Grand Prix Providence- Most Popular Cards. Let's ban BLUE!

[Griselpuff]

Without further ado all the cards from the Top 8:

Mental Misstep 27
Island 24
Brainstorm 24
Force of Will 24
Wasteland 15
Misty Rainforest 12
Daze 12
Vendilion Clique 10
Polluted Delta 10
Swords to Plowshares 10
Tropical Island 9
Tarmogoyf 9
Jace, the Mind Sculptor 9
Path to Exile 9
Volcanic Island 8
Wooded Foothills 8
Lightning Bolt 8
Spell Pierce 8
Flooded Strand 8
Mishra's Factory 8
Standstill 8
Llawan, Cephalid Empress 8
Scalding Tarn 7
Noble Hierarch 7
Green Sun's Zenith 7
Umezawa's Jitte 7
Windswept Heath 7
Ancient Tomb 7
Intuition 7
Ponder 6
Tundra 6
Qasali Pridemage 6
Stoneforge Mystic 6
Grim Lavamancer 5
Red Elemental Blast 5
Relic of Progenitus 5
Spell Snare 5
Knight of the Reliquary 5
Mutavault 4
Taiga 4
Chain Lightning 4
Wild Nacatl 4
Natural Order 4
Pyroblast 4
Pernicious Deed 4
Leyline of the Void 4
Steppe Lynx 4
Price of Progress 4
Sylvan Library 4
Gaddock Teeg 4
Krosan Grip 4
City of Traitors 4
Seat of the Synod 4
Goblin Welder 4
Painter's Servant 4
Grindstone 4
Sensei's Divining Top 4
Blood Moon 4
Tormod's Crypt 4
Arid Mesa 4
Coralhelm Commander 4
Cursecatcher 4
Lord of Atlantis 4
Merrow Reejerey 4
Silvergill Adept 4
Aether Vial 4
Pact of Negation 4
Show and Tell 4
Hive Mind 4
Leyline of Sanctity 4
Misdirection 4
Forest 3
Meddling Mage 3
Underground Sea 3
Thoughtseize 3
Savannah 3
Choke 3
Thrun, the Last Troll 3
Great Furnace 3
Mox Opal 3
Submerge 3
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 3
Pact of the Titan 3
Grim Monolith 3
Mindbreak Trap 3
Ravenous Trap 3
Dryad Arbor 2
Plateau 2
Plains 2
Batterskull 2
Ancient Grudge 2
Counterspell 2
Diabolic Edict 2
Life from the Loam 2
Rhox War Monk 2
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 2
Merfolk Sovereign 2
Blue Elemental Blast 2
Energy Flux 2
Summoner's Pact 2
Karakas 2
Mountain 1
Oblivion Ring 1
Horizon Canopy 1
Progenitus 1
Crucible of Worlds 1
Fireblast 1
Kitchen Finks 1
Wrath of God 1
Terastodon 1
Dismember 1
Go for the Throat 1
Innocent Blood 1
Smother 1
Damnation 1
Sword of Body and Mind 1
Ghastly Demise 1
Maelstrom Pulse 1
Vedalken Shackles 1
Maze of Ith 1
Birds of Paradise 1
Sword of Feast and Famine 1
Bojuka Bog 1
Dispel 1
Pithing Needle 1
Sylvan Safekeeper 1
Lion's Eye Diamond 1
Transmute Artifact 1
Sower of Temptation 1

So apparently, Mental Misstep > Brainstorm > Force of Will.

A couple more stats:
Lands- 117
Creatures- 173
Spells- 311

Note that only 2 cards are from NPH.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I'm curious as to what others want to say first. I'm a blue mage myself, so the title was not serious, but what can be done to "fix" blue. I think the core of the problem is Blue has the ability to manipulate cards, say no and play really powerful cards such as Jace and Show and Tell. Add that to the fact they can do a lot of it for free generates far too much of an advantage.

[Gui]

Ban the second of that list.

[Eksem]

Wow, that's a list of really great cards. No wonder I like this format so much. I want to play ALL those.

[Nihil Credo]

Amusingly enough, banning Island (and Snow-Covered Island) might be less absurd than it looks, since you'd weaken blue decks against almost everything except combo decks who wouldn't punish you for an all-nonbasic manabase. NO I'M NOT ENDORSING BANNING ISLAND

[GGoober]

But if you ban blue cards, it just means that unfair aggro/combo decks are going to rape the format. You wouldn't want that to happen right? Blue keeps everything in check, and since it keeps everything in check, everyone wants to keep everything in check, hence they play blue.

I can't even imagine a format where blue isn't a dominant player. Same deal in EDH or any other format. If you don't have blue in matches, then the combo player is just going to win ALL the time. We wouldn't want a format like that do we?

Totally saw the Mental Misstep scenarios in the Top 8. The card is too good, in blue decks (of course).

[Julian23]

When talking about all those cards (read: blue) being "unfair" one should note that out of the Top20 only one card provides card advantage. All the others are either one-for-ones or even card disadvantage, though they provide tempo. So we can conclude that "tempo" is the new "unfair"?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Tempo is definitely the most important aspect in modern Legacy. It's been for a while.

[Julian23]

So let's take the logical next step and look for cards that punish tempo-based strategies...Suggestions? (This ain't a rhetorical question)

[ScatmanX]

I think that giving other colors cards that are good against combo, but don't suck against everything else, is the reasonable choice.

[Griselpuff]

Also, apparently Vendilion Clique is the best creature! :)

It is my favorite out of Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Stoneforge Mystic, Knight of the Reliquary and Vendilion Clique. Any other nominations for best creature in Legacy?

Please don't say Llawan XD

[Koby]

Please don't say Llawan XD

The best creature to see your opponent's face contort in awful ways.

[android]

Or you could just make a zoo deck with the top non-blue cards.

Grim Lavamancer x 3
Knight of the Reliquary x 3
Steppe Lynx x 4
Stoneforge Mystic x 4
Tarmogoyf x 4
Thrun, the Last Troll x 1

Chain Lightning x 4
Green Sun's Zenith x 3
Lightning Bolt x 4
Path to Exile x 3
Swords to Plowshares x 3
Umezawa's Jitte x 1

Arid Mesa x 2
Forest x 1
Karakas x 1
Maze of Ith x 1
Mountain x 1
Plains x 1
Plateau x 2
Savannah x 3
Taiga x 2
Wasteland x 3
Windswept Heath x 3
Wooded Foothills x 3

Krosan Grip x 4
Pyroblast x 2
Qasali Pridemage x 4
Red Elemental Blast x 3
Relic of Progenitus x 2

[troopatroop]

If the Hatfields advocate 4x Horizon Canopy in Zoo, it's probably the right decision.

[Jonathan Alexander]

So let's take the logical next step and look for cards that punish tempo-based strategies...Suggestions? (This ain't a rhetorical question)

How are you going to punish tempo-based strategies? If you don't have significant tempo on your own, you'll basically just lose. What you can do is either try to disrupt them yourself so you can land some sweet lategame bombs (basically just play Landstill or these new Stoneforge decks) or you can try to not be susceptible to their tempo-disruption but this seems hard to achieve. The last option is to out-tempo them with your own tempo elements (Dragon Stompy seems pretty strong right now).

[Justin]

Or you could just make a zoo deck with the top non-blue cards.

Grim Lavamancer x 3
Knight of the Reliquary x 3
Steppe Lynx x 4
Stoneforge Mystic x 4
Tarmogoyf x 4
Thrun, the Last Troll x 1

Chain Lightning x 4
Green Sun's Zenith x 3
Lightning Bolt x 4
Path to Exile x 3
Swords to Plowshares x 3
Umezawa's Jitte x 1

Arid Mesa x 2
Forest x 1
Karakas x 1
Maze of Ith x 1
Mountain x 1
Plains x 1
Plateau x 2
Savannah x 3
Taiga x 2
Wasteland x 3
Windswept Heath x 3
Wooded Foothills x 3

Krosan Grip x 4
Pyroblast x 2
Qasali Pridemage x 4
Red Elemental Blast x 3
Relic of Progenitus x 2

How about a full set of Thurn, replacing the bolt spells with REB and Pyroblast, adding a set of Vexing Shusher and throwing Choke and City of Solitude into the main as well?

[Koby]

Is it time to start putting together Imperial Painter yet?

7 maindeck Blasts, turn 2 combo, and Magus of the Moon. Man this deck is so sexy!

[DragoFireheart]

So, Mental Misstep is better than Force of Will?

[phonics]

with all the hype around mystic and equipment, there wasnt much at all in the top8 (though 7x jitte does seem like a bit since decks usually dont run more than 2)

[Gheizen64]

When talking about all those cards (read: blue) being "unfair" one should note that out of the Top20 only one card provides card advantage. All the others are either one-for-ones or even card disadvantage, though they provide tempo. So we can conclude that "tempo" is the new "unfair"?

The fact that "tempo" define modern eternal was pointed by Menendian and a lot of others players ages ago. He went even further and stated that even a card like LoA in modern eternal would be fair just because the tempo loss of playing it's so devastating (see: not doing anything first x turn in exchange for x more cards), that you'd see the card only for control mirrors or in a format extremely dominated by prison archetipes.
This is natural if you consider how stupidly strong are win condition compared to ages ago (nothing better than morphling will ever be printed!). Control gladly trade cards one for one with aggro if it can play a win condition that basically gain infinite card advantage via board presence on turn 2-3.
Long ago you were forced to play bad win conditions that didn't dominate the board, making card advantage fundamental to actually control.

[GGoober]

with all the hype around mystic and equipment, there wasnt much at all in the top8 (though 7x jitte does seem like a bit since decks usually dont run more than 2)

Was a metagame choice against an expected field of Merfolks. Doesn't strike me as odd when the tier decks are prepared against Folks, possibly nabbing random Goblins and Elves along the way.

[morgan_coke]

ban brainstorm. It simultaneously hurts combo while making anti-combo strats like discard better against combo, and hurts blue overall. It also still enables all the 8 cantrip strategies since they can still use ponder and preordain, which are worse than brainstorm, but still strong on their own.

historically the best and "most fair" way to limit blue has been to make the color choose between casting sorceries or casting counters. since legacy has 12 free counters the choice has to become between casting filtration and casting sorceries.

[wcm8]

I agree with morgan's suggestion re: brainstorm.

They could also print some powerful cards in the vein of Force of Will that require you to go heavily on the one color to play them effectively/consistently. With easily splashable powerful cards like Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant, there isn't as much incentive to go beyond just splashing for those colors outside of linear strategies like elves or goblins. For example, suppose this were a card:

Force of Woe
3BB
Instant
You may pay 1 life and remove a black card in your hand from the game rather than pay Force of Woe's mana cost.
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.

[Skeggi]

Please don't say Llawan XD
It's kind of funny/sad that the best card to use against the best mono blue deck is in fact, blue. Does this make anyone feel blue?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ugkg9RePc

[Koby]

Force of Woe
3BB
Instant
You may pay 1 life and remove a black card in your hand from the game rather than pay Force of Woe's mana cost.
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.

Unmask. Problem isn't solved. Also, there is a blue version of the above spell. Vendilion Clique. :\ Blue really does have the best of every color.


Psionic Blast
Piracy Charm
Pongify
Vendilion Clique
Sunder

Plus many more which I can't think of right now.

[wcm8]

Unmask. Problem isn't solved :(

Unmask is a sorcery. The advantage of my hypothetical card is that it's an instant.

[Julian23]

R&D employs a principle that discard spells can't be instant. The only exception from this, I know of, is Ebony Charm.

/edit: Uh right, it's Funeral Charm, not Ebony Charm. My bad.

[Koby]

Funeral Charm
Piracy Charm

Are the few exceptions, and only because it's a modal spell that otherwise needs to be Instant speed.

[mchainmail]

Funeral Charm
Piracy Charm

Are the few exceptions, and only because it's a modal spell that otherwise needs to be Instant speed.

and they affected player gets the choice, making it far less broken.

[I am the brainwasher]

So, Mental Misstep is better than Force of Will?

Not that I would go that far, but Force is really the card I am most unsatisfied with when playing a blue deck, well most of the times. No joke. I am even testing right now to replace its spot in some decks and you know what? Its not as worse as you think it is, by far. I can completely understand that decks drop its numbers or even stop playing it at all because you are able to disrupt the opponents game-plan in a way that 4-Forces arent an auto-include anymore. Thats definetly not true for all sort of decks but especially for those who are able to disrupt the opponent kinda elegant via Clique, Gaddock etc. and other cards that kicks the opponent awful in the nuts when played at the correct time.
Force is definetly NOT the formats problem (if its existing at all) and I would calm down in general and try to stick to strategies that are able to come across all these.
As said above, Dragon Stompy is an awesome choice right now, as well as Dredge and a lot of decks that were formerly known as rogue-decks.
I can just recommend to sit together with friends to brew about even completely new decks and strategies; a ability that has lost its value since quite some time. Good deckbuilders have become rare and a lot of players lost their confidence and motivation due to childish hating on playing a "pile" or not testing correct and for long enough time.
The copy_paste monsters is as big as it never was before (which is not a big surprise, welcome to the internet!) and this does some serious damage to the game as well as to the community, a lot of players are simply goddamn lazy.
I think most of the players who complain completely deserve all these losses until they make themselves responsible for such weird results in Top16/8's. Understanding that you are part of the big Magic-cake (which is indeed deep blue right now) is necessary to understand that, but I know right now that this wont happen to the extend that is needed.
The metagame-shift is based upon players, so go out and do some work, it seems that you have enough energy to complain in forums so put it into something more productive.
If at least 20% of the meta would be decks that hate out the common blue decks, let that happen, then something WILL change. Sure its exaggerated but playing a deck that punishes players for relying hard on the color of blue is a must when the meta should change right now.
Otherwise there is the possibility of getting to know the deck you play way better and adapt new (sb)strategies, which is also completely underestimated. Most of the common problems could be fixed if players would start to work on their play and understanding MU's in general.

[honestabe]

Are you all serious? banning brainstorm is the biggest joke I've ever heard. Like, I literally can't tell if its all just sarcasm, and I hope it is. If you ban brainstorm, Legacy as a format dies. Just dies. The second WoTC bans brainstorm is the second that I ship every magical card I own, as they'll all be worthless within a year. Get real

[Solar Ice]

There would be less incentive to play blue if that the Brainstorm ban were to happen. On the flip side, it would make Merfolk much stronger. Regarding combo, its hey-days are gone with the arrival of MM. AnT/Spiral Tide would get the final nail in the coffin without BS as well.

[honestabe]

There would probably be less incentive to play blue if that the Brainstorm ban were to happen. On the flip side, it would make Merfolk much stronger. Regarding combo, its hey-days are gone with the arrival of MM. AnT/Spiral Tide would get the final nail in the coffin without BS as well.

But belcher and other stupid combo decks would get even better, because the blue decks designed to keep them in check wouldn't have brainstorm.

[Rune]

Are you all serious? banning brainstorm is the biggest joke I've ever heard. Like, I literally can't tell if its all just sarcasm, and I hope it is. If you ban brainstorm, Legacy as a format dies. Just dies. The second WoTC bans brainstorm is the second that I ship every magical card I own, as they'll all be worthless within a year. Get real

I must say I'm thinking the exact same. I really hope that's some kind of unfunny joke. Won't ~50% of the people playing this format just instantly quit Legacy if that happens? I know many people who will, anyway (including myself). And no, people won't quit because they can't win without Brainstorm. They will quit because the format simply isn't Legacy anymore.

In any case, the difference between players in the top 8 and the top 32 is very small, so I think it's pretty dumb to make any kind of decision based only on information from the top 8.

There are other ways to weaken blue without taking away one of the most iconic, cool and fun cards that has ever been printed. IF they need to axe a blue card (and I don't think they really need to), it should definitely be Mental Misstep. It's not fun to play with this card in any way, it increases the power of blue decks by giving them yet another good tempo play, it makes anti-blue strategies worse (Aether Vial, Putrid Imp, Steppe Lynx etc..). Most importantly, the art sucks balls. It's cool that WotC is printing cards specifically for Legacy, but they should probably stop feeding blue with absurd cards and instead focus on the other colors.

[Solar Ice]

But belcher and other stupid combo decks would get even better, because the blue decks designed to keep them in check wouldn't have brainstorm.

Absolutely. Though with Merfolk running the show, those decks shouldn't really stand much chance of dominating. Pierce, Force, MM, Daze, (even Snare). But yeah, belcher/SI would get a boost.

Brainstorm is one of, if not the, most skill intensive cards ever printed. I also find the talk of it getting banned absurd. Worringly enough, it is not completly out of the realm of possibility.

[MWR]

You will quit because ONE card is banned? I just want to have Brainstorm banned now, to see if you really would sell all your stuff in an instant.

