All B/R update speculation.

[Stevestamopz]

Can not comment on that in detail, but I am convinced that there are more (different) options to fight S&T than fighting countertop.

Am I mistaking if I suspect that most arguments against S&T would also fit for CounterTop and Chalice?

I'll let you do the mental gymnastics on this one, because I can't see how Show and Tell is easier to fight that Counter-Top (e.g you can't decay anything Show and Tell does etc etc).

I also don't understand what arguments against Show and Tell would fit for Counter-top and Chalice other than that they provide free wins sometimes with Show and Tell being right at the very top of skill testing freewins with consistency with chalice being at the very bottom of that category. MUD has been playing Chalice and 3ball for years. It's also always been a pile of shit and always will be.

As for Tescrin... DnT is favoured against Miracles, Thalia does nothing against Show -> Omni -> Emrakul, or even better Show -> Omni -> Grisel, draw 14, cast Emrakul, 22 you. How are you surprised that Miracles has a good matchup against the deck that beats Omni/Show (aka Delver)?

Your comments about Miracles being tier 0 are way off, it has predators in Shardless and DnT and it's matchup against Sneak and Show is not fantastic either. Again though, if the format wasn't forced to fend off derp combo every 2 minutes, the format wouldn't look like what it looks like now. Delver decks are horrible at fighting fairer decks, they usually do nothing. Miracles is just the ultimate fair deck.

[Fox]

But is it actually objectively worse if the meta game calls for it? In vintage, oath and dredge is a real thing that some hatebear decks run maindeck containment priests. Objectively speaking, cards like SFM or something is a "better card" but in the context of the meta, priest is the right choice.

The meta-game of legacy does not call for those cards, a single card in a single deck does. When a vintage hatebear deck chooses to run CP main it is fighting the overall idea of cheating out creatures. In your legacy Elves reference a maindeck Rec Sage also fights an overall idea; just like the maindeck CP you're talking about engine pieces, which are sub-par, but still advance how its respective deck wins.

There are very few decks which would choose to run maindeck uninteractive cards [Cavern, Boseju, Vial, Decay] in the absence of CB. The main offender in terms of current over-representation is Decay, and it's especially unfortunate as this card will never win a game nor advance how a deck wins (it's also a really poor answer to CB everywhere you look at it which isn't on the stack). It's very nearly at the level of running Mental Misstep targeted at enemy copies of the same card; such things aren't healthy meta-gaming, and when they become de facto requirements there is a problem.

[Stevestamopz]

There are very few decks which would choose to run maindeck uninteractive cards [Cavern, Boseju, Vial, Decay] in the absence of CB. The main offender in terms of current over-representation is Decay, and it's especially unfortunate as this card will never win a game nor advance how a deck wins (it's also a really poor answer to CB everywhere you look at it which isn't on the stack).

Why would I not run Cavern in my tribal deck against a sea of blue decks?
Why would I not run Vial in my Merfolk/Goblin/Humans deck?
Why would I not run Decay in my b/g/x deck when it kills almost every non-land permanent in the format, at no risk?

Why play disenchant and smother when for BG, I can get the effect of both? Why would you dedicate 7 slots to kill different things when you can just play 4 copies of the one card and it will kill Thalia, blow up Jitte and destroy Cop: Black all the same? Seriously, come on.

[Lemnear]

I'll let you do the mental gymnastics on this one, because I can't see how Show and Tell is easier to fight that Counter-Top (e.g you can't decay anything Show and Tell does etc etc).

Tescrin just wrote an excessive wall of text explaining it in detail

also don't understand what arguments against Show and Tell would fit for Counter-top and Chalice other than that they provide free wins sometimes with Show and Tell being right at the very top of skill testing freewins with consistency with chalice being at the very bottom of that category. MUD has been playing Chalice and 3ball for years. It's also always been a pile of shit and always will be.

Both are producing dumb, free wins. Period. Adressing the "skill level" depending on if you kill with 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Eldrazis or 20/20 Marit Lage is absolutely pointless

Pointing to Legacy MUD is totally misleading. Eldrazi isnt running slow and crappy stuff like Grim Monolith or Metalworkers which is the reason MUD keeps stumbling over its own inconsistency

Thalia does nothing against Show -> Omni -> Emrakul, or even better Show -> Omni -> Grisel, draw 14, cast Emrakul, 22 you. How are you surprised that Miracles has a good matchup against the deck that beats Omni/Show (aka Delver)?

Do you even read what he wrote? How are you attack for 22 with tapped down creatures?

