All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by tescrin

So everyone! All you have to do is:
* Run no uncounterable spells or maybe run only spells that cost 7+
* Run no creatures
* Run Blue or BGx

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Mono white, colourless, and R/G seem to be doing okay too though.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

You play either Countertop, chalice or Decay in Legacy, if you want to actually win anything

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There are currently five decks in DTB. One plays Counter-Top, one plays Chalice (main), one plays Decay. The other two do not. Maybe we should say:

• Play Counter-Top, or
• Play Chalice, or
• Play Decay, or
• Play Vial, or
• Play Loam

Not really much substance here, because that basically says play any one of the five DTBs!

I think this thread should be renamed The Official Ranting About The Format & Metagame Thread. It would be a more accurate description. Sorry for interrupting the bitch-fest. Carry on.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

• Play Counter-Top, or
• Play Chalice, or
• Play Decay, or
• Play Vial, or
• Play Loam

Not really much substance here, because that basically says play any one of the five DTBs!

I think this thread should be renamed The Official Ranting About The Format & Metagame Thread. It would be a more accurate description. Sorry for interrupting the bitch-fest. Carry on.

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Funny that you talk about "accurate" description, given that Loam plays Chalice and you still count it as two decks. Its not that you differ for sideboard Decays either.

Essentially you can group Miracles/D&T/Eldrazi/Lands together as "ensure your opponent can't play the game".

I might change that to play Vial + Cavern and Boseju + Loam (or SnT) @Crimhead. Regardless the list is completely composed of non-interactive cards, and Counterbalance is the card at fault.

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Originally Posted by Fox

Regardless the list is completely composed of non-interactive cards.

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Jup, its...

Countertop + Terminus
Thalia + Wasteland + Port/GhostQuarter
Chalice + Thorn + Wasteland
Chalice + Wasteland + Port/GhostQuarter

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Funny that you talk about "accurate" description, given that Loam plays Chalice and you still count it as two decks. Its not that you differ for sideboard Decays either.

Essentially you can group Miracles/D&T/Eldrazi/Lands together as "ensure your opponent can't play the game".

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Loam decks normally play Chalice as a tool, not a game plan. I would not suggest that the point is mute, but I think that there is a large gap between a deck that seeks to defend itself with Chalice and a deck that seeks to build around it.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Loam decks normally play Chalice as a tool, not a game plan. I would not suggest that the point is mute, but I think that there is a large gap between a deck that seeks to defend itself with Chalice and a deck that seeks to build around it.

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Loam uses chalice to battle combo just like Storm uses Decay to combo Counterbalance and Chalice. We group elves, storm, BUG delver, shardless and others together no matter if MB or SB Decays, so I think the same standard should apply to the other cards. I mean countertop was played in S&T as well as HighTide

I have never seen all those decks ever bound together over Decay.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I have never seen all those decks ever bound together over Decay.

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I'm going to agree here, there's a pretty large difference between 4x DRS + 4x Decay, 1x DRS + 4x Chalice + 4x Decay + GSZ, and combo decks that only run Decay for CB over all the other possibilities.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Loam decks normally play Chalice as a tool, not a game plan. I would not suggest that the point is mute, but I think that there is a large gap between a deck that seeks to defend itself with Chalice and a deck that seeks to build around it.

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Counterbalance isn't the game-plan either. The real meat of the deck is Terminus, STP, and ETA. You're not building Miracles around CB, you're building it around those 3 white spells. By your logic, Chalice decks kinda are built around Chalice considering they don't run 1-drop spells (outside a singleton DRS MD and some SB cards).

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Counterbalance isn't the game-plan either. The real meat of the deck is Terminus, STP, and ETA. You're not building Miracles around CB, you're building it around those 3 white spells. By your logic, Chalice decks kinda are built around Chalice considering they don't run 1-drop spells (outside a singleton DRS MD and some SB cards).

