Interesting experiment.
I've tried to break Hermit Druid and Metalworker, but ended up without much success.
Hermit Druid was used in slightly modified Hermit Reanimator list from the old Extended. Turned out that the combo is very fragile and you pretty much lose the game if there is a well-timed Swords, Fanatic, Tormods Crypt, counter or any removal whatsoever (which is pretty rampant in Legacy).
I ran this against Goblins, Threshold and Solidarity a few times, but gave up pretty quickly because I lost too much.
Metalworker was also less than stellar. I built an artifact prison deck with Staff of Domination for a combo kill around it. While it fared better than the Hermit Druid deck, it had similar problems concerning removal and counters. The deck sometimes choked on me because I was stuck on high-cc artifacts when I couldn't use Metalworker. Also, Null Rod, Kataki and Serenity destroyed this deck.
I basically think it is worse than affinity while having the same problems.
I don't think "real" creatures deserve to be on the banned list simply because creature-based strategies are so fragile. Also, the unbanned Goblin Lackey is better than both Hermit Druid and Metalworker.
Edit: Earthcraft is being tested in a combo deck with Squirrel Nest, but so far it has not been doing very well. It is also severly underpowered when compared to Solidarity and Iggy Pop. There is no definitive conclusion yet, as there is something I might be overlooking. If someone manages to break this one, please post a decklist.
Last edited by Bongo; 09-17-2006 at 06:51 AM.
I'll be honest with you, almost definately not. There's just no other deck that would ever want to even think about playing MoM. I think that alone is a fairly good indication of whether or not it deserves to be on the banned list. It sucks, plain and simple. I goldfished the list a bit and when MoM was resolved mid-combo you would simply never fizzle, but that deck barely ever fizzles anyway, and MoM is an incredibly huge dead draw in the opening hand.Originally Posted by mogote
I can still put this through a gauntlet, just to see if by some miracle some matchups change for better, but I think it's pretty much confirmed. MoM sucks.
A couple of ideas:
MoM + Niv Mizzet = shot for 40
MoM + Quicksilver dagger = the same
MoM + Kiki + eee, Kavu Climber?
MoM + Arcanis
MoM as a part of Survival / opposition deck
MoM as a part of some new Tinker?
MoM + Cabal Coffers - da, good luck
Ehh... forget.
Common Sense was reprinted as rare.
Eh... I'm going to work on a Rector list that uses MoM + Niv-Mizzet to win the game instantly. Of course, it'll have all the weaknesses of decks like that, mainly that graveyard hate eats it alive and it's not going to be at all resilient, but we'll see. I'll get back to you with the list.
Rifter kind of screams to get it's hands on Land Tax doesn't it? Other than Loam control decks that would suck it up like mad, I think Legacy could handle the old Scroll tax decks being back. Parfait never was that great, it's just fun and different. Still Life from the loam will probably keep Land tax out forever now.
Illusionary mask still has the Phyrexian Dreadnaught combo that requires no power whatsoever to be fast. Dark Ritual - Mask - Naut seems pretty fast to me. Even Lord of Tressorhorn is pretty scary.
Hermit Druid is there because of the Sutured Ghoul reanimation combo. It was a turn 2 kill hasted Ghoul 20/20 that killed that one. I still wouldn't want to see that back even if it dies to swords. Just means everyone has to play a Bolt, FOW, or Swords in their deck and well that means the current combo decks become too slow all of a sudden. I hate relying on drawing one card to stop a super fast combo.
Mom is probably the only one worth bothering looking at anymore, the rest are there for a pretty good reason that won't get outdated anytime soon.
And everyone does so due to Goblin Lackey appearing all the time. It's a different age, man.Just means everyone has to play a Bolt, FOW, or Swords in their deck
Common Sense was reprinted as rare.
I've always thought that Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest should be in an enchantress deck. So much easier to kill with than Necra Sanctuary. Plus the ability to tap your own enchantresses to untap Santum is sweet.
With WHAT? Is it supposed to be a joke?So much easier to kill with than Necra Sanctuary.
Da, :Plus the ability to tap your own enchantresses to untap Santum is sweet.
Common Sense was reprinted as rare.
So this pretty much boils down to one of those threads that's "I want this off the banned list". Your not going to convince Wizards of anything, The format is healthy. Look's like you want to make a format that's more broken then Vintage.
Also how testing do you need to know that Land Tax, Minds Desire, and Windfall are broken?? Not much. Mind over Matter how ever, proabably the least broken, right now, but it can stay gone.
Quote Scrumdogg @ Amrod's:
"Didn't you know that Mike Glow invented this format?? We are all just renting it."
The EPIC Syndicate - Grindermen
Team Disquailified Poster Duey Cheatem & Howe.
The stories of my demise have been grossly exaggerated
You said Land Tax was broken? LOL.
Mind Over Matter isn't broken at all. In fact, I guarantee there isn't a single deck that would EVER want to play it for any reason whatsoever. It sucks. Why the hell should it stay on the banned list when it's not going to see ANY play if it were off?
Land Tax may or may not be broken, that's what we're testing to find out. Windfall and Mind's Desire are both broken, that much we know. There has just been doubt expressed over whether or not they should be on the banned list or not by some members, hence the testing.
This has nothing to do with what we want, it has everything to do with what SHOULD happen.
I still would suggest testing mask-naught. I have a list built that I've been testing and it's fast, but really inconsistent and fragile. Besides, it's a combo that doesn't win when you play it. Infact you give your opponent two draw steps to find an answer.
Si, I like cereal.
