Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Finally someone that gets it.Originally Posted by DLifshitz
As a matter of fact, I reckon if you do the appropriate analysis, you might even find cards that are attributed to success but are never discussed in this thread. If I had to guess, Lightning Bolt and Spell Pierce are responsible for more wins than Sensei's Divining Top or Terminus. (K-Means clustering of decks/wins could reveal that in fact, Lightning Bolt or some other overlooked card is the one whose future we should be discussing.)
edit: reasoning ->
Lightning Bolt doubles as a removal spell that can swing board states by being able to destroy planeswalkers, utility (Deathrite Shaman, Dark Confidant) / combo creatures (Painter's Servant, Elves) or a clock, e.g. delver, as well as being able to race (Amplified by the presence of Snapcaster Mage). In many cases it's better than Swords to Plowshares (Negating life gain) and, as just explained, much more versatile.
Spell Pierce often counters critical, big-investment spells and develops tempo. This trade in mana (Spell Pierce on Sneak Attack is a 1 mana vs 4 mana trade) is hard to recover from and it's one of the reasons why delver tempo decks are so effective (Not without reason that they run bolt and pierce). Spell Pierce is also one of the biggest barriers to the success of stax-type decks.
Also, [bold statement] I think that everyone here is building decks the wrong way, including myself.
I believe that we should first analyze the meta-game, then analyze sideboard cards that most effectively address the meta-game, then match those 15 cards with the most postboard-resistant and powerful strategy in those colors, and only then settle on a main deck.
In other words, people should not construct decks from the perspective of deck archetypes (The Control/Combo/Aggro paradigm), but from the perspective of competitive strategic reasoning by exploiting the weaknesses of the meta-game in the postboard matches. Start from your goal and work backwards. Pre-board games are (at most) 50% of any given match and at worst 33% of any given match. By contrast, post-board games constitute 50%-66% of a match. By starting off from the paradigm of the main deck, you essentially reduce your odds of winning to lower than 50%; all else being equal.
[QUOTE=Zombie;841995]My pile of little pointy-eared gits clearly exists because of Brainstorm./QUOTE]
Clearly mine does too...
Personally im fine with brainstorm getting the ax I just cant realistically see it happening. To be honest id love to see either brainstorm go or survival come back I'm just not getting my hopes up.
Nothing changed in this discussion since 2009. First see then believe.
With Brainstorm banned green will take over with Natural Selection...
In all seriousness, that card was so close to being one of the most expensive cards in magic, if only it drew a card.
bruizar, although you're inverted deck building is not witjhout a reason, note that it's pretty hard to exploit weaknesses of even the local metagame, as it shifts over and over, and it's unpredictable due to th nature of Legacy (with its lots of decks and generally older players that sometimes come for the toruney, sometimes they don't).
The inverted approach is kinda asinine to begin with, insofar that your maindeck can just kill people anyway. Including the sideboard from the get go is definitely a good idea, but focusing primarily on it is probably even worse of an idea than focusing primarily on the maindeck is. The Elephant Method seems like the sanest approach to tackling the problem (ie. you figure out a blob of roughly related cards that you want to play in the meta, build from those postboard 60's for the main matchups and then finagle those lists together into a 60+15 that can come close to any of those proto-decks postboard)
Was Reanimator the main reason mystical tutor was banned back in the day? I never got to play around at the time but I could imagine much more broken things were occuring at the time.
Reanimator and ANT. If memory serves mana could still be floated between steps back then, so Upkeep Mystical, break LEDs, draw step Nauseam, you died. Plus it basically allowed those decks to run wishboard style SBs so they didn't have to dilute their deck much at all and would still be able to find answers consistently.
Mystical Tutor decks were dominating everything. The community was screaming for a ban because of how busted Reanimator and ANT were at the time. No one was at all surprised when Tom LaPille stepped in and announced the banning of the ungentlemanly, format warping abomination.
Source: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/mag...tg/daily/ld/96
"Our research took another turn, however, when we investigated how Legacy is played in the real world. We discovered something rather interesting, and that is that Mystical Tutor decks were quite rare at Legacy tournaments that did not have tons of money on the line. At Grand Prix and other cash tournaments, people were happy to bust out their Mystical Tutorss. However, in the comfort of their home stores they seemed to prefer doing other things that were more fun, if perhaps less powerful. This struck me as being a sort of gentleman's agreement; everyone knew what sick decks were out there, but they chose not to play them."
