Format Discussion - The Ban List [Archive]

(nameless one)

12-10-2010, 12:08 PM

I noticed that with the upcoming B/R update, all that is talked about are Survival of the Fittest and Vengevine (everytime I hear or say Vengevine, my mind goes 'FUCK YA!' ala Team America Movie).

Outside of Flash and Mystical Tutor, the cards in the ban list haven't really been tested in the format. It was just the intuition of DCI that they will be too powerful for the format. That said, a lot of those originally banned cards have gone out of the list dating back to Replenish. Even the deemed-too-powerful-for-the-format Metalworker and Grim Monolith has come out of the list without shaking the foundations of the format. Entomb create some debacle (with Reanimator) but that was 'fixed' with the banning of Mystical Tutor.

Is it time to let one, maybe two cards out of the list?

I remember Steven Menendian wrote an article about unbanning cards from each colors last year. The only card that came out that was mentioned from that article was Illusionary Mask.

The other cards that he mentioned that was supposed to be safe for the format were: Land Tax, Time Spiral, Mind Twist, Goblin Recruiter and Earthcraft.

Land Tax has recieved the most 'unban cries'. It is believe that DCI still has the card because they just can. Some say that it is banned because it makes the game unfun and slow. But I remember someone mentioned that if that was the case then why are Trinisphere, Standstill and Stasis to name a few exist in the format. Many believe it was its interaction with Scroll Rack is the reason why it is kept on the banned list. This is also the same reason why Earthcraft is in the list. Its interactions with Squirrel's Nest is what's keeping it in the list.

If that were the case, then why do we have the following two card combos in the format: CounterTop, PainterStone, StifleNaught, HelmVoid, ThopterSwords? Maybe DCI will make a point that not all two card combos are acceptable in the format by banning one of the pieces of VengeVival?.

Speaking of combo, some believe that the reason why Time Spiral and Goblin Recruiter are in the list because it will push really good combo decks, something that the DCI hates. This is evident with the banning of Mystical Tutor. DCI wants to keep combo really hard to play so only the elite can play it. Back before Mystical Tutor got the hammer, anyone can play AnT with ease. Reanimator was almost an autopilot deck on its prime. DCI took away a crucial piece of those decks and turned those decks into a complicated puzzle decks. With this reasoning, Time Spiral and Goblin Recruiter will have no way of moving out of the ban list. At the same time, this will push the banning of either Survival of the Fittest or Vengevine. Yes, it contradicting the previous argument but the DCI is unpredictable itself, just see Mystical Tutor. Who would have thought right?

Lastly on the list we have Mind Twist. Back in the day, although I wasn't a competitive player at that time, Mind Twist was a really feared card because it can be broken at the early stages of the game. But keep in mind, At around the same time, Dark Ritual to Hypnotic Spectre was itself a devastating first turn play back in the day. It has been a decade since and first turn Hyppie isn't as scary as it used to be. Even in Vintage where cheap accelerants are common do not even utilize this card. Maybe with all the cards printed after it, Mind Twist was balanced out? I personally have never tested the card so I cannot answer that question.

I probably missed a lot in the B/R list. There was been recent discussions on here on Library of Alexandria, Mana Drain and Minds Desire. We've even come as far as discussing Gush. I definitely missed a lot of information on the mentioned cards above as I am all putting this together while I'm on my way to work.

If you feel like this B/R update is the time for some cards to show up in the format. Discuss it in an intelligent matter.

GGoober

12-10-2010, 02:05 PM

Earthcraft should come off. In a format of Daze/Spell Pierce, running Earthcraft in a basic forest.dec doesn't seem all impressive. Engineered Plague/Grip stops the combo and you end up with one of the two pieces that do nothing alone. Earthcraft without Squirrel Nest kinda blows since you're playing basic forests, Squirrel Nest without Earthcraft is laughable

Mind's Deisre and Mana Drain won't be fair in the format at all IMO. LoA has a chance on coming down, and it's a reason why I think I should get a playset just in case it happens. However, Mana Drain, Mind's Desire and LoA are not going to come down anytime soon. Instead Earthcraft, Land Tax, Mind Twist etc should come down first.

I really hate the argument "DCI hates combo decks/strategies". How do we know for sure this is true? And if it is true, then the DCI inherently doesn't understand the format. Eternal formats are different from Standard/Limited/Extended formats. The latter formats are for people whom from WotC's marketing strategy, are players that are fairly newer to the game. i.e. Standard was created to cash in on the game, and maintain sales of packs and support Limited primarily. Not to mention, the 'easier' nature of the Standard format makes it attract a bigger crowd and hence more revenue for WotC. This is the reason why DCI doesn't like combo and land destruction in Standard, because it destroys their philosophy of attracting more people to a format where they can make the most money.

Eternal formats are different though. Combo is in every way fair as an aggro or control deck AS LONG AS the format's health is checked via the B/R list. If DCI's intention is for combo to be neutered in the eternal format, then I really start to question whether they know the formats at all, or if their philosophy towards the eternal formats are warped. Instead of clingling onto the "We need to nerf combo cards/engines", they should really focus on the fact that Eternal magic is more than Standard. Every deck is viable. Diversity and healthy metagames are important in any format, but eternal formats take a bigger hit from the B/R than Standard. This is because, if you make the move to ban a card, you may kill entire archetypes.

It's in this light that I see the difficulties in the Survival + Vengevine problem. If you ban Survival, then you have to look back into years of data that suggested that Survival has been perfectly healthy in the format. If you ban Survival, you contradict the years of data to say that it was broken even though it clearly was a fine card/archetype. If you ban Vengevine, then you are acknowledging the present issue faced in Legacy, which is a good thing, however, you are also stating that you are very narrowly banning a specific card, where Vengevine has potential applications in non-Survival decks unexplored. By banning VV, you are not giving the card a chance to be explored in other non-Survival decks (not that one would exlore one anyway with Survival around). I think this is the biggest dilemma when it comes to this issue.

If you ban Survival: you contradict historic evidence and accept recent months of short-term data, i.e. bad principle IMO, not to mention killing dozens of viable healthy Survival archetypes.
If you ban VV: you are stating that other non-Survival potentials of VV is going to scraped, which is also a bad principle.

The deal is to strike a balance, and curiously, I think that neither Survival nor VV will be banned, as a result of this dilemma. And to be honest, they're both fine. My playgroup beats Vengevival, and we don't play Vengevival popularly. You answer VV you play against a bad Survival deck, sounds good to me. If you don't answer Vengevine or Survival, it's the same as losing to SnT/Emrakul, Countertop anyway.

This is SpartaLegacy!!!!

Love your sig btw :)

Cabal_chan

12-10-2010, 03:25 PM

I believe the idea that the DCI hates combo comes from Forysthe stating that combo shouldn't be a pillar, and something that's essentially a random/rogue appearance.

I can't remember, but I think it was also him that said the Storm mechanic is an abomination.

johanessen

12-10-2010, 05:49 PM

So what about Mind Twist?

Gocho

12-10-2010, 06:30 PM

Earthcraft looks a lot like Birchlore rangers or Heritage Druid. It cost an additional mana, and needs a single creature instead 2-3 Elves.

Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest is laughable. Without aceleration you need 5 mana (2GGG), wait a turn to untap the enchanted land and another turn to attack with your squirrels. With a perfect hand you can't win before turn 5 unless you play acceleration or Concordant:
T1: Ponder
T2: Earthcraft
T3: Squirrel Nest
T4: Untap your enchanted Land, make infinite squirrels
T5: Attack

I can see a T3 win playing acceleration with a perfect 7 hand. You have better combo decks in the format right now:
T1: Hierarch
T2: Squirrel Nest
T3: Earthcraft, infinite squirrels, Concordant

Koby

12-10-2010, 06:52 PM

Why Earthcraft should remain banned:

EDIT: just realized this is a Classic list with Skullclamp, but it's still nutty.

14 Forest
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Essence Warden
4 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Brain Freeze
4 Earthcraft
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Skullclamp
2 Squirrel Nest

Gheizen64

12-10-2010, 06:55 PM

ChrisElrod

12-10-2010, 06:59 PM

I can see a T3 win playing acceleration with a perfect 7 hand. You have better combo decks in the format right now:
T1: Hierarch
T2: Squirrel Nest
T3: Earthcraft, infinite squirrels, Concordant

Except that all but 1 squirrel is tapped, so you can only swing for 1 turn 3.
Obviously you wouldn't play concordant crossroads.

The deck would be very fair; after you combo off your opponent still has a turn to swing in with creatures, and your combo plays on the board. Enchantment destruction (including things like deed), pithing needles, counterspells, racing, etc are all practical ways to beat it.
I think the card would have much more potential in an elf deck (as another sort of heritage druid, like you said).

I think mind twist would be interesting.
Could work somewhat similar to hymn to tourach. Might be popular in rock style decks.

menace13

12-10-2010, 07:22 PM

I am all for unbannings, i dont even care if it's healthy. I mean, why even consider useless things like the above and just not go right into the goods! Unban Oath,Drain,Bazaar and Library go!

Discuss.

Pulp_Fiction

12-10-2010, 07:22 PM

I still think Mind's Desire is to slow for the format, but I would REALLY like to play it anyway, I think the card would be fun as hell. And Time Spiral ..... that could certainly be interesting. Off the top of my head I can't think of any deck that it really makes good ... at all since we don't have Tolarian Academy, but I would like to see what could be done with it.

Earthcraft is fine, there may be some degenerate Elf decks made but since Elves is already pretty bad, I think it might be nice to give them a fighting chance against the format. I really can't see the deck being that good since it still dies to all the same shit as before.

Mind Twist used to be sick, but why would you run this when you can just play Thoughtseize and Hymns? Sure, a turn 4 Twist for 3 would be savage but, most games are already decided at that point. Its a good play but it does nothing for you board position and by the time it is better that Hymn u should probably be working on handling what ur opponents board looks like.

Antonius

12-10-2010, 07:58 PM

Earthcraft

Mind Twist

Land Tax

Time Spiral

are, for the most part, safe to unban. I don't think that a dedicated Earthcraft or Earthcraft/elves deck will be particularly powerful.. Earthcraft, if unbanned, would likely find a place in enchantress, where it has a lot of synergy with wild growth effects and allows you to make infinite dudes with a wild growth a plains and Sacred Mesa.

median

12-10-2010, 10:47 PM

I think earthcraft and time spiral are fine, I'm on the fence about mind twist. of the cards listed it can change the game state more than any of the others mentioned. legacy often comes down to attrition wars and this would win those wars every time, especially in a deck like the rock, or some B/X thing.
Has any one thought about Gush?

Theres no fastbond in legacy, I don't see it as being degenerate, but helping the under performing doomsday decks.

FieryBalrog

12-11-2010, 01:16 AM

I still think Mind's Desire is to slow for the format, but I would REALLY like to play it anyway, I think the card would be fun as hell.

This is so wrong it hurts.

Has any one thought about Gush?

Theres no fastbond in legacy, I don't see it as being degenerate, but helping the under performing doomsday decks.

I think "helping the under performing doomsday decks" is somewhere below "reprinting Necropotence in Standard" and somewhere above "bringing back Storm" on Wizard's priority list.

I see Land Tax & Earthcraft as particular no-brainers that remain on the list out of sheer inertia. In fact probably the only reason Grim Monolith, Entomb (!) and Metalworker got unbanned first is because they would have more effect on the format. It's almost like these two cards are too obviously not-broken for the DCI to care about unbanning them, maybe feeling it just doesn't matter.

Next on the list is Mind Twist. It would help non-combo Ritual decks which have basically disappeared from the game.

Pulp_Fiction

12-11-2010, 01:51 AM

I stand by the statement. Ritual, Ritual, AdN, wins games. IT+LED+LED flat out wins games. Mind's Desire is even more of a coinflip than AdN is and it costs 6. Cards like Lotus Bloom are horrid in Legacy and unlike DD, IGG, and AdN which are the best storm enablers in the format, most require very little storm to operate properly, especially when the opponent is ripping your hand apart. When I have 2 LEDs and a Top in play with say 3 lands also, DD flat out wins the game here with 0 storm played before it (this scenario can be adjusted for more lands, less LEDs, and a Ritual in hand, etc, but an LED or 2 is ideal.) I can have no cards in hand and win with a few resources available. Same thing for IGG in TES assuming u play 1 main and 1 board and draw into a IT/BW or even IGG itself with sufficient cards in the graveyard. And AdN is the exact same as well assuming u have 10ish life.

Mind's Desire HAS to have storm unless u get just insanely lucky and is more vulnerable to hate cards, hand destruction, and mana denial. Mulligans certainly punish this card even more than most. Turn 1 all I have to have in order to win is one mana, Dark Rit and DD. Without 4-7 storm the card is not good. Thats why I say its to slow without the proper setup. All the aforementioned decks can and DO win with very minimal resources and DDFT in particular can win through disgusting amounts of hate. Desire requires much more to be good, cause storm 2 + Desire is not gonna get there unless u are lucky as fuck. And as far as consistenly winning on turns 1-3 ... all those decks do this (with DDFT averaging turns 2-4) and are very resilient to discard.

That being said, I REALLY want to play around with the card. It will probably be a tier 2 deck BUT there may be some sick things that you can do with the card and some strange interactions available in this format as opposed to Extended. TEPS was sick there, and I would really like the chance to test it out (if nothing more than just a wish target) because I love that card but as things are now it is strictly inferior to DD and AdN.

Gush needs to stay on the list. Trust me on this, we would see a LOT more Landstill and, while I love playing against that deck because combo wrecks it, I just don't want people playing decks that consistently go to time and drag tournaments on even longer. And if you gave DDFT Gush ... fuck, it would be one of the most degenerate things ever, you don't want to give DD free draw spells, resources would go to a bare minimum and the amount of jacked up situations it could get out of AND enable a disgusting amount of faster wins for that deck, either drawing into the stack or in the DD stack itself ... wow, I would absolutely love that shit but, it would go right back on the banned list quick fast and in a hurry! Not to mention what it could do for the Lands! and Loam variants.

dahcmai

12-11-2010, 01:52 AM

Cough*

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?14662-All-B-R-update-speculation/page33

Meekrab

12-11-2010, 02:01 AM

Mind Twist wouldn't be played, at least not by anyone trying to win. It was banned from Vintage in 1996 and then unbanned in 2000 and finally unrestricted in 2007. Mind Twist was relevant back when you could stall the game out with Moat or whatever for a million turns and then build up a googleplex mana to discard your opponent's whole hand with counter backup and then cast a Serra Angel and swing 5 times. These days we have what, 3 different 1-mana discard spells that let you see your opponents' hand? I really doubt there's any deck that actually wants Mind Twist. Unban it til someone proves me wrong.

Mind's Desire would be fucked in half retarded good. I'm pretty sure this doesn't need to be debated, but playing a bunch of spells for free is good.

Has any one thought about Gush?

Theres no fastbond in legacy, I don't see it as being degenerate, but helping the under performing doomsday decks.
And so is drawing cards for negative mana cost. You don't need Fastbond to make Gush stupid, you just need a storm combo deck with Islands. Oh hay thar TES. The fact that it both produces mana AND draws cards on Turn 3 is what makes it so clearly in need of staying banned.

Land Tax is so weak it's hilarious. Deck Parfait was never designed to handle Storm combo. I'd love to see it try, though. Unban.

