I've recently decided to quit Standard and move to a non rotating format. I've played Modern for a few months, mostly with Standard decks with some additions to increase the power level and I've proxied up some Legacy decks over the last few weeks and have done some testing with friends and I've decided to join Legacy.
While I enjoyed Modern, I think the Combo decks of Legacy are more interesting and I also enjoy blue and Legacy is where you want to be if you like blue. I like the care you have to take each turn in legacy. I love casting Brainstorm and Ponder...the Power level and cool things you can do, and play against, is greater in Legacy than Modern at least in my mind.
I also like the Legacy community. Players tend to be a little older (mid 20's-30's) which I like because tempers are a bit milder on average. I also love The Source. So many good, intelligent conversations over there about the format.
The buy in for Legacy can be daunting and hard for new players to the format. I am out of school and work full time so the financial aspect isn't a big hurdle for me but I totally get folks not wanting to pay $150 for a dual land.
Both formats have their merits, for sure. But for my play style and what I'm looking for in Magic, Legacy I think will fit the bill long term.
Last I checked, staples like Force of Will is $79.99 and Volcanic Island is $149.99. Like I said, not everyone has piles of cash laying around.
Last I checked, SCG was not what cards actually cost if you shop around. Here is a hint fo the old staple cards the more copies a store has in stock, the more likely they are charging more then the card is worth, right now SCG is listing 37 NM ($79.99), 70 SP ($69.99) and 18 MP ($59.99) Forces (125 total) for its level of play and desirability that is to many for their price to be fair. The fact that almost every other store is charging less then SCG for these level of staples is further proof that their prices are not what the card costs.
When it comes to legacy staples the real way to price them is to see what they are going for on sites like e-bay, as those have prices set by the players, not someone gouging you because to many players do not know any better. When I buy from SCG I know that at least 10% of the price is convenience because I am not in the mood to e-bay the card. But I have managed to get a playset of a card through e-bay for what SCG was charging for 3 to many times to even begin to consider their price the actual value of a card.
Last I checked, staples like Force of Will is $79.99 and Volcanic Island is $149.99. Like I said, not everyone has piles of cash laying around.
If you click the link in the very cards you posted you will see in the advert below the card that their are many people selling both of said cards for alot less than the quoted price!
The single biggest thing keeping me from investing in Modern though is the fear that they're strangling the format by trying to micromanage it with their silly banlist. Even stuff like Wild Nacatl aside, the fact that they have consistently banned key cards in the top decks means that there is no way I can justify investing several hundred dollars in a T1 Modern deck, since there is a very good chance that it will get the banhammer at some point. I know I'm not alone in this opinion, and I just cannot recommend to anyone that they invest in Modern staples and decks unless they have value in other formats.
Seriously? Only 3 cards have been banned since the first year the format was created. That isn't an overwhelming amount. It is just that Wizards messed up with the initial banned list (Sword of the Meek, Golgari Grave-Troll), the second wave of bans (Jace 2.0, Ancestral Visions, Bitterblossom), the third wave of bans (Ponder, Preordain, Green Sun's Zenith), and the Wild Nacatl ban. Since 2011, the bans have been pretty reasonable (though I would love to have Seething Song back so I could break it, and Pyrite Spellbomb should have been banned instead of Second Sunrise).
My only beef with Legacy is that aggro is not a viable strategy. My only beef with Modern is Affinity is about the only viable aggro strategy and its even debatable if its viable any more. It feels like dark days for the aggro crowd, in every format. I suppose it has had its time in the sun.
Affinity is easily viable in Modern. It is the most played deck on MTGO for the format and it won GP Brisbane a couple of months ago.
Look at that, it only took an hour to prove the point about exaggerating. Yes, Stuff like Lands and some Stoneforge builds can clock in at a few thousand, but there are decks top 8'ing Legacy tournaments that cost well under what many Modern decks would cost. I've top 4'd several different Legacy tournaments with decks that came in at under $200. The most expensive decks can be a bit crazy, but the idea that the financial barrier of entry for Legacy is several thousand dollars is misinformation at best, and a lie at worst.
Looking at Legacy Tier 1 decks, most of them are over $500. Half of the Modern Tier 1 decks are under that.
I would like Legacy, if the deck that I want to play (MUD) didn't require playsets of Wasteland and City of Traitors. If I could spend several months not playing Magic and saving up for one Legacy deck or just buy Modern decks and play Modern, I'd actually play the game.
Another reason why I like Modern better is that I dislike free counterspells. If my opponent tapped out on their turn and I have a winning hand, I don't want to just have my opponent cast Force of Will and beat me. If they made a mistake, they should lose, not be able to answer my spells without any mana at all.
The main reason why I like Modern better than Legacy is probably the size of the cardpool. Whenever a new set is introduced into Modern, it fundamentally changes the format (okay, maybe not so much with Theros). Every set has caused a major metagame shift. However, in Legacy this doesn't necessarily happen. The last time a set influenced Legacy like that was Return to Ravnica. For Modern, it was M14. Less cards means that the format is affected more by newer sets.
The main reason why I like Modern better than Legacy is probably the size of the cardpool. Whenever a new set is introduced into Modern, it fundamentally changes the format (okay, maybe not so much with Theros). Every set has caused a major metagame shift. However, in Legacy this doesn't necessarily happen. The last time a set influenced Legacy like that was Return to Ravnica. For Modern, it was M14. Less cards means that the format is affected more by newer sets.
