Is 23% of the top spot too much for one deck? How about two?

[Finn]

We need to do some soul searching on this one. Are Czech Pile and Tempo Grix the same deck? Of course there are a variety of reasons why the answer can be both YES and NO at the same time. But it is not exactly an exercise in academics at this point. I just did a quick calculation from TCDecks raw data. 23.7% of all winning decks are one of those two. The next closest is Miracles at 5.9%.

For comparison, before the April 2017 banning of Sensei's Divining Top, Miracles was the undisputed king of the format, and had been for quite awhile. In Mar 2017, it was 14.8% of winning decks. Historically, 14.8% really was a very high percentage. In the past, the best several decks hovered somewhere around 10% each for a few months before being beaten back by competition and improved tech. Miracles was the most dominating deck the format had seen up until that point, and players certainly took note. There was a lot of complaining about it's dominance on this site. And yet, it topped out well below what we are seeing from these decks. If they are in fact the same deck, we should be clamoring for a change.

I am sure there are many opinions, but primarily it would be great to start off with trying to reach a consensus on the question at the center. What does it feel like to face these two decks? How is the experience different/same for other decks tactically?

And if there is actually a problem here, what would you do to fix it?

[Lemnear]

It's interresting that you picked up the topic of Page 971 in the B&R thread, questioning if all these decks are actually different entities. Good luck. Looking forward to a civil discussion.

[Finn]

Lemnear, I am with you on that sentiment. I still think it is important enough to warrant airing out the topic given the startlingly high numbers. Frankly, even if they are two entirely separate decks, it constitutes a very big concentration of the same cards across the table round after round. Individual cards may be to blame. Maybe not. It is hard for me to pinpoint one.

[Kap'n Cook]

July 2: Make Goblins Weld Again

#FreeTop
#FreeNedleeds

[kinda]

Wouldn't a poll or two be more helpful? There is plenty of discussion on this topic in the b/r thread. A wizards referendum would be fun.

[somethingdotdotdot]

They are two different decks that share the same core. Their initial game plans vs decks are very different; however, because they share so many cards, they can occassionally shift strategies depending on game state/cards they see.

That being said, I'm unsure if it is as big of a problem as everyone is making it out to be. Maybe it's just my local meta (SoCal, which has a relatively healthy legacy scence), but it doesn't feel like grixis/pile are that heavily represented and they aren't consistently dominating t8's.

I would be interested to see if the numbers dip once you remove all of the mtgo placements for grixis/pile, because I believe that that metagame is extremely inbred and people love to play grixis/pile a lot more there than in paper.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Data pulled from the MTGO Legacy Challenge of June 25th off of TCDecks.
This is my best attempt to make an 'average' deck from the lists in that pool of data.
I had to exclude the sideboard because it proved difficult to come of up with a consensus.


4C Control

2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
1 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Ponder
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
2 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

Grixis Pyromancer

1 True-Name Nemesis
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Spell Pierce
1 Wild Slash
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
1 Bitterblossom
1 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland


The blue cards show the significant overlapping items. Doing a search in TCDecks for 'decks containing in maindeck' pulls up a list of only 4C Control and Grixis Pyromancer. If you cut DRS from the search, a few UR Burn lists are added. If you cut Lightning Bolt the list expands to include BUG Control, Food Chain, and Aluren. If you remove DRS and Lightning Bolt it includes just about every deck with blue in it...

Based on this information, 4C Control and Grixis Pyromancer are two separate decks with several overlapping cards (with the overlapping cards being fairly ubiquitous in the format).

[Stryfo]

I'm not exactly sure which question to answer, so I'll just take a stab at all of them.

Is 23% too much for one deck? -probably, though I'm sure worlds exist where even this number is fine.

Is 23% too much for two decks? - Here I assume a similar meta share of each of the two decks, because not doing so leads us back towards the first answer. My answer here is no, 23% is not too much for a pair of decks. If the top decks are of order 10%, and the meta shares go down from there, one would expect a fairly diverse metagame.

Are Grixis Delver and 4c control the same deck? - I'm not really sure where this claim comes from. Admittedly the deck I've played for the last year and a half or so is Punishing Dack, Czech Pile's grindier cousin, and so my point of view is from the blue side of the meta. When I play against these decks I play a vastly different game, I have to because strategies and cards that are effective against one deck are not necessarily effective against the other. Certainly the decks can be built to have similar problem cards, but standard builds are very much different.

As the control player in basically every matchup, I have to pick my battles carefully in any matchup, but it's important to note that playing against delver decks feels fundamentally different as far as what's important and how I have to play from most other decks in the format, and this certainly includes Pile. Playing against Pile is sort of like playing against Jund, which I think is a fairly obvious comparison, though Leovold is far more annoying to play against than almost anything out of Jund.

I am very curious in what sense people believe these decks to be the same. Is it just that both have a "core" of cantrips and DRS? To me this seems like comparing elves to maverick, since both have a "core" of mana dorks and GSZ. If the question changes to: "Is DRS + cantrips too good?" The answer still remains unclear to me, but at least I can agree that many of the top decks are using DRS + cantrips, even though they play fundamentally differently.


Even though I don't really view what's going on right now as a problem, I'll answer my "solution" to the perceived problem of: DRS + cantrips is too good. Tackling this problem is hard, because I think both DRS and cantrips lead to interesting gameplay by making non-games where one player doesn't play magic occur less frequently. Say what you will about 4c manabases having inherent instability, having played a 4c mana base for a long time now, I can tell you in no uncertain terms, I still lose plenty to wasteland and stifle. The thing is, if we try to axe DRS and one or more cantrips, this likely starts happening a lot more, and this is simply not enjoyable for many (most?) players. I understand that from a standpoint of decks who make this a plan, maybe people enjoy mana screwing the opponent, but even in the current environment, this is a very real strategy. I also don't have much experience with making new cards, so I won't suggest any new cards be printed, even though this could turn into a reasonable solution, just not one I am equipped to put forth.

So what would my solution be? I'd try to be a little more surgical with my B&R choices. If we identify the best two decks as Czech Pile and Grixis Delver, we can identify the best non-cantrip non-DRS cards that don't destroy other decks should they get the axe. I think out of Czech Pile the best cards fitting this criteria are probably Leovold and Kolaghan's command, both of these cards put a huge amount of pressure on the format, one is a permanent based hate piece for a wide variety of decks, that almost never trades unfavorably and provides a reasonable clock, while the other makes strategies that would generally be competing for meta share with Pile, like blade decks, much much worse. I don't think banning kolaghan's command is the way to go because of how insanely fair the card is, though I point it out as an option because I believe it is more meta-warping than people give it credit for. I believe rather strongly that Leovold was a mistake, in the decks built to trade quickly and drop him, the games that result are largely unfun. He's too easy to cast independently of DRS, and if you don't have an immediate answer, he snowballs games. His absence also makes several common combo decks, like reanimator and storm (important for my next point) a little better.


From Grixis Delver, the cards I identify as satisfying my initial criteria are: Gitaxian Probe, TNN, and Gurmag Angler. I think that Gurmag Angler is the least problematic of these cards, but I include it here because it is very powerful and no other decks really play it with any frequency. As far as TNN is concerned, if a creature were to go, this is definitely my choice, this card isn't great against combo, but it leads to some of the most unfun fair-fair games in magic, and I think that many people who see the current top decks as a problem are coming at it from a fair perspective. ANT, for example, doesn't have too much of a problem with either pile or delver (at least this is what my expert friends tell me). Finally, Gitaxian Probe, this card has been frustrating me from the beginning, giving free information, free spells, and free cards in graveyard is really fantastic for grixis delver. They get to play the game nearly perfectly for a few turns and get free cards in the yard for the zombie fish and free tokens from pyromancer, this is a really powerful effect for the deck which I think sometimes gets overlooked. A Probe banning would also hurt storm, which is a problem, but I think that it would be fine if we also take cards like Leovold out of the format, take the blue hatebear away from the deck that's also playing counters and hymn to tourach, and I don't think storm loses too much overall.

To summarize: My personally preferred bannings for removing some power from the top two decks are: Ban Probe and Leovold. This cuts power from both Delver and Pile in a way that doesn't do too much to other decks. The other cards I mentioned could in principle be banned as well, but I don't think that they are as problematic from as many angles as either Leovold or Probe. I can't think of any unbannings as being a solution (not that cards shouldn't be unbanned, just that the ones that are safe won't solve the problem and the ones that aren't will make an even bigger mess).

Sorry for that wall of text, but I don't usually post here and I wanted to put my thoughts down for once.

[Fox]

There's a significant difference between Grixis Delver and Czech: Delver allows strategies like Maverick/Jund/Shardless/Blade/AggroLoam. Czech's Snapcaster recursion pretty much says all those strategies are either worse versions of itself (good stuff pile) or completely unable to compete with the value. The main reason for this difference though is probably getting derp'd out by Hymn. Sea -> DRS -> you can't avoid Hymn...so you get Hymn'd -> draw your card, can't quite recover, your thing gets killed......and Snapcaster Hymn....fun game.

[bakofried]

They are two different decks that share the same core. Their initial game plans vs decks are very different; however, because they share so many cards, they can occassionally shift strategies depending on game state/cards they see.

That being said, I'm unsure if it is as big of a problem as everyone is making it out to be. Maybe it's just my local meta (SoCal, which has a relatively healthy legacy scence), but it doesn't feel like grixis/pile are that heavily represented and they aren't consistently dominating t8's.

I would be interested to see if the numbers dip once you remove all of the mtgo placements for grixis/pile, because I believe that that metagame is extremely inbred and people love to play grixis/pile a lot more there than in paper.

I don't know if that's a function of the MTGO meta bring inbred or the SoCal meta's hostility to Grixis Delver and Pile. The last Knightware Staples event was full of Red Prison and Lands, and most of the other fringe decks in the room likewise dunked on them.

My chief concern is that new tech isn't dislodging these one and a half decks from their Tier 1 position.

[taconaut]

I don't have much to add other than I disagree with banning Gitaxian Probe and think Grixis and Czech are definitely different decks, but I wanted to commend Ace and Stryfo for excellent posts.

[Lemnear]

Lemnear, I am with you on that sentiment. I still think it is important enough to warrant airing out the topic given the startlingly high numbers. Frankly, even if they are two entirely separate decks, it constitutes a very big concentration of the same cards across the table round after round. Individual cards may be to blame. Maybe not. It is hard for me to pinpoint one.

I agree. It's a bit too easy to just point fingers at DRS due to its numbers, as it would by hypocritical with Brainstorm/Ponder putting up higher ones.

What I however blame the card for, is bluring the borders between the subtypes of tempo/midrange/control and somewhat invalidating most of the common hate for greedy manabases. It has removed the usual need to make tradeoffs for running certain color combinations, cards and to some extend even higher cmc cards. It's one core supporting the whole range from Delver+Daze to JTM+Leovold if needed, making it a very appealing option to invest into and maybe explains some of the numbers it puts up.

It's up to debate for the thread and community on a larger scale to decide, if its really a problem, if the whole, classic array of UR, UW, UWR, BUG, RUG, etc Brainstorm+Ponder+FoW decks is narrowed down to BUGx DRS+BlueShell, or if its just a natural development like as when Delver was released, which retired many, many cards as well.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Every person I talk to seems to agree on two points: brainstorm should have been banned long ago and if brainstorm is ever banned they'll quit. The format represents this, and the best decks are homogenizing themselves around it.
That and card availability.

[Ephemeron]

1. Is 23% meta share too much for one deck? I wouldn't make blanket statements since every case is different, but I think if one deck starts to approach a quarter of the meta, it would probably be time to look long and hard about whether this prevalence is a good thing for the format or how much damage it's doing.

2. Is 23% too much for two decks? It depends on the distribution. I'm assuming that in the instant case, Grixis Delver and Czech Pile see roughly equivalent play. If you consider them to be two distinct decks (which I do, more below) then no, I don't think two decks of 12-ish% meta at the top is too much. This also depends on what the meta share is of the decks below it. If there's a 78 decks each with a 1% meta share, that would be bad. If there's a bunch of decks that are all between 3-8%, I think that's good. I think this latter scenario is where legacy presently is at FWIW.

3. Do I think Grixis Delver and Czech Pile are the same deck? I do not. I'll preface with saying that the deck I have primarily played over the last year (several years really) is Sneak and Show, so I'm coming at it from the perspective of a combo player. In my experience, the matchups play out extremely differently, in a way that makes Delver a far less favorable matchup than Pile. The difference really is in the card Delver of Secrets. Games that feature a turn one delver and any sort of backup via counterspell are extremely difficult for all but the most broken of hands to defeat. Delver just closes games out too quickly. Pile is much slower and grindier, they don't have many draws that present a fast clock. The result of this is that Delver dictates the speed the game is played at, whereas against Pile I know that I've usually got time to sit back and sculpt a hand and then pick my spot. Delver frequently puts me in a position where I have to go for it a lot sooner than I would want to.

Pile is, I think, sort of the successor to Shardless in that it's a literal pile of card advantage and the most efficient 1 for 1 spells offered in legacy. That's why even within Pile you see people playing different arrays of cards. In a general sense, it doesn't matter if you're getting your 2 for 1 from Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage, K Command, or Hymn to Tourach. All that matters is that the wheels of the deck keep churning every turn and all that value just kinda adds up at the end of the game into something your opponent has no way of handling. That's what I think separates it from Grixis Delver. Even though Grixis plays a lot of the same cards, it has a much more unified deck theory holding it together. Cheap creatures put on pressure while wasteland and the pressure forces you to play into soft counters. Tempo 101. Grixis doesn't do it in as exaggerated of a manner as RUG Delver does it, but at least against combo, the core philosophy is still there and it's still real good.

This contrast is only exacerbated in sideboard games. I expect Grixis Delver players to cut the more grindy cards (TNN for example) for more counters. Grixis becomes even more tempo oriented in sideboard games and the games play out much differently than against pile. I don't rigorously keep track of my match stats like some people here do, but I'm sure that for 2018, I'm sub 50% against Grixis Delver and probably around 60% against Pile.

4. What (if anything) should be done about this? Probably nothing, objectively looking at the meta I think things look pretty good right now. If you accept that Grixis and Pile are two very different strategies that just happen to share the same powerful core of cards, then I'm not sure where the ban DRS argument comes in. If instead of pile, it was Shardless or just a straight BUG midrange deck as the undisputed #2 deck, would people still have a problem? I suspect not.

[CptHaddock]

Yeah I wouldn't say that they're the same deck at all. Delver is like a bicycle that is quickly falling apart where as Czech is like a Model S, you don't know if your deck is going work, is going to catch on fire or the autopilot feature is going to crash the car. I think that both decks feel the same because they both can approach the metagame the same way. You can easily adjust a handful of cards in the main and the sideboard and become favored against any number of archetypes ontop of still being well positioned against the rest field. I think the only other deck in the format that feels somewhat similar is miracles.


I don't know if that's a function of the MTGO meta bring inbred or the SoCal meta's hostility to Grixis Delver and Pile. The last Knightware Staples event was full of Red Prison and Lands, and most of the other fringe decks in the room likewise dunked on them.

My chief concern is that new tech isn't dislodging these one and a half decks from their Tier 1 position.

The mtgo metagame is so disgusting inbred, way more than it was in the miracles era. I have run into Czech players running maindeck blast effects. BEB/Hydoblast should not be a playable legacy card. There is basically no point on playing on MTGO unless you want to figure out how your deck is vs Czech or Grixis Delver.

[Dice_Box]

Are they the same deck? No. Do they feel like much the same deck when your plan is to put speed bumps in front of them and grind them down to nothing? Yes.

[non-inflammable]

if brainstorm is ever banned they'll quit.

