Poll: Which of these fallen decks, if you could, would you like to see return most?

[feline]

Poll: Which of these fallen decks, if you could, would like to see return most in 2014?

These decks were more popular at one time, some of them even capturing 1st places at large scale events, but have since fallen out of favor over the past year/past couple of years etc. Some are still around at some level, others have almost disappeared completely. If you could choose one to come back, which would you pick?

Zoo (Peaked in 2011)
Thopter Balance
Cephalid Breakfast
Stax
Survival (Banning)
Enchantress
High Tide
Hive Mind (Arose during Mental Misstep era)
Hypergenesis

(Note: I didn't include really old archetypes, like Suicide Black, Sligh, White Weenie, etc, as they are from a whole nother time/era of Legacy/type 1.5)

-edit- 2 hours in and the votes are trending as such: 33 votes in
9 Zoo
3 Thopter Balance
1 Cephalid Breakfast
3 Stax
12 Survival
1 Enchantress
4 High Tide
0 Hive Mind
0 Hypergenesis

-edit- 16 hours in and the votes are trending as such: 86 votes in
27 Zoo
6 Thopter Balance
1 Cephalid Breakfast
9 Stax
27 Survival
7 Enchantress
9 High Tide
0 Hive Mind
0 Hypergenesis

-edit- about 3 days in and the votes are trending as such: 181 votes in
57 Zoo
12 Thopter Balance
5 Cephalid Breakfast
20 Stax
56 Survival
13 Enchantress
16 High Tide
2 Hive Mind
0 Hypergenesis

-edit- 5 days in and the votes are trending as such: 206 votes in
68 Zoo
12 Thopter Balance
5 Cephalid Breakfast
21 Stax
65 Survival
14 Enchantress
19 High Tide
2 Hive Mind
0 Hypergenesis

[TsumiBand]

Needs more Angel Stompy

[DDS5]

I would like to see zoo make a big come back

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk

[Dice_Box]

Zoo or Stax, that's a tough call.

Also is Hyper not a total glass cannon that sees about as much play as Beltcher?

[danyul]

http://i.imgur.com/4UjtmTt.jpg

[Will_L]

Breakfast

Targetting Cephalid Illusionists with Shukos or Nomads en-Kor to dump your library used to be awesome

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Terrageddon

http://www.cardkitty.com/cards/terravore.png http://www.cardkitty.com/cards/armageddon.png


That, or at least Lhurgoclysm

EDIT: Also Willowgedon. And Gargoylhaups, too. Plus Centaurgeddon.
EDIT2: And Tings, yes, Tings!

[Feaor]

Zoo 1000%, I just want one format where I can turn Wild Nacatl sideways and not be embarrassed.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I think that the poll misses Gro and variants, especially the powerful UGw Thresh. Yeah, the one that sported Armageddon and Mystic Enforcer... :cool:
It was very pretty and strong deck, but it is overshadowed by UGr since cca 2007/8 when the whole Armagedon thing lost most of it's power, mainly due to the fact that Counterbalance and Jace are more powerful and don't require self-sacrifice; while the many iterations of Stifle.dec with their minigeddons were enough for the speedy format Legacy turned to.

[sco0ter]

Full English Breakfast
Angry Tradewind Survival
Welder Survival
Eternal Garden

oh, the Survival... :)

[Erdvermampfa]

Ban Brainstorm.

[The Treefolk Master]

Its the Fear AKA The King of Durdle would be nice.

[lordofthepit]

Zoo, final answer

[Koby]

Its the Fear AKA The King of Durdle would be nice.

Seconded. You haven't lived on the edge until you're decked someone with Etched Oracle recursion.

[(nameless one)]

MUD Stax would be nice.

It's so much fun watching your opponent trying to wiggle out of a position where he/she can't cast spells.

[thecrav]

For the format, I'd prefer Zoo make a come back.

For my personal playing, I want to play thopterbalance again... hrm, maybe I'll put it together again this week just for lulz...

[EpicLevelCommoner]

MUD Stax would be nice.

It's so much fun watching your opponent trying to wiggle out of a position where he/she can't cast spells.

Not to mention the deliciously evil (if not janky) fun of Spine of Ish Sah and Smokestack at 1.

[Megadeus]

Survival. Such a fun card

[Admiral_Arzar]

Going to have to go with Zoo and High Tide. Zoo was my deck of choice when I wanted to take a break from combo, and I've always loved engine-style combination decks. I never played Survival so I don't really have an opinion there.

[Megadeus]

I never played it in Legacy (before I started this format), but in EDH and Cube it is super fun. Plus I love graveyard based engines.

[miguelmatix]

Survival of the fittest as another legacy pillar and stax (moat stompy and prision variants).

[ceustice]

I would love to see Zoo reincarnated it would be healthy for the format I think, at a close second though I would love for thopter combo to find a home.
Secretly though my favorite of the 3 is Survival though

[Vastros]

for a history lesson, why did these decks fall out of favor?

[Arsenal]

for a history lesson, why did these decks fall out of favor?

For Zoo, I'd say the printing of Delver of Secrets, but I'm fairly certain Zoo was entrenched in bottom tier 2 status even before then.

[Koby]

for a history lesson, why did these decks fall out of favor?

Zoo
Thopter Balance
Cephalid Breakfast
Stax
Survival (banning)
Enchantress
High Tide
Hive Mind
Hypergenesis

From these choice,

Zoo has declined because 3/2 flying for :u: is more efficient and flat out better.
Thopters has declined because Entreat the Angels is a more compact control-combo card than Thopters. These decks also now typically play RIP which hurts the Thopters combo.
Cephalid Breakfast has declined because it's difficult to pilot and has many moving parts (inefficient deck design compared to other Hermit-style decks).
STAX is relatively playable, but still prone to it's opening hands being good.
Survival is banned. RIP
Enchantress is playable and quite good in this metagame. Unsure why it's listed.
High Tide is a slow combo deck, and prone to the increase of Tempo decks packing REB.
Hive Mind is an outdated Show & Tell deck. Omniscience is just better.
Hypergenesis is underplayed, but reasonably strong choice. Also suffers from the Opening-hand Syndrome similar to Stax.

[TsumiBand]

I STILL CAN'T VOTE.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=39718&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=39718&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=39718&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=39718&type=card

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=247525&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=247525&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=247525&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=247525&type=card

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=205316&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=205316&type=card

Curse these modern voting machines! I'm bein' repressed!

[kusumoto]

White Stax was pretty fun.

[Megadeus]

A couple of these, as Koby mentioned, are still reasonably powerful. And well positioned. Just less popular.

[btm10]

I think the recent shifts in the metagame that have led to a decline in the relative quantity of combo have, as Koby said, made Enchantress stronger than most people consider it to be. It's probably underplayed because it includes a lot of cards that aren't cheap and are only used in Enchantress, so people aren't likely to commit to building it if they're currently playing RUG or Jund or Miracles and need to buy 50/75 cards. If fair decks continue to be popular and someone finishes well in a big event, I imagine Enchantress will gain popularity.

All of that being said, I'd like to see Survival unbanned even though I voted for Enchantress.

[Griselpuff]

Hive Mind is actually decently positioned right now given the lack of Stifle and the relative lack of Merfolk. It's much faster than Omniscience and has easier paths of attaining victory.

[Koby]

Hive Mind is actually decently positioned right now given the lack of Stifle and the relative lack of Merfolk. It's much faster than Omniscience and has easier paths of attaining victory.

I disagree. Flusterstorm, Daze, and Spell Pierce (practically 10 of the 15-16 counters that UWR Delver players) are seeing more play than in previous metagames, and all act as counters against this deck. Hive Mind may steal some games from unsuspecting opponents not playing blue, but won't necessarily be able to beat most competent pilots.

[Griselpuff]

It can play 4 Defense Grids and Thoughtseizes, or extra pacts after they Flusterstorm. Also have the alternative win con of Grizzlebees, Emrakul or Consecrated Sphinx (LOL). Well used soft counters are certainly problems, but not unbeatable.

[Technics]

It can play 4 Defense Grids and Thoughtseizes, or extra pacts after they Flusterstorm. Also have the alternative win con of Grizzlebees, Emrakul or Consecrated Sphinx (LOL). Well used soft counters are certainly problems, but not unbeatable.

The issue is countering your own pact trigger, and not paying the extra 1 mana... Soft-counters are not unbeatable, but are extremely difficult to beat. The question then becomes if you have to play extra cards to beat soft counters, what advantage does Hive Mind have over Omni-Halls? I don't know of any.

[Esper3k]

Survival has always been one of my favorite MTG cards, so that deck will always have a soft spot in my heart.

I'd pick Zoo for a #2 though.

[Plague Sliver]

Zoo, baby. The days of beating the crap out of 'folk and Goblins were the best Magical days of my life.

Too bad Nacatl grew wings :frown:

[from Cairo]

Of those listed I enjoy playing Enchantress and Survival the most. I agree with recent posts that Enchantress isn't really dead, but more underplayed/represented. For the format as a whole, I would be most interested in seeing some cards that boosted Naya Zoo. It's messed up that Blue-based Tempo is the best agro deck.

[Megadeus]

I honestly was having a blast playing Big Zoo, right up until Blue abyss, AKA True Name Nemesis was printed. And I was doing well. Top 8'ing locals and even Top 4'd a GPT with it. I just don't see how the deck beats a TNN unfortunately

[Finn]

Cool topic. I really would like some sort of nonblue aggro deck to be viable. This, in a sense, is just me bitching about dumb blue cards though. We need a gentleman's agreement not to play Delver, I think.

[Megadeus]

No, please. Play Delver. I LOVE playing vs Tempo decks. Not to sound like I am tooting my own horn, but I feel like it is really hard to lose to tempo. I generally have a pretty decent winning % vs them. Especially considering 80% of the players are absolutely terrible with Delver tempo decks.

[Grand Superior]

Zoo 100%. The format needs a dedicated aggro deck and since Zoo's decline there hasn't really been one.

[Griselpuff]

If by "dedicated aggro" you mean creatures and burn with no disruption, then yes we don't have one because it wouldn't be able to compete with combo. Jund has creatures and burn, Merfolk doesn't have burn but is still aggro. Affinity is also a thing.

Out of these choices, Survival is definitely the most interesting deck, but it's certainly the most degenerate card and I think should stay banned as future creatures will inevitably make it more and more bonkers. I think out of these decks, having a strong prison strategy like Stax would be really interesting for the format. But it's unlikely Wizards print a card that pushes Stax to tier 1 as they dislike prison strategies and prefer aggro/midrange decks for everybody. (Boo)

[Richard Cheese]

for a history lesson, why did these decks fall out of favor?

Zoo took a hit when Batterskull came out, then an even bigger hit when Snapcaster gave every control deck 8 StPs, and finally Delver just outclassed every other 1-drop beater. Big Zoo has actually still been pretty good, especially when everyone started packing hate for Maverick, but like Megadeus said, it has real problems getting around TNN.

[Megadeus]

If by "dedicated aggro" you mean creatures and burn with no disruption, then yes we don't have one because it wouldn't be able to compete with combo. Jund has creatures and burn, Merfolk doesn't have burn but is still aggro. Affinity is also a thing.

Out of these choices, Survival is definitely the most interesting deck, but it's certainly the most degenerate card and I think should stay banned as future creatures will inevitably make it more and more bonkers. I think out of these decks, having a strong prison strategy like Stax would be really interesting for the format. But it's unlikely Wizards print a card that pushes Stax to tier 1 as they dislike prison strategies and prefer aggro/midrange decks for everybody. (Boo)

I mean, it took until Vengevine to make the deck "bonkers". What do they possibly see printing that could make it better? Obviously it COULD get better. IDK. In a format with DRS, Scooze, and RIP, I think it would be pretty fair compared to a lot of things.

