All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by iamajellydonut

Sol Land is what you just said. What was previously talked about is "land". Wasteland, Island, Mountland, Glimmerland, Doesn't-Matter-Land, you can cast Trinisphere with Mana Vault. Something you implied was weak, but in actuality is something that you cannot do with Grim Monolith, and something that provides a huge amount of consistency.

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I didn't imply that it was weak. I explicitly said it wasn't broken enough to warrant a ban because it's on the same power level of what the top decks in the format are doing. I apologize for misreading your point; I was responding to the far more troubling scenario of Sol Land, Vault, Lodestone Golem that I imagined you brought up because I assumed that the weakness of randomly 3balling on turn 1 is considerably worse than it appears unless you have a strong and castable follow-up was apparent by this point in the discussion.

Mana vault was discussed at one point. Here's what I would love doing to wreck people on turn 1: Land, dark rit, mana vault, ad nauseam. Or sub ad nauseam for LED + infernal for ad nauseam with 1 floating. The card is batshit bonkers. And it isn't ever being unbanned before earthcraft and all the other shitty cards on the list that remain there still.

I love how everyone measures cards against show and tell griselbrand or reanimating griselbrand somehow. Griselbrand is way too good, end of story. In eternal griselbrand was bound to be broken but WotC printed it anyways to see if they could make a balanced yawg's bargain. Oh right, paying 1 life to draw a card is still busted in half what a surprise.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

Mana vault was discussed at one point. Here's what I would love doing to wreck people on turn 1: Land, dark rit, mana vault, ad nauseam. Or sub ad nauseam for LED + infernal for ad nauseam with 1 floating. The card is batshit bonkers. And it isn't ever being unbanned before earthcraft and all the other shitty cards on the list that remain there still.

I love how everyone measures cards against show and tell griselbrand or reanimating griselbrand somehow. Griselbrand is way too good, end of story. In eternal griselbrand was bound to be broken but WotC printed it anyways to see if they could make a balanced yawg's bargain. Oh right, paying 1 life to draw a card is still busted in half what a surprise.

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Yeah, drawing 1 card for 1 life is busted ... So add a 7/7 flying, lifelinking Body to it.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

Mana vault was discussed at one point. Here's what I would love doing to wreck people on turn 1: Land, dark rit, mana vault, ad nauseam. Or sub ad nauseam for LED + infernal for ad nauseam with 1 floating. The card is batshit bonkers. And it isn't ever being unbanned before earthcraft and all the other shitty cards on the list that remain there still.

I love how everyone measures cards against show and tell griselbrand or reanimating griselbrand somehow. Griselbrand is way too good, end of story. In eternal griselbrand was bound to be broken but WotC printed it anyways to see if they could make a balanced yawg's bargain. Oh right, paying 1 life to draw a card is still busted in half what a surprise.

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Cheating Griselbrand into play is a pretty good measure for what "the line" is - if it's better than that, it's too good. And I explicitly acknowledged that Mana Vault was more deserving of a ban than Vise, Earthcraft, Mind Twist, Survival and Mental Misstep. But those cards have been debated to death, so let's push the argument further. I'm confident that unbanning those cards is safe but think that it should be done one at a time, with probably a year in between each unbanning just to be sure. Of the cards on the banned list but not already mentioned, Vault really does seem like the safest - Storm is the "problem" deck that could make the best use of it, while MUD would also get a major boost and likely be able to keep Storm from getting out of hand.

I'm largely ( though not entirely) playing devil's advocate on Vault. I think it's a card about which serious discussion can be had and that there are good arguments for leaving it banned as well as for unbanning it.

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Originally Posted by btm10

Cheating Griselbrand into play is a pretty good measure for what "the line" is - if it's better than that, it's too good. And I explicitly acknowledged that Mana Vault was more deserving of a ban than Vise, Earthcraft, Mind Twist, Survival and Mental Misstep. But those cards have been debated to death, so let's push the argument further. I'm confident that unbanning those cards is safe but think that it should be done one at a time, with probably a year in between each unbanning just to be sure. Of the cards on the banned list but not already mentioned, Vault really does seem like the safest - Storm is the "problem" deck that could make the best use of it, while MUD would also get a major boost and likely be able to keep Storm from getting out of hand.

