All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit

Amazing

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Originally Posted by ParkerLewis

Seriously, this is pretty dumb.

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Representing data is as far as a close field as it gets. There are many valid options, that might be considered.

It also depends of what you want to get out of the data. Win rate for a specific MU is one thing, but a logical use could also be to evaluate which deck to take between the few available to someone. In which case you don't necessarily care about whether a given MU has x% win rate or a lot of data points, you could just sum up all win and losses irrespective of against which deck those were collected.

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Originally Posted by dte

It also depends of what you want to get out of the data. Win rate for a specific MU is one thing, but a logical use could also be to evaluate which deck to take between the few available to someone. In which case you don't necessarily care about whether a given MU has x% win rate or a lot of data points, you could just sum up all win and losses irrespective of against which deck those were collected.

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That calculation is less logical than it seems. It assumes you will face the same meta represented in the data (the data are implicitly weighted in that sum). That makes strong model assumptions even though it seems like such a simple calculation of adding up Ws. Given the MU win rates you're free to adjust to any meta you expect for an event.

For example: Someone will 5-0 and 4-1 a couple MTGO Leagues, think they've broken the meta, perform poorly in a Legacy Challenge, and wonder why. Why didn't it win as much as expected? They're facing a different metagame. Leagues are full of combo and random brews. Big events are full of tier 1 fair blue. Their deck may do better against the League meta than the Challenge meta.

Edit: In simpler language, it's the whole "apples and oranges" thing. Summing wins mixes apples and oranges. If win rates vary by matchup (like most do), it depends on the meta. 20-2 vs Belcher and 0-5 vs Delver is a strong record of 20-7, but is bad for an event full of Delver. It's far more logical to start with the matchup win rates and weight them by the expected metagame (much more Delver than Belcher).

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Originally Posted by FTW

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For example: Someone will 5-0 and 4-1 a couple MTGO Leagues, think they've broken the meta, perform poorly in a Legacy Challenge, and wonder why. Why didn't it win as much as expected? They're facing a different metagame. Leagues are full of combo and random brews. Big events are full of tier 1 fair blue. Their deck may do better against the League meta than the Challenge meta.

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This. Leagues are a mixed bag, if you try enough of them with any viable deck, you will get a 5-0, quite a few 4-1 and a crap-load of 3-2s, just based on the games you go against random junk someone is trying the viability of. The key here is to try enough of them, which means you may lose money to get that elusive 5-0, but you will get one of them.

Looking at any recent legacy data all I can say is that I remember the days when cards were banned in modern because they affected 'diversity', ie, Splinter Twin and the construction of URx decks. These days, as long as it sells, who cares.

This article below is quite interesting. Starts with a trip down memory lane to old (and now banned) past-glories and then takes us through the latest tournament and results (Cue in all monkey-is-ok fans).

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles...ghout-the-ages

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Originally Posted by jmlima

(Cue in all monkey-is-ok fans).

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Is that an existing demographic or just like 3 loud people on reddit?

Now that Eternal Weekend is over and (per their own tweet) bans are back on the table, when do we think anything would be coming down? I miss the old "on release" schedule because then at least we had dates to look forward to

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

Now that Eternal Weekend is over and (per their own tweet) bans are back on the table, when do we think anything would be coming down? I miss the old "on release" schedule because then at least we had dates to look forward to

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Do you think they would announce the ban to the world if there was the southeast chance community out cry could change it?
They "banned brainstorm" 35 minutes ago.

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Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit

They "banned brainstorm" 35 minutes ago.

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What? :eyebrow:

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Originally Posted by Zoid

Is that an existing demographic or just like 3 loud people on reddit?

