[Article] What Next for Legacy? Formatscaping

[Finn]

This is a completed article I wrote that was too edgy for MTGSalvation (despite several rewrites). I am not about to dilute it again, and the material is quickly becoming dated. It seemed like a waste to just bin it. Anyway, the formatting is a bit off. I have cleaned it up some. Here it is.

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Why was Mystical Tutor really banned?

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The opening section of this article was originally an account of how tenuous the evidence was to support the ban (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/96) of Mystical Tutor from Legacy and why actual empirical evidence is superior than the opinion of any individual or group of individuals no matter how tempting it is to believe in the passion of an "authority". But Christopher Coppola did such a wonderful job (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/19654_Unlocking_Legacy_A_Mystifying_Decision.html) of analyzing and dismembering the rationale given by Tom LaPille that it no longer needs to be said. Whether or not you agree with Christopher's conclusions, I think he leaves no doubt as to the fact that this decision was not come to by the standards that B&R decisions need to be if they are intended to prevent a single card from dominating. I will be examining why this happened, and what it means for Legacy.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=107276&d=1278967530Mystical Tutor is a powerful tool that enables considerably higher consistency in a deck that relies on instants and sorceries to do the heavy lifting. It makes Reanimator's singleton Show and Tell appear in your hand only when you actually need it. It allows ANT to have access to its sideboard cards with far greater frequency than it otherwise would. Why then would a fellow like me, who primarily builds and plays aggro-control decks, be concerned that it is gone?


Did you know that Ali from Cairo was on the first restricted list? This was not for Vintage. There were no formats back then, just an all-purpose restricted list and a banned list. Swords to Plowshares, Terror, and Lightning Bolt were all widely used at the time. But the fear that that this card put unfair limitations on deck designs was still enough to earn Ali a spot. They were acting on a guess of what decks were going to look like. They did not have any history to draw from, and they made a decision to be conservative. It was a reasonable guess. It just happened to be completely wrong. But that's what happens when you take an initial guess without any quantitative analysis to draw from. He was soon removed from the restricted list, and a bit of knowledge was gained in the process. Over the years there have been a few mistakes on printed cards being too powerful, but the DCI banned these cards as necessary and the game went on. They collected data from tournaments and discussed the matter armed with the facts. They even told us how this data was collected and on occasions even how the conversations went. Today, with the Future-Future League and a proper system for identifying the correct power level for new cards, bannings are far less frequent in Standard. But it does happen. And the DCI has always been spot-on with their research and testing.

But apparently they thought that Legacy needed rescuing from Mystical Tutor. After all, it is a powerful tutor found in some excellent decks. In a format as diverse as Legacy, there are quite a few tutor targets available to make those decks very versatile. To beat the combo decks that use it, you need specific hate in high enough concentration that you consistently disrupt their game plan from the beginning of the game or you lose. Even then, you are still going to lose if you can not pile more hate on top of it all while delivering damage. It is a tall order to ask of a deck. And with Mystical Tutor allowing combo decks to access their countermeasures so easily, it is no wonder why so few are properly equipped to beat combo. This is undoubtedly what the DCI was thinking when they decided to ban it. Or was it?

Forget for a moment that the enormous Legacy format has not had time to react to the warping power of Mystical Tutor. The card has never even proven itself to be broken - or even widely played - in the first place. (Why would other decks be reacting to it?) If it is an overpowered card, shouldn't the decks it appears in be, ya know, winning? The people who made this decision counted on their own prowess in gauging the effect of a card in the most diverse format there has ever been rather than based on evidence. There actually is plenty of data to draw upon here, but it almost all points towards those decks underperforming compared to the field. I am not going to go into statistics, but particularly in the Star City Games 5K series (where the overwhelming majority of data comes from), both Reanimator and ANT have been largely absent from the top 8's. Perhaps the powerful interactions in Legacy go beyond this one card. Maybe, just maybe tournament players are capable of beating these decks due to solid design and knowing how to play their deck.

Nahhh!!! Who am I kiddin'? It must be a "Gentleman's Agreement" between players not to play the best decks.

Unlikely. But to sell us on the idea that a perfectly reasonable card needs a ban, they needed a story. To make it plausible, they also have to say that they know more about what works in Legacy than the players who are out there actually playing it, tournament results be damned. After all, they played several games in the Tournament Practice room on Magic Online and were able to dominate. Really? In the TP room? I don't know how many of you have played Legacy in the TP room, but let me just tell you that the decks are almost all casual, and not tournament-ready in any form. So imagine what happened when some ex-pros took combo decks in there. What did they honestly expect would happen?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=107287&d=1278982681While Thopter Foundry decks are sure to soon be popping up frequently in Legacy because of this card, I am more interested in the sideboards of decks like UW Tempo, Death and Taxes, and some versions of Landstill that are equipped with Enlightened Tutor. It provides the same function as Mystical and is employed in the same fashion. In fact, featuring prominently amongst the cards these decks fetch most often are the anti-storm foils from their side boards. It's just cat and mouse with Enlightened Tutor fetching hate and Mystical Tutor fetching answers. Why then is this card not on the chopping block as well?


Before I go on, there is something you should all know. It has to do with research and the danger of small samples. The problem with small samples is in the extrapolation that leads to your conclusions. Which are the random, inconsequential occurrences and which are the important trends? It is a pillar of modern scientific research and a fundamental concept of logical reasoning that you can not make broad generalizations from a small number of examples. The DCI knows this very well. Deciding when to ban a card is something the DCI has become reliably good at. Then why did they fail this time? After years of properly conducting research for when to ban a card did the DCI suddenly forget all this? It seems pretty implausible that they would ban Mystical Tutor on evidence that is totally flawed. So what are they doing? This is why I say it is unlikely that the "Gentleman's Agreement" theory is accurate. To buy into it, you would have to believe that somehow the DCI guys really do know better than what the evidence points to. Then you would have to believe that competitive Legacy players somehow knew this as well, and had intentionally been playing inferior decks because they want to ensure more interesting game play - that is, winning is not their primary motivation. Taken as a whole, it's a pretty absurd idea. That leaves us with two simple, mutually exclusive possibilities:

a. The DCI actually believes what Tom LaPille told us.
b. The DCI does not believe what Tom LaPille told us.

As you have probably guessed I am going with the second answer. I don't care about the cover story so much. I am far more concerned about what this means for the game. In every other case since Ali from Cairo (and Icy Manipulator, I suppose) a card has been banned or restricted because it was either part of a dominating deck or had unfortunate side effects on tournaments. Well, this card was clearly not warping the format by being too powerful. So, because it had side effects then? When Chaos Orb was legal we would spread our cards all over the table, keep our lands at the edge of the table, use our library as a barricade, slide cards up against the opponent's, etc. That was an unfortunate side effect. More recently, Sensei's Divining Top and Shahrazad got the axe for taking games to time too often. Actually Shahrazad did not become a big issue simply because it was never very popular, but I can tell you from experience that you can easily keep the first game going until time with it. We can see that these were necessary bans. But Mystical Tutor was banned for a different reason. A new reason. This was formatscaping.

Formatscaping takes place in the design and development stages of new cards all the time - especially for something like Standard. But when they ban a card to retroactively sculpt the metagame with no particular dominating deck in the crosshairs, the DCI is entering new territory. It was an arbitrary removal of a card because the metagame was gently drifting toward combo and combo-esque decks. In fact, I suspect that this decision had more to do with a desire to ensure a relevant attack phase in as many games as possible for GP: Columbus than any actual belief that the format really needed this ban. With Legacy Grand Prix tournaments continuing to set the bar for attendance, Wizards surely wants as fun a tournament scene as possible. Several prominent Wizards employees, including Aaron Forsythe have been quoted as saying that they believe players prefer creature combat over slick combos - especially combo vs. combo games. And you can bet they have meetings on the subject of improving attendance to these events. Fun is good. Cutting up the format to suit the preferences of some players over others is not. I know that this is a private company. They can do what they want. They have a bottom line after all. But there is something to be said for the freedom to use any fair card that has ever been printed. That's what the Legacy format is all about. Exerting this kind of control over Legacy is a mistake that gets at the heart of the format.

