All B/R update speculation.

[Dice_Box]

However it hasn't held it's own enough to convince more than a smattering of players to play it. Same for MUD. D&T comes the closest to a non-blue/Elves list and it has been in decline also because people are beginning to clue into the fact that playing hate bears against blue has only a limited prospect of achieving overall advantage. This being because the hate bears aren't good enough to guarantee you anything and when you run into one of the outlier lists that don't run blue or elves you are at a significant disadvantage with your little bear getting run over by their actually fully effective creatures.

Not everyone wants to drop 800 on one card played in one deck. That harms it most of all.

[Tao]

If you have even a small grasp of legacy matchup knowledge, you'd know that elves matches up well to fair blue decks and not so well to unfair blue decks, the keyword being fair and unfair, not blue. Likewise, elves matches up well to fair decks, and poorly to unfair decks, blue or not. We get shat on by Dredge, Belcher, etc.

But SnT and ANT are much more popular decks than Belcher and Dredge because - duh - Brainstorm and Ponder. And fair blue decks are more popular than fair nonblue decks because - ta dah - Brainstorm and Ponder.

Storm is good against certain decks. Miracles is good against certain decks. Delver is good against certain decks. Elves is good against certain decks. If you go ahead and group the decks that storm, miracles, and delver are good against together and say "blue decks", of course it's going to be higher.

No, that is not how percentages work... It is pretty easy. You can group everything together for each deck and you will see that on average the blue decks have an overall very positive winrate while the nonblue decks have an overall very negative winrate. If Elves does 50-50 against fair decks and 10-90 against unfair decks, then on that day the deck was just not good enough for that meta and that is a fact. You can of course come up with a trillion reasons for that fact, and come up with excuses how the reason for this is not Blue being OP and no one will be able to prove you wrong. But I am quite sure the problem is blue being OP.

[Rivfader]

However it hasn't held it's own enough to convince more than a smattering of players to play it. Same for MUD. D&T comes the closest to a non-blue/Elves list and it has been in decline also because people are beginning to clue into the fact that playing hate bears against blue has only a limited prospect of achieving overall advantage. This being because the hate bears aren't good enough to guarantee you anything and when you run into one of the outlier lists that don't run blue or elves you are at a significant disadvantage with your little bear getting run over by their actually fully effective creatures.

Not everyone wants to drop 800 on one card played in one deck. That harms it most of all.

It has reached 5% on mtgtop8, leaving D&T (2%) and Elves (3%) behind. With this percentage it is currently the most played (or best resulting), non-blue deck.

[FoolofaTook]

Not everyone wants to drop 800 on one card played in one deck. That harms it most of all.

This is true, but the limited number of lists that are viable drives up the prices of the rare cards in them. Tabernacle would be very pricy in any circumstance but it is extremely pricey right now because it is one of the few cards that is main listable in a competitive list in the current meta.

The Abyss is $175 and The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale is $800. If TNN hadn't been printed and if black control was more playable because the blue shell didn't foil everything it tried to do then you'd see a bit more of a balance in the card prices although Tabernacle would still be more expensive.

Similarly, the blue duals are all floating between $200 and $300 while Scrublands have hovered between $60 and $80 over that same period of time. Some people who could buy into Legacy but don't want to spend thousands of dollars in the process just haven't bought duals because there's no point in buying the cheaper duals and the ones that actually see play on a regular basis, which is a limited set, are extremely expensive. If the blue shell is weakened and blue lists decline as a result the prices of duals will normalize some and there will be much less of a gap between the price of competitive duals and non-competitive duals. More people will buy into the format when the cost of doing it is $125 a land for effective mana instead of $250.

Staples that are currently almost unplayable, like Pernicious Deed, Vindicate, Maelstrom Pulse and Sinkhole will rise some and staples like Vendilion Clique, Force of Will and Show and Tell will fall.

I don't know why SCG decided to de-prioritize Legacy but it's a good guess that they thought the customer base for the format was in decline. That's what makes the most sense. When you have a huge inventory of staples that nobody wants to buy and a very small chase pool of staples that spike upwards dramatically before a big competition and then slowly fall back afterwards it can't be a very good model to do business in.

[btm10]

But SnT and ANT are much more popular decks than Belcher and Dredge because - duh - Brainstorm and Ponder. And fair blue decks are more popular than fair nonblue decks because - ta dah - Brainstorm and Ponder.

Or because they aren't nearly as susceptible to disruption. Belcher's whole gameplan is to blank as much non-Force interaction as possible, but the deck is cold to Force. Dredge is insanely consistent and powerful but is exposed to extremely powerful hate like Rest in Peace as a result. I'm fine with saying that the cantrip cartel lifts blue decks above others, but saying it's why ANT, Reanimator, and Show and Tell do better than Dredge and Belcher makes you look ridiculous.

[FoolofaTook]

It has reached 5% on mtgtop8, leaving D&T (2%) and Elves (3%) behind. With this percentage it is currently the most played (or best resulting), non-blue deck.

The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale is an $18 card online and a $700+ card as paper.

[Nielsie]

Ok. I was mistaken then. I was using the shortcut (the shortcut being that I called decks "blue" when I should have explained I meant archtypes) that people here tend to use since people here tend to group all blue decks as the same archtype apparently because they all run brainstorm.

This makes no sense to me, I realy don't understand what you try to say here.

