[Article] Deathrite Is Next

The difference in modern is that Green is one of the best colors in the format, so it is much easier for a straight swap into other mana dorks because the rest of your deck was probably also heavily green. In legacy green is fine, but you can't straight swap deathrite for birds or noble into Shardless or Grixis or really any of the decks it's currently in besides elves and maverick. Deathrite being cast off black mana is, of all the things the card does, actually maybe the most insane. I mean I ran it in dead guy with only 1 green source (bayou) and it was amazing there. The hybrid cast cost might actually be the dumbest part of the card.

While I agree that DRS is probably one of the most powerful cards now I don't know if all people understand the consequences in mind. It will exclusivly hit fair decks, that lose a big tool to keep up with the unfair stuff because of the provided mana acceleraio, as well a loosing the Maindeckable way to include GY Hate. I asume decks like Reanimator, Loam (Agrro+Lands), Storm would run wild then, because fair decks lose a major form of interaction.

I don't know if the format needs to become even more unfair after the fun police in form of Miracles is gone.

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Originally Posted by MorphBerlin

While I agree that DRS is probably one of the most powerful cards now I don't know if all people understand the consequences in mind. It will exclusivly hit fair decks, that lose a big tool to keep up with the unfair stuff because of the provided mana acceleraio, as well a loosing the Maindeckable way to include GY Hate. I asume decks like Reanimator, Loam (Agrro+Lands), Storm would run wild then, because fair decks lose a major form of interaction.

I don't know if the format needs to become even more unfair after the fun police in form of Miracles is gone.

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DRS doesn't only prey on unfair decks, it is also strong agains't fair strategy like Gobelins or Tempo *****.

They are decks without deathrite which can prey on Reanimator or Storm, but you won't see them until Deathrite is out.

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Originally Posted by Nestalim

DRS doesn't only prey on unfair decks, it is also strong agains't fair strategy like Gobelins or Tempo *****.

They are decks without deathrite which can prey on Reanimator or Storm, but you won't see them until Deathrite is out.

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You make it sound like a bad thing that there is a maindeckable hatebear to battle Reanimator, Storm, Dredge & Co.

On my scale DRS is a) as valuable for the format as Thalia to give creatures angles to interact with combo and b) flexible/powerful enought to act as a decks backbone like Ponder/Brainstorm

I still believe they should have made DRS only give G/B mana. He would still be amazing but wouldn't be so easily splashable to fix mana bases. Everything else about the card is pure Golgari but somehow he gives any coloured mana.

I want to see how the meta changes after the Top ban, but I do see DRS as overpowered, as others have already explained. Easily splashable, ramping, fixing, reaching, GY hating, life gaining and a 1/2 body. The worst part about him is, that he is as good in the lategame as he is in the early game and that he is permanently generating value - turn for turn. Not even Brainstorm does that. Every other 1-Drop in the format looks stupid against it, even Delver. Let alone Lavamancer, Mother of Runes etc.
The next few months will be very interesting to actually see, if he is too good for Legacy or not. He is the new king for sure though.

If you ban dts youre also going to have to ban bs for the same reason. Dont get carried away with bans, Unbans are a better way to change things up in the format

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Originally Posted by JDK

I do see DRS as overpowered [...]
Every other 1-Drop in the format looks stupid against it, even Delver. Let alone Lavamancer, Mother of Runes etc.

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I fully agree with the first sentence, while it seems to me that the second one demonstrates the opposite: the are plenty of other overpowered one drop. Also delver, lavamancer and mother of runes seem pretty overpowered, each single one of them; aether vial for example is another one (and way more difficult to interact with since shaman at least is a creature that dies to every removal in the format).

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Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat

If you ban dts youre also going to have to ban bs for the same reason.

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ArFo presented two reasons for the SDT bsn and one of it being logistic ones. Where does Brainstorm create similar logistic issues like SDT did?

DRS is very powerful, but not overpowered, principally because it very easily dies to a wide range of removal that is commonplace in many archetypes.

By contrast, a resolved top was virtually impossible to get rid of.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

ArFo presented two reasons for the SDT bsn and one of it being logistic ones. Where does Brainstorm create similar logistic issues like SDT did?