Of course there is a group of people whose duty it is to keep making the game fresh and fun so that we will continue to enjoy it. They will do what they have to. Heck, I have been buying cards for 16 years now. And that is how they get me to keep paying them money - they keep the game new and interesting. I play this game to escape into its world. I mean that. I have bills, kids, problems, deadlines. You know what I mean. But when I am sitting across from that opponent, or preparing for a tournament, or even just shooting the breeze about the game - I am in Magic mode. I cherish that. I don't want anyone going in and tinkering with it all willy-nilly. Now I know that they can and will swoop in and remove a precious card whenever they please if they think it will improve attendance or sell more cards. That takes something away form this game that I have loved for so long. I prefer my fantasy world without a corporate bottom line. So Wizards, stop mucking about trying to fix what is not broken.

[FoulQ]

Not much to add except that I agree with you almost 100%.

For the TLDRers, Finn is basically concluding that the DCI was trying to stop the metagame shift towards combo because they believe players prefer creatures.

[obituary 95]

as a control player i despise creature defined formats ,so lets get the tutor unbanned

[mujadaddy]

as a control player i despise creature defined formats ,so lets get the tutor unbanned

As a high school graduate, I despise sentences without initial capitalization, so let's get Black Vise unbanned.

[Nidd]

As a high school graduate, I despise sentences without initial capitalization, so let's get Black Vise unbanned.
Sign me u... No, wait, don't.

Nice read, I think that's pretty accurate.

[chmoddity]

There was kind of a lot in there, but I think the cocnlusion is not that the DCI is preventing a metagame shift, but how they are doing it.

I am all for the tutor being gone. But I suppose they really did ban it in a strange way.

[atropos]

Great article, Finn. I agree with you completely even though I'm not a combo player. I also feel the same way about being in Magic Mode and would prefer if Wizards just left our format alone. I can't imagine they'd unban Mystical Tutor in the next unbanning session but I can hope.

[from Cairo]

I'd agree with you Finn. I don't think it's that Mystical was necessarily too powerful for the format, but that when it was used, it was used to fuel non-interactive decks. This has been something Wizards/DCI has been trying to steer away from. I personally prefer to play Agro or Control when they are positioned well in the meta/format, so I guess this "formatscaping" was beneficial to my playstyle, but it does seem strange to introduce an arbitrary shift to suit what they perceive the majority of players to want.

Well written/analyzed though. After the banning, I was thinking their reasoning had to be along the same lines, but wouldn't have been able to present it as well as you did.

[median]

As a high school graduate, I despise sentences without initial capitalization, so let's get Black Vise unbanned.
I'm confused, do you despise sentences that aren't initially capitalized, or that lack capitalized initials? Black Vise seems like it probably hit both of those at some point so I'm unsure of how to interpret what you wrote.

[jazzykat]

Good article.

I guess it would be interesting to have different groups regarding the B&R list like there are views of the constitution/political parties. I would align myself closest to a conservative/libertarian in that I am all for letting the metagame take its course except when there are obvious problems like Flash. I also believe in opening up the metagame by carefully unbanning cards. I think Shahrazad should have been left alone. If someone went to a tournament and liked to draw the game, it really isn't their fault. It's almost no different than control decks that take a million turns to win, and expect the opponent to scoop. As long as you play magic within the rules its really up to you how you do it.

As much as I like legacy circa 2006 (I really actualy do, the games were slower and less "old" cards were obsoleted, there was also a lower power entry barrier for a deck to be competitive) Tarmogoyf was printed and so was AdNauseum and decent fatties to reanimate. So wizards, you made this format where FTK and Werebear suck by printing better cards and now you want to go ban MT because you think people like to attack more? I call bullshit. Finn is right, this is format scaping, the answers given for the banning by the DCI were weakest sauce.

Anyway, the positive side is since there isn't that much hate for combo anymore jank decks have a better shot and it is fun to build new off the wall things. The issue is if a jank deck ever gets good/popular enough, the Tier 1 decks of the format will probably be able to add a few more SB cards and stuff it back down the hole it crawled out of.

[Nelis]

I disagree with the article because I know that ANT was too powerful. Its almost impossible to win from ANT if your playing Zoo and half a sideboard isn't enough. Reanimator is very hard to win as well but at least the sideboard hate also come in handy vs other decks like Dredge. I think Wizards looked at Grand Prix Madrid and did some testing and realized this.

So even if Wizards did it solely to steer the metagame 'back' to aggro. Do you want a format that only runs combo? Because that's exactly what was happening.

I'm glad they made that decision but I would have wanted them to wait a bit longer so that tournaments would prove that ANT was too powerful.

[3eowulf]

I disagree with the article because I know that ANT was too powerful. Its almost impossible to win from ANT if your playing Zoo and half a sideboard isn't enough. Reanimator is very hard to win as well but at least the sideboard hate also come in handy vs other decks like Dredge. I think Wizards looked at Grand Prix Madrid and did some testing and realized this.

So even if Wizards did it solely to steer the metagame 'back' to aggro. Do you want a format that only runs combo? Because that's exactly what was happening.

I'm glad they made that decision but I would have wanted them to wait a bit longer so that tournaments would prove that ANT was too powerful.

Please stop this bullshit.


Nobody had any evidence of the format being dominated by combo.
It happens that some decks can't beat others, even with half of a sideboard dedicated to it. If they have other positive matchups in the metagame they'll still be played, if they don't they'll fade away.

[Nelis]

If you read the top 8 matches you know why Wizards banned Mystical Tutor.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpmad10/welcome#21

If a very strong deck like zoo that beats almost all other match ups simply cannot win from combo (ANT / Reanimator) then there's something really wrong. Because of Mystical Tutor even control decks have a hard time winning. And in the combo matchups it has been Mystical Tutor that made the win possible.

I wouldn't have minded if they'd waited a bit longer but its my believe that it would've happen eventually anyway.

[DragoFireheart]

Please stop this bullshit.


Nobody had any evidence of the format being dominated by combo.
It happens that some decks can't beat others, even with half of a sideboard dedicated to it. If they have other positive matchups in the metagame they'll still be played, if they don't they'll fade away.



Actually I believe combo was dominating the European front. It was only a matter of time until the States caught on.

In any case, Wizards made the right choice but did it for the wrong reasons.

[Volrath]

If a very strong deck like zoo that beats almost all other match ups simply cannot win from combo (ANT / Reanimator) then there's something really wron.

Sorry Niels, but that makes no sense what-so-ever.

It's calles a bad matachup. Combo beats aggro, aggro beats control and control beats combo. That's the order of the universe as we know it.

Mystical was banned because it made combo decks retard proof, every down-syndrom having/inbred/dumbass could pick up ANT and win.
Combo wasn't supposed to function like that, it was supposed to function like TES and SI, wich require skill and a great deal of testing.

[Nelis]

Sorry Niels, but that makes no sense what-so-ever.

It's calles a bad matachup. Combo beats aggro, aggro beats control and control beats combo. That's the order of the universe as we know it.


That universe did not exist anymore until the banning. Control didn't beat combo, control even had (has) a hard time winning from Zoo. And Combo beat both. To me the link I posted translates exactly the way the metagame (in Europe/Holland at least) was working. Until the banning anyway.



2. It happens that some decks can't beat others, even with half of a sideboard dedicated to it. If they have other positive matchups in the metagame they'll still be played, if they don't they'll fade away.


