[Article] North American Defeatism and the Dominance of Brainstorm

[sdematt]

"Three Steps Forward, and Two Steps Back: North American Defeatism and the Dominance of Brainstorm," a rebuttal by Everyday Eternal host Matt Pavlic.

Legacy is, by far, one of the most intricate, difficult, frustrating, enjoyable, and entertaining formats in all of Magic the Gathering. Many people in the local Legacy community have been playing since Type 1.5 back in 2003. The shift of decks over the past ten years has been more than generous as more and more cards are added to the abundant pool that is Legacy. However, few cards truly shake up the format often, and yet, even with little change over periods of many years, Legacy is hardly a solved format, in contrast to something like Magic 1994. Jeff Hoogland recently wrote an article which will be referred to in this rebuttal (http://themeadery.org/articles/leavi...odern-mistress), explaining Mr. Hoogland’s frustration with Legacy and his subsequent move to strictly blue decks in Legacy and to Modern.

The article begins with complaining that “Legacy is a degenerate and frustrating format.” I wholeheartedly agree with the words scribed but not the tone of this argument. Legacy is a powerful format, with access to almost every card ever printed. The frustration experienced has to do with the minimum power level to compete, I suspect. If you are not familiar with Legacy, imagine a professional basketball team. To compete, you need to be at least as good as a professional basketball player. College ball just won’t cut it, and this can frustrate many people. The minimum barrier of entry is so high because the format will only use THE most efficient spell at doing a specific task – whether it be removing a creature, buffering variance, or drawing cards. In the cutthroat world of Legacy, you are either first or you are last.

The article progresses to explain one of adventure of someone getting into Legacy – mainly through the Aggro Loam archetype – and their subsequent Legacy experience with powerful decks and strategies. As a fellow non-blue player and past competitive Aggro-Loam player, I understand the trials and tribulations of defeating top-tier archetypes with something out of left field. Consistency, the article claims, is the reason he could not defeat top performing blue archetypes in the hands of very experienced players. I cannot truly rebut his anecdotal evidence, but I can add some of my own. Aggro-Loam, or 4-Colour Loam, is one of the most inconsistent piles of amazing cards a person could construct. The deck has incredible internal synergy with itself, but this is assuming you draw the right combination of cards in the right order. You could say this about any deck, or any pile of powerful cards firing on all cylinders. Seismic Assault, Life from the Loam, Countryside Crusher, Terravore, Mox Diamond, and others work so well in concert with each other that when Loam decks get going, there’s almost no stopping them as the late game engine is too powerful. I played Aggro-Loam primarily in the Mental Misstep Summer of 2011, as some of you may recall. The deck was unstoppable and I was over thirty matches to zero against Stoneblade of the era. Why? The deck itself is inconsistent, but can create clunkiness in an opponent’s deck just due to Aggro-Loam’s inherent strategy and being so different from the other decks in the format at the time. This is something important that will be expounded upon later – reducing variance and increasing an opponent’s variance and decreasing value and consistency. The top placing deck of the format just was not ready to handle something so powerful and so different. Case in point, the article compares one of the most all-or-nothing decks in the format to blue decks that run Brainstorm and are designed to reduce variance. My best attempts to reduce variance and increase consistency for Aggro-Loam have moved towards using engines like Dark Confidant and Sylvan Library, yet other builds fail to address key structural flaws within the archetype (like Dredging away your Dark Confidants and Sylvan Libraries accidentally...), and have instead resulted in protests against the Legacy format containing Brainstorm.

Next, the article claims that, “Brainstorm is generally present in more than 50 percent of the top performing Legacy decks every Open weekend...in a format with more than two decades worth of legal cards, more than half the successful players feel it is necessary to play four copies of the same card week in and week out.” One of the main problems with Legacy at the moment is the egocentrism that the North American Legacy Circuit, mainly the SCG Open Circuit, IS the Legacy format, which is one of the biggest mistakes in assessing the health of the format at large. For a long time, Legacy was popular in scattered pockets around North America, with the most activity in the Northeastern United States (New York, Boston, Maryland, DC, etc.). For much of the mid-2000’s, the majority of the activity in terms of numbers of players, tournaments, and new deck construction were and have been done in Europe, mostly in Germany, Italy, and France. Due to the proximity of large metropolitan areas in Europe, much like the small corner of the East Coast of the US, Legacy flourished, but original design was still more present in Europe than America.

