Would the format be more interesting without Tendrils of Agony?

[kirdape3]

People are still going to play Force of Will, Stifle, and other incidental hate cards for the combination decks that would exist without Tendrils of Agony - because those cards are still awesome against the dominant strategy of the format, being Counterbalance/Top. With that being said, I'd rather have a harder to stop finisher for those decks because without it you're asking an awful lot for those decks to be able to defeat the already dominant archetype.

[KrzyMoose]

I think different combo decks can co-exist without one being superior to the others if they are good against different decks in the meta.

Isn't that the case now? Aren't there multiple combo decks? Don't people play different combo decks?

I fail to see how Tendrils combo stops people from playing, say, Painter-Grindstone.

It's the same thing as with aggro decks. There are clearly better aggro decks, but that doesn't stop people from playing Boros.dec.

Furthermore, I'm still playing with four Brainstorm, four Force of Will, four Sensei's Divining Top, and four Counterbalance in every deck I play, regardless of whether or not Storm exists.

*edit*

Immediately after Tendrils was printed this became the dominant strategy in Vintage, and the primary strategy in Legacy once the lists were separted and mana acceleration beyond Dark Ritual was either unbanned or printed.

The question I have to ask is: So why is it a problem that Tendrils is the dominant combo strategy?

[bruno_tiete]

As I see it, Counterbalance got it's attention due to it's power in the aggrocontrol mirror. Even before the "invention" of countertop, Combo was not tearing anything apart.

While I know that handling Tendrils is hard, specially in Red or Green, it seems to me more a design problem on that colours than anything else. Green can't handle Elfball as well. It seems to me like shooting my foot is not a way to stop my head from aching. I wish Stifle had been green. It's not.

I don't see Legacy getting any less blue by axing Tendrils. CB-backed up Tarmogoyfs and now Cocoah will still be that good of a plan. There was almost no combo to prey on at Chigago, and we saw the results. I dont see that blue decks packing "combo" hate, as much as they pack general purpose countermagic.

[emidln]

Saying that Tendrils does nothing by itself misses the actual history of combo. Prior to Tendrils, we had all the other elements of the same deck; and yet no combo deck in Vintage or 1.5 was set up to function anything like Long.dec. Immediately after Tendrils was printed this became the dominant strategy in Vintage, and the primary strategy in Legacy once the lists were separted and mana acceleration beyond Dark Ritual was either unbanned or printed.

I don't believe arguments including old 1.5 are valid. Long.dec with Tendrils signficantly changed how we build combo decks. We learned to build tutor-centric, resilient, fast combo decks. Banning one kill condition doesn't change that Ad Nauseam draws me 15-25 cards and I kill you with WINCONDITION_FOO (likely grapeshot, but maybe not). Banning Tendrils doesn't stop me from loading up my deck with the best tutors, efficient draw, and fast mana (just like Long taught me to) so as to smash another deck without Counterbalance or Chalice of the Void.

Edit: you might ignore this now that IBA ninja-edited an Ad Nauseam paragraph into his post.

[4eak]

We shouldn't forget that Tendrils-based storm combo decks can be prohibitively expensive to make and still have (even with AdN) fairly high skill requirements to be successful. There aren't a great deal of quality pilots who owns the cards, but there are just enough to force the metagame to adapt. Tendrils combo has influence, but I just don't see the archetype being too influential because of its play requirements.





peace,
4eak

[KrzyMoose]

force the metagame to adapt

Okay, I think I see why people see Tendrils as an issue.

There is no Legacy metagame. The only metagame that exists is the one in your local tournament scene.

There is no PTQ season for Legacy. There isn't more than one Grand Prix per year. There certainly isn't a Pro Tour (and I'm not really counting the Legacy portion of Worlds).

If there were such a thing as a Legacy metagame, such as if there were more of the above events, then I think people would quickly realize the following: Fewer and fewer decks would actually perform well.

The thing I think people don't really realize is that the larger the card pool, the fewer decks are actually viable.

Given a Legacy PTQ season, people would quickly see that there would be a best Control deck, a best Aggro deck, and best Combo deck.

The reason the above phenomena hasn't appeared to have taken place in Legacy is because of the fact that there is no metagame (and, obviously, regularly-occurring high-level events).

