How healthy is the format?

Take a look at this.
SCG Boston Top 16

Looking at the results of the event, we have:

6 Natural Order RUG
7 U/w/x "Stoneblade"
1 Reanimator
1 Zoo
1 Zoo/Loam (?)

More importantly, we also have:

14 out of 16 are blue decks with counterspells.
15 out of 16 ran some number of Mental Mistep.
13 out of 16 ran Force of Will.

I feel like legacy isn't particularly fun right now. I loved the pre-MM format where you could play whatever you wanted and have a shot with it. Top 8's for events would vary wildly from week to week.

To quote mrfridays on twitter, "According to the Top 16 of #SCGBOS, this Legacy format is about as healthy as a homeless man with open sores coughing up blood in your face."

What do you guys think about all this? How do you feel about the state of the format?

I noticed this as well earlier today and I thought about posting this as well. As I see it, the Legacy metagame is becoming a real metagame for the first time since I started playing again two years ago and from what I have read about the older days, it seems Legacy was almost always very open. I mean, take a look at the DTB forum, there's eight different decks that are considered to be the most important ones. In other formats there are hardly that many decks at all.
Before, whenever something was dominant, there was only one deck that was dominant (Flash, Survival). Now there are two decks emerging as being very strong. Personally, I like how the format changed since Mental Misstep, but I also think that more strong decks will be found within the next few months. The format has become much more serious and the games are overall more challenging.

What's also very interesting is how close most of the lists actually are, decks seem to be much more tuned these days - or people are just lazy and copy decklists that have been successful.

And by the way, the deck that's labelled Bant Stoneblade is a typical Bant Aggro list. Still, only six distinct archetypes in a Top 16 is very few. Usually we have this much in Top 8 already. However, I would still not go to a Legacy tournament with a deck that's designed to beat a certain set of decks. It's still very important to have a strong proactive gameplan if you want to win in Legacy. Jace, Stoneforge Mystic and Natural Order just seem to be the strongest cards right now, but I'm kinda surprised that there's only one Knight Of The Reliquary deck as these have actually been quite good in my testing as well.
Maybe this goes along with another trend I noticed lately: Few decks are running the full set of Wastelands anymore. I think this is reasonable. Manabases have become much stronger and more solid recently. People aren't running four colour manabases with 20 lands and no manafixing anymore. If you can't make sure to hit multiple Wastelands in a row, I don't recommend playing them at all right now as they hardly win games just on their own anymore.

It'll be healthy again when they ban misstep, but for now I can't really stand Legacy.

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

It'll be healthy again when they ban misstep, but for now I can't really stand Legacy.

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Amen to this. Pre-Misstep Legacy was arguably the most diverse format in the history of MTG, and it was a lot of fun. Now it's a couple different blue decks with the same basic shell, zoo, and the occasional token combo deck built into the same blue shell. Compared to pre-misstep, where it was a number of different blue decks, 10+ different random combo and rogue decks, and all sorts of different aggro and midrange lists.

Misstep has pushed a huge number of decks back into the shadows - some haven't outright died, but are now only viable for extremely skilled players (see TES). The hardest hit decks include Goblins, Enchantress, Tempo Thresh, Counter-top (although that was pretty much dead anyway), Junk, Eva Green, Storm combo, High Tide, etc. There are plenty more. Of course, somebody will come out and say, "No n00b those decks are still viable you just suck," and maybe they are - but if they are, they aren't being played and/or aren't winning.

Blue was already the best color in Legacy pre-Misstep, but you could still compete with other decks. Now, you either play one of the blue DTBs, or you play a deck specifically designed to shit on blue (Zoo, Manaless Dredge, Hive Mind). Otherwise, you lose - simple as that.

Mental Misstep has fully lived up to all my expectations. Oh, how sweet the irony of that card's name is.

@ all of you "oh my god, we have a defined metagame"-people: That's how a well-defined format looks like. Deal with it.
You couldn't play each and every deck before if you wanted to win and this didn't change.
If this means that you can't play your favorite petdeck/-card anymore, I feel you - I'd really like to be able to play Gifts again, but there seems to be no format where it's viable except Vintage (and I'm not able to shell out ~8k for P9, but that's a different topic).

Now all we have to do is man up and beat NO RUG + SFM-based Control.

I do agree with most of the post, Legacy was at its best post-Survival ban/pre-Mental Misstep era.

Its funny how everyone was saying that Mental Misstep would help non-blue decks deal against combo but in reality, it only helped blue decks.

It feels like Legacy is becoming Standard in a sense that the top competitive decks have decreased in numbers and only those decks become viable.

