[Premium Article] Six Cards to Unban in Legacy (VOTE!)

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Mana Drain? Are you frakkin' serious? I mean, if control decks were the only thing that would play it, I'd say yeah they probably need the boost. But that card would get degenerate real quick.

[johanessen]

Which deck would benefit? Dream Halls and Landstill? The first is a bunch of crap, and nobody plays Landstill nowadays. The only deck I can see taking profit is Counter top and I can`t see Mana Drain an auto include on every CBTop deck, only in controlish lists with new Jace and such.

[Maveric78f]

Which deck would benefit? Dream Halls and Landstill? The first is a bunch of crap, and nobody plays Landstill nowadays. The only deck I can see taking profit is Counter top and I can`t see Mana Drain an auto include on every CBTop deck, only in controlish lists with new Jace and such.

All in nuance. The only argument in favor of Mana Drain is that Legacy does not play high CC cards. But you are completely wrong. Dream Halls can be a very good deck and Landstill / Ultimate Walker are decks that can take huge benefit of Mana Drain.

[cjva]

The problem is not if some deck would take benefit from an unbanning. Hopefully they do, cause otherwise the unbanning doesn't matter.

The problem comes when we think that an unbanning would lead legacy into the same thing as standard is in now. Jund or anti-jund.

Evaluating each card with the eye on "would this card make a deck take up to big a portion of the meta?" If no, the card could safely be unbanned.

I actually think it would be good for legacy if some cards gets unbanned and we eventually end up with ~10 good/decent decks to chose from, instead of todays 20-30.

Unbanning Dragon is probably safe as well, gives the meta yet another GY-depentent combo deck. Peoples sideboards shouldnt change in order to handle it, when we have meta that include dredge and reanimator. And besides, dragon not only fold to GY-hate, but STP, Path aso aso as well.

The interesting discussion comes when we start to talk about some money cards. What would their impact be on legacy if Bazzar, Mishra or Liberary where to be unbanned? And if the impact would be low, or just making some strats more valid but not taking up to big chunks of the meta, what are the reason to keep em banned?

[Valdez]

Earthcraft would give a HUGE boost to Enchantress, so I say NO to unban Earthcraft.

Safe unbans: Time Spiral, Land Tax, Mind Twist, Goblin Recruiter, Illusionary Mask, Mana Drain, Grim Monolith, Frantic Search. I`d like to see Skullclamp unbanned too but I think it`s too risky.

Ban: Sensei`s Divining Top.

You may noticed I mentioned Mana Drain. Seriously, who still plays Counterspell? Do you think Mana Drain is THAT dangerous? Legacy is a fast format now, unbanning Mana Drain is completely safe.

+ Sol Ring, Strip Mine and Will.

[SpikeyMikey]

I very much agree with both parts of this statement. Food Chain Goblins is not automatically better than Vial Goblins...it may be slightly better, but it won't bring back the old days, when people wanted Lackey banned because of the power, consistancy, and percentages Goblins used to have. Recruiter is the most debatable choice in the article, but not outrageous.



Is Dragon actually that big of a deal? With Pridemages, Krosan Grips, and graveyard hate everywhere, AND with Bazaar banned, it doesn't seem overpowered. It's a three card combo, Animate Dead / Necromancy are enchantments, plus you need something like Compulsion to draw cards...ending games in stalls is lame, but it's another combo like Earthcraft that won't be wrecking metagames any time soon.

When Dragon first hit the scene in T1, no one (except for me) was running Bazaar of Baghdad (I was also the only one running Tarnished Citadel). Incredible but true. It was strong and consistent enough that it got Entomb restricted without the pitchland. Now to be fair, we don't have access to jewelry and Ancestral and Walk and Wheel and all the rest of that happy horse hockey, but Dragon would still be incredibly strong and consistent. Of course, I don't think it'd be much stronger than modern day Reanimator; Dragon wins in 1 turn instead of having to beat you 2 or 3 times, but we didn't have PtE back then and most decks weren't packing 4+ direct removal spells. Control at the time usually had 1 StP and 1 Edict. Would it be something that modern decks could deal with? Probably, but the real issue is this: right now, we enjoy a format where you can play a wide variety of decks and have a chance at winning. The more and varied the competitive combo decks are, the less and less that things like Zoo and PT Junk can compete. You reach a point where you're either playing combo or you're playing blue. Similar to what happened in T1 when Mirrodin hit the scene, you either packed 4 Forces or 4 Trinispheres, but you were not competitive unless you were running one or the other. I would HATE to see Legacy reach that point, because I think that aggro is an important part of any metagame. So why don't we just leave well enough alone and avoid unbanning strong combo cards?

[Amon Amarth]

I think all the cards suggested are fine to unban. The only thing I'm iffy on is Goblin Recruiter. He's kinda silly. Worst case, he makes other aggro decks unattractive or just obsoletes them. However, I don't think Recruiter is stronger than Entomb so even that would most likely be OK too. I'd also add Grim Monolith and Hermit Druid to that list as well. They are too slow.

Also I doubt they will unban Dragon due to how easy it is to create a game states where the only outcome is a draw.

[jazzykat]

Earthcraft would give a HUGE boost to Enchantress, so I say NO to unban Earthcraft.

