Amusing. I like the idea of Strip Mine in Lands.
The unban list is talk to death. Commonly accepted answers are Mind Twist, Earthcraft and Goblin Recruiter. I would say that's the order I would unban them in too.
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Amusing. I like the idea of Strip Mine in Lands.
The unban list is talk to death. Commonly accepted answers are Mind Twist, Earthcraft and Goblin Recruiter. I would say that's the order I would unban them in too.
Lol, that would be insane.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
We are in the midst of a shift. This seems like it would be exactly the wrong time to unban anything.
Here's hoisting a pint to nothing.
I can agree to that. At this point I see no reason for change anyway. If anything right now is the most exciting time to play legacy since 2011. (imo)
I wholeheartly agree, but it is WotC we're talking about here :wink:
Better Nerf Ire...wait wrong game.
Unban/ban nothing, without many big tournaments, it's gonna take much longer to see how things shake out in legacy imo.
So when are they going to unban ridiculous cards like Earthcraft and Mind Twist? I'm pretty sure 90+% of legacy players think these two should be unbanned. It is ridiculous that these two cards are on the banlist. Have they not learned their lesson from black vise and land tax?
Anyways, on a different note, what do you think about Survival of the Fittest getting unbanned? I actually think it is worth considering because a. Creature based decks are already pretty consistent and I personally would only play Survival in a deck built around it(like Birthing Pod in modern) which leads to point b. How good is building around a card that dies to commonly played hate and removal like Abrupt Decay and Rest in Peace? Not saying a toolbox/gy deck with SotF would be bad but it would't be broken either IMO. It'd probably just add a unique deck to legacy which is always good.
Edit: So apparently the main scare about SotF involves synergy with the graveyard(vengevine) Well along with Rest in Peace, Deathrite Shaman, Surgical Extraction, Tormod's Crypt, Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger's Cage etc. solve that problem. In addition, Phyrexian Revoker and Pithing Needle(both commonly played) stop SotF.
No thanks on the Earthcraft front, not when we're printing token factories like Young Pyro and Monastery Mentor. I'm still not convinced that adding in the summoning sickness clause with Cryptolith Rite ever makes me want to see that nonsense hit the table. Mind Twist is pretty harmless though.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
Why not just win with the pyro/mentor tokens? So you play your army in a can, play a bunch of spells, play earthcraft, and then WHAT? Fireball? Mindtwist?^^I cant see it...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Effectively 0 cost cantrip chaining would be the issue with legacy playable creatures, through summoning sickness. Should probably have to work a little harder for that effect, and there is already Jeskai Ascendancy, Splinter Twin, Pyromancer Ascension/Harness the Storm. There is a difference in playability of pyro/mentor and Squirrel Nest.Quote:
Originally Posted by HdH_Cthulhu
0 cost cantrip chaning at the cost of a green splash and a basic Island in play and running a card that is useless in multiples and is not instant speed? Not to mention that it is useless without a token producer and the age-old question of "what to take out?" Also, you'd have to run more cantrips to make the synergy worthwhile(maxing out on ponders) I think you are overrating this card in a cantrips deck. Also with the recent Eldrazi deck, running lots of cantrips is not as good as it used to be.
Edit: also, unbanning cards like these, even if they turn out to be a little too good, is not a big deal because they are clearly not good enough to trash the format until the next ban announcement where they can be banned if needed.
#freemindtwist
Dam. The thing is 40 bucks. I hope they reprint it if they unban it.
The idea of free Cantrips is amusing but I just do not know if the hoops you would jump through and the space taken up are worth a cute interaction.
WotCs usual prisoner-exchange procedure is the reasonQuote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
According to that logic we can unban Necropotence, Yawgmoths Bargain and Yawgmoths Will too. Don't you get how ridiculous it is to argue that cards are ok, simply if countermeasures exist in the cardpool?Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
You also miss that Survival reigned supreme despite Spell Snare and all the Extraction/yardhate effects around, due to the fact that it adds a combo effect to creature decks and if the combo-part is hated out, you still have to deal with the creatures themselves. Good luck sitting on your Surgical Extraction against opposing vengevines if your opponent simply tutors for Tarmogoyfs back-to-back instead. Go decay the Survical after your opponent dropped the Emrakul/Griselbrand/Iona & Retainer combo.
