Adept Q&A Requests

[Illissius]

OK, here's another:

Why is Dreadstill a good deck? It seems to be T8ing a lot.

It confounds me.

[Skeggi]

This is not a question, but more a request:

4. Each of the site's Adepts will take the time to create a detailed, in-depth response to the selected question. In order to keep the threads focused and on-topic, each Adept will only be allowed one post (though they may edit their posts if they like). This is less about discussion than it is about gauging the opinions of each Adept as an individiual, to allow for a clear, unfettered look at differing viewpoints on important issues.

It seems this rule is being skipped...and I really liked this rule

And I'd like to add a question: how do you guys feel about planeswalkers? And besides flavour; what about viability of them in Legacy?

[crazyroundman]

What is the impact or result of the Tow Man Tournament?

[Shugyosha]

What do you do to keep up to date and informed about the/your meta outside of the Source?
How do you deal with new decks or variants/spins of known decks. Do you simply read about them, test with or against them, discuss with people known for being good with that kind of deck (also outside of the Source)?

[Solpugid]

Will true Landstill (no daze, goyf, dreadnought, etc.) be able to compete as/if the format grows faster? If so, what color splashes are the best for an unknown meta? Or, if you prefer, for a meta composed of mostly established decks.

[Hummingbird TG]

Is Dark Confidant (still) a good card? (If not, was it ever?) And was it just phased out when the format became faster and more efficient? (And is it still usable and where?)

[Anusien]

What is your plan to get Wizards to support Legacy in a broader scale?

[Captain_Morgan]

Who or what had the greatest effect on you as a player, and why?

[Fossil4182]

I've been playing Legacy ever since the format shifted from 1.5 to Legacy. I've always enjoyed the format, however I live in the Midwest and people who play in this area traditionally play only Standard or Draft. I've found a small competitive group of about 4-5 players, but we've been wanting to grow. My question for the Adepts is:

What is a good way to start/grow support for Legacy in a area that traditionally plays standard/draft?

[DalkonCledwin]

just because it is a huge issue that I am thinking everyone in the coming months on this forum is going to be interested in.... What are your predictions as to what the most popular decks at Grand Prix: Chicago 2009 will be... in otherwords, what will the meta for that major tournament look like?

[Fossil4182]

I think it would be fair to say that in Legacy we see a trend developing around a package of Blue cards that seem to show up fairly often in deck lists. Namely Brainstorm, Daze, Force of Will - and to a lesser extent - Counterbalance, Stifle, Ponder show up in nearly ever incarnation of decks that feature Blue. I come from a little bit of an older background of Magic, so usually decks would splash Blue for drawing. This being stated, I understand why decks would splash for Brainstorm, Ponder, Intuition and to a lesser degree Fact or Fiction and Gifts Ungiven. I see a developing trend where you have decks that run lower levels of Blue cards (less than 20) yet they still try to pack in Force of Will. So my question is "Has the past success of UGx Threshold, Dreadstill and other control decks that rely on Blue stifled creativity in creating control decks for Legacy, or is the hype that true and every control deck should make room for Force of Will and the Blue counter package?"

*I'm also including Aggro Control decks this analysis.

[Melman]

Here's my question, roughly phrased: "What's happened to Aggro?" It used to be that t8s would be fairly evenly split between aggro and control decks of some sort, with a random combo thrown in everyone once in a while. Nowadays, it's almost entirely control or aggro-control, with some combo. Goblins, Sui varients, burn, all have kinda dropped off, so you see maybe 1 aggro deck per t8. Obviously there are exceptions but I think overall this trend holds.
Is aggro a fundamentally weak strategy in the current meta? Is it possible for a deck now to be aggressive enough, without comboing, so that it can keep your opponent from stabilizing and run through their defenses? Aggro Loam (and goblins) is the best example of decks that try and do this, but they don't see many t8s any more, and that's a somewhat limited number of decks for the entire 'aggro' archtype. Are there viable options being unexplored, or should everyone just man up, splash blue, and call it a day?

[Mayk0l]

I don't know if this has been done or not, but

Consider yourself getting an invitational to design a card (much like Meddling Mage and Voidmage Prodigy), and it can be any card and it doesn't necessarily need to represent you as a person (whereas Meddling Mage and Voidmage Prodigy do), and thus it doesn't have to be a creature.
Considering the format warping cards that are Counterbalance and Tarmogoyf, what card would you design, specifically designed to fit Legacy, that would be powerful but balanced. In your opinion, what does the format need, or what would be interesting additions?

[Arctic_Slicer]

On the 3rd of July of 2007 the Adepts discussed the Best and Worst colors in Legacy. The general consensus seemed to be that Red was one of if not the best color in the format. In the 21 months since we have seen a great decline in both the popularity and success of heavy red decks such as vial goblins. I think it would be interesting to see a discussion on how the format has changed in the last 2 years in relation to where each color stands as well as discussing the current best and worst colors of Legacy. A sort of Weakest and Strongest Colors 2.0 or 2009 or something.

[Mayk0l]

Really? A silly, sarcastic discussion about Nourishing Lich is better a topic than mine or Arctic Slicer's? :P

EDIT: Wait, I get it. Nevermind. I just saw the DTB forum.

[Valtrix]

[Sorry if I'm not doing this right. I'm just curious about the metagame right now.]

With the latest postings in the DTB forum we've seen a few interesting developments. The first is that threshold is really starting to diverge into two paths, that is CounterTop and Tempo. The second is that Zoo has recently taken a DTB status since it's been printed a lot of good tools recently. I'd say the third is a lack of significant combo in the DTB/W section.

What do you think has caused this (somewhat recent) metagame shift, and where do you expect that it's going?

[from Cairo]

On the 3rd of July of 2007 the Adepts discussed the Best and Worst colors in Legacy. The general consensus seemed to be that Red was one of if not the best color in the format. In the 21 months since we have seen a great decline in both the popularity and success of heavy red decks such as vial goblins. I think it would be interesting to see a discussion on how the format has changed in the last 2 years in relation to where each color stands as well as discussing the current best and worst colors of Legacy. A sort of Weakest and Strongest Colors 2.0 or 2009 or something.

Think this one could be a really good one to see as well since so much has changed. The only thing I could see making it a boring topic is it at least to me it seems like the lists would probably be very similar (>>~>). But I'd be surprised/interested to read any arguments against Blue being the strongest color in the format or White being the weakest.

[Arctic_Slicer]

I see that this thread has been unstickied. Does this mean that the adept Q&A board is going to be retired? What's the plan? I'm curious to know.

[Bardo]

The thread getting unstuck was an accident, I think. I'll poll folks LA Lounge and see how much interest there is in reviving this.

Re-stuck.

[DragoFireheart]

I've looked over the Adept forum and while there was one topic that made mention and some discussion about Counter Balance / Sensei's Divining Top, that was about a year ago.

Now, threshold really isn't the same as it doesn't even always run Threshold creatures anymore. Instead, it has split into two different arch-types: Counter-Top and Tempo Thresh. I feel that a topic specifically about the implications of Counter-Top should be worth considering in the Adept thread.

My question is this: now that the format has been exposed to Counter-Top for roughly a year now, how much has it transformed the format?