All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by Cave

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

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Holy crap and I was told I make bold claims. Get your head out of the sand dude. Solidarity was t1 alongside Thresh and Goblins, to there goes point #3. #4 you hit right, and point #5 and is just what you said in your last 3 posts explaining why. There are loads of reason you could not want to run Spiral Tide, among them that it sucks resolving High Tide+a d7 for your opponent, another being Teeg. You would be amazed how strong Ideas Unbound is. Predict could be run now that Legacy players know how strong it is in conjuction with BS+Ponder, and Snapcaster Mages could be played over Cloud of Faeries to recycle anything.

Be a little more open minded.

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Originally Posted by Kanti

Holy crap and I was told I make bold claims. Get your head out of the sand dude. Solidarity was t1 alongside Thresh and Goblins, to there goes point #3.

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So being tier1 twelve years ago makes solidarity more successful than Spiral Tide? Holy crap you make bold claims, and there goes your irony.

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Originally Posted by Kanti

There are loads of reason you could not want to run Spiral Tide, among them that it sucks resolving High Tide+a d7 for your opponent, another being Teeg.

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Gaddock Teeg is irrelevant, to be fair. It's a hate card played in Maverick (at the moment a non-meta deck) and elves (which is a bad matchup regardless of Teeg because they have other stuff, like double therapy or t2 order-ruric).
As for them drawing seven, i know it's bad but in the end it is not that bad: sometimes it doesn't even matter, and when it does, our deck is one of the best when it comes to fight on the stack. Drawing seven allows us to have enough gas, and any competent spiral tide pilot knows you try to cast as few spirals as possible, but you need at least one to win.

On the other hand, what i'm really biased against is fizzling. You cannot convince me that a high tide deck works better in the early turns, just because of how the combo works it's better to go off later, at least t3-4. Also, Merchant Scroll is one of the best cards in the deck (and no, I won't discuss this) and merchant scroll literally screams "t3 or later". To me, fighting on the stack to resolve a t3 high tide and then only having Frantic Search in hand screams "Land, Land, Fow, throw a tantrum and scoop"; on the other hand, fighting on the stack to resolve high tide and then having Time Spiral as last card in my hand smells of victory. We both draw7, but you know I have more gas and your 7 counterspells can't stop my stream of sorcery cantrips.

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Originally Posted by Kanti

You would be amazed how strong Ideas Unbound is. Predict could be run now that Legacy players know how strong it is in conjuction with BS+Ponder, and Snapcaster Mages could be played over Cloud of Faeries to recycle anything.

Be a little more open minded.

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Ideas Unbound is so strong that it was played in two decks that died years ago. Its last result in a high tide deck dates back to early 2011. If Ideas Unbound needs Frantic Search to be playable, I might as well skip it and go for something more viable. Remember that people aren't playing meditate either because of too big drawbacks, let alone Ideas Unbound. Predict is good: in fact there are people (e.g. Mackan) having decent success with 3-4 md predict Spiral Tide. Snapcaster over Cloud can work, but not if you want to be able to go off turn2 as someone said.

Concerning your last judgemental sentence, I think of myself as a fairly open minded person. However, I don't like to get overexcited about things that haven't happened (like FS getting unbanned) or unplayable cards getting playable just because of an unban.

I don't see anyone taking into account just how difficult it is to pilot in the discussion as to why it's not successful. In my opinion, that's the #1 reason why Spring Tide/Solidarity/Spiral Tide is as unsuccessful as it is in this format. Its correct lines aren't always obvious, or even possible to know until later/after. It also requires an immense amount of thought, which causes incorrect lines also.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

I don't see anyone taking into account just how difficult it is to pilot in the discussion as to why it's not successful. In my opinion, that's the #1 reason why Spring Tide/Solidarity/Spiral Tide is as unsuccessful as it is in this format. Its correct lines aren't always obvious, or even possible to know until later/after. It also requires an immense amount of thought, which causes incorrect lines also.

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The speed Feline would run though that deck would always amaze me. The fact that the last time she really tried to play it was when Dig was legal I think says more then peoples skill. The same argument was made for a long time about DDFT, but really we all know the deck was just bad right? We are admitting that yes?

