Yea Manu B devoted an entire article to the day 2 report of his deck, with his 10th place finish. I dont know whether or not its fine to post decklists from Premium, I'm not sure if thats the same as sharing the article or something, so i'd rather not post the list. Who knows, he'd probably be fine sharing the list, but i probably shouldnt
I laughed when someone said earlier that Trinisphere effects both players. Many effects are technically symetrical in magic. They rarely are though. Balance is perfectly "symetrical" to both players. It must be a fair card, right? Timetwister is also a symetrical effect. the point in decks don't play trinisphere that can't easily abuse it.
Hermit Druid I don't think should be unbanned. Yes, it has problems with graveyard hate. But... it makes Cephalid Breakfast into one card. That means that it can spend far more slots with protection, because you only need Hermit Druid, some tutors (worldly tutor, heck summoner's pact would work, although its best if you can give the Druid haste), and the kill, which is some 6-7 cards. It is a one card "I win" combo, which is very very rare in magic. Worldgorger Dragon is banned, which does nothing on its own. Earthcraft is banned, and its primary useage is a 2 card combo (although it has other uses I suppose). Hermit Druid has a very consistent turn 3 kill, and can kill t2 with any piece of acceleration (Chrome Mox and Spirit Guide are both on color and spring to mind). There are plenty of tutors to find him, and then you simply pack the deck with protection. Ichorid is a very powerful deck, even with the hate. And yet... it doesn't have the ability to run Pithing Needle, Force of Will, etc, main, which a Hermit Druid deck could. Hermit Druid is an extremely powerful card, one that should not be unbanned.
I mean, to repeat myself, Ichorid is only kept down through large amounts of hate. Imagine Ichorid with vulnerability to spot removal, but with 16+ slots dedicated to protection. Ichorid gets what for ptotection MD, 3 Cabal therapies?'
Unbanning Land Tax I can see, however, I'll admit i've never played competitively with the card, only in formats like EDH. Land Tax is a card that is only good in slow games, and so it would have problems with fast decks like Storm, etc. However ofc, in a metagame with a ton of Countertop decks, Land tax would likely be pretty good, because in long games Land Tax gives you a huge advantage.
Finest Hour bant gives you a lot of satisfaction when your curve pulls off... even with a fairly imperfect curve, either they have an answer, or they lose. (Finest Hour OR Rafiq+most dudes kills em in 2 swings or so, Shorecrasher->either of them is ridiculous, and of course Rafiq and then Finest Hour is HILARIOUS).
That being said, it might not be the best choice. Its sorta inconsistent, and fairly easily disrupted. That can be sorta frustrating, bc sometimes you will just have games where your sitting there... and you can't do anything as your opponent beats you. but then again you often curve out and they sit there helplessly. It just depends on whether or not you get frustrated from having a decent number of losses that are fairly out of your control.
Master Transmuter seems cool, because you won't always pull it off... but when you do, its a beautiful thing.
An example is a card that prevents players from sacrificing cards to stop mass Fetchlands.
Wizards already printed Suppression Field, whihc makes you have 2 none fetch lands before u pop any fetches, which isn't easy. Its effectively what your talking about.
If you ban Force, obviously you'd have to ban a large part of storm, I dont think Storm could be efficiently stopped without Force's everywhere. But Force will not, and should not, be banned, so we're cool
Secondly, the Jitte is a really strong card, but it's how you use it. If you're going to build up counters to kill blockers and force the win with a huge attack, then that might be too much for some groups. But, I once played a GW Lifegain deck that used creatures with lifelink and other forms of gaining life. One cool aspect of this deck was that it played Jitte, but only used the ability to gain life. It would attack, spend the counters for 4 life, and pass the Jitte to something that could block. It was a great way to play a card that gets a bad rap at the kitchen table in a new, and not overpowered, way.
The one thing about Jitte, is that say in your lifegain deck, too often the correct usage be the other abilities.Sure, the purpose may have been to gain life, but very often i cant help but feel that the correct play would be to use various other more "broken" modes.
For what is casual, thats an extremely tough question.
On BoaB on MTG.com, that has come up over and over, especially on the issue of budget. And i'm fully torn.
I dont think i really have a definition for casual. For instance, saying that competitive decks can't be casual seems tough to always be. For instance, you want to play a Faerie deck. If you follow the natural progression of making a good Faerie deck, you'll end up soon with a similar deck to an incredibly hated deck. But casual decks can be, but shouldnt have to be, bad. If you restrict yourself to making decks that don't look like tournament competitive decks, you often can end up with a bad deck. Thats the main problem that i encounter for trying to define casual.
