All B/R update speculation.

[Dice_Box]

In defence of Top its time issues really only exist in formats where Blue deck manipulation is not a thing. In Legacy most of the decks (ie not Miracles) that use the card at non Blue decks. The reason the card does not see more wide spread adoption is that Brainstorm and Ponder are better most of the time if you have access to them. The Reason top has issues in a format like Modern is that the water break does not exist. Why would people not just jam 4 into near on everything? You have nothing that is half as strong so you might as well just use top if you have it. Since that means there is a higher use, it becomes an issue due to miss use and over saturation. Legacy has different issues but Top is not one of them.

Not that the point doesn't hold up, cards have been band for logistics reasons and I could see that being what is sighted if the hammed came down on Top/Balance. It's not like it has not happened before.

[Crimhead]

Second Sunrise and Top.

Logistics has never been used in Legacy to ban out legitimate strategy.

I'm entirely not interested in the banned list philosophy of a format designed with kid gloves and training wheels; infamous for having onced banned a vanilla beater!

[Dice_Box]

I'm entirely not interested in the banned list philosophy of a format designed with kid gloves and training wheels; infamous for having onced banned a vanilla beater!

But the people who make the choices for that format make the choices for this one too. If they have shown a willingness to use constraints like time in 3 other formats (Vintage, Extended and Modern) then it's safe to assume that should they deem it necessary they will do the same to Legacy. I mean I they BANNED a card out of Vintage for this shit. You can say it was not a real strategy but think about that. BANNED a fucking Vintage card.

Just because Legacy is to this point untouched doesn't make it untouchable. And you can not care about the format you don't play, just think, those same people make the choices on our behalf too.

[Crimhead]

But the people who make the choices for that format make the choices for this one too.

But they can tell the difference, and all evidence suggests a very different philosophy in handling Modern (a format sculpted for aggressive marketing) vs Legacy (an organic format with a hands-off approach which is becoming an obscure relic). They have different goals for these formats, and a different target player base.

I mean I they BANNED a card out of Vintage for this shit. You can say it was not a real strategy but think about that. BANNED a fucking Vintage card.

I don't need to say it - they said it themselves!

Edit - I'm the first one to doubt WotC's honesty when explaining their decisions! Maybe Shahrazard was such a nightmare that it would have got the axe whether it was legitimate strategy or not; and maybe they thought that pretending that distinction mattered would go over better.

I think we can agree that Shahrazard is leaps and bounds worse than Top logistically. Shahrzard puts any board state on indefinite hold - most likely never to be relevant again. Top doesn't prevent a board state from (ever) advancing; it just slows the pace a little.

Just because Legacy is to this point untouched doesn't make it untouchable.

WotC can always change their approach. In theory we could see Caleb's wish-list bannings tomorrow! But the fact remains, there is no precedent in eternal formats for legitimate strategies being banned out for logistic reasons.

The Reason top has issues in a format like Modern is that...

Off topic, but most likely Top was banned for power reasons (regardless of the official "explanation"). How could a format where Preordain is considered OP ever accept such powerful deck manipulation as SDT?

[iatee]

When a deck is as successful and cheap as Miracles people of all skill levels are drawn to it. This is a downward force that contributes to why you don't see the "best deck" performing at or above it's percentage of the field, unless that deck is truly busted in half (think Vengvine, or Hulk Flash).
.

Historically, 'the best players' have been attracted to blue control strategies, across formats. This has been going on for 20 years now. So whenever a blue control deck is a t1 deck, it ends up being overrepresented by 'the best players'. Reactionary blue decks with a lot of answers give good players more room to leverage their skill and take advantage of mistakes - so leaning towards those decks is often rational decision and not purely just an issue of taste. You don't have a ton of room to outplay your opponent if you're playing Burn or Dredge (yes yes, not zero, just far less). And even D+T / Elves / Storm / Lands - T1 decks that require a lot of legacy experience and might be better situated for a given meta than Miracles - leave themselves more open to being outdrawn by a worse player + bad matchup.

