All B/R update speculation.

[nedleeds]

Who knew so many Legacy players hated good cards so much?

I love Mishras Workshop and Ancestral Recall, big fan of Time Walk also ... All good cards, lets unban them.

[Crimhead]

Yeah it's funny how people fighting for unbans don't actually seem to care about whether a card can be expected to make legacy more fun or skill-testing, it's just some moral battle to free a card from its undeserved oppression.

If WotC bans cards on a basis of what they consider "fun", we end up with a high powered Standard.

Who cares if Mind Twist is rotting in a jail cell for crimes it didn't commit? We get hundreds of new cards a year to play with and legacy has more than enough problem cards that aren't fun or skill-testing.

We get a lot of hate-bears and other cards which promote playing with creatures. When was the last timke they printed Legacy playable discard (TKS doesn't count)? 2007?

People feel railroaded into playing Abrupt Decay because it's the only way to fight the current lock-based metagame.

What even plays Abrupt Decay?

• Shardless
• Delver
• 4c Loam
• Jund Lands
• Elves (on the side)
• Other fringy decks

Whereas D&T, Infect, Storm, Sneak-Show, Eldrazi, Miracles, Reanimator, and R/G Lands do not play Abrupt Decay and seem to do alright. It turns out There are lots of ways to fight the meta without being "railroaded" into running one particular answer.

You don't like a meta where lock pieces are actually good? Cry me a Rain Of Tears because this is Legacy and you're expected to have more patience and a thicker skin than Standard or Modern players.

Edit - can you imagine what this thread would look like if Pox and Geddon-Stax were tier-one decks?

[Megadeus]

If WotC bans cards on a basis of what they consider "fun", we end up with a high powered Standard.

We get a lot of hate-bears and other cards which promote playing with creatures. When was the last timke they printed Legacy playable discard (TKS doesn't count)? 2007?

What even plays Abrupt Decay?

• Shardless
• Delver
• 4c Loam
• Jund Lands
• Elves (on the side)
• Other fringy decks

Whereas D&T, Infect, Storm, Sneak-Show, Eldrazi, Miracles, Reanimator, and R/G Lands do not play Abrupt Decay and seem to do alright. It turns out There are lots of ways to fight the meta without being "railroaded" into running one particular answer.

You don't like a meta where lock pieces are actually good? Cry me a Rain Of Tears because this is Legacy and you're expected to have more patience and a thicker skin than Standard or Modern players.

Edit - can you imagine what this thread would look like if Pox and Geddon-Stax were tier-one decks?

Actually, storm commonly plays decay in the board as a 3-4 of, Reanimator lists have moved to playing it in the board as well, and there was a RGb Version of lands simply to run decay because somehow the lands deck was having issues beating chalice and counter balance. I don't know if that caught on to be super popular, but the fact that two traditionally UB combo decks are splashing a tropical island and a bayou just to cast decay should say something.

[Lemnear]

It is enlightening to see that arguments are made and perspectives a shared without a fucking clue about what the metagame looks like.

Storm, Infect, Reanimator and Lands are known to have Decays or Krosan Grips, so your point is "Eldrazi, D&T and Miracles can win without these cards, so there is no problem"

[Ronald Deuce]

Whereas D&T, Infect, Storm, Sneak-Show, Eldrazi, Miracles, Reanimator, and R/G Lands do not play Abrupt Decay and seem to do alright. It turns out There are lots of ways to fight the meta without being "railroaded" into running one particular answer.

As a Storm player, I never leave home without four Decays. It's far and away the best answer to Counterbalance, though I don't think it's all that great against Chalices and it goes a bit pear-shaped against Thorn.

[Lord Seth]

There is no need for a conversation on the matter as we all just had one and the metagame as well as the arguments are the same as a few pages back.

So lets talk about a Necropotence unban, because its rarely a topic here and as Tomb into Chalice seems to be an interactive play, lets use Ritual into Necropotence to battle Hymn and Thoughtseize

Sure.

