All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by apple713

We do know, with absolute certainty, that if fetchlands get banned card diversity increases. How we know this is because something must replace these cards and there is no obvious second choice. As someone mentioned it could be some combination of "shock lands, pain lands, check lands (Glacial Fortress), fast lands (Copperline Gorge), man lands (Raging Ravine), filter lands, and Mana Confluence." We can test this by first asking people to build a manabase (with fetchlands in the format) for a deck like RUG delver that has a fairly constant manabase and measuring the variance between all of those lists. Second, we ask those same people to build a manabase for the same deck but with fetchlands removed from the format. I would be willing to bet anything that the variance in lists after you remove fetchlands is HUGE compared to before removing fetchlands.

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How long do you think it will be before the format re-homogenizes around the best choices? More to the point, aren't we just ending up with the same decks with the same structures with the same 4–10 cards switched out for the same 4–10 other cards? What would such a ban accomplish?

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Originally Posted by apple713

Now, this argument would not be the same if you banned brainstorm. There is a fairly clear next best option, preordain. Some decks might opt for portent but most would stick to preordain.

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I hope I don't sound rude when I say this, but we're back where we started.

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Originally Posted by apple713

In legacy, at least in my opinion, one of the most attractive features of the format is that there is a significantly larger pool of decks that are viable than ANY other format. If you want to play with cards that are more powerful than those in legacy you can go to vintage. If you want to play in a format with a smaller pool of decks you can play Standard or Modern. Legacy is the middle ground with fairly high card powerlevel and a very large amount of deck diversity. Thus, it would make sense that one of the goals of banning cards in legacy is increased format diversity. WOTC actually says this in their explanation of banning mental misstep, "The DCI is banning Mental Misstep, with the hopes of restoring the more diverse metagame that existed prior to the printing of Mental Misstep."

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It appears you're arguing a separate point here. I agree that a diversity of decks and strategies is key to making Legacy the dreamland I'd always hoped it would be. But that's a substantially different argument from the one you're making about card diversity.

It strikes me that your arguments contradict each other to a point: card diversity does not indicate deck diversity, and enforcing a standard of card diversity doesn't necessarily produce more diverse decks and strategies. (It's worth mentioning that Mental Misstep poses questions about "play-pattern diversity," as does Gitaxian Probe, but that's pretty close to being a non-starter.) It certainly can, but I think you're going out on a limb when you equate the two as you appear to have done in your post.

Time to derail the discussion! Now that all these Chalice decks have stomped half the format into oblivion, Miracles is still Miracles, and Delvers continue to run over anything that gets put in their way, can we admit that banning Probe solved nothing?

Sorry, Lemnear, I missed your response.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I apologize then and elaborate. It has been brought to the table that without fetchlands to access the 1-2 basics people run, all decks would fold to Bloodmoon, assuming that everyone in that hypothetical meta would run similar greedy 3c manabases like the ones we are used to see. . . . The argument in context to Bloodmoon you have in mind, was about 4c DRS+BlueShell being able to run Bloodmoons themselves as a testament of the power of their manabase. A different topic.

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Ah, I see. They make an interesting point, but I agree that that's probably an exaggeration. I agree that it's quite likely that decks would narrow their manabases in the context of a fetch ban, which I personally wouldn't like, but I can see why people might. You're correct that I was assuming you referred to the argument about Moon in Czech Pile, etc., so thanks for clearing that up.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Cards like Ponder, Preordain, etc all remain even if Brainstorm would take a serious hit. It sure would affect deckbuilding, but from aspects of blue being great in regards to battling combo with zero mana counters, there is not changing much. With the exception of fragile deck like Belcher or Oops, combo would suffer from the lack of card selection on a pretty equal base has various blue control/midrange/tempo decks.

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This touches on a point that's been at the back of my mind for a while. There are two possible outcomes to banning Brainstorm (that we know about):
—My big fear: banning Brainstorm neuters blue control decks, ostensibly paving the way for faster combo decks to expand with a relative lack of impediment.
—My other big fear: former "Brainstorm decks" continue trucking along without Brainstorm, ostensibly bringing into question the rationale for banning Brainstorm in the first place.

As a fast-combo enthusiast and a fan of Brainstorm (at the same time!) I don't see how either of those outcomes would accomplish anything. I'm not assuming you're taking either side in this discussion, but just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

Sorry, Lemnear, I missed your response.



Ah, I see. They make an interesting point, but I agree that that's probably an exaggeration. I agree that it's quite likely that decks would narrow their manabases in the context of a fetch ban, which I personally wouldn't like, but I can see why people might. You're correct that I was assuming you referred to the argument about Moon in Czech Pile, etc., so thanks for clearing that up.



This touches on a point that's been at the back of my mind for a while. There are two possible outcomes to banning Brainstorm (that we know about):
—My big fear: banning Brainstorm neuters blue control decks, ostensibly paving the way for faster combo decks to expand with a relative lack of impediment.
—My other big fear: former "Brainstorm decks" continue trucking along without Brainstorm, ostensibly bringing into question the rationale for banning Brainstorm in the first place.

