All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Afaik, you can "continue to play" your game without your permanents and 15 lost life.

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So, If all your permanents are gone and you are at 5 life staring down a protected 15/15, you can still "play magic". But if all your 1cc spells are countered you cannot? Nice.

Emrakul into play almost always causes the opponent to (correctly) scoop - the possibility of further interaction is seriously reduced (usually outright eliminated). Playing Chalice out of the board to stall a Storm player does not cause a scoop, and the potential for interactive plays in that game has just increased. Everyone else understands this, as it's pretty obvious.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Emrakul into play almost always causes the opponent to (correctly) scoop - the possibility of further interaction is seriously reduced (usually outright eliminated). Playing Chalice out of the board to stall a Storm player does not cause a scoop, and the potential for interactive plays in that game has just increased. Everyone else understands this, as it's pretty obvious.

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As a pretty bottom-of-the-barrel Storm player, I've beaten a Snack-Attacked Emrakul at 1 life. I have never beaten a resolved Chalice in game 1. And (again, in G1) there's nothing interactive about facing a Chalice. I'm either sitting on a boatload of Cabal Rituals or I'm dead.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

So, If all your permanents are gone and you are at 5 life staring down a protected 15/15, you can still "play magic". But if all your 1cc spells are countered you cannot? Nice.

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Oh, Chalice can be set only at 1? You mean just like CounterTop cannot counter 0cc, 2cc, etc?

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Emrakul into play almost always causes the opponent to (correctly) scoop - the possibility of further interaction is seriously reduced (usually outright eliminated).

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Aha ... and this is only a problem in case of Emrakul, but not if Chalice or CounterTop is involved? Nice point of view

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

playing Chalice out of the board to stall a Storm player does not cause a scoop, and the potential for interactive plays in that game has just increased. Everyone else understands this, as it's pretty obvious.

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But G1 Chalice or CounterTop likely causes a scoop, so whats your point

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

But G1 Chalice or CounterTop likely causes a scoop, so whats your point

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My point is that Chalice as a SB card does not mean the deck is trying to avoid interaction in the same way as a main-deck Chalice (note - SB CotV never ever causes a G1 scoop).

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I can't get why you are so focussed on the narrow "It must be mainboard and the card must be the strategy itself".

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You're the one who doesn't want to distinguish between decks which run Chalice man vs decks that run it in the side to thwart combo. G1 examples don't further your position here!

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Aha ... and this is only a problem in case of Emrakul, but not if Chalice or CounterTop is involved? Nice point of view

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I'm not saying it's a problem. I'm saying it tends to reduce the potential for further interaction. Playing Chalice vs Storm or Decay on to kill a hate card does not.

It's an odd turn of the norm. Crim and I are on the same side of an argument for once. But you two are talking at each other now, not to each other. I don't think your going to get anywhere so maybe it's time to agree to disagree?

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

So, If all your permanents are gone and you are at 5 life staring down a protected 15/15, you can still "play magic". But if all your 1cc spells are countered you cannot? Nice.

Emrakul into play almost always causes the opponent to (correctly) scoop - the possibility of further interaction is seriously reduced (usually outright eliminated). Playing Chalice out of the board to stall a Storm player does not cause a scoop, and the potential for interactive plays in that game has just increased. Everyone else understands this, as it's pretty obvious.

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He's just being an ass like usual - I guess the point was that an Emrakul attack is, for most intents and purposes, game over then and there even if you can technically play, the same way Chalice at 1 can blank most of a Delver or Storm player's deck, for example. The game technically goes on but no, not really.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

He's just being an ass like usual - I guess the point was that an Emrakul attack is, for most intents and purposes, game over then and there even if you can technically play, the same way Chalice at 1 can blank most of a Delver or Storm player's deck, for example. The game technically goes on but no, not really.

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Thats what I said, before he was suddenly changing the topic to "SB Chalice".

We started out at "CounterTop, Thalia and Chalice being cards played to ensure the opponent cant play their cards", but it got derailed to ridicule the point

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Not if they only ban out OP decks. You're talking about banning a card not because the deck is over-powered, but rather because in your opinion that deck should be under-powered.

Saying no deck should be over-powered is not picking winners. saying certain select decks do not deserve to eb tier-one is picking winners.

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'Overpowered' is a judgment call. There is no objective 'overpowered ' and it's hard to even attempt a definition that doesn't include Brainstorm. I think Chalice is overpowered not because it's a stronger card than Brainstorm (it obviously isn't) but because its power makes the format less interactive and interesting and increases the number of one turn games.

The cards that are legal in the format are the result of decisions Wizards made. Recently Wizards pushed DnT and Eldrazi by printing a bunch of cards for them - that was 'picking winners'. These cards didn't appear out of nowhere, they weren't handed down from God and they weren't the result of a competitive free market. Sometimes Wizards makes mistakes, mostly due to the fact that they don't really care that much when they print cards that make Legacy worse. In the case of Eldrazi they just made Legacy a little clunkier and dumber. The same was true for DTT, and eventually they came to their senses and banned it - it was not overpowered to an extent that the format was unplayable. But it was pretty bad and DTT Omnitell was a dumb deck.

