All B/R update speculation. [Archive] - Page 78

kombatkiwi

05-15-2018, 04:47 AM

I am also sick of hearing Brainstorm causes this wonderful environment because it slots into any archetype. Misstep, Recall, DTT slot into any archetype as wel. Sure one deck will be better than the others, how is that different from any other point in time. Those 3 cards will not reduce the format to 2 decks. They would give a field full of blue archetypes with one being a little bit better than the others. But somehow we can all agree that those cards need to be banned?

Some people have made this argument in a few posts and the difference is because Brainstorm has a different effect on the quality of the gameplay

If my opponent has Brainstorm in their opener and I don't, then they do probably have a slight advantage (it's a good card obviously), but this is nowhere near the same as if the opponent has Recall and I don't, in which case they just get insanely ahead for no investment/effort. I think it's bad for the game to have individual cards that are so obviously more powerful than everything else to the point where we end up with this "Leyline of winpercentage" subgame - match results become largely determined by who draws the good card and who doesn't. To a lesser degree this is also why I think Misstep should stay banned.

While Gush is a very good card and unbanning it would be a big boost to the 'blue stew', it's not a card that you can use to give yourself a huge advantage on turn 1 and is also very skill-testing to use properly, so I probably wouldn't be too upset if they unbanned Gush for the same reason I think Brainstorm is fine.

DTT is a problem for how it enables combo; I think having Omnitell be the best deck is shit. I don't think I mind it as like a Gifts Ungiven for control decks but there's no way to guarantee this is how it would end up being used.

Crimhead

05-15-2018, 06:47 AM

Banning DRS will hurt some non-brainstorm options much harder than fixing the format. Another Brainstorm deck will become the top-dog...
...I wouldn't be surprised if we will be left with another good-stuff brainstorm pile after a DRS ban but without some of the non-brainstorm options as Dark Maverick.

It's okay if the best deck is good-stuff with Brainstorm. It's not okay if too many decks are playing similar strategies.

Dark Maverick is quite the fringe deck, and doesn't belong in the conversation (anymore than DDFT belonged in the SDT conversation). Exalting KotR is not the goal of banning cards!

Grixis, Czech, and BUG variations would be hit, and fair decks like Infect, Thresh, Prowess, DnT, and Burn stand to gain. Even if it's only the first three decks that pick up (which I doubt), they are more diverse and (less powerful) than the slew of BUGx good-stuff we are currently seeing (arguably) too much of.

I am also sick of hearing Brainstorm causes this wonderful environment because it slots into any archetype. Misstep, Recall, DTT slot into any archetype as wel. Sure one deck will be better than the others, how is that different from any other point in time.
It's okay for one deck to be a little better than the others. DTT, pushed S&T beyond "a little better". Misstep pushed NO RUG. I suspect Recall makes Storm (or High Tide) too good, but it's anyone's guess.

Brainstorm has existed in balanced metas more often than not. I'm not saying it causes a wonderful environment, but rather that it doesn't hinder one. I think it's ridiculous that BS is "protected". But I don't think its the best ban if the purpose is to take BUGx fair decks down a notch. BS is the right ban if you want an enormous shake-up and to take the colour blue down a notch across the field.

hovercraft

05-15-2018, 08:55 AM

DRS ban would only work if they printed a fixed version of him that can only give G/B mana(and maybe just a 1/1) and not any colour. The issue is that he's too easily splash-able and fixes every mana base. Otherwise U/x brainstorm decks will still dominate.

Watersaw

05-15-2018, 09:55 AM

Some people have made this argument in a few posts and the difference is because Brainstorm has a different effect on the quality of the gameplay

If my opponent has Brainstorm in their opener and I don't, then they do probably have a slight advantage (it's a good card obviously), but this is nowhere near the same as if the opponent has Recall and I don't, in which case they just get insanely ahead for no investment/effort. I think it's bad for the game to have individual cards that are so obviously more powerful than everything else to the point where we end up with this "Leyline of winpercentage" subgame - match results become largely determined by who draws the good card and who doesn't. To a lesser degree this is also why I think Misstep should stay banned.

While Gush is a very good card and unbanning it would be a big boost to the 'blue stew', it's not a card that you can use to give yourself a huge advantage on turn 1 and is also very skill-testing to use properly, so I probably wouldn't be too upset if they unbanned Gush for the same reason I think Brainstorm is fine.

DTT is a problem for how it enables combo; I think having Omnitell be the best deck is shit. I don't think I mind it as like a Gifts Ungiven for control decks but there's no way to guarantee this is how it would end up being used.

On the "Leyline of Winpercentage" comment, I feel like we're already there with how important Force of Will has been since forever. This is not a condemnation of the card or a claim that it should be banned, but given the prevalence of fast combo and lock pieces decks are straight unplayable if they can't stop a turn 2 kill (EDIT: a more comprehensive/anal way to word this is "can't answer a game-ending threat being presented as early as turn 2"). There is an entire subsest of decks based on the idea that your opponent simply won't have the card to stop you in their opening hand, and it wasn't that long ago where people were arguing that Belcher is proof that we need Brainstorm in format.

Finn

05-15-2018, 11:18 AM

I have been rolling this around in my head for a bit, and dice_box's update (as well as the dialog in here) really has me thinking. Perception appears to be the rub of it all. Lemme get an unscientific piece of data here.

To all:
Do you feel that facing grixis delver and facing the control variant (Czech) is much the same? To flesh that idea out some, if after two rounds of a tournament, you had seen Czech in rd 1 and Grixis in rd 2, would you be hoping to face "something different" in rd 3, JUST FOR SOME VARIATION? (These guys make up a higher portion of wining decks than Miracles ever did) The caps indicate that your desire is not out of a bad BUG matchup or something, but rather just the desire for variety. The converse to this would be that you would be entering rd 3 feeling that your first two opponents had sufficiently different decks/strategies such that you might view facing another Grixis or another Czech some time in the Swiss would be a repeat, but not oppressively omnipresent.

BTW, perception is also the issue with Brainstorm. My adversaries would argue that there are so many cantrip decks with so many different central strategies that it is simply a feature of the format that cantrips are king, and not a bug. I and my brethren view the issue to be that the cantrip engine requires decks of all stripes to adopt the same tactics to accomplish those strategies - or they simply aren't competitive. We view this as a real problem of homogenization, albeit harder to feel than the DRS debate. So yeah, it is what we, the player feel about the metagame that is at issue.

