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Even in the world where this was a change that would lead to a more balanced format, it would kill the format.Quote:
Originally Posted by porcupinetreeman
Your non-blue decks fall into two categories, raw power (i.e. DnT) and tutoring (I.e. elves). These strategies are viable, but there’s a movement to misrepresent the format as them being not even close to viable compared to cantrip based strategies.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
all decks are viable, given what matchups you have. you can find plenty of reports where someone wins with a non blue deck. most of the time if they aren't playing something that is explicitly good against blue, they just managed to dodge blue most of the day.
if everyone decided they would play blue, i'd be very reluctant to play one of those decks that doesn't explicitly hate on blue.
Kind of like legacy in generalQuote:
Originally Posted by Whitefaces
No it wasn't and this shows precisely my point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
My data was just a single tournament admittedly, but at least for THIS tournament it shows that when you CAN do the analysis, blue decks DO NOT overperform.
A top 32 presence of 62% when it was 58% of the field means blue decks performed precisely on average. Maybe there is plenty of people who don't understand statistics, variance, error :cool:
Your "unquestionable decade of dominance" is your prejudice of blue haters. Either that or misrepresenting on purpose.
Blue is strong. It's not the only strong thing to do in Legacy. Everything has to be "degenerate powerful" to be "competitive playable" in Legacy. Full stop.
And again you haven't defined what you mean with "king of the format": if you want to say "wins more", as I just showed, you have to do that with data which are not only WINNERS METAGAME. If you want to say "everyone plays that" that's another thing that requires different data (which again we have not).
OR.
You blue haters could all start wondering, if your results suck when you play the deck you love, if it's the deck who sucks or you at playing it (love you all <3 maybe it's just you are unlucky)
THIS!!! but it would mean close this thread :laugh::laugh::laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
And that's precisely why this thread looks dumb and dumber. Xerox (fixed that for you) isn't a deck, and isn't Survival of the Fittest or Flash.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
The debate should be around DIVERSITY, which apparently each of us has a different way of defining.
But I have now accepted that people (here) seem incapable of understanding that if combo, control and aggro control each play a cantrip, that doesn't mean metagame is formed by a single strategy and the play experience feel the same. Again, if you are incapable of understanding the different play experiences, maybe it's not Legacy fault (or blue or xerox) but yours.
Yes I am being (very) harsh.
I don't have decades of data at hand. But I just showed data from one (BIG) tournament that showed:
1) NON BLUE DECKS are played by many people, even if less than blue decks. 60 - 40% I think is acceptable for a "blue" format, don't you?
2) NON BLUE DECKS win EXACTLY the same amount of blue decks in terms both of average points made by the players and top32 conversion.
Now what were the reactions?
- Deniers (LOL - and then THEY speak of understanding statistics)
- Ignorers.
But I am the one who has no rights to make ad hominem against blue haters ^_^
pulled some numbers from the last 22 legacy grand prix's. i think i missed 1 deck somewhere
eldrazi
red stompy
grixis delver
lands
delver blade
grixis control
grixis control
miracles
lands
shadow
miracles
rug delver
eldrazi
grixis control
stoneblade
red stompy
grixis delver
grixis delver
mud stompy
dredge
grixis control
grixis delver
czech pile
grixis delver
bug leovold
lands
miracles
grixis delver
czech pile
miracles
maverick
dnt
ur delver
grixis delver
lands
4c control
rug delver
grixis delver
show and tell
True name bug
r/b reanimator
grixis delver
miracles
dnt
bug delver
grixis delver
show and tell
show and tell
miracles
miracles
show and tell
dnt
elves
miracles
storm
infect
miracles
grixis delver
miracles
lands
reanimator
miracles
miracles
storm
miracles
dnt
grixis delver
threshold
grixis delver
shardless
show and tell
lands
ur delver
miracles
reanimator
shardless
ur delver
aluren
shardless
miracles
miracles
infect
junk
grixis delver
grixis delver
lands
junk
miracles
stoneblade
show and tell
storm
rug delver
show and tell
stoneblade
ur delver
stoneblade
infect
storm
miracles
landstill
mud stompy
stoneblade
ur delver
bug delver
miracles
reanimator
miracles
bug delver
deathblade
RW painte
miracles
RWU delver
show and tell
bant
dredge
bug delver
dnt
elves
stoneblade
dnt
rug delver
dnt
rug delver
merfolk
maverick
show and tell
bug delver
stoneblade
jund
jund
rug delver
bug delver
elves
stoneblade
miracles
storm
elves
show and tell
stoneblade
junk
maverick
miracles
miracles
rug delver
stoneblade
rug delver
stoneblade
belcher
maverick
goblins
bombardment
stoneblade
rug delver
maverick
spiral tide
rug delver
dredge
stoneblade
maverick
stoneblade
rug delver
storm
show and tell
bant
R painter
bant countertop
maverick
bant
show and tell
landstill
NO rug
standstill
zoo
merfolk
painter
feel free to do what you want with this list. it's probably worth noting that a lot of the decks only ran 4 brainstorm (no ponder towards the end of this list (excluding rug delver).
