Legacy wouldn’t be Legacy without discussions about what should be banned. Said discussions are a favorite pastime of many a Legacy player while others have grown tired of them. Right now, Brainstorm is the card garnering the most ban discussion. Those in favor of the ban argue that Brainstorm is the strongest card in Legacy and that the farther you go in tournaments, the higher the percent of Brainstorm decks. In fact, since Mental Misstep was banned, 100% of decks making the top two of the StarCityGames Opens have run four Brainstorms. Those against the ban argue that six tournaments is too small a sample size to make bans, and that it’s newer cards like Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage that are responsible for the upswing in Brainstorm decks. If anything, they say, it’s one of those two cards that should go.
Both sides of the argument are wrong. Brainstorm is not the problem with Legacy. Brainstorm is a symptom. Likewise, Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage are not the problem with Legacy, they are a symptom. There is a problem in Legacy that shows up in higher percentages of top 16’s than any card yet mentioned in this article. This problem is the real reason for the disturbing trend we’re seeing for Brainstorm.
Here’s a graph showing the percentage of SCG top 16 penetration of Brainstorm compared to the real problem. The data is from the six SCG opens since Mental Misstep was banned.
What card could I be talking about? It’s not Force of Will. Nobody, except for one infamous player, believes that banning Force of Will would lead to a better, healthier Legacy. It’s actually not one card I’m talking about; it’s ten different cards. The problem is the ten original dual lands. There’s no arguing with the data. The ten dual lands are pervasive, format-altering, presences that need to go to preserve diversity. Either you’re playing with dual lands, or you’re not playing to win.
Everything that has been said about banning Brainstorm can be said doubly about the dual lands. Dual lands are an absolute no-brainer when it comes to deck design. Even with Wasteland, Back to Basics, and Blood Moon everywhere, dual lands are the obvious best strategy in the format. There’s precious little drawback to playing with dual lands. They let you run the best cards in the game from multiple colors effortlessly. It’s the dual lands that are responsible for the prevalence of fetchlands. Without dual lands to fetch, the fetchlands become less powerful. The reason Brainstorm is so powerful is the fetchlands. The reason Delver of Secrets is so powerful is Brainstorm. Take out the dual lands and everything falls into place.
You could argue that shocklands will just replace the duals, but the 3 damage from fetching an untapped shockland might be enough to mitigate some of the advantage. If shocklands replace dual lands in similar numbers, ban them too. Once that’s done, there’s no clear best set of dual lands in the format. Deckbuilders would have to carefully consider their manabases and choose lands that best fit their strategy. We might even see some viable mono-colored decks return to the format.
Not only would banning dual lands increase thought in deckbuilding and open new viable strategies in Legacy, it would remove the greatest barrier of entry to the format. The days of $600 mana bases would be over. Wizards could ensure that no one is priced out of the format by removing the biggest Reserved List offenders. Thousands of new people would be able to devote their time and effort to Legacy. Gone would be the eight-man local events where one guy is running a tiered deck against a bunch of budget garbage. The format would thrive like never before.
What’s that? You say you’d hate Legacy if the dual lands were banned? Why is that? Aren’t dual lands clearly warping the format to the point where they reduce diversity? Don’t they price certain people out of the format? They clearly reduce the amount of thought that goes into deckbuilding. Why keep around cards that do these things?
It's simple. The players enjoy playing with those cards and would enjoy Legacy more with dual lands than without. We’re seeing more and more people play Legacy than ever before, despite the “problems” caused by Brainstorm and its cohorts. While Brainstorm may be the strongest, most played card in Legacy, it is played in a host of archetypes. In the six SCG Opens since Mental Misstep was banned, eight different deck archetypes running Brainstorm made top four. As you move down the standings, that number exponentially increases. Clearly we have a diverse format even though people aren’t done figuring out how to attack Brainstorm, Delver of Secrets, and Snapcaster Mage.