Whitefaces

05-15-2018, 11:27 AM

I have been rolling this around in my head for a bit, and dice_box's update (as well as the dialog in here) really has me thinking. Perception appears to be the rub of it all. Lemme get an unscientific piece of data here.

To all:
Do you feel that facing grixis delver and facing the control variant (Czech) is much the same? To flesh that idea out some, if after two rounds of a tournament, you had seen Czech in rd 1 and Grixis in rd 2, would you be hoping to face "something different" in rd 3, JUST FOR SOME VARIATION? (These guys make up the majority of winning decks. At it's height, I don't think Miracles came close to 50%) The caps indicate that your desire is not out of a bad BUG matchup or something, but rather just the desire for variety. The converse to this would be that you would be entering rd 3 feeling that your first two opponents had sufficiently different decks/strategies such that you might view facing another Grixis or another Czech some time in the Swiss would be a repeat, but not oppressively omnipresent.

I suppose this is going to change based on what deck you're playing yourself, but for me usually playing fair blue decks, no. They feel very different. G Delver is an aggro deck, Pile is midrange/'control' (loose definition of the word). One has Daze and Wasteland while the other does not, this already makes a huge difference on how you play vs them. I'd be interested in knowing what decks the people that see them as the same thing are playing.

Claymore

05-15-2018, 11:45 AM

On the other hand, oh no, watch out! DRS makes good-piles way too overpowered. Newsflash: it's not because of DRS, it's the combination of Brainstorm/fetches/duals and the fucked up good stuff cards blue got lately: delver, leovold, tnn, snapcaster. Blue has so many in color threats they don't need to splash heavily anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if we will be left with another good-stuff brainstorm pile after a DRS ban but without some of the non-brainstorm options as Dark Maverick.

I feel banning DRS would splitGrixis Delver back to some amount of RUG (Goyf), BUG (Goyf/Abrupt Decay), and Grixis Delver (Therapy/Young Pyro) decks spawning. I imagine a mix of Mongoose, Goyf, maybe Mandrils would come out to play. But certainly the rest of the non-Blue stew decks with DRS would take a hit - Slow Depths, Dark Maverick, Elves a little bit, Jund, etc.

Pile decks likely drop a splash or die out completely, but I imagine would reform to center around True Name, Angler, and Jace.

I doubt the overall meta share of Delver drops considerably.

Zulabnar

05-15-2018, 11:53 AM

Funny that you use vintage as reasing were there is a card that clearly would be restricted if you use objective measures: Mirshra's Workshop

Let me guess you wouldn't want shop to be restricted would you?

I own set of mW since 2002 and still playing it, now stax is an aggro deck, it is the so called evolution.

It's funny how you don't see that in vintage to stop a shell they restrict: COTV \ GOLEM \ Thorn \ Trinisphere

apply the same to legacy blue shell. Brasinstorm banned \ probe banned \ ponder banned

Now it sounds different to You?

Is what Wizzard do. Ban dominating shell. Next step is banning BS + DRS. Or mantain a stagnant meta with 12 deck on 16 playing the same pillar cards.

kombatkiwi

05-15-2018, 01:39 PM

On the "Leyline of Winpercentage" comment, I feel like we're already there with how important Force of Will has been since forever. This is not a condemnation of the card or a claim that it should be banned, but given the prevalence of fast combo and lock pieces decks are straight unplayable if they can't stop a turn 2 kill (EDIT: a more comprehensive/anal way to word this is "can't answer a game-ending threat being presented as early as turn 2"). There is an entire subsest of decks based on the idea that your opponent simply won't have the card to stop you in their opening hand, and it wasn't that long ago where people were arguing that Belcher is proof that we need Brainstorm in format.

The obvious flaw with this position (suggesting that current turn 1 options in legacy are comparable to Ancestral Recall, REALLY?) is that if I Force of Will your turn 1 Charbelcher / Chalice / Exhume the chance of me winning the game goes up by a lot (either because you committed multiple resources into Charbelcher/Reanimate, or because the rest of your deck is full of shit cards because you were banking on resolving chalice)

If you just go Fetch, Dual, Recall, and I Force that, then your 1-mana Concentrate only got downgraded into 1-mana Mind Rot

Crimhead

05-15-2018, 03:06 PM

To all:
Do you feel that facing grixis delver and facing the control variant (Czech) is much the same?
As a Lands player (mostly RGu - the "toolbox" version), these are different.

For one, their Wasteland encourages making a token on my turn, but the other deck's Jace encourages EOT Marit Lage.

Beyond that, there are other differences. For instance, mana denial is better vs Delver, where the Chasm lock is better vs Czech. I like to bait Daze vs Delver on the draw (Mox gets Dazed, I play Tabernacle (or Land-CR-Tabernacle).

There are other differences, but the decks are similar and so are the matches. It's nothing like the differences I experience playing, eg, ANT and Miracles.

To flesh that idea out some, if after two rounds of a tournament, you had seen Czech in rd 1 and Grixis in rd 2, would you be hoping to face "something different" in rd 3, JUST FOR SOME VARIATION?
For me this is true regardless of what my first two matches are. If I play Burn and then Elves I want a different deck next.

(These guys make up a higher portion of wining decks than Miracles ever did)
I didn't mind Miracles' high numbers because it played nothing like any other deck (particularly the builds w/o Mentor). If we had had other classic UW control decks at the time, I would not have liked seeing Miracles do so well. So I get where you are coming from.

. I and my brethren view the issue to be that the cantrip engine requires decks of all stripes to adopt the same tactics to accomplish those strategies...
I agree 100% that decks with the same "engine" are similar tactically even when they are polar opposites strategically. This doesn't hold universally, though. eg, Miracles likes to use Cantrip to fix there top deck, while Storm uses it to chain spells together (these are tactical plays).

Personally I am far more interested in strategy (and strategic diversity) than in tactics.

I feel banning DRS would splitGrixis Delver back to some amount of RUG (Goyf), BUG (Goyf/Abrupt Decay), and Grixis Delver (Therapy/Young Pyro) decks spawning. I imagine a mix of Mongoose, Goyf, maybe Mandrils would come out to play. But certainly the rest of the non-Blue stew decks with DRS would take a hit - Slow Depths, Dark Maverick, Elves a little bit, Jund, etc.
I would argue that Grixis Delver losing DRS (or switching to Thresh/Prowess) is just as much of a "hit" as Slow Depths switching to fast Depths. Probably more of a hit.

kinda

05-15-2018, 06:38 PM

ReAnimator

05-15-2018, 10:13 PM

For me the two are the same and headed into round 3 I'd want to face something different.

