All B/R update speculation.

[Dice_Box]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cvcgp8ydzz...ata1.xlsx?dl=0

Just going to repost this. I know the data is far from complete, but it seams to me to show that the decks that where doing best where seeing play. I fundamentally disagree with your viewpoint, I don't think the internet was as popular in magic then as it was now and that limited some hegemony but overall the best decks where seeing the most play.

Edit.
To your other point, cards tend to be picked up slowly, then they cascade in popularity. I often hear on So many Insane Plays that a card has potential but the player base will need time to work out where it fits. Cards that do not obviously slip into an existing shell often need someome to show the way. Eggs, R/B Hollow one or the adapted Lantern with Whir come to mind.

The Legacy example was U/R Delver, where we all knew Recall was going to be powerful in Legacy the question was where. We waited, we saw something, people jumped upon it.

[pettdan]

I can even pinpoint exactly when I realized Legacy had changed: it was the SCG Nashville Open in 2011. I finished 18th place with Deadguy. [...] My first loss was to eventual champion Todd Anderson, who straight-up crushed me (and then crushed the top 8 Deadguy player 2-0 in the semis). It wasn't just a knife-at-a-gunfight situation, I'd brought a dull spork to a nuclear exchange. Since there were no Delvers in the Nashville top 8, you can't lay the blame at its power-creeping feet. Snapcaster Mage was popular, but people hadn't quite got the feel of it yet and were mostly playing it because it looked like it had to be a good card. Still, those blue decks were, for all their faults (four blue "cantrip shell" type decks in the top 8, with three copies of Ponder between them?), leagues better than anything else in the room.

It seems to me that what you are actually arguing for is not that competitiveness increased but rather that the power of the blue shell became apparent, understood and well-known in 2011. These are, perhaps, the strongest arguments you provide.

[ubernostrum]

Just going to repost this. I know the data is far from complete, but it seams to me to show that the decks that where doing best where seeing play. I fundamentally disagree with your viewpoint, I don't think the internet was as popular in magic then as it was now and that limited some hegemony but overall the best decks where seeing the most play.

I have some issues with your assertion that the internet "wasn't as popular in Magic" seven years ago. Heck, I can vanity-search myself in the Dojo archives and find tournament reports from events I played in the 90s. And there was Magic on Usenet before the Dojo.

You're basically saying the same things Wizards has been saying every time they try to hide some more MTGO data. You're as wrong as they are.

To your other point, cards tend to be picked up slowly, then they cascade in popularity. I often hear on So many Insane Plays that a card has potential but the player base will need time to work out where it fits. Cards that do not obviously slip into an existing shell often need someome to show the way. Eggs, R/B Hollow one or the adapted Lantern with Whir come to mind.

The Legacy example was U/R Delver, where we all knew Recall was going to be powerful in Legacy the question was where. We waited, we saw something, people jumped upon it.

Cruise Delver hit week one of the format with KTK. Maybe not the example you wanted? And Modern is far more heavily curated than Legacy, and takes great care to ensure its best one-mana cantrip is green. If that's what you want, the format's available.

[Dice_Box]

I have some issues with your assertion that the internet "wasn't as popular in Magic" seven years ago. Heck, I can vanity-search myself in the Dojo archives and find tournament reports from events I played in the 90s. And there was Magic on Usenet before the Dojo.

You're basically saying the same things Wizards has been saying every time they try to hide some more MTGO data. You're as wrong as they are.

I'm not saying the internet was not used, I'm saying it was not as popular as it is now. God dam, why does no one read what I actually fucking say. Don't put words in my mouth, read the words.

Cruise Delver hit week one of the format with KTK. Maybe not the example you wanted? And Modern is far more heavily curated than Legacy, and takes great care to ensure its best one-mana cantrip is green. If that's what you want, the format's available.

It's exactly the example I wanted. The speed has increased in the actions taken, but the actions have not changed. Something is printed, we all know it's likely to do something, we all wait to see what happens, then we react. The increase in the use of the internet has helped speed up this tread but it has not changed it.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I'm not saying the internet was not used, I'm saying it was not as popular as it is now. God dam, why does no one read what I actually fucking say. Don't put words in my mouth, read the words.

