Whatever it is, the card is broken as hell. I doubt they will ever consider unbanning it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
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Whatever it is, the card is broken as hell. I doubt they will ever consider unbanning it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
The card is adding nothing to the format. Its just an even more ridiculous S&T variant.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorphBerlin
For the record this isn't how Flash works. There is no priority between putting the creature on the battlefield and paying its cost reduced by up to :2:. Let us suppose for a moment that you Flash in Elesh Norn, she will die before SBAs are checked - no creatures will die to the Massacre-effect. The creatures you are looking for would need to have ETB or on-death triggers (Protean Hulk, Worldspine Wurm, etc...).Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Edit: as @Julian23 notes below, Flash is probably the most reliable combo card when it comes to winning on the spot. Moreover, you can also run Pacts given how reliably quick that kill is.
Conveniently, Flash can win on your opponent's first Upkeep before they even get to play a land. Let alone dream about casting Thalia etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by slave
And regarding Leyline of Sanctity, targetting the opponent isn't really a requirement anyways. If anything you'd play Leyline of the Void to stop the Hulk from triggering.
But in all honesty, Flash is so crazy, I'd rate it's chances of unban as something like 1%.
Nothing but survival decks. Nothing as different as Miracles is to Storm, or Grixis Delver is to Sneak Show. Brainstorm goes in decks that attack the game from entirely different angles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevestamopz
Brainstorm decks tend to play the same game plan even I they don't see a Brainstorm. They're just a little clunky. Survival decks don't play the same basic game plan when they don't have access to their namesake card, because Survival is the strategy.
Whether you think BS should be banned or Survival should come back I'm not going to argue. But comparing the two cards in terms of the diversity of the decks they support is Ill conceived.
That same reasoning applies to fetchlands right? Except they support an even wider variety of decks consistency wise. I think comparing brainstorm to fetchlands is a bit disengenious because "fetchlands" are colourless and brainstorm isn't. Like I said if ONE fetchland became extremely prominent then that would indicate a deeper power level issue in the format.
Finally regarding what Lemnear said, banning all fetchlands because of the power boost they give to brainstorm and ponder is pure hyperbole right?
Brainstorm again? Don't ever change y'all.
You saw who the cat dragged in, right? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Its disengenius if you call a 2/3/3 split of Polluted Delta, Misty Rainforest and Flooded Strand, which have effectively the same effect, less important for the performance of Legacy Decks than 4 Brainstorms, just because one runs 3 Flooded Strands instead of 4 among your 8 fetchlands.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor
So, if one bitches about the blue cardselection in Legacy, you have to go to the root of the power of the cantrips and not just cut one head of the hydra and see how SDT+Ponder+Fetchlands would dominate Legacy post-brainstorm. Its the Survival-Fallacy of banning Vengevine instead of Survival itself, just waiting for the next Creature to push Survival over the top. The joke however is, that no one is honest enough that Fetchlands turn on Brainstorm/Ponder/SDT, because everyone loves their fetchlands more than they hate blue cardselection, so they blame the Vengevine-card
The difference here, between Vengevine and Cantrips, is that you can argue that Wizards may print another Vengevine and have a leg to stand on. They will never, under current leadership, print another Preordain much less Ponder or Brainstorm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Well sure they are kind of all interchangable because of blue dominance in blue decks, and blue prominence in the format.. That's kind of want I mean.
I would say brainstorm and ponder abuse fetchlands. Fetchlands don't abuse those cantrips. Survival can abuse vengevine and creatures like it. Vengevine doesn't abuse survival... Show n Tell abuses Emrakul, Emrakul doesn't abuse Show n Tell. I don't think that is semantics either, the distinction seems self evident to me.
Yes the cantrip issue would be neutered somewhat if all fetchlands were banned, but that's a rediculous scenario to create. And would bring almost the whole format of legacy down instead the most prominent of the 5 colours. Like Dice says, WotC sees one mana library manipulation cantrips as a mistake (bannings in modern and no printings in recent times) but sees fetchlands as acceptable enablers for colour consistency.