But for a smaller tournament with no weak players to take advantage of - the recent SCG Players Champs - Miracles, despite being 'probably the best deck in legacy' was only an attractive choice for one player, who happens to be a God-like figure for the deck. Obviously that is a weird and super metagamed environment, but still, I think if we were in a period where there was a clearly oppressive deck or card in legacy, people going to one of the few tournaments w/ real money on the line would show up with it. I think 'the best players are attracted to difficult decks that give them a lot of flexibility to outplay their opponent' phenomenon probably led to Omni actually being underrepresented in the DTT era, relative to how consistent it was.

[GundamGuy]

Then knidly explain how a deck that's not tier one can be a DTB? You can't explain this because you don't understand it! This might seem abrasive, but you continually ignore this request and change the subject. So prove me wrong, eh?

If you want me to answer this question your first going to have to define what you mean by Tier 1, since there is NO actual commonly accpeted definition of what Tier 1 means. This is why the Source doesn't use the Tier 1 vs Tier 2 system, and isntead uses the DTB (Placement Points) system.

If you are arguging that by definition a DTB has to be Tier 1 because Tier 1 has been defined to be anything in the DTB, then congratulations on the tautology. Not much more to say here...

Here's what I said before... if you don't believe that Tier 1 and DTB are inhrently the same thing, it is entirely possible that a deck can spike a series of events in the period of a month and get enough placement points to break into the DTB... but then once it's known it falls off because it's not actually a Tier 1 deck... and was winning because it was preying on a specific meta or peoples ignorance of the deck or something equaly simple to adapt against.

Example: Is Elves actually Tier 1? Elves from time to time makes it into the DTB, but has no saying power and is out of the DTB more then it's in it?

So calling intellectual dishonesty is bad forum, but calling somebody lazy is cool? I'm not the person dismissing things. Answer the question I've asked you did times, or admit that you don't have an answer. You do this one thing, and I will resume adressing all your points. And note that I have not simply thrown the term around! I've used it twice, referring to your continuing ignoring of a question, and whats-his-name's sraw-man fallacy. That is apt use of the term.

I've answered it about 4 times now. The fact that you don't like the answer is not my problem.

DTB isn't a pure numbers game. It's not monkeys playing magic, where you have enough of them play any deck and that deck becomes the DTB. Your belief, if I understand correctly, is that the actual raw power of a deck is secondary to the number of people playing it when it comes to top 8 results (and there for DTB placement points)... and that you have enough people (who you've assumed to be perfect subsitutes for each other) play a deck that deck will inherently put up enough results to score enough placement points to be a DTB. Yeah that's true if you make a lot of horrible assumptions (people are perfectly subsitutes, skill doesn't matter, and win%'s are fixed....) but here in the real world that's not how it actually works.

As more and more people play a deck the results curve bends due to the weight of skill, as you add more and more unskilled players the expected value falls... this doesn't mean the deck isn't oppressive, it means your saying a deck isn't oppressive because most people are noobs and don't know how to actually play magic...

I take this to mean that you only think a Deck is a problem if it's so easy to play that even noobs can pick it up and crush with it... (AKA a obviously broken two card combo that involves no skills tests).

Citation required please. Note that I said " legitimate strategies". Shahrazard was not a legitimate strategy, and this is specifically noted in the associated banned announcement.

I can't find the actual announcment, but in March of 1999 the DCI banned both Time Spiral and Memory Jar in Legacy. (Or what Legacy was at the time...) One of the reasons given if I remember correctly was logical issues related to how Time Spiral pushed rounds way late. You have to consider that at this time, that the win condition then was much slower.

Yes Time Spiral has been unbanned... but the precedent was set.

Historically, 'the best players' have been attracted to blue control strategies, across formats. This has been going on for 20 years now. So whenever a blue control deck is a t1 deck, it ends up being overrepresented by 'the best players'. Reactionary blue decks with a lot of answers give good players more room to leverage their skill and take advantage of mistakes - so leaning towards those decks is often rational decision and not purely just an issue of taste. You don't have a ton of room to outplay your opponent if you're playing Burn or Dredge (yes yes, not zero, just far less). And even D+T / Elves / Storm / Lands - T1 decks that require a lot of legacy experience and might be better situated for a given meta than Miracles - leave themselves more open to being outdrawn by a worse player + bad matchup.