I'm largely ( though not entirely) playing devil's advocate on Vault. I think it's a card about which serious discussion can be had and that there are good arguments for leaving it banned as well as for unbanning it.

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Mental misstep wasn't safe without snapcaster. With snapcaster? I shudder to see what would emerge from that potent combination. It isn't safe now. It will likely never be safe as it is insane, pay 2 life to gain a mana on your opponent as well as counter half their deck.

Vise, craft, and twist are so safe it isn't funny agree with that. They could unban all 3 at once and nothing major would happen.

Survival is one I disagree with greatly though. It would be everywhere in legacy. And it only gets better with each new set/as more creatures are printed. Nothing has changed to make survival fair since it was banned. Everyone auto points to deathrite like it's unbeatable for survival. Hint: it isn't. Decay sounds nice until they tutor e witness in response to it/effectively counter decay.

I agree that Survival would be good, but disagree that nothing has changed since it was banned. Things that have changed:

Surgical Extraction, Abrupt Decay, Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman, Phyrexian Revoker.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

I agree that Survival would be good, but disagree that nothing has changed since it was banned. Things that have changed:

Surgical Extraction, Abrupt Decay, Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman, Phyrexian Revoker.

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Tbh, there was a lot of stuff against SotF available before too, but it was pointless as the Shell was ab aggro deck. Hate out the graveyard? No problem. Deal with me dropping Goyfs and KotR each round!.

It would be hilarious seeing DRS and Shardless Agent being run alongside SotF to Tutor for Griselbrand and Loyal Retainers to cheat the Demon into play ... Also stuff which wasn't available during the second Survival era

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Tbh, there was a lot of stuff against SotF available before too, but it was pointless as the Shell was ab aggro deck. Hate out the graveyard? No problem. Deal with me dropping Goyfs and KotR each round!.

It would be hilarious seeing DRS and Shardless Agent being run alongside SotF to Tutor for Griselbrand and Loyal Retainers to cheat the Demon into play ... Also stuff which wasn't available during the second Survival era

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

Mental misstep wasn't safe without snapcaster. With snapcaster? I shudder to see what would emerge from that potent combination. It isn't safe now. It will likely never be safe as it is insane, pay 2 life to gain a mana on your opponent as well as counter half their deck.

Vise, craft, and twist are so safe it isn't funny agree with that. They could unban all 3 at once and nothing major would happen.

Survival is one I disagree with greatly though. It would be everywhere in legacy. And it only gets better with each new set/as more creatures are printed. Nothing has changed to make survival fair since it was banned. Everyone auto points to deathrite like it's unbeatable for survival. Hint: it isn't. Decay sounds nice until they tutor e witness in response to it/effectively counter decay.

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I think that the format wasn't given enough time to adapt to Mental Misstep. It had what, three months before getting the axe? In January of this year people were still whining about True-Name Nemesis, which forced people to alter their deckbuilding (and to a lesser extent, playing) in a much less fundamental way than Misstep did, so the short-run impacts were significant. But by now, 9 months in, we've got a pretty solid handle on TNN - RUG is even back in the Decks to Beat forum. I think that a card should have to be problematic for a minimum of 6-9 months, and preferably a year, before a ban is considered for Legacy. R&D fortunately has learned not to make cards like Memory Jar and Mind's Desire that require emergency bans, so it's unlikely that any real disasters would crop up in that period and people would have time to adjust.

