[Article] The Problem With Legacy

[DrJones]

Modern has already degenerated into essentially a boxing match...aggro vs. aggro, most of the time zoo vs. another zoo variant. BO-ring.

If we apply the same string of silly remarks you and others use to defend the current state of legacy, green has always been the best color in modern and you are doing it wrong for not playing it, maybe you just enjoy playing bad decks, also people should stop being lazy and learn to adapt to it, GSZ shouldn't have been banned because it was already a staple and was used by a whole lot of different decks, nothing has to change in the format, there's plenty of variety of available decks, even though it looks like a strategy is dominant, the few differences in card choices make the difference. Modern rewards playskill, nerfing zoo would make combo dominant, so it's a necessary evil that keeps decks honest, Tarmogoyf is a body that only attacks and blocks, and you probably whine because you can't play your pet deck, which is surely Stasis because you are a bad person. Instead of asking for bannings, we should ask WotC to print GOOD cards in blue, or even better, ask them to reprint Oath of Druids or Berserk in a Standard legal set, that would shake the format and help beating those Tarmogoyf decks, plus if Tarmogoyf is ever banned, people will rage quit the format forever, because WotC doesn't protect the player's investment in the format.

So stop whining, and go play <insert format you despise of your choice>.

[Julian23]

I see what you did there...lol

[If I can't get FoW banned in Legacy, I want a single deck to dominate Modern.]

fix'ed.

[Admiral_Arzar]

If we apply the same string of silly remarks you and others use to defend the current state of legacy, green has always been the best color in modern and you are doing it wrong for not playing it, maybe you just enjoy playing bad decks, also people should stop being lazy and learn to adapt to it, GSZ shouldn't have been banned because it was already a staple and was used by a whole lot of different decks, nothing has to change in the format, there's plenty of variety of available decks, even though it looks like a strategy is dominant, the few differences in card choices make the difference. Modern rewards playskill, nerfing zoo would make combo dominant, so it's a necessary evil that keeps decks honest, Tarmogoyf is a body that only attacks and blocks, and you probably whine because you can't play your pet deck, which is surely Stasis because you are a bad person. Instead of asking for bannings, we should ask WotC to print GOOD cards in blue, or even better, ask them to reprint Oath of Druids or Berserk in a Standard legal set, that would shake the format and help beating those Tarmogoyf decks, plus if Tarmogoyf is ever banned, people will rage quit the format forever, because WotC doesn't protect the player's investment in the format.

So stop whining, and go play <insert format you despise of your choice>.

I don't normally agree with you Dr. Jones, but this post was pretty awesome.

[Mr. Safety]

If we apply the same string of silly remarks you and others use to defend the current state of legacy...and you probably whine because you can't play your pet deck, which is surely Stasis because you are a bad person...So stop whining, and go play <insert format you despise of your choice>.

Now that was uncalled for...I actually play quite a bit of modern and have several decks posted on this forum. I don't play pet-decks and I have made no 'whining' remarks...I stated what I believe modern to have degenerated into, based on my own experience with the format. Honestly, I have a hard time following your incredibly long run-on sentences. Punctuation goes a long way, my friend.

Modern rewards playskill, nerfing zoo would make combo dominant, so it's a necessary evil that keeps decks honest...

Is that you Tom? I thought you went to work for Dungeons and Dragons?

Quoted from Zilla in the Brainstorm Ban Discussion Thread

The same top level players do well in almost every event, and those players and their friends are choosing to play a particular subset of decks, and so are of course doing well with them.

I suspect that if those same players chose to tune and sleeve up Maverick for a few events, it would start looking to some people like an unstoppable force in the metagame that can only be fixed with a ban, and then we can be having this same discussion about Green Sun's Zenith next month, like Brainstorm this month, and Show and Tell last month, and on and on and on.

Or we can accept that, over time, the Legacy card pool is deep enough to adapt to almost any "dominant" force available to it. If that actually proves to be untrue for more than a few months, then maybe action is necessary.

That makes a hell of a lot of sense to me, seriously.

