All B/R update speculation.

[Tao]

Ok lets go trough this one by one to look why consitency is the only thing you want besides a good power/cost relation of your threats.

So consistency is NOT the only thing a deck wants. Good that we agree on that. And on top synergy and that good power / cost relation decks might also benefit from elements of Card Advantage, Synergy, Speed, Ramp, Pressure, Disruption, Flexibility, Removal, Combos and approximately 200 other concepts.

So while playing Serum Visions increases your consistency, a DR Shaman gives the player Mana Ramp to pull ahead that way, a Goblin Lackey will put pressure on your opponent and threaten to win if the opponent has no solution, a Mother of Runes will threaten to invalidate all of the opponent's spot removal and a Thoughtseize will disrupt the opponent's game plan. This is all good and fun fair as long as these cards are balanced.

So if I play 4 ponder and 4 brainstorm I can afford to play 2 or 3 lands less and also to play only 3 CBS instead of 4 because I only want to find 1CB in the regular game and the cantrips ensure that I do this because they thin the libary and manipultate the draw I get

Well, no shit. Especially Brainstorm but also Ponder are OP, and that's the whole problem, not cantrips by themselves. If players could only use Preordain and Serum Visions instead of BS and Ponder everything would be fine.

[GoblinZ]

I did not read the thread recently, so maybe I miss something

Is there a rumor that Survival of the Fittest may be unbanned? I suddenly see the price of Survival today...

[Barook]

Is there a rumor that Survival of the Fittest may be unbanned? I suddenly see the price of Survival today...

Maybe

It all started with the December MOCS promo Vengevine, which basically doesn't see play anywhere. And now the sudden price increase similiar to Bitterblossom before its unban, although it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy:

"Survival might get unbanned!" --> people buy, price increase --> "Look, the price is rising, Survival is really going to get unbanned!" --> people buy, price increase --> etc.

If Survival is really going to be unbanned, then why doesn't Vengevine increase as well?

[Lemnear]

Well, no shit. Especially Brainstorm but also Ponder are OP, and that's the whole problem, not cantrips by themselves. If players could only use Preordain and Serum Visions instead of BS and Ponder everything would be fine.

As if that would stop Treasure cruise from pushing people against the wall on the back of stuff like SDT, Thought Scour and/or Mental Note.

[Teveshszat]

Bed Decks Palyer
Quote Originally Posted by Teveshszat View Post
That is the reason why you play fetchlands because they double your chances for a non land card.
Pardon?

Really? Ok you play a fetchland because they decrease the land count in your deck by 2 not 1 if you draw 1. The reason is that
they take out a land in addtion to themself when you use the land. This increases the chance that you draw a non land card really hard. the reason for this is that when you play fetchlands you can play a sliglty smaller number of real lands and is again increases the chance to not draw a land. So you could say fetchlands increase the consistency because they help you to avoid dead draws(to many lands in this case).

Bed decks player
Those numbers cannot be compared to the cantrips driven shells. There's a gap between BS decks and the rest of the field, and while we're all competitive minds and will be playing w/e gives us the best percentage, it's kinda sad that the gaming experience narrowed into whoever resolves more cantrips to resolve more bombs; if I'd want to play Vintage, I heard there's a format for that kind of games.

His argument was that Maverick is not placing well anymore. This is only to prove this argument wrong. Because actually they place well. You ofcourse can´t compare the deck against blue shell because the blue shell is better in concitency and ofcourse in the tempo and cost efficiency. Maverick is an outdated deck what you expect is just not realistic.
Btw in every rescource management game it resolves arround efficiency and therefore card draw and cantrips a favored in every
game which does that. Thats the reason why some print next to nothing draw effects.

Tao
So consistency is NOT the only thing a deck wants. Good that we agree on that. And on top synergy and that good power / cost relation decks might also benefit from elements of Card Advantage, Synergy, Speed, Ramp, Pressure, Disruption, Flexibility, Removal, Combos and approximately 200 other concepts.

