Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Like you do understand that Oops has actual deckbuilding restrictions right? They don't get to also play conventional/fair magic [meaning hate-immune]...and it's not just conventional/fair magic, it's the easymode version with mana advantage and first player advantage exploits.
Yeah, the thing is.
Let's say that ragavan unanswered on turn 1 kills you 40% of the times (tbh is quite hard to give a reasonable number, it is also deck dependant), still if you manage to beat it you got nowhere, and you are still back even.
On the other hand if you stop ops from goinf off you most likely win on the spot.
This already is enought to keep most people off those decks, if somehow the combo gets to be more consistent (basicly, if the deck gets to be better) to a point in which it passes to 10% metashare, most people would indeed hate the deck and ask for a ban.
I think one can deal with getting turn-oned from time to time, but it gets much more insufferable if the deck killing you turn 1 is a fair deck that can easily win even if you deal with it's early game
"You either die a Onesto-Player, or live long enough to see yourself become a Dredger"
Comparing resolving monke vs resolving a combo win con is total nonsense.
While you don't lose directly if you can't answer the monke instantly, the longer it sticks around, the lower are your chances of winning against the raw mana and card advantage it provides.
Nowadays almost every threat needs to be answered instantly because the clock is either too fast (dragon) or it generates too much advantage to compensate (monke).
This also one of the reasons formats with more recent cards suck.
This considerations are sound, but I agree only partially because:
- with things like all spells you instantly lose if you don't have an answer, with ragavan you don't (and please, all spells was just an example, really, only to say that in legacy we already have very unfun gotcha moments, and it appears they are part of the format)
- you should calculate like you do for an expected value, taking into account not only the outcome but also multiplying for the probability that such an outcome happens. You gain a free lotus petal IF ragavan connects, which means IF you had it in your opening hand (the more the time passes, the less relevant the monkey becomes), IF you won the die roll, IF opponent didn't have removal or blocker and/or IF they had it but you also had protection AND they had not one of their own, etc. For the card advantage, it's like 20-40% IF all these previous conditions are met AND the opponent's deck is of some utility for you (which is not always the case depending on the matchup).
Also, even if they are not high, there are costs of including ragavan in your deck: even taking into account dash, it only works on an empty field with no blockers, so very frequently it could be useless if topdecked in late, not just by drawing multiples. Basically you are betting on your early game and on your capacity of steal resources, otherwise it will never be a beater becuase it has awful stats.
I agree, indeed it seems to me that murktide matches the ban criteria even more than ragavan, because it's unlikely that it gets stuck in hand (even in the early game and unused it can always be a pitch for a FoW), it's almost never a dead topdeck, being a mid-late card it's more probable that you see it (so it's useful in more games), and really there aren't any costs of including it in your deck.
I think this is where the disagreement comes from: it seems to me that an unanswered ragavan very rarely kills you (and yes, I am taking into account a slow death by frequent little values).
Yeah but that's just psychology, it means we are saying "we want to ban the monkey because people dislike it". Ok, it could be a valid reason but it's not a particularly rational one (what the majority of people think isn't necessarily true). I personally hate way more being killed by a coinflip like "ops, I didn't have the FoW in my starting hand" or "well, once we know the matchup, the outcome is already decided because it's so unbalanced that skill and variance matter very rarely". I'd like to ban those experience from my hobby too, but it happens they are part of legacy.
When people look at the finger instead of the moon. Dude, it was just an example to explain the point.
I understand the feeling, because I hated Dreadhorde Arcanist. The difference is, while Ragavan cost only one mana which of course is very relevant, if unchecked Arcanist was guaranteed to generate value both mana wise (the spell was cast for free) and card advantage, and it required only to attack to do so and not also to connect. On the contrary, the monkey needs to connect to generate value, and even in this case, it's only the mana advantage which is guaranteed, while the card advantage is very random.
These are relevant things to consider, too.
