javier rodriguez, the winner of the GP, cheats against castello in the quarterfinals? he draws 3 cards from brainstorm, and puts back only one on the top.
javier rodriguez, the winner of the GP, cheats against castello in the quarterfinals? he draws 3 cards from brainstorm, and puts back only one on the top.
In contrast GP Mexico City's Legacy Championship was a small 40 people event but there was such massive variety of decks both Tier 1 and rogue that sideboards were almost moot.
Top 4 were Cephalid Breakfast, Reanimator, Maverick and Shardless BUG.
Edit: Reanimator was actually ANT and won the final against Cephalid Breakfast.
I don't understand this. Do you also complain that Vintage is a format with no diversity, just bunch of Moxes and Black Lotus in every list?
From what I saw on Top 16, there were combo decks, control decks, tempo decks. There're also decks without Brainstorm + FoW like Nic-fit (Pernicious Deed), Imperial Painter (Red), and Lands. Therefore, you make little sense to me.
There was no nic-fit or lands in the top 16. It was 60 copies of Brainstorm and a deck running six Red Elemental Blasts maindeck. (with more in the sideboard) This is evidence of a massively messed up format. The SCG Opens sometimes get 2 or 3 non-Brainstorm decks in the T8, but these are smaller, more casual tournaments with less rounds. The fact is, if you're playing Legacy in a huge tournament and you want to win, you play Brainstorm or you go home. The reason it's "only" 66% of the format is because of Legacy's high amount of casual appeal, a lot of people are playing the deck they want to play rather than the objectively best deck.
The mox comparison isn't relevant. Wasteland is in every Legacy deck too, and nobody complains about that, because Wasteland doesn't force you to build your deck a certain way like Brainstorm does.
Non-Brainstorm decks have to run too many lands, they can't beat hate, and they're too inconsistent. Brainstorm and Ponder let you sideboard in two hate cards against an otherwise bad matchup and make it a good matchup because these cards make you guaranteed to find your hate. Take for example RUG Delver against Elves. You'd think this would be an absolutely terrible matchup for Delver. They have 12 cards in their maindeck that do almost nothing, (Daze, Spell Pierce, Stifle) and they can never get through on the ground due to block/return creature shenanigans. Elves can feasibly race slower draws and they're always threatening an autowin by resolving either Glimpse or Natural Order. Yet RUG is favored. Why? All they have to do is sideboard in 2 Rough/Tumble, and Brainstorm and Ponder guarantee that they will draw one in both sideboarded games and blow Elves out because Elves has no real answer to this card.
javier rodriguez, the winner of the GP, cheats against castello in the quarterfinals? he draws 3 cards from brainstorm, and puts back only one on the top.
This was likely unintentional, he made not attempt to it subtle or distract his opponent (or the audience) from the fact. If you have ever cast brainstorm you know that this happens from time time, completely unintentionally.
There was no nic-fit or lands in the top 16. It was 60 copies of Brainstorm and a deck running six Red Elemental Blasts maindeck. (with more in the sideboard) This is evidence of a massively messed up format. The SCG Opens sometimes get 2 or 3 non-Brainstorm decks in the T8, but these are smaller, more casual tournaments with less rounds. The fact is, if you're playing Legacy in a huge tournament and you want to win, you play Brainstorm or you go home. The reason it's "only" 66% of the format is because of Legacy's high amount of casual appeal, a lot of people are playing the deck they want to play rather than the objectively best deck.
Um, yes there was lands and nic fit in the top 16, go check again.
Since using a sample size on one tournament is fine, lets use some older data too: GP Strausburg had 4 brainstorm decks in the top 8 and DC had 5. That's about how its always been. Brainstorm is a pretty good card and it makes a lot of archtypes more powerful.
I still don't think this card is as powerful as advertised and I don't think it's going to make a major splash if people are maindecking it. But if D&T doesn't top 8, I don't know why you'd expect to see it.
