Alright, the topic is B&R, so make arguments pursuant to that, not about what cred and/or clout you might have.
Thanks.
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Alright, the topic is B&R, so make arguments pursuant to that, not about what cred and/or clout you might have.
Thanks.
Look at this zero phd scrubQuote:
Originally Posted by H
Git parchment, kid
Deep burn. But yeah, lets get back on track here folks.Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
Ragabanned should be a thing.
Murktide doesn't need to get banned, at least yet. The decks abusing Murktide are mainly Ragavan decks. Their Murktide is so devastating because the 1-drops force early interaction, depleting your answers. Ragavan also buys insane tempo to get ahead on cards and mana, so they can increase velocity of cantrips (MOAR DELVE) and stick & protect Murktide. Murktide is a great finisher for this kind of tempo-Ragavan strategy (UR 2Delver, URW Ragavan), but you don't see Murktide dominating the same way in other Xerox decks like Bant or Yorion ABCD. That should say a lot. Murktide in a vacuum isn't banworthy. Ragavan decks can just exploit it as a fast finisher once they've already pulled ahead.
Murktide is power-creeped Tombstalker, but notice how Tombstalker hasn't been relevant in Legacy for many years.
Edit: Murktide and Iteration are clearly problems too, but both should lose some power level after Ragavan gets banned. Iteration without Ragavan will work in 4c midrange decks but should be awkward in Delver, since it's a turn 3 play (Delver can't afford to run too many slots that are weak on 1-2 lands). Iteration is just the most efficient way to convert free Lotus Petals into cards/velocity/gas.
Not sure what you mean.Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
This is the best take in the thread on this topic. I'll just add that if Tombstalker was blue it would have been relevant until Murktide was printed.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
Very nice, something serious to talk about.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
In my experience UR delver has mainly 3 problems, ragavan, murktide and iteration (and DRC to an extent)
The main problem is indeed that you have way too many removal checks, letting ragavan alive turns ugly very quickly and the same happens with DRC to be honest (maybe you dont get as punished instantly but it makes multiple murktides super easy).
The problem with murktide is just that the stats are too good, if you are unable to instantly get a removal for it, you just lose (i would say that you lose 80% of the games in which murktide connects once), the first murktide if often an 8/8, which is actually pretty much twice what a tarmogoyf brings to the table.
If UR had ANY other top of the curve finisher, you would win much much more games because you manage to stabilize, what i have seen so far is that tons of times you do stabilize, but take one hit from murktide in the process, and somehow you are in bolt range or close already
On the tombstalker power creep, getting +3+3 clearly is an incredible power creep, but really is being blue that pushes it over the top, no one should argue that a blue tombstalker would have been the main beastick for any tempo deck from 2007 to 2020, while the BB cost forces you into UBx, which has not always been optimal.
Murktide is not often played alongside green mostly because green is a playable color only because it brings to the table uro + library + loam (+ endurance and GSZ), most of those engines already do require grave usage, also Murktide is stupid broken in a deck capable of leveraging tempo, while those deck are mainly slower decks which do not really care about damage dealt.
On the other hand, no deck besides tempo truly plays ragavan either (not counting memes), the cards are clearly meant to be played in a tempo shell
Anyway, in my experience, murktide actually is more important to ur than ragavan itself, but i dont want too much about it, but i surely think that if ragavan is indeed better, is not by that much even.
I truly think that if people starts taking notes, most of them would come up with a major lose rate to a resolved murktide than to a resolved ragavan to be honest
Also, as a sidenote, regent is the third delve card which managed to be a staple 4 of not even in duscussion, the only other two card which made it are Cruise and Dig...
