All B/R update speculation.

[dragonwisdom]

I will stand with what I said, if you ban ooze combo survival is fair. Remember before vengevine and ooze combo. Did survival even make it to top 32? Is survival vengvine really that broken.

[Hanni]

Regardless if you ban Ooze, Survival Vengevine is still fair by todays standards. The power level of this format continues to grow larger with each set they print. The reason why Surivival Vengevine is fair right now is the same reason why Survival continues to get more powerful. Power creep on creatures is getting nutty, and having a multiple-use tutor is really strong. Sure, there are answers to Vengevine itself right now, but Knight of the Reliquary is a pretty good backup plan.

Basically, think of it like this. Maverick continues to dominate Top 8's. It's a G/W Aggro deck. Imagine cutting some chaff and fitting in 4 Survival, 4 Vengevine, 1 Basking Rootwalla, 1 Memnite, 1 Squee. If you're in blue, 1 Wonder. Now you have the Survival/Vengevine plan that is going to beat unprepared opponent's, or you can just as easily Survival up a Squee and drop a Knight of the Reliquary every turn if they decide to Surgically Extract your Vengevines. Or, you know, Loyal Retainers into Elesh Norn or "insert scary monster here" if you'd prefer.

I'm on the fence on whether or not I think it can be safely unbanned, not because of the power level of Vengevine, but because of the power level of every new set they print that can easily break Survival wide open. That, and it makes Maverick that much stronger.

[nedleeds]

A few combo pieces =
3 Narco
1 Redcap
1 Dread Return
1 Mimeoplasm
1 Lord of Extinction
4 Hermit

That's 11 cards, 7 of which you basically never want in your hand. Hermit druid taps and you try to make the game end. It does work well with cabal therapy, but they can still just surgical your dread return in response to that cabal therapy.

The breakfast combo is SO easy to disrupt and he actually makes it easier to disrupt because of summoning sickness. With the current deck you combo as soon as the second guy hits.

All Hermit Druid does is take the breakfast combo from total trash to a good deck. It wouldn't even be a DtB. It would be good, but it would still lose to every piece of disruption ever conceived just like breakfast does now.

The deck only works with 4 brainstorm ... same with Show and Tell ...

[nedleeds]

I will stand with what I said, if you ban ooze combo survival is fair. Remember before vengevine and ooze combo. Did survival even make it to top 32? Is survival vengvine really that broken.

Nobody even tried to hate it out. It was banned pre GSZ, pre surgical extraction, pre grafdiggers cage. Survival was a SCG internet crying ban. Look back at those top 8s people werent running Spell Snare or Needle, or Disenchant. SotF burns a turn and 4 spots. GSZ puts a man right into play ... and recycles. SotF is just slow and requires a heavy green commitment.

If you are keeping ubiquitous haymakers like Brainstorm around, unban some non ubiquitous stuff.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I think anybody worried about druid should make a list and test it aginst top decks. I think you will be surprised.

It's a one card combo that costs 2. You need to play one card and keep it in play one turn. What good could possibly come from ever unbanning something like that.

Regardless if you ban Ooze, Survival Vengevine is still fair by todays standards. The power level of this format continues to grow larger with each set they print. The reason why Surivival Vengevine is fair right now is the same reason why Survival continues to get more powerful. Power creep on creatures is getting nutty, and having a multiple-use tutor is really strong. Sure, there are answers to Vengevine itself right now, but Knight of the Reliquary is a pretty good backup plan.

Basically, think of it like this. Maverick continues to dominate Top 8's. It's a G/W Aggro deck. Imagine cutting some chaff and fitting in 4 Survival, 4 Vengevine, 1 Basking Rootwalla, 1 Memnite, 1 Squee. If you're in blue, 1 Wonder. Now you have the Survival/Vengevine plan that is going to beat unprepared opponent's, or you can just as easily Survival up a Squee and drop a Knight of the Reliquary every turn if they decide to Surgically Extract your Vengevines. Or, you know, Loyal Retainers into Elesh Norn or "insert scary monster here" if you'd prefer.

I'm on the fence on whether or not I think it can be safely unbanned, not because of the power level of Vengevine, but because of the power level of every new set they print that can easily break Survival wide open. That, and it makes Maverick that much stronger.

