I'm going to repeat a version of my post upthread to see if anyone wants to respond.
The issue that bothers people is that the pool of Legacy-playable cards is getting smaller. That is because of the raw power of the blue cantrip base. I know someone will point to the success of a random Loam or Jund deck here or there to try and discredit this point but the fact is, based on any way you slice the data, that the best decks rely on the card selection and filtering of Brainstorm and friends.
Let's compare a few top-placing decks, starting with BBD's GPNJ winner (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=76124) and Eli Kassis' 14th-place Grixis list (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=76144).
They share 45 of the exact same cards:
1 Basic Island
9 fetchlands
6 blue duals
20 total cantrip shell cards (4 each Probe, BS, Ponder, FoW, and Cruise)
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Pyroblast
4 Young Pyromancer
They share a further 5 cards whose functions are largely a matter of taste:
Each play another land
Each play additional counterspell: Eli 1 Counterspell, BBD 1+1 Spell Pierce (not counting the second one yet, just the first one)
Each play three pieces of creature removal: Eli a 4th Lightning Bolt, 1 Forked Bolt, and 1 Sudden Demise; BBD 3 Swords to Plowshares.
That's 50 cards that are essentially the same. That means you can boil the differences in the decks down to 10 cards:
BBD: 4 Stoneforge Mystic, 2 True-Name Nemesis, 1 Batterskull, 1 Umezawa's Jitte, the other Spell Pierce, and 1 Plains
Eli: 3 Cabal Therapy, 2 Dack Fayden, 2 Snapcaster Mage, 1 Notion Thief, 1 Baleful Strix, 1 Nihil Spellbomb
Eli's deck is more interesting, sure, but the differences are all at the margins. In fact, the win conditions of either decks are the only difference. The rest of the decks are identical suites of lands, cantrips, and disruption.
Now let's look at two other decks that also share two colors: The Jund Blast deck from the other page (https://www.facebook.com/CentralMagi...type=3&theater) and the highest placing BUG deck from the last SCG: (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=76653)
They share:
4 black fetchlands
2 Bayou
3 other black-producing lands
2 other green duals
4 Wasteland
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Abrupt Decay
That's 26 cards. Again: These are decks that share two colors. They only share 26 cards. Hell, let's just give 'em the 27th (Jund's Pulse, BUG's Decay). That's 18-23 fewer cards in common than blue-based three-color decks. Simply by not playing blue, a world of new cards are opened up.
How does the BUG deck compare to BBD's deck?
4 blue fetchlands
2 non-blue fetchlands
5 blue duals
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Treasure Cruise
2 True-Name Nemesis
That's 28 cards. And let's line up the other similarities: Each has an additional 2 fetchlands and at least 4 pieces of creature removal (Abrupt Decay vs. Bolt/STP). And 2 additional counterspell effects (Daze & Spell Pierce). This is between two decks where the only common color is blue.
The efficiency and power of Brainstorm makes it almost always correct to start there and add at the margins. It constrains deck construction. And only one of these four decks features Delver of Secrets, so clearly not playing that card is no obstacle to a highly efficient and successful deck.
When you don't have a clear-cut best card in that way, so many more cards are available to you. Let's look at how the Jund deck compares to another deck it shares two colors with: The 8th-place Lands deck from the latest SCG (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=76652)
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Punishing Fire
4 Wasteland
1 Forest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 other green fetchlands
2 green dual lands
Only 18 cards. Only 3 non-land cards.
Exactly. Why is red in every list of the Brazilian tournament? Because the best card for fighting blue is red. It could be a Yu-Gi-Oh card and people would be cracking those tins to jam it in next to their Brainstorms.Originally Posted by Koby
That is true. So if absent more blue decks these takeover, we have to think about other bans. That's OK. We might find out that not having Brainstorm in the format opens up new answers to these decks.
I don't disagree with this, but I disagree with the bolded. All this so-called "strategic diversity" revolves around the strength of a few cards. The real strategy is "play the blue cantrip suite, then win with whatever." And there will always be a most effective win condition with those cards. There aren't a ton of Bant decks now, but if you ban Delver, maybe Bant becomes the best deck for some reason. And then where are you?
