Prison in Legacy

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

What do you think is the best prison deck in legacy?
What do you think is the prison deck in legacy most likely to get a new card?

here is a list of decks that some people consider as prison:
Stax
MUD
Enchantress
Death and Taxes
Miracles
Eldrazi
Lands
Pox
Red Stompy
Aggro Loam
Loam Pox
...

Edit: due to community demand, I have changed the definition of a prison deck to any deck you think is a prison deck. if anyone even cares about this thread anymore, go on I am listening,

Edit 2: Here are the results so far

best prison deck in legacy(other than miracles of course(that is if you actually consider it as a prison deck)):
first place, tied for first, or sole mentions- 1.5 point
2nd place- 1 point
3rd place- 0.5 points

Lands-3

prison deck in legacy most likely to get a new card:
first place, tied for first, or sole mentions- 1.5 point
2nd place- 1 point
3rd place- 0.5 points

Eldrazi- 1.5
Enchantress- 1.5
Death and Taxes- 1.5

[btm10]

I think that Lands is the best Prison strategy in Legacy, followed not too distantly by Enchantress. Enchantress is probably the one most likely to get new cards since it resembles a "normal" deck the most, but WotC clearly thinks that Prison is undesirable so we aren't too likely to see better prison elements get printed, especially in Standard legal sets. The biggest things holding Prison back from working in Legacy is how much better combo has gotten, and how long it traditionally takes Prison strategies to win coupled with the resilience of the tier 1 combo decks to hate. Lands sees success because it runs a combo that ends games quickly and dominates its fair matchups in ways that even Enchantress doesn't, but it's still got a godawful matchup against most combo decks because it can struggle to lock them out quickly enough. The Prison-like decks that you point out are effective because they all have a proactive plan for actually winning the game that is either a part of their lock (e.g. Thalia) or the threats complement the rest of the deck well (Eldrazi).

[Megadeus]

We just got multiple cheap playable tax effects in the past 5 years in Thalia and the new Pegasus. There's still possibility, just the cards won't necessarily be the same as before

[btm10]

We just got multiple cheap playable tax effects in the past 5 years in Thalia and the new Pegasus. There's still possibility, just the cards won't necessarily be the same as before

I agree that a strategy using those cards is fine; they are played in D&T, after all. But LegacyIsAnEternalFormat seemed to be explicitly excluding Prison strategies that also try to beat down. It's also hard (at least for me) to imagine that a Wingmare/Thalia prison deck doesn't turn into a fairly stock build of D&T as it gets tuned.

[iatee]

Yeah there are countless t1/t1.5 decks with prison elements in legacy, Eldrazi, other Stompy variants, D+T, Lands, Enchantress, and even Miracles. (If you don't think 'counter every spell for the rest of the game' counts as prison, dunno what to tell you.) So 3 of the 5 'decks to beat' right now are built with prison strategies as part of their core. Considering your chance of playing against a Chalice or Countertop or Rishadan Port deck in legacy right now is at least like 35%, I am not sure 'There is not enough support for prison strategies' is an opinion very many people are going to share. I genuinely expected this thread to be about how strong prison strategies are at the moment.

If you define prison to be a 100% linear prison strategy like Pox then no, you shouldn't expect any new Hymn to Tourach or Sinkhole effect anytime soon. Efficient resource denial isn't popular + breaks Standard.

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

Yeah there are countless t1/t1.5 decks with prison elements in legacy, Eldrazi, other Stompy variants, D+T, Lands, Enchantress, and even Miracles. (If you don't think 'counter every spell for the rest of the game' counts as prison, dunno what to tell you.) So 3 of the 5 'decks to beat' right now are built with prison strategies are part of their core. Considering your chance of playing against a Chalice or Countertop or Rishadan Port deck in legacy right now is at least like 35%, I am not sure 'There is not enough support for prison strategies' is an opinion very many people are going to share. I genuinely expected this thread to be about how strong prison strategies are at the moment.

If you define prison to be a 100% linear prison strategy like Pox then no, you shouldn't expect any new Hymn to Tourach or Sinkhole effect anytime soon. Efficient resource denial isn't popular + breaks Standard.

