The Link
I joined in with Caleb to discuss the Brainstorm issue.
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The show's almost 2 hours long. When does the debate begin?
edit: nevermind, found it.
The arguments that the group discusses about deck building being better post the banning of Brainstorm just seem counter intuitive to me. If that argument were true, then why aren't people brewing decks to beat Brainstorm.deck? Based on my observations, Legacy suffers from a proliferation of petdeckers (people who think their pet decks should always be viable and will complain always) and netdeckers (who follow whatever the format pros play). The number of players that try to innovate and approach the from a metagame standpoint (designing and/or playing decks that prey on trends) are far and few between.
Saying you don't play Brainstorm because you want to topdeck lords sounds like the most awful possible argument to me. But then so does mulliganing down until you find a Survival. Who is this guy?
Also no Chalice and Blood Moon decks aren't good against the field because those decks suck.
I'm interested in how the arguments trying to associate Brainstorm with good players are evolving. First Brainstorm was super-skilltesting, and when people realized that that's just actually not very true, now it's apparently that it reduces variance and bad players only play non-Brainstorm decks because they're trying to decrease variance?
I mean get the fuck out of here, if you want a no-variance game go play Chess.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Which is why you build all of your Constructed decks with a single copy of each card, right?Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
No, you try to reduce variance, but complaining about the very existence of variance because you think it makes bad players win is stupid. If you wanted a no-variance format you'd go play chess.
There's skill in controlling variance too, but Brainstorm isn't really it. Brainstorm is a dumb card that anyone can play to make the rest of their deck more consistent on virtual autopilot.
Anyway, cool podcast, I enjoyed it and agreed mostly with the other three guys.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Yes, and Brainstorm does that. The reductio ad absurdum tack is weak as hell. Obviously variance is an important factor in Magic. No one is arguing that they want zero variance. They're simply saying they want less variance. Particularly when that decreased variance requires some level of thought, which Brainstorm does.
The argument that Brainstorm is "autopilot" is just fucking absurd. It may require less skill than many people assert, but to suggest that it requires no difficult decision-making on the part of the player at all is just being intellectually dishonest.
The "Brainstorm lets good players win more" tack is weak as Hell because it's one of the less skill-testing ways of reducing variance. It's an easy-dumb card to play 90% of the time. It's much harder to play Top or Library or anything sorcery speed for that matter correctly, anything that actually requires you to plan ahead and not immediately shuffle away your two current weakest cards. It reduces the amount of thought that goes into mulliganing because almost every hand with Brainstorm becomes keepable. Compared to cards like Mystical Tutor or Survival of the Fittest, that also reduce variance, it's a very easy card to play correctly. And it's certainly easy to play correctly than a card like Thoughtseize, for instance.
It's even less skilltesting than Jace because it can actually be hard to know when to drop Jace, Brainstorm is just an autopilot consistency fixer compared to almost every other Legacy card that plays the same role. Actually, no, all of them, I can't think of a single Legacy card that fixes consistency that requires less skill to play correctly than Brainstorm.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Explain why Sylvan Library requires more skill to play. Because it's sorcery speed? Because you have to weigh the opportunity cost? It's never felt very difficult for me. The hardest decision you have to make with that card is whether or not you want to spend life, which is rarely a difficult decision at all. That's the only give or take.
Brainstorm often forces you to predict which cards you're going to need in the next few turns, and which ones you won't. This guesswork requires skill and a strong knowledge of the format. It forces you to make careful decisions about exactly when or when not to crack a fetchland. It forces all kinds of decisions without obvious answers.
The only cantrip/deckfixing style card I think is more difficult to play is Ponder, because of its sorcery speed, and because it adds the option to shuffle and gamble on a draw as opposed to keeping what you see, which in itself can be a very difficult decision.
In any case, I don't want to get mired down in a discussion of which deckfixer requires more skill. I simply assert that they all do, to some degree or another. We can argue all day long about the varying difficulty levels, but ultimately, skill-tests which decrease variance are good for the game.
That's the thing, 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 Top/Jace/Library comparisons).
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QFT. That pretty much sums it all up really.
Disagree that the card is overrated in complexity though. The "QFT" post shows that it's not overrated in complexity at all. :)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 Top/Jace/Library comparisons).
The decisions with Brainstorm are when to play it and what to put back. The decisions with Sylvan Library are the same, only being an enchantment that costs two it's a lot harder to know when to commit to playing it or not, and you have to make the decision of whether to pay life. It's clearly a more complex card on its face, I don't know what's confusing about this.
This is all true of Sylvan Library, only it's not one mana and instead of forcing you to put two of three it forces you to pick two of three or greater, where you're likely holding onto dead cards.Brainstorm often forces you to predict which cards you're going to need in the next few turns, and which ones you won't. This guesswork requires skill and a strong knowledge of the format. It forces you to make careful decisions about exactly when or when not to crack a fetchland. It forces all kinds of decisions without obvious answers.
The only card I can think of is any of them. "Draw three, discard two" is an easier decision to make than "Look at three, pick one," which is why the latter costs one mana and the former usually costs three except for Brainstorm's case.The only cantrip/deckfixing style card I think is more difficult to play is Ponder, because of its sorcery speed, and because it adds the option to shuffle and gamble on a draw as opposed to keeping what you see, which in itself can be a very difficult decision.
