All B/R update speculation.

[Megadeus]

And many people think fetches are a problem. But it's more likely one card gets banned rather than 10. Every time I see someone say that I facepalm mentally

[Andy_Prime]

And many people think fetches are a problem. But it's more likely one card gets banned rather than 10. Every time I see someone say that I facepalm mentally

Fetches are the problem, They enable all kinda issues for legacy (and any format they are legal in).

They make Brainstorm much more broken.
They make delve far better.
They make DRS almost always provide mana.
They enable 4 color decks with few mana issues.
They made top broken with the ability to shuffle stuff away easily, leading to its ban.
Fetches also add alot of shuffling and cutting the game. Shaving many minutes of time out of each round leading to more draws.
Fetches open up many opportunities for cheating because players get to handle the decks that much more often. That is how the Rookie of the year cheated and a few other people that year that got caught stacking their opponents deck while resolving a fetch. How many didn't get caught?

Is it unlikely that fetches will every get banned. Totally, will never happen. And yes it is more likely 1 card gets banned then 10. But that does not mean that fetches are not at the root of the issue.

[Ronald Deuce]

Sidneyious keeping the "70-percenters" honest.

[Dice_Box]

On the Salt Mine cast in the aftermath of Tops removal, I commented on Fetches. The talk about time wasted with Top (One of the issues stated it it's removal) at the time was seen as a joke, something to be shouted down. But it was a true criticism of the card. Yet it was a dual criticism. Top alone did not cause all the issues, top and Fetches did so and thus the comment on Top stood true. They were not going to remove fetches from the format, so Top was taken out.

The comment is also true for Brainstorm. The card is phenomenally weaker without fetches, but they are not going away. When pointing at Fetches and saying they are a problem, it's a dual standard, because every argument made about Brainstorm, sans time, can be made about Fetches. But yes, they are a problem.

But the defence of Brainstorm is, honestly, "People like playing it". I have made a more in-depth post about that here and I feel like it's the most true statement in Legacy.

We have Pillars, we have 4, one exists because it has to:
Force.
One exists because it's the driving idea behind 1.5:
Duals
Two exist because of the outrage caused by their removal:
Brainstorm and Fetches

When someone says "X" is an issue, the question is whether you agree with it or not. But deflecting to "Y" really does not help anyone. Are fetches a blight on the format? No, I personally feel they add much for all. Is Brainstorm a Blight on the Format? That's a question I have answered my views on and others here know. Is talking about one to deflect from the other in any way honest? No, it's just changing the topic without meeting and debating the issues. There is no honesty in saying "Quick, look over there" and then running away.

[Julian23]

I'd love to see Fetchlands go. It's the single kind of card I want removed from competitive play the most. I couldn't care less about Brainstorm.

Fetchlands waste so much time, it's among the Top5 worst things to ever happen to competitive Magic. Especially with regards to broadcasting. It's such a pain in the ass. The only "upside" is that probably 80% of people don't shuffle enough after a Fetchland, making it slightly more bearable as a spectator, but generally sucking even more with regards to the integrity of the game.

[Barook]

Sidneyious keeping the "70-percenters" honest.

It's true for the Online metagame, though:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/legacy

[taconaut]

I don't know about everybody else, but I am super happy to be able to pay a couple life and a couple minutes to help make sure my mana is fine most of the time. It's really not that big a deal, whereas losing to mana/color screw/flood feels miserable. I get that it has attendant problems but I think they're generally worth the trouble.

[juzamjimjams]

I don't know about everybody else, but I am super happy to be able to pay a couple life and a couple minutes to help make sure my mana is fine most of the time. It's really not that big a deal, whereas losing to mana/color screw/flood feels miserable. I get that it has attendant problems but I think they're generally worth the trouble.

I think the major issue people have with the fetches is the impact it has on game play in terms of search and shuffle time, as opposed to the color fixing (speaking in general terms here). Personally, I really enjoy playing with fetchlands, though I think that the impact it has on time consumption for tournament play - especially in terms of broadcasting - is a nightmare.

[taconaut]

I think the major issue people have with the fetches is the impact it has on game play in terms of search and shuffle time, as opposed to the color fixing (speaking in general terms here). Personally, I really enjoy playing with fetchlands, though I think that the impact it has on time consumption for tournament play - especially in terms of broadcasting - is a nightmare.

I don't watch streams of Magic, so maybe that's why it doesn't irk me as much, but I feel like my opponents spend more time tanking in any given match than they do shuffling. I really don't think it impacts the clock that much. That being said, I feel like a lot of the people who object to them are also the people that think slow play warnings should be issued on every turn that takes longer than thirty seconds, so I might just be less sensitive to it.

[Sidneyious]

I always keep the clock in mind and do stuff fast.

I used to watch gameplay footage but I get annoyed when I see them taking forever on a decision they already know what to do.

[morgan_coke]

I always keep the clock in mind and do stuff fast.

I used to watch gameplay footage but I get annoyed when I see them taking forever on a decision they already know what to do.

If i'm playing modo and someone is taking too long, I will absolutely bail on the match.

[Mr. Froggy]

If i'm playing modo and someone is taking too long, I will absolutely bail on the match.

I once told a guy on MODO, politely, to hurry up his play a bit. He legit blasted me and left.

[CptHaddock]

I once told a guy on MODO, politely, to hurry up his play a bit. He legit blasted me and left.

I do the passive aggressive thing and give them the aggro question mark.