I'm not really advocating a brainstorm ban, the format seems to have become more colour diverse and less brainstorm centric recently (and yes I'm comfortable saying I see colour diversity as something to consider for health in a format, it is an integral part of the game..) I just get super confused when people say "lol ban brainstorm? might as well ban fetchlands" it's almost the mirror arguement to "lol brainstorm is legal. so survival should be too" some weird false equivalences going on.
Besides which I'd rather ban Vengevine so we can keep an interesting engine in the format. By the time Survival's presence is keeping too much stuff in the banlist, make the switch. It's not that difficult of a concept. The point is, ultimately, an interesting format, not some Holy Rules of Banlist Management. Those are secondary. And even then, some evaluation of whether all those busted tutor targets would, alone, bring some interesting gameplay. A lot of the time they don't because they're unplayable without the enabler.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Because they are interchangeable, it makes no sense to talk about ONE type of fetchlands as most decks run 6-8 of them to negate the impact of Wasteland, fix their colors, feed their DRS/Loam/more, enable t.hold or delve, support Ponder/Brainstorm/SDT, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor
Banning Brainstorm is not really effective in pushing diversity as it potentially wipes our less linear decks in favor of those, who already have a high amount of redundancy and less situational cards. Are decks like Zoo or Jund significantly better positioned if they would have to play against SDT/Ponder/fetches than Brainstorm/Ponder/Fetches that it outweights the death of every situational card in the format including the decks which play them? Thats the question to ask, but we all have been through the discussion
Most Brainstorm decks are already redundant goodstuff packages built for the most part from general use cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Don't really have much to respond to this, it feels like you're talking to someone else in a conversation about something else. Decks play situational cards without brainstorm. I don't get what you're trying to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Like I said I don't want to talk about banning brainstorm. Just saying that banning fetchlands isn't equivocale to banning brainstorm, but it's something I see mentioned a lot (similarly to survival = brainstorm).
It means that no one would bother with stuff like Griselbrand, Emrakul, Stifle, Terminus, etc if there was no option to get crap out of your hand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor
I don't agree with that, so we can agree to disagree on this point too :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Elves runs Progenitus and its options for getting rid of it are discard and.... Zip. I guess I did hard cast that fucker once, but I was winning anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Modern has a deck that kills with Emmy, uses discard to keep her where they want her, also has a deck that runs Grizzlebees too. No Brainstorm as far as I know. Format is different I know, but it challenges your idea. An example I suppose. Stifle? It's somewhat gone anyway. Saving it is not really a debate about Brainstorm so much as it is about the changes the formats gone though over time.
As for Terminus, good riddance.
Elves only has to run 1 Progenitus due to the nature of Natural Order and Green Sun. Sneak Show runs upward of 8 fatties... Not really a meaningful comparisonQuote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Elves HAS to run ZERO (multicolor) 8cc+ Fatties for its strategy. Can't say the same for SneakShowQuote:
Originally Posted by nevilshute
Mono Red Sneak Attack. Tell me where the Brainstorm is in that deck and I am sure it also runs a few cards it can't shuffle back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
We'll that is effectively the marriage of dragon stompy and a belcher style combo deck. Both types of decks run lots of redundancy in order to make up for their complete lack of tutoring and cantrips. So they will naturally get more garbage hands of all mana triple fatty no combo card etc and be forced to mulligan or pray to the top-deck gods... There's a reason why monored sneak isn't tearing up the format and it starts with 'incon' and ends with 'sistent'Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I mean the arguement was these kinds of cards wouldn't be played without brainstorm, not that decks would be just as good without it.
That implies that people would play decks, which are less consistent than Belcher, in GPs and simular tournaments. We all know that isn't going to happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor
Lol what are you on about? Show n Tell with ponder and preordain and maybe burning wish isn't less consistent than belcher XD and belcher doesn't run brainstorm so you wouldn't literally be making belcher less consistent than belcher. So I have no idea what you are trying to convey.