If I probe on turn one and see:
Brainstorm, ponder, bolt, DRS, force, fetch and a sea
I still don't really know what I'm playing against. Sure they are different because of waste and daze so I don't know if I should fetch a basic or whatever, but the 80%+ overlap doesn't make it feel very different to me, because the cards are all the same for the most part.

Megadeus

05-15-2018, 11:44 PM

Is straight up just ignoring cantrips ( if you're not playing them yourself) a viable strategy at all outside of fast combo? I guess that's the strategy of elves/ depths, but every other "fair" deck either actively hates on cantrips or plays them. And that's even if you consider elves or depths to be "fair". I think it's just an indictment of the format that you either play cantrips, hate on them, or ignore them by winning quickly. It reduces a lot of fair deck building options when you basically have to play chalice or a thorn style effect to be competitive.

Nielsie

05-16-2018, 12:33 AM

Dark Maverick is quite the fringe deck, and doesn't belong in the conversation (anymore than DDFT belonged in the SDT conversation).
I think this is your problem. You refuse to see that Brainstorm is keeping a lot of beautiful decks (not only dark maverick) down because Brainstorm is just so much more powerful than what those decks try to achieve with almost 0 opportunity cost (you only need to play a certain amount of fetches which you will do anyway to be able to splash into other good stuff). Lots of brewers have actually given up because no matter what they try it's just better to play Brainstorm.

Ban DRS and the meta just shifts into another Brainstorm deck. My guess is the redesigned Miracles lists. People will start to complain about the next non-blue victim at that point, I guess Terminus? Will that moves us to some StoneBlade list? Let's ban Stoneforge at that time...

If my opponent has Brainstorm in their opener and I don't, then they do probably have a slight advantage (it's a good card obviously), but this is nowhere near the same as if the opponent has Recall and I don't, in which case they just get insanely ahead for no investment/effort. I think it's bad for the game to have individual cards that are so obviously more powerful than everything else to the point where we end up with this "Leyline of winpercentage" subgame - match results become largely determined by who draws the good card and who doesn't. To a lesser degree this is also why I think Misstep should stay banned.
Well, I think you are really mis-evaluating the power of Brainstorm, it's not just a good card, combined with fetches it basically is an Ancestral.

But anyway this whole point of the discussion is completely moot, Wizards has come out and admitted that Brainstorm should be banned but never will be because of pillar of the format shit. You can keep arguing it's perfectly healthy but even Wizards disagrees, they just can't be bothered to do something about it.

MorphBerlin

05-16-2018, 01:31 AM

I own set of mW since 2002 and still playing it, now stax is an aggro deck, it is the so called evolution.

It's funny how you don't see that in vintage to stop a shell they restrict: COTV \ GOLEM \ Thorn \ Trinisphere

apply the same to legacy blue shell. Brasinstorm banned \ probe banned \ ponder banned

Now it sounds different to You?

Is what Wizzard do. Ban dominating shell. Next step is banning BS + DRS. Or mantain a stagnant meta with 12 deck on 16 playing the same pillar cards.

Stop a shell? Shops is cleary the best deck in Vintage since like forever isn't it? Maybe with the brief exeption when 4 Mentor were legal. Doent look like stopping to me.

I am comparing the status of Workshop to Brainstorm, and you tell me because payoff cards get restricted they should ban brainstorms? Thats just not good logic. Legacy banned blue payoffcard in the form of TC and DTT so I think the situation is really comparable to the restriction of the lock pieces you named.

Btw I was always an advocate of banning probe, majority of the people here thought is was fine though. Ponder ban would not do much, since Preordain just straight up takes its place. Ponder+Preodain ban is what I would do before touching BS.

Dice_Box

05-16-2018, 02:30 AM

Stop a shell? Shops is cleary the best deck in Vintage since like forever isn't it?
No. It's a recent phenomena. The card was once used in a Tempo, a prison and a combo strategy. Of late that has condensed into one choice and become an issue.

Please note when I say recent I'm talking over a factor of years. This is Vintage. Time moves slowly.

MorphBerlin

05-16-2018, 04:25 AM

No. It's a recent phenomena. The card was once used in a Tempo, a prison and a combo strategy. Of late that has condensed into one choice and become an issue.

Please note when I say recent I'm talking over a factor of years. This is Vintage. Time moves slowly.

Recent = the last couple of years? Then thats what I meant, sorry for being hyperbolic.

I had to suffer through 4 Trini Stax when I played TPS back in the day though, so the shops has allways been a mainstay in Vintage

Crimhead

05-16-2018, 05:07 AM

I think this is your problem. You refuse to see that Brainstorm is keeping a lot of beautiful decks (not only dark maverick) down because Brainstorm is just so much more powerful
There will always be tier-2 decks kept down by the tier-1 decks. That was as true during "Maverick Summer" as it is today. We can't ban cards because the top decks are holding back the fringe decks! That's an endless cycle.

Ban DRS and the meta just shifts into another Brainstorm deck. My guess is the redesigned Miracles lists. People will start to complain about the next non-blue victim at that point, I guess Terminus? Will that moves us to some StoneBlade list? Let's ban Stoneforge at that time...
There will likely always be a "best deck" (even if they ban BS). Doesn't mean we will need a ban - that's only the case if the best deck (+ similar decks) are overrunning the meta! Right now it looks like we might be going that way

Well, I think you are really mis-evaluating the power of Brainstorm, it's not just a good card, combined with fetches it basically is an Ancestral.

I guess you've never played a Storm deck?
I used to play High Tide. Don't tell me BS even comes close to recall.

Edit - what kind of world do you live in where you always have 2 useless cards after drawing off BS? Quite often you end up putting good cards on top and waiting to draw them.

This should be the MTG version of Godwin's Law.

Nestalim

05-16-2018, 05:31 AM

Crimhead

05-16-2018, 05:34 AM

I am not sure why is there any discussion about the ban of brainstorm, as it has been state by Aaron that its ban will never happen.

