All B/R update speculation.

[Adryan]

http://www.gosugamers.net/hearthston...rng-than-magic

I have never lost a Control mirror Match because of Boom Bots and Ragnaros RNG. And I lost/ won a lot of Games because of absurd Counterbalance reveals. That card is really toxic and unfun and should be banned. Anyways this is getting really offtopic.... I can only suggest giving Hearthstone a try if you think Legacy is stale and blue dominated and you don't like that. I mean that is not going to change, just look at the first page of this thread.

[Crimhead]

I can only suggest giving Hearthstone a try if you think Legacy is stale and blue dominated and you don't like that.

While we're suggesting other games, I recommend Diplomacy, Titan, Axis & Allies, Supremacy 2020 (a modern revamp of the 1980s classic), Roborally (by R. Garfield), Cosmic Encounter (the game that inspired MTG), and/or A Game Of Thrones.

For one-on-one, specifically Titan or A&A.

[Barook]

http://www.gosugamers.net/hearthston...rng-than-magic

I have never lost a Control mirror Match because of Boom Bots and Ragnaros RNG. And I lost/ won a lot of Games because of absurd Counterbalance reveals. That card is really toxic and unfun and should be banned. Anyways this is getting really offtopic.... I can only suggest giving Hearthstone a try if you think Legacy is stale and blue dominated and you don't like that. I mean that is not going to change, just look at the first page of this thread.

You certainly don't lose to manascrew or -flood in Hearthstone.

One thing I really like is the mulligan they have there - replace any number of your starting hand cards with new draws. Too bad that in Magic, it would most likely end up in combo degeneracy (or an even bigger FoW circlejerks, who knows).

At least there are less "feel bad" moments because you had to mull to oblivion. The coin (basically a free lotus petal for the player on the draw) also compensates for alot of coin flip matches. At least according to Blizzard, it evened out the win percentage between play and draw.

[Zombie]

You certainly don't lose to manascrew or -flood in Hearthstone.

One thing I really like is the mulligan they have there - replace any number of your starting hand cards with new draws. Too bad that in Magic, it would most likely end up in combo degeneracy (or an even bigger FoW circlejerks, who knows).

We had that kind of mulligan in German Highlander. It felt amazing, but made proactive starts - NO/Rector fueled Hulk combo, aggressive 4c Goodstuff - really powerful. Still liked it a lot, though, and it might be a worthwhile thing to try in formats without some of singleton idiosyncracies (like 3c decks being more stable than 2c ones)

[menace13]

Rag and Boom Bots disagree

I disagree. Knife Juggler Juggling like it may as well read target. Or in arena when Mad Bomber blows out your 2 drop for free. Or a MCTech taking the best 25/20%. In arena all these things are salt inducing.

[sjmcc13]

In case anyone is interested, here are the top decks from today's SCG Open, with how many times the deck was in the top 32. sorted by the best finish of that deck type. Not certain on how much this relfects the metagame, or just dumb luck on someone's part, but the first repeat was the 11th place Elves list, there 17 different decks and I think it is 14 out of 32 decks that do not run FoW, as well as 12 without BS
Elves 4
Sultai Control 1
Storm 3
Merfolk 1
Grixis Delver 1
Affinity 1
Jeskai Delver 1
Omni-Tell 6
Miracles 2
Lands 1
Goblins 1
Reanimator 1
Death and Taxes 1
Temur Delver 2
Stoneblade 2
Maverick 3
Grixis Control 1

[TheArchitect]

In case anyone is interested, here are the top decks from today's SCG Open, with how many times the deck was in the top 32. sorted by the best finish of that deck type. Not certain on how much this relfects the metagame, or just dumb luck on someone's part, but the first repeat was the 11th place Elves list, there 17 different decks and I think it is 14 out of 32 decks that do not run FoW, as well as 12 without BS

Other interesting things:

- 8 of the top 16 decks had no brainstorms.
- Affinity with MD chalices, Tezz, and 3 Days Undoing.
- 2nd place is infact BUG control and not shardless BUG.
- Merfolk, goblins and maverick make more of appearance than normal.
- No BUG delver

[rufus]

...
- Affinity with MD chalices, Tezz, and 3 Days Undoing.

Yeah, Day's Undoing makes sense in affinity.

[Crimhead]

What was the top 8? I can't seem to find it on their site.

[sjmcc13]

What was the top 8? I can't seem to find it on their site.

Scroll down, when you see "DECKLISTS" on the right, click on "LEGACY" and the event will be the first one labeled "7/19 SCG Premier IQ Chicago, US"

- Affinity with MD chalices, Tezz, and 3 Days Undoing.

Affinity who went 6-0, then drew the next 2 rounds to enter the top 8 in 2nd place.

[jrsthethird]

You certainly don't lose to manascrew or -flood in Hearthstone.

