[Podcast] Lone Star Legacy – Episode 5: Should Deathrite Be Banned?

[Stuart]

Welcome to the fifth episode of Lone Star Legacy! With a B&R announcement looming, Sam (theCrav), Sean (Jesture), and Arjune (Myrmidon7328) talk about everyone's favorite 1 CMC Planeswalker: Deathrite Shaman. Like most people with brain cells, they recognize the elf shaman's many issues and design flaws, as well as the good things it brings to the format. What's their final verdict? Will Underground Sea still be casting mana dorks after this week? Has the DCI even heard of our podcast? Listen and find out!

Direct link is up on our website, and it should also be on iTunes sometime soon (http://lonestarlhurgoyfs.com/2017-08-22-Podcast-Should-Deathrite-Shaman-be-Banned-in-Legacy/).

Cheers!

[Michael Keller]

The card is absolutely stupid. It's probably not broken by Legacy's standards, but it's about as broken as you'll ever see a creature for one mana and what it does. It's bad enough it doesn't actually target (so protective measures fail), but it causes loss of life (so it can get around dealing damage without attacking), attacks the graveyard (so graveyard strategies are hindered) gains life (to swing the game or keep you alive) and the casting cost of the card is hybrid (so it's splashable in decks supporting black, green or both). I don't know if that makes the case for a ban-worthy card, but to be honest for one mana it's better than a vast majority of planeswalkers printed.

[Stuart]

For sure. My opinion and (spoiler alert) the opinion of the guys on this episode is that it's one of the most powerful and poorly designed cards in Legacy, but not ban-worthy. 1/2 creatures with summoning sickness and activated abilities are eminently answerable. Likewise, the grave hate aspect is potentially good for the format. Still, it's definitely busted and creates some miserable play patterns. I'd be a happier man if I never had to engage in another Deathrite mirror.

[maharis]

I thought this cast was excellent, great job framing the issue.

Sam's point that the lack of regular large events is contributing to homogeneity in the meta was good. I do think there's an element of fear that people have when a big event comes around that they have to play "the best deck" now. I certainly feel it myself. Sure I'll goof around with some weirdo deck at the local but with so few chances to play competitive Legacy it's natural people will want to go with what works.

I also liked the comparisons to the conversations in Vintage about banning cards that aren't THE problem in order to try and solve it. I actually think there is some element of applicability to Legacy. I think the Grixis payoff cards are stronger than anything else you can be doing with Deathrite and if you got rid of some of the dumber ones there may be more of a reason to play other Deathrite decks.

I appreciated that even though most casters clearly dislike the card they agreed that it isn't the right time to ban it yet.

Finally, I think it was great that you opened up the idea of discussing the purpose of the Legacy ban list. That is where the rubber meets the road on many of these conversations. It seems that the line comes down to whether you think that different strategies are what contribute to metagame diversity vs. whether you think different cards are a sign of a diverse meta.

For example, Grixis Delver and Czech Pile share a lot of cards. Sure, Czech plays out slightly differently in a more midrange direction, maybe drawing comparisons to a deck like Jund. But in practice, I think Grixis and Czech are so close as to be nearly indistinguishable while Czech vs. Jund are very different decks.

To illustrate, I think a Storm deck plays much the same way against Grixis or Czech -- it is on the lookout for counterspells and discard. But vs. Jund, a storm deck may cut a card like Duress in favor of trying to just go off faster, before Jund can get discard online. Or, it may feel the need to bring in some sort of permanent destruction expecting a card like Grafdiggers Cage or Thorn of Amethyst.

A deck with Chalice of the Void probably mulligans to it on the play against either Grixis or Czech. But against Jund, they may be cut entirely.

This is just my opinion and to the extent that I feel Jund should occupy the meta space currently taken up by Czech, my views on what needs to be done if anything drift in that direction. However, I think the point that none of us really know what the actual definition of these things is when it comes to the DCI is accurate and intriguing.