On budget, its also hard. For instance, buying a manabase can be RIDICULOUSLY expensive. But... does that make it not casual. if you buy playsets of revised duals and onslaught fetchlands for your deck, that'll put your deck into hundreds of dollars. But... if your just supporting the intensive mana of your Sliver deck, is that deck not casual? Its hard calling a deck not casual due to budget, if the budget is funding a very casual deck. Heck, Doubling Season and Glimpse the Unthinkable are both a good 10 dollars, 40 dollars a playset or so, yet their used almost exclusively in casual (I dunno if I've ever seen a truly competitive deck with etiher in it).
Well that does make it look like poison. I dont think Poison itself is enough for a block, thats a single mechanic, which a block can't be based around, its just too narrow (which is larger, the theme of "Color Matters" or "poison".) So while Poison may be it, I wonder what else will fill up the block. Alt win conditions sounds interesting, and certainly fits the description.
Are you kidding me? This late 3 great cards here. Heck, Keldon Vandals is a fine card.
Dauthi Slayer is a fine card. We could use more early drops here, however, i'd prefer defense early drops. We're gonna win most games with our solid midrange creatures. We can't claim to be a blistering aggro deck, we're not gonna win that way. So i'd rather not take such an agressive early guy.
Overgrown Tomb is a dual in our 2 main colors, which is ridiculous this late. we already do have a bayou to fetch, so its a bit less useful (its still excellent to hard draw, but if i have fetches, and lack duals, obviously duals value goes up a bunch). But its still a great mana fixer to have.
treetop village is a GREAT card. Its very close between it and village. However, I'm going to go with village. Mainly, we dont have much in the 1 drop department, so i dont mind the CIPT. Also, I fear wrath effects with this deck, and treetop village is a good answer to that. And finally, it helps vs counters, which i again fear with slow decks like these.
Treetop Village (though i love fixing, so its close with Overgrown)
Skullclamp should NOT unbanned. Sure, I guess ANT could still race clamp decks. Does that mean it should be unbanned? Hell no. Skullclamp would be a 4 of in every single deck with a bunch of creatures. THose aggro ddecks would be signifigantly more hard for control to stop. Im not sure if there really are worse cards in the format. Skullclamp would be worse in Legacy then other formats, because its slightly less about combat, and its faster. But still, Clamp not only would give rise to new combo decks, but its powerlevel is so far beyond most cards. Also, bear in mind how WotC looks at it. Say WotC doesn't think skullclamp would unbalance legacy. THey would never unban it. WotC has admitted that Skullclamp was a terrible mistake, and it+ Affinity i believe led to much more testing around upcoming sets, so such a screwup would never happen again. WotC wants to forget about it. THey don't want to try and unabn it. They just want it in the past.
People need to remember, a card not dominating a format isn't reason for it to be unbanned. Take Worldgorger Dragon.Yes, a tormod's crypt stops the combo. However, the power of that combo is a fair bit beyond most infinite Legacy combos. if WotC took the suggestions of this forum, then there would be a good 5-10 distinct and viable combo decks out there. Each one of them sure, might be on the same power level as ANT. But with that many viable combo decks out there, you can't hate them all out, and etc. Legacy has really 2 viable tier `1 combo decks. Ichorid, and ANT (I'm grouping TES and other storm combo stuff with ANT because I mean heck most TES run Ad Nasmean anywways). In nearly every single sideboard, hate is devoted to each of them. And still, even with only 2 combo decks to hate out, both decks show a bunch of success.
Land Tax i can sorta see, just because its a slower card that doesn't really lead to combos. Though I laughed when i saw some1 using EDH to prove how broken Land Tax is. Land Tax is a card that shines the longer the games go. EDH games are INCREDIBLY slow. Obviously Land Tax is brutal. Thats why stuff like Recurring Nightmere had to be actually BANNED in EDH, because cards that incrementally accrued advantage in EDH were so ridiculous. Recurring Nightmere isn't even really played in Legacy atm.
For my prediction, nothing will change. They will go on some speech about how they were happy with the GP Chicago metagame.
Because even of course in Chicago, the t8 was decieving. Tons of pros grabbed up CB Decks. So it makes sense that an unproportionate number of decks near the top would be CB Top. I mean, I think going into day 2 there were about as many Goblin decks as CB decks, i think i saw that in a metagame thing they posted.
For changes i WISH they would make.,, I wouldn't mind Top getting banned, but I'll be fine when it doesn't get banned. Goyf won't get banned, and I don't really care. I really wouldn't care either way if Goyf was banned or not. Grim Monolith could be unbanned... its kinda ridiculous that thats banned when other cards are unanned. I don't think that a card being a similar power level to an unbanned card means it should be unbanned, see above, but Grim Monolith I just don't think will make much of a splash in Legacy.
