Ghoultree is for sure bad in legacy (I would never ever play that card in dredge or any other deck, the only way it might be playable would be if it had shroud/hexproof/didn't die to all the removal spells in the format other than EE and co.)
Faithless looting is good but it's not going to break legacy in half. I'm not even sure what demon he's talking about in his post but I sincerely doubt it is better than any existing dread return targets otherwise I would've noticed it.
I would consider playing Ghoultree if it had some form of protection like that, but even then I don't the deck I would be using would be Dredge. Faithless Looting is incredible in LED Dredge, and while it won't break the format, I honestly feel as though more competent Dredge pilots could give the archetype a major push using this card, even with that wretched cage.
Now, here's my question; am I crazy to think that Tragic Slip might see some type of Legacy play? Personally I think it could be exceedingly useful spot-removal in the right deck. (AKA any black deck that can kill at least one creature a turn (AKA pretty much all of them; Pox is one that comes to mind)) and while I don't expect to see it replacing Innocent Blood or GftT, I believe it has potential. What do other people think?
Okay, does Helvault officially prove that like 99% of Mythics are friggin terrible and that outside of Planeswalkers mythic rarity is generally a negative thing which would imply the card is gonna be an awful 5,000 mana cast piece of crap.
Jeepers, it's like Tower Of Calamaties bad IMO. If you're looking for board Sweep protection why not just go with Withstand Death in that case. Rather than have to have it out and then pay the mana and then hope to have something to get rid of it and have the creature enter with Summoning Sickness.
Innistrad was kinda bad with stamping mythic on any rare to junky to be rare but to "big" to be anything less. But damn, this set is setting a new standard.
Ugh, this. Don't get me wrong, I am far from angry that Wizards doesn't just slap the Mythic rarity on a bunch of the set's playables, however this set has just been Mythic after Mythic, and in my opinion only about half of them deserve to be. (and that's from both a game and flavor standpoint) It seems like this set they just feel like screwing the rules and playing children's card games.
The fake Helvault we saw before was far more appealing, imo. I just looked at this and thought "Oh, another one of these effects...just on a nonland (?) mythic so it has an excuse to cost more mana."
Dat token spell though...not bad Wizards, not bad at all.
Exactly. Or compare it to the hypothetical printing of a control-hoser. The Cage is like re-printing Black Vise in Standard, unrestricted. What do you think all the spikey control players at your shop would be cursing about Friday night if THAT had happened? There would be a dang uproar. I doubt MM and Steel Sabotage would be comforting them right now. Apparently they can hose fun archetypes with a powerful card like the Cage, but they won't print effective hate for the same ol' boring U/x control decks that durdle around for 30 minutes of your life you'll never get back and then spit out a 6-drop. If you want to beat those old snoozers, you have to do it with actual deckbuilding skills.
Not to mention that lands appear to be completely sacred, giving blanket immunity to not only those silly 6-drops but to the robotically-played ramp decks that have plagued us, and now these spell lands. Where's the one-mana artifact that removes all non-mana abilities from lands, or some sort of Ankh of Mishra or Zo-Zu the Punisher effect?
No, instead of going after these boring old archetypes that get remade year after year and putting a bit of a shake-up into the environment, we get a card that demolishes the only tournament-caliber mechanic in the whole block.
This, exactly this. If Wizards wants to print good hate, they need to do so with some type of congruence. Graveyard strategies take the shaft almost every block, at least once per block. If Wizards wants to hose things that "don't work as they intended," they need to look far beyond simply giving their chosen theme a good beating.
I don't have a problem with the card because it's "hard to play around" or because it "completely wipes out archetypes." It isn't, and it doesn't. But it comes damn close (or at least, closer than most cards have dared to), and hoses only a further a strategy with an OBSCENE amount of solutions as is.
"Casts." As in, not just plopping onto the battlefield like Oath of Druids does.
I hate this card. Every, single bit of it, and I am probably one of few to do so. I just figured Wizards had already printed a fairly ample amount of Graveyard hate. Just how much more obvious do they need to be about hating Dredge? I mean, we all know the mechanic doesn't work as intended....but does that make it necessary to put amazing Graveyard hosers in nearly every new set?
I think my biggest problem with the card is how much it does over Tormod's Crypt, and how it's hardly interactive. Sure, hosers rarely are, but....seriously? Of course Reanimator and Dredge still have numerous answers to this card, and the card isn't going to kill any archetypes, but I think Wizards is mostly just beating on a dead-horse - a dead-horse that wastes design space and nerfs block synergies, that is.
A four mana, two-color Planeswalker would have to compete with 3 other Planeswalkers in Legacy: Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Liliana of the Veil; and Elspeth.
