All B/R update speculation. [Archive] - Page 45

btm10

04-29-2015, 12:37 PM

I've given up for the time being on you people recognizing the stranglehold Brainstorm + fetch has on the format.

I think everyone recognizes that Brainstorm is the best thing to be doing, but that some of us aren't bothered by that, and Wizards is clearly also fine with it being the best thing happening.

However we have been discussing whether Miracles as a specific deck is too strong at the moment.

The results from Florida are another data point in that direction.

I think that we really need to confine the discussion to larger events for the time being. 3/8 isn't a huge improvement on its meta share, and without knowing anything else about the players or the event itself it's hard to judge. If the Lille Top 8/16 looks like the Kyoto Top 8/16 and the SCG Top 8/16s look like Kyoto and Cleveland in terms of Miracles representation for several months, then there's likely a problem.

That being said, if something has to be done about Miracles, the obvious target is going to be Top but I think we might be better served if WotC targets one of the other legs of the deck to minimize collateral damage. In my experience, Terminus, Counterbalance, and Entreat are all necessary for Miracles to function, and taking out any one of them will (likely) solve the problem.

I think we can all agree that brainstorm is an amazing card and should never be banned.

I agree with you, but you're just trolling.

maharis

04-29-2015, 01:42 PM

I think everyone recognizes that Brainstorm is the best thing to be doing, but that some of us aren't bothered by that, and Wizards is clearly also fine with it being the best thing happening.

*eye twitch*

Agree to disagree. For now.

I think that we really need to confine the discussion to larger events for the time being. 3/8 isn't a huge improvement on its meta share, and without knowing anything else about the players or the event itself it's hard to judge. If the Lille Top 8/16 looks like the Kyoto Top 8/16 and the SCG Top 8/16s look like Kyoto and Cleveland in terms of Miracles representation for several months, then there's likely a problem.

That being said, if something has to be done about Miracles, the obvious target is going to be Top but I think we might be better served if WotC targets one of the other legs of the deck to minimize collateral damage. In my experience, Terminus, Counterbalance, and Entreat are all necessary for Miracles to function, and taking out any one of them will (likely) solve the problem.

3/8 is 37.5% of a top 8, which is much more than its 11% share over the past 2 months (mtgtop8 live tournament data) and it's a sudden spike as people are sort of settling in after the TC ban. It's also 3/8 at small tournaments, 3/8 big tournaments... the point is that people bring it and win at an outsized rate. It's in the same range as UR delver was in terms of total tops.

I will also be disappointed if top is the target. I think Counterbalance is the card that should go. I am fine with a deck being able to Terminus, but it shouldn't also be able to just stop you from rebuilding afterward. Entreat is obnoxious but if everyone is playing blue you can just counter it anyway. (And cards like Envelop get more live vs. Miracles without Countertop).

If Top isn't safe Brainstorm shouldn't be, but people will cry about how long it takes to top. But it's not nearly as bad as you think when people aren't using it every turn to counter a spell then reset and draw the right card.

Star|Scream

04-29-2015, 02:04 PM

I feel like the anti-brainstorm crowd have this idealized vision of how the format should look in their heads, and since
real-life Legacy doesn't fit that exact template they want to completely revamp it. Instead of just accepting the format the way it is, they'd rather turn it upside down. Who cares that people really love the format? Screw them, MY opinion is more important.

If you want a micro-managed format, honestly, go play Modern. I know it's a cliche, but really, have you even tried it? When I want to play "fair" magic, I play Modern. The cantrips are terrible and I wind up doing 7-10 damage to myself a game, but the games are fun. Of course it is micro-managed, but that helps reassure me that there's nothing really degenerate to fear. Most colors are well-represented, too. But when I want to play absurdly broken things, I play Legacy.

That's the way the format is, and always should be.

LOLWut

04-29-2015, 02:29 PM

the point is that people bring it [Miracles] and win at an outsized rate.

SCG Legacy Results for Major Archetypes (DC - Providence) (http://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/34158q/scg_legacy_results_for_major_archetypes_dc/)
January to now

MUD: 38-22-2, (63%)
RG Lands: 69-44-8, (61%)
Food Chain: 18-12-2, (60%)
BUG Delver: 138-97-10, (59%)
Infect: 60-44-2, (58%)
BURG Delver: 21-16, (57%)
UWR Stoneblade: 41-31-6, (57%)
Junk: 14-11, (56%)
Lands: 15-12-2, (56%)
Shardless BUG: 106-84-9, (56%)
Painter: 31-26-2, (54%)
RUG Delver: 99-86-7, (54%)
Grixis Delver: 12-11-3, (52%)
Miracles: 158-153-33, (51%)
DeadguyAle: 11-11-2, (50%)
Dredge: 58-59-2, (50%)
Elves: 95-95-4, (50%)
Grixis Control: 23-23-5, (50%)
Patriot: 64-65-5, (50%)
Storm: 114-116-7, (50%)
Twelvepost: 37-37-5, (50%)
Goblins: 19-20, (49%)
Sneak and Show: 94-97-5, (49%)
Death and Taxes: 123-131-14, (48%)
Maverick: 52-56-5, (48%)
Omnitell: 43-48-3, (47%)
Reanimator: 69-80-5, (46%)
Burn: 43-52-1, (45%)
Jund: 27-33-1, (45%)
Deathblade: 44-55-8, (44%)
UW Stoneblade: 14-18-3, (44%)
U/R Delver: 13-18, (42%)
Merfolk: 21-31-1, (40%)
Esper Stoneblade: 12-19-1, (39%)
Tin Fins: 7-12, (37%)
Nic Fit: 9-22-3, (29%)
Enchantress: 10-27-3, (27%)
High Tide: 7-22, (24%)

AND
First, here are the records in non-mirror matches and match win percentages excluding draws for all archetypes with at least 20 matches against known decks

That win percentage would drop even further, if draws (which Miracles is getting at a much higher rate than pretty much everything else) weren't disregarded in the calculation.

chris_acheson

04-29-2015, 04:52 PM

Lemnear

04-29-2015, 05:10 PM

I'll see your "go play Modern" and raise you a "go play Vintage". Legacy is supposed to have a semblance of balance.

Since when? Honestly, people here try to change the grown and existing format into something it obviously never was.

JDK

04-29-2015, 06:25 PM

SCG Legacy Results for Major Archetypes (DC - Providence) (http://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/34158q/scg_legacy_results_for_major_archetypes_dc/)
January to now
[...]
Miracles: 158-153-33, (51%)
[...]

So every tenth non-mirror game was a draw? Gimme the mirror match stats pls :D

edit: Mirror is 14-14-8, so every 4-5th game

maharis

04-29-2015, 06:41 PM

SCG Legacy Results for Major Archetypes (DC - Providence) (http://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/34158q/scg_legacy_results_for_major_archetypes_dc/).

1: lol at using this incomplete, self-reported data

2:

it's a sudden spike as people are sort of settling in after the TC ban. ... It's in the same range as UR delver was in terms of total tops.

Since when? Honestly, people here try to change the grown and existing format into something it obviously never was.

Then nothing should be banned. Christ.

I feel like the anti-brainstorm crowd have this idealized vision of how the format should look in their heads, and since
real-life Legacy doesn't fit that exact template they want to completely revamp it. Instead of just accepting the format the way it is, they'd rather turn it upside down. Who cares that people really love the format? Screw them, MY opinion is more important.

If you want a micro-managed format, honestly, go play Modern. I know it's a cliche, but really, have you even tried it? When I want to play "fair" magic, I play Modern. The cantrips are terrible and I wind up doing 7-10 damage to myself a game, but the games are fun. Of course it is micro-managed, but that helps reassure me that there's nothing really degenerate to fear. Most colors are well-represented, too. But when I want to play absurdly broken things, I play Legacy.

That's the way the format is, and always should be.

You are the one making an argument from emotion, not from fact or precedent. "I like this kind of Magic so it should stay."

The problem with Brainstorm is that no consistency engine in the format is nearly as good so every serious deck has to start with 4x Brainstorm 8x blue fetch. The format could still be plenty broken and consistent without it just like it's super broken and consistent despite the bans of Mystical Tutor, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Survival of the Fittest, Ancestral Recall, et al.

There is clearly a level of brokenness that Wizards is (or was, when they gave half a shit about Legacy) comfortable with, and Brainstorm at 75% format penetration is plenty eligible for debate.

You know why I like modern? Because it's brewable. Because there's no "well, guess I'd better start with these 30 cards or totally hate on them because there's no other option to win." That is actually somewhat refreshing.

btm10

04-29-2015, 08:53 PM

You are the one making an argument from emotion, not from fact or precedent. "I like this kind of Magic so it should stay."

To be fair, that's a perfectly reasonable argument, and it has plenty of precedent. In essence, it was the rationale given for banning Mystical Tutor (and whether the "gentleman's agreement" was ever actually true is irrelevant as to whether or not it was their stated rationale) and people's enjoyment of the format was the entire reason for restricting Trinisphere in Vintage. These aren't perfect analogies to Brainstorm in Legacy (one is a reason a card should be banned rather than untouched, the other is about Vintage), but they can't be ignored either.

The problem with Brainstorm is that no consistency engine in the format is nearly as good so every serious deck has to start with 4x Brainstorm 8x blue fetch. The format could still be plenty broken and consistent without it just like it's super broken and consistent despite the bans of Mystical Tutor, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Survival of the Fittest, Ancestral Recall, et al.

There is clearly a level of brokenness that Wizards is (or was, when they gave half a shit about Legacy) comfortable with, and Brainstorm at 75% format penetration is plenty eligible for debate.

You know why I like modern? Because it's brewable. Because there's no "well, guess I'd better start with these 30 cards or totally hate on them because there's no other option to win." That is actually somewhat refreshing.

I'll reiterate - WotC is clearly comfortable with the state of affairs re:Brainstorm, so any argument here is just talking in circles. I do think they give a shit about Legacy (and Vintage), but also recognize that the money is in selling Commander sets and cards for Standard/Limited. I'll agree to disagree on the merits of this, because I'd like to stick to the productive discussions that are going on.

3/8 is 37.5% of a top 8, which is much more than its 11% share over the past 2 months (mtgtop8 live tournament data) and it's a sudden spike as people are sort of settling in after the TC ban. It's also 3/8 at small tournaments, 3/8 big tournaments... the point is that people bring it and win at an outsized rate. It's in the same range as UR delver was in terms of total tops.

This is true. I'm not sure that Miracles is quite in UR Delver territory though. While Delver probably wasn't the best Cruise deck, the whole URx "Cruise as aggressively as possible and fill your deck with free and cheap chaff to achieve it" strategy was obviously the best thing going. Cruise wasn't around long enough for the metagame to be truly solved, but what was being done was already degenerate enough. The situation with Miracles is a little sticker. Are people jumping on because it's percieved as the best deck? Did a bunch of people sell out of BUG/Jund during the Cruise era (and if so, how long until they buy back in)? Is Dig Through Time a problem? I suspect that it is, at least in the context of Miracles. Why aren't more people playing the Grixis Pyromancer deck yet? Is it is good against Miracles as the results from Cleveland indicate? From my testing, it probably is, but why don't we see more of it?

In short, the meta couldn't adapt to Cruise because casting Ancestral Recall is too good for Legacy and doing anything else is silly when Ancestral Recall is an option. It's less clear that the meta can't adapt to Miracles.

I will also be disappointed if top is the target. I think Counterbalance is the card that should go. I am fine with a deck being able to Terminus, but it shouldn't also be able to just stop you from rebuilding afterward. Entreat is obnoxious but if everyone is playing blue you can just counter it anyway. (And cards like Envelop get more live vs. Miracles without Countertop).

I think any of CB, Terminus, and Entreat are reasonable targets. My own preferences lean toward hitting Entreat because of how hard it is to play draw-go control in Legacy without CounterTop and the fact that Supreme Verdict might just be too slow, but Entreat is how Miracles pivots from controlling the game to winning it so effectively and effectively turns off racing as an option for the opponent. Sort of like Brainstorm, this discussion is moot because if it's decided that Miracles is a problem, then Top is the card that's going to go.

twndomn

04-29-2015, 08:57 PM

You know why I like modern? Because it's brewable. Because there's no "well, guess I'd better start with these 30 cards or totally hate on them because there's no other option to win." That is actually somewhat refreshing.

The "because there's no other option to win" is an incorrect assessment of Legacy as a format, or intentional exaggeration.

The Modern is brew-able claim has yet to be validated, that's your subjective understanding as well.

Miracles was never this popular before the release of TC and Dig. The more people try to abuse Dig, the more Miracles will punish this kind of strategy.

My local LGS has more number of people show up for a Legacy event, with greater diversity than those South Florida events. It's a weekly local LGS that's less than 40 people. I take MTGO Legacy Daily more seriously than data coming out of South Florida.

btm10

04-29-2015, 09:54 PM

Miracles was never this popular before the release of TC and Dig. The more people try to abuse Dig, the more Miracles will punish this kind of strategy.

It's interesting that you think that. I can see where you're coming from (and I'm not convinced I'm right) but, as I said above, I like my Miracles matchup when I'm on Grixis Control which is as dedicated a Dig deck as there is. I do think that Dig has improved some of Miracles' weaker matchups like Shardless because (as a mostly former Shardless player) it's much harder to manage the Miracles player through attrition when they can cast Dig and hit two fresh cards.

My local LGS has more number of people show up for a Legacy event, with greater diversity than those South Florida events. It's a weekly local LGS that's less than 40 people. I take MTGO Legacy Daily more seriously than data coming out of South Florida.

Indeed. The MTGO meta is composed of people who buy in to get more practice, so they're more likely to be fairly serious about Legacy and not just borrowing a deck or hanging out at the card shop for the evening.

Barook

04-29-2015, 09:56 PM

Miracles was never this popular before the release of TC and Dig. The more people try to abuse Dig, the more Miracles will punish this kind of strategy.

My local LGS has more number of people show up for a Legacy event, with greater diversity than those South Florida events. It's a weekly local LGS that's less than 40 people. I take MTGO Legacy Daily more seriously than data coming out of South Florida.
Except Miracle players now try to pack Dig as well.

Miracles is also popular due to the low number of Wastelands available in the MTGO meta. I'd wait for Tempest Remasted to bring in new supplies of Wastelands and see how the meta adjusts.

LOLWut

04-30-2015, 03:35 AM

lol at using this incomplete, self-reported data

I concede that data from 10 SCG tournaments, consisting of thousands of matches, deriving win percentage to overcome bias of pilot numbers, looks a bit silly next to the entirety of data you touted as evidence: top 8 participants from 1 SCG tournament and a 25-person tournament.

Hrothgar

04-30-2015, 03:20 PM

This is the April Italian Meta at this time (analysis and research work by Pera):

MAZZO........................PT....TOP
1 StoneBlade...................51.....7
2 Team America.................49.....8
3 Infect.......................35.....5
4 Omnitell.....................35.....5
5 Death&Taxes..................32.....5
6 Shardless BUG................27.....4
7 ANT..........................25.....3
8 Threshold.....................24.....4
9 DeathBlade...................23.....3
10 UWr Miracle..................22.....4

Tammit67

04-30-2015, 03:54 PM

1: lol at using this incomplete, self-reported data

As opposed to a five round event? 3 out of the top 8 on miracles when 20% of the room is on miracles sounds alarming to you?

I'd rather trust larger events, more events.

You know why I like modern? Because it's brewable. Because there's no "well, guess I'd better start with these 30 cards or totally hate on them because there's no other option to win." That is actually somewhat refreshing.

Legacy is a FANTASTIC brewing format. Why? Because regardless of what strategy you want to employ, every deck has -something- very powerful at its disposal. The same cannot be said of most other formats.

Barook

04-30-2015, 05:21 PM

Legacy is a FANTASTIC brewing format. Why? Because regardless of what strategy you want to employ, every deck has -something- very powerful at its disposal. The same cannot be said of most other formats.
That's why we get so many new decks all the time. :rolleyes:

What were the latest addition to the meta that were actually new decks and not variants of the same crap? I can only think of Sylvan Plug and Grixis Delver/Control (which isn't too different from the stuff we already have - same shells, different wincons, maybe slightly different disruption).

maharis

05-01-2015, 11:01 AM

The "because there's no other option to win" is an incorrect assessment of Legacy as a format, or intentional exaggeration.
There are basically three kinds of decks in Legacy:

1) Brainstorm decks
2) Narrowly focused blue hate decks (D&T/Painter)
3) Decks that run on very specific and unadaptable CA engines that can't be replicated elsewhere (Elves, Dredge, Lands)

And Nos. 2 & 3 make up less than a quarter of the format. So I don't think it's inaccurate to say that if you are attempting to brew a new serious deck, that your deck probably needs to run the Brainstorm + fetches engine or have an answer to that engine (Chalice on one, MD choke/REB, etc.)

As I said upthread, I had a lot of fun when I was able to land my SDT/Sylvan + Courser engine in Junk, but I would never take it to a long tournament because over more rounds, I know that attempting to stick a couple permanents is not what I want to depend on. I will probably just take a deck with 8+ cantrips. That kind of sucks.

The Modern is brew-able claim has yet to be validated, that's your subjective understanding as well.

Legacy is a FANTASTIC brewing format. Why? Because regardless of what strategy you want to employ, every deck has -something- very powerful at its disposal. The same cannot be said of most other formats.
Look, I'll play Cloudform-Dreadnought all day, but it's still a Brainstorm + fetch deck. I don't love Modern, but I like that I have an outlet for some of my wackier ideas. Let's take a card like Myth Realized -- it's a nice fit with Loam/Crime/Souls/Smallpox. But there's no way a BWG pox/loam deck can keep up in Legacy because Brainstorm just stabilizes the opponent before the attrition engine gets online. And these are all good cards, it's not like I'm trying to play tribal dwarves and getting frustrated. Just that any attempt to brew is diminished by the presence of the Brainstorm engine because why do anything else?

What were the latest addition to the meta that were actually new decks and not variants of the same crap? I can only think of Sylvan Plug and Grixis Delver/Control (which isn't too different from the stuff we already have - same shells, different wincons, maybe slightly different disruption).
And you are right, I suppose, and that's calling Sylvan Plug a real addition to the meta and not a fun pet deck that some people are working on.

You can't call Grixis a "new" deck with a straight face IMO, its just cantrips-bolt-REB-pyromancer with Therapy and Tasigur instead of Stoneforge and STP.

I concede that data from 10 SCG tournaments, consisting of thousands of matches, deriving win percentage to overcome bias of pilot numbers, looks a bit silly next to the entirety of data you touted as evidence: top 8 participants from 1 SCG tournament and a 25-person tournament.
And to you and everyone else criticizing my choice of data -- I don't expect you to read every post I make, but I'm talking about a trend over the last few months where Miracles players are saying that the deck is incredibly powerful in nearly all matchups, plus an increase in results.

The Reddit data is nice as a sort of overview, but it really is incomplete -- we have no idea if any top 8 competitors are even reporting. I mean is it really credible to call D&T 48% against the field when the deck is in the DTB section?

maharis

05-01-2015, 11:01 AM

To be fair, that's a perfectly reasonable argument, and it has plenty of precedent. In essence, it was the rationale given for banning Mystical Tutor (and whether the "gentleman's agreement" was ever actually true is irrelevant as to whether or not it was their stated rationale) and people's enjoyment of the format was the entire reason for restricting Trinisphere in Vintage. These aren't perfect analogies to Brainstorm in Legacy (one is a reason a card should be banned rather than untouched, the other is about Vintage), but they can't be ignored either.

Fair enough point, but since Mystical Tutor, all bans have been explicitly based on power level -- Survival, Misstep, Cruise.

I'll reiterate - WotC is clearly comfortable with the state of affairs re:Brainstorm, so any argument here is just talking in circles. I do think they give a shit about Legacy (and Vintage), but also recognize that the money is in selling Commander sets and cards for Standard/Limited. I'll agree to disagree on the merits of this, because I'd like to stick to the productive discussions that are going on.

Fine with me.

This is true. I'm not sure that Miracles is quite in UR Delver territory though. While Delver probably wasn't the best Cruise deck, the whole URx "Cruise as aggressively as possible and fill your deck with free and cheap chaff to achieve it" strategy was obviously the best thing going. Cruise wasn't around long enough for the metagame to be truly solved, but what was being done was already degenerate enough. The situation with Miracles is a little sticker. Are people jumping on because it's percieved as the best deck? Did a bunch of people sell out of BUG/Jund during the Cruise era (and if so, how long until they buy back in)? Is Dig Through Time a problem? I suspect that it is, at least in the context of Miracles. Why aren't more people playing the Grixis Pyromancer deck yet? Is it is good against Miracles as the results from Cleveland indicate? From my testing, it probably is, but why don't we see more of it?

In short, the meta couldn't adapt to Cruise because casting Ancestral Recall is too good for Legacy and doing anything else is silly when Ancestral Recall is an option. It's less clear that the meta can't adapt to Miracles.

I'm just going by the DTB forum, and seeing that graphs with Miracle Control at the top look a lot like UR burn or whatever they called Cruise Delver. There is still time to adjust, of course.

I've only started this discussion because of the way the best Miracles pilots talked about the deck on the EE podcast and the fact that it's been at the top for nearly 18 months uninterrupted. I'm not even doing terribly against the deck personally (I did get blown out twice at Eternal Extravaganza but I was playing my deck very poorly) so this isn't so much a personal crusade because I can't win against it, but rather that I would like more options to actually play in Legacy and Miracles holds down a ton of them.

I think any of CB, Terminus, and Entreat are reasonable targets. My own preferences lean toward hitting Entreat because of how hard it is to play draw-go control in Legacy without CounterTop and the fact that Supreme Verdict might just be too slow, but Entreat is how Miracles pivots from controlling the game to winning it so effectively and effectively turns off racing as an option for the opponent. Sort of like Brainstorm, this discussion is moot because if it's decided that Miracles is a problem, then Top is the card that's going to go.

You are probably right. Sorry Nic Fitters. :mad:

Tammit67

05-01-2015, 11:09 AM

That's why we get so many new decks all the time. :rolleyes:

What were the latest addition to the meta that were actually new decks and not variants of the same crap? I can only think of Sylvan Plug and Grixis Delver/Control (which isn't too different from the stuff we already have - same shells, different wincons, maybe slightly different disruption).

We don't many new decks all the time because it is difficult to print cards that are good enough to warp the meta. However, every archetype can do powerful things so should a card be printed powerful enough for our standard, the support cast to make it good exists!

Consider the printing of vengevine: madness makes a comeback because it slots in a relatively powerful UG madness looking thing. Then people figure out the stuff we can do with survival! The survival plan ends up so good, we can slot something else into the deck- necrotic ooze. Suddenly, finding our survival is kinda core, so we can run enlightened tutor and with tutor in the deck, some people even get the chance to run a 1-of LED. New deck based around relatively new cards but the old powerful shell is ready to adapt it.

