All B/R update speculation.

[Skeggi]

DrJones is only trolling. Do not feed. His arguments make no sense. Everyone knows this, let's move on.

[DownSyndromeKarl]

jeez, just ban Islands and call it a day.

maybe i just can't think of it, but is there any reason why Top is broken other than paired with CB? If not, ban CB and keep the top as a utility

[DrJones]

I'm not trolling. It's genuine concern, but I'm perfectly okay with people ignoring me and moving on... I'll just post again the same message when another combo deck with Force of Will destroys the format again.

maybe i just can't think of it, but is there any reason why Top is broken other than paired with CB? If not, ban CB and keep the top as a utility

Top removes the random factor of your deck and unlike Mirri's Guile, it's pretty hard to get rid of it.

Edit: DrJones took 5 damage for this post.

[Skeggi]

@Karl: Top pops up in alot of decks. It's also good in Landstill, it's also good in The Rock. It's just very good. If you run Fetches, there's a big chance Top is good for your deck.

@DrJones: there is NO combo deck with FoW that broke the format. Smart combo is ANT. Smart ANT players use Chants and/or Duress and/or Silence. No need for any countermagic. So pretty please with sugar on top: stop saying Solidarity breaks the format. And no, Reanimate didn't exactly destroy the format either.

[DownSyndromeKarl]

Right, Top is good, but not really ban-worthy without CB. And CB is only good for Top, so get rid of CB and no one will miss it except CB/Top players. It's not like someone is going to be like "Awe crap, they're banning Counterbalance, there goes my idea to run a deck full of spells that cost 2"

[FoolofaTook]

Turn 1's aren't the big problem. Combo decks often go off turn 2 or 3, where they go off protected under a Chant. Force of Will does little then, you need CounterTop to stop combo then. The problem is that Top is a stupid card which should be banned. Therefor the power of combo should be taken away: Lion's Eye Diamond. I'm all in favor of banning Top and Lion's Eye Diamond. I hope the DCI sees this.

If they're thinking about banning Top seriously they should ban Counterbalance instead. Top gives non-blue decks a quality that they really can't find anywhere else. It's not like it's abusive in anything but CounterTop decks, and it really isn't blowing the field out even in those. And it really does not cause draws in any significant numbers. The decks that have Top and draw a lot also drew a lot before they put Top in, they're slow control decks as it is.

Name one deck that really abuses Top that does not also have Counterbalance.

[Michael Keller]

Both Sensei's Divining Top and Force of Will each have their own unique drawbacks that, in my opinion, would disallow them from ever being banned:

Force of Will is a situational counterspell, having to rely on exiling a card in your hand and paying a life. Anything worth countering while a player with Force that is tapped out would force them have to pay this price. That drawback most see as insignficant, but it can put you in a position of having to make the right decision or otherwise placed at card disadvantage and in fact losing the game. Sure, you counter a key spell cast by an opponent. But assuming you have successfully countered a spell with Force, it creates balance against those decks which, without Force, would win on the first and second turns consistently.

Sensei's Divining Top should never be banned in this format. With the lack of permanent mana acceleration (as opposed to the larger majority in Vintage), Top is too mana intensive to be removed from the format. It doesn't Brainstorm, but it allows a player who may not be running blue (at least) the ability to at least try and add consistency to their draws as opposed to falling back on top-decks all the time. It can be a game-breaker, I'll give you that much. But it is no Skullclamp in that it costs one mana to cast and one to activate and draw you two cards a shot. This card only lets you check out and fix the top three, and set you back a turn by drawing something when you need it.

My point is, these cards have slight drawbacks that require thought and timing and not something that immediately ends the game (like a Flash). They're just very good cards without being overpowering.

[(nameless one)]

Both Sensei's Divining Top and Force of Will each have their own unique drawbacks that, in my opinion, would disallow them from ever being banned:

Force of Will is a situational counterspell, having to rely on exiling a card in your hand and paying a life. Anything worth countering while a player with Force that is tapped out would force them have to pay this price. That drawback most see as insignficant, but it can put you in a position of having to make the right decision or otherwise placed at card disadvantage and in fact losing the game. Sure, you counter a key spell cast by an opponent. But assuming you have successfully countered a spell with Force, it creates balance against those decks which, without Force, would win on the first and second turns consistently.

Sensei's Divining Top should never be banned in this format. With the lack of permanent mana acceleration (as opposed to the larger majority in Vintage), Top is too mana intensive to be removed from the format. It doesn't Brainstorm, but it allows a player who may not be running blue (at least) the ability to at least try and add consistency to their draws as opposed to falling back on top-decks all the time. It can be a game-breaker, I'll give you that much. But it is no Skullclamp in that it costs one mana to cast and one to activate and draw you two cards a shot. This card only lets you check out and fix the top three, and set you back a turn by drawing something when you need it.

My point is, these cards have slight drawbacks that require thought and timing and not something that immediately ends the game (like a Flash). They're just very good cards without being overpowering.

This...

Well said good sir!

[Gheizen64]

I've said this more than once, but i'll say it again:

Unban Grim Monolith

It's one of those cards that would bring absolutely no danger to the format due to how easy it is to hate out artifacts deck, but would enable card with CCC>4 to be played so much more. With it, i'm positive we could even see some Baneslayer Angel or Wildfires decks (well, at least i'd play Wildfire for sure : 9 )

Combo won't benefit from monolith much, and Prison is super easy to hate out in this format with no workshop.

[johanessen]

Name one deck that really abuses Top that does not also have Counterbalance.

