A brief but instructive analysis of Brainstorm's performance in SCG Opens

[Michael Keller]

Delver and Snapcaster Mage are recent printings. Every single time a new card(s) gets printed, people find what it or they works best with. Then, they exploit it because it's the hot play of the month. Sometimes, it's really, really good. Too good. Over the course of several months, the hype wears off and people shift gears of thinking.

Not this time, though. Who the hell knows what's going to happen at this point. I mean, we just had a random Blue, conditional 'counterspell' banned, and now people are looking for a reason to axe the best card in Legacy because of two other mistakes R&D made.

I think Adam (Nightmare) said in one of his articles recently, "Welcome back to the 'Golden Age' of Legacy." Let me just refresh your memories a bit. Anyone remember the years between 1998 and 2000? I certainly do. I also remember this path R&D was on while they were printing some of the most undercosted, powerful Blue spells of all time (Tinker, Windfall, even Time Spiral, which was effectively free). Certainly not in the same league but indefinitely in the same vein, there's a disturbing trend of printings where R&D is trying to further polarize Blue's assertion as the most powerful color in Magic as a whole.

Some cards do get more powerful as time goes on. Brainstorm just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - same with Survival.

[jrw1985]

Doesn't it seem entirely logical and intuitive that, given the rising power level of Legacy, a card restricted in Vintage will eventually need to be banned in Legacy as well?

[edgarps22]

While I agree that Brainstorm is good, and certainly has penetrated deeply, I also believe its a bit of a flavor of the month thing at the moment. Delver is good, I play primarily on Cockatrice at the moment and I run into him relatively often, and rarely am I concerned. He has actually made strategies like Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows worthwhile. Snapcaster is very good but only in the mid to late game. In my opinion he is too slow. I will admit that I do run Brainstorm in my BUG list, but I hardly am concerned about opposing Delvers or Snapcasters, because usually by then they are too weak, or I already have the board position. I also am not running either Snapcaster or Delver and have winning match-ups against them in testing so far.

I feel Brainstorm is still very strong and will miss it if it does get the ax, but I honestly don't believe it needs to be axed, but for that not to happen some good innovation has to come out that makes it seem like it is exactly what it is, just another good card we have in Legacy. As things have been going, it is the most represented card in the top tables, and is a very powerful effect, I will lament its passing, but we will adjust if it happens.

@Lemnear, Nimble Mongoose right now, which I run in my BUG list, is supremely good. No one is running sweepers, blanks all of their spot removal, and is just as fast of a clock as long as you can control the board.

[KevinTrudeau]

Doesn't it seem entirely logical and intuitive that, given the rising power level of Legacy, a card restricted in Vintage will eventually need to be banned in Legacy as well?

It's intuitive, but not logical. Even though Legacy and Vintage share the 'Eternal' moniker together, they're two completely different formats. One could make the intuitive (yet illogical) assertion that the banning of Brainstorm would basically kill Legacy as a format like it did Vintage as well. Note that I'm saying such a notion would be illogical if you were to base it strictly off of Vintage, and not necessarily because it could happen again; it's certainly within the realm of possibilities, although I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't.

[joemauer]

Guys there is really only one sound and reasonable solution to the power creep of brainstorm and the rest of the color blue.......WotC needs to ban blue.

[I am the brainwasher]

I also get more and more the impression that Brainstorm will leave Legacy.
The most sad thing that could potentially could ever happen to the format will become reality in the near future, at least the chance of this event really happening is quite huge at the moment.
There are just 2 different ways to fix the situation, which might not be enought to make people realize whats actually wrong with Legacy right now.
There is the chance to ban Snapcaster Mage + Show and Tell
OR
there is the simple, but devastating one of banning Brainstorm.