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Not sure it's just 3 loud guys but, what's pretty obvious, there is no agreement on what the problem is, neither on how to solve it. Which is usually the case when something is changing a lot but people are failing to accept change or the change is simply impossible to accurately being evaluated.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...ix_legacy_now/

My $.02, people were used to a certain, slower moving legacy. Now they are getting hit in the face with new meta-changing cards every 3 months. This causes immense confusion but also makes it very difficult to evaluate if there is a problem (other than obvious stuff like modern's eldrazi winter). The only I can see is causing an issue that is displeasing a majority of people is the continuous changes and broken things appearing with the supplemental sets releases. But that's not going to change.

Kudos to WotC for doing something I never thought possible, turning every single format into a sort of standard where there is continuous demand for the new cards and ever changing meta-game causing more demand for new cards. That was a business master-stroke and one that, for all we can see, is going really well as set sales are increasing not diminishing, even in a covid world.

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Originally Posted by jmlima

Not sure it's just 3 loud guys but, what's pretty obvious, there is no agreement on what the problem is, neither on how to solve it. Which is usually the case when something is changing a lot but people are failing to accept change or the change is simply impossible to accurately being evaluated.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...ix_legacy_now/

My $.02, people were used to a certain, slower moving legacy. Now they are getting hit in the face with new meta-changing cards every 3 months. This causes immense confusion but also makes it very difficult to evaluate if there is a problem (other than obvious stuff like modern's eldrazi winter). The only I can see is causing an issue that is displeasing a majority of people is the continuous changes and broken things appearing with the supplemental sets releases. But that's not going to change.

Kudos to WotC for doing something I never thought possible, turning every single format into a sort of standard where there is continuous demand for the new cards and ever changing meta-game causing more demand for new cards. That was a business master-stroke and one that, for all we can see, is going really well as set sales are increasing not diminishing, even in a covid world.

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There are 2 aspects to this discussion.
One is the monke itself which is a clearly busted card and should go.
The other is that the card pool in legacy has been roided up so much over the last decade that diversity has decreased significantly.
What's left is so powerful that it's make-or-break on every threat.

It seems pretty impossible now to decharge legacy now.

Does anyone think there will be any changes post-Eternal weekend? I tend to think we won't see any changes, but there is a vocal section of legacy that wants either Daze or Ragavan banned.

Daze might be annoying at times but how in freezing hell is it ban worthy?

On the other hand Ragavan just needs to go, it creates too many nongames where an unanswered Ragavan T1 or T2 just wins you the game.. eventually, but inevitably. But than again we would need a large scale ban in legacy to bring it back to "normality", but guess that's not gonna happen so we might as well welcome over new monkey overlord and listen to his sagas because somehows Urza's saga fits in every deck now as well... :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Mr Miagi

Daze might be annoying at times but how in freezing hell is it ban worthy?

On the other hand Ragavan just needs to go, it creates too many binary nongames. But than again we would need a large scale ban in legacy to bring it back to "normality", but guess taht's not gonna happen so we might as well as welcome over new monkey overlord and listen to his sagas.

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It's really the combination of Daze + Ragavan that creates nongames.

Ragavan is clearly a problem.

The rationale for Daze is that Daze + CardX will be a problem next time. CardX's printing is inevitable due to FIRE design, while new Daze-effects are unlikely to ever get printed. So do they just keep warping the format and then ban every new CardX, or just ban Daze?

While I get that Daze is annoying, I still don't think it should be banned after being ok for so many years.
It is only really good for a few turns and way weaker if you don't have treasures from monkes to balance out the mana loss.
I would take out monke and saga and let it settle for a bit.

However, it seems like many crusty old men like me who have been playing legacy for such a long time still would prefer to have a format like it was about 10 years ago when it was more diverse and cards were not as overpowered.
Do people still remember Tarmogoyf?
With legacy going the vintage route and vintage being a MTGO only format, there is no real place to go for people who want to play old cards.

TRADE PROPOSAL:
You get:
Ragavan banned.
I recieve:
Brainstorm banned.

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Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit

TRADE PROPOSAL:
You get:
Ragavan banned.
I recieve:
Brainstorm banned.