That's exactly why Zoo is THE dominating aggro deck. Because its the best deck vs almost all other matchups is the reason it was still played even though its dominated by ANT and Reanimator.

[3eowulf]

If you read the top 8 matches you know why Wizards banned Mystical Tutor.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpmad10/welcome#21

If a very strong deck like zoo that beats almost all other match ups simply cannot win from combo (ANT / Reanimator) then there's something really wrong. Because of Mystical Tutor even control decks have a hard time winning. And in the combo matchups it has been Mystical Tutor that made the win possible.

I wouldn't have minded if they'd waited a bit longer but its my believe that it would've happen eventually anyway.

I can't really understand why this top8 matches would justify the banning of Mystical, because there were 3 decks playing it? Because the final match was between them?
I hope you know that a single tournament, as large as this might be, can't be taken as a sample for dominance, and that's not even counting the fact that this tournament wasn't dominated by a single deck/archetype/whatever you want.

The fact that one of the best decks (Zoo) can't win from Mystical Tutor decks, not only is wrong, but would also be meaningless as others have stated, since if it won consistently against all the field, it certainly would have been a problem.


Actually I believe combo was dominating the European front. It was only a matter of time until the States caught on.

In any case, Wizards made the right choice but did it for the wrong reasons.

No, combo wasn't dominating the European front. Certainly not in Italy, and from what I could see in the reports neither in Spain or Germany. Maybe in Holland it was big, but Holland certainly isn't Europe and still has the problem of being a bit too small of a sample.


That universe did not exist anymore until the banning. Control didn't beat combo, control even had (has) a hard time winning from Zoo. And Combo beat both. To me the link I posted translates exactly the way the metagame (in Europe/Holland at least) was working. Until the banning anyway.

That's exactly why Zoo is THE dominating aggro deck. Because its the best deck vs almost all other matchups is the reason it was still played even though its dominated by ANT and Reanimator.

If combo did beat every other deck, why it wasn't showing bigger numbers in top8? And most of all why would Zoo (which by can't win no matter what) be one of the most played deck?

Maybe I wasn't clear: there has never been any evidence of dominance by decks using Mystical Tutor, and if you are going to say otherwise I kinldy ask you to provide said evidence.

The only "acceptable" reason for the ban was the argument about the fun involved in tapping creatures to attack...

[DragoFireheart]

Most played != Best.

Even some people were fucking up how to play Ant or Reanimator, which were considered the best decks in the format. The thing is, Zoo was also a good deck yet required far less skill to play and master. ANT and Reanimator were slightly better than Zoo, but required a large increase of skill to get to that point.

[practical joke]

Here's one thing.

If you look back at the T8 at GP Madrid, you see a T8. 3 of those decks were combo ( reanimate is kind of a combo).
All 3 decks made it to T4 easily.

Second thing.

Combo did dominate the dutch meta-game, maybe since we have capable combo-players, or whatever reasons. Not always did combo end up a vast majority in the T8, but when you looked at the T16, you could find the rest easily.
Also I am quite certain that most of the little nubles that picked up combo took saito-ant. It was more explosives and piss easy to play, but it was the inferior version. Saito stated that himself after he lost to David Do Ahn in the semi-finals.
Most new combo-players have not a single CLUE of how to deal with tougher situations. i.e. a chalice, teeg or iona. And for some sideboarding is a thing they would never understand.

Now really, how strong is a deck that can win from any other type of deck?!
ANT could easily have done that, it doesn't lose to much if you KNOW how to play.
Counterbalance lock is annoying, but not unbeatable, same goes for chalcies, trinispheres, teegs, cannonist, mindbreak trap, chants, discard.
You name it.


Look at reanimate, in a short time results start popping out of nowhere, where are the results now?!
Since mystical has been banned, the results have dropped. Both decks are not that easily to play or to make T1-T2 kills with them. It actually needs skill to play it now!

you ask for evidence why it was breaking the format, I can't give you the sheer numbers. Since morons that pick up a deck can't be filtered by numbers.


and offcourse...


Vote Snepvangers for HoF!

[humppa]

If a very strong deck like zoo that beats almost all other match ups simply cannot win from combo (ANT / Reanimator) then there's something really wrong.
No.

If a very strong deck that beats almost all other match ups has a Achilles' heel then we can call it a bad match up, health format and we can love our metagame that there isn't only one very strong deck that can beats everything. I know that many people like Jund on Standard, but ... hey, I was a zoo player but I just accepted that I can beat merfolks and merfolks can beats ANT and ANT can beats me...

[ddt15]

ANT was definetly too powerful. I've had a few matches with top8 on the line (me playing Goblins), when I played lackey+several hate pieces on the play and its still not enough. If the ANT player doesn't screw up you really stand no chance even in a supposedly favorable situation like that.

I wouldn't mind if they unbanned some other cards though to keep combo viable, specifically thinking of Frantic Search and Time Spiral; no deck outside of High Tide can play it, it would make High Tide a real deck again (as in fast enough to beat creature decks... -brings to mind why its ok for creatures to rush you in 3 turns but no combo?-) but still have an enormous problem against counterbalance so it gets kept in check.

[Nelis]

No.

If a very strong deck that beats almost all other match ups has a Achilles' heel then we can call it a bad match up, health format and we can love our metagame that there isn't only one very strong deck that can beats everything. I know that many people like Jund on Standard, but ... hey, I was a zoo player but I just accepted that I can beat merfolks and merfolks can beats ANT and ANT can beats me...

I'm sorry but if there's one deck (or 1 archetype, combo in this case) that beats the number 2 archetype (aggro) and the other archetype (control) consistently than we're not talking about bad match ups anymore. And if the mirror depends on who draws the first mystical tutor then it is clear to me that there's something really wrong.

Basically I'm arguing that ANT and to lesser extent Reanimator (because its just a bit easier to hate) do not have bad match-ups apart from each other.

I know its hard for me to argue that a deck which doesn't see enough top 8's (for whatever reason) is unbeatable. But anyone who has played Zoo vs ANT knows Zoo doesn't even have a fighting change.

I think it's save to say that Madrid has attracted players from over the whole world so that it's the best example of what every metagame in the world has to offer. So to me it's not a big surprise there haven't been any Americans in the top 8 because they were too busy playing zoo and other crappy decks that do not beat Reanimator or ANT.

[EssKay]

People are still complaining about this?

[Sims]

I think it's save to say that Madrid has attracted players from over the whole world so that it's the best example of what every metagame in the world has to offer. So to me it's not a big surprise there haven't been any Americans in the top 8 because they were too busy playing zoo and other crappy decks that do not beat Reanimator or ANT.

Wait wait wait wait, waiiiit.. waiiiiiiiit....

So American's, as a whole, in general. All of us. Didn't top 8 a European GP becuase we were too busy playing bad decks that don't beat ANT or Reanimator. Right, so I can use the same line and say you were too busy playing decks that don't beat Zoo or Countertop when you're not in the Top 8 of Columbus? Just because it was a large GP doesn't mean many american's outside of Pros even WENT, and how do we know that those who did go weren't playing th same combo decks and faced bad matchups and draws? Please don't over-generalize the issue and say that American's only are bad magic players because we didn't have a strong, unbeatable ANT presence. I can gaurantee that most players in the Netherlands are just as bad as the majority of American players. Don't slam us in your attempts to defend the ban.

By the way, weren't there 3 Zoo decks in the top 8 of Madrid?

[FoulQ]

I can't believe some of you people really believe ANT was "too powerful."

The cold hard results are there. ANT was not dominating tournaments. Reanimator was not dominating tournaments.

Results determine power levels, not personal anecdotes and hurt feelings.

So the argument that the mystical tutor ban was necessary for power level has just been completely invalidated, by me.


People are still complaining about this?

