Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ronald Deuce
Why? Genuinely curious, and not trying to ignite a shitstorm.
Julian quoted my thoughts really well. My main squeeze has been storm combo for years now, and as much as I love Probe for what it does for me I realize it's just unfun to play with perfect info every game. The card cuts off SO many lines of play because the opponent knows exactly what to play around. The "do I counter this" bluff is gone, the "does he have removal" is gone. The "can I jam, or do I need to disrupt" dance is totally thrown out the window. It allows decks than get an early edge to perfectly hold that edge (in delver decks) or know the coast is clear (in combo).
I would love a world where being better than your opponent matters more, but with probe it's impossible to outthink all but the most conviluted lines due to probe.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
I think it's safe to say the foil uncut sheet from Ixalan is legit. So it appears a few additional decks may get a probe-esque card. I forget the name, but it's a 2 mana artifact that reveals the opponent's hand and then Pithing Needles the target of your choice.
I plan on naming lots of fetch-lands with it on the play in Stompy. :wink:
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Even without the sheet, if someone just told me that card was going to be placed into Standard I would accept it. It's on the right delay to be pushed into a set late in development in response to something. There is a "Slam the barn after the horse bolted" mentality that Wizard's have and after all the shit that happened with vehicles I see this as coming in. I think they mentioned talking about putting Needle in as a way to solve issues before. As in emergency place Needle in Standard without printing it in a Standard legal set. Spyglass feels like it's just too legitimate not to be real.
Edit:
Needle talk is here.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ent-2017-06-13
Re: All B/R update speculation.
I was actually wondering the other day if the Vintage Mentor engine of:
4 Preordain
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Gush
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Dig Through Time
is objectively that much more powerful than the Grixis Delver engine of:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
if there's even a way to quantify the value of consistency vs. the value of raw power.
Still though I get the argument against Probe I just don't see the point of cutting it as I don't see it holding down decks and in fact there are some it may be propping up. While it soups up the power of Grixis Delver I don't think that we get 2-3 decks that emerge as players while that deck's numbers go down; we just see people flocking to the non-Probe decks that are already good if they feel that Probe was a must-have.
I would prefer if banlist updates were made with a goal of increasing the number of playable decks in the format. This was why I wish they had banned Counterbalance instead of SDT. Since the Top ban we still have a fringe-playable UW terminus deck, we've moved away from Abrupt Decay as must-have spell in every deck and rounds still go pretty long. All of those would've been accomplished with a ban on Counterbalance instead. But meanwhile Painter has practically disappeared and I catch myself thinking "I would make this deck if top was legal but since it isn't I'll just do something else" fairly often.
I don't think Legacy needs an update in two weeks but to the extent that it needs one I just don't want them to dance around the edges anymore. If the cantrip decks are sacred cows, do something to knock them down a peg (maybe ban 1-2 of the blue creatures that remove all incentive to play a different color) and unban a couple things that incentivize non-blue decks besides prison elements like Chalice and Thalia (Top would be best but that's not happening before 2019 so maybe Earthcraft or even Necro).
I guarantee that Probe won't feel like that big of a problem if you actually see different cards in their hand than the same old mix of cantrips, blue creatures, and counterspells more than 50% of the time. Likewise, when a turn 1 deathrite could mean more than "90% True-Name, 5% elf combo, 5% some poor soul on Jund" I don't think it would feel as "samey." Just my opinion.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Legacy is fine at the moment and has been more fun than I can remember in a long time. We've had to trudge through the last six years with Mental Misstep, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time and Sensei's Divining Top just pushing the format to levels of stagnancy and boredom to the point where I can imagine it pushed people away. If anything, I would expect an unban rather than a ban the next time a change occurs.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
I'd love to see Brainstorm banned. Ponder and Preordain and Probe would still provide a ton of search cantrip power, it would just all be at sorcery speed and you'd lose the ability to dodge discard and skip bad draws.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
OK, being real. Ancient Tomb is unfun? Ancient Tomb? Really? Why, because it let's you cast Eldrazi and Chalice?
I would give every single one of my opponents a free gitaxian probe every game if it meant I never had to play against a Tomb deck again. Chalice, resistors, SnT, etc, are all an order of magnitude more miserable than Probe. That being said, Tomb and Chalice don't need a ban either; I think their power level is about right, enjoyability of games aside (because that's subjective and not a great ban criteria).
