Standard top 16 more diverse than legacy...?

[Redshift]

Looking at the results from the Star City Open this last weekend I couldn't help but notice how 13 of the top 16 decks were either NO RUG or Stoneblade variants. The Standard top 16 of the same event was much more diverse.

This event was the first time in recent history the legacy field has been so homogeneous. Am I wrong in my observation? This doesn't necessarily look like a good thing to me. The one card combo that is Natural Order may be hitting critical mass...pushing other decks that would be viable into obscurity. Show and tell is probably in the same boat.

It is getting to the point that every legacy deck needs to either be playing, or be able to consistently deal with, NO, Show and Tell, Progenitas and Emrakul to even have the slightest chance of victory.

SFM also seems to be everywhere but at least when it resolves it doesn't invalidate nearly all possible interaction for the rest of the (probably short) game. I think legacy as a whole might be better off without the four aforementioned cards.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but do my concerns here make sense to anyone else?

[Aggro_zombies]

If it's not NO, it'll be Stoneblade. Blue decks will be good regardless of which victory condition they use.

SnT does well because it dodges Mental Misstep.

[Hanni]

NO RUG and Stoneblade represent the majority of the Top 16 because they are the flavor of the month. While they are definitely good decks, there are plenty of other decks which can easily make Top 16, they just aren't the flavor of the month right now. Neither Natural Order nor Stoneforge Mystic needs banned, and the same goes for Show and Tell and Emrakul. If players were smart, they'd play a deck that boasts a favorable matchup to both NO RUG and SFM.dec and finish in the Top 8.

[Redshift]

NO RUG and Stoneblade represent the majority of the Top 16 because they are the flavor of the month. While they are definitely good decks, there are plenty of other decks which can easily make Top 16, they just aren't the flavor of the month right now. Neither Natural Order nor Stoneforge Mystic needs banned, and the same goes for Show and Tell and Emrakul. If players were smart, they'd play a deck that boasts a favorable matchup to both NO RUG and SFM.dec and finish in the Top 8.

I definitely agree with SFM being the flavor of the month. I don't think there is anything inherently broken about the card or the deck. SFM provides an inexpensive reliable win condition for control decks and aggro control decks but is by no means an 'I win' button. Once people adapt a little bit, the strategy will become a lot less prevalent.

The problem with NO on the other hand is that it is a one card combo that wins otherwise close games in 2 turns. It can be thrown into any deck that runs green creatures and provides a consistent "combo" finish in 4-5 slots that is really hard to deal with. All this can be done regardless of and completely independent from the rest of the deck's game plan.

What I am describing actually sounds very similar to Survival of the fittest after the printing of Vengevine. I think NO is on the same level as Survival right now, it has just taken a little while to catch on.

In terms of deckbuilding consideration, NO -> Prog (and to a lesser extent SnT -> Emrakul) means you can't even think about building a legacy deck without answers to a 10/10 pro everything (not an easy thing to answer) unless you want to drop most of your games to anything running green. Even then you have to have your answers at the time NO goes off or lose within 2 turns. It's just too much.

[keys]

What I am describing actually sounds very similar to Survival of the fittest after the printing of Vengevine. I think NO is on the same level as Survival right now, it has just taken a little while to catch on.

Not even close.

[Koby]

Top 16 of the Legacy portion looks alot like the Top 16 from Standard 3 months ago.

I don't think that's a coincident. (UW SFM decks, RUG decks)

R&D, or the SCG tournament-going crowd aren't creative enough. Also see, Mental Misstep. Moreover, Legacy is the only format where SFM is legal and playable, and that's a large cause as to why everyone is playing Standard decks in Legacy.

[Redshift]

Not even close.

How is this not even close?

NO is a green card one-card combo that wins the game in 2 turns, is very hard to answer, and doesn't detract from the rest of the game plan of whatever deck it is in.

If I took that description out of context and said the exact same thing a year ago, there would have been no doubt that Survival was the card in question.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

RUG wasn't seeing serious play in Standard a few months ago, it was way worse than Cawblade. Also the cards in NO Rug in Legacy aren't at all the same cards from Standard.

I agree with Redshift, SFM-Batterskull is flavor of the month; it's fine in control decks, I guess, but it's not as good as its numbers indicate.

NO Rug on the other hand seems to be a legitimate problem for the metagame at the moment.

[Hanni]

NO/Prog has been seeing play for a long time now. Switching from Bant to RUG doesn't all of a sudden make the NO plan unstoppable. The red splash improves its Merfolk matchup, but there are still plenty of tools for dealing with NO/Prog, whether through preventing NO from resolving, by keeping the board clear of guys to sac to NO, solid mana denial, or by destroying Prog altogether.

Maybe it's time we see a shift back towards Control decks, which happens to be a fantastic answer to both NO RUG and the aggro/control variations of Stoneblade. Also, I think a control heavy Rock/Junk deck would also be a good answer to that sort of metagame.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Board control's okay right now, the problem is the autoloss to SnT.

[Hanni]

A properly built Control deck (w/ blue) doesn't roll to Hive Mind. I've yet to punt a best 2 out of 3 set vs Hive Mind with both my U/W Control deck and my U/B/g Control deck.

Control is a pretty loose term, so I'll be a little more specific. The U/W runs Missteps, Counterspells, FoW's, and Counterbalance w/ SFM/Batterskull and Planeswalker's as the win cons. The U/B/g deck runs Counterspells, FoW's, and either discard or Missteps, along with Intuition/Raven's Crime for the midgame blowout, with Jace and Worm Harvest as the win cons.

The both have tools a-plenty to bring in postboard to fight SNT Hivemind.

And yes, they both have an adequate board control gameplan in addition to stack control.

EDIT: If these decks are good, why does nobody play them? Because they aren't the flavor of the month.

[keys]

How is this not even close?

NO is a green card one-card combo that wins the game in 2 turns, is very hard to answer, and doesn't detract from the rest of the game plan of whatever deck it is in.

If I took that description out of context and said the exact same thing a year ago, there would have been no doubt that Survival was the card in question.

Yes, they both can win the game in 2 turns, however Survival doesn't cost 2GG and a green creature to resolve, and it doesn't go cold when a Vengevine gets stuck in its hand.

[Redshift]

NO/Prog has been seeing play for a long time now. Switching from Bant to RUG doesn't all of a sudden make the NO plan unstoppable. The red splash improves its Merfolk matchup, but there are still plenty of tools for dealing with NO/Prog, whether through preventing NO from resolving, by keeping the board clear of guys to sac to NO, solid mana denial, or by destroying Prog altogether.

Maybe it's time we see a shift back towards Control decks, which happens to be a fantastic answer to both NO RUG and the aggro/control variations of Stoneblade. Also, I think a control heavy Rock/Junk deck would also be a good answer to that sort of metagame.

The red splash (almost exclusively for red blast) improves a huge chunk of matchups in just about any legacy metagame, due to the high concentration of blue. Everything from control, to aggro-control, to combo.

NO decks don't need much more than a little extra game against control/combo due to the already strong aggro/aggro-control strategies they can run free of charge.

The methods you mentioned for dealing with NO decks are good for dealing with just about any deck. If you could be guaranteed to be able to keep the board clear and an opponent's mana low, then you win against anything... The real problem is that it doesn't require anything special to run NO. You can build a strong aggro or aggro-control deck, with a perfectly viable game plan, and just toss in NO to randomly pull unstoppable wins out of nowhere.

Interestingly enough, something like the Rock style deck you mentioned could almost certainly be made much stronger by the addition of NO. Anyone who's serious about winning and is playing green should probably be running NO.

[DrHealex]

NO RUG has been doing so well BECAUSE of the meta. When SCG is going all gogo-gaga over Hive Mind, mystic decks, merfolk, etc decks that the lemmings in mass pick-up (ie, GOOD MATCHUPS) you might as well be shooting fish in a barrel.

It is nowhere near the power of survival. I NEVER sided survivals out, whereas there are several matchups where the natural order plan takes the bench. Also, it costs FOUR MANA, practically the ceiling curve of game breaking cards and practically a "lob" for a counter (well it would be if blue mages weren't playing such narrow counters these days). The best argument you have would be that natural order was good at cmc4, and now that mental misstep slowed the format down a turn natural order at 4cmc is now GOOD.

