All B/R update speculation.

[Cave]

The bolded area highlights an exceedingly good point that I like: Deadguy, Rock, Maverick, Jund all would suffer incredibly without DRS, and I believe that the main reason they are playable at tier 2 at all is because of the card. Yes, they are not as good as Blue-based mid-range decks, but they aren't as far off as they would be without DRS.

I believe Eva (Golgari) based aggro would be better off without DRS in this format, for the simple fact that the card benefits blue-based fair decks way more. If DRS goes, Junk simply replaces it with birds or some stuff and sure it stinks but ok. However Grixis Delver would have it worse and would need to be retheorycrafted from zero (because of no viable alternative) losing a lot of good plays, say t2 critter with pierce backup.
Numbers back me up: we have like 800% more blue drs decks in our top8's than Golgari-based midrange. A delver deck having widespread more-than-decent matchups against the whole field is what keeps non blue midrange at bay.

On a half serious sidenote, I also believe that:
1. Mana dorks should have 1 thoughness.
2. The only way to have access to mana dorks should be to play a green deck.
3. Mana dorks shouldn't be able to provide unblockable clock.
4. The whole "fair" vs. "unfair" terminology has to be reinvented, because it inherently suggests that there is something wrong in playing, say, a combo deck . However, when the top fair deck is putting up more results than the first 3 unfair decks combined it means that "fair" is consistently able to stop "unfair", and "unfair" is not that unfair anymore. Player A fights Player B in a random weapon deathmatch; player A has 1% to get a bazooka and 99% to fight barehanded, Player B has 80% to get a gun: who's calling the fight unfair?

[kombatkiwi]

Cool. I also think Top was fine, so I don’t see your point. You could replace the card of discussion in there with Mental Misstep, and it still doesn't have any bearing on the original point. Any card that can see play in multiple decks could be plugged into my sentence, but it doesn't mean that putting words into my mouth changes the value of the original sentence. Black Lotus could fit in every deck too... you definitely should have went all the way for a more dramatic effect.

You say "I don't support banning card X because it has attribute Q"
Then someone suggests "You must support unbanning card Y then, because it also has attribute Q"
Then you say "That doesn't have anything to do with what I said"



Of course this is a valid line of reasoning
If you don't have a consistent justification for why cards should or should not be banned then it's pointless to have a discussion with you, because your arguments will inevitably regress towards "this card should not be banned because I feel that it shouldn't"
In your specific case, you suggest a consistent rule in that the only things you feel should be banned are powerful proactive cards that end the game quickly
However you don't think Survival should be banned and you do think Misstep and Dig need to be banned?

Many cards are format warping to an extent. People don't play 1cc artifact removal spells because one of the artifacts you would need to deal with is a Chalice for 1. When I use the term format warping, I don't mean that it has some sort of impact on deckbuilding decisions. I don't use it to mean ubiquitous either; just because many decks play the card doesn't mean it's format warping. Format warping means it enables an archetype that you either play, or you play an archetype that beats it. This isn't Flash; DRS has not created a rock/paper/scissors format.

How can you say this and then at the same time disagree with banning Top or Survival?

Sure DRS can go in tier 2 decks but why should that be an argument that the card is safe? Throwing a broken card into a bad deck doesn't mean the card should be legal, and it doesn't make the good decks that run it any less good.

^this
"DRS is good for the format because it's a strong card for shit brews" IS an 'unban Black Lotus' argument

[Mr. Safety]

I believe Eva (Golgari) based aggro would be better off without DRS in this format, for the simple fact that the card benefits blue-based fair decks way more. If DRS goes, Junk simply replaces it with birds or some stuff and sure it stinks but ok. However Grixis Delver would have it worse and would need to be retheorycrafted from zero (because of no viable alternative) losing a lot of good plays, say t2 critter with pierce backup.
Numbers back me up: we have like 800% more blue drs decks in our top8's than Golgari-based midrange. A delver deck having widespread more-than-decent matchups against the whole field is what keeps non blue midrange at bay.

