All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

Survival's real enemy wouldn't even be DRS, honestly. Scavenging Ooze, Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace; all of their stock goes way up if Survival ever sees an unban. I wasn't that familiar with the intricacies of legacy when Survival was banned. On the surface it seems manageable, but others would have a better understanding of how good Survival would be in the current environment.

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Vengevine was pretty busted as a "backup" win to whatever other Survival combo stuff you wanted to do (or silver bullet stuff), but straight up UG tempo Survival was arguably the best version of the deck and it just tried to win off of Vengevine and a strong Wasteland/Stifle tempo swing. But this was all in a time before Terminus or DRS existed (or sideboard RiP), so when you killed Vengevines they'd just come right back the next turn. I really don't think that particular strategy of the Survival decks would be overwhelming in Legacy right now, but it could potentially homogenize decks that use green.

At this point "decks using green" isn't a diverse field anyway so I don't see much harm in SotF being unbanned, aside from the ridiculous price the card already is.

#Tinker: We already covered that so many times. Just think of Show and tell being the best two-card combo enabler of the format, for :2::u:.
Now, Tinker is a Show and Tell + Demonic Tutor that doesn't require you to play other 8 uncastable cards in your deck.
Enough said.

#Frantic Search: It's viable in one deck only, and would take it from completely garbage to...tier 2, maybe tier 1.5. Fact, I think FS is super duper unlikely to be unbanned. You don't want your candelabras to drop to $50 worth, do you.

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Originally Posted by ubernostrum

I do find it somewhat amusing that you complain about a 3/1 with protection from the opponent while your main game plan is an indestructible flyer that kills in one hit and is often found in decks that can bring it right back any time someone does manage to get rid of it.

Just for a data point: I've been playing a lot of U/R Delver lately (because Price of Progress is a good card right now), and while I agree that it's good against Lands, sometimes I still find myself facing down a turn-two or turn-three indestructible flying 20/20, and that's the game. It's no more or less fun to lose to that than it is to be pecked to death by a True-Name. And True-Name takes a while to kill you, can be outraced by a variety of things, is susceptible to counterspells, and usually actually stays dead if you manage to put it in the graveyard. Is that massively worse than Marit Lage? I don't think it's possible to say so objectively.

But I think the main thing is Legacy is a huge, high-powered format. There are going to be decks that coalesce around the best and hardest-to-answer threats, because blanking common answers is often a good strategy. True-Name is certainly up there on the hard-to-answer scale, and requires some specialized tools if it does manage to get on the battlefield, but the same is true of several common big threats in Legacy.

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The thing about Marit Lage/Griselbrand decks is that their whole deck is Marit Lage/Griselbrand. That means you have the opportunity to interact on multiple axes -- you can go after their GY, or go after non-basics, or go after their payoff spells, or even target the end result with a Swords to Plowshares.

TNN has very few angles of attack AND asks nothing of its deckbuilder other than to produce blue mana in a format where the best consistency engine is blue.

I beat a Marit Lage and Griselbrand in the SAME GAME at GP Seattle but lost to a TNN off the top two rounds later. 3 mana is a huge investment in Legacy and TNN comes down with infinitesimal risk of removal while a player trying to stick a Knight has to fade multiple maindeckable cards. It adds nothing and only takes away from the enjoyment of the format.

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Originally Posted by AznSeal

Tinker is a 1 card combo. At least Show and Tell requires 4 slots for Show and Tell and 6-8 slots for fatties. Tinker + fatty takes up 5 slots. Do you really want a format where you can potentially turn 1: Seat of Synod, Mox Opal, Lotus Petal, Tinker, Blightsteel or more realistically turn 2 Ancient tomb + Seat of Synod + Tinker? The deck can afford to run better protection as well because your slots aren't clogged up by Griselbrand or Emmy.

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That all being said, I think it's funny how people run from Tinker because it's a slightly smaller package than Show & Tell. First of all, the Moxen in Legacy are not as good as the Moxen in Vintage, and I feel a dedicated Legacy Tinker deck would be susceptible to pretty miserable openers as a result. It also would be all-in on Tinker, which would leave it open to plenty of disruption. And of course, S&T has Sneak Attack as a backup plan so it's much more resilient (though I imagine there would be plenty of show-tinker hybrid decks.)

