T16 SCG Nashville

[Humphrey]

Looks like were back to MM Meta?
Discuss

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=2011-10-09&end_date=2011-10-09&city=Nashville

Snapcaster gets the next banhammer I guess...

[dahcmai]

He's damned amazing, but I kind of doubt he'd get the banhammer. He's just one of those critters like Goyf and Dark Confidant. Highly worth it's weight. Kind of explains why they don't do invitationals anymore. We keep making stupid good 2 drops. Guess it's better than counterspell land though.

[Humphrey]

well it was more or less a joke, but he "warpes" the metagame aka he gets played. Therefore changes some decks and since the banning and whining over MM (and Goyf) it seems a lot of players want to play the same 60 they played 5 years ago.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Aggro needs to have relevant SB cards for combo, otherwise there is no reason to play anything but blue or maybe midrange with black for discard. It doesn't matter how many cards they ban blue will always be the best color until Zoo and Goblins can interact with combo in the same ways blue and combo can interact with aggro. I mean compare Firespout or Echoing Truth as some SB answers combo has vs. Zoo with the answers Zoo has vs. Combo. A "favorable" matchup for Zoo vs. a given blue deck might be 55-60%. A favorable matchup for blue vs. Combo might be 60-65%. A favorable matchup for combo vs. Zoo is probably more like 70-80% and there's not much Zoo can do about it except pack incredibly narrow hate and still probably get blown out.

[Einherjer]

Zoo isnt too bad, it can actuálly beat HighTide and Aluren right?

[majikal]

Snapcaster is a pretty good dude. If WotC keeps trying to smash blue up, I'm sure it will get banned at some point whether it needs to or not (it doesn't).

For what it's worth, that's me playing "Bant Aggro" in the top8. I only lost in the quarterfinals because I made a fatal sideboard/play error in game 2 and then got hit by some wicked variance in game 3 resulting in a mull to 5 for me, a mull to 6 for Todd, and both of us durdling around on one land for 10 turns until he finally stuck a Snapcaster (I think he flashed back a Brainstorm that didn't show him anything relevant) and poked me to death while Sylvan Library showed me every land in my library. I'm actually kind of glad it wasn't on camera because that game was miserable.

Side note: Does anyone else feel like FoW is starting to be pushed out of the picture? There used to be a time when you needed it to beat combo decks or push your threats through, but now it seems to be a liability more often than not. Everything is hybridizing, and as a result you see a lot more incremental advantage. FoW is just terrible in situations where your opponent can grind you out, and that seems to be a vast majority of non-combo decks now.

[Philipp2293]

So, it seems like Combo has been kept largely in check this time.

BTW did anyone watch Kibler vs burn? That was terrible.

[Koby]

@majikal
Your deck looks suspiciously like Maverick splashed with Daze and Jace. Good show!

[majikal]

@majikal
Your deck looks suspiciously like Maverick splashed with Daze and Jace. Good show!
Good eye! I wrote "THIS DECK IS ACTUALLY NAMED GWu MAVERICK" on my decklist sheet. Apparently the guys who enter the decklists onto the website don't like to use the established names for things.

[Deviruchi]

I predicted that metagame will be full of Spell Snare, SMF, Hymn to Tourach and Snapcaster Mage. So they really think that LED is broken? ;D

[DrHealex]

That's me with merfolk in 12th. I played subparly in game 3 vs vanmeter (on video feature), my regretful plays were not surgically extracting spell snare when he went to fetch a land to OBVIOUSLY spell snare my dude, and probably the more game breaking play of not surgically extracting a removal spell before (path which he had in his hand(unknown) and less of in the graveyard) before attempting to equip kira... im more disheartened by that misplay since the hand information alone would have been vital at that point. My problem was that I had (extract the snapcaster mage target) tunnel vision :frown:

My other loss was vs that affinity? deck the round after I lost to vanmeter, and just when I finally took my energy fluxes out of the sb that morning... Oh well.

Also, congrats to Mark Sun for taking 30th of which I was confidant you would. I have the devil's luck, and don't you forget it! :cool:

Also, Todd Anderson should definatly give his 4th or 5th round opponent (John) a cut of the prize since Todd lost to him but was given a match win so John could go do the draft open.

[claudio.r]

I find it funny, if you read the quick questions and if you followed the coverage int he last two 5k they have been bashing storm combo pretty hard.... and you know what happens when the scg "pros" start whinning...

After all the whinning... No storm combo in the top 16... Beautiful!

[ivanpei]

Then zoo and gobs come back, and the cycle continues, as usual. I'm pretty surprised regarding the strong showing of snapcaster. That card is really living up to it's hype! Scg still hasn't restocked their snapcasters. Strange.

[Final Fortune]

I really don't understand how Belcher is slipping its way into the finals, it consistently loses on the draw to any deck playing Stoneforge Mystic.

[Amon Amarth]

Give it a little while longer. In a month or so the metagame will be back to "normal" (maybe?)

[John Cox]

Weird, the prime minister of Canada came in 11'th

[UnsungHero]

Warms my heart to see Aluren in the top 16.

[alderon666]

I fail to understand why they keep printing overpowered blue cards. I mean Jace 2.0? Mental Misstep? Snapcaster? Why the hell don't they just give us a great red bear or something?

I thnk the answer for all of those question is: They love blue and don't give a damn about Legacy.

[joemauer]

It sounds like it is time to ban blue from Legacy, again.

[Admiral_Arzar]

It sounds like it is time to ban blue from Legacy, again.

At least all the chicken littles crying about LED or *insert combo card here* after the last open can STFU now.

[joemauer]

Oh yeah the combo winter was coming...what happened?

[DragoFireheart]

Oh yeah the combo winter was coming...what happened?

- Everyone played better decks.

;)

[Rizso]

Oh yeah the combo winter was coming...what happened?

Snappy happend! :P

[Lancer]

It sounds like it is time to ban blue from Legacy, again.

Two things I'd notices... Brainstrom is everywhere and Goblins is unseen on the list (hehe)

I believe Wizards would unban Mental Misstep (It proves that MM didnt kill Goblins and Brainstorm is the broken tool)

[Draener]

Turns out Team America still beats combo. Who knew?

Also, banning mental misstep clearly took blue out of the picture. That color is just bad.

[Bryant Cook]

I don't think it's that blue drove combo away, I think people opted to not play combo after last weekend. There wasn't any ANT or TES from what I hear/saw, just Caleb with his PIF deck.

[DragoFireheart]

Turns out Team America still beats combo. Who knew?

Also, banning mental misstep clearly took blue out of the picture. That color is just bad.

Blue is such a bad color right now.

Now burn decks are starting to take over the meta. Ball Lightning is a powerful card. I need a better creature than Tundra wolves to handle them! They just die to Bolts!

[Koby]

@majikal
I can't help but think that SFM package would have helped against all those Team America lists. When will your tourney report be ready?

[Mr. Safety]

I'm curious (and maybe someone can help me find this, if it exists) what the mix of decks were at the event? I can see the top 16, but that may just be better players using aggro and aggro/control decks to squeeze out the combo decks. Was combo strongly represented, or did the whole event get presupposed? As in: Mental Misstep is banned, ergo it's a good time to play combo, ergo I think I should bring an aggro/control deck to beat combo, ergo someone else might do that so I should bring a solid aggro deck to beat aggro/control...etc.

[Zunam]

Ahh, what a fun. Every week after SCG we get a new version of the thread "XXX is dominant". Seriously guys, are you using some kind of template for those threads?

Last week it was Combo ... this week it is Blue decks.
Will we see a Zoo version of this thread next week?

The only thing that the SCG top 16 tells me is that the Meta has adapted to beat last weeks Meta by:
1) A lot of people running blue (especially Team America), trying to beat Combo
2) A lot of people not playing Combo because they expected that large part of the field will try 1)

You cannot read a trend out of 2 peaks. So please stop this for a while.

But what am I talking: See you next time when we are whining about the Legacy GP top 8.

[dahcmai]

I'll admit I didn't play Storm in SCG Indy just for the fact that I wanted to see if people were going to pull out the counterbalances in force or not. I hate playing Storm in a field full of Counterbalance. It just sucks and even trying to fight the good fight really isn't all that fun. I sided with Reanimator just based on what I thought would do well. Guess i was right at least.

I'll be back to playing around with High Tide next run. Trying to figure out how I want to work snappies in. Stupid card warps your deck lists to fit around that card so badly. Once I feel comfortable with it, I'll probably be at the next closest one to Michigan. Sadly, it's probably going to be Indy Grand Prix.

