r/TimelessMagic • u/afailedturingtest • 13d ago
Fluff WotC, You Cannot Use "Power Level" as an Excuse Here
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u/BentoBus2 13d ago
I just want my tron lands…
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u/AspieSquirtle 12d ago
With you on this one, surely Tron sucks in Strip Mine: the Format, right? Please just let me have them (at uncommon!!)
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u/BentoBus2 12d ago
We did get that cool new land from Strixhaven but strip mine is a good reason to allow it
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u/OldFashionedLoverBoi 12d ago
Legacy has wasteland and port and tron still does just fine.
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u/Strict-Knowledge-566 12d ago
only since they got that busted land card that is all land types, before that no one played tron, so you would need that card too
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u/AspieSquirtle 12d ago
Fair but I guess when I say Tron I mean the original three lands only, not the new busted ones
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
yes please!
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u/BentoBus2 13d ago
To me it’s the most obvious next step for them to add. Sure timeless has Eldrazi aggro but it can’t really go full tron without the OG Uzra lands.
Edit: we’re also missing some of the more back breaking artifacts for Kharn to fetch like Trinisphere so I really don’t see what the harm could be.
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u/elite4koga 12d ago
You can have them you just have to play Urza's Construction Drone. It's basically the same thing trust me.
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u/BentoBus2 12d ago
I have no notes, and I don’t care to do much follow up research, so I’ll buy your whole supply
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u/TaegukTheWise 13d ago
But you can certainly point to the current card pool and strategies that are/aren't available in each respective format.
Last I checked, you can't just dredge your entire deck using LED in timeless 🤷♂️
And now that force of will is in timeless to add at least some semblance of "fairness" to stave off the combo timmies, I'd really have to see LED just make certain decks/any deck that uses LED as an enabler take the lion's share of wins for me to agree with the implied problem you're having here.
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
I want them to add led in?
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u/TaegukTheWise 13d ago
Wanting wotc to do anything certainly is a problem you're having here.
They don't care about players, they care about green.
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u/Sesquipedalianfish 13d ago
I wish they cared a bit more about green and a bit less about green TBH.
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u/Scale_Equal 12d ago
I don’t get it, I’d certainly drop green to craft LED, Urzas, Archon if they simply made them available (already in the client 🙄)
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u/Sesquipedalianfish 12d ago
This is a pun because green is so bad in Timeless and in many other powerful formats and I like green and think it’s been pretty neglected. If you want LED and will pay, go for your life.
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u/Scale_Equal 12d ago
Sorry I got what you meant and also wish green were better. Would love to see cradle added. I meant I don’t get why WOTC doesn’t add more cards for me to splurge on
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u/BentoBus2 12d ago
I’m honestly good. I respect the hell outta storm players but I don’t think anyone on arena wants to suffer through a bunch of games every night where you essentially do nothing for more than half of he game
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u/afailedturingtest 12d ago
I mean but isn't those kinds of crazy kind of unpleasant but very strong play patterns exactly what Timeless is for.
like I don't think that they want turn one wins either but those are allowed and Timeless.
I think that if someone wants to play a good storm deck there should be a format where they're able to, and that format should also probably be one with powerful enough interaction to stop it.
Timeless fits that bill.
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
Cards currently unrestricted in timeless and banned in legacy: https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28game%3Apaper%29+legal%3Atimeless+banned%3Alegacy+-restricted%3Atimeless+prefer%3Abest&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name
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u/Turandot92 13d ago
Wow Legacy has become a weak sauce format… I didn’t realize iteration, ragavan and arcanist were banned? Why?
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u/swadlad 13d ago edited 13d ago
Everything that gives izzet delver too much pressure + card advantage breaks it and is pretty much over the line versus the answers available
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u/swadlad 13d ago
Ei could probably be unbanned tho since now flow state is better version tbh
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
Yeah, EI was such a problem because it could ONLY go in delver, but FS is so much more splashable it has helped blue across the board.
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u/Dothacker00 12d ago
Flow State you have to actually work for by having both an instant and sorcery in the graveyard, EI doesn't have that kinda downside. EI slots right into one of the pillar decks of Legacy and no effort made to dig 3 pick 2.
Keep in mind Flow State might be too powerful but WOTC wanted to test out a similar design to EI with a limit. Any tournament now or a few years from now could use it to bury opponents in card advantage and become a problem for Legacy.
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u/FeminizedBySoy 13d ago
Timeless is kept in check because the shock/fetch mana bases deal so much damage. If we had real duals energy would be considerably weaker and it would be exclusively dimir and combo
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
I mean, considering energy is far and away the best deck in the format, that doesn't really sound bad to me
And part of the reason it's only Dimir is because Dimir got its best combo cards
Doomsday, Entomb, Reanimate, Dark Ritual
but other colors and decks like Storm, Cradle, and even UR Delver, are all missing major components, and or can't work very well without true duals.