It's exactly the example I wanted. The speed has increased in the actions taken, but the actions have not changed. Something is printed, we all know it's likely to do something, we all wait to see what happens, then we react. The increase in the use of the internet has helped speed up this tread but it has not changed it.

Why read and digest entire posts when you can just skim for keywords and then yell at each other? "He said the internet was not used, doesn't he know this is the current year!? reeeeeeeeeeee!"

I agree the Cruise Delver is a perfect example - it may have "broke" right away, but it took a while to go from "decklist" to "DtB" to "omgbanthis." The internet process you describe is typically accompanied by buyouts, specs, and price spikes as well, which means if I'm not paying close attention to a deck's development I'm likely going to miss the boat on actually acquiring the cards. This wasn't much of a problem even five years ago - the magic economy has gone full retard along with everything else.

[Crimhead]

For me engines are the most crucial part of legacy because they have a bigger impact on playlines and deckbuilding than archetypes do.

Really?

If I am playing vs RB Reanimator or UB Reanimator, I will keep similar hands and SB similarly. Why? Because I am dealing with similar lines of play. Same as if I'm playing Shardless or Jund; Burn or Prowess.

If I am playing vs Pile, Miracles, S&T, and Storm, and I keep similar hands and SB similarly, I obviously don't have a clue and will lose. Why? Because those decks are hitting me with vastly different lines of play.

[wonderPreaux]

To weigh in on the "all Brainstorm decks are equal" thing:

I'm a long-time Storm player, and I've been reading and gold-fishing Omni-Tell to try and get a feel for it. The goal was to try and capture that kind of resilience and straight-forwardness for a Doomsday list I'm developing, the idea being that they were somewhat similar in trying to jam a 3-mana sorcery that made a game-winning game-state, and both had more lands and disruption than the Storm decks I usually run. I was trying to use a proven concept to benchmark for my developmental concept.

Simple enough, right? Anyway, I decided to try and get my feet wet in a league last night, and I got completely bodied. I'm really inexperienced with counter-magic, so the pacing felt really weird cantripping and then feeling defenseless or slow-rolling and feeling dead-in-the-water when, in retrospect, I had carved out a good holding-position to build resources. Moreover, Omni-Tell really doesn't have accelerators or a lot of management of where you keep your permanents (when to play/hold mana-rocks, etc), so timing a Wish or Cantrip felt like it had to be very precise because I couldn't re-calibrate by digging for Rituals to catch up later etc.

I imagine an Omni-Tell player may have a similar kind of scenario trying to figure out edge-case hands to keep for storm, or choosing among divergent play-lines etc. This isn't even getting into side-boarding dynamics, which matchups you play aggressively or defensively in, etc. And this is just a narrow hop among combo decks, I don't really get how you could write-off all the differences among an even wider difference like hopping from Omni-Tell to Delver or something. You can say the win condition doesn't matter, but I'd say you're missing the journey for the destination at that point. It was fun figuring how different things go with a different set of tools, even if I did have a common card in Brainstorm for managing those tools. I had a great time punting games and flushing tickets down the virtual drain, and so can you!

[Crimhead]

For me engines are the most crucial part of legacy because they have a bigger impact on playlines and deckbuilding than archetypes do.

If you ask me if Grizzlebrand would work in your deck, I won't ask if you run cantrips! I'll ask if you have a way to cheat it in. Ask me if SFM works in your deck, I want to know if it's a fair aggro/control deck - not if it is a cantrip deck.

Shardless will use cantrips with uber cantrip visions as their engine while Jund goes for Bob and sylvan library. The consequences this has for deckbuilding and in-game decision trees is huge.

Shardless and Jund have more nonland cards in common than Miracles and Storm ever did. Or S&T and Pile. etc. Likewiise with UB or RB Reanimator.
Why? because Midrange decks want Midrange cards, etc.

This isn't even getting into side-boarding dynamics, which matchups you play aggressively or defensively in, etc. And this is just a narrow hop among combo decks, I don't really get how you could write-off all the differences among an even wider difference like hopping from Omni-Tell to Delver or something.

