All B/R update speculation.

Nonblue decks can replace DRS . Sure, none are as good but nonblue decks are hit much less by a DRS ban than blue decks are. Maverick / elves have drop in replacements with Noble Hierarch / Llanowar Elves / Birds of Paradise. Blue decks have nothing to replace him with. And blue decks shouldn't get a mana dork off of underground sea.

Before you cry about the role of grave hate that DRS gives fair decks, I will remind you the graveyard is still the most hated area in all of magic. Leyline, Surgical, and Faerie exist for turn 0 interaction. Mana dork turn 1 into Scooze turn 2 provides the same speed that Deathrite would have (albeit vulnerable to a Thoughtseize...but not a big deal IMO). Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus still exist. The list goes on.

People might even be tempted to dust off their Goblin Lackeys.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

Nonblue decks can replace DRS . Sure, none are as good but nonblue decks are hit much less by a DRS ban than blue decks are. Maverick / elves have drop in replacements with Noble Hierarch / Llanowar Elves / Birds of Paradise. Blue decks have nothing to replace him with. And blue decks shouldn't get a mana dork off of underground sea.

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That doesn't matter. BOP/Hierarch are substantially worse than DRS and the threats that the decks that would play them instead ramp into are worse than the morass of OP blue creatures.

U Sea decks replace DRS with Thoughtseize/Fatal Push and just use those turn 1 to rip apart whatever plan their opponents are on before casting their threats on curve. Strix is still better than Bob. TNN is still better than Knight. Leovold is still better than Renegade Rallier. Snap still better than EWit. Shardless > BBE and so forth.

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Originally Posted by Barook

But that's exactly why I posted this because the arguement is flawed, in the same way "SDT mustn't be banned because it also helps non-blue fringe deck that make up like less than 1% of the total meta while Miracles dominates with it 3 years straight!" was. DRS is mainly abused by blue decks. What non-blue decks are left after that? Elves, and a few fringe decks like Maverick, Jund and Nic Fit.

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The argument wasn't flawed. The card was banned and there is still a UW terminus/mentor control deck. Meanwhile Painter is nowhere to be seen. Nic Fit lost a terrible matchup and still didn't rise up.

I'm happy to see it banned at some point but now is not the right time. Banning it won't make the U decks any worse relatively speaking. When no one has access to it any non-U deck that wanted to play it will be weakened as well and the relative strength of those decks will still be too low.

http://i.imgur.com/CbzcGwv.jpg

Dare to dream lads.


Source

Fake, there's no Survival is unbanned and will suck (well maybe not as much without grizzly and probe).

Funny how legacy has actually become a "ban everything but the blue cantrip that can't be named" nowadays. It was parody before, but it's now actually true. Like, you could've toned down miracles, SnT-Reanimator (Aka grizzly) AND grixis tempo all in one move, instead we got a SDT ban and we may get a probe and DRS ban next because surprise surprise, drawing 3 is pretty good.

At this point i fully expect fetchlands to be banned before that which can't be named.

EDIT: also i was saying ages ago that a SDT ban was wrong cause it would've made the generic blue tempo shell too good, reducing diversity considerably. And lo-and-behold, grixis is now 20% of the online meta, higher than miracle (which floated at about 15-20%, despite being higher in terms of T8 representations), and grixis with leovold that can activate DRS life gain ability is at 15%, making the aggregate 35%, and the rest of the top decks are storm and grixis green without red.
Miracle also forced a lot of deck to play fair, see AD which meant tempo grixis was simply not good enough and had to either play shitty mana bases, forgoe red or actually have a bad MU. Without BS, the deck would've lost the instant sweeper and multiple miracles aspect, making going wide viable vs it, while still forcing extreme tempo and combo lists to be fairer. Miracle was decisively too good, but had a good effect on the format. Instead now we got turbo-modern.

No Mentor restriction and no Gush unrestriction? Unreasonable. Oh and a lack of Survival makes me sad. Also, nedleeds, you disappoint me, no Brainstorm?

Also i heard that basically everyone agreed that mentor has to be restricted, instead i see even more shop hate?

Needless not putting BS there is because he acknowledge the fact that it simply can't be banned nowadays. Also, banning BS without SDT around is risky because of non-SnT combo. You'd either have to ban one between petal and probe or unban SDT.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Also, nedleeds, you disappoint me, no Brainstorm?

