Yes
No
And yet, these slower decks play him, thus making them not slow decks.Originally Posted by Mordel
Like a Tarmogoyf.
My one big issue with goyf is that it is a great answer to itself. It's fat wall against aggro, it's a cheap and easily splashable wincon, and It can block tarmogoyf all day long. If you are playing control, and you are having trouble with goyf, you can just play some. It certainly works in ITF.
Because you can't slip all the Duals or fetch lands in every deck.
Goyf eats up 4 spaces, the fetch and duals to make it workable eats up 8 spaces for a total of 12 spaces eaten up. Then if you thrown in more color fixers depending on your strategy, the total of spaces eaten up is around 13-24 cards.
@Carabas and Heroicraptor:
This statement was made regarding slower decks that run them. Reading=svg tech....and also allow them to have a decent early game...
Edit: I realized my folly in posting a reply in an IBA thread, which does not side with the camp he appears to reside in.
-It could be about four of anything and I would agree.
I'm so sick and tired of hearing he's vanilla. Who cares if he can't evade when most decks can't answer him in the red zone alone without going x for 1 anyway? The power to casting cost ratio for the card is severely imbalanced, and anyone saying otherwise simply doesn't understand resource management in Legacy.
Hell, if you don't believe me go take a good look through Gatherer by typing in "Lhurgoyf" and see what comes up. That alone should give you a good idea of just how big of a mistake this card was. Stand it side by side to any of those, and tell me it being "vanilla" makes it balanced.
This argument has been made for numerous murmurs of banings, but honestly...it has never been as applicable as with goyf:
People are just sour from getting smashed by them one too many times or something.
I have been destroyed by goyfs numerous times and have played the game plenty long enough to understand how the mechanics of the game function as well as all the unifying themes and whatever else pseudo elitist mumbo-jumbo theory has evolved, but I am not bothered by goyf at all. Even when I still played standard and affinity and skullclamp was tearing assholes, I was fine with it and just made a hate deck and prepared accordingly.
-It could be about four of anything and I would agree.
You say you want 9 Brainstorms, but you'll miss that shuffle effect, and you'll miss the ability to just shove the shit and take a gamble. I'd know, battletoadz tried it for a while, just for lulz. You miss your Ponders a lot.
Team Battletoadz: Fuck the Meta-police?
If it's all in our heads, it's best that we don't loose them.
Dude, I didn't even fucking reply to you.
But yeah, obviously this is a bad idea, because I might do something completely dickish, mean and evil like rebutt your statements with a stronger argument. GOD, WHAT AN ASSHOLE.
I've never understood people who seem to feel that their opinions, no matter how uninformed, should be sacrosanct.
Have you seen my decks?
I don't lose to Tarmogoyf.
I'm just tired of only killing one creature time after time. I'd like some variety back.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
What if I were sick of having first turn spells countered by Force of Will? Or having to discard because of Duress or Thoughtseize? What about having a creature Swords'd? Every color has a card that is an auto-include like 'Goyf. I just know that if I see what colors a deck is running I can figure on there being the "pet" card in it.
I suppose you might think you had a point. However, going back, again, to points I've made a dozen times, again,
1) Creatures are not a niche that a single color uses, unlike counterspells, and
2) Having four really good counterspells often makes playing another 4-8 counterspells a good idea. Tarmogoyf makes other creatures worse, not better; it's hard for anything else to compare. Hence why most recent aggro decks have a number fewer creatures than is traditional; Team America only runs 8, where Sui strategies usually run 12-16.
It's true that if a deck runs white, it probably has StP, and if it runs blue, it probably has Force and Brainstorm. However, Tarmogoyf goes beyond this; if I don't see Ancient Tomb or City of Brass- if my opponent isn't playing combo, or a Faerie/Dragon Stompy deck, or a Tribal deck, then I will see Tarmogoyf or assume, rightly, that my opponent is a bad player.I just know that if I see what colors a deck is running I can figure on there being the "pet" card in it.