Also, it feels like recently everyone has been hating all the decks I like :cry: Why does everyone hate cantrips so much? It seems like everyone who wants to get rid of them wants Magic to be more of a gamble: did I draw a good hand? did I bet on the right time to play my thing? Did they draw a bad hand?
Cards like cantrips mitigate the impact of those risks, which makes the game more skill intensive, not less - I'm not saying it's hard to resolve a brainstorm correctly, but rather that skilled magic happens when people get to try to make something work instead of just going "oh, I didn't draw a green source, so I guess I'm dead?"
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
I would give every single one of my opponents a free gitaxian probe every game if it meant I never had to play against a Tomb deck again. Chalice, resistors, SnT, etc, are all an order of magnitude more miserable than Probe. That being said, Tomb and Chalice don't need a ban either; I think their power level is about right, enjoyability of games aside (because that's subjective and not a great ban criteria).
Also, it feels like recently everyone has been hating all the decks I like :cry: Why does everyone hate cantrips so much? It seems like everyone who wants to get rid of them wants Magic to be more of a gamble: did I draw a good hand? did I bet on the right time to play my thing? Did they draw a bad hand?
People dislike having 8+ slots in their deck decided before they even get a chance to play cards that do something besides move other cards around. The cantrips are powerful enough on their own, but now there are so many cards that synergize with the ancillary effects of these cards (heavy U mana base, lots of cards in GY, casting many spells in a turn, having lots of instants/sorceries in your deck) that any innovation in deck building is confined to the fringes.
Related to your first point here, is that if you don't feel like playing such a deck, your only true alternative is to play a deck that explicitly targets the cantrip decks. That means Chalice/Thalia/Spheres etc. I played such a deck against a friend on storm the other day and annihilated him because I had t1 sphere in both games. That was equally as unfun for me as it was for the other player, but it's the only way I could play cards like Ramunap Excavator or Smuggler's Copter because those cards are total garbage if the other player gets to use their engine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
Cards like cantrips mitigate the impact of those risks, which makes the game more skill intensive, not less - I'm not saying it's hard to resolve a brainstorm correctly, but rather that skilled magic happens when people get to try to make something work instead of just going "oh, I didn't draw a green source, so I guess I'm dead?"
That gets to this point. The cantrip engine is so powerful that only people who play it get to "try to make something work." But even that "thing" you get to work is increasingly on rails because there are just strictly better cards out there. What is deckbuilding right now? You get your lands, cantrips, Forces of Will, pick a couple pieces of removal, pick a couple other pieces of disruption, pick a couple other threats that synergize with your Uxx manabase, fetches, and cantrips like TNN or Angler or Pyromancer. Then you play either pseudo-mirrors or binary matches where it comes down to whether or not you can get your cantrips in under their pressure pieces.
I'm not saying that those games can't be fun sometimes but so little variety in the play experience frustrates many players. I have long since given up on the idea that there will ever be a dent made in the cantrip engine, but maybe a new one can emerge that challenges its dominance and provides a different angle of attack on the format.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
People dislike having 8+ slots in their deck decided before they even get a chance to play cards that do something besides move other cards around. The cantrips are powerful enough on their own, but now there are so many cards that synergize with the ancillary effects of these cards (heavy U mana base, lots of cards in GY, casting many spells in a turn, having lots of instants/sorceries in your deck) that any innovation in deck building is confined to the fringes.
Related to your first point here, is that if you don't feel like playing such a deck, your only true alternative is to play a deck that explicitly targets the cantrip decks. That means Chalice/Thalia/Spheres etc. I played such a deck against a friend on storm the other day and annihilated him because I had t1 sphere in both games. That was equally as unfun for me as it was for the other player, but it's the only way I could play cards like Ramunap Excavator or Smuggler's Copter because those cards are total garbage if the other player gets to use their engine.
That gets to this point. The cantrip engine is so powerful that only people who play it get to "try to make something work." But even that "thing" you get to work is increasingly on rails because there are just strictly better cards out there. What is deckbuilding right now? You get your lands, cantrips, Forces of Will, pick a couple pieces of removal, pick a couple other pieces of disruption, pick a couple other threats that synergize with your Uxx manabase, fetches, and cantrips like TNN or Angler or Pyromancer. Then you play either pseudo-mirrors or binary matches where it comes down to whether or not you can get your cantrips in under their pressure pieces.