But for a smaller tournament with no weak players to take advantage of - the recent SCG Players Champs - Miracles, despite being 'probably the best deck in legacy' was only an attractive choice for one player, who happens to be a God-like figure for the deck. Obviously that is a weird and super metagamed environment, but still, I think if we were in a period where there was a clearly oppressive deck or card in legacy, people going to one of the few tournaments w/ real money on the line would show up with it. I think 'the best players are attracted to difficult decks that give them a lot of flexibility to outplay their opponent' phenomenon probably led to Omni actually being underrepresented in the DTT era, relative to how consistent it was.

Bold = Mine.

I agree some what with your first point. I think the mistake in the logic here is that Miracles isn't a busted deck, it's not unfair like Hulk Flash, so it's better to stick to what you know. Skill is the biggest factor in legacy...

Mine and I think a lot of other peoples opinion here is that a deck doesn't have to be busted in half or unfair to be Oppressive.

I agree that Omni was actually underepresented, and was quite possibly the best deck in the format at the time.

[rufus]

Isn't the official justification for the Shahrazad banning 'subgame creation' rather than anything in particular that has to do with logistics (in other words, a categorical ban similar to the 'ante' and 'dexterity' bans)?

[iatee]

Looking at the lists, I was wrong actually, there was another Miracles player in the 16 at the SCG event. Still, I think whatever advantages it has as being the best-against-the-field deck in legacy weren't worth more to 14/16 players than the value of having a powerful metagame deck.

[GundamGuy]

Looking at the lists, I was wrong actually, there was another Miracles player in the 16 at the SCG event. Still, I think whatever advantages it has as being the best-against-the-field deck in legacy weren't worth more to 14/16 players than the value of having a powerful metagame deck.

I wouldn't read into it too much.

IMO what it tells me is something we already knew, that familiarity with your deck is really important in Legacy.

[btm10]

Shardless is the only tier one deck out of that list, and that matchup has become less unfavorable since the adoption of Monastery Mentor.

As someone who plays a lot of BGx decks and is particularly fond of Shardless, this is nonsense. The more people cut Entreat, Lands, and 3rd and 4th copies of Jace for Mentor and Predict, the better the matchup is for Shardless. Your sideboard cards get better, your card advantage plan gets better, playing "protect the queen" with Liliana gets better, and your creatures get better since they're coming at you with a bunch of non-evasive tokens and Mentor itself is often no bigger than Goyf.

Off topic, but most likely Top was banned for power reasons (regardless of the official "explanation"). How could a format where Preordain is considered OP ever accept such powerful deck manipulation as SDT?

This actually isn't that off topic. It's not a slam-dunk to say that Top was banned purely for power or logistical reasons in Extended or Modern. Kamigawa Standard was a well-publicized logistical nightmare at the time (at least one Pro Tour had 60 or 70 minute rounds to minimize the number of unintentional draws) and while Top wasn't the only guilty party there - Gifts was a major time suck too- it was a major learning experience for WotC and likely led to their willingness to ban cards for logistical reasons. This is also (effectively) why The Four Horsemen combo is 'soft banned' even though it's not very good - it's possible to execute the combo without stalling or slow playing, but even permissible execution of the combo is extremely time consuming and judges have received explicit instructions to be very strict when warning people playing the deck for slow play, and with good reason (even those who argue for loosening the rules for demonstrating loops generally concede that the combo is a problem under the current rules). Not taking them at their word reeks of conspiratorial thinking that isn't justified by the evidence. Their handling of Legacy and Vintage can be poorly informed, but it's rarely if ever done to steer the format in some preordained direction, and their biases are clearly toward doing nothing rather than something.

[Mr. Safety]

Nitpicking, but top and Gifts were both printed in Champions at the same time. Regardless, I got the gist of your post and I agree.

[btm10]

Nitpicking, but top and Gifts were both printed in Champions at the same time. Regardless, I got the gist of your post and I agree.

