All B/R update speculation.

[Jak]

Zoo and Goblins are linear aggro decks which cant get past Delver, TNN, DRS, etc no matter if these creatures are backed by Brainstorm+Ponder or Ponder+Preordain.

That's why I said those creatures should be banned as well.

You change literally nothing for Goblins, Zoo, etc if you ban Brainstorm. In fact you would need to neuter every printing back to pre Time Spiral and Supreme Blue to have Zoo and Goblins viable again due, aka a time when blue creatures sucked and the best splashable creatures in blue decks were Nimble Mongoose and Werebear. We can't turn back time and neither remove a decade of printings.

Well that isn't true at all. Zoo was a big player after Shard of Alara came out. It only went downhill when Delver and Stoneforge took over. I'm not advocating for those same exact decklists to come back, just some iteration of creature based aggro. Like I said, it helps balance the format so blue-tempo-pile.dec isn't overly abundant.

Banning Brainstorm shakes the format up. I haven't the slightest idea how you think it would change nothing, but I say they should just do it. Who's it going to hurt? Blue mages who now can't cream their jeans when shuffle away two dead cards with a fetch? Brainstorm isn't some highly costed card that would hurt people financially. It wouldn't obsolete any decks (at least outright). Yeah, people would complain, but they'll forget about it and put in 4 Preordain a week later. Banning it hurts blue, but it doesn't destroy it. It levels the playing field.

The closest thing to viable aggro decks we have atm are Dredge and stompy, which put up numbers.

You could classify those decks as a number of things. I do think it is sad that the decks that don't play blue have to resort to jumping through hoops to play better creatures than the blue decks.

You can't seriously argue on format health, based on whatever was played 10+ years ago and dismiss all evolutions the aggro supertype went through.

One is a combo and the other relies on playing like 15 permanent disruption spells. Is that what an aggro decks needs to survive in today's meta?

Format health is about checks and balances. I'm arguing for bannings which would help foster aggro strategies so the format isn't overly blue dominant.

[Crimhead]

I think Thresh kind of puts the breaks on that claim. I know it's less impressive now than it was, but have a look at it when it was the most dominant deck in the format; No Blue Creatures, a lot of Blue cantrips.

The Blue creature creep has just made the shell easier to justify but that doesn't mean that it was not still the best option.

Was Werebear Threshold ever the top deck? I didn't think Thresh became the biggest deck until Delver.

[Dice_Box]

Was Werebear Threshold ever the top deck? I didn't think Thresh became the biggest deck until Delver.

It was A top deck, but I actually forgot about Delver. (Haha) I withdraw that comment.

[Jak]

Way back before Goyf it was one of the top decks, if not the top deck. http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=108&f=LE

[Crimhead]

Way back before Goyf it was one of the top decks, if not the top deck. http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=108&f=LE

I think I am not making the point clearly.

Before the slew of blue creatures, cantrips were a good engine and capable of powering the top deck. But that was not the only engine that could build the top deck. Cantrips had real competition for fair deck enablers up until around the printing of TNN.

Since then, between Delver and TNN, it seems all the best fair decks need to be in blue. I think that's what happens when too many of the best creatures are the same colour as FoW.

[Crimhead]

Not to say this is the definitive analysis, but as a reference, here are the curently "best" decks* according to MTG top8 (2 months, live events):

15% - Grixis Delver
6% -- UWx Control
6% -- 4c Control
5% -- Death & Taxes
5% -- Storm
5% -- Dark Depths
4% -- Show and Tell
4% -- Dragon Stompy
4% -- Lands
4% -- Elves
4% -- Eldrazi Aggro

Only 58% of these decks are running Cantrips. Other than the elephant in the room that is Grizis Delver, it looks like a very balanced meta (particularly from a play-style perspective).

Maybe Grixis alone is an issue. Maybe it's underperforming - an overly popular deck with a weak conversion rate, but arguably that doesn't matter. The meta can be unhealthy even if the players are the problem.

If we consider Czech and Grixis to be "too similar", it is certainly an ugly spot in the format (21% with no sign of letting up). Grouping decks as such is not unprecedented - when TC was banned, the offending "deck" was a conglomeration of U/R Delver and U/R/W Delver. One could argue those decks were more similar than Grisix and Czech, but some would disagree.

If there is a ban needed to address the current meta, I would think we are looking at YP or DRS.
YP doesn't affect Czech, so Grixis players mostly just switch to either Czech or TA? A DRS ban hurts both decks considerably, makes a much bigger shake-up, and therefore harder to predict what will happen. Maybe we see more Thresh, Prowess, Maverick, and Infect?

