All B/R update speculation.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Survival's real enemy wouldn't even be DRS, honestly. Scavenging Ooze, Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace; all of their stock goes way up if Survival ever sees an unban. I wasn't that familiar with the intricacies of legacy when Survival was banned. On the surface it seems manageable, but others would have a better understanding of how good Survival would be in the current environment.

Vengevine was pretty busted as a "backup" win to whatever other Survival combo stuff you wanted to do (or silver bullet stuff), but straight up UG tempo Survival was arguably the best version of the deck and it just tried to win off of Vengevine and a strong Wasteland/Stifle tempo swing. But this was all in a time before Terminus or DRS existed (or sideboard RiP), so when you killed Vengevines they'd just come right back the next turn. I really don't think that particular strategy of the Survival decks would be overwhelming in Legacy right now, but it could potentially homogenize decks that use green.

At this point "decks using green" isn't a diverse field anyway so I don't see much harm in SotF being unbanned, aside from the ridiculous price the card already is.

[Cave]

#Tinker: We already covered that so many times. Just think of Show and tell being the best two-card combo enabler of the format, for .
Now, Tinker is a Show and Tell + Demonic Tutor that doesn't require you to play other 8 uncastable cards in your deck.
Enough said.

#Frantic Search: It's viable in one deck only, and would take it from completely garbage to...tier 2, maybe tier 1.5. Fact, I think FS is super duper unlikely to be unbanned. You don't want your candelabras to drop to $50 worth, do you.

[maharis]

I do find it somewhat amusing that you complain about a 3/1 with protection from the opponent while your main game plan is an indestructible flyer that kills in one hit and is often found in decks that can bring it right back any time someone does manage to get rid of it.

Just for a data point: I've been playing a lot of U/R Delver lately (because Price of Progress is a good card right now), and while I agree that it's good against Lands, sometimes I still find myself facing down a turn-two or turn-three indestructible flying 20/20, and that's the game. It's no more or less fun to lose to that than it is to be pecked to death by a True-Name. And True-Name takes a while to kill you, can be outraced by a variety of things, is susceptible to counterspells, and usually actually stays dead if you manage to put it in the graveyard. Is that massively worse than Marit Lage? I don't think it's possible to say so objectively.

But I think the main thing is Legacy is a huge, high-powered format. There are going to be decks that coalesce around the best and hardest-to-answer threats, because blanking common answers is often a good strategy. True-Name is certainly up there on the hard-to-answer scale, and requires some specialized tools if it does manage to get on the battlefield, but the same is true of several common big threats in Legacy.

The thing about Marit Lage/Griselbrand decks is that their whole deck is Marit Lage/Griselbrand. That means you have the opportunity to interact on multiple axes -- you can go after their GY, or go after non-basics, or go after their payoff spells, or even target the end result with a Swords to Plowshares.

TNN has very few angles of attack AND asks nothing of its deckbuilder other than to produce blue mana in a format where the best consistency engine is blue.

I beat a Marit Lage and Griselbrand in the SAME GAME at GP Seattle but lost to a TNN off the top two rounds later. 3 mana is a huge investment in Legacy and TNN comes down with infinitesimal risk of removal while a player trying to stick a Knight has to fade multiple maindeckable cards. It adds nothing and only takes away from the enjoyment of the format.

Tinker is a 1 card combo. At least Show and Tell requires 4 slots for Show and Tell and 6-8 slots for fatties. Tinker + fatty takes up 5 slots. Do you really want a format where you can potentially turn 1: Seat of Synod, Mox Opal, Lotus Petal, Tinker, Blightsteel or more realistically turn 2 Ancient tomb + Seat of Synod + Tinker? The deck can afford to run better protection as well because your slots aren't clogged up by Griselbrand or Emmy.

That all being said, I think it's funny how people run from Tinker because it's a slightly smaller package than Show & Tell. First of all, the Moxen in Legacy are not as good as the Moxen in Vintage, and I feel a dedicated Legacy Tinker deck would be susceptible to pretty miserable openers as a result. It also would be all-in on Tinker, which would leave it open to plenty of disruption. And of course, S&T has Sneak Attack as a backup plan so it's much more resilient (though I imagine there would be plenty of show-tinker hybrid decks.)

Actually, Tinker might be good in the fact that it would be a cheat-fattie-but-not-Griselbrand deck. If this format can hand T1-2 Marit Lages and Griselbrands it can handle a T1-2 Blightsteel. Inkwell Leviathan and Myr Battlesphere have tradeoffs, but again, would you rather your opponent have one of those or a freaking Griselbrand?