You're right. I thought that Top might've been in Betrayers when I wrote that, but I remember that Gifts Control was one of the most taxing Standard decks I ever played.

[Darkenslight]

You're right. I thought that Top might've been in Betrayers when I wrote that, but I remember that Gifts Control was one of the most taxing Standard decks I ever played.

The only other Standard-era decks that even comes close are likely Eminent Domain and Warp World combo.

[Crimhead]

If you want me to answer this question your first going to have to define what you mean by Tier 1, since there is NO actual commonly accpeted definition of what Tier 1 means.

Tier one decks are a group of decks which ate better positioned in a given meta than any other decks. Obviously there is no precise definition as to where we distinguish between tier1 and tier2! But in this context, the idea is that there are decks listed in the DTBF which have made for reasons other than the quality of the deck.

I've answered it about 4 times now. The fact that you don't like the answer is not my problem...

...if you don't believe that Tier 1 and DTB are inhrently the same thing, it is entirely possible that a deck can spike a series of events in the period of a month and get enough placement points to break into the DTB... but then once it's known it falls off because it's not actually a Tier 1 deck... and was winning because it was preying on a specific meta or peoples ignorance of the deck or something equaly simple to adapt against.

I think this is the only time you've actually answered this - you've taken stabs at my explanation, but have yet to offer one yourself. If I somehow missed it before, I owe you an apology.

I wanna split hairs a little. If a deck runs well but drops off when people learned to prepare for it, there are two possibilities:

1. People didn't understand what the deck did or how to play against it. In this case, the results are not owed to the decks inherent strength, but rather to poor play from the opposition. This is not a tier one deck!
2. The deck was actually very well positioned, but people have modified their card and/or deck selection to answer it. In this case I'd argue thst the deck was in fact (briefly) tier-one, but that there was a shift in the meta.

DTB isn't a pure numbers game. It's not monkeys playing magic, where you have enough of them play any deck and that deck becomes the DTB. Your belief, if I understand correctly, is that the actual raw power of a deck is secondary to the number of people playing it when it comes to top 8 results (and there for DTB placement points)... and that you have enough people (who you've assumed to be perfect subsitutes for each other) play a deck that deck will inherently put up enough results to score enough placement points to be a DTB. Yeah that's true if you make a lot of horrible assumptions (people are perfectly subsitutes, skill doesn't matter, and win%'s are fixed....) but here in the real world that's not how it actually works.

I'm not under any such nonsensical notions (you must think I'm pretty thick, and I can only imagine your frustration). Obviously win-rates vary from match to match, and player to player.

However in mathematical theory land, every deck has an associated win-rate expected value. I say "in theory land" because we will never have the data to calculate this. We would need to accurately assess the win-rate of each MU, accounting for the probabilities each possible player-skill differential. We would need to know (with accuracy) the odds of each possible pairing; accounting for the different spread of decks at various stages of the event vs the chance of the deck in question making it to that level; as well as different stats for every possible variation of every possible archetype.

Of course in practise we will never know these numbers - even if we had all the information in the world and a super computer (like Dr Theo) to grind those numbers, there are probably not enough events in the world to give relaibe results. Nonetheless these stats do exist in theory. Once we accept this, tournaments are indeed "a numbers game". You like stats - you must have some respect for this?

As for player skill, I am (for the most part) unwilling to make any assumptions at all! In fact, I think you are the one who wants to assume that a lot of bad players chose Miracles!

As more and more people play a deck the results curve bends due to the weight of skill, as you add more and more unskilled players the expected value falls... this doesn't mean the deck isn't oppressive, it means your saying a deck isn't oppressive because most people are noobs and don't know how to actually play magic...

If we see Miracles has twice as many tops as the next runner up, but we note that there were twice as many people playing it, I simply observe that Miracles is placing at the same rate as the other deck. You seem to want to assume that Miracles has more crappy pilots than the other deck, and that if we neutralised the skill levels Miracles would place at a much higher rate. To me this is speculative, baseless, and an Ad Hoc. Why do all the bad pilots play Miracles and not against Miracles?

