I actually really like your monocolor suggestions…
Mono White Captain America
Mono Blue Mr. Fantastic
Mono Green Hemswor-Thor
Mono Red Hulk
Mono Black Widow
And we absolutely need a commander deck for each of the above original avengers.
If they keep all 5 monocolored, filled with bomb staples, that set would sell gang busters no matter how high they price it.
I am curious to speculate what color combos work best for various newer avengers (Please keep atleast 5 of the OG Monocolored).
Black Panther = UW
Doctor Strange Stark = UB? (Hes smart, well read, and plans but he is also reckless and was a greedy narcissist before his accident)
Natalie Portman Thor = UG??
Yes falcon captain america would obvious be WHITE, but you couls add BLUE for his strategic and technical mind, RED for his red hot passion for justice and the red hot passion he induces in women and Green for his preference for natural exercise and refusal to use injectables/steroids/super soldiers formulas he was offered and turned down in that disney plus show no one watched.
On second thought, yes just keep both captains mono white.
But with a multicolored or RWU captain america, you could easily swap white for black in his Hydra version.
What would Thanos colors be? WG for his unhealthy obsession with nature + R for choatic random half live and half die + U for his staregic mind and stone cold heart + B for obesession with death? Which colors of the infinity stones did I miss?
Armageddon and lock pieces always paired great with planeswalkers.
Are planewalkers the missing piece needed to make this strategy viable? If so, white is about to get an awesome planeswalker.
Serra the Benevolent
WW2, 4 Loyalty Planeswalker
+2: Creature you control with flying get +1/+1 until end of turn.
-3: Creature a 4/4 Angel Creature token w/ Flying and Vigilance
-6: You get an emblem with "If you control a creature, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead."
This is different from UR aggro lists in a number of key ways. It plays a much lower curve. This allows it to function off of just 17 lands and draw business more consistently, but also means the curve is too low to support numerous Snapcasters, Nimble Obstructionists or Vendilion Cliques. Although including any of these cards in your variant wouldn't be wrong, as long as you keep the total number of 3cc spells to under 4.
It plays a record number of conditional counterspells. This is why you absolutely never want to tap out on your turn until the midgame (to play a threat that will close out the game in a couple of turns). This is why it plays zero sorceries and zero Thing in the Ice. You want to only play your cantrips at the end of your opponents turn once you're certain that they haven't played anything that you want to counter or bounce or dismember. Thought Scour is an amazing card here. It routinely functions as a Dark Ritual with a cantrip attached to it. The rest of the list is self explanatory.
There is so much to pull from MTGs Lore and MTG is more popular than ever.
Done right, this could surpass both Game of Thrones and the MCU.
Netflix, Amazon, Hulu all want a game of thrones like mega hit and are willing to spend billions on one. Amazon is spending 3 billion on a LoTR adaptation as an example and Netflix wants something to compete with this.
If Wizards works with them, Netflix would happily invest a billion to make an epic series pulling from the very best storylines and lore in MTG and it both be a mega hit and would really do a lot to pull more players into the game as well.
Season 1 could be the two brothers war, season 2 the phyrexian invasion, season 3 the Eldrazi etc (bird box was basically about Enrakul visiting another plane already, since birdbox was made by Netflix, it could easily be Marketed as a prelude to the Eldrazi invasion, a way to show what it feels like to have the Eldrazi invade a plane on the ground level.)
I need help building a monocolored legacy battlebox. A battlebox is a set of decks designed to be played against each other but that also reflect the format they come from well, so you can take them to a local card shop and get some games in with friends. Battleboxes are a blast and a great way to entice players to try a new format. I already did that in pauper (it’s a blast) and I would love to do the same in legacy.
The decks should be monocolored (duals and fetches are expensive and shuffling is boring) and should be decently powerful featuring lots of legacy staples but also well balanced to play against each other.
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am considering...
Death and Taxes
Mono Blue Delver
Suicide Black/Gate
Dragon Stompy
Mono Green Stompy/Natural Order Deck
...but I don't know if these are the best choices, will play well against each other, and I have no idea how best to build the delver or Suicide Black lists to keep up with the other decks.
For reference, here is monocolored pauper battlebox I put together that I want to replicate in legacy...
Mono Black Control
19 Swamp
4 Barren Moor
4 Chittering Rats
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Cuombajj Witches
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Crypt Rats
2 Thorn of Black Rose
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Sign in Blood
3 Victim of Night
2 Disfigure
2 Dead Weight
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Pestilence
1 Tendrils of Corruption
Mono Blue Tempo
17 Island
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Augur of Bolas
1 Spire Golem
As an aside, pauper is the single greatest magic format that has ever existed. And all the decks can be built for just pennies. More people should be playing it.