I'm not saying that those games can't be fun sometimes but so little variety in the play experience frustrates many players. I have long since given up on the idea that there will ever be a dent made in the cantrip engine, but maybe a new one can emerge that challenges its dominance and provides a different angle of attack on the format.
I'll just quote this whole post as my thoughts on the topic. Cantrips are so much better than doing most anything else in the format that it pushes everyone (70%?) To play them which leads to me playing the same game and the same play patterns over and over every match which gets boring. Every game against delver is turn 1 threat, turn 2 cast cantrip to find removal. Use removal. Next turn wasteland while keeping up protection while attacking. It's just not interesting anymore.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
I'll just say this (again): Brainstorm before Probe (and perhaps then also Probe)... nuff said.. hypocrites continue with the discussion.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
At least cantrips let you cast your spells...Cotv on the other hand. :cry:
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Thresh84
At least cantrips let you cast your spells...Cotv on the other hand. :cry:
Don't homogenize your deck list with all CMC 1 spells and then cry about a single card that poops on you.
You can still cast your spells, though.
for the record: ban just brainstorm (it's not a cantrip hatred, just brainstorm) but also unban several cards.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Thresh84
At least cantrips let you cast your spells...Cotv on the other hand. :cry:
T1 threat (DRS/Delver/Goose) then cantrip into flip+disruption is equally as backbreaking as T1 chalice, if not more.
Sticking a T1 chalice against any blue deck is also borderline impossible, as the average stompy/mud list has 25-35% chance to be able to make that play with their opening 7. Delver decks, on the other hand, have a T0 40% chance to have an active Force of Will on the draw, and 70%+ chance to have protection in your T1 (fow/daze/pierce) if they are on the play.
T1 Land, Delver, pass .
T1 Tomb (unfun card :confused:), Chalice (unfair card :confused:), resp force of will.
T2 Delver flips, swings for 3, ponder, wasteland on tomb, pass.
Now what? Restarting the game with no board, 75% of your hp and a 5-turns flying clock sitting on their side looks like a very grim perspective to me, no matter how unfun and unfair are the cards I play.
This metagame is showing very well how power level can be beaten by consistent, fluent and synergic light threats backed up with disruption. Cantrips like gitaxian probe are exactly what you need to be consistent and fluid. It's not like probe wins you games in a direct way like Show and Tell (or...chalice?) does, but you know... Probe can find you outs to their threats, tells you with certainty what your gameplan will be, triggers those prowess creatures for some extra damage, and all these "tiny advantages" are way more consistent than opening your 7 praying for that ridicoulous chance of sticking a t1 chalice to happen.
Targetting the Stompy/MUD'ish side of the metagame with the next B/R would be a poor move imho.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
People dislike having 8+ slots in their deck decided before they even get a chance to play cards that do something besides move other cards around. The cantrips are powerful enough on their own, but now there are so many cards that synergize with the ancillary effects of these cards (heavy U mana base, lots of cards in GY, casting many spells in a turn, having lots of instants/sorceries in your deck) that any innovation in deck building is confined to the fringes.
The fact of the matter is that Turbo Xerox is objectively the best way to build a Magic deck, and it's only really been in the last 2-3 years that people across formats have really embraced it. In every non-rotating format, the recipe for the best deck is to play the maximum number of cantrips that can be fit into a deck without compromising its core functionality, and then play the threats that best synergize with the cantrips. In other words, if there's a problem with Modern, it's at least as much with Street Wraith as Death's Shadow, and the same is true with Mentor and the Dack/Preordain/restricted cards engine in Vintage (Mentor in Vintage is uniquely egregious among Xerox threats in that it also triggers off of your manabase). To eliminate (or even cause significant reduction of) Turbo Xerox decks from Legacy would require banning not just Brainstorm and Ponder, but at least Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions, and Preordain too. You can say 'but that will put non-Xerox decks on the same/similar level as the Xerox decks', but I strongly suspect that you'd be wrong. D&T would get better, but it's not clear by how much since its easiest prey will have been significantly nerfed. The other meta-predator decks like Eldrazi still suffer from all the same problems of inconsistency, and a marginally less efficient format makes Chalice worse and blocking with Baleful Strix (also a cantrip) better. Lands likely oscillates between better and worse than it is now since less powerful cantrips mean that sideboards would have to become more focused, and the people who bring hate will really be meaning it. You could cut back to a cantrip concentration below Modern's, but how wise is it to ban 6-10 cards to rein in a super-macro strategy that isn't in and of itself harmful to competitive Magic and would likely climb back to the top as soon as the best replacement cantrips were identified?