[Koby]

I quit at least 7 times since Survival got banned.

[GGoober]

I play Legacy for Brainstorm. Eat it WotC!

Not really, but Brainstorm is such a format defining card, like Sol Ring is the iconic symbol of EDH (even if it's clearly overpowered).

I would say the power level of Brainstorm.dec is tremendous, but there are still a ton of viable decks that place well even without Brainstorm. This is why this format is so awesome. You ban brainstorm, means you don't understand the format.

Also, if you keep suggesting banning blue cards, don't be surprised that you'll have to ban 1/3 of the cards in the format because now combo decks (tendrils or NOShow or Reanimator etc) will have a much dominating scene in Legacy. You pay a price everytime you ban something. Decks surge up and die, but I would imagine without blue to keep combo decks in check, aggro wouldn't be too happy, then we get a ton more whining going on, because for some reason it's always the aggro people whining about blue being overpowered since ABU was printed, and not the combo player, ironically.

Lol.

[lorddotm]

You will quit because ONE card is banned? I just want to have Brainstorm banned now, to see if you really would sell all your stuff in an instant.

Do you wanna buy mine if it is banned?

[Richard Cheese]

I quit at least 7 times since Survival got banned.

http://achewood.com/comic.php?date=01152007

I quit this format one thousand times!

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Banning Brainstorm did kill Vintage, so there is a precedent. Legacy is awesome in spite of being blue heavy right now (at least that's what I hear 99% of all players say) and has what feels like a million viable archetypes (and a large number of them doesn't run blue). Seriously, don't go there if you want to still be playing this format two years from now.

[Fsk]

There are other ways to weaken blue without taking away one of the most iconic, (cool and fun) powerful and versatile card that has ever been printed.

[Gheizen64]

Banning Brainstorm did kill Vintage, so there is a precedent. Legacy is awesome in spite of being blue heavy right now (at least that's what I hear 99% of all players say) and has what feels like a million viable archetypes (and a large number of them doesn't run blue). Seriously, don't go there if you want to still be playing this format two years from now.

Wasn't legacy the largest reason Vintage died?

[honestabe]

Wasn't legacy the largest reason Vintage died?

Nope, RESTRICTING BRAINSTORM was the reason Vintage died. Learn from the past here, people

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Man, I've been playing far too much Legacy. Obviously Brainstorm was restricted, not banned. Having played Vintage for more than a decade and loving the format, that's a real sad slip for me.

What happened was this: the format was blue (Gush) dominated but vibrant and full of players. Seeing blues dominance, the DCI hit Brainstorm and actual broken blue cards (Gush, Merchant Scroll, Flash) and rapidly tournaments were lucky to draw more than 20 people. Considering the format was also very popular and active before Gush returned or Merchant Scroll saw massive play, it's reasonable to assume 3/4-killing Brainstorm also put Vintage into its current comatose state. Vintage was sweet and healthy long after Legacy had taken off and gotten it's GPs. The formats could coexist and did until the Brainstorm debacle happened.
The lesson to learn from that? It's better to have a format that isn't balanced colorwise but that a large number of players enjoy than one that's more balanced but much less fun to play for a large majority of its active players.

[I am the brainwasher]

"IF they need to axe a blue card (and I don't think they really need to), it should definitely be Mental Misstep. It's not fun to play with this card in any way, it increases the power of blue decks by giving them yet another good tempo play, it makes anti-blue strategies worse (Aether Vial, Putrid Imp, Steppe Lynx etc..). Most importantly, the art sucks balls."

- I can just completely agree. I think the card would have been great if it was printed in white (what would make kinda sense with a different name). Then it would be definetly more balanced than it is in Legacy. The concept would have been pretty cool but they messed it up by simply adding the wrong color to it.
Sure there was spell snare, but there was also Mana Tithe and some other white counters that could be used as arguments to turn into something white that feels way better than having it in blue. That would punish the decks abusing it in a more fair and balanced way; complete fail from WotC, agreed.
After playing against the card and playing it by myself it feels just awful every time I use (cast) it. Its hard to describe that feeling it creates but it makes me unsatisfied and annoyed in a way thats really bothering me. Its just wrong. The card itself is just unfun to play as well as to play against it, even if its not broken, and I hear that from a lot of players (as well from those who play decks that benefit from it the most).
As I saw the card the first time I thought its a nice addition but right now I am damn annoyed of that f**cker.
All that said I still love blue decks and the format as a whole and I think its well balanced, still, but that card messed a whole lot of things up. Everyone wants to abuse it, everyone wants to play blue right now because of it and people have completely lost their minds due to it. Sad.
Has anyone ever thought about WotC trying to destroy a format with cards:confused:?
Just kidding (pls not another conspiracy theory) but as long people wont recognize whats to do the meta wont change at all, besides all the pros stop to play blue and switch to other decks and then all these players start copy-pasting the new "metagame".

PS: The art on the card doesnt make sense. Myrs seem to be robotic servants which arent well known for beeing smart-asses casting spells all day long. Should have made some sort of a Top or Vial broken in half IMO... .

[Shugyosha]

True to the often used statement "You can play whatever you want" I took the most played cards of the list minus lands and added 4 of them to a decklist:

GP Providence Mashup:

20 Lands
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Vendilion Clique
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
(4 Spell Pierce)

Probably cut 2 clique and 2 Path for the next card in the list (Spell Pierce). Most lists of the top8 looked similarly strange but playable.

[Koby]

True to the often used statement "You can play whatever you want" I took the most played cards of the list minus lands and added 4 of them to a decklist:

GP Providence Mashup:

20 Lands
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Vendilion Clique
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
(4 Spell Pierce)

Probably cut 2 clique and 2 Path for the next card in the list (Spell Pierce). Most lists of the top8 looked similarly strange but playable.

I, for one, welcome our new Deck to Beat.

[Fuzzy]

I, for one, welcome our new Deck to Beat.

I wouldn't say Deck to Beat, but the list looks really sweet.

[Tammit67]

Nope, RESTRICTING BRAINSTORM was the reason Vintage died. Learn from the past here, people

You guys need to move to the Philadelphia area. Vintage is alive.

[bracer028]

how the hell is banning brainstrom going to end legacy? you are basically saying that brainstorm is so powerful you need it in the format to play.

blue has so many cards that can substitute braintstorm. a banning of brainstorm isn't going to affect blue all that much anyways. It will slow it down, make it less consistent. and thats about it.

right now the mentality of legacy is..."if you are not playing blue, you are not competitive" or "if you can't beat them, join them (meaning play blue)

[Hanni]

STOP with this ban blue nonsense. Is every other thread going to be about the same thing? It's just like the Survival era... too many people bitching and complaining and not enough people adjusting. Seriously, just quit whining. If you want to play in a less blue format, go play Standard. O wait...

Blue is just a fundamentally stronger color than the other colors, and this isn't something new. Go back in time, it hasn't changed. Blue may have gotten some upgrades from Tradewind Rider and Morphling, but so has the rest of the colors. The problem isn't Brainstorm, or Force of Will... it's blue in general.

Furthermore, there are viable non-blue options out there, especially if you're building to beat a blue metagame. Some players, like myself, enjoy playing blue. If there was 1 deck dominating the format, that would be one thing, but there's not. There are so many viable decks right now, both blue and non-blue, that this topic is just starting to get annoying.

[honestabe]

If you're suggesting Preordain and Ponder as replacements for Brainstorm, you obviously don't understand the card nearly enough to call for its banning. Save the remaining dignity you (and this forum) have, and shut up.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Are you all serious? banning brainstorm is the biggest joke I've ever heard. Like, I literally can't tell if its all just sarcasm, and I hope it is. If you ban brainstorm, Legacy as a format dies. Just dies. The second WoTC bans brainstorm is the second that I ship every magical card I own, as they'll all be worthless within a year. Get real

No way, dude.

Dude.

Dude,

No way.


If you're suggesting Preordain and Ponder as replacements for Brainstorm, you obviously don't understand the card nearly enough to call for its banning. Save the remaining dignity you (and this forum) have, and shut up.

I'll be your Huckleberry.

To be clear, your argument here acknowledges that Brainstorm is fundamentally on a different power level than other blue card in the same cost range, yeah? Well that's progress.


There would be less incentive to play blue if that the Brainstorm ban were to happen. On the flip side, it would make Merfolk much stronger. Regarding combo, its hey-days are gone with the arrival of MM. AnT/Spiral Tide would get the final nail in the coffin without BS as well.

Merfolk thrives on beating blue decks so would actually be indirectly hit.



But belcher and other stupid combo decks would get even better, because the blue decks designed to keep them in check wouldn't have brainstorm.

Meanwhile, all the combo decks that don't actually suck play Brainstorm.

I mean I'm being slightly facetious, but

a) It's really easy to fight Belcher without blue and without narrow cards.

b) "It keeps the format from possibly degenerating" isn't a reason to maintain a degenerate format.

I mean a lot of things are neat about Legacy right now, but there's also a lot of signs indicating that you do indeed need to play blue to have a shot at winning, which is making the format slide inexorably towards Vintage and thus death.

If the format gets degenerate, axe something. This isn't rocket surgery. Sometimes the deck you're working on suddenly sucks because a key card got banned, or for any of a dozen other reason including it always sucked and you stopped lying to yourself.

That's life. Move on.


I must say I'm thinking the exact same. I really hope that's some kind of unfunny joke. Won't ~50% of the people playing this format just instantly quit Legacy if that happens? I know many people who will, anyway (including myself). And no, people won't quit because they can't win without Brainstorm. They will quit because the format simply isn't Legacy anymore.

People threatening to quit Magic if Wizards does X has all the validity at this point of threatening to hold your breath.

This isn't the best way to protect the health of the format.


In any case, the difference between players in the top 8 and the top 32 is very small, so I think it's pretty dumb to make any kind of decision based only on information from the top 8.

There are other ways to weaken blue without taking away one of the most iconic, cool and fun cards that has ever been printed. IF they need to axe a blue card (and I don't think they really need to), it should definitely be Mental Misstep. It's not fun to play with this card in any way, it increases the power of blue decks by giving them yet another good tempo play, it makes anti-blue strategies worse (Aether Vial, Putrid Imp, Steppe Lynx etc..). Most importantly, the art sucks balls. It's cool that WotC is printing cards specifically for Legacy, but they should probably stop feeding blue with absurd cards and instead focus on the other colors.

I mean Survival was a really iconic, cool and fun card. So are lots of banned cards. There's Cube and EDH for all the cool cards. I think Wizards should be more worried about the metagame health.

I don't advocate banning anything right now, but if blue continues the dominance it's shown in the past six months over the next six, it's time to think about doing something. And nothing else makes as much sense as banning Brainstorm.

I understand the instinctive revulsion to that, but Legacy is more than any one card. I'd rather play without Brainstorm than play a format where you almost have to play Brainstorm based on the numbers.

The vast majority of cards that have gotten Legacy play and been printed in the recent past aren't actually blue, they're non-blue cards that are just easy to splash into blue with Brainstorm and co. Jace, Misstep and Clique are all blue has really gotten in some years, at least outside of dedicated strategies like Merfolk and Affinity.


STOP with this ban blue nonsense. Is every other thread going to be about the same thing? It's just like the Survival era... too many people bitching and complaining and not enough people adjusting. Seriously, just quit whining. If you want to play in a less blue format, go play Standard. O wait...

I think the agreement is actually that SFM is the stronger half of Caw-Blade. And that's in a format with worse equipment all around.

Also Standard of prior years has been frequently dominated by other colors, see; Jund, B/W Tokens, Ghazi-Glare, Ramp-Valakut, etc..


Blue is just a fundamentally stronger color than the other colors, and this isn't something new. Go back in time, it hasn't changed. Blue may have gotten some upgrades from Tradewind Rider and Morphling, but so has the rest of the colors. The problem isn't Brainstorm, or Force of Will... it's blue in general.

See above. Blue tends to be a strong color, but it's not inherently the best color in a format. Not too long ago, red was just as widely played in Legacy. Chalk up the change mostly to the printing of easily splashed cards like Knight, Goyf, and Bob, but the easiest fix to gross color imbalance is to axe Brainstorm, and it's a move with precedent.

[AnwarA101]

If you're suggesting Preordain and Ponder as replacements for Brainstorm, you obviously don't understand the card nearly enough to call for its banning. Save the remaining dignity you (and this forum) have, and shut up.

It seems unfortunate that you sort of ruin the focus of your post (the first sentence) by making a derisive remark. I don't think anyone could actually lose dignity by misunderstanding Brainstorm. Its a complex enough card that making a mistake about its ability to be replaced by other similar cards deserves a bit more understanding than you showed in your post.

[Rune]

People threatening to quit Magic if Wizards does X has all the validity at this point of threatening to hold your breath.

This isn't the best way to protect the health of the format.


I mean Survival was a really iconic, cool and fun card. So are lots of banned cards. There's Cube and EDH for all the cool cards. I think Wizards should be more worried about the metagame health.

I don't advocate banning anything right now, but if blue continues the dominance it's shown in the past six months over the next six, it's time to think about doing something. And nothing else makes as much sense as banning Brainstorm.

I understand the instinctive revulsion to that, but Legacy is more than any one card. I'd rather play without Brainstorm than play a format where you almost have to play Brainstorm based on the numbers.



Heh, didn't mean to come off as a 13 year old drama queen. I just have a strong feeling that a lot of people will quit playing the format (NOT Magic) the day Tom LaPille and his other DCI friends unleash their ginger rage on cards like Brainstorm and Force of Will. I have no proof to support this theory other than what happened to Vintage, and the fact that Legacy's popularity continues to increase, despite being a format centered around blue cards. It seems that most people are perfectly happy with this inherent imbalance that exists in eternal formats, so why side with the minority and risk ruining everything? Even though I think printing Misstep was totally unnecesary and dumb on so many levels, there are still a ton of competitive non-blue decks. As I said, you can nerf blue in other ways than by taking away Brainstorm or FoW. I think that banning Brainstorm will just have many unforseen and disastrous consequences on the format (and its player base) as a whole. Anyway, Mental Misstep is the #1 card on that list, so why are we even discussing Brainstorm in the first place? If it's because you think Misstep isn't a blue card exclusively, then you're wrong. You put this card into decks with Brainstorm and/or Force of Will and nowhere else.


For what it's worth, I think they should have banned Vengevine and not Survival. Many people argued that they would just print a new creature that would break Survival down the road. According to that logic, we might as well ban Dark Ritual, Academy Rector, Lion's Eye Diamond, Show and Tell, Natural Order, etc. right now and just turn Legacy into Standard with duals and fetches.

Instead of banning anything, I think it would be better if they just printed more powerful anti-blue cards. Thrun, the last Troll is a good example of this. Despite being slightly underpowered for what it needs to do, it has become a real card now that many blue decks have moved away from playing Tarmogoyfs.

[SpikeyMikey]

I don't think that anything needs to be banned. Mental Misstep was the most played card in the T8. It's also a brand new card with more hype surrounding it than any card since... Any card? Seriously, the card was on the banner at the top of the page before it had even been released.

And I'm not saying that it's not a good card, it's a very good card. I'd put it above Daze/Snare/Pierce on the general power scale (although there are times when you'd rather be running one of those others) but eventually, its popularity will wane and it will start seeing play a little more in line with its worth. It is not better than Force of Will and it is not better than Swords to Plowshares, whether it outnumbered those cards or not.

People talk about this dominance of blue like it's somehow important. Yes, a lot of decks tap blue for various things. Bant Aggro decks are basically GW aggro that pull into blue for a few good utility creatures (V Clique, RWM) and Force of Will. Yes it's important to the decks function, but in the way red was important to the function of 4c Countertop. Without Firespout, you have a subpar deck, but it's certainly a splash color. Decks like TES and ANT tap into blue for Ponder/Brainstorm but again, blue is not the primary color of the deck. Those decks are reliant on black/red for their acceleration/tutoring.

Legacy is a format of (primarily) 3 color decks. Fetches and duals make 3 color mana bases as stable or more stable than 2 color mana bases which means most decks are running over half the colors. Is it at all shocking that more than half the decks out there have at least some blue?

[The Wolf]

You guys need to move to the Philadelphia area. Vintage is alive.

This. If you think banning brainstorm was a bad move in vintage, you don't understand how good the card is and should start using it in whatever legacy decks you play.

[DrJones]

Any argument in this thread that is not about banning Force of Will is actively ignoring the 85$ elephant in the room. Having a deck with Mental Misstep winning the GP actually proves that it's a good replacement, but what is breaking the format is allowing blue decks to run "4 strip mines and 4 wastelands", or also put as "FoW + Daze + Mental Misstep = 12 free timewalks".

