Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Part of the reason why Deathrite is so good right now, is because there is little incentive to be running Graveyard hate when you could be exploiting your own Graveyard for advantage too.
Once they print some "Thalia-equivalent" Rest in Peace version, Deathrite will fall in the same way that 'Goyf is no longer the "best" creature in Legacy.
Honestly, if Deathrite isn't the correct power-level for Legacy, then I think Legacy is a shit-hole.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Yes, I think we all can agree that legacy will be better when they print Rest in Peace bear. Can we get a petition going?
I'll sign if they make it mono-black
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
There's also the Dryad guy.
Dryad Militant
From reddit: " Brainstorm is not 'too strong', people just stopped trying to fight it (to the degree that when people do the brainstorm crowd gets bent out of shape and butthurt. Chalice is why you still have your stupid toys. Stop bitching already)."
Originally Posted by Lemnear
That top8 was 62.5% Delver decks. That is miles off the current metagame data.
http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=72
Terminus? How in the world can you justify a ban that only hits Miracles?
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I think your over thinking it. Nothing you do outside of going nuclear on the format will solve Xerox. Perhaps that is a goal but I don't think it's a worthy one. Too much damage would be wrought upon the format for not a large amount of gains. The moment we look at taking out Gurmag in Legacy is the moment we have overreached.
There are individual cards from Xerox that I do believe should take a hit, but the cards that surround them like Angler, Pyromancer, Mentor or Strix I feel are not worthy of debate. It's not that these are not strong effects, it's just that these effects are structurally dependent on more egregious offenders.
Even so, I think if you took out Brainstorm and left the rest of Xerox in tack, we would be fine. Sure, Mentor will still fuck your day sometimes, but that's Legacy. But since Brainstorm is unlikely to see a ban, this is all for naught anyway.
Yeah, which exemplifies why we are where we are. Neither of those cards is actually "good." Militant isn't terrible, but still fails to be what you really need it to be, because Militant is more of Snapcaster hate than anything else. Samurai is just bad though, it will almost never do what you need it to do.
When they find a way to make Rest In Peace more playable, then things will really change. I'd say making it into a Thalia-like creature would go a long way toward that. Would Blue decks appropriate it? Some would, of course, but the idea would be to change some of the dynamic, provide some upside to being "Graveyard removing" rather than "Graveyard abusing."
Right now, there isn't many good reasons to not lean on the Graveyard as a resource. Sure, you may get blown out by a RiP once in a while, but overwhelmingly often you'll just get 5/5's for , or Regrowth on a 2/1 body and so on. Imagine, with the "usual" meta-presence of Death and Taxes, what would happen to that dymanic, if there was a White creature who was main-deckable with a RiP effect. Decks would certainly have to consider how "in the 'Yard" they really want to be, when there is a much higher chance that those cards would, or could, be dead weight.
It's like the old Affinity days. You could build something to beat Affinity and do it pretty well, but then lose to random other nonsense, or your deck's own inconsistancy. Or, you could just play Affinity itself and take the coinflip in the mirror while still smashing other decks.
That's one of the main things learned from that era (and others): doing "the thing" is almost always better than being the deck trying to stop people from "doing the thing." Right now, "the thing" is using the Graveyard as a resource. Until there is sufficient reason not to, people will continue to do so to their advantage.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I'm "doing the thing", but not to the extent as everyone else. I concede the point however, that the format has needs. I don't necessarily think that banning half of Czech Pile is gonna accomplish anything. And realistically, if Wizards was gonna do anything about XeroxPlusWincon.dec, they would have done, and undone.
Do I think DnT needs RiP on a stick? Truthfully, no. The deck is strong enough. Plus if you need gravehate that bad, there are ways. Macabre, Surgical, Leyline, Morningtide and RiP are all examples. No, they're not A++, but as a Jund player I don't get A++ choices either. That should be written somewhere I think. "You will not have perfect cards."
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Well, I am certainly not for banning half of Czech Pile either. I'm also really not for banning cantrips, for that matter. Xerox is probably about the best thing you can do in Magic. Using the Graveyard as a resource is probably the second best thing to be doing. So, it's not really a surprise that doing both those things is, like, a really good thing to do.
But why is it that Death and Taxes shouldn't be better than it is now? I don't see any real reason, except maybe some people dislike playing against it. But who cares? I dislike playing against Storm, but I don't think it shouldn't get cards, or should be banned or whatever. I actually hate playing against Elves, but it doesn't bother me that it exists or could get cards to be more powerful.
I'm not advocating for perfect cards. I am advocating for cards that change meta-game dynamics, making choices more interesting. And I am fine is Jund colors get better cards too. RiP on a creature is not "perfect" because it is more vulnerable than an Enchantment, but it is more synergistic and more main-deckable, and that is the point.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
RIP was very playable for awhile. The problem is now that the decks it's good against are even more efficient than they used to be. BR doesn't care at all about RIP if the RIP player is on the draw. Grixis stuff can achieve angler quickly and has a million cheap ways to stop RIP before it happens. The raw efficiency of the format is its own undoing at this point. It's become hyper efficient to the point where a 2 drop end all be all graveyard hate card is nigh unplayable
Every large tournament is dominated by blue cards, so just natural that you play a deck that utilizes these cards. If winning isn't important, play your pet deck. This is the nature of Legacy, been this way for long time. Good or bad, cards like DRS, Snapcaster, Strix and Jace just solidified this. Shocked it took this long for a deck like 4C control to become dominate, but also shows how powerful top was in Miracles.
Maybe some super narrow cards would work?
Like,
W
2/1
If an instant would cost 0 or 1 mana, it instead costs 2
That specifically just hits Daze/Force/Brainstorm/Thought Scour/Opt (well, I guess StP too), but its narrow, it's universal, and it wouldn't see play in Xerox, while hating on it really well.
You could do something similar in red or black.
R
2/1
If an instant would cost 0 or 1 mana, ~ deals 2 damage to that spells controller
B
2/1
If an instant would cost 0 or 1 mana, that spells controller discards a card
I mean, hating on Xerox isn't hard, heck, those cards could be printed in standard and have ZERO effect on the format, while hugely shaking up Legacy. I mean heck, make it a cycle.
G
2/1
If an instant would cost 0 or 1 mana, target opponent of that spells controller puts a 1/1 token into play
U
0/1
If an instant would cost 0 or 1 mana, target opponent of that spells controller Fateseals 1
The term "delver deck" might was a bit misleading as not every aggro-control deck was using Delver AND DRS. The UR and RUG variants as well as part of the stoneblades add up with the DRS-only versions, while DRS itself is more than 1/3 of the meta itself (obviously also including Elves and other deck running it).
A more realistic estimation (because I lack the time to sieve out the tournaments) would be ~40% of Legacy running DRS and/or Delver.
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