[Article] Top 5 Legacy Decks According to the Experts

[Griselpuff]

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-top-5-decks-in-legacy-according-to-the-experts/

[Stuart]

Thanks for posting this, Bob. It's baffling to me that there were any non-Miracles votes for 1st place.

[Megadeus]

I'm surprised by that as well. Looking at numbers the only way you can argue it isn't is that its top 8 penetration is only due to the oversaturation of the deck with number of players playing it. Man it would be really nice if their 1 mana instant wrath at least killed the creatures. Fucking misery

[Pilhas]

I'm surprised by that as well. Looking at numbers the only way you can argue it isn't is that its top 8 penetration is only due to the oversaturation of the deck with number of players playing it. Man it would be really nice if their 1 mana instant wrath at least killed the creatures. Fucking misery

I would actually argue that it would be worse if it did kill them....
I also believe that Miracles is the best deck, however the level of player you play influences the deck by a larger margin than most of the other decks.

[Stuart]

Man it would be really nice if their 1 mana instant wrath at least killed the creatures. Fucking misery

That's something I don't tend to notice when I'm on MUD or Enchantress, but I expect to be aggravated by it once I hop on the GBx train. The one upside is that Dryad Arbor becomes GSZable again :laugh:.



I also believe that Miracles is the best deck, however the level of player you play influences the deck by a larger margin than most of the other decks.

More or less agree with this, though Miracles does get some brainless wins off the back of Countertop and Mentor. Likewise, when you play a million pieces of card selection and filtering, it's not that hard to find the silver bullet that wrecks your opponent.

But yeah, bad-to-average Miracles players tend to be pretty easy to beat, but the good-to-great ones always wipe the floor with me. If they know how to pilot the deck well, it feels unbeatable.

[Julian23]

I would actually argue that it would be worse if it did kill them....

True. Terminus would be significantly worse and easier to interact with if it just destroyed the creatures. Thrun and Vengevine come to mind. That would actually make for quite interesting games. Back in early 2013 we actually ran a couple of Elves lists with 4x Vengevines.

[Megadeus]

Destroy would be great. There's so many interesting ways to interact with that, thrun and vengevine like Julian said, selfless spirit on board bones it, dauntless escort would be pretty interesting as a green Sun target. Bloodghast might even still be playable. Yeah in green Sun decks and stuff it's kind of nice to be able to get those back, but that is basically two decks in the format, whereas if it were a destroy effect you'd have things like Zombardment and other petty cool things. Now you get a deck that pushes out non blue aggro because they can't interact with terminus on the stack and you also push out any other control deck because their answers are generally just worse than instant speed tuck wrath for W. The deck damages diversity at this point and makes the format pretty stale as it's been top dog for 4 years now with now real end in sight.

[thefringthing]

I started working on a 2012 update to the History of Legacy series that Nightmare and akatsuki have contributed to, which has included writing about the birth of Miracles. It's been interesting, but it's surprising how long it's been on top.

[Barook]

Destroy would be great. There's so many interesting ways to interact with that, thrun and vengevine like Julian said, selfless spirit on board bones it, dauntless escort would be pretty interesting as a green Sun target. Bloodghast might even still be playable. Yeah in green Sun decks and stuff it's kind of nice to be able to get those back, but that is basically two decks in the format, whereas if it were a destroy effect you'd have things like Zombardment and other petty cool things. Now you get a deck that pushes out non blue aggro because they can't interact with terminus on the stack and you also push out any other control deck because their answers are generally just worse than instant speed tuck wrath for W. The deck damages diversity at this point and makes the format pretty stale as it's been top dog for 4 years now with now real end in sight.
Actually, it's just 3 years of domination as results before varied strongly, but your point still stands:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6z76_BWsAAuoWn.jpg

Especially the last two years are pretty ugly. It would be great if more pros spoke about Miracles like BBD did a few days ago on Twitter. Then maybe R&D would get off their asses and banned something to bring it back in line.

[UnderwaterGuy]

Destroy would be great. There's so many interesting ways to interact with that, thrun and vengevine like Julian said, selfless spirit on board bones it, dauntless escort


All that talk of "interesting" and you just want to play unkillable green creatures? I don't see what's interesting about non-interactive cards like that.

This just boils down to players that like playing creatures and players that like playing spells. Terminus is what a wrath needs to be when so many creatures have insane protection (True Name Nemesis, etc). It may have still been playable at 1W though; I'll admit that.

[Julian23]

You are wrong about that part. Interacting with cards like Thrun, TNN or Vengevine is several levels of magnitude easier than Terminus.

[UnderwaterGuy]

True Name Nemesis is easier to interact with? You might as well say that about every instant and sorcery then because you need to be able to interact while they're on the stack. TNN is the definition of non-interaction, that is its entire design with "protection from your opponent". Luckily we have some methods of killing these almost unkillable creatures though.

[TsumiBand]

TNN isn't much better than Terminus, it's part of a larger problem of iteration.

I've said as much before but really the summation of a long-winded argument is basically this -- once upon a time the creature removal dynamic was established as either being a function of damage or spells, and it was simpler stuff like "Terror your Tarpan" or whatever two things you want to put in there. Then they started iterating over things and trying to shore up perceived imbalances, and the swings of the pendulum led to removing "can't regenerate" from Wraths or giving creatures Indestructible or Hexproof or what have you, and as things escalated and got weirder the conditions upon which they could be addressed got weirder too.

Like it's one thing to go "StP your Llanowar Elves", that's a very clean and simple interaction there assuming we don't go down the rabbit hole of potential counterplays. But if you look back at like, the dumb stuff that "had to" see print because of the last escalation in technology, we're now at this "Terminus your super-efficient creature board" stage where a ton of other plays were invalidated along the way, just to satisfy some weird need to make really potent things with Indestructible or Hexproof on them as an answer to the last ridiculous board sweeper that came along. Like, from a strict "My card counters your threat" standpoint, where again the dynamic was pretty straightforward for years, we have moved on from "StP your Elves" to "Council of Judgment, it resolves, I vote for your True-Name Nemesis" and it uses a lot more words to achieve the same endpoint but really it's basically the same game. Only now, we have these big dogs like Terminus wiping boards for one White, which is just inexplicably stupid in a format where there's sooooooo many ways to stack the top couple of cards in your deck. I'm not even going down the Brainstorm path right now, it's completely nuts the number of other cantrips or Scrys or Tops that would make this kind of Wrath effect so easy to cast in Legacy for its Miracle cost.

Like I get that you can't just let dudes like Thrun or Geist of Saint Traft just exist without a way to respond to them, even though they both cost 3 or more mana and don't end the game immediately. But it's like Gordon's speech to Batman at the end of Batman Begins -- what about escalation? In making provisions for those cards they've unleashed this huge monster that just pwns all the guys so fucking hard, and for so cheaply. It's easy to forget that Legacy was once this sort of bastion for aggro-control, with how far things have come.

[Julian23]

What I was getting at was that regular mass removal, a centerpiece of control decks, still removes TNN and some of it even hits Thrun.

Whereas Terminus, you just swallow it. I'd love to get rid off both Terminus and TNN, but claiming Terminus wasn't miles beyond TNN in what it did the format is incorrect.

[rlesko]

All that talk of "interesting" and you just want to play unkillable green creatures? I don't see what's interesting about non-interactive cards like that.

This just boils down to players that like playing creatures and players that like playing spells. Terminus is what a wrath needs to be when so many creatures have insane protection (True Name Nemesis, etc). It may have still been playable at 1W though; I'll admit that.

First of all, I'm interested in hearing about the creatures that aren't dying to traditional board wipes. You said "true name, etc." implying there are a lot of creatures dominating the legacy meta game with protections. True name is the only one I can think of thats even relevant, and dies to every non red board wipe that I can think of, including other effects. See wrath of god, supreme verdict, damnation, -x/-x crap like golgari charm, toxic deluge, and sacrifice effects like liliana -2 and diabolic edict. So, I don't really think your point about needing terminus to answer tnn and co. is valid at all.

Second, its ridiculously inaccurate to simply summarize things as "some players like casting creatures, some like casting instants and sorceries". There are a ton of ways nonblue decks could interact with board wipes through regeneration and indestructible. potentially playable cards with those abilities would include but not be limited to golgari charm, boros charm, selfless spirit, dauntless escort, thrun, ascetic troll, and heroic intervention. Also cards that can recur creatures from the graveyard like sword of light and shadow, second sunrise, all hallow's eve / living death, and even patriarch's bidding could be explored. But no, since it puts things on the bottom of the library your options are grenzo and some crappy artifact from innistrad i can't remember right now.

[bigbobbobber]

But no, since it puts things on the bottom of the library your options are grenzo and some crappy artifact from innistrad i can't remember right now.

Cellar Door. Is there any world where this card becomes even sideboard playable? I do and I don't know if I want to live in that world...

[Varal]

What is this 4C Snapcaster Delver deck? I've never heard of it before and it's one of the few decks believed to be better than Miracles.

