Printable View
No. For selfish reasons, i would kind of enjoy Legacy without Brainstorm. The loss of Brainstorm would definetely weaken all the Delver/Daze/Wasteland shells, and would give me more slots for some copies of Pyroclasm in the SB/MD (to show these Death and Taxes/Elves players, that the loss of Brainstorm isn't hurting very much) and 4 Jace in the maindeck.Quote:
Originally Posted by kingsey
The issue with Dragon is logistics, not power. It's not good for people to be able to just draw games whenever they want.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkenslight
Survival is fine, and the analysis in Durward's videos is terrible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicar in a tutu
That makes sense. So, if it's possible to change that via a Rules change, would that allow for WGD to come off the banned list? More importantly, is that more or less powerful than reanimating Griselbrand?Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
I'm honestly a little leery of this, but I can see why others wouldn't be.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
At times, I think the same thing about some cards. However, WotC hardly supports Legacy. I cannot imagine them putting in the effort it would take just to get WGD off of the banned list.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkenslight
However, they have been giving Legacy players a lot of great reprints on MODO to make sure these eternal formats can thrive online. I could see them supporting the format more and making decisions like the one you mentioned (maybe not this exact one) if it continues to grow. Rule changes are big though and would have to be tested in multiple formats and is the juice really worth the squeeze?
I don't understand how the ability to force draws (rather than win immediately) is really a problem. (There is some silliness w.r.t. draws in the rules, but that's not really WGD's fault.) I don't think that they want to revisit the draw rules though, when it's much easier to just leave WGD on the ban list.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
Winning the game ends the round. Bringing it to a draw does not. You simply play another game until a winner is decided or until 50+ minutes later.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
The ability to just draw games when you're already 1-0 ahead makes it much more likely to just time out the match. Also known as stalling, which is cheating.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
It's the reason they BANNED a card in Vintage.
That's the reason you get DQ'd for the 4 Horseman LoopQuote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
That aspect of things can be addressed by calling draws 0.5 wins for each player (or by fixing the draw rules in other ways). [EDIT: As I wrote - they'd have to fix the rules to make WGD unban material.] Any card that damages both players at the same time can cause draws, but we don't see Hurricane on the ban list - so it's an issue of WGD *easily* causing draws, and I'm not sure that it's any easier to draw with WGD than it is to win with Griselbrand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
Hello,
the Dragon is also an Infinite Mana Engine in combination with an reanimator enchantment. So it not only force draw its also ensures
that you win if you have things like stroke in your hand.
Best regards Teveshszat
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adryan
Non-blue colors do have very effective ways to fight combo on the play. On the draw it really comes down to whether the opponent had the nuts or not in their opening 7.
Chalice of the Void (set to zero will stop non-High Tide combo dead in it's tracks until it finds a bounce, set to 1 off of any number of acceleration devices will stop High Tide), Thoughtseize, Leylines of the Void and Sanctity (can stop combo even on the draw), Surgical Extraction (can stop any combo list even on the draw), Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares for Painter combo, Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast for Storm combo, Mox Diamond to let Loam play Rest in Peace or Spirit of the Labyrinth or Ethersworn Canonist on turn 1,etc.
Force of Will will not be absent from the meta in the case of a Brainstorm ban, Just likely not in 65% of all top 8 lists. Combo will still be as vulnerable as it was before Brainstorms ban, both because some combo lists lose Brainstorm and because the blue meta squats really hard on archetypes that are naturally hostile to combo like Moon Stompy, Junk, Suicide Black and MUD while encouraging patsies to combo like Burn, Elves and D&T.
Combo will be worse if fewer blue lists are played, not better. The hate will be less predictable and will come from many different directions instead of just FoW and Daze.
Jund doesn't play 3 Sylvan Library because it is a dead draw after the first is down. Jund is active on every turn or they're likely dead.
It's a well documented fact that combo cannot win unless they cast Lion's Eye Diamond.Quote:
Originally Posted by AggroControl
Storm Combo can't win on turn 1 without some form of zero casting cost artifact dropping. TES has 8-11 zero cc artifacts in the list. ANT has 8-9. Dredge's best starts come off of LED on turn 1. Belcher has 12 zero cc artifacts. Ooops All Spells has 8 zero cc artifacts and wins off of Summoner's Pact a lot of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by iamajellydonut
Give me a Chalice at zero before combo has played and I'll be about 80% confident I am winning that game.
I think we are all well aware of this. It's powerlevel as a game-ending card is not the problem as I guess people will agree that's pretty weak compared to the other options.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teveshszat
Painter ?
Elfball ?
Neither painter or Elves wins on T1, so non blue decks still can interact
Painter dies to a bolt or StP in reaction to the activation. I won a game recently playing Jund in which the Painter player went first and dropped LED, artifact land, Mox Opal and 2 Grindstones on turn 1. He just needed one more mana source and Painter's Servant and I was dead on his turn 3 unless I drew another bolt. I dropped a Bloodstained Mire, holding a bolt and just prayed that he didn't drop Painter's Servant and another land on turn 2. He did have the Painter's Servant but he had no land and he got impatient and sac'd LED to try for the win. When he activated Grindstone I fetched a Badlands and bolted the Painter's Servant. Game over for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matsaya
Elfball dies to disruption like CoTV and Trinisphere and there are lots of tier 1.5 lists that can blow it out. The problem is that the current meta is very hostile to almost everything that is not blue that keeps it in check. This is true also for D&T but not to the same extent since D&T is grindier and at least gives the opponent several turns to react to their plays.