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I'd trade Brainstorm for a Fetchland ban.

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So yeah, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is fucking brutal. Do you know what else is also brutal? Chalice of the Void. Allosaurus Shepherd. Marit Lage. Combo decks killing you on Turn 1, backed by disruption. Endurance being evoked in response to your perfectly reasonable Turn 1 Doomsday kill. Legacy is fucking brutal. There's a term for the Legacy decks that aren't doing absolutely disgusting things: Tier 3.

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Savage :laugh: :laugh:

Here's the source and rest of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...ate_of_legacy/

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Originally Posted by Mr Miagi

Savage :laugh: :laugh:

Here's the source and rest of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...ate_of_legacy/

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I mean, he's right.

There's some questionable stuff in that article, but seriously, people need to harden up.

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Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit

TRADE PROPOSAL:
You get:
Ragavan banned.
I recieve:
Brainstorm banned.

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I thought the comedy option ban was Force of Will.

I'm old enough to remember Goblin Lackey,and the calls to ban it. It's certainly a very different card with very different saturation, but I fully expect WOTC to respond to Ragavan in exactly the same way.

ragavan is just a better card than drs which is banned in legacy.
see in vintage where ragavan sees more play than drs right now

Don't think you can really call either DRS or Monkey definitively better or worse. DRS shuts down graveyards, which Monkey does not. Monkey provides potential card advantage if you get lucky on flips, which DRS does not. DRS can close out a game without combat, which Monkey cannot. Both provide ramping and color fixing but DRS does that more reliably.

Its pretty close and ultimately most of the time both are somewhat must-answer 1 drop threats so in that sense its even.

Ironically, DRS would be a pretty good check on UR Delver i.e. the best Monkey deck. That being said, I'm sure if it was unbanned you'd just see decks running both.

I don't think this is about monke so much as that people are tired of having the meta completely turned upside down every few months by another undercosted "answer me instantly or I create so much advantage that you'll can't keep up anymore" card.
Given the price tag of most legacy decks it's not surprising that players are angry when decks get invalidated all the time just for some bannings to try to turn back time again.
Legacy used to be a very inert format with maybe a handful new cards being relevant every year, most way later than they should have been.

Maybe that's all just a plan to kill paper eternal for good so that commander players can afford duals instead of just drowning the RL in the nearest puddle.

The joke is that Commander players still won't be able to afford duals, because they are already most of the demand.

(Really, they should probably be banned for the same reasons Moxen/Black Lotus were initially banned.)

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Originally Posted by Zoid

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Maybe that's all just a plan to kill paper eternal for good so that commander players can afford duals instead of just drowning the RL in the nearest puddle.

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At best it's an attempt at making eternal formats a sort of rotating format, where the latest bomb drives purchases that would otherwise not exist. In short, instead of only pitching cards to standard /edh / modern players, they are now pitching them to the entire spectrum of play-modes.

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Originally Posted by Wrath of Pie

The joke is that Commander players still won't be able to afford duals, because they are already most of the demand.

(Really, they should probably be banned for the same reasons Moxen/Black Lotus were initially banned.)

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Those cards are banned because they're restricted in vintage

I just realized how quaint that poll at the top is. To think that 24% at some point considered the oyf to be a bannable threat really speaks volumes about how far the metagame travelled. The oyf is such a powerful find that, these days, does not even make it to the top-10 of the most played creatures:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tourname...12363656#paper

Phyrexian Dreadnought will rise again!

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Originally Posted by jmlima

I just realized how quaint that poll at the top is. To think that 24% at some point considered the oyf to be a bannable threat really speaks volumes about how far the metagame travelled. The oyf is such a powerful find that, these days, does not even make it to the top-10 of the most played creatures:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tourname...12363656#paper

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You do realize Murktide is literally Goyf: 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.

