All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by Barook

Super-Wraths for :w: at potentially instant speed are beyond dumb and one of the major stifling influences in the format development.

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On the other hand, have you tried playing control with little or nothing in the way of creatures (especially early and mid game)?

Lands squeaks by with a Ton of denial and 3x Maze + 4ea Grove & PFire. That's it. D&T, BUG Control, Blade Control all run little dudes. Pox, Enchantress, Stacks, MUC all are too weak - creatures are just that good now.

Terminus allows a control deck not focused on it's creatures to thrive. It doesn't make any deck unbeatable or objectively OP.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

creatures are just that good now.

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Ha that's a good one. :laugh:

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

On the other hand, have you tried playing control with little or nothing in the way of creatures (especially early and mid game)?

Lands squeaks by with a Ton of denial and 3x Maze + 4ea Grove & PFire. That's it. D&T, BUG Control, Blade Control all run little dudes. Pox, Enchantress, Stacks, MUC all are too weak - creatures are just that good now.

Terminus allows a control deck not focused on it's creatures to thrive. It doesn't make any deck unbeatable or objectively OP.

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I've been keeping meta data for two years and Miracles is far and away the best performer over that time period, that's an extended period of dominance. Not sure why you think look at six events is a better metric than that. I don't think Wizards cares about sculpting a format where they have to have decks with few creatures and why that's even close to being important.

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Originally Posted by GundamGuy

Ha that's a good one. :laugh:

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Deathrite Shaman and delver are for chumps

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Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds

Deathrite Shaman and delver are for chumps

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Edit: Just to be clear, I was laughing at the "just that good now" part.

Delver and Deathright Shaman are amazing creatures, they also don't give miracles problems....

Delver and Deathright wouldn't be impossible to deal with even should Terminus be banned.

Point would have made more sense if you named something like TNN.

Edit 2:

Just throwing this out here as well, but Countertop was a thing before Terminus... it was just good against a portion of the field isntead of being above average in every matchup.

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Originally Posted by HSCK

I've been keeping meta data for two years and Miracles is far and away the best performer over that time period, that's an extended period of dominance. Not sure why you think look at six events is a better metric than that. I don't think Wizards cares about sculpting a format where they have to have decks with few creatures and why that's even close to being important.

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When the best deck still probably has fewer than 20% of people at a tournament showing up with it, it's hard to feel like it's a problem for that reason alone - compare it to Standard, where the meta is less diverse at pretty much any given period. In fact, Miracles would be easier to beat if even more people played it, because then more people would dedicate more cards in their SB to the match.

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Originally Posted by iatee

When the best deck still probably has fewer than 20% of people at a tournament showing up with it, it's hard to feel like it's a problem for that reason alone - compare it to Standard, where the meta is less diverse at pretty much any given period. In fact, Miracles would be easier to beat if even more people played it, because then more people would dedicate more cards in their SB to the match.

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What cards do you have in mind, and do you think would start to show up in sideboards more?

Edit: Also Legacy is a pretty diverse format, when 1/5th of the field is on the same deck list that might not actually be health. I don't know that there is an actual % of the field number at which a deck becomes a problem or is too fringe to be a problem, and I'm not sure thinking about it this way is a good approach... but I also think going the other way and suggesting it's only 1 in every 5 decks in the room so it's NBD, is a bit off too.

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Originally Posted by Barook

Where would the format be without Miracles? Probably in a spot with alot more Elves!, but who knows.

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I would expect more Mavrick, perhaps the return of Zoo, and Goblins moving up in the ranks a bit.

I would be okay with a ban on Top. Not because of miracles dominance but with the aim of improving overall tournament logistics.

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Originally Posted by GundamGuy

What cards do you have in mind, and do you think would start to show up in sideboards more?

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if literally everyone at the scg open yesterday had 3 pithing needles in their sb, I don't think miracles would have very many spots in the t32.

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Originally Posted by iatee

if literally everyone at the scg open yesterday had 3 pithing needles in their sb, I don't think miracles would have very many spots in the t32.

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I'm not sure I agree.

I don't think Pithing Needle is all that strong vs. Miracles.

It's not awful, but it's not a win all by it's self so devoting 3 slots to it seems...

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Originally Posted by GundamGuy

I would expect more Mavrick, perhaps the return of Zoo, and Goblins moving up in the ranks a bit.

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Maverick won't come back as its been outdated by Jund and Shardless, both are simply better midrange decks with more powerful cards, Zoo is still laughable as why play a deck predicated on playing the best aggressive creatures in the format when you can't play the actual best Aggro creature (Delver of Secrets) and Goblins steamrolls miracles, banning its best MU would make it worse.

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Originally Posted by HSCK

I've been keeping meta data for two years and Miracles is far and away the best performer over that time period,

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Ifr your data shows Miracles placing in significantly higher proportions than it's being played, I'd be surprised.

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Originally Posted by HSCK

that's an extended period of dominance.

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We must have different ideas of 'dominance'.

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Originally Posted by HSCK

Not sure why you think look at six events is a better metric than that.

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Five consecutive major events might not be the full picture, but it's more than enough to refute any notions of this monstrous Miracles deck ravaging the format.

Also, five recent events is far more representative of the current meta than any data you have over ten months old.

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Originally Posted by HSCK

I don't think Wizards cares about sculpting a format where they have to have decks with few creatures and why that's even close to being important.

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It's called diversity. And thankfully Legacy isn't a sculpted format as such.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

It's called diversity.

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Claiming a format with 70-80% blue penetration is diverse is like claiming the USA circa 1800 was ethnically diverse. At least all those white Europeans were from different countries of origin, right?

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Originally Posted by Admiral_Arzar

Claiming a format with 70-80% blue penetration is diverse is like claiming the USA circa 1800 was ethnically diverse. At least all those white Europeans were from different countries of origin, right?

