[Podcast] Everyday Eternal 27: The Brainstorm Blues pt 2

[thecrav]

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With so many facets to Brainstorm, episode 27 of #EverydayEternal finds Matt Pavlic (sdematt), Jacob Kory (koby), Julian Knab (itsJulian), and special guest Ben Wheeler (SevenInTheQueue) further discussing ways to fight the blue menace. First, is Brainstorm really the problem? The team seems to agree that an over-reliance on misunderstood statistics could indicate that it’s not. In case it is, what can WotC do about it? Both card creation and potential unbannings are explored.

0:00:01 – Clearing up some things about Matt’s recent Brainstorm article
0:09:16 – Twitter question from @TheBoozeCube – Why are there so many lopsided matchups in Legacy?
0:15:41 – Is Brainstorm even the problem?
0:26:35 – Overreliance on (flawed) statistics
0:38:35 – Brewing up a new card to fight Brainstorm
0:57:55 – Unbanning things to fight Brainstorm
1:00:14 – Outro

Thanks again for listening! If you have any questions or just want to chat, let us know on Twitter (@EternalMTG), like us on Facebook (facebook.com/EverydayEternalPodcast), or email (EverydayEternalCast@gmail.com), or in the thread below.

[mini1337s]

Yes! Podcast Addict indicates that it's been 28 long days since the last podcast... was this intentional?!

[thecrav]

Yes! Podcast Addict indicates that it's been 28 long days since the last podcast... was this intentional?!

I do the editing on the cast. I got married this last weekend so the last couple weeks have been nuts and I hadn't had time to work on the cast. I did everything start to finish on this one last night. We have another recorded that I'm hoping to have edited by the end of the week and posted either over the weekend or at the start of next week.

[mini1337s]

I do the editing on the cast. I got married this last weekend so the last couple weeks have been nuts and I hadn't had time to work on the cast. I did everything start to finish on this one last night. We have another recorded that I'm hoping to have edited by the end of the week and posted either over the weekend or at the start of next week.

No excuses. It's my free content and I WANT IT NOW
(also, 28 days... didn't know if you guys were going all Machiavelli or some shit)

[Dragonslayer_90]

Good podcast as usual. Is it just me though or does Jacob Kory's audio sound terribly low compared to everyone else's? I had to strain my hearing every time he spoke. Was kind of annoying because I always like to hear what that man has to say!

[iamajellydonut]

Good podcast as usual. Is it just me though or does Jacob Kory's audio sound terribly low compared to everyone else's? I had to strain my hearing every time he spoke. Was kind of annoying because I always like to hear what that man has to say!

I listened to it on the train ride back and it was basically silence whenever he talked. Eventually I stopped trying to hear and treated it as dead air.

[TheYoungster]

Really good episode, I liked the topics and further discussion on the brainstorm subject. Anyway, another fantastic episode, keep up the good work.

[Barook]

A couple of points:

- Your examples of consistency: Zoo is dead, Merfolk is a metagame deck that sucks otherwise and Burn isn't doing to well, either. Sure, it got alot better with Eidolon, but considering it's one of the most common decks in MTGO Legacy right now (#2 or #3 place), it performs like crap (only ~3.5% of the placing meta). Maybe, just maybe, the idea of running cards that do the same thing often enough isn't that great, since this linear strategy is a one-trick pony that is easily beaten.

- About tournaments: Doesn't your example why Junk didn't get there due to a random mulligan to 5 exactly showcase the entire issue about consistency since blue decks can keep alot more hands and semi-mulligan during the match with Brainstorm?

I really support this cause to gather more data. I've had a look at one of the GP Day 2 data and I would really appreciate it if somebody can dig up that post (or said list that contains all the Day 2 decks) since I can't find it right now. I looked at all the decks we had at Day 2 and their final rankings. Since I don't have the exact data handy right now, so I can only quote from memory: In the lower placing bracket (1xx-2xx), the number of blue decks was around 50%, while it kept continually increasing the higher you climbed up in the higher rankings until you got a 88% Brainstorm Top8. Thus I doubt that we have a 70% Brainstorm meta, but rather Brainstorm decks outperforming non-blue decks by a significant margin. That GP was only one example, but I do think other big tournaments are going to show similiar results if we get enough data for a comprehensive analysis.

- Unbannings: Mind Twist won't stop Brainstorm's dominance.

- Anti-Brainstorm cards: Hating Brainstorm is doomed to fail since most people ignore the keypoints to combat Brainstorm: symmetry, cost, speed and not sucking against the rest of the format:

A) Symmetry: You made some attempts that punish your opponent for playing Brainstorm - but what exactly does stop your blue opponent from incorporating said hate card in a blue shell against other blue decks, like it happened with Pyroblasts, Abrupt Decay, etc? You've already established that colored mana as drawback with the current mana bases is basically non-existent. Take Thalia for example - do blue decks run her? Nope, because she would fuck you up just as badly as your opponent, if not worse.

