All B/R update speculation.

[sjmcc13]

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

I think there is also a skill/time factor.

People are not as good at building decks as they use to be, and do not put in as much time on testing decks. Causing them to rely too much on pre-built and "proven" lists. this leads to less innovation and more good_cards.deck.

It is also something that keeps people from playing the format, as you see players complain that Legacy is "too expensive" because they are looking at the proven Tier 1 lists and saying "I can not afford that" and not even consider a budget starter list which wil get you into Legacy so you can slowly build up a stronger list.

I netdeck, but I also know enough about deck design that I can make a decent deck if I have an idea I want to buld around. and can turn it is given a decent test gauntlet. I just rarely have any ideas that turn into playable decks.

[M+1]

I think everyone can agree that an arguement that is solely based on the dominance of a single colour is pretty much just as valid as one based on odd collector's numbers cards being more represented than even ones.

I don't know about everyone, but I agree.

It would be unreasonable to expect total color balance in a format with 20+ years of cards.
It is perhaps a little surprising that every color is playable.

[Barook]

So, print shit that causes nothing but headaches, True-Name Nemesis for example, and after people languish about how they're going to deal with something that stupid, print another mostly casual set of cards with a couple big cards obviously targeted to shut down that card Council's Judgment

TNN and CJ only had half a year between them. Wizards can't and doesn't react that fast. As I see it, that was planned from the very beginning. It wouldn't hurt that much if they didn't break a huge number of design basics AND the color pie each time they do it. Take Toxic Deluge for example - very powerful, but didn't break the format in half.

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

Just because thousands of limited cards or other overcosted crap are in the format doesn't mean they're viable. There are simply card choices that simply work better in the format - e.g. nobody runs Foil as a poor man's FoW because it sucks.

Sure, there's a chance your rogue deck choice works, but what are the chances that it can actually stand up against a majority of the major format suppressors, at least when the common Joe plays it? Non-blue decks normally struggle against the consistency Brainstorm provides in the long run, Terminus laughs at beatdown strategies, Delver is Delver, TNN is just plain dumb, as is Griselbrand, etc. - that's alot to cover. You can't be everything, but you should have a shot against a good chunk of said cards/strategies to be competitive.

Plus, why bother with a brew when you can faceroll your way to the top with a Burn deck? It's cheap, plus you can suck and still win. That's why Burn is currently a major contender in the Online metagame.

[Adryan]

TNN and CJ only had half a year between them. Wizards can't and doesn't react that fast. As I see it, that was planned from the very beginning. It wouldn't hurt that much if they didn't break a huge number of design basics AND the color pie each time they do it. Take Toxic Deluge for example - very powerful, but didn't break the format in half.


Just because thousands of limited cards or other overcosted crap are in the format doesn't mean they're viable. There are simply card choices that simply work better in the format - e.g. nobody runs Foil as a poor man's FoW because it sucks.

Sure, there's a chance your rogue deck choice works, but what are the chances that it can actually stand up against a majority of the major format suppressors, at least when the common Joe plays it? Non-blue decks normally struggle against the consistency Brainstorm provides in the long run, Terminus laughs at beatdown strategies, Delver is Delver, TNN is just plain dumb, as is Griselbrand, etc. - that's alot to cover. You can't be everything, but you should have a shot against a good chunk of said cards/strategies to be competitive.

Plus, why bother with a brew when you can faceroll your way to the top with a Burn deck? It's cheap, plus you can suck and still win. That's why Burn is currently a major contender in the Online metagame.

And you really think banning Brainstorm will make Delver, Miracles, Show&Tell and other decks disappear? They still have more consistency than nonblue decks, which is a design problem not a B&R list problem.

Edit: I think it's a very good thing that Wotc doesn't test and care a lot about this format. I mean they tested Standard internally for a lot of time and in my eyes this Standard is unbelievable boring in it's current state (pre m15, don't know about post m15). There are 3 decks: Mono U, Mono B and UWx Control. I really hope that they stay away from Legacy and don't try to shape a metagame they like. It would be a disaster.

