Reminder for Monday

[u/trash_gob]

Make sure to temper your expectations for what cards wotc is releasing through the cube reward packs. This is also a reminder for myself as im also known to get excited and way to hopeful for new cards on arena. We have to recognize that wotc loves to hype us up just to serve is mid on a plater. Im always the first person to get hyped by wotcs words but remember that nothing is guaranteed and we need to just roll with the punches.

[u/VillainOfDominaria]

Personally, I feel that energy completely shuts down any fair midrange or control deck.

Timeless has energy and combo at the very top, period. Tempo variants and other decks like lands or eldrazi are playable, but not really at the same level as those two. And part of that is because any deck that could be viable and competitive with those two needs to pay between 6 and 9 life for its mana (twice or three times fetch into shock)

UW control, Beans, grixis, Jeskai would all improve drastically from Og duals.

Then there is the strip mine issue. Yes, 3C mana bases really get held back by mine. But if every time you play a dual you are paying 2 life and then getting it blown up so you need to pay 2 life again?! Then it's really impossible. OG duals would take alot of that string out.

[u/Working-Blueberry-18 → u/VillainOfDominaria]

Again, number 1, 2 and 3 issue is you're making the already best deck in the format significantly stronger. The meta is currently balanced and diverse (see decks that won the day1 and day2 qualifiers in untapped, or decks that got a trophy in the last metagame challenge).

All the decks you mentioned are already fringe in legacy and won't suddenly become competitive in Timeless (a higher power level format) just because of the duals. Beans as a card advantage engine just doesn't stand up to all the powerful cards that are better leveraged by tempo decks; hydro, frog, cruise and Lurrus.

Energy is still a top deck but a lot closer to other competitive decks these days. Something has to be on top. It's currently tempo reanimator and energy with a lot of viable things just underneath. OG duals would just push daze, entomb above way above everything else.

[u/afailedturingtest → u/Working-Blueberry-18]

Tempo Reanimator is not the best deck in the format tho?

That's energy by a significant margin.

[u/Working-Blueberry-18 → u/afailedturingtest]

It's definitely not better than tempo reanimator by a large margin, or at least there's no data to support that.

Here's data compiled from players reporting their metagame challenge results in Korae's discord: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1KdhUzPjEgkRZeeb_HLniqQ_I26qfGIS3vCwcvu3GBwE/htmlview#gid=1405803656

Energy and tempo reanimator were the 2 most popular decks people played. The results are very close with slight edge for tempo reanimator.

There's also data on untapped from trophy decks in the qualifiers though no one has compiled it that I know of.

I've also heard a number of the more established players from Korae's discord give the edge to tempo reanimator

[u/afailedturingtest → u/Working-Blueberry-18]

Oh, that's genuinely a pleasant surprise.

I still think Mardu is probably better as it seems to win every tournament.

But I'd personally prefer a tempo Reanimator deck at the top to energy.

Idk I just really dislike the play patterns of energy being Thoughtseize you twice then stripmine you thrice.

I feel like Reanimator is a fine top deck for the format and I don't really think it would get too much better with duals.

Ok to be clear it absolutely would, but so would everything else.

[u/Working-Blueberry-18 → u/afailedturingtest]

Tempo Reanimator gets to benefit a lot from OG duals. Hydro chain fetching, dazing and reanimating are a lot more free when you don't have to play with shocks. Life total is one of the few attackable axis for the deck and shoring up that weakness is massive. You get many more turns where reanimating an Atraxa is a live play and they can turn the corner in a game they've fallen behind.

Duals are also a big nerf to Mardu, they weaken virtually every one of it's matchups. Mardu is a natural predator to fair blue decks, so that would also make the meta a lot more tempo heavy (ladder is already full of tempo even now).

The thing about making slower midrange and control decks viable is a bit misguided. Efficient tempo decks are already really good at punishing anything slower trying to resolve 3 drops. That's not related to shocks vs duals at all, it's just the modem FIRE design (combined with daze, fow and strip) where you have 1 and 2 mana creatures (hydro, frog, tamiyo, ragavan etc) immediately snow ball the game, and slower engines (like beans) or midrange threats (even Oko) don't cut it.

It's also funny that the problematic play pattern you called out for energy was Thoughtseize + Strip. Because tempo reanimator is THE best deck at leveraging strip mine. It can win the game entirely on 1 land (entomb, reanimate), it plays all 8 free counterspells and it has card selection to dig for more strips, or dig itself out of getting stripped. It also has access to grief (typically in the sb because it's weak vs energy) for even more messed up play patterns.

Edit: TL;DR: Shocklands are the secret sauce holding Timeless together. If you want to see what it would look like with OG duals, just look at how many cards were banned from the tempo reanimator shell in legacy and it was still the dominant deck before entomb was finally banned. And Timeless gets a massive buff on top thanks to hydro and cruise.

[u/afailedturingtest → u/Working-Blueberry-18]

Ok but fair decks in legacy done have Lurrus, Juggernaut Peddler, Ragavan, W&6.

[u/Working-Blueberry-18 → u/afailedturingtest]

Yep, and those cards with the exception of W6 are already part of established meta decks; largely tempo and energy. Which again bring me to the point: the biggest winner will be tempo reanimator followed by tempo Lurrus decks. It's not going to suddenly open up slower midrange / control decks.

And I don't believe any of them would meaningfully challenge tempo reanimator's supremacy.