I think that Chalice, Thalia, and Counterbalance are all very interactive cards. Anyone who says they just scoop to them G1 has made a choice NOT to interact and now they're getting salty about it. No one is forcing you to build decks that fold to these kinds of effects. Yes, 1cmc cards are good, but by playing cards of varied mana costs (and in the case of Thalia/Sphere, playing creatures) you get to dodge or eliminate the hate. Your choice whether to interact with Chalice and company or not happens not in game, but before the game even begins, while you're making your deckbuilding decisions. And that's a really awesome thing that only really exists in Legacy.

Lemnear, I'm really surprised that you're on that side of the argument, because Storm pressures the metagame in exactly the same way. It requires specific constraints in deckbuilding to combat it (cheap or free stack interaction, lock pieces, or discard) and we always say "if you play a deck that can't beat storm, you deserve to lose to it." How is Chalice and friends any different? And both Storm and Chalice decks have a percentage of games where even if you came prepared, you'll still lose. Maybe I had Force force Flusterstorm and he shredded my hand and went off, maybe I had 2 decays and he had T1 Chalice into t2 Lodestone and I never got to cast them. That's just variance.

All strategies deserve a shot in Legacy. If you're sick of losing to Chalice or Countertop play a deck that shits on them. But be aware that like everything else, there's an opportunity cost.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

As a pretty bottom-of-the-barrel Storm player, I've beaten a Snack-Attacked Emrakul at 1 life. I have never beaten a resolved Chalice in game 1. And (again, in G1) there's nothing interactive about facing a Chalice. I'm either sitting on a boatload of Cabal Rituals or I'm dead.

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I hate Chalice as much as (actually, probably more than) the next guy, but strictly speaking, Chalice is interactive in the sense that it demands that you interact - the point of Storm is that we get to win by interacting as little as possible, and Chalice forces us to do things like board in decays. It sucks real bad and feels like a blowout in game one, but because it is interactive in a way we usually don't have to or don't want to deal with.

I liked the observation a page or two back that everyone is complaining about different things and that it's a good sign for format balance. I would personally love it if Chalice and Counterbalance were banned, but I have a hard time convincing myself it actually makes sense from a powerlevel/diversity standpoint. As hard as it is to beat Miracles with storm, and as dumb as I think Eldrazi is, I think it's important that they exist.

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Originally Posted by iatee

Sometimes Wizards makes mistakes, mostly due to the fact that they don't really care that much when they print cards that make Legacy worse.

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Aren't the mistakes what define Legacy?

Wasn't Storm a mistake?
Wasn't Dredge a mistake?
Wasn't Jace, the Mind Sculptor a mistake?
How about Deathrite Shaman? Or Batterskull? Or Dark Depths after the 'legendary' rules change?

Legacy is interesting because you can use the mistakes.


Also, as someone who started in Legacy playing Goblins, I have to laugh when I hear Storm players complain that Chalice on turn 1 is bad for the game because it reduces interaction.

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Originally Posted by HammerAndSickled

I think that Chalice, Thalia, and Counterbalance are all very interactive cards. Anyone who says they just scoop to them G1 has made a choice NOT to interact and now they're getting salty about it. No one is forcing you to build decks that fold to these kinds of effects. Yes, 1cmc cards are good, but by playing cards of varied mana costs (and in the case of Thalia/Sphere, playing creatures) you get to dodge or eliminate the hate. Your choice whether to interact with Chalice and company or not happens not in game, but before the game even begins, while you're making your deckbuilding decisions. And that's a really awesome thing that only really exists in Legacy.

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No. They are by definition not interactive. They prevent you from casting cards in your hand. I am actually baffled you could convince yourself these cards are interactive.. And the assumption that people who scoop to chalice are only "being salty" is incorrect. Managing the clock is an important aspect of comp REL tournament magic. Conserving time is important to be able to play both post board games. This also doesn't make any sense... "No one is forcing you to build decks..." as if, you could build a competitive legacy deck while also keeping up with the speed of the format by "varying CMC" arbitrarily. Shall I play incinerate instead of lightning bolt to vary my CMC? And let deathrites and delvers live for turns before I kill them? Should I play mana leak instead of spell pierce? Because according to you, I just made the choice to play lightning bolt for no reason, and efficient removal and stack interaction isn't important in a format where you can die turn 2.

That being said, I think chalice is a fine card for the format (symmetrical effect) but counterbalance has to go.

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Originally Posted by Shax

Moving on, I feel like they should unban Earthcraft, and maybe something like Mystical Tutor or Gush.

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As a quick point, I think you're right about Earthcraft but wrong about Gush. Having played against that card in both Vintage and Pauper, it absolutely should not ever be unbanned in Legacy. Mentor/Pyromancer decks go absolutely nuts with that card. Also, Gush in response to Wasteland is pretty fucking lame.

Earthcraft and Mind Twist are the obvious next 2 unbans. I'd like to see Frantic Search and Recruiter, too, but I'm not holding my breath.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

As a pretty bottom-of-the-barrel Storm player, I've beaten a Snack-Attacked Emrakul at 1 life. I have never beaten a resolved Chalice in game 1. And (again, in G1) there's nothing interactive about facing a Chalice. I'm either sitting on a boatload of Cabal Rituals or I'm dead.