I only hope if DRS gets the axe that Elves isn't hurt too badly. If nothing else, going mono-green (a possibility?) makes the Lands and Moon matches better (for the Elves).

Interesting to see what will happen. We do know WotC move at a snail's pace when it comes to banning established staples (they are much quicker to ban new cards that cause issues right away - eg, MM, DTT). I would expect another 6 months to a year before WotC might act on Grixis/Czech. But who knows?



*I've listed all the decks ranking in at 4% or more, collectively making up almost 2/3 of the meta. Seems reasonable. The "3%" decks include Burn, Stoneblade, Reanimator, and other decks we probably agree are a solid "tier" weaker.

[Lemnear]

That's why I said those creatures should be banned as well.

So ban 6+ years of creatures plus Brainstorm? Like ... doubling the size of the banlist to make Maverick solid again while forgetting about how S&T was the archetype which put Maverick to rest? Let me guess the next step...

Well that isn't true at all. Zoo was a big player after Shard of Alara came out. It only went downhill when Delver and Stoneforge took over. I'm not advocating for those same exact decklists to come back, just some iteration of creature based aggro. Like I said, it helps balance the format so blue-tempo-pile.dec isn't overly abundant.

That's not true. Maverick and so called "Big Zoo" didn't get stomped by Delver but S&T. Delver just retired most of the tempo creatures and made these decks clock fast enough that playing pure aggro was pretty pointless.

Banning Brainstorm shakes the format up. I haven't the slightest idea how you think it would change nothing, but I say they should just do it. Who's it going to hurt?

This ignorance about what happened in Vantage after the "Vintage Apocalypse" is baffling as well as the idea that banning Brainstorm would make Zoo and other shit decks suddenly viable.

One is a combo and the other relies on playing like 15 permanent disruption spells. Is that what an aggro decks needs to survive in today's meta?

Format health is about checks and balances. I'm arguing for bannings which would help foster aggro strategies so the format isn't overly blue dominant.

Dredge is no combo deck. It makes no sense to complain about current aggro decks having to run disruption to be viable. Are you offended by D&T running wasteland and Thalia as well? You want the format to be balanced around no-disruption aggro? That sounds like snowballing into banning everything from Belcher to LED to Chalice to S&T

[Megadeus]

I mean no disruption aggro existed with show and tell and led legal for a long time. The thing that changed was dumb fucking Bargain that flies and lifelinks. As for storm it's gained probe and a non life loss engine really.

Show and Tell and Reanimator went from making a fatty and zoo saying, "man thats gonna be tough to beat" to, " if you resolve one 3 mana spell you outright just win the game 95% of the time". Emrakul and Griselbrand ruined it in that regard

[Crimhead]

Hard to believe Sneak Show is single handedly holding Maverick down! It's not that big a force in the meta.

Lots of factors in the demise of maverick:

• DRS was printed, and Jund became an objectively better deck with a similar space in the meta.
• TNN was printed. This made the Stoneblade match much harder, and in general made blue mid-range decks objectively better than blue-less midrange.
• The reutrn of classic U/W control could not have helped. I believe the Miracles mu is rougher for Maverick than the Stoneblade mu.
• Not sure how the rise of Lands and D&T effected Maverick, but at the very least those are not easy matches.

When the best non-combo decks were Thresh and Blade (w/o TNN), Maverick was sitting pretty. Now that the non-combo decks include Czech, Grizis, Lands, Miracles, Leo-Bug, D&T, and Eldrazi, I think this is overall a more hostile field.
K-Command maybe also doesn't help? Fatal Push?
I think Maverick has gotten very little help, while other decks keep getting new bombs. But I wouldn't blame a combo deck with a 4% meta share.

[Rascalyote]

Bias here but just wanna say I don't understand people being down on maverick, it's pretty solid. I'm confidant the main reason it doesn't put up too many results is because hardly anyone plays it (but that kinda goes without saying obviously).

Good vs Delver, Lands, Turbo Depths, Death and Taxes. Can play Dark Depths which pile has a very difficult time dealing with. Thoughtseize -> Thalia as well as 5 copies of teeg but only having to put actually 1 into your deck means you get to not be a dog vs combo without sacrificing anything, Green Sun's Zenith is a pretty messed up magic card. You're bad matchups aren't even that bad, of course you don't play force so some games your opponent kills you turn 1 on the play or infects you turn 2 with counter back up but that rarely happens. Show and Tell is fine until you see Omniscience (then RIP lol). Miracles is pretty tough, and elves is a nightmare until you get postboard then you have a lot of tools to fight them.