I need help building a monocolored modern battlebox. A battlebox is a set of decks designed to be played against each other but that also reflect the format they come from well, so you can take them to a local card shop and get some games in with friends. Battleboxes are a blast and a great way to entice players to try a new format. I already did that in pauper (it’s a blast) and I would love to do the same in modern.
The decks should be monocolored (fetches are expensive and shuffling is boring) and should be powerful, tier two tournament capable but also well balanced to play against each other. I think 8 Rack will be my choice for black, and maybe Burn for Red.
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
For reference, here is monocolored pauper battlebox I put together that I want to replicate in modern...
Mono Black Control
19 Swamp
4 Barren Moor
4 Chittering Rats
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Cuombajj Witches
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Crypt Rats
2 Thorn of Black Rose
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Sign in Blood
3 Victim of Night
2 Disfigure
2 Dead Weight
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Pestilence
1 Tendrils of Corruption
Mono Blue Tempo
17 Island
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Augur of Bolas
1 Spire Golem
As an aside, pauper is the single greatest magic format that has ever existed. And all the decks can be built for just pennies. More people should be playing it.
For most legacy decks, the manabase accounts for over 90% of the deck's cost. This format would dramatically lower the cost of entry while allowing access to legacy's entire nonland card pool. It never made sense to have to spend thousands of dollars on lands. It never made sense that Brainstorm is effectively turned into an Ancestral Recall if you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars to add fetchlands to even a monoblue deck. And it never made sense that there is zero real cost to splashing colors. Splashing a color should have a cost to it.
Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all noncommon lands are banned. Budget Friendly, Nostalgia Friendly, Casual Friendly and Generally More Fun. You could say that about pauper as well but this format would have a far larger carpool than Pauper to work with.
My friends and I were having a discussion about how the fun of nonrotating formats has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years or so. Most of us got into magic because we loved fair decks, using fair strategies and in the case of many of us, attacking with creatures. However, most legacy games involve lots of durdling around with shuffle effects/fetchlands and cantrips or outright comboing off on turn one. Plus legacy as a format has grown into an increasingly high barrier to entry. Decks consisting of just basic lands simply do not exist in modern legacy and paying 3 mana for a 5/4 or a Hypnotic Specter or 4 mana for a Surrak, the Huntcaller, Baneslayer Angel, Goreclaw or Phyrexian Obliterator is not considered a competitive strategy.
Our goal is to have a clearly defined rule we would all have to abide by to advance three goals, make sure creature decks are viable again, allow for competive decks to be built on a budget so people who don't have expensive cards don't feel excluded, ensure the games are more fun.
This only rules are….
Noncommon lands are banned.
Every other legacy legal card is allowed.
The mana bases would be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to all other legacy cards.
Basically, legacy without duals, fetchlands, shocklands, gaea's cradle, city of traitors, dark depths etc. A legacy where there is a real perceptible cost to splashing another color, where mana bases that consist of mostly or entirely basic lands make sense.
My friends and I plan to try this format later this year, and we would love some input. Do you think a format such as this would be pretty balanced. Or would it need a ban list? What do you think would need to be banned?
What do you think the metagame would look like?
I think it would be pretty balanced, something like this…
Aggro Control – The glue that keeps combo decks in check
Mono Blue Delver
Mono Blue Merfolk
Mono Blue Control - Veldalken Shackles might see play again
Mono White Control – Quinn without the Snowlands
Mono Black Control
Slow Resilent Combo
High Tide – Slow enough that decks will have a chance to interact with it. Burn, sligh and other fast aggro decks can win by around the same time that High Tide can.
Mono Black Reanimator – Will be somewhat depowered due to the lack on cantrips (Faithless Looting/Careful Study) and easier to hate out as it would be slower and black is incapable of dealing with Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace
OmniShow – Will be significantly slowed by the lack of Sol Lands and Brainstorm/Fetchland interaction
Prison
Pox
Stax – Might be too slow to make any impact without the sol lands
Glass Cannons
Oops All Spells
Belcher
Manaless Dredge
MonoR Sneak Attack/Through the Breach – Will lack the acceleration that sol lands provide and the autowins that Blood Moon provides
Aggro
Elves – Cards like Engineered Plague and Wrath of God might see maindeck play if elves deck starts to dominate
Mono Green Ramp
Mono Green Enchantress
Mono Green Infect
White Weenie – Death and Taxes without Wastelands/Ports
Suicide Black
Sligh/Burn
That sounds like it would be a blast to play. I look forward to trying this format and my friends and I would love any input you have on making it work well.