Survival is a deck that is extremely well positioned vs miracles. Unbanning it now could be absolutely risky for the meta considering eldrazi were just printed and the meta is consistently in flux.
Survival is a card that is getting worse with every set (the best thing to do with it is still chaining vengevines, while the rest of the formats got cards like terminus, DRS, sfm+batterskull, young pyromancer/mentor, AD, the whole lands package etc...) so eventually it'll get to a point where it's just another engine. Well, unless they print something like a 0 mana madness emrakul in the next set.
I'd really, really like a Survival variant for red though. Something like a red survival that let you discard an artifact for drawing multiple cards, or create tokens.
Well there is a blue "Survival" for artifacts as you know and green still has Evolutionary Leap, Fauna Shaman, GSZ and the like as alternatives to Survival.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
I disagree with the idea that Survival gets "wors" with each set given all WitC prints are creatures these days. You wanna tell me that Survival got "worse" by printing DRS, TNN, etc after it's ban?
A card disadvantage tutor for fair creatures that require you to play 20+ creatures as well? Why would anyone play that If not for grave /madness abuse like TnT Did first with welder + bots and vengevival second with vengevine and retainer. GSZ is better If u just wanna do fair stuff with it since it's not card nor mana disadvantage plus it can work as an accellerantQuote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Artificer's intuition can loot bots but not get them, plus it's blue and at that point i'd rather play baby jace or looter en-kor.
After thinking about it, I realized that a problem may occur that SotF and combos it enables might be put into almost every creature deck in legacy. This may or may not be a problem because Brainstorm and force of will similarly are put in every blue deck, but it seems unnecessary to unban a card like this if it is just going to be played in all the creature decks and won't create a new archetype. Unless you are looking to shake up the meta by strengthening one archetype, which is not needed right now because Eldrazi is already doing that. But in the future if the format is looking stale, SotF is a good candidate to unban.
On the other hand Earthcraft and Mind Twist are either going to do nothing(black vise) or will be put into a deck or two. Either way I doubt unbanning these two will do very much change to the metagame. They are ridiculous on the same list with cards such as Tolarian Academy and Ancestral Recall.
I don't think Survival is fast enough to just play a fair game... if you are doing the "fair game with oops I win" idea, you probably decide that based on whether or not you have a Survival in play. In other words, the increased presence of solid, efficient creatures like DRS and TNN doesn't necessarily make Survival better, because in that kind of deck, the payoff dropping a two-mana enchantment then tutoring for one of them isn't really there compared to if you just put more cantrips or Eladamri's Call in your deck or something, or used that enchantment to untap and win the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Right now, I wonder if the best thing to do with it is Retainers -> Griselbrand. Vengevines are pretty good of course, but hardly game over given Terminus, plus you have to play lots of Rootwallas and stuff that aren't as good on their own compared to the compactness of the Retainers combo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
I agree with the rest of this post though. Specifically, Batterskull, which didn't exist when SotF was banned, makes SFM into a similarly positioned two-mana threat while freeing up deck construction constraints. You have to be prepared to lose the game on turn 2 or 3 in Legacy, and I don't think SotF is more dangerous than other cards currently banned... AND it has the potential to be a value engine in addition to combo enabler. GSZ is definitely comparable and probably better in some ways and that card is hardly broken.
I don't think that's a risk. The opportunity cost of playing 4 Survival + the combo package is pretty high considering the effect on opening hands/mulligans to just say "I'll jam it into Jund/Maverick/BUG." There's an argument to play like 2 survival in Maverick for value when you draw late dorks, but again, better or worse than GSZ? Or just jamming Depths/Stage to use with your Knights.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
It's cantrips, and it's also SDT and infinity prowess triggers. Splinter Twin-esque "look I went infinite 'cause I have 2 cards" combos aren't really what magic is about; it's not quite as bad as Flash + Protean Hulk, but ideologically they're about on the same level. Unlike Twin you don't have to run patently bad creatures and multiple copies of local enchantments (auras); you simply look up the 4color counter/top/mentor/drs (DeMentor to those who keep up with brainstorm show) lists add in 2-3x Enlightened Tutors and 1x Earthcraft.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
Will it break the format, almost certainly not...but it is a pretty mindless wincon that requires no sequencing [cards won't sit in hand waiting for discard spell], doesn't use the graveyard, and doesn't require any real change to existing decks to incorporate a win button.