Back in the mentioned era above, every week was a different top8. Yes, sideboarding was harder but the format itself was more amusing.

I guess the only good thing about the current meta is that all the staples you need will be the same. I mean Both NO RUG and Stoneblade decks share almost half of its cardbase. Though the format has had its moment of "go blue or go home", that scenario hasn't been cemented until now.

Anyhow this seems to be an american problem. Everyone likes to join the bus instead of doing something against it ;)

For reference: German Legacy "Nationals" ~180 Players.
Top8: Maverick 2x, Hivemind, DDFT, Team America/Eva Green not sure what to call it Tempo thing ;), Sneak Show, UBG "Landstill", RUG without NO.

So out of 8:
2times Stoneforge,
3 times Misstep, one in side
5 times counterspells

Won by Maverick.

The SCG results show that if your Legacy deck is not blue or if it is not running either Stoneforge Mystic or Natural Order, you are doing it wrong.

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Originally Posted by daPaule

Anyhow this seems to be an american problem. Everyone likes to join the bus instead of doing something against it ;)

For reference: German Legacy "Nationals" ~180 Players.
Top8: Maverick 2x, Hivemind, DDFT, Team America/Eva Green not sure what to call it Tempo thing ;), Sneak Show, UBG "Landstill", RUG without NO.

So out of 8:
2times Stoneforge,
3 times Misstep, one in side
5 times counterspells

Won by Maverick.

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The European metagame adjusts to shifts more slowly than the American. NO RUG and Esper Stoneblade basically take a shit on every deck in that top eight (except Stoneblade vs. Maverick and maybe RUG vs. Storm).

This is a twitter from me made 20 June

@mtgaaron Thank you for fixing standard, but I fear you have banned all nonblue decks from Legacy for three months. :(
20 Jun

The problem card is still Force of Will, because it's a timewalk that you can't do anything to avoid, except not playing spells (hello, dredge at DTB). Printing MM which is Force of Will v2.0 just made the issue with "Free counter-based tempo boosts" even more apparent, by giving an huge push to the already best strategy in the format.

It's no strange that the decks (ab)using free countermagic are tempo based strategies and combo decks. FoW, Daze and other free countermagic are combo/tempo's best friends because they accelerate the turn you can go off as it provides protection without having to leave mana open. In the case of combo decks also act as master bullets that kill the really few cards in the opponent's deck that could stop them. Games are won or lost not depending on the die roll, but on how many free countermagic you happen to draw.

8 free counterspells used aggresively provide the same kind of tempo acceleration than 4 moxes and 4 lotus petal, but at the expense of the opponent's turns. Plus it gives the illusion of a longer game, so it evades DCI's policy of banning decks that reliably kill in two turns.
The problem is not in that they are counterspells, but in that they are free. Normal counterspells have a tempo cost that is being side-stepped here, allowing them to be used aggresively by tempo and combo decks. Note how these decks are far more succesful than control decks playing the same cards, that's because they are playing the card "right".

The meta can't adapt because there's barely NOTHING that meddles with the gameplan of these blue decks, except playing blue yourself, or not casting spells. Because there are no "shield-down" moments, you can't take down the shield with spells designed with that purpose, as they get countered themselves, totally missing the point. The best answer is Aether Vial, and note how prevalent it is in that Top 16.

Thereby, I twitted the following:

@TomLaPilleMagic @maro254 Could you design a green "blue-hoser" that doesn't suck? Take a look at blue "blue-hosers" for inspiration.

Here is TomLaPille's reply:

TomLaPilleMagic Tom LaPille
I suggest Great Sable Stag or Thrun, the Last Troll

Does this make sense? putting Great Sable Stag in your deck to hose blue decks is like putting Lhurgoyf in your deck to hose Graveyard-based strategies. Like putting White Knight in your deck to fight Necropotence decks. It fights the wrong battle.

So I replied:

@TomLaPilleMagic They don't work, hosers should meddle with the opponent's gameplan. Thrun and GSS are just efficient lategame creatures.

And he replied me again:

I know a few Mistbind Cliques that would beg to differ with you about Great Sable Stag.

Well, I appreciate a lot that he took the time to reply, but it looks like he gave an answer for an entirely different problem, so I don't know what else to do except waiting for september's banning.

Legacy is fine.