No. The format should have access to all the same lands that pauper has access to. Going multicolor should be feasible but should have an actual downside which is not the case in legacy.
The one advantage legacy has over pauper is its much larger carpool. But the barrier of entry to legacy is too high. What if we could combine the best aspects of both formats?
For most legacy decks, the manabase accounts for over 90% of the deck's cost. This format would dramatically lower the cost of entry while allowing access to legacy's entire nonland card pool. It never made sense to have to spend thousands of dollars on lands. It never made sense that Brainstorm is effectively turned into an Ancestral Recall if you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars to add fetchlands to even a monoblue deck. And it never made sense that there is zero real cost to splashing colors. Splashing a color should have a cost to it.
Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all noncommon lands are banned. Budget Friendly, Nostalgia Friendly, Casual Friendly and Generally More Fun. You could say that about pauper as well but this format would have a far larger carpool than Pauper to work with.
My friends and I were having a discussion about how the fun of nonrotating formats has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years or so. Most of us got into magic because we loved fair decks, using fair strategies and in the case of many of us, attacking with creatures. However, most legacy games involve lots of durdling around with shuffle effects/fetchlands and cantrips or outright comboing off on turn one. Plus legacy as a format has grown into an increasingly high barrier to entry. Decks consisting of just basic lands simply do not exist in modern legacy and paying 3 mana for a 5/4 or a Hypnotic Specter or 4 mana for a Surrak, the Huntcaller, Baneslayer Angel, Goreclaw or Phyrexian Obliterator is not considered a competitive strategy.
Our goal is to have a clearly defined rule we would all have to abide by to advance three goals, make sure creature decks are viable again, allow for competive decks to be built on a budget so people who don't have expensive cards don't feel excluded, ensure the games are more fun.
The formats rules are….
Noncommon lands are banned (basically pauper's manabase).
Every other legacy legal card is allowed.
The mana bases would be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to all other legacy cards.
Basically, legacy without duals, fetchlands, shocklands, gaea's cradle, city of traitors, dark depths etc. A legacy where there is a real perceptible cost to splashing another color, where mana bases that consist of mostly or entirely basic lands make sense.
My friends and I plan to try this format later this year, and we would love some input. Do you think a format such as this would be pretty balanced. Or would it need a ban list? What do you think would need to be banned?
What do you think the metagame would look like?
I think it would be pretty balanced, something like this…
Aggro Control – The glue that keeps combo decks in check
Mono Blue Delver
Mono Blue Merfolk
Mono Blue Control - Veldalken Shackles might see play again
Mono White Control – Quinn without the Snowlands
Mono Black Control
Slow Resilent Combo
High Tide – Slow enough that decks will have a chance to interact with it. Burn, sligh and other fast aggro decks can win by around the same time that High Tide can.
Mono Black Reanimator – Will be somewhat depowered due to the lack on cantrips (Faithless Looting/Careful Study) and easier to hate out as it would be slower and black is incapable of dealing with Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace
OmniShow – Will be significantly slowed by the lack of Sol Lands and Brainstorm/Fetchland interaction
Prison
Pox
Stax – Might be too slow to make any impact without the sol lands
Glass Cannons
Oops All Spells
Belcher
Manaless Dredge
MonoR Sneak Attack/Through the Breach – Will lack the acceleration that sol lands provide and the autowins that Blood Moon provides
Aggro
Elves – Cards like Engineered Plague and Wrath of God might see maindeck play if elves deck starts to dominate
Mono Green Ramp
Mono Green Enchantress
Mono Green Infect
White Weenie – Death and Taxes without Wastelands/Ports
Suicide Black
Sligh/Burn
That sounds like it would be a blast to play. I look forward to trying this format and my friends and I would love any input you have on making it work well.
The other option is to ban rare nonbasic lands only The mana bases would be what differentiates it from pauper, but nothing truly broken, just stuff like Wasteland, ancient tomb and karakas.
Which Format do you guys think would be more balanced? One that bans all rare nonbasic lands, or one that only allows common lands (pauper mana bases with legacy's card pool)?
For most legacy decks, the manabase accounts for over 90% of the deck's cost. This format would dramatically lower the cost of entry while allowing access to legacy's entire nonland card pool. It never made sense that Brainstorm is effectively turned into an Ancestral Recall if you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars to add fetchlands to even a monoblue deck.
It never made sense to have to spend thousands of dollars on lands. And it never made sense that there is zero real cost to splashing colors. Splashing a color should have a cost to it. Here is the solution...
Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all noncommon lands are banned. Budget Friendly, Nostalgia Friendly, Casual Friendly and Generally More Fun. You could say that about pauper as well but this format would have a far larger carpool than Pauper to work with.
My friends and I were having a discussion about how the fun of nonrotating formats has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years or so. Most of us got into magic because we loved fair decks, using fair strategies and in the case of many of us, attacking with creatures. However, most legacy games involve lots of durdling around with shuffle effects/fetchlands and cantrips or outright comboing off on turn one. Plus legacy as a format has grown into an increasingly high barrier to entry. Decks consisting of just basic lands simply do not exist in modern legacy and paying 3 mana for a 5/4 or a Hypnotic Specter or 4 mana for a Surrak, the Huntcaller, Baneslayer Angel, Goreclaw or Phyrexian Obliterator is not considered a competitive strategy.
Our goal is to have a clearly defined rule we would all have to abide by to advance three goals, make sure creature decks are viable again, allow for competive decks to be built on a budget so people who don't have expensive cards don't feel excluded, ensure the games are more fun.
In this new format, the only rules are…. Noncommon lands are banned.
Every other legacy legal card is allowed.
The mana bases would be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to all other legacy cards.
Basically, legacy without duals, fetchlands, shocklands, gaea's cradle, city of traitors, dark depths etc. A legacy where there is a real perceptible cost to splashing another color, where mana bases that consist of mostly or entirely basic lands make sense.
My friends and I plan to try this format later this year, and we would love some input. Do you think a format such as this would be pretty balanced. Or would it need a ban list? What do you think would need to be banned?
What do you think the metagame would look like?
I think it would be pretty balanced, something like this…
Aggro Control – The glue that keeps combo decks in check
Mono Blue Delver
Mono Blue Merfolk
Mono Blue Control - Veldalken Shackles might see play again
Mono White Control – Quinn without the Snowlands
Mono Black Control
Slow Resilent Combo
High Tide – Slow enough that decks will have a chance to interact with it. Burn, sligh and other fast aggro decks can win by around the same time that High Tide can.
Mono Black Reanimator – Will be somewhat depowered due to the lack on cantrips (Faithless Looting/Careful Study) and easier to hate out as it would be slower and black is incapable of dealing with Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace
OmniShow – Will be significantly slowed by the lack of Sol Lands and Brainstorm/Fetchland interaction
Prison
Pox
Stax – Might be too slow to make any impact without the sol lands
Glass Cannons
Oops All Spells
Belcher
Manaless Dredge
MonoR Sneak Attack/Through the Breach – Will lack the acceleration that sol lands provide and the autowins that Blood Moon provides
Aggro
Elves – Cards like Engineered Plague and Wrath of God might see maindeck play if elves deck starts to dominate
Mono Green Ramp
Mono Green Enchantress
Mono Green Infect
White Weenie – Death and Taxes without Wastelands/Ports
Suicide Black
Sligh/Burn
That sounds like it would be a blast to play. I look forward to trying this format and my friends and I would love any input you have on making it work well.
This deck is very well placed in the current meta. I put it together (had all the cards) and played several rounds with it and it’s been very solid.
Surprised there has been no development on it in the past year. Trying to figure out if there’s anything from the past few sets that is worth incorporating.
It’s pretty similar to Food Chain (my previous deck) except this is a two card combo that wins by itself and has 8 copies of each combo piece, where as Food Chain is effectively a three card combo.
I didnt know that about Wastes. But yes, this land would be along the same lines as Wastes.
EDH is just one of the many ways it would benefit magic to have a land like this.
It would also make Magic far more affordable for beginners and casual players everywhere. Beginner players with limited collections could just throw together all of the powerful 1 ofs they have along with 24 Highlands and while it wouldnt be super competitive, such a deck would be decent enough that they wouldnt have to feel dejected about not having a $1000 to buy into a competitive manabase.
Highland could actually potentially enable a whole new slew of competitive decks in standard and legacy, its unlikely since highland decks would be inconsistent and unpredictable but it would be possible. If it does enable some new legacy decks, that would be a welcome addition to the format.
Decks that actually feel different to play each time because they have such a wide variety of cards are a blast to play with and play against.
It would at the very least generate a ton of interest in magic and bring back some players who stopped playing due to surge in costs of manabases, which is good for the game.
Mono White Captain America
Mono Blue Mr. Fantastic
Mono Green Hemswor-Thor
Mono Red Hulk
Mono Black Widow
And we absolutely need a commander deck for each of the above original avengers.
If they keep all 5 monocolored, filled with bomb staples, that set would sell gang busters no matter how high they price it.