On Survival - I don't think it would be as ubiquitous as either of you do. Aside from the fact that a Shardless Agent Survival list might be a top deck (and I emphasize might), I hardly see it being a totally dominant strategy. I think you're writing off the quality of graveyard hate that's been printed since the card was banned too easily. Cage shuts down the Reanimation variants just as well as Rest in Peace does and costs less while fitting into any deck other than Manaless Dredge. So the not-fragile versions of Survival (or a Survival deck's backup plan) would be UGX or GXY value creatures. I just don't see it becoming a huge problem if we're given time to adjust to it.

If the bar is Griselbrand, I don't think Survival's ban is warranted anymore.

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Originally Posted by bakofried

If the bar is Griselbrand, I don't think Survival's ban is warranted anymore.

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Except that Survival would give every Gx deck the ability to slam Emrakul, Griselbrand or Vengevines, a toolbox and a Source for constant threat establishing.

I don't see why you guys think that the format needs even more Griselbrands, but this time in Form of a "single card combo" (+random creature) instead of Griselbrand/Emrakul + S&T/SneakAttack, which also does it's dirty work if your graveyard is shut

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Originally Posted by bakofried

If the bar is Griselbrand, I don't think Survival's ban is warranted anymore.

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I'm just speculating on that, but it seems like the DCI is fine with Griselbrand showing up sometimes on turn 1 or 2 and reliably on turn 3 out of Reanimator decks and reliably on turn 4-5 out of Sneak and Show. I can't think of any situations that they allow that are less fun or more broken, so that's the standard I'm arguing from, and trying to be consistent about it.

Edit: I fail to see how a Survival-Griselbrand (or Emrakul, or Iona) strategy would operate if its graveyard was shut down. Sure, it would still have the ability to hardcast Vengevines and Knights, but that's hardly OP. Vengevine is actually one of the harder cards to deal with in that situation because it can't be Abrupt Decayed, but it dies to everything else.

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Originally Posted by btm10

I'm just speculating on that, but it seems like the DCI is fine with Griselbrand showing up sometimes on turn 1 or 2 and reliably on turn 3 out of Reanimator decks and reliably on turn 4-5 out of Sneak and Show. I can't think of any situations that they allow that are less fun or more broken, so that's the standard I'm arguing from, and trying to be consistent about it.

Edit: I fail to see how a Survival-Griselbrand (or Emrakul, or Iona) strategy would operate if its graveyard was shut down. Sure, it would still have the ability to hardcast Vengevines and Knights, but that's hardly OP. Vengevine is actually one of the harder cards to deal with in that situation because it can't be Abrupt Decayed, but it dies to everything else.

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You fail to see how having to deal with the graveyard AND a constant stream of creatures like TNN and cardadvantage (Squee) at the same time puts quite SOME pressure on the defending player?

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

You fail to see how having to deal with the graveyard AND a constant stream of creatures like TNN and cardadvantage (Squee) at the same time puts quite SOME pressure on the defending player?

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Uh, you deal with the graveyard, you deal with Squee/Genesis?

Also that list sounds like it operates like crap without Survival or in the face of RIP/Cage.

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Originally Posted by btm10

I'm just speculating on that, but it seems like the DCI is fine with Griselbrand showing up sometimes on turn 1 or 2 and reliably on turn 3 out of Reanimator decks and reliably on turn 4-5 out of Sneak and Show. I can't think of any situations that they allow that are less fun or more broken, so that's the standard I'm arguing from, and trying to be consistent about it.

Edit: I fail to see how a Survival-Griselbrand (or Emrakul, or Iona) strategy would operate if its graveyard was shut down. Sure, it would still have the ability to hardcast Vengevines and Knights, but that's hardly OP. Vengevine is actually one of the harder cards to deal with in that situation because it can't be Abrupt Decayed, but it dies to everything else.

