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[G.ZZZ]

I have to assume if more people got to play Over-Extended and it had GPs or PTs dedicated to it that the ban list would be much larger.

I don't think so to be honest. Overextended decks were extremely close to Legacy decks in term of how they worked, but without wastes, duals, FoWs and whatever.
You had basically a lot of Legacy lists but with some crucial key cards absent or replaced. You had Elves! without cradles, 12Post without forces, Reanimator lists that used life/death and Goryo's Vengeance as their reanimation spells, Zoo which were basically legacy lists but with shocks etc...
I think That format would've been incredibly good and it showed what an eternal format with a good balance between spells and creatures is, but without the blue bias and absurd financial limitations of Legacy. The absence of FoW was compensated by the existance of MM as a safety valve and the absence of Petals, LEDs and Dark ritual which made storm combo and shit like Belcher/Oops just worse than elves!

Sure after things like Griselbrand, TC, TNN, Delver and others, they would've had to ban more cards.

Modern banlist philosophy is completely distant from my own vision of what a good format should be, banning reactive cards like MM in a virgin format is so shortsighted.
You remove a safety valve on the unlikely premise that it would be omnipresent? In a midrange based format? And with fetches+ shocks manabases , to boot. Like really, who thought MM could even be near the presence it had in legacy? And their justification of it "it was banned in legacy so it's obviously broken" no you fuckwit, it's a reactive card, it was banned because everything in legacy cost 1 but that wouldn't be the case in a format without BS, Force and Wastes compressing mana curves. Bah whatever i'm just ranting because i dislike everything this game has become, and even legacy is basically left to itself to become Vintage 2.0

 

[Angry Grimace]

I really don't know how they'd balance a lot of those old cards. You can't just print stronger and stronger answers.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Legacy is less expensive than Standard due to stability of investments. If you drop $1200 on Underground Seas, you're still going to have at least $1200 in 2015 dollars five years from now if you resell them. But if you're always keeping up competitively with Standard every three months, you're just doing nothing but throwing away money.

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";152657054]Legacy is less expensive than Standard due to stability of investments. If you drop $1200 on Underground Seas, you're still going to have at least $1200 in 2015 dollars five years from now if you resell them. But if you're always keeping up competitively with Standard every three months, you're just doing nothing but throwing away money.[/QUOTE]

Please be joking

 

[Matriox]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";152657054]Legacy is less expensive than Standard due to stability of investments. If you drop $1200 on Underground Seas, you're still going to have at least $1200 in 2015 dollars five years from now if you resell them. But if you're always keeping up competitively with Standard every three months, you're just doing nothing but throwing away money.[/QUOTE]

I mean it also makes way more sense to buy a house than to rent due to investing money into something rather than throwing it away. But people will still rent due to location (availability of people that play standard vs legacy) and that they can't afford the down payment (much like it would take maybe a year to invest just in those lands rather than a deck that costs 1/4 of that for standard).

 

["God's Beard!"]

I'm not saying it makes sense to buy into legacy because it doesn't, but it's easier to get back your initial investment from eternal cards than say, Wingmate Rocs. You either scramble to trade off ~6 months before rotation, or you're recognizing that you're dumping a ton of money.

 

[ironmang]

They don't show decks like that. They just show random sample decks. You'd have to go to individual events to bear that out. But keep in mind that just weighting in favor of paper events is kind of silly since there's dramatically more sample data online and there's no legitimate reason to simply assume paper events are more meaningful.

That sample data online is using the same few players. That alone makes the results tainted. Just imagine if your LGS hosted 20+ tournaments every week with average attendance of 20-30 people and threw those top8 results in with the ~4 GPs per year and 1 or less SCG event per week. If you looked at the data it would basically say paper events aren't meaningful at all.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/topcards

Play around with that site a bit. It takes results from about 50% paper and 50% online instead of 95% online where a playset of FoW = 1 Wasteland.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Sure, I've watched Legacy streams and played a bit on MODO. Of course, that's not actually relevant to the discussion, its just a way to use a fallacy to avoid the discussion by saying, "but you don't KNOW Legacy like I know Legacy man!!" It doesn't actually matter to the argument at all whether I personally won 50 Legacy tournaments or just looked at the meta. Its not changing that the stats bear out that you need to play a FOW deck to win. That's true in Vintage too (which I still actively play), but you can also play ridiculously fun broken shit that's banned in Legacy.

Well, first of all, the bolded statement is false (it's an exaggeration to emphasize your opinion).