If you read Finn's article you'd know that he meant for it to be published a lot sooner, but that complications arose, and he figured he might as well post it here since it still is a pretty nice article.

[menace13]

Does Holland have any stats on ANT's top 8 penetration, win percentage and percentage of the field overall and top 8 makeup for the months of March-June? I hear it was huge there, all the time from just about anyone who plays there.

Disclaiimer: Not disrespecting my Dutch peeps cos i love your Luxury cars,Amsterdam and Beers

[Vacrix]

ANT was definetly too powerful. I've had a few matches with top8 on the line (me playing Goblins), when I played lackey+several hate pieces on the play and its still not enough. If the ANT player doesn't screw up you really stand no chance even in a supposedly favorable situation like that.

I wouldn't mind if they unbanned some other cards though to keep combo viable, specifically thinking of Frantic Search and Time Spiral; no deck outside of High Tide can play it, it would make High Tide a real deck again (as in fast enough to beat creature decks... -brings to mind why its ok for creatures to rush you in 3 turns but no combo?-) but still have an enormous problem against counterbalance so it gets kept in check.
Wow so ANT was too powerful AND you would rather have a consistent turn 3 combo deck that can win in response that maindeck's Force of Will? Did I mention that Solidarity also rapes the shit out of control with Mindbreak Trap and soon with Autumn's Veil? I'm all for it and am optimistic but you underestimate how good it would be, since you are implicitly comparing it to ANT by saying 'this deck was too strong but I wouldn't mind playing against this one'. Sure Solidarity has problems with Counterbalance. You still have plenty of options. You can Force Counterbalance, and you can destroy it with Krosan Grip. CB decks have unspeakably slow clocks, especially against decks like Solidarity that only play Instant/Land (small Goyfs). Its not as bad a matchup as people tend to consider it. I've chained Remands together for several turns until I had the resources to just go off in response to CB, and remove 2 FoW's and CB with Mindbreak Trap.

If the ANT player doesn't screw up is an oxymoron. I have yet to watch someone pilot ANT optimally IRL. Everyone I have ever watched play it was basically playing Belcher.

[Hanni]

If a very strong deck like zoo that beats almost all other match ups simply cannot win from combo (ANT / Reanimator) then there's something really wrong.

Wait. So what you are saying is, that since Zoo beats every other deck except combo, that combo should be banned so that Zoo can beat every deck? Please tell me that's not what you meant...

[EssKay]

If you read Finn's article you'd know that he meant for it to be published a lot sooner, but that complications arose, and he figured he might as well post it here since it still is a pretty nice article.

I did read it, then I read 2 pages of the same arguments that I've read in every other Mystical banning thread since the news was first announced.

[Rico Suave]

Any strategy can be stopped. That does not mean it should remain legal.

[ddt15]

Wow so ANT was too powerful AND you would rather have a consistent turn 3 combo deck that can win in response that maindeck's Force of Will? Did I mention that Solidarity also rapes the shit out of control with Mindbreak Trap and soon with Autumn's Veil? I'm all for it and am optimistic but you underestimate how good it would be, since you are implicitly comparing it to ANT by saying 'this deck was too strong but I wouldn't mind playing against this one'. Sure Solidarity has problems with Counterbalance. You still have plenty of options. You can Force Counterbalance, and you can destroy it with Krosan Grip. CB decks have unspeakably slow clocks, especially against decks like Solidarity that only play Instant/Land (small Goyfs). Its not as bad a matchup as people tend to consider it. I've chained Remands together for several turns until I had the resources to just go off in response to CB, and remove 2 FoW's and CB with Mindbreak Trap.

If the ANT player doesn't screw up is an oxymoron. I have yet to watch someone pilot ANT optimally IRL. Everyone I have ever watched play it was basically playing Belcher.
If CB is a not as bad matchup as people consider it to be, then I guess all the other matchups are? I mean I very rarely see High Tide decks and when I do its usually on the bottom tables, losing to homebrews.

Also here in Europe running into at least one ANT matchup every tournament was getting real annoying tbh. Reanimator the same but you could at least beat it with Leylines.

I'm also in favor of unbanning Goblin Recruiter. I mean... Food Chain? Really? Come on WotC. They could've given us some more along with Monolith and Mask.

[SpikeyMikey]

Dude, we all know that the Dutch are to Magic what Koreans are to Starcraft. If the Dutch are getting rolled by tons of AnT, us mere mortals in the US must obviously accept that we are simply playing inferior decks that can't beat AnT. Obviously, all the AnT players in the US were bad players who didn't know how their deck functioned while all the good players were playing bad decks (probably through a "gentleman's agreement") which is why AnT underperformed in the US not only in Tx (8, 16, whatever) placement but also in comparison to metagame saturation, i.e. Zoo might make up 20% of the field but 30% of the top 32 while AnT might make up 15% of the field but only represent 8% of the top 32. Don't forget that in the hands of a competent (read Dutch) player, AnT never mulls into oblivion and always goes off turn 2 (maybe sometimes turn 3 but only on the play so that it can't be raced by Zoo) and can win through any amount of hate, all because of Mystical Tutor.

I hate to have to use sarcasm in a serious discussion because it's the verbal (or written as the case may be) equivalent of slapping someone in the face. But I've heard that sometimes slapping people will bring them out of hysterics and some people here are definitely hysterical about the AnT boogeyman.

I have maintained that the success of AnT in the North Atlantic is strictly due to meta saturation and not any inherent dominance of the deck. It's a good deck, I wanted to play it at Chicago, but it's never been the best deck in the format, and that's backed up with hard figures, not just personal anecdotes or opinions.

[3eowulf]

To be honest I decided to look at the second biggest legacy event in Europe in this semester, the Bazaar of Moxen (498! players).

Here you can find the complete analysis. (http://noticias.magicevolution.com/2010/06/10/complete-metagame-breakdown-and-tournament-analysis-bazaar-of-moxen-4-legacy-main-event/)

It obviously shows the dominance of both ANT and Reanimator, you just have to look... ok, maybe I should rephrase: It obviously shows how the tournament would have been dominated by both ANT and Reanimator, if dutchies would have played said decks, breaking their gentlemen's agreement.:eyebrow:

Or maybe it shows the dominance of Daze decks (3 in top8, 2 in the finals)!:eyebrow:

Do I have to link other top8s?

Or can we agree that evidence from more than one source shows an healty and diverse format, and therefore the bannings were not based on power level?


EDIT: Btw, I was forgetting... good article.

[denial]

- Excuse me, Is Wizards going to do a Metagame Breakdown of this event?
- No.
- Perfect. If so, Could I take all the decklists home? I own a Blog and I’m editor for a famous store in Madrid and would love to do the Metagame Breakdown and Analysis.
- I’m sorry but Stephen Menendian already asked for them.


lol.

[mchainmail]

Also here in Europe running into at least one ANT matchup every tournament was getting real annoying tbh. Reanimator the same but you could at least beat it with Leylines.



Leylines were never good hate for reanimator whatsoever... And running into one ANT matchup... so if I'm playing Standard, how often am I going to run into the Jund matchup?


You should be happy it's 1 in 6, not 3 in 6!

[ddt15]

Dude, we all know that the Dutch are to Magic what Koreans are to Starcraft. If the Dutch are getting rolled by tons of AnT, us mere mortals in the US must obviously accept that we are simply playing inferior decks that can't beat AnT. Obviously, all the AnT players in the US were bad players who didn't know how their deck functioned while all the good players were playing bad decks (probably through a "gentleman's agreement") which is why AnT underperformed in the US not only in Tx (8, 16, whatever) placement but also in comparison to metagame saturation, i.e. Zoo might make up 20% of the field but 30% of the top 32 while AnT might make up 15% of the field but only represent 8% of the top 32. Don't forget that in the hands of a competent (read Dutch) player, AnT never mulls into oblivion and always goes off turn 2 (maybe sometimes turn 3 but only on the play so that it can't be raced by Zoo) and can win through any amount of hate, all because of Mystical Tutor.
Funny that almost sounds just like what WotC said when they banned MT.