A good point for those wanting to play Modern - because of its lower power level and smaller card pool, newer sets are more likely to "shake things up", if not create completely new archetypes!
A good point for those wanting to play Modern - because of its lower power level and smaller card pool, newer sets are more likely to "shake things up", if not create completely new archetypes!
People do not realise how big modern is on the aspect of interactive. With no oppressive combo decks ruining the format you are often faced with a midrange arm wrestle with your opponent.
Yesterday I played some of the best magic I ever played. I tried my luck in the tournament practice room with a budget 5CC list I got paired with the classic UWR tiago deck that is tearing up the scene and boy was it just some amazing spell slinging.
I won the first game on the back of reanimating the same mulldrifter four times of the back of two rites and the other two games he got me with a collonade I had no answers for.
Even though I lost it was still a botload of fun with a deck that have zero cards over a few bucks.
There's been a lot of interesting perspectives here, but I really think it comes down to two points of preference: power level, and stack interaction vs. combat interaction.
The base power level of Legacy is extremely high. When left undisrupted, it means things like turn 1 wins, powerful tutors, and never being color-screwed. The downside is that the playable strategies completely outclass most everything else. Legacy is basically combo and good stuff decks, with the occasional synergistic strategy that exploits a hole in the metagame (like Death & Taxes). With Modern, the base power level is relatively lower, and all the good cantrips are banned so you're still at the mercy of your draw step. This means you have more room for synergistic decks, although the "good stuff" problem is still present.
The other thing is stack interaction. Modern doesn't really have a lot of it. Most games are ultimately won through the combat step. In Legacy, the combat step is largely an afterthought, or it's a means to draw 7 cards for free/make the opponent sacrifice 6 permanents. Modern also doesn't have free counterspells like Force or Daze, so decks need to take a defined role in the match. You don't really have anything like RUG Delver, that plays aggro and control at the same time.
It's very much a matter of personal preference. Modern is definitely more similar to "Standard's Greatest Hits" than Legacy, and some people want that while others don't.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Many people are saying that Legacy isn't all blue decks or that not all decks run Force of will - this is completely true.
But keep in mind legacy is VERY much Force of Will format - even if your deck doesn't run blue, it has to prepare for FoW: this card does much to define how decks are built and run in legacy.
Many people are saying that Legacy isn't all blue decks or that not all decks run Force of will - this is completely true.
But keep in mind legacy is VERY much Force of Will format - even if your deck doesn't run blue, it has to prepare for FoW: this card does much to define how decks are built and run in legacy.
I think you misspelled Brainstorm there
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Modern:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget I stream!
Many people are saying that Legacy isn't all blue decks or that not all decks run Force of will - this is completely true.
But keep in mind legacy is VERY much Force of Will format - even if your deck doesn't run blue, it has to prepare for FoW: this card does much to define how decks are built and run in legacy.
Not really more so than any other counter.
You do realize that FoW isnt even a good card in many matchups?
Its not uncommon to sideboard it out game 2 and 3 vs decks that dont have combos or specific bombs you dont have some other way to deal with.
Its the worst answer to every threat. Its only a profitable card to use when its your only answer.
Many people are saying that Legacy isn't all blue decks or that not all decks run Force of will - this is completely true.
But keep in mind legacy is VERY much Force of Will format - even if your deck doesn't run blue, it has to prepare for FoW: this card does much to define how decks are built and run in legacy.
I would agree that Brainstorm is a more Legacy-defining card than FoW. Brainstorm lets them dig for answers whenever its needed. When you play against a Blue deck, you can prepare for FoW or just ignore it ala Goblins. Plus, as mentioned earlier, FoW is a last-resort type of counter. It deals with a first turn Show & Tell or belcher, but doesn't help much against decks like D&T, Jund, Goblins, Fish, Dredge, etc. Honestly, you're 2 for 1'ing yourself, so its far from ideal.
Its essentially shooting yourself in the foot to prevent someone else from cutting your head off. You dont actually want to use it unless you absolutely have to.
Its the worst answer to anything, it just happens to be an answer to nearly everything.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
You're conveniently missing the point that the decks that cost under $200 are very few and specific archetypes. If a player can't afford to play the archetype they want to play and they're essentially forced to play a select few decks, don't you think that's going to take away a lot of the fun for that player? Luckily I like Manaless Dredge which is one of the cheaper decks, but very few run that cheap and are as effective. My Burn deck is very hit or miss because Aggro suffers in Legacy; same with my Affinity deck.
While as I posted earlier I enjoy both Modern and Affinity, the difference in the amount of decks you can build for $200-300 and be competitive in Modern as opposed to Legacy is a vast difference. And, well, there's also the premium many Legacy players put on their Legacy cards wherein they expect anyone trading non-Legacy to trade a premium. I never really see that happen with Modern.
But there are always multiformat staples. My friend I collect with recently traded 3 mutavaults and 3 heroes downfalls for a wwk mindsculptor.
When snapcaster was in standard, I probably cycled over 100 of them.