Library of Alexandria might be able to be unbanned. It's a nonbasic land, it's got a very strong restriction, and the fact there just aren't that many of them will keep it from ever becoming a huge problem.

Mana Drain is my personal pet card that couldn't possibly HURT Legacy. Nobody in this format hardcasts counterspells that cost more than U, because all of them suck. All of them. This one doesn't. Why can't we play with the jellyfishes? Because I might actually have enough mana to Mindslaver someone? :(

aahz

12-11-2010, 12:12 PM

This is what I hope we'll see on the 20th:

Changes to Legacy:
Unbanned: Frantic Search
Watch List: Survival of the Fittest, Vengevine
This ought to keep everyone relatively happy. It admits that there is data that supports a possible problem with the interaction between Vengevine and Survival and says we're on top of it, but want more data before acting. This implicitly acknowledges that the time to ban is March. By then the evidence will be overwhelming that a ban in needed (or it won't and then banning would have been the wrong move in any case). As for Frantic Search, it came off the Vintage restricted list and has had virtually zero impact (though I have seen a few lists that run 2-3 copies). And this is a format where it can untap Tolarian Academy. I think they were testing the waters, and from my perspective it looks safe. Since it costs 3 mana, I don't see it causing any big issues with speed even though it is "free" if you've got 3 land in play (i.e. turn 3). Theoretically, it boosts design space and could lead to more format diversity. It also potentially helps deal with Vengevival because it boosts High Tide decks that might be easier to play than Tendrils combo. Similar reasoning could be used to argue for unbanning Gush, but I don't think the DCI will (or should) do that just yet. Gush has impacted Vintage since it's unrestriction, but I don't think the effect in Legacy would be the same at all. But maybe in March we'll find out.

Catitas

12-11-2010, 05:28 PM

Frantic search will never be unbanned decks like solidarity would dominate the format...

median

12-11-2010, 06:09 PM

Mana Drain

12-11-2010, 06:10 PM

Library of Alexandria might be able to be unbanned. It's a nonbasic land, it's got a very strong restriction, and the fact there just aren't that many of them will keep it from ever becoming a huge problem.

T1: Library, go.
T2: Tap Library, Draw, Tundra, STP your dude, go.
T3: Tap Library, Draw, Land, do something controlish, go.
T4: Tap Library, Draw, Land...

Uncounterable card advantage every turn on a card that just so happens to be non-Legendary and oh yeah, it taps for mana. Also, it would force people to either 1) Play Combo 2) Play Merfolk or 3) Sell an organ to buy a playset of Library.

Mana Drain is my personal pet card that couldn't possibly HURT Legacy. Nobody in this format hardcasts counterspells that cost more than U, because all of them suck. All of them. This one doesn't. Why can't we play with the jellyfishes? Because I might actually have enough mana to Mindslaver someone?

T1: Land, go.
T2: Land, go. Counter your 1/2/3 drop.
T3: Land, Jace/FoF/Gifts/Elspeth/Moat/Humility/WoG/Deed+Activation/Shackles+Activation/Removal+Standstill/some disgusting play.

Don't get me wrong though, I say a prayer every night to Zombie Jesus that he may someday unban the most awesome of counters. It's a shame that Vintage is so stagnant right now, otherwise I would gladly be Draining spells in it.

Free Land Tax, Earthcraft, Time Spiral, and Mind Twist. None of them will see the light of a Legacy Top 8 anyway.

dahcmai

12-11-2010, 07:16 PM

Oh Land Tax would. I know exactly the deck I would put it in already and it's pretty competitive as is. It screams for that card so much.

emidln

12-11-2010, 07:33 PM

I'd like to see Frantic Search come off to give me something else to goldfish besides Tendrils. 12 cantrip Spring Tide with Scrolls would be an absolute blast. As is, relying on Cloud of Faeries/Snap is sketchy.

FieryBalrog

12-11-2010, 10:22 PM

Mind Twist wouldn't be played, at least not by anyone trying to win. It was banned from Vintage in 1996 and then unbanned in 2000 and finally unrestricted in 2007. Mind Twist was relevant back when you could stall the game out with Moat or whatever for a million turns and then build up a googleplex mana to discard your opponent's whole hand with counter backup and then cast a Serra Angel and swing 5 times. These days we have what, 3 different 1-mana discard spells that let you see your opponents' hand? I really doubt there's any deck that actually wants Mind Twist. Unban it til someone proves me wrong.

Mind's Desire would be fucked in half retarded good. I'm pretty sure this doesn't need to be debated, but playing a bunch of spells for free is good.

And so is drawing cards for negative mana cost. You don't need Fastbond to make Gush stupid, you just need a storm combo deck with Islands. Oh hay thar TES. The fact that it both produces mana AND draws cards on Turn 3 is what makes it so clearly in need of staying banned.

Land Tax is so weak it's hilarious. Deck Parfait was never designed to handle Storm combo. I'd love to see it try, though. Unban.

Library of Alexandria might be able to be unbanned. It's a nonbasic land, it's got a very strong restriction, and the fact there just aren't that many of them will keep it from ever becoming a huge problem.

Mana Drain is my personal pet card that couldn't possibly HURT Legacy. Nobody in this format hardcasts counterspells that cost more than U, because all of them suck. All of them. This one doesn't. Why can't we play with the jellyfishes? Because I might actually have enough mana to Mindslaver someone? :(

Blue definitely doesn't need a boost and we don't need to discourage people even more from playing high CC spells. Also I don't want to pay another $300 to play a control deck.

dontbiteitholmes

12-11-2010, 11:50 PM

Oh Land Tax would. I know exactly the deck I would put it in already and it's pretty competitive as is. It screams for that card so much.

LOL, decklist please.

Meekrab

12-13-2010, 04:38 PM

Blue definitely doesn't need a boost and we don't need to discourage people even more from playing high CC spells. Also I don't want to pay another $300 to play a control deck.
You say 'blue' doesn't need a boost like Landstill or Solidarity are running over the format. Tempo decks can't really play Mana Drain. In a vacuum, I understand the objection to 'making blue stronger' but the type of 'blue' decks that are dominant right now wouldn't have much use for a card that requires them to keep UU open to be useful. And nobody cares about your budget, least of all the DCI, or they would've banned Goyf, Jace, Grim Tutor, and dual lands already.

JamieW89

12-13-2010, 05:59 PM

I'm all for unbanning alot of cards. I'd prefer a more combo/control based metagame anyways.

dahcmai

12-13-2010, 06:20 PM

I really hate dealing with Mana Drain. That card is just scary. If you get the wrong thing countered, it just blows you out of the water. I used to purposely hit Force of will just to get that 5 mana. I don't want to see that thing in Legacy and I own a set. I played enough Vintage to know how strong it is.

emidln

12-13-2010, 07:08 PM

Not can tempo decks like Thresh and Team America play Mana Drain, but they will use their drain mana to enable casting Jace.

jazzykat

12-14-2010, 04:51 AM

Mana Drain might be too powerful with the printing of Jace 2.0. Without Jace2.0 I would have said what the heck, but now that I fully get how insane he is and how any extra colorless can be used to pay Daze and Spell Pierce I am not sure if it can get the nod and I have a full english NM playset as well!

Gush is quite interesting though and may open up some interesting design space with Exploration/Fastbond, along the Coatl/Dryad traditional routes, or with the landfall mechanic. Honestly, I would love to see it unbanned assuming it wouldn't cause anything too degenerate to shake out. I mean we do have Vengevival, what's a little Gush action?

Volrath

12-14-2010, 05:56 AM

Mana Drain into Fact or Fiction is downright frightening. Drain inot Jace 2.0 is devastating.
The horror's that will come to pass if Drain is unbanned are terrifying, keep it there.

Tax and Earthcraft on the other hand, shoud come of.But i'm yust the 10000000th guy mentioning it:rolleyes:

FieryBalrog

12-14-2010, 08:16 AM

And nobody cares about your budget, least of all the DCI
Too bad for you mana drain continues to be banned then.

Rico Suave

12-14-2010, 06:16 PM

Haha people suggest the most ridiculous things to unban. Mind's Desire? Library? Mana Drain? You have no idea what you're smoking if you think any of these should be allowed in the Legacy format.

Lemnear

12-14-2010, 06:35 PM

Yeah ban Survival and unleash Desire ... that will balance the format *facepalm*

menace13

12-14-2010, 06:48 PM

Haha people suggest the most ridiculous things to unban. Mind's Desire? Library? Mana Drain? You have no idea what you're smoking if you think any of these should be allowed in the Legacy format.

Pff. Those are perfectly fine as long as Bazaar,Oath and Mystical are there.

JCLe

12-14-2010, 07:58 PM

I really don't feel like seeing mind twist unbanned, it will see play in TES (sb) or storm post sb, where dark ritual/LED + mind twist becomes card advantage...

Frantic search in spring tide would indeed be quite a blast !, If they ban a piece of survival it will re-balance anyway : they could realistically unban frantic search with the resurgence of CB decks / merfolk.

anonymos

12-14-2010, 11:12 PM

Honestly, I'd love to see no changes made one way or the other. I think that would be Wizards way of going "you broke your format, now fix it so we don't have to". It'd give us another chance to stop whining and knock survival off it's horse.

TheDarkshineKnight

12-14-2010, 11:34 PM

Oh Land Tax would. I know exactly the deck I would put it in already and it's pretty competitive as is. It screams for that card so much.

DID SOMEBODY SAY QUINN?

I thought I heard someone say Quinn. >_>

javert

12-15-2010, 12:09 AM

edgarps22

12-15-2010, 12:47 AM

I can tell you from experience that Elves plus Skullclamp = bad idea for legacy. Glimpse might seem like its strong, but trust me when I say that Skullclamp would be much much much worse. Skullclamp + Wirewood Herald + active Priest of Titania + any number of elves in play equals game in the blink of an eye as they can hit critical mass by turn 4, stop combo with chalices, and stomp on any countertop strategy before it really gets the chance to set up.

Meekrab

12-15-2010, 12:47 AM

I really don't feel like seeing mind twist unbanned, it will see play in TES (sb) or storm post sb, where dark ritual/LED + mind twist becomes card advantage...
Dark Ritual into Mind Twist? Really?

I'm just going to pretend you didn't suggest using LED to cast Mind Twist, because that's even funnier.

Pastorofmuppets

12-15-2010, 02:48 AM

Unban Skullclamp, I have a set already.

Valrina

12-15-2010, 03:06 AM

Why is Skullclamp still in the ban list? Much like Mind twist or Hypnotic specter, the decks that use Skullclamp aren't the ultimate brokeness anymore. Affinity is no longer the most scary aggro deck and now even one - drops have two or three thoughness. Although the card draw is undeniably good, by the time it becomes a relevant engine in Legacy it's already the late game and the deck looks midrange. Against any good combo deck, Skullclamp is a card as dead as Jitte and against control skullclamp wouldn't help a lot once a Countertop lock or some powerful enchantment like Moat is online. Elves remain as the most likely suspect to abuse it but, hey if even with Glimpse it's a laughable deck then having just another redundant card won't make it that much better. If it became tier 1, would it be bad to have another deck joining the gaunglet?

Ok....

Everyone who said the words: Oath, Skullclamp, Minds Desire, and Gush in one sentence with the word "unban" please get into line here in front of me to get a kick into your nuts.... Seriously ? You ever played one of this cards ?

Gush just makes about every Tempo and Combo Deck one turn faster... I played it for fun in my merfolk at the kitchen table and it was so sick...and thats not even the deck gaining most out of it.

Minds Desire: I am not even willing to talk about that card... desire into desire is auto win, always its not just drawing cards, there is no restriction in 1.5 and 4 desire basicly allow you to drop your deck on the table.

Skullclamp, jeah there are no decks that are tribal based ...like elves merfolk, goblin, oh and affinity isnt around anymore, and last I heared noone played creature decks like D&T and Zoo, besides all that wizards would never print a card like 2 mana search a scullclamp,1 manan play it uncounterable and get crazy with it....................................... no wait........

Oath, jeah I heared Combodecks that have like 20-24 slots for removal are pretty good, nah...maybe I am mistaken.

guys guys... how should anybody take youserious if you suggest stuff like that.

Bahamuth

12-15-2010, 04:34 AM

Could someone explain to me why people get completely terrified when it comes to unbanning Mind's Desire, while we have a card right now that costs one mana less and wins the game just as hard as Desire does? Although you can't run more than like 3 AdN and the card becomes worse at lower life, costing one less definitely makes up for that. Uncounterability is only partially the case, as ramping up to 6 mana will leave you vulnerable to counters, and because you can still counter the IT or BW. Don't get me wrong. I would understand it if the card wouldn't get unbanned, but it's really not as bad as you make it to be.

Rico Suave

12-15-2010, 06:02 AM

Grollub

12-15-2010, 10:40 AM

Another way to look at it is Ad Nauseam is "just" drawing cards, Desire is drawing and casting them - in other words Ad Nauseam is just fuel and Desire is both fuel and an engine (and a virtual uncounterable one at that too). Besides, Desire was a beast even in the strictly inferior Snap engine - letting it loose in an envioment like legacy is like letting a wolf into a flock of lambs.

Gui

12-15-2010, 10:59 AM

About Earthcraft, I think Enchantress would be pleased to solve their kill condition dilema with it, and I think it would be way too powerful there so that I really don't think it will be unbanned.

FieryBalrog

12-15-2010, 11:01 AM

Yea, if uncounterability (and lack of vulnerability to any answer cards in general) was no big deal combo decks wouldn't jump through hoops to cast 9 spells in a turn for Tendrils aka the best combo win condition ever.

FieryBalrog

12-15-2010, 11:03 AM

About Earthcraft, I think Enchantress would be pleased to solve their kill condition dilema with it, and I think it would be way too powerful there so that I really don't think it will be unbanned.

I'm pretty skeptical that Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest would overpower Enchantress. Both are pretty mediocre on their own and it already has a pretty nice win con in Sigil of the Empty Throne.

Gui

12-15-2010, 11:13 AM

I'm pretty skeptical that Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest would overpower Enchantress. Both are pretty mediocre on their own and it already has a pretty nice win con in Sigil of the Empty Throne.

Hmmm... I see... but Earthcraft is faster than Sigil and has the secondary ability of accelerating the deck.
I'm skeptical about people claiming for its unban not being the ones that are willing to abuse it. xD

1maarten1

12-15-2010, 11:17 AM

Nameless One also talked about Goblin Recruiter, whats everybody's opinion on that? Is the format ready for food-chain goblins?

Gui

12-15-2010, 11:23 AM

Nameless One also talked about Goblin Recruiter, whats everybody's opinion on that? Is the format ready for food-chain goblins?

IMO, the only unbannable card from his post is Mind Twist, but I'm afraid of missing something and fail to understand its power, so I would be flattered with an explanation ^^

wcm8

12-15-2010, 11:31 AM

Hmmm... I see... but Earthcraft is faster than Sigil and has the secondary ability of accelerating the deck.
I'm skeptical about people claiming for its unban not being the ones that are willing to abuse it. xD

Enchantress would just use Sacred Mesa. It's not too bad on its own, and would function essentially the same as squirrels nest. Forest w/ wild growth + Mesa + earthcraft = win next turn. The rest of the deck would focus on stalling until it could establish this combo. Enchantress could become top tier, and I still don't think it's overpowered since the combo is relatively fragile.