You can like or dislike the card, but move along, you have to deal with it forever.
1 - this is a strictly theoretic discussion. We have no power or influence.
2 - What WotC says one day doesn't always hold the next. Remember when they said 2 1cc dorks was too much for Standard? Then a couple years later we had 4.

JDK

05-16-2018, 07:10 AM

Nestalim

05-16-2018, 07:39 AM

1 - this is a strictly theoretic discussion. We have no power or influence.
2 - What WotC says one day doesn't always hold the next. Remember when they said 2 1cc dorks was too much for Standard? Then a couple years later we had 4.

This is more blowing hot air than anything.
Well, they never said that. They said They "are currently taking a break from one-mana accelerators in Standard". We knew they will come back.

I mean, this won't happen. Theorical or not, nobody is foolish enough to think that BS is right in term of power level. But still, the card will be here.

We should juste take that in note and focus on another(s) problematic card(s).

tsabo_tavoc

05-16-2018, 07:49 AM

People calling BS "like Ancestral" should really just play with and against Ancestral instead of Brainstorm. Then delete your lies and apologize*.

*reference to some old drama involving Swindlemelonzz (HoN & Dota2 player)

Duress your FOW, good luck with Ancestral :cool: What, you Brainstorm :eek:
Not suggesting Brainstorm is better, but it is clearly a broken card when the drawback is mitigated. No other cards give you 3 fresh cards at 1 mana without card disadvantage. Wake me up when there is a Looting that draw 3 and discard 2. Did I mention the instant speed of Brainstorm?

MorphBerlin

05-16-2018, 08:31 AM

Duress your FOW, good luck with Ancestral :cool: What, you Brainstorm :eek:
Not suggesting Brainstorm is better, but it is clearly a broken card when the drawback is mitigated. No other cards give you 3 fresh cards at 1 mana without card disadvantage. Wake me up when there is a Looting that draw 3 and discard 2. Did I mention the instant speed of Brainstorm?

So you found 1 situation where BS is marginally betten maybe. The comparision is still a joke and hyperbolic bullshit.

Some small number of BS feel like Recall in the right conditions. But only for 1-2 Turns. Recall is allways Recall.

You can suggest any UX on UX MU where I get to swap my Braintroms for Recalls and you have to keep your BS. You really think you would have a decent shot at winning?

taconaut

05-16-2018, 08:36 AM

If I probe on turn one and see:
Brainstorm, ponder, bolt, DRS, force, fetch and a sea

I suppose you could just replace it with another land for a similar point, but the lightning bolt would make me lean towards grixis and fetch basics, because Czech really only plays one or so. If you replace the DRS, too it could be UB reanimator or ANT as well, but I think this further detracts from the point you're trying to make: if all of these shells demand wildly different responses, even if a curated probe hand looks similar, doesn't that lend credence to the notion that brainstorm improves diversity, rather than stifling it? Sure, some of the cards are the same, but the games are not.

Is straight up just ignoring cantrips ( if you're not playing them yourself) a viable strategy at all outside of fast combo? I think it's just an indictment of the format that you either play cantrips, hate on them, or ignore them by winning quickly. It reduces a lot of fair deck building options when you basically have to play chalice or a thorn style effect to be competitive.

What fair deck do you want to play, but can't, because of the cantrips?

pettdan

05-16-2018, 09:22 AM

Ok, long post, can't write short posts.

[...], but I think this further detracts from the point you're trying to make: if all of these shells demand wildly different responses, even if a curated probe hand looks similar, doesn't that lend credence to the notion that brainstorm improves diversity, rather than stifling it? Sure, some of the cards are the same, but the games are not.

So, a card is played in a couple of different t1-t1.5 decks, using different strategies, and you think this indicates that it is good for format diversity? Could you not imagine a situation where more than a handful of decks using these different strategies would be considered competitive? I can imagine it, and it is easy [edit: it may not be so easy to achieve, but it is easy to imagine and something very positive to strive for], to the level that I find it hard to understand why so many people can't. More on this topic of imagination in a second.

When you observe which decks are successful in legacy, it often seems apparent that they consist of the decks that fight or use Brainstorm (with a very small amount of exceptions based on very strong synergies or super redundancy, but this can be discussed too) to the level that decks that fight the decks that fight Brainstorm are becoming relevant decks. Which is in itself a good thing... But it is still an indication of the polarization of the format into what seems to be a narrow set of relevant options. I think people who never try to build, and test, successful new decks (not using Brainstorm) won't notice. These are perhaps the same people that would argue that Brainstorm helps create format diversity. Although, like I've written before, we would need to try the format without Brainstorm to know for sure. Which I am considering, it could be fun and provide some relevant input on a difficult discussion.

Furthermore, the argument can be presented that if a deck cantrips into threat + removal to take care of your threat and to present more threats than you and wins by doing that, it is perhaps not so important if it's the Delver of Secrets or Baleful Strix that kills you and if it's Swords to Plowshares or Lightning Bolt that destroys your threat. It's the cantrip into cantrip into cantrip that killed you, effectively. This is surely another argument with flaws [edit: and it has been presented many times, but not very convincingly it would appear] but I'll not write excessively on it right now, hopefully the idea of what can be perceived as monotonous is clear. However [edit: sorry if I get repetitive here, I've been rewriting this post too many times, pre posting], I get the idea that everyone who compliments Brainstorm for the positive effect it has on format diversity has low expectations on format diversity. Maybe these are people who like to focus on a single successful deck and change 2-3 cards for their meta? Just guessing. Would be interesting to hear if someone who likes Brainstorm for the diversity it generates has tried to build 3-4 non-Brainstorm / non-Chalice decks over the last 24 months or so?

On a related topic, I really hope we get the following creature printed soon: cost WG, power 2, toughness 2, shroud, each player can only draw 1 card each turn. With such a creature it would be very easy to summon a card that in a relevant way (doesn't die to Lightning Bolt) punishes excessive cantripping. Players can still cantrip all they want, it will just be possible and effective to interact with it. And we would need more such options. Just speculating, of course..

What fair deck do you want to play, but can't, because of the cantrips?

Have you visited the Established Decks and New and Developmental Decks sections here? There are probably thousands of decks, and one can imagine how a more allowing meta would lead to more innovation rather than a status quo.

Lemnear

05-16-2018, 09:43 AM

Duress your FOW, good luck with Ancestral :cool: What, you Brainstorm :eek:
Not suggesting Brainstorm is better, but it is clearly a broken card when the drawback is mitigated.

