All B/R update speculation.

[lavafrogg]

I think you are missing the real problem here. The game has been in shambles ever since the ridiculous and uncalled for un-banning of Kird Ape, an atrocity that has never been remedied.

[Crimhead]

I'm also not buying the idea that the occasional "non-game" means Legacy is not an interactive or skill intensive format.

Look at Texas Hold 'em poker. Unless you are playing against total push-overs, you have to muck a lot of hands before the flop - often before anybody has even made a bet! This is completely non-interactive and takes less skill than tapping land for mana. Does this mean Texas Hold 'em is not interactive or skill intensive? Not at all! because no amount of pre-flop folding can take away from the depth of a contested pot. Legacy is the same. There might not be meaningful interaction every single time you pick up a hand, but with a little patience and a bird's-eye-view of the game, it's easy to see that there is really a lot going on.

Edit - before anybody wants to nit-pick this analogy (and completely miss the point in the process), make the game heads-up seven stud (with a bring-in) instead of a hold 'em ring game.

[Ace/Homebrew]

That's true, but that's not the way things are working right now. Decks are splashing a fourth color for a sideboard card for which there's no substitute, and they're doing it because there are two or three cards that define what the metagame is right now for which there are no comparable answers. That's not good, especially because those decks are solid or excellent without contorting themselves for Decay against any number of decks that don't run those two or three cards.

This isn't new...

Goblins had to splash white for Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to combat combo. She's not on-color or on-tribe.
Merfolk had to splash black for Engineered Plague.
Burn splashes green for Destructive Revelry.

[Bryant Cook]

This isn't new...

Goblins had to splash white for Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to combat combo. She's not on-color or on-tribe.
Merfolk had to splash black for Engineered Plague.
Burn splashes green for Destructive Revelry.

Not that I really want to jump into this shit show, but their point was three color decks adapting a fourth just to manage against Counterbalance & Chalice of the Void.

What you're describing is mono-color decks splashing which is much more manageable.

[Lemnear]

I'm also not buying the idea that the occasional "non-game" means Legacy is not an interactive or skill intensive format.

Except its Storm and its ~8-10% T1 kills which people play against, then its cancer.

Okay. First there is a claim that too many decks are running Decay (even though only one of the five DTBs normally runs it, and three of the other four never run it). Now you have an issue with a couple decks running Grip in the SB? Wow dude

Since twisting words and moving goalposts gets kinda annoying, let me make it clear:

I never fucking hinted at Krosan Grip being a problem! Where the actual fuck do you read that? On the same page you read that Storm isnt running Decays?

Krosan Grip is similar to Decay and Infect gets pretty much fucked over by the whole DtB section atm, showing that Krosan Grip isn't cutting it as an out to the current metagame situation, despite the similarities.

[Stevestamopz]

Not that I really want to jump into this shit show, but their point was three color decks adapting a fourth just to manage against Counterbalance & Chalice of the Void.

What you're describing is mono-color decks splashing which is much more manageable.

They get DRS, don't worrry about it. 4 colour decks are the new 3 colour decks.

Also Gobs already had to splash Green because artifact destruction isn't a red thing apparently.

[Ronald Deuce]

Goblins had to splash white for Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to combat combo. She's not on-color or on-tribe.
Merfolk had to splash black for Engineered Plague.
Burn splashes green for Destructive Revelry.

True, but those decks all don't splash the same color for the same card in order to deal with the same specific pair/trio of cards.

The only reason the list of decks that splash for Abrupt Decay isn't longer is that a number of those decks also want to get the most out of Deathrite Shaman.

Again, I'm not upset about Miracles, and I snapped up a quad of Decays as quickly as I could because they're awesome. But there's only so much adaptation most decks can stand. Finn's right that no deck has a right to exist, and the natural rise and fall of decks resulting from metagame pressure is probably a good thing that the format needs. But it's a problem when a number of decks get pushed out by a pair of specific cards—in what has long been the format's dominant deck—that require a specific card to answer them. Unless, of course, they all do the same gymnastics with their mana to run the same card.

Now the format also has a clear runner-up deck comprised largely of cards printed in the past year, and it's exacerbating the problem. This may well mark a sea-change, and I think that's probably worse than having a static cluster of top-slot decks that can't be unseated. In any case, neither is good.

I love Storm. Storm may go the way of the Dodo, and I can't change that (nor do I really think I'd want to). I'm not complaining that my favorite deck might not be able to adapt to the new metagame; I'm saying that there's a clear problem when singular cards with no substitutes start to have such a big impact.

Put it this way: Force of Will is a catchall answer to fast combo. Are decks splashing blue to play it? No, because fast combo isn't what defines the format. Are decks 'boarding in quads of the significantly more splashable Mindbreak Trap? For the same reason, mostly no. Are people 'boarding in quads of Leyline of the Void and Surgical Extraction to stop Dredge? Probably not—even though those cards are really easy to play off-color—because Dredge doesn't define the format, either. Those decks are integral to the metagame, but they aren't dominating most others (in theory and practice) by using one or two cards.

CounterTop does. Eldrazi is beginning to do the same thing. There are reams of evidence for this if you read tournament reports, and I can't get behind the argument that everyone who plays something else should just deal with it or switch decks.

[Lemnear]

Also Gobs already had to splash Green because artifact destruction isn't a red thing apparently.

Ridiculous, isnt it?