The mass flooding of legacy staples should solve the reserve list problem nicely; sounds like a win/win...

[Megadeus]

The mass flooding of legacy staples should solve the reserve list problem nicely; sounds like a win/win...

Good idea. I say we can brainstorm just to make all the clowns who claim they would quit sell their shit and let people who actually want to play legacy and not just cast brainstorm play

[maharis]

Agree with everything Stryfo wrote except I would be more than happy to hurl TNN and Angler into a volcano. A 5/5 for B with no drawback or opportunity cost is just as outside the color pie as anything else; the fact that it has less synergy with traditional B strategies and more with the U soup is just icing on the cake.


What I however blame the card for, is bluring the borders between the subtypes of tempo/midrange/control and somewhat invalidating most of the common hate for greedy manabases. It has removed the usual need to make tradeoffs for running certain color combinations, cards and to some extend even higher cmc cards. It's one core supporting the whole range from Delver+Daze to JTM+Leovold if needed, making it a very appealing option to invest into and maybe explains some of the numbers it puts up.

It's up to debate for the thread and community on a larger scale to decide, if its really a problem, if the whole, classic array of UR, UW, UWR, BUG, RUG, etc Brainstorm+Ponder+FoW decks is narrowed down to BUGx DRS+BlueShell, or if its just a natural development like as when Delver was released, which retired many, many cards as well.

This is a natural consequence of allowing a broken tactical engine to exist while handwaving away the lack of card, color and tactical diversity with "BUT THERE'S STRATEGIC DIVERSITY!" Eventually, with only one truly viable tactic, enough cards will be printed to narrow the range of playable strategies around that tactic. And, there is coupled a heavy incentive to play very narrowly focused strategies that attack that particular tactic.

Enter the UBxx fair stew vs. chalice/moon stompy vs. super-fast-combo-that-can-beat-a-chalice-to-the-table metagame.

Since it doesn't seem that the cantrip engine is going anywhere soon, I suggest it's time to stop griping about the "enablers" and go after the busted cards. Get rid of TNN and Leovold and suddenly there is a reason to not play blue in your DRS deck to get access to powerful 3-drops. Get rid of Griselbrand and Probe to put some of the guesswork and opportunity cost back into playing combo. More non-blue decks, with higher basic land counts and diversity of mana costs, will emerge to prey on the narrowly focused hate decks.

[WashableWater1]

Grixis and Czech Pile are so different that I dont even see how this is a question. One is looking to keep you on the backfoot and dominat the early game through one drops, but have fairly weak cards as the game goes on, one is looking to survive the early game and grind opponents down through value cards and powerful 3-4 drops

[Cartesian]

They are not the same deck by any reasonable definition. They share some pivotal Legacy cards, but the strategies are completely different.
One is trying to deal 20 damage, the other is trying to establish control.

[WashableWater1]

Agree with everything Stryfo wrote except I would be more than happy to hurl TNN and Angler into a volcano. A 5/5 for B with no drawback or opportunity cost is just as outside the color pie as anything else; the fact that it has less synergy with traditional B strategies and more with the U soup is just icing on the cake.



This is a natural consequence of allowing a broken tactical engine to exist while handwaving away the lack of card, color and tactical diversity with "BUT THERE'S STRATEGIC DIVERSITY!" Eventually, with only one truly viable tactic, enough cards will be printed to narrow the range of playable strategies around that tactic. And, there is coupled a heavy incentive to play very narrowly focused strategies that attack that particular tactic.

Enter the UBxx fair stew vs. chalice/moon stompy vs. super-fast-combo-that-can-beat-a-chalice-to-the-table metagame.

Since it doesn't seem that the cantrip engine is going anywhere soon, I suggest it's time to stop griping about the "enablers" and go after the busted cards. Get rid of TNN and Leovold and suddenly there is a reason to not play blue in your DRS deck to get access to powerful 3-drops. Get rid of Griselbrand and Probe to put some of the guesswork and opportunity cost back into playing combo. More non-blue decks, with higher basic land counts and diversity of mana costs, will emerge to prey on the narrowly focused hate decks.

What is the one viable tactic?

[Dice_Box]

Grixis and Czech Pile are so different that I dont even see how this is a question. One is looking to keep you on the backfoot and dominat the early game through one drops, but have fairly weak cards as the game goes on, one is looking to survive the early game and grind opponents down through value cards and powerful 3-4 drops
All the heavy dual decks can start to feel the same from a Lands perspective after a while. Granted having Jace or not having Wasteland can change things, but dual into DRS followed by whatever all starts to call for the same lines of attack.

Not speaking for others, but I can see how they would feel alike.

[Namida]

People commenting on how inbred MTGO is...is that because people like Grixis decks, or because MTGO is a place where card prices and availability can't artificially make the format seem more balanced than it is/a place where more competitive players congregate, etc.? I've been wondering this for a while--my local metagame doesn't seem as miserable as people are making things out to be, but I question if that's because people are exaggering, because we have people playing Goblins and UR control and other decks they like with little regard about if they can win or not, or because Underground Sea has been out of the price range of many players here for a long time.

[WashableWater1]

People commenting on how inbred MTGO is...is that because people like Grixis decks, or because MTGO is a place where card prices and availability can't artificially make the format seem more balanced than it is/a place where more competitive players congregate, etc.? I've been wondering this for a while--my local metagame doesn't seem as miserable as people are making things out to be, but I question if that's because people are exaggering, because we have people playing Goblins and UR control and other decks they like with little regard about if they can win or not, or because Underground Sea has been out of the price range of many players here for a long time.

A factor to consider is that if you’re looking to grind out games for value, there are a couple things to consider. Playing fast decks will get you more value than slow decks (faster games=more per hour). Because of this decks like BR reanimator and other combo decks pop up more. Decks like Delver and Pile, which have pretty even matchups across the board are popular choices because you’re less likely to lose matches to variance (I.e. I play elves and get paired against moon stompy or sneak and show so I’m very unlikely to win). It makes sense to play decks with close to 50% matchups across the board for more consistent performance.

[PirateKing]

All the heavy dual decks can start to feel the same from a Lands perspective after a while. Granted having Jace or not having Wasteland can change things, but dual into DRS followed by whatever all starts to call for the same lines of attack.

Not speaking for others, but I can see how they would feel alike.

This should be emphasized more. It's an easy thing to frame two different things in a manner that renders their differences insignificant.
Are they the same deck? No. But depending on what you're playing, they could appear to be so. If they have the same problem cards for you, if you exploit the same weaknesses, if your sideboard plan is the same, then it doesn't matter the difference in your eyes.

[phonics]

Fetchlands are too strong. Feeds graveyards, shuffles, dodges wasteland, enables drs and greedy manabases, all for 1 life. Grixis delver/ 4cc just abuse them to their maximum potential.

[Megadeus]

If duals weren't already stupid expensive I'd be fine with fetch ban. At this point it's not feasible due to prices of duals imo. I hate that all other duals basically are unplayable because fetches exist and it's just better to play a pile of fetches, 4-6 duals and some basics. That said I also enjoy some of the interaction that they create with stuff like land fall, crucible, and triggering revolt. Unfortunately those are all interactions that never actually happen

[JackaBo]

This should be emphasized more. It's an easy thing to frame two different things in a manner that renders their differences insignificant.
Are they the same deck? No. But depending on what you're playing, they could appear to be so. If they have the same problem cards for you, if you exploit the same weaknesses, if your sideboard plan is the same, then it doesn't matter the difference in your eyes.

But this is actually ignorant. Both those decks approach the lands match up differently and if you see them as the same deck that may mean you have % points to claim, learning the difference.
-one of the decks plays no basics
-one of the decks may play blood moon off the board
-one of the decks play daze and are more likely to keep fow after board
-one of the decks are equipped to repeatedly deal with ML after board
- one of the deck may try to aggro you out then burn the last damage
- one of the decks play Leo, making waste, pfire and maze worse
- one if the decks play 4 wastelands

In common both play DRS and cantrips

[Ingo]

But this is actually ignorant. Both those decks approach the lands match up differently and if you see them as the same deck that may mean you have % points to claim, learning the difference.
-one of the decks plays no basics
-one of the decks may play blood moon off the board
-one of the decks play daze and are more likely to keep fow after board
-one of the decks are equipped to repeatedly deal with ML after board
- one of the deck may try to aggro you out then burn the last damage
- one of the decks play Leo, making waste, pfire and maze worse
- one if the decks play 4 wastelands

In common both play DRS and cantrips

Dice's point is true though. Usually all DRS decks have an unstable manabase and lack Plows, making the strategy versus all these decks alike: burn DRS, punish the unstable manabase, or swiftly make a token vs a plowless deck. When Lands does what it's designed to do, the follow up cards don't matter that much.
The only BUG-DRS deck that's truly different for Lands is Food Chain, because of the amount of basics, the addition of an enchantmentbased combo and eternal chumpblockers.

[Lemnear]

All the heavy dual decks can start to feel the same from a Lands perspective after a while. Granted having Jace or not having Wasteland can change things, but dual into DRS followed by whatever all starts to call for the same lines of attack.

Not speaking for others, but I can see how they would feel alike.

The question is, if you are really feel facing different decks, if the usual Sea+DRS opener is either followed by Hymn off the one deck or Pyromancer+Therapy off the other deck. We could spin it futher looking at the turn 3 and the differences of casting Leovold, TNN or Snapcaster to close out games

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If duals weren't already stupid expensive I'd be fine with fetch ban. At this point it's not feasible due to prices of duals imo. I hate that all other duals basically are unplayable because fetches exist and it's just better to play a pile of fetches, 4-6 duals and some basics. That said I also enjoy some of the interaction that they create with stuff like land fall, crucible, and triggering revolt. Unfortunately those are all interactions that never actually happen
It's exactly the fetch-lands that make dual-lands so necessary. Ban the fetch-lands and a range of other man's fixing lands become much more viable, for example, the filter-lands.

Bottom line is that a fetch ban would make the format much more affordable all around.

[Whitefaces]

Grixis and Czech Pile are so different that I dont even see how this is a question.

+1

[MorphBerlin]

Grixis and Czech Pile are so different that I dont even see how this is a question. One is looking to keep you on the backfoot and dominat the early game through one drops, but have fairly weak cards as the game goes on, one is looking to survive the early game and grind opponents down through value cards and powerful 3-4 drops

+1

The question is, if you are really feel facing different decks, if the usual Sea+DRS opener is either followed by Hymn off the one deck or Pyromancer+Therapy off the other deck. We could spin it futher looking at the turn 3 and the differences of casting Leovold, TNN or Snapcaster to close out games

Do you really think someone is buying your poorly consturcted min-max Example?

Are you facing different decks, if you can play a removal spell on DRS T1 OTD without hesitation or if you have to think about daze, do you face diffenrent decks if you can deliberatly fetch any land you want or have to worry about gettin stifled/wasted out of the game?

[Dice_Box]

But this is actually ignorant. Both those decks approach the lands match up differently and if you see them as the same deck that may mean you have % points to claim, learning the difference.
-one of the decks plays no basics
-one of the decks may play blood moon off the board
-one of the decks play daze and are more likely to keep fow after board
-one of the decks are equipped to repeatedly deal with ML after board
- one of the deck may try to aggro you out then burn the last damage
- one of the decks play Leo, making waste, pfire and maze worse
- one if the decks play 4 wastelands

In common both play DRS and cantrips
I am aware it is an oversimplification, but it is not ignorant. Playing either of these decks means your plan is the same at the start and mine is too. Since the direction a game is going to take tends to work itself out in the first 2 turns that is important. I fully understand they are different (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32490-Is-23-of-the-top-spot-too-much-for-one-deck-How-about-two&p=1048494&viewfull=1#post1048494) but that does not change a thing in my planing, my reaction and my goal for the first 3 or so turns. Do you have a DRS? Yes? Kill it. No, work on your mana and slow you down. Do you have a threat that will take over? Yes? Kill it. No? Focus on your mana again.

The finer points happen later. The end game looks different but how I get there is the same. Do I need to worry about a Jace? Sure, but that is on turn 5 or 6 most likely, so I have time to dredge away and get what I need. Do I have to worry about burn? Yes? Well that is not going to matter until later, so I will keep this Glacial in hand and play it when the game is hitting its end point? Do I need a Tab... All these questions are answered the same way, I do the same things. Flip them and ask them about either deck, my goal is to do the same motions with slightly different targets and cause the same outcomes. The decks are not the same in decklist sense, but they ask for the same reaction from me.

Now I can not speak for Finn, I have never play DnT in my life, but I would say that people asking what he's on miss that for non Blue decks, often plans against these style of decks don't change. Stompy wants to do what it wants to do, its effective against both decks. Lands, again the same. Elves? Well its been a long time since I played Elves so... DnT could be the same away.

Oh and as for repeating dealing with my Mistress after sideboard. Tracker has died for Mistress more than once in the face of someone who thought that an edict was going to save them. Amusingly enough.


The question is, if you are really feel facing different decks, if the usual Sea+DRS opener is either followed by Hymn off the one deck or Pyromancer+Therapy off the other deck. We could spin it futher looking at the turn 3 and the differences of casting Leovold, TNN or Snapcaster to close out games
The biggest issue is Young Pyro and TNN together. I want to kill TNN with Drop, Young kills that plan. Makes me work for it. If you go DRS into Young Pyro we are playing a game. Because I have likely already had to start playing on your terms. So yes, in that situation they feel very very different. It was not a statement set in iron, I understand the decks are not the same. The thing is at most points I am going to treat them the same. But they can make me pick different paths. It just does not matter which of the paths they make me walk, but end plan against both is the same. Unlike against say, DnT or Deathblade where my plan is very very different.


Do you really think someone is buying your poorly consturcted min-max Example?
When debating issues in court, sometimes before making a ruling a judge will take something to its most extreme conclusion to see what happens when you try and break an idea. This gets to look like a farce sure, but stretching something to the ends tests it, forces thought and shows weakness. Sometimes we have examples of this actually happening and crafting the seeds of change "What if the king wants a son and is willing to start his own religion to get what he wants" Becomes "Maybe the king should not be a law onto himself?" As an example of this shit taken to the extreme.


Are you facing different decks, if you can play a removal spell on DRS T1 OTD without hesitation or if you have to think about daze, do you face diffenrent decks if you can deliberatly fetch any land you want or have to worry about gettin stifled/wasted out of the game?
But not everyone cares about these details the same. After a while these issues can blend into one. I am not saying they are the same deck, I am saying you may choose to react to them in ways that can blur them together and that can cause the viewpoint that they feel very much alike. ANT and TES are not the same deck, but play against a deck without Force and they can sure as hell feel like they are 90% of the time.

[Megadeus]

It's exactly the fetch-lands that make dual-lands so necessary. Ban the fetch-lands and a range of other man's fixing lands become much more viable, for example, the filter-lands.

Bottom line is that a fetch ban would make the format much more affordable all around.
Agree to an extent. It would make more different types of dual lands viable, however aside from rare cases the Rev duals are still going to be the best ones for your deck and the ones you start out with 4 ofs and you'll supplement with others from there depending on your deck and its mana requirements. Honestly choke and merfolk would be the only reason to really fear not playing the Red Duals anyway that I can think of. Or in a white deck playing around massacre.

[Bithlord]

brainstorm should have been banned long ago and if brainstorm is ever banned they'll quit. T

Brainstorm is way overpowered, and absolutely a problem. Pretty much everyone can agree on that. The difficulty is, it's a load bearing problem. You take it away and the format collapses. I would argue the same is true about Fetchlands (or, more specifically, the fetch + dual interaction).

