On Blue

[Dice_Box]

So we ban all those decks from all formats and call it a day, because they are off from the idea, color identity and concepts Alpha set as standards.

Well, if you want to look at Alpha, at the very lest UR Delver would be less of an issue.

[bruizar]

So we ban all those decks from all formats and call it a day, because they are off from the idea, color identity and concepts Alpha set as standards, according to Wizards

"Over the years, the sheer number of rules revisions and changes of rules managers the game has undergone—as well as unintended consequences that arise when new mechanics and card abilities are unleashed each set—has led to cards slipping through the cracks. As the evil genius currently in charge of maintaining Oracle, Magic rules manager and former cult-leading columnist Mark Gottlieb is a strong, strong believer that cards should have functionality that matches their printed intent as often as possible."

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/mag...om/daily/af127

Could not make it any more clear than this.

[lordofthepit]

Did dude really write that he's upset that his deck couldn't beat nonblue decks and that's why blue is too powerful?

[Lemnear]

You are the one bringing no-card limit to the discussion. How is that not hyperbolically meant to derail the conversation? Blue doesn't need to destroy creatures or artifacts or enchantments because it can make sure they never resolve in the first place. In the cases where that is impossible, blue has bounce (Rock Lee's romance with Repeal is well documented in the Turbo Eldrazi thread). Guess what? Repeal draws a card too! Because that's what blue does! Did I mention that Repeal is also played as a mana accelerant and storm accelerant in vintage? Apparently, bouncing mana crypt, mana vault, moxen or even sol ring is pretty good!

Blue is problematic not because of 3/2's and 3/1's. It is problematic because it's the only color that can control what it draws with any sort of reliability, while benefitting from nearly free cantrips (See Storm mechanic, delve mechanic, flashback mechanic (Past in Flames, Snapcaster Mage, Yawgmoth's Will in vintage).

It was you who picked up the 5-color-parity-idea as original concept, so you have to swallow the whole pie of "original concepts". The concept of Repeal on Mox Sapphire for free storm and draw isn't new, but I din't see what it has to do with Legacy unless you want to join DeMars for inaccurate Legacy-Vintage-parallels.

Afaik, Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library are green, SDT is colorless and WotC puts scry/Delve/storm/phyrexian mana not only on blue cards. It's not my fucking business if Jund players refuse to utilize SDT to adjust their flow on disruption, threats and mana while also turning Dark Confidant into an insane carddraw-engine, but run 1-2 random Libraries only because "drawing multiple Libraries is bad because they don't shuffle themselves away like brainstorm does mimimimimimi".

[bruizar]

The very concept of magic the gathering is that there are five identities in magic, represented by their color. If magic is functionally a one color game, we can conclude that it deviates too much from the original intent of the creator. Given that original intent has been used to apply erratas on the nigh 20k card pool, we can conclude that original intent is important to the developer of the game.

Therefore, blue dominance must be addressed. The question is which tools do they set in motion to swing the pendulum to a format that is more representative of the original intent of the game.

It was you who picked up the 5-color-parity-idea as original concept, so you have to swallow the whole pie of "original concepts".

I did not pick up on 5 color parity. I picked up on 5 color tournament relevance. As I acknowledged from your post before, I do not expect all colors to be equal in power, but I do expect all colors to be able to win tournaments, given the meta-game shifts that reshuffle the balance of power would be plausible and probable.

Parity refers to homogeneity whereas the color wheel refers to heterogeneity. I'm talking about every color being unique and competitive.

[Lemnear]

I did not pick up on 5 color parity. I picked up on 5 color tournament relevance. As I acknowledged from your post before, I do not expect all colors to be equal in power, but I do expect all colors to be able to win tournaments, given the meta-game shifts that reshuffle the balance of power would be plausible and probable.

Given that we have UR Delver, BG Elves, 4c Loam and Death and Taxes seen as top performers/tournament winners several times within the last year, I think, the balance is intact

[Barook]

Afaik, Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library are green, SDT is colorless and WotC puts scry/Delve/storm/phyrexian mana not only on blue cards. It's not my fucking business if Jund players refuse to utilize SDT to adjust their flow on disruption, threats and mana while also turning Dark Confidant into an insane carddraw-engine, but run 1-2 random Libraries only because "drawing multiple Libraries is bad because they don't shuffle themselves away like brainstorm does mimimimimimi".

But that is actually a viable argument - nobody wants to gimp himself intentionally by drawing dead cards. Brainstorm will never be bad by itself since it will always at the very least cantrip. Multiple Libraries, however, are pretty redundant.

[bruizar]

Given that we have UR Delver, BG Elves, 4c Loam and Death and Taxes seen as top performers/tournament winners several times within the last year, I think, the balance is intact

See, this is *again* where statistics come into play. Your subjective opinion is simply not convincing (hence why I added a reference from wizards in my previous post).