[GGoober]

Two things I'd notices... Brainstrom is everywhere and Goblins is unseen on the list (hehe)

I believe Wizards would unban Mental Misstep (It proves that MM didnt kill Goblins and Brainstorm is the broken tool)

This is only one tournament, yes, only ONE SCG tournament. It does not prove anything yet. If there's anything to prove, it proves that SCG metagames are still pretty much 'flavor' of the week. Snapcaster is solid, but he won't be this heavily played. Format shifts, deal with it. Every SCG event, we get people talking about "OMG card X is played so much in the Top 8, banhammer coming!" and when card X isn't played that much in the Top 8, we all point fingers to Brainstorm, or LEDs that aren't in the Top 8.

[Lancer]

This is only one tournament, yes, only ONE SCG tournament. It does not prove anything yet. If there's anything to prove, it proves that SCG metagames are still pretty much 'flavor' of the week. Snapcaster is solid, but he won't be this heavily played. Format shifts, deal with it. Every SCG event, we get people talking about "OMG card X is played so much in the Top 8, banhammer coming!" and when card X isn't played that much in the Top 8, we all point fingers to Brainstorm, or LEDs that aren't in the Top 8.

LOL...

So far I see "blue" as a power color... The banning of MM didnt change that.

[majikal]

@majikal
I can't help but think that SFM package would have helped against all those Team America lists. When will your tourney report be ready?
It may or may not have been relevant. I never liked it in testing, because Team America has so much removal that anything short of Batterskull often just turns into a Timewalk for them when I go to equip, and even with Batterskull, they would often just keep me from putting it into play by killing my Mystic and Wasting my lands. I opted to play V. Clique and Daze instead due to the disruption they provide, which was just amazing all day long. Daze singlehandedly won my match against Belcher by throwing off his mana math (it didn't hurt that I talked up the fact that I'm playing a FoWless deck and adamantly offered to draw with him at the beginning of the round) and allowing me to get some dorks in the way of his Empty tokens, while Clique is just an all-around good card.

I did feel like I should have been playing a fourth Knight somewhere in the list though. I can never have enough of that guy. And maybe a fourth Mother of Runes, because I felt like I didn't land her often enough. It could just be variance though. Everything else was perfect though.

As far as a full report, that honestly would be really boring. In the swiss, I played against a Dredge deck, Junk, Painterstone, Merfolk, Enchantress, and Belcher. Nothing really stood out as being a huge threat to me except for Belcher, and I still somehow got there, even though he went off on turn one or two both games. And in Top8, the match against Todd got decided by variance and easily could have gone either way.

I feel like my deck has decent to solid matchups against almost every deck in the format. I haven't felt that way about a deck since Bant Survival, pre-Vengevine, which was my absolute favorite deck ever, so I'd say this is a really solid meta choice right now, at least until something else breaks and you can't bank on grinding your opponent out anymore.

[BlueNevus]

I did feel like I should have been playing a fourth Knight somewhere in the list though. I can never have enough of that guy. And maybe a fourth Mother of Runes, because I felt like I didn't land her often enough. It could just be variance though. Everything else was perfect though.


As a Maverick player, I heavily endorse 4xKOTR, 4xMother. Without Mother on the board, all of the Snapcasted Swords/BUG removal will eat this deck alive. I love cutting Mystic and adding Daze. Without having to cast equipment and pay equip costs, you can afford to play Daze, which helps this deck sooooo much, even if you don't have it in your hand.

What's your plan against Zoo and Merfolk? Probably not going to get a chance to activate Mother against Zoo.

[majikal]

What's your plan against Zoo and Merfolk? Probably not going to get a chance to activate Mother against Zoo.
Zoo - Knight, StoP, Path, Jace, Mother, Ooze (for real, it's just awesome everywhere)

Fish - Daze is really goddamn amazing in this matchup. You can fuck with their combat math by floating mana, Plowing their biggest guy, Dazing it with the alternate cost to rid yourself of Islands and paying with the floated mana, block their team and blow them out. Also, Knight, Mom, etc. It's actually a pretty favorable matchup.

[Gheizen64]

So i heard that misstep was banned because it pushed blue.

Yeah, sure, lol.

[BlueNevus]

Zoo - Knight, StoP, Path, Jace, Mother, Ooze (for real, it's just awesome everywhere)

Fish - Daze is really goddamn amazing in this matchup. You can fuck with their combat math by floating mana, Plowing their biggest guy, Dazing it with the alternate cost to rid yourself of Islands and paying with the floated mana, block their team and blow them out. Also, Knight, Mom, etc. It's actually a pretty favorable matchup.

Yeah, Scavenging Ooze is a monster. Going to get even better if people keep using 4xSnapcaster. I'm not so sure Merfolk is a favorable matchup. Traditional Maverick is favored because it doesn't run islands and it runs the Mystic package (Batterskull, Jitte, Sword of Fire + Ice, can equip Scryb Ranger.) I've been on the fence about splashing for Brainstorm/tax counters because of the exposure to Merfolk, but I'm going to give it a try; Daze seems really strong in this deck, just like it is in most decks that put early pressure on the opponent.

[GGoober]

LOL...

So far I see "blue" as a power color... The banning of MM didnt change that.

Welcome to the eternal format. If blue wasn't a strong color or the stronger color, then it isn't eternal format. It's pretty default that blue is going to be the strong/stronger color when you're dealing with cards/decks that can only be stopped by blue cards, whether those decks play with or without blue.

Putting the nature of eternal format out of this discussion, it is most definitely clear that MM made blue stronger than blue without MM.

[Lancer]

Welcome to the eternal format. If blue wasn't a strong color or the stronger color, then it isn't eternal format. It's pretty default that blue is going to be the strong/stronger color when you're dealing with cards/decks that can only be stopped by blue cards, whether those decks play with or without blue.

Putting the nature of eternal format out of this discussion, it is most definitely clear that MM made blue stronger than blue without MM.

No, I'm only pointing out that Wizards/DCI said "they are banning MM because it made blue strong"

Which is bullshit (you know it, I know it and everybody else knows it)

the reason why MM is banned because wizards was flooded with hate mail by players that know nothing about the format. And it sicken me that wizards went down that road; instead of allowing 6 months for the metagame to adjust.

Anyway... this is not a surprise that most of the decks listed are soaked with Brainstorm... and it's not a suprise that I dont see Goblins on the top list (hay, MM is ban so where the fuck is Goblins!!!)

[Sims]

the reason why MM is banned because wizards was flooded with hate mail by players that know nothing about the format.

That's a pretty bold statement, sir. Can you provide anything other than conjecture and opinion as to validate that claim?

[DragoFireheart]

Anyway... this is not a surprise that most of the decks listed are soaked with Brainstorm... and it's not a suprise that I dont see Goblins on the top list (hay, MM is ban so where the fuck is Goblins!!!)

- They're crying about the combo decks from a week ago or so, crying about the aggro decks with SFM-BS that shit all over them, crying about the Snappys, and just crying in general.

[Purgatory]

@majikal
I can't help but think that SFM package would have helped against all those Team America lists. When will your tourney report be ready?

Speaking as a Team America pilot who spent the weekend attending a couple of local events, protecting Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker against 4 StP, 2 Paths and 3 Snapcasters is a huge hassle. Seriously.

EDIT: Clarification: Not that it mattered in this case, because there were no Snapcasters in that list, but the SFM decks I played against this weekend all included Snapcaster, and SFM/Batterskull/SoFaF was a lot less threatening than Tiago.

[Lancer]

That's a pretty bold statement, sir. Can you provide anything other than conjecture and opinion as to validate that claim?

Proof is history... Magic Backs, Creation of the Reserve List, Banning of Hymn and Memory Jar, etc... are based upon wizards making a judgement call upon hate mail.

wizards needs to prove otherwise.


Also... Legacy was created because of hate mail from the banning of Earthcraft (restriction in type 1) and the looming idea to restrict Mana Drain, Oath of Druids and Workshop to ban the cards from type 1.5.

[Sims]

Proof is history... Magic Backs, Creation of the Reserve List, Banning of Hymn and Memory Jar, etc... are based upon wizards making a judgement call upon hate mail.

wizards needs to prove otherwise.


Also... Legacy was created because of hate mail from the banning of Earthcraft (restriction in type 1) and the looming idea to restrict Mana Drain, Oath of Druids and Workshop to ban the cards from type 1.5.

Popular opinion and backlash != hate mail.

The things that you listed as history being proof were all, at the time, deemed to be in the best interest of the game. Of those the only one that is hurting the game (not really the game so much as Legacy and Vintage) is the reserved list. There is no proof that it was 'hate mail' that pushed any of those decisions.

If hate mail actually influence the DCI banned/restricted policy or WotC's policies regarding Magic: New card frames would have been abolished, the 10th edition change to all sets being black bordered (except for un-sets) wouldn't have happened, Lackey/Survival/LED would have been banned in 2004, the reserve list would have been abolished, etc...

It takes a lot of balls to state as fact that hate mail is the basis for the choices the company makes, as they have and will always make choices that contradict the piles of hate mail and threats to quit playing they get.

