Community

oh yeah, he got reprinted in 9th.

so, that's grim lavamancer, wild nacatl, tarmogoyf, steppe lynx, kird ape, loam lion, KOTR, wooly thoctar, watchwold, kavu predator, lightning bolt, path to exile, lightning helix, and incinerate all modern legal.

combo has pact of negation, disrupting shoal, ponder, preordain, empty the warrens, pyromancer ascension, blazing shoal, pestermite, deceiver exarch, splinter twin, kiki-jiki, mirror breaker, melira, sylvok outcast, pyromancer's swath, grapeshot, manamorphose, rite of flame, desperate ritual, seething song, tolaria west, muddle the mixture, and peer through depths.

12post has emrakul, through the breach, GSZ, cloudpost, reap and sow, sylvan scrying, primeval titan, vesuva, and eye of ugin.

affinity has darksteel citadel, mox opal, memnite, springleaf drum, tempered steel, steel overseer, master of etherium, thoughtcast, arcbound ravager, shrapnel blast, frogmite, and galvanic blast all modern legal.

control doesn't have jtms, bitterblosson ancestral visions, force of will, or even counterspell.

Sep 10, 2011 -- 2:41AM, Razorgore wrote:

 

There is literally nothing busted about goyf. It certainly represents the upper limit of acceptable efficiency for vanilla creatures, but goyf is exactly that - an efficient vanilla creature. Goyf is often the hammer in a lot of decks, but he's hardly the engine of any given deck, the way pestermite/exarch can be, or noble hierarch can be.

I'm dead serious when I say that griping about goyf would cease on a massive scale if it only costed $15.

I think you misunderstand me, my problem with Goyf isn't the pricepoint, Bob is balanced but terribly expensive because it has been out of print for 4 and a half years. But Goyf's scaling ability is simply something far too strong for the mana cost given to him (there was a stink about this when Goyf was $3-5.) The card didn't become expensive without good reason, and is only extremely expensive in comparison to all of the other good bears out there in testament to how over-the-line Goyf is. There will always be replacements for it, but the card itself is a problem because of the niche it gets shoe-horned into. If it were simply a , there would be no argument that could hold water against it. It was created to break a rule of design, and simple proved to be a rule that shouldn't be broken, and as such the card shouldn't be reintroduced to the game because all future chase-bears will have to be designed to match it's power if they hope to have a shot at Modern's format.

To be fair, perhaps I'm playing with the crystal ball too much on this one, but points of Power translate into damage, the same kind of damage produced by burn spells, and points of toughness create resilience to burn spells or black spells which -x/-y UEOT removal. A creature that so cheaply produces both, and checks both graveyards to do that to discourage your opponent from playing several card types and encourage you to just adds up far too quickly to be good for the future of the format. Kird Ape and Blastoderm -like effects are one thing, even the upcoming Boneyard Wurm has enough limitations to justify it, but if Tarmogoyf really has to become the game's gauntlet for creature quality, then there really aren't many other decks that will end up being worth playing unless they kill on t3.

Sep 11, 2011 -- 6:04AM, jblaze4lif82 wrote:

This format needs goyf.  Without goyf why would anyone play anything but splinter twin, combo, or post . UW  Control only had a chance bc it splashed green for goyf.

Because without Blazing Shoal or 12 Post, Zoo will have a stranglehold on the format. It happened in OverExtended as well. UW aggro would be fine if Sword of the Meek were unbanned, and could survive in a format where Exarch Twin was the top combo deck, SotM or none. There's no "need" for goyf other than to create ridiculous bodies, cheap and fast, which Zoos do anyways with EVERY OTHER CREATURE. The primary difference being that other creatures don't come out as 5/6 or 6/7 for 2 mana. Knight of the Reliquary , for example comes out after using fetchlands, but a land a turn, and the life expense of using them builds up fast enough to offset being a large body for 3 mana. By contrast, just for playing an Instant, a Sorcery, cracking a fetchland and having a creature of yours destroyed, Goyf turns into a 4/5. Sacrificed an artifact? 5/6. Let an Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Jace Beleren get destroyed? 6/7.  In the course of a game, it simply happens too fast, and the scope of both player's graveyard just makes it sillier. The only way to survive a goyf is to not play your cards, or to remove it (like anything else).

I dunno goyf is awesome and he better stay in this format!

Indeed, I suppose only time will tell, but experience says Goyf is too powerful to reprint as Goyf, and if Goyf-power vanillas don't saturate the field, Goyf gets more comparatively powerful with every set allowed into the format. As it is (with Blazing Shoal , Cloudpost and Zoo being the standard), your point is absolutely valid, but there have only been 4 blocks since Tarmogoyf was printed and 3 before which are allowed in the Modern format. It may be a few years before there is enough viable competition that Goyf oppresses, but the effect it will have is innevitable much in the same way that Survival of the Fittest was just "a good card" or "just a powerful enchantment" until other enchantments since just weren't able to compete and it became enabled by Vengevine , Fauna Shaman and even Tarmogoyf .

For the moment, Goyf is fine, but I don't think we should approach the format in such a short-sighted manner. Regardless "it will be what it will be" as they say. My point isn't that "Goyf is too powerful to be a Magic card", it's that when taken off of the kitchen table in it's own deck, Goyf gets too big, too fast and oppresses too many decks to be healthy for a t3.5-4 based format, no matter "how powerful" said format is.