All B/R update speculation.

[Dice_Box]

Thats not really an answer though. Ok, why do you like prison/board control strategies? (Even though I would like to know, which stack based control deck exists in legacy, miraclces plays as much elemonts of board control as it plays of stack control.)

Personally? I like Prison because I find the idea of slowly stripping options away and leaving something with no out to be fun. I like the back and forth that comes from both trying to lock someone and then trying to hold it as they attempt to break out. There is nothing like a Smokestack on 3 ticking away as you wipe your board and his, knowing when its done your going to have a Crucible and he is going to have sweet fuck all. Also Stax is bad. If I wanted to win and play Chalice I would play Eldrazi. I don't play Eldrazi.

I for example like decision based interactive games (like most mtg players overall).

Ask yourself what the gameplan of Thresh is? Thresh in my view is just a slightly more interactive prison deck, if the deck is going to plan no one but you plays anything of relevance. But that's "Interactive" no? Its all about how you view it. I find Chalice to be a very interactive card, it interacts with a third of your deck.

Even though chalice is the best hate for cantrips it's just broken in a format which is first and foremost about tempo and thus forcing decks to focus on low cmc spells.

Chalice is fine. If you do not want to lose to Chalice don't build your deck in a way that is cold to it. You make a choice when you build to make something that is going to have good matches to some things and bad to others. BUG Control does not give two shits about Chalice a lot of the time, so its not like you do not have options even if you want to play stupid Xerox decks.

Here is a comment I made a long time ago on this topic, it sums up my views on the complaints about Chalice and the style of decks that play it well:

I am not sure how often in the history of Legacy this has been untrue. Aside from hyper Aggro and true Combo, most decks in Legacy have sought to restrict an opponent's options and minimise the risk to themselves as they play. Canadian always comes to mind when people say "Now all people are trying to do is lock you out." If Thresh is playing to plan, you should never resolve a spell. Not one. If they are slightly behind their ball, you will never resolve a relevant spell. Stax was a deck in the noughties, Enchantress was never planning to let you do anything of value... The only thing that has changed of late is that the format has speed up, now those seeking to play this style of game have speed up too. In place of "Stifle, Waste, Goyf" you now have "Sol Land, Chalice, Smasher".

The game plan is the same as it ever was, all that has changed is the execution of the plan.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I like Prison because I find the idea of slowly stripping options away and leaving something with no out to be fun. I like the back and forth that comes from both trying to lock someone and then trying to hold it as they attempt to break out.

This.

Plus free wins.

[Cave]

I am not sure how often in the history of Legacy this has been untrue. Aside from hyper Aggro and true Combo, most decks in Legacy have sought to restrict an opponent's options and minimise the risk to themselves as they play. Canadian always comes to mind when people say "Now all people are trying to do is lock you out." If Thresh is playing to plan, you should never resolve a spell. Not one. If they are slightly behind their ball, you will never resolve a relevant spell. Stax was a deck in the noughties, Enchantress was never planning to let you do anything of value... The only thing that has changed of late is that the format has speed up, now those seeking to play this style of game have speed up too. In place of "Stifle, Waste, Goyf" you now have "Sol Land, Chalice, Smasher".

The game plan is the same as it ever was, all that has changed is the execution of the plan.

I think this is true and very interesting. My idea is that it has something to do with power level. In a lower power-level format, I might as well allow you to do your thing, then do my thing, and we'll see whose thing's more powerful or who can play it out better/with fewer mistakes. In legacy, if I allow you to do your thing, you might win on the spot; therefore, stopping your opponent from executing their gameplay while furthering your own becomes of value.

I'd say that Dragon Stompy is a prime example of this: people have been debating for a long time about which winning condition is better (pwalkers vs goblins vs werewolves vs whatever nonsense you feel like) but in the end you can win the way you want when you have chalice and a moon effect down. Stax, then, takes it to a whole level further: stopping your opponent's gameplay becomes your own main gameplay.

[MorphBerlin]

That's bullshit imo. It's like saying "Force of Will is broken in a format which is about fast combo decks and thus forcing them to include disruption".

Force of Will keeps combo decks in check. Chalice keeps cantrip/tempo decks in check.

Thats Bullshit² Please let me know which combo decks FoW keeps in check?

Short list of current Tier Combo decks: BR Reanimator, Storm, S&T, BG Dephts

As somebody who is allways playing 4 FoW I can tell you are beating none of those decks with FoW.

And how does chalice keep cantrips in check? It is legal and widely played and still eveybody here is complaining about the unbreakable dominance the "cantrip cartel" has over the format, so obviously thats bullshit as well. It's just a card that creates non-games of magic mostly.

