All B/R update speculation.

[Lemnear]

There are safer cards on the list to be sure, but I'm not convinced that Mind's Desire would see that much competitive play if it were unbanned. The gap between being able to reliably chain Mind's Desires, and being able to just win with Tendrils is very small, and legacy storm decks are very mana cost sensitive.

There is a true word spoken by hinting at the small difference between casting a meaningful Desire and straight up Tutor-chaining, but Desire fits well in the slots where Ad Nauseam, the second PIF or Dark Petitions sit in ANT, creating threat density and cardadvantage. If I had to choose between running 4 Desire or AN + Dark Petitions, I'd go with the blue Spell

[Barook]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ent-2016-09-26

No changes. Oh well.

[Dice_Box]

No changes. Oh well.

Unsurprising.

[btm10]

Not surprising at all, especially with 6(or more?) big events between now and Aether Revolt. A lot has happened in the last few months, and I think letting the dust settle is prudent.

[Crimhead]

I think letting the dust settle is prudent.

This is a good reason to hold of on banning a boarder-line ban worthy offender. But it's not a very good reason to further delay any cards which might be deemed "probably safe". If WotC can print multiple new Legacy quality cards in the same set, there is no reason why they can't throw an unban into the mix.

Obviously WotC usually likes to save their unban for the prisoner exchange programme, but there might be more going on. For instance, if WotC are indeed trying to lure a few new players into the format, announcing that a card like Twist is being unbanned would be pretty much the opposite of the message they wish to market with (even if they were certain it would have a minimal impact).

[Stuart]

Earthcraft would have been nice, but I wasn't expecting an unban.

I'm a little surprised Drake wasn't banned in Pauper, not that anyone here cares.

[Zombie]

Earthcraft would have been nice, but I wasn't expecting an unban.

I'm a little surprised Drake wasn't banned in Pauper, not that anyone here cares.

I do. I took a look at Pauper for the first time in forever and was pretty much a kid opening presents in Christmas when I saw UR Drake. It looks like a lovely deck, probably the first exciting thing since they banned all the fun stuff and let Fissure-Post rule.

[Gheizen64]

There was a huge change. Conspiracies and playing for ante cards were removed from the banned list. Halleluja.

[alphastryk]

There was a huge change. Conspiracies and playing for ante cards were removed from the banned list. Halleluja.

Finally!

[Crimhead]

Earthcraft would have been nice, but I wasn't expecting an unban.

Given the recent reprint of Argothian Enchantress, I they might be planning to pull the trigger. Earthcraft is a card that's it's not a question of if they'll unban it, but rather when they'll unban it.

[Echelon]

There are safer cards on the list to be sure, but I'm not convinced that Mind's Desire would see that much competitive play if it were unbanned. The gap between being able to reliably chain Mind's Desires, and being able to just win with Tendrils is very small, and legacy storm decks are very mana cost sensitive.

How high do you think your stormcount should be before you cast your first Mind's Desire..? Stormcount 4/5 is perfectly fine to start the engine. Take it from someone who's actually played the card. It's beyond sick.

[Lord Seth]

There was a huge change. Conspiracies and playing for ante cards were removed from the banned list. Halleluja.

It actually was rather nice to get the Conspiracy cards off. Those did needlessly clutter it up.

[JamieW89]

Is there any interest in a Cockatrice tournament allowing any legacy legal cards + one unban (you could play 4 Earthcraft for example, or 4 Mind Twist, but not a mix of banned cards)? It would be a fun way to see what cards can do (like Caleb's series on CFB earlier).

Some cards shouldn't be allowed obviously, such as power or workshop. Below is the list that I was thinking of allowing, although several cards on there will clearly never come off:
Dig Through Time
Earthcraft
Frantic Search
Goblin Recruiter
Hermit Druid
Imperial Seal
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Mental Misstep
Mind Twist
Mind’s Desire
Mystical Tutor
Necropotence
Skullclamp
Survival of the Fittest
Treasure Cruise
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Yawgmoth’s Bargain

Do you guys think that some of these (Desire? Necro? Library? Clamp? Vault?) should be disallowed to make it more fun?

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

A tournament like that, the more the better. The appeal is playing busted cards.

Power, given what it is, is understandable (same with shops), but then it becomes fairly arbitrary if you start picking what should and shouldn't be allowed.

[Dice_Box]

I dislike walls of cards like that. The best way to do this in my view, start with what is weakest and work up from there. Dragon was a joke on the list, Recruiter is too imo. Start there, work your way up.