takeaway from this is that you should probably play brainstorm/ponder if you want a higher chance of winning. (would still need to know how many people are entering tournaments with these cards for it to be truly useful information, but if 1/2 the players entering are playing blue and 66% of t8's are blue, should then play blue. (this includes sneak and show, storm etc)
While i probably agree with the conclusion anyways, i don't think this particular data tells us that.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
If 50% of the field is blue, 66% of top 8 is blue, that does not infer that a single blue deck has the best conversion rate and thus is the best deck to play.
Extreme example, if the 50% non blue decks include 1% DnT, and DnT is 34% top8, then DnT is probably the best deck.
I do think that blue decks on average is better than non blue. But still there is a lot of blue decks that are worse than say, BReanimator/dredge/depths.
That's why i think it's meaningless to talk about "the blue shell"(unless we are discussing mario kart) instead of individual decks.
In 2-3 color format shouldn’t one expect each color to hover around 40-60% of the field?Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
As mentioned, several big tournaments in the past have published full metagame data and the result is always the same: Blue top decks overperform every fucking time and i dont really want to nicpick if its UBR or 4c, control or aggro-control, 5% or 20% overperformance.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
As you said, its ONE tournament of many with the T32 blue percentage being higher than its share in the field. We have seen these gap being as big as 24% in the past, as some people may remember being topic in this thread. So if you want to argue that the 4% are neglectable for this case, I won't disagree. I am talking about it being a constant phenomena and the gap partly being absurdly large to the point of being hard to ignore.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
Pal, this is nothing than a hilarious ad homiem targeting someone who knowingly slings cantrips himself. I am an unfitting target for "you're just hating blue!".Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
More than half of the format plays blue, most tournament T8 in the last decade are mainly blue, most winning decks are blue, most of the successful non-blue decks prey hard on blue cantrip decks (see: Chalice & other Resistors)Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
It'd hard to argue that the format is NOT warped around and by Ponder/Brainstorm/Fetchlands/FoW.
Again, this is contributing nothing to the discussion. Its just a mere personal attack to discredit other peoples observations and concerns.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
Crunched some numbers:Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
https://i.imgur.com/zmbczMh.png
Notes:
I did not count Brainstorm + 2 Ponders as a Cartel deck
I did not count Ancestral Vision decks as Cartel decks unless they packed a lot of Ponders.
Sylvan Library, Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage, Elvish Visionary and the like are not treated as cantrips.
Lands is classified as an RG-colored Prison/Combo deck. The numbers would be different if we could differentiate RUG control lands and RG Combo lands.
Stoneblade and Standstill decks are probably older, and thus not treated as Cartel decks even if the more recent examples are.
Deathblade decks are not counter as Cartel decks.
Deck counts:
24 miracles
15 grixis delver
14 stoneblade
12 show and tell
11 rug delver
7 maverick
7 dnt
7 lands
6 bug delver
6 storm
5 ur delver
4 elves
4 grixis control
3 shardless
3 junk
3 dredge
3 bant
3 infect
3 reanimator
2 eldrazi
2 red stompy
2 mud stompy
2 landstill
2 merfolk
2 jund
2 czech pile
1 deathblade
1 delver blade
1 shadow
1 bug leovold
1 4c control
1 goblins
1 bombardment
1 True name bug
1 r/b reanimator
1 threshold
1 RWU delver
1 aluren
1 RW painte
1 belcher
1 spiral tide
1 bant countertop
1 R painter
1 NO rug
1 standstill
1 zoo
1 painter
Actually, how much you suppose they are overperformin is pretty relevant for at least two reason:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
- a little overperformance is arguably a problem
- a little overperformance could just be "noise" in the data, as in
Glad you finally admitted it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I am not following this thread since a decade ago, nor I have re-read it whole. When was this 24% and how long did this "dominance" last?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Because if it was, for example, during the treasure cruise era, I'd say it doesn't mean anything for the Legacy of 2019.
Someone has spoken of trends, saying you should not just look at single data. I'd agree for the second part; except, in order to speak of trends, you should be sure you were speaking of THE SAME THING evolving in time. This is not the case for Legacy. You can hardly say that the format is the same now as it was before shaman and Top ban. Was Miracle overpowered? To me it's clear, it's a tier even after being hit by the ban.