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I mean at this point we're swapping anecdotal evidence, but I've certainly won a few games through a chalice on one before with storm in game 1's. It's not actually super hard, it just requires a certain hand. Hell the other night I played against Tez and beat chalice on one once, and would've beaten chalice on one and 0 in game three had I remembered to put a badlands in the deck.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

No. They are by definition not interactive. They prevent you from casting cards in your hand. I am actually baffled you could convince yourself these cards are interactive..

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I get his point. If you are playing Storm against a deck that cannot interact on the stack, YOU are trying to win as fast as possible without interaction. If I play Chalice @ 1, I am interacting with you by shutting you down instead of losing myself. In that sense, I added a layer of interaction that otherwise wouldn't have been there.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

And the assumption that people who scoop to chalice are only "being salty" is incorrect. Managing the clock is an important aspect of comp REL tournament magic. Conserving time is important to be able to play both post board games.

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The two are not mutually exclusive, both can be true. Not all players that scoop to Chalice are salty about it, but not all of them do it to save time (but ARE salty).

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Thats what I said, before he was suddenly changing the topic to "SB Chalice".

We started out at "CounterTop, Thalia and Chalice being cards played to ensure the opponent cant play their cards", but it got derailed to ridicule the point

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We started off with you saying every deck needs to play Counter-Top, Decay, or Chalice.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

You play either Countertoo, chalice or Decay in Legacy, if you want to actually win anything

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I argued that of five DTBs, only one plays Chalice, one plays Counter-Top, and one plays AD. The other two are Lands and D&T:

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

There are currently five decks in DTB. One plays Counter-Top, one plays Chalice (main), one plays Decay. The other two do not. Maybe we should say:

• Play Counter-Top, or
• Play Chalice, or
• Play Decay, or
• Play Vial, or
• Play Loam

Not really much substance here, because that basically says play any one of the five DTBs!

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Then you rejected the distinction between SB Chalice vs maindeck Chalice:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Funny that you talk about "accurate" description, given that Loam plays Chalice and you still count it as two decks. Its not that you differ for sideboard Decays either.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I can't get why you are so focussed on the narrow "It must be mainboard and the card must be the strategy itself".

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So I didn't change gears. I've been arguing al along that 2/5 DTBs don't run the cards you claimed to be necessary as main strategies which discourage interaction.

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Originally Posted by Stuart

Also, Gush in response to Wasteland is pretty fucking lame.

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You misspelled, "pretty fucking awesome"

Also, I'm definitely one of the storm players who doesn't scoop to chalice but does get salty about it :laugh:

It definitely sucks, but I've been told getting domed for twenty before you get to play a land sucks too, but lord knows I'm not going to stop trying to do that to people :cool:

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

What's a real game of magic? I like descriptive language better than emotive language.

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In terms of facing graveyard-based decks, mulling to Leyline or casting RiP would be uninteractive whereas a card like DRS is interactive. Adding to board/gamestate complexity is probably the best way to define interactive; and interactive cards lead to real games of magic. There is nothing clever or desirable about making a game unwinnable for opponent until they remove specific un-linked card with specific removal that can't be interacted with (aka Decay); such things should be built around or require drawbacks or be incredibly narrow...or (since you can't go back and add drawbacks like culm. upkeep to uninteractive cards) printing of new cards that serve as removal while doubling as sub-par engine pieces.

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Originally Posted by Fox

In terms of facing graveyard-based decks, mulling to Leyline or casting RiP would be uninteractive whereas a card like DRS is interactive.

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I feel like this is pretty reasonable.

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Originally Posted by Fox

Adding to board/gamestate complexity is probably the best way to define interactive; and interactive cards lead to real games of magic. There is nothing clever or desirable about making a game unwinnable for opponent until they remove specific un-linked card with specific removal that can't be interacted with (aka Decay); such things should be built around or require drawbacks or be incredibly narrow...or (since you can't go back and add drawbacks like culm. upkeep to uninteractive cards) printing of new cards that serve as removal while doubling as sub-par engine pieces.

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This I'm not sure about - for instance, the nature of BUG or Jund in a lot of formats, including Legacy to an extent, is to play a lot of un-linked, individually powerful cards, and those decks are as interactive as they come.

I think people are arguing different points and calling both interactivity:

1. Chalice and the like are interactive, because they force opponents to care about each other (as a storm player, I don't care what you're doing as long as I can resolve nine spells and then tendrils; Chalice interacts with me and makes me interact because I now care about your boardstate)

2. Chalice and the like have a limited number of answers, making certain decks unable to deal with them reasonably outside of sideboard cards.

I think many of the people saying debating that chalice is uninteractive (i.e., contesting #1) are really arguing #2. The question is, does requiring particular answers or mana curves to beat qualify a card for banning? I would say no, presuming it isn't completely oppressive.

