Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
Good job at quoting the 'relevant' half, it was clearly meant to show the Ancestral/Brainstorm comparison is not fitting.
This does not mean Brainstorm is an innocuous card. Some people like to use Ancestral to demonstrate a card draw at a wrong mana cost can be very dangerous, and I versed it in a less provoking way:
For the record (Because this seems to have been missed) when I mentioned Recall it was not in talk of having it be unbanned. The point was that arguments for keeping something in the format that should be removed only look like reasonable arguments when you put them next to an accepted and tolerated card. These arguments, all exactly the same, break down when you put them next to obviously unsafe cards. Recall has no merit in itself being debated, the card is not safe for removal.
Because so many of the arguments used are based not on the merits of the card themselves but external abstractions like "Skill" and "Feels", not actual data points. Not that that matters anymore, the data is no longer valid because the card is protected from logical debate by Wotc.
I think his point is that cantrips are so good that you should either play them or play decks that prey on it like Dragon Stompy or Death and Taxes.
I suppose it's the same thing with the boogeyman Deathrite Shaman. Decks like Reanimator and dredge still work fine with Deathrites running around, albeit with some adjustments. But an argument people have is that the card (shaman) is so good that you need a darn good reason not to run it.
I find it funny that sure Deathrite is everywhere but so are all the blue cantrips. It's not like people are complaining about Deathrite in say Elves or Jund.
Nothing imo should be banned. A few things could be unbanned actually. I'd bring back Sensei's Divining Top if they really changed the rules about Slow play infractions. But I'm not sure there's a way to crack down on that.
Ancestral is obviously better than Brainstorm most of the time, but it's not -strictly- better because there are times where a Brainstorm lets you do something that Ancestral can't like set up an Infernal Tutor or your uncastable bricks, err miracle spells.
There are also times where brainstorm feels closer to Ancestral than to a cantrip.
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
Not complaining about Elves. Also not about Miracles, Storm, or S&T.
What worries me is too many creature based decks made of a balanced mix of threats and answered played on a fair mana curve - especially decks which run mostly cards that are independently good. So if Jund were a relevant deck, it would be part of the issue - another "good-stuff" fair creature deck. Yawn.
I personally don't like to see fair, creature decks above 50%. Fair, "good-stuff" creature decks, I don't like to see above 40%. We need space for combo, and for prison/hard-control in order to have a well balanced meta.
Right now the (potentially) offending decks all run cantrip, FoW, and DRS. One of those cards strongly pushes the overabundant play-style, the others do not.
Agreed - at this time.
Right now MTGTop8 has (non-elf) DRS decks at 36%. Considering the "tempo" versions are borderline midrange, that's a lot more than ideal.
To put it in context, if 36% of the meta was combo that would be okay. But if that 36% where all Storm variations (Ruby, ANT, TES, High-Tide, Solidarity, and SI), that would be a lot uglier. Back to the midrange plague, if the meta share grows, and holds, I will advocate a ban. I would hate to see the top-16 at Birmingham become anything close to representative of the meta-game.
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
For that matter, Serum Visions is also not strictly worse than Recall. Obviously broken!
Only if you don't understand the arguments in the first place.
"Skill-testing" is bull crap, totally agreed.
As for the other argument, we are not saying BS is okay because it fits in lots of different decks! Black Lotus also fits in just about any sort of deck.
The argument is that BS fits into many (strategically) different decks which can coexist in a strategically balanced meta.
You completely miss this because you are not personally concerned with strategic diversity, and you refuse to make an effort to understand that for some of us this is the primary concern.
Recall could go in every deck, but there is zero reason to believe the result would be a strategically balanced meta! We know TC and DTT didn't. We know Brainstorm can and has. That's the difference.
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
Here's the real rub.
When SDT was legal, I argued that Miracles was unique in being "hard control". The ban-bs-camp argued tooth and nail that, eg, the BUG midrange/control decks were absolutely control decks and very different from the delver decks.
Now that Miracles has receded, the anti-blue-camp are saying the midrange/control decks are the same as the Delver decks!
The irony is so rich!
Never going to happen.
Some folks have been holding out desperately for a BS ban (for years now). ArFo has ruined their dreams, and many are now frothing at the mouth.