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He wasn't talking about SDT, but Deathrite Shaman. No idea why he abbreviated it as DTS though...

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Originally Posted by Smuggo

DRS is very powerful, but not overpowered, principally because it very easily dies to a wide range of removal that is commonplace in many archetypes.

By contrast, a resolved top was virtually impossible to get rid of.

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Are you seriously comparing DRS and Top straight up? That's like comparing Tendrils of Agony and Natural Order..

DRS will take over the format now, and hopefully Wizards will react with a ban!

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Originally Posted by Sigar

Are you seriously comparing DRS and Top straight up? That's like comparing Tendrils of Agony and Natural Order..

DRS will take over the format now, and hopefully Wizards will react with a ban!

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I'm not comparing them directly, but I'm pointing out that DRS has answers, loads of them, wheras Top did not.

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Originally Posted by H

He wasn't talking about SDT, but Deathrite Shaman. No idea why he abbreviated it as DTS though...

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Then ignore what I said. Got confused thinking of [D]ivining [T]op[S]

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Originally Posted by talpa

I fully agree with the first sentence, while it seems to me that the second one demonstrates the opposite: the are plenty of other overpowered one drop. Also delver, lavamancer and mother of runes seem pretty overpowered, each single one of them; aether vial for example is another one (and way more difficult to interact with since shaman at least is a creature that dies to every removal in the format).

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You think all of those 1-Drops are overpowered? Firstly, how do they even compare to DRS? Delver is probably the only 1-Drop coming close to DRS, although it lacks the extreme versatility. Secondly, a card like Lavamancer runs out of resources pretty easily and it doesn't block other 1 power creatures all day. Mother on it's own is completely useless. Again, those creatures lack versatility (or have "just" enough). To me, those are good design tradeoffs. But that's just my opinion. You have yours which you are entitled to, of course. ^^

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Originally Posted by H

No idea why he abbreviated it as DTS though...

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Fat fingers.
QWERTY

Most guys posting here overestimate DRS power level quite a bit I think.

I played with him in Delver variants, BUG Midrange and Elves over the years.

Sure he has value against Storm, Reanimator and dredge, but it does not turn matchups around. These decks can play through/around it and are fast to just kill you if you go "manadork" - go.

His value against mana denial decks is there but Delver decks can just kill/daze it on sight which is a fair trade and DnT can lock it down with Revoker.

He is primarily mana acceleration which is fair because it is conditional - not having a land in GY for a 3 mana in turn 2 happens often enough.

He is strong because he has late game value which regular mana dorks don't But compared to a strong late game play on your opponents side he is mostly embarrassing. I know a very competent playgroup which cut him out of Stoneblade back then because he was "good" but not "good enough". Debateable decision of course but shows that he is not an "auto-4 of" as a splash if you are not BG.

Comparing to the other power 1 drops I feel:

Delver is MUCH stronger - How many people won games by playing delver and having their only land wasted but managed to protect their delver with 1 Force of Will... :) ... or you play Delver, Daze, Delver... Multiple DRS do not nearly offer the same incremental power compared to multiple Delver.

Delver was (semi) king before Miracles - and was still strong during miracles - so it is a fair assumption that if a 1 drop creature will be king - it won't be deathrite. ;)

Mother of Runes is hard to compare. But in the DnT mother is the best creature (? - never played the deck - but hated to play against mother sooo much)... the power level of MoR in D&T is arguably better than DRS in a BG deck.

Like any other creature which is viable in legacy DRS is overpowered in general :smile: ... but no problem in legacy standards. :wink:

About the format in general.

I don't think BG will be a problem at all.

1) BG has weaknesses against certain archetypes (killing fast in red, non basic hate, elves, DnT) so if there is a bit too much BG there is enough to keep it in check. The decks to keep it in check have again weaknesses against other decks. So hopefully there is a nice a "rock-paper-scissor" type of meta with a couple of Tier1 decks but also Tier2 deck on the top tables.

2) Stoneforge mystic should be a thing again. Lets see how deathrite battles against that jitte, skull, sword of X & Z in the late game. :)
Aside from SFM white in general offers the best removal spell and some premium SB options like Zealous Persecution and Rest in Peace which outperforms the options BG has....