I define prison as any deck that wants to lock your opponent out of doing anything useful. Lands attacks mana-bases(you can't do very much without mana especially when you're opponent has tabernacle in play), Enchantress attacks win-cons(you can't do anything meaningful if nothing you do gets you closer to winning), pox attacks resources(not much to do without mana or cards in hand), and stax attacks permanents(not much to do with nothing in play). eldrazi can't lock out Shardless BUG(chalice doesn't work), Death and Taxes can't lock out much of anything(except storm). Therefore those decks aren't generally considered prison decks. By definition, Eldrazi is an aggro deck, Miracles is a control deck, and Death and Taxes is a tempo deck. The rest you listed above are prison decks.

Edit: In case you were wondering underlined below is the list of discussion questions I asked in the OP:

Prison has become much less powerful than it used to be in legacy. As other archetypes get new cards once in a while, there hasn't been a good mana-denial/lockdown card since... Liliana of the Veil?
Is this archetype doomed to fail or do you think that WotC will begin supporting it soon? Do you want this archetype to get more support? I think prison is definitely a healthy archetype and I am sad that it doesn't receive any more support. I think out of all the existing prison decks, pox is the one that will get the most support in the future due to black being a natural resource-denial color.
With that being said, what do you think is the best prison deck in legacy?(stompy, death and taxes, and MUD don't count because they aren't pure lockdown decks, they just use mana-denial as support for their main strategy)
I'd say Lands then Pox then Enchantress then Stax.
For prison decks most likely to get a new card or 2: Pox then Lands then Enchantress then Stax.
What do you think?

[iatee]

You are drawing arbitrary lines and I don't think you will find many people who agree with the way you categorize these things in your head. If you don't think Chalice/Moon decks are 'prison', then you're most certainly in a minority cause that's the first thing I think of when I think of 'legacy prison deck'.

Lands doesn't reliably lock people out of a game any more than Miracles does. 'Countertop isn't prison because Eldrazi' sure then 'Wasteland/Port isn't prison because some decks play basic lands + Aether Vial.' Enchantress sometimes looks like a prison deck and sometimes plays like a pure combo deck. Sometimes it has pure lock pieces and sometimes it only has soft lock pieces. Sometimes (often) it just has a bunch of jank.

All of these decks have prison elements, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Miracles and D+T are better prison decks than Pox or Enchantress partly because their prison strategies work more reliably.

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

You are drawing arbitrary lines and I don't think you will find many people who agree with the way you categorize these things in your head. If you don't think Chalice/Moon decks are 'prison', then you're most certainly in a minority cause that's the first thing I think of when I think of 'legacy prison deck'.

Lands doesn't reliably lock people out of a game any more than Miracles does. 'Countertop isn't prison because Eldrazi' sure then 'Wasteland/Port isn't prison because some decks play basic lands + Aether Vial.' Enchantress sometimes looks like a prison deck and sometimes plays like a pure combo deck. Sometimes it has pure lock pieces and sometimes it only has soft lock pieces. Sometimes (often) it just has a bunch of jank.

All of these decks have prison elements, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Miracles and D+T are better prison decks than Pox or Enchantress partly because their prison strategies work more reliably.

Fine, if Lands is prison then I guess by my definition Miracles must be prison as well.

Edit: then again, it feels awkward calling Miracles a prison deck but I can't argue with you

[twndomn]

I define prison as any deck that wants to lock your opponent out of doing anything useful. Lands attacks mana-bases(you can't do very much without mana especially when you're opponent has tabernacle in play), Enchantress attacks win-cons(you can't do anything meaningful if nothing you do gets you closer to winning), pox attacks resources(not much to do without mana or cards in hand), and stax attacks permanents(not much to do with nothing in play). Miracles isn't a lock down deck because it fails to be able to lock out a deck like Eldrazi consistently(it doesn't run enough 4-5 mana cards to do so), eldrazi can't lock out Shardless BUG(chalice doesn't work), Death and Taxes can't lock out much of anything(except storm). Therefore those decks aren't generally considered prison decks. By definition, Eldrazi is an aggro deck, Miracles is a control deck, and Death and Taxes is a tempo deck. The rest you listed above are prison decks.