I am curious to speculate what color combos work best for various newer avengers (Please keep atleast 5 of the OG Monocolored).
Black Panther = UW
Doctor Strange Stark = UB? (Hes smart, well read, and plans but he is also reckless and was a greedy narcissist before his accident)
Natalie Portman Thor = UG??
Yes falcon captain america would obvious be WHITE, but you couls add BLUE for his strategic and technical mind, RED for his red hot passion for justice and the red hot passion he induces in women and Green for his preference for natural exercise and refusal to use injectables/steroids/super soldiers formulas he was offered and turned down in that disney plus show no one watched.
On second thought, yes just keep both captains mono white.
But with a multicolored or RWU captain america, you could easily swap white for black in his Hydra version.
What would Thanos colors be? WG for his unhealthy obsession with nature + R for choatic random half live and half die + U for his staregic mind and stone cold heart + B for obesession with death? Which colors of the infinity stones did I miss?
Are planewalkers the missing piece needed to make this strategy viable? If so, white is about to get an awesome planeswalker.
Serra the Benevolent
WW2, 4 Loyalty Planeswalker
+2: Creature you control with flying get +1/+1 until end of turn.
-3: Creature a 4/4 Angel Creature token w/ Flying and Vigilance
-6: You get an emblem with "If you control a creature, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead."
My list...
This is different from UR aggro lists in a number of key ways. It plays a much lower curve. This allows it to function off of just 17 lands and draw business more consistently, but also means the curve is too low to support numerous Snapcasters, Nimble Obstructionists or Vendilion Cliques. Although including any of these cards in your variant wouldn't be wrong, as long as you keep the total number of 3cc spells to under 4.
It plays a record number of conditional counterspells. This is why you absolutely never want to tap out on your turn until the midgame (to play a threat that will close out the game in a couple of turns). This is why it plays zero sorceries and zero Thing in the Ice. You want to only play your cantrips at the end of your opponents turn once you're certain that they haven't played anything that you want to counter or bounce or dismember. Thought Scour is an amazing card here. It routinely functions as a Dark Ritual with a cantrip attached to it. The rest of the list is self explanatory.
Any questions or feedback is welcome.
Done right, this could surpass both Game of Thrones and the MCU.
Netflix, Amazon, Hulu all want a game of thrones like mega hit and are willing to spend billions on one. Amazon is spending 3 billion on a LoTR adaptation as an example and Netflix wants something to compete with this.
If Wizards works with them, Netflix would happily invest a billion to make an epic series pulling from the very best storylines and lore in MTG and it both be a mega hit and would really do a lot to pull more players into the game as well.
Season 1 could be the two brothers war, season 2 the phyrexian invasion, season 3 the Eldrazi etc (bird box was basically about Enrakul visiting another plane already, since birdbox was made by Netflix, it could easily be Marketed as a prelude to the Eldrazi invasion, a way to show what it feels like to have the Eldrazi invade a plane on the ground level.)
The decks should be monocolored (duals and fetches are expensive and shuffling is boring) and should be decently powerful featuring lots of legacy staples but also well balanced to play against each other.
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am considering...
Death and Taxes
Mono Blue Delver
Suicide Black/Gate
Dragon Stompy
Mono Green Stompy/Natural Order Deck
...but I don't know if these are the best choices, will play well against each other, and I have no idea how best to build the delver or Suicide Black lists to keep up with the other decks.
For reference, here is monocolored pauper battlebox I put together that I want to replicate in legacy...
Mono Black Control
19 Swamp
4 Barren Moor
4 Chittering Rats
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Cuombajj Witches
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Crypt Rats
2 Thorn of Black Rose
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Sign in Blood
3 Victim of Night
2 Disfigure
2 Dead Weight
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Pestilence
1 Tendrils of Corruption
Mono Blue Tempo
17 Island
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Augur of Bolas
1 Spire Golem
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Counterspell
3 Daze
2 Snap
2 Gush
2 Mutagenic Growth
2 Vapor Snag
1 Bonesplitter
Mono Red Sligh
17 Mountain
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Mogg Conscripts
4 Jackal Familiar
4 Burning Tree Emissary
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Cohort
4 Mudbrawler Cohort
4 Valley Dasher
3 Goblin Heelcutter
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Reckless Abandon
2 Fireblast
Mono Green Stomp
17 Forest
4 Burning Tree Emissary
4 Nest Invader
4 Nettle Seninel
4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
3 Quirion Ranger
3 Silhana Ledgewalker
3 Vault Skirge
2 River Boa
4 Elephant Guide
4 Hunger of the Howlpack
4 Rancor
4 Vines of Vastwood
Mono White Heroic
15 Plains
2 Secluded Steppe
4 Akroan Skyguard
4 Lagonna-Band Trailblzer
3 Deftblade Elite
4 Seeker of the Way
2 Sacred Cat
4 Cartouche of Solidarity
4 Cho-Manno's Blessing
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Hyena Umbra
4 Mutagenic Growth
3 Emerge Unscathed
2 Defiant Strike
1 Lifelink
As an aside, pauper is the single greatest magic format that has ever existed. And all the decks can be built for just pennies. More people should be playing it.
