All B/R update speculation.

[Noctalor]

They became unplayable because blue got the new best creatures. Blue can play the best aggro creatures (and do other things too), which makes blue tempo clearly better. The point of aggro was to pick up free wins vs blue because blue had wors
...
to blue.

To be fair, aggro currently needs to be actually busted to be relevant, you can see a bit of aggro in the current madness iteration, which basically gets there by turn 3.

It would be quite hard to see a straight fair aggro such as zoo, you can get better results both by being an pseudo combo deck such as madness, or having at least a lock gameplan

[FTW]

To be fair, aggro currently needs to be actually busted to be relevant, you can see a bit of aggro in the current madness iteration, which basically gets there by turn 3.

It would be quite hard to see a straight fair aggro such as zoo, you can get better results both by being an pseudo combo deck suck as madness, or having at least a lock gameplan

Well yeah, it would need to be creeped to have a goldfish clock around turn 3-4. Being a bit slower than Madness is OK because it's also less fragile to hate, so it would have better postboard games.

[Reeplcheep]

I feel like aggro is actually doing ok. It’s not like any pure prison or control strategy exists either.

Aggro-combo (madness), aggro-control (UR 2Delver) and aggro-prison (fireflux stompy) are all great decks right now.

Madness is just aggro + LED and fireflux is just aggro plus chalice. If you took modern 8 bushwacker zoo (the purest aggro deck imo) and added chalice or LED to the deck to not auto-lose to combo, you would arrive at these decks. It’s crazy to only accept decks that don’t play the best cards in the format as “real aggro”. They both play lots of creatures that they can hard cast and plan on turning them sideways over 2-3 turns.

[FTW]

True Jund aggro-combo and Red aggro-prison are good. There's also a lower-tier Naya Landfall aggro-combo.

I should have specified "nonblue aggro". This is just not a role blue is supposed to dominate in the color pie. RG (blue's natural enemy) is supposed to beatdown on blue with aggro, and it used to in Legacy's earlier more diverse days. This ended around when Delver took over as the format's top "aggro" deck. Nonblue aggro-control existed (Goblins), so it was not necessary to give this role primarily to blue by printing beatdown threats that work best in blue decks. Giving blue both the best aggro deck and the best anti-aggro tools is why the format is all Brainstorm, instead of letting more fair aggro decks prey on those blue decks.

Aggro-combo trades resilience for speed. It has some weaknesses in that you can hate out the combo engine instead of having to answer every creature. Pure aggro plays a slightly different role, with no combo engine to hate on, so you have to actually answer a whole bunch of creatures, which used to be hard for control to do. This role is now missing. Although Red aggro-prison has gotten a lot better at producing consistent threats, compared to the early Dragon Stompy days of Gray Ogre beatdown.

[Reeplcheep]

It’s not really a blue problem. It is a “combo is viable” problem. Even if you produced some busted standalone cheap threat that can’t be played in blue decks, the aggro version would still be worse than the aggro-prison version. For aggro to be better than aggro-prison, the 5th and 6th best threat have to be better than the 1st and 2nd best interactive piece against the field. Not the 1st and 2nd best threat.

That is never going to happen unless A.combo is completely unviable, or B. there is someway that all the threats synergize together and interaction wouldn’t (aka aggro-combo)

The comparison isn’t Beetdown, ragavan, Kird ape, Nacatl vs kird ape nacatl Thalia Teeg. It’s vs Beetdown, Ragavan Thalia Teeg.

[FTW]

When aggro was viable in the format, the combo problem was still there. It was just OK to have bad matchups. Zoo could win an SCG even though it was 10-90 vs Tendrils and Belcher. But then combo could also win, if there wasn't enough police. Fair blue was dominant but it wasn't automatically fair blue topping all events. You didn't need to be favored against everything (until 50-50 Delver aggro-control).

I point out blue as a problem because it was historically a good matchup that changed to a bad matchup. If aggro doesn't beat blue, there's no reason to play it. If blue aggro-control has as fast a clock but also hates on combo, it's just the better beatdown. The viable aggro-prison decks work because their prison pieces also slow down blue (on top of combo). Punishing blue is essential, otherwise you're better on Delver.

Otherwise, I agree, just adding 1 power creeped creature isn't enough. Pure aggro revolves around playing many strong threats, a more uniform power level across the deck. It would take many printings to catch up to 10 years of giving blue tools without giving aggro tools (sidenote: I think this imbalance happened due to WOTC controlling the speed of Standard and Modern, not printing more aggressive creatures, but this had unintended consequences on Legacy as the rest of the format kept gaining power). A single OP Zoo threat would just slot into a hatebears deck, yeah. Once there are many strong beaters, Thalia/Teeg do reduce the potential to use Lightning Bolt, Price of Progress and Fireblast to add reach and speed up the clock, so prison isn't strictly better. It might just be SB for combo.

Moon Stompy has gotten there over time, finally enough threat density to play beatdown instead of control. It took more than just Goblin Rabblemaster to do it though.

[Reeplcheep]

Moon Stompy has gotten there over time, finally enough threat density to play beatdown instead of control. It took more than just Goblin Rabblemaster to do it though.

I think we agree then. It did receive a ton of flat power level threats to make the aggro plan good:

Rabble 2.0
Legion Warboss
Rabble of the Shock
Bonecrusher Giant
The rabble master of rabblemasters
Fireflux squad

[Zoid]

A lot of factors playing into the decline of "pure turn dude sideways" aggro.

Most of them are facets of combo and blue getting good creatures.
Something that wasn't mentioned so far is consistency.
With non-blue aggro you have very few ways of generating card quality, let alone card advantage.
Essentially, you take the top ~10 cards of your deck and throw them at your opponent.
If they have enough answers, you loose.
While this is also true for other decks, these opening cards can contain Chalice or other things which actively stop your opponent from doing things.
Combo also got more redundancy and power over the last few years making decks faster and more consistent.
Hoping to resolve a hate bear postboard is just not a valid plan, especially if you're going to lose g1 to 95% and you're going to be on the play g3.
At this point blue comes in which has better creatures, card selection and can actually interact with the stack.
If stuff like Once upon a Time, Abundant Harvest and to a lesser extend Adventurous Impulse had been printed years ago then there might have been a slower decline.
However if you're best quality cards a Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library then you're too slow.

Don't forget that we got a bunch of much better removal as well which check creatures better than just StP and Bolt.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Pure aggro isn't going to be viable unless you get like 4/4s for 1 and even then it needs haste or it's going to die to removal.
If you're want to know what aggro looks like it's already here in ragavan or drc. Too bad those cards, despite being above rate attackers, are tempo plays anyways

[Fox]

By this logic depths combo tries to use two cards to play a tarmogoyf asap
They didn't get a 1-card combo without any downside. This is consistent with why a 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick is a format-wide problem. It is design space that should have been banned before 2010. Alas that never happened, so here we are continually dealing with the fallout of Goyf...and all the anti-Goyf (Strix, Ice-Fang, SCM, Uro, etc) baggage. The corruption of the format has already spread, and it's here to stay.


Not at all, both being in the beatstick category does not mean they have the same impact, in fact, they absolutely dont
The concept of Goyf was not banned, it will continue to recur with power creep. You will never be safe from a 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick dude because future iterations will always be power crept.


It's not even strict power creep, simply murktide is a different cards which happens to have many beneficts on goys, functional beneficts, not a +1+1
2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick = 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick. They are the same card. You can point out differences after this, but you will accept the simple fact that a Goyf is a Goyf. Please explain how Murktide is not 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.


No, i am calling BS, dont speak as if you are right, it doesnt make you right :laugh:
You would cry about any card which met Goyf criteria with power creep. We could ban Murktide and we don't even need the next Goyf iteration to exist yet to know your response would be "ban it."

The ban ship on 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick has sailed. It's here to stay. The parameters of the next power-crept Goyf are already defined - have a plan more complex plan than endlessly saying "ban." The parameters of Goyf can be targeted, adjust your decklist accordingly and prophylactically...Winter is coming.


The cards are indeed different, because you do require a different setup to get them online, is is very easy to get a 4/5 goyf, but it very rarely gets to 6/7, while getting 3 8/8 murktides in a game is a joke, this is one of the aspects which in fact make the two cards very different.
I cast a card I already run; it's called Pyroblast. Actual Goyf lived, Goyf 2.0 died. See how arguing minor differences is subjective and pointless?
Murktide is better than Tarmogoyf vs Murktide dies easier = no winner.


You could be realistic and at least say that murktide is the out of this world power crept version of tombstalker, and it would be reasonable, but i guess that in your logic gurmag/stalker/murktide/goyf are all the same card, which is absolutely a fallacy due to subjectivity
Again, explain how Murktide is not 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.


having flying is a straight buff to the card...having it makes the card stricly better
Oof man, I just talked about how flying mono-crops into targetable keyword flying. It's never been easier to find a reason to have flyabolic edict in the 75. It just gave an entire color [green] the answer to a long-standing, format-ruining problem: 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.

That flying matters is subjective, meaning it might be harder for *you* to deal with. I for one have always targeted the concept of Goyf and I haven't noticed a lick of difference between Goyf or Murktide (well other than it's way easier to deal with). Do you see how subjective arguments are meaningless currency in ban discussions?



100% not true, if you play the MU twice you notice that by having flying murktide gets checked by only those cards, this lets you ignore half of your opponent board, and by being an 8/8 you actually need to connect a few times to win, on the other and a tarmogoyf basically has no chance to do much because it gets both checked by fang and uro/land blockers
Some decks had their Goyf-free happy days...until reality caught up with them with the closed fist 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick. Welcome back to real legacy - I suggest you immediately revise your deck to pass the "don't die to Goyf" test.


But they often do, I have literally seen a monastery mentor board getting slammed by a murktide and a channeller, flying being relevant happens in most MUs, a lot also, do you think a land delver would have been the same impactful card?
Yeah the Goyf concept should not exist, I agree...but it does, and it's here to stay. That the concept of Goyf exists is exactly why a diverse range 3+ mana threats will always be teetering on unplayable. This really shouldn't surprise anyone who plays legacy.


By having flying you have less cards to build your deck on beating it, and by having less of them your opponent gets much more agency, and by killing you in two blows he can even take 1/2 -1 in cards and win
Yep like that is an accurate description of power creep, ending games before they begin. You can't ban power creep though, so....???


It means that you are not forced into splashing a third color to have a beatstick, which makes your deck insanely better
Plays into REB, Wasteland, green interaction, loses access to 3 color Prismatic Endings...There are pluses and minuses to 2c vs 3c; this is a pointless subjective tangent.

You seem to really like to live in the moment with your assessments. But like why would you even try to make a point out of color amounts? The UR Delver deck has zero say over whether or not it is relevant; one Wrenn or Oko or Lurrus printing and your 4x Volc is gonna look trashy af.


It dies to removal, lets not talk about how it does not die by bolt/ending/decay/submerge
Yeah and it was real fun when back in 2007-2011 [printing of SCM, the first anti-Goyf] they Duress'd your kill spell (of which almost no options existed) and you got killed by a Tarmoidiot without any real chance of recovery. For each removal spell you've listed which doesn't kill Murktide, there are at least two options in each color which do. People had to play dog crap like Smother back in the day to survive 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.


Well, bug literally got removed from legacy by murktide, how rewarding
Yeah 20% of the format mono-cropping on Saga - definitely can't ever compete in colors that can support Pernicious Deed. Definitely can't possibly play the colors that can cast Plague Engineer vs Allosaurus Shepherd. Definitely can't play BUG when they just got the newest 3cmc PW you can't FoN. Murktide is not keeping BUG from being played; what you are describing is the mixture a Ragavan still being legal phenomenon + the failure to ever replace DRS (black has zero 1-drop dude replacements, unless their deck is called Hogaak or Madness).


This reasoning is actually next level, card x is ok because you too can play it, so lets unban ancestral recall because your opponent can also play it and go even
No, Ancestral drawing extra cards is closer to "pay 1 mana, take three extra turns." Also it breaks mulligan equity rules, which among other things is a huge color pie problem. As far as mono-U decks are concerned adding Murktide to their list is first and foremost "UU5 with delve that says: kill target opposing 8/8 Murktide," the backup mode is that it can win the game.


You actually somehow forgot to reply the last time you made an ad hominem on me this (https://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=&nhigh=&from=&to=&player=ivan+fuseri&aname=&dname=&format=Noformat&main=&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on) is a partial list of my tops, tell me why i should have a bias or what is the deck i play which is impacted by murktide.
You have a list of netdecks, which would explain why you've missed the importance of passing the "don't die to Goyf" test at deck construction. If your range of decks is struggling with Murktide, I suggest you go back and reformat them to answer 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick - this is a super important part of building a resilient legacy deck.

Since you want to cite your accomplishments, I think you should know that your most recent deck literally comes from my UR Dreadstill list handed to Ark4n with instructions about the problems of playing Ragavan with Standstill and Dreadnought. As far as copying me goes, you need to acknowledge that Allosaurus Shepherd and DnT exist with Grim Lavamancer and your SB is skinny on 2x Alpine Moon. :cool:


Literally, I simply test most decks and have seen that the card is probably the main reason why UR is busted (+ ragavan indeed), it takes playing the game to see that you can make a million counter arguments, but in the end it is unfair to play vs a deck that has a million removal checks in a row followed by and 8/8 flying
So the reason they're doing great with Murktide is that people forgot the need to build decks to not die to Goyf. It really sucks that this is what legacy deckbuilding is since 2007, but thems is the rules. In a perfect format we would ban Tarmogoyf + Murktide + Snapcaster + Ice-Fang + Strix + Uro all at the same time, and wotc would never explore these design space again, but that's just not going to happen.

[Noctalor]

You would cry about any card which met Goyf criteria with power creep. We could ban Murktide and we don't even need the next Goyf iteration to exist yet to know your response would be "ban it."

I started playing legacy a long time ago, and the only ban i asked for was a miracle ban, never thought of banning tarmogoyf and such.
I do think murktide is bannable mainly because it not only power creeps the beatstick category, it literally turns half of legacy mediocre (mostly because it's blue, which is a major upside despite the pyroblast claims, and because of flying)



I cast a card I already run; it's called Pyroblast. Actual Goyf lived, Goyf 2.0 died. See how arguing minor differences is subjective and pointless?
Murktide is better than Tarmogoyf vs Murktide dies easier = no winner.

Being targeted by pyroblast has never been a concern, having to rely on that as a downside just means that there are almost no real downsides.
Also, no winner what? Murktide clearly do wins by a mile


Again, explain how Murktide is not 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.

I never claimed it isnt, tarmo and murktide are almost in the same category, you are not the one which draws the line tho.
Explain to me how tarmogoyf is an evasive blue beater please


Oof man, I just talked about how flying mono-crops into targetable keyword flying.

And it is bullshit man :laugh:
By this logic giving flying to ragavan would make it worse because the hell knows who i running 4 run afoul?


That flying matters is subjective, meaning it might be harder for *you* to deal with.

No man, it is exactly the definition of objective, having the keywork flying printed on a card makes it strickly better literally because fewer cards can interact with it


I for one have always targeted the concept of Goyf and I haven't noticed a lick of difference between Goyf or Murktide (well other than it's way easier to deal with). Do you see how subjective arguments are meaningless currency in ban discussions?

Your argument IS subjective, saying that flying do not strictly buffs a card is objectively false tho


Some decks had their Goyf-free happy days...until reality caught up with them with the closed fist 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick. Welcome back to real legacy - I suggest you immediately revise your deck to pass the "don't die to Goyf" test.
Yeah the Goyf concept should not exist, I agree...but it does, and it's here to stay. That the concept of Goyf exists is exactly why a diverse range 3+ mana threats will always be teetering on unplayable. This really shouldn't surprise anyone who plays legacy.

I really dont get why you try to pull of this strange ad hominem on my as if I want to play some deck which got power crept, i honestly do not care at all, it's just boring to play any deck at the moment, and UR delver is one of the big reasons why


Plays into REB, Wasteland, green interaction, loses access to 3 color Prismatic Endings...There are pluses and minuses to 2c vs 3c; this is a pointless subjective tangent.

And has a 23% play rate with a 56% win rate, which means that your entire argument is pointless, despite answers existing, the deck is just that much better than the competition


You seem to really like to live in the moment with your assessments. But like why would you even try to make a point out of color amounts? The UR Delver deck has zero say over whether or not it is relevant; one Wrenn or Oko or Lurrus printing and your 4x Volc is gonna look trashy af.

The deck is currently by far the strongest in the format, that's it.
Being by far the strongest deck in the format while being bicolor despite how free splashing is in legacy matters quite a lot, this shell can alost freely splash a third color if needed



Yeah 20% of the format mono-cropping on Saga - definitely can't ever compete in colors that can support Pernicious Deed. Definitely can't possibly play the colors that can cast Plague Engineer vs Allosaurus Shepherd. Definitely can't play BUG when they just got the newest 3cmc PW you can't FoN. Murktide is not keeping BUG from being played; what you are describing is the mixture a Ragavan still being legal phenomenon + the failure to ever replace DRS (black has zero 1-drop dude replacements, unless their deck is called Hogaak or Madness).

Bug is not played at all, bugW is played, the difference is swords to plowshares, which happens to make your deck not instalosing to murktide regent


No, Ancestral drawing extra cards is closer to "pay 1 mana, take three extra turns." Also it breaks mulligan equity rules, which among other things is a huge color pie problem. As far as mono-U decks are concerned adding Murktide to their list is first and foremost "UU5 with delve that says: kill target opposing 8/8 Murktide," the backup mode is that it can win the game.

Andestral recall says: go even with your opponent who have played ancestral recall, the backup mode is that it can win the game


You have a list of netdecks,

Untrue, you probably just checked the last list there and called the day


which would explain why you've missed the importance of passing the "don't die to Goyf" test at deck construction.

Everybody but you must be missing it because delver has the best playrate and winrate at the moment


If your range of decks is struggling with Murktide, I suggest you go back and reformat them to answer 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick - this is a super important part of building a resilient legacy deck.

I have currently sleeved doomsday (which is a pet deck i refined since it had to win with tendrils 10 years ago, as you can see), which does not care at all about murktide


Since you want to cite your accomplishments, I think you should know that your most recent deck literally comes from my UR Dreadstill list handed to Ark4n with instructions about the problems of playing Ragavan with Standstill and Dreadnought. As far as copying me goes, you need to acknowledge that Allosaurus Shepherd and DnT exist with Grim Lavamancer and your SB is skinny on 2x Alpine Moon. :cool:

I literally made that list the day before the event because i was coming off a pause (getting a master deg in physics is not a joke), if i had more testing i would have played 3/4 murktides actually :laugh:


So the reason they're doing great with Murktide is that people forgot the need to build decks to not die to Goyf.

Actually people are putting the effort to build anti murktide, with some succes, but ur still is the best deck, this is why i do think it is bannable

[dte]

REB is a Pyroblast. Not entirely true, but for most situations playing with or against, you won't feel the difference.
It is then conceptually fine to consider them identical, as you would play similarly against.

Goyf is not a big threat to combo: it does not pitch to FoW, does not fly, and a 3/4 is not an insane clock. Murktide is.
Goyf requires a splash, Murktide does not.

Categorizing helps if it simplify deck building and play decisions: rather than thinking about a specific card, you think about the category: eg. ponder & preordain as ritual cantrips, fetchlands, etc.
That is why we commonly refer to red blasts, cantrips and fetchlands without anyone complaining about the lack of precision, or the impropriety of the categorization.

Here Fox is talking about green playing flying edict, while it traditionally does not care much about Goyf. The two cards require different deck building decisions, at least in SB.
The length of the discussion on the topic should also be proof enough that it is not a useful categorization.

[Fox]

And it is bullshit man :laugh:
By this logic giving flying to ragavan would make it worse because the hell knows who i running 4 run afoul?

...having the keywork flying printed on a card makes it strickly better literally because fewer cards can interact with it

Your argument IS subjective, saying that flying do not strictly buffs a card is objectively false tho
So this is the thing about your netdecking, it just means you can pilot well - you understand tactics. When it comes to building decks and format balance, you're missing the big picture [strategy]. The way magic works is that once the truly abusive stuff gets banned [in this case Ragavan, which is a mana exploit and first player advantage exploit, making it doubly bannable], UR Delver is left with Delver & DRC & Murktide.
What this means strategically is that green can hit 100% of Delver, 100% of SnT, 100% of Reanimator, 100% of Depths-themed decks' credible lines of play by SB'ing flyabolic edict. They can then add Endurance on top to keep hitting Delver, Reanimator, peripheral threats of Depths decks [Reclaimer, KotR], and also pick up some amount of game vs Thassa. This is how deckbuilding works, you notice patterns other legacy players must abide by, and you target the pattern. We can also expand on the Depths-themed decks for a bit, these poor bastards are absolutely helpless clutching their Olle Rade [Safekeeper] and Sejiri Steppes pretending it'll make any difference at all vs flyabolic edict.
Legacy deckbuilding is a set of checklists, but you always start with don't die to Goyf followed by don't die to total hand destruction [which currently you don't really have to do b/c Uro exists and keeps Counterbalance and Hymn out of the format] followed by beat the FIRE card [Uro. Ragavan is also FIRE, but it will be banned]. There are ofc more crude forms of deckbuilding which include meme'ing [bad construction, dies to internal variance - this is modern style deckbuilding] and parasitize the card that is going to/should be banned.

As far as the rest of your list goes, none of the finishes except the most recent one happened during the time of Murktide. While there's no doubt that you are a capable pilot and can tune a deck, you're not a deck developer. In Murktide times, all you can do is flash a finish with a deck Ark4n and I are the sole creators. This isn't exactly a great starting point.

So again, you understand tactics and you live in the moment. You don't see a list with flyabolic edicts, so you have no insight into what happens when you turn on an entire color which has traditionally not had anything to say about that entire cluster of decks. You're focused solely on the text box of Murktide and the word flying and saying it's "strictly better," which simply isn't true when you understand the format. Cards that are soft to interaction from every single color in magic exist on a timer.

Your next strategy is citing the win % of a deck that dies the day a new card is printed; we saw UR fall off the map with Wrenn and then Oko and then Lurrus...and their deck is going to keep falling off the map b/c it has nothing to ensure lasting relevance. UR Delver is playing 1-card combos without any strategy behind it, and this always ends by death to power creep. That doesn't mean that Goyf isn't a miserable effing concept that chokes out most of the deckbuilding diversity in the format - it's just that the entire history of legacy dictates it won't ever be banned.

When it comes to the win percentages themselves, that's Ragavan the mana & first-player advantage exploit. Legacy players are really bad about looking over this simple fact, and we see a lot of "ban Iteration" when the card is clearly overperforming b/c the Lotus Petal magus is cheating on the 1 land per turn rule [this enables Iteration to get value early by putting a land in exile]. We saw the same thing back when Dig Through Time was legal when the majority of legacy players didn't see the whole part where Gitaxian Probe was a cantripping Lotus Petal turning on the CA payoff...

When it comes to understand legacy on a strategic level, whether your deckbuilding or talking about balance, always always always look for mana advantage exploits and first-player advantage exploits - these are the bad actors. No matter how dumb a Goyf by any name is, it is something you can address with minimal adjustment. It's not fun to build against Goyf, and you really shouldn't have to in a perfectly managed format, but there will always be bigger fish to fry.


Bug is not played at all, bugW is played, the difference is swords to plowshares, which happens to make your deck not instalosing to murktide regent
Oh jeez...like 20% of the format plays Saga and both Saga and Murktide die to Trophy...and BUG *has* to play Plow? Please don't ever claim that Murktide is keeping BUG out of the format. :tongue:
Again and again you are demonstrating that you do not understand legacy on a strategic level. Netdecking well does not mean you get the big picture.


Untrue, you probably just checked the last list there and called the day
So you really don't want to make comments like this if you didn't create TES or Lands or NicFit or DDFT etc...
Competently netdecking means you are a good player, but that's kind of extent of it. Adding current statistics largely created by Ragavan and its downstream hijacking of the format does not equal Murktide should be banned. Yes, MurkGoyf is a miserable effing card...but the fix we went with for all Goyf cards is letting time [power creep] take care of it.


Everybody but you must be missing it because delver has the best playrate and winrate at the moment
So you're not a deck designer and you don't really get this, but here we go anyways; three things matter in legacy:
1-Goyf
2-total hand destruction [Counterbalance, Hymn/Snapcaster, Echo, and previously Grixis Delver's Probe/Therapy]
3-FIRE, meaning 1-card combos that generally beat both of the concepts listed above. Currently this is Uro and Ragavan.

