All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

It's hilarious that peeps forget about the deckbuilding restrictions of Ad Nauseam and that all those are gone the moment Bargain or Desire would be unbanned. Desire would be a Maindeck 4-off and is an engine completely Independent from your life total. A stormcount of 6 is more than enough in a deck with Infernals and Wishes.

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I agree, though some part of me would want to extend the deck to include some amount of countermagic like flusterstorm or force, which removes the likelihood of my playing playsets of infernal/BW

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Desire is so ridiculously powerful that even as a 1 of in Vintage it is busted. I can't imagine what the format would be like if it were legal as a 4 of.

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It's not even that good in vintage right now as a 1 of. Few successful decks are willing to support it, even with the maindeck hurkyl's recalls and infinite fast artifact mana afforded to that format

If it was unrestricted it however...

Vintage is also a format where Mental Misstep is legal so ritual based combo doesnt seem quite as powerful.

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Originally Posted by Tammit67

It's not even that good in vintage right now as a 1 of. Few successful decks are willing to support it, even with the maindeck hurkyl's recalls and infinite fast artifact mana afforded to that format

If it was unrestricted it however...

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The reason it's bad is because MUD is so much better.

MUD would take a crap on the Legacy meta easy.

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

The reason it's bad is because MUD is so much better.

MUD would take a crap on the Legacy meta easy.

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Ah yes, between MUD and Misstep, it seems rough to be a ritual based storm deck.

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

The reason it's bad is because MUD is so much better.

MUD would take a crap on the Legacy meta easy.

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Yeah, talk about format warping. MUD does ridiculous things to the Vintage meta.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Ah yes, between MUD and Misstep, it seems rough to be a ritual based storm deck.

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Yep. But just because it's bad in Vintage doesn't make it overpowered. It just goes to show how hilariously high the power level is in Vintage.

Flash is also barely used in Vintage: must be AWFUL in Legacy! :troll:

I do think Earthcraft has potential for unbanning. Nic Fit, Elves, and Enchantress are the decks that spring to mind when I think about who would benefit, and I don't think it would find room in Elves. I don't play Elves, but from spending plenty of time on the other side of the table, they probably wouldn't benefit from being able to use Cradle more than they do now, at least not at the cost of being worse at chaining Elves into Natural Order or just shitting out creatures and beating you down. SquirrelCraft is probably unplayable at this stage in Legacy's development. Its main selling points are the selling points of Elves, and Elves does all of those things better, especially because all of its combo pieces are good on their own, whereas Squirrel Nest sucks. There are alternatives, but the deck functions a lot like Modern's Splinter Twin decks, and those haven't seen a Legacy port despite being in better colors, killing the turn they go off, and not leaving a bunch of tapped creatures as your only defense. The effect of Earthcraft in the other two decks could potentially be both interesting and healthy, especially since both are intrinsically strong against he who must not be True-Named.

The other cards that have been mentioned for unbanning are clearly trolls. Unbanned Desire (as Lemnear pointed out) would make for an exceedingly fast and consistent combo deck that would have no problem winning the game on turn 3 or 4 with ample protection without the A+B limitation or the need to spend life like ANT. Storm counts of even 4 or 5 would probably be sufficient to set up Desire (effectively) into Desire, which basically wins on the spot.

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

Yep. But just because it's bad in Vintage doesn't make it overpowered. It just goes to show how hilariously high the power level is in Vintage.

Flash is also barely used in Vintage: must be AWFUL in Legacy! :troll:

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And by bad you mean so broken it had to be restricted. Got it...

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Originally Posted by Technics

And by bad you mean so broken it had to be restricted. Got it...

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The difference is that 1 is bad 4 are broken.. This applies to any format

Unbanned Goblin Recruiter would be interesting.

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Originally Posted by prateta

Unbanned Goblin Recruiter would be interesting.

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Its powerlevel is not as problematic ad its impact on time when stacking your deck

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Originally Posted by apple713

Its powerlevel is not as problematic ad its impact on time when stacking your deck

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Just how much time do you reckon the game has left after a Goblin deck with Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial gets done stacking the deck?
I'm all about the 'fuck you, kill me' strategy, because decks fizzle all the time. However, there are really very few worthwhile Recruiter piles where they don't just sculpt an instant or next turn win with insane redundancy. Now that counterspells need not apply because Cavern + Vial? I *LOVE* Goblins. But no.

sent from phone, don't be a dick

How anyone could think that Goblin Recruiter was a good card to even design in the first place, let alone unban, boggles the mind.

It's a fine card, Dwarven Recruiter is not in any way broke and it's in effect the same card. When it was printed, the goblin was fine. Then Onslaught came along...