I also resent the thought that Legacy was created because of hate mail to the idea to restrict drain, oath, and workshop to ban them in 1.5 because they did not need to be banned in 1.5. If anything it was created because there were too many whiny people complaining that they didn't have the money for drains, shops, or bazaars and "couldn't compete." Similar to how people now are complaining about forces, wastes, and duals.

[Solar Ice]

Proof is history... Magic Backs, Creation of the Reserve List, Banning of Hymn and Memory Jar, etc... are based upon wizards making a judgement call upon hate mail.

wizards needs to prove otherwise.


Also... Legacy was created because of hate mail from the banning of Earthcraft (restriction in type 1) and the looming idea to restrict Mana Drain, Oath of Druids and Workshop to ban the cards from type 1.5.

Seems to me that you're just trolling. Do you have a link to back up your claims?

[Humphrey]

MM Ban and some other decisions were made because wizards has no fucking clue about the game and employs idiots like LaPille and Rosewater

[Solar Ice]

MM Ban and some other decisions were made because wizards has no fucking clue about the game and employs idiots like LaPille and Rosewater

Are people still crying over MM? Geez, get over it already. The MM ban was one of the smartest moves in the history of this format, one that WotC should be applauded for. If the forum whiners actually put some thought in it, they would realise that as well.

[Gheizen64]

Are people still crying over MM? Geez, get over it already. The MM ban was one of the smartest moves in the history of this format, one that WotC should be applauded for. If the forum whiners actually put some thought in it, they would realise that as well.

Oh the irony.

And Vintage is probably less blue than legacy nowadays with all the MUD around + manaless dredge.

[GGoober]

I see this degrading into another ban/unban thread. I am starting to get really annoyed that my favorite forum to go to is becoming less and less appealing.

I 'think' Lancer is a troll, but that's just me:


Maybe I'm crazy... but why is it acceptable for Wizards and DCI to be working in the same building. Really!

The ban is purely based upon hate mail.


1st the ban is based upon HATE MAIL, which means Wizards/DCI cannot be trusted.

2nd you did make an effort to post a reply.






Source?
Players has been bitching about the card since wizards banned MM upon the announcement of Modern.

Also the most recent "major tournament" was won by Dredge (which was said to be dead because of MM)

Sure I have no evidence to support this; but wizards has always respond to players complains, the magic backs/expansion symbols, removing demonic symbols, the reserve list (Chronicles/4th edition) and the emergency banning of Memory Jar... [there are many others]



I prefer tournament results for a ban, not this speedy, emergency banning crap.

I also dont believe Wizards and DCI are the same entity... It's not right... especially when this game is played like a poker game.


He posts more about MTG being a gambling/poker game (wtf is wrong with poker anyway?!) than his posts about hatemails but I'm not going to dig those up :P. I just wasted 5min of my life digging this up :P




Anyway, back on topic: I really doubt Snapcaster Mage is going to be format warping. It's a flavor of the week thing all over again. Just like Delver of Secrets, it's a new card that fits only in certain decks. You can't universally play Snapcaster Mage without at least 8-12 maindeck instants (and they have to be cheaply costed too!) to flashback. It has some really sick interactions with Daze/Unearth/Cabal Therapy though so I can see even more lists being abused/developed. The thing is you can't just squeeze 2-4 Snapcaster mage in every list. Even in a deck choked full of instants like Solidarity, he isn't a huge impact that makes the deck warp the format.

We're long gone from the format-warping metagame that is Survival. Even Mystical Tutor wasn't really warping the format because WotC did not even give MTutor enough time to warp the format. They banned it when they sensed that ANT/Reanimator was becoming too consistent/strong but those decks were never allowed enough time to determine what is format warping. IN all honesty, MM should probably be left unbanned for another 6-12months before the banhammer, but it's pretty clear that the format was defined by MM (FoWless lists are entirely possible without MM because both the card MM and the metagame defined by MM allowed FoW to not exist i.e. combo being neutered heavily.)

[death]

I can see Snapcaster Mage (SCM) warping decks already and the format eventually. SCM has already replaced Tombstalker in Team America. There's no reason to play Standstill/Mishra's Factory now because SCM/SFM+Batterskull together in U/W are a powerhouse. I did not support the banning of MM but I can only imagine that aggro and combo will both cease to exist with SCM + MM around, except for Hive Mind. Aggro remains weak even without MM because of the printing of SCM. Vial can be FoW'd, Lackey StP'd, SCM-StP flashback or SFM into Batterskull are equally devastating to Aggro. It's obvious that Zoo/Merfolk are more unfavorable now. Except for Ichorid which has a better chance because it can do unfair things early. Natural Order was also affected by the absence of MM to protect their creatures and SCM flashbacks did hurt the deck.

[OurSerratedDust]

As a storm player, I'd rather see Snapcaster any day over MM.

[joemauer]

So at the beginning of this thread blue was too powerful(again!)........now blue needs Mental Misstep back?

Did I miss something there?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Reprint a fixed Misstep that only hits Instants/Sorcs so that aggro can compete with combo. The options aggro has post board vs. combo are laughable compared to the sideboard options available to every other matchup in the format. If it makes them sleep better at night the alternate CC can be "If you control no Islands you may pay 2 life to play ~this card~ without paying it's casting cost, not that blue would likely run it anyways with Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce being better complements to FoW.

There is no good reason to take Aggro to a large 8+ round event over a blue deck if you are trying to win. The blue decks have maybe at worst a 40/60 matchup with aggro and plenty of SB options and hardcore aggro has around a 30/70 matchup with combo and very few good SB options. If they combo out before your second turn most times you have all of two real options Leyline/Mindbreak, both of which are incredibad. Even if combo is a terrible metagame choice you can still get an unlucky pairing round 1 then end up losing to some little kid playing Beltcher in a room full of Force of Will decks and there's not much you can do about it. One bad pairing and you might as well get a headstart on driving home. Blue decks can SB for their bad matchup aggro out the ass, so if they run into 3 Zoo decks in 8 rounds they still have a fair chance of succeeding. If the Zoo player hits a good storm combo player in 8 rounds he has to just hope that the combo player gets unlucky because there is not much he can do about turn 1-2 Tendrils or ETW. If he hits 2 good combo players the chances of winning both games are abysmal no matter how much he sideboards (within reason, I mean obviously you can't run 10x cards that are only good vs. 2-3 decks).

Bottom line, I would rather go into an 8 round event with a blue deck, knowing I'm going to be playing vs. 4 Zoo decks and 4x random matchups than go into the same 8 round event with a Zoo deck, knowing I'm going to be playing vs. 2x fast combo decks piloted by good players and 6x good matchups. That's how bad the situation is for non-blue decks.

[DragoFireheart]

Why should aggro be able to compete with combo?

[Richard Cheese]

I see this degrading into another ban/unban thread. I am starting to get really annoyed that my favorite forum to go to is becoming less and less appealing.

Do you also feel like there's been a lot less activity in deck threads lately, and way more in speculation threads like B/R update, SCD, etc.? Just feels like we're all just waiting to see the next SCG T16 and letting that define the community as a whole.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Why should aggro be able to compete with combo?

Having 4x fixed Mental Misstep's is not going to make combo a favorable matchup, but right now aggro practically scoops to combo. When people talk about a Rock/Paper/Scissors metagame it's obviously just a simplified way to describe the favorable matchups, but when Paper beats Rock 70% of the time and there are no good SB options and Rock only beats Scissors 55-60% of the time depending on MD/SB, why the fuck would anyone ever throw Rock?

Ironically I think a fixed Mental Misstep would make combo a better choice overall. People got reminded in Indy what happens when you sleep on combo. Now expect to see blue decks out the ass.

A lot of people still won't play Zoo or other aggro in a large event because you have to dodge combo for 8-10 rounds or get lucky as a champ, even if they know going in that 70% of their opponents will probably be playing blue. It's not worth having a slightly favorable matchup to blue to give up a completely hopeless matchup vs. combo. I mean literally right now your overall best option vs. Tendrils or Beltcher with Zoo is too just hope they can't combo off before you get to 2 mana after SB and that you have a hate bear on turn 2, for 2 games in a row. So since people are so incredibly gunshy about running aggro, blue decks go almost completely unchecked.

Ironically I think having a fixed Misstep makes combo better.