Actually, Tinker might be good in the fact that it would be a cheat-fattie-but-not-Griselbrand deck. If this format can hand T1-2 Marit Lages and Griselbrands it can handle a T1-2 Blightsteel. Inkwell Leviathan and Myr Battlesphere have tradeoffs, but again, would you rather your opponent have one of those or a freaking Griselbrand?

To be clear: I don't think Tinker should be unbanned, mostly because the format doesn't really need another U-based turn-2-fattie deck. But if it were unbanned, I'm not sure how much different the format would look. "Oh, another rush-to-fattie deck. OK, more Pyroblasts and Cages I guess."

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

So what is the medium spice level of cards to consider coming off the list?
If we all agree that Mind Twist is poopah bland, and Tinker is so spicy it will literally kill you, what are the cards that get debate?

As long as (ironically) DRS is around how is Survival such a taboo card?

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That's a good question. Survival should be supersafe. As weak as combo is right now i think frantic should be safe too.

What level of construction sign spice is necessary to get a ban or unban though?

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Originally Posted by Claymore

What level of construction sign spice is necessary to get a ban or unban though?

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Only one way to find out

Are people really saying Survival of the Fittest is safe for Legacy? Why, because Deathrite Shaman is legal? All this means is Survival decks will play Deathrite Shaman. Now, you play Survival and activate it on turn 2 while disrupting your opponents Vengevine.

On top of that, I seriously doubt grave hate will actually affect Survival anymore with the printing of Hollow One. You can repeatedly discard some shitty creature to tutor for your cost reduced creature that doesn't die to Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push. On turn 3 you just discard three creatures, get three Hollow Ones, and now you have 12 power on board (15 if you discard 3 Basking Rootwalla) through any number of Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt, Scavenging Ooze, or Deathrite Shaman. Why play any other fair deck at this point.

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Originally Posted by NeckBird

Are people really saying Survival of the Fittest is safe for Legacy? Why, because Deathrite Shaman is legal? All this means is Survival decks will play Deathrite Shaman. Now, you play Survival and activate it on turn 2 while disrupting your opponents Vengevine.

On top of that, I seriously doubt grave hate will actually affect Survival anymore with the printing of Hollow One. You can repeatedly discard some shitty creature to tutor for your cost reduced creature that doesn't die to Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push. On turn 3 you just discard three creatures, get three Hollow Ones, and now you have 12 power on board (15 if you discard 3 Basking Rootwalla) through any number of Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt, Scavenging Ooze, or Deathrite Shaman. Why play any other fair deck at this point.

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So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

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Yeah man, my entire argument is that Legacy would turn into Survival decks and unfair decks. All you did was name unfair decks. You mentioned Terminus, but I'm pretty sure creatures getting put on the bottom of the library means you can tutor for them again. Why play any fair deck other than Survival at this point? Just play a bunch of anti-combo sideboard cards that you can tutor for against combo decks and go bigger than the Survival mirror all other times. The fact is that Survival can be a graveyard engine deck with Vengevine, but also completely ignore any grave hate with Hollow One. It's way too versatile.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

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Amen.

I goldfished a Tinker deck 5 times and these were the results:

T3 tinker with Pyroblast backup
T3 tinker no backup
T2 tinker no backup
T3 tinker Flusterstorm backup
T4 tinker no backup

Again, I'm not saying unban Tinker. But really there was nothing about the deck that I didn't feel couldn't already be accomplished by S&T or Reanimator as is.

This format is really just blue fair vs. blistering fast combo vs. Chalice/sphere decks right now. Unbanning Tinker or SotF wouldn't make that more so, and banning DRS alone also won't change that.

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Originally Posted by NeckBird

You mentioned Terminus, but I'm pretty sure creatures getting put on the bottom of the library means you can tutor for them again.

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You're still pitching creatures to find them. Under your original assumptions, how many rounds of discarding 3 shitty creatures to tutor for before you're hellbent?

Yes, Survival would push out a number of fair decks. I concede that point.
But how is it an argument that bringing a fair card back into the fold that would go toe to toe with legitimate combo decks is a bad thing?

I think you just discard Vengevine after Vengine until you want to grab a Hollow One, then discard some other creature to get a Hollow One or X creature (Ballista), then play free Hollows and Ballistas to get all your VV's back.

Each creature from hand replaces itself anyway, so you're not really getting hellbent.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

You're still pitching creatures to find them. Under your original assumptions, how many rounds of discarding 3 shitty creatures to tutor for before you're hellbent?