This has never stopped being a massive problem to format balance. Alas card design has dropped into stupidity, and we have to deal with ETB scum (Strix, Ice-Fang, Snapcaster, Uro, etc) to fix the Goyf problem.

This Goyf crap went on unbanned for far too long, and now there too many cards to ban in the Goyf/anti-Goyf cluster. This is why it's particularly hilarious that people seriously think Murktide would ever get banned.

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Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit

Phyrexian Dreadnought will rise again!

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glad i got a playset when they were 15$

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Originally Posted by Fox

You do realize Murktide is literally Goyf: 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.

This has never stopped being a massive problem to format balance. Alas card design has dropped into stupidity, and we have to deal with ETB scum (Strix, Ice-Fang, Snapcaster, Uro, etc) to fix the Goyf problem.

This Goyf crap went on unbanned for far too long, and now there too many cards to ban in the Goyf/anti-Goyf cluster. This is why it's particularly hilarious that people seriously think Murktide would ever get banned.

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Murktide has evasion, though, while Goyf is 100% vanilla.

Goyf was also way more problematic back then since creatures were way shittier and couldn't scale up to it. That, and removal outside of StP was pretty poor at handling it, too. Only with Abrupt Decay and other top tier removal we got over the years, Goyf became less and less of a problem.

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Originally Posted by Barook

Murktide has evasion, though, while Goyf is 100% vanilla.

Goyf was also way more problematic back then since creatures were way shittier and couldn't scale up to it. That, and removal outside of StP was pretty poor at handling it, too. Only with Abrupt Decay and other top tier removal we got over the years, Goyf became less and less of a problem.

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Power creep happens over time, but Goyf is still Goyf. Gotta get off the text box and keep driving the point home: 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trampling, summoning sick. The same card is still the same card. Let us stick with what is objectively true and rid ourselves of this pointless subjective stuff about the ethereal importance of flying.

In terms of answers, Murktide dies to every color: enemy Murktide (blue), REB (red), flyabolic edicts (green), Sudden Edict (black), Plow (white). The silver lining to all of this is that no matter how unhealthy a Goyf-type is in legacy, Murktide far better design than actual Goyf - Murktide must by definition kill at least one instance of itself when in combat with another Murktide. Nothing was quite as stupid as playing Goyf b/c you couldn't beat it, and still not being able to block Goyf in combat with Goyf b/c they had Bolt.

Oh boy, are we back at "dies to removal" arguments.

Goyf was just the biggest creature/fastest clock by a long shot for the mana cost at that time.
I remember, people were literally playing it in every deck just to throw it out again where it obviously made no sense.
It's stats are actually a feature, requiring you to play something that isn't goyf to beat goyf.
In the end it's still a vanilla.

I don't really understand the complaint about beat sticks. Should that just not be a thing in the format? Look at the top list of creatures played in Legacy. Its almost entirely comprised of value engines and hate bears. Leaving aside Elves, in the top 50 you have Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN as the only creatures who's primary role is to be cast and turned sideways. I really don't see the problem other than that all four are played in blue decks but that's a whole separate conversation.

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Originally Posted by Purple Blood

Leaving aside Elves, in the top 50 you have Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN as the only creatures who's primary role is to be cast and turned sideways. I really don't see the problem other than that all four are played in blue decks

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That IS the problem.

Wild Nacatl off Taiga is supposed to be the biggest beat stick, giving balance to the color pie. When blue has the best Gruul creatures, it unbalances the color pie. Because you get to play the best beatdown threats protected by Daze, while having Force of Will to beat combo and Brainstorm to fix cards. What's the point of even playing Gruul with worse beatsticks, no free counters, and random topdecks?

The best Gruul deck plays 20+ blue cards, 6 islands, 8 blue fetches, and beats down with blue creatures.

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Originally Posted by Zoid

It's stats are actually a feature, requiring you to play something that isn't goyf to beat goyf.
In the end it's still a vanilla.