What you are noticing is that FIRE [Ragavan] + Goyf [Murktide] being in the same deck is horrifically bad for the format, and that combination has the stats to back it up. The problem there is Ragavan, it will only ever be Ragavan. With Ragavan gone the format goes back to Uro keeping Hymn and CB out of the format. The Uro players will throw existing anti-Goyfs at MurkGoyf, and they will incorporate future printings of anti-Goyf...and over time they will push MurkGoyf out of the format, just like they pushed out actual Tarmogoyf.

Remember that anti-Goyf printings far outpace that of Goyf printings. You know this is true because WotC makes money off of the limited format. People aren't going to pay to play limited if WotC keeps printing 2 mana Juzam Djinns - there's not only a "that's bullcrap" factor, but it specifically closes the door on ever drafting Boros. The evidence is all around you: Lupine Prototype, Vantress Gargoyle, Myr Superion - they always put massive conditions on rates like these...except somehow that healthy understanding of card design goes down the toilet with the word delve and P/T that isn't strictly defined by a high number. Goyf and Murktide are huge design mistakes, but they're pretty rare as compared to anti-Goyf cards.

While there is nothing fun about wizards dropping the ball in the same predictable way, a Goyf mistake is much easier to beat than...a 1 mana non-creature artifact that draws a card without going to the graveyard for example (SDT, Astrolabe - and guess what happens when they print another 1 mana non-creature artifact that draws a card without going to the graveyard!!!). You really need to step back and get some perspective, even if your style of legacy is netdecking and being a successful player. Ban Murktide is not a valid opinion in the grand scheme of things. You can whine about Goyf and how it ruins the format - that's a valid sentiment, and you're not wrong...it just isn't getting banned.


(getting a master deg in physics is not a joke)
I'm going to pretend you didn't just try to make this about education level.


Actually people are putting the effort to build anti murktide, with some succes, but ur still is the best deck, this is why i do think it is bannable
I would encourage you to go play Pre-modern with just Tarmogoyf added to the format. The concept of Goyf is oppressive as hell, but holy smokes playing vs MurkGoyf with today's card pool is so much less horrific. You don't know how good we have it on the Goyf front; our problem is Ragavan.

[TsumiBand]

The obvious solution is to ban everything that defines the current format. Ban Goyf so we can play Werebear again, ban Ragavan so Red can suck again, ban every Black card that has targeted discard so Black has to Ritual out Hypnotic Specter again. Then everyone can go back to the drawing board and stop wondering how to squeeze unfair shit into their fair decks, except Blue will continue to free-counterspell everything so at the end of the day it doesn't matter anyway.

[FTW]

I agree with dte's point. Grouping Tarmogoyf & Murktide together isn't useful here (for most decks).

Yes, some decks will answer all 2 cmc summ-sick non-trample GY-dependent fatties with the same cards:
StP + Snapcaster
Strix
Assassin's Trophy
Sudden Edict
Karn -> Ensnaring Bridge
GSZ -> Grist
cantrip + Terminus
Relic of Progenitus
Sai + artifacts
Rest in Peace
Crop Rot -> Maze of Ith
Solitary Confinement
etc.
In those cases I see how you can treat the threats as interchangeable, except on average you have less time to answer Murktide (power-creeped Goyf).

But in plenty of cases, decks would answer Goyf differently than Murktide. Commonly-played Legacy cards that pass the Goyf test but don't pass the Murktide test:
Prismatic Ending
Abrupt Decay
Fatal Push
Skyclave Apparition
Endurance
Knight of the Reliquary
Mother of Runes
Eliminate
Submerge
Veteran Explorer
Mogg War Marshal
Empty the Warrens

This is what's relevant. Plenty of decks had answers to potential Goyf that were also useful against a range of other problems, but those answers don't work on Murktide. So they can't treat them as the same type of threat. Murktide demands some different answers. Pyroblast is the main one that would already see a lot of play, although Teferi/Jace bounce are strong too. If you have to run a card like Run Afoul that you wouldn't otherwise run, it costs in other matchups (including just regular Goyf). That doesn't mean you can't rebuild decks to answer Murktide (you can). But it does mean it's not useful to group it with Goyf.


I would encourage you to go play Pre-modern with just Tarmogoyf added to the format. The concept of Goyf is oppressive as hell, but holy smokes playing vs MurkGoyf with today's card pool is so much less horrific. You don't know how good we have it on the Goyf front; our problem is Ragavan.

This part I agree with. Goyf was oppressive when it first hit Legacy in 2009ish, until they started printing more Goyf answers. Goyf mirrors were so common and boring that Noble Hierarch's exalted was heralded as a way to break them. Deadguy Ale played maindeck Spectral Lynx, lol. Relatively speaking, Murktide is easier to answer now.

[Purple Blood]

They became unplayable because blue got the new best creatures. Blue can play the best aggro creatures (and do other things too), which makes blue tempo clearly better. The point of aggro was to pick up free wins vs blue because blue had worse creatures and FoW is card disadvantage vs fair creatures. When blue gets the best creatures, blue tempo makes aggro obsolete.

There was a natural rock-scissors-paper dynamic. Blue beats combo. Aggro beats blue. Combo beats aggro.

If a metagame became too much fair blue, aggro stomps it. This is how you reduce the Brainstorm % in the top 8. You don't need to ban Brainstorm. Just give aggro new tools (to keep up with power creep) that blue can't play. Taiga aggro is still stuck back in Wild Nacatl land while blue gained the best beatdown in Delver of Secrets, True Name Nemesis, Sprite Dragon, Dragon's Rage Channeler, Murktide Regent as well as defensive 2-for-1 anti-aggro tools like Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage, Stoneforge Mystic, Ice-Fang Coatl, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. How can beatdown ever keep up when the new power-creeped creatures go to blue?

Wild Nacatl was good card design because it was an overstatted (for the time) aggro creature that is easy to run in Taiga decks but bad in Island decks. This is what aggro needs to be viable. Power creeped beatdown creatures that aren't just better in blue decks. As for the format being more powerful now, that doesn't obsolete the aggro game plan, it just means aggro would need new tools to keep up with the format's increased power level.

Beetdown R/G
Creature - Human Warrior
Haste
When ~ ETB, sacrifice all Islands you control.
If a land you control would produce mana, it instead produces R or G.
4/4

Megantic Nacatl G
Creature - Cat Warrior Berserker
First Strike
+1/+1 as long as you control Plains
+1/+1 as long as you control Mountain
+1/+1 as long as you control Forest
-2/-2 as long as you control Island
2/2

If you make the card strong enough to keep up with the format's power, and not playable in blue tempo, then aggro as a concept can work. Wizards just keeps giving the best creatures to blue.

Then we're mostly in agreement. My original point was that the newly printed creatures are not what caused non-blue aggro to fall out. It's only gotten more ridiculous/apparent now because Delver can play UR and doesn't have to splash black or green anymore to get access to beaters. I agree that's stupid but that doesn't explain why aggro fell out. If all those creatures were non-blue, you would just see Delver splashing for them but you would not see non-blue aggro suddenly work.

As you've pointed out, there are a wide range of defensive cards that don't slot into Delver that render non-blue aggro less playable. You would also likely acknowledge that combo decks have more tools than they had in 2010.

Ultimately, the death of red-green aggro cannot be solved by any realistic set of bans. Its another question as to whether new aggro cards could be printed to make red-green viable. My suspicion is those colors are not interactive enough to be viable unless you were going to print some truly heinous cards. A power-crept Nacatl wouldn't get it done. Like I said, this strategy is not even viable in Modern anymore.

[FTW]

Then we're mostly in agreement. My original point was that the newly printed creatures are not what caused non-blue aggro to fall out. It's only gotten more ridiculous/apparent now because Delver can play UR and doesn't have to splash black or green anymore to get access to beaters. I agree that's stupid but that doesn't explain why aggro fell out. If all those creatures were non-blue, you would just see Delver splashing for them but you would not see non-blue aggro suddenly work.

Depends on what you mean by "newly printed". If just MH2 or 2020 cards, then of course. Nonblue aggro died years ago. I'm an old player and still consider the Delver era "new"-ish. Since that's around when aggro went obsolete and blue tempo took off, those are the blue creatures I was talking about (Delver, TNN, Snapcaster, Strix). That's when WOTC really started power-creeping blue creatures over nonblue, giving blue both superior aggro and superior anti-aggro. The recent creatures are just a continuation of that trend (Sprite Dragon, Oko, Uro, Ice-Fang, DRC, Murktide). Yes, blue can still splash off-color cards, but it hurts even more when so many of these cards were printed in blue.

By "nonblue" I mean something that can't be played effectively in blue decks (Tarmogoyf was long considered a blue card). Cards like my above brews or Eidolon of the Great Revel. Creatures designed to be strong in nonblue but that have no business in a blue deck. Wild Nacatl as a concept was great design for that. But there's been a dearth of similar cards keeping up with the format's power creep.

This of course isn't solved by bans, nor did I advocate for that. It's an issue of many years of aggro failing to get adequate tools to keep up with the format's power creep. I just want to see those tools printed to balance the colors. Fireflux Stompy is an exception, because it's been a power creep of cards printed at 3-4 CMC (does not threaten Modern and Standard since they cannot accelerate like Legacy can). With the way Wizards has been curating Modern and Standard, they favor midrange and discourage decks that can win too quickly, so they avoid printing creeped aggro creatures at 1-2 cmc (and when they do, they often use keywords like Prowess, Surveil or Delve that make them even stronger in blue cantrip decks). Unless they print a Legacy Masters, there's not really a set where the needed cards would get printed, because creatures like that would be too strong in Modern or Standard.

This missing piece of the meta is/was one of blue's natural police. So when blue gets OP, instead of just banning every new blue tool, maybe they just need to print new tools for its predators...

[Ronald Deuce]

This is a bit of a meta question. I'm a little lit, so this may be less coherent than I'd like it to be.

I remember reading something penned/sigged by Mark Rosewater around 2000/2001 (I think it was one of the non-cards parts of the Beatdown box set) in which he said that creatures, generally, are the most efficient way to deal damage and, thus, win games of Magic. And generally speaking, he was right in 2001(?).

Now I get that prison pieces and synergetic noncreature spells that can be played in Legacy are better than any of the creatures that existed back then, and I'm generally neutral about that. But that's clearly untrue now. I can't see the reason to play creature-light decks at all anymore, unless that deck is All Spells. Even garbage-tier unplayable creatures have body stats higher than their costs these days with no opportunity cost and no drawback. And yeah, that brings creatures more in line with the cost of removal, but then again, wasn't that the whole point of removal? To answer snowballing-damage threats on the cheap? Because it feels an awful lot like aside from a breakthrough spell here or there, Wizards didn't just power up creatures: They powered down everything else, too. I've been playing Arena (kill me), and I've spent precisely zero dollars to wipe the floor with people who spent actual, real money (not just the latest, dumbest GigaChipCoins™) by just spamming creatures about sixty percent of the time.

Did they just look at their decade(s) of game-design experience and piss all over it?

I say/ask all this because I don't think "FIRE" is the problem. I think it's been a deeper problem that continues to metastasize, and FIRE is only manifesting as a symptom because the company's been banning the playable noncreature cards before players can, you know, PLAY THEM. People talk about pushed cards all over the place, but I have trouble thinking of anything that approaches the warpitude of creature printings over the past several years. Underworld Breach is the closest thing, and it's just . . . fine. It's fine. It was fine. It continues to be fine.

EDIT: I feel like I should preempt some stuff by saying that I don't really have a dog in the fight re: Murktide Regent. If people have a problem with the format right now, the problem is and has been quite self-evidently Delver of Secrets. (Well, it's the last change to mulligan rules, but we know they won't ban that.) I don't really see a tremendous problem with the card, but a lot of people seem really twisted up about the state of the format. Raggy's a good card, and Murktide Regent's a good card. That's cool to me. I like good cards, even if I don't play those specific ones.

EDIT again: Planeswalkers are their own kettle of fish. I'd rather they'd just never made them, but I do play a few in Commander. This view is subjective. I think cat-people in fantasy are dumb, I like playing blue, and I hate planeswalkers, so of course I'm gonna build Lord Windgrace.

[Noctalor]

As far as the rest of your list goes, none of the finishes except the most recent one happened during the time of Murktide. While there's no doubt that you are a capable pilot and can tune a deck, you're not a deck developer. In Murktide times, all you can do is flash a finish with a deck Ark4n and I are the sole creators. This isn't exactly a great starting point.

As i told you those are not all of my finishes, after that event i actually got 3 more tournament wins with doomsday and i got a top8 in a showcase on mtgo, still playing doomsday and playing a list that i specifically developed, also, if you claim to have created sagavan, give reasoning and proof


Murktide and the word flying and saying it's "strictly better," which simply isn't true when you understand the format.

Please just say it straight, having flying is a malus on a card because of run afoul, if you do think so, state it


Your next strategy is citing the win % of a deck that dies the day a new card is printed;

You should definitely bring in actual data to back up what you are talking about, it helps sounding reasonable, and UR is staying tier 1 for quite a while for now, despite green having access to the ultimate edict


we saw UR fall off the map with Wrenn and then Oko and then Lurrus...

And all of them got banned, bringing Mishra Workshop to legacy would surely make UR delver not the best deck, and then by banning it it would return to be the best deck, so this reasoning makes no sense


and their deck is going to keep falling off the map b/c it has nothing to ensure lasting relevance.

The deck is lasting relevant, do not talk about your dream world, talk about reality, and if possible provide data


UR Delver is playing 1-card combos without any strategy behind it,

As a self claimed guru on deckbuilding you should definitely know that this is untrue, but yet again you decided that you alone have agency on defining what strategy is i suppose

and this always ends by death to power creep. That doesn't mean that Goyf isn't a miserable effing concept that chokes out most of the deckbuilding diversity in the format - it's just that the entire history of legacy dictates it won't ever be banned.


When it comes to the win percentages themselves, that's Ragavan the mana & first-player advantage exploit.

Provide data to back up your claims, all i have is anectodal evidence (bringing me to the claim "i would prefer that murktide gets axed aswell") that both ragavan broken starts and murktide stealing games by being blatantly overpowered are the two main culprits


When it comes to understand legacy on a strategic level, whether your deckbuilding or talking about balance, always always always look for mana advantage exploits and first-player advantage exploits - these are the bad actors

I think you love to oversimplify, but things are actually much more complicated than that, and a card can be broken in a lot of different ways


No matter how dumb a Goyf by any name is, it is something you can address with minimal adjustment.

This is simply not true, the stronger the beatstick is, the harder you get punished by not having an answer immediatly, the entire strategy of ur delver is in fact to be efficient, by having basicly 2 tarmogoyf sautered togheter, with flying and in color, it's actually quite easyer to do so


Oh jeez...like 20% of the format plays Saga and both Saga and Murktide die to Trophy...and BUG *has* to play Plow?

Blue Zenith, which is BUGW has an 9% play rate, while BUG currently has a nice <0.3% play rate, so yeah it does

I have also playtested bug specifically and the deck is decently good, but in testing we mostly lost to Murktide Regent, despite having 3 trophy and 2 run afoul + uro and endurance


Please don't ever claim that Murktide is keeping BUG out of the format. :tongue:

This is exactly what my playtest has shown, you can blame me or my test partner (which has also much more tops than me im kinda sure)


Again and again you are demonstrating that you do not understand legacy on a strategic level. Netdecking well does not mean you get the big picture.


So you really don't want to make comments like this if you didn't create TES or Lands or NicFit or DDFT etc...

Are you joking?
You are supposed to create an archetype to understand how deckbuilding works?


So you're not a deck designer and you don't really get this, but here we go anyways;

Do you realize how stupid it sounds?
There are at best 10 players currently playing this game which actually developed a good deck (not tier 3 decks capable of making 2/3 5/0 on mtgo), everyone else should have no understanding about deckbuilding?

By this logic, you basicly cannot understand quantum mechanics unless you come up with your own theory?


three things matter in legacy:
1-Goyf
2-total hand destruction [Counterbalance, Hymn/Snapcaster, Echo, and previously Grixis Delver's Probe/Therapy]
3-FIRE, meaning 1-card combos that generally beat both of the concepts listed above. Currently this is Uro and Ragavan.

This is actually untrue, the most important thing in legacy is likely tempo, everything else comes later, leveraging tempo or being able to follow at a resonable rate is what makes a deck viable or not


What you are noticing is that FIRE [Ragavan] + Goyf [Murktide] being in the same deck is horrifically bad for the format, and that combination has the stats to back it up.

By standing still on your fallacy, you fail to realize that "dies to REB LOL" is so big of a buff that it makes the cards extremely different and makes the deck quite a lot better.
As an example, Tombstalker is basicly better than tarmogoyf, once you cast it, but the BB alone made it a worse card, murktide is power creeping tombstalker, because in almost any scenario it is actually just a better version which is functionally the same card, but it is blue, and being blue actually does what has never been done, giving the best beatstick (by a mile), to blue

it is as if blue gets swords to plowshares or thoughtseize, it is not a "minor buff over existing cards", it is a meta breaker, UR having access to the best beatstick is what helps the deck (alongside ragavan nuts) being the most efficient deck by a massive margin, by not having murktide the deck would change at it's core and be massively weaker


Remember that anti-Goyf printings far outpace that of Goyf printings.

Hystorically this has never worked as you intend, mostly because of tempo, but ok



You really need to step back and get some perspective, even if your style of legacy is netdecking and being a successful player. Ban Murktide is not a valid opinion in the grand scheme of things. You can whine about Goyf and how it ruins the format - that's a valid sentiment, and you're not wrong...it just isn't getting banned.

I really do not netdeck at all, but you like to think that you should either came up with an archetype or have no rights to it, yet again, statistical mechanics belongs to Boltzmann, damned netdeckers having fun with it :laugh:


I'm going to pretend you didn't just try to make this about education level.

Nah, it was not intented, and if you feel that way, it was not what i meant, i literally meant that i am spending 999999999 hours a week on my master, so i have much less tournaments played/tops, just recently i had a shot at playing again (completely missed oko/breach/cascade rework and such)


I would encourage you to go play Pre-modern with just Tarmogoyf added to the format

I do, i have sleeved gro a tog actually :laugh:


The concept of Goyf is oppressive as hell, but holy smokes playing vs MurkGoyf with today's card pool is so much less horrific. You don't know how good we have it on the Goyf front; our problem is Ragavan.

What i am stating is that by having to constantly check 1 drops (or you mostly lose), it is way too punishing to have an 8/8 flying for UU as the top of the curve, you do play the answers, but you have to STP a turn 1 ragavan, you have to REB an iteration, you also have to STP/REB murktide, and making multiple of them is actually super easy (and being UU helps immensly), and eventually, if you do not have answers, you take 8 per turn, unless you do have a flying blocker

[Fox]

@Ronald Deuce a lot of the problems with creature design can be boiled down to a chess example: when you remove any downside from dudes and print CA on them (particularly at sub-Pyknite costs), it's basically like letting someone take two moves in chess before the opponent has a chance to make a counterplay. Such design is inherently uninteractive, and honestly we're going to see Torpor Orb printed on a land sooner rather than later - I mean this is like the level you need to drop to, to create real counterplay.

WotC needs to wake up and realize that what makes fair magic work is playing a flavorful, diversity-enabling card and then passing the turn to give the opponent a chance to do something about it. Unfortunately they took the constant mana requirement off Jeyemdae Tome (PWs), so all these clowns do is hide behind spot removal and cards resembling Snapcaster before slamming their JTMS-equivalent...so we're all left in this weird design space. At the end of the day in legacy, you just have to be happy that your hand isn't getting blasted to oblivion by Counterbalance and Hymn/Snapcaster and Probe/Therapy and Echo on a regular basis. When the FIRE is controlled and people can still have a hand that isn't destroyed (so like Uro legal, but not cards like Wrenn/Oko/Ragavan), legacy is still a pretty good format.
--
As someone who loved how DTT OmniTell and Breach choked fair non-blue creature-feature decks out of the format, this stuff is unhealthy. I also particularly love watching discard-heavy fair decks getting dumpstered by Thassa of any flavor, but again this isn't exactly healthy. Likewise, I would love any meta created by unbanning garbage like Flash - for me these metas are the most fun time in legacy ever...but like definitely not healthy. The reason they're so much fun is people don't get to hide behind Goyf or total hand destruction or FIRE; but unfortunately the cost of these metas is that people don't get any room to play anything fair and non-blue.

[Fox]

As i told you those are not all of my finishes, after that event i actually got 3 more tournament wins with doomsday and i got a top8 in a showcase on mtgo, still playing doomsday and playing a list that i specifically developed, also, if you claim to have created sagavan, give reasoning and proof
https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?8964-Deck-Dreadstill-Enter-the-Fist/page233 5/29 is when the list was completed. DRC was spoiled on 5/28 and recognized instantly. Read into page 235 of the thread. The set was released on 6/18/21.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/o4ybaa/mtgo_legacy_challenge_61921/ This is from 6/19/21. This is the first UWR Ragavan (aside from Ark4n's two dry-run leagues directly before the challenge)

https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33542-Modern-Horizons-2-Previews Your reference on Urza's Saga.
https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33542-Modern-Horizons-2-Previews/page10 Your reference on Dress Down.
Couldn't find where in the spoiler thread DRC was first discussed, maybe that one was on reddit. Either way that one got incorporated by me within seconds of the spoiler being read.

Enjoy this moment, it's not very often you get to learn exactly where and who the list you netdeck'd comes from.

Edit: the 13 minute call to Ark4n was made on 6/17/21 through discord, with instructions about the ramifications of changing DRC to Ragavan. Details about Ark4n's co-authoring of UWR Ragavan is what you can find on pg. 235 of the Dreadstill thread, as well as a synopsis of most of what was discussed on our call. This joint venture belongs to Ark4n and I, and us alone.

[Noctalor]

https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?8964-Deck-Dreadstill-Enter-the-Fist/page233 5/29 is when the list was completed. DRC was spoiled on 5/28 and recognized instantly. Read into page 235 of the thread. The set was released on 6/18/21.

4x Tarn
4x Vista
5x Island
1x Volc
1x Mountain
2x Saga
3x Wasteland

3x DRC
2x Lavaman
3x Nought
1x TNN

4x Bstorm
4x FoW
4x Daze
4x Bolt
3x Stifle
2x Spikefield Hazard

4x Standstill
2x Shark'nado
2x Dress Down
2x Scroll

This?
This is a bad iteration of a bad deck, stiflenought is a tier 3 which has nothing to do with sagavan


https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/o4ybaa/mtgo_legacy_challenge_61921/ This is from 6/19/21. This is the first UWR Ragavan (aside from Ark4n's two dry-run leagues directly before the challenge)

Which does not prove that you have done anything


https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33542-Modern-Horizons-2-Previews Your reference on Urza's Saga.

"Just so we're all on the same page, Urza's Saga is a manland for Dreadstill. Also you all are so effing lucky it can't wish out a Portable Hole."

This?
You are talking about a tier 3 deck, which has nothing to do at all with sagavan, to give context, people put 1 dreadnought in sagavan for memeing, and it is actually horrible, what is not horrible is murktide on the other hand


https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33542-Modern-Horizons-2-Previews/page10 Your reference on Dress Down.

What does this mean?
Dress down as a dreadnought enabler has nothing to do with sagavan, maybe recognize dress down as urza saga hate would have, you are yet again talking about your tier 3 pet deck, which is fine, but pointless


Enjoy this moment, it's not very often you get to learn exactly where and who the list you netdeck'd comes from.

I know it's hard to read, but i have not netdecked, I came from a pause, asked what deck i could borrow which was a bit spicy and i got sagavan offered, then i wrongly decided to add DRC, dreadnought (which was indeed horrible) and to remove regents


This joint venture belongs to Ark4n and I, and us alone.

All I see is an attempt to include op cards in your outdated pet deck, the core of your deck is dreadnought, which is a bad deck and is the reason why you tunnel into "non-trample bruh", so i keep my statement of "Self proclaimed guru"

Btw, what i can see on the page you suggest is:

Ark4n asked for my Dreadstill list and we talked about the issues with Ragavan on turn 1 -> Standstill on turn 2 -> your opponent just taps Karakas and you're screwed. This is why I use DRC in UR Dreadstill; that, and the 1-card delirium combo of Saga find Nought. The issue with Ragavan is that if it isn't able to attack, you suddenly need to fix the problem that makes it so you can't attack. Blue + Red is a really poor set of colors when it comes to being able to fix "Ragavan can't attack" problems; Daze doesn't always work and neither does Bolt.

You missing that the best deck in the format will be exactly the "poor set of colors when it comes to being able to fix "Ragavan can't attack" problems" deck


Ragavan is ideal for a white splash as you're technically able to cast Prismatic Ending for up to 5 colors

Again missing the best deck in the format and thinking that ending for 5 is a somewhat relevant play


On *enemy* DRC [Dragon Rage Chan], I don't think going to be the most viable of cards. They start sabotaging their Delver flips with Bauble, and I think it's a spiral they can't break out of. It takes very little from enemy decks to keep that card down at 1/1 status, and the DRC decks aren't going to be able to get delirium online quickly & reliably.