If Zoo/other aggro wasn't a completely lost cause vs. combo more people would run it and it would make blue decks slightly less favorable, which would push some of combo's natural enemies out of the metagame, which would make combo a better choice overall because the Zoo/aggro matchup would still be favorable even with 4x fixed Missteps. What's better, the Zoo/combo matchup would be decided more by skill postboard instead of "Can I combo off? Okay, *dead*" With a fixed Misstep their would actually be a risk/reward to trying to combo off turn 1 and potentially getting stopped by Misstep 2.0 or waiting until a turn or 2 later when you can play around Mistep 2.0 but you might have to face down a hate bear. Right now there is no downside to throwing all in vs. Zoo on turn 1. Only completely terrible players run Mindbreak Trap.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Reprint a fixed Misstep that only hits Instants/Sorcs so that aggro can compete with combo. The options aggro has post board vs. combo are laughable compared to the sideboard options available to every other matchup in the format. If it makes them sleep better at night the alternate CC can be "If you control no Islands you may pay 2 life to play ~this card~ without paying it's casting cost, not that blue would likely run it anyways with Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce being better complements to FoW.

There is no good reason to take Aggro to a large 8+ round event over a blue deck if you are trying to win. The blue decks have maybe at worst a 40/60 matchup with aggro and plenty of SB options and hardcore aggro has around a 30/70 matchup with combo and very few good SB options. If they combo out before your second turn most times you have all of two real options Leyline/Mindbreak, both of which are incredibad. Even if combo is a terrible metagame choice you can still get an unlucky pairing round 1 then end up losing to some little kid playing Beltcher in a room full of Force of Will decks and there's not much you can do about it. One bad pairing and you might as well get a headstart on driving home. Blue decks can SB for their bad matchup aggro out the ass, so if they run into 3 Zoo decks in 8 rounds they still have a fair chance of succeeding. If the Zoo player hits a good storm combo player in 8 rounds he has to just hope that the combo player gets unlucky because there is not much he can do about turn 1-2 Tendrils or ETW. If he hits 2 good combo players the chances of winning both games are abysmal no matter how much he sideboards (within reason, I mean obviously you can't run 10x cards that are only good vs. 2-3 decks).

Bottom line, I would rather go into an 8 round event with a blue deck, knowing I'm going to be playing vs. 4 Zoo decks and 4x random matchups than go into the same 8 round event with a Zoo deck, knowing I'm going to be playing vs. 2x fast combo decks piloted by good players and 6x good matchups. That's how bad the situation is for non-blue decks.

Quit whining. "Oh no I wanna play zoo but I'm not ok with the fact that combo is supposed to beat aggro, boo hoo pity me" suck it up. Thats the way magic is. Control beats combo, combo beats aggro, aggro beats control. Get over it. And the tools that aggro has to beat combo are far from "laughable", players just refuse to acknowledge that its a matchup that they are supposed to lose. If I take zoo to a big tourney I will always have at least 10 sb cards. Period. Its what has to happen if you have any expectation of turning a 20% chance to win into a 50+%

[joemauer]

One of the allures to playing fast combo is the ability to beat non blue decks. Giving all decks an edge against storm.decks might not really help combo much.

They have been slowly helping aggro out versus storm lately. Trap being the most notable. Also, revoker is good versus LED. And of course gaddock Teeg and Canonist are nice guys to have on your side.

I think a one mana hate bear might help out aggro(please make it red or green). But you really don't want something too strong against combo printed. The TES/Ant players aren't going to be able to fight through force of will decks and zoo decks with powerful card in theory.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Quit whining. "Oh no I wanna play zoo but I'm not ok with the fact that combo is supposed to beat aggro, boo hoo pity me" suck it up. Thats the way magic is. Control beats combo, combo beats aggro, aggro beats control. Get over it. And the tools that aggro has to beat combo are far from "laughable", players just refuse to acknowledge that its a matchup that they are supposed to lose. If I take zoo to a big tourney I will always have at least 10 sb cards. Period. Its what has to happen if you have any expectation of turning a 20% chance to win into a 50+%

First off I don't want to play Zoo I just want a balanced format because I think it's more fun when Aggro/Combo/Blue are balanced and right now blue is way ahead because it's matchup vs. aggro is WAYYY more manageable in the side than Aggro vs. combo. I mean no one can deny that combo vs. aggro is a give away match and aggro vs. blue is only slightly favorable for aggro. I'm not saying make aggro have a 50+% matchup vs. combo just that it should be able to sideboard cards that are relevant turns 0 and 1 when combo is usually busy winning the game to turn a complete blowout into at least a slight test of skill for both players.

If combo has a fistful of options that negate counterspells or discard and make it's matchup vs. blue close to if not over 50% post board, why can't aggro have one good option postboard vs. combo? Is that not a valid argument? WotC realizes this is a problem, hell they came out and said Misstep was an attempt to give aggro viable options vs. combo but obviously they messed up by making it hit perms, which is largely irrelevant vs. combo but gave blue 4x extra FoWs vs. combo and aggro.


One of the allures to playing fast combo is the ability to beat non blue decks. Giving all decks an edge against storm.decks might not really help combo much.

They have been slowly helping aggro out versus storm lately. Trap being the most notable. Also, revoker is good versus LED. And of course gaddock Teeg and Canonist are nice guys to have on your side.

I think a one mana hate bear might help out aggro(please make it red or green). But you really don't want something too strong against combo printed. The TES/Ant players aren't going to be able to fight through force of will decks and zoo decks with powerful card in theory.

Teeg and Canonist are nice but you are still more or less helpless vs. the turn 1 blowout which is almost a sure thing with Beltcher and not hard when you are talking 2 post board games with Tendrils. Storm decks have tons of tools vs. blue, blue decks have tons of tools vs. aggro, aggro has a bunch of 2 cmc bears vs. combo and Mindbreak Trap/Leyline which are both ass. Don't even get me started on the things Orim's Chant/Discard or bounce can do to your plan of drop a hatebear turn 2 even when they don't go off before you hit 2 mana. Why can't aggro have even 1/4 of the tools vs. combo that blue and combo have vs. it? I mean a fixed Misstep is still not going to make combo a favorable matchup. Discard/Chant still exist and you are still going to lose game 1 most of the time. It's still a worse matchup post board than combo vs. blue when combo gets to bring in 4x Xantid Swarms and possibly negate every answer in the blue players deck with a one drop. Someone please tell me how that is any more fair than one good answer for combo that is relevant before turn 2. Combo already plays to cards that allow it to play around a potential Misstep from aggro, if those answers aren't enough combo can easily sb cards that bounce/destroy most of aggros relevant creatures and buy the combo player additional turns to combo out and make the matchup more favorable again.

Bottom line you still only get 15 sideboard slots, I just want to format to be more about who prepares the best, who picks the best deck, who plays the smartest, and who most wisely uses their SB space. For the large part it already is that, it's just that aggro is by far a worse choice than blue or combo because of it's abysmal matchup vs. combo. For the record I hate playing aggro, I find it boring. I just think the format would be a lot more interesting if the rock/paper/scissors wasn't so imbalanced.

[Lancer]

Popular opinion and backlash != hate mail.

The things that you listed as history being proof were all, at the time, deemed to be in the best interest of the game. Of those the only one that is hurting the game (not really the game so much as Legacy and Vintage) is the reserved list. There is no proof that it was 'hate mail' that pushed any of those decisions.

If hate mail actually influence the DCI banned/restricted policy or WotC's policies regarding Magic: New card frames would have been abolished, the 10th edition change to all sets being black bordered (except for un-sets) wouldn't have happened, Lackey/Survival/LED would have been banned in 2004, the reserve list would have been abolished, etc...

It takes a lot of balls to state as fact that hate mail is the basis for the choices the company makes, as they have and will always make choices that contradict the piles of hate mail and threats to quit playing they get.

I also resent the thought that Legacy was created because of hate mail to the idea to restrict drain, oath, and workshop to ban them in 1.5 because they did not need to be banned in 1.5. If anything it was created because there were too many whiny people complaining that they didn't have the money for drains, shops, or bazaars and "couldn't compete." Similar to how people now are complaining about forces, wastes, and duals.

The fact is requardless for the good or the bad wizards will listen to popular opinion first even if the opinion is good or bad. What we know is what wizards tell us... they said they banned Mental Misstep because it makes blue too powerful... yet for a month and a half before the banning players were bitching about the card like countertop (and asking for emergency banning) sorry but I dont believe in this emergencying banning bullshit!

If you guys knew half the truth of the company you'll notice several things about wizards...

first, wizards never makes a second printing of a magic cards that the first is valued over 50 dollars (this is why there is no FOW reprint) and it's safe to say Bob and Goyf is never going to see a reprinting. Also this is why Jace 2.0 isnt reprinted (since the banning came close to the next edition wizards cannot honestly say they decided not to print the card because of it's brokeness and the way modern is looking those shock lands are not going to be reprinted either.

Second... wizards don't design cards with competitive intent, if they actually did then they would already know what's wrong with the card and it'll never see print.

Third... they listen to hate mail. especially when you have thousands of players threating to quit the game. this is why DCI and Wizards should not be in the same bed... sometimes the hate mail is good and sometimes it's bad. But the cards being banned/restricted or whatever should be based upon tournament results and not silly things like this is banned because it makes "blue strong" sorry but that's meaningless bullshit call especially since blue still looks as strong as it was before the banning.