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The survival can be decayed, revoked, etc.. If it comes out fast and gets nuked then it's a pretty miserable play. Survival is a non-blue (though it might end up getting played with brainstorm anyway because it's also a shuffle effect) card quality engine. The 'combo' aspect of it is just inferior to other 2 card derp combos already legal, and relies on the graveyard. You sink a turn into casting Survival in exchange for being able to get a better creature for the current game state. It's a fantastic card, requires intimate knowledge of your deck, lets you play some corner case creatures because there's a chance you can bin them in exchange for a better creature. It's also a decent hedge against Show and Tell if you power it out fast enough and leave a green up. A deck like combo elves really has no use for it since Green Sun's was printed and Hoof Derp got printed. You maybe could argue survival is better vs. teeg, but it's also worse vs revoker and decay. I think sometimes people forget it doesn't say: G, Discard a Man: Put a man from your library onto the battlefield. You still have to cast what you find. The Vengevine argument is a fucking joke at this point given the printings since it was banned. Would a W/g creature deck like "Maverick" play it? Maybe ... that's really a mana denial deck with Thalia, a low curve and Knights to find more Wastelands. Mother can't protect it. It costs 2G with Thalia. It can find whites assuming you have a card in hand ... which GSZ can't but again GSZ just slams the man down. Survival should be unbanned, it's a fantastic card and makes for an interesting game; far more interesting than derp show and tell, derp whoops hoof you, derp flame rift you, derp delver, daze everything you play natural flip derp. Nothing survival is doing is any more broken than one mana super wrath, griselbrand, or natural order into my whole board are super Dreadnaughts.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Uh, you deal with the graveyard, you deal with Squee/Genesis?

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That's part of it.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

You fail to see how having to deal with the graveyard AND a constant stream of creatures like TNN and cardadvantage (Squee) at the same time puts quite SOME pressure on the defending player?

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Yeah, it does apply pressure, but not an insurmountable quantity of it. We're seeing a ton of sweepers in top decks right now (Miracles, Lejay's Shardless list with Deluge, Golgari Charm, Marsh Casualties, etc.), and graveyard hate helpfully pulls double duty by weakening creatires like Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary. If you think that Basking Rootwallas and Arrogant Wurms are going to overrun the format, I'm going to disagree. It's worth pointing out that all of this is extremely mana intensive, and Green mana intensive at that. So if you're slotting TNN into the deck you'll need lots of blue and green mana
at the same time.

Everytime someone argues against Survival they just assume that the survival player has an answer to everything, has near infinite green mana, and is never running out of creatures to discard. It's unsafe because of the vengevine combo. You know, thats way better than 2U for a Shopw and tell when your combo costs 1GGGGGG and attacks with vanilla 4/3's and loses to any piece of hate.

The format is incredibly more powerful than it was 4 years ago. The decks SotF was making unviable have now either died of natural causes (forget about Zoo, when was the last time you played against New Horizons?), or have received a significant boost in power. Looking back, the decks that shared the top 16 with survival decks in SCG Charlotte are now almost laughably bad (Gerrard's Verdict? Really?!) If you'd removed SotF from that meta and replaced it with current versions of RUG Delver or Miracles, I'm sure you'd see the same levels of dominance. SotF was certainly too powerful of an engine at the time, but the meta that deck existed in really looks nothing like the current legacy meta, so for that I could see the argument for an unban.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Uh, you deal with the graveyard, you deal with Squee/Genesis?

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Cage does very little against Squee, unless you plan to Loyali Retain him, and even in that case your trouble isn't in Cage but in the number of drinks you had.
Idk, I think SotF is safe to unban. I need to pick up one in case I'll find use for it in some EDH, before the price rises.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Everytime someone argues against Survival they just assume that the survival player has an answer to everything, has near infinite green mana, and is never running out of creatures to discard. It's unsafe because of the vengevine combo. You know, thats way better than 2U for a Shopw and tell when your combo costs 1GGGGGG and attacks with vanilla 4/3's and loses to any piece of hate.

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BuT if they terminus you can do it agIIIIIIN nxT turn !!!! FRRR only 1GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG???!?!??!?! TOO STRONG. GO PLAY MODERN!

We're big boys so let us play with our toys. Let Modern be the format where the everything is carefully controlled.

