Sept. 18, 2009 B/R Announcement
- Thread starter Spiderman
- Start date
Oversoul
The Tentacled One
Well now, this is interesting...
Dream Halls unbanned in Legacy is sort of the same situation as Dream Halls unbanned in Vintage. We can't say for sure whether it will be viable because it's such a unique card. This certainly changes things for me, though. I've been rather stagnate about deckbuilding and now I absolutely must scrap my Vintage experiments in Dream Halls and focus on using the card in Legacy. I doubt it will dominate, but if there's a chance it can be even competitive, I've got to give this a shot. This will probably only mean so much to a few people. Mostly, this is a good call and will perhaps be seen as cutting chaff from the banned list.
Almost all of the discussion of this announcement so far on Legacy boards has been about Entomb (and most of the rest about the fact that Land Tax is still on the list) and I don't know that there's a consensus yet. Personally, I'd rather they'd unbanned Dragon, as I wanted from the beginning. Now that Entomb is unbanned, we'll probably never see Dragon unbanned. Oh well. This has implications for a lot of decks, which I haven't yet had time to consider.
I'm also sure Metalworker will make an impact, although what the decks using it will look like, I can't say. Metalworker/Staff is certainly good enough for Legacy.
Dream Halls unbanned in Legacy is sort of the same situation as Dream Halls unbanned in Vintage. We can't say for sure whether it will be viable because it's such a unique card. This certainly changes things for me, though. I've been rather stagnate about deckbuilding and now I absolutely must scrap my Vintage experiments in Dream Halls and focus on using the card in Legacy. I doubt it will dominate, but if there's a chance it can be even competitive, I've got to give this a shot. This will probably only mean so much to a few people. Mostly, this is a good call and will perhaps be seen as cutting chaff from the banned list.
Almost all of the discussion of this announcement so far on Legacy boards has been about Entomb (and most of the rest about the fact that Land Tax is still on the list) and I don't know that there's a consensus yet. Personally, I'd rather they'd unbanned Dragon, as I wanted from the beginning. Now that Entomb is unbanned, we'll probably never see Dragon unbanned. Oh well. This has implications for a lot of decks, which I haven't yet had time to consider.
I'm also sure Metalworker will make an impact, although what the decks using it will look like, I can't say. Metalworker/Staff is certainly good enough for Legacy.
T
train
Guest
halls is broken... but its blue so that is no surprise...
just because it is not overly powerful online - doesn't mean it won't romp once re-introduced to all the new cards out there by others not online...
just because it is not overly powerful online - doesn't mean it won't romp once re-introduced to all the new cards out there by others not online...
Oversoul
The Tentacled One
Oh, I just want to echo what's already been said on every Legacy board everywhere and note that using MTGO Classic as the measure of what should be banned or not in Legacy is dumb. I happen to fully support these particular unbannings, but a lot of Legacy players are getting the impression that the DCI is trying to bluff that it pays attention to the format.
Anyway, as far as Dream Halls being broken goes, it certainly hasn't been in Vintage and I don't know that it will be much different in Legacy, which would mean it could be used as a rogue deck, but would be pretty rare. It's one of my old favorites, but I have to admit that the card disadvantage and the symmetry of the effect severely limit the power of this card. A Dream Halls deck absolutely has to be able to do the following things...
-Fight disruption.
-Play a good game without Dream Halls in play and probably even be able to win under reasonable circumstances without Dream Halls out.
-Get Dream Halls out quickly.
-Beat the opponent once Dream Halls is out.
This presents problems. Those big spells that are so impressive under Dream Halls are useless without it. Likewise a deck that uses cheap spells might as well play them rather than put Dream Halls out and risk the opponent being able to use it more effectively. There's a precarious balance that Legacy won't necessarily find for this to work. But I don't know that I should say too much more on the subject until I get my prototype Legacy Dream Halls deck going. I have a few ideas...
Anyway, as far as Dream Halls being broken goes, it certainly hasn't been in Vintage and I don't know that it will be much different in Legacy, which would mean it could be used as a rogue deck, but would be pretty rare. It's one of my old favorites, but I have to admit that the card disadvantage and the symmetry of the effect severely limit the power of this card. A Dream Halls deck absolutely has to be able to do the following things...