Omnitell: Show and tell shell exists already as UR sneak and show. July 2012 omniscience gets printed and while I'm sure people are trying to play the card, I don't see much in the way of results. 5 months later Enter the Infinite gets printed and we hit a critical mass of dumb blue things to cheat into play. Good thing a shell exists! Mono U Omni show makes an appearance, running the old card dream halls as show and tells 5-8 and suddenly we have a show and tell deck running cunning wish and release the ants of all things. Dig through time gets printed and we transition away from dream halls and enter the infinite to just cast emrakyl. You probably don't consider this a new deck since this all uses show and tell.

Miracles: I don't thing I really have to explain this one right? Sure a UW CB shell is there but the core of the deck changes so much with snapcaster/terminus/entreat.

Deathrite/abrupt decay: BUG delver certainly exists in the form of team america but it isn't a midrange sorta deal. Agent's printing reinvigorates the potential for Ancestral vision to be used as a card advantage engine and coupled with the printings of deathrite and abrupt decay to form Shardless BUG while a more modern (the format) approach creates Jund in Legacy, which in turn brings value back to punishing fire.

If you want to argue that new decks don't appear since things just slot into shells, I guess that is true. That is a feature of a non-rotating format: either a cards isn't played, replaces a currently used card, or defines an archetype. The problem with the last is if there is a card in legacy that defines an archetype, it has to be extremely powerful to carry the burden of the rest of the deck that previously didn't exist. That sort of power level is beyond what WotC is willing to knowingly and consistently print.

I on the otherhand disagree that these cards aren't spawning new playstyles or re-imaginings of other decks and that innovation is still possible.

EDIT: Brainstorm + fetch deck? Focus not on how a deck finds it's core strategy, but more on what it does when it finds the cards it wanted in the first place.

I have a dream that a deck is not judged based on the color of it's cards but on the playstyle of its defining interactions

Lemnear

05-01-2015, 11:52 AM

Zilla

05-01-2015, 11:58 AM

There are basically three kinds of decks in Legacy:

1) Brainstorm decks
2) Narrowly focused blue hate decks (D&T/Painter)
3) Decks that run on very specific and unadaptable CA engines that can't be replicated elsewhere (Elves, Dredge, Lands)
This is a rather specious argument, because it ignores that decks in category 1 run the gamut from aggro control to combo to pure control. Suggesting they're basically the same deck because they share a color and a CA engine is pretty misleading.

That said, I don't think you're trying to be intellectually dishonest; rather I think this is where the breakdown in communication is happening in the pro- and anti- ban crowds. One side feels that Brainstorm essentially promotes diversity by lending consistency to a wide range of deck types, and the other side feels it stifles diversity by requiring that most decklists start with the same 4 cards / color.

I don't think either side is objectively right or wrong - it really is a matter of taste and opinion. I just think it's important to recognize that this is the point that's actually being argued. I think very few (if any) pro-Brainstorm people would argue that it's not the strongest or most influential card in the format. They just don't see it as a problem.

Barook

05-01-2015, 12:20 PM

It's funny that we indeed reached the same saturation of blue deck like we had with TC around once more with DTT pushing up to 51% of metagame presence which is even more than TC had in it's climax.

Sorry WotC, but this was expect- & avoidable.

Edit: The joke is that even Delver.dec runs it, and instead of potentially drawing lands among your 3 random cards you get to cherrypick 2 from the top 7. Seriously guys, WotC just shifted the issue of one Delve-Cardadvantage-card to another instead of hammering both and burry the concept right beneath storm
What was the TC saturation at its peak? About 40%? DTT sure sky-rocketed fast. I didn't believe it at first, but it's at almost 55% on MTGO now. :eek:

I agree that it had to be expected, though. DTT is barely any worse than TC, depending on the deck, it's even better than TC. It might have been better to ban both similiar to Modern, but oh well, here we are.

I guess it's going to be banhammered within the next two ban announcements. When is the next one coming? With MMA2 or Origins?

Lord_Mcdonalds

05-01-2015, 01:27 PM

Origins I believe

iGrok

05-01-2015, 02:03 PM

I have a dream that a deck is not judged based on the color of it's cards but on the playstyle of its defining interactions
Hahahahaha, this is brilliant!

Well said. We've seen a bunch of new decks in the last couple years. Legacy is the format of consistency. Eventually, other colors will get one-mana consistency generators - probably green specifically, WotC seems to be giving them better and better tools to dig, they just haven't hit a broken one yet. Lately, most of WotC's mistakes have been blue, but on the flip side they keep printing uncounterable cards - eventually we'll get an uncounterable discard spell.

TsumiBand

05-01-2015, 02:46 PM

This is a rather specious argument, because it ignores that decks in category 1 run the gamut from aggro control to combo to pure control. Suggesting they're basically the same deck because they share a color and a CA engine is pretty misleading.

That said, I don't think you're trying to be intellectually dishonest; rather I think this is where the breakdown in communication is happening in the pro- and anti- ban crowds. One side feels that Brainstorm essentially promotes diversity by lending consistency to a wide range of deck types, and the other side feels it stifles diversity by requiring that most decklists start with the same 4 cards / color.

I don't think either side is objectively right or wrong - it really is a matter of taste and opinion. I just think it's important to recognize that this is the point that's actually being argued. I think very few (if any) pro-Brainstorm people would argue that it's not the strongest or most influential card in the format. They just don't see it as a problem.

I think the point is more that the 'blue CA engine' is more defining or more relevant than the archetype(s) they support.

To go way out on a limb, if there were a hypothetical Horrible Future where decks were 56 "Blue CA Engine" cards and 4 "something else" cards, it would illustrate a hyperbole but it would make a fair basis for argument - what part of the deck is more critical to its form and function at that point, the blue CA engine or the 4-of that ends the game directly? If we had decks that were like...

56x Blue Engine
4x Isamaru

...and they were pitted against decks like...

56x Blue Engine
4x Terminus

...who's gaming who here? What actually wins anyone the game, the ability to deal with the opponent's threat or the ability to interrupt the engine? Which cards are actually responsible for the bulk of the gameplay?

Maybe this resonates as a better one-off example; you ever play a mod of a game that was for all intents and purposes 'a different game' but you knew when you were playing it that the original engine was actually defining the execution of the game and the graphics, sounds, power-ups, etc were just borne out of that engine? If you played Shadow Warrior (1997), it basically played like a re-skin of Duke Nukem 3D -- and indeed they share the same engine, essentially (the Build engine). All the art was different but all the same mechanics were still there; the random quips from the hero, the look of the char at it moves through the world, the way the game handles, and so on... all these things made the game feel "only okay" at the end because it may as well have been Duke Nukem at the end of the day. It's like every Bejeweled clone that comes out; they are not different games, they just *look* different, or have one or two features that the devs wished that the original actually had, but at the end of the day the game had not really changed at all.

The presence of "blue shell + some cards I like" decks, have that same hollow look and feel that poorly executed games have; it makes you ask yourself why you aren't just playing the original, because palette swapping all the good guys/bad guys and changing the title doesn't actually make it a different game, it just makes it a funny-looking version of the original game.

wonderPreaux

05-01-2015, 03:08 PM

Just to be clear, no one is truly, unironically and unsarcastically, trying to argue that combo, tempo, and control are just "re-skins" or "pallette swaps" or whatever of the blue shell in the general case, right? Ignoring many levels of gameplay nuance just for the sake of making a hyperbolic argument seems incredibly disingenuous, especially on a site devoted to legacy strategy.

What's especially egregious about the "Brainstorm deck" argument is that it also serves as an attempt to completely ignore the opportunity cost of playing cantrips, which is another underhanded angle to approach the argument from. Cantrips aren't tutors, they do involve sacrifices of tempo and composition, and they AREN'T a free pass to an immaculate and superior execution of a gameplan.

A good example of this is ANT, the 16 cantrip Adam Prosak build is an outdated relic, many builds have dropped down to anywhere from 13-15 cantrips. The rationale is significant: cantrips are slow by nature and just sitting on chains of cantrips exposes the pilot to all sorts of disruption. Nowadays, adding more power plays like Grim Tutor, PiF, or discard is a better choice because it actually lets the ANT player apply pressure. It's not as though every deck that can play cantrips necessarily gets better by continuously adding more cantrips, there is an optimization point because cantrips DO have a marginal cost for being played.

The thing that skews this paradigm is control or mono-blue combo that has countermagic to defend itself even when tapped and, most importantly, DTT to negate the card loss of Force of Will and put a player back into the game despite an exchange of cards. Again, revisiting ANT, if a Storm pilot bleeds both players out with discard, they have Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames to suddenly leap back into the game. These Storm engines put deck-building constraints on the user, though. Fair blue decks or mono-blue combo using Dig get a smaller version of that, that they can use 2-4 of, where the only constraint is "do things you were already considering doing". When you give common blue decks something unfair, then of course common blue decks will start to appear unfair, but maybe go after the thing that's breaking the standard paradigm as opposed to attacking the benign paradigm that's suffering from the broken card.

TsumiBand

05-01-2015, 03:32 PM

Just to be clear, no one is truly, unironically and unsarcastically, trying to argue that combo, tempo, and control are just "re-skins" or "pallette swaps" or whatever of the blue shell in the general case, right? Ignoring many levels of gameplay nuance just for the sake of making a hyperbolic argument seems incredibly disingenuous, especially on a site devoted to legacy strategy.

Oh no, I'll totally argue that as a hyperbole-binge. You can definitely break down a ton of matchups involving the standard Blue engine to "sculpt your hand, resolve your threat, and stick it." I am definitely omitting the nuance, and that's intentional. The 'nuance' you're talking about is only lost in translation if you're hung up on the other cards in the deck, which you don't have to be; that's always been Blue's slot in the game, is playing the game instead of being part of the game. Every other color deals in "color pie" and "flavor" and yada-yada-yada, and Blue just straight up goes "this shit is just cards. I want cards, and I want cards that make the other cards not resolve. The game is made of cards and that is all I want, is fucking cards."

So there's a difference between S&T and UR Delver - of course there is. Not enough difference to remove all the cantrips and Forces, because that would be stupid. At that point, you're basically talking about pivoting away from the Blue core to something that tries to make up for not playing those cards. I don't think it is hyperbole to say that if we could build just to reduce variance and get good results as long as the cards were potent enough, Burn would be a major Deck to Beat for years and years. That deck has almost zero variance - you are either drawing land or 3/4 damage to the face. Zoo borrowed against that - what's Nacatl but a Bolt every turn? - where's Naya these days except squashed out by RU/x aggro variants that can play the aggro game more resiliently and more consistently than Zoo.

For all the goofy shit I say, I do read this website, believe it or not - take a look at the regular D&T players, see how they talk about what it is to play that deck knowing that they don't have the card selection that any given deck with Brainstorm has. A metagame deck with no cheap card draw - that's bringing a sweater to a wet t-shirt contest and hoping it snows.

btm10

05-01-2015, 03:55 PM

Fair enough point, but since Mystical Tutor, all bans have been explicitly based on power level -- Survival, Misstep, Cruise.

That's true, but there hasn't been anything purely threatening the enjoyability of the format without also being broken since then either.

I'm just going by the DTB forum, and seeing that graphs with Miracle Control at the top look a lot like UR burn or whatever they called Cruise Delver. There is still time to adjust, of course.

I've only started this discussion because of the way the best Miracles pilots talked about the deck on the EE podcast and the fact that it's been at the top for nearly 18 months uninterrupted. I'm not even doing terribly against the deck personally (I did get blown out twice at Eternal Extravaganza but I was playing my deck very poorly) so this isn't so much a personal crusade because I can't win against it, but rather that I would like more options to actually play in Legacy and Miracles holds down a ton of them.

I think the points where we actually disagree about Miracles are when it became dominant and whether we've had enough time to adjust. I don't think that Miracles was problematic until around the time Khans came out, which also coincides with the widespread adoption of the four-Ponder build. Until Cruise was banned Miracles was held in check by the Cruise decks, but the introduction of a smoother, easier to play Miracles deck (making the deck's full power accessible to people who don't have Lossett-levels of time with it), coupled with the deck finally gaining a raw CA tool in Dig (and giving it the ability to fight back against decks like Shardless that seek to win by making the game about card advantage) are the things that make it the best deck right now. That all being said, Grixis Pyromancer Control has a strong Miracles matchip, lots of existing decks can be tuned to improve their Miracles matchups, and decks like MUD, 12Post, and Tezzerator can pick up anlot of metagame slack if too many people start playing Miracles.

It's funny that we indeed reached the same saturation of blue deck like we had with TC around once more with DTT pushing up to 51% of metagame presence which is even more than TC had in it's climax.

Sorry WotC, but this was expect- & avoidable.

Edit: The joke is that even Delver.dec runs it, and instead of potentially drawing lands among your 3 random cards you get to cherrypick 2 from the top 7. Seriously guys, WotC just shifted the issue of one Delve-Cardadvantage-card to another instead of hammering both and burry the concept right beneath storm

Quoted for truth. Because Dig's brokenness is more subtle I don't see it getting banned for at least 18 months, if it gets banned at all.

Barook

05-01-2015, 04:10 PM

Hahahahaha, this is brilliant!

Well said. We've seen a bunch of new decks in the last couple years. Legacy is the format of consistency. Eventually, other colors will get one-mana consistency generators - probably green specifically, WotC seems to be giving them better and better tools to dig, they just haven't hit a broken one yet. Lately, most of WotC's mistakes have been blue, but on the flip side they keep printing uncounterable cards - eventually we'll get an uncounterable discard spell.
What dig tools? :really: The last one I can think of is Ancient Stirrings at one mana. GSZ is also nice. But that's about it. The rest is either blue, overcosted or shit. Edit: Also, if it's broken enough, it would need to be very specific to prevent blue decks from abusing it best. Best example: Mental Misstep - playable by every deck, but it boosted blue decks the most.

As for discard, call me when they print a good discard spell for :b: that also fateseals 2. Brainstorm hiding cards is a arguably a bigger offender than counters.

Quoted for truth. Because Dig's brokenness is more subtle I don't see it getting banned for at least 18 months, if it gets banned at all.
I don't think that 55% meta penetration (while probably still rising) is very subtle.

rufus

05-01-2015, 04:25 PM

...
Quoted for truth. Because Dig's brokenness is more subtle I don't see it getting banned for at least 18 months, if it gets banned at all.

I think that people will work out some 'optimal pile'. What if 3/4 of the decks all contain:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will

Fetchlands

And the format will turn into:
1. Blue shell
2. Anti-Blue shell
3. All In.

As for discard, call me when they print a good discard spell for :b: that also fateseals 2

Discard plus fateseal would probably be too strong - I think split second or making the shuffle would be more appropriate.

Barook

05-01-2015, 04:46 PM

I think that people will work out some 'optimal pile'. What if 3/4 of the decks all contain:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will

Fetchlands

And the format will turn into:
1. Blue shell
2. Anti-Blue shell
3. All In
But we are already in that kind of format for quite a while now.

And the prediction you made isn't too far off from reality. The only things off right now are the use of Probe (currently around 34%) and people not running 4 Digs.

As for the discard, I'm not expecting them to put Fateseal on any discard anytime soon. Split Second never appeared after TS block. Shuffling sounds like an elegant solution, especially with a may clause, because it forces both players into skill-based decisions.

FoolofaTook

05-02-2015, 09:12 AM

I think that people will work out some 'optimal pile'. What if 3/4 of the decks all contain:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will

Fetchlands

And the format will turn into:
1. Blue shell
2. Anti-Blue shell
3. All In.

Discard plus fateseal would probably be too strong - I think split second or making the shuffle would be more appropriate.

We're never going to get to this though. The character of the 20 cards in your shell kind of guarantees that you'll never see all of them as the basis of the format.

What we will get to at some point is something like this:

85% of lists

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

90% of those:

4 Ponder or 4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Delver of Secrets or 4 Terminus or (4 Ponder if 4 Gitaxian Probe above)
4 Daze or 3 Spell Pierce + 1 Spell Snare or 3 Counter Spell + 1 Spell Snare or 4 Preordain
Some number of Spell Pierce + Spell Snare if 4 Daze above or some number of Dig through Time if not Daze above
A few obvious best choices to supplement the choices above from cards currently in print or to be printed
18-25 mana sources and utility lands

That's where we get to the Blue Shell Over All Meta and while it may seem very diverse in fact it is excluding 99% of all the good cards ever printed from active consideration. We're already well down the road to that meta at this point given the 2006 to 2015 progression, which has gotten steadily bluer over time.

Hrothgar

05-03-2015, 06:37 AM

So what? Ban the Blue?

jam3sbob

05-03-2015, 06:53 AM

Lord Seth

05-03-2015, 01:05 PM

By the way, just for the record, a while ago it was claimed that Brainstorm was seeing more play in Legacy than Ancestral Recall was in Vintage, but that didn't seem to necessarily be true as that data seemed to come from MTG Top 8 comparing the last 12 months of Vintage versus the last 2 months of Legacy; if we did the last 2 months of Vintage then that wasn't true.

It's true now. According to MTG Top 8, Ancestral Recall has been in 72% of decks in Vintage in the last two months, and Brainstorm has been in 77% of decks in Legacy in the last two months.

I decided to also check out MTG Goldfish. According to MTG Goldfish, Ancestral Recall is at 72.87% while Brainstorm is at 75.74%. So same thing there.

There any other metagame sites that provide information on this to see if it's consistent there? The other ones I know of only list deck percentages rather than how frequently cards are played.

Dice_Box

05-03-2015, 01:15 PM

Lord Seth

05-03-2015, 01:26 PM

Morphling.de

I feel uneasy making comparisons between Recall and anything in Legacy on play percentages. The formats are very different and things change based on card availability, the positioning of Dredge and Shops at any given time and also if an event your looking at was allowing proxies or not. I mean, sure you can try and make a point, but I feel it is misguided.There are issues with it, I just wanted to note that while previously I noted it wasn't true, now it actually is true. One can draw their own conclusions from the data (that's why I didn't make any argument with it), but I figured I should point out that Recall seeing more play in Vinrtage than Brainstorm in Legacy is actually true now, or at least at the moment.

wonderPreaux

05-03-2015, 01:36 PM

The answer is Brainstorm, it's always Brainstorm.

No lands? Brainstorm!

Discard? Brainstorm!

Unmulligan? Brainstorm!

Gas? Brainstorm!

Jace the Mindsculptor? Brainstorm!

What to ban? Brainstorm!

slightly sarcasm but mostly not

Unrealistic hyperbole? Brainstorm!

No lands? Brainstorm!
Ok, so you're tying up your clearly limited mana on a cantrip which likely doesn't lead to a followup because, again, your mana is constrained. Even if you hit lands you're are behind the 8-ball in terms of tempo and development, which many decks right now can punish. Congrats, you've managed to overvalue a brainstorm in your opener.

Discard? Brainstorm!
Yes, Brainstorm is fairly solid against discard. So is redundancy and a flat distribution of card quality, if there are no egregiously important cards in a deck then getting any one of them discard isn't too big a deal. Countermagic is also a good answer to discard, since having mana for Brainstorm means you could also Spell Pierce or w/e. I don't see how this is particularly damning.

Unmulligan? Brainstorm!
If I lived in the fantasy world that some posters here live in where Brainstorm is basically several Demonic Tutors, yeah, I'd want Brainstorm banned too. Sadly, I just play actual Magic where Brainstorm is another roll of the dice, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Variance reduction =\= variance elimination, especially since your own first point shows that you'll keep awful hands (no lands, no gas, etc) just because you see a Brainstorm. "I kept a bad hand once and Brainstorm bailed me out" isn't an argument to ban a card, it's just an interesting story.

Gas? Brainstorm!
Yes, Brainstorm can help adjust the composition of a hand. This is most relevant in the case of combo decks, Brainstorm sort of enables a good number of them. That's said, a card that enables a number of decks and a unique dimension of gameplay seems like a net positive to a format. In the case of providing a couple of solid cards like a bomb + removal in a fair mirror or whatever, then, ok, variance is variance. Nowadays, I can just DTT for gas anyway.

Jace the Mindsculptor? Brainstorm!
Using an incremental advantage engine to incrementally generate card advantage -- *gasp* NVM that for 4 mana I can Sneak Attack, or Tendrils, or other things that just blatantly win the game.

What to ban? Brainstorm!
Or we could ban the broken Delve spell, either of the 2 broken blue creatures, or the 1 mana instant-speed wrath. *shrug*

Barook

05-03-2015, 01:53 PM

maharis

05-04-2015, 12:19 AM

All miracles final at SCG Portland #NothingToSeeHere

iGrok

05-04-2015, 01:20 AM

All miracles final at SCG Portland #NothingToSeeHere

Junk Deathblade top 4.

Elves and Deadguy Ale Top 8.

#OnlyBlueDecksCanPlace

wonderPreaux

05-04-2015, 01:29 AM

Junk Deathblade top 4.

Elves and Deadguy Ale Top 8.

#OnlyBlueDecksCanPlace

Junk Deathblade top 4.

Junk Deathblade

#WhyYouDoThisSCG?

iGrok

05-04-2015, 01:39 AM

#WhyYouDoThisSCG?

I'll never capitulate on Junk, RUG, or BUG.
Mardu? Sure, nobody used Dega or Oros (at least until WotC announced Mardu and everyone tried to claim old-school cred), and Team Italia confused some people.
Jeskai? Ok, there were a million names for it, so sure.

But the others, the new names are way worse.

maharis

05-04-2015, 09:32 AM

Junk Deathblade top 4.

Elves and Deadguy Ale Top 8.

#OnlyBlueDecksCanPlace

They're actually both DGA decks with Abrupt Decay, haha.

I would be thrilled to see Bx no U midrange take over. I don't expect it to stick though. A top 16 with no BUG decks like this one is pretty rare and those matchups are very hard for DGA. If in a month we're still seeing 1-2 DGA-style decks in top 16s I'll happily admit I'm wrong.

That all being said, two Miracles decks in the finals is still two Miracles decks in the finals.

Zombie

05-04-2015, 09:37 AM

The whole meta could be 100% Cantrip cartel+Dig decks and people would insist it's totally fine -_-'

Barook

05-04-2015, 09:48 AM

I would be thrilled to see Bx no U midrange take over. I don't expect it to stick though. A top 16 with no BUG decks like this one is pretty rare and those matchups are very hard for DGA.

That all being said, two Miracles decks in the finals is still two Miracles decks in the finals.
The tournament was rather low attendance, though, and as we all know, less rounds = higher chance for nonblue decks to place by getting lucky instead of getting fucked over by long-term consistency.

And to be fair, one of the Miracle players was Joe Lossett.

The whole meta could be 100% Cantrip cartel+Dig decks and people would insist it's totally fine -_-'
This

iGrok

05-04-2015, 09:59 AM

They're actually both DGA decks with Abrupt Decay, haha.

I would be thrilled to see Bx no U midrange take over. I don't expect it to stick though. A top 16 with no BUG decks like this one is pretty rare and those matchups are very hard for DGA. If in a month we're still seeing 1-2 DGA-style decks in top 16s I'll happily admit I'm wrong.

That all being said, two Miracles decks in the finals is still two Miracles decks in the finals.

Yeah, looking at the lists left me even more confused about SCG naming conventions...