[DragoFireheart]

True to the often used statement "You can play whatever you want" I took the most played cards of the list minus lands and added 4 of them to a decklist:

GP Providence Mashup:

20 Lands
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Vendilion Clique
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
(4 Spell Pierce)

Probably cut 2 clique and 2 Path for the next card in the list (Spell Pierce). Most lists of the top8 looked similarly strange but playable.


Now put the CounterTop combo in the sideboard along with 4 Red Elemental Blast and 3 Pyroblast and you are ready for a GP!

Fuckin hell, I might try this.

[Gui]

Funny fact, you can't ban anything from blue and hit every blue deck. Merfolks won't get hurt by Brainstorm ban, and as it looks like, Bant doesn't need FoW. These are by far the best blue cards, and 2 of the best decks. Granted, decks like Team America would be hurt by either bans, but would probably adapt and stay strong either way.

I don't think the format needs any ban. If there are decks able to beat blue, the format is still health. And aggro (Zoo, maverick, w/e) can most likely do that. Well, even AngryBirds.dec can probably beat blue.dec =P

[menace13]

Any argument in this thread that is not about banning Force of Will is actively ignoring the 85$ elephant in the room. Having a deck with Mental Misstep winning the GP actually proves that it's a good replacement, but what is breaking the format is allowing blue decks to run "4 strip mines and 4 wastelands", or also put as "FoW + Daze + Mental Misstep = 12 free timewalks".
Aww fuk, c'monn !! Not you again with the ban FoW crusade. And really, Timewalks and Strip Mines Now?

[Gheizen64]

Any argument in this thread that is not about banning Force of Will is actively ignoring the 85$ elephant in the room. Having a deck with Mental Misstep winning the GP actually proves that it's a good replacement, but what is breaking the format is allowing blue decks to run "4 strip mines and 4 wastelands", or also put as "FoW + Daze + Mental Misstep = 12 free timewalks".

You forgot the Brainstorm>Ancestral part.

[Mr.Dieth]

Man, some people are such winers !

WHy, oh Why, would people dislike it that there is a colour more played then the others ?
That doesn't bother me at all. That is No argument that the meta isn't diverse.
'Cause at the moment the meta is really diverse, and i really like the meta at the moment.
Almost every archtype ( aggro/combo/control ) is viable at the moment. If you go play at a tournament, you will encounter diffrent archtypes and rarely play against the same deck twice. So I really don't see what people are whinning over.

Can you blame people for playing what they find fun/good. Blue just has ways to smooth out your hands, a deck with 4 brainstorms just is more consistend and less prone to screwing, and nobody likes that, honostly that's the most frustrating part about magic. And if you can reduce that by playing blue, what is the problem?

[Fuzzy]

I'm fine with blue, but really disappointed with red. WoTC really should fix it.

[DragoFireheart]

I'm fine with blue, but really disappointed with red. WoTC really should fix it.

Exactly this. Instead of toning down blue, make cards of other colors that are not easily splashable into blue for use.

[DrJones]

You forgot the Brainstorm>Ancestral part.Why? I disagree with the argument that a card is better than another just because one is banned/restricted and the other isn't, though I can see the validity from a purely economic perspective.

[DragoFireheart]

Why? I disagree with the argument that a card is better than another just because one is banned/restricted and the other isn't, though I can see the validity from a purely economic perspective.


I believe he was being sarcastic and mocking you at the same time.

[the_ob3lisk]

Wow, that's a list of really great cards. No wonder I like this format so much. I want to play ALL those.

:tongue:

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Man, some people are such winers !

WHy, oh Why, would people dislike it that there is a colour more played then the others ?
That doesn't bother me at all. That is No argument that the meta isn't diverse.
'Cause at the moment the meta is really diverse, and i really like the meta at the moment.
Almost every archtype ( aggro/combo/control ) is viable at the moment. If you go play at a tournament, you will encounter diffrent archtypes and rarely play against the same deck twice. So I really don't see what people are whinning over.

Can you blame people for playing what they find fun/good. Blue just has ways to smooth out your hands, a deck with 4 brainstorms just is more consistend and less prone to screwing, and nobody likes that, honostly that's the most frustrating part about magic. And if you can reduce that by playing blue, what is the problem?

The problem is that 11 of the past 13 SCG Open winners ran blue; the exceptions were a couple of Goblins lists at the beginning of the year in the immediate post-Survival shakedown.

Now this isn't a problem right now. Metagames shift. But if the metagame is locked up by blue decks in perpetuity, there's a problem. Legacy isn't like Vintage; blue may be the best color generally, but it isn't supposed to be the only color. If every single deck is running blue (not counting if you're playing Misstep just to toss it for life), then there's a problem.

I don't know if the meta will continue this way; I think people are seriously underestimating the power of Mental Misstep in decks like Zoo. But we'll see. But all options should remain on the table; you can't have a mindset that suggesting banning an iconic card like Bstorm is just heresy.

[android]

For me this discussion keeps coming back to;

If a color is overpowered, banning or gimping is not the answer. The answer is to give the other colors better tools to fight the offending color in question. Wizards keeps trying to do this but they just seem to miss the mark every time. They should overcompensate once in a while.

The split second mechanic seems to have been the best answer to date. It removed the interactivity that blue had and basically said no to saying no. We need more split second cards (blue can even have some too). Wipe Away and Trickbind aren't really a big problem. I don't even think split second counters would be a problem as long as they weren't aggressively priced.

All of these should have low cc:
Green could use a split second Xantid Swarm effect or Choke.
Red could use the split second Island killer or blast effect
white is fine as-is
black is fine as-is

[chags]

Blue is a popular splash color because it can draw cards and counter things, this is new? Blue is by no means a broken color, it just happens to be the best splash color because what deck doesn't like drawing cards or countering spells? You don't need to play blue to win, the fact is a lot of people just like to. Look at Ari Lax and Bryant Cook for example, both piloted storm through a field of FOW and MM and both made day 2. Both of the hatfields ran zoo to fantastic day 1 finishes and Jkubilis ran it to a top 8 finish and he plays blue all the time. Legacy is all about the meta and making meta calls, learn how to adjust your deck accordingly.

Calling for a banning of brainstorm is just ridiculous, we all know that if Jimirynk had put FOW in his BANT deck everyone would be calling for the banning of FOW. James demonstrated that you don't need to play the "best cards" all the time you just need to know how to build a deck for a meta. If blue is really popular and doing so well then maybe it is time you did some thinking about your deck choice and actually try to innovate the 75 you find online. GerryT commented earlier this year on how people think he is an amazing deck builder but often all he does is switch 5 or so cards from a main deck (darkblade) and metas his deck to win. Being good doesn't generally mean you are very good at one deck (though Bertoncini, Lax, and Cook are all great examples of how this can improve your odds) it means you understand the meta and can adjust accordingly. Blue is a great color but it has weaknesses, learn to exploit them.

[Fsk]

Almost every archtype ( aggro/combo/control ) is viable at the moment. If you go play at a tournament, you will encounter diffrent archtypes and rarely play against the same deck twice. So I really don't see what people are whinning over.


Sure everthing is viable :

Green aggro:
4 Force of will
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
4 Tarmogoyf / Lord of Atlantis
4 Vendillon clique / Mutavault

White and red combo:
4 Force of will
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
4 Entomb / Show and Tell / Hive mind
4 Iona / Emrakul / Pact of the titan

White control:
4 Force of will
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
4 Standstill
4 Swords to plowshares

[DragoFireheart]

Sure everthing is viable :


White control:
4 Force of will
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
4 Standstill
4 Swords to plowshares


Change that Daze to Counterspell please.

[Koby]

Cards I would like to see (that punish blue at the same time)

- Red card drawing that isn't absolutely stone garbage. (Goblin Lore, Burning Inquiry, etc - where's the Winds of Change/Wheel of Fortune?)
- a competitive red creature that isn't a Ball Lightning/Goblin with useful abilities (last one has been Magus of the Moon, and before that Grim Lavamancer)
- Green 2 mana blue hoser
- 1-mana Defense Grid-look alike (maybe "Spells cast on opponent(s)' turn cost :1: more.")
- Pithing Needle to be reprinted in M12 (mostly for Standard, to deal with Planeswalkers)
- red planeswalker that costs 3 mana.

Well, it's worth a shot.

[chags]

Cards I would like to see (that punish blue at the same time)



- Red card drawing that isn't absolutely stone garbage. (Goblin Lore, Burning Inquiry, etc - where's the Winds of Change/Wheel of Fortune?)
This would be interesting.
- a competitive red creature that isn't a Ball Lightning/Goblin with useful abilities (last one has been Magus of the Moon, and before that Grim Lavamancer)
Vexing Shusher? Figure of Destiny?
- Green 2 mana blue hoser
Scryb Ranger?
- 1-mana Defense Grid-look alike (maybe "Spells cast on opponent(s)' turn cost :1: more.")
This one would make storm combo disgusting.
- Pithing Needle to be reprinted in M12 (mostly for Standard, to deal with Planeswalkers)
Hex Parasite?
- red planeswalker that costs 3 mana.
Jace Beleren is kind of underwhelming, his best use in standard is to kill JTMS. I'm not sure a red planeswalker at Jace's power level would do anything. Koth will be solid when JTMS rotates.
Well, it's worth a shot.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

For me this discussion keeps coming back to;

If a color is overpowered, banning or gimping is not the answer. The answer is to give the other colors better tools to fight the offending color in question.

Why?


I mean a lot of people seem to start with the premise that it's preposterous to even think about banning cards ever. Wizards clearly doesn't think this way, nor do most players, so you have some work to do to convince us it should be taken as a granted.

[bracer028]

so some people's answer is to print overpowered NEW cards into the other colors to hose blue.

Its a good idea and all, but doing that would just make standard unplayable with all the overpowered cards in that format.

The best is really to just ban a card that wouldn't devastate blue but would weaken it slightly for the other colors to catch up.

we all know choke doesn't do it against blue.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I also just don't think, "Well, we're used to Brainstorm and other cards are newer so let's ban those" is a sufficient argument. If Brainstorm is the worst offender and it tends to hamper design so that other cards can't be easily splashed lest they end up in generic-good-stuff+blue-cards.dec, then the offender should be banned and not the latest trigger. Wizards tends to shy away from banning the least offensive part of a problem in the hopes that the actual offender just won't act up again, or have since the Necro debacles.

[DragoFireheart]

Frankly, I'm tired of all this talk about bans. Shall we just continue to ban every card that becomes competitively good? Make the game "fair" but "bland"?

I have an idea: lets ban every card that is restricted in Vintage! That way, any issues of something being too powerful won't have to arise! What's that, Merfolk are still too good? Well, let's just ban everything that was banned in the old extended! Makes things much simpler!

I have a better idea! How about we make a new format that creates a point in which only newer cards are legal and all the (fun) "broken" cards are banned! That way, everyone can have fun turning creatures sideways and killing those creatures with Doom Blade! Doesn't that just sound fun!

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20913-Wizards-introduces-new-format-Modern-Magic.

Look on the bright side: Those FoW and dual land prices should crash so you'll have no issues buying them!


[Note: Merfolk lose maybe 16 cards or so. Most other decks? Probably 30+ when we include dual lands.]

Just remember you have no one to blame but yourself for killing Legacy and letting it go the way of Vintage.

[emidln]

I also just don't think, "Well, we're used to Brainstorm and other cards are newer so let's ban those" is a sufficient argument. If Brainstorm is the worst offender and it tends to hamper design so that other cards can't be easily splashed lest they end up in generic-good-stuff+blue-cards.dec, then the offender should be banned and not the latest trigger. Wizards tends to shy away from banning the least offensive part of a problem in the hopes that the actual offender just won't act up again, or have since the Necro debacles.

FWIW, we saw this in Vintage as well as Brainstorm/Merchant Scroll decks pushed through a Gush era, a Gifts era, and finally another Gush era before the enablers Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll were restricted.

[bracer028]

Frankly, I'm tired of all this talk about bans. Shall we just continue to ban every card that becomes competitively good? Make the game "fair" but "bland"?

I have an idea: lets ban every card that is restricted in Vintage! That way, any issues of something being too powerful won't have to arise! What's that, Merfolk are still too good? Well, let's just ban everything that was banned in the old extended! Makes things much simpler!

I have a better idea! How about we make a new format that creates a point in which only newer cards are legal and all the (fun) "broken" cards are banned! That way, everyone can have fun turning creatures sideways and killing those creatures with Doom Blade! Doesn't that just sound fun!

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20913-Wizards-introduces-new-format-Modern-Magic.

Look on the bright side: Those FoW and dual land prices should crash so you'll have no issues buying them!


[Note: Merfolk lose maybe 16 cards or so. Most other decks? Probably 30+ when we include dual lands.]

Just remember you have no one to blame but yourself for killing Legacy and letting it go the way of Vintage.

how the hell is banning brainstorm going to kill legacy like vintage? the problem with vintage is that no one can get their hands on the P9. THATS what killed vintage. i seriously doubt banning one blue card, brainstorm, is enough where everyone would just quit.

if they did, then you are basically admitting that everyone plays blue and needs blue to stay competitive, and refuses to play outside their pet blue deck.

[Koby]

[Note: Merfolk lose maybe 16 cards or so. Most other decks? Probably 30+ when we include dual lands.]


Aggro Bant loses maybe 8 cards. It still has the ability to cast Turn 3 Jace TMS and back it up with a tank. Just saying...

[SpikeyMikey]

Why?


I mean a lot of people seem to start with the premise that it's preposterous to even think about banning cards ever. Wizards clearly doesn't think this way, nor do most players, so you have some work to do to convince us it should be taken as a granted.

If you really wanted to crack the dominance of blue, you'd be advocating a ban of either fetchlands or dual lands. Probably duals, as it's a bigger hit but leaves aggressive decks the option of shock duals. Like I said before "blue" decks are often not based in blue, they're based in other colors but run to blue for protection/draw smoothing. If you take away people's ability to splash blue, viola, less blue decks. Because actually winning with just Jace, TMS or Vedalken Shackles is rough.

But again, I like blue right where it's at. It's not a primary color for most decks, it's a secondary/tertiary color. And frankly, I don't care how many people tell me that it's not needed to keep combo in check, I'm not buying it for a second. I've lost plenty of games to combo with multiple counters in my opening grip when they just powered through them and won anyway. I don't want to have to attempt to beat combo with situational and slow answers like Teeg or Cannonist. Especially if they can dump all their anti-counterspell cards like Duress and Chant and just run more bounce. Thank you, but I like the idea of occasionally beating ANT when I'm on the draw.

[DragoFireheart]

I also just don't think, "Well, we're used to Brainstorm and other cards are newer so let's ban those" is a sufficient argument. If Brainstorm is the worst offender and it tends to hamper design so that other cards can't be easily splashed lest they end up in generic-good-stuff+blue-cards.dec, then the offender should be banned and not the latest trigger. Wizards tends to shy away from banning the least offensive part of a problem in the hopes that the actual offender just won't act up again, or have since the Necro debacles.


Your argument is sound but I do not think it applies to Brainstorm. Or Force of Will. Or even Mental Misstep. The problem is that the combination of all of these cards makes the blue deck good. Blue is just a good color to run.

Let's ask ourselves this question: if we banned brainstorm, would it weaken blue enough to the point to make other decks competitive? The answer is clearly no: Merfolk decks do just fine without it, and the other Blue decks would substitute some lesser card like Ponder but still retain nearly most of their power.

Look to Standard: blue runs rampant there as well. The power to hold spells that can answer any spell the opponent plays, drawing cards, and having the power to filter your draws and be less reliant on luck is the strength of blue.

Banning Brainstorm would not have the same effect as banning Mystical Tutor or Survival of the Fittest. Those cards allowed degenerate combos, which heavily warped the format. the difference? Those cards tutored, while brainstorm only filters in an advanced manner. If blue continues to dominant, I don't believe banning a single card would have the effect needed to weaken it. For blue to be weakened, more than one card beyond just brainstorm would need to be banned. Do that, and WotC risks alienating their player base.

"Gee, if all WotC is going to do is ban any card that becomes too good but not broken good, then why the fuck should I play"?

Is that not how Vintage died out? Someone claimed such earlier.

[DragoFireheart]

Aggro Bant loses maybe 8 cards. It still has the ability to cast Turn 3 Jace TMS and back it up with a tank. Just saying...

Enjoy taking a lightning bolt to the face every game ala Shocklands.