People were bitching and complaining when Aether Vial was blowing out people in Aggro decks like Merfolk and Goblins. Now that Misstep is here, people are complaining it is warping the format. It isn't 'warping' anything, folks; it's a product of a lack of creativity. There is a huge influx of new players running brews they see listed on Star City's website or by word of mouth from friends, and those folks just pick those decks up and run with them. Legacy is at an all-time low as it pertains to its 'creative' aspect, which is why you see the same decks like NO Rug, Hive Mind, etc. running the gauntlet week in and week out. I still feel the format is fine, though. There are lots of different archetypes winning each week, which is what makes the format great.

To be honest though, I had more fun when Mystical Tutor and Survival were legal.

Let's face it, SCG players don't innovate much, they are always playing the current "supposed DTB" and if you take SCG results into account without looking for number of wins against the field, you'll ban a card per year as if they were responsible for the non-variance of SCG players.

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Originally Posted by Gui

Let's face it, SCG players don't innovate much, they are always playing the current "supposed DTB" and if you take SCG results into account without looking for number of wins against the field, you'll ban a card per year as if they were responsible for the non-variance of SCG players.

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This.

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Originally Posted by Hollywood

Legacy is fine.

People were bitching and complaining when Aether Vial was blowing out people in Aggro decks like Merfolk and Goblins. Now that Misstep is here, people are complaining it is warping the format. It isn't 'warping' anything, folks; it's a product of a lack of creativity. There is a huge influx of new players running brews they see listed on Star City's website or by word of mouth from friends, and those folks just pick those decks up and run with them. Legacy is at an all-time low as it pertains to its 'creative' aspect, which is why you see the same decks like NO Rug, Hive Mind, etc. running the gauntlet week in and week out. I still feel the format is fine, though. There are lots of different archetypes winning each week, which is what makes the format great.

To be honest though, I had more fun when Mystical Tutor and Survival were legal.

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I had a ton of fun when Mystical Tutor was legal, but I'm a storm player at heart so take that with a grain of salt. There's plenty of people playing other things (I've been having a ton of fun with the NO/Protean Hulk deck myself) but if you're going to a big tournament and want to win, you pick up a blue deck. Playing anything else is just handicapping yourself at this point, as blue has everything it needs to beat both aggro and combo.

EDIT: I would love to see more innovation in the format. Of course SCG isn't well known for that, but even in my local meta it gets annoying having to play against the same blue decks over and over again.

Regardless of creativity, decks these days literally need to play blue to be competitive. If any of you know of some secret non-blue deck that has a strong matchup against NO RUG and Stoneblade, please enlighten the rest of us.

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Originally Posted by OurSerratedDust

Regardless of creativity, decks these days literally need to play blue to be competitive. If any of you know of some secret non-blue deck that has a strong matchup against NO RUG and Stoneblade, please enlighten the rest of us.

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The Punishing Fires/Burning Wish aggro loam build I played a while ago was solid against both, but I wouldn't call it a "strong" matchup - somewhat favored perhaps. You automatically roll to any combo deck though.

Why are the results of SCG Richmond ignored completely?

There were 3 non-blue decks in the top 8 (one of them did have Mental Misstep) and some more in the top 16.
Pittsburgh was similar with even 4 decks out of the top 8 being non-blue.

Don't get me wrong I am not saying that everything is fine but I am just not buying the argument if it's presented that way.

By looking at the results of the latest three SCGs I fail to see any kind of indication that something is wrong (which doesn't mean that there isn't anything wrong but the argument is just very very weak)

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Originally Posted by Zunam

Why are the results of SCG Richmond ignored completely?

There were 3 non-blue decks in the top 8 (one of them did have Mental Misstep) and some more in the top 16.
Pittsburgh was similar with even 4 decks out of the top 8 being non-blue.

Don't get me wrong I am not saying that everything is fine but I am just not buying the argument if it's presented that way.

By looking at the results of the latest three SCGs I fail to see any kind of indication that something is wrong (which doesn't mean that there isn't anything wrong but the argument is just very very weak)

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"3 non-blue decks" being used as an argument that the format is fine is pretty bad. That's still a strong majority of blue.

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Originally Posted by OurSerratedDust

Regardless of creativity, decks these days literally need to play blue to be competitive. If any of you know of some secret non-blue deck that has a strong matchup against NO RUG and Stoneblade, please enlighten the rest of us.

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If anything, you could play Zoo or GWr Maverick (aka Big Zoo). BUt it's hard for non-blue decks to match the consistency you get from Brainstorm and the power you get from Vendilion Clique and/or Jace. Natural Order is also much stronger in blue shells than in non-blue (Zoo for example) where you can't do much about drawing Progenitus.
I agree that there's almost no incentive to not play blue, but in my opinion that's not a problem. I like the current state of Legacy.