And still concitency is the most important because it enhances all the other aspetcs to the level you want. So while consistency is only one aspect it is the most important because it wins you the game.
Card advantge becomes a better strategy if you can pay the cost (TC), Synergeic effects are more likely to work when you can draw the right combination (cantrips help), Speed gets better when you need less lands (cantrips help), Ramp is better when you can get more effiecient mana engines and less basic lands (cantrips again), Pressure jeah cantrips can make the deck a little airy, Disruption (you don´t need so many situaraional cards because cantrips help t find them(better disruption less dead draws), fexibililty is the definition of cantrips, removal you find them faster and need less copies of them (only because cantrips), combos you have cardx and need y cantrips help.
You see each strategy gets better with cantrips therefore consitency is what you want to max for your deck and cantrips are the best way for it.
Just test it for yourself add cantrips or Sensei`s top in a without them before. I bet you will win more often than before.

DR Shaman gives the player Mana Ramp to pull ahead that wa

But you can only utilize the mana when you have a useful card you can play. So you can say a deathrite can
help you to enhance an advantage but can´t help you to come back from a disadvantge (like haveing the wrong card in hand). Btw having the wrong card is what you makes lose games very often.

a Goblin Lackey will put pressure on your opponent and threaten to win if the opponent has no solution, a Mother of Runes will threaten to invalidate all of the opponent's spot removal and a Thoughtseize will disrupt the opponent's game plan. This is all good and fun fair as long as these cards are balanced.

The Lackey only pressures you at turn 1 and can´t outrun a delver so concidering that we putting the goblin against an equal agressive deck blue wins with UR Delver because a lackey is not enough pressure against a delver + cantrips to find vairous removal and counters.

A mother of runes is quiet a pain but also can be beaten when the cantrip finds you the second spotremoval or the sweeper you need to deal with the whole board. But this again onyl can be done in time when you have cantrips. So again cantrips are what you want to execute your gemaplan and disrupt theirs.

The Thoughseize is the most classic. Concidering you don´t took a 1 off from us cantrips shine very brightly because the increase the chance that you find the missing card intime and render the disruption useless. with out cantrips it is a great disruption with them its just a temporary anoyance.

Cantrips are and wil be the cards you want to include in every deck to a certain degree because they just help you and that is what makes blue so strong the power to just have the better math than the rest of the decks.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Really? Ok you play a fetchland because they decrease the land count in your deck by 2 not 1 if you draw 1. The reason is that
they take out a land in addtion to themself when you use the land. This increases the chance that you draw a non land card really hard. the reason for this is that when you play fetchlands you can play a sliglty smaller number of real lands and is again increases the chance to not draw a land. So you could say fetchlands increase the consistency because they help you to avoid dead draws(to many lands in this case).

It is scientifically proven that the Theory of Fetchlands Deck Thinning is wrong. You may just as believe in watermen and fauns.
Hypergenensis function or something like that.

[Dice_Box]

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=3096

[Lemnear]

It is scientifically proven that the Theory of Fetchlands Deck Thinning is wrong. You may just as believe in watermen and fauns.
Hypergenensis function or something like that.

It's not "wrong". The effect is real, but pretty marginal depending on the total lands you have left in your deck and under the sole aspect of "prevent drawing lands"

Don't use the word "scientifically" for a bold and wrong claim. There are engineers and scientists in the Forum

[Finn]

@Teveshszat: you are thick. Do you know that expression?

Tao made quite a simple point. We all know that Lackey, et al are Magic cards and therefor need a Magic game to have a purpose. And that game may or may not have a game state for which said card is beneficial. You also need to be a human to play. Hands are preferred but not required. I think that Tao will concede all of this.

Amazingly though, none of these cards help with diminishing variance and yet all have the potential to help win the game in some fashion. In fact, I would add Swamp to that list. It also has potential to do the same and does nothing for seeing the right card at the right time. If Tao is wrong about this, we would all play 60 cantrips and nothing else.

It would be just ducky if you could concede that point so that the conversation can have a chance (albeit small) at bearing fruit.

[Teveshszat]

Finn
@Teveshszat: you are thick. Do you know that expression?

Ah yes. I expected insults like this because you display your lack of arguments with it. I, from my point of view, am more the logical type which shoudl explain why I prefer mathamatical facts above feelings from persons.