[Barook]

This is just my opinion and to the extent that I feel Jund should occupy the meta space currently taken up by Czech, my views on what needs to be done if anything drift in that direction. However, I think the point that none of us really know what the actual definition of these things is when it comes to the DCI is accurate and intriguing.
Jund doesn't run Brainstorm, therefore it's automatically disqualified as an actual contender.

Lack of events might definitely be a factor. The good ol' "Run Brainstorm or you gimp yourself" comes back to bite everyone in the ass since the combination of DRS, Brainstorm and fetchlands is a match made in heaven at minimal deckbuilding cost. It's probably the best thing you can do in Legacy right now in terms of consistency and resilience.

My predictions:
- DRS/Brainstorm decks percentage in the meta is going to rise even further as a long-term trend.
- Same goes with Leovold because a one-sided draw jammer with upside that blue decks can run is incredibly stupid.

[Dice_Box]

The next update to DTB is September 16. It's not close.

I don't wish to see DRS go, I just feel after you rip out the core of Legacys most dominant deck you should give the format some time to settle. If Legacy is a river, there is too much sediment still in the water from the last time someone went running though the shallows. Let it settle, then mess up the ground once more.

[Crimhead]

This was a fun podcast. I didn't agree with everything, but you guys made a good effort to look at the situation objectively from multiple PoVs.

I think there is definitely something to be said for more people jumping on the band wagon instead of trying to answer the meta. We can see this more evidently in the highly warped online meta.

It certainly seems people would rather play a deck they know is putting up numbers rather than try to figure out which decks can beat it and still hold their own in the field. As long as people are flocking to whichever deck has had the most recent success, that deck will only be more successful, and the format will inevitably become more homogenous. No amount of bans will ever fix this. The format will never realise its potential if too many people automatically copy the leading deck rather than attack it.

Related is the point made of not enough people playing Moon - despite Moon Stompy almost surely having a better conversion rate. If Moon got big, Grixis and Czech might decline making room for less greedy fair decks like UW Blade, Miracles, D&T, and maybe even Fish (come on, Ixalan). But people would rather play a DRS deck than Moon Stompy, so the format stagnates.

Maybe the problem is too many new players who've known pretty much nothing but fair decks? Thank WotC for ruining an entire generation of players. Just a hunch. But it seems pretty clear there aren't nearly as many Moon players as there should be.


Jund doesn't run Brainstorm, therefore it's automatically disqualified as an actual contender.
Aggro-Loam has a strong engine and is in a far better position to contend than a straight Jund build.

I'm not sure what it would take to put Loam on the map. A new printing? A ban? Perhaps simply a larger dedicated player base? Either way, I think we'd see Loam as a contender long before we'd ever see Jund come back. And it would certainly fit the bill of a midrange deck that plays differently than Grixis or Czech.

[CptHaddock]

Maybe the problem is too many new players who've known pretty much nothing but fair decks? Thank WotC for ruining an entire generation of players. Just a hunch. But it seems pretty clear there aren't nearly as many Moon players as there should be.


There is an entire generation of magic players who started off while miracles was an extremely dominant force, and it became the baseline for everything they know. They don't know that the format has been around a lot longer than when miracles was first created, nonblue decks like Rock and Maverick used to be very good in their haydays and that there were costs to playing specific archetypes.

If you want examples of this you can just go back and read portions of the miracles thread and some of the threads on reddit. People were saying that banning miracles out of the format would cause combo to be rampant...



Aggro-Loam has a strong engine and is in a far better position to contend than a straight Jund build.

I'm not sure what it would take to put Loam on the map. A new printing? A ban? Perhaps simply a larger dedicated player base? Either way, I think we'd see Loam as a contender long before we'd ever see Jund come back. And it would certainly fit the bill of a midrange deck that plays differently than Grixis or Czech.

