All B/R update speculation.

[Crimhead]

Neither of the "Eternal" formats have a very stellar B&R management:

Legacy: The exact opposite - they can't be assed to ban shit even when it's blatantly obvious that something is broken. 1 year to ban DTT and 3 years of Miracle's dominace are just the "latest" examples for that.

Being fair, DTT didn't see heavy play until after the cruise ban. 6 months was not an unreasonable amount of time to give the meta a chance to adjust and police itself.

Miracles is a different story because not everyone agrees it even deserved a ban. WotC themselves said power level alone was not sufficient for a ban. I'm of the opinion it was only borderline OP.

Edit - of course I have no interest in debating the SDT post mortem. Just saying that your assertion that Miracles should have got a ban much sooner is not a cut and dry fact.

[Fox]

Being fair, DTT didn't see heavy play until after the cruise ban. 6 months was not an unreasonable amount of time to give the meta a chance to adjust and police itself.

This is correct, U/R TC Delver was tier 0. The timing window vs this deck was likely too narrow for DTT OmniTell to assert itself. Until TC was banned, DTT was not actually a ban-worthy card in anything but theory. In either case though Git. Probe was far and away the main enabler and should have been banned before either of the delve spells.

[DarthVicious]

Gitaxian Probe was far and away the main enabler and should have been banned before (Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time).

Am I reading you correctly here? A free Peek is a stronger card than Ancestral Recall at sorcery speed, and Ancestral Memories for two mana at instant speed?

[Fox]

Am I reading you correctly here? A free Peek is a stronger card than Ancestral Recall at sorcery speed, and Ancestral Memories for two mana at instant speed?

The reason you could cast TC that quickly was Gitaxian Probe (and again, fetchlands). That's not a controversial statement.

Probe +1 delve mana. Draws a cantrip. Fetch. Cantrip for 1 mana. 3 in yard, pass turn. Opponent plays delve hater DRS, pass turn (we'll assume it resolved). Land, double cantrip, between 5 and 6 in yard before DRS ever got a crack at challenging the engine - situation exacerbated if they found Probe #2. This is how DTT OmniTell worked; the same idea with TC U/R Delver except they are flinging Bolts every which way and deploying Delver or Swiftspear on way to TC.

Ancestral Recall has zero build-around. It is a mistake to look at what DTT and TC do and ignore how they have to be enabled to unlock that effect [Probe primarily]. Again just like DRS and Brainstorm, what they do doesn't matter - it's a second party at fault [fetchlands here].

[MorphBerlin]

I don't think I can agree here as I don't see which decks "can't afford to run it" given the card is as unrestrictive as Mental Misstep which made it even into non-blue decks back in the days. In fact, decks like D&T haven't even explored to use Probe to determine if they should drop a Thalia or SFM turn two, for example.

Given that in like 60% of matchups across the meta you play against other decks with Cantrips, its quite a stretch to argue that a single Probe is able to reveal the opponents plays to come. Similar is true for non-blue matchups which include engines like Loam or any topdecking in general.

Obviously my statment was hyperbolic regarding probe but this is the b&r threat after all.

Yes obviously decks that would run mistep cant afford to run probe. Missteps actually stops you opp from doing something, so any reactive deck would happily exchange 2 life to counter something in Legacy, the 1drop fromat. These card are not the same, still probe is annoying as fuck because making games into an ape contest for tempo and especially combo.

@Crimehad: I didn't say those decks are dogs, I said they are put at a fundermental disatvantage because they can't play porbe which gives the named decks free information and a 56 card deck. And comparing Probe to Thoughtseize is just a joke, the don't even have colse to the same purpose. I hope I don't have to draw that out.

[DarthVicious]

The reason you could cast TC that quickly was Gitaxian Probe (and again, fetchlands). That's not a controversial statement.

Probe +1 delve mana. Draws a cantrip. Fetch. Cantrip for 1 mana. 3 in yard, pass turn. Opponent plays delve hater DRS, pass turn (we'll assume it resolved). Land, double cantrip, between 5 and 6 in yard before DRS ever got a crack at challenging the engine - situation exacerbated if they found Probe #2. This is how DTT OmniTell worked; the same idea with TC U/R Delver except they are flinging Bolts every which way and deploying Delver or Swiftspear on way to TC.

Ancestral Recall has zero build-around. It is a mistake to look at what DTT and TC do and ignore how they have to be enabled to unlock that effect [Probe primarily]. Again just like DRS and Brainstorm, what they do doesn't matter - it's a second party at fault [fetchlands here].

Probe being one of the many cards that enabled the broken delve cards does not make Probe itself broken. Baubles enable delve too, are they broken? The interaction between Probe & Therapy isn't exactly broken either. Strong, yes. If Probe was broken, more people would consider Glasses of Urza.

Fetchlands are another issue entirely. That I'm not going into, other people have gone into that often enough and I might get some kind of magical internet STD from going in there myself.

[Fox]

Probe being one of the many cards that enabled the broken delve cards does not make Probe itself broken. Baubles enable delve too, are they broken? The interaction between Probe & Therapy isn't exactly broken either. Strong, yes. If Probe was broken, more people would consider Glasses of Urza.

Baubles don't pitch to FoW, draw the same turn, trigger YP, nor tell you what to search for with that cantrip chain. Baubles also increase the clock enemy Goyf would present (still relevant consideration before Fatal Push). They are not broken because a deck with Baubles isn't going to combo off on opponent's upkeep after they pick up a card; they also aren't going to make a land drop on time with Bauble's draw.

