Hail to the Bus Driver

Nice card.

Congratulations on getting to preview this one!

Wow, looks like classic is getting a much needed shake up. 

Originally posted by dangerlinto Don't congratulate me on this one...

Is it the lotus?  Some solo-moxen?  Bazaar?  Workshop?

Nice title! Probably a reference to...

Quote Magic: The Gathering Official Encylopedia, published 1996:

"The entire R&D team would have to be hit by a bus before we'd reprint Mana Drain."

Originally posted by Under_The_Hammer worth also made some comment about running over some manadrain haters in a bus around med1 release

Originally posted by TheGoldenVoid I predict a restriction for this card.   As for your comment on Casual, I'd say the people who quit to Counterspell will quit to any counterspell, end of story. They don't have a "hierarchy" which Counterspell can slip down.

There will be no restriction on Mana Drain.

There will be 4x Drain and there will be Legacy.

nice article danger and pretty interesting analyzis

and yes, it completed to convince me that the split would be needed once mana drain released. Unless we'll got a meta divided in 2 family : manadrain.dek & bazaar.dek

dredge would be the only deck to get all its vintage potence available so i bet it will quickly become the best deck available. But that is only my opinion.

Originally posted by TheGoldenVoid What's this format split you are referring too? The last thing Classic needs is a split in its already small community.

I don't doubt you are correct.

The problem is this - there are Vintage folks, and there is everyone else.

Sorry Legacy players, but it's true.  While Legacy is a vastly more powerful format than Extended, the games play out pretty much the same - except accelerated.  If there is a combo deck that is particularly fast/resilient expect it's user base to complain loudly before they find a way to hate it out or expect it to be banned.  I mean, Worldgorger Dragon is STILL on their banned list.  I guess because the remote chance of firing a turn 1 Dragon loop is to much for a format that has Force of Will, nevermind a plethora of 1 mana instant creature removal.

Vintage is a different beast altogether.  Since everything is restricted, combo decks are simply expected (if you can't keep it out, even 1 each of the combo cards are enough).   The Vintage players revel in it.  Having access to 1 card powerhouses like Tinker, Oath of Druids and Yawgmoth's Will, to say nothing of the acceleration of the jewelerly, means the format plays out much differently.  Some more vocal Legacy players will call Vintage broken, merely because of the presence of cards like 4x Drain, 1x Balance, etc... and I'm willing to bet they'll do the same with Classic

I don't want to paint the picture that one format is BETTER than the other.  Just very different. And the precedent for Legacy was set a long time ago. Even if it's very existence is pretty much owed to a set of circumstances that haven't and never will exist online (Mainly the cost and availability of Power cards), none-the-less it remains popular.

And so, I expect to hear grumblings from the community that they'd like to have the option to play eternally without having to play in the increasingly Vintage-style playground that is classic.

When the community put the kaibosh on Legacy the last time we tried it, there were essentiually 2 tenants that had to be fulfilled before it made sense to split the format

1) That the formats were different enough to warrant a split.
2) That there would be enough people who would  play both formats.

I think 1) is pretty much here.  After MED3 and FTV:E, it looks like there will definitely be a change of the guard, though I'll add there's a chance that the cards won't do everything we expect in terms of the Meta.  But definitely with Oath of Druids in December, I just don't see what would be the two formats being all that similar.

However, 2) is the big one.  Let's face it.  Although I realize that there will be players who'll play both formats, if you split it in half, there won't be enough players to fire a tournament most nights.   I don't think we're quite there yet, but let's se what FTV:E and MED3 bring.

I will add a #3 to that list.

3) I don't want to split until Jan 1, 2010 at the earliest.  Because it's the CLASSIC Player of the Year Race - not the ONLINE ETERNAL Player of the Year Race.  It can be that next year.


Edited by dangerlinto - 11 Aug 2009 at 6:13am