Since the format is "new" potentially after each new print, (potentially even without new sets, just because of rotation of the metagame), and for sure is a new thing after each ban, I really don't care of past comparisons and trends going on for years, except I can understand people feelings, like a subjective perception of "nothing changes"... but it would be nothing more than that, a misguided perception not based on actual facts. If we try to speak of objective things, I consider this Legacy as born just a few months ago with the last ban, and I won't agree of dominance if not shown recent datasets (and since somebody spoke of MTGO, I'd say I'd take into account only paper big events and data that show metagame into top conversion rates).
Since they are "pillars of the format", and someone (like me) could even say they are the very definition of what Legacy is and should be, definetely I wouldn't find surprising if a clever deckbuilder took this into account when choosing the appropriate list :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Personally, while choosing what to play, I take into account just as well the existence of chalice of the void (it would have been the most played "archetype" in my last big event, as I said, if someone was foolish enough to make a big category so rough... almost as rough as speaking of "blue decks"), wasteland, aether vial, natural order, golgari grave troll, terminus, targeted or random discard, reanimate, (blood moon) etc. (to be more clear: I'd say each of these "warps" the format too, they hardly prey upon "blue shells" -even chalice is more preying on the fact that legacy has a low mana curve than on cantrip themselves- and none of them is "blue").
I feel like i'm watching a creationism debate with this thread. Can we just accept reality, that blue cards are a dominant force in legacy? Complaining about your religious beliefs giving you comfort, while the rest of us live in reality, doesn't help your case.
I mainly analyzed the Miracles era so I took that as the example, but you are free to look at the TC or DRS eras to see if these were able to top these numbers. I think that the TC era with its ~81% Brainstorm penetration won't deliver reliable data because you would pretty much constantly need 32 Brainstorms in a T8 to even gauge any overperformance anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
That's the main point of disagreement recently in this thread. It's a point of view to claim that Grixis Control is a totally different deck than 4c Control, but for others who follow the formats development for so many years, notice that most top strategies boil down to the ever same deck core. I dont know if there is a way to build a bridge between these camps. It's a matter of how far you are willing to boil down decks and if it matters to you, if all defining decks of the last decade start with the same set of 20-30 cards, so to speak.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
If you agree on "performance relative to representation over time" being an or outright THE defining parameter, then Miracles was indeed overpowered.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
As stated, I don't blame anyone to see change and something new in Grixis from pre-ban to post-ban. For others, these inevitable and ongoing changes are so marginal through all the years, that it's barely worth the buzz, especially if the fundamental core of these decks essentially never changes, not even between aggro-control, control, tempo and combo.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
Thus we speak of that dominance in regards to years and cores, rather than about decks and timeframes slimmed down to weeks. If we'd be picky with timeframes and metagame changes, we could question all metagame data ever claiming that the meta has not settled down because of a certain ban/expansion/etc. which happened X weeks ago. We cant talk metagame and trends if we dont ignore some of the shakes and focus on the quakes instead.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
Engine counts from mistercakes' listing:
116 Cantrips
13 Knight
11 Redundancy
8 Vial
7 Loam
6 Ancestral/Cascade
4 Elves
4 Oddball
3 Standstill
3 Dredge
All the non-cantrip engines combined (which includes blue Brainstorm decks, mind you, and nonviable nonsense like Goblins and Standstill) add up to 59 lists. That means 34% of the sample overall, and 51% of the total count of cantrip lists. The Brainstorm% of for the sample is 73%.
Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you, had an issue on Discord by the name of Wumpas. It is why you can not find and active invite to the Lands channel right now. Sigh.
No, the point I am making is one data point is not useful for holding and defending an argument. But I think we have gotten past this now.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Depths got kicked. I did not see that coming. Also I agree its a fine choice if thats what you want to play, but I would not pick it over Grixis.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Elves does not suprise me, I have always said that if you want to play non Blue you need to try and play Demonic Tutor, Recal and Tinker. Elves has all three.
Eldrazi just eats the format. I do not even bother with it anymore, its going to play on its axis and I actually do not like playing the deck. I love playing against it, but not with it. It is the apex of hating out the taget and removing options, but it feels so very basic and brutal. There is no grace to this deck.
DnT is the odd one out and it is in my view the one non Blue deck that you can hold up and say its almost always good. The issue is that again, its a deck that feeds off the Blue shell to win. Its strength comes from attacking a known metagame.
In short I see one deck that is doing its own thing, I see one deck playing 3 Banned cards and I see two decks that feed off Blues dominance in the format. DnT and Eldrazi. I would say they show in bright relief the issue, not themselves being a suggestion against them. We have really only two decks here I feel are "Independent" of Blue. You can say I am moving the goalposts, sure, but the point stands.