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Originally Posted by Tammit67

Mind's desire is... harder to evaluate. UU is certainly difficult but not unmanageable (might require LED if not using high tide). High tide seems like a natural shell although time spiral might end up being better there. As a burning wish target, you'll need high bomb density main and sufficient storm count to really take off with it, maybe something like 3x tendrils 4x Desire 2x past in flames? I'm not sure if the decks created for this are faster/more resilient than the current options. They probably are. 90% can't unban (10% wants to play with)

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There's no "might" about Time Spiral being better than Mind's Desire in High Tide. Time Spiral IS better because it requires no setup outside of 6 mana. Mind's Desire requires that 6 mana and a healthy storm count. A huge advantage of High Tide is that it untags your lands so you can cast the stuff you draw, whereas with Mind's Desire you better really really really hope you find a Turnabout with it or you could easily screw yourself. I mean, you might as well say that Goblin Lackey "might" be better in a Goblins deck than Foundry Street Denizen. There's no contest between the two.

Some people make the argument that Mind's Desire would be played in addition to Time Spiral, but I feel even that's a poor choice because it'll be worse than whatever you take out. There are two basic parts to a High Tide deck: What you do before casting Time Spiral (getting the cards you need), and what you do after casting it (setting up the win). It's very important that all cards in the deck be as useful as possible in both cases. For example, the cantrips are useful before or after. The counterspells are useful before or after. Things like Turnabout are useful before or after. Mind's Desire is only useful after you've cast Time Spiral and some other spells (to build up the required Storm count), meaning it's a dead card beforehand, and that's not what the deck wants.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

How anyone could think that Goblin Recruiter was a good card to even design in the first place, let alone unban, boggles the mind.

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Because at the time it was printed, there wasn't as many good goblins out there.

I have to agree with the above notes about High Tide & Minds Desire. All I can say is if they unbanned Minds Desire I wouldn't put it into the High Tide deck, I'd put Minds Desire into the Minds Desire deck.

Minds Desire is probably one of the only cards right now I would consider jumping ship on Spiral Tide for, but they are not going to unban that, I can't even say "if they ever did unban it then..." because they just will not unban that for Legacy, there's no way.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

In my case, I adapted by picking up TNN decks and apologizing profusely to each opponent for playing a "bitch" card.

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This is how I feel start taking over a game with TNN. :frown:

I also get frustrated when I have to start resorting to situational cards (Golgari Charm and the like) and end up drawing them against the other threats(creatures with toughness > 1, like Stoneforge Mystic).

Someone pointed out that TNN leads to boring games that makes players not want to play Legacy and that is certainly not a situation anyone should support.

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Originally Posted by feline

I have to agree with the above notes about High Tide & Minds Desire. All I can say is if they unbanned Minds Desire I wouldn't put it into the High Tide deck, I'd put Minds Desire into the Minds Desire deck.

Minds Desire is probably one of the only cards right now I would consider jumping ship on Spiral Tide for, but they are not going to unban that, I can't even say "if they ever did unban it then..." because they just will not unban that for Legacy, there's no way.

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My thoughts 100%. I would definitely tweak away from TES if Mind's Desire was ever unbanned. But there's no point in even doing a thought experiment on building a deck b/c it won't happen.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

There's no "might" about Time Spiral being better than Mind's Desire in High Tide. Time Spiral IS better because it requires no setup outside of 6 mana. Mind's Desire requires that 6 mana and a healthy storm count. A huge advantage of High Tide is that it untags your lands so you can cast the stuff you draw, whereas with Mind's Desire you better really really really hope you find a Turnabout with it or you could easily screw yourself. I mean, you might as well say that Goblin Lackey "might" be better in a Goblins deck than Foundry Street Denizen. There's no contest between the two.

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If the high tide deck was about reaching a critical storm count instead of hitting that 6 mana threshold, you might view it differently. Time spiral comes at real costs: It has to resolve and you have to draw into a good enough 7. While the latter is certainly a problem for desire (although you don't give your opponent a fresh 7), the former is where desire is pretty great. Storm triggers are hard to stop :)


The entire deck would have to be tailored to creating a higher storm count, so perhaps saying the high tide shell as we now know it is the best fit is wrong. But it is my first instinct to start breaking the card, that's all.

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Originally Posted by feline

I have to agree with the above notes about High Tide & Minds Desire. All I can say is if they unbanned Minds Desire I wouldn't put it into the High Tide deck, I'd put Minds Desire into the Minds Desire deck.

Minds Desire is probably one of the only cards right now I would consider jumping ship on Spiral Tide for, but they are not going to unban that, I can't even say "if they ever did unban it then..." because they just will not unban that for Legacy, there's no way.

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I love combo decks, and One of the few decks I'd jump ship on sneak and show for would be minds desire. Picture is cool, mechanic is great, and it random so I'm in!

