All B/R update speculation.

[Sidneyious]

"stop combo"
"Play spells"

What do you want again?
Magic is all about playing spells, just so happens that you play cards that don't compete anymore.

[Lemnear]

Because there is an absurd assertion that the format is becoming non-interactive on the grounds that competitive decks are running cards like Decay or Chalice.

Because "you can't play spells" cards are promoting interaction ... sure, bro.

when these cards are sideboard answers for certain problems, they are not stifling interaction - there either not used at all, or they are actually preventing non-interaction.

You don't see an issue if you have to sideboard cards to be able to play at all? It funny to talk about "certain problems" if 22.9% of Legacy decks run Decay and 22% run Caverns of Souls which clearly hint at clear interaction issues in the Legacy metagame on all ends

[btm10]

I can't get why you are so focussed on the narrow "It must be mainboard and the card must be the strategy itself". You could use that point of view and argue that Miracles' success has nothing to do with CounterTop, but with Entreat, which I hope, no one is really doing.

Since I'm the one who thinks Entreat is the best ban, let me clarify. I don't think Entreat is why Miracles succeeds, I think it's the ban that allows you to leave most of the format's premier Control deck intact while rebalancing the meta in a healthy way. If the currently competitive BGx decks (BUG and Loam) didn't have to worry about Entreat Miracles, their Miracles matchups go from even-to-favorable to 'solidly/substantially favorable', giving Miracles about the same number of bad tier 1 matchups as the rest of the top tier. Banning Top or Counterbalance (which, given the play patterns they create, are far and away the most likely targets if WotC acts) devaststes Ux Control - you probably can't play a traditional control deck and beat the format's creature decks reliably enough while keeping combo matchups even only slightly unfavorable.

No. Miracles is not Tier Zero. Not even close. You want a Tier Zero deck? Look at the Eldrazi in Modern before it got banned. That was a Tier Zero deck. Miracles is nowhere near that.

Though I do often wonder to what extent the format would shift if the prices weren't so obscenely high. There are decks that are pretty good against Miracles. 12-Post, for example, mops the floor with it. However, 12-Post also requires investing in Candelabras and also picking up a Tabernacle or two, which are cards that are very restrictive in the decks they can go into. If you pay all that money for Candelabras, you can't use them in another deck unless you want to pick up High Tide which really isn't that good nowadays. People tend to make their monetary investments into cards that can go in a variety of decks, which is true of basically every expensive card in Miracles. Of course, conversely, it might be that the high prices are what keep people with their current decks and there would be less diversity if prices were lower as everyone would just hop over to Miracles. I guess you just have to deal with the format as it is.

Eldrazi is a misleading comparison. When a linear deck is the obvious best thing to be playing its dominance tends to be obvious: it breaks fundamemtal rules of the format in terms of speed and gives opponents limited opportunity to interact. Caw Blade is a far better comparison, since control decks warp metagames in a different way than aggro or combo decks when they're too good. Individual games tend to be skill intensive and feel close, but especially over long tournaments the superiority of the control deck is borne out. Miracles is never going to capture an entire GP top 8, but how many times does it have to get 3-4 slots before something is done?

As for cost being the real problem, I don't buy it. Eldrazi is the (actually competitive) deck that's best against Miracles and its success in 15 round tournaments has been shockingly limited despite that. It has the same problem as 12Post in terms of glaring weaknesses to certian decks/strategies, but people piling in to play it hasn't done anything to Miracles' position as top dog.

[Ronald Deuce]

Someday one hopes people will realize how ridiculous it is to claim that putting "can't be countered" on a card is anything but bad design. Or that stopping one-mana cards wholesale with one lock-piece is anything else either. Or to claim that decks capitalizing on zero- or one-mana cards "can't compete anymore," or that that'd be a good thing.

I'm not holding my breath.

There's been an increasing trend toward cards that themselves are intended to sidestep interaction altogether starting with Time Spiral block (Split Second), and though few see play in Legacy, the ones that do are becoming increasingly important because there's little one can do against singular cards that blank over half the cards in combo decks like Storm from the first turn.

I don't blame people for playing the cards; they're in the format, and they answer those kinds of combo decks. But wiping out a deck on the first turn (without winning the game, in case it wasn't irksome enough as it was) isn't interactive, and playing responses to which there is definitionally no answer (aside from Time Stop or Sundial) isn't creative, interesting, or interactive. Now that's not a problem when the deck that runs those cards needs to screw around for a while in order to actually put together a win, but the prime offenders in this day and age don't need to do that. They either hulk out right away with equally poorly designed cards or they just keep playing lock-pieces of sufficient diversity that there's no way to break through.

I still don't like banning anything, but it's pretty obvious that the Kantrip Kings aren't worthy of it—especially not right now—and that Wizards is pushing one type of strategy, prison-control, really hard right now, and that's bad for fun, bad for the format, and bad for the game.

