Force is powerful, but hymn'ing yourself and paying a point of life to stop a card is perfectly fair. It answers threats, isn't a threat in its own right (unless you're casting it at low life). It's like arguing that StP should be banned.
Brainstorm, I get, does things that are arguably too good. I don't agree, but I can find some appreciation for the argument. But arguing against FoW is just confusing.
How many of your posts on this subject do I need to read before going insane and responding? Rhetorical question, but I think it was close to 4.
STOP TRYING TO SOUND INTELLIGENT. Your arguments are the perfect example of why a shred of knowledge is much more dangerous than none.
FoW fuels combo? Only very few combos use FoW, and the ones that do are mostly 2 card combos that have troubles being consistent. They have troubles with consistency because they decide to waste deck slots for FoW instead of searching/drawing cards and therefore have a harder time even getting to their combo.
Is that why everyone is flocking to Overextended? Last I saw, it was as much of a flop as regular extended. Also, honestly, if you think it's such a better format why wouldn't you just go play that and stop advocating changing Legacy into something that already exists?In fact, it would look like "Overextended" (Mercadian Masques onward) which is right now a more diverse format than this one due to the lack of cards like FOW, Show and Tell and LED.
My god, I wish you either understood math better or could at least draw the correct conclusions from it. Variance can be caused by many things, if your argument is just that increased variance = better (like you've conveyed) then you're just flat out wrong. Changing the amount of same cards you could have per deck from 4 to 1 would increase variance drastically. Ever play highlander or EDH? Every game would be completely different because your deck now has 40 different cards in it instead of just ~10 different cards. The variance would be enormous, but it would also not be fun.Another advantage is that it will increase variance between games. Game design theory says that variance is what keeps players interested in a game. That principle explains one of the reasons why Vintage isn't played even with proxies or on MWS: most of the decks are a carbon copy of each other, minus a few cards.
Variance =/= interest in a game.
Ungh, anyone else cringe over this paragraph? How do you know what "psychographic" is being drawn to legacy right now? Do you really believe each color's "psychographic" playstyle is going to attract the same number of people? As it turns out in literally every marketing field, people in general are not going to spread evenly into all different types of "psychographs." People like similar things, maybe blue being a good color is drawing more of an audience than ever because the intellectual games you have to play with blue may be the exact thing drawing every magic player in to magic anyway.Also, because each color is tied to a player psychographic and specific playstyles, a more balanced format would attract more players. Currently, it attracts mostly players of one single psychographic, which is why forums like this one shows the false consensus that the format is perfect as is, and that it shouldn't change. But that's true only for players within that psychographic.
There is a false consensus that the format is perfect as is? Not only do you have absolutely no evidence of this, you really think that you have a majority of people backing you on that subject. This is just flat out astounding, I can never believe how people can just form an opinion and automatically think they are so correct that not only will they not believe in evidence to the contrary, but they actually believe that a majority of people are backing their opinion.
I rarely see people advocating for less colors than 3, unless they are running some kind anti-nonbasic themselves. Besides, try to build a single colored deck and post it here - I give you 10 posts before the discussion "so, what will we splash" start.
Besides, every good solution printed in other colors are simply added to the 3c strategies, so this changes nothing. To be honest, most colors have good answers on their own for a lot of things, it's just that these get better with the backup of a defense able to stop whatever, read, counterspells.
All that said, I don't think anything should be banned, or that the format sux, I just said I would enjoy if they printed better cards for monocolor strategies, as much as they print things for multicolor like Wild Nacatl or Maelstrom Pulse. Cards that work better if you have basic lands would be nice =)
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
This was, and is, the thrust of my argument. Well stated. Magic players love cards, and they generally like seeing more of them in any given game and having more choices about which cards they want to play. The fact that blue is best at these abilities may be a design flaw but it does not justify banning key blue cards to make the game more "enjoyable" for a minority of players who view blue cards as unfair.
I would also point out the evidence that WoTC is a company that likes its profit margins, and yet they continue to print many strong blue cards. Obviously, they do not believe that these cards or strategies are driving any significant portion of players away from the game. On the contrary, exciting new blue cards keep a large portion of blue-loving players buying new sets, and this generates money for WoTC. Turning around and banning these same cards makes no economic sense, and therefore it won't happen.
Magic is only profitable because of kitchen table Magic players; not professional players, not people who post on online discussion forums, or travel inconvenient distances to play in tournaments, or heck, even play in tournaments at all. People who just like playing with friends and trading. The silent majority, if you will.
While the plural of anecdote is not "data," from personal experience, most casual players are not measuring the fun of the game based on the strength of blue control cards. In fact, I'll argue the opposite. Same reason land destruction is not so good these past few years.