All that said, Probe is unique. It's probably not bring played enough as is, especially in nonblue decks. It's something of a crutch to weaker players, but even good players gain a significant edge from perfect information, and as with Mental Misstep, being able to do it for free is likely the dealbreaker. I don't think it makes any one deck too good, and it's not ubiquitous, but I wouldn't mind nipping it in the bud before it becomes the problem it should be.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Maharis, I fear that some of your concerns are related more to the nature of Legacy as a format than they are to cantrips in general - with such a huge card pool and so many eyes over so many years, the things that are good are going to be hard to unseat because any new interaction entering the format has to compete with 25 years of development mistakes. Legacy has a lot of cards to brew with, sure, but very few are powerful enough to make the cut. If you want to play cards like Ramunap Excavator or Smuggler's Copter, are you sure this is the right format for it? It feels like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole; even if you ban cantrips, there are plenty of other interactions that are crazy enough that it might still not be enough to allow Standard cards to shine. There are plenty of formats where you can just jam duders and bump them into one another; can we please leave legacy the format where you can do cool things outside of the combat step?
I also still don't buy the "all cantrip decks are fundamentally similar enough that the play style is stale" argument - just from the DTB, Storm, Grixis Delver, SnT, and Miracles all play brainstorm and ponder, but I wouldn't consider a match between any disparate pair "psuedo-mirrors." They have wildly different textures and play approaches. I think the "binary" games come from cards like Trinisphere or Chalice, where it's just a gamble: "did I draw my anti-magic rock and cast it? Great, now I can hit him in the face with whatever goofy mans I want!" Again, I don't think it's bannable, but I still haven't seen a convincing argument that includes both, "the card I want banned is unfun" and "chalice is great, entertaining, skill-based magic!"
Mega, I'd just like to ask again, what does your ideal Legacy game look like? I find delver games to be challenging and interesting, because they have to make good evaluations and work on relatively few resources, and I (as the Storm player) have to find my spot to make a move and solve the puzzle while dealing with almost every kind of disruption plus a decent clock. I feel like any deck can be made to sound boring if described in a certain way: "oh they just gamble for loam, dredge it a bunch, make a twenty twenty" "oh they just play a mom, play a goof, play a knight of the reliquary and waste you a bunch while coming in with duders" "all miracles players ever do [did] is just spin top every ten seconds for thirty seconds" (the exception here is sneak and show; that deck is dumb and boring :tongue: )
Cave, then why play stompy at all? sounds like nobody's having fun - either you cheese them with the chalice because they didn't have force this time, or you get ranched because they had it and now the colorless pile doesn't do anything.
The probe discussion baffles me, too - I'm tired of everyone saying that it's a purely low-skill, monotonically positive deck addition. Yes, you get information about the opponent's hand. Then they get draw steps and it's not perfect anymore. Yes, your deck "feels" thinner because you can cycle four of the cards for very little. But now your mulligan decisions are more challenging because it's not always clear what you'll have (do I keep the one-lander with two probe?). Nobody ever says, "thoughtseize is a low-skill level card," even though it not only lets you see your opponent's hand, but take the best card from it. I've seen plenty of players thoughtseize me on ANT and take a card that is super wrong, and then get killed by me next turn - perfect information is only as good as your ability to play with/around it, and I think that all of the aspects of probe people are citing are obviously very good, but overstated.
