The current state of Magic

[twndomn]

After coming back and playing a bit I think Leovold, TNN, and DRS should all go away to banland. They're just honestly stupid, unfun cards.

Like, DRS basically nukes all non-dredge GY strats as a side effect of existing and being everywhere. TNN is the least interactive creature I've ever seen, and it's got relevant Tribal status to boot. Leovold is just pushed too hard.

Fun and stupid are subjective.

At this point in time, a better question is: assuming you don't want to do anything broken and combo, you need to justify as to why you Don't run DRS and TNN. These 2 cards are the epitome of being fair, but their cumulative effect over several turns is just game winning. The only reason that would stop you from running these 2 cards while being a fair deck is because you run Terminus/Supreme Verdict, that's about it. You can make a case for Burn, but that's rather blurry.

[morgan_coke]

Leovold would be less of an issue if it couldn't ride on DRS' perfect mana wave. But that's not the B&R thread.

The whole thing stinks, but it's going to backfire eventually. Just because they handpick their data now doesn't mean that metagame can't stink. Players still vote with their wallet and if the metagame is perceived as "unfun", they'll stop spending. The playerbase in general should use its power more often because if all the recent changes have shown anything, then it's that we got WotC by the balls.

You're right. I guess what I was getting at is I strongly dislike the importation of "battlecruiser magic" into Legacy. And apparently they decided to force the issue by printing just blatantly broken stuff like Leovold and TNN as "Legacy Only".

[morgan_coke]

Fun and stupid are subjective.

At this point in time, a better question is: assuming you don't want to do anything broken and combo, you need to justify as to why you Don't run DRS and TNN. These 2 cards are the epitome of being fair, but their cumulative effect over several turns is just game winning. The only reason that would stop you from running these 2 cards while being a fair deck is because you run Terminus/Supreme Verdict, that's about it. You can make a case for Burn, but that's rather blurry.

I'd also agree with this, and I hate it just as much as when you need to play Brainstorm to be competitive. They need to adopt a "Pillars" approach to Legacy, and make some stuff besides just the blue shell + broken duders truly competitive.

And no, blue shell + even moar cantrips and terminus doesn't really count, lol.

[menace13]

This was originally brought up in the Community MTGO thread when the change happened, but interesting article about the impacts of Wizards further restricting the MTGO Daily data.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles...-data-insanity

WotC: "We don't know how to balance formats, so in an effort to make it appear better; we are limiting the information available from everywhere. Thx in advance."

[rufus]

WotC: "We don't know how to balance formats, so in an effort to make it appear better; we are limiting the information available from everywhere. Thx in advance."

We can't work things out with R&D so we'll use obfuscation instead.

[Gheizen64]

I'd also agree with this, and I hate it just as much as when you need to play Brainstorm to be competitive. They need to adopt a "Pillars" approach to Legacy, and make some stuff besides just the blue shell + broken duders truly competitive.

And no, blue shell + even moar cantrips and terminus doesn't really count, lol.

Countertop + miracles was so extremely different in gameplay from 4c play every good card though (lots of basics, slow clock, no wastes etc...). And it would've been even more if they had banned BS, as miracle would've went for the portent+ponder suite, 4c goodstuffs would've probably adopted thought scour/opt alongside Storm (to fuel delve/drs/threshold/spell mastery/PiF), SnT would've outright died or be forced to play garbage like See Beyond. Ponder would have become the best cantrip in the format, but not being able to draw 3 /reshuffle and dodge discard would've gone a long way.

Alternatively, make BS a pillar, but give us another pillar cards. But nooo, SotF is too good cause it give consistency to 30+ creature decks that aren't elves. Recruiter would make goblins semi-viable! The horror! And even then, BS is so low investment and fit everywhere that i argue it shouldn't really be a pillar.

[Final Fortune]

I agree SOTF and Skullclamp would do a lot to discourage the aggro-control and control meta that we've defaulted to, it'd be great to see Affinity and Survival toolbox again and make control decks have to use a more pro-active game plan and aggro-control use more than spot removal.

[Megadeus]

Countertop + miracles was so extremely different in gameplay from 4c play every good card though (lots of basics, slow clock, no wastes etc...). And it would've been even more if they had banned BS, as miracle would've went for the portent+ponder suite, 4c goodstuffs would've probably adopted thought scour/opt alongside Storm (to fuel delve/drs/threshold/spell mastery/PiF), SnT would've outright died or be forced to play garbage like See Beyond. Ponder would have become the best cantrip in the format, but not being able to draw 3 /reshuffle and dodge discard would've gone a long way.