But this is not the kind of format I quoted, its decks that are Blue and it is suggested decks made to attack Blue. Goblins, Mav and Zoo where not custom built from the ground up to answer RUG for example, but DnT and Eldrazi really kind of are. Its sad thats the world we are in now.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Honestly, these days I do not know anymore. I would be happy to play 5 rounds against 5 different things if able and not 3 rounds of Blue Midrange. I guess thats my answer? Not much of one I know.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Then report me. If you feel I am out of line, and I may be, then send it up the chain. I am not the top of the food chain, you have others you can talk to. Feel free to do so, I don't mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Then please do not use one data point like that. Its not just you, I have ripped into Lem in the past for this as well when he quoted a SGC with 8 Brainstorm decks. I am not making this argument so I can smack one side over the head and ignore the other. I just really really hate when people do this. Its like nails on a chalkboard to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Feel free to make comments about the current meta, but don't wave one post about like its the be all and end all. Like I said, if you look at one post and ignore everything else you can end up thinking Deaths Shadow is the next big thing. That worked out well.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Mod, I am one Mod. Also man really, you must read almost nothing I post in here. Being a dick is kind of my thing. Lastly, this is what you picked to quote? Come on man, look though shit I have said, this is tame as fuck. Put some effort into your work. Gezz.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
No, it was about using a single data point to make an argument. I have been having issues with this since about 2016 according to my post history and I have had a go at both sides. Its not that I am unwilling to talk, I just hate seeing this done. As I said, I ripped into people when they where using single SCG finishes to make points when those top 8's where all Brainstorm decks. Its the act, not the side, that I have issue with.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Yes, for a long time the non Blue decks that did well where all playing some combo of Tinker, Recal and Tutor. Land's and Elves come to mind. That or you have to be hating out the meta. Painter, Moon, DnT or Eldrazi for example. There is almost no or no middle ground. You hit a point where you have to be doing something totally nuts to hold a candle to someone playing 1cmc blue spells and you are still not as consistent.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
Would be nice if the stats where used correctly.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
Here is some stats for you all.
We argued for a long time about if Miracles needed to be taken down. But since the printing of the mechanic the deck has only missed DTB status 12 times. Part of that includes after a ban that hit it. 54 months. With a long unbroken stretch save one odd month that nothing happened. 82% of the decks life has been in the DTB section of this site and people still debate if it needed a ban. It was as high as 85% before the ban hit. We are way past being even remotely close to ever agreeing with one another if to some people that is ok. And yet some of you do. I can not understand how.
Not going to argue that blue isn't really powerful (EDIT: or that the Miracles problem has been solved), but if more people playing blue than people not playing blue show up to a tournament, it's illogical to say that having more blue decks than nonblue decks in a given top-8 indicates the color's dominance—it just shows that cards in a majority of decks are statistically likely to show up in a majority of the top slots, all other things being equal.
I, for one, play decks with blue cantrips and decks without them. The monetary cost of the blue decks is largely sunk into RL lands that are easily transferrable between aggro/combo, straight-up combo, and control decks, which is why I play multiple decks with the same card-advantage engine. As a corollary, if one were to compare the prices of the decks I play, the blue ones are also the most expensive, though they're nowhere near as expensive as Legacy decks can get. I can't just shell out to build Lands unless I drop everything I'm doing and sell all my cards. I think that's an aspect of this that people are overlooking: you can buy your Underground Seas and your Blood Oceans, or you can buy your Cities of Traitors and your lockpieces, or you can buy your Cradles and your Bayous, but it's really difficult to buy more than one of those things for a lot of people. Why would I buy into decks that have few transferrable cards and that only really afford me the opportunity to build different flavors of Chalice.dec when I could buy cards with greater versatility and play with more widely differing strategies? (This is anecdotal, but I have a friend who plays lots of City of Traitors-Ancient Tomb manabases. He doesn't have Underground Seas for the same reason I don't have Cities and Chalices. It's not a lack of interest: it's a lack of feasibility.)
All attempts to “fix” color balance (I.e. give every color the same metagame share) will be ultimately fruitless. If blues metagame percentage dips too low, fast combo comes and takes over. Have fun playing Jund in a belcher/reanimator meta.
Thank you for your very positive post! Just throw name at people, attack some straw man, and don't bother giving some real argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Safety
I feel exactly the same from the opposite point of view: people just denying reality. Nobody here dared to say blue cards aren't strong. We just point out that there exist plenty of non-blue strategies that are equally strong, too. While it seems there is someone who denies this too.
Legacy is blue, sure. But blue is not the only thing you can do (and win with) in Legacy, simple as that.
Look, either you think Eldrazi eats the format or you think eats blue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I, personally, disagree completely with your idea that these decks are tuned against blue in particular. Let's see, Tapping and Destroying every lands of the opponent while Vialing in your creatures works only against blue? Chalice of the Void counters only blue spells, or having a low curve is a feature of the whole format? Doesn't Elves also struggle against Chalice, for example?