(this last point is kinda whiny, but it is one of the things that weirds me out the most about this discussion)
Finally, and I realize this is just subjective, but I feel like it literally does nothing to you when someone cantrips - like, I get sad when someone just gets lucky and dumps something dumb like tomb > chalice or Show > griselbrand on me; you know, something that makes me lose/unable to play. But a lot of people here seem to be sad when people...spend their mana to find a land? I don't understand why people hate something so much that just...doesn't affect them, even in game.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
btm10
The fact of the matter is that Turbo Xerox is objectively the best way to build a Magic deck, and it's only really been in the last 2-3 years that people across formats have really embraced it. In every non-rotating format, the recipe for the best deck is to play the maximum number of cantrips that can be fit into a deck without compromising its core functionality, and then play the threats that best synergize with the cantrips. In other words, if there's a problem with Modern, it's at least as much with Street Wraith as Death's Shadow, and the same is true with Mentor and the Dack/Preordain/restricted cards engine in Vintage (Mentor in Vintage is uniquely egregious among Xerox threats in that it also triggers off of your manabase). To eliminate (or even cause significant reduction of) Turbo Xerox decks from Legacy would require banning not just Brainstorm and Ponder, but at least Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions, and Preordain too. You can say 'but that will put non-Xerox decks on the same/similar level as the Xerox decks', but I strongly suspect that you'd be wrong. D&T would get better, but it's not clear by how much since its easiest prey will have been significantly nerfed. The other meta-predator decks like Eldrazi still suffer from all the same problems of inconsistency, and a marginally less efficient format makes Chalice worse and blocking with Baleful Strix (also a cantrip) better. Lands likely oscillates between better and worse than it is now since less powerful cantrips mean that sideboards would have to become more focused, and the people who bring hate will really be meaning it. You could cut back to a cantrip concentration below Modern's, but how wise is it to ban 6-10 cards to rein in a super-macro strategy that isn't in and of itself harmful to competitive Magic and would likely climb back to the top as soon as the best replacement cantrips were identified?
All that said, Probe is unique. It's probably not bring played enough as is, especially in nonblue decks. It's something of a crutch to weaker players, but even good players gain a significant edge from perfect information, and as with Mental Misstep, being able to do it for free is likely the dealbreaker. I don't think it makes any one deck too good, and it's not ubiquitous, but I wouldn't mind nipping it in the bud before it becomes the problem it should be.
I agree with these concepts. I'm not advocating a ban of any cantrips, or really any card, right now. I do think the format would be more interesting that it is already if it wasn't polarized around the cantrips, and if people are dissatisfied with the game play, I think that has to be addressed.
I think Rich Shay's excellent post (about vintage) is good for this discussion as well. If the cantrips are to be preserved, it's time to start taking a look at the top ends.
http://themanadrain.com/topic/1360/t...nastery-mentor
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
Maharis, I fear that some of your concerns are related more to the nature of Legacy as a format than they are to cantrips in general - with such a huge card pool and so many eyes over so many years, the things that are good are going to be hard to unseat because any new interaction entering the format has to compete with 25 years of development mistakes. Legacy has a lot of cards to brew with, sure, but very few are powerful enough to make the cut. If you want to play cards like Ramunap Excavator or Smuggler's Copter, are you sure this is the right format for it? It feels like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole; even if you ban cantrips, there are plenty of other interactions that are crazy enough that it might still not be enough to allow Standard cards to shine. There are plenty of formats where you can just jam duders and bump them into one another; can we please leave legacy the format where you can do cool things outside of the combat step?
Because I want to play those cards with Wasteland and Mox Diamond. Also if you think Legacy or Magic isn't completely about the combat step you are heavily mistaken. Wasn't Goblins the best deck in the format for like a decade?
I did mention how the misguided ban of Top got rid of a unique non-combat-step interaction but I guess I'm just too dumb to understand this format.
This sounds a little like "I should be allowed to play the Magic I want but you shouldn't" and I don't want my response to sound the same. But the fact is that this huge card pool should be more rewarding to people who find cool interactions outside "derr i can play a bunch of brainstorms and make tokens/delve them/build storm." To reiterate, I'm only pointing out the truth of what impacts the Legacy metagame. Not really calling for any bans. But if there is a problem with stagnation in the format, it's because the cantrip engine is narrowing deck design space and the barrier for entry for any card that requires two non-blue mana is insanely high. There are a number of approaches that could change that texture but you have to reckon with the fact that this particular engine is too dominant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
I also still don't buy the "all cantrip decks are fundamentally similar enough that the play style is stale" argument - just from the DTB, Storm, Grixis Delver, SnT, and Miracles all play brainstorm and ponder, but I wouldn't consider a match between any disparate pair "psuedo-mirrors." They have wildly different textures and play approaches.