Yes, Survival would push out a number of fair decks. I concede that point.
But how is it an argument that bringing a fair card back into the fold that would go toe to toe with legitimate combo decks is a bad thing?

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In part because fair decks aren't really getting pushed out of the metagame by unfair decks. Decks like Jund and Burn aren't good because blue threats like True-Name Nemesis, Leovold, and Delver are far more efficient than anything non-blue midrange or aggro decks have to offer. The fair decks that people want to see are getting pushed out of the format by fair decks that for some reason are able to easily play 4 colors and not die to Thalia + Wasteland.

I have no idea how people can throw 4x Tinker + 1x Bot into the same category as the clunky 4x SneakAttack + 4x S&T + 4x Griselbrand + 4x Emrakul in terms of deck construction/Compression, not even factoring that Tinker is a 1-card-combo while SneakShow & cousins need double the amount of cards.

Tinker was a no-brainer in vintage combo & control, so what hinders decks like Lands to just add Tinker to their already established Mox Diamonds for another T1 combo angle? The same is true for Belcher, various storm variants, chalice.dec, Miracles, etc

I think if people just for once tried to sleeve survival and test it against a gauntlet they'd realize how clunky the card is and how often you get survival going nowhere unless you're playing 30+ creature cards in your deck.

Survival was banned when even snapcaster didn't exist. It's literally a relic of a bygone era, now it's almost 8 years since it went.

p.s. tinker is stupid because it's another show and tell, aka a combo that suffer only vs force and is largely immune to chalice and sphere effects. It's one of thoes cards who polarize the meta to be even more blue. Just no. Even if it weren't too good we already have too many of those stupid cards. If you want to unban something for combo, frantic and bargain are far more interesting cards.

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Originally Posted by Claymore

I think you just discard Vengevine after Vengine until you want to grab a Hollow One, then discard some other creature to get a Hollow One or X creature (Ballista), then play free Hollows and Ballistas to get all your VV's back.

Each creature from hand replaces itself anyway, so you're not really getting hellbent.

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Are we still on the turn 3 assumption here? That's a lot of mana.

So I'll also concede that a Survival meta is all conjecture and no amount of whatifs will solve it. But the point is that it's powerful. I mean we all remember the huge parade down Main Street when Land Tax was unbanned, right? Or the three day blackout after Worldgorger Dragon came off the list and the whole meta exploded?

I don't want just Earthcraft to come off the list so people can goof off for a few weeks then just shift back to the status quo because it's not Good Stuff. I mean at that point it's just why bother?

...he says to the B/R thread...

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I have no idea how people can throw 4x Tinker + 1x Bot into the same category as the clunky 4x SneakAttack + 4x S&T + 4x Griselbrand + 4x Emrakul in terms of deck construction/Compression, not even factoring that Tinker is a 1-card-combo while SneakShow & cousins need double the amount of cards.

Tinker was a no-brainer in vintage combo & control, so what hinders decks like Lands to just add Tinker to their already established Mox Diamonds for another T1 combo angle? The same is true for Belcher, various storm variants, chalice.dec, Miracles, etc

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It’s not that Tinker wouldn’t be stupid, it would be. The point is that we already have this format of force decks vs force check decks vs chalice decks. If tinker were unbanned and there were no other changes, what’s really different? All the combo decks play Tinker, great, they’re still just as soft to Grixis Delver as is. (And plopping 4 tinker 1 bot of choice is at least a bigger deck building choice than cramming the latest etb value blue creature into the ubx shell)

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

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Originally Posted by AznSeal

Is it over-represented because it’s overpowered or is it ove- represented because people like playing that style of decks?

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I am convinced the answer to that question is comparing metagame share and T8/T16 percentage of a bunch of major tournaments and look if the deck constantly over- or underperforms.

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You are missing the point. And misusing statistical jargon!

"Overrepresented", in stats, means T8/T16 placements out of proportion to the decks overall representation in the field. No amount of T8 or T16 data tells this story. You need to look at conversion rates / day-2 metas.

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Originally Posted by maharis

It’s not that Tinker wouldn’t be stupid, it would be. The point is that we already have this format of force decks vs force check decks vs chalice decks. If tinker were unbanned and there were no other changes, what’s really different? All the combo decks play Tinker, great, they’re still just as soft to Grixis Delver as is. (And plopping 4 tinker 1 bot of choice is at least a bigger deck building choice than cramming the latest etb value blue creature into the ubx shell)

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I think I could have some fun jamming 4 tinker into an affinity deck, running 4 tinker for some bullets. There's no memory jar in legacy nor time vault, so you only have access to blightsteel and some other fatties like steel wind.