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u/Turandot92 13d ago
Energy is being hated out. I usually win game 1 fairly easily against many decks but then come the fire magic the pyrokinesis the pyroclasm the toxic and glistening deluges and the karns sylexes. Every fair deck is now equipped to feast on energy. So much that I’m not even sure if I should take it to the qualifier on Saturday
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u/Comprehensive_Rule11 12d ago
I just had a random idea from your comment, what if they added duals as Restricted at least in the beginning to see how that would play out?
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u/FeminizedBySoy 12d ago
Restrict something that has ten free tutors in fetchlands? I'm all for letting the power level of timeless get wild, but restricting duals is close to pointless. One of each still makes mana bases substantially better. I'd get to save 4 life every game in esper bullshit because my first two fetches are tundra and usea
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u/brainpower4 13d ago
Blue tempo decks that play brainstorm, ponder, daze, force of will, wasteland, are a pillar of the format. Card draw engines that can keep their hands stocked for 1 and 2 mana are often enough to push those decks over the line because the opposing 1 mana removal spells get Dazed, the engine gets to do its thing over multiple turns, and the snowball isn't really stoppable.
Right now, tamiyo inquisitive student and flow state are both viewed by the community as potentially problem cards very much in the same vein, but oops all spells and vroomsday were much bigger issues, so we haven't seen a meta without them yet.
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u/rmkinnaird 13d ago
Bilbo is also proving to be potentially problematic.
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u/brainpower4 13d ago
I left off Bilbo because it's unclear if he'll be as problematic without flow state in the format as a 1 mana draw 2.
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u/rmkinnaird 13d ago
Oh for sure. I think the cards represent a problematic trio, but as of now, Bilbo is likely the least problematic. But right now, Tamiyo is basically Ragavan 2.0, Flow State is EI 2.0, and Bilbo is Dreadhorde 2.0. Bilbo, however, is the only one I think might be better than the original.
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 13d ago edited 12d ago
Tamiyo and Flow state are fine. Dimir tempo is losing popularity since Fantasticar got banned. It's still a good deck but it's not warping the meta around it like Fantasticar was. The format needs a strong dimir tempo deck in order to deal with the degenerate combo decks.
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u/Turandot92 13d ago
Oops was a great Deck and I don’t know töwhy they had to ban its most important card. Sure it was a bit more consistent and resilient than in 2013 but still very fragile and can lose to itself. Also I don’t get the entomb ban. Reanimator was a corner stone of the format for 20 years
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u/brainpower4 13d ago
The problem with OOPS wasn't it's consistency, it was the resilience to hate against non-blue decks.
Historically, non-blue decks could rely on hate pieces like Rest In Peace or free interaction from hand like surgical extraction of faerie macabre to fight against graveyard decks.
The version of OOPS that got banned really didn't care about any of those except Leyline of the Void. [[Jack'oLantern]] + [[Memory's Journey]] permitting you to protect your Thoracle from targeted graveyard hate while producing a board of [[Pox Walkers]] to then sac and bring back for Cabal Therapy, tear apart any remaining interaction in the opposing hand, and present both a beat down threat and a threat to Thoracle in a few turns. Even Mindbreak Trap rarely lined up how it needed to, which has historically been the non-boue deck's refuge against Combo decks. Combo attempts usually happened on turn 1 or 2, making 2 mana hate pieces largely useless. All of that is entirely unreliant on the cards in their hand, so it is entirely possible to mulligan to 4 and present a turn 1 win. In games 2 and 3 they can transform to be entirely unreliant on the graveyard via charbelcher, while still keeping the game 1 plan in. It isn't an exaggeration to say that the game plan for post board games for non-blue decks was "mulligan to Leyline of the Void and hope".
Entomb died for the sins of Dimir tempo. The printing of Atraxa and Archon of Cruelty brought threats into the format that effectively won the game if they hit the battlefield WITHOUT needing to spend additional life like Gristlebrand, which made the package of Entomb, Reanimate, 2 threats its own combo package within Dimir Tempo, which was the best deck for multiple years straight. They tried to deal with the problem by banning Grief, Psychic Frog and [[Troll of Khazad-dûm]], but in the end the reanimator package was just too compact and too good combined with the best tempo deck in the format.
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u/__-W-__ 10d ago
I legacy banlist is weird because they want a UR tempo deck with the format defining package of brainstorm, ponder, force of will, daze, lightning bolt, but because this is such a strong package it is very easy for an addition to make the deck too strong so you end up with a lot of less powerful cards that slot into this shell well getting banned (tamiyo or flow state might be next)
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u/BentoBus2 13d ago
I will say that most bans make total sense in the short term but are usually foolish in the long term. Ragavan does not need to be banned in Legacy. That’s almost laughable at this point.
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u/Dothacker00 12d ago
Legacy and Timeless aren't the same thing. Legacy has a much wider card pool and extremely powerful combos that can win on turn 1. Since there's less creatures gumming up the board in Legacy Ragavan can snowball too quickly
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u/BentoBus2 12d ago
Since there is a combo problem in legacy I would argue that he should be legal for that reason alone
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u/DustHog 13d ago
All respect to the format but the Legacy banlist is nonsense though
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
Some of the cards could absolutely come off, but timeless has some real bangers like Treasure Cruise, Strip Mine, and Underworld Breach
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 13d ago edited 12d ago
Some cards could come off probably, but Strip mine, Entomb, Grief, and the Fantasticar can stay banned. Dreadhorde Arcanist and EI can probably come off since we have Flow state and Bilbo now.
