I've played (and watched) Legacy. I never claimed Legacy was a T1 race, but those decks DO exist and they're a large percentage of the meta, if not the biggest. And that's with almost no competitive spotlight on Legacy.FoodChainGoblins wrote: ↑4 years agoLegacy is less degenerate because there are stop gaps, aka FoW, Daze, and viable Prison strategies. Modern can never have that kind of defense. Do you know how many times I saw someone enter a Modern stream chat and ask what kind of Legacy deck that is just to realize that all of the main engine pieces that are legal in Legacy are also legal in Modern; just different mana? Force of Negation was a big start and a very positive card. Modern needs more cards like that.
The only people that think Legacy is just all turn 1 combos is someone who has never or barely ever actually played the format. Legacy has some really long and thought out games that could end very quickly if someone had made an egregious mistake. Counter wars with Flusterstorm can be tough to navigate, even in today's Veil meta. The only people that don't like Legacy are people who can't afford it. That is definitely a problem, but you can't say that it sucks because you can't play it. Sometimes you get killed on turn 1 and realize, maybe I should have mulled to Grafdigger's Cage, Force of Will, or Surgical Extraction. Maybe I will come with Mindbreak Traps next week.
I haven't actually played Vintage for a long time, but I've watched plenty of streams recently. It actually is a lot more interesting than I had guessed it to be, but still I can see someone's view of whoever draws the most busted cards wins.
In every format, every single time, the best thing you'll be able to do is go fast and make them answer the thing you do. Legacy has those tools to fight them, but they still aren't enough. They're not consistent enough. Reanimator can just Duress and/or Unmask you on T1 with you doing anything. Dredge laughs at stack based interaction. Storm is slower, but now with Witchclaw FAR more resilient and consistent. Also, LED's a thing.
Also, Eldrazi with Spirit Guides, Once Upon a Time and 10+ Sol Lands.
Vintage is a bunch of degenerate combo/value engines that look awesome because they play with P9 and other extremely broken cards. Even the "fair" decks, mostly the 4C Deathrite piles, got nothing against Outcome and Shops.
So, no, I don't see those formats as less degenerate than Modern. Note, that many people would (and have) considered Prison strategies as degenerate. You might not (I don't either), but others have.
Stop gaps rarely help. Wrenn + Wasteland was in the format and Turbo Depths was still one of the better decks. There's only one relevant control deck and one Delver variant, the rest are "degenerate" combo decks. How is that picture healthier (or less "degenerate")?
You're reinforcing my point, that Legacy (and Vintage) have the perception of being a "haven" for interactive decks or that interaction is rewarded there, but that's %$#%$#%. Combo and Aggro rule the day in these formats (and Stax/Shops in Vintage).
And the format that has those is also a degenerate mess. As mentioned above, and we've said before Legacy has the perception of being "fair" or reward interaction. Reality is that it's broken AF and far more degenerate than Modern.
Twin killed fast when it combo'd. When it didn't it, the game took many turns. While I did like the format during the Spirits/Human era (Summer of 2018 iirc), the period of post-Oko to pre-Ikoria had as top decks highly interactive decks and skillful matchups.Greeksis wrote: ↑4 years agoModern was very good during the Humans/Spirits era, because both of those decks had Delver's role in Legacy. Lots of disruption + fast kills.
That's what Modern needs to return to that great state it was. A delver like deck, Twin like deck, Humans-Spirits like deck at Tier 1.
Yes it was dominated by Astrolabe, but why is an Astrolabe meta worse than a meta dominated by Vial/Cavern?
The only reason control was played during the Spirits/Human era, was because Miracles was briefly a thing (Terminus bypassed Selfless Spirit AND Queller), but Cavern and Vial invalidated almost all Counters.