You can erase 1 card from the game: which?

[Teluin]

There are a number of cards in the game that do not necessarily deserve the ban hammer that I wish had never been designed. I know R&D/Dev. aren't perfect, yet in certain cases I think they were just plain stupid - examples include True-Name Nemesis, Monastery Mentor, Terminus, Griselbrand and Emrakruul.

With the latest bannings, it got me thinking:

if you could choose 1 card in the game that you wish had never been printed, which would it be and why?

My choice is somewhat cheating because it's a cycle: the fetch lands. They're not broken, I just find them to be annoying as they disrupt the game and the clock.

[Noctalor]

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/chk/268.jpg

[(nameless one)]

not one card but a group of cards: Fetchlands.

Think about it, the following cards are some of the broken cards out there because of them:

-Sensei's Diving Top
-Brainstorm
-Jace the Mind Sculptor
-Life from the Loam
-Tarmogoyf
-Deathrite Shaman
-Dig Through Time/Treasure Cruise

EDIT:



My choice is somewhat cheating because it's a cycle: the fetch lands. They're not broken, I just find them to be annoying as they disrupt the game and the clock.

I didn't see this because I thought the OP was the Sensei's Divining Top picture.

[ahg113]

Brain storm.

Irrational undying passionate hate.

Unhappy with the creep of the blue color pie, and Bstorm is the best at what it does, so it must go.

[Stuart]

If we're limiting this to Legacy, it's gotta be Show And Tell. Though Brainstorm is pretty questionable, too.

[non-inflammable]

Brain storm. Irrational undying passionate hate.

we must be twins that got separated at birth...

[Hanni]

I like all of the Legacy legal cards, and even some of the illegal ones too.

EDIT: I hate Tabernacle, but only because it costs a million dollars. You can toss Moat in as well.

[clavio]

Kind of wonder what would have happened if goyf never got printed.

[thefringthing]

Chalice of the Void.

[Undomian]

Show and Tell

[Tormod]

Emrakrul...

Stupid card design, trumps all other big fatty creatures, hurt creative deck building.

[lordofthepit]

Reality Smasher

[Koby]

True Name Nemesis.
Fun, interactive combat.

[jrsthethird]

Mental Misstep

[Mr Miagi]

ugh, it's tough call between show and tell and TNN, but probably TNN cause it's such a stupid design.. and in blue to top it off. :rolleyes:

[ramanujan]

Fetchlands, and it isn't close.

There are many reasons why I chose fetchlands. There was Magic before fetchlands, but most of the people that hang around today don't recall those times. I wont say that the old days were better, but I do think that having 20 more instances of shuffling each round is not a good thing. The library manipulation side can't be ignored either. Lastly, what is color screw, because that hasn't existed in 15 years.

[Megadeus]

Kind of wonder what would have happened if goyf never got printed.

I agree with this. It completely invalidates any future 2 drop creature and you just ask, "How is this better than Goyf?"

It's frustrating.

[raudo]

Show and Tell from Legacy. Deathrite Shaman close second.

But I would remove all too cheap and powerful creatures and let Juzam, Hypno and Serendib be the thing again.

[jimmythegreek]

Not sure if it's necessarily a bad card but because I'm bad.....Daze. Every motherfucking time I breakthrough for 1 I immedietly feel like putting my head through the wall for being so greedy.

[apple713]

Fetchlands, and it isn't close.

There are many reasons why I chose fetchlands. There was Magic before fetchlands, but most of the people that hang around today don't recall those times. I wont say that the old days were better, but I do think that having 20 more instances of shuffling each round is not a good thing. The library manipulation side can't be ignored either. Lastly, what is color screw, because that hasn't existed in 15 years.

to really understand this you must understand why wizards makes / prints cards. They make cards generally because they are fun or fit a specific purpose. Fetchlands fall into the fit a specific purpose. It was NOT fun to get land screwed, thus, they printed fetchlands to provide consistency in deck building and alleviate the NOT fun aspect of land screw. Another caveat to this philosophy is their decision to NOT print UNFUN cards such as land destruction or stasis type cards. Out of ALL the cards that get reprinted these cards probably wont see a reprint because wizards views them and their strategy as UNFUN. With the exception of wasteland i cant recall any cards that would fall into this category that were printed in the last 10 years.

Also, without fetchlands, deck diversity would be dwarfed. A significant amount of decks would simply be unplayable without them.

TLDR: fetchlands were inevitable because wizards caters to casuals instead of competitive players.

[Megadeus]

Not sure if it's necessarily a bad card but because I'm bad.....Daze. Every motherfucking time I breakthrough for 1 I immedietly feel like putting my head through the wall for being so greedy.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/f6/f9/cb/f6f9cbd58c0093e25ccfbdfb74fb5ede.jpg

[tsabo_tavoc]

Delver of Secrets

for blatantly breaking the colour pie. TNN to a lesser extent, as it costs 3 and double U.