As others have already stated, the fact that Sorin has to lose loyalty in order to pump his tokens which lack ANY evasion makes him unnappealing, as does the fact that with Black in his mana cost you would expect him to have some way to deal with a creature aside from making blockers before his ultimate could go off.
I cannot see him being compared to Jace in any way, but that's obvious.
As for Sorin vs Liliana, I just see no real reason as to why would would want to use valuable slots on Sorin, splash the second color, or even try to compare the usefulness of his ability in the archetype to Lili's.
I mean seriously, what actual good deck will want to play this guy? B/W Deadguy already plays equipment and SFM, and it's dropping those slots or it's disruption for this guy. Junk is mid-range, not aggro, and Dark Depths is a better strategy than Sorin.
Thus, we reach this conclusion; no viable decks in the current Legacy metagame would benefit from using the new Sorin in a way that would warrant its inclusion.
As stated before, there are some decks against which land denial can only do so much. Hymn supplements your LD strategy by slicing your opponent's card advantage. Any deck you play against will have to worry about whether to drop cards and risk getting lands blown up, or keeping them in hand and risk having them hymned away; a great board position to lock your opponent into, and the type of game state this deck relishes playing in. Sinkhole just seems "win-more" as it won't be meriting the type of destruction Hymn will in its stead.
While expensive, Nether Void comes to mind. You can accel into it with Dark Ritual to slow Zoo, as it affects both their low drop creatures and their burn spells.
Not disappointed truth be told. Sure, it could have been something better, but at least it can be played in a fair number of formats. I just want to see if Wizards ever has the nads to print a Show and Tell promo.
"Let's try something new for the sake of trying something new."
I mean, this seems to be the operating ban philosophy in Modern (including the initial ban), no wonder it filters to Legacy
It's irritating. They are different formats for a reason. Legacy is what we like to call an "eternal" format, and as great as trying new things is, banning a card simply because "we want something new" is a terrible, terrible idea, especially one with such powerful utility. Brainstorm keeps diversity at a high, being accessible to a good number of decks while providing a universally useful effect.
"Don't fix what isn't broken." Wise words which I cannot stress enough in a format like Legacy. Unless something is inherently bad for the health and diversity of the format, it should not see a ban.
If you want to play your cute little "Let's ban stuff and see how it goes!" formats, then sell your duals and play some modern. Don't bring your baseless banning garbage into a now healthy format which has been growing unhindered with Brainstorm legal.
@Smokestack Just to clarify, I was only answering to your post. I am not attempting to reference you as an example.
I do not understand why so many people want Brainstorm banned. It disappoints me quite a bit, because it gives me the impression these people do not understand Legacy fully.
Legacy is a diverse format, with many "unfair" and "broken" synergies, some of which, when previously legal in the format, were extremely degenerate. Thus, the cards which they revolved around were banned.
Brainstorm is not degenerate. Brainstorm is not broken. Brainstorm does not help any specific deck. Brainstorm's power is determined mostly by the ability of the player casting it. Wanting to ban Brainstorm is like advocating the policy of banning the Top 16 players of any event from the following event.
Of course, it is true that many cards are on the banlist because of how powerful they functioned as an enabler, and they could easily cause decks to become degenerate simply upon their inclusion. Brainstorm, relying on its opponent's skill level (and often on some luck, as well) does not make any decks inherently broken be being present in the lists. If any cards are promoting problems in the format, none of them are Brainstorm.
As a toolbox, the card serves an incredible amount of functions. It can be used both offensively and defensively, and can be used in a wide variety of circumstances. However, it is imperative that for the card to be used for maximum efficiency, the player using it must be EXCEEDINGLY competent and in full assessment of the situation. Nonetheless, Brainstorming can rarely seal games on its own, and functions as nothing more than a tool; albeit an incredibly useful one.
Brainstorm is not broken. Brainstorm does not deserve to be banned in Legacy. It promotes diversity, and requires skill to play properly. Punishing a useful tool because its color is "too strong" or "too prevalent" seems rather ridiculous.
I see this card replacing Careful Study in LED Dredge, off the bat. I know I am going to test them over Careful Study in my build, and if it performs well enough I may even up 3 Careful Study to 4 Faithless Looting. Surely, the card has far more applications than simply that (a 1 mana draw spell in Red is interesting, especially with a synergistic drawback) however this is the only use of the card I would seriously consider at the moment.
I would consider playing Ghoultree if it had some form of protection like that, but even then I don't the deck I would be using would be Dredge. Faithless Looting is incredible in LED Dredge, and while it won't break the format, I honestly feel as though more competent Dredge pilots could give the archetype a major push using this card, even with that wretched cage.
