All B/R update speculation.

[jrsthethird]

Use the edit button. 4 posts in a row is spam. I understand that in this thread it's difficult to determine spam from seriousness, but 4 posts, even here, is blatant spam.

It's ok, he's just chaining posts like cantrips. It's the only way to post about Legacy now.

[Megadeus]

The second part of the quote, emphasis added on strategies- that's the major problem, there aren't a lot of strategies. The argument most have made is it's play the cantrip-cartel+ (what the spikes love), play something so narrow to beat it (slyvan plug, "punishg blue", red painter), uninteractive decks (belcher, dredge, burn, elves), or just bash your head against the wall (me and some other folks). That's not healthy, especially when the cantrip-cartel makes up an inordinate number of the population.

This basically. People keep saying that the people who are pro BS ban are just mad and salty that their decks aren't valid anymore (the zoo argument). That isn't true. We just are tired of the fact that the format is to the point where it is almost a 56 card (and considering how ponder generally follows BS a 52 card) format. Power level aside, it's become dull.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

If you complain about the difficulty of brewing new decks in Legacy (Mono Grizzly Bears, or whatever your fond memory or wet dream is)...

Wow! The "Mono Grizzly Bears" argument! I never seen that coming.

Look, nobody wants to play Mono Grizzlies. But even few years back there was much more to success with in a Legacy tourney then just:
- some sort of Ux combo
- Uxx Delver
- UW Miracles
- random flavor of the weak be it Elves, DnT or LftL.dec
Dat diversity.

It isn't that hard to find out what's the power behind the success of the three quarters of this DtB, it's the tier1 cantrip brigade, which incidentally not only makes those decks comparable in power, but also in an experience, thus leading to Mono Games Bore. (This might be up to each comrade's gusto...)
Weakening the blue shell would comparatively strenthen the non-blue shells, and... oh c'mon, we were already at that, right?
Of the cantrips at least BS should be chopped, as it's absurdly powerful and it allows what no other spell allows at its cmc.

So mistaking the wish for more strategical/operational diversity of decks for a wish for more colourful metagame (in sense "let there be more colours present" or "wish there'd be less blue") is plain silly and deliberate misunderstanding. I'd be against this dull boring predictable gameplay no matter if BS+friends would be blue, black or purple, but because it's strategically/operationally the same and thus it leads to the same games over and over.
____________________________

A term "strategically" needn't to be the best word, as the strategy is always the same: to defeat the opposing player. One may argue that the combo/control/aggro triangle is the strategy. Yep, fine then.
I'd say that "operationally" might be the best term for... ahem... description of what the decks do, how they try to operate to support the main strategy (a win). Operationally there are very few decks/archetypes that might win now, and most of them are fueled by cantrips, these are those so-called Brainstorm decks w/e that means.

So once we're done with the "operational" aspect of games, we're left with a tactic (e.g. UGB Delver vs. RUG Delver vs. URB Delver) as a sole basis for decks' and gameplay distinction. Imesho that's not enough and thus I can't:
a) call such an environment strategically diverse, because those decks have the same strategy.
b) call such an environment operationally diverse, because most of decks excersise their strategy in the same way.
c) go to tournaments and supports my lgs, see the other junkies, etc., as such a metagame is far from healthy, coz it's boring to the extreme.

[Cartesian]

Bringing fair to the conversation is an appeal to empathy that I don't have for blue mages. Brainstorm is not fair. The four aggro (cheap cc) blue creatures aren't fair- delver, snappy, clique, tnn. Counterbalance isn't fair either, tap out t2 (or later, maybe earlier with a mox or petal) and potentially counter every spell opponent plays for no future investment, gee, so much fun! (Fun used to exploit how crap an idea fair and fun belong in the conversation.) Fair doesn't belong here. No one can define what healthy is, unfortunately, but take fair somewhere else. From current printings, if Monastery Master, Young Pyro, and Swiftspear were all printed with "if you control this creature and cast a blue spell, you lose the game", they'd be more fair.