That's an often repeated fallacy. If the Duress is followed up with a threat/combo, hiding your FoW did literally nothing positive. Ancestral remains plain better.

tsabo_tavoc

05-16-2018, 11:30 AM

That's an often repeated fallacy. If the Duress is followed up with a threat/combo, hiding your FoW did literally nothing positive. Ancestral remains plain better.

Good job at quoting the 'relevant' half, it was clearly meant to show the Ancestral/Brainstorm comparison is not fitting.

This does not mean Brainstorm is an innocuous card. Some people like to use Ancestral to demonstrate a card draw at a wrong mana cost can be very dangerous, and I versed it in a less provoking way:

No other cards give you 3 fresh cards at 1 mana without card disadvantage. Wake me up when there is a Looting that draw 3 and discard 2. Did I mention the instant speed of Brainstorm?

Dice_Box

05-16-2018, 01:03 PM

For the record (Because this seems to have been missed) when I mentioned Recall it was not in talk of having it be unbanned. The point was that arguments for keeping something in the format that should be removed only look like reasonable arguments when you put them next to an accepted and tolerated card. These arguments, all exactly the same, break down when you put them next to obviously unsafe cards. Recall has no merit in itself being debated, the card is not safe for removal.

Because so many of the arguments used are based not on the merits of the card themselves but external abstractions like "Skill" and "Feels", not actual data points. Not that that matters anymore, the data is no longer valid because the card is protected from logical debate by Wotc.

Wilkin

05-16-2018, 04:23 PM

I suppose you could just replace it with another land for a similar point, but the lightning bolt would make me lean towards grixis and fetch basics, because Czech really only plays one or so. If you replace the DRS, too it could be UB reanimator or ANT as well, but I think this further detracts from the point you're trying to make: if all of these shells demand wildly different responses, even if a curated probe hand looks similar, doesn't that lend credence to the notion that brainstorm improves diversity, rather than stifling it? Sure, some of the cards are the same, but the games are not.

What fair deck do you want to play, but can't, because of the cantrips?

I think his point is that cantrips are so good that you should either play them or play decks that prey on it like Dragon Stompy or Death and Taxes.

I suppose it's the same thing with the boogeyman Deathrite Shaman. Decks like Reanimator and dredge still work fine with Deathrites running around, albeit with some adjustments. But an argument people have is that the card (shaman) is so good that you need a darn good reason not to run it.

I find it funny that sure Deathrite is everywhere but so are all the blue cantrips. It's not like people are complaining about Deathrite in say Elves or Jund.

Nothing imo should be banned. A few things could be unbanned actually. I'd bring back Sensei's Divining Top if they really changed the rules about Slow play infractions. But I'm not sure there's a way to crack down on that.

Rascalyote

05-16-2018, 11:01 PM

That's an often repeated fallacy. If the Duress is followed up with a threat/combo, hiding your FoW did literally nothing positive. Ancestral remains plain better.

Ancestral is obviously better than Brainstorm most of the time, but it's not -strictly- better because there are times where a Brainstorm lets you do something that Ancestral can't like set up an Infernal Tutor or your uncastable bricks, err miracle spells.

There are also times where brainstorm feels closer to Ancestral than to a cantrip.

Lemnear

05-17-2018, 04:49 AM

Ancestral is obviously better than Brainstorm most of the time, but it's not -strictly- better because there are times where a Brainstorm lets you do something that Ancestral can't like set up an Infernal Tutor or your uncastable bricks, err miracle spells.

What you describe is the core functionality the card has for various combo decks and lots of conditional/redundant cards in the format like Emrakul/Griselbrand/Stifle/Daze/Removal/etc.

kinda

05-17-2018, 05:09 AM

What you describe is the core functionality the card has for various combo decks and lots of conditional/redundant cards in the format like Emrakul/Griselbrand/Stifle/Daze/Removal/etc.

No mention of how it combos with counterbalance or shelldock isle?

Crimhead

05-17-2018, 05:54 AM

I find it funny that sure Deathrite is everywhere but so are all the blue cantrips. It's not like people are complaining about Deathrite in say Elves or Jund.
Not complaining about Elves. Also not about Miracles, Storm, or S&T.

What worries me is too many creature based decks made of a balanced mix of threats and answered played on a fair mana curve - especially decks which run mostly cards that are independently good. So if Jund were a relevant deck, it would be part of the issue - another "good-stuff" fair creature deck. Yawn.

I personally don't like to see fair, creature decks above 50%. Fair, "good-stuff" creature decks, I don't like to see above 40%. We need space for combo, and for prison/hard-control in order to have a well balanced meta.

Right now the (potentially) offending decks all run cantrip, FoW, and DRS. One of those cards strongly pushes the overabundant play-style, the others do not.

Nothing imo should be banned.
Agreed - at this time.
Right now MTGTop8 has (non-elf) DRS decks at 36%. Considering the "tempo" versions are borderline midrange, that's a lot more than ideal.

To put it in context, if 36% of the meta was combo that would be okay. But if that 36% where all Storm variations (Ruby, ANT, TES, High-Tide, Solidarity, and SI), that would be a lot uglier. Back to the midrange plague, if the meta share grows, and holds, I will advocate a ban. I would hate to see the top-16 at Birmingham become anything close to representative of the meta-game.

Crimhead

05-17-2018, 06:07 AM

No mention of how it combos with counterbalance or shelldock isle?
For that matter, Serum Visions is also not strictly worse than Recall. Obviously broken!

For the record (Because this seems to have been missed) when I mentioned Recall it was not in talk of having it be unbanned. The point was that arguments for keeping something in the format that should be removed only look like reasonable arguments when you put them next to an accepted and tolerated card. These arguments, all exactly the same, break down when you put them next to obviously unsafe cards.
Only if you don't understand the arguments in the first place.

"Skill-testing" is bull crap, totally agreed.

As for the other argument, we are not saying BS is okay because it fits in lots of different decks! Black Lotus also fits in just about any sort of deck.

The argument is that BS fits into many (strategically) different decks which can coexist in a strategically balanced meta.

You completely miss this because you are not personally concerned with strategic diversity, and you refuse to make an effort to understand that for some of us this is the primary concern.

Recall could go in every deck, but there is zero reason to believe the result would be a strategically balanced meta! We know TC and DTT didn't. We know Brainstorm can and has. That's the difference.