One thing I really like is the mulligan they have there - replace any number of your starting hand cards with new draws. Too bad that in Magic, it would most likely end up in combo degeneracy (or an even bigger FoW circlejerks, who knows).

At least there are less "feel bad" moments because you had to mull to oblivion. The coin (basically a free lotus petal for the player on the draw) also compensates for alot of coin flip matches. At least according to Blizzard, it evened out the win percentage between play and draw.

Not to mention having an extra card on the "draw", which influences your mulligan choices.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Not to mention having an extra card on the "draw", which influences your mulligan choices.

Based on what was said about the "Coin" on the draw in Hearthstone, I would be interested to see how that would work in magic as a thought experiment. Say the player on the draw starts with 1 colorless mana that doesn't leave their pool until used - it would certainly make being on the draw against bullshit like turn 1 Delver/Daze more palatable.

[Dice_Box]

It woukd make being on the draw against Shops easier to swallow.

I think it it was to be done, it woukd have to be a kind of land card you put into place. Start with 'Tap, exile this land: Add (1) to your mana pool". The issue with that though is its hard to balance it. The amount of broken shit you can do with that extra mana...

[Admiral_Arzar]

It woukd make being on the draw against Shops easier to swallow.

I think it it was to be done, it woukd have to be a kind of land card you put into place. Start with 'Tap, exile this land: Add (1) to your mana pool". The issue with that though is its hard to balance it. The amount of broken shit you can do with that extra mana...

Yeah, I think the only way to determine whether it was good for the game or not would be to study statistics of games won on the play vs. on the draw before the change and after. If it evened up I would call it a success, if the player on the draw suddenly started winning 70% of the games that's obviously bad. But yeah, in Legacy and Vintage especially there are just so many feelbad things that can happen when you lose the roll - Daze, Delver, Wasteland, Chalice, Trinisphere, heck even Deathrite Shaman tend to make games super swingy when their controller is on the play.

[Gheizen64]

Based on what was said about the "Coin" on the draw in Hearthstone, I would be interested to see how that would work in magic as a thought experiment. Say the player on the draw starts with 1 colorless mana that doesn't leave their pool until used - it would certainly make being on the draw against bullshit like turn 1 Delver/Daze more palatable.

No need to get a rule change. Just make some cards that are better on the draw like Library (but obviously lower power level).

[MASTICATOR_NORD]

Say the player on the draw starts with 1 colorless mana that doesn't leave their pool until used - it would certainly make being on the draw against bullshit like turn 1 Delver/Daze more palatable.

This could legitimately break modern. It gives Bloom Titan a chance for a turn 1 kill even if it's not running Simian Spirit Guide, and I'm pretty sure it would give GrisShoalBrand a better chance at a turn 1 kill too. Not to mention the shenanigans Affinity could get into with an extra mana on their first turn.

[Admiral_Arzar]

This could legitimately break modern. It gives Bloom Titan a chance for a turn 1 kill even if it's not running Simian Spirit Guide, and I'm pretty sure it would give GrisShoalBrand a better chance at a turn 1 kill too. Not to mention the shenanigans Affinity could get into with an extra mana on their first turn.

I mean, sure, there would be negative consequences but it would have to be determined whether the positives outweighed them, or even whether to apply the change to non-eternal formats like Modern. In your example, this rule doesn't prevent either of those combo decks from folding to a turn one discard spell or Spell Pierce, which are currently huge issues for both of them when on the draw. However, overall Modern is a format where I am significantly LESS concerned with being on the draw than in Legacy - because of the lack of cards like Daze, DRS, Wasteland etc. the only huge blowouts due to being on the draw are when a combo deck has the nuts in my experience.

[Nielsie]

I made a spider for the TCDecks website to quickly gather data. It looks like the meta is in a worse state than during the TC-meta, at least when you look at the most played cards.

Cantrips evolution:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7d...ew?usp=sharing

( full data is available here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ion-since-2013 )

[Admiral_Arzar]

I made a spider for the TCDecks website to quickly gather data. It looks like the meta is in a worse state than during the TC-meta, at least when you look at the most played cards.

Cantrips evolution:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7d...ew?usp=sharing

( full data is available here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ion-since-2013 )

It seems that Treasure Cruise was merely the catalyst for driving the cantrip shell into the stratosphere. People realized that playing 16 cantrips was actually pretty good, and once Cruise was banned it appears they didn't actually stop playing heavy-cantrip shells. Dig Through Time or assorted big dudes with Delve slotted in where Cruise had been but the shell stayed roughly the same.

[nedleeds]

That graph is indicative of the format and its wretched staleness. The delve spells haven't done anything more than Misstep did, both drove the needle from 70% to 90%. Misstep era was basically a 52 card format just like we have now, a 48-52 card format. There's already a format built to have 12 must play cards, it's called Vintage, it's a shame Legacy is now just a shitty, powered down, more homogeneous version of Vintage.