[rlesko]

What is this 4C Snapcaster Delver deck? I've never heard of it before and it's one of the few decks believed to be better than Miracles.

Also can be referred to as "Friedman delver"

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/benfriedman-12232016-the-ultimate-guide-to-4-color-delver/

[ESG]

It's interesting that all 16 of the experts surveyed have put Miracles as either No. 1 or No. 2. Usually there are always one or two contrarians out there, but it seems everyone is finally in agreement that Miracles is OP.

[Nicklas]

Also can be referred to as "Friedman delver"

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/benfriedman-12232016-the-ultimate-guide-to-4-color-delver/

I assumed at least Angelo Cadei was talking about the czech.dec that Noah Walker played recently. 4c Delverless Delver or Goodstuff or whatever you wanna call it. I just know it as the czech pile...
Quote from the MKM Series website, when Angelo was asked for the best deck:

What is the best Legacy deck in your opinion (that you did not play yourself)?
Tomas Mar's deck.

List: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=13630&d=280217&f=LE

I might be mistaken though.

[Griselpuff]

Angelo was talking about Friedman Delver although he said the 4C Goyf Control deck was very good, but he felt like people didn't know what it was. Maybe that's why he didn't include it and put Friedman Delver instead, which is very similar.

[Megadeus]

The fact that that four color monstrosity can consistently do well despite the format having the ability to play turn 1 blood moons and half the decks packing 4 wasteland is pretty miserable.

[Whitefaces]

The fact that that four color monstrosity can consistently do well despite the format having the ability to play turn 1 blood moons and half the decks packing 4 wasteland is pretty miserable.

Why? It's not like the manabase never gets punished, you lose games because of Wasteland but people think the reward is there to play 4c. Something isn't immediately considered miserable just because you don't like it.

[Ingo]

What strikes me, is that of the 5 top decks, 4 of them have 5% or more metagame share, with Miracles peaking at 17%, delver variants at 9% (combining Grixis RUG and UR), D&T at 6% and S&T at 5% (according to mtgtop8).
Lands however sits at a metagame share of 2%, which seems very low for a deck that belongs to the top5.

[jrsthethird]

Lands being at a 2% metagame share is a factor of the Reserved List, due to the high as balls price of Tabernacle. If Tabernacle weren't Reserved, Lands would be a top-tier DTB and the metagame would be completely warped due to its higher presence.

[Ingo]

Lands being at a 2% metagame share is a factor of the Reserved List, due to the high as balls price of Tabernacle. If Tabernacle weren't Reserved, Lands would be a top-tier DTB and the metagame would be completely warped due to its higher presence.

Actually I think that's only partially the story, because players I know just trade/buy anything they need, regardless of price (as they'll always be able to trade/sell it again as long it's T1 cards). I suspect the difference in playstyle compared to brainstorm decks, or vulnerability to combo has more to do with it, than the pricetag.

[rlesko]

Lands being at a 2% metagame share is a factor of the Reserved List, due to the high as balls price of Tabernacle. If Tabernacle weren't Reserved, Lands would be a top-tier DTB and the metagame would be completely warped due to its higher presence.

To an extent, I agree. But also If you look at the cost of the deck as a whole it is close to in line with most other legacy decks. Yes I know tabernacle isn't as versatile as the 6 blue duals you could otherwise have gotten. But Lands isn't for everyone anyways :wink:

[Varal]

I find Lands to be similar to Modern Lantern. It plays completely different from other decks. I've found most people trying the deck for the first time to be pretty bad with it. When I come back to it after long breaks, I also have a tough time to put my mind back into it.

Some parts of the decks aren't that fun either, looping Rishadan Port, Punishing Fire or Glacial Chasm every turns are both long and boring. I dread every times I have to kill my opponent with Punishing Fire or complete lockdown + decking.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

I have been saying it for over 2 years now. Terminus needs to be banned!

[CutthroatCasual]

It's interesting that all 16 of the experts surveyed have put Miracles as either No. 1 or No. 2. Usually there are always one or two contrarians out there, but it seems everyone is finally in agreement that Miracles is OP.

Best ≠ OP

Eldrazi in Modern was both the best and OP (because nothing in the format could interact with it.)

In Legacy, Miracles is the best deck but it's not OP considering it's very beatable if you know what you're doing.

[Alka]

It's interesting that all 16 of the experts surveyed have put Miracles as either No. 1 or No. 2. Usually there are always one or two contrarians out there, but it seems everyone is finally in agreement that Miracles is OP.

Not only that, but some lists have Miracles in their Top 5 twice for the different versions of the deck.

[Barachai]

Best ≠ OP

Eldrazi in Modern was both the best and OP (because nothing in the format could interact with it.)

In Legacy, Miracles is the best deck but it's not OP considering it's very beatable if you know what you're doing.

I think BBD has a pretty solid view on it, not that miracles is really overpowered but that it's gotten really damn boring to see, play, and play against the deck for so long. For the sake of making legacy interesting again, do something to it.

[Lemnear]

In Legacy, Miracles is the best deck but it's not OP considering it's very beatable if you know what you're doing.

This argument kinda rubs me the wrong way. Just because a deck is somehow beatable (either by good draws, excellent players or fringe Tier 2 decks), doesn't quite "even out" having a (highly) favored position against like the remaining 85% of the metagame and average players. It doesn't need to be blatant overpowered, it just needs to create and maintain the mentioned favorable position against the metagame to reach/maintain the status the deck has since 3 years

[UnderwaterGuy]

Thank you, TsumiBand for the great post about escalation.


First of all, I'm interested in hearing about the creatures that aren't dying to traditional board wipes. You said "true name, etc." implying there are a lot of creatures dominating the legacy meta game with protections. True name is the only one I can think of thats even relevant, and dies to every non red board wipe that I can think of, including other effects. See wrath of god, supreme verdict, damnation, -x/-x crap like golgari charm, toxic deluge, and sacrifice effects like liliana -2 and diabolic edict. So, I don't really think your point about needing terminus to answer tnn and co. is valid at all.

Second, its ridiculously inaccurate to simply summarize things as "some players like casting creatures, some like casting instants and sorceries". There are a ton of ways nonblue decks could interact with board wipes through regeneration and indestructible. potentially playable cards with those abilities would include but not be limited to golgari charm, boros charm, selfless spirit, dauntless escort, thrun, ascetic troll, and heroic intervention. Also cards that can recur creatures from the graveyard like sword of light and shadow, second sunrise, all hallow's eve / living death, and even patriarch's bidding could be explored. But no, since it puts things on the bottom of the library your options are grenzo and some crappy artifact from innistrad i can't remember right now.

TNN is the most egregious but there are others that might be playable if Terminus didn't exist (Vengevine and Thrun were mentioned. Both uncounterable and difficult to permanently remove). You're right that they'd use other angles like graveyard persistence and that at least could give an avenue to interrupt them. Of course creatures that get wrecked by Terminus are not dominating the metagame while Terminus is all over the place but if it weren't for Terminus we'd almost certainly see more of them.

We might be in a better place if Supreme Verdict tucked and Terminus was a simple wrath but the power has already escalated and we're at a place where creatures can get tucked.

It's my opinion that players have preferences between creature and instants/sorceries and I still don't see why you say that's ridiculous. All of your examples of instants and sorceries there were still extremely creature-based. Yeah they interact with the stack and that's good because they can interact with non-creature-based decks but they are still instant-speed effects that require you to have creatures to cast them on. On the flipside, instant/sorcery decks play creatures like Snapcaster Mage who are totally tied to those card types just like Boros Charm is tied to creature-based decks.


I think BBD has a pretty solid view on it, not that miracles is really overpowered but that it's gotten really damn boring to see, play, and play against the deck for so long. For the sake of making legacy interesting again, do something to it.

Standard is the rotating format. We don't need to artificially rotate eternal formats with yugioh-style bans. Eternal formats have massive amounts of legal cards and each year that cardpool only increases by a small percentage so it would be unhealthy for the format to rapidly change; it would be a sign of runaway power-creep. Banning cards because a deck has been good for a long time is anathema to the spirit of eternal formats and it's an excuse to ask for cards to be banned just because someone dislikes them. An objective argument for banning a card to weaken Miracles would be data showing that no viable deck has a good matchup against Miracles.

[rlesko]

Of course creatures that get wrecked by Terminus are not dominating the metagame while Terminus is all over the place but if it weren't for Terminus we'd almost certainly see more of them.

We might be in a better place if Supreme Verdict tucked and Terminus was a simple wrath but the power has already escalated and we're at a place where creatures can get tucked.

Don't really understand this - what creatures DON'T get wrecked by terminus? Thrun is also a legendary 4 drop, btw. And I can at least block it if I want. And when I'm playing against it at least I can make my opponent choose between dedicating 2 mana to regenerate it or take the damage. Quite simply TNN is in a completely different stratosphere than TNN. Oh, and lets not forget the biggest drawback...GG casting cost :wink:



It's my opinion that players have preferences between creature and instants/sorceries and I still don't see why you say that's ridiculous. All of your examples of instants and sorceries there were still extremely creature-based. Yeah they interact with the stack and that's good because they can interact with non-creature-based decks but they are still instant-speed effects that require you to have creatures to cast them on. On the flipside, instant/sorcery decks play creatures like Snapcaster Mage who are totally tied to those card types just like Boros Charm is tied to creature-based decks.