It's interesting to see that there's so little consensus about which cards should be banned, and I think it has to do not simply with the diversity of decks people who post here play, but with the fact that people are using different criteria to gauge whether they think cards should be banned. Chief among them, it seems, is whether a card angers people because they don't like to deal with it, which isn't a valid criterion. Enables/forces slow play? Maybe valid. Stifles format-diversity? Probably valid. "I don't like it because it's good but I can't play it in my pet deck/because a lot of people play it?" Not so much.

+1 for unbanning Frantic Search. Seriously, somebody throw that scroll-slinging guy a beverage, or something. He seems really stressed out.

[Lemnear]

Since I'm the one who thinks Entreat is the best ban, let me clarify. I don't think Entreat is why Miracles succeeds, I think it's the ban that allows you to leave most of the format's premier Control deck intact while rebalancing the meta in a healthy way. If the currently competitive BGx decks (BUG and Loam) didn't have to worry about Entreat Miracles, their Miracles matchups go from even-to-favorable to 'solidly/substantially favorable', giving Miracles about the same number of bad tier 1 matchups as the rest of the top tier. Banning Top or Counterbalance (which, given the play patterns they create, are far and away the most likely targets if WotC acts) devaststes Ux Control - you probably can't play a traditional control deck and beat the format's creature decks reliably enough while keeping combo matchups even only slightly unfavorable.

I still think, pointing at the 1 Entreat the deck might runs is nothing more than bait, given its Mentor which overtook both Entreat and Jace as the prime kill condition.

The second part essentially demands that CounterTop + Terminus should remain legal that there has to be a Ux deck which crushes Combo and Aggro, aka leaving everything as it is. I see no argument for why an UNTRADITIONAL control deck like Miracles should get special protection, as traditional control decks are not supposed to beat every aggro deck with ease

Someday one hopes people will realize how ridiculous it is to claim that putting "can't be countered" on a card is anything but bad design. Or that stopping one-mana cards wholesale with one lock-piece is anything else either. Or to claim that decks capitalizing on zero- or one-mana cards "can't compete anymore," or that that'd be a good thing.

This.

We try to counter the "all your spells get countered" permanents with "cant be countered" effects and people call that "interaction". Disturbing

[Stevestamopz]

Maybe everyone playing decks that get crushed by Miracles need to just adjust to the format and change decks. If you lose to a deck, it's your fault.

[Mr Miagi]

Maybe everyone playing decks that get crushed by Miracles need to just adjust to the format and change decks. If you lose to a deck, it's your fault.

But what rally beats miracles so hard? Other than maybe 12 post, but now even with back to basics/e-bridge as eldrazi colaterall damage hurts 12 post.. mentor builds can also put some pressure.. so.. again, what deck does really beat miracles tot he ground?

[Lemnear]

But what rally beats miracles so hard? Other than maybe 12 post, but now even with back to basics/e-bridge as eldrazi colaterall damage hurts 12 post.. mentor builds can also put some pressure.. so.. again, what deck does really beat miracles tot he ground?

Thats the critical point. The only decks which are supposed to have a really good miracles matchup, get slapped by SB back to basics or bloodmoons

[Crimhead]

Because "you can't play spells" cards are promoting interaction ... sure, bro.

If Chalice is preventing a combo deck from ending the game on the spot - forcing them to find an answer - that does in fact promote interaction. If AD is removing a Bloodmoon, RIP, Ensnaring Bridge, etc, that is also creating opportunities for interaction.

You don't see an issue if you have to sideboard cards to be able to play at all?

Technically you can play without a sideboard, but if you want to compete you'd better bring one that's right for your meta. I don't see a problem with this. You get rid of side boards and we'd need to ban a shit-load of cards - anything that attacks the game from an unusual angle would need to be banned because it can blind-side the "fair" decks. I don't particularly want to play a "fair deck" format, thanks all the same.

So, yes, I think it's a very good thing that we have a format where we need access to SBs to ensure we can interact with all the established decks.

Think of it this way - if WotC were to eliminate SBs, which format would be more affected, Standard or Legacy? I'm guessing Legacy, because this is a format where we need our more narrow cards in order to deal with the wide range of strategies and play-styles this game has to offer. To me, that's a feature of Legacy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I think this must come down to the facts that I enjoy Legacy very much as is - it's a fantastic game imo - while you apparently do not. It's okay if you are not happy with the state of the meta, but don't try to gain sympathy to that view by telling us Legacy is not an interactive format. I play the game, and if I finish before time I watch the other matches. In my experience, non-interactive games are by far the exception. No amount of hyperbole to the effect of "not being able to play magic" or "not being able to resolve any spells" will alter my experiences.

