All B/R update speculation.

[Norm]

The lack of SNT complaints right now saddens me. Where's the anger? Quitters...

Seriously though, it's interesting to watch the cycle of complaints move round and round within this thread as time passes.

[Mr. Froggy]

The lack of SNT complaints right now saddens me. Where's the anger? Quitters...

Seriously though, it's interesting to watch the cycle of complaints move round and round within this thread as time passes.

I still hate S&T, even if I run the deck that kills it.

[Megadeus]

I honestly think I hate playing against true name than show and tell. Not that either is particularly fun to play against. Maybe it's just because I'm salty that it killed off the one deck I truly enjoyed playing

[Barook]

The lack of SNT complaints right now saddens me. Where's the anger? Quitters...

Seriously though, it's interesting to watch the cycle of complaints move round and round within this thread as time passes.

S&T currently doesn't put up the results or warps the meta enough to warrant a ban. It's still a shitty, unfun card, though.

The only thing that remains constant is the bitching about Brainstorm. If it hadn't been for its popularity, it would have been banned long ago.

[Megadeus]

I say start unbanning stuff. if nothing else, you unban a card that makes no impact, but at least makes people that want to play shitty cards happy. I'm still on the unban Survival train.

[routlaw]

The lack of SNT complaints right now saddens me. Where's the anger? Quitters...

Pretty sure a good chunk of people still hate that card, Wizards of the Coast just managed to print something that makes 50% of matches miserable instead of the 10% of matches SNT ruins.

A more interesting question is if the power creep of show and tell (due to Griselbanned or instant kill targets like in Omnitell) essentially "requires" that superior blue tempo threats like Delver of Secrets also exist as a counterbalance to the card/strategy.

[Dzra]

The only thing that remains constant is the bitching about Brainstorm. If it hadn't been for its popularity, it would have been banned long ago.

Because a skill-intensive card that does nothing but improves the consistency of decks and allows for greater diversity in the format is public enemy number one.

[Lemnear]

I say start unbanning stuff. if nothing else, you unban a card that makes no impact, but at least makes people that want to play shitty cards happy. I'm still on the unban Survival train.

I still doubt that we will see Survival back in times in which WotC's Design hovers 90% of the time around creatures. They printed Fauna Shaman, Birthing Pod and GSZ to take Survivals place. My hope is lost.

Personally I'm annoyed by all the love S&T got in recent years as if the card would need it in any way. Promoting combo archetypes by dumbing those down to 3/4cc I-win-buttons deserves all the hate it gets. T1 Delver + a million softcounter is also a questionable game. All those was present before TNN offended midrange deck design. I can't get behind the boost of Tempo, Combo and midrange in blue despite being a blue Mage myself. Sometimes I ask myself why I even bother with complex decks if I just could pay 3 to win the game instead of 7 in storm. Hell, if black powercreep would catch up with blue we already had 3cc Ad Nauseams/Necropotence back or 5/5 haste for RR

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Because a skill-intensive card

What a meaningless phrase.

that does nothing but improves the consistency of decks and allows for greater diversity in the format is public enemy number one.

"Greater diversity."

It also does, "Make basically every deck start off with the same core of cards" but I guess that's not a thing we're counting in the tally.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I still doubt that we will see Survival back in times in which WotC's Design hovers 90% of the time around creatures. They printed Fauna Shaman, Birthing Pod and GSZ to take Survivals place. My hope is lost.

Personally I'm annoyed by all the love S&T got in recent years as if the card would need it in any way. Promoting combo archetypes by dumbing those down to 3/4cc I-win-buttons deserves all the hate it gets. T1 Delver + a million softcounter is also a questionable game. All those was present before TNN offended midrange deck design. I can't get behind the boost of Tempo, Combo and midrange in blue despite being a blue Mage myself. Sometimes I ask myself why I even bother with complex decks if I just could pay 3 to win the game instead of 7 in storm. Hell, if black powercreep would catch up with blue we already had 3cc Ad Nauseams/Necropotence back or 5/5 haste for RR

You're quite right, but I need to defend Tempo a bit.
Tempo lacks card advantage and is very vulnerable to several Cards/tactics bee it NicFit, basic lands, Trini/Moon, Thalia/goblins, etc. (Not that all of these make more than 10 % of field, but they still do exist.) More importantly, Tempo needs a constant stream of right answers in right time to not let the opponent get out of the headlock. Draw a Bolt instead of Pierce and you may lose the game. Combine this with zero CA and Tempo survives only on tempo (duh) and filtering, esp. Brainstorm that throws away chaff and brings new three. There's very little unfair about this deck (lets not bring StifleWasteDaze, that's the opponent's fault, he should not have played usual manabase), except for Brainstorm that makes the post-mulligan mulligans possible. Even then, Tempo may easily lose once it either runs out of steam, or is stopped by some bomb (most notably CB, Terminus or opposing StifleWasteDaze).
Same goes for non-SnT combo. It's not that easy to make the perfect chain when there's that guy sitting across the table, activelly trying to hinder your game. Of course that there are those turn1/turn2 kills, the equivalents of StifleWasteDazeGG situations that Tempo is able of, but mostly it's not that easy and fast, esp. as not many players play TES and there are even less of them who play SI or Belcher. (And even those need at least some chain to resolve, be it anything that simple as three rites plus EtW.)