[Nielsie]

And uhm, people in the DnT thread are actually considering Glasses of Urza...

[Lemnear]

Oh come on Fox ... you can't point to Probe being the reason that TC & DTT were OP, if every deck which ran these started with 8 Fetches, 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder by default to cycle 10% of their deck into the yard by turn 3.

[Megadeus]

Oh come on Fox ... you can't point to Probe being the reason that TC & DTT were OP, if every deck which ran these started with 8 Fetches, 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder by default to cycle 10% of their deck into the yard by turn 3.

And probe was just exacerbating the issue by being another cog in the retarded blue stew

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Clearly it was thoughtscour that should’ve been banned, that card was Blue Ritual in those decks.

[MorphBerlin]

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

[Crimhead]

@Crimehad: I didn't say those decks are dogs, I said they are put at a fundermental disatvantage because they can't play porbe which gives the named decks free information and a 56 card deck.

A deck that is disadvantaged is an underdog. A deck that has the advantage is a favourite.

If all your saying is that Probe decks have a strength that other decks don't, that's hardly worth mentioning because every deck has strengths that other decks do not.

And comparing Probe to Thoughtseize is just a joke, the don't even have colse to the same purpose. I hope I don't have to draw that out.

As far as imparting perfect information and making play deterministic, they both do this to the same extent. Hope I don’t have to draw that out.

[taconaut]

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

This sounds like you're just mad that you didn't have adequate protection - if those probes were discard spells, you still lose both games, and they still get to see your hand - what makes probe so special? If they probe you and see Daze, Fluster, Force, Pheldagrif, Mindbreak Trap, they can have all the information in the world and still lose because you came prepared. Plus, if you're playing a storm player that doesn't probe you there AND doesn't have discard, but takes the correct risk to make you have it with low information, you still don't win either of those games. I'm not sure what you expect - what would a skilled combo game look like?

[ph88]

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

Wait. So g2 you're OTP with BS, FOW, land, and 4 other non-blue no-interaction cards. You don't mulligan (questionable, but possibly correct depending on what deck you're on), then BS, spending your only blue card, MAIN PHASE? If you'd just held your BS until after he probed he might have been too scared to go off. Hell, if you just didn't BS at all you would have been fine since he didn't have any discard!

I certainly don't like the card, but you can't blame this one on probe.

[Rascalyote]

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

Yes storm is too good, let's ban a card out of it /s

Complaining about the power level of probe when you're playing brainstorm is pretty ClownFiesta IMO

We need more unbans and less bans :(

[MorphBerlin]

@ph88

No I kept, 4 lands BS Pyro Spellbomb, bad hand but better then 6 in my mind, blast his t1 BS, play bs main because of the chance to hit Thoughtseize, only find fow without blue card. Die on his turn. Might have played suboptimally but that's easy to say in hindsight. If it was a discard spell I get another turn because of the mana.

@taconaut

What makes probe special? Its a 0 mana card that puts you at a big advantage information wise. I would play the hack out of a 0 mana peek that lets ne play 56 cards. I am pretty sure a Strom deck with 6 discard and 4 probe is much stronger than a 10 discard storm deck. Because there would be some hell of clubky draws but probe just recycles itself every time.

[jandax]

Yesterday it happend again:

G1 get probed, therapy your force. Two turns later probe again to see if there is another one. No >Storm off

G2 keep 7, play a BS, on the opps turn, probe-> no blue card for force, combo off with no discard.

Such an ape card, even chalice and blood moon might take more skill than this :D

Skill cuz you have to know how to choose which one to slam

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[taconaut]

@ph88

No I kept, 4 lands BS Pyro Spellbomb, bad hand but better then 6 in my mind, blast his t1 BS, play bs main because of the chance to hit Thoughtseize, only find fow without blue card. Die on his turn. Might have played suboptimally but that's easy to say in hindsight. If it was a discard spell I get another turn because of the mana.

@taconaut

What makes probe special? Its a 0 mana card that puts you at a big advantage information wise. I would play the hack out of a 0 mana peek that lets ne play 56 cards. I am pretty sure a Strom deck with 6 discard and 4 probe is much stronger than a 10 discard storm deck. Because there would be some hell of clubky draws but probe just recycles itself every time.

That hand is pretty marginal, it relies heavily on getting a good brainstorm. I see why you kept it, but I think a six could potentially be better (depending on what you're playing, not sure what deck you're on). If it's a discard spell, in this specific case, you don't even get to brainstorm and just get super hosed; in the general case, sometimes it gives you an extra turn, but I've had plenty of games where I can deploy discard and go off in the same turn.

I agree that 6 discard/4 probe is probably better than 10 discard, but, if you're saying:

- zero mana peek is too strong, and you would play four
- zero mana peek exists and is Gitaxian Probe

then why are you not playing it already? If the answer is that it is not optimal for your deck to do so, then one of the above postulates must not be true. I would argue that both of them are untrue; gitaxian probe is not free (though I agree it's as close to free as something gets in Magic) and it's not broken in the way that you say, otherwise every deck would play it, and we know they don't.

[MorphBerlin]

Well you see probe does the same as a discard spell but 4 probe is better then 4 more discard spells so you got your own logicical inconsequences mate ;)

I think 0 mana peek is too strong yes and probe is as close to it as it gets. And in these shells it is 0-Mana peek

My main reason for complaint is not power level though, it's just the dullness of that card that takes away something basic from the game