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Any chance you'll unban Nedleeds in the next B&R announcment on Monday? :smile::tongue:

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

D&T is DTB.

So I would say the fair deck choices are Delver, Blue Midrange, and D&T.
This is actually better options than combo or hard-control players have, especially considering how different UR Prowess is to Grixis Delvet; and UW Stoneblade is to Czech Pile..

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How do you define better in the this context? Combo players have Storm, S&T, MonoR and Turbo Depths.

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Originally Posted by MorphBerlin

How do you define better in the this context? Combo players have Storm, S&T, MonoR and Turbo Depths.

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In the sense of arithmetic. 5>4?

• D&T
• UR Prowess
• Grixis Delver
• UW Stoneblade
• Czeck Pile

I'm not even including Pyro Control, Team America, or Deathblade, simply to avoid the argument that they are too similar to other decks listed.

Also, while mono :r: prison seems to be a good deck, it's not combo. Is mono :r: Sneak Attack actually getting results?

Either way, if anybody who complains the format needs more fair deck options but stays silent about other play-styles is clearly biased. Me I like to play hard control little or no aggression. I have exactly 2 choices.

Well in you post you cited 3 fair decks so I was thinking combo would be ahead. :tongue: Also I forgot Turbo depths

While MonoR is “prison“ not combo to me it is in the unfair category. Basically it tries to win by landing a T1/T2 lockpiece and what nonsese they play afterwards doenst matter (this is why people like the deck so they can win with their glorybringers in legacy.) It's a deck where FoW is you best friend, which makes it more similar to eg BR Reanimator than any fair deck

Edit: UR Powess and Grixis delver is also not really diffent though and Stoneblade is not competitive. I think the balance between fair and unfair decks is fine atm. The fair ones are slightly ahead but thats howbit should be in my opinion. Only hard control is kind of underrepresented as new Miracles is not very present. I think a DRS ban would shift the meta towards combo to much for my liking. BS ban would be even worse

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Originally Posted by MorphBerlin

Well in you post you cited 3 fair decks so I was thinking combo would be ahead. :tongue:

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I listed all 5 of those decks in the text you quoted.

I'm willing to accept a definition of 'fair' that doesn't include prison or hard control. But I don't think we should lump them in with combo decks.

Right, I edited my post.

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Originally Posted by maharis

That doesn't matter. BOP/Hierarch are substantially worse than DRS and the threats that the decks that would play them instead ramp into are worse than the morass of OP blue creatures.

U Sea decks replace DRS with Thoughtseize/Fatal Push and just use those turn 1 to rip apart whatever plan their opponents are on before casting their threats on curve. Strix is still better than Bob. TNN is still better than Knight. Leovold is still better than Renegade Rallier. Snap still better than EWit. Shardless > BBE and so forth.

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Of course they are worse. But the key is to not give blue decks that are unwilling to play green the opportunity to ramp into their dudes. If they want to play Thoughtseize instead that is fine - at least they'll have to wait until turn 3 to slam true name or pyromancer + therapy.

So, here's a potentially off the wall suggestion.

When Mystical Tutor was banned, there was a good amount of fuss and complaint that the card didn't need to be banned, largely helped in how badly written the banning explanation was. However, over time complaints waned considerably, apparently in large part because of how good Miracles became and the belief that Mystical Tutor would put it even more over the top.

With Sensei's Divining Top banned and the Miracle mechanic weakened as a result, is there any consideration of a Mystical Tutor unban?

Super good idea, playing against 8 not 4 show and tells sounds super fun.

Yeah, not to mention Storm in general, or Mystical into x (L. Souls, Therapy, etc), Predict naming x, Snapcaster on x later.

No, it was a good ban, and would be only slightly less stupid than the Flash unban was.

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Just what blue decks need! More consistency!

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

Yeah, not to mention Storm in general, or Mystical into x (L. Souls, Therapy, etc), Predict naming x, Snapcaster on x later.

No, it was a good ban, and would be only slightly less stupid than the Flash unban was.

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This.

Not to mention the stupidity of on-demand Miracles. :mad:

Why entreating the angels when you can hire them for one mana?
If any unfair deck needs to be empowered, i'd really like Frantic Search to be unbanned. High Tide is a fun mechanic (at least for the deck's owner) and going off turn 3 would make it as fast as the other combo decks in the format.

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Originally Posted by Gheizen64

grixis green without red.

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What ok earth is this supposed to mean:laugh: Grixis green without red is BUG then in my logic