Sept. 20, 2010 B/R Announcement

[Spiderman]

Sept. 20 2010 B/R

Pretty much it's:

Vintage
Frantic Search is no longer banned.
Gush is no longer banned.

Erik Lauer's explanation

 

[Ransac]

This really doesn't matter much to me. Vintage is not a highly played format and the cards are extremely powerful as it is.

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Spiderman]

<shrug> It may matter to others. I know in my group, we played Vintage simply because we all had cards that old but generally followed the B/R list because we trusted that if it was strong in competitive play, it's pretty strong in "casual" play.

 

[Shabbaman]

This may be the return for Gush Tog.

 

[DarthFerret]

<--agrees with Spiderman, except with my old play group, we followed the banned list, but had exceptions on the restricted list (how I had 4 Time Spirals in a deck..he he)

 

[Mooseman]

This may be the return for Gush Tog.

I have that deck... somewhere

 

[Spiderman]

DF: Yeah, that's what I meant by "generally followed the B/R list". We allowed one or two exceptions and allowed multiples as well...

 

[Shoe]

Abe sargent and I threw together a B&R just for casual that I use pretty much exclusively. it is vintage minus the goofy little blue card draw spells and adds some other cards that are way more douchie in multiplayer and less fun for most casual players. check it out here

 

[Shabbaman]

The next b/r announcement is coming up, and it seems as if Surival of the Fittest is getting the axe. That makes me sad, as it is the reason I started playing Legacy in the first place. What makes it especially sad is that the card has no place in Vintage, so basically I'm screwed. I've also concluded that WotC's view on eternal formats (well, Legacy) is different from mine: with such a large cardpool, broken things happen. It's okay to meddle a bit with stuff that's ruining everyone's fun because of rules loopholes (like Flash). If a card is too strong for Legacy, it should be strong enough to see play in Vintage (because otherwise banning a card in Legacy is basically banning the card from constructed play). This is why Oath is banned in Legacy, and why Brainstorm is restricted in Vintage. It'd make sense to ban Brainstorm in Legacy (because it's strong enough to restrict in Vintage), but to ban Survival in Legacy doesn't make sense at all. Sad panda.

 

[Spiderman]

Maybe Aaron Forsythe's or Tom LaPille's article following the announcemt will help explain it, if it does happen.

 

[Shabbaman]

Sure, I can see why they'd want to interfere, but that doesn't make it right

 

[Spiderman]

No one said it was right, but they might have a different/more "worldly" view on the format and why it might be necessary to ban it.

 

[Ransac]

Hey! Ransac speaks!!

Personally, I agree with the supposed banning of Survival of the Fittest. I was at GP: Columbus and watched several of Caleb Durward's (the player who first displayed the then-innovative Survival-Rootwalla-Vengevine concept) matches. It was very fun and exciting to watch these matches and see new tech. However, now that the Survival engine has been fine-tuned and the Legacy engine has essentially been "broken" (16 of the 32 decks in the past 4 SCG Legacy Top8's have been Survival decks, including 3 champs and 1 runner-up.), it's obvious that something needs to happen to encourage a more open field, especially in a format where several players can only afford to make 1 deck.

Legacy is a format that should be a wide open field with dozens of deck-types able to win any tournament. The printing of Vengevine and Necrotic Ooze tipped the power level of Survival of the Fittest too much. And Wizards is much more likely to ban an older, non-creature card over newly printed creature cards that can showcase their recent product, the banning of Survival of the Fittest seems to me to be the correct action to create a healthier Legacy format.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Oversoul]

Shabbaman already spoke for me on this one. I'll just echo him. Other than the part about Survival being the reason I started playing Legacy. I was excited about the new format from the day it was announced. The first deck I wanted to test was High Tide or something. I was crazy. It seems like yesterday, though. But Survival has long been one of my favorites. It's basically the coolest enchantment of all time. I'd hate to see it fall by the wayside.

 

[Shabbaman]

Ransac, have you every played competitive Vintage? Your response is very logical, and I can't say you're not right. But you are looking at the format as if it were Extended. Wizards has shaped the Extended metagame to their liking, they didn't go this far with Vintage. After the creation of Legacy (splitting the type 1 and type 1.5 b/r lists) Wizards didn't care about formatshaping in Legacy for a long time. When SCG started running money tournaments, this atttitude changed. It seems now as if Wizards wants Legacy to be centered around the attack phase, exactly what they want with Standard and Extended. But the point of an eternal format is that you get to do broken things.