SCG isn't representative. The TCG Mid for Volcanic is $123, and I got mine (NM Revised) for less than $100 by hunting eBay for bargains and getting a bit lucky.
Legacy is the way to go. Legacy is such a diverse format and not one deck is just the best. Not one card is just too good for the format. The banned list is not going to change rapidly so you won't have to worry about building a deck and seeing it get the ban hammer. It is the much fun Magic in my opinion.
This is quite simply nonsense. The arguments against Modern are not "mindless bashing". There have been many well-reasoned points made explaining the serious problems with the format's design repeated throughout numerous threads on these forums. The counter-arguments in favor of Modern are invariably either just "I like it", or <insert blatant falsehood bashing Legacy here>.
"I like it" is not a valid argument for the quality of a competitive format. Each individual is certainly free to enjoy whatever they enjoy in a casual friendly environment with their friends. You do not even require a sanctioned format to do so, you can even make up your own rules.
But if youre going to claim that a format is viable and healthy as a competitive Magic format, then you need to make some sort of reasoned argument.
Modern players constantly try to make this into some sort of absurd claim that "those mean Legacy players are just hating on what we find fun". Thats not what this is. Modern is an objectively bad format. That doesnt mean you cant enjoy it. But your personal enjoyment doesnt make it a good format for competitive play.
People are passionate about comparisons between Modern and Legacy because WOTC's support for their patched together pet format has direct effects on all of us whether we choose to play it or not.
To be fair, there are a lot of Strawmen on both sides of the argument, and this post has some of the best examples. To say that all Modern players like Modern without a second thought is as thoughtless as saying that all of Legacy's distaste of Modern is "mindless bashing". How come all of Legacy's posts of dislike of Modern are "well-reasoned points", while all of Modern's posts of dislike of Legacy are "blatant falsehood bashing"? Remember, Tu Quoque is still a fallacy.
Clearly, you are operating under SIGNIFICANT bias, and are Texas Sharpshooting (cherry-picking posts) to boot.
Saying that "Modern is an objectively bad format" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of the word "objectively", and I suggest you consult a dictionary sometime in the near future. To begin with, "bad" is a subjective word, so it is impossible to have something that is "objectively bad". Again, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language. Even if something could be "objectively bad", the burden of proof would lie on you to show it to be so. In addition, the statement "But your personal enjoyment doesnt make it a good format for competitive play" is meaningless, because a good format for competitive play is defined as one where the majority of its participants are enjoying themselves (unless you have a different definition). Almost all the arguments here are anecdotal, so calling out specific arguments out as anecdotal brings almost all arguments into question.
All formats are "patched together" because Magic: the Gathering formats are not naturally occurring phenomena. In addition, even if they were, making the argument that being an original is somehow better is an appeal to nature, another argumentative fallacy.
TL;DR - Your whole post boils down to argumentative fallacies; please stop it. While it may make you look cool on the Internet, and sound cool to your peers, you are actively inhibiting discussion with your poorly thought-out points. And saying "it's fine because other people are doing it" is not fine either - see Tu Quoque.
You do realize that FoW isnt even a good card in many matchups?
Its not uncommon to sideboard it out game 2 and 3 vs decks that dont have combos or specific bombs you dont have some other way to deal with.
Its the worst answer to every threat. Its only a profitable card to use when its your only answer.
Legacy is very much an FoW-centric format, but not in the way the poster you responded to put it. Without FoW, T1-3 combo would rule Legacy. The major reason FoW-less decks can do well in Legacy is because they prey on the decks that run FoW (partially for the reasons you stated).
Legacy is a format defined by three cards: FoW, Wasteland, and Brainstorm. Without Brainstorm the format would still likely be fine, but without FoW or Wasteland, the format would suffer significantly. So saying that either of the former two are not cornerstones of the format is simply incorrect.
Invest in Affinity so you can play both competitively.
Affinity is pretty poorly positioned in Legacy and often fizzles before it can finish the job. I invested in Affinity just for this reason as I was skeptical of the general disappointment in the Legacy Affinity discussion thread. Unfortunately, the disappointment is well-founded.
In the same way you can tell someone is from the XVIII century because he is arroused by ankles, you can tell someone is from USA because he feels nipples disturbing.
I think I'll just copy a post I made on the modern forum, since I think it sums up my feelings pretty well. Keep in mind, this was posted in response to another poster's comments on degenerate cards in legacy:
Okay, this is probably going to be long, but it might be worthwhile.
The things you see as flaws in legacy, I see as the spice that gives the game flavour. One of the things that attracted me to MTG was the diversity in the range of strategies that players are able to use, and the degree to which you can personalise your own deck. I've never, ever bought into Mark Rosewater's philosophy of interaction, because to me, the combat step is the shallowest form of interaction in the game. Sure, there's a bit of combat math involved, but I do reasonably high-level mathematics on a daily basis, and duking it out with a midrange or aggro deck is fundamentally boring to me. To you, combo is non-interactive, but to me, it's like sitting under the Sword of Damocles, and daring your opponent to kill you before you win. Yes, belcher famously doesn't care about its opponents (how this is different to modern Affinity completely escapes me), but almost every other combo deck in legacy is forced to interact in some way, whether that be through information gathering, combo protection, or even just a backup plan. Fighting with and against combo is like solving a puzzle, where the information is partly hidden from both players. To me, that's exciting, and all colours are able to effectively deal with combo in some form or another, as demonstrated by the existence of powerful, mono-coloured options for every single colour. Those stupid spells that you believe should never have been printed are things that other players enjoy, and enable the diversity and balance of legacy; they are just as valid as any of the cards that see play in modern.