As a fast-combo enthusiast and a fan of Brainstorm (at the same time!) I don't see how either of those outcomes would accomplish anything. I'm not assuming you're taking either side in this discussion, but just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

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It depends on how neutered you think blue decks would become if such a ban occurred. Historically (maybe a little less than a decade ago) when cantrip shell decks comprised a significantly smaller portion of the meta (~50% compared to the ~75% now or before drs ban, rough estimate), fast combo decks weren't destroying the format as far as I remember. Dredge was maybe played more back then, and ANT was really good until mystical was banned, but considering Maverick was one of the best decks right around that time, fast combo couldn't have been that oppressive. I don't think anyone wants to make blue useless, they just want the gap between blue (or maybe just the cantrip shell in particular) and every other deck/ engine to be not as pronounced. Sure there are probably better solutions, like WOTC printing better card consistency engines in non blue colors, but they don't seem interested in that. The cantrip shell always had consistency, but it didnt always have access to the amount of powerful spells it has now. A combination of printing powerful blue creatures/ spells, and all other colors getting powerful and efficient spells that it can use has really propelled the shell far ahead of any other.

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Originally Posted by phonics

(B)ut it didnt always have access to the amount of powerful spells it has now. A combination of printing powerful blue creatures/ spells, and all other colors getting powerful and efficient spells that it can use has really propelled the shell far ahead of any other.

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Sounds like they should ban Delver, TNN and Griselbrand etc.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

Sorry, Lemnear, I missed your response.

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No sweat. Life's more important than a web stranger like me :)

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

As a fast-combo enthusiast and a fan of Brainstorm (at the same time!) I don't see how either of those outcomes would accomplish anything. I'm not assuming you're taking either side in this discussion, but just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

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As a former vintage veteran, i have seen the deckbuilding structure with and without the stability of 4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder, especially in context of combo and how the "vintage apocalypse" damaged the format. However, I try to not let that get in the way. I am more concered with how raising prices and a format with one oppressive deck/strategy affected the health of Vintage in the following years and I fear we'll see the same for Legacy at some point. You sure know, I share your enthusiasm towards both things as well, but for the longterm health of the format, I try to remain open for alternative takes.

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Originally Posted by talpa

I have a vague suspicion that in the context you were referring to fetchlands.

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Its funny that you bring up context and references now, but dismiss both concepts whenever I make a post? How handy.

Also a poor attempt to justify a bunch of false claims you made, like me mentioning "Fetchland" in that post (do we need to discuss the concept of quotation marks?) or "using demonic tutor as comparison" to fetchlands.

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Originally Posted by talpa

I don't even know what the "original points" should be. MrSafety is pointing fundamentally to two arguments (strong manabase -I refuse the usage of "perfect" as explained- and shuffle effect -I refuse the qualifier "free" for the reasons explained, those qualifiers are prejudicial). Do you agree those are the only one we should discuss?

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I made my personal points several times in the past and other dear users chimed in with their own ideas, criterias and feedback. Who i am to decide which points are relevant for this large and complex topic? I am thankful for every new angle on the matter like the monetary aspects on both sides. My original point didnt even touch the point of what is "too good".

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Originally Posted by talpa

The first part almost sounds like you are apologizing for explaining poorly. As for the second one, I certainly agree that fetches allow you to get access to off-color; I doubt they can do this realiably, I don't believe it comes with little effort (in terms of overall deck construction, especially with shaman gone) and I don't think they are the only legacy-available solution to access to off-colors. Anyway, even if all of that was right, I still wouldn't see any problem described, simply a state-of-art.

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It wasn't my post I was refering to in regards to "generalistic", but no, that's not the post i meant

Is there a reason Earthcraft is still banned? Would love to understand someone's perspective if they feel it should stay banned.

Same with Mind Twist.

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Originally Posted by Tittliewinks22

Is there a reason Earthcraft is still banned? Would love to understand someone's perspective if they feel it should stay banned.

Same with Mind Twist.

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sciurophobia

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Originally Posted by Tittliewinks22

Is there a reason Earthcraft is still banned? Would love to understand someone's perspective if they feel it should stay banned.

Same with Mind Twist.

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Something to the effect of this

Bant Infi-Squirrels. Can't wait!

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Originally Posted by Tittliewinks22

Is there a reason Earthcraft is still banned? Would love to understand someone's perspective if they feel it should stay banned.

Same with Mind Twist.

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There's really only two reasons for Earthcraft to be banned:
1) The combo with Squirrel's Next (this was the original reason it was banned).
2) The possibility of putting Elves over the top.

The first is nothing to worry about. It's a 2-card combo with no redundancy that doesn't do anything until the next turn (unless you have Concordant Crossroads, I guess, which turns it into a 3-card combo). It's just worse than the combos already in the format, certainly worse than Sneak and Show which only has to resolve one of its combo cards and has redundancy.

The second is a little more worrisome, but I'm a bit dubious that it really fits that well into Elves, though perhaps someone better versed with the deck can weigh in on that.

I feel like I've seen multiple people say that the card is barely playable if at all in elves.

Earthcraft in Elves seems weak. Heritage Druid (and Birchlore Rangers) do a much better job of turning your elves into hasty mana dorks while being cheaper, GSZ targets, and not diluting the deck.

The deck that probably benefits the most is Enchantress, which is still going to be the world's slowest combo deck, Earthcraft or not. A quarter turn faster on average...woo fucking hoo, now it's almost as fast as Solidarity!