Again missing the best deck in the format and thinking DRC is unplayable in UR delver


You failed to impress me with your proofs, all I see is recognize straight upgrades for your pet deck and trying to implement them, alongside terribad deckbuilding choices which had to be removed to make a non tier 3 deck

[Fox]

Dude, take your beating. You played Ark4n and my deck, and put it up as your only legacy finish during the time of Murktide being legal to come here and tell me I don't know anything about card evaluation.
-Then you brought up your masters degree...
-Then you decided to say I didn't design that deck...
-Then you got the lightning fast dates, and suddenly I'm making all this up despite all the timestamps to the contrary...

Enough with your foaming at the mouth over Dreadnought, your turn to offer up something real: who made UWR Ragavan before we did?
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/o49550/mtgo_50_legacy_league_lists_61921/ show me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/nz0ree/mtgo_50_legacy_league_lists_61221/ show me.
Yeah I guess that TNN and Lavamancer and Dreadnought and Stifle and Standstill all got there by accident...unreal dude.
---
The point of linking the other cards is so that you get a feel for how quickly I process and incorporate cards that aren't even in print. You are not expected to understand my Standstill consistency engine, because you play xerox when on blue. You haven't been waiting years checking every spoiled card for a way to get 3x Factory to 2x manland and go up a basic - and you don't understand the significance. You're dazzled by what Saga says and Ponder'ing into it - you don't understand it's the extra basic that's the payoff. Just as with Murktide, you don't understand the concept.

All of your conventional experience in legacy about how busted Saga is, it doesn't scratch the surface of what the architect of a totally different consistency engine understands about the card. You have to wait for stats and other people's decklists to tell you DRC is a better card than Delver, or you actually have to figure this out by playtesting. You don't seem to understand that I play turn 1 DRC and then I play turn 2 Standstill and get the option to mill towards a land drop, and you don't understand that Saga wishing up a suicide Dreadnought is 1 card delirium - even under a Standstill. I don't need to play a single test game to know how all the pieces fit, all of this is knowable with theory alone - and it's a sequence whose pieces all decrease mana variance.

You only know how to fixate on stand-alone power of a card, and that makes you degrees of magnitude slower than me at card and concept appraisal particularly when these cards are printed for my decks and not-xerox consistency engine. This took Ark4n and me from 6/17/21 to 6/19/21 to go from Dreadstill to trolling the format with the Ragavan edit.

Since you seem to be so fixated on Portable Hole, this is in reference to UW Dreadstill where I was looking for over a year to get rid of Spell Snare. Saga doesn't work well with UW, but if Saga could have tutored up a card whose outcome would be similar enough to the end effect of Spell Snare, it would have gotten more serious consideration. Note also that this is before Prismatic Ending was spoiled, which is a card that does basically everything Spell Snare does, just better. It should begin to make sense that when I talk about the only good maindeck mana-requiring counterspells in legacy being Drown or a high variance maindeck Blast, that I add Prismatic Ending to this group. It doesn't really matter if someone resolves a Library or Vial or Chalice for instance if you just murder it before they untap; it's functionally identical to countering it.
---
Back to MurkGoyf - go play Premodern and put Tarmogoyf in that format. Then come back here and tell me about how oppressive MurkGoyf is.

[Noctalor]

You played Ark4n and my deck,

Im asking for proof and i get janky dradstill lists in response


and put it up as your only legacy finish during the time of Murktide being legal

I told you i have more tops, not all of them are on TC Decks and some are actually on MTGO, do I have to link all of them?
https://i.ibb.co/Mn16dRr/wedidit.png

This is the easiest i could find, do i have to dig deeper?


to come here and tell me I don't know anything about card evaluation.

It's not my fault if you wish to keep talking as this enlightned master at deck building while providing nothing relavant to back your claims, I am not the only one telling you that this whole murktide = goyf debacle is simply wrong


-Then you brought up your masters degree...

As i told you, my goal was not to brag at all, if you feel offended, i can't really do much about it, at least i did not invented quantum field theory so i probably am just a netdecker


-Then you decided to say I didn't design that deck...

I asked for proof, for example a top finish you made, or a post in which you specifically come up with sagavan and not dreadstill with 3 DRC


Enough with your foaming at the mouth over Dreadnought,

There is nothing wrong playing and loving a tier 3 deck, i did the same for ages and also brew my lists (impossible i guess), and i think its one of the coolest things about legacy actually


your turn to offer up something real: who made UWR Ragavan before we did?
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/o49550/mtgo_50_legacy_league_lists_61921/ show me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/nz0ree/mtgo_50_legacy_league_lists_61221/ show me.
Yeah I guess that TNN and Lavamancer and Dreadnought and Stifle and Standstill all got there by accident...unreal dude.

Would you mind sharing your MTGO or linking me directly results you got please

---

The point of linking the other cards is so that you get a feel for how quickly I process and incorporate cards that aren't even in print. You are not expected to understand my Standstill consistency engine,

If the engine it's good i should expect to have plenty of results to back it up, so please link them to me (by results i do not count some 5/0 on leagues, you can clearly get there with any non tier 5 deck as long as you play enough)


because you play xerox when on blue.

Not doing so literally means "tell me I don't know anything about card evaluation.", exactly


You haven't been waiting years checking every spoiled card for a way to get 3x Factory to 2x manland and go up a basic - and you don't understand the significance.

Exactly as i told you, tuning you own pet deck, i actually know how to do so quite well, likely better then you, but do not brag about this ancestraly knowledge on how legacy works


You're dazzled by what Saga says and Ponder'ing into it - you don't understand it's the extra basic that's the payoff. Just as with Murktide, you don't understand the concept.

I literally played sagavan because it was what i could borrow and get into a 9 turns event with literally no games played prior, still made i decent run, and i do not claim to be the godsent builder which feels smart cutting ponder from it's deck


All of your conventional experience in legacy about how busted Saga is,

I had the decency to show you what my legacy experience is, would you mind doing the same and show me your finishes


it doesn't scratch the surface of what the architect of a totally different consistency engine understands about the card.

Show me the results you got with this consistency engine, to me it seems hella bad, so i would like to be proven wrong


You have to wait for stats and other people's decklists to tell you DRC is a better card than Delver, or you actually have to figure this out by playtesting.

You literally said that DRC was no good in delver because of Delver of secrets,

On *enemy* DRC [Dragon Rage Chan], I don't think going to be the most viable of cards. They start sabotaging their Delver flips with Bauble, and I think it's a spiral they can't break out of. It takes very little from enemy decks to keep that card down at 1/1 status, and the DRC decks aren't going to be able to get delirium online quickly & reliably.

This is your quote, so yeah, quit the BS


You don't seem to understand that I play turn 1 DRC and then I play turn 2 Standstill and get the option to mill towards a land drop,

This concept is insanely hard to grasp, truly unbelievable insigt


and you don't understand that Saga wishing up a suicide Dreadnought is 1 card delirium - even under a Standstill.

Ofc i do?
I can read man


I don't need to play a single test game to know how all the pieces fit, all of this is knowable with theory alone

And still the list you proposed was quite bad and im still waiting for you to provide actual results gotten with it


Since you seem to be so fixated on Portable Hole,

Nah, i have nothing on portable hole, i was just pointing out that the post you gave me talks about saga in dreadstill, and that any decent sagavan list is not on dreadnought, but is on murktide

So in a nutshell, if you claim to be this divine player which understands clearly how things work while the other mere mortals do not, provide evidence on what you have done with your godsend powers

[Zoid]

https://c.tenor.com/mUzD8XHmgpEAAAAC/movie-time-movie.gif4

Can we derail this thread even more?

Discussions about quantum physics would be less grade schooly.

[Wrath of Pie]

I told you i have more tops, not all of them are on TC Decks and some are actually on MTGO, do I have to link all of them?
https://i.ibb.co/Mn16dRr/wedidit.png

Consider is interesting.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I have a PhD. It doesn't stop some posters from arguing that their intuitions about things directly in my areas of research specialization trump the facts I give them. Go figure.

The entirely unwarranted interpersonal conflict aside, I tend to find that Fox's and FTW's analyses of the structure of Legacy are pretty incisive.

[Purple Blood]

Depends on what you mean by "newly printed". If just MH2 or 2020 cards, then of course. Nonblue aggro died years ago. I'm an old player and still consider the Delver era "new"-ish. Since that's around when aggro went obsolete and blue tempo took off, those are the blue creatures I was talking about (Delver, TNN, Snapcaster, Strix). That's when WOTC really started power-creeping blue creatures over nonblue, giving blue both superior aggro and superior anti-aggro. The recent creatures are just a continuation of that trend (Sprite Dragon, Oko, Uro, Ice-Fang, DRC, Murktide). Yes, blue can still splash off-color cards, but it hurts even more when so many of these cards were printed in blue.

By "nonblue" I mean something that can't be played effectively in blue decks (Tarmogoyf was long considered a blue card). Cards like my above brews or Eidolon of the Great Revel. Creatures designed to be strong in nonblue but that have no business in a blue deck. Wild Nacatl as a concept was great design for that. But there's been a dearth of similar cards keeping up with the format's power creep.

This of course isn't solved by bans, nor did I advocate for that. It's an issue of many years of aggro failing to get adequate tools to keep up with the format's power creep. I just want to see those tools printed to balance the colors. Fireflux Stompy is an exception, because it's been a power creep of cards printed at 3-4 CMC (does not threaten Modern and Standard since they cannot accelerate like Legacy can). With the way Wizards has been curating Modern and Standard, they favor midrange and discourage decks that can win too quickly, so they avoid printing creeped aggro creatures at 1-2 cmc (and when they do, they often use keywords like Prowess, Surveil or Delve that make them even stronger in blue cantrip decks). Unless they print a Legacy Masters, there's not really a set where the needed cards would get printed, because creatures like that would be too strong in Modern or Standard.

This missing piece of the meta is/was one of blue's natural police. So when blue gets OP, instead of just banning every new blue tool, maybe they just need to print new tools for its predators...

I've played off an on since the late 90s but when I say new I mean starting with MH1.

Personally, I think Legacy Horizons would be heinous. Modern Horizons is already bad enough. These horizons sets are a (not very) covert way to turn nonrotating formats into rotating formats.

The Rock used to be a nice predator to fair blue. But now it sucks. Maybe they should focus on adding new tools to that color combo. Unfortunately, this may be an irreparable problem given their recent penchant to staple cantrips / other value onto every damn card. It's pretty hard to go 1-for-1 with discard and removal when they just keep drawing more gas as a side effect to playing their cards.

[Purple Blood]

@Ronald Deuce a lot of the problems with creature design can be boiled down to a chess example: when you remove any downside from dudes and print CA on them (particularly at sub-Pyknite costs), it's basically like letting someone take two moves in chess before the opponent has a chance to make a counterplay. Such design is inherently uninteractive, and honestly we're going to see Torpor Orb printed on a land sooner rather than later - I mean this is like the level you need to drop to, to create real counterplay.

I wonder how much of this is due to them deciding that its not fun when both players run out of resources so lets make an obscene number of cards that instantly replace themselves.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I wonder how much of this is due to them deciding that its not fun when both players run out of resources so lets make an obscene number of cards that instantly replace themselves.

I think this is survivorship bias talking.

[H]

Alright, the topic is B&R, so make arguments pursuant to that, not about what cred and/or clout you might have.

Thanks.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Alright, the topic is B&R, so make arguments pursuant to that, not about what cred and/or clout you might have.

Thanks.

Look at this zero phd scrub
Git parchment, kid

[H]

Look at this zero phd scrub
Git parchment, kid

Deep burn. But yeah, lets get back on track here folks.

[FTW]

Ragabanned should be a thing.

Murktide doesn't need to get banned, at least yet. The decks abusing Murktide are mainly Ragavan decks. Their Murktide is so devastating because the 1-drops force early interaction, depleting your answers. Ragavan also buys insane tempo to get ahead on cards and mana, so they can increase velocity of cantrips (MOAR DELVE) and stick & protect Murktide. Murktide is a great finisher for this kind of tempo-Ragavan strategy (UR 2Delver, URW Ragavan), but you don't see Murktide dominating the same way in other Xerox decks like Bant or Yorion ABCD. That should say a lot. Murktide in a vacuum isn't banworthy. Ragavan decks can just exploit it as a fast finisher once they've already pulled ahead.

Murktide is power-creeped Tombstalker, but notice how Tombstalker hasn't been relevant in Legacy for many years.

Edit: Murktide and Iteration are clearly problems too, but both should lose some power level after Ragavan gets banned. Iteration without Ragavan will work in 4c midrange decks but should be awkward in Delver, since it's a turn 3 play (Delver can't afford to run too many slots that are weak on 1-2 lands). Iteration is just the most efficient way to convert free Lotus Petals into cards/velocity/gas.

[Purple Blood]

I think this is survivorship bias talking.

Not sure what you mean.

[Purple Blood]

Ragabanned should be a thing.

Murktide doesn't need to get banned, at least yet. The decks abusing Murktide are mainly Ragavan decks. Their Murktide is so devastating because the 1-drops force early interaction, depleting your answers. Ragavan also buys insane tempo to get ahead on cards and mana, so they can increase velocity of cantrips (MOAR DELVE) and stick & protect Murktide. Murktide is a great finisher for this kind of tempo-Ragavan strategy (UR 2Delver, URW Ragavan), but you don't see Murktide dominating the same way in other Xerox decks like Bant or Yorion ABCD. That should say a lot. Murktide in a vacuum isn't banworthy. Ragavan decks can just exploit it as a fast finisher once they've already pulled ahead.

Murktide is power-creeped Tombstalker, but notice how Tombstalker hasn't been relevant in Legacy for many years.

Edit: Murktide and Iteration are clearly problems too, but both should lose some power level after Ragavan gets banned. Iteration without Ragavan will work in 4c midrange decks but should be awkward in Delver, since it's a turn 3 play (Delver can't afford to run too many slots that are weak on 1-2 lands). Iteration is just the most efficient way to convert free Lotus Petals into cards/velocity/gas.

This is the best take in the thread on this topic. I'll just add that if Tombstalker was blue it would have been relevant until Murktide was printed.

[Noctalor]

Ragabanned should be a thing.

Murktide doesn't need to get banned, at least yet. The decks abusing Murktide are mainly Ragavan decks. Their Murktide is so devastating because the 1-drops force early interaction, depleting your answers. Ragavan also buys insane tempo to get ahead on cards and mana, so they can increase velocity of cantrips (MOAR DELVE) and stick & protect Murktide. Murktide is a great finisher for this kind of tempo-Ragavan strategy (UR 2Delver, URW Ragavan), but you don't see Murktide dominating the same way in other Xerox decks like Bant or Yorion ABCD. That should say a lot. Murktide in a vacuum isn't banworthy. Ragavan decks can just exploit it as a fast finisher once they've already pulled ahead.

Murktide is power-creeped Tombstalker, but notice how Tombstalker hasn't been relevant in Legacy for many years.

Edit: Murktide and Iteration are clearly problems too, but both should lose some power level after Ragavan gets banned. Iteration without Ragavan will work in 4c midrange decks but should be awkward in Delver, since it's a turn 3 play (Delver can't afford to run too many slots that are weak on 1-2 lands). Iteration is just the most efficient way to convert free Lotus Petals into cards/velocity/gas.

Very nice, something serious to talk about.

In my experience UR delver has mainly 3 problems, ragavan, murktide and iteration (and DRC to an extent)

The main problem is indeed that you have way too many removal checks, letting ragavan alive turns ugly very quickly and the same happens with DRC to be honest (maybe you dont get as punished instantly but it makes multiple murktides super easy).

The problem with murktide is just that the stats are too good, if you are unable to instantly get a removal for it, you just lose (i would say that you lose 80% of the games in which murktide connects once), the first murktide if often an 8/8, which is actually pretty much twice what a tarmogoyf brings to the table.
If UR had ANY other top of the curve finisher, you would win much much more games because you manage to stabilize, what i have seen so far is that tons of times you do stabilize, but take one hit from murktide in the process, and somehow you are in bolt range or close already


On the tombstalker power creep, getting +3+3 clearly is an incredible power creep, but really is being blue that pushes it over the top, no one should argue that a blue tombstalker would have been the main beastick for any tempo deck from 2007 to 2020, while the BB cost forces you into UBx, which has not always been optimal.

Murktide is not often played alongside green mostly because green is a playable color only because it brings to the table uro + library + loam (+ endurance and GSZ), most of those engines already do require grave usage, also Murktide is stupid broken in a deck capable of leveraging tempo, while those deck are mainly slower decks which do not really care about damage dealt.
On the other hand, no deck besides tempo truly plays ragavan either (not counting memes), the cards are clearly meant to be played in a tempo shell

Anyway, in my experience, murktide actually is more important to ur than ragavan itself, but i dont want too much about it, but i surely think that if ragavan is indeed better, is not by that much even.
I truly think that if people starts taking notes, most of them would come up with a major lose rate to a resolved murktide than to a resolved ragavan to be honest

Also, as a sidenote, regent is the third delve card which managed to be a staple 4 of not even in duscussion, the only other two card which made it are Cruise and Dig...

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Not sure what you mean.
I mean they print tons of cards that don't and realitively few that do but because those are the only ones that can break through there the only ones that get talked about

[Purple Blood]

I mean they print tons of cards that don't and realitively few that do but because those are the only ones that can break through there the only ones that get talked about

That's a fair point but ultimately the point is that those cards are getting printed to a much larger degree as of late.

[FTW]

Anyway, in my experience, murktide actually is more important to ur than ragavan itself, but i dont want too much about it, but i surely think that if ragavan is indeed better, is not by that much even.
I truly think that if people starts taking notes, most of them would come up with a major lose rate to a resolved murktide than to a resolved ragavan to be honest

This reminds me of a bias that comes up in Limited card evaluation, if simply relying on stats/memory of what you lose to.

In Limited, the cards with highest win % after resolution are Wraths and Overruns. But those aren't actually the best cards in Limited. They're conditional cards that you wait to cast until they would completely swing the game. If you look at the % of games you win after the card is resolved (or instead, how often you lost after opponent resolved that card), it skews highly towards Wraths and Overruns. But you miss all the time that card was stuck in hand, uncastable, or not relevant to the board state. The same thing can happen with 7-8 cmc Mythic Rare bombs, which can be back-breaking but also have a high "dud" rate. We just don't notice the times they're stuck dead in opponent's hand, and the win/lose rates don't reflect that either.

We tend to remember the flashy finishers that beat us. But often opponent was already ahead in the game. It just dealt the final blow. We tend to neglect the early 2-for-1 or tempo exploit that really put opponent in a winning position to deploy the unanswered finisher, how they ended up with more threats than we have answers.

Anyway, I wonder if the same bias may occur comparing Ragavan to Murktide. If you look at the win/lose rate of a resolved Murktide, it probably is higher than the rate for a resolved Ragavan. But that rate misses all the time Murktide was trapped dead in hand or buried by cantrips/EI because it was not helpful at that time. Monke is 1 cmc. If they have one, you probably see it. But they tend to play Murktide once they're ahead and can protect it. We all remember losing to Murktide and being unable to stop it fast enough, but we don't notice when they had/buried Murktides they didn't want. It's also less intuitive for us to notice the smaller tempo play that let opponent pull ahead with a protected threat, while the big 8/8 smashing our face is wearing a flashy neon vest.

Fireblast has a similar bias in Burn.

Marit Lage also has a very high win rate, though that misses all the games Depths got disrupted before one could be created.



The problem with murktide is just that the stats are too good, if you are unable to instantly get a removal for it, you just lose (i would say that you lose 80% of the games in which murktide connects once), the first murktide if often an 8/8, which is actually pretty much twice what a tarmogoyf brings to the table.
If UR had ANY other top of the curve finisher, you would win much much more games because you manage to stabilize, what i have seen so far is that tons of times you do stabilize, but take one hit from murktide in the process, and somehow you are in bolt range or close already

I agree with your main observations here, but that's the definition of power creep. Its stats are pushed, better rates than anything before it, and that allows them to keep tempo advantage and finish faster. Does that mean its banworthy though? By that argument, any power creeped card should be banned, because it does its job better than any previous cards. But power creep is a format inevitability. The stats of vanilla beaters keep getting pushed over time. If this was banned, eventually some other big beater would appear.

Blue Tombstalker existed (Ethereal Forager) and saw play in UR Delver, although that card was not very good. It was just the best option available.

Regular Tombstalker was still viable for BUG or Grixis tempo for years, but unpopular. Gurmag Angler was preferable once printed. Despite not flying, it presented the same clock (with fewer resources), and they just wanted some big dumb finisher. An interesting question is if a 6UB Tombstalker would have seen play over Angler.

[Noctalor]

This reminds me of a bias that comes up in Limited card evaluation, if simply relying on stats/memory of what you lose to.

By talking about winrates specifically, i may have been misleading.
Ofc we know that in Doomsday Thassa has probably a 90% winrate when casted, while probably doomsday itself has a much lower outcome.


We tend to remember the flashy finishers that beat us. But often opponent was already ahead in the game.

Yeah, this is kinda what I was trying to say to be fair.
Everyone talks about ragavan as if volcanic + ragavan + daze always appens, but from what i have seen (and this is probably due to the meta being shaped by ragavan, not gonna lie), the monkey's value greatly diminishes the longer the game goes, tons of times ragavan is actually in check by turn 2.

And still it is broken as hell, not claiming it is not.

What i have experienced is that murktide is online as soon as turn 3, and it's value never diminishes, you either have removal or you lose, regardless of your board state


Monke is 1 cmc. If they have one, you probably see it. But they tend to play Murktide once they're ahead and can protect it. We all remember losing to Murktide and being unable to stop it fast enough, but we don't notice when they had/buried Murktides they didn't want.

To be fair, is safe to assume that having too many murktides is not a big deal, or playing 4 of them would not be 100% mandatory in any UR list, as i said, they only payoff so good to be still a 4 of despite having delve and an high cost was ancestral recall, and dig through time.
On the other hand, it is true that murktide is a 4 off both because it is busted and because DRC provides support


I agree with your main observations here, but that's the definition of power creep.

I think this narrative about "just being power creep" is a bit lazy.
It's clear that you can start with basically any card, and power creep it to power9 level of being good, with murktide, we are talking about getting to be blue and getting +3+3, now, we could do the same with other cards:

Darktide Confidant :1::u: 5/4
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its mana value.

Dryad Regent
Color Indicator: Blue Land Creature — Island Dryad 4/4
(Dryad Regent isn’t a spell, it’s affected by summoning sickness, and it has “{T}: Add :u:.”)

This is the MH2 treatment, ist not just power creep, is power creeping a card so much that you get probably the most impactful creature in the format (or at least top 3 easily).

Also, for the lulz, a 6/6 nacatl would probably be enough to push zoo back into legacy


any power creeped card should be banned, because it does its job better than any previous cards.

As i said above, it depends on the magnitude of the creep, blue tombstalker would aready be a massive power creep over BB stalker, and it would have been enought to push it into UR delver and enought to be one of the best creature in the format, adding +3+3 to an already overstatted creature which got the insane buff of becoming blue may just be too much


Blue Tombstalker existed (Ethereal Forager) and saw play in UR Delver, although that card was not very good. It was just the best option available.

Nah, they are functionally different, i would argue that forager is probably closer to a nerfed Dreadhorde (it kinda does the same thing, but it's not a turn 2 play and you have to pay the mana for the free spells you cast, but you get some minor buffs alongside).
Traditionally, what delver needs is to have the best beatstick possible, a blue tombstalker would have been a top3 legacy card from 2007 to 2020, until the +3+3 version gets printed


Regular Tombstalker was still viable for BUG or Grixis tempo for years, but unpopular. Gurmag Angler was preferable once printed. Despite not flying, it presented the same clock (with fewer resources), and they just wanted some big dumb finisher. An interesting question is if a 6UB Tombstalker would have seen play over Angler.

I am unsure about the 6UB stalker, but i think having to tap half the lands is way more important, if regent had no flying but needed only a single blue, it would be so busted that no one would argue about it being too good, flying is a pretty damn good buff, but surely not whort 1 mana in legacy, pretty much any staple card wo flying would be garbage with +1mana+flying and almost any flying playable card would be busted with -1mana-flying


Tu sum it up, indeed regent is creeping existing cards, but this is one of the biggest creep in legacy history, by being this much better, it actually changes how the card functionally works

[Watersaw]

Edit: Murktide and Iteration are clearly problems too, but both should lose some power level after Ragavan gets banned. Iteration without Ragavan will work in 4c midrange decks but should be awkward in Delver, since it's a turn 3 play (Delver can't afford to run too many slots that are weak on 1-2 lands). Iteration is just the most efficient way to convert free Lotus Petals into cards/velocity/gas.