The decks which keep S&T in check are currently pushed out of the format by Chalice/Countertop, which means that S&T has only D&T as a mediocre matchup among the DtBs.

your comments about Miracles being tier 0 are way off, it has predators in Shardless and DnT and it's matchup against Sneak and Show is not fantastic either. Again though, if the format wasn't forced to fend off derp combo every 2 minutes, the format wouldn't look like what it looks like now. Delver decks are horrible at fighting fairer decks, they usually do nothing. Miracles is just the ultimate fair deck.

Shardless and D&T are no predators for Miracles at all. There is no collection of T8 to prove that claim.

P.S.: I really look forward to S&T crushing Eldrazi/Miracles in the upcoming GP.

[Stevestamopz]

Both are producing dumb, free wins. Period. Adressing the "skill level" depending on if you kill with 4/4 Eldrazis, 15/15 Eldrazis or 20/20 Marit Lage is absolutely pointless

Pointing to Legacy MUD is totally misleading. Eldrazi isnt running slow and crappy stuff like Grim Monolith or Metalworkers which is the reason MUD keeps stumbling over its own inconsistency

You are misunderstanding me (what's new) my dear friend. I did not say that I like Eldrazi. I played the deck for one game, declared it dumb and moved on with my life. Right now we are talking at each other about Chalice of the Void being bannable (at least that's what I think you're saying), and what I'm saying is

Do you even read what he wrote? How are you attack for 22 with tapped down creatures?

The decks which keep S&T in check are currently pushed out of the format by Chalice/Countertop, which means that S&T has only D&T as a mediocre matchup among the DtBs.

Read this card for me please. I have put it in your mothertongue so that there can be no confusion.



Now, please tell me how THC stops Show and Tell -> Omni -> Grisel -> Emrakul.


It was also just said by Tescrin that Miracles has no bad matchups. Now you're saying it has a mediocre matchup against Show and Tell. Which one dude?
Eldrazi also only made 1 t8 at the recent big events: Eternal Weekend Trump, Eternal Weekend Europe (the BoM thing) and GP Chiba. The rest of it looked pretty blue and interesting. How sweet is 4 colour internet delver?!

Shardless and D&T are no predators for Miracles at all. There is no collection of T8 to prove that claim.

P.S.: I really look forward to S&T crushing Eldrazi/Miracles in the upcoming GP.

Because the website won't let me code 2 videos, here's another badboy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OdHE4MWxaA

As for S&T crushing, I hope so too. Maybe finally that turd will be banned and we can finally get something unbanned.

[Dice_Box]

This is wrong place to ask this, but why Stax over Pox?

I personally enjoy Stax. The main driver is the Crucible loops with Inventor’s Fair.

I don't think it should be that difficult to understand that many people don't like playing this style of magic

At am not suggesting you should like it, only that I do and I shall continue to play it. My argument about Chalice is not that "You should shut up and like it" it's "This is an answer for a problem". Like Bloodmoon is an answer to a subset of decks, so is Chalice.

Except its current, and primary use (The cards primary function in Legacy is just the same which got it restricted not too long ago in vintage) isnt within a prison deck which usually have to combine several elements, but in an aggro deck. No judgement, just observation on that part. I have no problem with Chalice per sé as non 1cc removal is available.

Chalice is playing the same role it has for a decade. The issue is not what it does, it's how often you have to face it now. It's primary home in Legacy have always been Stompy decks. Aggressive strategies. I remember once getting punched by a Pit Dragon with Double strike. Thats an aggressive deck, this is not new.

Its disturbing that people welcome that Delver & Co get pushed out, with the result of more blowouts in form of Chalice/Countertop/Terminus/S&T/SneakAttack and call that "interactivity". The fact of matter is that the omnipresence of these lockout components did not cause people to "adapt", but to switch decks for a further streamlining of the metagame.

Especially you should know what I am talking about if you look at the DtB data every month.

I have had this argument with Crimhead before, that I don't argue against Meta shifts. At one point Aggro was a large part of Legacy's meta, then when Fish, Goblins and Zoo died, it vanished. What your arguing is that I should be worried about change. I am not. You can predict a meta that may arise while I can predict a different one. But unless you have a crystal ball I lack, we are not going to get anywhere of value.

Now while you may argue that the change you see is bad, I personally disagree. Too long have a substantial amount of this format run on the same core. Changing that is a shock yes, but in my mind not a detriment.

Perhaps on this one, we can agree to disagree. Because I am unlikely to change my views.