Because somehow you justified Terminus' existence because "some people don't like casting creatures". Cool, thats fine, they don't have to. They can spend 4 mana like a regular board wipe should cost...at sorcery speed.

In the example I gave, both players get to play magic. you get your board wipe, the creature guy gets a fighting chance. Instead, we get this derpy control deck that will bone you for over extending via terminus (literally no way for instants or sorceries to combat this card unless of course you counter it), and bone you for slowly deploying your threats lest you get locked out by the ever so skill intensive SDT + Counterbalance lock.

[btm10]

Banning cards because a deck has been good for a long time is anathema to the spirit of eternal formats and it's an excuse to ask for cards to be banned just because someone dislikes them. An objective argument for banning a card to weaken Miracles would be data showing that no viable deck has a good matchup against Miracles.

The argument in favor of banning a card from Miracles (though let's be honest, the card in question will be Top) is precisely that Miracles has been too good for too long. In fact, it's been so good for so long that we've gone through several metagame cycles of anti-Miracles technology being invented/printed/discovered, widely adopted, and Miracles evolving to incorporate reliable answers to whatever tech cropped up. The problem is not that no deck can reliably beat Miracles, it's that the decks that can reliably beat it are constantly changing. In effect, Legacy rotates, it just rotates around Miracles.

[UnderwaterGuy]

The argument in favor of banning a card from Miracles (though let's be honest, the card in question will be Top) is precisely that Miracles has been too good for too long. In fact, it's been so good for so long that we've gone through several metagame cycles of anti-Miracles technology being invented/printed/discovered, widely adopted, and Miracles evolving to incorporate reliable answers to whatever tech cropped up. The problem is not that no deck can reliably beat Miracles, it's that the decks that can reliably beat it are constantly changing. In effect, Legacy rotates, it just rotates around Miracles.

I understand the argument and am saying that it's against the spirit of the format and a completely subjective argument based on what an individual's opinion of "long time" is. It reeks of an excuse to avoid saying "I don't like control decks and want them to be weaker". If there is winrate data that shows an unbalance that would be something we could discuss without it being totally charged by our biases of what decks we enjoy.

Going through cycles of technology is what's beautiful about eternal formats and if wotc just banned cards more often it would rob players of the chance to innovate and be creative. This is what real natural metagame evolution looks like.

[UnderwaterGuy]

Don't really understand this - what creatures DON'T get wrecked by terminus? Thrun is also a legendary 4 drop, btw. And I can at least block it if I want. And when I'm playing against it at least I can make my opponent choose between dedicating 2 mana to regenerate it or take the damage. Quite simply TNN is in a completely different stratosphere than TNN. Oh, and lets not forget the biggest drawback...GG casting cost :wink:

Creatures with comes-into-play abilities (ie Baleful Strix) and creatures that don't rely on going to the graveyard or indestructability (ie Deathrite Shamn, Delver, and eldrazi creatures) are not wrecked by Terminus any more than they are by other wipes. Tucking is particularly effective against some creatures though and that was my point. Terminus is a very (very) efficient board wipe that comes with splash damage against graveyards and "durable" or hard to kill creatures.




Because somehow you justified Terminus' existence because "some people don't like casting creatures". Cool, thats fine, they don't have to. They can spend 4 mana like a regular board wipe should cost...at sorcery speed.

In the example I gave, both players get to play magic. you get your board wipe, the creature guy gets a fighting chance. Instead, we get this derpy control deck that will bone you for over extending via terminus (literally no way for instants or sorceries to combat this card unless of course you counter it), and bone you for slowly deploying your threats lest you get locked out by the ever so skill intensive SDT + Counterbalance lock.

I wasn't mentioning that division of players to justify Terminus. I mentioned it because I think that's what this whole conversation boils down to and creature-lovers hate wraths just like they always have. If the data proves that Miracles has favorable matchups against all the other viable decks then I'm not going to defend the deck but when the arguments against it are nebulous I will.

Being the most widely-played deck or existing for a long time does not make a deck overpowered. Consider that hard counterspell-based control decks do not exist in any other format but Vintage and even there they are very fringe. That inflates the number of Miracles players in Legacy because if you like this kind of deck then this is almost the only format you can play it in. If you like something like midrange and hate being wrathed then other formats provide that and midrange players are distributed throughout all formats. I'm not trying to be a total douchebag and say "go play another format" by saying this. My point is that Legacy is literally the last bastion of hard control so the players that enjoy it will be drawn to the format to play this deck. As Ingo said about Lands, players don't exclusively choose their decks based on what is good or else we'd expect to see some more Lands players. Lands is a strange beast and it has its fans but isn't widely popular and a contributing factor is that not a lot of players want to play that deck. Miracles' share of the format is inflated by the same phenomenon but in the opposite direction.

[CptHaddock]

I understand the argument and am saying that it's against the spirit of the format and a completely subjective argument based on what an individual's opinion of "long time" is. It reeks of an excuse to avoid saying "I don't like control decks and want them to be weaker". If there is winrate data that shows an unbalance that would be something we could discuss without it being totally charged by our biases of what decks we enjoy.

Going through cycles of technology is what's beautiful about eternal formats and if wotc just banned cards more often it would rob players of the chance to innovate and be creative. This is what real natural metagame evolution looks like.

I didn't see anything that even indicated he wanted control decks to be weaker in the format. Having a playable control deck in a format is usually a good thing but the problem with miracles is how much better it is than any other control deck you can play in the format. It gets the best selection between top and the obvious blue cantrips, it has arguably one of the best CA/prison pieces in counterbalance, has the ability to combo out or win games out of nowhere with entreat or angels, has a 1 mana instant speed wrath which constantly requires playing around and has the ability to easily adapt to any hate that is being played without changing major cards in the deck. Blade decks had to choose what they wanted to build their sideboard again but even with that didn't feel so oppressive.

[gh0st_b1rd]

I remembered back when Pod was still a deck in Modern I brought a week old list of UWR Control to my LGS to play in our Modern weeklies after PT Born of the Gods had ended. I remembered my opponent following up his Kitchen Finks with a Pod which resolved, which got him a Thrun.

I cast Hallowed Burial and he proceeded to drop a Kitchen Finks while I only had a single Bolt in hand and proceeded to make another Thrun.

I think this anecdote is revelant.

[thefringthing]

Going through cycles of technology is what's beautiful about eternal formats and if wotc just banned cards more often it would rob players of the chance to innovate and be creative. This is what real natural metagame evolution looks like.X turning out not to beat Miracles after all, then Y turning out not to beat Miracles after all, then Z turning out not to beat Miracles after all is beautiful?

[Stuart]

X turning out not to beat Miracles after all, then Y turning out not to beat Miracles after all, then Z turning out not to beat Miracles after all is beautiful?

I wish I could upvote comments.

[Megadeus]

The worst part about terminus as compared to other wraths is that the only creature cards that really interact with it are the ones that are perceived as uninteractive by disallowing players to cast spells like tax effects (which are essentially useless against 1 mana wrath) and Teeg, or simply chalice or prelate. All cards people really dislike for being uninteractive cards, but that's really the best things you can do to prevent terminus, whereas if wraths destroyed instead of tuck, there's many more options that would actually be viable and possibly played.

[Noctalor]

If there is winrate data that shows an unbalance that would be something we could discuss without it being totally charged by our biases of what decks we enjoy.

Actually, it's just 3 years of domination as results before varied strongly, but your point still stands:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6z76_BWsAAuoWn.jpg

Especially the last two years are pretty ugly. It would be great if more pros spoke about Miracles like BBD did a few days ago on Twitter. Then maybe R&D would get off their asses and banned something to bring it back in line.

:eyebrow:

And it's pretty clear that:
BUG is the only viable option for midrange decks because they can play around counterbalance
Omnitell is the only viable option for combo because it can play around counterbalance
Taxes is the only viable option for a smart creature based deck because it can play around counterbalance
Eldrazi is the only viable option for aggro because it can play around counterbalance

While
Any midrange non BG has become unplayable
Any combo deck not trying to win on turn 1 or casting out of curve drop has become unplayable
Any aggro deck that has no vial or cavern has become unplayable

And it's also true that every single deck in the format but miracles can be hated to the point of just beating it:
Taxes gets destroyed by specific hate (sulfur, kozilek return, cheap sweepers)
Bug can't react properly to moon effects (moon, ruination, from the ashes)
Omnitell Has a very hard time beating specific hate (containment priest, canonist, pyroblasts, flusterstorms)
Eldrazi can easily be hated into oblivion by locking pieces (moat, humility, ensnaring bridge)

And all the cards that can easily beat all the other decks can all be played in a single deck, guess which one

[Megadeus]

I'm glad that all it took to knock miracles down to 2 and 3 was ancestral recall being legal as a 4 of that can't be counterbalanced

[keys]

It probably is time for one of Terminus or Top to go. I would vote Terminus, as I don't think the deck deserves to be completely neutered, and it might make non-white CBTop viable again (without being nearly as oppressive). Even in Vintage, decks don't stay this dominant for this long.

