Let's Ban Fetchlands

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I literally do not understand why anyone would want to ban Mental Misstep.

[DrJones]

Because there's the risk that not banning Mental Misstep could result in banning Force of Will.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Of all the most heavily played cards right now I think those are the two I would least like to ban.

I would legitimately rather ban Dryad Arbor than either Misstep or Force.

[Malchar]

There's nothing "broken" about fetchlands. It would feel wrong to have them banned, even if it did make the game more "fair". However, I still think that overall the game would be much worse without fetchlands. Playing a 3 or 4 color deck and getting the right mana is fun. Being able to splash in all the useful low-costed cards you want is kind of the bread and butter of legacy. Also, if people actually played safe manabases, then blood moon wouldn't be nearly as fun to play on turn 1.

I don't really think that blue is the most dominant color in legacy. Ever since tarmogoyf showed up, it has been a steady decline. Now, we finally have maverick, which is able to play perfectly well without any blue at all. Besides, it doesn't really make sense to say that one color is dominant in legacy precisely because it is so easy to splash multiple colors. The truly dominant "color" in legacy is "a multicolor deck".

[Final Fortune]

Well, at least we agree that banning fetchlands would reduce the constant shuffling within games.

But I disagree with banning Brainstorm. It helps stop fast combo from completing degenerate turn 1-2 goldfishes. Brainstorm is only overpowered with fetchlands. Its other functions are more necessary than overpowered, such as protecting your hand from discard or putting away cards you need to have in your library (see: Progenitus). Ponder and Preordain are good filter cards, but they don't have the supplemental functions Brainstorm has, so Brainstorm isn't easily replaceable with Ponder/Preordain.

EDIT: Bolded and colored for reference.

Brainstorm has nothing to do with control or aggro-control's ability to keep comb "in check," Preordian is on par with Brainstorm and Ponder is even better at finding counter magic on the first turn and it's a completely topical argument for Brainstorm's presence in the format (not that I think Brainstorm should be banned, I just think your logic for Brainstorm is "off")

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Preordain and Ponder are nowhere near the power level of Brainstorm, but the difference in their relative power is much greater in combo decks running Brainstorm (which is most of them) than in other decks.

[Final Fortune]

I agree, which is why his point of view is completely dubious, Brainstorm does more to help combo than it does to hurt it and banning it would be worse for combo than for aggro-control because Combo has no effective replacement for the card while "insert cantrip here" does the same thing in aggro-control vs. combo as Brainstorm.

[TheDarkshineKnight]

Honestly, I'd rather we just ban everything that was printed during or after Time Spiral block. As far as I'm concerned, the printing of Tarmogoyf was the end of Legacy as an interesting format. I find it funny that people bitch and moan about blue being the most powerful color when it hasn't actually been on top in years. That title belongs to green and green alone. I mean, in the past few years, we've seen the following printed:

Tarmogoyf
Knight of the Reliquary
Krosan Grip
Qasali Pridemage
Green Sun's Zenith
Gaddock Teeg
Life from the Loam
Trygon Predator
Bloodbraid Elf
Noble Hierarch
Wild Nacatl

That's a lot of green love.

[Gheizen64]

Preordain and Ponder are nowhere near the power level of Brainstorm, but the difference in their relative power is much greater in combo decks running Brainstorm (which is most of them) than in other decks.

I agree, the sole fact that brainstorm can hide bombs and invalidate a lot of pinpointed discard make it so much better in a combo archetype than in a control shell.

[NecroYawgmoth]

I mean, in the past few years, we've seen the following printed:

Tarmogoyf
Knight of the Reliquary
Krosan Grip
Qasali Pridemage
Green Sun's Zenith
Gaddock Teeg
Life from the Loam
Trygon Predator
Bloodbraid Elf
Noble Hierarch
Wild Nacatl

That's a lot of green love.

Don't forget Progenitus ;)

[dontbiteitholmes]

Because there's the risk that not banning Mental Misstep could result in banning Force of Will.

No one is going to ever under any circumstances ban Force of Will, you may go play Modern now. Good day to you sir.

Ditto that to guy who thinks banning fetches is a good idea. Yeah Legacy was much more fun when more games were decided by not finding the right dual land in time. [/sarcasm]