Alternatively, make BS a pillar, but give us another pillar cards. But nooo, SotF is too good cause it give consistency to 30+ creature decks that aren't elves. Recruiter would make goblins semi-viable! The horror! And even then, BS is so low investment and fit everywhere that i argue it shouldn't really be a pillar.

If you decided to do "pillars" in legacy, there would be 2 pillar. Brainstorm or Chalice. One of these is much better than the other.

[H]

If you decided to do "pillars" in legacy, there would be 2 pillar. Brainstorm or Chalice. One of these is much better than the other.

Pillars don't really work in Legacy because the power level is (mostly) too (relatively) homogeneous.

Sure, most decks might play Brainstorm or Chalice, but plenty play neither and are solidly tier 1, or 1.5.

Examples such as Elves (Cradle), Death and Taxes (Vial), Maverick (Green Sun?), Jund (???), and so on.

[Julian23]

When you think of "pillars" you think of strategy, not tactics. Otherwise Black Lotus would be a pillar of Vintage.

If I had to come up with a list of the pillars of Legacy, it would probably be something like:

- Delver of Secrets
- Chalice of the Void, even though Ancient Tomb would also be a good choice
- Dark Ritual
- Stoneforge Mystic
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor

You could also make a case for Abrupt Decay, but that card crosses over into too many different types of decks and doesn't have really have enough strategic depths to be a pillar. DRS represents both tempo as well as midrange strategies and as such is also not a very good choice as a pillar of the format.

Edit: Show and Tell is another option, but the card/decks feels a bit too niche for me to consider it a pillar.

[Fox]

Sure, most decks might play Brainstorm or Chalice, but plenty play neither and are solidly tier 1, or 1.5.
Examples such as Elves (Cradle), Death and Taxes (Vial), Maverick (Green Sun?), Jund (???), and so on.

Maybe there has been a time where Maverick or Jund were actually good, but I don't think either of them should ever be confused with a tier 1-1.5 deck. How tiers are evaluated is subjective, but for me Jund and Maverick are tier 2 - i.e. strong enough interactions to compete in legacy, but "bad" decks which lose due to internal inconsistencies. If you're looking for a GB non-Bstorm deck to add to the list of DnT & Elves, then AggroLoam is probably the best bet (but this deck is even more wildly inconsistent, it does however cheese wins with Chalice). Next best tier 1-1.5 candidates are R/G Lands and B/R Reanimator.

Edit: guess you can't add AggroLoam due to Chalice.

[CptHaddock]

Is dark ritual really a pillar of the format currently? I'd say that Griselbrand is more of a pillar right now than ritual is.

[Lemnear]

I don't think that Delver and Ritual really are different "pillars" as all the decks playing those evolve around fetchlands, Brainstorm and Ponder, (and depending on your cynical level) with the main difference being the type/Timing for the killoption chosen.

If I had to pick "pillars" for representing fundamental different bases of decks in Legacy:

- Fetchlands (optimizing mana/cards)
- Chalice of the Void (messing with opponents cards)
- Blood Moon (messing with opponents mana)

[morgan_coke]

If you decided to do "pillars" in legacy, there would be 2 pillar. Brainstorm or Chalice. One of these is much better than the other.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Right now there are two Pillars in Legacy. You're playing Chalice/Ancient Tomb + stuff, or you're playing Brainstorm/Ponder + stuff, or you're playing a subpar deck. That even applies to combo decks now.

There are other "almost there" pillars, like Aether Vial, but the restriction of stack interaction and filtering to blue and the death of goblins due to ever more powerful creatures and mana cheats means that they'll never actually get there.

SDT was actually the closest they ever came to giving other colors Brainstorm levels of deck manipulation, but it turns out the best shell to run it in was the BS/Ponder one, so it only made the problem worse instead of solving it. And they're so terrified of making another Top style mistake they won't print anything similar again or in other colors. It's not like they couldn't use Scry or similar or just make some more Mirri's Guile/Sylvan Library type cards. They tried a little with Oath of Nissa, but only getting 3 card types was just a bit too limiting. Replace "Creature, Land, or Planeswalker" with "Permanents" and it would have made it there. I guess Ancient Stirrings and Traverse the Ulvenwald are also kinda close, but only in very limited decks.