I would like to see attempts to address this problem, without removing the problem cards outright. Ponder and pre-ordain could have been perfect opportunities to address it for brainstorm by banning brainstorm alongside the release of its less powerful replacement. Instead they were like "brainstorm is a bit too powerful, so lets make some more versions of it that aren't quite as good...but keep brainstorm around because lols".

Basically, they've painted themselves into a corner where a very few number of cards and interactions have become "defining characteristics" of the format, so they can't ban them without the format collapsing--even when they are clearly too powerful.

[taconaut]

Good idea. I say we can brainstorm just to make all the clowns who claim they would quit sell their shit and let people who actually want to play legacy and not just cast brainstorm play

I am not one of the "clowns" who would sell out, but for many people, "cast brainstorm" and "play legacy" are strongly related, if not synonymous; you can't do it in any other format. It's a feature, not a bug.



Since it doesn't seem that the cantrip engine is going anywhere soon, I suggest it's time to stop griping about the "enablers" and go after the busted cards. Get rid of TNN and Leovold and suddenly there is a reason to not play blue in your DRS deck to get access to powerful 3-drops.

I think TNN and Leovold are poorly designed and quintessentially boring magic cards, but are we really worried about "Trained Armodon with upside" in Legacy? Something about these bans just seems strange to me (I suppose that's really your point though, right - if we didn't have the cantrip incentive to play blue, maybe people would play other threats? I'm not sure).



Get rid of Griselbrand and Probe to put some of the guesswork and opportunity cost back into playing combo.

I also hate Griselbrand as much or more than the next guy, but I don't get why everyone thinks combo has to be the one doing the guesswork - in eternal formats, your deck should be prepared to manage unfair strategies. If your preparation is, "well, I can maybe beat him as long as he isn't playing Peek," then you deserve to get combo'd out.

The opportunity cost for playing combo is that there exist powerful answers to your deck, and games where your opponents draw their hate are much more difficult. If you play something like Grixis or Czech or Miracles instead, you get to have game against anyone, but have fewer blowouts in either direction.



More non-blue decks, with higher basic land counts and diversity of mana costs, will emerge to prey on the narrowly focused hate decks.

Again, I don't get why these things are necessary or an improvement - even if you did make the bans that you mention, mana costs will not become more diverse (Legacy, as a large eternal format, puts a premium on efficiency, and as Ace showed above, decks like Czech already play a diversity of mana costs) and basic land counts will not be higher (why is this a metric for anything?) because Legacy's mana is still among the strongest in all formats.


It's exactly the fetch-lands that make dual-lands so necessary. Ban the fetch-lands and a range of other man's fixing lands become much more viable, for example, the filter-lands.

Bottom line is that a fetch ban would make the format much more affordable all around.

I think this just isn't true - why would you play a filter land over a dual if you were actually trying to be competitive?

Banning fetches wouldn't make other lands better, it would make more duals actually necessary, and the prices would go even higher.

[Lord Seth]

It's exactly the fetch-lands that make dual-lands so necessary. Ban the fetch-lands and a range of other man's fixing lands become much more viable, for example, the filter-lands.

Bottom line is that a fetch ban would make the format much more affordable all around.(note: For the purpose of clarity, "dual land" in this message refers specifically to the original ones)

The removal of the fetchlands would increase the usage of non-dual, non-fetchland lands, but it would do absolutely nothing to decrease the amount of dual lands seeing play... in fact, it would probably increase them. Because the fetchlands are functionally dual lands (as they can search them out), you often don't need to play a full set of duals. But without the fetchlands, there's really no reason to not start out with 4x of them.

For example, let's take a look at this Grixis Delver (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19507&d=324696&f=LE) deck. It doesn't run the full set of any of its dual lands; it doesn't need to, because again the fetchlands essentially are dual lands because of their ability to search them out. But without the fetchlands, you have every incentive to maximize the number of dual lands you're running because they have less drawback than any other 2-color land in the format.

So the removal of the fetchlands would do the opposite of what you claim: It would make people run more of them and increase the price of the format. It would cause other lands to see more play (e.g. checklands) but they would only be seeing play after you've maximized your number of dual lands for that color (i.e. you wouldn't be running Razorverge Thicket unless you already had 4x Savannah).

[Bithlord]

(note: For the purpose of clarity, "dual land" in this message refers specifically to the original ones)

The removal of the fetchlands would increase the usage of non-dual, non-fetchland lands, but it would do absolutely nothing to decrease the amount of dual lands seeing play... in fact, it would probably increase them. Because the fetchlands are functionally dual lands (as they can search them out), you often don't need to play a full set of duals. But without the fetchlands, there's really no reason to not start out with 4x of them.

For example, let's take a look at this Grixis Delver (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19507&d=324696&f=LE) deck. It doesn't run the full set of any of its dual lands; it doesn't need to, because again the fetchlands essentially are dual lands because of their ability to search them out. But without the fetchlands, you have every incentive to maximize the number of dual lands you're running because they have less drawback than any other 2-color land in the format.

So the removal of the fetchlands would do the opposite of what you claim: It would make people run more of them and increase the price of the format. It would cause other lands to see more play (e.g. checklands) but they would only be seeing play after you've maximized your number of dual lands for that color (i.e. you wouldn't be running Razorverge Thicket unless you already had 4x Savannah).

What removal of Fetch lands would allow them to do (even though we all know them doing it is as likely as them actually removing fetchlands from the format) is print different lands that don't violate the reserve list but are *just as good as* the Reserve list lands. Even the exact same land, but without land types would be (outside of very few corner cases) just as good as the reserve list land. Suddenly Volcanic Island becomes U/R lands 5+ and "volcanic island 2.0" becomes U/r lands 1-4 in the *vast* majority of decks that want it.

The other thing that happens is, even if you don't solve the dual cost issue by printing viable replacements, you reduce (but not eliminate) the power gap between OG duals modern dual lands. Razorverge thicket is a good example - you are absolutely right that nobody is going to try and win a legacy GP with it instead of Savannah. But, Razorverge becomes a playable alternative because the power level gap is much lower -- allowing players entry to the format with more playable lands even if they aren't the best lands.

But, all this is nonsense since they aren't going to ban fetchlands, and they aren't going to ban brainstorm.

[maharis]

I think TNN and Leovold are poorly designed and quintessentially boring magic cards, but are we really worried about "Trained Armodon with upside" in Legacy? Something about these bans just seems strange to me (I suppose that's really your point though, right - if we didn't have the cantrip incentive to play blue, maybe people would play other threats? I'm not sure).

I'll try to bottom-line it:

1. The conceit of this thread is that while Grixis Delver and Czech Pile are strategically different, the amount of crossover in cards between the two is not creating a diverse enough play experience. ("The format is stale.")

2. Deathrite Shaman is identified as the reason for this staleness by some. It is a classic "enabler" -- mana ramp and utility in a color identity that has not had those effects in such efficient combination before. Other people target Brainstorm, or fetchlands, as the enabler of greedy mana bases and "goodstuff" piles.

3. But Deathrite Shaman on its own is simply a 1/2 with summoning sickness that advances by one mana -- it's not that much more powerful than things that have been around since the beginning.

4. So let's say you're building a fair deck. You probably want Deathrite, sure. What other cards do you want?

5. You could build Jund. Jund would share fewer cards with Grixis Delver or Czech Pile than they share with each other. (DRS, maybe a discard spell and some removal)

6. But your Deathrite is "only" ramping into Tarmogoyf, BBE, maybe a planeswalker. And you have no way of controlling your draws, so you need to increase your land count to make sure you make land drops.

7. Why would you ever use Deathrite to ramp into these combat-only, removal-vulnerable creatures, when you could just jam TNN and/or Leovold, which will ensure that your three-mana investment pays off in some way? Why would you try to stick a Dark Confidant or Sylvan Library to control your draws when you could play 8 1-mana library manipulation spells and Baleful Strix on top of it? You can still play all the efficient utility -- Bolt, Thoughtseize, Hymn, whatever -- but also get the best horizontal answer for combo in Force and creatures that don't just eat a plow and move on?

Putting so much virtual and actual CA into blue creatures is what pushed cards out of the format. Now we all play the same cards.

The question that then comes up is whether a diverse spread of midrange decks is enough to change up the play pattern enough to make fair vs. fair more interesting. Some may disagree with that. But it gets back to the original conceit of THIS thread -- does the format feel stale because Delta->Usea->DRS is 40% of decks' openers? Would you feel different if it was Mire->Badlands->DRS or Catacombs->Bayou->DRS more often? (Or, be still my heart, Heath->Savannah->DRS)



I also hate Griselbrand as much or more than the next guy, but I don't get why everyone thinks combo has to be the one doing the guesswork - in eternal formats, your deck should be prepared to manage unfair strategies. If your preparation is, "well, I can maybe beat him as long as he isn't playing Peek," then you deserve to get combo'd out.

The opportunity cost for playing combo is that there exist powerful answers to your deck, and games where your opponents draw their hate are much more difficult. If you play something like Grixis or Czech or Miracles instead, you get to have game against anyone, but have fewer blowouts in either direction.

Griselbrand is a mistake because it's both the payoff and the rebuild. Enough decks have trouble with a 7/7 lifelinker that you don't need to draw 7 (though you probably should, that's on the first page of Understanding Griselbrand). It is much harder to get blown out when you just rip a whole new hand off the top.

I feel like you should know the difference between probe and peek. I actually don't think it's that big a deal but Probe is also too good in the fair decks so it would also introduce a dimension of choice to deck selection.


Again, I don't get why these things are necessary or an improvement - even if you did make the bans that you mention, mana costs will not become more diverse (Legacy, as a large eternal format, puts a premium on efficiency, and as Ace showed above, decks like Czech already play a diversity of mana costs) and basic land counts will not be higher (why is this a metric for anything?) because Legacy's mana is still among the strongest in all formats.

The effective mana cost of Legacy always trends toward 0. This is, incidentally, why I loathe Gurmag Angler. A 5/5 for B with no effective drawback is beyond the pale. Even if it had the Serra Avenger clause, it would be busted -- though at least Chalice would hit it.

But there's more to efficiency than just low mana cost. There's also rate for the effect. Patrick Chapin is a goon but he did a really good podcast on this topic talking about why Energy was so busted in standard. And Patrick Sullivan touched on it as well in his infamous Ravenous Chupacabra rant. The cost for certain effects has dropped so considerably that an arms race develops. Who can get the most value for the least investment?

Baleful Strix is an overpowered card. For two mana, you get a flying blocker that is almost always a two-for-one (barring something like first strike, a sweeper or planeswalker that can kill it). Yes it's "only" a 1/1. Yes it's "only" Elvish Visionary with upside. Yes two can get killed by the same Ancient Grudge. To put it another way, cycling generally costs 2 mana on its own. Killing an attacker, also 2 mana. A 1/1 flyer, 2 mana. You are basically getting 5-6 mana worth of effects for 2 mana and one card.

Bloodbraid Elf is great when you get 7 mana for 4. But you have to get to 4 first. You can be dead or effectively dead by then very often in Legacy.

Leovold, for 3 mana, gets you draw hate (at least 2 mana, compare Chains and Spirit of the Lab, neither of which is one-sided) a 3/3 (2 mana, compare watchwolf) and its targeting effect (Rayne Academy Chancellor, 3 mana). That alone is a better rate than BBE -- which isn't even always 7 mana for 4 (sometimes it hits Thoughtseize).

The rate on these cards is simply too good. It may not feel right to ban them, but it's the only way to introduce choice back into deck construction, ESPECIALLY given the already heavy incentive to play U for cantrips and force. Again, in the context of the complaint "The format is stale," this matters.

As for basic lands as a metric -- this has to do with Turbo Xerox theory. TX is the only viable mana-base construction for fair decks. It incentivizes low land counts and high cantrip counts. This makes cards like moon and Chalice overly impactful on those decks -- fewer lands means more duals/nonbasics and more 1-mana spells.

But the TX decks don't care because the relative value of one card in their deck is so high in the fair vs. fair MUs that it is willing to give up other percentage points because the right draw can swing a game faster. Someone choosing to not play U has a lower density of less powerful cards. It pushes that kind of deck out completely and creates a samey play experience. For some at least.

[Nekrataal]

Solution: Ban DRS and if you just want to hit Grixis ban Probe.

Reasoning:
Zero CC spells have been problematic across formats. Especially in a highly aggressiv shell like Grixis, Probe does so much for adapting ones playstyle to individual situations and maximize your spell effeciency that it would be the most reasonable ban candidate with some but still bearable collateral damage to other archetypes.

DRS reduces fair deck building options tremendously so that there is simply no point not to run TNN, Angler or Leovold in addition in some numbers. This pushes BUGx far beyond what other color combinations have to offer. DRS is not just a 1/2 with upsides. It is the best 1 mana creature ever printed and good at any stage of the game. As a side effect it cripples some long-time legacy staple strategies mainboard like mana denial or using GY as a source of card advantage. So Grixis and Czech pile as different as they are in terms of playstyle are both offsprings to the same BUGx phenomenon.

Fun fact: The same reasoning for DRS applies to the legacy inherent U dominance and the card Brainstorm as a spearhead of evil. However my feeling about that and also fetchlands is that up to the Miracles ban Legacy was a happy place where U dominance was simply a widely accepted fact. So changing something as fundemental which has defined the format from the start feels far worse than losing more recent design mistakes.

Gesendet von meinem SM-G930F mit Tapatalk

[Bithlord]

However my feeling about that and also fetchlands is that up to the Miracles ban Legacy was a happy place where U dominance was simply a widely accepted fact.

At the time was U dominance as prevelant? In the past, unless I'm mistaken (I could be) weren't there non-U, on-combo tier 1 decks?

[Dice_Box]

At the time was U dominance as prevelant? In the past, unless I'm mistaken (I could be) weren't there non-U, on-combo tier 1 decks?
You mean like Turbodepths? If your talking about Elves its not showing up a ton right now no. What we do have are "Predator" decks. The 5 big non Blue decks right now either are faster than you (Depths) Want to lock you out (Eldazi and Steel) want to Lock you down (Lands) or want to do both of the last two (Red Stompy).

[MechTactical]

To summarize: My personally preferred bannings for removing some power from the top two decks are: Ban Probe and Leovold. This cuts power from both Delver and Pile in a way that doesn't do too much to other decks. The other cards I mentioned could in principle be banned as well, but I don't think that they are as problematic from as many angles as either Leovold or Probe. I can't think of any unbannings as being a solution (not that cards shouldn't be unbanned, just that the ones that are safe won't solve the problem and the ones that aren't will make an even bigger mess).

Sorry for that wall of text, but I don't usually post here and I wanted to put my thoughts down for once.

This, i love it; ppl trying to solve a problem by making the same mistake that brought us here in the first place. I agree with your reasoning but the solution is much more simple: unban top, ban counterbalance.

[maharis]

DRS reduces fair deck building options tremendously so that there is simply no point not to run TNN, Angler or Leovold in addition in some numbers. This pushes BUGx far beyond what other color combinations have to offer. .

You have it backwards. TNN and Leo are so far above the curve that there’s no reason not to play DRS in order to easily cast them.


DRS is not just a 1/2 with upsides. It is the best 1 mana creature ever printed and good at any stage of the game. As a side effect it cripples some long-time legacy staple strategies mainboard like mana denial or using GY as a source of card advantage. So Grixis and Czech pile as different as they are in terms of playstyle are both offsprings to the same BUGx phenomenon.

This is not true. Source: We are discussing two decks in this thread. One plays 4 wasteland, 4 Daze and 1-2 Spell Pierce. (Mana denial). The other plays 4 Snapcaster mage and 2-3 Kolaghan’s Command (GY for card advantage).