Second, personal experience with Legacy is critical to forming an opinion on the health of the format. Stats don't tell the whole story - they are interesting bits of evidence, but the statement "80% of decks play Force of Will, ergo the format is bad" is still just an opinion. Quoting a statistic doesn't make your assertion more factual, because your assertion is based on the assumption that statistical parity in card/color representation is the correct way to judge the quality of a format. And I think that's an invalid assumption.

My other problem with your argument is that you've concluded that the ubiquity of Force of Will is evidence of how broken blue is, when I would counter that it's actually evidence of how broken all the other crazy stuff in Legacy is. Force is a bad card when people play fair. It's only good because people don't want to play fair.

I guess I see Force of Will like a good cop, and you see it like the TSA.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Speaking of online, I finally uninstalled modo and man, I'm having some withdrawals. I was playing like 10 drafts a week, had to stop.

 

[ironmang]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";152660015]Speaking of online, I finally uninstalled modo and man, I'm having some withdrawals. I was playing like 10 drafts a week, had to stop.[/QUOTE]

I definitely did too after I sold off my modo modern deck. For the first couple weeks every time I saw 6:55-6:59 on the clock I had a mini panic like I was about to miss the evening daily.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";152660015]Speaking of online, I finally uninstalled modo and man, I'm having some withdrawals. I was playing like 10 drafts a week, had to stop.[/QUOTE]

I kinda miss being able to play 10 drafts a week, but at the same time, I'm glad my life has moved on from that point.

The problem is that I'm now at the point where even one draft a week is a challenge. Life's gotten crazy, man.

 

[crimsonspider89]

Yeah I am seeing a lot of people who don't play Legacy and haven't touched a deck in that format. A Legacy format without FoW or Brainstorm, my god that would be so broken. Reduce decks to combo everywhere.

Also people need to check SCG legacy open more so. Non FoW critter based decks actually break top 32.

Typically Elves and DnT.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Well, first of all, the bolded statement is false (it's an exaggeration to emphasize your opinion).

Second, personal experience with Legacy is critical to forming an opinion on the health of the format. Stats don't tell the whole story - they are interesting bits of evidence, but the statement "80% of decks play Force of Will, ergo the format is bad" is still just an opinion. Quoting a statistic doesn't make your assertion more factual, because your assertion is based on the assumption that statistical parity in card/color representation is the correct way to judge the quality of a format. And I think that's an invalid assumption.

My other problem with your argument is that you've concluded that the ubiquity of Force of Will is evidence of how broken blue is, when I would counter that it's actually evidence of how broken all the other crazy stuff in Legacy is. Force is a bad card when people play fair. It's only good because people don't want to play fair.

I guess I see Force of Will like a good cop, and you see it like the TSA.

Well, uh, yeah, of course me saying I don't like something is an opinion.

That sample data online is using the same few players. That alone makes the results tainted. Just imagine if your LGS hosted 20+ tournaments every week with average attendance of 20-30 people and threw those top8 results in with the ~4 GPs per year and 1 or less SCG event per week. If you looked at the data it would basically say paper events aren't meaningful at all.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/topcards

Play around with that site a bit. It takes results from about 50% paper and 50% online instead of 95% online where a playset of FoW = 1 Wasteland.

You're making a huge assumption based on ????? that paper is more important than online just because the prices are different on MODO vs. paper. Paper decks cost money also.

 

[ironmang]

You're making a huge assumption based on ????? that paper is more important than online just because the prices are different on MODO vs. paper. Paper decks cost money also.

edit: nvm. Not worth the effort. I guess you're a modo-only player so maybe that's why 80% FoW annoys you. You really should try paper legacy since that number is pretty far from the truth.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Try reading what I said. Then start a new response.

There's no actual merit to the claim that the results of MODO are the same 20 players at your LGS, nor do you even have any apparent clue how much the stats are weighted, nor do you have any data suggesting FOW decks aren't totally dominant in either paper or online. What you posted was not.....very good, sorry.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Speaking of combo, here's my new troll list for Standard:

R/G Tron

UrzaTron:

• 4 Elvish Mystic
• 4 Sylvan Caryatid
• 4 Frontier Siege

Expedition Maps:

• 4 Courser of Kruphix
• 4 Eidolon of Blossoms

Ancient Stirrings:

• 4 Life's Legacy

Wurmcoil Engines:

• 4 Whisperwood Elemental
• 4 Ashcloud Phoenix

Oblivion Stones:

• 2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Karns:

• 3 Bearer of the Heavens

Lands:

• 10 Forest
• 4 Temple of Abandon
• 4 Wooded Foothills
• 2 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 2 Mountain

Sideboard(15):

• 4 Xenagos, the Reveler
• 3 Nissa, Worldwaker
• 4 Mistcutter Hydra
• 4 Anger of the Gods

I might take it to the PTQ this weekend at CFB over my Sidisi deck, I dunno.