I know right! My guesses:

• Blinded by cantrip rage.
• Self delusion to justify the hatred of the current meta.
• Intellectual dishonesty.

Anyway, your post was excellent but nobody is going to listen. Haters are going to hate.

[pettdan]

I think when people write that all Brainstorm-decks are the same they are giving words to a feeling of futility in trying to create or play decks that have a reasonable chance to compete with these decks. I'll repeat the quote from a few posts back that describes how such a feeling appeared in 2011 for a fellow legacy-player:

I can even pinpoint exactly when I realized Legacy had changed: it was the SCG Nashville Open in 2011. I finished 18th place with Deadguy. [...] My first loss was to eventual champion Todd Anderson, who straight-up crushed me (and then crushed the top 8 Deadguy player 2-0 in the semis). It wasn't just a knife-at-a-gunfight situation, I'd brought a dull spork to a nuclear exchange. Since there were no Delvers in the Nashville top 8, you can't lay the blame at its power-creeping feet. Snapcaster Mage was popular, but people hadn't quite got the feel of it yet and were mostly playing it because it looked like it had to be a good card. Still, those blue decks were, for all their faults (four blue "cantrip shell" type decks in the top 8, with three copies of Ponder between them?), leagues better than anything else in the room.

If you try to interpret it literally (how all Brainstorm-decks are the same) you'll quickly notice that isn't meaningful.

This isn't even getting into side-boarding dynamics, which matchups you play aggressively or defensively in, etc. And this is just a narrow hop among combo decks, I don't really get how you could write-off all the differences among an even wider difference like hopping from Omni-Tell to Delver or something.

My guesses:

• Blinded by cantrip rage.
• Self delusion to justify the hatred of the current meta.
• Intellectual dishonesty.

Saying that all Brainstorm decks are similar seems obviously wrong. I don't think we need to use many sentences to draw that conclusion. What would be a better spent effort would be to try to understand why someone would say that, and what they mean by that.

I'll make a brief attempt, because I'm also wondering. The first thing that comes to mind is how the games start and end. That is, they start with you having a reasonable amount of playable cards and mana sources in your hand. And in some well-fought battles between decks that are balanced in power level and that use strategies that can interact well with each other the game ends with a topdeck battle. It is the other [edit: parts of] games that are more interesting, the things that happen in the midgame. Now some decks have a much better position in that start and ending of a game.

Another possible interpretation would be how you could compare decks with 8 cantrips, 8 threats, 8 counterspells and 4-8 removal, etc, and say that they seem very similar. This is a more narrow interpretation, but if it has some point than it is likely a part of this feeling that is being presented.

Anyway, your post was excellent but nobody is going to listen. Haters are going to hate.

Well, that is probably true, but in the light of this post it would seem that you are not listening to others? Just as probably I'm not listening now... ;)

[Crimhead]

That is, they start with you having a reasonable amount of playable cards and mana sources in your hand. And in some well-fought battles between decks that are balanced in power level and that use strategies that can interact well with each other the game ends with a topdeck battle. It is the other [edit: parts of] games that are more interesting, the things that happen in the midgame. Now some decks have a much better position in that start and ending of a game.

Another possible interpretation would be how you could compare decks with 8 cantrips, 8 threats, 8 counterspells and 4-8 removal, etc, and say that they seem very similar. This is a more narrow interpretation, but if it has some point than it is likely a part of this feeling that is being presented.

This PoV is entirely fair-deck centric. Sure, good stuff blue decks (READ - every tier-1 good-stuff deck) are not that different. Extending this to combo decks (and Miracles) is abjectly wrong. They play very different - and there is no good evidence to suggest Storm and S&T are better positioned than Elves and Turbo Depths.

Saying that all Brainstorm decks are similar seems obviously wrong...
What would be a better spent effort would be to try to understand why someone would say that, and what they mean by that...

Well, that is probably true, but in the light of this post it would seem that you are not listening to others? Just as probably I'm not listening now... ;)

I listen to what they type, but I'm nobody's therapist and I'm not translating any tantrums. People can say what they mean (which would weaken their "case"), or they can piss all over honest communication and expect sympathy.