One key thing about the "uninteractive" cards: Their effect is usually very brutal, and binary in nature. It's why game loss examples and might as well scoop arguments come up. With a heavy graveyard deck you're either fucked up by RIP or not, that's pretty much it. A greedy BUG deck can somewhat handle a resolved RIP depending on build, it makes the game really difficult but you've got tools to work with, a Blood Moon you don't have the answer for then and there is pretty much game because your whole deck turns into blanks.

That's the difference between eg. D&T which builds up these kinds of "you still have realistic game left" hindrances one after another until they amount to "can't play Magic effectively at all anymore" - where you can fight against the buildup and where there's nuance to the kind of prison the white player is building vs. someone casting Chalice and, well, I guess I can still cast Tarmogoyf... the end state is the same, the route to getting there not at all, in the Chalice scenario it's just an on/off switch between you being able to do shit or not.

It's a similar kind of difference playing, say, Storm vs. Delver where both people have lots of nuanced interaction available but can also make completely backbreaking plays if they sniff out a window or can build themselves one. In contrast, G1 ANT vs. Elves with Teeg is awful. Resolve Teeg, yay, such skill, they scooped up. A game didn't really happen. Postboard Teeg is more of a speedbump instead of a win condition in itself, and the game becomes something with maybe some back and forth, but regardless of win percentages I'd play Delver vs. Storm any day of the week. It's just a better matchup.

As far as I'm concerned, that can be permissible but I'd never consider these kinds of one-card-and-fucked scenarios desirable. Many of the endstates can be achieved more interactively, and hate cards made into something that has play to it - Relic, Crypt, DRS, Nihil bomb, Knight+Bog are all amazing. RIP is shit outside the matchups where it's an incidental value card.

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I think people are arguing different points and calling both interactivity:

1. Chalice and the like are interactive, because they force opponents to care about each other (as a storm player, I don't care what you're doing as long as I can resolve nine spells and then tendrils; Chalice interacts with me and makes me interact because I now care about your boardstate)

2. Chalice and the like have a limited number of answers, making certain decks unable to deal with them reasonably outside of sideboard cards.

I think many of the people saying debating that chalice is uninteractive (i.e., contesting #1) are really arguing #2. The question is, does requiring particular answers or mana curves to beat qualify a card for banning? I would say no, presuming it isn't completely oppressive.

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You might be on to something here, but even if the problem is only that there isn't a great enough variety of good answers to cards like Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void, the only option is a banned list change. WotC isn't going to intentionally print new cards just to try to address an issue with the Legacy metagame. That just isn't something they really do.

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Originally Posted by thefringthing

You might be on to something here, but even if the problem is only that there isn't a great enough variety of good answers to cards like Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void, the only option is a banned list change. WotC isn't going to intentionally print new cards just to try to address an issue with the Legacy metagame. That just isn't something they really do.

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That's exactly what they did with Decay. It was deliberately printed as an answer to Counterbalance.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Thats the critical point. The only decks which are supposed to have a really good miracles matchup, get slapped by SB back to basics or bloodmoons

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4c Loam can play around nonbasic hate pretty well. And has great game against every blue deck in the format.

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Originally Posted by HammerAndSickled

Lemnear, I'm really surprised that you're on that side of the argument, because Storm pressures the metagame in exactly the same way. It requires specific constraints in deckbuilding to combat it (cheap or free stack interaction, lock pieces, or discard) and we always say "if you play a deck that can't beat storm, you deserve to lose to it." How is Chalice and friends any different? And both Storm and Chalice decks have a percentage of games where even if you came prepared, you'll still lose. Maybe I had Force force Flusterstorm and he shredded my hand and went off, maybe I had 2 decays and he had T1 Chalice into t2 Lodestone and I never got to cast them. That's just variance.

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You mistake me. I am ALL FOR more maindeckable hate against combo decks like storm and stuff, so non-blue/black decks (Thalia & Eidolon aside) have options to interact with combo decks and break the format more open.

There is no need to "fix" the ~10% T1 kills of Storm by killing the whole remaining format diversity with effective T1/T2 lockouts.

I mean, its funny that people point at deckbuilding as a fix. If you play 1cc spells to get under Thorn/Thalia, you get fucked by Chalice/countertop; if you play higher costs to dodge Chalice/Countertop, you get fucked by Thorn/Thalia/Wasteland. Pick your medicine.

We are slowly but steadily get into a similar position Vintage was in during the 6+ years of Oath vs MUD metagame which killed everything else with T1 blowouts

P.S.: And before some smartass comes up with "stable manabase": Lands & D&T adapted Ghost Quarter.

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Originally Posted by HammerAndSickled

I think that Chalice, Thalia, and Counterbalance are all very interactive cards. Anyone who says they just scoop to them G1 has made a choice NOT to interact and now they're getting salty about it. No one is forcing you to build decks that fold to these kinds of effects. Yes, 1cmc cards are good, but by playing cards of varied mana costs (and in the case of Thalia/Sphere, playing creatures) you get to dodge or eliminate the hate. Your choice whether to interact with Chalice and company or not happens not in game, but before the game even begins, while you're making your deckbuilding decisions. And that's a really awesome thing that only really exists in Legacy.

