Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Ack! I tried to find that article, but the "Search Wizards" function wasn't working. What a boner! (in the non-freudian sense)
according to the link luma gave...
Announcement Date Effective Date
December 20 January 1
March 20 April 1
June 20 July 1
September 20 October 1
I'd like to see Counterbalance or Goyf banned for various reasons that have been mentioned, but it probably won't happen for whatever reason. Between the 2, I'd hope for Goyf since I think it'd be better for the format.
I pretty much loathe B/R discussions (except to say that Land Tax should be removed every year or so), and the list we have to choose from in this thread is the reason why.
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Are you freaking kidding me? Force of Will? Goblin Lackey? Dreadnought? Someone is making a joke at this site's expense.
The format is in a really good place. The DtB (as an indicator of what's successful in competitive Legacy) is diverse and healthy.
[DTW] UW(x) Landstill ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
[DTW] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
[DTB] Zoo ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
[DTB] Merfolk ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
[DTB] CounterTop ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
[DTB] Vial Goblins ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
[DTB] Tempo Thresh
You've got slow board control (Landstill), fast creatures/burn aggro (zoo), combo (Tendrils), tribal aggro-control (Merfolk and Golbins) and assorted mid-range decks (CT and Thresh). Most formats would envy a format this rich in viable archetypes.
So, what the fuck are you all bitching about? Legacy is in excellent shape right now.
The card pool is so deep that if any thing gets too out of control (barring something utterly degenerate, e.g. Flash), the metagame can adapt. And nothing is so overpowering that the DCI should take any action. And if they shouldn't do anything, it would be stupid if they did (except to unban Land Tax, etc.).
4 out of the 7 DTB/DTW are blue-based using permission as a substantial part of the gameplan. That's not a healthy meta.
I don't mind seeing Land Tax getting unbanned
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forumsOriginally Posted by Kyle
"Blue-based using permission" is not an archetype.
Do you honestly believe that Legacy is currently unhealthy and that the powers of the DCI should be used to make things more "healthy" (i.e. the metagame is so irreparable that it can't adjust on its own)?
About the list above, all formats have power cards. The fact that cards are powerful and are played often is not a bad thing in itself. If cards are degenerate (do too much for too little) or enable degenerate strategies that make Legacy "unfun" (as perceived by a reasonable majority of the player-base), then the DCI should do their thing. I don't see any of these things being true.
+PI
This thread is bad please close it.
And yet 4 of the 7 best decks in the format right now use blue-based permission as the basis of the deck without which the other game plans would not work.
Yes, I believe the meta is currently unhealthy, with many concepts - including a few strong ones, like Storm Combo - largely suppressed by the level of blue-based permission that is in the meta. The meta right now comes down to about a half dozen basic concepts at the top.
1. Fast Aggro Control - Tempo Threshold, Dreadstill, Merfolk
2. Slower Control - CounterTop, Landstill
3. Tribal w/o permission - Goblins, Elves
4. Fast Aggro - Zoo, Goyf Sligh
5. Storm Combo - ANT, TES, FT
6. Aggro Combo w/o permission - Aggro Loam, Ichorid
You should have a fairly normal distribution of results between the 6 categories in a healthy meta. Basically maybe a third of the meta should be permission based and then a third should be fast aggro w/o permission and then the final third should be combo decks trying to hit a win state early on and win that way.
What we actually have though is a meta in which the results skew heavily to the top 2 categories with a strong deck in each of the other categories that can force its way into the DTB/DTW but doesn't tend to live there, usually because it is suppressed by the permission decks that predominate.
It's not healthy to have a meta in which a bunch of blue-based decks are always around at the end if they're played. You can't even blame Counterbalance and SDT for the imbalance because some of the strong blue decks don't play them at all. It's the overall effect that cheap permission creates that allows blue to maintain dominance.
Legacy is a healthy format as it is. I'd love to see Top on the banned list, because I think the prevalence of CounterTop (in conjunction with this unbelievable beast called Goyf) is holding many decks at bay at the moment, but thats what Goblin Lackey did before too. From a Powerlevel perspecitve, Top's fine.
My only 'real' arguments against Top are 1) time issues and 2) unfun-factor (hey as long as land tax is banned, this IS argument for banning cards!)
All in all:
They ban nothing: Hooray!
They ban Top: Hooray!