So this is where the objective analysis ends and it starts becoming subjective, in my (not so) humble opinion. You have to tune your deck against the metagame, who is (very wide and) not so completely blue that you can disregard everything else. I'll quote myself again:
Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
This is where we disagree. The point is these decks are not made to attack blue but to attack the metagame. (By the way it was the same with Maverick, it was made to attack Zoo which was the tier 1 of the time). To say they are made to attack blue is the same as saying the whole metagame is blue (and of course I mean the tournament metagame as a whole, not the winners one). Which I think is proven false without doubt (at least in paper, I don't know on MTGO; and of course different countries can experience different things): you can't confuse the whole metagame with its blue part (even if using a so rough division as blue/nonBlue could have meaning, which I think it has not). Anyway it's a logical fallacy where you assume since the beginning what you should be trying to prove.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Another anecdotal evidence (which we all agree is almost no evidence). In my last big event (still referring to the same one as above, we had people coming from all Europe and even some from USA) I played 4 times against "blue decks" and 5 times against non blue decks. A little strange since the probabilities were the opposite (almost 60-40 in favour of blue) but still, this narration that "you always play against blue midrange every turn" is simply false. If the most played deck doesn't reach the 10% of the metagame, you can't even expect to play against it twice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Oh, and by the way the blue decks I played against were two combos, one Grixis Control and one Grixis Delver. I didn't feel the same play experience, since the strategy you have to employ against each one of them is very different (you can't do the same plays against delver and against control, too). In the last two round of swiss (I ended up in 10th place, by the way) I played against two variations of Eldrazi. During the tournament I played against Dragon Stompy too. If I had to point out a boring experience, is playing against a blood moon turn1 after a mulligan or chalice t1. I would say that was the most recurring experience of the tournament, and also the most boring one (it would be the same as playing against belcher or all spells, i.e. National Coin Flip Championship Experience). Since sometimes there is justice, they still lost :tongue:
Another one anecdotal evidence, still subjective, but a little more profound in time. I keep track of all my paper tournaments pairings. My "personal" metagame was very different even from what you would expect. The deck I played against the most this year is BUG Delver... isn't this a dead thing? Followed immediately by Turbo Depths, Show and Tell, Grixis Delver, Death and Taxes, Lands. I played almost the same number of matches against each of them, and the metagame % of each one is between 5% and 6% (the first one too is below 7%). I really don't see any recurring string of identical matchup one after the other.
I think that's a problem of people don't playing it enough. As I said, our data suggests it's one of the best performing decks at the moment. I think it's a matter of people following what's in vogue and/or already having some decks and don't wanting to change (also because of the cost barrier of buying other cards, even tough I think this should be one of the less expensive decks).Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Sorry to disappoint you, I don't think you are so much in my thoughts to spend too much time while trolling. I'd rather spend it for real discussions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I already said if you want to be competitive in Legacy you should be doing very powerful, almost ban worthy, things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
In each color, not only blue.
And the part "not as consistent" still has to be proven (if you want to do something that is a little more objective than a personal feeling, which I could even agree with). If by "consistent" you mean "conversion rate from the metagame to the winners", of course. If you mean "as consistent in following the plan the deck was built to", I find difficult to say Elves, BR Reanimator, Eldrazi, Death and Taxes, Lands, Aggro Loam, etc. are less consistent than playing cantrips. They are built with redundancy, and they do some broken things (you yourself compared them to tinker and demonic tutor, I could add that Life From the Loam makes a good approximation for a recurring Ancestral Recall, and Gamble and Crop Rotation aren't so different from Vampiric Tutor; Eldrazi could be compared to Vintage MUD and Aether Vial to the Moxen in the way it cheats the mana).
Double posting since you edited yours after mine above :cool:
I think you have highlighted the core of the disagreement. (By the way I am following the format since I started playing again in 2010, and I began playing with Alpha :tongue:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I can agree that there is not so much difference between Grixis Control and the previous 4c Control. I would strongly disagree that a core of 20 cards would identify the same deck. You can't boil down Show and Tell, ANT, Miracle and Grixis Control to all playing islands and brainstorms and ponders (and Fow 3 out of 4). And I don't think this is so subjective, I think those who deny this either don't appreciate the (not-so-subtle) differences in play experience with or against each one of them, or they are plainly lying to make their point. They can appreciate different things than play experience (like deckbuilding, which I can't really understand) but they always seem to go a little too far in their saying "it's all the same thing again and again".