Personally? I like Prison because I find the idea of slowly stripping options away and leaving something with no out to be fun. I like the back and forth that comes from both trying to lock someone and then trying to hold it as they attempt to break out. There is nothing like a Smokestack on 3 ticking away as you wipe your board and his, knowing when its done your going to have a Crucible and he is going to have sweet fuck all. Also Stax is bad. If I wanted to win and play Chalice I would play Eldrazi. I don't play Eldrazi.


Ask yourself what the gameplan of Thresh is? Thresh in my view is just a slightly more interactive prison deck, if the deck is going to plan no one but you plays anything of relevance. But that's "Interactive" no? Its all about how you view it. I find Chalice to be a very interactive card, it interacts with a third of your deck.


Chalice is fine. If you do not want to lose to Chalice don't build your deck in a way that is cold to it. You make a choice when you build to make something that is going to have good matches to some things and bad to others. BUG Control does not give two shits about Chalice a lot of the time, so its not like you do not have options even if you want to play stupid Xerox decks.

Here is a comment I made a long time ago on this topic, it sums up my views on the complaints about Chalice and the style of decks that play it well:

Slowly stripping options... T1 chalice/blood moon/trinisphere seems like that yes. None of the good prision decks excecute their plan slowly. As I said legacy is about tempo and these decks cannot afford to fall behind (just like *****, I agree).

So Mental Misstep would be fine to? Just don't play 1cmc cards and strand all of their misteps like a pro? You have to see that in the context of the decks in the metagame. If you are trying to interact with you oponent, there are combo deck which attack you mainly with spells and all the prison stuff based on artifacts and enchantments plus the GY decks. Finding cards to deal efficently with multiple of those things is basically impossible. The only palyable cards agaisnt chalice outside of counters are? Decay and K.Command? Chalice has the nice side effect of preventing your opponent of finding answers as well.

I am not saying it needs to be banned, just saying chalice is really a format warping card.

Btw why don't you play lands anymore? You say it's so easy to adjust to everything, why dont you just adjust lands?

[Dice_Box]

Btw why don't you play lands anymore? You say it's so easy to adjust to everything, why dont you just adjust lands?

Lands is my main. I have played Stax once in a few months. I just don't mention it here because why talk about Lands here? It's a well known entity and Stax is novel. It's not that I don't adjust it, the current list has about 7 cards changed from the list pre DRS banning. But I also have the Discord server to chat with others about it there. That's where the work is done now.

Oh and that server has a Stax channel. Because we are all degenerates. :)

I mean, these are my latest gains, it's still my love.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...023_003806.jpg

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...020_224357.jpg

Edit:
Mental fuckup is a red herring. It's not in any way even worthy of using as an example when discussing Chalice. One has harsh deck building constrains, the other is a free Counterspell that costs almost nothing to play.

[Ronald Deuce]

This.

Plus free wins.

I will say that, much as I find it aggravating to face down a prison, it's supremely gratifying to break through it.

[Megadeus]

Thats Bullshit² Please let me know which combo decks FoW keeps in check?

Those top tier combo decks aren't only beaten by force. Force is keeping in check the miserable decks that aren't tier 1. Like Belcher, Oops all Spells, SI, stuff like that. Force wouldn't be keeping them in check if they were tier 1.

[taconaut]

Also Stax is bad. If I wanted to win and play Chalice I would play Eldrazi. I don't play Eldrazi.

Love this.

Ask yourself what the gameplan of Thresh is? Thresh in my view is just a slightly more interactive prison deck, if the deck is going to plan no one but you plays anything of relevance. But that's "Interactive" no? Its all about how you view it. I find Chalice to be a very interactive card, it interacts with a third of your deck.

This strikes me as a strange take - I get where you're coming from, because in those "freeroll" delver games where they just go "threat, daze your thing, waste you, kill you" it does feel pretty helpless, but I think the spectrum for tempo decks is more continuous than prison decks. That is, prison decks are very binary: they either have it and wreck you just because their hand is good with what feels like no decisions, or their hand is bad/they mulligan into oblivion, and there's still nothing really interesting going on. With Delver, there are games in between, where maybe he has the daze and a force, but can't wasteland you, or has to pick which removal or counterspell to use in what order, etc. There are free wins with every deck in Legacy (there has to be, otherwise the deck probably isn't powerful enough) but with chalice decks it often feels like there are either free wins or no wins.

That being said, I agree with you that Chalice is an interactive card and it does seem like there should be something that can interact with cantrips meaningfully. However:

Chalice is fine. If you do not want to lose to Chalice don't build your deck in a way that is cold to it. You make a choice when you build to make something that is going to have good matches to some things and bad to others.