I am sorry, your "definition" is so extreme, nobody cares. No, seriously, with a base/thesis that is Not generally accepted by the community, why will there be any meaningful discussion at all?

Until you can convince the general public there is Any merits to "your" definition of prison, any discussions on this faulty premise is just a waste of time.

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

I am sorry, your "definition" is so extreme, nobody cares. No, seriously, with a base/thesis that is Not generally accepted by the community, why will there be any meaningful discussion at all?

Until you can convince the general public there is Any merits to "your" definition of prison, any discussions on this faulty premise is just a waste of time.

edited the OP.

[Dice_Box]

Passive aggressive thread is amusing.

Due to a mass of Reanimator in my store early this year I had to put down Lands for around 2 months. In its place I picked up Stax. Boy oh boy that deck is evil and I warped the Meta around it. There is no more Reanimator locally and I moved back to Lands.

Stax is a great Meta choice, as would be all these "Hard lock" decks that play that kind of game. But it's not a winning plan anymore, it's a meta solution. Decks like Lands, Eldrazi and DnT are able to play a Prison like game (I had more wins to concessions this week then Stage plays in our Dark Queens honour, praise be.) but if you looking for something like Pox then it's time has passed.

The format is just to fast now to play a lock deck in hopes it will go the distance. Trying to Sinkhole someone out of the game when they played a opening turn Delver is a bad plan. They are going to play that control role better than you once they have a Spell Pierce in hand. Mutual attrition is at a loss to answer Tempo and so it's faded away to decks that can play multiple roles well.

[wcm8]

A *dedicated* "prison" deck probably isn't as viable in the current legacy environment. There are simply too many efficient threats for older prison strategies to consistently lock down the board.

However, plenty of competitive decks have aspects of prison-esque plays. Stifle, Wasteland, Rishadan Port... Thalia, Sphere of Resistance, Chalice of the Void... Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Ensnaring Bridge... Heck even some UWr Miracles lists are running a Moat that can shut down plenty of strategies, and being stuck under a Counterbalance lock certainly feels like imprisonment. An active Liliana of the Veil can essentially lock down a lot of decks.

I would say that any card that somehow limits your opponent's options in a significant way has a certain element of being 'Prison'. It just depends on how you look at it. That said, old style hard locks are less likely to be completely viable on their own.

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

Ok so the main reason I made this thread is to gain the following information:
best prison decks in legacy
prison decks most likely to get new cards in legacy

i will up date the OP with info as thread goes on

[Dice_Box]

Best Prison deck in Legacy: Lands. (I honestly think this is true.)

Prison deck most likely to see new cards: Eldrazi and DnT.

[LOLWut]

but if you looking for something like Pox then it's time has passed.

It's possible.


The format is just to fast now to play a lock deck in hopes it will go the distance. Trying to Sinkhole someone out of the game when they played a opening turn Delver is a bad plan. They are going to play that control role better than you once they have a Spell Pierce in hand. Mutual attrition is at a loss to answer Tempo and so it's faded away to decks that can play multiple roles well.

Now you've lost me. Pox crushes Delver and tempo decks, and that match up is not why Pox struggles.

[GundamGuy]

Best Prison deck in Legacy: Lands. (I honestly think this is true.)

Prison deck most likely to see new cards: Eldrazi and DnT.

Yeah I'm on board with that. I don't think we are going to see as many Eldrazi for a while, but I'm sure they will come back.

Pox and Stax don't seem like likely candidates to get cards given how WotC has shied way from those sort of designs in recent years.

However if colorless mana comes back again Stax might get a thing or two.

[btm10]

Now you've lost me. Pox crushes Delver and tempo decks, and that match up is not why Pox struggles.

That's a bit of a stretch. It might crush RUG Delver, but even then it really struggles against any resolved threat backed up by a few counters. A resolved Deathrite from BUG or Grixis Delver is a disaster for them, as is the opponent ever getting a permanent source of card advantage. Of all the format's prison-like decks, Pox is probably the worst.