On a half serious sidenote, I also believe that:
1. Mana dorks should have 1 thoughness.
2. The only way to have access to mana dorks should be to play a green deck.
3. Mana dorks shouldn't be able to provide unblockable clock.
4. The whole "fair" vs. "unfair" terminology has to be reinvented, because it inherently suggests that there is something wrong in playing, say, a combo deck . However, when the top fair deck is putting up more results than the first 3 unfair decks combined it means that "fair" is consistently able to stop "unfair", and "unfair" is not that unfair anymore. Player A fights Player B in a random weapon deathmatch; player A has 1% to get a bazooka and 99% to fight barehanded, Player B has 80% to get a gun: who's calling the fight unfair?

You missed both Hanni's point, and mine, of which we agree. BGx decks aren't tier 1 because of issues unrelated to DRS. If you look at the non-blue tier 1 decks you'll notice a pretty strong pattern: deck design incorporates consistency at a level much better than non-blue 3-color decks. Look at Death and Taxes, Eldrazi, and Elves. They all benefit from 1) a more stable mana-base, 2) redundancy that allows them to draw any mix of their deck in a matchup and still perform close to optimal, and 3) linear plans that attack the meta-game in a meaningful way at the moment. Which one of those do Junk, Jund, and Maverick have? By definition the BGx decks aren't linear (and I hesitate to include Maverick, it's more BWx than BGx, and coincidentally they could afford to lose DRS the easiest.) Yes, Maverick could easily incorporate Noble Hierarch and/or Birds of Paradise, because of GSZ. They actively need and want bigger mana, and it pays off. Junk, Jund, and Deadguy wouldn't play a mana-dork because their premise is to play individually powerful cards first, synergism-based cards second. Honestly, the only real synergy from those mid-range good-stuff decks is that they play the best cards in their colors relevant to the format, then personal preference or meta-game adjustments happen. If DRS were banned I might play more discard in Junk, or maybe Mother of Runes, but I wouldn't play Birds or Noble Hierarch; they just don't do enough. If DRS goes, honestly, I might not play Junk/Jund at all. I would naturally gravitate towards Maverick or Deadguy, because those are decks that can either substitute or ignore mana dorks. Hell, Deadguy could just grab Aether Vial or Mother of Runes (or both) and hybridize with D&T nicely. Jund? No way it's going to try and play Bloodbraid Elf's without DRS. It just gets too clunky without the ability to curve out. I think players would gravitate towards Nic Fit or even Aggro Loam. Junk could substitute cards but I can honestly say as a long-time Junk player that DRS is single-handedly the best card in the deck, hands down.

You know which matchup I'd love to play all day long piloting Junk? DELVER DECKS. I would rather have my cake and let my opponent eat it too.

[Mr. Safety]

"DRS is good for the format because it's a strong card for shit brews" IS an 'unban Black Lotus' argument

General #1: We bombed the bad guys, but we killed 53 civilians. Casualties in war happen, y'know?

General #2: Why didn't we try an alternative method? We have navy seals you know...

General #1: Takes too long, gotta get 'em NOW.

I'm not saying I disagree with some of the bans, but I lean towards disagreeing with a Top ban than agreeing. I lean towards keeping Brainstorm rather than banning it, same with DRS. The 'friendly fire' argument along with labeling decks 'shit brews' (you know, like longstanding decks like Junk, insert sarcasm) is just that, shit. I don't think I'm the only one that thinks the loss of SDT was not just helpful but also hurtful, with maybe the helpful outweighing the hurtful marginally. After all, Miracles is still a deck, Doomsday is not. It's the natural evolution of the format for decks to become obsolete, but that doesn't me we have to like it (nostalgia, fun-factor, you know, the stuff that applies to gaming.)

