Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
It doesn't. However, the point is moot since you typically win the turn Bargain lands, not even getting an upkeep afterwards, because you can just flat out combo out. It typically reads: "draw a bunch of cards, play free mana, drain some life, rinse and repeat if not lethal".Originally Posted by Lemnear
I don't want to veer into Bargain vs Griselbrand because I think, despite the similar abilities, they serve very different functions and fit into fairly different deck strategies.
I'd unban
Mana Crypt
Chaos Orb
Shahrazad
and Jeweled Bird
/contest for funniest unbans
I wish Shaharazad was an instant so it could be imprinted on Isochron Scepter.
Whoever thinks Balance should be unbanned... LOL. That card is beyond retarded.
Worldgorger? Combo seems tame compared to what's already out there.
The biggest difference is 6 vs 8 mana. Decks like ANT/TES can hit 6 mana MUCH easier than hitting 8 mana. It then becomes 1 mana more than Ad Nausem except you no longer need to build your entire deck around cheap spells, and can start to run Tendrils main, 4 copies of Bargain, (instead of the 1 copy of AdN), etc. Bargain would basically remove the low converted mana cost restriction in storm deck, while also allowing storm to "mini ad nausem" and still have the bargain around to use it again later.
This is all just throwing it in an already top tier Legacy deck, much less if people wanted to run some janky Tin Fins-esqu crap with Entomb + Replenish, Academy Rector + Therapy, or something else thats actually good! Bargain is absolutely a banned card!
I actually want Balance to be unbanned. Just so we can show how retarded and ignorant people are on the Source.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
I think that is about the most logical reason to un-ban it. People look at it and think "oh, it's fine, it's not THAT broken, it's just a cheap Cataclysm". Never having played it... God I love playing it back in the day with Vintage Stax.
LOL. Who was comparing it to Terminus? It's so much more than that. It punishes people for Playing Magic while rewarding people for playing control decks that lock people out of playing Magic.
Example 1: Balance-Stax
Let's say I have a Trinisphere, Mox Diamond, Chimeric Idol, Zuran Orb and one or more lands out. Opponent has some stuff out and has dealt me some damage. I cast Balance, the last card in my hand, sacrificing my lands to ZOrb. Opponent sacrifices all creatures, loses all lands and discards his hand. I gain some life, still have a mana source and attack for 3. Not only is that a ridiculous blowout, but opponent probably cannot cast spells before Idol kills him. Game over.
Example 2: R/W MUD
I've got a single Plateau and Grim Monolith + Key in play (sacrificed City of Traitors earlier). Opponent just killed my Metalworker, discarded my Wurmcoil Engine and played a bunch of dudes, so I've fallen behind. I cast Balance for 1W. Opponent loses all creatures and goes down to 1 land, possibly has to discard cards. We're both back to starting from scratch. With 2 mana, I just reset all his development and disruption gave myself a chance to get back in the game... a rather huge one, since I have 6 mana to his 1!
Example 3: CounterTop-HelmRiPper vs RUG
I've got CB and Top out, but had to use a FoW to defend the lock and am now behind on cards in hand. Meanwhile, opponent snuck through a Delver and Mongoose and is beating my face in. I just got Wastelanded and am down a land. I cast Balance for 1W. Opponent tries to Spell Snare/Spell Pierce so I just spin the top. Balance resolves. Opponent sacrifices both creatures, 1 land and discards 1 or more cards. Balance punished the tempo deck for getting ahead in the game and doing its job. Even without the CB/Top lock out after, that's still a beating for a threat-lite deck that relies on 1-for-1 efficient spells.
Example 4:
I have a Jace and cast Balance. Yeah, life is rough.
Example 5: LandTax
Tax-Rack online with Mox Diamond in play. Opponent plays duders to develop board position and deal me damage while I have durdled playing around with some silly card engine and trying to keep my land count below opponent"s. I cast Balance. Even if I have to discard a couple cards, board is reset and opponent loses land. Game is reset for a bit, but I'm +1 mana up on opponent thanks to Mox Diamond and I have card quality control via Scroll Rack, so I'm probably topdecking better. And he basically can't play a land for the rest of the game, despite being behind on mana, because if he does I draw a million cards.
Example 6: random game
Opponent is ahead by 8 life and 3 creatures. We have the same number of cards in hand and lands in play. He's just beating me at magic. I cast Balance for 1W. He loses 3 creatures and discards a card. Sorry bro.