[Crimhead]

I never fucking hinted at Krosan Grip being a problem! Where the actual fuck do you read that? On the same page you read that Storm isnt running Decays?

You are the guy who brought up Grip, and I'm not sure what your issue is with that card.

Regarding Storm and AD, I'm willing to forget you said Infect runs Decay (you'll note I let you slide on that) if you'll forgive my slip-up.

Krosan Grip is similar to Decay and Infect gets pretty much fucked over by the whole DtB section atm, showing that Krosan Grip isn't cutting it as an out to the current metagame situation, despite the similarities.

Lands normally runs Grip and does just fine (AD builds are the exception).

Infect destroys Miracles and D&T, and is no cake walk for Lands either. Eldrazi is bad news for Infect. I honestly don't now much about Infect vs Shardless, but I have a hard time imagining it's really all that bad. Infect being fucked by the whole DTB section is flagrantly false.

[Ace/Homebrew]

What you're describing is mono-color decks splashing which is much more manageable.

I don't disagree with that premise, but in a fetch/dual manabase the difference in application is negligible...

When I played Goblins, I had 1 Plateau (maybe 2 occasionally). When I played Burn, I ran a single Taiga. Keeping the splash a secret may have been the stressor, but the result is the same.

How is running a single Tropical Island over a fetchland significantly different?

[Ronald Deuce]

When I played Goblins, I had 1 Plateau (maybe 2 occasionally). When I played Burn, I ran a single Taiga. Keeping the splash a secret may have been the stressor, but the result is the same.

How is running a single Tropical Island over a fetchland significantly different?

In AnT, at least, the Tropical (or Bayou) replaces a basic land. Goblins and Burn run more basic lands; it's really hard to get a tricolor deck to function with a large number of basics, but on 14-16 solid mana sources, you're really vulnerable to Wasteland if you run fewer than three.

[Ace/Homebrew]

In AnT, at least, the Tropical (or Bayou) replaces a basic land. Goblins and Burn run more basic lands; it's really hard to get a tricolor deck to function with a large number of basics, but on 14-16 solid mana sources, you're really vulnerable to Wasteland if you run fewer than three.

Plateaus and Taigas aren't vunerable to Wasteland?

Or is your point that ANT's strategy is so hyper-focused on mana efficiency that it has difficulty defending against a meta with multiple ways to attack it (both Wasteland and Chalice/Counterbalance)?

[Crimhead]

Or is your point that ANT's strategy is so hyper-focused on mana efficiency that it has difficulty defending against a meta with multiple ways to attack it (both Wasteland and Chalice/Counterbalance)?

Yeah, if anything Storm splashing a fourth colour might be indicative of the deck not having a favourable meta at present. Sucks, but that happens.

On a related note, combo is down to 25% of the meta (according to MTGtop8) and is excluded from the DTB section. Maybe Sneak Show will rise again? But the worse combo is, the safer it becomes to unban Frantic Search. High Tide (with a little extra push) might be a more appropriate answer for the current meta than a Tendrils based Storm deck. It runs counter-magic galore as well as Wipe Away; and is generally focused on protection because it prefers to go off a turn or two later. It won't run Abrupt Decay, and it would give Storm players something to do with their hands (at least those Storm players who are willing to adapt). Off course then we'd have non-stop bitching that High Tide is a miserable deck to play against I guess.

[Zombie]

I'd infinitely prefer to play or play against High Tide than S&T, for what it's worth, pretty much regardless of what I play.

[jimmythegreek]

I'd infinitely prefer to play or play against High Tide than S&T, for what it's worth, pretty much regardless of what I play.

Meh. I'd rather die to a bullet to the head than sucumb to a fatal case of syphilis.

[Stuart]

While I would happily never play against Sneak Show ever again, there's no way High Tide's coming back. Ignoring the fact that very few players will buy Candle, the deck is just bad. It struggles with CounterTop, and you can easily spend 3-4 turns setting up a perfect hand just to Spiral into something like 3 Islands, 2 pieces of countermagic, a High Tide and a Turnabout. Show and Tell into Griselbrand is a much better use of your time.

[thefringthing]

I like that in this conversation about how dominant Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void are, we're now discussing the conditions under which High Tide could make a comeback.

[Ronald Deuce]

Plateaus and Taigas aren't vunerable to Wasteland?

I probably didn't phrase what I was saying very well; what I meant was that replacing basics with nonbasics is a problem when you're only working with a maximum of three basics to begin with (out of 14–16 lands total; there's no room for more). It's not that any duals aren't vulnerable; it's that the whole manabase becomes vulnerable with fewer basic lands, especially when you've got fewer chances to find added lands because there are fewer lands in total than there are in most decks.

I highly doubt AnT is the only deck with this problem, though I haven't piloted enough decks in Legacy to say for sure.

[nedleeds]

If you were correct on D&T or Shardless, why would they not have equal standing in the Top 8s? Are they all just worse players than the Miracles players?

Yes. This is genuinely the reason.

Better players and most try hards enjoy Miracles. Idiots play SnT because a literal ape fetus can sack wins with it. DNT is a new player deck as is Eldrazi and other food stamp decks. Take Chiba, the first 3 rounds were a sea of DNT, Burn and Chimpdrazi. And anecdotally the couple dozen matches I interacted with were new players.

[Zombie]

Elves' mana base is awful. It's a monocolor deck practically, but the mana sucks.