[Noctalor]

I hate miracles with passion, but at the moment I think something like terminus is needed to mantain a control viable in the meta, creatures are way too good to just be stopped with a wrath of god in my opinion.

A single thalia and a port can be enought to just prevent a 4 cost card from happening
Eldrazi can play on curve thought-knot and remove the wrath and even if you have another you are still getting smashed the turn right after
Delver could easily disrupt a sweeper and not overextanding into it, given that after casting it they have an entire free turn to play winter orb and other hosers
Elves could esaily win before the wrath even happens, or right after it happens.

Honestly I would love if this game had the ability to just nerf cards, as hearthstone does, top would be fair without the swapping ability, terminus would be decent even costing :1::w: or being forced to be played in your turn, mentor should be toned down somehow.

If a ban happens the main cards that could get it are:
- Top: the deck just dies, and we probably won't have another good control deck ever, and shardless would be considered the control of the format, not sure if a stoneblade deck could be playable
- Terminus: as I said imho other sweepers aren't good enought to keep it up with the current threats, creatureless control would be unplayable, not sure if a stoneblade deck could be playable
- Mentor: at least miracles would start losing again to the deck he should lose to, I would be happy with this ban, currently mentor makes MU such as goblin, BGx, ramp & other fringe decks actually even, which is just dumb
- Counterbalance: Miracle would start having an hard time against deck such as burn and storm, and a fuckton of decks would come back in the format, green decks would not be forced to play BGx, and non bug aggrocontrol would be in the meta aswell, I would like this ban.


Still, no ban is going to happen, if miracles survived times where it was absolutely the tier0 of the format, smashing easily anything else, I don't see why they would ban something right now, with taxes and eldrazi being in the meta and surely able to play at least an even match against it

[Fox]

The worst part about terminus as compared to other wraths is that the only creature cards that really interact with it are the ones that are perceived as uninteractive by disallowing players to cast spells like tax effects (which are essentially useless against 1 mana wrath) and Teeg, or simply chalice or prelate. All cards people really dislike for being uninteractive cards, but that's really the best things you can do to prevent terminus, whereas if wraths destroyed instead of tuck, there's many more options that would actually be viable and possibly played.

I think we can kill two birds with one stone here. Since no one really likes Terminus or Leovold all we need is the "Darker Confidant" - some guy that's like a 1/1 for 2 mana, can't be countered, shroud and a replacement effect that says "if a player would draw a card they must either replace that draw (dredge) or instead or put the top card of their library into their hand for each card they would have drawn." I mean you'd have to emergency ban Sylvan Library (pretty sure that wording is just put 3 cards into hand, pay no life, put none back every turn...and stacks with other Sylvans for 3/5/7/9 cards per turn), but other than that it would be a nice little "there is no god" response to the miracle mechanic. :tongue:

The interactive mechanic you're looking for which undermines Terminus is phasing as an activated ability (critically important that the creature is staying on the battlefield to avoid Containment Priest cheese). Sadly people seem to think phasing is too complicated, and as such we'll never see a new creature like Rainbow Efreet except with flash (just adding flash to this card specifically would actually make it a fine hate card for miracles, though I doubt you'd like an answer like this as it's blue). Not surprising to see miracles on top in this poll though, the wording of cards to effectively combat that deck in a specific and hateful way would be a pandora's box as far as mechanics are concerned.

[Lemnear]

- Mentor: at least miracles would start losing again to the deck he should lose to, I would be happy with this ban, currently mentor makes MU such as goblin, BGx, ramp & other fringe decks actually even, which is just dumb

Its worth noting that Miracles was a top tier even while TC & DTT were legal and Mentor not even printed. I think that tells all about HOW irrelevant Mentor is for Miracles' position in the metagame. The removal of TC & DTT just cemented its position and it shows us what kind of power is required, to challenge Miracles

[TheArchitect]

Its worth noting that Miracles was a top tier even while TC & DTT were legal and Mentor not even printed. I think that tells all about HOW irrelevant Mentor is for Miracles' position in the metagame. The removal of TC & DTT just cemented its position and it shows us what kind of power is required, to challenge Miracles

After Omnitell, Miracles was easily the best dig through time deck. In the TC era, a lot of miracles players were slow to adopt DTT. I think if all the miracles played 2-4 DTT in miracles from the day Khans came out, miracles might have even beat out UR delver as the top deck during the TC era.

[Warden]

It's because the writing is on the wall. A competitive player has too much filtering and power with Miracles. And I agree with others...the entire deck invalidates most of the format.

[maharis]

The fact that that four color monstrosity can consistently do well despite the format having the ability to play turn 1 blood moons and half the decks packing 4 wasteland is pretty miserable.

The thing is, what makes that deck playable is basically that it's an Abrupt Decay and Bolt deck that also plays Brainstorm and Force. That covers all its bases against the Miracles + fast combo decks + BUG decks without bolt meta. It eats it to any well-constructed deck that can disrupt a mana base, even if that deck doesn't play blue, but those decks get pushed out by Miracles + fast combo (BR reanimator/skill and derp/etc). The only one that does reasonably well is D&T and that turns it into a pretzel.

As I told you at the GP, I played it, hit the skids, and hated myself the whole time. But you gotta do what you gotta do. I don't think I own a deck I would've felt better about.


I hate miracles with passion, but at the moment I think something like terminus is needed to mantain a control viable in the meta, creatures are way too good to just be stopped with a wrath of god in my opinion.

A single thalia and a port can be enought to just prevent a 4 cost card from happening
Eldrazi can play on curve thought-knot and remove the wrath and even if you have another you are still getting smashed the turn right after
Delver could easily disrupt a sweeper and not overextanding into it, given that after casting it they have an entire free turn to play winter orb and other hosers
Elves could esaily win before the wrath even happens, or right after it happens.

Honestly I would love if this game had the ability to just nerf cards, as hearthstone does, top would be fair without the swapping ability, terminus would be decent even costing :1::w: or being forced to be played in your turn, mentor should be toned down somehow.

If a ban happens the main cards that could get it are:
- Top: the deck just dies, and we probably won't have another good control deck ever, and shardless would be considered the control of the format, not sure if a stoneblade deck could be playable
- Terminus: as I said imho other sweepers aren't good enought to keep it up with the current threats, creatureless control would be unplayable, not sure if a stoneblade deck could be playable
- Mentor: at least miracles would start losing again to the deck he should lose to, I would be happy with this ban, currently mentor makes MU such as goblin, BGx, ramp & other fringe decks actually even, which is just dumb
- Counterbalance: Miracle would start having an hard time against deck such as burn and storm, and a fuckton of decks would come back in the format, green decks would not be forced to play BGx, and non bug aggrocontrol would be in the meta aswell, I would like this ban.


Still, no ban is going to happen, if miracles survived times where it was absolutely the tier0 of the format, smashing easily anything else, I don't see why they would ban something right now, with taxes and eldrazi being in the meta and surely able to play at least an even match against it

I agree, Terminus in the format without CB would be interesting, because we might see other decks sprout up that use it. I love the quinn/parfait ideas that have been floated, and some of the 12post decks that use top as well. Counterbalance is just a piece of shit because it forces you to run Decay/BGx. Storm decks are running 1-2 decays main now at times. That's just misery. At least Chalice forces decks to contort around it. CB lets you play the best consistency engine in the format while shutting off your opponents ability to do the same.

[rlesko]

Being the most widely-played deck or existing for a long time does not make a deck overpowered. Consider that hard counterspell-based control decks do not exist in any other format but Vintage and even there they are very fringe. That inflates the number of Miracles players in Legacy because if you like this kind of deck then this is almost the only format you can play it in. If you like something like midrange and hate being wrathed then other formats provide that and midrange players are distributed throughout all formats. I'm not trying to be a total douchebag and say "go play another format" by saying this. My point is that Legacy is literally the last bastion of hard control so the players that enjoy it will be drawn to the format to play this deck. As Ingo said about Lands, players don't exclusively choose their decks based on what is good or else we'd expect to see some more Lands players. Lands is a strange beast and it has its fans but isn't widely popular and a contributing factor is that not a lot of players want to play that deck. Miracles' share of the format is inflated by the same phenomenon but in the opposite direction.

First of all, check out the DTB section. Miracles has been the best deck for literally years, which plenty of new prints (including ancestral recall, the eldrazi, the printing of a uncounterable kill spell, etc. ). Literally all statistical and anecdotal evidence supports the claim that miracles is by far the best deck in the format, and it cannot be dethroned. I could care less about the sentimental value of having a "hard control" deck stick around. The game is changing, and will continue to change. Not making a move to make the format healthier in order to preserve this idea that draw go control NEEDS to exist is wrong.