I would think the answers that apply to prog are better than those that apply to emrakul.
Perish, nature's ruin, or retribution of the meek (cheap one-sided sweepers? sign me up)
ACTUAL sweepers like wog/etc, clones of most flavors, sac effects, tariff, wing shards
ensnaring bridge, glacial chasm, blazing archon, peacekeeper, moat (owns rug hardcore)
o-ring/journey for emrakul, gaddock teeg for natural order, DEATH GRIP for NO.. muwhahaha, COP:color,
A batterskull can race a prog, not so with emrakul. Karakas easily deals with emrakul but not prog.
Aven Mindcensor, EXTRACT, grinning totem, jesters cap, sadistic sacrament, cranial extraction, memorcide, bribery, praetor's grip, the list goes on and on.

This is legacy, the home of the cheating big stuff into play. If you can't deal with it main, then you sb an answer. If you don't have a sb for it, well... then lose to that strategy if you can't win before they do.

Also, my memory is failing me, but what is that white instant (cmc 2w or 3w) card that deals dmg to the attacking player equal to dmg you have taken this turn? i think it was a portal card but also in a regular set....

[mchainmail]

How is this not even close?

NO is a green card one-card combo that wins the game in 2 turns, is very hard to answer, and doesn't detract from the rest of the game plan of whatever deck it is in.

If I took that description out of context and said the exact same thing a year ago, there would have been no doubt that Survival was the card in question.

NO is very easily answerable with Phyrexian Metamorph (in conjunction with Swords)

Not. That. Difficult.

[Hanni]

Everytime I see a thread anymore, it's about people whining and crying, and it's getting REALLY OLD. I'm almost getting to the point of where I'm just tired of reading about the damn shit.

First it was Survival. I still don't believe it needed to be banned, but I do agree that Survival in and of itself was a very powerful card. Let's assume for arguments sakes that all the whining for banning Survival was accurate. I'm willing to concede this one.

But then it was Time Spiral was wayyyy to overpowered, and they need to start banning Candelabra's and shit. Then it was Show and Tell... ZOMG Hivemind is raping my shitty Aggro deck please halp!! Now it's "Natural Order can fit into any green aggro deck and just wins out of nowhere and needs banned," or "Mental Misstep is way too good against me because I built my deck around critical 1cc spells."

Get. Over. It.

The biggest problem is not about the current flavor of the month, but the fact that 95% of the players netdeck what they think are the best decks. Innovation is mostly gone, and for those of us that are still innovating monster brews, no one is playing them because they aren't what's hot right now.

I'm done with all the negativity for the night though, I think I'm gonna go watch a movie and call it a night.

[Redshift]

NO is very easily answerable with Phyrexian Metamorph (in conjunction with Swords)

Not. That. Difficult.

Phyrexian Metamorph is my favorite card in recent history, mostly because it helps shore up the NO/SnT matchups in a manner that is accessible to almost any deck. The problem is that Metamorph doesn't just win you games if it goes unanswered. Playing your own NO is a much better answer to opposing NOs because if you don't need it to kill opposing Progenitus you can just cast it and win...

[crovakiet]

If you played a Stoneblade list of the U/W variety, you would know that it pretty much folds to a dedicated U/W Control list that isn't running all conditional counterspells...such as a U/W Landstill list or Counterbalance list(even though this deck is out of favor now). Just resolving a 3cc or 4cc bomb vs Stoneblade can be a blowout (Elspeth, Knight Errant or Crucible of Worlds) as the Stoneblade list very often only has Force of Will to counter such bombs due to the 'overusage' of conditional counterspells like Spell Snare. A BUG control list can also win pretty easily vs a U/W Stoneblade list as well. Both dedicated control decks also do very well vs NO RUG. The problem with both of these particular control decks in my opinion (BUG or U/W) however is that they can sometimes just lose to rogue/jank decks, merfolk/goblins or just straight up burn.

[Dark Ritual]

NO RUG is just preying on hive mind.dec. If you want to beat NO RUG you can. Whereas against survival, even if you wanted to try to beat it with a non survival strategy, you could get maybe a 55/45 MU against them because survival was literally THE best deck. Anyone who didn't take survival to a tournament pre banning was playing the wrong deck. Natural order is the definition of fair. And FYI, it's a 2 card combo. You need a green creature to sack to it, which is kind of hard to do if all of your creatures get countered or killed or wastelanded in the case of dryad arbor.

People love playing the flavor of the month decks. As has been stated time and time again, people love their pet decks or the newest craze that just popped up/the zenith rebirth flashless hulk deck.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I think Phantsmal Image is actually better than Metamorph. But still, there's a shitload of card that are very strong against NO RUG and for NO RUG the best plan is most of the time to just try to race stuff like Perish or Wrath Of God. Especially Perish is very much underplayed right now. But also cards like Fire // Ice, Darkblast and Punishing Fire are really strong against NO RUG. Wasteland with softcounters is not, it's only a slight hindrance for the NO RUG player. You can definitely overcome that. Vendilion Clique is also very strong against NO RUG, as is Knight Of The Reliquary getting multiple Wastelands early.
To be honest, I'm most likely not going to play NO RUG in Amsterdam. I'm pretty sure there is something that is more reliable for beating both the mirror and Stoneblade (especially the German lists) while also having game against the other strong decks in the format.

[Redshift]

Everytime I see a thread anymore, it's about people whining and crying, and it's getting REALLY OLD. I'm almost getting to the point of where I'm just tired of reading about the damn shit.

First it was Survival. I still don't believe it needed to be banned, but I do agree that Survival in and of itself was a very powerful card. Let's assume for arguments sakes that all the whining for banning Survival was accurate. I'm willing to concede this one.

But then it was Time Spiral was wayyyy to overpowered, and they need to start banning Candelabra's and shit. Then it was Show and Tell... ZOMG Hivemind is raping my shitty Aggro deck please halp!! Now it's "Natural Order can fit into any green aggro deck and just wins out of nowhere and needs banned," or "Mental Misstep is way too good against me because I built my deck around critical 1cc spells."

Get. Over. It.

The biggest problem is not about the current flavor of the month, but the fact that 95% of the players netdeck what they think are the best decks. Innovation is mostly gone, and for those of us that are still innovating monster brews, no one is playing them because they aren't what's hot right now.

I'm done with all the negativity for the night though, I think I'm gonna go watch a movie and call it a night.

I wasn't feeling a whole lot of negativity before that post...

Anyway, part of the problem here may be the existence of Progenitus and Emrakul. Without Prog, NO isn't too bad, kind of like Survival w/o Vengevine. The same goes for SnT without Emrakul. However, both NO and SnT (like Survival) will continue to get better and better with every new set. They are on the verge of brokenness now and at some point in the future will probably be unmistakably so.

[DrHealex]

I wasn't feeling a whole lot of negativity before that post...
Without Prog, NO isn't too bad, kind of like Survival w/o Vengevine. The same goes for SnT without Emrakul. However, both NO and SnT (like Survival) will continue to get better and better with every new set. I feel that this statement is completely fallacious.
First, Natural Order is garbage without Progenitus. It saw roughly 0 play (and was like a $5 card) until the printing of Progenitus.
Secondly, NO and SnT don't get better with each set. You don't ADD giant creature targets to it, at most you could replace them, which seems highly unlikely.
People are quite capable of handling progenitus. They have been doing it for awhile. People are also quite capable of handling emrakul, and it didn't take them long to do so. Why? Because creatures are the easiest permanents in this game to deal with.

I am going to have to agree with Hanni. The general complaining has gotten VERY old. Perhaps those players will just move to modern where all the players seem to do is complain and what IS on their banned list and what ISN'T... lol

Why do people always have to compare XXX broken card to Survival anyways? Rarely are their effects even similar. The only thing natural order has in common with survival is that they are both green, and shuffle your library. Why not compare natural order to a self induced green bribery, Or a selective green polymorph? Or compare show and tell to an expensive hypergenesis and a quarter of the power.