Basically all eternal players would like to play Vintage, but that (non proxy!) format is unplayable because of the entry cost. Broken things include combo decks and control locks. Yes, nobody likes being locked out by countertop or being combo'd on turn one (or more realistically turn two in Legacy). But it's still a rock-paper-scissors metagame, and most players bring something that can't beat either rock, paper or scissors. Survival isn't broken, people are playing the wrong decks and don't pack enough hate in their SB.

Over the last year some serious changes have occured (unbanning Entomb, banning Mystical Tutor) that changed the format. We've seen the format being dominated by different kinds of decks, ranging from reanimator to zoo to merfolk and now Vengevival. All these decks had their answers, and even vengevival does. But the largest part of the field at the latest SCG tournament consisted of merfolk and goblins, decks that are incapable of doing anything against vengevival. This makes the results very skewed towards the survival decks.

And then what, half the top decks are the same archetype? This only shows how statistics are abused to prove your point (generally speaking, not you personally). Doesn't it make sense to play the best deck at all times? If you'd ask me, half of the top decks at any tournament are the best deck. I think we've someone running around here who could do a thorough statistical analysis on this phenomena, but it's hardly scaring. And even then: so what? Vintage has a very enjoyable metagame, currently consisting of a pile of different decks. But basically it's just decks with either Oath, Workshop, storm combo or Tezzeret, and then you get some decks that are good depending on the metagame (zoo with null rods, dredge with bazaar). What's so wrong about that picture that it's not good enough for Legacy? Vintage has "poster cards" like Oath and Workshop (besides the obvious P9), if Wizards gets it's way Legacy is turned into "extended before the last rotation plus very expensive dual lands".

Your answer here is "to encourage a more open field", but if they ban Survival the metagame will just shift back to what it was before they printed Vengevine: zoo v.s. merfolk or something like that. Legacy doesn't have an open field anymore, because decks like zoo and countertop are stifling. Zoo might be the kind of player interaction Wizards prefers, but if you look at the available card pool it's just the most boring kind of interaction imagineable. To get an open field Wizards would have to ban a lot more: LED, all new creatures with high P/T and low cc (like rhox war monk), SDT and/or Counterbalance. That's not going to happen, because they won't ban new cards. With that you are completely right. They won't ban Vengevine and Ooze (and add Ad Nauseam to that list), although that'd be better for Legacy. They ban old cards. I could even live with that (because I'd rather have an open field as well, because I like building new decks instead of tweaking a single card in the sideboard of a netdeck), but now I get back to the seperation between Vintage and Legacy: if it's too good for Legacy, it should be playable in Vintage. Survival is unplayable in Vintage (although I'll try it if they do ban the card). Banning it in Legacy is essentially banning it from Magic. Legacy is the place for the Vintage cards that don't make the cut in Vintage, because in Legacy games last to the fifth turn instead of the second turn.

I love how LED and Survival can be Legacy's poster cards, because they are strong cards that aren't really playable in Vintage. Ban Survival, then LED is going to be next (or maybe even at the same time, Wizards thought it had killed combo with the banning of Mystical Tutor but they failed, and they hate combo with a passion). Then we have zoo and merfolk as poster cards, and that really would be the most boring format of all time (besides extended from last year, that is).

 

[Ransac]

Let me first state that I have not much experience playing Vintage and do not know much about it outside of Vault-Key being the nuts.

I stated that I agree with the potential banning because of the idea of diversifying the decks played at the tournament. Legacy was, for a good long while prior to the advent of the fish deck, a format that had dozens of viable archetypes that could win a tournament, yet none were obviously the best. An list of current non-survival deck examples includes: Legacy Hypergenesis, Merfolk, Aluren, Zoo, Goblins, Belcher, Reanimator (albiet much slower), 42 Land, Mask-Naught, Enchantress, Dredge, Stax, Show & Tell, Counter-Top, Aggro-Loam, Horizons, Bant, Painter's Grindstone, Rock, Landstill, Junk, Canadian Treshold, Affinity. The fact that 1 deck-type is out-performing the rest of the field with this much lopsidedness is quite insane and unhealthy to the format.

