Blue needs a Nerf

[Xero]

The Invitational isn't as telling as the Legacy Open. The Invitational took into account Legacy and Standard performance, while the Open was just Legacy.

[Gheizen64]

Are you in all seriousness thinking this thread was heading in any serious discussion?

I apologize and politely resign myself from this thread.

Sometimes I wonder if people on the internet can detect a slight hint of sarcasm, like my post on Lackey and Nacatls. I guess not. But I'll not be posting in this thread at all now, given that it's a serious conversation about blue needing a nerf.

Posting stupid things only because new users with 3 post are posting shit isn't exactly helping the discussion in the topic and it's making people previously willing to discuss unwilling to do so because of the stupid amount of trolling and strawman arguments from "i play magic from yesterday and you all suck herp derp".

Not referencing to you in particular since i find you're an intelligent poster most of the time, but the attitude in this topic and around is stupid. After this topic was created, 3 differents topic on the same issue were created and one was an openly declared rant. Really? The source has done better than this and can continue to do so.

[Finn]

Look, when the best players in the format played a non-blue deck, they won. When good people play, they win, who knew. The thing is, all the good players just play blue, because it gives them the best opportunity to leverage their skill over their opponent.

I think we all know this to be true, but it does not hurt to read it again. The trick here would be for Wizards to begin printing cards that are not blue, and yet gives players an opportunity to outplay opponents the way blue tends to. That is probably going to mean screwing with the color wheel.

Life from the Loam
Stoneforge Mystic
Sensei's Divining Top

...are all cards that do that. But lo and behold, the two that are popular right now are in blue decks.

How about something that is very color-intensive with a powerful, skill-intensive ability that can spawn many different kinds of decks the way Brainstorm and Force of Will can?

Quickly, stuff like this:

Search and Destroy
RRR
Enchantment
R, discard a red card: Search your library for an instant or sorcery with converted mana cost 2 or less. You may cast that spell this turn without paying its mana cost. Play this ability any time you could cast a sorcery.

or

Fuqyurfun
1WW
Legendary Creature - Hoser
2/1
Flash
All creature spells have Flash. Noncreature spells may only be cast any time that player may cast a sorcery. Activated abilities on permanents may only be activated any time that player could cast a sorcery.

or

Too Many Secrets
RG
Creature - Human Sneaker
0/1
Flash
Sacrifice Too Many Secrets: Too Many Secrets does x damage to target player where x is its power.
At the beginning of the next End Step, sacrifice Too Many Secrets.
If a player searches his or her library for a nonland card, looks at the top card in a library without searching it, or draws a card at any time other than his draw step, each of his or her opponents may search their libraries for a creature card and put it on the battlefield.
If an opponent reveals the top card of his or her library, put a +1/+1 counter on Too Many Secrets.

[Fsk]

I heard Goblin Lackey and Vial beats blue, I heard Wild Nacatl is a really unfair green card. Format seems good, blue is and always will be good, but doesn't mean it's unstoppable or too good, thread is boring.

Placing 4 copies in a top8 make them unfair for sure. Let me remind you the top16 of the legacy open for those of you who are blind :

1 NO RUG
2 Reanimator
3 Merfolk
4 Hive Mind
5 UWR Stoneblade
6 UW Control
7 RUG Tempo
8 UW Landstill
9 UW Stoneblade
10 Team America
11 UWB Stoneblade
12 BW Discard
13 NO RUG
14 Team America
15 Merfolk
16 Merfolk

32 FOW in top8, 60 in top16
"blue is and always will be good, but doesn't mean it's unstoppable or too good"

[GGoober]

32 FOW in top8, 60 in top16
"blue is and always will be good, but doesn't mean it's unstoppable or too good"

Did I say anything wrong here? Anyone who has played competitive MTG knows that blue is and always will and always had been the best color. It's the nature of the game, where the combination and/or of drawing cards/manipulating library/countering spell, is by definition the best and safest strategy when executed against opposing decks.

If someone argues blue isn't good or isn't the best color, then they obviously have not played competitive MTG at some point of life.

Did I say anything wrong with blue being unstoppable or too good? I don't think so, because there you have it, Zoo/Gobs/many other decks that are capable of beating blue-based decks. It's true that blue-based decks will constantly have much higher placing than non-blue decks, but that doesn't mean it's unstoppable.