[ramanujan]

to really understand this you must understand why wizards makes / prints cards. They make cards generally because they are fun or fit a specific purpose. Fetchlands fall into the fit a specific purpose. It was NOT fun to get land screwed, thus, they printed fetchlands to provide consistency in deck building and alleviate the NOT fun aspect of land screw. Another caveat to this philosophy is their decision to NOT print UNFUN cards such as land destruction or stasis type cards. Out of ALL the cards that get reprinted these cards probably wont see a reprint because wizards views them and their strategy as UNFUN. With the exception of wasteland i cant recall any cards that would fall into this category that were printed in the last 10 years.

Also, without fetchlands, deck diversity would be dwarfed. A significant amount of decks would simply be unplayable without them.

TLDR: fetchlands were inevitable because wizards caters to casuals instead of competitive players.

I hear what you are saying, but don't dismiss the fun that is lost wasting a big portion of the allotted time each round shuffling or watching your opponent shuffle. I feel like I am telling people to get off my lawn, but I think the game was more fun when designing the land base for decks wasn't full easymode. I think that landscrew should exist, as a factor that punishes decks that try to do too much. At this point, there is no sliding scale, any color combination you want is easy to build and incredibly consistent. Why do we even have colors?

[Ephemeron]

Mental Misstep is probably the all time shittiest card design so if you're talking about being able to go back in time and make sure it never saw the light of day, that would be my choice.

For current Legacy legal cards, I'd probably vote for TNN. It's just such a poorly thought out card - three mana progenitus that is blue and is also a Merfolk. Gimme a break.

[Skyl3lazer]

For me it's easily Griselbrand. He's never going to be cast legit and any deck that cheats him in has like an 80%+ chance to win the second he hits the table. On top of that he ends up being a self-sustaining engine, and he doesn't even make you skip your draw step :v

[s&s]

Am pretty happy with the top ban, see no need to ban any other card in legacy atm.

Maybe its time they ubanned survival of the fittest, I don't think it would be easy to make it a faster or more resilient combo deck then the ones already in legacy, perhaps I am wrong but would like to see it happen :)

[Goin Aggro]

True Name Nemesis.
Fun, interactive combat.

100% agreed. Down with the invincible fish!

[Doishy]

Delver of Secrets and the Planeswalker card type.


Also mythic rarity......

[niv]

Delver of Secrets, probably without question. Having blue get one of the best aggressive creatures ever printed is probably one of the stupidest things Wizards has ever done, if you ask me.

TNN is up there simply because of uninteractivity. If they made it like a 5/6 mana 6/2 or something like that it would be unplayable in Legacy, but still good/fun in the EDH precon it was made for. I really just hate these kinds of uninteractive cards, but Delver still takes the cake if I only had to pick one.

[Richard Cheese]

Also Delver. Because it's so damn good, and imposes pretty specific deckbuilding restrictions, it's essentially a single-card archetype.

[Heisenberg]

Deathrite Shaman for sure... too powerful... too versatile... is 1/2... and casting cost just one hybrid mana - bad joke ....

[Bobmans]

Vengevine

[tescrin]

I find it odd Tarmo, TNN and such are listed here. TNN is lame, agreed. But we all run evasion. Flying, Landwalk if we can get it, protection, trample.. it's a mainstay if it's available.

Goyf? There will always be a big beater and interestingly enough, TNN makes the Goyf alternatives, especially Tombstalker (which is from the same set!!) that much better.

I can agree on Delver to a point; but we'd still have 3/3 for 1 somewhere, and probably several of them. The fact is, combo speeds are so high and with all of the aggressive cards/hatebears, fair decks can keep up.


The card I'd get rid of..? I'd probably say Leovold because protecting your Hand, Lands, Deck, Creatures, and Lifetotal [burn] all while preventing draw in the colors that have been getting loads of love.. c'mon doo. That kind of design is so over-the-top lazy. Kira was annoying before Decay, but at least it didn't also protect the player, deck, hand, lands, etc.. Leovold could've at least been 3/2 for Pfire/Lavaman/Thalia/GobboGuide/EotGR, etc.. or 1/3 so his clock was abyssmal.

Instead they said "Hey, you know those colors we push so much for no apparent reason? Let's make a Kira that always works, and also protects your entire board and player state, costs the same basically, and one-way hoses blue! not pushed at all! Also, make it on an aggressive body bigger than 80% of the format, cost it at 3, and top it off with doing it to triggered and activated abilities!!?!??"

Fucking idiots. The format will be fine.. but that's *even worse* than TNN IMO. Not necessarily as format changing, but the design is abyssmal.

[Mr.C]

Dual lands.

[Fox]

Counterbalance. It's all nice and wonderful that SDT ban killed miracles (long overdue), but make no mistake CB is simply trolling the card pool for the next enabler and we'll be right back to where we started: miracles eradicating every other control deck with strictly higher win %. The problem was mitigated, not solved.

Now sure, every Ice Age block set needs it's singleton that's part of the big blue card denial enchantments (Zur's Weirding, Tidal Control, CB) but CB lacked symmetry, life cost, and avoids trend of lowering cmc = culm. upkeep. Pretty much an across the board flavor failure on top of all the other issues.

[Stevestamopz]

Griselbrand.

There is literally not a single redeeming feature about the card.

- Small Children think the 7/7 flying/lifelink thing is good, but don't realise that paying 7 life for 7 cards is good.
- Tournament players (I'm lumping us in this group) either love it or hate it, but the reason we do is the same: free wins.

