I don't see the logic in banning survival. I play Dark Horizons/Rock in legacy and with the rise of Survival decks I just adjusted my S/B and kept playing. It's a tough match but not one that I am unable to win, in fact my win ratio is probably 66%.
Not to be too much of a troll, but why is it that WotC doesn't just allow the metagame to balance itself out. Sure the majority of decks will have to adjust their M/B and S/B, but is that so bad, in fact, isn't that what the game is all about?
because survival is winning almost every tournament since GP Columbus's UG vengevine deck came out.
also, maybe wizards finally realized that in a format where Demonic Tutor is banned, giving someone the ability to pretty much demonic tutor for every G mana they have is pretty broken combined w/ vengevine.
I don't wanna hear any of this "Ban VV rather than SotF." Did they ban the good artifacts rather than Tinker? No. Did they ban Protean Hulk rather than Flash? No. Because if they didn't those decks would still be good decks until the next big thing came. I don't think wizards wants to think "Well this is a cool card but what about survival...." when designing new cards.
In fact, if you look at most Survival decks you'll notice they're actually crammed full of pretty bad creatures. Usually the only time Survival decks get any better is if they print some useful effect on a cheap creature, like Shriekmaw, Tidehollow Sculler, Pridemage/Wispmare/Ingot Chewer, etc - something situational, but efficient.
I don't wanna hear any of this "Ban VV rather than SotF." Did they ban the good artifacts rather than Tinker? No. Did they ban Protean Hulk rather than Flash? No. Because if they didn't those decks would still be good decks until the next big thing came. I don't think wizards wants to think "Well this is a cool card but what about survival...." when designing new cards.
All of those things that you listed cost mana. Vengevine does not, and there are a lot of other ways to dump it in the graveyard besides Survival. You know the most broken opening in a Vengevine deck doesn't involve Survival, right? All you need is 4 cards - Lion's Eye Diamond, Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm, Vengevine. If you have more than one Vine, or land and a mana critter, it gets a lot uglier.
Even the second most broken opening doesn't involve Survival. Turn 2 Wild Mongrel, discard Vengevine, discard Basking Rootwalla.
All of you people with tunnel vision set on Survival need to wake up and realize that free spells are dangerous, and if Vengevine remains legal, then a lot of other cards are going to be banned because of it.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
I don't wanna hear any of this "Ban VV rather than SotF." Did they ban the good artifacts rather than Tinker? No. Did they ban Protean Hulk rather than Flash? No. Because if they didn't those decks would still be good decks until the next big thing came. I don't think wizards wants to think "Well this is a cool card but what about survival...." when designing new cards.
Quoted for gross untruth.
Obviously, SotF is immediately comparable to Flash and Tinker, two cards which are restricted in Vintage, where SotF sees 0 serious play and where its older brother Oath is played as a 4-of while Flash and Tinker remain restricted.
Well, if your only issue is trying to do R&D's job, then you can relax. Fatties would break Reanimator before they break Survival. Hyper-efficient creatures would break zoo and Threshold before they break Survival. The only thing that would break Survival is a second Vengevine, and it's a good guess that it will not happen again.
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Using Survival's lack of presence in Vintage as an argument for keeping it in Legacy is about as facetious an argument as can be presented.
They are two different formats with two different metagames.
And the posters whining about "power creep" don't understand a thing about Wizards- if they never pushed the envelope on new cards, there would be no reason for people to buy them, and sales would tank.
All of you people with tunnel vision set on Survival need to wake up and realize that free spells are dangerous, and if Vengevine remains legal, then a lot of other cards are going to be banned because of it.
Using Survival's lack of presence in Vintage as an argument for keeping it in Legacy is about as facetious an argument as can be presented.
Saying that an argument is made with SotF's lack of play in Vintage as a buttress is about as facetious an argument as can be presented.
Let me assist in your comprehension.
I don't wanna hear any of this "Ban VV rather than SotF." Did they ban the good artifacts rather than Tinker? No. Did they ban Protean Hulk rather than Flash?
Obviously, SotF is immediately comparable to Flash and Tinker, two cards which are restricted in Vintage, where SotF sees 0 serious play and where its older brother Oath is played as a 4-of while Flash and Tinker remain restricted.
1) When someone is as short-sighted as to compare SotF with cards like Flash and Tinker, the need to point out the fact, and I underscore fact for emphasis, that SotF is nowhere near the power levels of Tinker or Flash is exigent. That Oath is superior to Survival and is still not considered to be on the same power level as Tinker says a lot about the usefulness of that analogy. At best, it is a red herring. At worst, it is a smokescreen that diverts the attention of people who may not know better to truly believe SotF is a broken card in eternal formats.