[Stevestamopz]

I have been playing banned cards sporadically at my weekly legacy events. The store/crowd were pretty encouraging with it.

Goblin Recruiter did basically nothing except give me a powerful late game. I still got smashed to pieces by fast combo, even with 3 Thalia, 3 Containment Priest and 3 Mindbreak Trap in the sideboard.

Survival was much better as it smashed BUG Delver and Loam to pieces. That said, Loam dude even with 3 Confidants flooded out and I won with KOTR alone. I never even cast Survival in one game. I will admit, cycling Shriekmaws and buying them back with Emrakul to take out 3 Kotr's in a row was pretty dope.

Unfortunately it was too slow against Elves (I didn't get enough turns to Loyal Retainers in Iona in the postboard game, although Iona should have been Elesh Norn and he had Surgical in hand, as he gleefully told me after).

Survival was far too slow against Jund, losing 1-2. The game I won I just hardcast 3 Vengevines, only once getting 2 back from the bin. I lost both postboard games to grave hate backed up by DRS and other typical Jund things. His Goyfs were much better than mine and Punishing Fire goes obviously a long way.

So yeah, not quite "1G- win the game" as has been said, but I think it would be a very solid deck, especially now that Deathrite is ubiquitous with Legacy and keeps the GY in check.

[Lemnear]

Is there any interest in a Cockatrice tournament allowing any legacy legal cards + one unban (you could play 4 Earthcraft for example, or 4 Mind Twist, but not a mix of banned cards)? It would be a fun way to see what cards can do (like Caleb's series on CFB earlier).

Some cards shouldn't be allowed obviously, such as power or workshop. Below is the list that I was thinking of allowing, although several cards on there will clearly never come off:
Dig Through Time
Earthcraft
Frantic Search
Goblin Recruiter
Hermit Druid
Imperial Seal
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Mental Misstep
Mind Twist
Mind’s Desire
Mystical Tutor
Necropotence
Skullclamp
Survival of the Fittest
Treasure Cruise
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Yawgmoth’s Bargain

Do you guys think that some of these (Desire? Necro? Library? Clamp? Vault?) should be disallowed to make it more fun?

Jamie, you can disallow the cards we know the effect of in the current metagame like TC or DTT and focus on cards which are not easy fits and plain more powerful iterations of existing cards. Stuff like bargain would replace Ad Nauseam and Will would do the same with PIF. Windfall and Wheel make sense to test due to the presence of all the counter in the format and us knowing that 4 mana Draw7 are already legal and no one cares for a reason. The tutors are ok to test, but there should be no surprises

[rufus]

How high do you think your stormcount should be before you cast your first Mind's Desire..? Stormcount 4/5 is perfectly fine to start the engine. Take it from someone who's actually played the card. It's beyond sick.

The math isn't that complicated.

In the list you posted, you have the following ways to get to the second Desire.

3x Sins of the Past
4x Burning Wish
3x Minds Desire
4x Plunge

And tendrils should also win

Suppose that you have to hit at least 1 of those 15 cards to win, then the chance to fizzle with 5 and 6 cards seems to be around 22 and 16% respectively.

If I pretend that it's 15 out of 48 because of the cyclers, it's a 14 and 9% chance to fizzle. So maybe a storm count of 5 is enough to try to go off under good conditions. So far so good.

However, the list you're showing is on an 'all-in' game plan. Suppose that you put your opponent on having FoW in hand. Now, if you can hit another storm card, you're in good shape, but the tutors can be countered effectively, so you'd need to hit two of them to go off - at that point the storm count needs to be higher to a have a good chance of winning. (I get ~ 16% chance to fizzle at 7 storm.)

[Fox]

So yeah, not quite "1G- win the game" as has been said, but I think it would be a very solid deck, especially now that Deathrite is ubiquitous with Legacy and keeps the GY in check.

That is a minority opinion in the recent discussion of this card. It being an absolute diversity killer among fair decks is more the issue.

[ironclad8690]

It being an absolute diversity killer among fair decks is more the issue.

I feel like it was a diversity killer when it was banned, but I am not so sure if that would be the case anymore. Typical fair decks have diminished greatly since the banning of survival, and everything else got better.

I mean, just take a look at the top decks the last time Survival was legal:



I don't think we need to worry about Merfolk or The Rock being dethroned at this point in time.

Miracles would still be the best deck, Delver variants would still be great, Eldrazi/Storm/Sneak would all still be very good. I don't see a survival unbanning causing much harm.