3) ... especially because BG was mostly a requirement due to being able to Decay a Counterbalance. This is gone now - UWr, RUG, UR are all going to be viable I think.

No one can't deny the pressure DRS puts on the format, it will be silly to say otherwise.
Players did accept a lot of broken effects only to defeat the best deck in the format and now we only need to wait and see what Miracles was suppressing for all these years. I think the BUG shell was pushed a lot in the last years and now it might be to good.

Enviado desde mi Moto G (4) mediante Tapatalk

Miracles put pressure on the format.
Delver back then put pressure on the format (altough there were enough other decks to beat it).

Saying DRS is putting pressure on the format without seeing how it is going to develop after a major ban is silly.... don' you think? :tongue::wink:

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Originally Posted by Zirath

I think that the thing that's being overlooked here is the fact that Wizards (and more likely Hasbro since I'm guessing that sign showing up on social media was not something they were thrilled about) gave in to terrorism. There was a better ban to make in Counterbalance that didn't create a cascade effect in the short term. Despite that, the ban still opens up the possibility that if people make a spectacle of the situation, Wizards will feel compelled to make a move. This is a horrible precedent to set since it denies a conversation in the format's growth, which is how we end up with a format like Extended.

This ban was not based on and future bans will likely not be based on format health or what's fun. It's based on social pressure.

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More like...they stuck to their tried and true philosophy of "ban the enabler"...but good job sounding dramatic.

I get the arguments about DRS being too strong, but I am so uneasy about the idea of banning a 1/2 creature with summoning sickness.

I also think the raw power of other one-drops is underestimated. Mom and Lackey are the big ones, maybe also Goblin Welder. If DRS was gone and there was a metagame shift to bring those kinds of cards to the forefront, we would still be in the same position of "don't let them untap with this 1-drop"

DRS's casting cost makes it flexible enough to be ubiquitous, and the printing of cards like Leovold that synergize with it amplify its power. But it's still a 1/2 creature that you have to untap with. And when you untap with it, it's not like the game is just over.

Honestly I think Miracles did a lot more to speed up the format than DRS. People were trying to win before CB lock could get set up. And miracles dominated the late game so much that no other deck could compete in that space.

Look what Reanimator became. I mean if there was ever a deck that should've feared DRS it was that... and instead they just Chancellor you and then play Griselbrand before you even draw a card.

A greater variety of fair/long-game decks should be good for the format.

I don't understand the complaints about WOTC bowing to social pressure. Why is it so bad if WOTC listened to their players? This is some backwards logic y'all are deploying.

It's hard enough to get people into Legacy. This format is expensive as fuck.

Y'all should be happy for every warm body at your tournaments. Miracles was boring. Miracles was a net loss for fun. I don't care if you loved it. More people hated it.

If player complaints led to it being banned, then you should be glad! That means more players will show up to your events. More nerds for you to slay. More games for you to play. So what if they aren't all amazing players? What makes you so great? What have you been winning? If you're such a baller, then you should be happy to face against a scrub. That's free money right there.

Edit - maybe this was the wrong thread for this post.

Very much agreed with Dan. If you wanna see the difference between a local Miracles hero and an actual Legacy juggernaut, look no further than Joe's take on things.

I agree with catmint on questioning how potent DRS actually is, especially as a Delver player. Consider how DRS actually fits into a BUG Delver list- you're still on tempo and playing to kill the opponent on a super low curve before they can play anything meaningful. Base premise is still basically old canadian thresh. DRS does almost none of what that deck wants to actually do:

-DRS ramps for more expensive spells that we don't play
-Stabilizes mana against the wasteland mirror (super useful)
-Shuts out degenerate strategies that the deck destroys anyway
-Is an awful clock. Yeah the -2 is nice if you're going long. We don't want to go long.
-Keeps our bad MUs bad. Think how good DRS is vs goblins, smallpox, etc. It sucks.
-It eats mana like crazy and encourages playing more lands in a deck that happily runs off 2 and shuffles the rest back.