B) Cost: Tempo is important. To combat a 1-mana instant, the best-suited hate cards would cost 1 or better 0 mana somehow at best. Everything else is going to suboptimal and Legacy doesn't have room for suboptimal cards. You simply don't e.g. combat Goyfs and Delvers with Hero's Downfall in Legacy (or Modern, for the matter).

C) Speed: Why isn't Spirit of the Labyrinth that great? Because it's sorcery speed. Your opponent can always fire of his Brainstorm in response and you're left with a Blade of the Sixth Pride that gets conveniently killed when your opponent decides that he wants to use his card draw again. Which leads me to the next point:

D) Not sucking against the rest of the format: What's the point of said hate card if it can't be run by a reasonable number of decks because it blows in the rest of the non-blue matches? Imagine SotL with Flash for a moment - not only would you get a very convenient "Fuck you"-Button for Brainstorm even without Aether Vial @2, but also an Ambush Viper which can serve as combat trick/pseudo-removal when card draw isn't relevant. I agree with the statement that said hate cards should generally useful in the way of Loxodon Smiter. Again, just look at Thalia - she has First Strike, which makes her actually combat-relevant to an certain extent.

I don't want to make this into another shitty card creation thread, but since it's a major part of the pod cast, I think there should be some room for discussion. Here's a design that I came up with a while ago which fulfills at least A, B and D:

Relic of the Ancients
Legendary Artifact
Relic of the Ancients can't be countered.
When Relic of the Ancients enters the battlefield, draw a card.
Whenever a spell or an ability of a card not named Relic of the Ancients causes a player to draw a card, each of that player's opponents may draw a card.

Let me go a bit into detail on this one:

A) is fulfilled since the last thing you want to do is running this in a blue cantrip shell. Giving your opponent free Ancestral Recalls whenever you play Brainstorm is major nonbo.

B) is cheap enough to be played on the first turn. Sure, they could fire off a single Brainstorm in response, but that's the only thing they'll get before the effect takes place.

C) was cut because it would be utterly broken and downright unfair in this current iteration.

D) Can't be countered is a way to prevent blue from hiding behind a free counterwall and forces them to interact on a different level. Aside from applications against other card draw engines (e.g. Griselbrand, Elves, etc), it's a colorless sorcery speed cantrip with zero card selection against non-card draw that is simply legendary to prevent abuse in multiples. I seriously doubt it would be run by every deck like Mental Misstep since it clashes so heavily with blue card draw or other draw-heave engines (Elves, Enchantress, etc).

Is that card too powerful? Maybe. But that's the powerlevel you would have to expect if you want to seriously dent Brainstorm's presence in the meta and make it more of a choice to run instead of "Blue shell, Brainstorm, AWESOME!". Everything else is going to be either cute, unplayable crap, adopted by blue shells or cards so specific that they're only good in inconsistent shells (Chalice of the Void says Hi!).

[nedleeds]

Props to Matt for stealing my invitational card, also to the RUG analysis and forgetting that blue makes the delver. Jacob sounds like he's trapped in a well.

[Phelix]

is it possible to fix his audio and reupload?

[sdematt]

is it possible to fix his audio and reupload?

If you listen to it straight off of Eternal Central, I had no problem hearing his audio. I did it just to make sure. On an Ipod I agree, it's not great.

-Matt

[Plague Sliver]

Great podcast as usual guys, but no offense to sdematt, I stopped listening once the create-a-card section kicked in

It was interesting to hear Julian's point of view that Brainstorm isn't that bad. I think that if an Elves player (who has played every single darn deck in the format) thinks that, then that has to mean something.

Anyhow, didn't mean to incite more flames, good episode!

[Zombie]

Dunno, Elves has pretty much the best card draw/selection in the format outside of blue. It would stand to reason we don't hate blue's consistency-enabling tools as much as others do because we're good at it too.

[Plague Sliver]

Dunno, Elves has pretty much the best card draw/selection in the format outside of blue. It would stand to reason we don't hate blue's consistency-enabling tools as much as others do because we're good at it too.

That's totally valid. Card advantage is pretty much a staple of the format unless you have a good reason to deviate.

[Phelix]

Good tip, heard off the central now, and its fine.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

As I mentioned in the stream on the weekend the real culprit is not Brainstorm. It is the free interactions from fetchlands that break Brainstorm and also make DRS obscenely strong.

It would be interesting to see how legacy would shape up if there were no fetchlands in their current form but instead you would have fetchlands that you would sacrifice for a land token of a choice of 2 wedge/shard dual lands and not interacting with the order of your library.

eg:
Balanced Blue Shard Fetch Land:
T-> Pay 1 and Sac - Put an Underground Sea Token or Tundra Token into play.

Balanced Blue Wedge Fetch Land:
T-> Pay 1 and Sac - Put an Volcanic Island Token or Tropical Island Token into play.

[Julian23]

As I mentioned in the stream on the weekend the real culprit is not Brainstorm. It is the free interactions from fetchlands that break Brainstorm and also make DRS obscenely strong.