[GoblinZ]

Since I played zoo a lot years ago, I have voted for zoo. I wish survival could be unbanned someday, it was a broken card but not a stupid one like drs, decay, griselbrand or TNN...

I would add sea stompy on that list...I really like the art of sea drake and the violence of that deck.

[Barook]

As much as Survival would be fun in toolbox kind of decks, those days are gone since people would just search for the next degenerate combo aside from Vengevine.


Zoo took a hit when Batterskull came out, then an even bigger hit when Snapcaster gave every control deck 8 StPs, and finally Delver just outclassed every other 1-drop beater. Big Zoo has actually still been pretty good, especially when everyone started packing hate for Maverick, but like Megadeus said, it has real problems getting around TNN.
Couldn't Zoo just run more Pridemages?

Pure aggro like Zoo have several problems:
1) It can't race fast combo and has no disruption to stop it.
2) Terminus - racing before sweepers is impossible when your opponent can just slam down a Super-WoG for :w: as early as T2.
3) And now TNN.

In the end, alot of Zoo's demise can be contributed to all the stupid shit since Innistrad that has been printed in blue or been enabled by blue (e.g. Miracles).

[Megadeus]

Since I played zoo a lot years ago, I have voted for zoo. I wish survival could be unbanned someday, it was a broken card but not a stupid one like drs, decay, griselbrand or TNN...

I would add sea stompy on that list...I really like the art of sea drake and the violence of that deck.

Ah yes. Between DRS, Scooze, RIP, Spell Snare, and Abrupt Decay, it seems that there are a LOT of main deckable answers to survival

[Megadeus]

As much as Survival would be fun in toolbox kind of decks, those days are gone since people would just search for the next degenerate combo aside from Vengevine.


Couldn't Zoo just run more Pridemages?

Pure aggro like Zoo have several problems:
1) It can't race fast combo and has no disruption to stop it.
2) Terminus - racing before sweepers is impossible when your opponent can just slam down a Super-WoG for :w: as early as T2.
3) And now TNN.

In the end, alot of Zoo's demise can be contributed to all the stupid shit since Innistrad that has been printed in blue or been enabled by blue (e.g. Miracles).

I played 3 Pridemage in my Big Zoo list. They were AWESOME. Probably the second best card in the deck behind Sylvan Library. TNN was really the nail in the coffin though. Thought about playing a few Ghor Cla Rampagers. Seemed terrible though since a lot of those TNN decks play Daze. My apologiez for the double post.

[(nameless one)]

Someone make a Stax deck that runs Suppression Field.

Suppression field is awesome against Legacy's all stars not named Tarmogoyf and Delver of Secret. But with that knowledge, having a resolved Chalice of the Void usually can lock decks that run both creatures in tandem.

Also how great is Null Rod right now? Shuts down 0-manarocks, Vial, SDTop and equipment.

[civet five]

I voted for Survival, because Survival's brokenness existed in a completely different time and place, and cards like Scavenging Ooze, Abrupt Decay and Rest in Peace weren't cards yet.

I'm sure there's something even more bonkers than Vengevine, but I'm not entirely sure that the Vengevine deck would be so broken next to the Show and Tell decks of today. Nic Fit, Zombardment, Meathooks, Maverick and a host of other fair deck would want it. Its no more format-warping than other cards like Show and Tell and Griselbrand, but more along the lines of Dark Confidant, Stoneforge Mystic, and True-Name Nemesis - everyone will want to cram it in their deck, and it will spawn a bunch of "best use" strategies and have decks built around it, but its not unstoppable by any means because Tempo and Combo can still ruin it.

[lordofthepit]

I honestly was having a blast playing Big Zoo, right up until Blue abyss, AKA True Name Nemesis was printed.

This.

If it weren't for TNN, I would recommend Big Zoo with confidence to anyone who is comfortable playing a midrange strategy.

[ESG]

As someone who can call himself an Enchantress player, I can say that the deck is actually NOT well-positioned. All the narrow answers that hit True-Name Nemesis also kill Argothian Enchantress, and Golgari Charm is doubly powerful because it can hit enchantments. People didn't used to play so many Edict effects and sweepers, and now those are just part of the disruption suite by necessity. The other reason Enchantress is poorly positioned is because more people are playing combo decks because of TNN, and Enchantress folds to most combo decks. Significant splash damage plus more combo decks = awful environment to run Enchantress.

Zoo's demise was not because of Delver. Zoo's removal spells usually slaughter any Delver deck, particularly if Zoo has Punishing Fire. Terminus was the first large problem. Then insane and varied Show and Tell targets repressed the deck more. Then True-Name Nemesis came along, and that was the biggest blow.

Survival of the Fittest is my favorite card in Magic, but I voted for Zoo in the poll. If Survival came back now, all the cool stuff you could do with it would be overshadowed by all the dumber, more powerful ways to abuse it. The card is not as powerful now as when it was banned, but I don't feel the format is hurting without it.



Someone make a Stax deck that runs Suppression Field.

Suppression field is awesome against Legacy's all stars not named Tarmogoyf and Delver of Secret. But with that knowledge, having a resolved Chalice of the Void usually can lock decks that run both creatures in tandem.

Also how great is Null Rod right now? Shuts down 0-manarocks, Vial, SDTop and equipment.

Nedleeds can post a link to his Windborn Muse Stompy report from maybe a year ago. Was that a GRV record?

[Wilkin]

I mean, it took until Vengevine to make the deck "bonkers". What do they possibly see printing that could make it better? Obviously it COULD get better. IDK. In a format with DRS, Scooze, and RIP, I think it would be pretty fair compared to a lot of things.

My issue with Survival is not only is it degenerate but it's a repeatable tutor...one that can get answers for hate (ok, not Pithing Needle but most hate).

You have RIP out? I'll just tutor for Pridemage.
You have Deathrite out? I'll tutor for some 187 creature. LOL, first one that comes to mind is Murderous Redcap but I'm sure there's a better option.


Ok, sure Show and Tell into Griselbrand is super annoying if you plop down Humility, he'll have to find an echoing truth with Ponder etc. An active Survival can tutor for a lot of the hate out there for it. Sure, there pure utility uses for Survival but people aren't going to be doing strictly cute things with it.

A one card engine is pretty hard to deal with. Yes, there are a lot more cards out there that hate on GY's but imo Survival is still too good.

As for the decks out there....I'd vote for High Tide. They don't care about True Name Nemesis. And none of the hate for True Name splashes over and hits High Tide.

[Purgatory]

Haven't played any of these decks, but if I were to pick an opponent out of them all, it'd probably be Zoo.

I always liked playing against Zoo, since it didn't try to do anything inherently unfair. Several of the decks are quite unfair combo decks, which are probably better matchups for what I usually play (Delver decks basically), but there are few things as exciting as trying to race a deck full of efficient beaters and burn spells, IMO.

[Mastikor]

Since I allready play Breakfast occasionally (with decent results I may add), I woted for Stax. It was my first "competitive" legacy deck and one of my favorite archetypes.

Best wishes to all of you, cya next year ;)

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Since I played zoo a lot years ago, I have voted for zoo. I wish survival could be unbanned someday, it was a broken card but not a stupid one like drs, decay, griselbrand or TNN...

I would add sea stompy on that list...I really like the art of sea drake and the violence of that deck.

The day Emrakul happened, I sold my Sea Stompy and never looked back.

One may have a 4/3 flyer for :2::u: and two cards (honestly, you simply can't play Drake without preemptive Chalice=1).
Or one may have a 15/15 omnomnom6 flyer for :2::u: and two cards.
Guess who wins the duel. Also, Delver is a thing, unfortunately...



I honestly was having a blast playing Big Zoo, right up until Blue abyss, AKA True Name Nemesis was printed. And I was doing well. Top 8'ing locals and even Top 4'd a GPT with it. I just don't see how the deck beats a TNN unfortunately

Is Skullcrack na option? I mean, aren't there some cards that may be switched for it? But I'm no expert on Zoo, so...
Also, I'm surprised that Qasali Pridemage isn'T enough? It kills equipments and helps your dudes survive the 3/1 block.
I gues that you may try Tariff. Even if you lose a KotR to it, it's still better result than just stare helplessly.



On the SotF case: The more I think about it, the more I liked it in the mix. so, ppl would make broekn things with it? Like more broken that turn2 7/7 Lifelink Bargain? I guess not really...
I'm even cosidering that I'll purchase a set of Survivals. I believe they might get unbanned.

[Sloshthedark]

wow so much love for Zoo, I miss that stupid bye deck, true... btw. it's not unplayble, I remember few 4-0 guys with Zoo last 3 months in my LGS

[clavio]

What is the point of this thread

[Barook]

We obviously have to give TNN the finger and run more Islandwalkers. River Boa + Exalted + equipment - oh yeah! Throw in some Cold-Eyed Selkies in the mix for added hilarity. Too bad you will still lose to combo and die to TNN hate as well.

[Lemnear]

TBH I don't miss Zoo at all. A deck that is an autopilot but only a turn slower than real combo decks is a joke if you ask me.

My hate for this deck is only second to the one for it's loud mouthed pilots who claim that Legacy should develop around that deck and are the very first to call for bans if Zoo isn't the top tier. Annoying.

I love Survival as a card. Sadly the power creep in the creature section of MTG makes it impossible to return safe. I once thought that banning Vengevine would have fixed the Problem but tests without the Vines showed that a flurry of Knight of the Reliquaries paired with a toolbox is more than enough to dominate in Legacy, so SotF was doomed.

Aluren and HiveMind are just plain bad decks ... period.

Decks vanish for a reason guys

[Dice_Box]

What is the point of this thread

An opportunity to reminisce.

[CabalTherapy]

TBH I don't miss Zoo at all. A deck that is an autopilot but only a turn slower than real combo decks is a joke if you ask me.


It is Magic's oldest strategy. Bringing you opponents life to 0 as fast as possible with aggressive creatures and some burn spells is a valid way of doing that.

[Arsenal]

It is Magic's oldest strategy. Bringing you opponents life to 0 as fast as possible with aggressive creatures and some burn spells is a valid way of doing that.

To be fair, combo is actually Magic's oldest strategy. This was in the days of 4x Black Lotus, Channel, Fireball, etc.

[kiblast]

I'd like to see RUG Order viable again. Although I never played it, I loved watching it being played by good pilots. Elegant and powerful.
That, and Aluren.

[Einherjer]

It's the FEAR!!!

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I'd like to see RUG Order viable again. Although I never played it, I loved watching it being played by good pilots. Elegant and powerful.
That, and Aluren.

Thanks man, I needed this reminder! I'm keeping only RUG but it gets old to play it over and over again, so although I'm not the best pilot ever, I may try NO RUG. After all, I'll get a chance to play Prime Titan and Prog. Only thing saddening is the price of NOs...

[Fizzeler]

From the poll I would say Geddon Stax, mainly on the I enjoy casting Armageddon, the thing is the deck is just so draw dependent, even with Staff Of Nin and cards like Crystal Ball you are still topdecking relatively quickly

Personally I want Rafiq Bant to be a thing again, the deck got to NO Progenitus, and swing with a double striking 7/7

Also distinct lack of Food Chain is disturbing, Misthollow Griffin is a force to reckoned with!