The problem with this is that this dynamic is what makes stompy decks feel like a random landmine in your pairings - you can make a deck that isn't all efficient spells and beat stompy, but then when you play against decks that are playing efficient spells, you just get wrecked because they get ahead of you, and those decks typically feel stronger/are more demanding of their pilots than the stompy decks would be. Then, later, when both your non-efficient deck you tuned to beat stompy and the stompy deck itself lose playing against BUG or whatever other boring, safe midrange deck is playable, you wonder why you didn't just play something efficient and feel like you got the wrong end of the game theory.

In other words, building your deck to beat stompy feels like building your deck to lose to the good decks, which feels bad.

I will say that, much as I find it aggravating to face down a prison, it's supremely gratifying to break through it.

Oh man, there's nothing I love more than an eldrazi player going "sol land, chalice on one, go," with me rejoining with "land, lotus petal, LED, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Empty the Warrens" and watching them die to Goblins.

Sweet, sweet justice.

[Mr. Safety]

The problem with this is that this dynamic is what makes stompy decks feel like a random landmine in your pairings -...

This is the best description of Chalice-based stompy decks I've ever seen. I will be referring to them as 'random landmine's' from this day forward.

[Dice_Box]

This is the best description of Chalice-based stompy decks I've ever seen. I will be referring to them as 'random landmine's' from this day forward.

I am going to put together an old Stax build with Ratchet Bomb and Powder Keg main. Let's name it "Landmine".

[the Thin White Duke]

I am going to put together an old Stax build with Ratchet Bomb and Powder Keg main. Let's name it "Landmine".

Don't forget Magma Mine.

[MorphBerlin]

The problem with this is that this dynamic is what makes stompy decks feel like a random landmine in your pairings - you can make a deck that isn't all efficient spells and beat stompy, but then when you play against decks that are playing efficient spells, you just get wrecked because they get ahead of you, and those decks typically feel stronger/are more demanding of their pilots than the stompy decks would be. Then, later, when both your non-efficient deck you tuned to beat stompy and the stompy deck itself lose playing against BUG or whatever other boring, safe midrange deck is playable, you wonder why you didn't just play something efficient and feel like you got the wrong end of the game theory.

In other words, building your deck to beat stompy feels like building your deck to lose to the good decks, which feels bad.

From his "just adjust you deck"-comments I doubt dice_box understands much about game theory or the concept of opportunity cost when building decks.

[Dice_Box]

From his "just adjust you deck"-comments I doubt dice_box understands much about game theory or the concept of opportunity cost when building decks.

Oh I understand, I just think that it is hypocritical to play all the cheapest and most powerful shit then bitch when someone takes advantage of it. You make a choice when you play a deck to play low to the ground, you make a choice when you play a deck to min max your deck against some matches and ignore others. You then do not get to bitch when someone says "Ok, let me see what I can do about that". You are building in a way that makes you a known entity and leaves you with a exploitable weakness.

It's like the people in Vintage that play 4 Mental Misstep and 3 Flusterstorm before bitching that Shops is too strong. So you are playing 7 cards that are stone cold dead in the match in your main? Sorry mate, thats not my fault. The fact that you get stung by your own choices is not my fault. If you do not like it, do something about it. If all your going to do is bitch and make no choices to adapt then that's on you and not me.

Adapt or die. Because those who want to play Chalice are going to kill you and are not going to care that you have all the best one drops. If you want to min max your other matches that's fine, but admit that's your choice and take your licks for it.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Oh I understand, I just think that it is hypocritical to play all the cheapest and most powerful shit then bitch when someone takes advantage of it. You make a choice when you play a deck to play low to the ground, you make a choice when you play a deck to min max your deck against some matches and ignore others. You then do not get to bitch when someone says "Ok, let me see what I can do about that". You are building in a way that makes you a known entity and leaves you with a exploitable weakness.

It's like the people in Vintage that play 4 Mental Misstep and 3 Flusterstorm before bitching that Shops is too strong. So you are playing 7 cards that are stone cold dead in the match in your main? Sorry mate, thats not my fault. The fact that you get stung by your own choices is not my fault. If you do not like it, do something about it. If all your going to do is bitch and make no choices to adapt then that's on you and not me.

Adapt or die. Because those who want to play Chalice are going to kill you and are not going to care that you have all the best one drops. If you want to min max your other matches that's fine, but admit that's your choice and take your licks for it.

Good post. +1.

[MorphBerlin]

Oh I understand, I just think that it is hypocritical to play all the cheapest and most powerful shit then bitch when someone takes advantage of it. You make a choice when you play a deck to play low to the ground, you make a choice when you play a deck to min max your deck against some matches and ignore others. You then do not get to bitch when someone says "Ok, let me see what I can do about that". You are building in a way that makes you a known entity and leaves you with a exploitable weakness.