[(nameless one)]

Back to the title,

I think the reason why Legacy has been less diverse as of late is because SCG grinders are too lazy to try to learn/develop other decks. Everyone plays RUG or U/W Stoneforge because it's what everyone is using. It's a vicious cycle. Pros look at the current decks to beat and find these decks. They play it and given their skill and practice, do well with these decks. The next deck to beat update shows up and you have the same decks. Then pros just pick them up again.

I miss the days when Legacy was about the pet deck of your choice. It's fun to Rolfstomping local metas with fringe decks such as Armageddon Staxx, Four Horseman, MUD, Belcher.

[GGoober]

NO is very easily answerable with Phyrexian Metamorph (in conjunction with Swords)

Not. That. Difficult.

This pile of shit has a good matchup against NORUG and Blade.decks (replace the Crucible with the 2nd Batterskull for my latest list).

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20016-DECK-Steel-Stompy&p=576280&viewfull=1#post576280

Not trying to advertise anything, but to mchainmail's point, if you want a card that beats both SFM and NORUG, it's Metamorph, and my pile so happens to run 4 of them.

It's incredibly funny against SFM because you end up getting way more Batterskulls than they do, but most of the time, I just copy an SFM instead of the Batterskull and grab a Jitte/Batterskull myself. Metamorph is also great against NORUG against Progenitus, or random Show-Emrakul matchups. My list can be further tweaked to improve my NORUG matchup, but I'm fairly sure that I crush most SFM mirrors in testing (especially the UW Blade control decks but less so for the BW SFM decks packing discard and Hymns). Everytime I draw my own SFM or Metamorph against a SFM deck, you feel like you're going to win. They tutor Batterskull, you tutor Jitte, they resolve Batterskull, you Metamorph it, slap a Jitte and beat them to death when they have no more Mystics in play. You also play some StP and Champion with any equipment makes it impossible for them to deal with the deck since Champion negates the lifelink of Batterskull until they draw Elspeth or Clique (depending on the build).

I did pretty well with the list again last week at my local tourney, so I'll continue to play the decks that have a shot at crushing the best decks out there (since I never play the best deck in the format unless it's Landstill which rarely comes up these days :P)

[Jonathan Alexander]

No offense, but you can't really blame people for actually playing competitively in a competitive game. And as for NO RUG and Stoneblade, these actually are the strongest decks in Legacy right now. They both have a strong proactive gameplan against fringe decks as well as a very strong reactive disruption package against the top tier decks. Also, both of them have much stronger manabases than most decks in Legacy had a few months ago and thus they are way more consistent than these decks. Further, both of them are very good against random aggro decks, which has traditionally been very important in Legacy.
I really wonder if it's time to play a splashed version of Merfolk again. Other than that, I've been playing a few games with a Blue Zoo list and I have to say, it looks promising. The manabase works much better than expected (i.e. you don't lose to a single Wasteland) plus it can support cards like Vendilion Clique and Jace in a fast aggro shell. I think there's a lot of room for innovation in this deck.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

People are quite capable of handling progenitus. They have been doing it for awhile. People are also quite capable of handling emrakul, and it didn't take them long to do so. Why? Because creatures are the easiest permanents in this game to deal with.

The cards that handle Emrakul are mostly very borderline playable otherwise. Like this is the only reason that Karakas is a $50 card.

The cards that handle Progenitus are... pretty damned rare, and mostly countered by a Wooded Foothills.

I think you're being somewhat delusional here, the whole reason these cards are seeing a lot of play is because they're not easy to deal with.


I am going to have to agree with Hanni. The general complaining has gotten VERY old. Perhaps those players will just move to modern where all the players seem to do is complain and what IS on their banned list and what ISN'T... lol

This verges on the nonsensical.

Also


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruQJflvF09c


Why do people always have to compare XXX broken card to Survival anyways? Rarely are their effects even similar.

Because Vengevine made Survival tutor+cost evasion. And generally Tinker effects are overpowered. Natural Order is a Tinker effect. I mean this isn't really a complex formula.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

A properly built Control deck (w/ blue) doesn't roll to Hive Mind. I've yet to punt a best 2 out of 3 set vs Hive Mind with both my U/W Control deck and my U/B/g Control deck.

Control is a pretty loose term, so I'll be a little more specific. The U/W runs Missteps, Counterspells, FoW's, and Counterbalance w/ SFM/Batterskull and Planeswalker's as the win cons. The U/B/g deck runs Counterspells, FoW's, and either discard or Missteps, along with Intuition/Raven's Crime for the midgame blowout, with Jace and Worm Harvest as the win cons.

The both have tools a-plenty to bring in postboard to fight SNT Hivemind.

And yes, they both have an adequate board control gameplan in addition to stack control.

EDIT: If these decks are good, why does nobody play them? Because they aren't the flavor of the month.

To be blunt, neither of those sound really off the radar. I've seen and I'm sure everyone else has seen iterations of the decks you describe, and they don't stock up well against the field as a whole. I assumed you meant something like board control or at least old u/w Landstill with a million counters/kill spells.

As it is you're basically describing a deck that has as many counters and card advantage elemnts as BladeControl or NO Rug and a much slower clock.

(Actually your u/w deck just sounds like BladeControl only for some reason you added CounterTop to it.)

[dontbiteitholmes]

Let me finish this thread title for you.

Standard top 16 more diverse than legacy... but not for long.

Let me be the latest but not first person to point out that the same people in this thread wanted to ban Show and Tell a month ago. I said the metagame would adjust to quote myself from 25 days ago...

Still I think the deck is very beatable. First off you have to understand that EVERYONE loses to this deck the first time they play it if they have never playtested it. Even in the SCG live matches a couple of the wins were based off people just not knowing how to play against the deck. I think the deck is solid, but I don't think we're going to be seeing Hulk-Flash or Vengvine-Survival levels of dominance anytime soon.

Well this is the adjustment all the complainers wanted, and now it came and Hive Mind is once again the terrible metagame choice it deserves to be and all we have to show is the same people complaining. Go ahead ban S&T, Natural Order, Misstep, Stoneforge, and then let everyone complain about Merfolk being too good again, then we can ban Aether Vial and everyone can complain about combo being too good, then we can ban Lion's Eye Diamond. Here's a better idea, if you want to complain because whatever deck you want to play isn't winning or can't win go play Modern where everything fun is banned. Just make sure you sell all your Legacy stuff on the way out so the format can stay viable. See you at Modern GP 2012.

I'll say it again, these decks are beatable. Enchantress looks pretty good right now as about 1/5 of your deck says Progenitus and germ tokens can't attack and enchantment hate is officially at the lowest levels I've seen since the day Legacy became a format. If you kids put half the time into deck building or testing that you put into complaining you would be winning more events.


TL;DR
Unless you really think there is no deck that can beat UW Mystic and NO RUG at the same time and still be viable vs. the rest of the meta you should have your work cut out for you. Those decks will have huge targets on them next SCG and will probably be your most played matchups. So if you play a deck that is good vs. both of them not only will you get many favorable pairings but many of your opponents will be overcompensating for those matchups giving you an edge vs. non RUG/mystic matchups.

The only thing I'm mad about looking at that top 8 is that the next SCG event isn't close enough to me, because all the planets just aligned in the world of Legacy and the top 2 contenders both have similar strengths and weaknesses.

[Bahamuth]

The American metagame seems so much more driven by what the flavor of the month is. Seriously, a while ago, people were crying that Hive Mind is way too good. The cards in the format haven't even changed, but the American meta has completely. There are so many decks that would perform well in this sort of meta.

[SpikeyMikey]

NO/Prog has been seeing play for a long time now. Switching from Bant to RUG doesn't all of a sudden make the NO plan unstoppable. The red splash improves its Merfolk matchup, but there are still plenty of tools for dealing with NO/Prog, whether through preventing NO from resolving, by keeping the board clear of guys to sac to NO, solid mana denial, or by destroying Prog altogether.

Maybe it's time we see a shift back towards Control decks, which happens to be a fantastic answer to both NO RUG and the aggro/control variations of Stoneblade. Also, I think a control heavy Rock/Junk deck would also be a good answer to that sort of metagame.