Example 7: vs Reanimator
Opponent just stuck turn 2 Griselbrand, go. You play a second land and cast Balance. Opponent pays 14 life to draw 14 cards. Force of Will. You Force back. He Forces again. You return a Tundra to Daze. Balance resolves. Opponent loses Griselbees, discards 10ish cards, sacrifices a land and is now 14 life down. G2SB?
In all the scenarios, well-timed Balance punishes the opponent for trying to be good at Magic. The more ahead they are, the more it hurts. It also rewards you for durdling.
I hope this time someone actually reads this point, because I said that on the last page and I am sure no one read it. In fact, then someone said Miracles would run Balance. I sometimes wonder if these people actually play Magic, or if they are really just Pokemon players trolling us.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
It's actually fine, consider it a slightly better Austere Command.
Arma-Wrath of- mind twist
First off, thanks for actually engaging in discussion instead of rejecting the proposal out of hand. I've played both with and against Balance in Vintage, so I'm familiar with the swinginess it can bring to games. That being said, even in Vintage, which has seen an increase in the number of creatures played (and I think we can agree that Balance is best against creature-heavy strategies), Balance is on the decline with only various 5 color control strategies playing it, and those decks are among the least played in the format. So it's not at all clear to me that Balance is overpowered based on the only recent empirical evidence that we have. I will, however, grant that that is one format with infrequent tournaments, and that a card that is ok as a 1-of may be too good as a 4-of. The counterargument I would make to that point is that I have yet to see a Legacy deck making progress with Balancing Act. Granted, Balancing Act costs twice what Balance does (and requires WW), and gives the opponent more choices, but it is the only other proxy we have for what to expect from Balance's (hypothetical) unbanning in Legacy.
I agree with your assessment of example 4, and example 6 really doesn't give enough information to say whether that is the result of good play and deckbuilding or just a random swingy topdeck so I'll refrain from commenting.
In examples 1 and 2, both decks with Balance are doing what they're supposed to do, and its worth mentioning that both Balance decks are marginal (at best) at the moment. In example 1 in particular, the deck is designed to run and abuse Balance as evidenced by the presence of Zorb and Idol. So unless this deck becomes truly and totally dominant because of Balance, it seems unlikely that anything bad will happen as a result of the unbanning aside from giving Stax and MUD the last piece of the puzzle needed to make them tier 1. But both decks are also so easily hated out by nonbasic land hate and artifact removal that I don't see them becoming overwhelming.
Example 3 is probably the thing closest to what I would call Balance's natural habitat, a slow durdly control deck. The Balance play as described above is precisely how that matchup should be playing out. The key reason I don't see it as unfair is that here the RUG player wasn't caught unaware by Balance. The circumstance that you describe is pretty specific, especially with RUG being ahead of U/W on both cards in hand and land. As a practical matter, if you're sitting at 3 mana and hiding behind top, Balance will, at best, buy you a few turns because now you're tapped out and easy prey for Tarmogoyf. If you have more than 3 mana and the RUG player still sacced a land, then they're either flooding (and would likely lose anyway to, say, Terminus), it's very late in the game (and you're already in control, which is not the case based on the description), or their hand was full of protection and gas and as before, you're vulnerable to them using their remaining cards to come back at you with Goyf again, and backing it up with Stifle for the CB trigger. The Balance player absolutely has the upper hand here.
In example 5, this is a deck that isn't even viable without Balance so rather than wrapping the format in it's crushing grasp, Balance is enabling the revival of an old archetype. The hypothetical deck in question is probably bad against combo and even sort-of fast aggro or aggro-control (e.g., RUG) so this scenario is both implausible and inoffensive.
Finally in example 7, you give an example of a control deck holding removal and double counter backup against a single (large) threat. The U/W player could've just as easily played Swords in that situation and had substantively the same interaction. Also I (and I'll bet many others) would rather have the Balance deck in the format than a deck that consistently reanimates Griselbrand on turn 2. Which brings me to this:
The difference in our opinions here seems to stem from a normative disagreement about what decks we want to be good. I think slow durdly control decks ought to exist and thrive if a meta is to be considered healthy, and right now those strategies are badly under-tooled due to creature power creep. I also take issue with your characterization of "good at magic" especially when paired with the idea of punishing someone "the more ahead they are". Good strategy would tell you not to over-commit to a board position against a deck running sweepers, and yet the players in your examples do this repeatedly, especially with regard to land positions. A card like Zorb or Claws of Gix is necessary to sac lands, opening up pretty obvious and easy avenues for disrupting the "nuke all your lands with Balance" line or at least lets the other players know what's coming. It's not like the only players in our hypothetical metagame who know Balance is out there are the ones running it.In all the scenarios, well-timed Balance punishes the opponent for trying to be good at Magic. The more ahead they are, the more it hurts. It also rewards you for durdling.