Edit: the card is also terribly templated in that it doesn't bestow the ability onto a creature like Cryptolith Rite does. The most significant part of that it summoning sickness, but there are more nuanced interactions that are missed. This includes things like nonfunctional hate cards (like Cursed Totem), and no need to correctly layer Earthcraft vs other enchantments (like Humility). There would need to be substantial errata on the wording of this card, and that's what Cryptolith Rite did - it unbanned the Earthcraft that should be....tolerated as a part of Legacy (even though the idea of the card should have never been floated /opinion). I am very happy with the idea of keeping Earthcraft a special banlist with Ante cards just based on "it was a bad idea" rather than ability to ruin the meta of a format.
Earthcraft probably doesn't break the format, but yeah, if you want mindless 2 card win cons, the format has Show and Tell. Don't even have to play green.
I'm skeptical on unbanning Survival - the card is effectively a one card combo for 2 mana. Yes it takes more mana / time to get an engine going, but enchantments are difficult to interact with upon resolution.
So because Earthcraft is, in your opinion, a mindless card, means that it should stay banned when 90+% of players want it unbanned. Just because it is unbanned, doesn't mean you have to play it. So what it is mindless? Eldrazi is a mindless deck and no one is advocating for it to get banned in legacy. People that don't like the deck are simply not playing it.
So the thing with Show and Tell is they can't actually cast their targets, and they need two specific cards in hand to do anything - they lose to hate in the form of discard and effects like Containment Priest. Monastery Mentors and a 1x tutorable Earthcraft isn't a build-around combo, it's kind of just a random win-button floating around as a 1x in the main. Then there's the whole part where your opponent can put just about anything into play for free as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
@LegacyIsAnEternalFormat the Eldrazi deck requires a specific build. The idea that I play card X and enchantment Y and because I did this, I went infinite is the kind of nonsense I'd expect to see in hearthstone. Earthcraft was a bad idea when it came out, and it's only gone from bad to worse as the creative space of tokens is explored in magic....but, they just reprinted it in a fixed form (even though the underlying idea of earthcraft is bad), so why would they unban unfixed earthcraft?
I am gonna guess that the real number is more like "90+% of players probably don't care either way."Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
Anyway, I just don't see why anyone *needs* to play Earthcraft. I think there's kinda some libertarian tendencies for a lot of players where it's like 'the fewest cards that can be banned should be banned, keep Wizards out of the game'. But honestly what does Earthcraft add to the format? Nothing particularly interesting. A marginally higher number of games you play end on t3/t4 vs some two card combo. Why would you want to play more magic like that? Do you have Earthcrafts burning a hole in your binder? An Earthcraft tattoo that you're tired of being ashamed of?
No, in fact there are a few of us rebels out there, fighting the good fight.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
A few thoughts on this. Survival/Vengevine doesn't care about Terminus because with Squee (or any creature, but Squee is obviously the best) you can just combo again the next turn. The best argument for unbanning Survival for the last 2 years has been that it's extremely good against Miracles since green also gets lots of built-in answers to their answers (Decay being the most obvious among them) and doesn't give a rat's ass about Terminus since they just find their creatures again after they're put back into the library. That being said, Survival is a borderline case, unlike Mind Twist and Earthcraft. Unbanning cards that have the potential to see play right now is probably a bad idea since we don't know where the meta stabilizes with Eldrazi. It's for this reason that I don't it's the right time to unban Earthcraft as much as I want to see it happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by maharis
Adding Earthcraft to the Mentor/Top/Top combo is the very definition of winning more. How often does Mentor/Top/Top not kill over two turns? Two Monks, Mentor and five open mana is lethal from 19 - and you're likely to have a Monk or two just from playing the game after resolving Mentor or from looking for (another) Top. As I said above, I don't think that now is the right time to unban Earthcraft, but that's because I think it turns Enchantress from fringe playable to being roughly as well positioned as Lands while being substantially less expensive. It speeds the deck up by about a turn and a half, and the pillow fort is much stronger than the mana denial approach once it's set up; it's also not vulnerable to Graveyard hate (to the point where gets to maindeck 1-2 Rest in Peace) or nonbasic hate, and is natively strong against Counterbalance and Chalice since you can just jam your 1s to draw cards and have tutorable removal main and side. The combo matchups still aren't great, but now being faster is at least an option, and on average they're certainly no worse than Lands' matchups against the same decks. Since we don't know where the current metagame balance actually lies, I think it's premature to potentially introduce another competitive deckQuote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Survival is in the same boat as drain imo, it's not obviously broken (I think it is, but that's besides the point) but there is a lot of potential for the card to be pretty busted, unlike Drain however, it can potentially get MUCH better with new printings.