[jandax]

As a competitive player I'm voting for counterbalance for all the reasons listed. Nothing to add.

As a player of the game for 20+ years, a card that I'd exile from the game is Strip Mine. It's just such a feelbad to get even your basics destroyed (really wanted to type "wasted" there haha). Wasteland is perfect, good at what it does but not oppressive. Strip Mine, while hardly seeing competitive play, is as awesome as it is horrible.

On the grander scheme of things, the whole Homelands set should have been a Mulligan from WotC.

Just my $0.02

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Wanderlust]

Terminus.

Always thought it was the problem card in Miracles, and now is the object of my undying hatred since it got Sensei's Divining Top banned. (Top is a card I really enjoy playing in decks other than Miracles.)

[Megadeus]

I find it odd Tarmo, TNN and such are listed here. TNN is lame, agreed. But we all run evasion. Flying, Landwalk if we can get it, protection, trample.. it's a mainstay if it's available.

Goyf? There will always be a big beater and interestingly enough, TNN makes the Goyf alternatives, especially Tombstalker (which is from the same set!!) that much better.

I can agree on Delver to a point; but we'd still have 3/3 for 1 somewhere, and probably several of them. The fact is, combo speeds are so high and with all of the aggressive cards/hatebears, fair decks can keep up.


The card I'd get rid of..? I'd probably say Leovold because protecting your Hand, Lands, Deck, Creatures, and Lifetotal [burn] all while preventing draw in the colors that have been getting loads of love.. c'mon doo. That kind of design is so over-the-top lazy. Kira was annoying before Decay, but at least it didn't also protect the player, deck, hand, lands, etc.. Leovold could've at least been 3/2 for Pfire/Lavaman/Thalia/GobboGuide/EotGR, etc.. or 1/3 so his clock was abyssmal.

Instead they said "Hey, you know those colors we push so much for no apparent reason? Let's make a Kira that always works, and also protects your entire board and player state, costs the same basically, and one-way hoses blue! not pushed at all! Also, make it on an aggressive body bigger than 80% of the format, cost it at 3, and top it off with doing it to triggered and activated abilities!!?!??"

Fucking idiots. The format will be fine.. but that's *even worse* than TNN IMO. Not necessarily as format changing, but the design is abyssmal.

I disagree with your argument about Goyf and True name. Goyf sucks because every two drop printed now is almost completely invalid because goyf exists. And True Name is miserable just because of how fucking dumb it is. It's the Griselchimp of fair decks. Allows complete chimpanzees to just ignore their opponent completely and just ravage people like the mongoloids that they are.

That said, leotard is just fucking miserable as well. The best chains variant ever printed, in blue, but not symmetrical, that also draws you cards. Seriously what the fucking shit. Fuck you wizards. Basically fuck this whole format at this point

[Havrekjex]

Chalice of the Void. This is a fast format, so I was planning on playing with a low curve - fuck me, right? It's just too hard of a lock compared to the effort it takes to get it down T1.

[Noctalor]

I disagree with your argument about Goyf and True name. Goyf sucks because every two drop printed now is almost completely invalid because goyf exists. And True Name is miserable just because of how fucking dumb it is. It's the Griselchimp of fair decks. Allows complete chimpanzees to just ignore their opponent completely and just ravage people like the mongoloids that they are.

That said, leotard is just fucking miserable as well. The best chains variant ever printed, in blue, but not symmetrical, that also draws you cards. Seriously what the fucking shit. Fuck you wizards. Basically fuck this whole format at this point

You could apply your logic to every single card actually relevant in legacy, the card pool is supposed to be made by the best 200ish prints out of 20000ish, and for a 3 drop to be playable it takes quite a lot of benefits apparently.

[Megadeus]

You could apply your logic to every single card actually relevant in legacy, the card pool is supposed to be made by the best 200ish prints out of 20000ish, and for a 3 drop to be playable it takes quite a lot of benefits apparently.

I mean, it's probably because I've finally been playing long enough to see 3 drops that other people thought were power creeping older stuff (KOTR to the old Terravore) out of the format now creeping things I enjoy out, but I think at least in the case of Goyf it can be said that the raw efficiency of the card invalidates most other two drops, and in his case I feel like it even makes many 3 and 4 mana creatures unplayable

[Noctalor]

I mean, it's probably because I've finally been playing long enough to see 3 drops that other people thought were power creeping older stuff (KOTR to the old Terravore) out of the format now creeping things I enjoy out, but I think at least in the case of Goyf it can be said that the raw efficiency of the card invalidates most other two drops, and in his case I feel like it even makes many 3 and 4 mana creatures unplayable

If you are looking for raw power at the moment we are stuck with Delver/Tarmo/Angler, maybe in the future even those guys wont make the cut.

But in the format there are still a lot of decks that are not looking for raw power, and there are plenty of 2 drops played over tarmogoyf, tarmo is an auto include basicly only in delver decks and BUG shells, because both those decks need a good enought punchline and BUG dont really have one (in fact you can see tarmo going away from some BUG midrange decks because you can just play the nemesis game, and leovold is good enought to fill as the other half of the punchline), most green decks that are not bug don't even bother with a vanilla 2 drop.

