MTG Salvation

I think this entire thread is stuck in a time loop or something. If given enough time you will have the following three things happen:

1) Soldier talking about 1) banning Brainstorm, 2) that banning Mental Misstep was a mistake, and 3) unban Necropotence.

2) LandBoySteve say he's going to stop talking about something and that we should too, only to start talking about it again less than 12 hours later.

3) LandBoySteve using his "I've been playing Legacy for a long time" card to try to 1) justify his stance and 2) try to make others feel less of an expert.

I swear the two of you need your own thread so the rest of us can actually have an actual discussion about something relevant.

Cool. I can remove my maindeck REBs now. Maybe this means I can play Jund again.

I find it hilarious that people thought the post-Cruise meta was *more* diverse than the previous meta when Wizards post pretty much agrees with what 80% of the people were saying in this very thread (and on the Source) a month ago. I don't want to do the work, but I think doing a comparison of those posts would be pretty hilarious.

It's true some players will leave if Brainstorm is banned, but that's because Legacy is the only format that allows you to play 4 of them.

In what meta or universe does banning Brainstorm completely destroy a deck? All the decks will get weaker, but none of them outright die. Ux Delver decks? Miracles? Ux Midrange? Storm? All of them use Brainstorm, but none of them die due to its banning. You say you're not going to name all the consequences and that's a pretty weak counter-argument. Name one deck that outright dies.

I too don't believe it will ever be banned, but to question someone's lack of understanding of Legacy because they suggest that is either ignorant or being a jerk. Dice even said he wasn't saying Lackey was the same power level. He was stating that both are just cards. Ban Goblin Lackey and Goblins is still a deck just as banning Brainstorm still allows all those Blue decks to remain the same in theme, win conditions, etc. They just lose some consistency.

If anything, the banning of Brainstorm would make proactive solutions like discard significantly more powerful and I for one think that wouldn't be terrible.

Card that is well liked != Pillar of the format

Quote from LandBoySteve »

In all seriousness, it's obvious that there are players that have a problem with blue in general and with Brainstorm and/or TC specifically. How many? I don't know. It's usually the ones who are unhappy with something who are the most vocal. Those who really love Legacy the way it is usually don't say anything.

This is exactly what myself and others dislike about your arguments. This extra drama and blanket statements. Especially this "If you love Legacy, you wouldn't say anything."

The reason many of us are discussing this is because we actually love Legacy so stop putting words in our mouths and being so dismissive. No one here said they hated Legacy the way it currently is, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved upon. I play it at least twice a week in a competitive environment and have been for the last four years. It is my favorite format and one of the few reasons I've kept playing Magic some 18 years.

This pretty much sums up many people's opinions:

Quote from TolarianAcademy13 »

What do I want? I want good consistency tools for other colors and it would be an added bonus if they don’t just pop straight into an existing blue deck. Basically, I want more Green Sun’s Zeniths and less Treasure Cruises. The problem is that I’ve been wanting that for years, and blue keeps getting the best toys.

Quote from LandBoySteve »

The problem is, the game of Magic itself is flawed at least as far as constructed is which, as Richard Garfield pointed out, was not the intention of the game to begin with. To balance out Healing Salve, Giant Growth, Lightning Bolt, Dark Ritual and Ancestral Recall, he made the last one a rare so that you'd never have 4 of these things.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to interject here that I find it humorous that you're using my own argument that I used against you when you incorrectly stated Magic's early design history. More importantly, using it against an argument I was trying to make, which I find pretty hypocritical and ironic.

Quote from dwchang »

Quote from LandBoySteve »

Assuming you're right, do you really think this is a recent development?

The problem you're talking about started here:

Dark Ritual
Ancestral Recall
Giant Growth
Lightning Bolt
Healing Salve

Before there were any formats at all, let alone competitive magic, the creators of this game were under the impression that these cards were equal in power. We soon came to realize that life was almost totally irrelevant, a temporary pump of a creature as well as 3 to the dome was okay but only really good in quantity, 3 mana for 1 was very good but drawing 3 cards for U was essentially broken.

By the time WotC figured out how powerful card draw was, it was too late.

This is a widely used fallacy and false. Richard Garfield has said that he put Ancestral Recall in the "rare" spot because he didn't expect the min/max that goes on in competitive play. Magic was never designed to be what it is today. He's rumored to have said that he originally thought the game would be something people would play while waiting for others to show up and play D&D or something. Specifically that in your playgroup you'd have *maybe* one Black Lotus, Time Walk, or Ancestral Recall. Not a full play set. He didn't design the game for what it has evolved into and readily admits mistakes were made.

