All B/R update speculation.

[Megadeus]

I'm okay with Mind Twist in Legacy. I mean, it's a discard spell. It requires an investment, and honestly, if you're looking to play the discard game and tap out to play a sorcery speed spell for >3 mana (which is also the equivalent of Hymn at three mana), is it really that big of a deal?

Something something dark rituals something something not fun something something adds nothing

[Dice_Box]

Thats a card that was banned because of its effects when paired with Jewellery. Seeing as thats never been an issue in Legacy... Quaint.

[H]

Is there really? If your in the wrong colours your answers are really really limited. Red and Green have very few outs, white has a few dedicated ones. So if your in Black or Blue your ok? Thats not great for open gameplay. Unlike Storm that can get really badly hurt by colourless cards.

Of course, if you are in the "wrong colors" a variety of things can flatly screw you in Magic. Sure, there are Colorless cards that can impact Storm, but there are also colorless cards that can impact a True-Name. In an "average" case, which do you feel more likely to be able to deploy effectively?

Its a point about ease of use casing the issue with TNN. Progen is much much more powerful and does much the same thing as TNN, but if Elves lands it you do not feel overly cheated. You have to put in work to pull off that effect. TNN asks very little of its players, that is part of what makes it so painful. ANT asks for you to jump though a ton of hoops, thus changing the feels when someone dies to it.

Sure, again, I never said True-Name was great design. It doesn't "ask much" but really, to say that ANT or TES "jumps through a tons of hoops" is really rather disengenuous to me, because I don't see what cards in a Storm deck would be a "hoop." The Cantrips, the Tutors, the Discard? All of those go directly toward the aim of building the right spell count/consistency, finding the pay off, or cutting off prospective interaction. Which is really the same thing almost every deck is doing.

Sphere, 3 Ball, Thorn, Chalice, Thalia, Eidolon, Force, Discard and grave hate are all very common answers to the deck. Well maybe not that common for Eidolon. Still, most colours have an answer that sees rather wide play. Not just two colours. Also there is a wide range of colourless answers that Storm will bring in bounce effects to adapt to.

Now I am confused as to what you are even saying about "not just 2 colors." Again, return to my above response, where I am pointing out that part of the "narrowness" of interacting with Storm, as a mechanic and a deck, is not just about presence of "answers" but about the velocity to effectively deploy them. That rarely applies to True-Name.

DnT I find has a decent ability to race a lot of the decks with TNN, but again, Its not Blue or Black so... sucks to be you I guess.

I have no idea what this means.

Twist? Twist? Really? I was thinking everything was fun as a talk up until this but really... I am not the first to state this card lacks interaction, is hard to interact with or makes the games that it hits the table far far less enjoyable because it lacks interaction. I am not the first, nor am I the only person to make this claim and it is correct. TNN reduces overall interaction to "Can you make me sac it or can you counter it? No, then race me." Personally I find your claim that I am twisting a words FACTUAL meaning rather insulting.

Also look up and find the line where I said it was not doing enough to get banned. Maybe you should read what I write before you start insulting me.

Draw your inference as you will. I was not out to insult you, but take of it what you'd like.

The issue at hand is that we are talking about things that as a general manner of course are not easy to define. So, indeed, we'd both be apt to "interpret" (if you like that word better) what "interaction" is or is not, or what the "acceptable" level of it is or is not.

You say, with True-Name, "reduces overall interaction to "Can you make me sac it or can you counter it? No, then race me." Fair enough, but what does Storm do do overall interaction?

[H]

Something something dark rituals something something not fun something something adds nothing

Yeah, I mean, the only acceptable thing to do with a Dark Ritual is cast Tendrils of Agony and kill you, not cast a discard spell like some sort of savage barbarian from the 8th century.

[Megadeus]

Yeah, I mean, the only acceptable thing to do with a Dark Ritual is cast Tendrils of Agony and kill you, not cast a discard spell like some sort of savage barbarian from the 8th century.

I would love to see a fair dark ritual deck emerge. Plague engineer is pretty fucking sick

[H]

I would love to see a fair dark ritual deck emerge. Plague engineer is pretty fucking sick

Unfortunately, I think it could be the case that the only way to beat the "inherent fact" of how bad Ritual into non-Storm card is vs counter spells, that they only way to really leverage it and not find yourself on the wrong side of a blowout, is to do something "unfair" (i.e. Storm) with it.