Safe unbans: Time Spiral, Land Tax, Mind Twist, Goblin Recruiter, Illusionary Mask, Mana Drain, Grim Monolith, Frantic Search. I`d like to see Skullclamp unbanned too but I think it`s too risky.

This.

Caveats:
Recruiter may be a little iffy, because a good aggro deck with a possible combo finish is pretty hard to argue against.

Mana Drain my initial feeling is the card is too powerful but the decks that would benefit most from it (Dream Halls and "Landstill") are not decks to beat. It might just make them that. IMO Dream Halls is tier 2 and I would play it behind Reanimator, Ichorid, Bant Survival, and AdNT, so if you got 1 more tier 1 combo deck I think that would be great. Landstill, it seems to die to a fair amount of the format. It still pounds on CB/Top, Supreme Blue, and Thresh, but it has a pretty crummy game vs. combo, and depending on the builds zoo can burn it out. However, it generally doesn't fare that well vs. combo and goblins gives it a pretty bad day too. So, I'm in favor of bringing the power level up on non-tier 1 decks.

[DrJones]

I think the format doesn't need yet another combo enabler that can be stopped by FoW but actually isn't, and I actually think there are too many of those already and would suggest banning entomb again, and also Show and tell. All you are doing with some of your suggestions is increasing the "swinginess" of the format, that is, how strong a deck is punished if it doesn't have an answer ready when the opponent plays a spell.

I would ban: Brainstorm, Entomb, Show and Tell.
I would like to see either banned or reprinted: dual lands.
I would unban: Mind Twist, Land Tax, and a colorless producing artifact like Grim Monolith.
I wouldn't unban: Goblin Recruiter, Time Spiral, Mana Drain, Hermit, nor Earthcraft.

[Infinitium]

I would ban: Brainstorm

Wait, what? Blue decks being consistent is one of their defining traits, and brainstorm is one of the most skill-intensive cards of the format.

[Elfrago]

Time Spiral would be a lot of fun for Spring Tide, the old Solidarity little brother. The deck would benefit a lot from it but I'm not sure it would be competive, you know, the old Counterbalance + Top wrecks combo decks thing.

Recruiter is good, really good. Not broken but it would give a boost to Goblins. A boost that ATM Goblins doesn't need. On the other hand the WGD combo requires more than two pieces and is distrupted by creature removal, enchantment removal, graveyard hate and countermagic/discard/allthatotherstuff. Ya, sick combo =/

Mind Twist and Mask are on the banned list? Really? Feel free to stifle your 12/12, but you can't pay 2 + 1 for it. LOL.

Earthcraft is probably the only card that should remain on the list of the ones you mentioned.

[Cabal_chan]

Aaron Forsythe twittered that he'd like community members to give the DCI and WOTC feedback on cards people think could be banned or unbanned.

With all due respect sir, seeing how the reprint issue was handled...how to phrase this...'I wouldn't trust him with a potato gun.'

This is just a move to try and direct attention away from that. It looks like the e-mails may have had some affect, but not the effect we hoped for.

[Julian23]

How can I email Aaaron about my thoughts? I would like to share my opinion on why SDT has to be banned in Legacy.

[(nameless one)]

Whats with the hate with SDT?

Is it because of its interaction with Counterbalance?

And on Land Tax, I believe my signature says it all.

[johanessen]

Whats with the hate with SDT?

Is it because of its interaction with Counterbalance?

I believe most people (>95%) don`t wan`t SDT banned due to interaction with counterbalance. It`s a good interaction, but it`s comproved that doesn`t break the format.

We want to see SDT banned because it`s a card that dodges removal stupidly, and mainly because it`s too lame, too easy to abuse and buy time.

[Julian23]

SDT needs to be banned because of the round time issues it causes.

[frolll]

Yep, just like in Extended, when it did end banned.

OTOH : Time Spiral : Safe. Land Tax : Safe. Mask : Safe. Drain : Safe. Dragon : Safe. Recruiter : Safe. Mind Twist : Safe. Earthcraft : NOT safe. SDT : Ban for tournament timing issues (like they did w/ it in Ext.). Grim Monolith : Safe. Frantic Search : Safe.

Yay, pretty much as everyone else, actually.

[Tacosnape]

Yay. Another Land Tax thread.

I say no to Land Tax, no to Earthcraft, no to Goblin Recruiter, and -hell- no to Mask.

Probably safe are Mind Twist and I don't honestly know about Time Spiral. Haven't thought about it much.

That said, if you just take the rules of what Smennen said (Pick the most unbannable of each color/artifact), it's hard to argue his result. I might have picked Memory Jar over Illusionary Mask, but there's really no good choices for artifacts to come off the banned list. Everything else is hard to argue. Land Tax, Earthcraft, Time Spiral, and Mind Twist are definitely the least offensive of their colors. Goblin Recruiter might or might not lose out to Worldgorger Dragon, though.

[yankeedave]

Wait, what? Blue decks being consistent is one of their defining traits, and brainstorm is one of the most skill-intensive cards of the format.

You are of course forgetting that DrJones would also like Force of Will banning, but seems to be keeping quiet on that these days.

[Mark Sun]

SDT needs to be banned because of the round time issues it causes.

I think I'd rather (try) to keep combo in check on that one.

SDT is fine, Krosan Grip still kills it. That's not to say that the card is damn powerful, but I would rather have a healthy format than save time on matches.