[JamieW89]

I wouldn't mind trying some DD-ANT hybrid with MT legal or one of the pre-VV Survival decks. I don't really care about any of these decks being gone though.

[ajfennewald]

Zoo 1000%, I just want one format where I can turn Wild Nacatl sideways and not be embarrassed.

I think a threshes blue zoo deck is more competitive that NAYA zoo. Not really as good as other options probebly but decent at least. since you play brainstrom and ponder and such it does not play that much like naya zoo however

[Megadeus]

From the poll I would say Geddon Stax, mainly on the I enjoy casting Armageddon, the thing is the deck is just so draw dependent, even with Staff Of Nin and cards like Crystal Ball you are still topdecking relatively quickly

Personally I want Rafiq Bant to be a thing again, the deck got to NO Progenitus, and swing with a double striking 7/7

Also distinct lack of Food Chain is disturbing, Misthollow Griffin is a force to reckoned with!

I've actually been debating picking up some food chains and trying out a BUG chain deck of some sort

[Freggle]

Zoo is still very viable. A fast clock and passive hate (Teeg, Pridemage) goes a long way. 3 maindeck Teeg though. I really like that deck.

Batterskull isn't so much an issue because you bolt SFM. Combo is beatable with Leyline, Mindbreak & Teeg. This list I ran also used Steppe Lynx which made for some insane openers, and good long game (Paired with Knight.) True Name with the Jitte is an issue but you can certainly race a 3 mana guy before he really becomes an issue. I voted for Zoo.

It's no secret I love Enchantress, but there is nothing I hate more than loosing to my favorite deck. It can stay in the fringe as far as I care.

For what it is worth, Enchantress is still playable. Yes there are cards that allow people to interact more now more so than in the past, but going 1 for 1 with enchantress is a poor strategy. Golgari Charm can be a Wrath, but just don't overextend and use your Enchantress's like a Beck that may stay around a few extra turns. You'll get there. ...and honestly it's only like 1-2 out of the board, and you'll draw into more Enchantress effects to "recover."

[Bed Decks Palyer]

What concerns me more about Tress, is the fact that even two years ago there were nearly none maindeckable answers against the deck, lets say except for Wrath and EE. Now when Lili and Decay is all over the meta, it's quite easier to get rid of both Enchantress and Pressence...

Also, on another note: I find it pretty hillarious that the browser cuts the thread title right before the "decks", so every time I read the line starting with "Which of these fallen..." my mind fills it with "Which of these Fallen Empires cards should be banned in Legacy?" and I always giggle a bit. :smile:

[Freggle]

What concerns me more about Tress, is the fact that even two years ago there were nearly none maindeckable answers against the deck, lets say except for Wrath and EE. Now when Lili and Decay is all over the meta, it's quite easier to get rid of both Enchantress and Pressence...

Two years ago Enchantress didn't have Rest In Peace.

Liliana is not "all over the meta." She is in a few black-centric decks. Enchantress's checks to Lili are: Suppression Field, Oblivion Ring, Leyline of Sanctity, Solitary Confinement, and sometimes Pithing Needle. Now some of those are main and some of those are board (pending build.)

I would say Game 1 against a Black Lili deck as the enchantress player you are slightly under favored or even. It depends on if there is 1st turn discard and how many e. effects you start with in your opening hand. Remember Lili can not make you sac a creature every turn, and you can use enchantress like a beck, so you just chain them persay till you drop confinement.

Post board (pending their board) you are favored especially if you start the game with a sanctity which they have to find Pulse for. Other notes most black decks need the yard in some fashion. DRS, goyf... So RIP buys you a lot of time. It's also hard for bob to get through Elephant Grass. So they can't close you very well. It just takes a turn for Enchantress to pull away from them.


Abrupt Decay is more widely played but is a 1 for 1 and can not target enchantress, and is largely not an issue.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Might be true! After all, I'm not a specialist.
what I meant is the fact that there were zero-to-none maindeck answers in lots of Tier1 decks just few years ago. Otoh, just the RiP is so powerful, that the Decays and Lilianas may be outweighted by the card. Also, I need to admit that Lili can't sac twice in a turn (cosidering usual conditions), and her +1 does nearly nothing against Tress.dec.

[FTW]

Couldn't Zoo just run more Pridemages?


Exactly. But then 6-8 Pridemages are better than 3-4. and Zoo was always notoriously bad against combo, so why not play 5 Gaddock Teegs? Oh, hai Green Sun's Zenith. At that point, might as well play Scavenging Ooze and Dryad Arbor. Oh yeah, Emrakul decks got better too so better have KotR into Karakas just in case. But wait? Now there's no room for Mountains, so what's this Wild Nacatl doing here?

People blame Batterskull for Zoo's death, but IMO GSZ is part of it. NPH meant pure aggro was trumped by Stoneforge into Batterskull/Jitte (Mental Misstep also didn't help the popularity of 1-drop.dec). But GSZ came out at the same time, letting pure aggro morph into Maverick (also able to run Stoneforge into Jitte). Toolbox green creatures, equipment and lands IMO gave aggro much better consistency and resilience than topdecking redundant Lightning Bolts and Cats.

And then, yeah, Delver. RUG has 8 1-mana 3/x dorks WITH land destruction and counterspells, so why force Naya colors to play Wild Nacatl?

I guess people could still play Naya 1-drop Zoo. But with power creep, Wild Nacatl isn't good enough to be worth committing to 3 specific colors IMO... why not just play RUG, RUW or GW?

[Lemnear]

I guess people could still play Naya 1-drop Zoo. But with power creep, Wild Nacatl isn't good enough to be worth committing to 3 specific colors IMO... why not just play RUG, RUW or GW?

But why? Isn't it easier to just ban Brainstorm and a bunch of combo enabler so you just can keep on playing RWG 1cc deck? [sarcasm]

[barcode]

Guess I'm the lone voice for Hive Mind. :(

[monovfox]

I would love for zoo to have some ridiculously good thing that makes it viable again. I have all of the lands now, so I can actually play it too :D ~

[apple713]

I voted for stax because it would be awesome id the deck could improve its consistency to become tier 1.

Zoo would be the close second because creature


Illl finish the post later when im not drunk

[Erdvermampfa]

To answer the thread question: I really couldn't care less because all of those options are simply relics from the past and will never be popular or successful again. Certain printings (Stoneforge, Delver, Snap, Jace, Deathrite, Abrupt Decay, Griselbrand, Omnisciene, and now TNN) have restricted the number of viable decks and design space in general so much that the format will look more or less like the same for the next time until we see an even more overpowered card that makes said cards obsolete.

[frenchy-man]

I voted survival !

I dont understand why the card is still banned.
I'd like to compare it to show and tell :

1/ Both cards are active on turn 3 (turn two if mana acceleration). And it is possible to kill on this very turn with some versions of show decks (impossible with survival decks).
2/Survival is green wereas show is blue and therefore protecting survival needs a splash (blue or black) to protect the combo, which weakens a mana base. Show can afford to play monoU...
3/ Survival is a permanent. Therefore it is easier to deal with it (pithing-like effects, counters, Oring like effects, disenchant). Show is a spell is much more resilient to hate.
4/ Survival strategies involve to put cards in the grave. See how powerful new grave hate are since it was banned (surgical, cage, rest in peace, ...) and available to every colours...
5/ Terminus > vengevines.

Therefore I believe show and tell to be stronger than survival (and is likely to become even stronger with future editions) but one is banned and the other one not. Why ?

[Dice_Box]

To answer the survival question again. One is a repeatable tutor, the other is not. Says it all really.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

To answer the survival question again. One is a repeatable tutor, the other is not. Says it all really.

On the other hand, SnT puts a "win now" permanent into play, which is "a bit powerful" - why repeatedly search for wincons, when you can just win?

[monovfox]

I think the problem with survival is the flexibility. I could be wrong. I would love for it to be unbanned (survival zoo! BEST OF BOTH WORLDS), if it would not break the format. I think it is a lovely card.

[frenchy-man]

I think the problem with survival is the flexibility. I could be wrong. I would love for it to be unbanned (survival zoo! BEST OF BOTH WORLDS), if it would not break the format. I think it is a lovely card.

Well I can't see why survival is less flexible than show and tell. If you mean that you can tutor multiple times, then read the post above show and tell just win when it resolves. And a permanent is more easy to answer so that it becomes harder to activate it several times.

[Lemnear]

I think the problem with survival is the flexibility. I could be wrong. I would love for it to be unbanned (survival zoo! BEST OF BOTH WORLDS), if it would not break the format. I think it is a lovely card.

You don't see the conflict of running a 2cc enchantment with an activation cost of G in a deck with 12-16 1-2cc creatures of a similar purpose, hu? You didn't notice that SotF was the card that pushed Zoo out of Legacy way before Mental Misstep was a problem

[monovfox]

Well I can't see why survival is less flexible than show and tell. If you mean that you can tutor multiple times, then read the post above show and tell just win when it resolves. And a permanent is more easy to answer so that it becomes harder to activate it several times.

Survival takes 2 mana. More importantly, it's grabbing ANY CREATURE YOU WOULD LIKE, or killing you with pitching rootwalla for vengevine, vengvine, pitch vengmine for memnite, lethal. The reason survival is so scary is that it does the following:

Tutors, repeatedly (for 1 mana).

Generates card advantage, for one mana.

Can combo out with 3-4 mana, and cannot be disrupted by force of will in the middle of the process of killing you.

Show and tell is a completely different animal, as it kills you off of the back of a resolved permanent that it had to filter, and filter, and filter, and filter for.

Show and tell does not tutor. Show and tell actually allows for interaction. Survival is "FOW or bust", atleast that's how I feel.




You don't see the conflict of running a 2cc enchantment with an activation cost of G in a deck with 12-16 1-2cc creatures of a similar purpose, hu? You didn't notice that SotF was the card that pushed Zoo out of Legacy way before Mental Misstep was a problem

I am not to familiar with the history of the format, as I have only been playing for a year. I was also being silly on that "survival zoo" comment. But! Now that you mentioned that it pushed zoo out, I don't think I'd ever want it. Thanks for the history lesson ^_^

[Megadeus]

Survival is FOW or bust? Or Spell Snare, or spell pierce, or pithing needle, or Phyrexian Revoker, or Abrupt Decay. Or RIP to slow it down. Or have a DRS to weaken its abilities. Or Scooze to weaken it as well. I mean, I could probably go on, but every one of the named cards are cards that are Mainboardable right now in some decks (Pithing Needle in 12 Post, Revoker in D&T).

[Sloshthedark]

To answer the survival question again. One is a repeatable tutor, the other is not. Says it all really.

An my opinion is this game should be about rational game decisions, not miracle bomb ubertopdecks and tutors support that, people are again and again grinded with blind vision how a proper game shoul look like, lets not not be to fast, powerful, consistent and fill their deck with new powercreeped, shamans, mystic and other shit making strategies and decks similar.... this card is fun like no other support x builds and strategies... Only reason I'd ever be tapping creatures again, till then I'm plaing combo, the more degenerate the better to display my despise and hatered to where the game and the thinking about the game is heading...

[frenchy-man]

Show and tell actually allows for interaction

I am sorry but I totally disagree here. The only interaction a spell offers is on the stack. A permanent allows much more interaction. That's all I want to highlight.
Show and tell is harder to deal with, especially main deck, contrary to survival that is affected by so many cards played even md.
Would you be afraid to play against a survival deck ? With current TT, miracle or esper (or even elves) I don't think so. Not to mention Omnitell/sneaskshow.