The only effect an unban would have is fleecing a bunch of chumps out of their money as they panic buy a la Land Tax or Black vise.

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Originally Posted by Brainstorm Ape

The only effect an unban would have is fleecing a bunch of chumps out of their money as they panic buy a la Land Tax or Black vise.

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Except Earthcraft is a RL card, so it's probably different than you are imagining.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

There's really only two reasons for Earthcraft to be banned:
1) The combo with Squirrel's Next (this was the original reason it was banned).
2) The possibility of putting Elves over the top.

The first is nothing to worry about. It's a 2-card combo with no redundancy that doesn't do anything until the next turn (unless you have Concordant Crossroads, I guess, which turns it into a 3-card combo). It's just worse than the combos already in the format, certainly worse than Sneak and Show which only has to resolve one of its combo cards and has redundancy.

The second is a little more worrisome, but I'm a bit dubious that it really fits that well into Elves, though perhaps someone better versed with the deck can weigh in on that.

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Crossroads or another haste effect doesn't win on the spot. The squirrels need to tap to generate another squirrel.

I know it's original banning was due to the two card combo (see reason worldgorger was banned) but it feels very suboptimal now.

The only interaction I see being viable is as a 2-3 of in enchantress to allow argothian to untap a basic with auras on it or to generate a ton of Mana with opalescence.

Why do people want to reinstate cards that aren't likely to see much use anyway?

I mean, Mind Twist seems cool in Dredge, but it still gets countered, and that deck doesn't really want Dark Rituals.

I guess it pitches to Unmask.

Frantic Search being banned is another more laughable one.

Like compare the "power" of Frantic Search to any of these cards:

Brainstorm
Ponder
Faithless Looting

Which seems bannable on power level? the 3 mana one that's card disadvantage and needs a build around to do anything special? lololol

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

Why do people want to reinstate cards that aren't likely to see much use anyway?

I mean, Mind Twist seems cool in Dredge, but it still gets countered, and that deck doesn't really want Dark Rituals.

I guess it pitches to Unmask.

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If the card has no purpose being on the list, why is it on the list? Just because it won't make waves doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered for removal. Should we ban Vizerdrix for the same reason?

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Originally Posted by ReAnimator

Frantic Search being banned is another more laughable one.

Like compare the "power" of Frantic Search to any of these cards:

Brainstorm
Ponder
Faithless Looting

Which seems bannable on power level? the 3 mana one that's card disadvantage and needs a build around to do anything special? lololol

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Requiring to build around has never stopped a card from being banned. With this reasoning you would unban oath of druids, yaugmoth's will, mind's desire, windfall...

I played the card about ten years ago in peasant high tide and it was insane. Filtering + producing mana is exactly what you want. No one can say if the metagame could handle it, but for sure it would be really, really strong. In the high tide deck it would probably be better than brainstorm. Definitely superior to ponder.

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Originally Posted by Tittliewinks22

If the card has no purpose being on the list, why is it on the list? Just because it won't make waves doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered for removal. Should we ban Vizerdrix for the same reason?

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That doesn't really have anything to do with what I was saying.

There's no reason to take something off the list if it doesn't matter whether it's there in the first place. I didn't advocate banning anything.

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Originally Posted by Lejay

I played the card about ten years ago in peasant high tide and it was insane. Filtering + producing mana is exactly what you want. No one can say if the metagame could handle it.

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I can.

• Frantic Search is still bad pre-combo. Spira Tide does not really want to cast a -1 card when looking for gas. Therefore it would be a combo-card. It's not like Spiral Tide would have access to an extra xerox.
• Frantic Search would be very good when comboing: it's basically a better candelabra/turnabout. Spiral Tide would be more consistant in comboing off T3, with less fizzle chances, and that would put the deck a better spot in the meta.
• However, we already have at least one t3 consistant storm deck (ANT). It's been there for a decade and the metagame has managed to handle that just fine.
• Also, we already have at least one t1-t2 storm deck (TES). The metagame handles that too.
• Lastly, we already have a consistant T3 blue-centered combo deck (omnitell) that works in a more efficient way and requires less calculations and unnecessary interactions than spiral tide does, and we're not seeing 3-4 omnishow per top8.

The only reason why Frantic Search is staying banned is because people want to keep playing their candelabras :tongue:

frantic search is one of the best cards that deck can have. not sure how many people were playing high tide when it was legal in extended with time spiral, but it was quite good. turns spiral tide into a very solid turn 3 combo deck with protection and a ton of basic lands in the deck. (also gets around rishadan port pretty well)

not sure if frantic search would be okay in solidarity, but it is definitely a strong addition to spiral tide.

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Originally Posted by Cave

[*]Frantic Search is still bad pre-combo. Spira Tide does not really want to cast a -1 card when looking for gas. Therefore it would be a combo-card. It's not like Spiral Tide would have access to an extra xerox.

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With frantic search legal you can cut time spiral. I would maybe keep one in my first build but it would focus on going off turn 3 (possible turn 2) with frantic and ideas unbound. Yes it was that easy.

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Originally Posted by Cave

[*]Frantic Search would be very good when comboing: it's basically a better candelabra/turnabout. Spiral Tide would be more consistant in comboing off T3, with less fizzle chances, and that would put the deck a better spot in the meta.