[menace13]

Elias wrote an article on how FoW was in every winning GP list since 2007 and how Brainstorm is the best card in the format. The number of Brainstorms is greater than FoW in all the top 8s(edit; in the finals of each) since 2007. FoW and Brainstorm have been the most played cards in the format since at least 2009(going by the now defunct deckcheck). Every year, all the time, why is it now that they must be banned?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't think much is served by hyperbole. Vintage suffered problems from multiple angles. It has decklists that tended, for the most part, to all look the same minus a handful of cards, a problem that threatens in Legacy. Running Brainstorm, Misstep and Force with 8-12 other blue cards (usually Jace and Cspell z'or Daze amongst them), and then just your favorite 12-16 cards of another two colors is pretty much how a shit-ton of decks are built now, and a lot of the winning ones.

Now as I've said before, a lot of Magic metagaming is just fads. As Max touched on in his latest articles, a lot of players also just want to look good, so they won't do anything unorthodox unless a big-name pro does it first or gives it sanction; if all the pros that are writing are saying SFM and Clique are the best creatures in Legacy, they'll believe it and run those cards.

And the nature of fads is to cycle. This is why I say that more time is certainly needed. There are other powerful cards in Legacy that are under-appreciated right now; I think Knight of the Reliquary is clearly the best creature in the format, whatever else the hype, Hymn to Tourach is, while getting a bit more love than it used to, still grossly underestimated. Eternal Witness is by far the best creature that's inexplicably been left by the wayside, especially given how insanely well it interacts with Jace.

Mental Misstep still hasn't been played much outside of blue, and this is simply wrong. Misstep is one of the most powerful cards in the format, I believe, but certainly not because it pitches to Force or can be hardcast. I think people are going to gradually dip their toes into this pool and slip the card into Goblins and Zoo and probably other decks I can't predict right now, and they're liable to start winning.

The format is in flux and far from optimized.

But at the end of the day, we want a healthy format. And if everyone has to play blue, not just in a given season but continually, that's just not very healthy. If blue saturation at the top surpasses 70% for a long period of time, we have a problem that needs dealing with. And you have to be prepared to deal with it, you can't just bury your head in the sand and act like everything is normal.

And it's not clear that there's a better solution. Force and Misstep shouldn't be banned because they tend to make the format more fair, not less. No other blue card even approaches the saturation and power of Brainstorm.

[DragoFireheart]

Elias wrote an article on how FoW was in every winning GP list since 2007 and how Brainstorm is the best card in the format. The number of Brainstorms is greater than FoW in all the top 8s since 2007. FoW and Brainstorm have been the most played cards in the format since at least 2009(going by the now defunct deckcheck). Every year, all the time, why is it now that they must be banned?

That's a good question. Why must they be banned now? Are they acting AS degenerate as SotF or Mystical Tutor with Ant?

I would compromise the banning of both FoW and BS if Lion's Eye Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Burning Wish, Lotus Petal, Grindstone, and Show and Tell were also banned.

[bracer028]

That's a good question. Why must they be banned now? Are they acting AS degenerate as SotF or Mystical Tutor with Ant?

I would compromise the banning of both FoW and BS if Lion's Eye Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Burning Wish, Lotus Petal, Grindstone, and Show and Tell were also banned.


where did the FOW argument come from. The only thing i've read in this thread is a ban of brainstorm. No one said FOW is as degenerate as brainstorm.

[android]

Why?


I mean a lot of people seem to start with the premise that it's preposterous to even think about banning cards ever. Wizards clearly doesn't think this way, nor do most players, so you have some work to do to convince us it should be taken as a granted.

My first thought is that there is never going to be a perfect balance between colors in the game of Magic. When things appear to be out of balance, you can look at it from a reactionary standpoint (bannings/restrictions/rules changes) or take a proactive approach (focus on the agreed upon fundamentals of the game - color pie, strengths/weaknesses, etc.) and continue to develop the game as it was originally intended. I know this is opening up my argument to all sorts of attacks.

Because all these cards are already printed, it's harder to take the proactive approach so we just ban/restrict cards and pretend like they were either never printed or that by restricting them, we somehow limit their effect on the metagame. I'm not for a continuous progression of more and more powerful effects but I do think that we're safe printing some hosers that are on a power level maybe higher than have been seen before. Obviously we don't want to get into printing a colorless instant land destruction spell for 0, but maybe printing a 1 mana green instant - players can't draw cards this turn is reasonable. <- shitty example but I'm just for empowering other colors to fight what is perceived to be an overpowered blue meta.

And for the record, I'm not against banning/restricting. In fact I think it would be a good practice to introduce restrictions to the Legacy card pool. That would fix ALOT of things while not entirely making your cards obsolete. A restricted Brainstorm would still be played in 99.9% of all blue decks, as would a restricted FoW I think.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

If you really wanted to crack the dominance of blue, you'd be advocating a ban of either fetchlands or dual lands. Probably duals, as it's a bigger hit but leaves aggressive decks the option of shock duals. Like I said before "blue" decks are often not based in blue, they're based in other colors but run to blue for protection/draw smoothing. If you take away people's ability to splash blue, viola, less blue decks. Because actually winning with just Jace, TMS or Vedalken Shackles is rough.

Jesus Christ. Least harm. I don't want to ban duals. It may eventually become necessary to ban the reserve list or move to overextended for price reasons if Wizards refuses to crack the reserved list, but it's not a desirable outcome.

Fetchlands reduce the power of Wasteland to diminish multicolor decks and are the card that actually makes Brainstorm insane. But again, least harm. I wish they hadn't printed fetchlands, but I'd certainly ban Brainstorm before obsoleting every manabase in Legacy.


But again, I like blue right where it's at. It's not a primary color for most decks, it's a secondary/tertiary color.

Most decks are running more than half blue to support Force. They may win primarily in other colors but blue is not tertiary in most decks, the GP winning list aside.


And frankly, I don't care how many people tell me that it's not needed to keep combo in check, I'm not buying it for a second. I've lost plenty of games to combo with multiple counters in my opening grip when they just powered through them and won anyway. I don't want to have to attempt to beat combo with situational and slow answers like Teeg or Cannonist. Especially if they can dump all their anti-counterspell cards like Duress and Chant and just run more bounce. Thank you, but I like the idea of occasionally beating ANT when I'm on the draw.

Banning Brainstorm would hurt combo as much as anyone else.


Your argument is sound but I do not think it applies to Brainstorm. Or Force of Will. Or even Mental Misstep. The problem is that the combination of all of these cards makes the blue deck good. Blue is just a good color to run.

I don't think this is true. There's a clear first tier of blue cards; Brainstorm, Force, Mental Misstep, and maybe Jace. At the second tier you have Cspell, Daze, Counterbalance, Ponder, Shackles, Repeal, Clique, Ancestral Visions, Standstill, FoF, Tezzeret, and so on. But these latter cards are rarely back-breaking. In fact the argument for their being played often just comes down to supporting the Force count.

But Force and Misstep do more good than harm. They keep stupid combo in check. Misstep can even be splashed or played outside of blue entirely. And while Jace is deeply unfair, he also costs four mana and suddenly sucks when your opponent has multiple creatures, more than fair constraints on his brokenness, at least at Legacy's power level.

Brainstorm is the consensus best card in the format and helps stupid combo decks as much as anyone else. People might play blue primarily for the free counters, but it would be much less compelling, and control decks would have a lot more difficulty slowing the game down enough for other card advantage to come online.

Banning Brainstorm would undoubtedly deal blue a major hit. The only question is whether or not blue needs a major hit to its power.


Let's ask ourselves this question: if we banned brainstorm, would it weaken blue enough to the point to make other decks competitive? The answer is clearly no: Merfolk decks do just fine without it, and the other Blue decks would substitute some lesser card like Ponder but still retain nearly most of their power.

Well I would say that other decks are competitive. If I'm wrong, and other decks aren't competitive without blue, then clearly we need to fix this post-haste, first by banning Brainstorm and then finding something else to cut.

I don't think we'd look at Merfolk for an idea of what to cut, though, as it tends to feed on combo and other blue decks. If Merfolk was the best deck and the only problem in blue, people would just play Zoo and thrash it. Merfolk is just fundamentally the definition of a fair blue deck, I think.


Look to Standard: blue runs rampant there as well. The power to hold spells that can answer any spell the opponent plays, drawing cards, and having the power to filter your draws and be less reliant on luck is the strength of blue.

This is a specious argument since blue flits in and out of power in Standard. I have no problem with blue being dominant for a cycle in Legacy. My problem is if it's always dominant.


Banning Brainstorm would not have the same effect as banning Mystical Tutor or Survival of the Fittest. Those cards allowed degenerate combos, which heavily warped the format. the difference? Those cards tutored, while brainstorm only filters in an advanced manner. If blue continues to dominant, I don't believe banning a single card would have the effect needed to weaken it. For blue to be weakened, more than one card beyond just brainstorm would need to be banned. Do that, and WotC risks alienating their player base.

"Gee, if all WotC is going to do is ban any card that becomes too good but not broken good, then why the fuck should I play"?

Is that not how Vintage died out? Someone claimed such earlier.

I just don't see how you come to this conclusion. Every blue deck outside of Affinity/Dredge (glass cannons) and Merfolk (an anti-blue deck) uses Brainstorm.

Also, again, Vintage's problems were multi-faceted, and includes the format being basically dumb, super-expensive, and most decks actually just being the same deck. These are also problems Legacy has to worry about.

[DragoFireheart]

And it's not clear that there's a better solution. Force and Misstep shouldn't be banned because they tend to make the format more fair, not less. No other blue card even approaches the saturation and power of Brainstorm.


Then all you are doing is moving the goal post. If Brainstorm does get banned and blue is STILL dominating, what then? Just because the card is widely played does not mean it's a degenerate card. Yes, Brainstorm is powerful, but I don't think a banning of it is going to get the result you want. People will still play Blue, and do you know why?

Because they fear combo.

Combo can easily blow out decks without said protection. Result? People play blue to shut out combo so they can enjoy the game.

Here are the REAL problem cards:


Lion's Eye Diamond
Chrome Mox
Mox Diamond
Lotus Petal
Show and Tell
Grindstone
Bridge from Below
Dread Return


I think WotC should ban every mana accel card I listed. There is a reason the "Power Nine" are practically all mana accel! Having free mana breaks the game, not super filters like Brainstorm.

People want to play magic. No one likes getting blown out on turn 1 and being unable to do anything. Why the fuck would I want to play Goblins or Zoo knowing that in some random matchup, some ass with a combo deck can completely blow me out based on sheer luck while I am unable to do anything about? If you want blue to be weaker, strengthened aggro decks by weakening the combo decks they fear.

If you want Paper to not be so powerful, then weaken Rock so Scissors can cut up Paper! You don't weaken Paper: all that does is make Rock stronger, which further weakens Scissors.

[DragoFireheart]

You even admit yourself that the problem is combo.



But Force and Misstep do more good than harm. They keep stupid combo in check.

Brainstorm is the consensus best card in the format and helps stupid combo decks

...and then finding something else to cut.

...as it tends to feed on combo and other blue decks.



My problem is if it's always dominant.





You said it best:

Banning Brainstorm would undoubtedly deal blue a major hit. The only question is whether or not blue needs a major hit to its power.

No, it doesn't. Blue is Paper, Scissors is aggro, Rock is combo. Weakened Rock, and more people will play Scissors, cutting up Paper.

[DrJones]

That's a good question. Why must they be banned now? Are they acting AS degenerate as SotF or Mystical Tutor with Ant?

I would compromise the banning of both FoW and BS if Lion's Eye Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Burning Wish, Lotus Petal, Grindstone, and Show and Tell were also banned.If you read carefully R&D articles about Vintage and Legacy, Dark-ritual based combo is allowed in the format to be the opposing force to Force of Will decks. It's fair to assume that banning Force of Will would also require banning pieces from these kind of decks.

Anyways, the problem of the format right now is that blue decks have too much redundancy in the "free counter" department. I'm going to suggest R&D to attempt fixing the issue by banning Daze. Sadly, Daze is a pretty inexpensive card and its only fault is that it likes to party with really bad company, but it's the only card I can think of that R&D could ban without destroying your souls.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Then all you are doing is moving the goal post. If Brainstorm does get banned and blue is STILL dominating, what then? Just because the card is widely played does not mean it's a degenerate card. Yes, Brainstorm is powerful, but I don't think a banning of it is going to get the result you want. People will still play Blue, and do you know why?

Because they fear combo.

Combo can easily blow out decks without said protection. Result? People play blue to shut out combo so they can enjoy the game.

Here are the REAL problem cards:


Lion's Eye Diamond
Chrome Mox
Mox Diamond
Lotus Petal
Show and Tell
Grindstone
Bridge from Below
Dread Return


I think WotC should ban every mana accel card I listed. There is a reason the "Power Nine" are practically all mana accel! Having free mana breaks the game, not super filters like Brainstorm.

People want to play magic. No one likes getting blown out on turn 1 and being unable to do anything. Why the fuck would I want to play Goblins or Zoo knowing that in some random matchup, some ass with a combo deck can completely blow me out based on sheer luck while I am unable to do anything about? If you want blue to be weaker, strengthened aggro decks by weakening the combo decks they fear.

If you want Paper to not be so powerful, then weaken Rock so Scissors can cut up Paper! You don't weaken Paper: all that does is make Rock stronger, which further weakens Scissors.

Blue doesn't do that much to beat Dredge. The answer to Dredge is to just throw Crypts in your board. It's a glass cannon on par with Affinity or Elves. The strategies are powerful but the answers are ubiquitous and widely available to every color.

Ditto to Grindstone.

LED is a card that's a legitimate discussion of bannings. I would say at this point that Show and Tell is similarly a ticking time bomb that will most likely get banned at one point or another as long as they continue printing dumb Timmy cards. Certainly we're a long way from the days of it putting Phyrexian Colossus into play.

I respect the argument that the problem is too many combo enablers in Legacy, but then the reality is that banning Brainstorm also hits combo. So this seems like a hedged bet to me.

[bracer028]

If you read carefully R&D articles about Vintage and Legacy, Dark-ritual based combo is allowed in the format to be the opposing force to Force of Will decks. It's fair to assume that banning Force of Will would also require banning pieces from these kind of decks.

Anyways, the problem of the format right now is that blue decks have too much redundancy in the "free counter" department. I'm going to suggest R&D to attempt fixing the issue by banning Daze. Sadly, Daze is a pretty inexpensive card and its only fault is that it likes to party with really bad company, but it's the only card I can think of that R&D could ban without destroying your souls.

who really uses daze now that MM is here?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You even admit yourself that the problem is combo.




You said it best:

Banning Brainstorm would undoubtedly deal blue a major hit. The only question is whether or not blue needs a major hit to its power.

No, it doesn't. Blue is Paper, Scissors is aggro, Rock is combo. Weakened Rock, and more people will play Scissors, cutting up Paper.

We're looking at more than archtypical distribution though. What if the best combo, aggro, and control decks are all blue? What if blue achieves a lock on the format and people simply stop playing non-blue decks? Is that desirable? Is that healthy?



who really uses daze now that MM is here?

Half the top 8 apparently.

Although I hate it in Turtenwald's list.

[Koby]

That's a good question. Why must they be banned now? Are they acting AS degenerate as SotF or Mystical Tutor with Ant?

I would compromise the banning of both FoW and BS if Lion's Eye Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Burning Wish, Lotus Petal, Grindstone, and Show and Tell were also banned.

"Ban everything until X is good, then ban it."


Enjoy taking a lightning bolt to the face every game ala Shocklands.

Which is why the format is a joke.

[DragoFireheart]

Blue doesn't do that much to beat Dredge. The answer to Dredge is to just throw Crypts in your board. It's a glass cannon on par with Affinity or Elves. The strategies are powerful but the answers are ubiquitous and widely available to every color.

- I was attempting to cover multiple facets of combo. Some counterspells can slow Dredge down enough to beat them, though you are correct.



Ditto to Grindstone.

-With mana accel, it's now a tier-1 deck. It's a little disgusting that a combo deck with counter back-up can kill turn 1-3.



LED is a card that's a legitimate discussion of bannings. I would say at this point that Show and Tell is similarly a ticking time bomb that will most likely get banned at one point or another as long as they continue printing dumb Timmy cards. Certainly we're a long way from the days of it putting Phyrexian Colossus into play.

I respect the argument that the problem is too many combo enablers in Legacy, but then the reality is that banning Brainstorm also hits combo. So this seems like a hedged bet to me.

-Banning the enablers is the solution. SotF was the culprit during the Vengevival era a few months back. They could have banned Vengevine, but the tutoring power of the SotF was the reason it was broken.

Tutors and free mana break the format. It's why MT was banned, SotF got axed, and it's why those mana accels I showed should get the axe. Axe them and more decks that are AMAZING at stomping blue but suck against combo will emerge to balance out the meta.


Lion's Eye Diamond
Mox Diamond
Chrome Mox


Those need to be axed NOW. Show and Tell is also broken due to the giant Tentacle monster and Hivemind combo decks.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I would be willing to discuss banning LED and Show and Tell rather than Brainstorm, if blue continues its dominance over the next three or six months. I think we have to wait and see exactly how the format shapes up.

