Originally Posted by
Fox
@taconaut I think I've made pretty clear points about when and how Probe became a problem. Bringing up Baubles and Street Wraith are not comparable; while they have the same function as a free draw spell, you still have to win a game with a streamlined plan.
...so does Probe?
To get away with Baubles, you'd probably have to be running Auriok Salvagers, cards with keyword improvise, and/or Thoughtcast.
Why?
You're arguing that a card that replaces itself for effectively zero cost is inherently problematic, irrespective of its card type. Bauble meets these requirements. Why does it matter that it is an artifact?
Street Wraith has to do something more than cycle for 2 life to win games (i.e. double ramp towards Gurmag and Shadow, or interact with dredge to create pseudo-mana).
Literally all Probe does is cycle for two life (and give you a peek). That is its entire text. Street Wraith does that uncounterably, and could conceivably damage your opponent.
Probe had to go when it stopped requiring build-around [Khans], delve made it a turbolinear card that required zero deviation from Delver's fair, Fetchland maximizing gameplan [thus Grixis became the only way to make Delver if you wanted to win].
From the perspective of any delve card, Street Wraith and Probe are indistinguishable. They replace themselves for the cost of two life, and are a card in the graveyard for Delve:
7 Cards in hand, 20 life; cycle street Wraith: 18 life, 7 cards in hand, one in graveyard. Gurmag Angler costs 6 if you delve your whole graveyard.
7 Cards in hand, 20 life; cast Gitaxian Probe: 18 life, 7 cards in hand, one in graveyard. Gurmag Angler costs 6 if you delve your whole graveyard. Know the contents of your opponent's hand (until their next draw step or cantrip).
The peek is different, yes, but you are arguing that "Khans" was when it started to be an issue, and the Peek has nothing to do with Delve. Plus, we've already established the Peek is not that big a deal, because discard spells do it too.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on how aspects like widely-playable, ease of exploitation, velocity [mana engine aspects], etc are/aren't a requirement for deserving a ban.
I suppose that's true. That being said, differences in those sorts of philosophies are why I don't play Modern; part of the reason I'm so vocal in these discussions is that I feel like a lot of people, and in particular cantrip detractors, want WotC to manage Legacy like Modern, and I personally think it would be a tragedy if they did. We already have Modern, we don't need another format with arbitrary, "this card feels bad to have played against you" bans.
Other aspects of your post without rehashing old stuff:
An example of how one core of legacy (the cores are Fetchlands/consistency, Loam/Mox, Sol land/Chalice, and Cavern/Vial) creates change/diversity in another would be best described by looking at DnT; its structure mutates in response to what other decks are doing. Plenty of decks do this, but what should be noted is that, barring the release of exceptionally game-changing new cards, no amount of different builds of the latter three cores can derail Counterbalance [miracles] or Hymn [Grixis Jammy Jams].
Is this actually true, though? Miracles typically plays two counterbalance, three at most, and often fewer than two. Some Grixis decks play Hymn, but not all of them, and I don't think they typically play 4.
Change has to come from within the Fetchland/consistency core, but those two cards largely prevent it. The issue is that cards which should widen diversity from within are generally incorporated into those shells (a prime example being DRS). Grixis Delver [pre-ban] was able to use DRS differently to success, but it also pretty much killed off every other low to the ground Delver strategy, which makes it rather trivial for Hymn and CB to invalidate all low to the ground strategies as they will only have one dominant presentation.
I don't understand why you think there would be more than one "generic goodstuff" strategy - the whole point of playing the "generic goodstuff deck" is that your list is just all the most efficient cards. Multiple cards can't be the most efficient, by definition - if Kolaghan's Command is the best two-for-one you can be playing at the three mana slot at the moment, that's just how it is.
Until they print some other command that's better in WG or whatever, your midrange pile will need to be playing BR. Until they print a better consistency engine than cantrips, your midrange pile will need U. Until mana is good enough that a fourth and fifth color isn't a liability, it'll be those three colors exactly.
(Aside: Deathrite Shaman was the example of the fourth and fifth colors not being a liability).
So there were the other three cores off to the side [pre-ban] and then Grixis Delver, Czech Pile, and miracles - it's not hard to see how combo of any variety wasn't going to be able to force them to change. The Delver side of that equation is weaker now [post-ban] which allows for more combo representation, but combo still isn't going to dislodge the use of Hymn nor CB. These two cards provide time for SCM/removal spam durdling so we can also rule out any change being forced by non-blue Fetchland users (which makes all of this family's non-combo members a worse version of Grixis Jammy Jams regardless of what colors and tools they were using).
That's exactly what I'm saying - people play Grixis the most because it's the best version of the goodstuff strategy, and there can only be one best goodstuff strategy.
Banning off CB immediately allows people to play Tundra as differing users of Terminus [SDT could safely be unbanned] and differing color combinations of Blade.
I think banning Counterbalance alone would change nothing about the format. I think banning Counterbalance and unbanning Top would make blade decks stone cold unplayable - they would just get terminused into the ground, or worse, top into top to make a million monks with Mentor.
Banning off Hymn [DRS safely unbanned] means you can start off with that card Which card? Deathrite Shaman? and play it with Delver or Strix or not-blue cards (since everything you'd use DRS to ramp to isn't auto-losing to Shatter/Shock, lose your hand, and repeat with SCM).
Banning Hymn wouldn't change the fact that Deathrite Shaman cast off of Underground Sea is still much, much better than Deathrite Shaman cast off of Savannah. The Savannah deck is still going to lose to itself more often because it doesn't have cantrip consistency, and it's not going to get its Reliquary Knights past Strixes, and it's not going to have Force of Wills to stop people from comboing it.
The issues here are more complex than Hymn or Counterbalance alone (if we even accept the premise that either of those cards are problematic, which I'm doing here for the sake of the discussion).
There is a synergistic effect of Delver/DRS and not-blue/DRS in terms of eliciting changes from control when control can't sit back and play UU: Delver can't force me to adapt. Again, I think you're overstating the current impact of counterbalance. Once control has to react away from not-blue/DRS towards Delver/DRS, you make a lot of space for not-blue/DRS (which does not have a terribly hard time choosing to beat up on Delver-based strats) and combo, which is traditionally strong versus not-blue/DRS. This kind of environment is where the latter three cores (Cavern/Vial, Loam/Mox, and Sol Land/Chalice), which exist mainly as reactions to Fetchlands/consistency, begin to pick and choose the definitions of what is required to sit at tier 1 at any given time.
I think I see what you'd like - you want a more fluid metagame, right?
I think the issue is that Eternal formats just don't change that quickly - the card pool is too large and the power level is too high, so it requires considerable disruption for change to occur. That disruption could be a new printing or a banning, but I know I personally prefer as few bans as possible.
Moreover, Sol Land/Chalice already does put up numbers - it is currently a DTB. DnT isn't at the moment, but I feel confident that it will be back soon.
With Hymn and CB sitting on top of the format, where control is immune to change forced by the other three cores, it is understandable how such strategies are seen as an annoyance.
Again, I think some of that is colored by your perception - check out the threads for these decks, they're not static. As an example, Miracles has moved through several phases since the banning: Counterbalance or not, UWR vs. UW, Portent or not, Predict or Accumulated Knowledge, etc. Sure, Miracles has been good for much of that time, but it does require the kind of adaptation you say you'd like to see. I'm sure Grixis has had similar permutations.
Are you sure the adaptation isn't happening, or could it be that those decks aren't the ones you read about in-depth?