Tendrils

[(nameless one)]

Tendrils

Quinn uses Top without the counterbalance.

[menace13]

I've played almost every damn deck in the history of Competitive Magic, be it extended, vintage, legacy and standard. I don't say to ban Force of Will because I lose against it. I'm in favor of banning Force of Will because I care about game balance and I know Force of Will is the most broken card in the game, even more so than Balance, Mana Drain and Yagwmoth's Will. It's not easy to see it because Force of Will is a control card, while broken combo and aggro cards are far, far, easier to spot. Hell, at the time I had a really hard time telling people Hulk Flash was broken because everyone was saying that Force of Will could stop it.

Note that I know that I'm on the minority here. I know that I'm not going to convice any of you. I'm just explaining my concerns hoping that with some luck, R&D might read my reasoning and will try to address this problem. I don't want the game to break, I think the game can withstand the loss of Force of Will. And even if I'm mistaken, I know it can be easily fixed by just allowing Force to be played again. I know how was the metagame in extended before and after Force of Will, and I think extended was far better after the card went away. I know how awful and blue-centered has always been the eternal formats, and I feel that most of the problems have been due to decks with Force of Will being much better than decks without them.

Of course. Pact of Negation's purpose was to control the price of Force of Will by allowing certain decks to play that card instead, but the decks that could make use of Pact of Negation are not the ones I would like to strenghten, knowing that their strategy is already the strongest in the game.

Force of Will is the most broken card in the game? really?

All Eternal formats need FoW it keeps AnT/TES/NLS/Belcher and a few other Vintage decks from just winning on your turn 0.

[FoolofaTook]

Quinn uses Top without the counterbalance.

Quinn is a good example of a deck that wouldn't work properly without Top and is not dominant with it either. It's a big part of the Scrying Sheets interaction and Quinn would suffer a lot without it.

[DrJones]

All Eternal formats need FoW it keeps AnT/TES/NLS/Belcher and a few other Vintage decks from just winning on your turn 0.

This is a misconception. There definitely has to be a way to defend yourself against decks that can win on your turn 0, but that card doesn't have to be FoW, which features often in said decks, or at least,in the combo decks that end with their cards banned.

[Dia_Bot]

I don't think there is any reason for bannings in legacy. It's quite balanced as it is right now.
for unbannings, I agree with Grim monolith.

[(nameless one)]

I don't think there is any reason for bannings in legacy. It's quite balanced as it is right now.
for unbannings, I agree with Grim monolith.

yes, no bannings.

Although I would like to add Land Tax on top of that.

[yankeedave]

This is a misconception. There definitely has to be a way to defend yourself against decks that can win on your turn 0, but that card doesn't have to be FoW, which features often in said decks, or at least,in the combo decks that end with their cards banned.

So, basically, you want combo banning and to bring this about, you want to show how broken combo is by banning the card that keeps it in check?

Also, while I can appreciate that that isnt the point you might not be trying to make, can you name a deck (besides Reanimator, which has become strong not because of FoW, but because of the unbanning of Entomb) that features a combo that would not be as strong in Legacy that has FoW in it?

[menace13]

There are a number of cards that unbanned shouldn't prove problematic:
Gush -is fairly weak w/o Fastbond and would sea play in Gro with Mox D.

Mind Twist-a buddy i play with came up with this:
X = 1: Hymn is better
X = 2: Hymn is better
X = 3: Mind Twist is better
X = 4: Mind Sludge is more or less equal

Earthcraft- could push up Elves with Nest combo.
Grim Monolith and Mask are useless

Here are a few other choices, some folks from ClassicQuarter came up with, that i am not sure of, could use some help here:
Frantic Search-would combo play this?
Time Spiral-in TES/Belcher/NLS?
Mana Drain-Isn't the #2 counter in Classic like it is in Vintage, might be due to Bazaar of Baghdad and Tutors allowing faster decks.
Worldgorger Dragon- we have it online and it seems easily disruptable and has not made a winning appearance.
Goblin Recruiter-Food Chain isn't online so i can not test this one, but recruiter alone has not made many Vial-Goblins lists as most eschew it outright.

[Clark Kant]

I would love to see Mind Twist unbanned. Its a really fun card, not broken, but decent enough to help MBC control decks.

[Rizso]

On the banlist imo the only cards that are questionable to be unbanned is
library of alexandria
Tinker
Imperial Seal
Vampiric Tutor
land Tax
Earthcraft
Skullclamp
Grim monolith
Timespiral

But doubt Library cos the price would spike to loads. Powerlevel is questionable without the fast mana that vintage is offer, while still be really powerful.

For the tutors, The lifelost is relivant to the combo decks would probly want to have them for example ant. But would probly introduce vampiric tutor based rock decks that existed when was able to play vampiric tutor in extended for many years ago.
For the grim monolith, i would love to see the wildfiredeck to come back.
Timespiral just seems worse then Ad Nauseum, but could probly make a new kind of storm deck.

Skullclamp i doubt the format will be warped arround it like it was in standard for many years ago, Krosan Grip, Qasali Pridemage and Trygon Predator is everywhere.
For land Tax and Earthcraft, im not worried about their power level compared to lot of other stuff in the format.

Tinker, is this really that much better then Natural Order / Progenitus that it has to be banned? The deck have to be build arround the tinker while the Natural Order pretty much just need couple of natural order, a dryad arbor and progenitus to function.
Edit: About the Tinker, just thought of Goblin Charbelcher, THats pretty unsafe

Imo the problem with mindtwist is how easy it is to splash into most decks.