All B/R update speculation.

[sdematt]

If you look at the way results are going, Dig through Time is a hell of a card. I wouldn't be surprised to see if the DCI is at least looking at it. The two best decks? Omni and Miracles, both got better with Dig and Cruise being banned. Grixis? Dig through Time. Various flavours of Stoneblade? Dig through Time. The card is disgusting in Omni.

Seems to be getting up there. I remember when we touted that no Delver deck could possibly run Dig. 2 blue? How could they!? But Dig is REAL good. I'm not making any statements, but I think this is a more likely target than Brainstorm.

I am sick and ****ing tired of losing to this stupid ****ing deck and these stupid ****ing players that just shrug their fat shoulders, drop their hand of pink-sleeved cards onto their grubby My Little Pony playmats and say, "Didn't matter anyways, still had all deez nuts."

But I'm sick of these people in general, SnT or not.

[Star|Scream]

Should we just ban pink sleeves?

[sdematt]

Please.

[wcm8]

If you look at the way results are going, Dig through Time is a hell of a card. I wouldn't be surprised to see if the DCI is at least looking at it. The two best decks? Omni and Miracles, both got better with Dig and Cruise being banned. Grixis? Dig through Time. Various flavours of Stoneblade? Dig through Time. The card is disgusting in Omni.

Agreed, but it's not often because of DTT that I lose to SnT. Since without Omniscience, they aren't casting it on turn 3. Ugh. I just needed to vent a bit.

[Barook]

I think there will be a case for some action if SCG Worcester and GP Lille look like SCG DFW. That being said, I think that the correct action is far less clear than you do if we see more events with results like SCG DFW's.

I absolutely agree that by how frequently cards are played and by power level, Brainstorm should be the card that goes. But using only those criteria ignores the experience of a large part, maybe even a majority, of the Legacy community for whom playing with Brainstorm is incredibly important. You obviously don't think the way these people feel is as important as having an 'objectively correct' banned list, but I'd rather have a string of SCG Dallases than have a Legacy format where it's hard to get a weekly event to fire because people quit playing the format over a ban.

If the goal is to make the top tables less blue, banning Dig Through Time is probably the easiest reasonable action in terms of getting community support, though it doesn't provide much headspace for new powerful blue cards to enter the format without saturating the top tables again. There are arguments for banning Ponder if a ban has to happen, but the Preordain-for-Ponder swap is so seamless (and in some decks Preordain is likely better anyway) that both cards would likely need to be hit to have an impact.

I'm far from convinced that there is an objectively right or wrong answer to the Brainstorm question, but I think that those calling for a ban are severely underestimating the degree to which some people value the card and would leave the format if it were banned.

Banning DTT is only a temporary solution to a permanent problem, though. The cantrip cartell still remains as the best consistency engine in the format with no comparable alternatives.

Main problem is that

a) consistency tools in other colors (besides green, to a certain degree) suck and
b) Brainstorm is so above everything else in powerlevel that it's nigh impossible to hate out since proper hate for it doesn't exist.

Sure, you can run stuff like a Chalice deck, but those suffer from their own consistency issues. Printing both hate cards for Brainstorm AND giving other colors ways to compete with cantrips in terms of consistency is a pretty tall order.

[Star|Scream]

The cantrip cartell

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

[Ellomdian]

If the goal is to make the top tables less blue

I think this is the argument people secretly believe, but refuse to admit. They've played a game that, since it's inception, due to inexperience with game design, has distributed the power level of cards inequally across the Colors. If you want to play a game where there is more balance, Modern is happy to have you. If you want to play with cards printed Urza's and before, stop complaining.

I am sick and ****ing tired of losing to this stupid ****ing deck and these stupid ****ing players that just shrug their fat shoulders, drop their hand of pink-sleeved cards onto their grubby My Little Pony playmats and say, "Didn't matter anyways, still had all deez nuts."

Sounds like your problem is less with the card, and more with your opponents. You should try pretending that your opponent is a very skilled watermellon - don't pay attention to anything they do or say, and just play the game.

If a playmat or sleeve color is somehow impacting your game, the cards they are playing aren't the real issue here...

SotF would be fine, and certainly wouldn't approach 32/32's (it never did), or 64/64's.

nedleeds keeps at it with ridiculous statements that should be anathema. I fully expect him to start talking about a Legacy Restricted list shortly. I would rather have YawgWill in Legacy that SotF, it wouldn't be as oppressive. Might as well bring Flash and Mystical tutor back.

Wait.. what? What the hell is a "BS-defender"? Is it a normal, active Legacy player?

Pretty much. I'd love to see the DCI history of the most vocal people in this thread to see the last time they played more than 3 rounds in a 32+ person tournament. People who don't actually play are entitled to their opinions, but they're fooling themselves if they think their opinions have more merit than the people who actually show up to events.