Not to argue Iteration should be banned, but the Oko era taught us that if a 3-mana card is actually good enough Delver can and will play it.

As an aside, Zoo won't be playable until it gets access to literal Force of Will.

EDIT: this is also an aside, but is mainboard graveyard hate just something you want and if so, is that a bad thing? Murktide and DRC aren't great in the face of Rest in peace. 3 recently banned cards were reliant on having a graveyard (W6, Arcanist, Underworld Breach EDIT EDIT: 4 if you don't Lurrus and 5 if you count DRS as recent). Part of me wonders if any of them would still be legal if nuking graveyards was something that every deck was equipped to do.

[Reeplcheep]

Part of me wonders if any of them would still be legal if nuking graveyards was something that every deck was equipped to do.
Part of it is saga and edict are very good against counterspells, but curses has the best fair blue matchup right now that it ever had.

Not to mention that most blue control decks are uro+loam decks right now.

[FTW]

Those +3/+3 examples aren't a fair comparison. 8/8 Murktide Regent is blue Tombstalker power-creeped by 60%. 1/1 to 4/4 is power-creeped by 300%! A fair comparison would be a 3/2 Bob or a 1/2 Dryad Arbor. Those would certainly be strong, but not as outrageous as the ones you made. 5/5 Wild Nacatl would be equivalent, which is what I posted a few pages back as the rough power level needed for Zoo to be relevant. I support the printing of 5/5 Nacatl if it has the appropriate conditions so blue tempo can't use it. It would breathe life into an otherwise dead archetype, without being easy to abuse in current top decks.

Pushing the stats on dumb beaters isn't unreasonable, because beatdown is ALL they can do. Other Legacy creatures do other things too. That was how we got past the Tarmogoyf era. They didn't print new beaters as big as Goyf, but instead we got smaller creatures that did things beyond beatdown, and that proved to be more valuable overall (to the point where Goyf got increasingly pushed out of the format). If all a creature can do is turn sideways, maybe it should have big stats? Other creatures have card advantage, deathtouch, hate abilities, combo-enabling, protection, etc. Beaters have to do something distinct from utility creatures, like beat harder.

Hogaak is also an early 2-mana 8/8, and it even has trample! But it's fine in Legacy because players recognize they can hate it out with grave hate. Murktide is just as soft to grave hate though. Maybe this is a failure of players to bring in enough grave hate against UR. Once Ragavan is gone, most of their deck is graveyard-based. Grave hate and flyer hate both punish them.

The main argument to ban Ragavan is not that Ragavan is unbeatable, but that the interaction of Ragavan + Daze + Volcanic Turn 1 on the play should not exist in the format. It creates non-games where the first player has too much tempo and fair opponent can't stabilize despite having the answers. Like you said it doesn't happen all the time. It's more that when it does, those non-games shouldn't exist. It's a design flaw in the mechanics of the game.

Re: maindeck GY hate, this was one of my reasons for trying to revive UW Rest in Peace. A lot of the new overpowered cards rely on the graveyard. This axis isn't being attacked enough. Curses does it well.

[Noctalor]

Those +3/+3 examples aren't a fair comparison. 8/8 Murktide Regent is blue Tombstalker power-creeped by 60%. 1/1 to 4/4 is power-creeped by 300%! A fair comparison would be a 3/2 Bob or a 1/2 Dryad Arbor. Those would certainly be strong, but not as outrageous as the ones you made. 5/5 Wild Nacatl would be equivalent, which is what I posted a few pages back as the rough power level needed for Zoo to be relevant. I support the printing of 5/5 Nacatl if it has the appropriate conditions so blue tempo can't use it. It would breathe life into an otherwise dead archetype, without being easy to abuse in current top decks.

Pushing the stats on dumb beaters isn't unreasonable, because beatdown is ALL they can do. Other Legacy creatures do other things too. That was how we got past the Tarmogoyf era. They didn't print new beaters as big as Goyf, but instead we got smaller creatures that did things beyond beatdown, and that proved to be more valuable overall (to the point where Goyf got increasingly pushed out of the format). If all a creature can do is turn sideways, maybe it should have big stats? Other creatures have card advantage, deathtouch, hate abilities, combo-enabling, protection, etc. Beaters have to do something distinct from utility creatures, like beat harder.

Hogaak is also an early 2-mana 8/8, and it even has trample! But it's fine in Legacy because players recognize they can hate it out with grave hate. Murktide is just as soft to grave hate though. Maybe this is a failure of players to bring in enough grave hate against UR. Once Ragavan is gone, most of their deck is graveyard-based. Grave hate and flyer hate both punish them.

The main argument to ban Ragavan is not that Ragavan is unbeatable, but that the interaction of Ragavan + Daze + Volcanic Turn 1 on the play should not exist in the format. It creates non-games where the first player has too much tempo and fair opponent can't stabilize despite having the answers. Like you said it doesn't happen all the time. It's more that when it does, those non-games shouldn't exist. It's a design flaw in the mechanics of the game.

Re: maindeck GY hate, this was one of my reasons for trying to revive UW Rest in Peace. A lot of the new overpowered cards rely on the graveyard. This axis isn't being attacked enough. Curses does it well.

I think that there are two main reasons why ragavan it's pushed, one being the turn1 blowout and one being dash.
Indeed ragavan diminishes in value the longer the game goes, but by having dash it still can win you the game on turn 10 if your opponent has no blocker/removal and youi hit well (also the whole RNG mechaninc is pure garbage).

As far as creeping confident and arbor, i pourposely made it unbelievably broken, in a vacuum it's still "just a power crept version of said card", my point was that power creep can lead to broken cards if you push it enough.

On GY hate vs delver, it does some work right now, the main issue is that this current iteration of delver has both the best beaters, the best cantrips and the best countermagic, so hating on it by slamming hate pieces is not guaranteed (unless you go for the leyline route or spam relevant treaths), also they have too many game breaker tools if needed, when (if, at this point, sadly) ragavan gets axed, they could still put up a good fight against the meta and they still have the tools to be an insanely oppressive deck.
Actually, yorion taxes is in a very decent spot against UR delver and it has 8 stp + skyclave + rip and still the main two reason it loses to delver are ragavan blowout and murktide + force on kill spell.


Pushing the stats on dumb beaters isn't unreasonable, because beatdown is ALL they can do.

On this point, i still want to stress that because beating is all they can do, hitting certain tresholds holds immense value.
For example, a 19/19 marit lage does 50% of the work of the current token against non fetchlands deck, lets say that a 17/17 marit lage for sure does, while a 999/999 one is kinda functionally the same.
Murktide, by getting to 7/7 guarantees a 3 hit ko (so it's much better ofc because stalker needs 4 and goyf often 5), by reaching 8/8 it also gets to kill you in two hit (+ bolt + fetch)


Hogaak is also an early 2-mana 8/8

Clearly, the problem here is that hookag is printed to be a broken piece of cardboard, absolute terror but held back by a very (at least on paper) harsh summoning condition (that is enough to force it in ad hoc decks), murktide has the same stats, has flying instead of trample, but requires to tap two volcs.
Bringing hoogak to the table also pushes the idea that murktide is actually busted


The main argument to ban Ragavan is not that Ragavan is unbeatable

Indeed, they should ban either because a card is too good or because a card is too unfun, basicly no mtg card actually is unbeatable

[FTW]

On GY hate vs delver, it does some work right now, the main issue ....
Actually, yorion taxes is in a very decent spot against UR delver and it has 8 stp + skyclave + rip and still the main two reason it loses to delver are ragavan blowout and murktide + force on kill spell.

Bant is also favored. Maindeck Endurance does a lot of work.

8cast players could run more maindeck GY hate artifacts, easy synergy with their deck.



On this point, i still want to stress that because beating is all they can do, hitting certain tresholds holds immense value.
For example, a 19/19 marit lage does 50% of the work of the current token against non fetchlands deck, lets say that a 17/17 marit lage for sure does, while a 999/999 one is kinda functionally the same.

Agreed. The math on them absolutely matters. If Murktide capped at 7/7, it would be a big difference. Just 1 turn faster than Tombstalker, or 2 attacks + 2 Bolts.


Clearly, the problem here is that hookag is printed to be a broken piece of cardboard, absolute terror but held back by a very (at least on paper) harsh summoning condition (that is enough to force it in ad hoc decks), murktide has the same stats, has flying instead of trample, but requires to tap two volcs.
Bringing hoogak to the table also pushes the idea that murktide is actually busted

By that logic, Hogaak only requires "tap two dorks". Murktide also has conditions. Both have high Delve and are equally hated out by GY hate. Both are worth drawing counters or spot removal. Hogaak is just nonblue and harder to protect.

The fact that it's so hard to answer in UR Delver isn't just Murktide's power level in a vacuum, but all the other strong cards. Delver was already Tier 1 and gained +16 power-creeped cards. If other decks got this much support, the power creep wouldn't feel this unbalanced. Bant Exit has also gained a lot of new cards, and it keeps up. Other MH2-heavy decks do too (Sagavan, 8cast).

I also suspect Murktide was a design oversight. R&D designed the set with Modern in mind. In Modern it takes some effort to support Murktide. They probably thought it would be a 5/5-6/6 most of the time, sometimes weaker, sometimes 7/7, occasionally an 8/8 topdeck in lategame. That sounds fair. They probably didn't consider how easily Legacy Xerox fills the yard, nor factor in the interactions with Ragavan and DRC to fuel it even faster. Even in Legacy Pre-MH2, UR Delver would have struggled to make 8/8 Murktides with tempo. Ethereal Forager often delved only 2-3 spells. Both DRC (mill) and Ragavan (moar cantrips) add velocity to fuel Murktide.

The question now is whether that mistake is banworthy or just overpowered. The format has many ways to interact with it, so at least it's not some uninteractive RNG machine. Murktide also gets weaker when you remove some of its opening gas (Monke ban).

[talpa]

I love posing as a contrarian (in this case, pretend -not even so much- ragaBan could remain in the format)


The main argument to ban Ragavan is not that Ragavan is unbeatable, but that the interaction of Ragavan + Daze + Volcanic Turn 1 on the play should not exist in the format. It creates non-games where the first player has too much tempo and fair opponent can't stabilize despite having the answers. Like you said it doesn't happen all the time. It's more that when it does, those non-games shouldn't exist. It's a design flaw in the mechanics of the game.


WHY?

I mean, about "Those non games shouldn't exist". WHY?!
I could say those games when All Spells decks kill you on turn one shouldn't exist, because it's an unfun experience.
We tolerate that in the format, though, because
- it's hatable (and sure a one-drop that dies to every removal is too)
- most importantly, it doesn't happen all the time

I think with Ragavan it's the same. Someone before was speaking of survivor bias and other similar things, it's just that everybody remembers when this combination of cards happens and not all the time when
- ragavan is not in the opening hand
- daze is not in the opening hand
- the UR player is on the draw
- removal on the creature resolves
- the blind flip of the top card hits nothing
- etc

When you pretend to be making a rational discussion, you can factor in the feeling, but you should also consider the real impact and not the perceived one.

[Fox]

Ragavan is a mana advantage exploit as well as a first player advantage exploit, same as DRS. Meaningful counterplay is minimal; it's not just the inability to profitably respond to turn 1 threat with Wasteland, it's that in either case you are talking about a card that also wins the game by itself (i.e. unlike any other mana dork, you're not going to catch back up with a wrath). This combination of mana advantage and ability to protect the queen naturally leads to Daze abuse; legacy's classic first player advantage exploit.

Any time you see mana advantage, it is a variation of working around 1 land per turn rule. The chess equivalent is taking two moves in a row. If your opening hand isn't perfect, your Delver opponent is effectively opening the game 2 turns ahead of you. This is the non-game people are talking about.

[Noctalor]

By that logic, Hogaak only requires "tap two dorks". Murktide also has conditions. Both have high Delve and are equally hated out by GY hate. Both are worth drawing counters or spot removal. Hogaak is just nonblue and harder to protect.

Well, ofc you know that being "nonblue" and as a consequence "harder to protect" is indeed a big deal, also it's obvious that (in legacy at least), tapping two blue lands is nowhere near as hard as tapping two creatures, by design hookag is forced into a specific shell, and the card is soo good despite forcing you in said shell, to spawn a fairly competitive archetype.
Murktide on the other hand has close to the same power level, and can just be played as a 4 off in what would already be one of the best decks with no real downside


The fact that it's so hard to answer in UR Delver isn't just Murktide's power level in a vacuum, but all the other strong cards. Delver was already Tier 1 and gained +16 power-creeped cards. If other decks got this much support, the power creep wouldn't feel this unbalanced. Bant Exit has also gained a lot of new cards, and it keeps up. Other MH2-heavy decks do too (Sagavan, 8cast).

I do agree that is quite hard to make "in a vacuum" evaluations of UR's cards because most of them are triving in the absolute overpowered current shell.
I do not agree that other decks are keeping up that well, it's clear from the data that most of good players go in autopilot on UR for any important event and despite it happening the deck is showing mostly good, UR is currently beating most of the meta despite having shaped said meta


I also suspect Murktide was a design oversight.

I agree, also, fun fact, if you look up the modern metagame, their version of UR delver is referred as:
https://i.gyazo.com/6cd0af9f4df5f29be118e44571f78092.png
And is still one of the best deck of the format


The question now is whether that mistake is banworthy or just overpowered. The format has many ways to interact with it, so at least it's not some uninteractive RNG machine. Murktide also gets weaker when you remove some of its opening gas (Monke ban).

No idea really, in my experience murktide really is too overtuned, but i may be wrong


WHY?

I mean, about "Those non games shouldn't exist". WHY?!
I could say those games when All Spells decks kill you on turn one shouldn't exist, because it's an unfun experience.

My go to approach is "how much you could lose vs how much you could gain"
In this example:
Balustrade:
You gain a win vs you go hellbent (and lose basicly 99% of the times)
Ragavan
You gain a free lotus petal + 20-40% chance (done no maths on this) of drawing an extra card (per turn) vs you trade 1 for 1 on mana and cards

This is mostly what makes one drop keen to be OP, the downside will always be something similar to "you trade 1 for 1 on mana and cards", which means going even IF your opponent has a one mana removal

By applying this logic to murktide
You deal 40% of the total HP of your oppo (per turn) vs you trade 1 for 1 card and 2 for 1 mana

So you can actually come up on top of the exchange, but you also do lose an absurd amount of HP each turn that you are unable to

[Watersaw]

Sure you gain a lot by your opponent "missing" on answering the turn1 threat, but the game isn't literally over. Whereas not having the turn 1 Force of Will vs Oops means you 100% lose the game immediately. My honest opinion is that dead is dead no matter how many cards my opponent had to invest. We've already decided that non-games are permitted so it's hard for me to see Ragavan as uniquely transgressive.

[Fox]

Sure you gain a lot by your opponent "missing" on answering the turn1 threat, but the game isn't literally over. Whereas not having the turn 1 Force of Will vs Oops means you 100% lose the game immediately. My honest opinion is that dead is dead no matter how many cards my opponent had to invest. We've already decided that non-games are permitted so it's hard for me to see Ragavan as uniquely transgressive.

Like you do understand that Oops has actual deckbuilding restrictions right? They don't get to also play conventional/fair magic [meaning hate-immune]...and it's not just conventional/fair magic, it's the easymode version with mana advantage and first player advantage exploits.

[Noctalor]

Sure you gain a lot by your opponent "missing" on answering the turn1 threat, but the game isn't literally over. Whereas not having the turn 1 Force of Will vs Oops means you 100% lose the game immediately. My honest opinion is that dead is dead no matter how many cards my opponent had to invest. We've already decided that non-games are permitted so it's hard for me to see Ragavan as uniquely transgressive.

Yeah, the thing is.

Let's say that ragavan unanswered on turn 1 kills you 40% of the times (tbh is quite hard to give a reasonable number, it is also deck dependant), still if you manage to beat it you got nowhere, and you are still back even.

On the other hand if you stop ops from goinf off you most likely win on the spot.

This already is enought to keep most people off those decks, if somehow the combo gets to be more consistent (basicly, if the deck gets to be better) to a point in which it passes to 10% metashare, most people would indeed hate the deck and ask for a ban.
I think one can deal with getting turn-oned from time to time, but it gets much more insufferable if the deck killing you turn 1 is a fair deck that can easily win even if you deal with it's early game

[Zoid]

Comparing resolving monke vs resolving a combo win con is total nonsense.

While you don't lose directly if you can't answer the monke instantly, the longer it sticks around, the lower are your chances of winning against the raw mana and card advantage it provides.

Nowadays almost every threat needs to be answered instantly because the clock is either too fast (dragon) or it generates too much advantage to compensate (monke).
This also one of the reasons formats with more recent cards suck.

[talpa]

My go to approach is "how much you could lose vs how much you could gain"
In this example:
Balustrade:
You gain a win vs you go hellbent (and lose basicly 99% of the times)
Ragavan
You gain a free lotus petal + 20-40% chance (done no maths on this) of drawing an extra card (per turn) vs you trade 1 for 1 on mana and cards


This considerations are sound, but I agree only partially because:
- with things like all spells you instantly lose if you don't have an answer, with ragavan you don't (and please, all spells was just an example, really, only to say that in legacy we already have very unfun gotcha moments, and it appears they are part of the format)
- you should calculate like you do for an expected value, taking into account not only the outcome but also multiplying for the probability that such an outcome happens. You gain a free lotus petal IF ragavan connects, which means IF you had it in your opening hand (the more the time passes, the less relevant the monkey becomes), IF you won the die roll, IF opponent didn't have removal or blocker and/or IF they had it but you also had protection AND they had not one of their own, etc. For the card advantage, it's like 20-40% IF all these previous conditions are met AND the opponent's deck is of some utility for you (which is not always the case depending on the matchup).

Also, even if they are not high, there are costs of including ragavan in your deck: even taking into account dash, it only works on an empty field with no blockers, so very frequently it could be useless if topdecked in late, not just by drawing multiples. Basically you are betting on your early game and on your capacity of steal resources, otherwise it will never be a beater becuase it has awful stats.





By applying this logic to murktide


I agree, indeed it seems to me that murktide matches the ban criteria even more than ragavan, because it's unlikely that it gets stuck in hand (even in the early game and unused it can always be a pitch for a FoW), it's almost never a dead topdeck, being a mid-late card it's more probable that you see it (so it's useful in more games), and really there aren't any costs of including it in your deck.




Let's say that ragavan unanswered on turn 1 kills you 40% of the times (tbh is quite hard to give a reasonable number, it is also deck dependant)
I think this is where the disagreement comes from: it seems to me that an unanswered ragavan very rarely kills you (and yes, I am taking into account a slow death by frequent little values).




I think one can deal with getting turn-oned from time to time, but it gets much more insufferable if the deck killing you turn 1 is a fair deck that can easily win even if you deal with it's early game

Yeah but that's just psychology, it means we are saying "we want to ban the monkey because people dislike it". Ok, it could be a valid reason but it's not a particularly rational one (what the majority of people think isn't necessarily true). I personally hate way more being killed by a coinflip like "ops, I didn't have the FoW in my starting hand" or "well, once we know the matchup, the outcome is already decided because it's so unbalanced that skill and variance matter very rarely". I'd like to ban those experience from my hobby too, but it happens they are part of legacy.




Comparing resolving monke vs resolving a combo win con is total nonsense.
When people look at the finger instead of the moon. Dude, it was just an example to explain the point.




While you don't lose directly if you can't answer the monke instantly, the longer it sticks around, the lower are your chances of winning against the raw mana and card advantage it provides.
I understand the feeling, because I hated Dreadhorde Arcanist. The difference is, while Ragavan cost only one mana which of course is very relevant, if unchecked Arcanist was guaranteed to generate value both mana wise (the spell was cast for free) and card advantage, and it required only to attack to do so and not also to connect. On the contrary, the monkey needs to connect to generate value, and even in this case, it's only the mana advantage which is guaranteed, while the card advantage is very random.
These are relevant things to consider, too.

You could even make an argument such as the following, taking into account the mirror. Let's consider the case where both players resolved their dude and didn't have the removal in hand nor any protection. Let's even say the board was completely equal of lands only and both players were hellbent and topdecked their copy of the dude and played it (with ragavan, to have a similar comparison, you have to presume that the first one, if it was played with dash, didn't hit anything relevant because the purpose of the argument is to look at a situation where both players have the exact same resources). So, completely simmetrical situation, but in the Arcanist example the first to play it was almost certain to win because it could flashback a removal to kill the opponent's one or a cantrip to find one such removal. So Arcanist even in late game totally snowballed and the first one to stuck completely determined the outcome of the game. THAT was the experience people hated. Same situation with Ragavan (as I said we are considering the case where both players have one on the battlefield no cards in hand in order to have a comparison of the same situation, so nothing hit with dash), they just stare to one another and the first one is NOT guaranteed to win the game.
I think the problem is more that people hate to lose from their own card (or hate the randomness of the experience, let's say if both keep hitting with dash, the first one to flip a useful card wins, but it's not guaranteed that the winner is the first one to connect, it's random).




Nowadays almost every threat needs to be answered instantly because the clock is either too fast (dragon) or it generates too much advantage to compensate (monke).
This also one of the reasons formats with more recent cards suck.
I agree, but this is not an argument specifically against monkey, it's all the FIRE philosophy that sucks and all the recent printings since at least war of the spark. It seems to me murktide checks more the ban rational requirements, still you see way less people in favor of such kind of a ban.




We've already decided that non-games are permitted so it's hard for me to see Ragavan as uniquely transgressive.
Basically, THIS

https://i.imgur.com/cfjXGgs.jpg

[Ronald Deuce]

Comparing resolving monke vs resolving a combo win con is total nonsense.

While you don't lose directly if you can't answer the monke instantly, the longer it sticks around, the lower are your chances of winning against the raw mana and card advantage it provides.

Nowadays almost every threat needs to be answered instantly because the clock is either too fast (dragon) or it generates too much advantage to compensate (monke).
This also one of the reasons formats with more recent cards suck.

I actually think it's totally fair to compare two "uninteractive" things purely on that basis. As long as you're comparing them purely on that basis.

I don't really care about most creatures. They really don't matter against most of what I play.

The ones that do matter in a given matchup are a blowout. And you don't have the luxury of waiting around to find out that they're blowouts: They're just blowouts.

A "blowout" creature in a "fair" deck against a "fair" deck would have to have stats big enough to crunch everything (NOT anything; everything) in its path, have a very low cost for its power (something like 1:5), and probably have evasion or trample. And maybe I've just been playing too much combo to think straight or waste time considering combat math, but neither of those cards is anywhere near hitting more than one of those metrics. And neither card is the most efficient attacker in the format. Hell, neither one is remotely close to the strength of cards that should still be legal but aren't.

Is Ragavan a blowout? No. Is Murktide Regent a blowout? No. Is either one of those a blowout against anything in the format? No.

Is Brainstorm? No. Is Dark Ritual? Yes.

[Zoid]

I actually think it's totally fair to compare two "uninteractive" things purely on that basis. As long as you're comparing them purely on that basis.

I don't really care about most creatures. They really don't matter against most of what I play.

The ones that do matter in a given matchup are a blowout. And you don't have the luxury of waiting around to find out that they're blowouts: They're just blowouts.

A "blowout" creature in a "fair" deck against a "fair" deck would have to have stats big enough to crunch everything (NOT anything; everything) in its path, have a very low cost for its power (something like 1:5), and probably have evasion or trample. And maybe I've just been playing too much combo to think straight or waste time considering combat math, but neither of those cards is anywhere near hitting more than one of those metrics. And neither card is the most efficient attacker in the format. Hell, neither one is remotely close to the strength of cards that should still be legal but aren't.

Is Ragavan a blowout? No. Is Murktide Regent a blowout? No. Is either one of those a blowout against anything in the format? No.

Is Brainstorm? No. Is Dark Ritual? Yes.

"Is it good in combo" is a bad metric.

The comparison with combo is nonsense because combo relies on resolving certain spells in a certain order to win instantly.
Almost all other decks don't do this.
In your terms the only relevant creature would be a 20/20 tentacle monster token.

Monke is easily the best 1 drop in the format, outclassing even delver.
The point is that he's way too good at what he does and can easily generate enough advantage from connecting a few times to run away with the game.
The free card is a lottery but the lotus petal alone is absurdly strong.
Even if he doesn't win the game by himself, he gets you ahead making it easier and safer to finish up with an oversized dragon.

[H]

Ban Update. (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-25-2022-banned-and-restricted-announcement)

Ragavan out.