It has the same problem that Jund has, if you end up drawing the right half of your deck you win matches. I don't know why you would play it when you can basically just play Grixis/Czech and while lessening the number of free wins due to chalice or teegs have better matchups across the board.

[Crimhead]

There is an entire generation of magic players who started off while miracles was an extremely dominant force, and it became the baseline for everything they know. They don't know that the format has been around a lot longer than when miracles was first created, nonblue decks like Rock and Maverick used to be very good in their haydays and that magic and that there were costs to playing specific archetypes.

If you want examples of this you can just go back and read portions of the miracles thread and some of the threads on reddit. People were saying that banning miracles out of the format would cause combo to be rampant...
This is probably true. But I'm not sure where you're going with it. It doesn't seem to relate to a wide spread reluctance to attack the meta with an "unfair" deck like Moon Stompy or Lands.

Moon Stompy should be heavily played to address the greedy DRS decks running rampant. And that, in turn, should open up the meta for other (less greedy) fair decks.

So why are people joining the band-wagon and/or complaining about DRS instead of picking up Moon and kicking some Deathrite Ass?



It has the same problem that Jund has, if you end up drawing the right half of your deck you win matches.
I think Loam runs a lot more card advantage than straight Jund. If it has the same problems, it should have them to a lesser extent, and therefore be closer to being competitive.

Loam has traditionally been strong vs fair blue decks, but I hear it's been tougher since Grixis became the go-to Delver shell.

[Dr_D]

If you want examples of this you can just go back and read portions of the miracles thread and some of the threads on reddit. People were saying that banning miracles out of the format would cause combo to be rampant...



You should hear what they have to say about DRS. According to reddit if DRS wasn't in the format graveyard strategies would be literally unstoppable.

[CptHaddock]

This is probably true. But I'm not sure where you're going with it. It doesn't seem to relate to a wide spread reluctance to attack the meta with an "unfair" deck like Moon Stompy or Lands.

Moon Stompy should be heavily played to address the greedy DRS decks running rampant. And that, in turn, should open up the meta for other (less greedy) fair decks.

So why are people joining the band-wagon and/or complaining about DRS instead of picking up Moon and kicking some Deathrite Ass?

It wasn't really related to your post, just an observation.

The problem with decks like Stompy is that they're inconsistent. If you're going to a GP or other large event and looking to win why would you play it? I'm sure that you can land some win here and there but over the course of a tournament you're going to run into situations where you mulligan to oblivion and while your Grixis Control/Czech Pile opponent has cantrips to play from behind you're just hoping that your 1st prison piece will win you the game. I guess if you are running hotter than the sun that works as well. I don't know about lands, I guess people don't like the polarizing matchups that it has.


You should hear what they have to say about DRS. According to reddit if DRS wasn't in the format graveyard strategies would be literally unstoppable.

Oh yes I enjoy reading those as well. How could you possibly hate out graveyards without DRS?

[Megadeus]

You should hear what they have to say about DRS. According to reddit if DRS wasn't in the format graveyard strategies would be literally unstoppable.

This makes me laugh because those people are so hilariously wrong. Sure the DRS decks are much weaker in game 1, but it would force decks to play more than just a couple side board pieces to actually beat these decks. I mean we have Black Leyline and RIP. It doesn't get much better than that in terms of yard hate

[pf732k3]

Hey guys - it's Arjune (I was one of the guys on the cast). For whatever reason, I can't remember by password, and don't know which email I used to sign up, so I'm starting back from scratch.

We really appreciate this kind of feedback on these casts. I would agree that Legacy certainly has the tools to beat dedicated graveyard decks. I do also think that without DRS, Reanimator becomes tier 1. I think that's fine, but I don't think it will be as depressed as it is right now given that its two biggest predators (Miracles, DRS) are out. Yes, there will be more hate post-board, but I still would think of it as a better pseudo-dredge deck.