 

[Angry Grimace]

We can just leave it at "Angry Grimace hates Legacy for reasons which several Legacy players don't agree with."

 

[kirblar]

Yeah I am seeing a lot of people who don't play Legacy and haven't touched a deck in that format. A Legacy format without FoW or Brainstorm, my god that would be so broken. Reduce decks to combo everywhere.

Also people need to check SCG legacy open more so. Non FoW critter based decks actually break top 32.

Typically Elves and DnT.

Elves is a combo deck. DnT isn't actually good, but people still play it. IF the format were more affordable, people would not be playing these decks in the numbers they do. (Elves especially gets hurt if everyone's packing UWR Delver.)

 

[ironmang]

There's no actual merit to the claim that the results of MODO are the same 20 players at your LGS, nor do you even have any apparent clue how much the stats are weighted, nor do you have any data suggesting FOW decks aren't totally dominant in either paper or online. What you posted was not.....very good, sorry.

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that legacy modo tournaments average 20-30 entrants and feature mostly the same players. I'm not going to camp legacy dailies and make spreadsheets to prove something everybody except you knows.

So mtggoldfish isn't pulling the stats directly from the 3-1 or better daily and top8 scg results?

I did give you data. http://www.mtgtop8.com/topcards Play around with the drop down boxes. You can see how the distribution changes when you use larger tournaments. Or tournaments not influenced by TC.

Sorry.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that legacy modo tournaments average 20-30 entrants and feature mostly the same players. I'm not going to camp legacy dailies and make spreadsheets to prove something everybody except you knows.

So mtggoldfish isn't pulling the stats directly from the 3-1 or better daily and top8 scg results?

I did give you data. http://www.mtgtop8.com/topcards Play around with the drop down boxes. You can see how the distribution changes when you use larger tournaments. Or tournaments not influenced by TC.

Sorry.

Linking a site with data and using said data to prove some point are totally different things.

"Pretty common knowledge" are weasel words people use when they can't or won't prove whatever argument they're making with actual data. (a quick review of legacy daily events shows its in fact not all the same players)

Your new point (its all grinders) directly contradicts your previous point that MTGO is all players looking to play cheapo decks.

I'm legitimately not trying to bust your balls, you're just not making any sense. Just leave it alone, mate.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

If the format were more affordable, people would not be playing these decks in the numbers they do.

If the format were more affordable, the meta would look crazy different.

Or, rather, the meta would be less likely to look so different from city to city on the SCG tour.

 

[ironmang]

Linking a site with data and using said data to prove some point are totally different things.

"Pretty common knowledge" are weasel words people use when they can't or won't prove whatever argument they're making with actual data. (a quick review of legacy daily events shows its in fact not all the same players)

Your new point (its all grinders) directly contradicts your previous point that MTGO is all players looking to play cheapo decks.

I'm legitimately not trying to bust your balls, you're just not making any sense. Just leave it alone, mate.

Why is your data more accurate than mine? Mine at least lets you see data from a certain time period or size of tournament. Yours just seems to throw 90% modo results with 10% SCG over some undetermined period of time.

Never said it was always the same players, just that it's mostly the same small group of players who enter these dailies which I can prove but won't since it's too time consuming. It's not like SCG opens where the field from week to week is made up of almost an entirely new group.

I never said it's all grinders as in "spikes". Just that it's the same players.

All this to show you that you're 80% FoW decks is more like 60%. -_-

 

[Angry Grimace]

Why is your data more accurate than mine? Mine at least lets you see data from a certain time period or size of tournament. Yours just seems to throw 90% modo results with 10% SCG over some undetermined period of time.

Never said it was always the same players, just that it's mostly the same small group of players who enter these dailies which I can prove but won't since it's too time consuming. It's not like SCG opens where the field from week to week is made up of almost an entirely new group.

I never said it's all grinders as in "spikes". Just that it's the same players.

All this to show you that you're 80% FoW decks is more like 60%. -_-

Lets just call it 70%.

And then argue about something else, like the fact that Snapcaster should be red.

 

[crimsonspider89]

Elves is a combo deck. DnT isn't actually good, but people still play it. IF the format were more affordable, people would not be playing these decks in the numbers they do. (Elves especially gets hurt if everyone's packing UWR Delver.)

You mean how Elves and DnT both made top 16 and typically do at all tournaments?