I will accept that this is true. WoTC also prints cards desirable to casual players. There are many examples, too numerous to name. Anything featuring nice art and decent power with creature type "Angel" or "Dragon" seems to fit the bill.
But it's a bit silly to claim that the company is ignorant of the sales potential provided by Spikey blue cards. How many boxes of Worldwake (an otherwise lackluster set) were bought by folks hoping to score a Jace? That is definitely a quantity that WoTC pays attention to, because those sales (at whatever level) were driven by a single card. If you could print 1-2 cards and ensure that an extra 2-3,000 boxes and fatpacks sold, wouldn't you do it?
But let's abandon that line of reasoning and turn the question around. Regardless of justification, how likely is that Force of Will, Mental Misstep or Jace the Mind Sculptor will be banned in Legacy in the next 2 years? Not all 3 mind you, but just one of those cards. I'd be willing to bet $500 that none of them will be banned. That's the cold, hard truth. How many of you would be willing to open your wallet to bet against me? Probably not many....
This being the case, people should either 1) get used to Legacy with blue as it is, or 2) find another format like EDH or Overextended.
Go Blue. Screw that whole turning guys sideways thing.
I'd like blue more if we had a little more clock time. Damn draws.
Lol, props to the guy who said this was going to end into another ban blue thread.
So, as I opened the thread, some recommendations:
1. Discussion about blue banning is for another thread there are enough serial threads to discuss manbearpig
2. This thread is for trolling so don't post here if you can't make me lol.
3. Dr Jones and some others should change their pic into gargamel, just for sports (and epic lulz)
What?
Except dredge and Storm, two deck relying on very specific mecanics, every combo deck and its mom play FOW. Ever heard of spiral tide, show and tell, painter or reanimate? Those are the combo decks that actually win tournaments. One of the reason being the protection/search provided by their blue shell make them incredibly hard to hate..
There is nothing more boring than building a combo deck in legacy right now :
4 fow
4 brainstorm
*insert combo here*
4 daze
3 intuition
Don't forget Wastelands. Every blue deck effectively runs 4 Strip Mines and 8 Wastelands as its land destruction package. When you couple that with the 12 Time Walks they also play, you really have a problem. However, if we do some close reading of the Great One's posts, we might find a solution.
So, playing either too many lands or no lands at all will fix our problem. If we play no lands, they can't Strip Mine us. If we play too many lands, there are too many lands for them to Strip Mine. Problem, blue assholes?
I still don't see how Brainstorm is even remotely as powerful as other banned cards like SotF, MT, Mox-X, or Black Lotus.
It's not powerful in the same way. It says U - Draw 3 Cards, and that's as powerful at Mystical Tutor.
Brainstorm is bonkers, so it makes sense for everyone to play it. I remember when I first played Zoo against my roomate with Dreadstill, and he was casting Brainstorms. I was jealous, because my deck couldn't do that, and I recognised the disadvantage I was at. Brainstorm makes it really attractive to play blue, because no other color has anything like it. I've since added Brainstorm to Zoo, and voila! It's a better deck.
Well, other decks still can do Divining Top, which is surely a bit more expensive but then again is permanent.
Does any one do that? Nope.
Why does nobody bitch about white?
White has StP, PtE and other goodstuff. Why not hate on it?
Or green, holy shit, green has Tarmogoyf. And if u combine Green with White.... there comes KoTr.
Nuff' trolled. Blue is good, but most of the times its the other colors spells that u dig for with Brainstorm.
Top doesn't do the same thing. Top lets you pay mana to keep scrying. Sylvan Library lets you scry for free, but only during your upkeep.
Brainstorm is a one off, but it doesn't just dig for a card, it lets you take a free mull on your hand.
If you're trying to fight Zoo, no other card can, for less than three mana, take this hand;
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Force of Will
Polluted Delta
And make it this hand:
Polluted Delta
Tarmogoyf
Swords to Plowshares
Knight of the Reliquary
That's why Brainstorm is the best card in the format. Not just because it's really good at digging, although it is at that, but because with shuffles effects, which are numerous and built into your very mana base, it becomes a better free mulligan. It lets you take a draw in the classic poker sense.
eta: Also I'd like to disassociate myself from any remarks about Force being banned. The only thing they need to do to Force is put it in a duel deck.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
So Brainstorm should be banned because it's the best card? I don' think it crosses the threshold on being broken. Especially considering that the current tier 1 deck, Merfolk, doesn't even run it.
If Wotc bans the color blue no one would have to debate over which blue cards are the broken ones needing banning. Just saying.
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