The problem with decks like Stompy is that they're inconsistent. If you're going to a GP or other large event and looking to win why would you play it? I'm sure that you can land some win here and there but over the course of a tournament you're going to run into situations where you mulligan to oblivion and while your Grixis Control/Czech Pile opponent has cantrips to play from behind you're just hoping that your 1st prison piece will win you the game. I guess if you are running hotter than the sun that works as well. I don't know about lands, I guess people don't like the polarizing matchups that it has.

This is an argument I don't quite understand. Let's say you're 60% match win vs the field with either Grixis Delver or Moon Stompy. The fact that more of your losses come from nonfunctional hands with the latter doesn't mean the deck itself is worse or even less consistent at winning - it's just that you have less room to outplay your opponent. You also get a bunch more free wins with the deck. So, assuming your a priori win percentages are the same with either, it shouldn't make a difference which deck you bring to an event, regardless of if its 4 rounds of 15+. Or am I missing something?

[Crimhead]

The problem with decks like Stompy is that they're inconsistent. If you're going to a GP or other large event and looking to win why would you play it?

Because all indications suggest it has a better conversion rate than the "best" decks. Same goes for Lands

Consistency is over-rated, and more about bad feels than statistics.

eg, it's better to play an inconsistent deck with a 60% win rate than a consistent deck with a 55% win rate. The problem is that 40% loss rate is tougher to swallow if your deck crapped out on you. It's easier to accept a 55% loss rate where you at least felt like you had agency.

I think ban list decisions should be based on conversion rates. If a single deck (or style) is winning too much because it is the best positioned deck, ban something. But if there is another deck(s) with a +ve MU vs that "best" deck and a better overall conversion rate, the problem lies with the players and not the card pool.

[taconaut]

So why are people joining the band-wagon and/or complaining about DRS instead of picking up Moon and kicking some Deathrite Ass?



Some people have addressed it already, but I think there's a few things:

One, some people might not find the playstyle that exciting - not that the deck has no play, but Grixis definitely feels like it has more opportunities to leverage pilot skill. For stompy, it kinda feels like (as an outsider) "you slam a hate piece early, and then go to town with a big dumb beater!!" I get that it's more nuanced than that, but from the other side of the table that's often what it feels like.

Second, I don't think it's a real gimme matchup in the way we're proposing - especially if the deathrite player is on the play, they could start with a deathrite or a delver, and make rainbow mana to decay your hate piece or daze it and just fly over, and it's hard to manage that as the stompy guy. Especially if the hate piece isn't coming down turn one.

Finally, less excitingly, the sol lands and other stompy cards have gotten a bit more expensive lately with the advent of Eldrazi, and I think a lot of players might view them as too expensive to switch to for what really is a volatile build. If you buy into Forces and Blue duals, it's expensive, but you have a lot of options; if you buy into Tombs, the choices are more limited, both in-game and in a metagame sense.

[Whitefaces]

Great podcast guys, I really enjoyed it. Time to listen to all the others!

[CptHaddock]

This is an argument I don't quite understand. Let's say you're 60% match win vs the field with either Grixis Delver or Moon Stompy. The fact that more of your losses come from nonfunctional hands with the latter doesn't mean the deck itself is worse or even less consistent at winning - it's just that you have less room to outplay your opponent. You also get a bunch more free wins with the deck. So, assuming your a priori win percentages are the same with either, it shouldn't make a difference which deck you bring to an event, regardless of if its 4 rounds of 15+. Or am I missing something?

I'm not really arguing that your MU win % is changing because of consistency, I think that your match win % should stay the same regardless of if you're playing 1 match or 1,000 matches. I'm talking about the % of times you are going to draw poorly and it's going to cost you the game due to not running cantrips. The longer the tournament the more likely you are to draw like crap. I also don't want to say that blue playing decks don't fall apart at some point, all decks fail; however while playing cantrips you can minimize the risk of failure.

I hope that makes sense and it wasn't just me rambling.

[mistercakes]

not worth banning, but does take away from deck diversity. also blocks goblin lackey!