And for the same exact reason one could argue that plowshares is basicly going to make every single white spot removal spell not relevent for the rest of MTG, the same is true for most of the currently played cards in legacy, most of them were design mistakes in the first place, we are not getting something better than glimpse and order for example, and is not like those cards are not pushing the format in a direction in a way, order used to be played in most fair decks because it was a brainless autowin because nothing could hold a proggy back, then terminus happened, but now that top is banned i can easily see order being the top 4 drop green will ever have again.

And it's also unfair to say that kotr is dead, it is at least played in a tier1/1.5 which keeps doing fairly good, and it's not like kotr is bad or anything, the main reason why we dont see as much of it is because if you want to play GW you had to play aggro loam during those years, kotr was fine and it is a strong play for maverik as much as it is for aggro loam, but the rest of the deck couldn't keep it up with the format, yet again there is a chance that new GW based decks will rise thanks to the banning.

I don't dislike power creep when a card, supposed to do x, is outclassed because another card just does x much better, the real bs is when a card is so good at doing y that trying to do x just becomes idiotic, pretty much what terminus did to creature based decks.

[KevinTrudeau]

I'll never forget the day they printed Show and Tell. Made me quit Legacy for 2+ years. Only now does it feel like a stable format again.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Fetches, although I do like them and think they add something to the format, would be interesting to see the development of legacy without them. Is DRS still a card, is brainstorm still good, how do you make a 3/4 color
manabase, etc.

[ramanujan]

I'll never forget the day they printed Show and Tell. Made me quit Legacy for 2+ years. Only now does it feel like a stable format again.

I find this a puzzling response. Show and Tell was printed in 1998, but "Legacy" became a thing 2004. Are you saying that you stopped playing 1.5 from 1998 to 2000?

[Noctalor]

I find this a puzzling response. Show and Tell was printed in 1998, but "Legacy" became a thing 2004. Are you saying that you stopped playing 1.5 from 1998 to 2000?

I guess its point is that show and tell was printed in rise of eldrazi.

[menloe]

I disagree with your argument about Goyf and True name. Goyf sucks because every two drop printed now is almost completely invalid because goyf exists. And True Name is miserable just because of how fucking dumb it is. It's the Griselchimp of fair decks. Allows complete chimpanzees to just ignore their opponent completely and just ravage people like the mongoloids that they are.

That said, leotard is just fucking miserable as well. The best chains variant ever printed, in blue, but not symmetrical, that also draws you cards. Seriously what the fucking shit. Fuck you wizards. Basically fuck this whole format at this point

Learn it, live it, love it. Megadeus for prez.

[Bobmans]

I guess its point is that show and tell was printed in rise of eldrazi.
I can't even remember anything played SnT (or Sneak) before Griselbrand.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G935F met Tapatalk

[Quasim0ff]

I can't even remember anything played SnT (or Sneak) before Griselbrand.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G935F met Tapatalk

People played Emrakul, Progenitus, Woodfall Primus (if i remember correct) etc.

Griselbrand made it tier 1.5 status.

OT: Ancient tomb and/or gitaxian probe.

[Stuart]

OT: Ancient tomb and/or gitaxian probe.

It's interesting to me that Tomb's getting some hate. I hadn't ever really heard this until Eli Kassis called for it to be banned after SCG Worcester.

[Quasim0ff]

It's interesting to me that Tomb's getting some hate. I hadn't ever really heard this until Eli Kassis called for it to be banned after SCG Worcester.

Ancient enables every single archetype I dislike. I don't mind chalice, of it takes some serious deckbuilding constraints for examble, but 6 sol lands just means there's basically no problem is just jamming them into your otherwise stompy deck.

[Deviruchi]

I can't even remember anything played SnT (or Sneak) before Griselbrand.
There was a time when S&T was used to put Hive Mind into play. Long before Omniscience and Griselbrand.

[mistercakes]

Dream halls was played a bit too

[jandax]

I'll never forget the day they printed Show and Tell. Made me quit Legacy for 2+ years. Only now does it feel like a stable format again.

Was legacy a thing in 98? Def do not remember that

[maharis]

I disagree with your argument about Goyf and True name. Goyf sucks because every two drop printed now is almost completely invalid because goyf exists. And True Name is miserable just because of how fucking dumb it is. It's the Griselchimp of fair decks. Allows complete chimpanzees to just ignore their opponent completely and just ravage people like the mongoloids that they are.

That said, leotard is just fucking miserable as well. The best chains variant ever printed, in blue, but not symmetrical, that also draws you cards. Seriously what the fucking shit. Fuck you wizards. Basically fuck this whole format at this point

Leovold is a good design in the absolute wrong colors. As a BW card we might be talking about 1-2 other decks added to Legacy as it would've allowed another axis to fight the cantrip-consistency engine other than just Chalice. The inexcusable part is that they KNEW this card would only ever be legal for serious constructed in Legacy, Vintage, and EDH. Well, it's already banned in EDH and while I don't think its quite bannable in Legacy and Vintage, it appearing in different colors would have lent some variety to the metagame rather than just slotting into the pretty stock BUG deck. It's been long enough since Chains and Rayne, Academy Chancellor that shifting those abilities to other colors would have been more interesting.