Crimhead

05-17-2018, 06:22 AM

.
To all:
Do you feel that facing grixis delver and facing the control variant (Czech) is much the same?
Here's the real rub.

When SDT was legal, I argued that Miracles was unique in being "hard control". The ban-bs-camp argued tooth and nail that, eg, the BUG midrange/control decks were absolutely control decks and very different from the delver decks.

Now that Miracles has receded, the anti-blue-camp are saying the midrange/control decks are the same as the Delver decks!

The irony is so rich!

People calling BS "like Ancestral" should really just play with and against Ancestral instead of Brainstorm. Then delete your lies and apologize*.

Never going to happen.

Some folks have been holding out desperately for a BS ban (for years now). ArFo has ruined their dreams, and many are now frothing at the mouth.

Maybe we should just leave them to stew for a while?

Crimhead

05-17-2018, 06:30 AM

Well, they never said that. They said They "are currently taking a break from one-mana accelerators in Standard". We knew they will come back.

I am not talking about the recent decision to allow none.

I'm talking about ~2004 when they said we couldn't have BoP & Llanowar standard legal at the same time because two dorks were too many.
A year or two later, Llanowar, BoP, Deep Shadow, and Boreal Druid were all in the same Standard. Point being WotC likes to flip-flops.

Nielsie

05-17-2018, 06:38 AM

You completely miss this because you are not personally concerned with strategic diversity, and you refuse to make an effort to understand that for some of us this is the primary concern.
And what you are missing is that a lot of us are asking for strategic and (let's call it) tactical diversity. Brainstorm (+fetches) stifles this by making cantrips the best possible engine. We just want this engine to be turned down a notch (not killed off!!!) so that other engines will become viable. I guess a Ponder + Preordain ban could achieve the same thing but I like to have the least amount of cards on the banlist.

Crimhead

05-17-2018, 07:16 AM

And what you are missing is that a lot of us are asking for strategic and (let's call it) tactical diversity. Brainstorm (+fetches) stifles this by making cantrips the best possible engine. We just want this engine to be turned down a notch (not killed off!!!) so that other engines will become viable. I guess a Ponder + Preordain ban could achieve the same thing but I like to have the least amount of cards on the banlist.
I understand that.

Personally I'm less concerned with diversity in engines because they are not the most interactive parts of the deck. I want decks to play differently against each other. I care a lot less how each deck manages its own resources (aka, how they play with themselves).
I think a lot of the other engines are on par (or close to it) in the decks they support. the difference is that they are narrow and support fewer archetypes. And they mostly support unfair strategies. If you're playing fair MTG, cantrips are the best. Playing combo or prison, not so much.
I do understand the desire for more engines that support fair magic. But I don't believe health of the format hinges on that for the reasons above.

kinda

05-17-2018, 09:03 AM

I understand that.

Personally I'm less concerned with diversity in engines because they are not the most interactive parts of the deck. I want decks to play differently against each other. I care a lot less how each deck manages its own resources (aka, how they play with themselves).
I think a lot of the other engines are on par (or close to it) in the decks they support. the difference is that they are narrow and support fewer archetypes. And they mostly support unfair strategies. If you're playing fair MTG, cantrips are the best. Playing combo or prison, not so much.
I do understand the desire for more engines that support fair magic. But I don't believe health of the format hinges on that for the reasons above.

The second point feels like progress. A lot of people here remember fair decks not running Brainstorm. There used to be zoo, goblins, Merfolk, deadguy and some fringe ones. Prison decks run thalia or chalice and related cards which hasn't changed much. Combo is still diverse.

The first point is wrong and a bit bizarre?

taconaut

05-17-2018, 09:13 AM

So, a card is played in a couple of different t1-t1.5 decks, using different strategies, and you think this indicates that it is good for format diversity?

Yes, there is a plurality of diverse decks that share a handful of powerful, efficient cards. That's the benefit of an eternal format.

Could you not imagine a situation where more than a handful of decks using these different strategies would be considered competitive?

I think Legacy has the best variety of these different strategies, in fact - we have fair creature decks, unfair creature decks, engine combo, A+B combo, tempo, Prison, hybrid midrange/combo, control decks, etc.

Furthermore, the argument can be presented that if a deck cantrips into threat + removal to take care of your threat and to present more threats than you and wins by doing that, it is perhaps not so important if it's the Delver of Secrets or Baleful Strix that kills you and if it's Swords to Plowshares or Lightning Bolt that destroys your threat. It's the cantrip into cantrip into cantrip that killed you, effectively.

This just isn't true, and I don't understand why people feel this way - the cantrips (mostly) just allow you to find what you need, when you need it - that makes the format MORE interactive, not less, because if you can't find the right answer to your opponent's threat, you should just be running your own busted threat. For an example of that dynamic, look at Modern. Moreover, it IS important what their threat was - I'm sure you side differently for Storm, Delver, Miracles, and Sneak and Show, right?

I get the idea that everyone who compliments Brainstorm for the positive effect it has on format diversity has low expectations on format diversity.

I already addressed this, Legacy is very strategically diverse.

Maybe these are people who like to focus on a single successful deck and change 2-3 cards for their meta? Just guessing. Would be interesting to hear if someone who likes Brainstorm for the diversity it generates has tried to build 3-4 non-Brainstorm / non-Chalice decks over the last 24 months or so?

What cards are you trying to play that can't compete? Of course there will still be some that just don't cut the mustard; the nature of an eternal format with 25+ years worth of cards is that some will just be better than others, and bannings will not change that. Is whatever you're trying to build going to beat Elves? DnT? BR Reanimator? There's always going to be a set of cards in a given format that are the most efficient, cutting off heads of the hydra just changes which neck is next.

On a related topic, I really hope we get the following creature printed soon: cost WG, power 2, toughness 2, shroud, each player can only draw 1 card each turn. With such a creature it would be very easy to summon a card that in a relevant way (doesn't die to Lightning Bolt) punishes excessive cantripping. Players can still cantrip all they want, it will just be possible and effective to interact with it. And we would need more such options. Just speculating, of course..

Personally, I think that card sounds boring as hell, but I get why people might want to see it, and it would technically be fair. If you just want to draw one card a turn and punch each other with bears, have you tried limited? That is not a dig or an insult, I love drafting and I think they make some excellent sets for it, but when I want to play constructed, I want exciting things to happen, not just "play my guy, kill your guy, attack."