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CB/SDT functioning as Time Vault/Voltaic Key is actually the game plan. The rest is stuff you need against the rest of the format, especially when they're packing Ugin's Nexus in the form of absurd cmcs/Cavern, Vial, Bosejus/Decay. Miracles is first and foremost a combo deck. This deck does not make deep tournament runs on the back of white cards that don't 40:1 entire chunks of the meta game. On the contrary, it gets away with running white cards b/c it can sit back and never spend a real resource against decks where such cards have no text.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Counterbalance isn't the game-plan either. The real meat of the deck is Terminus, STP, and ETA. You're not building Miracles around CB, you're building it around those 3 white spells. By your logic, Chalice decks kinda are built around Chalice considering they don't run 1-drop spells (outside a singleton DRS MD and some SB cards).

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Some are, Stacks and Mud I would argue build with the card in mind. Built to start the curve at 2 so they are not as affected by the card. I would like to run a one of Map in Stax, but I don't because I would rarely get to fetch it and cast it, the reason I would add it.

Lands on the other hand runs Chalice to stop Combo. Its mutual hate, because you have Rotation, Exploration and Gamble, but it does more to the other guy than you when you drop it against Storm. In this case you are not running Chalice as a game plan, you are running it as a defensive action against matchups that are really really bad. In short, when playing Stax I drop Chalice and see if it wins the game. In Lands, if I see Lotus Petal I side in Chalice and hope I can use it to delay you and then kill you with my 20/20. The actions come with very different intentions.

As for Miracles, its built around an artifact, not a bunch of White spells.

Edit:
Just to add. I do not think a deck that runs a card in the sideboard is a "X Card" deck. A deck running Decay in the side, like Elves, is not a "Decay Deck". The deck is not built around using that card. The card in question is an answer to a problem, not a part of the decks main game plan. If it was meant to be used in the decks main plan it would be in the main. The same goes for Chalice, Force in some cases or even CounterTop, which has at times been used in a transformational sideboard.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Counterbalance isn't the game-plan either. The real meat of the deck is Terminus, STP, and ETA. You're not building Miracles around CB, you're building it around those 3 white spells. By your logic, Chalice decks kinda are built around Chalice considering they don't run 1-drop spells (outside a singleton DRS MD and some SB cards).

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Against a competent player if countertop is never assembled in a game it is incredibly hard for to miracles to win. It is based on the counterbalance top combo to win games, which is why null rod and such are amazing against it because it shuts off countertop hardlock and makes counterbalance flip over top card, hope to counter and we know how well that works if we need to consistently counter all the things. They simply run white for creature removal, and if creature removal was the only thing that mattered in legacy clearly you wouldn't need force of will, you'd just go 4 path to exile, 4 plow, 4 deathmark, 4 punishing fire, etc. etc. all jammed into a single deck to kill all the things. Terminus is simply the best sweeper in the format since it's 1 mana and instant speed to kill everything in the deck that plays it typically because miracles might as well be called Sensei's divining top.dec because without top, it is a pile of clunky pieces trying to achieve 1000 horsepower.

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Originally Posted by btm10

I'll indulge this because it's interesting, but I'll state my priors first:

1. Miracles is too good relative to the rest of the format. Rich Shay described it as "the only Tier Zero deck in the format" at Eternal Weekend, and he was right. That being said, it's better contained now than it was prior to Eldrazi and the D&T upgrades.

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No. Miracles is not Tier Zero. Not even close. You want a Tier Zero deck? Look at the Eldrazi in Modern before it got banned. That was a Tier Zero deck. Miracles is nowhere near that.

Though I do often wonder to what extent the format would shift if the prices weren't so obscenely high. There are decks that are pretty good against Miracles. 12-Post, for example, mops the floor with it. However, 12-Post also requires investing in Candelabras and also picking up a Tabernacle or two, which are cards that are very restrictive in the decks they can go into. If you pay all that money for Candelabras, you can't use them in another deck unless you want to pick up High Tide which really isn't that good nowadays. People tend to make their monetary investments into cards that can go in a variety of decks, which is true of basically every expensive card in Miracles. Of course, conversely, it might be that the high prices are what keep people with their current decks and there would be less diversity if prices were lower as everyone would just hop over to Miracles. I guess you just have to deal with the format as it is.