Look at the current decks in the Legacy metagame on a world scale – where did they originate? Who designed them? Where were decks tuned and popularized? Miracles, Shardless BUG, Imperial Painter, Patriot Delver, Elves, Death and Taxes, Nic Fit, OmniTell, and others are all European creations or saw many more finishes in Europe before people caught on in America. The only North American decks to really make an impact have been RUG Delver, Team America, and Sneak Attack. Why has most of the innovation come from Europe? I can’t say for sure, but the Europeans are really doing a better job than us North Americans. Survival Vengevine got you down? Play Combo. Delver delving a bit too hard for you? There’s a Miracle just a Top away. True-Name Nemesis too good for you? Toxic Deluge says hello. Lists are manifested and tweaked with enthusiasm. Deck choice snobbery also exists heavily within the North American metagame as well, and to a lesser extent in Europe. With every ebb and flow of the Legacy format, the Europeans have bailed everyone out with either a new deck or have started the metagame shift months before the SCG circuit sees much change. The impact of the internet has decreased this time, but the delay is still there.

I think what the article is actually addressing is that the sharks of the SCG circuit – whether they are professionals or just above average – tend to choose Brainstorm decks or blue decks over non-blue decks. In Europe, the split is not as drastic. Tune into any tournament results for a large European tournament and you will see a Brainstorm contingent, but not to the same extent as in North America. You see much more Jund, Nic-Fit, Junk, Deadguy Ale and other decks that prey upon the weaknesses of the blue decks. Maybe players are hedging their bets and playing Brainstorm frequently paired with Force of Will to reduce the lopsided-ness of certain matchups, especially in North America. You polarize fewer matchups and can require less dedicated hate slots when you can just counter spells, and maybe players don’t need to stress as much. As a non-blue player primarily, there’s a lot of work to control polarized matchups without the blue crutch, so to speak. Maybe European players embrace the openness that is the Legacy metagame and choose to innovate with their deck in an evolving format as time moves on and the pool grows. The author is “sick and tired of bashing [his] head against the wall” in dealing with Brainstorm and Force of Will, and in some ways, I know many people agree. WotC has created cards primarily in blue that help diminish variance and thus, increase consistency of that deck choice. I agree with the article’s postulation that in deck construction, we try to reduce variance as much as possible.

In deck construction, we have an idea in our mind of what we are trying to get a deck to do. There are combinations of cards that produce favourable outcomes and the more often these combinations occur, the more likely we are to win. This is the reason why tutors are so good. Finding the exact cards you need means you are more likely to win. This is also the reason why the unconditional tutors are generally banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. Since the format has been shaped to remove the use of tutors, cantrips are the next best thing by offering card advantage and/or selection. Not only is Brainstorm good, but it has much more depth of play than some newer players initially think. Brainstorm allows a player to find the cards they want as well as throwing away the cards they do not want. Prior to fetchlands, Brainstorm wasn’t a format staple as much as it is today. As the format moved on, the prospect of drawing three cards, putting two back on top, and then drawing fresh after using a fetchland is very enticing and is extremely powerful. But not only is this ability powerful, it is complex. When to fire off a Brainstorm and when to save it separates the experienced Legacy player from the outsider looking in. Some would say the best Brainstorm is the Brainstorm never played. Brainstorm is not the only card to do this. Ponder and Preordain have similar effects at sorcery speed, but the main trend is that there are mainly blue cards that do this. Other cards in other colours help to do similar things either by drawing more cards or just by manipulation, like Dark Confidant, Sylvan Library, and Sensei’s Divining Top. Without this level of interaction, what happens to the format? Without the decision making and optimisation required when using these cards, what do we see?

Look at the Modern format. What cards were really good? Bloodbraid Elf, Deathrite Shaman, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize. These show card advantage, information, or increasing an opponent’s variance. In a format with no manipulation like Ponder and Brainstorm, hand disruption strategies run rampant and without suitable counterspells, Combo decks run rampant. I love playing midrange, and Modern should be the format for me. However, the format lacks depth. The level of interaction is so low because there are few tricks and fewer lines to think about. We’re not playing chess anymore, boys and girls. We’ve gone past checkers to tick-tack-toe, some have argued. There is no Brainstorm to respond to Thoughtseize. There is no Force of Will to counter a Splinter Twin. We see blue being pushed out of Modern in some extent because of the lack of manipulation and efficient counterspells, except for a few good blue cards. I think WotC should move in a direction, especially for Legacy, where more colours can obtain the tools to reduce variance and increase consistency.