The thing is, the combo has two fundamental weaknesses. First, Druid as an enabler is extremely vulnerable to almost every removal spell out there. Second, Sutured Ghoul as a win condition also can get handled by Swords, bounce, tap effects like Fire/Ice, Terminate, Putrify and Mortify which are seeing play in Legacy.
Edit: A flashbacked Therapy *can* clear the way, however, there are often multiple cards that wreck you (Swords, FoW, Daze, Counterspell in Gro alone) so a single Therapy won't save you.
Also, turn 2 kills are the exception, not the norm since you don't always draw Hermit Druid. The question you have to ask yourself: is this any better than other combo like IggyPop, Solidarity or even Belcher? My answer would be - no.
If you want to go the fattie route, the modern Reanimator lists are superior than a Hermit-based AngryGhoul combo imo.
Last edited by Bongo; 09-17-2006 at 05:25 PM.
Hmm, well, too bad it isn't one of those, but nice try.
Fixed your grammar =) The format may be healthy, but there's also no sense in having a B/R list that's cluttered with old, non-useable cards or cards which were a mystery being banned in the first place. This isn't just a whiny cry to, "Unabn <Insert Banned Card>!!" People are actually testing out specific cards to see if their place on the list is indeed warranted. Of course there are cards that I would rather not see come off (Desire, Bargain, perhaps Oath), but the reason for ACTUALLY testing the rest is to see if they indeed are too powerful and format warping, or if they're readily handled by today's meta.
Well, at the moment, I'm not seeing Land Tax's 'Uberness,' factor, but then that's why we're, omg, testing it to see. Confinement seems like a good start for it. Desire, well, duh, pretty powerful, but no sense not to test it; the same with Windfall. I think this thread could be very beneficial in providing the data to at least give some answers to either side of the debate.
My opinions:
I don't know if anyone realizes this but there is already a deck that is Replenish starved. Solitaire would be rediculous with the card. It would have an amazing game against Control decks because of this card and this card alone. This means that it would beat aggro and control and the only deck I can think of that it would lose to is Solidarity. Now thats a healthy format: Solidarity vs. Solitaire.
Metal Worker + Staff of Domination is infinate mana. When this can happen on turn 2 it sounds kinda sick. This is a little better than Lackey and everyone wants to have him banned.
// Lands
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [MI] Crystal Vein
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [DS] Darksteel Citadel
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
// Creatures
2 [DS] Sundering Titan
2 [4E] Triskelion
4 [UD] Metalworker
// Spells
4 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [MR] Mindslaver
4 [FD] Staff of Domination
4 [DS] Trinisphere
4 [US] Smokestack
Vamp is something I don't think would be overpowered. It would only imrpove consistancy which isn't a bad thing. It was in extended a couple of years ago and wasn't overpowered at all. In fact it made a lot of decks viable that weren't at all before. A deck that I would love to see play in Legacy is Cephalid Life.
From old Extended:
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Brushland
1 Caves of Koilos
4 City of Brass
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Llanowar Wastes
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Underground River
1 Yavimaya Coast
2 Starlit Sanctum
3 Nomads en-Kor
3 Daru Spiritualist
2 Krosan Cloudscraper
1 Sutured Ghoul
3 Cephalid Illusionist
4 Brainstorm
1 Dragon Wings
1 Dragon Breath
1 Exhume
4 Vampiric Tutor
3 Living Wish
2 Krosan Reclamation
2 Shuko
1 Worthy Cause
2 Worldly Tutor
1 Reanimate
3 Cabal Therapy
4 AEther Vial
SB: 1 Starlit Sanctum
SB: 1 Nomads en-Kor
SB: 1 Daru Spiritualist
SB: 1 Cephalid Illusionist
SB: 1 Dragon Shadow
SB: 2 Kami of Ancient Law
SB: 1 Battlefield Scrounger
SB: 2 Gilded Drake
SB: 1 Forsaken City
SB: 1 Energy Field
SB: 1 Rootwater Thief
SB: 1 Bone Shredder
SB: 1 Uktabi Orangutan
Now thats a deck, and Vamp would only produce more decks that are rediculously hard to play and very scary when they are played correctly. Vamp would up the learning curve to enter the format because it would make the format much more skill-intensive and much more fun to play.
Heh, considering Lackey isn't that great aside from first turn and only if you have an Incinerator in hand to deal with chum-blockers, then I'm not too worried about Metalworker. Honestly, Vial is the MVP of Goblins, since you don't have to deal direct damage to get a creature in.
Swear to god, I've played against builds that use that.
If Cephalid Life is the best thing you can do with Vamp, you're not trying very hard.
this seems to be getting pretty bad right now. Its jsut an experiment, so what if it is obivously broken. Doesnt hurt to try right? You can provide somethign that looks broken, now test it. See what happens, thats what I'm trying. No need to soudn all pissed off and all.
@ the Legacy metagame: yea its healthy and all, but there coudl be more decks that would be viable and not broken. Adding more equally viable decks to play isnt bad. is it?
The deck you posted is very similar to my testing version. While on paper it seems like a behemoth, there were a few problems.
First, MonoBrown has a high mulligan percentage, since you often are stuck with hands that don't have the right mix of mana accel and threats.
Second, the deck starts to falter when Metalworker is handled by removal or by timely Wastelands.
Third, quick testing against some DtBs show that MonoBrown is not as favored as it is supposed to be. Deadguy and Threshold were tough, especially when going second.
Fourth, unlike Goblins, MonoBrown is not resistant to hate. Null Rod, Serenity, Kataki and similar artifact hate takes this deck down.
Conclusion: Metalworker is not broken.
On the other hand, Cephalid Life? Try Vamp in Tendrils combo...
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