I'm not Dutch btw.

[Eddy Wally]

Nelis, do you participate in belgian tournaments from time to time as well? We have that annoying overabundance of ANT decks here too, the metagame is probably more or less comparable to the one in Holland. I'm not sure how common that deck is in other parts of the world, but local experience tells me it needed to get nerfed somewhat. Preventing your opponent from playing 13 spells in one turn isn't why most people pick up a deck.

In the last few (four or five) years, I took sligh, zoo, red *****, aggroloam and nopro-countertop bant decks to legacy tournaments (in that order). Each of those decks had at least 12 creatures. It's nothing more than a personal preference, but creature combat is just more fun than a non-interactive combo deck. I'll never make the pro tour or world championship, I just go to tournaments because there you can play against opponents who don't fool around and actually try to win properly (some level of competition is always fun). I know there are a lot of people who think like this. You go to play competitively, and have fun at the same time. Wizards catered to that demographic, and I'm glad they did so.

[Nelis]

Wait. So what you are saying is, that since Zoo beats every other deck except combo, that combo should be banned so that Zoo can beat every deck? Please tell me that's not what you meant...

No. that's not completely what I meant.

Zoo can be kept in check by other decks like midrange decks like the Rock (Skeggi elaborated on this somewhere on the forum). He argued that even with all the disruption those decks cant win from ANT either. I happen to believe his assessment.

So by making ANT less consistent, there's room for those decks again which makes for a more healthy metagame. It sure as hell make the metagame fun again if you ask me.


Nelis, do you participate in belgian tournaments from time to time as well? We have that annoying overabundance of ANT decks here too, the metagame is probably more or less comparable to the one in Holland. I'm not sure how common that deck is in other parts of the world, but local experience tells me it needed to get nerfed somewhat. Preventing your opponent from playing 13 spells in one turn isn't why most people pick up a deck.

In the last few (four or five) years, I took sligh, zoo, red *****, aggroloam and nopro-countertop bant decks to legacy tournaments (in that order). Each of those decks had at least 12 creatures. It's nothing more than a personal preference, but creature combat is just more fun than a non-interactive combo deck. I'll never make the pro tour or world championship, I just go to tournaments because there you can play against opponents who don't fool around and actually try to win properly (some level of competition is always fun). I know there are a lot of people who think like this. You go to play competitively, and have fun at the same time. Wizards catered to that demographic, and I'm glad they did so.

No I live in Groningen which is just a wee bit too far from the south border. But I think your absolutely right.


Wait wait wait wait, waiiiit.. waiiiiiiiit....

So American's, as a whole, in general. All of us. Didn't top 8 a European GP becuase we were too busy playing bad decks that don't beat ANT or Reanimator. Right, so I can use the same line and say you were too busy playing decks that don't beat Zoo or Countertop when you're not in the Top 8 of Columbus? Just because it was a large GP doesn't mean many american's outside of Pros even WENT, and how do we know that those who did go weren't playing th same combo decks and faced bad matchups and draws? Please don't over-generalize the issue and say that American's only are bad magic players because we didn't have a strong, unbeatable ANT presence. I can gaurantee that most players in the Netherlands are just as bad as the majority of American players. Don't slam us in your attempts to defend the ban.

By the way, weren't there 3 Zoo decks in the top 8 of Madrid?

I overreacted a bit because a lot of Americans tend to look not further than their own border and think the rest of the world is the same. (in this case always only referring to Starcitygames 5k metagames). In no way I meant to offend any American. Nor do I want to imply they're any better or worse players. Of course its not fair to judge play skills of a whole nation by the top 8 of one tournament. If you feel offended then please accept my apologies. I get carried away sometimes, especially when I think I'm right.

If you read the top 8 reports you will see those zoo decks had absolutely NO chance fighting those decks (apart from one very lucky and unlikely win).

[tsabo_tavoc]

I believe some pointed this out. From the color pie point of view, WotC has been trying hard to push other colors on par with blue but is unlikely to manage so without banning blue card(s) or making the format degenerate. Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor are the two candidates and WotC opted the latter, props to them!

[menace13]

I overreacted a bit because a lot of Americans tend to look not further than their own border and think the rest of the world is the same. (in this case always only referring to Starcitygames 5k metagames). In no way I meant to offend any American. Nor do I want to imply they're any better or worse players. Of course its not fair to judge play skills of a whole nation by the top 8 of one tournament. If you feel offended then please accept my apologies. I get carried away sometimes, especially when I think I'm right.

If you read the top 8 reports you will see those zoo decks had absolutely NO chance fighting those decks (apart from one very lucky and unlikely win).

Ok, so apparently Holland did not bother to take numbers down and all I can get is people accounts?

[Nelis]

Ok, so apparently Holland did not bother to take numbers down and all I can get is people accounts?

I dont understand what you mean.

[menace13]

I dont understand what you mean.

Statistical evidence in hard counts of the number of top 8's, the top 8 penetration percent, the overall percent of the field for ANT for the months of March through June in all of Holland? menendian does the numbers for us here(thx Steve).

[Nessaja]

In the netherlands and belgium they got a forum like the Source that keeps track of the top 8s, with DTBs and alike. Just because there's someone who gets paid to make spreadsheets for the American metgame doesn't mean you can demand them for every metagame out there. I love your use of "us", seriously, how thick can you be.

[menace13]

In the netherlands and belgium they got a forum like the Source that keeps track of the top 8s, with DTBs and alike. Just because there's someone who gets paid to make spreadsheets for the American metgame doesn't mean you can demand them for every metagame out there. I love your use of "us", seriously, how thick can you be.

Sorry. Menendian does it for the American meta. Does that really make a diff and why would you imply the use of us is somehow wrong for? Is it unreasonable to seek numbers from other metas? If so my apologies. And, Very thick, which has what to do with someone asking for data?

[bleuisforwhimps]

I'm tired of 'penetration' , 'percentages','statistical evidence' and shit , if a deck is as unfair as dredge even after siding in 6 cards then there's something wrong period.
The people who banned the tutor were spot on as far as I'm concerned.

[Nelis]

Statistical evidence in hard counts of the number of top 8's, the top 8 penetration percent, the overall percent of the field for ANT for the months of March through June in all of Holland? menendian does the numbers for us here(thx Steve).

Now I understand, no there's not really anyone who does this. So yeah, he has to do with peoples accounts. We also have the problem that local metagames in Holland are in no way representative. And we do not run that many big tournaments so there wouldn't be that many results anyway to be representative.

But if he would test then he would know. Zoo (or aggro) does not beat ANT. I'm a bit less sure about other match-ups myself so I have to go on other peoples accounts.

[iostream]

Why is "keeping combo viable" an intrinsically valuable goal? A prerequisite to fun is that both players get the chance to make meaningful decisions during the course of the game. When a combo deck goes off on turn 1 against a control player who was unlucky enough not to draw a FoW in his opening hand, neither participant has done anything interesting or enjoyable. This is an extreme example, but the general principle holds: it doesn't matter that the decks may not be consistent enough to dominate a metagame. The fact that they are consistent enough to even be a plausible deck choice is a bad thing.

There is an astonishing number of different, interesting aggro, control, and tempo decks in legacy. Killing combo through these sorts of aggressive bannings would not make the format degenerate or uninteresting, nor would it prioritize "tapping creatures" as the only acceptable path to victory.

In my opinion, they actually didn't go far enough with the banning of Mystical Tutor.