And it dries out. The only card in this pack that we could realistically play is Iron Myr. We don't have enough white cards to justify a WW splash, especially none of these cards are actually "bombs". Red is a splash color, so trip for Kiki-Jiki is out.
So it comes down to Myr or hatedrafting. I think, hatedraft if you won't play the card in question. So the question is will we play the Myr?
it's not a very powerful card. But it is colorless, so always castable on turn 2. We also have quite a 4-5 curve. This brings that curve a turn earlier.
Also, I don't see anything truly hatedraftable. The Anthem and the Angel look best. Both are very very solid cards, but not bombs that if we see... we lose.
So in the end, I think i would draft the Myr. I'm not fully sure we will play it. But, i think there is a decent shot we'll play it, and I'd rather have it than regret it, especially if our last picks cough up some high costing playables.
The Mutations (Artifact Mutation, Aura Mutation, etc etc) will often give you 5+ tokens a shot and will also provide you with plenty of versatility in dealign with stuff.
For general token creators, i'd just take the time to go through a thorough search.
I'd probably personally pick plague sliver, who knows you might ping them over some changelings/slivers. But, as I dont want to split the 2BB 5/5 ping vote, I'll vote Juzam Djinn (It would be bad if say Plague Sliver 3, Juzam 3, Chrome Mox 4, because people really were split on the same card/slot. Juzam appears to be winning right now).
This pack used to have a Snuff Out right? unfortunate, but whatever. We have a ton of great midrange creatures, ofc not a ton else =p
Due to our midrange, Chrome Mox is tempting. But I think i'd rather have the very very solid beater. I love reanimation spells, but Beacon is just too slow
I dont mind the other rules changes, I'll get used to them. But the combat damage one is terrible.
First, the stack is complicated. Lets say it is. Players still need to understand the stack to play the rest of magic. Magic uses the stack, A LOT. They aren't cutting out all uses of the stack. It still happens that if you unsummon your Grizzly Bears in response to terror, the terror no longer has a target. They aren't editing that out of the rules. But they just target the stack in combat. Why? They utterly destroyed a ton of the tricks during combat.
Their solution, is it that much simpler? They turned blocking, which was intuitive, into a much more complicated step, with ordering blockers, assigning combat damage being integral, etc etc. they wanted to simplify it down, and sure, they simplified combat damage. But then they made blocking more complicated. I dont worry about normal magic players understanding new blocking rules, but beginners no longer have blocking be as intuitive for them.
I just am so saddened that they did this. WotC hasn't changed magic from being nonintuitive to intuitive. Magic still possesses countless problems for a new player. But they decided to take one of the simpler places where tricks can happen, combat damage on the stack, and ruin it. In fact, I remember when I was a new player, and found out about combat damage andthe stack, I was so happy! I quickly used the fancy tricks on my playgroup of other new players, turning a game around with my tricky blocks. That is what makes magic rewarding. And WotC has taken part of that away.
I would like to say, I dont like to complain about things. Exile and Battfield for instance. I'd rathr keep it the way it is, but frankly I figure i'll get used to the new terms. The mulligaining is slightly too bad, but will speed up tournaments, and no longer will i have to explain to new players that they have to declare all their mulligans before I do. Im just dissapointed by wizards.
Except that it has nothing to do with when the ability is played. The only thing it's stopping you from doing is blocking, saccing for the life and killing your opponent's creature.
Read his post. He didn't say play it only when it wasn't relevent. He said play it any time EXCEPT for when its moetrelevent.
As said, according to the EDH banlist, no. However, I think a lot of playgroups don't mind un cards that seem like magic cards. A lot of un cards work just like normal magic cards, i just wouldn't use wierd stuff like gotcha and etc cards.
LOL @ Slave should ne ver be in pack pick 3. Sure, its rare. But seriously, hatedraft a card p2? That should never happen. Hatedrafting is simple, hate draft if there is nothing you will likely play. If the first 2 players to see the pick were Bant and then Naya, there is no way they should have picked it. Slave of Bolas is an amazing card. but I dont even think its better then Sledge. if the first 2 csrds picked were say Sledge by the bant guy followed by some naya rare thats really powerful, then slave of bolas is perfectly acceptable. Slave of Bolas, but do you honestly think it is good enough to be hated 2nd pick? It is not an instant win. Sure, it often gives you the win. But its not even as good as many many rares.