It’s the blue top end that is reducing the diversity around cards like Wasteland and Kolaghan’s Command.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[taconaut]

Great post, really enjoyed the read - some reactions below:


I'll try to bottom-line it:

1. The conceit of this thread is that while Grixis Delver and Czech Pile are strategically different, the amount of crossover in cards between the two is not creating a diverse enough play experience. ("The format is stale.")

Jackabo, Morphberlin, and Ace/Homebrew all gave great evidence and examples to show this is not true. On top of that, from my personal perspective as a storm player, Grixis and Czech are definitely very different to play against.

2. Deathrite Shaman is identified as the reason for this staleness by some. It is a classic "enabler" -- mana ramp and utility in a color identity that has not had those effects in such efficient combination before. Other people target Brainstorm, or fetchlands, as the enabler of greedy mana bases and "goodstuff" piles.

3. But Deathrite Shaman on its own is simply a 1/2 with summoning sickness that advances by one mana -- it's not that much more powerful than things that have been around since the beginning.

4. So let's say you're building a fair deck. You probably want Deathrite, sure. What other cards do you want?

5. You could build Jund. Jund would share fewer cards with Grixis Delver or Czech Pile than they share with each other. (DRS, maybe a discard spell and some removal)

6. But your Deathrite is "only" ramping into Tarmogoyf, BBE, maybe a planeswalker. And you have no way of controlling your draws, so you need to increase your land count to make sure you make land drops.

7. Why would you ever use Deathrite to ramp into these combat-only, removal-vulnerable creatures, when you could just jam TNN and/or Leovold, which will ensure that your three-mana investment pays off in some way?

Why is there an expectation that "combat only, removal vulnerable creatures" be playable at all? Splinter Twin or UR Storm are not viable combos in legacy, but other, stronger, more resilient combos are. Do we ban Dark Ritual because people can't play Seething Song?

Why would you try to stick a Dark Confidant or Sylvan Library to control your draws when you could play 8 1-mana library manipulation spells and Baleful Strix on top of it? You can still play all the efficient utility -- Bolt, Thoughtseize, Hymn, whatever -- but also get the best horizontal answer for combo in Force and creatures that don't just eat a plow and move on?

Putting so much virtual and actual CA into blue creatures is what pushed cards out of the format. Now we all play the same cards.

The question that then comes up is whether a diverse spread of midrange decks is enough to change up the play pattern enough to make fair vs. fair more interesting.

I don't play fair decks, so this could just be my preferences talking, but why do you think it is possible for multiple midrange decks to simultaneously be possible as competitive choices?

Isn't the point of midrange decks that you roll up like, "well, I got some dudes, and I got some answers, and I got some lands to play 'em" and typically your choices for each category are just whatever the most efficient versions of them are for the given format? That's the point of "goodstuff" - you have a pile of cards that are just efficient and generally powerful, and let you play against any arbitrary deck.

Necessarily, there will be a set of cards in a given format that are the best at what they do, and in Legacy, the bulk of those cards are blue, black, and green. If you got rid of the blue ones, maybe that set becomes black, green, and white, but it still doesn't change the power of the leftover relevant cards. Just because the blue would be gone, doesn't mean Mardu would be worth playing; the abzan set might still just be better.

Some may disagree with that. But it gets back to the original conceit of THIS thread -- does the format feel stale because Delta->Usea->DRS is 40% of decks' openers? Would you feel different if it was Mire->Badlands->DRS or Catacombs->Bayou->DRS more often? (Or, be still my heart, Heath->Savannah->DRS)

I, personally, would not. I also wonder if you would have the same reaction if, say, Mardu were better than Abzan in a way that was similarly obvious - is the problem unique to blue, or would you be similarly irked if a different color were the dominant midrange pick?

Griselbrand is a mistake because it's both the payoff and the rebuild.

Yep, Griselbrand is dumb as hell, no arguments here.

I feel like you should know the difference between probe and peek. I actually don't think it's that big a deal but Probe is also too good in the fair decks so it would also introduce a dimension of choice to deck selection.

You're right, I was being tongue-in-cheek, and I do understand the difference between Probe and Peek, but I really genuinely feel like the card is innocuous - if it were truly as powerful as everyone says, every deck would play it, because the detractors allege that it is free. Given that not all decks play it, either tons of people are building their decks wrong, or it actually does have costs related to it's inclusion. It is powerful in Storm and Grixis, but I don't see it in other decks. I don't think banning Probe would make Maverick or anything like it more attractive.

The rate on these cards is simply too good. It may not feel right to ban them, but it's the only way to introduce choice back into deck construction, ESPECIALLY given the already heavy incentive to play U for cantrips and force. Again, in the context of the complaint "The format is stale," this matters.

The problem with this approach is that there will always be a set of cards with the best rate. What if the set of cards that has the best rate after banning Leo and Strix is still not the set of duders you want to run? That's why people like me value strategic diversity over card diversity - being able to play any midrange deck you want, but no combo/prison/tempo/control/etc is much more boring than being able to play any archetype you want, including whatever flavor of midrange is the best (and as I discussed earlier, it is not surprising that there is a particular set of cards that make up the best midrange deck).

As for basic lands as a metric -- this has to do with Turbo Xerox theory. TX is the only viable mana-base construction for fair decks. It incentivizes low land counts and high cantrip counts. This makes cards like moon and Chalice overly impactful on those decks -- fewer lands means more duals/nonbasics and more 1-mana spells.

I guess here I would just ask how you categorize DnT? It is fair, but does not use the cantrip-typical manabase (obviously, as it plays no cantrips). I will admit that when I looked through the deck section it was difficult to find fair decks that don't use cantrips that put up results, though. I like this perspective, feels like a fresh take.

But the TX decks don't care because the relative value of one card in their deck is so high in the fair vs. fair MUs that it is willing to give up other percentage points because the right draw can swing a game faster. Someone choosing to not play U has a lower density of less powerful cards. It pushes that kind of deck out completely and creates a samey play experience. For some at least.

Here, though, I'd disagree - if your deck is sporting 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Probe, you have a lot of air to look at when you cantrip. The nice thing about playing something like Jund is that everything that comes off the top of your deck that isn't a land or one of a couple discard spells is going to be high impact, whether it's a planeswalker or a big threat or a powerful removal spell.

[Megadeus]

I mean if you think probe is generally not an offensive card then I ask you to explain why it is banned in modern and restricted in vintage. The card is a blight on card design

[Dice_Box]

I mean if you think probe is generally not an offensive card then I ask you to explain why it is banned in modern and restricted in vintage. The card is a blight on card design
Not to get into a ban discussion, but the same is true for Ponder so I'm not sure those criteria are the kind to die over.

[Megadeus]

Not to get into a ban discussion, but the same is true for Ponder so I'm not sure those criteria are the kind to die over.
The point is, we don't need proof that probe is a disgusting broken card.

[Dice_Box]

The point is, we don't need proof that probe is a disgusting broken card.
God no. I am with you there. But that's the format.

[taconaut]

I mean if you think probe is generally not an offensive card then I ask you to explain why it is banned in modern and restricted in vintage. The card is a blight on card design

What Dice said; plus, to respond in good faith:

For Vintage, I believe the answer is that they were trying to tone down Mentor a little bit before outright restricting it; unfortunately, Mentor still turned out to be too busted and had to be restricted separately later. Also, I believe that in Vintage, the marginal utility of shrinking your deck at the cost of life is much higher than in Legacy - having a 1/56 shot at drawing your moxen and timetwisters is a bigger deal than whatever we're drawing in Legacy. Plus, Mental Misstep is legal in Vintage, so it's clear that the Phyrexian Mana isn't an issue in that case. I actually personally think Mental Misstep is orders of magnitude more miserable to play with/against than Probe, but whoever manages the Vintage list disagrees, so really I don't think what happens there has any bearings on Legacy.

Similarly, the reason it is banned in Modern is because anything and everything can be and is banned in Modern. The modern banlist contains:

- a 4-mana red Aura
- Seething Song
- Preordain (??)
- Stoneforge Mystic (??!)

And until relatively recently with respect to Magic's lifetime, a creature that was essentially a vanilla 3/3.

What happens in Modern has no bearing on how Legacy is managed (thank god) because they are driven by completely different philosophies. Again, if you think the philosophy that governs modern list management is more coherent, I cordially invite you to play it; many people enjoy it! I don't like it quite as much, which is why I'm happy Legacy is available as it currently exists (though I'll admit I'd prefer to have Top back).

Edit: You're also notably mum on the topic of Dark Depths, Green Sun's Zenith, Punishing Fire, and Umezawa's Jitte also being banned in Modern, if that ban list is so great a barometer.

[Bithlord]

And until relatively recently with respect to Magic's lifetime, a creature that was essentially a vanilla 3/3.


Oh? Which card is that?

[taconaut]

Oh? Which card is that?

Wild Nacatl

[ReAnimator]

While the Modern Ban List is certainly laughable.

Lets not pretend for one second that the Legacy banned list is some paragon of reasonability that is meticulously curated. It's laughable too.

[Bithlord]

One is over maintained, the other is undermaintained.

On average Legacy and Modern have a perfectly maintained list! Why would you want to change that? :P

[maharis]

Great post, really enjoyed the read - some reactions below:

Thank you -- I enjoy these discussions even if they can get circular. I will try to respond to your reactions in a sensical way.


Jackabo, Morphberlin, and Ace/Homebrew all gave great evidence and examples to show this is not true. On top of that, from my personal perspective as a storm player, Grixis and Czech are definitely very different to play against.

Again, this has to be taken in the context of this thread, which is asking the question: Are these decks too similar to the point where it's clear that action must be taken to preserve the playability of the format?

You'll notice I haven't really offered an opinion on it. I am of two minds. One is that I do find the format a little stale and restrictiveas a person who likes to brew mostly fair-style decks. (To the extent that any deck in Legacy is "fair.") On the other hand, I don't trust them to do anything but ban DRS and call it a day. And if I had to choose between this format and this format minus DRS, no other changes, I'd take what we have now. At least Mardu is somewhat playable.


Why is there an expectation that "combat only, removal vulnerable creatures" be playable at all? Splinter Twin or UR Storm are not viable combos in legacy, but other, stronger, more resilient combos are. Do we ban Dark Ritual because people can't play Seething Song?

I don't play fair decks, so this could just be my preferences talking, but why do you think it is possible for multiple midrange decks to simultaneously be possible as competitive choices?

Isn't the point of midrange decks that you roll up like, "well, I got some dudes, and I got some answers, and I got some lands to play 'em" and typically your choices for each category are just whatever the most efficient versions of them are for the given format? That's the point of "goodstuff" - you have a pile of cards that are just efficient and generally powerful, and let you play against any arbitrary deck.

Necessarily, there will be a set of cards in a given format that are the best at what they do, and in Legacy, the bulk of those cards are blue, black, and green. If you got rid of the blue ones, maybe that set becomes black, green, and white, but it still doesn't change the power of the leftover relevant cards. Just because the blue would be gone, doesn't mean Mardu would be worth playing; the abzan set might still just be better.

I, personally, would not. I also wonder if you would have the same reaction if, say, Mardu were better than Abzan in a way that was similarly obvious - is the problem unique to blue, or would you be similarly irked if a different color were the dominant midrange pick?

....

The problem with this approach is that there will always be a set of cards with the best rate. What if the set of cards that has the best rate after banning Leo and Strix is still not the set of duders you want to run? That's why people like me value strategic diversity over card diversity - being able to play any midrange deck you want, but no combo/prison/tempo/control/etc is much more boring than being able to play any archetype you want, including whatever flavor of midrange is the best (and as I discussed earlier, it is not surprising that there is a particular set of cards that make up the best midrange deck).

These all kind of point to the same philosophical perspective, which I respect: That over time, in a non-rotating format, certain cards will rise to the top. The question is the distance between the best-in-class spell and the next-tier choices. It is possible that tier 1 is a certain spell, but tier 2 is 6-7 or more other spells.

For example, Lightning Bolt is the best 1-mana burn spell. But were it banned, you would see a lot of different cards see play in its stead. Offhand, there's 2-mana 3-damage spells like Incinerate and buddies, Shocks with upside based on other synergies like Galvanic Blast and Wild Slash and Forked Bolt and Firebolt, 1-mana 3-damage sorceries like Chain Lightning or Rift Bolt.

This gets back to the "rate" that I was talking about. 1 mana for 3 damage at instant speed is the baseline. But there are lots of ways to put variation on that with slight tweaks. 2 damage for 1 with upside, 3 damage for 1 with timing tradeoffs, 3 damage for 2, etc. That's why some of these spells are actually already played in the format because the desire for Bolts 5+ drives you to look for those alternatives already.

My contention is that there are a number of 2 and 3 drops that would compete for space in that slot were Leovold and TNN (and Strix, which is also a really dumb card we don't need but I digress) not in the format. And some of them wouldn't just instantly synergize with the best consistency engine in the format (or provide a high enough relative payoff to make another consistency engine viable). They also wouldn't be a plan unto themselves like Leovold is. This would provide a more varied play experience, even with DRS still being a key cog in fair decks.

But the rate is so good on these cards that even if the stars align and you can get Tireless Tracker to take over a game, you're still probably better off just jamming more TNNs and Leovolds and Striges.


You're right, I was being tongue-in-cheek, and I do understand the difference between Probe and Peek, but I really genuinely feel like the card is innocuous - if it were truly as powerful as everyone says, every deck would play it, because the detractors allege that it is free. Given that not all decks play it, either tons of people are building their decks wrong, or it actually does have costs related to it's inclusion. It is powerful in Storm and Grixis, but I don't see it in other decks. I don't think banning Probe would make Maverick or anything like it more attractive.

Honestly, I think the only reason G Probe isn't played more is because people are starved for a different experience and want to play another card in its stead. There's enough of them running around as it is.


I guess here I would just ask how you categorize DnT? It is fair, but does not use the cantrip-typical manabase (obviously, as it plays no cantrips). I will admit that when I looked through the deck section it was difficult to find fair decks that don't use cantrips that put up results, though. I like this perspective, feels like a fresh take.

D&T is solidly second-tier if not lower, and is also somewhere between a corner case and just another version of the dedicated cantrip-and-nonbasic-hate deck. It's not really competing for meta space with Jund, it's competing with Big Red.


Here, though, I'd disagree - if your deck is sporting 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Probe, you have a lot of air to look at when you cantrip. The nice thing about playing something like Jund is that everything that comes off the top of your deck that isn't a land or one of a couple discard spells is going to be high impact, whether it's a planeswalker or a big threat or a powerful removal spell.

But seeing 4 cards a turn is still better than seeing 1. The margins are so thin in the format that one brick draw step can be the end of a game. Even if your deck is mostly air, as long as the haymakers are over the top you only need to find one. Not to mention you can chain cantrips easily if you are flooded on them and lands. If you're not, you are playing your business spells. It's low opportunity cost.

----

A point I want to make too: We discuss a lot of cards in these threads that were printed in supplemental products. I am very disappointed that Wizards has chosen to add cards to legacy that do nothing to broaden the format but only cement certain archetypes. Strix, Leovold, TNN, Fiery Confluence, Sanctum Prelate, Recruiter of the Guard have all come from supplemental sets and all those cards are key reasons we are in the situation we are now. And Leovold supplanted Shardless Agent, which also came from a supplemental set.

[Megadeus]

It does suck to see a card added to the format when it is obviously powerful and hadn't really been tested in 1v1 formats, like true name, but I'm glad we have a way to put powerful cards in the format without them being scared of them dominating standard or Modern. I guess legacy is a format full of mistakes, but god damn do the mistakes always have to benefit blue? Oops we made flying lifelink bargain for show and tell. Oops we made a walking chains/ value creature for BUG. Oops we made a monk blue Progenitus. Oops we made a flying Wild Blue Nacatal

[Dice_Box]

I would be willing to argue that Walking Ballista was a mistake to print. I hindsight Stage as well.

