Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Delver usually doesn’t have 2 lands plus a land drop on t3 (That means you haven’t wasted or dazed at all on the first 2 turns) or 0 mana proactive spells. Snap caster and TNN are considered lategame cards by delver standards.
Discussion of the "end of Pro Play" was split into it's own topic: here.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
While I have conflicting views on Brainstorm in Legacy, this really makes me chuckle:
Whoever though it was a good idea to make the Mystical Archive legal in historic should be fired and then rehired just so they can be fired again.At the Strixhaven Championship, the most-played nonland cards are all red or blue: there are 647 copies of Brainstorm , 483 copies of Expressive Iteration , and 374 copies of Faithless Looting across all Historic main decks.
What's more, the most-played land is not even a basic land or Fabled Passage . It's Steam Vents , at 627 total copies. In fact, Steam Vents is the second most-played card overall, just behind Brainstorm .
Well, phoenix runs more discard since it's part of their plan. It's also a bit different if you just try to chain enough cantrips to trigger the birds as the amount of cards you would like to see is a much larger fraction of your deck in this case.
Most other decks just play it because it's still the best cantrip at instant speed or have other tricks that work well with it.
Sauce btw:
https://magic.gg/news/strixhaven-cha...game-breakdown
I worry a bit that Prismatic Ending is going to have a similar effect as Plague Engineer in that it becomes so prevalent that the meta game changes by decks adapting to it. Well, this is a normal reaction to any card but I don't like what it represents. Enchantments being good threats might no longer be the case, or at least to a much lower degree. Since I think Omnath was printed, I forget when it started but that's when it felt overly apparent, the game is progressing in a way such that removal is very easy to come by, threats aren't able to stick around and influence the game and so threats need to have draw a card stapled onto them or be very aggressive and work in the delver shell, or else just ignore the fair decks' struggle and combo over it.
I think it may be observable by considering which creatures with tap effects that are playable. If a creature has to have a cip-effect to be playable, and tap effects aren't viable, that seems to support this trend. Mother of runes is the mainly played tap effect, and starting with Plague Engineer it lost some appeal, Maverick decks are trying to go without it. Otoh, with Delver popular Mother is better. However, I can't think of other tap effects worth playing. Maybe the new dockhand, the blue rishadan port merfolk. I usually try to find creatures with useful tap effects since they work well with Scryb Ranger, the ultimate synergy card, perhaps, but it's barely playable. It's still a great card, you're just better off gaining value when your creature enters the battlefield rather than trying to do something interesting.
Now this is an oversimplified argumentation and more a trend than an absolute thing. I have some more observations supporting it but they are just related to the decks I play. While Delver may be the deck most in need of regulatory measures right now, for the health of the format I'm thinking more about how synergies aren't built upon by wizards and good removal and two-for-ones are taking out attempts to play interesting decks.
Anyway, I think getting rid of too flexible and two-for one removal would allow more interesting strategies to be played, I'd love to see a plague engineer and prismatic ending ban. Then a delver ban. But, I don't see that actually happening. Only if there's community outcry, which wizards have reacted to before, but this case isn't that strong, the trend isn't that noticeable that I think it'll get such notice. I thought I'd put forward the thought though. It has been discussed a lot in relation to Plague Engineer already, but maybe not with this specific motivation.
Last edited by pettdan; 06-21-2021 at 08:12 AM.
From like a general kind of game-design point of view this is a fair observation but in legacy if these types of creatures cost a lot of mana they were already effectively shut out by bolt and swords
Like what kind of creature like this has ever been playable in legacy in the last 10 years even?
Mother (costs 1)
Reclaimer (costs 1)
Llanowar Elf / Various Elf (costs 1)
Welder? (costs 1)
KotR (huge body)
If creatures don't do anything except tap to attack then they are also not playable unless they are super efficient at it or at least somewhat removal-resistant
In some ways I also don't like the fact that it makes control decks harder to attack by throwing weird permanents at them (Cindervines / Klothys etc) but at the same time having games decided by "you drew your sb card? gg" is also not very compelling, and I think having interactive cards be strong is a good thing because it helps to avoid the kind of "I just ignore what my opponent is doing in g1 and try to draw my SB card g2" kind of dynamic
@Kombatkiwi: absolutely, this part of the argument needs more work.
Wirh Prismatic Ending the question is how the cards it affects change in playability. Or rather, their strategic position in the meta game. Thinking of aether vial, carpet of flowers, sylvan library.. They used to be the best ways for a creature deck to compete with blue control decks. Also thinking of grindstone. What else..
Out of curiosity, which legacy have you been playing the last 10 years?
It has been ages since all creatures are either fast clocks, generate instant value or have nemesis tier untouchable.
Everything else is not worth fighting a counter war for.
Asking for a ban on a 1-for-1 removal spell is ridiculous, especially if the next set as a version of it which fits in even more decks at lower mana cost.
It's also not like Engineered Plague hasn't existed in the past, which is arguably harder to remove.
If you get hosed by a 2/2 creature that doesn't inhibit spells and can't rid of it, you're playing the wrong deck.
Stoneforge Mystic
I don't have time to discuss this back and forth right now, and I didn't have time to spend much time on the post, but Ive heard so much frustration about Plague engineer and I think most people can understand and recognize that part, and I think prismatic ending can have a similar effect. So, counterarguments are fine, I won't try to dance that dance, but consider instead if there's something of relevance that I touch upon here.
Edit:
I just listened to the Eternal Glory podcast and noticed that Phil made a very similar point about Prismatic Ending. What made me go from thinking this to writing it here in the first place is that a similar view was brought up in the Canadian Threshold podcast too.
Edit2: oh, and a while later Brian comments that Plague Engineer is probably too good and needs to be (would have needed to be) pulled down a little.
Last edited by pettdan; 07-13-2021 at 06:59 AM.
Oh, one thing I should add to the topic. I've been noticing this trend being very strong for some time, increasingly. I was very happy when Veil of Summer was printed, because it did offer a counterplay to the at the time most popular 2-for-1 spells (hymn, k command), and it has kept that balance. That's why I always argued against banning veil. So, anyway, we can see that there is design space for balancing the card advantage spells at least.
This is a misconstrual. Brainstorm saw play before the Onslaught fetchlands were printed: it was considered a “good” card. It just wasn’t an automatic include in every blue list; fetchlands moved it from “good” to “hands down the best card in the format,” the position it remains at today.
This is a bit like saying that anyone thought Survival of the Fittest was only “good” once they printed Vengevine or whatever.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
When was LED first considered the best fast mana on the format? Did it do anything pre-infernal tutor?
Fwiw, the issue, or worry, I presented was also brought up in the podcast Everyday Eternal no 105 by Reeplcheep and Julian thought it was one of the best listener questions he ever got. I forget what the discussion concluded though, there's really not much to do about it though.
This is a work of art.
(Apparently Pauper is so bad and irrelevant that it takes doing this to get Wizards to care. Everyone not listed was apparently on the basic lands plan.)
The 60 Islands meme deck has become real? What a time to be alive!
That said, what's currently so bad about Pauper to cause this kind of protest?
Chatterstorm and Affinity are warping the format to the point the format is those two decks and a Dimir midrange deck (basically like this).
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