The new Legacy metagame

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Originally Posted by btm10

I actually think Burn gets marginally worse since Miracles was a pretty good matchup (once Surgical almost completely displaced Rest in Peace) and the combo decks that will take up some of that meta share are tougher for it than Miracles was.

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Elves won't be tougher than Miracles - especially since cutting Exquisite Firecraft makes room for more Searing Blood.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Savvy Miracles Pilots are trading their Tundras for The Tabdrnacle At Pendrell Vale. :wink:

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I realize you're joking, but I don't think that's likely. Cost issues aside, Lands can still be hated out, and the cards that are good against Lands (Wasteland, Pithing Needle, Chalice, nonbasic land hate, and graveyard hate) are all still good against the field (and many are getting better). If people want to hate Lands out, most can do it without hurting their other matchups too much. When people sleeve up interactive blue decks, they're almost always saying that they plan to outplay enough opponents to go X-1-1 or X-2 without having to worry about many specific matchups, and Lands doesn't usually offer that experience.

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Originally Posted by Maximus

I don't think storm cares a lot about Leo, it's just another hatebear. I would still be much more afraid of Thalia between the two. It will be nice to not have to sideboard 8-9 cards for a single MU though. Also agree with whoever said the Level 0 prediction of storm and elves coming back. I'll take this one step further and call generic creature decks coming back as well. Maverick isn't nearly as "fair" a deck as people make it out to be.

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Storm cares about Leo if he's what comes at the end of threat into Hymn into Thoughtseize. If people start playing more Flusterstorms or Mindbreak Traps his value will go up against​ Storm.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Elves won't be tougher than Miracles - especially since cutting Exquisite Firecraft makes room for more Searing Blood.

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Elves is a fine matchup for Burn. ANT and Sneak and Show are uphill (though not as much as people think).

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

I will say that Miracles definitely punched Storm in the gut, but the card that I contend actually killed the deck is Leovold.

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I think Sanctum Prelate is high in contention for this honour. If it didn't exist, I'd immediately sleeve up Storm. But having an even or slightly negative Death & Taxes matchup is just embarrassing. Worse, the Burn matchup isn't even that good anymore.

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Originally Posted by btm10

When people sleeve up interactive blue decks, they're almost always saying that they plan to outplay enough opponents to go X-1-1 or X-2 without having to worry about many specific matchups, and Lands doesn't usually offer that experience.

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Delver is an interactive blue deck.

When people sleeve up the Miracles, sometimes it's because they want a hard control deck that's interesting to pilot. Some of them will look to RUG Lands - the "purest" control deck going.

With Terminus gone, I wonder about the following thing:

Could some kind of Affinity/Ravager Staxx deck become a thing now? Walking Ballista is an incredible stupid card when paired up with Ravager (or Steel Overseer) and depending on how you build it, you could run Chalice and/or multiple Sphere effects.

Sample list

Sure, Legacy doesn't have Workshop or broken artifact mana, but I think it might be worth exploring, simply due to higher resilience to Blood Moon/mana denial compared to Eldrazi.

Check out the affinity thread I've been posting on for the last 2 weeks.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Whitefaces will disagree all day without providing any supporting argument, but while CB was difficult for Storm decks to fight through, it's not like it was impossible to beat. Of course when games go long Storm is going to lose; that's how the deck works. I've been killed by ANT through an on-curve 2 CB as often as I've blind flipped just what I needed to in order to counter their go-spell.

I will say that Miracles definitely punched Storm in the gut, but the card that I contend actually killed the deck is Leovold. Being able to draw 10+ cards during the ANT player's go-turn means that you can pretty much find any answer that you need. Now, if decks start playing ETW as the payoff instead, that will change. But look at it this way:

• With Miracles in the format, Storm was effectively forced into going to Tendrils every time since ETW was less effective
• With Miracles and Leovold in the format, neither of Storm's finishers would get the job done since Tendrils now could be Mindbreak Trapped or Flusterstormed away after the opponent drew half their deck. AND the Storm player now could no longer cantrip to set up their go-turn
• With Miracles out of the format, Storm will be looking towards ETW as the main finisher as Leovold remains present, but the issue of Leovold preventing them from sculpting their hand remains

I don't think see Storm's numbers going up as much as you're anticipating.