But, several archetypes are already taking it into their own hands to do something about variance, either by fixing their own or shutting off their opponents’ actions. Decks like MUD and Aggro-Loam play Chalice, as the article explained, to hose cantrips and prevent the blue decks from being consistent. When these blue decks cannot cantrip, they are much weaker and are easily defeated by more powerful cards and strategies on a head-to-head basis. Burn increases its own consistency by essentially running forty of the same card and playing it over and over again. This deck construction means you’re either hitting a spell, or not a spell, and at a 2:1 ratio, you’re very likely to draw live. It also attacks the format by turning usually live cards, like creature removal, into dead cards in an opponent’s hand (called virtual card advantage), which decreases the power level of the deck sitting across from you. Burn is doing very well as of late because it uses Eidolon of the Great Revel to attack the cantrip crutch of blue decks, while being incredibly consistent in paying one mana for three damage and lobbing it at an opponent’s face. Lastly, we come to raw extra card draw and manipulation like Sylvan Library, Sensei’s Divining Top, and Dark Confidant. Sylvan Library is criminally underplayed and can help green decks keep up with Brainstorm decks. Even if you don’t get the raw advantage of drawing extra cards often, the manipulation alongside fetchlands is astounding, as it is with Top. Dark Confidant increasing consistency by just drawing more cards, and hopefully some of those are the ones you need. Even though the Pavlic Special, aka. Three Colour Midrange, should contain some number of Sylvan Libraries (according to some, at least five or more...), players should consider running it in two copies. Non-blue players should consider three to six slots to increase their consistency, in my experience with playing Legacy. Realistically, I think if more professional players worked on non-Brainstorm decks and tuned them, we would see a lot more non-Brainstorm decks in the Top 8’s of large tournaments, plain and simple.

The article continues on to argue that Modern is the “non-rotating format of the future... you will never consistently lose on the first turn of the game before you have a chance to even play a land for the turn. It means that any time a card becomes oppressively popular for an extended period of time, it will be removed for the sake of diversity.” One must note that first turn kills are rare in Legacy, but what is wrong with losing on the first turn? Why does their deck win on the first turn and what can you do about it? Some people enjoy the intricacy and the puzzle-like aspect of combo decks in many formats. When a card does well in tournaments in Modern, it will be removed to increase diversity. The main complaint with many eternal players who consider moving to Modern is the extensive banned list, which does the opposite of generating diversity. Should we not be allowing players to respond to the threat of a card before banning it? What about creativity, innovation, and original thought? I have always stood against the banning of Survival of the Fittest in Legacy because the majority of the grumblings of the community were from the SCG circuit, where no one cared to innovate and professionals just showed up and cleaned everyone else out. No one cared to innovate to perhaps play Spell Snare, add Extirpate to their sideboard, play a Combo deck, or just to think. Few dared to explore, to dream, and to try new things. Like countless Legacy players, I enjoy a format where there are not objectively the “best cards” to play, because if I wanted that, I would go to Vintage and have access to the Power Nine. But, this even ground should come from rigorous testing, WotC printing new cards, and generous community involvement and not from banning every good card in a format.

Without variance, Magic would not be the same game. It creates stories, experiences and excitement, but can bring frustration, disappointment, and failure. Thankfully, we do have cards that help fix consistency within the Legacy format. The format is not perfect, and blue does have an edge on its opponents with easier ways to fix consistency issues. But, the format will not fix itself. By being stubborn and not adapting, the small problems are only perpetuated and are not being solved. Is Legacy perfect? Not even close. The question is, will you be the one to put in some work and have some fun to see how deep the rabbit hole goes? I know I will, but maybe others will not.





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Special thanks to Plague Sliver, Lord of the Pit, and J. White for Editing and to Benjamin Wheeler for the title.

Thoughts? Post here. Problem with syntax, editing, grammar or whatever? PM me and I'll fix it.

(Edit: Broke up longer paragraphs so it is easier to read)

[Blowsene]

Awesome article. Sylvan Library is indeed an absolute house.

[Technicolor Mage]

Fun read. Legacy truly is all about going down the rabbit hole!