I've heard "DRS/TNN/X made Knight of the Reliquary unplayable" far too many times. Even with DRS eating lands an active knight is going to be larger than anything your opponent casts 9/10 times, including big fish. Knight getting "brick-walled" by TNN favours you as their 3 drop is doing literally nothing while yours can at least crop rotation for you every turn (and iunoo maybe go make Marit Lage, or draw cards)

More on topic: Format is fine, ban nothing, more people should pick up maverick if they're sick of seeing Grixis everywhere, they'd prolly have more fun too =p

Edit- Just saw the above post, I disagree that Lands and DNT are hard. After lands cut black/decay they're really soft to you just playing a Knight. You also have lots of ways to interact, Plow/Karakas/Wasteland/Knight/Scooze/DRS/etc. And DnT is like a mirror match but you have ways to blow up jitte, good sideboard cards, and you can mom past their creatures easier to activate jitte as all their creatures (sans revoker) are white while you have both green and white creatures, I usually only lose to dnt when they play a bunch of fliers/crusaders and aggro me out.

Ramunap Excavator and Tireless Tracker are also new cards that are pretty strong.

[Lemnear]

I mean no disruption aggro existed with show and tell and led legal for a long time. The thing that changed was dumb fucking Bargain that flies and lifelinks. As for storm it's gained probe and a non life loss engine really.

Show and Tell and Reanimator went from making a fatty and zoo saying, "man thats gonna be tough to beat" to, " if you resolve one 3 mana spell you outright just win the game 95% of the time". Emrakul and Griselbrand ruined it in that regard

Funnily Entreat the Angels and Terminus were in the same block as Griselbrand, which sure didn't help aggro either.

In order to make turn-doods-sideways.dec viable, you can add all 3 to the ban list next to S&T and a dozen of other cards.

LED became only strong thanks to Infernal Tutor. I guess we should add these too then.

You see where this is going, right?

Hard to believe Sneak Show is single handedly holding Maverick down! It's not that big a force in the meta.

Lots of factors in the demise of maverick:

• DRS was printed, and Jund became an objectively better deck with a similar space in the meta.
• TNN was printed. This made the Stoneblade match much harder, and in general made blue mid-range decks objectively better than blue-less midrange.
• The reutrn of classic U/W control could not have helped. I believe the Miracles mu is rougher for Maverick than the Stoneblade mu.
• Not sure how the rise of Lands and D&T effected Maverick, but at the very least those are not easy matches.

When the best non-combo decks were Thresh and Blade (w/o TNN), Maverick was sitting pretty. Now that the non-combo decks include Czech, Grizis, Lands, Miracles, Leo-Bug, D&T, and Eldrazi, I think this is overall a more hostile field.
K-Command maybe also doesn't help? Fatal Push?
I think Maverick has gotten very little help, while other decks keep getting new bombs. But I wouldn't blame a combo deck with a 4% meta share.

4% meta share AT THAT TIME?

The joke is that the dood wants EVERYTHING removed which holds down a linear strategy of his choice. Means literally everything you and I listed, plus Brainstorm for the sake of it.

I swear, next he is doing a Dr.Jones impression and wants FoW banned because it counters Goblin Lackey

[Ace/Homebrew]

I swear, next he is doing a Dr.Jones impression and wants FoW banned because it counters Goblin Lackey

Yeah, but what kind of deck could you build around Goblin Lackey? It'd have to be some kind of tribal nonsense...

[Claymore]

Maverick can have some battle against SnT. Knight getting Karakas, black builds getting discard, various bears, it's not impossible.

Show and Tell (Griselbrand) killed any chance of Nic Fit staying a deck to beat, which at the time was the meta's ultimate competitive fair deck. Brief, but it was up there I'm pretty sure.

Miracles destroyed Maverick once it got Terminus, and a resurgence of ANT meant the three decks together wiped out any remaining fair decks (Mav, Nic, and Jund when it came to be).

Overall the Innistrad block gave us DnT, Delver, Miracles, and SnT as the Premier legacy format up through today.

[wonderPreaux]

Maverick can have some battle against SnT. Knight getting Karakas, black builds getting discard, various bears, it's not impossible.

Show and Tell (Griselbrand) killed any chance of Nic Fit staying a deck to beat, which at the time was the meta's ultimate competitive fair deck. Brief, but it was up there I'm pretty sure.