So which of us is right? Which is the more fun strategy, and the more legitimate form of interaction? The correct answer is neither; you like what you like, and I like what I like, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's my belief that all decks have equal validity, and I'm happy to play and let play, even where the strategy doesn't necessarily thrill me. At the end of the day, I can choose not to play that deck in a casual setting, and in a competitive setting, I'll be playing something that starts doing powerful things from the first turn anyway, and I'll figure out a way to fight any given deck. No matter what you play, some people will enjoy it, some people will be ambivalent, and some people will dislike it, and again, that's just the nature of subjectivity. As for what magic was meant to be, I'll let Richard Garfield say it for me:
Quote from "Richard Garfield" »
One thing I knew I wanted to see in the game was players using multicolor decks. It was clear that a player could avoid a lot of problems by stripping down to a single color. For this reason, many spells were included that paralyzed entire colors, like Karma, Elemental Blast, and the Circles of Protection. The original plan was to include cards that thwarted every obvious simple strategy, and, in time, to add new cards which would defeat the most current ploys and keep the strategic environment dynamic.
My disappointment with modern is that Wizards and the DCI have intentionally pushed the format in a direction that actively removes several strategic elements that have been a part of the game since its inception. How many control and tempo decks are there? How about prison, LD, or fast combo decks? Modern to me is like playing a strategy game in which the winning strategy has already been chosen for you. It's not so bad for players who enjoy that particular strategy, especially when that reflects the type of gameplay they want to see. The thing is, magic is, and always has been, about strategic diversity, and modern just doesn't have it. This isn't a knock on people who enjoy the format, but more a criticism of the current design philosophy and its effects on the game. I'm an adult, and I'm capable of choosing for myself what I find to be fun in a game. I don't need to have my hand held by Wizards, and whilst I accept that players dislike some strategies more than others, I don't find that a compelling argument for their removal from the game. Less diversity is always worse in my opinion.
In this regard, I believe that modern goes against the initial spirit of the game, because many of the powerful, exciting cards that came out early in the game's life are absent. Not only that, but you are limited to winning the game in a particular way, because only one form of interaction is allowed to be good. You claim that this makes modern the most interactive format, but on the contrary, it detracts from it. If I play in a legacy tournament, I'm coming after my opponent from the first turn of the game, and I expect them to do the same to me. I can be attacked from many different angles, so my deck needs to be built such that it can interact with, and disrupt, as many strategies as is feasible. Failing this, my deck needs to be able to survive this onslaught long enough to win, which invariably means packing protection of some sort, and being able to interact with your opponents as early as possible in order to slow them down. In no short order, this means decks must be able to deal with land hate, discard, early combos, powerful utility creatures, threats that can't be targeted, storm, counterspells that can hit you even when your opponent is tapped out, powerful burn, and incredible card-advantage engines that will take over the game if you let them get out of hand. All of this is on top of the basic attack step, combat math, and creature removal that is expected of modern. Every single turn of a legacy game is spent making multiple interactions, because being unable to interact will lose you the game.
Legacy games are not typically won or lost on life points, but on resources, tempo, and control. You grapple for position until one player gets the upper hand, and then tries to exploit it. Even then, there's no guarantee of victory, and there's usually a lot of back and forth in games. You probably think modern is the same in this regard, but I've seen players survive two attacks from emrakul and still hang on, and I myself have managed to survive on 2 life against burn long enough to steal a win against an opponent on 15 life. I've also been hit for more than 50 on the first turn, and beaten my opponent on the first turn with a well-judged wasteland. In both cases, the person who lost made a critical error that cost them the game. Hell, I've lost games on the first turn against delver because I was on autopilot, and fetched into a stifle. That's life, shuffle up, and don't make the same mistake next time. Even so, these games are by far the exception, and I've had longer, tougher games in legacy than in any other format, including modern.
And I'm not saying this as someone who wants to hate on modern because I have an investment in legacy; on the contrary, I want to like the format, because I think it held a lot of promise. Hell, I think that cards for all formats should be reprinted, because price should never, ever be a barrier to enjoying the game. Modern might still develop into a good format one day, but I'm not sure it will ever be the type of game that I want to play, and it bothers me when it is pushed so hard by Wizards. I want to play magic, and the way I see it, modern is missing too many of the pieces for me to consider it magic as "the way it was meant to be played". On top of this, the format gets so much support in spite of its lukewarm reception, with three times the number of GPs as legacy, its own box set, and gets made into an FNM format, and yet its players still clamour for more support in the face of flagging popularity. Meanwhile, formats like EDH and legacy began as grass-roots, player-driven formats that cling on despite the lack of tournament support. Hell, legacy is still growing despite every disadvantage, and modern would likely be dead tomorrow if the duals were being reprinted along with various legacy staples. The solution to legacy's problems was not to produce a non-interactive, cheaper alternative, but for Wizards to grab their crotch, rescind the reserve list, and gradually reprint legacy staples so that a viable eternal format could be sustained indefinitely. Right now, modern is only good for a particular subset of players, and that doesn't make for a particularly compelling eternal format.
