Modus Pwnens;281109 said:
While discarding with the library is definitely suboptimal, the tempoloss that was mentioned is absolutely irrelevant when compared to the insane cardadvantage.
The card advantage is only insane in the long term. Tempo is the whole reason Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mana Vault, Dark Ritual, and Lotus Petal are good cards.
I've won games with monowhite weenie where I went turn 2 scroll rack, turn 3 rack for 7, play library and end my turn.
You were playing Library in an aggro deck? And you held back, purposely putting yourself at a tempo advantage to keep an active Library? I mean, I'm sure it's quite possible to win doing that, especially if you're using really good cards like Library and your opponents aren't (or if you're a better deckbuilder than they are or if they're bad players or if any number of other things).
Maybe I should give an example. Okay, here's a Top 8 decklist from a Legacy tournament just last month. I'd say it's a fairly normal White Weenie deck in the format.
2x Celestial Crusader
2x Icatian Javelineers
3x Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3x Jotun Grunt
4x Mother of Runes
4x Savannah Lions
2x Serra Avenger
4x Soltari Priest
3x True Believer
1x Whipcorder
4x Enlightened Tutor
1x Aura of Silence
3x Crusade
1x Runed Halo
1x Story Circle
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
1x Pithing Needle
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Ancient Den
4x Flagstones of Trokair
3x Flooded Strand
6x Plains
1x Tundra
4x Windswept Heath
Sideboard:
1x Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
1x Jötun Grunt
1x Meddling Mage
1x Serra Avenger
1x True Believer
3x Eye for an Eye
1x Absolute Law
1x Runed Halo
3x AEther Vial
1x Uezawa's Jitte
Now then, that's the sort of thing I think of when I think of White Weenie. Maybe not as many singletons, but it's the same idea, anyway. Library is banned in this format, but how would this deck be improved by it? Sure, it could forgo playing a creature to keep a full hand, but then what? It doesn't have draw spells. It's stuck constantly giving up tempo advantage to gain card advantage. That would be fine if it were supposed to be a slow deck, but when this deck sacrifices speed, the control deck it's up against has plenty of time to build up resources, gaining a stranglehold the more turns go by.
Regardless of your deck, and active library will almost win you every single game.
Library is legal in Vintage. In my experience, the decks that run it there are almost invariably control decks (I add "almost" because I'm sure there's some exception to the rule, although I don't know what it might be), and not even all of those do it. There are simply better cards to use most of the time. Basically, it's Mana Drain decks, and only some of them, that are using Library. It makes sense because these decks like to sit on their cards. Most other decks, like Oath, Shop decks, Dark Ritual fueled combo, and such have no need for Library. Look at the statistics. Most Vintage decks just aren't using Library, even though deckbuilders could if they wanted to. I just checked a top 8 from a recent tournament. One Ichorid, one monored, one Dark Ritual storm combo, one "Fish" (U/W aggro control in this case), one Drainless Tezzeret deck, and three Mana Drain decks (one Bomberman and two Tezzeret). Only one of the decks, one of the Tezzeret builds, had Library.
It's still a good card and will always be one of the most iconic lands in the game, but it just isn't something every deck wants and it does not always win games.