If you think I'm a troll... then I'm a freaking troll! Dont waste your time reading my crap!

[Jeff Kruchkow]

First off I don't want to play Zoo I just want a balanced format because I think it's more fun when Aggro/Combo/Blue are balanced and right now blue is way ahead because it's matchup vs. aggro is WAYYY more manageable in the side than Aggro vs. combo. I mean no one can deny that combo vs. aggro is a give away match and aggro vs. blue is only slightly favorable for aggro. I'm not saying make aggro have a 50+% matchup vs. combo just that it should be able to sideboard cards that are relevant turns 0 and 1 when combo is usually busy winning the game to turn a complete blowout into at least a slight test of skill for both players.

Fair, but I think you are by far overestimating the "manageable-ness" of the blue matchup vs zoo and aggro in general. The best card they have is batterskull and that thing is slower than molasses. Goblins will just run over blue decks all day, especially now that everyone is trying to play 4x snapcaster over better cards like deed.
As far as a 0/1 mana answer, Mindbreak already exists. it does essentially everything that you the proposed instant and sorcery only misstep and more. Idk if you have played much combo, but cannonist/teeg/trap out of the board turns the zoo matchup into a crapshoot.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Fair, but I think you are by far overestimating the "manageable-ness" of the blue matchup vs zoo and aggro in general. The best card they have is batterskull and that thing is slower than molasses. Goblins will just run over blue decks all day, especially now that everyone is trying to play 4x snapcaster over better cards like deed.
As far as a 0/1 mana answer, Mindbreak already exists. it does essentially everything that you the proposed instant and sorcery only misstep and more. Idk if you have played much combo, but cannonist/teeg/trap out of the board turns the zoo matchup into a crapshoot.

Blue loses to Goblins only because the deck is not a serious SB consideration at this point. Blue could easily splash for stuff like Firespout or Engineered Plague or run things like BEB if Goblins was a serious contender. Combine this with the removal they are running anyways and Snapcaster Mage letting them be a little more liberal with their removal + his "Snapcaster chump + flashback removal" games and we get back to my point of the options available to every matchup except Aggro vs. Combo. Aggro basically has one real answer for storm decks winning early and it's super narrow.

I say blue vs aggro is manageable because you have plenty of sideboard options, probably over 50 playable options exist maybe more when you count every playable spot removal you could potentially side in. At worst it's still probably never under a 45% matchup if you make it a serious board consideration. Compare that to aggro vs. storm where even with 4x Trap 4x Teeg depending on the exact combo deck I'd still say there is probably a 30% matchup game 1 and then under a 45% matchup games 2 and 3. I mean even if the combo player ignores Trap and just tries to go off blind they are still probably going to get there in one of two remaining games.

[ESG]

first, wizards never makes a second printing of a magic cards that the first is valued over 50 dollars (this is why there is no FOW reprint) and it's safe to say Bob and Goyf is never going to see a reprinting. Also this is why Jace 2.0 isnt reprinted (since the banning came close to the next edition wizards cannot honestly say they decided not to print the card because of it's brokeness and the way modern is looking those shock lands are not going to be reprinted either.

Second... wizards don't design cards with competitive intent, if they actually did then they would already know what's wrong with the card and it'll never see print.

Lancer, your posts frustrate me because they seem like hot air. Provide a source for this. Why should anyone believe these assertions you make? How did you arrive at a $50 figure? How could you possibly know what the folks at Wizards do or do not test? You can tell people your opinion all you want, but you're stating facts that can be proved right or wrong, so you better have evidence.

[Beatusnox]

Even if combo is a terrible metagame choice you can still get an unlucky pairing round 1 then end up losing to some little kid playing Beltcher in a room full of Force of Will decks and there's not much you can do about it.

No insult directed at you holmes, but why is there so much head-in-sphincter disease directed towards belcher players and the deck itself? Its harder to pilot belcher to a good finish in the current field than zoo or nobant.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Lancer, your posts frustrate me because they seem like hot air. Provide a source for this. Why should anyone believe these assertions you make? How did you arrive at a $50 figure? How could you possibly know what the folks at Wizards do or do not test? You can tell people your opinion all you want, but you're stating facts that can be proved right or wrong, so you better have evidence.

Yeah he's way out there on some of those assumptions. At the same time Wizards is very touchy when it comes to reprinting high dollar/high demand cards. This is just a fact, I mean how many cards can you name that were over $40 that got reprinted? WotC doesn't sell physical cards directly to players, they sell product to stores and then those stores sell the cards to the players. Many of those stores have large stocks of high demand cards. While the anecdote about FoW is flawed because FoW wasn't reprinted for the 15 or so years where people asked for it and it wasn't a $50 card, it is still true in a way. The last thing WotC wants to do is piss off the people who actually buy it's product, which is the stores first and the players second. Without the stores WotC has no venue to sell directly to players. Take a small store as an example. Say they have 4x Tarmogoyf in stock. If WotC turns around and reprints Goyf as a rare in a basic set and the value drops 50% that store just lost $200 in profit. Now take the stores like SCG that probably have 40 Goyfs on hand, they just lost $2000. That's the advantage of Judge Foils and FTV sets. WotC sells these sets retail to stores and the stores turn around and mark them up 200%. If they reprint Goyf in a FTV set, it won't upset the value much and any value a store might lose on Goyfs in store they make back by marking up FTV and selling it for triple what they paid. Or they could go the Judge foil route which barely affects price at all. Don't count on seeing Goyf in a set though, it's been out of print to long for them to crash the value like that. A FTV or premium deck reprint might be used to soften the price up a little on a card so they can eventually reprint it in a base set if the value is too high, but don't count on seeing high dollar cards reprinted unless they are still fairly new.



No insult directed at you holmes, but why is there so much head-in-sphincter disease directed towards belcher players and the deck itself? Its harder to pilot belcher to a good finish in the current field than zoo or nobant.

That's because it's a bad metagame choice most of the time. Granted a smart player can take the deck and do big things with it, see Christian Valente. At the same time Belcher is a deck that can squeeze out wins on the back of zero skill and "count to 7 gotcha!" which means most of the time you sit down across from it it's going to be someones wife/a kid/a juggalo on the other end. Basically the deck is a barney magnet, not that the deck is without merit but more often it's a crutch for people who suck and getting lucky is their best chance at winning.

[ubernostrum]

Throwing in my two cents:

I lost to Todd round 1, then clawed my way back to finish 18th at 6-2 with horrendous breakers. I was playing B/W Vials and hate-bears (the deck Tim Frank called "Hate Crimes" when he top8'd SCG Charlotte earlier this year).

There was plenty of combo, of all sorts, in the field. There were plenty of blue decks. Todd was the only blue deck I lost to on the day; I tore apart Stoneblade, combo and Natural Order, and Fish, all without a single Brainstorm or Force of Will in my deck. All while winning by attacking with tiny little critters.

NO decks were out in force but mostly populating the lower bracket; later in the day when I dropped to X-2, I got paired against three of them in a row (one NO Show, one NO Elves and one NO RUG).

High Tide was definitely out there, but I never got paired against it (sad face; I have a pretty awesome matchup against HT), and from what I saw it fell out of the top tables quickly as the day went on. Hive Mind was out there. Storm and Dredge were there but getting hated out hard from what I could see.

Notably, I didn't really see Goblins anywhere, and didn't really see Zoo anywhere. I'm sure the decks were being played, but I suspect they were dropping down as I was fighting my way up.

I was a bit surprised to see an Affinity build finish as high as it did; lots of folks were packing Stony Silence, and those who couldn't run it all seemed to have Null Rod.

Even more surprising for a "combo-heavy" meta, people were running Enchantress. It didn't seem to get anywhere. And then of course there was Belcher; one copy made t16, and another (piloted by a friend of mine, who got to Belch on somebody for 98 on turn two) was in the top 32.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Throwing in my two cents:

I lost to Todd round 1, then clawed my way back to finish 18th at 6-2 with horrendous breakers. I was playing B/W Vials and hate-bears (the deck Tim Frank called "Hate Crimes" when he top8'd SCG Charlotte earlier this year).

There was plenty of combo, of all sorts, in the field. There were plenty of blue decks. Todd was the only blue deck I lost to on the day; I tore apart Stoneblade, combo and Natural Order, and Fish, all without a single Brainstorm or Force of Will in my deck. All while winning by attacking with tiny little critters.

NO decks were out in force but mostly populating the lower bracket; later in the day when I dropped to X-2, I got paired against three of them in a row (one NO Show, one NO Elves and one NO RUG).