Basically, if you're a blue spike player, you'd rather just play mirror matches and the rest of us take are cards and shove it up that unicorn's ass? Pending the unicorn is ever found and captured.

For the record, I play many different decks, with and without blue. Kindly take your notions of "fair", "fun", and "blue mage" (seriously, wtf?) to a kitchen table somewhere.

But even few years back there was much more to success with in a Legacy tourney then just:

And for hundreds of years, King's Gambit was one of the most popular chess openings. The point I was trying to make with my previous post was - not that it is silly to want to play Mono Grizzly Bears (that was just an example, a placeholder) - but that magic is a strategy game, not unlike chess, and given enough time, understanding of the game will increase, and the strongest cards and proven strategies will emerge on top, and others will be reduced to lower tiers or fade into memory. It is a natural, evolutionary process. Unlike chess, Legacy has new cards added (or rarely, removed) regularly, and that keeps things fresh to some extent, but some older cards and basic strategies remain as the strongest and proven over time, and are not easily dethroned. Brainstorm is one such card.

Standard is a rotating format, so it isn't really a 'game' by comparison to Legacy or chess, since it's basically becomes new game every once in a while. Modern is a non-rotating format like Legacy, but it is very young and has been hit by frequent, aggessive bans during its short time, and that is why the diversity seems to be greater now - because people haven't figured the format out yet. Given enough time, Modern too will experience an evolutionary process, that will cause a fewer number of decks and shells to emerge as tested, proven, and best. Then Wizards can ban the best once again to keep things fresh, like they have done before, and so on.

I don't think this principle of always identifying the best cards or decks and ban/nerf them is right for Legacy. The way I see it, Legacy is as diverse as it can be, given that the formats age, and how thoroughly tested it is as a result.
You don't have a fundamental right to claim bans to keep things fresh and "interesting" in Legacy - that is what the rotating formats are for.

With regards to Brainstorm specifically, I truly believe that the card enables many different decks to exist in Legacy. For example, Infect. I have been playing a lot of Infect in the last year, so I know how the deck works, and I honestly do not believe that the deck could function in Legacy without Brainstorm - it has too many conditional cards, and the variance would be way too high.

I do wish that Wizard would make an effort to print more new consistency tools, preferably in other colors, such as Magmatic Insight. Reducing variance is simply great for the game - as evidenced by the need for the new mulligan rule, and the popularity of cantrips in Legacy - and is even more needed than new hate cards like Chalice, Thalia, Spirit of the Labyrinth, or Eidolon, although these are also important to keep the average number of cantrips in check.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

The problem with any chess-Magic comparison is in that chess ain't MtG.
There's a pack of pieces in chess, there are no new added, and finally, and most important, the pieces are pretty finetuned and tested.

On Magic: Saying that the best cards/strategies are the best isn't enlightening, and with this logic Lotus might be allowed as four-of.

I won't comment on the rest of the post, as it's (as always) one man's gusto vs. the other man's gusto, and I'm sick tired of these discussions. I just need to give voice to my surprise that BS allows the Infect deck; I genuinely and honestly thought that infect the mechanic is behind Infect the deck.

edit: To add a bit more on the chess comparison: While your observations are true, I doubt that Magic should look like that for several reasons, one of them being the very existance of B&R policy at all, more specifically the one of the Eternal formats, where there simply must be a tool to liquidate oppressive strategies/cards, because Eternal pool contains all kinds of design mistakes from all kinds of design eras. Still, there's no consensus on BS - and it looks like there'll be none ever -, but the very idea of BS being something like format's pillar, or prerequestivie to play competitively seems absurd to me.
I also don't like when people (truth to say: quite often different ones) say that a) BS allows all kinds of decks and b) nothing would change being BS banned, as there's not exactly sound logic behind this, and I also don't see why the plain and dull metagame should be accepted just because "power creep did that" or "it's all an evolution's fault", etc. WotC has all the tools at ready to do whatever is necessary to save the Legacy from its recent state, but I doubt they're willing to do anything, as it'll be a trmendous work to "fix" 20+ years of design, especially when there's clearly no interest on WotC's part. Which, frankly, is quite understandable, coz something something Standard money, legal binding, Chronicles, etc.

[bruizar]

page 628 and still discussing brainstorm. Eternal at its finest.

[Lemnear]

Well, first off, I disagree with you that a blue deck should be able to do all of those things, or at least all of those things well. In this Utopia (secular) where colors are balanced, there's trade off, so blue would be able to do control and combo with help, but not aggro (4 referenced offenders named, old fish is fine). Just like currently, green does aggro, lil combo (elves), but not much control (city of solitude, elephant grass, and?). This excludes obvious printed hate like choke, combust, red/blue blasts, karma, gloom, lifeforce, deathgrip.

Are you complaining that blue is the defined slice of colorpie that has the best library manipulation? Its bot, that other colors have NO options for cardselection and cardadvantage at all, they just don't have the best, but outshine blue in other aspects. Just look that blue has horrible tools to battle all forms of permanents and, aside Delver and TNN, a really shitty selection of creatures as well. You can't either complain that green lacks tools to take the control seat in Legacy as its simply not the color to do that. I never heared Pox players bitching about their lack or enchantment-removal in black either.

Saying conditional cards are unplayable is a fact of life. I'd love it if some cards in other cards were playable, but for circumstances they aren't. There's no panacea like b'storm in other colors to just make these fringe cards playable. The gripe lots of people have with bstorm is the opportunity costs it eliminates for these conditional cards, such as Stifle.

I could swear SDT is colorless; just saying. LifeFromTheLoam is eliminating the opportunity costs of Exploration, Gamble and Mox Diamond for example as well. You can't argue that way and choose to root your arguments on "is there are an exact copy of Brainstorm in other colors". TBH, I am not even sure, if the fact that blue offers the best deck fillers and redundancy tools for Legacy decks, which is based on the fundamental abiliy distribution within the colorpie, gualifies as a complaint, as is it stating the obvious. Once more: It is like complaining, that green has no "kill creature" spells.

Tangent on example of the given conditional card Stifle:
Stifle is used as a 1-mana Stone Rain more often than not. If it were used to nullify a Griz trigger, or Top Spin, or storm trigger, it'd be fine and used as the corner case sb card that makes sense. But because it's blue, pitches to FoW, and there's no penalty for running it, spam everywhere. Bind isn't as versatile, costs 1 more, but replaces itself and gets no play. If that were a blue card, I'm sure it would see play in Legacy, just like Squelch sees (some) play in Modern. Stone Rain is not a playable card (unless you wanna get cute and break a Energy Field). Why does the LD color have an unplayable hallmark card, but the library manipulation color get a fetch-wasteland killer for U? Oh, because new players don't like LD, LD isn't fun, blah blah blah. But blue is now the best LD color.

Its idiotic to bring up [cards]Bind[/cards,] as the problem this card has isn't the color, but the cost and it therefore simply being unable to hit your opponents first or second fetchland. You discredit yourself if I really have to point out the difference between 1cc & 2cc spells in this format. Its pathetic if SFM @ 1W and Tarmogoyf @ 1G qualifiy as "blue cards" for some people in this thread and you try to make a point out of the sheer color of a spell that costs 1G as well.

A lot of the argument is based on blue has almost all of the toys, and blue mages want to keep them. Since WotC hasn't provided the other four colors impressive toys of their own, or toys that blue just doesn't co-op (monastery mentor, drs, YPyro) it makes sense to take something away from blue. That's the crux.

No, the arguments are that blue does best what it does best per definition which is decresing variance and increasing density of certain selected cards at the same time and therefore marking the best neutral shell to support several strategies. The abdomination of DTT, which turned a large potion of the Legacy metagame from "52-card decks" to Vintage-esque "70% card overlap + killcondition of choice", is a whole different topic.

Other colors have also got serious powerhouses over the years, so don't start lying to have arguments simply because you have TC/DTT in mind. I have not seen blue running Wryn Wingmare/Thalia/DarkDepths/Eidolon/etc.

Sidenote: You are aware that bannings like suggested are a political issue to WotC if +75% of the metagame runs those cards?

Or, how about, we change the starting hand-size? If you have a blue cantrip deck you start with five cards, and if you have a non-blue deck, you start with 8. To be verified by a judge. That way everybody is happy. You keep your card, we get the card selection*.

I hope this isn't a serious suggestion...

Lemnar, I was hoping for a reply to this.

Wish granted, even if I wasn't fond of responding as the part with the card Bind and the talk about starting handsize was ridiculous.

And a follow-up set of questions-
Why do you feel as though the aspects should all be available to blue? Further, why should the cost benefit of conditional cards be mitigated to further include, or exclude, their selection during deck construction?

They are not and that is the point, nor is it adequate to complain about blue performing the best in the chosen aspects like "tools against combo" and "cardselection" as stated before. All the "tools against combo", "cardselection" and "cardadvantage" are NOT exclusive to blue, but blue can't destroy creatures/artifacts/enchantments even after 20 years.

This basically. People keep saying that the people who are pro BS ban are just mad and salty that their decks aren't valid anymore (the zoo argument). That isn't true. We just are tired of the fact that the format is to the point where it is almost a 56 card (and considering how ponder generally follows BS a 52 card) format. Power level aside, it's become dull.

It's a lot like saying Vintage is dull because everyone is running SoLoCryMoxen + Restricted List. Heck, Modern features +40% Lightning Bolt decks for three years now and that card is a lot more "dull" than any cantrip

[ahg113]

Are you complaining that blue is the defined slice of colorpie that has the best library manipulation? Its bot[?], that other colors have NO options for cardselection and cardadvantage at all, they just don't have the best, but outshine blue in other aspects. Just look that blue has horrible tools to battle all forms of permanents and, aside Delver and TNN, a really shitty selection of creatures as well. You can't either complain that green lacks tools to take the control seat in Legacy as its simply not the color to do that. I never heared Pox players bitching about their lack or enchantment-removal in black either.

No, I'm saying that colored cards aren't costed correctly, and the surfeit of cantrips allows blue access to an unequal ability to access solutions at too cheap a cost & too frequently. That skews gameplay, design and my personal fun. Blue has other good creatures in Snappy and Clique, but yes, if all of blue's creatures were either flying men or air elemental, my beef would be dropped. In regards to permanents, blue has indiscriminate bounce (maybe missing emblems), and can just counter those permanents (cavern, boseiju, v.shusher, printed on the card excluded) before hand. That's a real dishonest oversight. Well, it's conditional, but Pox players could cast Lily to maybe get an enchantment off the table. Or, in this Pox world idea, if decks were just mono-colored, blue wouldn't be as bad, and Pox wouldn't think to splash white for vindicate or some jazz, cause, corner case conundrum. And a Pox player would just cast discard to solve the problem before it was a problem, gee whiz...

I could swear SDT is colorless; just saying.

O RLY? Thanks for the info. Thought this was a conversation about colored cards. Oh, and Bstorm and SDT are obviously different cards, with different functions, but yeah, I guess that means if all those Chalice decks make hay, Mirri's Guile will become even worse.

LifeFromTheLoam is eliminating the opportunity costs of Exploration, Gamble and Mox Diamond for example as well.

And LftL exposes it's caster to a lot of graveyard hate. It's a resilient engine against an unprepared opponent. The deck slows greatly against the correct sideboard. Now, stating LftL is an engine, and allows other cards greater play, and introducing it's inherent handicap, what's the handicap to Bstorm since that's the chosen comparison model?

You can't argue that way and choose to root your arguments on "is there are an exact copy of Brainstorm in other colors". TBH, I am not even sure, if the fact that blue offers the best deck fillers and redundancy tools for Legacy decks, which is based on the fundamental abiliy distribution within the colorpie, gualifies as a complaint, as is it stating the obvious. Once more: It is like complaining, that green has no "kill creature" spells.

1st- Dictating what can and can't be argued/discussed/compared/etc. is a strong-arm tactic of intimidation. That you set the rules for engagement that I have to follow, bunk. Obviously I could make that choice, because there it is in print.

Green does have kill creature spells - Wing Snare, Beast Within, Dessert Twister, Aerial Predation, Trip Wire, etc. It's just that they are all suck and are conditional or expensive. Hmm, that sounds like what those of us on a ban brainstorm jag are about. Keep your cantrips, just have them be more conditional (like not instant speed), or cost more (not ).

Its idiotic to bring up [cards]Bind[/cards,] as the problem this card has isn't the color, but the cost and it therefore simply being unable to hit your opponents first or second fetchland. You discredit yourself if I really have to point out the difference between 1cc & 2cc spells in this format. Its pathetic if SFM @ 1W and Tarmogoyf @ 1G qualifiy as "blue cards" for some people in this thread and you try to make a point out of the sheer color of a spell that costs 1G as well.

Well, there lies the rub. Cause Bind just sucks as a card as printed. That whole bit about 1cc and 2cc cards in legacy, that's the problem. Because there's no 0cc solution, and the recent best printed form of interaction is 2cc, and slow speed at that, SotL. I get the difference, that's why I find it a problem, and offensive. In a better world, SFM and Goyf would be costed and respectively. With duals, definitely still castable on turn with ease, but the investment would be deeper. More fragile manabase, or greater commitment to basics.

No, the arguments are that blue does best what it does best per definition which is decresing variance and increasing density of certain selected cards at the same time and therefore marking the best neutral shell to support several strategies. The abdomination of DTT, which turned a large potion of the Legacy metagame from "52-card decks" to Vintage-esque "70% card overlap + killcondition of choice", is a whole different topic.

I'll make my own argument. Dropping this ball of wax at the feet of DTT could only be possible in the world with Bstorm. I'm fine with folks keeping DTT and ditching Bstorm. Never played Vintage, am not familiar, have not made that correlation.

Other colors have also got serious powerhouses over the years, so don't start lying to have arguments simply because you have TC/DTT in mind. I have not seen blue running Wryn Wingmare/Thalia/DarkDepths/Eidolon/etc.

Sidenote: You are aware that bannings like suggested are a political issue to WotC if +75% of the metagame runs those cards?

1st I had to google, not familiar with it in any Legacy lists. The 2nd is a complete anti-Bstorm card, so why would they be played together, ditto for 4th. The 3rd is a fun limited card, or abusable by one deck, adequately named- Lands. Not sure what you're going for. How about Bob, Mentor, Swiftspear, DRS, SFM, Goyf, Young Pyro, as cards co-opted, and added to things like TC/DTT/Omni/EtI/SnT that are just, how shall we say- powerhouse broken?

Sidenote: that 1st suggestion is a large load of poop. That's a powerhouse? Glowrider with flying is a powerhouse now? T3 play, most likely to be dazed, not even flash. fml

I hope this isn't a serious suggestion...

It was not. Hyperbole. This suggestion would crush Manaless Dredge running G. Probe. Start the game with 5 cards, then have to survive 4 draw steps unmolested and not dead before getting to your 5th turn to begin dredging, unlikely winnable.

They are not and that is the point, nor is it adequate to complain about blue performing the best in the chosen aspects like "tools against combo" and "cardselection" as stated before. All the "tools against combo", "cardselection" and "cardadvantage" are NOT exclusive to blue, but blue can't destroy creatures/artifacts/enchantments even after 20 years.

This is a myopic view of blue as a color and not as a shell. The blue shell does all those things, and that's the problem. Decks are seldom monocolored, (D&T, Fish, Painter, Omni, Goblins, Elves'ish). If monocolor blue was the only deck packing brainstorms, doubt there'd be any discussion about it. And to the extent about destroying "permanents", it's rubbish - bounce is the catchall reversal of fortunes. Gameplay scene, player 1 invest X resources into putting a creature into play, let's assume the target is worthwhile and not an Orithophter. Player 2 undoes that, at their whim and leisure for , because yahtzee. If the creature isn't on the battlefield, it might as well of been destroyed, or tucked, or exiled, because it's not in play. It sees no play, but omg do I hate curse of the swine... but they get 2/2 tokens to replace blah blah blah.

It's a lot like saying Vintage is dull because everyone is running SoLoCryMoxen + Restricted List. Heck, Modern features +40% Lightning Bolt decks for three years now and that card is a lot more "dull" than any cantrip

L bolt changes the game state, instead of finding things to change the game state. Directly changing the game state is less dull than the other. But this isn't about Modern or Vintage, but Legacy, I shan't be distracted. I shan't be distracted. I shan't be distracted.

[ahg113]

I do wish that Wizard would make an effort to print more new consistency tools, preferably in other colors, such as Magmatic Insight. Reducing variance is simply great for the game - as evidenced by the need for the new mulligan rule, and the popularity of cantrips in Legacy - and is even more needed than new hate cards like Chalice, Thalia, Spirit of the Labyrinth, or Eidolon, although these are also important to keep the average number of cantrips in check.

Magmatic Insight, is a decent start, but a bad product. Same reason Faithless Looting doesn't see a lot of play outside LED Dredge. This is card filtering, not card advantage nor card selection. One hopes the next two cards drawn are better than this and a land, but if one ends up with two lands then what? Make cantrips, not poor knockoffs. Reducing variance is great for spikes, but some of us like the random aspect of it. Top decking happens, but not naturally on every draw.

All those things used to keep cantrips in check come down after cantrips can already be cast, or in bstorm's case, it can be cast in response. (Chalice off sol-land, land+mox/petal/:gr:SG on the play excepting.)

It's been said, tried and true, hate cards are effectively weak. Unless the hate is so great, and quick, whatever it is seeking to limit will persevere. It has to be Leyline good, or artifact gy hate good. Otherwise, it's late to the party, and not nearly as effective as intended.

[Crimhead]

This basically. People keep saying that the people who are pro BS ban are just mad and salty that their decks aren't valid anymore (the zoo argument). That isn't true. We just are tired of the fact that the format is to the point where it is almost a 56 card (and considering how ponder generally follows BS a 52 card) format. Power level aside, it's become dull.

This might be true for some Brainstorm haters. But a lot of folks aren't just complaining about the small number off competitive blue-less decks. What I'm seeing are complaints about the nature of the competitive blue-less decks.

People complain that the only blue-less options are prison decks or combo decks. Now that we have a blue-less midrange deck starting to put up some numbers people complain because it's a "Chalice deck".

So for some this is not about Legacy being a 56 or 52 card format. Having other options isn't enough. Some people are clearly wanting either specific blue-less options, or at least a specific type of blue-less option (midrange without Chalice, I guess). Otherwise we wouldn't see so much dismissing of tier blue-less decks on the grounds of their play-style.

Legacy should be about small-ball Magic and playing for incremental advantages.

That doesn't leave much room for combo decks or lock-down prison decks.

[bruizar]

What I'm seeing are complaints about the nature of the competitive blue-less decks.

People complain that the only blue-less options are prison decks or combo decks. Now that we have a blue-less midrange deck starting to put up some numbers people complain because it's a "Chalice deck".

Same happened to Vintage:

Dredge - Ignores blue
Storm Combo - Is faster than blue (..is also blue..)
Workshop - Stops blue from playing cards

[Zombie]

Basically:
"I want to do cool nonspecific idea X." => You can if you play a blue cantrip shell.
"I want to do cool nonspecific idea X." => Can't without blue. You have to explicitly deal with the cantrip engine if you want to have a prayer because it's just better than alternatives.

The first idea for a nonblue deck is dealing with blue, and then you can maybe start thinking of what you want to do, usually limited by the hate methods you chose. The first idea for a blue deck is what do you want to do with much more freedom. That's the disparity.

[Quasim0ff]

Basically:
"I want to do cool nonspecific idea X." => You can if you play a blue cantrip shell.
"I want to do cool nonspecific idea X." => Can't without blue. You have to explicitly deal with the cantrip engine if you want to have a prayer because it's just better than alternatives.

The first idea for a nonblue deck is dealing with blue, and then you can maybe start thinking of what you want to do, usually limited by the hate methods you chose. The first idea for a blue deck is what do you want to do with much more freedom. That's the disparity.

That's not true. The same applies in relation to blue vs blue decks.

[Finn]

This might be true for some Brainstorm haters. But a lot of folks aren't just complaining about the small number off competitive blue-less decks. What I'm seeing are complaints about the nature of the competitive blue-less decks.

People complain that the only blue-less options are prison decks or combo decks. Now that we have a blue-less midrange deck starting to put up some numbers people complain because it's a "Chalice deck".

So for some this is not about Legacy being a 56 or 52 card format. Having other options isn't enough. Some people are clearly wanting either specific blue-less options, or at least a specific type of blue-less option (midrange without Chalice, I guess). Otherwise we wouldn't see so much dismissing of tier blue-less decks on the grounds of their play-style.

Crimhead, don't worry too much about stuff like that. The problem is only curbing the relative power of cantrips. They are only ubiquitous because they are better than every other engine by such a wide margin. Fix that and lots of other options will be possible to make these folks happy. If the format is healthy, Chalice of the Void will cease to be attractive because the percentage of decks it hoses drops to the point that the card is not worth the trouble of its own internal consistency baggage. People point that out as a barometer, and not as a matter of style preference.

[Quasim0ff]

Crimhead, don't worry too much about stuff like that. The problem is only curbing the relative power of cantrips. They are only ubiquitous because they are better than every other engine by such a wide margin. Fix that and lots of other options will be possible to make these folks happy. If the format is healthy, Chalice of the Void will cease to be attractive because the percentage of decks it hoses drops to the point that the card is not worth the trouble of its own internal consistency baggage. People point that out as a barometer, and not as a matter of style preference.

Why is chalice being good a bad thing?

[bruizar]

Why is chalice being good a bad thing?

What many people, in my opinion, do wrong, is building decks completely around chalice. The decks that play it do not run one CC spells, and that's not the best decision imo. As long as Chalice impacts the opponent more than yourself, there is no reason to limit your deck design space to non-1CC cards.

[Lemnear]

Why is chalice being good a bad thing?

Because it's basically the same red flag as Maindeck Pyroblasts for some people following the logic of "people metagame against cantrip.dec -> format is unhealthy/unfun/degenerate/etc".

[Finn]

I gotta hand it to you quasimuff, you are an original. That is the first time I have ever seen anyone ask me a question with the answer in the attached quote.

[Quasim0ff]

I gotta hand it to you quasimuff, you are an original. That is the first time I have ever seen anyone ask me a question with the answer in the attached quote.

I'm serious - I'd rather not have legacy turn into a format NOT dominated by 1 drops. If the format is dominated by 1 drops (Cantrips, Noble Hierarch, whatever) Chalice should be a viable plan. That's my point.

[Tammit67]

This seems like an oxymoron. Inbred blue is fine because the solution is too fragile to be an issue. Well, if there's a problem, and the solution isn't adequate, shouldn't another solution be found? Such as, (fill in blank).

Chalice does well against inbred blue. However when people start respecting chalice decks again, the chalice decks cannot withstand the attention of the format recognizing them as something to expect. Does that makes sense?

It's like dredge: great in certain metas where people aren't respecting it, but can't stand being a top deck. Blue decks like miracles though can still be top contenders despite most people actively showing up with sideboard plans against them.