing for less mana.

[Lord Seth]

Delver is winning and placing in freaking Vintage tournaments ... that's how good he is.Which Vintage tournaments? I'm having trouble finding examples.

[CorpT]

Which Vintage tournaments? I'm having trouble finding examples.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/busqueda.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=0&nhigh=0&dlow=0&mlow=0&ylow=0&dhigh=0&mhigh=0&yhigh=0&player=&dname=&format=Vintage&aname=&main=Delver+of+Secrets&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on

[rufus]

...
Fact is RUG has very few bad match ups and can randomly beat anything when it draws nuts and has been at the top for months.

The same thing, I think, was true about thresh a while ago. FWIW, It's a little tricky for me to figure out how a deck that can't "randomly beat anything" is ever going to be legacy competitive. Similarly, people were saying a lot of the same things about Tarmogoyf that are now being said about delver. I can't see delver getting the ban-hammer anytime soon.

[nedleeds]

I find it intersting that people are complaining about Show and Tell, despite the fact that Survival does the same thing for less mana.

What an absurd statement. You commit your entire turn to it, it takes more ongoing mana and still can't put Griselbrand or Emrakul into play without casting a terrible 1WW man. As for Ooze the Ooze still has to be reanimated or hard cast @ 2BB.

At this point why would you dick around with Survival and pass the turn when you can slam down Griselbrand and Yawgmoth's Bargain.

Vengevines fighting (through 4 x STP, 4 x SCM, Grafdigger's Cage, Extraction, etc.) ... seems like a decent strategy but not more back breaking then entomb -> reanimate.

With so much hate available how is SotF any more abusive then what's currently running around.

[nedleeds]

The trick is Survival Vine is MUCH faster than Delver. And the margin is not even close. A flipped Delver will kill you eventually, an active Survival for a single turn might just end the game that turn or the next, due to how big and fast Vines are.

A Delver comes out on turn one on the play. Is blue. Flies. Requires no other commitments other than to play some of the other best cards in the format (Force, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt, Ponder, Stifle, etc.).

The Vengevine / SotF plan requires 7-8 deck slots for those cards. That actually do nothing. I mean the Vine in a vacuum if hardcast is still a decent man but I think we'd agree you're better off casting Thrun or something. After you push the SoTF through, you still need men in your hand, and if you've protected it with counter magic who knows what you have left. Then you have to play other awful cards like Basking Rootwalla.

Look ... the plan is a strong plan but no more strong than just going island -> ponder, ancient tomb -> SnT with Force / MisD backup. Griselbrand / Emrakul. Draw my deck / Rape You.

I think people not owning Show and Tell is all that keeps that card from raping more. I own them but just feel dirty playing them at my weekly legacy.

Unban some stuff before putting more stuff on the ban list. Let the format breathe, I'd love to see G/w SotF versus abusive ass Show and Tell. Give the other colors some power to fight crap like Delver. Give white Land Tax so you can build a white control deck. Give black Mind Twist so it can turn the tide mid game on the control deck. Give me black vise so I can punish the control decks (and play Stasis ...).

[Fossil4182]

That's not how it works. If only everything was that simple.

Finding a deck that beats the best deck and does not lose to the rest of the field is a lot harder than just simply saying "Play a deck which beats it"

Fact is RUG has very few bad match ups and can randomly beat anything when it draws nuts and has been at the top for months.

What data are you basing your conclusions on? Recent analysis by the Hatfields suggest that RUG Tempo is rather poorly positioned right now with negative match-ups against Maverick and UW Stoneblade (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23733_Legacy_Week_Too_MuchInformation.html). If its based on perception or experience, head over the RUG thread which only reinforces the conclusions the data suggests. The match-up with UW Stoneblade has become worse with those decks shifting toward a Miracle based strategy.

I'm more convinced that Sensei's Divining Top will get the axe before Brainstorm in this format. The Miracle mechanic is what will probably push it over the line IMO. Top is already on the watch list because of the logistical issue it presents which is the time lost from repeated use overtime combined with shuffle effects. Its also the most abusive way to exploit Miracle cards in the format (more so than Brainstorm and Jace). Granted that all of them work in synergy together, but Top is what makes it go since it functionally allows you cast them at Miracle cost (compared to Brainstorm which adds a U to the cost of each Miracle card) and at instant speed.

[dontbiteitholmes]

What an absurd statement. You commit your entire turn to it, it takes more ongoing mana and still can't put Griselbrand or Emrakul into play without casting a terrible 1WW man. As for Ooze the Ooze still has to be reanimated or hard cast @ 2BB.