People have made the same comments, that it costs too much and the cards don't go in anything else, about Lands. When the deck picked up speed, those arguments feel away because it became obvious the deck was effective enough to see play. I think the issue with 12 Post is not it's cost but it's effectiveness. The deck is just not very good.

While it does have a strong matchup against Miracles, almost all of the rest of the field doesn't care about it. Post plays the long game, a plan that normally is favourable against control, but the formats other control decks all run something Post is extremely weak to. Land Control. With Lands now moving to Ghost Quarter and Wasteland, the old Pithing Needle trick is even more of a Hail Mary than it was before while all the other decks can just tempo it out.

If the prices where not high, I think post would see only a little more play than it does now. Perhaps more because some people do enjoy the style of play it fosters, but not because it's good. Three people locally owned this at one point, one of them completely foiled. I haven't seen any of them play it in at lest two years.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Just to add. I do not think a deck that runs a card in the sideboard is a "X Card" deck. A deck running Decay in the side, like Elves, is not a "Decay Deck". The deck is not built around using that card. The card in question is an answer to a problem, not a part of the decks main game plan. If it was meant to be used in the decks main plan it would be in the main. The same goes for Chalice, Force in some cases or even CounterTop, which has at times been used in a transformational sideboard.

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So you want to tell me that being able to run uncounterable removal to Counterbalance/Chalice in form of Decay has nothing to do with decks like Storm, Elves, BUG Delver & Co remaining metagame relevant? You want to argue that the decks would be equally successful if they would use other 1-2cc artifact/enchantment removal spells? You deny that running Decay is the sole reason all these decks stand a chance against Chalice/Counterbalance? You want to argue, that Lands.dec would be maintaining its position against Combo and cantrip.dec without the tool what Chalice is?

I can't get why you are so focussed on the narrow "It must be mainboard and the card must be the strategy itself". You could use that point of view and argue that Miracles' success has nothing to do with CounterTop, but with Entreat, which I hope, no one is really doing.

I argue that a deck like BUG, running Decay main, plans to use it in a way Elves does not. Against a deck like say, Nic Fit, Elves is not going to use the card, it's not there for that kind of match as it's a dedicated answer to other situations. BUG on the other hand will use it as a tempo and control play.

I am not arguing anything other than, "A Deck like Lands is not the same as a deck like Stax, both run the same card but do so for different reasons." If you want to read more into that then I intend your welcome to, I am not drunk enough to play games in this thread today and will leave you to your own devices.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I can't get why you are so focussed on the narrow "It must be mainboard and the card must be the strategy itself". You could use that point of view and argue that Miracles' success has nothing to do with CounterTop, but with Entreat, which I hope, no one is really doing.

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Because there is an absurd assertion that the format is becoming non-interactive on the grounds that competitive decks are running cards like Decay or Chalice.

When these cards are sideboard answers for certain problems, they are not stifling interaction - there either not used at all, or they are actually preventing non-interaction.

Anyway, this thread is a whole lot of whining if you ask me because legacy is a deeply strategic and highly interactive format - the best that there is.

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

Because there is an absurd assertion that the format is becoming non-interactive on the grounds that competitive decks are running cards like Decay or Chalice.

When these cards are sideboard answers for certain problems, they are not stifling interaction - there either not used at all, or they are actually preventing non-interaction.

Anyway, this thread is a whole lot of whining if you ask me because legacy is a deeply strategic and highly interactive format - the best that there is.

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I thought that's all this thread has ever been? The thread exists to contain all of this type of discussion to one location. It's not supposed to be productive, it's to get people's thoughts out there and to drive discussion.

I pop in here every now and then to say "Frantic Search is a safe unban", but it doesn't change what will or will not happen. I doubt the discussion I provide will drive many to change their mind either.

Please more unban frantic search.

Makehightide greatagain

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Essentially you can group Miracles/D&T/Eldrazi/Lands together as "ensure your opponent can't play the game".

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I've been saying this lately too. You don't want to give combo free rein, but it feels like the pendulum needs to swing back toward actually letting people cast and resolve spells sometimes.