[ubernostrum]

Here's a way-out-there idea:

1. Ban Deathrite Shaman. Sure, decks play mana dorks for resilience to mana denial strategies (as has been stated in this thread). But that's supposed to require you going heavily into green; when your Birds of Paradise can be cast off Underground Sea, we have a problem. The positive of graveyard interaction is overblown, because Deathrite Shaman in a non-blue deck is very close to a joke, as established by the ruling in the landmark case of Reanimator v. Elves. It's Deathrite plus free counterspells that's scary for graveyard decks, and the free counterspells aren't going anywhere. Meanwhile, taking Deathrite Shaman away from Grixis/Pile/etc. makes them fear the format's natural predators of greedy mana bases again, and that's something sorely missing from Legacy right now. So bye-bye, little Elf.

2. Ban Gurmag Angler; Tasigur, the Golden Fang; and Hooting Mandrills. The KTK-block experiment in printing Legacy-quality delve cards needs to be labeled a miserable failure. Cruise and Dig were obvious and ate their bans already. The big delve critters took longer to be figured out, but they do provide too much for too little (in terms of deckbuilding cost), and force other decks that want to kill with creatures into a smaller set of strategies than would otherwise be possible. Get rid of 'em.

3. Ban Gitaxian Probe. It's going to go eventually anyway, do it in the same announcement to just get it over with and splash some damage onto the combo decks people would naturally turn to in a suddenly Grixis-less world. A zero-mana cantrip that's genuinely better than Thoughtseize is not a good thing for combo to have (they can just go back to, y'know, playing discard spells and paying mana for them), and the way it turns other shells -- particularly Pyromancer -- into 56-card decks isn't healthy either. Just as its days were numbered in Modern, so too are they in Legacy, and it's time for Probe's number to come up.

4. Unban Mana Drain. It's had a recent paper reprint, and can always have more if needed, so scarcity/price should not be an issue. The actual card Counterspell doesn't see a ton of play in this format, and Mana Drain's take on "Counterspell with upside" pushes deck design in interesting directions (i.e., into having something useful to do with the mana) that are underrepresented for blue in Legacy right now.

5. Unban Mind Twist, because just unban Mind Twist already.

6. Unban one of the banned combo-engine cards. Earthcraft is a perennial favorite and likely safe, but my personal suspicion is several combo-engine cards on the list are OK today thanks to how much more powerful the format has gotten.

And just for fun, finally officially declare Brainstorm a "pillar" that will never ever be banned, just to make it clear to people that B&R discussions in Legacy need to be "build the best format you can given that four Brainstorms will always be legal".

[Lemnear]

Come on, lads ... don't tell me we are at pointing to some T2 or T3 decks in order to justify keeping a questionable card around :/

It made no sense for Survival; it made no sense for SDT; it won't make sense for DRS either.

[Tittliewinks22]

I think they should unban top but ban counterbalance. The only reason to spin in response to every damn spell is counterbalance...

Anyone who thinks that DRS should be safe because its banning will hit a lot of collateral... where were you when they banned Top??? We lost all shares of 12post and Painter, and even more fringe decks like nic fit and doomsday...

I agree DRS should stay to avoid collateral damage. But I also think they need to undo bans that previously hit collateral (top) and make the appropriate ban (counterbalance) that will have much less impact on the format.

[Mr. Safety]

I think they should unban top but ban counterbalance. The only reason to spin in response to every damn spell is counterbalance...

Anyone who thinks that DRS should be safe because its banning will hit a lot of collateral... where were you when they banned Top??? We lost all shares of 12post and Painter, and even more fringe decks like nic fit and doomsday...

I agree DRS should stay to avoid collateral damage. But I also think they need to undo bans that previously hit collateral (top) and make the appropriate ban (counterbalance) that will have much less impact on the format.

I want a top re-print right before it gets unbanned though, so I can get them for a reasonable amount...Like, reprint them for Commander and then 6 months later BOOM, legal in Legacy again. Hell, they did it with BBE/Jace in Modern.

