All B/R update speculation.

[(nameless one)]

I'd be inclined to think they meant to say "Gush and Frantic Search are now unrestricted", since they're both a bit too powerful in Legacy.

Fair, I do think that the decks that would benefit from these cards are the current dominant decks: Merfolk and Madness.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Fair, I do think that the decks that would benefit from these cards are the current dominant decks: Merfolk and Madness.

Frantic Search is debatable in those decks. Although it would obviously make Solidarity uber-broken.
Gush, on the other hand, is way too good. When has a blue-based tempo deck not been a DTB/W?

[alderon666]

Find better examples then, because i'm not scared by a colorless dark ritual. If you're so sure Vault would be broken, find better examples (like a list) or play me on MWS or something. Because you're not convincing me or anyone else by using Vault as a colorless ritual in your examples. Also, history showed me that Vault was busted in decks like Tinker, Academy or Stax, none of them is actually present in Legacy.
Just to say, in current Vintage, the Mana Vault slot in combo is often debated, and some people actually run Cabal ritual (iirc Smemmen prefer to run Vault in his storm decks) before it since it sinergize better with a lot of cards in your graveyard and YagWill, plus colored casting costs. Vault is usually an auto-include only if you play FoF or Gift. Also, since Vault is better in Brown decks, i actually think that the eventual unban of it would nerf combo, not buff it, by making prison actually viable in the format.
Not that i advocate the unbanning of it right before the printing of a big artifact set that could bring brown to a playable level even in Legacy.



Vault wouldn't even be played in SnT decks and SnT can easily be played on turn two with no need of it. The examples that were listed showed a Vault used like a colorless Dark Ritual.
I'll repeat, i'm sure Vault would be played, but i can't see a single deck broken by it. Belcher would just be improved by it, but it would still just too inconsistent compared to storm (read; worse), unless there's something i can't see when i try it and when i play storm. The large majority of deck doesn't even have a card with 3 colorless in its mana cost. If someone want to test a decklist with me on MWS to prove me wrong i'll be glad, seriously.

EDIT: completely forgot about AdN costing 3BB and not 2BBB. Lol k. Card is bonkers.

The deal with the Mana Vault is that Dark Ritual is too good. A colorless version of it is less good, but it still is awesome. Also the fact that you can play it and pass the turn, effectively storing mana for the next turn, should not be overlooked.

Just take the simple example:
Turn 1 - Swamp, Mana Vault, go
Turn 2 - Underground Sea, Ad Nauseam

Not a godly hand or anything, but it did make your Wild Nacatl look stupid. The fact that you can play it in conjunction with Dark Ritual makes it even better, effectively making your Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual(Mana Vault), Ad Nauseam hand much more common.

Oh crap, just imagine how good it is with LED and IT:

Turn 1 - Swamp, Mana Vault, go
Turn 2 - Underground Sea, LED, Duress, Infernal for AdN

When you play it and pass the turn it's almost a Dark Ritual + 1 because you get to use your land. The fact that it's colorless does make a huge difference, but the is meaningless when compared to its power.


On the Druid:

I don't think it should be unbanned. We have enough combos as it is, and unlike other this is a 1 card combo that doesn't create great deckbuilding restrictions.

[Dark Ritual]

Frantic Search is debatable in those decks. Although it would obviously make Solidarity uber-broken.
Gush, on the other hand, is way too good. When has a blue-based tempo deck not been a DTB/W?

Tempo/Canadian thresh is no longer tier 1 and that is an example of a blue based tempo deck. However if gush were unbanned in legacy canadian thresh would play it as a 4 of immediately in place of the ponder slot due to it protecting their lands in response to a wasteland activation on tropical island or something, effectively a. call like CA at the cost of bouncing 2 lands in a deck running 18 lands.

Sigh they didn't unban land tax or earthcraft yet again. Why wizards why do you persist in keeping land tax on the banned list? The card is perfectly safe for legacy with this format being as fast as it is.

[jrsthethird]

Tempo/Canadian thresh is no longer tier 1 and that is an example of a blue based tempo deck. However if gush were unbanned in legacy canadian thresh would play it as a 4 of immediately in place of the ponder slot due to it protecting their lands in response to a wasteland activation on tropical island or something, effectively a. call like CA at the cost of bouncing 2 lands in a deck running 18 lands.