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I think everybody agrees on that one so no need to mention it. I didn't say we couldn't predict if it would improve high tide, I said one can predict for sure if the meta will be able to handle it.

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Originally Posted by Cave

[*]However, we already have at least one t3 consistant storm deck (ANT). It's been there for a decade and the metagame has managed to handle that just fine.

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Combo decks aren't all about their fundamental turn. Fow vs discard and being immune to wasteland (and thus soft counters most of the time) is a lot and the advantage to fow gets better as you go off earlier.

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Originally Posted by Cave

[*]Also, we already have at least one t1-t2 storm deck (TES). The metagame handles that too.

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idem

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Originally Posted by Cave

[*]Lastly, we already have a consistant T3 blue-centered combo deck (omnitell) that works in a more efficient way and requires less calculations and unnecessary interactions than spiral tide does, and we're not seeing 3-4 omnishow per top8.

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It suffers from some specific hate and since you don't always choose your draws you can suffer on wasteland. That said I have been always surprised by the low results of the deck. It is kind of boring and the people who play it regularly that I saw on top tables never seemed to know how to sequence cantrips correctly. That was back when I was still playing in tournaments though, maybe they learned in 2 years but I woudn't bet on that.


A card doesn't need to take over to be banned. If it is handable but warps the metagame it's enough.

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Originally Posted by Lejay

With frantic search legal you can cut time spiral. I would maybe keep one in my first build but it would focus on going off turn 3 (possible turn 2) with frantic and ideas unbound. Yes it was that easy.

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Oh no. When I think about High Tide my first concern is consistency: Time spiral is essential because it gives this deck some much needed consistency, and so does FS. I think Frantic Search would be best getting incorporated into the consensus shell, replacing the worse untappers. That would give the deck both less chance to fizzle and one full turn of speed while keeping the same level of protection and cantrips.

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Originally Posted by Lejay

I think everybody agrees on that one so no need to mention it. I didn't say we couldn't predict if it would improve high tide, I said one can predict for sure if the meta will be able to handle it.

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There you go

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Originally Posted by Lejay

Combo decks aren't all about their fundamental turn. Fow vs discard and being immune to wasteland (and thus soft counters most of the time) is a lot and the advantage to fow gets better as you go off earlier.

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Taking for granted that combo decks aren't all about their fundamental turn, it does matter. In my opinion, ANT does set the standard here. It is consistent in closing the game at its third turn (sometimes even before that) and, unlike High Tide based decks, it has never fallen out of flavour and it has kept providing good results throughout the years. So, of course FOW can be better than discard in many cases (but hey, Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls would like to have a word with your statement) and Basic Island might be better than Dual Lands in most cases (and yet beingstuck to monoblue greatly restrics our sideboard options). However, as a matter of fact, we have a T3-discard-combo deck that has got so much more important finishes than a T4-fow-combo deck with comparable engine.

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Originally Posted by Lejay

[Omnitell] It suffers from some specific hate and since you don't always choose your draws you can suffer on wasteland. That said I have been always surprised by the low results of the deck. It is kind of boring and the people who play it regularly that I saw on top tables never seemed to know how to sequence cantrips correctly. That was back when I was still playing in tournaments though, maybe they learned in 2 years but I woudn't bet on that.

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Storm decks suffer from specific hate too. I don't get your point here.
That being said, Omnitell is indeed showing up in top8's more than Spiral Tide does, and the reason is, it's a t3 fow combo deck. Spiral Tide is a t4 fow combo deck. They have comparable number of counterspells, different-but-somewhat-comparable engine (cast a key spell, then draw and cantrip into finisher), comparable number of dead draws (close to zero, although you're almost never super happy to draw into Emrakul or Cunning Wish), and yes, they even share a big portion of hate cards (thoughtseize, surgical extraction, reb and flusterstorm being the most dominant): it's just that omnitell is one turn faster and has access to a second color if you want to. So, in my mind, we already have a deck that's performing really close to what Spiral Tide could be doing if we unbanned Frantic Search, and this deck is not tearing the meta apart. Why not even consider the unban?

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Originally Posted by Lejay

A card doesn't need to take over to be banned. If it is handable but warps the metagame it's enough.

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Well, in the end, I'd just come back to the same old Show and Tell argument here. It's simplicistic, but still. We can play a :2::u: sorcery that wins me the game on the spot, but I can't have a faithless looting+dark ritual that only works if I have cast another card before? Really.

When I say X is superior to Y, that doesn't mean there aren't some situations where Y will be better to X.3
You referred twice to spiral tide and/or "a T4-fow-combo" when all I am talking about is about high tide with frantic search. There is no point in the discussion on making comparisons between current spiral tide builds and omnishow.
Omnishow also need cards quite specific to go along with it. Whereas once you have high tide you can start comboing with a lot of different card drawers / untappers.
With high tide frantic search produces at least 6 mana. So it is a bit more than looting + dark ritual if you want to make these kind of comparisons.

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Originally Posted by Lejay

When I say X is superior to Y, that doesn't mean there aren't some situations where Y will be better to X.