tl;dr: Balance isn't widely run in the format where it's legal, and Balancing Act isn't run anywhere. None of the above situations are particularly offensive to me as they all involve giving players the chance to outplay one another or involve very specific situations where the Balance player was able to extract non-general advantage due to Balance.
I've tested it, the cards isn't especially broken in this format, while it can lead to some sick openings (but honestly, a lot of things can lead to extremely sick openings in legacy, just think of it as the control version of T1 CotV, only worse since you can just waste it). I like the fact that promote monocolor because you really want to run 4 of it, plus you'd likely play waste alongside it, making for a lot of brown mana sources.
The problem is the card is on the reserved list and cost a ton already, meaning no one would actually play it.
Wait, so you are advocating "not to over-commit to a board position against a deck running sweepers" as a good strategy to combat Balance? So, you keep all your cards in your hand, i.e. lands and creatures (since they might die to Balance) so they can just get discarded when the Balance player resolves it and has 0 cards in hand? I clearly see how Balance is very fair in this case, I was simply misplaying all the time versus the card.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I think it's fair to point out that Balance and Balancing Act are totally different animals. A properly played Balance -always- zeroes out the vector you want to attack, whether that's lands or duders. Balancing Act does no such thing – it leaves each player with the most rounded or relevant board they can achieve. If you're doing some Sunder-Psychotog-style trick and nuking your board going into a Balancing Act, then I'm not convinced that you're not just playing a cute/trollish version of Show and Tell or storm.
Balance also allows players to set up synergies that Balancing Act simply can't – it can capitalize on artifact mana and manlands to create 1-sided effects. The only one-sided effect Balancing Act can rely on is stripping a hand, and even then, it can't do it as well as Balance. Balance has the option of forcing topdeck mode while leaving you with the only relevant cards in the game; Balancing Act simply isn't capable of that.
And let's not forget that the difference between 2 mana and 4 mana is absolutely a huge deal in Legacy. It's the difference between Tarmogoyf and Erhnam Djinn. (I know that's a slightly specious example, but it makes the point.)
I think that's where the argument should focus, actually – Balance doesn't necessarily do anything broken; it's that it does so much for just 2 mana. I think the card would be a playable fringe card at 2WW, and it'd probably be archetype-defining at WWW. Anything less than that just strikes me as far too much for the cost.
The proper plural must be "hall of fames." You wouldn't say Halls & Oate, now, would you?
Balance is so broken it even belongs in Storm Burning Wish boards for the LED+Wish->Balance reset the game blowouts. I'd hate to think about a control deck built around Balance since it doesn't nuke Planewalkers, Artifacts, or Enchantments. *shudder*
big links in sigs are obnoxious -PR
Don't disrespect my dojo dude...
Sweep the leg!
There's a big difference if the card is restricted and if it's unrestricted. You know that in Legacy there are only unrestricted cards, don't you?
Yeah, this was exactly my thought. Jam that card in a wishboard and nuke the [s]field[/s] game if things go bad.
Balance is completely busted. I played a Restore Balance deck in old Extended and even can pick up some victories with a (bad) port in Modern. The effect is that good.
I agree completely with your last two sentences, aside from the "too much" part. As the power of other decks grows, the power of control's answers should grow in proportion, IMO. The difference between Balance, and say, Counterspell is that Balance has to be played after the position has been developed whereas Counterspell is inherently reactive. It may do a ton for 1W, but that's the standard being set by opposing strategies.
I'd love to think about that deck, as I'd think it would be both fun to play and good for the format. More to the point, I simply don't see the empirical evidence for your claim that it's so broken as to merit a continued ban without evidence. Again, it's a pretty rare card to see run in Vintage, even in decks capable of producing W reliably. I completely understand the theoretical argument against unbanning it, I just find it unpersuasive.
Yes. I also acknowledge it in my post. In the too long to read part.
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