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I wasn't arguing that the format is or isn't diverse. I think we've been through and through the nuanced ways in which in the format is and is not diverse. Let's not go there.

I was responding to the text I quoted, which questioned the significance of creatureless decks in the meta. Maybe you and hsck don't see creatures centric vs non creature centric as a strategic distinction of significance? I certainly do.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

I wasn't arguing that the format is or isn't diverse. I think we've been through and through the nuanced ways in which in the format is and is not diverse. Let's not go there.

I was responding to the text I quoted, which questioned the significance of creatureless decks in the meta. Maybe you and hsck don't see creatures centric vs non creature centric as a strategic distinction of significance? I certainly do.

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If you think looking at the last 5 events is all that's needed to see what a format is then there is nothing more to discuss, suffice it to say it's one of the poorest ideas I've seen yet on how to manage a format.

If you really want the format to change and to also nerf miracles, ban the number 1 problem card. Brainstorm. Arguments about banning top or counterbalance or even Terminus are hysterical to me when the card that enables not only Miracles, but also every other boring goodstuff+cantrips.dec is Brainstorm.

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Originally Posted by Admiral_Arzar

Claiming a format with 70-80% blue penetration is diverse is like claiming the USA circa 1800 was ethnically diverse. At least all those white Europeans were from different countries of origin, right?

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This actually disproves your own point just fine. Just because their skin color is the same doesn't mean that their gene pool is non-diverse.
Quit being actually-racist.
(Hint: White is a race and countries that white people come from are actually countries and subsets of genes that happen to have similar skin color while being genetically diverse is a thing.)

Ever notice how you can tell Norse bloodlines by their jawline, hair color, or eye color.. from say.. Spanish?


Just like your absolutely terrible example, Blue being everywhere is still fairly diverse regardless of 16 cards being the same. It's like saying every BG deck has Decay, every Red deck has Lightning Bolt, or similar; it misses the point; especially when the expected penetration of *every* color in should be around 60% (3 color decks.) If blue is 70%, it's not *that* different.

the problem with banning a card like brainstorm gives the non-brainstorm combo decks a huge advantage over the rest of the field. being able to dig 3 cards deeper to keep other decks honest is probably more important than worrying about control decks being too unfair. i would also argue that cabal therapy would then become the strongest card in a post-ban-brainstorm format.

Banning top seems like a big middle finger because it's one of the few, if not the only, good providers of card selection that can be used by any color.
Banning brainstorm has been beaten to death, and is imo a dumb idea for a number of reasons.
Banning terminus seems like a decent idea if one is gunning to take Miracles out, though I don't see strong enough evidence that such action needs to be taken against my deck of choice, but there is obviously bias there.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

On the other hand, have you tried playing control with little or nothing in the way of creatures (especially early and mid game)?

Lands squeaks by with a Ton of denial and 3x Maze + 4ea Grove & PFire. That's it. D&T, BUG Control, Blade Control all run little dudes. Pox, Enchantress, Stacks, MUC all are too weak - creatures are just that good now.

Terminus allows a control deck not focused on it's creatures to thrive. It doesn't make any deck unbeatable or objectively OP.

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I basically agree with this, though I think the decline of those other decks have more complex (and varied) causes. Pox suffers from its inability to close quickly once they've stripped their opponent of resources, allowing opponents to draw out of it (aided by the fact that they usually have library manipulation and the Pox player usually doesn't) and is actually great at dealing with creatures; Enchantress has excellent creature matchups (RUG Delver is the hardest by far and it's 50/50 at worst) - it doesn't see much play because its combo matchups are quite bad and its anti-combo sideboard options aren't as strong as Lands' are. Creatures that get in under the lock are a problem as old as Stax, even to the deck's original incarnation as "The Four-Thousand Dollar Solution" in Vintage, so you're sort of right in that creature decks are both naturally more popular with more powerful cheap creatures and that those same creatures are more effective against the slow, plodding control decks that hard prison once both preyed on and relied on to hold traditional aggro in check. You're basically spot-on with why MUC isn't good, though its decline arguably goes back to Masques' free spells and early aggro-control decks like Miracle Gro, U/G Madness, and U/G/x Threshold. I think that Arrogant Wurm, Werebear, Nimble Mongoose, and Mystic Enforcer are about where creatures should be, so maybe a world without MUC isn't all that bad.

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Originally Posted by iatee

Yeah I think people really underrate the 'what proportion of people are showing up with this deck' factor when they look at results - and that's usually hard to know. Miracles is not unbeatable, it is the best control deck and control players are going to want to play the best pure control deck. It is also generally accepted to be the hardest deck to pilot and something with game against almost anything, which are also things that are going to attract a lot of good players. Good players playing good decks should be expected to do well in a tournament.

If we were to look at what % of players at a legacy event show up with a pure control deck, I wouldn't be surprised if that number were *lower* than its equivalent in most standard metas because legacy's meta is so wide in comparison, and most of the less played played decks are not control.

That said, I think Top is not a card particularly well designed for tournament play. I actually enjoy playing vs Miracles in non-competitive tournament settings, where my opponent can make more optimal decisions and I don't have to worry about them playing slow if they win g1. But it's kinda dumb to have a single card that wrecks so much havoc on every single organized legacy tournament's operations.

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This. I agree with basically all of this. Right now it looks like the meta is adapting to Miracles being extremely popular, and based on the coverage (sadly, I couldn't make the Open this weekend), the event was wall-to-wall Miracles. It will take some time for the meta to shake out, but it'll happen sooner rather than later. It's not time to ban anything yet. That being said, Top is miserable to play against and it's not as simple as calling slow play more aggressively.