High Tide was definitely out there, but I never got paired against it (sad face; I have a pretty awesome matchup against HT), and from what I saw it fell out of the top tables quickly as the day went on. Hive Mind was out there. Storm and Dredge were there but getting hated out hard from what I could see.

Notably, I didn't really see Goblins anywhere, and didn't really see Zoo anywhere. I'm sure the decks were being played, but I suspect they were dropping down as I was fighting my way up.

I was a bit surprised to see an Affinity build finish as high as it did; lots of folks were packing Stony Silence, and those who couldn't run it all seemed to have Null Rod.

Even more surprising for a "combo-heavy" meta, people were running Enchantress. It didn't seem to get anywhere. And then of course there was Belcher; one copy made t16, and another (piloted by a friend of mine, who got to Belch on somebody for 98 on turn two) was in the top 32.

Don't blame Enchantress as a deck for poor showings. 90% of the people who play it are doing it wrong IMO. Horizon Canopy is hot garbage for one but I see almost every Enchantress player playing it like it's written in the bible or something that they have to. Yeah just what Enchantress wants take additional damage, run less forests AND make yourself more vulnerable to wasteland. Oh but you get to sac a land pay mana and draw a card at some point like Enchantress doesn't draw enough cards already, seems terrible. Then aside from what I consider poor deck choices (which are amplified when you end up drawing a good % of your deck almost every game) most of the people who attempt to play Enchantress just are not up to the job. It's seriously overall probably the hardest deck to play in Legacy. I mean granted I get it, Tendrils and Doomsday have a really high skill requirement, but when you factor in the number of triggers you have to tend to, the amount of mana you have to manage, using Mirri's Guile/fetchlands correctly with draw triggers to maximize efficiency, the number of permanents in play in a given game and above all time management (upwards of 60-70% of your matches go to time), and there is a lot that can go wrong. Even if someone plays Enchantress perfectly if they don't have the wherewithal to manage time and keep their opponent moving along/know when to call a judge to watch for slow play they can easily get blown out just on going to time once too often. I've seen plenty of people draw because they just couldn't finish the job on turn 5 of time because of a small mistake they make several turns earlier.

It's the same with most fringe decks. Burn for example. Not a terrible deck and often not even a terrible metagame choice, but most people build the deck wrong and play/sideboard incorrectly. Look at the guy who had a run in Nashville with it. Terrible player, subpar build, still was in contention as far as round 6. Now imagine a good player with a competent build and your looking at a good shot at top 16 in that same spot.

Enchantress is often the right choice even if combo makes a showing. If you look at the decks that ended up top 16ing most combo decks likely got hated out in the early rounds by blue. Enchantress is favorable vs. blue aggro decks and straight aggro and solid vs. a lot of random decks, when I take it into an event I'm just hoping to dodge combo the first couple rounds until they get knocked into the losers bracket then prey on the blue decks that beat combo early. In Indy I lost to High Tide round 1 and almost lost to Solidarity round 8, every other round was a highly favorable matchup except Counterbalance with MD Ethersworn Cannonist which I drew to. Tendrils, Reanimator, and anything with Show/Tell is the nightmare, Beltcher and High Tide are fairly bad but surprisingly winnable with a little luck and some tight play, decks with Deed MD are also bad. Other than those decks everything is close to, if not above 50%. You're really just hoping for a little luck in the pairings and beyond that losing is usually either the normal Magic getting outdrawn, taking too long, or misplaying and punting the match. Enchantress isn't a terrible choice though by any means, it destroys most blue decks and Snapcaster Mage is pretty irrelevant unless they are maybe running Spell Pierce main.

[Lancer]

Lancer, your posts frustrate me because they seem like hot air. Provide a source for this. Why should anyone believe these assertions you make? How did you arrive at a $50 figure? How could you possibly know what the folks at Wizards do or do not test? You can tell people your opinion all you want, but you're stating facts that can be proved right or wrong, so you better have evidence.

Evidence is simple... all you have to do is look.

[Humphrey]

Do you also feel like there's been a lot less activity in deck threads lately, and way more in speculation threads like B/R update, SCD, etc.? Just feels like we're all just waiting to see the next SCG T16 and letting that define the community as a whole.

Well, maybe because in the last 2 years to much changes happened. Legacy is almost as bad as Standard for deckbuilding. A deck that might be good can be completly useless in 2-3 month when Wizards makes the next awesome decision.


Also I find it funny how a lot of people say goblins is still a good deck and suffered only because of MM. I played goblins a few years and it stopped being a Tier1 long ago. It autolose to combo and its much to slow without an unanswered Lackey or Vial.

[dahcmai]

lol no joke Caw Blade/Stoneblade/Patriot being the prime example.


If it's any consolation, I do have a new deck I'll post up sometime. I just want to test it more than I did Stoneblade before I let it loose on the world this time. It's evil.

[Lancer]

Well, maybe because in the last 2 years to much changes happened. Legacy is almost as bad as Standard for deckbuilding. A deck that might be good can be completly useless in 2-3 month when Wizards makes the next awesome decision.

That's because wizards is finally making efficient cards without the "fat" price tag.



Also I find it funny how a lot of people say goblins is still a good deck and suffered only because of MM. I played goblins a few years and it stopped being a Tier1 long ago. It autolose to combo and its much to slow without an unanswered Lackey or Vial.

Me too... I've actually believe it's those goblin players that pushed the banned of MM. (Based upon the outcries I have seen for the month and a half.)


PS... my bitch isnt about MM directly it's how Wizards/DCI handle the ban.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Judging by the top 16, Goblins wouldn't have been a bad choice at that tournament. Just pack a ton of sideboard combo hate cards (and maybe Perish) and you're good to go. I don't really understand the huge amounts of hate the deck gets here nowadays - is it because it so handily beats your favorite blue deck? Haters gonna hate, I guess.

[majikal]

Judging by the top 16, Goblins wouldn't have been a bad choice at that tournament. Just pack a ton of sideboard combo hate cards (and maybe Perish) and you're good to go. I don't really understand the huge amounts of hate the deck gets here nowadays - is it because it so handily beats your favorite blue deck? Haters gonna hate, I guess.
Goblins are shit against Snapcasters. Swing with the team? Demise that guy, Snapcaster, flashback Demise on that other guy, block this guy. Anything else, Mr. Goblins? No? Okay, here's a Goyf on my turn, maybe Unearth my Snapcaster to wreck you some more with some other removal spell.

[death]

Like what I said on the previous page. StP, flashback StP. SFM, Batterskull, gg?

[Humphrey]

Judging by the top 16, Goblins wouldn't have been a bad choice at that tournament. Just pack a ton of sideboard combo hate cards (and maybe Perish) and you're good to go. I don't really understand the huge amounts of hate the deck gets here nowadays - is it because it so handily beats your favorite blue deck? Haters gonna hate, I guess.

Its funny that your signature shows youre a combo player. Want more fishes,heh?

[sroncor1]

In response to the reprint policy I actually do not think Wizards is doing it wrong. Yes the Reserve list sucks, but really the only thing on it that matters are the duals. Standard with FoW is just stupid. If you placed back in the days of Alice block then you know how strong it can be with mainlands and token generators. They could reprint it in another package like dual decks, but I really think FoW just doesn't fit in with Wizards current direction of where Magic should go. It's their game and while I don't really aggree with it, its their choice. Reprinting Jace and Goyf, and Bob are all different situations. Wizards typically is solid with admidting mistakes with cards and with the exception of Bob all the cards mentioned were mistakes. So why reprint them. From a sales standpoint it makes no sense to continue with mistakes. Bob may or may not be reprinted, we will have to wait and see.

In response to the bans, usually they do the right thing. Memory Jar was not really banned due to fan response so much that it was due to Wizards not having the quality playtesters it does now. They just missed the brokeness. I know looking back people are like WTFuck, but remember this was right after Necro was initially considered shit. MM didn't need to be banded just like LED, Brainstorm, and Show and Tell are all fine for the format. You need some strong cards, that is just they way the game is. I wish that Baulduvian Horde, Spirit of the Night, and Wild Mongral were still good, but time changes. I love the fact that I can still play them though along side really powerful cards. You have to understand that at no time in magic have all strategies been viable. There have always been tiers of decks starting with The Deck all the way up till today. MM really didn't kill any one deck type beside push combo down. Goblins will still be bad from here out, and Merfolk will still be solid. My only complaint with the bans is that I do not always feel that the engine should be banned. In the case of SotF, Vengevine should have been banned. More deck types is always better than less. Creatures will always be around and constantly changing, so losing one is no big deal, but losing a classic archetype is really sad.

Seth

[Admiral_Arzar]

Its funny that your signature shows youre a combo player. Want more fishes,heh?

I am a combo player. However, I do play stuff like Goblins and Aggro Loam when I get the itch to turn dudes sideways (or when there's way too much blue in my meta).