Finn
You also need to be a human to play

Nope I also can place a Ki in front of you to play against you. This maybe will be easier for you because this is not an game with complete information but a computer can also play this game.

Finn
If Tao is wrong about this, we would all play 60 cantrips and nothing else.

No because than you are lacking of threats and the cantrips can´t win you the game because you missed a basic deckbuilding rule.

Finn
Amazingly though, none of these cards help with diminishing variance and yet all have the potential to help win the game in some fashion.

And there is the word i love potential. All the cards have the POTENTIAL to win you the game. All cantrips increase the chance that you can make use of this potential to win the game so again cantrips are the factor which makes the difference between a deck with and without them.

Finn
It would be just ducky if you could concede that point so that the conversation can have a chance (albeit small) at bearing fruit.

And why should I do this because you see Iam not wrong and different persons also tried to explain it to you. All I try is to show you why the blue shell is so dominant as now and why banning Brainstorm or and Ponder is not the solution.

Bed Decks Players
You may just as believe in watermen and fauns. Hypergenensis function or something like that.

I belief all of this and even more. I mean I play a game were Iam a great Planeswalker who has godlike powers If I would
not believe that such thing could exsist I would not play this game.
But this doesn´t mean that I don´t know effects of cards and yes while the fetch effect isn´t that great it is there.

[Lord Seth]

Really? Ok you play a fetchland because they decrease the land count in your deck by 2 not 1 if you draw 1. The reason is that
they take out a land in addtion to themself when you use the land. This increases the chance that you draw a non land card really hard. the reason for this is that when you play fetchlands you can play a sliglty smaller number of real lands and is again increases the chance to not draw a land. So you could say fetchlands increase the consistency because they help you to avoid dead draws(to many lands in this case).

The problem is that you claimed that fetchlands double your chance of increasing a nonland card, which is absurd. What a fetchland does is marginally increase your chance of drawing a nonland card; taking an extra land out of your deck isn't doubling it. For example, if you have 20 lands left in your library, and 50 cards in your library, cracking a fetch changes your odds of getting a nonland card from 30/50 to 30/49. 30/49 - 30/50=1.2%. A 1.2% increase is a far cry from a 100% increase as you claim. For that matter, even the more vague "increases the chance that you draw a non land card really hard" is wrong, because a 1.2% chance is not a particularly big increase. Admittedly, over the course of several turns it will rise, but it's still fairly low and does not "double" your odds as you claimed.

The problem is that the marginal increase in drawing nonlands is not worth the extra damage you take. 1.2% higher chance of drawing a nonland card? Not exactly worth being 5% closer to losing the game. It's the amazing level of the color fixing or synergy with Brainstorm that makes the fetchlands worth it, not decreasing land count. (which isn't even always a positive thing if we ignore the life loss, because what if you need more lands? Then you're decreasing your chance of getting lands when you fetch, plus taking damage on top of that)

[sjmcc13]

Maybe

It all started with the December MOCS promo Vengevine, which basically doesn't see play anywhere. And now the sudden price increase similiar to Bitterblossom before its unban, although it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy:

Survival was also the Community Cup promo this year, which might make people think they are considering unbanning it. I mean why make a promo of a card that they had just put in a set (as a non chase rare, for that set) that was decently drafted?

If Survival is really going to be unbanned, then why doesn't Vengevine increase as well?

People might be thinking there is some new combo to use, or expecting vine to get banned in its SotF's place, or looking at contanment priest as well as graffdiggers cage and thinking vine will not work well enough.

Though considering it was going for so much and pretty, much only seeing play in commander decks, I would expect an increase a couple months after every commander set once the new players who bought those decks have met some more experienced players, started building their own, and started looking beyond their immediate collections to pick cards, and every new green player eventually sees it and goes "I want one". January being a good time for an increase because of all the holiday gift money people are able to drop on cards they could not afford normally. This would also explain vine not going up as it does not draw the attention of every EDH player like survival does.

I think the price increase is rumors + EDH players spending Christmas money, which is probably the same thing that happened with Bitter Blossom last year, only the rumor was true then.

[nedleeds]

Vine sucks? You are better off just tinking for 30 trample damage on your third turn than dicking around with your graveyard?