Aside from that, vintage landstill isn't hard control? Whose to say that another viable control deck wouldn't be able to take miracles place thats primarily counterspell based?

[ParkerLewis]

I think both CB/Top are interesting cards that, just like CotV, can impact the format in a positive way by making a lot of higher-CMC cards actually playable, resulting in an effective pool of cards and choices that is actually bigger.

If something were to be done, I'd much rather see Terminus being banned.

[Crimhead]

What strikes me, is that of the 5 top decks, 4 of them have 5% or more metagame share, with Miracles peaking at 17%, delver variants at 9% (combining Grixis RUG and UR), D&T at 6% and S&T at 5% (according to mtgtop8).
Lands however sits at a metagame share of 2%, which seems very low for a deck that belongs to the top5.

It looks like the experts are well aware of the difference between a decks top8 penetration vs a decks actual power/position in the meta. Lands is an excellent example of an (alleged) top deck that does not see high penetration.


Lands being at a 2% metagame share is a factor of the Reserved List, due to the high as balls price of Tabernacle.


I suspect the difference in playstyle compared to brainstorm decks, or vulnerability to combo has more to do with it, than the pricetag.

It doesn't really matter why it sees less play. The point is it does see less play - and its top8 penetration should be measured relative to it's overall meta-penetration.

This is probably why these experts are (seemingly) basing their rankings on their experience and expertise rather than a bunch of incomplete statistics (top8 penetration). It's nice to see some respect for Lands. It's also reassuring - I've been jamming Lands for over three years, and I have a very hard time believing it's not a top deck. Of course I'm no expert. But it's nice that the people who are experts are backing me up.
:smile:

Edit - this is turning into a ban-list thread rather quickly. Really sad. :frown: The original post was a breath of fresh air. I feel like if we asked the question here the "top 5 decks" would be all Miracle & BUG Midrange variants!

[Lemnear]

I think both CB/Top are interesting cards that, just like CotV, can impact the format in a positive way by making a lot of higher-CMC cards actually playable, resulting in an effective pool of cards and choices that is actually bigger.

Yeah, just like Mental Misstep, right?

[MGB]

This format would be so much better with SDT banned.

[ParkerLewis]

Yeah, just like Mental Misstep, right?

See, and I knew clicking on that "View Post" button could only lead to wasting my time. Oh well. Let's give it another 6 months, maybe you'll have matured by then.

[Lemnear]

See, and I knew clicking on that "View Post" button could only lead to wasting my time. Oh well. Let's give it another 6 months, maybe you'll have matured by then.

A pleasure to discuss matters with someone who dodges the topic and straight goes for the ad homiem, instead of adressing why "counter one 1cc card" is more of a problem than "counter all 1cc cards with cardadvantage"

[rlesko]

I think both CB/Top are interesting cards that, just like CotV, can impact the format in a positive way by making a lot of higher-CMC cards actually playable, resulting in an effective pool of cards and choices that is actually bigger.

If something were to be done, I'd much rather see Terminus being banned.

The problem is that, it doesn't end up working out like this. Its not like Storm is going to swap their dark rituals for pyretic rituals. And its not like D&T is going to stop playing thalia and rishadan port. You can't match the speed of the format and diversify CMC to beat countertop. Still hoping for a top ban...solves both problems.

[ParkerLewis]

The problem is that, it doesn't end up working out like this. Its not like Storm is going to swap their dark rituals for pyretic rituals. And its not like D&T is going to stop playing thalia and rishadan port. You can't match the speed of the format and diversify CMC to beat countertop. Still hoping for a top ban...solves both problems.

I'm not saying decks magically stop playing CMC 1 & 2 cards. I'm saying the speed of the format would naturally make most CMC3+ cards unplayable. The presence of some cards punishing low CMCs opens the door for some CMC 3+ alternatives having a spot in the sun. Doesn't have to be a big one, this is one aspect of the presence of these cards that is positive.

Also, a Terminus ban would be a less "intrusive" approach, as it would be a very targeted measure. Top is played either normally or occasionally in a number of other decks without CB (painter, 12post at least come to mind), and could see play in other decks also without CB. Terminus on the other hand is basically never played outside of Miracles / without Top.

Now sure, banning Top would certainly sign the end of Miracles, but banning Terminus just feels like a cleaner approach because of the lack of direct side effects on other decks (except for the obvious resulting metagame changes, but that's unavoidable no matter what you go with and also is basically the point).

Also, CB/Top has existed for a long time before Terminus. It was an element of the format and while probably always Tier 1, it did not at any point (?) lead to such prolonged, almost static and overwhelming dominance of a single deck shell. It feels like Terminus aggregated or a lot of different CB/Top decks and shells towards UW Miracles (or simply made them obsolete). Just look at mtgtop8 decks featuring CB for years 2011 to 2013. CB decks were *a lot* more diverse.

[maharis]

The problem with "just play different CMCs" is that the removal/answers are all still so efficient in Miracles as to render that irrelevant. STP, Force, Snare, Pierce, Counterspell, and Snap to buy them all back.

While Terminus could be a reasonable ban, I think the card that makes miracles format-warping is Counterbalance, because there are so few ways to beat it, and as long as the deck is top-tier, decks will have to find a way to beat that first before they even get on to beating Terminus.

[Crimhead]

Maybe we should have a dedicated thread for banned list discussions? That way it would be possible to discuss the meta in a capacity unrelated to the banned list?

This was a thread discussing the top 5 decks with an interesting twist - using the experiences of expert players (which of course are subjective) rather than the top8 penetration (which of course is skewed in favour of the most played decks).

It could have been an good thread.

[ParkerLewis]

The problem with "just play different CMCs" is that the removal/answers are all still so efficient in Miracles as to render that irrelevant. STP, Force, Snare, Pierce, Counterspell, and Snap to buy them all back.

While Terminus could be a reasonable ban, I think the card that makes miracles format-warping is Counterbalance, because there are so few ways to beat it, and as long as the deck is top-tier, decks will have to find a way to beat that first before they even get on to beating Terminus.

It's a fine argument. My point is, "try Terminus first, as it might very well be enough". Also, CB/Top can and has been kept in check for a long time in the past, when a one mana sweeper whose effect is stronger than Wrath wasn't available.

[iatee]

Entreat would be the best option because:

a. Doesn't totally kill the deck, unlike most bans
b. Takes away their annoying oops I win games
c. Assuming everyone just goes full Mentor, now Terminus is worse anyway and they don't get the lol your spot removal is dead advantage
d. Mentor Miracles wins / loses faster so fewer draws (probably.)

If you take away Top/Counterbalance/Terminus the deck is just straight up gone. If you're playing a finite number of counterspells in legacy then you either need to beat combo very quickly or have a hard lock, so Counterbalance is pretty essential to there being a U/W control deck. And Supreme Verdict is too slow for Modern, so there just isn't a wrath in Legacy if Terminus is gone. (Toxic Deluge I guess.)

[Claymore]

Countertop decks existed before Terminus. They would revert to that state, if still feasible in this meta. Not sure on that one, since now Abrupt Decay just shuts down their primary engine and there's no instant speed Reset button.

Entreat would not be a worthwhile ban. The deck easily wins without it. They don't need to Terminus with a Mentor on board except for dire situations (Marit Lage, Emrakul...that's about it). Even then, Top very quickly finds another Mentor while the Counterbalance shield prevents anything else from hitting the board.

[CptHaddock]

Entreat would be the best option because:

a. Doesn't totally kill the deck, unlike most bans
b. Takes away their annoying oops I win games
c. Assuming everyone just goes full Mentor, now Terminus is worse anyway and they don't get the lol your spot removal is dead advantage
d. Mentor Miracles wins / loses faster so fewer draws (probably.)

If you take away Top/Counterbalance/Terminus the deck is just straight up gone. If you're playing a finite number of counterspells in legacy then you either need to beat combo very quickly or have a hard lock, so Counterbalance is pretty essential to there being a U/W control deck. And Supreme Verdict is too slow for Modern, so there just isn't a wrath in Legacy if Terminus is gone. (Toxic Deluge I guess.)

I would rather have them print new cards rather than just ban things but banning one of their win conditions is putting a band aid on a bullet wound unless you are going to ban both mentor and ETA. To some extent you do knock them slightly down on the totem pole but they'll just adjust to playing mentor. Claudio's mentor miracles deck from a few years back was playing 4x mentor and 4 (maybe 3) terminus. Forcing them to play mentor is not going to stop them from playing one of the best board wipes ever printed. It's just going to lead to the same situations where now the miracles player has to either play more patiently and deploy their threats after wiping the board or they can just go wide with mentor from the get go.

The only ban that is legitimately going to kill the deck is a top ban. I'm not sure how you can say that about the terminus ban. Heaven forbid a deck actually be forced to make unfavorable choices in order to win a game.

