Indeed. Mind's Desire is not good in High Tide. It just doesn't have synergy with the deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by clavio
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Indeed. Mind's Desire is not good in High Tide. It just doesn't have synergy with the deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by clavio
You'll have to excuse me if I don't agree that a pile of 20-person tournaments forms good data. Those are more reflective of that particular tiny group of people and whatever pet decks they bring to the table at their LGS.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
Not to mention, it's kind of farcical to treat making "top 8" at a 15 person tournament the same as making "top 8" at a larger tournament; counting top 8s this way is a great way to generate worthless numbers.
Any reason to believe that "Jace Deck X" and "Tempo Deck Y" are magically underrepresented in smaller events?Quote:
Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
It's a Gentleman's Agreement.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
I don't know what it's like at your smaller tournaments, but weekly Legacy tournaments at my local game stores usually have a lot of budget decks present. People come in and they just want to play magic with the other regulars at the store, but they either can't afford or aren't willing to put out the money for a blue deck. Someone is always playing burn. Someone is always playing dredge. Someone is always playing a pet deck that no one has ever heard of before. The point is, budget decks occupy a significantly larger amount of the tournament in smaller tournaments than in bigger tournaments.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
Smaller events lead me to believe two possible scenarios:Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
1) Local shop with limited access to Legacy staples, limited funds by its players, or any sort of physical limitation for such decks to exist.
2) Smaller events have been in my experience, places to try off-the-radar type decks.
Both are fairly realistic, and my anecdotal evidence supports these beliefs. Obviously I cannot prove them, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Sure, but I hardly believe Jund, Elves, and Maverick are budget, off-the-radar type decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koby
I will play my Jace decks, my tempo decks, and my blue combo decks when I feel they are good choices, and I will play other options when I feel they are good choices. I've had more luck with non-Brainstorm, non-FoW decks recently, and I think it's incorrect and hurtful to the format for them to dismiss them as "pet decks" when they are in fact among the most consistently producing ones.
It doesn't even matter whether they're budget or not per se. If you built Maverick in 2011, there's a good chance you're still playing Maverick today at your LGS. You already have it built. You already put your money into it. A pet deck does not have to be a budget deck. It just has to be the deck you have built, which you enjoy playing well enough. And more often than not, pet decks can experience some success at your tiny LGS legacy scene, especially if your pet deck is matching up against other pet decks, many of which are actual budget decks, so you can be perfectly comfortable with it. I have personally played Maverick at my LGS, and the number of times I have played against a tier 1 deck is once. I still run into Pox decks ffs. Affinity, Dredge, Blazing Shoal-Infect combo... And speaking to the whole budget issue, I have played against a black stax deck that costs at least $2200+ between 4x Nether Void and 4x Tabernacle and 4x Bayou. That's not a budget deck. But guess what? It's still a pet deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
There are people who have access to thousands of $$ of staples, and can freely choose to play anything they want at any moment. Among those people, there is a subset that will always play one of the most potent decks available. There are many others who are not those people. Small tournaments that are focused around the very local meta full of any number of pet decks and random budget decks are not representative of the format. They are representative of that tiny local meta and nothing else. What is even more ridiculous is the pretense that "topping" one of these is the equivalent to "topping" an SCG or a Bazaar of Moxen tournament. Even if SCGs aren't Pro Tours, they represent a competition between a large number of fully powered decks, piloted by a good number of format regulars.
Let's use the Bazaar of Moxen as a guide then, since it's the largest and most competitive non-GP Legacy event.Quote:
Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
Main event in May with 709 players? Eight different archetypes: Elves (#2), Jund (#4), and Maverick (#5) represented.
Side event in May with 420 players? Seven different archetypes: Jund twice (#1, #4), Elves (#3), and Maverick (#5) represented. The 2nd place deck had some blue (Bant Aggro), but it was neither a Jace deck nor a tempo deck.
How about the most recent GP at Strasbourg in April with 1365 players? Death and Taxes at #1 and #4, Maverick at (#8).
GP Denver before that? Jund at #2 and #4, Elves at #5. Granted, this was in January.
You can keep sticking to your narrative that anyone who plays a non-blue deck can't afford anything else, clings onto a pet deck, and gets lucky if they happen to place well, and try to rationalize anything to that suggests otherwise. I'll observe metagame trends and go with what works.
Observing metagames is doing the same rationalization but from hindsight rather than foresight. Part of the problem is twofold:Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
1) You can't know the exact composition of events when you go into them.
2) You can't fix your pairings to get favorable matchups.
