Do you enjoy the current state of legacy?

[Fox]

as I'm one of the these people I feel I need to say:

A, I don't see CB or CotV as a problem (for Storm or for legacy), in fact I "like" these cards, CotV is alright as long as it stays where it belongs - in terrible inconsistent decks for people who like to gamble and go against the grain... a minor funpolice to spice things up... CB, I remember when CB was a game over, it's not that long ago, I was fine with back then why would I complain now?

B, MD AD isn't a reaction to CB or CotV, both are way beyond their peak (it seems to me) but because of Leovold or better said with Leovold the threshold where MD AD is a consideration is met for me as almost every deck has a potential "backbreaking" T2 play which makes the overall XP very random, especially since UBG colors can find and defend the Leovold, are widely popular and unpredictable on whether they run it or not

Nearly 50% of the format runs Decay and roughly another 10% run Cavern of Souls according to stats provided in the graphs earlier in the thread - in that environment I should certainly hope CB isn't game over. Earlier @Dice_Box made some good points about why Decay would remain popular in a vacuum, but unless we're trying to cascade into a removal spell more likely to find a target than any other, other diverse options exist (including not splashing for Decay)...however, all these decks are running Decay b/c they can't hope to play magic vs CB if they ran any other card. Without that pressure, you're going to see at least some of those 4 slots reverting to cards with more specialized/streamlined effects.

Now the issue with removal based mindsets is that as long as they can find a removal spell, they won't see a problem. This then morphs into everyone should stop complaining and run removal spells like they do - the issues with this sentiment can be found in my previous posts. Instead I'll pose this question: How prevalent does an answer have to be before the card it is primarily targeted at can be called a problem? We're at ~50%, Misstep for Misstep got to 65%; what's the cut-off? Is there a level of Abrupt Decay meta representation after which you can attribute its selection purely to CB?

[Fjaulnir]

tl;dr: don't rely too much on stats that don't distinguish between MTGO and paper - if MTGO is included, those are very inbred because of a larger % "grinder mentality" that you won't encounter in many paper legacy communities.

[Crimhead]

Is there a level of Abrupt Decay meta representation after which you can attribute its selection purely to CB?

No, that's silly. In order to believe that AD is run "purely" to hit CB, we would have to believe it would be run even if it literally hit nothing but CB.

If you would not run this card if it didn't have multiple targets, you cannot attribute its inclusion 100% to a single target.

[thecrav]

What do you consider to be a "deck supertype"? I'm thinking:

...

I don't think MTG has seen a new "supertype" since pretty much forever. If anything we get new hybrids - eg, I don’t think aggro/prison was a thing before D&T.

I thought Robert Hahn settled this 21 years ago. His schools are still pretty much right on the nose for the super types of today but as you point out, most decks are now hybrids and hybrids of hybrids.

• The Weissman School: Defense wins games.
• The Kim School: Maximum card utility; minimize costs.
• The Handelman School: I'm going to come kill you right now with this thing right here unless you do something about it
• The Chang School: The best defense is a good offense.
• The Obrien School: If you don't have any mana, you can't play.
• The Maysonet School: By disrupting the content of the opponent's library itself, you can decrease not only the effectiveness and the strategy of the opposing deck but ultimately destroy the strategy itself.

[Megadeus]

Nearly 50% of the format runs Decay and roughly another 10% run Cavern of Souls according to stats provided in the graphs earlier in the thread - in that environment I should certainly hope CB isn't game over. Earlier @Dice_Box made some good points about why Decay would remain popular in a vacuum, but unless we're trying to cascade into a removal spell more likely to find a target than any other, other diverse options exist (including not splashing for Decay)...however, all these decks are running Decay b/c they can't hope to play magic vs CB if they ran any other card. Without that pressure, you're going to see at least some of those 4 slots reverting to cards with more specialized/streamlined effects.