Miracles destroyed Maverick once it got Terminus, and a resurgence of ANT meant the three decks together wiped out any remaining fair decks (Mav, Nic, and Jund when it came to be).

Overall the Innistrad block gave us DnT, Delver, Miracles, and SnT as the Premier legacy format up through today.

Considering how many archetypes Innistrad left an impact on, it would be pretty interesting to see a "Legacy minus Innistrad block" type of event. Maybe just as a thought experiment or something.

[Zombie]

Maverick can have some battle against SnT. Knight getting Karakas, black builds getting discard, various bears, it's not impossible.

Show and Tell (Griselbrand) killed any chance of Nic Fit staying a deck to beat, which at the time was the meta's ultimate competitive fair deck. Brief, but it was up there I'm pretty sure.

Miracles destroyed Maverick once it got Terminus, and a resurgence of ANT meant the three decks together wiped out any remaining fair decks (Mav, Nic, and Jund when it came to be).

Overall the Innistrad block gave us DnT, Delver, Miracles, and SnT as the Premier legacy format up through today.

Also gave us Hoof.

[Lord Seth]

So ban 6+ years of creatures plus Brainstorm? Like ... doubling the size of the banlist to make Maverick solid again while forgetting about how S&T was the archetype which put Maverick to rest? Let me guess the next step...

Was it? I'll admit I'm no expert on the matchup, but Maverick seems like it had game against Show and Tell due to running Karakas (which can be fetched up by a Knight of the Reliquary), plus Gaddock Teeg (with GSZ to grab him) to hate on Sneak Attack. I thought Terminus was the card that really hurt Maverick, not Griselbrand.

On the subject of Maverick, I was looking at older decklists and stumbled across this Top 8. You don't see stuff like that anymore.

[ubernostrum]

As for rationality, when I state "I don't think the internet was as popular in magic then as it was now" and the next post to counter me is "Derp, I used the internet"... I was not claiming it was not used, I was claiming it's use has increased.

You think there's a qualitative difference between then and now.

You are wrong. You are as wrong as Wizards is whenever they take another step to try to hide data from the players. If it seems like I'm ignoring parts of your posts, it's because twenty years is a long time to spend listening to people rage about the filthy netdeckers and how they push all the fun/creative brews out of the metagame, and it just all runs together at this point.

[Jak]

So ban 6+ years of creatures plus Brainstorm? Like ... doubling the size of the banlist to make Maverick solid again while forgetting about how S&T was the archetype which put Maverick to rest? Let me guess the next step...

There have been a few mistakes printed and I think the format would be healthier without them.

Delver just retired most of the tempo creatures and made these decks clock fast enough that playing pure aggro was pretty pointless.

Cool, glad we see the problem with the card.

This ignorance about what happened in Vantage after the "Vintage Apocalypse" is baffling as well as the idea that banning Brainstorm would make Zoo and other shit decks suddenly viable.

It wouldn't hurt the "other shit decks". No where have I said banning Brainstorm would directly bring back aggro strategies, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Brainstorm is a ridiculous card that makes the best color too good to not play.

It makes no sense to complain about current aggro decks having to run disruption to be viable. Are you offended by D&T running wasteland and Thalia as well? You want the format to be balanced around no-disruption aggro? That sounds like snowballing into banning everything from Belcher to LED to Chalice to S&T.

Dragon Stompy is a prison deck. I was trying to point out that it has developed away from attacking with Gathan Raiders and Rakdos Pit Dragons. D&T is fine. It's one of the very few aggro decks that can compete because of the power creep of the hate bear.

The joke is that the dood wants EVERYTHING removed which holds down a linear strategy of his choice. Means literally everything you and I listed, plus Brainstorm for the sake of it.

Nope, just the blue creatures that are better than they should be and the 1 mana planeswalker that holds the deck together.

[Tittliewinks22]

Miracles destroyed Maverick once it got Terminus, and a resurgence of ANT meant the three decks together wiped out any remaining fair decks (Mav, Nic, and Jund when it came to be).

How is "Gaddok Teeg" a good excuse to dismiss the snt matchup but not mentioned at all vs miracles?

Mother of runes blanks swords to plowshares, gaddock shuts down terminus, entreat, Jace... Literally all their win cons and sweepers are accounted for...

I do not believe that terminus had as big of an impact on Mavericks downfall as you make it out to be.

[Megadeus]

Teeg plus Mom was decent for a time. Unfortunately we got an uninteractive removal spell that ignores mom so we could remove an uninteractive card from commander.