Look it’s [current year] and it’s banned in modern for a reason. Without mental misstep, it’s a menace.
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Look it’s [current year] and it’s banned in modern for a reason. Without mental misstep, it’s a menace.
I yearn for the days of AIR. I just want to seething song a Turn 1 Deus
All I can say is that I'm so glad that SDT was banned. The Legacy metagame, even though it's still predominantly blue, is still better and more diverse than it was with Miracles running the format. People still play Miracles, but now it's Just Another Decent Blue deck instead of being the best blue deck in the format by far.
And paper tournaments are SO much faster. No more waiting for 6-7 Miracles players to finish their matches EVERY SINGLE ROUND. Now we actually finish rounds in a big tournaments with time to spare!
+ a millionQuote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
AIR from seven year extended is still my favorite deck of all time.
If we go that route, make the resilient, layered rube goldberg combo decks from EDH viable in Legacy :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew
Failing that, just print me more good Elves.
I disagree with top being the right ban, but I do think Legacy is diverse at the moment (though it was before the top banning, too).Quote:
Originally Posted by MGB
I think this is inaccurate, or at least overstated. I have not perceived any real difference in round length post-miracles banning, and certainly haven't encountered rounds where no one goes to time (one match in turns is enough to delay the round, miracles or not, which is why I always found this accusation against miracles in particular dubious).Quote:
Originally Posted by MGB
The only major event that I've played in since Top got banned was Eternal Weekend, but I did not notice a difference in round times. Every round went about 15 minutes over, which felt about the same as when Top was legal. I have no doubt that less rounds went to time, but it only takes one.
I've not noticed any change in round turnover either, it's confirmation bias.
Rounds are always going to go to time, certainly as long as people are rewarded for playing piles of battlefield kill spells and discard. As far as U/W do-nothing decks go, CB is still the better ban than SDT - but it should now be more readily apparent that any kind of opponent (combo, control, or aggro) that they should generally concede to double Library of Alexandria, once assembled (JTMS + Azcanta), whereas CB generates dumb gamestates of "I can still topdeck Decay, and pretend it'll matter against ever worsening odds each time Decay topdeck doesn't come."
Rounds going to time is generally the fault of Hymn (Shardless/Czech) and Snapcaster (U/W)....still only takes 1 game to delay rounds (or a long judge call, potentially including an appeal); this isn't a problem you can really ban away by hitting the main culprits. The only thing that made SDT a reasonable ban on the grounds of delaying rounds was the ethical issue of floating a win with ETA endlessly to win g1 and force a draw g2 - this again only worked b/c the opponent is locked out by CB.
Since the glaring ethical issue has been dealt with, the highest yield way to reduce round times is probably a policy of running more events at comp REL or defining a cap beyond which comp REL must be enforced (like say 17+)...at least then there will be a higher chance that both players and judges will be better equipped to quickly resolve issues and cut down on extension times. Not that most legacy players really care, but that policy could instead be to double PW points for any event past 'x' size where comp REL was enforced.
Straight up: NoQuote:
Originally Posted by Fox
CB is no lock without a reusable tool to manipulate the top of your deck, which is part of the reason they chopped SDT instead of CB. The main issue with SDT wasn't floating wincons or extending your hand by essentially 3 cards, but the whole...
EoT Top, look at top 3 cards, tank, rearange, put the 3 cards back, untap, draw, activate Top, look at top 3 cards, tank, rearange, put the 3 cards back, drop fetch, crack fetch, search for land, (pile) shuffle, activate Top, look at top 3 cards, tank, rearange, put the 3 cards back, pass...
... which is repeditive and legal way of easily stalling 5min out of every turn.
So here's the thing about CB and SDT, one of the cards is broken (CB) and the other is the enabler (SDT). The power of those two is way too high together and there was a very real ethical problem of floating wincons to intentionally go to time forcing a 1-0-1 result. There is no other deck that went to time spamming SDT activations as a systemic problem, because you don't have much reason to unless you're sitting behind CB. Now when you talk about which one do you ban, the only reason to hit SDT over CB is ethics b/c it's clearly not the one that needs banned on power level grounds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
In the greater scheme of legacy, discard in non-combo decks and decks sitting behind battefield kill spells are the main culprits of rounds going past time b/c the intent of these cards is to deliberately delay games without providing intent to win in a timely fashion. SDT by itself (no CB) punishes discard as a strategy - this shortens games; you have to take that into account as well with SDT's design. It's not a well-designed card, but like delve spells, it disincentives Hymn bullcrap.