 

[kirblar]

You mean how Elves and DnT both made top 16 and typically do at all tournaments?

a) Elves is a combo deck. Those decks don't have to play Force. (Yes, it beats down as a backup plan, but that's not the norm.) It's not a bad deck.

b) Who cares about Top 16? You want to win/Top 8 these things. DnT isn't going to reliably get you doing that.

 

[crimsonspider89]

a) Elves is a combo deck. Those decks don't have to play Force. (Yes, it beats down as a backup plan, but that's not the norm.) It's not a bad deck.

b) Who cares about Top 16? You want to win/Top 8 these things. DnT isn't going to reliably get you doing that.

Wrong. DnT and Elves make top 8. Maybe you should go look at Legacy tournaments? Also elves is a combo deck currently that wins by swinging. I was using top 16 as a general since that is really all that matters in competitive. Whether a deck can make top 16 or not.

And several combo decks run FoW.

 

[kirblar]

Wrong. DnT and Elves make top 8. Maybe you should go look at Legacy tournaments? Also elves is a combo deck currently that wins by swinging. I was using top 16 as a general since that is really all that matters in competitive. Whether a deck can make top 16 or not.

And several combo decks run FoW.

Swinging for *arbitrarily large Craterhoof number* is still a combo deck. Yes, combo decks run FoW for defense if they're blue-based. That's not a problem. DnT used to be a good option. It's not anymore. Maybe things got marginally better once Cruise got banned, but since you can just insert dig into those same types of shells, I doubt it. This wasn't just DnT btw- Vial decks just stopped being good.

 

[Firemind]

I think decks like Sneak & Snow and OmniShow do skew the data somewhat (lol mtgo dailies). There's no way around it: Brainstorm dominates the format. Card selection is an inherently powerful thing as it makes your deck that much more consistent.

About Force of Will, the great thing about combo decks in Legacy is that they're not all like Goblin Charbelcher that folds to a single counterspell. Storm for example is very resillient to disruption. It's actually the favourite to win g1 versus stoneblade decks since they don't have many ways to interact with storm and storm can still combo off rather easily after one of their spells gets forced. It's only after boarding that the Stoneblade decks can board out their swords for flusterstorms and other disruption that they stand a better chance. There's also the fact Storm is more popular on the European continent that doesn't show properly on the data. People elsewhere don't want to play it as much, since it's rather difficult to win tournaments with storm. Again, because it misses consistency without Brainstorm. I believe Elves is also more popular in Europe. Just goes to show Europeans are more willing to play silly combo decks, whereas Americans want to play the fun police. :3

 

[Angry Grimace]

I think decks like Sneak & Snow and OmniShow do skew the data somewhat (lol mtgo dailies). There's no way around it: Brainstorm dominates the format. Card selection is an inherently powerful thing as it makes your deck that much more consistent.

About Force of Will, the great thing about combo decks in Legacy is that they're not all like Goblin Charbelcher that folds to a single counterspell. Storm for example is very resillient to disruption. It's actually the favourite to win g1 versus stoneblade decks since they don't have many ways to interact with storm and storm can still combo off rather easily after one of their spells gets forced. It's only after boarding that the Stoneblade decks can board out their swords for flusterstorms and other disruption that they stand a better chance. There's also the fact Storm is more popular on the European continent that doesn't show properly on the data. People elsewhere don't want to play it as much, since it's rather difficult to win tournaments with storm. Again, because it misses consistency without Brainstorm. I believe Elves is also more popular in Europe. Just goes to show Europeans are more willing to play silly combo decks, whereas Americans want to play the fun police. :3

I don't think most of those old sets were even printed in Europe

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";152623517]I don't have a problem with old design so much as new design. Force of Will and brainstorm wouldn't have such a deadlock on the format if other colors had good 0-mana interaction and variance disablers. Blue's monopoly on card manipulation is the grossest part of magic. Every deck wants cards. Useful card selection shouldn't be part of one color's slice of the pie.

Give me real cards, Wizards! Not random 4-of beaters. More Ponders! In every color![/QUOTE]

If Unmask were instant, I guess that would have counted.

 

[Firemind]

Actually, Wizards started printing foreign sets starting with Revised, with the first print being blackboarded. You can get blackboarded German, French, Italian duals for a fraction of the alpha/beta equivalent. :3

 

[Angry Grimace]

Of course, the other thing about the FOW/BS thing is that I don't actually think they should ban Force of Will or Brainstorm, but they should ban and restrict Wasteland. Fuck that card.

