He's just so cute with his toddler-esque opinionation!

Drain is completely safe in the legacy environment, its mana accel potential is extremely situational, cannot be planned for, and is virtually unusable in most situations. The vast majority of builds that would use it at all have very few colorless costs, and since the cards mana generation is completely random in its amount and timing it does not allow for a build around in any way. You can't throw fact or fiction, and gifts in a deck hoping to play them off of a lucky mana drain during your main phase, if those cards were good in the format they would already be played, and they obviously are not.

Similarly there are already FAR FAR more powerful cards in the format serving the same purpose that are not Banned. Counterbalance and Force of Will both make mana drain look like poop in the legacy format and are completely legal.

quote:

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Originally posted by Random-Miser:
Hmm you guys really are not very good at legacy I guess O.o

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quote:

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Originally posted by Random-Miser:
Is there a deck were you would autoinclude Mana drain OVER force of will? Of course not... So why should an inferior card be on a banned list whose main purpose is to include cards that are actually degenerate, like skullclamp and Bazaar?

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Force Of Will and Mana Drain are both counters, but both have completely different functions. It's not inferior to Force of Will, it's completely different and you know this. Stop being a tool.

Fact or Fiction would definitly be a 4 of if Mana Drain was unbanned, or do you forget about how the days of 4 FoF vintage?

You cannot build a deck around relying on Mana drain for acceleration. It would be like using Mana clash as you primary win condition. You have absolutely no control on when, or how much mana you will get off of a drain, in the mean time you would be getting crushed by EVERY singe deck in the format that uses creatures as a win condition. How good is Fact or Fiction vs Fish?, VS Goblins? VS Fae? VS Belcher? VS Tendrils? The answer of course is that it is beyond terrible.

Is Drain good enough to see play? Of course. Is it better then the unbanned cards that fill the same role? Not even close. Drain is only situationally better then counterspell, and counterspell sees VERY little play itself, and is not even considered to be close to a problem in the format. Most of the time the drain is only gong to give you 1-2 colorless mana, and you can't build your deck around hoping to drain force of will as your primary strategy because, well...that's just a beyond terrible strategy.

Drain is unusable as part of any degenerate combo or decktype, decks that would choose to include drain have a natural weakness to a very large chunk of the environment, and there are already superior cards in counterbalance and force of will that fulfill the same roles. Most decks would never choose to run drain over counterbalance, and NONE would ever choose to run drain over force of will. Most wouldn't even run it over Daze, or spellstutter sprite for that matter. The reason? At double blue its too slow, and too clunky in the early game, and without sticking power it doesn't have enough impact to be worth the trade off of that clunkiness. Mid to late game the mana boost it gives no longer even matters since by that point you should have no issue playing all your stuff anyway.

Even under your situation, are you saying that a turn 3 MAIN PHASE fact or fiction is somehow format breaking? If that's the case then why isn't it seeing play with birds and heirarchs already?

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Originally posted by Random-Miser:
Fact or fiction was never good in vintage,

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Honestly? I think you stone stupid and have no idea what you are talking about.

quote:

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Originally posted by Random-Miser:
Most decks would never choose to run drain over counterbalance, and NONE would ever choose to run drain over force of will. Most wouldn't even run it over Daze, or spellstutter sprite for that matter. The reason? At double blue its too slow, and too clunky in the early game, and without sticking power it doesn't have enough impact to be worth the trade off of that clunkiness. Mid to late game the mana boost it gives no longer even matters since by that point you should have no issue playing all your stuff anyway.

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I'm confused as to how anyone who presumably has been playing Magic for more than 5 minutes doesn't see that Mana Drain is insanely broken. The point isn't that you would play it over Counterbalance, Force, Daze, or whatever it's that everyone would play it in addition to all of those.

The reason Counterspell sees little play is that aside from countering the spell there is no added benefit for a format that can be fast. You have to keep the mana open (ie: It's not Force or Daze) and not playing something on your turn just for the chance to counter something on theirs isn't worth it. Not playing something for the chance to counter something on their turn AND ramp up to something big on your turn is worth it.

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Originally posted by Random-Miser:
Let me get this straight... you know nothing about vintage, didn't even know it was a competitive format, yet your telling me, one of the best vintage players on the planet, that Fact or Fiction is a highly played card?

Seriously? And you think you are correct why exactly?

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can we ban him now?

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Originally posted by TimeBeing:
can we ban him now?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Malice327:
WAIIIIt, can we at least ask him who he is so we can look up his rating? What if he IS one of the best vintage players on the planet? Wouldn't that be a bit amusing.

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Best player in magic history.

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40 Eye of Ugin and 4 foil Eye of Ugin for Black Lotus!?