So which is it? You appear to be flip flopping. I had to double-check too since what you were writing sounded pretty familiar. In reality, the point I was trying to make (and Richard Garfield is on record as stating) is that it's silly to say things like "It was imbalanced from the start so it shouldn't change!" That's a stupid reason for keeping things status quo. Especially when incorrectly citing the creator of the game as implying Ancestral Recall and Blue's dominance as something we have to accept because "that's how it's always been."

However, carry on with the remainder of the discussion.

Quote from LandBoySteve »

So I guess you've never seen a Goblin deck totally beat down on somebody. Maybe you should read "Who's The Beatdown." But like I said, I don't really care anymore. People can call decks whatever they like. Archtypes almost have no meaning anymore when creature based decks can be called combo and control.

You're not really helping your case when you show ignorance into something as common as Goblins having a Control element to it. Yes they kill you with creatures, but so does Death and Taxes, which is also another Control deck that relies on mana denial (hence the Taxes part). If Goblins were a pure aggro deck, why run Rishadan Port and Wasteland in conjunction with Vials?

Back on topic and also to play Devil's Advocate, 3 of the Top 8 at the last SCG were U/R Delver. More importantly, the winning deck was running maindeck Pyroblasts. My friend got 2nd at SCG Minneapolis and was playing Miracles with maindeck RIP. These are all changes in the meta to shutdown Treasure Cruise. That's great and frankly what Legacy is about (adapting), but one could just as easily argue that it's warping the format around itself. Especially when you need to run main deck pyroblasts in something like Jund just to be competitive.

Quote from crimhead »

The claim I has been responding to was blantantly false - to the point that I question the knowledge and/or objectivity of the poster. Wildfire did a fine job refuting it one post before mine.

Really? If you pay any attention to the Legacy boards, then you'd know I've been playing Legacy since 1996 when it was called "Type 1.5" so I take offense to your ill-informed assertion. If you want to take this offline since this isn't really appropriate for the public forums, then feel free to PM me in private.

As for my original reply, you genuinely believe some Legacy players don't feel pressured into playing Blue? It's clearly the best color in Legacy so naturally many players decide they should play it. I think there is a lot of inertia toward wanting to play a non-blue deck *and* expecting to do well in a major tournament. Is it a surprise it's the color of choice for many grinders? It's the best "bang for buck" if you want to invest little time into the format and still do alright.

As I said in the original post (which you voluntarily decided not to quote...I wonder why?), it's quite possible to win without playing Blue (as has been demonstrated), but those of us who do not enjoy playing that color would like to have some more momentum.

Quote from soramaro »

Quote from dwchang »

Also don't know if anyone posted it, but we got these postcards of the five Khan leaders

Can anyone upload pictures of these? It would be interesting to see how the other four leaders look like!

Sure. My photos aren't great, but I'm a bit surprised someone hasn't posted these clan leaders already. If they have apologies and feel free to delete this post. If they haven't apologies for not posting these earlier, but I kind of figured someone would post way faster than me.

They are:

1) Anafenza - The Khan of Abzan
2) Narset - The Khan of Jeskai
3) Sidisi - The Khan of Sultai
4) Surrak Dragonclaw - The Khan of Temur

Zurgo Helmsmasher was already spoiled, but he is the Khan for Mardu.

I'm obviously not at home and can't scan them, but there are higher quality versions if someone could scan the post cards they gave us.

Another thing to mention is, I take it the other attendees saw the images of the scenery of each clan? Like the desert-ish region, the swamp/forest region (for Sultai), etc.? I am by no means confirming anything since it was NEVER stated at the panel, but my first reaction for those two art pieces were "That kind of looks like an Arid Mesa and a Verdant Catacomb."

Again, this is just what I thought when I saw those two art pieces and nothing more.

I was able to get one today as well and they were *not* sold out as of 5 PM today. The bad news is I saw A LOT of retailers and people who are clearly reselling camping outside the exit of the booth and basically asking people who are in the real line if they can buy the MTG thing for them. I saw a jerk with at least six of them. He got yelled at by the Hasbro people when he bought another one right in front of the rep (i.e. the exchange of money was seen). However, this tells you the type of cutthroat behavior that they are employing.

It's not uncommon for people to get others to buy their stuff and then turn that kind gift into profit (not cool), but it seems like it is happening WAY more than normal. I've seen a lot of people buying it just because everyone else is (i.e. I wonder why they are buying it, guess I should too!). HOWEVER, if they're still in stock after all of that, that's a good sign.

I (like many of you) hope the increased supply tanks the secondary market since it won't affect me. I bought them to keep them and play with them. Screw the resllers and their messed up tactics.