It would be interesting to see how legacy would shape up if there were no fetchlands in their current form but instead you would have fetchlands that you would sacrifice for a land token of a choice of 2 wedge/shard dual lands and not interacting with the order of your library.

eg:
Balanced Blue Shard Fetch Land:
T-> Pay 1 and Sac - Put an Underground Sea Token or Tundra Token into play.

Balanced Blue Wedge Fetch Land:
T-> Pay 1 and Sac - Put an Volcanic Island Token or Tropical Island Token into play.

I'm not sure whether I mentioned it during the podcast but I agree on your sentiment about Fetchlands. I don't think they should be banned (I don't actually care about neither BS nor Fetchlands as much as others) I think it would be highly interesting to see what kind of environment we would end up with if they were actually gone. With the recent reprints I really don't see that happening, but that's not the point anyways.

Only thing I heavily dislike is the alterantive you suggested. It's as clumpsy as can be.

[Zombie]

I'm not sure whether I mentioned it during the podcast but I agree on your sentiment about Fetchlands. I don't think they should be banned (I don't actually care about neither BS nor Fetchlands as much as others) I think it would be highly interesting to see what kind of environment we would end up with if they were actually gone. With the recent reprints I really don't see that happening, but that's not the point anyways.

Only thing I heavily dislike is the alterantive you suggested. It's as clumpsy as can be.

Besides, we'd just get sued for copying Hex CCG! :P

[ESG]

I'm not sure whether I mentioned it during the podcast but I agree on your sentiment about Fetchlands. I don't think they should be banned (I don't actually care about neither BS nor Fetchlands as much as others) I think it would be highly interesting to see what kind of environment we would end up with if they were actually gone. With the recent reprints I really don't see that happening, but that's not the point anyways.

Only thing I heavily dislike is the alterantive you suggested. It's as clumpsy as can be.

If fetchlands were gone, people would max out on dual lands to ensure consistency. A deck like Jund would go from playing 5 or 6 duals to playing 12. This would put a lot more pressure on prices, which would be a large negative consequence. I honestly don't think Legacy would survive if duals saw, say, a 300 percent increase in price. Shops would have to start allowing some number of proxies, and the format would go the way of Vintage.

From a gameplay standpoint, City of Brass and Mana Confluence would see more play. Stifle would be a lot worse. Traditional land destruction would get considerably better because people couldn't just sit on uncracked fetches, and it would be easier to color-screw someone. Because of this, four-color decks like Deathblade would basically be wiped out, and three-color decks would lean on things like Mox Diamond and rainbow lands. Deathrite Shaman would be significantly weakened but would still see play in Elves (as a utility card rather than initial acceleration). I could also see Elves going back to Crop Rotations in order to turn on Shamans. People might play some number of Mirage fetchlands; it depends on how fast the format was and how significant the presence of Wasteland was. I could see Miracles running some number of those. Blood Moon would get better because people couldn't just play one or two basic lands in their deck and expect to see them with any regularity. Mono-colored decks would improve due to having consistency advantages over the three-colored decks. Combo decks would probably get better, relative to the field, because Brainstorm decks would be weakened. There would be much less digging and flexibility. Mulliganing would be more or less what you got. Another possibility is that the Brainstorm decks would increase the number of cantrips, especially Ponder, in order to still have superior library manipulation.

[Julian23]

If fetchlands were gone, people would max out on dual lands to ensure consistency. A deck like Jund would go from playing 5 or 6 duals to playing 12. This would put a lot more pressure on prices, which would be a large negative consequence. I honestly don't think Legacy would survive if duals saw, say, a 300 percent increase in price. Shops would have to start allowing some number of proxies, and the format would go the way of Vintage.

From a gameplay standpoint, City of Brass and Mana Confluence would see more play. Stifle would be a lot worse. Traditional land destruction would get considerably better because people couldn't just sit on uncracked fetches, and it would be easier to color-screw someone. Because of this, four-color decks like Deathblade would basically be wiped out, and three-color decks would lean on things like Mox Diamond and rainbow lands. Deathrite Shaman would be significantly weakened but would still see play in Elves (as a utility card rather than initial acceleration). I could also see Elves going back to Crop Rotations in order to turn on Shamans. People might play some number of Mirage fetchlands; it depends on how fast the format was and how significant the presence of Wasteland was. I could see Miracles running some number of those. Blood Moon would get better because people couldn't just play one or two basic lands in their deck and expect to see them with any regularity. Mono-colored decks would improve due to having consistency advantages over the three-colored decks. Combo decks would probably get better, relative to the field, because Brainstorm decks would be weakened. There would be much less digging and flexibility. Mulliganing would be more or less what you got. Another possibility is that the Brainstorm decks would increase the number of cantrips, especially Ponder, in order to still have superior library manipulation.

Interesting. My feeling is that there would be a lot more two colour decks in the format, relying heavily on Basic Lands as Wasteland becomes much better in a format without Fetchlands.