While there are good arguments for/against TNN, Goyf, Delver, and DRS, I'd like to add the Eldrazi to all of those. Almost all of them are shit for gameplay from Emrakul down to Eldrazi Mimic.

The right answer is probably fetchlands as they break pretty much everything and render the mana system almost meaningless.

[Jander78]

Was legacy a thing in 98? Def do not remember that
Kind of. It was called Type 1.5 at the time. Up until the separation of the lists, everything restricted in Vintage (then Type 1) was banned in what is now known as Legacy. Show and Tell was garbage until probably around 9-10 years ago.

[lordofthepit]

While there are good arguments for/against TNN, Goyf, Delver, and DRS, I'd like to add the Eldrazi to all of those. Almost all of them are shit for gameplay from Emrakul down to Eldrazi Mimic.

Ding, ding, ding!

If I wanted to make the format more interactive, I would ban the following:
1. Every Eldrazi besides Displacer
2. Show and Tell
3. Griselbrand
4. True-Name Nemesis

There are no reason for those cards to exist. Everything else that contributes to occasionally miserable experiences (e.g. Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void) at least punish greedy deckbuilding.

[ESG]

Ding, ding, ding!

If I wanted to make the format more interactive, I would ban the following:
1. Every Eldrazi besides Displacer
2. Show and Tell
3. Griselbrand
4. True-Name Nemesis

There are no reason for those cards to exist. Everything else that contributes to occasionally miserable experiences (e.g. Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void) at least punish greedy deckbuilding.

I agree with your picks except, of course, for Eldrazi. How is Thought-Knot Seer not interactive?

[Nuke is Good]

I haven't played Legacy for a while but during my stint of playing competitively two cards that drew a lot of my annoyance were:

Delver of Secrets and True Name Nemesis.

Why did Blue have access to the best evasive threat and early flying threat? But I never liked the idea of blue fair decks in general. I'm sure if I was still playing more I'd hate Leovold too.

[Lord Seth]

I'll never forget the day they printed Show and Tell. Made me quit Legacy for 2+ years. Only now does it feel like a stable format again.At the time of its printing, Show and Tell was only really used for dropping a Dream Halls into play (later used for Yawgmoth's Bargain after it got printed), but Dream Halls and Yawgmoth's Bargain both got banned within a year so I don't know why you took 2 years off.

[Mr.C]

I'll never forget the day they printed Show and Tell. Made me quit Legacy for 2+ years. Only now does it feel like a stable format again.

the heck you talking about? Show and Tell was a bulk rare for years.

[Emurian]

#1 Show and Tell
#2 Emrakul

Either one of those 2 really, there's nothing fun into T1 Emrakul go ahead and play your land into 1 drop that wont matter ugh.
It just feels like im losing from a chimp deck.

S&T into Omniscience into cunning wish/Emrakul is even worse as it finishes the game on the spot. (nice karakas mate)

I would be complaining less about S&T without emrakul or omniscience, at least with griselbrand you feel like having a chance. Yes they draw 14 cards, yes its extremely likely they get to have a hand full of counterspell backup + fatty 2/3, but I can live with that kinda stuff. At least Grisel is a 3 turn clock, can be stalled with flyers, removed, bounced with karakas, activated ability can be shutdown etc etc.

Emrakul is just not a fun card to play against, the only time *I feel* its ''allowed'' is after durdling 7-10 turns with my Enchantress deck to hardcast it, as the opponent had a chance spread over multiple turns to kill me before I cast the damn thing.

[wcm8]

Ding, ding, ding!

If I wanted to make the format more interactive, I would ban the following:
1. Every Eldrazi besides Displacer
2. Show and Tell
3. Griselbrand
4. True-Name Nemesis

There are no reason for those cards to exist. Everything else that contributes to occasionally miserable experiences (e.g. Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void) at least punish greedy deckbuilding.

I like these choices. I agree that these cards are all frustrating and don't typically make for the best games. Especially Show and Tell + [insert random EDH Timmy I-WIN card here] -- and I'd argue that Omniscience is essentially just as bad as Emrakul and Griselbrand. I realize that there are plenty of ways to fight against SNT, and the deck is NOT an unstoppable Tier 0 problem... but netting 15 mana for 2:u: puts a lot of stupid constraints on the format, particularly for non-Blue decks.

The Eldrazi are dumb in tandem with the Sol lands. I just think that they're not very well designed, and Thought Knot Seer is a good example of needless ham-fisted power creep.

TNN would probably be okay if it cost 1WW or 1GW and was some other creature type. It just doesn't seem to make sense for this guy to be Blue. Blue-based Aggro-control really didn't need yet *another* Wall/Finisher hybrid to crap on non-Blue creature decks (Tarmogoyf being the original example). I think it'd be fine to give Wx creature decks a hard-to-kill threat as a way to attack control and midrange decks.