Is a minds desire deck really more powerful than high tide or ant? I didn't play when it got banned.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

It's a fine card, Dwarven Recruiter is not in any way broke and it's in effect the same card. When it was printed, the goblin was fine. Then Onslaught came along...

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I guess that's fairish. My point is that the card is either useless and unplayable or broken and a massive time sink.

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Originally Posted by apple713

I love combo decks, and One of the few decks I'd jump ship on sneak and show for would be minds desire. Picture is cool, mechanic is great, and it random so I'm in!

Is a minds desire deck really more powerful than high tide or ant? I didn't play when it got banned.

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The Old extended deck might give a clue. I've tested with that card for fun and even non lethal T1 Desires put you so far ahead that your opponent can't ever come back from it and the Discard you may flip.

Appears that peeps underestimate that Cabal Ritual is +5 mana, Dark Ritual is +3 and Rite of Flame At LEAST + 2 under a Desire and therefore AS good (or even better) than LED.

Desire into a bunch of cantrips/discard with a single LED/DArk Ritual equals at least a Mindtwist.

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Originally Posted by rufus

The thing with Minds Desire and (to a lesser degree) Yawgmoth's Bargain is that the casting cost is high enough to make it quite difficult to play honestly. Bargain can be cheated into play, but it's less game-warping than some of the creatures they've recently printed - and those are easier to get on the table. Similarly, why cheat the casting cost of Desire when you could cheat Enter the Infinite which is much more reliable. Moreover, the window where Mind's Desire is going to be better than Tendrils of Agony is quite narrow, and tendrils is much easier to cast. Maybe the best comparison is with Time Spiral - fire off Mind's Desire to - effectively - get a grip of cards and the mana to cast them. Sure, it's strong, but it doesn't seem meta-breaking.

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Lol how about Mind's Desiring into an Omiscience or Enter the Infinite..? Lol. Yay, I draw my deck, have a lot of free mana sources & counters to protect my combo, storm like a madman and cast Tendrils to end the game. Enjoy. Seriously, it isn't that hard to come up with this stuff...

What if brainstorm was banned? What would the meta look like?

I'm thinking Show and Tell would be hit pretty hard. They wouldn't be able to unload redundant combo pieces.
Esper might be ok since they still have Jace. Tempo decks might be ok.

Death and Taxes probably becomes the deck to beat. Rock might make a huge come back (here is hoping). Belcher probably gets better.

Discard gets a lot better. So does Bob, Sylvan Library and top.

Edit - Dredge gets better. Zoo and Maverick probably still aren't playable.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Appears that peeps underestimate that Cabal Ritual is +5 mana, Dark Ritual is +3 and Rite of Flame At LEAST + 2 under a Desire and therefore AS good (or even better) than LED.

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If the goal is to tutor into Mind's Desire, finding :u::u: is also a challenge.

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Lol how about Mind's Desiring into an Omiscience or Enter the Infinite..? Lol. Yay, I draw my deck, have a lot of free mana sources & counters to protect my combo, storm like a madman and cast Tendrils to end the game. Enjoy. Seriously, it isn't that hard to come up with this stuff...

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Sure, Mind's Desire into those is strong, but - say - Dream Halls is comparable from that perspective.

A bit more meta:
It's hard to prove a negative (i.e. that Mind's Desire won't be problematic). Meanwhile the arguments that Mind's Desire is OMGWTFBBQ strong seem to be assertions that '6 storm is enough' without a whole lot of specifics. (This is understandable, since it wouldn't really fit into any current decks all that well.) We don't actually influence the B/R list all that much anyway, so I'm going to be leaving this in the agree to disagree bucket for now.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Lol how about Mind's Desiring into an Omiscience or Enter the Infinite..? Lol. Yay, I draw my deck, have a lot of free mana sources & counters to protect my combo, storm like a madman and cast Tendrils to end the game. Enjoy. Seriously, it isn't that hard to come up with this stuff...

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Euuh seriously: show and tell into omniscience and EtI is still much easier to asemble.
To anyone spewing random comments without any proof other then vintage or casual games I would refer to the article on SCG by Ari Lax on the bannings/unbannings. Atleast he went to the trouble testing actual decklists.
For what it's worth he said mind's desire didn't see any stonger compared to ad Nauseam Tendrils. 4UU IS hard to get!
And bargain does cost one more mana then Ad Nauseam. This IS relevant.

I'm not saying they should be unbanned but posting random comments without any testing is useless. Do research before posting please!

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

The Old extended deck might give a clue. I've tested with that card for fun and even non lethal T1 Desires put you so far ahead that your opponent can't ever come back from it and the Discard you may flip.

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Maybe I'm wrong, but what Lemnear wrote seems very probable. I don't think we want a card that is a possible mix of Ancestral Recall and Mind Twist. But maybe I'm mistaken, I really can't tell how the miniDesires would be powerful.