The switch from Bant to RUG to improve the Fish matchup isn't the problem. I've been thinking a lot about this over the past few days, as part of the reason that I quit playing Legacy again was that my pet deck is terrible against NO RUG and NO RUG is the best in the format and very prolific.

The real reason that NO RUG is so strong is Green Sun's Zenith. If it were just Natural Order, you could overload on cheap removal, run Lavamancers of your own or pack EE. But the problem is that you're not just fighting Natural Order. You're fighting 8 Tarmogoyfs. It's similar to how the Hive Mind plan puts you in a position to have to fight two wildly different win conditions. If you overload on Angel's Grace or Stifle or whatever other narrow bullshit you run to stop Hive Mind, they'll drop an Emrakul in your face and those bullshit answers are useless. You need to be able to stop both consistently and early. NO RUG does the same thing except it's two plans are Progenitus and 'goyf overload. Without GSZ, the Tarmogoyf backup plan is significantly less scary. Basically, GSZ gives NO RUG the upside of NOPro Bant (a real aggro backup plan) without forcing it to give up its superior removal suite.

I think the best answer right now is to be packing 4 Spell Pierce. When Fish was packing Spell Pierce, it was the best deck against NO decks because NO is actually rather slow, when you think about it. Misstep is good, but people are overusing it and suffering because of it. Right now, Misstep isn't where I want to be, Spell Pierce is. The earliest NO is coming down is turn 3. The earliest Progenitus is going to kill you is turn 5. The combination of Lavamancer and Lightning Bolts does help NO RUG control the early game, but a turn 5 kill is still an appreciably slow kill.

[Admiral_Arzar]

As has been stated time and time again, people love their pet decks or the newest craze that just popped up/the zenith rebirth flashless hulk deck.

ZOMG THAT DECK IS AMAZING.

Ahem. There are two problems here. One is the SCG-driven "flavor of the month" thing that people have been describing. The other is Mental Misstep, but I'm not going to bring that argument into this thread. These decks should be answered if people actually spend time to think about how (rather than just playing them themselves).

[Deady]

And next month it will be ''Legacy top 16 more diverse than Standard...?''.

We're playing Legacy, not Standard, nor Modern, PERIOD!

People that complain about the format right now, shouldn't have been born. Seriously, those are the people that might find their place in Standard or Modern perfectly.

My advice: stop complaining and take it like a Goblin!

[Amon Amarth]

The switch from Bant to RUG to improve the Fish matchup isn't the problem. I've been thinking a lot about this over the past few days, as part of the reason that I quit playing Legacy again was that my pet deck is terrible against NO RUG and NO RUG is the best in the format and very prolific.

The real reason that NO RUG is so strong is Green Sun's Zenith. If it were just Natural Order, you could overload on cheap removal, run Lavamancers of your own or pack EE. But the problem is that you're not just fighting Natural Order. You're fighting 8 Tarmogoyfs. It's similar to how the Hive Mind plan puts you in a position to have to fight two wildly different win conditions. If you overload on Angel's Grace or Stifle or whatever other narrow bullshit you run to stop Hive Mind, they'll drop an Emrakul in your face and those bullshit answers are useless. You need to be able to stop both consistently and early. NO RUG does the same thing except it's two plans are Progenitus and 'goyf overload. Without GSZ, the Tarmogoyf backup plan is significantly less scary. Basically, GSZ gives NO RUG the upside of NOPro Bant (a real aggro backup plan) without forcing it to give up its superior removal suite.

I think the best answer right now is to be packing 4 Spell Pierce. When Fish was packing Spell Pierce, it was the best deck against NO decks because NO is actually rather slow, when you think about it. Misstep is good, but people are overusing it and suffering because of it. Right now, Misstep isn't where I want to be, Spell Pierce is. The earliest NO is coming down is turn 3. The earliest Progenitus is going to kill you is turn 5. The combination of Lavamancer and Lightning Bolts does help NO RUG control the early game, but a turn 5 kill is still an appreciably slow kill.

Bolded for emphasis. This really needed to be said. Misstep is great but... wait, what is this! Decks that are naturally resistant to MM (NO, Show and Tell, Hive Mind, etc) are doing really well. I wonder if there is a correlation? Against many of the bombs in the format most decks only have 1 set of versatile hard counters and that's it. It's much easier to resolve Natural Order when you only have to care about 1 card they have and you have your own Forces too. A lot of my NO RUG wins have have came from Turbo Hydra on turn 3. If anyone had Spell Pierce I woulda been blown out.

[Star|Scream]

Bolded for emphasis. This really needed to be said. Misstep is great but... wait, what is this! Decks that are naturally resistant to MM (NO, Show and Tell, Hive Mind, etc) are doing really well. I wonder if there is a correlation? Against many of the bombs in the format most decks only have 1 set of versatile hard counters and that's it. It's much easier to resolve Natural Order when you only have to care about 1 card they have and you have your own Forces too. A lot of my NO RUG wins have have came from Turbo Hydra on turn 3. If anyone had Spell Pierce I woulda been blown out.

Keeping mana open to pay for counters is straight up noobery.

[SMR0079]

Be a man and exploit the opportunity of having a defined meta game. I think a Team America Variant could do well right now.

[Koby]

Team America can't reliably beat Stoneforge Mystic. This has been known for quite some time now. At least the versions that run Goyf/Tombstalker can't beat the Sword of Feast & Famine.

Sneak Attack decks with 12 cantrips are looking more tempting, especially considering they can/do run Blood Moon.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Team America's problem with Stoneforge was never really Sword of Feast and Famine. It was not having a reliable answer to Mystic cause you only ran four removal spells, and also outright losing to them topdecking Crucible and Waste-locking you.

I think that a Tempo variant could be very successful in the current metagame, but I think that it would require a somewhat significant overhaul. Or maybe just cutting a couple things for more removal, haha.

[Tacosnape]

Anyone know the Jace, The Mind Sculptor count of that top 16? Just curious. And can't get the decklists to load for some reason.

[Koby]

Anyone know the Jace, The Mind Sculptor count of that top 16? Just curious. And can't get the decklists to load for some reason.

Link to Top 16 of Boston (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2011-08-21&end_date=2011-08-21&event_ID=20&city=Boston)

The Jace TMS count is 37 / 64.
13 out of 16 decks played the card in their 75.
Median Jaces played - 3 copies.
Only decks not playing Jace were Reanimator, Aggro Loam, and Zoo.

All the NO RUG decks played 2-3 copies in their sideboard.
All the U/W Stoneblade decks played 3-4 in the maindeck.

[Whit3 Ghost]

To be blunt, neither of those sound really off the radar. I've seen and I'm sure everyone else has seen iterations of the decks you describe, and they don't stock up well against the field as a whole. I assumed you meant something like board control or at least old u/w Landstill with a million counters/kill spells.

As it is you're basically describing a deck that has as many counters and card advantage elemnts as BladeControl or NO Rug and a much slower clock.

(Actually your u/w deck just sounds like BladeControl only for some reason you added CounterTop to it.)
I actually don't see how what you're thinking of wouldn't be competitive. You might have a pretty terrible game one against Hivemind, but it's not like you can't pack sideboard hate for it. If you're beating NORUG and UW Mystic, you're probably beating Maverick and Zoo as well, and that's an overwhelmingly positive matchup against at least 60% of the meta.

[Hanni]

I was going to say roughly the same thing Whit3 Ghost, but you beat me to it. I'm still going to reply anyway.


To be blunt, neither of those sound really off the radar. I've seen and I'm sure everyone else has seen iterations of the decks you describe, and they don't stock up well against the field as a whole. I assumed you meant something like board control or at least old u/w Landstill with a million counters/kill spells.

As it is you're basically describing a deck that has as many counters and card advantage elemnts as BladeControl or NO Rug and a much slower clock.

(Actually your u/w deck just sounds like BladeControl only for some reason you added CounterTop to it.)


But both of the decks are a bit off the radar, because they aren't "the norm."

