No, it was broken, that is why they have taken action. They don't ban cards now that are not the highest quality now, and they do not ban lightly. It was stupidly good and meant that every delver deck was grixis, and meant 4c control was always the same.
There will not be another pile... A 4c deck that runs blood moon in a wasteland format? No chance. It will be 3col at best and wasteland/crucible will work again, Reanimator will get better game ones. UR delver is very different, it is burn with fow. Rug is Rug delver, it plays very differently to grixis and the ban will mean a variety of delver decks, not just grixis.
I am curious to know what you think Legacy's issues are.
I dont see why you care about what I think about legacy lol. Format is not very relevant in competitive play now a days and most people dont give a crap about the format being balanced. Its always going to be a Force of Will/Brainstorm with lots of combo and death/taxes variants format. Banning deahtrite does absolutely nothing to change the kind of format Legacy is. I dont see either how you think 4c was such a big deal. It was just a 4c midrange / control deck, why would that need any banning?
Legacy doesnt need to be like modern in that the format needs diversity via the ban list. Cards shouldnt be banned to shake up a metagame. Deathrite wasnt overpowered. Very good yes, but not much stronger than many other legacy cards.
Play burn.
Burn sets the fundamental clock in any format in my opinion.
It's never the fastest deck. But it always has the highest inevitability.
It's cheap. It absolutely punishes poor play and poor draws by your opponent, and it's a great way to learn about other decks as you face off.
Better to participate with something reasonably strong than sit around and not jump into the format as you build your deck.
Burn is the most boring deck in the world and its so bad against Reanimator its not even funny. Yes its relatively cheap, but it has very few lines of play which make it a snooze fest to play with in the long term.
Elves is barely affected by the ban, ask any of the Elf players.
DRS banning just eliminated Pile from the game, period- and stopped Grixis Delver in its tracks. It is the biggest shake up in ages. Delver (grixis) does not get better, You need to visit the Grixis and Pile threads here or on The Source. If you suggest it is a minor change they will go nuts at you.
I dont see how that matters in the long run though. There will probably be another top tier "pile" control deck in the form of Sulti or another Delver deck in the form of UR Deliver that will be a top deck. Banning Deathrite is like banning Lightning Bolt or Swords to Plowshire, does absolutely nothing for the format.
And Elves losing Deathrite hurts them a bit. They are a little worst against Reanimator and their mana got a little worst. Again, not sure how banning Deathrite helps any real issues that are with Legacy. Deathrite is such a slow card that is so easy to kill, its not broken at all. A card being very good doesnt mean it needs a banning, especially in Legacy to where you have turn 2-3 kills.
Chronicales was massively printed though. Those cards have aged terribly since outside of Blood Moon most of the cards are worthless and that set is almost two decades old now. There is so much chronicles out there no less, as in most of the cards are worthless since the supply was through the roof.
I do not think WoTC has learned much from Chronicles though since they went on to make the same mistake with Pokemon with Base Set 2, which has also not aged the greatest. There is just very little consistency from them. Original Modern Masters was excellent, but then MM2 was garbage. Eternal Masters and MM 2015 were excellent, but then they followed it up with garbage like Iconic Masters and Masters 25. I dunno, I just dont get how a company that has been in business for 20+ years cant figure out how to market their product right by now.
I think you have a very different concept of "what chronicles did" and "reprinting to hell" is.
Not sure what you mean by that. Chronicles was printed into oblivion and even had white borders which made the cards look even worse. Reprints can be good if done right providing there is more work than reprinting the same exact cards with no arts, reprints or reprints with new cards in a set.
My pulls were Tapu Lele GX and Ultra Necrozma GX. Pretty solid since I didnt open any Magic packs.
In terms of the prerelease experience, half the store smelt like rotten eggs and they did not have anything to eat sides pizza. I took my Pokemon cards and went home. After I drive home I forgot that I was even trying to go to a magic tournament.
For m19, mill is a viable strategy in draft.
If you can get 2-3 Psychic Corrosion with some control/removal, definite possibility. Showed it was very strong at prerelease.
If your opponent has 40 cards: starts with 7, draws 3 turns 1-3 and you drop a corrosion. The clock is instantly 10 turns without extra card draw. The key is reducing that 10 and surviving. Skyscanner is a common card draw flying chump blocker that helps too.
The pieces are there if you get the right pool.
Mill is still bad in M19. I played the deck and its not very good. You can still die to combat damage too easily since blocking still sucks in M19 and you can't really win off 1 for 1ing forever. I went 2-1 with the deck in a draft, but I only won since my opponents either drew bad or got mana screwed. Any person who draws decent wont lose to mill.