The reason way Survival is a problem is because it has become Combo. I generally have no problem with Combo, as I feel a healthy metagame contains Beatdown-Combo-Control decks all equal to beat each other. Survival is a 1-card combo, though. By simply drawing and resolving that 1-card, you have completed your combo for the deck (this is for the Vengevine build. Black versions obviously need to have the mana to play Ooze). 1-card combo is something Wizards has always been trying to avoid.

Personally.... I am not a fan with the direction Wizards has been taking Legacy (and Magic in general since Lorwyn). I hate this drive by Aaron Forsythe to make creatures so much better than spells. I miss my counterspells being to consistently deal with threats, without worrying if I picked the right specific counterspell for this tournament. It baffles my mind that the quintessential Wrath effect in the Standard format only costs $3-4 due to how underwhelming the card plays in the format. It seems to me that Legacy is becoming more of an "Extended-like" format based on the fact that newer creatures are much better than the older creatures.

On the subject of Extended being boring last year: Personally, I thought Extended was much, much more interesting last year than it was the prior year when Zoo was running rampant (How many GP's did Saito win with Zoo? How many version of zoo made Top 8 PT Austin?) Thopter-Depths kinda put a wrench in the cogs of a nice machine, but it was by no means overpowered (Hypergenesis, Elves, Zoo, Bant, RDW, Scapeshift, Doran, Faeries, Dredge, Tezzeret, Not-Tezzeret, Living End were all viable decks).

Ending statement: I believe that Combo decks are great for Magic, though I believe that 1-card combos are horrible for Magic

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Shabbaman]

Dredge is basically a 1 card combo. But you have a good point. I hadn't looked at it that way, but although it's true that you only need Survival plus mana to start the combo it's also a combo that is very easily disruptable. The only reason I see that Survival wasn't already banned when it became very solid with the printing of Genesis is that it's a permanent and it's relient on the graveyard. There's only two ways to make the card even worse: make it a creature and limit the amount of activations. They did both in Fauna Shaman. But that's besides the point. The thing is, although it is true that you need only 1 card, the combo itself is not more resilient than storm or elf combo. You are relient on a single card like you point out, but you are relient on a combination of other cards in your hand as well: lands and a creature. The combination of cards that goes lethal within 4 turns (the critical clock in Legacy) is even smaller (land plus mana dork on turn 1, survival plus land on turn 2, discard creature and fetch VV, turn 3 discard VV, fetch VV, discard VV fetch VV, discard VV fetch VV, turn 4 discard VV fetch wonder, discard wonder fetch Mongoose, discard Mongoose, madness Mongoose, fetch 0 cc artifact guy and cast him, attack with 16 flying power. Kill on turn 4). Apparently (I've read about this somewhere on mtgthesource) the actual chance of pulling off this combo is smaller for Survival than it is for real combo decks. But what makes the deck so good is that it has an aggro backup plan, while most combo decks (besides food chain goblins) don't. It's just a better deck than other combo decks...

I still disagree with your statement that Legacy is a diverse format. While there is a large card pool that makes a lot of decks viable, there are only a few decks that are capable of winning tournaments. Currently there are decks thriving because they have a good Survival matchup (like Rock) and that aren't viable because they lack game against zoo and goblins.

"The fact that 1 deck-type is out-performing the rest of the field with this much lopsidedness is quite insane and unhealthy to the format."

That's why I referred to Vintage. In Vintage this is (apparently) seen as okay, so why is this so bad for Legacy?

 

[Ransac]

Dredge is basically a 1 card combo.

Very, very, very true. However, Dredge relies a lot of lot getting that one card in the graveyard. If you draw Grave-Troll to discard, that's great. If not, you have to hope you dredge it with one of your smaller dredge spells. At the same time, Crypt, Relic and Nihil Spellbomb do great jobs at keeping the success of Dredge in check. Those cards also work very well against Survival, but you made my argument with the statement "it has an aggro backup plan." While it's not the greatest backup plan in the world, 1-mana 3/3s do a lot in Legacy as far as winning races.

the combo itself is not more resilient than storm or elf combo.

I agree on the storm issue and disagree on the elf issue. Elf rolls over and dies to the Counter-Top engine and any deck that runs Firespout. Additionally, wihle elves does have a turn 2 win, it requires 6 specific cards to be in your first 8 cards.