Hermit Druid I don't think should be unbanned. Yes, it has problems with graveyard hate. But... it makes Cephalid Breakfast into one card. That means that it can spend far more slots with protection, because you only need Hermit Druid, some tutors (worldly tutor, heck summoner's pact would work, although its best if you can give the Druid haste), and the kill, which is some 6-7 cards. It is a one card "I win" combo, which is very very rare in magic. Worldgorger Dragon is banned, which does nothing on its own. Earthcraft is banned, and its primary useage is a 2 card combo (although it has other uses I suppose). Hermit Druid has a very consistent turn 3 kill, and can kill t2 with any piece of acceleration (Chrome Mox and Spirit Guide are both on color and spring to mind). There are plenty of tutors to find him, and then you simply pack the deck with protection. Ichorid is a very powerful deck, even with the hate. And yet... it doesn't have the ability to run Pithing Needle, Force of Will, etc, main, which a Hermit Druid deck could. Hermit Druid is an extremely powerful card, one that should not be unbanned.
I mean, to repeat myself, Ichorid is only kept down through large amounts of hate. Imagine Ichorid with vulnerability to spot removal, but with 16+ slots dedicated to protection. Ichorid gets what for ptotection MD, 3 Cabal therapies?'
Unbanning Land Tax I can see, however, I'll admit i've never played competitively with the card, only in formats like EDH. Land Tax is a card that is only good in slow games, and so it would have problems with fast decks like Storm, etc. However ofc, in a metagame with a ton of Countertop decks, Land tax would likely be pretty good, because in long games Land Tax gives you a huge advantage.
That being said, it might not be the best choice. Its sorta inconsistent, and fairly easily disrupted. That can be sorta frustrating, bc sometimes you will just have games where your sitting there... and you can't do anything as your opponent beats you. but then again you often curve out and they sit there helplessly. It just depends on whether or not you get frustrated from having a decent number of losses that are fairly out of your control.
Master Transmuter seems cool, because you won't always pull it off... but when you do, its a beautiful thing.
Wizards already printed Suppression Field, whihc makes you have 2 none fetch lands before u pop any fetches, which isn't easy. Its effectively what your talking about.
If you ban Force, obviously you'd have to ban a large part of storm, I dont think Storm could be efficiently stopped without Force's everywhere. But Force will not, and should not, be banned, so we're cool
The one thing about Jitte, is that say in your lifegain deck, too often the correct usage be the other abilities.Sure, the purpose may have been to gain life, but very often i cant help but feel that the correct play would be to use various other more "broken" modes.
For what is casual, thats an extremely tough question.
On BoaB on MTG.com, that has come up over and over, especially on the issue of budget. And i'm fully torn.
I dont think i really have a definition for casual. For instance, saying that competitive decks can't be casual seems tough to always be. For instance, you want to play a Faerie deck. If you follow the natural progression of making a good Faerie deck, you'll end up soon with a similar deck to an incredibly hated deck. But casual decks can be, but shouldnt have to be, bad. If you restrict yourself to making decks that don't look like tournament competitive decks, you often can end up with a bad deck. Thats the main problem that i encounter for trying to define casual.
On budget, its also hard. For instance, buying a manabase can be RIDICULOUSLY expensive. But... does that make it not casual. if you buy playsets of revised duals and onslaught fetchlands for your deck, that'll put your deck into hundreds of dollars. But... if your just supporting the intensive mana of your Sliver deck, is that deck not casual? Its hard calling a deck not casual due to budget, if the budget is funding a very casual deck. Heck, Doubling Season and Glimpse the Unthinkable are both a good 10 dollars, 40 dollars a playset or so, yet their used almost exclusively in casual (I dunno if I've ever seen a truly competitive deck with etiher in it).
Dauthi Slayer is a fine card. We could use more early drops here, however, i'd prefer defense early drops. We're gonna win most games with our solid midrange creatures. We can't claim to be a blistering aggro deck, we're not gonna win that way. So i'd rather not take such an agressive early guy.
Overgrown Tomb is a dual in our 2 main colors, which is ridiculous this late. we already do have a bayou to fetch, so its a bit less useful (its still excellent to hard draw, but if i have fetches, and lack duals, obviously duals value goes up a bunch). But its still a great mana fixer to have.
treetop village is a GREAT card. Its very close between it and village. However, I'm going to go with village. Mainly, we dont have much in the 1 drop department, so i dont mind the CIPT. Also, I fear wrath effects with this deck, and treetop village is a good answer to that. And finally, it helps vs counters, which i again fear with slow decks like these.