[Ronald Deuce]

Ban Update. (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-25-2022-banned-and-restricted-announcement)

Ragavan out.

Well, it's a good thing they're still ignoring the "problem" card.

Not like it's in the deck's name, or anything.

[Reeplcheep]

I and maxtortion pointed out that this probably makes make UR do better. Monkey was insane in the mirror and vs combo, but now they get to run cards that are better against their predators (borrower/delver)

[Captain Hammer]

Dingdong the monkey is dead! What cards will replace the 2 Gut Shot and 4 Ragavan slots newly freed up?

Im thinking…
1-2 Delver
1-2 Brazen Borrower
2 Bauble
1 Chain Lightning or Force of Negation

Anything I missed?

[Humphrey]

sorry for bad english
i was in home eat banana
wen phone ring
"monke is kil"
"no"

[Reeplcheep]

I will at least agree that play patterns should be better. Losing to a lucky ragavan flip makes people want to punch something.

Also without ragavan requiring you to answer it on T1, murktide might be able to be kept in check by harder removal (terminus, trophy)

[Fox]

Jan. 25th is officially Banana smoothie day.

Now why exactly this card wasn't banned the day it was spoiled or every day since is a real legacy mystery.

[the Thin White Duke]

Now why exactly this card wasn't banned the day it was spoiled or every day since is a real legacy mystery.

If they banned it so early, they wouldn't have sold so many boxes$$$$$$

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I and maxtortion pointed out that this probably makes make UR do better. Monkey was insane in the mirror and vs combo, but now they get to run cards that are better against their predators (borrower/delver)

Yeah everytime a ridiculously OP card gets banned, you get people showing up to hottake about how this actually helps the decks that ran it because it frees up slots to run cards they could have been running anyway but didn't because the banned card was better.

[Fox]

Yeah everytime a ridiculously OP card gets banned, you get people showing up to hottake about how this actually helps the decks that ran it because it frees up slots to run cards they could have been running anyway but didn't because the banned card was better.

To be fair, we're giving green pilots of legacy an opposing Delver deck that is going to be running nearly 100% keyword flying (Delver, DRC, MurkGoyf, and Brazen) - do you really think they're going to figure out that Run Afoul not only hits nearly all-to-100% of Delver's wincons and also vastly improves their matchup vs Lage/Grisel/Emmy?

I mean why would you add a clearly obvious card to your 75 when you could keep crying about a flying Goyf? This is a big point in favor of @Reeplcheep's take.

[Noctalor]

I and maxtortion pointed out that this probably makes make UR do better. Monkey was insane in the mirror and vs combo, but now they get to run cards that are better against their predators (borrower/delver)

Ma vai a dare via il cul diocan

[Reeplcheep]

Yeah everytime a ridiculously OP card gets banned, you get people showing up to hottake about how this actually helps the decks that ran it because it frees up slots to run cards they could have been running anyway but didn't because the banned card was better.

Do you understand the prisoner’s dilemma? Ragavan was insane in the mirror (but mirror win % is always 50% overall) and combo (which is dead). The only decks left were those that are good against ragavan. This is similar to how the mental misstep restriction made blue in vintage better.

There are many decks which have mirror breakers which increase the individual’s win rate at the cost of the overall win rate. MD pyroblast in blue control, palace jailer in D&T, TNN in delver.

[KobeBryan]

Jan. 25th is officially Banana smoothie day.

Now why exactly this card wasn't banned the day it was spoiled or every day since is a real legacy mystery.

gotta sell packs bro

[Reeplcheep]

Yeah everytime a ridiculously OP card gets banned, you get people showing up to hottake about how this actually helps the decks that ran it because it frees up slots to run cards they could have been running anyway but didn't because the banned card was better.

Hahahahahah

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKbYIb0XMAAC2lL?format=png&name=large

[Ronald Deuce]

Hahahahahah

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKbYIb0XMAAC2lL?format=png&name=large

It's almost like Delver was always a better card.

I don't have a dog in this fight. Just sayin'.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Hahahahahah

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKbYIb0XMAAC2lL?format=png&name=large

I too like to flex about being bad at statistics

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Hahahahahah

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKbYIb0XMAAC2lL?format=png&name=large

Anyway, so now that we've had time to aggregate data and Delver has gone from 22% rep in top 8s to 15%, do you want to apologize and admit you were showing your ass here or what

[Reeplcheep]

Anyway, so now that we've had time to aggregate data and Delver has gone from 22% rep in top 8s to 15%, do you want to apologize and admit you were showing your ass here or what

What are you talking about. It’s 22% at one of the largest recent events. With everyone gunning for it with multiple maindeck pyroblasts, it still has tier 1 winrates.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FWREDQGXEAAICf_?format=png&name=900x900

[Rob Hack]

Anyway, so now that we've had time to aggregate data and Delver has gone from 22% rep in top 8s to 15%, do you want to apologize and admit you were showing your ass here or whatWhat are you talking about. It’s 22% at one of the largest recent events. With everyone gunning for it with multiple maindeck pyroblasts, it still has tier 1 winrates.
lol, fake profile guy pwned :laugh:

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

What are you talking about. It’s 22% at one of the largest recent events. With everyone gunning for it with multiple maindeck pyroblasts, it still has tier 1 winrates.

Again, bragging about being bad at stats is a weird flex

https://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Expressive Iteration is a dumb card that will be banned

Also, feeling real good about this call rn

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Delver usually doesn’t have 2 lands plus a land drop on t3 (That means you haven’t wasted or dazed at all on the first 2 turns) or 0 mana proactive spells. Snap caster and TNN are considered lategame cards by delver standards.

Here's a guy who makes good calls about what cards do and will be played, definitely listening to this guy

[Reeplcheep]

Again, bragging about being bad at stats is a weird flex

https://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE

Part of being good at stats is accounting for bad data. Top 2 of a 10 man event is essentially useless data.

[FTW]

Again, bragging about being bad at stats is a weird flex

https://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE

28% at Major Events in Last 4 Months (Ragabanned 6 months ago)
https://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=188&a=

Next biggest shares:
8cast 9%
UWR 9%
Nothing else over 5%

Under "Last 2 Months" UR Delver is only 15%, but that includes a lot of 10-30 player events with Tier 3 brews. Those take up more meta share in small events.
Stoneblade v MonoR storm top 2 of 13-player event, Hive Mind winning 18-player event, Aluren & 2 Food Chains top 8 of 32-player event, etc.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Careful that you don’t throw your back out, hauling those goalposts all over

[Reeplcheep]

Properly weighting the quality of your data is essential to being a good statistician. Second place in top 8 went 2-1. Every single person in the top 8 of a 80 man event won 3 in a row.

Otherwise you are like the crazies who think 12 double blind studies showing vaccines work and your moms cousins’s hairdressers son got autism are equally valid evidence.

[FTW]

Careful that you don’t throw your back out, hauling those goalposts all over

Can't shift goalposts when those are the first I've set.

You mean you disagree with mine. But what are YOUR goalposts? And what makes them right?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Can't shift goalposts when those are the first I've set.

You mean you disagree with mine. But what are YOUR goalposts? And what makes them right?

The fact that I'm using the same metric for stat A and stat B, for starts.

You can't use one number for UR Delver prevalence with Ragavan, and another for UR Delver prevalence without, and then say, "Oh but the second stat is more accurate."

If you want to make that case that's fine in a vacuum but you need to apply it to both halves of the things you're comparing to each other

This is like stats 101, if not earlier. This is just basic good argumentation. Scrambling because number A is bigger than number B and that hurts your argument, so you try to find some way to reframe number B to be bigger while not applying the same change in metric to number A is just really obviously bad faith argumentation on a fundamental level.

Honestly it's fucking embarrassing that I have to explain this

[FTW]

The fact that I'm using the same metric for stat A and stat B, for starts.

You can't use one number for UR Delver prevalence with Ragavan, and another for UR Delver prevalence without, and then say

Except I never gave a stat A, so I never did anything inconsistent. I only gave data for UR Delver's current metagame dominance. Your patronizing is then irrelevant.

Where does this "before" stat come from? Reeplcheep compared Challenges before and after Ragaban: apples to apples. Nothing wrong there. You pulled out 22% without a source or anyone agreeing on it.

You have to decide on a reasonable way to measure competitive metagame share:
a) Large Events only
b) All MTGO Legacy events (Challenges & Leagues, not practice room)
c) All Paper Legacy events
d) All Paper and online events (b + c)
e) Paper and online events logged on mtgtop8

They won't all be the same. The online meta (B) is a bit different from the paper meta (C).

D & E are also different. mtgtop8 has good coverage of large events, but very inconsistent coverage of small events. Some LGS weeklies get posted, most don't. Once in a while an MTGO League result makes it up, but most of the 5-0 dump doesn't. It's a real crapshoot what makes it on there. Very far from all small events. It's not a random sample of them either. Just some of them. Then sometimes they only post top 4, top 2, or the winner. It's a mess.

So even if you wanted to define the metagame by what gets played at ALL events including small LGS Legacy nights (D), mtgtop8 (E) does a messy job of representing it. If you really included ALL paper and online Legacy play, I'd wager the Tier 1 DTBs make up a tiny metagame fraction - while brews and casual jank take up a fair bit. But we don't have good data on it so we'll never know anyway.

IMHO Large Events are the best indicator of the competitive metagame, especially to see if a deck is Tier 0. For small LGS weeklies and MTGO Leagues, players often play a worse deck for fun, even though they know their other deck is better, just because they're bored of Xerox. But when the large event comes up they pull out what they think is best. If Delver is 28% at large events, that says a lot about competitive dominance. The much lower share in small events just means people get bored of Delver, lower tier decks stand a better chance over fewer rounds (more variance), or the more casual players can't afford Volcanic.

To make a fair comparison, look at the large events before Ragaban. I never said to compare it to a different metric from before.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Except I never gave a stat A, so I never did anything inconsistent. I only gave data for UR Delver's current metagame dominance. Your patronizing is then irrelevant.

Where does this "before" stat come from? Reeplcheep compared Challenges before and after Ragaban: apples to apples. Nothing wrong there. You pulled out 22% without a source or anyone agreeing on it.

You have to decide on a reasonable way to measure competitive metagame share:
a) Large Events only
b) All MTGO Legacy events (Challenges & Leagues, not practice room)
c) All Paper Legacy events
d) All Paper and online events (b + c)
e) Paper and online events logged on mtgtop8

They won't all be the same. The online meta (B) is a bit different from the paper meta (C).

D & E are also different. mtgtop8 has good coverage of large events, but very inconsistent coverage of small events. Some LGS weeklies get posted, most don't. Once in a while an MTGO League result makes it up, but most of the 5-0 dump doesn't. It's a real crapshoot what makes it on there. Very far from all small events. It's not a random sample of them either. Just some of them. Then sometimes they only post top 4, top 2, or the winner. It's a mess.

So even if you wanted to define the metagame by what gets played at ALL events including small LGS Legacy nights (D), mtgtop8 (E) does a messy job of representing it. If you really included ALL paper and online Legacy play, I'd wager the Tier 1 DTBs make up a tiny metagame fraction - while brews and casual jank take up a fair bit. But we don't have good data on it so we'll never know anyway.

IMHO Large Events are the best indicator of the competitive metagame, especially to see if a deck is Tier 0. For small LGS weeklies and MTGO Leagues, players often play a worse deck for fun, even though they know their other deck is better, just because they're bored of Xerox. But when the large event comes up they pull out what they think is best. If Delver is 28% at large events, that says a lot about competitive dominance. The much lower share in small events just means people get bored of Delver, lower tier decks stand a better chance over fewer rounds (more variance), or the more casual players can't afford Volcanic.

To make a fair comparison, look at the large events before Ragaban. I never said to compare it to a different metric from before.

I was going to respond to this earlier but I failed to dig up actual screenshots of the data I'm referencing. That is my failure to take adequate screenshots I guess. I just remember Ragavan-Delver topping out at higher on the same site

To be clear, it's still way too prevalent. Wizards decided to take what was arguably already the best deck/archetype in the format and give it four insanely powerful new cards, and then banned one. And I'm completely open to the argument that Ragavan was the weakest of those four, if the swingiest.

But the idea that banning Ragavan was helping Izzet Delver is still stupid. What's helping Izzet Delver is that they printed three insanely powerful cards to an already tier 1 strategy in the past 18 months or so.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Here's a guy who makes good calls about what cards do and will be played, definitely listening to this guy

Also pointed out how I literally said Expressive Iteration was going to have to be banned and got laughed at by people who now think they're geniuses of card strength analysis.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Also pointed out how I literally said Expressive Iteration was going to have to be banned and got laughed at by people who now think they're geniuses of card strength analysis.

I still laugh.
There's a still quite a few cards ahead of it. In power and banability.

Well maybe not laugh. I did get a good laugh in the dreadnought threads now that they're playing 4 Expressive Iterations like I said they should. I didn't want to say anything but if we're pointing our calls I got one, too!

[Fox]

I still laugh.
There's a still quite a few cards ahead of it. In power and banability.

Well maybe not laugh. I did get a good laugh in the dreadnought threads now that they're playing 4 Expressive Iterations like I said they should. I didn't want to say anything but if we're pointing our calls I got one, too!

At the same time, if you play Dreadnought you know how crappy EI is in Delver. The card is beyond pathetic if you challenge their mana. The ones complaining most about Iteration refuse to adapt and b/c of that failure to adapt they put themselves in the abyss where Delver is able to loop EI-Daze-Sanctuary.

In the same way people that refuse to adapt and build a deck that doesn't die to Goyf keep losing to MurkGoyf.

If you want to break the cycle, Daze is the only ban worth considering. This Delver stuff is less pressing however than banning the already banned cards Mind Twist and Timetwister (Day's, Echo).

Most legacy players want to sit there and cite a 55% non-mirror winrate instead of understanding concepts...so if the winrate is below 55%, why are they complaining? Want to fix the problem - ban Daze.

Guess what happens if you ban Iteration: Predict + DRC. Then hooray for spending the next 9 months saying "we have to ban DRC"...

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

The ones complaining most about Iteration refuse to adapt
Turn on your monitor.

[Fox]

Turn on your monitor.

Oh I'll spot you Lurrus and DHA as being reasonable bans despite being absolute meme against what I play...but a 2 mana Diviniation that requires sorcery speed and a 3rd land drop open? Cmon now.

Like you know exactly what happens with DRC and Predict the second that ban happens. Wake up, it's Daze - it's always been Daze.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Or maybe, just maybe, one of the best card selection spells of all time that synergizes with nearly every other card selection spell ever, the one that was banned in one non-rotating format, and sees heavy play in another might be, and hear me out, good?

Also it's brainstorm+fetches but you're not ready to have that conversation yet.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The real problem with the format is just fetchlands. It was the problem with Top, with DRS, with the delve spells, with Survival, it’s the problem with Brainstorm and Murktide. At least 50% of Legacy’s problems come down to the manabase doing things the game wasn’t designed for manabases to do, like easily enable 3-4 color decks that can ignore Blood Moon while filling the yard and giving free shuffles.

Although even with fetches banned Iteration would still be too good. There’s been a lot of evidence for a long time that a two mana draw two would be a really powerful card in Legacy, but Iteration is really better than that even.

[Ronald Deuce]

AND AWAAAaAaAaAaAaAAAAAY WE GOOOOOO!

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

AND AWAAAaAaAaAaAaAAAAAY WE GOOOOOO!

Ban this too.

[KobeBryan]

What's banned. I can't find the updated annoucnment.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

What's banned. I can't find the updated annoucnment.

There's an annoucment?

[KobeBryan]

There's an annoucment?

I don't know...u guys kept talking about cards being banned like expressive iteration

[Michael Keller]

The real problem with the format is just fetchlands. It was the problem with Top, with DRS, with the delve spells, with Survival, it’s the problem with Brainstorm and Murktide. At least 50% of Legacy’s problems come down to the manabase doing things the game wasn’t designed for manabases to do, like easily enable 3-4 color decks that can ignore Blood Moon while filling the yard and giving free shuffles..

I agree with this, but let's be honest here, too: Magic as a game started in 1993. And now, it's 2022 - so that's 29 years the game has existed. Of those 29 years, fetches have existed for 26 - because they were first mechanically of-sorts printed in Mirage (and they were used in old "Type II" decks, especially old Necro decks splashing red - adding consistency). Onslaught fetches have existed for 20 of those years and we know the story from there.

This means that fetches have existed and have been used in some capacity in deckbuilding for almost 90% of Magic's history. And while the card pool has certainly gotten better over the years and more dynamic, I do agree the fundamental idea behind fetches is in my opinion, anyhow - a design mistake - but in hindsight. Because realistically, there's no way in 1996 or 2002 they thought they would print a card like DRS or Murktide - especially after the Urza's Saga block debacle. That being said, cards like Brainstorm even in a time like 1996 got better because of fetches, albeit slightly until 2002.

But here's the kicker: all of these cards have just gotten "better" over time because they're robustly boosted by what fetches do. This includes new cards printed like you said that interact with them way too well. So, you have one of two choices here:

1. Ban fetches entirely and leave newer cards alone unless they deserve to be banned because they're just way overpowered.
2. Ban newer cards that are just way too powerful because fetches exist, but leave fetches alone.

I mean, that's it, right?

[FTW]

I agree. Fetches are too integral a part of Magic history to suddenly ban now, even if they get increasingly degenerate with power creep and new abilities. Brainstorm + fetch + dual is nostalgic to anyone who played Type 1, Type 1.5 or Extended back then. It was a defining feature of being a blue mage. I think they even altered the rotation schedule of Extended to allow fetch+dual to stay in the format longer. When Ravnica finally rotated out of Extended, Extended died and they replaced it with non-rotating Modern, where they drew the line to keep fetch+shock in the format. The interaction was too popular to ditch. Eternal formats are supposed to be a place for players to still enjoy your old cards and old interactions, instead of conforming to the new design direction.

WOTC has provided both options by creating separate formats:
1) Historic & Pioneer. Enjoy new cards without fetches breaking them.
2) Modern, and to a lesser extent Legacy & Vintage. Enjoy old interactions. Ban new cards that become degenerate with them.

Players are free to choose a format based on what they want more.

tl;dr: Don't ban fetchlands. Ban Island Fish Jasconius

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

No. Ban the card that's breaking everything. Come on already.
Enough.

[Purple Blood]

WOTC has provided both options by creating separate formats:
1) Historic & Pioneer. Enjoy new cards without fetches breaking them.
2) Modern, and to a lesser extent Legacy & Vintage. Enjoy old interactions. Ban new cards that become degenerate with them.

Players are free to choose a format based on what they want more.

tl;dr: Don't ban fetchlands. Ban Island Fish Jasconius

Hit the nail on the head. This is all that needs to be said on the subject. Don't like fetches? They already banned them in Pioneer. Have at it.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Hit the nail on the head. This is all that needs to be said on the subject. Don't like fetches? They already banned them in Pioneer. Have at it.

Nah. You go play vintage.
I mean, that's the extant format where they never fix anything because that's how it's always been, right?

[Zoid]

In other news: nothing (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/september-19-2022-banned-and-restricted-announcement)

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

In other news: nothing (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/september-19-2022-banned-and-restricted-announcement)

We knew this

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Hit the nail on the head. This is all that needs to be said on the subject. Don't like fetches? They already banned them in Pioneer. Have at it.

This is a dumb argument because you can just say it about anything.

Also, it's incredibly silly to act like the Mirage fetchlands count come the fuck on

[Purple Blood]

This is a dumb argument because you can just say it about anything.

I can't understand what you wrote here.


Also, it's incredibly silly to act like the Mirage fetchlands count come the fuck on

Who said anything about Mirage fetches?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Who said anything about Mirage fetches?


I agree with this, but let's be honest here, too: Magic as a game started in 1993. And now, it's 2022 - so that's 29 years the game has existed. Of those 29 years, fetches have existed for 26 - because they were first mechanically of-sorts printed in Mirage (and they were used in old "Type II" decks, especially old Necro decks splashing red - adding consistency). Onslaught fetches have existed for 20 of those years and we know the story from there.

[Purple Blood]

When you make arguments to "score points" rather than have a genuine debate, it is rather pointless isn't it? No one is talking about Mirage fetches other than to say they are the historical starting point for the concept of a fetch land.

[Fox]

When you make arguments to "score points" rather than have a genuine debate, it is rather pointless isn't it? No one is talking about Mirage fetches other than to say they are the historical starting point for the concept of a fetch land.

Thawing Glaciers

[BirdsOfParadise]

IMO the best thing for Legacy gameplay would be to ban fetches, but suggesting ways to tweak the format seems pointless because its essence is permanently changing. WotC used to design for Standard and Limited. Legacy felt more weird and organic. Now sets come faster and faster, and each one is specifically designed to crack all formats, including Legacy. The format feels over-engineered, and much of new card design seems to be picking a deck that already exists and printing something that that deck can’t not play.

[Purple Blood]

IMO the best thing for Legacy gameplay would be to ban fetches, but suggesting ways to tweak the format seems pointless because its essence is permanently changing. WotC used to design for Standard and Limited. Legacy felt more weird and organic. Now sets come faster and faster, and each one is specifically designed to crack all formats, including Legacy. The format feels over-engineered, and much of new card design seems to be picking a deck that already exists and printing something that that deck can’t not play.

That's kind of my overall gripe with the game in general.

In the early years, they kind of just made random cards without any overall theme and left the players to build decks using whatever cards they had. Then they started to put set-specific mechanics. Then they started pre-engineering standard constructed decks into the sets. Now, they do that even for eternal formats through Modern Horizons e.g. let's make UR tempo a thing in Modern. I would be almost absolutely certain every future MH set will end up pushing a few archetypes at a time.

It takes out part of the fun of the game when players don't get to brew and instead play what WOTC designed for them. You could argue that this is a good thing since you can make all archetypes viable but it kind of kills the soul of the game if you're just playing a standardize set of cards specifically designed to be played together.

Alas, the internet and spread of information that came with it also kind of killed true brewing as well.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

E: nvm

[Barook]

Thawing Glaciers
Talk about a blast from the past.

This is actually good with Amulet of Vigor in a basic land-heavy deck.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

The Legacy metagame is looking healthy, with top decks all having strengths and weaknesses against each other. Since the ban of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in January, the most popular deck, Izzet Delver, has had its win rate trend downward. According to Magic Online data, it represents about 9% of the field and has an overall non-mirror match win rate of 52%, with both positive and negative matchups against the next ten most played decks.

The past year has brought several new, impactful cards to competitive Legacy, including Unlicensed Hearse, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Ledger Shredder, Leyline Binding, and more. We're excited to see the format continue to grow as new cards lead to new strategies. As always, we'll continue to monitor how the metagame develops, but right now, things seem to be in a good spot.

[Barook]

I don't know what's more unbelievable - Leyline Binding being a hot, new card - or Delver with 9% metashare and 52% winrate putting up ~18-19% of all tournament results.

What a load of bullshit.

[jmlima]

I don't know what's more unbelievable - Leyline Binding being a hot, new card - or Delver with 9% metashare and 52% winrate putting up ~18-19% of all tournament results.

What a load of bullshit.

I can never understand these things but on mtggoldfish, the meta percentage is around 20%, presumably because it's twisted by so many top finishes?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I can never understand these things but on mtggoldfish, the meta percentage is around 20%, presumably because it's twisted by so many top finishes?

Not just top finishes but mtgo league data isn't released for anything but 5-0 and even then they limit dupes
Plus it's rare for a tournament to release all the data

[jmlima]

Not just top finishes but mtgo league data isn't released for anything but 5-0 and even then they limit dupes
Plus it's rare for a tournament to release all the data

True. I totally forgot they 'curated' the results the publish.

[FTW]

If they measure the meta by Leagues and not competitive events, that indicates 2 things:
1) They treat Legacy as a casual format, with negligible care for the competitive metagame
2) They only care about profit. As long as players buy cards and pay for Leagues, they make $$.

Leyline Binding might have seen an uptick among new brews in Leagues, as players try out the card. Must be broken!

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

If they measure the meta by Leagues and not competitive events, that indicates 2 things:
1) They treat Legacy as a casual format, with negligible care for the competitive metagame
2) They only care about profit. As long as players buy cards and pay for Leagues, they make $$.

Leyline Binding might have seen an uptick among new brews in Leagues, as players try out the card. Must be broken!

Even if players don't buy cards for leagues they provide the labor to open chests and fill bots. Like operating a league on mtgo for 100 players is something that can be done on a home computer. It's not a big deal. It's not like the prizes cost them anything either. Barring a lottery set-redemption win everything you win is just more digital stuff which goes into a database somewhere and is just free for them.

We also don't know if they're using leagues, none of us have access to their dataset and they're not telling us.