[DragoFireheart]

We're looking at more than archtypical distribution though. What if the best combo, aggro, and control decks are all blue? What if blue achieves a lock on the format and people simply stop playing non-blue decks? Is that desirable? Is that healthy?


The decks that are good against blue are typically horrible against combo. When you have two functional Mox Sapphire that can make any mana and a tricky Black Lotus hovering in the format, people are going to play colors that can keep those cards in check. The color that does that best? Blue.

[DragoFireheart]

Which is why the format is a joke.


Two-color control could do it by supplementing some of those 2010 two-color lands, but three or more? Hell no.

[bracer028]

I would be willing to discuss banning LED and Show and Tell rather than Brainstorm, if blue continues its dominance over the next three or six months. I think we have to wait and see exactly how the format shapes up.

you cannot ban LED. LED fuels combo decks basically. It will be the end of combo without LED. well not completely, but you get the idea.

Your posting needs to shape up; please see our site rules:

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Verbal warnings for your posts will be counted as full warnings for the next few weeks.

Please PM me if you wish to discuss. - Bardo

[honestabe]

FWIW, we saw this in Vintage as well as Brainstorm/Merchant Scroll decks pushed through a Gush era, a Gifts era, and finally another Gush era before the enablers Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll were restricted.

Don't forget the last part of that story, where WoTC hit the blue cards, and the format died

[Koby]

Does anyone remember the SCG article many moons ago that put up a metagame graph showing which deck beats which other deck? Was it Hi-Val? Seems like we could use it again to see what's going on in the Big Picture.

[DragoFireheart]

you cannot ban LED. LED fuels combo decks basically. It will be the end of combo without LED. well not completely, but you get the idea.


Spiral Tide doesn't use Lion's Eye Diamond.

Reanimator doesn't use Lion's Eye Diamond.

Dredge doesn't need Lion's Eye Diamond.

Show and Tell decks don't use Lion's Eye Diamond.


I just named four signifcantly different combo decks which don't use Lion's Eye Diamond. Combo won't die due to LED being banned.

[Grollub]

Meh.

Only reason blue is this dominant is because red ditched school when they were passing out notes on the power creep.

[Sims]

Meh.

Only reason blue is this dominant is because red ditched school when they were passing out notes on the power creep.

One reason I'll never get rid of my burn deck: They're never going to ban Lightning Bolt.

[Mr.Dieth]

*sigh*

All that banhammer waving ..

And your only argument is, because it wins .. Then tell me, if only decks playing 4fow, 4mm, 4 bs and so on. That a Zoo deck top8 at GP Pro. that a goblin deck went undefeated the first day ? Just les people play those kind of decks, cause they are less fun ( personal opinion ) against every card that people here mentioned to ban is a perfectly good answer ( against s&t: karakas, o ring, sower, jace, peacekeeper, so on, so on)

You just have to adapt to the meta! but nobody does this, every body sits behind his pc and netdeck, yeah, thats what you get then ..

I went to a small tourny this weekend ( 42 peepz ) and there where only 4 blue decks in top8 ! ( not considering ichorid, cause I don't think it's a "blue" deck)

So really, you can get a lot of advantage at the moment if you just meta against all the blue decks.. (( instead of playing one yourself ))

I really don't see what all the fuzz is about..

[Fsk]

Spiral Tide doesn't use Lion's Eye Diamond.
Reanimator doesn't use Lion's Eye Diamond.
Dredge doesn't need Lion's Eye Diamond.
Show and Tell decks don't use Lion's Eye Diamond.


This. Best combo decks dont need LED. Dredge and storm can actually be easily hated out by non-blue aggro and midrange decks.

But those stand no chance against S&T, Reanimator, Tide, Hive mind or Painter. I'm trying to find something those deck are sharing but i'm not really sure. Maybe this card that prevent you from landing hate or timewalk you when you try to race...

[Astrix]

Guys i think before banning anything we need to ask ourselves a question.
Is it really the color dominance of a specific color a reason to change
an already diverse format ,as many say the best of all times?
We can see in GPs and SCG opens and BoM almost 8 different decks of all archetypes
in every top 8.
Ok blue has many cards that almost every1 plays but the decks are different and
the format is funny skill intensive and eventually healthy and fun to participate and
watch.
Imo we should really talk about banning if we see a top8 of 6-7 same decks.
like all merfolk or all landstill etc.


PS IF we care about color dominance i think the biggest problem is fetchlands.
Fetchlands is the reason color splash is so easy and blue is everywhere...
Imho fetches are more like vintage-only deserved since vintage players play
moxes of all colors and singletons and are forced to play many colors

[Sims]

But those stand no chance against S&T, Reanimator, Tide, Hive mind or Painter. I'm trying to find something those deck are sharing but i'm not really sure. Maybe this card that prevent you from landing hate or timewalk you when you try to race...

go ahead, say it. You're implying that banning Force of Will would weaken the combo decks. But it would also allow them to go glass cannon and just beat you without fear of having to fight through Force of Will. If Force of Will is so unfair to you people, go play standard.

This entire conversation, in both threads, is stupid.

I can't wait til the day that people bitch and complain loud enough that Force, LED, Chrome, Mox Diamond, Lotus Petal, all of dredge, SnT, NO, Painter, Entomb, Reanimate, and Grinstone all get banned.

Go ahead and play your shitty decks and complain and whine until all of the good strategies in Legacy get banned and we get reduced to playing aggrro decks and board control decks all day. Sounds like a fun format. /sarcasm.

[Pippin]

Legacy is eternal. As is some stuff tied to it apparently...

One of those things is Dr. Jones coming out of the woods after each Legacy GP and putting his "FoW is free TimeWalk. Ban FoW" sign up. :cool:

NPH is still new, people are still hyped about blue and mental misstep which lead to many jumping on the bandwagon and playing merfolks/landstill. Given little time we'll see answers to current metagame (current metagame meaning everyone playing blue, not blue decks being best) - in forms of decks that completely dodge Missteps, like for example Aggro Loam/MUD. Lets not jump to guns too quickly - just look at Hatfields, they are rocking Cat Zoo in Misstep meta!

On the other note - I blame wizards and their R&D department for designing Mental Misstep. Looking from here it seems like they already had their "overextended without Force of Will" (aka modern) for a very long time in plan and wanted something similar to it to stop first turn Nacatl's/whatever.

[DragoFireheart]

On the other note - I blame wizards and their R&D department for designing Mental Misstep. Looking from here it seems like they already had their "overextended without Force of Will" (aka modern) for a very long time in plan and wanted something similar to it to stop first turn Nacatl's/whatever.

That's pretty cruel of them if that was their intention.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Because they fear combo.

Combo can easily blow out decks without said protection. Result? People play blue to shut out combo so they can enjoy the game.



Of course they fear combo. When I play combo, I fear blue. It goes both ways. As I have stated before, you CANNOT play a deck that can't interact on the stack and expect to beat fast combo. When I pick up TES, I walk into a tournament aware that I am heavily favored against aggro decks, and that my matchup against moderately disruptive decks (Junk, some blue decks) is roughly even or a little favored as long as I know what I'm doing. However, I'm also aware that if I get matched up against Team America, Tempo Threshold, or Dreadstill (all of which pack Stifle/Waste, huge amounts of countermagic, fast clocks, and additional disruption) I am FUCKED, and there isn't much to be done about it. Combo players have acknowledged for years that we are at a disadvantage against disruptive blue decks. Instead of bitching and moaning about it, we play protection, build sideboards accordingly, practice the matchups, and hope the preparation pays off. I've never been able to understand why aggro players simply don't understand this mindset. You cannot expect to beat every other deck - that is NOT how the meta works.



People want to play magic. No one likes getting blown out on turn 1 and being unable to do anything. Why the fuck would I want to play Goblins or Zoo knowing that in some random matchup, some ass with a combo deck can completely blow me out based on sheer luck while I am unable to do anything about? If you want blue to be weaker, strengthened aggro decks by weakening the combo decks they fear.


This is one of the most annoying and ignorant posts I have seen in a long time, and requires a response. If you think winning with storm combo is based on "sheer luck" you should no longer be allowed to discuss the subject.* Pick up TES, or a Doomsday Tendrils list, and try and win with it for a while. Then get back to me after you've realized how much playskill and practice it takes to properly goldfish one of them, much less win through disruption when you're on a clock. In the current context, the field in Providence was so blue heavy that even some of the best storm players in the world were unable to fight all the way through it day 2.

The other thing you seemingly fail to realize is not everyone who plays magic enjoys playing dudes and turning them sideways. I prefer combo decks because I enjoy the challenge of putting together a puzzle of sorts while my opponent tries to stop me (or at the very least kill me before I can put all the pieces together). I'm aware that some players enjoy countering spells and generally disrupting their opponent's strategy. This type of strategy often beats my preferred one, but you don't see me running around going "ZoMG BanZ bLuE."

Honestly, in conclusion, both you and IBA need to grow a fucking pair, realize that this is an ETERNAL FORMAT, and as you're off the edge of the map, HERE THERE BE COMBO.

*Note that I said "storm" combo (Everyone's lost to SnT/Emrakul on turn 1, which I would describe as "based on sheer luck," especially as most SnT lists require the brainpower of a drunk chimpanzee to pilot). I personally am not a fan of the current crop of decks which simply drop a two-card combo into a blue shell. However, they are extremely strong, as that blue shell is pretty absurd in the first place, and it's much easier to force through a two card combo with counter backup than it is to chain a bunch of spells together ftw through disruption on the second turn.

[Tacosnape]

You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm going to just toss out what I'd have kidney-punched someone for saying before Mental Misstep.

Assume for a minute without arguing the following two things were in universal agreement. I know they're not, but assume they are.

1. Blue is overpowered.
2. Banning exactly one blue card is the only explorable option for a solution.

Is Force of Will the right ban now? (This is a legitimate question. This is not Tacosnape going "Zomg ban Force.")

I mean, yes, it's scary and possibly nuts. But just ponder on it for a second.

I mean, the top deck in GP Providence won without it on the back of a strong G/W shell with Daze, Misstep, and Brainstorm carrying it a long way. There have been Merfolk lists finishing strong with only 3 Forces. Merfolk would just up its Dismember/Guy count and ride on Daze/Misstep for free counters. Foil and Misdirection do exist. And combo wouldn't go as nuts as it would before not only because of Misstep, but because so many combo decks are the ones getting the most use out of Force of Will now. Blue's achieved what it's been hunting for aeons. It's worth splashing for even if you aren't running Force.

On top of that, Blue still has its free counters. Misstep and Daze. And it has a slew of powerful 1CMC counters (Pierce and Snare leading the way, with Dispel showing up on occasion.) And if you tick up a little bit, there's Counterspell, and Misdirection makes appearances as free counter #3. Add Brainstorm, Vendilion Clique, Intuition, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor in there, and I ask a second question: Would you play blue in Legacy without Force of Will?

And does banning Force of Will -kill- any deck? At all? Does it weaken everything too much, or not enough, or just right?

[DragoFireheart]

Of course they fear combo. When I play combo, I fear blue. It goes both ways. As I have stated before, you CANNOT play a deck that can't interact on the stack and expect to beat fast combo. When I pick up TES, I walk into a tournament aware that I am heavily favored against aggro decks, and that my matchup against moderately disruptive decks (Junk, some blue decks) is roughly even or a little favored as long as I know what I'm doing. However, I'm also aware that if I get matched up against Team America, Tempo Threshold, or Dreadstill (all of which pack Stifle/Waste, huge amounts of countermagic, fast clocks, and additional disruption) I am FUCKED, and there isn't much to be done about it. Combo players have acknowledged for years that we are at a disadvantage against disruptive blue decks. Instead of bitching and moaning about it, we play protection, build sideboards accordingly, practice the matchups, and hope the preparation pays off. I've never been able to understand why aggro players simply don't understand this mindset. You cannot expect to beat every other deck - that is NOT how the meta works.

-I'm not suggesting that, but the fear is strong enough to deter decks without blue out of fear of combo.




This is one of the most annoying and ignorant posts I have seen in a long time, and requires a response. If you think winning with storm combo is based on "sheer luck" you should no longer be allowed to discuss the subject.* Pick up TES, or a Doomsday Tendrils list, and try and win with it for a while. Then get back to me after you've realized how much playskill and practice it takes to properly goldfish one of them, much less win through disruption when you're on a clock. In the current context, the field in Providence was so blue heavy that even some of the best storm players in the world were unable to fight all the way through it day 2.

The other thing you seemingly fail to realize is not everyone who plays magic enjoys playing dudes and turning them sideways. I prefer combo decks because I enjoy the challenge of putting together a puzzle of sorts while my opponent tries to stop me (or at the very least kill me before I can put all the pieces together). I'm aware that some players enjoy countering spells and generally disrupting their opponent's strategy. This type of strategy often beats my preferred one, but you don't see me running around going "ZoMG BanZ bLuE."

Honestly, in conclusion, both you and IBA need to grow a fucking pair, realize that this is an ETERNAL FORMAT, and as you're off the edge of the map, HERE THERE BE COMBO.


I never suggested that combo decks are "skill-less". However, they are affected by luck far more than the other arch-types. Aggro decks tend to be redundant and don't care about luck that much (other than mana screws or mana floods). Blue decks run filter cards like Brainstorm. Combo on the other hand lives or dies by the opening hand. Combo decks require MORE luck AND more skill than the other arch-types (arguably). The pay off? You get to be known as the terror of the format and scare everyone into playing blue decks.

You know that is true. Don't bullshit me. YOU ENJOY THE FUCKING POWER!

[Admiral_Arzar]

-I'm not suggesting that, but the fear is strong enough to deter decks without blue out of fear of combo.

I never suggested that combo decks are "skill-less". However, they are affected by luck far more than the other arch-types. Aggro decks tend to be redundant and don't care about luck that much (other than mana screws or mana floods). Blue decks run filter cards like Brainstorm. Combo on the other hand lives or dies by the opening hand. Combo decks require MORE luck AND more skill than the other arch-types (arguably). The pay off? You get to be known as the terror of the format and scare everyone into playing blue decks.

You know that is true. Don't bullshit me. YOU ENJOY THE FUCKING POWER!

Most of the best combo decks run filtering effects such as Brainstorm, Ponder, or Sensei's Divining Top. They also tend to pack tutors, such as Intuition, Infernal Tutor, and Burning Wish. All of these cards serve to decrease variance and make the decks more consistent. Of course, there are combo decks out there that live and die by their opening hand - see Belcher. Note that there are many non-combo decks with a similar all-in philosophy - Dragon Stompy comes to mind. Inconsistent combo decks, like Chalice aggro decks, are capable of broken blowouts but are slaves to their own inconsistency (or lack of protection, in Belcher's case) and generally aren't particularly good.

I suppose it's true, players like me are in a way, "the terror of the format" - at least if you're an aggro player. The guy that always plays counter-top or Team America is "that guy" for me - there's always somebody you just don't want to get paired against. And yes, you've seen through my charade. I enjoy "the power" of being able to outplay my opponents with a complex deck, assemble a puzzle, and win through situations that should be unwinnable. Much as (I'm willing to bet) you enjoy "the power" of being able to beat your opponent's face in with kitties and lhurgoyfs and/or burn them to a crisp (which I also enjoy from time to time, I might be feeling some zoo this weekend lol).

[I am the brainwasher]

That is not a worse thing to come across with Taco but I need to agree on AdmiraA.'s points for several reasons.
If you ban force, decks that have the ability to start ridiculous things at Turn 1 (0) like Belcher, SnT (which defintely only require the brainpower of an drunk chimpanzee:tongue:) or even later on (NO for example) would loose all their respect they need to have right now. And you know what? That is perfectly fine, for the whole Meta.
Recognizing that the opponent has tapped out and you only need to be "afraid" of Daze/MM is literally a joke. The funny thing is that you could argue that there are other ways to interact with these but what are those? AFAIK mostly Discard-spells & Vendilion Clique or CB and Viola´! youre playing blue or forced to splash black to interact with even the dumbest wombo-combo-decks, not even talking about Storm-based combo that would go completely bonkers due to the fact that they can give up a lot of Protection they need to have right now, mainly because FoW sticks the Format together. They would simply change sb-plans and dreamcrush people all-year-long. Dont fool yourself and think that even 4 Leylines of Sanctity & 4 Mindbreak Trap would create realistic chances of winning against an experienced combo-player, if you dont combine this with additional disruption (which is saved to blue&black because THERE ARE limitations in terms of what colors are able to do and much more important NOT to do).
As silly as it sounds, I would see FoW beeing banned more likeley than Brainstorm, but thats indeed not healthy (as it isnt vice versa IMO).
A lot of people simply need to strengthen their play and need to accept that it is in the same ammount hard to win with Aggro-decks against some decks like it is for Combo to beat blue... .
Be thankful that the whole thing is kept in check, otherwise you would ragequit right now. You would dance around all naked if you would be able to swing even just once or twice with your 3/3 kitty-kat at the opponent.
Aggro-decks are damn good decks, dont misunderstand my post, but need good pilots to make good results on a high level (Hatfields might be the best example). I draw my hat in front of those who make constant good results with Aggro-decks, mostly not playing blue, because I know its fucking hard from times to times. Sadly most players will never reach the intelligence to recognize that...which might ironically be the reason they chose the deck their playing.
Let things settle down and trust into the format, which is amazingly healthy. Other colors WILL gain bombs, but that will never determine a privileged position, which is also not present at this time, even if it seems that way.
Use intelligence, play the game on a high level and use the fucking deck that you like to play. Short and simple.