Now the issue with removal based mindsets is that as long as they can find a removal spell, they won't see a problem. This then morphs into everyone should stop complaining and run removal spells like they do - the issues with this sentiment can be found in my previous posts. Instead I'll pose this question: How prevalent does an answer have to be before the card it is primarily targeted at can be called a problem? We're at ~50%, Misstep for Misstep got to 65%; what's the cut-off? Is there a level of Abrupt Decay meta representation after which you can attribute its selection purely to CB?

Brainstorm was at 87.5% at the latest GP

[Teluin]

I'm actually curious about this thread's meta:

What's the % of posts that didn't bitch about AD (seriously?), CB, Brainstorm or the "cantrip cartel"? <-- the latter being a term generally used by lemmings who don't have anything original to say
How many of Fox's posts have been quoted because of the confusion they've caused the thread's readers?
How many posts aren't near copy/pastes of what the same people have written prior in the B&R thread?
When did this thread stop being posts that answered the actual question?
Puppies or kittens?

[btm10]

tl;dr: don't rely too much on stats that don't distinguish between MTGO and paper - if MTGO is included, those are very inbred because of a larger % "grinder mentality" that you won't encounter in many paper legacy communities.

It's not that uncommon for Legacy communities to be spiky/grinder-focused, which (at least in the US) is probably a holdover from the SCG Legacy every Sunday era. It does slow down the evolution of the format since there's a face-saving element to not bringing a brew or fringe deck to a "serious" tournament and the lower format profile means that innovations are less limely to be noticed, but it's the norm here in my experience.

Nearly 50% of the format runs Decay and roughly another 10% run Cavern of Souls according to stats provided in the graphs earlier in the thread - in that environment I should certainly hope CB isn't game over. Earlier @Dice_Box made some good points about why Decay would remain popular in a vacuum, but unless we're trying to cascade into a removal spell more likely to find a target than any other, other diverse options exist (including not splashing for Decay)...however, all these decks are running Decay b/c they can't hope to play magic vs CB if they ran any other card. Without that pressure, you're going to see at least some of those 4 slots reverting to cards with more specialized/streamlined effects.

Now the issue with removal based mindsets is that as long as they can find a removal spell, they won't see a problem. This then morphs into everyone should stop complaining and run removal spells like they do - the issues with this sentiment can be found in my previous posts. Instead I'll pose this question: How prevalent does an answer have to be before the card it is primarily targeted at can be called a problem? We're at ~50%, Misstep for Misstep got to 65%; what's the cut-off? Is there a level of Abrupt Decay meta representation after which you can attribute its selection purely to CB?

Your earlier posts were at best muddled as to why the "removal mindset" is a problem from a player interaction/quality-of-gameplay perspective, and are unpersuasive even from a purely competitive perspective; especially since you've broadened your definition of "stack interaction" to include cards like Thoughtseize and lock pieces (Winter Orb/Chalice/Thorn). If your problem is that cards exist for which discard and countermagic are insufficient answers are Legacy-playable I have a hard time taking your position seriously since the assumptions underlying it are fundamentally at odds with the things I thinake.for quality Magic from both theoretical and practical points of view.

[Ronald Deuce]

Brainstorm was at 87.5% at the latest GP

Gods forbid a ton of people get to play varied decks that attack one another on multiple angles without implementing one-card shutouts.

And I'm still not sure why this has become a new B/R thread.

I'm actually curious about this thread's meta:

What's the % of posts that didn't bitch about AD (seriously?), CB, Brainstorm or the "cantrip cartel"? <-- the latter being a term generally used by lemmings who don't have anything original to say
How many of Fox's posts have been quoted because of the confusion they've caused the thread's readers?
How many posts aren't near copy/pastes of what the same people have written prior in the B&R thread?
When did this thread stop being posts that answered the actual question?
Puppies or kittens?

This post has the Imperial Seal of Approval. In small part because I'm guilty of at least two of those indictments, obviously excluding the "cantrip cartel."

[Spam]

Puppies or kittens?

I do prefer turtles myself.

Here's my turtle (Justin) destroying my homeworks (it's a joke, he didn't really do that) It's winter in Italy now, so he's sleeping.

[ironclad8690]

Thats a rad turtle.