Lemnear, I'm really surprised that you're on that side of the argument, because Storm pressures the metagame in exactly the same way. It requires specific constraints in deckbuilding to combat it (cheap or free stack interaction, lock pieces, or discard) and we always say "if you play a deck that can't beat storm, you deserve to lose to it." How is Chalice and friends any different? And both Storm and Chalice decks have a percentage of games where even if you came prepared, you'll still lose. Maybe I had Force force Flusterstorm and he shredded my hand and went off, maybe I had 2 decays and he had T1 Chalice into t2 Lodestone and I never got to cast them. That's just variance.

All strategies deserve a shot in Legacy. If you're sick of losing to Chalice or Countertop play a deck that shits on them. But be aware that like everything else, there's an opportunity cost.

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Excellent post, thank you.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

You mistake me. I am ALL FOR more maindeckable hate against combo decks like storm and stuff, so non-blue/black decks (Thalia & Eidolon aside) have options to interact with combo decks and break the format more open.

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Maybe this is straying too far from B&R discussion, but what would that even look like? It's hard for me to picture a maindeckable combo hate card that's interactive, non-blue, not discard, not countermagic, and not a permanent lock piece that either shuts off everything (Chalice, Teeg, Prelate, Canonist, RIP) or taxes everything. Cards like Needle and Surgical seem like a good start, but aren't usually quite enough to really stop your opponent from comboing off.

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Originally Posted by taconaut

This I'm not sure about - for instance, the nature of BUG or Jund in a lot of formats, including Legacy to an extent, is to play a lot of un-linked, individually powerful cards, and those decks are as interactive as they come.

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When talking about un-linked cards, I meant uninteractive cards that indefinitely say opponent can't win unless they remove this [like RiP or Leyline from previous example]. Chalice will always be a better designed card because it has stipulations to accompany wide implications. In the same way a card like Yixlid Jailer is a healthy hate card which takes nothing to sustain, has no demands on deck construction, and is incredibly narrow b/c of how easy it is to fire and forget.

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Originally Posted by taconaut

This I'm not sure about - for instance, the nature of BUG or Jund in a lot of formats, including Legacy to an extent, is to play a lot of un-linked, individually powerful cards, and those decks are as interactive as they come.

I think people are arguing different points and calling both interactivity:

1. Chalice and the like are interactive, because they force opponents to care about each other (as a storm player, I don't care what you're doing as long as I can resolve nine spells and then tendrils; Chalice interacts with me and makes me interact because I now care about your boardstate)

2. Chalice and the like have a limited number of answers, making certain decks unable to deal with them reasonably outside of sideboard cards.

I think many of the people saying debating that chalice is uninteractive (i.e., contesting #1) are really arguing #2. The question is, does requiring particular answers or mana curves to beat qualify a card for banning? I would say no, presuming it isn't completely oppressive.

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I can get fully behind that, but moaning about lacking interactivity also implies that there are no ways for the players to do so.

Sure Decay is an answer to chalice and counterbalance, but its THE ONLY ONE we realistically have in Legacy and thats why near everyone who wants to resolve 1cc/2cc spells in this metagame uses the card. If there actually were alternatives (also colorwise less restrictive) there would be less of an issue

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Originally Posted by Stuart

Maybe this is straying too far from B&R discussion, but what would that even look like? It's hard for me to picture a maindeckable combo hate card that's interactive, non-blue, not discard, not countermagic, and not a permanent lock piece that either shuts off everything (Chalice, Teeg, Prelate, Canonist, RIP) or taxes everything. Cards like Needle and Surgical seem like a good start, but aren't usually quite enough to really stop your opponent from comboing off.

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I really dont want to go into card creation after WotC did an excellent job with Thalia, DRS, Revoker and Leovold, showing how to make "hatebears" maindeckable to fight combo decks on a permanent base.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Sure Decay is an answer to chalice and counterbalance, but its THE ONLY ONE we realistically have in Legacy and thats why near everyone who wants to resolve 1cc/2cc spells in this metagame uses the card. If there actually were alternatives (also colorwise less restrictive) there would be less of an issue.

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I beg to disagree on the "only one": engineered explosives is an excellent answer to both and is fairly unrestrictive colorwise, and Rec Sage/GSZ are also quite fine answers.
Both cards have good utility beside CotV and CB.
Aether vial, cavern of souls and bosejiu are also interesting ways to go around them.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I really dont want to go into card creation after WotC did an excellent job with Thalia, DRS, Revoker and Leovold, showing how to make "hatebears" maindeckable to fight combo decks on a permanent base.

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I also don't wanna go down the card creation rabit hole, and I like the cards you've referenced. The only problem I see is that when Wizards keeps printing hate bears, we see a limited range of decks getting boosted, and formats become more homogeneously focused on permanent-based hate (e.g. Vintage). I was just curious if there's potential for Wizards to design maindeckable combo hate that's not obnoxiously strong, could fit in a wide array of non-blue decks, and doesn't lead to boards clogged up with hatebears, Thorn affects, etc (3/4 of the cards you quoted are hatebears, and the other is arguably a design mistake).

But yeah we can just drop this topic.