I know a lot of these things have been Blue, part of that is TNN, Dig and Cruise, but I also think part of it is a lack of flexibility in non Blue shells that Blue has. You could print a 3 mana Enchantment in Green that breaks the game, but Lands and Elves both likely would not run it main because unless it fits in their plan its not worth it. Print a Blue spell that breaks shit? Well the Blue shell is made to be flexible. No issue absorbing that new toy.

[Megadeus]

I would be willing to argue that Walking Ballista was a mistake to print. I hindsight Stage as well.

I know a lot of these things have been Blue, part of that is TNN, Dig and Cruise, but I also think part of it is a lack of flexibility in non Blue shells that Blue has. You could print a 3 mana Enchantment in Green that breaks the game, but Lands and Elves both likely would not run it main because unless it fits in their plan its not worth it. Print a Blue spell that breaks shit? Well the Blue shell is made to be flexible. No issue absorbing that new toy.
Shit I completely forgot about the busted Blue Delve cards.

[Lemnear]

I know a lot of these things have been Blue, part of that is TNN, Dig and Cruise, but I also think part of it is a lack of flexibility in non Blue shells that Blue has. You could print a 3 mana Enchantment in Green that breaks the game, but Lands and Elves both likely would not run it main because unless it fits in their plan its not worth it. Print a Blue spell that breaks shit? Well the Blue shell is made to be flexible. No issue absorbing that new toy.

That's part of my issue voiced earlier: It has never been easier for the blue shell to absorb newly printed haymakers, due to a certain 1 mana blocker who happens to have no restriction on your manabase while providing rainbow manaacceleration.

We wouldn't have such problem if DRS was outright green and demands you to fetch a Tropical Island, locking you more into green. Shit like turn 2 Hymn or Therapy + Pyromancer would be notable harder to be put together and more restrictive than getting to play 90% of your decks cards off Seas and one DRS.

[Gheizen64]

Unban top and sotf, give other decks stupidly broken engines as well. Miracle may still be the best deck in the format, but sotf would be a decent predator for It.

Also unban recruiter, earthcraft, search and maybe bargain as well

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

(note: For the purpose of clarity, "dual land" in this message refers specifically to the original ones)

The removal of the fetchlands would increase the usage of non-dual, non-fetchland lands, but it would do absolutely nothing to decrease the amount of dual lands seeing play... in fact, it would probably increase them. Because the fetchlands are functionally dual lands (as they can search them out), you often don't need to play a full set of duals. But without the fetchlands, there's really no reason to not start out with 4x of them.

For example, let's take a look at this Grixis Delver (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19507&d=324696&f=LE) deck. It doesn't run the full set of any of its dual lands; it doesn't need to, because again the fetchlands essentially are dual lands because of their ability to search them out. But without the fetchlands, you have every incentive to maximize the number of dual lands you're running because they have less drawback than any other 2-color land in the format.

So the removal of the fetchlands would do the opposite of what you claim: It would make people run more of them and increase the price of the format. It would cause other lands to see more play (e.g. checklands) but they would only be seeing play after you've maximized your number of dual lands for that color (i.e. you wouldn't be running Razorverge Thicket unless you already had 4x Savannah).

Largely, I'd just reiterate what Bithlord said in his second point. Without fetchlands, the difference between Tundra and Mystic Gate drops dramatically. There are, I would argue, decks that would actually prefer the latter. Miracles, playing a suite of cards at UU and WW, might actually run more Gates than Tundras - or maybe they'd run Celestial Colonnade more often, or maybe the relative weaknesses of mana-bases would make Landstill more viable as the premier control deck and we'd see a general increase in man-lands. I'm not sure exactly what would happen, but I do know that it would significantly complicate how you go about building your mana-base, and how many colors you can actually support.

So although I'm also not convinced it's reasonable to use Grixis Delver as an example - that type of deck simply wouldn't exist, not in its current state, and not as a top competitor, in a fetch-less meta-game, it is true that a blue-based aggro-control deck, especially one running Daze, will always want the blue dual-lands. But if such a deck is forced to cut down to 2 colors to support Wasteland in its arsenal, they're likely to only run 3-4 dual-lands, instead of 7, as the list you linked is. If the demand for dual-lands was thus cut in half, there would most likely be a decrease in price.

The main point here is that the fair decks will go from 3-4 colors to 2-3 colors. That alone will dramatically decrease the demand on dual-lands. And if the power level gap between dual-lands and their imitations falls, it lowers the practical cost of entry for new legacy players. Maybe they'll be reducing their odds of winning the next GP by not buying Underground Seas, but they'll probably do just fine at local tournaments.

[Zombie]

Similarly, the reason it is banned in Modern is because anything and everything can be and is banned in Modern. The modern banlist contains:

- Preordain (??)


With respect to this, cantrips are probably a similar case to movement abilities in other games - the LoL developers are on record as saying they have to tune eg. movement auras to be brokenly good before people perceive them as doing anything and feel good about picking them. Meanwhile at the highest level of play the pros keep grinding and typically end up noticing even rather weak-feeling movement abilities end up winning games. Cantrips are pretty much in the same camp: They have to feel clunky on the eye test to keep Xerox from taking over completely like it has in Legacy, and even in Modern they ended up playing Death's Shadow as a Delver analogue for a good while running on stuff like Thought Scour, Serum Visions and Street Wraith. Those cards got run because they won games.

I used to be of the opinion to just ban BS and be done with it, but over time it just looks like Xerox is a law of nature in this game and it really needs to be fought actively lest it take over a format.

[JackaBo]

I think legacy, and in particular the understanding on legacy magic, have evolved the last year immensely to the degree that a bunch of strategies have become obsolete. I think this change is so vast that a banning of DRS will not change anything.
The future of legacy is the hyper-effective good in a vakuum cards that doesnt rely on each other, or on opponent, or on boardstate, or on which other cards are in the deck.
Think of the cards that constitutes delver or check pile. There is synergies, yes, but not at the expense of good-on-it's-own effects. No card is a dead card or imposes heavy deck building restrictions. I dont believe more synergestic decks ever can compete with good stuff piles ever again. Sure, in a single tournament with variance on it's side, bur not over the course of many tournaments.

[Lemnear]

I think legacy, and in particular the understanding on legacy magic, have evolved the last year immensely to the degree that a bunch of strategies have become obsolete.

I have serious doubts that this is a matter of people getting smarter, rather than the price spiral making it rather unlikely that people invest/build/toy/evolve anything that isn't a top dog already. Nobody drops a grand or two for SneakShow or whatever, just to find out that it's not quite the hot stuff im the current metagame. People play it save if they invest such an ridiculous amount of money.

[NeckBird]

MTGGoldfish currently has Grixis Delver and Czech Pile each as Grixis Delver. So there's your answer.

[Whitefaces]

Largely, I'd just reiterate what Bithlord said in his second point. Without fetchlands, the difference between Tundra and Mystic Gate drops dramatically. There are, I would argue, decks that would actually prefer the latter. Miracles, playing a suite of cards at UU and WW, might actually run more Gates than Tundras - or maybe they'd run Celestial Colonnade more often, or maybe the relative weaknesses of mana-bases would make Landstill more viable as the premier control deck and we'd see a general increase in man-lands. I'm not sure exactly what would happen, but I do know that it would significantly complicate how you go about building your mana-base, and how many colors you can actually support.

I think you're way off base here on filter lands, not being able to cast 1cmc cards is a huge, huge negative and is the reason they wouldn't be played as more than 1 or 2 of, at best. And ETB lands are just too weak vs Wasteland strategies too, sure a lot would change, but not how you're describing I think.


MTGGoldfish currently has Grixis Delver and Czech Pile each as Grixis Delver. So there's your answer.

It doesn't mean anything other than that their website is wrong currently. 4c has had a bunch of name changes.

[NeckBird]

It doesn't mean anything other than that their website is wrong currently. 4c has had a bunch of name changes.

I was pointing out the irony of that mistake happening while we have this discussion. It's clearly not meant to be taken as an actual argument for any sort of similarities between Delver and Pile.

Personally, if nothing changes by the post-pro tour ban update I'm probably just going to jump ship to Modern. It's unfortunate for my local scene since I usually loan out two-three decks every week, but I can only tolerate effectively dying to turn two TNN or actually dying to turn 1-2 Griselbrand or cast Probe into Therapy so much.

[WashableWater1]

I was pointing out the irony of that mistake happening while we have this discussion. It's clearly not meant to be taken as an actual argument for any sort of similarities between Delver and Pile.

Personally, if nothing changes by the post-pro tour ban update I'm probably just going to jump ship to Modern. It's unfortunate for my local scene since I usually loan out two-three decks every week, but I can only tolerate effectively dying to turn two TNN or actually dying to turn 1-2 Griselbrand or cast Probe into Therapy so much.

If your deck can’t beat a 3 mana 3/1 than have you considered not playing that deck?

[CptHaddock]

If your deck can’t beat a X mana P/T than have you considered not playing that deck?

Oh are we doing this thing again? Here are my favorites.

1 mana 1/2
1 mana 1/1
3 mana 3/3
2 mana 2/1
7 mana 5/5
8 mana 7/7

[Lemnear]

3 mana 7/7 lifelink

Ftfy and would like to add: 3 mana 15/15

[NeckBird]

If your deck can’t beat a 3 mana 3/1 than have you considered not playing that deck?

I have considered this and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to have to play a different deck because a lot of Legacy cards aren't legal in Modern.

[Dice_Box]

No one going to mention my 2 mana 20/20?

[CptHaddock]

No one going to mention my 2 mana 20/20?

We get it dude, you vape.

[JackaBo]

I have serious doubts that this is a matter of people getting smarter, rather than the price spiral making it rather unlikely that people invest/build/toy/evolve anything that isn't a top dog already. Nobody drops a grand or two for SneakShow or whatever, just to find out that it's not quite the hot stuff im the current metagame. People play it save if they invest such an ridiculous amount of money.

I think that that is the actual matter. During miracle's reign legacy wasn't evolving for two reasons. First: Miracle, even if badly tuned, could beat a bunch if good decks. There was no reason, or preassure, to evolve. Think of how long it manager without ponders and that mentors only were adapted by some players.
Secondly you could beat miracle with a bad deck with a bunch of clunky cards, actually you had better chance doing so. After tops ban i think competition increased which sparked tuning, brewing and creativity. You can practically only go toe to toe with the best decks if you play similarly efficient deck.

[Fox]

Secondly you could beat miracle with a bad deck with a bunch of clunky cards, actually you had better chance doing so. After tops ban i think competition increased which sparked tuning, brewing and creativity. You can practically only go toe to toe with the best decks if you play similarly efficient deck.

@JackaBo: I think everyone knows Counterbalance creates insurmountable one-sided advantage, it was only a matter of time before people rediscovered that simple truth. The issue is that the months where CB was almost non-existent people realized they could get away with SCM and cheap interactive spells not called Abrupt Decay; but it was Hymn's monolithic adoption by that strategy that is the real cause for pushing out every other non-Vial or non-Delver fair deck. Grixis Delver is always going to get rolled by Terminus & SCM/StP, and when the only other fair strategy left to care about (Czech), it doesn't take a genius to figure out you have to stay off-board with non-enchantments and concentrate value in the top card of the deck - and suddenly miracles with Counterbalance is tier one again. Now your non-competitive fair deck [again b/c of Czech] has to slow down and run Decay again [for CB] and Hymn is now even better against you, as you're that much slower at putting cards from hand onto the table.
---
This cycle really doesn't have anything to do with Grixis Delver, even though Git. Probe is a load of bull-crap. Even though CB is the most bannable card in legacy, that ban doesn't stop the above cycle (UW Standstill is just as effective at steamrolling either member of this 23% of the meta, and that status quo wouldn't really change). Like most issues, we're describing problems that arose from fetchlands, which won't be banned (b/c they won't reprint duals). If you want to tackle this over-representation issue, Hymn is probably the safest target. You could hit DRS of course, but I don't know how much you really want to try and make new fair decks against Stifle/Wasteland and Loam/Strip Mine - and even in that setting you're just asking for Counterbalance to be an even greater problem, so good luck brewing around a deck that pretty much has to run Decay without DRS mana fixing....I mean, there's not even a legacy playable, generically usable 1-drop creature for :b: in the runner up slot.

[Bithlord]

If your deck can’t beat a 3 mana 3/1 than have you considered not playing that deck?

I forgot that TNN has a blank text box, and is just a vanilla beater. [cloud spirit] was dominating for so long, I can't believe it got replaced by something without flying. It must be TNN's ability to block that pushes it over cloud spirit.

[Fox]

I forgot that TNN has a blank text box, and is just a vanilla beater. [cloud spirit] was dominating for so long, I can't believe it got replaced by something without flying. It must be TNN's ability to block that pushes it over cloud spirit.

Have to account for power creep on the cmc, the 3/1 you're looking for is Rainbow Efreet. :wink: Also what decks are left over that really have to care about TNN anymore? I don't think it's seeing as much play since Blade decks converted to the better good stuff pile (Czech), and TNN sees much less play there. The only other difference is that the Delver decks were faced with targeted-removal pile and had to incorporate the untargetable 3/1 as a 2-of. The idiocy of 6-8 mana dork Turbo-TNN decks has diminished significantly as a viable strategy.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

No one going to mention my 2 mana 20/20?

My 12/12 for 1 never seems to do it anymore :(

[WashableWater1]

I forgot that TNN has a blank text box, and is just a vanilla beater. [cloud spirit] was dominating for so long, I can't believe it got replaced by something without flying. It must be TNN's ability to block that pushes it over cloud spirit.

It basically is a vanilla beater that resists spot removal and blocks really well. In the grand scheme of things, if your deck can’t beat a True-name, it’s not a well built deck.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

That's such a disingenuous and poor-faith mode of engaging in a conversation.

[bakofried]

I have a feeling that part of the problem is the number of people who started playing Legacy relatively recently. Their expectations for the format are vastly different from those of folks who've been playing it for 5-10 years. Thus, when the latter crowd says "this is unhealthy, or at least less than ideal," the former thinks they're crazy because the format has been like this in some way or another for years.

If this has been said before, I apologize.

[Erdvermampfa]

I have a feeling that part of the problem is the number of people who started playing Legacy relatively recently. Their expectations for the format are vastly different from those of folks who've been playing it for 5-10 years. Thus, when the latter crowd says "this is unhealthy, or at least less than ideal," the former thinks they're crazy because the format has been like this in some way or another for years.

If this has been said before, I apologize.

The opportunities for new approaches has been narrowed down by all that power creeped stuff (TNN, Leo, Delver, Snap, Terminus, Grisel) though. From my perspective the space for innovation wasn't as restricted when Tarmogoyf was still considered the state of the art creature...

[JackaBo]

@JackaBo: I think everyone knows Counterbalance creates insurmountable one-sided advantage, it was only a matter of time before people rediscovered that simple truth. The issue is that the months where CB was almost non-existent people realized they could get away with SCM and cheap interactive spells not called Abrupt Decay; but it was Hymn's monolithic adoption by that strategy that is the real cause for pushing out every other non-Vial or non-Delver fair deck. Grixis Delver is always going to get rolled by Terminus & SCM/StP, and when the only other fair strategy left to care about (Czech), it doesn't take a genius to figure out you have to stay off-board with non-enchantments and concentrate value in the top card of the deck - and suddenly miracles with Counterbalance is tier one again. Now your non-competitive fair deck [again b/c of Czech] has to slow down and run Decay again [for CB] and Hymn is now even better against you, as you're that much slower at putting cards from hand onto the table.
---
This cycle really doesn't have anything to do with Grixis Delver, even though Git. Probe is a load of bull-crap. Even though CB is the most bannable card in legacy, that ban doesn't stop the above cycle (UW Standstill is just as effective at steamrolling either member of this 23% of the meta, and that status quo wouldn't really change). Like most issues, we're describing problems that arose from fetchlands, which won't be banned (b/c they won't reprint duals). If you want to tackle this over-representation issue, Hymn is probably the safest target. You could hit DRS of course, but I don't know how much you really want to try and make new fair decks against Stifle/Wasteland and Loam/Strip Mine - and even in that setting you're just asking for Counterbalance to be an even greater problem, so good luck brewing around a deck that pretty much has to run Decay without DRS mana fixing....I mean, there's not even a legacy playable, generically usable 1-drop creature for :b: in the runner up slot.