[GtF]

I appreciate the thrust of the article, but I think the choice of your example could have been better.
Fetchlands are actually the most broken thing in legacy, not dual lands. They are the "problem" if there is a problem. Here are the reasons:
1. They let you play all the colors. Dual lands do not do this by themselves, it's the tutoring power provided by the fetchlands that really enable this. Like you say in the article, you could just replace the dual lands with shock lands and you'd be able to fix your colors just like before. Yes, you'd pay a price just like in modern, but it would still be possible. Without fetchlands, it's not nearly as possible, and the costs become very serious. Just look at standard now that the fetchlands have rotated: Going beyond two colors is very ambitious and you need more support than just your manabase to do it (like rampant growth, card drawing, and the like). This requires spots in your deck, a certain style of deck to be played, and on and on. Meanwhile the cost for playing fetchlands is...well basically zero, except you might get stifled every now and then.
2. They let you get basics! Dual lands do not. This is huge. All the nonbasic hate that can be directed at a dual-land heavy manabase can suddenly be worked around just by the inclusion of a few basic lands. That's why said hate isn't more prevalent - it's so easy to get around. If fetchlands didn't exist to tutor up the solution, this would be a big issue for dual land decks, and the notion of monocolor decks being really strong, which seems absurd right now, wouldn't be absurd at all.
3. They are what make brainstorm good. Without fetchlands, brainstorm would not be in the discussion as a banworthy card. It's sort of a chicken and egg situation, since they are both very powerful cards that get way better in combination with each other. But I think just considering their standalone power, fetchlands are better than brainstorm. So I think it's fair to say that fetchlands give brainstorm more of its power than the other way around.

Of course, brainstorm and fetchlands are both iconic to legacy and no one really wants fetchlands to be banned, they've come to be identified with the format and that's fine. Also, if you did ban fetchlands, it would not ease the cost of legacy at all since it would drive the price of duals through the roof, since you'd really need four to play any two color deck.

Still, on a pure power level, I think it's fair to say that fetchlands are "too good for a land" (compared to all the other lands, including the duals), just like it's fair to say tarmogoyf is too good for a creature, and jace is too good for a planeswalker.

[Intet's Attendant]

I appreciate the thrust of the article, but I think the choice of your example could have been better.
Fetchlands are actually the most broken thing in legacy, not dual lands. They are the "problem" if there is a problem. Here are the reasons:
1. They let you play all the colors. Dual lands do not do this by themselves, it's the tutoring power provided by the fetchlands that really enable this. Like you say in the article, you could just replace the dual lands with shock lands and you'd be able to fix your colors just like before. Yes, you'd pay a price just like in modern, but it would still be possible. Without fetchlands, it's not nearly as possible, and the costs become very serious. Just look at standard now that the fetchlands have rotated: Going beyond two colors is very ambitious and you need more support than just your manabase to do it (like rampant growth, card drawing, and the like). This requires spots in your deck, a certain style of deck to be played, and on and on. Meanwhile the cost for playing fetchlands is...well basically zero, except you might get stifled every now and then.
2. They let you get basics! Dual lands do not. This is huge. All the nonbasic hate that can be directed at a dual-land heavy manabase can suddenly be worked around just by the inclusion of a few basic lands. That's why said hate isn't more prevalent - it's so easy to get around. If fetchlands didn't exist to tutor up the solution, this would be a big issue for dual land decks, and the notion of monocolor decks being really strong, which seems absurd right now, wouldn't be absurd at all.
3. They are what make brainstorm good. Without fetchlands, brainstorm would not be in the discussion as a banworthy card. It's sort of a chicken and egg situation, since they are both very powerful cards that get way better in combination with each other. But I think just considering their standalone power, fetchlands are better than brainstorm. So I think it's fair to say that fetchlands give brainstorm more of its power than the other way around.

Of course, brainstorm and fetchlands are both iconic to legacy and no one really wants fetchlands to be banned, they've come to be identified with the format and that's fine. Also, if you did ban fetchlands, it would not ease the cost of legacy at all since it would drive the price of duals through the roof, since you'd really need four to play any two color deck.

Still, on a pure power level, I think it's fair to say that fetchlands are "too good for a land" (compared to all the other lands, including the duals), just like it's fair to say tarmogoyf is too good for a creature, and jace is too good for a planeswalker.

I truly believe that without fetchlands, neither Brainstorm nor Goyf would be anywhere as powerful.