There are certain iconic cards that make Legacy what it is. Dual lands are the most obvious example. If you want an eternal format without duals, Force of Will, Wasteland, and Brainstorm, you can play Modern. If you want a format that you can play for pennies, consider Pauper. Most people play Legacy precisely because they can play dual lands, Brainstorms, Force of Wills, Dark Rituals, Lion’s Eye Diamonds and Wastelands. A poll on The Source shows that around 80% of serious Legacy players want Brainstorm to remain legal. If you’re in that 20% that want a ban, maybe Legacy isn’t your format. With the amount of diversity present when all these cards legal, why alienate the format’s strongest supporters? Why turn Legacy into a glorified Modern or Vintage, two formats that are far less popular than Legacy?
Brainstorm is an iconic Magic card that is a great tester of skill. Perhaps the reason it wins so many tournaments is that it lets strong players better leverage their skill over lesser players. It has also been posited that SCG’s policy of allowing top 8 players to see their opponents’ decklists favors Brainstorm decks by allowing their pilots to make more educated decisions with the card. More than anything, Legacy players want the card to remain legal in a diverse format. That’s the best reason not to make a ban.
Originally Posted by Skeggi
"Casual sex, NO Touching/Licking/Sucking/Groping/Fondling/Riding/Tickling/Binding/Quitters/Italians. Play Fast, Be Polite, Have Fun."
Sure as hell sounds like fun.
While I find this theory quite curious and interesting and will gladly follow this thread's evolution, I don't see how mana bases have any influence on nonblue decks having hard times making top 8. Being 4:00 am doesn't help me either.
I feel like an "I see what you did there" is in order.
I can't tell if you're seriously advocating a ban on dual lands - which truly, show up in more decks and enable more of the shenanigans in the format than virtually any other card in existence - or trying to point out the holes in the Brainstorm argument?
A ban on good duals forces everyone to play more honestly. Brainstorm > Force on the play means the control player is untapping on the second turn at 16 with 4 cards in hand. If it's game one you're trying to decide whether or not you're interested in Fireblasting yourself just to hit a must-counter turn 1 drop. This decision isn't nearly so difficult right now.I don't see how mana bases have any influence on nonblue decks having hard times making top 8. Being 4:00 am doesn't help me either.
Manabases are clearly overpowered. I think we should go a step further in fixing the problem and just ban all lands. Can't even counter the damn things!
The fetchdual manabase (with few mana artifacts) is what really distinguishes Legacy from other formats.
"I'm willing to imagine a TES where Past in Flames replaces Ill-Gotten Gains entirely, and we just don't play Diminishing Returns." - me, 29/09/2011
Founding member of Team Scrubbad: Legacy Legends
It's clearly, as you said, that duals are iconic and this is why they remain legal.
This emphasizes that there is subjectivity when considering what is iconic, what is not, and what should be legal in the format.
In all seriousness, I feel the DCI should make their methods public.
The only problem with saying that certain cards are "protected" is that someday you may need to change your mind. It's better to have that flexibility.
Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. A heroin addict may choose to shoot up even though they know it may damage their health. A Legacy player may demand to Brainstorm off of an Underground Sea even though there are fewer and fewer players who can buy into the format. Time to shoot up some Tundras! *launches Open Office to tune latest deck*
"I made a Redguard that looks like Kimbo Slice. He wrecks peoples' shit. And dragons." - Bignasty197
Part of what would worry me if this nightmarish vision you have depicted would come true is that, the few mono-colored decks that already exist that are on the cusp of being a powerhouse would break out so to speak and become the newest 'must go' offenders.
Belcher
Delver
Dredge
When your heart won't beat, your eyes go black
There's a light in the tunnel and you can't turn back
Your friends can't save you, your family's gone
You're waiting on your judgment at the foot of the throne
Will you beg for some mercy? Will you cop some pleas?
Will you stand on your own or get down on your knees?
Will your angels release you from where demons dwell?
Will you make it into Heaven or go right back to Hell?
Only time will tell
The problem is not actually the dual lands themselves, but the fetchlands. They are responsible for so many things: fixing your mana extremely well, shuffling your library for brainstorm, thinning out lands from your deck so you draw into live cards, allowing you to splash an extra color very easily, fetching basics vs wateland/blood moon, pumping Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary.
Fetchlands changed the face of legacy forever, and they are the biggest culprit. They currently pose the same problem in modern, too.
Legacy has no real problems. Except maybe too much copy-paste latest SCG top 8 deck going
Dual lands and fetchlands are a defining feature of the Legacy format, just as Sol Ring, Moxes, and Black Lotus are a defining feature of Vintage. Are these lands/mana accelerants significantly better than everything else printed? Yes, but that doesn't mean they need to go.