It's like the people in Vintage that play 4 Mental Misstep and 3 Flusterstorm before bitching that Shops is too strong. So you are playing 7 cards that are stone cold dead in the match in your main? Sorry mate, thats not my fault. The fact that you get stung by your own choices is not my fault. If you do not like it, do something about it. If all your going to do is bitch and make no choices to adapt then that's on you and not me.

Adapt or die. Because those who want to play Chalice are going to kill you and are not going to care that you have all the best one drops. If you want to min max your other matches that's fine, but admit that's your choice and take your licks for it.

The point was not bitching about chalice but just putting out that it creates really binary boring gameplay and there is really no way around it if you are trying to have the best win% against the field. As taconaut adequatly put you just have to accept the landmine and move on. As a result the format feels super stale again just after a big round of bans, at least on something liek mtgo where people play casual shit much less frequently.

Vintage is a totally different animal because it is basically a 3 deck format and shops is so much more represented than chalice dekcs in legacy, that playing maindeckable artifact hate is totally justifiable.

So I guess the treat can be closed huh? No more bitching about Brainstorm, Chalice, Bloodmoon or whatever - just adept or die.

[Dice_Box]

So I guess the treat can be closed huh? No more bitching about Brainstorm, Chalice, Bloodmoon or whatever - just adept or die.

We have adapted, that's what your "Landmine" is. Here's the thing though, the deck building costs of Bloodmoon, Chalice, B2B, 3Ball, Sphere of Resistance or other such haymakers is not exactly trite. To use these effects costs the player something in the format. Playing Brainstorm has no cost, it's hardly the same.

Not that any of that really matters, people would never stop playing with their low to the ground, easily exploited decks. I mean shit, Lands since it dropped Blue has become one of them too really. It's a race to the bottom, just accept your making that choice and roll with what comes. It's not like anything is changing.

[Ronald Deuce]

I'm chundering buckets over here.

Not sure how I swallowed them in the first place, but it's a weird world.

[Mr Miagi]

I just want to say, Dice for president!

[MorphBerlin]

We have adapted, that's what your "Landmine" is. Here's the thing though, the deck building costs of Bloodmoon, Chalice, B2B, 3Ball, Sphere of Resistance or other such haymakers is not exactly trite. To use these effects costs the player something in the format. Playing Brainstorm has no cost, it's hardly the same.

Not that any of that really matters, people would never stop playing with their low to the ground, easily exploited decks. I mean shit, Lands since it dropped Blue has become one of them too really. It's a race to the bottom, just accept your making that choice and roll with what comes. It's not like anything is changing.

You really show a lack of understanding for anything that goes on outside you little stompy/lands universe (stax is just a worse version of a chalice-stompy deck). Being able to run some of the most broken lands which let you jump ahead on the curve on every turn while powering out these colorless creatures which were insanly pushed to create hype for PT OGW ruining a format with 8 not 16 (+cloudpost) sol lands avaliable sure sounds like a huge deckbuilding cost.

BS has the deckbuildng cost of losing tempo because you are casting a spell that's not impacting the board not giving you CA. Sure the advantagaes of card selection and virtual CA outweigh that but it's not 0 cost. Furthermore in any fair xerox deck you are running less specific answers because you have the ability to search for them. This is necessary cause as I stated earlier as a fair deck you are pulled in many different directions so you need something to midigate the "wrong half"-problem or you will just get dumpster because you drew the wrong cards in the wrong MU (honestly you still loose to that in most G1). This is really not different than running crop rotation/gamble in lands with which you can find any of your silver bullets for any MU, so you should understand that. The deckbuiling cost of running your answers like this is that you will naturally have a hard time finding your stuff when your engine is attackted. Especially if its with artifact or enchantments which have very few playable maindeckable anwers because of the color pie another reason you have to play blue and counterspells in the first place. That's why all decks not running cantrips are attacking that engine in someway (Thalia, Chalice or just comboing before it becomes relevant.)

So every deck you are facing as a fair xerox dekcs is either having the same cantrip engine or attacking your engine in some way. I know that it won't stop then neverending whining in here how op brainstorm and friends are, but claiming they have 0 costs is just funny.

[pettdan]

The deckbuiling cost of running your answers like this is that you will naturally have a hard time finding your stuff when your engine is attackted.

It seems like what you're saying here is that if someone successfully interacts with your cantripping, then you cannot cantrip for answers to that impediment. This doesn't seem like a disadvantage to me, but rather a natural effect of someone being able to interact with your cantrips. If someone interacts with your spells, then they are interacted with. Like, if your cantrips were uncounterable that would help with the "problem" you described. But that is just absurd, because the cantrips are already the superior strategy, even with the answers that currently exist. They don't need help to remain relevant. And to be clear, running few answers like this is not a "deck-building cost", it's a huge advantage that is enabled by the very cantrip shell.