2) And yes, power levels do matter, and Oath is superior to Survival in both Vintage and Legacy. If you don't believe that, I'd be glad to play an Oath deck against your Survival deck.
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Using Survival's lack of presence in Vintage as an argument for keeping it in Legacy is about as facetious an argument as can be presented.
They are two different formats with two different metagames.
And the posters whining about "power creep" don't understand a thing about Wizards- if they never pushed the envelope on new cards, there would be no reason for people to buy them, and sales would tank.
Such as?
Survival's lack of presence in Vintage is as significant a factor in evaluating it as it's stays in extended and standard are in doing so (eg, somewhat, but not all that much).
It primarily serves to remind people that survival's absolute power is not as off the charts as many other cards that are banned in Legacy that fit its profile (eg tutoring or cheating out powerful creatures).
Survival differs from those because it requires either another card (a reanimator) or one specific card (vengvine) to cheat creatures out for cheaper than their cost. While it's a powerful tutor, there's a limited amount of truly degenerately cheap creature, and as long asi t has to cast them fairly, its honestly not all that good.
Survival is useful when it sets up GY recursion (wehther black, or vengvine) or is otherwise abusing some kind of effect (like necrotic ooze) that works from the graveyard.
On its own, it's not all that gamebreaking because you have to pay cost for whatever you get, and nearly without exception creatures played for their actual casting cost are not overpowered, and have never been in the history of Magic the Gathering.
Oath, Tinker and Flash are broken because they get you creatures for way, way cheaper than their cost, not because they tutor those creatures. Forbidden Orchard + oath gets you Iona on your 2nd or 3rd turn for 0 mana. Flash hulk got you 5 slivers for 2 mana. Tinker gets you the biggest artifact creatures ever for 3 mana. These cards are not broken for the reason that Survival is or is not broken.
They -could- have banned hulk instead of flash and primarily fixed the hulk/flash problem: Without hulk, it's just a way to abuse ETB or GTG effects: its 2 mana to evoke any creature ever. That isn't that good, outside of Protean Hulk.
Intuition and Lion's Eye Diamond first, because they enable Vengevine in utterly ridiculous ways. Then the peripheral bannings have to start, because banning LED neuters combo decks, making aggro decks too dominant. So Aether Vial has to go. Then all of these cheap aggro decks will just die to Counterbalance, so Top will probably be banned, etc, etc.
It needs to be said, since nobody is bringing it up, that Legacy is a very different animal than Standard and Extended. You can't just ban things because they are broken, because everything is. And it doesn't make sense to ban the format into oblivion. No, bannings have to be executed in a way that most promotes diversity.
There is a very delicate balance in Legacy that is maintained by having all of these broken effects running free. Ban the wrong piece and it ☺☺☺☺s everything else up in a major way. I think we are actually experiencing that right now, as Mystical Tutor decks were a natural foil to slower combo decks like Survival.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
Intuition and Lion's Eye Diamond first, because they enable Vengevine in utterly ridiculous ways. Then the peripheral bannings have to start, because banning LED neuters combo decks, making aggro decks too dominant. So Aether Vial has to go. Then all of these cheap aggro decks will just die to Counterbalance, so Top will probably be banned, etc, etc.
It needs to be said, since nobody is bringing it up, that Legacy is a very different animal than Standard and Extended. You can't just ban things because they are broken, because everything is. And it doesn't make sense to ban the format into oblivion. No, bannings have to be executed in a way that most promotes diversity.
There is a very delicate balance in Legacy that is maintained by having all of these broken effects running free. Ban the wrong piece and it ☺☺☺☺s everything else up in a major way. I think we are actually experiencing that right now, as Mystical Tutor decks were a natural foil to slower combo decks like Survival.
The format seemed to be doing just fine before the Survival decks started cropping up
The card has never been a top-tier strategy in the format until now, and this "polarity" is indeed the problem with the card.
It's either no good at all, or too good. And neutering it now is just leaving a time bomb in the format. Vengevine shenanigans aren't the problem. It's the speed and consistency with which Survival sets them up that is the problem. It's why the "tap" part of Fauna Shaman made it an acceptable creature for Wizards to print.
It seems that examining two cards and asking, "Which is the enabler?" is a red herring, just as one can't look at the moon and the earth out of context and determine which is orbiting which.
Banning either Survival or Vengevine would suffice.
Survival has been legal for years without being dominant.
Vengevine has been legal for months and is already dominant.
Banning Survival would not impact Wizards at all.
Banning Vengevine will cause uncertainty regarding the value of currently in-print booster packs, and will make the Wizards of today seem dumber than Tempest-block Wizards (using the measuring stick of designing balanced green cards).