Personally I don't want to see Bx midrange take over - I don't want to see any archetype take over (and this is where the big debate is, since some people feel that the cantrips shell is an archetype). I think this top 16 was reasonably varied. There is too much varience involved to say, "miracles mirror in finals, miracles OP" (not that you said that specifically). More interesting to me personally is that only two miracles decks made it to the top 16.

Lemnear

05-04-2015, 10:00 AM

The whole meta could be 100% Cantrip cartel+Dig decks and people would insist it's totally fine -_-'

There is a huge gap between "80% of decks run Brainstorm" and "every deck runs 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Probes, 4 Force of Will, 4 Dig Trough Time" in terms of judging the format health from what we have heared in this thread.

I still believe that bitching over 4x Brainstorm in 80% of Legacy decks as a problem per sé is as stupid as pointing to Beta Moxen and Lotus in Vintage. Mind that the worst in terms of fixed-slots we have ever seen in MTG Format history was during the second Gush Era in Vintage in which near every non-Workshop deck began it's building with 4x FoW, 4x Ponder, x4 Brainstorm, 4x Gush, 4x Merchant Scroll and Legacy is still worlds appart from such a constellation (which was really fun for Vintage players and caused a Spike in tournament attendance as skill mattered so much, just saying)

If Legacy develops into 20 fix-slots + 20 manasources + 20 cards defying your strategy and kill, we can talk again.

Edit:
It's like we blame the ~8 Fetchlands in like 95% of all Legacy deck for fueling Brainstorm, Cabal Ritual, Dig Through Time and DRS and call that "streamlining the metagame"

maharis

05-04-2015, 10:58 AM

Yeah, looking at the lists left me even more confused about SCG naming conventions...

Personally I don't want to see Bx midrange take over - I don't want to see any archetype take over (and this is where the big debate is, since some people feel that the cantrips shell is an archetype). I think this top 16 was reasonably varied. There is too much varience involved to say, "miracles mirror in finals, miracles OP" (not that you said that specifically). More interesting to me personally is that only two miracles decks made it to the top 16.

Oh, I only want to see the "take over" purely for the trolling opportunities. "Sorry you bought those underground seas. Scrubland >" (I bought underground seas in January.)

I was surprised to not see more Miracles decks in the top 16 after 5/16 from the last PIQ, but a mirror match in the finals is nothing to sneeze at. Miracles consistently has top placings and the decks shuffle underneath it, which is really the point. Remember when Lands was putting 2-3 players in the top 16? Now it's nearly vanished.

Miracle Control has been in the top 2 of the TCdecks ratings every month since last January except for two:
--Last July (when only 204 decks were rated instead of the usual 400-ish)
--This January (when it was third behind RUG and UR right before Cruise got the ax.)

It has been in the top slot every month since TC was banned.
It was in the top slot in May, June, August and Sept. last year (basically the four months until TC was printed)

The only deck even close to approaching it is Team America, which was the top deck at the beginning of last year, and it's been strong since (usually No. 2 or 3), but even now we are seeing Grixis take some of its market share. (This news is really good for DGA-esque decks since BUG decks are really, really tough).

I would say by the fall set, if there isn't something dethroning miracles (and especially if it gets worse with 2+ in the top 8 and a couple more in the top 16) we will see a ban. Unfortunately, I think it will be SDT or Dig Through Time rather than one of the miracle cards or counterbalance.

There is a huge gap between "80% of decks run Brainstorm" and "every deck runs 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Probes, 4 Force of Will, 4 Dig Trough Time" in terms of judging the format health from what we have heared in this thread.

I still believe that bitching over 4x Brainstorm in 80% of Legacy decks as a problem per sé is as stupid as pointing to Beta Moxen and Lotus in Vintage. Mind that the worst in terms of fixed-slots we have ever seen in MTG Format history was during the second Gush Era in Vintage in which near every non-Workshop deck began it's building with 4x FoW, 4x Ponder, x4 Brainstorm, 4x Gush, 4x Merchant Scroll and Legacy is still worlds appart from such a constellation (which was really fun for Vintage players and caused a Spike in tournament attendance as skill mattered so much, just saying)

If Legacy develops into 20 fix-slots + 20 manasources + 20 cards defying your strategy and kill, we can talk again.

Edit:
It's like we blame the ~8 Fetchlands in like 95% of all Legacy deck for fueling Brainstorm, Cabal Ritual, Dig Through Time and DRS and call that "streamlining the metagame"

We really are there. The best Miracles builds play 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Dig.
The Grixis deck plays 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Probe, Dig (or Thought Scour).
Most delver decks play 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder and some play a couple Probes.
Omni plays 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Dig, Preordain and Probe.
Storm plays 4 Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Probe.
And of course shoutout to Esper Thopters with 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Probe and 3 Dig.

iamajellydonut

05-04-2015, 11:22 AM

I would say by the fall set, if there isn't something dethroning miracles (and especially if it gets worse with 2+ in the top 8 and a couple more in the top 16) we will see a ban. Unfortunately, I think it will be SDT or Dig Through Time rather than one of the miracle cards or counterbalance.

But Miracles still isn't oppressive and it still isn't present in overwhelming numbers. It's just "a deck" that happens to put up consistent numbers.

iGrok

05-04-2015, 11:23 AM

Grixis taking market share from bug, so to speak, is pretty good for fair decks - I hadn't even thought of that.

I think Miracles is fine, personally, and I hate playing against it. In some ways it reminds me of Modern Twin, in others its the exact opposite.

They both have been at or near the top for years.
They both play control until they wind their wincon and then try to win in 1 turn.
They both play the best legal cantrips available.
They have similar market shares in their formats.
They both have a couple different builds that are really similar (Euro vs Legends, Blood Moon vs Tarmotwin).

On the other hand, miracles isn't really a deck you can just pick up and do well with, whereas Twin is A + B.
Miracles allows really talented players to leverage that advantage much more so than twin (twin gets most its advantage in the deck building period rather than in play).
Miracles is a combo deck (countertop) that doesn't win the game outright.

But where I'm going with this is that I don't expect a ban for miracles. If omnitell gets oppressive, I could see DTT being banned, but I don't expect that to happen either. We're going to keep seeing a bunch of miracles players stuck in the draw bracket, and the couple good ones make it to the top 8 consistently, and that feels OK to me.

As far as lands goes, its an expensive deck to build optimally (tabernacles and such) which means less players really commit to it, and miracles is going to be a rough matchup for any slow deck that runs singleton threats. If they started playing some raging ravines the miracles matchup might get a lot better (just speculation on my part). The point is that lands is poorly positioned for a Miracles Omnitell meta because it wants to be in between those two decks.

Lemnear

05-04-2015, 12:13 PM

We really are there. The best Miracles builds play 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Dig.
The Grixis deck plays 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Probe, Dig (or Thought Scour).
Most delver decks play 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder and some play a couple Probes.
Omni plays 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Dig, Preordain and Probe.
Storm plays 4 Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Probe.
And of course shoutout to Esper Thopters with 4 Force, Brainstorm, Ponder, Probe and 3 Dig.

No, we are not and that's why I presented the extreme example. We don't have 20 cards overlap in various strategies. We have only 8 in blue decks in general and that's less than the usual "white shell" of Plows/SFM/Batterskull/Jitte and no one cries about that either as the best white package in Legacy.

Barook

05-04-2015, 12:50 PM

wonderPreaux

05-04-2015, 01:04 PM

Maybe people don't bitch about the "white shell" as you call it because it isn't run by 70+% of the format.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/legacy

StP sits around ~37% of all decks, SFM ~ 22%. That isn't just restricted to MTGO, before that argument comes in. If you calculate the numbers of the TCdecks March data (since it's the latest one that is completed, unlike the April data in its current state), you get a similiar outcome.

And if we go by numbers, the twelve card "blue shell" BS/FoW/Ponder still outclasses your "white shell" by a huge margin.

That is a false equivalence. The white package is one of the most efficient ways to have a board presence, but there are combo and some control decks that don't bother to show up to the board. The main point is there are certain overall functions that seem to be best served by a small package of cards, but no one really seems to have an outcry against them in any case other than the "blue shell", which itself isn't even a concrete concept because it's not as though every deck that wants to Brainstorm or Ponder necessarily wants either/both of FoW or Gitaxian Probe

Dark Ritual

05-04-2015, 01:27 PM

Complaining about the blue shell in legacy is akin to complaining about the power shell in vintage. Vintage has a great many auto includes in each color yeah sure they can't ban cards completely there unless they're shahrazad, conspiracies, ante, or dexterity but you don't see people complain about all the black decks in vintage running vampiric and demonic. Just let it lie. You need to take the most extreme measures to make blue not the best color in legacy and I don't want the legacy banlist to be a clusterfuck like modern's.

Star|Scream

05-04-2015, 01:45 PM

supremePINEAPPLE

05-04-2015, 02:09 PM

Can we close the thread now?Not really, that same post appears every couple pages so it clearly isn't all there is to say.

Barook

05-04-2015, 02:14 PM

That is a false equivalence. The white package is one of the most efficient ways to have a board presence, but there are combo and some control decks that don't bother to show up to the board. The main point is there are certain overall functions that seem to be best served by a small package of cards, but no one really seems to have an outcry against them in any case other than the "blue shell", which itself isn't even a concrete concept because it's not as though every deck that wants to Brainstorm or Ponder necessarily wants either/both of FoW or Gitaxian Probe
It never ceases to amaze me what lenghts people go trying to defend their holy cow.

Every card has their set of best cards. Why do people only bitch about the "blue shell" then? Because it's numerically abundant to the point where another card, Mental Misstep, was banned for exactly the same things Brainstorm (and the blue shell) does to the format, as officially stated by Wizards/Maro:

a) making it overly blue
b) being run by "every" deck (which is around ~72%, according to old tournament results) (that mainly applies to Brainstorm)

Yet Brainstorm remains legal despite being the most powerful card in the format by a wide margin and more powerful than several cards on the banned list.

That is a false equivalence.

btm10

05-04-2015, 02:27 PM

That is a false equivalence.

It's actually a double standard, which everyone already admits exists.

iamajellydonut

05-04-2015, 02:30 PM

Mental Misstep, was banned for exactly the same things Brainstorm (and the blue shell) does to the format, as officially stated by Wizards/Maro:

Erik Lauer also stated that Mental Misstep was designed for a singular purpose with the understanding that failure to achieve its goal would likely result in a ban. Needless to say, Mental Misstep failed to achieve its goal and was subsiquently banned. Shitty though it may be, Mental Misstep's history is owed more to a poor design philosophy than anything else.

Barook

05-04-2015, 03:23 PM

Erik Lauer also stated that Mental Misstep was designed for a singular purpose with the understanding that failure to achieve its goal would likely result in a ban. Needless to say, Mental Misstep failed to achieve its goal and was subsiquently banned. Shitty though it may be, Mental Misstep's history is owed more to a poor design philosophy than anything else.

Force of Will has long been thought of as a card that helps keep combination decks in check in Legacy and Vintage. However, it doesn't directly help decks that aren't playing blue. One idea that was floated was creating a similar card that could be played in nonblue decks. When Phyrexian mana was designed, it was an opportunity to create such a card. R&D wanted a card that could help fight combination decks, and could also fight blue decks by countering cards such as Brainstorm. Clearly printing a card like this has a lot of risk, but there is also the potential for helping the format a lot. The risk is mitigated, because if it turns out poorly, the DCI can ban the card.

Unfortunately, it turned out poorly. Looking at high-level tournaments, instead of results having blue and nonblue decks playing Mental Misstep, there are more blue decks than ever. The DCI is banning Mental Misstep, with the hopes of restoring the more diverse metagame that existed prior to the printing of Mental Misstep.
Actually, it had two purposes:

- give nonblue decks fight ways to fight combo
- counter blue horseshit like Brainstorm, which already got a special mention back then (remember, Brainstorm was at 52% in 2011 overall despite the phase where it ruled the format alongside MM with 70% meta share on its own, before Delver became the herald of the end with the release of Innistrad; it was recognized as a problem during MM's design long before Brainstorm went out of control)

The problem with designing anti-blue cards is that they're going to perform best in blue shells unless they're symmetrical. And even then, Thalia was their only success in that regard since Spirit of the Labyrinth turned out to be lame instead of the anti-blue messiah. Even cards like Abrupt Decay were adapted by blue spells.

I doubt we're going to see cards that help breaking the blue dominance instead of making it worse anytime soon.

maharis

05-04-2015, 03:24 PM

But Miracles still isn't oppressive and it still isn't present in overwhelming numbers. It's just "a deck" that happens to put up consistent numbers.

The only real difference between Miracles now and Cruise UR Delver is that the second-best deck is slightly closer to its level than was the case with UR Delver. (This is using the TCdecks graphs). You also have to take into account that UR delver was cheaper than Miracles is as well as being a straightforward deck that didn't stick you with long rounds and draws, and Treasure Cruise was banned as soon as possible so there was no way to really see a meta adjustment.

Whether or not Miracles is oppressive is a matter of opinion. I've beaten it a lot, even recently, but I still think it's frustrating to run into it round after round. People say it rewards "smart" play -- not that the people I've played who are on it are bad, but I definitely feel more like I have to play my best every time while they can always just rip Entreat and win. The deck plays Counterbalance, Entreat, Terminus and Jace which are all huge bombs. Lots of smart players played UR delver too because it was so clearly the best deck. I think Miracles is definitely at "clearly the best deck" level. Its only true foil is cloudpost, and while that deck could be played more (I don't think you need Candelabra or Tabernacle to win with it)

Is that bad? I guess that is a matter of opinion as well. I'm just posting data that has Miracles as the best deck for at least a year if not more barring wacky printings, observing a spike in top finishes, and pointing out that the best miracles players on this board say the deck is barely subject to variance at all. It doesn't seem like there's much of a reason to play another deck if you really want to win. Even then I'm not saying something from it should be banned, I'm just saying (like with Brainstorm) that all the evidence is there for it to be eligible to be affected by a ban.

Grixis taking market share from bug, so to speak, is pretty good for fair decks - I hadn't even thought of that.

I think Miracles is fine, personally, and I hate playing against it. In some ways it reminds me of Modern Twin, in others its the exact opposite.

*snip*

But where I'm going with this is that I don't expect a ban for miracles. If omnitell gets oppressive, I could see DTT being banned, but I don't expect that to happen either. We're going to keep seeing a bunch of miracles players stuck in the draw bracket, and the couple good ones make it to the top 8 consistently, and that feels OK to me.

We don't really disagree. I do think there's little standing in the way of Omnitell right now and if we have Miracles + Omni (and even the Grixis deck that preys on them) at the top for a while I think DTT is as good as gone.

As far as lands goes, its an expensive deck to build optimally (tabernacles and such) which means less players really commit to it, and miracles is going to be a rough matchup for any slow deck that runs singleton threats. If they started playing some raging ravines the miracles matchup might get a lot better (just speculation on my part). The point is that lands is poorly positioned for a Miracles Omnitell meta because it wants to be in between those two decks.

As someone who has had my share of Creeping Tar Pits Plowed, :frown:

No, we are not and that's why I presented the extreme example. We don't have 20 cards overlap in various strategies. We have only 8 in blue decks in general and that's less than the usual "white shell" of Plows/SFM/Batterskull/Jitte and no one cries about that either as the best white package in Legacy.

As usual you are being intentionally obtuse.

Omnitell, the king of cantrip decks, plays 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Force of Will, 4 Preordain, 4 Gitaxian Probe, and 4 Dig Through Time (a total of 24 cards). Miracles, Delver, Storm, whatever you want to say all play at least 12 of those same cards, and sometimes up to 20 of the same. So no, there isn't an exact 20 cards that are in a bunch of different decks. It's more like "You can play any 20 cantrips that you want, as long as you play 20 cantrips."

It took me a while to explicate why I don't like this, and the answer is that cantrips + fetches are SO good that there is no reason to even ATTEMPT a deck that tries anything different for advantage. Further, I disagree that the consistency makes the game more about skill, because the only cards that make it into a format are the ones that play nice with cantrips + fetches. When people say ban Delver or DTT, I have to laugh -- we can't deal with 1/1 for U? We can't figure out a way to beat an 8-mana spell? Of course they aren't that in a vacuum, but they also aren't the vacuum. Meanwhile there are cards that are actually efficiently costed or have really interesting/cool effects that are left on the sidelines because in the extra half-turn you might need to get them online you simply die to the perfectly sculpted hand -- unless you play cantrips yourself, but then of course you run the risk of just running a bad version of an existing deck.

Lemnear

05-04-2015, 03:29 PM

Mr Miagi

05-04-2015, 03:37 PM

I think we all agree: Ban Island, end of discussion, let's go grab a beer :cool:

Barook

05-04-2015, 03:40 PM

Fantastic! Wasn't Treasure Cruise also "only" in ~40% of decks? According to that logic we need to ban Plows immediately or do numbers not matter in that case? ;)

Or do we change the topic back to "colors"?
Now you're just taking stuff out of context.

StP doesn't elevate the rest of the "white shell" to 75% meta share. :tongue: If 75% of the meta ran Stoneforge Mystic, there would be something massively wrong with the format, too.

Lemnear

05-04-2015, 03:46 PM

As usual you are being intentionally obtuse.

Omnitell, the king of cantrip decks, plays 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Force of Will, 4 Preordain, 4 Gitaxian Probe, and 4 Dig Through Time (a total of 24 cards). Miracles, Delver, Storm, whatever you want to say all play at least 12 of those same cards, and sometimes up to 20 of the same. So no, there isn't an exact 20 cards that are in a bunch of different decks. It's more like "You can play any 20 cantrips that you want, as long as you play 20 cantrips."

It took me a while to explicate why I don't like this, and the answer is that cantrips + fetches are SO good that there is no reason to even ATTEMPT a deck that tries anything different for advantage. Further, I disagree that the consistency makes the game more about skill, because the only cards that make it into a format are the ones that play nice with cantrips + fetches. When people say ban Delver or DTT, I have to laugh -- we can't deal with 1/1 for U? We can't figure out a way to beat an 8-mana spell? Of course they aren't that in a vacuum, but they also aren't the vacuum. Meanwhile there are cards that are actually efficiently costed or have really interesting/cool effects that are left on the sidelines because in the extra half-turn you might need to get them online you simply die to the perfectly sculpted hand -- unless you play cantrips yourself, but then of course you run the risk of just running a bad version of an existing deck.

So I'm "obtuse" and you throw the bolded statement into the thread? Funny, as I can't imagine a Legacy deck with 20 cantrips so point me at one. You try to make a point because we have 1 deck in the metagame which runs all the named cards and ALL other blue Legacy decks only run a few of these?

If you want to fuck with Brainstorm, Cabal Ritual, Treasure Cruise, DRS, Dig Through Time, Ponder, SDT and Co. once and for all, you need to ban Fetches. Everything else is just politicking and showing a lack of understanding what really fuels the supreme card selection. Period.

Lemnear

05-04-2015, 03:56 PM

Now you're just taking stuff out of context.

StP doesn't elevate the rest of the "white shell" to 75% meta share. :tongue: If 75% of the meta ran Stoneforge Mystic, there would be something massively wrong with the format, too.

"Out of context". Cute.

"~40% Plows is fine; ~40% Treasure Cruise is not"
"95% of decks run 8+ fetchlands is fine; 75% of decks running 4 Brainstorms is not" #BecauseBlue
"~40% penetration is fine; ~70% penetration is not" #RandomStandards

Edit: To be honest, without Plowshares in the format and in ~40% of all decks played, a lot more creatures would be playable. Ergo you can say that Plows stifle diversity

nedleeds

05-04-2015, 03:59 PM

Now you're just taking stuff out of context.

StP doesn't elevate the rest of the "white shell" to 75% meta share. :tongue: If 75% of the meta ran Stoneforge Mystic, there would be something massively wrong with the format, too.

Well, the card would be banned. Outside of basic lands. Look at Survival. It wasn't 75% and it got banned, neither was Treasure Cruise, a worse blue card than Brainstorm with a lower usage rate than either and WotC banned it.

solidbass

05-04-2015, 04:09 PM

I don't think miracles is the problem with the format but rather the result of what the format has become. Miracles relies on homogeneity to be good, anything that provides a different strategy like MUD, post, and probably nic fit it just loses.
I have no idea what the solution is here, I doubt even Wizards knows, but banning Brainstorm should not be the first thing tried.
Since this thread is already full of ridiculous thoughts, here's mine: Ban TNN, that card is so lame and then maybe Goblins will return to crush Miracles. Who doesn't want to see Goblins back on the scene?

iamajellydonut

05-04-2015, 04:11 PM

Ban TNN, that card is so lame and then maybe Goblins will return

This doesn't make any fucking sense.

Barook

05-04-2015, 04:12 PM

Treasure Cruise, a worse blue card than Brainstorm with a lower usage rate than either and WotC banned it.
Worse than Brainstorm? Debatable.

TC definitely enabled a retarded playstyle that punished your opponent for trying to interact with you in pretty much any kind of form. DTT isn't much better in that regard, either.

Lemnear

05-04-2015, 04:14 PM

Star|Scream

05-04-2015, 04:14 PM

"Out of context". Cute.

"95% of decks run 8+ fetchlands is fine; 75% of decks running 4 Brainstorms is not" #BecauseBlue

No, you don't understand. Fetchlands enable you to play many different strategies with less variance and more consistency. Brainstorm doesn't do that, all you can play with brainstorm is one specific archetype: Blue

nedleeds

05-04-2015, 04:18 PM

We don't really disagree. I do think there's little standing in the way of Omnitell right now and if we have Miracles + Omni (and even the Grixis deck that preys on them) at the top for a while I think DTT is as good as gone.

There's the 'gentleman's agreement' philosophy cited when Mystical tutor got banned. Which is essentially that a significant percentage of the player base isn't interested in just derping Show and Tell and winning. If everyone's lives depended on it you'd see more Show and Tell because it's pretty dumb, and assembling 2-card combos is made really easy because of Brainstorm. Brainstorm is the single best cantrip by a fucking Pennsylvania mile at assembling 2 card combo (2CC being defined as not wanting multiples of either half, or one half).

Ban Brainstorm and Show and Tell and other 2CC takes a bigger hit than critical mass combo. Add to that the fact that Duress will have text. There's no need to ban shit like Show and Tell if you get rid of Brainstorm, the deck will lose consistancy over 8+ rounds, be far more disruptable by skill intensive cards like Cabal Therapy.

solidbass

05-04-2015, 04:21 PM

My bad here's my source: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27669_Funeral-For-A-Friend.html I believe Jim Davis to know all there is about Gobos. TNN is the literally the lamest card since like Teferi's response.

Lemnear

05-04-2015, 04:22 PM

No, you don't understand. Fetchlands enable you to play many different strategies with less variance and more consistency. Brainstorm doesn't do that, all you can play with brainstorm is one specific archetype: Blue

Bullshit on two levels. There is no "archetype: blue" and you suggest banning a shitload of cards like Brainstorm, TC, DDT and possibly others just to keep perfect 3-colored manabase abdominations for Jund and Junk around. You are fighting symptoms not the cause

nedleeds

05-04-2015, 04:23 PM

Worse than Brainstorm? Debatable.