[Crimhead]

If you don't think 'counter every spell for the rest of the game' counts as prison, dunno what to tell you.I think prison elements are pro-active by definition. Counterbalance is only good because you reactively fix your top-deck in response to your opponent's spells. This is in contrast to actual prison pieces like Chalice or Nethervoid. Miracles plays more like draw-go.


Ok so the main reason I made this thread is to gain the following information:
best prison decks in legacy
prison decks most likely to get new cards in legacyAs has been said, decks can run prison elements, but tend to need aggro or combo elements in order to keep up. But I would say RUG Lands is probably the best most dedicated prison deck going.

As far as getting new cards is concerned, the real issue is new cards that will yeild a significant boost. For example, Pox got Toxic Deluge, but it wasn't very much better than the sweepers they already had available. WotC doesn't like printing lock pieces very much these days unless they are hate bears. D&T will benefit from these, as well as other quality beaters and walkers. Lands might get the odd utility land or other nick-nack (eg, Sulfuric Vortex).

But our best bet is for Enchantress to get Earthcraft unbanned. Ironically of course this would (maybe) give the deck that shot in the arm it needs, but Make it more combo and less prison; much like R/G Lands.

[GundamGuy]

I feel trying to properly categorize legacy decks is like herding cats. Good luck.

I also feel that this leads people down the wrong path when thinking about how they should be playing given the matchup / board state...

Even the most aggressive or defensive decks have to play defensively or aggressively respectively...

Edit:

What I have mean is that I've met plenty of Burn players who assume in 100% of matchups that they are the aggressor, even when the combo opponent they are playing can't win unless they empty there hand.

[Crimhead]

I feel trying to properly categorize legacy decks is like herding cats. Good luck.

I also feel that this leads people down the wrong path when thinking about how they should be playing given the matchup / board state...

Even the most aggressive or defensive decks have to play defensively or aggressively respectively...

I certainly agree! That's why I'm trying to speak of Prison, aggro, and combo "elements". Tabernacle, for example is a prison element. Sure, Lands doesn't always play the full-on control game - but when they don't, Tabernacle isn't a very good card!

RUG Lands overall relies more heavily on its prison elements than RGCL, so I call it a more dedicated prison deck. D&T relies on its aggressive elements far more often than traditional prison decks like Pox, so I call it aggro-prison. I think these are fair distinctions, and useful. We just have to be aware that even a dedicated Prison deck is sometimes force to be "the beat-down".

[Finn]

Legacy is a peculiar beast. It used to be simple to identify what constitutes "prison" as a broad strategy. Same goes for combo", "ramp", etc. There is just so much required overlap that we have to have these discussions.

[GundamGuy]

Legacy is a peculiar beast. It used to be simple to identify what constitutes "prison" as a broad strategy. Same goes for combo", "ramp", etc. There is just so much required overlap that we have to have these discussions.

I don't know that we have to have these discussions. IMO discussion about what deck is or is not which category is pointless...

Now granted we do keep having this conversation on a pretty much weekly basis.

[Crimhead]

Making generalisations about decks and deck types helps to productively discuss the format. Case and point, OP is interested in prison decks. Luckily we have a word for that type of deck!

[MGB]

The proactive strategies in Legacy are too strong for there to be a pure prison deck.

[iatee]

I am pretty sure if fully-outfitted Pox were secretly a T1 legacy deck, someone other than you would have figured it out by now.

[btm10]

Have you played with/against a fully outfitted Pox deck? I run 2x Tabernacles, 2x Abyss, 2x Nether Voids main deck, and have 2x Chains in the board. I demolish people with Pox, especially Delver decks. The only match-up I fear pre-board is Lands.


Yes. I won both times. With BUG Delver.

[Crimhead]

I am pretty sure if fully-outfitted Pox were secretly a T1 legacy deck, someone other than you would have figured it out by now.
In order for a deck to establish itself as tire-one, two cents nditions must be met:

The deck must be sufficiently well positioned.
There must be a sufficient number of (quality) players willing to push the deck and put it on the map.

How many Legacy players:

Own multiple copies of the most expensive rares from Legends?
Actually want to play a dedicated, grindy prison deck?
Are good players?