[Dice_Box]

For me personally I think it's mostly a reaction to what Legacy has become and what I liked about it. Legacy is also not static or held in time. It's not like a love of classic cars where you can just buy one and do it up, once a format changes the old one is dead. The new format is far too hegemonic and not as enjoyable as it was, in my opinion the reason for that is the engine of Brainstorm.

Speaking for myself.

The issue that I have now with others is that people seem to think I want to break their toys, I don't, I want to see the toy box shared more fairly not dominated by an over-abundance of one item. The arguments stem from not a personal wish to destroy but repair. Repair the harm that has been done here. The post that says it best is this one:

I think what seems to me to be missing from the discussion is an understanding that the pro-ban people want a more diverse meta which should in the end be a more enjoyable experience for everyone. The anti-ban people think that someone wants to ruin their fun, which is not the case. This is however probably an oversimplicifation and misunderstanding from my part...

The other issue is those who don't actually read what I am saying and then make me repeat/quote myself to fill in their inability to read. But that's got nothing to do with the actual debate itself.

[Jak]

There should be a new poll.


Ban Brainstorm, Delver, TNN, and Deathrite, IMO. Get rid of enough things to make Zoo a playable strategy and then you’re good.

[Crimhead]

The issue that I have now with others is that people seem to think I want to break their toys, I don't, I want to see the toy box shared more fairly not dominated by an over-abundance of one item. The arguments stem from not a personal wish to destroy but repair. Repair the harm that has been done here. The post that says it best is this one:

The other issue is those who don't actually read what I am saying and then make me repeat/quote myself to fill in their inability to read. But that's got nothing to do with the actual debate itself.

To be fair you are hard to understand.

You talk of BS as a cancer to the format which has killed diversity and everything good about Legacy. But in the same breath swear you are not advocating for a ban?

Then you unapologetically abandon rationality when it suits you. Maybe you bring it on yourself?

[Crimhead]

There should be a new poll.


Ban Brainstorm, Delver, TNN, and Deathrite, IMO. Get rid of enough things to make Zoo a playable strategy and then you’re good.

Not sure about bringing back Zoo, but I do think Delver and TNN (and Snappy and Leo) push the fair decks towards more than the Cantrips. Cantrips haven't changed since Jund was king. TNN was a game changer.
YP doesn't help either - such strong synergy with cantrips.

If there is a problem with Legacy, I'd blame the creature creep.

[colo]

The problem that I've had with blue in the format of the few years past is that the colour now hosts the most aggressive creature (Delver of Secrets), the most resilient and most evasive creature (True-Name Nemesis), and the most synergistic(-with-the-rest-of-a-lot-of-(blue-)decks) creature (Snapcaster Mage) - that's for creatures that you generally cast/have enter the battlefield in a fair way (and on top of that, it gets to cheat in Griselbrand and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn for 2U, too!). Most of the other creatures that actually matter in the format (Monastery Mentor, Young Pyromancer, Gurmag Angler, Leovold, Emissary of Trest) only do so in a shell that is governed and held together by blue. Now if you add blue's (pretty much) unique abilities to interact on the stack and to draw extra and filter cards to that, and splash another colour or two to cover the only remaining weakness (hard removal - you all know how comparatively easily today's manabases, with Deatrite Shaman, allow for this with virtually no drawbacks), you're kind of too good against the dwindling rest of the field. To change this, there needs to be more stuff that works like Spirit of the Labyrinth and Notion Thief, but is cheaper to cast and/or more resilient. I wonder why WotC is pussyfooting around the issue of allowing players drawing and filtering insane amounts of cards a turn. Bring in a number of symmetric effects that do not totally cripple Xerox (like Chalice of the Void), but severly punish its mechanics in a meaningful way. Cosi's Trickster and Ob Nixilis, Unshackled can't be the only (rather laughable) ideas you've got to combat the "draw/look at X cards, shuffle, repeat"-shitshow that has been going for ages now, can it?

[Jak]

Not sure about bringing back Zoo, but I do think Delver and TNN (and Snappy and Leo) push the fair decks towards more than the Cantrips. Cantrips haven't changed since Jund was king. TNN was a game changer.
YP doesn't help either - such strong synergy with cantrips.