What I find disgusting about SnT (and those who play the deck should correct me if I'm wrong, as I never held it in hands), is the fact that it needs to resolve one card and the complexity of decisions seem to be as deep as "do I have the 2nd card?" which is hardly comparable to tutors' chain, Russian roullete with AdN or (speaking of Tempo) constant survival managment with cantrips and (soft)counters.

And, I also think that there's need for Delver and Goyf to counter the ultrafast strategies. (But I'm sucker for Goyf - much less for Delver, it's a stupid card - so maybe I'm biased.) Otoh, I played Thresh long before Delver and it wasn't that problematic to stop combo, in fact it was easier, because instead of twelve creatures, there were only nine or ten of them (depending on how many Cliques you've played) with the remaining slots occupied by Snares and Pierces... and Clique itself is quite strong against combo.

[Lemnear]

You're quite right, but I need to defend Tempo a bit.
Tempo lacks card advantage and is very vulnerable to several Cards/tactics bee it NicFit, basic lands, Trini/Moon, Thalia/goblins, etc. (Not that all of these make more than 10 % of field, but they still do exist.) More importantly, Tempo needs a constant stream of right answers in right time to not let the opponent get out of the headlock. Draw a Bolt instead of Pierce and you may lose the game. Combine this with zero CA and Tempo survives only on tempo (duh) and filtering, esp. Brainstorm that throws away chaff and brings new three. There's very little unfair about this deck (lets not bring StifleWasteDaze, that's the opponent's fault, he should not have played usual manabase), except for Brainstorm that makes the post-mulligan mulligans possible. Even then, Tempo may easily lose once it either runs out of steam, or is stopped by some bomb (most notably CB, Terminus or opposing StifleWasteDaze).
Same goes for non-SnT combo. It's not that easy to make the perfect chain when there's that guy sitting across the table, activelly trying to hinder your game. Of course that there are those turn1/turn2 kills, the equivalents of StifleWasteDazeGG situations that Tempo is able of, but mostly it's not that easy and fast, esp. as not many players play TES and there are even less of them who play SI or Belcher. (And even those need at least some chain to resolve, be it anything that simple as three rites plus EtW.)

What I find disgusting about SnT (and those who play the deck should correct me if I'm wrong, as I never held it in hands), is the fact that it needs to resolve one card and the complexity of decisions seem to be as deep as "do I have the 2nd card?" which is hardly comparable to tutors' chain, Russian roullete with AdN or (speaking of Tempo) constant survival managment with cantrips and (soft)counters.

And, I also think that there's need for Delver and Goyf to counter the ultrafast strategies. (But I'm sucker for Goyf - much less for Delver, it's a stupid card - so maybe I'm biased.) Otoh, I played Thresh long before Delver and it wasn't that problematic to stop combo, in fact it was easier, because instead of twelve creatures, there were only nine or ten of them (depending on how many Cliques you've played) with the remaining slots occupied by Snares and Pierces... and Clique itself is quite strong against combo.

You are obviously correct here. It just bugs me that if I'm not playing Miracles or Elves, I have a constant uphill battle against the 2 scenarios I described and a reason I have not taken storm to a tournament for quite a while (not to talk about tournament play in general because of lacking time).

I'm maybe just bored of seeing people giggle behind autopilot-hands/decks with them getting goodie after goodie from WotC while there are no decent cards printed in ages for classic combo decks like Doomsday, Aluren or Enchantress (with us being in the middle of an enchantment block lol).

If the most difficult decision to make in the whole format boils down to the question, which creatures to run alongside of Delver and SFM, something is fishy.

[Barook]

Because a skill-intensive card that does nothing but improves the consistency of decks and allows for greater diversity in the format is public enemy number one.

Cabal Therapy is also a skill-intensive card, but how often do you people see bitch about it? Or to stay in color, how often do people bitch that Ponder is broken?

A lot of that required "skill" gets negated by brainless "Brainstorm in response, find answer" or "Brainstorm in response to hide key card from discard" which actually lessens the skill requirement. Why? Because a trained monkey can do that and most of the time, people do get away with it by the sheer power of the card. I don't even want to know how often bad keeps were rewarded by a lucky Brainstorm fixing a shitty hand that wouldn't have been keepable under any other circumstance.