Now it was possible to play like a total scumbag and deliberately try to waste time with completely unnecessary SDT activations, but you still have to actually play to win at least one game to get rewarded for that kind of crap and also dodge slow play calls - the thing is though, that's not a recipe for success unless you can hide behind the infinite turns provided by Counterbalance. Floating wincons with the impunity only a card like CB can provide made that ethical problem a winning strategy going into any event - if banning SDT only stopped one thing, it was this: rewarding players for deliberately pursuing a [winning] strategy of forcing rounds to go over time.
I miss Painter.
My experience with legacy is that round times have always taken a while, with or without top. This includes 8 man events with storm and high tide.
I’ve also noticed legacy tends to be full of codgy old fucks who can’t be bothered to learn to play faster and hipsters that need 45 seconds to resolve brainstorm but since when do we ever point the finger at the problem around here?
You know, it seems like a golden standard here that rounds going to time is bad, but I actually like it when the rounds take longer to finish (not my rounds, obviously). This gives me more time to use the bathroom, get something to eat/drink, or to at least get a little bit of a mental break before the next match.
EDIT: I'm not saying that rounds going to time is good for the game. I'm saying that I appreciate the extra time between rounds.
It becomes a problem at EW though, what was it this year in Pittsburgh? 11 rounds I think, all in one day...Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanni
QFT. Unless you are counting to 10 Storm, Brainstorm should be more of a mechanical process than a thinking one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
I can fully resolve Lim-Dul's Vault in my combo deck in under 60 seconds (including shuffling). Why are players allowed to take minutes to resolve Brainstorm?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellomdian
Because people don't enforce slow play. Same reason with top
I watched Stoneblade/Splinter Twin vs. Eldrazi go to time at the local last Sunday. Therefore, Swords to Plowshares, Endless One, and Brainstorm are ruining the format.
Just ban splinter twin to shake the format up
Wotc would never do something as ridiculous as that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
Here's the thing: If CB were broken, people would still be playing it. IMO Top was the right call, even if it hurts other decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
CB is still every bit as broken as it always has been, it is however currently not enabled. It was never SDT that caused the vast majority of the entire format to run the un-interactives: Boseju, Cavern, Vial, CB, Decay, and/or Chalice. SDT never gave you infinite counterspells, it made the card which provided that reliable. All that we're doing in legacy is going set to set hoping that WotC doesn't turn CB back on.Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthVicious
Edit: It's important to look at what's going on in standard, WotC seems to understand that having 10 lands on the field and being hellbent isn't exactly a formula for a healthy format. There's a very real push by R&D to find mechanics that mitigate mana flood, be it cards like Courser of Kruphix (out of rotation for a while now), Nissa, Vital Force's ultimate, the explore mechanic, and others - there is a very high risk of enabling a card like CB b/c to varying degrees they are playing around with the idea of top-of-deck manipulation as a way to virtually increase hand size.
We already have Soothsaying which gives so much control over the top of the Library and is still unplayable / marginally-playable / obviously-nowhere-near-close-to-DTopQuote:
Originally Posted by Fox
It seems almost impossible that Wizards would print a new card that approaches the following qualities:
- Gives soothsaying-like control of the top of your library for 1 mana
- Can put itself on top of your library to counter a 1 with CB
- Cantrip itself on top of your library to shuffle it away if you draw multiples
- Draw 1 card at anytime to enable Miracles
Not to say that I believe top was or wasn't the correct ban, but it's pretty telling that decks like painter and 12 post are basically dead after the ban. Yes 12 post preyed on miracles, but it also lost it's best filter card
What exactly does that tell us?Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
That I'm sad :<Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
RIP DDFT pile spreadsheet, I loved you
Hey man, it's not dead yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by PirateKing
ddft.wiki
New DDFT pile Doc
Its not even true to say that "12 post preyed on miracles", as most miracle decks had B2B / blood moon and mentor to clock and disrupt cloudpost decks. Of course, if you only ran 1 entreat then yes, it preyed on miracles. At least post can run crap like ancient stirrings, what does painter get, faithless looting? LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
Oh, that is 100% untrue about the matchup, mentor is a clock that helped the deck, but it went from 10/90 to 25/75 at best, post decks on Miracle Era were UG or mono-G, they ALL played krosan grip, so miracles had 1 shot to stick a blood moon or B2B hoping he doesn't have a basic forest AND doesn't find any krosan grip AND if he finds one you have your counterbalance with a 3-mana card on top and hope he krosan grips exactly at that time, its like... all odds must be on miracles favor to win this. The thing is... it was bad against 80% of the rest of the field, but that is how legacy is to some decks. B2B is actually pretty bad against a deck with Candelabra, just whatever untap 2 posts and next turn untap everything.Quote:
Originally Posted by rlesko
I think he's saying it displays a card's power level when it's the capstone to 4+ deck archtypes (Painter, 12-Post, Miracles, DDFT) and that them all falling into relative[*] obscurity after it's ban is telling to the cards' power level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
*[Note that word before ranting about how Miracles is still good]
Other than the holy grail of cards (BS), even a ban on Delver or Goyf wouldn't eliminate their decks. DRS ban would probably kill Grixis(delver) and BUG, and whittle down a lot of the effectiveness of non-blue midrange (and to a lesser degree, blue midrange.) I imagine we'd see a large uptick in Stoneblade variants and the format would slow down by about a turn.