Not really. Brainstorm outpaced it by 25%. It also enabled your opener to not get clogged with too many cruises.

Star|Scream

05-04-2015, 04:27 PM

Bullshit on two levels. There is no "archetype: blue" and you suggest banning a shitload of cards like Brainstorm, TC, DDT and possibly others just to keep perfect 3-colored manabase abdominations for Jund and Junk around. You are fighting symptoms not the cause

Sorry, I was actually agreeing with you, sarcastically. Next time i will do a </sarcasm> at the end.

maharis

05-04-2015, 04:52 PM

So I'm "obtuse" and you throw the bolded statement into the thread? Funny, as I can't imagine a Legacy deck with 20 cantrips so point me at one. You try to make a point because we have 1 deck in the metagame which runs all the named cards and ALL other blue Legacy decks only run a few of these?

If you want to fuck with Brainstorm, Cabal Ritual, Treasure Cruise, DRS, Dig Through Time, Ponder, SDT and Co. once and for all, you need to ban Fetches. Everything else is just politicking and showing a lack of understanding what really fuels the supreme card selection. Period.

I apologize, since force of will isn't a cantrip, for misspeaking, and for slightly overstating the number as it's closer to 15 than 20. However it is intentionally obtuse to say that just because there isn't a xerox of 20 exact cards that there isn't a clear predilection in the format toward a particular kind of build:

Miracles: 4 BS, Ponder, Force, 2 Dig. 4 Top as well, and as a player of non-Miracles control, I can tell you that if it wasn't for the existence of the miracle mechanic, at least 3 of those would be some other sort of one-mana blue cantrip. As good a card as Top is with fetches (more on that later), it is simply not as good as just jamming more cantrips for pure selection.

Storm: 4 BS, Ponder, Probe, 2 Preordain, 1 Top.

Grixis delver: 4 BS, Ponder, Force, Probe, 2 Dig

4c delver: 4 Brainstorm, Force, Ponder, 3 Probe

Omni: what I listed above

Of course the RUG decks in the top 16 both played extra removal/counters over extra cantrips, but there have definitely been versions of that deck adding 3-4 probe to 4-ofs BS, Ponder, Force.

Once you add lands, it's anywhere from 30-40 cards decided before you start adding anything else.

And though fetchlands are clearly powerful in their interaction with these cards, it should be noted that between the two DGA decks in the last top 8, there's only one solitary SDT in one of the lists. Yet they played 7 and 8 fetches respectively, about the same as any blue deck, because the fixing is important even if you're not trying to get A+ card selection. (Sure, they play DRS, but I don't think it's fair to compare adding one mana to your mana pool to shuffling away two dead cards. Even then it's 9 out of 150 cards that interact with fetches, when there are usually way more than that in the 75 of a blue deck.)

Now, if Wizards wanted to take the fetches out of legacy and simultaneously kneecap cantrips and piles of goodstuff, I'm all for it because I think it would be interesting and incredibly fun. But again, it's just obtuse to draw an equivalence between how powerful fetchlands are in general and how powerful they are with cantrips. Cantrips + fetches is a draw engine that outmuscles every other one that's possible in the format, and it's getting even more ubiquitous as Ponder cracks the 60% played barrier.

btm10

05-04-2015, 05:17 PM

This doesn't make any fucking sense.

It doesn't, but his comment about Miracles being something we can adapt to is reasonable. Part of the problem is definitely the elitist attitude that a lot of people have toward Chalice, Post, and other fringe decks likely reduces the number of people, especially players looking to make a mark, picking them up. Cameron Wisnewski has top 16ed two large Legacy events in the past ninety days with a build of Tezzerator that I'm pretty sure only he plays, not that it would surprise me if he were the only person playing any build of the deck between both events. Similarly, how many times have Jeremiah Rudolph and John Kassari pilot 12Post to a strong finish? How many times in a row does MUD need to top 16 an SCG event before it hits a critical mass of players to break through into the top 8? It's not like these decks are Enchantress where your combo matchups really are so bad that you can't dodge any of it reliably enough to top 8 - two of them run Force, one of those has little problem running additional countermagic out of the board, and the third complements Chalice with 4 Sphere of Juggernauts and some number of Trinispheres.

solidbass

05-04-2015, 05:55 PM

It doesn't, but his comment about Miracles being something we can adapt to is reasonable. Part of the problem is definitely the elitist attitude that a lot of people have toward Chalice, Post, and other fringe decks likely reduces the number of people, especially players looking to make a mark, picking them up. Cameron Wisnewski has top 16ed two large Legacy events in the past ninety days with a build of Tezzerator that I'm pretty sure only he plays, not that it would surprise me if he were the only person playing any build of the deck between both events. Similarly, how many times have Jeremiah Rudolph and John Kassari pilot 12Post to a strong finish? How many times in a row does MUD need to top 16 an SCG event before it hits a critical mass of players to break through into the top 8? It's not like these decks are Enchantress where your combo matchups really are so bad that you can't dodge any of it reliably enough to top 8 - two of them run Force, one of those has little problem running additional countermagic out of the board, and the third complements Chalice with 4 Sphere of Juggernauts and some number of Trinispheres.

Thanks for looking at my actual point instead of my irrational hatred towards a particular card. I like the idea of elitism playing a role in determining what decks people play. I think it creates a vicious cycle, if the a deck is perceived as the "best deck" due to some results then it would be played in greater numbers which would in turn put up even better results. If that happens enough times I think the format would become unhealthy and stagnation would occur.

twndomn

05-04-2015, 09:19 PM

Now, if Wizards wanted to take the fetches out of legacy and simultaneously kneecap cantrips and piles of goodstuff, I'm all for it because I think it would be interesting and incredibly fun. But again, it's just obtuse to draw an equivalence between how powerful fetchlands are in general and how powerful they are with cantrips. Cantrips + fetches is a draw engine that outmuscles every other one that's possible in the format, and it's getting even more ubiquitous as Ponder cracks the 60% played barrier.

Patrick Sullivan said something similar. Lots of the present problems are created due to cantrips + fetchland interaction. If Wizard removes fetchland, lots of problems would be solved.

However, that's not what Wizard envisions Legacy should be. Wizard knows large number of people enjoy fetchland and brainstorm, at least larger than number of elves/jund/mud/dnt/lands players combined.

If we look at the delta ever since GP Kyoto, really the only change in the recent months should be the number of copies of Dig in the Top 8. The number of Brainstorm most likely remain about the same.

Hrothgar

05-07-2015, 06:53 AM

BUG Control
Miracle Control
OmniTell
Thopters
Ad Nauseam Tendrils
OmniTell
U/W Control
Threshold UGr

This is the top 8 at the Ovino Spring, 202 players.
Only one Miracle.

Zombie

05-07-2015, 07:20 AM

Brainstorm: 32/32 copies, 8 decks, 100% and 100%
Ponder___: 22/32 copies, 7 decks, 69% and 88%
FoW_____: 28/32 copies, 7 decks, 88% and 88%
Preordain_: 13/32copies, 4 decks, 47% and 38%
DTT______: 14/32copies, 4 decks, 44%, 50%

10 red blasts (all SB at least)

Raystar

05-07-2015, 07:30 AM

BUG Control
Miracle Control
OmniTell
Thopters
Ad Nauseam Tendrils
OmniTell
U/W Control
Threshold UGr

This is the top 8 at the Ovino Spring, 202 players.
Only one Miracle.

This guy (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29241-Grixstill-Landstill-UBR&p=880663&viewfull=1#post880663) was matched against Miracles 7 (seven) times (the 8th match has been confirmed to also be a Miracle match)....A friend was there and he reported that everybody and his mother was playing Miracles....

Quasim0ff

05-07-2015, 07:31 AM

I'd wage a bet, and argue that top8 is more diverse than most standard and modern tournaments. Just because some colors overlap, doesn't mean that the strategy does.

*Sure, when playing in miracles-land, you play versus a lot of miracles. When it isn't unreasonably representative in the top8, there's hardly any problem with it.

Asthereal

05-07-2015, 08:22 AM

Preordain_: 15/32copies, 3 decks, 47% and 38%
Somehow I doubt that. :cool:

But anyway, I've been away from this thread for a few months. Last time I posed a solution for the Cruise era, and all I got in response was "Ban Brainstorm! I hate Brainstorm!" and people responding to that. Am I correct in assuming this thread is still only posts saying "Ban Brainstorm!" or "No Brainstorm is awesome!"?

PS. No, I am not going to insult my own intelligence by actually having a look. I tried that once. It did not go well.

Barook

05-07-2015, 08:41 AM

Somehow I doubt that. :cool:

But anyway, I've been away from this thread for a few months. Last time I posed a solution for the Cruise era, and all I got in response was "Ban Brainstorm! I hate Brainstorm!" and people responding to that. Am I correct in assuming this thread is still only posts saying "Ban Brainstorm!" or "No Brainstorm is awesome!"?

PS. No, I am not going to insult my own intelligence by actually having a look. I tried that once. It did not go well.
Well, what did you expect? TC decks were replaced by decks that run DTT and the meta is just as blue and Brainstorm-heavy as before.

Quasim0ff

05-07-2015, 08:47 AM

Well, what did you expect? TC decks were replaced by decks that run DTT and the meta is just as blue and Brainstorm-heavy as before.

This is not related to TC and DTT. Besides: A blue dominance isn't per se a bad thing. If it was dominance from a single strategy, that'd be worse. That's not the case.

M+1

05-07-2015, 08:48 AM

all I got in response was "Ban Brainstorm! I hate Brainstorm!" and people responding to that.
Pretty much. This thread is the Brainstorm-hater/Color-equilibristic self-help group.

Star|Scream

05-07-2015, 09:23 AM

BUG Control
Miracle Control
OmniTell
Thopters
Ad Nauseam Tendrils
OmniTell
U/W Control
Threshold UGr

This is the top 8 at the Ovino Spring, 202 players.
Only one Miracle.

That looks like an awesome Top 8!!!!

Zombie

05-07-2015, 09:55 AM

No, we are not and that's why I presented the extreme example. We don't have 20 cards overlap in various strategies. We have only 8 in blue decks in general and that's less than the usual "white shell" of Plows/SFM/Batterskull/Jitte and no one cries about that either as the best white package in Legacy.

The "white shell" is different because if you want quality removal and threats (even ones that provide card advantage), you can get it with a comparable quality. White, red and black(green) all have strong removal available. Quality threats abound. You're not forced to play a specific color to be able to get access to those effects - you don't have one choice, you have three or four. The color choices affect the style a bit, sure, but the raw power is comparable.
The raw power of the cantrip cartel, especially when supported with Dig, completely eclipses the card selection tools of other colors in quality. Elves is the only thing that comes close, and it's noticeably slower at getting things going.

Other key areas:
Removal: W, B, R
Removing noncreature permanents: G, W, R
Combo hate: U, B, W
Graveyard hate: W, G, B, colorless

There are choices there. If you want a card selection engine, though, it's blue or go home. The others are completely outclassed in comparison, barring a couple narrow ones.

The universality makes it worse, because the play experience of decks starts to feel similar because the engine is the same in all of them.
If you compare this to, say, Green (supposing) engines with Elves, Nic Fit and Loam decks all operating differently. The only different core blue deck that springs to mind is UB Tezzeret, which feels appreciably different from most other blue decks.

It's not only the dominance of one color, though that's a large part of it. It's the dominance of a single engine that fuels everything and makes things feel stale. I don't want to completely kill it, but taking it down some notches to the same ballpark other colors inhabit would be good for the format.

Lemnear

05-07-2015, 10:26 AM

The raw power of the cantrip cartel, especially when supported with Dig, completely eclipses the card selection tools of other colors in quality. Elves is the only thing that comes close, and it's noticeably slower at getting things going.

Other key areas:
Removal: W, B, R
Removing noncreature permanents: G, W, R
Combo hate: U, B, W
Graveyard hate: W, G, B, colorless

There are choices there. If you want a card selection engine, though, it's blue or go home. The others are completely outclassed in comparison, barring a couple narrow ones.

But that is that blue is all about! It's the color of Library- & handmanipulation since Alpha and complaining that it's blue that has the best and most options among all colors is totally off.

I can totally get behind if people spit hate for WotC printing Delver, SCM and TNN in that color, but library Manipulation? What's next? A color-based crusade because black has no tools (and I mean "no" tools literally instead of subpar ones) to catch up with white and greens enchantment/Artifact removal?

Edit:
For Gods sake, storm players have to Splash green for the effect of enchantment/Artifact removal. It's no way different than splashing blue if you want access to Library manipulation, but I guess I have to read some smartass posts soon talking about bullshit like "if you splash blue, you want to run FoW also and then you have to run 20 blue cards to support that!"

Kathal

05-07-2015, 11:12 AM

But that is that blue is all about! It's the color of Library- & handmanipulation since Alpha and complaining that it's blue that has the best and most options among all colors is totally off.

I can totally get behind if people spit hate for WotC printing Delver, SCM and TNN in that color, but library Manipulation? What's next? A color-based crusade because black has no tools (and I mean "no" tools literally instead of subpar ones) to catch up with white and greens enchantment/Artifact removal?

Edit:
For Gods sake, storm players have to Splash green for the effect of enchantment/Artifact removal. It's no way different than splashing blue if you want access to Library manipulation, but I guess I have to read some smartass posts soon talking about bullshit like "if you splash blue, you want to run FoW also and then you have to run 20 blue cards to support that!"

Totally agree here (and I think this one of the most correct posts regards this topic).

Greetings,
Kathal

maharis

05-07-2015, 11:50 AM

But that is that blue is all about! It's the color of Library- & handmanipulation since Alpha and complaining that it's blue that has the best and most options among all colors is totally off.

That doesn't mean that Brainstorm isn't overpowered. How do you not see that? You seem like a smart person. This argument could just as easily apply to Treasure Cruise. I don't think anyone disagrees that blue should be best at library manipulation, just not that it should be so much better as to constrain the format to only cards that work if your plan is to Brainstorm & Ponder all day.

And actually, blue was the color of card advantage in Alpha (Ancestral Recall, Braingeyser) while card selection was given to green (Natural Selection). The next card selection cards printed were Visions and Sylvan Library in Legends, neither of which are blue.

It takes until Ice Age with Brainstorm, Diabolic Vision, Elemental Augury, Krovikan Sorcerer, Mesmeric Trance, Portent before you get blue "card selection." (And of course Brainstorm pre-fetches and Portent as a slowtrip were not quite as good as they are/Ponder is now.) After that things get nutty.

I can totally get behind if people spit hate for WotC printing Delver, SCM and TNN in that color, but library Manipulation? What's next? A color-based crusade because black has no tools (and I mean "no" tools literally instead of subpar ones) to catch up with white and greens enchantment/Artifact removal?

As much as a bummer as it is that these cards are all blue, in the end it doesn't really matter. The ability of cantrips to fix mana and sculpt the perfect hand means that even if Delver and SCM were red and TNN was white they would still be at their best in decks that already pretty much exist (with the corner case of those decks having the slightest percentage hit in matchups where Force of Will is relevant as the blue count would be that much smaller. But even then we're talking about 4-6 blue cards at most being taken out of decks that have 20-30 blue cards in them already.)

In fact, for all the "strategic diversity" people, you could make the point that if Delver was red, we wouldn't even have a BUG tempo deck.

Edit:
For Gods sake, storm players have to Splash green for the effect of enchantment/Artifact removal. It's no way different than splashing blue if you want access to Library manipulation, but I guess I have to read some smartass posts soon talking about bullshit like "if you splash blue, you want to run FoW also and then you have to run 20 blue cards to support that!"

Well, that's not true. You don't have to splash green, as white and red have artifact removal and white has enchantment removal. You choose to splash green because it is the best at it. It's the same reason you play cantrips over Mirri's Guile, Natural Selection, Sylvan Library, et al.

The difference is that the distance between how good green is at enchantment/artifact removal and the other colors is not even close to how good blue is at card selection. Miracles doesn't splash green for that effect, for example, it just plays Wear/Tear because it's good enough. At the same time, the miracles deck isn't setting up its deck with the green enchantments either.

rufus

05-07-2015, 12:44 PM

But that is that blue is all about! It's the color of Library- & handmanipulation since Alpha and complaining that it's blue that has the best and most options among all colors is totally off. ...

I don't understand how 'color pie' is in any way a relevant topic for B/R considerations. There are plenty of out-of-color cards that we never talk about: Land Equilibrium,High Tide,Mind Bomb,Delver of Secrets and Recall readily come to mind. Moreover, WotC's design philosophy seems to be 'blue gets everything', so they're not going to ban blue cards for out of color capability.

The complaint is about power level, and the apparent limit of viable options in legacy:
1. Play mono-color.
2. Play blue.

iamajellydonut

05-07-2015, 12:51 PM

out-of-color cards ... Delver of Secrets ...

"lolololol"

Star|Scream

05-07-2015, 01:11 PM

I don't understand how 'color pie' is in any way a relevant topic for B/R considerations. There are plenty of out-of-color cards that we never talk about: Land Equilibrium,High Tide,Mind Bomb,Delver of Secrets and Recall readily come to mind. Moreover, WotC's design philosophy seems to be 'blue gets everything', so they're not going to ban blue cards for out of color capability.

The complaint is about power level, and the apparent limit of viable options in legacy:
1. Play mono-color.
2. Play blue.

What's wrong with that?

Lemnear

05-07-2015, 02:12 PM

That doesn't mean that Brainstorm isn't overpowered. How do you not see that? You seem like a smart person. This argument could just as easily apply to Treasure Cruise. I don't think anyone disagrees that blue should be best at library manipulation, just not that it should be so much better as to constrain the format to only cards that work if your plan is to Brainstorm & Ponder all day.

Brainstorm + Ponder + Fetchlands IS stupid good in terms of card selection especially compared to decks which have, more or less, play the game based in random topdecks and sure these cards mark the cream of the crop for minimizing the randomness which is/was the games core, but is inevitable for tournament players to profit from. There is no-one arguing that fact, but it appears to be a matter of perception if that's an actual Problem by itself

I like to pick up the Vintage example from time to time and point to the mana-artifacts as the fundamental and shared core for the format to operate across various archetypes and strategies. No one complains that you "have to play SoLoCryMoxen" in Order to be compeditive. Players accepted these cards as the Fundament of the format to have the best shot at winning (Dredge aside). How is that any different from BS+Ponder+Fetches in these regards other than the color itself? As long as Moxen power Workshop decks, Storm and Mana Drain decks there is no Problem in Vintage and I don't see one for Legacy if Brainstorm is played in Combo, Conteol and Aggro/Tempo at the same time. If the core however extends and indeed streamlines viable building to a single deck or archetype, (We have seen this with Gush+Brainstorm+Ponder+MerchantScroll or with Ponder+Brainstorm+Probe+TreasureCruise), Action is needed and is usually taken.

The Problem is that people give too much shit about colors and not enough about the effects they want in their decks

And actually, blue was the color of card advantage in Alpha (Ancestral Recall, Braingeyser) while card selection was given to green (Natural Selection). The next card selection cards printed were Visions and Sylvan Library in Legends, neither of which are blue.

That's why I called it Handmanipulation and dodged any statements of gauging like "advantage" or "quality" ;)

Megadeus

05-07-2015, 02:18 PM

The difference is that the Moxen in vintage are free and therefore any deck can feasible access these pieces. Hell you can run off color moxen if all you need is a mana boost. In Legacy though, playing brainstorm isn't simply, slot it into your deck. It is now you play BS, 6-10 fetches, and since you're there you probably play at least ponder. And since you're there theres generally enough reason to go into enough blue for force

FoolofaTook

05-07-2015, 02:22 PM

Star|Scream

05-07-2015, 02:56 PM

Blastoderm

05-07-2015, 03:01 PM

That looks like an awesome Top 8!!!!

32/32 brainstorm?

iGrok

05-07-2015, 03:10 PM

We're getting all warped around in the discussion here. B&R is about power level, format warping and ubiquity. Brainstorm meets all 3 criteria. It's the most powerful card in Legacy, a fact that only a few deny. The format now revolves around the cantrip cartel that Brainstorm sits at the root of, again only a few deny this. Brainstorm itself is in 75%+ of top 8's overall.

This is a simple decision for WotC to make. That they are having this much difficulty making the decision suggests strongly that they need to change the decision makers.

Every time you say "cantrip cartel", I giggle. You should write propaganda for a living.

I believe the root of our disagreement is about the purpose of the Ban list: It is about "Will banning this card make the format better?", which is a very subjective question. Power Level and "format warping" are subjective measures, while ubiquity is objective, but these are not the only considerations for a card's banning.

Power Level: There will always be a most-powerful card.
"Format Warping": Depends on your definitions. As Lemnear said, some people judge formats by colors, some judge by strategies.
Ubiquity: Yes, we can measure the %/Max of a card's play, so this is a more-good measure.

There are also things like:
Average Player Opinion: In general do players prefer to have the card in the format or not?
Immediate Impact: Is the card a must-answer? i.e. does it win the game when you play it, or are there opportunities for opponents to fight it long-term?

Multiple subjective criteria don't make for easy, or universally agreed decisions.

So where does Brainstorm fit?

Power Level: Probably the most powerful card in Legacy.
Format Warping: WotC seems to judge by strategies more than by colors, so No.
Ubiquity: Yes, it is fairly ubiquitous.
Average Player Opinion: Good luck finding a representative sample.
Immediate Impact: Brainstorm does not win the game (as opposed to, say, Survival, Hermit Druid, Tinker, or Yawgmoth's Will).

Anyways, thats my 2¢.

Barook

05-07-2015, 03:20 PM

I like to pick up the Vintage example from time to time and point to the mana-artifacts as the fundamental and shared core for the format to operate across various archetypes and strategies. No one complains that you "have to play SoLoCryMoxen" in Order to be compeditive. Players accepted these cards as the Fundament of the format to have the best shot at winning (Dredge aside). How is that any different from BS+Ponder+Fetches in these regards other than the color itself? As long as Moxen power Workshop decks, Storm and Mana Drain decks there is no Problem in Vintage and I don't see one for Legacy if Brainstorm is played in Combo, Conteol and Aggro/Tempo at the same time. If the core however extends and indeed streamlines viable building to a single deck or archetype, (We have seen this with Gush+Brainstorm+Ponder+MerchantScroll or with Ponder+Brainstorm+Probe+TreasureCruise), Action is needed and is usually taken.
That completely ignores that Moxen are still restricted, because they don't ban cards in Vintage for power reasons. If they banned cards instead of restricting them, Moxen would be a goner. Also, if you want to mention Vintage, let's not forget that Brainstorm and Ponder are restricted there for power reasons since 2008. Both scale immensely with the power level of the format where they dig - which has increased alot in the meantime. The percentage of Brainstorm in Legacy jumped with each stupid printing of blue-related cards a few percentages each time, and continues to do so.