Weren't we just talking about MonoRed SneakAttack in this thread in terms of working without Brainstorm?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor
I was simply pointing out it can be done. The idea that the format would be different after such a shake up is undebatable, the idea that decks would have to change is common sense. The idea that now you can't shuffle things away therefore the world ends on a deck like SnT though. I don't buy that. Miracles? I buy that. SnT? No.
Again though, what the fuck does it matter, it's never going to happen. This topic is beyond riden to death, we are beating the soil where once a dead horse decayed.
I know you were responding to anecdotal evidence, but I want to point out that our "two years of data" does not include comparisons of meta representation vs top8 penetration, nor does it include win-rates specifically within the top8. That's why (parts of) this thread have been so interesting and reasonable lately - we are finally looking at this data!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I don't see how your data supports this? Are you going by DTE's top8 data? His original figure was something like 51-52% win rate within the top8, but his newer data (I think he shared it after the post I quoted above) says 47.5%. the second calculation counted more events, and it also counted any events in 2016 (including data that predates Eldrazis, and data during the less stable meta adjustment. Given the nature of stats and variance, I think it's best if we conclude that Miracles is close to 50/50 in the top8 meta. Most likely it's a little more or a little less - but I don't think we have enough data to commit to either one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Very true. I prefer to think of the top8 as simply a different, or sub-meta game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Being 50/50 in the top8 meta is actually average. If we take every archetype that's ever been in the top8 ( in a defined, relevant, timeframe) and count their wins and losses, we will get a win-rate for each deck. 50/50 will be exactly dead average. The well positioned decks (within the top8) will have a >50% win-rate. The worse-than-average decks will have a <50% win rate.
Miracles gets its strength apparently not from being particularly well positioned in the top8 meta - but from being an average deck there plus a much better than average deck in the qualifying rounds. The difference between the metas is that by definition the top8 meta has a higher density of decks which are good on the preliminary meta; and also presumably a better average skill level.
In other words, Miracles is "the best deck" because it picks on weak players and weak decks better than the other decks which also hold their own in the top8 meta.
But to some people this would be a tragic reason for a ban! Because once we establish an "elite meta" - a meta that parallels the top8 meta in terms of deck distribution and players skill - Miracles is only an average deck or a little better. This "elite meta" also looks to be fairly well balanced. Half a dozen plus decks which regularly place (and are highly varied), plus a whooping ~30% of the meta made up of rogue or tier-two decks. It seems like such h a waste to disrupt this well balanced and diverse meta on account of it being warped by bad players and bad decks!
Maybe this was what Sidneyious was eluding too. A local meta that is populated by competent players mostly in DTBs is going to be well balanced and no picnic for Miracles.
On the other hand, reality is a thing. We might have a deck that is even better that Miracles at advancing to the top8 as well as advancing within the top8. But if this deck is barely played (for whatever reason), does it make sense to ban it? This would be a deck that should be a problem but isn't!
On the flip side, what if we had a deck that was just bellow 50/50 in both the Swiss meta and the top8, but was played in such high numbers that it dominated the format. Here is a deck that shouldn't be causing problems but nonetheless is. Do we allow a narrow meta to thrive because we think it shouldn't have to be like that? (I realise this isnt exactly the case with Miracles, but it's an exaggeration of a principle that does into play when we analyse the meta).
Thing is, I think a good case can be made for banning (a card from) Miracles, but an equally good case can be made for not banning anything.
I also think Miracles' days are numbered (as the top dog of the format). I know Randy Buehler doesn't work for WotC any more, but I suspect he and they think alike. If the new improved D&T doesn't knock Miracles down a peg, I think a ban is very likely. We might just get a ban regardless. On the plus side, maybe they'll give us Twist or Earthcraft?