To be clear: I don't think Tinker should be unbanned, mostly because the format doesn't really need another U-based turn-2-fattie deck. But if it were unbanned, I'm not sure how much different the format would look. "Oh, another rush-to-fattie deck. OK, more Pyroblasts and Cages I guess."

[JackaBo]

So what is the medium spice level of cards to consider coming off the list?
If we all agree that Mind Twist is poopah bland, and Tinker is so spicy it will literally kill you, what are the cards that get debate?

As long as (ironically) DRS is around how is Survival such a taboo card?

That's a good question. Survival should be supersafe. As weak as combo is right now i think frantic should be safe too.

[Claymore]

What level of construction sign spice is necessary to get a ban or unban though?

[PirateKing]

What level of construction sign spice is necessary to get a ban or unban though?

Only one way to find out

[NeckBird]

Are people really saying Survival of the Fittest is safe for Legacy? Why, because Deathrite Shaman is legal? All this means is Survival decks will play Deathrite Shaman. Now, you play Survival and activate it on turn 2 while disrupting your opponents Vengevine.

On top of that, I seriously doubt grave hate will actually affect Survival anymore with the printing of Hollow One. You can repeatedly discard some shitty creature to tutor for your cost reduced creature that doesn't die to Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push. On turn 3 you just discard three creatures, get three Hollow Ones, and now you have 12 power on board (15 if you discard 3 Basking Rootwalla) through any number of Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt, Scavenging Ooze, or Deathrite Shaman. Why play any other fair deck at this point.

[PirateKing]

Are people really saying Survival of the Fittest is safe for Legacy? Why, because Deathrite Shaman is legal? All this means is Survival decks will play Deathrite Shaman. Now, you play Survival and activate it on turn 2 while disrupting your opponents Vengevine.

On top of that, I seriously doubt grave hate will actually affect Survival anymore with the printing of Hollow One. You can repeatedly discard some shitty creature to tutor for your cost reduced creature that doesn't die to Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push. On turn 3 you just discard three creatures, get three Hollow Ones, and now you have 12 power on board (15 if you discard 3 Basking Rootwalla) through any number of Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt, Scavenging Ooze, or Deathrite Shaman. Why play any other fair deck at this point.

So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

[NeckBird]

So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

Yeah man, my entire argument is that Legacy would turn into Survival decks and unfair decks. All you did was name unfair decks. You mentioned Terminus, but I'm pretty sure creatures getting put on the bottom of the library means you can tutor for them again. Why play any fair deck other than Survival at this point? Just play a bunch of anti-combo sideboard cards that you can tutor for against combo decks and go bigger than the Survival mirror all other times. The fact is that Survival can be a graveyard engine deck with Vengevine, but also completely ignore any grave hate with Hollow One. It's way too versatile.

[maharis]

So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

Amen.

I goldfished a Tinker deck 5 times and these were the results:

T3 tinker with Pyroblast backup
T3 tinker no backup
T2 tinker no backup
T3 tinker Flusterstorm backup
T4 tinker no backup

Again, I'm not saying unban Tinker. But really there was nothing about the deck that I didn't feel couldn't already be accomplished by S&T or Reanimator as is.

This format is really just blue fair vs. blistering fast combo vs. Chalice/sphere decks right now. Unbanning Tinker or SotF wouldn't make that more so, and banning DRS alone also won't change that.

[PirateKing]

You mentioned Terminus, but I'm pretty sure creatures getting put on the bottom of the library means you can tutor for them again.

You're still pitching creatures to find them. Under your original assumptions, how many rounds of discarding 3 shitty creatures to tutor for before you're hellbent?

Yes, Survival would push out a number of fair decks. I concede that point.
But how is it an argument that bringing a fair card back into the fold that would go toe to toe with legitimate combo decks is a bad thing?

[Claymore]

I think you just discard Vengevine after Vengine until you want to grab a Hollow One, then discard some other creature to get a Hollow One or X creature (Ballista), then play free Hollows and Ballistas to get all your VV's back.

Each creature from hand replaces itself anyway, so you're not really getting hellbent.

[NeckBird]

You're still pitching creatures to find them. Under your original assumptions, how many rounds of discarding 3 shitty creatures to tutor for before you're hellbent?

Yes, Survival would push out a number of fair decks. I concede that point.
But how is it an argument that bringing a fair card back into the fold that would go toe to toe with legitimate combo decks is a bad thing?