[Hanni]

You say "I don't support banning card X because it has attribute Q"
Then someone suggests "You must support unbanning card Y then, because it also has attribute Q"
Then you say "That doesn't have anything to do with what I said"



Of course this is a valid line of reasoning
If you don't have a consistent justification for why cards should or should not be banned then it's pointless to have a discussion with you, because your arguments will inevitably regress towards "this card should not be banned because I feel that it shouldn't"
In your specific case, you suggest a consistent rule in that the only things you feel should be banned are powerful proactive cards that end the game quickly
However you don't think Survival should be banned and you do think Misstep and Dig need to be banned?



How can you say this and then at the same time disagree with banning Top or Survival?







^this
"DRS is good for the format because it's a strong card for shit brews" IS an 'unban Black Lotus' argument

The point was that you can change words in anyone's paragraph to form a new paragraph, but putting words in someone's mouth doesn't make for an accurate 1:1 comparison.

I don't think Top was the right ban at all. Top was a perfectly fair card that was good in a number of decks. Both Counterbalance and Terminus were the culprits that pushed Miracles over the top. 1 mana sweepers and a one-sided Chalice for multiple cc ranges are oppressive cards.

My blurb about DRS enabling fringe strategies was less an argument for why DRS should not be banned, and more an argument for why I think it's good for the format. And I felt the same way about Top, too.

I'm not saying proactive cards that end the game are the cards to ban. If that was the case, I'd be screaming for Show and Tell to be banned, and I'm not. Some cards are so powerful that they literally warp the format, and those are the cards that need to be banned.

Survival wasn't overpowered. People simply did not want to adapt. Survival with Vengevine, Loyal Retainers, and/or Necrotic Ooze... all of these were slow and disruptable. The deck was only dominant for a short time before it got banned, likely due to the SCG scene at the time and how vocal the pros were about it. These days, Survival would be Tier 2 at best.

The difference between a card like Survival and a card like Dig is relative to the power level. Paying UU at instant speed to dig 7 deep and keep 2 cards is way too efficient for that effect, and enables decks into an oppressive state. Survival costs 1G just to get the enchantment down.

Mental Misstep is more arguable, although when literally every deck runs 4 (including non-blue decks), that's a definite red flag. Ubiquity isn't necessarily a reason to ban something, but in Missteps case, being able to counter 1cc spells for 0 mana and no card disadvantage was pretty format warping. DRS doesn't have remotely the same impact.

Again, enabling shit brews was not an argument for why DRS is or is not banworthy, but more about its benefits to the format. Black Lotus would be parasitic to the format. I'm not sure how that could be misconstrued at all, but okay.

[kombatkiwi]

General #1: We bombed the bad guys, but we killed 53 civilians. Casualties in war happen, y'know?

General #2: Why didn't we try an alternative method? We have navy seals you know...

General #1: Takes too long, gotta get 'em NOW.

I'm not saying I disagree with some of the bans, but I lean towards disagreeing with a Top ban than agreeing. I lean towards keeping Brainstorm rather than banning it, same with DRS. The 'friendly fire' argument along with labeling decks 'shit brews' (you know, like longstanding decks like Junk, insert sarcasm) is just that, shit. I don't think I'm the only one that thinks the loss of SDT was not just helpful but also hurtful, with maybe the helpful outweighing the hurtful marginally. After all, Miracles is still a deck, Doomsday is not. It's the natural evolution of the format for decks to become obsolete, but that doesn't me we have to like it (nostalgia, fun-factor, you know, the stuff that applies to gaming.)

The Top ban affected Miracles' chance of winning tournaments much more than Doomsday's

If a Tier 3 deck becomes worse with a ban then who cares? People are always going to play with pet decks regardless

[Mr. Safety]

The Top ban affected Miracles' chance of winning tournaments much more than Doomsday's

If a Tier 3 deck becomes worse with a ban then who cares? People are always going to play with pet decks regardless

If you don't see why someone would be bothered by losing a card that at least enables their pet cards, I don't know what to say. Sorry your soul is so black that you don't enjoy non-tier 1 cards anymore? Some of us are still lamenting that Zoo isn't a real deck anymore. So the answer to 'who cares?' is 'more people than you realize'.