The decks should be monocolored (fetches are expensive and shuffling is boring) and should be powerful, tier two tournament capable but also well balanced to play against each other. I think 8 Rack will be my choice for black, and maybe Burn for Red.
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
For reference, here is monocolored pauper battlebox I put together that I want to replicate in modern...
Mono Black Control
19 Swamp
4 Barren Moor
4 Chittering Rats
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Cuombajj Witches
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Crypt Rats
2 Thorn of Black Rose
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Sign in Blood
3 Victim of Night
2 Disfigure
2 Dead Weight
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Pestilence
1 Tendrils of Corruption
Mono Blue Tempo
17 Island
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Augur of Bolas
1 Spire Golem
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Counterspell
3 Daze
2 Snap
2 Gush
2 Mutagenic Growth
2 Vapor Snag
1 Bonesplitter
Mono Red Sligh
17 Mountain
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Mogg Conscripts
4 Jackal Familiar
4 Burning Tree Emissary
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Cohort
4 Mudbrawler Cohort
4 Valley Dasher
3 Goblin Heelcutter
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Reckless Abandon
2 Fireblast
Mono Green Stomp
17 Forest
4 Burning Tree Emissary
4 Nest Invader
4 Nettle Seninel
4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
3 Quirion Ranger
3 Silhana Ledgewalker
3 Vault Skirge
2 River Boa
4 Elephant Guide
4 Hunger of the Howlpack
4 Rancor
4 Vines of Vastwood
Mono White Heroic
15 Plains
2 Secluded Steppe
4 Akroan Skyguard
4 Lagonna-Band Trailblzer
3 Deftblade Elite
4 Seeker of the Way
2 Sacred Cat
4 Cartouche of Solidarity
4 Cho-Manno's Blessing
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Hyena Umbra
4 Mutagenic Growth
3 Emerge Unscathed
2 Defiant Strike
1 Lifelink
As an aside, pauper is the single greatest magic format that has ever existed. And all the decks can be built for just pennies. More people should be playing it.
Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all noncommon lands are banned. Budget Friendly, Nostalgia Friendly, Casual Friendly and Generally More Fun. You could say that about pauper as well but this format would have a far larger carpool than Pauper to work with.
My friends and I were having a discussion about how the fun of nonrotating formats has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years or so. Most of us got into magic because we loved fair decks, using fair strategies and in the case of many of us, attacking with creatures. However, most legacy games involve lots of durdling around with shuffle effects/fetchlands and cantrips or outright comboing off on turn one. Plus legacy as a format has grown into an increasingly high barrier to entry. Decks consisting of just basic lands simply do not exist in modern legacy and paying 3 mana for a 5/4 or a Hypnotic Specter or 4 mana for a Surrak, the Huntcaller, Baneslayer Angel, Goreclaw or Phyrexian Obliterator is not considered a competitive strategy.
Our goal is to have a clearly defined rule we would all have to abide by to advance three goals, make sure creature decks are viable again, allow for competive decks to be built on a budget so people who don't have expensive cards don't feel excluded, ensure the games are more fun.
This only rules are….
Noncommon lands are banned.
Every other legacy legal card is allowed.
The mana bases would be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to all other legacy cards.
Basically, legacy without duals, fetchlands, shocklands, gaea's cradle, city of traitors, dark depths etc. A legacy where there is a real perceptible cost to splashing another color, where mana bases that consist of mostly or entirely basic lands make sense.
My friends and I plan to try this format later this year, and we would love some input. Do you think a format such as this would be pretty balanced. Or would it need a ban list? What do you think would need to be banned?
What do you think the metagame would look like?
I think it would be pretty balanced, something like this…
Aggro Control – The glue that keeps combo decks in check
Mono Blue Delver
Mono Blue Merfolk
Mono Blue Control - Veldalken Shackles might see play again
Mono White Control – Quinn without the Snowlands
Mono Black Control
Slow Resilent Combo
High Tide – Slow enough that decks will have a chance to interact with it. Burn, sligh and other fast aggro decks can win by around the same time that High Tide can.