I do understand that Brainstorm in its role as a enabler gets significantly better with each card printed that fits into existing shells of control/combo/Tempo - decks that actually do use brainstorm, but now someone should raise the question why the cards that really fit into that category are mainly blue out of the new sets.
Unbalancing the colorpie was so absurd this year. Jace, Snapcaster, Delver and also rather inconspicous cards are blue and did so much harm to the format that I really am quite pissed.
Remember the time Jace, TMS came out? Some players didnt even considered it beeing playable in Legacy at that time (which it might have been for some reasons). Now playing Jace in a blue deck outside of Tempo/Combo is nearly unimaginable.
If you take a closer look at it, first Mental Mistep really was the one to blame for blue decks dominance at that time. Reducing the opposing clock/centerpieces to have enough time to play rather clunky win cons and controllish elements, well, like Jace TMS/SFM made blue decks uberly powerful, even if it wasnt that obvious and dramatic in comparison to the actual situation.
Now, go back a few weeks. Everyone thought that Blade control decks have vanished due to the fact that those are unable to protect their early threads as easy as back in the days with MM. Wrong, this was just wrong. The tempo swing those decks gained from beeing able to have virtual 8 StP, Brainstorm, Spell Snares AND amazing sideboard options like Surgical Extraction, REB's against tougher MU's were in the end even more questionable than MM was just a few month before.
Quick after that, people started to realize, also, that playing Snapcaster Mage in Tempo decks is even more profitable because you are more able to deny the opposing deck to gain Tempo in general and attack from different angles, in combination with free counterspells to really annoy any deck to the point that it doenst make much sense to not join the same strategy, mainly because its the one that gives you equal chances against nearly any deck.
I hope the responsibles do understand that the problem lays not within Brainstorm but as the enabler that allows to gain absurd card/tempo advantage for the cost of 2-4 Mana. Snapcaster Mage is hilarious, even outside of Legacy and will continue to be too broken, regardless of Brainstorm getting banned.
Why is so damn hard to understand that this, plus absurd 2 card combos which are nearly unhateable for non-blue decks fucked the format?

[makochman]

WotC printed Vengevine to have a excuse to chop a Legacy defining card like Survial and now they are doing the same for Brainstorm with Delver and MegaMan. There can't Be any other reason to print a blue nacatl and Making scm Blue (should Be red goddamn)

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.

They did not print Vengevine to kill off Survival. They must have seen the Survival-Vengevine implications because they then went on to print Fauna Shaman, but in all likelihood, they just didn't playtest it. They do not playtest Legacy, they said that some time ago. Even in Standard, what testing they do is often insufficient, otherwise we wouldn't have seen the whole SFM/Batterskull shebang. Nor was Survival a format defining card before the printing of Vengevine.

[DragoFireheart]

Why is so damn hard to understand that this, plus absurd 2 card combos which are nearly unhateable for non-blue decks fucked the format?

There is what I believe to be a negative stigma about banning creatures. It's viewed that creatures are not ban worthy because you can kill them, but non-permanent based spells are harder to interact with so they are somehow more ban worthy.

Very few creatures are banned from Legacy play. The following are banned from Legacy:

Goblin Recruiter
Hermit Druid
Tempest Efreet
Timmerian Fiends
Worldgorger Dragon


I believe there many be a bias from either fans of magic or WotC about banning creatures. When was the last time a creature was banned in Legacy?

[joemauer]

Which is more powerful?

Goblin Recruiter or Snapcaster Mage?

Not saying snappy certainly needs to be banned, but why is goblin recruiter still on the banned list?

[DragoFireheart]

Which is more powerful?

Goblin Recruiter or Snapcaster Mage?

Not saying snappy certainly needs to be banned, but why is goblin recruiter still on the banned list?

Either due to it's perceived power or because of it's perceived time-consuming effect (similar to Land Tax I would imagine).

[jrw1985]

It's intuitive, but not logical. Even though Legacy and Vintage share the 'Eternal' moniker together, they're two completely different formats. One could make the intuitive (yet illogical) assertion that the banning of Brainstorm would basically kill Legacy as a format like it did Vintage as well. Note that I'm saying such a notion would be illogical if you were to base it strictly off of Vintage, and not necessarily because it could happen again; it's certainly within the realm of possibilities, although I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't.