Me I make no such assumptions! I figure every established deck has its share of noobs and pros. The more data we have, the more it should average out. Are Miracles players less proficient with their decks than other players? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe the best players are disproportionate attracted to Blue based hard control while newbs would rather turn dudes sideways? Either way, this sort of speculation has little or no place in our analysis.

Your belief, if I understand correctly, is that the actual raw power of a deck is secondary to the number of people playing it when it comes to top 8 results (and there for DTB placement points)...

It's a mathematical function of the two. I define a decks raw power as it's theoretical expected win-rate as detailed above. If deckA sees more top8s (and DTB pps) than deckB, decks either has more raw power, more players, or both (unless we have valid reason to believe one deck has better pilots than the other).

So if one deck has enough raw power for a win-rate EV of 48%, but it has significantly more players than a deck with an EV of 55%, the first deck will earn significantly more DTBF pps despite being objectively worse. If those win-rate EVs are elusive and impossible to calculate with accuracy, well never know that the first deck is actually better - especially if we just look at the DTBF pps, and dismiss the higher player base because "people are playing the second deck because its better".

...I take this to mean that you only think a Deck is a problem if it's so easy to play that even noobs can pick it up and crush with it... (AKA a obviously broken two card combo that involves no skills tests).

Not at all. I think a deck is a problem if it sees very high numbers and the format lacks diversity of play styles (play-style being defined by the manner inwhich decks interact with each other).

Mine and I think a lot of other peoples opinion here is that a deck doesn't have to be busted in half or unfair to be Oppressive.

That's cool, but entirely subjective. What gets me is when people argue that Miracles is objectively oppressive!

There's a huge personal preference factor. Maybe there is somebody who loves Miracles mirrors, and would think Legacy is fine with just a few slight variations of a single archetype.

Of course this isn't my opinion! But I think 15% is nowhere near the point of oppression. What the exact number is, I can't say. I tolerate a higher number if that number is modest compared to the number of players pushing the deck. I also tolerate higher numbers if the deck adds something unique to the format. If 50% of the meta were Delver based tempo decks, I might want a ban even if the best such deck was only 10-12%.

Miracles is knd of unique in the meta, and we have a fairly good mix of tempo, midrange, combo, and control - and a variety of styles. A decent number of tier 1.5 decks can be very strong in the right meta (even a well established meta full of DTBs).

I just don't see anything unhealthy in the format. The only really legite complaints are that aggro is a bit weak (only Merfolk being very good), and that there aren't enough decks that can get around variance without running cantrips.

But I don't believe these are big issues, nor do I believe killing losing what I consider a unique control deck would fix these issues - or even be a good trade-off if it did. In close cases, I lean towards not bsnnng cards.

[GundamGuy]

Before the reply, I'll just say I think we are starting to get on the same page here.

Tier one decks are a group of decks which ate better positioned in a given meta than any other decks. Obviously there is no precise definition as to where we distinguish between tier1 and tier2! But in this context, the idea is that there are decks listed in the DTBF which have made for reasons other than the quality of the deck.

I think this is the only time you've actually answered this - you've taken stabs at my explanation, but have yet to offer one yourself. If I somehow missed it before, I owe you an apology.

I wanna split hairs a little. If a deck runs well but drops off when people learned to prepare for it, there are two possibilities:

1. People didn't understand what the deck did or how to play against it. In this case, the results are not owed to the decks inherent strength, but rather to poor play from the opposition. This is not a tier one deck!
2. The deck was actually very well positioned, but people have modified their card and/or deck selection to answer it. In this case I'd argue thst the deck was in fact (briefly) tier-one, but that there was a shift in the meta.

I'm not under any such nonsensical notions (you must think I'm pretty thick, and I can only imagine your frustration). Obviously win-rates vary from match to match, and player to player.

However in mathematical theory land, every deck has an associated win-rate expected value. I say "in theory land" because we will never have the data to calculate this. We would need to accurately assess the win-rate of each MU, accounting for the probabilities each possible player-skill differential. We would need to know (with accuracy) the odds of each possible pairing; accounting for the different spread of decks at various stages of the event vs the chance of the deck in question making it to that level; as well as different stats for every possible variation of every possible archetype.

