All B/R update speculation.

[adrieng]

ragavan is just a better card than drs which is banned in legacy.
see in vintage where ragavan sees more play than drs right now

[Purple Blood]

Don't think you can really call either DRS or Monkey definitively better or worse. DRS shuts down graveyards, which Monkey does not. Monkey provides potential card advantage if you get lucky on flips, which DRS does not. DRS can close out a game without combat, which Monkey cannot. Both provide ramping and color fixing but DRS does that more reliably.

Its pretty close and ultimately most of the time both are somewhat must-answer 1 drop threats so in that sense its even.

Ironically, DRS would be a pretty good check on UR Delver i.e. the best Monkey deck. That being said, I'm sure if it was unbanned you'd just see decks running both.

[Zoid]

I don't think this is about monke so much as that people are tired of having the meta completely turned upside down every few months by another undercosted "answer me instantly or I create so much advantage that you'll can't keep up anymore" card.
Given the price tag of most legacy decks it's not surprising that players are angry when decks get invalidated all the time just for some bannings to try to turn back time again.
Legacy used to be a very inert format with maybe a handful new cards being relevant every year, most way later than they should have been.

Maybe that's all just a plan to kill paper eternal for good so that commander players can afford duals instead of just drowning the RL in the nearest puddle.

[Wrath of Pie]

The joke is that Commander players still won't be able to afford duals, because they are already most of the demand.

(Really, they should probably be banned for the same reasons Moxen/Black Lotus were initially banned.)

[jmlima]

...
Maybe that's all just a plan to kill paper eternal for good so that commander players can afford duals instead of just drowning the RL in the nearest puddle.

At best it's an attempt at making eternal formats a sort of rotating format, where the latest bomb drives purchases that would otherwise not exist. In short, instead of only pitching cards to standard /edh / modern players, they are now pitching them to the entire spectrum of play-modes.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

The joke is that Commander players still won't be able to afford duals, because they are already most of the demand.

(Really, they should probably be banned for the same reasons Moxen/Black Lotus were initially banned.)

Those cards are banned because they're restricted in vintage

[jmlima]

I just realized how quaint that poll at the top is. To think that 24% at some point considered the oyf to be a bannable threat really speaks volumes about how far the metagame travelled. The oyf is such a powerful find that, these days, does not even make it to the top-10 of the most played creatures:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tourname...12363656#paper

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Phyrexian Dreadnought will rise again!

[Fox]

I just realized how quaint that poll at the top is. To think that 24% at some point considered the oyf to be a bannable threat really speaks volumes about how far the metagame travelled. The oyf is such a powerful find that, these days, does not even make it to the top-10 of the most played creatures:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tourname...12363656#paper

You do realize Murktide is literally Goyf: 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.

This has never stopped being a massive problem to format balance. Alas card design has dropped into stupidity, and we have to deal with ETB scum (Strix, Ice-Fang, Snapcaster, Uro, etc) to fix the Goyf problem.

This Goyf crap went on unbanned for far too long, and now there too many cards to ban in the Goyf/anti-Goyf cluster. This is why it's particularly hilarious that people seriously think Murktide would ever get banned.

[KobeBryan]

Phyrexian Dreadnought will rise again!

glad i got a playset when they were 15$

[Barook]

You do realize Murktide is literally Goyf: 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trample, summoning sick.

This has never stopped being a massive problem to format balance. Alas card design has dropped into stupidity, and we have to deal with ETB scum (Strix, Ice-Fang, Snapcaster, Uro, etc) to fix the Goyf problem.

This Goyf crap went on unbanned for far too long, and now there too many cards to ban in the Goyf/anti-Goyf cluster. This is why it's particularly hilarious that people seriously think Murktide would ever get banned.

Murktide has evasion, though, while Goyf is 100% vanilla.

Goyf was also way more problematic back then since creatures were way shittier and couldn't scale up to it. That, and removal outside of StP was pretty poor at handling it, too. Only with Abrupt Decay and other top tier removal we got over the years, Goyf became less and less of a problem.

[Fox]

Murktide has evasion, though, while Goyf is 100% vanilla.

Goyf was also way more problematic back then since creatures were way shittier and couldn't scale up to it. That, and removal outside of StP was pretty poor at handling it, too. Only with Abrupt Decay and other top tier removal we got over the years, Goyf became less and less of a problem.

Power creep happens over time, but Goyf is still Goyf. Gotta get off the text box and keep driving the point home: 2 mana, over-stat'd, non-trampling, summoning sick. The same card is still the same card. Let us stick with what is objectively true and rid ourselves of this pointless subjective stuff about the ethereal importance of flying.

In terms of answers, Murktide dies to every color: enemy Murktide (blue), REB (red), flyabolic edicts (green), Sudden Edict (black), Plow (white). The silver lining to all of this is that no matter how unhealthy a Goyf-type is in legacy, Murktide far better design than actual Goyf - Murktide must by definition kill at least one instance of itself when in combat with another Murktide. Nothing was quite as stupid as playing Goyf b/c you couldn't beat it, and still not being able to block Goyf in combat with Goyf b/c they had Bolt.

[Zoid]

Oh boy, are we back at "dies to removal" arguments.