I think they need to print more uncounterable cards, hatebears that rival Thalia and Teeg's powerlevel, and better toolbox options. This might allow for non-blue fair decks to make a comeback, and all of the decks that people love like pox and enchantress that prey on those.

[Lemnear]

The format is diverse - you just have to look at entire decks rather than focusing on a small set of cards.

Do you think Eldrazi, Lands, and Aggro Loam are not very different decks because the all run CotV in the 75?
Do you think Elves, Pyro, Shardless, Loam, and Infect are basically the same because they all run AD or Grip?
Do you think Reanimator, D&T, Burn, and Miracles "don't really count" in terms of format diversity?

If you can't see the diversity, maybe the problem is not with the format.

That's not what I said. All the decks listed were essentially present before (with colorless aggro simply shifting from artifact creatures to eldrazi), but where is UR Delver? Painter? Foodchain? NicFit? Oops all Spells? Mono Red Sneak? Tezzerator? Burn? Canadian? Etc etc

Is there really a surprising element if most of the now essentially vanished decks ran RED?

What do you consider to be a "deck supertype"? I'm thinking:

• Aggro
• Tempo
• Midrange (anywhere from aggressove to grindy)
• Stompy
• Combo
• Control
• Prison

I don't think MTG has seen a new "supertype" since pretty much forever. If anything we get new hybrids - eg, I don’t think aggro/prison was a thing before D&T.

Actually I had something like an emerging build-around-me card like Delver in mind to define a supertype. Sry for the confusion

That said, the current meta boasts a fantastic spread of these play-styles! When was the last time
Legacy was this rich with varying play-styles?

The playstyle for most decks is now: "Ensure your opponent can't do anything through the game"

So... D&T, Infect, and RB Reanimator are now fringe decks? Why? Please justify your claim that three out of six DTBs are now "fringe decks". I guess this is the age of "alternative facts", but this is so blatantly false I'm almost surprised that you even posted it.

Tough words for someone who claimed that Storm isn't running Abrupt Decay not so long ago. BR Reanimator sits at 3,4% metashare, Infect at 1,5% and D&T at 5,4%.I dunno how Infect is anything other than fringe with that metagame share?

[Fox]

It's not that uncommon for Legacy communities to be spiky/grinder-focused, which (at least in the US) is probably a holdover from the SCG Legacy every Sunday era. It does slow down the evolution of the format since there's a face-saving element to not bringing a brew or fringe deck to a "serious" tournament and the lower format profile means that innovations are less limely to be noticed, but it's the norm here in my experience.

Your earlier posts were at best muddled as to why the "removal mindset" is a problem from a player interaction/quality-of-gameplay perspective, and are unpersuasive even from a purely competitive perspective; especially since you've broadened your definition of "stack interaction" to include cards like Thoughtseize and lock pieces (Winter Orb/Chalice/Thorn). If your problem is that cards exist for which discard and countermagic are insufficient answers are Legacy-playable I have a hard time taking your position seriously since the assumptions underlying it are fundamentally at odds with the things I thinake.for quality Magic from both theoretical and practical points of view.

I'm more talking about decks which define the interaction they bring to the table being board removal. It is a narrow form of interaction, and one that won't really interfere with whatever an opponent is doing on the stack. Cards like these are bad choices for maindeck submission in the sense that they are far more likely to be a dead card than interaction which aims at the stack (that can be a target on the stack, a card removed from a hand, effects distorting ability to deploy cards to the stack, etc...). Simply because board removal is a theoretically poor decision process, it does not mean that it is an ineffective approach. Board removal isn't a strategy to win games though, it's an anti-strategy...it's use (especially in the form of Abrupt Decay) is meant to drag games on to the point of a hellbent topdecking grindfest. That is certainly a way to find legacy enjoyable, but it is hardly everyone's point of view. It does not matter that you have a different opinion on board removal b/c it's also valid [insofar as it is logical], just understand why someone else can see board removal/removal mindset as being the lowest form of magic - and why it has logical equivalency.