I mean they print tons of cards that don't and realitively few that do but because those are the only ones that can break through there the only ones that get talked aboutQuote:
Originally Posted by Purple Blood
That's a fair point but ultimately the point is that those cards are getting printed to a much larger degree as of late.Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
This reminds me of a bias that comes up in Limited card evaluation, if simply relying on stats/memory of what you lose to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
In Limited, the cards with highest win % after resolution are Wraths and Overruns. But those aren't actually the best cards in Limited. They're conditional cards that you wait to cast until they would completely swing the game. If you look at the % of games you win after the card is resolved (or instead, how often you lost after opponent resolved that card), it skews highly towards Wraths and Overruns. But you miss all the time that card was stuck in hand, uncastable, or not relevant to the board state. The same thing can happen with 7-8 cmc Mythic Rare bombs, which can be back-breaking but also have a high "dud" rate. We just don't notice the times they're stuck dead in opponent's hand, and the win/lose rates don't reflect that either.
We tend to remember the flashy finishers that beat us. But often opponent was already ahead in the game. It just dealt the final blow. We tend to neglect the early 2-for-1 or tempo exploit that really put opponent in a winning position to deploy the unanswered finisher, how they ended up with more threats than we have answers.
Anyway, I wonder if the same bias may occur comparing Ragavan to Murktide. If you look at the win/lose rate of a resolved Murktide, it probably is higher than the rate for a resolved Ragavan. But that rate misses all the time Murktide was trapped dead in hand or buried by cantrips/EI because it was not helpful at that time. Monke is 1 cmc. If they have one, you probably see it. But they tend to play Murktide once they're ahead and can protect it. We all remember losing to Murktide and being unable to stop it fast enough, but we don't notice when they had/buried Murktides they didn't want. It's also less intuitive for us to notice the smaller tempo play that let opponent pull ahead with a protected threat, while the big 8/8 smashing our face is wearing a flashy neon vest.
Fireblast has a similar bias in Burn.
Marit Lage also has a very high win rate, though that misses all the games Depths got disrupted before one could be created.
I agree with your main observations here, but that's the definition of power creep. Its stats are pushed, better rates than anything before it, and that allows them to keep tempo advantage and finish faster. Does that mean its banworthy though? By that argument, any power creeped card should be banned, because it does its job better than any previous cards. But power creep is a format inevitability. The stats of vanilla beaters keep getting pushed over time. If this was banned, eventually some other big beater would appear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
Blue Tombstalker existed (Ethereal Forager) and saw play in UR Delver, although that card was not very good. It was just the best option available.
Regular Tombstalker was still viable for BUG or Grixis tempo for years, but unpopular. Gurmag Angler was preferable once printed. Despite not flying, it presented the same clock (with fewer resources), and they just wanted some big dumb finisher. An interesting question is if a 6UB Tombstalker would have seen play over Angler.
By talking about winrates specifically, i may have been misleading.Quote:
This reminds me of a bias that comes up in Limited card evaluation, if simply relying on stats/memory of what you lose to.
Ofc we know that in Doomsday Thassa has probably a 90% winrate when casted, while probably doomsday itself has a much lower outcome.
Yeah, this is kinda what I was trying to say to be fair.Quote:
We tend to remember the flashy finishers that beat us. But often opponent was already ahead in the game.
Everyone talks about ragavan as if volcanic + ragavan + daze always appens, but from what i have seen (and this is probably due to the meta being shaped by ragavan, not gonna lie), the monkey's value greatly diminishes the longer the game goes, tons of times ragavan is actually in check by turn 2.
And still it is broken as hell, not claiming it is not.
What i have experienced is that murktide is online as soon as turn 3, and it's value never diminishes, you either have removal or you lose, regardless of your board state
To be fair, is safe to assume that having too many murktides is not a big deal, or playing 4 of them would not be 100% mandatory in any UR list, as i said, they only payoff so good to be still a 4 of despite having delve and an high cost was ancestral recall, and dig through time.Quote:
Monke is 1 cmc. If they have one, you probably see it. But they tend to play Murktide once they're ahead and can protect it. We all remember losing to Murktide and being unable to stop it fast enough, but we don't notice when they had/buried Murktides they didn't want.