Survival was also a fun card before they reached a threshold of printing too much stupid shit to keep it around any longer. That's what can happen to cards that scale with power level.

But that is that blue is all about! It's the color of Library- & handmanipulation since Alpha and complaining that it's blue that has the best and most options among all colors is totally off.
Power level is a concern. Black also has tutors since Alpha, but there's a reason why Infernal Tutor is in the format while Demonic Tutor is not.

For Gods sake, storm players have to Splash green for the effect of enchantment/Artifact removal. It's no way different than splashing blue if you want access to Library manipulation, but I guess I have to read some smartass posts soon talking about bullshit like "if you splash blue, you want to run FoW also and then you have to run 20 blue cards to support that!"
Storm doesn't have to splash green for removal. Blue has bounce to deal with all kinds of permanents. Players just choose to because AD being an uncounterable, permanent solution is more convenient, especially against Counterbalance.

rufus

05-07-2015, 03:21 PM

...
Power Level: Probably the most powerful card in Legacy.
Format Warping: WotC seems to judge by strategies more than by colors, so No.
Ubiquity: Yes, it is fairly ubiquitous.
Average Player Opinion: Good luck finding a representative sample.
Immediate Impact: Brainstorm does not win the game
...

Would your assessment of Mental Misstep while it was legal have been any different by those criteria?

Barook

05-07-2015, 03:35 PM

Would your assessment of Mental Misstep while it was legal have been any different by those criteria?
This

So where does Brainstorm fit?

Power Level: Probably the most powerful card in Legacy.
Format Warping: WotC seems to judge by strategies more than by colors, so No.
Ubiquity: Yes, it is fairly ubiquitous.
Average Player Opinion: Good luck finding a representative sample.
Immediate Impact: Brainstorm does not win the game (as opposed to, say, Survival, Hermit Druid, Tinker, or Yawgmoth's Will).
So where does Mental Misstep fit?

Power Level: Probably the second most powerful card in Legacy, after Brainstorm
Format Warping: The DTB section still shows various decks with different strategies being viable in the month were it was banned:

http://i.imgur.com/DsAbQ.jpg

Having 4 top decks is nothing out of the ordinary. We also had months with only 4 top decks in the DTB section.

Ubiquity: Yes, it was fairly ubiquitous - same amount as Brainstorm is now
Average Player Opinion: How is that even a criteria you can measure? :really:
Immediate Impact: Mental Misstep does not win the game, either

Bed Decks Palyer

05-07-2015, 03:36 PM

Brainstorm + Ponder + Fetchlands IS stupid good, but players accepted these cards as the Fundament of the format to have the best shot at winning (Dredge aside). How is that any Problem?
The acceptation ain't that 100% as you tend to make it, in fact some ppl argue against this

Problem is that people give too much shit about colors and not enough about the effects they want in their decks
Problem is that some ppl give too much shit about thinking how they're reading shit about colours while there's clearly an argument about power level of BS...

EDIT:

So where does Mental Misstep fit?

counter card and activate on spell effects
fix and removing stacks

iGrok

05-07-2015, 03:47 PM

Barook

05-07-2015, 04:12 PM

Player Opinion is definitely the hardest one to measure. But, I don't think that you can say that there are more people who enjoy Mental Misstep in the format than people who enjoy Brainstorm in the format.
Still, how does player opinion matter? Wizards doesn't give two shits about that. People love (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27612-Would-you-like-to-see-Survival-back-in-the-format) Survival. Is it unbanned? Nope.

Erik Lauer sits on his ass for years doing nothing (until the recent TC ban) and people applaud how well he manages the format. :rolleyes: The same guy who set up clear conditions for a card ban (Mental Misstep) and doesn't follow through when exactly the same reasons apply (Brainstorm) because he doesn't give a fuck. Just as he's the same guy who assrapes Modern for years now with stupid bans despite being the head developer of Magic, thus being capable of printing card to fix the goddamn format for good.

Edit: How much he cares about Legacy is also shown in said ban (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/banned-and-restricted-announcement-2015-01-19) announcement:

- Modern: Wall of text explaining the reasoning behind the bans
- Legacy: 2.5 lines which can be summed up as "Too much UR Delver. Fuck that."

Has there been any statement of him regarding Legacy since the MM ban and the TC ban?

iGrok

05-07-2015, 04:18 PM

apple713

05-07-2015, 07:30 PM

Player opinion does matter, but its not the only thing that matters.

Brainstorm is proactive, while Misstep is reactive. Does this impact the decision? Probably. Is it the most important factor? No. But I guess Proactive vs Reactive is another factor in banning or not.

Survival is a must-answer card, while Brainstorm isn't. Again, that isn't the only factor at play, but it's one of them.

player opinion has 0 effect. Unfortunately MTG banned list isn't a democracy, Its a dictatorship. We have a pretty healthy community here. Our voices probably represent the majority of views in varying proportions of what all of the legacy community believes, and yet we see very little change year to year.

What i don't understand is why they are not more aggressive with their unbanning in legacy? There are only 2 legacy tournaments that wizards gives a shit about...if they even care that much. They could schedule the unbanning of a lot of cards so that it has no effect on the Legacy GP's. Other tournaments would develop the meta after the unbanning and if it was warped they could fix it before the next legacy gp. So many possible solutions but they don't give a FCUK!

iGrok

05-07-2015, 11:52 PM

Why do you think player opinion has 0 effect?

Dice_Box

05-08-2015, 01:58 AM

Bed Decks Palyer

05-08-2015, 06:10 AM

Player opinion has anything other than zero effect. It is measured by the amount of people going to events and is a metric that is watched very closely. It is one of the reasons that Jace/Stoneforge happened to find themselves banned just before rotation, one of the reasons that Affinity bit the dust (thank fuck) and one of the reasons that MM died as a card. It's not the be all and end all, but it has a very real effect and a very visible impact that can be measured.

Otoh, is this proportional to the increased promotion? Considering the obvious DiabloIIIization of game and all the other changes in the last decade that made MtG much more mainstream, is it even possible to tell if there'd be more or less ppl entering the tournaments due to the game design and B&R managment only?
I mean, yes, MM is stupid card and wutnot, but can we even tell what's going on on tournament scene without even looking at the massive promo and w/e the else that affects the sells, social acceptance of MtG as a hobby, or the will to share time and money on it. I'm not saying that any number of Liliana posters in my lgs will outweight the bad experience and I doubt that any sane mature man will start playing MtG and visiting tournaments solely due to promo, but these things tend to completely fall out of the picture, while they clearly have their role. As long as there are tournaments in the particular format where the people may play for prizes and play to emulate their particular pop-culture stars insert whatever-the-name-of-the-recent-pro, they'd be visiting the lgs, unless we're talking about Mir-Kami Type2 or The Jace's Standard, right?

Dice_Box

05-08-2015, 06:30 AM

Let's be honest, how many Legacy players do you know who give a shit about the poster on the wall? I travel eight hours a week to play and that is because I am going to locations that offer the formats I want, not because of a coloured tarpolon hanging on the wall. There is more than one place less than half an hour from my home, some guys travel twice the distance I do and I would bet they are not there due to a cardboard cut-out with a plastic axe.

So no, I would argue that is not proportional because we are not talking about Standard here, we are not talking about people that are pooling over the new spoilers looking to build a whole new deck out of it and we are not looking at people who care about the latest Walker who is in the promo art. We are talking about people who have come to the game on the back of things like having older cards, seeking more complex game play or Star City Games and other streaming media and not pretty pictures hanging on a wall.

Barook

05-08-2015, 08:22 AM

Dice_Box

05-08-2015, 08:28 AM

I have read in some accounts that yes, it did. I am willing to admit I may be wrong in this matter though.

Lemnear

05-08-2015, 10:32 AM

The acceptation ain't that 100% as you tend to make it, in fact some ppl argue against this

Could you please quote me correctly instead of chopping and glueing together parts of several phrases, if you want to setup a discussion?

Problem is that some ppl give too much shit about thinking how they're reading shit about colours while there's clearly an argument about power level of BS...

Oh really? You may want to read back in thks thread more than one or two pages? I just reentered this thread because of "colors" popping up again.

That completely ignores that Moxen are still restricted, because they don't ban cards in Vintage for power reasons. If they banned cards instead of restricting them, Moxen would be a goner. Also, if you want to mention Vintage, let's not forget that Brainstorm and Ponder are restricted there for power reasons since 2008

Drawing direct parallels for Restrictions in Vintage and Bannings in Legacy was dismissed by WotC in 2004 because it was considered stupid by them and you still want to argue based in that? Read the B&R announcement for Brainstorm, Ponder, Merchant Scroll and Gush in regards to their restriction. Point me to the passage where something was written about "power reasons". Seriously, I'm waiting. I can only remember them talking about Brainstorm and Ponder making it too easy to access restricted bombs. That's NOT the same thing and I hope I don't have to explain that in an extended post just because you opt to miss the point by intent.

Both scale immensely with the power level of the format where they dig - which has increased alot in the meantime. The percentage of Brainstorm in Legacy jumped with each stupid printing of blue-related cards a few percentages each time, and continues to do so.

Has Legacy ANY one-card gamechanger like Vintage has in Will, Necro, Bargain, etc.? Once more, BS + Ponder got restricted in Vintage because they make accessing those stupid powerful gamechangers easy. We don't have anything like that in Legacy and the powerlevel in Legacy is no way near Vintages. Apples and Oranges all over if you compare brainstorming into Werbear->Tarmogoyf->SFM with brainstorming into Tinker in Vintage.

The whole parallels with Vintage in terms of powerlevels are ridiculous. The only similarity is that both formats have a certain number of fundamental cards atm which are required to perform well in tournaments (mana-artifacts vs. Pinder+Brainstorm+Fetches)

Survival was also a fun card before they reached a threshold of printing too much stupid shit to keep it around any longer. That's what can happen to cards that scale with power level

Power level is a concern. Black also has tutors since Alpha, but there's a reason why Infernal Tutor is in the format while Demonic Tutor is not.

Yeah, WotC printed Fauna Shaman and Infernal as fixed versions of Survival and Demonic. Your point was? Comparing a cantrip to a tutor?

Storm doesn't have to splash green for removal. Blue has bounce to deal with all kinds of permanents. Players just choose to because AD being an uncounterable, permanent solution is more convenient, especially against Counterbalance.

And people splash blue for Brainstorm and Ponder because Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library are less convenient

btm10

05-08-2015, 12:13 PM

Let's rephrase it then: They don't really care what Eternal players (or Modern players, to a certain extend) think.

Except they obviously do. People were calling for Birthing Pod's head for months prior to the ban, and basically everyone in Modern thought Cruise was too powerful. Chapin has argued pretty convincingly that the aggressive policy toward banning in Modern is a direct result of it being a Pro Tour/ PTQ format and the need to keep it from being stagnant as a result of incentivizing Pros to break it for a week each year.

But perhaps the strongest evidence for Wizards caring about Legacy players' enjoyment of the format is that Brainstorm remains unbanned. It's an incredibly polarizing topic, and I think it's telling that when Jeff Hoogland raised the issue the response from most of the Legacy community was to mock him and say'good riddance'. As much as some people really hate Brainstorm, I think that Wizards' analysis definitely tilts toward the idea that a ban would hurt the format's popularity which is why it hasn't happened. It might also be why they have a very conservative approach towards unbanning cards that might actually spawn new decks rather than cards whose time has clearly come and gone. No one loses when Dragon isn't a tier 1 deck, but some people gain a little bit of fun brewing or nostalgia from jamming WGD/Animate Dead for the first time in years. If Vengevival or Griselbrand/Retainers turns out to be as good as Treasure Cruise, a lot of people might quit playing.

Megadeus

05-08-2015, 01:06 PM

And people splash blue for Brainstorm and Ponder because Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library are less convenient
Also you know, Sorcery speed things that don't make an impact until your next upkeep and can be disrupted by things like Decay and such.

Zombie

05-08-2015, 01:20 PM

Also you know, Sorcery speed things that don't make an impact until your next upkeep and can be disrupted by things like Decay and such.

And, you know, a couple hundred miles behind blue's options in power level, which was kind of the whole fucking point. This doesn't happen nearly to the same degree with other key tools.

Reinforcing the point, not rebutting you

Barook

05-08-2015, 01:43 PM

Drawing direct parallels for Restrictions in Vintage and Bannings in Legacy was dismissed by WotC in 2004 because it was considered stupid by them and you still want to argue based in that? Read the B&R announcement for Brainstorm, Ponder, Merchant Scroll and Gush in regards to their restriction. Point me to the passage where something was written about "power reasons". Seriously, I'm waiting. I can only remember them talking about Brainstorm and Ponder making it too easy to access restricted bombs. That's NOT the same thing and I hope I don't have to explain that in an extended post just because you opt to miss the point by intent.

Has Legacy ANY one-card gamechanger like Vintage has in Will, Necro, Bargain, etc.? Once more, BS + Ponder got restricted in Vintage because they make accessing those stupid powerful gamechangers easy. We don't have anything like that in Legacy and the powerlevel in Legacy is no way near Vintages. Apples and Oranges all over if you compare brainstorming into Werbear->Tarmogoyf->SFM with brainstorming into Tinker in Vintage.

The whole parallels with Vintage in terms of powerlevels are ridiculous. The only similarity is that both formats have a certain number of fundamental cards atm which are required to perform well in tournaments (mana-artifacts vs. Pinder+Brainstorm+Fetches)

Yeah, WotC printed Fauna Shaman and Infernal as fixed versions of Survival and Demonic. Your point was? Comparing a cantrip to a tutor?

And people splash blue for Brainstorm and Ponder because Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library are less convenient
Unless somebody has saved the exact wording of the banned announcement, it's pretty hard to find since Wizards archive is empty. Good job, Wizards.

Power levels are different between Legacy and Vintage, but just restricting the impact of digging to 1-card combos is ridiculous. Legacy does have A+B combos they dig for and are just as stupid, like S&T + wincon, which do become 1-card bombs if you have the other (redundant) combo piece in hand. You don't dig for broken 1-ofs, you dig for copies of redundant combo pieces that are 4-8-ofs in the deck.

Also, are you denying that the power level of the format hasn't increased alot? Why did the use of Brainstorm jump from ~50% in 2011 to the 70-75% we have to today? "Fun" can't be the sole reason.

As for the Alpha thing, you brought it up. Just because blue had it since Alpha doesn't mean it isn't broken. I could very well live with Brainstorm gone and being replaced by the "fixed" Anticipate. :wink:

Lemnear

05-08-2015, 06:20 PM

Unless somebody has saved the exact wording of the banned announcement, it's pretty hard to find since Wizards archive is empty. Good job, Wizards.

Power levels are different between Legacy and Vintage, but just restricting the impact of digging to 1-card combos is ridiculous. Legacy does have A+B combos they dig for and are just as stupid, like S&T + wincon, which do become 1-card bombs if you have the other (redundant) combo piece in hand. You don't dig for broken 1-ofs, you dig for copies of redundant combo pieces that are 4-8-ofs in the deck.

Also, are you denying that the power level of the format hasn't increased alot? Why did the use of Brainstorm jump from ~50% in 2011 to the 70-75% we have to today? "Fun" can't be the sole reason.

As for the Alpha thing, you brought it up. Just because blue had it since Alpha doesn't mean it isn't broken. I could very well live with Brainstorm gone and being replaced by the "fixed" Anticipate. :wink:

If the announcement isn't to dig up, we skip on that, agree? S&T + X is still miles less stupid than all the random blowouts I have witnessed and executed in Vintage over my time playing the format and that is that I was hinting at. We have to set things into relation if we throw Legacy and Vintage into the same ring and it makes one hell of a difference if you have your cantrips used for getting hands on TNN, SFM, Tarmogoyf or Counterbalance compared to nasty things on Vintage's restricted list.

Why the format jumped from 53% to 70% in these years? Delver, SFM, TNN, Terminus, Omniscience, TC, DTT, etc. aka all that easily splashable/playable nonsense WotC printed making decks without blue less appealing even if other colors also got drastic prowerlevel-jumps. That's the games business-model after all for Gods sake! I can't believe I have to point it out that it's normal that formats empower. Just look at Vintage now compared to in 2008.

You and others in this thread simply do not understand that in the hyper-effective triangle of Ponder+Brainstorm+ Fetchland, Brainstorm isn't the potential ban that solves the problem. I don't defend Brainstorm in this thread, I fight stupidity of only shifting the omnipresence of one cantrip to another like some smartasses in this thread did with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. Believe me: If you ban Brainstorm, Preordain or SDT just take it's place and decks adjust to that change (Miracles players move to UW Blade 4 example) but the surpremacy of Fetchlands + cantrips remains. Learn from TC and don't shift problems.

maharis

05-08-2015, 08:27 PM

Except they obviously do. People were calling for Birthing Pod's head for months prior to the ban, and basically everyone in Modern thought Cruise was too powerful. Chapin has argued pretty convincingly that the aggressive policy toward banning in Modern is a direct result of it being a Pro Tour/ PTQ format and the need to keep it from being stagnant as a result of incentivizing Pros to break it for a week each year.

Not trying to kill the messenger here, but every time I hear this, I get angrier. People like non-rotating formats because there is a certain amount of predictability. Seeing people grow into experts with certain decks and how they change for expected metagames or identify new interactions is what we like. Modern's staleness was entirely because of the length of the banlist. With so little card movement or choice outside Pod, BGx goodstuff is just set up to dominate.

But perhaps the strongest evidence for Wizards caring about Legacy players' enjoyment of the format is that Brainstorm remains unbanned. It's an incredibly polarizing topic, and I think it's telling that when Jeff Hoogland raised the issue the response from most of the Legacy community was to mock him and say'good riddance'.

That wasn't exactly our finest hour, but that's partially Jeff's fault for himself being temperamental (to put it kindly). What was funny is that I agreed with everything he had to say about Legacy but said that I didn't think modern was any better (because it basically had dueling dominating shells instead of one "flexible" one) and he belittled that argument. Modern is somewhat more tolerable now, but its power level is much lower than it was at its outset, which doesn't necessarily make for scintillating viewing.

As much as some people really hate Brainstorm, I think that Wizards' analysis definitely tilts toward the idea that a ban would hurt the format's popularity which is why it hasn't happened.

I don't hate Brainstorm. I don't think anyone really does. Some people -- a growing but vocal minority of course -- dislike that in order to be seriously competitive in Legacy, you have to play Brainstorm and its buddies. Ponder has crossed the 65% mark, and I definitely feel that since I've bought into blue, I've found little reason not to play Ponder (let alone brainstorm and force).

It might also be why they have a very conservative approach towards unbanning cards that might actually spawn new decks rather than cards whose time has clearly come and gone. No one loses when Dragon isn't a tier 1 deck, but some people gain a little bit of fun brewing or nostalgia from jamming WGD/Animate Dead for the first time in years. If Vengevival or Griselbrand/Retainers turns out to be as good as Treasure Cruise, a lot of people might quit playing.

Not true. If that was the case, people would quit every time they play against Show & Tell. This is the best-case scenario I can think of:

Turn 1: Land, Lotus Petal or some sort of Spirit Guide/Mox, resolve Survival.
Turn 2: LED, tap land to activate Survival, discarding Griselbrand, respond by cracking LED for WWW, search for Retainers, resolve retainers, activate retainers targeting Griselbrand.

That Christmas present is not something Legacy is set up to handle? It's not that different than what Tin Fins does now. And of course you don't have to whip out Griz t2 to use Survival in a fun way.

LOLWut

05-08-2015, 09:07 PM

Also, are you denying that the power level of the format hasn't increased alot? Why did the use of Brainstorm jump from ~50% in 2011 to the 70-75% we have to today? "Fun" can't be the sole reason.

Would you--and anyone else who's in favor of a BS ban--have been in favor of banning BS in 2011 when it was at ~50% (trusting the number so I don't have to check; it sounds right), and would you have been in favor of banning it when/if (I can't remember when/if it was) at 40% or less? Honest question, and my response depends on what the answer is.

jmonk

05-08-2015, 09:14 PM

Still, how does player opinion matter? Wizards doesn't give two shits about that. People love (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27612-Would-you-like-to-see-Survival-back-in-the-format) Survival. Is it unbanned? Nope.

Erik Lauer sits on his ass for years doing nothing (until the recent TC ban) and people applaud how well he manages the format. :rolleyes: The same guy who set up clear conditions for a card ban (Mental Misstep) and doesn't follow through when exactly the same reasons apply (Brainstorm) because he doesn't give a fuck. Just as he's the same guy who assrapes Modern for years now with stupid bans despite being the head developer of Magic, thus being capable of printing card to fix the goddamn format for good.

Edit: How much he cares about Legacy is also shown in said ban (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/banned-and-restricted-announcement-2015-01-19) announcement:

- Modern: Wall of text explaining the reasoning behind the bans
- Legacy: 2.5 lines which can be summed up as "Too much UR Delver. Fuck that."

Has there been any statement of him regarding Legacy since the MM ban and the TC ban?

if i'm reading the article in question correctly the ban conditions are a lot less clear than you make it seem. firstly he says that the card got banned because "there are more blue decks than ever". in the article he never sets up an upper limit of what percentage of the format can be blue. without this condition the reasoning is just a general platitude that logically is vague and very odd. on this point I disagree with your description of his philosophy.

we need to come to grips with the fact that non blue decks have been becoming less viable in the format for a long time. so saying X is the reason Y isnt doing well seems to be intellectually disingenuous.

btm10

05-09-2015, 01:02 AM

Not trying to kill the messenger here, but every time I hear this, I get angrier. People like non-rotating formats because there is a certain amount of predictability. Seeing people grow into experts with certain decks and how they change for expected metagames or identify new interactions is what we like. Modern's staleness was entirely because of the length of the banlist. With so little card movement or choice outside Pod, BGx goodstuff is just set up to dominate.

That's not necessarily true, and anyway, WotC tried to address this issue by dropping Modern as a PTQ/Pro Tour format. But community outcry stopped that, so a banhammer was needed to make sure that the decks at the pro tour looked different from the format pre-Khans.

Not true. If that was the case, people would quit every time they play against Show & Tell. This is the best-case scenario I can think of:

Turn 1: Land, Lotus Petal or some sort of Spirit Guide/Mox, resolve Survival.
Turn 2: LED, tap land to activate Survival, discarding Griselbrand, respond by cracking LED for WWW, search for Retainers, resolve retainers, activate retainers targeting Griselbrand.

That Christmas present is not something Legacy is set up to handle? It's not that different than what Tin Fins does now. And of course you don't have to whip out Griz t2 to use Survival in a fun way.

Just to clarify, I think that Survival is worth a trial unban. I'm not sold on it being safe, but it's not crazy to think that it might be fine. And if you stop say, Survival into Loyal Retainers shenanigans and those shenanigans get stopped, you've still got Survival and a library of guys to find and win with, which is something that Show and Tell decks generally can't do. But my point is that unbanning Survival or Frantic Search is a lot different from unbanning Worldgorger Dragon. You know that Dragon isn't going to rock the world. But Survival? Frantic Search? You're less sure because both have proven too good by pretty standard mechanisms (in-hand tutorimg and mana acceleration). And the price of being wrong and unbanning something damaging is high, especially in a small format. I agree that a more active approach to unbannings would improve the format, but I definitely understand why WotC is very conservative about reintroducing potentially broken cards back into the format.