RGCL can produce fast wins (making it more appealing to play) and needs only the a single Tabernacle (no Chains, Abyss, or Nethervoid) but still can't produce enough pilots to consistently make DTB. What chance does Pox have?

[iatee]

Yep, though, unlike Lands, you even don't have to be a good player to play Pox. "Hymn to Touch...myself? No wait..the other guy." It's more linear than Burn.

Also the 'Deck is secretly amazing, nobody plays it because it's too expensive' argument doesn't survive scrutiny because all of those cards are super cheap on MTGO, where the deck is nonexistent. Anyone who owns Lilies and Wastelands can build the rest of the deck online for almost nothing.

[btm10]

I think you're committing an error that you usually catch other people with, Crimhead. I agree that Pox is unlikely to ever be a Deck to Beat again, but that doesn't stop it from being "tier 1". Lands is probably the best example of this - it's not played by many people (unless you're in the Northeastern US) but an argument that it's not tier 1 would face a lot of skepticism. Conversely, Pox, even with its fanciest doo-dads, just doesn't have the critical mass of even-to-good matchups against the field that characterize tier 1 decks like Delver, Shardless, and Miracles, nor does it have the extremely skewed matchup numbers that something like Lands does that allows its great matchups to more than make up for its atrocious ones.

[Crimhead]

I think you're committing an error that you usually catch other people with, Crimhead.


In order for a deck to establish itself as tire-one, two conditions must be met:

The deck must be sufficiently well positioned.
There must be a sufficient number of (quality) players willing to push the deck and put it on the map.

There is a difference between a deck being tier one vs being established as tier one. In November 2013, RGCL was secretly a tier-one deck, but wasn't established as such until 2014.

[Crimhead]

Also the 'Deck is secretly amazing, nobody plays it because it's too expensive' argument doesn't survive scrutiny because all of those cards are super cheap on MTGO, where the deck is nonexistent.
For the record, I do not think Pox is tier one! ;-(

Hadn't considered the online price argument - that's a good point. But I truely believe the art of pure control is on life support. WotC has coddled an entire generation of Magic players - sheltering them from the evils of slow, grindy, make-people-sad, control decks. Especially prison! I'd also guess the majority of Legacy players, especially online, are less than ten year magic veterans.

Between the players who dismiss anything that's not already putting up results, and the players who would rather play something less slow and linear (almost everyone), who is left to push it, even online?

Again, I think Pox < tier one to be certain! But if it ever becomes so again, I think it could potentially take a long time to catch on.

[iatee]

I think the deck is tier 2 because of some things that can't change - it is a nonblue deck that has no card selection, a linear game plan and unlike Eldrazi or Burn that game plan isn't 'win immediately'. Even when it has a strong start, the opponent gets a chance to draw out of it. Many of its topdecks are the worst cards to topdeck - discard spells - instead of spells that keep pressuring the opponent's life total.

When the game plan works well it can beat just about anybody. But there are just too many ways for something to go wrong with that plan. That's not meta-dependent or even something that would be fixed by a new toy for the deck, it's more of a fundamental problem.

[Crimhead]

Pox used to be a good deck - despite having no card selection and a slow game plan.

I think the issue is that everything else in the format has gotten better around it. That means Pox can fall too far behind before putting the opponent into top-deck mode; and that the opponents are far less crippled once they get there.

It helped that there were more decks in the past like Zoo, Goblins, and Merfolk that also had no card selection and some code for n top-deck mode. I guess Eldrazi Shops is good for Pox, but it doesn't have the meta share that I have was held by linear creature decks (plus Pox is still worse against everything else).

Pox could in theory become T1 again, but in reality cards like Hymn, Smallpox, and Innocent Blood aren't going to get upgrades ala the power creep we have seen with creatures. Other decks get Delver, KotR, Pyromancer, Mentor, DRS, SFM, etc; while Pox gets Shrieking Affliction and Toxic Deluge. This is why prison decks need a faster way to win these days - midrange and Tempo decks get new toys every year, while they print jack shit in the way of lock pieces.

[Finn]

Pox has never been anything beyond fringe in Legacy.