Of course in practise we will never know these numbers - even if we had all the information in the world and a super computer (like Dr Theo) to grind those numbers, there are probably not enough events in the world to give relaibe results. Nonetheless these stats do exist in theory. Once we accept this, tournaments are indeed "a numbers game". You like stats - you must have some respect for this?

As for player skill, I am (for the most part) unwilling to make any assumptions at all! In fact, I think you are the one who wants to assume that a lot of bad players chose Miracles!

If we see Miracles has twice as many tops as the next runner up, but we note that there were twice as many people playing it, I simply observe that Miracles is placing at the same rate as the other deck. You seem to want to assume that Miracles has more crappy pilots than the other deck, and that if we neutralised the skill levels Miracles would place at a much higher rate. To me this is speculative, baseless, and an Ad Hoc. Why do all the bad pilots play Miracles and not against Miracles?

Me I make no such assumptions! I figure every established deck has its share of noobs and pros. The more data we have, the more it should average out. Are Miracles players less proficient with their decks than other players? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe the best players are disproportionate attracted to Blue based hard control while newbs would rather turn dudes sideways? Either way, this sort of speculation has little or no place in our analysis.

It's a mathematical function of the two. I define a decks raw power as it's theoretical expected win-rate as detailed above. If deckA sees more top8s (and DTB pps) than deckB, decks either has more raw power, more players, or both (unless we have valid reason to believe one deck has better pilots than the other).

So if one deck has enough raw power for a win-rate EV of 48%, but it has significantly more players than a deck with an EV of 55%, the first deck will earn significantly more DTBF pps despite being objectively worse. If those win-rate EVs are elusive and impossible to calculate with accuracy, well never know that the first deck is actually better - especially if we just look at the DTBF pps, and dismiss the higher player base because "people are playing the second deck because its better".

Not at all. I think a deck is a problem if it sees very high numbers and the format lacks diversity of play styles (play-style being defined by the manner inwhich decks interact with each other).

That's cool, but entirely subjective. What gets me is when people argue that Miracles is objectively oppressive!

There's a huge personal preference factor. Maybe there is somebody who loves Miracles mirrors, and would think Legacy is fine with just a few slight variations of a single archetype.

I did not mean to imply that Miracles has more noobs then other decks.

The point I was attempting to make is that every deck rewards skilled play, but not every deck do so to the same extent. Another way to put this is I think some decks rewared skilled play more then others. Now I think this is often overstated or understated... people often understate skill when it comes to non-blue decks (Just turn dudes sideways) and over state it when it comes to Blue decks... but in the case of miracles I think it's actually very true that a skilled player has a much better chance of success then a non-skilled player.

It's for that reason that I think this is actually wrong.

So if one deck has enough raw power for a win-rate EV of 48%, but it has significantly more players than a deck with an EV of 55%, the first deck will earn significantly more DTBF pps despite being objectively worse

This is true if you don't peel back the layers and consider why the decks expected value rate is only 48%? Because Miracles is so skill testing and has a very steep skill - win ratio curve, it could be that the large number of players are dragging the EV down. I believe it's possible that if only the 10 best miracles players were allowed to play miracles we'd see Miracles Top 8's only slighty decline.

OPINION: Miracles has one of the steepst Skill - Win Ratio curves of any legacy deck in a long time. Perhaps only Doomsday is steeper...

This is what I why I feel that pointing to Miracles Top8's vs % of field is a bit misleading, and that in general this way of thinking about things doesn't account for one of the biggest factors in legacy... skill.

Of course this isn't my opinion! But I think 15% is nowhere near the point of oppression. What the exact number is, I can't say. I tolerate a higher number if that number is modest compared to the number of players pushing the deck. I also tolerate higher numbers if the deck adds something unique to the format. If 50% of the meta were Delver based tempo decks, I might want a ban even if the best such deck was only 10-12%.

Miracles is knd of unique in the meta, and we have a fairly good mix of tempo, midrange, combo, and control - and a variety of styles. A decent number of tier 1.5 decks can be very strong in the right meta (even a well established meta full of DTBs).