Except this statement says nothing. Care for strategies, cards, and effects rather than colors? So you'd be fine if all black cards were banned because all you care about is strategy? Certainly the other four colors can satisfy your strategic needs.
Or do you enjoy some of the strategy that comes with playing black cards specifically?
What about the people who enjoy the strategy of flipping Delver and blowing up everything in its way for 7 turns?
What about the people who enjoy old-style Goblin strategies? You've indicated there's no place for them.
What about the people who enjoy Survival of the Fittest-based toolbox strategies? Same as above.
This discussion is about balancing the format to make it accessible and enjoyable to the most players possible, not satisfying Lemnear's own personal need to do whatever with cardboard.
You consistently say that banning Brainstorm would cripple two decks, Storm and Miracles, specifically. You say people want to do that so they can play their own "pet decks." So you suggest banning other cards that won't impact Storm or Miracles. How are you only concerned with "strategy, cards and effects?" You only care about preserving what you want.
Why would anybody who was bent on winning not play a list in which at least 8 cards allowed them to dig 3 deep into their pile to find answers when they need them?
Doing that simplifies the mulligan process, since you'll see more cards early, and it makes the mid-game stronger since you'll have card advantage off of the real draw spells after the opening hands have been depleted.
It's actually very depressing to realize that at the highest levels there is one suite of cards that must be included in serious attempts to win. If Magic was a game of skill in which everybody shared the same pieces this would be ok. However at it's heart Magic is a game of chance in which bringing the best cards to the table is just openers in the conversation and all the skill in the world won't save you when the draw goes sour on you all of a sudden.
In that context having to play 8 or more cards out of a limited set of 20 or so that qualify as "best" cards is ridiculous. If the draw is going to define things as much as it does over the course of a long event it's a very bad thing to have the few cards that remedy that a bit confined to one color.
Things like Sylvan Library being a 1-of or 2-of in the best lists that use it are also depressing. They highlight how important the draw is and how ineffective colors other than blue are in smoothing things out. If you had lots of draw effects going into lists 4 times then things would be a bit different. But what we have instead is only 4 effects that let you look at multiple cards going into top tier lists as a play set (Brainstorm, Ponder, Treasure Cruise and Sensei's Divining Top) and 3 of them are blue and the 4th only goes into blue lists as a 4-of.
That's just broken.
Really WotC should ban Brainstorm, Ponder, Treasure Cruise and Sensei's Divining Top. It's not like blue would suffer from having no ways to look at cards after that and it's not like anybody else's options would get better, they'd just be playing on a more even field with blue-based lists.
While I've always been pro-ban of Delver of Secrets, even when I was playing mud and a rogue sneak attack deck, I eventually change dto Jund.. and right now I'm mostly annoyed by Treasure Cruise the most since it blows Jund's tactics which is essentially creating card advantage. A hymn to tourach is actually giving them 1 cards after TC resolves.
I mean, TC proeminence is there because Delver exists, but still, I just keep getting pissed. First, the blue shell gets a flying Nacatl without the land disadvantage. Then it gets a SECOND Delver card (TNN), and now two cards that are identical to banned cards + benefits from being disrupted - oh and they also blow DRS and Tarmogoyf shenanigans.
Color-related differences are also strategy-related differences. Sure we could have 5 different colors, perhaps even more if that's what WotC wanted. But if they all play the same (think of this as Planar Chaos color shifts for same 60 card deck), then there is no true difference other than aesthetics.
And that is the problem with Delver archetype: all of them are similar strategies with one common color that comprises a large part of the competitive environment (see the decks that made it to Day 2 at GP NJ). Delver does more to make the format stale than Brainstorm does, as Brainstorm can at least make fringe-playable decks more consistent and is found in more than just Uxx Tempo.
Exactly. Brainstorm is used in many different deck strategies, and generally combo decks are the most reliant on the card, and I'm fine with that.
But the banning is solely for the purpose of competition. Hate brainstorm? Ban it on your kitchen table.
I never said i hate brainstorm... But anywhoo, whether for competition or not, color is what makes magic magic. Personal opinion.
Am I the only one here who actually doesn't care at all whether Brainstorm is banned or not? As in: I don't think it needs to be addressed - but would also be super excited to see what happened if it was gone?