Pushing out non-blue strategies and replacing them with blue decks playing Brainstorm can hardly be called a "greater" diversity when nearly 90% of a GP Top 16 is blue and runs Brainstorm. A+ grade diversity right there. Even if you don't see a problem with an absolutely blue-dominated format, it will hurt everyone in the end when the required blue staples have such high prices that Legacy dies off like Vintage. Next station: 300$ Underground Sea, enjoy the ride.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I'm maybe just bored of seeing people giggle behind autopilot-hands/decks with them getting goodie after goodie from WotC while there are no decent cards printed in ages for classic combo decks like Doomsday, Aluren or Enchantress (with us being in the middle of an enchantment block lol).

Yep. And this, not my (in)ability to play Storm correctly, was the main reason I sold the deck. Of the two unfair decks, I decided to keep the one with answers. Of course, there are no bad threats, only bad answers... but the efficiency of RUG's answers (be it FoW, Daze, Stifle, Pierce or Bolt) outweigh the efficiency of ANT's threats, esp. when the latter is somehow easier to stop and people are crazy with combo hate.

And Barook is right with points on Brainstorm (and its skill-intesiveness), and I start to pity that I've sold the blue duals and fetches, as Barook is also right about the future prices. Not that I plan to play Ubw decks, but I could have let the lands ripen.

[Higgs]

Next station: 300$ Underground Sea, enjoy the ride.

lol. Probably true :)

[Lord Seth]

I'm maybe just bored of seeing people giggle behind autopilot-hands/decks with them getting goodie after goodie from WotC while there are no decent cards printed in ages for classic combo decks like Doomsday, Aluren or Enchantress (with us being in the middle of an enchantment block lol).

I'm not even sure I can call Theros an enchantment block because there's so little emphasis on enchantments. I mean, they threw "enchantment" onto a whole bunch of cards, but that by itself does nothing to make you want to use enchantments; those cards would be just as good or bad if they weren't enchantments (if, for example, Spear of Heliod was just an artifact, it would see pretty much the exact same amount of play). If there were cards that encouraged you to play enchantments that would be one thing, but the only card I can think of that has that encouragement and is worth playing--even in Standard--is Eidolon of Countless Battles.

I'd actually argue that Return to Ravnica provided you with more reasons to play with enchantments than Theros did, because it at least had Ethereal Armor and Sphere of Safety.

[dunk]

Yeah I agree, Theros is less of an "Enchantment" block and more of an Aura one. Maybe (but unlikely) the third set will put more emphasis on global enchantments. As of now there are only the gods, which are all cool design and stuff, but they are hardly more than a variant of the "Sleeper Enchantments" from Urza block.

[Barook]

Theros in general seems to lack direction and is more of a Greek mythology-inspired clusterfuck that pretends to be an Enchantment block with shitty mechanics and sprinkles of Legendary for good measure (gotta cater the Commander market).

Dropping stuff like Monstrous after the first set, introducing Tribute in Bored of the Gods and making devotion completely irrelevant in the third set (aside from the 5 remaining gods) all hint at that.

[rufus]

...
Dropping stuff like Monstrous after the first set, introducing Tribute in Bored of the Gods and making devotion completely irrelevant in the third set (aside from the 5 remaining gods) all hint at that.

I'm trying to figure out whether that's because they recognize those as design errors, they can't come up with good ways to explore the mechanics further, or they just have the attention span of a chicken.

[Lemnear]

I'm trying to figure out whether that's because they recognize those as design errors, they can't come up with good ways to explore the mechanics further, or they just have the attention span of a chicken.

It's neither I guess. It's more of a fact that their oh so awesome mechanics over the last years are mainly just random variants of kicker tailormade for creatures and therefore easy to replace and feel random. Following the Motto "new is always better" they just keep rotating the ever same mechanic in hope the players never realize.

Hell, the last mechanic that wasn't kicker was Miracle (April 2012) and before that Phyrexian mana (May 2011).

[Zombie]

I'm not even sure I can call Theros an enchantment block because there's so little emphasis on enchantments. I mean, they threw "enchantment" onto a whole bunch of cards, but that by itself does nothing to make you want to use enchantments; those cards would be just as good or bad if they weren't enchantments (if, for example, Spear of Heliod was just an artifact, it would see pretty much the exact same amount of play). If there were cards that encouraged you to play enchantments that would be one thing, but the only card I can think of that has that encouragement and is worth playing--even in Standard--is Eidolon of Countless Battles.

I'd actually argue that Return to Ravnica provided you with more reasons to play with enchantments than Theros did, because it at least had Ethereal Armor and Sphere of Safety.

Commune with the Gods is a card. But yeah, slim, slim pickings.