-Fight disruption.
-Play a good game without Dream Halls in play and probably even be able to win under reasonable circumstances without Dream Halls out.
-Get Dream Halls out quickly.
-Beat the opponent once Dream Halls is out.
This presents problems. Those big spells that are so impressive under Dream Halls are useless without it. Likewise a deck that uses cheap spells might as well play them rather than put Dream Halls out and risk the opponent being able to use it more effectively. There's a precarious balance that Legacy won't necessarily find for this to work. But I don't know that I should say too much more on the subject until I get my prototype Legacy Dream Halls deck going. I have a few ideas...
Shabbaman
insert avatar here
I'm happy they unbanned Entomb. Benzo is about my favorite deck ever, and without Entomb reanimator just isn't viable. The deck is hit by a lot of splash damage of SB cards against other decks (ichorid, loam). If Ichorid and Storm get a hit from the new hate cards in Zendikar maybe reanimator is viable again. I have all the cards anyway, although the 4x Akroma setup (from Orlove reanimator with zombie infestation, arrrr, brrrains!) could change into a toolbox approach again.
Oversoul
The Tentacled One
As, I really like ANT though. Hoping to build one soon. Well, I assume you're talking about Mindbreak Trap. I don't think I'd sideboard it just to deal with ANT. In Vintage, it might be all-around useful enough to maindeck in some cases. And in Legacy maybe it will be useful enough as a sideboard card, but in Legacy, if it's ANT you're worried about, you should have a deck that can deal with ANT on its own, rather than relying on a one-shot sideboard card. Also, I assume the idea is that one can let Ad Nauseam go off, then stop the Tendrils with Trap. What if the ANT player draws into multiple Pacts off Ad Nauseam? That strikes me as too big a risk to wait around.
Comparing that to Crypt or Relic or whatever your favorite graveyard hate card is, even though Ichorid isn't as strong as ANT, those cards can pretty much always strike a serious blow against any graveyard reliant deck. Ichorid is one, but there's also Survival, Bomberman, Cephalid Breakfast, Threshold, and Loam. Especially those last two, which are huge. If Entomb makes a single deck particularly stronger, I think it would probably be Ichorid though. But my concern is that the stronger any of these decks get, whether it's Entomb for Ichorid or some new tech bringing Survival to the forefront, the presence of increased graveyard hate, even if the big decks deal with it (and Ichorid really has to be able to in order to be playable), is bad news for rogue decks that are trying to break in. In my case, I'm thinking of Pattern Combo. In your case, it appears to be Reanimator...
Comparing that to Crypt or Relic or whatever your favorite graveyard hate card is, even though Ichorid isn't as strong as ANT, those cards can pretty much always strike a serious blow against any graveyard reliant deck. Ichorid is one, but there's also Survival, Bomberman, Cephalid Breakfast, Threshold, and Loam. Especially those last two, which are huge. If Entomb makes a single deck particularly stronger, I think it would probably be Ichorid though. But my concern is that the stronger any of these decks get, whether it's Entomb for Ichorid or some new tech bringing Survival to the forefront, the presence of increased graveyard hate, even if the big decks deal with it (and Ichorid really has to be able to in order to be playable), is bad news for rogue decks that are trying to break in. In my case, I'm thinking of Pattern Combo. In your case, it appears to be Reanimator...
Shabbaman
insert avatar here
Well, hating graveyards is a lot easier than hating storm combo's. That could be why Ichorid performes worse than ANT. Mindbreak trap seems strong against combo, but Ravenous trap is arguably stronger against Ichorid. The difference is that Ichorid is used to fighting 0 cost hate (crypt, leyline), and that those 0 cost spells are readily available. Free storm combo hate is, well, dunno. There's Chalice, mostly against LED at 0. And FoW. Then you get to Chalice at 1, stifle and trickbind. There's some stuff that works if you're lucky (discard) and that buys some time (silence, chant), but Mindbreak trap is better than those. I hope non-blue decks will adopt Mindbreak trap in the SB, and that will weaken their SB against graveyard hate. It's just hope though. In the end it's probably metagaming: if there's more combo than graveyard based strategies, SB will go down. And the same goes in the reverse.