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You said that FoW > Discard and basic lands > non basic lands and that a faster combo is not strictly > to a slower -but more controllish- approach. I pointed out that there is a discard-based, 3/4c combo deck that has constantly performed better than a counterspell-based monocolor combo. Therefore your statements, which I would generally agree with, are maybe not so true when speaking about combo decks.

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Originally Posted by Lejay

You referred twice to spiral tide and/or "a T4-fow-combo" when all I am talking about is about high tide with frantic search.

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I get your point. You think that there could be a blue shell that is faster and superior to the current iterations of sorcery-spell high tide combo, and this shell would be playable if frantic search got unbanned.
I beg to differ. A t2/t3-centered high tide combo deck would require you to ditch Time Spiral and play low-cc cards like Retraced Image, Ideas Unbound and Cloud of Faeries/Snap. I don't think any of these is an optimal choice, because my -untested, but likely- guess is that it would be both too prone to fizzling and too hard to USZ-win with (which you need against some decks).
I think an optimal setup would be pretty near to what is the current iteration of a typical Spiral Tide decklist, adjusted with a 4x FS: that deck would play very close to what the current deck does, only a turn faster.

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Originally Posted by Lejay

There is no point in the discussion on making comparisons between current spiral tide builds and omnishow. Omnishow also need cards quite specific to go along with it. Whereas once you have high tide you can start comboing with a lot of different card drawers / untappers.

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You're not the first one to tell me this. I have thought about it for a bit, and I stand by my point. As a premise, i would like to point out that I played both decks and I still love both (yes, even the clunky, boring omnitell), so there is no bias against either. Back on the point, I seriously think the two engines are similar.

They're both monoblue.
They both generate a very large amount of mana.
They don't require you to wait a turn to win (or you get timewalk).
You cast an enabler.
You durdle around with cantrips and tutors looking for a finisher.
You cast your finisher.

I know that Show and tell is a different engine than storm. Of course I do. But I can't help thinking that the two decks are way, waaaaay more similar in their action than, say, what Sneak and Show does (because the sns needs one or more combat phases) or even to what ANT does. When an ANT player starts comboing, he/she knows 90% of the time his/her sequence to the victory. This is never true when playing high tide decks, and often not true when playing Omnitell: you cast your key spell and then durdle into a finisher. And that's why I still think that Omnitell is the superior deck, because it is a turn faster and you usually don't need much durdling, one cantrip or two will usually find either wish or the fat spaghetti monster. I think unbanning Frantic could grant High Tide a degree of performance similar to what Omnitell is currently doing: getting off t3 with counterspell backup.

Edit: as for "specific cards required to go off", I don't think it's true. Omnitell has had many iteractions along the years. You can really play a bunch of different cards and finishers. SNT->Omni can lead to a direct Emrakul cast, or chain cantrips into finding something; there are UB version who heavily rely on Lim-Dûl's Vault; you can play cunning wish into FF into Ants, or Burning Wish into Enter the Infinite, or both; lastly, you can pack 3-4 MD Enter the Infinite (that was an old approach).

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Originally Posted by Lejay

With high tide frantic search produces at least 6 mana. So it is a bit more than looting + dark ritual if you want to make these kind of comparisons.

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Yup. Most of the relevant times that would be 7 mana (3 island, HT into FS with 1 mana backup). It's looting + 3 dark rituals: which is awesome, don't get me wrong. I would love to play that, as I was an avid spiral tide player back in the day and i'd love to get back on track with blue storm. However, SnT+Omniscience costs one mana less that HT+FS and generates infinite mana. It's very clear where the power level is, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Cave

Edit: as for "specific cards required to go off", I don't think it's true. Omnitell has had many iteractions along the years. You can really play a bunch of different cards and finishers. SNT->Omni can lead to a direct Emrakul cast, or chain cantrips into finding something; there are UB version who heavily rely on Lim-Dûl's Vault; you can play cunning wish into FF into Ants, or Burning Wish into Enter the Infinite, or both; lastly, you can pack 3-4 MD Enter the Infinite (that was an old approach).

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This is particularly funny to me because you're explaining this to the person who built the original Monoblue Omniscience deck.

Either way, I think the point he's making here is that Show and Tell and Omniscience are both specific do-nothing cards when you're not going off, while Frantic Search actually has text if you're up against any disruption. How many "do-nothing pre-combo" cards would you anticipate a High Tide deck running if Frantic Search was available?

I think it's worth an unban just to see. I also think more cards should get "probation" periods to see if it's actually oppressive. If it is too good, just put it back on the ban list.

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Originally Posted by Namida

This is particularly funny to me because you're explaining this to the person who built the original Monoblue Omniscience deck.

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Nice to know, since playing the deck has given me tons of fun throughout the years. I was there during the early days, but didn't really pay attention to who was posting what. By the way, he could literally be the Pope, if I disagree with any particular statement, i'm gonna say it. That's how forums work. :laugh:
Also, that's even more so a reason why he shouldn't disagree that the deck he created is inherently more powerful than spiral tide, which literally disappeared from the meta during the Eldrazi vs Miracles era.

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Originally Posted by Namida

Either way, I think the point he's making here is that Show and Tell and Omniscience are both specific do-nothing cards when you're not going off, while Frantic Search actually has text if you're up against any disruption. How many "do-nothing pre-combo" cards would you anticipate a High Tide deck running if Frantic Search was available?