I much more care about strategies. I don't like that Delver enables the strongest Aggro strategy to be paired with Countermagic. In the past we had Aggro-Control side-by-side with pure Aggro as in Zoo; the later doesn't have a place in the meta anymore. (It would be easy to point to Miracles here but in fact, Zoo was already pretty much gone long before Terminus was released. Funny enough, partially due to Maverick/SFM).
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
You're free to have it. I love casual magic from time to time with no restrictions but that's casual and not meant to be effected by the ban list.
Now I know he's trolling lol.
Based on how this thread has absolutely exploded, yes, I think you are the only one.
Zoo got smashed by snapcaster and batterskull, same as merfolk. I remember stoneblade running 4 snap/4 plow with 2 paths in the board.
Everyone cares about strategies. As stated above though, 10 different cards doesn't feel a whole lot like a different strategy. Even that landstill deck that top 8ed was only ~15 cards off from BBDs list.
Yes, or he stared into the eye of mordor a little too long.
Edit: and why do people think "ban brainstorm" is a casual/competitive arguement? It's not.
If anything these are competitive players who don't want to play suboptimal no bs lists and don't want to play the same stale crap every week where "different decks" are <15 cards different.
Delver is just the best Brainstorm wincon at the moment. The most players will always gravitate toward the best shell. The first SCG after Delver was legal had 24 Brainstorm in the top 8 and 0 delver. The format was plenty blue before people picked up on Delver.
BBD and Kassis both used Young Pyromancer to great effect. In fact you could argue that an evasive threat in the form of Delver is the only thing keeping BUG on the map at this point because of the ground stalls Young Pyromancer produces. Then we'll talk about banning Young Pyro, then Stoneforge Mystic. The real problem is Brainstorm.
thankyouthankyouthankyou.
Well said. I'm also completely fine with unbanning cards to help out storm. I love that deck and there are lots of cards on the lists right now that aren't as good as bs that could help.
What do you want? Frantic Search, Bargin and Desire? Take them all and have a blast. There are tools to fight storm if it starts to get too good.
Really? I never knew... So we got not only Treasure Cruise, but also another draw3 and this time even instant? Crap, that's a bit too much.
The suggestion for banning Brainstorm is not because it is blue. It's suggested because it's everywhere, it's by far the best card in the format and you basically don't ever want to not have it. The bigger the event, the more the card's power shines. The color complaints are because such a powerful card is blue. You have to play blue to have the power and consistency.
And that one card and it's cousins being everywhere creates a repetitive play experience where people dance the same cantrip dance over and over again. Without Brainstorm the power discrepancy between blue's style and other colors' styles would be a lot less and thus encourage people to play other colors, which even if they end up playing similar strategies will have a different feel to them, which then ends up in a less monotonic feel and more fun.
I mean, let's face it. None or next to none of us are getting paid to play this game - in fact we pay exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege. I'm as competitively minded as anyone, and playing just for the lulz holds no appeal for me. But I play competitively because it's fun and satisfying, not because I'm following some robotic, relativistic ideal of it. If the standard play experience becomes so monotonic as to not be fun anymore, what's the goddamn point in a 1500 euro pile of cardboard?
No, you've got it backwards.
We have a format that represents a massive cardpool across 2 decades, with the finest effect-to-mana ratios in 5 colors and all that is colorless. In spite of that, a single color has shown itself to lend the three most widely recognized archetypes (aggro, control, combo) such an array of tools that to play without those cards requires an insane amount of justification.
I would buy your argument if we had a demonstrable "5 color good stuff" deck, even if it ate its own feces when Wasteland shows up, but even that deck would lean more on Brainstorm, Force of Will, and Ponder in order to keep its head above water. We know this because decks with Islands do not deviate from that core and they entertain a high success rate, again in all three major archetypes.
This, in a game where there are allegedly five colors with varying strength in the different game zones, where there is intended to be a diversity of affinities, only to consistently see the same core of cards in a single color enabling most or all lines of play in those zones and archetypes and most importantly in those decks which are played most successfully - that defies the concept you invoke in defense of the pervasive Blue core. It points out the dissonance between the game's intent and its execution. Where Legacy the format closer to the game's intent in this regard, there would be no need for this conversation. However, Legacy as a format does not reflect this game's intent regarding the five colors, and many players view this as problematic.