I haven't though of hymn to be the perpetrator but maybe it is. I guess i should spend more time trying to break counterbalance, that card is nuts indeed.

[Lemnear]

I have a feeling that part of the problem is the number of people who started playing Legacy relatively recently. Their expectations for the format are vastly different from those of folks who've been playing it for 5-10 years.

The major difference might be that the newer players don't know that Legacy was much more open in terms of card and color variety before the Innistrad Block turned Legacy into a derp-fest introducing Miracle, Griselbrand, Delver & Co directly followed by Ravnica which had DRS + Abrupt Decay. These two blocks just flipturned the whole Legacy metagame and resulted into the stale meta we had since then with a short period of madness in 2014-2015 which was Treasure Cruise + Dig Through Time.

So if you started within the last 6 years, you never really knew how the format looked like before it degenerated into BUG vs rest. Only the freaking Delve spells delivered some format variance with Patriot, UR Delver, SnT, etc at that time, before the bannings of TC & DTT reverted the format to BUG vs Miracles. With the ban of SDT, we are now down to a one-core-format with endless "mirror" matches in each coverage streamed. It's a boring status quo for old and new players i guess.

[Megadeus]

The major difference might be that the newer players don't know that Legacy was much more open in terms of card and color variety before the Innistrad Block turned Legacy into a derp-fest introducing Miracle, Griselbrand, Delver & Co directly followed by Ravnica which had DRS + Abrupt Decay. These two blocks just flipturned the whole Legacy metagame and resulted into the stale meta we had since then with a short period of madness in 2014-2015 which was Treasure Cruise + Dig Through Time.

So if you started within the last 6 years, you never really knew how the format looked like before it degenerated into BUG vs rest. Only the freaking Delve spells delivered some format variance with Patriot, UR Delver, SnT, etc at that time, before the bannings of TC & DTT reverted the format to BUG vs Miracles. With the ban of SDT, we are now down to a one-core-format with endless "mirror" matches in each coverage streamed. It's a boring status quo for old and new players i guess.

I'm personally sad because I started watching legacy a few months after WWK came out and it was so cool so I started picking up cards for it. Then by the time I had a deck finally after Avacyn came out the shift had begun

[Lemnear]

I'm personally sad because I started watching legacy a few months after WWK came out and it was so cool so I started picking up cards for it. Then by the time I had a deck finally after Avacyn came out the shift had begun

It was Zendikar which imo kickstarted the creature powercreep and it was a glorious time with Kight of the Reliquary, Wild Nacatl, Gaddock Teeg & Co effectively rivaling the blue shell for a short time until the Survival + Vengevine shit broke lose, followed by Innistrad, which also had Thalia, which i forgot to list earlier.

[Zombie]

It was Zendikar which imo kickstarted the creature powercreep and it was a glorious time with Kight of the Reliquary, Wild Nacatl, Gaddock Teeg & Co effectively rivaling the blue shell for a short time until the Survival + Vengevine shit broke lose, followed by Innistrad, which also had Thalia, which i forgot to list earlier.

Uh, KOTR and Nacatl came out in Alara. As did other fun things like Lotus Cobra. Alara's long felt like a watershed moment for the game, IMO. Lorwyn was new creatures but somehow still old-ish sensibilities. Alara was where the game entered a new era proper.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Uh, KOTR and Nacatl came out in Alara. As did other fun things like Lotus Cobra. Alara's long felt like a watershed moment for the game, IMO. Lorwyn was new creatures but somehow still old-ish sensibilities. Alara was where the game entered a new era proper.
Lotus Cobra has landfall, it's from Zendikar. As for that watershed moment I wouldn't blame Alara I blame the core set around it. Everything in Alara was something I've seen before except maybe Nicol Bolas and Progenitus. Now Baneslayer Angel? That's the new magic.

[NeckBird]

I have a feeling that part of the problem is the number of people who started playing Legacy relatively recently. Their expectations for the format are vastly different from those of folks who've been playing it for 5-10 years. Thus, when the latter crowd says "this is unhealthy, or at least less than ideal," the former thinks they're crazy because the format has been like this in some way or another for years.

If this has been said before, I apologize.

So established Legacy players are the equivalent of old men yelling at children to get off their lawn? Cause that's what this format needs now more than anything else.

[Bithlord]

It basically is a vanilla beater that resists spot removal and blocks really well. In the grand scheme of things, if your deck can’t beat a True-name, it’s not a well built deck.

I'm not going to dispute either of those statements, really, but TNN is WAY more than 'just a 3/1 beater" specifically because it resists spot removal and blocks really well [also, you forgot to mention that it is unblockable].

Tarmogoyf, the unplayable, was actually just a big beater. TNN is much more than just a big beater.

[Lemnear]

Uh, KOTR and Nacatl came out in Alara. As did other fun things like Lotus Cobra. Alara's long felt like a watershed moment for the game, IMO. Lorwyn was new creatures but somehow still old-ish sensibilities. Alara was where the game entered a new era proper.

You're right. Brainfart. I'm sorry

[Zombie]

Apparently brainfarted myself and confused Alara and Zendikar :D

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Brainfarts for everyone!

[bakofried]

So established Legacy players are the equivalent of old men yelling at children to get off their lawn? Cause that's what this format needs now more than anything else.

If I seem to imply that, my apologies; but no, that's not my intent. I just remember when "strategic diversity" was what we laughed at Vintage players for talking up. No offense to them, of course.

[Bithlord]

Brainfarts for everyone!

Brainfart. {1}. You may not use U to play this. Look at the bottom three cards of your opponents deck. You may put any number of them on top of your opponents deck in any order. return the rest to the bottom of your opponents deck.

[WashableWater1]

I'm not going to dispute either of those statements, really, but TNN is WAY more than 'just a 3/1 beater" specifically because it resists spot removal and blocks really well [also, you forgot to mention that it is unblockable].

Tarmogoyf, the unplayable, was actually just a big beater. TNN is much more than just a big beater.

There was a time when people thought Tarmogoyf was a bannable card. Looking back it’s pretty laughable, for similar reasons similar to True-Name. Is it more than a dumb beater? Slightly. Is it impossible to answer? No. Is “My deck can’t beat a 3 mana creature that attacks and blocks and needs a bit of finesse to remove, so it should be banned” a good and strong argument? I certainly don’t think so.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

This guy's logic literally dictates that a 0 mana 20/20 wouldn't warrant a ban. This guy thinks that's a fine card that doesn't cause problems.

[WashableWater1]

This guy's logic literally dictates that a 0 mana 20/20 wouldn't warrant a ban. This guy thinks that's a fine card that doesn't cause problems.

Lol

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

This guy's logic literally dictates that a 0 mana 20/20 wouldn't warrant a ban. This guy thinks that's a fine card that doesn't cause problems.

No one seems to care when people throw out 12/12s for one. The 20/20 usually costs two though...

[Ace/Homebrew]

No one seems to care when people throw out 12/12s for one. The 20/20 usually costs two though...
12/12s cost 2 mana. 15/15s cost 3 mana. I don't think anyone is arguing that TNN is incorrectly costed...

The issue is that the answers are so narrow and the kill is so slow. Opponents have to sit and watch a game they may have been winning unwind 3 life at a time. No one complained about Progenitus from what I remember.

If you are ahead and your opponent cheats Prog into play and you lose, you weren't really ahead, you just didn't know you were behind at the time. That can be easier to accept than actually being ahead, then slowly losing too a fragile 3/1 that you can't answer despite having a deck full of answers to everything else in the format.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

12/12s cost 2 mana.

You're paying too much, duder.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Both Dreadnought and Dark Depths are, in my opinion, examples of really well designed cards and infinitely less ban-worthy than TNN, Delver, or even Tarmogoyf. The first two cards require specific card choices and planning, they add diversity to the meta-game because they have to play cards that other people generally wouldn't. The latter require essentially no trade-off for what they do.

[Lemnear]

Both Dreadnought and Dark Depths are, in my opinion, examples of really well designed cards and infinitely less ban-worthy than TNN, Delver, or even Tarmogoyf. The first two cards require specific card choices and planning, they add diversity to the meta-game because they have to play cards that other people generally wouldn't. The latter require essentially no trade-off for what they do.

Point is that Marit Lage, Progenitus, Deadnought & Co are 2-card-combos and dead draws unless you also have the second piece needed.

Shit like TNN are no dead draws at 3 mana, do not need a second card to work, are evasive as fuck requiring specific answers and even pitch to FoW

[WashableWater1]

Point is that Marit Lage, Progenitus, Deadnought & Co are 2-card-combos and dead draws unless you also have the second piece needed.

Shit like TNN are no dead draws at 3 mana, do not need a second card to work, are evasive as fuck requiring specific answers and even pitch to FoW

Yes, fair decks do not play cards that require assembling a combo. Is there maybe a reason why 2 mana gets you a conditional 12/12 or a guaranteed 3/4-6/7

[CptHaddock]

12/12s cost 2 mana. 15/15s cost 3 mana. I don't think anyone is arguing that TNN is incorrectly costed...

The issue is that the answers are so narrow and the kill is so slow. Opponents have to sit and watch a game they may have been winning unwind 3 life at a time. No one complained about Progenitus from what I remember.

If you are ahead and your opponent cheats Prog into play and you lose, you weren't really ahead, you just didn't know you were behind at the time. That can be easier to accept than actually being ahead, then slowly losing too a fragile 3/1 that you can't answer despite having a deck full of answers to everything else in the format.

Well that is because Progenitus is good clean magic, 4 mana and a land for a 10/10 protection from everything.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Never mind

[Dice_Box]

TNN is as fair a card as Progentis is. Or less even. Its easier to cast, has less power and toughness, but the reason you want it is the same. They both basicly have the same text box, well other than you can equip one of them with a Sofi or some other shit.

I mean there is a reason Krosan Cloudscraper is not played over Progentis, it's not the power or toughness, it's that text box TNN shares. Anyone who argues that TNN is a fair card is looking at the situation wrong.

[Fox]

Point is that Marit Lage, Progenitus, Deadnought & Co are 2-card-combos and dead draws unless you also have the second piece needed.

Shit like TNN are no dead draws at 3 mana, do not need a second card to work, are evasive as fuck requiring specific answers and even pitch to FoW

Dreadnought is quite a bit more complex than Stifle + Dreadnought and the same can be said of Dark Depth (though it is a much simpler card). To expand upon what @SpatulaOfTheAges said, the point of decks that run these is to make them downplay the 2-card combo aspect and often times just to act as a failsafe (of tempo) while a gameplan of something more fundamentally broken is being achieved. If you look at R/G Lands, Loam is one card that can buyback the 2-card combo....so it's not really a 2-card-combo anymore when you've designed a deck to get them back at the same time. That's still not even really the point of that deck (the main plan is Strip Mine and win by default), Depths is just the most efficient way to recuperate tempo [i.e. win the game] when other plans could not be assembled or maintained.

The point of cards like Emrakul, Progenitus, and TNN is to be uninteractive. The recent throwing around of rates doesn't mean much without a peer group; uninteractives shouldn't be compared to efficient 1-card combos (Delver/Goyf/etc) shouldn't be compared to concept cards (2-card-combos you build around). Also what does any of this have to do with the point of the thread - and is TNN even seeing more play now than around the time Reid Duke won a GP with TurboTNN (aside from being a 2-of in Delver)? Is anyone seriously pinning the 23% meta representation to the existence of TNN?

[Lemnear]

Is anyone seriously pinning the 23% meta representation to the existence of TNN?

You mean if 23% of DRS + BlueShell are tied to the fact that most of the top notch threats as well as next to all (actual & virtual) cardadvantage and -quality engines are in UBx?

[Fox]

You mean if 23% of DRS + BlueShell are tied to the fact that most of the top notch threats as well as next to all (actual & virtual) cardadvantage and -quality engines are in UBx?

The premise is that Czech and Grixis Delver are more or less the same; I'm not seeing TNN as some Czech staple, but Czech is certainly responsible in large part for TNN in Delver right now. I mean you're seeing Marsh Casualties in Czech SBs in real time...just unsure how this TNN talk helps with disliking where legacy is right now b/c Grixis soup is 23%. Delver still gets housed by white cards, so uh....why are we talking about TNN? I get that TNN is a poorly designed card, I'm just not sure why it's in this conversation since we've been going on about if for the last page or so.

[Lemnear]

The premise is that Czech and Grixis Delver are more or less the same; I'm not seeing TNN as some Czech staple, but Czech is certainly responsible in large part for TNN in Delver right now. I mean you're seeing Marsh Casualties in Czech SBs in real time...just unsure how this TNN talk helps with disliking where legacy is right now b/c Grixis soup is 23%. Delver still gets housed by white cards, so uh....why are we talking about TNN? I get that TNN is a poorly designed card, I'm just not sure why it's in this conversation since we've been going on about if for the last page or so.

TNNs 1UU cost as a turn 2 mini-Progenitus which forces other decks to run dedicated removal is just an anecdote for underlining the fact that the DRS+BlueShell does not need to touch its core structure to run the formats primer threats/card advantage/card selection and push every other fair deck into a reactive position. We could talk Angler, Snapcaster or Leovold as well i guess

[apple713]

Data pulled from the MTGO Legacy Challenge of June 25th off of TCDecks.
This is my best attempt to make an 'average' deck from the lists in that pool of data.
I had to exclude the sideboard because it proved difficult to come of up with a consensus.


4C Control

2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
1 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Ponder
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
2 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

Grixis Pyromancer

1 True-Name Nemesis
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Spell Pierce
1 Wild Slash
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
1 Bitterblossom
1 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland


The blue cards show the significant overlapping items. Doing a search in TCDecks for 'decks containing in maindeck' pulls up a list of only 4C Control and Grixis Pyromancer. If you cut DRS from the search, a few UR Burn lists are added. If you cut Lightning Bolt the list expands to include BUG Control, Food Chain, and Aluren. If you remove DRS and Lightning Bolt it includes just about every deck with blue in it...

Based on this information, 4C Control and Grixis Pyromancer are two separate decks with several overlapping cards (with the overlapping cards being fairly ubiquitous in the format).

I havent playe mtg in a while but using these two lists as points of reference I dont even understand how these decs could be considered the same or similar.

The list of differences far ouyweighs the list of similarities.

Differences include
General deck category ( aggro control combo) - although these are both aggro they are would be categorized as mid range vs tempo. This impacts the general play style and strategy approch to the deck.
The overwhelming majority of the cards are different.
Although there are some similarities, last time I check there was a saturation of like 200 unique cards that make up the majority of legacy decks. These are of course among them. Thats not to say they are like so many other decks in the format that use the same cards....
There is probably more cards in common between lands and dark depths decks but they are radically different Nd would never be considered the same.
How many black blue combo decks use some combination of brainstorm, ponder, dark ritual, lotus petal, underground sea, fetchlands, blah blah blah. No one is advocating that they are the same.

The only problem I see here is the lack of innovation at building decks that have an edge over these decks given the subtle similarities.

