All B/R update speculation.

[Koby]

It stops the non-creature win conditions.

Actually, Angel's Grace only stops one Show & Tell kill-con: Hive Mind.
It does not answer False Cure.
It does not answer Tendrils of Agony.
It does not answer Cruel Ultimatum (some versions also run this).

It is extremely narrow application for a really underplayed deck. When this is starting to appear in sideboards - then we have a metagame problem with no good answers. (R&D issue of power creep without good answers)

[millerd33]

Legacy is fun because it's powerful. Why do people want to keep taking the powerful effects out of the format? Every week there are new top decks and that's how it should be. It's not broke. Don't try and fix it.

[Mastikor]

Legacy is fun because it's powerful. Why do people want to keep taking the powerful effects out of the format? Every week there are new top decks and that's how it should be. It's not broke. Don't try and fix it.

Agree 100%.

[Telperion]

The fact of the matter is these decks go all in, usually 5-6 cards to try to win in 1-2 turns. Furthermore, all of the Show and Tell decks regularly win without seeing show and tell. Hive mind gets hardcasted on turn two and then has 3 free counters to back up its free to cast win. The card is sometimes little more than a glorified seething song. It's not like these decks are packing four personal tutors because SnT is an instant win. Go ahead and proxy up a Seething Song/Through the Breach version of the deck, it feels slightly neutered but is similarly consistent. The cost of strategic superiority is inconsistency, the deck has a terrible mana base and can spend 8 turns durdling with cantrips and intuition. Like reanimator, you have to attack it the right way, or just rely on your consistency. If your complaint is the lack of interaction, how do you feel about cards like Cavern of Souls and Thalia that can essentially turn off your opponent. A card pool this large no longer restricts magic to being about blocking Hyppie with Giant Spider.

Why is it that people just accept they will lose to dredge and lands etc without proper deck construction and sideboarding, but complain when their stock decklist loses to other very narrow combo. Ad Nauseum wins like 90% of games where it resolves a single instant. Yet we don't see rabid zoo players in this thread.

Edit: Also take note of the BoM top 8. Kird Ape and Lingering Souls achieved the same top 8 penetration as Show and Tell. And while this is a facetious example, I think people's main complaint with SnT is really just the same old discussion of color pie imbalance.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Actually, Angel's Grace only stops one Show & Tell kill-con: Hive Mind.
It does not answer False Cure.
It does not answer Tendrils of Agony.
It does not answer Cruel Ultimatum (some versions also run this).

It is extremely narrow application for a really underplayed deck. When this is starting to appear in sideboards - then we have a metagame problem with no good answers. (R&D issue of power creep without good answers)

It also stops the Coalition Victory win con

[Star|Scream]

It stops the non-creature win conditions.

That aren't also named Dream Halls

[Star|Scream]

The fact of the matter is these decks go all in, usually 5-6 cards to try to win in 1-2 turns. Furthermore, all of the Show and Tell decks regularly win without seeing show and tell. Hive mind gets hardcasted on turn two and then has 3 free counters to back up its free to cast win. The card is sometimes little more than a glorified seething song. It's not like these decks are packing four personal tutors because SnT is an instant win. Go ahead and proxy up a Seething Song/Through the Breach version of the deck, it feels slightly neutered but is similarly consistent. The cost of strategic superiority is inconsistency, the deck has a terrible mana base and can spend 8 turns durdling with cantrips and intuition. Like reanimator, you have to attack it the right way, or just rely on your consistency. If your complaint is the lack of interaction, how do you feel about cards like Cavern of Souls and Thalia that can essentially turn off your opponent. A card pool this large no longer restricts magic to being about blocking Hyppie with Giant Spider.

Why is it that people just accept they will lose to dredge and lands etc without proper deck construction and sideboarding, but complain when their stock decklist loses to other very narrow combo. Ad Nauseum wins like 90% of games where it resolves a single instant. Yet we don't see rabid zoo players in this thread.

Because dredge and lands aren't taking over the format like show and tell featuring griselbrand


And what are you talking about? None of those decks that won this weekend had hive mind.

They run 8 win conditions, 8 enablers, and a boat load of counters manipulation and acceleration.


@millerd33 You really feel drawing 14 cards for 14 life on turn 1 is healthy?

[millerd33]

Because dredge and lands aren't taking over the format like show and tell featuring griselbrand


And what are you talking about? None of those decks that won this weekend had hive mind.