You have your points. It's simply difficult to draw the line, because on the other hand obviously you can't consider Legacy with or without Treasure Cruise as being the same (and I'd say the same goes for with or without Sensei's Divining Top, and who knows, given enough time I think things will change again).Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
When i made the post i meddled the quoting and didnt check it immediately afterwards, leaving an unreadable post, I had to fix.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
I dont think anyone claims that SnT and Grixis are the same, but after all the years in the format, I can see why and how the usual play procedure of all these decks in the form of "fetch -> ponder -> fetch -> brainstorm -> fetch" while sitting on free counterspells barely differs between combo, control and aggro-control decks and leaves the "similar" taste mourned by players. To go one step further, I can imagine that it barely matters, if you get blown out Turn 3 by Tendrils or Omniscience after 2 turns of cantripping and fetching by your opponent either. Similar applies to the various aggro-control decks in the last years which either dropped a Leovold or TNN (just to close the gap to a previous discussion). Sure there is a difference in deckbuilding and detailed strategy, but how much of an individual identity is really left, if the most important turns of a game is nearly identical for majority of decks? I can't blame people if they feel that this particular deck core creates a very similar early game for most of the successful strategies in the format and over an absurd long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
I am not disagreeing that there is change caused by quakes like the SDT ban or beginning of the delve era, but cards like TC, DTT, SDT and DRS all only float atop of the ever same shell and earlygame plays. I can merely understand that there is some fatigue of seeing the same sequences 5+ rounds each tournament for years, them being more successful in average as well while also getting a free pass from WotC no matter if a card or core reaches a 81% metagame share, while other cards get banned for ~40%Quote:
Originally Posted by talpa
Quote:
Originally Posted by porcupinetreeman
This would not kill the format, it would open it up for more viable decks. Many decks in the new and developmental would be playable.Quote:
Originally Posted by WashableWater1
I think it's a creative debate on a hyopthetical scenario, but also a pointless one after all, given that WotC has already declared the cantrip shell as the holy cow of the format.Quote:
Originally Posted by porcupinetreeman
Still of the opinion that I'd rather ban the dumbfuck payoff cards (since wotc doesn't print as many abject dumbfuck cards like Emralolol/Griseltard/Omnidrool/EtI, possibly Jin-Gitaxias) and see if S&T can still exist with saner payoff cards even though I don't like the deck at all (engine combo all day for me). There's no dearth of powerful but less abjectly stupid fat available.Quote:
Originally Posted by porcupinetreeman
I don't think all cantrips are holy, just brainstorm.
Many decks NOT in the new and developmental forums would be unplayable. You're not solving anything by switching which decks are dominant and which ones don't exist as a real thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by porcupinetreeman
WOAH WOAH WOAH, you leave my boy alone :laugh::tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I mean, I think this is true, but a little overstated. For instance:Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
Lands: Gamble, Life From the Loam, Crop Rotation
DNT: Recuiter, Stoneforge, Vial (mana consistency rather than finding cards)
Elves: Green Sun's Zenith, Natural Order, Glimpse of Nature, Symbiote/Visionary
Depths: Confidant, Crop Rotation, Expedition Map, Into the North, Life From the Loam, Sylvan Scrying, Sylvan Library
BR Reanimator: Entomb, Faithless Looting
Burn: literally just playing 40 copies of the same card :wink:
Sure, cantrips are obviously a powerful engine for finding cards/fixing mana, but other decks have plenty of options as well.
P.S. Also I loved your secret santa package! :laugh: thanks again!
Which decks do you think would be playable? Why do you think they would be able to beat DnT, or Reanimator, or Lands, or Elves? These decks are powerful now and still would be after the banning, there's no guarantee that new brews would get any better.Quote:
Originally Posted by porcupinetreeman
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
All these cards are fine if they're paid for with mana. They're not inherently broken - they're only broken if you find a way to cheat them into play, which is true of any card the effect of which is worth a bunch of mana (it's actually a tautology : any effect worth a bunch of mana is broken at very few mana).Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombie
On the other hand, the enablers that can cheat any card into play are breaking the whole principle of mana cost. If there is any culprit (and I said if), they are.
Whether banning a bunch of decks would make other decks better is debatable, but that isn't why it would kill the format. There is an implied premise here which I think is false; the idea that when someones deck gets banned, they will find another one. While some people may adopt and play Belcher or Oops, there are people who will instead choose to not play any more. Each ban cycle takes some number of players with it. There are cases such as Top getting banned, where there were people leaving because of the targeted deck already, but this is not the case currently. Banning so many cards at once out of so many decks, decks that people want to and enjoy playing, would cause a huge number of players to leave rather than building Jund or something. I honestly believe that the number of people that would leave that the format would be so great that there would not be enough people to keep the format afloat.Quote:
Originally Posted by porcupinetreeman
It could also bring people back. I for once shelved my cards for the most part before Dig was banned because the card was incredibly stupid. When it got the axe I was reinvigorated.
It would be great to pick up All Spells again without having to worry about Force of Will. That'd show all the Chalice-Evil Eyes, Darklands, and Cleric Tribal people how to play Real Maygick.
/sarcasm. Except not really.