If you had 2 of the 5 mana sweepers I can it being a good deck since people have to play tons of creatures to kill you and you can blow them out. Otherwise, its not a very good deck. Im sure you can win a few random games but from my experience I dont think its that good.
BS should be banned, sure, probably. Mind twist is the next Land Tax or Vise unbanning... absolutely. However, DRS had to go, just because other decisions are bad and there is inconsistency, just because the Top banning gave us Pile and Grixis D on the first place, does not mean they should take no action.
There used to be many flavours of Delver, many versions of midrange now just two delver and one of them is UR delver, very much the minor cousin to Grixis. I will enjoy playing against Rug again, I will definitely enjoy Wasteland ING greedy opponents and Crucible locks. Minor hits to Elves mean little, and Maverick will continue in differing forms with more variety as do Nic Fit or Deadguy. Financially I take a blow of sorts... I own some Bayous in loan decks that now are unused, I can't afford to just switch into Bug or Rug as I don't have the cards, it will be a rehashed Grixis loan deck minus Bayou. But even then I think the DRS ban will help the format.
Not sure about probe.
I have more interest in Parfait, Stax and Pox archetypes than tiered decks, that is the draw of Legacy to me, so to an extent I am less affected than most, but to be honest I grew tired of good stuff decks like Grixis and Pile.
Not sure how banning Deathrite really changes Legacy other than making some decks slightly worst and some decks slightly better. Delver gets better while elves gets worst. I dont see how any of that really means much. Aggro gets better while control gets worst, not like something that is really good long term or anything we havent seen before.
Pretty interesting how some people said MTG would never be like Yugioh in its ban list but its starting to appear more and more that WoTC is copying Konami's style of game management. Deathrite being banned has nothing to do with game balance but more being done to get people to try new cards.
Probe was a fine ban since anyone whos played Legacy knows that Probe enabled so many turn 1-2 kills with storm or made it easy to win games with cabal therapy. Deathrite though is pretty stupid. I think sadly Legacy is going the same way as Commander went on MTGO in that one day people will wake up and realize that there are no more fun cards to play in the format and that its Modern 2.0
Just wanted to add my 2 cents since I read alot of things on this thread that ignore alot of the realities of business.
First off, the idea of a buyback program wouldnt ever work. Logistically it would be a nightmare. WoTC would have to hire a bunch of people to make it happen, which they are cheap as hell and dont even want to invest into card stock quality and barely play the MTGO team a fair wage. A program like that would require a ton of people and do you think that players really want to spend their time mailing cards back just to get credit, which I dont even know that could even work since again, would require more bodies, would require training, would require accounting for 1000s of peoples credits, dealing with mailing issues, just headaches lol...
Secondly, Magic neither is game or a collectible first, its a product that WoTC uses to make money. If there isnt money to be made, its not worth their time. And realistically, a collectible would make more profit than a game in the long term. Pokemon for the most part is collectable first, game second, and its outdoing Magic at the moment. The PSA market is red hot and WoTC is very behind on the curve in tapping into that market. WoTC prints from the valuts with bent foils for god sakes lol I dont think they care about collectors at all when you think about it.
And as for the reserved list, its probably the dumbest idea WoTC ever done, but it really goes back to how they are bad at making truely collectible products. If WoTC knew how to market things to collectors, then the reserve list would have never been made. WoTC's biggest mistake was reprinting everything to hell at the very start of the game with Chronicles and its not that Chronicles was a terrible set, but the cards looked like crap and looked just like the originals. They made the same mistakes with Pokemon with Base Set 2 in that they printed the same exact cards into oblivion without putting an effort to make the set stand out from the original.
Either way, the point is that they suck at marketability and I dont see that ever changing. The Reserve List isnt about appeasing collectors, its just a reminder that WoTC shouldnt reprint things since they cant do it right. Just look at Pokemon's rarity tier system if you want to know how to make cards that are for players and cards that are for collectors. Its not actually that hard, its just WoTC wont ever figure it out and uses the Reserve List as an excuse to continue their strange business model.
I dont see why you care about what I think about legacy lol. Format is not very relevant in competitive play now a days and most people dont give a crap about the format being balanced. Its always going to be a Force of Will/Brainstorm with lots of combo and death/taxes variants format. Banning deahtrite does absolutely nothing to change the kind of format Legacy is. I dont see either how you think 4c was such a big deal. It was just a 4c midrange / control deck, why would that need any banning?
Legacy doesnt need to be like modern in that the format needs diversity via the ban list. Cards shouldnt be banned to shake up a metagame. Deathrite wasnt overpowered. Very good yes, but not much stronger than many other legacy cards.