This is a good point, but I don't share your optimism (or pessimism? Not sure what decks you play). Let's face it: we're playing in a format rife with game-design mistakes. There are two cards that lock out upwards of 50% of the cards in most people's decks on the first turn. There's a 1-mana 3/2 Flying. There's a thing that lets you switch bad cards from your hand with other cards from your library and protects you from discard—also for 1 mana. There's a 2-mana 6/7. And just last year, they printed a 4/4 for 4 that Thoughtseizes (sans the life cost), which regularly comes down on turn 2.Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
Counterbalance is getting pretty high on the list of cards that will break if a given set has a single library-manipulation card at relatively low cost. Though it's a moot point now, and the card relied heavily on another one to set up its (soft, though not that soft) lock, CB is extremely high risk. I think they missed the boat when they left CB in the format but took out Top, particularly given that all the problems they cited with Top don't really surface until the card's used with Counterbalance.
This tells us that a card seemingly as subtle as top in comparison to what the rest of the things those decks can do (turn one blood moons, turn 4 emrakuls) is actually incredibly powerful in holding those archetypes together since they are basically non existent by losing top. Painter and 12 Post both were legitimate very very good meta predators that now are unusableQuote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Those decks weren’t exactly world beaters with top, they may have been contextually good but it hardly seems worth it to worry over less than 1% of the format (else nothing would ever get banned in any format)
As I said on The Salt Mine after the banning, once action was decided it should be taken against Miracles Top was always going to get hit. Because it's Wizards M.O. to target enablers not enabled cards. Well outside of Vintage.
Top also had the time issue against it, a criticism not of Top alone but of both Top and Fetches. But since Fetches are untouchable Top was on the arse end of the horse and looking for a ride.
As for Counterbalance. Unless you get a repeatable manipulation spell that's cheap and efficient, Counterbalance is unlikely to be "Broken" again. That's not to say that won't ever happen but I just don't see something better than or equal to Top coming along.
The fact that they probably are in the 1% range and putting up a decent amount of top 8's just goes to show how powerful top was in those decks. We all know that the real reason those decks weren't played as much is because they required multiple copies of very niche expensive cards, candelabra and recruiterQuote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
I think it was more like 40/60 with a mentor configuration, from what I personally observed, however that could obviously be skewed. But I didn't purport that miracles was favored in the matchup, just that it is not nearly the underdog it is claimed to be in mentor build against post decks. And only hoped to illustrate that even its "worst" matchup was not nearly as unwinnable as made out to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raizen884
And yes, Candle beats B2B, but any miracle deck would have artifact destruction brought in as well.
I’m wouldn’t be certain of that, in paper, it’s for sure a limiting factor but that wasn’t the case online where those issues don’t exist. I know this for sure with Painter which was sub $200 last I checked (which was a while ago) and the deck never did particularly well online (that could be attributed to burn being much more popular online admittedly).Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
Furthermore, those decks being more expensive (and thus rare) means that the few who do play them have more free wins due to opponents not knowing how they work.
Tax/Rack was considered pretty broken in it's day. Both those cards are still legal, and nowhere to be seen, despite the former coming off the banlist. Also, Chalice has been run since it's printing, and the same with Vial. Decay was printed for fighting CounterTop. Before that, people used Krosan Grip. (I would've liked to see Harsh Mentor vs CounterTop, myself) Also, this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Pretty much. Cheap, reliable, repeatable library manipulation that protects itself vs. an enchantment that promises free counterspells if the stars align and your card matches their mana cost. I don't think there's any contest here for power levels.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
I wouldn't say fetches are 'untouchable', but that they're more like Pringles. You can't just ban one of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
^ "you cant have just one" is lays not pringles. Smh.
Real talk format is great right now, plz no bans :(