Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
For the game company itself? Absolutely. For the players? No, not even close to the worst thing to happen to a game. Completely ruining the mechanics (I'm looking at you cascade) is much higher on the list, in my opinion. There is at least a passable argument in this direction by mentioning the creation of planeswalkers, which create a cards' worth of value or more every turn they stay on the battlefield.
Most of my conversations have revolved around the homogenization of the format, not necessarily power level. Yes they were powerful cards, but they also made the practical card pool of legacy a lot smaller. Broken cards aren't just unbearable combo pieces; they can also be unbearable 'lock' pieces like Oko and Arcanist, where all you need to do is play some of the other best cards in the format (Brainstorm, Force of Will, etc.) and you have a deck that really doesn't have to work hard to beat most everything it faces. There is the classic paradox of legacy where it has one of the largest card pools but actually one of the smallest playable card pools. Any time that card pool expands more than it shrinks is a net gain for the format, in my opinion.All the rejoicing around here over mediocre three-drops' and alternative-to-thousand-dollar-lands one-drops' getting the axe feels pretty contemptible in all sincerity.
BTW, the people you are referring to are the legacy community. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and figure you just meant the 'sentiment' is contemptible. I'm pretty happy to be a part of the legacy community, and regardless of your opinion on the ban announcement, these are the people that will show up and help shape that community.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I don't know, I think the "old" sort of conventional wisdom was that this would be the case, but really, bans are worse for players since you lose the ROIC on the cards you (might have) bought. Of course, if you never bought them though, that's a wash. Of course, the same ROIC applies to the company too, since what is printed is printed and you still need to sell it, but with all the market segments and factors going in to what drives the sale of sealed product, the drain on the ROIC is likely so diffuse it hardly matters much (at least, in this case, where the cards in question are from sets that aren't really "new releases").
So, I think this is, from a player's money perspective, a little worse for those who payed something like "top dollar" for the cards banned than for the company because I think recent ban actions have shown that people still bought/buy product. Erroding customer confidence seems to have minimal (if any measurable) effect at all.
What I think it does do it almost certainly lowers MTGO event attendance and (I guess) online sales? I don't know that we can really know what online sales look like though, but I do think it has seemed like most of the Legacy Challenges had less people than I recall in the past.
Yeah, I don't know what that person it attempting to get at. Bans are always double edged, they cut both ways, since powerful cards are "good" options to make decks work, but are also limit factors as to what else can "realistically" be played. I think it is nearly impossible to say exactly, quantitatively, what the balance is, but from an "interesting metagames are ones that are comparatively less notionally solved" than I think these bans are fairly expressed as being a win for Legacy players.
That being said, depending on someone's sentiment as to what Legacy ought to be, then that minor win might still be a net loss, of course. But then you weren't really too interested in what Legacy demonstrably is. A wholesale reframing of the Legacy paradigm really wasn't ever in the likely realm of possibility for this ban.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
This seems like a bad faith argument. Snow was more expensive than miracles/standstill (usually 1 or 2 duals) and made cheap decks like d&t/burn/death shadow unviable. Rug did the same to u/r delver and moon stompy.
On a larger scale, bans don’t cause players to lose value overall. If the quality of the format (ie demand) is improved and number of legacy playable cards doesn’t change (supply) the overalls value of the legacy card pool has to increase. Card owners make money with bans if the interest in the format hasn’t decreased. For each person with 3 okos taking a hit, there are 2 people with mox diamonds, rishadan port,, guru basic mountains and fireblast, or an abyss that are suddenly more valuable.
Overall card owners can only lose money if the demand for legacy cards go down (format is shit so people like me don’t want to buy in, no events) or supply goes up (people selling off cards because format is shit, major reprints, COVID bankruptcies). These bans, for most people, make the format less shit and bring them back into the game =more demand = more value.
Last edited by Reeplcheep; 02-17-2021 at 02:12 PM.
Yes; that's what I said. And you're right that the people expressing that sentiment represent the Legacy community, a community of which I'm also proud to be a part.
The trouble is that it feels less and less like a community as people get more gleeful about the hacksawing of each other's decks (through bans or rules changes), and the community feels more and more like a clubhouse as comparatively cheap paths to entry are cut off. I'm becoming more embittered with each passing questionable ban, and yes, some of that is directed at the community for its response.
That's true, but the card still allowed people to play control decks that otherwise were far, far out of reach. Sure, people may be playing a more expensive deck than other decks that are out there, but Snow and Delver are/were still less expensive than pre-Astrolabe aggro-control was.
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For the record I support both banning dumb cards and reprinting the remainder to oblivion.
The poll from this thread has goyf as the second-highest voted card for a ban. Ha, we didn't know how good we had it. At this point I just expect WOTC to print some stupid format-warping card every 4 months. My IRL playgroup is almost permanently locked into playing tier 2 chaff because no one wants to practice with cards that we all agree should or will be banned. Really wish they'd revert to 2012 era design philosophy.
No one is talking about D&T. Isn't it a winner with these bans?
All I see is "random D&T" etc...
That's because people were running Ravenous Baloth in their GR Survival and Arrogant Wurm in their UG Madness decks before that.
I really wanted Arcum's Astrolabe to be banned in Legacy, but I never expected it. I really like Oko and I'm going to miss him, but banning him is still the right call.
They are kind of stuck now, they cant un-print the cards they did, and I doubt they would ban them because consumers really hate when the power level is lowered. Its like when Patrick Sullivan made that rant about Ravenous Chupacabra in standard, that it was dumb design and the only reason it wouldn't see play is if even dumber stuff was printed (which happened). Turns out all that legacy has just been the dumping ground for all that dumb stuff constantly out-trumping each other as new stuff comes in. Creatures were mediocre before, but that didn't stop creature decks from being successful, now creatures are strong and invalidate so much stuff.
D&T has been unplayable for years but people still pretend it's good and by the sheer numbers some make it to the top 8. A huge part of the metagame is driven by one's perception and willingness to play a given deck, which explains why (for instance) Vintage was dominated by Shops for years yet most players would latch on their blue stew despite the bad matchup. So as long as people feel D&T or Maverick or whatever non-blue flavor pet deck of the month is playable, they'll show up and play it no matter how dire the conversion rate gets.
The worst thing was the printing of the card. You're mistaking the correction for the bad act.
Bad analogy / false dichotomy. You correct shitty game design from happening in the future by firing shitty game designers. But you can only correct shitty game design, in the context of Magic, that has already happened through bans.
Putting that aside, this is not about punishment this is about rehabilitating the format.
Considering Tarmogoyf received the 2nd highest vote on this poll at the time, you can now pick up Tarmogoyfs for around $35/each after the most recent reprinting in Time Spiral Remastered. Is Tarmogoyf now an official 'budget option' in legacy? What strange times we live in.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Tarmogoyf hasn't been good for years now and its replacements are far cheaper.
No idea why that card is still $35 besides it used to be expensive so people don't want to lower their prices quickly.
The only strange thing is that a vanilla used to be the best creature in almost every format.
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