It seems logical to me. Power creep is making individual cards better and better. Brainstorm now allows you to sculpt an increasingly powerful hand. Brainstorm becomes better simply because it now draws you better cards. That seems like the reason it was restricted in Vintage, and also seems like a reasonable argument for banning it in Legacy.

I also doubt that banning Brainstorm would destroy the format. Legacy would simply become split into brainstorm/post-bs eras.

[Lemnear]

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.

They did not print Vengevine to kill off Survival. They must have seen the Survival-Vengevine implications because they then went on to print Fauna Shaman, but in all likelihood, they just didn't playtest it. They do not playtest Legacy, they said that some time ago. Even in Standard, what testing they do is often insufficient, otherwise we wouldn't have seen the whole SFM/Batterskull shebang. Nor was Survival a format defining card before the printing of Vengevine.

I'm sure they see the interaction before ... Fauna Shaman is a near prove for that. A point we agree but they designed a 4/3 haste with a free mechanic attached and could not imagine that it gets out of hand? Come on, WotC isn't that dumb.

Now we have Snapcaster cheap and blue and WotC should not have expected that it might Be played with Brainstorm (StoP, Stifle) in the same deck? It's like the justification of missteps ban:

"we did not expect that a Blue counter is mainly played in blue decks but it is and it's undesireable"

SFM+Batterskull: Mark Rosewater explained that they knew about SFM and it's power but wanted to make a monster mythic rare Living weapon. This was not an accident that could happen in game design, it was handmade.

Suvival was Meta defining during extended with recurring nightmare and tradewind Survival advantage.

[DragoFireheart]

It seems logical to me. Power creep is making individual cards better and better. Brainstorm now allows you to sculpt an increasingly powerful hand. Brainstorm becomes better simply because it now draws you better cards. That seems like the reason it was restricted in Vintage, and also seems like a reasonable argument for banning it in Legacy.

-So you want to see Ponder and Preordain banned as well? Because your logic fits for them as well.

I also doubt that banning Brainstorm would destroy the format. Legacy would simply become split into brainstorm/post-bs eras.

Vintage died because Brainstorm was Restricted. If you are going to apply logic for one format from another, be consistent.

[Xantid Swarm]

Thanks a lot for your awesome work, IBA. Those statistics are realy eyes-opener. Until now, I wasn't sure if axing Brainstorm would be good or bad for the format, but this is the kind of thing that can convince me. Sure, Brainstorm is a fun and skill-testing card but it's also powerfull enough to be ban worthy.

Those stats show at least that there is a problem. If Brainstorm decks continue to see play at this level until december, I suppose the ban hammer could be the solution.

If a card need go, there is no other solution than banning Brainstorm. For obvious reason, it's impossible to ban Force of Will. Sure, Snapcaster Mage and Delver of Secrets are realy good cards but certanly not broken. They came with restrictions on deck construction. Snapcaster is probably about the same power level than Confident, SFM and Goyf, cards that don't need a ban. Snapcaster is far from being in every blue decks. Same is true on Delver. Brainstorm IS in every blue deck (with only one exception).

Nobody will argue that Ancestral Recall need to stay on the ban list. The fact that Brainstorm is often so close of being a true Recall strongly suggest that it can have a place on the ban list. In some situation, Brainstorm is even better than Recall. The fact that "it is just a cantrip" do not make the card impossible to ban at all.

[DragoFireheart]

Nobody will argue that Ancestral Recall need to stay on the ban list. The fact that Brainstorm is often so close of being a true Recall strongly suggest that it can have a place on the ban list.

- LED is close to Black Lotus. Should it be banned as well?

In some situation, Brainstorm is even better than Recall. The fact that "it is just a cantrip" do not make the card impossible to ban at all.