[SpikeyMikey]

If the stastics say that AnT underperforms, and from the average points for AnT from the French tournament on page 2 it looks like the deck failed to win more matches than it lost, then all the anecdotal evidence in the world means naught. Most of us prefer to deal in facts. Especially the highly competitive tournament players. Tell me all day long that AnT was too powerful and I'll just call you an idiot until you can show me a dominance on par with other decks that have been hit with the nerf bat like Affinity, Counter-rebels, Academy, Megrim/Jar or Legacy's own broken monster, Flash. When a deck starts accounting for half the T8 at multiple tournaments, I'll worry. Until then, your opinion is just an opinion, and no more valid than an opinion that the Earth is flat or that the moon is made of cheese.

[iostream]

My argument was that this has nothing to do with dominance at all. Maybe I was being too abstract. To illustrate more concretely, imagine that I flip a fair coin and I ask you to call it in the air. Neither heads nor tails is a dominant strategy. Does that mean this game is fun?

No one plays games just because they are fair.

"That's just your opinion" is not a valid response to this criticism. I've given objective reasons why you should accept my conclusion, and it's up to you to defend your point of view.

[ddt15]

If the stastics say that AnT underperforms, and from the average points for AnT from the French tournament on page 2 it looks like the deck failed to win more matches than it lost, then all the anecdotal evidence in the world means naught. Most of us prefer to deal in facts. Especially the highly competitive tournament players. Tell me all day long that AnT was too powerful and I'll just call you an idiot until you can show me a dominance on par with other decks that have been hit with the nerf bat like Affinity, Counter-rebels, Academy, Megrim/Jar or Legacy's own broken monster, Flash. When a deck starts accounting for half the T8 at multiple tournaments, I'll worry. Until then, your opinion is just an opinion, and no more valid than an opinion that the Earth is flat or that the moon is made of cheese.
Well the DCI seems to share our opinion, why waste time trying to convince you? If anyone has the relevant statistics its them. In any case they aren't changing their minds anytime soon, so let's talk about the original topic?

[(nameless one)]

I thought the community is over this debate on Mystical Tutor. Its unfortunate that the DCI shafted AnT and Reanimator. Can we move on or should we open another thread and debate about it again?

[Finn]

Nelis, I am curious why you continue to tell us that Zoo does not beat AnT. I would have thought that we can all agree that Zoo loses to a good combo deck and move on. Why would we want the best aggro deck to be beating combo? How does its inability to do so in any way support the position that combo is too powerful. Forgive me if I am unaware of some nuance of this conversation.

It's too bad that the conversation is so focused on this same topic. I would have hoped that we could have moved past it into the realm of "why" it was banned for discussion. But clearly there is not general agreement on whether there was proper cause to ban MT. I am a bit flummoxed by this. It's not as if folks were clamoring for this card to get banned before they actually did it. Every single person was scratching his head when he or she found out that it was banned. If you think that MT should not have been banned, you (and I) read Tom LaPille's explanation and said "what a load of crap that is". What did the people who think it deserved the ban think when they read his words? Did you think the Gentleman's Agreement was a reasonable theory? Did you think their method of testing was in any way sufficient? Are we not in agreement that the DCI was full of crap?

[SpikeyMikey]

There's no question that the Wizard's story was just that, a story. But, much like any other inescapable fact, there are those who deny it, whether out of obstinancy or sheer obtuseness I do not know. I think you're spot on with the idea that they were trying to shift combo out of the metagame and replace it with more combat interactions. It's not a problem unique to Magic. The same happened with World of Warcraft. A company realizes it can increase profits by tapping a more mainstream market at the expense of a niche market and suddenly you see a general homogenization of all aspects of the game trending towards what market research shows is the biggest market.

Where is the land destruction? Market research showed that LD is "unfun". Playable LD disappears. Now the best you can get at low cost is limited LD. No more Sinkhole, no more Ice Storm. Same thing with dedicated control. Johnny Casual doesn't like having his critters countered, so the balance is shifted from good counters to restrictive counters. An actual Counterspell now costs at least 3.

It doesn't matter if you love LD or Draw-Go, because you're a minority.

[Nessaja]

Every single person was scratching his head when he or she found out that it was banned.
Only because I didn't expect the DCI to be smart enough to do it, nor the balls to do it. Though I haven't been vocal about it, nor would I have been heard if I were vocal about it, Mystical Tutor has been the glue that kept a lot of combo decks together. I'm personally surprised that so few people saw this coming. It was either Tutor, or Brainstorm, but the brainstorm was useful for other archetypes whereas tutor wasn't,

Did you think the Gentleman's Agreement was a reasonable theory? Did you think their method of testing was in any way sufficient? Are we not in agreement that the DCI was full of crap?
Of course they were,do you think that anyone is going to defend the "gentleman's agreement".. seriously? Would you take it as a legit critique that you didn't need 2000 words to make the above point?

Personally, I think the real essence of your article is not what you mention but how we feel about DCI thinking for themselves instead of basing their bannings on data from the scene. They found out for themselves that - even though the combo decks can be hated out and are hated out in Legacy, you need a very specific set of cards to do so unlike all other strategies in legacy that have a big variety of cards and strategies that allow you to break someones gameplan. A deck like Worldgorger combo was more interactive then ANT because it gave your opponent several ways in many colors to deal with your combo.

Anyway, heading offtopic; that seems like the reason for banning. But I think everyone knew that already (or something close, or alike). So back to the point you seem to make in your article, the DCI apparently developed a brain and is making conclusions for themselves "guiding" the format, or scaping if you want to call it that. Into a format they believe to be healthy, right now that seems to mean that they're aiming for a format where every deck should have tools to deal with other decks with the proper preparation. I think that's a good move.

[Zlatzman]

I do agree with Finn, and believe Wizards is trying to get the format to include more creature-interaction. What I'm curious about is why all formats needs to be similar. Both Standard and Extended include quite a bit of creatures already, why should Legacy be the same?

[Rico Suave]

Tell me all day long that AnT was too powerful and I'll just call you an idiot until you can show me a dominance on par with other decks that have been hit with the nerf bat like Affinity, Counter-rebels, Academy, Megrim/Jar or Legacy's own broken monster, Flash.

That's cute.

When Academy and all its combo parts were unbanned in Extended, only 2 Academy decks made top 8 at PT Rome.

2 ANT decks made top 8 at GP Madrid.

I have now shown you how ANT dominated like Academy did.

[CleverPetriDish]

Yes, but 3 Zoo decks were also there. Better ban Nacatl then. If you disagree that Nacatl needs to be banned based on that argument, you are absolutely conceding that there is something other than format dominance guiding their decision to ban that card.

He is right. They did not ban MT to save the format from a dominating deck or two. They did it to change the format into combat-driven so they could make more money. Annoying.

Finn, your articles are the best for legacy. I wish you would write more often.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I do agree with Finn, and believe Wizards is trying to get the format to include more creature-interaction. What I'm curious about is why all formats needs to be similar. Both Standard and Extended include quite a bit of creatures already, why should Legacy be the same?

This!

Having tested ANT a lot myself (and I've played a lot of combo before, though usually in Vintage), the good matchup against everything theory was a myth, even though less so than the "gentleman's agreement". I don't mind Tutor being gone so much as the trend towards "jippee, let's try to force everyone in all formats to play creatures".
Personally, I hate playing creatures. I think turning dudes sideways while playing some removal is boring. Interesting interaction happens everywhere, hand, stack and board. If all relevant interaction in this game was on the board and the only spells being cast are either "kill your guy(s)" or "three to the head", I'd have stopped playing it ten years ago.
To keep this game interesting, decks need to be able to focus on either part of the interaction-spectrum, be it stack or board. If you want to play control, you should be forced to be able to interact in both spheres, not just one of them. If you want to focus your deck on caring only about one of the two, well, you should be punished if you hit the wrong end of the spectrum and can't interact/the opponent can interact with you entirely too much. This is what happens to Zoo or Goblins when you meet combo.