They unban Dream Halls: Who cares... Hooray!
They unban Anaba Grunt: I quit.
More cheese = more holes ; More holes = less cheese ; More cheese = less cheese
Why? Why should a third of my match ups be combo? this is all based on the idea of some "healthy Meta..." When have these so called healthy metas ever existed? What era? what block? hasn't happened.
LED, LED, Announce my intention to play Yawgmoth's Bargain...
I completely agree that this is the one of the healthiest metas that magic has ever seen, possibly excluding the extended season right before the rotation of Temptest/Saga/Masques. That was a beautiful format in which all sorts of crazy decks were winning and you could really make just about anything you wanted and have a chance. Legacy is a little bit more punishing than that, but it has a great rock-paper-scissiors sort of thing going on in a lot of areas:
You can play all of the game's most efficient cards, but then you're weak to Chalice and Counterbalance. Even with all the best cards in the pool, there is a decided risk that you accept by trying to play all of them.
You can play as many colors as you want with Fetches + Duals but you have to make legitimate compromises to do it, as Waste/Stifles/Moons can ruin your day. The guy running a manabase of 18 Mountains, 4 Wastes can't play anything but red, but he sure gets compensated for it by how many games he doesn't have to lose to his manabase.
There are amazing cards for nearly every archetype, for every Moat & Elspeth, there's a Wild Nacatal and Price of Progress. Wizards isn't slacking on printing the playables for Legacy either, even mistakes like Tarmogoyf aside, we get a good couple of really playable cards from every set. Even the decks that are behind at the moment (Enchantress, Affinity) could easily make a comeback if they got tossed a card or two at the level of Argothian Enchantress and Master of Etherium/Cranial Plating.
Sure it's not a "perfect" format, I wish I could break out my Astral Slides again, but the sheer number of decks that are viable or close to viable is huge. This format is sexy.
Indeed, I remember Wizards saying (in about 2003) no more Merfolk, and now, Legacy Merfolk are all recently created cards with the exception of Lord of Atlantis. Eternal it may be, but Legacy is constantly evolving.
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
When the top deck in the format is a blue deck designed to beat other blue decks, I wouldn't call it healthy. It's healthier than all the other formats, though.
@Otter,
If you look in the N&D forum, you'll find the Astral Slide thread. That particular list currently has a 10-2 record in large tournaments with one T8 win.
EDIT: Slide thread linky
I consider any format where Astral Slide (or substitute whatever your personal pet deck is) can be tuned into a deck with at least a decent chance of beating the top tier decks to be an extremely healthy format.
As it currently stands, Legacy is such a format.
Indeed. The wide range of playable decks is incredible. And the insinuation that the format is unhealthy because storm combo doesn't comprise a sixth of the metagame? I can only assume that was an attempt to troll us all. At GP Chicago I didn't see two of the same deck on the other side of the table all day (although I did play one mirror match). Legacy is doing just fine.
Omega threatening the world :
I swear if Top or CB gets the banned, I'm going to be a combo player because normal countermagic can't stop me!
But back on subject, even decks like POX can beat "powerful" blue deck. Alot of decks are powerful enough to beat the metagamed Aggro-control and control. (T2, extended.decks for example). What beats those decks are combo deck. No combo deck, and the format is entirely aggro and aggro-control, everything become possible.
It takes a very competent pilot to run a countertop deck effectively. If either gets banned, those good players will turn to another deck, and most likely, we'll just have another thread like this screaming that LED is broken and ruining the format.
Team Unicorn: We're horny...get it?
Top getting banned isn't the end of the world. There's a reason they printed Chalice and Force of Will :-P. Combo's always had a decent foothold, but it's never really dominated the format. Solidarity came the closest, I'd say, and even it still had a lot of competition. Not to mention it was hard as fudge to play.
EDIT: My subconscious is repressing hulk flash
Why should half of your matchups be aggro-control or control? That is the meta we live in at this point and nobody seems to blink an eye at the certainty that they'll face 3 blue decks in 6 rounds and another 1 or 2 in the top 8 if they get there.
This BTW was true in the single meta also with two exceptions: right at the beginning when Fastbond combo was rampant and about a year later when Balance did the same.
When you played in a single elimination tourney you got 3 random rounds at the start and then every other round to the end was a blue deck. In fact after Weissman won I would go two or three straight rounds at the end looking at clones of his deck.
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