Also as others have noted, the axe is huge. I don't know how I am going to bring it home since even my checked bag is too small to fit it. I may have to concede and ship it, but the con shipping prices are insane and it's only a nerf axe. Albeit it is pretty well-made. Any other attendees got a strategy to get this home without causing a big deal at the airport (which I predict it will).

Quote from narah »

I'm still struggling to understand how Treasure Cruise can be ban-worthy when Brainstorm isn't.

Age, mostly. Brainstorm has been kicking around forever while Cruise was the new kid on the block. For better or worse, a ton of people would knee-jerk quit Legacy if Brainstorm was banned without seeing how the format settles and what the balance is like (the Pod ban in Modern is a similar but less pronounced backlash). Comparatively few people will quit if a new toy is banned rather than an old favourite. Remember, the North American Legacy scene is very attached to Brainstorm, while Cruise is just another value card. Politics eventually has to come into ban list decisions, so even though Brainstorm has a huge level of format dominance and many arguments can be made both for and against banning it, it's essentially bulletproof.

I recently started a blog, and I just finished tackling the issue that prompted me to begin my own blog: SCG attendance.

Here, I explain why Legacy attendance numbers are even more impressive than the numbers appear and why SCG better support for our format as they once had: http://lordofthepit23.blogspot.com/2015/01/comprehensive-analysis-of-scg.html

Quote from crimhead »

Quote from Mongers "n Deeds »

You can look at diverse Top 8's all you want, but you're straining to ignore how those Top 8's and the format itself was warped around Treasure Cruise.

Warped is a loaded term, good cards impact the meta and what sees play. I care that Legacy is diverse; that is the bottom line. That's what makes it fun to play. I don't care at all how it came to to be what it is, or which cards have the biggest influence on the meta. It only matters that it is Robust and diverse, and by definition I can never consider such a meta to be "warped".

I do play Legacy, and I play Lands. I haven't noticed nor cared about the maneuvering and positioning between aggro decks. I have noticed I usually still face a good variety of archetypes, just perhaps not the archetypes which you value. I can't get out to play as often as I can type about it, but that doesn't invalidate my position or make you a better judge of the game than I am.

As for discard, if you are gaining CA with Hymm, Bob, and P.Fire, shouldn't you still have cards in hand when they are top-decking Cruise? I don't play midrange, so this is a real question.

Quote from Mongers "n Deeds »

I just wanted to respond that you're taking something I said and reading in a way that suits your position, that being that this was a bad ban.

I'm not sure what you are getting at. Your calling it a bad ban had no impact on anything I've written. Maybe there was a misunderstanding somewhere?

I didn't call it a bad ban - you did. I'm fine with the ban. Maybe I did misunderstand something. It's no big deal. Agree to disagree and all that. I'm not sure why you keep referencing that you play Lands though. So do I, although I've spend more time playing MUD the last couple months than anything else. I've come to embrace the love that is Trinisphere. If it's a humble brag about owning a Tabernacle, I can totally get behind that. There is no sexier Legacy-legal card than Tabernacle.

On the Jund question, which is a deck I haven't played much of in recent months, yes, you may still have cards left, but most of those cards are invalidated by TC. Any good Delver or midrange player is never going to let Bob draw a card, and the additional Forked Bolts and other burn made him virtually unplayable. The problem with Hymn, Thoughtseize, etc., is that after the first few turns, those are dead draws and that's always been the case, but normally your opponent would also be out of cards at that point. TC changed that. While you're drawing a discard spell that does nothing, they're refilling their hand with TC using the cards that you took from them as little graveyard Lotus Petals, and then firing those new spells off to fuel the next TC. It blanks your entire effort to run them out of resources. That's why I stated that TC invalidates discard disruption. It makes it impossible to attrition someone out of the game that way, unless you're playing your own TC to go card-for-card with them.

I don't think anyone is favor of a heavy handed approach to the ban list, but as Teia said, it was a net negative in terms of playable decks in the format. We haven't had a ban in 3 1/2 years (MM). Before that it was 2010 (Survival and Mystical Tutor), and 2008 before that (Time Vault, lol). During that same time we've had 8 cards unbanned. That's hardly micromanagement.

We can disagree about the timing, whether it deserved a few more months, and whether this sets some kind of precedent for hasty bannings, but I'd suggest that we already had a precedent for banning that kind of card draw power when they banned Ancestral Recall, Necropotence, Bargain, Gush, Library of Alexandria, Skullclamp, etc. And before someone rips into me about putting TC on the same level as some of the most powerful card draw spells in the game, please note that I don't consider it to be on that level, merely that cheap spells/abilities that draw tons of cards for little to no investment always get banned from this format.