On the other hand, it is true that murktide is a 4 off both because it is busted and because DRC provides support
I think this narrative about "just being power creep" is a bit lazy.Quote:
I agree with your main observations here, but that's the definition of power creep.
It's clear that you can start with basically any card, and power creep it to power9 level of being good, with murktide, we are talking about getting to be blue and getting +3+3, now, we could do the same with other cards:
Darktide Confidant :1::u: 5/4
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its mana value.
Dryad Regent
Color Indicator: Blue Land Creature — Island Dryad 4/4
(Dryad Regent isn’t a spell, it’s affected by summoning sickness, and it has “{T}: Add :u:.”)
This is the MH2 treatment, ist not just power creep, is power creeping a card so much that you get probably the most impactful creature in the format (or at least top 3 easily).
Also, for the lulz, a 6/6 nacatl would probably be enough to push zoo back into legacy
As i said above, it depends on the magnitude of the creep, blue tombstalker would aready be a massive power creep over BB stalker, and it would have been enought to push it into UR delver and enought to be one of the best creature in the format, adding +3+3 to an already overstatted creature which got the insane buff of becoming blue may just be too muchQuote:
any power creeped card should be banned, because it does its job better than any previous cards.
Nah, they are functionally different, i would argue that forager is probably closer to a nerfed Dreadhorde (it kinda does the same thing, but it's not a turn 2 play and you have to pay the mana for the free spells you cast, but you get some minor buffs alongside).Quote:
Blue Tombstalker existed (Ethereal Forager) and saw play in UR Delver, although that card was not very good. It was just the best option available.
Traditionally, what delver needs is to have the best beatstick possible, a blue tombstalker would have been a top3 legacy card from 2007 to 2020, until the +3+3 version gets printed
I am unsure about the 6UB stalker, but i think having to tap half the lands is way more important, if regent had no flying but needed only a single blue, it would be so busted that no one would argue about it being too good, flying is a pretty damn good buff, but surely not whort 1 mana in legacy, pretty much any staple card wo flying would be garbage with +1mana+flying and almost any flying playable card would be busted with -1mana-flyingQuote:
Regular Tombstalker was still viable for BUG or Grixis tempo for years, but unpopular. Gurmag Angler was preferable once printed. Despite not flying, it presented the same clock (with fewer resources), and they just wanted some big dumb finisher. An interesting question is if a 6UB Tombstalker would have seen play over Angler.
Tu sum it up, indeed regent is creeping existing cards, but this is one of the biggest creep in legacy history, by being this much better, it actually changes how the card functionally works
Not to argue Iteration should be banned, but the Oko era taught us that if a 3-mana card is actually good enough Delver can and will play it.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
As an aside, Zoo won't be playable until it gets access to literal Force of Will.
EDIT: this is also an aside, but is mainboard graveyard hate just something you want and if so, is that a bad thing? Murktide and DRC aren't great in the face of Rest in peace. 3 recently banned cards were reliant on having a graveyard (W6, Arcanist, Underworld Breach EDIT EDIT: 4 if you don't Lurrus and 5 if you count DRS as recent). Part of me wonders if any of them would still be legal if nuking graveyards was something that every deck was equipped to do.
Part of it is saga and edict are very good against counterspells, but curses has the best fair blue matchup right now that it ever had.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watersaw
Not to mention that most blue control decks are uro+loam decks right now.
Those +3/+3 examples aren't a fair comparison. 8/8 Murktide Regent is blue Tombstalker power-creeped by 60%. 1/1 to 4/4 is power-creeped by 300%! A fair comparison would be a 3/2 Bob or a 1/2 Dryad Arbor. Those would certainly be strong, but not as outrageous as the ones you made. 5/5 Wild Nacatl would be equivalent, which is what I posted a few pages back as the rough power level needed for Zoo to be relevant. I support the printing of 5/5 Nacatl if it has the appropriate conditions so blue tempo can't use it. It would breathe life into an otherwise dead archetype, without being easy to abuse in current top decks.