Run a time series analysis on the top 8s, do a significance test and see how well non-blue white performs, and how brainstorm-decks perform. Test the 0.05 and 0.01 alphas and there is your conclusive evidence.

As an aside: I have a lot of difficulty discussing anything with you Lemnear. You seem to make a sport out of disagreeing with others for the sole purpose of disagreeing. Never have I seen any real evidence backing up your strongly opinionated posts. On top of this, you seem to take enjoyment out of marginalizing others on this board. Perhaps they did so in a PM, but I'm telling you this here since I believe moderators should have long called you out on your behavior.

[Lord Seth]

Who says that actually those 70% like to play Brainstorm that much? That number doesn't recognize the number of players that simply play it because it's the best card which is heads and above the rest of the format.

An Vintage is a clusterfuck of a format, Brainstorm or not. Sadly, the archive of Wizards is empty, but wasn't BS restricted in Vintage because it was too efficient at digging for broken 1-ofs, quite similiar to tutor effects?

This was the exact explanation given for Brainstorm and the other cards being banned in Vintage:
The DCI is continually looking to do what is best for the health of the Vintage format.

The combination of Flash with only a few cards, leads to too many turn zero and turn one kills. The speed and ease of these Flash combos led to Flash being added to the Restricted list.

Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm and Ponder have all been added to the restricted list. Merchant Scroll tutors for the most powerful cards. Likewise the access power of Brainstorm and Ponder make finding the powerful restricted cards in a deck too easy.

Gush returns to the restricted list. Last year, we removed four cards from the Vintage Restricted list. Of those cards only Gush has proven problematic as a free card-drawing instant.

Emphasis added. Source here.

[Lemnear]

But that is actually a viable argument - nobody wants to gimp himself intentionally by drawing dead cards. Brainstorm will never be bad by itself since it will always at the very least cantrip. Multiple Libraries, however, are pretty redundant.

Even non blue decks like Imperial Painter use SDT for card selection so I feel the urge to slap every Jund player right into their face if they complain about Blue's card selection but decide to run only a single Library in their deck for increasing card quality.

[Gheizen64]

It was you who picked up the 5-color-parity-idea as original concept, so you have to swallow the whole pie of "original concepts". The concept of Repeal on Mox Sapphire for free storm and draw isn't new, but I din't see what it has to do with Legacy unless you want to join DeMars for inaccurate Legacy-Vintage-parallels.

Afaik, Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library are green, SDT is colorless and WotC puts scry/Delve/storm/phyrexian mana not only on blue cards. It's not my fucking business if Jund players refuse to utilize SDT to adjust their flow on disruption, threats and mana while also turning Dark Confidant into an insane carddraw-engine, but run 1-2 random Libraries only because "drawing multiple Libraries is bad because they don't shuffle themselves away like brainstorm does mimimimimimi".

Tbh SDT is used only in miracles (EDIT: and 12-post because being colorless in that deck actually matter, thanks Seth for the correction i forgot about that) and for good reasons. The cards is slow. Decks that don't use it usually do because:

- they are not control decks so they need to stay on curve more
- they can't shuffle back extra SDT they naturally draw (if they aren't blue)
- they don't play miracle cards so you just play Mirri's Guile
- are chalice decks

Library is better than SDT in every deck that run green and isn't miracle (EDIT: considering the case of 12-post, the ability to be played off colorless lands is important when you run ~10 colored sources). The ability to draw extra is insanely good in some matchups, which is why Library is played and Guile is not.
Confidant isn't played anymore because Courser is just better in a format with so many bolts around, and Courser is in fact played in green decks alongside Library. I love myself some draw 2 every turn + lifegain combination. In general, with discard being pretty bad against BS and Delve , and burn decks being so strong, black isn't that attractive anymore.
Green decks also often run GSZ, and WG decks run KotR, so i'm not sure where you're getting the impression that people "refuse to adjust their flow on cards" while in fact they do, but it just ain't good enough for the format, with some exceptions like Elves, which run 4 GSZ and tons of draw. Maverick play a decent amount of tutors (4GSZ+4KotR+2/3SFM)and lot of cards that are extremely good against the meta (punishing variant especially), but isn't considered top tier anymore. D&T is extremely redundant in his mana denial strat so it doesn't need manipulation, likewise Burn is redundancy by definition.


Also i think it was Pikula that said it best: "you see, you play CotV because it blocks all the best spells of the format, but then you're not playing the best spells of the format!"

[Barook]

Even non blue decks like Imperial Painter use SDT for card selection so I feel the urge to slap every Jund player right into their face if they complain about Blue's card selection but decide to run only a single Library in their deck for increasing card quality.

SDT offers fancy interactions with Welder. Sylvan Library doesn't do that in Jund.

[Lord Seth]

Library is better than SDT in every deck that run green and isn't miracle.

What about 12-Post?

[Gheizen64]

Even non blue decks like Imperial Painter use SDT for card selection so I feel the urge to slap every Jund player right into their face if they complain about Blue's card selection but decide to run only a single Library in their deck for increasing card quality.