Until the day WotC shifts to printing stronger colors where non-blue cards actually form a DECK/SHELL that makes a non-blue DECK/SHELL very viable, blue will continue to show this trend. If your solution is to ban either or of Brainstorm/FoW, you are not really solving the problem. You ban FoW, suddenly combo becomes the pillar of the format, then you would have to ban something. You ban Brainstorm, suddenly Legacy dies as a format (a little extreme but really, Brainstorm is one of the most iconic cards in Legacy since it became restricted in Vintage).

It so happens that since blue was always the stronger colors, decks with blues tend to be more popularly played, and placing well. Decks like Hulk Flash, MTutor ANT/Reanimator were good examples of very powerful decks back in the day that were broken in a blue shell. These days, it's hard to say that deck X with blue is brokenly powerful. At least I can't point to such a deck except Merfolks, which happens to be easily answered by non-blue decks.

[SlopeeJ]

I always find these discussions interesting, some people do have some solid and valid arguments. (from both sides) I'm not saying anything needs to be banned, but brainstorm is Recall and it is banned for a reason. Jace is very strong and I think they should print more cards that interact with him besides trying to attack him. Tarmogoyf protected him okay, but now batterskull just owns aggro plans.

I play Merfolk because I love Force and I love creatures. Not sure if it was this thread or another but I also wish they would print more old school color hosers. Those cards are awesome and are fun to play with

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I swear you said you were going to stop posting itt.

32 Force in the top 8 is a red flashing light. The Invitational performance is really the edge of where blue should be allowed to stray in terms of regular dominance, yet it seems to be an outlier in terms of underperformance.

Also, again, it's churlish to conflate blue being the best color- it hasn't always been, but it's certainly been pretty close at the top throughout Legacy's history- with blue being utterly dominant. Winning six out of seven tournaments is utterly dominant.

And in fact that's only counting Opens. If we throw in the Invitational, BoM, and GP Providence, blue decks have won 15 out of 17 of the post-Survival major Legacy tournaments (or at least those I can get numbers on; if anyone knows of other big Legacy tournaments in Europe we can add, they'll have to let me know as deckcheck is down).

And actually, that even puts a bold face on it. Because blue decks have won 15 out of the past 15 of those tournaments.

eta: Misread on my part, the Invitational itself was won by Zoo. So 14 out of 17.

[Fsk]

Blue has always been the best color/shell in legacy. This is nothing new. But at this point i think it is just too good. There is no point running a non-blue deck at the moment if you want to have a shot at winning a legacy tournament. Yes, you can luck your way with zoo and maybe goblin but playing blue is just a better idea.

I'm fed up with this argument that FOW keeps combo in check. What combo are you talking about? Dredge? doesnt care about it. Storm? there is a lot of cards which can hate it, especially now that MM has been printed. ALL the other combo decks run FOW/blue shell themselves (it is the main reason they are doing so well..). I may be wrong but i would like to see better arguments that "roflonoob l2p no fow = combo format".

How can you say legacy is a nice format at the moment? If you want play a tier 1 deck you basically need to play FOW. And playing it force you into 12-20 other blue cards (which are often the same "blue shell").
When there is more cards of 1 color in a top16 than of all the other 4 colors i think something is wrong. But maybe that's just me and i know nothing about competitive magic..

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Force doesn't make blue too good. Force is only amazing if your opponent is reliant on resolving particular cards, the rest of the time it's a very fair card. That's why it often gets sided out. Banning Force would do terrible things to the metagame.

Brainstorm is much the richer target for any axe that might have to come down at some point, although, especially with Zoo winning the Invitational, it's worth waiting a bit to see.

[Hanni]

I remember a time not so long ago, when everyone was crying about how overpowered Zoo was...

Oh, and remember that time when Goblins dominated the metagame for upwards of 2-3 years?

[Richard Cheese]

I remember a time not so long ago, when everyone was crying about how overpowered Zoo was...

Those people were fed to cats.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I remember a time not so long ago, when everyone was crying about how overpowered Zoo was...

Oh, and remember that time when Goblins dominated the metagame for upwards of 2-3 years?