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'Of course when games go long Storm is going to lose' - this wasn't true at all until recently. Post board, with the grinding station setup that was widely adapted, it definitely favoured Storm as they could set up land drops with cantrips/top for a very easy combo turn with PiF.

But I think Miracles was favoured vs Storm in the last year, though it was a close matchup being very pilot dependent. CB wasn't the killer itself, it was that backed up by the huge glut of countermagic and most importantly, surgical extraction and Snapcaster Mage taking away the ability to grind with multiple Tendrils.

Leovold absolutely didn't kill the deck. Ask any good Storm pilot and they're tell you differently. Leo is great vs them, but is still a hatebear, it's arguably worse than Meddling Mage or Canonist since you can still combo through them and hope they don't draw the Trap or Fluster if you've not set up enough mana floating. With something like Mage or Canonist, you still need to answer them first.

I mean, did you even follow the meta in the last half a year or so? Storm was the second best placing deck for a while on Goldfish. I agree with the others that Miracles leaving the format favours it.

I just pulled BUG out of the DTB and added ANT. Leo definitely killed storm...

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Originally Posted by T-101

Obviously there are huge ripple effects from Top that we won't fully understand for some time.

I'm sleeving up Maverick again. I think Storm will probably pick up, and like you mentioned, Elves. With that in mind, I'll probably hedge on more Zealous Persecutions, Null Rods, maybe an Engineered Plague, and some extra discard.

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This is some solid advise, and I will do the same.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Delver is an interactive blue deck.

When people sleeve up the Miracles, sometimes it's because they want a hard control deck that's interesting to pilot. Some of them will look to RUG Lands - the "purest" control deck going.

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While I agree, I think that it is a very difficult transition. They are somehow switching to a slower deck, plus the decks both play a heavily control game, but in vastly different ways. Playing counterspells and counter top is far different from trying to control the game via mana denial and tabernacle and punishing fires and recurring EE's.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I just pulled BUG out of the DTB and added ANT. Leo definitely killed storm...

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ANT is a DTB at the same time as Miracles? Miracles definitely killed Storm...

The DTB section isn't just his personal thoughts. It's a number driven section. His point is that Storm isn't dead at all. To either miracles or BUG despite some claims.

Legacy killed Storm!

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

While I agree, I think that it is a very difficult transition. They are somehow switching to a slower deck, plus the decks both play a heavily control game, but in vastly different ways. Playing counterspells and counter top is far different from trying to control the game via mana denial and tabernacle and punishing fires and recurring EE's.

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Absolutely. I am not expecting a mass migration!

But I believe there is a subset of Miracles players who have also enjoyed prison control over the course of their MTG hobby. An others who mostly enjoy control for the sake of control and might very well be willing to learn to play prison. Not every Miracles player will be happy to switch to midrange-control.

Basically I'm expecting a moderate surge in interest.

Also, some people are expecting combo summer, while others are predicting tons of fair creature decks. Obviously one of these argues more for Lands than the other!

BTM10 was half way correct, in that I was half way joking. :wink:

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

The DTB section isn't just his personal thoughts. It's a number driven section. His point is that Storm isn't dead at all. To either miracles or BUG despite some claims.

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Yet everybody claimed Miracles had no natural predators, despite Infect frequently showing up there. As if DTB were an objective numbers driven concept except for Infect. :laugh:

I'm not actually bitter, for the record. Just having fun.

Saying Infect was a predator of Miracles is a bit of a push.

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Originally Posted by Whitefaces

Saying Infect was a predator of Miracles is a bit of a push.

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it was virtually an auto-loss for Miracles is all.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

it was virtually an auto-loss for Miracles is all.

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LOL since when? Any "predator" of miracles had the same exact problem, they would be %60+ against miracles game 1 and then when game 2 and 3 came around the matchup win % drastically dropped. I don't know how often you step out of your lands bubble but what you said is certainly not true.

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Originally Posted by CptHaddock

LOL since when? Any "predator" of miracles had the same exact problem, they would be %60+ against miracles game 1 and then when game 2 and 3 came around the matchup win % drastically dropped. I don't know how often you step out of your lands bubble but what you said is certainly not true.