I don't care what color card x has I want to play for it's effect. If it's manageable for a manabase to add a certain card, we do it. The 4c monstrosity that Deathblade is, is the prime example right next to bUrg Delver. If WotC decides that pro-active disruption is in blacks-color-slice and I want it for my strategic need, I play black manasources.
The same principle I used for card-effects also applies to strategies. If a strategy is warping the metagame into playing either it or against it, we need to think about if that's still healthy. We can sure argue, that TC warped the metagame atm, but we can also argue, that the metagame still not adopted to the challenge, but rather joins the hype-train. This forum is an excellent example with people suggesting to splash TC in every deck right after Bobs success with his UR Delver, rather than thinking about handling it. So if a strategy proofs over time that it's oppressive by invalidating other playable archetypes, bannings are to consider. It has nothing to do with people enjoying a certain strategy like Goblins, Storm, Miracles, S&T, whatever and it has ESPECIALLY nothing to do with colors.
But ... it has something to do with people bitching about certain effects not being in their favored color-slice and not tailor made for their strategy. Have you ever heared a storm player moaning that PIF is Red and not Black or that mana-acceleration in now red instead of black? No, because tjey splashed red mana in their former UB decks to play the best cards available! Did they cry that there is no solution in UBr to handle counterbalance? No, because they fucking splashed green for Abrupt Decay! Lets pic my favored example, Goblins again, which is no longer a DtB because players refuse to adjust the fucking Mainboard because "non-goblin non-creature cards are bad with Vial and Ringleader". Splash black for discard! Play some REBs! Play Eidolon! Play Karakas + Thalia! You don't want to adopt any of those ideas/angles/options and still stick to your 2004 mana-denial plan with a 3+cc manacurve against Delver, SFM, S&T, Storm, Miracles and TNN? Fine ... go fucking slaughtered by the whole metagame of 2014!
I have no clue what kind of wierd image you guys have of "balanced". Throughout the thread I keep asking for it and all I got as response was spoiled brat logic of "all colors should be equally!". This ain't Miss America 2014, gal! The fact is that we have all 5 colors represented in most Top 8s, so I seriously hope we don't have to waste our time discussing that color x is unplayable in general. Do you give a shit about the playability of mono green Beasts.dec because it dies to the current metagame as a result of not running cards that adress the issues? No you sure don't, but you suddenly care about mono-red goblins? Why? Where did you draw the line? Because it WAS a deck in the last decade? That's nothing but hypocrisy, dood.
I mentioned several times that the removal of Brainstorm would hurt multi-piece combos like SneakShow, Storm, FoodChain or Miracles MUCH more than the blue Tempo and midrange shells, because of various reasons I'm not gonna repeat for every User individually. As the blue tempo and midrange shell is more than 35% of the whole metagame and substitutes to brainstorm are very potent as long as we have Fetchlands around, I cannot see how banning Brainstorm should "diversify" the metagame if you accept the eradication of several deck concepts to slightly lower the power level of blue tempo and midrange which will stay on top because of the supreme card selection and threats.
I'm sorry if you have troubles with my thinking pattern not being that one-dimensional as "brainstorm is played in Storm, so banning it is bad". Maybe you want to adress the points I actually made instead the ones you think I should I have made if I had an IQ of 70
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You should maybe stop with this, don't you think? And maybe spend some time reading what the other people write.
The suggestion for banning Brainstorm is not because it is blue. It's suggested because it's everywhere, it's by far the best card in the format and you basically don't ever want to not have it. The bigger the event, the more the card's power shines. The color complaints are because such a powerful card is blue. You have to play blue to have the power and consistency.
And that one card and it's cousins being everywhere creates a repetitive play experience where people dance the same cantrip dance over and over again. Without Brainstorm the power discrepancy between blue's style and other colors' styles would be a lot less and thus encourage people to play other colors, which even if they end up playing similar strategies will have a different feel to them, which then ends up in a less monotonic feel and more fun.
^^ He's right, you know.
I have never heared that Vintage players ever complained that all non-dredge/workshop decks running SoLoCryMoxen and near-all running Ancestral, Walk, Will, etc. ever created a boring and repeditive experience.
MTG is STILL not chess. Not every match begins by moving a pawn.
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