Meanwhile, storm got a little out of control and Wizards did try to regulate it with the banning of Mystical Tutor. Your statement is correct, though if Wizards were to continue to regulate in the same way (out of fairness), Survival is next to go by the same logic.

I still disagree with your statement that Legacy is a diverse format. While there is a large card pool that makes a lot of decks viable, there are only a few decks that are capable of winning tournaments. Currently there are decks thriving because they have a good Survival matchup (like Rock) and that aren't viable because they lack game against zoo and goblins.

Each of the Legacy deck-types I listed have made some GP or SCG top 8 in the past year. I used "Rock" to describe Nelsons GWB deck that Top 8ed GP: Columbus, which may not be the right name for it but I thought appropriate.

That's why I referred to Vintage. In Vintage this is (apparently) seen as okay, so why is this so bad for Legacy?

Because Wizards is trying to promote Legacy as the new Extended. It has proven to be much more popular and has brought many, many players to the competitive game, which Wizards loves. By trying to create a format where seemingly any number of decks can win at any tournament, you entice more players to sleeve up and give it a shot.

Vintage has a comparably very small following. Yes, I realize that you do not need to have all of the powerful cards to play in a Vintage tournament and you can have a great time without them (I am a HUGE supporter of that), but the recognized Vintage audience is comprised of the small number of players who have invested a car's worth of income. They will have the best decks and/or the tools to beat the best decks. The difference in win percentages for Tier 1 Vintage decks is so small (based on the skill of the players) that you can play whichever of the top 3-5 archetypes is your favorite and be good. Wizards barely needs to cater to this audience as they know how to play their typically unchanging, stagnant format (decklists typically only change by a card or 2 when bannings occur).


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Oversoul]

Okay, I can't speak for the DCI and whether they will ban Survival. Not only do I not understand what they do enough to try to predict anything anymore, I consider a lot of the bannings to be actively stupid. Maybe given their goals, banning Survival would be an obvious and really good choice. I'm kind of biased anyway. Back when Al0ysius and I did the list of the top 200 enchantments, Survival was our #1. Incidentally, #2 was a card that lost all tournament presence when it was banned out of all available formats (and restricted in Vintage, where I really think people only still use it at all out of some notion that it's a broken card, often disregarding whether it's optimal deckbuilding), although in this case it probably couldn't be helped: Necropotence.

Anyway, Ransac's case for banning Survival seems to consist of two assertions. One of them has to do with the nature of the Legacy metagame and shaping it into something more like Extended. My only comment on this is that, personally, I do not like Extended. I used to follow it years ago and some of the individual decks built for the format seem pretty cool, but I have absolutely no desire to play Extended. I want to play Legacy. And I think the idea of trying to shape the metagame into some preconceived goal through bannings (and unbannings) is stupid. Then again, the DCI seems to strongly disagree, from what I can tell. So I pretty much have to concede this one. I don't like it, but that's how things are done now.

But as for the second assertion, that Survival should be banned because it is a one-card combo, well that is something that I can actually comment on. Survival has been a "one-card combo" for several years now. I could list several examples, including multiple infinite combos. One might contend that they aren't as good as Vengevine, but that's not the point. They have the same requirements of Survival, a creature in hand to get the combo going, and mana. If you want to argue that the new decks are broken, then fine. If the contention is that Survival creates a dominant archetype or overly warps the metagame around itself, that is one thing. I don't think the data will bear that out, but I don't actually know for sure. We'd need to examine the data to know for sure. But the idea that because it's a "one-card combo" it gets special treatment seems pretty wrong. No one was complaining for the five years or whatever that Survival has done exactly what it does now (just with a bit less kick).

Actually, it's been even longer than that. I mean, ATS used Survival as a "one-card combo" in the same way that Vengevival does. It was slower and less aggressive, but the principle of "pitch a chain of creatures to Survival in order to amass a lethal creature army early in the game" was right there and all of that was in the old Type 1.5, before Legacy even existed. I think it was even a more dominant deck than Survival is now, too. But for some reason, people were complaining about Skullclamp instead. The old Type 1.5 was weird...

 

[Shabbaman]

Because Wizards is trying to promote Legacy as the new Extended.

Well, that's exactly the problem. I don't play Legacy because it's Extended. but because it's an Eternal format.