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So is Frantic Search so powerful because I can -1 myself for free when looking for answers? I don't think this is a valid reason to explain why the card is still banned. I think a High Tide deck packing FS would still run 4 high tide, 3-4 Time Spirals and a couple extra untappers (e.g. tournabout): that's comparable to the amount of junk you run in Omnitell. By the way, speaking of Omnitell, after the 4-EtI maindeck era I started liking the deck even more, because I realized that it is in fact, really close to a 2-card combo. You get omniscience online, you'll find a win eventually: and this was particularly true during the dtt era, but it is still true to a certain degree. Also, Show and Omni could be doing nothing pre-combo, but I still need them in my hand to win (which isn't necessarily true for, say, emrakul or wish) while i look for an answer, and that applies to High Tide and Time Spiral too.

To summarize my 3-4 long posts, I think that
1. Omnitell is much more similar to a storm combo than one could think
2. Omnitell has a better/faster/stronger engine than high tide decks, and that stands true for many reasons:
1. More certainty when comboing
2. Less calculations and spells, quicker to win
3. One turn faster
4. More build flexibility
5. Etc...

3. Unbanning FS would give high tide that extra kick, rising the deck's power level close to Omnitell's.

That being said, I don't like repeating myself over and over either, and I know what happens in this thread by experience. I'll happily read Lejay's answer and then we can agree to disagree :laugh: have a nice one everybody!

Would love to see FS unbanned.

Spiral tide, replenish, reset high tide, and possibly ant (huge enabler for cabal ritual).

I could even see it being played in some show and tell decks and ub reanimator.

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Originally Posted by Cave

By the way, he could literally be the Pope, if I disagree with any particular statement, i'm gonna say it. That's how forums work. :laugh:
Also, that's even more so a reason why he shouldn't disagree that the deck he created is inherently more powerful than spiral tide, which literally disappeared from the meta during the Eldrazi vs Miracles era.

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I didn't intend for my message to come off as dismissive of your opinions based on who you're talking to; I just found it amusing that you were explaining the "old approaches" to the person who came up with them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cave

I think a High Tide deck packing FS would still run 4 high tide, 3-4 Time Spirals and a couple extra untappers (e.g. tournabout): that's comparable to the amount of junk you run in Omnitell.

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If the person you're talking to doesn't agree that Time Spiral is the sacred cow you have made it out to be, you're essentially talking about a different deck than the one the discussion is about. I know you've already dismissed this offhand, but assume you're *not* playing Time Spiral. What does the deck look like now?

The claim is that Frantic Search enables a potentially too-powerful High Tide deck which is able to play a lot of redundant combo pieces that *aren't* 6 mana blimps like Time Spiral; your response boils down to "I can only imagine High Tide as a Time Spiral deck, and since Spiral Tide is weaker than Omniscience, Frantic Search is fine because it would serve only to make Spiral Tide closer in power to Omniscience." I honestly don't think that's an illogical assumption, but you've essentially decided to talk about "Spiral Tide and its position in the metagame" instead of the subject at hand.

Edit: I want to be clear here that I do think your assumptions are perfectly reasonable, but what you're trying to say hinges on the belief that Time Spiral is necessary in a Frantic Search deck, which I do not believe you have adequately demonstrated. The discussion you want to have about comparing Spiral Tide to other decks requires your untested opinion be accepted as the truth, but your only argument so far against other versions of the deck is that you personally can't fathom an optimal build of the deck using only cheap enablers since you don't like how they look. That's not very compelling.

Quote:

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Either way, I think the point he's making here is that Show and Tell and Omniscience are both specific do-nothing cards when you're not going off, while Frantic Search actually has text if you're up against any disruption. How many "do-nothing pre-combo" cards would you anticipate a High Tide deck running if Frantic Search was available?

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Are you referring to Show and Tell, and Griselbrand as the do nothing cards? What the hell is High Tide? A do-something card? To win with a High Tide deck I need to, you know, resolve High Tide unless the game got dragged out to t5 and I run Reset. Unless you are on Solidarity, or you're running Turnabout, you need to resolve a High Tide. Lejay mentoned Omni needs specific cards to go off. Yeah, same here dude. I also need to have another "do nothing" card in an untap effect. These cards "do nothing" for me unless I am going off. I require the same amount of "do nothing" cards to start my combo than other decks, but unlike resolving a Show and Tell and holding my Griselbrand in hand, resolving a Reanimate with some random crap in my graveyard, or slapping down a Hexmage with a Depths on the field, my High Tide does nothing even if I resolve it AND resolve an untap effect. Now I need to resolve my card draw.