Which do you think they'll ban?
I suspect that the true culprit may be a certain wild and crazy lizard... but he'll probably slip off unpunished like Keyser Söze.
Survival was banned in EXTENDED back in 2004/2005. Could we say it was only a matter of time until it got banned in Legacy?
I realize that the formats were changed up somewhere between 2005 and now, but that really leaves an impression on me, that something back then had caused a ban.
However, enough with the "It was banned in Extended before." It's really a moot point.
==
Also, realize that cards like Wild Mongrel do not find another creature to play. You could pack a deck with ornithopter, memnite, vengevine, mongrel, survival, some blue stuff, and FoW and make an absolute killing, here's how this would work:
Draw: Land, Forest, SoTF, Memnite/Ornithopter, Blue stuff, FoW, VV
T1: Land
T2: Forest/Untapped Green Production, SoTF pitching VV, grabbing a Memnite/Ornithopter. Play both of the memnites/ornithopters, trigger VV, return him to play, Swing for 4.
Without SoTF:
Draw: Land, Forest, Mongrel, Memnite/Ornithopter, Blue Stuff, FoW, VV
T1: Land
T2: Forest, Mongrel, pitching VV
T3:???
The former has a t2 swing for 4 included, with the game won by t5. The latter would require you to draw into a second cmc 0/1/2 creature to trigger the VV and return to play. The latter is alot more reliant on luck than on proper deck construction, and does not refuel itself to trigger VV.
The format seemed to be doing just fine before the Survival decks started cropping up
The card has never been a top-tier strategy in the format until now, and this "polarity" is indeed the problem with the card.
It's either no good at all, or too good. And neutering it now is just leaving a time bomb in the format. Vengevine shenanigans aren't the problem. It's the speed and consistency with which Survival sets them up that is the problem. It's why the "tap" part of Fauna Shaman made it an acceptable creature for Wizards to print.
You're just a bit off. Bant Survival was considered a top-tier strategy just last year when Reanimator was running wild. Before that, RGBSA and WeldSur were considered top-tier during their times. They competed fairly in the metagame and were eventually outclassed by later developments.
Survival decks have been a healthy part of the format since the very beginning - they make regular appearances in top8's without outright dominating. Very far from "no good at all".
So, they haven't just "started cropping up" as you'll see. They have always been there. It took a free, uncounterable, huge creature with haste to put the deck over the top.
Now stop and ask yourself this question: How likely is it that WotC will print another free, uncounterable, huge creature with haste? Not very.
It's just not worth banning an archetype-building card and thereby rendering a very large swath of cards unplayable, when you can ban the other half of the interaction with no negative consequence to the diversity of the format.
Banning Vengevine will cause uncertainty regarding the value of currently in-print booster packs, and will make the Wizards of today seem dumber than Tempest-block Wizards (using the measuring stick of designing balanced green cards).
This is just ludicrous. Banning a card from Legacy will have zero to little impact of the value of a card that is currently played in Standard.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
You're just a bit off. Bant Survival was considered a top-tier strategy just last year when Reanimator was running wild. Before that, RGBSA and WeldSur were considered top-tier during their times. They competed fairly in the metagame and were eventually outclassed by later developments.
Survival decks have been a healthy part of the format since the very beginning - they make regular appearances in top8's without outright dominating. Very far from "no good at all".
So, they haven't just "started cropping up" as you'll see. They have always been there. It took a free, uncounterable, huge creature with haste to put the deck over the top.
Now stop and ask yourself this question: How likely is it that WotC will print another free, uncounterable, huge creature with haste? Not very.
It's just not worth banning an archetype-building card and thereby rendering a very large swath of cards unplayable, when you can ban the other half of the interaction with no negative consequence to the diversity of the format.
Your problem is that you want to be able to play with your toy. Your main argument is that it takes away deckbuilding options. "Diversity" doesn't just mean "I get to play with the deck I want to".
The card has been broken before. It is broken now. It will be broken again, even if you patch it by banning it now. The card is not a load-bearing pillar of the format. It doesn't keep anything in check. It simply allows decks to be faster and more consistent, and that consistency is actually a problem.
Your problem is that you want to be able to play with your toy. Your main argument is that it takes away deckbuilding options. "Diversity" doesn't just mean "I get to play with the deck I want to".
The card has been broken before. It is broken now. It will be broken again, even if you patch it by banning it now. The card is not a load-bearing pillar of the format. It doesn't keep anything in check. It simply allows decks to be faster and more consistent, and that consistency is actually a problem.