I'm not sure how I should respond to this. I'm debating two options;

"If anyone anywhere ever complained about something that probably wasn't worth complaining about, epso facto no one else anywhere can ever criticize anything regardless of what data or arguments they're basing these criticisms on."

or

"Remember that time when Hulk-Flash dominated the meta and everyone was crying about how good it was?"

Vote, discuss, suggest alternatives etc..

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Banning Force would do terrible things to the metagame.

Brainstorm is much the richer target for any axe that might have to come down at some point, although, especially with Zoo winning the Invitational, it's worth waiting a bit to see.

Axe? We don't need no stinkin' axe!

Um, seriously though? Bans are not the answer. More, better cards of other non-blue colors, and good anti-Island sideboard hate-- these are what we need. The problem is that from a standpoint of the current card design paradigm, I'm not entirely sure that R&D is on the same page. I see them continuing to print good, undercosted creatures across the color pie, but I don't know if non-blue colors will get the good spells they need. And I don't know if we'll see a return of good, color-based hate cards.

I seriously think it's just contrarian to argue that Brainstorm is unhealthy for the format. Yes, it's a yardstick of what a good cantrip looks like. Yes, this is the only constructed format where you can play four in a list, and yes, people tend to do this. It's because it's a fucking good spell, and people like to use it. Outside the context of Vintage, where Brainstorm gives you more consistency to find spells that, you know, really are broken, it's safe, and despite the shuffling that goes along with its use, I think it actually helps keep Legacy matches within time constraints (since it increases consistency), and potentially swingier and less predictable (since it can often help an unfavored deck find what they need to win a particular matchup, or at least be able to make a play that keeps them in the game.) It's not unbeatable, and it doesn't deserve to go away.

I don't know why I even read this thread anymore, because it just fills me with nerd-rage.

[Hanni]

teh Sky is falling!!!1!! was more of what I was going for.

[Hanni]

Oh, and it's even funnier when people start calling for bans after only 1 or 2 tournaments in a short time span, aka only a few weeks, when they meta hasn't even settled in yet. But then again, I'm sure Zoo and Goblins just got lucky in a field of blue.

[clavio]

After skimming this thread I'm just going to say that I don't think anything is wrong. Yeah, 32 FOW in a top8 looks kind of fucked up but it's not nearly as bad as it looks. Something like...32 copies of Lion's Eye Diamond would be much much worse. Even 32 Aether Vials would be pretty horrible. Look at that top 16. Those are some very distinct decks. It's not like you have to face Jace.dec every single round of every single tournament.

Also...Mental Misstep IS a nerf for brainstorm! Its damn good too since there are alot of strong 1cc cards that see play in this format other than brainstorm.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Yeah, 32 FOW in a top8 looks kind of fucked up but it's not nearly as bad as it looks. Something like...32 copies of Lion's Eye Diamond would be much much worse. Those are some very distinct decks. It's not like you have to face Jace.dec every single round of every single tournament.

If there were 32 copies of LED, we'd see Painter, Ichorid, Madness, TES, ANT, DDFT, Belcher, and SI. Those are some very distinct decks. It's not like you have to face combo.dec every single round of every single tournament.

[clavio]

You know what I meant. For most decks TES==ANT==DDFT==SI. Belcher is not far off. Combo+painter+dredge.format is much less diverse than the top 16 presented.

[KrzyMoose]

I don't know why I even read this thread anymore, because it is just nerd-rage.

Fixed.

I don't know why I even read The Source anymore, because it is just nerd-rage.

Fixed.

I don't know why I even read forums anymore, because they are just nerd-rage.

Fixed.

[Tacosnape]

I think the problem with blue right now, after a lot of thought, is this:

1. Mental Misstep punishes you for running CMC 1 spells.
2. Daze punishes you for avoiding CMC 1 spells and running a higher curve.
3. Force of Will punishes you for playing cards that sacrifice card advantage for mana acceleration to avoid problems 1 and 2.

So, thereby, Force, Daze, and Mental Misstep punishes you for building any deck that falls into that criteria.

And to top that, at no point do you have to have an untapped land to execute them.

So, rather than try to come up with a solution to the triple package, most decks are just going to run at least two of them.