Gheizen64

12-15-2010, 11:34 AM

Hmmm... I see... but Earthcraft is faster than Sigil and has the secondary ability of accelerating the deck.
I'm skeptical about people claiming for its unban not being the ones that are willing to abuse it. xD

Accellerate the deck when you play 4 creatures? ._.

Earthcraft make for a nice combo with mesa but honestly even that use strike me as win more (Enchantress already easily do 5+ pegasi a turn with a Sanctum alone). Squirrel nest is unplayable by itself and wouldn't be played even with Earthcraft.

Earthcraft would at most push some T2 decks into T1.5, and that's it. Twist is useless. Tax is decent but scroll rack + Tax is so slow and worse than countertop as a card-advantage engine i can't see any reason why the card's still banned.

Recruiter would make Goblin a better version of Vengevival decks, i'll say no thx.

dontbiteitholmes

12-15-2010, 11:41 AM

Ad Nauseam isn't a Mind's Desire. It's really not even close. If you're just going to write off things like being entirely uncounterable as a minor thing, it doesn't sound like you're asking for an explanation so much as not accepting the one right in front of you.

This. Ad Nauseum into another Ad Nauseum loses you the game. Mind's Desire into another Mind's Desire + whatever other storm boosters you flip is just another nail in the coffin.

I'm pretty skeptical that Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest would overpower Enchantress. Both are pretty mediocre on their own and it already has a pretty nice win con in Sigil of the Empty Throne.

Ewww, Enchantess would never play Squirrel's Nest LOL. We already play 7-8x Wild Growth Effects so we would just switch over to Sacred Mesa instead of Sigil or in addition to Sigil. Sacred Mesa + a double growthed land + Earthcraft = infinite mana and infinite tokens or single growthed land + EarthCraft + Mesa = just infinite tokens. Anyone who has ever played against Enchantress can tell you double Growthed land is the rule not the exception. Not to mention Earthcraft is never dead as it usually will draw cards off Enchantress effects and it turns your Argothian Enchantresses into super mana dorks since they never attack and rarely block anyways. Argothian Enchantress, Wild Growth, draw, Earthcraft, draw, untap land tap for mana another Enchantress, draw, untap lands, play more growth effects, draw, draw, play Sacred Mesa, infinite tokens + mana, play entire deck and burn you out with Words of War. Not saying it's too broken to ever come unbanned but it's far from as safe as people seem to think. As an Enchantress player I would obviously play it and I don't think it's safe enough to unban just on what it could do for Enchantress alone. I didn't even think about it before but Dovescape might even be maindeckable at that point and that could get pretty stupid quickly since Earthcraft + Enchantress + Dovescape is pretty much GG every time. Enchantress would definitely change quite a bit to say the least, and you'd be hardpressed to talk anyone into playing Squirrel Nest when it's 10000x worse than Mesa or Dovescape.

nodahero

12-15-2010, 11:53 AM

I think Mindtwist can easily come off the list.
Go ahead and unban Earthcraft.
I think Vengevine and Survival should hang out where they are.

As for Recruiter... I think it could be unbanned and not break the format. The problem I see is the time it would eat up arranging the proper order to just keep chaining goblins.

Same goes for Landtax essentially as Recruiter.

GexxX

12-15-2010, 11:54 AM

Ok....

Everyone who said the words: Oath, Skullclamp, Minds Desire, and Gush in one sentence with the word "unban" please get into line here in front of me to get a kick into your nuts.... Seriously ? You ever played one of this cards ?

Gush just makes about every Tempo and Combo Deck one turn faster... I played it for fun in my merfolk at the kitchen table and it was so sick...and thats not even the deck gaining most out of it.

Minds Desire: I am not even willing to talk about that card... desire into desire is auto win, always its not just drawing cards, there is no restriction in 1.5 and 4 desire basicly allow you to drop your deck on the table.

Skullclamp, jeah there are no decks that are tribal based ...like elves merfolk, goblin, oh and affinity isnt around anymore, and last I heared noone played creature decks like D&T and Zoo, besides all that wizards would never print a card like 2 mana search a scullclamp,1 manan play it uncounterable and get crazy with it....................................... no wait........

Oath, jeah I heared Combodecks that have like 20-24 slots for removal are pretty good, nah...maybe I am mistaken.

guys guys... how should anybody take youserious if you suggest stuff like that.

I think you really have a point here.
Playing a Deck with Mind's Desire (even though unpowered) in Vintage just makes you realize how incredibly awesome this card might get.
What no one here seems to get is that the main differences between AdN and MD are:
1. AdN makes you pay life -> your curve has to be low -> less tendrils, AdN, IGG you want to flip (or more time to go off, since you don't die that fast) -> 4MD,3ToA,2IGG -> ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!?
2. it is blue -> FoW
3. Your flips are way less likely to fail assuming that you play a bunch of ToA's, considering that flipping 2BB + IT wins you the game pretty much.
4. sort of immunity to counters, because of storm mechanic.
5. You just do not really care if you have floating mana after MD... What do you need it for anyways...
6. If it fails in an early state of the game it still leaves you with plenty life and most likely some cantrips & disruption to bombard the opponent with...

Seriously? I'd love to put 4of those cuties in my Storm Combo-Deck to go nuts with it. (I'd definitely play them!!!)

Oath is just even more insane, being a ~6-10 Card Combo, that is ready turn 2, going nuts turn 3 with so much protection AND most likely a big, fat emrakul that can not be hit by StoP and recurrs with Oath, all by itself... COME ON!!!

rufus

12-15-2010, 11:57 AM

Nameless One also talked about Goblin Recruiter, whats everybody's opinion on that? Is the format ready for food-chain goblins?

Well, they've printed an all-goblin combo finish:
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker,Lightning Crafter,Skirk Prospector

While the CC of that list looks bit high, Skirk Prospector,Mogg War Marshal, and Goblin Warchief, combined with Goblin Ringleaders is a ridiculously potent all-goblin mana production scheme, and the Gobbos do have plenty of ways to cheat cards into play.

And, really, while Skirk Prospector,Mogg War Marshal, and Lighting Crafter are possibly marginal, the rest are quite potent even without the combo, and most are quite nice with Food Chain too.

I really don't think there will be that many permutations of sort order to consider once the fastest ramp & kill stuff has been worked out once.

I suppose it would encourage people to chase those blatant chase cards even more, but it's probably not healthy for the format.

Sims

12-15-2010, 12:33 PM

As for Recruiter... I think it could be unbanned and not break the format. The problem I see is the time it would eat up arranging the proper order to just keep chaining goblins.

What time does this eat up? The recruiter stacks are not difficult to make and shouldn't take much time at all aside from teh shuffling. Not to mention since you're normally doing this turn 2-4, your games aren't taking long. If the opponent can survive an onslaught of 4 piledrivers, multiple tokens, warchiefs/chieftans, etc.. on say turn 3? Oh, you some how cheated a moat onto the table? That's fine, I've got Skirk Prospector, Siege Gang Commander, and Goblin Sharpshooter. You're still dying, this turn.

If the deck didn't face disruption this happened consistantly betweens turn 3-4, and even if they strip your Food Chain, you're basically playing Vial Goblins. Swarm and turn em sideways.

(nameless one)

12-15-2010, 02:26 PM

Back in my casual days, when Legacy was still Type 1.5, I used to have a Gobvantage deck. You can beat someone with turn 3 Recruiter to Ringleader, Piledriver, Piledriver, Piledriver, Prospector.. I cant remember the exact sequence but it was that hard. Given that that was before Siege-Gang Commanders joined the Goblin gang.

I also think Goblin Recruiter would be too good for the format. I only added it on the opening post because it was included by Stephen Menendian's Unban article about the same time last year.

Its funny because at around the same time, Skullclamp wasn't really considered broken. Maybe it was just underplayed back in those days (compared to Jitte). Remember that Crazy88.dec?

Sims

12-15-2010, 02:36 PM

I do, and it was no where near the most borked application of Clamp.

Also, to anyone who thinks that Survival/vine is too strong or fast right now and thinks the unbanning of Recruiter is a good idea:

You're crazy.

wcm8

12-15-2010, 02:43 PM

The more I think about it, the more likely it seems Earthcraft should come off the banned list. These days, a slow, easily disruptable combo isn't that frightening. There are plenty of two/three card combos that win on the spot (eg: painter stone), and there are also plenty of cards that essentially win the game if they resolve (doomsday, ad nauseum, show and tell, natural order). Even if it were to become a common archetype, there is already a relevant answer that any deck could run: pithing needle. This card may have been broken in the past, but it hardly seems that bad anymore.

emidln

12-15-2010, 03:36 PM

Squirrelcraft isn't the scary part of Earthcraft. Glimpse Elves is the scary part of Earthcraft, although it's well worth arguing that Earthcraft solves a problem (easy generation of mana) that elves doesn't really have (they have tons of mana, but only have glimpse to use it). This might be more of an issue if we had Skullclamp to back up Glimpse for Elves, but then you'd probably be more concerned about the problem that clamp is causing due to elves being an extremely consistent turn 2 combo deck that sidesteps hate via lords and unfavorable blocks caused by clamp than you would be about streamlining its ability to combo once it already has glimpse or clamp.

<EDIT> RE: Desire:

Desire costs 6 mana, two of that blue, or 8 mana if you want to use LED (assuming IT/BW). Ad Nauseam is only a mana less, but that it doesn't require you to have blue mana, of which there is no good way of obtaining outside of LED, makes it really hard to cast. Desire fizzles much more often than AdN unless you load up your deck with a bajillion Tendrils, in which case you now get forced mulls more often (for anyone who's played ANT, try to think of a time when you were happy to have drawn a Tendrils/Ill-Gotten Gains over a Ponder/Brainstorm/Preordain/SDT (games vs Landstill for Tendrils and Suicide Black for IGG don't count). If you are still thinking about it, I'll give you a hint: it's extremely uncommon. You want those cantrips instead of your clunky win conditions because your cantrips find relevant stuff.

About uncounterability: In extended when TEPS was big, Stifle was heavily played. In Legacy, Stifle sees a very high amount of play. Further, decks without stifle are unlikely to let you resolve acceleration when they know 6 is a deadly number.

The best application of Mind's Desire in Legacy is in the wishboard of storm decks so they have something better than Diminishing Returns. I'm not saying that this isn't powerful as fuck, but I'd be willing to bet that you don't see a dominate Tendrils deck with 4 Desire in it if Desire were to be unbanned.

Jonathan Alexander

12-15-2010, 03:50 PM

Earthcraft is definitely safe for Legacy. As is Mind Twist. Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest isn't exactly incredible.
Earthcraft in Enchantress is too gimicky in my opinion. The deck doesn't need any two-card combos to be good, and it has enough good wincons, namely Sigil Of The Empty Throne and Emrakul. I really like those new lists with Chrome Mox and Living Wish. A mana-intensive combo really isn't what the deck wants, as it wins against aggro anyway. Control can be tough, but there are generally better cards for Enchantress to bring against control, basically any must-counter cards. Enchantress' problem is winning against combo, and a slow combo doesn't really help here either. What does it matter when you have a turn four/five(?) combo and they can go off without problems on turn two or three? Enchantress doesn't even have proper hate to bring in against combo, unless they're packing hatebears. Combo can just go off in the face of everything else and then bounce it with one of the two or three bounce spells they brought in, they can find it off Ad Nauseam anyway.
I agree with emidln on Earthcraft in Elves. It basically is the same as in Enchantress: the card solves a non-existing problem.

Mind Twist is just too slow for the format. Hymn To Tourach is way better, and even that one rarely sees any play. The times when you can cast Mind Twist for X>2 are the times when your opponent doesn't have that many cards in hand anyway. It's not like we need a card to break the control-mirror, the first one to find Jace, The Mind Sculptor is going to win anyway. Since control mirrors would basically be the only matchups where Mind Twist would matter, it wouldn't be worth playing, as it's rather bad in most other matchups.

Most of the other cards that have been mentioned at least have the potential to be ridiculously broken. I'm sure I would enjoy playing with four copies of Mind's Desire, but since there are a lot of people complaining about Survival, I don't think they'd like being crushed by Mind's Desire. Skullclamp might actually be too slow for the format right now, but I don't think Goblins need another combo-finish. The card can do lots of shit, but it sure isn't as broken as it used to be, though you have to consider the new face of Affinity with Mox Opal and Memnite.

Edit, after emidln's edit:
Mind's Desire's main hindrance is its mana cost, I absolutely agree. Unlike with Ad Nauseam you can't pull off any random turn one or two kills anymore, like Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Ad Nauseam. Being uncounterable also doesn't really work when you almost always have to tutor for it and have to crack Lion's Eye Diamond to pay for it. It makes you even more vulnerable, as your engine can now be neutered with both, countermagic and Stifle.

Rico Suave

12-15-2010, 03:58 PM

Recruiter and Skullclamp are fun if you enjoy it even when the aggro decks combo you out on turn 3.

EDIT - Desire is retarded broken. Why are we even arguing this? The format could adapt to Ancestral Recall too by running 4 Mis-D and 4 Divert in every deck...but nobody actually wants to play that format. Ever. It's stupid. And having to play boatloads of Stifle and Trickbind just to try and beat Mind's Desire, even though it probably wouldn't beat a tuned list anyway, is just retarded.

If you think a Desire deck would look anything like a modern Tendrils deck, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken.

Jonathan Alexander

12-15-2010, 04:03 PM

Recruiter and Skullclamp are fun if you enjoy it even when the aggro decks combo you out on turn 3.

People not liking being comboed out by aggro decks is responsible for the whole misery we're facing. This exactly what Vengevine Survival does, and Goblins would do that even better, no matter whether you unban Skullclamp or Goblin Recruiter. Both of these cards would give Goblins an almost ensured win after they resolve. There's no need for aggro decks that can consistently race storm combo. If you're looking to do that, try out Naya Sligh. That deck is fast as hell, but at least it's a glass cannon. Goblins is way more resilient.

dontbiteitholmes

12-15-2010, 05:21 PM

Earthcraft is definitely safe for Legacy. As is Mind Twist. Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest isn't exactly incredible.
Earthcraft in Enchantress is too gimicky in my opinion. The deck doesn't need any two-card combos to be good, and it has enough good wincons, namely Sigil Of The Empty Throne and Emrakul. I really like those new lists with Chrome Mox and Living Wish. A mana-intensive combo really isn't what the deck wants, as it wins against aggro anyway. Control can be tough, but there are generally better cards for Enchantress to bring against control, basically any must-counter cards. Enchantress' problem is winning against combo, and a slow combo doesn't really help here either. What does it matter when you have a turn four/five(?) combo and they can go off without problems on turn two or three? Enchantress doesn't even have proper hate to bring in against combo, unless they're packing hatebears. Combo can just go off in the face of everything else and then bounce it with one of the two or three bounce spells they brought in, they can find it off Ad Nauseam anyway.
I agree with emidln on Earthcraft in Elves. It basically is the same as in Enchantress: the card solves a non-existing problem.

I can't trust your judgement on Enchantress when everything you seem to think about it is pretty off base.
Emrakul is a garbage win-con in Enchantress, pretty much agreed on at this point. Sigil is okay but Words of War is the best wincon in the deck hands down.
Living Wish version is trash, speaking of a non-existing problem. Hey let me slow myself down a turn to tutor for a wish target and waste valuable mana and sideboard space. Mirri's Guile > Living Wish 100x over.
Earthcraft would be good because it would never really be dead. It would draw cards under enchantress, it would add mana with Argothians, and it would mean infinite mana and tokens under Sacred Mesa, not to mention making your deck a beast under Dovescape. This is all for adding maybe 1 or 2 Earthcrafts MD. It could speed up the deck quite a bit and allow it to basically go infinite out of nowhere where it currently can't. Enchantress is already a pretty good deck. It could be safe but I wouldn't go so far as to say it would be completely safe as the design of Enchantress could go many different ways with Earthcraft legal, including ways no-one is talking about.