There's a lot of 'just run removal' or 'X is fine b/c there's a removal spell' talk, and it's tiring to see it thrown around as if it were the only way to play legacy - but it's unenjoyable when you see how many are reduced to running Decay as it's the only realistic way for their deck to handle a resolved CB. Decay is great at carrying out its text, the premise of sleeving the card is still wrong [from the combo perspective].

@Crimhead I know it says uncounterable and hits a lot, but Decay costs 2 different colored mana, and decks that run it generally start with a playset before looking at similar cards with potentially lower cmc and more varied effects. They start with Decay and stay on it b/c it is their answer to CB without really getting punished for running one (since they were presumably going to run a removal spell anyways). The card by itself isn't good enough for that many to be bending over backwards to incorporate; it's too obtuse a card to choose as a common starting point for removal across so many archetypes.

@Megadeus Brainstorm isn't some overblown response to a problem card. Brainstorm is a powerful card, but it shows up in many different archetypes, keeps up FoW, and doesn't create non-games. Saying how much it showed up tells us about color diversity, but not archetype diversity.

[Fjaulnir]

As Julian accidentally deleted 90% of my original post, I'll try to quickly summarize what I more or less wrote as far as I remember:

You don't have to run the same 75 cards that so-and-so did at GP Louisville. It's your choice to do that or do something different. Play Legacy because it's fun and has a huge card pool. If you're feeling jaded, consider what you could do with newly printed cards, and spend some time in the New and Developmental Decks forum. Also, the Seattle scene isn't unique to brewing. If you explore TCDecks, you'll find lots of interesting ideas on display.

I think part of this metagame distortion (in the numbers posted here frequently) is due to the big difference between MTGO Legacy and paper Legacy.


If looking on Mtgtop8, some of those mentioned cards' maindeck metagame share is:
-Brainstorm 62%
-Ponder 53%
-DRS 42%
-Decay 31%


when filtering just the IRL/paper tourneys of the same last 2 months, those numbers suddenly become a lot lower:
-Brainstorm 54%
-Ponder 42%
-DRS 31%
-Decay 23%

it doesn't have an option for "MTGO only", but we can extrapolate these from the difference between Total and Paper, as the number of decks it's using is 776 total - 293 paper = 483 = 60% of posted results

That gives for MTGO Legacy these card penetrations maindeck (approximations):
-Brainstorm 67%
-Ponder 60%
-DRS 49%
-Decay 36%


That shows the MTGO meta is like 15-20%pt more homogenized than the paper meta. This is partially due to grinder mentality I think, doesn't apply to every MTGO player, but that seems to be a real trend. Many local legacy scenes are more varied and people playing more for fun with cards they like, while a big part of the MTGO scene just wants to play the best deck it seems.
Compare also the Delver of Secrets metagame share: Total 18.40% Paper 12.60% -> MTGO 22%. That's twice as many Delver decks as in paper - also from anecdotical experience, here in Belgium you'll rarely play more than 1 Delver dude every 10 of 15 rounds, the deck is just not that popular. Whereas on MTGO I'd often play against it 2-3 times every 5-round league.

This is one of the 3-4 reasons I became bored and quit MTGO, it's good for grinding your deck against some of the tier decks, but (apart from the social aspect) just not as much fun, it becomes repetitive very quickly getting T1 Probe into DRS into Daze'd every 40% of games.


But it also means that people using statistics to prove their point about the rotten state of Legacy, should be clear in distinguishing between MTGO metagame data and/or Paper Legacy data. It's very easy to use the average, or the MTGO-only data, to prove your point about the Abrupt Decay-DRS homogenization, but that's only valid for people playing MTGO (and maybe Day 2 of Grand Prixen); a big chunk of paper Legacy players would look at these numbers talking about 60-65% of decks playing Decay either main or side, and wonder why they never noticed that.
And using these in this way on purpose would even be manipulation.