I do like the idea of having out a ballista and tinkering for a ravager on the spot.

It could also be played in a painter deck, but not sure how much better it could be.

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Originally Posted by BKclassic

Sensei's Divining Top. Grixis Tempo wasn't optimized during the reign of Miracles...

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Or was it optimized for a different meta?

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

So I'll also concede that a Survival meta is all conjecture and no amount of whatifs will solve it. But the point is that it's powerful. I mean we all remember the huge parade down Main Street when Land Tax was unbanned, right? Or the three day blackout after Worldgorger Dragon came off the list and the whole meta exploded?

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The unfortunate thing is that WotC doesn't run mtgo ladder seasons where full data is published and any given ladder season will offer up different banlist ideas for testing. Without testing it's a bit harder to abstractly come to the conclusion that artifact mana -> Land Tax -> draw 3 cards (albeit basic lands) won't translate to winning games in an oppressive fashion. Without any testing though I think everyone can agree that we're generally better off without blatant, un-impactful time wasters (Worldgorger, Earthcraft, Recruiter, Shahrazad). Survival is, even in theory, a bit different in that so many slots would already be solved that diversity of creature decks would be appreciably diminished [starting point: ~20 lands, 4 DRS, 4 Decay, 4 Rootwalla, 4 Survival...and after the same silver bullets and Thoughtseize, every deck like this is doing the same thing unless they went down the Cavern/Vial path rather than Survival].

I talked a lot with people at the GP about their thoughts on where the format is, and the thing that everyone fundamentally agrees on is this idea that they want more competitive outlets in the format. Survival isn't ever going to increase the amount of ways one can play legacy, it will simply make playing creature-based strategies stronger~more consistent. Survival is like DRS in the sense that the card itself limits the diversity of strategies which can follow...cards like these don't challenge a player to ask themselves "what do I want to do in legacy," but rather "it's solved, so what am I on."

Edit: In terms of long-term stewardship of the format, suggestions are generally improved if they make sense now and within the context of reprint duals, ban fetchlands. That's an old discussion, but Survival certainly doesn't fit in that picture.

If u really think 4 walla would get played in a SotF deck i have bad news for u. You play 1 , max 2, and 1 memnite for mana efficiency. The card by itself is beyond terrible for you to actually play 4.

Survival wouldn't also really homogeneize creature decks because there really aren't many that would play it. GW valuetown/maverick is not a T1 deck, let's be honest here. UG vengevine aggro is neither. Nic fit and TnT ? Seriously. Actual T1 decks like elves wouldn't run it. No tempo list would either as u want the tempo package , not 6+ uncastable creatures maindeck.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

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Love this post.

Doesn't Dredge do this game 1 pretty often? I mean, if we're talking 'busted graveyard interactions', isn't LED Dredge just the nuts for unfair agro starts?

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Originally Posted by Gheizen64

Survival wouldn't also really homogeneize creature decks because there really aren't many that would play it. GW valuetown/maverick is not a T1 deck, let's be honest here. UG vengevine aggro is neither. Nic fit and TnT ? Seriously. Actual T1 decks like elves wouldn't run it. No tempo list would either as u want the tempo package , not 6+ uncastable creatures maindeck.

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Is "uncastable creatures" refering to 4/4 hasters for 4 mana in a deck with DRS at a time BUGx midrange decks cast Jace off DRS all day?

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

Doesn't Dredge do this game 1 pretty often? I mean, if we're talking 'busted graveyard interactions', isn't LED Dredge just the nuts for unfair agro starts?

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Dredge is a one-trick-pony. It's like comparing ANT with the Spanish Inquisition

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Dredge is a one-trick-pony. It's like comparing ANT with the Spanish Inquisition

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Fair enough; Dredge doesn't have a 'hard cast my dudes' option, not really.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

Fair enough; Dredge doesn't have a 'hard cast my dudes' option, not really.

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I think this option is a major thing to consider in the discussion. The often quoted yardhate isn't "really" a way to hate out Survival. I fear the deck is fine tutoring DRS/Vines/Nemesis/whatever to burry opponents with it's threats

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I think this option is a major thing to consider in the discussion. The often quoted yardhate isn't "really" a way to hate out Survival. I fear the deck is fine tutoring DRS/Vines/Nemesis/whatever to burry opponents with it's threats

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I agree 100%. Sorry if I was dragging the discussion in the wrong direction, you make great points.