Tell you what. Let's play a simple game of how many decks survival enables vs how many decks VV enables in Legacy. I count FEB, Bant Survival, RGBSA, Madness, Survival Zoo, GW Survival, Ooze Survival variants, ATS, WeldSur, RecSur, Elf Survival off the top of my head as I typed. Your turn.
You're actually right. Diversity doesn't mean you play with the deck you want to. Diversity means you have access to a wider range of playable decks. As Wizards has even stated that the B/R list takes diversity into account, it should be an open and shut case.
And no, it was never broken in Legacy. ATS was top tier for a short while. Bant Survival was close to top tier but never actually made it there. RGBSA was always 1.5. WeldSur was never top tier as Legacy always had too much removal thanks to being defined by a necessity to answer t1 Lackey. Unless you want to finally show us these instances of Survival bring broken in Legacy before Vengevine, I'd suggest cutting out the intellectual dishonesty.
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Your problem is that you want to be able to play with your toy. Your main argument is that it takes away deckbuilding options. "Diversity" doesn't just mean "I get to play with the deck I want to".
See what you've done here? You weren't able to come up with a valid argument so you redirected the argument to my character. Whether or not I want to play Survival is not relevant to the discussion at hand. This is essentially the intellectual equivalent of saying, "Yeah, well you wear women's undergarments. So I win."
No, it isn't. The interaction between Vengevine and Survival is broken. Neither card on its own is any more broken than any other card that is legal in the format, although I will argue that Vengevine has more broken interactions with other cards than Survival does.
The card is not a load-bearing pillar of the format. It doesn't keep anything in check.
How do you know it isn't a load-bearing pillar? Survival decks historically have helped to keep aggro decks in check. There is no reason to think that they will not continue to do so without Vengevine around.
It simply allows decks to be faster and more consistent, and that consistency is actually a problem.
Have you ever actually played non-Vengevine Survival? These are traditionally some pretty slow control decks, and they are no more consistent than blue decks packing Brainstorm, Ponder/Preordain, and Jace.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
Tell you what. Let's play a simple game of how many decks survival enables vs how many decks VV enables in Legacy. I count FEB, Bant Survival, RGBSA, Madness, Survival Zoo, GW Survival, Ooze Survival variants, ATS, WeldSur, RecSur, Elf Survival off the top of my head as I typed. Your turn.
You're actually right. Diversity doesn't mean you play with the deck you want to. Diversity means you have access to a wider range of playable decks. As Wizards has even stated that the B/R list takes diversity into account, it should be an open and shut case.
And no, it was never broken in Legacy. ATS was top tier for a short while. Bant Survival was close to top tier but never actually made it there. RGBSA was always 1.5. WeldSur was never top tier as Legacy always had too much removal thanks to being defined by a necessity to answer t1 Lackey. Unless you want to finally show us these instances of Survival bring broken in Legacy before Vengevine, I'd suggest cutting out the intellectual dishonesty.
In those decks you list, it's an enabler in every single one of them.
Not one of those strategies is invalidated by the card going away. They are, however, weakened. Some (much more) than others.
You keep bringing up non-top-tier Survival decks like they actually matter in the conversation. They're immaterial to any discussion because currently, they aren't even worth playing.
Yes, VV broke SOTF. But arguing that SOTF wasn't broken until VV and thus won't be broken in the future if VV would be banned has an important flaw: Creatures became MUCH better the last few years. There was and is a mostly healthy power creep in creatures and creature removal. Wizard recognized that a lot of magic players love to battle with impressive and useful creatures, and thus made them stronger and more interresting, with a wide range of interactions. If you look at it this way, it is only a question of time to make SOTF broken again, as an almost 1-card-does-it-all-toolbox that can fetch a variety of kill combos/answers.
Already discussed.
That's a blatant misrepresentation of the situation at hand. The printing of Iona and Emrakul didn't break survival -- I really find it difficult to imagine that we will see legendary creatures that plainly outclass what Iona and Emrakul do to the format. That's not even excusing the fact that Reanimator and Doomsday can do whatever Survival can do with Iona and Emrakul, and do it better. No, Survival's success is on the fungal back of Vengevine, and unless you truly believe VV to be the norm rather than the exception, there is no proof whatsoever that one design mistake will inevitably lead to another mistake in the future.
Perhaps, but so will other creature decks. Tarmogoyf, for instance benefited Threshold-style decks a lot more than Survival.
creatures played for their actual casting cost are not overpowered, and have never been in the history of Magic the Gathering.
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My guess is that Wizards doesn't care about Legacy as much as other formats
I don't think it's that they "don't care" about it so much as that they (correctly) recognize that Legacy is easier to manage through tactical bannings than by refusing to print cards that are overpowered in the format.