At this point why would you dick around with Survival and pass the turn when you can slam down Griselbrand and Yawgmoth's Bargain.

Vengevines fighting (through 4 x STP, 4 x SCM, Grafdigger's Cage, Extraction, etc.) ... seems like a decent strategy but not more back breaking then entomb -> reanimate.

With so much hate available how is SotF any more abusive then what's currently running around.

You need GY spell + Reanimate to bring back a fatty and a single swords puts you back to square 1.

Show and Tell is really good no doubt, but you still need to assemble a 2 card combo minimum.

The problem with Vengevine was that it turned Survival into a one card combo. You drop your Survival, pay 3-4 Green mana next turn, and you suddenly have a huge hasted army that quickly ends the game, even from a losing position. Without Vine the best combo was Loyal Retainer + legend, which is pretty good at times, but in the end it's still usually 1G + GG + 2W to break it off so it was far from game breaking. Show and Tell or Reanimator are all in on the combo, Survival with Vine let you play an already good deck with 4x cards in your deck basically threatening 16 power of haste with every topdeck.

The main problem with Survival + Vine IMO opinion is that it means there is pretty much no reason to play any other creature based deck. Why tempo into a Goyf when you could drop a Survival for the same price and put 7 creatures on the table next turn and still run counter magic?

[Tacosnape]

Some people stay off Show and Tell decks for fear of the mirror, too, which gets sketchy. There's a mono-blue list floating around with Lotus Petal, Gitaxian Probe, and Fold Into Aether floating around that's pretty beastly for this reason.

RUG Delver has managed to adapt and basically even the Maverick matchup due largely in part to somebody finally figuring out Forked Bolt is a real card, and also partly due to cards like Stifle being decent again. So basically, why on earth would you play Maverick over RUG Delver when Show and Tell steamrolls Maverick (And almost every other deck on the planet), but can't handle RUG Delver?

Show and Tell is what's crippling the format development here, despite it not being in RUG Delver. Show me a deck that beats RUG Delver consistently that can also hang against SnT. Seriously. The best thing I've got is Dredge, and Dredge is far from automatic against either one, and like always, Dredge is in that class of decks that a little sideboard adaptation knocks back down to second tier. MUD with Chalices can do it also, but again, sideboard adaptation will make it only a temporary fix.

I'm personally trying to do it with UW Miracle, but it's still a struggle. Mongoose and Stifle just win sometimes.

[nedleeds]

You need GY spell + Reanimate to bring back a fatty and a single swords puts you back to square 1.

No. I drew 7 in response to your StP. I forced it.


Show and Tell is really good no doubt, but you still need to assemble a 2 card combo minimum.

The second card is Yawgmoth's Bargain with Lifelink that deals 7 and a card that Jokulhapses and hits for 15. You have 8 of them. You have brainstorm / ponder to massage all the brokenness.



Why tempo into a Goyf when you could drop a Survival for the same price and put 7 creatures on the table next turn and still run counter magic?

Because Goyf / KotR is good as a standalone card. SotF is a blank. Goyf attacks blocks and wins through a Grafdigger's Cage. Going through a discarding exercise only to have your Vines shwagged by a Surgical is awful. A hand with 2 Vengevines and spells is pretty awful without Survival. A hand with 2 goyfs and spells is fine.

[menace13]

What data are you basing your conclusions on? Recent analysis by the Hatfields suggest that RUG Tempo is rather poorly positioned right now with negative match-ups against Maverick and UW Stoneblade (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23733_Legacy_Week_Too_MuchInformation.html). If its based on perception or experience, head over the RUG thread which only reinforces the conclusions the data suggests. The match-up with UW Stoneblade has become worse with those decks shifting toward a Miracle based strategy.

TCDecks, since Delver was printed(October) has RUG as the most placing deck with 3 months, Maverick has 2 months. This month they are tied but with a week left I feel RUG will outpace it for its 4th month on top of the placings. It has evened its MU with Maverick and continues to outplace everything not named Maverick by a wide margin.

Best deck in the format right now.

[Gui]

TCDecks, since Delver was printed(October) has RUG as the most placing deck with 3 months, Maverick has 2 months. This month they are tied but with a week left I feel RUG will outpace it for its 4th month on top of the placings. It has evened its MU with Maverick and continues to outplace everything not named Maverick by a wide margin.

Best deck in the format right now.

Yeah, considering that Maverick had 12 months of top placing before that, guess we are fine...

[menace13]

Yeah, considering that Maverick had 12 months of top placing before that, guess we are fine...

I guess if that is how you feel, but has little bearing on actual stats. The months prior had Blade, Zoo, NORUG, and Survival before that.

Are you okay?