Mono Black Reanimator – Will be somewhat depowered due to the lack on cantrips (Faithless Looting/Careful Study) and easier to hate out as it would be slower and black is incapable of dealing with Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace
OmniShow – Will be significantly slowed by the lack of Sol Lands and Brainstorm/Fetchland interaction
Prison
Pox
Stax – Might be too slow to make any impact without the sol lands
Glass Cannons
Oops All Spells
Belcher
Manaless Dredge
MonoR Sneak Attack/Through the Breach – Will lack the acceleration that sol lands provide and the autowins that Blood Moon provides
Aggro
Elves – Cards like Engineered Plague and Wrath of God might see maindeck play if elves deck starts to dominate
Mono Green Ramp
Mono Green Enchantress
Mono Green Infect
White Weenie – Death and Taxes without Wastelands/Ports
Suicide Black
Sligh/Burn
That sounds like it would be a blast to play. I look forward to trying this format and my friends and I would love any input you have on making it work well.
No. The format should have access to all the same lands that pauper has access to. Going multicolor should be feasible but should have an actual downside which is not the case in legacy.
For most legacy decks, the manabase accounts for over 90% of the deck's cost. This format would dramatically lower the cost of entry while allowing access to legacy's entire nonland card pool. It never made sense to have to spend thousands of dollars on lands. It never made sense that Brainstorm is effectively turned into an Ancestral Recall if you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars to add fetchlands to even a monoblue deck. And it never made sense that there is zero real cost to splashing colors. Splashing a color should have a cost to it.
Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all noncommon lands are banned. Budget Friendly, Nostalgia Friendly, Casual Friendly and Generally More Fun. You could say that about pauper as well but this format would have a far larger carpool than Pauper to work with.
My friends and I were having a discussion about how the fun of nonrotating formats has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years or so. Most of us got into magic because we loved fair decks, using fair strategies and in the case of many of us, attacking with creatures. However, most legacy games involve lots of durdling around with shuffle effects/fetchlands and cantrips or outright comboing off on turn one. Plus legacy as a format has grown into an increasingly high barrier to entry. Decks consisting of just basic lands simply do not exist in modern legacy and paying 3 mana for a 5/4 or a Hypnotic Specter or 4 mana for a Surrak, the Huntcaller, Baneslayer Angel, Goreclaw or Phyrexian Obliterator is not considered a competitive strategy.
Our goal is to have a clearly defined rule we would all have to abide by to advance three goals, make sure creature decks are viable again, allow for competive decks to be built on a budget so people who don't have expensive cards don't feel excluded, ensure the games are more fun.
The formats rules are….
Noncommon lands are banned (basically pauper's manabase).
Every other legacy legal card is allowed.
The mana bases would be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to all other legacy cards.
Basically, legacy without duals, fetchlands, shocklands, gaea's cradle, city of traitors, dark depths etc. A legacy where there is a real perceptible cost to splashing another color, where mana bases that consist of mostly or entirely basic lands make sense.
My friends and I plan to try this format later this year, and we would love some input. Do you think a format such as this would be pretty balanced. Or would it need a ban list? What do you think would need to be banned?
What do you think the metagame would look like?
I think it would be pretty balanced, something like this…
Aggro Control – The glue that keeps combo decks in check
Mono Blue Delver
Mono Blue Merfolk
Mono Blue Control - Veldalken Shackles might see play again
Mono White Control – Quinn without the Snowlands
Mono Black Control
Slow Resilent Combo
High Tide – Slow enough that decks will have a chance to interact with it. Burn, sligh and other fast aggro decks can win by around the same time that High Tide can.
Mono Black Reanimator – Will be somewhat depowered due to the lack on cantrips (Faithless Looting/Careful Study) and easier to hate out as it would be slower and black is incapable of dealing with Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace
OmniShow – Will be significantly slowed by the lack of Sol Lands and Brainstorm/Fetchland interaction
Prison
Pox
Stax – Might be too slow to make any impact without the sol lands
Glass Cannons
Oops All Spells
Belcher
Manaless Dredge
MonoR Sneak Attack/Through the Breach – Will lack the acceleration that sol lands provide and the autowins that Blood Moon provides
Aggro
Elves – Cards like Engineered Plague and Wrath of God might see maindeck play if elves deck starts to dominate
Mono Green Ramp
Mono Green Enchantress
Mono Green Infect
White Weenie – Death and Taxes without Wastelands/Ports
Suicide Black
Sligh/Burn
That sounds like it would be a blast to play. I look forward to trying this format and my friends and I would love any input you have on making it work well.