Thats why its important to keep adding anti-combo tools to the metagame. On the other hand (and as mentioned) it would be handy if there would be also added anti-Chalice/-Counterbalance options which are NOT green.

No argument from me on all counts.

At this point we are playing Black Jack looking for cards our opponent can simply not trump by any realistical means, which brings me back to the "ideal format" which goes forth and back between players instead of "trumping" 4/4 Eldrazi with 15/15 ones and call that "interaction"

If the format shook out as you see it, I would seek to play Tez and UR Painter as answers. The issue you could argue, and I would accept, is that I look at the format and try and lock things down. It's true. But I still feel like I could adapt to these changes fairly easily with a bunch of T2 decks. Not a terrible situation to have, more oddballs that are effective.

There is a mayor difference. Thresh has always traded 1-for-1 and opted to gain strategic advantage with those trades. Countertop and Chalice trade 1-for-20 against most decks preboard and make me wonder why WotC even bothered to ban Mental Misstep which countered just ONE 1cc card instead of ALL FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.

You misunderstood what I was saying. I am not arguing they way they achieve their goals are the same, I am arguing that Thresh and Eldrazis game plan is the same:
Stop the other guy doing anything relevant and punch him to death. Eldrazi is not doing anything new.

For the same reason Chalice was fine in vintage before Lodestone and Thorn... or CounterTop was before Terminus.

This is a tangent, but it's relevent so here goes:
Chalice was fine in Vintage. The issues with Shops came from decks playing 14 or less lands and a mix of 8 or more Mental Misstep, REB and Flusterstorm. When you build you deck with 8 blanks against a deck, you don't get to bitch when it shits on you. You also don't get to bitch about mana when you don't play any.

I hope you dont seriously compare the slow KotR Wasteland-lock of Maverick with Loam+GhostQuarter or T1 chalice, T2 TKS with the old Goblin Port-Tricks

Again, I am saying an Aggro lock control/Lock out strategy is nothing new. Am I suggesting they are equivalent in power? No. Because if they were Goblins would still be playable. I am just saying Eldrazi does nothing new.

Sure. We DO need alternatives to the cantrip galore. The current path however has lead us down the road into:

Player A: "Tomb, chalice @ 1! GG? LOL"
Player B: "Nah. Petal, Tomb, S&T. EMRAKUL! GG? LOL"
Player A: "GG"

Sorry, that as dumb as Vintage was at MUDs prime

I think I have answered all your points here above.

I typed this all on my mobile. Please forgive spelling errors and shit.

[Ronald Deuce]

I'll let you do the mental gymnastics on this one, because I can't see how Show and Tell is easier to fight that Counter-Top (e.g you can't decay anything Show and Tell does etc etc).

In addition to its comparable weakness to any and all stack interaction, Show and Tell provides built-in outs to itself. (Trust me; play Belcher, Dredge, or Reanimator/BReanimator/Tin Fins against it.) That's not the case with CounterTop.

Your comments about Miracles being tier 0 are way off, it has predators in Shardless and DnT and it's matchup against Sneak and Show is not fantastic either.

Dredge has a pretty good matchup against Miracles; does that make Dredge as good a deck as Miracles is?

Every deck can be beaten by other decks. Storm hoses Lands; Lands hoses Eldrazi; Eldrazi hoses Storm harder. The problem is that certain decks are inordinately well prepared to fight an inordinately large portion of the field—because of a very small number of cards—and statistical evidence suggests Miracles is far and away the best deck against the most other decks for that reason. I don't think that warrants a ban (at least, not yet), but it's illogical to deny that a deck is exceptionally powerful simply because it can be beaten.

Why would I not run Cavern in my tribal deck against a sea of blue decks?
Why would I not run Vial in my Merfolk/Goblin/Humans deck?
Why would I not run Decay in my b/g/x deck when it kills almost every non-land permanent in the format, at no risk?

I don't think that's really the crux of the argument, though I don't mean to twist Fox's words.

Cavern, Vial, etc. aren't crucial answers—without peer—to the specific two or three cards that knock over a large number of decks that otherwise play very well. Abrupt Decay is.

Sure, Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial are excellent cards that shore up a number of decks against countermagic and removal, but most of that stuff isn't of the same caliber as CounterTop or Chalice. Cavern and Vial are extremely important for a number of decks because they stop other specific cards from knocking those decks off balance; those decks often still have plays even if something important eats The Force. Force doesn't blank 30–50% of cards in most(?) decks in the format every turn starting on resolution, and though Cavern and Vial answer things that do, lots of decks can't run them—and they're nowhere near as versatile as Abrupt Decay.

