Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Oh like 100% chance. You think Delver is really above tapping their Karakas, Wasteland target Karakas, [+1] Wrenn target Karakas, replay and tap Karakas into Lurrus? Don’t even need to do all that work if DRS is legal.
Here’s the deck:
DRS x4
Delver x4
Dreadhorde x4
Bolt x4
FoW x4
BS x4
Ponder x4
Daze x4
Wrenn x3
Bauble x3
Snare x2
Trop x1
Usea x3
Volc x3
Delta x4
Tarn x4
Wasteland x4
Karakas x1
companion Lurrus and 14 others. You can put in a second white land, but it’s pretty optional at that power level.
Don't be too quick to think the joke is on blue players.
Once, turn 1 game 1 of a big event in Italy, I vendilion clique'd my opponent on his draw step and won because he drew a card while having his Spirit in play.
Otherwise the game was unwinnable on my side.
I think it's a good thing the rules changed and the penalty for drawing an extra card was downgraded, even if maybe now there's more room for cheaters
Yeah, I was happy to see that rule change, even if it generally helped me because I was good at remembering triggers and tracking board states. That rule always seemed overly harsh.
That decklist is, quite frankly, disgusting. Easily would be the best deck in the format given all those cards being legal. I think you could actually cut a couple Bolts for Force of Negation and it would be close to optimal.
Regarding Brainstorm, for me it has always been about this question: do we want a format where we can play 4 Brainstorm or not? For me the answer will always be 'yes'. Power level is obviously too high, saturation level is too high, by all reasonable standards it should be banned. So the question isn't 'should it be banned?' because that answer will always be 'yes'. The real question is 'are we ok with a format that has access to it?' If we are, then it's a reality we need to approach accordingly. If we are not comfortable with Brainstorm in the format we can either lobby for change (good luck with that) or play a different format. Forsythe has essentially said Brainstorm is here to stay. The choice is in your hands, not theirs, whether to play Legacy or not.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I think still pretty good. DRS eats opponent's graveyards while you use your own with W&6/Arcanist. It really becomes a sub-game of 'who gets DRS resolved first' and then 'who keeps DRS around long enough to win the game'. In any sort of mirror match the priority is to counter/kill DRS and then the other card advantage tools take over. Maybe Arcanist/W&6 go down to 2 copies each, but both would still be powerful enough to include.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Because the same criterion that Brainstorm is banned under, is the same circumstance that Ponder (and likely Preordain) will likely then find themselves in. Because people will always just run the "next best thing." This sort of ban-rubric is a race to the bottom.
If you take the position that, no, the banning of Brainstorm is a special case, you have to justify this case. Why is the Brainstorm case special? Also, since it is plausible that Brainstorm is perfectly fine without the presence of fetch lands, explain why fetch lands wouldn't be the ones banned, especially since cards like Deathrite are only, presumably, good with fetch lands as well. Now you need to articulate why fetch lands are alright and Brainstorm is not. Then, once you have done that, you go right back and look at the resultant meta. What if Tundra has a 75% meta share? Are duals bannable? Why or why not? What about Force of Will?
The issue is, I see no way to articulate a fully spelled out manner and fashion of what "normative" Legacy is. I see no way for there to be "one rubric" of what can and should be banned. So there is no way, in my opinion, to have some cut and dry quantitative meta-threshold, or something else, to define what action should be taken in Legacy.
Legacy just is 4x Brainstorm, by fiat. You can hate it. You can claim that is shouldn't be. But it just is the case. So, you have the option of playing it, fighting against it, or just not playing. You can say none of those are "fair" options and that might well be the case. But the fact of it is, that is the case. Now, you might think I am spuriously making a sort of Is/Ought claim, that because Legacy is the Brainstorm format, it ought to be the Brainstorm format. This is not my point, or my position. I have no idea what Legacy ought to be. The only thing I can possibly do is say what I think Legacy ought not to be. I even tried making a thread to get an idea of what people thought defined/should define Legacy years ago. I don't dwell in a place of hypothetical card-pools. There is a near infinite amount of hypothetical card-pools and I'm not interested in any of them, really.
In our play group, we have a running joke of saying "just play your cards." It applies to a lot of things, but works here as well. Just play your cards. Is Brainstorm oppressive? Maybe. Then just play it. Or, fight it. If you say, "well, I shouldn't have to" well, I'm sorry, but if you want to play nominal Legacy, you do. But no one makes you play Legacy. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you think some other card pool is "better," make that case. Get other people on board and play that format. But the idea that "Optimal Legacy," like Shangri-La is just out there, waiting for someone to discover this utopian ideal card-pool where every card is rationally justified in it's existence, where no card could unjustly impose itself on any others, where anything and everything is viable and everyone gets a free lunch. But actual Legacy, the Legacy we have and are likely to always have to varying degrees is actually a intuitionally derived hell-hole, where the only way you stay alive is by taking life from something else, where caprice and whim define existence and every moment is a struggle to survive.