Modern is also kind of fucked up. If you plan on winning a PTQ there are only 5 real choices: Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, BGx, Affinity and UWx variations. The rest don't have that many good MU's and are not as good as these 5. In my eyes modern is a complete failure and unfun and this is coming from a player who started playing Magic about 2 years ago. I would heavily prefer older Standard/Block formats, old Extended or Overextended over current Modern.

[JBlaze]

Non rotating formats have a tendency to stagnate. I wish they would be a lot more pro active in unbanning cards for Legacy and Modern.

[Barook]

And you really think banning Brainstorm will make Delver, Miracles, Show&Tell and other decks disappear? They still have more consistency than nonblue decks, which is a design problem not a B&R list problem.

Disappear? Certainly not, despite people claiming the sky is falling if Brainstorm isn't in the format. That's not even the goal here.

The decks would become weaker since they lose the following aspects compared to other cantrips

- discard protection
- Brainstorm in response to anything, be it to removal, a problematic spell or just plain mana denial
- the absurdness of Brainstorm + shuffle effects
- setting up stuff in certain match-ups (e.g. Delver, AV or a drawn miracle)

No other cantrip can compare to that. If we go just by filtering alone, Ponder can dig even deeper and yet it isn't close to Brainstorm's power level.

Non rotating formats have a tendency to stagnate. I wish they would be a lot more pro active in unbanning cards for Legacy and Modern.

There aren't too many cards that are save to unban, at least in Legacy.

[Sloshthedark]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

So true...

it's not just about budget, it's about time commitment, willingness to think and experiment

[btm10]

This is a nonsensical complaint for two reasons.

1) What a format should look like, what's fun, etc., etc., are emotional questions, not factual ones.

2) I am pretty consistently the only person that is willing to compile and post data backing up claims of dominance etc., at least since the Hatfields stopped writing articles.

1. I agree that emotion plays a role in determining what a format should look like, but I think that overall it's more a normative question rather than a purely emotional one. Our emotions have to be checked by some sort of judgement in this area. That's ostensibly what the DCI is for, but they clearly have other goals as well.

2. Your work on Brainstorm has shown that it's ubiquitous, sure. What a lot of people disagree on is whether or not that's a problem. I certainly don't think it's bad because it supports a wide variety of archetypes (combo, control, midrange, tempo, etc.) at the cost of forcing these decks to have a blue component. While this incentivizes the "blue core" of Brainstorm, Force of Will, Fetchlands, and enough other blue cards to support Force, it doesn't require it, as shown by the combo decks that run blue only for cantrips. In my evaluation, having decks with similar cores that all try to win the game using different strategies (if sometimes similar tactics) is a feature, not a bug. It means that the high cost of entry into Legacy is somewhat blunted because it's easy to move your blue core into a different deck while still being able to use your ~$2000 USD investment in Forces, Blue Fetches, and Blue Duals once you've bought in.

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

If you think that this is a viable way forward, do it. Start putting up results in large events with wacky budget decks. To me, you sound like people whining about netdecks ca. 2003. At this point, with frequent large tournaments, there's plenty of testing and brewing going on. You're going to have to offer some compelling evidence like a non-established deck showing up to 100+ person events and going X-1-1 consistently before anyone takes this critique seriously.

[Megadeus]

If you think that this is a viable way forward, do it. Start putting up results in large events with wacky budget decks. To me, you sound like people whining about netdecks ca. 2003. At this point, with frequent large tournaments, there's plenty of testing and brewing going on. You're going to have to offer some compelling evidence like a non-established deck showing up to 100+ person events and going X-1-1 consistently before anyone takes this critique seriously.

Didn't Keller help popularize Manaless Dredge by doing well at events?

I'm pretty disappointed in no change. I would have liked to see Vise, Earthcraft, Twist, or Survival come off. I don't think legacy is incredibly stagnant right now, but I am sort of running out of ideas for things to brew up and play.

[btm10]

Didn't Keller help popularize Manaless Dredge by doing well at events?