Also, why don't they stack up well against the field? People have been assuming that Control is bad in Legacy for so long now, and it makes no sense. The format is diverse, I get that. Control is a deck of answers, I get that. There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers, I get that. The fact is, though, that Control decks run answers that are general answers. Creature removal is creature removal, Counterspell answers nearly everything, so on and so forth. There's a good reason why UBg Landstill was a DTB for a little while, and U/W Landstill was a DTB back in its heyday.

Also, I did mean something like board control. Both of those decks are board control decks. Just because the card pool has gotten deeper since U/W Landstill was the premier control deck in Legacy, doesn't mean the fundamentals have changed.

The U/W deck only runs 7 creature kills spells, but it runs 14 countermagic-y spells, the maindeck 4/2 SFM/Batterskull split is a form of creature control, and both Jace TMS and Elspeth both are capable of dealing with creatures.

The U/B/g deck runs 8 countermagic + 1 Raven's Crime, with 3 flex spots which can be 3 Missteps, 3 additional discard spells, etc. The deck also runs a 12-piece removal package which includes 4 Deeds.

Not sure why those decks wouldn't be considered board control decks.

The decks are also not comparable to either NO RUG or the many variations of U/W/x Stoneblade. NO RUG and U/W/x Stoneblade are aggro/control decks, that run conditional "tempo" countermagic like Daze and Spell Snare, and they run more than 4 creatures. It's like comparing oldschool Threshold to oldschool U/W Landstill. They both run a bunch of the same cards, but the actual gameplans are much different.

Also, my U/W Control deck is most definitely not a Blade Control deck that I plugged Counterbalance into. I've been developing my U/W Control deck since 2008, which started off as Counterbalance Landstill, evolved into Counterbalance Superfriends, and has now evolved into what I call "The Justice League." Rather than being a Stoneblade deck that I plugged Counterbalance into, it's my Superfriends deck that I plugged SFM into. Why? Because SFM improves the decks weakest matchups, namely Merfolk and Goblins*.

*I realize SFM is alot better against Merfolk than Goblins, but it still helps to drop two bodies (SFM and Batterskull) that can block/kill incoming attackers and gain me life, and an attacking Batterskull also kills Goblins if they block, or puts the Goblins player on a clock if they don't. SFM itself also nets the same overall card advantage as Predict (+1 CA), and gives me the time to set up my other card advantage engines like Shackles, Elspeth, Jace, etc. Postboard, bringing in Mages for Counterbalances and subbing out a Batterskull for a Jitte gives me even more tools (plus I also bring in WoG's and Needles).

tl;dr Both decks are in fact good against the rest of the field, despite popular misbelief, both decks are board control decks, both decks are not really comparable to NO RUG and U/W/x Stoneblade in functionality, and my U/W Control deck is not just a Stoneblade deck w/ Counterbalances.


I actually don't see how what you're thinking of wouldn't be competitive. You might have a pretty terrible game one against Hivemind, but it's not like you can't pack sideboard hate for it. If you're beating NORUG and UW Mystic, you're probably beating Maverick and Zoo as well, and that's an overwhelmingly positive matchup against at least 60% of the meta.


Both decks that I'm talking about don't have a terrible game one against Hive Mind, though.

Anyway, I'm done discussing those decks in a thread about the last SCG's Top 16. Sorry to derail the thread, everyone.

[Bruticus]

Phyrexian Metamorph is my favorite card in recent history, mostly because it helps shore up the NO/SnT matchups in a manner that is accessible to almost any deck. The problem is that Metamorph doesn't just win you games if it goes unanswered. Playing your own NO is a much better answer to opposing NOs because if you don't need it to kill opposing Progenitus you can just cast it and win...

Metamorph fills a different role than NO or Progenitus. It provides answers, flexibility and deck redundancy. People should consider building with that in mind if at all possible.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'm not going to get into a discussion about a theoretical decklist without more specifics. If you think you've cracked the metagame, go for it. The Hatfields' numbers apparently indicate that NO Rug legitimately beats most of the field, so I'm skeptical. I can think of decks that beat NO Rug, of course, but the problem with control is people playing too many different decks in large numbers. And no, what beats Rug or Zoo doesn't necessarily beat Merfolk or Stoneblade.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I mean there is a conservative group that wants to always defend the status quo, no matter what, and there is a libertarian group that wants to always get rid of as many rules as possible, and these people come out of the woodworks any time there's a serious question raised of whether the format is healthy or not and attack any suggestions of banning anything as "whining." Which is a term used to try and bury the issue, nothing else.

I don't think either of these is an ideal approach to managing the banned list, but I think if anything they have too much sway. Modern has been trashed a lot in this thread because it has a very deeply managed ban list, where the intent was just to foster new deck development, not simply preserve a balanced metagame.

The thing is that a lot of people are really, really excited about Modern, and for a good reason; it's a wide open, five color format with a lot of cards that are playable. It's in fact a lot like Legacy used to be; in fact, it's probably far closer to 2004-2005 era Legacy in terms of diversity and power level than modern Legacy is.

Legacy, by contrast, is looking more like Vintage; blue gets more dominant with every passing year, regardless of whatever else is going on. The functional cardpool outside of a few highly synergy dependent decks like Tribal or Affinity or Dredge continues to shrink. If I know what colors someone is playing I can predict their deck within a few cards accuracy a very large percentage of the time.

I mean that's not an entirely bad thing; people want to play with the most powerful cards ever printed, too. But it does point to the fact that Legacy has multiple conflicting identities. Modern might relieve a bit of that pressure, which would be good, but it doesn't obviate all need to watch Legacy's power level. Some people think that it's fine as long as there are multiple playable decks, but that's a fairly narrow interpretation of format health.

[Antonius]

^^

I agree with you on Modern looking like 5-color Rainbow land. Wasteland needs to be reprinted so the real thugs can step on that wuss shit and regulate.

I won't be touching the format until that happens.

[keys]

^^

i agree with you on modern looking like 5-color rainbow land. Wasteland needs to be reprinted so the real thugs can step on that wuss shit and regulate.

I won't be touching the format until that happens.

ilu

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

^^

I agree with you on Modern looking like 5-color Rainbow land. Wasteland needs to be reprinted so the real thugs can step on that wuss shit and regulate.

I won't be touching the format until that happens.

I don't even know what you just said.

I meant all colors get played. Very few decks are actually five colors because you have to choose between a slow manabase or one that deals you eight damage every game.

[Whit3 Ghost]

I'm not going to get into a discussion about a theoretical decklist without more specifics. If you think you've cracked the metagame, go for it. The Hatfields' numbers apparently indicate that NO Rug legitimately beats most of the field, so I'm skeptical. I can think of decks that beat NO Rug, of course, but the problem with control is people playing too many different decks in large numbers. And no, what beats Rug or Zoo doesn't necessarily beat Merfolk or Stoneblade.
I read too much into your quote about the autoloss to Show and Tell, and figured you had a board control list in mind that had a positive matchup against both NoRug and Stoneblade, but was being kept out of contention by the Hivemind matchup.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I read too much into your quote about the autoloss to Show and Tell, and figured you had a board control list in mind that had a positive matchup against both NoRug and Stoneblade, but was being kept out of contention by the Hivemind matchup.

Not one specific list, but that's been my experience testing board control variants generally. There are other problems on a case-by-case basis, but yeah.

I guess the closest would be a Coffers-Control type list that has discard to bring to bear against SnT. But those decks tend to have serious problems with Zoo and even Merfolk.

[RexFTW]

Welcome to legacy. This is how it balances out:
Control > Combo > Aggro > Control

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Combo

Therefore everyone plays control.

Until someone comes up with a new aggro deck that can beat blue decks or wizards reprints aether vial for 2 mana this is the way it will be.

[Admiral_Arzar]

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Hive Mind

Therefore everyone plays control.


Fixed that for you. There isn't enough fast combo in the format to actually call "combo" an archetype right now.

[Zilla]

It's also kind of incorrect to call it control, since NO RUG is as much an aggro deck as it is a control deck. Which is to say that it's an aggro control deck.

[swoop]

there is a meta archetype in legacy as well.

we call it:

aggrocombocontrol

works well most of the times

Capitalization and punctuation are required on these boards. Please use them. Thanks. -zilla

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Welcome to legacy. This is how it balances out:
Control > Combo > Aggro > Control

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Combo

Therefore everyone plays control.

