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I am totally with you here. I am all for powerful cards which don't slip easily into the colorless ramp or Fetchland shells. Unfortunately, we are at a point where WotC has to come up with very artificial Restrictions to prevent new cards to be simply absorbed by the 3c/4c goodstuff.decs. From SFM to Tombstalker to Decay, we have seen countless examples of that happened stillQuote:
Originally Posted by Cire
If we're fair though, these cards create non-games against one-trick pony non-game decks. Why does Priest shut down Sneakshow? Because it's so heavily focused on doing one thing well (which is good deck design.) Why does Chalice shut down Delver? Because it does one thing well. We can go on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
These decks are weak to a hate card because they are utterly optimized for a single style of interaction. People, like myself, who like midrange like the resilience and versatility of Dudes + Disruption being bigger, but suffer from Jack of all Trades. Storm and other combos instead eat people alive who aren't ready, and die a horrible death to a single card half the time.
The idea that the Non-Game of "Ritual x3, Tutor, Pif, Tutor, kill you" on T2 is any different from the non-game of "Canonist, go" is artificial. The non-game of S&T "Lol I win" isn't much different from the non-game of "CPriest eot" except that the latter in each case is a weaker strategy that requires a bunch of supporting cards to not still lose. The idea that the non-game of Dredge where basically no decks win G1 isn't a balancing factor to the fact that it still usually loses G2 and G3 is because it's a one-trick pony.
Competitive magic designs one-trick ponies because they are very efficient, but not versatile. This is why non-games occur. Competitive play is usually based on hyper-efficiency of redundant pieces rather than the mixed strategy approach, because decks/lists you should be favored against can beat you when you draw the "wrong half" of your list. And going back to Midrange decks, this is exactly why they don't always perform well. They are jack of all trades who are often specialized only for a couple MUs, and generally alright against the myriad of others.
Tescrin:
If we're just going to have all the games decided by matchups, it's simply a disguised series of coinflips. And that's no fun for anyone.
Interesting that you say Lotus isn't a pillar of Vintage but that Ritual and Tomb are pillars in Legacy. Curious on what distinction you're making here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
It seems like the real problem is that no other color has the ability to make things run as consistently as BS/Ponder does in blue. I think the answer is a little more creativity on card creation instead of trying to give every color (or a colorless) brainstorm. I don't think it would be that hard..Quote:
Originally Posted by morgan_coke
Leovold should have been a white card. If it was the you would have it pretty simple: blue and green already have filtering and tutor-ish effects which you discussed above; white should be the color that turns filtering/drawing off e.g. white Leovold; black is pay life for more cards so less filtering more raw card availability; red gets Faithless Looting but they could also print a card using the Eidolon of the Great Revel design space. RR 2/2 "If a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn, Eidolon of the Great Revel deals 2 damage to that player instead."
A world with that Eidolon and a white Leovold might actually see a Boros deck compete with the blue shell in legacy. The format could theoretically become way more diverse if there were another color that could compete directly against the generic blue shell. It would have to be something that hates on those cards otherwise you will just get decks combining both.
Spirit of the LabyrinthQuote:
Originally Posted by Purple Blood
Chains of Mephistopheles
Fate Unraveler
Kambal, Consul of Allocation
That's white/black, but it's been done. Doesn't really work, though the costs may simply be too high. Really anything after T1, maybe T2 isn't going to have the kind of effect you want because by that time they've already used a few cantrips.
Should Leovold have been white?
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Ca...tiverseid=3549
I agree that cantrips don't play nicely with CotV. But I was talking specifically about fetchlands. Aggro Loam is probably the best CotV deck in the format, and it would suck without fetchlands. Lands I would not characterise as a "Chalice deck", but it certainly leans on the card a bit is certain post board situations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
That's a bit extreme, don't you think? I think feel like most matches fall between 50:50 and 65:35.Quote:
Originally Posted by morgan_coke
Legacy meta-gaming and deck positioning is heavily rooted in match-ups, but they are not the be all and end all. Matches and games are by no means "decided" by pairing before hands are even drawn and kept.
Tomb decks don't really have the numbers to merit a different category from Other imho. It's basically all cantrip cartel, with elves/D&T as the next most played deck i believe at 4%? Tomb is way below that, and even in the full Eldrazi winter i believe they hovered around 10% at most.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cire
Ah and btw WotC decision to restrict decklist is such garbage tier concern whine.