It has hit 100% you just don't know it because you dropped at 4-2 in the 6th round because you couldn't salvage a bad hand by un-mulliganing with the greatest skill tester since the Rubik's Cube Brainstorm ...

Why would you be dropping at 4-2? Statistically, you are still eligible for prizes in most events, and you are not eliminated from most multi-day events.

I mean, unless you hadn't actually played in a real tournament in recent memory, and you like to bitch about people actually playing.

[Barook]

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Actually, it's Carsten Kotter who uses the term. Meh, I wrote one l too many. My bad.

But in the end, names don't matter. You could call the cantrip shell "smurf orgy" because it's so blue and it still wouldn't change a thing.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Smurf orgy is just depraved enough to have my approval

Let's call it that

[frogczar]

I'd like to whine about Show and Tell for a few minutes. :)

This card is just... dumb. It's a 3-mana Sorcery that essentially says something like, "Add infinite mana to your mana pool. This mana may only be spent to play your next non-Planeswalker permanent spell."

Why is this not ban worthy? Is not a 3 mana ritual for 15 colorless, 7BBBB, or 8UUU (or whatever those obnoxious cards cost) not clearly broken?

The decks built around it are equally dumb, and are constructed to functionally ignore their opponent entirely aside from denying them interaction via counterspells, discard, and/or permanents that further restrict interaction (Leyline of Sanctity, Boseiju, Defense Grid, etc.). These decks are essentially like playing solitaire, simply cantripping for a few turns, and then going for the one single spell. At least MOST Prison decks have to consider their opponents at least a little bit.

Ignoring your opponent is a hallmark of combo in general, but other combo decks at least have to go through more hoops and end the game in a fairly spectacular, flavorful way. Reanimator has to first get a huge creature into the graveyard, and then it has to resolve a reanimation spell. And even then, it still has to swing through a few times and avoid having said creature get removed in the meanwhile, all while often hanging on at single-digit life total. Dredge has to mill its own library, and then still typically needs to resolve a few spells. Its army of the undead typically still need to attack at least once to finish the opponent off. Storm-based combo must first accumulate a critical mass of cards, then explode into a fireworks-display flurry. Etc, etc.

Show and Tell simply has to resolve its namesake while holding a Timmy-esque EDH "I Win" card in hand. The deck has gotten even more obnoxious now that it's dropped Red and doesn't even need to win via the Combat step.

Without fail, in real live I tend to get paired against the luckiest SnT pilots ever. The guys that resolve it on turn 2 WITH Force of Will + other counter backup. Sure, in testing the deck seems to fiddle around and have its spells get countered or otherwise nullified, but I'm talking real life games with money and prizes on the line. I'm talking after going undefeated in the Swiss and being the first or second place seed, losing to some guy who only played a grand total of 30 minutes of Magic on his way into the Elimination rounds.

Seriously. I've had my own FoW countered, then Dazed their SnT, and had them pay for the Daze via exiling a Simian Spirit Guide. Loss to Emrakul.

I've had another SnT opponent land his maindeck one-of Boseiju on turn 3. Loss to a chain of spells cast freely via Omniscience.

I've resolved Ethersworn Canonists, Meddling Magi, and Containment Priests to only have them be Massacred or die in a Pyroclasm. And then lost to an Emrakul.

I've seen things you people wouldn't imagine. I've had my Flusterstorms seized from my thoughts and my Hymns muted by Leylines. I've had Oblivion Rings left in limbo as my opponent cunningly wished for some sort of answer. All these moments... will be lost in the tournament pairings... like tears in rain.





I am sick and ****ing tired of losing to this stupid ****ing deck and these stupid ****ing players that just shrug their fat shoulders, drop their hand of pink-sleeved cards onto their grubby My Little Pony playmats and say, "Didn't matter anyways, still had all deez nuts."

Ugh. Please. Do something. Ban this card. It might have been fine when the best thing you could drop in was a Progenitus or a Verdant Force, but now it's just gross. Same thing happened with SotF. The new overpowered designs ruined the fun and made the enabler OP.

In my opinion the card has NEVER been fine. It's always been dumb, since day one back in Urza's Saga. I've always hated it and I couldn't agree more. I'd be happier seeing Show and Tell banned before Brainstorm, honestly.

[btm10]

I think this is the argument people secretly believe, but refuse to admit. They've played a game that, since it's inception, due to inexperience with game design, has distributed the power level of cards inequally across the Colors. If you want to play a game where there is more balance, Modern is happy to have you. If you want to play with cards printed Urza's and before, stop complaining.