PS it does suck for people who play mostly on MTGO though - and I'm not saying all is healthy in the format, but that's partly B&R discussion; this thread is about enjoyment and because of that also about a varied metagame, and for paper the situation isn't as dire as it's made out to be.
I am also sad that some of my favourite fringe decks are no longer competitively viable, but in our national championship series people still top 8 with Mono-W Soldiers, Thing in the Ice brews, Boros Combo-Control decks etc. because we're generally just MTG-loving people. No reason to try and "+EV" if you play Legacy, 80% of our (Paper) players are mostly just paying 15$ for having a good time every few weeks. As long as you can get reasonable results with brews in paper legacy from time to time, I don't really care about those 20% try-hards who're only there for winning a shitty 50$ store credit coupon for making 5-8th place while spending 200$ on updating their deck to the newest hot netdeck and who're tilting when they lose to Enchantress, ruining their whole experience. That's still a giant minority in paper legacy in my personal experience.

[Crimhead]

I don't really care about those 20% try-hards who're only there for winning a shitty 50$ store credit coupon for making 5-8th place while spending 200$ on updating their deck to the newest hot netdeck and who're tilting when they lose to Enchantress, ruining their whole experience. That's still a giant minority in paper legacy in my personal experience.

I think there is an assumption that "grinders", being competitive by nature, have superior deck/card selection skills. I think the opposite! The grinder mentality is not to take risks or innovate, but rather to "grind" out profit with a time tested method. There is nothing about being a grinder that will encourage you to try out a fringe deck that you think the meta might have become soft to. That's a high risk, high reward play; which is the opposite of "grinding". The presence of grinders will always slow down the evolution of the meta.

I was a poker "grinder" years ago. Grinders tend to play small to medium stakes at ring games or sit-n-go tournaments (vs bad players). Large tournaments (lacking on Modo) are high variance (both in poker and MTG), and the people who are best at these are not your typical grinders. These are innovative, talented players who enjoy the challenge. These are also arguably the best players.

David Long gave us a RGB version of Lands that turned out to be very good in the right meta (and solid in general). A grinder would never in a million years have taken a brew like that to an event - not until other people proved it was good. Who's the better competitor here?

TLDR, a meta being full of grinders doesn't mean the best decks will emerge - it means the pre-established winning decks will continue to win.

And I'm still not sure why this has become a new B/R thread.

A discussion about what people don't like about the meta is bound to have some overlap with a discjssion about why people feel certain cards should be banned. But they age not the same. For instance, a couple pages back we were discussing the effect of hatebears on the meta, and WotC's likely intention to keep pushing MD playable hosers that double as beat sticks. But nobody thinks there is a ban-worthy hatebear!

BR Reanimator sits at 3,4% metashare, Infect at 1,5% and D&T at 5,4%.I dunno how Infect is anything other than fringe with that metagame share?

Infect goes in and out of DTB. It's a solid contender.

but where is UR Delver? Painter? Foodchain? NicFit? Oops all Spells? Mono Red Sneak? Tezzerator? Burn? Canadian? Etc etc

Foodchain? Big Red? Oops? There are some fringe decks for you!

Most of these decks were never tier-one to begin with. The Delver variants suffer from being worse that Pyro. Burn I think is a good deck but will never put up big numbers because experienced Legacy players tend go shy away from it. Who wants to invest their time and energy in a ten-plus round event just to cast Bolt for hours on end?

Actually I had something like an emerging build-around-me card like Delver in mind to define a supertype.

Tempo decks were not invented in 2011! All that Delver did was allow SCG to rename tempo decks 'X Delver'

The playstyle for most decks is now: "Ensure your opponent can't do anything through the game"

That's about as sophisticated an analysis as saying every deck in the Maverick era had the same gameplan of "turn creatures sideways".

[Dice_Box]

The playstyle for most decks is now: "Ensure your opponent can't do anything through the game"

I am not sure how often in the history of Legacy this has been untrue. Aside from hyper Aggro and true Combo, most decks in Legacy have sought to restrict an opponent's options and minimise the risk to themselves as they play. Canadian always comes to mind when people say "Now all people are trying to do is lock you out." If Thresh is playing to plan, you should never resolve a spell. Not one. If they are slightly behind their ball, you will never resolve a relevant spell. Stax was a deck in the noughties, Enchantress was never planning to let you do anything of value... The only thing that has changed of late is that the format has speed up, now those seeking to play this style of game have speed up too. In place of "Stifle, Waste, Goyf" you now have "Sol Land, Chalice, Smasher".