They run 8 win conditions, 8 enablers, and a boat load of counters manipulation and acceleration.

And the week before that RUG took over the format, and the week before that it was Maverick, and the week before that it was.... it goes on and on.

Legacy is full of powerful cards and effects. They all have their place in the meta. It is FAR to early to say sneaknshow is taking over anything IMO.

EDIT @ Starscream is it any less healthy then drawing 14+ on turn 2 via adnaus and winning on the spot?
Edit2: or dredge winning without actually casting a spell? or GSZ being able to tutor up any toolbox card or win condition in their deck?

[Koby]

EDIT @ Starscream is it any less healthy then drawing 14+ on turn 2 via adnaus and winning on the spot?

It's more powerful than ANT/TES, as those decks do not run 6+ free counters, and only two copies of Ad Nauseam.

Something about Sneak Show just feels different than those other decks - it's got a true powerful effect to it compared to marginal or incremental powerful effect that RUG and Maverick are able to achieve. This is evident by the lack of answers to its engines and the quickness at which it closes games.

It's akin to Reanimator in that it plays an Unfair game of Magic, and is backed by a host of free counterspells. It just happens to only have one resource you can effectively disrupt - the hand.

[menace13]

I don't exactly consider ETutor UW control to be competitive against the metagame. Believe me, I've tried. :(

I told you weeks ago! UW Miracle Cbalance Thopters is a deck!!!
And, yeah. I beat MAV and Sneak with it.

[millerd33]

It's more powerful than ANT/TES, as those decks do not run 6+ free counters, and only two copies of Ad Nauseam.

Something about Sneak Show just feels different than those other decks - it's got a true powerful effect to it compared to marginal or incremental powerful effect that RUG and Maverick are able to achieve. This is evident by the lack of answers to its engines and the quickness at which it closes games.

It's akin to Reanimator in that it plays an Unfair game of Magic, and is backed by a host of free counterspells. It just happens to only have one resource you can effectively disrupt - the hand.

Instead of free counters they run silence and chant as well as hand distuption. 2 copy of adnaus because they run 4 tutors and 4 black lotus to power it out.

My point is legacy is full of powerful cards and that is what makes the format so diverse and fun to play.

[Telperion]

I will say it again: the cost of strategic superiority is inconsistency. If 30% of the SCG open circuit was playing TES. You would here a ton of crying about turn one wins and see 4/8 of the top 8 being storm. This doesn't happen because the SCG circuit metagame is overwhelmingly the same netdecked Maverick and Delver lists week after week. I use dredge and Lands as an example, because both are decks that have like a 90% win percentage against decks that don't try to interact with their graveyard.

[Koby]

Instead of free counters they run silence and chant as well as hand distuption. 2 copy of adnaus because they run 4 tutors and 4 black lotus to power it out.

My point is legacy is full of powerful cards and that is what makes the format so diverse and fun to play.

The difference between 1 mana and 0 mana is vastly different. Even if it comes at a cost of a card.

[millerd33]

@ Koby: When the deck packs that many rituals/mox/petal I don't think it really is. That 1 mana goes much farther in winning the game then the single free counter. It shuts down every response the other guy can make when cast, and wins that turn.

I will not argue that Snt is very powerful. So are most of the cards played in legacy though.

IMO If SnT takes over the format it will take more then the time griselbrand has been around to know for sure. This format is able to adapt to problems. Calling for ban is rarely the right solution. Espc before you give the format a chance to really react to the new card.

[Koby]

I don't think Show and Tell is a problem right now. I'm worried about it in the future. The card has only to gain in utility going forward much the way Survival was a liability. The more useful the creatures that are printed for Survival, the more it was put on the cross-hairs. The more willing R&D is to push stupid broken fatties, the more it Show and Tell will be put under the cross-hairs.

It is Show and Tell, and not Griselbrand nor Sneak Attack, that makes the deck "click". No other card is able to achieve the stupid unfair things Show and Tell can do in the current Legacy environment.

Like I said earlier, it's on my watch list.

[menace13]

Grisel has made Sneak Show into one of the best decks in the format. It was already really good. It will take more than June to ban a card even if Sneak dominates the top 8's.

I hope it gets banned though, just so we can go back to RUG, MAV, Stoneblade because I miss playing against those 3 decks. I never get enough of them playing musical chairs with the top spots, and , no I don't care if they were doing that for months I NEED MOAR....