Until someone comes up with a new aggro deck that can beat blue decks or wizards reprints aether vial for 2 mana this is the way it will be.

This is dumb. It's the most heavily repeated meme in Magic strategy but it never gets any less dumb.

The format comes down to answers and threats, with decks running different numbers of each and different ways to calibrate them. Answers tend to be good against the things they answer and bad against the things they don't. That's really about all the generalization you can do without getting bogged down in detail or being wrong.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Welcome to legacy. This is how it balances out:
Control > Combo > Aggro > Control

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Combo

Therefore everyone plays control.

Until someone comes up with a new aggro deck that can beat blue decks or wizards reprints aether vial for 2 mana this is the way it will be.

This is dumb. It's the most heavily repeated meme in Magic strategy but it never gets any less dumb.

The format comes down to answers and threats, with decks running different numbers of each and different ways to calibrate them. Answers tend to be good against the things they answer and bad against the things they don't. That's really about all the generalization you can do without getting bogged down in detail or being wrong.

[Amon Amarth]

This is dumb. It's the most heavily repeated meme in Magic strategy but it never gets any less dumb.

The format comes down to answers and threats, with decks running different numbers of each and different ways to calibrate them. Answers tend to be good against the things they answer and bad against the things they don't. That's really about all the generalization you can do without getting bogged down in detail or being wrong.

QFT. I wonder if people even play Legacy, or MTG in general, when they parrot that shit over and over. There is more than 1 style of each of those deck types e.g. hyper aggressive Zoo lists or much slower G/W aggro decks. They don't really play the same way at all except superficially.

[Admiral_Arzar]

QFT. I wonder if people even play Legacy, or MTG in general, when they parrot that shit over and over. There is more than 1 style of each of those deck types e.g. hyper aggressive Zoo lists or much slower G/W aggro decks. They don't really play the same way at all except superficially.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this post was, other than further brainless parroting. I'm pretty sure "aggro, control, combo" is supposed to be a superficial way of comparing play styles anyway.

[Deady]

To my opinion Legacy has become more of a serious format, where playing skills and card/deck knowledge count more than ever. A proper use of Brainstorm requires a lot of skills, the same with FoW, Clique and lot's of other blue cards. In the right hands these cards are able to do some badass magic, but in the wrong hands they aren't nearly as powerful as they're meant to be. Whether some like it or not; it's the reason why blue has always been dominant in Magic; in order to be succesful with it, you'll need a lot of skill and knowledge about the format and unfortunately this means 'more money'. You need to pay for skills and knowledge and if you're doing well, it will ultimately pay off.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Oh bullshit. The amount that skill matters in playing a deck is a simple function of how many decisions you have to make and the level of forgiveness for each mistake. Brainstorm doesn't require making more decisions inherently than with Stoneforge Mystic, or Green Sun's Zenith, or Goblin Matron, or Thoughtseize. Brainstorm isn't so omnipresent because it's more skilled, it's omnipresent because it's more powerful; what it does in turn creates more room to make mistakes (including fixing flawed mulliganing decisions).

Just the opposite, then, Brainstorm is easier to play with than a lot of other common cards because it lets you retread on previous decisions. Even Wasteland is much more of a skilltest, albeit, one that most people fail on a regular basis.

[Digital Devil]

it's the reason why blue has always been dominant in Magic.
Blue has always been dominant because bad players need to compensate their poor proficiency with better card quality, and good players don't want to lose to bad players due to variance.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Blue has always been dominant because bad players need to compensate their poor proficiency with better card quality, and good players don't want to lose to bad players due to variance.

This is the best (truthful) rebuttal to the "good players play blue" argument.


Oh bullshit. The amount that skill matters in playing a deck is a simple function of how many decisions you have to make and the level of forgiveness for each mistake. Brainstorm doesn't require making more decisions inherently than with Stoneforge Mystic, or Green Sun's Zenith, or Goblin Matron, or Thoughtseize. Brainstorm isn't so omnipresent because it's more skilled, it's omnipresent because it's more powerful; what it does in turn creates more room to make mistakes (including fixing flawed mulliganing decisions).

Just the opposite, then, Brainstorm is easier to play with than a lot of other common cards because it lets you retread on previous decisions. Even Wasteland is much more of a skilltest, albeit, one that most people fail on a regular basis.

Never thought about it in exactly that way. It definitely makes sense though, and I agree. Goblin Matron...reminds me of when I used to think goblins was an autopilot aggro deck. Then I played it, and have had a rather new outlook on skill-testing decks since then.

[ESG]

Blue has always been dominant because it was born with the most powerful abilities: card drawing and counterspells. It goes back to Healing Salve vs. Ancestral Recall. R&D's strict adherence to the color pie makes it so blue usually maintains its upper hand, especially in large formats like Legacy, because the new cards follow the blueprints of the past.

Blue receives counterspells, which offer broad answers, whereas every other color receives narrow, situational answers. It's obvious that Force of Will is miles away more flexible and powerful than Contagion or Bounty of the Hunt, pitch spells in other colors. It's obvious that Gush and Daze are more flexible and powerful than Rouse and Crash and Snag and Orim's Cure.

Blue is allowed straight card advantage, whereas other colors have to gain card advantage through more challenging means (usually recursion or sweepers), and these alternate strategies can usually be fought more effectively -- like graveyard hate vs. recursion -- than one can fight blue's means of card advantage.

In addition, R&D's answers against counterspell-based strategies have historically been weak, which is what the laughable Great Sable Stag exchange underscores. And, in fact, most of the answers printed to combat blue strategies are counterable. Often, the easiest way to fight blue is to play blue yourself, which is a lesson being shown to us again with Mental Misstep.

In order to actually be balanced, cards with stronger, more flexible abilities, like counterspells, need to be more restrictive in their applications, such as Flashfreeze or Gainsay or Negate or Thwart or Spell Pierce or Mindbreak Trap. These are well-designed counterspells. Force of Will is not a well-designed counterspell. Jace is not a well-designed plainswalker.

People play blue because it continually receives powerful, flexible cards as a consequence of the color wheel, and these cards often support whatever strategy you shove them in. Force of Will stops an opponent's combo or pushes yours through. Brainstorm is a "fixed" Ancestral Recall that has numerous uses. Jace: The Mindsculptor gives you a Brainstorm every turn while also having the ability to protect itself, the ability to ruin the opponent's topdecks, the ability to improve your topdecks, and the ability to win the game on its own. In addition to having the best abilities, Jace also is among the cheapest to play, at a CMC of 4.

There are obviously exceptions, but people generally play blue because it is inherently the most powerful of the colors.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Blue has always been dominant because it was born with the most powerful abilities: card drawing and counterspells.

This is a lazy fallacy. There is no "most powerful ability" in a vacuum. The most powerful ability is "You win the game," but that tends to go along with costs and drawbacks that make it not worthwhile.

If the best blue card draw were Concentrate and the best counterspell Cancel, blue would be a terrible color in Legacy. The power of anything is dependent on cost.


It goes back to Healing Salve vs. Ancestral Recall.

Plenty of lifegain cards see play and plenty of card drawers and counters don't, so I think you missed the true source of this gap.


Blue is allowed straight card advantage, whereas other colors have to gain card advantage through more challenging means (usually recursion or sweepers), and these alternate strategies can usually be fought more effectively -- like graveyard hate vs. recursion -- than one can fight blue's means of card advantage.

I mean I am not sure what you are thinking of, the only widely played cards in Legacy that draw several cards (in blue) are Jace, Standstill and Ancestral Vision. And lots of blue decks aren't running those. The most powerful blue card is Brainstorm which doesn't offer direct card advantage at all, at least not technically.


In addition, R&D's answers against counterspell-based strategies have historically been weak, which is what the laughable Great Sable Stag exchange underscores. And, in fact, most of the answers printed to combat blue strategies are counterable. Often, the easiest way to fight blue is to play blue yourself, which is a lesson being shown to us again with Mental Misstep.