I'm slightly (though not much) more sympathetic to their point of view than you are, mostly because I'd like to see some deckbuilding space open up in the top tier. I don't think banning Brainstorm is thr best way to do that, but I kinda-sorta share some feeling that the current meta is a bit stale.

nedleeds keeps at it with ridiculous statements that should be anathema. I fully expect him to start talking about a Legacy Restricted list shortly. I would rather have YawgWill in Legacy that SotF, it wouldn't be as oppressive. Might as well bring Flash and Mystical tutor back.

What's your argument here? I'm interested to hear it, but it's not at all obvious a priori that Survival is too good now. I actually think adding a Survival deck to the meta would be a great foil to Miracles because it would get around the aspect of Terminus that's most punishing - putting creatures in a zone where they can't be easily accessed. It's not likely to displace GSZ from decks like Elves, so it wouldn't be 'they only way to do creatures', and it's also very easy to disrupt with a litany of cards that already see a ton of play.

Banning DTT is only a temporary solution to a permanent problem, though. The cantrip cartell still remains as the best consistency engine in the format with no comparable alternatives.

Main problem is that

a) consistency tools in other colors (besides green, to a certain degree) suck and
b) Brainstorm is so above everything else in powerlevel that it's nigh impossible to hate out since proper hate for it doesn't exist.

Sure, you can run stuff like a Chalice deck, but those suffer from their own consistency issues. Printing both hate cards for Brainstorm AND giving other colors ways to compete with cantrips in terms of consistency is a pretty tall order.

Did you read my post at all, or did you just choose to ignore my arguments?

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

The problem with survival is the way wizards currently designs cards, with creatures being given stronger and stronger effects at the expense of spells, it would be a matter of time before there is another 'vengevine' that comes along and breaks the card in a new way.

Show and Tell can probably go for the same reason listed above.

[BTY]

The problem with survival is the way wizards currently designs cards, with creatures being given stronger and stronger effects at the expense of spells, it would be a matter of time before there is another 'vengevine' that comes along and breaks the card in a new way.

Show and Tell can probably go for the same reason listed above.

Well show and tell is different because it already has 2 ridiculously broken cards it can cheat in. (Omniscience and Griselbrand)

[Barook]

Did you read my post at all, or did you just choose to ignore my arguments?

I fail to see how your post and my post contradict themselves.

Maybe I should make my point more clear:
Brainstorm is too good since the alternatives and hate for it suck. It would be better if the format could compensate it and thus keeping Brainstorm around while making its fans happy, but despite its depth, the Legacy card pool has some serious shortcomings in dealing with it. At some point, a line must be drawn between being popular and being healthy for the format.

Brainstorm has become the cancer of the format. The question right now is to remove the cancer (plus the "organs" it affects) and hope the health improves afterwards or keep the cancerous "organs" around while the cancer spreads further, slowly killing the host.

[MGB]

...

I am sick and ****ing tired of losing to this stupid ****ing deck and these stupid ****ing players that just shrug their fat shoulders, drop their hand of pink-sleeved cards onto their grubby My Little Pony playmats and say, "Didn't matter anyways, still had all deez nuts."

...

That's just beautiful. I have to commend this line right here - especially the "grubby My Little Pony playmats" line. Just about sums it up in one line.

[btm10]

I fail to see how your post and my post contradict themselves.

Maybe I should make my point more clear:
Brainstorm is too good since the alternatives and hate for it suck. It would be better if the format could compensate it and thus keeping Brainstorm around while making its fans happy, but despite its depth, the Legacy card pool has some serious shortcomings in dealing with it. At some point, a line must be drawn between being popular and being healthy for the format.

Brainstorm has become the cancer of the format. The question right now is to remove the cancer (plus the "organs" it affects) and hope the health improves afterwards or keep the cancerous "organs" around while the cancer spreads further, slowly killing the host.

I understood your point the first time, and I understand it now. In fact, I addressed both of your posts in the post that you quoted, but I'll restate my case briefly.

Even if it were indisputably correct to ban Brainstorm (and clearly it's not beyond dispute), there is a significant obstacle to doing so, namely that people love the card. I hope that you can at least recognize that for a substantial number of Legacy players, perhaps even a majority, Brainstorm is not only format-defining on a practical level (i.e., it's clearly the best card and Legacy is the only format where it's legal as a 4-of), but it's also an essential part of why they enjoy the format. On the issue of Dig, I'll just quote:

If the goal is to make the top tables less blue, banning Dig Through Time is probably the easiest reasonable action in terms of getting community support, though it doesn't provide much headspace for new powerful blue cards to enter the format without saturating the top tables again. There are arguments for banning Ponder if a ban has to happen, but the Preordain-for-Ponder swap is so seamless (and in some decks Preordain is likely better anyway) that both cards would likely need to be hit to have an impact.