[SpikeyMikey]

That's cute.

When Academy and all its combo parts were unbanned in Extended, only 2 Academy decks made top 8 at PT Rome.

2 ANT decks made top 8 at GP Madrid.

I have now shown you how ANT dominated like Academy did.


Oh, you're right, that is cute. Because a card's power level pre ban and post ban are the same, amirite? OMG, after they took Mind Twist off the banned list, it saw minimal play in T1 and was pretty underpowered. So it must not have been busted back in the day when they originally banned it...

C'mon, if you're going to do this, let's do it legit. Acting the ass for the sake of acting the ass doesn't make you cool.

My point is still "show me a pattern of dominance by MT decks". I was simply giving examples of where the bar was. Academy warped a format around itself and was banned with a quickness. Jar was quick behind it after it proved to be almost as dominating. Lin-Sivvi got the axe in Masques block because she was more played than Forests, Mountains or Swamps. Affinity turned Standard into basically a two deck format and warped the metagame so heavily that it took an entire cycle of cards being banned to bring some parity back to the format. And Flash... Well, a combo deck that *actually goes off* turn 1 or 2 every game (T0 builds were unstable and not as competitive, but could still go off turn 0 about as often as AnT goes off turn 1) and had *actual* resiliency to hate with 8 free hard counters was more than the format could handle.

[Aggro_zombies]

Yes, but 3 Zoo decks were also there. Better ban Nacatl then. If you disagree that Nacatl needs to be banned based on that argument, you are absolutely conceding that there is something other than format dominance guiding their decision to ban that card.

He is right. They did not ban MT to save the format from a dominating deck or two. They did it to change the format into combat-driven so they could make more money. Annoying.

Finn, your articles are the best for legacy. I wish you would write more often.
The Zoo decks all lost to the combo decks pretty unceremoniously in the Top 8. Zoo is very rarely in the game against combo unless the combo player screws up or the Zoo player is an enormous 'sack.

Besides, pure numbers aren't the whole part of what Wizards considers when assessing dominance. This has been said before, in several places (Forsythe, I think?), but I'm not much in the mood to go rooting around for it. The point is that dominant decks tend to warp the metagame badly around themselves, such that the metagame is less an organic food web and more of a rock-paper-scissors scenario with dominant deck - decks gunning for it - decks gunning for the decks gunning for it. Pre-ban, Zoo was in the latter category and only did so well because of how good it was at preying on blue, which was in turn only alive in the format because of people being paranoid about losing to combo. We know from Germany and the Netherlands that an increase in the number of combo players basically drives everything non-blue out of the format, whereas the sort of projected increase in Zoo we expect for Columbus just forces other decks to adapt (but they still exist as real decks).

Not that it really matters. If you don't think the decision was justified, nothing anyone can say will make you think otherwise, and the same thing applies for people who think it's fine. Personally, I don't care anymore, but if there's a bunch of Zoo in the Top 8 of Columbus I'm sure basically infinite people will whine even louder about how they shouldn't have banned Tutor, aggro sux, Magic for Dummies, capitalist corporate greed, etc.

[Rico Suave]

My point is still "show me a pattern of dominance by MT decks". I was simply giving examples of where the bar was. Academy warped a format around itself and was banned with a quickness.

Yes, I understood your point.

My point was the bar you're talking about was already reached. Academy warped a format and only put 2 decks into the top 8 of the PT it was legal in. That's it. Not 3 decks. 2.

It really does not take much.

[3eowulf]

I think this video (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/19565_The_Magic_Show_193_2010_Community_Cup_Forsythe_Interview.html)could clear some points about the future of our format (2nd one, from ~18:50).

It's an interview with Aaron Forsythe, not about legacy but magic in general.

We might deduce that, in fact, the bosses didn't find combo to be dominant, but simply don't want it as a pillar of the metagame.

As the opening article wonders, do we want them to mess with the format based on their views of the game, or do we prefer a more "liberal" approach? And is it feasible to ask for the format to be supported (with GPs) whitout their "formatscaping"?

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

I have to say I was really impressed by Aaron's answer to that last question. Though I still think MT-enabled combo naturally beats every other archetype with a sufficiently skilled pilot, Aaron's opinion on combo sounds perfectly reasonable. Rocks-paper-scissors is so beyond brainless to me that I couldn't imagine being interested in Magic over time if that's all it was.

Even if the absence of powerful combo creates a temporary power vacuum that's ultimately filled by a broad spectrum of aggro and control decks with the occasional coinflip combo crap with ~50/50 matchups for all, that sounds a whole lot better than A>B>C>A with 80% certainty.

[Grollub]

Don't ever put Jar.dec into an argument about where the power bar was, or is. As someone that played with and against it in the few weeks it was legit, I can say without a second of doubt say it was the greatest fuckup Wizard has ever made; not even Flash or Necropotence was close. That aside, comparing Ant and Academy is interesting: especially since beating Academy in Rome was much easier than beating Ant in 2010. ;)

[JeroenC]

My point was the bar you're talking about was already reached. Academy warped a format and only put 2 decks into the top 8 of the PT it was legal in. That's it. Not 3 decks. 2.

ANT and Reanimator can hardly be called format-warping as long as Zoo lists were still as viable as they are without maindeck changes. Format warping decks are not decks that require 6+ sideboard slots. They are decks that require 8+ sideboard slots and 6+ maindeck slots.

[Eddy Wally]

Don't ever put Jar.dec into an argument about where the power bar was, or is. As someone that played with and against it in the few weeks it was legit, I can say without a second of doubt say it was the greatest fuckup Wizard has ever made; not even Flash or Necropotence was close. That aside, comparing Ant and Academy is interesting: especially since beating Academy in Rome was much easier than beating Ant in 2010. ;)

I saw that deck in action too then (I played casual big green decks in those days). If you'ld take the 1998 Jar type 2 deck, and if you'd somehow be allowed to you could participate with it in a vintage tournament today, you'd do pretty well. As much as I disliked the big presence of storm combo in our metagame before the bannings, that was nothing compared to that one month when everybody wanted to play that brutal deck.

turn 1: land-mana vault-petal: tap, sac for U, tinker the vault, fetch Jar - draw seven - mox diamond - ritual - grim monolith - jar again - petal -ritual megrim go : opponent discards two hands of seven cards, takes 28, gg

[Rico Suave]

ANT and Reanimator can hardly be called format-warping as long as Zoo lists were still as viable as they are without maindeck changes. Format warping decks are not decks that require 6+ sideboard slots. They are decks that require 8+ sideboard slots and 6+ maindeck slots.

Ha.

Zoo *was* changing 6+ maindeck and 8+ SB slots for the metagame.

So were the blue decks too.

[JeroenC]

I don't know a lot of blue decks that changed maindeck cards dude, so you must have a real shifted meta. And other than playing a couple of Gaddock Teegs possibly (which also help against EE and WoG), I don't see Zoo playing 6+ maindeck cards.

[Rico Suave]

I don't know a lot of blue decks that changed maindeck cards dude, so you must have a real shifted meta. And other than playing a couple of Gaddock Teegs possibly (which also help against EE and WoG), I don't see Zoo playing 6+ maindeck cards.

Then you're not looking hard enough.