Peace
Also for Valanarch:
Quote from "Valanarch" »
Another reason why I like Modern better is that I dislike free counterspells. If my opponent tapped out on their turn and I have a winning hand, I don't want to just have my opponent cast Force of Will and beat me. If they made a mistake, they should lose, not be able to answer my spells without any mana at all.
Why should anyone ever be given free wins? Who says that tapping out was a mistake. These things are always calculated risks; your opponent made one when he tapped out, and if you make the mistake of thinking you should get a free win because of that, his risk pays off. Having free counters like FoW is vital to the balance of the game, and adds an extra layer of interaction that can take place when all other resources are spent. I mean, I get it, counters can be frustrating to play against some times, but are they that big a deal?
I guess if I had to summarise my position, I prefer legacy to modern, because it has by far the most variety and strategic depth in its gameplay. Modern has always felt a bit wrong to me, I think in large part because it lacks the dynamic of having all resources available. You can generally count on spells resolving, so you don't need to really learn how to play around counterspells. Your lands will probably stick around, so you don't need to think about when to drop your lands, and how to mitigate the loss of your resources. In this regard, I think modern culminates in more goodstuff decks than legacy does, simply because synergistic decks aren't really given the tools to punish decks that pack more overall card power. I mean, when was the last time a werewolf other than huntmaster saw play in modern? Meanwhile, I've been beaten down by a Hanweir Watchkeep in legacy. There are so many more avenues for interaction in legacy, that when I play modern, all I see are limitations, rather than possibilities.
Actually, $70 is its TCG mid atm. Range goes from $62 - $90.
I know it's off topic, but I got one for a foil elspeth, sun's champion. I've gotten them for around 55-65 in the past few months. It's actually a very easy card to come across for me. I actually refused to trade for one at $70, and I still need at least one.
Um, actually if you're going by chronology, Legacy was heavily impacted by Commander 2013 (True-Name Nemesis), which is far more recent than M14.
Fair enough. Legacy has gotten 1 card that changed the metagame completely since Return to Ravnica. Modern was changed by M14, Dragon's Maze, Gatecrash (somewhat), Return to Ravnica (even moreso than Legacy), M13, Avacyn Restored, Dark Ascension, and Innistrad (almost as much as Legacy). Legacy was changed by Commander 2013, Return to Ravnica, Planechase 2012, Avacyn Restored, and Innistrad in that timeframe. This is even more evident when you compare the amount of playable cards from each set. New sets affect Modern more than they affect Legacy.
Why should anyone ever be given free wins? Who says that tapping out was a mistake. These things are always calculated risks; your opponent made one when he tapped out, and if you make the mistake of thinking you should get a free win because of that, his risk pays off. Having free counters like FoW is vital to the balance of the game, and adds an extra layer of interaction that can take place when all other resources are spent. I mean, I get it, counters can be frustrating to play against some times, but are they that big a deal?
For my deck, yes. I play Breaking Bad in Modern, a reanimator deck that gets large creatures into the graveyard and then cascades into Breaking // Entering to reanimate them with haste on turns 3-4. While I would be able to play around stuff like Daze, the only way for me to beat Force of Will if it was legal in Modern is if I played my own. I can't bait the counter, the main cards that need countering are my Breaking // Enterings, which means that if my opponent can counter 3-4 of them, all they have to do is stop me from resolving Unburial Rites to win. I couldn't even play answers to Force because they would all cost under 3 mana. I just really like my deck, and though it may seem selfish, I don't like free counterspells because of it.
While I enjoyed Modern, I think the Combo decks of Legacy are more interesting and I also enjoy blue and Legacy is where you want to be if you like blue. I like the care you have to take each turn in legacy. I love casting Brainstorm and Ponder...the Power level and cool things you can do, and play against, is greater in Legacy than Modern at least in my mind.
I also like the Legacy community. Players tend to be a little older (mid 20's-30's) which I like because tempers are a bit milder on average. I also love The Source. So many good, intelligent conversations over there about the format.
The buy in for Legacy can be daunting and hard for new players to the format. I am out of school and work full time so the financial aspect isn't a big hurdle for me but I totally get folks not wanting to pay $150 for a dual land.
Both formats have their merits, for sure. But for my play style and what I'm looking for in Magic, Legacy I think will fit the bill long term.
When it comes to legacy staples the real way to price them is to see what they are going for on sites like e-bay, as those have prices set by the players, not someone gouging you because to many players do not know any better. When I buy from SCG I know that at least 10% of the price is convenience because I am not in the mood to e-bay the card. But I have managed to get a playset of a card through e-bay for what SCG was charging for 3 to many times to even begin to consider their price the actual value of a card.
If you click the link in the very cards you posted you will see in the advert below the card that their are many people selling both of said cards for alot less than the quoted price!
Seriously? Only 3 cards have been banned since the first year the format was created. That isn't an overwhelming amount. It is just that Wizards messed up with the initial banned list (Sword of the Meek, Golgari Grave-Troll), the second wave of bans (Jace 2.0, Ancestral Visions, Bitterblossom), the third wave of bans (Ponder, Preordain, Green Sun's Zenith), and the Wild Nacatl ban. Since 2011, the bans have been pretty reasonable (though I would love to have Seething Song back so I could break it, and Pyrite Spellbomb should have been banned instead of Second Sunrise).