A hard deck to pilot that is very strong will get picked up, people will run it. Many a spike will talk for hours with others in a testing group about how to do what and when. If a deck is worth the effort people will put it in. High Tide is not worth that effort, its just not good enough.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

The speed Feline would run though that deck would always amaze me. The fact that the last time she really tried to play it was when Dig was legal I think says more then peoples skill. The same argument was made for a long time about DDFT, but really we all know the deck was just bad right? We are admitting that yes?

A hard deck to pilot that is very strong will get picked up, people will run it. Many a spike will talk for hours with others in a testing group about how to do what and when. If a deck is worth the effort people will put it in. High Tide is not worth that effort, its just not good enough.

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All correct. However, I wasn't arguing it is good enough, just that the main reason for its lack of success was that it was also a difficult deck to play when it was a high-tiered deck.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

The same argument was made for a long time about DDFT, but really we all know the deck was just bad right? We are admitting that yes?

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I mean I guess it could be both. I don't know any deck that had a ridiculous spreadsheet parsing every pile option for every situation. Bad or good, we can agree it was silly at least.

Inconsistent is the word I would use. Solidarity, the instant-only version was especially inconsistent. And thank God! That shit was not fun to face when it had the goods. It could do stupid things like win during your attack step or Twincast your Hymn to Tourach twice before finally Remanding yours. And all this just took 15 minutes of you carefully watching and counting their spells, mana, etc. There was really little you could do to beat that deck most of the time. But there were also times where after all that, it would fail to do anything at all and then just pass priority back...after 15 minutes of masturbation. Annoying.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

I don't see anyone taking into account just how difficult it is to pilot in the discussion as to why it's not successful. In my opinion, that's the #1 reason why Spring Tide/Solidarity/Spiral Tide is as unsuccessful as it is in this format. Its correct lines aren't always obvious, or even possible to know until later/after. It also requires an immense amount of thought, which causes incorrect lines also.

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I said that multiple times when comparing Omnitell to Spiral Tide. Resolving one spell, putting an overcosted enchantment into play and then laughing at your opponent is way easier than calculating stuff for minutes. That being said, I think people overestimate the deck's difficulty. I always found ANT was way harder to pilot, and I played that deck for quite a while too. The most difficult moments are beginning the combo a.k.a. resolving through permission and deciding what to do to prevent mana shortage after drawing your time spiral's 7: the rest is more or less autopilot.

Edit: By the way, Dice_Box said something really clever there. High Tide is difficult and intriguing, just not worth playing. That's why many people like the deck but not many play it. Casting show and tell then slamming your d on the table is way easier and far more likely to be successful.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

All correct. However, I wasn't arguing it is good enough, just that the main reason for its lack of success was that it was also a difficult deck to play when it was a high-tiered deck.

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You and I are remembering the Naughties very differently. Me and my Goblins remember High Tide, we did not enjoy them.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

You and I are remembering the Naughties very differently. Me and my Goblins remember High Tide, we did not enjoy them.

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I'm sorry, I meant it's lack of success now in recent years, not then. I too remember it somewhat woefully, but I played storm (fetchland tendrils and ironically, DDFT) so it does sound like we had different experiences. At least I had Duresses and Chant, you had to race...

C'mon Earthcraft!

Let's untap some Enchanted Forests.

Don't leave me hanging, WotC!

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Frantic search ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...ent-2018-08-20
Boo no changes

Hollow One / Vengevine decks have been making strong showings in both Vintage and Modern. Do folks here still think Survival is a safe unban in Legacy?

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Originally Posted by Stuart

Hollow One / Vengevine decks have been making strong showings in both Vintage and Modern. Do folks here still think Survival is a safe unban in Legacy?

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No way. I think the format would devolve even further into degeneracy. The format is actually really fun ATM without a clear top deck, lets not fuck that up shall we?

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Originally Posted by Stuart

Hollow One / Vengevine decks have been making strong showings in both Vintage and Modern. Do folks here still think Survival is a safe unban in Legacy?

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Before drs ban I was all for survival, now there's no way.