I was not playing around this time but I find this moment in MTG history to be fascinating; thanks for sharing. I can't imagine something like this ever happening again.
DDD / Death & Taxes
Was really LaPille in charge for that decison thought? Wasn't the DCI in charge? The dude has turned everything he touched literally to shit.
Legacy Champs Top8:
1. UR Delver w/ 4 Delver of Secrets, 4 Treasure Cruise, 4 Brainstorm
2. UWR Delver w/ 4 Delver of Secrets, 3 Treasure Cruise, 4 Brainstorm
3. Maverick
4. UWR Delver w/ 4 Delver of Secrets, 2 Treasure Cruise, 4 Brainstorm
5. Tezzerator
6. URG Delver w/ 4 Delver of Secrets, 4 Treasure Cruise, 4 Brainstorm
7. UBG Delver w/ 4 Delver of Secrets, 1 Treasure Cruise, 4 Brainstorm
8. UR Delver w/ 4 Delver of Secrets, 4 Treasure Cruise, 4 Brainstorm
Ok so until a ban of some part of the deck archetype occurs, all foreseeable top8s at large Legacy tournaments will be 70%+ U/x Delver decks with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Delver, and some amount of Treasure Cruise.
Sounds like fun.
Nope, mana could not be floated that way at that time.
This is a factor, but it was also about high-profile results. Reanimator won GP Madrid, and there was an ANT mirror in the semis (with Saito losing). The Mystical Tutor ban came as a surprise to most Sourcers, but I would say that it's clear to most people now that the card should stay banned, given how much stronger it would be in today's environment.
Looks like Delver or Brainstorm are favourites here. But if they ban Brainstorm, Legacy dies - so they better ban Delver I guess.
Nah, they'll probably end up banning Glimpse. Or something.
Vampiric is probably worse than Mystical nowadays anyway: a bit worse with AdN and reanimating devices (reanimate->grizzle put you in bolt range if you used vamp), and it doesn't have Awesome. In combo, the only card it can pick that mystic couldn't is LED (and you keep the information hidden), which while very good, make me doubt it would be THAT much better considering you pay life and don't have Awesome. Keep in mind that in the meanwhile, Thalia, Flusterstorm, and i think even Spell Pierce were printed, meaning combo in general got considerably worse from the times of mystical.
That, and Vampiric would also get played in other archetypes, fetching permanents, but more importantly, lands (monoblack POST)
I think Green Sun's Zenith and Cahlice is a problem - look two other decks !
/sarcasm
Anyway I wouldn't mind to bring new tools but they should consider them also in other colors... sad but true.
Vampiric also grabs a one-of Pithing Needle, or can tutor for a creature when Reanimator has Careful Study + Reanimation effect in-hand, or even grabs a land when Reanimator opens with a one-lander with swamp+entomb+exhume. Or literally any other card it needs. I don't think in 2010 when Iona was the best thing to Reanimate that the mystical ban was necessary, but now with Griselbrand and friends, allowing the deck to run singleton maindeck show+tell and bounce spell whether through mystical, or vampiric, or demoic is far beyond acceptable. If they unbanned both at the same time, though, and only allowed you to play one-or-the-other, I think I'd jump to Vampiric rather easily.Vampiric is probably worse than Mystical nowadays anyway: a bit worse with AdN and reanimating devices (reanimate->grizzle put you in bolt range if you used vamp), and it doesn't have Awesome. In combo, the only card it can pick that mystic couldn't is LED (and you keep the information hidden), which while very good, make me doubt it would be THAT much better considering you pay life and don't have Awesome. Keep in mind that in the meanwhile, Thalia, Flusterstorm, and i think even Spell Pierce were printed, meaning combo in general got considerably worse from the times of mystical.
That, and Vampiric would also get played in other archetypes, fetching permanents, but more importantly, lands (monoblack POST
Counting the number of a card in any given top 8 is silly, and is demonstrably not useful (cf., Force of Will). Cruise is super broken, and more and more I'm thinking it needs to go.
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