A few other tweaks I'd recommend for balance:

A) Leovold should've cost :w::g::b: instead of BUG. This would have given non-Blue decks like Maverick and Junk a method of fighting Blue and various forms of Combo that isn't just (easily) adopted by Blue decks themselves.
B) Delver of Secrets should've cost either :r: or :b: instead of U. Flavor-wise, this card makes more sense as either of those colors. It would still be played in Blue tempo decks, but it'd require a bit more work to maintain a high enough Blue-count for Force of Will.
C) Deathrite Shaman should have only 1 toughness, and probably also have 0 power. This would balance it better against creatures such as Goblin Lackey, as well as make it more susceptible to various hate cards (e.g. Darkblast; Forked Bolt; Electrickery; Engineered Plague, etc.) And yet it'd *still* be arguably better than Birds of Paradise as a 0/1.
D) Fetch-lands -- I'm ambivalent about removing them entirely, but perhaps they should've been capable of searching up *only* basic lands. I wonder if the designers at the time were even considering their interaction with Dual lands? More thought would be put into designing a deck's manabase, and 3-color decks would be a bit weaker and thus more balanced. I think the game is conceptually designed to make it so that there's supposed to be an actual opportunity cost to playing more than one color. Perhaps this adjustment would make it so that 2-color decks would be a more legitimate consideration?
E) Counterbalance is mostly a non-issue now that SDT is banned, however I think that this card should be nerfed a bit: either it could cost a tad more (1UU maybe?) or alternatively, it's ability could only be triggered once per turn. In the latter case, it'd still function as a powerful control element with the potential of generating long-term card advantage and inevitability, and deploying multiple copies would then be meaningful instead of (typically) needlessly redundant.
F) Batterskull -- perhaps the bounce cost should be 5 instead of 3? And does it also need to grant Vigilance?
G) Umezawa's Jitte -- given that it's arguably more powerful than the various Swords of X&Y, maybe Jitte should follow their pattern and cost :3: to play and/or only trigger its token generation upon inflicting combat damage **to a player**.
H) Brainstorm as Sorcery would still be powerful, widely played and format-defining, yet it would make the card a LOT weaker. Players would need to plan for their opponent's turn in advance instead of in reaction to whatever action they take, and discard spells such as Thoughtseize would be made quite a bit more powerful. I think it being an Instant is a HUGE aspect of why the card is so busted.
I) Tarmogoyf -- I don't think most players are too concerned about ol' Goof anymore, but there are several methods I can think of to better balance him: one is to make him an X/X instead of X/X+1; another is to look at *only* its owner's graveyard in terms of determining the value of X. Another way would be to re-balance his cost as GG or :g::b: instead of 1G, making him still easily playable in the sort of the decks that want him, yet a bit harder to splash elsewhere.
J) Jace, the Mind Sculptor: his Brainstorm ability should definitely have been -1 Loyalty instead of costing 0; his Fateseal ability should perhaps have been only +1 Loyalty *or* his Ultimate should have been removed entirely or changed to something less absurd.
K) Snapcaster Mage: :1::r:
L) Monastery Mentor: perhaps the tokens could be 0/1 with prowess or 1/1 without it. Alternatively, adjust the cost: 1WW or perhaps 3W. It still seems like it'd be an absurdly powerful card.

Just a few ideas, feel free to disagree. Legacy is obviously based around design mistakes, and part of the charm is playing busted cards against other busted cards. Still, I think some of the ideas presented above might make for a slightly better balanced format. For most of these suggestions I tried to keep the card competitively playable while still knocking it down a few notches.

edit:

If I could straight up just delete a single card, I think it'd be Gitaxian Probe. It's not broken by any means; it just bends a few rules of the game that should require a few more hoops to jump through to achieve: it's blue, it costs no mana to cycle yet still generates storm, and it provides perfect information. I don't really like what it's done for combo decks in Legacy, mainly defeating all sense of drama during the critical turn.

[WashableWater1]

I've always hated Griselbrand, Emrakul and Blightsteel Colossus to a lesser extent. Creatures with text that amounts to "you win" in a game full of ways to cheat creatures into play make games significantly less interesting.

Furthermore, to me it seems ridiculous that Bargain is banned, but easier-to-cheat-in Bargain with upside is alright.

[Mr Miagi]

Furthermore, to me it seems ridiculous that Bargain is banned, but easier-to-cheat-in Bargain with upside is alright.

But forcing you to draw 7/pay 7 life in one batch is THE downside :wink:
ikr..

[UseLess]

But forcing you to draw 7/pay 7 life in one batch is THE downside :wink:
ikr..

Luckily he has lifelink to compensate, otherwise that immense downside would be too much and make the card almost unplayable :eek:!

[Koby]

But forcing you to draw 7/pay 7 life in one batch is THE downside :wink:
ikr..

B-b-b-but R&D tested the card at 7 mana and found it was too big of a problem. 8 mana is totally not broken!!

[sdematt]

I like these choices. I agree that these cards are all frustrating and don't typically make for the best games. Especially Show and Tell + [insert random EDH Timmy I-WIN card here] -- and I'd argue that Omniscience is essentially just as bad as Emrakul and Griselbrand. I realize that there are plenty of ways to fight against SNT, and the deck is NOT an unstoppable Tier 0 problem... but netting 15 mana for 2:u: puts a lot of stupid constraints on the format, particularly for non-Blue decks.

The Eldrazi are dumb in tandem with the Sol lands. I just think that they're not very well designed, and Thought Knot Seer is a good example of needless ham-fisted power creep.

