All B/R update speculation.

[rufus]

As silly as that rationale was, it's not like there's much desire nowadays for Mystical Tutor to get unbanned.

If all it did was tutor miracles to the top of the deck at instant speed... They banned it before they really borked it.

[Crimhead]

One breakdown about the strategic diversity thing: Most people seem to define it as "when people are going to win the game and/or whether the fundamental strategy is fast beatdown, grinding or broken things". I would like to break it down a bit further...

Everybody (I should hope) breaks it down beyond these parameters. Pox and Miracles are both grindy control decks that win very late, but the decks are strategically very different.

Personally when I think of strategy and strategic diversity, I think mostly about how the decks interact with one another. What are they strong against? What are they soft to? What's going to make them "change gears"? Etc. Ultimately I think it would make the most sense to think about diversity in terms of pairings rather than individual decks.

This is where my own experiences might make me biased. I tend to look at diversity in terms of pairings which involve the decks I play. The decks I've played and loved the most are High Tide, Elves, Enchantress, and Lands (RUG & R/G). These decks tend to have diverse games. The latter are highly reactive/procative toolbox decks, while the former have back-up play styles (Elves can go "beat-down", while High Tide plays control vs any other combo deck).

With those decks my strategy is always highly dependent on the board state, and small differences in how my opponent's deck plays can be huge. I played a bit of aggro (it's been years now), but I've honestly never sleeved up midranged or tempo (in Legacy). I've heard people say that games would comedown to the first resolved DTT. Somebody casting DTT against my Lands is always a negative development, but rarely decided the game! Maybe if I played more aggro-control I would experience a more narrow feeling format?

At that level of definition, one of the most important defining factors of a strategy is the engine (if any) that powers the deck.

True. But worth noting that, with consideration to interaction, some engines have a bigger game-state impact.

When against Dredge, priority number one is to shut down the graveyard. You can beat them without that, but aside from outracing them the most effective way to win is to interact with their engine. The same is true for Loam/Exploration, Enchantress/Presence, and other powerful engines. Even a Bob can run away with the game and tends to be killed on site. That's why the Survival comparison fails. If you resolve a Survival, my entire strategy is heavily influenced by that fact until I can neutralize it. So to many Survival decks dampen strategic diversity. If you resolve a Brainstorm, I that doesn't require my attention in the way that some other engines might do.

This is why Shardless BUG and Jund midrange are strategically similar despite difference in engines. In fact, the biggest difference I find playing against them is that Jund has more removal but no counters.

at least add color to the picture.

I recognize that colour options impact strategic options. As far as strategic diversity goes, I'm content as long as no colours are getting squeezed out. And in particular, I focus on interactions and that which demands interaction. This is just my POV though. Someone might say I downplay colour balance and undervalue the more solo aspects of strategic planning. It gets pretty subjective from there.

Different engines have a very different feel to them and are an important focus of interest for people. At that level, you can't just help but notice you want to be playing the cantrip cartel as the enabling engine in all but a small number of narrow (albeit competitive) cases.

This is absolutely true. How a deck enables us to efficiently manage our resources is strategically significant.

For players who like to play lots of different decks, too many cantrip shells could be understandably dull. :(
A lot of players get hooked on playing mostly just one deck (and tweaking the list/SB for meta-gaming). This is either for budget reasons, for the love of a single archetype (pet deck), or because that deck plays into the pilots strengths. Other people believe that it's better to become very good with one deck than getting fairly good with several.

For us, we are accustomed to using the same engine all the time, and we look for strategic variety in our MUs. If 2/3 or 4/5 opponents are using the same engine, that only matters to the extant that that engine shapes the strategic landscape of the match. Brainstorm & co are powerful shit, but their inclusion does not dominate the MU considerations.