People play whatever the hell they want. Tendrils' existence does not change this fact.

[matelml]

I don't believe arguments including old 1.5 are valid. Long.dec with Tendrils signficantly changed how we build combo decks. We learned to build tutor-centric, resilient, fast combo decks. Banning one kill condition doesn't change that Ad Nauseam draws me 15-25 cards and I kill you with WINCONDITION_FOO (likely grapeshot, but maybe not). Banning Tendrils doesn't stop me from loading up my deck with the best tutors, efficient draw, and fast mana (just like Long taught me to) so as to smash another deck without Counterbalance or Chalice of the Void.

Edit: you might ignore this now that IBA ninja-edited an Ad Nauseam paragraph into his post.

It would be possible to create a non-Tendrils combo deck that is quite strong, but it would be significantly weaker. Can you show a DDay pile that doesn't cost more mana/cards than a ToA-pile does and isn't more vulnerable to common cards ?(StP mainly, Krosan Grip/Needle less)

In many cases with AdN it doesn't matter what wincon you use because you have so many cards and mana. But there is a a significant amount of times that you just make it, that you certainly couldn't create 10 storm more or find more cards in you deck that cost more. As long as AdN is legal banning ToA would have a much weaker impact on combo, but it would still make it significantly weaker.

[andrew77]

My answer would be yes it should be banned, seeing there are so many decks that are not viable only because of its bad Tendrils matchup. It makes Board control decks viable, and makes blue less dominant. It would certainaly be really interesting.

This is one of the dumbest things ever. Combo makes up such a small percent of the field (tendrils combo even less) that no deck is made unviable due to its presence. The last 3 large legacy events I played at were GPT Chicago, GP Chicago and Vestal. 20 matches and I faced 1 tendrils combo deck 1 ichorid deck, 1 goblins deck, 1 survival deck and at least 10 thresh varients. Something like 15 of the decks I played ran 4 goyfs only a single deck I played ran tendrils.

Also if tendrils was banned combo would surely die. Even now tendrils has bad matchups against blue decks which run rampant. Any other combo decks would still have terrible matchups against blue decks as well as worse matchups against everything else. Removing tendrils would basically eliminate the combo archetype from competitive legacy because decks like belcher suck.

[TheBirdMan]

At the risk of sounding redundant, Led is infinitely worst card than tendrils. Its the engine for most decks that win turn 1-2. If you want to slow down the format or dont like getting rolled super quick this card seems more likely for a ban than tendrils. I would only be for this banning b/c I strictly play creature-aggro decks which get rolled by combo. Otherwise the format/decks are fine.

[Bryant Cook]

Much like people who are upset because they only play slow board control decks.

[sunshine]

I see what you're getting at IBA but I don't think that removing Tendrils will decrease the amount of blue being played. Tendrils does necessitate blue based strategies to keep it in check but the fact is that control and aggro control are putting up numbers anyway (despite Tendrils combo not being terribly popular). As long as it continues to do well people will still play blue, even if Tendrils were banned.

[Giles]

No.

Legacy needs combo, just as combo needs legacy.

[AnwarA101]

Tendrils actually makes the format more interesting. It adds variety to a format by being like none of the other decks in the format. This is especially true given that storm has never dominated Legacy and doesn't look it is going to do so anytime soon. So why not have a different type of deck that isn't unbalancing the format? The answer is there is no reason. If the strategy of your deck can't reliably beat combo that doesn't mean that combo is immediatedly unfair. Some decks have weak matchups against control or aggro and that doesn't make those strategies any more unfair than combo is.

[mujadaddy]

As long as it continues to do well people will still play blue, even if Tendrils were banned.

Blue is a color; Tendrils is a card. I'm not sure how people made the leap the Blue would somehow shrivel away if Tendrils were gone.

As I said upthread, Tendrils is too fast. Since it can go off twice as fast* as Grapeshot, the opponent has less time to affect the Tendril player's plan. Even a 6/7 'goyf takes til turn 6 or so to win.

Combo is an important pillar of the Legacy landscape, but I think Tendrils makes it too "easy" for the combo player.