Delver fundamentally requires very few creatures for more flip chances to begin with. So you have like 12 creature spots, Delver and Goyf/Pyro aren't going anywhere. Shaman is NOT a great fit for those last 4 cards. Unless my hand was way soft to Wasteland, I would basically jam first turn Delver between the two every time, since more turns to swing for 3 is really, really good in a deck based around killing the opponent.

Is the card powerful? Undeniably. But that doesn't give license to put it into every B/G list and call it. Legacy is a format where you can overpower someone with anything, and in a similar sense not every blue deck needs say Ponder (looking at you, Miracles). I don't see the card as even close to problematic, let alone banworthy. I pretty much agree with whoever said the article was click bait.

A lot of people don't want to play legacy because it has a reputation as a broken fast combo format. With Miracles gone, that is going to be far more true than it was before.

Maharis - Miracles did not speed up the format, it pushed most t1/2/3 combo decks out of t1. This allowed space for decks that don't win in the first 3 turns. Its effect on the format can't be limited to 'games you play against Miracles' - it warped the format as a whole, and IMO it was in a positive direction. But I like Magic games that go longer than 3 turns.

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Originally Posted by danyul

I don't understand the complaints about WOTC bowing to social pressure. Why is it so bad if WOTC listened to their players? This is some backwards logic y'all are deploying.

It's hard enough to get people into Legacy. This format is expensive as fuck.

Y'all should be happy for every warm body at your tournaments. Miracles was boring. Miracles was a net loss for fun. I don't care if you loved it. More people hated it.

If player complaints led to it being banned, then you should be glad! That means more players will show up to your events. More nerds for you to slay. More games for you to play. So what if they aren't all amazing players? What makes you so great? What have you been winning? If you're such a baller, then you should be happy to face against a scrub. That's free money right there.

Edit - maybe this was the wrong thread for this post.

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I agree with your post, and I don't even think WotC was in any way pressured by players on this. People have been calling for a top ban (or at least a miracles nerf) for years and they didn't make any changes. I fully believe the reasons were the ones given, that it had been too good for too long and it slows down tournaments.

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Originally Posted by iatee

A lot of people don't want to play legacy because it has a reputation as a broken fast combo format. With Miracles gone, that is going to be far more true than it was before.

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And yet that was far from being the case even before Miracles became a deck. People, especially those who only really came into Legacy during the last ~5 years, way overestimate the influence of Miracles on the pressence of fast combo.

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Originally Posted by iatee

A lot of people don't want to play legacy because it has a reputation as a broken fast combo format. With Miracles gone, that is going to be far more true than it was before.

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I don't buy the idea that Miracles was policing combo. Delver can do that just fine. And Delver will return in force.

A lot of people didn't want to play Legacy because it had a reputation of being the home of the most boring deck of all time, Miracles. Why buy into a format just to watch some other dork durdle for 50 minutes? With Miracles gone, players will return. I count myself among those players.

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Originally Posted by Smuggo

I agree with your post, and I don't even think WotC was in any way pressured by players on this. People have been calling for a top ban (or at least a miracles nerf) for years and they didn't make any changes. I fully believe the reasons were the ones given, that it had been too good for too long and it slows down tournaments.

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Forsythe said on twitter that they were considering, at least partially, player complaints when it came to the ban. I don't really take their explanations on the official article at face value, although that's probably a fine reason to ban something IMO.

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Originally Posted by danyul

I don't buy the idea that Miracles was policing combo. Delver can do that just fine. And Delver will return in force.

A lot of people didn't want to play Legacy because it had a reputation of being the home of the most boring deck of all time, Miracles. Why buy into a format just to watch some other dork durdle for 50 minutes? With Miracles gone, players will return. I count myself among those players.

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There is also an unfortunate many people who think of two things when you say legacy: Belcher, and $$$$.

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Originally Posted by iatee

A lot of people don't want to play legacy because it has a reputation as a broken fast combo format. With Miracles gone, that is going to be far more true than it was before.

Maharis - Miracles did not speed up the format, it pushed most t1/2/3 combo decks out of t1. This allowed space for decks that don't win in the first 3 turns. Its effect on the format can't be limited to 'games you play against Miracles' - it warped the format as a whole, and IMO it was in a positive direction. But I like Magic games that go longer than 3 turns.