I wish it weren't the case either, because I love Ritual, but have no love for Storm. But there is likely a "further fact" that any "fair card" is likely too "easily" answered by today's suites of "optimized" removal. I mean, I guess one could DRit out some Lili's, but one likely still loses too hard to counter magic, as perhaps Pox does.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Well, then scroll back a few more pages and see that I already said that it cannot be of any "one mode" or even just of two, or three.

This post is incomprehensible.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I would love to see a fair dark ritual deck emerge. Plague engineer is pretty fucking sick

Except the whole point of a card like dark ritual is to not be fair. It's to jump ahead on the curve.

[Michael Keller]

Something something dark rituals something something not fun something something adds nothing

But this is 2019, not 1994. I played during that period.

If someone double-Dark Rituals into a Mind Twist, good for them.

You know, they could just double-Dark Ritual into Ad Nauseam and win the game right then and there, too.

[H]

This post is incomprehensible.

Seemingly as incomprehensible as yours, but I'll be charitable:

Well, that's sort of the key, in the sense that the List isn't (and really should not be) derived from one methodology of construction.

A List based off "pure" Empiricism, would be tyrannical and awful, since any card that it at all good would inevitably be banned. A "pure" Rationalist approach is also terrible, since we really could not say what the practical results would be. A "pure" Economic one would also be horrible, since it would be swayed by numerous factors outside the scope of Legacy. A "purely" Historical, or Historicism, List would be absolute nonsense, since past performance is not indicative of future results in a contingent sense. A "purely" Perceptual List, that is, one that is one made considering only what the format appears to be, say by public information of top 8 results, would also be tyranical, since it fails to encompass the whole of the metagame dynamic.

So, what we actually get is some sort of "seemingly random" mish-mosh of all those things, plus, the confounding factor of whatever might qualify "Subjective perception" on behalf of the people who make the decisions as well. And all of these factors will not be "evenly applied" to all cases, which is likely the "best" approach, but one that could (and does) confound our collective interpretations.

Note that I am not particularly good with words, and "empirical" in this sense means data-driven, in the sense of, say, raw percentage of top 8 results, or "number of decks present in."

[Megadeus]

But this is 2019, not 1994. I played during that period.

If someone double-Dark Rituals into a Mind Twist, good for them.

You know, they could just double-Dark Ritual into Ad Nauseam and win the game right then and there, too.

Just want to say that I was being facetious. I was just "quoting" all the normal arguments against the card that people bring up when they talk about the card being overpowered or unfun. Card is clearly fine for the reasons you (and I in the past) have stated

[Mr. Safety]

It's my hypothesis that the London Mulligan will shift "consistency" from "Cantrip-derived" to "Cantrip-derived proportional to game length." Which, I think is really what it likely "makes sense to be." That is, the logic of answering the question of, "why more "threats" vs. consistency-generative-things to find threats?"

It won't be a massive shift, but I have not seen why as a massive shift is necessitated.

Obviously results will substantiate this or not, we'll see as it goes along.

Sorry for chiming in so late, just want to bring attention to this excellent post. I think this shift in paradigm could reshape the discussion surrounding bans, and I think for the better.

[Michael Keller]

Just want to say that I was being facetious. I was just "quoting" all the normal arguments against the card that people bring up when they talk about the card being overpowered or unfun. Card is clearly fine for the reasons you (and I in the past) have stated

Oh, okay lol wasn’t sure!

[H]

Sorry for chiming in so late, just want to bring attention to this excellent post. I think this shift in paradigm could reshape the discussion surrounding bans, and I think for the better.

If only, but we (seemingly) end up finding ourselves back in the same trite conversations over and over for what, 1077 pages.

If I was smart, maybe I could help steer things in a constructive direction, but maybe it's my general stupidity, maybe it's people's unwillingness to consider different perspectives, maybe people just really like to have something to complain about. Like someone who I can't remember once said on TMD about Vintage (might have been BrassMan) "no one wants to talk about the actual available card pool, only about hypothetical [ideal] card pools."

I think Legacy is in a good place right now and if it weren't for work, home and health demands, I'd be playing as much as I possibly could right now. London Mulligan and two big stacks of cards of cards I've gotten from WAR and Modern Horizons has me very excited to get back to playing in the near future.

