All B/R update speculation.

How safe would it be to unban Sol Ring?

If Sol Ring were legal in Legacy would nearly every deck play it as a 4-of?

I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I'm wondering aloud because this deck I've been playing in Legacy (Eldrazi Post) plays 4 Voltaic Keys that essentially read "Tap: add <2> to your mana pool" if there is at least one Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith or Thran Dynamo on the battlefield. The more I play with the card, the more I feel like Voltaic Key is very underrated and almost at the same level of power as Sol Ring in the right shell. Obviously, it isn't quite Sol Ring because without a Monolith they are blanks, but if you play enough Monoliths in the deck, the Key is essentially a Sol Ring at least ~85% of the time.

So if you say "Sol Ring is unequivocally broken", that's kind of high praise for Voltaic Key (in the artifact-heavy shell). But how broken is Sol ring, exactly - is it just "good" or "really, really good" in terms of the power level of the banned cards?

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Originally Posted by MGB

How safe would it be to unban Sol Ring?

If Sol Ring were legal in Legacy would nearly every deck play it as a 4-of?

I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I'm wondering aloud because this deck I've been playing in Legacy (Eldrazi Post) plays 4 Voltaic Keys that essentially read "Tap: add <2> to your mana pool" if there is at least one Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith or Thran Dynamo on the battlefield. The more I play with the card, the more I feel like Voltaic Key is very underrated and almost at the same level of power as Sol Ring in the right shell. Obviously, it isn't quite Sol Ring because without a Monolith they are blanks, but if you play enough Monoliths in the deck, the Key is essentially a Sol Ring at least ~85% of the time.

So if you say "Sol Ring is unequivocally broken", that's kind of high praise for Voltaic Key (in the artifact-heavy shell). But how broken is Sol ring, exactly - is it just "good" or "really, really good" in terms of the power level of the banned cards?

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It wouldn't be played as much as brainstorm.

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Originally Posted by MGB

So if you say "Sol Ring is unequivocally broken", that's kind of high praise for Voltaic Key (in the artifact-heavy shell). But how broken is Sol ring, exactly - is it just "good" or "really, really good" in terms of the power level of the banned cards?

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There will be others who say this more eloquently than myself. Sol Ring would not be good for the format. Even if it did "Nothing" in coloured decks, the power it hands to the kinds of colourless decks I personally play would make them more of a bitch to play against them ever.

Stax style decks become far far more able to push consistent broken openers that would not be healthy for the format. Eldrazi would become very hard to answer because of the speed it gained. Both of these things don't look like much at first glance but trust me, as a guy who is always tinkering with Stax, you don't want that seeing strong showings all the time. Legacy would not be pleasant.

The main gain is that cards like Sphere and 3ball become even less fair then they are right now. Because it makes them very simple to cast turn one. Add to that the extra mana for something like Inventor’s Fair and you have a bad day incoming. And I know it sounds like I am throwing a list of card names that see next to no play at you and it may be hard to believe, but unban that card and I swear your going to know them intimately.

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Originally Posted by MGB

How safe would it be to unban Sol Ring?

If Sol Ring were legal in Legacy would nearly every deck play it as a 4-of?

I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I'm wondering aloud because this deck I've been playing in Legacy (Eldrazi Post) plays 4 Voltaic Keys that essentially read "Tap: add <2> to your mana pool" if there is at least one Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith or Thran Dynamo on the battlefield. The more I play with the card, the more I feel like Voltaic Key is very underrated and almost at the same level of power as Sol Ring in the right shell. Obviously, it isn't quite Sol Ring because without a Monolith they are blanks, but if you play enough Monoliths in the deck, the Key is essentially a Sol Ring at least ~85% of the time.

So if you say "Sol Ring is unequivocally broken", that's kind of high praise for Voltaic Key (in the artifact-heavy shell). But how broken is Sol ring, exactly - is it just "good" or "really, really good" in terms of the power level of the banned cards?

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Ah, a more consistent turn 2 Jace then vintage. Or turn two mentor cantrip. Or turn 2 Chandra, torch of defiance without needing to warp your deck around it. Or a more consistent t1 Show and Tell. Sol Ring may not be a 4 of in every deck, but it would be a 4 of in almost every competitive deck.