I'm pretty disappointed in no change. I would have liked to see Vise, Earthcraft, Twist, or Survival come off. I don't think legacy is incredibly stagnant right now, but I am sort of running out of ideas for things to brew up and play.

He did; I apologize for suggesting otherwise, although Manaless Dredge is one of those decks that really only succeeds when people skimp on graveyard hate, so I suppose I should broaden my statement to qualify that while some of these other decks can succeed a few times, they're unlikely to keep doing so because they rely heavily on exploiting metagame vulnerabilities that people can adjust for in the existing shells.

[HSCK]

This is a nonsensical complaint for two reasons.

1) What a format should look like, what's fun, etc., etc., are emotional questions, not factual ones.

2) I am pretty consistently the only person that is willing to compile and post data backing up claims of dominance etc., at least since the Hatfields stopped writing articles.

I am calling BS, I've been compiling data for months now and posting it, the format is more fractured now than ever according to the same data sets The Source uses.

[gregtron]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

Yes, obviously the reason that certain decks perform better than others is because of herd mentality and net-decking sheople, not because the power level of some cards or strategies are higher than others, or because all the time people have put into tuning established archetypes has been used to narrow down and identify the cards that most efficiently perform their role in a deck.

And your previous success with obscure decks is definitely, absolutely because Legacy in the good ol' days was a format full of deck-building geniuses who were rewarded for their novel approach and creative flair, and not because you were playing suboptimal decks against other suboptimal decks.

It's seriously too bad that Starcity came along and brought a bunch of idiots to Legacy, which used to be a much more diverse format where people just picked their favorite cards and jammed them all day long. You know, back in 2004 when Legacy was born and the internet didn't exist and Wizards hadn't even bought computers to post GP and PT decklists because they knew the world was full of honor-less net-deckers.




I mean, come on, dude. Top 8 lists at large Legacy events that have taken place after SCG started the Open Series in 2010 are not worse and less diverse than top 8 lists from before then, even just looking at US results. Look:

GP Philadelphia, 2005. 7 archetypes, two copies of one archetype. 500 players.
GP Columbus, 2007. 5 archetypes, three copies of one archetype. 883 players.
GP Chicago, 2009. 8 archetypes. 1230 players.

GP Columbus, 2010. 8 archetypes. 1296 players.
GP Providence, 2011. 8 archetypes. 1179 players.
GP Indianapolis, 2012. 5 archetypes, three copies of one archetype, two copies of one archetype. 1214 players.
GP Atlanta, 2012. 7 archetypes, two copies of one archetype. 905 players.
GP Denver, 2013. 6 archetypes, two copies of one archetype, two copies of one archetype. 700 players.
GP DC, 2013. 8 Archetypes. 1698 players.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You know what the funny thing is about Legacy? ...

There are thousands of Magic cards people can use, but choose not to use them because we're living in a society of the blind leading the blind. Social media and the Star City Games Open Series have effectively destroyed ingenuity - for the most part - and brainwashed newer players into making mindless deck-choosing decisions.

I get the wallets for some folks might not be as thick as others in the cash department, but honestly that's no excuse. In fact, that should be the most challenging and rewarding aspect of playing Legacy: to innovate, build and succeed with a reasonably cheaper deck. I won tournaments for years with obscurities. If I can do it, so can anyone else who's willing to apply themselves.

The cards are there, but the ambition isn't.

Herd behavior has a part to play but it's pretty hard to argue that there's a secret reason why blue shouldn't be as dominant as it is (or more.)

Even in science where people put lots of effort in and many years of hard work, they don't argue emotional. So why should we do that in a card game? I would really like to know when Legacy was more wide open than now, with data that supports it.

I.... what? Try this on for size:

"Even in science, emotions aren't important. So why should they be in deciding on what flavor of ice cream to order?"

That's about as much sense as you make right now.

Science is literally the discipline of empirical observation. It contains no value judgments beyond ethical considerations in experimentation.

It is the furthest thing you can actually get from, "How do we make this pretendy fun time game of pretending to be wizards more fun?"