[DragoFireheart]

I suppose it's true, players like me are in a way, "the terror of the format" - at least if you're an aggro player. The guy that always plays counter-top or Team America is "that guy" for me - there's always somebody you just don't want to get paired against. And yes, you've seen through my charade. I enjoy "the power" of being able to outplay my opponents with a complex deck, assemble a puzzle, and win through situations that should be unwinnable. Much as (I'm willing to bet) you enjoy "the power" of being able to beat your opponent's face in with kitties and lhurgoyfs and/or burn them to a crisp (which I also enjoy from time to time, I might be feeling some zoo this weekend lol).

I prefer creature-less control decks or burn decks. I like to kill creatures, not watch my own die. Or just kill the player.

My point is that stronger aggro decks would emerge to keep the blue decks in check if combo was weakened. I could tolerate Show and Tell, but Black lotus with a couple of hoops or Mox of any kind? Those need to go.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Zoo is actually extremely strong right now, people just think it isn't and so aren't playing it. The deck is excellent against pretty much every blue deck out there, and with combo having difficulty due to all the blue now is a great time to play it. Landstill and the like are also good.

In addition, I don't think burn will ever actually be good in legacy - even if combo ceases to exist - because of that uncommon from Coldsnap. I forget the name, but I remember that it screws me over when I play decks with lots of cheap spells, and otherwise causes nerdrage.

As for SnT vs. Storm, at least one of them requires excessive playskill and will thus rarely be a factor. I would think you would find the random losses to Turn 1 Emrakul much more offensive than losing to a well-executed storm combo turn (which rarely happens that fast anyways).

EDIT: I need to talk about individual cards. Claiming Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox are broken is pretty absurd. They come with significant drawbacks and are only playable in certain archetypes as a result. Like Force, they grant you a powerful effect for no mana at the cost of card disadvantage. Lion's Eye Diamond is a broken card. I will not argue that it isn't, as that would be foolish. However, IMO it is no more broken than Brainstorm, Force, Top, Counterbalance, Show and Tell, etc. Its drawback is also quite limiting on storm decks' design, preventing them from running countermagic effectively (a good thing for the sake of balance, most likely - vintage storm decks are able to pack Force as they don't rely on LED).

[DragoFireheart]

Regardless, we are in a meta-game shift. Let the dust clear, then decide what to do.

[evanmartyr]

My point is that stronger aggro decks would emerge to keep the blue decks in check if combo was weakened. I could tolerate Show and Tell, but Black lotus with a couple of hoops or Mox of any kind? Those need to go.

"Stronger Aggro Decks" just means "faster", or possibly, "playing wacky cards like Blurred Mongoose because fuck blue". If the latter, then ew. If the former, then you just get combo decks that use creatures to win (see Berserk Infect).

And really, your argument that having show and tell as a pillar of what is widely considered a more skill-intensive format while storm combo languishes in 0-2-drop land is laughable. Are you out of your mind?

[DragoFireheart]

And really, your argument that having show and tell as a pillar of what is widely considered a more skill-intensive format while storm combo languishes in 0-2-drop land is laughable. Are you out of your mind?

You're right: Lets ban Show and Tell as well. My bad.

[evanmartyr]

You're right: Lets ban Show and Tell as well. My bad.

Sure, then we may as well just play Pokemon. Show and Tell is the retard brother of combo, and if it's your measure for desired brokenness then you may be missing the point.

[Iare]

Sure, then we may as well just play Pokemon. Show and Tell is the retard brother of combo, and if it's your measure for desired brokenness then you may be missing the point.

Problem with show and tell is it means I have to pack 4 oblivion ring in my sideboard or lose if it gets played. I do think the logic behind combo being the elephant in the room is a big part of blues power, the question is what to do about it. I think the best solution is to just print maindeck playable aggro control spells in colors that aren't blue or black.....

[evanmartyr]

Problem with show and tell is it means I have to pack 4 oblivion ring in my sideboard or lose if it gets played. I do think the logic behind combo being the elephant in the room is a big part of blues power, the question is what to do about it. I think the best solution is to just print maindeck playable aggro control spells in colors that aren't blue or black.....

If you're willing to wait that long, sure. It took WotC more than a year to put Tsabo's Web and Teferi's Response into Standard after printing Rishadan Port, and to be fair, they were still pretty crummy answers.

Sooner or later, there'll be better anti-combo cards in non-blue colors. Gaddock Teeg is a fairly good example. Or anti-control cards, to let the aggro decks compete (Vexing Shusher, etc). The problem is that they're rarely quite good enough to make it into Legacy, or make a big impact here, because if they are they're unbalanced as crap in Standard. Combo's not getting much better. I usually keep a Belcher deck on hand, and when NPH came out I looked into improving it: Gitaxian Probe instead of Manamorphose, switching to a super cantrip-heavy version with Street Wraiths and Probe, etc. None of them were a marked improvement over the standard, agreed-upon list.

So it's a slow process, and Wizards will slowly improve the archetypes that need it (namely, not combo) while leaving the archetypes that don't (namely, combo) in the doldrums. But printing more free counterspells really wasn't the right answer.

[DragoFireheart]

Sure, then we may as well just play Pokemon. Show and Tell is the retard brother of combo, and if it's your measure for desired brokenness then you may be missing the point.

Taking out the mana accel was the first step. If show and tell decks were still too strong, it would go next.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Taking out the mana accel was the first step. If show and tell decks were still too strong, it would go next.

This way of thinking (the "slippery slope") has been proven wrong numerous times man. Once you start banning one archetype out of existence, you make the others too strong and then have to ban more stuff, and more, until eventually we're just playing standard. Honestly, if you hate and fear fast combo that much, you should probably be playing standard.

[DragoFireheart]

This way of thinking (the "slippery slope") has been proven wrong numerous times man. Once you start banning one archetype out of existence, you make the others too strong and then have to ban more stuff, and more, until eventually we're just playing standard. Honestly, if you hate and fear fast combo that much, you should probably be playing standard.

I don't hate nor fear combo. My point is that most everyone else does, hence why they play blue.

[Mr.Dieth]

^ agree ! ( with Admiral_Arzar )

You all want to ban the most iconic cards from legacy, the cards that have been defining legacy for like uhm, always. These cards are the reason I chose to play legacy for.

and really, there are numerous ways to play against show and tell decks .. even cheap ones, like diabaloc edict and stuff .. So if you are whinning about that.. I'm not sure you can build a right sideboard for a certain meta, or pick the right deck for that matter.

STOP TRYING TO MAKE LEGACY INTO STANDARD 2.0 !!

[Griselpuff]

Okay, it was quite interesting reading what everybody wrote, but can we shift the focus of the discussion? A couple firestarters:

1) Sensei's Divining Top- usually the third most played card, was WAY down the list. Is it due to the rise of Misstep?

2) Stoneforge Mystic- is this the real deal and a Tier 1 strategy? My opinion is in the right control shell that can mitigate the tempo disadvantage, such as Owen's, it's quite powerful. However, once people figure out how to beat it, will it still remain a tournament winning strategy?

3) Vendilion Clique is the best creature. It was the most played, (Dark Confidant wasn't even in the Top 8!). Discuss.

I'm changing the title to reflect the change of topic.

PS- I know Dredge came 9th and Drew Levin's UW Ancestral Visions Control made 10th. Anybody know anything else about the top 16? (Decklists would be sweet, but SCG has those, so if you know how to get 'em please do!)

[Clark Kant]

Please don't say Llawan XD

I'm pretty sure it's spelled Lolwat or possibly Lolwin. I've seen it spelled both ways.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This way of thinking (the "slippery slope") has been proven wrong numerous times man. Once you start banning one archetype out of existence, you make the others too strong and then have to ban more stuff, and more, until eventually we're just playing standard. Honestly, if you hate and fear fast combo that much, you should probably be playing standard.

I don't even know what you just said, but it has no resemblance to reality.

[Boots]

First, at Dragofireheart... You come off much like a little child in these discussions. All, I want this banned because I hate it. Speech like that does not provide for a good platform of discourse. Yes, you may think combo is horrid, bad, and generally a jerk, but banning a swath of cards that support other strategies is not a good choice to follow. If I was to follow your logic anything that said draw a card would be banned in my mind, simply as I think card draw detracts from game skill.

I would be interested in collecting opinions on all this ban and format health discussions. I would like to collect information for a period of time, and then providing numbers and result discussions. If people would humor me here and answer the below to cardthought@gmail.com I would be appreciative. I also think it would help to provide us all defined points of discussion.

1. On a scale from 1 – 10 how fun do you think playing Legacy is now? (1 being awful and boring, 10 being invigorating and inspiring much glee)

2. If you were to ban up to five cards in any color or type, which five and why? Powerful level? Not fun? Causes games to go on to long?

3. If you were to ban one card of each defined type, which and why? (Land, creature, sorcery, planeswalker, instant, tribal, artifact, enchantment)

4. How important, on a scale from 1 – 10, do you think using the ban list to maintain a fun environment is?

5. What type of archetype do you majorly play? What archetypes do you feel detract from the value of the format? Which help make the format enjoyable? Which need the most help from Wizards of the Coast to expand and prosper?

[Spartacvs]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMt7sAsGmgU#t=18m54s

for starters:
While i think it is ok for combo to exist or even win on occasion I dont think it should ever be a pillar of the metagame.

now that you know where I am coming from i think the problem is that playing blue is so desirable. I think that is because most people dont want to lose to combo. they really want to play good ole magic the gathering and make decisions that reward their play. I would love to play a creature deck but i hate auto-losing to combo so I play blue to feel safe. in casual when I know what my friend is playing isnt combo i like to play creature decks. Also i hate losing to decks playing so much disruption i cant do anything. ie decks designed to beat combo in mind (thoughtseize you hymn you/ CB TOP you/ CotV and 3sphere you etc.) so again i feel pressure to play blue to have a "real" game. i dont mind playing creature decks against blue control decks but i think its because i know how to play them against blue control decks and they still make for fun games to me(barring moat humility lock style control).

basically my argument is that legacy would be a lot more fun and a better format without degenerate combo decks existing that make people want to play strategies that have a real chance of beating them i.e. excessive blue permission including CB top "locks", hymns, and 3sphere, CotV types of cards. even thou these cards would still be "good" I dont think it would be peoples first choice to play if degenerate combo didnt exist. CotV isn't my go to card to deal with Wild Nacatl. Its a card i would use to stop brainstorm ponder preordain dark ritual x3 duress kill you .dec

alas that isn't the world we live in, and people win GP's playing Gaddock Teeg with 6 cards that can't be cast if he is in play. not that it didnt or doesnt work! but it's sad that he had to(note he didnt side those six cards out when he played mr. TEEG from the board. We all have to twist are decks so much just to be safe from the combo cheese because some people just want to channel fireball us out of the game instead of attack and block. this is all my opinion and maybe no one really cares but if i had my way the skills you use in draft would translate to constructed and people would be able to look at the board and have a pretty good idea what is going on(in other words legacy would look like magic the gathering-creatures would matter- and combo would not be a mainstay in the meta).

my $0.02

Welcome to The Source. A couple of things: unless you are the reincarnated spirit of the beloved 20th century poet e.e. cummings, you'll need to use the shift key when appropriate. You have a lot of parentheses here, so I'm sure it works on your keyboard. See our Site Rules (especially Part I).

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?7455-Site-Rules-for-MTS

Also, it's helpful to tell people what you're linking to.
Bardo

[Sims]

I dunno. I personally really enjoy playing prison strategies. So even if degenerate combo didn't exist I would probably still play Stax or Mud.

[Spartacvs]

@ Sims, That's cool for you and i think it would be fine since if you played in my meta(and combo wasn't a thing®) I would be able to board in my Shattering Spree's that I have room for in the wonderful world of no combo. :)

[Admiral_Arzar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMt7sAsGmgU#t=18m54s

for starters:
While i think it is ok for combo to exist or even win on occasion I dont think it should ever be a pillar of the metagame.

now that you know where I am coming from i think the problem is that playing blue is so desirable. I think that is because most people dont want to lose to combo. they really want to play good ole magic the gathering and make decisions that reward their play. I would love to play a creature deck but i hate auto-losing to combo so I play blue to feel safe. in casual when I know what my friend is playing isnt combo i like to play creature decks. Also i hate losing to decks playing so much disruption i cant do anything. ie decks designed to beat combo in mind (thoughtseize you hymn you/ CB TOP you/ CotV and 3sphere you etc.) so again i feel pressure to play blue to have a "real" game. i dont mind playing creature decks against blue control decks but i think its because i know how to play them against blue control decks and they still make for fun games to me(barring moat humility lock style control).

basically my argument is that legacy would be a lot more fun and a better format without degenerate combo decks existing that make people want to play strategies that have a real chance of beating them i.e. excessive blue permission including CB top "locks", hymns, and 3sphere, CotV types of cards. even thou these cards would still be "good" I dont think it would be peoples first choice to play if degenerate combo didnt exist. CotV isn't my go to card to deal with Wild Nacatl. Its a card i would use to stop brainstorm ponder preordain dark ritual x3 duress kill you .dec

alas that isn't the world we live in, and people win GP's playing Gaddock Teeg with 6 cards that can't be cast if he is in play. not that it didnt or doesnt work! but it's sad that he had to(note he didnt side those six cards out when he played mr. TEEG from the board. We all have to twist are decks so much just to be safe from the combo cheese because some people just want to channel fireball us out of the game instead of attack and block. this is all my opinion and maybe no one really cares but if i had my way the skills you use in draft would translate to constructed and people would be able to look at the board and have a pretty good idea what is going on(in other words legacy would look like magic the gathering-creatures would matter- and combo would not be a mainstay in the meta).

my $0.02



I read this entire post, which was quite difficult. All I have to say in reply is "Would you like some cheese with that whine?" Also, don't quote Aaron Forsythe. I find his remarks offensive.

Also, awesome red text.


@ Sims, That's cool for you and i think it would be fine since if you played in my meta(and combo wasn't a thing®) I would be able to board in my Shattering Spree's that I have room for in the wonderful world of no combo. :)

I'm honestly not sure when the I.M.P.S. will end and people will actually realize that there's no way they can have a positive matchup against EVERY OTHER DECK OUT THERE. Also, the "wonderful world of no combo" would A. Not be wonderful, it would be boring and B. Would be aggro vs. lands.dec/stax/board control.

[Rafa]

The problem is that blue was already the dominant color of the format. There was NO REASON to print a card like Mental Misstep - but for selling purposes, of course.
I find it difficult to believe that the wotc crew considered that every deck could or would play it, because it would be the most stupid dedution ever.
I won't say it kills the other colors, but in order to succeed people will now have to splash for blue.
Unless they ban something or try to fix it in the upcoming new sets, whoever doesn't have the blue dual lands, grab yours before you have to sell your kidney to buy one in the future!

[SpikeyMikey]

I read this entire post, which was quite difficult. All I have to say in reply is "Would you like some cheese with that whine?" Also, don't quote Aaron Forsythe. I find his remarks offensive.

Also, awesome red text.



I'm honestly not sure when the I.M.P.S. will end and people will actually realize that there's no way they can have a positive matchup against EVERY OTHER DECK OUT THERE. Also, the "wonderful world of no combo" would A. Not be wonderful, it would be boring and B. Would be aggro vs. lands.dec/stax/board control.

Very awesome red text. And yes, a format without storm combo would suck. I hate playing against it and generally speaking, I hate the people that play it as they tend to be unbearable condescending pricks. But they're pricks with a very important role in the metagame.