It would also be way easier for Blood Moon/Back to Basics to wreck manabases.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

In any serious deck, running the appropriate dual lands in your colors is every bit as mindless, pervasive, and powerful as running Brainstorm. The comparison is fair. If you still disagree, let's hear you defend keeping Tropical Island legal.

First of all, you made an argument using numbers based around all ten duals. The numbers on Tropical Island are a good bit worse than the numbers on Brainstorm and/or Force of Will.

Secondly I would use the same argument I use to say that banning Force of Will is a bad idea, even though it's as heavily played and heavily over-performing as Brainstorm; it measurably and explainably improves the format, in this case, to have multi-color decks be easily playable while keeping fairly robust manabases.

I think cheap manipulation also helps the format in different ways, but there are more alternatives to Brainstorm that are of a more reasonable power level, so it makes sense to target Brainstorm over many other options if blue is too powerful for too long.

Of course, there are other arguments for not banning Brainstorm, but they're discussed elsewhere.

[chags]

rambling

Is that you Tom? I thought you went to work for Dungeons and Dragons?

rambling

Ertai's familiar already executed this joke.

[Mr. Safety]

I give him full credit...I stole the line from him after seeing it in Great Source Quotes.

[Kuma]

First of all, you made an argument using numbers based around all ten duals. The numbers on Tropical Island are a good bit worse than the numbers on Brainstorm and/or Force of Will.

Depends on what "a good bit worse" is. Tropical Island has been in 5 out of 6 Top 2's since Mental Misstep was banned compared to Brainstorm's 6 out of 6. Statistically speaking, there's no difference in performance.

Secondly I would use the same argument I use to say that banning Force of Will is a bad idea, even though it's as heavily played and heavily over-performing as Brainstorm; it measurably and explainably improves the format, in this case, to have multi-color decks be easily playable while keeping fairly robust manabases.

I'd buy that if multi-color decks were simply "playable." As I showed, they're a more format dominating strategy than Brainstorm. Every deck in the top 2 since Mental Misstep was banned has been running Tropical Island, Volcanic Island, Underground Sea, or Tundra.

I think cheap manipulation also helps the format in different ways, but there are more alternatives to Brainstorm that are of a more reasonable power level, so it makes sense to target Brainstorm over many other options if blue is too powerful for too long.

Really? There are way more reasonable alternatives to dual lands than Brainstorm. With Brainstorm, you have Ponder and Preordain. With dual lands you have shocklands, fetchlands, filter lands, M10/INN duals, Scars of Mirrodin duals, Reflecting Pool, Grove of the Burnwillows, etc. Those cards are far closer in power to dual lands than Ponder and Preordain are to Brainstorm.

[Destroying Angel]

Good show, this is a fair comparison to draw; and a good troll.

No not a troll; this is a very elegant and cogent response to the hysteria of banning Legacy has been plagued by in recent seasons. You manage to clearly make a case for an argument you and your readership oppose before transposing that issue over a more controversial one. Nicely written. While I generally tire of and despise the repetitive 'ban brainstorm' discussions, congratulations on a useful and rational response to the question.

[Gheizen64]

No not a troll; this is a very elegant and cogent response to the hysteria of banning Legacy has been plagued by in recent seasons. You manage to clearly make a case for an argument you and your readership oppose before transposing that issue over a more controversial one. Nicely written. While I generally tire of and despise the repetitive 'ban brainstorm' discussions, congratulations on a useful and rational response to the question.

Using a strawman isn't rational, it's only a provocation. The reasons for people asking on a ban on brainstorm have nothing to do with some of the arguments people present to further elaborate their position. Presenting similar arguments (aka the prevalence, that note, was presented only to compare against other popular cards that were banned to counteract the argument that the card wasn't prevalent as precedent banned cards) but having no reasons behind to argument is only an empty provocation.
This is getting annoying, people wanted to debate (not me anymore, i've seen both side and i've said what i had to, now i'm just waiting) and most (if not all) of what one side is getting is "you're whining" "eternal should be blue" "then why not ban duals too they have the same penetration too".
We seriously can't do better? Better to be aggressive and accusing the other side of the debate of "whining" , this is merely a result of our education.