[iatee]

I also think that printing more Abrupt Decay/Cavern type cards is better than banning stuff.

Banning Terminus makes beating heavy creature decks like Dnt/Elves basically impossible. Swords Snap Swords just isn't going to do it, and Verdict is unplayable.

Forcing them to play Mentor doesn't mean they stop playing Terminus, it just means they once in a while get punished for it. Pushing all of the Miracles players into the same wincons also makes it easier to hate on the deck in general.

[Lemnear]

I also think that printing more Abrupt Decay/Cavern type cards is better than banning stuff.

Banning Terminus makes beating heavy creature decks like Dnt/Elves basically impossible. Swords Snap Swords just isn't going to do it, and Verdict is unplayable.

Forcing them to play Mentor doesn't mean they stop playing Terminus, it just means they once in a while get punished for it. Pushing all of the Miracles players into the same wincons also makes it easier to hate on the deck in general.

Oh my god! The deck might be able to be touched by hate?! Outrageous

[Fjaulnir]

If you take away Top/Counterbalance/Terminus the deck is just straight up gone. If you're playing a finite number of counterspells in legacy then you either need to beat combo very quickly or have a hard lock, so Counterbalance is pretty essential to there being a U/W control deck. And Supreme Verdict is too slow for Modern, so there just isn't a wrath in Legacy if Terminus is gone. (Toxic Deluge I guess.)


Leaving Terminus and Top in, but taking out CB only would leave a control deck like this, that's definitely still playable:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15024&d=290929&f=LE

[btm10]

That way it would be possible to discuss the meta in a capacity unrelated to the banned list?

That's really difficult to do when a significant portion of the community thinks that the meta is unhealthy to a point where bans are warranted. You've mad it clear that you don't agree with that assessment, but don't act like it's an unreasonable or fringe conclusion to draw.



Entreat would be the best option because:

a. Doesn't totally kill the deck, unlike most bans
b. Takes away their annoying oops I win games
c. Assuming everyone just goes full Mentor, now Terminus is worse anyway and they don't get the lol your spot removal is dead advantage
d. Mentor Miracles wins / loses faster so fewer draws (probably.)


I've made the same argument in the B/R thread in the past and think it still has merit. Even more than eliminating the obnoxiousness component of 'EoT Entreat for lethal' (which doesn't warrant a ban on its own) it means that Miracles no longer gets to leverage the asymmetric information about how it intends to win the game, which can have dramatic effects on its opponents' sideboarding plans much in the way Splinter Twin did in Modern.

Of course, the other side of this argument is that Entreat is much easier for 4c Control to handle if it emerges to be a legitimate contender rather than another deck that's supposedly strong against Miracles until they next level it without hurting their other matchups.



If you take away Top/Counterbalance/Terminus the deck is just straight up gone. If you're playing a finite number of counterspells in legacy then you either need to beat combo very quickly or have a hard lock, so Counterbalance is pretty essential to there being a U/W control deck. And Supreme Verdict is too slow for Modern, so there just isn't a wrath in Legacy if Terminus is gone. (Toxic Deluge I guess.)

I agree on Counterbalance and Top, but I don't think the case against Supreme Verdict is quite so open-and-shut that banning Terminus definitely kills U/W control in Legacy. Modern's aggro decks are substantially faster than Legacy's, and Verdict actually being uncounterable (rather than merely resistent to soft counters) is relevant against Delver. The bigger question regarding non-Entreat bans is what we'd want a post-Miracles meta to look like. If we're fine with Control decks being slightly more proactive (in the Stoneblade tradition) and/or just being unfavored against combo, Counterbalance is much more oppressive than Terminus and would definitely be the piece I'd be happiest to see go. That being said, I'm not sure that Terminus is playable without Counterbalance giving you a reason to take up 4 maindeck slots on Top already, though it's possible that Counterbalance is playable without Terminus.

[ParkerLewis]

Countertop decks existed before Terminus. They would revert to that state, if still feasible in this meta. Not sure on that one, since now Abrupt Decay just shuts down their primary engine and there's no instant speed Reset button.

Entreat would not be a worthwhile ban. The deck easily wins without it. They don't need to Terminus with a Mentor on board except for dire situations (Marit Lage, Emrakul...that's about it). Even then, Top very quickly finds another Mentor while the Counterbalance shield prevents anything else from hitting the board.

Agree with you on every point.

[Brael]

I have been saying it for over 2 years now. Terminus needs to be banned!

I don't know about that. Granted, I'm not an expert on the Legacy metagame, but Miracles has been important in keeping the format from devolving into degenerate things like Storm, Belcher, etc... I think the concern is that if Miracles is removed the format gets worse.

I mainly play Nic Fit, and can say that while Miracles isn't a great matchup for me, my deck probably wouldn't survive a Miracles ban, because Miracles is keeping all of my bad matchups at bay.

We're actually finally getting to a point where non blue decks are starting to have a chance in the world, and without Miracles everyone would need to pack FoW again.

[UnderwaterGuy]

I do miss the diversity of Counterbalance decks and it would be fun if RUG, Thopter, and other color Counterbalance decks became good again but it's not clear that just removing Terminus would accomplish that.

:eyebrow:

And it's pretty clear that:
BUG is the only viable option for midrange decks because they can play around counterbalance
Omnitell is the only viable option for combo because it can play around counterbalance
Taxes is the only viable option for a smart creature based deck because it can play around counterbalance
Eldrazi is the only viable option for aggro because it can play around counterbalance

While
Any midrange non BG has become unplayable
Any combo deck not trying to win on turn 1 or casting out of curve drop has become unplayable
Any aggro deck that has no vial or cavern has become unplayable

And it's also true that every single deck in the format but miracles can be hated to the point of just beating it:
Taxes gets destroyed by specific hate (sulfur, kozilek return, cheap sweepers)
Bug can't react properly to moon effects (moon, ruination, from the ashes)
Omnitell Has a very hard time beating specific hate (containment priest, canonist, pyroblasts, flusterstorms)
Eldrazi can easily be hated into oblivion by locking pieces (moat, humility, ensnaring bridge)

And all the cards that can easily beat all the other decks can all be played in a single deck, guess which one
I specifically said "winrate" and those aren't winrates.


First of all, check out the DTB section. Miracles has been the best deck for literally years, which plenty of new prints (including ancestral recall, the eldrazi, the printing of a uncounterable kill spell, etc. ). Literally all statistical and anecdotal evidence supports the claim that miracles is by far the best deck in the format, and it cannot be dethroned. I could care less about the sentimental value of having a "hard control" deck stick around. The game is changing, and will continue to change. Not making a move to make the format healthier in order to preserve this idea that draw go control NEEDS to exist is wrong.

Aside from that, vintage landstill isn't hard control? Whose to say that another viable control deck wouldn't be able to take miracles place thats primarily counterspell based?
Vintage Landstill is the other hard control deck that I alluded to by saying that the only other place hard control exists is in Vintage. I love Landstill :smile:

Draw Go needs to exist as much as whatever deck you enjoy playing and I could care less about the sentimental value of what you play too but that's a useless argument. If counterspells and wraths are such a problem then go play any other format and enjoy the game. I would never waste my time talking to Modern players about how they need to ban Jund cards and legalize all the control cards.


Yeah, just like Mental Misstep, right?

Did literally every deck start running 4 Top and 4 Counterbalance yesterday or something?

edit: I did really enjoy the article so thanks for the thread and I appreciate the author's writing. Even though we're just bogged down in b&r stuff.

[Crimhead]

That's really difficult to do when a significant portion of the community thinks that the meta is unhealthy to a point where bans are warranted. You've mad it clear that you don't agree with that assessment, but don't act like it's an unreasonable or fringe conclusion to draw.

I'm not saying it's an reasonable position. I'm not commenting on it at all. I'm saying there's a thread for that and this isn't it.

It's one thing to say that the expert opinions provide or support evidence that a deck is OP or that the meta is unhealthy. But arguing about which cards need banning in order to fix this problem is just porting an (inane and exhausted) conversation away from the shit thread were it belongs and ruining this thread.

Maybe nobody else was interested in what these guys thought? If that's the case, no harm no foul. But maybe there are other people who would've actually been interested if this thread hadn't been pissed on. We'll never know.

I get that people aren't happy and want bans. That doesn't make it cool to sabotage every thread about any aspect of the current meta. If you think the meta is so sick that nothing but bans are worth discussing, don't join threads that aren't about the banned list!


First of all, check out the DTB section.

It's interesting that (Miracles notwithstanding), the expert picks do not mirror the DTB. Are these guys simply uninformed? Do they have good reasons to not think DTB = best decks? That would be interesting to discuss.

Unfortunately, Miracles is OP and the format needs a ban. So if we want to discuss the actual topic it's only fair we have to sift through the latest rehash of the Miracles B&R kerfuffle.
:frown:

[rlesko]

Draw Go needs to exist as much as whatever deck you enjoy playing and I could care less about the sentimental value of what you play too but that's a useless argument. If counterspells and wraths are such a problem then go play any other format and enjoy the game. I would never waste my time talking to Modern players about how they need to ban Jund cards and legalize all the control cards.