That U/W/ "Death and Taxes" list that made Day 2 running Judge's Familiar and Meddling Mage tickles me in a way a I can't begin to explain.
javier rodriguez, the winner of the GP, cheats against castello in the quarterfinals? he draws 3 cards from brainstorm, and puts back only one on the top.
Brainstorm decreases variance in your deck, as does Ponder.
In Legacy where you want as much of a streamlined deck as possible, decreasing variance increases the odds of your deck performing. Its simple to understand why the decks run it. Splashing blue for access to fixing the rest of your deck? Sounds like a good plan to me (Granted, blue has been my favourite color since 2001).
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Um, yes there was lands and nic fit in the top 16, go check again.
Since using a sample size on one tournament is fine, lets use some older data too: GP Strausburg had 4 brainstorm decks in the top 8 and DC had 5. That's about how its always been. Brainstorm is a pretty good card and it makes a lot of archtypes more powerful.
Is this page wrong? I don't see nic-fit or lands on there.
EDIT: Nevermind I see nic-fit now. I saw 4x Brainstorm in the list and dismissed it without looking, since the post was arguing against the ubiquity of Brainstorm. I still don't see a lands deck. The 14th place deck is using Exploration and Life from the Loam, but it's another Brainstorm/Ponder control deck, not the 40+ land deck most people think of when someone mentions lands.
Um, yes there was lands and nic fit in the top 16, go check again.
Since using a sample size on one tournament is fine, lets use some older data too: GP Strausburg had 4 brainstorm decks in the top 8 and DC had 5. That's about how its always been. Brainstorm is a pretty good card and it makes a lot of archtypes more powerful.
Is this page wrong? I don't see nic-fit or lands on there.
EDIT: Nevermind I see nic-fit now. I saw 4x Brainstorm in the list and dismissed it without looking, since the post was arguing against the ubiquity of Brainstorm. I still don't see a lands deck.
I don't get all the blue hate, because blue was always the best color for a long tournament with many different decks.
Playing a non blue deck is like gambling. Take for example Jund. Jund is favored against almost all blue non combo decks but if you play a long tournament chances increase that you play against Combo.
It's not "blue hate." It's hate for a format where every deck has to conform to a very specific type of deckbuilding to accomodate Brainstorm and Ponder. Nobody complains about Merfolk even though that's a blue deck. Specifically, you have to run an extremely low mana count and rely on Brainstorm to find you your mana. That means either eschewing all cards that cost more than 3 in your deck if they're not called JTMS, or playing extremely disadvantegeous acceleration like Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Exploration, etc. in order to keep your physical land count as low as possible.
You can't not play Brainstorm and Force of Will in Legacy because without Brainstorm you just run out of gas against control/aggro-cotrol and without Force of Will you can't beat combo. I don't get why anyone would ever play stuff like Death and Taxes, Merfolk, and Maverick. All of these decks are running like 28 mana sources if you count Aether Vial and Noble Hierarch. You have no chance of beating an 18 land + Brainstorm/Ponder Delver deck, they're going to draw twice as many threats and answers as you are. Even the control decks are showing up with 22/23 lands, how do you expect to fight them with that much mana in your deck?
Chapin said it best in his latest article. You start with Brainstorm and Force of Will, then stuff in the best cards from two other colors and you're playing Legacy. This is how every deck in the format operates now.
Yeah, the fact that the top 8 was 87.5% Brainstorm plus a deck with 6 maindeck red blasts which also epitomizes all the other format problems I mentioned really calls my argument into question. The fact that you can put 6 red blasts in a maindeck and T8 is way more than enough evidence that Legacy is messed up. Even that painter deck demonstrates all the problems with Legacy, he also has to run 19 lands and make up for it by running Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors/Spirit Guide, and then rely on the best wannabe Brainstorm nonblue decks can run, Divining Top, in order to be able to find lands when he needs them.
The reason you can T8 a deck with a full set of red blasts and nine copies of Blood Moon (that's what Recruiter almost always fetches) is exactly because the format is how Chapin describes it, literally everyone is playing 3-color decks with low land counts and Brainstorm and Force of Will.
