Should Wizards specifically protect iconic cards in Legacy?

[dahcmai]

I forgot another point I was going to make.

It also makes for another problem of determining which cards and who is going to consider them iconic in the first place. A whole nother bag of worms you might say.

[Sloshthedark]

- Don't ban Brainstorm; Don't ban Delver
- Unban Survival, Don't ban Vengevine
- Unban Mystical Tutor

simple

protecting Iconic cards? - just think when designing new ones

to answer the question - yes, banning cards decreases variability, don't ban engines, ban problematic tools and only when its absolutely necessary

[Gheizen64]

You have absolutely no idea how formats work. You, and people like you, are the ones that destroyed Standard and ushered in the modern era of card design.

It has NOTHING to do with favorite colors and haves and have-nots. Frankly, your opinion sucks. You can't see beyond your own desires to see what actually creates a healthy and balanced format. Because balance doesn't come from color balance, it comes from strategy balance. You want a format where blue control isn't the best strategy? Go play Modern. The only decks running counters in Modern are the Zoo decks. And the format is stagnant and people hate it. You want another format where blue control isn't the best strategy? Play Vintage. Enjoy your Dredge vs. Workshop vs. Storm. Of course, occasionally, you'll still have to play against Landstill control, but that only makes up a small percent of the field. Be sure to tell everyone you play how nerfing blue leads to greater diversity.

Any time you have an extended card pool, broken strategies are going to come up. And it's not a linear progression, it's an exponential progression. Think of the number of different, viable, combo decks out there. I could name half a dozen without thinking about it. VIABLE combo decks. And lets say you get your foolish wish and control (aggro control, really, because true control was already hit) is hit hard enough that it drops down to 20% of the metagame. Blue occupies a perfectly fair 20% of the metagame. Those combo decks are now gods. I mean, they can go toe to toe decently with control as it is. It's not like they autolose to a single counterspell. Even Belcher can shrug off a single Force if you give them a few turns.

So you ban all the combo cards that are giving you problems. And instead of seeing High Tide and Tendrils and Hive Mind, you start seeing Dream Halls and Aluren. So you ban those. And new combos spring up in their place. And even after you've gotten rid of all the "combo" decks, 70 or 80 bannings down the road, your midrange decks are going to be even less powerful. You'll see legacy turn into the bad-tapout-control/GR-Ramp-into-inevitable-bullshit/terrible-one-drop-aggro pattern that Standard always falls into.

?
The last T8 of every vintage tournament had a lot of control. Wanna check?

Team serious open:
1-MUD
2-Landstill
3-Cobra Gush control
4-GUB tempo with Delver, Goyf, Trygon Predator, Snapcaster
8-Remora Gush control
8-Snapcaster control
8-Confidant control
8-Forgemaster MUD

LCV:
1-Snapcaster control
2-Pantera MUD
3-Snapcaster+Confidant control
4-Snapcaster+Confidant control
8-Snapcaster+Confidant control
8-MonoBLUE control (yes you're reading this right)
8-Dredge
8-Bomberman

Blue is still a large party of the meta.

Also i'm not really sure if you're sarcastic here, but no one suggested banning FoW instead of BS for a reason. BS was chosen as a target also because it'd impair combo decks as much as control ones.

[Roman Candle]

protecting Iconic cards? - just think when designing new ones

to answer the question - yes, banning cards decreases variability, don't ban engines, ban problematic tools and only when its absolutely necessary

It's very very easy to put the blame on people who design cards, but let's not forget: cards are designed for every format, not just Legacy. And with a cardpool as large as Legacy's, sometimes things are going to come out that are busted with older engine cards.

Defending engines just because they're iconic cards in Legacy is dangerously limiting to the printing of new cards. How many cards would have to be banned for being too good with x iconic engine card before the iconic engine card becomes the problem? At what point does keeping the iconic engine cause less variability than banning it and unbanning the new cards that are broken with it?

Maybe SotF shouldn't have been banned since only Vengevine was broken with it. But does that mean that Wizards can't print new interesting cards for every format that are too good with Survival so that Survival doesn't have to be banned? Or do they print them and ban them in Legacy immediately?

[nwong]

Snappy and Delver don't combine with old engine cards. In fact, it should be obvious that they'd be busted.

I don't see how someone who designs cards for a living can't just take a look at the card and realise how retardedly good it is.

[Octopusman]

Snappy and Delver don't combine with old engine cards. In fact, it should be obvious that they'd be busted.