Affinity is easily viable in Modern. It is the most played deck on MTGO for the format and it won GP Brisbane a couple of months ago.
Looking at Legacy Tier 1 decks, most of them are over $500. Half of the Modern Tier 1 decks are under that.
I would like Legacy, if the deck that I want to play (MUD) didn't require playsets of Wasteland and City of Traitors. If I could spend several months not playing Magic and saving up for one Legacy deck or just buy Modern decks and play Modern, I'd actually play the game.
Another reason why I like Modern better is that I dislike free counterspells. If my opponent tapped out on their turn and I have a winning hand, I don't want to just have my opponent cast Force of Will and beat me. If they made a mistake, they should lose, not be able to answer my spells without any mana at all.
The main reason why I like Modern better than Legacy is probably the size of the cardpool. Whenever a new set is introduced into Modern, it fundamentally changes the format (okay, maybe not so much with Theros). Every set has caused a major metagame shift. However, in Legacy this doesn't necessarily happen. The last time a set influenced Legacy like that was Return to Ravnica. For Modern, it was M14. Less cards means that the format is affected more by newer sets.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
A good point for those wanting to play Modern - because of its lower power level and smaller card pool, newer sets are more likely to "shake things up", if not create completely new archetypes!
People do not realise how big modern is on the aspect of interactive. With no oppressive combo decks ruining the format you are often faced with a midrange arm wrestle with your opponent.
Yesterday I played some of the best magic I ever played. I tried my luck in the tournament practice room with a budget 5CC list I got paired with the classic UWR tiago deck that is tearing up the scene and boy was it just some amazing spell slinging.
I won the first game on the back of reanimating the same mulldrifter four times of the back of two rites and the other two games he got me with a collonade I had no answers for.
Even though I lost it was still a botload of fun with a deck that have zero cards over a few bucks.
Because every deck runs 4x Forces and 4x Volcanic Islands.
Contrary to what ppl may think, not every Legacy deck is blue.
BUG Reanimator
BWG Nic-Fit
BGR Punishing Nic-Fit
The base power level of Legacy is extremely high. When left undisrupted, it means things like turn 1 wins, powerful tutors, and never being color-screwed. The downside is that the playable strategies completely outclass most everything else. Legacy is basically combo and good stuff decks, with the occasional synergistic strategy that exploits a hole in the metagame (like Death & Taxes). With Modern, the base power level is relatively lower, and all the good cantrips are banned so you're still at the mercy of your draw step. This means you have more room for synergistic decks, although the "good stuff" problem is still present.
The other thing is stack interaction. Modern doesn't really have a lot of it. Most games are ultimately won through the combat step. In Legacy, the combat step is largely an afterthought, or it's a means to draw 7 cards for free/make the opponent sacrifice 6 permanents. Modern also doesn't have free counterspells like Force or Daze, so decks need to take a defined role in the match. You don't really have anything like RUG Delver, that plays aggro and control at the same time.
It's very much a matter of personal preference. Modern is definitely more similar to "Standard's Greatest Hits" than Legacy, and some people want that while others don't.
But keep in mind legacy is VERY much Force of Will format - even if your deck doesn't run blue, it has to prepare for FoW: this card does much to define how decks are built and run in legacy.
I think you misspelled Brainstorm there
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
Not really more so than any other counter.
You do realize that FoW isnt even a good card in many matchups?
Its not uncommon to sideboard it out game 2 and 3 vs decks that dont have combos or specific bombs you dont have some other way to deal with.
Its the worst answer to every threat. Its only a profitable card to use when its your only answer.
I would agree that Brainstorm is a more Legacy-defining card than FoW. Brainstorm lets them dig for answers whenever its needed. When you play against a Blue deck, you can prepare for FoW or just ignore it ala Goblins. Plus, as mentioned earlier, FoW is a last-resort type of counter. It deals with a first turn Show & Tell or belcher, but doesn't help much against decks like D&T, Jund, Goblins, Fish, Dredge, etc. Honestly, you're 2 for 1'ing yourself, so its far from ideal.
Exactly!
I particularly like the analogy you used to describe it in the other thread...
(source: "Can Wizards Print Gold-Bordered Versions?")
But there are always multiformat staples. My friend I collect with recently traded 3 mutavaults and 3 heroes downfalls for a wwk mindsculptor.
When snapcaster was in standard, I probably cycled over 100 of them.
Force of Will is also under $70.
To be fair, there are a lot of Strawmen on both sides of the argument, and this post has some of the best examples. To say that all Modern players like Modern without a second thought is as thoughtless as saying that all of Legacy's distaste of Modern is "mindless bashing". How come all of Legacy's posts of dislike of Modern are "well-reasoned points", while all of Modern's posts of dislike of Legacy are "blatant falsehood bashing"? Remember, Tu Quoque is still a fallacy.
Clearly, you are operating under SIGNIFICANT bias, and are Texas Sharpshooting (cherry-picking posts) to boot.