[Dice_Box]

I havent playe mtg in a while but using these two lists as points of reference I dont even understand how these decs could be considered the same or similar.

The list of differences far ouyweighs the list of similarities.
The similarly is not in how they are constructed but how you attack them when your playing a deck that is exploiting the joint weakness of unstable mana. DnT (A deck I have never played so take it as an assumption) is such a deck. When playing Lands I treat them basicly the same.

[Whitefaces]

You're not alone apple713. Honestly I question if the people claiming they're the same even play very much, Lemnear has said he's stopped yet remains one of the most opinionated people in these threads, it's telling.

Dice, sure you approach pile and delver similarly as Lands (which when you go into the details is quite wrong, imo). Obviously that's not true for other decks of the format though, they do exist!

[WashableWater1]

Are we forgetting that progentitus’ popularity has a lot to do with the numbers in the lower right? Its quite difficult to race a 10/10. Its not difficult to race a 3/1.

[Dice_Box]

I get that, I have never once said that. I have simply tried to answer the question that keeps getting ask.

Question. "LOL, fool, can't you see they are different?"
Answer. "Sometimes you react the same way to different things and they can blend into one."

Lead example, I know ANT and TES are different, I react to them almost exactly the same way. The fact that they are different in detail makes little difference in practice.

[Whitefaces]

I get that, I have never once said that. I have simply tried to answer the question that keeps getting ask.

Question. "LOL, fool, can't you see they are different?"
Answer. "Sometimes you react the same way to different things and they can blend into one."

Lead example, I know ANT and TES are different, I react to them almost exactly the same way. The fact that they are different in detail makes little difference in practice.

Try to look at it out of the context of Lands. An example to help is from Miracles, where you'll side out basic plains and Swords to Plowshares vs Pile, but they're the best cards in the deck vs Delver.

[Dice_Box]

Are we forgetting that progentitus’ popularity has a lot to do with the numbers in the lower right? Its quite difficult to race a 10/10. Its not difficult to race a 3/1.
It's not. Otherwise as I said, people would NO For something larger. You can pick any green thing you like. That text box is the most important part of that card. It being a 5/5 for 5 mana would still make it something people consider. Because the effect is just nuts. Sure, it would be less popular I will agree there, but it would still see play.

TNN is more powerful then the pet Hyrda because it has that magic line of text and it's easier to cast. It also blocks forever and buys you a ton of time. Your argument is about fair decks, TNN renders fair decks worthless when it hits the table. You need to do something unfair or lose.


Try to look at it out of the context of Lands. An example to help is from Miracles, where you'll side out basic plains and Swords to Plowshares vs Pile, but they're the best cards in the deck vs Delver.
I am! Fuck sakes I am. I am trying to answer the question all the people who view the deck in that context have. My point is not that the decks are not different, it never was. My point was to simply answer the question that was set out in page one that came from those who did not understand why someone would seem to think the decks are alike.

Who are the people I am talking to? Those playing against these decks with Force of will and Brainstorm. What am I saying? When your not playing those cards, you may find you start to feel like this:


All the heavy dual decks can start to feel the same from a Lands perspective after a while.

...

Not speaking for others, but I can see how they would feel alike.

[Ingo]

Both Dreadnought and Dark Depths are, in my opinion, examples of really well designed cards and infinitely less ban-worthy than TNN, Delver, or even Tarmogoyf.

The interesting thing about Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage is that they're hard to integrate in a blue shell, because they don't blend well with the cantrip-fetchland minimalism towards landdrops. That would have been a great design, if it would be deliberate (which wasn't the case if i'm not mistaken).

[Dice_Box]

I would bet a large sum your right, because at printing Stage and Depths could not interact in a positive fashion.

[phonics]

I think that one major issue that underlies things is that (non green) creatures have become so good that green doesnt have an identity anymore. Red used to be the color with an identity crisis since burn maxed out its power, and wotc moved away from land destruction, but it has now found a new identity as the sideboard/ splash/ hate color, partially because of the prevalence of blue decks. Similarily creature efficiency maxed out with goyf (before it got neutered by delve/drs stuff) and green has been trying to find a niche for itself. Green staples in the format are the elves package (which is almost like an inbred synergy deck), loam, GSZ, decay and maybe goyf, then you have things like crop rotation, veteran explorer, food chain, tireless tracker, hierarch and KOTR. Sure DRS and Leovold are 'green' but I would say DRS almost fits into any 3+ color deck it wants to be in, and leovold is more blue than green. Nic fit is sort of the closest to what I would think an archetypal green deck would be, but otherwise green has become a weird combo/ control color.

tldr; creatures used to be greens thing, but now it isnt.

[Lemnear]

Honestly I question if the people claiming they're the same even play very much, Lemnear has said he's stopped yet remains one of the most opinionated people in these threads, it's telling.

Where did I do that? Beyond that, you take "the same" more literal, than I originally framed it in the past or it is in regards to this thread. The topic was, if it's a problem if the prior color- & carddiversity across the tempo/midrange/control is narrowed down to UBx, or just a normal development. You are free to disagree with the all those who are bored of the T1 U.Sea into DRS mirrors we saw the last year in paper, streams and coverages.

[WashableWater1]

There isnt a bigger natural order target, at least not one that kills faster. 20/10=2 turns. 20/15 is still a 2 turn clock. Progenitus would still be a good NO target until it dipped below 7 power, when it might not be worth it anymore. 7 power Progenitus (inkwell) doesn’t even see play these days in reanimator any more. The speed of the clock combined with the resistance to removal. A 5 mana halfgenitus might be neat in nic fit. I don’t see how “you have two turns to answer me” and “you have 7 turns to answer me” are direct analogues to each other.

[Dice_Box]

I don’t see how “you have two turns to answer me” and “you have 7 turns to answer me” are direct analogues to each other.
They are not. That's not the argument I was making. That one is a card you have to jump though hoops to play and if you draw it you lose the ability to use it at all and the other is a three mana Blue spell that you can block shit with forever and attach equipment to. The thing that joins them is they blank interaction.

I'm not suggesting the two are interchangeable, I am suggesting the lower opportunity cost on TNN with the most powerful part of Progenitus is the reason it's more powerful. Looking at the bottom left in isolation ignores all the other shit involved in that equation. Progenitus is strong, TNN is stronger.

I am happy to agree to disagree if you really think that Progentis beats TNN. Because to me it's like saying Wasteland beats a fetch. Technically it's true, the fetch is a legal target, but really your missing a ton of context if you want to make that argument.

[FZA]

Interesting discussion going on here. First and foremost I will disagree with the notion that Czech and Delver are the same deck, I think they are pretty clearly different strategically. And perhaps more telling is that some strategies that are weak against Czech are good against Grixis Delver (e.g. Death and Taxes, Maverick, Stoneblade, BUG Delver) and vice versa (12-post Eldrazi, Food Chain). The decks are clearly distinct.

Here are my more general thoughts on DRS, the dominance of UBx fair decks compared to other fair strategies, etc:

The fundamental problem with Legacy nowadays in my opinion is that is not enough reward for playing fair deck outside of the UBx core. This has resulted in a less diverse metagame with Grixis Delver and Pile together making up the lion's share of results for fair decks. Miracles is the one exception, and I'd argue it's presence is overinflated by a very dedicated community behind it.

There are a multitude of reasons behind UBx's dominance and IMO it's silly to pin it on any one card specifically. Overall the issue is that U and B now provide basically everything you want in a fair deck, which close to eliminates the need to play other colors except as a light splash (made easy by DRS).

As far as solutions the main debate seems to be whether it's better to go after the "main culprits" (DRS, Brainstorm) or leave these cards alone and target weaker but also problematic cards (Probe, TNN, Leovold, Angler). For now I am in the latter camp because while DRS and Brainstorm are strong cards, I agree with Stryfo that they have positive effects on gameplay that many players like.

A card like TNN on the other hand is almost strictly bad for the format for two reasons: 1) It creates low-quality game play due to being extremely uninteractive and 2) it furthers pushes UBx to the top of the totem pole by giving it the one of the best threats in the format, that also happens to be best answered by black cards, further pushing players to play UBx.

TNN isn't as ubiquitous as Deathrite or Brainstorm but in my opinion people underestimate the effect in has on the meta. There's little reason to keep it around other than keeping merfolk and stoneblade relevant as fringe decks. Banning it would be a good place to start if we want more diversity among fair strategies in Legacy.

Honestly though, this is the first time I'm really hoping to see a change with the B&R announcement. I know people don't like Legacy to change too quickly but we're at the opposite extreme at this point, having not really had any new innovations since the Top ban. And I think this is largely due to any potential new strategy, particularly anything fair, being thoroughly outclassed by Grixis Delver and Pile, or some close variant of them.

[WashableWater1]

So is the working theory that non-blue fair decks have bad matchups against fair blue decks and thats why they struggle? It has nothing to do with their matchups against combo decks?

People keep talking about how you have to play narrow answers, typically in black to answer True-Name. Has anyone tried the 0 mana removal spells "Ignore It" or "Race It"? They've done well for me in testing.

[Fox]

So is the working theory that non-blue fair decks have bad matchups against fair blue decks and thats why they struggle? It has nothing to do with their matchups against combo decks?

People keep talking about how you have to play narrow answers, typically in black to answer True-Name. Has anyone tried the 0 mana removal spells "Ignore It" or "Race It"? They've done well for me in testing.

Well for the non-blue fair decks left, it's a bit hard to ignore/race TNN (primarily in Delver) with a strategy that is not even more suicidal vs Hymn/SCM/Kcomm. It wouldn't be hard to avoid artifact type and dies to shock, but that discard spam of Hymn/Snap Hymn makes it pretty hard to assemble a strategy that is big enough, generically competitive enough, and still isn't somehow demolished by Kcomm and recursion. The low to the ground removal fair decks need to isolate a Delver deck's TNN duo as the only source of clock is significantly different than what they would need versus Czech Pile's value strategy. Such fair deck pilots aren't lazy/inept, those schizophrenic demands are rather impossible to reconcile; their deck's winrate drops and they have to move on to different decks - that'd be okay if it weren't such a mass exodus into so few [competitive] fair outlets.

[Megadeus]

So is the working theory that non-blue fair decks have bad matchups against fair blue decks and thats why they struggle? It has nothing to do with their matchups against combo decks?

People keep talking about how you have to play narrow answers, typically in black to answer True-Name. Has anyone tried the 0 mana removal spells "Ignore It" or "Race It"? They've done well for me in testing.
Oh wow you figured it all out. You're so much smarter than everyone else that plays legacy. I'm sure this post will lead to a massive realization in non Blue deck strategy that spawns a new era in legacy of non Blue fair decks that race and ignore true name because nobody has been trying to figure out the best way to do that since 2013!

[Dice_Box]

People keep talking about how you have to play narrow answers, typically in black to answer True-Name. Has anyone tried the 0 mana removal spells "Ignore It" or "Race It"? They've done well for me in testing.
So that's the issue, you actually have missed the problem people have with the card. Ok.

The issue is not that TNN is some kind of all powerful win button, it never was. The issue is that the card pushs both parties to playing battlecrusier magic, ignoring the other as they smash past one another. That is something we laugh at Standard for doing. TNN makes us do that here.

It's the lack of interaction people dislike. So when your suggestion is "Interact less" your missing the point. What we are asking for is more options to interact, not less. The best way to deal with TNN is to cease interaction and that is the part we all despise.

[FZA]

So is the working theory that non-blue fair decks have bad matchups against fair blue decks and thats why they struggle? It has nothing to do with their matchups against combo decks?

It's both. But in the past non blue fair decks were able to make up for their weaker combo matchups by being favored against blue fair decks.

Nowadays, why bother when blue you gives a much better combo matchup AND is still favored against you?




People keep talking about how you have to play narrow answers, typically in black to answer True-Name. Has anyone tried the 0 mana removal spells "Ignore It" or "Race It"? They've done well for me in testing.

What is this magical deck you're playing that's (a) a fair deck and (b) doesn't care about being pressured by TNN?

As others have said it's not that TNN is some unbeatable monster that instantly wins the game for blue decks the second it hits the field. It's just yet another problem for non blue decks in a format where they are already disadvantaged because of the lack of cantrips. You can't deny that banning it closes the gap at least a little bit.

[maharis]

Interesting discussion going on here. First and foremost I will disagree with the notion that Czech and Delver are the same deck, I think they are pretty clearly different strategically. And perhaps more telling is that some strategies that are weak against Czech are good against Grixis Delver (e.g. Death and Taxes, Maverick, Stoneblade, BUG Delver) and vice versa (12-post Eldrazi, Food Chain). The decks are clearly distinct.

Here are my more general thoughts on DRS, the dominance of UBx fair decks compared to other fair strategies, etc:

The fundamental problem with Legacy nowadays in my opinion is that is not enough reward for playing fair deck outside of the UBx core. This has resulted in a less diverse metagame with Grixis Delver and Pile together making up the lion's share of results for fair decks. Miracles is the one exception, and I'd argue it's presence is overinflated by a very dedicated community behind it.

There are a multitude of reasons behind UBx's dominance and IMO it's silly to pin it on any one card specifically. Overall the issue is that U and B now provide basically everything you want in a fair deck, which close to eliminates the need to play other colors except as a light splash (made easy by DRS).

As far as solutions the main debate seems to be whether it's better to go after the "main culprits" (DRS, Brainstorm) or leave these cards alone and target weaker but also problematic cards (Probe, TNN, Leovold, Angler). For now I am in the latter camp because while DRS and Brainstorm are strong cards, I agree with Stryfo that they have positive effects on gameplay that many players like.

A card like TNN on the other hand is almost strictly bad for the format for two reasons: 1) It creates low-quality game play due to being extremely uninteractive and 2) it furthers pushes UBx to the top of the totem pole by giving it the one of the best threats in the format, that also happens to be best answered by black cards, further pushing players to play UBx.

TNN isn't as ubiquitous as Deathrite or Brainstorm but in my opinion people underestimate the effect in has on the meta. There's little reason to keep it around other than keeping merfolk and stoneblade relevant as fringe decks. Banning it would be a good place to start if we want more diversity among fair strategies in Legacy.

Honestly though, this is the first time I'm really hoping to see a change with the B&R announcement. I know people don't like Legacy to change too quickly but we're at the opposite extreme at this point, having not really had any new innovations since the Top ban. And I think this is largely due to any potential new strategy, particularly anything fair, being thoroughly outclassed by Grixis Delver and Pile, or some close variant of them.

Good post.

To me there are, let's say, 4 factions regarding the the state of the format vis-a-vis Deathrite Shaman decks (again, the major conceit of this thread. I'm not listing "Brainstorm is busted" or "Gitaxian Probe is busted" because I think the first isn't going anywhere and the second is obviously dumb, but removing it and doing nothing else is probably not on the table.)

1. Everything is fine. There are a good mix of strategies and gameplay is interesting. Still some room to try spicy ideas.

2. Deathrite Shaman is too good. Having this creature as an auto include in fair decks is bad for the format. Puts too much pressure on niche strategies.

3. UBx is too good. It doesn't matter if you ban Deathrite Shaman and do nothing else, because the power level of this particular color combination is so high that cards like TNN, Leo, Strix, SCM, Jace, Lilianas will always crowd out other options. There's too much of an incentive to put all the same cards into your fair deck no matter what the overall strategy.

4. Banning Sensei's Divining Top was a mistake. This is a bit of a dark horse but there are plenty of people who felt that the Top-Miracles era effectively put a brake on UBx while opening up other fringe strategies to prey on Miracles decks (like 12post).