I have to agree with the poster above me - if this banning actually happens (and I'm still not 100% that it will - I seem to recall that picture on the mothership being their default B&R announcement graphic), it sets a bad precedent where the DCI can just print anything they want and ban whatever breaks instead of trying to design things thoroughly.
This has not only been the policy for the Legacy format for literally the entirety of its life, but it's also the correct way to run an Eternal format. It will always be impossible to thoroughly test around such a format and many of the restrictions it would impose would make designing for rotating formats more difficult than necessary; the best approach to take from a game design perspective is simply to be vigilant with the ban list when needed.
In those decks you list, it's an enabler in every single one of them.
Not one of those strategies is invalidated by the card going away. They are, however, weakened. Some (much more) than others.
You keep bringing up non-top-tier Survival decks like they actually matter in the conversation. They're immaterial to any discussion because currently, they aren't even worth playing.
It may be an enabler, but it is a fair enabler. I've listed more than 10 decks that SotF was fair in. Inclusive of variants, that number jumps exponentially. How about ONE instance in which Survival was broken before Vengevine as you claimed?
From you:
The card has been broken before. It is broken now. It will be broken again, even if you patch it by banning it now.
Come on, let's examine the examples you have in Legacy. And yeah, are we still playing the diversity game, or was the lack of an answer from you simply because there isn't any answer to the question of where Vengevine adds diversity?
I keep bringing them up because they have done well in the past. Never dominant, but solid tier 1.5-2 decks, with the occasional bit of success. I do, however, detect a change in tone from Survival being broken to them not being playable because they aren't top tier. Which is by itself a ridiculous statement, but I've come to expect nothing less from you.
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They get more and more powerful as formats expand, much more so than most other cards.
I do, however, detect a change in tone from Survival being broken to them not being playable because they aren't top tier. Which is by itself a ridiculous statement, but I've come to expect nothing less from you.
When looking at a competitive format, nothing but the top tier decks actually matter when making ban/restriction decisions. The issue is not whether or not the card CAN be used fairly. Any card can. But that's not how tournament play works.
Draw: Land, Forest, SoTF, Memnite/Ornithopter, Blue stuff, FoW, VV
T1: Land
T2: Forest/Untapped Green Production, SoTF pitching VV, grabbing a Memnite/Ornithopter. Play both of the memnites/ornithopters, trigger VV, return him to play, Swing for 4.
Without SoTF:
Draw: Land, Forest, Mongrel, Memnite/Ornithopter, Blue Stuff, FoW, VV
T1: Land
T2: Forest, Mongrel, pitching VV
T3:???
Maybe it's just me but isn't your SoTF hand off a mana on the second turn to do that and even then you played SoTF so VV can't come back? Where as your second turn Mongrel discarding VV then playing a memnite would most defiantly bring VV back. Did you just own yourself?
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The more cynical you become, the better off you'll be.
Tell you what. Let's play a simple game of how many decks survival enables vs how many decks VV enables in Legacy. I count FEB, Bant Survival, RGBSA, Madness, Survival Zoo, GW Survival, Ooze Survival variants, ATS, WeldSur, RecSur, Elf Survival off the top of my head as I typed. Your turn.
You're actually right. Diversity doesn't mean you play with the deck you want to. Diversity means you have access to a wider range of playable decks. As Wizards has even stated that the B/R list takes diversity into account, it should be an open and shut case.
And no, it was never broken in Legacy. ATS was top tier for a short while. Bant Survival was close to top tier but never actually made it there. RGBSA was always 1.5. WeldSur was never top tier as Legacy always had too much removal thanks to being defined by a necessity to answer t1 Lackey. Unless you want to finally show us these instances of Survival bring broken in Legacy before Vengevine, I'd suggest cutting out the intellectual dishonesty.
Keep posting thrax, that way I can just kick back with my thoughts on the issue being represented!
As for another survival deck, a few guys from Germany put survival in their zoo decks.
They get more and more powerful as formats expand, much more so than most other cards.
It's not "a tutor". It's "a tutor for creatures". Creatures that you have to pay for. As long as Survival decks have to actually cast and resolve spells their power level is manageable.
When looking at a competitive format, nothing but the top tier decks actually matter when making ban/restriction decisions. The issue is not whether or not the card CAN be used fairly. Any card can. But that's not how tournament play works.
The problem with this argument is that, again, as long as Survival decks have to cast and resolve spells in order to win, they can ONLY be used fairly. This is not a format of extreme dominance like Standard. There are broad assignments of tier status in Legacy, but the lines blur a lot more than other formats due to the sheer depth of the card pool.
Just because a deck is not "Tier 1" does not mean it cannot and will not win a major event every once in a while, so yes, those decks are very relevant when making ban/restriction decisions.