I want to remind you that survival was banned partly due to the fact that its power could only increase with future creatures in future editions. But this also applies to show and tell (look griselbrand !)

[Bed Decks Palyer]

An my opinion is this game should be about rational game decisions, not miracle bomb ubertopdecks and tutors support that, people are again and again grinded with blind vision how a proper game shoul look like, lets not not be to fast, powerful, consistent and fill their deck with new powercreeped, shamans, mystic and other shit making strategies and decks similar.... this card is fun like no other support x builds and strategies... Only reason I'd ever be tapping creatures again, till then I'm plaing combo, the more degenerate the better to display my despise and hatered to where the game and the thinking about the game is heading...

Ok, but knowing your love for combo and your confession above, would you play something like Angry Tradewind Survival or Survival Advantage, or would it be Vengevival instead? :wink:
Also, the people of our community are really saddened by your refusal to acknowledge the Type 1.996. We'd love to see you participate, I guess that a format with
Mind Bomb
Jalum Tome
Animate Dead
Dance of the Dead
Colossus of Sardia
Deep Spawn
Burnt Offering
Drain Life
might offer a LOT for someone like you. :tongue:


Also, we allow one of Necropotence. :cool:

[frenchy-man]

Ok, but knowing your love for combo and your confession above, would you play something like Angry Tradewind Survival or Survival Advantage, or would it be Vengevival? :wink:
Also, the people of our community are really saddened by your refusal to acknowledge the Type 1.996. We'd love to see you participate, I guess that a format with
Mind Bomb
Jalum Tome
Animate Dead
Dance of the Dead
Colossus of Sardia
Deep Spawn
Burnt Offering
Drain Life
might offer a LOT for someone like you. :tongue:


Also, we allow one of Necropotence. :cool:

Survival elves (a topic existed) was much more fun to play... and a fair deck !

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Survival elves (a topic existed) was much more fun to play... and a fair deck !

So was ATS or SA. Vengevival... not really.

[Sloshthedark]

Ok, but knowing your love for combo and your confession above, would you play something like Angry Tradewind Survival or Survival Advantage, or would it be Vengevival instead? :wink:


Doens't matter, I want to play with and against that card, I do not share the overpowered argument of "vengevinal", the deck deck was dog to Storm and Reanimator and is made ballanced for me just with releasing of Surgical extraction and Ooze, Shaman+RIP goes above and beyond...

I just think it's all too demonized by people who can't see beyond horizon of their own shoes and newcommers accept and follow the myth... I'd love to see more unbannings even in temporal, rotative manner as we discussed, just to bring life into the game... btw. you know I have soft spot for Tradewindrider, don't you?:wink:

[Bed Decks Palyer]

you know I have soft spot for Tradewindrider, don't you?:wink:

Yep, I know that... :laugh: You're even more serious about the card that I am of Mystic Enforcer.

[Dzra]

While I voted for Zoo because I think it could be healthy to have a good Zoo deck in the format, I think that getting Zoo viable again is a long-term project centered on giving aggressive decks compelling reasons not to just run the tempo shell. For the short term, I don't think unbanning Survival would cause many problems right now. Survival of the Fittest was banned before Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, Surgical Extraction, Terminus, Phyrexian Revoker, or Abrupt Decay were printed. While Scavenging Ooze is also a new anti-Survival card, it works best in a Survival shell. All the others are all very strong and highly played cards in their own right that just happen to be great against Survival (many of them are even MD staples). Survival would undoubtedly become at least a tier 1.5 or possibly even tier 1 deck, but there is little chance of it disrupting the meta too much.

[Lemnear]

While I voted for Zoo because I think it could be healthy to have a good Zoo deck in the format, I think that getting Zoo viable again is a long-term project centered on giving aggressive decks compelling reasons not to just run the tempo shell. For the short term, I don't think unbanning Survival would cause many problems right now. Survival of the Fittest was banned before Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, Surgical Extraction, Terminus, Phyrexian Revoker, or Abrupt Decay were printed. While Scavenging Ooze is also a new anti-Survival card, it works best in a Survival shell. All the others are all very strong and highly played cards in their own right that just happen to be great against Survival (many of them are even MD staples). Survival would undoubtedly become at least a tier 1.5 or possibly even tier 1 deck, but there is little chance of it disrupting the meta too much.

With Zoo already being a potential turn 4 deck I wonder what boost you expect to give to the deck without completely turning either midrange or combo into a joke, depending if you boost the deck towards speed or resiliancy

[Bed Decks Palyer]

With Zoo already being a potential turn 4 deck I wonder what boost you expect to give to the deck without completely turning either midrange or combo into a joke, depending if you boost the deck towards speed or resiliancy

Dzra's idea to boost it somehow was "getting Zoo viable again is a long-term project centered on giving aggressive decks compelling reasons not to just run the tempo shell". Clearly it's a question of good red(white) and (green)red hatebears and/or filter spells. As much as I dislike the idea of "from now on paste direct damage on every red spell" maybe something similar to Magma Jet (yet instead of it make a cantrip + 1dmg ping) could work. Or maybe some kind of creature tutor or a "better" Gamble; idk how to solve this one, because Gamble alone is pretty powerful, but it's not my trouble, lets WotC solve this if they wish to. But yeah, then it'll be just a Red Mav.
Imao this can't be solved, because other than QPM, I can't imagine a hatebear with quite high combat stats.

got it:

Green Dude :wg::rg:
Creature - Ape Bear Cat

If you control Mountain, blue
instants cost additional :1:.
If you control Plains, black
sorceries cost additional :1:.

3/4

[Megadeus]

Doens't matter, I want to play with and against that card, I do not share the overpowered argument of "vengevinal", the deck deck was dog to Storm and Reanimator and is made ballanced for me just with releasing of Surgical extraction and Ooze, Shaman+RIP goes above and beyond...

I just think it's all too demonized by people who can't see beyond horizon of their own shoes and newcommers accept and follow the myth... I'd love to see more unbannings even in temporal, rotative manner as we discussed, just to bring life into the game... btw. you know I have soft spot for Tradewindrider, don't you?:wink:

Ah yes Surgical. So Surgical, RIP, Scooze, DRS, Decay, Spell Snare, Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Revoker, plenty of answers now.

[Dzra]

got it:

Green Dude :wg::rg:
Creature - Ape Bear Cat

If you control Mountain, blue
instants cost additional :1:.
If you control Plains, black
sorceries cost additional :1:.

3/4

While that's kind of cool, you really don't need anything so fancy. Simply making a 3/x bear that cannot be played in a Blue deck is good enough. There's a few ways to do that: Thalia taxes, color requirements, taxes on drawing cards, disincentives for casting free or cheap spells, etc.


With Zoo already being a potential turn 4 deck I wonder what boost you expect to give to the deck without completely turning either midrange or combo into a joke, depending if you boost the deck towards speed or resiliency

Combo's biggest strength is the lack of interactivity an opponent gets. Yes, a lot of this is achieved by the speed of combo, but a good portion is also because combo isn't generally susceptible to creature removal. So while you can have two decks that are both turn 3/4 kills, the combo deck can only be interacted with on the stack whereas the Zoo deck is slightly more consistent at the expense of being hit by Plows, Bolts, and Abrupt Decays.


Ah yes Surgical. So Surgical, RIP, Scooze, DRS, Decay, Spell Snare, Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Revoker, plenty of answers now.

Like someone else said, Surgical alone might be enough to consider unbanning Survival and RIP certainly makes the case for powerful SB hate. I think the real icing on the cake though is all the MD hate being played right now: Deathrite, Revoker, Terminus, and Decay being the top several.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Combo's biggest strength is the lack of interactivity an opponent gets. Yes, a lot of this is achieved by the speed of combo, but a good portion is also because combo isn't generally susceptible to creature removal. So while you can have two decks that are both turn 3/4 kills, the combo deck can only be interacted with on the stack whereas the Zoo deck is slightly more consistent at the expense of being hit by Plows, Bolts, and Abrupt Decays.

Yes, this is true.
If someone decides to play a "combo" that is made of one-mana 3/3, two mana 4/5 and three one-mana "deals 3 to odme", he must expect that it'll be easier to disrupt than Drit+LED+It into win. There's nothing bad about the fact that Zoo is easily disrupted, as it has different plan. What I find a bit disgusting, though, is the fact that there's a one-mana Wrath that completely wrecks this plan, unless there's a Teeg in play. Sadly, Zoo and it's siblings will never be viable.

[Lemnear]

Combo's biggest strength is the lack of interactivity an opponent gets. Yes, a lot of this is achieved by the speed of combo, but a good portion is also because combo isn't generally susceptible to creature removal. So while you can have two decks that are both turn 3/4 kills, the combo deck can only be interacted with on the stack whereas the Zoo deck is slightly more consistent at the expense of being hit by Plows, Bolts, and Abrupt Decays.

Just to make it clear: the less your opponent is able to interact with your strategy the more likely you win.

Every deck in MTG wants to minimize the ability of its opponent to interact with it at any given chance and we can see this not only watching combo decks but in every deck playing stifle/wasteland to deny your opponents to play any spell, taxing effects, counters, discard or creatures with protection with TNN as the icing on the current legacy cake.

Just because the hive mind of legacy devotes 2 full playsets of cards in almost every deck towards creatures in legacy (see artifacts in vintage) doesn't necessarily mean that other angles of attack like enchantments, artifacts, graveyard strategies or spell based decks require hyperefficient hate printed, just because people want to continue running linear hate.

Understand me right: while blue has counters, black discard and white taxing effects, red and green need also options to interact with the stack, but after what has happend to vintage due to Lodestone golem, I'd step back from calling for hatebears with serious combat stats while being playable turn 1 or 2

Some of you seem to ignore that such global spell-hate tacked on a serious body would turn Legacy into an image of Vintage/Modern

[Dzra]

What I find a bit disgusting, though, is the fact that there's a one-mana Wrath that completely wrecks this plan, unless there's a Teeg in play. Sadly, Zoo and it's siblings will never be viable.

Counterbalance as a card doesn't make Storm unplayable. I don't think the problem is so much that other decks hose Zoo as it is that other decks have similar but almost strictly better gameplans than Zoo.

[Lemnear]

Counterbalance as a card doesn't make Storm unplayable. I don't think the problem is so much that other decks hose Zoo as it is that other decks have similar but almost strictly better gameplans than Zoo.

Zoo is a 3-colored burn.dec feat. creatures with an insane power-to-mana-ratio. Pretty much the same as RUG Delver is, with the difference that RUG runs much more of the same type of cards while RUG can achieve a similar redundancy with the blue cantrips while being able to run MD protection in form of counters instead of hatebears (which most Zoo pilots dismiss of their combat-stats regardless).

Zoo as a deck isn't necessarily dead, it's the idea of "pushing the first 2-3 turns unmostested with creatures and finishing with 1-2 burn spells" that is. The deck simply lacks gas past turn 4 as it's redundancy in cheap threats leave it dead once bigger threats of your opponent enter the battlefield. Hell, even Sylvan Library wasn't a 2/3-off staple the last time I checked zoo lists! How shall this deck ever compete against a batterskull or a terminus with such a narrow and short-sighted gameplan? Short answer: it does not. The only successful "Zoo" lists evolved towards the midgame and are easy to confuse with Maverick

[Dzra]

Yeah, basically. If I'm considering Zoo right now, my first step is to wonder why I wouldn't rather just run Maverick or especially RUG.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Understand me right: while blue has counters, black discard and white taxing effects, red and green need also options to interact with the stack, but after what has happend to vintage due to Lodestone golem, I'd step back from calling for hatebears with serious combat stats while being playable turn 1 or 2

Some of you seem to ignore that such global spell-hate tacked on a serious body would turn Legacy into an image of Vintage/Modern

Ok, good point!
So, any idea on red and/or green creature with "This permanent interacts with stack"?