Saying that "Modern is an objectively bad format" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of the word "objectively", and I suggest you consult a dictionary sometime in the near future. To begin with, "bad" is a subjective word, so it is impossible to have something that is "objectively bad". Again, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language. Even if something could be "objectively bad", the burden of proof would lie on you to show it to be so. In addition, the statement "But your personal enjoyment doesnt make it a good format for competitive play" is meaningless, because a good format for competitive play is defined as one where the majority of its participants are enjoying themselves (unless you have a different definition). Almost all the arguments here are anecdotal, so calling out specific arguments out as anecdotal brings almost all arguments into question.
All formats are "patched together" because Magic: the Gathering formats are not naturally occurring phenomena. In addition, even if they were, making the argument that being an original is somehow better is an appeal to nature, another argumentative fallacy.
TL;DR - Your whole post boils down to argumentative fallacies; please stop it. While it may make you look cool on the Internet, and sound cool to your peers, you are actively inhibiting discussion with your poorly thought-out points. And saying "it's fine because other people are doing it" is not fine either - see Tu Quoque.
Legacy is very much an FoW-centric format, but not in the way the poster you responded to put it. Without FoW, T1-3 combo would rule Legacy. The major reason FoW-less decks can do well in Legacy is because they prey on the decks that run FoW (partially for the reasons you stated).
Legacy is a format defined by three cards: FoW, Wasteland, and Brainstorm. Without Brainstorm the format would still likely be fine, but without FoW or Wasteland, the format would suffer significantly. So saying that either of the former two are not cornerstones of the format is simply incorrect.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
I'm not sure that Island is actually played that much. You might be confusing it with Tundra.
I could have sworn that it went
1. Brainstorm
2. Force of Will
3. Wasteland
4. Scalding Tarn
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Affinity is pretty poorly positioned in Legacy and often fizzles before it can finish the job. I invested in Affinity just for this reason as I was skeptical of the general disappointment in the Legacy Affinity discussion thread. Unfortunately, the disappointment is well-founded.
(Also known as Xenphire)
This! All you need to do is switch artifacts lands in and out for whichever format you play!
Okay, this is probably going to be long, but it might be worthwhile.
The things you see as flaws in legacy, I see as the spice that gives the game flavour. One of the things that attracted me to MTG was the diversity in the range of strategies that players are able to use, and the degree to which you can personalise your own deck. I've never, ever bought into Mark Rosewater's philosophy of interaction, because to me, the combat step is the shallowest form of interaction in the game. Sure, there's a bit of combat math involved, but I do reasonably high-level mathematics on a daily basis, and duking it out with a midrange or aggro deck is fundamentally boring to me. To you, combo is non-interactive, but to me, it's like sitting under the Sword of Damocles, and daring your opponent to kill you before you win. Yes, belcher famously doesn't care about its opponents (how this is different to modern Affinity completely escapes me), but almost every other combo deck in legacy is forced to interact in some way, whether that be through information gathering, combo protection, or even just a backup plan. Fighting with and against combo is like solving a puzzle, where the information is partly hidden from both players. To me, that's exciting, and all colours are able to effectively deal with combo in some form or another, as demonstrated by the existence of powerful, mono-coloured options for every single colour. Those stupid spells that you believe should never have been printed are things that other players enjoy, and enable the diversity and balance of legacy; they are just as valid as any of the cards that see play in modern.
So which of us is right? Which is the more fun strategy, and the more legitimate form of interaction? The correct answer is neither; you like what you like, and I like what I like, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's my belief that all decks have equal validity, and I'm happy to play and let play, even where the strategy doesn't necessarily thrill me. At the end of the day, I can choose not to play that deck in a casual setting, and in a competitive setting, I'll be playing something that starts doing powerful things from the first turn anyway, and I'll figure out a way to fight any given deck. No matter what you play, some people will enjoy it, some people will be ambivalent, and some people will dislike it, and again, that's just the nature of subjectivity. As for what magic was meant to be, I'll let Richard Garfield say it for me:
Taken from this.
My disappointment with modern is that Wizards and the DCI have intentionally pushed the format in a direction that actively removes several strategic elements that have been a part of the game since its inception. How many control and tempo decks are there? How about prison, LD, or fast combo decks? Modern to me is like playing a strategy game in which the winning strategy has already been chosen for you. It's not so bad for players who enjoy that particular strategy, especially when that reflects the type of gameplay they want to see. The thing is, magic is, and always has been, about strategic diversity, and modern just doesn't have it. This isn't a knock on people who enjoy the format, but more a criticism of the current design philosophy and its effects on the game. I'm an adult, and I'm capable of choosing for myself what I find to be fun in a game. I don't need to have my hand held by Wizards, and whilst I accept that players dislike some strategies more than others, I don't find that a compelling argument for their removal from the game. Less diversity is always worse in my opinion.