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Originally Posted by Hollywood

Legacy is fine.

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This. People will adjust.

I don't see Misstep going anywhere, as I heard Zac Hill say at GP:KC MM was made specifically to slow the format of Legacy down, and it seems to be doing just that.

6 NO RUG, 6 Stone UW, 2 Zoo are quite surprising, considering the status of these decks one month ago. However, I bet none of the mentioned archetypes will have over 4 T16 representations in the next SCG Open. I can also go on and say in another month, people will find themselves amusing, fearing the dominance of NO RUG or Stoneblade. Furthermore, Innistrad is coming and another shake-up is expected.

That said, the dominance of Mental Missteps is unquestionable. We knew this was coming when NPH was spoiled. This card has been banned in Modern, which makes it clear that WotC is aware of its performance in Legacy. I don't want see it banned though, because, clearly, everyone knows the most busted card in Legacy is BRAINSTORM!

Swamp is the loser in the most recent Top16. Why? Discard gets hit hard by Misstep, AND Brainstorm. Brainstorm brings RIDICULOUS consistency to blue decks, and blue combo decks. Ban Brianstorm, and then we can talk about colour balance in Legacy.

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Originally Posted by Admiral_Arzar

"3 non-blue decks" being used as an argument that the format is fine is pretty bad. That's still a strong majority of blue.

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It's still almost half of the top 8 and in the second case it is actually half of the top. What would be the correct number of non-blue decks in a top 8 to have a healthy format? Is it 6 is it 7 and who is defining that?

But yes you are right: Having just 3 non-blue decks in one top 8 is a bad argument but the same is true if just a single top 8 is presented as an argument for a non-healthy format.

But that was not my point. My point is: It is wrong to base a opinion on just a single top 8 and use it as an argument.

I for myself wouldn't be able to come to a conclusion. Not even if I would include the two other top 8ths that I mentioned.

There's no way they should ban Brainstorm. Legacy is fun because the decks are consistent and not every deck is like The Gate or Dragon Stompy and loses to itself three out of four games. Magic should be about skill and not about luck, and with Brainstorm, it's much more likely that games actually are decided by skill. Also, banning Brainstorm would most likely help combo decks more than anything else as these are the decks that have the biggest problems against blue based decks and often only need their cantrips to find certain pieces of their combos and not to generate virtual cardadvantage. Not having Brainstorm at least makes them weaker against discard though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrJones

Here is TomLaPille's reply:

TomLaPilleMagic Tom LaPille
I suggest Great Sable Stag or Thrun, the Last Troll

Does this make sense? putting Great Sable Stag in your deck to hose blue decks is like putting Lhurgoyf in your deck to hose Graveyard-based strategies. Like putting White Knight in your deck to fight Necropotence decks. It fights the wrong battle.

So I replied:

@TomLaPilleMagic They don't work, hosers should meddle with the opponent's gameplan. Thrun and GSS are just efficient lategame creatures.

And he replied me again:

I know a few Mistbind Cliques that would beg to differ with you about Great Sable Stag.

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WOW!!

Does he even have any idea of the format or is he trolling you?

+10 to Misstep being the most format warping card since Goyf/Counterbalance/Pridemage/Hierarch/Progenitus. Sorry, Misstep warped the format much more than the cards mentioned.

Think about it this way, if MM is out, Goblins/combos are going to be viable again, AND SFM/NORUG decks won't be overly dominant because they won't have 8 free counters to protect their backup plan.

I love blue, I love MM, but I love Legacy more than blue/MM and all I can say, it is my opinion that Legacy with MM banned is a much healthier and diverse format than one with MM.

Brainstorm has never warped the format. It just gave blue a strong tool than the other color pie. Aside from Jace, blue has really not received any form of power inflation while most aggro decks have seen tremendous contributions to power creep. WotC has done a fine job in trying to push aggro against the dominant color that is blue, that is until they printed MM.

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Originally Posted by Jona

There's no way they should ban Brainstorm. Legacy is fun because the decks are consistent and not every deck is like The Gate or Dragon Stompy and loses to itself three out of four games. Magic should be about skill and not about luck, and with Brainstorm, it's much more likely that games actually are decided by skill. Also, banning Brainstorm would most likely help combo decks more than anything else as these are the decks that have the biggest problems against blue based decks and often only need their cantrips to find certain pieces of their combos and not to generate virtual cardadvantage. Not having Brainstorm at least makes them weaker against discard though.