Flash-Hulk was a skill-testing combo. Survival was a skill testing card. For that matter, Vampiric Tutor is a skilltesting card. I don't suppose that the fact that these cards test skills and decrease the amount of luck in the game is a sufficient reason to let them destroy metagame diversity, because just as important as a skilltest is the ability to metagame. Solved metagames are boring.In any case, I don't want to get mired down in a discussion of which deckfixer requires more skill. I simply assert that they all do, to some degree or another. We can argue all day long about the varying difficulty levels, but ultimately, skill-tests which decrease variance are good for the game.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Decisions with the Library are similar but not the same. Sylvan Library is not an instant. One of the reasons BS is skill-intensive is knowing when to play it, not just what to put back and whether to shuffle. You just can't decide, "hmmm, should I save Sylvan for that Duress/Clique or should blow it in my 2nd main. Hmmm, before I Jace or after. Maybe during combat?" The Library is a skill testing card as well but nowhere near in the league of BS.
In what reality is it easier to cast a two mana sorcery speed card than a one mana instant speed?
Sylvan Library occupies the most important mana slot in Legacy. The decision of whether or not to play it on the second turn is an incredibly skill testing one. Brainstorm isn't a card you have to or should sit on indefinitely. It's perfectly fine to play a turn 1 Brainstorm, shuffle away your worst card turn 2 with a fetchland and have your later Brainstorms get their full value while you smooth out your early game; if people think Brainstorm is so complex it's only because they're buying into too much hype and overthinking the card. You don't have to save every Brainstorm until you have an immediate shuffle effect, that's not the only thing it's there for.
Also it is pretty much always correct to Brainstorm to protect your hand from Thoughtseize and Clique, I have no idea what you're talking about here. Again, 90% of the time these are obvious plays. The fact that you can wait and play it as the situation requires makes Brainstorm easier to play, not harder! Most things would be easier to play if you could do them at instant speed! You could wait to see what your opponent's turn was like and react to it instead of having to anticipate it.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Obviously, BS'ing in response to a discard spell is the correct play 9/10 times but that's the thing - if you don't know your opponents hand/top card of his or her Library, you don't know whether they will play a discard spell. My point is that you have to evaluate the game and decide when it is most beneficial to play that Brainstorm. You may well want to do it in you Main phase to have a chance to find that Mystic, Jace, NO, etc to put pressure on your opponent ASAP, but then doing so may well leave your very vulnerable to discard that following turn or facing a decision on whether to keep that Snare to counter the Goyf that you hope the opponent doesn't topdeck or put the Snare back on top to hide it from Duress. They can also Clique in resp to that BS you just cast. Decisions, decisions.
Yes, there are times when you may want to play a Turn 1 BS, but in general it is almost always best to save it for later (imo). Remember that the longer you save it the more cards you see and the greater the chance that you will see a card that you want.Brainstorm isn't a card you have to or should sit on indefinitely. It's perfectly fine to play a turn 1 Brainstorm, shuffle away your worst card turn 2 with a fetchland and have your later Brainstorms get their full value while you smooth out your early game; if people think Brainstorm is so complex it's only because they're buying into too much hype and overthinking the card. You don't have to save every Brainstorm until you have an immediate shuffle effect, that's not the only thing it's there for.
Being an instant make it actually easier to play and this is especially true since the card is most of the time reactive instead of proactive so not being limited into a definite time frame mean you can always play it after the information come, whereas as a sorcery you'd have to wait your turn or play it before and guess, or, *drumroll*, play a more proactive card.
In fact, card drawing/selection being instant defeat the purpose of discard from a design standpoint.
Right, but remember what Keynes said. It's more important to have a very good turn 2-4 than it is to see more cards in the late game, because without the former you probably won't get to the late game. Unless you kept a one lander you should almost always have something more important to do on turn two than Brainstorm-fetch-pass the turn, and there's no reason to give up your first mana of the game in order to get marginally more value later on.
So I guess that's an example of how a lot of people misplay the card, but that's only because they're buying into the hype that Brainstorm is some ultimate skill tester and they're afraid of looking dumb. I'm saying the emperor has no clothes. Of course, sometimes any card is difficult to play, but there is nothing that makes Brainstorm especially skilltesting versus many different cards in the format. If anything it is probably below the average difficulty; rather, it helps forgive other mistakes you made, like keeping bad hands- including one landers. It even forgives shitty manabases.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Being an Instant gives you more opportunity to play it, thus factoring in more decision-making than you would if it was a Sorcery. Instant makes it far harder to play correctly, not easier.
The decisions that affect when you play one spell over another still exist when you play a slow versus a fast spell, the difference is that in one case you can react to the situation, in another you must anticipate what is going to happen. It's far harder to do the latter. This is why R&D has made mass card drawing mostly sorcery speed over the past several years, it creates more opportunities to play incorrectly, and requires players to make decisions with less information.
There are decisions about stacking and such that exist with instant speed spells, but those are peripheral concerns compared to deciding what to invest your mana on in the first several turns of the game.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
He's talking about ease with regards to play skill and decision-making. You're talking about ease with regards to resource management. They're not the same thing.
Are you really suggesting a card is more difficult to play from a play skill perspective because you have fewer options in how to play it?
It's more difficult to win the game with Lava Spike than Lightning Bolt, but that doesn't mean it requires more skill to play.
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