[nedleeds]

This thread has my 4 favorite things on MTGtS

1) People assuming there is some kind of Mtg bill of rights that assures equal protection under the law for all colors.

2) People assigning 'hardness' ratings to certain known decks in a complete vacuum.

3) Name dropping quasi professional Magic players.

4) Random mid game scenarios that make a billion assumptions and seek to dismiss an entire archtype.

All it needs is a haiku about 'Tha Gatherin' to be complete.

[Nidd]

This thread has my 4 favorite things on MTGtS

1) Drama

2) Drama

3) Drama

4) Drama

All it needs is a haiku about 'Tha Gatherin' to be complete.

Modified to reflect my opinion.

<3



On a more serious note, that T16 sure does look quite Blue. However, I think that was because most people wanted to try SCM and see how he performs - in order to prove this, we'd need a complete metagame breakdown, which we don't have.
So everyone can continue to scream "SKY'S FALLING!!!" and play chicken little until either the DCI bans Tiago or the next Open T16 gets flooded by [insert non-Tiago-playing deck here].

[Lancer]

This thread has my 4 favorite things on MTGtS

1) People assuming there is some kind of Mtg bill of rights that assures equal protection under the law for all colors.

2) People assigning 'hardness' ratings to certain known decks in a complete vacuum.

3) Name dropping quasi professional Magic players.

4) Random mid game scenarios that make a billion assumptions and seek to dismiss an entire archtype.

All it needs is a haiku about 'Tha Gatherin' to be complete.

Currently I see no change with "blue being the power color" and since I'm annoyed with those goblin players screaming about how MM killed thier deck and the removal of the card will bring thier deck back... anyway I wanted to say... Oh, where is goblins? [in short wizards reaction to ban MM is not based upon tournament results but players hatemail...]

as I see this thread is dead until the next starcity event.

[DragoFireheart]

I am a combo player. However, I do play stuff like Goblins and Aggro Loam when I get the itch to turn dudes sideways (or when there's way too much blue in my meta).

- With the direction many decks are going, I don't see Goblins being a good choice anymore. It auto-loses to combo, has issues with Zoo, has issues with SFM-BS and Snappy decks, and GWx Maverick decks give it a good thrashing with their MoMs and nasty equipment like Jitte or SoFI. At best I see Goblins being a 1.5 tier deck. We are no longer in an era were draw-go decks like Landstill are prominent. In fact, pure control decks in general aren't typically that good anymore. The last one that had any hold was Counterbalance yet now that deck is seeing fringe play at best, what with merfolk being popular and GSZ making CB a less appealing choice. Even when MMS was legal, Aggro-Control-combo (NO RuG) was STILL better than your traditional control deck.

Blue Aggro-Control (or many other non-blue aggro control) decks are simply a superior. They stall you long enough and then crush you before you before you get a chance to recover. With the cards these aggro-control players have, they simply have a 50/50 matchup at worst matchup against goblins.

[edgarps22]

Actually goblins can handle just about everything you mentioned. Batterskull coming down on turn 3, A that is late and they can just matron for a Tin Street Hooligan or Tuktuk Scrapper around that same turn. Big fatties coming down too fast, Stingscourger plus Gempalm really helps here. That deck can honestly hand those situations very well and consistently. Also Tiago and company still have a hard time chumping Piledrivers last I checked. So no its not a dead deck, its not even a bad choice, it just needs to address its combo matchups, and even then they can sometimes race.

[Aggro_zombies]

This thread has my 4 favorite things on MTGtS

1) People assuming there is some kind of Mtg bill of rights that assures equal protection under the law for all colors.

2) People assigning 'hardness' ratings to certain known decks in a complete vacuum.

3) Name dropping quasi professional Magic players.

4) Random mid game scenarios that make a billion assumptions and seek to dismiss an entire archtype.

All it needs is a haiku about 'Tha Gatherin' to be complete.
Chapin is a tool
Who "innovated" Jace TMS,
I still had all dese.

[GGoober]

A goblin player playing right into Ghastly Demise blocked by SM into Ghastly Demise deserves to lose. These SM lists don't have the long game plan against Goblin. In fact, Zoo is a much worse matchup than these new SM lists because a resolved Lavamancer is in everyway more mana-efficient and deadly for Goblins than recurring Ghastly Demises.

Also, against the FotM lists with SM, all you need to do is stall out the long game, and they will have a hard time beating a swarm of 1/1 without Goblins ever needing to go all out for the alpha strike.

Batterskull is a headache for Goblins, but much less than an active Jitte. I think people in the SCG circuits are all convinced Goblins is a terrible deck which is not true. After MM becomes banned, Goblins is a force to be reckoned with and only really suffers against combo/Engineered Plague and Jitte, it has a fair game if not favorable matchup agaisnt almost anything else. Lackey is just that good O_O

[Zilla]

A goblin player playing right into Ghastly Demise blocked by SM into Ghastly Demise deserves to lose.
Wait, what? How do you play "right into" Demise > Snapcaster > Demise? What does the Goblins player do? Never attack, just in case his opponent has removal and Snapcaster? Protect every attack phase with Thoughtseize? Wait to attack until he has Gempalm and open mana to use it?

I'm not trolling - I'm genuinely curious what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that if a Goblins player is facing a blue-based aggro control deck he should wait to attack an opponent until he can alpha strike?

[dontbiteitholmes]

A goblin player playing right into Ghastly Demise blocked by SM into Ghastly Demise deserves to lose. These SM lists don't have the long game plan against Goblin. In fact, Zoo is a much worse matchup than these new SM lists because a resolved Lavamancer is in everyway more mana-efficient and deadly for Goblins than recurring Ghastly Demises.

Also, against the FotM lists with SM, all you need to do is stall out the long game, and they will have a hard time beating a swarm of 1/1 without Goblins ever needing to go all out for the alpha strike.

Batterskull is a headache for Goblins, but much less than an active Jitte. I think people in the SCG circuits are all convinced Goblins is a terrible deck which is not true. After MM becomes banned, Goblins is a force to be reckoned with and only really suffers against combo/Engineered Plague and Jitte, it has a fair game if not favorable matchup agaisnt almost anything else. Lackey is just that good O_O

Yeah, while I don't think Goblins is a tier 1 deck like it once was I agree that it has a lot more game than people give it credit for. Granted Batterskull is bad times but there are answers for it available to Goblins such as Gempalm Incinerator, Tin Street, Stingscourger, or any amount of sideboard artifact hate (Ancient Grudge seems really good vs. SFM since they are relying on equipment to get them through the later game).

It's easy to forget how strong Goblins is since lately a lot of people have written the deck off so it's not a matchup people tend to play against very often. Not to mention most of the people who still play it are bad players or just don't have the option financially to update to whatever deck they would rather be playing. The fact that the matchup is almost completely ignored these days actually means Goblins is not a terrible metagame choice. Since most aggro decks now a days are Zoo it seems most blue decks are more invested in cheap efficient spot removal over board sweepers that come down later or targeted hate like Plague. Since a Zoo deck can easily swing a couple times with cheap guys then finish the job with burn sweepers like Firespout and since cards like Firespout have limited usefulness vs. the more common aggro-control decks, hate for Goblins is probably at an all time low. At the same time Goblins has plenty of options to tune the deck to the modern metagame. Green and Black splashes are both viable and give you access to more efficient removal and discard that can shore up shaky matchups. The combo matchup is unfortunate though, you probably aren't going to be too hot against that without the black splash for discard in the SB.

[Koby]

Wait, what? How do you play "right into" Demise > Snapcaster > Demise? What does the Goblins player do? Never attack, just in case his opponent has removal and Snapcaster? Protect every attack phase with Thoughtseize? Wait to attack until he has Gempalm and open mana to use it?

I'm not trolling - I'm genuinely curious what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that if a Goblins player is facing a blue-based aggro control deck he should wait to attack an opponent until he can alpha strike?

Or perhaps use Port aggressively to cut off the non-blue splash colors to prevent any known tricks. I think this goes for any deck that has the capacity to get blown out by SCM->Removal. I don't think everyone has adjusted to this line of play even if its obvious that such a play could exist.

[ScatmanX]

I still don't get why people think Demise>SnapC>Demise is that awesome against goblins.

1st - TA has 0 Basics, and a crap manabase. It's quite hard for them to get to 4 manas against 4 Wastes + 1-4 Ports. Not counting Blood Moons from the side.
2nd - Goblins CA is way better than that trade. Even if Snapcaster gets to kill a Matron, a Ringleader and a Warchief, for instance, that Matron and Ringleader provided 2+ other goblins cards, that will probably generate even more CA.

That said, the MU is not a cakewalk, but my testings are showing that the Instigator build is very favorable, pre and post board.

