[Article] Legacy's Latest #4 - Five Simple Tips Towards Becoming a Better Player

[AnwarA101]

Why is the discussion of Brainstorm in the context of playing Tog? As far as I can tell there are very few reasons to play Tog in modern Legacy. The fact that you are worried so much about shuffling away so many bad cards might suggest that Tog itself doesn't run enough good cards. Tog also has the issue of not running other early cantrips like Threshold (Portent, Serum Visions) and Solidarity (Opt, Peek) but yet its more mana hungry than both of those decks.

[Complete_Jank]

Much to both arguements, that is why I said the artical doesn't really help new people.

It is a nice read, and a more experience player can take something from reading it, however a new player is not going to understand the logic behind either side of the argurment.

That is why new players must first learn their decks. If they are brainstorming and realize when the proper time to play brainstorm for each situation that would arise.

Like:
1st turn on the play after the other player played a land and passed the turn. You may have 3 or even 2 land, but no hard counter. Digging end of turn before your turn could find a 2cc counter, and then be able to play it rather than waiting and not being able to cast the counter. If you run daze you'll have another land to play most likely because of the bounce effect, and you'll see one more card before you could play a third land.


There are proper times to play it first turn as well as to not play it first turn, but the artical doesn't explain that in a maner that a new player would most likely understand.


It is like fetching. If I need another Land, I won't fetch till after I draw, but if I don't want to draw a land I'll fetch end step or upkeep.

I have seen too many people with flawed thinking with this as well. It matters not if I have drawn nothing but land or spells for X turns. Yes the odds that I would draw a non land card after drawing 4 lands in a row would be extremely low, but I still fetch because the"Random" card on top of your deck doesn't matter. It has X % to be any certain card in the deck. The % is not changed by the order of things you have drawn, but the odds of a given situation are changed.

It is the % of cards in the deck that you have to calculate, and one sac will shuffle the deck, and change the order of draw, but it will increase the % that you have to draw a non land card because the ratio of land cards to non land cards will have gone down. Thus fetching is always the correct choice mathmatically.

[Bardo]

It's making a play that's marginally worse in terms of semi-card advantage, in that your Brainstorm is likely to be a bit worse, in return for an increase in tempo. The turn one play gives you a quicker route into the game than waiting for it.

I'll assume you have good intentions and are not just arguing for the sake of arguing. Right? Anyway, there is no "increase in tempo" here. You're just using up a great card for a benefit that you cannot capitalize on yet anyway. You can only make your third land drop on turn three (unless you're running some Loam/Tog deck with Exploration) and you will see the third card by the time you could make your third drop anyway. If you Brainstorm on turn 1 and there is not land in the top three cards, you've whiffed and are kinda screwed; if you waited, you could dig deeper and find that third land.

I'm not saying there is never a good reason to cast a turn-1 Brainstorm in Tog; just that it's a waste to do so on the conditions we've stated.

@ Anwar - You're totally missing the point.

[AnwarA101]

I understand that casting Brainstorm later means that you will look at more cards because you will have seen more cards from your draw step. I don't think there is much debate about that. If you can afford to wait I guess it would be right the move. The real issue is if Brainstorm is the only cantrip in your deck and you need to hit land drop number 3 then you probably have to resort to this type of play. The real question is why would you play such a deck? This doesn't even take into account of having wasteland and port issues and having no other cantrip in the deck makes it that you are overly dependent on Brainstorm.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

IBA is correct at least insofar as waiting to cast Brainstorm is not always the correct play, and dogmatically sticking to theoretical play strategies is always worse than being adaptable to your hand, your opponents deck, and the gameplan of your deck, while being aware of all your possible options and the benefits entailed in them.

[Complete_Jank]

IBA is correct at least insofar as waiting to cast Brainstorm is not always the correct play, and dogmatically sticking to theoretical play strategies is always worse than being adaptable to your hand, your opponents deck, and the gameplan of your deck, while being aware of all your possible options and the benefits entailed in them.

Perfectly put, and you can't tell someone when to or not to use it. It has to be learned, not just told. It comes with experience.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Anyway, there is no "increase in tempo" here. You're just using up a great card for a benefit that you cannot capitalize on yet anyway. You can only make your third land drop on turn three (unless you're running some Loam/Tog deck with Exploration) and you will see the third card by the time you could make your third drop anyway.

Yes, there is.

Let's go over this again.

If you do nothing and wait until the third turn, you will have seen two new cards. Add Brainstorm and you see five new cards. If you need to cast Counterspell turn 2 (likely), you've already blown your one fetchland. You therefore need to see not only a third land within those five cards, but a fetchland in order to shuffle away the situationally "bad" card here.

If you cast the first turn EoT Brainstorm, you see three new cards. The card you draw the next turn isn't new, but now you play the fetchland and presumably try to counter something in pretty much any matchup you could reasonably be expected to play against on the draw. You shuffle away whatever the worst card was, and you draw a fourth new card for your third turn. You've seen one less new card at this point, but you're guaranteed to see new cards the next two turns instead of taking a chance on drawing another Fetchland, and you've guaranteed shuffling away at least one unneeded card.

Moreover, in this play you also now have the mana open on your third turn to drop Tog or Deed this turn instead of having to wait a turn.

The only benefit accrued by waiting to cast Brainstorm past this point is in assuming that you don't need to draw the land before you would be done dropping threats/answers anyway, and that you would then have the one mana available and free to spend without sacrificing anything else or needing to keep mana available to play around Daze. While possible, this is playing to "win more", as if you live long enough to have mana sitting around without another use you're probably in a winning position anyway as you've managed to stall out the game, unless you're playing an awful deck with 26 lands and 16 spells that do nothing but draw cards and then it's quite understandable where you would have a hard time drawing gas.