Pushing the stats on dumb beaters isn't unreasonable, because beatdown is ALL they can do. Other Legacy creatures do other things too. That was how we got past the Tarmogoyf era. They didn't print new beaters as big as Goyf, but instead we got smaller creatures that did things beyond beatdown, and that proved to be more valuable overall (to the point where Goyf got increasingly pushed out of the format). If all a creature can do is turn sideways, maybe it should have big stats? Other creatures have card advantage, deathtouch, hate abilities, combo-enabling, protection, etc. Beaters have to do something distinct from utility creatures, like beat harder.
Hogaak is also an early 2-mana 8/8, and it even has trample! But it's fine in Legacy because players recognize they can hate it out with grave hate. Murktide is just as soft to grave hate though. Maybe this is a failure of players to bring in enough grave hate against UR. Once Ragavan is gone, most of their deck is graveyard-based. Grave hate and flyer hate both punish them.
The main argument to ban Ragavan is not that Ragavan is unbeatable, but that the interaction of Ragavan + Daze + Volcanic Turn 1 on the play should not exist in the format. It creates non-games where the first player has too much tempo and fair opponent can't stabilize despite having the answers. Like you said it doesn't happen all the time. It's more that when it does, those non-games shouldn't exist. It's a design flaw in the mechanics of the game.
Re: maindeck GY hate, this was one of my reasons for trying to revive UW Rest in Peace. A lot of the new overpowered cards rely on the graveyard. This axis isn't being attacked enough. Curses does it well.
I think that there are two main reasons why ragavan it's pushed, one being the turn1 blowout and one being dash.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
Indeed ragavan diminishes in value the longer the game goes, but by having dash it still can win you the game on turn 10 if your opponent has no blocker/removal and youi hit well (also the whole RNG mechaninc is pure garbage).
As far as creeping confident and arbor, i pourposely made it unbelievably broken, in a vacuum it's still "just a power crept version of said card", my point was that power creep can lead to broken cards if you push it enough.
On GY hate vs delver, it does some work right now, the main issue is that this current iteration of delver has both the best beaters, the best cantrips and the best countermagic, so hating on it by slamming hate pieces is not guaranteed (unless you go for the leyline route or spam relevant treaths), also they have too many game breaker tools if needed, when (if, at this point, sadly) ragavan gets axed, they could still put up a good fight against the meta and they still have the tools to be an insanely oppressive deck.
Actually, yorion taxes is in a very decent spot against UR delver and it has 8 stp + skyclave + rip and still the main two reason it loses to delver are ragavan blowout and murktide + force on kill spell.
On this point, i still want to stress that because beating is all they can do, hitting certain tresholds holds immense value.Quote:
Pushing the stats on dumb beaters isn't unreasonable, because beatdown is ALL they can do.
For example, a 19/19 marit lage does 50% of the work of the current token against non fetchlands deck, lets say that a 17/17 marit lage for sure does, while a 999/999 one is kinda functionally the same.
Murktide, by getting to 7/7 guarantees a 3 hit ko (so it's much better ofc because stalker needs 4 and goyf often 5), by reaching 8/8 it also gets to kill you in two hit (+ bolt + fetch)
Clearly, the problem here is that hookag is printed to be a broken piece of cardboard, absolute terror but held back by a very (at least on paper) harsh summoning condition (that is enough to force it in ad hoc decks), murktide has the same stats, has flying instead of trample, but requires to tap two volcs.Quote:
Hogaak is also an early 2-mana 8/8
Bringing hoogak to the table also pushes the idea that murktide is actually busted
Indeed, they should ban either because a card is too good or because a card is too unfun, basicly no mtg card actually is unbeatableQuote:
The main argument to ban Ragavan is not that Ragavan is unbeatable
Bant is also favored. Maindeck Endurance does a lot of work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
8cast players could run more maindeck GY hate artifacts, easy synergy with their deck.