Pretty much the same thing I said about Hermit Druid applies to Survival if Vengevine is legal, except it's a heavier mana investment but a better plan b. It's one card and if it stays in play for a turn the game is usually going to end very quickly. I wish they would just ban Vine and unban Survival. We tried Vine, we gave it time, and it was too strong for us dumbass non-French Americans (or Storm is just a way worse choice to foil Survival when the American meta is far more hostile to combo, see the 20% of kids still playing Merfolk like nothing was happening). Without Vine, Survival is a great card I'd like to have back.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Nobody even tried to hate it out. It was banned pre GSZ, pre surgical extraction, pre grafdiggers cage. Survival was a SCG internet crying ban. Look back at those top 8s people werent running Spell Snare or Needle, or Disenchant. SotF burns a turn and 4 spots. GSZ puts a man right into play ... and recycles. SotF is just slow and requires a heavy green commitment.

If you are keeping ubiquitous haymakers like Brainstorm around, unban some non ubiquitous stuff.

People ran Spell Snares, they just weren't making it to the top 8. It's not like if you countered Survival once the deck just rolled over.

[edgarps22]

Actually it didn't roll over at all, it waited until next turn, dropped a Mongrel, discarded Vine anyways, and aggro'd you down. It was a very very nasty deck, very fast, with disruption. I do believe decks are stronger now than they were, but at the same time, it might just be too stifling to the current meta. See Loyal Retainers into (insert good legend here). Grissy scares me more than Elesh does honestly. That is the problem with tutors. They scale with what they can get. And creatures have gotten VERY powerful. That makes Survival extremely dangerous.

[majikal]

It would appear that Delver is still the elephant in the room. I mean, it's just a guy, right? But it is still wrecking every tournament, and the decks that are supposed to beat up on blue decks aren't doing their job. It has consistently adapted to all the hate that people can throw at it and has been putting up dominant numbers on a global scale for the past couple of months. People adapted to Maverick pretty handily, but Delver seems to be a different kind of beast all together.

So I guess the question is... how far should people have to go to adapt to a threat like that? Eight sideboard slots? Maindeck Corrosive Gale? How warping does a single card have to be to draw the ire of the DCI? I guess an alternative is just wait for some new, insane power creep dude to outclass it and hope it can't be played in the same deck? Is it time to consider banning a guy that does nothing but beat face or is the very thought offensive to the essence of Legacy?

I'm not saying anything needs to happen just yet, but I mean hell they banned Wild Nacatl in Modern because it was too efficient, so clearly creatures are not off-limits to them, and they said they figured Delver was fine because Legacy could probably adapt to it... but it hasn't. So what now? Let's say Delver dominates the GP as well. What then?

[nedleeds]

Actually it didn't roll over at all, it waited until next turn, dropped a Mongrel, discarded Vine anyways, and aggro'd you down. It was a very very nasty deck, very fast, with disruption. I do believe decks are stronger now than they were, but at the same time, it might just be too stifling to the current meta. See Loyal Retainers into (insert good legend here). Grissy scares me more than Elesh does honestly. That is the problem with tutors. They scale with what they can get. And creatures have gotten VERY powerful. That makes Survival extremely dangerous.

By the time you land it through counters, not have it blown up, cycle through your men with enough green mana you are already dead from a Delver that always flips courtesy of Brainstorm.

[nedleeds]

Let's say Delver dominates the GP as well. What then?

Unban stuff.

Delver is winning and placing in freaking Vintage tournaments ... that's how good he is.

[rxavage]

Should unban mental misstep so every deck has an answer to delver

[nedleeds]

Should unban mental misstep so every deck has an answer to delver

Mistep is the definition of a miserable ubiquitous card ... like a Brainstorm for every color.

[Tammit67]

Unban stuff.

Delver is winning and placing in freaking Vintage tournaments ... that's how good he is.

So is trygon predator/loadstone golem/ steel sabotage/bloodbraid. Your argument is invalid

[trivial_matters]

I don't like Delver having been printed bla bla but really? It dies to any removal ever and right now is only playable in RUG with 25+ instants/sorceries. Play a deck which beats RUG or or something...