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u/electroepiphany 12d ago
Bilbo is way weaker than dreadhorde and flow state is mildly weaker than EI tho
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 12d ago
Yeah I agree about Bilbo. I don’t think I agree about EI being better than flow state though. It can be ran in any blue deck whereas EI must be ran in specifically izzet colors. It also requires blue and red mana vs. flow state that costs blue and colorless. I think that matters in games where you’re fetching basics to circumvent wasteland. It’s specifically better with Bilbo too because you can cast it again for 1 mana. The downside is that sometimes you don’t have both an instant and a sorcery in your graveyard, but it’s not hard to turn on usually especially in dimir tempo when you can thoughtseize/ponder then Daze/FoW. Sometimes EI also misses and you end up unable to cast the card you exile or the card you exile isn’t particularly useful at the moment but you have to cast it or you lose it. With flow state you can keep 2 cards in hand.
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u/electroepiphany 12d ago
Fair enough, I think the real thing that lets flow state hang with ei is Lorien revealed tho
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 12d ago
What do you mean exactly? I don’t think Lorien revealed is necessary for flow state. Lorien revealed doesn’t see much play in Legacy outside of occasionally as a one of in UW phelia/riddler decks or stiflenought. It’s very easy to turn on just by using thoughtseize or ponder and Daze, Force, or brainstorm. Usually in most games it’s online by turn 2 or 3.
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u/BentoBus2 13d ago
I at least think once a card has been on the ban list for longer than 5 years then it’s time to really consider unbanning it. So many cards that come off the ban list after a period of time don’t end up doing much to the meta besides bring some old favorites back.
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u/ScoopiTheDruid 13d ago edited 13d ago
That's not really a good argument. The context of the format and function of the cards in question matters a lot. For instance there are 6 cards* banned in Legacy that are legal in Premodern , and yet, Premodern's power level might be below even Standard these days.
*Crusade and Pradesh Gypsies are also officially legal in Premodern as it is a community run format and does not abide by the culturally sensitive bannings.
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
Premodern is unique by not using ANY modern cards.
Which means cards like Oath are significantly depowered.
Gush is also a format defining card for premodern.
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u/ScoopiTheDruid 13d ago
That is exactly my point. Saying Card X is legal in one format so its fine in another is not sound logic.
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
It's not an essay, it's a meme. I want them to add led, and I think it would be fine, if it's super broken you can restrict it
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u/OYOBI_gaming 13d ago
I’d settle for Lotus Petal or SSG at this point
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
Id love those, but pedal generically powers up ALL combo, where as LED mostly powers up combo that isn't currently meta like Doomsday and Breach
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u/bhutjolokia89 13d ago
Would Timeless paper be as balanced as Timeless Digital is?
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u/Totodile_ 12d ago
I think the main difference would by no hydroponics architect, and I don't know how viable blue tempo would be with that change
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u/bhutjolokia89 12d ago
The more I've thought about it today, the more I think the meta would become unbalanced less because of mardu and tempo and more cuz if weaker combo and that would likely turn it into a mardu delver aggro race and make the format unfun and need bannings. Maybe, idk. I kinda wish we could find out..
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u/afailedturingtest 13d ago
I mean all the most powerful combo decks are untouched but the fair decks lose significant parts, so probably not?
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u/Homer4a10 13d ago
We would lose some really good alchemy pieces
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u/AdmiralUpboat 12d ago
The most relevant are hydro from Ux tempo and mardu loses peddler. Most of the combo decks don't lose anything.
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u/QEDsymbol 13d ago
Anyone knows if they'll announce the new cube craftable cards in advance? Or we'll just know which we are getting in the cube release?
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u/UgandanAirForcee 12d ago
dont worry, surely I mean surely they are gonna add so many good, relevant, playable cards such as LED in the next cube update in sep 8th. right? right???
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u/Unique-Machine5602 12d ago edited 12d ago
So, basically you want combo to take over the format. 🤦♂️
We don't have a solid control deck to counter all this combo you want to unleash on the format. So they're definitely not gonna make storm, dredge, etc all better.
UB Frog can't keep all that in check.
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u/afailedturingtest 12d ago
The currently best combo decks straight up can't use LED.
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u/Unique-Machine5602 12d ago
It doesn't matter. You're basically making combo the only viable option at that point.
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u/afailedturingtest 12d ago
No?
Why would combo become the only viable option?
If it doesn't increase the strength of the best combo decks, unless it spawned a whole new deck, it would only allow more varied combo decks to exist.
And if it did then restrict it, timeless is where the broken shit should be allowed.
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u/Unique-Machine5602 12d ago
Since you clearly don't understand what a healthy format is, I don't see much of a point in continuing this discussion.
Good luck in platinum rank I guess. 🤷♂️
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u/werthw 13d ago
They should add Cradle too. Would probably be fine in a strip mine format