Again, if the card were "damage" instead of "loss of life" I don't think it would be an issue at all.



*(or should that be "twice as easily"? What I'm trying to focus on is that the required storm count is literally half of GS/EtW. This has a lot of effect on how 'perfectly' the Combo player must play.)

[bruno_tiete]

Blue is a color; Tendrils is a card. I'm not sure how people made the leap the Blue would somehow shrivel away if Tendrils were gone.

Would you change your mind if "Blue" were replaced by "Counterbalance"?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't believe arguments including old 1.5 are valid. Long.dec with Tendrils signficantly changed how we build combo decks. We learned to build tutor-centric, resilient, fast combo decks.

So you never actually saw an old Dragon list.

Okay. Here you go;

BUG Dragon:

4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Sliver Queen
1 Ambassador Laquatus

//Spells
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Compulsion
4 Intuition
4 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead
3 Necromancy
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
1 Chain of Vapor

//Land/Mana
4 Dark Ritual
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

Spoils Dragon:

4 Duress
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Buried Alive
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead
2 Necromancy

//Creatures
4 Worldgorger Dragon
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Sliver Queen

//Lands/Acceleration
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
8 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou

(I got these lists from an old P_R article, btw)

Mana acceleration? Check. Tutoring? Check. Backup plans? Check.

Long.dec didn't add any new concept to the idea of playing combo decks. It's actually kind of silly to think it did; these were prerequisites for every combo deck in every format for ages.

What was revolutionary about Long.dec was just the kill condition. You didn't have to finangle a particular combination of cards; all you had to do was juggle a bunch of mana and empty your hand to play a single burn spell.

Banning one kill condition doesn't change that Ad Nauseam draws me 15-25 cards and I kill you with WINCONDITION_FOO (likely grapeshot, but maybe not). Banning Tendrils doesn't stop me from loading up my deck with the best tutors, efficient draw, and fast mana (just like Long taught me to) so as to smash another deck without Counterbalance or Chalice of the Void.

Edit: you might ignore this now that IBA ninja-edited an Ad Nauseam paragraph into his post.

I might.

Ad Nauseum is the only exception to the argument. Tendrils combo might survive if Tendrils was banned if Ad Nauseum was not. It also might survive if Tendrils was banned and Yawgmoth's Will or Bargain was taken off the list. Ad Nauseum is a stupid card that obviously didn't take Legacy or Vintage into account when it was printed; if you remove Ad Nauseum and Tendrils, storm combo dies and decks based on the same engines die or become second tier. They might still beat aggro decks, but not as consistently. All other decks would improve their matchups. The shift would be back towards card-interaction specific, slightly slower and more control oriented combos like Cephalid Breakfast, Life, and PainterStone.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Much like people who are upset because they only play slow board control decks.

See? That's how you do it.

The thing I think people don't really realize is that the larger the card pool, the fewer decks are actually viable.

This isn't true. Block formats usually allow for fewer top strategies than Standard formats, which have less diversity than Extended formats. Which are less diverse than Legacy. The only place where this holds remotely true is Vintage, where there are many decks but most of them share at least 40 cards.

Given a Legacy PTQ season, people would quickly see that there would be a best Control deck, a best Aggro deck, and best Combo deck.

This is a really simplistic and completely outdated mode of looking at Magic strategy. No metagame, not even the classic Keeper-Necro-Ernhamgeddon triangle is truly a Rock-Paper-Scissors format or has been, and it's only become less valid as strategy has developed and the power balance of colors and cards has come closer together.

The reason the above phenomena hasn't appeared to have taken place in Legacy is because of the fact that there is no metagame (and, obviously, regularly-occurring high-level events).

Then you don't follow Standard and Extended. Those formats are usually in constant flux, and they get plenty of pro attention.

You also seem to underestimate the seriousness which Legacy players apply to their format.

Tendrils actually makes the format more interesting. It adds variety to a format by being like none of the other decks in the format. This is especially true given that storm has never dominated Legacy and doesn't look it is going to do so anytime soon. So why not have a different type of deck that isn't unbalancing the format? The answer is there is no reason. If the strategy of your deck can't reliably beat combo that doesn't mean that combo is immediatedly unfair. Some decks have weak matchups against control or aggro and that doesn't make those strategies any more unfair than combo is.