Agreed. The math on them absolutely matters. If Murktide capped at 7/7, it would be a big difference. Just 1 turn faster than Tombstalker, or 2 attacks + 2 Bolts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
By that logic, Hogaak only requires "tap two dorks". Murktide also has conditions. Both have high Delve and are equally hated out by GY hate. Both are worth drawing counters or spot removal. Hogaak is just nonblue and harder to protect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
The fact that it's so hard to answer in UR Delver isn't just Murktide's power level in a vacuum, but all the other strong cards. Delver was already Tier 1 and gained +16 power-creeped cards. If other decks got this much support, the power creep wouldn't feel this unbalanced. Bant Exit has also gained a lot of new cards, and it keeps up. Other MH2-heavy decks do too (Sagavan, 8cast).
I also suspect Murktide was a design oversight. R&D designed the set with Modern in mind. In Modern it takes some effort to support Murktide. They probably thought it would be a 5/5-6/6 most of the time, sometimes weaker, sometimes 7/7, occasionally an 8/8 topdeck in lategame. That sounds fair. They probably didn't consider how easily Legacy Xerox fills the yard, nor factor in the interactions with Ragavan and DRC to fuel it even faster. Even in Legacy Pre-MH2, UR Delver would have struggled to make 8/8 Murktides with tempo. Ethereal Forager often delved only 2-3 spells. Both DRC (mill) and Ragavan (moar cantrips) add velocity to fuel Murktide.
The question now is whether that mistake is banworthy or just overpowered. The format has many ways to interact with it, so at least it's not some uninteractive RNG machine. Murktide also gets weaker when you remove some of its opening gas (Monke ban).
I love posing as a contrarian (in this case, pretend -not even so much- ragaBan could remain in the format)
WHY?Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
I mean, about "Those non games shouldn't exist". WHY?!
I could say those games when All Spells decks kill you on turn one shouldn't exist, because it's an unfun experience.
We tolerate that in the format, though, because
- it's hatable (and sure a one-drop that dies to every removal is too)
- most importantly, it doesn't happen all the time
I think with Ragavan it's the same. Someone before was speaking of survivor bias and other similar things, it's just that everybody remembers when this combination of cards happens and not all the time when
- ragavan is not in the opening hand
- daze is not in the opening hand
- the UR player is on the draw
- removal on the creature resolves
- the blind flip of the top card hits nothing
- etc
When you pretend to be making a rational discussion, you can factor in the feeling, but you should also consider the real impact and not the perceived one.
Ragavan is a mana advantage exploit as well as a first player advantage exploit, same as DRS. Meaningful counterplay is minimal; it's not just the inability to profitably respond to turn 1 threat with Wasteland, it's that in either case you are talking about a card that also wins the game by itself (i.e. unlike any other mana dork, you're not going to catch back up with a wrath). This combination of mana advantage and ability to protect the queen naturally leads to Daze abuse; legacy's classic first player advantage exploit.
Any time you see mana advantage, it is a variation of working around 1 land per turn rule. The chess equivalent is taking two moves in a row. If your opening hand isn't perfect, your Delver opponent is effectively opening the game 2 turns ahead of you. This is the non-game people are talking about.
Well, ofc you know that being "nonblue" and as a consequence "harder to protect" is indeed a big deal, also it's obvious that (in legacy at least), tapping two blue lands is nowhere near as hard as tapping two creatures, by design hookag is forced into a specific shell, and the card is soo good despite forcing you in said shell, to spawn a fairly competitive archetype.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
Murktide on the other hand has close to the same power level, and can just be played as a 4 off in what would already be one of the best decks with no real downside
I do agree that is quite hard to make "in a vacuum" evaluations of UR's cards because most of them are triving in the absolute overpowered current shell.Quote:
The fact that it's so hard to answer in UR Delver isn't just Murktide's power level in a vacuum, but all the other strong cards. Delver was already Tier 1 and gained +16 power-creeped cards. If other decks got this much support, the power creep wouldn't feel this unbalanced. Bant Exit has also gained a lot of new cards, and it keeps up. Other MH2-heavy decks do too (Sagavan, 8cast).
