[Feature Article] – The Legacy of Brainstorm

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The cost argument is worthless. Whether they ban Brainstorm or not, the value of dual lands will continue to rise (Blue and otherwise). No rhymes intended. ;) What WotC should do is print lands that are close to (or even better than) dual lands and actually support Legacy as one of their big three formats.

Back to Brainstorm. Blue is strong because it provides players with the greatest opportunity to outplay their opponent by giving them more choices and reducing variance. Banning Brainstorm is a strong move in dumbing down Magic. Why not go the other way and give other colors ways to reduce their variance and have more options available?

Christ, it's like I'm talking to myself here.

Other colors have ways of reducing variance.

Those ways are just not as efficient or powerful as Brainstorm, nor as easy to play. It is a lot harder to play cards that require commitment and mulliganing decisions and timing and other difficult things correctly over a Brainstorm. If you are not braindead, 90% of the time it is extremely simple to play a Brainstorm correctly, compared to more skill-intensive cards like Green Sun's Zenith, Stoneforge Mystic, Ponder, Sensei's Divining Top, Sylvan Library, Knight of the Reliquary, Jace, Wishes, Fauna Shaman, and basically every other tutor or filtering card. And of course it doesn't compare to a card like Thoughtseize.

[KevinTrudeau]

Paraphrasing a post of mine in another thread in response to the above:

Brainstorm isn't as simple as you make it out to be. It's not always easy to determine which two of your cards are the weakest to shuffle back when you take your current board and hand state, your opponent, and future turns into consideration. Do you shuffle back the StP even though your opponent has no creatures in play? Do you shuffle back one of your spells just so you can hit a guaranteed land drop next turn? Those two scenarios are just the tip of the iceberg, and that's not even taking into account whether or not it was the correct time to cast Brainstorm at all and Brainstorm's efficacy in non-control decks. I agree that the card is overrated in its complexity, but you're taking it a bit too far, to the point of your thoughts coming off as myopic distaste (mostly because of your somewhat ridiculous SFM comparison).

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

No, it's not always easy. But it is 90% of the time. Conversely, it's almost always difficult to decide how to play another card filtering spell correctly when the timing matters a lot more and it eats up a lot more mana. Do you turn 1 GSZ for an Arbor or wait and try to grab a Goyf or Knight later? What equipment will help you most in this board state off of SFM? Do I swing for five with Knight of the Reliquary this turn, or hold back and search for a Wasteland or a Maze? Do I even run these cards out now or do I play around counters with something else?

Compared to this, it's pretty easy to determine by the board state what you need. And the fact that you don't actually have to shuffle away Brainstorm cards helps.

Brainstorm just isn't that difficult to play compared to a lot of other Legacy cards. It's a lot less skill testing than Force, for instance, or Wasteland.