In this regard, I believe that modern goes against the initial spirit of the game, because many of the powerful, exciting cards that came out early in the game's life are absent. Not only that, but you are limited to winning the game in a particular way, because only one form of interaction is allowed to be good. You claim that this makes modern the most interactive format, but on the contrary, it detracts from it. If I play in a legacy tournament, I'm coming after my opponent from the first turn of the game, and I expect them to do the same to me. I can be attacked from many different angles, so my deck needs to be built such that it can interact with, and disrupt, as many strategies as is feasible. Failing this, my deck needs to be able to survive this onslaught long enough to win, which invariably means packing protection of some sort, and being able to interact with your opponents as early as possible in order to slow them down. In no short order, this means decks must be able to deal with land hate, discard, early combos, powerful utility creatures, threats that can't be targeted, storm, counterspells that can hit you even when your opponent is tapped out, powerful burn, and incredible card-advantage engines that will take over the game if you let them get out of hand. All of this is on top of the basic attack step, combat math, and creature removal that is expected of modern. Every single turn of a legacy game is spent making multiple interactions, because being unable to interact will lose you the game.
Legacy games are not typically won or lost on life points, but on resources, tempo, and control. You grapple for position until one player gets the upper hand, and then tries to exploit it. Even then, there's no guarantee of victory, and there's usually a lot of back and forth in games. You probably think modern is the same in this regard, but I've seen players survive two attacks from emrakul and still hang on, and I myself have managed to survive on 2 life against burn long enough to steal a win against an opponent on 15 life. I've also been hit for more than 50 on the first turn, and beaten my opponent on the first turn with a well-judged wasteland. In both cases, the person who lost made a critical error that cost them the game. Hell, I've lost games on the first turn against delver because I was on autopilot, and fetched into a stifle. That's life, shuffle up, and don't make the same mistake next time. Even so, these games are by far the exception, and I've had longer, tougher games in legacy than in any other format, including modern.
And I'm not saying this as someone who wants to hate on modern because I have an investment in legacy; on the contrary, I want to like the format, because I think it held a lot of promise. Hell, I think that cards for all formats should be reprinted, because price should never, ever be a barrier to enjoying the game. Modern might still develop into a good format one day, but I'm not sure it will ever be the type of game that I want to play, and it bothers me when it is pushed so hard by Wizards. I want to play magic, and the way I see it, modern is missing too many of the pieces for me to consider it magic as "the way it was meant to be played". On top of this, the format gets so much support in spite of its lukewarm reception, with three times the number of GPs as legacy, its own box set, and gets made into an FNM format, and yet its players still clamour for more support in the face of flagging popularity. Meanwhile, formats like EDH and legacy began as grass-roots, player-driven formats that cling on despite the lack of tournament support. Hell, legacy is still growing despite every disadvantage, and modern would likely be dead tomorrow if the duals were being reprinted along with various legacy staples. The solution to legacy's problems was not to produce a non-interactive, cheaper alternative, but for Wizards to grab their crotch, rescind the reserve list, and gradually reprint legacy staples so that a viable eternal format could be sustained indefinitely. Right now, modern is only good for a particular subset of players, and that doesn't make for a particularly compelling eternal format.
Peace
Also for Valanarch:
Why should anyone ever be given free wins? Who says that tapping out was a mistake. These things are always calculated risks; your opponent made one when he tapped out, and if you make the mistake of thinking you should get a free win because of that, his risk pays off. Having free counters like FoW is vital to the balance of the game, and adds an extra layer of interaction that can take place when all other resources are spent. I mean, I get it, counters can be frustrating to play against some times, but are they that big a deal?
I guess if I had to summarise my position, I prefer legacy to modern, because it has by far the most variety and strategic depth in its gameplay. Modern has always felt a bit wrong to me, I think in large part because it lacks the dynamic of having all resources available. You can generally count on spells resolving, so you don't need to really learn how to play around counterspells. Your lands will probably stick around, so you don't need to think about when to drop your lands, and how to mitigate the loss of your resources. In this regard, I think modern culminates in more goodstuff decks than legacy does, simply because synergistic decks aren't really given the tools to punish decks that pack more overall card power. I mean, when was the last time a werewolf other than huntmaster saw play in modern? Meanwhile, I've been beaten down by a Hanweir Watchkeep in legacy. There are so many more avenues for interaction in legacy, that when I play modern, all I see are limitations, rather than possibilities.
I know it's off topic, but I got one for a foil elspeth, sun's champion. I've gotten them for around 55-65 in the past few months. It's actually a very easy card to come across for me. I actually refused to trade for one at $70, and I still need at least one.
Fair enough. Legacy has gotten 1 card that changed the metagame completely since Return to Ravnica. Modern was changed by M14, Dragon's Maze, Gatecrash (somewhat), Return to Ravnica (even moreso than Legacy), M13, Avacyn Restored, Dark Ascension, and Innistrad (almost as much as Legacy). Legacy was changed by Commander 2013, Return to Ravnica, Planechase 2012, Avacyn Restored, and Innistrad in that timeframe. This is even more evident when you compare the amount of playable cards from each set. New sets affect Modern more than they affect Legacy.
For my deck, yes. I play Breaking Bad in Modern, a reanimator deck that gets large creatures into the graveyard and then cascades into Breaking // Entering to reanimate them with haste on turns 3-4. While I would be able to play around stuff like Daze, the only way for me to beat Force of Will if it was legal in Modern is if I played my own. I can't bait the counter, the main cards that need countering are my Breaking // Enterings, which means that if my opponent can counter 3-4 of them, all they have to do is stop me from resolving Unburial Rites to win. I couldn't even play answers to Force because they would all cost under 3 mana. I just really like my deck, and though it may seem selfish, I don't like free counterspells because of it.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.