Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
I've had success at large legacy events (7+ rounds) with Enchantress, Maverick, Deadguy Ale, 4 Color Loam, Storm and Show and Tell over the past 6~ years plus I've played a few different blue fair decks, and the blue decks are far more powerful and consistent because of the cantrips it's insane. It's just so night and day on how powerful brainstorm is compared to anything besides maybe chalice of the void is in this format. If you haven't played both blue and non blue extensively I could maybe see why you don't realize this, but if you have you're either not being objective or you're just lying to yourself
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
Yes. Because those decks don't play brainstorm. What was the old joke? Deadguy Ale tier 2. Add brainstorm and force and bam you get Esper Stoneblade which is tier 1. jund Tier 2, drop red add brainstorm and shardless agent and bam you had a tier 1 deck. Same with burn going to UR Delver for awhile. I think there was another example I forget. But it was a painful truth to the format.
I play DnT and my experience is different from the experience of Megadeus. I don't mind playing against blue without playing it myself. I feel like my cards are more powerful than many of the cards in blue decks, but I have to leverage them the correct way to win. If I don't, the blue cards and whatever else the cantrips find punish me and I will lose. Having said that, I don't lose more because they play blue, not because I do not; when I lose, I can often see things I could/I should have done that would have given me other opportunities to change the outcome.
Brainstorm is a very difficult card to play. I don't think I will ever be upset about it being in this format. Please, continue to complain, that seems to be largely the reason of this thread, it's tons of fun to read.
Aren't all three of those decks soft to combo? Whatever the case, playing underpowered decks and complaining about how underpowered they are is sort of unimportant data. There are tier one decks that dont run brainstorm. If you compare tier 1 brainstorm decks to tier 1 non-brainstorm decks, they're pretty close. That tier 1 brainstorm decks outclass decks that were maybe good 5-10 years ago doesn't tell us that brainstorm is too good, it tells us that the underperforming decks are past their prime.
I disagree that in the abstract RB Reanimator is better than UB Reanimator. RB is a faster deck, which has become necessary in a meta where DRS's meta share is so large combined with the fact that Reanimator decks can almost never reasonably beat an active DRS. I also think you've seen more examples of RB Reanimator doing well because it's one of the cheaper decks in legacy to build, so that makes it appealing to people just getting into the format - RB Reanimator probably has a bigger share of the meta over the past year than UB Reanimator had at any time in the past few years.
I doubt that if DRS gets banned you'll continue to see RB Reanimator played anywhere near as much as it is now. The deck is trading a TON of resiliency and flexibility to become faster and more of a glass cannon because it needs to be able to go off turn 1 or turn 2 as frequently as possible to beat DRS.
Absolutely right, those are my tops (not all of them but most), you can clearly see that i played almost anything that legacy can offer, and blue decks are just better than non blue deck, except for a few exceptions, which are truly as good or even better, but super based on metagame shifts, that can become absolute garbage over night (prime example, lands).
Sure thing, if you want to have a better WL% over time, you got to play blue, still, you can do good enough without playing it if you prefer, even if there are metagame from time to time where playing non blue is almost impossible.
"You either die a Onesto-Player, or live long enough to see yourself become a Dredger"
I don't think anyone is outright saying that they aren't viable.
What a number of people, me included, are saying, is that the blue core elliminates some of the variance that you'll get, when compared with other viable decks.
That last part is the key. You'll sometimes see Elves! or D&T die to its own variance - for example, hitting a ton of lands or only one land for the entire game. Or you'll see a mono-red Stompy deck die to its Ancient Tombs, as it's their only permanent mana source.
Blue decks reduce that happening because of the core interactions between Ponder, BS and fetchlands. It's why playing only 7 or 8 colored sources of mana is entirely viable for blue decks, whereas most other viable decks have between 12 and 14 colored sources of mana. That's where the power lies. It means that you can play more business spells and fewer sources, knowing that that variance of being screwed or flooded is less relevant.
Does that make sense?
It's even simpler to state:
Nonblue decks work if they are fast combo, or attack the cantrip shell (Chalice, Thalia). There is next to no room for building nonblue decks that do not attack the cantrip engine as a strategy and try to do their own thing instead, ie. use another consistency engine or just more pieces of interaction - enacting their own strategy. The strategy must necessarily include attacking the cantrips since the cantrip shell is far and away better than competing consistency engines.
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Instead of banning brainstorm, hasbro could at least unban the cards worse than brainstorm. I would propose:
Earthcraft
Mind twist
Frantic search
Goblin recruiter
Survival of the fittest
Hermit druid
Fastbond
There might be others worse than brainstorm but it's harder to say.
I think that the discussion around bannin or keep brainstorm in the format is interresting.
It is true that the blue shell gives consistency and allows some diversity. It is true also, that it makes blue decks better than any other option (And i think that we have the results to back it up).
whatever, i would like to see what would be legacy without BS. Would it open a path for more non blue decks that would not be combo or anti-cantrip ones? would it make blue decks a non viable option anymore??
I don't think unbanning cards will change anything to the situation.
PS: i've been playing death and taxes for a long time (since 2010) and I'm pretty sure that banning brainstorm would make my deck less strong (after all, we're a meta deck).
Loud applaud! Most unban candidates would do nothing to the meta, and my biggest opposition is to people suggesting ban X to solve Legacy rather than Brainstorm.
Banning Brainstorm would hurt blue combos much more than fairer blue decks (some plays Cursecatcher before any cantrip). Ponder and Preordain would still be the best consistency engine that I would not worry blue being out of favour. Reducing consistency from blue combos would give nonblue decks a much better chance to fight against them, especially the black decks with their Thoughtseize being relevant again.
There are currently 1995 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1995 guests)