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Maybe Tom Ross is in a Lands bubble too?

He said he only lost to Miracles once.

Infect kills (with protection) before Counter-Top gets set up.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

it was virtually an auto-loss for Miracles is all.

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I just went to Mtgcoverage and pulled up the last three vids of the match, not cherry picking, these are the latest three I can find on the site:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NrfCdUUwGHY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJb99luswaE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg69nCd36N4

Only one of those three games looks like it was a wipe out. No auto losses there.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I just went to Mtgcoverage and pulled up the last three vids of the match, not cherry picking, these are the latest three I can find on the site:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NrfCdUUwGHY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJb99luswaE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg69nCd36N4

Only one of those three games looks like it was a wipe out. No auto losses there.

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Still shows a 2:1 win-rate (for what that much data is worth).

Would you agree Infect was strongly favoured?

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Originally Posted by CptHaddock

I don't know how often you step out of your lands bubble...

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What? Why would I do that?

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Still shows a 2:1 win-rate (for what that much data is worth).

Would you agree Infect was strongly favoured?

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Will I agree its favoured? Appears so. Strongly? No.

Also I wasn't looking at the win rate, I was looking at the situations that the decks created. The claim that it was an auto loss for Miracles was false. High Tide is basically an auto loss for Land's. Delver is basically an auto loss for Beltcher. Miracles was not happy to see Infect, but there was nothing like the reaction I have when someone sits across from me playing Reanimator and I am playing Land's.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

it was virtually an auto-loss for Miracles is all.

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And this is based off...Tom Ross saying he only lost to it once?

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Originally Posted by Whitefaces

And this is based off...Tom Ross saying he only lost to it once?

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While it was certainly a bad matchup for Miracles, I think once is an exaggeration. I watched a friend beat him with Miracles at an SCG Open, unless that is the once he's referring to. Tom also won that open with that being his only match loss I believe.

I think it is generally accepoted that Infect is favored against miracles. I wouldn't go and say it's a bye, but I've heard from most people (though maybe they just parrot Tom Ross word for word) that it is good for them.

Yeah, Infect is favoured. To say it's an auto loss is absurd.

Yeah and Infect eats it to any deck that could block or play wasteland which is like 60% of the format outside Miracles. So congrats on that slightly favorable Miracles matchup. Like everyone knows they can't win if they don't have a guy, right? Play removal.

There was way too much rationalizing Miracles with stories about how X deck was 61% against it therefore all is well. "Just play 12-post!" That's the definition of format-warping.

Miracles is dead now and good riddance. Considering it was suffocating the format for close to three years I think Legacy deserves maybe 6 months to a year to see what happens before lamenting the loss of the only "control" (actually it was prison but w/e) deck and griping about 50% Deathrite decks and the "oppression" of a 3/2 that dies to freaking Pyroblast. "Wah people use creatures to win!" Like getting curbstomped by 32 power of Angels is somehow different than taking 3 at a time off Wild Nacatl.

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Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies

Counterbalance being dead means a few things:

- Chalice is your premiere lock card, and it doesn't see play in Brainstorm decks. Decks like Eldrazi and Loam get marginally better but still suffer from consistency issues that will keep them from going the distance in big tournaments.

- As others have noted, the most logical deck to build toward for Miracles players is some sort of Stoneblade or Mentor build. These will see a bump, but the lack of Counterbalance to give you long-term control means durdling isn't that rewarding. If you don't have some kind of clock, you will get ground out eventually, so you have to be more aggressive.

- Control players are sad, as no true control deck exists or can exist anymore. The format is not unlike Modern now, where midrange is your best bet for playing a longer game because you have more tools to be proactive, and being proactive shortens the game and means you lose to random shit less often. Counterbalance saved people's asses from a lot of "I'll sculpt a perfect hand and then kill you through Force" gameplay, and there's no equivalent now.

- Aggro gets mildly better, but not really. Midrange will still choke the life out of it, so pure aggro decks like Affinity, Zoo, or Sligh are still kind of garbo. UR Delver is probably the most aggressive you can safely get without being Just Dead to a significant chunk of the format.