I don't expect you to adopt my perspective. But this is where people are at who feel the cantrip cartel doesn't hurt strategic diversity. This is why cantrips are compared to fetchlands. Fetches are powerful, ubiquitous engines, but they don't require much attention or dominate strategic considerations. They play around non-basic hate, much like BS plays around discard. But overall we don't interact with them very much.

It doesn't help that the engine isn't colorless but blue, and that running colors has actual deckbuilding costs, which further restricts what you're likely to want in a well-tuned deck.

This is another chief reason why Duals and Fetchlands get a pass. If they were only available in islands and blue it would be a different story I think.

Legacy could be a beautiful format with a lot of different interesting engines to explore, but practically it's Cartel (everything), Loam (4c Loam, Lands), Elves or bust, and Elves hasn't really been the best-positioned deck in a long time.

I think Merfolk was competitive pre DTT ban (but stats have been coming in to slowly for it to make DTB yet). I also think Elves had been underplayed/neglected, and that their results were suffering. Still, the domain of non-cantrip decks was getting so small even I was beginning to sympathize.

Let's hope we see more Elves, D&T, Painter, and some sweet Vise shenanigans!

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Brilliant post.

That was a brilliant post!

So to many Survival decks dampen strategic diversity. If you resolve a Brainstorm, I that doesn't require my attention in the way that some other engines might do.

Well put.


Also, I think that banning DTT is enough and that BS is a save card. It'll be lovely if there'd be more colors in Legacy (less monetary presures, more interesting gaming experience), but it'll be nice if this goal would be achieved by an intorduction of more CA and CQ tools into non-blue.

[swoop]

Brainstorm needs to go.

Wotc clearly can't print any more draw while it's in legacy

[Secretly.A.Bee]

And what do you draw that conclusion from?

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[swoop]

And what do you draw that conclusion from?

All the recent bannings?

[Cartesian]

Brainstorm needs to go.

Wotc clearly can't print any more draw while it's in legacy

All the recent bannings?

Because Treasure Cruise and DTT would have been completely fair in a format without Brainstorm, like say... Modern. Oh wait...

[Crimhead]

'Fun' players get to play anything and scrub out eventually, competitive players are limited to a shell of 4 brainstorm 4 FOW shell + lots of blue cards to pitch.

What are you saying - a deck can't be competitive if it has a bad MU against fringy glass-canon combo decks? This is provably false.

- Too-fast-for-interaction combo is generally bad for magic across formats. It's more like performance art than playing a game with someone.

- It's acceptable in legacy because:

...b. Wizards doesn't consider legacy a showcase format - it's pretty much an ugly stepchild. There are few tournaments that matter anyway so the stakes are always low. Nobody is losing Pro Tour cause they faced belcher r1. Modern combo decks are far more likely to get bans because wizards is pretty invested in modern's long-term future.

I take the other angle. WotC does not allow fast combo and other "feel-bad-loss" decks in Modern and Standard because those are showcase formats. WotC wants their market to include casual and soft gamers who would be easily turned off if the weak decks they play at their first drafts and FNMs don't at least give the appearance of putting up a fight.

Your attitude is not uncommon - many aggro/control players feel that MTG would be a better game if everybody else played aggro or aggro/control too. But Legacy is a format for people who want to play strange decks with unconventional approaches (or who want to play against these decks). Legacy is not a format that WotC has allowed to go to shit. This is a format WotC has allowed to stay pure rather than being gutted and dumbed down in order to increase its market share.

Brainstorm needs to go.

Nobody has a lot of data or experience with the current meta - maybe we should let the dust settle before we talk about further bans? That said I have a hunch Earthcraft would only make Legacy better!

[swoop]

Because we're talking only about modern here, clearly that's the issue.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

The delve spells needed banned. Using cantrips to 'mana-ramp' into a super-cantrip is obviously not something that is acceptable in a format like legacy. It does not, however, mean that Wizards can't print draw spells. Most draw spells don't make it into the format because of brainstorm and ponder.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Honorik]

So, exact 0 /zero/ copies of Black Vise in top 32 at the last Starcity Open - http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...eckshow.php?&t[C1]=3&start_date=10/03/2015&end_date=10/04/2015&city=indianapolis&limit=100

In my opinion Mind Twist and Earthcraft should also come off the list. Maybe Survival also.