New Horizons, Next Level Thresh, and Team America are blue-based tempo decks that have potential to be tier 1 if they were played more. In my meta in particular, NH is pretty much the DTB. Gush would be pretty sick in each one of these decks.

Actually, Gro-based threshold would be the nuts with Lorescale Coatl and Quirion Dryad; it's pretty easy to imagine what a post-Gush era tempo deck would look like (with or without a splash), and it would be nuts, especially with Jace around. You think Terravore is huge? Gush, Brainstorm, and Jace-fueled Coatls will be all over the place.

Sigh they didn't unban land tax or earthcraft yet again. Why wizards why do you persist in keeping land tax on the banned list? The card is perfectly safe for legacy with this format being as fast as it is.

Why don't you people understand that Land Tax is not banned for power level reasons!?! It's banned because it makes the game UNFUN. You drop T1 Land Tax, your opponent will never want to drop a second land for the rest of the game. It breaks the fundamental rule of Magic (let's play spells to try to kill our opponent) on turn 1. Sure, other cards influence game play in a similar way, but they're expensively costed and awkward. Same thing as Oath of Druids.

[Tinefol]

Why don't you people understand that Land Tax is not banned for power level reasons!?! It's banned because it makes the game UNFUN. You drop T1 Land Tax, your opponent will never want to drop a second land for the rest of the game. It breaks the fundamental rule of Magic (let's play spells to try to kill our opponent) on turn 1. Sure, other cards influence game play in a similar way, but they're expensively costed and awkward. Same thing as Oath of Druids.

Why don't we ban Weathered Wayfarer on the spot?

[Vacrix]

Why don't we ban Weathered Wayfarer on the spot?

Why not? Because Legacy has creature removal. Enchantments are much more difficult to remove. I'm all for unbanning Land Tax though.

Okay so they were unrestricted, my bad thats what I meant to say. Frantic Search looks alright in Merfolk and Madness. Its a great free card filter but it can only be played turn 3 provided you hit all three land drops, which is a little slow for Legacy. I'd think that Madness would prefer Careful Study to Frantic Search because you can filter earlier and you can actually take advantage of BS + Careful Study on turn 2 instead of BS + Frantic Search on turn 4. Also, Merfolk would have a tough time finding slots for Frantic Search.

I don't think Frantic Search would make Solidarity 'uber-broken'. At best the deck will now actually be able to win on turn 3 (maybe turn 2), but DDFT has been doing that for years. The only difference is that Solidarity can play FoW; its still weak against Counterbalance.dec.

[jrsthethird]

Why don't we ban Weathered Wayfarer on the spot?

Basically, it's because no one is scared of Weathered Wayfarer. You can get away with playing a couple lands and not losing the game because you know that Wayfarer is not much better than Bob in the decks that abuse him. He gets you an extra card every turn; powerful, but not broken. For reasons why Wayfarer is inferior to Land Tax:

Creature removal: Land Tax is harder to kill, with very few 1cc answers. There are tons of 1 or 2 mana answers to a creature.

Costs W to activate: Land Tax costs a 1 mana investment and then sits there with no further investment. Ask anyone who's ever played with/against Sylvan Library how awesome this effect is. Wayfarer needs to tap and pay W for it, it's a small price to pay but it sets you behind a turn in your curve if you want to take advantage of it early. There's a reason it's really only played in UW Tempo; you have Daze and Fathom Seer, in addition to fetches, to help make sure you can activate him.

Only gets one land: The biggest difference. Getting 3 basic lands a turn is awesome when you can take advantage of it with Brainstorm, Jace, Scroll Rack, etc., while giving you an automatic shuffle effect. Sure, you can do it with Wayfarer but you lose 2 cards.

[Vacrix]

On the other hand, Wayfarer finds Wasteland and Land Tax can only find basics.

[jrsthethird]

True, but each time you Waste them, you make your Wayfarer weaker by cutting your opponent's lands.

Wayfarer is a much more skill-intensive card, on both sides of the board. Land Tax is just stupid and says "look at me, you can't play any more lands unless I get a free Ancestral Recall". It's like Standstill every turn.


Also, I'm not arguing that Land Tax is overpowered (this is obvious, but Legacy is full of overpowered cards). I'm arguing that it makes the game unnecessarily slow and unfun. The format would be able to handle Land Tax but not many people would enjoy it.