[talpa]

When Dice_Box speaks you surely find interesting things. TNN may be a "bad taste" card but at least try to use some real argument.

There are not a "variety" of answers to remove a True-Name? Of course there are, from Edicts, to wraths and sweepers of various kinds (and other things too).

Is there really? If your in the wrong colours your answers are really really limited. Red and Green have very few outs, white has a few dedicated ones. So if your in Black or Blue your ok? [your: sic] (...)
just two colours.(...)
Also there is a wide range of colourless answers [to] Storm

It's really funny that in your hatred against black and blue you left out white.
As if Terminus wasn't one of the best answers to TNN. Or Council's Judgement. Or Supreme Verdicts or Wraths.
By the way, Red has a way to interact with TNN on the stack, they are called Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast. Which I supposte it's the exact way blue has to interact with it (counter it on the stack).
Green at least can always race it, I suspect elves for example can always ignore it. Or if you want to point out a fair card: Hoothing Mandrills.
Or maybe you'd like colorless answers: what about Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale? What about Meakstone? Ensnaring Bridge? Blast Zone?

Progen is much much more powerful and does much the same thing as TNN, but if Elves lands it you do not feel overly cheated. You have to put in work to pull off that effect

Oh yeah, I suppose paying four mana (two green) and a creature is WAAAAAY more troublesome than paying three mana (two blue), and 10 power worth is clearly way less than three.

TNN reduces overall interaction to "Can you make me sac it or can you counter it? No, then race me."

Which is indeed very much more than you can say to storm, for example: "can you make me discard it or counter all copy of it? No, then die"

I am not asking for a ban of storm, nor am I denying TNN can be hard to interact with. I am just pointing out what a wonderful example of honest discussion it was

[Dice_Box]

Draw your inference as you will. I was not out to insult you, but take of it what you'd like.

The issue at hand is that we are talking about things that as a general manner of course are not easy to define. So, indeed, we'd both be apt to "interpret" (if you like that word better) what "interaction" is or is not, or what the "acceptable" level of it is or is not.

You say, with True-Name, "reduces overall interaction to "Can you make me sac it or can you counter it? No, then race me." Fair enough, but what does Storm do do overall interaction?

I am just going to cover this, as this is the part I was making a point around. The opportunity cost of playing one card over the cost of playing a deck built around one card is very very different. Your asking about a deck (Storm) that asks someone to build the whole strategy around an effect vs a card that asks only that you have access to a colour and want creatures. These things are not comparable. Because it is going to always be easier to attack a decks engine then to attack a single effect.

When Dice_Box speaks you surely find interesting things. TNN may be a "bad taste" card but at least try to use some real argument.

Love you too.. wait who are you?

It's really funny that in your hatred against black and blue you left out white.
As if Terminus wasn't one of the best answers to TNN. Or Council's Judgement. Or Supreme Verdicts or Wraths.
By the way, Red has a way to interact with TNN on the stack, they are called Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast. Which I supposte it's the exact way blue has to interact with it (counter it on the stack).
Green at least can always race it, I suspect elves for example can always ignore it. Or if you want to point out a fair card: Hoothing Mandrills.
Or maybe you'd like colorless answers: what about Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale? What about Meakstone? Ensnaring Bridge? Blast Zone?

As if Terminus was not a card playing only in a base Blue deck. Judgement is an option yes, made directly to answer the card in question. But again we hit the age old issue. If you do not have filtering (A base white deck) having one or two answers in your 60 is not going to help you against someone who has that filtering. Not consistently. See the same for Red having 2 cards? REB is really where we are going here? Ok. Whatever. I do not see REB as an answer to "Protection from your ass" but sure. I guess if you have the right card at exactly the right moment you luck out sometimes.

Your going to point out Tabernacle... You want to play that game with me? Really? Ok boy lets have at it.
Tabernacle is not a answer to TNN because the decks that run TNN have the basic counts to subvert the land attack plan. Simply put, they only need to land the card on the table and then be smart enough to fetch a single basic and they are mostly home free. Since the only deck that runs Tab, Crucible and Geddon sucks and thuse is not a metagame threat, this point is important and worthy of note. As for Blast Zone, while the card is strong it is not the catch all people think it is. Its a slow card to use unless you are in a Post build. I love the card, but its not the be all and end all people thought it would be.