Again, this description is so archaic and vague as to be meaningless. I'm not objecting to "combo" as a vague archetype, but to Tendrils. Other decks that fit the bill of combo, whether you want to talk about Cephalid Breakfast, Life or Painter's Grindstone, or Enchantress or Solidarity or Burn, have significant weaknesses that other strategies can exploit. Tendrils decks are very powerful and simply put an enormous hidden pressure on the metagame to play blue. Tendrils is only underplayed, I believe, because blue is so prevalent in today's metagame; partly, perhaps primarily this is an effect of Goyf and Counterbalance- but it does create a reinforcing cycle.

I don't really think Tendrils adds much to the format. It's primarily one of the less interesting decks, that either kills you or does nothing. It's low on interaction, although it does require some skill to pilot. It's unique, but then so are mosquitoes, and I would lament the loss of neither species.

[Bryant Cook]

1.5 had Tendrils before Legacy was created and it saw zero play. Two card combo decks existed after Tendrils was printed, then continued to be played over Tendrils. It wasn't until Legacy was created that it became good because they unbanned artifact acceleration - something 1.5 didn't have. Even then it took a year to create a solid storm combo deck in Iggy Pop.

Tendrils didn't destroy combo in the sense that combo decks didn't win with interactive cards.

[DrJones]

Much like people who are upset because they only play slow board control decks.

This comment is not constructive, and it is a perfectly valid idea to discuss something to know if it is unbalanced, or it is just that we suck and are playing wrong. Having a sense of game balance, by the way, is something that most people totally lack; that is, I am claiming that most people DO NOT KNOW SHIT about realizing when something is ruining a game because it is too good, or if some things that are too weak should be done better to increase diversity. Developers and top players are not immune to this, either, and in some cases they are even worse than the rest because of the status quo, which prevents them from having a fresh view; it is like when you travel to another country and notice things that are REALLY stupid, but everyone in that country do not seem to notice it, or even see it as completely logical when you point it to them, no matter how stupid it is.

So, we are pretty bad at knowing if something needs to be banned, and we cannot ban cards either, so the only productive thing left to do is theorize changes that might make the format more interesting in order to increase awareness on the subject, and propose workarounds to the problematic cards to see if we can adapt to them or not.

About the meta, my oppinion is that tendrils is probably too strong against red and green, and maybe Wizards should print answers in those colors; but for a deck to be able to cast a lethal tendrils, it has to do a really convoluted chain of plays that I find cool, so I feel legacy would lose more banning the cards that allow building "strange decks that kill you so fast" than it would gain, and these decks are not as ubiquital as to require a nerf.

I have never seen what is the deal about Tarmogoyf; I never EVER had a problem with it with any of the decks I tried. If any, it makes green relevant. The Goyfless tournament top 8 only had 2 green cards in it, and they were sideboard Krosan Grip (because it is the only disenchant blue cannot counter) and Muscle sliver, which was sinew sliver 5-8 in an otherwise pure white-blue deck. But I do not mind people thinking it is too strong!

It is interesting to note that there were 5 different blue decks in goyfless' top 8, and not a single one had counterbalance in it, with only 3 decks playing Brainstorm. They were all playing Force of Will, though, and it was the most played nonland card overall. But the winners were a monocolor white stax and a monocolor red goblins, quite a surprise!

[mujadaddy]

Would you change your mind if "Blue" were replaced by "Counterbalance"?

So that sunshine's post reads as follows?

As long as it continues to do well people will still play [Counterbalance], even if Tendrils were banned.

Not to derail the conversation too much, but my opinion is that CB is too much card advantage and ought to be banned BEFORE Tendrils. Force is fine; Brainstorm is fine; LED is more than fine if it's not fetching something degenerate... like Tendrils.

I'm actually working on a combo deck at the moment that's "Not Necessarily Storm" -- that is, there's one Grapeshot main and one Tendrils in the side, (but no Burning Wish!). It's at least 2 turns slower than AdN-Tendrils, but it's still rather wicked. If I had more practice with the engine, I might even be able to shave a turn off that time. The point of this paragraph is that "oops I win" is dumb.