[Star|Scream]

Instead of free counters they run silence and chant as well as hand distuption. 2 copy of adnaus because they run 4 tutors and 4 black lotus to power it out.

My point is legacy is full of powerful cards and that is what makes the format so diverse and fun to play.

Let's unban time walk and black lotus because they are also just powerful cards. Everything will be fine then, right?

You have to draw the line, and you are saying that a turn one 14 card draw is below your line, and I am saying it's way above my line. I suppose that you could tell me to go play modern, but I could just as easily tell you to go play vintage.

[Tacosnape]

Comparing Dredge to Show and Tell is lunacy. Every deck ever in the history of the format can beat Dredge. You just have to dedicate enough sideboard space to it. And there's tons of colorless graveyard hate that every deck can run without effort: Tormod's Crypt, Surgical Extraction, Leyline of the Void, Ravenous Trap, Relic of Progenitus, etc.

The same is true of Storm Combo. If enough people do it, Mindbreak Trap will become a thing again. Every deck can run Mindbreak Trap. And while Storm Combo can win through Mindbreak Trap, MBT has an incredibly high success rate of buying enough time to get whatever other hate piece you need: Canonist, Teeg, Thalia, Null Rod, Chalice, Seize, Hymn, Force, etc.

Despite what Tooclose's flapping on about, I'm quite capable of utilizing the tools necessary to make my Show and Tell match better. The simple fact is this: The tools available to the Legacy world to stop Show and Tell are significantly worse than the tools available to stop every other broken strategy. So far, the list of cards good against every incarnation of the deck are as follows:

1. Meddling Mage and Counterbalance.
2. Force of Will and other forms of countermagic.
3. Cabal Therapy, Hymn, and other forms of discard.
4. Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast.

Every other form of defense listed thus far tries to stop what gets Show and Telled into play, not Show and Tell itself. The problem with this is that you've got the following cards getting Show and Telled into play:

1. Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
2. Griselbrand
3. Progenitus
4. Dream Halls
5. Hive Mind
6. Sneak Attack
7. All the rest.

The problem is, if you can't stop Show and Tell itself, you have to split the dedication in your sideboard.

Imagine you're Maverick. You've got to split yourself up and answer these problems accordingly:
1. Humility postboard, Phyrexian Metamorph if they don't have a counter, Knight/Karakas if and only if Emrakul's coming via Show and Tell and not Sneak Attack.
2. Humility postboard, or a combination of Phyrexian Revoker and Removal (Or Revoker/Maze) if they don't have a counter. Phyrexian Metamorph and Karakas will get rid of the demon, but not the draw.
3. Humility, Phyrexian Metamorph, an occasional outrace.
4. Sneaky Qasali Pridemage timing, minor Thalia assistance, Gaddock Teeg.
5. Angel's Grace, or Ethersworn Canonist + Qasali Pridemage + 1 mana open.
6. Humility postboard, Gaddock Teeg, Phyrexian Revoker.

So it's answerable, but complicatedly so. And I've always got to hope I have the right answer at the right time, because as Maverick, I can't stop the card itself from happening. Not without doing the smart thing, tacking a pair of Tropicals in the deck, and adding Meddling Mage.

The point is, it's becoming a very hard card to stop. Especially given that the decks playing it usually win because of it and can back it up with 6-8 free counters.

[Lord Seth]

Despite what Tooclose's flapping on about, I'm quite capable of utilizing the tools necessary to make my Show and Tell match better. The simple fact is this: The tools available to the Legacy world to stop Show and Tell are significantly worse than the tools available to stop every other broken strategy. So far, the list of cards good against every incarnation of the deck are as follows:

1. Meddling Mage and Counterbalance.
2. Force of Will and other forms of countermagic.
3. Cabal Therapy, Hymn, and other forms of discard.
4. Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast.

There's also Surgical Extraction, which is available to everyone. Granted, it doesn't exactly stop Show and Tell, but it does make it harder to pull off because it all but shuts down their best search card (Intuition).

[Telperion]

The point is, it's becoming a very hard card to stop. Especially given that the decks playing it usually win because of it and can back it up with 6-8 free counters.

I agree, the two SCG stock tier 1 decklists struggle with Show and Tell. Why is that a problem? Have you tried other decks? BUG is definately a good answer to the lists top 8ing currently. This is certainly not flash, and probably no worse than Jin-Gitaxias in reanimator. I fail to see why when it is discovered a tier 1 deck has a really poor matchup, people continue to play the same lists.