I explicitly addressed that banning Dig doesn't make the top tables much less blue AND that it only takes one more card to undo that effect of the ban. I also suggested that a ban of both Ponder and Preordain is arguably preferable to a ban of Brainstorm from a keeping-people-from-quitting perspective, but that these actions are only justified if the goal is to make the top tables less blue, and that's something I don't think is needed. As far as I'm concerned, Dig Through Time is the most banworthy (non-Brainstorm) card in the format right now, and I'm not sold on action yet.

The problem with survival is the way wizards currently designs cards, with creatures being given stronger and stronger effects at the expense of spells, it would be a matter of time before there is another 'vengevine' that comes along and breaks the card in a new way.

Show and Tell can probably go for the same reason listed above.

I'm pretty skeptical of this argument - it's not like the new Creature-That-Rebreaks-Survival is going to do anything other than come into play from the graveyard and there are at least a dozen playable answers to reanimation strategies. On top of that, whatever creature it is is going to cost at least 1GG and involve no fewer than two priority passes before it impacts the game state beyond changing zones. Maybe if they print something completely insane like a cycle of creatures with "if this whole cycle is in the graveyard you win the game", there'd be an argument, but then there'd also be an argument for banning Buried Alive.

[Barook]

I understood your point the first time, and I understand it now. In fact, I addressed both of your posts in the post that you quoted, but I'll restate my case briefly.

Even if it were indisputably correct to ban Brainstorm (and clearly it's not beyond dispute), there is a significant obstacle to doing so, namely that people love the card. I hope that you can at least recognize that for a substantial number of Legacy players, perhaps even a majority, Brainstorm is not only format-defining on a practical level (i.e., it's clearly the best card and Legacy is the only format where it's legal as a 4-of), but it's also an essential part of why they enjoy the format. On the issue of Dig, I'll just quote:

I explicitly addressed that banning Dig doesn't make the top tables much less blue AND that it only takes one more card to undo that effect of the ban. I also suggested that a ban of both Ponder and Preordain is arguably preferable to a ban of Brainstorm from a keeping-people-from-quitting perspective, but that these actions are only justified if the goal is to make the top tables less blue, and that's something I don't think is needed. As far as I'm concerned, Dig Through Time is the most banworthy (non-Brainstorm) card in the format right now, and I'm not sold on action yet.

We had a poll about that a year ago. While some players would quit, I think the number of people actually quitting would be way lower. It's easier to say "I quit!" than actually doing it.

I agree that DTT is the "most bannable" card right now since it shares the same issues TC had. And something has to be done, since the blue/Brainstorm penetration isn't at ~70%, but probably closer to 80+% as MTG Top 8 suggests since the data we have are misleading for the reasons I posted earlier today.

As for banning Ponder and Preordain, that's just dancing around the issue. People would still run Brainstorm + Serum Visions. That's a slight power reduction at best for most lists and would probably only hit decks that run 9-12 cantrips harder. Brainstorm with its load of unique properties is the main issue. Printing symmetrical, maindeckable hate for Brainstorm would be a better solution, but the power level required for that would need to be absurd, leading to swingier games in general.

[nedleeds]

We had a poll about that a year ago. While some players would quit, I think the number of people actually quitting would be way lower. It's easier to say "I quit!" than actually doing it.

They are almost all full of shit, or they don't actually play anyway, or they really only enjoy winning with the clear best 75 in which case they can settle on the next deck they scrape from results.scg.com. If there is some percentage of people who truly only enter legacy events because Brainstorm is legal as a four of, and they sell all their cards and leave if it gets banned, then I see that as beneficial. They didn't actually enjoy the card pool, or the format they just had some warped obsession with a hopelessly broken Ice Age common, they likely should seek help.

Edit: something something Vintage is dead because only one Brainstorm something something

[Stevestamopz]

I assume you mean Recruiter, but wouldn't it be better to update FCG if Recruiter were unbanned rather than just stacking for value?

Sorry yeah, I meant Recruiter.. derp.

It's possible, but unless it's unbanned no one's going to waste time testing it out and tuning decklists.
For what it's worth, I believe Vial-Goblins is very close to being a good deck. With the exceptions of combo matchups, no fair deck will just blow Goblins out of the water, assuming that the Goblins deck is properly built. E.g; Esper Deathblade will probably win 75% of the time, but it will take a while for them to push through the defences and/or stabilise the board and convert that into a win. Game 2 of this matchup is the best example of this.

Take out the shitty tarfires, put in the Recruiters and blammo, you've got a real deck capable of keeping up with all the other fair decks.

[cheerios]

Why don't they unban Recruiter, Balance, and Survival and turn the whole format into a fuckfest

Cheers