Because they all have the same weaknesses in that they lean on the cantrips to cheat on mana and total number of win conditions. Pyroblast is good in almost all these matchups. Flusterstorm the same. Just a narrowing of what cards are good because of the polarization of the format which leads to:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
I think the "binary" games come from cards like Trinisphere or Chalice, where it's just a gamble: "did I draw my anti-magic rock and cast it? Great, now I can hit him in the face with whatever goofy mans I want!" Again, I don't think it's bannable, but I still haven't seen a convincing argument that includes both, "the card I want banned is unfun" and "chalice is great, entertaining, skill-based magic!"
Right. And truth be told it's not always fun to have to prop your brew up with Chalice which narrows the number of cards you can play and introduces variance. However its necessary because trying to eke out consistency in the format without playing cantrips is a losing proposition. The call is coming from inside the house. Either the cantrip engine has to be weakened or you have to deal with some amount of unfun non-games.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
Finally, and I realize this is just subjective, but I feel like it literally does nothing to you when someone cantrips - like, I get sad when someone just gets lucky and dumps something dumb like tomb > chalice or Show > griselbrand on me; you know, something that makes me lose/unable to play. But a lot of people here seem to be sad when people...spend their mana to find a land? I don't understand why people hate something so much that just...doesn't affect them, even in game.
Again, this has to do with what YOU like to do but this game is for more than just you. Some people like mana denial and cantrips laugh at that. Some people like ramp and cantrips help close the game out before they get their thing online. Some people like to explore the breadth of possibilities in this format but the efficiency of the cantrip engine makes that a non-starter.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
I agree with these concepts. I'm not advocating a ban of any cantrips, or really any card, right now. I do think the format would be more interesting that it is already if it wasn't polarized around the cantrips, and if people are dissatisfied with the game play, I think that has to be addressed.
I fear that, without the cantrips, decks that rely on cool interactions between two cards will just be worse than, say, playing a bunch of efficient dudes and removal spells a la Czech Pile. Not that there's anything wrong with Czech Pile, it's a good deck with good cards; I just think it's not especially interesting (dudes plus removal is essentially what limited is about, so I play Draft when I want these kinds of games).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
This looks interesting, I'll check it out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
Because I want to play those cards with Wasteland and Mox Diamond. Also if you think Legacy or Magic isn't completely about the combat step you are heavily mistaken. Wasn't Goblins the best deck in the format for like a decade?
I did mention how the misguided ban of Top got rid of a unique non-combat-step interaction but I guess I'm just too dumb to understand this format.
I didn't mean to imply that you were dumb, I actually think you have a sophisticated perspective at this and I sympathize with many of your points (in fact I think we are both in the ultimate position of "nothing really needs to be banned when it comes down to brass tacks").
Yes, Magic is definitely about the combat step, but it doesn't have to be, and Legacy is one of the few places you can still choose to look other places for your fun. Sometimes they print interesting things into standard (paradox engine and aetherflux reservoir seem to have storm written all over them), but they're just never good enough to be worth playing. In Legacy, you can sleeve up a 75 that includes actual zero creatures, and that's something that appeals to me personally, and part of that comes from the flexibility and power of the consistency engines available. Awesomely, you can also play decks with dudes! I lost to Maverick last week, and it's not unreasonable to show up with that 75. I think this is a boon for legacy, and I think cracking down on engines like the cantrips will diminish that characteristic rather than strengthen it.
To wit, I agree with like 90% of this here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
This sounds a little like "I should be allowed to play the Magic I want but you shouldn't" and I don't want my response to sound the same. But the fact is that this huge card pool should be more rewarding to people who find cool interactions outside "derr i can play a bunch of brainstorms and make tokens/delve them/build storm." To reiterate, I'm only pointing out the truth of what impacts the Legacy metagame. Not really calling for any bans. But if there is a problem with stagnation in the format, it's because the cantrip engine is narrowing deck design space and the barrier for entry for any card that requires two non-blue mana is insanely high. There are a number of approaches that could change that texture but you have to reckon with the fact that this particular engine is too dominant.