Barook

05-09-2015, 01:26 AM

I don't defend Brainstorm in this thread, I fight stupidity of only shifting the omnipresence of one cantrip to another like some smartasses in this thread did with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. Believe me: If you ban Brainstorm, Preordain or SDT just take it's place and decks adjust to that change (Miracles players move to UW Blade 4 example) but the surpremacy of Fetchlands + cantrips remains. Learn from TC and don't shift problems.
I agree with being Brainstorm banned, people would likely just shift to Ponder and Preordain and switching stuff like Miracles to UW Blade (whether or not Miracles being gone is a good or bad thing is a different topic). I don't think that the majority of people who want Brainstorm banned also want the blue shell completely gone (you would need to kill any remotely playable cantrip for that), but knocking it down to a more reasonable level. Brainstorm is an easy target for that since it has a bunch of unique properties the other playable cantrips don't:
a) Instant speed, b) being able to trade chaff for fresh cards and c) discard protection.

If you banned Ponder, people would just run Brainstorm + Preordain and literally nothing would change.
If you banned Brainstorm, people would just run Ponder + Preordain, but:
a) People now need to plan ahead their turns more instead of sitting on their ass with :u: until anything bad happens,
b) more mulligan decisions because you can't get rid of your chaff (which brings down blue to the level of other decks regarding that, leveling the playing field; yes, blue decks would lose consistency because of that, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, since other colors don't have the ability to semi-mulligan for 1 mana, either; being able to get rid of unwanted chaff makes deckbuildung less rewarding, too, since there's much less risk compared to the reward when running very narrow cards. E.g. Sylvan Plug runs narrow cards like Choke in the MD, but there's a trade-off between raw power and being stuck with one or multiple dead card(s).)
c) discard becomes better

As for the TC vs DTT thing, while looking different on the surface (raw CA vs CA + selection, sorcery speed vs instant speed), they share the same core problems that make them stupid, unlike Brainstorm vs other cantrips (as explained above):
- being undercosted for what they do in Legacy because they can be easily fed with free fetches + Probes and other cheaps spells, especially cantrips
- your opponent is punished for interacting with you at all - it doesn't matter if it's removal, discard or counters, you inevitably feed the next Delve spell, putting you then at a disadvantage.

Would you--and anyone else who's in favor of a BS ban--have been in favor of banning BS in 2011 when it was at ~50% (trusting the number so I don't have to check; it sounds right), and would you have been in favor of banning it when/if (I can't remember when/if it was) at 40% or less? Honest question, and my response depends on what the answer is.
Hard to say - BS power level depends on the rest of the deck, and they've printed alot of stupid cards since then that either directly interact well Brainstorm (e.g. Miracles, Delver, Shardless Agent) or feed A+B combo which Brainstorm makes more consistent (Griselbee, Omniderp). While the unique properties mentioned above stay the same, I'd say its relative power has increased, thus being more bannable before. Survival was also okay before they printed Vengevine (and Ooze), with the danger of more stupid things to come on the horizon. We can never know when the next stupid mechanic comes around that rewards you for top cards on your library, either (Manifest luckily hasn't been broken - yet).

if i'm reading the article in question correctly the ban conditions are a lot less clear than you make it seem. firstly he says that the card got banned because "there are more blue decks than ever". in the article he never sets up an upper limit of what percentage of the format can be blue. without this condition the reasoning is just a general platitude that logically is vague and very odd. on this point I disagree with your description of his philosophy.
How would you interpret it then?

- first ban card because it makes the format too blue
- other card hits the same percentage or even succeeds it, but this time nothing happens

The reasoning becomes flawed and inconsequent with that.

Just to clarify, I think that Survival is worth a trial unban. I'm not sold on it being safe, but it's not crazy to think that it might be fine. And if you stop say, Survival into Loyal Retainers shenanigans and those shenanigans get stopped, you've still got Survival and a library of guys to find and win with, which is something that Show and Tell decks generally can't do. But my point is that unbanning Survival or Frantic Search is a lot different from unbanning Worldgorger Dragon. You know that Dragon isn't going to rock the world. But Survival? Frantic Search? You're less sure because both have proven too good by pretty standard mechanisms (in-hand tutorimg and mana acceleration). And the price of being wrong and unbanning something damaging is high, especially in a small format. I agree that a more active approach to unbannings would improve the format, but I definitely understand why WotC is very conservative about reintroducing potentially broken cards back into the format.
Frantic Search with Dig Through Time around seems very dangerous. Otherwise, it might be okay.

Zombie

05-09-2015, 07:16 AM

Would you--and anyone else who's in favor of a BS ban--have been in favor of banning BS in 2011 when it was at ~50% (trusting the number so I don't have to check; it sounds right), and would you have been in favor of banning it when/if (I can't remember when/if it was) at 40% or less? Honest question, and my response depends on what the answer is.

If you can have a solid shot (to the point it shows up in actual results and not just people saying a deck is okay) with nonblue decks and other varied selection/draw engines, I'm fine with keeping them. I do think Brainstorm is a dumb card and eg. Ponder, Preordain are better skill testers because there's an actual commitment to playing them especially in the early turns, and they leave tools like discard stronger for it and encourage thinking if cards are castable (because they don't allow you to throw clunk back at a trivial cost). I have to pay attention to what dumb clunkers I play in nonblue decks because I can't get rid of them. I'm fine with blue having the ability, but I'd like it to be an investment to do so, not a matter of course of playing the best no-investment card selection spell in the game anyway.

I've never, ever wanted blue cantrips out of the format completely - I just want enough of them axed that you have to think what card selection engine you want and in what colors. I just don't want to see the cantrip cartel in every damn deck all the damn time. I want to see some people cantrip, others use some 2cc options because they need specialized functionality, some people use graveyard recursion engines or Elves/Shardless style mass draw, and so on. I think something needs to be axed to get to that, but as little as possible should be axed to get to that. Barring stupid S&T targets, those I want to go postal on.

btm10

05-09-2015, 12:44 PM

Frantic Search with Dig Through Time around seems very dangerous. Otherwise, it might be okay.

It's potentially (but not obviously) broken in other ways too. That was my point.

Dice_Box

05-09-2015, 01:18 PM

If you can have a solid shot (to the point it shows up in actual results and not just people saying a deck is okay) with nonblue decks and other varied selection/draw engines, I'm fine with keeping them.
Elves and Lands (Combo build) are two non Blue decks with powerful draw engine that win. I would agree that they rotate in and out of the Meta, but they win. Also if there was not a card that cost a grand that you needed for Lands I would bet good money it would see a ton more play.

FoolofaTook

05-09-2015, 01:46 PM

Does anybody think the meta is likely to reverse the trend towards the blue shell at this point barring any bannings?

I'm just curious under what circumstances people think that the number of lists playing Brainstorm would realistically decline at this point?

Secondary point to this would be that whether you think the meta will be 3% less blue shell or 7% less blue shell in 6 months due to some unforseen shift, the odds on it not being 3% more blue than it is currently or 7% more blue that it is currently a year down the road are fairly low. It's gone up about 3% a year over the last 5 years. What exactly is going to stop us from getting to the point that 85% of all lists are blue shell and the other 15% are dedicated anti-blue shell?

HrishiQQ

05-09-2015, 01:59 PM

Elves and Lands (Combo build) are two non Blue decks with powerful draw engine that win. I would agree that they rotate in and out of the Meta, but they win. Also if there was not a card that cost a grand that you needed for Lands I would bet good money it would see a ton more play.

I often see this thrown around a lot, so I have got to ask. While I have no doubt that not having a Tabernacle makes your build not optimal, how necessary is that card to the overall strategy? My point being, if Lands is powerful enough to be widely played, wouldn't we see lists that are slightly sub-optimal due to price constraints? Is Tabernacle that much of a cornerstone to the deck? I am not a Lands player, so I do apologize for the question.

On topic, I cannot really see how this metagame would reverse it's trajectory. Maybe with some serious unbannings? But even so, many of those cards will simply fit into a cantrip shell.

jmonk

05-09-2015, 02:19 PM

I agree with being Brainstorm banned, people would likely just shift to Ponder and Preordain and switching stuff like Miracles to UW Blade (whether or not Miracles being gone is a good or bad thing is a different topic). I don't think that the majority of people who want Brainstorm banned also want the blue shell completely gone (you would need to kill any remotely playable cantrip for that), but knocking it down to a more reasonable level. Brainstorm is an easy target for that since it has a bunch of unique properties the other playable cantrips don't:
a) Instant speed, b) being able to trade chaff for fresh cards and c) discard protection.

If you banned Ponder, people would just run Brainstorm + Preordain and literally nothing would change.
If you banned Brainstorm, people would just run Ponder + Preordain, but:
a) People now need to plan ahead their turns more instead of sitting on their ass with :u: until anything bad happens,
b) more mulligan decisions because you can't get rid of your chaff (which brings down blue to the level of other decks regarding that, leveling the playing field; yes, blue decks would lose consistency because of that, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, since other colors don't have the ability to semi-mulligan for 1 mana, either; being able to get rid of unwanted chaff makes deckbuildung less rewarding, too, since there's much less risk compared to the reward when running very narrow cards. E.g. Sylvan Plug runs narrow cards like Choke in the MD, but there's a trade-off between raw power and being stuck with one or multiple dead card(s).)
c) discard becomes better

As for the TC vs DTT thing, while looking different on the surface (raw CA vs CA + selection, sorcery speed vs instant speed), they share the same core problems that make them stupid, unlike Brainstorm vs other cantrips (as explained above):
- being undercosted for what they do in Legacy because they can be easily fed with free fetches + Probes and other cheaps spells, especially cantrips
- your opponent is punished for interacting with you at all - it doesn't matter if it's removal, discard or counters, you inevitably feed the next Delve spell, putting you then at a disadvantage.

Hard to say - BS power level depends on the rest of the deck, and they've printed alot of stupid cards since then that either directly interact well Brainstorm (e.g. Miracles, Delver, Shardless Agent) or feed A+B combo which Brainstorm makes more consistent (Griselbee, Omniderp). While the unique properties mentioned above stay the same, I'd say its relative power has increased, thus being more bannable before. Survival was also okay before they printed Vengevine (and Ooze), with the danger of more stupid things to come on the horizon. We can never know when the next stupid mechanic comes around that rewards you for top cards on your library, either (Manifest luckily hasn't been broken - yet).

How would you interpret it then?

- first ban card because it makes the format too blue
- other card hits the same percentage or even succeeds it, but this time nothing happens

The reasoning becomes flawed and inconsequent with that.

Frantic Search with Dig Through Time around seems very dangerous. Otherwise, it might be okay.

I would interpret the quote to mean that the format got [B]too [/Blue too fast. before this era we had a lot of non blue decks that could compete with blue decks. when mental misstep was printed however it obsoleted those decks in a few weeks. we haven't seen a large resurgence of non blue decks since that era. when we look at the larger ban framework time and circularity is an important factor. it seems like wotc thinks that this is just a phase of the format

Barook

05-09-2015, 02:23 PM

On topic, I cannot really see how this metagame would reverse it's trajectory. Maybe with some serious unbannings? But even so, many of those cards will simply fit into a cantrip shell.
What could they reallistically unban to dent the cantrip shell? At least without the format going to hell.

Unless they print something that makes the cantrip shell alot less appealing, I can't see the trend of more and more people running the blue shell stopping.

jmonk

05-09-2015, 02:37 PM

What could they reallistically unban to dent the cantrip shell? At least without the format going to hell.

Unless they print something that makes the cantrip shell alot less appealing, I can't see the trend of more and more people running the blue shell stopping.

black vise might do it

Megadeus

05-09-2015, 02:58 PM

And, you know, a couple hundred miles behind blue's options in power level, which was kind of the whole fucking point. This doesn't happen nearly to the same degree with other key tools.

Reinforcing the point, not rebutting you

I'd argue that Library is a more powerful card than either BS or Ponder overall. However costing 2 mana and having to wait a turn for its effect to take place makes it just not a feasible option a lot of the time in legacy. Also in multiples it gets real bad so you are not as likely to want to run more than 2 and MAYBE 3.

FoolofaTook

05-09-2015, 03:17 PM

I'd argue that Library is a more powerful card than either BS or Ponder overall. However costing 2 mana and having to wait a turn for its effect to take place makes it just not a feasible option a lot of the time in legacy. Also in multiples it gets real bad so you are not as likely to want to run more than 2 and MAYBE 3.

I'd agree that Sylvan Library is more powerful than Ponder in a vaccum but not that it's more powerful than Brainstorm. Cost, timing, immediate return and utility have to be part of the conversation and Brainstorm is cheaper, easier to use, more likely to resolve successfully and has a wider range of utility than Sylvan Library.

If Legacy had a weakened cantrip shell it's very possible that Sylvan Library would become one of the best and most widely played card selection tools in the format instead of a 1 or 2-of in most lists that use it. It's true that it is weaker in multiples but assuming it doesn't land too late in the match it's a very powerful effect and one that you'd really like to get into play against many lists.

You're absolutely on target that waiting until turn 3 for Sylvan Library to actually do something makes it not feasible as an engine card at this point except in extremely narrow lists that have no other realistic options. It's good as an alternative option that doesn't kill you if you don't draw it in some other lists. There are no lists in the meta that rely on resolving a Sylvan Library most of the time to make the game plan effective. That's because there are no lists that can reliably guarantee seeing it early in a game.

Lord_Mcdonalds

05-09-2015, 04:28 PM

I often see this thrown around a lot, so I have got to ask. While I have no doubt that not having a Tabernacle makes your build not optimal, how necessary is that card to the overall strategy? My point being, if Lands is powerful enough to be widely played, wouldn't we see lists that are slightly sub-optimal due to price constraints? Is Tabernacle that much of a cornerstone to the deck? I am not a Lands player, so I do apologize for the question.

On topic, I cannot really see how this metagame would reverse it's trajectory. Maybe with some serious unbannings? But even so, many of those cards will simply fit into a cantrip shell.

It's how you beat tribal and creatures with protection

I would say about 60-70% of the time you'll be fine without it, then you'll play against rug with a turn 1 mongoose, or a vial deck that manages to swarm you (merfolk, goblins and every so often d&t draws all of its Serra avengers) and you'll wish you had it

Kanti

05-09-2015, 05:28 PM

Frantic Search with Dig through Time seems very saucy. As broken as I think Search is, SnT has to be more broken. In a vacuum, a blender, or in a chocolate cake, SnT>Frantic Search.

Darkenslight

05-10-2015, 05:28 AM

Frantic Search with Dig through Time seems very saucy. As broken as I think Search is, SnT has to be more broken. In a vacuum, a blender, or in a chocolate cake, SnT>Frantic Search.

You've obviously never played with Frantic Search in Storm shells, then. The free mana is the most potent part of that card. Add in the fact that it's three mana towards DTT and you have a hell of a shell to build around.

Fatal

05-10-2015, 06:28 AM

I can see one important point why blue cantrip shell is so powerful - thanks to DTT most of those deck get CA, which wasn't before (Treasure Cruise was obv more broken), but that's not the point.

There are many slower decks which can easy win vs those cantriping tempo decks, but there is one type of decks which hold them - S&T variations. You almost can't fight them without stack control. Show & Tell targets are just too powerful:
- Omniscience
- Griselbrand

Those target's just overlap any option, without stopping S&T you mostly loses.

Other combo decks can be answer with permanent hate like hatebear, graveyard hate or removal - I mean mostly storm, gy based combos, even old Sneak & Show could be stopped by Needle + Karakas.

This mean slower, non-blue decks mostly autolose, so they can't go 9-0 without facing some autopiloted version of Omnisience, this mean only blue based heavy cantrip deck can competed on long range (sure you can win - but you need luck).

Remember years when Zoo / CB-Bant was dominating and tempo decks was almost non-existence, everything changes after printing few cards:
- 1 Mana - Wrath of God
- 1 Mana blue flying Nacatl
- Baragain on legs, then Omniscience

Those prints just cut of completely all archetype which keeps in check tempo blue decks. Why I should pick worst deck which loses vs Omnisience ?

Nail in the coffin was printing Blue (why ?!) Progenitus for 3.

So simple to resolve cantrip cartel - instead of banning each of them just resolve problems which hold other archetypes to compete:

- Terminus
- Delver of Secrets
- Omniscience / Griselbrand
- True-Name Nemesis

format again will be much opened and we will see big changes like Tribals, Zoo, Jund, Eva Green, Stompies, Stax and much more.

Admiral_Arzar

05-10-2015, 02:19 PM

So simple to resolve cantrip cartel - instead of banning each of them just resolve problems which hold other archetypes to compete:

- Terminus
- Delver of Secrets
- Omniscience / Griselbrand
- True-Name Nemesis

format again will be much opened and we will see big changes like Tribals, Zoo, Jund, Eva Green, Stompies, Stax and much more.

This man gets it. I've been making this exact argument on and off for some time, but it's usually ignored with "but that won't solve the Brainstorm problem" or something similar. People forget that only 4-5 years ago the format was only 50% blue and much healthier as well. Show and Tell combo is a huge offender here simply because it dodges most hate against the traditional combo pillars (stack-based engine combo and graveyard combo), while the effect that Terminus has had on aggressive decks is obvious. I believe if all the cards you listed were banned tomorrow (after an initial couple months of crying and chaos) we would have a much more diverse, fun, and skill-testing Legacy format.

Lemnear

05-10-2015, 03:16 PM

This man gets it. I've been making this exact argument on and off for some time, but it's usually ignored with "but that won't solve the Brainstorm problem" or something similar. People forget that only 4-5 years ago the format was only 50% blue and much healthier as well. Show and Tell combo is a huge offender here simply because it dodges most hate against the traditional combo pillars (stack-based engine combo and graveyard combo), while the effect that Terminus has had on aggressive decks is obvious. I believe if all the cards you listed were banned tomorrow (after an initial couple months of crying and chaos) we would have a much more diverse, fun, and skill-testing Legacy format.

For me this is the Vengevine-Fallacy. The format does not get any better if you keep S&T around and just have to wait for the next dumb fatty with Return to Zendikar coming and Emrakul legal. It would also not "solve" the issues of outdated Aggro types with Miracles. It is not much of a difference if you Terminus the board or create 4/4 "chumpblockers". We've seen 0 Terminus and 3-4 Entreats as a working concept before.

You are reverting the format back to where it was maybe three years ago and hope that the inevitable powercreep does not strike it again. Ain't working for long

Quasim0ff

05-10-2015, 03:25 PM

This man gets it. I've been making this exact argument on and off for some time, but it's usually ignored with "but that won't solve the Brainstorm problem" or something similar. People forget that only 4-5 years ago the format was only 50% blue and much healthier as well. Show and Tell combo is a huge offender here simply because it dodges most hate against the traditional combo pillars (stack-based engine combo and graveyard combo), while the effect that Terminus has had on aggressive decks is obvious. I believe if all the cards you listed were banned tomorrow (after an initial couple months of crying and chaos) we would have a much more diverse, fun, and skill-testing Legacy format.

No he doesn't. There's a reason Survival was banned, rather than creatures.

Besides: Blue being the de-facto BEST color is NOT a problem. The format is healthy, with a large difference in archetypes, which is what matters.

Fatal

05-10-2015, 04:34 PM

For me this is the Vengevine-Fallacy. The format does not get any better if you keep S&T around and just have to wait for the next dumb fatty with Return to Zendikar coming and Emrakul legal. It would also not "solve" the issues of outdated Aggro types with Miracles. It is not much of a difference if you Terminus the board or create 4/4 "chumpblockers". We've seen 0 Terminus and 3-4 Entreats as a working concept before.

You are reverting the format back to where it was maybe three years ago and hope that the inevitable powercreep does not strike it again. Ain't working for long

Dear @Lemnear

- I don't reverting the format back. I don't negate Deathrite Shaman or Abrupt Decay they are great, Red Hatebear - check, Black useful Sweeper - check, red "tarmogoyf" - check and many other useful cards printed last years. I just point cards which hold format in stagnation.

Everytime WotC printing overcosted Creature which in T2 has oracle "you win the game" I always think which impact it has on legacy and how to fight it. It's fun as long you found at the end solution which can give you advantage. There is a problem with Omnisience and Griselbrand - solution doesn't exist. Funny fact - before Omniscience I found that best answer will be ... Emrakul in hand, it also give edge vs Grindstone combo - it answer vs Griselbrand, and Emrakul (after legend rule changes even more).

Terminus cost W, EtA cost XWW so 3 mana is needed just to take effect - its big big difference - if you think it's the same try to fight any tempo/aggro deck with 4 EtA instead of Terminus and you get why it was only concept, at the end look how easy tokens can be took down vs how hard fight Terminus without stack control - read blue.

Lord_Mcdonalds

05-10-2015, 07:43 PM

TNN isn't really a problem as it is annoying, sure it with equipment is obnoxious but hardly oppressive, and banning terminus won't change th fact zoo and goblins cannot beat jitte or batterskull, zoo can race a terminus (via burn and cost efficient creatures) and goblins has plenty of card advantage, neither can effectively deal with an online batterskull or jitte.

Also, in banning delver, you basically take away one of miracles best MUs, why play jund or shardless when bug delver does something similar but also gets daze and a 3/2 flier, with no delver, barring an unforeseen archetype, jund and shardless are suddenly much more attractive options, both are strong tap out decks that have strong haymakers, jund being the more powerful deck and shardless being more consistent

I also feel in that list, you'd have to ban something from elves, as there is no reason I can think of to not play elves in a world with no terminus, no delver decks to randomly beat you, no show and tell to drop turn 2 griselbrand, all the fair decks basically don't do anything to you, sure combo bears you but I'm pretty sure you are favored against 70% of the format

Course banning delver would mean no more rug but that is a fair trade off

Kanti

05-10-2015, 09:38 PM

You've obviously never played with Frantic Search in Storm shells, then. The free mana is the most potent part of that card. Add in the fact that it's three mana towards DTT and you have a hell of a shell to build around.

I still feel that Omniscience would edge out any High Tide deck with Frantic Search in it, or at least be on par with it. My point is why am I spending 3 mana on a spell in a combo deck if it isn't called Show and Tell? And playing FS in a non-High Tide deck doesn't seem the best, as it's card disadvantage. I'd probably rather cast a Ponder, or just an actual spell there, even though it's feeding your graveyard for countless shenanigans.

FoolofaTook

05-10-2015, 11:11 PM

So simple to resolve cantrip cartel - instead of banning each of them just resolve problems which hold other archetypes to compete:

- Terminus
- Delver of Secrets
- Omniscience / Griselbrand
- True-Name Nemesis

format again will be much opened and we will see big changes like Tribals, Zoo, Jund, Eva Green, Stompies, Stax and much more.

This won't work though. It's the cantrip cartel that is powerful. It's ability to find cards and resolve land issues early is completely unparalleled by any other effect in the game.