You could even make an argument such as the following, taking into account the mirror. Let's consider the case where both players resolved their dude and didn't have the removal in hand nor any protection. Let's even say the board was completely equal of lands only and both players were hellbent and topdecked their copy of the dude and played it (with ragavan, to have a similar comparison, you have to presume that the first one, if it was played with dash, didn't hit anything relevant because the purpose of the argument is to look at a situation where both players have the exact same resources). So, completely simmetrical situation, but in the Arcanist example the first to play it was almost certain to win because it could flashback a removal to kill the opponent's one or a cantrip to find one such removal. So Arcanist even in late game totally snowballed and the first one to stuck completely determined the outcome of the game. THAT was the experience people hated. Same situation with Ragavan (as I said we are considering the case where both players have one on the battlefield no cards in hand in order to have a comparison of the same situation, so nothing hit with dash), they just stare to one another and the first one is NOT guaranteed to win the game.
I think the problem is more that people hate to lose from their own card (or hate the randomness of the experience, let's say if both keep hitting with dash, the first one to flip a useful card wins, but it's not guaranteed that the winner is the first one to connect, it's random).
I agree, but this is not an argument specifically against monkey, it's all the FIRE philosophy that sucks and all the recent printings since at least war of the spark. It seems to me murktide checks more the ban rational requirements, still you see way less people in favor of such kind of a ban.
Basically, THIS
I actually think it's totally fair to compare two "uninteractive" things purely on that basis. As long as you're comparing them purely on that basis.
I don't really care about most creatures. They really don't matter against most of what I play.
The ones that do matter in a given matchup are a blowout. And you don't have the luxury of waiting around to find out that they're blowouts: They're just blowouts.
A "blowout" creature in a "fair" deck against a "fair" deck would have to have stats big enough to crunch everything (NOT anything; everything) in its path, have a very low cost for its power (something like 1:5), and probably have evasion or trample. And maybe I've just been playing too much combo to think straight or waste time considering combat math, but neither of those cards is anywhere near hitting more than one of those metrics. And neither card is the most efficient attacker in the format. Hell, neither one is remotely close to the strength of cards that should still be legal but aren't.
Is Ragavan a blowout? No. Is Murktide Regent a blowout? No. Is either one of those a blowout against anything in the format? No.
Is Brainstorm? No. Is Dark Ritual? Yes.
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"Is it good in combo" is a bad metric.
The comparison with combo is nonsense because combo relies on resolving certain spells in a certain order to win instantly.
Almost all other decks don't do this.
In your terms the only relevant creature would be a 20/20 tentacle monster token.
Monke is easily the best 1 drop in the format, outclassing even delver.
The point is that he's way too good at what he does and can easily generate enough advantage from connecting a few times to run away with the game.
The free card is a lottery but the lotus petal alone is absurdly strong.
Even if he doesn't win the game by himself, he gets you ahead making it easier and safer to finish up with an oversized dragon.
Ban Update.
Ragavan out.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
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I and maxtortion pointed out that this probably makes make UR do better. Monkey was insane in the mirror and vs combo, but now they get to run cards that are better against their predators (borrower/delver)
Dingdong the monkey is dead! What cards will replace the 2 Gut Shot and 4 Ragavan slots newly freed up?
Im thinking…
1-2 Delver
1-2 Brazen Borrower
2 Bauble
1 Chain Lightning or Force of Negation
Anything I missed?
sorry for bad english
i was in home eat banana
wen phone ring
"monke is kil"
"no"
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I will at least agree that play patterns should be better. Losing to a lucky ragavan flip makes people want to punch something.
Also without ragavan requiring you to answer it on T1, murktide might be able to be kept in check by harder removal (terminus, trophy)
Jan. 25th is officially Banana smoothie day.
Now why exactly this card wasn't banned the day it was spoiled or every day since is a real legacy mystery.
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To be fair, we're giving green pilots of legacy an opposing Delver deck that is going to be running nearly 100% keyword flying (Delver, DRC, MurkGoyf, and Brazen) - do you really think they're going to figure out that Run Afoul not only hits nearly all-to-100% of Delver's wincons and also vastly improves their matchup vs Lage/Grisel/Emmy?
I mean why would you add a clearly obvious card to your 75 when you could keep crying about a flying Goyf? This is a big point in favor of @Reeplcheep's take.
Do you understand the prisoner’s dilemma? Ragavan was insane in the mirror (but mirror win % is always 50% overall) and combo (which is dead). The only decks left were those that are good against ragavan. This is similar to how the mental misstep restriction made blue in vintage better.
There are many decks which have mirror breakers which increase the individual’s win rate at the cost of the overall win rate. MD pyroblast in blue control, palace jailer in D&T, TNN in delver.
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