Land DRS
Land Survival, eot discard x into Vengevine
Land discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Hollow One, discard x into a second Hollow One, cast both hollow ones and get triple vengevine on top

Is good enought to be considered a combo you must have an answer to, no fair deck can recover from it unless:

- You have a lock piece such as bridge, and you are likely to get smashed the turn after by a survival activation into RecSage/Qasali
- You play terminus, and you are likely to lose to value activations of survival, is quite easy to setup gaddock/safekeeper instead of going off or to just go off a second time, this "combo" just needed 2 random creatures to discard, and miracle has to have an instant terminus on turn 3, which is quite unlikely, or 12 damage are being dealt, so its quite easy to setup a 2 vengevine strike and finish the game
- You are playing combo, so you either go off on turn 2 or you are likely to lose to the survival activation into lock piece on turn 3 followed by nasty stuff each turn, also, if you are playing reanimator you have to overcome a tutored faerie macabre, and if you are playing show you have to overcome at least a tutored RecSage if you go for Show

So a possible combo package would be
4 Vengevine
2/3/4 Hollow One

Which leaves plenty of space for a bug/maverik build, and survival can easily allow backup plans, a few slot "wasted" for silver bullets would make life hell for pretty much every deck having to face the combination of combo/good stuff/ specific bullets

You can also cast force of will on the survival. Or cast revoker naming it.

Survival actually would've been pretty good to have against Miracles with Terminus. Bottoming all your creatures doesn't really do too much when you can just tutor them back up compared to a Wrath, and helps bypass Jace fateseals.

Granted, still need to draw creatures, but in a deck with 20+ creatures that's not too bad. Plus there's the tech of Squee to bring in as well.

I would love Survival back in Legacy. It opens the door to new decks and creativity. I mean, at this point, what harm can it do? Is it really that much more degenerate than Show and Tell? I know it's an age-old argument, but it's true. Just because the effect is symmetrical doesn't mean a whole lot; you're building a SnT deck with the most degenerate cards to drop into play on purpose.

Who would be happy seeing something like this:

Deathrite Shaman is banned
Survival of the Fittest is unbanned

I'd rather see True Name banned with that scenario, but otherwise agree.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

You can also cast force of will on the survival. Or cast revoker naming it.

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You can also cast force of will on the ________. Or cast revoker naming it.

Holds true for:

Black Lotus
Earthcraft
Hermit Druid
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Necropotence
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Survival of the Fittest
Time Vault
Yawgmoth's Bargain

SoloMoxen has no drawback, so its not quite the same, but following this logic Necro is fine for example.

Also, as soon as your revoker dies you are likely to get 4x vengevine + 2/3x hollow one on board, so the only good answer to it is to counter it, which means that you are playing a must counter in a pseudo fair deck, how does that help?

Is not like unbanning survival would stop goodstuff decks from just playing a goodstuff survival deck, there would probably be a maverik version which would play at a maverik level if survival is not online and just smash the opponent into oblivion if it resolves and a bug version which would be a goodstuff deck with cantrips and combo package followed by strix/leo/nemesis.

Its quite likely for non survival, noncombo deck to be outclassed by survival pretty easily, so the meta could turn into survival vs combo and cantrip decks would just be part of the survival package.

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

I would love Survival back in Legacy. It opens the door to new decks and creativity. I mean, at this point, what harm can it do? Is it really that much more degenerate than Show and Tell? I know it's an age-old argument, but it's true. Just because the effect is symmetrical doesn't mean a whole lot; you're building a SnT deck with the most degenerate cards to drop into play on purpose.

Who would be happy seeing something like this:

Deathrite Shaman is banned
Survival of the Fittest is unbanned

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Well, the main difference is that a show deck has no play if it does not get to resolve a show/sneak, while a survival deck is close to a "bad" maverik which also appens to instakill you if they resolve survival or to just play the entire game with fixed draws.

In legacy at the moment the closest thing to a survival deck is maybe food chain/aluren, "fair" decks able to go off if they get the core piece on board, and food chain is pretty close to be a tier1 deck, its surely quite decent.
And consider that resolving a food chain means that you can go infinite if you have the other pieces of the combo, if not, the card just does nothing, while resolving a survival means that you can go off, but you can also turn half your deck into a demonic tutor and get endless value out of it even if you cant actually go off, survival is also able to find you the answers to most lock pieces that could stop you from going off, and possibly even an engine for card advantage.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

You can also cast force of will on the survival. Or cast revoker naming it.