I resolve High Tide (A)+Untap (B) and still need to chain 12 spells together to win. There are 3 other combo decks just resolve A+B (hell one of them just resolves A, and cheats B into play, while the other one has a uncounterable land as a combo piece) and win. I woudn't even be writing this, but having to read all this crap, and see Griselbrand get printed after Entomb getting taken off the banlist... and Emrakul... but somehow Frantic Search too hot to handle. Throw me a fucking bone.

edit: FoW and basic Island? How about actually dying to Thalia (Reanimator, SNT, Depths can all go passed it a LOT easier), dying vs Leo/Spirit of Lab, being so slow that CB becomes a card that I can't go under but am forced to go over, dying to Damping Sphere. Why not mention some disadvantages instead of only listing advantages? It's obviously a HUGE list on both sides, but you're being disingenuous by stating High Tide decks are at an advantage regarding what hate they dodge. I agree though that High Tide decks can play through hate better, by virtue of being a deck that likes the late game and is able to CWish itself out of many situations it gets put under, whereas you resolve Chalice/Teeg/Thalia @1 vs Storm g1 and that might as well be GG a lot of times

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kanti

Are you referring to Show and Tell, and Griselbrand as the do nothing cards? What the hell is High Tide? A do-something card? To win with a High Tide deck I need to, you know, resolve High Tide unless the game got dragged out to t5 and I run Reset. Unless you are on Solidarity, or you're running Turnabout, you need to resolve a High Tide. Lejay mentoned Omni needs specific cards to go off. Yeah, same here dude. I also need to have another "do nothing" card in an untap effect. These cards "do nothing" for me unless I am going off. I require the same amount of "do nothing" cards to start my combo than decks, but unlike resolving a Show and Tell and holding my Griselbrand in hand, resolving a Reanimate with some random crap in my graveyard, or slapping down a Hexmage with a Depths on the field, my High Tide does nothing even if I resolve it AND resolve an untap effect. Now I need to resolve my card draw.

I resolve High Tide (A)+Untap (B) and still need to chain 12 spells together to win. There are 3 other combo decks just resolve A+B (hell one of them just resolves A, and cheats B into play, while the other one has a uncounterable land as a combo piece) and win. I woudn't even be writing this, but having to read all this crap, and see Griselbrand get printed after Entomb getting taken off the banlist... and Emrakul... but somehow Frantic Search too hot to handle. Throw me a fucking bone.

edit: FoW and basic Island? How about actually dying to Thalia (Reanimator, SNT, Depths can all go passed it a LOT easier), dying vs Leo/Spirit of Lab, being so slow that CB becomes a card that I can't go under but am forced to go over, dying to Damping Sphere. Why not mention some disadvantages instead of only listing advantages? It's obviously a HUGE list on both sides, but you're being disingenuous by stating High Tide decks are at an advantage regarding what hate they dodge. I agree that High Tide decks can play through hate better, by virtue of being a deck that likes the late game and is able to CWish itself out of many situations it gets put under, whereas you resolve Chalice/Teeg/Thalia @1 vs Storm g1 and that might as well be GG a lot of times.

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Kanti, use "[.q.u.o.t.e.]" to begin. Use "[./.q.u.o.t.e.]" to end. (Don't include the periods. :tongue:)

Frantic Search may have some value in Show and Tell decks. But its real value is as a blue mana production card and search spell in one in High Tide decks. It was the card's ability to add to your mana pool that got it banned in the first place and that is where any analysis of its possible unban should be centered.

I can't say if I fear the card in the end, but it does seem to make a successful turn 3 combo turn for High Tide decks far more likely.

It only produces mana if you resolve a High Tide. And if I am resolving High Tide->Frantic search I rather resolve of the the 3 other 2-card combos in Legacy and just get it over with. Also, how much virtual mana does a Show and Tell produce? 4BBBB or 15.

I suppose that is aimed at me. I am not interested in getting into a debate with you. I would just say that you need to actually play High Tide a bit before making such passionate claims.

Honestly after I made that post I felt dumb, as it feels from reading it back myself that I'm trying to pull you into a debate. Sorry, did not mean to do that. Still this is a forum, and forums should be a place devoid of ad hominems. I don't think I made any passionate claims, and if I did it's because I've had my fair share of playing High Tide, it's my pet deck, and I will unashamedly admit that I would love to see Frantic Search unbanned. Obviously I have bias in me, but I don't think my bias changes the fact that Frantic Search needs a resolved High Tide to generate mana, or that High Tide is a dead card much like Show and Tell, Dark Ritual, Omniscience, and the other 99% of cards that combo decks run are dead cards until they are going off. I hate this thread a little as it's where I come to think out-loud.

edit: typos

It's all good. This thread is a guilty pleasure.

You know, with all that experience I am sure you can see that High Tide players would LOVE to have Frantic Search.

In probably 1998 I played it in Extended for long enough to see what it was about. You piloted the deck essentially as an exercise in chaining Frantic Searches together until you built up to Time Spiral mana. The card was central to the deck. Of course, we did not have Candelabra available. But one really cool thing that could come out of unbanning Frantic Search is that people may learn that Candelabras are no longer necessary. That would open up the deck to a lot more players for financial reasons.

I would like to see something unbanned to make the return of the Four Horseman deck - the greatest Basalt Monolith combo deck ever designed - a reality.

Speaking as someone who has a real nice play-set of Beta Basalt Monoliths...

I'm game.

https://youtu.be/Wkvd7pbfM78

Anyone else notice how long this song keeps going?

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Originally Posted by Namida

I didn't intend for my message to come off as dismissive of your opinions based on who you're talking to; I just found it amusing that you were explaining the "old approaches" to the person who came up with them.