OT - Jace decks in Standard are even more dominant than Survival decks are in Legacy. According to your logic we should ban Jace.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
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Not to be too much of a troll, but why is it that WotC doesn't just allow the metagame to balance itself out. Sure the majority of decks will have to adjust their M/B and S/B, but is that so bad, in fact, isn't that what the game is all about?
also, maybe wizards finally realized that in a format where Demonic Tutor is banned, giving someone the ability to pretty much demonic tutor for every G mana they have is pretty broken combined w/ vengevine.
All of those things that you listed cost mana. Vengevine does not, and there are a lot of other ways to dump it in the graveyard besides Survival. You know the most broken opening in a Vengevine deck doesn't involve Survival, right? All you need is 4 cards - Lion's Eye Diamond, Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm, Vengevine. If you have more than one Vine, or land and a mana critter, it gets a lot uglier.
Even the second most broken opening doesn't involve Survival. Turn 2 Wild Mongrel, discard Vengevine, discard Basking Rootwalla.
All of you people with tunnel vision set on Survival need to wake up and realize that free spells are dangerous, and if Vengevine remains legal, then a lot of other cards are going to be banned because of it.
Quoted for gross untruth.
Obviously, SotF is immediately comparable to Flash and Tinker, two cards which are restricted in Vintage, where SotF sees 0 serious play and where its older brother Oath is played as a 4-of while Flash and Tinker remain restricted.
Well, if your only issue is trying to do R&D's job, then you can relax. Fatties would break Reanimator before they break Survival. Hyper-efficient creatures would break zoo and Threshold before they break Survival. The only thing that would break Survival is a second Vengevine, and it's a good guess that it will not happen again.
They are two different formats with two different metagames.
And the posters whining about "power creep" don't understand a thing about Wizards- if they never pushed the envelope on new cards, there would be no reason for people to buy them, and sales would tank.
Such as?
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
My H/W list
Saying that an argument is made with SotF's lack of play in Vintage as a buttress is about as facetious an argument as can be presented.
Let me assist in your comprehension.
1) When someone is as short-sighted as to compare SotF with cards like Flash and Tinker, the need to point out the fact, and I underscore fact for emphasis, that SotF is nowhere near the power levels of Tinker or Flash is exigent. That Oath is superior to Survival and is still not considered to be on the same power level as Tinker says a lot about the usefulness of that analogy. At best, it is a red herring. At worst, it is a smokescreen that diverts the attention of people who may not know better to truly believe SotF is a broken card in eternal formats.
2) And yes, power levels do matter, and Oath is superior to Survival in both Vintage and Legacy. If you don't believe that, I'd be glad to play an Oath deck against your Survival deck.
Survival's lack of presence in Vintage is as significant a factor in evaluating it as it's stays in extended and standard are in doing so (eg, somewhat, but not all that much).
It primarily serves to remind people that survival's absolute power is not as off the charts as many other cards that are banned in Legacy that fit its profile (eg tutoring or cheating out powerful creatures).
Survival differs from those because it requires either another card (a reanimator) or one specific card (vengvine) to cheat creatures out for cheaper than their cost. While it's a powerful tutor, there's a limited amount of truly degenerately cheap creature, and as long asi t has to cast them fairly, its honestly not all that good.
Survival is useful when it sets up GY recursion (wehther black, or vengvine) or is otherwise abusing some kind of effect (like necrotic ooze) that works from the graveyard.
On its own, it's not all that gamebreaking because you have to pay cost for whatever you get, and nearly without exception creatures played for their actual casting cost are not overpowered, and have never been in the history of Magic the Gathering.
Oath, Tinker and Flash are broken because they get you creatures for way, way cheaper than their cost, not because they tutor those creatures. Forbidden Orchard + oath gets you Iona on your 2nd or 3rd turn for 0 mana. Flash hulk got you 5 slivers for 2 mana. Tinker gets you the biggest artifact creatures ever for 3 mana. These cards are not broken for the reason that Survival is or is not broken.
They -could- have banned hulk instead of flash and primarily fixed the hulk/flash problem: Without hulk, it's just a way to abuse ETB or GTG effects: its 2 mana to evoke any creature ever. That isn't that good, outside of Protean Hulk.
Intuition and Lion's Eye Diamond first, because they enable Vengevine in utterly ridiculous ways. Then the peripheral bannings have to start, because banning LED neuters combo decks, making aggro decks too dominant. So Aether Vial has to go. Then all of these cheap aggro decks will just die to Counterbalance, so Top will probably be banned, etc, etc.
It needs to be said, since nobody is bringing it up, that Legacy is a very different animal than Standard and Extended. You can't just ban things because they are broken, because everything is. And it doesn't make sense to ban the format into oblivion. No, bannings have to be executed in a way that most promotes diversity.