As a Survival supporter I think that a VV Hollow One deck would be pretty nuts. I'm not sure if it's TOO good, but I can now see how it only will get better. Especially now DRS is gone. Still would like to see the safer choices like earthcraft taken off though. Overall besides brainstorms continued dominance the format is actually better than it has been in awhile to me

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

As a Survival supporter I think that a VV Hollow One deck would be pretty nuts. I'm not sure if it's TOO good, but I can now see how it only will get better. Especially now DRS is gone. Still would like to see the safer choices like earthcraft taken off though. Overall besides brainstorms continued dominance the format is actually better than it has been in awhile to me

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I got into a debate here several months ago about why Survival would still be horrifically broken in Legacy. Deathrite being in the format would just mean Survival decks would play Deathrite. People acting as if DRS would keep Survival in check are flat out wrong.

Earthcraft probably hasn't come off yet because Wizards doesn't want to remind people that the Reserved List exists. Plenty of more casual players out there who think Enchantress is a budget deck, but if Earthcraft gets unbanned, Sanctum and Earthcraft each hit $300 easy.

Earthcraft won’t maintain a price over $100, let alone $300.

If someone wants to pay that much for an earthcraft, then good for the finance crowd I guess.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds

Earthcraft won’t maintain a price over $100, let alone $300.

If someone wants to pay that much for an earthcraft, then good for the finance crowd I guess.

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Again, Earthcraft is a Reserved List card. It would spike super hard. Just because the card isn't good doesn't mean it won't hit that price for a short time at least.

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Originally Posted by Stuart

Hollow One / Vengevine decks have been making strong showings in both Vintage and Modern. Do folks here still think Survival is a safe unban in Legacy?

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I personally don't think it is, it is just too strong in any fair MU where you'll just slam it on t2 and grind away from there with no more DRS to fight GY recursion and a pretty low count of Abrupt Decays as a consequence to that. Also a constant and repetable toolboxtutor for Valuestuff/silverbullets is just insane and like a gsz on steroids

So no grumbling about how the top 16 of the GP was literally 13 Force BS Ponder decks 2 Chalice decks and a copy of Lands?

Man this forum has changed.

This meta looks like balls.

Why bother, nothing's changing.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Why bother, nothing's changing.

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But that's true of at least 700 of these 1000 pages!


The format seems to be in a similar place to the original standard format in the 90's, where the philosophy was "ban everything until necro is good, then ban necro"

It's hard to justify not playing Ux control or Ux Delver Aggro if you want to win any large event. Your options are run a chalice deck with lots of creatures, or something else and try to get lucky.

Though i suppose it's been that way for about 5+ years now so yeah.

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Originally Posted by ReAnimator

So no grumbling about how the top 16 of the GP was literally 13 Force BS Ponder decks 2 Chalice decks and a copy of Lands?

Man this forum has changed.

This meta looks like balls.

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This was rather expected, Deathrite was never a part of the blue shell, he was just the best thing to do in the blue shell and similar for Probe. Nothing was done to change the blue shell. The meta is better now I think, but if they had banned Brainstorm it would have probably been much better in my view and possibly (I think not) worse in the view of those who like the blue shell's supremacy. It's the same situation of arguing for strategic diversity, a narrow concept in my view, versus greater diversity (including strategic diversity). This discussion is the same as before the Deathrite ban, so there's not really much to add at this point. Also, the meta is not as claustrophobic now, it improved, as to force the reactions it did a while ago.

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Originally Posted by pettdan

This was rather expected, Deathrite was never a part of the blue shell, he was just the best thing to do in the blue shell and similar for Probe. Nothing was done to change the blue shell. The meta is better now I think, but if they had banned Brainstorm it would have probably been much better in my view and possibly (I think not) worse in the view of those who like the blue shell's supremacy. It's the same situation of arguing for strategic diversity, a narrow concept in my view, versus greater diversity (including strategic diversity). This discussion is the same as before the Deathrite ban, so there's not really much to add at this point. Also, the meta is not as claustrophobic now, it improved, as to force the reactions it did a while ago.