It's my firm belief that the existence of storm combo, while it does - to a degree - supress non-blue aggressive strategies, is actually what keeps control in check. People are going to play blue no matter what. It doesn't matter whether it's objectively the best color/strategy in a format, a lot of people are going to play it. There are a lot of people that are not happy with playing unless they're playing control. But what combo does is force those control players to split their attention between two totally different strategies that share little to no hate. The best way to stop aggressive strategies is with an overload of creature removal. Removal is better than counters because Legacy plays very few CiP creatures (SFM and a couple of Goblins are the only exceptions I can think of) and being able to answer a creature at any point is better than having to answer it preemptively or not be able to answer it at all. Stack based control is the only way for control to beat combo, all the StP's, Oblivion Rings and Humilities in the world will not stop a lethal Tendrils.

Cutting storm out of the format won't decrease the amount of blue played or increase the amount of aggro; my gut feeling is most of those storm players would play some other form of combo or switch to control. Very few of the ones I've talked to have any respect for "fair" (aggro) decks. That's why they play storm in the first place. They're not going to put down LED and pick up Nacatl, they'll just play with Jace TMS instead. What it will do is allow control decks to focus more on controlling the board state in the early game with cheap removal and it will kill fast aggro entirely. The only non-control decks that will really be viable will be aggro control decks or recursive decks that can generate incremental advantage, i.e. recursive midrange decks. Where combo is at right now, it's very well balanced. It's not powerful enough to compete well with control but not so weak that it doesn't have a good matchup vs. aggro. Right now it's not fast enough to define the format or slow enough to be a non-factor.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMt7sAsGmgU#t=18m54s

for starters:
While i think it is ok for combo to exist or even win on occasion I dont think it should ever be a pillar of the metagame.

now that you know where I am coming from i think the problem is that playing blue is so desirable. I think that is because most people dont want to lose to combo. they really want to play good ole magic the gathering and make decisions that reward their play. I would love to play a creature deck but i hate auto-losing to combo so I play blue to feel safe. in casual when I know what my friend is playing isnt combo i like to play creature decks. Also i hate losing to decks playing so much disruption i cant do anything. ie decks designed to beat combo in mind (thoughtseize you hymn you/ CB TOP you/ CotV and 3sphere you etc.) so again i feel pressure to play blue to have a "real" game. i dont mind playing creature decks against blue control decks but i think its because i know how to play them against blue control decks and they still make for fun games to me(barring moat humility lock style control).

basically my argument is that legacy would be a lot more fun and a better format without degenerate combo decks existing that make people want to play strategies that have a real chance of beating them i.e. excessive blue permission including CB top "locks", hymns, and 3sphere, CotV types of cards. even thou these cards would still be "good" I dont think it would be peoples first choice to play if degenerate combo didnt exist. CotV isn't my go to card to deal with Wild Nacatl. Its a card i would use to stop brainstorm ponder preordain dark ritual x3 duress kill you .dec

alas that isn't the world we live in, and people win GP's playing Gaddock Teeg with 6 cards that can't be cast if he is in play. not that it didnt or doesnt work! but it's sad that he had to(note he didnt side those six cards out when he played mr. TEEG from the board. We all have to twist are decks so much just to be safe from the combo cheese because some people just want to channel fireball us out of the game instead of attack and block. this is all my opinion and maybe no one really cares but if i had my way the skills you use in draft would translate to constructed and people would be able to look at the board and have a pretty good idea what is going on (in other words legacy would look like magic the gathering-creatures would matter- and combo would not be a mainstay in the meta).

my $0.02

See, the bold part is exactly where your problem comes from. Magic is about more than turning creatures sideways and looking at the board state to figure out what is going to happen. There are about a million other things the cards allow you to do and the "older" formats are where you still get to do them, it's a major part of their reason to exist and the draw they have for a large number of players. The general attitude of people like you has pushed WotC to make them unavailable in Standard for nearly a decade now and there is no reason to frustrate all those players that like things other than "I play a guy. Ok, now I'll turn it sideways" by trying to make Eternal about the same crap.
This is an Eternal format. If all you want to do is play creatures and turn them sideways, you have draft and Standard for that. Eternal formats are about playing all the strategies that this sweet game enables, not just the most fundamental.
If you don't like strategies other than basic creature beats vs removal, you're in the wrong type of format.

[Admiral_Arzar]

See, the bold part is exactly where your problem comes from. Magic is about more than turning creatures sideways and looking at the board state to figure out what is going to happen. There are about a million other things the cards allow you to do and the "older" formats are where you still get to do them, it's a major part of their reason to exist and the draw they have for a large number of players. The general attitude of people like you has pushed WotC to make them unavailable in Standard for nearly a decade now and there is no reason to frustrate all those players that like things other than "I play a guy. Ok, now I'll turn it sideways" by trying to make Eternal about the same crap.
This is an Eternal format. If all you want to do is play creatures and turn them sideways, you have draft and Standard for that. Eternal formats are about playing all the strategies that this sweet game enables, not just the most fundamental.
If you don't like strategies other than basic creature beats vs removal, you're in the wrong type of format.

+100000000

This post sums up my attitude about eternal formats completely.


Very awesome red text. And yes, a format without storm combo would suck. I hate playing against it and generally speaking, I hate the people that play it as they tend to be unbearable condescending pricks. But they're pricks with a very important role in the metagame.

It's my firm belief that the existence of storm combo, while it does - to a degree - supress non-blue aggressive strategies, is actually what keeps control in check. People are going to play blue no matter what. It doesn't matter whether it's objectively the best color/strategy in a format, a lot of people are going to play it.

Cutting storm out of the format won't decrease the amount of blue played or increase the amount of aggro; my gut feeling is most of those storm players would play some other form of combo or switch to control. Very few of the ones I've talked to have any respect for "fair" (aggro) decks. That's why they play storm in the first place. They're not going to put down LED and pick up Nacatl, they'll just play with Jace TMS instead.

I like to not think of myself as an unbearable condescending prick, but you never know. You'd have to ask those who play with me ;). You are definitely correct in your analysis - without combo it degenerates into aggro vs. (probably blue based) board control. A lot of players just love to play blue, and think everything else is bad. This is a deep-seated belief I've observed in many players, and this includes standard players also (where it obviously has nothing to do with combo). Ironically, if I'm not playing combo, I tend not to play slow control (which I find mind-numbingly boring). If I play blue it tends to be aggressive tempo decks like Canadian Threshold or Team America. I also have a soft-spot for red-based aggro, partially due to my early days as a player, and partially due to how they shit all over Merfolk, which I hate. I think I'm actually feeling some Nacatl action for this weekend; I need a break after playing Stax for the last month.

[Sims]

The problem is that blue was already the dominant color of the format. There was NO REASON to print a card like Mental Misstep - but for selling purposes, of course.
I find it difficult to believe that the wotc crew considered that every deck could or would play it, because it would be the most stupid dedution ever.
I won't say it kills the other colors, but in order to succeed people will now have to splash for blue.
Unless they ban something or try to fix it in the upcoming new sets, whoever doesn't have the blue dual lands, grab yours before you have to sell your kidney to buy one in the future!

Known fact: Wizards does little to no playtesting for legacy. typcially none. The Future Future League are there to test how the cards will work in standard, sometimes cards slip through see Jace... but typically when a card has a huge interaction in Legacy it's because they didn't plan for/test for/or even think about this format.

[DragoFireheart]

First, at Dragofireheart... You come off much like a little child in these discussions.

- The fact that you had to resort to personal insults already destroys the credibility of your argument. However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and read the rest.




All, I want this banned because I hate it.

- Please quote me where I said I hated combo. I never said I hated it: I merely stated that there are cards that are far too powerful for combo in this format. A functional Black Lotus should NOT be in this format, period. Go play Vintage if you want that kind of power.




Speech like that does not provide for a good platform of discourse. Yes, you may think combo is horrid, bad, and generally a jerk, but banning a swath of cards that support other strategies is not a good choice to follow. If I was to follow your logic anything that said draw a card would be banned in my mind, simply as I think card draw detracts from game skill.
?

-Yeah, I should I have ignored your post. You clearly didn't read mine. IBA had no issues understanding the point I brought up. Why couldn't you?

[DragoFireheart]

Known fact: Wizards does little to no playtesting for legacy. typcially none. The Future Future League are there to test how the cards will work in standard, sometimes cards slip through see Jace... but typically when a card has a huge interaction in Legacy it's because they didn't plan for/test for/or even think about this format.

They still test after the fact though.

[Sims]

They still test after the fact though.

True, but releasing something and having people complain immediately after, THEN the DCI board playtesting the matches doesn't really help. It would be nice if they'd playtest the cards for all formats before they release them, but i'm a realist, i know where they make there money and it isn't off us.

[Admiral_Arzar]

IBA had no issues understanding the point I brought up. Why couldn't you?

IBA has an irrational hatred of storm combo. Keep that in mind when you read any of his posts in this thread. However, it seems that you suffer from the same malady, so my warnings will likely fall upon deaf ears.

[JCLe]

- Please quote me where I said I hated combo. I never said I hated it: I merely stated that there are cards that are far too powerful for combo in this format. A functional Black Lotus should NOT be in this format, period. Go play Vintage if you want that kind of power.

It's funny how you overevaluate the strenght of combo cards because you always take them in the perspective of combo vs dumb beats.

At least you corrected yourself on Show and Tell earlier (I think anyway, I don't even know at this point it just looks like your trolling honestly), but LED isn't no black lotus, and in a lot of cases where you would like it to be one, it isn't. I love the card, but the downside is high enough so that the consistency of the card isn't absurd. Legacy metagame is a cycle, there needs to be 3 parts, otherwise one will dominate and it's just gonna be worse for the losing side, since that archetype will never win until it all becomes the winning archetype.

We saw this happening with survival (I'm in the ''ban was unecessary'' side), but still the example is good. It destroyed the decks of the old metagame completely (which would probably happen if an archetype had a card banned) and all americans switched to the winner archetype. Of course, just like now, no ban was necessary, only adjustments.

Did you like the survival metagame? I didn't mind it, I didn't play survival. I don't want to be playing zoo vs zoo all day long because brainstorm or whatever pillar combo card gets banned.

The rock paper scissors necessity for the format to be healthy isn't a hard concept to understand. Think about it. What's great about this game is rock doesn't always beat scissors, so it's worth playing.

The losing side always doesn't like what's happening to them, wether it's getting beat by a 3/3 for G or getting tendrils for 20 at the face while dropping creatures. When you pick a deck that's something you need to be ready for, and accept that your doing the same thing to others sometimes.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

IBA has an irrational hatred of storm combo. Keep that in mind when you read any of his posts in this thread.

No I don't.

I notice that your arguments consist of baseless assertions and accusing people of whining.

[DragoFireheart]

True, but releasing something and having people complain immediately after, THEN the DCI board playtesting the matches doesn't really help. It would be nice if they'd playtest the cards for all formats before they release them, but i'm a realist, i know where they make there money and it isn't off us.

- Bingo


IBA has an irrational hatred of storm combo. Keep that in mind when you read any of his posts in this thread. However, it seems that you suffer from the same malady, so my warnings will likely fall upon deaf ears.

-I don't have any sort of hatred for combo. However, weakening blue will only make combo a more desirable choice. I'd rather the format slowed down then sped up, but then again I prefer control decks. I still think TES is the most powerful deck in this format. However, it's one of the most difficult to play so it's not very popular. That's a fair trade off in my opinion.



The losing side always doesn't like what's happening to them, wether it's getting beat by a 3/3 for G or getting tendrils for 20 at the face while dropping creatures. When you pick a deck that's something you need to be ready for, and accept that your doing the same thing to others sometimes.

-I can accept that. However, when there is talk of banning Brainstorm, then there should be equal talk of banning other broken cards. Yes, MMS stirred things up a bit, but I think some people are overestimating it's power and the power of blue. SotF, while fun, was a bit on the broken side (and rumors of an all green version that could stomp all three arch-types was on the rise) and I was not surprised to see it go. But banning Brainstorm? There are many other cards I would ban before that card.

Personally, I think the format is fine.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

First, at Dragofireheart... You come off much like a little child in these discussions. All, I want this banned because I hate it. Speech like that does not provide for a good platform of discourse.

People have different visions of what Legacy should play like. Hell, some people thought Flash should have been left alone. There's no accounting for taste. Starting off your post like this makes your post seem illegitimate and disinterested in actual conversation.

[Skeggi]

I don't get it. While I agree the power of LED is great, this thread is about the cards played mostly in the GP top8. There was only one LED. Why is it being discussed?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't get it. While I agree the power of LED is great, this thread is about the cards played mostly in the GP top8. There was only one LED. Why is it being discussed?

If we take it as a premise that blue can't continue to win 11 out of 13 tournaments indefinitely without action being called for, then it should pay to consider what actions might be taken. One possible fix was the banning of Brainstorm. It was alternately suggested that blue's power is a result of combo decks being too good. I would put an addendum to this; it's a result of blue decks that other colors have trouble fighting being too good. Dragon, for instance, was an old combo deck that could be fought easily in every color with maindeck cards (although of course they had counter-answers, which is why it was such a good deck). Flash, likewise, could be fought with any color with maindeckable cards, although in that case the power level was too high regardless.

I suggested specifically LED and Show and Tell as the two cards I would think the best targets for a ban, if one decides to take the combo argument at face value and not just axe Brainstorm.

Again, this all presupposes that blue continues its dominance unabated for the next six months.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

If we take it as a premise that blue can't continue to win 11 out of 13 tournaments indefinitely without action being called for, then it should pay to consider what actions might be taken. One possible fix was the banning of Brainstorm. It was alternately suggested that blue's power is a result of combo decks being too good. I would put an addendum to this; it's a result of blue decks that other colors have trouble fighting being too good. Dragon, for instance, was an old combo deck that could be fought easily in every color with maindeck cards (although of course they had counter-answers, which is why it was such a good deck). Flash, likewise, could be fought with any color with maindeckable cards, although in that case the power level was too high regardless.

I suggested specifically LED and Show and Tell as the two cards I would think the best targets for a ban, if one decides to take the combo argument at face value and not just axe Brainstorm.

Again, this all presupposes that blue continues its dominance unabated for the next six months.

One glaring problem with this argument is the fact that most Lion's Eye Diamond decks are not doing very well in the metagame right now. Plenty of versions of Painter and Dredge (which I would say are much better positioned in the meta than Storm right now) don't even use LED.

I think another real problem with the argument that combo's supposed "being too good is what's making blue such a dominant color"... is that this doesn't pay attention to the fact that the best combo decks right now are blue combo decks. The most effective combo decks these days are built for resiliency over speed, and this is because blue is so good right now. To combat a field of counterspells, you don't want to be running TES or ANT or Belcher or Spanish Inquisition-- you want to have your own fucking Force of Wills, or at the very least you need to reevaluate your deck and how it plays through Mental Misstep.

Fact of the matter though, is that it would just be unnecessary haterism and bigotry to further cripple Lion's Eye Diamond decks, because they're really not over-performing right now in any meta I know of. Show and Tell is a retarded card, no argument. But it's also just too easy to counteract (Diabolic Edict, Oblivion Ring, Curfew, Noetic Scales, etc.) to consider it as being unhealthy for the format.

I'm getting tired of the Legacy community calling for bans so frequently. I think the format is reasonably healthy right now. I think the most productive adjustments that could be made would be:
*For WotC to start promoting Red more as a color. White could also use a bit of a boost. (I think in the Legacy cardpool, the tier list right now is basically Blue is best, Green and Black are roughly equal for second, White is second worst, and Red is the absolute unarguable pits right now.)
*For them to start printing new color-hate that is of an appropriate power level. I don't think this would ruin Standard, if they did an elegant job of designing the cards and maintaing balance. But from a Legacy perspective, Blue needs to receive the most hate, so they should have some good anti-Blue bombs that cannot be splashed into any deck using Blue.
*For us as a community to tone back on the bitching a bit and self-regulate better. We enjoy a very popular format, but the price barrier to entry is a real problem, and the under-promotion of the format by WotC (I would argue) is also a problem. If we compose ourselves with a little more dignity, and exercise our sense of consumer-entitlement a bit more, I think WotC would think of us as more of a potentially lucrative (and respect-worthy) community. As it is, I think there's way too much whining going on in general. (IBA, I'm not directing this part at you specifically, even though I bounced off your post, and disagree with a couple of your points in my previous comments.)

[Admiral_Arzar]

One glaring problem with this argument is the fact that most Lion's Eye Diamond decks are not doing very well in the metagame right now. Plenty of versions of Painter and Dredge (which I would say are much better positioned in the meta than Storm right now) don't even use LED.

I think another real problem with the argument that combo's supposed "being too good is what's making blue such a dominant color"... is that this doesn't pay attention to the fact that the best combo decks right now are blue combo decks. The most effective combo decks these days are built for resiliency over speed, and this is because blue is so good right now. To combat a field of counterspells, you don't want to be running TES or ANT or Belcher or Spanish Inquisition-- you want to have your own fucking Force of Wills, or at the very least you need to reevaluate your deck and how it plays through Mental Misstep.