I want people to be able to play what they want, and I feel that, largely, they do. I think we're mostly on the same page here, with the exception of "too dominant" (though I definitely agree the cantrip suite is objectively very, very powerful).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
Right. And truth be told it's not always fun to have to prop your brew up with Chalice which narrows the number of cards you can play and introduces variance. However its necessary because trying to eke out consistency in the format without playing cantrips is a losing proposition. The call is coming from inside the house. Either the cantrip engine has to be weakened or you have to deal with some amount of unfun non-games.
I'm not sure I follow this one - I personally think the un-fun games come from binary lock pieces or overwhelming advantages like cheating in a griselbrand, neither of which the cantrips do - if chalice, trinisphere, et al did not exist, I believe there would be more interactive magic, not less (however, I do concede it would be largely cantrip-based). It's possible I'm missing your point though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
Again, this has to do with what YOU like to do but this game is for more than just you. Some people like mana denial and cantrips laugh at that. Some people like ramp and cantrips help close the game out before they get their thing online. Some people like to explore the breadth of possibilities in this format but the efficiency of the cantrip engine makes that a non-starter.
I've never really played a deck (other than dredge) that didn't play cantrips, and I've definitely lost plenty of games to mana denial, cloudpost decks, and brews. I think some of the tension, here, too, is the internal conflict players have between wanting to play something they like and wanting to win. Here, I sympathize; that tension, basically, is why I don't play modern. Ultimately, all I'm getting at is that I think Legacy is relatively healthy at the moment (and I thought it was before the top banning, too). The kind of thing that warrants a ban is a printing like treasure cruise, not probe or ancient tomb.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
I'm not sure I follow this one - I personally think the un-fun games come from binary lock pieces or overwhelming advantages like cheating in a griselbrand, neither of which the cantrips do - if chalice, trinisphere, et al did not exist, I believe there would be more interactive magic, not less (however, I do concede it would be largely cantrip-based). It's possible I'm missing your point though.
The problem with cantrips is that they aren't really interactive. Unless you're also playing blue, they promote less interaction. Why? Blue is pretty much the only color that can interact with them via counters, with other colors having a few odd outs like REB/Pyroblast (and unplayable garbage like Guttural Response). The other way is to prevent them from playing cantrips, either via tax effects, blocking them all together via Chalice/Sanctum Prelate or cutting off the draw effect with Chains (meh), Spirit of the Labyrinth (meh), Notion Thief (expensive, also blue) and Leovold (also blue).
Blue still hogging all the stack interaction is a major design flaw of Magic and I doubt it's going to get better anytime soon.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
Cave, then why play stompy at all? sounds like nobody's having fun - either you cheese them with the chalice because they didn't have force this time, or you get ranched because they had it and now the colorless pile doesn't do anything.
I'm a bad person, I actually like the idea of taking away half of your deck with one single spell, and then overwhelm you with totally asymmetric big bad monsters. :laugh:
I don't really think chalice is unfun and unfair, there are plenty of ways to get around it or remove it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
taconaut
the colorless pile doesn't do anything.
Maybe I was exaggerating, let me restate it. The colorless pile either does plenty of good stuff or sometimes does nothing, depending on how well you draw. In a card-based game, that's called luck.
Delver decks, on the other hand do less good stuff, but they do it every time, because they always get their T1 drop and then they keep cantripping into what they need.
I'm still fine with this, I like my delver matchup and everything, it's just that sometimes they get to play the delver game where they basically swing Delver 7 times and you play nothing because they always cantrip into that perfect daze, that perfect wasteland and that perfect removal. My point is, playing against this is not funnier than Tomb->CotV@1->go.
Imagine if my deck could somehow cantrip into T2 TKS/T3 Smasher every game, with daze backup.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
it takes a lot longer for the 1cc creatures to replace current 1cc creatures in legacy decks now. over time, the 2/3/4cc creatures are more likely to get better and better and it can give midrange decks a chance. the tricky part for legacy is all of the decks that ignore the battlefield which makes it very hard for the 2/3/4cc style decks to do anything (outside of chalice and other prison strategies).
i'm happy to have the delver decks become so prevalent because those are the decks that let other players continue playing creature magic.