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Agreed, Deathrite deserved to be banned, but the collateral damage Legacy faces as a result of his banning is real. Blue decks never deserved Deathrite Shaman, but now, Jund, Junk, and even BUG shells are either unplayable or are on the fringes of the format. Midrange-Combo hybrids like Food Chain and Aluren are similarly gone. Green as a whole is weaker now than it ever has been because the best fair creatures in the game are now blue and/or black. The metagame has improved, but I seriously doubt this is the end of ban talks. Brainstorm decks are still over 60% of the format and I think we're going to see the format devolve into Swords-Snap-Swords, Hymn-Snap-Hymn, True-Name Nemesis, and Griselbrand

I've complained about it enough to locals and most of the reply has been "well that's legacy". Diversity is no longer a defining factor of the format unfortunately. I mean it's always been a thin veil anyway in the face of brainstorm dominance, but every large event essentially reaffirms that you're basically an idiot if you bring a non brainstorm/ponder deck to the event

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Originally Posted by ReAnimator

So no grumbling about how the top 16 of the GP was literally 13 Force BS Ponder decks 2 Chalice decks and a copy of Lands?

Man this forum has changed.

This meta looks like balls.

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It's kinda funny to see the displeased noisy minority complain that most others are just being silently content, lol.

It's kinda funny to see the pleased noisy minority complain too. ;)

I mean if everyone just wants to play a bunch of mirrors or just try to out brainstorm each other then I guess you win. I'm just disappointed to see what legacy has become and it's not why I fell in love with the format. The lack of real diversity really showed itself this past weekend and I think diversity is important to many players which is what has killed standard and why modern has catapulted as by far the most popular format both in player base and viewership

I am moving more and more into one deck in Legacy and shifting over to having a broad base in Modern. For a long time I felt Legacy was the format to play, these days I feel Legacy is the format to fade away. Nothing will change, I have accepted that, I am moving on.

The card pool in Modern is deep enough I can do cool things, there is a prison deck I enjoy and the format is diverse. So why bitch about Legacy when I can play something else and enjoy myself just as much. Oh and the bonus being that since the main Modern Forums are total horseshit I never need worry about wasting my time debating on them. Since I would be kicked in about 45 minutes.

Edit:
It amuses me to no end now that the "Go play Modern" comment thrown around like an insult is actually really solid advice.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I am moving more and more into one deck in Legacy and shifting over to having a broad base in Modern. For a long time I felt Legacy was the format to play, these days I feel Legacy is the format to fade away. Nothing will change, I have accepted that, I am moving on.

The card pool in Modern is deep enough I can do cool things, there is a prison deck I enjoy and the format is diverse. So why bitch about Legacy when I can play something else and enjoy myself just as much. Oh and the bonus being that since the main Modern Forums are total horseshit I never need worry about wasting my time debating on them. Since I would be kicked in about 45 minutes.

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Modern absolutely sucks. There's no consistency in the decks being played. Anything is viable, which means that you can't really game-plan for any particular metagame because at any given tournament you'll face 10+ different strategies and there are very few (effective) universal answers as there are in Legacy.

This basically means that most matches are crapshoots that depend on that particular matchup, and the sideboard matters too much. Whereas in Legacy, you can say that your deck has a great game-plan for every blue deck, or is solid across the board against all the combo decks, or crushes all the creature decks... you can't really plan for things in this way in Modern because everything has such a different strategy.

Casual players love Modern because it's more random and unpredictable, and skill matters less. Good players don't like Modern because of this - it's the most random, coin-flip format in all of Magic.

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Originally Posted by MGB

Modern absolutely sucks. There's no consistency in the decks being played. Anything is viable, which means that you can't really game-plan for any particular metagame because at any given tournament you'll face 10+ different strategies and there are very few (effective) universal answers as there are in Legacy.

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All fine points. But here is where my point stands: I live in Australia. There are very very few events that play more then 6 rounds run here. So if your mostly looking at 4 rounds a week of Magic what is better, something new and different all the time or consent reruns of a show you have grown to tire of? Also in a say, 15 round event, you are going to see the same 7 to 10 decks at the top tables and I see no issues with 10 decks having a place in a format. All of which have a unique core or strategy.

Basically: More decks are playable. Its a feature, not a bug.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

All fine points. But here is where my point stands: I live in Australia. There are very very few events that play more then 6 rounds run here. So if your mostly looking at 4 rounds a week of Magic what is better, something new and different all the time or consent reruns of a show you have grown to tire of? Also in a say, 15 round event, you are going to see the same 7 to 10 decks at the top tables and I see no issues with 10 decks having a place in a format. All of which have a unique core or strategy.