1. That "lands" deck was a three-color control deck running Brainstorm, Ponder, and Force of Will. There's no twisting going on here.
2. No ***** Blood Moon exists to hose dual lands. What do you think the manabase of any 3-color deck running a low (18-22) land count has to consist of? Fetchlands and dual lands.
3. Painter "turning on" red blasts would not make the red blasts good enough to maindeck if the rest of the format wasn't 90% blue anyways.
I'm not going to try to claim blue isn't the best color in Legacy, because I think that would be silly, but remember that we've seen decks that aren't blue succeed in the past (Elves, Death and Taxes, Maverick, etc.) and we could certainly see it swing that way again. Despite how amazing blue is though you almost always need to splash other colors because outside of Merfolk and Onmnitell it's very hard to make a mono-blue decks because blue is lacking some key components. Creature-wise blue is quickly approaching the best creature quality (which is crazy, but it is what it is), but you often need to supplement with white, black, green, or red to get the best creature base. You also need to splash another color to get real removal or you end up running suboptimal cards like Dismember. As long as Wizards doesn't print some amazing blue removal spell and doesn't keep printing more busted blue creatures I think we'll continue to see a large diversity of decks. It would be nice if non-blue decks could be just as competitive but the meta just isn't favorable for them right now because Wizards keeps giving blue amazing cards that make it extremely hard to justify not playing it.
Twndomn, I can pick out your posts these days both here and on the Source even before I see who the author is. You are wrong on this one, and you have some learning to do before you go picking arguments as often as you do.
"End of turn, I copy my Dark Depths with Thespian's Stage and create an indestructible 20/20 token?"
"Sure."
"Untap? Draw?"
"Sure."
"Attack you for 20?"
"Nah, you forgot to pay for The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale you got lying around there, so you actually need to sacrifice your indestructible 20/20."
I hope the guy didn't actually scoop with the 20/20 because Tabernacle was reverse errata'ed and Merit Lage would have given the people at the Tabernacle a big beating.
I would flip my stuff if they tried to tell me I lost due to this.
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"You can't stop the signal, Mel." - Mr. Universe
If wizards would print a green, black and white version of Hydroblast and Blue Elemental Blast Painter could be done in every color.
7/8 is 87.5%, the link's been posted enough times, go look. Burn doesn't run REB because it doesn't really want to trade 1:1 with its opponents spells and/or permanents, it wants to burn the opponent out while ignoring what they're doing. Also Burn and Goblins are bad decks that you probably shouldn't be playing at all at this point.
7/8 is 87.5%, the link's been posted enough times, go look. Burn doesn't run REB because it doesn't really want to trade 1:1 with its opponents spells and/or permanents, it wants to burn the opponent out while ignoring what they're doing. Also Burn and Goblins are bad decks that you probably shouldn't be playing at all at this point.
I wouldn't call them "bad" decks. They're tier 2, but they certainly aren't bad.
That an afterthought sunday night side event for a Sealed GP, in a third world country where Legacy isn't supported at all still managed to gather 1/4th of a SCG Open with nearly no repeat decklists (couple lands, couple shardless, couple miracles but there was representation for every one of the 30 tier 1/1.5 decks plus a bunch of rogues) while the biggest and most important Legacy GP is a thousand netdecks. And that I find it disheartening that with the massive variety of competitive and anti-meta decks that can be made most players seem to naturally get stuck with three decks.
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Yes sir, I take fantasy art and character design commissions, PM me for rates.
That an afterthought sunday night side event for a Sealed GP, in a third world country where Legacy isn't supported at all still managed to gather 1/4th of a SCG Open with nearly no repeat decklists (couple lands, couple shardless, couple miracles but there was representation for every one of the 30 tier 1/1.5 decks plus a bunch of rogues) while the biggest and most important Legacy GP is a thousand netdecks. And that I find it disheartening that with the massive variety of competitive and anti-meta decks that can be made most players seem to naturally get stuck with three decks.