I just don't see anything unhealthy in the format. The only really legite complaints are that aggro is a bit weak (only Merfolk being very good), and that there aren't enough decks that can get around variance without running cantrips.

But I don't believe these are big issues, nor do I believe killing losing what I consider a unique control deck would fix these issues - or even be a good trade-off if it did. In close cases, I lean towards not bsnnng cards.

I see your point of view, and of course on point of view questions this is going to be entirely subjective.

IMO: Miracles is unique in the meta, because it's eating the lunch of all the other decks that would normally be filling that role. I also think that barring banning Brainstorm, Ponder, or Force of Will, there will alwasy be a unique control deck in Legacy. The control shell has alwasy been pretty good, and alwasy will be... the card selection, coutners, and removal are all too good (even without Terminus, Top, or Counterbalance) for there to not be a unique control deck in legacy.

And again I know this is subjective and you are happy with the mix of tempo, midrange, combo, and control in legacy, but I personally think it's actually pretty flat right now.

Also IMO, if Merfolk is the best Aggro deck right now, then frankly there is no good aggro deck, because Merfolk is not a good deck.

[Ellomdian]

Looking at the lists, I was wrong actually, there was another Miracles player in the 16 at the SCG event. Still, I think whatever advantages it has as being the best-against-the-field deck in legacy weren't worth more to 14/16 players than the value of having a powerful metagame deck.

I would be careful using a very inbred (by design) event to extrapolate data. A quarter of the field was on Grixis Delver, and 3 people were on Death and Taxes (and could just have easily been on Infect...)

[iatee]

Sure it's inbred, but it's still an event where people could reasonably expect to face nothing but strong players playing t1 legacy decks and were playing for real money. As 'probably the best deck in legacy, and the one with the most generalized answers', you're not going to be that punished for showing up with it, it's not like anyone was gonna show up with 12 Post.

But it still isn't so much better than any other T1 deck that these guys were throwing money away by not showing up with 'the best deck'. There are metas where the best deck is so much clearly better that you either show up with it or show up with the deck designed to beat it, and we're not there in legacy.

[GundamGuy]

it's not like anyone was gonna show up with 12 Post.

Maybe someone should have....

[oarsman]

Three points aimed at the people wanting Top banned:

If your goal is to get rid of Miracles, banning Counterbalance is the better way to go. Top is actually used in some other decks whereas Counterbalance is worthless by itself. Losing either one will wipe out Miracles. It isn't dropping to tier 2 like some people have argued before. It will disappear without the combo.

If judges enforced slow play at events, the time issue would mostly go away. It would still come up occasionally, but a lot of the players piling up draws would be the inexperienced ones. People more accustomed to the deck would learn to play it faster when they were finally forced to do so. I am not a counterexample here, since while I have more experience than anybody I still frequently play slowly. On numerous occasions I have told judges that I deserve a slow play warning and they still will not penalize me. But if forced to play faster, I would.

Finally, the number one reason why players hate miracles is because they drag out the process of dying. On storm's combo turn, a player may die over the course of two minutes. Against miracles many people are effectively dead, but continue playing for 10 minutes before actually getting killed. So in both cases the player lost a single game, but one feels much worse because the funeral lasted five times as long. This is common for control decks in all formats, but the psychological effect takes a long time to get used to. I believe this is why experienced players do not hate control decks to the degree that newer players do.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Three points aimed at the people wanting Top banned:

If your goal is to get rid of Miracles, banning Counterbalance is the better way to go. Top is actually used in some other decks whereas Counterbalance is worthless by itself. Losing either one will wipe out Miracles. It isn't dropping to tier 2 like some people have argued before. It will disappear without the combo.

I'd love to know if Forbid-LFTL would be viable in a non-CB world. Life could be used as a CA/CQ engine and it makes sure that the control player won't miss land drops.Sure it's not the best play to LFTL on turn2, and Forbid is too mana-intensive compared to CB/Top, but it's the best that I can come with in case I'd have to find a Countertop surrogate.

Some kind of old UGw control might take a Miracles' place in case the deck would be killed by banhammer.