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There is nothing healthy about anti-Goyf design (again it's Strix, Ice-Fang, Snapcaster, Uro, etc). Cards like these have lead to generation of bland value decks which all do the same thing [kill spells, countermagic, value dudes, and some PWs].

The problem with these decks is that in the absence of a central identity/strategy, they all fold to [insert new FIRE card]. As they can't beat the FIRE card they just swap colors to add said card at the rate at which new best FIRE card is printed. These decks are the rotten heart of legacy, and the reason they exist is how skillessly easy it is to hide behind things like flying deathtouch walls and free random lifegain & built-in recursion, all while never going down on cards.

This is the kind of crap which needs to be printed to not die to Goyf-types almost immediately after it is cast. So while it sounds nice and diverse that we should be able to play anti-Goyfs to beat Goyf-types, the anti-Goyf comes with it's own format-ruining baggage.

Reasonable creatures with healthy counterplay to a Goyf-type mostly cluster at 3 and 4 cmc...and when you let Goyf-types choke the life out of a format at 2cmc, and also add Daze, the format does not really get to explore creatures which enable distinct strategies.

The format has already paid the price of leaving Goyf legal, and it no longer matters if it gets power-crept to the point that we now call it Murktide. While it sucks to have to build every legacy deck from the start point of passing the "doesn't die to Goyf" test...uhh like welcome to legacy?

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Originally Posted by FTW

That IS the problem.

Wild Nacatl off Taiga is supposed to be the biggest beat stick, giving balance to the color pie. When blue has the best Gruul creatures, it unbalances the color pie. Because you get to play the best beatdown threats protected by Daze, while having Force of Will to beat combo and Brainstorm to fix cards. What's the point of even playing Gruul with worse beatsticks, no free counters, and random topdecks?

The best Gruul deck plays 20+ blue cards, 6 islands, 8 blue fetches, and beats down with blue creatures.

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In world where Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN don't exist, Nacatl doesn't suddenly become playable. You explained why those cards are playable: they are backed up by pitch counters and cantrips.

The reality is that in Legacy regular aggro decks are not playable so, to the extent "beatdown" strategies have worked in the format, its generally been in a chalice or blue deck. There's nothing you can do about that. If you got rid of those top 4 beatsticks, the pitch counter / cantrip shell would just move onto the next best thing. In no scenario would Nacatl be playable. It's not even playable in Modern.

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Originally Posted by Purple Blood

In world where Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN don't exist, Nacatl doesn't suddenly become playable. You explained why those cards are playable: they are backed up by pitch counters and cantrips.

The reality is that in Legacy regular aggro decks are not playable so, to the extent "beatdown" strategies have worked in the format its generally been in a chalice or blue deck. There is nothing you can do about that.

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Whoopsie doodle you've skipped over the real killer of Nacatl. In your haste to blame Brainstorm and pitch spells you forgot it's actually Goyf and the cards it generated. Thou shalt never play Nacatl against Ice-Fang/Strix/Uro/SCM.

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Originally Posted by Fox

Reasonable creatures with healthy counterplay to a Goyf-type mostly cluster at 3 and 4 cmc...and when you let Goyf-types choke the life out of a format at 2cmc, and also add Daze, the format does not really get to explore creatures which enable distinct strategies.

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Yup. Unfortunately, if you ban Daze and Wasteland you would probably have to sit there for 2 years banning a ton of suddenly too degenerate strategies and probably end up in a spot looking like Modern with less painful mana.

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Originally Posted by Purple Blood

Yup. Unfortunately, if you ban Daze and Wasteland you would probably have to sit there for 2 years banning a ton of suddenly too degenerate strategies and probably end up in a spot looking like Modern with less painful mana.

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Daze will eventually get the axe for being an untenable first-player advantage exploit in an environment of this level of power creep. Wasteland however is a good actor in the format, adding meaningful counterplay to the format. Without this axis of interaction fair-slanted nonblue decks would have basically no meaningful lines against combo.