Basically: More decks are playable. Its a feature, not a bug.

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Oh, it's definitely more "fun" in the way that kitchen table magic is fun for the casual player. If you're a serious competitive player, however, playing Modern is like depending too much on the coin flip or the whims of the tournament bracket. In Legacy, and Standard, you can play a deck that has more generic answers (even if the answers are mostly blue and mostly the same among most of the "top" decks), and use your skill to win 60%+ of your matches regardless of the field. So if you enjoy nuanced, skilled play, and don't care that most of the decks are built to fit certain "pillars" of the format, then you should play Legacy or Standard. If you just want to jam all kinds of random decks against each other and don't really want to focus on leveraging your play skill to amass a winning record, then Modern is more your jam.

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Originally Posted by MGB

Oh, it's definitely more "fun" in the way that kitchen table magic is fun for the casual player. If you're a serious competitive player, however, playing Modern is like depending too much on the coin flip or the whims of the tournament bracket. In Legacy, and Standard, you can play a deck that has more generic answers (even if the answers are mostly blue and mostly the same among most of the "top" decks), and use your skill to win 60%+ of your matches regardless of the field. So if you enjoy nuanced, skilled play, and don't care that most of the decks are built to fit certain "pillars" of the format, then you should play Legacy or Standard. If you just want to jam all kinds of random decks against each other and don't really want to focus on leveraging your play skill to amass a winning record, then Modern is more your jam.

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I love my Lands deck, its not going anywhere and I like to think I am dam good at it at this point. I do get out of bed for Legacy events in a way I won't for Modern. I will grant you all of that.

But playing weekly these days? No. Legacy is just the same thing day in, day out. My deck of choice is currently debating if it wants cards it cut when DRS became an issue back. We are honestly rehasing topics from 4 to 5 years ago. Not exactly thrilling topics for all involved. Hell I find myself talking about Music and Beer more then Lands in the Discord now and that feels like a fine evolution of what Legacy is now. A group of older players who would be more at home if the Card Shop had a bar attached.

Legacy is as exciting as Nascar now. Jeff Dunhum summed that up well: Their making a left turn. Their making a left turn, I wonder what's going to happen next. Lets cut to a commercial break folks and come back in 10 minutes, you wont have missed a fucking thing!

Thats Legacy in a sentence.

Go play Modern

(if you like your format to have half the game's history and whole categories of strategies disallowed)

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I love my Lands deck, its not going anywhere and I like to think I am dam good at it at this point. I do get out of bed for Legacy events in a way I won't for Modern. I will grant you all of that.

But playing weekly these days? No. Legacy is just the same thing day in, day out. My deck of choice is currently debating if it wants cards it cut when DRS became an issue back. We are honestly rehasing topics from 4 to 5 years ago. Not exactly thrilling topics for all involved. Hell I find myself talking about Music and Beer more then Lands in the Discord now and that feels like a fine evolution of what Legacy is now. A group of older players who would be more at home if the Card Shop had a bar attached.

Legacy is as exciting as Nascar now. Jeff Dunhum summed that up well: Their making a left turn. Their making a left turn, I wonder what's going to happen next. Lets cut to a commercial break folks and come back in 10 minutes, you wont have missed a fucking thing!

Thats Legacy in a sentence.

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I have sadz, why you feels bad man?

NASCAR way moar than just left turn. Watkins Glen, Sonoma, and new for 2018 Charlotte all feature non-left turn only tracks. Even if, there''s drama with pit stops, drafting and bumping, the aero packages, restrict or plate limits on speed. There's way more to it than just, left turn. C'mon man.

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Originally Posted by MGB

If you just want to jam all kinds of random decks against each other and don't really want to focus on leveraging your play skill to amass a winning record, then Modern is more your jam.

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That must be why you never see anyone top Modern events more than once, and why no one has made a name for themselves as Modern specialists... :rolleyes:

Might as well play War.

Clearly something from that lantern deck was banned cause that hasn’t been seen in a while

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Originally Posted by NeckBird

The metagame has improved, but I seriously doubt this is the end of ban talks.

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To be fair, there is no end to ban talks. There will always be a subset of players unhappy with any given environment. If you want to explore that to its extreme, go back to the archives and look at people defending Hulk Flash.