The consistent list everybody hated in 2009 was RUG Canadian. The difference between 2009 and now is that almost every Legacy contender is using the cantrip cartel and has the same dominating consistency that RUG Canadian had back in the day. This is also why RUG Canadian is so much weaker now than it was back then despite the addition of Delver of Secrets. Lots of other lists got Delver of Secrets also but everybody decided the 8+ cantrip plan was the way to go and RUG's consistency is no longer dominant in and of itself.

Brainstorm and Ponder. Get rid of those and leave everything else as it is. It's worth the look.

Chatto

05-11-2015, 12:03 AM

(...)

Brainstorm and Ponder. Get rid of those and leave everything else as it is. It's worth the look.

It won't work, and besides: you're describing Modern.

M+1

05-11-2015, 12:14 AM

Brainstorm and Ponder. Get rid of those and leave everything else as it is. It's worth the look.
If Hasbro ever wanted to kill Legacy, this would be the way to do it. My guess is that more than half the player base would instantly rage quit.

Why is this thread the most active on this website? It is disturbing. I wonder if some of the most active posters ever have time to play the format.

FoolofaTook

05-11-2015, 12:17 AM

It won't work, and besides: you're describing Modern.

No, I'm describing Modern + duals + Force of Will and Daze + an absurd number of OP threats (Show and Tell, LED related mayhem and the Elves combos come to mind immediately).

Legacy is only all about Brainstorm and Ponder if WotC continues to let it be all about Brainstorm and Ponder.

Zombie

05-11-2015, 03:38 AM

No, I'm describing Modern + duals + Force of Will and Daze + an absurd number of OP threats (Show and Tell, LED related mayhem and the Elves combos come to mind immediately).

And Ancestral and StP and the actual card Counterspell. And Preordain, Jace, Library, Green Sun, Loam, Recurring Nightmare, Sol lands, Cradle, Sanctum and the decks they fuel, and the list goes on. There's a ton of Legacy outside Ponder and BS.

Lemnear

05-11-2015, 05:04 AM

And Ancestral and StP and the actual card Counterspell. And Preordain, Jace, Library, Green Sun, Loam, Recurring Nightmare, Sol lands, Cradle, Sanctum and the decks they fuel, and the list goes on. There's a ton of Legacy outside Ponder and BS.

You are talking about Preordain + SDT taking the slots and turning Legacy into UW Blade mirrors? (Hyperbole)

FoolofaTook

05-11-2015, 10:07 AM

You are talking about Preordain + SDT taking the slots and turning Legacy into UW Blade mirrors? (Hyperbole)

If that happened Jund would rule the meta. I don't think it will happen that way though. I think Preordain will take 4 of the slots and then we're up in the air as to where the shell goes from there. I think the meta would be substantially less blue, probably back towards the 50/50 thing we lived with from 2008 to 2010.

Lemnear

05-11-2015, 10:20 AM

If that happened Jund would rule the meta. I don't think it will happen that way though. I think Preordain will take 4 of the slots and then we're up in the air as to where the shell goes from there. I think the meta would be substantially less blue, probably back towards the 50/50 thing we lived with from 2008 to 2010.

So killing a lot of decks, reducing viable options and streamlining decks is just fine for the mere 20% drop of blue in the meta? Why is 50% blue fine and 70% isn't?

FoolofaTook

05-11-2015, 10:32 AM

So killing a lot of decks, reducing viable options and streamlining decks is just fine for the mere 20% drop of blue in the meta? Why is 50% blue fine and 70% isn't?

You're not killing a lot of decks you're just making them less consistent. In the process you're re-opening the option for decks like Zoo and Suicide to re-emerge and for decks like Jund and Maverick to compete on a more even basis.

It's not about what percentage is correct it's about not making one vector of play a no-brainer which is where we are at the moment. The vector you really want to use is blue cantrips to support whatever else you're doing. There is one very effective hate deck against that which is widely played, which is Death and Taxes. However D&T is not consistent enough to make more than rare appearances in the DTB section. Same for Elves, which is also widely played.

What's missing in this meta and has been for quite awhile is effective creature swarm strategies. That's because using cantrips to find 3 very powerful creatures is better than playing 3 very powerful creatures plus another 3 to 4 sets at the next tier down. It's the cantrips that cause the problem. You're always going to have 3 or 4 creatures that are the best. If that's all you have to play because you can reliably find them then very few other creatures will ever be played.

HSCK

05-11-2015, 10:35 AM

So killing a lot of decks, reducing viable options and streamlining decks is just fine for the mere 20% drop of blue in the meta? Why is 50% blue fine and 70% isn't?

Because Blue is evil and everyone one here is sure that attendance would skyrocket if the monster is slain. Also, Miracles and Storm are basically the same deck, etc.

Bed Decks Palyer

05-11-2015, 11:27 AM

So killing a lot of decks, reducing viable options and streamlining decks is just fine?
That's Brainstorm's fault. Exactly what the card and the color blue does.

Chatto

05-11-2015, 11:44 AM

Is there a possibility to unban cards instead banning cards? Could be interesting as well. Unless something dramatic happens BS will never be banned.

Zilla

05-11-2015, 11:53 AM

That's Brainstorm's fault. Exactly what the card and the color blue does.
Which decks specifically has Brainstorm pushed out of the meta?

apple713

05-11-2015, 12:55 PM

Which decks specifically has Brainstorm pushed out of the meta?

EVERY deck that would be efficient without it's inclusion are only made less attractive by its inclusion in the format. Thus having it in the format is likely to increase the number of decks playing or at the least, splashing blue for its inclusion.

remove brainstorm and its not likely people are splashing blue for ponder...maybe in modern but not legacy

The only way to really rebalance the banned and restricted list is to have a mass unbanning and then start chipping away at it like new.

If only they had a way to test this without affecting tournament play?... oh wait they do... MODO...and since its online the format adapts faster too.

Dice_Box

05-11-2015, 01:21 PM

I would argue the amount of decks that going to be "Splashing Blue" are in fact very low. Most decks are at the core Blue that is splashing other colours so the argument that Brainstorm would lead people to splash and play it I think is fundamentally wrong. People are interested in more than just Brainstorm and the lists we see reflect that. Ponder, Daze, Force, Probe, this class of cards together make a core of cards that is much stronger than the sum of its parts. People have little incentive to splash for Brainstorm if they are not in need of it. People though are incentivised to play that core of cards. Brainstorm in this regard is another cog in a mechine and not itself the mechanism of the formats destruction.

maharis

05-11-2015, 01:36 PM

I'll meet halfway. TNN and Terminus are annoying and somewhat obnoxious, but they really require a lot of support and setup before that. I wouldn't miss either, but I think they're fine.

I think that banning Show & Tell and Counterbalance would be enough to make non-blue consistency engines worth playing, because there's a lot less "whoops I lose because I can't interact with this." Further, neither discard nor hatebears are as effective against either deck as they are against decks like Storm (which needs raw cards in hand to an extent, and is churning through mana).

The presence of both forces non-blue decks to devote more of their sideboards to deal with one or the other or both, diluting their matchups elsewhere. Most non-blue consistency engines are grindy by nature, so they should be able to grind out blue fair decks with higher card quality before getting an advantage engine online. Nic Fit is a good example -- the deck is very solid and actually pretty consistent, but has to completely warp itself to have a decent shot against Miracles or S&T, even BUG versions.

But I think Legacy players talking about banning a 1/1 for U sound soft and whiny. If this is the format where you have to be prepared, even after the bannings I suggest, to prepare for turn 2-3 kills from Storm and/or Elves, or start your turn 2 knowing that if you pass you're getting Batterskull dumped in your lap, or stop in your upkeep to have your only land ported, we should be able to to deal with a conditional 3/2 flyer with no natural defenses.

"But maharis, why is Legacy better with no Miracles and with no Show & Tell?"

The same reason it's better with no Survival of the Fittest or Flash. (And there's no reason Miracles couldn't exist still, it would just be more vulnerable early). If these spells survive the stack, the path uphill is far more difficult.

Finn

05-11-2015, 01:47 PM

What's missing in this meta and has been for quite awhile is effective creature swarm strategies. That's because using cantrips to find 3 very powerful creatures is better than playing 3 very powerful creatures plus another 3 to 4 sets at the next tier down. It's the cantrips that cause the problem. You're always going to have 3 or 4 creatures that are the best. If that's all you have to play because you can reliably find them then very few other creatures will ever be played.

QFT

But Lemnear has been told all of these things quite a few times. I don't think his mind can be changed by stating the same ideas again.

Which decks specifically has Brainstorm pushed out of the meta?
@Zilla: I don't know that this is a fruitful way to approach that question. While I am confident that you could point a finger at stuff like the Loam decks and Maverick which have spiffy card engines of their own, these are inferior to just having cantrips. The Gentleman's Agreement fiasco was particularly funny/foolish because they banned the wrong card. That is to say, Reanimator, Show and Tell and Storm are all still doing fairly well because Mystical Tutor was not the best enabler they had. But the point I want to make is that the decks don't so much get shoved OUT as they do never get IN in the first place. Hence, we never sear about them because they can't dent the format.

Lord_Mcdonalds

05-11-2015, 02:36 PM

But I think Legacy players talking about banning a 1/1 for U sound soft and whiny. If this is the format where you have to be prepared, even after the bannings I suggest, to prepare for turn 2-3 kills from Storm and/or Elves, or start your turn if you pass you're getting Batterskull dumped in your lap, or stop in your upkeep to have your only land ported, we should be able to to deal with a conditional 3/2 flyer with no natural defenses..

This is incredibly disingenuous, and you should know that

Strictly speaking, Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape are both 1/1's but no one evaluates those cards like that, they are more often 2/2-3/3 or 2/3, and are evaluated as such, the same thing with delver, sure it's a bit more conditional (it needs to flip as opposed to playing lands) but the condition it needs to flip is incredibly easy to achieve, in any format with good disruption, delver is a 3/2 flier.

Sure we need to be prepared for those things, but those things aren't backed with daze and force, elves isn't going to daze your toxic deluge, stone blade doesn't usually stifle your liliana, and storm doesn't typically hymn you, delver is going to, and, more often then not,when you do kill it, it's costed you a lot to do so.

Lemnear

05-11-2015, 02:41 PM

You're not killing a lot of decks you're just making them less consistent. In the process you're re-opening the option for decks like Zoo and Suicide to re-emerge and for decks like Jund and Maverick to compete on a more even basis.

You keep repeating the stupid idea that people will keep playing decks like Miracles even without Brainstorm to make a point? I commented on this bullshit already three times and gave reasons why it is nonsense. I don't know why you are running in circles here.

What's missing in this meta and has been for quite awhile is effective creature swarm strategies. That's because using cantrips to find 3 very powerful creatures is better than playing 3 very powerful creatures plus another 3 to 4 sets at the next tier down. It's the cantrips that cause the problem. You're always going to have 3 or 4 creatures that are the best. If that's all you have to play because you can reliably find them then very few other creatures will ever be played.

I don't get the idea why you think "creature swarm" should be a viable and successful strategy in Legacy. Is there ANY official guideline that kt has to be the case? It's YOUR OWN point of view. It's on the same level as demanding that Mill should be a successful strategy in Vintage and that WotC should ban all cards that oppress Mill from being competitive.

I'm far too liberal in regards to strategies and them dying over the years as the game evolves to stick to the idea of a certain everlasting metagame structure. Vintage is nowhere near the format it was like 8 years ago as the only playable creatures were Goblin Welder and Darksteel Colossus for example. Ergo calling a format flawed, if strategies die out is idiocy. You guys didn't care as Landstill died, did you? You however make a big deal if Death and Taxes replaces Goblins as the formats prime mono-colored Vial.dec! You didn't gave a fuck as UG Madness died, but you cried as Manadorks (Hierarch/DRS) fueled TNN instead of KotR

QFT

But Lemnear has been told all of these things quite a few times. I don't think his mind can be changed by stating the same ideas again.

I have indeed talked about possible outcomes and different scenarios several times, then the discussion abates just to pop up a few weeks later with the same flawed logic brought up by the same people (see FoolofaTook) and I opt to stop my repeating one-sided analysis which only met by "but color-equality!" or other casual bullshit and straight move to insults as those usually seem to provoke more clever responses than logic lines of thought.

Zilla

05-11-2015, 03:37 PM

Which decks specifically has Brainstorm pushed out of the meta?
@Zilla: I don't know that this is a fruitful way to approach that question.
I agree wholeheartedly, but I was responding to a comment that framed it in this context.

Brainstorm doesn't really edge out decks - it just forces those decks to run Brainstorm also. Colors are so easy to splash in this format that running blue for the Brainstorm/Fetch engine is elementary. Whether this is a good or bad thing is most certainly a matter of debate (see 500+ pages of this thread,) but it is what it is. It can easily be argued that as many or more decks are propped up by the consistency of the Brainstorm engine than are pushed out by it.

Bed Decks Palyer

05-12-2015, 03:13 AM

I have indeed talked about possible outcomes and different scenarios several times, then the discussion abates just to pop up a few weeks later with the same flawed logic brought up by the same people (see FoolofaTook) and I opt to stop my repeating one-sided analysis which only met by "but color-equality!" or other casual bullshit and straight move to insults as those usually seem to provoke more clever responses than logic lines of thought.

I like your humility and openess to discussion. Clearly, calling other people's opinions a "flawed logic" while bringing your own personal taste as a God-given knowledge is how a debate should look like.
Your one-sided analysis have nothing to do with power of Brainstorm and the fact that the card is miles ahead of anything else available in Legacy pool is what should be discussed, not the casual bullshit like "I love to play with a card" etc. etc., 500 pages.

Lemnear

05-12-2015, 05:55 AM

I like your humility and openess to discussion. Clearly, calling other people's opinions a "flawed logic" while bringing your own personal taste as a God-given knowledge is how a debate should look like.
Your one-sided analysis have nothing to do with power of Brainstorm and the fact that the card is miles ahead of anything else available in Legacy pool is what should be discussed, not the casual bullshit like "I love to play with a card" etc. etc., 500 pages.

Do you pass on the ignorance of not-reading-but-commenting to your children or teach you them to comprehend what was written? "Swarm Creature Strategies should be part of Legacy", "All colors should be equal", "Miracles and SneakShow are playable wihtout Brainstorm" and "blue is bad for the experience players have" bears no personal taste or stupidity for you, but if I outlined several times the possible results of lost consistancy and hand-manipulation for decks like Miracles, Storm, S&T, Foodchain, etc. when it's personal taste only?

Explain me with sane reason why Miracles and SneakShow should be able to maintain and continue to perform well if their glue is gone? Why should anyone bother with clunky Miracles in their deck anymore if they have lost Brainstorm to get rid of them instead of running UW Blade which has basically no "dead" draws at all? I never heared any counterargument at all, which would be a start, but instead FoolofaTook and others just plain repeat their initial bold statements. Fantastic discussion culture #Sarcasm. Claiming that these decks stay viable but are only slightly nerfed is "flawed logic" for obvious reasons imo.

Dood, NO ONE is saying Brainstorm isn't MILES ahead in terms of cardselection. No one ever has, so don't make a point out of it. The point is, and ever was, that this fact IS NOT a ban criteria itself #StrategicDiversity #BackboneOfTheFormat #LikeMoxenInVintage

Bed Decks Palyer

05-12-2015, 09:22 AM

No, you still learned nothing. You're still arguing from a position of personal taste, like it or not. And your gusto is equal to any other's, it's not like you're bearer of ultimate truth.

There's no point for Zoo being viable and similarly there's no point for Miracles being viable, no "deck" is sacred. There are no decks, just legal cards. If BS is too powerful for Legacy, then it should get of the format no matter how would "Miracles" look like post-ban or whatever.

Explain me with sane reason why Miracles and SneakShow should be able to maintain and continue to perform well if their glue is gone? Well, maybe it shouldn't. Nobody cares.

Claiming that these decks stay viable but are only slightly nerfed is "flawed logic" for obvious reasons imo.
I give zero fucks if someone's pet deck will be lawful viable, chaotic average, lightly nerfed or totally dead. If the card is stifling the format, then it should be gone. There's other Magic than Brainstorm, the whole of the game's history should be a testimony of that. It's worth a reminder that until recently, the format was never reduced or polarized into Brainstorm decks vs. hatedecks. And it was much more enjoyable.

Star|Scream

05-12-2015, 09:35 AM

It's worth a reminder that until recently, the format was never reduced or polarized into Brainstorm decks vs. hatedecks. And it was much more enjoyable.

No, you still learned nothing. You're still arguing from a position of personal taste, like it or not. And your gusto is equal to any other's, it's not like you're bearer of ultimate truth.

^^ Take your own advice.

Lemnear

05-12-2015, 10:28 AM

There's no point for Zoo being viable and similarly there's no point for Miracles being viable, no "deck" is sacred. There are no decks, just legal cards. If BS is too powerful for Legacy, then it should get of the format no matter how would "Miracles" look like post-ban or whatever.

I give zero fucks if someone's pet deck will be lawful viable, chaotic average, lightly nerfed or totally dead. If the card is stifling the format, then it should be gone. There's other Magic than Brainstorm, the whole of the game's history should be a testimony of that. It's worth a reminder that until recently, the format was never reduced or polarized into Brainstorm decks vs. hatedecks. And it was much more enjoyable.

You don't care about decks being viable or dead and still whine like a little girl if viable decks without Brainstorm are limited. Schizophrenic? You also don't want to argue against my points in regards to "Miracles w/o Brainstorm is not a deck" which you attacked me first for?

also +1 to Star|Scream

M+1

05-12-2015, 12:08 PM

And it was much more enjoyable.
Now there is a personal opinion... I have been playing Legacy since its inception, as you probably have, and I have never enjoyed the format as much as I do right now.
For the record.
Maybe reevaluate your life, or relationship with the game in general?

solidbass

05-12-2015, 12:52 PM

So I think the right question to ask is: is 80% of decks running Brainstorm too much? Probably. So should Brainstorm be banned? Probably not. Why? It doesn't stifle diversity because all decks types that can and do run it. Color diversity and specific deck types don't need to exist in Legacy at an equal ratio. In fact, I don't think blue was ever 2nd tier in legacy and there is nothing wrong with that.

Anyways, to get to my point, if Brainstorm continues to put up 80%+ results then Dig through Time will/should get banned. Which would, I believe, indirectly decrease Brainstorm's dominance (and to a lesser extent ponder, g probe, preordain) in the format.

Julian23

05-12-2015, 01:07 PM

Now there is a personal opinion... I have been playing Legacy since its inception, as you probably have, and I have never enjoyed the format as much as I do right now.

I've always been around since Legacy became a format and have to say that the only times I have enjoyed the format less was during the Flash era and the first rise of Counterbalance in 2009, before Alara.

I however don't think that this is Brainstorm's fault. I really don't care what happens to the card. I don't mind seeing it legal, but I also would be excited to see where we would end up if it was banned. The only cards I really care about right now are Top and Terminus, the two real oppressors of the format.

Brainstorm doesn't kill decks. Terminus does.

rufus

05-12-2015, 01:08 PM

So I think the right question to ask is: is 80% of decks running Brainstorm too much? Probably. So should Brainstorm be banned? Probably not. Why? It doesn't stifle diversity because all decks types that can and do run it. Color diversity and specific deck types don't need to exist in Legacy at an equal ratio. In fact, I don't think blue was ever 2nd tier in legacy and there is nothing wrong with that. ...

Would having 80% of decks running Necropotence or Mental Misstep be too much? Both of those will work just fine "all deck types that can and do run" them, so they should unbannable by the same reasoning, right?

Zombie

05-12-2015, 01:13 PM

Now there is a personal opinion... I have been playing Legacy since its inception, as you probably have, and I have never enjoyed the format as much as I do right now.
For the record.
Maybe reevaluate your life, or relationship with the game in generel?

He's way ahead of you on that.

Fatal

05-12-2015, 01:22 PM

Agreed with Julian

Brainstorm doesn't kill decks. Terminus does.

Brainstorm just power up Terminus when you start game with Terminus on hand, or draw it when not needed. Which can be connected with any card brainstorm is just:
- Enabler for bad draws with replacing 3 cards with better CQ on instant
- Protection key cards vs discard CA

Lemnear

05-12-2015, 01:28 PM

Would having 80% of decks running Necropotence or Mental Misstep be too much? Both of those will work just fine "all deck types that can and do run" them, so they should unbannable by the same reasoning, right?

Cards like necropotence as example are out of context as they don't fuel various strategies if unbanned and the same is somewhat true for Misstep as well. You had a better point if you picked Black Lotus as it serves various Archetypes (if we ignore the result, that games would be pretty swingy and full of random blowouts which is undesirable)

Admiral_Arzar

05-12-2015, 03:46 PM

Cards like necropotence as example are out of context as they don't fuel various strategies if unbanned and the same is somewhat true for Misstep as well. You had a better point if you picked Black Lotus as it serves various Archetypes (if we ignore the result, that games would be pretty swingy and full of random blowouts which is undesirable)

Necropotence is perfectly capable of fueling engine combo, A+B combo, control, even sui aggro (and it has demonstrably done so during the periods where it wrecked formats), so I don't see the point of this post. The Skull is arguably the BEST comparison card to Brainstorm, because it is/was a beloved but broken card that fueled many different archetypes.

Lemnear

05-12-2015, 04:36 PM

Necropotence is perfectly capable of fueling engine combo, A+B combo, control, even sui aggro (and it has demonstrably done so during the periods where it wrecked formats), so I don't see the point of this post. The Skull is arguably the BEST comparison card to Brainstorm, because it is/was a beloved but broken card that fueled many different archetypes.

I don't think we should look at Necro based on how it worked in Aggro during Pro Tour NY Qualifiers in '96 or as a combo engine in Pro Tour Chicago in '99 if it's clear that the Card screams for Dark/Cabal Ritual all over which pairs poorly with what we consider "control" today. It's like pointing at Yagmoths Will and the fact that is was played in control desk as well as combo decks while it would be pretty obvious in which archetype of today the card really shines

FoolofaTook

05-12-2015, 05:05 PM

If Necropotence was still as powerful as it was back in the late 90's it would just get incorporated into the blue shell even with the :b::b::b: requirement. Other archetypes would use it also but they wouldn't be able to find it as reliably as a list with Brainstorm and they wouldn't be able to exchange chaff from the pulls as easily. It might push Ponder out of the shell though. Spending a lot of life to get a lot of cantrips, lands, extra Necros and the odd dark ritual doesn't sound like the best way to make use of it.

If a card is powerful enough to be worth playing in a vacuum at this point it's going to be better in the blue shell than anywhere else. Think Ad Nauseum, Liliana of the Veil and Hymn to Tourach for reference. They're all powerful outside the blue shell but which lists make the best use of them in top 8's?

eays

05-12-2015, 08:55 PM

The feel bad card of the moment for me seems to be dig through time. Does anyone feel like this card is to good? Am I crazy? It honestly feels as back breaking/game ending as cruise when it resolves in the decks is used in. Open to criticism on my opinion of course. Pay two mana for instant speed double tutor...is bad feels.