Maybe. Just maybe. And hear me out here. The reason they get stuck with those three decks. And stay with me now. Is because they are the most powerful and consistent decks available.
7/8 is 87.5%, the link's been posted enough times, go look. Burn doesn't run REB because it doesn't really want to trade 1:1 with its opponents spells and/or permanents, it wants to burn the opponent out while ignoring what they're doing. Also Burn and Goblins are bad decks that you probably shouldn't be playing at all at this point.
7/8 is 87.5%, the link's been posted enough times, go look. Burn doesn't run REB because it doesn't really want to trade 1:1 with its opponents spells and/or permanents, it wants to burn the opponent out while ignoring what they're doing. Also Burn and Goblins are bad decks that you probably shouldn't be playing at all at this point.
I wouldn't call them "bad" decks. They're tier 2, but they certainly aren't bad.
I'm sorry what criteria falls under being tier 1? Burn consistently top 8's major tournaments. If that doesn't make it tier 1 I don't know what is. Especially if you consider U/R Delver a burn variation.
To be Tier 1, a deck needs to not completely fold to hate. If you want to beat Burn, you can. It doesn't really matter what you're playing, all it takes is 4 sideboard cards in pretty much any deck and Burn is dead in the water. Burn can only win when everyone else forgets it exists, or calculates it's a small enough percentage of the metagame that they can hope to dodge the matchup and thus don't need to run hate.
Of course, any deck will have a harder time if people are trying to hate it out, but if you're playing 3-color delver you still have a 25/75 matchup against even a deck specifically designed to beat you and only you. If you're playing Burn and a Brainstorm deck sides in four cards specifically put there to hate out Burn, you won't win 1 game in 10 because Brainstorm and Ponder mean they're going to draw at least two of those cards every game, and when you're playing a single-minded, monocolored deck like Burn you have absolutely no capacity to beat the hate when they do draw it.
Maverick and D&T have exactly the same problem. Side in two copies of Massacre, use Brainstorm to find it, win game. They can't do ***** about your hate card since Brainstorm protects it from discard in addition to finding it, it costs 0 mana to cast, and as a non-Brainstorm deck you can't Force of Will it.
That an afterthought sunday night side event for a Sealed GP, in a third world country where Legacy isn't supported at all still managed to gather 1/4th of a SCG Open with nearly no repeat decklists (couple lands, couple shardless, couple miracles but there was representation for every one of the 30 tier 1/1.5 decks plus a bunch of rogues) while the biggest and most important Legacy GP is a thousand netdecks. And that I find it disheartening that with the massive variety of competitive and anti-meta decks that can be made most players seem to naturally get stuck with three decks.
The whole reason Legacy is popular is because it's great when it's played semi-casually to semi-competitively. In that kind of environment, there are probably 30 "viable" decks, you get to play with all cards from MTG history, and as an extra added bonus you get to show off your conspicuous consumption to people more likely to be impressed by it. Legacy absolutely SUCKS when played truly competitively. If they ever run another Legacy PT, you'll see exactly how much it sucks.
I'm sorry what criteria falls under being tier 1? Burn consistently top 8's major tournaments. If that doesn't make it tier 1 I don't know what is. Especially if you consider U/R Delver a burn variation.
If by "consistently" you mean "maybe once a year, if that." I'd really like to know what all these "major tournaments" that Burn is getting Top 8 in, because I sure can't find them. UR Delver does a little better in that it actually does hit a few Top 8's, but still never hits those Top 8's in anything resembling consistency.
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http://t.co/zxsiAhMvQU @ 8:47:00
How did the commentators not notice? The camera was RIGHT on him.
Top 4 were Cephalid Breakfast, Reanimator, Maverick and Shardless BUG.
Edit: Reanimator was actually ANT and won the final against Cephalid Breakfast.