- Combo is back! Decks like Storm that were too difficult / draining to pilot through a sea of Counterbalances and counterspells get better because now the raw density of disruption goes down. I expect more Storm to show up at top tables.

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You have done an excellent job at reading my mind. Your post sums up my thoughts. Additionally, I think that new decks will be created / start showing up more because miracles was more or less oppressive to creativity since it set a fairly high bar for new decks to enter the format.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Will I agree its favoured? Appears so. Strongly? No.

Also I wasn't looking at the win rate, I was looking at the situations that the decks created. The claim that it was an auto loss for Miracles was false. High Tide is basically an auto loss for Land's. Delver is basically an auto loss for Beltcher. Miracles was not happy to see Infect, but there was nothing like the reaction I have when someone sits across from me playing Reanimator and I am playing Land's.

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I suspect its the same type of hyperboling which was made in terms of "Miracles sometimes loses to some fringe decks, so Miracles is totally not overpowered in regards to the meta!". /s

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Originally Posted by Whitefaces

And this is based off...Tom Ross saying he only lost to it once?

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I have played around with Infect a little (not competitive play). I only played the Miracles match once (inexperienced Miracles pilot), but I've played many long and interactive games against good Miracles pilots with other decks.
I've watched the Miracles vs Infect match a couple times too.

Ross's sentiment is supported by my comprehension of the decks. My knowledge of those decks is limited, but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion if I didn't make sense to me.

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Originally Posted by maharis

Yeah and Infect eats it to any deck that could block or play wasteland which is like 60% of the format outside Miracles. So congrats on that slightly favorable Miracles matchup. Like everyone knows they can't win if they don't have a guy, right? Play removal.

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I guess we should remove Infect from the DTB section because you've clearly established bad against the field.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Stuff about storm vs leovold

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The problem with this entire argument is that Storm has a harder time going off through:
* Thalia
* Cannonist
* Prelate
* Teeg
* Meddling Mage
* etc..

Leovald is a strictly worse card in everything but power:
* Costs more to get out -> often a turn slower or less mana open
* Doesn't actually stop them. This means that a storm player can play through him in the same way they do against Thalia & Co. except rather than lose mana (which they care about) you draw a card, making Leovald a Baleful Strix that they occasionally have to kill.
* It assumes that a 2-3 of Hatebear matters


As someone who faces a lot of storm and has come to intimately understand the Storm v Hatebear dynamic; it's rarely fast enough to get it T2 if they have interaction, especially if you didn't draw any/much other interaction. Leovald makes this even worse by costing 3 mana, making the "perfect hand" all that much more difficult to get. I don't see a storm player blinking an eye and just decaying him before killing you. The number of times I've gone:
Discard->Hatebear and they went "Decay, kill you" is huge.


The point is, Leovald is *worse* than every single other hatebear, because he doesn't actually prevent the combo or buy you time, he expects you to lucksack into interaction, and costs more to boot. Getting him T2 off DRS and drawing 10 into your flusterstorm doesn't give you a win; because you have no mana.


The reason storms numbers are down are a mix of Chalice Spam and Balance spam IMO. Chalice->Go is such an obnoxious problem for them by comparison to "Go, go, Leovald" because it screws up the cantrips in a timely fashion, screws up the ramp cards, and all while getting taxed, Thoughtseize-Eldrazi'd, or punched for 4+ at a time. That deck is actually obnoxious for storm to navigate because it main-decks the type of hate people normally sideboard, and has a fast clock.

There is no way it was Leovald IMO

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

I have played around with Infect a little (not competitive play). I only played the Miracles match once (inexperienced Miracles pilot), but I've played many long and interactive games against good Miracles pilots with other decks.
I've watched the Miracles vs Infect match a couple times too.

Ross's sentiment is supported by my comprehension of the decks. My knowledge of those decks is limited, but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion if I didn't make sense to me.

I guess we should remove Infect from the DTB section because you've clearly established bad against the field.

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'but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion'

By your own admission, that's what you've just done? You don't have any meaningful experience in the matchup. The lands vs Miracles matchup is completely different, I don't see how that bares any relevance at all?