If there is a problem with Legacy, I'd blame the creature creep.

I think Zoo being viable is a good measurement of a healthy format. Sadly, blue was given a better Wild Nacatl, an unremovable wall/finisher, and a Llanowar elf that gains them life/helps them finish the game outside of combat. I threw in Brainstorm to really shake it up, but Blue will still be fine. They need to be taken down a notch.

[Dice_Box]

To be fair you are hard to understand.

You talk of BS as a cancer to the format which has killed diversity and everything good about Legacy. But in the same breath swear you are not advocating for a ban?

Then you unapologetically abandon rationality when it suits you. Maybe you bring it on yourself?

The reason I don't talk about banning it anymore is we have a black and white statement it won't be. I want it banned, I just won't bother asking for it.

As for rationality, when I state "I don't think the internet was as popular in magic then as it was now" and the next post to counter me is "Derp, I used the internet"... I was not claiming it was not used, I was claiming it's use has increased. That was not hard to understand, how we got from "It's more popular now than it was" to "Your an idiot I use to use the internet years ago" in the same fucking breath astounds me. I will take the criticism I can be hard to understand at times, but that was not on me. He was either thick, not reading my posts or just looking for a fight.

Not sure about bringing back Zoo, but I do think Delver and TNN (and Snappy and Leo) push the fair decks towards more than the Cantrips. Cantrips haven't changed since Jund was king. TNN was a game changer.
YP doesn't help either - such strong synergy with cantrips.

If there is a problem with Legacy, I'd blame the creature creep.

I think Thresh kind of puts the breaks on that claim. I know it's less impressive now than it was, but have a look at it when it was the most dominant deck in the format; No Blue Creatures, a lot of Blue cantrips.

The Blue creature creep has just made the shell easier to justify but that doesn't mean that it was not still the best option.

[Lemnear]

I think Zoo being viable is a good measurement of a healthy format.

-snip-

If I threw in Brainstorm to really shake it up, but Blue will still be fine. They need to be taken down a notch.

I have a significant issue with this very Modern-esque idea of format health. Banning/nerfing anything which is better than linear turn-creatures-sideways.dec is a miserable approach to "fix" a format which is semi-broken for more than a decade.

[Jak]

I have a significant issue with this very Modern-esque idea of format health. Banning/nerfing anything which is better than linear turn-creatures-sideways.dec is a miserable approach to "fix" a format which is semi-broken for more than a decade.

Well considering how popular Modern is, I don't think that would be a bad thing.

Anyway, "turn-creatures-sideways.dec" was a DtB since this format started. The most efficient and powerful creatures should not almost all be blue (Delver and TNN) or viable only in a blue shell (Y. Pyromancer, Angler, etc). Zoo used to keep all of the blue-tempo-pile.dec in check way back before these recent printings.

[Lemnear]

Well considering how popular Modern is, I don't think that would be a bad thing.

Anyway, "turn-creatures-sideways.dec" was a DtB since this format started. The most efficient and powerful creatures should not almost all be blue (Delver and TNN) or viable only in a blue shell (Y. Pyromancer, Angler, etc). Zoo used to keep all of the blue-tempo-pile.dec in check way back before these recent printings.

Moderns popularity isn't solely rooting on the format being amazing, but on being a sanctioned one at the same time Legacy AND Stardard pretty much suck.

Zoo and Goblins are linear aggro decks which cant get past Delver, TNN, DRS, etc no matter if these creatures are backed by Brainstorm+Ponder or Ponder+Preordain. You change literally nothing for Goblins, Zoo, etc if you ban Brainstorm. In fact you would need to neuter every printing back to pre Time Spiral and Supreme Blue to have Zoo and Goblins viable again due, aka a time when blue creatures sucked and the best splashable creatures in blue decks were Nimble Mongoose and Werebear. We can't turn back time and neither remove a decade of printings.

The closest thing to viable aggro decks we have atm are Dredge and stompy, which put up numbers. You can't seriously argue on format health, based on whatever was played 10+ years ago and dismiss all evolutions the aggro supertype went through.