[FTW]

That stats and inclusion of Leyline Binding make no sense if they're not including Leagues. Because the Challenge/Showcase % is different. And Leyline Binding sees very little play in Challenges.

It only makes sense if they count Leagues. Then "look Delver doesn't see too much play" and "look the format is diverse" and "look new cards are seeing play". Those statements make more sense including Leagues.

[Fox]

Leagues provide useless data, contaminated by financial incentives tied primarily to clear speed (i.e. boosted combo presence).

About the only useful thing you can get from a league is an estimation of how good a deck is vs linear combo.

[H]

March 6th B&R (https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/march-6-2023-banned-and-restricted-announcement)


Announcement Date: March 6, 2023
Legacy:
Expressive Iteration is banned.
White Plume Adventurer is banned.
Effective Date: March 6, 2023



Since the last update, the Legacy metagame has evolved such that two major archetypes combine to make up a large portion of the field. These are the perennially popular Izzet Delver and the recently enabled Mono-White Initiative. With their combined presence approaching 30% of the field in some circles of competitive play, we're choosing to ban one card from each deck to lower their respective win rates and metagame shares.
Izzet Delver has been popular for quite some time in Legacy, and it has picked up some notable recent additions, including Dragon's Rage Channeler, Murktide Regent, and Expressive Iteration. While we acknowledge and agree with the many Legacy players who enjoy the play patterns of Izzet Delver and similar archetypes, our data indicates a need to take the win rate and popularity of the deck down a notch to allow for more metagame diversity and innovation. Our choice is to ban Expressive Iteration, as the card quality and quantity it provides allows Izzet Delver to easily adapt to stay on top of any changes in the metagame.
In addition to removing a generally strong card, our hope is that by removing Expressive Iteration, we reinforce Izzet Delver's historical strengths (efficient one-for-one exchanges) and weaknesses (lack of sources of card quantity) in a way that leaves the deck more vulnerable in the metagame.
Since the release of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, the initiative mechanic has had a large impact on the Legacy format and continues to rise in popularity. The current second most popular deck uses fast mana to power out an initiative creature, gaining an early advantage that's difficult to recover from. To reduce the consistency and speed of this gameplay pattern, we're choosing to ban the efficient three-mana initiative creature White Plume Adventurer.
According to our data, these two decks are holding each other in check, as well as stymieing additional metagame movement. Therefore, we're choosing to impact both decks together. We'll continue to monitor if these changes are enough to open up the metagame and evaluate further changes if needed going forward.


Well, that was somewhat unexpected (I mean, not really, just not at the moment).

[Fox]

They missed Echo...again.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

March 6th B&R (https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/march-6-2023-banned-and-restricted-announcement)





Well, that was somewhat unexpected (I mean, not really, just not at the moment).

At least they still care *sheds single tear*

[H]

At least they still care *sheds single tear*

At least they still care about Challenge attendance.

Fixed that for you (I think).

Recent Challenge attendances (excluding Showcases, which are always much more highly attended):
3/5: 64
3/4: 50
2/25: 53
2/19: 86
2/18: 61
2/12: 85
2/11: 49
2/5: 69
2/4: 49
1/29: 68
1/28: 56
1/22: 90
1/21: 53
1/14: 60
1/8: 120
1/7: 64
1/1: 106
12/31: 65

I could go back further, but I think this shows a general decline (and Wizards has better info, since they know how many Leagues are being played of a given format too).

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/023/021/e02e5ffb5f980cd8262cf7f0ae00a4a9_press-x-to-doubt-memes-memesuper-la-noire-doubt-meme_419-238.png

It’s an impulse earlygame that is predict lategame or if you build your deck around it (baubles etc) .. neither of those cards are broken. Nights whisper Grixis isn’t killing anyone.

Hahahahahaha

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Strong bet against.


I'd put money on that one and give you 2-to-1 odds.

Sounds like some people owe me fucking money

[ReAnimator]

Yet another card that's strictly worse than brainstorm and ponder that gets banned for their sins. Wheee

[H]

Yet another card that's strictly worse than brainstorm and ponder that gets banned for their sins. Wheee

Well, of course, but at this point, that is like cards being Restricted in Vintage because Mishra's Workshop taps for :3:. Fair? Not really. But that is just what Vintage is. If we like it or not, Brainstorm/Ponder are Legacy (as Wizards chooses to have it be).

[ReAnimator]

Yeah i understand it, still don't like it, and think it's silly to have untouchable "pillars" in any format. I also think it sucks for game play reasons. I've played against brainstorm for decades, i think iteration is a much more interesting card to play with, against, design and build with compared to BS. Just how i feel.

[H]

Yeah i understand it, still don't like it, and think it's silly to have untouchable "pillars" in any format. I also think it sucks for game play reasons. I've played against brainstorm for decades, i think iteration is a much more interesting card to play with, against, design and build with compared to BS. Just how i feel.

I mean, in many ways I agree with you that Brainstorms dominance is a bit boring, but at the same time I disagree that were is really a "better" way to ground Legacy. No matter what, there has to be at least one meta-setting card. In Legacy's case, it's more like three (Force of Will, Brainstorm, Ponder). This is both a good thing, in the sense of not having the meta be an absolute free-for-all where you cannot metagame at all and sideboard are a total crapshoot. It is a harsh metagame "fun police" though, but ultimately that might just be somewhat better overall.

Ultimately though, erring toward keeping a "grounding" level, meta-setting ground of cards is probably something of a good thing, especially with the release pace now, or else the meta would likely be shifting all over the place. In the old days, the question was "can you beat a turn 1 Lackey?" to know if you really had a Legacy deck. Now, the question is more, can you compete with Force/Brainstorm/Ponder? Is that particularly fair? Not really. But, one has to start somewhere and that just where we start.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Sounds like some people owe me fucking money

Be gracious in victory.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I refuse

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I refuse

We know.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I want to say that in theory, it's more correct to build your banlist around what you want the format to look like than just banning whatever's the most powerful per se, but that assumes a level of engagement that I don't think Wizards actually has to eternal formats.

Also they should actually be banning fetchlands

[FTW]

March 6th B&R (https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/march-6-2023-banned-and-restricted-announcement)

So they banned the 3cmc Initiative creature and fair blue's card advantage, but you can still Show and Tell 8 copies of 7/7 flying lifelink draw 7.

Seems like they want JPA > WPA.

[Zoid]

Wouldn't have expected that but it fits their recent pattern:
Protect established archetypes and only nerf them slightly while every new and different thing gets banhammered into oblivion as soon as it seems like it might be viable.
It would help if they stopped printing absurd shit that breaks half the formats every set but I guess that doesn't sell enough product.
Why even bother supporting other formats at this point instead of just releasing only commander products and secret lair nonsense?

[jmlima]

Wouldn't have expected that but it fits their recent pattern:
Protect established archetypes and only nerf them slightly while every new and different thing gets banhammered into oblivion as soon as it seems like it might be viable.
It would help if they stopped printing absurd shit that breaks half the formats every set but I guess that doesn't sell enough product.
Why even bother supporting other formats at this point instead of just releasing only commander products and secret lair nonsense?

Well, I would like less extreme and frequent shifts in meta but, for every one like me, there's ten others shouting in reddit and twitter about the need to 'freshen' up the metagame and so on. They are the target demographic, not me, and I have to accept that irrespective of if I like it or not.

Also, the fact is that with the rental schemes in MTGO, there's no longer a premium put in going for the next broken thing for a couple of weeks before changing to the next broken thing, in fact, this is actively encouraged and, I suspect, is one of the reasons for the owners of MTGO now and WOTC previously going along with what is a blatant violation of the platform's rules. This allows them to do the 'release broken thing-ban broken thing' cycles with total impunity.

[morgan_coke]

I still say if they want to fix Legacy they need to ban everything until Wild Nacatl is viable again. Delver was the true point of no return, and they've shown just zero appetite to have non-blue creatures be the best in the game ever since.

[FTW]

I still say if they want to fix Legacy they need to ban everything until Wild Nacatl is viable again. Delver was the true point of no return, and they've shown just zero appetite to have non-blue creatures be the best in the game ever since.

Zoo still top8s once a year or so. The most viable build is 8Lynx (I still think the deck should be called "Raining cats and dogs!"). Wild Nacatl got power-crept by 1-mana 4/5s (Akoum Hellhound+Steppe Lynx) and 1-mana 3/4s (Elvish Reclaimer). Luckily those creatures are nonblue and in Zoo colors.

Zoo's problem is it has 0 game against combo. Any deck that goes off T1-T3 is going to annihilate Zoo (sometimes you can race on the play T3). TES, Reanimator, Oops, Doomsday. Zoo's never had an adequate plan for them. You scoop game 1, hope to surprise them with SB hate in game 2, then watch them board & play correctly around your hate in game 3. Meanwhile blue tempo can also play the aggro game, but annihilates combo.

[Zoid]

Well, I would like less extreme and frequent shifts in meta but, for every one like me, there's ten others shouting in reddit and twitter about the need to 'freshen' up the metagame and so on. They are the target demographic, not me, and I have to accept that irrespective of if I like it or not.
Welcome to the old man club.
We meet after 6 in the local pub to complain about kids these days and yell at clouds.

I still maintain that this business model will hurt them in the long run as it will wear out players faster than they can generate new ones.
Burnouts are also much harder to get back later then the ones who stopped at some point due to real life.

[Wrath of Pie]

I still maintain that this business model will hurt them in the long run as it will wear out players faster than they can generate new ones.
Burnouts are also much harder to get back later then the ones who stopped at some point due to real life.

Shareholders oddly don't seem to care about the long run other than expecting profits to continually increase.

[Purple Blood]

Per usual, there's a lot of unrealistic takes in this thread. They aren't going to take drastic measures that will completely change the entire metagame. Naya_Creatures.dec will never be a thing. They aren't going to ban Brainstorm and Ponder and if they did go down that route eventually this format would be indistinguishable from Modern anyway. Etc. Etc.

It's the less risky move for them to ban new cards and keep things toward their historical norm. That's exactly what they did.

[KobeBryan]

I was going to respond to this earlier but I failed to dig up actual screenshots of the data I'm referencing. That is my failure to take adequate screenshots I guess. I just remember Ragavan-Delver topping out at higher on the same site

To be clear, it's still way too prevalent. Wizards decided to take what was arguably already the best deck/archetype in the format and give it four insanely powerful new cards, and then banned one. And I'm completely open to the argument that Ragavan was the weakest of those four, if the swingiest.

But the idea that banning Ragavan was helping Izzet Delver is still stupid. What's helping Izzet Delver is that they printed three insanely powerful cards to an already tier 1 strategy in the past 18 months or so.

Wizards got what they want. Sell packs and ban them. Started with that degenerate wrenn and six then oro

[Zoid]

Shareholders oddly don't seem to care about the long run other than expecting profits to continually increase.
You just identified what is wrong with the western economy in general since the late 90s or so.

As long as they make a profit and then sell afterwards they don't care.


Per usual, there's a lot of unrealistic takes in this thread. They aren't going to take drastic measures that will completely change the entire metagame. Naya_Creatures.dec will never be a thing. They aren't going to ban Brainstorm and Ponder and if they did go down that route eventually this format would be indistinguishable from Modern anyway. Etc. Etc.

It's the less risky move for them to ban new cards and keep things toward their historical norm. That's exactly what they did.

We're talking about Legacy which really doesn't matter to them like at all.
Legacy isn't creating them much revenue so they could do whatever they want.

[jmlima]

...
Legacy isn't creating them much revenue so they could do whatever they want.

I think they have when they flogged off the platform for legacy , modern etc and kept the one for standard & digital formats.

[jmlima]

...
It's the less risky move for them to ban new cards and keep things toward their historical norm. That's exactly what they did.

But are they? Is Legacy's historical norm a metagame change with every other release?

Mind you, I'm looking at things from the prism of MTGO where you do have easy access to the latest deck and can change decks in about 5mins. Fair enough, those 6 guys playing their weekly in a shop on a lost corner of some city are probably still very much playing their static metagame and hating that one guy that got to buy delver back in the day and just keeps adding new toys to his deck. But they are not representative as much as they may think they are. The big numbers are in MTGO.

[Purple Blood]

We're talking about Legacy which really doesn't matter to them like at all.
Legacy isn't creating them much revenue so they could do whatever they want.

I agree Legacy doesn't make them money which only undercuts some of the comments we've seen in this thread about this being some kind of cash grab.

While they might not, relatively speaking, make money on the format they presumably still have an interest in maintaining the format. They would also know the type of players who play this format likely want it to remain stable. Banning half of the pillars of the format is the opposite of stability.


But are they? Is Legacy's historical norm a metagame change with every other release?

Mind you, I'm looking at things from the prism of MTGO where you do have easy access to the latest deck and can change decks in about 5mins. Fair enough, those 6 guys playing their weekly in a shop on a lost corner of some city are probably still very much playing their static metagame and hating that one guy that got to buy delver back in the day and just keeps adding new toys to his deck. But they are not representative as much as they may think they are. The big numbers are in MTGO.

The idea is if you start banning many of the ubiquitously played card it will entirely change the metagame and that could take years to sort out with additional bans. Who can possibly predict what decks would be viable if they actually banned all the cards suggested in the last few pages of this thread? And who can possibly know what collateral damage that will cause, including additional bans that may be needed, if that happens?

I doubt WOTC wants to spend the time on sorting that giant mess out on a format they barely care about. So the easy answer is execute whatever bans are needed to maintain the status quo. Understanding that, the recent bans are easy to explain: (1) Delver is too strong right now; (2) the Initiative is a stupid mechanic for 1v1. OK - ban a card from those two decks and reevaluate from there.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Regardless of what they do or might want to do with the format in terms of encouraged playstyles and desired power level, the format will never look like Modern as long as Wizards keeps pumping out pushed EDH cards that are legal in eternal formats and not in others, even if they banned all the fast mana and cheap cantrips and fetchlands and duals or whatever else tomorrow.

[Purple Blood]

The next Commanderesque side-set is gonna be Modern legal :laugh:

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

The next Commanderesque side-set is gonna be Modern legal :laugh:

Lotr this summer

[jmlima]

Lotr this summer

First Eldrazi winter now, <insert-random-crossover-theme> summer.

[FTW]

I still say if they want to fix Legacy they need to ban everything until Wild Nacatl is viable again. Delver was the true point of no return, and they've shown just zero appetite to have non-blue creatures be the best in the game ever since.

Did you ever consider playing 1x Nacatl instead of 4x Nacatl? Maybe the problem with Zoo is the card quality is TOO good and it needs to be Highlander instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYemZZAOJ9Q

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

They really need to ban Murktide next, but there I'm not so confident of them actually making the correct decision.

[Zoid]

They really need to ban Murktide next, but there I'm not so confident of them actually making the correct decision.

Don't worry, we just have to wait for the next modern horizons in which they print even more mental cards to outclass the current ban candidates ;)

[Purple Blood]

Don't worry, we just have to wait for the next modern horizons in which they print even more mental cards to outclass the current ban candidates ;)

Wilder Nacatl [G]

When Wilder Nacatl enters the battlefield, you may choose to have it fight target creature you don't control.

Wilder Nacatl gets +1/+1 for each basic land type among lands you control.

0/1

Blue Ragavan [U]

Whenever Blue Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Clue Token and Surveil 1.

Dash 1[U].

2/1

+some new pitch cycle

Am I doing this right?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I got Storm+Bushido
But I rerolled into Epic and cascade.
I think they're changing the rules. Again

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Don't worry, we just have to wait for the next modern horizons in which they print even more mental cards to outclass the current ban candidates ;)

I mean touching on this; they really should just ban everything that's never been Type 2 legal.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I think that might also functionally ban Tabernacle and Reset but I can live with the exchange.

[Zoid]

I mean touching on this; they really should just ban everything that's never been Type 2 legal.

That would still leave us with such gems as blue delve spells, companions, Underworld Breach, Oko, Dreadhorde Arcanist on a regular basis.

Does anyone know if they still have their meme balancing council or whatever that they made to prevent balancing mistakes years ago.
In case that still exists they probably only use it to identify cards that aren't broken to push further.
Current balancing priorities are:

1) Commander
2)
3)
4) Standard
5)
6) Who even cares anymore.

As long as commander players continue to give money to WotC like they are Nigerian princes, this is what we'll get.

[jmlima]

I mean touching on this; they really should just ban everything that's never been Type 2 legal.

Not happening BUT, some years ago, right before MTGA became a thing, there was a discussion making some headways about the possibility of giving players a way to 'define a format' in MTGO and being able to organize their own competitions for it, all done inside the software not using funny websites and all sorts of hacks. Which would allow all of these ideas and would certainly start to show how popular or not they are. Then MTGA came and it all went the way of the dodo.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

That would still leave us with such gems as blue delve spells, companions, Underworld Breach, Oko, Dreadhorde Arcanist on a regular basis.

Does anyone know if they still have their meme balancing council or whatever that they made to prevent balancing mistakes years ago.
In case that still exists they probably only use it to identify cards that aren't broken to push further.
Current balancing priorities are:

1) Commander
2)
3)
4) Standard
5)
6) Who even cares anymore.

As long as commander players continue to give money to WotC like they are Nigerian princes, this is what we'll get.

Stuff like DHA, Delve, and Oko just feels like normal "occasionally there's a card that's too good in type 2" stuff, like normal Magic

It doesn't feel like a constant churn of pushed pure joke bullshit that's bad enough in casual formats like EDH but in no way a sane addition to fucking duel formats, like the Initiative bullshit amply demonstrates. Or stuff that's just designed to be Legacy playable levels of normal broken and then wildly overshoots the mark like Murktide

[jmlima]

It's a brand new world in the first week post-bans:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/this-week-in-legacy-a-brand-new-legacy

[Zoid]

In case this got missed. (https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/may-29-2023-banned-and-restricted-announcement)

While the strategy seems fine, the better fix would be better balancing but can't have that.
Can't wait for them to change their policy again in a few months time.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

In case this got missed. (https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/may-29-2023-banned-and-restricted-announcement)

While the strategy seems fine, the better fix would be better balancing but can't have that.
Can't wait for them to change their policy again in a few months time.

It's dumb, and so is WOTC but it's ok.
I'll keep buying that garbage in playing in those events.

[H]

Site crashed, but I would guess it will be back up soon: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/august-7-2023-banned-and-restricted-announcement

The important part:
https://i.imgur.com/U4DTngR.jpeg

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It feels like there are less obvious ways to kill Legacy if that’s all you want to do

[KobeBryan]

It feels like there are less obvious ways to kill Legacy if that’s all you want to do

There's more degenerate shit than mind's desire.

[sjmcc13]

There's more degenerate shit than mind's desire.
Yes, but that does not mean that unbanning desire is not a very risky move.
Especially with how many players hate the storm mechanic with a passion.

[PirateKing]

It feels like there are less obvious ways to kill Legacy if that’s all you want to do

I'm excited to see your Tier Zero Mind's Desire deck.
Not sarcasm, I really want to see a modern day Mind's Desire deck

[H]

Not sarcasm, I really want to see a modern day Mind's Desire deck

There is one really silly thing about Mind's Desire that doesn't come into play in Vintage (the only place I've played Desire before) but MD into flipping another MD is pretty bonkers. Can't do that in Vintage because it is restricted.

Honestly, I hate Storm, as I think it is probably the worst keyword in the history of the game, but I am curious to see what can really be done with it nowadays.

[PirateKing]

There is one really silly thing about Mind's Desire that doesn't come into play in Vintage (the only place I've played Desire before) but MD into flipping another MD is pretty bonkers. Can't do that in Vintage because it is restricted.

That's what I want to see! MD > MD > MD > MD ...and my whole deck has been cast
Like, Sure milling yourself in response to Thassa's Oracle is cool and all, but what about putting your whole deck on the stack!

[Hanni]

Some sort of High Tide deck seems the most likely place due the UU cost?

Orcish Bowmasters and Hullbreacher/Narset aside, Mind's Desire seems worse than Peer into the Abyss for Storm, and they already have jukes to draw hate with Ad Naseum, Galvanic Relay, Past in Flames, etc. I'm 100% sure it finds its way into Storm regardless, but I'm not sure it makes the deck suddenly format warping.

However, I'm surprised to see Mind's Desire unbanned over Mystical Tutor.

[H]

However, I'm surprised to see Mind's Desire unbanned over Mystical Tutor.

I think it makes sense though, I have my doubts that Mystical Tutor is realistically alright when Doomsday will take to playing Personal Tutor since Mystical is not available.

[Hanni]

I think it makes sense though, I have my doubts that Mystical Tutor is realistically alright when Doomsday will take to playing Personal Tutor since Mystical is not available.

Understandable, but is the difference between Mystical Tutor and Personal Tutor really that dramatic that it's going to make Doomsday that much better than it already is? Yeah you get to tutor for Force of Will or Daze instead of Thoughtseize for protection, but is that going to break the format? I doubt it.

[H]

Understandable, but is the difference between Mystical Tutor and Personal Tutor really that dramatic that it's going to make Doomsday that much better than it already is? Yeah you get to tutor for Force of Will or Daze instead of Thoughtseize for protection, but is that going to break the format? I doubt it.
I don't think it is that exactly, but Instant speed makes it more versatile for combo because of how it can be used with Lions Eye Diamond, for example. Also, Mystical can find Ad Nauseum where Personal Tutor can't. Granted, it likely doesn't break the format, but I think it is a significant upgrade and is likely much more powerful compared to Mind's Desire. Of course, maybe I'm wrong and we're about to find out though.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

There's more degenerate shit than mind's desire.

There’s also more degenerate shit than Library of Alexandria or Wheel of Fortune, but they’re still not real obvious top unban picks

[Wrath of Pie]

It feels like there are less obvious ways to kill Legacy if that’s all you want to do

Yeah, that Preordain unban in Modern is really going to kill Legacy

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Some sort of High Tide deck seems the most likely place due the UU cost?

Orcish Bowmasters and Hullbreacher/Narset aside, Mind's Desire seems worse than Peer into the Abyss for Storm, and they already have jukes to draw hate with Ad Naseum, Galvanic Relay, Past in Flames, etc.

Yeah man it seems a lot worse to pay less mana that’s on color to just cast your spells uncounterably with no drawbacks instead of drawing and not casting them for free and also losing life while pretending extremely popular cards don’t exist and also needing to play around counters

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I find it very funny that Legacy players have this massive hardon for wheel effects and will jump through any conceivable hoop to make them kinda work, but apparently the concept that you can just cast a half dozen cards from the top of your deck without having to pay any more mana or give your opponent any cards, that’s humdrum apparently

Like I do get that it’s hard to gauge because the card has never been Legacy or even 1.5 legal but uhhh maybe people should think about why that is

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'm excited to see your Tier Zero Mind's Desire deck.
Not sarcasm, I really want to see a modern day Mind's Desire deck

I don’t know if I want to put the energy into trying, not least because of an obvious problem I think people itt are nonetheless missing:

Mind’s Desire is insanely powerful but also insanely flexible and it’s kind of hard to predict what the best shell for actually breaking it is

You can pretty much pick any combo deck and there’s a reasonable argument that Mind’s Desire is the card needed to break it. That’s true for basically any prior form of storm combo sure but also High Tide, Sneak and Show, that dumb Cascade deck, even Reanimator or something. “Cast a bunch of your spells for free in a way that’s hard to interact with” is something a lot of decks want to do, it turns out

Christ it even goes to the yard so you can flash it back

[Lord Seth]

I don’t know if I want to put the energy into trying, not least because of an obvious problem I think people itt are nonetheless missing:

Mind’s Desire is insanely powerful but also insanely flexible and it’s kind of hard to predict what the best shell for actually breaking it is

You can pretty much pick any combo deck and there’s a reasonable argument that Mind’s Desire is the card needed to break it. That’s true for basically any prior form of storm combo sure but also High Tide, Sneak and Show, that dumb Cascade deck, even Reanimator or something. “Cast a bunch of your spells for free in a way that’s hard to interact with” is something a lot of decks want to do, it turns out

Christ it even goes to the yard so you can flash it back
In what way is Mind's Desire insanely flexible? Mind's Desire can work only in a deck that can (1) produce the mana to play it, and (2) create the Storm count necessary for it to be decent. There's not many decks that fit that build; Sneak and Show and Reanimator don't fit those criteria.

So what decks can produce the mana to play it and create a high enough Storm count? Storm is one, but by the time you build up enough Storm that Mind's Desire can reliably do strong things, you might as well just cast Tendrils of Agony for less mana (and more on-color with Dark Ritual) and win on the spot.

Then there's High Tide. That deck can produce a lot of mana, and mana on-color for that matter, and build up a big Storm count. However, Mind's Desire seems a poor choice for that deck.