FieryBalrog

12-15-2010, 11:13 PM

kicks_422

12-16-2010, 12:18 AM

Just for discussion's sake on the Mind's Desire thing... Can anyone actually post the best list that they can whip up using the card?

Jonathan Alexander

12-16-2010, 03:33 AM

Just for discussion's sake on the Mind's Desire thing... Can anyone actually post the best list that they can whip up using the card?

Like emidln pointed out its best use probably is being played in the wishboard of TES in place of Diminishing Returns. The issue with Mind's Desire is that you become much slower than combo decks are right now and become more vulnerable to mulligans since you definitely don't want more than one Mind's Desire in your opening hand. When playing Mind's Desire you really want to reach as much storm as possible, and missing one card can be crucial here. Having to mull can also mean that you're mssing important mana sources. Like I said before, you don't want to cast Mind's Desire off Infernal Tutor or Burning Wish, 'cause that makes you vulnerable to countermagic again.
The probability to cast Mind's Desire into complete Bullshit isn't that low either.

Bahamuth

12-16-2010, 03:50 AM

Ad Nauseam isn't a Mind's Desire. It's really not even close. If you're just going to write off things like being entirely uncounterable as a minor thing, it doesn't sound like you're asking for an explanation so much as not accepting the one right in front of you.

The card is not uncounterable, because you have to ramp up to 6 mana to do it. And you can't use the most powerful ramp we have in the format, LED, to do so. I'm calling the uncounterability a minor effect because it will often be minor.

This. Ad Nauseum into another Ad Nauseum loses you the game. Mind's Desire into another Mind's Desire + whatever other storm boosters you flip is just another nail in the coffin.

This is irrelevant. What matters is how often resolving a Desire is going to win you a game. If you resolve a Desire without using IT\BW as an engine, you are likely to hit 5-6 storm at most. This is going to fizzle in so many situations. You either need to hit another Desire, or you need a ton of mana and an engine. Chances of getting a Desire in the top 6 cards, given like 45 cards left are about 15%. That's just awful. Ad Nauseam does much better than that.

EDIT - Desire is retarded broken. Why are we even arguing this? The format could adapt to Ancestral Recall too by running 4 Mis-D and 4 Divert in every deck...but nobody actually wants to play that format. Ever. It's stupid. And having to play boatloads of Stifle and Trickbind just to try and beat Mind's Desire, even though it probably wouldn't beat a tuned list anyway, is just retarded.

If you think a Desire deck would look anything like a modern Tendrils deck, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken.

Thanks for your solid argumentation on this subject. You got me here. I have no other choice than to give in and acknowledge you're completely right. After all, how could anyone seems even slightly credible after this extraordinary showing of rational force.

Valrina

12-16-2010, 04:55 AM

The card is not uncounterable, because you have to ramp up to 6 mana to do it. And you can't use the most powerful ramp we have in the format, LED, to do so. I'm calling the uncounterability a minor effect because it will often be minor.

This is irrelevant. What matters is how often resolving a Desire is going to win you a game. If you resolve a Desire without using IT\BW as an engine, you are likely to hit 5-6 storm at most. This is going to fizzle in so many situations. You either need to hit another Desire, or you need a ton of mana and an engine. Chances of getting a Desire in the top 6 cards, given like 45 cards left are about 15%. That's just awful. Ad Nauseam does much better than that.
.

The card is way harder to hate...countering one copy rarely does much, Stifle is not as common as FoW. Also it allows you to play the spells without mana ... so stroming into enough engine often is enough.

Also the chance to hit a secound desire at 6 Cards is 40 % at 45 cards in your deck. If you run into it you have a secound Desire with an even higher stormcount, so if you hit this 40% you can basicly play your whole deck in this turn . Note that it is not even needed to hit the desire, there are also a chance like 10 % to hit finisher and mana, and about 30 % to run into mana + tutor or Wish. This is a I win button in 80 % not taking into account any tutors,wishes,finishers or draw you may have in hand, draw you storm into with desire, or LED you may have on the board which higher the percentage even more, and dont get me started about deckls with DD. Last I checked that is way better than AdN. Skill required to pull it of ? 0%?

Is this simple mathwork enough to show you the power of MindD ? ^^

edit: I just realised since you play it free its enough to hit only the finisher and the other spells you hit are irrelevant as long as they are no lands.... the chance to hit a finisher with 2 in the deck at 45 cards with storm 6 is 26 % , taking that into account the chance of winning with a resolved Desire6 at 45 cards is really nearly 100 ^^..okok not really 100 you could draw 4+ lands at a chance of 2% so... jeah worst engine ever lol

Vacrix

12-16-2010, 05:32 AM

Keep in mind that cards like these were strong in the past. The metagame has gotten much stronger since the days when Squirrel Craft was a good deck.
Then again, unbanning cards prevents wizards from printing certain cards in the future that have a potentially dangerous interaction.

Earthcraft is safe.
Mindtwist is safe. I can imagine Mind Twist being beastly in some sort of G/b elves variant.
Minds Desire IS safe but I doubt that Wizards wants TES to get any better than it already is right now.

However, if Wizards unbanned both Mana Drain and Mind's Desire then both Landstill and TES would get significantly better, evening out the balance. This actually ought to happen anyway given that Wizards is seeing a large increase in the number of Survival decks around, and frankly, they are pissing everyone off. Making Landstill better would cut down on combo, and Mind's Desire would make TES that much better as well, providing a rather balanced metagame.

On the topic of a potential variant for Mind's Desire.dec

Sure it would probably exist.. but would it be much better than DDFT? I think not. I would never agree to this if Mystical Tutor were still legal, but now that its banned, I can safely say that Mind's Desire won't rip a fat hole in the format.

Gui

12-16-2010, 05:48 AM

Just for discussion's sake on the Mind's Desire thing... Can anyone actually post the best list that they can whip up using the card?
Try asking Emidln, I'm sure he'll handle you a list that cannot be beaten by current legacy unless maybe by some Dreadstill variant.

Secondly, Earthcraft is emphatically mediocre without it's combo piece twin. The deck runs a whopping 4 creatures to "accelerate"; it'll be nice when it happens but the other 70% of the time you have it with no Argothian out it's entirely useless. Saying it'll draw a card off the engine is nothing, so does every enchantment in the game.
You said you play enchantress, so what you are saying is that you wouldn't run Earthcraft, was it unbanned, right?
I'm sure the 70% of the time where you don't have Argothian, you still might have Sacred Mesa/Dovescape 40% of that time and combo with it by turn 3, or simply let it stick while you fetch its counterparts. I mean, maybe it's not INSANE STRONG, but I don't see any Enchantress playing without it, was it unbanned.

Vacrix

12-16-2010, 05:59 AM

Try asking Emidln, I'm sure he'll handle you a list that cannot be beaten by current legacy unless maybe by some Dreadstill variant.
No he cannot because its not that strong of an engine in Legacy. This isn't Vintage and we don't have Mystical Tutor anymore. Even if we did, people would still probably play Ad Nauseum instead because its a cheaper engine that will almost guarentee you a win. Remember, it would be no different than Ad Nauseum, Belcher or any other engine; don't let your opponent get to 6 mana, and you've stopped your opponent. I don't know why nobody could beat this deck. It wouldn't be the fastest deck in the format (SI), and it wouldn't be the strongest against Counterbalance (DDFT), and it wouldn't be the strongest against Aggro Control (TES) because TES would get Mind's Desire too in the Wishboard, making it extremely explosive if it can sculpt to get 8 mana such as x2 LED + IT/BW. The problem with Mind's Desire is that you can't run it along side Ad Nauseum in large numbers without risking a lot of life during your combo turn. Also, TES would only play MD in the wishboard because its horrible maindeck. Post-IT, IGG is a way better storm engine if you can't go for Ad Nauseum because your life is too low. Maybe with cantrips you could set up a turn in which you play Mind's Desire, but I don't think thats ideal for TES given that its usually trying to set up a tutor loop of some kind, Chant protected.

Gui

12-16-2010, 06:08 AM

No he cannot because its not that strong of an engine in Legacy.

Thanks for answering for him, I certainly took the risk of being mistake, but I also would accept it IF it was him to say so.

Bahamuth

12-16-2010, 06:37 AM

The card is way harder to hate...countering one copy rarely does much, Stifle is not as common as FoW. Also it allows you to play the spells without mana ... so stroming into enough engine often is enough.

Also the chance to hit a secound desire at 6 Cards is 40 % at 45 cards in your deck. If you run into it you have a secound Desire with an even higher stormcount, so if you hit this 40% you can basicly play your whole deck in this turn . Note that it is not even needed to hit the desire, there are also a chance like 10 % to hit finisher and mana, and about 30 % to run into mana + tutor or Wish. This is a I win button in 80 % not taking into account any tutors,wishes,finishers or draw you may have in hand, draw you storm into with desire, or LED you may have on the board which higher the percentage even more, and dont get me started about deckls with DD. Last I checked that is way better than AdN. Skill required to pull it of ? 0%?

Is this simple mathwork enough to show you the power of MindD ? ^^

edit: I just realised since you play it free its enough to hit only the finisher and the other spells you hit are irrelevant as long as they are no lands.... the chance to hit a finisher with 2 in the deck at 45 cards with storm 6 is 26 % , taking that into account the chance of winning with a resolved Desire6 at 45 cards is really nearly 100 ^^..okok not really 100 you could draw 4+ lands at a chance of 2% so... jeah worst engine ever lol

I'm sorry, my chances were off. I was thinking about having 1 Desire in the deck. In any case, even an 80% winchance is not as good as AdN is. The engine is still counterable if you don't Desire into Desire or Desire into ToA. You don't want to run lot's of ToA's because those will clog up your hand. There's no way Desire's gonna get >80% chance to win in a deck that's not terrible setting up.

Keep in mind im not advocating to unban Desire. It can only make comebo better and combo is good enough right now. I'm just saying it wouldn't be as bad as people think.

Lemnear

12-16-2010, 08:04 AM

What?

Imagine: You have 3 Desire in your deck and 1 in the board, running Burning Wishes, Ponders, Brainstorms, mana sources and Infernal Tutors as nearly your complete deck.
You play .... say a desire for 5 copies ... every non mana-card could be an out to find and cast a second Desire!

(Flip a Infernal Tutor, LED and Ritual? VERY easy. No Blue mana source? May chain Infernal into Wish into IGG into the LED, mana and Infernal Tutor in your grave to get a second Desire?)

There are only 2 possible ways the deck can fumble at this point: Either you only flip mana or you flip mana and only a single cantrip that doen't find anything BUT mana.
Other scenarios would be pretty easy to pilot ....

ScatmanX

12-16-2010, 08:30 AM

I'd certainly try Desire in Spring Tide.
Not that it would became awesome or anything...

Jonathan Alexander

12-16-2010, 10:20 AM

There's more to Mind's Desire than what happens when it resolves. I mean honestly, the card is way more vulnerable than most of guys seem to think. It cost six mana, plus another two mana if you wish or tutor for it. If you do so, you still need at least one more mana for protection. This is a whopping nine mana. And even when you have Mind's Desire directly in your hand, you can't cast it until turn three, unless you have a nearly perfect hand with 3+ starting mana sources and at least one (usually two) rituals. Together with Mind's Desire this takes up at least six cards. (An unprotected turn one kill with Ad Nauseam is only four cards by the way, six is a protected turn one kill.) You give your opponent a lot more time to do with you whatever they want. Of course you can still play cantrips, but design space is limited. You need enough mana sources to start with and enough rituals. You might need a bit less disruption than usual combo decks, but your engine will take up much more slots. Plus you're more vulnerable to mana screw and discard.
Then think about Mind's Desire's mana cost. It costs six mana.
Can you think of any cards with converted mana cost of six that actually see play and don't win the game? (And are being cast for six mana.)
I can't.
Of course Mind's Desire wouldn't be completely irrelevant, but it wouldn't exactly shake up the format.

emidln

12-16-2010, 10:21 AM

Best list for Mind's Desire:

74 cards from Bryant's TES
1 Mind's Desire

Other considerations: DDFT w/Wishes

Strangely enough, if you want to play 4 Desire, your best bet on that is probably in a Belcher-esque shell. RGB gives you infinitely better mana fixing than UBx. The shell might more a little to get a couple extra lands and maybe kill with ETW/Desire->Tendrils, but you wouldn't even really need to play Tendrils maindeck in such a list.

Spring Tide needs better untap effects, not really a better draw engine (12 cantrips, 4 scroll, 4 meditate, 4 ideas unbound is very good). That snap is hard to pull off vs the matchups where racing is important (fast aggro) is pretty bad. Worse, the deck doesn't really want to be playing a ton of protection g1 outside of Force of Will, and unless it's something that just stops you from winning altogether (canonist) , you still don't really want to use Force in an aggro matchup. The problem with Snap being necessary shows up vs aggro-control and control too, since you'll typically try to sculpt a hand that can combo after an eot Meditate and they just sit there with 1-2 stp in hand + whatever countermagic they have.

Desire would be good here since you are still going to get free cards and it ups significantly the chances that you're going to get Scroll/Cloud/Turnabout, but I doubt it would shape Spring Tide quite as well as say, Frantic Search or Time Spiral. It would still up the power level a deck that is already very fast and consistent, although I'd still have a hard time arguing to play Desire Tide over TES w/Wishboard Desire. Still, a non-Tendrils desire list is probably going to involve these cards:

Force of Will
Brainstorm
Ponder
Preordain
Ideas Unbound
Meditate
Mind's Desire
Merchant Scroll
High Tide
Cloud of Faeries
Turnabout
Snap
Cunning Wish and/or Brain Freeze

You can side in extra protection if necessary, although you'd probably end up splashing into Chant, Thoughtseize, or Xantid Swarm.

With 12 cantrips + IU you need between somewhere around 14 (maybe 1-2 higher) land. Without really thinking about it, I'm unsure what the numbers on untap effects would actually be, since the deck burns them pretty fast until it finds the second tide (at least if it's attempting a turn 3 kill), but you probably want to move some of the instants to the sideboard (Meditate, all Brain Freezes if you play at least 2 Wish, some Snap, etc).

Jonathan Alexander

12-16-2010, 10:27 AM

Best list for Mind's Desire:

74 cards from Bryant's TES
1 Mind's Desire

We need a like button on The Source.

Hawdes

12-16-2010, 10:31 AM

wcm8

12-16-2010, 10:35 AM

Mind's Desire will not be unbanned only due to the time consumption of the card to resolve, and now we're not speaking of Multiple flipped Desires...
The time it will take to shuffle the deck, resolve the stack, and the list goes on... This is the reason I think it won't get unbanned ever.
Would be nice to see someone resolve the whole chain of spells and how much time it consumes of the round...

The shuffling could be shortcutted by just shuffling once and having your opponent split it to a random card for each time. Im pretty sure this is how people did itwhen the card was legal on extended.

Watch at 7:45 how they resolve its casting. Not that time-consuming really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLwe4NY2NYs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Catitas

12-16-2010, 10:58 AM

Desire wont be unbanned...
Besides personal tutor is legal wich means, UB builds with force and duress backup, are possible... Nedless to say red wont be needed...