Have you visited the Established Decks and New and Developmental Decks sections here? There are probably thousands of decks, and one can imagine how a more allowing meta would lead to more innovation rather than a status quo.

I have yet to be convinced why this would be better, and people still have not volunteered their brews oppressed by brainstorm. The nature of eternal formats is that there is a status quo, because the cardpool has been pored over for many years, and the cream of the crop has (mostly) been found. There are rotating formats, and formats like Modern where the interaction is poor, so there's lots of space to play whatever wacky threat you want; I don't think making Legacy more like those formats makes Legacy better, when those formats already exist.

Edit: also, looking this over again, I fear I sound combative, but I do enjoy reading your posts and don't want to come off as harsh. I think we just want different things from the format. The difference is, I'm afraid I can't get what I want from any format but the current iteration of Legacy, where what you want is available elsewhere.

The point was that arguments for keeping something in the format that should be removed only look like reasonable arguments when you put them next to an accepted and tolerated card. These arguments, all exactly the same, break down when you put them next to obviously unsafe cards.

I'm not sure this makes sense - isn't this kinda like saying, "some cards are bannable and like other cards, so all cards are bannable?" Thorn of Amethyst and Chalice of the Void are similar to and literally the same as Thalia and Chalice of the Void, but saying we should obviously ban them in legacy because they are restricted in Vintage is equally farcial, as I'm sure you would agree ("Thalia is even strictly better because she can attack and hold a jitte!!"). The formats are different and demand different things, and card power is on a spectrum, we can debate where the bannability line is on that spectrum.

Because so many of the arguments used are based not on the merits of the card themselves but external abstractions like "Skill" and "Feels", not actual data points. Not that that matters anymore, the data is no longer valid because the card is protected from logical debate by Wotc.

This is more reasonable, but I don't think the "feels" argument is unique to a particular perspective. There are plenty of cantrip detractors who are arguing that BUG/Grixis/ANT/Miracles/etc "feel" the same to play against because of the cantrips. I also think it's possible to see that data and interpret it differently; I both acknowledge that brainstorm is a busted magic card and feel that it meaningfully improves the format, and is fun to play. It would be justifiable to ban it based on numbers, but I also think that would be a mistake.

We just want this engine to be turned down a notch (not killed off!!!) so that other engines will become viable.

Once again, what other engines?

Are they going to beat Elves, DnT, BR Reanimator?

kinda

05-17-2018, 09:16 AM

Tittliewinks22

05-17-2018, 09:22 AM

Still wondering why Top was banned... Every major paper event since the ban has had every round go to time++.

Dice_Box

05-17-2018, 09:53 AM

As for the other argument, we are not saying BS is okay because it fits in lots of different decks! Black Lotus also fits in just about any sort of deck.

The argument is that BS fits into many (strategically) different decks which can coexist in a strategically balanced meta.

You completely miss this because you are not personally concerned with strategic diversity, and you refuse to make an effort to understand that for some of us this is the primary concern.

Recall could go in every deck, but there is zero reason to believe the result would be a strategically balanced meta! We know TC and DTT didn't. We know Brainstorm can and has. That's the difference.
Oh I understand all this, I just think it's a hollow and shit argument. Because against my comment is where you can put in another broken card and the argument still holds. Here:

The argument is that Recall fits into many (strategically) different decks which can coexist in a strategically balanced meta.

Looks weak to me. But Recall would go in Control, Midrange, Combo... Strategic derversity...

Any yes, it could go into everything and it might not be balanced, but we already have a card that does that.

Also my argument is not about Cantrips, I am not looking to axe them all like I think that would make Legacy better. Just that one, very very broken card.

We have a card that already stifles every fucking thing, it's that card alone that in my mind is the issue, not the idea that the Blue engine would not exist after or even continue to be dominate. I'm not a total idiot, I am aware it would be.

Wilkin

05-17-2018, 10:17 AM

Not complaining about Elves. Also not about Miracles, Storm, or S&T.

What worries me is too many creature based decks made of a balanced mix of threats and answered played on a fair mana curve - especially decks which run mostly cards that are independently good. So if Jund were a relevant deck, it would be part of the issue - another "good-stuff" fair creature deck. Yawn.

I personally don't like to see fair, creature decks above 50%. Fair, "good-stuff" creature decks, I don't like to see above 40%. We need space for combo, and for prison/hard-control in order to have a well balanced meta.

Right now the (potentially) offending decks all run cantrip, FoW, and DRS. One of those cards strongly pushes the overabundant play-style, the others do not.

Agreed - at this time.
Right now MTGTop8 has (non-elf) DRS decks at 36%. Considering the "tempo" versions are borderline midrange, that's a lot more than ideal.

To put it in context, if 36% of the meta was combo that would be okay. But if that 36% where all Storm variations (Ruby, ANT, TES, High-Tide, Solidarity, and SI), that would be a lot uglier. Back to the midrange plague, if the meta share grows, and holds, I will advocate a ban. I would hate to see the top-16 at Birmingham become anything close to representative of the meta-game.

So just to clarify (though I assume you knew what I meant), my point about Deathrite is that the decks that people are complaining about that have that creature are only blue decks. Actually, probably only 2, Czech Pile and Grixis Delver. I haven't seen BUG Delver post a ton of good results lately.

Hm....I would personally like more combo decks in the meta. I find it more interesting when you could face Storm or Sneak show. Right now, where I play it's only really Reanimator. One problem IMHO is the lack of good combo cards being printed and the 2nd being power creep of creatures. Once upon a time Tarmogoyf and Goblin Lackey were seen as oppressive.

I would agree Deathrite does push more than Force and cantrips into making a deck builder decide to play midrange. But if the metric that people are using as an issue (% of the meta), than it's just going to be another blue variant. Canadian Threshold would be my guess. Grixis I still think is a better deck than Threshold, although getting my lands wasted, my fetches Stifled and staring down a Goose with a Plow in hand sucks.

Claymore

05-17-2018, 10:29 AM

Lately it seems the innovations in the format are really limited to Stompy decks, especially with Karn slotting into some of the Sol decks. The Chalice shell seems to be the only real area that is getting significant attention for brewing. Just lately saw the Mono-Black Stompy shell, which swaps out the Red cards for Lilianas and some black kill spells essentially.