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Due to the proximity of large metropolitan areas in Europe, much like the small corner of the East Coast of the US, Legacy flourished, but original design was still more present in Europe than America. Look at the current decks in the Legacy metagame on a world scale – where did they originate? Who designed them? Where were decks tuned and popularized? Miracles, Shardless BUG, Imperial Painter, Patriot Delver, Elves, Death and Taxes, Nic Fit, OmniTell, and others are all European creations or saw many more finishes in Europe before people caught on in America. The only North American decks to really make an impact have been RUG Delver, Team America, and Sneak Attack.

Patriot Act was made by Americans, as the first post in the thread acknowledges. Bryant Cook's article linked is busted but to my recollection it was something like James Pogue, David Gearhart and a couple other Northern Virginia players (maybe Dan Signorini?) that created the first iteration.

Shardless Bug I'm less familiar with but the first post gives credit to Brian DeMars who is a Michigan player. The first I remember about it being seen as a viable deck it was still being confused with Team America but lauded by a bunch of top name players on the SCG circuit.

I have no idea who really wants to claim credit for Miracles but the first post in the thread belongs to Hanni who is American.

Legacy Elves is harder to trace because it's not clear at what point you want to differentiate it concretely from Extended Elves, but even take that and that's 5/6 of the DTB alone. And like as much as I rip on Finn all the time for good reasons he was still clearly the primary motivating force behind the development of Death and Taxes for instance.

I mean I've talked about the SCG echo chamber myself before but this is not a well-researched or compelling case at all.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It's also just both ignorant and arrogant to assume that if people say that the format is stagnant and solved that that must be because they haven't poured enough creativity into finding new decks. Especially when you're not producing any hint of what these decks that secretly solve the blue probme might actually look like.

[SevenInTheQueue]

It's also just both ignorant and arrogant to assume that if people say that the format is stagnant and solved that that must be because they haven't poured enough creativity into finding new decks. Especially when you're not producing any hint of what these decks that secretly solve the blue probme might actually look like.

It isn't an issue of creativity, but more flexibility.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It isn't an issue of creativity, but more flexibility.

What does that mean?

[SevenInTheQueue]

What does that mean?

Players aren't directly being asked to throw their current archetype to the flames, and brew up the answer we've all be waiting for. What is asked from (non-blue/non-Brainstorm) archetypes, is to possibly branch out to different configurations. For example, if you're dead-set on running a 4/5 Colour Loam variant, why not explore all the possible options. Experiment with quantities, revisiting older staples of the archetype, or shift into a version of the deck/engine that offers a flatter risk/reward potential.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Players aren't directly being asked to throw their current archetype to the flames, and brew up the answer we've all be waiting for. What is asked from (non-blue/non-Brainstorm) archetypes, is to possibly branch out to different configurations. For example, if you're dead-set on running a 4/5 Colour Loam variant, why not explore all the possible options. Experiment with quantities, revisiting older staples of the archetype, or shift into a version of the deck/engine that offers a flatter risk/reward potential.

So, there isn't a difference really. So, again:

It's also just both ignorant and arrogant to assume that if people say that the format is stagnant and solved that that must be because they haven't poured enough creativity into finding new decks. Especially when you're not producing any hint of what these decks that secretly solve the blue probme might actually look like.

[SevenInTheQueue]

So, there isn't a difference really. So, again:

Removing Chalice of the Void from your list or increasing your Sylvan Library/Hand-Attack suite is not what I'd label as "creativity".

[Zombie]

[Higgs]

I think another weak point worth emphasizing in Hoogland's article is this argument:

"It means that any time a card becomes oppressively popular for an extended period of time, it will be removed for the sake of diversity"

To me this reads: If you cry hard enough your wish will be granted in Modern.

It doesn't sound like a clear headed, stable eternal format to me.

[lordofthepit]

/cue dramatic 30 for30 intro



What if I told you that a self-identified Modern player went into one of the biggest Magic events of the year with a 4-color Loam deck and took home the most valuable prize this side of the Pro Tour?

/end intro

Look no further than Niklas Kronenberger at the Bazaar of Moxen.

When you are having a rough spell with your pet deck, you have three options: (1) get better with your pet deck, (2) pick a new deck and become more proficient with it, and (3) blame factors out of your control such as variance, the format, or the game. European players might deserve credit for their innovation, but they also deserve credit for their skillful piloting of tried-and-true decks.

[Bobmans]

/cue dramatic 30 for30 intro
What if I told you that a self-identified Modern player went into one of the biggest Magic events of the year with a 4-color Loam deck and took home the most valuable prize this side of the Pro Tour?
/end intro
Look no further than Niklas Kronenberger at the Bazaar of Moxen.