I would also say that because Miracles has won *some* percentage of tournaments while Doomsday has the ability to win *zero* tournaments is a fairly strong piece of empirical evidence to the contrary of your first statement. 'Miracles wins less is not' < 'Doomsday not being a deck'.

EDIT: I actually checked out Doomsday, and it has a few finishes post-Top ban, but no wins, and nothing since October of 2017 according to mtgtop8.com.

[kombatkiwi]

If you don't see why someone would be bothered by losing a card that at least enables their pet cards, I don't know what to say. Sorry your soul is so black that you don't enjoy non-tier 1 cards anymore?

A couple of Miracles players cried so hard on this board when top got banned that people sigged the posts to laugh at them
You can make the argument that we need to protect players' feels, but it's not a compelling stance because the only logical conclusion is to never ban anything

Miracles maybe went from like 60% to win a tournament to ~10% or less
Doomsday went from like 0.5% to 0.1%

I can't remember the exact metagame data from before the ban (60% is probably too high I guess) but you get the idea

[Watersaw]

The point was that you can change words in anyone's paragraph to form a new paragraph, but putting words in someone's mouth doesn't make for an accurate 1:1 comparison.

I don't think Top was the right ban at all. Top was a perfectly fair card that was good in a number of decks. Both Counterbalance and Terminus were the culprits that pushed Miracles over the top. 1 mana sweepers and a one-sided Chalice for multiple cc ranges are oppressive cards.

My blurb about DRS enabling fringe strategies was less an argument for why DRS should not be banned, and more an argument for why I think it's good for the format. And I felt the same way about Top, too.

I'm not saying proactive cards that end the game are the cards to ban. If that was the case, I'd be screaming for Show and Tell to be banned, and I'm not. Some cards are so powerful that they literally warp the format, and those are the cards that need to be banned.

Survival wasn't overpowered. People simply did not want to adapt. Survival with Vengevine, Loyal Retainers, and/or Necrotic Ooze... all of these were slow and disruptable. The deck was only dominant for a short time before it got banned, likely due to the SCG scene at the time and how vocal the pros were about it. These days, Survival would be Tier 2 at best.

The difference between a card like Survival and a card like Dig is relative to the power level. Paying UU at instant speed to dig 7 deep and keep 2 cards is way too efficient for that effect, and enables decks into an oppressive state. Survival costs 1G just to get the enchantment down.

Mental Misstep is more arguable, although when literally every deck runs 4 (including non-blue decks), that's a definite red flag. Ubiquity isn't necessarily a reason to ban something, but in Missteps case, being able to counter 1cc spells for 0 mana and no card disadvantage was pretty format warping. DRS doesn't have remotely the same impact.

Again, enabling shit brews was not an argument for why DRS is or is not banworthy, but more about its benefits to the format. Black Lotus would be parasitic to the format. I'm not sure how that could be misconstrued at all, but okay.

How exactly are "good for the format" and "not banworthy" different arguments? Because for a card to be banned it must - by definition - have a negative effect on the format as a whole. People keep bringing up SDT as if Miracles and the bad decks it apparently enabled were worth protecting while condemning GP Treasure Cruise era Delver and Dig Through Time powered Omnitell as unhealthy and oppressive. If we're going to entertain the idea that preservation of a pet deck is worth keeping an arguably tier-0 deck on top then it should apply to everything.

I really don't buy the "meta will adapt" argument. We've learned time and again that it's better to do "the thing" then whatever beats "the thing," otherwise we would have seen more mainboard Rest in Peace and Suppression Field during the cruise era. It's simply easier and more efficient to sleeve up broken spells then clunky hate pieces.