Playing non-blue isn't a budget decision. It's about playing a consistent deck. Blue decks, by and large, are able to cobble together consistent games across the entire tournament to float to the top. Non-blue decks need to get both consistent topdecks as well as good matchup (i.e., not-Belcher) in order to similarly succeed. That is the biggest difference between 4 round local events and 15 round GP events. In the local meta high risk decks actually gets rewarded since luck will favor them better. In the larger events, a high risk/reward deck might not even make elimination.
Example:
Suppose a deck has only 20% chance to fail every match. If it only plays 4 matches, it would succeed to go undefeated 41% of the time. If we're playing 15 rounds, then there's a 3.5% chance to do the same undefeated result. Given enough pilots, one might float to the top anyway.
TL;DR: local events have different constraints than larger events. Metagaming is easier when you know a larger portion of the total decks, and with fewer uncertainties. It's impossible to know the tournament composition going into the tournament. Best strategy is to play a consistent deck with even matchups.
Are we supposed to pretend that not doing as well is the same as doing equally well? The numbers you are quoting are still pitiful in the broader analysis, particularly when you analyze which legacy archetypes and strategies do well from year to year, across all sorts of varied metagames. Let's take this analysis for the past 6, 12 months, or 18 months and find that despite all the ups and downs, Jace.dec strategy has consistently been powerful, bluecombo.dec strategy has consistently been powerful, and bluetempo.dec strategy has consistently been powerful. Them's the facts. Those are core pillars. Maverick's performance over any significant length of time is fairly miserable in comparison (or any green-white GSZ strategy). I would have to look at Jund more closely but I do know that it hasn't nearly lived up to its initial "wave" that came with the printing of Abrupt Decay.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
In the very same top 8 where you say D&T took two spots, Delver tempo decks took 3 spots without any fanfare whatsoever. Why? Because Delver tempo decks always do well and no one even thinks it's anything special. Meanwhile the brief hint of an appearance of D&T leads to a lot of patronizing "oh man, the little white deck that could!" commentary that accurately reflects the general irrelevance of the strategy to the format. You go to the next tournament, there's Delver tempo deck winning some more, meanwhile D&T has retreated back into its hibernation, ready to show its face again maybe fourteen months from now. Remember when Stax won a SCG? ...who cares...?
You asked whether the metagame was still dominated by blue decks ("stagnant" with "Jace decks, tempo decks, and blue combo decks"), and the answer was clearly no, whether you look at aggregate stats that include smaller tournaments or at the biggest Legacy events.Quote:
Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
If you want to change the goal posts, Jund and Elves were not top tier decks before they printed Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman. Decks tend to adapt to the metagame as well as adopt new cards, so that in itself is proof that Legacy is not stagnant. Moreover, every single deck with the exception of RUG Delver has gone in and out in popularity within the last two years (and Delver/Canadian Threshold was dormant for years until they printed Delver of Secrets). If you're going to claim that all these decks are essentially the same shell, you could just as easily claim that "green midrange/aggro" has been dominant since the days of Werebear and Mystic Enforcer. In fact, all five of the top played decks right now (RUG, BUG, Jund, Elves, Maverick) feature a strong green component.
I used to scour the "Too Much Information" articles from SCG before they stopped writing them. Only a handful of decks consistently put up over 60% match win over several tournaments. Three of them were Survival of the Fittest decks (of which G/W Survival boasted the highest percentage). The others were Zoo, Maverick, and RUG Delver. If they had more reliable information on the SCG circuit, I'd be glad to look at the numbers, but excuse me if I'm not claiming that blue needs to be banned when three non-blue decks that maybe make up 20-30% of the meta consistently put up 30-40% of the top results.
On one hand, you want to complain that budget players who cannot play blue are at a disadvantage because they are unable to respond to metagame shifts (note that that is not a "non-blue" problem), yet at the same time, you want to complain that the format is stagnant. Which one is it?
It's not always a money issue. I just spent a lot on cards. Built a stompy deck, bought duals and Cradles for my elves and the grabbed two boxes of Marsters. With that I could have built delver. I just don't want to.
Some people, believe it or not, just don't want to play blue. I myself see it as the lazy path down the road. I would rather play something more interesting than a "Draw, go" play style. I find it thankless and boring. But in the same vain I am glad others will play it so I do not see ANT and beltcher take over.
Accurate. The only "blue" decks I pilot are combo decks like High Tide and Storm. I can count on one hand the number of weekly tournaments (in 3 years of Legacy) where I have played tempo or blue-based control. I have played a lot of non-blue aggro and aggro-control, in addition to prison decks like Lands and Stax. I just don't like traditional blue strategies for some reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Seal is worse than mystical tutor with ease due to the sorcery speed status of it. Have to reveal what you tutor? Don't care when I win the next turn and am still getting very good card quality out of it. Only reason it was banned in the first place was due to price. Could it be unbanned if the price wasn't a factor? I'd say maybe, but its not as good as mystical tutor. Most vintage decks don't even run seal because it really isn't that good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
Tolarian academy is not remotely fair. Unban it and you have to ban every cheap artifact that is remotely playable. It's basically mishra's workshop.