There is a very delicate balance in Legacy that is maintained by having all of these broken effects running free. Ban the wrong piece and it ☺☺☺☺s everything else up in a major way. I think we are actually experiencing that right now, as Mystical Tutor decks were a natural foil to slower combo decks like Survival.
The format seemed to be doing just fine before the Survival decks started cropping up
The card has never been a top-tier strategy in the format until now, and this "polarity" is indeed the problem with the card.
It's either no good at all, or too good. And neutering it now is just leaving a time bomb in the format. Vengevine shenanigans aren't the problem. It's the speed and consistency with which Survival sets them up that is the problem. It's why the "tap" part of Fauna Shaman made it an acceptable creature for Wizards to print.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Banning either Survival or Vengevine would suffice.
Survival has been legal for years without being dominant.
Vengevine has been legal for months and is already dominant.
Banning Survival would not impact Wizards at all.
Banning Vengevine will cause uncertainty regarding the value of currently in-print booster packs, and will make the Wizards of today seem dumber than Tempest-block Wizards (using the measuring stick of designing balanced green cards).
Which do you think they'll ban?
I suspect that the true culprit may be a certain wild and crazy lizard... but he'll probably slip off unpunished like Keyser Söze.
Replies:
"Mythic rarity doesn't make another 'Goyf priced card inevitable any more than printing more cards makes another 'Goyf inevitable." -UrzasSedatives
"Seriously, $80 cards? There's no conceivable way. If even one mythic card hit that price point, everyone and their mother would start buying boxes of Alara to "flip" him." -Charlequin
Being listened to would've beat saying I TOLD YOU SO 3 years later.
http://www.phyrexia.com/bandr.shtml
Survival was banned in EXTENDED back in 2004/2005. Could we say it was only a matter of time until it got banned in Legacy?
I realize that the formats were changed up somewhere between 2005 and now, but that really leaves an impression on me, that something back then had caused a ban.
This is from the in-house wiki: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Extended
However, enough with the "It was banned in Extended before." It's really a moot point.
==
Also, realize that cards like Wild Mongrel do not find another creature to play. You could pack a deck with ornithopter, memnite, vengevine, mongrel, survival, some blue stuff, and FoW and make an absolute killing, here's how this would work:
Draw: Land, Forest, SoTF, Memnite/Ornithopter, Blue stuff, FoW, VV
T1: Land
T2: Forest/Untapped Green Production, SoTF pitching VV, grabbing a Memnite/Ornithopter. Play both of the memnites/ornithopters, trigger VV, return him to play, Swing for 4.
Without SoTF:
Draw: Land, Forest, Mongrel, Memnite/Ornithopter, Blue Stuff, FoW, VV
T1: Land
T2: Forest, Mongrel, pitching VV
T3:???
The former has a t2 swing for 4 included, with the game won by t5. The latter would require you to draw into a second cmc 0/1/2 creature to trigger the VV and return to play. The latter is alot more reliant on luck than on proper deck construction, and does not refuel itself to trigger VV.
EDH:
UBGMimeoplasm (Reanimator Control)
WGBURProgenitus (Dream Halls//Good Stuff)
RNorin, the Wary (Metaddited Gaka List)
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios!
You're just a bit off. Bant Survival was considered a top-tier strategy just last year when Reanimator was running wild. Before that, RGBSA and WeldSur were considered top-tier during their times. They competed fairly in the metagame and were eventually outclassed by later developments.
Survival decks have been a healthy part of the format since the very beginning - they make regular appearances in top8's without outright dominating. Very far from "no good at all".
So, they haven't just "started cropping up" as you'll see. They have always been there. It took a free, uncounterable, huge creature with haste to put the deck over the top.
Now stop and ask yourself this question: How likely is it that WotC will print another free, uncounterable, huge creature with haste? Not very.
It's just not worth banning an archetype-building card and thereby rendering a very large swath of cards unplayable, when you can ban the other half of the interaction with no negative consequence to the diversity of the format.
This is just ludicrous. Banning a card from Legacy will have zero to little impact of the value of a card that is currently played in Standard.
Your problem is that you want to be able to play with your toy. Your main argument is that it takes away deckbuilding options. "Diversity" doesn't just mean "I get to play with the deck I want to".
The card has been broken before. It is broken now. It will be broken again, even if you patch it by banning it now. The card is not a load-bearing pillar of the format. It doesn't keep anything in check. It simply allows decks to be faster and more consistent, and that consistency is actually a problem.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Tell you what. Let's play a simple game of how many decks survival enables vs how many decks VV enables in Legacy. I count FEB, Bant Survival, RGBSA, Madness, Survival Zoo, GW Survival, Ooze Survival variants, ATS, WeldSur, RecSur, Elf Survival off the top of my head as I typed. Your turn.