[kombatkiwi]

How exactly are "good for the format" and "not banworthy" different arguments? Because for a card to be banned it must - by definition - have a negative effect on the format as a whole. People keep bringing up SDT as if Miracles and the bad decks it apparently enabled were worth protecting while condemning GP Treasure Cruise era Delver and Dig Through Time powered Omnitell as unhealthy and oppressive. If we're going to entertain the idea that preservation of a pet deck is worth keeping an arguably tier-0 deck on top then it should apply to everything.

+1
Solidarity with DTT 2014-2015 rest in pepperinos

[Mr. Safety]

A couple of Miracles players cried so hard on this board when top got banned that people sigged the posts to laugh at them
You can make the argument that we need to protect players' feels, but it's not a compelling stance because the only logical conclusion is to never ban anything

Miracles maybe went from like 60% to win a tournament to ~10% or less
Doomsday went from like 0.5% to 0.1%

I can't remember the exact metagame data from before the ban (60% is probably too high I guess) but you get the idea

I do get the idea...I just don't agree that it's a reasonable point. I should agree that the stock market speculator only has 2 summer homes instead of 3 while a carpenter can no longer take a vacation this year? Sorry the rich guy has to eat fewer lobsters while the middle-class guy can't even have lobster at all? Doomsday has gone to the graveyard, for all intents and purposes for the sake of winning tournaments, while Miracles is still a valid tournament choice, often making into DTB. Replace Top with Terminus and it becomes a different story.

Rephrased, it's like the one guy in the platoon that didn't clean his bunk so EVERYONE has to do 50 extra pushups. That works in the military, but we're talking about a fucking game, something where 'fun' should at least be a consideration.

Back to the original point, do you really feel that DRS needs to be banned? Or are you arguing only for the sake of arguing? To make a point about 'how to argue'? That seems asinine. The rules of debate don't always apply when talking about something that isn't fully defined, like fun-factor or likelihood of participation from more casual-oriented players. We aren't dealing with absolutes, only a Sith deals in absolutes.

[morgan_coke]

I think DRS should be banned because Black shouldn't be the color with the best mana dork in the game. YMMV.

I also think Delver should get hit for the exact same reason. It's unhealthy and unbalanced for the format for the best spell color to also have the best creature(s).

[Watersaw]

I do get the idea...I just don't agree that it's a reasonable point. I should agree that the stock market speculator only has 2 summer homes instead of 3 while a carpenter can no longer take a vacation this year? Sorry the rich guy has to eat fewer lobsters while the middle-class guy can't even have lobster at all? Doomsday has gone to the graveyard, for all intents and purposes for the sake of winning tournaments, while Miracles is still a valid tournament choice, often making into DTB. Replace Top with Terminus and it becomes a different story.

Rephrased, it's like the one guy in the platoon that didn't clean his bunk so EVERYONE has to do 50 extra pushups. That works in the military, but we're talking about a fucking game, something where 'fun' should at least be a consideration.

Back to the original point, do you really feel that DRS needs to be banned? Or are you arguing only for the sake of arguing? To make a point about 'how to argue'? That seems asinine. The rules of debate don't always apply when talking about something that isn't fully defined, like fun-factor or likelihood of participation from more casual-oriented players. We aren't dealing with absolutes, only a Sith deals in absolutes.

This is ridiculous.

As a peasant who can only afford the one Tier 2.5 deck he currently owns I can say without a doubt that your analogy sounds absurd. If keeping a 3k mana base as top dog is your idea of standing up for the little guy then you need to reevaluate your position. Shit man I've never even tasted lobster, I don't give a fuck how much anyone eats. Yeah losing a tool would suck but you know what? Who cares. Like you said it's a fucking game and things change all the time. A card getting banned just means you need to adapt and isn't that the point of deck construction?

P.S. The fact of the matter is we ARE dealing in absolutes as the entire discussion hinges on whether or not a card should be legal in a competitive context.

[taconaut]

Here's a way-out-there idea:

This whole post was a rollercoaster of emotions for me

I still think all of the cards you said to ban an unban are fine, though, and I think top was, too. I'm not sure about Dig and Cruise, though they were definitely fun to play with for a while.