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Originally Posted by dte

I beg to disagree on the "only one": engineered explosives is an excellent answer to both and is fairly unrestrictive colorwise, and Rec Sage/GSZ are also quite fine answers.
Both cards have good utility beside CotV and CB.
Aether vial, cavern of souls and bosejiu are also interesting ways to go around them.

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There is a reason, I advocate for more RecSages in Elves ^~^

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Originally Posted by Stuart

Maybe this is straying too far from B&R discussion, but what would that even look like? It's hard for me to picture a maindeckable combo hate card that's interactive, non-blue, not discard, not countermagic, and not a permanent lock piece that either shuts off everything (Chalice, Teeg, Prelate, Canonist, RIP) or taxes everything. Cards like Needle and Surgical seem like a good start, but aren't usually quite enough to really stop your opponent from comboing off.

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I would be ok with split second discard or pyroblasts too to get around "Brainstorm in response"

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Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew

I get his point. If you are playing Storm against a deck that cannot interact on the stack, YOU are trying to win as fast as possible without interaction. If I play Chalice @ 1, I am interacting with you by shutting you down instead of losing myself. In that sense, I added a layer of interaction that otherwise wouldn't have been there.


The two are not mutually exclusive, both can be true. Not all players that scoop to Chalice are salty about it, but not all of them do it to save time (but ARE salty).

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Interaction via uninteraction :confused: it is now more clear to me what he was originally trying to say, though. I agree that some players who lose to chalice get salty af. But its not fair to characterize people being whiny as a whole about getting chalice'd when in 90% or more of scenarios it is the correct thing to scoop game 1 to it.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

There is no need to "fix" the ~10% T1 kills of Storm by killing the whole remaining format diversity with effective T1/T2 lockouts.

I mean, its funny that people point at deckbuilding as a fix. If you play 1cc spells to get under Thorn/Thalia, you get fucked by Chalice/countertop; if you play higher costs to dodge Chalice/Countertop, you get fucked by Thorn/Thalia/Wasteland. Pick your medicine.

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Pretty much this x1000.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

Interaction via uninteraction :confused: it is now more clear to me what he was originally trying to say, though. I agree that some players who lose to chalice get salty af. But its not fair to characterize people being whiny as a whole about getting chalice'd when in 90% or more of scenarios it is the correct thing to scoop game 1 to it.

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Yeah, if you scoop game 1 before your opponent saw what deck you actually play and to not lose time in a game you cannot win, you get labeled as "whiny bitch" in this forum. A classic discussion

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

Someday one hopes people will realize how ridiculous it is to claim that putting "can't be countered" on a card is anything but bad design. Or that stopping one-mana cards wholesale with one lock-piece is anything else either. Or to claim that decks capitalizing on zero- or one-mana cards "can't compete anymore," or that that'd be a good thing.

I'm not holding my breath.

There's been an increasing trend toward cards that themselves are intended to sidestep interaction altogether starting with Time Spiral block (Split Second), and though few see play in Legacy, the ones that do are becoming increasingly important because there's little one can do against singular cards that blank over half the cards in combo decks like Storm from the first turn.

I don't blame people for playing the cards; they're in the format, and they answer those kinds of combo decks. But wiping out a deck on the first turn (without winning the game, in case it wasn't irksome enough as it was) isn't interactive, and playing responses to which there is definitionally no answer (aside from Time Stop or Sundial) isn't creative, interesting, or interactive. Now that's not a problem when the deck that runs those cards needs to screw around for a while in order to actually put together a win, but the prime offenders in this day and age don't need to do that. They either hulk out right away with equally poorly designed cards or they just keep playing lock-pieces of sufficient diversity that there's no way to break through.

I still don't like banning anything, but it's pretty obvious that the Kantrip Kings aren't worthy of it—especially not right now—and that Wizards is pushing one type of strategy, prison-control, really hard right now, and that's bad for fun, bad for the format, and bad for the game.

It's interesting to see that there's so little consensus about which cards should be banned, and I think it has to do not simply with the diversity of decks people who post here play, but with the fact that people are using different criteria to gauge whether they think cards should be banned. Chief among them, it seems, is whether a card angers people because they don't like to deal with it, which isn't a valid criterion. Enables/forces slow play? Maybe valid. Stifles format-diversity? Probably valid. "I don't like it because it's good but I can't play it in my pet deck/because a lot of people play it?" Not so much.

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While I'd be thrilled if we banned Cavern of Souls and Boseiju for precisely the reasons you say, I think that Split Second cards and Abrupt Decay are interesting because they promote interaction despite being uninteractive by themselves: the primary reason anyone plays Krosan Grip over Naturalize or Sudden Shock over another burn spell is because they're trying to answer specific problem cards that aren't efficiently interacted with using their more interactive counterparts. If I'm packing Sudden Shocks over or in addition to Lightning Bolts, it's because I expect to have to slog through Mother of Runes or Vines of the Vastwood. If I'm running Grips over Naturalizes there's strong chance that someone is using Artifacts or Enchantments to try and stop me from playing the game at all, and I expect the lock pieces to protect themselves.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I still think, pointing at the 1 Entreat the deck might runs is nothing more than bait, given its Mentor which overtook both Entreat and Jace as the prime kill condition.