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Originally Posted by kinda

It wouldn't be played as much as brainstorm.

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This is the grade A humor I’ve come to expect from this thread.

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Originally Posted by MGB

How safe would it be to unban Sol Ring?

If Sol Ring were legal in Legacy would nearly every deck play it as a 4-of?

I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I'm wondering aloud because this deck I've been playing in Legacy (Eldrazi Post) plays 4 Voltaic Keys that essentially read "Tap: add <2> to your mana pool" if there is at least one Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith or Thran Dynamo on the battlefield. The more I play with the card, the more I feel like Voltaic Key is very underrated and almost at the same level of power as Sol Ring in the right shell. Obviously, it isn't quite Sol Ring because without a Monolith they are blanks, but if you play enough Monoliths in the deck, the Key is essentially a Sol Ring at least ~85% of the time.

So if you say "Sol Ring is unequivocally broken", that's kind of high praise for Voltaic Key (in the artifact-heavy shell). But how broken is Sol ring, exactly - is it just "good" or "really, really good" in terms of the power level of the banned cards?

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I mean if you're saying voltaic key is as good as Sol ring with monolith does that mean ancestral vision is as good as recall because as foretold exists?

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Originally Posted by MGB

How safe would it be to unban Sol Ring?

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About as safe as drinking gasoline.

Monolith + Key is a 2-card-combo adding mana with 2 pieces doing next to nothing by themselves. Sol Ring is blatant mana acceleration and would be played in any deck which can burn a decent amount of colorless mana like any Eldrazi, Artifact, Stompy, Storm, SnT, midrange, etc deck. I think it would end up at metagame numbers between DRS and Brainstorm, as it has literally no color restriction at all, delivers a bigger acceleration and opening with Sol Ring fucks over most tempo decks on the other end of the table.

I think even Mana Vault would be safer, given it's use use is more restrictive

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Yeah, because one is banned and the other is a trashy sidetrait in a deck losing to next to every discard, counter and resistor in the format

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Goblin Recruiter is banned? Wow, fuck! Tell me more!

I play Key mainly to act as a Sol Ring in Eldrazi-Post decks. So let me put it this way: I'm spending two cards, one of which is completely useless without the other, to build my own Sol Ring in a deck that also believes it's best turn one play is to shut off even casting key. Not having to build the Sol Ring myself would be a huge boon.

Can we reset the poll in here to see what people would like to happen in July? Apparently making a new thread with a poll is not allowed.

Kinda, don't take it personally. Ban discussions are routinely nasty, ill-informed, and fruitless. Experience has taught us all to keep the awful in a single, quarantined basket. Box was just being sensible. It might be cool to get a new poll though.

BTW, I say don't ban anything. Print useful cards that are designed from the ground up to diminish the hold Brainstorm, fetchlands, and DRS have on Legacy. There truly is no downside to this at all, and plenty of different upsides.

I get it, still think a new poll would be interesting though.

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Originally Posted by Finn

Print useful cards that are designed from the ground up to diminish the hold Brainstorm, fetchlands, and DRS have on Legacy.

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More importantly, print them in colors *OTHER THAN BLUE*.

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Originally Posted by kinda

I get it, still think a new poll would be interesting though.

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yes, but make two polls: unban/ban.

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Originally Posted by Bithlord

More importantly, print them in colors *OTHER THAN BLUE*.

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In fact, make them things blue would actively distance themselves from playing. The problem with non-blue spells (which is incredibly obvious in Czech Pile, and a somewhat lesser extent, deathblade and 3c delver) is that blue just treats every other color as a splash. Therefore, make them good for their color/non-blue guilds/non-blue wedges, but actively bad for the color blue.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

In fact, make them things blue would actively distance themselves from playing. The problem with non-blue spells (which is incredibly obvious in Czech Pile, and a somewhat lesser extent, deathblade and 3c delver) is that blue just treats every other color as a splash. Therefore, make them good for their color/non-blue guilds/non-blue wedges, but actively bad for the color blue.