Why does draw-go need to exist? You still have not provided a reason. Clearly you favor control strategies so I'll naturally be taking whatever you say with a grain of salt...you seem to be talking down to me like I am not a legacy player, or that I am whining about miracles. Do not confuse years of data showing that miracles is by far the best deck in the format with no natural predator with that. Does aggro need to exist? Or are you ok with that not existing in legacy?

And what is this strawman about modern?



It's interesting that (Miracles notwithstanding), the expert picks do not mirror the DTB. Are these guys simply uninformed? Do they have good reasons to not think DTB = best decks? That would be interesting to discuss.

Unfortunately, Miracles is OP and the format needs a ban. So if we want to discuss the actual topic it's only fair we have to sift through the latest rehash of the Miracles B&R kerfuffle.
:frown:

I think that often times we vastly overvalue what pros say and what they think. Its kind of self fulfilling, really. Pro player says X. Players do X because pro said so. Voila, you have a deck on mtgtop8 and it probably underperformed due to how many people were playing it. Also, card availability slows down the rate at which new strategies / decks get adopted. But thats also why legacy is great.

[Fox]

I also think that printing more Abrupt Decay/Cavern type cards is better than banning stuff.
I would refer you to @Noctalor's posts on page 3. Here's what CB does to legacy: the overwhelming majority of decks run Decay, CB, Vial, Cavern, Boseju, and/or CotV. About the only decks that don't maladapt to CB [which one might actually play against] are Infect, B/R Reanimator, and Burn (here though E. Firecraft is maladaptive). You could maybe add U/W or U/W/R Blade or Standstill, but those are just strictly worse (as in less winning) versions of miracles. Leaving in the 'nothing resolves' card while increasing the amount of 'doesn't really use the stack' cards (which you have to run) is only diversity within an incredibly narrow framework. Legacy becomes more diverse when no one has is blackmailed into running the types of cards you want to see more of.

[Tittliewinks22]

Ton's of people keep saying Abrupt Decay is getting played in higher volume because Counterbalance's relevance.

In Legacy:
Abrupt Decay is 25.2%
Counterbalance 17.2%

In Modern:
Abrupt Decay 17.4%

The reason I bring this up is because the claim that BG midrange is the only midrange deck worth playing because it beats counterbalance is a false-equivalence. BGx has been dominate of all midrange since RTR because Abrupt Decay is a good card, and DRS is a great card. Modern midrange is dominated by various BGx builds too... and they don't have a "CB problem"

If CB were banned, you would not see an increase in midrange deck diversity, because BGx is still top notch. It will still run Abrupt Decay because its a great card at answering tons of threats and it is Uncounterable! (don't think counterspells are as relevant in modern and it still has the same meta share as CB does in legacy)

Format diversity isn't exclusively stunted because of counterbalance. Best creature deck will still be D&T without it, best stompy deck will be eldrazi still without it, etc etc.

Chopping the head off the format repetitively leads to a treadmill lifecycle where as soon as a deck becomes top for "too long" we ban it to shake things up. If you really want shakeups like that, play a rotating format. The purpose of an eternal format is to have these types of strategies that have stood the test of time. I much rather have new printings or un-bans to challenge the status quo instead of constantly banning what is perceived as the best. Look at modern top decks that got banned out since inception: Jund twice, Dredge, Twin, Pod, Storm; every time those bans were announced it was huge backlash from the community.

A final thought:
If WotC is going to go full "e-sports" mentality with mtgo, then they should have a separate ban list for mtgo than they do in paper. The paper meta's are different than the mtgo meta. Especially because mtgo has no RL or other shenanigans to artificially inflate prices on cards that could be devalued into oblivion post-ban.

[ESG]

If CB were banned, you would not see an increase in midrange deck diversity, because BGx is still top notch. It will still run Abrupt Decay because its a great card at answering tons of threats and it is Uncounterable! (don't think counterspells are as relevant in modern and it still has the same meta share as CB does in legacy)

This is absolutely untrue. GB is the default for midrange in this format because it most easily answers Counterbalance and is still playable against most other archetypes unlike, say, main-deck copies of Krosan Grip. If other colors had access to uncounterable ways to deal with Counterbalance, we would see many other color combinations more often. Despite its quality of being a flexible removal spell, Abrupt Decay would not be nearly as played in this format if Counterbalance didn't exist.

You need to consider that, for many decks, Counterbalance (when used with Sensei's Divining Top) reads "If Counterbalance resolves and remains on the battlefield, you lose the game."

Modern is a different format. Abrupt Decay's playability in that format is high for different reasons.

[Lemnear]

This is absolutely untrue. GB is the default for midrange in this format because it most easily answers Counterbalance and is still playable against most other archetypes unlike, say, main-deck copies of Krosan Grip. If other colors had access to uncounterable ways to deal with Counterbalance, we would see many other color combinations more often. Despite its quality of being a flexible removal spell, Abrupt Decay would not be nearly as played in this format if Counterbalance didn't exist.

Just this. It baffles me that we have to actually discuss the Utility of uncounterable removal in a meta full of Counterbalance, Chalice and Counters trying to back up threats. Decay solves all that. The number of Decays might be even higher than the one of DRS, saying everything about AD vs the meta

[Claymore]

I feel like that's a no-brainer there, every deck that has Deathrite has 2-4 Decays in the 75, but not every deck with AD has DRS.

Decay stopped the format from becoming solely Miracles vs Miracles counters because Counterbalance is so warping. BWR, GRW midrange decks have powerful tools (Thalia, SFM, Bob, Pyromancer, KoTR) but likely get stomped out by Miracles. It goes back to what Reid Duke said when building his Leovold BUG from scratch, either play Miracles or have a plan for Counterbalance - which is just Abrupt Decay.

Huh, actually DRS has more copies according to MTG Top 8. Not sure what their method is: http://www.mtgtop8.com/topcards


Deathrite Shaman 33.1 % 3.8

Abrupt Decay 25.1 % 3.1

Actually this doesn't include the sideboard, where Abrupt Decay is #5 with [20.1 % 2.4].

[Megadeus]

Sure, but every deck playing Deathrite plays 4 whereas not every deck on decay runs 4, or even 3 for that matter. But yes. I tried non black splash versions of maverick for awhile and could not consistently beat miracles when they can set up CB/Top and then wrath you for a single white mana then CB things or force anything they dont CB. The misery part is I don't think CB is particularly good against Maverick, but if you don't have decay then it does enough that snapcaster swords cleans up the shitty things you actually are able to resolve. Also Entreat is just a super easy win condition that trumps anything a green deck can put on board besides a deed. There's a reason Lands plays Boseju, DnT Cavern and Vial, Show and tell just goes over the CB. I'm not saying that CB is the problem, but when you get a one sided chalice that can change mana costs, PLUS a hyper efficient instant speed wrath, PLUS a mana base that cannot be attacked by wasteland, PLUS the best card filtering, PLUS the best card advantage engines in snapcaster and Jace, PLUS hyper efficient win cons that win immediately if not answer in Entreat/Mentor, PLUS a super flexible sideboard that can answer pretty much anything that you could want to answer with fairly minimal commitment because of the efficiency of your card filtering tools, that's when you get the abortion that is miracles dominating the format for 3-4 years with no end in sight.

[Nestalim]

Yeah Miracle is just tuned to beat what Legacy does, and will fall agains't anything where CB is crap.

While I do believe Legacy doesn't need more ban, more printing that can keep CB in check would be excellent.

[Spam]

Yeah Miracle is just tuned to beat what Legacy does, and will fall agains't anything where CB is crap.

While I do believe Legacy doesn't need more ban, more printing that can keep CB in check would be excellent.
While I agree with the idea of printing more cards to beat CB, I do have my worries about uncounterable spells. Those types of cards feels extremely ugly and unfun. I would rather get a ban rather than see more of these cards, which are (by my stand) super topdecks.

[Mr Miagi]

I'll just say this: Blue players have a virtual hand size consisting of an actual hand size + 3 top cards accessible by brainstorm and/or top and instant speed. Miracles is just the greatest offender by using top extensively. I believe some bans are required at this stage where blue decks/especially Miracles outperform nonblue decks consistently. Naming the only three/four nonblue decks that can to some degree, but still barely, stand on their own (dnt, elves, lands, eldrazi) is not a great counter argument.
I'd say Brainstorm is the offender, but it's pointless to discuss this further as it has been beat to death and until WOTC actually does something it’s a moot point.

[danyul]

I just wanted to toss my name into the hat of people who think Legacy is boring now. Mostly because of the way Miracles has warped the format. But also partly because of the way SCG stopped supporting Legacy.

[Dice_Box]

I liked the "Print answers" idea, I really did, but I have no faith in the people we are seeking those answers from anymore.
Lets really look at this:

Snapcaster/Leak was an issue, Cavern of Souls was printed.
Lingering Souls was an issue, they printed DRS.
Brainstorm was an issues, MM was printed.