I do not agree that other decks are keeping up that well, it's clear from the data that most of good players go in autopilot on UR for any important event and despite it happening the deck is showing mostly good, UR is currently beating most of the meta despite having shaped said meta
I agree, also, fun fact, if you look up the modern metagame, their version of UR delver is referred as:Quote:
I also suspect Murktide was a design oversight.
https://i.gyazo.com/6cd0af9f4df5f29b...4571f78092.png
And is still one of the best deck of the format
No idea really, in my experience murktide really is too overtuned, but i may be wrongQuote:
The question now is whether that mistake is banworthy or just overpowered. The format has many ways to interact with it, so at least it's not some uninteractive RNG machine. Murktide also gets weaker when you remove some of its opening gas (Monke ban).
My go to approach is "how much you could lose vs how much you could gain"Quote:
WHY?
I mean, about "Those non games shouldn't exist". WHY?!
I could say those games when All Spells decks kill you on turn one shouldn't exist, because it's an unfun experience.
In this example:
Balustrade:
You gain a win vs you go hellbent (and lose basicly 99% of the times)
Ragavan
You gain a free lotus petal + 20-40% chance (done no maths on this) of drawing an extra card (per turn) vs you trade 1 for 1 on mana and cards
This is mostly what makes one drop keen to be OP, the downside will always be something similar to "you trade 1 for 1 on mana and cards", which means going even IF your opponent has a one mana removal
By applying this logic to murktide
You deal 40% of the total HP of your oppo (per turn) vs you trade 1 for 1 card and 2 for 1 mana
So you can actually come up on top of the exchange, but you also do lose an absurd amount of HP each turn that you are unable to
Sure you gain a lot by your opponent "missing" on answering the turn1 threat, but the game isn't literally over. Whereas not having the turn 1 Force of Will vs Oops means you 100% lose the game immediately. My honest opinion is that dead is dead no matter how many cards my opponent had to invest. We've already decided that non-games are permitted so it's hard for me to see Ragavan as uniquely transgressive.
Like you do understand that Oops has actual deckbuilding restrictions right? They don't get to also play conventional/fair magic [meaning hate-immune]...and it's not just conventional/fair magic, it's the easymode version with mana advantage and first player advantage exploits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watersaw
Yeah, the thing is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watersaw
Let's say that ragavan unanswered on turn 1 kills you 40% of the times (tbh is quite hard to give a reasonable number, it is also deck dependant), still if you manage to beat it you got nowhere, and you are still back even.
On the other hand if you stop ops from goinf off you most likely win on the spot.
This already is enought to keep most people off those decks, if somehow the combo gets to be more consistent (basicly, if the deck gets to be better) to a point in which it passes to 10% metashare, most people would indeed hate the deck and ask for a ban.
I think one can deal with getting turn-oned from time to time, but it gets much more insufferable if the deck killing you turn 1 is a fair deck that can easily win even if you deal with it's early game
Comparing resolving monke vs resolving a combo win con is total nonsense.
While you don't lose directly if you can't answer the monke instantly, the longer it sticks around, the lower are your chances of winning against the raw mana and card advantage it provides.
Nowadays almost every threat needs to be answered instantly because the clock is either too fast (dragon) or it generates too much advantage to compensate (monke).
This also one of the reasons formats with more recent cards suck.