[menace13]

I don't like Delver having been printed bla bla but really? It dies to any removal ever and right now is only playable in RUG with 25+ instants/sorceries. Play a deck which beats RUG or or something...

That's not how it works. If only everything was that simple.

Finding a deck that beats the best deck and does not lose to the rest of the field is a lot harder than just simply saying "Play a deck which beats it"

Fact is RUG has very few bad match ups and can randomly beat anything when it draws nuts and has been at the top for months.

[dontbiteitholmes]

It would appear that Delver is still the elephant in the room. I mean, it's just a guy, right? But it is still wrecking every tournament, and the decks that are supposed to beat up on blue decks aren't doing their job. It has consistently adapted to all the hate that people can throw at it and has been putting up dominant numbers on a global scale for the past couple of months. People adapted to Maverick pretty handily, but Delver seems to be a different kind of beast all together.

So I guess the question is... how far should people have to go to adapt to a threat like that? Eight sideboard slots? Maindeck Corrosive Gale? How warping does a single card have to be to draw the ire of the DCI? I guess an alternative is just wait for some new, insane power creep dude to outclass it and hope it can't be played in the same deck? Is it time to consider banning a guy that does nothing but beat face or is the very thought offensive to the essence of Legacy?

I'm not saying anything needs to happen just yet, but I mean hell they banned Wild Nacatl in Modern because it was too efficient, so clearly creatures are not off-limits to them, and they said they figured Delver was fine because Legacy could probably adapt to it... but it hasn't. So what now? Let's say Delver dominates the GP as well. What then?

I feel Maverick is still favorable over Delver. The main problem for Maverick recently is everyone's decided to break out the Show and Tell decks again, and it's pretty dead to them. RUG has game against Show and Tell decks and slightly unfavorable matchups vs. Maverick while Maverick has slightly favorable matchups vs. RUG and a terrible matchup vs. Show and Tell. The more people ditch Mav for RuG/BUG/even Merfolk (but still bleh) or start metagaming for the Show/Tell Matchup the worse deck choice that becomes and the meta will shift again.

I don't think the current Show and Tell decks are the end of the world, but if anything does end up breaking S&T it has to be Griselbrand. I know I say this every time we get a new battleship, but I seriously don't see any creature in the near future making S&T any better than it currently is. Still way too early for "ban S/T" which I thankfully am seeing very little of so far.

Recap: Right now I think it's Show and Tell more than Delver keeping Maverick down, but still to early to panic about any S/T banning (don't forget last time this happened and it passed as quickly as it came).

[edgarps22]

By the time you land it through counters, not have it blown up, cycle through your men with enough green mana you are already dead from a Delver that always flips courtesy of Brainstorm.

The trick is Survival Vine is MUCH faster than Delver. And the margin is not even close. A flipped Delver will kill you eventually, an active Survival for a single turn might just end the game that turn or the next, due to how big and fast Vines are. Delver is a tempo deck that has to make some headway and fast before its opponent gets bigger. And Survival Vine gets a lot bigger MUCH faster, even without Survival, with just a Mongrel and the right hand, which they run Intuition to help set that up, it gets very dangerous very quickly. That is just the aggro plan, much less the combo plans. You forget this deck also has free counters and can play the tempo game as well, it just has a MUCH faster clock and bigger threats, that can fly with a Wonder in the yard, so your evasion is meaningless. Delver is good, but not nearly as powerful as Survival Vine was.

[Malakai]

Everyone who is claiming Survival wasn't that bad is ignoring half the deck. Survival's plans were as follows:

1. Resolve Survival, killing you with Necrotic Ooze the next turn, typically on 3.
2. Resolve Survival, make a bunch of Vengevines, kill you.
3. Grind you out by recycling Vengevines until you can setup plan 1 or 2.

And all of this has to be done through Force of Will, Daze, and Cabal Therapy.

I find it intersting that people are complaining about Show and Tell, despite the fact that Survival does the same thing for less mana.

[Lord Seth]

Delver is winning and placing in freaking Vintage tournaments ... that's how good he is.

Which Vintage tournaments? I'm having trouble finding examples.

[CorpT]

Which Vintage tournaments? I'm having trouble finding examples.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/bus...ide=&strict=on