I don't see how someone who designs cards for a living can't just take a look at the card and realise how retardedly good it is.

I totally agree with this. I think they have said many times that they don't care if their designs are reckless because they can always ban them. Like it or not, this is the ace up their sleeve.

I don't have any other hobbies or interests where I am constantly fearful that the money I spent on it will be wasted by the makers of the product. I only spent $40 on my set of Snapcasters because I pro-ordered them the same hour I found out they existed but I would be very mad if they were banned because of the financial aspect (as well as other reasons). Being a business, it's amazing that they are successful considering they regularly alienate their own customers.
If I played standard I would have been pretty mad if I had my Jaces banned. I remember when they banned Ravager and people had just spent $100 on the playset and I couldn't believe it.

If they want to keep players happy, banning the cards that make people unhappy offends the smallest amount of players usually. However, they should design fun cards that are not a problem, don't ban them, and make players happy so they don't have to live in fear of their fun cards being unplayable because those who define the rules say so.

I want there to be more Legacy players. I feel that they should abandon the reserve list. Some people would be offended. Maybe even Blizzard has to settle in court. In the long run, the amount of money they would make from reprinting reserve list cards would outweigh the damage done during the fallout after the abolishing of the list. Then they can do whatever they want and grow indefinitely.

[Zilla]

I don't see how someone who designs cards for a living can't just take a look at the card and realise how retardedly good it is.

Simple: they weren't thinking about Legacy at all when they designed those cards. They've said as much.

I think Wizards cares about Legacy and Vintage only from a retroactive standpoint. That is, they care enough to manage any potential fuckups with the B&R list, but when they're designing new cards, they're thinking almost exclusively about Limited and Standard. There are exceptions, of course. Mental Misstep was one, and look how well that turned out.

[Aggro_zombies]

Simple: they weren't thinking about Legacy at all when they designed those cards. They've said as much.

I think Wizards cares about Legacy and Vintage only from a retroactive standpoint. That is, they care enough to manage any potential fuckups with the B&R list, but when they're designing new cards, they're thinking almost exclusively about Limited and Standard. There are exceptions, of course. Mental Misstep was one, and look how well that turned out.

Mental Misstep is a bit of a bad example, though. In retrospect, it seems like it should have been very obvious that it would be used as it was, and yet it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone at Wizards (or, indeed, some of the people on this site at the time) that it wouldn't be used for its intended purpose. I mean, why would Legacy Zoo want a counterspell, and what storm deck folds to four counters and some hatebears? How does that realistically improve the matchup at all?

I feel like Wizards should either design cards for Eternal and then test it, or never try to design anything for Eternal at all and just let the cards fall where they may. Doing it halfheartedly will just increase the number of mistakes made.

[Zilla]

Mental Misstep is a bit of a bad example, though.

Agreed. Flusterstorm is another example, and while it's pretty underwhelming, it's good at what it was designed to do.

I feel like Wizards should either design cards for Eternal and then test it, or never try to design anything for Eternal at all and just let the cards fall where they may. Doing it halfheartedly will just increase the number of mistakes made.

Agree with this wholeheartedly.

Then again, considering the almost complete lack of attention they give the format when designing new sets, I'd say things are going remarkably well. The format is diverse, skill dependent, and fun as hell to play (although I recognize that last one is entirely subjective.) Considering they've achieved that without a whole lot of trying is pretty lucky, imo.

[DrJones]

The format is diverse, skill dependent, and fun as hell to play (although I recognize that last one is entirely subjective.) Considering they've achieved that without a whole lot of trying is pretty lucky, imo.

I think it could look that way if you are a player with a severe case of "blue tunnel vision", from anybody else who has seen the coverage of the legacy portion of Worlds, Legacy is the least diverse format in the story of the game, and even the person that was writing the article in the main site couldn't avoid stating the horrible fact. Moreso when we take into account that the two most played decks are, in fact, the same blue tempo shell splashing different colors.

I take the time to point out that the emperor is naked because you guys seem to really think he is fully dressed even when his little wiener makes an hypnotic dance in front of your eyes. Seriously, this format is canned shit, so don't be surprised if WotC does something unexpected later this month. However, if you were talking about the diversity of Legacy on Magic online, that's a whole different matter. As nobody can afford a playset of Force of Will in the digital realm, it actually is a much healthier environment with a whole lot of variety in the Top 8, and not the ruined world you all doomsayers seem to paint.