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What? Delver just as good if not better than Miracles at keeping combo suppressed. All Miracles really did was make any non super fast combo not viable. If what you are saying was true then why was Belcher/Dredge/Storm/Reanimator not completely dominating the format before miracles existed? This is pure lunacy.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

What? Delver just as good if not better than Miracles at keeping combo suppressed. All Miracles really did was make any non super fast combo not viable. If what you are saying was true then why was Belcher/Dredge/Storm/Reanimator not completely dominating the format before miracles existed? This is pure lunacy.

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I'm pretty sure that countermagic, graveyard hate and general purpose combo hate didn't exist before miracles became a deck. :frown: /s

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

What? Delver just as good if not better than Miracles at keeping combo suppressed. All Miracles really did was make any non super fast combo not viable. If what you are saying was true then why was Belcher/Dredge/Storm/Reanimator not completely dominating the format before miracles existed? This is pure lunacy.

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Yeah, even in our small local metagame, all our Storm players moved on, even though we only really had one Miracles player (and he was one of the players who would play Storm from time to time). A fair portion of the meta overall is hostile to Storm. Even Death and Taxes is no slouch versus Storm now, provided they don't turn 1/2 you.

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Originally Posted by Julian23

And yet that was far from being the case even before Miracles became a deck. People, especially those who only really came into Legacy during the last ~5 years, way overestimate the influence of Miracles on the pressence of fast combo.

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Its quite ironical that Counterbalance + SDT and Ancient Tomb + Chalice were often the fastest "I win" combos in the format

I have been playing a lot of storm on MTGO the past few months just for a break from my paper collection which is mostly midrange nonsense.

I never felt that CB & Top was the threat out of Miracles. Usually storm was fast enough to win before it came down, or win through it if they only had limited stuff floating. Once storm added Decay to the maindeck it was even easier because you could Decay CB end of turn then go off.

I also played Miracles for a time in paper and lost with CB & Top on board a couple times for the same reason. You can only float so much stuff and activate top so many times.

But post-board when the Flusterstorms and Surgicals came in, the matchup was harder. In the same way, it's way harder to beat Sea->Deathrite->Go and a grip full of countermagic. The clock is important.

Miracles didn't stop any combo decks from succeeding with the right adaptations. The No. 2 deck the day SDT was banned was Sneak & Show. Reanimator was winning on turn 0.5. Storm was OK. The idea that only Miracles was stopping degenerate combos is incorrect. The only reason it could was because it was so good against fair decks that it could overload for combo in games 2 & 3 and make CB/Top more relevant by getting to a later point in the game.

Combo decks do not want to face a clock + interaction, which is more likely now that there will be more fair decks that aren't trying to win or lock you out before turn 3. They'll likely adapt to the new meta, but the games should be good and interactive.

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Originally Posted by maharis

I have been playing a lot of storm on MTGO the past few months just for a break from my paper collection which is mostly midrange nonsense.

I never felt that CB & Top was the threat out of Miracles. Usually storm was fast enough to win before it came down, or win through it if they only had limited stuff floating. Once storm added Decay to the maindeck it was even easier because you could Decay CB end of turn then go off.

I also played Miracles for a time in paper and lost with CB & Top on board a couple times for the same reason. You can only float so much stuff and activate top so many times.

But post-board when the Flusterstorms and Surgicals came in, the matchup was harder. In the same way, it's way harder to beat Sea->Deathrite->Go and a grip full of countermagic. The clock is important.

Miracles didn't stop any combo decks from succeeding with the right adaptations. The No. 2 deck the day SDT was banned was Sneak & Show. Reanimator was winning on turn 0.5. Storm was OK. The idea that only Miracles was stopping degenerate combos is incorrect. The only reason it could was because it was so good against fair decks that it could overload for combo in games 2 & 3 and make CB/Top more relevant by getting to a later point in the game.

Combo decks do not want to face a clock + interaction, which is more likely now that there will be more fair decks that aren't trying to win or lock you out before turn 3. They'll likely adapt to the new meta, but the games should be good and interactive.