Finn

05-12-2015, 09:35 PM

It definitely pushes the envelope. I find myself cutting other elements out of my designs just so that I can fuel this card better. That says a lot to me. The thing is that they tempered its power by saddling it with a double color requirement; UU. It is not really much of an issue at all when building or playing the card though. GG would be an obstacle, or WW or RR or BB, but UU is a natural event in the mana development of the decks that card finds itself in. It may as well be 1U.

solidbass

05-12-2015, 10:35 PM

Yeah, I think Dig through Time will get the axe. It's too good.

Lemnear

05-13-2015, 06:28 AM

Yeah, I think Dig through Time will get the axe. It's too good.

Remember then I freaked out in the Spoiler thread over TC/DTT and mentioned Tombstalker as clear hint that the Delve-Mechanic is plain broken next to Storm? WotC is really run by people not playtesting cards and mechanics at all

rufus

05-13-2015, 08:03 AM

Yeah, I think Dig through Time will get the axe. It's too good.

DTT may well be stronger than treasure cruise. I've been cynically wondering whether the rarity keeps them from banning it right away.

Lemnear

05-13-2015, 08:19 AM

DTT may well be stronger than treasure cruise. I've been cynically wondering whether the rarity keeps them from banning it right away.

You have every right to by cynical as there is no sane reason to ban TC (because the delve-mechanic is obviously broke and too easy to abuse) and not the other dumb, also blue Delve-Spell as well. I mean, DTT had it's breakthrough in S&T variants right before TC was banned and it was about as easily abusable as TC in Delver to create cardadvantage/-selection

FoolofaTook

05-13-2015, 09:47 AM

DTT may be broken but like many cards in the "may be broken" category it has the "screws up your draw in the wrong opening hand" problem.

I wonder what card fixes bad DTT draws easily and thus enables it as a 3 and 4-of despite it's unwieldy cost early in the game and the near impossibility of casting 2 of them until the game has become quite mature? What card finds it easily and provides additional fuel for it in the finding process? What card could that possibly be?

Hmmm. It's a conundrum.

Star|Scream

05-13-2015, 10:44 AM

FoolofaTook

05-13-2015, 10:48 AM

When you find out which card it is, let us know because I definitely want to play 4 of them in all my decks!!!

So does everybody else. That's the problem. 56 card format for the win.

Why is DTT broken right now? Because it's very powerful and it slides into the blue shell. How do we know that both considerations are true? Because nobody plays it outside the blue shell. Nobody plays Dig Through Time in the absence of Brainstorm.

The next question becomes at what level will DTT settle in most of the lists that play it? 2, 3 or 4? It won't go into all blue shell lists only because some lists do not want the :u::u: requirement even in the mid-game.

HSCK

05-13-2015, 10:54 AM

Raystar

05-13-2015, 11:52 AM

I'm sure lots of people would play that format and that it's pretty popular, except for like 9 or 10 that get angry on forums.

It's more than 9 or 10...but people have better thing to do that to argue here...

Zilla

05-13-2015, 11:58 AM

The Skull is arguably the BEST comparison card to Brainstorm, because it is/was a beloved but broken card that fueled many different archetypes.
It's a poor comparison. Games are not determined by who is able to resolve Brainstorm first.

Lemnear

05-13-2015, 12:32 PM

So does everybody else. That's the problem. 56 card format for the win.

Why is DTT broken right now? Because it's very powerful and it slides into the blue shell. How do we know that both considerations are true? Because nobody plays it outside the blue shell. Nobody plays Dig Through Time in the absence of Brainstorm.

The next question becomes at what level will DTT settle in most of the lists that play it? 2, 3 or 4? It won't go into all blue shell lists only because some lists do not want the :u::u: requirement even in the mid-game.

Yeah, what an wicked format in which spells with :u::u: costs are only played in decks containing Islands *eyesroll*

Nobody plays DTT in the absence of Brainstorm? Ever looked at Moderns Twin (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=8941&d=251016&f=MO) or Scapeshift (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=8899&d=250755&f=MO)? Intentional ignoring of facts, hu?

Barook

05-13-2015, 12:44 PM

Why is DTT broken right now?
- being brutally undercosted due to cheap feeding methods, aka fetches + cheap spells (espcially cantrips in general)
- any attempt of interacting with the DTT player results in fodder for them

Delve into CA is an utterly retarded mechanic.

rufus

05-13-2015, 01:25 PM

- being brutally undercosted due to cheap feeding methods, aka fetches + cheap spells (espcially cantrips in general)
- any attempt of interacting with the DTT player results in fodder for them

Delve into CA is an utterly retarded mechanic.

We haven't seen a whole lot of Tasigur's Cruelty have we? The more board advantage oriented delve cards like Empty the Pits, or Sibsig Muckdraggers haven't really made any kind of splash either.

Star|Scream

05-13-2015, 01:40 PM

It's more than 9 or 10...but people have better thing to do that to argue here...

Apparently, they don't.

Barook

05-13-2015, 01:49 PM

We haven't seen a whole lot of Tasigur's Cruelty have we? The more board advantage oriented delve cards like Empty the Pits, or Sibsig Muckdraggers haven't really made any kind of splash either.
Empty the Pits is pretty meh, Sibsig Muckdraggers's effect is crap and why would anyone play Tasigur's Cruelty over Hymn?

eays

05-13-2015, 02:56 PM

Admiral_Arzar

05-13-2015, 03:12 PM

I am glad many of the knowledgeable people of this forum agree with me that dig is totally borked. I think Wizards at the time thought dig safer for legacy cause cruise decks kept dig decks in check...or perpaps ppl were still figuring out the right shell for it. But there is no doubt it my mind that in snt...miracles...blue midrange control...it's nothing short of broken. It's not just raw card advantage it's also card selection...at instant speed...and is fueled by simply playing magic.

I about crapped my pants when I saw Dig just because of the implications for my favorite pet deck (Spiral Tide). I can confirm that Dig is utterly busted in that deck and probably every other as well. I'm still waiting for WOTC to learn their lesson regarding mechanics that make spells free and/or cost a whole lot less than they should. I mean, how many more mistakes do they need to make to avoid such obvious blunders? It only takes one mistake per mechanic - every Cascade spell besides Bloodbraid Elf was balanced (Bituminous Blast) or just straight bad (pretty much everything else). But that one card wrecked two formats, finally getting the banhammer in the second. Phyrexian mana is the same story only replace Elf with Misstep.

Lord Seth

05-13-2015, 03:42 PM

DTT may well be stronger than treasure cruise. I've been cynically wondering whether the rarity keeps them from banning it right away.Extremely unlikely. It didn't stop them from banning it in Modern alongside Treasure Cruise. Heck, it's only recently that it's started to gain steam in Legacy; its monetary value (which wasn't really that much) was basically entirely from its play in Standard at the time of the last banning announcement. And it's not even in the top 10 most played cards in Standard, so it's sure as heck not going to get banned there.

eays

05-13-2015, 03:57 PM

Ok so consensus is dig is busted. I would not be sad to see it gone before it becomes the format defining card and a staple which certain spikes are too attached to.

I have another card that bothers me and while I don't think it would ever be a banning candidate. ..what do ppl think of gitaxian probe? I might get hate for this but i hate this catd.Complete information is so powerful in legacy and to get it for free...it seems like a under talked about all star card with a rediculously powerful effect to have for free.

Julian23

05-13-2015, 04:07 PM

Once real Aggro becomes a thing again, you will think twice before putting Gitaxian Probe into your non-combo deck.

sjmcc13

05-13-2015, 04:08 PM

I'm still waiting for WOTC to learn their lesson regarding mechanics that make spells free and/or cost a whole lot less than they should. They learned the lesson back in Saga block, they just "forgot" (stopped caring) it after Lorwyn.
Free/reduced spells come up a couple times between the Saga untap and Cascade, and the worst (most busted) one was Tombstalker
The masques free spells saw some play but none were busted on their own (though invigorate + infect is bad, but that is on infect).
The shoals did not do that much o their own.
Even the first set of delve cards were not that busted.

Once we get into the NWO sets they pretty much do not care anymore, and do not look at eternal at all, as they would require competent developers who care about more then just Limited play. Paying attention to the past, even the obvious mistakes requires to much effort for them now, which is bad since they have proven the old saying about not learning from the past a couple times since then. It sometimes feels like they are trying for some wet dream Maro had of a completely creature focused Casual Kitchen Table Magic with high variance causing games to rely more on luck then skill/strategy, which ends up getting Magic classified as a Gambling Game and killing organized play.

eays

05-13-2015, 04:17 PM

Once real Aggro becomes a thing again, you will think twice before putting Gitaxian Probe into your non-combo deck.

It's a good point Julian. It's really good in current Meta but perhaps not future ones if something causes mid range...combo...control not to be dominant forces.

Barook

05-13-2015, 04:32 PM

I about crapped my pants when I saw Dig just because of the implications for my favorite pet deck (Spiral Tide). I can confirm that Dig is utterly busted in that deck and probably every other as well. I'm still waiting for WOTC to learn their lesson regarding mechanics that make spells free and/or cost a whole lot less than they should. I mean, how many more mistakes do they need to make to avoid such obvious blunders? It only takes one mistake per mechanic - every Cascade spell besides Bloodbraid Elf was balanced (Bituminous Blast) or just straight bad (pretty much everything else). But that one card wrecked two formats, finally getting the banhammer in the second. Phyrexian mana is the same story only replace Elf with Misstep.
It's not like Gitaxian Probe is much better. The card is annoying as hell, but not really banworthy. Note how nobody plays Peek, despite being an instant.

Once real Aggro becomes a thing again, you will think twice before putting Gitaxian Probe into your non-combo deck.
That one would require a good chunk of bans. Or printing hyper-aggro cards that don't go into blue decks - while still making Terminus unusable via bans.

So, basically, never?

ahg113

05-13-2015, 04:50 PM

Once real Aggro becomes a thing again, you will think twice before putting Gitaxian Probe into your non-combo deck.

That one would require a good chunk of bans. Or printing hyper-aggro cards that don't go into blue decks - while still making Terminus unusable via bans.

So, basically, never?

Was unsure if original comment was sarcastic, unsure how to interpret. Barook's reply contains many shared sentiments...

LOLWut

05-13-2015, 05:05 PM

Once real Aggro becomes a thing again, you will think twice before putting Gitaxian Probe into your non-combo deck.

That one would require a good chunk of bans. Or printing hyper-aggro cards that don't go into blue decks - while still making Terminus unusable via bans.

So, basically, never?

Burn, Lamb of Aggro, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

ahg113

05-13-2015, 05:09 PM

Burn, Lamb of Aggro, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Don't disagree, also do not think that was the intended example of 'aggro'. But yes, Burn is an aggro deck, sometimes blurred lines with combo (I disagree).

When one says aggro, Zoo and Affinity, maybe even Merfolk, are the flag bearers of choice and recognition.

So, even with Burn being a thing ever so sporadically often, G.Probe keeps on trucking. Thus, it is not the aggro answer that was being sought/contemplated.

Ellomdian

05-13-2015, 05:56 PM

So does everybody else. That's the problem. 56 card format for the win.

Serious question (that I expect to be ridiculed for...)

Do you enjoy playing or watching Vintage?

The nature of 'Eternal' formats is that they will typically, over time, become more and more narrow because the cards that are 'the best ???? ever" are harder and harder to supplant. It's been pretty shocking to see what's happened over the last decade in Vintage, because there is actually more Diversity at a given event now that I can remember, even though a huge portion of the format is effectively required to run the same 10-12 cards.

Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy' as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. I'm going to be frank - this is an idiotic metric. I've been playing Limited for 2 Decades now, whether a casual, I just bought a starter-kind, or a sanctioned format-kind, and more often than not, every time I see a card that I used to love playing in Limited, it is so far from being playable in any constructed format ever that it's laughable to think that a format is somehow defined by having a huge percentage of playables.

I get it - there are people who experience emotional anguish every time someone casts Brainstorm against them. Or more often than not, when someone does it at a table in a room they aren't even in, since they don't actually play anymore because of the trauma the 1CMC Instant has caused them. But, to be blunt, the same thing happens every single time someone casts Ancestral Recall in Vintage - someone is playing a card that is head-and-shoulders better than the rest of the cards in their deck. I enjoy that people cast Preordain, not because they necessarily want to, but because it's the closest analogue to the best card in their deck that they can legally play.

Whether anyone wants to accept it or not, Blue was traditionally the color that was given the strongest effects in the game for many, many years. The fact that so many decks play with Blue cards is an intrinsic function of the games LEGACY. And the continual gnashing of teeth about it has been a Religion for many people for years now.

So, fine. Prepare your sermons, fire up the congregation, and continue to run this thread into the rut that requires special rules on this site to handle.

As for me and my house, I really just wish they'd unban Imperial Seal.

Julian23

05-13-2015, 07:18 PM

I've actually discussed this quite a lot. I don't think Seal would be anywhere near as crazy as it first seems.

Quasim0ff

05-13-2015, 07:20 PM

I've actually discussed this quite a lot. I don't think Seal would be anywhere near as crazy as it first seems.
I think you're mistaken.

Seal would make storm and (fast) combo decks omnipresent. That card + Probe makes lines so easy to deduce for a decent storm player.

btm10

05-13-2015, 07:44 PM

I think you're mistaken.

Seal would make storm and (fast) combo decks omnipresent. That card + Probe makes lines so easy to deduce for a decent storm player.

I'm not convinced. Personal Tutor is legal and isn't played in Storm or Show and Tell decks despite finding half of the combo in the latter and everything except LED in the former. I'd be open to seeing it unbanned.

Bed Decks Palyer

05-13-2015, 10:53 PM

Maybe reevaluate your life, or relationship with the game in general?

Keep he personal things for PMs. However... yes, I'm in a MtG hiatus ever since Treasure Cruise was printed, as the card reinforced my opinion that the game is turning to shit. But I still got a set of Savannahs and Heaths in case something happens.

@ Lemnear + Starscream: I'm not the one who defends cards based on his/her gusto, neither do I care about specific "decks" like e.g. "Miracles" or whatever. Also, this discusion is pointless, it's not like anybodyin DCI/Wotc cares, so you may argue however you wish to (or not), and nothing changes until the field will be 95% saturated with Brainstorm decks #enjoytheUSD500blueduals #sevenpeopleweeklies #roboticgameplay

Nuke is Good

05-13-2015, 11:20 PM

I've actually discussed this quite a lot. I don't think Seal would be anywhere near as crazy as it first seems.

It's availability would prevent it from being omnipresent in decks as well. Though...I'd have to buy another 3 seals.

Dice_Box

05-14-2015, 01:25 AM

#enjoytheUSD500blueduals

At lest you are finally being honest about what drives your vitriol and blind hate.

CabalTherapy

05-14-2015, 05:21 AM

But I still got a set of Savannahs and Heaths in case something happens.

At least you have kept the good stuff. :laugh:

Lemnear

05-14-2015, 06:38 AM

Serious question (that I expect to be ridiculed for...)

Do you enjoy playing or watching Vintage?

The nature of 'Eternal' formats is that they will typically, over time, become more and more narrow because the cards that are 'the best ???? ever" are harder and harder to supplant. It's been pretty shocking to see what's happened over the last decade in Vintage, because there is actually more Diversity at a given event now that I can remember, even though a huge portion of the format is effectively required to run the same 10-12 cards.

Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy' as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. I'm going to be frank - this is an idiotic metric.

http://media0.giphy.com/media/11uArCoB4fkRcQ/giphy.gif

YamiJoey

05-14-2015, 07:46 AM

"Every mechanic has one busted card."

There are literally zero busted cards for their Mechanics in Dragons of Tarkir.
Khans has Cruise as an OP card, the other four mechanics had zero. Dig is good, but not broken. It costs 2 and is bad in multiples.
Convoke in M15 had zero.
There are no playable Devotion, Heroic, Inspired, or Bestow cards.
Detain, Extort, Battalion, Populate, Cipher, Overload, Evolve, Unleash, Scavenge, and Bloodrush see zero Legacy play.

Apart from Cruise and Dig, we've seen no card with a mechanic that really breaks into Legacy since Miracles. That's nearly 3-years, and Terminus isn't exactly opressive, just really good, like Delver, or Stoneforge.

Barook

05-14-2015, 07:53 AM

It's been pretty shocking to see what's happened over the last decade in Vintage, because there is actually more Diversity at a given event now that I can remember, even though a huge portion of the format is effectively required to run the same 10-12 cards.
The last thing Legacy should become is Vintage 2.0, a format that has been either dead or not very popular for God knows how long.

Vintage is far from being a format for everybody. Not everybody is a fan of Workshop, Dredge and different "Shades of Blue" (where combo, control and aggro share a good chunk of the same core). That's why it's doing just "okay" on MODO, despite key Vintage cards being comparably dirt cheap online.

But to come back on topic: Would it be still as "diverse" if Brainstorm and Ponder weren't restricted? I remember some doomsayers calling for the end of the format back then after their restrictions. I see parallels with the same repeating discussion in this thread where some people call for the end of the format with tons of people ragequitting if their "Pillar of the Format" Brainstorm is gone while others argue that the format would become more diverse without it in the long run.

Dice_Box

05-14-2015, 08:08 AM

Vintage just has not been very accessible. It's not dead and it's popular now.

Julian23

05-14-2015, 08:12 AM

Terminus isn't exactly opressive, just really good

:eyebrow:....:rolleyes:....:confused:

It's the single most opressive card in Legacy.

Finn

05-14-2015, 08:30 AM

:eyebrow:....:rolleyes:....:confused:

It's the single most opressive card in Legacy.
...for Elves. Not for everyone.

And just sayin...Miracles would not exist without Brainstorm. Terminus sits upon an artificial pedestal.

FoolofaTook

05-14-2015, 08:48 AM

The last thing Legacy should become is Vintage 2.0, a format that has been either dead or not very popular for God knows how long.

Vintage is far from being a format for everybody. Not everybody is a fan of Workshop, Dredge and different "Shades of Blue" (where combo, control and aggro share a good chunk of the same core). That's why it's doing just "okay" on MODO, despite key Vintage cards being comparably dirt cheap online.

But to come back on topic: Would it be still as "diverse" if Brainstorm and Ponder weren't restricted? I remember some doomsayers calling for the end of the format back then after their restrictions. I see parallels with the same repeating discussion in this thread where some people call for the end of the format with tons of people ragequitting if their "Pillar of the Format" Brainstorm is gone while others argue that the format would become more diverse without it in the long run.

The format would clearly become much more diverse without Brainstorm and Ponder.

The tragedy of the blue shell is that it has invalidated a huge number of cards that are powerful enough in a vacuum to play in Legacy but not powerful or synergistic enough to get one of the limited slots available in the blue shell. It has taken a few cards that invalidate dozens of lists and promoted them to dominance, Terminus being the prime example but Delver, TNN and even Tarmogoyf belonging in that group.

The beauty of Magic: The Gathering is that it is a configurable game in which players fight over an often chaotic board state, attempting to impose their plan for the game on the opponent. Legacy is rapidly merging into a stagnant game in which a few strategies progressively dominate and most are invalidated by the strongest cards in the few that dominate. The blue shell is what is causing that to happen. It makes the most powerful cards in Magic into sure things, reducing the need for synergy in the process since you might need a second option to carry your plan through but you will rarely need a third. Synergistic shells that rely on many cards are inherently inferior to a shell that can always find one of the best cards in the format when it needs it. You can't win consistently putting your second or third best option out against the opponents first or second. You can't win when the opponent can easily find and use a single spell that invalidates most of your strategy.

The power level of the cards has never been higher than it is right now. That's not the main problem. The ability to find the cards you need when you need them has also never been higher. That's the problem.

nedleeds

05-14-2015, 08:51 AM

...for Elves. Not for everyone.

And just sayin...Miracles would not exist without Brainstorm. Terminus sits upon an artificial pedestal.

+1

Scroll Rack Miracles might not be the worst but nobody has incentive to play a card like rack with BS legal.

Lemnear

05-14-2015, 09:00 AM

And just sayin...Miracles would not exist without Brainstorm. Terminus sits upon an artificial pedestal.

I can only agree.

The last thing Legacy should become is Vintage 2.0, a format that has been either dead or not very popular for God knows how long.

Vintage suffers from the cost and accesibility of cards since nearly a decade and the rage-restrictions at the end of the secind Gush-Era hit tournament attendence with a sledgehammer as it narrowed the format more than it opened it up and turned the format into Workshop vs. Dredge vs. Anti-Workshop for years. WotC gave a fuck about the Restricted-List and format

But to come back on topic: Would it be still as "diverse" if Brainstorm and Ponder weren't restricted? I remember some doomsayers calling for the end of the format back then after their restrictions. I see parallels with the same repeating discussion in this thread where some people call for the end of the format with tons of people ragequitting if their "Pillar of the Format" Brainstorm is gone while others argue that the format would become more diverse without it in the long run.

Problem is: We (pretty much) KNOW that Miracles and decks like SneakShow would vanish w/o Brainstorm/Ponder; We KNOW that Vintage took a real hit in popularity and ACTUAL tournament attendence; We do NOT KNOW if new decks emerge in Legacy if Brainstorm/Ponder were banned. I don't see anyone arguing with them "ragequitting" at all.

Michael Keller

05-14-2015, 09:03 AM

I just can't believe there's 562 pages in this thread that are truly anchored back to a single card. I randomly selected a generous sample size of pages and found something having to do with Brainstorm on every single one.

With that in mind:

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/af/af19c4e70321f52995d0f514caf2ce5d6a685ae5deaa776fb0b1ed73527f7073.jpg

Lemnear

05-14-2015, 09:10 AM

The format would clearly become much more diverse without Brainstorm and Ponder.

No fucking evidence for that. Look at Vintage to see the opposite happened.

The tragedy of the blue shell is that it has invalidated a huge number of cards that are powerful enough in a vacuum to play in Legacy but not powerful or synergistic enough to get one of the limited slots available in the blue shell. It has taken a few cards that invalidate dozens of lists and promoted them to dominance, Terminus being the prime example but Delver, TNN and even Tarmogoyf belonging in that group.

"The best cards invalidate suboptimal ones!" Wow ... You don't say?! Should we go down the road of Modern and keep banning the "best cards" every 6 months?

The beauty of Magic: The Gathering is that it is a configurable game in which players fight over an often chaotic board state, attempting to impose their plan for the game on the opponent. Legacy is rapidly merging into a stagnant game in which a few strategies progressively dominate and most are invalidated by the strongest cards in the few that dominate.

"The best cards invalidate suboptimal ones!" ... Take: Two! Action!

You can't win consistently putting your second or third best option out against the opponents first or second.

Captain Obvious delivers: "The best cards invalidate suboptimal ones!"

The power level of the cards has never been higher than it is right now. That's not the main problem. The ability to find the cards you need when you need them has also never been higher. That's the problem.

Congratz! You described the essence of an Eternal Format in which time brings new cards but never takes old cards away and the increasing options also increase powerlevel by itself. If that's a problem for you despite being the very nature of an Eternal Format, switch to Standard.