Treetop Village (though i love fixing, so its close with Overgrown)
People need to remember, a card not dominating a format isn't reason for it to be unbanned. Take Worldgorger Dragon.Yes, a tormod's crypt stops the combo. However, the power of that combo is a fair bit beyond most infinite Legacy combos. if WotC took the suggestions of this forum, then there would be a good 5-10 distinct and viable combo decks out there. Each one of them sure, might be on the same power level as ANT. But with that many viable combo decks out there, you can't hate them all out, and etc. Legacy has really 2 viable tier `1 combo decks. Ichorid, and ANT (I'm grouping TES and other storm combo stuff with ANT because I mean heck most TES run Ad Nasmean anywways). In nearly every single sideboard, hate is devoted to each of them. And still, even with only 2 combo decks to hate out, both decks show a bunch of success.
Land Tax i can sorta see, just because its a slower card that doesn't really lead to combos. Though I laughed when i saw some1 using EDH to prove how broken Land Tax is. Land Tax is a card that shines the longer the games go. EDH games are INCREDIBLY slow. Obviously Land Tax is brutal. Thats why stuff like Recurring Nightmere had to be actually BANNED in EDH, because cards that incrementally accrued advantage in EDH were so ridiculous. Recurring Nightmere isn't even really played in Legacy atm.
For my prediction, nothing will change. They will go on some speech about how they were happy with the GP Chicago metagame.
Because even of course in Chicago, the t8 was decieving. Tons of pros grabbed up CB Decks. So it makes sense that an unproportionate number of decks near the top would be CB Top. I mean, I think going into day 2 there were about as many Goblin decks as CB decks, i think i saw that in a metagame thing they posted.
For changes i WISH they would make.,, I wouldn't mind Top getting banned, but I'll be fine when it doesn't get banned. Goyf won't get banned, and I don't really care. I really wouldn't care either way if Goyf was banned or not. Grim Monolith could be unbanned... its kinda ridiculous that thats banned when other cards are unanned. I don't think that a card being a similar power level to an unbanned card means it should be unbanned, see above, but Grim Monolith I just don't think will make much of a splash in Legacy.
So it comes down to Myr or hatedrafting. I think, hatedraft if you won't play the card in question. So the question is will we play the Myr?
it's not a very powerful card. But it is colorless, so always castable on turn 2. We also have quite a 4-5 curve. This brings that curve a turn earlier.
Also, I don't see anything truly hatedraftable. The Anthem and the Angel look best. Both are very very solid cards, but not bombs that if we see... we lose.
So in the end, I think i would draft the Myr. I'm not fully sure we will play it. But, i think there is a decent shot we'll play it, and I'd rather have it than regret it, especially if our last picks cough up some high costing playables.
For general token creators, i'd just take the time to go through a thorough search.
Most of it will be junk, but spend 15 minutes scrolling through and you'll really know nearly every option availible.
This pack used to have a Snuff Out right? unfortunate, but whatever. We have a ton of great midrange creatures, ofc not a ton else =p
Due to our midrange, Chrome Mox is tempting. But I think i'd rather have the very very solid beater. I love reanimation spells, but Beacon is just too slow
And if he has 4 Pulse from another deck, it makes sense to throw them in? People on budgets sometimes have access to certain cards.
First, the stack is complicated. Lets say it is. Players still need to understand the stack to play the rest of magic. Magic uses the stack, A LOT. They aren't cutting out all uses of the stack. It still happens that if you unsummon your Grizzly Bears in response to terror, the terror no longer has a target. They aren't editing that out of the rules. But they just target the stack in combat. Why? They utterly destroyed a ton of the tricks during combat.
Their solution, is it that much simpler? They turned blocking, which was intuitive, into a much more complicated step, with ordering blockers, assigning combat damage being integral, etc etc. they wanted to simplify it down, and sure, they simplified combat damage. But then they made blocking more complicated. I dont worry about normal magic players understanding new blocking rules, but beginners no longer have blocking be as intuitive for them.
I just am so saddened that they did this. WotC hasn't changed magic from being nonintuitive to intuitive. Magic still possesses countless problems for a new player. But they decided to take one of the simpler places where tricks can happen, combat damage on the stack, and ruin it. In fact, I remember when I was a new player, and found out about combat damage andthe stack, I was so happy! I quickly used the fancy tricks on my playgroup of other new players, turning a game around with my tricky blocks. That is what makes magic rewarding. And WotC has taken part of that away.
I would like to say, I dont like to complain about things. Exile and Battfield for instance. I'd rathr keep it the way it is, but frankly I figure i'll get used to the new terms. The mulligaining is slightly too bad, but will speed up tournaments, and no longer will i have to explain to new players that they have to declare all their mulligans before I do. Im just dissapointed by wizards.
Read his post. He didn't say play it only when it wasn't relevent. He said play it any time EXCEPT for when its moetrelevent.