Not revealing the card is pretty crucial. Imagine going Sea->Seal T1 for something. Your opponent has no idea what to do T1. You could be rock, combo, anything. Imagine now that you reveal a combo card, or a card that show what kind of deck you're playing. Suddendly it's a world of difference, as i know what i should and should not play (therapy++, leave mana open instead of delver, or play Familiar instead of Mom, Thalia instead of SFM etc...).Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Ritual
In which world people play Seal T1? In reanimator Vamp T1 was a common play, to find the missing piece of fatty/Entomb/Exhume. In rock decks it was also common if you knew what you were playing against to fetch silver bullets. Etc... Being a sorcery and revealing would make a world of difference. I've played a fair bit against the old monoblack reanimator in extended. If Vampiric had showed the tutored card and it was a sorcery, i can assure you it would have made a world of difference. Tutor Exhume? Therapy name Entomb, keep mana open for Daze/Force spike whatever counters etc...
Seal is worse than mystical in storm-based combo, but better everywhere else. With SnT around, i wouldn't want a Sea-> Seal -> find SnT/Fatty/sol land consistently opening hand, it remind me a lot of old extended reanimator (but here we aren't reanimating Multanis, Akromas, Iridiscent angels, or Verdant forces, and then WotC say it's the fault of reanimating spells OK). At least if it revealed, again, i'd know i was playing against SnT and i could play a bit accordingly. And i could play Predict because i like that card a lot!
IF SnT were banned, i think the card would be borderline. Very good in reanimator, but combining the life costs on everything and the fact that reanimator is a bit more hateable, plus considering it isn't fetchable to Force, maybe it wouldn't be too good. But it would be played a lot, and in a lot of different decks.
About tolarian, i still haven't seen a deck that would make it "broken" in legacy, and i'm pretty sure there aren't. Very good decks, sure, like Affinity that power up swords with ease T2 and T3, or slightly better MUD variants and Artifact Time Spiral decks, but nothing gamebreaking and, more importantly, all kind of deck that would be easily hated out. I suggest you to look at the Banned deckbuilding challenge topic, there are some lists and brainstorming there, about all those supposed "broken" cards, and to see why Academy isn't as easy to break as it appear in the current Legacy format.
The issue with Academy is that you can make with it explosive starts that nothing else matches while holding a commanding board presence. Add on that the fact that ANY printed artifact from here on out can be twisted and used in ways otherwise not intended means that even though WOTC say they do not test for Legacy, they would at least have to keep it in mind. The issue is not that there is no deck that right now breaks the card in the format, thats a blessing not an issue. The issue is that you will hand that card to the masses and say "Do your worst" and they will.
Really the only people I think really want the card unbanned are the people that own 40 copies of it.
While in the right deck Tolaria could make a considerable amount of mana and power out things before the normal casting curve would allow, I really fail to see how that could lead to "ANY printed artifact from here on out can be twisted and used in ways otherwise not intended". Is not like we aren't already able to cope with things like Reanimator, Show and Tell, ANT/TES or even Belcher powering out things before they are intended.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
About the explosive start thing, in Legacy there is no jewelry to make a inherent part of a deck providing cheap artifact without wasting slots or Whorkshopd to power out higher cost artifacts. What cheap artifacts do we have that could be deployed in the first/second turn to enable that also provide a "commanding" board presence? Once you star filling a dec with things like Opals, Diamonds and Petals you start to get into the MUD/Stax/SI consistency issues territory, where your deck can make great first turn plays but at the cost of having a bunch of cards useless on their own unless you open the perfect mix of acceleration, protection and bombs. I doubt it will create something more explosive and stable than current incarnations of ANT/TES/Reanimator, and one you get pass the first couple of turn, something more stable and powerful than Show And Tell variants.
Its most probable use will be more like Serra Sanctum in enchantress than Gaea's Cradle in elves, providing Tezzeretor or MUD style decks a way to convert their artifact board presence once they reach the middle game into a great supply of mana to do obscene things, like enchantrees abuses Sanctum to keep pouring enchantments and its engine rolling or make a ton of pegasi for the win prior to the Sigil printing, but even if artifacts are usually more powerful than enchamentes I doubt Tezzerator will rise to an unbeatable tier 1 deck. That's the thing to really discuss: people will try to do their "worst" and they will, but it will be like Mental Misstep, where that worst broke the format, like Delver, where its worst reshaped the format without breaking it, or Land Tax/Grim Monolith, where even if people tried to make the worst of them their impact has been negligible.
When is the next announcement? It wasn't supposed to be 16th July?