[Fox]

If Chalice is preventing a combo deck from ending the game on the spot - forcing them to find an answer - that does in fact promote interaction. If AD is removing a Bloodmoon, RIP, Ensnaring Bridge, etc, that is also creating opportunities for interaction.

To a degree sure, but you're not playing a real game of magic if opponent is going to run unlinked threats and cast a card that an opponent (with linked threats) can't win through. I think modern is very much to blame for this idea that "I have a good matchup vs X b/c I have sideboard card Y." The issue is that actually no, you don't have a matchup at all...your SB strat is to not play an interactive game at all. That is of course unavoidable in modern where there is no real threat of LD or meaningful interaction on the stack, which leads to just sideboarding "can't lose to that" cards.

The worst offenders in non-interactive card design are generally white cards, and the practice of SB in Decay (which is also somewhat uninteractive) and draw it to remove that enemy card isn't exactly fun, intelligent, or interactive. The reason Chalice is interactive is that doesn't defend itself and has very real implications on deck design. It's miserable to play against Chalice, but you still have a real game of magic.

[Crimhead]

To a degree sure, but you're not playing a real game of magic if opponent is going to run unlinked threats and cast a card that an opponent (with linked threats) can't win through.

What's a real game of magic? I like descriptive language better than emotive language.

Regarding Modern, I never played it and seldom bother to think about it. It has zero influence on my attitude towards Legacy, which I've been playing before Modern even existed.

[iatee]

Chalice "doesn't defend itself"? "Opponent can't play any card in their hand" is a pretty good way to defend your Chalice. Most t1 Chalice games in legacy vs blue decks aren't remotely "real games of Magic", especially g1 vs not-GB decks.

The implications on deck design are minor e.g. nobody is playing Impulse because Impulse is still a bad card. Maybe the % of Shatter effects in SBs is marginally higher. Legacy decks are still priced into cheap spells because of Wasteland + Daze + Thalia and you see those cards more than you see Chalice. The implications are instead on the meta e.g. Storm will never again be a t1 deck as long as Chalice Stompy is the most played deck in the format.

Were Chalice banned, I think Thorn would be a fair replacement, and Eldrazi would be a fine tier 1.5 deck, which is where mindless 'ramp into big creatures and attack with everything each turn' decks belong. T2 TKS T3 Reality Smasher remains 'pretty good.' The deck just doesn't get to also be a turn 1 combo deck.

[Lemnear]

If Chalice is preventing a combo deck from ending the game on the spot - forcing them to find an answer - that does in fact promote interaction. If AD is removing a Bloodmoon, RIP, Ensnaring Bridge, etc, that is also creating opportunities for interaction.

Following that logic, Emrakul is an interactive card, because it forces opponents to run specific answers and is removing Bloodmoon, RIP, etc via Annhilator

[Crimhead]

Were Chalice banned, I think Thorn would be a fair replacement, and Eldrazi would be a fine tier 1.5 deck, which is where mindless 'ramp into big creatures and attack with everything each turn' decks belong.

This is called picking winners - using the banhammer to engineer decks are allowed to be T1 and which are not. Most of us do not want a hands-on approach like this - among other things it makes the process very subjective and arbitrary.

[Shax]

Moving on, I feel like they should unban Earthcraft, and maybe something like Mystical Tutor or Gush.

Earthcraft definately. I would love to see a combo deck back in the format that is green/blue or green and pushes control players to pack things like enchantment removal or trickbind, or pyroclasm.

[Crimhead]

Following that logic, Emrakul is an interactive card, because it forces opponents to run specific answers and is removing Bloodmoon, RIP, etc via Annhilator

How is dropping a card which ends the game on the spot comparable to casting a spell which allows a game to actually continue? You gotta do better than that, dude.

[iatee]

This is called picking winners - using the banhammer to engineer decks are allowed to be T1 and which are not. Most of us do not want a hands-on approach like this - among other things it makes the process very subjective and arbitrary.

Every ban or unban 'picks winners'. Every existing busted card that is banned is a winner unpicked.

[Crimhead]

Every ban or unban 'picks winners'. Every existing busted card that is banned is a winner unpicked.

Not if they only ban out OP decks. You're talking about banning a card not because the deck is over-powered, but rather because in your opinion that deck should be under-powered.

Saying no deck should be over-powered is not picking winners. saying certain select decks do not deserve to eb tier-one is picking winners.

[Dice_Box]

It's official, Earthcraft needs to come off. I want to use this guy:

[Lemnear]

How is dropping a card which ends the game on the spot comparable to casting a spell which allows a game to actually continue? You gotta do better than that, dude.

I am quite certain Emrakul is no 20/20, haste, unblockable creature with shroud to qualify as "end the game on the spot". You can still cast edicts, bounce with Karakas, etc

Afaik, you can "continue to play" your game without your permanents and 15 lost life.