Survival is a repeatable tutor, that tutors up everything it combos with! In my books that's broken.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
With Squee it's a card advantage engine. You can easily tutor for your Squee every game.
Besides Vengevine there's also Loyal Retainers into Iona or nowadays maybe Griselbrand or something.
Idk earthcraft doesnt even looks so good in enchantres. Sure you can tap your agothinas for an enchanted basic... But its also a do nothing enchatnment in a list with only 4 creatures... I wouldnt play it!
I think the banlist should be a voting process. It doesn't make sense that WotC, a company that does not even test any format except Limited and Standard should make decisions for formats they do not test. Well, who plays these formats? It is not WotC so who is it? The players play this format, so they should make decisions surrounding it. It is ridiculous that a card must be banned for a perfectly safe card to come off. It is ridiculous that a group that does not play a format should be able to make decisions regarding it without the input of the thousands who play and test the format. This resembles the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy. In this case WotC is the dictatorship and rules the banlist. WotC should be the government that carries out laws(banlist changes) based on the people's wants. Democracy>Dictatorship.
I can speak from lots of experience in saying that if you rebuild your Enchantress deck only a little, Earthcraft completely breaks the deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by HdH_Cthulhu
Not even close to as broken as the Storm mechanic, LED, Griselbrand and the dumb ways to put him on the battlefield, and even the mana engines in elves come online just as fast. We know how Wild Growth works it's not broken with respect to the other idiotic things happening in legacy. Can be revoked, can be needled, can be decayed and responded to with any removal, requires basics. At least we aren't discussing squirrel nest as being something so busted, that's progress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
Most likely is always no changes.
If there are changes, I would guess
Urban Earthcraft
Ban Brainstorm
Changes I would like to see
Ban all fetch lands
Let's be real they ain't banning anything right now.
They didn't ban BS when it had 80% penetration for what, 2 years straight? Now we got the lowest BS representation ever and it's not even clear which is the best deck.
Miracles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
I agree that it is a long shot, but one thing I have found to be pretty true about the changes is that they aren't timely and don't always make sense. A ban of brainstorm, although well earned, would fit the bill of being oddly timed. We will see in a few short hours whether I can predict them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
Like I said before, I believe the most likely result will be no changes.
If they ban Brainstorm I'm selling out.
And how would you run the Vote? Site poll that can be easily manipulated? Facebook poll? Also what happens when people just decide to troll the poll? What happens if Brainstorm finally gets banned?Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
If you want to really see an answer to how silly this idea is, look up. There is a poll on the top of this page. While I do think that the list could be handled better, with members of the Legacy community each given a say, a poll is the dumbest idea because we are on the internet.
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat
Brainstorm is safe from ever being banned because Wizards wouldn't want to deal with the chaos/bitterness that would come with it. Whether or not a Brainstorm ban would make the format better is mostly an intellectual exercise since Brainstorm is effectively too-big-to-fail within the format.
If legacy were a Pro Tour format, who knows.
1) the poll on the top of the page was which cards are the most bannable. Just because a card is most bannable doesn't mean it should be banned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
2) the poll should be administered in the legacy GPs and should be voted on by those playing in the GP. That way only those who are serious about legacy get to vote.
3) if Brainstorm is banned it is for the greater good because it would only be banned if the majority wanted it to be banned.