The game plan is the same as it ever was, all that has changed is the execution of the plan.

[Megadeus]

Gods forbid a ton of people get to play varied decks that attack one another on multiple angles without implementing one-card shutouts.

He said it was a problem that decay was at such a high percentage almost reaching mental misstep levels. I pointed out we already have a card that has surpassed mental misstep levels.

[Crimhead]

I am not sure how often in the history of Legacy this has been untrue. Aside from hyper Aggro and true Combo, most decks in Legacy have sought to restrict an opponent's options and minimise the risk to themselves as they play.

This is objectively phrased. Why do people want to describe this (less accurately) as "preventing the opponent from playing magic" or some similarly loaded phrasing?

This is all too common and only serves as a barrier to real discussion.

[Lemnear]

I am not sure how often in the history of Legacy this has been untrue. Aside from hyper Aggro and true Combo, most decks in Legacy have sought to restrict an opponent's options and minimise the risk to themselves as they play. Canadian always comes to mind when people say "Now all people are trying to do is lock you out." If Thresh is playing to plan, you should never resolve a spell. Not one. If they are slightly behind their ball, you will never resolve a relevant spell. Stax was a deck in the noughties, Enchantress was never planning to let you do anything of value... The only thing that has changed of late is that the format has speed up, now those seeking to play this style of game have speed up too. In place of "Stifle, Waste, Goyf" you now have "Sol Land, Chalice, Smasher".

The game plan is the same as it ever was, all that has changed is the execution of the plan.

Speaking in terms of the "Schools of Magic", we had years of Weissman (classic control procedure), Handelmann (grandfather of tempo strategies) and Chang (ancestor of multilayer threats/disruption decks like Deathblade), but now every deck moves to Maysonet aka "ensure that most of your opponents deck is dead".

While Weissman, Handelmann and Chang all seek to limit their opponents way to threaten you, they still TRADE CARDS forth and back. How many cards Canadian has to draw/play in the right combination to lock an opponent out from being able to fight back? And now we look at S&T or Chalice. What is the trade here? 3 mana to get Iona into play shutting off 20+ cards from your opponents deck and a 2cmc artifact with a virtual cardadvantage of +20, both ensuring that most of your opponents deck is dead in line with the Maysonet school.

There is a huge difference between "being out of options to fight back" in regards to Weissman (being out of threats to throw at your opponent), Handelmann (being out of removal) and Chang (not having the right solution for the threat present) and being "locked out" in line with Maysonet

[TsumiBand]

I would like to find out if I enjoy the current state of Legacy but nobody has played it for realsies around here for years, and so all I can do is listen to podcasts about Brainstorm and look at SnT lists like "well, this is better than Angel Stompy" and resist the urge to light my decks on fire

[Barachai]

Speaking in terms of the "Schools of Magic", we had years of Weissman (classic control procedure), Handelmann (grandfather of tempo strategies) and Chang (ancestor of multilayer threats/disruption decks like Deathblade), but now every deck moves to Maysonet aka "ensure that most of your opponents deck is dead".

While Weissman, Handelmann and Chang all seek to limit their opponents way to threaten you, they still TRADE CARDS forth and back. How many cards Canadian has to draw/play in the right combination to lock an opponent out from being able to fight back? And now we look at S&T or Chalice. What is the trade here? 3 mana to get Iona into play shutting off 20+ cards from your opponents deck and a 2cmc artifact with a virtual cardadvantage of +20, both ensuring that most of your opponents deck is dead in line with the Maysonet school.

There is a huge difference between "being out of options to fight back" in regards to Weissman (being out of threats to throw at your opponent), Handelmann (being out of removal) and Chang (not having the right solution for the threat present) and being "locked out" in line with Maysonet

The Deck (Weissman) ran Moat with the explicit intent of locking out/negating a significant portion of the opponents deck, for the sake of "card advantage". Miracles and Loam effectively do the same thing with CB and CotV, respectively. Nothing about this is new.