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Yeah, in retrospective that was kinda silly. :tongue:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Namida

The claim is that Frantic Search enables a potentially too-powerful High Tide deck which is able to play a lot of redundant combo pieces that *aren't* 6 mana blimps like Time Spiral; your response boils down to "I can only imagine High Tide as a Time Spiral deck, and since Spiral Tide is weaker than Omniscience, Frantic Search is fine because it would serve only to make Spiral Tide closer in power to Omniscience." I honestly don't think that's an illogical assumption, but you've essentially decided to talk about "Spiral Tide and its position in the metagame" instead of the subject at hand.

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Alright, reasonable. Well, i'll try to put it as simple as I can.
1. As a (former-potential) player of that deck, I already want to cry when I look up how many top8's Spiral Tide put up during the past 6 years (my result at my lgs not being posted online though :tongue:). Spiral Tide is not a very successful deck. Also, as I already said, it's been largely overshadowed by Omnitell.
2. After reading my first point, go and verify it yourself if you don't believe, then think very carefully about the next three points.
3. Realize that Spiral Tide is the most successful version of High Tide deck ever played in legacy
4. Realize that every other high tide deck that doesn't play a draw7 hasn't put up one decent legacy result in the last decade
5. Realize that however good Frantic Search may be, it is still an inferior card to Time Spiral because it draws less and produces less mana.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Namida

If the person you're talking to doesn't agree that Time Spiral is the sacred cow you have made it out to be, you're essentially talking about a different deck than the one the discussion is about. I know you've already dismissed this offhand, but assume you're *not* playing Time Spiral. What does the deck look like now?

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A faster, t2-t3 oriented (instead of heavy t3-t3.5 approach like I'd like) version of High Tide storm would probably play cards like Ideas Unbound (as lejay points out), Predict/Meditate, cheap untappers (Cloud of Faeries/Snap), Retraced Image and it'd be probably packing Remand and/or multiple copies of Brain Freeze maindeck. A sort of a sorcery-speed Solidarity.
Anybody out there feel free to correct me or to post a finite decklist. Anyway, I could be spending all day speaking about how unsound this shell looks like from a competitive perspective and how playing any of the cards I listed would make your deck worse, but yeah, I won't (i'm on holiday, can't be bothered). It's just...I don't really feel frantic search is enough to make this shell competitive. Drawing two-three cards at a time is still too prone to fizzling, which is one of the major problems of high tide engine. Also, attempting to go off before t4 greatly increases your mana problems when starting the combo, which is yet another notorious problem of these kind of decks. It's seriously that bad. History has shown that Spiral Tide is not really a competitive deck, and non-spiral high tide versions are even less competitive: I highly doubt that just ONE card is enough to make the latter worth playing; however, they may gave the former that tiny extra kick to be present in the meta.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Namida

Edit: I want to be clear here that I do think your assumptions are perfectly reasonable, but what you're trying to say hinges on the belief that Time Spiral is necessary in a Frantic Search deck, which I do not believe you have adequately demonstrated. The discussion you want to have about comparing Spiral Tide to other decks requires your untested opinion be accepted as the truth, but your only argument so far against other versions of the deck is that you personally can't fathom an optimal build of the deck using only cheap enablers since you don't like how they look. That's not very compelling.

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Yep. In the end, I can't fully demonstrate this fast-tide idea is not legit only using words; on the other hand, nobody can demonstrate through talk that unbanning frantic search would be bad because this shell is too much to handle for the legacy format. However, the thing does look silly from a power-level perspective, because me and others pointed out that this format has Show and Tell. What can I say more: print your proxies and do your tests. It is the one who makes the positive claim to normally have burden of proof :tongue:

When i made my post about Frantic i honestly didn't even think there could be someone who seriously believed the power level was too high for legacy, i didn't think it would be a controversial take at all.

Thanks to the others that have debated this far more exhaustively and eloquently than i could. I'll just add a few thoughts expanding my point a bit.
Like others have stated, with what is currently unbanned i can't possibly imagine a world where FS is broken or too strong for the format. I don't even think it makes Tide playable at all in the format, even if it does, then great! another playable deck, but to think it would be too strong compared to other combo options seems like an absolutely huge stretch.


Again i'll post a list of cards that aren't banned (a bunch have already been brought up) and i'd love to hear an argument for a potential world where FS is more broken or even playable in any sort of shell than these:

Brainstorm
Ponder
Preordain
Reanimate
Show And Tell
Griselbrand
Entomb
Chalice of the Void
Dark Ritual
Crop Rotation


Most 2 mana draw spells aren't even playable in the format right now, mana acceleration has to be very very good to be justifiable as well. A 3 mana card that sort of does both, but poorly and only with set up and an enabler, in a world where all the best disruption costs between 0-2 mana, and can completely shut down not only FS but all of the shell around it just seems like such a stretch to me.

You have a format right now that is: Thoughtseize, Spell Pierce, Pyro, Thalia, Thorn, Chalice, Force, Daze, FLUSTERSTORM, Surgical
All being in the top 50 most popular cards and best disruption, and this THIS is the format you want to try to resolve a High Tide and a Frantic Search to MAYBE get your combo STARTED to then resolve more spells to go off with no certainty?
Good luck.
You want to be doing that rather than Show and Tell or Reanimate?

I honestly can't even fathom how that is at all a reasonable position to have.