Quote from crimhead »

Gotcha!

But looking at the last two SCG opens, we had collectively 11 different decks between the two top eights, none of which were U/R Delver - the supposedly oppressive deck which justified the ban. It looks to me like the meta was adjusting just fine, and this update is madness.

Without quoting everything you've spliced above, I just wanted to respond that you're taking something I said and reading in a way that suits your position, that being that this was a bad ban.

As for my comment about playing Legacy more than talking about it, it seems to me that a lot of people on this forum like to yammer on about a format they really don't know much about. You can look at Top 8 lists all you want, but they don't tell you much anything about the actual impact of the card unless you're playing the games and paying attention to Top 8 trends.

Also, I never said combo directly was anti-cruise, but merely that it was a strategy that invalidated Cruise, which is part of what pushed ANT to the forefront in the last several months. As for your position on Hymn, you're correct...in the first 2 turns (assuming you even hit Cruise). It's the late game where you've both run out of cards and your opponent top decks a 1-mana draw 3 that you personally helped fuel by dumping his card into the graveyard - that's where Cruise is going to kill you and invalidates your discard spells.

You can look at diverse Top 8's all you want, but you're straining to ignore how those Top 8's and the format itself was warped around Treasure Cruise.

Quote from Judo Flounder »

Was there a huge uproar like this when Survival was banned?

I think this is more of a celebration than an uproar. TC was nasty. It invalidated a lot of the strategies that Legacy had previously been about. If you agree with the opinion in those "What Is Legacy" articles, that the format should be home to all the diverse strategies from Magic's history, then this is the telling point against it.

We lost one combo deck, Ascension. Perhaps there is another way to build the deck, and perhaps not.

We gained back discard strategies and Wasteland, most obviously. Discard strategies are black's primary mode of interaction, and their restoration is huge. Wasteland particularly, and land destruction in general, is also a huge chunk of what it means to play Legacy. Pre-TC, this game was a battle of inches, with careful maneuvering for positioning, where card selection was extremely important. In the TC era, a lot of this went out the window: the game because a race to the Cruise (as long as one wasn't dead on board).

Quote from Umezete »

This ban was bad for legacy, look at scg top 16s before and after cruise.

Have people already forgotten pre-cruise top 16s were basically elves, miracles, and BUG with occasional representation of the rest the meta?

Cruise improved the format immensely by being the foil to discard and wasteland.

That's a very elementary understanding of how TC affected the format. TC wasn't the foil to discard and wasteland. It completely invalidated them as competitive choices. It devolved the format into what was essentially a Cruise vs. Anti-Cruise format, meaning you either played Cruise or you played a deck that went over the top if it so quickly (combo, namely Storm) that you didn't care about the advantage it gave. Non-cruise based creature/midrange strategies have been virtually nonexistent since TC became legal, because there was nothing better to do than filling your graveyard to 7 and getting 3 more cards.

The fact that people were maindecking multiple copies of Pyroblast should tell you everything you need to know about the impact of TC. If you want to say that the meta before TC was stale and predictable, that's probably a sentiment I can get behind, but that's a separate issue from whether TC needed to go.

Quote from MisterDizzy »

not going to lie. I didn't see the cruise ban coming. Modern yes, but not legacy. I figured Legacy powerlevel was high enough for cruise.

It's high enough for Cruise to exist, but not high enough not to warp the format around it, is the gist of things. Just because a format can contain "decks that run this card" and "decks that don't run this card" doesn't mean that card is beneficial to the overall format. Treasure Cruise didn't add much to Legacy, but it pushed a number of decks out of the format, so it got the boot for being a net negative.

Quote from Judo Flounder »

Was there a huge uproar like this when Survival was banned?

Do you really count this as a huge uproar? Go check the Modern forums if you want to see a real ruckus. Interestingly enough, there are a lot of parallels between Pod decks and Survival decks, but I digress.

For TC in Legacy, this was entirely expected to anyone who spent more time actually playing Legacy than talking about it. I thought they'd give it another 3 months possibly, but no one should really be surprised by this. It's just unfortunate that we didn't get any relevant unbans to go with it.

I think everyone's missing the biggest tragedy from all of this:
Kird Ape will never see another T8 again.

Quote from LandBoySteve »

I have always defended WotC in the past but after this announcement, I'm done with them. I have completely lost faith in them coming up with solutions to a format that make any sense whatsoever.

In the future, nothing they do will surprise me.

Yeah, you were "always" defending them. I remember how ardently you were defending them when you were doing practically nothing but complaining about their approach to Modern back when you were posting in the Modern forum.

You're free to complain if you wish, but don't try to retcon your past behavior into something it wasn't.