What would Necropotence be used in? The BBB is actually a hard cost to make; not counting combo decks, I can't really see any of the notable decks running the card. Maybe some kind of BG deck could run it, as the 2-color manabase would make Necropotence easier to handle, but I have trouble seeing something like BUG running it. Sure, they could try to run Dark Ritual, but Dark Ritual has the problem of not ramping into much of anything else in the deck (sure can't cast Shardless Agent off of it). If there's going to be a deck that runs Necropotence, I think it'd have to be running Dark Ritual already.

That leaves us with Reanimator and Storm. Reanimator is a deck I'm not terribly familiar with so I can't really comment on that one. As for Storm... it's a tricky one there. The problem with Necropotence is that you don't get the cards until the end of your turn, and you can only keep 7 (you can't even try to discard to fill up your graveyard because it all gets exiled). In other words, you cast Necropotence, and can only use it to go off on your next turn, which seems a bit slow, plus you have to use up life--yes, Ad Nauseam does that also, but Ad Nauseam wins you the game the turn you cast it. Sure, the only life point that matters is your last, but paying a bunch of life so you can try to win the next turn seems like a potentially dubious strategy in Legacy. Now, granted, I expect that if you cast Necropotence and make it to your next turn, you're extremely likely to win the game... but if you cast an Ad Nauseam you're also extremely likely to win the game, and you don't have to wait until a turn after you cast Ad Nauseam.

So the big question on Necropotence seems to be if it would be troublesome in Storm and Reanimator. The fact you don't actually get to do anything with it until your next turn (I suppose Reanimator can try to Entomb if they happen to draw it, but they still can't reanimate until the next turn) makes it seem a bit dubious. It's a powerful card, but it also requires you to wait to get usage out of it. It's not like Yawgmoth's Bargain where you can go off on the spot with it.

[nedleeds]

You know what some other interactive plays are? Disenchant, Meltdown, Naturalize, EE for zero, Powder Keg, Ratchet Bomb, Spell Snare, QPM, Spell Pierce, Steel Sabotage, Ancient Grudge, Kohlagan's Command, Hull Breach, Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, another 1,000 red cards. You want to interact, win the roll and Thoughtseize a Chalice player there's a good chance he'll be tasting your ass because his hand is likely a one threat pile. Oh you have to win the roll to have a chance? Welcome to Chalice Land ... we all get together after round 4 for mall Chinese! Come join us!

Fucking pussies crying about Chalice are the biggest babies ever. You get to play the must savagely busted one drops while the poor chalice ape needs a 2 card combo in hand on the play with zero library manipulation. He also needs it for 15 rounds. Good fucking luck! There were Eldrazi *everywhere* on the ground the first 2-3 rounds at Chiba. Like 1/4 of the field. Not one top 8. The card isn't even remotely oppressive in the events that matter. Yes, you might top 8 a 4-7 round event with a chalice deck if Jesus shines his bright light on you that day but it's clearly not an oppressive tactic in longer events.

Edit: GTFO with Necro

[Lord Seth]

If WotC bans cards on a basis of what they consider "fun", we end up with a high powered Standard.

We get a lot of hate-bears and other cards which promote playing with creatures. When was the last timke they printed Legacy playable discard (TKS doesn't count)? 2007?

A few months ago in the form of Collective Brutality.

Granted, Collective Brutality really only sees play in Reanimator due to it having unique synergies with that deck, but it's still a discard spell that's obviously playable in Legacy.

If we're talking about a more general purpose discard spell, i.e. it goes into multiple decks, then probably Inquisition of Kozilek (2010).

Though there's more creative room for hatebears than there is for discard. The problem for something as simple as discard (and counterspells) is how simple they are as mechanics. Generally speaking, the only way to make one "playable" is to make it just better than what's already in the format because the function is so simple. It's not like hatebears where there's a lot of different possible functions and abilities; discard is very simplistic. When you've already got Thoughtseize, you basically have to top Thoughtseize, and that's no easy feat considering how powerful that card already is. Unless you happen to hit upon a special synergy like Reanimator has with Collective Brutality, the only way I can see of doing it that doesn't involve just making a better Thoughtseize is to have a discard spell with some kind of other restriction on it instead of the life loss... and even that's tough. The important thing about discard in a format like Legacy is being able to hit everything; Force of Will would be a whole lot worse if it only countered spells or only countered creatures. Inquisition of Kozilek manages to sort of make it in because the low mana curve makes it hit most relevant spells, but people still default more onto Thoughtseize.