Goyf was just the biggest creature/fastest clock by a long shot for the mana cost at that time.
I remember, people were literally playing it in every deck just to throw it out again where it obviously made no sense.
It's stats are actually a feature, requiring you to play something that isn't goyf to beat goyf.
In the end it's still a vanilla.

[Purple Blood]

I don't really understand the complaint about beat sticks. Should that just not be a thing in the format? Look at the top list of creatures played in Legacy. Its almost entirely comprised of value engines and hate bears. Leaving aside Elves, in the top 50 you have Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN as the only creatures who's primary role is to be cast and turned sideways. I really don't see the problem other than that all four are played in blue decks but that's a whole separate conversation.

[FTW]

Leaving aside Elves, in the top 50 you have Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN as the only creatures who's primary role is to be cast and turned sideways. I really don't see the problem other than that all four are played in blue decks

That IS the problem.

Wild Nacatl off Taiga is supposed to be the biggest beat stick, giving balance to the color pie. When blue has the best Gruul creatures, it unbalances the color pie. Because you get to play the best beatdown threats protected by Daze, while having Force of Will to beat combo and Brainstorm to fix cards. What's the point of even playing Gruul with worse beatsticks, no free counters, and random topdecks?

The best Gruul deck plays 20+ blue cards, 6 islands, 8 blue fetches, and beats down with blue creatures.

[Fox]

It's stats are actually a feature, requiring you to play something that isn't goyf to beat goyf.
In the end it's still a vanilla.

There is nothing healthy about anti-Goyf design (again it's Strix, Ice-Fang, Snapcaster, Uro, etc). Cards like these have lead to generation of bland value decks which all do the same thing [kill spells, countermagic, value dudes, and some PWs].

The problem with these decks is that in the absence of a central identity/strategy, they all fold to [insert new FIRE card]. As they can't beat the FIRE card they just swap colors to add said card at the rate at which new best FIRE card is printed. These decks are the rotten heart of legacy, and the reason they exist is how skillessly easy it is to hide behind things like flying deathtouch walls and free random lifegain & built-in recursion, all while never going down on cards.

This is the kind of crap which needs to be printed to not die to Goyf-types almost immediately after it is cast. So while it sounds nice and diverse that we should be able to play anti-Goyfs to beat Goyf-types, the anti-Goyf comes with it's own format-ruining baggage.

Reasonable creatures with healthy counterplay to a Goyf-type mostly cluster at 3 and 4 cmc...and when you let Goyf-types choke the life out of a format at 2cmc, and also add Daze, the format does not really get to explore creatures which enable distinct strategies.

The format has already paid the price of leaving Goyf legal, and it no longer matters if it gets power-crept to the point that we now call it Murktide. While it sucks to have to build every legacy deck from the start point of passing the "doesn't die to Goyf" test...uhh like welcome to legacy?

[Purple Blood]

That IS the problem.

Wild Nacatl off Taiga is supposed to be the biggest beat stick, giving balance to the color pie. When blue has the best Gruul creatures, it unbalances the color pie. Because you get to play the best beatdown threats protected by Daze, while having Force of Will to beat combo and Brainstorm to fix cards. What's the point of even playing Gruul with worse beatsticks, no free counters, and random topdecks?

The best Gruul deck plays 20+ blue cards, 6 islands, 8 blue fetches, and beats down with blue creatures.

In world where Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN don't exist, Nacatl doesn't suddenly become playable. You explained why those cards are playable: they are backed up by pitch counters and cantrips.

The reality is that in Legacy regular aggro decks are not playable so, to the extent "beatdown" strategies have worked in the format, its generally been in a chalice or blue deck. There's nothing you can do about that. If you got rid of those top 4 beatsticks, the pitch counter / cantrip shell would just move onto the next best thing. In no scenario would Nacatl be playable. It's not even playable in Modern.

[Fox]

In world where Murktide, DRC, Delver, and TNN don't exist, Nacatl doesn't suddenly become playable. You explained why those cards are playable: they are backed up by pitch counters and cantrips.

The reality is that in Legacy regular aggro decks are not playable so, to the extent "beatdown" strategies have worked in the format its generally been in a chalice or blue deck. There is nothing you can do about that.

Whoopsie doodle you've skipped over the real killer of Nacatl. In your haste to blame Brainstorm and pitch spells you forgot it's actually Goyf and the cards it generated. Thou shalt never play Nacatl against Ice-Fang/Strix/Uro/SCM.

[Purple Blood]

Reasonable creatures with healthy counterplay to a Goyf-type mostly cluster at 3 and 4 cmc...and when you let Goyf-types choke the life out of a format at 2cmc, and also add Daze, the format does not really get to explore creatures which enable distinct strategies.

Yup. Unfortunately, if you ban Daze and Wasteland you would probably have to sit there for 2 years banning a ton of suddenly too degenerate strategies and probably end up in a spot looking like Modern with less painful mana.

[Fox]

Yup. Unfortunately, if you ban Daze and Wasteland you would probably have to sit there for 2 years banning a ton of suddenly too degenerate strategies and probably end up in a spot looking like Modern with less painful mana.

Daze will eventually get the axe for being an untenable first-player advantage exploit in an environment of this level of power creep. Wasteland however is a good actor in the format, adding meaningful counterplay to the format. Without this axis of interaction fair-slanted nonblue decks would have basically no meaningful lines against combo.