TNN would probably be okay if it cost 1WW or 1GW and was some other creature type. It just doesn't seem to make sense for this guy to be Blue. Blue-based Aggro-control really didn't need yet *another* Wall/Finisher hybrid to crap on non-Blue creature decks (Tarmogoyf being the original example). I think it'd be fine to give Wx creature decks a hard-to-kill threat as a way to attack control and midrange decks.

A few other tweaks I'd recommend for balance:

A) Leovold should've cost :w::g::b: instead of BUG. This would have given non-Blue decks like Maverick and Junk a method of fighting Blue and various forms of Combo that isn't just (easily) adopted by Blue decks themselves.
B) Delver of Secrets should've cost either :r: or :b: instead of U. Flavor-wise, this card makes more sense as either of those colors. It would still be played in Blue tempo decks, but it'd require a bit more work to maintain a high enough Blue-count for Force of Will.
C) Deathrite Shaman should have only 1 toughness, and probably also have 0 power. This would balance it better against creatures such as Goblin Lackey, as well as make it more susceptible to various hate cards (e.g. Darkblast; Forked Bolt; Electrickery; Engineered Plague, etc.) And yet it'd *still* be arguably better than Birds of Paradise as a 0/1.
D) Fetch-lands -- I'm ambivalent about removing them entirely, but perhaps they should've been capable of searching up *only* basic lands. I wonder if the designers at the time were even considering their interaction with Dual lands? More thought would be put into designing a deck's manabase, and 3-color decks would be a bit weaker and thus more balanced. I think the game is conceptually designed to make it so that there's supposed to be an actual opportunity cost to playing more than one color. Perhaps this adjustment would make it so that 2-color decks would be a more legitimate consideration?
E) Counterbalance is mostly a non-issue now that SDT is banned, however I think that this card should be nerfed a bit: either it could cost a tad more (1UU maybe?) or alternatively, it's ability could only be triggered once per turn. In the latter case, it'd still function as a powerful control element with the potential of generating long-term card advantage and inevitability, and deploying multiple copies would then be meaningful instead of (typically) needlessly redundant.
F) Batterskull -- perhaps the bounce cost should be 5 instead of 3? And does it also need to grant Vigilance?
G) Umezawa's Jitte -- given that it's arguably more powerful than the various Swords of X&Y, maybe Jitte should follow their pattern and cost :3: to play and/or only trigger its token generation upon inflicting combat damage **to a player**.
H) Brainstorm as Sorcery would still be powerful, widely played and format-defining, yet it would make the card a LOT weaker. Players would need to plan for their opponent's turn in advance instead of in reaction to whatever action they take, and discard spells such as Thoughtseize would be made quite a bit more powerful. I think it being an Instant is a HUGE aspect of why the card is so busted.
I) Tarmogoyf -- I don't think most players are too concerned about ol' Goof anymore, but there are several methods I can think of to better balance him: one is to make him an X/X instead of X/X+1; another is to look at *only* its owner's graveyard in terms of determining the value of X. Another way would be to re-balance his cost as GG or :g::b: instead of 1G, making him still easily playable in the sort of the decks that want him, yet a bit harder to splash elsewhere.
J) Jace, the Mind Sculptor: his Brainstorm ability should definitely have been -1 Loyalty instead of costing 0; his Fateseal ability should perhaps have been only +1 Loyalty *or* his Ultimate should have been removed entirely or changed to something less absurd.
K) Snapcaster Mage: :1::r:
L) Monastery Mentor: perhaps the tokens could be 0/1 with prowess or 1/1 without it. Alternatively, adjust the cost: 1WW or perhaps 3W. It still seems like it'd be an absurdly powerful card.

Just a few ideas, feel free to disagree. Legacy is obviously based around design mistakes, and part of the charm is playing busted cards against other busted cards. Still, I think some of the ideas presented above might make for a slightly better balanced format. For most of these suggestions I tried to keep the card competitively playable while still knocking it down a few notches.

edit:

If I could straight up just delete a single card, I think it'd be Gitaxian Probe. It's not broken by any means; it just bends a few rules of the game that should require a few more hoops to jump through to achieve: it's blue, it costs no mana to cycle yet still generates storm, and it provides perfect information. I don't really like what it's done for combo decks in Legacy, mainly defeating all sense of drama during the critical turn.

I agree.

[ahg113]

I like these choices. I agree that these cards are all frustrating and don't typically make for the best games. Especially Show and Tell + [insert random EDH Timmy I-WIN card here] -- and I'd argue that Omniscience is essentially just as bad as Emrakul and Griselbrand. I realize that there are plenty of ways to fight against SNT, and the deck is NOT an unstoppable Tier 0 problem... but netting 15 mana for 2:u: puts a lot of stupid constraints on the format, particularly for non-Blue decks.

The Eldrazi are dumb in tandem with the Sol lands. I just think that they're not very well designed, and Thought Knot Seer is a good example of needless ham-fisted power creep.

TNN would probably be okay if it cost 1WW or 1GW and was some other creature type. It just doesn't seem to make sense for this guy to be Blue. Blue-based Aggro-control really didn't need yet *another* Wall/Finisher hybrid to crap on non-Blue creature decks (Tarmogoyf being the original example). I think it'd be fine to give Wx creature decks a hard-to-kill threat as a way to attack control and midrange decks.