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I appreciate your point about Legacy being a format that values skill. Ponder and Preordain are decent cards that make decks consistent, and FAIR in the sense Dark Confidant and Sylvan Library are fair. However, Brainstorm is not a fair card, as it brings too much consistency: For one card and one mana, at instant speed, one gets three fresh cards from the top of your library, three versus one! Brainstorm is not only the core of any serious combo deck, but the MVP of most of them (Show and Tell, Reanimator, and Tendrils). Brainstorm not only digs cards for the combo decks, it works just as the way it is exploited by other blue decks. Banning Brainstorm and leaving Mental Missteps in will not do anything favouring combo decks.

Brainstorm supersedes the fairness of Legacy, and as Ponder and Preordain are available, it is a safe ban now. Blue decks will still be fairly consistent without Brainstorm. Blue players will whine (except those playing Islandwalkers) and learn to adapt to a fair format.

I always advocated the banning of brainstorm. The banning would not kill blue where it would be unplayable. It would only nerf blue just a bit to allow other decks to catch up to its power.

But i was called a troll after making that suggestion.

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Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow

I always advocated the banning of brainstorm. The banning would not kill blue where it would be unplayable. It would only nerf blue just a bit to allow other decks to catch up to its power.

But i was called a troll after making that suggestion.

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People shouted "Ban Coutertop!", people creamed "Ban High Tide!", people yelled "Ban Show and Tell!", and now people are still amazed by the blue dominance with their hammer in the air, tempted to call a card that is not really blue.

We are the trolls who mention Brainstorm all the time.

And here comes dr. Jones from the closet, right on time. Every few months same little story about how FoW is a free timewalk, it never gets old :laugh:

This is when people are mostly cutting few copies of FoW, or playing something like NoFoW Bant and winning things...

Anyway the real problem here is Mental Misstep like already stated which gives too much tempo, and answers too many cards (Nacatl's, etc) without having the FoW drawback. It's easier to pay 2 life when one starts at 20 life than one paying 1 life and a blue card...

Personally I don't know what Wizards guys were smoking when they came up with Mental Misstep in card design... especially since it's not a "FoW substitute for Modern".

Stop crying because Legacy finally has a defined metagame, it's no longer 40decks.format.

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Originally Posted by menace13

Stop crying because Legacy finally has a defined metagame, it's no longer 40decks.format.

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Yes. Honestly, what is the problem with a blue dominance, when there are still around ten strong decks you can tune? Sure, NO RUG and Stoneblade stand above the other decks, but having two decks on top is perfectly fine in my eyes.
You should read Chapin's article from monday regarding a healthy metagame.

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Originally Posted by menace13

Stop crying because Legacy finally has a defined metagame, it's no longer 40decks.format.

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Some of us - such as myself - find diversity awesome. Others obviously prefer one color over all the others. This lesson can be applied to real life as well as magic.

I personally don't think that there is anything wrong with a defined metagame... However with that being said I do believe that there is a problem when the metagame uses blue(8 free counters) in umpteen top 16 decks.

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Originally Posted by Metalwalker

WOW!!

Does he even have any idea of the format or is he trolling you?

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Can someone do something about him? It is getting embarrassing how bad at magic he is.

Remember, he is the person who tested Reanimator in the MODO practice room and decided to ban Mystical Tutor and who thought NPH would fix Standard.

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Originally Posted by CorpT

Can someone do something about him? It is getting embarrassing how bad at magic he is.

Remember, he is the person who tested Reanimator in the MODO practice room and decided to ban Mystical Tutor and who thought NPH would fix Standard.

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Too bad this isn't MTGSalvation where you can just ban someone for their opinions, reasoning that it is trolling.

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Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow

Too bad this isn't MTGSalvation where you can just ban someone for their opinions, reasoning that it is trolling.

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Yeah, I hate those MTGSalvation mods. They're the worst. I often go to other boards just to complain about them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by menace13

Stop crying because Legacy finally has a defined metagame, it's no longer 40decks.format.

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You should check out Standard. I hear it's pretty awesome to play the same 3 matchups all day at every major tournament.

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Originally Posted by CorpT

Yeah, I hate those MTGSalvation mods. They're the worst. I often go to other boards just to complain about them.

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You are probably the best mod there.

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Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow

You are probably the best mod there.

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Not even a mod there. But continue the nerd rage. It warms my heart.

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Originally Posted by Richard Cheese

You should check out Standard. I hear it's pretty awesome to play the same 3 matchups all day at every major tournament.

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I'm fine with the same ten. So Legacy has a real metagame now and people still find something wrong. Last month it was ban Show and Tell this month it's ban Misstep, Mystic, Clique, Jace?