I think this was a great post. I agree with the premise of what mistercakes is saying, but I think you're dead-on by calling it a just a little overstated. What this does, in a very specific and brief way, is show how to attain consistency in a non-blue deck. Don't get the wrong impression that I'm criticizing mistercakes, far from it.Quote:
I mean, I think this is true, but a little overstated. For instance:
Lands: Gamble, Life From the Loam, Crop Rotation
DNT: Recuiter, Stoneforge, Vial (mana consistency rather than finding cards)
Elves: Green Sun's Zenith, Natural Order, Glimpse of Nature, Symbiote/Visionary
Depths: Confidant, Crop Rotation, Expedition Map, Into the North, Life From the Loam, Sylvan Scrying, Sylvan Library
BR Reanimator: Entomb, Faithless Looting
Burn: literally just playing 40 copies of the same card
Sure, cantrips are obviously a powerful engine for finding cards/fixing mana, but other decks have plenty of options as well.
the difference here is that you need very niche cards to be useful outside of blue for consistency. throw most of those cards outside of those mentioned decks and most of them just crap all over themselves. cards like brainstorm/ponder could actually be:
Lands: Gamble, Life From the Loam, Crop Rotation (brainstorm doesn't really work here, but it wouldn't be a stretch if somebody tried)
DNT: Recuiter, Stoneforge, Vial (mana consistency rather than finding cards) (they don't work here b/c of mostly thalia and wasteland/port)
Elves: Green Sun's Zenith, Natural Order, Glimpse of Nature, Symbiote/Visionary (elves cantrips work best inside elves, and terrible outside of elves)
Depths: Confidant, Crop Rotation, Expedition Map, Into the North, Life From the Loam, Sylvan Scrying, Sylvan Library (bug variants exist with brainstorm, and those cards are generally terrible outside of this strategy)
BR Reanimator: Entomb, Faithless Looting (UB variant exists).
burn: see UR delver
the point is that unless if you find something with a very precise synergy for the deck, you might as well just play brainstorm/ponder. your only real deckbuilding constraints are if you are playing chalice, thalia, and maybe the few decks where it just doesn't work. (eg. elves, dredge, specifically BR reanimator, rg lands.)
i really am not against brainstorm. it's a horribly one-sided effect, but it is unique and that's fine. ponder on the other hand is just a lazy design and would have been fine in a non-fetchland world.
preordain is slightly worse than ponder (although sometimes it's played incorrectly over ponder). i suspect getting rid of ponder and preordain would give nonblue decks a very fair shot at having similar consistency. brainstorm alone (especially with snapcaster) allows for this > 20 lands in a control deck. this is one of the issues with why blue is much better.
Thanks for the ups, Mr. Safety. I try to be even-handed in my posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Safety
Yes, that's the nature of the beast. The precise synergies allow other colors to trade broad, flexible application for power level - cantrips sometimes find you what you need, whereas Green Sun's Zenith will always find you a particular guy and put it into play. Same with Gamble - if your deck's particular synergies make you ambivalent about where the card you tutor ends up, it's much better than hoping to hit it with Ponder.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I played some games of ANT yesterday, and in several of the games, I would have won immediately if any of my cantrips had hit an Infernal Tutor. Unfortunately, all of them saw something like "Ponder, Preordain, Land," which is something cantrip detractors don't always acknowledge. Gamble will always find you Life From the Loam one way or another, and Green Sun's Zenith will always get your Arbor on 0, Symbiote on 1, and Rec Sage on 3.
It turns out that over may games, you can get enough value out of the selection of the cantrips to get there (and, if we're being honest, it's not that hard to get that value, cantrip decks are obviously good); it's just a matter of deciding whether you want to play the odds or make up for it with individual power-level.
As much as I hate playing Preordain, I think that getting rid of Preordain and Ponder in Legacy would make cantrip decks awful, and dogs to the other DTBs. Hell, just getting rid of Probe made Storm feel much clunkier to me personally... (the deck is fine, I just hate Preordain so much...)Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I'm not sure what you mean by this - is that supposed to be a "less-than" sign instead? Could you elaborate?Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
oops! sorry about that. < :)Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
the more generalized point i'm making about the cantrips is not the precision to find a single card, but to have a general consistency. i don't claim that ponder is to have the same effect as gamble, or gsz, or even burning wish/infernal tutor. what it does allow you to do is keep 1 land hands, and that is also what brainstorm allows you to do. this is why the blue decks tend to be a lot safer when going to many round tournaments over non-blue. the fact that a deck like ANT/show and tell is able to use brainstorm/ponder/sometimes preordain as a semi-tutor just shows the abuse of these cards.
miracles, delver, and grixis are more appropriate examples of how they abuse the general purpose of those cantrips.