Misstep just has kinda dumb play patterns, it just feels like it needed a little more time in the oven.

[Hanni]

How exactly are "good for the format" and "not banworthy" different arguments? Because for a card to be banned it must - by definition - have a negative effect on the format as a whole. People keep bringing up SDT as if Miracles and the bad decks it apparently enabled were worth protecting while condemning GP Treasure Cruise era Delver and Dig Through Time powered Omnitell as unhealthy and oppressive. If we're going to entertain the idea that preservation of a pet deck is worth keeping an arguably tier-0 deck on top then it should apply to everything.

I really don't buy the "meta will adapt" argument. We've learned time and again that it's better to do "the thing" then whatever beats "the thing," otherwise we would have seen more mainboard Rest in Peace and Suppression Field during the cruise era. It's simply easier and more efficient to sleeve up broken spells then clunky hate pieces.

Something can be good for the format or bad for the format without being banworthy.

My argument regarding Top wasn't that Miracles wasn't an oppressive deck. My argument was that Top was the wrong card to ban.

You are correct that there are no wrong threats, only wrong answers. The available hate for Survival is pretty broad though.

[maharis]

I think they should unban top but ban counterbalance. The only reason to spin in response to every damn spell is counterbalance...

Anyone who thinks that DRS should be safe because its banning will hit a lot of collateral... where were you when they banned Top??? We lost all shares of 12post and Painter, and even more fringe decks like nic fit and doomsday...

I agree DRS should stay to avoid collateral damage. But I also think they need to undo bans that previously hit collateral (top) and make the appropriate ban (counterbalance) that will have much less impact on the format.

Many of us wanted to keep Top too. I looked for my several posts making this same point about Counterbalance but don't really have time to dig back that far. Legacy needs more cards that enable non-cantrip spam strategies.

Here's a way-out-there idea:

1. Ban Deathrite Shaman. Sure, decks play mana dorks for resilience to mana denial strategies (as has been stated in this thread). But that's supposed to require you going heavily into green; when your Birds of Paradise can be cast off Underground Sea, we have a problem. The positive of graveyard interaction is overblown, because Deathrite Shaman in a non-blue deck is very close to a joke, as established by the ruling in the landmark case of Reanimator v. Elves. It's Deathrite plus free counterspells that's scary for graveyard decks, and the free counterspells aren't going anywhere. Meanwhile, taking Deathrite Shaman away from Grixis/Pile/etc. makes them fear the format's natural predators of greedy mana bases again, and that's something sorely missing from Legacy right now. So bye-bye, little Elf.

2. Ban Gurmag Angler; Tasigur, the Golden Fang; and Hooting Mandrills. The KTK-block experiment in printing Legacy-quality delve cards needs to be labeled a miserable failure. Cruise and Dig were obvious and ate their bans already. The big delve critters took longer to be figured out, but they do provide too much for too little (in terms of deckbuilding cost), and force other decks that want to kill with creatures into a smaller set of strategies than would otherwise be possible. Get rid of 'em.

3. Ban Gitaxian Probe. It's going to go eventually anyway, do it in the same announcement to just get it over with and splash some damage onto the combo decks people would naturally turn to in a suddenly Grixis-less world. A zero-mana cantrip that's genuinely better than Thoughtseize is not a good thing for combo to have (they can just go back to, y'know, playing discard spells and paying mana for them), and the way it turns other shells -- particularly Pyromancer -- into 56-card decks isn't healthy either. Just as its days were numbered in Modern, so too are they in Legacy, and it's time for Probe's number to come up.

4. Unban Mana Drain. It's had a recent paper reprint, and can always have more if needed, so scarcity/price should not be an issue. The actual card Counterspell doesn't see a ton of play in this format, and Mana Drain's take on "Counterspell with upside" pushes deck design in interesting directions (i.e., into having something useful to do with the mana) that are underrepresented for blue in Legacy right now.

