Sept. 20, 2010 B/R Announcement

[Ransac]

Then we are arguing two different things. You are arguing for Legacy to be more like Vintage while Wizards is trying to make Legacy the replacement for the atrocity they've created with Extended (this double-standard idea disgusts me). I am arguing that any decision to ban Survival would be a step in the right direction for what Wizards wants to create with Legacy.

I have only played in 2 Legacy tournaments: Grand Prix Columbus and 1 tournament to get a feel beforehand. I can honestly say that the GP was the most fun I had played in any tournament ever. I played a Mono-Blue Energy Field deck and against against a diverse group of decks: Zoo, Goblins, 42 Land, Dredge, Horizons and Counter-Top. In my 7 rounds of being "alive," I played against 6 different archetypes and loved the variety that I found in each of my matches.

I love that type of environment: variance. I loved the idea that anything could do well and not 1 deck it dominant over everything else. I have taken a number of hiatuses (hiati?) in magic and noticed that a number of my breaks take place whenever 1 deck is clearly better than everything else in Standard: Affinity after Mirrodin was released, Faeries after Morningtide, Jund after Zendikar. A few times, I had to stop for a show or school, but I was always right back in when I had the chance.

To me, the easiest way to kill a format for a period of time is to allow an "Elephant in the corner" to go unchecked. The new creations of the Survival deck has become that problem over the past 4 months.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Ransac]

Sorry for the double post. Just watched the newest Magic Show. A quote from a pro:

To put things in perspective, People who have played Survival at StarCity tournaments are better than 1 and 3 to Top 16. People who play everything else, anything else, if you play anything without Survival in it, you're 1 in 21 to Top 16.

Chapin starts talking around 4:30.

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Oversoul]

Wow, that's extremely misleading. Because of course, the statistic for non-Survival decks is a mean of all of them. But he deliberately says it in a way that makes it sound like it isn't, like it applies to every single non-Survival deck equally. This doesn't put anything into perspective at all. The same statement made for decks with Counter-Top versus decks without Counter-Top would show the same result, albeit probably not quite as sharply. Of course comparing a highly successful archetype to all of the other decks in an entire tournament is going to make the archetype look really good. Anything that doesn't look good under this standard is, practically by definition, not successful.

 

[Shabbaman]

Sorry for the double post. Just watched the newest Magic Show. A quote from a pro:



Chapin starts talking around 4:30.

Ransac, cpa trash man

Eh, I don't even understand what he's saying. Does he mean it's easier to get to top 16 with Survival than without? Well duh, it's the best deck! SCG opens have people play decks with poor matchups against the best deck (just check Jared Silva's latest article, in which he fails to conclude the very obvious). What that data shows is that Legacy (in that tournament series) is a format where people are slow to adapt. If people really were so afraid of Survival, they'd be playing other decks and suitable sideboard hate.

Anyway, I couldn't put it better than Steven Menendian (obviously).

 

[Ransac]

I like what Menendian has to say (personally would love to see Vengevine banned over Survival), but I fail to see Wizards banning it over Survival. Wizards has stated time and time again over the past few years that the direction of the game is heading to creatures over spells. I don't believe that Wizards would ban one of the staples of their past year sets to be banned over a reusable tutoring engine..... again, I think the banning of Vengevine is the correct answer, but not the direction Wizards will go..... Maybe banning Rootwalla?

Additionally, Menendian is wrong in "Statistical dominance of a format by a single archetype is certainly grounds for banning or restriction. However, that dominance must be proven over time." That have been more than one instance where Wizards has banned in "knee-jerk reaction" style: The Urza's Saga bannings four months after set release, Memory Jar 2 weeks after set release, the infamous Affinity bannings (for which I am still cheering). It has been a while since they've reacted hastily, but they have done it in the past.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Shabbaman]

They did, and not even long ago: they banned Mystical Tutor after it showed up in half of the T8 of GP: Madrid. I see only a very small chance for Survival: if they see that they've made another mistake with a free spell. VV is comparable to Gush and the famous free spells from Urza block. It's a design space they should thread with care. And another chance is if they actually listen to Menendian (which, apparently, sometimes actually happens).

 

[Oversoul]

I agree with pretty much everything Menendian said there (as usual). In the comments there, I noticed the claim that the way to "fix" the current metagame situation (I'm not yet 100% convinced that there is one just yet) is to unban Mystical Tutor. Of course, it's not actually going to be what happens and I don't know that it's true either, but it is an interesting notion...

 

[Shabbaman]

It might fix the dominance of Survival, but that won't get you the "wide open metagame". It'd be the metagame I'd prefer though!

 

[Oversoul]

Thread necromancy time!

What a healthy metagame this led to. Stoneforge Mystic, Threshold, Stoneforge Mystic, Green Sun's Zenith, Zoo, Stoneforge Mystic, Dredge, Green Sun's Zenith, High Tide, Stoneforge Mystic and Green Sun's Zenith, ANT, Stoneforge Mystic, Stoneforge Mystic, maybe a bit more Threshold, and oh yeah, Green Sun's Zenith. Yes sir, no problems here. All those different decks. So diverse. Good thing we're not being dominated by the unstoppable Vengevival...

 

[Spiderman]

Did that appear immediately afterwards or evolved in the 1.5 years since?

 

[Oversoul]

Well, I haven't seen any rigorous analysis to properly inform that question, but my general impression is that the metagame was really favoring CounterTop decks (well, also Zoo, but Zoo has been pretty stable in its competitiveness for quite a while) around the time Survival got the axe, and that CounterTop sort of faded from prominence with some of the new tech.