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That is much harder to do. In general, though, I think magic developers are *highly* undervaluing the restrictiveness of 2, or even three of a single color in the mana cost. A RRR card (e.g. CHainwhirler) doesn't really fit in any deck other than very heavy red. So, make the anti-blue cards have that sort of cost. Fetches + DRS alleviate that pressure somewhat, but it's still there.

Also, in general, I think WotC could do to accidentally leave "cannot be countered" on a lot of permanents moving forward.

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Originally Posted by Bithlord

That is much harder to do.

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Well, sure, but that's the thing, right? If it were easy, it would already be done and we'd all live in magic Christmas land and everything would be peachy.

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In general, though, I think magic developers are *highly* undervaluing the restrictiveness of 2, or even three of a single color in the mana cost. A RRR card (e.g. CHainwhirler) doesn't really fit in any deck other than very heavy red. So, make the anti-blue cards have that sort of cost. Fetches + DRS alleviate that pressure somewhat, but it's still there.

Also, in general, I think WotC could do to accidentally leave "cannot be countered" on a lot of permanents moving forward.

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Eh, 3cmc cards are already underplayed in legacy (except in DnT where half of the spells cost 3 [emoji848]), I don't have a good solution, but I can't imagine making things that already cost 3 mana harder to play will fix the problem.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

Eh, 3cmc cards are already underplayed in legacy (except in DnT where half of the spells cost 3 [emoji848]), I don't have a good solution, but I can't imagine making things that already cost 3 mana harder to play will fix the problem.

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True, but I still think there's ways in there with heavy color requirements, perhaps even non-traditional color requirements (e.g., while you control no blue permanents, X cool thing happens, on a red or green permanent). MOAR color hate! :P.

The answer is never simple, hate cards often do more damage to formats then intended or just see no play. Personally I like something that has an unreasonable cost to play it but is cheep. The new Orb is a great example. One of the clauses, the Lands one, means Shops can't run it. So we have another Sphere effect that is not played in the decks that normally abused them.

Imagine if you would a card that made shit cost more that you can play for one colourless, but it's clause was that you, it's controller, can't play Non White Spells. Sure, that's really only going in DnT, but it's sure as fuck the only place it's going.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

The answer is never simple, hate cards often do more damage to formats then intended or just see no play. Personally I like something that has an unreasonable cost to play it but is cheep. The new Orb is a great example. One of the clauses, the Lands one, means Shops can't run it. So we have another Sphere effect that is not played in the decks that normally abused them.

Imagine if you would a card that made shit cost more that you can play for one colourless, but it's clause was that you, it's controller, can't play Non White Spells. Sure, that's really only going in DnT, but it's sure as fuck the only place it's going.

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Symmetry would help alot to keep hate cards in check. Except Wizards in their stupid "feel-good" design moves exactly away from that to solutions that only affect one side more often than not.

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Originally Posted by Barook

Symmetry would help alot to keep hate cards in check. Except Wizards in their stupid "feel-good" design moves exactly away from that to solutions that only affect one side more often than not.

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Agree here. Symmetrical effects are important imo to keep certain cards balanced and not becoming Wars to see who finds the card first to hate the other out. Like if Leovold were symmetrical you might actually have to think about whether or not you're in a position to actually cast it kind of like Standstill.

Not hate cards. Cards that don't play well with cantrips.

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Skeletons in the Closet
:w:
Instant
Reveal at the top x cards of your library where x is the number of cards in target opponent's graveyard. You may reveal a permanent card from among them. Put that card into your hand and the rest in your graveyard. If you reveal a blue card, your opponent may copy this spell.
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Too Many Secrets
:g:x
Sorcery
Reveal the top x cards from target opponent's library and reveal the top x cards from your library. If your opponent has more instant and sorcery cards revealed in this way than you, add :g::g: to your mana pool for each instant and sorcery card revealed from that opponent's library. That mana may only be used to cast creature spells. You may shuffle any number of libraries.
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Or whatever. These are simple to design.

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Originally Posted by Finn

Kinda, don't take it personally. Ban discussions are routinely nasty, ill-informed, and fruitless. Experience has taught us all to keep the awful in a single, quarantined basket. Box was just being sensible. It might be cool to get a new poll though.