Is Survival too good? Maybe, maybe not. The only way to know for sure is to unban it at see what happens. I put it in the same category as Time Spiral or Entomb powerful card, would spawn a new archetype, but not anymore broken then what the format already allows. Legacy has evolved a ton in the last few years . My gut tells me Survival would be alright. If it's not then just ban it again in 3-6 months. I for one would welcome the experiment.

Legacy is not a PT or PTQ format we get like three GP's a year so just let us do our thing.

Exactly. At worst, the card becomes a problem and it gets banned again. If nothing else, at least give it a shot. It isn't like it messes up the PT or anything. And I doubt that it would hurt attendance, which in the end is what WOTC really cares about right?

They can't just unban and ban a card again a few months later..
Well theoretically they could but can you imagine the whine and hate they'd recieve if they unban Survial, it shoots up to I-don't-know-how-much and then ban it again a couple weeks later?
Dear god no, from a buisness standpoint thats absolute nonsense.

Similiar to a bank which removes costs for a normal account and later wants to add it again because they realized it was a mistake and they can't manage it.. Tons of customer will switch their account to another bank even if they paid in the past because they had some free months and got used to it.

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Originally Posted by Holly

They can't just unban and ban a card again a few months later..
Well theoretically they could but can you imagine the whine and hate they'd recieve if they unban Survial, it shoots up to I-don't-know-how-much and then ban it again a couple weeks later?
Dear god no, from a buisness standpoint thats absolute nonsense.

Similiar to a bank which removes costs for a normal account and later wants to add it again because they realized it was a mistake and they can't manage it.. Tons of customer will switch their account to another bank even if they paid in the past because they had some free months and got used to it.

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I agree with the whining, but it doesn't have a plethora to do with a business standpoint - WOTC makes little/no money on the secondary market.

You can't Unban a card and then reban it without at lest having the "Oh but the meta did not have time to adapt" crew sing to the heavens about how it should have had more time and was not broken but would have been ok if only we had more time.

Also, the comment about RIP being the answer. Not everyone plays white. Saying X single card is the answer is foolish, what happens when you don't have access to that card?

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

You can't Unban a card and then reban it without at lest having the "Oh but the meta did not have time to adapt" crew sing to the heavens about how it should have had more time and was not broken but would have been ok if only we had more time.

Also, the comment about RIP being the answer. Not everyone plays white. Saying X single card is the answer is foolish, what happens when you don't have access to that card?

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Phyrexian Revoker? #IDon'tPlayLandsThough

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Phyrexian Revoker? #IDon'tPlayLandsThough

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Yeah and Needle was available during Survivals second era too ... Did it help? No, because Survivaldecks are not dependant on the enchantment but your opponent HAS TO ANSWER IT regardless

The answers have gotten very good and universal though. Surgical, grafdiggers, and revoker are all colorless. Pithing needle is still a great card. RIP is crazy good against it. Deathrite really does work in tuning down the power level. Even something like batterskull really inhibits them to an extent if they can't constantly recur vines or the reclamation sage gets countered. Aslo, reclamation sage is now a thing to kill enchantments. And you know what would be a fantastic tool to fight against the insanity of a white wrath? Being able to recur your creatures again and again.

Survival is not only 100% safe, it would improve the metagame by giving miracles what should be a unfavorable matchup, therefore lessening the raw strength of the 4 terminus plan on other green based aggro decks.

Reclamation Sage would be half the problem in a Survival format. "Revoker on the stack? Ok, just one sec let me grab Sage. RIP? Same. Oh I did not draw Survival? Well lucky I still have a good working midrange deck. You just don't win.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

RIP? Same. Oh I did not draw Survival? Well lucky I still have a good working midrange deck

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Hand: Bayou, Fetch, Fetch, Deathrite Shaman, Squee, Griselbrand, Genesis.


Such deck, very good working midrange, wow.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Hand: Bayou, Fetch, Fetch, Deathrite Shaman, Squee, Griselbrand, Genesis. Such deck, very good working midrange, wow.