Now, as a disclaimer, it's been something like a decade since I played High Tide. But I did play it for a fairly long time before that, and looking at the decklists of the handful of players who still play it, the deck hasn't changed too much. And that's where we run into the problem: Mind's Desire is not a good fit for the deck. Reset Tide obviously has no use for it, but it's not that great in Spiral Tide either. It's too much of a "win more" card.

For a point of comparison, how do you go off on turn 3? You cast your High Tide, tap your remaining two Islands for four mana, cast Turnabout (or use a previously played Candelabra) to untap your lands, then cast Time Spiral to refill your hand and draw you into more High Tides or cantrips to get yourself more High Tides. If you were to cast Mind's Desire, you'd get a grand total of three cards to cast for free, and if none of them are a Turnabout or a Time Spiral, then you're not tapped out and your turn has been wasted, plus you've wasted your cards on a failed setup.

Except for Time Spiral, every card in High Tide is good to play even before you start going off, and every maindeck card in Spiral Tide (Time Spiral included) is good in the early stages of going off. Mind's Desire is dead before going off and is unreliable in the early stages of going off; you have to go off for a while before it becomes useful. That isn't a good choice for High Tide, which wants its maindeck cards to be useful as early and as often as possible. The later game cards, like the finishers, are relegated to the sideboard. Unfortunately for Mind's Desire, it isn't an Instant that Cunning Wish can get.

I could see running a copy of Mind's Desire in the sideboard along side a Fae of Wishes or Invasion of Arcavios maindeck. Then you would make sure to only fetch it out of your sideboard when your Storm count is high enough that you can be sure it'll win you the game. But such a thing would only be a small boost at most to High Tide, and certainly not enough to turn a fringe deck into a tier 1 deck, let alone one that's an actual problem in the metagame.

Storm and High Tide are the only ones that seem to fit into the ability to produce the mana to play it (six mana is a lot, and you need two of it to be Blue so Elves isn't exactly useful) while also building up the Storm count. But neither seems a good fit for Mind's Desire. Is there another deck I'm forgetting about that fits the criteria necessary?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

In what way is Mind's Desire insanely flexible? Mind's Desire can work only in a deck that can (1) produce the mana to play it, and (2) create the Storm count necessary for it to be decent. There's not many decks that fit that build; Sneak and Show and Reanimator don't fit those criteria.

So what decks can produce the mana to play it and create a high enough Storm count? Storm is one, but by the time you build up enough Storm that Mind's Desire can reliably do strong things, you might as well just cast Tendrils of Agony for less mana (and more on-color with Dark Ritual) and win on the spot.

Then there's High Tide. That deck can produce a lot of mana, and mana on-color for that matter, and build up a big Storm count. However, Mind's Desire seems a poor choice for that deck.

Now, as a disclaimer, it's been something like a decade since I played High Tide. But I did play it for a fairly long time before that, and looking at the decklists of the handful of players who still play it, the deck hasn't changed too much. And that's where we run into the problem: Mind's Desire is not a good fit for the deck. Reset Tide obviously has no use for it, but it's not that great in Spiral Tide either. It's too much of a "win more" card.

For a point of comparison, how do you go off on turn 3? You cast your High Tide, tap your remaining two Islands for four mana, cast Turnabout (or use a previously played Candelabra) to untap your lands, then cast Time Spiral to refill your hand and draw you into more High Tides or cantrips to get yourself more High Tides. If you were to cast Mind's Desire, you'd get a grand total of three cards to cast for free, and if none of them are a Turnabout or a Time Spiral, then you're not tapped out and your turn has been wasted, plus you've wasted your cards on a failed setup.

Except for Time Spiral, every card in High Tide is good to play even before you start going off, and every maindeck card in Spiral Tide (Time Spiral included) is good in the early stages of going off. Mind's Desire is dead before going off and is unreliable in the early stages of going off; you have to go off for a while before it becomes useful. That isn't a good choice for High Tide, which wants its maindeck cards to be useful as early and as often as possible. The later game cards, like the finishers, are relegated to the sideboard. Unfortunately for Mind's Desire, it isn't an Instant that Cunning Wish can get.

I could see running a copy of Mind's Desire in the sideboard along side a Fae of Wishes or Invasion of Arcavios maindeck. Then you would make sure to only fetch it out of your sideboard when your Storm count is high enough that you can be sure it'll win you the game. But such a thing would only be a small boost at most to High Tide, and certainly not enough to turn a fringe deck into a tier 1 deck, let alone one that's an actual problem in the metagame.

Storm and High Tide are the only ones that seem to fit into the ability to produce the mana to play it (six mana is a lot, and you need two of it to be Blue so Elves isn't exactly useful) while also building up the Storm count. But neither seems a good fit for Mind's Desire. Is there another deck I'm forgetting about that fits the criteria necessary?

What do you think the necessary storm count is for starters? I could use a laugh

Also like what scenario are you imagining where Time Spiral is a better cast than Mind’s Desire?

[Hanni]

Yeah man it seems a lot worse to pay less mana that’s on color to just cast your spells uncounterably with no drawbacks instead of drawing and not casting them for free and also losing life while pretending extremely popular cards don’t exist and also needing to play around counters

Blue isn't on color for current Storm decks. Black, and to a lesser extent red, are. Sure, LED can get cracked for UUU and you have Petal and Opal, but the rituals don't make blue, so getting 4UU is definitely possible, but it's in not on color.

I'm not denying that the card is powerful. If you can get to 4UU with a decent Storm count, you probably win the game. I'm sure we are going to see a new Storm variation with 4 Mind's Desire, and I'm sure it will do well against the same decks Storm does well against. The question is whether it makes Storm better against the decks it struggles against, and I'm just not so sure it changes much, given how good all of the existing engines already are. Does it fix any problems Storm currently has? You're still going to be soft to stuff like Archon of Emeria, Deafening Silence, Chalice of the Void, Null Rod, Stifle, etc, and now cards like Lavinia and Boromir can shut you down, too.

No doubt we're going to be seeing Mind's Desire being played in Legacy. Is it going to warp the format, especially in an unhealthy way? I just don't think so.

[Hanni]

I don't think it is that exactly, but Instant speed makes it more versatile for combo because of how it can be used with Lions Eye Diamond, for example. Also, Mystical can find Ad Nauseum where Personal Tutor can't. Granted, it likely doesn't break the format, but I think it is a significant upgrade and is likely much more powerful compared to Mind's Desire. Of course, maybe I'm wrong and we're about to find out though.

That's fair, I wasn't thinking about the instant speed for some reason. You'd still need a draw effect to use LED to cast the Doomsday, but that certainly would increase the consistency of turn 1 Doomsday with Street Wraith or Edge of Autumn as free draw effects to enable turn 1 Tutor + LED into Doomsday.

I still don't think it breaks the format, though. Legacy has changed a lot since that card got banned, and I didn't even think it needed banned when it got banned originally.

[Hanni]

What do you think the necessary storm count is for starters? I could use a laugh

Also like what scenario are you imagining where Time Spiral is a better cast than Mind’s Desire?

In High Tide? You're definitely going to have a high fizzle rate if you're only popping off with 3-4 Storm, which was what Lord Seth was referring to.

[PirateKing]

Aw I wanted to see another IBA brew.

Mind's Desire is activity bad in the Mississippi River deck, the deck has 40 lands so your whiff rate is tremendous and if your storm count is high enough to matter, you've already won. That deck doesn't need a new (old) enabler.

[Lord Seth]

What do you think the necessary storm count is for starters? I could use a laugh
I think you'd want a Storm count of 8 to be comfortable casting it without too much fear of whiffing. Sure, you can draw some great stuff at a lower rate, but it's much more chancy.

That said, the bigger issue to me seems it being a bit off color. Getting two black mana for Ad Nauseam and Tendrils of Agony isn't so hard because Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual provide it, but getting double Blue seems not so dependable. One could try to use it in place of Ad Nauseam, but it does cost one extra mana and has the problem that you need a decent Storm count to get something out of it, whereas Ad Nauseam doesn't require it.

To be fair, I'm not much of a Storm player, so maybe I'm totally wrong on this. However, I have played a good amount of High Tide, so I think what I have to say next comes from a place of better knowledge:


Also like what scenario are you imagining where Time Spiral is a better cast than Mind’s Desire?
The instances where Mind's Desire is better than Time Spiral are the instances in which you're already very likely to win the game anyway. It's a win more card.

First, let's go over how High Tide typically plays out. Your first few turns are spent trying to sculpt your hand, and maybe putting down a Candelabra of Tawnos. Then, ideally on turn 3 or 4, you cast your High Tide or two, untap your lands with a Turnabout or a Candelabra, then fire off your Time Spiral to draw seven new cards and untap your lands to get a minimum of six mana back (you can do it without an untap effect if you go High Tide into Time Spiral with four or more lands in play). With that mana, you continue to cast more High Tides, untap your lands with more untap effects (possibly more Time Spirals) and draw cards to keep going, and you gradually build up your mana and Storm while your opponent sits there thinking "well, at least it's not Eggs."

Now, when you cast your first Time Spiral, your Storm count is going to be fairly low, probably in the 2-4 range, sometimes even just 1 if you were forced into casting (with four lands or more) a single High Tide and then a Time Spiral, or in a few cases even 0 if the game manages to somehow go so long you end up with 6 lands in play. That means the Mind's Desire is going to draw you fewer cards than the Time Spiral will. Time Spiral guarantees seven cards, Mind's Desire at this point in the game will almost always draw you fewer than that. Even worse for Mind's Desire, you absolutely need to have those cards you get off of it include an untap effect or another Mind's Desire, because you normally have to tap out to cast your Time Spiral (or Mind's Desire in this hypothetical case), and if you don't have those cards you're out of mana and your turn is over, and all you probably got for it is maybe casting a free cantrip or two. With Time Spiral, you don't immediately need an untap effect, you can draw for it with cantrips.

So Mind's Desire offers you less cards and with less margin for error. It does admittedly dodge counterspells better, but I don't think that's enough to make up for how much less reliable it is than a Time Spiral.

Now, after you've spent some time going off, typically after casting a Time Spiral, your Storm count can get large enough that Mind's Desire becomes better than Time Spiral. But at that point in the game, you're already doing great and Mind's Desire becomes "win more."

If you have the mana to cast it, Time Spiral is virtually always a good play. Mind's Desire only becomes good at the point when you're most likely going to win the game anyway.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I think you'd want a Storm count of 8 to be comfortable casting it without too much fear of whiffing. Sure, you can draw some great stuff at a lower rate, but it's much more chancy.

That said, the bigger issue to me seems it being a bit off color. Getting two black mana for Ad Nauseam and Tendrils of Agony isn't so hard because Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual provide it, but getting double Blue seems not so dependable. One could try to use it in place of Ad Nauseam, but it does cost one extra mana and has the problem that you need a decent Storm count to get something out of it, whereas Ad Nauseam doesn't require it.

To be fair, I'm not much of a Storm player, so maybe I'm totally wrong on this. However, I have played a good amount of High Tide, so I think what I have to say next comes from a place of better knowledge:


The instances where Mind's Desire is better than Time Spiral are the instances in which you're already very likely to win the game anyway. It's a win more card.

First, let's go over how High Tide typically plays out. Your first few turns are spent trying to sculpt your hand, and maybe putting down a Candelabra of Tawnos. Then, ideally on turn 3 or 4, you cast your High Tide or two, untap your lands with a Turnabout or a Candelabra, then fire off your Time Spiral to draw seven new cards and untap your lands to get a minimum of six mana back (you can do it without an untap effect if you go High Tide into Time Spiral with four or more lands in play). With that mana, you continue to cast more High Tides, untap your lands with more untap effects (possibly more Time Spirals) and draw cards to keep going, and you gradually build up your mana and Storm while your opponent sits there thinking "well, at least it's not Eggs."

Now, when you cast your first Time Spiral, your Storm count is going to be fairly low, probably in the 2-4 range, sometimes even just 1 if you were forced into casting (with four lands or more) a single High Tide and then a Time Spiral, or in a few cases even 0 if the game manages to somehow go so long you end up with 6 lands in play. That means the Mind's Desire is going to draw you fewer cards than the Time Spiral will. Time Spiral guarantees seven cards, Mind's Desire at this point in the game will almost always draw you fewer than that. Even worse for Mind's Desire, you absolutely need to have those cards you get off of it include an untap effect or another Mind's Desire, because you normally have to tap out to cast your Time Spiral (or Mind's Desire in this hypothetical case), and if you don't have those cards you're out of mana and your turn is over, and all you probably got for it is maybe casting a free cantrip or two. With Time Spiral, you don't immediately need an untap effect, you can draw for it with cantrips.

So Mind's Desire offers you less cards and with less margin for error. It does admittedly dodge counterspells better, but I don't think that's enough to make up for how much less reliable it is than a Time Spiral.

Now, after you've spent some time going off, typically after casting a Time Spiral, your Storm count can get large enough that Mind's Desire becomes better than Time Spiral. But at that point in the game, you're already doing great and Mind's Desire becomes "win more."

If you have the mana to cast it, Time Spiral is virtually always a good play. Mind's Desire only becomes good at the point when you're most likely going to win the game anyway.

You think that wheeling- discarding your hand and drawing seven cards, while letting your opponent do the same, is almost always better than just casting the top seven cards of your library for free

I could continue but I’m going to just end the post here because nothing else needs to be said. Your opinions are deeply unserious and should not be taken seriously.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Aw I wanted to see another IBA brew.

Mind's Desire is activity bad in the Mississippi River deck, the deck has 40 lands so your whiff rate is tremendous and if your storm count is high enough to matter, you've already won. That deck doesn't need a new (old) enabler.

Start with any Dream Halls Sneak and Show List, cut some mana slots for like Sea Gate Restoration and Lorien Revealed, cut four other random cards for Mind’s Desire. Decent starting point. Again that’s just one angle, most decks benefit from casting a bunch of their cards for free

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

One big stumbling block I think people are hitting is an assumption that you need a runaway Mind’s Desire chain of Desiring into another Desire for it to be worthwhile, like just casting a half dozen cards from the top of your deck for free, something that would objectively be amazingly good in any other circumstance, somehow becomes bad or even straight up loses you the game if it’s the result of casting Mind’s Desire.

[Hanni]

Start with any Dream Halls Sneak and Show List, cut some mana slots for like Sea Gate Restoration and Lorien Revealed, cut four other random cards for Mind’s Desire. Decent starting point. Again that’s just one angle, most decks benefit from casting a bunch of their cards for free

The key wording here is Storm. How are you creating a Storm chain in Show and Tell prior to then resolving a spell that costs 4UU? Sure, if you Brainstorm an Emrakul on top EOT and then untap and cast Mind's Desire for zero Storm, that certainly works, but there's more efficient ways of doing that, like Show and Tell or Vesuvan Drifter.

High Tide and Storm are the two decks designed to effectively multi-cast spells prior to being able to cast a spell that costs 4UU on the same turn. I guess there's also Elves and Mystic Forge that multi-cast a bunch and could also theoretically generate 4UU, but I really don't see either of those decks needing Mind's Desire.

If you're not generating much Storm, getting to cast a spell or two for free for 4UU is super medium, so this certainly isn't finding a home anywhere else.

Does this now get played in some High Tide and Storm decks? Absolutely. Does it make these decks OP and format warping? No way.

[FTW]

The key wording here is Storm. How are you creating a Storm chain in Show and Tell prior to then resolving a spell that costs 4UU? Sure, if you Brainstorm an Emrakul on top EOT and then untap and cast Mind's Desire for zero Storm, that certainly works, but there's more efficient ways of doing that, like Show and Tell or Vesuvan Drifter.

Mind's Desire shuffles before reveal, so the Brainstorm trick doesn't even work.

[Hanni]

Mind's Desire shuffles before reveal, so the Brainstorm trick doesn't even work.

Yeah, you're right. Even worse for a Show and Tell deck, then.

[BirdsOfParadise]

You think that wheeling- discarding your hand and drawing seven cards, while letting your opponent do the same, is almost always better than just casting the top seven cards of your library for free

I could continue but I’m going to just end the post here because nothing else needs to be said. Your opinions are deeply unserious and should not be taken seriously.
In this comparison, surely Time Spiral is untapping about 12 mana and Mind’s Desire is not?

Free casting 7 cards >> drawing 7 cards (and letting opp draw 7), but is that the right comparison?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Desire is untapping infinite mana because you are casting the spells.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The key wording here is Storm. How are you creating a Storm chain in Show and Tell prior to then resolving a spell that costs 4UU? Sure, if you Brainstorm an Emrakul on top EOT and then untap and cast Mind's Desire for zero Storm, that certainly works, but there's more efficient ways of doing that, like Show and Tell or Vesuvan Drifter.

High Tide and Storm are the two decks designed to effectively multi-cast spells prior to being able to cast a spell that costs 4UU on the same turn. I guess there's also Elves and Mystic Forge that multi-cast a bunch and could also theoretically generate 4UU, but I really don't see either of those decks needing Mind's Desire.

If you're not generating much Storm, getting to cast a spell or two for free for 4UU is super medium, so this certainly isn't finding a home anywhere else.

Does this now get played in some High Tide and Storm decks? Absolutely. Does it make these decks OP and format warping? No way.

Mana acceleration and cantrips hth

Again you don’t actually have to have a very high storm count for MD to be good

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Desire is untapping infinite mana because you are casting the spells.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Free casting 7 cards >> drawing 7 cards (and letting opp draw 7), but is that the right comparison?

Since those are what the cards do, yes

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It feels weird to have to explain to people that the only card that’s ever been pre-emptively banned before it was even legal is good tbh

[BirdsOfParadise]

Since those are what the cards do, yes
But it’s not all that the cards do. You snipped half my post, which was relevant, if you like untapping twelve mana.

I’ll drop it, though. I don’t mind whether Mind’s Desire is broken or not.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Also like to be clear, Desire into Desire chains are stupid and we’re also not sufficiently discussing how easy they actually are to set up because unlike something like Time Spiral, Desire doesn’t even self exile so you can just cast it again from your graveyard

But to be clear you do not actually have to Desire into another Desire and play your entire deck for it to be really good and win the game

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

But it’s not all that the cards do. You snipped half my post, which was relevant, if you like untapping twelve mana.

I won’t argue with you if you’re if a snit though. I don’t mind whether Mind’s Desire is broken or not.

Because I thought that dull and inane point had already been sufficiently pounded into the dirt by pointing out that MD makes the spells free, but if you’re that much of a glutton for humiliation we can keep driving that same point home I guess

Do you need me to break down what “without paying their mana cost” means, tell me how much hand holding you’re going to need

[Hanni]

Mana acceleration and cantrips hth

Again you don’t actually have to have a very high storm count for MD to be good

In Show and Tell, that's literally 4 Lotus Petal. So you're expecting to sandbag Petals and a cantrip or two until you have enough mana to cast a couple of Petals, couple of cantrips, and then resolve Mind's Desire? That's like, what, turn 6? That's just not what Show and Tell is built to do at all. Let's say you only find a single Petal, so with a single cantrip, you're going off for 5UU for 3 free spells? Maybe you get lucky and hit a fatty, but what if you rip a land, cantrip, and Force of Will off the top? Show and Tell isn't the shell for this.

If the goal is to use Mind's Desire to free cast fatties off the top, maybe some sort of Big Eldrazi deck with mana ramp (Cloudpost/mana rocks) would be a better shell... but why build Big Eldrazi these days when you can build Mystic Forge/One Ring combo instead? And if you're generating big mana, do you really need Mind's Desire to free cast fatties? I'm just not seeing it.

You do need a Storm count for Mind's Desire to do something. You don't get to cast the spells for the rest of the game, just until end of turn. If you don't hit any gas, you're not really doing anything. The likelihood you're hitting gas with a low storm count is low. Spending 4UU to cast a couple of free cantrips is much worse than other value engines in Legacy.

The home for Mind's Desire is literally High Tide and Storm. I don't understand why this is difficult to understand.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

In Show and Tell, that's literally 4 Lotus Petal. So you're expecting to sandbag Petals and a cantrip or two until you have enough mana to cast a couple of Petals, couple of cantrips, and then resolve Mind's Desire? That's like, what, turn 6? That's just not what Show and Tell is built to do at all. Let's say you only find a single Petal, so with a single cantrip, you're going off for 5UU for 3 free spells? Maybe you get lucky and hit a fatty, but what if you rip a land, cantrip, and Force of Will off the top? Show and Tell isn't the shell for this.

If the goal is to use Mind's Desire to free cast fatties off the top, maybe some sort of Big Eldrazi deck with mana ramp (Cloudpost/mana rocks) would be a better shell... but why build Big Eldrazi these days when you can build Mystic Forge/One Ring combo instead? And if you're generating big mana, do you really need Mind's Desire to free cast fatties? I'm just not seeing it.

You do need a Storm count for Mind's Desire to do something. You don't get to cast the spells for the rest of the game, just until end of turn. If you don't hit any gas, you're not really doing anything. The likelihood you're hitting gas with a low storm count is low. Spending 4UU to cast a couple of free cantrips is much worse than other value engines in Legacy.

The home for Mind's Desire is literally High Tide and Storm. I don't understand why this is difficult to understand.

Show and Tell has played Grim Monolith and Chrome Mox for far less payoff.

Also I think you are grotesquely underestimating the danger of Desire even for 3 in a deck that plays a dozen+ cards where they win if they flip

[Hanni]

Show and Tell has played Grim Monolith and Chrome Mox for far less payoff.

Also I think you are grotesquely underestimating the danger of Desire even for 3 in a deck that plays a dozen+ cards where they win if they flip

Show and Tell costs 3 mana. The point is to pay 3 mana to cheat a significantly more expensive card into play. Grim Monolith doesn't help accelerate into Show and Tell. Ancient Tomb + Lotus Petal is a sufficient amount of acceleration to do that. What are you cutting to fit more mana acceleration and Mind's Desire?

Seems to me what you're thinking of is some hybrid between Storm and Show and Tell, where you run a bunch of mana acceleration into Mind's Desire with a low to medium Storm count in an attempt to hit a fatty instead of tutors/other Storm engines/Tendrils. Is that really better than just playing a variation of Storm?

I'd love to see a list of what you think would work using Mind's Desire in a Show and Tell deck.

[Lord Seth]

You think that wheeling- discarding your hand and drawing seven cards, while letting your opponent do the same, is almost always better than just casting the top seven cards of your library for free

I could continue but I’m going to just end the post here because nothing else needs to be said. Your opinions are deeply unserious and should not be taken seriously.I never made any statement about drawing seven versus casting seven off Mind's Desire; I rather compared drawing seven off of Time Spiral versus getting 3-5 off of a Mind's Desire, because that's the important comparison. When you fire off your first Time Spiral in a turn (the most important one), your Storm count will rarely be six or greater, so you draw more cards off of it than you'd get off a Mind's Desire.

But let's work through what you refer to. Again, we need to remember how Spiral Tide "going off" turns play out. If you cast that Mind's Desire instead of your first Time Spiral, then you absolutely have to get a Turnabout, Time Spiral, or another Mind's Desire. If you get cantrips or search cards, even if you can play them for free, you can't play what you find for free, and your turn ends with you failing to go off. With Time Spiral, you'll get at least six mana (possibly more), so you have the ability to dig further for those cards, and you get more leniency in what those cards are--a Candelabra won't help you if you cast it off Mind's Desire without the mana to activate it, but Time Spiral will leave you with the necessary mana.

If the Mind's Desire hits one of the required cards, then it will be better than Time Spiral. But even with 7 cards your odds aren't that amazing, and you generally aren't going to even get 7 cards off of your first cast of it. By the time you have enough Storm and/or mana that Mind's Desire isn't risky, you're likely winning already.

In regards to Mind's Desire casting them for free, Time Spiral untapping your mana to get you more mana (you will get at least six off your first, more if you've managed to cast multiple High Tides) so you effectively get to cast some spells for free. Not necessarily all of them, but let's not pretend that Time Spiral just draws you cards without giving you extra ability to cast them.

The last thing to note is your emphasis on your opponent drawing cards. That is a disadvantage of Time Spiral relative to Mind's Desire, but your opponent will mostly be drawing cards irrelevant for the turn you're going off.

So in the most important parts of the game, Time Spiral is definitely better than Mind's Desire. By the point Mind's Desire becomes better than Time Spiral, you're already winning. It might be worth running Mind's Desire to absolutely seal the deal once you get to that point (turning a probable win into a virtually certain one), but I don't think it's a particularly big boost to High Tide, and certainly wouldn't break the deck (which was barely a thing before the unban).

But I suppose we'll see how the metagame shakes up, and soon enough we'll see who's right and who's wrong.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

For the first time in months I had the opportunity to play legacy and I chose not to.
Lmao @anyone who wants to play against mind's desire. What's wrong with you?