In part because fair decks aren't really getting pushed out of the metagame by unfair decks. Decks like Jund and Burn aren't good because blue threats like True-Name Nemesis, Leovold, and Delver are far more efficient than anything non-blue midrange or aggro decks have to offer. The fair decks that people want to see are getting pushed out of the format by fair decks that for some reason are able to easily play 4 colors and not die to Thalia + Wasteland.

[Lemnear]

I have no idea how people can throw 4x Tinker + 1x Bot into the same category as the clunky 4x SneakAttack + 4x S&T + 4x Griselbrand + 4x Emrakul in terms of deck construction/Compression, not even factoring that Tinker is a 1-card-combo while SneakShow & cousins need double the amount of cards.

Tinker was a no-brainer in vintage combo & control, so what hinders decks like Lands to just add Tinker to their already established Mox Diamonds for another T1 combo angle? The same is true for Belcher, various storm variants, chalice.dec, Miracles, etc

[Gheizen64]

I think if people just for once tried to sleeve survival and test it against a gauntlet they'd realize how clunky the card is and how often you get survival going nowhere unless you're playing 30+ creature cards in your deck.

Survival was banned when even snapcaster didn't exist. It's literally a relic of a bygone era, now it's almost 8 years since it went.

p.s. tinker is stupid because it's another show and tell, aka a combo that suffer only vs force and is largely immune to chalice and sphere effects. It's one of thoes cards who polarize the meta to be even more blue. Just no. Even if it weren't too good we already have too many of those stupid cards. If you want to unban something for combo, frantic and bargain are far more interesting cards.

[PirateKing]

I think you just discard Vengevine after Vengine until you want to grab a Hollow One, then discard some other creature to get a Hollow One or X creature (Ballista), then play free Hollows and Ballistas to get all your VV's back.

Each creature from hand replaces itself anyway, so you're not really getting hellbent.

Are we still on the turn 3 assumption here? That's a lot of mana.

So I'll also concede that a Survival meta is all conjecture and no amount of whatifs will solve it. But the point is that it's powerful. I mean we all remember the huge parade down Main Street when Land Tax was unbanned, right? Or the three day blackout after Worldgorger Dragon came off the list and the whole meta exploded?

I don't want just Earthcraft to come off the list so people can goof off for a few weeks then just shift back to the status quo because it's not Good Stuff. I mean at that point it's just why bother?

...he says to the B/R thread...

[maharis]

I have no idea how people can throw 4x Tinker + 1x Bot into the same category as the clunky 4x SneakAttack + 4x S&T + 4x Griselbrand + 4x Emrakul in terms of deck construction/Compression, not even factoring that Tinker is a 1-card-combo while SneakShow & cousins need double the amount of cards.

Tinker was a no-brainer in vintage combo & control, so what hinders decks like Lands to just add Tinker to their already established Mox Diamonds for another T1 combo angle? The same is true for Belcher, various storm variants, chalice.dec, Miracles, etc

It’s not that Tinker wouldn’t be stupid, it would be. The point is that we already have this format of force decks vs force check decks vs chalice decks. If tinker were unbanned and there were no other changes, what’s really different? All the combo decks play Tinker, great, they’re still just as soft to Grixis Delver as is. (And plopping 4 tinker 1 bot of choice is at least a bigger deck building choice than cramming the latest etb value blue creature into the ubx shell)

[Crimhead]

Is it over-represented because it’s overpowered or is it ove- represented because people like playing that style of decks?

I am convinced the answer to that question is comparing metagame share and T8/T16 percentage of a bunch of major tournaments and look if the deck constantly over- or underperforms.

You are missing the point. And misusing statistical jargon!

"Overrepresented", in stats, means T8/T16 placements out of proportion to the decks overall representation in the field. No amount of T8 or T16 data tells this story. You need to look at conversion rates / day-2 metas.

[mistercakes]

It’s not that Tinker wouldn’t be stupid, it would be. The point is that we already have this format of force decks vs force check decks vs chalice decks. If tinker were unbanned and there were no other changes, what’s really different? All the combo decks play Tinker, great, they’re still just as soft to Grixis Delver as is. (And plopping 4 tinker 1 bot of choice is at least a bigger deck building choice than cramming the latest etb value blue creature into the ubx shell)

I think I could have some fun jamming 4 tinker into an affinity deck, running 4 tinker for some bullets. There's no memory jar in legacy nor time vault, so you only have access to blightsteel and some other fatties like steel wind.

I do like the idea of having out a ballista and tinkering for a ravager on the spot.

It could also be played in a painter deck, but not sure how much better it could be.

[Crimhead]

Sensei's Divining Top. Grixis Tempo wasn't optimized during the reign of Miracles...

Or was it optimized for a different meta?