I'm firmly in camp 3 but would have liked to see some other ban hit Miracles. Top's effect on tournaments is so overrated. It's total confirmation bias. I played a Modern tournament the other day and there was a UWx mirror in the first round. They played one game. Those kinds of decks will always be a slog.

I believe they will go with No. 2. Then we will see if anything is able to breathe. I really would like them to just go nuts tomorrow, and take out stuff they KNOW is stupid, even if they do also take DRS.

The thing about TNN and Leovold, and Strix to an extent, is that they are basically a plan unto themselves with no deckbuilding cost. That pressures a lot of the format, but what it really robs is a deck that might want to exploit some other high-ceiling, low-floor synergy. Shardless BUG is a good example from recent history. Why limit your interaction and play Ancestral Vision when you can just eke out advantage over and over and then have a better payoff card than a Grey Ogre?

The discussion of Natural Order is also a good one. Sure, it's not the same pace as TNN, but TNN does 9 by the time Progenitus wins. That is, its taken half the opponent's life. Is it not better to avoid to two-for-oneing yourself, filling your deck with 4cc sorceries and uncastable hydra, instead having more efficient spells that can keep your opponent at bay while you get in?

In the past cards like Stoneforge Mystic and Tarmogoyf have had this issue. However, a number of other things have moved around them. Most notably, there's better answers (Fatal Push, Kolaghan's Command). Similarly, they aren't as intense in deckbuilding requirements. You can play a lot of different white or green decks. But as the best cards consolidate into U, and specifically UBx, the deck construction space narrows.

[Megadeus]

The difference (as has been noted before) in prog with NO and True Name is the build around. One requires a deck to be fairly built around the "combo" requiring a sufficient number of green creatures plus 3+ natural order plus an uncastable ten mana creature (not to mention a fairly awkward mana base, GG can be tough to assemble). The other requires... The already defacto best color in the format? I mean yeah a 10/10 in a vacuum is better than a 3/1, but if you're simply comparing the P/T then you're just being willfully ignorant or completely disingenuous in your comparison.


On another note legacy classic today in Atlanta looked pretty miserable. I played the modern classic because I'm tired of shit legacy but i walked through and 90% of top tables were DRS/BS piles, Dark Depths decks, and Blood Moons. Long past seem to be the days where Atlanta had an interesting meta. All of the old guard are tired of the format. I noticed the people i used to play with here are over it. It used to be between rounds there would be ten to fifteen of us hanging out talking about the rounds. Today there were 3 of us counting me who chose to #GoPlayModern because I'm not #SkillIntensive enough to want to play the #PillarOfTheFormat in Brainstorm

[Poron]

3+ colors strategies all die with DRS

in my opinion that’s the next ban around

[Lemnear]

On another note legacy classic today in Atlanta looked pretty miserable. I played the modern classic because I'm tired of shit legacy but i walked through and 90% of top tables were DRS/BS piles, Dark Depths decks, and Blood Moons. Long past seem to be the days where Atlanta had an interesting meta. All of the old guard are tired of the format. I noticed the people i used to play with here are over it.

Isn't that the core of the whole discussion about the formats status quo we have here? That UBx is 23% of the metagame and the "DRS/BS piles" taking regulary half of the T8 spots because it's not only widely played but also drastically overperforms? That people are freaking tired of seeing DRS/BS pile mirrors trying to win with TNN or Leovold or Angler respectively? So to fall back on the original question of this thread: Is 23% of one single core too much or simply a natural development we have to accept, with DRS being "the next Ponder" in regards to being a no-brainer in every deck?


To me there are, let's say, 4 factions regarding the the state of the format vis-a-vis Deathrite Shaman decks (again, the major conceit of this thread. I'm not listing "Brainstorm is busted" or "Gitaxian Probe is busted" because I think the first isn't going anywhere and the second is obviously dumb, but removing it and doing nothing else is probably not on the table.)

1. Everything is fine. There are a good mix of strategies and gameplay is interesting. Still some room to try spicy ideas.

2. Deathrite Shaman is too good. Having this creature as an auto include in fair decks is bad for the format. Puts too much pressure on niche strategies.

3. UBx is too good. It doesn't matter if you ban Deathrite Shaman and do nothing else, because the power level of this particular color combination is so high that cards like TNN, Leo, Strix, SCM, Jace, Lilianas will always crowd out other options. There's too much of an incentive to put all the same cards into your fair deck no matter what the overall strategy.

4. Banning Sensei's Divining Top was a mistake. This is a bit of a dark horse but there are plenty of people who felt that the Top-Miracles era effectively put a brake on UBx while opening up other fringe strategies to prey on Miracles decks (like 12post).

I think that sums it up very well. I sit in camp 3 without a doubt, because in a nutshell DRS is just a lovechild of lavamancer and Birds of paradise, so I have a hard time calling the card broken if the format has Brainstorm, Ponder, SnT & other stuff around. However, DRS is displaying the essence of "cheating on landcount in favor of mid-/lategame power" by being a manasource and colorfixer which turns into a machinegun whenever you don't need the mana anymore. So to some extend it just expands what Ponder & Brainstorm do for most decks: Enabling greedy manabases with a very low landcount. Giving mid-/lategame "reach", colorfixing and manacceleration to UBx, the historically stongest color combo, was a mistake, but so were Ponder, Delver, TNN, Preordain, Snapcaster, Angler, Probe, etc. if we ask about critical mass for that slice of color. I am not even convinced that banning DRS would achieve more than having the card replaced by Noble Hierarch to power/support peoples Delvers, TNNs, Snapcasters, Meddling Mages, Canonists, saint trafts and Mentors.

All I personally would like to see is some color & core diversity between tempo, midrange and control reinstated which we lost over the years.

Imo the chatter about SDT was and is misleading at best, pointing to some fringe decks, which had a chance to either get under Countertop or stumble over their own clunkiness in the process, to justify a meta which was in a stanglehold of Miracles vs Decay/DRS. I think we want to improve the situation, not going back to a miserable metagame we had full 4 years of. The format doesn't need one-sided Chalice @ 0/1/2/3 or 1-mana instant speed wraths to handle combo or (the non-existant) aggro.

[MechTactical]

Imo the chatter about SDT was and is misleading at best, pointing to some fringe decks, which had a chance to either get under Countertop or stumble over their own clunkiness in the process, to justify a meta which was in a stanglehold of Miracles vs Decay/DRS. I think we want to improve the situation, not going back to a miserable metagame we had full 4 years of. The format doesn't need one-sided Chalice @ 0/1/2/3 or 1-mana instant speed wraths to handle combo or (the non-existant) aggro.

Solution: Ban CB unban TOP!

[Poron]

Magic allowed two colors
Fetchlands allowed 3
DRS allowed 4

May be going back to 2-3 colors would make the format fairer..

Think to a world of 4 colors with white. Czech Pile would get even StP with SCM too many good cards in one only deck

[Echelon]

Define fair. Banning DRS pretty much is a boon to the unfair decks as grindy, control-y decks take a hit :laugh:

[Poron]

Well

FoW
BS
Shaman
Bolt
Fatal Push (in modern meta it’s even better than StP with fetchlands)
Pyroblast
Hymn
Flusterstorm

Snapcaster to recast them all

Either you play with this deck or someone else will play you around. That’s the definition of unfair.

Fetchlands are fair just because they are for every colors, but with Brainstorm they become unfair compared to every other color, therefore everyone plays Brainstorm

That’s pretty much the definition of unfair again: strict superiority that kills variance

[Lemnear]

Solution: Ban CB unban TOP!

Implies that 1 mana Wrath of Gods and an infinite card quality engine were any more fair than DRS, Brainstorm or whatever are.

As Miracles was often boarding out CB against everything what wasn't combo, the suggested prisoner exchange between Top and CB is somewhat funny to read. Reminds me when people suggested to ban Entreat instead of CB/SDT/Terminus

[Echelon]

@Poron: So... Your definition of unfair is that some things are better than others..?

Why the hell do you seek to compete in any form or capacity..?

[Poron]

If something is natively better than another, yes.

DRS is strictly better than Squire, therefore it’s an unfair card to Squire.

Same goes for decks.. a deck which is a sum of unfair cards (TNN, Command, SCM, DRS) is strictly superior to the other therefore an unfair deck.
In my opinion banning DRS they would give back the format some variance.

Reanimators would surge bringing white back in the format

[Megadeus]

If something is natively better than another, yes.

DRS is strictly better than Squire, therefore it’s an unfair card to Squire.

Same goes for decks.. a deck which is a sum of unfair cards (TNN, Command, SCM, DRS) is strictly superior to the other therefore an unfair deck.
In my opinion banning DRS they would give back the format some variance.

Reanimators would surge bringing white back in the format

Meh. The problem with reanimator and white is that yes Plow is one of the best answers and so is Karakas, but when a Griselbrand hits the table the game is effectively over some abnormal percentage of the time. It used to be you could actually still play a game of magic if reanimator got a big dude in play. Now once Grisel hits the table the game is essentially over because of how stupid the card is

[Poron]

White has also Rest in Peace and Containment Priest which also cross hates Show and Tell and Sneak Attack

[Echelon]

Meh. The problem with reanimator and white is that yes Plow is one of the best answers and so is Karakas, but when a Griselbrand hits the table the game is effectively over some abnormal percentage of the time. It used to be you could actually still play a game of magic if reanimator got a big dude in play. Now once Grisel hits the table the game is essentially over because of how stupid the card is

But you only draw 14 cards... How does that help you? :laugh:

[Lemnear]

But you only draw 14 cards... How does that help you? :laugh:

2-3 mana, draw 14. Unplayable crap.

[Echelon]

2-3 mana, draw 14. Unplayable crap.

Glad to see someone understands :laugh:

[Barook]

Now once Grisel hits the table the game is essentially over because of how stupid the card is
In one of matches in the monthly Legacy challenges on MTGO back when Eldrazi was the new hotness, I could have beaten a T1 Griselbrand from UB Reanimator with White Eldrazi due to pure counter agression, had I drawn another land once over multiple turns. I really miss that deck being viable.

[Poron]

Griselbrand, another unfair card

You can’t play a deck which summons fatties without playing a fullset of it

[Dice_Box]

Griselbrand, another unfair card

You can’t play a deck which summons fatties without playing a fullset of it
I don't know, Elves manages ok. ;-p

[Echelon]

So does Manaless Dredge

[Lemnear]

So does Manaless Dredge

Dredge beats Griselbrand ... so Griselbrand is fair and Dredge needs a ban. How can Golgari Grave Troll be legal in Legacy if its banned in Modern? Too stronk!!!

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I don't know, Elves manages ok. ;-p


So does Manaless Dredge

There are no fatties in these decks.

[Dice_Box]

There are no fatties in these decks.
Really? Really? Really? What? So why then does Elves play Natural Order or a 5 colour Hydra in the side? Why does Dredge like to reanimate cards that read "All your shit dies" or "Now you can't play a colour, lulz, thanks for trying"?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Really? Really? Really? What? So why then does Elves play Natural Order or a 5 colour Hydra in the side? Why does Dredge like to reanimate cards that read "All your shit dies" or "Now you can't play a colour, lulz, thanks for trying"?

Really.
How often does elves go for anything other than the 5/5?
Dredge gets a bunch of weenies. They reanimate 2/2, when they're not reanimating a 3/1.

[Bithlord]

Really.
How often does elves go for anything other than the 5/5?
Dredge gets a bunch of weenies. They reanimate 2/2, when they're not reanimating a 3/1.

Manaless will, quite often, reanimate a ridiculously large Grave Troll. Of course...when it does, it instantly wins and doesn't need to attack.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Manaless will, quite often, reanimate a ridiculously large Grave Troll. Of course...when it does, it instantly wins and doesn't need to attack.

I have never seen a dredge player bother. YMMV.

[Poron]

Elves get Progenitus because they can’t get Griselbrand, else they would.

They push so much to card advantage they play Glimpse of Nature and Visionary. Could they play Grisebrand would they? Super yes.

Dredge doesn’t even look at fatties.
they reanimate, ok, but they just need Balustrade Spy or Flayer of the Unbound.
It’s much more of a combo deck then a fatties animator

[Lemnear]

DRS & Probe banned.

/thread

[Bithlord]

DRS & Probe banned.

/thread

But why would they ban a 1/2 for one when several 2/2's for 1 are still legal?

[NegatorITA]

haters gonna love,
lovers gonna hate
ah sad days...

[CptHaddock]

haters gonna love,
lovers gonna hate
ah sad days...

That sucks man, I don't know what you are going to do with your $500+ blue legacy staples now. :cry:

[Ace/Homebrew]

So apparently the answer to the thread's title is "yes".

[NegatorITA]

That sucks man, I don't know what you are going to do with your $500+ blue legacy staples now. :cry:

to be honest, czech was my lovely pet deck, and miracle was the side deck, not that I'm really hurt "playing" wise, it hurt that the deck I liked the most just got dumped, same with jund, (which I think it's now unplayable)
maverik, which I fled from, well, now it's gonna do a come back I think :)
All in all it sucks because it was my favourite card since when it got printed.:rolleyes: I could very well switch to modern now.

[Lemnear]

So apparently the answer to the thread's title is "yes".

It's kind of new ground that this forum has a topic started, a thread created and WotC delivering the direct answer to the topic shortly after.

Did WotC accidently discover how customer feeback usually works? /j

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

It's kind of new ground that this forum has a topic started, a thread created and WotC delivering the direct answer to the topic shortly after.

Did WotC accidently discover how customer feeback usually works? /j

Lol, if all it takes is a thread I'll start spamming ban brainstorm today.

[Lemnear]

Lol, if all it takes is a thread I'll start spamming ban brainstorm today.

#JustDoIt

[Fox]

It's kind of new ground that this forum has a topic started, a thread created and WotC delivering the direct answer to the topic shortly after.

Did WotC accidently discover how customer feeback usually works? /j

This isn't really a direct answer, this is passing out free wins to Counterbalance - what one should expect though is that Czech's SCMs will stop resolving, which means fewer Kcomms, which means fewer SCMs...until they realize they need 4 copies of Decay (cause you can't run ~2 Decay vs CB and count SCMs as additional copies). Shardless BUG should slowly start coming back as SCMs are replaced with Decay-tutoring Shardless Agents. Wasteland/Stifle and Loam/Strip Mine should cement Czech Pile as a deck that can only compete against the lesser value fair decks.

[MorphBerlin]

So apparently the answer to the thread's title is "yes".

So why did they have to ban probe when the 2 decks are the same? (but somehow only one abuses probe)

[Poron]

IMHO a good deck in next meta will be Jund or Abzan

they are able to play Choke and every possible card against Storm and Graveyard decks

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

IMHO a good deck in next meta will be Jund or Abzan

they are able to play Choke and every possible card against Storm and Graveyard decks

On the other hand brainstorm exists.

[PirateKing]

On the other hand brainstorm exists.

The great tragedy of Legacy— the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

[H]

The great tragedy of Legacy— the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

If facts actually slay hypotheses, the B&R thread would be 1/100th the size it is...

[JackaBo]

If facts actually slay hypotheses, the B&R thread would be 1/100th the size it is...

:)

[Poron]

On the other hand brainstorm exists.

Yes without Brainstorm, blue would only have FoW and Delver as very relevant cards

May be Daze and Pierce as well in tempo decks, but that’s it

[morgan_coke]

Yes without Brainstorm, blue would only have FoW and Delver as very relevant cards

May be Daze and Pierce as well in tempo decks, but that’s it

You can run a great cantrip shell with Preordain and Ponder. You don't need Brainstorm, it just pushes things over the top.

[Bithlord]

Yes without Brainstorm, blue would only have FoW and Delver as very relevant cards

May be Daze and Pierce as well in tempo decks, but that’s it

And TNN.
And JTMS.
And all the other cantrips.