Again, there's not a lot of decks that run a lot of hard counters in Legacy, and usually at least four of them are direct card disadvantage, which kind of undercuts your argument above. The best answer to counters is just to run more cards that are more powerful.


In order to actually be balanced, cards with stronger, more flexible abilities, like counterspells, need to be more restrictive in their applications, such as Flashfreeze or Gainsay or Negate or Thwart or Spell Pierce or Mindbreak Trap. These are well-designed counterspells. Force of Will is not a well-designed counterspell. Jace is not a well-designed plainswalker.

People play blue because it continually receives powerful, flexible cards as a consequence of the color wheel, and these cards often support whatever strategy you shove them in. Force of Will stops an opponent's combo or pushes yours through. Brainstorm is a "fixed" Ancestral Recall that has numerous uses. Jace: The Mindsculptor gives you a Brainstorm every turn while also having the ability to protect itself, the ability to ruin the opponent's topdecks, the ability to improve your topdecks, and the ability to win the game on its own. In addition to having the best abilities, Jace also is among the cheapest to play, at a CMC of 4.

There are obviously exceptions, but people generally play blue because it is inherently the most powerful of the colors.

I'm not going to continue dissecting this except to say that you're repeating most of the same complaints people always make, and it's nonsense. Sans a storm-dominated metagame, the reason people play blue is Brainstorm and everything else a distant second. I mean that and group think. Just because a lot of bad players repeat tripe like, "Nonblue decks don't have ways to interact with the opponent" doesn't make it true.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Plenty of lifegain cards see play and plenty of card drawers and counters don't, so I think you missed the true source of this gap.


You may not have known this but Healing Salve, Lightning Bolt, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, and Giant Growth were all part of a cycle. I think the point he was trying to make is that one of those is obviously better than the others and it happens to be the blue one. This is a pattern that has been repeated again and again (most recently with mental misstep, its in the same cycle as gut shot lol)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You may not have known this but Healing Salve, Lightning Bolt, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, and Giant Growth were all part of a cycle. I think the point he was trying to make is that one of those is obviously better than the others and it happens to be the blue one. This is a pattern that has been repeated again and again (most recently with mental misstep, its in the same cycle as gut shot lol)

I am palming my face as hard as I possibly can.

Yes, the Alpha boon cycle was lopsided all the way around. So what? Plenty of non-blue cards get played. Are you denying this? And this has always been the case in Legacy, where the most broken mistakes from the early days of the game are largely absent.

Blue is seeing more play in recent years, and progressively more, and that may be a problem, but it's nothing so simple and childish as blue just intrinsically and irremovably being better than the other colors. If you banned Brainstorm tomorrow you'd see a rapid drop in blue saturation of the metagame.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Plenty of non-blue cards get played. Are you denying this?
I don't know where you got that from. Was that a shitty attempt at a straw-man?



Blue is seeing more play in recent years, and progressively more, and that may be a problem, but it's nothing so simple and childish as blue just intrinsically and irremovably being better than the other colors. If you banned Brainstorm tomorrow you'd see a rapid drop in blue saturation of the metagame.
So wait, blue isn't better than the other colors, it just has better cards? lol

[TheDarkshineKnight]

IBA's in the right, here. No color is intrinsically more powerful than any other. Whether a certain color is dominating or not depends entirely on the available cardpool and the metagame. For instance, if one were to make a format which only contained cards printed from Onslaught block up through Time Spiral block, blue would almost certainly be the weakest color in said format.

[Draener]

What IBA is saying is that, on average, blue cards are not more powerful than the other colors. There are a few specific powerful cards in blue that do not have an equivilent in other colors, specifically brainstorm. Can you think of a card that helps smooth out variance even 1/10th as well as brainstorm? I agree with IBA that brainstorm probably is the main reason blue is so largely represented at tournament scenes. If you are going to go out of your way to travel to a SCG, wouldn't you want to make sure you deck does the same thing almost every game?

Your supporting evidence that blue always had better quality in the alpha cycle of one drop cards is largely irrelivent because the cards in question are banned from this format. Yarg Will is black and is crazy card draw... thus black must have the best card draw in legacy, right? Additionally, it's not that card draw is much better than life gain, its the ratio of cards draw/(mana* impact on game) and life gained/(mana* impact on game) much more heavily favors card draw. For example, if a card existed such that for W you gained 30 life, I think it would see a good deal more play than a card that said UU: Draw 3 cards.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

So wait, blue isn't better than the other colors, it just has better cards? lol

Uh, yes.

You may not have been paying attention but the assertion was that blue was inherently more powerful than the other colors because of the abilities in its slice of the color pie. But abilities don't determine a color's power level the cards available to it do. To take an actual example, Pulse of the Fields and Martyr of Sands are much more Legacy playable than Cancel or Counsel of the Soratami. And all of which in turn are weaker than Dark Confidant, Hymn to Tourach, Thoughtseize, Bitterblossom, Lightning Bolt, Grim Lavamancer, Firespout, Burning Wish, Tarmogoyf, Noble Hierarch, Green Sun's Zenith, Eternal Witness, Swords to Plowshares, Stoneforge Mystic, Oblivion Ring, or Elspeth, Knight-Errant, to randomly list some cards from other colors.

ESG thinks that blue is inherently better than other colors because of its mechanics and not its cards, which is just silly. The above cards are much stronger than a whole host of cards in blue that counter and draw cards.

[ESG]

OK, addressing IBA's responses:

* We might disagree on what "powerful" means, but do you not feel that Force of Will is the most flexible answer card out there?

* I agree that power is dependent on cost. I feel that Force of Will was made overly powerful. A "free" Force of Will should have had limitations on what it could counter.

*Life gain matters little in comparison to card advantage unless you are at very low life. Look at Yawgmoth's Bargain or Ad Nauseam or Necropotence. Look at Phyrexian mana and Force of Will.

* Jace, Standstill and Ancestral Vision were mainly what I was thinking of when referring to straight card draw. Gush and Ancestral Recall were on my mind, too. Brainstorm is card quality via library manipulation, which we know is a powerful ability but one that was given primarily to blue based on the color wheel.

* When you said, "there's not a lot of decks that run a lot of hard counters in Legacy," how much is a lot to you, both in terms of the number of decks and the number of hard counters? In the Decks to Beat section, I see Blade Control, Merfolk, Bant Aggro, Hive Mind and NO RUG. That's 5 out of 8. I'm sure you saw the blue Top 8 penetration in the SCG Boston results. Just because a deck can be built without hard counters doesn't mean that's the ideal build for the deck. Maybe adding Mental Missteps and a blue shell to support Force of Will will make it better. If Wild Nacatl was blue, don't you think Zoo would run Force of Will? Some Zoo builds have already added Mental Misstep, Brainstorm and Jace maindeck, so what does that indicate to us?

* Nonblue decks do have lots of ways to interact with opponents, but a counterspell is a much broader answer than what other colors have.

Force of Will is, and has long been, one of the most powerful cards in the game. I think any pro would attest to that. In a format the size of Legacy, a card like Force of Will is inherently more valuable than most others because it answers almost everything and is live on Turn 0. Swords to Plowshares answers creatures. Qasali Pridemage answers artifacts and enchantments. Vampire Hexmage can answer plainswalkers. Wasteland answers nonbasic lands. There are situations where each of these cards would be preferable over Force of Will, but Force of Will's flexibility and power make it hard to justify not running enough blue cards to support it, which is why so many decks run blue shells. This comes up in forums when people are tuning combo decks: Can we run Force of Will? People have even tried to shove it into Dredge.

Why is Jin-Gitaxias so crushing when he comes into play? Because your opponent is highly unlikely to be able to remove him, which means a stream of cards for you (FOWs and Mental Missteps to protect Jin are key) and no hand for your opponent. What's the best way to fight this strategy (besides maindeck grave hate, which would only be a realistic option if it was good against the rest of the field)? Don't let the reanimation spells resolve. Reanimator is only one combo deck that exploits the power of that card. Counterspells -- Force of Will being the marquee counterspell -- enable you to stop your opponents' best spells, almost regardless of strategy, provided you have the mana, or 1 life and a blue card.