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Looking at the last major Legacy tournaments on mtgtop8, Mentor seems to be far more favored as a primary win condition in Europe as compared to the US or Japan. Since Eternal Extravaganza, 3/9 Miracles lists that top 8'ed 15 round events that ran Mentor an MD win condition in the US and Japan, and that's counting lists that run a 2/1 Mentor/Entreat split MD as Mentor decks, which I find sort of dubious. Regardless of how you classify those decks, it's nearly impossible to know (from the BGx/grindy midrange side) whether your opponent has access to Entreat or not, which forces you to hedge both in your sideboarding and in how you play postboard games, and that information asymmetry is ultimately what makes those matchups close to even postboard.

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The second part essentially demands that CounterTop + Terminus should remain legal that there has to be a Ux deck which crushes Combo and Aggro, aka leaving everything as it is. I see no argument for why an UNTRADITIONAL control deck like Miracles should get special protection, as traditional control decks are not supposed to beat every aggro deck with ease.

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'Crushes' aggro and combo is a bit of a stretch. The whole problem with Miracles isn't that it wins too many lopsided non-games, it's that it's become obvious Miracles is ~55% to win against the field and there's not much to be done about it short of banning something.

As for a Ux Control deck with an acceptable matchup profile, I'm not even convinced that one exists without Terminus and CounterTop. It's not like Wizards is printing great new control cards every set. I'm not even sure that Top+Terminus gets there without Counterbalance providing enough permission to justify running 8-9 removal spells, and the non-Terminus sweepers definitely push a deckbuilder away from CounterTop as a primary gameplan because they're much more mana-intensive than Terminus, making Top itself worse, and CounterTop less effective against aggro/tempo since tapping out to Wrath means that spinning in response to a follow-up 2-3 CMC threat can't happen.

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Originally Posted by btm10

While I'd be thrilled if we banned Cavern of Souls and Boseiju for precisely the reasons you say, I think that Split Second cards and Abrupt Decay are interesting because they promote interaction despite being uninteractive by themselves: the primary reason anyone plays Krosan Grip over Naturalize or Sudden Shock over another burn spell is because they're trying to answer specific problem cards that aren't efficiently interacted with using their more interactive counterparts. If I'm packing Sudden Shocks over or in addition to Lightning Bolts, it's because I expect to have to slog through Mother of Runes or Vines of the Vastwood. If I'm running Grips over Naturalizes there's strong chance that someone is using Artifacts or Enchantments to try and stop me from playing the game at all, and I expect the lock pieces to protect themselves.



Looking at the last major Legacy tournaments on mtgtop8, Mentor seems to be far more favored as a primary win condition in Europe as compared to the US or Japan. Since Eternal Extravaganza, 3/9 Miracles lists that top 8'ed 15 round events that ran Mentor an MD win condition in the US and Japan, and that's counting lists that run a 2/1 Mentor/Entreat split MD as Mentor decks, which I find sort of dubious. Regardless of how you classify those decks, it's nearly impossible to know (from the BGx/grindy midrange side) whether your opponent has access to Entreat or not, which forces you to hedge both in your sideboarding and in how you play postboard games, and that information asymmetry is ultimately what makes those matchups close to even postboard.



'Crushes' aggro and combo is a bit of a stretch. The whole problem with Miracles isn't that it wins too many lopsided non-games, it's that it's become obvious Miracles is ~55% to win against the field and there's not much to be done about it short of banning something.

As for a Ux Control deck with an acceptable matchup profile, I'm not even convinced that one exists without Terminus and CounterTop. It's not like Wizards is printing great new control cards every set. I'm not even sure that Top+Terminus gets there without Counterbalance providing enough permission to justify running 8-9 removal spells, and the non-Terminus sweepers definitely push a deckbuilder away from CounterTop as a primary gameplan because they're much more mana-intensive than Terminus, making Top itself worse, and CounterTop less effective against aggro/tempo since tapping out to Wrath means that spinning in response to a follow-up 2-3 CMC threat can't happen.

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I mean that's kind of the point right? To not let miracles be able to have their cake and eat it too? What's so bad about miracles having to make actually deck building restrictive decisions like all of the other decks? Take out some removal for counters, slightly worsen creature match ups. Take out counters for more removal, weaken combo match ups. Seems fine to me. I know that playing maverick I had to choose to take out some Thalia for decays which made me better against fair decks and worse against combo. What's wrong with forcing a deck to possibly have to run a nonbo or two? I don't particularly enjoy running teeg when I have a 4 mana walker, batterskull, and 4 green Sun, but I am making a trade off

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

I mean that's kind of the point right? To not let miracles be able to have their cake and eat it too? What's so bad about miracles having to make actually deck building restrictive decisions like all of the other decks? Take out some removal for counters, slightly worsen creature match ups. Take out counters for more removal, weaken combo match ups. Seems fine to me. I know that playing maverick I had to choose to take out some Thalia for decays which made me better against fair decks and worse against combo. What's wrong with forcing a deck to possibly have to run a nonbo or two? I don't particularly enjoy running teeg when I have a 4 mana walker, batterskull, and 4 green Sun, but I am making a trade off