Now, here's my question; am I crazy to think that Tragic Slip might see some type of Legacy play? Personally I think it could be exceedingly useful spot-removal in the right deck. (AKA any black deck that can kill at least one creature a turn (AKA pretty much all of them; Pox is one that comes to mind)) and while I don't expect to see it replacing Innocent Blood or GftT, I believe it has potential. What do other people think?
Ugh, this. Don't get me wrong, I am far from angry that Wizards doesn't just slap the Mythic rarity on a bunch of the set's playables, however this set has just been Mythic after Mythic, and in my opinion only about half of them deserve to be. (and that's from both a game and flavor standpoint) It seems like this set they just feel like screwing the rules and playing children's card games.
Dat token spell though...not bad Wizards, not bad at all.
This, exactly this. If Wizards wants to print good hate, they need to do so with some type of congruence. Graveyard strategies take the shaft almost every block, at least once per block. If Wizards wants to hose things that "don't work as they intended," they need to look far beyond simply giving their chosen theme a good beating.
I don't have a problem with the card because it's "hard to play around" or because it "completely wipes out archetypes." It isn't, and it doesn't. But it comes damn close (or at least, closer than most cards have dared to), and hoses only a further a strategy with an OBSCENE amount of solutions as is.
Oh, so it does. Well would you look at that; ANOTHER reason for me to hate this card.
"Casts." As in, not just plopping onto the battlefield like Oath of Druids does.
I hate this card. Every, single bit of it, and I am probably one of few to do so. I just figured Wizards had already printed a fairly ample amount of Graveyard hate. Just how much more obvious do they need to be about hating Dredge? I mean, we all know the mechanic doesn't work as intended....but does that make it necessary to put amazing Graveyard hosers in nearly every new set?
I think my biggest problem with the card is how much it does over Tormod's Crypt, and how it's hardly interactive. Sure, hosers rarely are, but....seriously? Of course Reanimator and Dredge still have numerous answers to this card, and the card isn't going to kill any archetypes, but I think Wizards is mostly just beating on a dead-horse - a dead-horse that wastes design space and nerfs block synergies, that is.
As others have already stated, the fact that Sorin has to lose loyalty in order to pump his tokens which lack ANY evasion makes him unnappealing, as does the fact that with Black in his mana cost you would expect him to have some way to deal with a creature aside from making blockers before his ultimate could go off.
I cannot see him being compared to Jace in any way, but that's obvious.
As for Sorin vs Liliana, I just see no real reason as to why would would want to use valuable slots on Sorin, splash the second color, or even try to compare the usefulness of his ability in the archetype to Lili's.
Thus, we reach this conclusion; no viable decks in the current Legacy metagame would benefit from using the new Sorin in a way that would warrant its inclusion.
It's interesting and all but....talk about counterproductive.
It's irritating. They are different formats for a reason. Legacy is what we like to call an "eternal" format, and as great as trying new things is, banning a card simply because "we want something new" is a terrible, terrible idea, especially one with such powerful utility. Brainstorm keeps diversity at a high, being accessible to a good number of decks while providing a universally useful effect.
"Don't fix what isn't broken." Wise words which I cannot stress enough in a format like Legacy. Unless something is inherently bad for the health and diversity of the format, it should not see a ban.
If you want to play your cute little "Let's ban stuff and see how it goes!" formats, then sell your duals and play some modern. Don't bring your baseless banning garbage into a now healthy format which has been growing unhindered with Brainstorm legal.
@Smokestack Just to clarify, I was only answering to your post. I am not attempting to reference you as an example.
Legacy is a diverse format, with many "unfair" and "broken" synergies, some of which, when previously legal in the format, were extremely degenerate. Thus, the cards which they revolved around were banned.
Brainstorm is not degenerate. Brainstorm is not broken. Brainstorm does not help any specific deck. Brainstorm's power is determined mostly by the ability of the player casting it. Wanting to ban Brainstorm is like advocating the policy of banning the Top 16 players of any event from the following event.
Of course, it is true that many cards are on the banlist because of how powerful they functioned as an enabler, and they could easily cause decks to become degenerate simply upon their inclusion. Brainstorm, relying on its opponent's skill level (and often on some luck, as well) does not make any decks inherently broken be being present in the lists. If any cards are promoting problems in the format, none of them are Brainstorm.
As a toolbox, the card serves an incredible amount of functions. It can be used both offensively and defensively, and can be used in a wide variety of circumstances. However, it is imperative that for the card to be used for maximum efficiency, the player using it must be EXCEEDINGLY competent and in full assessment of the situation. Nonetheless, Brainstorming can rarely seal games on its own, and functions as nothing more than a tool; albeit an incredibly useful one.
Brainstorm is not broken. Brainstorm does not deserve to be banned in Legacy. It promotes diversity, and requires skill to play properly. Punishing a useful tool because its color is "too strong" or "too prevalent" seems rather ridiculous.