I mean, try giving black a "look at the top 8 cards of your library and put one into your hand" sorcery for 1 or 2 and call it Demonic Study Aide or something. Give white Preordain. Faithless Looting was a great first step for Red, let's see more in that direction.

And let's be honest here, Chalice is only a "Pillar" because it shuts down Brainstorm.

EDIT: what I'm saying is I wish they'd look at the format like this and realize we need to either get rid of BS or just add a third and fourth Pillar.
EDIT2: and that's really hard to do, because even stuff like Survival, which could hit Pillar status.. is best in a BS/Ponder shell.

[Bryant Cook]

At least to me, I think you can break down the three major pillars down to their most fundamental levels:

• Nimble Mongoose - Nimble Mongoose represents the blue tempo decks, formerly represented by Delver of Secrets. These decks act as the "fun police" of the format.
• Hive Mind - Degenerate dirtbags who don't care about Chalice of the Void on one, but still like to play powerful things.
• Didgeridoo - People who like to do awesome things, like cheat creatures into play or other unsettling things on the first turn.

[Crimhead]

At this point in time, a better question is: assuming you don't want to do anything broken and combo, you need to justify as to why you Don't run DRS and TNN.

Are you saying D&T is a sub-par deck choice? UR Prowess? Infect?

And no, blue shell + even moar cantrips and terminus doesn't really count, lol.

But Miracles is nothing like the good-stuff "Battle Cruiser" TNN/Leotard lists.

If I had to pick "pillars" for representing fundamental different bases of decks in Legacy:

- Fetchlands (optimizing mana/cards)
- Chalice of the Void (messing with opponents cards)
- Blood Moon (messing with opponents mana)

I though the idea of "pillars" in Vintage was that decks will be built around one but not play the others. Fetchlands are played in all sorts of decks, so they are not a good candidate.

I don't play Vintage myself, but I'm told the old pillars are breaking down a little bit.

[Dice_Box]

It is my honest opinion that the only really "Untouchable" cards in Legacy (So True Pillars in the old adage) are Force, Fetchs and Duals. Everything else is secondary to those cards. But if I was asked to look at the fabric of which the current format is sewn into it would be this:

Force
Tutors (NO, GSZ, Infernal, Gamble, Rotation)
Tomb (Chalice fits here)
Xerox (Brainstorm and Ponder)
Spell Mana (Ritual, Petal, LED)
Waste (Port, Stifle)

This I feel more or less covers everything. Vial likely held a place in there too once, but I personally feel Vial's stock in Legacy has fallen over the last few years. Fish is fading and Goblins is gone leaving DnT as its only real home now.

I don't play Vintage myself, but I'm told the old pillars are breaking down a little bit.

Not so much that as time has moved on. Drain is not even a staple any more and the idea anyone would seek to restrict Ritual is more amusing than actually a true thought. This leaves Rod, Shop and Bazaar, all of which I feel are more powerful now than they were when the idea was first suggested.

[Fox]

Plenty of pillars out there, but the main card determining what can and can't happen in legacy right now is G. Probe (Grixis Delver, ANT, SnT) more than any other card. Right now I count 3-4 G. Probe decks as DTB (depending on the builds of SnT and Grixis).

[Lemnear]

I though the idea of "pillars" in Vintage was that decks will be built around one but not play the others. Fetchlands are played in all sorts of decks, so they are not a good candidate.

How often do the classic fetchlands+cantrip decks play Chalice or Bloodmoon vice versa? If you play Ancient Tomb + Chalice, you most likely do not play your own cantrip shell. That's what I was trying to highlight.

For the "pillar" discussion, I don't think it makes much of a difference if your cantrip+Fetchlands shell kills with Rituals+Tendrils, S&T+Griselbrand or Delver+DRS

[Cire]

For the "pillar" discussion, I don't think it makes much of a difference if your cantrip+Fetchlands shell kills with Rituals+Tendrils, S&T+Griselbrand or Delver+DRS

Going all the way - it seems like:

Cantrip/Fetch Shell (S&T, Storm, Delver, Grixis, Reanimator)
Ancient Tomb Decks (Chalice, Moon Decks, Eldrazi, Various Stompy type builds)
Other (D&T, Elves, Dredge, Lands)

When people complain about format staleness - what they really want is more of "other" decks, but designing for other is hard. You need to come up with cards that can't just be used in the Cantrip Shell OR in the Ancient Tomb shell. The successful "other" decks are extremely idiosyncratic and unique.