-In some situations, Mountain Goat is better than Black Lotus.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

@Lemnear: I was using the SCG Database because it's a lot easier to comb through than the Council's. I can actually include the results from Grand Prix Amsterdam. To counterbalance the American influence somewhat, in fact, and because it was so large, I'll basically count GP Amsterdam as being twice the ranking of a Legacy Open; so top 32 is treated as top 16, top 16 is treated as two top 8s, and so on.

Let's look at what that does to the picture for Legacy post-Innistrad, besides making our database 20% larger.



I should note that the odds of 14 out of 14 top 2 decklists running Brainstorm, if a Brainstorm deck were even merely 60% favored against a non-Brainstorm deck in this scenario, are vanishingly small, a small fraction of a percent. Let's look at the rest of the field.



Other big blue cards:



Color penetration generally, decks with 10% or more of a color:



And for fun, Brainstorm compared to cards that have previously been banned, tracking their performance during that card's respective "era";



Some takeaways:

- Wasteland is being vastly over-rated
- Delver is amazing
- Why was Mystical Tutor banned?
- There is no apparent reason why anyone who is trying to win could possible sleeve up a deck that didn't begin with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Force at this point, regardless of what metagame they are expecting. It's not that the metagame isn't expecting blue; it's that it's trying to adjust to it and finding that only blue decks tend to beat other blue decks reliably.


So that's it, as far as I can see there's no question that if things continue we'll end up with a metagame where any serious deck has to be running blue. The only question is whether we want that- and such a metagame might still have a fair variety amongst the actual decklists, once the blue core is ignored- or whether we would rather ban something.

[DragoFireheart]

The most interesting thing about graphs and data is that the number of interpretations of the data is greater than 1. Is one view on the data more correct than another? How do I know that X view is correct and Y view is wrong?

- There is no apparent reason why anyone who is trying to win could possible sleeve up a deck that didn't begin with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Force at this point, regardless of what metagame they are expecting. It's not that the metagame isn't expecting blue; it's that it's trying to adjust to it and finding that only blue decks tend to beat other blue decks reliably.

If this were the case, then why are we seeing other decks take first place? (Note: TC Deck data)

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/bus...ide=&strict=on

That list contradicts SCG data you presented. All of these decks did not run Brainstorm:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/bus...ide=&strict=on

All of these decks did:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/bus...ide=&strict=on

So that's it, as far as I can see there's no question that if things continue we'll end up with a metagame where any serious deck has to be running blue. The only question is whether we want that- and such a metagame might still have a fair variety amongst the actual decklists, once the blue core is ignored- or whether we would rather ban something.

True, but SCG is not the only one who hold tournaments either.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The most interesting thing about graphs and data is that the number of interpretations of the data is greater than 1. Is one view on the data more correct than another? How do I know that X view is correct and Y view is wrong?

"Somebody might disagree with you" is an interesting counter-argument.

In that it is not a counter-argument at all.

Someone might one day disprove the theory of evolution, but until they do saying that it might happen is the mere pretense of knowledge.

[DragoFireheart]

"Somebody might disagree with you" is an interesting counter-argument.

In that it is not a counter-argument at all.


Someone might one day disprove the theory of evolution, but until they do saying that it might happen is the mere pretense of knowledge.

- What if someone presents an alternate argument using the same data? How would I know (assuming they didn't falsify anything) that one person is more right than the other? How do I know that banning brainstorm will fix the problem compared to banning Delver and/or Snappy?

Edit: Furthermore, if placement in tournaments is used as the guideline to determine bannings, Force of Will is in the same situation as Brainstorm. If Brainstorm is banned and FoW see 100% representation in SCG first placement, should we ban FoW?

[socialite]

- What if someone presents an alternate argument using the same data? How would I know (assuming they didn't falsify anything) that one person is more right than the other? How do I know that banning brainstorm will fix the problem compared to banning Delver and/or Snappy?

Edit: Furthermore, if placement in tournaments is used as the guideline to determine bannings, Force of Will is in the same situation as Brainstorm. If Brainstorm is banned and FoW see 100% representation in SCG first placement, should we ban FoW?

This is similar to ban Vengevine rather than Survival argument. Both are stupid.