Jonathan Alexander

12-16-2010, 11:03 AM

Desire wont be unbanned...
Besides personal tutor is legal wich means, UB builds with force and duress backup, are possible... Nedless to say red wont be needed...

How much space does this leave for rituals and mana artifacts? This doesn't really work, it's not like you just have to cast and resolve Mind's Desire, you also have to set up storm and design your deck in a way that you can actually win off of Mind's Desire and don't get like 5+ protection spells.

Catitas

12-16-2010, 11:13 AM

A possible rough build could pack like 8 rituals (Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual) , 8 cantrips (Ponder, Brainstorm), 8-7 tutors (mix of infernal and personal), 8 artifact spells (LED, Petal), 8-7 Disruption spells (Force, Duress, Thoughtseize), 6 business spells (4 desire, 1 IGG, 1 tendrils) and 15-16 lands, but its possible to remove some lands to pack chrome moxes...

Personal finds Desire, Tendrils, IGG, Duress, Thoughtseize, Infernal...

The point is simple desire into desire GG, and having 8-7 tutors to find it seems really good to me...

dontbiteitholmes

12-16-2010, 11:45 AM

I play enchantress, and I think you are overrating Earthcraft and it's effect on the deck pretty significantly. For one, I have no idea why you think that the addition of a 2 card combo would suddenly throw Enchantress from "niche deck" into "overpowered" territory. The combo is nearly as vulnerable as Painter/Grindstone (can't go off in face of instant effects, and while not vulnerable to single removal, waits 1 turn to win). It also takes up a decent amount of space in the deck.

Qasali pridemage, K grip, Pithing Needle, all completely standard cards, hose the combo. Running Firespout more often, as ppl did before, hoses the combo. And if the deck ever becomes "crazy" dominant, Enchantress is pretty easy to hate out as it's so linear. This isn't a super-resistant cockroach of a deck like Vengevival. I mean Reverent Silence still exists and they just printed Back to Nature for cryin' out loud, cuz Tranquility just wasn't enough.

Secondly, Earthcraft is emphatically mediocre without it's combo piece twin. The deck runs a whopping 4 creatures to "accelerate"; it'll be nice when it happens but the other 70% of the time you have it with no Argothian out it's entirely useless. Saying it'll draw a card off the engine is nothing, so does every enchantment in the game.

I said in post it could be safe to unban but I'm not sure and the main point was I don't trust the judgement of the guy saying Emrakul and Living Wish go in Enchantress to make that determination.

Earthcraft would not go in Enchantress as a 4 of, no way. It would get one maybe two slots at most. The deck overall is better than Painter Grindstone in that Sacred Mesa and yes even Earthcraft are better without each other than a Grindstone and the rest of the deck also doesn't suck without the combo. Earthcraft wouldn't be turning Enchantress into a stupid balls out combo deck, you would add 1 or 2 Earthcrafts and swap a wincon for Mesa and give the deck the ability to go infinite out of nowhere where that possibility didn't exist before.

Earthcraft adds an element to the deck in several places, it makes it faster sometimes, it lets you go infinite sometimes, it means that sometimes Replenish is GG on the turn it resolves, it turns any token engine into a combo, and all you have to cut is one metagame slot. It could be good and it could end up turning Enchantress into something you wouldn't expect.

Lemnear

12-16-2010, 11:46 AM

but you are aware that cast a personal tutor for Desire is useless if you have LED's? Play Personal for Infernal is stupid and a personal flipped with desire is shit too

(nameless one)

12-16-2010, 12:14 PM

Its unfortunate that we get all these deck theories with Earthcraft and Mind's Desire, but not for Land Tax.

Rune

12-16-2010, 12:35 PM

Some kind of control deck with Mox Diamonds and Scroll Racks?

I don't get the reason why it's banned since you can also apply the "it punishes people for playing Magic"- logic to other cards, like Standstill.

SpatulaOfTheAges

12-16-2010, 12:40 PM

I can't trust your judgement on Enchantress when everything you seem to think about it is pretty off base.
Emrakul is a garbage win-con in Enchantress, pretty much agreed on at this point. Sigil is okay but Words of War is the best wincon in the deck hands down.
Living Wish version is trash, speaking of a non-existing problem. Hey let me slow myself down a turn to tutor for a wish target and waste valuable mana and sideboard space. Mirri's Guile > Living Wish 100x over.
Earthcraft would be good because it would never really be dead. It would draw cards under enchantress, it would add mana with Argothians, and it would mean infinite mana and tokens under Sacred Mesa, not to mention making your deck a beast under Dovescape. This is all for adding maybe 1 or 2 Earthcrafts MD. It could speed up the deck quite a bit and allow it to basically go infinite out of nowhere where it currently can't. Enchantress is already a pretty good deck. It could be safe but I wouldn't go so far as to say it would be completely safe as the design of Enchantress could go many different ways with Earthcraft legal, including ways no-one is talking about.

I agree with this. It would add a lot of interesting and probably unforeseeable interactions, for a low entry cost. It probably would be fair, but it would probably have some kind of metagame impact.

Of course, one of the downfalls about Enchantress is it's so easy to hate out, so I can't imagine Earthcraft-Enchantress breaking the format.

Also, those Living Wish and Chrome Mox lists aren't at all new. There were lists running around like that at least 3 or 4 years ago, the Hatfields I know developed a list with those cards.

Dark Ritual

12-16-2010, 01:02 PM

Land tax + path to exile = fun times indeed. I would love for it to get unbanned; path your dude, oh are you going to grab a basic so I can trigger my land tax again? If not, I just removed your goyf for W with no drawback lol. For the record I think land tax is fine to come off and hope it does since I've been hoarding them for a while now just to make lots of money off of it lol.

Burning wish and infernal tutor > Personal tutor in lists packing desire. LED + wish/IT is the best way to cast desire other than getting to turn 3 with 2 blue producing lands in play and 1 black producing land to cast desire. Lotus petal would also help as would chrome mox; and chant effects would be played very highly in a storm list with desire so the opponent can't stifle the desire or do things when you combo out. Mind's desire would also be very good in spring tide. Maybe even solidarity because quicken does exist and allows you to play desire at instant speed which would be sick. And resolving desire triggers is easy like in the video posted it was all about just shuffling the first time then having the deck cut before each reveal. They could even errata it to remove the shuffle effect from it because what's the point of that clause anyway? No reason really, the deck is cut after every shuffle usually so the effect will be random and stacking your deck is hard when your opponent shuffles it/cuts it.

Earthcraft in enchantress would be a one of in my list to combo out with sacred mesa. I would run 2 at the most and even that seems iffy in theory then again some people still play ground seal MD which is a deadish draw against a lot of decks save for the cantrip ability tacked on it.

Enchantress is easy to hate out with that new instant speed tranquility for 1G. Enchantress, if it ever became a tier 1 deck, would be gone in 3 months due to people hating on it/adapting.

Nonex

12-16-2010, 01:23 PM

They could even errata it to remove the shuffle effect from it because what's the point of that clause anyway? No reason really, the deck is cut after every shuffle usually so the effect will be random and stacking your deck is hard when your opponent shuffles it/cuts it.

The point is to ensure that the card to exile is totally random. It's not like they would like you to manipulate what the next Desire copy will bring by casting Brainstorm in response. Even less now that there's Top.

Enchantress is easy to hate out with that new instant speed tranquility for 1G. Enchantress, if it ever became a tier 1 deck, would be gone in 3 months due to people hating on it/adapting.

Tranquil Domain has been there even before many of us got into this game, but it's rarely played. I don't think Back to Nature makes that much of a difference. IMO the way to go is still Harmonic Convergence when it comes to Enchantress hate. Anyway, if the deck ever becomes tier 1 and seeing how things go nowadays, we'll have to adapt quickly before people start claiming for the ban of Argothian Enchantress.

rufus

12-16-2010, 02:48 PM

Land tax + path to exile = fun times indeed. I would love for it to get unbanned; path your dude, oh are you going to grab a basic so I can trigger my land tax again? If not, I just removed your goyf for W with no drawback lol.

Actually, that would be a cost of WW and an extra card unless Land Tax does something useful for you the rest of the time - and your opponent gets a choice. Land Tax+Raven's Crime is, really, somewhat more generic and potent, but you've still got to jump through hoops to make it worthwhile.

Rico Suave

12-16-2010, 03:13 PM

dontbiteitholmes

12-16-2010, 03:17 PM

Land Tax is god awful. To abuse it in any way you pretty much have to build an entire deck around it and if you build an entire deck around Land Tax you better hope you draw it because otherwise you are likely just playing a really terrible deck. Land Tax is like Life From the Loam's idiot brother. Life From the Loam is a corporate exec. and it comes home for X-Mas and is embarrassed because Land Tax is still working at the gas station talking about how fucking awesome he was in extended 10 years ago.

Bryant Cook

12-16-2010, 04:29 PM

If you want to take a typical TES deck, which is completely average right now, and change one card in it to Mind's Desire you will end up with *surprise* a very average deck. Why are any of you surprised by this?

All I see in this thread is talk about what kind of currently existing shell Desire would fit into. TES? Tide? Please, that is child's play. There is no realization or acknowledgement that Desire would create a new kind of shell that only unbanned Desire can create.

If we sit down and build a deck with 4 Mind's Desire at the forefront of the deckbuilding process, we will have a monster even if you do not understand why at this point in time. Oh, you're going to counter their mana sources? Because it's so hard to ramp up to 6 mana even through counters? Because CB can stop the storm mechanic, right? Oh no wait we're going to Force of Will their Lotus Petal because we have nothing better to counter and THAT is going to stop a good player with 4 Desires in their deck. Am I understanding your point of view correctly?

You guys are taking crazy pills if you think Desire would be anything short of a catastrophe.

Did you see the clouds fall outside? I certainly didn't.

Desire storm wouldn't be any better than Ad Nauseam storm. Ad Nauseam is a better storm engine than Desire. Desire for five-six won't always win the game, do you know what will? A resolved Ad Nauseam. Which is why Emildn was saying the storm decks now would simply add a slot or two for the card, it would make those decks better.

Desire storm would require awful cards that Belcher plays such as Manamorphose. No one wants to fill their decks with that crap.

Koby

12-16-2010, 05:08 PM

Oddly enough, Mind's Desire is an awesome Wish target in Belcher...

lorddotm

12-16-2010, 05:17 PM

Did you see the clouds fall outside? I certainly didn't.

Desire storm wouldn't be any better than Ad Nauseam storm. Ad Nauseam is a better storm engine than Desire. Desire for five-six won't always win the game, do you know what will? A resolved Ad Nauseam. Which is why Emildn was saying the storm decks now would simply add a slot or two for the card, it would make those decks better.

Desire storm would require awful cards that Belcher plays such as Manamorphose. No one wants to fill their decks with that crap.

This.

Ad Nauseam is just better than Desire. A dedicated Desire deck would be slower than Ad Nauseam, so most people would just play TES with a Desire in the Wishboard, but even that isn't 100%. UU is the thing that makes this card fair, if even a little bad.

Cthuloo

12-16-2010, 05:22 PM

Although I don't think Desire will enter the legacy scene any soon, I'm curious to know why everybody tried to fit it in a TES shell instead of a Spring Tide one. I looks very powerful there to me. Hitting 6 mana it's not hard at all (3 lands + high tide + turnabout does easily the job), and even with a low storm count it should be enough to prevent the deck form fizzling ever. It's been a long time since I played the deck, though, so I could be wrong.

lorddotm

12-16-2010, 05:24 PM

dontbiteitholmes

12-16-2010, 07:40 PM

After thinking it over for a while I've come to this conclusion.

Land Tax is a pile of hot garbage and should have come off the list a long time ago. It might make a descent sideboard card in niche cases but I don't think any tier deck could run it main deck as it's too conditional. First you have to actually draw it of course, then you have to end up with less land then your opponent somehow, then the net result is only 3 basic land on your next upkeep in hand. So if you want to then abuse that you are going to need another card... Life From the Loam meanwhile you can just go about your day, not have to worry about running extra basics or how many land your opponent has and go nuts all over the place.

Earthcraft is probably safe to unban. I think it would be a lot stronger than people realize but I don't think it would be any more powerful than several other things already safely in the format. I think it's impact would be similar to Replenish in that it would make Enchantress that much better (once again 1x Earthcraft makes Enchantress better to a degree most people don't realize but still not broken by any means, it will still lose to combo 4/5 matches even with a playset of Leylines and Miindbreaks in the side). Then it might go in a crappy combo deck that would scoop to average combo hate. That said I think the chance it will be unbanned is unlikely as it can get really stupid really quick with anything that can continually cast creatures, continually recur creatures, or make lots of tokens and I think WoTC is too conservative. The problem with the card is that it can be utilized in a way that will allow you to untap a lot of land and generate a lot of mana and at the same time go infinite with several token generators. There is room for innovation around the card since there are several theoretical ways to abuse it and if it got unbanned I wouldn't be very surprised if it ended up back on the ban list at some point. Looking at it and thinking Squirrels Nest is way to narrow minded.

Mind's Desire, meh. I'd leave that for now. Even if it did just end up as a sideboard wish target it's not like combo needs any help anyways. Probably worse than relying on Ad Nauseum in the Tendils right now, but at the same time I think it could find a place somewhere. If they are going to ban something from Survival Vine which looks likely I'd definitely leave Desire alone.

lorddotm

12-16-2010, 07:54 PM

Dark Ritual

12-16-2010, 08:44 PM

Earthcraft is fine IMO. And this is after reading all your posts about it DBIH. Is the card more broken than LED? I highly doubt that. For earthcraft to come off then be put back on the banned list would require that it warps the metagame enormously due to its power level.

Land tax is very fine. Sure there's enlightened tutor to fetch it and scroll rack but the format is too fast for it to be a broken deck. I just want to play parfait lol. And I love the interaction of land tax + mox diamond; advance your gameplan further along to make them play lands so you get to trigger it more than once. Or you can force them to trigger it by simply going mox diamond pitch land cast land tax. Oh you have a land in play since I'm on the draw? I guess I'll trigger tax then unless you make the very very awful play of wastelanding your own land. But yeah the card is very similar to life from the loam in that it is +2 card advantage the first time you cast it but that card advantage is in the form of land which generally doesn't do much unless that land is maze of ith to stop your opponent from smashing your face in.

Mind's desire. IMO it is too strong to unban. I'd love to break that card in two if it were to get unbanned but I doubt it will ever come off the banned list at least any time soon due to wizards' view on combo being a pillar of the metagame. The part that puts mind's desire above ad nauseam as a storm engine IMO is that you can go off from any life total from 1-20. Ad nauseam is only good when you're at 13 or more life and even at 13 it has the potential to not pan out in your favor depending on your flips. And there's the fact that mind's desire for even 5 storm copies can just win you the game because you already have 6 storm then. All you need to flip is dark rit dark rit burning wish/infernal tutor to be able to cast tendrils for the win. But this is debatable. When it comes to speed, ad nauseam is faster. When it comes to winning the game, it depends on your flips very much.

Rico Suave

12-16-2010, 09:51 PM

Desire storm wouldn't be any better than Ad Nauseam storm.

Yes, it would. It would be worlds better.

Ad Nauseam poses too many design restrictions, and it requires too much of its owner to be a great engine. When a deck like Zoo can legitimately race your combo deck, you know there's something very wrong with it. And I'm not going to get started on decks containing blue.