End of credibility for blue being to overpowered. In the end, the person is always the (his own) problem.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

"Sometimes people still win without Brainstorm. Anyway stop whining."

Historically the biggest sign of a degenerate format has been people repetitively using the same non sequitors to desperately defend the status quo.

[Julian23]

Niklas is another great example of people being rewarded for not adhering to the "blue is oppressive/overpowered" mantra.

[The same though might be true for "SCG players are just uncreative copycats"]

Everywhere you look, you will always find people complain about blue doing well in Legacy.

Seriously, man up. Instead of bitching, do something about and win a tournmanet with it. It's not like pure sophism will every get anywhere.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

In all frankness, these are the exact same arguments people have used to defend every shitty obviously-needs-to-be-banned card/deck ever. Skullclamp/Raffinity type 2, Flash in Legacy, Caw Blade, it doesn't matter, it's always just ignoring trends for anecdotes and making vague but demeaning aspersions about the "whiners"' creativity or manliness or whatever.




Snip - Removed Flames.

[Plague Sliver]

Nice job Matt. Even as I read the draft, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this did far more than I expected out of a rebuttal article.

I also do not see what is so inherently bad about winning or losing on the first turn, but I recognize that my views may not represent that of most players. Or Wizards, for that matter.

I can't find the article now, but Conley Woods wrote a really good piece in 2012 about how we all have finite energy to invest into learning the formats. So while one could try to "master" and brew Legacy decks non-stop, it isn't the ideal goal for most grinders or pros. I think it's fine to play the decks that are popular or winning in North America. More power to folks who do it, and do well. But I'd like to think that there's a special place in heaven for people who want to invest the time to explore the format a little more broadly.

Besides, for every good Brainstorm player, there's a bad Brainstorm player. And Legacy, more than any other format, is the format where we want to have fun and win on our own terms. If it were anything else, I would have quit long ago.

In all frankness, these are the exact same arguments people have used to defend every shitty obviously-needs-to-be-banned card/deck ever. Skullclamp/Raffinity type 2, Flash in Legacy, Caw Blade, it doesn't matter, it's always just ignoring trends for anecdotes and making vague but demeaning aspersions about the "whiners"' creativity or manliness or whatever.

I think it's a worthy discussion to have. Literally every card has an answer, it just comes down to how format-WARPING it is. The challenge with Brainstorm is that:

1) There are varying definitions of whether it is format-WARPING or format-DEFINING (and is there even a difference? and does it matter?)
2) It just adds to the incredible nuclear stockpile of Blue staples

I don't have the answers, and I think there's an interesting thread Finn started about "What would it take?", including banning fetchlands. Might we take it over there?

[Hof]

Nice article. I didn't think a rebuttal article was needed because the original article was so weak, but this is a good one.

[Parcher]

Patriot Act was made by Americans, as the first post in the thread acknowledges. Bryant Cook's article linked is busted but to my recollection it was something like James Pogue, David Gearhart and a couple other Northern Virginia players (maybe Dan Signorini?) that created the first iteration.

Shardless Bug I'm less familiar with but the first post gives credit to Brian DeMars who is a Michigan player. The first I remember about it being seen as a viable deck it was still being confused with Team America but lauded by a bunch of top name players on the SCG circuit.

I have no idea who really wants to claim credit for Miracles but the first post in the thread belongs to Hanni who is American.

Legacy Elves is harder to trace because it's not clear at what point you want to differentiate it concretely from Extended Elves, but even take that and that's 5/6 of the DTB alone. And like as much as I rip on Finn all the time for good reasons he was still clearly the primary motivating force behind the development of Death and Taxes for instance.

I mean I've talked about the SCG echo chamber myself before but this is not a well-researched or compelling case at all.

You are correct about Patriot, It was Dr. Dan, Gearhart and the Pogues. Their deck was identical other than running Stifle over Pierce, and Steppe Lynx over an unprinted TNN. And it was the Michigan players, specifically DeMars and GerryT who created Shardless. The fact that Hollywood isn't credited with Imperial Painter simply means he hasn't had time to read this thread yet. Claiming invention for Elves is about as realistic as for Affinity or Goblins.

The Euros can lay claim to D&T, NicFit, and OmiTell. I can't imagine anyone else wanting the blame.