[dontbiteitholmes]

Fae Stompy
Enchantress
Solidarity

[Lemnear]

Ok, good point!
So, any idea on red and/or green creature with "This permanent interacts with stack"?

Spiketail Hatchling X pyroblast abdomination?

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Spiketail Hatchling X pyroblast abdomination?
These might end in blue decks... :-)

[Barook]

These might end in blue decks... :-)
I was about to say the same. Anti-blue hate normally ends up best in blue decks, ironically. It would need to be symmetrical.

[apple713]

For Zoo to come back it's gonna need something really strong. something like a wild nactal on steroids or a whole army of uncountable / hex proof dudes.

Angry Mongoose - G (maybe GG for casting cost)
summon mongoose

Angry Mongoose cannot be countered
Angry Mongoose has hex proof if an opponent is able to produce more than 1 type of mana (excluding colorless)
Angry Mongoose gets +1/+1 for each mana type your opponent could produce
Angry Mongoose gains trample if opponent control 3 or more creatures
Angry Mongoose must be sacrificed if at any time you control an island
Angry Mongoose gains haste if an opponent controls 4 or more lands

1/1

[FTW]

I was about to say the same. Anti-blue hate normally ends up best in blue decks, ironically. It would need to be symmetrical.

Lavatail Hatchling - 1R
Creature - Hound
First Strike, Haste
You cannot cast blue noncreature spells.
Sacrifice ~: counter target blue noncreature spell
2/1


Hmm... red/green could also interact with the stack with a card like this, but maybe it would be too OP:

Perplexing Husher - R/G R/G
Creature - Human Wizard
Cannot be countered.
R/G: Target spell cannot be countered by spells or abilities
2/2

[Dzra]

Lavatail Hatchling - 1R
Creature - Hound
First Strike, Haste
You cannot cast blue noncreature spells.
Sacrifice ~: counter target blue noncreature spell
2/1

You don't even need any positive anti-Blue hate attached to the card. As long as the card prevents you from sticking it in a Blue deck...

Lavatail Hatchling - :r:
Creature - Hound
First Strike, Haste
Blue spells you cast cost an additional :2:.
2/1

Although, really we're getting off topic... someone should probably start a new thread for "Good non-Blue Creatures" and we can continue to discuss why Survival should be unbanned here. :)

[apple713]

Perplexing Husher - R/G R/G
Creature - Human Wizard
Cannot be countered.
R/G: Target spell cannot be countered by spells or abilities
2/2

i believe this creature is called vexing shusher

[Lemnear]

These might end in blue decks... :-)

Had something in my mind like

Lavaspike Hatchling - RR
Flying
Sacrifice ~: Counter target blue Spell or destroy target blue permanent
3/1

I'm more towards prohibitive costs for Ux decks than ugly rules Texts to prevent cards from being splashed. I'm ok with this card giving UR Delver a Boost. I just hate all those 3-4 color lists. For Green I think there could be done something that interacts with lands to work in the direction of white disruption. How about

Devouring Locust Swarm - GG
Flying
As ~ Enters the battlefield choose target land. That land doesn't untap during it's Controllers untap step.
1/1

[wwwwins]

I don't see how survival can survive with abrupt decay and death rite shaman running around in this format. And there many cards will just hit survival that people prepared in their sideboard anyway ( rest in peace, golgari charm..and many more). And that "search for anti hate against for survival hate" argument could be invalid due to the speed of given format. It will take too much mana and turns before your opponent kills you with show and tell combo/delver/true-name nemesis...etc.

As for future possible broken creature, giving the current tools we have in legacy survival type deck could still be handled easily, keeping survival in check.

[apple713]

I don't see how survival can survive with abrupt decay and death rite shaman running around in this format. And there many cards will just hit survival that people prepared in their sideboard anyway ( rest in peace, golgari charm..and many more). And that "search for anti hate against for survival hate" argument could be invalid due to the speed of given format. It will take too much mana and turns before your opponent kills you with show and tell combo/delver/true-name nemesis...etc.

As for future possible broken creature, giving the current tools we have in legacy survival type deck could still be handled easily, keeping survival in check.

pithing needle was an amazing answer to survival and yet survival rose to the top. 1 colorless mana to answer the problem...all decks can play it and can cast it before survival can hit the board. survival still fought through the pain.

[Zombie]

How many Needles were ran, though? I have this mental image for some reason that the American meta was pretty stubborn in some ways while what I heard from this side of the pond was glee at the blowouts Extirpating Vengevines gave to them. Wasn't anywhere near as up to date with the format as I am now, though, so I can very well be horribly mistaken.

[dreinal13]

Personally voted for Stax but I'm curious as to what really happened to decks like Zoo, Angel Stompy, and yes, Stax? Moreover, all variants of Stompy decks are now nowhere to be seen or even heard of for quite some time now. Is there still a following for these decks? I want to personally hear from you guys.

[Julian23]

Zoo had fallen to Maverick which hit the scene in mid 2011 in Europe and never fully recovered. Last time I played it was on Day2 of GP Amsterdam in October 2011. And I've played a lot since then. It seems, 1 mana 3 power power is no longer good enough without built-in evasion..:wink:

[Dzra]

pithing needle was an amazing answer to survival and yet survival rose to the top. 1 colorless mana to answer the problem...all decks can play it and can cast it before survival can hit the board. survival still fought through the pain.

Pithing Needle isn't nearly the answer that Revoker is. Revoker being a main deck four-of in Death and Taxes is much more relevant than a couple SB'd Needles. And of course, there is still Deathrite and Decay. In fact, I'm fairly certain that every current tier one deck either doesn't care about Survival or already packs quite a few really good answers to it. It's a much different environment now than it was back then cramming a few Needles or Extirpates into your SB.

[frenchy-man]

Pithing Needle isn't nearly the answer that Revoker is. Revoker being a main deck four-of in Death and Taxes is much more relevant than a couple SB'd Needles. And of course, there is still Deathrite and Decay. In fact, I'm fairly certain that every current tier one deck either doesn't care about Survival or already packs quite a few really good answers to it. It's a much different environment now than it was back then cramming a few Needles or Extirpates into your SB.


That's right. Having two needles in SB was not a real solution. You had ton find them, not getting them countered, and finally realize that the survival player's gameplan had changed postboard into a natural order combo.

Now, hate is stronger, and played main deck. That's totally different !

[Lemnear]

How many Needles were ran, though? I have this mental image for some reason that the American meta was pretty stubborn in some ways while what I heard from this side of the pond was glee at the blowouts Extirpating Vengevines gave to them. Wasn't anywhere near as up to date with the format as I am now, though, so I can very well be horribly mistaken.

How could you name it otherwise if Countertop-players refused to maindeck spell snare over counterspell (it being sooooo narrow) and everyone refusing to maindeck enchantment/graveyard-solutions, but instead join running survival or keep ranting in online forums, advocating for a ban?

Survival was never a problem in Europe and it was not because "euros were too stupid to play Survival" "or euros were too far behind in legacy development" like I had to hear back then, but because the deck was hated out probably. Hating out the graveyard with extirpate was just a stupid way to deal with survival, but hive mind in north america at that time. It's no wonder, that people died to hardcast Vines and KotR during that time without Snare, QPM, Pithing Needle or such in their 75 but sitting on Crypt/Extirpate while their face got smashed by fatties replacing mana dorks thanks to SotF


Edit: I'll never forget Even Erwin and Brad Nelson rubbing their belly and ranting about survival KILLING turn 3 every time?! That was the most stupid demonstration of "I don't play that format nor have any clue about it, but decided to make bold claims about the format, decks and cards without understanding interactions!" I've ever witnessed. The biggest clowns in the Eternal Circus!

[frenchy-man]

I did not dare saying it, but this is true. Survival was not a problem in Europe. It was very strong, definitely, but not broken.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Personally voted for Stax but I'm curious as to what really happened to decks like Zoo, Angel Stompy, and yes, Stax? Moreover, all variants of Stompy decks are now nowhere to be seen or even heard of for quite some time now. Is there still a following for these decks? I want to personally hear from you guys.
I never played Zoo, so I can't tell, but on the Stompy decks:

Note: all the Chalicephere/Stompy decks have trouble with consistency.

Is Armageddon Stax (the one with Angels, Magus of Tabernacle, etc.) better than DnT? I doubt so.
Dutch Stax (the one with four of Moat and Humility) was, is and (until reprints) always will be a fringe deck.

Faerie Stompy is crap. What would you like more: a 4/3 flying sucker, or 15/15 flying sucker? Or rather: win now with OmniTell?

Dragon Stompy has serious consistency issues, it's a mulligan machine and topdeck.dec. Of all the Stompy variants, this has the most powerful tools (up to eight Moons), but is it enough to outweigh the inconsistecy? Also, when you're in momored, aren't there better choices? You know - like Goblins?

Demon Stompy. Yeah, w/e...

Monogreen Stompy. Well, yeah...


Also, the day I lost to UGr Thresh was the day I considered I need to reconsider my love for FS. First of all, CotV isn't that back-breaking as ppl colour it. Second - now when multicolor decks are better in every aspect than the mnocolored are, what's the point of playing them?


I did not dare saying it, but this is true. Survival was not a problem in Europe. It was very strong, definitely, but not broken.
Yep, in a world of turn1 EtW for twelve, turn2 Grisly and turn3 "dredge GGT, pitch GGT, CS, LED, BT, in resp sac LED, Looting, CT, CT, CT, CT, DReturn, gg" the occasional turn4 blowout by several Vengevines wouldn't hurt.
Also, I really hated to play against the deck, but looking back, it was just because I hated to lose and that there's very little the RUG could have done to improve the pre-board matchup. (Except maybe for upping the Snares and playing some silver bullet, Pithing Needle comes to mind.)

I'd love to see SotF back. Ok, guys, I'm voting. But note that I still love if Terrageddon would be a deck again. I'd sacrifice the greater good of survival for my pleasure of "omnomnom6; 15/15 trample". :laugh:

[frenchy-man]

Yep, in a world of turn1 EtW for twelve, turn2 Grisly and turn3 "dredge GGT, pitch GGT, CS, LED, BT, in resp sac LED, Looting, CT, CT, CT, CT, DReturn, gg" the occasional turn4 blowout by several Vengevines wouldn't hurt.
Also, I really hated to play against the deck, but looking back, it was just because I hated to lose and that there's very little the RUG could have done to improve the pre-board matchup. (Except maybe for upping the Snares and playing some silver bullet, Pithing Needle comes to mind.)


Not sure I totally understand what you meant but what I can tell is that current versions of TT (spell snare versions of course) would crush survival with vengevine. Delver appeared since that time...

[Final Fortune]

Survival of the Fittest.dec, between Deathrite Shaman, Abrupt Decay, Golgari Charm, Meddling Mage and Rest in Peace in every one's MDs and SBs I don't know how the card would be competitive, let alone bannable, in a 2014 metagame.

The deck I want back the most tho' is Skullclamp, with Elves being a Tier 1 deck, Goblins being a Tier 2 deck and Affinity being a rogue Tier 1.5 deck in the format right now I think advocating aggro-combo archetypes in the metagame would be an incredibly interesting way of keeping aggro-control archetypes in check.