[Hof]

Surely the 4 blue duals in particular has as much to do with the strength of blue as Brainstorm has, if not more. The fact that we don't play all 16 blue duals in the same deck isn't really relevant here, because that is more a matter of deckbuilding practice (staying in 2 or 3 colors is usually best) and says nothing about the strength of each blue dual compared to other cards. This tells me that:
1) Talking about objective strength or 'penetration' of a single card is a rather pointless excercise.
2) Wizards should definitely protect iconic cards like the original duals and Brainstorm.

[Admiral_Arzar]

IBA, I think they probably should - as has been said a million times, people want to play Legacy and not some other format. I would lose interest in Legacy if I couldn't play LED or High Tide, for example.

[Gui]

SotF was banned, you can close the thread now.

Seriously, tho, if a card it too powerful, they will ban it, because this is the intention of the ban list. Being iconic is just the first good sign to determine if the card is banable, imho.

OTOH, I believe there's an argument you should also take into account: When Brainstorm is banned, there will still be a "best card of the format" and a "dominant strategy", and the banning will be worth nothing.

And finally, I wouldn't mind if they banned brainstorm, cuz I would like to see blue slightly nerfed, and still, blue would be played a lot because FoW is what really drag players to blue, for it's a remarkable solution to anything there is.

[DragoFireheart]

Brainstorm should be banned so people can clearly see what happens when you ban ironic, fun, and powerful yet relatively balanced cards from a healthy format. Thankfully we don't need to see FoW banned to understand that the format would implode and turn into a copy of Modern after everything broken was banned.

Seriously, do a temp ban on Brainstorm so we could clearly see what the results would be.

[Gui]

Seriously, do a temp ban on Brainstorm so we could clearly see what the results would be.

Really, what do you suggest? I think the format would end up being exactly the same, if not, less blue. I doubt any brokeness will come from the banning of Brainstorm. It's more likely that some brokeness will malfunction.

[snappingbowls | ಠ_ಠ]

Brainstorm should be banned so people can clearly see what happens when you ban ironic, fun, and powerful yet relatively balanced cards from a healthy format.

How about leave Brainstorm unbanned because it's fun and ironic.

I can't wait until Brainstorm doesn't get banned and everyone can keep crying about how good blue is...

[Mr. Safety]

Can someone please correct my logic if it is off here? This is what I'm thinking:

1) The longer legacy exists, the more cards are available to make unforseen and new combinations of powerful plays. It is inevitable that some combinations of cards will become more powerful than others.

2) Isn't it logical for legacy to eventually become a format where you can do one of 2 things: play a powerful combination of cards or stop an opponent from playing a powerful combination of cards? Blue has countermagic...seems fairly obvious to me that it will become Blue vs. all the other colors (in a vacuum.)

3) Or you can ban cards to keep this from happening. In a nutshell, you are propping up the less-powerful combinations of cards in the format by removing their direct competition for 'most powerful'.

Does that make sense? It seems that the more cards that get banned it becomes inevitable that it will perpetuate itself...because we are used to seeing cards banned to 'balance the format'.

(Disclaimer: I do not play Vintage and I will say absolutely nothing about it due to a lack of understanding and experience.)

Long story short (too late, I know, *sigh*): I don't want to see any more cards banned, least of all Brainstorm. It will have it's day in the sun and then we'll hopefully have a new card(s) printed that will take over. I wish that WotC could reliably do that, but lately it seems that they can't. Modern is a fucking train wreck and there aren't a lot of options to compete with the powerful combination of Brainstorm + other tempo effects. Last I heard though, those decks lose too occasionally...

[DragoFireheart]

Really, what do you suggest? I think the format would end up being exactly the same, if not, less blue. I doubt any brokeness will come from the banning of Brainstorm. It's more likely that some brokeness will malfunction.

Sometimes, reason and arguments are not enough for people. Seeing is believing.

[Gui]

Sometimes, reason and arguments are not enough for people. Seeing is believing.

Seriously, I still don't get it, what are you suggesting that the format would turn into, if brainstorm was banned?

[snappingbowls | ಠ_ಠ]

Sometimes, reason and arguments are not enough for people. Seeing is believing.

Too bad for those people. Banning something temporarily to see what the format will look like without it is hardly compelling enough to actually do that. Do you get why this is an outlandish idea that should never see practice? There are many, many reasons why stuff doesn't get "temporarily" banned just to see what it would be like.