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Originally Posted by rufus

If the goal is to tutor into Mind's Desire, finding :u::u: is also a challenge.


Sure, Mind's Desire into those is strong, but - say - Dream Halls is comparable from that perspective.

A bit more meta:
It's hard to prove a negative (i.e. that Mind's Desire won't be problematic). Meanwhile the arguments that Mind's Desire is OMGWTFBBQ strong seem to be assertions that '6 storm is enough' without a whole lot of specifics. (This is understandable, since it wouldn't really fit into any current decks all that well.) We don't actually influence the B/R list all that much anyway, so I'm going to be leaving this in the agree to disagree bucket for now.

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Omniscience/Dream Halls allows you to cast cards for free, Enter allows you to draw cards, Mind's Desire effectively allows you to do both (although a limited degree with respect to card draw).

Unlike Ad Nauseum, Past in Flames, Doomsday and even Bargain, Mind's Desire is a storm-engine that a) isn't dependent on life totals or the graveyard and b) gets exponentially better with multiples. The cards you cast with the first Desire counts adds storm towards the second, it can quickly be silly chaining Desire into Desire, etc.

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Originally Posted by davelin

Omniscience/Dream Halls allows you to cast cards for free, Enter allows you to draw cards, Mind's Desire effectively allows you to do both (although a limited degree with respect to card draw).

Unlike Ad Nauseum, Past in Flames, Doomsday and even Bargain, Mind's Desire is a storm-engine that a) isn't dependent on life totals or the graveyard and b) gets exponentially better with multiples. The cards you cast with the first Desire counts adds storm towards the second, it can quickly be silly chaining Desire into Desire, etc.

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I don't think it's absurdly more powerful than say Omnitell is, or even reanimate/SnT Griselbrand. Desire is just another flavor of storm and I'm in favor of those decks being viable top decks. Not that I play them as i was never good at storm, but they keep magic interesting and diverse from creatures. It's also one of the few decks that can end the game on the spot in one turn. Has a high skill barrier to master, unlike Show a ridic creature into play and do what you want.

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Originally Posted by menace13

I don't think it's absurdly more powerful than say Omnitell is, or even reanimate/SnT Griselbrand. Desire is just another flavor of storm and I'm in favor of those decks being viable top decks. Not that I play them as i was never good at storm, but they keep magic interesting and diverse from creatures. It's also one of the few decks that can end the game on the spot in one turn. Has a high skill barrier to master, unlike Show a ridic creature into play and do what you want.

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This guy gets it.

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Originally Posted by testing32

This guy gets it.

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+1

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Lol how about Mind's Desiring into an Omiscience or Enter the Infinite..? Lol. Yay, I draw my deck, have a lot of free mana sources & counters to protect my combo, storm like a madman and cast Tendrils to end the game. Enjoy. Seriously, it isn't that hard to come up with this stuff...

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Desiring into Omniscience/Enter the Infinite sounds hilarious.

And another thing, this isn't extended. A mind's desire deck isn't going to be faster than TES currently is. You're going to be more susceptible hatebears and discard. UU + 4 isn't easy to hit without LED which kind of defeats the purpose of running FoW in your combo deck.

I would predict that unbanning Mind's Desire would have the same impact that the unbanning of Time Spiral had.

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

Desiring into Omniscience/Enter the Infinite sounds hilarious.

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It also sounds like a very inconsistent deck.

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Originally Posted by JPoJohnson

It also sounds like a very inconsistent deck.

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Those are usually the more fun ones.

New article at SCG talking about the reserved list. The writer says MM could be unbanned.
I lived the MM era and it's true that it was the most dominant card, and it was a 4-of in multiple decks. Not to say that it invalidated some archetipes (Storm, Zoo...)
However he says, and I have to agree, that it's a reactive card. Many one drops are overpowered and some decks are unviable because of that.
It's probably not the solution legacy needs...

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Originally Posted by BVB09

New article at SCG talking about the reserved list. The writer says MM could be unbanned.
I lived the MM era and it's true that it was the most dominant card, and it was a 4-of in multiple decks. Not to say that it invalidated some archetipes (Storm, Zoo...)
However he says, and I have to agree, that it's a reactive card. Many one drops are overpowered and some decks are unviable because of that.
It's probably not the solution legacy needs...

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Mental Misstep safe to unban? Lolwut.

I didn't play during MM era, but just the few times I have played vintage the card seems miserable. I can't even imagine it being legal in legacy where there are arguably even more important 1 drops.

It could certainly be unbanned (wasn't really banworthy in the first place imo, and I played storm in that era :tongue:). But I don't think It's a fun card and it doesn't open up any new decks or archytypes so I still wouldn't like to see it unbanned. The same is true for mind twist imo.