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The problem is that I don't think any blue-based control deck, not just Miracles, can hang with the current DTBs + Delver/Infect and combo without CounterTop and Terminus (in the sense that it keeps its matchups close to even across the board). Without both pieces, the deckbuilding requirements just don't pull you toward running CounterTop + 4 Verdict + 4 Swords, or Top to enable Terminus alongside regular counterspells. You end up in either a Stoneblade or Mentor shell (which is both a worse midrange deck and a worse control deck than Shardless while barely moving the needle on combo and Lands) or Landstill (which struggles against the quality of modern 1-drops, has a disastrous Eldrazi matchup, is unfavored against Lands and Shardless, and historically didn't have a great combo matchup because it's so slow). Miracles absolutely needs to be made a little worse, but we stand to completely kill the macro-archetype of blue-based control if we break up Terminus + CounterTop.

That's all completely theoretical. Miracles effectively pushes out every other control deck, plus every aggro deck. If miracles were to be nerfed it may bring back a few other decks that can keep standstills bad match ups at bay, the same way force of will can keep non blue bad match ups down.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Yeah, if you scoop game 1 before your opponent saw what deck you actually play and to not lose time in a game you cannot win, you get labeled as "whiny bitch" in this forum. A classic discussion

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Wow, I've been missing out on so much fun all this time!

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Originally Posted by btm10

The problem is that I don't think any blue-based control deck, not just Miracles, can hang with the current DTBs + Delver/Infect and combo without CounterTop and Terminus (in the sense that it keeps its matchups close to even across the board). Without both pieces, the deckbuilding requirements just don't pull you toward running CounterTop + 4 Verdict + 4 Swords, or Top to enable Terminus alongside regular counterspells. You end up in either a Stoneblade or Mentor shell (which is both a worse midrange deck and a worse control deck than Shardless while barely moving the needle on combo and Lands) or Landstill (which struggles against the quality of modern 1-drops, has a disastrous Eldrazi matchup, is unfavored against Lands and Shardless, and historically didn't have a great combo matchup because it's so slow). Miracles absolutely needs to be made a little worse, but we stand to completely kill the macro-archetype of blue-based control if we break up Terminus + CounterTop.

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What you're really saying is- "If miracles gets banned out of existence, what other control deck can exist and have even to favorable match ups across the board?". WHICH IS THE DAMN PROBLEM! The whole point of people arguing for a miracles ban is there shouldn't be a deck that has even or favorable match ups with legit every other tier 1 deck in the format. Every other deck in the format has bad cards in certain match ups, hence the whole point of a sideboard. Your last sentence is pure speculation.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

That's all completely theoretical. Miracles effectively pushes out every other control deck, plus every aggro deck. If miracles were to be nerfed it may bring back a few other decks that can keep standstills bad match ups at bay, the same way force of will can keep non blue bad match ups down.

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Exactly this.

We don't know what people can come up with until we are forced to change. No one is brewing control decks because its just worse miracles. For 4+ years now :cry:

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Miracles effectively pushes out every other control deck, plus every aggro deck.

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Gotta call BS on this:

1. When Miracles first became a thing, there were already no tier one aggro decks! Linear aggro had been pushed out by midrange and tempo decks like Maverick, Blade, and Thresh. Goblins, Merfolk, and Zoo had long since been outclassed by these more efficient and versatile aggro/control decks. Hate-bears are in part to blame, but more generally the power creep WotC has been dumping on creatures has not promoted pure aggro strategies.
2. We actually have a tier one aggro deck, it's called Eldrazi.

Basically, what the heck are you even talking about? You're blaming Miracles fora perceived injustice which was already the case before Miracles existed but is no longer even true.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

What you're really saying is- "If miracles gets banned out of existence, what other control deck can exist and have even to favorable match ups across the board?". WHICH IS THE DAMN PROBLEM!

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Way to twist the man's words! He clearly said "close to even across the board" Close to even does not mean even to favourable. It means slightly favourable to slightly unfavourable. And this is exactly where Miracles sits vs the other DTBs! Miracles is slightly unfavourable vs Eldrazi and Shardless, while maybe slightly favourable vs D&T and Lands. Your assertion that Miracles is 50/50 at worse vs the other tier one decks is a complete load.

If you recall, a few months ago in this thread we looked at Miracles performance within the top8 brackets (aka, mostly against good opponents on tier one decks) and found it was actually slightly less than 50/50.

Of course this depends how we define tier one. If we count Aggro Loam and Infect, Miracles is well beyond slightly unfavoured. If we only count DTBs, see above.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

If you play 1cc spells to get under Thorn/Thalia, you get fucked by Chalice/countertop; if you play higher costs to dodge Chalice/Countertop, you get fucked by Thorn/Thalia/Wasteland. Pick your medicine.

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It sounds like you want to bring a deck which will always function as intended regardless of what strategy your opponent brings to the table? This is basically Zac Hill's vision of Standard when he decided Prison, Combo, Draw/Go and LD because they led to unfun, non-interactive games.

This is great if the goal is to keep newbs coming back to FNM and opening product, but these sentiments are not generally welcome in Legacy. In this format, whatever deck you play, there is somebody ready to pull the rug out from under your feet.