There was no nic-fit or lands in the top 16. It was 60 copies of Brainstorm and a deck running six Red Elemental Blasts maindeck. (with more in the sideboard) This is evidence of a massively messed up format. The SCG Opens sometimes get 2 or 3 non-Brainstorm decks in the T8, but these are smaller, more casual tournaments with less rounds. The fact is, if you're playing Legacy in a huge tournament and you want to win, you play Brainstorm or you go home. The reason it's "only" 66% of the format is because of Legacy's high amount of casual appeal, a lot of people are playing the deck they want to play rather than the objectively best deck.
The mox comparison isn't relevant. Wasteland is in every Legacy deck too, and nobody complains about that, because Wasteland doesn't force you to build your deck a certain way like Brainstorm does.
Non-Brainstorm decks have to run too many lands, they can't beat hate, and they're too inconsistent. Brainstorm and Ponder let you sideboard in two hate cards against an otherwise bad matchup and make it a good matchup because these cards make you guaranteed to find your hate. Take for example RUG Delver against Elves. You'd think this would be an absolutely terrible matchup for Delver. They have 12 cards in their maindeck that do almost nothing, (Daze, Spell Pierce, Stifle) and they can never get through on the ground due to block/return creature shenanigans. Elves can feasibly race slower draws and they're always threatening an autowin by resolving either Glimpse or Natural Order. Yet RUG is favored. Why? All they have to do is sideboard in 2 Rough/Tumble, and Brainstorm and Ponder guarantee that they will draw one in both sideboarded games and blow Elves out because Elves has no real answer to this card.
This was likely unintentional, he made not attempt to it subtle or distract his opponent (or the audience) from the fact. If you have ever cast brainstorm you know that this happens from time time, completely unintentionally.
Um, yes there was lands and nic fit in the top 16, go check again.
Since using a sample size on one tournament is fine, lets use some older data too: GP Strausburg had 4 brainstorm decks in the top 8 and DC had 5. That's about how its always been. Brainstorm is a pretty good card and it makes a lot of archtypes more powerful.
I still don't think this card is as powerful as advertised and I don't think it's going to make a major splash if people are maindecking it. But if D&T doesn't top 8, I don't know why you'd expect to see it.
That U/W/ "Death and Taxes" list that made Day 2 running Judge's Familiar and Meddling Mage tickles me in a way a I can't begin to explain.
Beyond a reasonable doubt that it was an honest mistake. But yes, commentators should not have missed it.
**************
Also, I don't understand this twitter from PVDDR:
Question: if you want to walk into a GP lacking in experience... is UW Miracles the best choice?
…( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : : o `-, …. Beyond the hard times from now
have/want: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/trading-post/details/80-quattros-trade-thread
In Legacy where you want as much of a streamlined deck as possible, decreasing variance increases the odds of your deck performing. Its simple to understand why the decks run it. Splashing blue for access to fixing the rest of your deck? Sounds like a good plan to me (Granted, blue has been my favourite color since 2001).
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
https://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gppar14/welcome
Is this page wrong? I don't see nic-fit or lands on there.
EDIT: Nevermind I see nic-fit now. I saw 4x Brainstorm in the list and dismissed it without looking, since the post was arguing against the ubiquity of Brainstorm. I still don't see a lands deck. The 14th place deck is using Exploration and Life from the Loam, but it's another Brainstorm/Ponder control deck, not the 40+ land deck most people think of when someone mentions lands.
Nic-fit: 10th place list Veteran Explorer, Cabal Therapy, Thragtusk, Recurring Nightmare
Lands: 14th Place list Exploration, Crop Rotation, Life From the Loam, Thespian Stage, Dark Depths
It's not "blue hate." It's hate for a format where every deck has to conform to a very specific type of deckbuilding to accomodate Brainstorm and Ponder. Nobody complains about Merfolk even though that's a blue deck. Specifically, you have to run an extremely low mana count and rely on Brainstorm to find you your mana. That means either eschewing all cards that cost more than 3 in your deck if they're not called JTMS, or playing extremely disadvantegeous acceleration like Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Exploration, etc. in order to keep your physical land count as low as possible.