[thecrav]

I thought this cast was excellent, great job framing the issue.
For example, Grixis Delver and Czech Pile share a lot of cards. Sure, Czech plays out slightly differently in a more midrange direction, maybe drawing comparisons to a deck like Jund. But in practice, I think Grixis and Czech are so close as to be nearly indistinguishable while Czech vs. Jund are very different decks.

I don't remember if I did it on the cast but I've taken to calling them Grixis and Grixis Green to illustrate just how similar they are.


I think there is definitely something to be said for more people jumping on the band wagon instead of trying to answer the meta. We can see this more evidently in the highly warped online meta.

Another point is that with instant deliverability and the associated liquidity, it's easy to change decks, so jumping to the best deck is super easy compared to paper where, event if I had an unlimited budget, it would take me at least a week to acquire all the cards for a new deck.



One more thing I don't remember if we mentioned - If there's a B&R update affecting either Legacy or Vintage, we've already planned to livecast at 7:30 CDT on Monday!

[Crimhead]

I'm not really arguing that your MU win % is changing because of consistency, I think that your match win % should stay the same regardless of if you're playing 1 match or 1,000 matches. I'm talking about the % of times you are going to draw poorly and it's going to cost you the game due to not running cantrips.
Mathematically, your MU win % is all that matters. It doesn't matter how you lose - that's purely psychological. Mathematically, it only matters how frequently you lose.



Second, I don't think it's a real gimme matchup in the way we're proposing - especially if the deathrite player is on the play, they could start with a deathrite or a delver, and make rainbow mana to decay your hate piece or daze it and just fly over, and it's hard to manage that as the stompy guy. Especially if the hate piece isn't coming down turn one.
I agree with your other points, but are you saying Grixis Tempo & Czech are favoured vs Moon Stompy?


I don't remember if I did it on the cast but I've taken to calling them Grixis and Grixis Green to illustrate just how similar they are.You did! I don’t think it's entirely fair, as Czech is better at grinding.

I think you guys were a bit unfair in your whole assessment of strategic diversity. You took the Source DTB section as the meta, but you wrote off all the UW Blade decks so as to lump Blade in with Grixis and Czech. I think you then mis-counted the number of decks in DTB. More importantly decks that have been in-and-out of DTB (eg, Miracles, Storm) were ignored entirely.

For most things, you guys showed both sides of the argument, which I thought was really great. But I think you could have made a much better case for Strategic diversity than you did.


Another point is that with instant deliverability and the associated liquidity, it's easy to change decks, so jumping to the best deck is super easy compared to paper where, event if I had an unlimited budget, it would take me at least a week to acquire all the cards for a new deck.
All the more reason online should be seeing a huge surge of Moon Stompy?

[btm10]

I agree with your other points, but are you saying Grixis Tempo & Czech are favoured vs Moon Stompy?


I haven't played enough post-ban Pile vs. Moon Stompy to say for sure, but my match notes from before the ban definitely had it as favorable for Pile, and any reasonably prepared Delver player (i.e., they understand the matchup and have useful but not dedicated sideboard cards) should be favored against most Stompy decks. Daze and discard are total bombs in those matchups.

[taconaut]

Mathematically, your MU win % is all that matters. It doesn't matter how you lose - that's purely psychological. Mathematically, it only matters how frequently you lose.

This is an interesting point, and mathematically I have to agree; weirdly though, I still feel like intuitively it makes sense that a deck with cantrips should have an easier time in a longer event. I'm not sure why I feel that way - I'll have to keep mulling it over. It definitely feels like the agency that someone mentioned earlier is a big part of it.



I agree with your other points, but are you saying Grixis Tempo & Czech are favoured vs Moon Stompy?



Nah, just that it's closer to 50-50 than it is to, say, 70-30. btm10, above, is surely a more trustworthy source though, as I love to play decks like storm that just roll over to chalice a good percentage of the time.