I am simply offering a reason for why many decks in this format skew blue. Force of Will is the biggest reason, followed by Brainstorm. Most competitive Legacy players choose decks that they feel are the best for a tournament, and those decks often contain a blue shell. If you don't agree that people choose decks based on their perceived power, why would you say people choose blue decks so often?

@ Draener: I agree that if you juiced up life gain, it would see more play.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Force of Will is an extremely mediocre card (at the Legacy power level) against decks that are playing fair; which is a surprising number in Legacy. I mean it's not unusual at this point for them to be sided out or to only run 3 main in the first place. And it's usually the only hard counter decks run, if they run any other counters they're soft or situational.

Force of Will isn't particularly the best answer card in the format right now, although it depends what you're trying to answer. StP, Thoughtseize, Grim Lavamancer, Mental Misstep and Umezawa's Jitte are up there, and the latter two can be played in any color. At best Force is card parity, more often card disadvantage; and it can't answer anything off the top, and usually depends on your having another blue card at all to pitch to it. Force of Will isn't busted and is less of a factor behind people going blue than Brainstorm by a significant margin. The problem is that any deck just becomes better when you can pay one mana to take a free partial mulligan at any point in the game.

And as I said perception isn't necessarily reality. People are playing a lot of blue right now on the Starcity circuit in particular, for instance, but I don't think blue's power level is equivalent to the numbers its showing up in. If it were something would have to be banned. But maybe blue is just too dominant right now. But then it'll be because of Brainstorm, not because of some ethereal quality of blue cards in general.

[Jonathan Alexander]

OK, addressing IBA's responses:

* We might disagree on what "powerful" means, but do you not feel that Force of Will is the most flexible answer card out there?

It is.


* I agree that power is dependent on cost. I feel that Force of Will was made overly powerful. A "free" Force of Will should have had limitations on what it could counter.

It could have, but it's not necessary. Force Of Will might be format-warping, but not in a bad way. It's usually best against strategies that aren't creature-based so being able to counter creatures is rarely what you do anyway. What kind of limitations du you feel it should have? It should most definitely be able to counter instants and sorceries, whether it's also able to counter artifacts, creatures, enchantments and planeswalkers is not too important and doesn't make it overly strong. If anything, it would make Jace even stronger.


*Life gain matters little in comparison to card advantage unless you are at very low life. Look at Yawgmoth's Bargain or Ad Nauseam or Necropotence. Look at Phyrexian mana and Force of Will.

If life gain doesn't matter, why do people play Stoneforge Mystic? Against most decks (everything that doesn't rely on Jace or Hive Mind to win the games basically), life gain can certainly be useful.


* Jace, Standstill and Ancestral Vision were mainly what I was thinking of when referring to straight card draw. Gush and Ancestral Recall were on my mind, too. Brainstorm is card quality via library manipulation, which we know is a powerful ability but one that was given primarily to blue based on the color wheel.

Sylvan Library can at times be better than Brainstorm, especially against blue based control. It can even generate cardadvantage. Plus it's not blue.


* When you said, "there's not a lot of decks that run a lot of hard counters in Legacy," how much is a lot to you, both in terms of the number of decks and the number of hard counters? In the Decks to Beat section, I see Blade Control, Merfolk, Bant Aggro, Hive Mind and NO RUG. That's 5 out of 8. I'm sure you saw the blue Top 8 penetration in the SCG Boston results. Just because a deck can be built without hard counters doesn't mean that's the ideal build for the deck. Maybe adding Mental Missteps and a blue shell to support Force of Will will make it better. If Wild Nacatl was blue, don't you think Zoo would run Force of Will? Some Zoo builds have already added Mental Misstep, Brainstorm and Jace maindeck, so what does that indicate to us?

This shows that Force Of Will is the only widely played hardcounter. The main incentive to play Blue Zoo is to have Brainstorm, second is Jace. Mental Misstep is not too strong in there actually.


* Nonblue decks do have lots of ways to interact with opponents, but a counterspell is a much broader answer than what other colors have.

It's broader, yes. Still not universal.


Force of Will is, and has long been, one of the most powerful cards in the game. I think any pro would attest to that. In a format the size of Legacy, a card like Force of Will is inherently more valuable than most others because it answers almost everything and is live on Turn 0. Swords to Plowshares answers creatures. Qasali Pridemage answers artifacts and enchantments. Vampire Hexmage can answer plainswalkers. Wasteland answers nonbasic lands. There are situations where each of these cards would be preferable over Force of Will, but Force of Will's flexibility and power make it hard to justify not running enough blue cards to support it, which is why so many decks run blue shells. This comes up in forums when people are tuning combo decks: Can we run Force of Will? People have even tried to shove it into Dredge.

Not every deck that can run Force Of Will needs to do so to be succesful. (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6208&iddeck=44996)


Why is Jin-Gitaxias so crushing when he comes into play? Because your opponent is highly unlikely to be able to remove him, which means a stream of cards for you (FOWs and Mental Missteps to protect Jin are key) and no hand for your opponent. What's the best way to fight this strategy (besides maindeck grave hate, which would only be a realistic option if it was good against the rest of the field)? Don't let the reanimation spells resolve. Reanimator is only one combo deck that exploits the power of that card. Counterspells -- Force of Will being the marquee counterspell -- enable you to stop your opponents' best spells, almost regardless of strategy, provided you have the mana, or 1 life and a blue card.

A creature is the easiest-to-interact-with cardtype in Legacy. It's even blue and is only a 5/4. A turn two Knight Of The Reliquary will also most likely win the game if you can't deal with it.


I am simply offering a reason for why many decks in this format skew blue. Force of Will is the biggest reason, followed by Brainstorm. Most competitive Legacy players choose decks that they feel are the best for a tournament, and those decks often contain a blue shell. If you don't agree that people choose decks based on their perceived power, why would you say people choose blue decks so often?

Brainstorm is the biggest reason to play blue, not Force Of Will. Also, it's more about consistency than about power. If it was about power, people would be playing decks like SI or Belcher all the time. These are decks so powerful that they just completely blow out certain archetypes. Yet they're not near as consistent as a blue deck with mostly close to even matchups. Like it has been said before, Brainstorm gives you more control over your draws, thus letting you set up your games much better. If you manage to pretty much play the same game all the time you have huge advantage in that you can plan your plays accordingly. It's also a nice bonus for sideboarded games, but I don't want to start a discussion about mulligan decisions here.

[ESG]

@ Jona: I feel Force of Will should have been designed so that its pitch ability was only available in the first two turns and after that you'd have to actually pay mana to cast it. But it exists in its present state, so we have to deal with what is.

What I meant with my life gain comment was that in the early game when players have a lot of life, the life points are comparatively less valuable and thus are freely traded for other resources: Mental Misstep, Dark Confidant, Sylvan Library, Bitterblossom, Thoughtseize, etc. Life gain is still relevant; it's just less relevant at that point in the game. It becomes more relevant later in the game when you have board control but are at risk of being burned out, or when you are swinging in with the potential of your opponent making a lethal counterattack.

As far as Stoneforge, that card was barely played until Batterskull was printed. Life gain obviously makes Batterskull better, but people aren't playing it primarily for the life gain aspect; they're playing it because it's a large creature they can put into play for free, and it can protect itself and can boost other creatures when the germ token is finally dealt with. It also makes Standstill better.

Yes, other colors get card draw, although blue is going to receive more card-drawing spells based on the color wheel. With Jace, you gain a net of +1 every time you use the Brainstorm ability. If Jace had been a different color, you would not have been able to do this, or it would have had some large drawback attached to it.

I am not saying that every deck needs Force of Will in order to be competitive, but many decks adopt Force of Will and do very well with it. Obviously, some decks can't support the card. Adding a blue shell to a deck in order to support Force of Will is a common debate in these forums, whether rightly or wrongly.

A Turn 2 Knight of the Reliquary backed up by a Force of Will is great, but it doesn't compare at all to a Turn 2 Jin-Gitaxias backed up by a Force of Will (or often just a Misstep). You have to kill Jin immediately, or the 10- or 12-card swing between your hand and your opponent's hand is going to seal your doom.

I agree that Brainstorm is extremely powerful with the amount of library manipulation that exists in this format.