Brainstorm is also close to crap all by itself without fetchlands or shuffle effects to make it great. There is also a case to be made that there are specific cantrip decks that are the best at leveraging their power level. Other decks play them, but they aren't the best cantrip-engine decks. At one time in history we all needed to be aware of consistency regardless of blue's ability to smooth it out. I'm not trying to rehash old arguments, but I just want to point out that imagining cramming brainstorm into any old deck makes it better is a false premise. There are decks that use cantrips to their fullest potential, all others are sub-par in power level.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I would argue that these are the best cantrip decks:
Grixis Delver
Miracles
Grixis Control
Storm
Show and Tell
All the other decks that play cantrips do so to give a crutch to a weaker strategy. A weaker strategy at-large can win games because of consistency, but we are all lying to ourselves if we think playing decks other than those is optimal. We have a crossover effect to these decks, all of them doing the same filtering to win in a different manner, but all are doing something powerful enough that no amount of consistency can compensate for a lesser strategy. Is the real issue, perceived mind you, that blue has the best engine that also coincidentally allows for 5 very powerful decks and other lower-powered decks to quasi-compete?
Lets look at other engines like Life from the Loam: Lands and Aggro Loam. Two powerful decks, one in and out of DTB. Lion's Eye Diamond: Storm variants, Dredge, Belcher, All Spells. Powers 5 recognizable decks (definitely more, but Doomsday doesn't count anymore) with Storm going in/out of DTB and Dredge always on the cusp of DTB in the right metagame. Green Sun's Zenith: Elves, Nic Fit, Bant. Elves is sometimes a DTB. Is the real outcry because the blue cantrip engine has more viable decks? If you're going on pure power level, some of the non-optimal cantrip decks are pretty weak compared to the non-cantrip decks. Just look at RUG Delver as an example and how much it struggles against the DTB. It's actually, in my premise here, a bad cantrip deck. It's not as powerful as the 5 decks listed above. The closest to it is Grixis Delver, but that deck has less conditional threats and better removal. Strict upgrade territory. RUG Delver is officially a meta-deck now, just like Dredge (bold words, I know.) It attacks the game in a specific way that is either good in the metagame or not, no amount of filtering can make up for it's lack of power. It's a strictly worse cantrip-based deck compared to the others. There are decks that don't play blue that are more consistent than a bad cantrip deck, achieving it through other engines.
TL, DR - It is my opinion that there will always be 5 (or so) cantrip driven decks that are the most powerful at enabling that engine in the format and 3-4 non-blue decks that can also compete. I don't see this as a problem, just seeing reality for what it is. Fuck it all, Depths is a DTB currently and you can build a budget version for less than $500. You don't have to play blue to win in legacy. If you want to play blue in legacy, fall in line with what the format demands you to do: play one of the 5 decks above or accept a lower power level in your deck choice (whatever that choice is, based on fun or whatever other metric.) Cantrips can only cover so much of the gap in power level.
i don't need a rant here. blue decks are able to more safely keep hands that would require mulligans. unfortunately those decks are converging each year on becoming the same good-stuff deck.
you can roll the dice with a deck like turbodepths or dredge, but if you want to consistently win tournaments (large ones), stick to a brainstorm or ponder deck, preferably one of the 5 you mentioned.
i would simply prefer a little bit more of the randomness which is inherent to card games to be a little more present.
Sorry about that...didn't mean to offend. I also wasn't targeting you specifically, just the argument itself (which has been posited by many.)Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
You're not alone. I think most, even some diehard blue players, would agree.Quote:
i would simply prefer a little bit more of the randomness which is inherent to card games to be a little more present.
Are Storm, Miracles, Grixis, and Sneak and Show really converging? Are they really goodstuff decks? I don't think this claim bears scrutiny. If you mean that the only essentially viable midrange deck with blue is Grixis, then sure. But blue decks are clearly diverse, even if they share cantrips.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
Really? Why?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Safety
So many people seem to want this, and I just don't get it.
I wish Magic had less variance, there's already a ton of it. Part of the reason Legacy is more interesting than other formats is that you have fewer games where you just don't get to play - cards like cantrips make it possible to have meaningful games that aren't just decided by whether you drew the right lands or not.
These posts have been some of the most interesting and insightful I've read in this thread. That may be a low bar, but I'm really enjoying this discussion, and it's a lot more engaging and analytical than most forum fare. Thank you all for your thoughts! And by all means continue, but I have a prediction apropos of nothing.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think that the upcoming Chancellor of the Scry 3 will be banned.
The Source's thoughts?
If you don't want variance, play chess.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
You're looking at variance as something that can only be bad... like it only means getting mana screwed or flooded.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
If EVERY game you played of storm was: turn 1 cantrip, turn 2 cantrip, discard, turn 3 go off; then you would lose interest eventually. Variance means you occasionally get god hands and sometimes have to find creative ways to get out of bad situations. Variance means you don't always lose to Turn 2 decks and don't always beat Turn 4 decks. Variance leads to situations you talk to friends about between rounds.
But yes, that means variance can lead to mana screw/flood non-games too.