BTW, I say don't ban anything. Print useful cards that are designed from the ground up to diminish the hold Brainstorm, fetchlands, and DRS have on Legacy. There truly is no downside to this at all, and plenty of different upsides.

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Lucky for you that card already exists. Welcome back...mental misstep.

Maybe we could print a powerful engine that requires both an High Number of creatures in ur deck , as well as a significant colored non blue mana investment so that the cantrip cartel can't play it. A 2 mana enchantment maybe to make it still vulnerable to daze even on the play? And G to activate, maybe pitching a creature to fetch another one , so u Need about 30 creatures for It to be good?

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Originally Posted by Gheizen64

Maybe we could print a powerful engine that requires both an High Number of creatures in ur deck , as well as a significant colored non blue mana investment so that the cantrip cartel can't play it. A 2 mana enchantment maybe to make it still vulnerable to daze even on the play? And G to activate, maybe pitching a creature to fetch another one , so u Need about 30 creatures for It to be good?

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Sounds great. Maybe one which also has a history being played with manadorks like DRS and the Xerox shell as well, because Ponder+Brainstorm doesn't require you to run 30 creatures. Is there such a card?

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Is there such a card?

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I do not know! But Birthing Pod is pretty close! :wink:

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Originally Posted by EviL668-2

I do not know! But Birthing Pod is pretty close! :wink:

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Looks similar to Survival of the Fittest.

Evolutionary Leap?

I remember when Survival was banned, and within a short period of time Green Sun's Zenith was printed. This spawned at least 2 new decks (Maverick and Nic Fit.) Those decks might have existed pre-GSZ, but GSZ is the glue that holds those decks together. Elves slotted GSZ into their deck, and it floats in/out of decks-to-beat. Let sleeping Survival lie, I say.

I think what would really help the format is more versions of hard-hate, like Choke, or other non-blue manipulation tools. Sylvan Library comes to mind, as well as Mirri's Guile, but those get used in some blue decks as well. I'm curious what it would look like for green/red/black/white to have something as powerful as Ponder/Brainstorm but *couldn't* be slotted into a blue shell. Maybe something requiring basic lands (that aren't Island)?

Shaman's Foreboding G
Sorcery
Key word - heritage or some bullshit (only basic lands can be used to play this card.)
Look at the top 4 cards of your library, you may put them back in any order. You may shuffle your library. Draw a card.

TL;DR - almost all of the different effects of magic have gone into other colors at some point or another. It would be interesting to take the library manipulation/draw effect and spread it out amongst the other colors in equal weight; it could allow for mono-color decks to be better and take pressure off of players to play true dual mana-bases. If it isn't obvious, I think banning is the wrong path to take. WOTC needs to get their head out of their ass, design cards for legacy, and balance them appropriately for the format. Hell, I'd even take a few more mistakes similar to Mental Misstep if it meant they were at least trying.

I want keyword - heritage or some bullshit to be evergreen. I really do.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

I remember when Survival was banned, and within a short period of time Green Sun's Zenith was printed. This spawned at least 2 new decks (Maverick and Nic Fit.) Those decks might have existed pre-GSZ, but GSZ is the glue that holds those decks together. Elves slotted GSZ into their deck, and it floats in/out of decks-to-beat. Let sleeping Survival lie, I say.

I think what would really help the format is more versions of hard-hate, like Choke, or other non-blue manipulation tools. Sylvan Library comes to mind, as well as Mirri's Guile, but those get used in some blue decks as well. I'm curious what it would look like for green/red/black/white to have something as powerful as Ponder/Brainstorm but *couldn't* be slotted into a blue shell. Maybe something requiring basic lands (that aren't Island)?

Shaman's Foreboding G
Sorcery
Key word - heritage or some bullshit (only basic lands can be used to play this card.)
Look at the top 4 cards of your library, you may put them back in any order. You may shuffle your library. Draw a card.