If you want utopia Legacy, then go on and show us how it can be done. Not by some hypothetical rational exercise, but with actual empirical results. Then we might see that this hypothetical card pool really is the promised "ideal" one. Until then, no, "we" are not likely to accept the notion that "Optimal Legacy" is only a ban away.
So, why is Lurrus ban-worthy where Brainstorm is not? I don't know. But I agree with it. Whether it is a notion of historicism, or of perception, or whatever, once again, you will never get to "Optimal Legacy" with a fully-rationalized ban-rubric. But, then again, maybe I am wrong. If so, I'd invite anyone to come up with a fully-rational, articulated, quantitative and qualitative manner to conclusively display what is "Optimal Legacy" and what is expressly not.
In the mean time, I'll just play my cards.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
please!?!
here on some of my cards that i was able to find in less than 5 minutes, can i play these cards?
i get your well-written but laissez-faire post; SDT, DTT, DRS, Breach, W&6, TC and Probe were sacrificed on the altar of BS.
would banning BS be a bigger blow to legacy than banning fetchlands?
how about unbanning these cards: SDT, DTT, DRS, Breach, W&6, TC , Probe, MindTwist and ManaDrain
There isn't a problem wth any other card draw in legacy. it's just BS.
Can I play my Time Walk or Ancestral Recall?
Once again, you make the claim that Brainstorm is what got SDT and the rest banned, but as multiple people have pointed out, that really was more likely fetchlands.
That being said, SDT is an idiotic card, in my opinion. But that is neither here nor there. The issue with your Brainstorm vitriol is that, if we were to ban Brainstorm and unban all those other things, what makes you think that is a better format?
Once again, your hypothetical card-pool, with Mana Drain, for example, legal, is A-OK because there wouldn't be Brainstorm. Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and say that we are banning Fetchlands and Brainstorm, really, Mana Drain? Under what auspices am I to take this suggestion seriously? Mana Drain would fundamentally punish any deck that attempts to resolve a spell with a CMC over 1 when the opponent has UU open. If you think the format is Blue heavy now, just wait until you can't even think of trying to resolve a spell without costing yourself a huge amount of tempo in the process, by losing your threat and giving your opponent mana to play theirs.
I could go on, but your proposed unban list looks nearly like a gish gallop to me and I do have a job for the moment, and that job isn't to disprove the health and viability of any list you hypothetically throw together. You already expose your position when you ask, "is banning Brainstorm a bigger blow to Legacy than fetchlands" though, because you do realize that Legacy, as such, is literally predicated on them. That is, whatever does define Legacy is at least in part, Brainstorm and fetchlands. You want a differential Legacy card-pool? Make that case. The burden of proof is on you, not me. I already have a Legacy card pool at hand that I feel is worth playing/exploring and that is the current existent, legal card pool. And so does my local play-group.
Again, I am not asking you to like it. I am not telling you to accept it. But the fact of the matter is, that is Legacy and until someone actually demonstrates that Legacy minus or plus some cards is demonstrably better, I will continue to be overtly skeptical and stake out my position, time and time again.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I was about to say that Pauper exists, Brainstorm is legal and playable in tier 1 decks but you have to build around it to justify its inclusion. Took a look at goldfish, and LSV just went and top8'd with this:
UR Faeries
4 Augur of Bolas
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Tragic Lesson
3 Counterspell
1 Deprive
3 Force Spike
4 Skred
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fire // Ice
3 Ash Barrens
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Mystic Sanctuary
9 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Mountain
//Sideboard:
1 Curfew
1 Echoing Truth
1 Electrickery
2 Gorilla Shaman
3 Hydroblast
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Swirling Sandstorm
If you don't ban Xerox, Xerox will come for you.
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I'm not working hard at all. In fact, I do exactly zero work to keep it Brainstorm legal. Wizards does it for me.
All I actually do is play the cards that are legal in the format. Seems like people are doing much more to figure out ways to interpret Legacy as something that ought to be without Brainstorm (or fetch lands, or whatever). But, you can interpret things as it serves your interest, of course.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I think there is a general misunderstanding of the 'debate' that dominates this thread. The discussion is mostly between a group of realists that see that brainstorm is untouchable and idealists that want brainstorm gone. There isnt any meaningful discussion because both sides aren't even approaching the issue in the same context.
Brainstorm and the fetches are just like workshops and bazaar in vintage. They should have been banned a long time ago (when the formats started) but it's far too late and they've been so ingrained in the formats to do anything about them. They're never going to axed, period.
Fundamentally correct analysis, I think. Funny part, for me personally, being that I am much more of an idealist and not a realist in many (most?) ways. In fact, if we looked back far enough, I was actually well in the "Ban Brainstorm" camp years ago. Then I realized the position just was not tennible, or rational, to me, in many ways I came to recognize.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
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