Burn is the most boring deck in the world and its so bad against Reanimator its not even funny. Yes its relatively cheap, but it has very few lines of play which make it a snooze fest to play with in the long term.
I dont see how that matters in the long run though. There will probably be another top tier "pile" control deck in the form of Sulti or another Delver deck in the form of UR Deliver that will be a top deck. Banning Deathrite is like banning Lightning Bolt or Swords to Plowshire, does absolutely nothing for the format.
And Elves losing Deathrite hurts them a bit. They are a little worst against Reanimator and their mana got a little worst. Again, not sure how banning Deathrite helps any real issues that are with Legacy. Deathrite is such a slow card that is so easy to kill, its not broken at all. A card being very good doesnt mean it needs a banning, especially in Legacy to where you have turn 2-3 kills.
I do not think WoTC has learned much from Chronicles though since they went on to make the same mistake with Pokemon with Base Set 2, which has also not aged the greatest. There is just very little consistency from them. Original Modern Masters was excellent, but then MM2 was garbage. Eternal Masters and MM 2015 were excellent, but then they followed it up with garbage like Iconic Masters and Masters 25. I dunno, I just dont get how a company that has been in business for 20+ years cant figure out how to market their product right by now.
Not sure what you mean by that. Chronicles was printed into oblivion and even had white borders which made the cards look even worse. Reprints can be good if done right providing there is more work than reprinting the same exact cards with no arts, reprints or reprints with new cards in a set.
In terms of the prerelease experience, half the store smelt like rotten eggs and they did not have anything to eat sides pizza. I took my Pokemon cards and went home. After I drive home I forgot that I was even trying to go to a magic tournament.
Mill is still bad in M19. I played the deck and its not very good. You can still die to combat damage too easily since blocking still sucks in M19 and you can't really win off 1 for 1ing forever. I went 2-1 with the deck in a draft, but I only won since my opponents either drew bad or got mana screwed. Any person who draws decent wont lose to mill.
If you had 2 of the 5 mana sweepers I can it being a good deck since people have to play tons of creatures to kill you and you can blow them out. Otherwise, its not a very good deck. Im sure you can win a few random games but from my experience I dont think its that good.
Not sure how banning Deathrite really changes Legacy other than making some decks slightly worst and some decks slightly better. Delver gets better while elves gets worst. I dont see how any of that really means much. Aggro gets better while control gets worst, not like something that is really good long term or anything we havent seen before.
Probe was a fine ban since anyone whos played Legacy knows that Probe enabled so many turn 1-2 kills with storm or made it easy to win games with cabal therapy. Deathrite though is pretty stupid. I think sadly Legacy is going the same way as Commander went on MTGO in that one day people will wake up and realize that there are no more fun cards to play in the format and that its Modern 2.0
First off, the idea of a buyback program wouldnt ever work. Logistically it would be a nightmare. WoTC would have to hire a bunch of people to make it happen, which they are cheap as hell and dont even want to invest into card stock quality and barely play the MTGO team a fair wage. A program like that would require a ton of people and do you think that players really want to spend their time mailing cards back just to get credit, which I dont even know that could even work since again, would require more bodies, would require training, would require accounting for 1000s of peoples credits, dealing with mailing issues, just headaches lol...
Secondly, Magic neither is game or a collectible first, its a product that WoTC uses to make money. If there isnt money to be made, its not worth their time. And realistically, a collectible would make more profit than a game in the long term. Pokemon for the most part is collectable first, game second, and its outdoing Magic at the moment. The PSA market is red hot and WoTC is very behind on the curve in tapping into that market. WoTC prints from the valuts with bent foils for god sakes lol I dont think they care about collectors at all when you think about it.
And as for the reserved list, its probably the dumbest idea WoTC ever done, but it really goes back to how they are bad at making truely collectible products. If WoTC knew how to market things to collectors, then the reserve list would have never been made. WoTC's biggest mistake was reprinting everything to hell at the very start of the game with Chronicles and its not that Chronicles was a terrible set, but the cards looked like crap and looked just like the originals. They made the same mistakes with Pokemon with Base Set 2 in that they printed the same exact cards into oblivion without putting an effort to make the set stand out from the original.
Either way, the point is that they suck at marketability and I dont see that ever changing. The Reserve List isnt about appeasing collectors, its just a reminder that WoTC shouldnt reprint things since they cant do it right. Just look at Pokemon's rarity tier system if you want to know how to make cards that are for players and cards that are for collectors. Its not actually that hard, its just WoTC wont ever figure it out and uses the Reserve List as an excuse to continue their strange business model.