Ah yeah, of course, the categories aren't equal. Far from it. The Cantrip/Fetch shell would be almost the entire game, the rest will be "Other" and Tomb shell is the rest. The point was that's generally how decks are built in legacy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
Step 1: Choose your kill
Step 2: Does your kill fit in Cantrip/Fetch Shell, if yes go to Step 3A, if not go to Step 3B
Step 3A: Fill in the remaining spots of your deck with either more threats and/or more protection
Step 3B: Does your kill fit in Tomb Shell, if yes go to Step 4A, if not go to Step 4B
Step 4A: Fill in the remaining spots of your deck with either more threats and/or more protection
Step 4B: Your kill apparently requires a strategy that CANNOT fit into a Cantrip/Fetch Shell OR a Tomb Shell, Fill in the remaining spots of your deck with either more threats and/or more protection.
My point is that is the general ORDER of deck building in legacy. If you CAN run Cantrip/Fetch you do, if not, if you CAN run Tomb you do, if not, you're playing an idiosyncratic deck which is completely unlike ANY other deck in legacy. Look at the decks that are "Other" - Enchantress, elves, dredge, D&T, lands, pox, etc - they might have similar strategies to other decks but they look and run cards completely different than any other deck other than themselves. That is not to say they are a smaller percentage of decks than tomb decks, they are not, but generally when a new card presents itself people first try to stick it into a Cantrip/Fetch shell then they think of putting it into a stompy or some chalice type deck and only then if it doesn't work do they think of whether it deserves a completely different set of cards around it.
He definetly shouldn't be blue.. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I don't really understand why he is green either other than him being an elf. I think the last time this topic came around someone pointed out that if he had been any other colors he would have messed with the legendary creature cycle that they had in conspiracy 2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Miagi
My problem with his is his one sided chains ability. Like at least there would be some sort of downside to playing him in a blue deck with 8+ cantrips if he were like all the other chains variants. Cards with actual downside or restrictions to deck building to get a powerful effect make for interesting deck building decisions. When it's one sided it's just incredibly lame
I don't know that I really buy that assessment. In both cases the former requires multiple different pieces to win where the hatebear deck taps 2 lands and deploys a one-card combo that needs zero support to win a game (b/c it says opponent can't win in such and such manner and will take 2 per turn). I get that a fair deck has the most terrible feeling losses if their opponent goes SnT -> Omni -> Emmy (could also be SnT->Grisel), but that's always going to be harder to assemble than "I tapped for 2 mana and they couldn't win b/c I played a single card." Every deck in legacy has to have the right supporting cards, but hatebear decks are silver bullets...and it's always going to feel better to get locked out by a deck with deliberate proactive design which assembles a multi-piece prison (specifically in a format where they don't get to have a playset of Workshops). The fact of the matter is a fair deck in legacy will never have to face a Leyline/1-drop/2-drop card that has text like: "creatures can only enter the battlefield from the graveyard" or "as long as there is only one spell on the stack, it is countered" - and even if they did have to face it, it probably wouldn't simultaneously put them on a 10 turn clock. This isn't really a fixable problem though, sadly the old days are gone and "you can't win like that" cards no longer have cumulative upkeep or other sustain text, nor do that have drawbacks. A deck like SnT is a one trick pony, but hatebear decks are merely a pile of different one trick ponies.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
Don't know where else to post this since it isn't really threadworthy yet but the August pro tour next year is team constructed so legacy pro tour lol.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...lds-2017-07-19
That's surprising but cool (as long as it isn't used to manage the format at all....). The commentary should be hilarious at least.
Oh nice, I hope this means that we'll see some bannings (eh on this) & unbannings (preferably) in the near future to promote Legacy as a format. I can hear the modern babies crying already seeing modern being back in the spotlight.Quote:
Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE
To be fair to them this did not go well for modern last time haha. Kinda silly that there is no explanation for why modern is back on the schedule despite all the problems with it being exactly the same still.
Probably mostly PR. Standard is not at all popular right now and no one is excited about it at all. Modern, despite "having issues" is more popular than ever, from what I've seen of attendance figures.Quote:
Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE
Well look on the bright side, if you have money spare you can start buying shit now with near on no risk. Yay.
In Vintage, FoW and Dark Ritual were listed seperately as pillars and still get played alongside more often than not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Chalice is a SB card in Loam variants atm and merely are an anomaly like the deck itself is.
When was FoW a pillar? The 5 pillars as I remember them were Ritual, Shops, Bazaar, Drain and Null Rod.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear