All B/R update speculation.

[Zilla]

Clearly Mountains need to be banned so people can keep playing their Brainstorms.

But Brainstorm is amazing IN Burn.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This is true.

Also, Burn has recently won major tournaments. Legacy is fine and nothing needs to be banned.

I love how, after months of dismissing actual larger trends in the data, people are so eager to glom onto this kind of anecdotal evidence.

I mean I wouldn't ban anything either, but I think it's premature to say that "Legacy is fine" because months and months and months of long-term domination by blue experienced a temporary disruption for a few weeks in a few major tournaments.

What kind of odds do people want to give me that the GP in March is won by a list with 4 Brainstorm and 4 Force of Will?

[Hanni]

I don't get what's wrong with blue being everywhere, when red, green, white, and black are everywhere too.

You cannot even make the statement that all of those decks are primarily blue either, because some of them are only using blue as a splash. The same way decks used to splash white for just 4 Swords, or just 4 Lightning Bolt... what's wrong with decks splashing blue for just 4 Brainstorm?

Either way, even with blue seeing alot of play, the format is very diverse. Alot of decks are competitive, the DTB is constantly rotating/changing, and there's nothing degenerate going on. Banning anything at this point would be insulting to the Legacy community. Unbanning, on the other hand... I'm all for that.

[Koby]

I don't get what's wrong with blue being everywhere, when red, green, white, and black are everywhere too.

You cannot even make the statement that all of those decks are primarily blue either, because some of them are only using blue as a splash. The same way decks used to splash white for just 4 Swords, or just 4 Lightning Bolt... what's wrong with decks splashing blue for just 4 Brainstorm?

Either way, even with blue seeing alot of play, the format is very diverse. Alot of decks are competitive, the DTB is constantly rotating/changing, and there's nothing degenerate going on. Banning anything at this point would be insulting to the Legacy community. Unbanning, on the other hand... I'm all for that.

Off hand, I can only think of one competitive deck that splashes Blue "just" for Brainstorm - GW/u Maverick aka "No- FOW". Even U/R Burn has a heavier blue "splash" than red.

[Hanni]

I build good decks with minor blue splashes all the time. In fact, there are two on the first page of the N&D Forum right now. Just cause people aren't playing them en masse doesn't mean they aren't competitive. In fact, I'd argue that the Blue Sligh list is actually better than the blue heavy U/R Delver lists, but that discussion is for another thread.

EDIT: Aside from the decks you mentioned, let's not get that decks like ANT splash blue too. That one is even in the DTB, so that squashes any debate over decks with just a splash of blue not being competitive. Dredge splashes blue too, if I'm not mistaken. No Force of Will in either of those decks, either.

[troopatroop]

Have you ever heard of gravecrawler troopatroop? Survival won't ever be getting unbanned while that card is in the format. Sure you can't do the stupid 16 power on turn 5 thing that survival did or turn 4 in some cases but you get 4 2/1's that recur unless they're exiled somehow.

Do you really think Survival for 4 Gravecrawlers and Casting them all is broken by Legacy standards? That's like a turn 4 assemble at best that doesn't win the game on the spot. What are you going to do about me killing you?

[menace13]

What kind of odds do people want to give me that the GP in March is won by a list with 4 Brainstorm and 4 Force of Will?

In the history of Legacy GPs how many were NOT won by 4 Bstorm and 4 FoW?

[troopatroop]

Yeah, I'm trying to think of a number to give him. I guess I'd give you 80 cents on the dollar xD


It's the Force of Will at 4x that seems pretty narrow actually, as far as decks that could make it.

[Hanni]

I remember back in 2009 when this thread was made, when Counterbalance was all the rage, and Sensei's Divining Top was on the chopping block. I'm glad the format was smart enough to evolve before Wizards went through its "lets ban this" phase. I still love that card.

I mean, how hard would it really have been to evolve past Survival Vengevine if people weren't so fucking stupid? I mean even nowadays... Grafdigger just straight up owns Vengevine, and the normal Survival hate still hates Survival. Honestly, they need to unban Mystical Tutor and Survival of the Fittest on the next round of updates. And at least 5 other cards. Less is more.

[Vacrix]

But Brainstorm is amazing IN Burn.

Hahaha touche sir.

I build good decks with minor blue splashes all the time. In fact, there are two on the first page of the N&D Forum right now. Just cause people aren't playing them en masse doesn't mean they aren't competitive. In fact, I'd argue that the Blue Sligh list is actually better than the blue heavy U/R Delver lists, but that discussion is for another thread.

I agree. Cards like Snapcaster, Delver, and Brainstorm allow blue to be played as a strong splash even without Force of Will (or Daze). Its something that hasn't quite caught on yet though.

[Hanni]

I agree. Cards like Snapcaster, Delver, and Brainstorm allow blue to be played as a strong splash even without Force of Will (or Daze). Its something that hasn't quite caught on yet though.

What hasn't caught on yet, is the ubiquity of Brainstorm. Why is it okay to splash white just for Swords to Plowshares, just red for Lightning Bolt, or just green for Tarmogoyf, but not just blue for Brainstorm? Brainstorm is not a banworthy card, but it's worth splashing for in a plethora of decks. The card doesn't do anything broken for the format, but it does increase consistency for a negligible cost. Everyone since the inception of this format has been under the assumption that if you go into blue, you need to go deep enough for Force of Will, which demands around 20 blue spells, at which point you are primarily blue. That is not the case, and has never been the case.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

In the history of Legacy GPs how many were NOT won by 4 Bstorm and 4 FoW?

1

[Shion]

In the history of Legacy GPs how many were NOT won by 4 Bstorm and 4 FoW?

It's actually 3 if you mean decks that weren't running both of those cards together.

GP Philadelphia 2005, Jonathan Sonne - Goblins

GP Columbus 2010, Tomoharu Saito - Merfolk (no Brainstorm)

GP Providence 2011, James Rynkiewicz - Bant (no Force of Will)

[Gui]

It's actually 3 if you mean decks that weren't running both of those cards together.

GP Philadelphia 2005, Jonathan Sonne - Goblins

GP Columbus 2010, Tomoharu Saito - Merfolk (no Brainstorm)

GP Providence 2011, James Rynkiewicz - Bant (no Force of Will)

And how many Legacy GPs were there already?

[Shion]

And how many Legacy GPs were there already?

There have been 8 Legacy Grand Prix events since 2005.

[metamet]

What hasn't caught on yet, is the ubiquity of Brainstorm. Why is it okay to splash white just for Swords to Plowshares, just red for Lightning Bolt, or just green for Tarmogoyf, but not just blue for Brainstorm? Brainstorm is not a banworthy card, but it's worth splashing for in a plethora of decks. The card doesn't do anything broken for the format, but it does increase consistency for a negligible cost. Everyone since the inception of this format has been under the assumption that if you go into blue, you need to go deep enough for Force of Will, which demands around 20 blue spells, at which point you are primarily blue. That is not the case, and has never been the case.

What archetypes would benefit from a brainstorm splash? Zoo, B/W? Merfolk doesn't even run it.

[Koby]

What archetypes would benefit from a brainstorm splash? Zoo, B/W? Merfolk doesn't even run it.

Archetypes with a lot of situational cards, and fetchlands. Zoo can't gian much from Brainstorm because their cards are either creatures or removal. BW might stand to gain from Brainstorm, but at that point it's an Esper list which already exists in numerous forms (tempo, control, stoneblade,etc - each playing Brainstorm).

Maverick has on again/off again splashed Brainstorm to varying results.

[Gheizen64]

Just reminding people that tuesday is the next B/R announcement. They're banning Intangible Virtue in innistrad block, what are your expectations for legacy? I think we'll MAYBE see Mind Twist unbanned, or nothing at all.
I'd love to play one or two Mind Twist in my RGB explorer deck.

Strongest candidates for being unbanned: Twist, Tax, Earthcraft, Black Vise. Strongest candidates for banning: Brainstorm, Show and Tell, Time spiral (WotC hate that combo).

[(nameless one)]

I'm not trolling and I'm probably gonna get trolled for this but I think Memory Jar deserves a second chance.

[jjjoness']

I'm not trolling and I'm probably gonna get trolled for this but I think Memory Jar deserves a second chance.

[trolling (nameless one)]


I still think Jar is totally bonkers, but it's not gonna happen anyway, since Wizards loves combo...
[/trolling]

I think it'll be nothing or something odd, nobody expected. But I really hope they don't unban Mindtwist, I dislike the card too much, even though it is definitely save to unban.