[perm]

Land tax is almost worthless on it's own. the CA you get is dead weight. You need something like a manabond etc to abuse it. You get a hand inflated with basic lands, that's it.

And earthcraft probably wouldn't even see play if unbanned. Frantic search, i wouldn't lose much sleep over.

And again, tarmogoyf is just too good a creature. It is the definition of a format warping card. If anyone familiar with legacy asked you what the term format warping means, just say "tarmogoyf" instead of defining it.

[keys]

And again, tarmogoyf is just too good a creature. It is the definition of a format warping card. If anyone familiar with legacy asked you what the term format warping means, just say "tarmogoyf" instead of defining it.

I think this is changing. Vengevine Survival may be the first but it certainly won't be the last green aggro deck to run without Goyf. I've seen Loam decks cut him as well. Goyf has a lot of competition from Knight of the Reliquary, Terravore, and Countryside Crusher. As more sets get released, this list will continue to grow.

[TheCramp]

I would play frantic search in a heartbeat, I love that card. I would play it in faerie stompy, since pitching lands in a deck with crucible of worlds is sick.
I'll (uselessly?) point out that 'goyf has not won a 5k or a GP, or even put a disproportionate number of decks into the top 8, in quite a while. As someone who likes to design decks, wasteland is far more restrictive than goyf, I sort of assume my opponent will have threats, and plan accordingly. Having to work around a totally variable curve depending on match up is much more challenging. Frankly Aether Vile + Wasteland + FoW feels much more unfair, and that deck is, you know, fair. 'Goyf is really good. Best ever. But this is legacy, "best ever" is the CURRENCY of legacy, you know what I mean?

[perm]

Lol, the reason why goyf is losing power that it had ~2 years ago is because people are maindecking fucking Mind Harness because tarmogoyf. The value of removal/control spells is equal to how good they are at dealing with tarmogoyf. Threads of disloyalty, smother, mind harness. This is what format warping means. When you see cards like mind harness being played because of ONE CARD. T-goyf eclipses like 50 green creatures because it is just too undercosted of a creature. It should be 1GG and it would still see play.

[heroicraptor]

Goyf has a lot of competition from Knight of the Reliquary, Terravore, and Countryside Crusher. As more sets get released, this list will continue to grow.

All three of those require you to do something other than play the game of magic to be threatening.

[TheCramp]

KotR does not require you to do a damn thing. Put Fetches in your deck? You do that anyway. Zoo runs Knight, as does Loam. Also, there was not one mind harness, smother, or Threads in the top 8s of GP Madrid, Columbus, any of the SCG Opens, MTGO champs, that I just now looked at. So if people are deciding to warp their decks around 'Goyf, and they might be, it's the wrong decision. No one is winning that way, and most are winning without 'goyf at all.

Edit: SO, I was just looking at the Baltimore results, and the 2nd place deck ran 3 Mind harnesses side, and no 'goyfs anywhere. This made me chuckle. Eating my words and being right all at once.

[AriLax]

If anything, Tarmogoyf is good for the overall health of the format. It helps the fair decks that actually fight the unfair ones put up a fight against the fair decks that have decided not to. One of the best ways to try to beat Zoo is only fight one of their groups of creatures (one drops or Goyfs/Knights) with your spells and hold the others with Goyfs with the eventuality of outdrawing them and winning the Goyf fight.

[Cenarius]

The only card I would like to see banned is Show and Tell. U all know why....

[Cabal_chan]

If anything, Tarmogoyf is good for the overall health of the format. It helps the fair decks that actually fight the unfair ones put up a fight against the fair decks that have decided not to. One of the best ways to try to beat Zoo is only fight one of their groups of creatures (one drops or Goyfs/Knights) with your spells and hold the others with Goyfs with the eventuality of outdrawing them and winning the Goyf fight.

The use of the terms 'fair' and 'unfair' are poor and misleading in a game where the object is to win, not to mention they are completely subjective.

[perm]

Better terms are "balanced" and "unbalanced". An unbalanced card warps decks and formats around it. Extreme examples would be oath of druids or black lotus. In the first case, most decks would be oath or decks that are designed to beat oath. The second card would be run in every single deck if cost was not a factor.