This considerations are sound, but I agree only partially because:Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
- with things like all spells you instantly lose if you don't have an answer, with ragavan you don't (and please, all spells was just an example, really, only to say that in legacy we already have very unfun gotcha moments, and it appears they are part of the format)
- you should calculate like you do for an expected value, taking into account not only the outcome but also multiplying for the probability that such an outcome happens. You gain a free lotus petal IF ragavan connects, which means IF you had it in your opening hand (the more the time passes, the less relevant the monkey becomes), IF you won the die roll, IF opponent didn't have removal or blocker and/or IF they had it but you also had protection AND they had not one of their own, etc. For the card advantage, it's like 20-40% IF all these previous conditions are met AND the opponent's deck is of some utility for you (which is not always the case depending on the matchup).
Also, even if they are not high, there are costs of including ragavan in your deck: even taking into account dash, it only works on an empty field with no blockers, so very frequently it could be useless if topdecked in late, not just by drawing multiples. Basically you are betting on your early game and on your capacity of steal resources, otherwise it will never be a beater becuase it has awful stats.
I agree, indeed it seems to me that murktide matches the ban criteria even more than ragavan, because it's unlikely that it gets stuck in hand (even in the early game and unused it can always be a pitch for a FoW), it's almost never a dead topdeck, being a mid-late card it's more probable that you see it (so it's useful in more games), and really there aren't any costs of including it in your deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
I think this is where the disagreement comes from: it seems to me that an unanswered ragavan very rarely kills you (and yes, I am taking into account a slow death by frequent little values).Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
Yeah but that's just psychology, it means we are saying "we want to ban the monkey because people dislike it". Ok, it could be a valid reason but it's not a particularly rational one (what the majority of people think isn't necessarily true). I personally hate way more being killed by a coinflip like "ops, I didn't have the FoW in my starting hand" or "well, once we know the matchup, the outcome is already decided because it's so unbalanced that skill and variance matter very rarely". I'd like to ban those experience from my hobby too, but it happens they are part of legacy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noctalor
When people look at the finger instead of the moon. Dude, it was just an example to explain the point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoid
I understand the feeling, because I hated Dreadhorde Arcanist. The difference is, while Ragavan cost only one mana which of course is very relevant, if unchecked Arcanist was guaranteed to generate value both mana wise (the spell was cast for free) and card advantage, and it required only to attack to do so and not also to connect. On the contrary, the monkey needs to connect to generate value, and even in this case, it's only the mana advantage which is guaranteed, while the card advantage is very random.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoid
These are relevant things to consider, too.
You could even make an argument such as the following, taking into account the mirror. Let's consider the case where both players resolved their dude and didn't have the removal in hand nor any protection. Let's even say the board was completely equal of lands only and both players were hellbent and topdecked their copy of the dude and played it (with ragavan, to have a similar comparison, you have to presume that the first one, if it was played with dash, didn't hit anything relevant because the purpose of the argument is to look at a situation where both players have the exact same resources). So, completely simmetrical situation, but in the Arcanist example the first to play it was almost certain to win because it could flashback a removal to kill the opponent's one or a cantrip to find one such removal. So Arcanist even in late game totally snowballed and the first one to stuck completely determined the outcome of the game. THAT was the experience people hated. Same situation with Ragavan (as I said we are considering the case where both players have one on the battlefield no cards in hand in order to have a comparison of the same situation, so nothing hit with dash), they just stare to one another and the first one is NOT guaranteed to win the game.
I think the problem is more that people hate to lose from their own card (or hate the randomness of the experience, let's say if both keep hitting with dash, the first one to flip a useful card wins, but it's not guaranteed that the winner is the first one to connect, it's random).
I agree, but this is not an argument specifically against monkey, it's all the FIRE philosophy that sucks and all the recent printings since at least war of the spark. It seems to me murktide checks more the ban rational requirements, still you see way less people in favor of such kind of a ban.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoid
Basically, THISQuote:
Originally Posted by Watersaw
https://i.imgur.com/cfjXGgs.jpg
I actually think it's totally fair to compare two "uninteractive" things purely on that basis. As long as you're comparing them purely on that basis.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoid
I don't really care about most creatures. They really don't matter against most of what I play.