Yeah. And there is Griselband, which makes you win regardless of what's left in your hand. Dragon can and will stay banned forever. It's just a logistical nightmare for tournaments and for judges.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teveshszat
The fear that Dragon creates draws 'at will' is absurd - it no more does so than Earthquake or Oblivion Rings, outside of a given gamestate. Dragon was banned for power level reasons, and it has remained on the list for the same reason that Mind Over Matter did - WotC has been reluctant to actively prune the list.
Comparing it to Shahrazad (or even SDT) is a fundamentally flawed argument in that those cards are independently responsible for logistical issues outside of any other interaction.
While those cards can technically create draws. They are way less likely to do so than WGD.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellomdian
If he problem is that it makes draws too easy, and not just that it causes draws, then it's a power level issue. It's also not that hard to change the rules so that draws aren't quite so problematic (for example by penalising deliberate draws with game losses).Quote:
Originally Posted by menace13
Also WGD being a viable card in an infinite combo, the amount of play that it would see would far surpass that of earthquake/hurricane which see no play. PoP is the only card that sees play right now that creates draws that I can think of.
How is changing a fundamental aspect of the determination of a game's outcome 'easy'? It's already almost universally awful when a judge is involved in determining the outcome of a game - I can't imagine policy shifting this direction.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
I think you overrate 'viable' and 'amount of play' - while it was grossly simplified, I feel like Caleb Durward summed it up best when he said "Why would I reanimate Dragon when I could just get Griselbrand instead?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
And for the record, I am pretty sure I have seen more draws as a result of SDT in the last week than I have ever seen from WGD in formats when it was legal.
Voice of reason here: If the dragon's sole function is to cause draws, why do any of you want it unbanned?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellomdian
Becuse shorter list is somehow worth taking a card off the list that either does nothing or makes the format worse?Quote:
Originally Posted by ESG
I mean, just because a card is legal doesn't mean it's competitive or playable. Remember that people used to argue fervently that Land Tax was untouchable too, for various reasons. But the card was unbanned and none of those perceived issues about too much shuffling, etc. came into play, because simply no one played Tax. Similarly, Dragon seems much worse than any other combo deck in existence, gets hit the hardest with today's grave hate, it's harder to cause draws than in the past due to the increasing proliferation of creatures, and the lack of Bazaar means that the engine itself is 'fair' and beatable.
And to undress that argument even further, "If [c]Divine Intervention[/c]'s sole function is to cause draws, why is it legal?" A smaller banned list is intrinsically a good thing, so any unban should be the default without evidence that it's unsafe.
Note that this is basically the equivalent of a devil's advocate argument, because I've come to understand that Legacy has been forgotten by Wizards and we will not see another unban from now until that fateful day where WotC declares Legacy 'dead.'
Honestly, who here really would play with the Dragon these days over the many other options on the table?
Might as well ask the same question of Belcher or OmniShow, but people still play them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
True, but you see them once in a blue moon and the decks are unstable. I do not like WGD, I understand every argument against it, but I just can not find myself agreeing that it is such a big boggy man that it would realisticly fuck the format if unbanned. Yea, you will get Ties, yea, people will be dicks and push games to ties. But hey, people already do that with Miracles, Lands and sometimes Painter so whatever. Live and let live. Of all the cards that are on that list, WGD I feel is one of the tamer ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by iamajellydonut
WotC will never declare Legacy dead. What will happen is that both Vintage and Legacy will become proxy formats at some point and WotC will not sanction those events, effectively leading to a lack of support for the format. Vintage is almost there at this point.Quote:
Originally Posted by HammerAndSickled
Sry, that's not exactly good idea. So if you're at one life against opponent at two who has a Squire in play and you draw your only card and it is Earthquake and your only permanents are three Mountains, should you be punished for casting the said EQ for 2 dmg? That's silly, isn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
The Chinese are likely to take over before that happens. There's just too much money to be made to let that opportunity slip.Quote:
Originally Posted by AggroControl
There were thousands of Legacy staples at Gencon. Legacy will continue moving towards being an older employed persons format, as players age and get jobs and have money they'll stay with eternal magic. They are employed and have money so there's no need to sell their collections, they have discretionary income to buy whatever pittance of eternal playable cards come out of new sets. The ongoing cost of legacy or vintage isn't shit compared to standard. So attendance might slowly dwindle, but more likely it'll age slowly -- like a fine wine.Quote:
Originally Posted by AggroControl
The 65~ person vintage at Gencon had zero children. Somebodies nephew was playing a borrowed dredge deck. It was employed, middle aged (25-50) men with discretionary income ..... JUST LIKE ME.
The lack of counterfeits so far is kind of amazing if you think about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
I agree on all points. However this is a North American perspective. There are a lot of people who play Magic who don't have access to the cards and even in North America I've heard of shops running Legacy proxy tournaments for the cash they bring in. If you don't have a lot of Legacy staples for sale in your shop there is no reason not to collect $300 from 20 people willing to play in a proxy tournament.Quote:
Originally Posted by nedleeds
Would you even know if your opponents were playing counterfeits?Quote:
Originally Posted by AggroControl
Definitely discourages me from shelling out for any more old cards.
Only if you think there actually was a lack of counterfeits. You probably missed it but it's been a pretty big issue earlier this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by AggroControl
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by nedleeds
That's why I play these formats. I need to find people willing to play a 93/94 variant that allows cards through Mirage or something.
Whenever i print proxies with my printer at home, i always recognize that if i would invest some time, that no one at a tournament would realize that they are printed on a paper sheet...
What i want to say is that there are way more counterfeits out there than people think. Just don't try to sell them and no one will find out.