Compare this post-MT banning Zoo deck:


4Windswept Heath
4Wooded Foothills
1Arid Mesa
2Taiga
2Plateau
1Savannah
1Tropical Island
1Volcanic Island
3Wasteland
1Skarrg, the Rage Pits
1Forest
1Plains

4Wild Nacatl
3Grim Lavamancer
3Noble Hierarch
4Qasali Pridemage
4Tarmogoyf
4Knight of the Reliquary

4Lightning Bolt
4Chain Lightning
4Path to Exile
2Sylvan Library
2Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Sideboard:
3Tormod's Crypt
3Red Elemental Blast
4Meddling Mage
3Pyroblast
2Krosan Grip

To this pre-MT banning Zoo deck:


Creatures
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Loam Lion
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Steppe Lynx
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl

Instants
2 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
3 Price of Progress

Sorceries
4 Chain Lightning

Basic Lands
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains

Lands
2 Arid Mesa
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Plateau
1 Savannah
2 Taiga
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Krosan Grip
4 Mindbreak Trap
1 Price of Progress
2 Pyroblast

Both achieved first place in large tournaments.

Do you see how cards like Sylvan, Noble Hierarch, and Elspeth in the 1st list are really, really bad choices in a meta with Mystical Tutor but pretty good without it? And do you see how the 2nd Zoo list has 7 extra SB cards that hate on storm/grave above and beyond the 1st list?

Blue decks were doing the same thing. Look at this list that won the last major SCG 5k pre-MT banning:


Artifacts
1 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of the Meek
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Tormod's Crypt

Enchantments
4 Counterbalance
1 Moat
1 Oblivion Ring

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Artifact Lands
1 Seat of the Synod

Basic Lands
6 Island
2 Plains

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
1 Underground Sea

Legendary Lands
1 Academy Ruins

Sideboard:
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Back to Basics
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Humility
1 Serenity
1 Extirpate
2 Hydroblast

Now you could say that this deck doesn't have 6 cards changed in the main to fight the MT decks, but that is also in part because it has a toolbox approach (and it still has a *maindeck* Tormod's Crypt!).

Look at the SB alone. Most Thopters decks now are playing 2-3 graveyard hate between main and board, where this one is playing 5 plus 4 Canonist. Please don't tell me that everything is normal when a Counterbalance deck needs to board in 4 Ethersworn Canonist to beat Mystical Tutor decks.

If you want a better example, look at a deck like New Horizons. I'm pretty sure that deck is all but obsolete in a format without reanimator/storm.

The point is that Mystical Tutor most certainly warped the format whether it "dominated" or not.

[ddt15]

From what I have seen so far from the 'new' metagame:
- Reanimator is dead.
- TES is the new (old?) ANT.

[JeroenC]

@Rico Suave: Elspeth and Library are not Zoo cards. They are good cards in general (good Rock cards to be more specific).
The pre-banning list does not run "anti"-Storm cards maindeck- it runs faster cardchoices. In the sideboard, it has 4 *specific* Storm defense cards: mindbreak trap. It also has Pyroblasts which are just good sideboard cards and were run before and after Storm. PoP is good against Storm, but has many matchups where it is even better. So thanks for saving me the trouble of looking up stuff to prove my point. Aggro adapting just a little bit when Combo exists (in any form) is nothing more than normal.
The post-bannings list has 4 Meddling Mage (combo hate? Yeah, I thought so) as well as six REB cards. More relevant cards than the pre-banning version.

I was only talking about Storm to start with. Since the unbanning of Entomb, I've also thought Reanimator was easily the best Legacy deck. It had ridiculously few bad matchups as far as I could tell and Entomb + MT gave it a huge range of toolboxes. But blue decks having 4 cards that are relevant in MULTIPLE matchups is not warping. It's normal.

You give evidence that MT was a format-shaping and defining card (like Wild Nacatl, Counterbalance, Force of Will and fetchlands). But I still don't see how you can possibly believe it was a warping card. Flash was a warping card and only warping cards should be banned outside of formatshaping.

[towishimp]

I couldn't agree more with Forsythe's opinion of combo decks. What has kept from from playing Vintage is my perception that it's all about "insane plays" and that the game can be over in a flash. When I see combo decks in legacy that can reliable win before some of my favorite decks play a spell, it gives me the same feeling and makes me much less enthusiastic about the format. I know many people who feel the same.

As a "for instance": I recently got back into Magic, looking to play primarily Legacy. I attended my first tournament yesterday, the format being "casual". Last week my friend won the same tournament easily with a Glipse of Nature Elves storm combo deck. I showed up with him this week, and instantly drew comments from several players about his deck from last week. He played a different deck this week, because, by his own admission, combo "felt like cheating."

Poke flaws in my anecdote all you want, but the bottom line is that combo is potentially a huge put-off to new players that might come to the format, because to many players (new and old), combo decks don't feel like Magic. Once I've put up my resistance and they've fought through it, the rest of the game consists of me watching them go off. In what universe is that fun for anyone? Innovators should be rewarded, like Forsythe said; but they shouldn't become a huge factor in the metame that requires extreme measures to have a chance against.

I know tons of people will disagree, but I'm sure lots will agree too.

[Piceli89]

I couldn't agree more with Forsythe's opinion of combo decks. What has kept from from playing Vintage is my perception that it's all about "insane plays" and that the game can be over in a flash. When I see combo decks in legacy that can reliable win before some of my favorite decks play a spell, it gives me the same feeling and makes me much less enthusiastic about the format. I know many people who feel the same.

As a "for instance": I recently got back into Magic, looking to play primarily Legacy. I attended my first tournament yesterday, the format being "casual". Last week my friend won the same tournament easily with a Glipse of Nature Elves storm combo deck. I showed up with him this week, and instantly drew comments from several players about his deck from last week. He played a different deck this week, because, by his own admission, combo "felt like cheating."

Poke flaws in my anecdote all you want, but the bottom line is that combo is potentially a huge put-off to new players that might come to the format, because to many players (new and old), combo decks don't feel like Magic. Once I've put up my resistance and they've fought through it, the rest of the game consists of me watching them go off. In what universe is that fun for anyone? Innovators should be rewarded, like Forsythe said; but they shouldn't become a huge factor in the metame that requires extreme measures to have a chance against.

I know tons of people will disagree, but I'm sure lots will agree too.

If the metagame where your friend triumphed folded to Combo Elves, there's something wrong either about the stage of development of that meta or about the skill of its players (but if it consisted of White Weenie and Vial Rats it's prefectly acceptable), the matter it's not in playing "combo" or not. I
That's playing combo with creatures, which is the worst and more gateable thing one could ever pull together.
Landstill smashes it, Reb-based aggro-control smashes it. Other Storm Combo smashes it.

[ddt15]

I couldn't agree more with Forsythe's opinion of combo decks. What has kept from from playing Vintage is my perception that it's all about "insane plays" and that the game can be over in a flash. When I see combo decks in legacy that can reliable win before some of my favorite decks play a spell, it gives me the same feeling and makes me much less enthusiastic about the format. I know many people who feel the same.

As a "for instance": I recently got back into Magic, looking to play primarily Legacy. I attended my first tournament yesterday, the format being "casual". Last week my friend won the same tournament easily with a Glipse of Nature Elves storm combo deck. I showed up with him this week, and instantly drew comments from several players about his deck from last week. He played a different deck this week, because, by his own admission, combo "felt like cheating."

Poke flaws in my anecdote all you want, but the bottom line is that combo is potentially a huge put-off to new players that might come to the format, because to many players (new and old), combo decks don't feel like Magic. Once I've put up my resistance and they've fought through it, the rest of the game consists of me watching them go off. In what universe is that fun for anyone? Innovators should be rewarded, like Forsythe said; but they shouldn't become a huge factor in the metame that requires extreme measures to have a chance against.

I know tons of people will disagree, but I'm sure lots will agree too.
How is combo winning in itself different from other decks? If you play a zoo deck its always the last burn spell that kills you (usually almost as fast as a combo deck) yet noone is ever gonna ban burn. The whole point of playing against combo is to prevent him to assemble all the pieces he needs. Once it is assembled the game is over, just like you would go to 0 life after that last burn spell. Now Tendrils with mystical was pretty good at overcoming that but Glimpse Elves?? Surely there must be a thousand cards that prevent this from winning.