This means that Decay is an absolute necessity for a ton of decks simply to survive those few cards—not to make value plays, develop their own game plans, or answer overarching strategies or varying deck types. (It also happens to point-kill most relevant nonland permanents, for what it's worth, without relying on stack interaction.) There really isn't anything comparable. So nobody's arguing that you shouldn't play good cards to answer strategies that cause your decks to have problems. It's that a small number of cards are performing inordinately well against the field, and there's a single answer to those cards that has no equal. Whether that's a problem is in the eye of the beholder, but I'm not thrilled.

Also, Ronald Deuce is a good person with good ideas and you should listen to him.

*long-distance high-five*

[Lemnear]

I am arguing that Thresh and Eldrazis game plan is the same:
Stop the other guy doing anything relevant and punch him to death. Eldrazi is not doing anything new.

Yes, both are tempo strategies. One is running Wasteland/Stifle/Daze, the other one Chalice/Thorn/Wasteland. One deck of them simply upgraded their Delvers and Mongoose to 4/4 Thoughtseize with legs.

Its the same development we had with S&T and Survival which were fair cards before the Creature Powercreep kicked in.

What disturbs me in this thread is the endless pointing to the past with "Chalice/Countertop were around for years before the cards which broke them were printed, so they are fine", but the same can be said for every card from Brainstorm to LED to S&T as well.

[Crimhead]

It's funny how conveniently everybody "forgets" about Infect when discussing Miracle's supposed lack of poor matches.

[Asthereal]

It's funny how conveniently everybody "forgets" about Infect when discussing Miracle's supposed lack of poor matches.

This is probably mostly due to the fact that the Infect matchup really isn't that bad for Miracles.

[Whitefaces]

Thought-Knot Seer is just Nimble Mongoose with kicker.

[Stevestamopz]

Thought-Knot Seer is just Nimble Mongoose with kicker.

This is only barely relevant (and not at all to this discussion) but there is a great anecdote that goes with Eldrazi.
GP Melbourne was one of the Modern "Eldrazi Winter" (it was summer here) GP's.
One of the local players decided to play Modern despite not knowing any of the new cards. He was also stoned out of his eyeballs.

Come to one of the later rounds, and he's paired up against one of the Japanese pros, who's Eldrazis are all in Japanese.

Japanese pro casts a Reality Smasher and attacks. Jimbo (not his real name, and also still very very stoned) casts Dismember on the Smasher.

Japanese Pro says "dis-card?" to which Jimbo responds "yeah, this card." Japanese pro says "no, dis-card? and Jimbo again repeats "yes this card." Eventually a judge was called to get it sorted it out because they were going absolutely nowhere.

In respect of this great anecdote, I declare Reality Smasher to be the new Nimble Mongoose.

[Lemnear]

A great anecdote. I lol'd

[Mr Miagi]

that was a great story

[Julian23]

Reminds me of the Italian Dredge player I faced at Ovinogeddon. At a random point during his turn, he pulled Dread Return from his graveyard, put it on the table and asked:

"Dread Return?"

I confirmed that it was Dread Return. He repeated "Dread Return?" but looked otherwise quite lost.

Eventually we had to call a judge because he didn't know how to properly announce a spell and put the Bridge triggers on the stack. Probably not the best disposition to play Dredge. I ended up decking him.

[DarthVicious]

Man, I sure do hate Golgari Charm. They should ban that card. I mean, why should I be forced to play against strategies that counter my own? It's not fair at all that people can play cards that counter specific strategies. #BanGolgariCharm2017

/Sarcasm

[RobNC]

Man, I sure do hate Golgari Charm. They should ban that card. I mean, why should I be forced to play against strategies that counter my own? It's not fair at all that people can play cards that counter specific strategies. #BanGolgariCharm2017

/Sarcasm

Perusing this thread, the bolded part is pretty much the gist of this entire thread.

[Gheizen64]

Just unban survival and MM. All hail the new format, even more fair than before! Better creatures and countermagic for everyone!

[Lemnear]

Just unban survival and MM. All hail the new format, even more fair than before! Better creatures and countermagic for everyone!

Mental Misstep gets countered by Chalice but not the other way round ;p

[Spam]

Man, I sure do hate Golgari Charm. They should ban that card. I mean, why should I be forced to play against strategies that counter my own? It's not fair at all that people can play cards that counter specific strategies. #BanGolgariCharm2017

/Sarcasm

Sounds legit