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I can't tell if you're being facetious, so I'll respond as though you aren't.

Force was around when Survival was legal and it was still banned. Force also seems pretty medium against Survival. Obviously if Survival resolves you just die, but if you counter it the deck still plays a normal game. If you Force a turn 2 Eidolon of the Great Revel against Burn that isn't game over for the Burn player is it?

The decks that play Revoker currently are: Death & Taxes, Imperial Painter, MUD, Eldrazi (I think they moved to Spyglass?), and Affinity. Being on D&T for years, I'm going to assume the deck is awful against Survival for reasons it's bad against Maverick, but Survival also has the ability to aggro you out. Eldrazi naturally goes bigger than Survival until Survival adapts and plays Loyal Retainers + Elesh Norn. The other decks are just bad and Survival would adapt to them.

There have been plenty of cards printed to combat the overall power of Survival in any given match-up - most of which have already been brought up. I would hypothesize that Survival-based strategies would start out post-unbanning using the card in a shell similar to where it left off in 2010 (i.e. with Vengevine and Ooze), and from there, they would adapt into different platforms such as Elves and other decks that can abuse the card, but still be incredibly efficient without it.

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Originally Posted by Noctalor

Land DRS
Land Survival, eot discard x into Vengevine
Land discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Hollow One, discard x into a second Hollow One, cast both hollow ones and get triple vengevine on top

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I mean, yeah, if your opponent is an eggplant.

What about when your Land DRS Pass meets their Land DRS Pass?
Or Land Thoughtseize/Duress/Inquisition of Kozilek/Gitaxian Probe into Cabal Therapy?
Or Surgical Extraction?
Or just a clean Abrupt Decay?

Survival was banned Jaurary 1, 2011. The ban predates the printing of Phyrexian Revoker, so it's conjecture to compare how decks would play out against each other.

Not to mention Grafdigger's Cage, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, Surgical Extraction, Griselbrand, Terminus, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Wear//Tear, Thought-Knot Seer & Sorcerous Spyglass.

Even as poorly a cultivated list of relevant printings as this, we must agree that metagames are worlds apart when Survival was last legal.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

I mean, yeah, if your opponent is an eggplant.

What about when your Land DRS Pass meets their Land DRS Pass?
Or Land Thoughtseize/Duress/Inquisition of Kozilek/Gitaxian Probe into Cabal Therapy?
Or Surgical Extraction?
Or just a clean Abrupt Decay?

Survival was banned Jaurary 1, 2011. The ban predates the printing of Phyrexian Revoker, so it's conjecture to compare how decks would play out against each other.

Not to mention Grafdigger's Cage, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, Surgical Extraction, Griselbrand, Terminus, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Wear//Tear, Thought-Knot Seer & Sorcerous Spyglass.

Even as poorly a cultivated list of relevant printings as this, we must agree that metagames are worlds apart when Survival was last legal.

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Your opponent can interact with a play, so said play is not broken.

Is this the topic in which people go apeshit on ponder being too good?

I can safely say that Survival is safer now than it was when it was first banned. But is it safe enough?

It's interesting how many cards are judged on their worst-case scenarios without consideration to how things work in practice.

Like if Food Chain was banned people would be in here saying it shouldn't be unbanned because "they can tutor for 3 creatures and draw a card with Manipulate Fate and even if you kill/counter the Food Chain they can just grind you out while threatening to win on the spot!!!!"

This is a consequence of a lack of clear vision for the format on the part of the DCI/Wizards. The format means many different things to many different people and is perpetually out of balance thanks to certain sacred cows. This leads to competing views of what's acceptable that really have no clear right or wrong answer. The banning of Top for time considerations perpetuates the issue because you had an earthquake on the format that wasn't about game play. If anything, I hope what we get on Monday is some clear philosophical statement about the format so we at least have a framework to discuss it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Noctalor

Your opponent can interact with a play, so said play is not broken.

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I mean, without an absolutist point of view, kinda?

Otherwise we'll just say I'll start the game with 5 Leylines out, T1 Serra's Sanctum into Opalescence, attack for 20?

There are plenty of other dumb ways you can dream out games where your opponent does nothing that result in a win, but if you need to go all the way down to turn 3 before you've done anything game ending, sure, okay.