Maybe we should just leave them to stew for a while?
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
I am not talking about the recent decision to allow none.
I'm talking about ~2004 when they said we couldn't have BoP & Llanowar standard legal at the same time because two dorks were too many.
A year or two later, Llanowar, BoP, Deep Shadow, and Boreal Druid were all in the same Standard. Point being WotC likes to flip-flops.
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
And what you are missing is that a lot of us are asking for strategic and (let's call it) tactical diversity. Brainstorm (+fetches) stifles this by making cantrips the best possible engine. We just want this engine to be turned down a notch (not killed off!!!) so that other engines will become viable. I guess a Ponder + Preordain ban could achieve the same thing but I like to have the least amount of cards on the banlist.
I understand that.
I do understand the desire for more engines that support fair magic. But I don't believe health of the format hinges on that for the reasons above.
- Personally I'm less concerned with diversity in engines because they are not the most interactive parts of the deck. I want decks to play differently against each other. I care a lot less how each deck manages its own resources (aka, how they play with themselves).
- I think a lot of the other engines are on par (or close to it) in the decks they support. the difference is that they are narrow and support fewer archetypes. And they mostly support unfair strategies. If you're playing fair MTG, cantrips are the best. Playing combo or prison, not so much.
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
The second point feels like progress. A lot of people here remember fair decks not running Brainstorm. There used to be zoo, goblins, Merfolk, deadguy and some fringe ones. Prison decks run thalia or chalice and related cards which hasn't changed much. Combo is still diverse.
The first point is wrong and a bit bizarre?
I decided to back up my previous post with some numbers. I'm on a train and bored so why not?
Per mtg top 8 for the full 2011 year the following fair decks without brainstorm but with > 1% meta share are:
Merfolk 7%
Zoo 7%
Goblins 3%
The rock 4%
Guess how many fair decks without brainstorm have > 1% meta share now? (Note: I consider thalia decks prison not fair)
Still wondering why Top was banned... Every major paper event since the ban has had every round go to time++.
Oh I understand all this, I just think it's a hollow and shit argument. Because against my comment is where you can put in another broken card and the argument still holds. Here:
The argument is that Recall fits into many (strategically) different decks which can coexist in a strategically balanced meta.
Looks weak to me. But Recall would go in Control, Midrange, Combo... Strategic derversity...
Any yes, it could go into everything and it might not be balanced, but we already have a card that does that.
Also my argument is not about Cantrips, I am not looking to axe them all like I think that would make Legacy better. Just that one, very very broken card.
We have a card that already stifles every fucking thing, it's that card alone that in my mind is the issue, not the idea that the Blue engine would not exist after or even continue to be dominate. I'm not a total idiot, I am aware it would be.
So just to clarify (though I assume you knew what I meant), my point about Deathrite is that the decks that people are complaining about that have that creature are only blue decks. Actually, probably only 2, Czech Pile and Grixis Delver. I haven't seen BUG Delver post a ton of good results lately.
Hm....I would personally like more combo decks in the meta. I find it more interesting when you could face Storm or Sneak show. Right now, where I play it's only really Reanimator. One problem IMHO is the lack of good combo cards being printed and the 2nd being power creep of creatures. Once upon a time Tarmogoyf and Goblin Lackey were seen as oppressive.
I would agree Deathrite does push more than Force and cantrips into making a deck builder decide to play midrange. But if the metric that people are using as an issue (% of the meta), than it's just going to be another blue variant. Canadian Threshold would be my guess. Grixis I still think is a better deck than Threshold, although getting my lands wasted, my fetches Stifled and staring down a Goose with a Plow in hand sucks.
Lately it seems the innovations in the format are really limited to Stompy decks, especially with Karn slotting into some of the Sol decks. The Chalice shell seems to be the only real area that is getting significant attention for brewing. Just lately saw the Mono-Black Stompy shell, which swaps out the Red cards for Lilianas and some black kill spells essentially.
The format comparisons of Legacy turning into Vintage light of Cantrips vs Prison vs Combo seem pretty apt. "Combo" being where you have random stuff like Burn (7 card combo!), Turbo Depths, BR Reanimator, and Elves.
There are currently 3042 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 3042 guests)