Fact of the matter though, is that it would just be unnecessary haterism and bigotry to further cripple Lion's Eye Diamond decks, because they're really not over-performing right now in any meta I know of.

I'm getting tired of the Legacy community calling for bans so frequently. I think the format is reasonably healthy right now.


Agreed on all these points. The combo decks that will perform well in the current format are those in a heavy blue shell, with their own countermagic protecting a two-card combo (Hive Mind, SnT/Sneak Attack/NO, ReAnimator, Painter, etc.). These decks are resilient against heavy blue. Fast combo in general is not doing well right now - some of the best storm players in the world were unable to fight through all the blue day 2 of the GP. Less calls for bans would also be excellent, but you know that's going to continue as long as there's a deck out there that shits on someone's pet deck (aka forever).

[lorddotm]

Admiral Arzar. How can you possibly call yourself a combo player and have Stax built?

Without combo, Legacy dies. Straight up.

[Fossil4182]

Ironically isn't the rise in Blue due, at least in part, to WotC with the printing Mental Misstep? I mean Landstill decks and BUG decks were not dominating prior to the printing of Mental Misstep. It also allowed the Merfolk player an even to favorable match up against Goblins which was supposed to keep that deck in check.

MM also happens to be the most played card in the Top 8 at the GP. Its also true that looking at deck selection, most players tend to play Blue because their favorite cards are in the color (those cards also happen to be extremely powerful). We're in a state of Legacy right now were the pendulum is swinging toward the blue based control decks. Prior to this, we had several weeks were combo decks were ruling top eights of SCG Open events. Is it any surprise then to see the meta-games at top tables shift toward control?

Legacy is notoriously slow for metagame adjustments to occur; and its even more difficult for players using "correct" metagame decks to make top 8 due to the variance in the format given the utter randomness of the match-ups one may draw. This means that even if pro players are making good deck choices, they may not get to the top eight so we don't see them. Additionally, there's a reasonable explanation why "Blue" decks show up in fair numbers of the top 8 of open series events; not only are they powerful, they also have the highest percentage of players piloting them. For example, Landstill, Merfolk and BUG represented more than 35% of the decks played at the open series event in Louisville. Is it really that surprising that "Blue" decks show up in high numbers in top tables? Its statistically much more likely for them to be prevalent given how many people are piloting them.

There also seems to be a tendency for meta analysis to reflect the top eight with little emphasis placed on anything else. A good example here is Jesse Hatfield going X-0 on day one with Zoo. Jesse and Alex are great deck designers and also tend to have a step or two on where the meta game is going to shift to. Another Zoo deck made the top eight which I see as a vindication of their deck choice. Its also interesting to note that Zoo only represented 3% of the decks at the last open series. Given this, Zoo wasn't chosen because of its popularity, but rather because Jesse felt it was the best chance to win given the field.

The issue isn't that aggro decks aren't capable of combating the control decks, its simply that the control decks have evolved and the aggro decks must follow in kind. For example, Chris Kronenberger demonstrated that BUG builds are easy to beat when their mana base is exploited. This could make painter decks with Blood Moon or some form of Dragon Stompy a possible choice if one expects a lot of BUG decks or shaky mana bases. Additionally, decks like Aggro Loam also avoid the Mental Misstep problem and can basically blank several counterspells game one while being able to board in cards to ensure a positive match up game two. The recurrance engine of Life from the Loam will also run an opponent out of counters quickly. Its all a matter of deck selection and meta gaming to win. Its not simply that a color is "too powerful".

[Skeggi]

It was alternately suggested that blue's power is a result of combo decks being too good.
I agree that counterbalance is the best card against storm combo, there are many other nonblue cards that get the job done, as long as you apply a proper amount of pressure: mindbreak trap, mental misstep, chalice of he void, gaddock teeg, ethersworn canonist, duress, thoughtseize, hymn to tourach, orim's chant, silence, aura of silence, extirpate, surgical extraction, leyline of the void, leyline of sanctity, tormkd's crypt, relic of progenitus, nihil spellbomb, wasteland. These are all cards that have proven their worthagainst (storm)combo without requiring blue mana.

[DragoFireheart]

Less calls for bans would also be excellent, but you know that's going to continue as long as there's a deck out there that shits on someone's pet deck (aka forever).

This. Stop calling for bans. The last one cost me a good $200.00 or so. Let the metagame settle and if blue is still dominant, then lets talk about bans.

Frankly, I see WotC banning Show and Tell long before Brainstorm.

[Iare]

This. Stop calling for bans. The last one cost me a good $200.00 or so. Let the metagame settle and if blue is still dominant, then lets talk about bans.

Frankly, I see WotC banning Show and Tell long before Brainstorm.

I sure hope show and tell gets the ban hammer. Not so much because the card is warping the format but more that Herp Derp show and tell I win makes for a pretty shitty game. And, I would like to pull the oblivion rings out of every sideboard I have, since its really my only answer (Hell maindecking a karakas in every single deck gets old too). The deck requires no skill whatsoever and you really can't misplay with it. At least storm combo players can make a wrong move and let you win off that every now and again.

I don't mind painter stone much since painter dies to only about 12-20 cards in any of my decks :P (Plus shattering spree out the board tends to handle them well too). Although this whole post is just spike hoping his competition gets kicked in the balls so he can take the prize easier ;D

[joemauer]

Ironically isn't the rise in Blue due, at least in part, to WotC with the printing Mental Misstep? I mean Landstill decks and BUG decks were not dominating prior to the printing of Mental Misstep. It also allowed the Merfolk player an even to favorable match up against Goblins which was supposed to keep that deck in check.

MM also happens to be the most played card in the Top 8 at the GP. Its also true that looking at deck selection, most players tend to play Blue because their favorite cards are in the color (those cards also happen to be extremely powerful). We're in a state of Legacy right now were the pendulum is swinging toward the blue based control decks. Prior to this, we had several weeks were combo decks were ruling top eights of SCG Open events. Is it any surprise then to see the meta-games at top tables shift toward control?


I think wizards printed MM because combo was getting kinda popular. Wotc is known for hating combo.
Also, it's nice to shake things up in the legacy format every now and then. The metagame should be able to adapt. Drew Levin wrote some article on starcitygames when MM was first annouced. Said how MM would dominate then decks with 3's would take over(junk,stax,show and tell). It will keep shifting for awhile, and while it does lot of suprise decks like Hive Mind will have a good chance of winning. I love combo but I think this is a fun time for legacy.
All that being said if blue is still dominating in six months I do believe something has to be banned(probably brainstorm), but as of right now it is way too early to tell.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Admiral Arzar. How can you possibly call yourself a combo player and have Stax built?

Without combo, Legacy dies. Straight up.

I played Stax at Providence because I chickened out. Literally. I was going to play TES but figured I lacked the playskill to play around Mental Misstep all day, and decided to play a deck with no one drops. Didn't work out so well, LOL.

And yes, without combo, the format would die, as would my interest in it.

[Iare]

Except, mental misstep isn't good against combo really. Storm combo is mostly going to work a chant or some other hate through then go nuts anyway. MM replaces spell pierce or spell snare in most lists, things storm combo actually gave a rat's ass about. Mental misstep really only hurts the raw aggro decks, that weren't exactly dominating the field anyway. MM makes it so aggro decks will try and slow down with bigger fatties, which makes storm combo even stronger. To say this whole thing was to hate on storm is just stupid, this is a card they only thought about standard and extended when they printed.

In other words, Dear sir or madam I must contend that the state of affairs actually contradict the premises you have proposed.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Except, mental misstep isn't good against combo really. Storm combo is mostly going to work a chant or some other hate through then go nuts anyway. MM replaces spell pierce or spell snare in most lists, things storm combo actually gave a rat's ass about. Mental misstep really only hurts the raw aggro decks, that weren't exactly dominating the field anyway. MM makes it so aggro decks will try and slow down with bigger fatties, which makes storm combo even stronger. To say this whole thing was to hate on storm is just stupid, this is a card they only thought about standard and extended when they printed.

In other words, Dear sir or madam I must contend that the state of affairs actually contradict the premises you have proposed.

I was simply stating why I didn't play storm at GP: Providence. That doesn't mean the analysis is necessarily correct at all - although I believe your thinking is somewhat flawed, as blue now having eight hard counters for chants/protection spells is not particularly nice.

[joemauer]

Except, mental misstep isn't good against combo really. Storm combo is mostly going to work a chant or some other hate through then go nuts anyway. MM replaces spell pierce or spell snare in most lists, things storm combo actually gave a rat's ass about. Mental misstep really only hurts the raw aggro decks, that weren't exactly dominating the field anyway. MM makes it so aggro decks will try and slow down with bigger fatties, which makes storm combo even stronger. To say this whole thing was to hate on storm is just stupid, this is a card they only thought about standard and extended when they printed.

In other words, Dear sir or madam I must contend that the state of affairs actually contradict the premises you have proposed.

Control hasn't been a top dog in Legacy for awhile because it is tough to control fast aggro and fast combo. Having a card that really helps against the former and is not bad versus the latter(more free counterspells is always good versus storm) is the kind of shot in the arm that control needed. Which keeps combo down(not just storm but also dredge).

[JCLe]

The deck requires no skill whatsoever and you really can't misplay with it.

If that's your thought process for Show and Tell decks you're just ignorant of the mistakes you make. Cantrips, land drops, mulligans, everything that makes you interact with your opponent make the difference between a win and a loss. The two things I named apply to storm combo as well, but you should know that already since you are making some assumptions about the archetype. You just don't realize when Show and Tell players make a mistake.

If you can't realize this take notes of your games and examine every little different line of play, you clearly need to improve your mindset.


Except, mental misstep isn't good against combo really. Storm combo is mostly going to work a chant or some other hate through then go nuts anyway. MM replaces spell pierce or spell snare in most lists, things storm combo actually gave a rat's ass about. Mental misstep really only hurts the raw aggro decks, that weren't exactly dominating the field anyway. MM makes it so aggro decks will try and slow down with bigger fatties, which makes storm combo even stronger. To say this whole thing was to hate on storm is just stupid, this is a card they only thought about standard and extended when they printed.

In other words, Dear sir or madam I must contend that the state of affairs actually contradict the premises you have proposed.

Free counter for dark ritual and protection spells isn't good? You must be trolling. Let's pretend I'm a control or aggro-control player playing against combo with those non-free counters you mentionned (snare / pierce). I turn 1 island go, turn 2 whatever land go (unless you love being lucky and throw games), turn 3 land goyf/sfm/whatever the hell go. With mental misstep you can apply pressure earlier, counter a turn 1 duress effect on the draw which gives no information to the storm player, etc. I am aware it might be worse in some situations, and maybe worse overall against storm, but not close to bad. Another free counter is also a psychological threat, which might make players to slowroll to much and wait for that extra piece, even if the other deck runs pierce or snare instead. It is clearly a bad card for storm players, if it didn't make you worry (doubt you actually play storm) then good for you.

Making aggro decks slower don't make storm better, the ability of the control deck to win more, hence advance in tournaments, thus having more in the field to stop storm, makes the combo decks worse. Since when does storm/combo has a problem with creature decks? They rarely lose to the archetype, that's the main reason they exist.

[DragoFireheart]

Except, mental misstep isn't good against combo really. Storm combo is mostly going to work a chant or some other hate through then go nuts anyway.

I can counter their Duress, Silence/Chant and then leave them wondering if they can go off. Most blue decks are packing at least 8 hard counters (FoW and MMS) along with either 6-8 more hard counters (CS, Spell Snare) or soft counters (Spell Pierce, Cursecatcher, Daze).

No, MMS hurts Storm more than you think, though they can still fight through it. Just harder now.

[Iare]

If that's your thought process for Show and Tell decks you're just ignorant of the mistakes you make. Cantrips, land drops, mulligans, everything that makes you interact with your opponent make the difference between a win and a loss. The two things I named apply to storm combo as well, but you should know that already since you are making some assumptions about the archetype. You just don't realize when Show and Tell players make a mistake.

If you can't realize this take notes of your games and examine every little different line of play, you clearly need to improve your mindset.



Free counter for dark ritual and protection spells isn't good? You must be trolling. Let's pretend I'm a control or aggro-control player playing against combo with those non-free counters you mentionned (snare / pierce). I turn 1 island go, turn 2 whatever land go (unless you love being lucky and throw games), turn 3 land goyf/sfm/whatever the hell go. With mental misstep you can apply pressure earlier, counter a turn 1 duress effect on the draw which gives no information to the storm player, etc. I am aware it might be worse in some situations, and maybe worse overall against storm, but not close to bad. Another free counter is also a psychological threat, which might make players to slowroll to much and wait for that extra piece, even if the other deck runs pierce or snare instead. It is clearly a bad card for storm players, if it didn't make you worry (doubt you actually play storm) then good for you.

Making aggro decks slower don't make storm better, the ability of the control deck to win more, hence advance in tournaments, thus having more in the field to stop storm, makes the combo decks worse. Since when does storm/combo has a problem with creature decks? They rarely lose to the archetype, that's the main reason they exist.

Pl0x sir, Show and tell > fatty is the easiest play ever invented, if you think otherwise you are certainly wrong. Storm combo can just play MM and get the extra storm count from countering yours, now I don't play storm personally but I know a few people who do and they are really happy about the printing of MM.

It makes them much better against aggro even, I was boarding 11 cards against storm (7 chant and 4 traps) and actually had a decent shot against them. Now that they can pack MM and deal with my chants in response to their chant and other none-sense I pretty much have to abandon the matchup or take up playing blue.

The only reason storm might hurt from this is more people playing blue, which at this point I think is what I am going to do. Can't beat them, join them.

And, no I am not trolling I just have no respect for stupid decks like Show and Tell > fatty. . Its just a dumb deck with lazy design and I don't like its existence, I am entitled not to like things :) I mean right now show and tell is possibly as broken as tinker is. Tinker might get your choice of artifact fatty but you can't get the spaghetti monster.

[dearleader]

Packing MM in Tendrils decks seems pretty iffy. You get a free counterspell, but at the expense of threat density. What's the point of countering their Misstep on your ritual, when you could just play another ritual to start with? I know it's not that simple, but the point I'm trying to make is that the benefit of running Misstep comes at a non-insignificant price, and I'd try maindeck REB before running Misstep to counter their Misstep. MM does hurt storm combo of all variety.

As for bans, I can see the reasoning behind banning Brainstorm - that it hurts 3 color aggro-control and combo simultaneously, and hurts Merfolk by reducing the number of blue decks to prey on.
But this format is fine right now. There's no evidence of any deck or archetype systematically dominating the metagame, and the dominance of blue will probably change as the metagame changes. Wasn't everyone playing Countertop and Canadian and Merfolk a few years ago, before Zoo was a deck?

Also, I don't know why so many people think S&T combo is dumb, but no comment is made about Natural Order. Natural Order decks tend to be a bit more interactive and plays more like slow combo, I'll give you that, but it's just as much of an 'oops i win' card.

[Iare]

Packing MM in Tendrils decks seems pretty iffy. You get a free counterspell, but at the expense of threat density. What's the point of countering their Misstep on your ritual, when you could just play another ritual to start with? I know it's not that simple, but the point I'm trying to make is that the benefit of running Misstep comes at a non-insignificant price, and I'd try maindeck REB before running Misstep to counter their Misstep. MM does hurt storm combo of all variety.

As for bans, I can see the reasoning behind banning Brainstorm - that it hurts 3 color aggro-control and combo simultaneously, and hurts Merfolk by reducing the number of blue decks to prey on.
But this format is fine right now. There's no evidence of any deck or archetype systematically dominating the metagame, and the dominance of blue will probably change as the metagame changes. Wasn't everyone playing Countertop and Canadian and Merfolk a few years ago, before Zoo was a deck?

Also, I don't know why so many people think S&T combo is dumb, but no comment is made about Natural Order. Natural Order decks tend to be a bit more interactive and plays more like slow combo, I'll give you that, but it's just as much of an 'oops i win' card.

Storm players care more about spell pierce and spell snare than they do a MM. They are just better cards against storm all around , so if you are taking out spell pierce or spell snare for MM you have weakened your combo matchup. Find me storm players who dissagree with this then we will talk :) The only thing MM does for you is allow you to easily counter chant/silence from their board, they can adapt to win anyway (The matchup really isn't much different). Combo players playing MM isn't out of the question I don't think, since it hits TEH TOP nicely.

Natural order is at least a fair enough card, it costs 4, isn't blue and can't drop the spaghetti monster. At least I have the chance to race Prog, racing the great spaghetti god is a no go. Plus they have to have a green creature to sack, that requires at least some thought into deck construction instead of herp derp throw in show and tell and giant fatties.