I hate to say it, but this is one case where "if you don't like it, try Modern" applies. I may wish to play Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Will in a format without Power 9, but it would be irrational to ask Wizards to warp an already existing format with clearly defined staples around my personal wishes. Similarly, it would not make sense to ban dual lands and fetchlands to accommodate the few players that want to play with old cards in a format without such an easily splashable manabase.
On another note, I do not think it's entirely unreasonable that roughly 85% of all Top 16 decks run dual lands, considering there are ten such lands, each of which are among the most played cards in the format. You can still viably play a mono-colored (or a rainbow-colored) strategy in this format, just that there are fewer such competitive decks that meet those criteria. Contrast that with Vintage, where it is impossible to play a deck that does not require Power 9 (unless Dredge decks don't run them in that format, I wouldn't know).
Interesting ideas. But think about the real consequences: Let's take tempo decks. Without the power to consistently play T1 Plow/Snare/Daze, or any threat, they would just die to sick 1 CMC cards. Think about Elves, Mother of Runes, Goblin Guide,...
Multicolored decks are Lvl 100 Mewtwos, monocolored decks are Lvl 80 Mews. If you turn the former into your average 10-year olds awesomsauce Lvl 60 Blastoise, guess what's going to happen.
..Something..will get hydro pumped?
Ten cards are a lot like one card if you're really bad math and, by extension, logic.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
There's a better way to solve the problem than banning the dual lands. It's by printing better nonbasic hate. Once upon a time when skyshroud elite was a threat...
There is some nonbasic hate, but nobody cares, because they are so bad, requiring you to roll with only one color by definition. And everyone uses wasteland, people learned how to fight it.
There's also another way, which is printing good cards that are hard to splash. As of right now, you gain three times the advantage for playing multi colored cards, because they are easier to play with the current manabases, and stronger than the monocolored options. And you get to play all the options within the colors.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
I feel like this articule is just a well written troll to show how banning discussions as a whole have become completely retarded.
The problem with legacy is clearly that the player base is totally unable to take a hint!!
I mean jeezes christ people, come on.
Fun read. Naturally, I agree.
I'm in the camp of 'don't ban a card unless it is unstoppable'. I didn't see Mystical Tutor, Survival, or even Mental Misstep as unstoppable...just really good.
I'm a long-time casual magic junky. Not neccessarily multi-player or EDH, just casual/budget decks that are fun to play. If you want a format where there isn't Brainstorm, Force of Will, dual lands, Wasteland, etc...make some house rules and play some fun kitchen-table magic. I say that as a lead in to my next statement...
This is competitive magic we're talking about here. That means only the best is going to be played, regardless of how many cards are printed. I would say that if you don't like Brainstorm (et al) or can't figure out a way to beat the decks that play it, then I would suggest that you really don't like competitive magic. When it comes to serious competition, the 'everyone wins and everyone gets a trophy' mentality is absent for a reason...it's serious competition.
I say leave the dual lands alone, leave brainstorm alone, let the kiddos have their format-defining cards and let the mayhem ensue...and when the dust settles (and it will) there will be top decks and top players...because that's what competitive gaming is about.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Actually, there's a blue card with a higher Top 8 penetration than Brainstorm. If you want to see how legacy Top 8s would look like without it, all you need to do is log in Magic Online.
What I haven't seen yet, is the lone G/W Maverick deck that sometimes gets to make Top 8 advancing further to Top 4, when it should, in theory, beat all those blue decks that plague the Top places at tournaments.
Please stop talking about whether Force of Will is broken or not. It obviously is, and rather than "the glue that holds vintage together" it would be better to call it "the rug under which you hide the filth until there's so much that you can no longer conceal it".
Good show, this is a fair comparison to draw; and a good troll.
Duals are in every top 8! They allow you to do broken things with fetches! Banhammer them to hell I say!
Well, this was refreshing. That is a sober and intelligent look competitive play. No matter what the card pool there will always be best cards that people will splash for, if you can't fight the best and you're upset because your pet deck can't win; play kitchen table with your friends. Also, pet decks actually can win... Just ask Reid Duke haha
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