Hatebears, on the other hand, can hate in a variety of different ways. For example, Containment Priest, while also being a hatebear, does something quite different than Thalia does. There's more room to make a playable hatebear because unlike discard, it doesn't have to just be a better version of a hatebear, it could be playable simply because it does something different.

[Lemnear]

You want to interact, win the roll and Thoughtseize

Thats pretty much current Legacy in a nutshell.

[Ronald Deuce]

the poor chalice ape needs a 2 card combo in hand on the play with zero library manipulation.

A Storm player needs a ten-card combo in hand on the play. Or disruption, which reduces the odds of being able to pull off a ten-card combo in the first two turns before TKS or another prison card comes down.

Are you beginning to see the problem with Chalice?

[Dice_Box]

Are you beginning to see the problem with Chalice?

Yes, I can only play four.

[Lemnear]

Yes, I can only play four.

I could swear Eldrazi can play 8+ SolLands and SphereOfResistance/Chalice/Thorn if they want

[thefringthing]

Necropotence would cause an interesting shift in the way Tendrils decks are built. You'd play three or four Tendrils and probably zero engines other than Necropotence, hope to Tendrils on turn two or three for less than lethal, reload, Tendrils again the next turn.

[Megadeus]

A Storm player needs a ten-card combo in hand on the play. Or disruption, which reduces the odds of being able to pull off a ten-card combo in the first two turns before TKS or another prison card comes down.

Are you beginning to see the problem with Chalice?

What a miserable card. It completely hoses a deck trying to completely not interact with its opponent.

I've beaten chalice many times with storm. But if you've built your deck with 24 one drops, of course you're getting hosed by chalice. I don't think storm players have a leg to stand on while complaining about non interactive cards

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Can we talk about how unfun wasteland is, stops me from casting spells.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Can we talk about how unfun wasteland is, stops me from casting spells.

Forget Wasteland, Force of Will always shows up whenever I try to make a game-breaking play. You don't even have to spend mana for that!

[thefringthing]

Comparisons to Force of Will and Wasteland mean either that you don't understand what's being argued, in which case you should probably not post here, or you're being disingenuous, in which case you should probably not post here.

[Lemnear]

I've beaten chalice many times with storm. But if you've built your deck with 24 one drops, of course you're getting hosed by chalice. I don't think storm players have a leg to stand on while complaining about non interactive cards

1) There are still more ways to interact with storm than with CounterTop

2) The chance for storm to essentially win the game before the opponent got to play a spell is worlds lower than combining a SolLand + Resistor in Eldrazi

3) Combo players just switch to S&T and drop Emrakul in the face of Chalice @ 1 like in Chiba, so people can whine how uninteractive that play is.

------------

Its cool that we answer uninteractive cards like Counterbalance or Chalice with uninteractive cards like Decay or Emrakul or Cavern and call that interaction /s

[Ronald Deuce]

What a miserable card. It completely hoses a deck trying to completely not interact with its opponent.

I've beaten chalice many times with storm. But if you've built your deck with 24 one drops, of course you're getting hosed by chalice. I don't think storm players have a leg to stand on while complaining about non interactive cards

I'm not complaining; I just think that getting tilted over T1 Chalice is warranted. Just like it's warranted to rage out if someone dumps their library and Lab Mans you, or chains four Rituals and LED into Infernal Tutor.

It takes a lot less work to play a land and a Chalice than it does to pull off a hand like the one I just mentioned, because it requires fewer cards. So though I don't mind ridiculous plays (this is Legacy, after all), it just doesn't make sense for people to complain about not interacting with Storm or call Storm players who hate Chalice sore when there's a two-card combo that blanks it and a number of other decks, many of which can't make plays if they don't start the game with a Force in hand and require a whole lot more than two cards to win the game on the spot.

[EDIT: Dice_Box, that response was gold.]

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Comparisons to Force of Will and Wasteland mean either that you don't understand what's being argued, in which case you should probably not post here, or you're being disingenuous, in which case you should probably not post here.

I got a bridge for sale if you're interested.