Which Format do you guys think would be more balanced? One that bans all rare nonbasic lands, or one that only allows common lands (pauper mana bases with legacy's card pool)?
It never made sense to have to spend thousands of dollars on lands. And it never made sense that there is zero real cost to splashing colors. Splashing a color should have a cost to it. Here is the solution...
Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all noncommon lands are banned. Budget Friendly, Nostalgia Friendly, Casual Friendly and Generally More Fun. You could say that about pauper as well but this format would have a far larger carpool than Pauper to work with.
My friends and I were having a discussion about how the fun of nonrotating formats has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years or so. Most of us got into magic because we loved fair decks, using fair strategies and in the case of many of us, attacking with creatures. However, most legacy games involve lots of durdling around with shuffle effects/fetchlands and cantrips or outright comboing off on turn one. Plus legacy as a format has grown into an increasingly high barrier to entry. Decks consisting of just basic lands simply do not exist in modern legacy and paying 3 mana for a 5/4 or a Hypnotic Specter or 4 mana for a Surrak, the Huntcaller, Baneslayer Angel, Goreclaw or Phyrexian Obliterator is not considered a competitive strategy.
Our goal is to have a clearly defined rule we would all have to abide by to advance three goals, make sure creature decks are viable again, allow for competive decks to be built on a budget so people who don't have expensive cards don't feel excluded, ensure the games are more fun.
In this new format, the only rules are….
Noncommon lands are banned.
Every other legacy legal card is allowed.
The mana bases would be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to all other legacy cards.
Basically, legacy without duals, fetchlands, shocklands, gaea's cradle, city of traitors, dark depths etc. A legacy where there is a real perceptible cost to splashing another color, where mana bases that consist of mostly or entirely basic lands make sense.
My friends and I plan to try this format later this year, and we would love some input. Do you think a format such as this would be pretty balanced. Or would it need a ban list? What do you think would need to be banned?
What do you think the metagame would look like?
I think it would be pretty balanced, something like this…
Aggro Control – The glue that keeps combo decks in check
Mono Blue Delver
Mono Blue Merfolk
Mono Blue Control - Veldalken Shackles might see play again
Mono White Control – Quinn without the Snowlands
Mono Black Control
Slow Resilent Combo
High Tide – Slow enough that decks will have a chance to interact with it. Burn, sligh and other fast aggro decks can win by around the same time that High Tide can.
Mono Black Reanimator – Will be somewhat depowered due to the lack on cantrips (Faithless Looting/Careful Study) and easier to hate out as it would be slower and black is incapable of dealing with Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace
OmniShow – Will be significantly slowed by the lack of Sol Lands and Brainstorm/Fetchland interaction
Prison
Pox
Stax – Might be too slow to make any impact without the sol lands
Glass Cannons
Oops All Spells
Belcher
Manaless Dredge
MonoR Sneak Attack/Through the Breach – Will lack the acceleration that sol lands provide and the autowins that Blood Moon provides
Aggro
Elves – Cards like Engineered Plague and Wrath of God might see maindeck play if elves deck starts to dominate
Mono Green Ramp
Mono Green Enchantress
Mono Green Infect
White Weenie – Death and Taxes without Wastelands/Ports
Suicide Black
Sligh/Burn
That sounds like it would be a blast to play. I look forward to trying this format and my friends and I would love any input you have on making it work well.
Surprised there has been no development on it in the past year. Trying to figure out if there’s anything from the past few sets that is worth incorporating.
It’s pretty similar to Food Chain (my previous deck) except this is a two card combo that wins by itself and has 8 copies of each combo piece, where as Food Chain is effectively a three card combo.
It will be very exciting to see what people put together in modern, standard and legacy when faced with this limitation.
EDH is just one of the many ways it would benefit magic to have a land like this.
It would also make Magic far more affordable for beginners and casual players everywhere. Beginner players with limited collections could just throw together all of the powerful 1 ofs they have along with 24 Highlands and while it wouldnt be super competitive, such a deck would be decent enough that they wouldnt have to feel dejected about not having a $1000 to buy into a competitive manabase.
Highland could actually potentially enable a whole new slew of competitive decks in standard and legacy, its unlikely since highland decks would be inconsistent and unpredictable but it would be possible. If it does enable some new legacy decks, that would be a welcome addition to the format.
Decks that actually feel different to play each time because they have such a wide variety of cards are a blast to play with and play against.
It would at the very least generate a ton of interest in magic and bring back some players who stopped playing due to surge in costs of manabases, which is good for the game.