You can't not play Brainstorm and Force of Will in Legacy because without Brainstorm you just run out of gas against control/aggro-cotrol and without Force of Will you can't beat combo. I don't get why anyone would ever play stuff like Death and Taxes, Merfolk, and Maverick. All of these decks are running like 28 mana sources if you count Aether Vial and Noble Hierarch. You have no chance of beating an 18 land + Brainstorm/Ponder Delver deck, they're going to draw twice as many threats and answers as you are. Even the control decks are showing up with 22/23 lands, how do you expect to fight them with that much mana in your deck?
Chapin said it best in his latest article. You start with Brainstorm and Force of Will, then stuff in the best cards from two other colors and you're playing Legacy. This is how every deck in the format operates now.
The reason you can T8 a deck with a full set of red blasts and nine copies of Blood Moon (that's what Recruiter almost always fetches) is exactly because the format is how Chapin describes it, literally everyone is playing 3-color decks with low land counts and Brainstorm and Force of Will.
2. No ***** Blood Moon exists to hose dual lands. What do you think the manabase of any 3-color deck running a low (18-22) land count has to consist of? Fetchlands and dual lands.
3. Painter "turning on" red blasts would not make the red blasts good enough to maindeck if the rest of the format wasn't 90% blue anyways.
RGoblinsR
RWerewolf StompyR
URU/R DelverRU
RGBelcherGR
BThe GateB
GBLoam PoxBG
WGBNic FitBGW
UHigh TideU
UMerfolkU
UFaerieNinjaStillU
WBUAffinityUBW
GSquirrelsG
UWGSliversGWU
I would flip my stuff if they tried to tell me I lost due to this.
If wizards would print a green, black and white version of Hydroblast and Blue Elemental Blast Painter could be done in every color.
RRImperial PainterRR
UUUUMonoOmniTellUUUU
BGURWDredgeWRUGB
I wouldn't call them "bad" decks. They're tier 2, but they certainly aren't bad.
RGoblinsR
RWerewolf StompyR
URU/R DelverRU
RGBelcherGR
BThe GateB
GBLoam PoxBG
WGBNic FitBGW
UHigh TideU
UMerfolkU
UFaerieNinjaStillU
WBUAffinityUBW
GSquirrelsG
UWGSliversGWU
Maybe. Just maybe. And hear me out here. The reason they get stuck with those three decks. And stay with me now. Is because they are the most powerful and consistent decks available.
Burn isn't a bad deck.
I'm sorry what criteria falls under being tier 1? Burn consistently top 8's major tournaments. If that doesn't make it tier 1 I don't know what is. Especially if you consider U/R Delver a burn variation.
Of course, any deck will have a harder time if people are trying to hate it out, but if you're playing 3-color delver you still have a 25/75 matchup against even a deck specifically designed to beat you and only you. If you're playing Burn and a Brainstorm deck sides in four cards specifically put there to hate out Burn, you won't win 1 game in 10 because Brainstorm and Ponder mean they're going to draw at least two of those cards every game, and when you're playing a single-minded, monocolored deck like Burn you have absolutely no capacity to beat the hate when they do draw it.
Maverick and D&T have exactly the same problem. Side in two copies of Massacre, use Brainstorm to find it, win game. They can't do ***** about your hate card since Brainstorm protects it from discard in addition to finding it, it costs 0 mana to cast, and as a non-Brainstorm deck you can't Force of Will it.
The whole reason Legacy is popular is because it's great when it's played semi-casually to semi-competitively. In that kind of environment, there are probably 30 "viable" decks, you get to play with all cards from MTG history, and as an extra added bonus you get to show off your conspicuous consumption to people more likely to be impressed by it. Legacy absolutely SUCKS when played truly competitively. If they ever run another Legacy PT, you'll see exactly how much it sucks.
If by "consistently" you mean "maybe once a year, if that." I'd really like to know what all these "major tournaments" that Burn is getting Top 8 in, because I sure can't find them. UR Delver does a little better in that it actually does hit a few Top 8's, but still never hits those Top 8's in anything resembling consistency.