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Dat turn 2 squee, OP

There is no logical way to defend Survival's ban as long as S&T is legal.

So you want to start throwing hands around. Here pick any 7 cards and let me totally ignore you, because we all get good hands and bad ones. Shit happens.

If built right, a Survival deck should not be dead without the card and should be explosive with it. Much like Pod is. You don't need Pod, but when you get it, you get the ball rolling hella fast.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Hand: Bayou, Fetch, Fetch, Deathrite Shaman, Squee, Griselbrand, Genesis.


Such deck, very good working midrange, wow.

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and we are now sculpting worst case scenarios with cards no one seriously suggestioned like Genesis? Wow.

Shall we continue with RUG Delver and a hand without green mana but werbears to make a point of how bad the concept of tempo is?

That's not even close to the worst case scenario.

Survival already has lots of dead cards to draw; jamming in a bunch of extra situational cards like people are suggesting here (the Griselbrand/Retainer package etc.) would increase the tendency to get shit hands.

RGSA was built to work without Survival but that was its gimmick, it's dishonest to pretend that all these lists doing powerful things without Survival would be omg still sooooo good if they didn't stick the card.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

That's not even close to the worst case scenario.

Survival already has lots of dead cards to draw; jamming in a bunch of extra situational cards like people are suggesting here (the Griselbrand/Retainer package etc.) would increase the tendency to get shit hands.

RGSA was built to work without Survival but that was its gimmick, it's dishonest to pretend that all these lists doing powerful things without Survival would be omg still sooooo good if they didn't stick the card.

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For my taste this sounds like claiming that Tinker and Oath of Druids are fine because you can draw shitty hands with Blightsteel Colossus or Griselbrand too. I'm sure that the potential 1-2 dead draws are outweight by the advantage if you can assemble Survival + random creature. :/

Then compare Survival + random creatures to Show and Tell or Oath or whatever.

I think it usually comes off pretty fair in those comparisons, due to the sheer amount of mana it takes to set up any of these combos. Survival decks have historically been more durdly/resilient than aggressively combotastic.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Then compare Survival + random creatures to Show and Tell or Oath or whatever.

I think it usually comes off pretty fair in those comparisons, due to the sheer amount of mana it takes to set up any of these combos. Survival decks have historically been more durdly/resilient than aggressively combotastic.

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That is correct. My point however was that Survival is not only a combo enabler like S&T but much more flexible in it's use like creating cardadvantage or as a repeatable Tutor. I don't think it deserves a ban for the pure axis of enabling a combo but for the versatility it provides for every deck running green and trying to win via the combat step. I guess we can agree that not running Survival within a green shell with plenty of creatures would barely make sense and that it would limit the diversity of Legacy midrange even more than it already is.

I don't see what's changed in the time since Survival was banned that would make decks like Thresh, Zoo and Elves want to run it when they didn't before.

It would displace probably a very small range of decks (probably just Jund and Shardless Bug) and replace them with a variety of interesting, more unique and engaging decks instead.

I don't think that Survival will be allowed anymore, it's a repeatable tutor (although a conditional one), and WotC dislike such cards. They'd rather print some legendary enchantment creature planeswalker flying trample herptouch 13/18 protection from you transform card.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

That's not even close to the worst case scenario.

Survival already has lots of dead cards to draw; jamming in a bunch of extra situational cards like people are suggesting here (the Griselbrand/Retainer package etc.) would increase the tendency to get shit hands.

RGSA was built to work without Survival but that was its gimmick, it's dishonest to pretend that all these lists doing powerful things without Survival would be omg still sooooo good if they didn't stick the card.

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This. Everyone is saying it's so good because it's versatile. Sure. It's a good deck. And it would probably be T1 in legacy. Is that bad? It didn't seem to absolutely ruin the format before, and now with the plethora of answers readily available to fight it off it seems fine.