You're actually right. Diversity doesn't mean you play with the deck you want to. Diversity means you have access to a wider range of playable decks. As Wizards has even stated that the B/R list takes diversity into account, it should be an open and shut case.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/109b
And no, it was never broken in Legacy. ATS was top tier for a short while. Bant Survival was close to top tier but never actually made it there. RGBSA was always 1.5. WeldSur was never top tier as Legacy always had too much removal thanks to being defined by a necessity to answer t1 Lackey. Unless you want to finally show us these instances of Survival bring broken in Legacy before Vengevine, I'd suggest cutting out the intellectual dishonesty.
See what you've done here? You weren't able to come up with a valid argument so you redirected the argument to my character. Whether or not I want to play Survival is not relevant to the discussion at hand. This is essentially the intellectual equivalent of saying, "Yeah, well you wear women's undergarments. So I win."
Not in Legacy, it hasn't. No more than any other acceptable cards that are legal in the format.
No, it isn't. The interaction between Vengevine and Survival is broken. Neither card on its own is any more broken than any other card that is legal in the format, although I will argue that Vengevine has more broken interactions with other cards than Survival does.
This is not a valid argument. Any card can gain a broken interaction every time a set is printed. Pre-emptive banning is not an acceptable practice.
How do you know it isn't a load-bearing pillar? Survival decks historically have helped to keep aggro decks in check. There is no reason to think that they will not continue to do so without Vengevine around.
Have you ever actually played non-Vengevine Survival? These are traditionally some pretty slow control decks, and they are no more consistent than blue decks packing Brainstorm, Ponder/Preordain, and Jace.
In those decks you list, it's an enabler in every single one of them.
Not one of those strategies is invalidated by the card going away. They are, however, weakened. Some (much more) than others.
You keep bringing up non-top-tier Survival decks like they actually matter in the conversation. They're immaterial to any discussion because currently, they aren't even worth playing.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Already discussed.
I don't think it's that they "don't care" about it so much as that they (correctly) recognize that Legacy is easier to manage through tactical bannings than by refusing to print cards that are overpowered in the format.
This has not only been the policy for the Legacy format for literally the entirety of its life, but it's also the correct way to run an Eternal format. It will always be impossible to thoroughly test around such a format and many of the restrictions it would impose would make designing for rotating formats more difficult than necessary; the best approach to take from a game design perspective is simply to be vigilant with the ban list when needed.
It may be an enabler, but it is a fair enabler. I've listed more than 10 decks that SotF was fair in. Inclusive of variants, that number jumps exponentially. How about ONE instance in which Survival was broken before Vengevine as you claimed?
From you:
Come on, let's examine the examples you have in Legacy. And yeah, are we still playing the diversity game, or was the lack of an answer from you simply because there isn't any answer to the question of where Vengevine adds diversity?
I keep bringing them up because they have done well in the past. Never dominant, but solid tier 1.5-2 decks, with the occasional bit of success. I do, however, detect a change in tone from Survival being broken to them not being playable because they aren't top tier. Which is by itself a ridiculous statement, but I've come to expect nothing less from you.
They get more and more powerful as formats expand, much more so than most other cards.
When looking at a competitive format, nothing but the top tier decks actually matter when making ban/restriction decisions. The issue is not whether or not the card CAN be used fairly. Any card can. But that's not how tournament play works.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Maybe it's just me but isn't your SoTF hand off a mana on the second turn to do that and even then you played SoTF so VV can't come back? Where as your second turn Mongrel discarding VV then playing a memnite would most defiantly bring VV back. Did you just own yourself?
Keep posting thrax, that way I can just kick back with my thoughts on the issue being represented!
As for another survival deck, a few guys from Germany put survival in their zoo decks.
I am still waiting for a list of legacy VV decks.
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It's not "a tutor". It's "a tutor for creatures". Creatures that you have to pay for. As long as Survival decks have to actually cast and resolve spells their power level is manageable.
The problem with this argument is that, again, as long as Survival decks have to cast and resolve spells in order to win, they can ONLY be used fairly. This is not a format of extreme dominance like Standard. There are broad assignments of tier status in Legacy, but the lines blur a lot more than other formats due to the sheer depth of the card pool.
Just because a deck is not "Tier 1" does not mean it cannot and will not win a major event every once in a while, so yes, those decks are very relevant when making ban/restriction decisions.
OT - Jace decks in Standard are even more dominant than Survival decks are in Legacy. According to your logic we should ban Jace.