The idea of playing Affinity with 4 Stoneforge Mystic and 4 Skullclamp or Elves with 4 Skullclamp gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

[TsumiBand]

Skullclamp is pretty interesting actually.

I know Elves is a thing - but since control gets to Wrath for W now, is Skullclamp safe again for random aggro to get a shot in the arm? That may be the one piece of Equipment that True-Name Nemesis will never actually want to wear, to boot.

There's probably some crappy deck I'm forgetting about that milks the shit out of Clamp to the point that it would never be worth it, but all I can think of right now is Affinity, Kobolds, and Elves. Affinity would be pretty beastly with a legal Skullclamp I guess, but the other two decks would sooner play Glimpse of Nature. I think there's more to be gained from letting aggro draw cards after a non-tuck sweeper, but like I said… might be forgetting something.

[Richard Cheese]

I'm really surprised at the amount of support for Zoo here, considering the amount of hate it got when it was well-positioned. I totally agree that the format feels lopsided now without a dedicated aggro strategy (or a dedicated control strategy really). With aggro-control vs. combo, it feels like we've lost that rock-paper-scissors aspect that made choosing a deck for large events so interesting.

[Megadeus]

If Clamp were legal... Drools. Nic Fit with SkullClamp ... Seems disgustingly great.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

If Clamp were legal... Drools. Nic Fit with SkullClamp ... Seems disgustingly great.

Indeed: a free sac outlet for Veteran Explorer with card advantage? Deliciously evil!

As far as aggro decks go . . . not really sure it would actually help them. I have a feeling it would help existing Stoneforge decks though, at least ones that run Snapcaster Mage as well: once Snapcaster enters the battlefield and flashes something back, it's done its job, so why not turn that into card advantage?

[Arsenal]

I'm really surprised at the amount of support for Zoo here, considering the amount of hate it got when it was well-positioned. I totally agree that the format feels lopsided now without a dedicated aggro strategy (or a dedicated control strategy really). With aggro-control vs. combo, it feels like we've lost that rock-paper-scissors aspect that made choosing a deck for large events so interesting.

UWx Miracles is a dedicated control strategy, imo.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Not sure I totally understand what you meant but what I can tell is that current versions of TT (spell snare versions of course) would crush survival with vengevine. Delver appeared since that time...

Then you understand me well: back then it was quirte difficult to beat SotF, esp. when ppl were lazy to metagame properly.
With today's combo been pretty fast and resilient, even Vengevival is a fair strategy, although it has the backup aggro plan: and what, Dredge has go the same, so where's the trouble?
I think that the only really broken factor about SotF is the tutoring ability, and I also fear that it's the only reason why soemone may argue that SotF should remain banned.

Skullclamp would be sick.

[Megadeus]

Someone send this threadt to Wizards and let them know that we need an unbanning

[FTW]

I think that the only really broken factor about SotF is the tutoring ability, and I also fear that it's the only reason why soemone may argue that SotF should remain banned.


Wait, was someone arguing the contrary? Was someone arguing that attacking with 3 Vengevines on turn 3 (conditional on resolving one copy of a disruptable 4-of permanent on turn 2 and untapping with it) breaks the format?

Yeah, the broken part is the tutoring ability. It's a 1-card engine, although it's debatable whether that engine is now too slow and disruptable to be "unfair" in the current format.

[frenchy-man]

Wait, was someone arguing the contrary? Was someone arguing that attacking with 3 Vengevines on turn 3 (conditional on resolving one copy of a disruptable 4-of permanent on turn 2 and untapping with it) breaks the format?

Yeah, the broken part is the tutoring ability. It's a 1-card engine, although it's debatable whether that engine is now too slow and disruptable to be "unfair" in the current format.


Well it is not a 1-card engine. Or then, show and tell is also a 1-card engine.
The drawback that is to discard a card is more problematic that useful when facing deathrite, RiP, surgical or anygrave hate.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Wait, was someone arguing the contrary? Was someone arguing that attacking with 3 Vengevines on turn 3 (conditional on resolving one copy of a disruptable 4-of permanent on turn 2 and untapping with it) breaks the format?


I don't know, I hope that no one. What's your point, dude?

[apple713]

Pithing Needle isn't nearly the answer that Revoker is. Revoker being a main deck four-of in Death and Taxes is much more relevant than a couple SB'd Needles. And of course, there is still Deathrite and Decay. In fact, I'm fairly certain that every current tier one deck either doesn't care about Survival or already packs quite a few really good answers to it. It's a much different environment now than it was back then cramming a few Needles or Extirpates into your SB.

it sounds like you think the format can handle survival. You are probably right because. I thought the format could handle survival back them but people were not play the answers main deck that they are now. Graveyard hate has always been around but now its almost standard hence the scarcity of dredge.

If you unban survival though hermit druid also needs to be considered to be taken off the list. They are both 1 card combos that require the graveyard. They cost the same to cast but druid can't be activated till the turn after.

[Barook]

Indeed: a free sac outlet for Veteran Explorer with card advantage? Deliciously evil!

As far as aggro decks go . . . not really sure it would actually help them. I have a feeling it would help existing Stoneforge decks though, at least ones that run Snapcaster Mage as well: once Snapcaster enters the battlefield and flashes something back, it's done its job, so why not turn that into card advantage?
SFM would probably benefit in some way from Skullclamp - it's just way too good of a card to not be abused. I think it might push Elves over the top, though - and Elves is already an excellent T1 deck.

The only thing that could bring Aggro back is Wizards printing good, aggressive cards that make Aggro competitive against combo AND suck in tempo/aggro-control shells - which is pretty hard.

[Julian23]

The only thing that could bring Aggro back is Wizards printing good, aggressive cards that make Aggro competitive against combo AND suck in tempo/aggro-control shells - which is pretty hard.

Make them only castable by discarding/revealing a basic land.

[apple713]

SFM would probably benefit in some way from Skullclamp - it's just way too good of a card to not be abused. I think it might push Elves over the top, though - and Elves is already an excellent T1 deck.

The only thing that could bring Aggro back is Wizards printing good, aggressive cards that make Aggro competitive against combo AND suck in tempo/aggro-control shells - which is pretty hard.

yes SFM is the tutor that would break skull clamp


and because it seems like no one saw my post regarding good creatures. More directly

Angry Mongoose - G (maybe GG for casting cost)
summon mongoose

Angry Mongoose cannot be countered
Angry Mongoose has hex proof if an opponent is able to produce more than 1 type of mana (excluding colorless)
Angry Mongoose gets +1/+1 for each mana type your opponent could produce
Angry Mongoose gains trample if opponent control 3 or more creatures
Angry Mongoose must be sacrificed if at any time you control an island
Angry Mongoose gains haste if an opponent controls 4 or more lands

1/1

[EpicLevelCommoner]

I don't think a true aggro deck is possible without the absence of combo: tempo will always be better as long as there is useful removal, burn, and disruption.

The key is not making pure aggro viable, but to make tempo without counterspells (and possibly targeted discard) viable. And that comes when there is better on-color disruption printed for non-blue colors, particularly for creatures.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I don't think a true aggro deck is possible without the absence of combo: tempo will always be better as long as there is useful removal, burn, and disruption.

The key is not making pure aggro viable, but to make tempo without counterspells (and possibly targeted discard) viable. And that comes when there is better on-color disruption printed for non-blue colors, particularly for creatures.

True, I think you got it 100% right! Fact is that I don't really miss some Nacatl.dec, but what I miss (a bit) is some kind of color variance.
I think that a G/R deck based around flash and haste creatures might be the missing take on tempo. Give it some consistency tools and some way to interact with control and it could be interesting. I don't think that there's a need for the New Zoo to defeat combo, surely not, aggro MUST lose to combo, but the WoG for :w: and Batterskull and such completely hose the non-blue aggro/tempo/beatdown or however you call the non-Thresh creature decks.

First of all, lets say that RGW misses card filtering, draw and way to interact with stack. The latter shouldn't change, that's what differenciates the colors and makes the color pie (read: blue has everything, other colors suck). Card draw ain't out of green's and red's territory and filtering is quite reasonable in red.

Taiga Storm :rg:
Instant

Do something sick unless
you control Island.


I know that this must raise questions, because the new Brainstorm is not what we need. But lets say it would be similar a Peer Through Depths, or it may just scry or whatever. Simply put, if this game is about consistency and card filtering, than either all colors should have some tools, or some of the colors will be underplayed/weaker. If everybody is fine with the latter, so be it, just tell Maro and WotC to not feed us their "color pie" and "flavour" bullshit.



Anti-WoG Dude :wr::wr:
Creature - Non-Goblin Spirit

Flash

When Anti-Wog Dude enters the battlefield,
put a 2/2 green Bear creature token onto
the battlefield for each nontoken creature
that left your half of battlefield this turn.

1/1

[frenchy-man]

The key is not making pure aggro viable, but to make tempo without counterspells (and possibly targeted discard) viable. And that comes when there is better on-color disruption printed for non-blue colors, particularly for creatures.

Well, it already exists and is called Death and Taxes.

[apple713]

Anti-WoG Dude :wr::wr:
Creature - Non-Goblin Spirit

Flash

When Anti-Wog Dude enters the battlefield,
put a 2/2 green Bear creature token onto
the battlefield for each nontoken creature
that left your half of battlefield this turn.

1/1

caller of the claw already exists in more appropriate colors

"Left the battlefield" might be better wording because of terminus but caller didn't see play before terminus was printed either so its unlikely that wording would change anything except for enabling a combo with aluren.

from this thread it seems like there are many players that are not familiar with the cards available in legacy. If they aren't in a net deck they don't exist :P

[Bed Decks Palyer]

caller of the claw already exists in more appropriate colors

"Left the battlefield" might be better wording because of terminus but caller didn't see play before terminus was printed either so its unlikely that wording would change anything except for enabling a combo with aluren.

from this thread it seems like there are many players that are not familiar with the cards available in legacy. If they aren't in a net deck they don't exist :P

from this thread it seems like there are many players that are not familiar with reading. The Spirit Guy is a copy-paste of Caller of the Claw, except that it works against Terminus.

I'm going to watch some Venezuelan telenovela, it'll be much less stupid than this thread.

[TsumiBand]

I'm going to watch some Venezuelan telenovela, it'll be much less stupid than this thread.

For some reason I take comfort in knowing that telenovela is known the world round for being unbearable.

I'm still having trouble casting my vote for Angel Stompy. Zilla aren't you a moderator? Can't you like metagame the metagame and hack the Gibson for me? I want to vote for one of your decks brah

[Bed Decks Palyer]

On aggro:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/11309-Deck-Fundamentals-Paradigm-Shift-When-Attacking-is-a-Bad-Deal.html

[Pseudorealism]

I wish Stompy would come back.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)

[FTW]

from this thread it seems like there are many players that are not familiar with the cards available in legacy. If they aren't in a net deck they don't exist :P

From this thread it also seems like there are players not familiar with humour... I don't know about Caller of the Claw, but you realize that the name "perplexing husher" and EXACTLY equal stats was non-accidental, right?

It was a joke, re: people complaining that red and green don't have dorks that interact with the stack. They do. They just need more aggressively-costed ones. (more aggressively-costed than other colors to compensate for lack of card quality and other things in r/g decks)

[FTW]

Well it is not a 1-card engine. Or then, show and tell is also a 1-card engine.
The drawback that is to discard a card is more problematic that useful when facing deathrite, RiP, surgical or anygrave hate.