Bryant Cook

12-16-2010, 10:07 PM

Yes, it would. It would be worlds better.

Ad Nauseam poses too many design restrictions, and it requires too much of its owner to be a great engine. When a deck like Zoo can legitimately race your combo deck, you know there's something very wrong with it. And I'm not going to get started on decks containing blue.

I respectfully diagree.

• Ad Nauseam is one less mana
• Doesn't require UU (which is very tough to create)
• Once it resolves you're going to win
• Ad Nauseam can't be stifled

• Desire doesn't require a life total
• Can be wished for
• Can't be countered

Ad Nauseam wins.

As for Zoo, it doesn't race TES. You don't have to win with nauseam everytime.

gottfrid

12-16-2010, 10:56 PM

@bryant: Don't you think storm with forces would be a little mean though?

lorddotm

12-16-2010, 11:02 PM

@bryant: Don't you think storm with forces would be a little mean though?

Please write up a list with Mind's Desire that has room for Forces, the right number of blue spells (around 18), and still goes off fast enough to beat real decks.

(nameless one)

12-17-2010, 12:50 AM

Land tax is very fine. Sure there's enlightened tutor to fetch it and scroll rack but the format is too fast for it to be a broken deck. I just want to play parfait lol. And I love the interaction of land tax + mox diamond; advance your gameplan further along to make them play lands so you get to trigger it more than once. Or you can force them to trigger it by simply going mox diamond pitch land cast land tax. Oh you have a land in play since I'm on the draw? I guess I'll trigger tax then unless you make the very very awful play of wastelanding your own land. But yeah the card is very similar to life from the loam in that it is +2 card advantage the first time you cast it but that card advantage is in the form of land which generally doesn't do much unless that land is maze of ith to stop your opponent from smashing your face in.

Honestly, like what IBA said, Parfait deck is too slow for the format. Not to mention that you need to keep your land count behind your opponent to make Land Tax to work. Having Land Tax on a Quinn-esque deck will simply not work, as that deck will always need its land drop every turn. However, I have been contemplating on building a list that use elements from Armageddon Stax. Mana denial from Trinisphere to Armageddon is going to be the key to abuse Land Tax.

Also, I find that Legacy adaptation of this Tax-Rack deck with minimal lands very clunky.

For those who play Classic on MTGO, has anyone seen a Parfait deck there? I mean, Classic is as close as it get to the original Type 1.5.

Rico Suave

12-17-2010, 01:15 AM

I respectfully diagree.

• Ad Nauseam is one less mana
• Doesn't require UU (which is very tough to create)
• Once it resolves you're going to win
• Ad Nauseam can't be stifled

• Desire doesn't require a life total
• Can be wished for
• Can't be countered

Ad Nauseam wins.

As for Zoo, it doesn't race TES. You don't have to win with nauseam everytime.

Being blue is a tremendous advantage for Desire.

Anyway, your comments have highlighted my exact point. You might think hey, I can find Ill-Gotten Gains and beat Zoo with my Ad Nauseam deck. You are expressing that an Ad Nauseam, while weak against Zoo, is fine because the Ad Nauseam deck will tend to beat it more often than not. I have no problem with this.

The disconnect here is that you are thinking of Mind's Desire, stuffing it into a hypothetical Ad Nauseam deck, and wondering why you would want to play it. Of course this is silly. Desire and AN may both be expensive storm enablers but that does NOT mean they function similarly. This would be like if I stuffed Oath of Druids into my creature heavy Survival deck, despite the similarity of being 1G enchantments which revolve around creatures, then wondered why it didn't work well.

A deck built with 4 Desire in mind would be FAR better than any craptastic attempt at stuffing Desire into an already existing TES deck. I said it before, it would just be average at best. You need to recognize that a Desire deck wouldn't look anything like a modern AN deck, and at the end of the day we don't play card vs. card we play deck vs. deck.

lorddotm

12-17-2010, 02:52 AM

A deck built with 4 Desire in mind would be FAR better than any craptastic attempt at stuffing Desire into an already existing TES deck. I said it before, it would just be average at best. You need to recognize that a Desire deck wouldn't look anything like a modern AN deck, and at the end of the day we don't play card vs. card we play deck vs. deck.

Show me a list.

Bahamuth

12-17-2010, 03:53 AM

Why are people so opposed to making combo better?

Mind's Desire doesn't even make combo broken, just makes them a little less likely to fuck up. Combo is an important pillar in the Legacy metagame which keeps some potentially unfair decks from being playable.

I think people don't want combo to be better because it is already the most unfair and the best deck in the format. The truth was that combo with Mystical Tutor was a lot more broken than anything in the format. It's a little more fair right now, but I'd still call combo the best deck out there.

Bryant Cook

12-17-2010, 04:24 AM

I'd still call combo the best deck out there.

I've been saying this for years.

Artowis

12-17-2010, 05:13 AM

Show me a list.

Why the fuck would anyone waste time on a theory list for a discussion about a card that will almost certainly never come off the list on perception alone? What's the best he could hope for in providing one? Someone bashing his theorycraft list with theorycraft about why it sucks?

edit: theory, theory, theory.

Gui

12-17-2010, 05:36 AM

I'd still call combo the best deck out there.

This is probably true, and was probably even more true before MT ban, and yet people fail to understand how a deck can be overpowered and yet not the most played deck.

kusumoto

12-17-2010, 08:30 AM

I would think it may be good to start with something like...

4 Mind's Desire
4 Diminishing Returns
4 Force of Will
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
2-4 Spell Pierce
4 Dark Ritual
1-3 Personal Tutor
Xx Other stuff

Something built around Desire seems best. I think a card like Diminishing Returns or Time Reversal would often break your Desire flips. I'm no great innovator, but I would think this would be the general direction you would go to try and best break the card if they ever unbanned it.

We all know they hate combo though, so we aren't going to get a chance to tinker with this in the real world.

Valrina

12-17-2010, 08:39 AM

Why are people so opposed to making combo better?

Mind's Desire doesn't even make combo broken, just makes them a little less likely to fuck up. Combo is an important pillar in the Legacy metagame which keeps some potentially unfair decks from being playable.

Because we have the same opinion wizards has, combo should be nowhere near Tier 1 in a healthy format it should lurk around in Darkness.

menace13

12-17-2010, 09:12 AM

For those who play Classic on MTGO, has anyone seen a Parfait deck there? I mean, Classic is as close as it get to the original Type 1.5.

Sorry, bud, I know you have been searching for a Quinn+Tax deck, but they're not in Classic. The decks are already Vintage like there. Tax-go, looks a little underwhelming next to Oath,Bazaar,YWill,Tinker and MED4 brings Shops and Fastbond, so it is very unlikely that a Tax list gets played.

Not that it has anything to do with Legacy, but Desire is worse than Ad Naus in Classic.

I mean, really, who is going to argue with Bryant and Emidln?

Bryant Cook

12-17-2010, 10:52 AM

Being blue is a tremendous advantage for Desire.

Anyway, your comments have highlighted my exact point. You might think hey, I can find Ill-Gotten Gains and beat Zoo with my Ad Nauseam deck. You are expressing that an Ad Nauseam, while weak against Zoo, is fine because the Ad Nauseam deck will tend to beat it more often than not. I have no problem with this.

The disconnect here is that you are thinking of Mind's Desire, stuffing it into a hypothetical Ad Nauseam deck, and wondering why you would want to play it. Of course this is silly. Desire and AN may both be expensive storm enablers but that does NOT mean they function similarly. This would be like if I stuffed Oath of Druids into my creature heavy Survival deck, despite the similarity of being 1G enchantments which revolve around creatures, then wondered why it didn't work well.

A deck built with 4 Desire in mind would be FAR better than any craptastic attempt at stuffing Desire into an already existing TES deck. I said it before, it would just be average at best. You need to recognize that a Desire deck wouldn't look anything like a modern AN deck, and at the end of the day we don't play card vs. card we play deck vs. deck.

I missed this last night. Care to allaborate on why Desire being blue is an advantage? No one but you sees it this way. The fact you can't go Ritual, Ritual, Desire seems pretty huge.

The fact that you're so driven by the fact that Ad Nauseam requires a life toal is foolish. Necro and Bargain are far more broken than Desire and they require a life total. Do you think they're worse too? Ritual, Necro requires much less work than Desire and will win you the game on your second turn. Bargain requires the same amount of mana and will net you more cards than desire without costing UU.

I understand that a Desire deck would look different, but TES with a couple Desires would be better. Show me this better deck, I'm curious. TES will be faster due to the fact it doesn't require UU in it's storm enablers mana cost.

Michael Keller

12-17-2010, 11:00 AM

Mind's Desire in a Solidarity-esque shell could be worth taking a look at, especially with availability to a card like High Tide.

Bryant Cook

12-17-2010, 11:58 AM

Mind's Desire in a Solidarity-esque shell could be worth taking a look at, especially with availability to a card like High Tide.

Hollywood, Mind's Desire is a sorcery. Meaning Solidarity is out of the question, however, people have been talking about springtide variants which could abuse Mind's Desire. Although they're slower and more suceptable to creatures and creature hate.

Mana Drain

12-17-2010, 12:15 PM

Sorry, bud, I know you have been searching for a Quinn+Tax deck, but they're not in Classic. The decks are already Vintage like there. Tax-go, looks a little underwhelming next to Oath,Bazaar,YWill,Tinker and MED4 brings Shops and Fastbond, so it is very unlikely that a Tax list gets played.

Not that it has anything to do with Legacy, but Desire is worse than Ad Naus in Classic.

I mean, really, who is going to argue with Bryant and Emidln?

Except that, this is Legacy, and we don't have Will, Tinker, Oath, or Bazaar decks running around and Staxx (Chalice/3ball decks), Vintage/Classic TPS's worst enemy, is a sick joke that randomly self-destructs every 4 games and is completely neutered by losing the die roll.
I really feel that emphasis needs to be put on the effect Desire would have on Legacy, not an online Vintage clone/mutation.

I missed this last night. Care to allaborate on why Desire being blue is an advantage? No one but you sees it this way. The fact you can't go Ritual, Ritual, Desire seems pretty huge.

The fact that you're so driven by the fact that Ad Nauseam requires a life toal is foolish. Necro and Bargain are far more broken than Desire and they require a life total. Do you think they're worse too? Ritual, Necro requires much less work than Desire and will win you the game on your second turn. Bargain requires the same amount of mana and will net you more cards than desire without costing UU.

I understand that a Desire deck would look different, but TES with a couple Desires would be better. Show me this better deck, I'm curious. TES will be faster due to the fact it doesn't require UU in it's storm enablers mana cost.

The fact that Ad Nauseam requires a life total is extremely relevant. You can't wait until your at 6-7 life against Aggro to slow-roll and sculpt your hand to your liking with Ad Nauseam. Your life total is a HIGHLY relevant resource that your opponent has some control over and when 2 swings from a Nacatle and a Bolt/Chain Lightning significantly reduce the effectiveness of your draw-engine, you have a problem. (Not that I'm saying that Zoo is a bad matchup for Storm, but I'm just trying to illustrate the significance of you life total in modern Storm combo.)

Desire allows you to just sit back and chill, cast a few BS/Ponders/Preordains, maybe Thoughtseize a little here and there, make your land-drops, and then BAM! Cast 5-6 spells, get 4UU (easier to do when you can go off at <10 life), Infernal Tutor/Burning Wish for Desire, and win off of what you hit on the Top. Of course Desire would whiff once in a while, but most of the time, with a deck packed full of tutors, cantrips, and mana acceleration, you'll most likely hit some gas somewhere. This is in addition to the normal IGG loop win. Oh yeah, did I mention that Desire is uncounterable through conventional means? I hope I did.

The real point is, yes TES with Desire would ONLY be better than without Desire, pushing combo to even greater power than it has now. Whether a dedicated Desire deck would break the format or not, I have no idea. But really, do you combo players REALLY hate control players that much that you need yet ANOTHER INSANE DRAW ENGINE THAT JUST HAPPENS TO BE IMMUNE TO FORCE OF WILL?. You guys already have the most broken plays in the format, the fastest plays in the format, and pretty much only one bad matchup that sees any play (CB decks), and even that matchup can be made better with SB options and skillful play. I mean goddamn, what else do you need? YawgWin? Timetwister? Bargain?

If Desire ever gets unbanned, Time Vault and Mana Drain better be off the list with it.

Mind's Desire in a Solidarity-esque shell could be worth taking a look at, especially with availability to a card like High Tide.

I feel the same, although it would have to be in a Spring Tide shell due to the Sorcery speed of Desire. One High Tide+ 3 Lands + 1/2 Untap effects + Draw/Dig (Ideas Unbound, Meditate, Merchant Scroll, Impulse, etc.) + Desire with Force/Spell Pierce backup sounds legit. Meta-warping, possibly. Extreme cool-points, most definitely.

rufus

12-17-2010, 12:21 PM

I wonder what a Mind's Desire deck might look like. I don't think that Diminishing Returns is a good idea unless you're playing something like Burning Wish with wincons in the sideboard, and, even then seems pretty risky. I tried to work out what a list would look like, and this awful thing came out:

4x Mind's Desire
4x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Intuition
4x Gifts Ungiven
1x Sins of the Past
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Sway of the Stars
1x Brain Freeze

4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm

4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Lotus Petal
4x Cabal Ritual

8x dual
8x fetch

The need for extra acceleration just makes the deck brittle in bad ways. I'm inclined to think that Mind's Desire is less abusive than Dream Halls.

majikal

12-17-2010, 12:30 PM

Gifts Ungiven? Intuition? What the flying fuck are you even trying to do with that list?

4x Mind's Desire
4x Infernal Tutor
2x Tendrils of Agony
2x Ill-Gotten Gains
2x Thoughtseize
4x Duress
4x Preordain
4x Brainstorm
2x Ponder

4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Lotus Petal
4x Cabal Ritual

4x dual
8x fetch
4x basic

That should be enough.

GGoober

12-17-2010, 01:02 PM

Desire will clearly not be played with AdN. At best it will be played as a Wish target.

However, Desire will spin off its own deck, just as combo decks tend towards AdN or non-AdN combo decks (e.g. TES v.s. DDFT).

It will be arguble which combo deck is best: Desire.dec vs AdN.dec.

Personally, I think that AdN will be faster and more consistent, but Desire.dec will have the Vengevival syndrome i.e. it will be slower but win more games overall due to sheer power. FoW is definitely played more than Stifles and that will be a major argument for Desire.decs to be viable.

emidln

12-17-2010, 02:17 PM

Rico Suave

12-17-2010, 02:34 PM

I missed this last night. Care to allaborate on why Desire being blue is an advantage? No one but you sees it this way. The fact you can't go Ritual, Ritual, Desire seems pretty huge.

It may seem better to go Ritual+Ritual->Nauseam, but this is offset by the fact that an Ad Nauseam deck just can't play 4 copies of the card. Our likelihood of casting Ad Nauseam with Rituals is better, but our likelihood of making that play is low because we can only get away with 1-2 copies in our entire deck. Instead we must use tutors to find our engine. The problem is that Infernal Tutor -> AN is 7 total mana. Granted we can use LED, but then our reliance on LED becomes greater too...and you can see my point that there are a number of complications which come up.

As for being blue, it's just the best color.