A few other tweaks I'd recommend for balance:

A) Leovold should've cost :w::g::b: instead of BUG. This would have given non-Blue decks like Maverick and Junk a method of fighting Blue and various forms of Combo that isn't just (easily) adopted by Blue decks themselves.
B) Delver of Secrets should've cost either :r: or :b: instead of U. Flavor-wise, this card makes more sense as either of those colors. It would still be played in Blue tempo decks, but it'd require a bit more work to maintain a high enough Blue-count for Force of Will.
C) Deathrite Shaman should have only 1 toughness, and probably also have 0 power. This would balance it better against creatures such as Goblin Lackey, as well as make it more susceptible to various hate cards (e.g. Darkblast; Forked Bolt; Electrickery; Engineered Plague, etc.) And yet it'd *still* be arguably better than Birds of Paradise as a 0/1.
D) Fetch-lands -- I'm ambivalent about removing them entirely, but perhaps they should've been capable of searching up *only* basic lands. I wonder if the designers at the time were even considering their interaction with Dual lands? More thought would be put into designing a deck's manabase, and 3-color decks would be a bit weaker and thus more balanced. I think the game is conceptually designed to make it so that there's supposed to be an actual opportunity cost to playing more than one color. Perhaps this adjustment would make it so that 2-color decks would be a more legitimate consideration?
E) Counterbalance is mostly a non-issue now that SDT is banned, however I think that this card should be nerfed a bit: either it could cost a tad more (1UU maybe?) or alternatively, it's ability could only be triggered once per turn. In the latter case, it'd still function as a powerful control element with the potential of generating long-term card advantage and inevitability, and deploying multiple copies would then be meaningful instead of (typically) needlessly redundant.
F) Batterskull -- perhaps the bounce cost should be 5 instead of 3? And does it also need to grant Vigilance?
G) Umezawa's Jitte -- given that it's arguably more powerful than the various Swords of X&Y, maybe Jitte should follow their pattern and cost :3: to play and/or only trigger its token generation upon inflicting combat damage **to a player**.
H) Brainstorm as Sorcery would still be powerful, widely played and format-defining, yet it would make the card a LOT weaker. Players would need to plan for their opponent's turn in advance instead of in reaction to whatever action they take, and discard spells such as Thoughtseize would be made quite a bit more powerful. I think it being an Instant is a HUGE aspect of why the card is so busted.
I) Tarmogoyf -- I don't think most players are too concerned about ol' Goof anymore, but there are several methods I can think of to better balance him: one is to make him an X/X instead of X/X+1; another is to look at *only* its owner's graveyard in terms of determining the value of X. Another way would be to re-balance his cost as GG or :g::b: instead of 1G, making him still easily playable in the sort of the decks that want him, yet a bit harder to splash elsewhere.
J) Jace, the Mind Sculptor: his Brainstorm ability should definitely have been -1 Loyalty instead of costing 0; his Fateseal ability should perhaps have been only +1 Loyalty *or* his Ultimate should have been removed entirely or changed to something less absurd.
K) Snapcaster Mage: :1::r:
L) Monastery Mentor: perhaps the tokens could be 0/1 with prowess or 1/1 without it. Alternatively, adjust the cost: 1WW or perhaps 3W. It still seems like it'd be an absurdly powerful card.

Just a few ideas, feel free to disagree. Legacy is obviously based around design mistakes, and part of the charm is playing busted cards against other busted cards. Still, I think some of the ideas presented above might make for a slightly better balanced format. For most of these suggestions I tried to keep the card competitively playable while still knocking it down a few notches.

edit:

If I could straight up just delete a single card, I think it'd be Gitaxian Probe. It's not broken by any means; it just bends a few rules of the game that should require a few more hoops to jump through to achieve: it's blue, it costs no mana to cycle yet still generates storm, and it provides perfect information. I don't really like what it's done for combo decks in Legacy, mainly defeating all sense of drama during the critical turn.

<3

Seconded!

[Skyl3lazer]

luckily he has lifelink to compensate, otherwise that immense downside would be too much and make the card almost unplayable :eek:!

why the fuck doesnt he make you skip your draw step

[ronco]

At the time of its printing, Show and Tell was only really used for dropping a Dream Halls into play (later used for Yawgmoth's Bargain after it got printed), but Dream Halls and Yawgmoth's Bargain both got banned within a year so I don't know why you took 2 years off.

Don't forget Mind over Matter for your Tolarian Academy.

I'm just getting back in from a long time off, so I've missed a lot but I'm just going to say planeswalkers as a whole, with the recent monster sized creatures as a close second (Marit Lage creators/combos, Elderazi, Emrakul, etc). Maybe the format is just faster now and can deal with these things on the next turn, I don't know. But I can usually deal with a 5/5 drop with no immediate response. I can't deal with a 13/13 time walker or whatever. Especially if it can't be countered, has protection from everything, shroud, no downside/upkeep for the owner, etc then what's the point? If there was a way to make them not be able to be cheated into play, then fine. But it just seems like an uncreative way to win or develop cards. Or I'm just bad at Magic, either one :).

I do agree with what others have said about the fetchlands though.

I wish the storm mechanic would have never been done.