And yes it is a matter of whether or not it would be played INSTEAD of any of the other cards I mentioned. If it is not strictly better then the cards that are legal then why is it banned? One more counter in the format is hardly devastating, especially one that costs UU. If instead of add X mana it was "Draw X Cards" then yes you would have a point that it should be banned, as is its not much more powerful then normal counterspell since the mana gained can rarely be utilized anyway. If counterspell was being a really big problem in the format then once again there would be an argument for keeping drain on the list, but not only is it not a big problem, it is very obvious that it NEVER will be. 90% of the time drain is a counterspell that might give you a free top activation as a bonus... on rare occasions it can allow for plays like a turn 3 jace for UU, which is hardly anything to right home about in a format full of turn 2-4 kills.

The fact is that its just not good enough to warrant banning. This thing has no potential to be format warping, its not even an autoinclude in oncolor decks. Skullclamp, and Gush are examples of cards that should be on the banned list, not barely playable cards like Mana drain.

If they banned counterspell you would think that the DCI was bat**** out of their minds, Mana drain is only a marginally better counterspell, hell more then half the time it doesn't do anything more then counterspell does since you have nothing to spend the mana on anyway.

Junichi--I <3 that article so much ^_^

Seriously though, I have won more t1 tournies then i can remember.... and no I don't have alzheimers.

quote:

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Originally posted by Random-Miser:
Hmm you guys really are not very good at legacy I guess O.o

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and you are? accomplishments? I did not see you win the gp in columbus...

btw, a search of your name on deckcheck.net, starcitygames deck database, and tcgplayer deck database yields.. zippo with your name on it.

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Drain is completely safe in the legacy environment, its mana accel potential is extremely situational, cannot be planned for, and is virtually unusable in most situations. The vast majority of builds that would use it at all have very few colorless costs, and since the cards mana generation is completely random in its amount and timing it does not allow for a build around in any way. You can't throw fact or fiction, and gifts in a deck hoping to play them off of a lucky mana drain during your main phase, if those cards were good in the format they would already be played, and they obviously are not.

Similarly there are already FAR FAR more powerful cards in the format serving the same purpose that are not Banned. Counterbalance and Force of Will both make mana drain look like poop in the legacy format and are completely legal.

Is there a deck were you would autoinclude Mana drain OVER force of will? Of course not... So why should an inferior card be on a banned list whose main purpose is to include cards that are actually degenerate, like skullclamp and Bazaar?

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why are you trying to argue mana drain OVER force of will, including one in the deck doesnt mean exclusion of the other.

you are the laughing stock of eternal formats on every forum you've ever been on, noone takes you seriously, everyone knows you're a troll and have nothing to back up your claims, this is just a joke. if you're so good, you'd have taken down every single eternal tournament since forever. the fact that you've actually accomplished nothing in any constructed format, aside as a joke of a player, says a lot of itself.

here's some facts for you to get thru that thick skull of yours.

1. you're an idiot
2. you're an idiot (yes, you're that big of an idiot that this warrant listing multiple times)
3. you talk so much crap outta your ass, without any significant proof, or your play abilities to back up didly squat
4. can and will, torch you at any given opportunity. bbq random-miser, mmmmm.. who's got some A-1?
5. you're an idiot
6. you're a liar

quote:

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Originally posted by Random-Miser:
Seriously though, I have won more t1 tournies then i can remember.... and no I don't have alzheimers.

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seems contradictory to your statement below

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And yes the luck thing is for real reals, as many witnesses can attest.... the number of times I have flipped up the 4th Force in my deck with confidant on the turn i would otherwise win is astronomically high. In the finals of a recent t1 event for 2k I played a turn 1 adnauseum with double force backup, revealing all three other adnauseums and the third force as the top 4 cards >.<. Still ended up with a thousand bucks, but wtf?

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i call shennanigans. you first claim you win a lot of t1 tourneys.. let us stress a few things. First of all, these can not be within the dream realm, this must exist within reality. Secondly, playtesting randomly on mws is not a tourney, and dc'ing is a loss. Solitaring, or playtesting vs yer dog isnt a tourney. Thirdly, man up and stop yapping excuses for the times you lose.. which I'd most probably place in the high 90s for percentile.

7. rephrase #6, you're a bad liar
8. you're a whiner
9. you're an idiot
10. you're still an idiot.

©

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Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.
-Christopher Hitchens

Thanks,
Jazaray

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A Plastered Dragon Original Limerick:
There was a nice lassie named Jaz
Many wished to have what she has,
A delicate face,
A soft warm embrace,
And a whole lot of bedroom pizzazz.

WeedIan: Jazaray is like MOTL's Mom.