Now although I studied psychology in university, I don't really read minds. So if you're looking to see why the DCI made these changes, you can read Stephen Menendian's post over at Eternal-Central. Instead, let's take a short look at how these changes will affect your local tourney.
Survival is Banned!
Merry Christmas! Now you got your MTG gift from wizards! Aren't you happy now?Let's just forget about whether the banning is necessary for a moment and focus on the effects this ban has. As mentioned elsewhere, Survival has a good matchup against nearly everything from Zoo to Merfolk to Counterbalance. With its ban, there's not really a single deck to default to when making deck choices. There's bound to be some flux immediately after this.
Let you in on a secret, humans rely on psychological reference points to make their decisions. These reference points can be in the form of past experiences, external cues, or perceived norms. Without the perceived norm of Survival being the best deck, players are likely to rollback to their previous driver and pick up whatever deck they used to great success last time. (This seems eerily familiar...) Bant players will sleeve up their Natural Order, Rock players will backtrack to Dark Confidant, and Fish lovers will get a Fillet-o-Fish.
And that's not all. With Dark Horizons on the rise while Survival is legal, there's bound to be some remnants of it in your local legacy scene. Players who have painstakingly took time to playtest this deck will not waste their efforts since it is essentially a Rock deck that can be tuned to beat other decks with the correct card choices. Prepare for this.
The loser from this ban will have to be Extirpate. To many players, Extirpate doesn't really feel like the solution to other graveyard based decks although it was one of the most used sideboard cards while Survival was top dog. There's not really a reason to pack Extirpate anymore now that Survival is gone. In fact, I'm even unsure whether it made a dent on Survival! Anyway, for those of you playing decks like Dredge, expect the usual Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus instead of Extirpate and Faerie Macabre.
Oh, and don't think of using Fauna Shaman to replace Survival. There's a reason why many people don't even mention this card while discussing.
Time Spiral is Unbanned!
Oh yeah! High Tide is coming back!Or is it?
Maybe I've jumped the gun, let's backtrack a little. Time Spiral is a 4uu Timetwister that lets you untap 6 lands. Broken in Legacy even in today's terms. Which decks will want to use this card? Perhaps some sort of Storm combo.
Now what Storm combo decks are there? Broadly speaking, there's Tendrils, Empty the Warrens, and Brain Freeze, in that order of popularity. Decks using Tendrils (ANT, Spanish Inquisition etc) rely on 2-3 lands and Dark Ritual to generate Storm and mana, so how will they benefit from a 4uu sorcery which they have difficult casting? Just goldfish any ANT list a couple of times and you'll find that the second blue mana is slightly difficult to get. That being said, decks that are using Diminishing Returns have little reason not to use Time Spiral as both effectively cost 4 (assuming there's only 2 lands in play).
Empty the Warrens is only played in 1-2 lands Belcher. Erm... I don't think so...
Brain Freeze equates to High Tide. For those of you who didn't know about this, High Tide, Goblins, and Threshold make up the holy trinity back in the days. Ever since Counterbalance was released to complete Sensei's Divining Top, High Tide ceased to be a force in Legacy. Would Time Spiral change this?
My instinctual answer is no.
Like, how are you going to deal with a Counter-top lock? Cryptic Command? Echoing Truth? Rushing River? Wipe Away? All these answers were present when Counterbalance came into the Legacy scene, but High Tide has never rose to the top of the ranks. Now that we have a brand new draw 7 that we can cast only after turn 3 or 4 and only after a resolved High Tide, are North and South Korea going to shake hands, hug, and eat a burger together?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love world peace.
And another thing, there's also Merfolk making you fizzle before you can play the first untap spell (read Time Spiral).
No, Time Spiral will not make High Tide tier 1. But it does offer options to the budget Legacy player, although the price of Time Spiral has already spiked to $40 over at Star City Games (still less than a dual!).
Oh, and by the way, you probably won't want a playset of those.
The Perfect Time Spiral Decklist
The heading is a lie, cause there's no decklist here at all. You can go over to The Source's Spring Tide thread to find tons of those. For your information, Time Spiral enters the picture starting page 28.Instead, what you'll find here is an interesting idea: Turboland!
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, just scroll down to the bottom of Introduction to 43-Lands/Blue Lands article.
Replace Fathom Seer with Time Spiral, add some Xantid Swarm/Autumn's Veil, and it might be a fun deck to dabble with when you're free. Magic is supposed to be a hobby you see.
Summary
Survival is banned! Hurrah!Time Spiral is unbanned! So what? Counterbalance and Merfolk will be back as well...
Have some free time? Play some Turboland with Time Spiral!
So what do you think? Spring Tide comes back with a vengeance? Turn 3 combo kill or control-combo with 10 counterspells? Let me know by commenting! Tweet this!
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