The fact that you're so driven by the fact that Ad Nauseam requires a life toal is foolish. Necro and Bargain are far more broken than Desire and they require a life total. Do you think they're worse too? Ritual, Necro requires much less work than Desire and will win you the game on your second turn. Bargain requires the same amount of mana and will net you more cards than desire without costing UU.

The life total is not a deal breaker. It is just a drawback, though a serious one.

But Ad Nauseam is not the same as Necro or Bargain. It has severe deck building restraints, like how we can't run 4 copies of AN like we could run 4 copies of Bargain or Necro. Our mana curve must remain low, meaning we are cut off from a wide array of options like if we wanted to run Force of Will. We are forced into running cards like Chrome Mox which we may not otherwise want to run. We must be careful SB'ing, because things like Krosan Grip can up our mana curve and cause us to stall out mid Ad Nauseam. Things like that are not problems for Necro or Bargain.

I understand that a Desire deck would look different, but TES with a couple Desires would be better. Show me this better deck, I'm curious. TES will be faster due to the fact it doesn't require UU in it's storm enablers mana cost.

You have played a deck with 4 Mind's Desire before, right? I'd hate to be having this kind of conversation with people who have no real experience.

Hell, even the old Extended TEPS decks, which are completely janky in comparison to a modern Legacy card pool, would do something that modern TES can't reliably do - beat Survival.

[QUOTE=emidln;508273]People trying to stick Force of Will alongside Mind's Desire will pretty quickly notice that they lack the ability to use Force of Will outside the combo turn (say on Canonist, Teeg, Chalice, Trinisphere, Counterbalance, etc) and still combo in a reasonable amount of time. Further, the claim that 6 mana isn't difficult in the face of any hate is a flat lie. In particular, hitting 4UU through taxing counters or Counterbalance using black or red rituals is very hard since you can't use your spare lands to pay for the tax effect. The same strategy that is so effective at combating Ad Nauseam decks, mana denial stemming from countering ritual effects, is even more effective at attacking a spell that costs more than Ad Nauseam. Force of Will affects a Desire deck just as much as AdN, possibly more since well-timed counters can eat multiple cards and effectively destroy Desire's attempt to combo anytime in the near future.

CB doesn't stop Desire itself.

It's perfectly reasonable for a Desire deck to simply amass basic lands, dump a hand of Petals and Rituals, then manually Desire through any defense the opponent might have. I've done this numerous times with Tendrils, and Desire is lethal for much less storm.

Mana Denial is not the problem for Ad Nauseam though. It is a problem, but Ad Nauseam can simply be stopped by regular counterspells. I do this all the time even today.

That being said, the real question is why would a Desire deck ever bother with running Force of Will, Duress, or any other kind of disruption? It doesn't need to worry about anything stopping it.

Forbiddian

12-17-2010, 02:48 PM

People trying to stick Force of Will alongside Mind's Desire will pretty quickly notice that they lack the ability to use Force of Will outside the combo turn (say on Canonist, Teeg, Chalice, Trinisphere, Counterbalance, etc) and still combo in a reasonable amount of time. Further, the claim that 6 mana isn't difficult in the face of any hate is a flat lie. In particular, hitting 4UU through taxing counters or Counterbalance using black or red rituals is very hard since you can't use your spare lands to pay for the tax effect. The same strategy that is so effective at combating Ad Nauseam decks, mana denial stemming from countering ritual effects, is even more effective at attacking a spell that costs more than Ad Nauseam. Force of Will affects a Desire deck just as much as AdN, possibly more since well-timed counters can eat multiple cards and effectively destroy Desire's attempt to combo anytime in the near future.

I agree that there are drawbacks, and I don't think FoW would make it as a maindeck staple, I think it will have more impact in the combo mirror, as even the threat of it will force other combo players into bad positions.

The fact that Desire costs 6 (and UU at that) precludes it from being an effective turn 1 engine. Sphere of Resistance/Thorn of Amethyst, Canonist, Teeg, and company will get the opportunity to come down. I don't think it would break the format, but it would be a significant improvement over current technology.

Rico Suave

12-17-2010, 03:23 PM

I agree that there are drawbacks, and I don't think FoW would make it as a maindeck staple, I think it will have more impact in the combo mirror, as even the threat of it will force other combo players into bad positions.

The fact that Desire costs 6 (and UU at that) precludes it from being an effective turn 1 engine. Sphere of Resistance/Thorn of Amethyst, Canonist, Teeg, and company will get the opportunity to come down. I don't think it would break the format, but it would be a significant improvement over current technology.

Force of Will would do nothing in a Desire mirror. It would be about hand disruption, with possibly Chants involved.

The thing about Sphere, Thorn, and Canonist effects? Desire decks will want to be playing bounce effects anyway. Desire decks will WANT to play cards like Hurkyl's Recall and Chain of Vapor and multiple copies of them maindeck because they produce storm. Contrast this to a deck like Ad Nauseam which would board in Chain of Vapor because it has to. No, the answers that a Desire deck would have for the environment are a natural part of its engine.

menace13

12-17-2010, 03:32 PM

Except that, this is Legacy, and we don't have Will, Tinker, Oath, or Bazaar decks running around and Staxx (Chalice/3ball decks), Vintage/Classic TPS's worst enemy, is a sick joke that randomly self-destructs every 4 games and is completely neutered by losing the die roll.
I really feel that emphasis needs to be put on the effect Desire would have on Legacy, not an online Vintage clone/mutation.

Umm, Maybe you did not read what i wrote and felt like you had to shout irrel shit for irrel shit's sake.

Not that it has anything to do with Legacy, but Desire is worse than Ad Naus in Classic.

Why do so many posters just wait for anyone to say anything then repost what was just said to the poster they quoted?

Kagehisa

12-17-2010, 04:01 PM

A Mind's Desire deck is always fun to play. I tried to build one (with proxies). My goal was to play all my deck, I wanted to win like a Super Johnny. This deck sucked a lot because I suck and fun deck are funnier when they suck. Anyways, here is my secret tech :

Cast spell and Mind's Desire from your hand or even with Sins of the Past ( Tutor to find Sins of the Past+ LED discard Mind's Desire played via Sins ) then hit another Mind's Desire, Sins of the Past or Spelljack (like the Remand trick of Solidarity) to make the stormcount bigger, replay Mind's Desire. Hit Doomsday, stack 5 spells of your choice play them with with Mind's Desire and win XD.

I'm sure there's a better way to abuse Mind's Desire. I just wanted to share my secret tech...

RexFTW

12-17-2010, 05:00 PM

Mind's Desire will not be unbanned only due to the time consumption of the card to resolve, and now we're not speaking of Multiple flipped Desires...
The time it will take to shuffle the deck, resolve the stack, and the list goes on... This is the reason I think it won't get unbanned ever.
Would be nice to see someone resolve the whole chain of spells and how much time it consumes of the round...

I play vintage storm with Mind's Desire. If the judge and opponent agree that your deck is sufficiently randomized they will usually allow you not to shuffle before each copy and just flip the top x cards. By usually i mean i have never had this request denied. Just don't try to brainstorm between copies or something.

Catitas

12-17-2010, 05:24 PM

// Lands
4 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [A] Island
1 [A] Swamp
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

// Spells
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [LRW] Ponder
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [SC] Mind's Desire
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [A] Dark Ritual
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [US] Duress
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize

I dont find UU hard to generate...And this is a rough list...

But get real Desire wont be unbanned...

lorddotm

12-17-2010, 06:26 PM

I think people don't want combo to be better because it is already the most unfair and the best deck in the format. The truth was that combo with Mystical Tutor was a lot more broken than anything in the format. It's a little more fair right now, but I'd still call combo the best deck out there.

Fair enough, but Mind's Desire doesn't make combo better, just different. God forbid we have more than 1 decent combo deck...

Plus, Legacy players are retarded, they don't know how to optimally play magic, so they punt games all the time with combo, remember, this happened all the time when Mystical was unbanned.

Zork

12-17-2010, 06:40 PM

I always imagined a Mind's Desire deck in legacy using Lotus Bloom and some number of Transmute Artifact with fetches and tops...

FieryBalrog

12-17-2010, 07:16 PM

Fair enough, but Mind's Desire doesn't make combo better, just different. God forbid we have more than 1 decent combo deck...

Plus, Legacy players are retarded, they don't know how to optimally play magic, so they punt games all the time with combo, remember, this happened all the time when Mystical was unbanned.

So let's push combo to help the "retards" play it? What.

keys

12-17-2010, 08:51 PM

Time Spiral and Mind Twist are the only cards that can safely come off the banned list without any effects on the metagame.

Earthcraft, Land Tax, Frantic Search, and Mind's Desire are not terribly overpowered, but would certainly shake up the format. Unbanning one of these would be a major experiment akin to Entomb's unbanning.

The difference is that while Entomb rebirthed a dormant archetype (Reanimator), the above cards would merely enhance already existing archetypes (Enchantress, white splash control, Spring Tide, TES, respectively), which does not advance the primary goal of the banned/restricted list: format diversity.

One might argue that white control has never been a legitimate archetype, so it may be that Land Tax is on the list for the specific reasons others have already mentioned (time management, "unfun" mechanics, etc).

I'd be surprised if there are any unbannings this time around, but if there are, I'd put my money on Time Spiral/Mind Twist.

death

12-17-2010, 10:41 PM

Mint Twist would be a blow to combo. But I'd be happy to dust off my Diverts and MisD's or maybe my foil dredgers.

FieryBalrog

12-17-2010, 11:11 PM

I find it hard to believe that Land Tax would have significantly more effect on the format than Mind Twist. Both will have essentially 0 impact.

White control is barely a real archetype.

keys

12-18-2010, 01:47 PM

I find it hard to believe that Land Tax would have significantly more effect on the format than Mind Twist. Both will have essentially 0 impact.

White control is barely a real archetype.

Drawing 3 cards and getting to shuffle each turn is not something to take lightly. Mind Twist is not any better than Hymn to Tourach or Thoughtseize.

lorddotm

12-18-2010, 01:51 PM

Drawing 3 cards and getting to shuffle each turn is not something to take lightly. Mind Twist is not any better than Hymn to Tourach or Thoughtseize.

You're not drawing three cards without Scroll Rack, at which point you have a two card combo. Which just seems like Painterstone, which is fair.

keys

12-18-2010, 02:09 PM

There are a lot more things you can do with 3 plains a turn than just Scroll Rack.

But like I said, it's probably banned due to time constraints and "unfun" characteristics.

Mr.C

12-18-2010, 02:53 PM

There are a lot more things you can do with 3 plains a turn than just Scroll Rack.

But like I said, it's probably banned due to time constraints and "unfun" characteristics.

Then why is Top legal?

Catitas

12-18-2010, 03:10 PM

Then why is Top legal?

Combo

lorddotm

12-18-2010, 03:23 PM

There are a lot more things you can do with 3 plains a turn than just Scroll Rack.

But like I said, it's probably banned due to time constraints and "unfun" characteristics.

What?

Seismic Assault?

I can't imagine anything frightening.

(nameless one)

12-18-2010, 03:41 PM

Maybe the way to go with Tax-Rack engine is W/R. Goblin Trenches is also a good Zuran Orb substitute

Rico Suave

12-18-2010, 04:17 PM

Land Tax will, naturally, find a home in some U/W deck where we get to cast Brainstorm. Don't kid yourself. =p

Lemnear

12-18-2010, 04:22 PM

Land Tax + Path to Exile + Jace .... anyone?

Path your creature .... oh my Tax is active? Niiiiiiice
Jace being an Ancestral Recall every turn than just brainstorm? Niiiiiice

keys

12-18-2010, 07:45 PM

Then why is Top legal?

I think Top kind of got grandfathered in. It's a pillar of the format now. Without it, Combo would have no bad matchups. Tax just doesn't need to exist.

Mana Drain

12-18-2010, 08:41 PM

I think Top kind of got grandfathered in. It's a pillar of the format now. Without it, Combo would have no bad matchups. Tax just doesn't need to exist.

But what harm could it do? Do you really feel it would alter the format in a negative manner by having a completely non-viable deck suddenly become viable (or at least, better)? Go ahead, take 3 free Plains. It won't stop me from Tendrils-ing you for 20, or countering your relevant spells and killing you with Goyf, or shitting out infinity little red creatures while Porting' your lands, or dropping fast, evasive beaters with counter-backup, or you know, doing things Legacy decks do. So you have land drops for the next 3 turns, good for you. You'll have to discard 1 of them during your end-step. Possibly 2 of them.
Did I mention you don't get your 3 Plains if your on the play?

For realz, it probably won't have much impact on the format at all, but would still be fun to tinker with and experiment.

DragoFireheart

12-18-2010, 10:56 PM

Ban top, ban Lion's Eye Diamond.

edgewalker

12-18-2010, 11:20 PM

Did any of you play with Land Tax? Seriously, it's safe

dahcmai

12-19-2010, 12:16 AM

It's kind of a joke anymore to people. Everyone knows there's nothing broken about Land Tax, it wasn't that bad even when it was in standard. I admit the Scroll Tax thing was pretty amazingly good, but you still had a rough time with quick decks. I really have no idea why they keep that one on there. I guess it's really the whole time thing, though fetchlands are just as bad if you want to get into that argument.

Amon Amarth

12-19-2010, 01:13 AM

I wanna see Land Tax, Frantic Search, Mind Twist, Earthcraft and Time Spiral. These all seem safe to me. Then, after awhile, we can really get to the meat of the Banned List.

FieryBalrog

12-19-2010, 01:28 AM

Drawing 3 cards and getting to shuffle each turn is not something to take lightly. Mind Twist is not any better than Hymn to Tourach or Thoughtseize.

By what, not playing any lands for several turns in a row, and involving a 2 card combo? You know there are 2 card combos that win the game, right?

Jumping through that many hoops to draw 3 cards and stunt your mana development is not something to be concerned about.

Admiral_Arzar

12-19-2010, 02:08 AM

Ban top, ban Lion's Eye Diamond.

Somebody lost to storm combo a few too many times. I actually think I would quit magic if they announced that change.

Anyways, I would love to see survival left unbanned, as I think a ban is completely jumping the gun and caving in to all the whining and moaning. Also, the unbanning of Mind Twist, Earthcraft, Land Tax, and Frantic Search to start with would shake up the format in a good way I think.

Dia_Bot

12-19-2010, 03:10 AM

Somebody lost to storm combo a few too many times. I actually think I would quit magic if they announced that change.

Anyways, I would love to see survival left unbanned, as I think a ban is completely jumping the gun and caving in to all the whining and moaning. Also, the unbanning of Mind Twist, Earthcraft, Land Tax, and Frantic Search to start with would shake up the format in a good way I think.
+1!

Solar Ice

12-19-2010, 08:42 AM

Why is Black Vise still on the list? It's not really all that good anymore, imo. Stax can probably use it well but not much else that i can think of.
Frantic Search, Land Tax and maybe Time Spiral are probably safe to unban. Mystical Tutor should never have been put on the list at all, imho.

As much as I would absolutely love to see Mind's Desire unbanned, that will probably never happen. The card is very, very strong. Also, the thing with Earthcraft and Mnd's Desire is that they are both combo cards and Wzards is quite careful with combo, far more so than any other archetype.

Mind Twist is one card that I'm n not sure should come off. I think I recall Wizards saying quite a while back that they don't like random discard and I tend to agree. Magic should be as much skill-based as possible. Cards like Twist can completely wreck an opponent without him/her having any real say (apart from FoW, especially on the draw) . ie. the whole randomness vs skill factor.