5. Unban Mind Twist, because just unban Mind Twist already.

6. Unban one of the banned combo-engine cards. Earthcraft is a perennial favorite and likely safe, but my personal suspicion is several combo-engine cards on the list are OK today thanks to how much more powerful the format has gotten.

And just for fun, finally officially declare Brainstorm a "pillar" that will never ever be banned, just to make it clear to people that B&R discussions in Legacy need to be "build the best format you can given that four Brainstorms will always be legal".

I think at least one blue creature would have to go in this nuclear blast -- TNN, Snapcaster Mage, or Delver -- but I would be mostly fine with this. Though perhaps Mandrills doesn't have to be banned. Delve is stupid overall but I think Tombstalker (BB) and Mandrills (4 toughness) are closer to "balanced." Just like the argument is that B shouldn't get a mana dork, B also shouldn't get a huge body that doesn't require a big commitment to the color (a la Phyrexian Obliterator) or have a major drawback (Phyrexian Negator). (I guess BB isn't a "huge" commitment to black, but 2 is more than twice as much as 1....)

What I don't want to see is DRS get banned and we have to listen to insufferable bleating about how THIS UBx tempo-midrange deck is totally different from THIS UBx tempo-midrange deck and it's all because they don't play DRS anymore guys.

You missed both Hanni's point, and mine, of which we agree. BGx decks aren't tier 1 because of issues unrelated to DRS. If you look at the non-blue tier 1 decks you'll notice a pretty strong pattern: deck design incorporates consistency at a level much better than non-blue 3-color decks. Look at Death and Taxes, Eldrazi, and Elves. They all benefit from 1) a more stable mana-base, 2) redundancy that allows them to draw any mix of their deck in a matchup and still perform close to optimal, and 3) linear plans that attack the meta-game in a meaningful way at the moment. Which one of those do Junk, Jund, and Maverick have? By definition the BGx decks aren't linear (and I hesitate to include Maverick, it's more BWx than BGx, and coincidentally they could afford to lose DRS the easiest.) Yes, Maverick could easily incorporate Noble Hierarch and/or Birds of Paradise, because of GSZ. They actively need and want bigger mana, and it pays off. Junk, Jund, and Deadguy wouldn't play a mana-dork because their premise is to play individually powerful cards first, synergism-based cards second. Honestly, the only real synergy from those mid-range good-stuff decks is that they play the best cards in their colors relevant to the format, then personal preference or meta-game adjustments happen. If DRS were banned I might play more discard in Junk, or maybe Mother of Runes, but I wouldn't play Birds or Noble Hierarch; they just don't do enough. If DRS goes, honestly, I might not play Junk/Jund at all. I would naturally gravitate towards Maverick or Deadguy, because those are decks that can either substitute or ignore mana dorks. Hell, Deadguy could just grab Aether Vial or Mother of Runes (or both) and hybridize with D&T nicely. Jund? No way it's going to try and play Bloodbraid Elf's without DRS. It just gets too clunky without the ability to curve out. I think players would gravitate towards Nic Fit or even Aggro Loam. Junk could substitute cards but I can honestly say as a long-time Junk player that DRS is single-handedly the best card in the deck, hands down.

You know which matchup I'd love to play all day long piloting Junk? DELVER DECKS. I would rather have my cake and let my opponent eat it too.

Very well-said. As you may recall, I ported Gerry Thompson's Modern BRw Pyromancer deck to Legacy and routinely ate blue decks' lunch. I couldn't beat Lands and D&T though, even WITH DRS ("but DRS is so good vs mana denial!!!")

And, if I hit a tough run of draws, I could lose to good matchups very easily. So why would I play a non-U fair deck when I could just play a U fair deck and get all the same matchups, but also not just die to terrible draws? Oh and I also get access to creatures like TNN and Strix and Snapcaster and Delver? Why am I trying to play Lingering Souls?

People saying "Gx midrange decks can just play BOP if DRS goes" fundamentally misunderstand why these decks aren't played. The entire ecosystem of the format is warped around the U consistency shell. Banning one non-U card isn't going to change that.