Show and Tell is a 2-card combo enabler since you need Show and Tell + powerful win condition in hand, usually requiring some cantrips to assemble. Show and Tell + random card = nonbo.

Survival is a 1-card engine (like Hermit Druid) since you just need Survival + random creature card to go off. Much looser requirements. This is why Hermit Druid was so good (and is still probably the most explosive EDH combo deck).

Also, while Survival can do crazy GY shenanigans, and most of the "combos" associated with it use the GY, as an engine itself it doesn't have to use the GY. "G: target card in hand turns into whatever card I want" is still a powerful engine for midrange toolbox creature strategies. Heck, Elf Combo used Survival as an engine just to get more of the missing combo elves (and eventually Regal Force/Emrakul) in hand. Couldn't care less about what landed in the GY. Those aren't arguments for or against unbanning. Just saying the gravehate doesn't really shut down the 1-card engine. This mentality is EXACTLY why Survival tore apart North America... people boarding Extirpate instead of Pithing Needle and Spell Snare. The most broken part of it is "G, pitch: Demonic Tutor", not filling the GY. If you use grave hate, they just tutor for something to beat the grave hate, then win the next turn.

[ajfennewald]

I don't think a true aggro deck is possible without the absence of combo: tempo will always be better as long as there is useful removal, burn, and disruption.

The key is not making pure aggro viable, but to make tempo without counterspells (and possibly targeted discard) viable. And that comes when there is better on-color disruption printed for non-blue colors, particularly for creatures.

This is just not true. When zoo was performing the absolute best was when mystical tutor based storm and reanimator were around. It just had lotsa other good matchups. Tempo decks became much better in general with the printing of delver though since they got there own nacatl( and thus functioned a bit more like aggro decks). I think if you had 2 more one drops of the power level of nacatl it would at least be somewhat competitive since it would almost always come out of the gates in a super strong manner. All the other one drops they can play now are siginificantly worse.

[Lemnear]

The most broken part of it is "G, pitch: Demonic Tutor", not filling the GY. If you use grave hate, they just tutor for something to beat the grave hate, then win the next turn.

Precisely

[EpicLevelCommoner]

This is just not true. When zoo was performing the absolute best was when mystical tutor based storm and reanimator were around. It just had lotsa other good matchups. Tempo decks became much better in general with the printing of delver though since they got there own nacatl( and thus functioned a bit more like aggro decks). I think if you had 2 more one drops of the power level of nacatl it would at least be somewhat competitive since it would almost always come out of the gates in a super strong manner. All the other one drops they can play now are siginificantly worse.

True: I guess I'm looking at Legacy as it is now rather than what it used to be: that is, Tempo/Midrange vs Combo with some control thrown in.

If anything, a red-green creature with "all creatures have Islandwalk" might just be the thing Zoo needs.

[apple713]

From this thread it also seems like there are players not familiar with humour... I don't know about Caller of the Claw, but you realize that the name "perplexing husher" and EXACTLY equal stats was non-accidental, right?

It was a joke, re: people complaining that red and green don't have dorks that interact with the stack. They do. They just need more aggressively-costed ones. (more aggressively-costed than other colors to compensate for lack of card quality and other things in r/g decks)

i don't think its the lack of interaction with the stack that they need, they just need good cards. Black has almost no interaction with the stack because its main focus is discard in the first few turns, but it is still considered an effective interaction with the opponent on t1. Red green and white can play creatures which don't intact immediately and when they do they don't have a big enough impact to compete with combos, or they get burn spells. Until they print a burn spell that says something that allows red to compete such as

oil fire - R
instant
if target opponent controls an island they take 6+ damage, otherwise they take 3 damage

[FTW]

This is just not true. When zoo was performing the absolute best was when mystical tutor based storm and reanimator were around. It just had lotsa other good matchups. Tempo decks became much better in general with the printing of delver though since they got there own nacatl( and thus functioned a bit more like aggro decks). I think if you had 2 more one drops of the power level of nacatl it would at least be somewhat competitive since it would almost always come out of the gates in a super strong manner. All the other one drops they can play now are siginificantly worse.

I don't know if 12 Nacatls.dec would be any better. IMO it was more that combo and control and tempo had fewer efficient tools. Reanimator was just slower. You could edict/bounce their fatty and set them back several cards and turns, as opposed to having them draw 14 cards in response and quadruple force of will you. So they weren't as threatening. Meanwhile, blue had fewer efficient win conditions. The best way to beat Storm/Reanimator was Counterbalance/slow blue decks (Canadian "Tempo" Thresh of that day was still brutally slow), the best way to beat Counterbalance/slow blue decks was Merfolk, and the best way to beat Merfolk was Goblins/Zoo. Enough people played blue that there was always room for Zoo and a healthy rock-paper-scissors of combo-aggro/control-aggro.

Now there are fewer slow blue decks, since blue decks can just play T1 Delver or T3 Batterskull. Merfolk can just LOL with TNNs all day. So IMO there is less room for aggro strategies to do anything compared to that meta, even if they had more beatdown guys to work with. The problem is not that they need better dudes to turn sideways, but that turning a bunch of dudes sideways no longer trumps Aggro-Control since aggro-control has gotten that much faster.

For aggro to compete, IMO you'd need to either remove some of the speed from aggro-control (what slower formats did in banning SFM) or give aggro some aggressively-costed beaters that also interact with the stack (letting them play more aggro-controlly, but in non-blue colors).

[FTW]

i don't think its the lack of interaction with the stack that they need, they just need good cards.

See: "more aggressively-costed ones". There's no disagreement on that point.

Black gets discard, which compensates. R/G traditionally beats other colors by damage output, so R/G utility dorks just need to also be better beaters to be good enough. 2-mana for a 2/x or x/2 utility dork is fine in U/B/W, but R/G ones need to be bigger or deal more damage somehow. Ash Zealot is a good idea of this type of design in general (for Standard) but Flashback-hosing is narrow and not applicable to Legacy. Scooze and DRS are others that are more Legacy applicable, giving green efficient bodies that also interact with things. We need more GG and RR and RG utility guys that have Watchwolf bodies instead of bear bodies, for example, and abilities that are relevant to Legacy.

[Final Fortune]

What's the most busted Elves.dec list that can be built with Skullclamp? I'm sure it'd beat the ever living shit out of aggro-control, but that's kind of the point anyway, and it'd still get the ever living shit beat out of it by Storm, Belcher, Hermit Druid, Dredge, Reanimator so it'd probably balance out.

[Benjammn]

What's the most busted Elves.dec list that can be built with Skullclamp? I'm sure it'd beat the ever living shit out of aggro-control, but that's kind of the point anyway, and it'd still get the ever living shit beat out of it by Storm, Belcher, Hermit Druid, Dredge, Reanimator so it'd probably balance out.

It can't beat Dredge? With SKULLCLAMP? I don't think so... :P

So, basically Elves would beat the decks it normally beats, but much more convincingly (barring some interesting hate like Humility). It may have better game against Miracles though, but it still costs 1 mana which is a slight problem.

Survival Elves would be fun too. Doesn't everyone know that the deck that makes the most out of Green Sun's Zenith is Elves? And that give Elves more tutoring power is silly? Having Survival and Vengevines in the board sure would make Miracles a better matchup...

[MTG Junkie]

Survival!!!!!! It's always been one of my favorite decks/cards. Also love the artwork.
Stooped Vengvine,Vengevine should have got banned.

[RainbowPenguin]

Voted Survival, although some cards might have to be banned to make it non-redonkulous: Loyal Retainers and Vengevine, specifically. However, since basically no other decks play those cards, that would be a rather small loss, I'd think. *Sniffle*, just the thought of those Squee-Survival-Weirdo-Silver-Bullet-Bears.dec lists make me go all nostalgic! As another very 'Legacy'-ish deck, in principle, I also wouldn't mind if Enchantress was more playable, but I'd probably get tired of it pretty fast - there's a reason it was/is called Solitaire.

@Feline: Any special reason why you started this tread? Just curious.

[Lemnear]

Survival!!!!!! It's always been one of my favorite decks/cards. Also love the artwork.
Stooped Vengvine,Vengevine should have got banned.


Voted Survival, although some cards might have to be banned to make it non-redonkulous: Loyal Retainers and Vengevine, specifically. However, since basically no other decks play those cards, that would be a rather small loss, I'd think. *Sniffle*, just the thought of those Squee-Survival-Weirdo-Silver-Bullet-Bears.dec lists make me go all nostalgic! As another very 'Legacy'-ish deck, in principle, I also wouldn't mind if Enchantress was more playable, but I'd probably get tired of it pretty fast - there's a reason it was/is called Solitaire.

@Feline: Any special reason why you started this tread? Just curious.

Doods, a few posts above (aka last page) I outlined why this is absolute nonsense. You'd have to ban anything from KotR, Tarmogoyf, Vengevine, etc up to combo creatures like Kiki-Jiki, Loyal Retainers, Emrakul, Griselbrand, Doomed Necromancer, etc


See: "more aggressively-costed ones". There's no disagreement on that point.

Black gets discard, which compensates. R/G traditionally beats other colors by damage output, so R/G utility dorks just need to also be better beaters to be good enough. 2-mana for a 2/x or x/2 utility dork is fine in U/B/W, but R/G ones need to be bigger or deal more damage somehow. Ash Zealot is a good idea of this type of design in general (for Standard) but Flashback-hosing is narrow and not applicable to Legacy. Scooze and DRS are others that are more Legacy applicable, giving green efficient bodies that also interact with things. We need more GG and RR and RG utility guys that have Watchwolf bodies instead of bear bodies, for example, and abilities that are relevant to Legacy.

This means you want more unsplashable Tarmogoyfs like RG - 5/5 trample (to get through TNN) turning Zoo from a turn 4 into a turn 3 deck?

Is this Modern or what? Do you seriously want TurnSideways.dec being actually as fast in Legacy as pure combo decks like Aluren/OmniTell/Dredge/etc.?

[Barook]

This means you want more unsplashable Tarmogoyfs like RG - 5/5 trample (to get through TNN) turning Zoo from a turn 4 into a turn 3 deck?

Is this Modern or what? Do you seriously want TurnSideways.dec being actually as fast in Legacy as pure combo decks like Aluren/OmniTell/Dredge/etc.?
Isn't Goblins cabable of T3 kills when all stars align?

Besides, even with manacosts like :r::g:, RUG would find a way to include it into its decklists if it's good enough.

[apple713]

Survival!!!!!! It's always been one of my favorite decks/cards. Also love the artwork.
Stooped Vengvine,Vengevine should have got banned.

probably right, see worldgorger dragon . it got the axe for its interaction with things like necromancy and animate dead

[Lemnear]

Isn't Goblins cabable of T3 kills when all stars align?

Besides, even with manacosts like :r::g:, RUG would find a way to include it into its decklists if it's good enough.

I could imagine that Goblins are able to perform a goldfishing during their third turn like Elves do, but lets not forget that those are "engine decks" within a tribe which is pretty limiting. We are talking about a RGW goodstuffanimal.dec with a burn-icing on top here, which people seem to want tailormade super-Tarmogoyfs and 2cc Lodestone Golems for... :/

I admit, the RG 5/5 trample I mentioned to make a point is indeed easy to fit in RUG. My bad. It however explains the issue pretty good: Unless you make it cost triple color you need an iffy rules text to prevent an insane creature from being run anlongside Brainstorm

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Voted Zoo, the format needs good pure non-blue aggro.