[Crimhead]

When someone says "X" is an issue, the question is whether you agree with it or not. But deflecting to "Y" really does not help anyone. Are fetches a blight on the format? No, I personally feel they add much for all. Is Brainstorm a Blight on the Format? That's a question I have answered my views on and others here know. Is talking about one to deflect from the other in any way honest? No, it's just changing the topic without meeting and debating the issues. There is no honesty in saying "Quick, look over there" and then running away.

I don't think the format has any "issues".

But it is entirely reasonable to insist that any "issues" are the result of synergy/interactions between more than 1 card. This is not a deflection or dishonesty. It's simply a more sophisticated analysis of the format and why things are the way they are.

[Cave]

edit: stupid content (answered a very old post)

[Fox]

I just want to take a moment and point out the fun to be had reading the posts in the 700's pages (perhaps some in the 600s as well), where you'll routinely see the sentiment that Blade isn't good enough to compete in legacy and without CB there can be no control. Also, we all dodged a huge bullet with Path of Ancestry - the first time I read that one I thought wotc just printed a land that taps for no mana but gets to scry 1.

We can point to BS, DRS, Fetches as potential issues but each one creates more ways to play legacy than they inhibit. The color scheme may be skewed, but we're generally seeing more format diversity and more legacy players (because they keep cost of entry to the format down). We could tie all 3 cards to contributing to the price disparity of blue duals vs non-blue duals, but they all decrease the raw amount of dual lands (even non-blue) one might need to have regardless of color combinations - balance based on finance isn't great, but the barriers to entry are real and I don't see how banning any piece of that trinity (not that they all have to be played together) will result in me seeing more new players in my local meta. Just want to quickly clarify that cost of the format is specific to number of players, not trying to link cost of format with archetype diversity based on viability.

Diversity is a pretty healthy metric to measure cards and the balance issues they may create. If you want to talk about diversity issues in legacy, Counterbalance (which is currently totally irrelevant) poses the greatest latent risk to format diversity; after that we really need to start looking at Probe. Past those two, I think I'd still probably look at Surgical and maybe Ancient Tomb before Fetch/DRS/Bstorm. I'm sure we'll get someone saying CB is totally fine, but just ask yourself how likely you are [now vs then] to see someone play black without green & vice versa, how likely is it that an opponent can play USea or Bayou or USea + Bayou without having Decay, or how likely you are to see straight U/R or U/B.

I get the power level~amount of play is high on that group of three, but how is the state of legacy going to get better with an amount of them gone - what is your metric? Let's look past differences on ticking time bombs (CB/Probe), where is the format actually going if your ban happens?

Without DRS I see maybe format-slowing, color identity tightening, and much heavier reliance on poorly-designed yard hate (uninteractive you can't win stuff b/c one card). I don't think we'd see Delver moving away from Grixis presentation for instance; here I'd predict more midrange'y Delver + Wasteland meets Czech Pile's SCMs rather than everyone moving to BUG Delver. You ban Brainstorm and FoW use drops so immediately expect more B/R Reanimator style opponents and discard spells (sounds a little like modern, no?). You ban Fetches and legacy goes into a financial death spiral unless wotc is willing to abolish the RL. What differing conclusions are we arriving at?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I just want to take a moment and point out the fun to be had reading the posts in the 700's pages (perhaps some in the 600s as well), where you'll routinely see the sentiment that Blade isn't good enough to compete in legacy and without CB there can be no control. Also, we all dodged a huge bullet with Path of Ancestry - the first time I read that one I thought wotc just printed a land that taps for no mana but gets to scry 1.

My heroes are the two users who voted for Phyrexian Dreadnought.

[Nestalim]

My two cents are ont Deahtrite.

2018 will be rich in Legacy coverage, and with all of those DrS being rampant, I do believe that wotc will ban it just to prevent drs mirror from happening, as Bug or 4c match up zre just a boring grind fiesta and terrible to watch.

[Ronald Deuce]

Not to rip on anyone, but if we're discussing the ban of (frankly) totally fair—though powerful—cards, why not axe Delver of Secrets?

Strongest attacker in all of Magic, pitches to Force of Will, pushes boatloads of creatures out of the 1-cmc slot, and homogenizes up to a quarter of the format into "Blue/X Value."

I get that banning Delver could be really stupid for a number of reasons and that other cards (for the purposes of this thread, Brainstorm and fetchlands) are components of a much larger number of decks, but if we're looking for a card that's stifling creativity and funneling deck-building into a really narrow set of builds with little variance, it seems to me that there's a pretty evident culprit.

After however long, I'm still not interested in a ban. It just strikes me that people are continuing to go after nuanced and versatile cards with plenty of potential (in the case of DRS, it's being realized) rather than the ones that threaten to turn Legacy into Expensive Modern. I post this more as a thought exercise than an attempt to push an agenda.

[kombatkiwi]

I don't think they should ban anything. I don't think that any of the 'pillars' (BS/Force/Fetches/Duals) should be banned for format identity reasons.
DRS is the next most ubiquitous card, and while it is powerful it doesn't produce any particularly obnoxious gamestates and is easy to answer (unlike CB/Top for example).
Ban DRS and people will simply move on to the next best FoW/Brainstorm deck and start to complain about whatever card features in that (Delver, Show and Tell, etc). (This is not exactly a fresh take but I think it's worth repeating).

2018 will be rich in Legacy coverage, and with all of those DrS being rampant, I do believe that wotc will ban it just to prevent drs mirror from happening, as Bug or 4c match up zre just a boring grind fiesta and terrible to watch.

I would much rather watch blue mirrors where there are typically interesting decisions every turn than a lopsided matchup like Storm vs Goblins or something.
If I had a tinfoil hat I would probably suggest wotc wants to make legacy look like shit considering their decisions around the recent euro tournaments...