[FTW]

Also I think you are grotesquely underestimating the danger of Desire even for 3 in a deck that plays a dozen+ cards where they win if they flip

The danger is high, but the variance is also high. Paying 4UU for Desire @ 3 and to hit lands and mana rocks is a big bust and could lose the game. There's a significant probability of hitting 0 fatties/Desires. Considering Show and Tell is already a top-tier deck without that, do they need the boost in power if it comes with such a spike in variance?

Mind's Desire is busted. But Show & Tell seems like a bad example compared to much better shells it could be in: High Tide, blue artifacts, Riddlesmith storm, PITA

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

https://twitter.com/Griselpuff/status/1689362789930807298?t=1itn1FTtPtBzGqbAEPrigQ&s=19
I was told this couldn't happen, that Mississippi River had no use for the best enabler ever printed.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Because I thought that dull and inane point had already been sufficiently pounded into the dirt by pointing out that MD makes the spells free, but if you’re that much of a glutton for humiliation we can keep driving that same point home I guess

Do you need me to break down what “without paying their mana cost” means, tell me how much hand holding you’re going to need
I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if you'd said to Lord Seth, "Free casting seven cards is just way better than untapping all your mana and having everybody wheel. You'll see."
Instead you said "Free casting seven cards is just way better than having everybody wheel. You're an idiot."
Forgive my paraphrasing --- I'm trying to use parallelism to make my point, but if you feel I've substantively misrepresented your tone or your words, let me know.

If you're going to compare Mind's Desire and Time Spiral, why not be evenhanded about the strengths and weaknesses of both? It was the combination of your contemptuous tone and your major omission of what Time Spiral actually does that spurred me to recommend a more apt comparison:
Inapt comparison: [Freecasting seven cards] vs [Everybody wheels]
Apt comparison: [Freecasting seven cards] vs [Everybody wheels and you untap all your mana]
(I believe you and Lord Seth were temporarily taking storm = 6 for the sake of argument.)

How are you under the misapprehension that I don't know Mind's Desire casts the spells for free? I never misstated what Mind's Desire does at all. Perhaps you got that idea because I repeated the fact that Time Spiral untaps your mana without responding to your and FourDogs' statement that Mind's Desire makes infinite mana (I'd scrolled straight to the part where you quoted me, assuming that was the totality of your reply to me). But ... do you know what Mind's Desire does? It doesn't make infinite mana. Freecasting is a great upside, but it's not always better than untapping, say, 8 mana if you hit cantrips, which is a reasonable scenario in High Tide. I don't understand your aversion to just setting up a fair comparison in which one neither pretends that Mind's Desire "makes infinite mana" nor ignores that Time Spiral makes mana.

It seems self-evident to me that my version of the comparison is more apt --- as you put it earlier, "because that's what the cards say."

I'm not even trying to tell you Mind's Desire isn't broken. You used a faulty comparison in an uncharitable attempt to make Lord Seth out to be some kind of numbskull. I pointed out that your comparison was faulty. You may feel I was nitpicking --- perhaps the more salient point would have been that you were being needlessly unkind --- but such as it was, my point was 100% correct. Then you uncharitably attempted to make me out to be some kind of numbskull. I'm not telling you that you're wrong about Mind's Desire, I'm inviting you to debate less fallaciously (e.g., Mind's Desire is better because Time Spiral = Wheel of Fortune for 4UU) and to be less unkind.

[PirateKing]

https://twitter.com/Griselpuff/status/1689362789930807298?t=1itn1FTtPtBzGqbAEPrigQ&s=19
I was told this couldn't happen, that Mississippi River had no use for the best enabler ever printed.

I mean sort of still the case. It's a mighty stretch to call that list Mississippi River.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Mighty like the Mississippi the deck is named after. Creative Technique combo is river whatever the other cards are.

[PirateKing]

lol sure, 6-7 cards in common, same deck!
Do you have a hard time distinguishing between TES and Ruby Storm? I mean, they both Burning Wish for Tendrils, right? Samesame

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I know that differences don't matter. Both need a critical mass of whatever and both have a storm trigger to stifle. If you want to focus on the inbetween stuff whatever.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Kind of the whole point I was making is that when you get an enabler this powerful you should expect the boundaries to blur and new archetypes to emerge. It’s not just a card that gets jammed into an existing deck list and that’s it.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if you'd said to Lord Seth, "Free casting seven cards is just way better than untapping all your mana and having everybody wheel. You'll see."
Instead you said "Free casting seven cards is just way better than having everybody wheel. You're an idiot."
Forgive my paraphrasing --- I'm trying to use parallelism to make my point, but if you feel I've substantively misrepresented your tone or your words, let me know.

If you're going to compare Mind's Desire and Time Spiral, why not be evenhanded about the strengths and weaknesses of both? It was the combination of your contemptuous tone and your major omission of what Time Spiral actually does that spurred me to recommend a more apt comparison:
Inapt comparison: [Freecasting seven cards] vs [Everybody wheels]
Apt comparison: [Freecasting seven cards] vs [Everybody wheels and you untap all your mana]
(I believe you and Lord Seth were temporarily taking storm = 6 for the sake of argument.)

How are you under the misapprehension that I don't know Mind's Desire casts the spells for free? I never misstated what Mind's Desire does at all. Perhaps you got that idea because I repeated the fact that Time Spiral untaps your mana without responding to your and FourDogs' statement that Mind's Desire makes infinite mana (I'd scrolled straight to the part where you quoted me, assuming that was the totality of your reply to me). But ... do you know what Mind's Desire does? It doesn't make infinite mana. Freecasting is a great upside, but it's not always better than untapping, say, 8 mana if you hit cantrips, which is a reasonable scenario in High Tide. I don't understand your aversion to just setting up a fair comparison in which one neither pretends that Mind's Desire "makes infinite mana" nor ignores that Time Spiral makes mana.

It seems self-evident to me that my version of the comparison is more apt --- as you put it earlier, "because that's what the cards say."

I'm not even trying to tell you Mind's Desire isn't broken. You used a faulty comparison in an uncharitable attempt to make Lord Seth out to be some kind of numbskull. I pointed out that your comparison was faulty. You may feel I was nitpicking --- perhaps the more salient point would have been that you were being needlessly unkind --- but such as it was, my point was 100% correct. Then you uncharitably attempted to make me out to be some kind of numbskull. I'm not telling you that you're wrong about Mind's Desire, I'm inviting you to debate less fallaciously (e.g., Mind's Desire is better because Time Spiral = Wheel of Fortune for 4UU) and to be less unkind.

Kindly, your back pedal is pathetic and you should stop while you’re ahead

lmao “I’m inviting you to debate less fallaciously” go step on a lego

[Zoid]

What really gets to me about this is this bit from the announcement:


Two decades have passed since Mind's Desire was banned, and in that time, creatures have become more powerful, new planeswalker cards have been introduced, and there are multiple cycles of free spells that have made it much harder to be a lover of the storm mechanic. In the interest of making sure that combo players also get the same level of new content and strength that other archetypes incidentally gain through our tentpole offerings, we've decided to unban Mind's Desire in Legacy.

Was combo ever in a bad place?
Was there any need for new toys?
Was there really someone asking for this?

Most of the time contribution to combo in legacy are accidental because otherwise they do stuff like Underworld Breach.
This reeks of the later.
Even if Desire doesn't prove to be a problem, which is rather unlikely given the nature of the card, the other outcome would be that it just replaces other combo decks/slots into them to make them better.
Being able to beat combo is already a strong natural selection criterion for the meta and making it even harder is not going to increase format diversity.

The worst thing about Minds Desire is that the card has a super low skill ceiling as it's outcome is random.
All you do is maximize the storm count and pray you'll hit something.
Ad Nauseam has at least significant choices in how far you go.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

You should read the modern one for a real laugh "my pet deck wasn't doing well, so I gave it a card"

[Purple Blood]

Ad Nauseam has at least significant choices in how far you go.

Draw card if Life Total > [highest CMC card remaining in deck] + 3 (if red mana available to opponent).

Doesn't sound so significant to me.

[Wrath of Pie]

You should read the modern one for a real laugh "my pet deck wasn't doing well, so I gave it a card"

Hilariously it won't actually do any good

[FTW]

Ad Nauseam has at least significant choices in how far you go.

The significant choice is in deck construction. Deck construction is severely constrained by CMC.

Actual resolution of Ad Naus is kind of random, like Mind's Desire, except the number of cards you get is random & dependent on the order of CMCs. Resolution is relatively skill-less. You pick a stopping life based on highest CMC left in deck and whether the opponent is on Bolt, then iterate until the stopping criterion is met.

There is some skill in digging beyond that, but it's a gamble: odds of a lethal reveal. Beyond doing the math on those odds, there aren't meaningful decision forks.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I mean there is deck building skill in figuring out how much you want to maximize storm count with Desire vs maximizing payoff, but there’s still a lot less constraints than something like Ad Nauseam yeah

And it’s not like “Ad Nauseam isn’t good enough” was really a problem the format had

[FTW]

The only place where Ad Nauseam wasn't good enough is it couldn't also run things like maindeck Peer into the Abyss or multiple copies of Echo of Eons and Lorien Revealed, due to the CMCs. That's the design space for new storm brews. Mind's Desire plays even better with multiple high CMC engines, while ANT can't run them at all.

Maybe we'll see some iteration of UB storm with 4 Peer into the Abyss + 4 Mind's Desire and a boatload of mana.

[Lord Seth]

You should read the modern one for a real laugh "my pet deck wasn't doing well, so I gave it a card"
They also declined to unban Splinter Twin, despite the fact the deck would be little threat in today's metagame, and probably shouldn't have been banned to begin with.

The reason Splinter Twin was strong--though not overpowered, in my view--was because it was able to combine a tempo game with a combo game. Since it's extremely dangerous to tap out against the deck, you need to keep mana open for removal to stop them from comboing off, which slows down your gameplan and lets them play a tempo game where they chip away at your health with their Pestermites and Bolt+Snap+Bolt, while you're stuck playing several turns behind by keeping your mana open to stop the combo.

This plan is far weaker nowadays. First, there are free spells people play maindeck (Force of Negation, Solitude, and Fury) which stop the combo, so they don't have to put themselves behind to protect themselves from the combo. Second, the tempo plan itself is more lackluster because there are more powerful cheap drops, making Twin's tempo plan look a lot worse by comparison.

I guess in a sense Preordain is a more interesting unban in that it would probably have more of a metagame effect, but there's really no reason for Twin to be banned at this point (if there ever was a real reason other than "let's ban stuff to shake things up for the Pro Tour"). Oh well, at least they unbanned something.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

They also declined to unban Splinter Twin, despite the fact the deck would be little threat in today's metagame, and probably shouldn't have been banned to begin with.


Both of these are wrong. It brings me no joy to report this

[Lord Seth]

Both of these are wrong. It brings me no joy to report this
How? Splinter Twin's banning occurred because they wanted to shake things up for the Modern Pro Tour. That was pretty blatantly why it was banned. It was a good deck, but it wasn't close to dominant--but they wanted to shake things up for the Pro Tour, so out it went. The funny thing is that this banning didn't actually help at all in that regard, because we then had Pro Tour Eldrazi, and Twin would've gotten crushed by it along with the rest of the format.

Still, even if Splinter Twin was too good back then, the answers to it have gotten better while the key cards in the deck have gotten worse thanks to power creep. How is it going to be too powerful in the format?

[BirdsOfParadise]

your back pedal
I’ve been consistent, actually.

Look, you got Time Spiral’s effect totally wrong. Either (a) it was an honest oversight — at first I thought this was possible, so I chimed in with what Time Spiral does — or (b) you deliberately made up a useless card just so that you could pretend that a fellow forum-goer had expressed a positive opinion on your useless card and then you could mock them for the opinion you were pretending they held. I do recognize at this point that it was probably not (a).

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I’ve been consistent, actually.

Look, you got Time Spiral’s effect totally wrong. Either (a) it was an honest oversight — at first I thought this was possible, so I chimed in with what Time Spiral does — or (b) you deliberately made up a useless card just so that you could pretend that a fellow forum-goer had expressed a positive opinion on your useless card and then you could mock them for the opinion you were pretending they held. I do recognize at this point that it was probably not (a).

I'm sorry, you think wheel effects are useless?

Do you have an actual purpose besides trying to make yourself look as stupid as possible?

"Durrr how dishonest you said Time Spiral wheels"

Like do you not have two brain cells to rub together or do you just think no one else does, because I have about zero patience left for your absolutely gob-smackingly pathetic and dishonest prevaricating

[Lord Seth]

Well, after two and a half months of legality, it looks like Mind's Desire... is pretty meh in Legacy. It's become a staple in High Tide to basically serve as extra copies of Time Spiral, but High Tide still isn't that big of a deck. Outside of that, you can see a handful of Storm or Mississippi River decks running it, but most versions of those decks don't. MTG Top 8 puts it in 0.3% of Legacy decks over the last two months.

So while it did turn out a little better than I expected, it's definitely not close to anything overpowered for the format, unless someone stumbles upon a new archetype or use for it that we haven't seen yet.

So what's the next card to be unbanned in Legacy? My guess is either Earthcraft or Mind Twist. The Squirrel's Next+Earthcraft combo hardly seems overpowered, though maybe there's some way to break it in Elves because it lets you bypass summoning sickness? Mind Twist seems worse than other things you could be doing with that mana.

[FTW]

Earthcraft seems safe to unban. Twin sees almost no play in Legacy and is a better color set for infinite token combos.

I doubt they'll unban Mind Twist. It's not unbeatable, but like T1 Ragavan it leads to non-games determined by a die roll, so it doesn't really add anything needed in the format.

Mind's Desire at least threw a bone to Johnny Storm pilots.

[Zoid]

Earthcraft seems safe to unban. Twin sees almost no play in Legacy and is a better color set for infinite token combos.

I doubt they'll unban Mind Twist. It's not unbeatable, but like T1 Ragavan it leads to non-games determined by a die roll, so it doesn't really add anything needed in the format.

Mind's Desire at least threw a bone to Johnny Storm pilots.

Desire also adds nothing of value but here we are.

Gush and Memory Jar seems like cards that have since been replaced by better cards ore are irrelevant.
Goblin Recruiter would probably be save as well.
Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain might be fine because they are so slow but add nothing good so they can stay where they are.
What about Balance?

Let's see what we get in the prisoner exchange for the Ring and Bowmasters.
When's the next Modern Horizons due?

[Barook]

Gush and Memory Jar seems like cards that have since been replaced by better cards ore are irrelevant.
I don't think you want Gush and Beans in the same format when some people are already running maindeck Submerge to get Bean value.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Someone beat me to yavimaya submerge!?

[Zoid]

I don't think you want Gush and Beans in the same format when some people are already running maindeck Submerge to get Bean value.

I'm willing to concede that.
Forgot Clowns of the Coast beaned the game.

[FTW]

Desire threw a bone to Johnny storm brewers. While not changing the final competitive metagame much, a lot of players had fun brewing with Desire for a while. It led to attempts to innovate in Storm, which has otherwise not changed much in a long time. So that was player value from unbanning, even if not much impact to the format. It promoted creativity and innovative brewing.

Mind Twist brews would be unfun. It's a high variance play that's either a dud draw or plays towards total hand annihilation on turn 1. That's not a fun design space to give players. It's either underwhelming or unfun.

Balance is one of the most busted cards in the game. Aside from the usual synergies with artifact/enchantment-based control, anyone who mulligans into Chrome Mox, white card, Balance, Flagstones is just laughing. There are so many ways to abuse Balance. You could use Baubles, Solitude, March, Zuran Orb, & Moxen to either dump your hand early or play fair control. 2-mana wrath is good enough without the LD and mass discard.

Edit: You don't even get penalized for Personal Tutor into Balance, because a resolved Balance rewards the -1 card. Balance protected by Teferi & Force would be pretty nasty.

[Zoid]

Desire threw a bone to Johnny storm brewers. While not changing the final competitive metagame much, a lot of players had fun brewing with Desire for a while. It led to attempts to innovate in Storm, which has otherwise not changed much in a long time. So that was player value from unbanning, even if not much impact to the format. It promoted creativity and innovative brewing.

Mind Twist brews would be unfun. It's a high variance play that's either a dud draw or plays towards total hand annihilation on turn 1. That's not a fun design space to give players. It's either underwhelming or unfun.

Balance is one of the most busted cards in the game. Aside from the usual synergies with artifact/enchantment-based control, anyone who mulligans into Chrome Mox, white card, Balance, Flagstones is just laughing. There are so many ways to abuse Balance. You could use Baubles, Solitude, March, Zuran Orb, & Moxen to either dump your hand early or play fair control. 2-mana wrath is good enough without the LD and mass discard.

Edit: You don't even get penalized for Personal Tutor into Balance, because a resolved Balance rewards the -1 card. Balance protected by Teferi & Force would be pretty nasty.

If Desire had found a viable shell that wouldn't have made a positive impact and would have just added another degenerate combo deck.
All it did was distract people for a while but that's it.

Agreed on Twist.

Since the advent of good planeswalkers Balance seems un-unbannable that is true.

[FTW]

Since the advent of good planeswalkers Balance seems un-unbannable that is true.

4x Balance is just too easy to break, even before Planeswalkers. If you haven't played much with it (most players haven't unless you play in custom casual formats), it's not a fair Smallpox card like it appears. Balance doesn't get played "fairly". Players cast Balance to break the symmetry sideways and get 6-for-1s or better, all for the dumb cost of 1W.

I see it fitting easily into some Jeskai Superfriends shell
4 FoW
2-3 FoN
4 Balance
3 Teferi
3 Narset
1 Comet
1 Jace
Currency Converter
Sevinne's Reclamation
Good stuff (Brainstorm, Ponder, Swords, PEnding)
Counterbalance?

With 4x Balance, opponent is never keeping enough resources to fight off those walkers.

You can add Baubles to "cheat" on hand size for turbo-Balances (Bauble = -1 hand size without actually costing you a card). You can get greedy with Forces too.
If your hand size ever is bigger than theirs, Currency Converter gives you 2/2s and then you Sevinne's flashback 2 PWs. If Day's Undoing ever seemed unfair, this is really a tough slog to come back from.

Then there's other degenerate stuff you could build around like:
Zuran Orb + Flagstones of Trokair + Cosmic Intervention/Court of Ardenvale/Karn->Crucible of Worlds (opponent loses all creatures & lands, you gain life and get lands back losing nothing)
The Rack + Currency Converter + free discard outlet/Baubles/pitch cards (opponent loses creatures & hand, you get 2/2s and lock them under Rack)

It's a 2-mana Wrath that can also combo to mass-LD and/or mass-discard.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I wouldn't write off Mind's Desire still getting broken as I don't think it's been brewed in sufficient shells, and it's just always going to be a lurking danger; as noted it's just a binary where it's going to either be a minor footnote or oppressive, because it's not a good card on a meta level and doesn't lead to good games, it's kind of the True-Name Nemesis of spells. But I will acknowledge that so far it's definitely, thankfully, had way less of an impact than I was afraid of

So acknowledging that, I do not think anyone that has actually played with the card would ever even think about asking for Balance to be unbanned. It legitimately would be less harmful to the format to just pick a random Mox to unban, I think, at least in terms of play (obviously Balance at least doesn't cost thousands of dollars a copy)

There's a very short list of cards where you can't actually unban them no matter how high you think the default power level should be because they just fundamentally break the game if they're played. Mostly that consists of fast mana, but that's also a cumulative effect; a single fast mana card can be dumb and stupid but a 4x by itself doesn't break the game.

Balance is one of the few non-mana cards that does just break the game by itself. It doesn't lead to high power levels, it just leads to the game fundamentally not working.

Earthcraft is fine though, that could've been unbanned ten years ago honestly. I don't know if it even does that much to fix the problems with Enchantress but it certainly isn't the case that that deck's in any danger of ruining the format.

Mind Twist should be unbanned for sure and is fine. Like it would be a back-breaking play sometimes in black initiative decks, which are already pretty good right now, but I don't even know if it would make the cut at this point between all the bombs they have available.

Blue doesn't really need anymore cards; Frantic Search would make High Tide oppressively consistent and fast, and should not be seriously discussed. Gush is more oppressive that Expressive Iteration and I don't see people arguing that that was an unfair ban that should be reversed.

Necropotence can't be unbanned under new mulligan rules because you can mull to infinity to find Dark Ritual + Necropotence and just win from there. Conversely it would actually be completely fine if Dark Ritual was banned. Probably.

Skullclamp is another card that either does nothing or ruins games, with no in between.

Zirda would probably see zero actual play since they nerfed Companion, honestly. That could be unbanned with little loss of face. But who would get excited for that?

Speaking of prisoner exchanges, I still think they should just ban fetchlands and that would actually make a ton of cards safe to unban, including but not limited to Astrolabe, Deathrite Shaman, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, Wrenn and Six, Sensei's Divining Top, and arguably Survival of the Fittest, the most busted variants of which really required going 3-4 colors while consistently churning out green mana.

Goblin Recruiter can't be unbanned for time reasons although otherwise it would be fine probably.

So yeah my bet for next unban would be between Zirda, Mind Twist, and Earthcraft

[adrieng]

i think also yawgmoth's bargain is fine for 6 mana drawing one card for one life is too expensive and wouldn' t break the format
peer into the abyss is just one more mana and win right there

[Zoid]

https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/a/9acf80a5-f2ca-45b4-aca8-fbc690e35401.jpg?1699044516https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/52e4c0f8-d5f0-4224-9974-190606911480.jpg?1562555416

I've seen this popping up on Arena and I suspect one part of this will get the hammer soon in other formats.

Does this have potential in legacy?
You need an additional life gain to start the chain and "diestoremoval.maymay" but that is pretty strong.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/a/9acf80a5-f2ca-45b4-aca8-fbc690e35401.jpg?1699044516https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/52e4c0f8-d5f0-4224-9974-190606911480.jpg?1562555416

I've seen this popping up on Arena and I suspect one part of this will get the hammer soon in other formats.

Does this have potential in legacy?
You need an additional life gain to start the chain and "diestoremoval.maymay" but that is pretty strong.

Doesn’t it break its own chain when the dude gets 20 power?

Even if not it doesn’t seem better than existing infinite life combos

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

i think also yawgmoth's bargain is fine for 6 mana drawing one card for one life is too expensive and wouldn' t break the format
peer into the abyss is just one more mana and win right there

Academy Rector only costs 4 and Show and Tell only costs 3

[Zoid]

Doesn’t it break its own chain when the dude gets 20 power?

Even if not it doesn’t seem better than existing infinite life combos

It breaks itself but then you still have a dude with 20 power, +60 life, a hand full of lands and potentially a GY full of stuff.

The problem is that both pieces are shit on their own but considering that it's just 2 2mana shitters that's not so bad.

[Reeplcheep]

If both halves were green perhaps their would be potential.

But chain of smog combo is a 2 card combo that actually wins the game, is semi decent by itself and doesn’t require a third piece.

There are lots of creature combo alternatives that are resistant to removal too between aluren/food chain/breakfast.

[PirateKing]

Zirda and Lurrus are the two companions that I thought would just be maindeck inclusions.
Zirda counts itself, so I guess that's a win/win, but for decks looking to maximize the effect, losing your single copy to Force or Swords when it's a legitimate engine piece always seemed odd. Like Lurrus is so good you'd want the second copy after the first is gone, even if it meant not playing it in the companion space.

[FTW]

Is Lurrus that good as a regular card?

Lurrus Delver mainly played it to have +1 free card. Then other decks had to play it, otherwise you're playing a blue mirror at -1 card (i.e. loss). Maindeck you don't get that advantage. 3-mana 3/2 vs 1-mana 3/3 flying and 2-mana 8/8? Sure you can combo it with Bauble to draw cards, but stuff like Emry can already do that and doesn't justify inclusion in Delver. Lurrus doesn't return enough in a spell-heavy deck.

Lurrus was also played in Storm to loop LED and Petal. Maybe it's maindeckable in something like Bomberman, but Storm is too tight on slots to afford the maindeck space. It was just free for TES to add.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Is Lurrus that good as a regular card?

Lurrus Delver mainly played it to have +1 free card. Then other decks had to play it, otherwise you're playing a blue mirror at -1 card (i.e. loss). Maindeck you don't get that advantage. 3-mana 3/2 vs 1-mana 3/3 flying and 2-mana 8/8? Sure you can combo it with Bauble to draw cards, but stuff like Emry can already do that and doesn't justify inclusion in Delver. Lurrus doesn't return enough in a spell-heavy deck.

Lurrus was also played in Storm to loop LED and Petal. Maybe it's maindeckable in something like Bomberman, but Storm is too tight on slots to afford the maindeck space. It was just free for TES to add.
MB lurrus is fringe playable but the word companion makes it moot