I would like to play Survival but there is no way that card is getting (nor should it be) unbanned.

[Barook]

I admit, the RG 5/5 trample I mentioned to make a point is indeed easy to fit in RUG. My bad. It however explains the issue pretty good: Unless you make it cost triple color you need an iffy rules text to prevent an insane creature from being run anlongside Brainstorm
I wouldn't mind good creatures with drawbacks. Back in the days, when black creatures still had a color identity, it got efficient beaters with drawbacks as a trade-off. Nowadays, black gets shit because "people don't like drawbacks" which leads to abominations like black being the color of higher toughness creatures (because that totally doesn't overlap with white, right?).

Hell, it doesn't need to be complicated, just something like this:

Whenever you play a spell that isn't green or red, sacrifice ~.
You could still jam down Pridemages or KotRs or DRS or AD, but it won't work with Brainstorm or counters to protect it.

No equipment. Beatdown only. Final destination.

[MTG Junkie]

Lemnear@ Iv played for 15 yrs. There are way to many different variations of Survival to list. But beleave me iv played every kind of Survival there is! Before Vengvine the deck was a powerfull mid range deck. Vengvine made the deck way faster/ridiculous. The card that made Survival get banned was Vengvine.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Z:0::0:

[apple713]

I admit, the RG 5/5 trample I mentioned to make a point is indeed easy to fit in RUG. My bad. It however explains the issue pretty good: Unless you make it cost triple color you need an iffy rules text to prevent an insane creature from being run anlongside Brainstorm

if a land you control could produce a blue mana sacrifice this creature

its a catch all, CoB, gemstone, islands, all blue duals, shocks, pain lands everything...

[FTW]

Isn't Goblins cabable of T3 kills when all stars align?

Goblins has a number of turn 3 goldfishes, some being convoluted double Piledriver hands, but the simplest turn 3 win is just:
Mountain, Goblin Lackey, any land, Goblin Piledriver, Siege-Gang Commander
Played correctly that does 20 damage total by turn 3 on the play with no other cards (so you could theoretically pull it off on a mull to 4). I used to play Goblins a lot, and yes, it's funny when you outrace storm.



This means you want more unsplashable Tarmogoyfs like RG - 5/5 trample (to get through TNN) turning Zoo from a turn 4 into a turn 3 deck?

Is this Modern or what? Do you seriously want TurnSideways.dec being actually as fast in Legacy as pure combo decks like Aluren/OmniTell/Dredge/etc.?

Lol not at all. The opposite. As I said in that other post, what I want is RG - 3/3: useful hatebear. Or for RR or GG.

I just think red and green need better hatebear abilities to interact with other strategies, and on bodies that are bigger than 2/2. Yes, they would be more efficient than hatebears in other colors. But that's the point. Other colors have other tools to interact. Red and green don't. They have to compensate for lack of interactivity with more damage or bigger creatures, so their hatebears should simply be bigger or more damaging. Watchwolf is not playable. A relevant hate-watchwolf probably would be. That would not change the critical turn of zoo (no risk of outracing combo), but it would let zoo interact with the format and actually do stuff. Could be interesting.

What about a red hatebear like this:

Angered Pyromage - RR
First Strike, Unleash
Whenever spell or ability controlled by a player counters a spell, ~ deals 3 damage to that player.
2/1

2-drop that attacks for 3, cannot be splashed into blue decks, and pseudo-interacts with the stack by punishing blue decks for countering stuff

Maybe also a pyrostatic pillar on a body:
Hot Potato - RR
Protection from White
Whenever a player casts a noncreature spell with converted mana cost less than 3, ~ deals 2 damage to that player.
2/2

Or green shenangians:
Druid Mystic - GG
Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, if you do not control an island or swamp, target permanent gains hexproof until end of turn.
3/3

There are plenty of ways to stick on-color abilities on aggressively-costed bodies that would grant greater stack interactivity for these colors without making blue decks more broken or having 2-mana 5/5s that outrace combo.

[Lemnear]

Lemnear@ Iv played for 15 yrs. There are way to many different variations of Survival to list. But beleave me iv played every kind of Survival there is! Before Vengvine the deck was a powerfull mid range deck. Vengvine made the deck way faster/ridiculous. The card that made Survival get banned was Vengvine.

Dito. Still, Vengevine may have been the icing, but WotC explained that their reason to ban SotF was limiting their possibilities to Design creatures. Banning Vengevine is pointless if the next stupid SotF interaction is already at hand like we had with Necrotic Ooze and Retainers + Emrakul back then. WotC realized that every new printed creature may cause problems again, so they banned the enchantment and not the creature(s).

As mentioned before, the repeatable Demonic Tutor alone is enough to overwhelm most decks. You can tutor for answers against hate within a second (QPM), Tutor for powerful hate (Scavenging Ooze, Thalia, Teeg), setup a combo (Retainers + Griselbrand) or simply drop KotRs/Tarmogoyfs/etc. every round .... and the best? All that ignores graveyard-hate and laughs in the face of the Vengevine-banning


@ all
Good points guys. Just sad, that there's the need for iffy rules Texts to prevent cards from being played in blue shells :(

[Zombie]

Survival of the Greenest 1G
Enchantment - Fun
G, discard a green creature card: Tutor for a green creature card.


@ all
Good points guys. Just sad, that there's the need for iffy rules Texts to prevent cards from being played in blue shells :(

It's what happens when you put together absurdly good, fast and flexible mana fixing built into the landbase and have a colour with near monopoly on efficient card selection. Plus when one of those card selectors happens to hose discard because it's just too godlike.

The only real way to get away from this is more Green Sun's Zeniths and Faithless Lootings. When the basic parts of making a deck work smoothly aren't restricted to blue, then maybe things can happen.

[Mewens]

It's what happens when you put together absurdly good, fast and flexible mana fixing built into the landbase and have a colour with near monopoly on efficient card selection. Plus when one of those card selectors happens to hose discard because it's just too godlike.

The only real way to get away from this is more Green Sun's Zeniths and Faithless Lootings. When the basic parts of making a deck work smoothly aren't restricted to blue, then maybe things can happen.

This, basically. Blue's card selection just blows every other color's out of the water, and fetchlands + duals means there's almost no drawback to splashing. The fact that Brainstorm + shuffle synergize well is just the icing.

[Barook]

Survival of the Greenest 1G
Enchantment - Fun
G, discard a green creature card: Tutor for a green creature card.
That doesn't fix the Vengevine issue.

What if they printed a fixed Survival that exiled the creature instead of discarding it? Toolboxes would still be available, but the entire GY abuse aspect is gone.

[Lemnear]

That doesn't fix the Vengevine issue.

What if they printed a fixed Survival that exiled the creature instead of discarding it? Toolboxes would still be available, but the entire GY abuse aspect is gone.

Leaves us with the Demonic Tutor issue

[Barook]

Leaves us with the Demonic Tutor issue
Wasn't Survival fine before the entire Vengevine disaster? I don't remember it dominating the format before.

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

Combo decks with Vengevine (and Necrotic Ooze) were the reason Survival was banned. With the GY aspect gone, that problem would be solved.

[Lemnear]

Wasn't Survival fine before the entire Vengevine disaster? I don't remember it dominating the format before.

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

Combo decks with Vengevine (and Necrotic Ooze) were the reason Survival was banned. With the GY aspect gone, that problem would be solved.

Survival was fine before WotC decided that creatures should be the best cardtype in the game. Survival made it's way into Elves, Rock and Maverick long before Vengevine was printed due to the continuous creature power creep aka Tarmogoyf, KotR, QPM and such. I doubt you want to argue that the development did anything other than continue to this date. This card would even setup a combo itself with the 2UU Bird which you can play from the exiled zone

[Final Fortune]

It can't beat Dredge? With SKULLCLAMP? I don't think so... :P

So, basically Elves would beat the decks it normally beats, but much more convincingly (barring some interesting hate like Humility). It may have better game against Miracles though, but it still costs 1 mana which is a slight problem.

Survival Elves would be fun too. Doesn't everyone know that the deck that makes the most out of Green Sun's Zenith is Elves? And that give Elves more tutoring power is silly? Having Survival and Vengevines in the board sure would make Miracles a better matchup...

Pretty sure Elves gets rolled by anything with Lion's Eye Diamond, Dredge included. You can't equip Skull Clamp at instant speed, which is what matters versus Bridge from Below enabling the combo finish usually.

I think having Skullclamp would make Elves much more decisive post-board, that deck has serious issues with 4 Golgari Charm raining frowny faces. As degenerate as Skull Clamp is, considering the decks it goes into I think it'd be an overall plus for the format. Goblins get a boost, Affinity gets a boost, Elves gets a boost and more importantly I can finally play Kobold Glimpse again and Grape Shot people to death ... oh man the joy that would bring.

[(nameless one)]

I am pretty sure they already fixed the Survival issue. They're called Fauna Shaman and Birthing Pod.

And as for Skullclamp, as fun as Crazy88.dec is going to be, I don't think it will be unbanned.

[apple713]

Survival was fine before WotC decided that creatures should be the best cardtype in the game.

omniscience, S&T, Lion's eye diamond, JTMS, and ad nauseum would like to have a word with you

[FTW]

Survival was fine before WotC decided that creatures should be the best cardtype in the game. Survival made it's way into Elves, Rock and Maverick long before Vengevine was printed due to the continuous creature power creep aka Tarmogoyf, KotR, QPM and such. I doubt you want to argue that the development did anything other than continue to this date. This card would even setup a combo itself with the 2UU Bird which you can play from the exiled zone

LOL... I've always wanted to see Misthollow Griffin in Legacy. An easy GUx tempo shell to build, with Misthollow pitching to NewVival, FoW and Chrome Mox FtLULz.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Survival was fine before WotC decided that creatures should be the best cardtype in the game.
omniscience, S&T, Lion's eye diamond, JTMS, ad nauseum and Balance would like to have a word with you
Fixed.

I really can't stress how much I'd love to see Geddon back in game. There's something brilliant in the whole idea of "smash the lands, go" and I liked to tinjker with timing, sometimes even aggresively geddoning when the opponent's non-land board pressence was better, simply knowing that with my card superirority I'll overrun him in few turns thanks only to manadorks/rocks.
Would Armagedon Survival be a deck?

[Lemnear]

omniscience, S&T, Lion's eye diamond, JTMS, and ad nauseum would like to have a word with you

Erm? S&T as well as LED were printed years prior to MaRo's 7-year-plan to boost creatures. Would you really disagree that WotC is pushing creatures more than any other cardtype in the last 7 years? Doubt so.

I could add creatures like Delver, Tarmogoyf, SFM, Bob, Griselbrand, Emrakul, Clique, KotR and others to your list just to Show what had impact to Legacy within the last 7 years of print and we still had to erase your mentioned sorcery and artifact.

You can add this argument to the SotF issues as well

[Barook]

I really can't stress how much I'd love to see Geddon back in game. There's something brilliant in the whole idea of "smash the lands, go" and I liked to tinjker with timing, sometimes even aggresively geddoning when the opponent's non-land board pressence was better, simply knowing that with my card superirority I'll overrun him in few turns thanks only to manadorks/rocks.
Would Armagedon Survival be a deck?
But Survival needs mana to operate. :eyebrow:

Armageddon died when threats became too mana-efficient.

Sure, you could play Stax to supplement that strategy, but then you're playing Armageddon Stax.

[miguelmatix]

Agree with Barook. It need green mana...
And with survival we could have a madness deck... :wink:

[Zupponn]

Rifter