I've played both decks a fair amount, in and out of tournaments. Infect is favoured, but far, far from the landslide you've been led to believe.

No idea what to make of your last statement.

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Originally Posted by tescrin

The problem with this entire argument is that Storm has a harder time going off through:
* Cannonist

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A person who's a cannon. Or are you thinking canonist?

Infect was definitely advantaged against Miracles, though I wouldn't call it an auto win. It's strength against Miracles was one of the reasons it broke into DTB fairly often, but not the only one. It wasn't a "stomps on Miracles but loses to everything else" like 12post. More like "advantaged against Miracles and decent/good against lots of other things".

Hopefully "advantaged against Elves and decent/good against lots of other things" will give it a similar position in the new meta as it had in the old one.

I think Astral Slide will end up with a strong place in the new metagame.

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Originally Posted by tescrin

The problem with this entire argument is that Storm has a harder time going off through:
* Thalia
* Cannonist
* Prelate
* Teeg
* Meddling Mage
* etc..


There is no way it was Leovald IMO

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The problem with the list of cards you've presented compared to Leovold is that Leovold is actually played maindeck in most midrange decks that even remotely have a chance to cast him on time. About the closest comparison you can make is Thalia, and that's still only played in D&T (a great deck for sure, but an acquired taste that will probably never occupy a big metagame portion), Maverick (no one played this seriously) or White Eldrazi (extremely fringe deck). Prelate is a 1 of in a deck with limited ways to find him on command, Teeg is only played in GSZ decks which are rare right now, Canonist is a fringe sideboard card, Meddling Mage sees roughly 0 play, etc.

It's easy to say you just abrupt decay a hatebear and move on with your life, but you don't have that luxury game one, and in sideboarded games, you get a way to deal with Leo but the BUG deck gets more hate too. I don't think Leo killed storm or anything, but sticking a game 1 Leo against storm is still a tremendous play and makes it harder to win game one against BUG midrange than it used to be.

TL;DR Leo is just a hatebear against storm but it's a hatebear that a lot of decks can and do play game one and that alone is enough to make playing storm a more miserable proposition than it was before.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

it was virtually an auto-loss for Miracles is all.

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Is this a joke?

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Originally Posted by Whitefaces

'but I would not simply "parrot" an opinion'

By your own admission, that's what you've just done? You don't have any meaningful experience in the matchup. The lands vs Miracles matchup is completely different, I don't see how that bares any relevance at all?

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- I've watched the match.
- I've tested it once.
- I've saw reddit win-rate data that was being collected a couple years ago
- I heard statement from the top Infect player

Maybe I was wrong, but I wasn't mindlessly regurgitating whatever I happened to hear (aka, "parroting".

Also I have had tournament matches vs Miracles with Enchantress and Dredge as well various Lands configurations.

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Originally Posted by Whitefaces

No idea what to make of your last statement.

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Sarcasm. maharis saw fit to liken Infect to 12-Post as a viable deck.

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Originally Posted by Noctalor

Is this a joke?

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An exaggeration not far from the truth is called hyperbole. Ironic that you wouldn't know the meaning.

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Originally Posted by tescrin

[Leovold]

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It was a combination of factors but the final nail in the coffin was Leo.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

An exaggeration not far from the truth is called hyperbole. Ironic that you wouldn't know the meaning.



It was a combination of factors but the final nail in the coffin was Leo.

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Not far from the truth you say?

I think it is pretty far from the truth, you guys still trying to defend miracle even after the deserved ban are overdoing it, miracles had not a single unwinnable MU, miracle was the unwinnable MU for a lot of decks.

And I am not saying that because I was salty about miracles or bad at playing against it, when i decided that enought was enought I picked up the deck myself and literally facerolled everything, I am pretty sure that you guys who have played that deck since forever are not even aware of what an unwinnable MU feels like, because if you saw the meta during the years only by playing miracles it's pretty easy to not understand how insanely easy it was for the deck to fight at least evenly against the rest of the field.

Just as the first very, very tiny bit of data, the three 5-0 decks in today's MTGO Competitive Legacy Constructed League were Aggro Loam, Sneak & Show, and a BUG thing with Delver, Jace, Snapcaster, Hymn, etc.