Well, SDT in painter is much different from SDT in Jund. Jund can't use tricks with welder to cycle extra ones, and Painter play a much more reactive role compared to a deck like Jund that run tons of discards, which is why Painter can afford to leave 1 extra open at the end of each turn where jund much more rarely can. That's also the reason Library is much better because beside from the first investment, the card is maintenment-free. But in general i'm not even sure why we'd talk about jund which is just a subpar color combination now. GRW (punishing Mav.) is much better than GBR right now because Liliana as a card is the worst it has ever been (YP and Delve spells ruin it), discard in general is badly positioned, and black draw also is at an all-time low (Confidant's bad with so many bolts around). Black best spells in this meta are probably AD (of which sudden shock does a decent impression however) and Toxic Deluge which is indeed really good.

[Gheizen64]

What about 12-Post?

You're right forgot about post, colorless mana matter in that case i should add it.

[Lemnear]

See, this is *again* where statistics come into play. Your subjective opinion is simply not convincing (hence why I added a reference from wizards in my previous post).

Run a time series analysis on the top 8s, do a significance test and see how well non-blue white performs, and how brainstorm-decks perform. Test the 0.05 and 0.01 alphas and there is your conclusive evidence.

As an aside: I have a lot of difficulty discussing anything with you Lemnear. You seem to make a sport out of disagreeing with others for the sole purpose of disagreeing. Never have I seen any real evidence backing up your strongly opinionated posts. On top of this, you seem to take enjoyment out of marginalizing others on this board. Perhaps they did so in a PM, but I'm telling you this here since I believe moderators should have long called you out on your behavior.

Well, I'm not attacking people like our dear Sean did as he wrote "STFU" right after quoting me, but I ask questions about mere bold statements & opinions presented as facts and supported by twisted numbers or intended misinformation. Disagreeing with flawed logic like that "blue is the only color that can control it's draws" has nothing to do with enjoyment, but with keeping discussion serious and on-track. Of course i feel free to react to blatant hyperboles with irony or my own hyperboles to hint at the initial flaw.

What might confuses you is that you seem to not only overread my counterarguments for given points (and tbh there have been quite a lot over the course of the last weeks in various threads), but miss the fact that Brainstorm is still legal and the Burden of proof is on the anti-brainstorm-party, with most of the "evidence" brought up within years on the subject of Brainstorm roots on personal bias or a misunderstanding of numbers (like the quantity of Brainstorms in average top 8s compared to the average number of Brainstorms in the field which is misinterpreted as proof for Brainstorm overperforming which is clearly not the case).

Given that I have never received a PM or warnings for my "behaviour" from Patrick or any other Moderator and avoid discussions enter a personal level, I think my style of participation is still within the acceptable frame, despite me sure not being a Cotton-mouth here and IRL. If I or other users take things too far, I'm positive that our mods will find a way to communicate this.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

True. Would you conclude however, that 4 out of 5 colors should have marginal power, to the point where they are no longer relevant?

Warning, just being cheeky for the heck of it: Given Alpha, the answer would be hell yes. I mean, look at those cards: Ancestral Recall. Time Walk. Blue is so far beyond all the other colors in Alpha, it isn't even close to anything we've seen ever since. Given Control Magic, Counterspell, Mahamoti Djinn and Psionic Blast you could even argue that blue was already supposed to be the one color that can do all the things.

/edit: Well, I guess black is supposed to be good between Dark Ritual, Demonic Tutor and Contract from Below.

[Lemnear]

- they can't shuffle back extra SDT they naturally draw (if they aren't blue)

Jesus Christ! What about reading the tap-ability? In combination with a shuffle effect you can get rid of SDT anytime. There is no fucking need to run blue for that.

[Lemnear]

Warning, just being cheeky for the heck of it: Given Alpha, the answer would be hell yes. I mean, look at those cards: Ancestral Recall. Time Walk. Blue is so far beyond all the other colors in Alpha, it isn't even close to anything we've seen ever since.

/edit: Well, I guess black is supposed to be good between Dark Ritual, Demonic Tutor and Contract from Below.

Let me add that among Dark Ritual, Healing Salve, Giant Growth and Lightning Bolt, Ancestral Recall was the only rare ;P

[frafen]

I think that the brainstorm ban would be a good thing.

I can see two possible results:

1) Without that card, the blue shell is not anymore the best shell. People will obviously keep playing blue decks (all the good cards are still there -and preoradin is pretty good) but at least we won't see 6/7 blue decks out of 8 in top8s and more non-blue strategies could find space (also we won't see again that abomination that is maindecking pyroblast).

2) In my opinion it's not likely, but like someone said blue could be dominant like it is now also without brainstorm. Well, I would be happy about that. At least the broken card is banned and the format is not revolutionized. Many palyers like the formats as is (me for example).

I just think that I would like a more varied format without one card that's by far the more powerful.