I just do not trust them to come up with actual answers to cards these days that can see enough play to make them effective at their designated role without causing long term issues.

I feel like if they have already printed a hit card (Decay) and made it so effective at its role of being playable that it is already everywhere, we should not ask them to ramp that up. We have to admit anything new they would print would just play havoc on the format and its time for a different solution. I think we should stop hoping for answers to be printed. This is the company that missed that they were printing a two card kill into Standard so I have no faith in their ability to do anything subtlely anymore.

It's time to stop asking them to do what I feel is impossible for them to do, giving a free pass on some cards because "One day their might be an answer" and just using the list for its designed purpose. If they do later find a way to print something that can solve the issue then you can always so the other thing the list is meant to do, release the host... sorry impotent.

Edit:
Oh Yea, TNN and Council's Judgement... There's a big one I missed.

[Stuart]

Snapcaster/Leak was an issue, Cavern of Souls was printed.
Lingering Souls was an issue, they printed DRS.
Brainstorm was an issues, MM was printed.

Just to add to that, Leovold printed in BUG colors was pretty funny.

[Megadeus]

Just to add to that, Leovold printed in BUG colors was pretty funny.

Blue getting the best Chains variant ever printed is just fucking icing.

[Mr Miagi]

Yes, blue also needed more help in form of TNN :) Bottom line what Dice said.. our hopes lie with incompetent WOTC, who either don't give a damn about elgacy (except when it's time to milk them with EMA) or they pruposly do nothing to make us suffer and transfer to standard and limited. Not really sure if this emote is more appropriate :laugh: (with a bit of madness twinkle) or this one :cry:

[Megadeus]

It's like nedleeds said, it really sucks that even Perish sucks now because all of the best creatures are blue now or are griselchimp being put in by blue cards

[square_two]

If Legacy were more of a competitive format then any issues players have with either Miracles or Brainstorm would be even more noticeable. More people would flock to blue decks if this format were anything but a hobby these days. Wizards has made it known that they simply don't care about Legacy - we probably only have our 2 U.S. Legacy GP's this year because of the craziness that will be GP Vegas.

[ESG]

I just wanted to toss my name into the hat of people who think Legacy is boring now. ... partly because of the way SCG stopped supporting Legacy.

If only there was another store close to us that filled that gap with big events and streaming coverage ... oh, wait, there is. We miss you, elf master! Come join us next time.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Blue getting the best Chains variant ever printed is just fucking icing.

BG1 with just the first line of text would still get played in blue decks honestly.

[gh0st_b1rd]

Have we forgotten that they printed Sanctum Prelate and Recruiter of the Guard?

Prelate is only good vs Blue decks, maybe Lands and super mediocre everywhere else.

I have confidence that they will print good cards that fit into non-Blue decks in the near future but many people who play Legacy only really have their two-three playsets of dual lands (and realistically only own a single deck) and would rather refer to their maybe-boards when cards like Prelate are being played. I would build decks like Storm, Dredge, Lands or Jund if it wasnt for normal financial restrictions.

And as Legacy players are we actually sick of playing as or against Miracles? I only like Legacy because Wizards has only destroyed five archetypes (Flash Hulk, Flame-Vault, Workshop, Worldgorger Dragon, Vengevine Survival) since its inception, which in my mind is a great track record. Also all of those decks except Flame-Vault is extremely offensive, although Vault might as well be offensive now.

But don't listen to me. My favorite Modern format was DTT, Cruise and Pod Modern.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Prelate is only good vs Blue decks, maybe Lands and super mediocre everywhere else.

I mean I definitely can't cast Punishing Fire and Life from the Loam

[gh0st_b1rd]

I mean I definitely can't cast Punishing Fire and Life from the Loam

Just Crop Rotation for Barbarian Ring. Ez.

[Barook]

Just to add to that, Leovold printed in BUG colors was pretty funny.
That was mainly done because BUG didn't have a Tiny Leaders Commander in said colors, imho.


I liked the "Print answers" idea, I really did, but I have no faith in the people we are seeking those answers from anymore.
Lets really look at this:

Snapcaster/Leak was an issue, Cavern of Souls was printed.
Lingering Souls was an issue, they printed DRS.
Brainstorm was an issues, MM was printed.

I just do not trust them to come up with actual answers to cards these days that can see enough play to make them effective at their designated role without causing long term issues.

I feel like if they have already printed a hit card (Decay) and made it so effective at its role of being playable that it is already everywhere, we should not ask them to ramp that up. We have to admit anything new they would print would just play havoc on the format and its time for a different solution. I think we should stop hoping for answers to be printed. This is the company that missed that they were printing a two card kill into Standard so I have no faith in their ability to do anything subtlely anymore.

It's time to stop asking them to do what I feel is impossible for them to do, giving a free pass on some cards because "One day their might be an answer" and just using the list for its designed purpose. If they do later find a way to print something that can solve the issue then you can always so the other thing the list is meant to do, release the host... sorry impotent.

Edit:
Oh Yea, TNN and Council's Judgement... There's a big one I missed.
I was about to post this. Although Cavern of Souls is a mighty fine card, I can't agree on hating on it.

Whenever they come up with solutions to overpowered (Legacy) cards, it won't do any good. Abrupt Decay was even stated to be the official answer to Counterbalace. While this holds true to this very day, it has pushed the meta very heavily into a BGx direction. And then we have stinkers like Mental Misstep, Council's Judgment to TNN or DRS in general.

The bottom line is that overpowered cards shouldn't be answered with other overpowered crap, but just flat-out banned. Full stop.

Also, what other answers would one expect to answer Counterbalance realistically to balance the colors more instead of going full BGx? Abrupt Decay is already as far away as possible from Miracles' colors. Anything else that is WUR or colorless could be easily run by themselves (and one should know that they will do so to combat the mirror), resulting into another overpowered answer card for them, pushing them even further (as Wear/Tear and CJ weren't already enough to answer everything).

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Just Crop Rotation for Barbarian Ring. Ez.

I mean sure there are answers, but not having access to Loam and Punishing Fire does bite, regardless we are getting away from the subject.

[Dice_Box]

I was about to post this. Although Cavern of Souls is a mighty fine card, I can't agree on hating on it.
My comment on Cavern was not about my views on the card personally, it was just to provide further evidence of an issue. When Wizards thinks there is an issue, they bring a sledgehammer and ignore that they already have access to a scalpel.

[ESG]

I only like Legacy because Wizards has only destroyed five archetypes (Flash Hulk, Flame-Vault, Workshop, Worldgorger Dragon, Vengevine Survival) since its inception, which in my mind is a great track record. Also all of those decks except Flame-Vault is extremely offensive, although Vault might as well be offensive now.

Worldgorger Dragon is legal today.


My comment on Cavern was not about my views on the card personally, it was just to provide further evidence of an issue. When Wizards thinks there is an issue, they bring a sledgehammer and ignore that they already have access to a scalpel.

Unfortunately, many people continue to ask for new sledgehammers.

[Lemnear]

Unfortunately, many people continue to ask for new sledgehammers.

You are right. We should not go down the rabbithole of beating uninteractive shit with other, newly printed uninteractive stuff. We had that with Decay, Caverns, etc.

[catmint]

That is a very good thread with a lot of quality posts (data, analysis, conclusions)... and a pretty high standard of discussion culture given bannings are a topic.

I am very often against bannings, but I think we have seen enough and tried enough over the years. I miss the times, where you had a couple of "best deck" choices and much more variety of Tier2/3 decks, so I would also appreciate if something would be done about Miracles.

The question what to ban could be seen as a tough one, because you cannot really weaken the deck without destroying it. If you don't ban an essential part (Top, CB, Terminus) - it won't change anything because UWr has sooo many options/angles to keep it's dominant position.

I am in favor of correcting sick mechanics that have not been developed/tested for legacy (see DTT, TC) instead of talking about CB, top. CB/Top used to be very skill intensive and not OP before the miracles mechanic and we have a lot more tools against that now than back then.

So it is pretty obvious that Terminus would be the best choice. DTT & TC was not for legacy because in legacy you can fill up your gy way too easy to cheat on your mana. And the same goes for managing the top of your library. It is way too easy in legacy and spending W for a wrath is cheating a lot on mana. In addition to that you can also cheat on the effect usually being a sorcery.

Simple conclusion - W (sorcery/instant) instead of 4+ mana sorcery speed for the tradeoff of playing 12 library manipulation cards (which are the best/among the best legacy cards by themselves anyway) and the in game miracle condition has been proven to be too strong.

[rlesko]

I swear, Wotc could be on the verge of banning the miracle mechanic entirely in legacy and people would bring out their pitch forks for the unjust banning of Thunderous Wrath.

[gh0st_b1rd]

Worldgorger Dragon is legal today.

I suppose it was really more of a Bazaar of Baghdad archetype. Can't imagine a world with Uba Mask Eldrazi, Super Dredge and Squee Painter today.