The other staples are cards you run if you're in that color. Green is a color you run because you have to run Tarmogoyf. I would say that probably, based on a glance at the format, Green is less played overall than it was before March 2007.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Except that giving early-game based aggro decks the inclusion of tarmogyfs and then bestowing control decks with the same inclusion helps the latter more than the former. The reason being that the aggro deck has to run 8-16 other creatures that aren't tarmogoyf and which the opposing tarmogoyf of the control/aggro-control player is likely to outclass by quite a bit. Add in the fact that the control player's goyfs are likelier to stick due to CB/Top/Stp/counterspells and I'm sure anyone can see why aggro decks don't maintain status quo with goyf around. Goyf doesn't just make control players pay attention to the early game, but it also helps control players to more than hold their own there too. That's the problem.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Basically, the rule that with increased mana cost, and thus tempo loss, comes size in creature selection exists for a reason. While that rule has been tweaked and flouted with for a while, with a whole host of cards from Watchwolf to Phyrexian Negator, no card comes anywhere close to beating Tarmogoyf for invalidating one of the principles that gives function and flavor to the game- the growth of power over time. Even cards like Terravore and Phyrexian Dreadnought require a combo or for the deck to be constructed around it; Tarmogoyf rewards you with breaking this curve simply for doing what you were going to do anyway.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I want to disagree a little bit with the fact that Tarmogoyf invalidates other creatures as the main reason that it reduces how interesting the format is.
Every card invalidates every card worse than it. It's been hashed out a few times, but it's a good point. We WANT Wizards to shake things up by printing cards that are better, but we want the power creep to be a little bit proportional.
The problem with goyf is that he overrides everything, creature or not. Removal spells were not balanced to try to have to deal with 1G for a 4/5 or 5/6. It would have been simply unheard of before. When you think about it objectively, even the Swords to Plowshares "answer" to Tarmogoyf leaves the Goyf player barely behind on tempo and up like 2-3 life more than you'd expect.
Not to mention from the deck designing perspective, the interactions of: I have Goyf, you don't have swords and You have swords and I do not have Goyf are both great interactions for the Goyf player.
Goyf is pretty much like: "If my opponent has the answer, I'm still ahead; if my opponent doesn't have the answer, I'm way ahead." Keep in mind that Swords is the BEST creature removal (arguably, it's a good trade, but inarguably you're forced into making that trade because Goyf will eat you). Usually the more flexible, proactive card gets the short end of the stick in an exchange, but I'm happy with a Goyf vs. Swords trade.
We wouldn't complain much if Tgoyf were 1G for a 2/2, +2/+2 at threshold, taps for G. Yeah, it'd overwrite Werebear just the same as Goyf does, but the power level would still be balanced so that you can answer the improved Werebear with removal or simply more expensive, slower whatever, the way Magic is normally played.
There is simply no answer for Tarmogoyf that leaves you in a favorable position. Arguably the best you can do to answer Tarmogoyf is to play your own.
That's why people are pissed off about Tarmogoyf. If you can possibly weasel it in, it's a no-brainer. There's no risk other than mana base issues (although Green for Kgrip is a good call anyway), and you gain an equal-footing answer to enemy Goyfs.
EDIT: Someone mentioned earlier (sorry for vagueness) that 24 Goyfs in the T8 says nothing because they were from 6 different decks.
I think that says everything. It's not a good thing that 6 completely different decks (not actually that many) decided to throw Goyf in. The two that didn't were combo and stompy (no fetchlands anyway).
If my opponent is playing Merfolk, why did he just tap UG and put a Tarmogoyf onto the stack? And how is that good for the format or interesting.
For the record, I think the format is great. But I want to mention that I think Tarmogoyf has nothing to do with the format's health.