Oh yeah, I suppose paying four mana (two green) and a creature is WAAAAAY more troublesome than paying three mana (two blue), and 10 power worth is clearly way less than three.

As I said above, the cost of building your deck around an engine means your game plan can be undermined by attacking that engine. Elves is another engine deck where the costs of running Progen are real. If you draw it its very likely useless, your trying to use Progen only because the match your in is likely attacking your creatures themselves, ect. The point I was making (And you made for me here) is that you have almost no opportunity cost to playing TNN and other comparable effects all make you jump though hoops to get going.

Which is indeed very much more than you can say to storm, for example: "can you make me discard it or counter all copy of it? No, then die"

Sure, but again, whats the cost to running those cards? You have to structure your whole 75 around them. Its not a one off card you can insert with no work. I am not here to say I enjoy playing against Storm, but lets not claim that your whole 75 being built to support a card vs just slotting a card into a midrange pile is at all the same thing. It would be like comparing RUG era Goyf to Iggy Pop. No.

I am not asking for a ban of storm, nor am I denying TNN can be hard to interact with. I am just pointing out what a wonderful example of honest discussion it was

Glad you liked it. Who are you again?

[ubernostrum]

It's nice to see the crusade against a 3/1 continues. I wouldn't personally have printed True-Name, but it exists and it's not even close to banworthy in Legacy. Also, you can kill it using colorless cards, it just takes a bit of work.

Anyway. Last time I threw out some wild ideas, WotC didn't entirely listen. They did ban Deathrite and Probe, of course, and Forsythe tweeted out that Brainstorm is a pillar of Legacy, so I went 3-for-7 on that post.

I still think Mind Twist can come off the banned list. Yeah, it's obnoxious when someone fuels a huge turn-one Twist, but lots of things in Legacy are obnoxious if they resolve turn one, and Twist at least requires you to invest a bunch of cards to produce the mana to make it worthwhile.

I still think Mana Drain should be unbanned, because the decks that would take advantage of the mana it generates would be a different direction for blue in the format.

I still think the delve critters ought to go in order to diversify creature strategies a bit more.

And I'd still like to see some other stuff unbanned. I know I'm going to get yelled at for saying this, but Oops All Spells already runs two different creatures that have the Hermit Druid effect but don't require you to untap with them to win. So actual Hermit Druid is probably a safe unban (and like Mana Drain it isn't on the reserved list, so they could reprint it in a supplemental set any time they want to). I'm also in the camp (which may just be a camp of me, all by myself) that thinks Bargain is OK to unban. Yeah, if you get it into play you probably win the game that turn, but honestly if you can get any six-mana permanent into play in Legacy you should win.

[LOLWut]

I'm also in the camp (which may just be a camp of me, all by myself) that thinks Bargain is OK to unban. Yeah, if you get it into play you probably win the game that turn, but honestly if you can get any six-mana permanent into play in Legacy you should win.

Not quite all by yourself. 13.22% of Sourcers want Bargain unbanned.

Poll: Which card(s) do you want unbanned?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Seemingly as incomprehensible as yours, but I'll be charitable:



Note that I am not particularly good with words, and "empirical" in this sense means data-driven, in the sense of, say, raw percentage of top 8 results, or "number of decks present in."

Ok, now square this with your other post about how we shouldn't be using subjective measures.

[FTW]

I still think Mind Twist can come off the banned list. Yeah, it's obnoxious when someone fuels a huge turn-one Twist, but lots of things in Legacy are obnoxious if they resolve turn one, and Twist at least requires you to invest a bunch of cards to produce the mana to make it worthwhile.

Yeah either it would be a bunch of rituals or a MUD-shell ramp. The rituals seem worse than just casting Empty the Warrens, so the MUD version is the most viable and doesn't seem broken.

So actual Hermit Druid is probably a safe unban

OopsAllSpells has to run a bad decklist with 0 lands to make it work. That seriously limits deck construction options and consistency (fewer initial mana sources than Belcher). The actual win condition is fairly compact, but it takes about 60% of the deck to be able to resolve a Balustrade Spy effect with 0 lands.

Hermit Druid can be run in a deck with lands, found with Green Sun's Zenith, protected with cards like Force of Will or Thoughtseize... It doesn't need to be all-in. It works with normal Magic cards. You can cram it into a good Legacy shell and it reads "G, T: win the game" as long as you have dedicate a few slots to the win engine.