 

[charlequin]

The issue with the Modern complaints coming from some particular pros is that the format inherently works against what they're good at (i.e. breaking open virgin formats), and so they will always be unhappy with it being a PT format.

I'm also willing to possibly buy the idea that the nature of Modern makes it an innately less functional format specifically at an event like the Pro Tour. When a format has enough lopsided matchups then the metagame choice of deck and sideboard starts to overwhelm all other considerations, which can certainly still be a skill-based element but at the cost of a relatively unfriendly level of variance based on the whims of the pairing process.

The problem of Legacy is all the things a deck need, are usually things given by blue (low variance, highly interactive decks). And WotC won't print anything in the other color that give them way to decrease variance decently, so the format get more and more blue as time pass, until you get to today 75% Brainstorm penetration of T8.

Maro's idea that they should never print pie-bending Eternal cards to shore up some of the non-blue colors is easily his worst idea.

Bah whatever i'm just ranting because i dislike everything this game has become, and even legacy is basically left to itself to become Vintage 2.0

I'm always curious when I see people say shit like this. What were these halcyon days of yore that today's fallen era fails to live up to?

 

[Firemind]

National and State championships were nice to have for the game and its community. Now the national title is for those with the most pro points, basically for people who are on the platinum train and/or in the hall of fame. The addition of PPTQs only makes it more difficult to claim your day of fame. Grand Prixes are where it's at nowadays, but playing a 16 round tournament...

 

[Angry Grimace]

I'm always curious when I see people say shit like this. What were these halcyon days of yore that today's fallen era fails to live up to?

Summer of 96

You whippersnappers wouldn't understand!

 

[OnPoint]

Summer of 96

You whippersnappers wouldn't understand!

I was playing.

Magic is way better now.

 

[acheron_xl]

Summer of 96

You whippersnappers wouldn't understand!

Big fan of Alliances? For my money, the real halcyon days were probably early-mid 1998. Just pre-Urza's Saga.

 

[Toxi]

Huh, didn't realize Karmic Guide was already reprinted, because that was my first want as an Angel.

I guess it's cheap as dirt, but it's such a fun card.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I'm always curious when I see people say shit like this. What were these halcyon days of yore that today's fallen era fails to live up to?

Lin Sivvi mirrors

 

[charlequin]

Summer of 96

You whippersnappers wouldn't understand!

I've been playing since Legends.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I've been playing since Legends.

Then surely you have fond memories of Necro decks and Turbo Stasis.

Big fan of Alliances? For my money, the real halcyon days were probably early-mid 1998. Just pre-Urza's Saga.

My favorite period was when I didn't know expansions were a thing and I just played revised starter decks out of the box.

 

[OnPoint]

Huh, didn't realize Karmic Guide was already reprinted, because that was my first want as an Angel.

I guess it's cheap as dirt, but it's such a fun card.

There was a point it was a $10 - $15 card, then they started reprinting it like crazy.

 

[Socat]

Looks like there might be a tipoff for a new version of Sarkhan in DTK based on Penny Arcade's pins that they have available at PAX East http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/02/18/pax-east-pins At least my brain wants it to be true.

 

[ultron87]

"Sarkhan, Unbroken" is a cool name.

I'm not saying he's five colors. But that is a lot of colors.

 

[Socat]

"Sarkhan, Unbroken" is a cool name.

I'm not saying he's five colors. But that is a lot of colors.

Betting on Temur colored Sarkhan now

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Sarkhan has always been Jund, but we did just rewrite history, so...anything's possible!

 

[Socat]

Sarkhan has always been Jund, but we did just rewrite history, so...anything's possible!

Getting played by Nicol Bolas will definitely lead to him changing his alignment a bit

 

[divisionbyzorro]

So the Channel Fireball guys talked about PV and Sperling's articles about Modern on MagicTV.

http://www.twitch.tv/channelfireball/v/3806990?t=36m10s (the link should take you to 36:10).

It's a really good discussion. I think Wratper is right on point about the format.

 

[OnPoint]

Sarkhan has always been Jund, but we did just rewrite history, so...anything's possible!

Him being a Temur colored PW would be pretty cool. Not looking like he's gonna be a dragon now, though.

And if that's the case, I wouldn't be shocked if we do end up with that UWR PW now. Still think she'll be UW though.

 

[OnPoint]

Finally taking my Polymorph Tokens deck to a local Modern event tonight. Can't wait to see if I can drop Emrakul on some folks. Should be fun either way. Modern is interesting to me. I feel like there's room to expand in the format... maybe it's not this deck, but there's got to be more out there worth playing.