[Blog Post] Thoughts on B&R updates

[lordofthepit]

Good thing we can learn from our mistakes, eh?

In my defense, I didn't go to that Modern at Card Kingdom tournament back in 2013, which you and several others did.

I suppose facing the mirror five times in six rounds is enough to make anyone quit for good.

[Ace/Homebrew]

If I agree to have a This Person Is an Asshole disclaimer automatically put at the end of my posts, can we get a This Person Doesn't Know What He/She's Talking About and Talks a Lot disclaimer automatically put at the end of FoolofaTook's posts? I legitimately don't want new or easily-swayed people giving weight to the proclamations. I will sign for that trade right now.

Hah!
This is actually a very good idea. To be fair I would probably require "This Person Thinks He is Funnier Than He Actually Is" disclaimer, but it would be worth it to get that added to the bottom of Took's posts.

[DudeItsCorey]

This guy gets it. The whole "why do people player Modern when Legacy is about the same price" thing is a little weird though. While it is true that Modern and Legacy decks do come quite close in price sometimes, there are a few distinct differences that keep people out of Legacy. (1) It is easy to trade Polukranos or Elspeth for Birthing Pods and Shocklands, but it is very hard to trade those same cards for Duals and Forces, and (2) Legacy isn't as popular, so while there are few areas that don't have any modern players, there are many areas that don't have a vibrant legacy scene.

I guess I am just fortunate enough to have a thriving legacy scene in southern California. Modern is struggling to have more than 16 people at any given event. Next month we are dubbing Legacy month as we have 3 great tournaments three weeks in a row. It's too bad SCG couldn't host a legacy Open. I guess I will settle for the 5k. At least I have a chance to get a Mox Jet at MTGDeals.

[btm10]

I started playing Modern in the middle of last year and this B&R announcement banned my favourite Modern deck (Birthing Pod) and left me with a bunch of untradeable Pod pieces. I can transition very easily to Junk Midrange for that format because I already have the pieces but Modern won't be the same for me without Pod. It's the only Modern deck that truly felt like a Legacy deck and it was also "uniquely Modern." It's a shame it had to go.

I'm very happy with the Legacy changes, though. Treasure Cruise is not a card that I will be missing at all in Legacy and I'm overjoyed that I can play Team America with discard spells/Liliana again.

I also just built the Junk Midrange Modern deck, but that's because I had to spend less than $100 to get Shocks, Rhinos, and random Modern cards (Path, Slaughter Pact) to finish the whole deck. I'm still missing Rain of Tears on a 2/2 guy, but I can wait on that.

As a fellow Team America player though, I'm actually a little disappointed that they banned Cruise. I don't like BGx being the best thing to be doing in every non-Vintage format, even if it makes deckbuilding easy. I think we could do with a slightly more frequent bannings and unbannings in Legacy (though not as often as it happens to Modern) if only to shake the format up. I'll have fun playing TA again for another...3-6 months, but I'll want to move on sooner rather than later, and the tier 1 of Legacy, if it stays the way it is now, is basically TA, Elves, Miracles, and decks that are worse than those.

[Dragonslayer_90]

I also just built the Junk Midrange Modern deck, but that's because I had to spend less than $100 to get Shocks, Rhinos, and random Modern cards (Path, Slaughter Pact) to finish the whole deck. I'm still missing Rain of Tears on a 2/2 guy, but I can wait on that.

As a fellow Team America player though, I'm actually a little disappointed that they banned Cruise. I don't like BGx being the best thing to be doing in every non-Vintage format, even if it makes deckbuilding easy. I think we could do with a slightly more frequent bannings and unbannings in Legacy (though not as often as it happens to Modern) if only to shake the format up. I'll have fun playing TA again for another...3-6 months, but I'll want to move on sooner rather than later, and the tier 1 of Legacy, if it stays the way it is now, is basically TA, Elves, Miracles, and decks that are worse than those.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR... While I think much of the meta will return to the previous status quo from earlier at least initially, not exactly sure that this trend will persist as time goes on since they left Dig Through Time legal. Due to this, I think UWR Stoneblade will continue to be a thing actually, though only in its control shell form (Rudy Brikza Dig lists basically) since all the Pyromancer versions go extinct or are at least significantly worse without Treasure Cruise in the format. I wonder if Show and Tell is actually better due to Dig Through Time. Maybe not Sneak but Omnitell might be a contender. I am willing to admit I might be wrong as well. Maybe Dig, while good, isn't good enough to shake up the meta really and we'll just return to a meta very similar if not the same to pre-KTK legacy.

[btm10]

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR... While I think much of the meta will return to the previous status quo from earlier at least initially, not exactly sure that this trend will persist as time goes on since they left Dig Through Time legal. Due to this, I think UWR Stoneblade will continue to be a thing actually, though only in its control shell form (Rudy Brikza Dig lists basically) since all the Pyromancer versions go extinct or are at least significantly worse without Treasure Cruise in the format. I wonder if Show and Tell is actually better due to Dig Through Time. Maybe not Sneak but Omnitell might be a contender. I am willing to admit I might be wrong as well. Maybe Dig, while good, isn't good enough to shake up the meta really and we'll just return to a meta very similar if not the same to pre-KTK legacy.

I think we'll still see Omni, and that UR Delver will remain reasonable (even without Cruise) due to Swiftspear, and that people will play various shades of Blade. I'm not sure if that's enough to really shake things up though. Some of the middle tier decks of the pre-Khans metagame will improve, but I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest lasting change we see is the weakening of Elves due to UR sticking around and adding yet another deck against which -1/-1 effects, Forked Bolt, and Pyroclasm are good to the already long list.

As for being careful what I wish for, I don't see WotC being nearly as activist with their ban policy in Legacy as they are in Modern, even if they stepped up their activity.