The ones that do matter in a given matchup are a blowout. And you don't have the luxury of waiting around to find out that they're blowouts: They're just blowouts.
A "blowout" creature in a "fair" deck against a "fair" deck would have to have stats big enough to crunch everything (NOT anything; everything) in its path, have a very low cost for its power (something like 1:5), and probably have evasion or trample. And maybe I've just been playing too much combo to think straight or waste time considering combat math, but neither of those cards is anywhere near hitting more than one of those metrics. And neither card is the most efficient attacker in the format. Hell, neither one is remotely close to the strength of cards that should still be legal but aren't.
Is Ragavan a blowout? No. Is Murktide Regent a blowout? No. Is either one of those a blowout against anything in the format? No.
Is Brainstorm? No. Is Dark Ritual? Yes.
"Is it good in combo" is a bad metric.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce
The comparison with combo is nonsense because combo relies on resolving certain spells in a certain order to win instantly.
Almost all other decks don't do this.
In your terms the only relevant creature would be a 20/20 tentacle monster token.
Monke is easily the best 1 drop in the format, outclassing even delver.
The point is that he's way too good at what he does and can easily generate enough advantage from connecting a few times to run away with the game.
The free card is a lottery but the lotus petal alone is absurdly strong.
Even if he doesn't win the game by himself, he gets you ahead making it easier and safer to finish up with an oversized dragon.
Ban Update.
Ragavan out.
Well, it's a good thing they're still ignoring the "problem" card.Quote:
Originally Posted by H
Not like it's in the deck's name, or anything.
I and maxtortion pointed out that this probably makes make UR do better. Monkey was insane in the mirror and vs combo, but now they get to run cards that are better against their predators (borrower/delver)
Dingdong the monkey is dead! What cards will replace the 2 Gut Shot and 4 Ragavan slots newly freed up?
Im thinking…
1-2 Delver
1-2 Brazen Borrower
2 Bauble
1 Chain Lightning or Force of Negation
Anything I missed?
sorry for bad english
i was in home eat banana
wen phone ring
"monke is kil"
"no"
I will at least agree that play patterns should be better. Losing to a lucky ragavan flip makes people want to punch something.
Also without ragavan requiring you to answer it on T1, murktide might be able to be kept in check by harder removal (terminus, trophy)
Jan. 25th is officially Banana smoothie day.
Now why exactly this card wasn't banned the day it was spoiled or every day since is a real legacy mystery.
If they banned it so early, they wouldn't have sold so many boxes$$$$$$Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Yeah everytime a ridiculously OP card gets banned, you get people showing up to hottake about how this actually helps the decks that ran it because it frees up slots to run cards they could have been running anyway but didn't because the banned card was better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
To be fair, we're giving green pilots of legacy an opposing Delver deck that is going to be running nearly 100% keyword flying (Delver, DRC, MurkGoyf, and Brazen) - do you really think they're going to figure out that Run Afoul not only hits nearly all-to-100% of Delver's wincons and also vastly improves their matchup vs Lage/Grisel/Emmy?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
I mean why would you add a clearly obvious card to your 75 when you could keep crying about a flying Goyf? This is a big point in favor of @Reeplcheep's take.
Ma vai a dare via il cul diocanQuote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
Do you understand the prisoner’s dilemma? Ragavan was insane in the mirror (but mirror win % is always 50% overall) and combo (which is dead). The only decks left were those that are good against ragavan. This is similar to how the mental misstep restriction made blue in vintage better.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
There are many decks which have mirror breakers which increase the individual’s win rate at the cost of the overall win rate. MD pyroblast in blue control, palace jailer in D&T, TNN in delver.
gotta sell packs broQuote:
Originally Posted by Fox
HahahahahahQuote:
Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
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