[Undomian]

More importantly, only 18 blue decks in the top 32 of that tournament unless I miscounted. That's a change for sure.

[Quasim0ff]

2 goblins in the top8?

Eureka-Tell?

What is this madness.

WOTC please fix, make blue Control good again. Give us some instant card-drawing which will make it easier to manoeuvre in the late-game!

[Tylert]

2 goblins in the top8?

Eureka-Tell?

What is this madness.

WOTC please fix, make blue Control good again. Give us some instant card-drawing which will make it easier to manoeuvre in the late-game!

One of the goblins was more goblin stompy like (with moggcatcher and the usual prison stuff like chalice / magus / trinisphere).

[Admiral_Arzar]

More importantly, only 18 blue decks in the top 32 of that tournament unless I miscounted. That's a change for sure.

The GPT I just went to had a couple of Jund and DnT (the latter ended up winning it). I'm not 100% sure if this is how the meta will stay, or whether people are just incorrectly thinking they can win with stuff like Jund again. Only time will tell. As for Black Vise, I think it's pretty obvious that the card is bad, I'm not really holding my breath for a deck with it to be any good. If one is I'll be pleasantly surprised though.

[rufus]

.. As for Black Vise, I think it's pretty obvious that the card is bad, I'm not really holding my breath for a deck with it to be any good. If one is I'll be pleasantly surprised though.

IMO it's borderline playable in really aggressive decks like affinity and burn - especially in cantrip-laden metagames.

[ahg113]

Two days too quiet.

Just peaked at the dtb section, R/G lands is the sole non-cantrip cartel deck.

What is the appropriate amount of time before the ban brainstorm bus is fired back up? I understand waiting a month for Black Vise to make a dent and blah blah blah. So, a month and 1 day sound legit? Or is it even necessary to wait that long?

RIP DTT, may you rot in purgatory

[Admiral_Arzar]

Two days too quiet.

Just peaked at the dtb section, R/G lands is the sole non-cantrip cartel deck.

What is the appropriate amount of time before the ban brainstorm bus is fired back up? I understand waiting a month for Black Vise to make a dent and blah blah blah. So, a month and 1 day sound legit? Or is it even necessary to wait that long?

RIP DTT, may you rot in purgatory

While I agree with the sentiment, the DTB hasn't been updated since the end of August. It won't reflect any post-ban shifts for another month I would assume.

[tescrin]

Aside from my abject hatred of miracles; this is probably where I want the format. I was happy with it pre-cruise and even early Cruise while people were figuring things out; but I took a huge break just because I was so tired of
"Lol, terminus; 3rd counterbalance, durdle 20 turns.
G2 - OH WENT TO TIME LOL"

[Yes I do realize I can scoop, and I do when appropriate; try not to focus on the joke too much since I'm not actually bitching about the current format.]


I think that Cruise/DTT just warped everything so hard that people forget that Mav/Jund/Junk/DGA and D&T were reliably putting up results, if a bit random which it was. Being able to brew a bit and pay life for cards/lily someone out; that's all that matters.

[Stevestamopz]

Two days too quiet.

Just peaked at the dtb section, R/G lands is the sole non-cantrip cartel deck.

What is the appropriate amount of time before the ban brainstorm bus is fired back up? I understand waiting a month for Black Vise to make a dent and blah blah blah. So, a month and 1 day sound legit? Or is it even necessary to wait that long?

RIP DTT, may you rot in purgatory

Arguments against Brainstorm haven't gone anywhere -it's still as absurd as it was last month/year/decade- I think everyone's just recovering after the extreme orgasm that was DTT actually being banned.