Offtopic: For me you're always the guy who thought Gifts Ungiven was better than Jace and argued very stupid and emotional.

Except you don't think it's off topic, you think it's relevant. You're also going to have to come up with a better definition of "stupid and emotional" than "making a wrong prediction about a card's power level."

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't know about everyone, but I agree.

It would be unreasonable to expect total color balance in a format with 20+ years of cards.
It is perhaps a little surprising that every color is playable.

If we pretended that Wizards were incapable of managing the format, we might be surprised by that, but since it's been an explicitly stated goal of bannings in the past...

And you really think banning Brainstorm will make Delver, Miracles, Show&Tell and other decks disappear? They still have more consistency than nonblue decks, which is a design problem not a B&R list problem.

This is nonsensical. Purely and totally incoherent. Design isn't some abstract concept in Magic; it can only be interpreted through individual cards, and specifically for our purposes through tournament playable cards. How is it "a design problen not a B&R list problem" when the problem is specific cards- and especially one card, Brainstorm- that could be banned, and have been banned in other formats?

Also, yes, Miracles not having a way to easily, you know, set up the titular mechanic, and Show and Tell not having a quick answer to both discard and hands full of the wrong combo component would drastically weaken both decks. Delver would have better odds, but Brainstorm is clearly the most powerful card in Legacy and it's simply dishonest to pretend that losing it wouldn't affect the decks playing it. If it didn't matter they wouldn't play it at all.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

1. I agree that emotion plays a role in determining what a format should look like, but I think that overall it's more a normative question rather than a purely emotional one. Our emotions have to be checked by some sort of judgement in this area. That's ostensibly what the DCI is for, but they clearly have other goals as well.

All normative questions are emotional ones. There is no other basis on which to set normative standards or even goals.

2. Your work on Brainstorm has shown that it's ubiquitous, sure. What a lot of people disagree on is whether or not that's a problem. I certainly don't think it's bad because it supports a wide variety of archetypes (combo, control, midrange, tempo, etc.) at the cost of forcing these decks to have a blue component. While this incentivizes the "blue core" of Brainstorm, Force of Will, Fetchlands, and enough other blue cards to support Force, it doesn't require it, as shown by the combo decks that run blue only for cantrips. In my evaluation, having decks with similar cores that all try to win the game using different strategies (if sometimes similar tactics) is a feature, not a bug. It means that the high cost of entry into Legacy is somewhat blunted because it's easy to move your blue core into a different deck while still being able to use your ~$2000 USD investment in Forces, Blue Fetches, and Blue Duals once you've bought in.

I don't think that's significant blunting, especially since that ubiquity helps drive the cost of those particular cards; a lot of that's getting into a separate supply issue though.

Regardless, you can feel free to say, "I don't think a blue-dominant metagame is a problem," fine, although I strongly disagree, my post was in response to the notion that 1) My arguments were based in emotion, and those of others implicitly weren't and 2) The idea that I in particular don't bring facts to the table which you admit is not true.

[Megadeus]

I'm perfectly fine with Blue being the best color. However at the point where it is like 80-85% of the top tables is when it becomes a tad ridiculous. I'm honestly astounded whenever a top 16 of an SCG is even 8/16 (and a lot of the time I bet those are the smaller tournaments which means less rounds for the non blue decks to get fucked by variance). Just give us another goddamn borderline unplayable card from the ban list. Is it that much to ask for?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Ban Brainstorm, unban Survival/Vise/MindTwist. Bamf. Done.

[Megadeus]

At this point, I'd take anything

[Dice_Box]

I really hope they don't Unban survival. Of all the cards people list as safe, this and Jar scare me the most. I just don't feel that they are safe. All the recent printings of powerful creatures only help to enhance that fear.

[btm10]

At this point, I'd take anything

As far as unbanning goes? Absolutely. I think almost the entire community is together on Black Vise and Earthcraft with an only slightly smaller group also agreeing on Mind Twist. Personally, I'd like to see Survival and Mental Misstep unbanned as well.