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Agreed. Do you think TES will make a comeback, or at least maindeck Silence replacing Decay now that Counterbalance is gone, or is Chalice enough of a permanent fixture that Decay is here to stay as well?

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Originally Posted by Julian23

Very much agreed with Dan. If you wanna see the difference between a local Miracles hero and an actual Legacy juggernaut, look no further than Joe's take on things.

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At first, I was angry, hurt, and upset, but after thinking about it and speaking with Anuraag, I've mostly resolved myself to the decision and am looking ahead. Legacy is always going to be the best format and the writing was honestly on the wall with all of the work we were putting into the archetype. It became more and more vocal as more and more people picked up the deck and then, like a hammer, the ban finally happened. I am no longer angry or upset. I am going to put my effort towards other things, such as maybe seeing if there IS a control deck that can fill that void if possible. If not, I'll play a new deck, so on and so forth.

I do NOT want Legacy to become what modern is, a barren wasteland where people are afraid to play or buy decks, or to work on decks to make them better, in fear of banning. I understand that DRS is ubiquitous in most of the format, but I don't really care that much, I would rather simply allow Legacy to continue self regulating. If something becomes too good, there will be outcry, rebellion, and lashing out and it'll be gone eventually. So it goes.

It's a Brave New World out there now, and what you choose to do with your time is up to you. I'll be doing what I've always done: tapping islands.

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Originally Posted by Richard Cheese

Agreed. Do you think TES will make a comeback, or at least maindeck Silence replacing Decay now that Counterbalance is gone, or is Chalice enough of a permanent fixture that Decay is here to stay as well?

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TES has less issues with DRS than ANT, but that means nothing at this point, as the meta isn't settled down yet. Silence in TES is dead since 2013 when people started to run variable hate. Chalice can get handled with blue bounce

There have been two deck killing bans in 7 years. Survival and Top (the bans of Misstep and the retarded delve spells don't count because they were clearly busted and didn't kill off complete archetypes) were both very very powerful cards that gained printings that made them extra dumb. Honestly if any card really is the next to be looked at it's probably Show and Tell, but that would have to put up some very good #'s to even be considered at this point. I guess we've never had a Griselbrand format without Miracles at least existing, but I think Show and Tell has enough of a downside that it would never reach the numbers miracles did for the long period of time that it did.

Edit: forgot my original intent. The notion that Legacy might turn into modern where any best deck gets banned is dumb. Modern seems to see a ban at this point once a year and it's generally archetype killing or at least crippling bans. Legacy a deck has to be very dominant for a good amount of time a lot with the fact that we have so few large tourneys it's difficult for WOTC to assess the format at times.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

TES has less issues with DRS than ANT, but that means nothing at this point, as the meta isn't settled down yet. Silence in TES is dead since 2013 when people started to run variable hate. Chalice can get handled with blue bounce

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Sorry for double post, but I agree with this. The chalice decks generally run watseland so having to fetch out an off color dual to decay chalice feels super bad. I'd rather play more Hurkyll's, Rebuild, and Chain of Vapor now than decay if I were building storm. I also Personally think I might run a Karakas in the board of ANT again.

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Originally Posted by Richard Cheese

Agreed. Do you think TES will make a comeback, or at least maindeck Silence replacing Decay now that Counterbalance is gone, or is Chalice enough of a permanent fixture that Decay is here to stay as well?

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I'm flattered that you would ask me haha. I'm terrible at storm still. But it is fun.

I'm actually torn between keeping Decays in the board and playing Ancient Grudge. Many of the Chalice decks are also playing 3ball or Thorn now. I got destroyed by that Big Eldrazi deck the other day and had I been able to keep it off mana I would've been in better shape. Grudge also allows you to nuke Vial and Revoker with one card against D&T.

Either way, I think green is still necessary because of Xantid Swarm, which I like a lot more now because you can probably count on a lot of UBx decks that are going to try to clock you with a Delver or DRS. Forces them to leave in removal that's largely bad.

Speaking of largely bad removal, I'm trying Bolt in my board. Hits all the little weenies that drive you nuts and can close things out in a pinch. Good against Leovold. Hasn't come up yet though.