[Teveshszat]

Lord Seth
he problem is that you claimed that fetchlands double your chance of increasing a nonland card, which is absurd

Wait some people can write all the wrong stuff they want and when I exaggerte 1 fact to reinforce myy point all tell that Iam wrong.
this sound really like an discussion were people just don´t want to see that they are wrong and take every little bit from the information which is not 100% accurate to distrack us from this fact.

It's the amazing level of the color fixing or synergy with Brainstorm that makes the fetchlands worth it, not decreasing land count.

Than why are non blue decks playing fetchlands in the firstplace? Because in general the ability to find the right land you need and the decreasement of the land count is worth 1 lifepoint because you know life is just another resource.

30/50 to 30/49. 30/49 - 30/50=1.2%. A 1.2% increase is a far cry from a 100% increase as you claim.

I never claimed that the exact percentage is over 50% or so. I said it doubled and yes is a bit exagerted but double mean not over 50 or even over 1% it just says its twice as much as the percentage before.

[M+1]

Treasure Cruise is really annoying to play against. If two regular decks are fighting for control and end up in topdeck mode, and one of them draws Treasure Cruise, the game ends.
It's just too easy to cast in Legacy. I very rarely say this about a card, but I hope Treasure Cruise gets the axe.

[Will_L]

I really hope Mind Twist gets unbanned. Hymn is better in most situations anyway...Twist can be a blow out with Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors or Dark Rituals though...

I think it would be a fun card to have in the format and its weak too Spell Pierce and Daze so I don't think it would be too OP

Treasure Cruise is really annoying to play against. If two regular decks are fighting for control and end up in topdeck mode, and one of them draws Treasure Cruise, the game ends.
It's just too easy to cast in Legacy. I very rarely say this about a card, but I hope Treasure Cruise gets the axe.

In that same situation, if the player were to top deck Jace then the outcome would be the same

So if you're main argument for banning TC is that it breaks the other guy's back in a top deck war... Well, many cards in legacy already do that

[M+1]

In that same situation, if the player were to top deck Jace then the outcome would be the same

So if you're main argument for banning TC is that it breaks the other guy's back in a top deck war... Well, many cards in legacy already do that

I don't think so, not in the same way. TC cost 1 mana and gives you three cards instantly.
Jace cost 4 mana, and only a few dedicated control decks play it for that reason. And it takes Jace two or three turns to net you the same amount of cards as TC.

[nedleeds]

In that same situation, if the player were to top deck Jace then the outcome would be the same

So if you're main argument for banning TC is that it breaks the other guy's back in a top deck war... Well, many cards in legacy already do that

Exactly, a suspended Ancestral Visions also does the same thing. There's a reason TC is played at 1/2 the rate of Brainstorm it's far more conditional and just not as good.

[FoolofaTook]

I really hope Mind Twist gets unbanned. Hymn is better in most situations anyway...Twist can be a blow out with Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors or Dark Rituals though...

Given WotC's recent insanity my assumption is that they won't unban Mind Twist but they will instead print a delve version of it.

I think it would be a fun card to have in the format and its weak too Spell Pierce and Daze so I don't think it would be too OP

Because spells that blue has an answer too but that wreck everybody else is exactly what we need right now...

[FoolofaTook]

Treasure Cruise breaks a primary system in the game, the rate at which the two players draw cards. That's why it should be banned. It does this conditionally but the condition is not hard to meet just playing the game of Magic in a normal fashion for Legacy. I will be surprised if Treasure Cruise is not banned on Monday. There are other cards that should go before it but it is the most obvious offender that nobody can well defend in the current landslide into a blue meta.

Very few lists have actually found the best ways to abuse Treasure Cruise in this meta. If you play it with other effects that net you cards you will get so far ahead of most lists that they can't compete. If you play it with cantrips you'll draw a lot of cards but if you play it with really powerful cards that have an actual effect on the game you will just dominate most matchups. Try Standstill and Treasure Cruise together as an example with just fetches, Brainstorm and a few cheap spells that hit the GY quickly. Put some real power in beside these and you will regularly outdraw the opponent by a wide margin and also have better cards in hand than them in the process.