I certainly can sympathise. A long grindy game vs Miracles with a deck that has a low win-rate vs Miracles is probably the most miserable and demoralizingly match that Legacy has to offer. I further suspect that with WotC paying more attention to Legacy, "fun-police" bans are a real possibility. Sadly, banning cards because decks are "not fun" to lose to would not stop at Miracles! If we want Legacy to include resource denial, fast combo, and efficient counter-spells, we should hope that WotC doesn't give a fuck if they think Legacy is fun or not!Quote:
Originally Posted by dte
Me I'm just not seeing this. Other successful decks (DTBs) behave in a great variety of ways. Storm, D&T, Shardless, Lands, Pyromancer, S&T, Eldrazis, Infect... do any of these decks behave even similarly? As for narrowing the format down, we still have roughly 1/3 of the top8 meta belonging to archetypes outside the DTB. I think that's a pretty healthy share for tier-two decks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor
Again, the issue isn't that the format is not diverse. It's that Miracles seems too good (compared to the other "good" decks at beating the softer competition in the earlier rounds. This is a legitimate problem; but it's simply not true that Miracles is pushing tier-two decks put of the meta, nor that it is limiting the other "good" decks to a narrow set of characteristics or styles (nothing could be further from true).
An interesting follow up would be to preform a similar analysis of other decks. Lemnear reported that Storm goes from a 6% meta share to a 15% top8 meta share! If this deck also holds a ~50% or better win-rate within the top8 meta, it's actually outperforming Miracles! I'd love to see numbers for the "good" decks with low representation, like Lands, Infect, Loam, etc. I probably do t have time to do this myself though.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I disagree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombie
Shardless and Delver are "good-stuff" decks. Brainstorm helps the draw the right proportions of functionality. Eg, the right balance between mana, removal, threats, counters, etc.
Reanimator, S&T, and Storm are not good-stuff! They run cards which are bad unless combined very specifically with other cards. You don't see "good-stuff" lists running rituals, fatties, petals, Sneak Attack, Exhume, LED, etc. Brainstorm is used to sculpt the perfect hand out of specific components, not general use cards.
Miracles is also a synergistic deck that balanced top-deck manipulation with cards that care the top of the deck (CB, miracle cards, which are not general purpose and can only fit into decks which specialise in manipulation).
I know, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I refered to the range of 47,5%-52% against a DtB/T8 structure containing decks like D&T, Lands and Shardless (which are bad matchups for Miracles) and still having a 50/50 in that case is not neccessarily reasonable imo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
As just stated, on the paper it isn't well positioned due to the DtB status of the named decks (and the DtB status tied to performance), but still Miracles pulls off a solid 50/50 in the T8 DESPITE being the most hasted out deck and the DtB list filled with decks which prey on MiraclesQuote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
bannings are always a bad option. We all want to evade such.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
...which still has zero relevance for discussing the grand scale of things. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Bares the question, why the large part of the metagame should pickup a deck with average statistics in general, which is nothing I think has ever happened in the history of the game (bold statement, I know). The closest thing fitting your description seems to be Delver and that type at least exists in flavors different enough for me to not speak about a narrowing metagame. Delver is a large chunk of the metagame, but not really over-/underperforming aka 50/50 from what I see.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
If Randy "I don't know how Lodestone works despite playing against it for years" Buehler is the sole reason anything gets banned and not the 2+ years of metagame data, WotC should really just stop claiming they care for the format. Unfortunately the Player Council for the Vintage B&R is questionable as wellQuote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
What kind of win-rates do you think the other decks have in this field? Two possibilities:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Miracles' win-rate is as reasonable as it can get!
- All the decks have a ~50/50 win rate in the top8 meta.
- At least one deck is performing significantly above 50/50.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
- ~33% of the top8 meta is rogue decks, pet decks, and other wise tier two decks; not DTBs. You are ignoring a HUGE amount of data when you take that ~50/50 top8 win-rate and apply only to the DTB matches. Assuming Miracles is an overall favourite vs that 1/3 of the meta (which is evident by their impressive win rate pre-top8), it follows mathematically that Miracles is batting bellow 500 vs the portion of the top8 made up of DTBs.