TL;DR - almost all of the different effects of magic have gone into other colors at some point or another. It would be interesting to take the library manipulation/draw effect and spread it out amongst the other colors in equal weight; it could allow for mono-color decks to be better and take pressure off of players to play true dual mana-bases. If it isn't obvious, I think banning is the wrong path to take. WOTC needs to get their head out of their ass, design cards for legacy, and balance them appropriately for the format. Hell, I'd even take a few more mistakes similar to Mental Misstep if it meant they were at least trying.

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Just try Ancient Stirrings and Oath of Nissa.

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Originally Posted by Matsu

Just try Ancient Stirings and Oath of Nissa.

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Imagine if Ponder said "you may reveal an instant or sorcery among them and put it into your hand" instead of "draw 1". It would *still* be way better than either of those. In order for the drawback to be not as painful, they need to dig you deeper into your deck, or give you better information, or both.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

Shaman's Foreboding G
Sorcery
Key word - heritage or some bullshit (only basic lands can be used to play this card.)
Look at the top 4 cards of your library, you may put them back in any order. You may shuffle your library. Draw a card.

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I like this and find it a lot more elegant than some suggestions like "can't be played if your deck contains a blue card." Although still a little ugly from a design perspective, I also wouldn't mind permanents that have, "if you play a blue card, sacrifice ~".

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Originally Posted by Bithlord

Imagine if Ponder said "you may reveal an instant or sorcery among them and put it into your hand" instead of "draw 1". It would *still* be way better than either of those. In order for the drawback to be not as painful, they need to dig you deeper into your deck, or give you better information, or both.

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I dont think Ponder would be played at all with that limitation.

The fundamental perk of Xerox is cheating on the amount of lands you have to run in order to minimize "worthless draws" in the lategame. A Ponder which isn't able to grab threats nor lands, is worse than Preordain in Legacy. This card would be limited to Vintage or Modern Storm at best.

Edit: To go one step further, i think that a cantrip able to grab creatures/lands is better for the average deck than one grabbing instants/sorceries in Legacy. To be frank: Most instants/Sorceries played in Legacy are either cantrips or disruption anyways, so if you are only able to grab instant/sorcery, the odds are very high that you cantrip into cantrips only

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I dont think Ponder would be played at all with that limitation.

The fundamental perk of Xerox is cheating on the amount of lands you have to run in order to minimize "worthless draws" in the lategame. A Ponder which isn't able to grab threats nor lands, is worse than Preordain in Legacy. This card would be limited to Vintage or Modern Storm at best.

Edit: To go one step further, i think that a cantrip able to grab creatures/lands is better for the average deck than one grabbing instants/sorceries in Legacy. To be frank: Most instants/Sorceries played in Legacy are either cantrips or disruption anyways, so if you are only able to grab instant/sorcery, the odds are very high that you cantrip into cantrips only

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Yea, and being able to cantrip/draw into more cantrips and draw is precisely the one thing they design green cantrips/draw to never be able to do: Most actively throw other darw spells to the bottom of the deck (Vessel of Nascency and Harmonize excepted, where Vessel is clunky as fuck and Harmonize costs a fortune in mana). As a result, these draw spells are almost never played in green creature-heavy decks since they fail to constitute an engine and aren't able to increase the quality of subsequent draws the same way their blue counterparts do.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Yea, and being able to cantrip/draw into more cantrips and draw is precisely the one thing they design green cantrips/draw to never be able to do: Most actively throw other darw spells to the bottom of the deck (Vessel of Nascency and Harmonize excepted, where Vessel is clunky as fuck and Harmonize costs a fortune in mana). As a result, these draw spells are almost never played in green creature-heavy decks since they fail to constitute an engine and aren't able to increase the quality of subsequent draws the same way their blue counterparts do.

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Unless you play with Delve or t.hold, chaining cantrips isn't quite an engine by itself. The issue green draw manipulation faces is being kinda clunky just like Sylvan Library, M.Guile, etc, cost 2+ mana or are very narrow in regards to cards it can pick. Oath of Nissa is a perfectly fine card though, which would be used a lot more, if non-blue, non-prison decks had any foot on the ground.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...ate-2018-07-02

Wheeeellppppp

Huh. neat.

tabernacle 4k by next week