As I understand it, you are fine with Brainstorm and Treasure Cruise because you think the meta is varied: different archetypes you call it. Can you explain to me why Ancestral Recall is banned? This card would just as easily slot into all those different archetypes and probably keep all of them around in some way or another. Games would simply revolve around who gets to cast his Ancestral first. Just the way it's now with Brainstorm and Treasure Cruise. The only difference with Ancestral is that it would crush the last 30% of non-blue resistance in less than a week, something you obviously wouldn't mind.

[sjmcc13]

But SnT and ANT are much more popular decks than Belcher and Dredge because - duh - Brainstorm and Ponder.

Nope, Dredge and Belcher are less popular because they are more vulnerable to Hate/Disruption.

Dredge needs its graveyard to function, if it runs into any GY hate it dies. It can not grow to popular because of this, once it passes a certain point the hate comes out in full force, and dredge decks stop winning. Dredge does not need BS or Ponder, it actually could run BS if it wanted to, but has no need, it already runs enough draw effects to compete with most delver decks for drawing power.

Belcher is a glass Cannon deck, it runs no disruption and dies to a FoW too often. There are allot less people who enjoy an all in glass Cannon deck then there are who prefer a "slower" but more stable combo that also runs protection/disruption.

[Dice_Box]

The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale is an $18 card online and a $700+ card as paper.

A point proving that the restricted acceptance of the deck is mostly due to the paper cost of Tabernacle and not due it it's ability to hold its own and prove itself. It seams that it has proven itself and where it's financially possible to play the deck, it is seen a decent amount.

[FoolofaTook]

A point proving that the restricted acceptance of the deck is mostly due to the paper cost of Tabernacle and not due it it's ability to hold its own and prove itself. It seams that it has proven itself and where it's financially possible to play the deck, it is seen a decent amount.

The cost of a list is always going to be a factor when the cards that power it aren't played in many lists. Lands is what it is right now because the blue shell suppresses the lists that really hate on it, like Storm combo. Even then it doesn't get played much because it is a significant investment in cards unlikely to see play in many other lists. If it actually became a more widely played list then you'd see people playing Armageddon in their sideboards.

[Dice_Box]

Yes, but I get that. What I was pointing out was the flaw in your statement of: "However it hasn't held it's own enough to convince more than a smattering of players to play it."

[AznSeal]

This makes no sense to me, I realy don't understand what you try to say here.

As I understand it, you are fine with Brainstorm and Treasure Cruise because you think the meta is varied: different archetypes you call it. Can you explain to me why Ancestral Recall is banned? This card would just as easily slot into all those different archetypes and probably keep all of them around in some way or another. Games would simply revolve around who gets to cast his Ancestral first. Just the way it's now with Brainstorm and Treasure Cruise. The only difference with Ancestral is that it would crush the last 30% of non-blue resistance in less than a week, something you obviously wouldn't mind.

Why is Survival banned? Or Fastbond? Or Gush? or Skullclamp?

Wizards set an arbitrary list of rules whether we like it or not. They decided to ban ancestral from the start. If their motto was to keep ancestral legal, they'd probably want to keep equally broken cards legal, and that I can live with, if it meant the metagame still had varied decks.

I don't think Brainstorm and TC should be banned because even the most popular deck of them is not heels over head better than everything else. Would I cry if they're banned? No. Am I upset they're printed? No. I've already adapted my decks to do fine against brainstorm and TC.

So if a storm deck ran ancestral, and miracles ran ancestral, i'd group them as a storm deck and a miracles deck. Not "ancestral deck"

[FoolofaTook]

Yes, but I get that. What I was pointing out was the flaw in your statement of: "However it hasn't held it's own enough to convince more than a smattering of players to play it."

If Lands was really, really good in this meta more than a smattering of players would be playing it. It's expensive but if you thought you were going to get a guaranteed return on your money you'd be more likely to pick up the cards you needed to run it. Elves passed that test as people bought all the cards they needed to run the list, including a very expensive playset of Gaea's Cradle. Lands hasn't passed that test convincingly yet. The MTGO meta is different than the paper meta because it really discourages a lot of the 1% and 2% combo that sees play in paper.

[FoolofaTook]

So if a storm deck ran ancestral, and miracles ran ancestral, i'd group them as a storm deck and a miracles deck. Not "ancestral deck"

However you wouldn't be able to justify running a list that didn't have 4 Ancestral Recall in that meta if you wanted to be competitive and so effectively you'd be saying that a 56 card meta in which all lists ran 4 Ancestral Recall and games were randomly decided based on who drew their Ancestral Recalls first was an acceptable thing.

I on the other hand would call that meta an abomination and campaign to have Ancestral Recall banned, whether it was in a wide range of lists or not.

[nodahero]

I believe they adjusted it so that people on the west coast couldn't orchestrate a buy out while the world slept.

[DLifshitz]

Modern: Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Bir[thing Pod] are banned.

[FoolofaTook]

Modern: Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Bir[thing Pod] are banned.

News or prediction?

[datanaga]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ent-2015-01-19

[Vicar in a tutu]

Treasure Cruise banned and Worldgorger Dragon unbanned.

[FoolofaTook]

They did the throwaway ban. Basically they wasted about 3 months of our Legacy experience by printing an obviously overpowered card in blue and then banning it when what was obvious became irrefutable.

Oh well, back to brewing around the blue shell I guess.

BTW, welcome to Vintage redux. We're in a blue meta now and unless WotC does some really unusual things with new prints there's no point in brewing outside the blue shell. You can have some success, particularly with lists designed to hurt the blue shell but you'll also still be open to some of the blue shell in the process and you'll be prostrate before some of the other rogue lists that are made. In the end brewing outside the blue shell may give you some satisfaction in terms of beating power lists but you will not be consistent enough to let you really profit.