- DTBs are not decks that are gunning for Miracles! Some DTBs are actually underdogs to Miracles. Most decks with a very good Miracles MU struggle with the rest of the field. Besides Infect and possibly Eldrazis, DTBs are decks with a good balance of performance vs the rest of the meta combined with a miracles MU which is anywhere from slighly flavoured to bad-but-not-dismal.
Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it sounds to be like you are saying Miracles averages a 50/50 win-rate vs a meta made up of its worst matches. This simply isn't the case.
This is not true. The new predict-miracles based on Snapcaster/Predict/Mentor (an evolution from the cantrip for days approach) doesn't have a bad matchup against shardless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Miracles and Death and Taxes (as well as lands) are both player skill dependant, as well as matchup familiarity dependant.
Even with Boseiju, Miracles should be crushing lands about 60+% of the time.
Agree with the rest, D&T especially as you can completely steam roll D&T if they don't know what they're doing.
I do not agree with this. Game one is not the easiest in the world, but when you bring in the Trackers it really changes up the game. Its not as hard as you think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
I'll grant you that but I'm not certain that's something that can't be adapted to (like what was done with Choke)
Thats fair, and I find that if they drop Mentor fast I am in for hell if i do not have an answer. That said it is not Miracles I fear right now, it's an updated DnT list. One card, that one card, can fuck me harder than anything Miracles is trying to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
Eh, they're becoming a bit slower as a trade off (more time to make more 20/20s), wouldn't worry too much about it for now.
With the attention Wizards is paying to Legacy, I won't be surprised if they continue to do this - pushing cards that are not only not blue, but are specifically designed for decks that already aren't running blue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I think five of the last six cards banned were blue? I predict this won't be the case going forward.
I agree that we should be close to 50/50 vs Miracles.
They'd need to make something bonkers to think about banning a non-blue card. Like actually insulting they would print something that busted.
I may be underestimating D&T but 3 mana hatebears and white recruiters aren't going to take over the format
I'm not saying D&T will need the banhammer! Just if they kept trying to make Legacy relevant cards in other colours, that's were they're next mistakes will happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
Like, what do they have to print hypothetically to get something banned out of DnT for making DnT oppressive? 1 mana original or new thalia? It's far easier to get things banned from the blue cantrip shell because those decks are consistent as hell at abusing the card that ultimately gets axed since they can find it with the cantrip cartel. For white to be broken, historically, I can think of 3 cards. Land tax, stoneforge mystic, and balance. Land tax is now unplayable. Balance is still just one of the most broken cards of all time for its cost. Stoneforge is going to be legacy legal forever unless they print something that's way too obscene with it, like 10/10 living weapon + bounce it for 1 or something stupid. Current design philosophy isn't going to break DnT to banworthy either, as they are simply printing good creatures for it that could never hold a candle to the likes of lion's eye diamond and co. that legacy allows as 4 ofs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Topic is beaten to death, but magic players still discuss it. Doesn't matter what we think, WotC is the one making the shots.
I think this is more about Sanctum Prelate being a poorly designed card. There's nothing healthy about Prelate on 2, R/G Lands can't do anything anymore...btw RiP so no threshold (Barbarian Ring). If a DnT pilot has any idea of how other decks in the format work then Prelate is even viable maindeck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Ritual
Plenty of players like to play "but then I drew a removal spell" magic, but a large portion of eternal players choose either legacy or vintage to get away from that mentality. With cards like Prelate there is potential to shift the format away from trying to win to trying not to lose harder than your opponent. Lots of players think arbitrarily grindy/fair magic is fun, lots of players don't. Both are based on opinions and equally valid; what is important is that legacy accommodates both. It will take time to see the effect of Prelate, but it shouldn't be hard to imagine the disgust a pilot R/G Lands or storm deck would have with such card design, just in the hypothetical.