[Stuart]

I thought this cast was excellent, great job framing the issue.

This was a fun podcast. I didn't agree with everything, but you guys made a good effort to look at the situation objectively from multiple PoVs.

Great podcast guys, I really enjoyed it. Time to listen to all the others!

Cheers guys! Hope you enjoy the other episodes, though be forewarned: they're way less substantive than this one, and mostly involve us bullshitting about bullshit.

As Sam mentioned, there's a good chance we'll have a new episode out next week to discuss any Legacy or (more likely) Vintage bannings.

[thecrav]

As Sam mentioned, there's a good chance we'll have a new episode out next week to discuss any Legacy or (more likely) Vintage bannings.

It occurs to me that there is a distinct chance that Hurricane Henry will have some input regarding whether or not we are able to cast D:

[Stuart]

It occurs to me that there is a distinct chance that Hurricane Henry will have some input regarding whether or not we are able to cast D:


*Harvey. Also, quit being cagey and commit to the cast. You bailed on 4th of July and now you're trying to bail cause of a little rain.

[Finn]

I read some of the ideas about DRS preventing GY decks from taking over the universe. I am not sure that I got the true meaning of those comments correct because, ya know, text. So don't jump down my throat here...

The central point I wish to add is that DRS definitely, certainly, absolutely ruins gy-dependant decks just by its very existence. That card is largely responsible for moving some previous great decks to the outskirts of Legacy and I presume also prevents some from making inroads. I remember the threads bemoaning the difficulties encountered when the opponent opens with fetch into DRS. Do not discount the effect of 5-star grave hate in the main.

[maharis]

I read some of the ideas about DRS preventing GY decks from taking over the universe. I am not sure that I got the true meaning of those comments correct because, ya know, text. So don't jump down my throat here...

The central point I wish to add is that DRS definitely, certainly, absolutely ruins gy-dependant decks just by its very existence. That card is largely responsible for moving some previous great decks to the outskirts of Legacy and I presume also prevents some from making inroads. I remember the threads bemoaning the difficulties encountered when the opponent opens with fetch into DRS. Do not discount the effect of 5-star grave hate in the main.

I disagree that DRS stops GY-dependent decks in their tracks. Snapcaster Mage is heavily played. BR Reanimator is in and out of tier-1. Dredge can easily beat a lone DRS.

DRS is very good against the specific mechanic Threshold and other cards that depend on a raw high volume of cards in the GY like Knight of the Reliquary. That certainly has implications for the format. It is also good at slowing down some other GY strategies, given the right draw, until more powerful GY hate can get online.

But the question is whether or not that is something to be lamented or accepted. That's still very much up in the air as discussed in this cast. Do you want to play against people trying to stick T1 DRS 40% of the time or people trying to stick T1 Griselbrand 40% of the time? Do you want to have to build your deck with DRS -- a 1/2 with summoning sickness -- in mind, or with 4-5 pieces of GY hate in your sideboard? That has a real impact on deck construction.

The card is powerful and unique. Same is true for many cards that have come and gone in Legacy. It has a wide variety of answers in all colors too. I would prefer the cards that are hard to interact with get banned first and we see if DRS can be more of an enabler than it is a detractor.

[taconaut]

Do you want to play against people trying to stick T1 DRS 40% of the time or people trying to stick T1 Griselbrand 40% of the time?



The former, not close

[Barook]

I disagree that DRS stops GY-dependent decks in their tracks. Snapcaster Mage is heavily played. BR Reanimator is in and out of tier-1. Dredge can easily beat a lone DRS.
IIRC, Snapcaster definitely saw an uptick in Modern after DRS was banned - which isn't too suprising, considering it was designed to counter Snapcaster in Standard, hence it being over the top.

Without DRS, we're definitely going back to more GY-based shenanigans. I wouldn't be suprised if the blue lists would simply run more Snapcasters in place of DRS if it was actually banned at some point.