SurFitOfTheVine

12-19-2010, 01:25 PM

Ban top, ban Lion's Eye Diamond.

If Survival goes, then +1!

Admiral_Arzar

12-19-2010, 01:33 PM

If Survival goes, then +1!

I'm not sure what kind of idiotic logic goes into this kind of thinking. You do realize that this decision would kill far more archetypes than banning Survival or Mystical Tutor? That it would turn the metagame into 80% aggro and 20% board control? The banlist is supposed to PROMOTE diversity in the format, not completely remove archetypes every few months.

I'm going to say this once, to everyone who bitches and moans about "ZOMG this card is so broken. BANZ."

This is an eternal format. Broken shit is supposed to happen. So quit bitching, or go play standard.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Time Spiral. That card is completely safe without Academy. All it might do is take Spring Tide from Tier 3 to Tier 2 or something like that.

SurFitOfTheVine

12-19-2010, 01:42 PM

I'm not sure what kind of idiotic logic goes into this kind of thinking. You do realize that this decision would kill far more archetypes than banning Survival or Mystical Tutor? That it would turn the metagame into 80% aggro and 20% board control?

I'm going to say this once, to everyone who bitches and moans about "ZOMG this card is so broken. BANZ."

This is an eternal format. Broken shit is supposed to happen. So quit bitching, or go play standard.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Time Spiral. That card is completely safe without Academy. All it might do is take Spring Tide from Tier 3 to Tier 2 or something like that.

If Survival isn't allowed into the format, why should LED and SDT?

Admiral_Arzar

12-19-2010, 02:24 PM

Ban top, ban Lion's Eye Diamond.

If Survival isn't allowed into the format, why should LED and SDT?

I clearly stated earlier that I believe Survival should not be banned. I believe that Mystical Tutor shouldn't have been banned.

If I have to actually address your point: decks featuring those two cards aren't "dominating" the format. IMO, all three cards we're discussing are pillars of the legacy format and shouldn't even be DISCUSSED for the banlist, but the DCI unfortunately does not agree with me, and prefers to listen to all the bitching and moaning going on in the U.S. right now.

Dia_Bot

12-19-2010, 02:36 PM

If Survival isn't allowed into the format, why should LED and SDT?

Why not just ban all good card? Ban vial, ban lackey ban force of will, ban nacatl,ban....w/e.
For the record I do not believe Sotf should be banned.
But this kind of comment is so childish.

SurFitOfTheVine

12-19-2010, 03:02 PM

Why not just ban all good card? Ban vial, ban lackey ban force of will, ban nacatl,ban....w/e.
For the record I do not believe Sotf should be banned.
But this kind of comment is so childish.

No, it's not childish. The format may not be balaced now, but it certainly won't be if they ban Survival. The only way to balance it IMO is to unban cards.

Combo is strong enough without MT, so I think it should stay banned. However, cards like Earthcraft, Mind Twist and Goblin Recruiter should come off the B&R list.

If they did, Elves, Enchantress, Goblins and even black decks would see more play. Hence, less Survival decks and more diversity.

birds of paradise2

12-19-2010, 03:05 PM

Does anyone know when the banlist is posted? Is it 00,00, 08.00? etc.

majikal

12-19-2010, 03:10 PM

Does anyone know when the banlist is posted? Is it 00,00, 08.00? etc.
The URL usually becomes available a few hours before midnight, while it actually goes live on the front page at midnight (GMT-5).

Mana Drain

12-19-2010, 03:15 PM

Why is Black Vise still on the list? It's not really all that good anymore, imo. Stax can probably use it well but not much else that i can think of.

Vise is still on the list because it is truly one of the cards that fits the "unfun" category. Turn 1 Vise is a guaranteed 5 damaged against anything but Storm, and really pushes games in to "who can dump their hand the fastest" or "who has the most Black Vises". The fact that it costs 1 mana and is colorless, would effectively push control decks of any sort (CB, Landstill, Thopters) out of the format by every non-control deck siding 4. Hell, control decks would run 4.
Although I'd be all for Wizards making a function reprint that cost B. That might be playable but not overpowering.

bakofried

12-19-2010, 04:57 PM

So how do I find it before midnight?

dontbiteitholmes

12-19-2010, 06:07 PM

So how do I find it before midnight?

Using advanced CS3 internet tactics like entering the URL without a link.

PS- It's not up yet so don't bother.

median

12-19-2010, 06:45 PM

it will be here
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/122k

Darksteel

12-20-2010, 12:02 AM

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/122k

Confirmed banning of Survival and unbanning of Time Spiral.

DragoFireheart

12-20-2010, 01:41 AM

Other cards were considered, such as Vengevine. However some of the winning decks do not even play Vengevine; instead, they primarily rely on combinations with Necrotic Ooze. Also, Survival is a card that gives the decks a lot of resilience to potential answer cards. Some combination decks fail when they draw cards intended as answers to opponents' decks instead of cards that are part of their winning combination. However, with Survival of the Fittest on the battlefield, a drawn Qasali Pridemage can be replaced with any other creature in the deck for one mana.

While I was hoping they would not ban it, it goes to show you that they do not like tutors that are powerful regardless of what they tutor.

nedleeds

12-20-2010, 11:34 AM

... dusts off <insert random tribal deck> ...

Finn

12-20-2010, 01:51 PM

FoolofaTook

12-21-2010, 11:23 AM

Wizards has nothing against powerful tutors that are already in use. Just like they did with Mystical Tutor and Tinker before that, they will allow the tutor to remain until they have a need to ban it. When given the choice they will ban the tutor and not the cards being tutored for. And it makes sense from a game-design perspective. With Survival gone, there is no reason why they can't continue to push the limits of stuff like Vengevine and Demigod of Revenge (I think that is the one). If they banned VV instead, this entire issue would come up again in 18 months.

This begs the question though of why they print tutors in the first place. If a good tutor effect inevitably is going to break as the result of some future printing shouldn't they just ban the overall effect in play and get it over with? All it took was one card getting printed to break SotF. What are the odds that WotC can get through another few sets without breaking Worldly Tutor or Enlightened Tutor? They broke Mystical Tutor with an unban of Entomb (and yes there were other issues but Entomb was the straw that broke the camel's back.) They broke SotF with Vengevine (other issues also but Vengevine was the killer.) I look at Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor and I think the handwriting is already on the wall it's just a question of how they break and then ban them.

dontbiteitholmes

12-21-2010, 11:30 AM

This begs the question though of why they print tutors in the first place. If a good tutor effect inevitably is going to break as the result of some future printing shouldn't they just ban the overall effect in play and get it over with? All it took was one card getting printed to break SotF. What are the odds that WotC can get through another few sets without breaking Worldly Tutor or Enlightened Tutor? They broke Mystical Tutor with an unban of Entomb (and yes there were other issues but Entomb was the straw that broke the camel's back.) They broke SotF with Vengevine (other issues also but Vengevine was the killer.) I look at Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor and I think the handwriting is already on the wall it's just a question of how they break and then ban them.

All the good tutors are over 10 years old if you didn't notice.

defector

12-21-2010, 11:33 AM

It is just a matter of time, probably. Also, Academy Rector is arguably a better enchantment tutor than Enlightened so it faces the same difficulty. So far when it comes to enchantments Wizards has chosen to ban the enchantment, we'll see if they continue to do so in the future. I agree with you though the hand writing is on the wall, all that has to be done is the printing of one card.

FoolofaTook

12-21-2010, 11:44 AM

All the good tutors are over 10 years old if you didn't notice.

Yes and two of them were banned in the last 3 updates. The point is that if Wotc is arguing that they need the design space that lack of predictability creates so that they can create powerful cards that people will actually want to play then ultimately all of the specific tutors are going to fuel degenerate things at some point or another. They should just say that tutors are too powerful in a 20,000 card design space and remove all of the target specific ones in one go. End of problem.

Alternately they can just continue printing powerful cards, not looking at the eternal card pool (which is the posture they claim), and "oops we broke it" will be a continuing phenomenon moving forward.

Dark Ritual

12-21-2010, 11:56 AM

There's a reason academy rector see's no play today. The card is terrible at 4 mana; and it is susceptible to grave hate like faerie macabre, extirpate, LotV, crypt/relic...rector < e. tutor.

And all the good tutors are over 10 years old like DBIH said. Wizards has yet to print something even remotely close to the 1 drop tutor cycle save summoner's pact; but creature tutors have proven to be pretty fair because creatures aren't that broken. In 1995 the game was still new and no one knew what it would look like 15 years down the road. So they printed demonic tutor, vampiric tutor, mystical tutor, gamble, survival of the fittest, etc. etc. not knowing the impact it would have down the road on the eternal formats.

Ozymandias

12-21-2010, 12:22 PM

Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor are both post-2000 printings.

Finn

12-21-2010, 01:28 PM

Captain Hammer

12-21-2010, 01:38 PM

How about a 3cc black sorcery that says destroy target green or white permanent.

dontbiteitholmes

12-21-2010, 01:54 PM

Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor are both post-2000 printings.

Infernal Tutor is fair. Either you...
1: Get another copy of a card you already have, which is fair.
2: Use it while Hellbent, which means you have to preemptively answer counters before you do it and basically go off that turn which is more or less fair.

I mean, it's a good tutor, but it's certainly not broken except when combined with LED which can mostly be blamed on LED being so good. Overall it's pretty fair though.

Burning Wish, first off that was almost 8 1/2 years ago and yeah it's the only broken tutor I can think of since. Second Wizards had no idea that it would be used the way it was in Vintage. I think it's not too bad in Legacy but the closest thing we have to a broken tutor.

I think the fact that no tutors made in the past 10 years are currently banned in Legacy shows that WoTC has more or less learned their lesson on tutors.

Dark Ritual

12-21-2010, 02:03 PM

The wish cards are tutors, but they come at a price. That price being when half your SB is wish targets, it leaves less room for cards getting actually boarded in. And besides that, they can only get one specific kind of card. Obviously if ad nauseam was a sorcery burning wish would be broken in 2 probably banned at this point but being limited to only sorceries is a drawback whether you admit to it or not. Cunning wish is fair at 3 mana and so are the rest of the wish cards. Living wish being 1G doesn't even make it that good because it is the color green which is a weak color and it only fetches lands and creatures which are generally fair.

Infernal tutor is fair like DBIH said. You have to have zero cards in hand to abuse it; cracking LED in response to IT only to have it spell snare'd or forced results in you losing the game 99% of the time. Infernal tutor is fair. Especially when you can't get hellbent; then the card is dead weight usually.

FoolofaTook

12-21-2010, 02:20 PM

FoolofaTook, when they banned Tinker, we got a pretty good hint at the philosophy. They will let the cards stay around, no matter how powerful, until it is abused. That makes sense to me. Otherwise you get stuff like Enlightened Tutor, Entomb, Goblin Welder, etc. getting the axe. Goblin Welder is totally broken and totally unuseable at the same time. Let people have their fun trying to bust him. A preemptive banning of cards like that are not necessary.

What this philosophy creates is experimentation followed by swarming followed by banning. That's an unhealthy place for any eternal competition to be in. If a card is broken but the deck that breaks it hasn't been found yet the Legacy meta would be better off and the competition would be more interesting if it was banned before that event occurred. If a card is broken and just waiting for an inevitable card or 2 to be printed or unbanned to make the break clear then just ban it and avoid the swarm.

Sometimes the swarm is really fast to assemble, as in when Flash was un-errata'd, and the banning is equally fast and the entire process added nothing to the competition except to reward the swarmers and de-rail a Grand Prix at the last moment. Sometimes it never fully forms, as in AnT never becoming dominant despite being totally broken in the hands of a good player, and we're left waiting for somebody in R&D to nudge really hard with something like Entomb being unbanned to create a collective over-powered swarm. Sometimes a concept, like reusable tutor limited only by mana and trigger cards, is clearly a break waiting to happen and then a few cards get printed and make it happen.

The point is that having the Legacy meta become flavor of the year with a succession of dominant decks based on cards soon to be banned is a bad thing. Much better off just to get all the bannings done at once and then let R&D go nuts for Standard without breaking Legacy repeatedly in the process.

lordofthepit

12-21-2010, 03:32 PM

I don't think a powerful tutor (within reason) necessarily has to be banned, and I certainly disagreed with the Mystical Tutor banning, given the relatively weak performances of ANT and Reanimator. (I do understand the DCI's reasoning though, but I digress.)

The problem with Survival was not only was it a Tier 1 repeatably abusable tutor, but it was also an extremely powerful discard outlet all in one card. If there were a card that did this:

Darwin's Presence, :1::g:
Enchantment
:g:, Remove a creature card in your hand from the game: Search your library for a creature card, reveal it to all players, and put it into your hand. Shuffle your library afterwards.
"I refuse to use lame terms like exile," Lord of the Pit

You'd have a clearly powerful tutor effect, but one that doesn't have the "oops, I win" broken factor that ends up getting cards banned.

FieryBalrog

12-24-2010, 03:57 PM

Living wish being 1G doesn't even make it that good because it is the color green which is a weak color
You mean weak for combo? (even then, Xantid Swarm and Autumn's Veil are tech) Because Green has been amazing in Legacy for the past few years, and no I don't just mean Goyf.

and it only fetches lands and creatures which are generally fair.

That strikes me as the real reason.

Dark Ritual

12-25-2010, 02:36 AM

Green is good because of k grip and goyf. Survival as well until that got axed. What will green be good for post banning? Big fat beaters. And k grip. That's the only reason green has a place. Natural order isn't that great of a card because when a metagame adapts to it, progenitus will eat some hibernations or perishes a lot. Or just a simple innocent blood. Vengevine might be good post banning though so yeah. But really, green is the color of fat creatures for little mana. And enchantress effects lol.

Darwin's presence, the card suggested above, is fair. It can't abuse squee. It can't abuse vengevine without very specific pieces in hand to combo. Essentially it is like old school survival; you did this, I'll tutor up a creature to answer whatever you did. Fair. I see no problem arising if that card was printed.

Grollub

12-25-2010, 01:19 PM

Darwin's presence, the card suggested above, is fair. It can't abuse squee. It can't abuse vengevine without very specific pieces in hand to combo. Essentially it is like old school survival; you did this, I'll tutor up a creature to answer whatever you did. Fair. I see no problem arising if that card was printed.
Recurring Nightmare would like a word with you. ;-)

Julian23

12-25-2010, 01:43 PM

...which would do nothing combined with the card he was talking about.

FieryBalrog

12-26-2010, 01:29 PM

Green is good because of k grip and goyf. Survival as well until that got axed. What will green be good for post banning? Big fat beaters. And k grip. That's the only reason green has a place.

"only" big fat beaters and K grip? Not only is that a ridiculous use of the word "only" to make it seem like Green sucks*, it's just false. Yes, Natural Order is a great card. Yes, Enchantress effects are in Green. Trygon Predator. Pernicious Deed. Life from the Loam. Noble Hierarch. Qasali Pridemage. Vengevine will still be good. Xantid Swarm.

*Black is "only" confidant and some discard effects and Dark Ritual, White is "only" swords to plowshares, Elspeth and stoneforge mystic, Red is "only" goblins, lightning bolt and firespout. Hey look at that, Green is still the second best color in Legacy! Which is backed up the stats posted in one of the threads recently- it's the most played color and the 2nd most successful. That will not change just because one of Green's best cards was banned.