Regardless of whether Merfolk decks running tarmogoyf do better than pure-merfolk decks, which is a point that was brought up earlier in the thread, the fact that a vanilla (sic) creature actually pervades a tribal deck, whose entire premise is based on the synergy between tribal cards is a more damning point than most people give credit for. Should tarmogoyf, a cheap yet large beater, go into eva green? Sure, it fits their strategy and is cost efficient. Should tarmogoyf go into thresh? Sure, it shores up the early game and doubles as a beater. Should tarmogoyf go into merfolk? Every logical answer that revolves around tarmogoyf being "just another vanilla beater" screams "no", and yet it does. It clearly isn't a run-of-the-mill vanilla beater when it is good enough to be added to tribal lists despite the lack of synergy. That, more than anything else, highlights the goyf infestation that legacy is becoming. Goyf is basically like a young buck fresh out of college, who can go to the NBA and play for the lakers without prior training, and can then go over to MMA and hold his own against Fedor, and also walk into the best soccer team in the world. That isn't power creep -- it's a goddamned power leap.
I also agree that the format is great right now, but that asking this question seems to still be pertinent. Monotony isn't the spice of life. For music, the eighties fucking ruled (or at least until that pussy Cobain came and fucked it all up) -- doesn't mean status quo should be kept forever. You've got those mixed up - Status Quo is more of a '70s band *rimshot* ~NC The format is great now, but it is likely great despite goyf, not because of it.
Last edited by Nihil Credo; 03-21-2009 at 12:37 PM.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
A question to consider: If Tarmogoyf were *-1/* instead of */*+1, would it still be the best creature in the format? Top 3? Top 5?
Team Info-Ninja: Shhh... We don't exist.
With -1/-1, it would still be in the top five creatures in the format. It'd still be better than Werebear and Company.
1G for a 3/4 early-mid game, 4/5 late game and sometimes 5/6 would still be amazing.
But the card would be hampered by the fact that it's green, and the fact that green is horrible. Even with Kgrip, it probably just wouldn't be worth splashing it.
If your deck already ran green or there were a few other green cards you wanted, then you'd still run Goyf, but it wouldn't be splashed for.
qftThat isn't power creep -- it's a goddamned power leap.
From the MWS thread:
I am not exactly sure, but is it possible that some people dont appreciate Tarmogoyf?
Was this even a real Skeggi's hero?Lol. You're my hero.
I find that hard to believe. It's not like I've ever seen someone scoop to goyf. Oh wait...
Where do I start about goyf? It's insane. Everybody who's ever played legacy will agree with that. It's format defining. Again, everybody will agree with that. I mean, seriously, the past couple tournaments i've played in, i've seen:
G/W Beats
GoyfSligh
Thresh
Eva Green
4 different decks, 4 different color schemes, one big thing in common: Goyf
Seriously, some of the best "innovation" i've seen recently is people taking old decks, and adding goyf. For fucks sake, I saw someone play UG Springtide top8. Guess what the green was for.
Honestly, Goyf seems to remind me of Goblin Lackey: Either play it, or have an answer for it. And that seems to strip fun from the format.
Last edited by puppektion; 03-22-2009 at 03:32 AM. Reason: derrr
Today is under construction
Thank you for understanding.
Nice argument. I agree completely
Honestly, that's an absolutely horrible comparison. If Lackey hits you even once, that's usually game over unless you got mass removal. Heavens forbid he gets through two or three times. Tarmogoyf has nothing in common with Lackey. You can take several hits from him without feeling a lot of pressure. And we are talking about Legacy, which is a creature-oriented format. If you aren't packing answers to creatures, you're either playing combo to outrun creatures or you're playing wrong.
I wish people would just get over Goyf. He is not insane (so clearly, not everyone agrees). He is not format defining. He's nothing more than an efficient beater who does nothing but turn sideways (and often get chump blocked for no damage). Seriously...just get past his 1G mana cost and his ~$30 sticker price and look at what he really is.
He's nothing special.
Don't Hate the Herd
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