[GGoober]

Wait, what? How do you play "right into" Demise > Snapcaster > Demise? What does the Goblins player do? Never attack, just in case his opponent has removal and Snapcaster? Protect every attack phase with Thoughtseize? Wait to attack until he has Gempalm and open mana to use it?

I'm not trolling - I'm genuinely curious what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that if a Goblins player is facing a blue-based aggro control deck he should wait to attack an opponent until he can alpha strike?

Sorry if I didn't clarify. You do wait, but not forever. You just don't go in with a force of Lackey Piledriver and walk into Demise/SM/Demise on turn 4. You wait a turn, play something else and if they continue to stall or Demise/SM/Demise end of your turn (you can't prevent this) you at least keep a creature instead of losing a third creature. If they decide to tap out on turn 4 for Jace or something, then you swing in etc. There are many things you can do to avoid this situation: play some spells and they have to decide if they want to double Demise your dude or counter the creature you played, or pass the turn to Port EOT then port again on your turn to swing (double Port). It's all quite situational, but walking right into a 3-2 is quite terrible. The funny thing is Demise/SM/Demise is at best a 3-2, but people keep forgetting that things like Jitte/EPlague are the true X-1 nightmares for Goblins. And it's really just that SCG circuits have undermined goblins too much, and they still in general prefer to play flavor/blue/good decks etc.

TLDR: you don't go sending your troops to a suicide mission leaving yourself with an incredibly bad board position, but you also don't wait like a retard and let them build up. Obviously running into turn 4 and losing 3 creatures to Demise/SM/Demise and giving yourself no board position is a terrible idea, but people still do it.

[dsck]

Does the BUG player even have mana to do Demise-Snap-Demise? Goblins have Rishadan Ports and Wastelands last I checked.

[Humphrey]

Goblins seems to be the best deck outthere according to this thread, must be a gentlemens agreement not to play it

[DragoFireheart]

Goblins seems to be the best deck outthere according to this thread, must be a gentlemens agreement not to play it

- Sarcasm or ignorance. I'm going with the former. For everyone claiming that Goblins is amazing, why are there hardly any players playing it? I find it hard to believe that a good deck for this meta wouldn't be played.

[Aggro_zombies]

- Sarcasm or ignorance. I'm going with the former. For everyone claiming that Goblins is amazing, why are there hardly any players playing it? I find it hard to believe that a good deck for this meta wouldn't be played.
That's easy to believe, actually. Just look at the history of Merfolk: that deck took much longer to take off than it should have because it was labelled as not being a "real deck," and therefore was only played by a few hardcore fans until it got enough good results to get widely accepted. Goblins was probably actually fine during the MMS era because, even though your one-drops were vulnerable, the format had slowed to the point that you didn't need them to compete against every deck. But everyone and their mothers said that Goblins was horrible because it rolled over and died without a Lackey/Vial, etc.

It's no surprise to me that people keep playing Team America as their blue midrange deck of choice when there are potentially better options out there. "The Pros" like Todd Anderson and Gerry T all play Team America, therefore it Must Be Good. Who would still play junky old Goblins when they could play a deck that Must Be Good?

Metagames are built in part by the psychology of their participants. A given metagame may never reach an objectively "correctly solved" state if no one thinks the solution is good.

[DragoFireheart]

That's easy to believe, actually. Just look at the history of Merfolk: that deck took much longer to take off than it should have because it was labelled as not being a "real deck," and therefore was only played by a few hardcore fans until it got enough good results to get widely accepted. Goblins was probably actually fine during the MMS era because, even though your one-drops were vulnerable, the format had slowed to the point that you didn't need them to compete against every deck. But everyone and their mothers said that Goblins was horrible because it rolled over and died without a Lackey/Vial, etc.

It's no surprise to me that people keep playing Team America as their blue midrange deck of choice when there are potentially better options out there. "The Pros" like Todd Anderson and Gerry T all play Team America, therefore it Must Be Good. Who would still play junky old Goblins when they could play a deck that Must Be Good?

Metagames are built in part by the psychology of their participants. A given metagame may never reach an objectively "correctly solved" state if no one thinks the solution is good.

- Are you saying there can't be an objectively good deck for a meta because no one thinks it can be good?

[dontbiteitholmes]

UW Mystic/Snapper is so overrated right now, in contrast there are about 20 underrated decks that people should probably give a look to before they just jump on the bandwagon and play what was hot last week or sleeve up another terrible CounterTop build like that is actually relevant right now.

[DragoFireheart]

UW Mystic/Snapper is so overrated right now, in contrast there are about 20 underrated decks that people should probably give a look to before they just jump on the bandwagon and play what was hot last week or sleeve up another terrible CounterTop build like that is actually relevant right now.

- Wait... are you saying a terrible CounterTop deck can at the same time be relevant? Am I reading your post wrong?

Also, why the hate man? I love CounterTop. :(

[Aggro_zombies]

- Are you saying there can't be an objectively good deck for a meta because no one thinks it can be good?
I'm not saying that; there can be an objectively good deck for a meta. However, if no one wants to play that deck, does it matter? The metagame will be solved some other way.

[DragoFireheart]

I'm not saying that; there can be an objectively good deck for a meta. However, if no one wants to play that deck, does it matter? The metagame will be solved some other way.

- Ah... alright, you make a very good point, one which I agree with very much. I still don't think Goblins is a good choice regardless but not because everyone was saying so, though it's likely I was just noise in the background.

Alright, so does that mean that the data at SCG doesn't necessarily show us which deck is objectively the best? If that data can't show us that, what's the best way to find out which decks are good for the current meta and which ones aren't?

[majikal]

Alright, so does that mean that the data at SCG doesn't necessarily show us which deck is objectively the best? If that data can't show us that, what's the best way to find out which decks are good for the current meta and which ones aren't?
I find that slaughtering a chicken and divining its entrails does the trick.

[Aggro_zombies]

- Ah... alright, you make a very good point, one which I agree with very much. I still don't think Goblins is a good choice regardless but not because everyone was saying so, though it's likely I was just noise in the background.

Alright, so does that mean that the data at SCG doesn't necessarily show us which deck is objectively the best? If that data can't show us that, what's the best way to find out which decks are good for the current meta and which ones aren't?
In a healthy metagame, there shouldn't be one deck that is obviously the best. Furthermore, SCG tournaments are really two different data sets: the top 16, against which people metagame at the next tournament, and 17th and below, against which people play at the next tournament. The apparently best deck against the top 16 may not be the best deck in round one at the next Open.

That's why it's almost always better in Legacy to know how your deck fares against Tier One decks and then test it out against any Tier Two decks that are sufficiently different.

[Koby]

In a healthy metagame, there shouldn't be one deck that is obviously the best. Furthermore, SCG tournaments are really two different data sets: the top 16, against which people metagame at the next tournament, and 17th and below, against which people play at the next tournament. The apparently best deck against the top 16 may not be the best deck in round one at the next Open.

That's why it's almost always better in Legacy to know how your deck fares against Tier One decks and then test it out against any Tier Two decks that are sufficiently different.

I'd say it's round 1-4, after about that point is when you start to face the top decks, granted that you make it unscathed upto that point. Therein lies the biggest challenge of the SCG tournament - building/bringing a deck capable of beating random Burn/Infect/whatevers while still having a good matchup against all the Blue/X decks in the later rounds. I think for the most part it's luck, then skill.

[whienot]

I find that slaughtering a chicken and divining its entrails does the trick.

...Is that how you came to play Gut Shot you s.o.b.? But seriously.

[GGoober]

"The Pros" like Todd Anderson and Gerry T all play Team America, therefore it Must Be Good. Who would still play junky old Goblins when they could play a deck that Must Be Good?




Gerry T is quite the pro IMO, Todd maybe not.

[majikal]

...Is that how you came to play Gut Shot you s.o.b.? But seriously.
Yes. In fact, I almost played it at the open, but the entrails told me there was too much Merfolk and not enough Blazing Infect (which I have henceforth dubbed "Herpes").

[SpikeyMikey]

I'd say it's round 1-4, after about that point is when you start to face the top decks, granted that you make it unscathed upto that point. Therein lies the biggest challenge of the SCG tournament - building/bringing a deck capable of beating random Burn/Infect/whatevers while still having a good matchup against all the Blue/X decks in the later rounds. I think for the most part it's luck, then skill.

My first SCG this year was Fish[W], Fish[W], Painter/Stone[W], Dark Thresh[W], High Tide[L], Dark Thresh[L], CB/Top with Firespout[L], CB Thopters[L]. My second was Affinity[W], CB Thopters[W], Belcher[L], Elves[W], Goblins[W], Rock[W], Goblins[L], Reanimator[L], Lands[L].

I'm not sure how you're implying that it somehow gets less random in the late rounds with a good record. It's Legacy, it's all random all the time. I managed to avoid ever being in contention for T8 going into the last round, but I was always in contention for money(T32) by the end of the tournament.