The format comparisons of Legacy turning into Vintage light of Cantrips vs Prison vs Combo seem pretty apt. "Combo" being where you have random stuff like Burn (7 card combo!), Turbo Depths, BR Reanimator, and Elves.

Lemnear

05-17-2018, 10:50 AM

We have a card that already stifles every fucking thing, it's that card alone that in my mind is the issue, not the idea that the Blue engine would not exist after or even continue to be dominate. I'm not a total idiot, I am aware it would be.

I disagree respectfully with linking it to "a card". It's the absurd card selection/quality for next to no opportunity cost which makes "the blue shell" soooooo much better than most non-blue decks. It's pretty irrelevant if your cantrip/cardselection core is BS/Ponder/Probe, Ponder/Preordain/Probe or SDT/Ponder/BS.

If you want an example of the power of blue card selection even without Brainstorm, I think the History of Modern and its Ux combo decks gives a decent example of such. We both know how excessive the bans have been in order to bring down "the blue shell" in that format down to the level of non-blue decks.

Chopping BS is just harming a few decks who rely on it as a tool to get rid of clunky chaff, but isn't really neutering the fundamental advantage the blue shell has over the rest. It would need banning the top 2-3 cards of that shell at once, to feel a shakeup. I however doubt, that this is going to happen ever, as the outcome would be a drastic backlash of the community.

Dice_Box

05-17-2018, 11:00 AM

Chopping BS is just harming a few decks who rely on it as a tool to get rid of clunky chaff, but isn't really neutering the fundamental advantage the blue shell has over the rest. It would need banning the top 2-3 cards of that shell at once, to feel a shakeup. I however doubt, that this is going to happen ever, as the outcome would be a drastic backlash of the community.
The thing is we are well past where you can turn back that clock, for good or ill that is a part of this format. So if you take out Brainstorm, a card I feel has a power level unmatched but any card in the format not named Gaia's Cradle, you bring down the power level of that engine some. But that engine is not going away.

You could ban 4 Cantrips tomorrow and Legacy would find more. There are a ton to use as proven buy Portent popping up. I know it's for other reasons then just it's a cantrip, but it's still a point to think about. If you want to kill the engine totally you have to ban so much shit the format becomes laughable. It's better to accept that in this case the war is over, your not going to win.

My complaint is that Brainstorm itself is far far more powerful than anything that could replace it. I think it should go for a bunch of reasons but I do not think we should take a chainsaw to Blue. Ponder or Preodain I think are not realistic asks for banning.

Phoenix Ignition

05-17-2018, 01:11 PM

If you want an example of the power of blue card selection even without Brainstorm, I think the History of Modern and its Ux combo decks gives a decent example of such. We both know how excessive the bans have been in order to bring down "the blue shell" in that format down to the level of non-blue decks.

Chopping BS is just harming a few decks who rely on it as a tool to get rid of clunky chaff, but isn't really neutering the fundamental advantage the blue shell has over the rest. It would need banning the top 2-3 cards of that shell at once, to feel a shakeup. I however doubt, that this is going to happen ever, as the outcome would be a drastic backlash of the community.
Modern's blue decks are pretty well balanced in terms of cantrips right now, so I don't agree with this. Blue is a good color to play in Modern, but stuff like Serum Visions and Opt aren't nearly powerful enough to justify in every non-prison deck. Jund is a thing that exists still in Modern. Search for Azcanta is making a more powerful argument for adding blue to random decks, but Serum Visions and company haven't swayed Modern in that direction yet.

My complaint is that Brainstorm itself is far far more powerful than anything that could replace it. I think it should go for a bunch of reasons but I do not think we should take a chainsaw to Blue. Ponder or Preodain I think are not realistic asks for banning.

This is correct. BS is far and away better than anything that you can use other than it. Ponder/Preordain are good, but not to the point of replacing your last 2 top decked lands with relevant cards. BS allows people to keep hands that are only 5/7ths good knowing that they can get rid of the bad stuff for good stuff. BS allows you to hide the thing you don't want to be Thoughtseized. The other cards help with variance but not nearly at the same level.

Lemnear

05-17-2018, 03:08 PM

Modern's blue decks are pretty well balanced in terms of cantrips right now, so I don't agree with this. Blue is a good color to play in Modern, but stuff like Serum Visions and Opt aren't nearly powerful enough to justify in every non-prison deck. Jund is a thing that exists still in Modern. Search for Azcanta is making a more powerful argument for adding blue to random decks, but Serum Visions and company haven't swayed Modern in that direction yet.

That's why I said "history of modern" to point at the fact that they had to ban DDT, TC, Probe, Ponder and Preordain (as well as almost all the combo enablers these blue cards could fetch), before blue was "just another color" in the format.

Mind that these had to be banned in WotCs opinion, despite many blue powerhouses not even in the format due to their age (like Force of Will) and the creature powercreep within the last decade.

Crimhead

05-17-2018, 09:33 PM

Guess how many fair decks without brainstorm have > 1% meta share now? (Note: I consider thalia decks prison not fair)
So, if you stall your opponents with Wasteland, Daze, Spell Peirce, Cabal Therapy, you can be a fair deck, but if you stall them with Wasteland, Thalia, and other hate bears you're not a fair deck? That's not how I would define "fair", but if we go that way surely Maverick is also not fair. It runs Thalia, Teeg, other hate bears, and can waste-lock the opponent.

Prison is just a kind of control, and it follows aggro/prison is just a kind of aggro/control. DnT is a prison deck in the same sense that Czech or Blade are control decks.

I would define "fair" as:

Creature based.
A balanced mix of threats and answers.
A "fair" mana curve.
That counts Maverick and D&T, but excludes Burn and eldrazi.

The first point is wrong and a bit bizarre?
We're having a good talk (:smile:), but I guess I'm not explaining this well. I'll try again.

The majority of PvP interaction comes at the hands of threats, answers, lock pieces, and combos. We don't use pur engines to interact. I don't "Loam" my opponent. I interact with the Lands I get. Loam only gets Lands, so that limits the type of interactions it produces, but BS gets anything. I don't "get Brainstormed". My opponent casts BS, and then they don't interact with the cards they find.

As somebody primarily interested in PvP interaction, I don't care if your cards come from Silvan Library, BoB, Brainstorm, Faithless Looting, or redundancy. I care about what those cards are - threats, answers, lock pieces, combo pieces.

I understand that Miracles interacts by setting their top deck for CB. But that's unique to that deck. There is false bidding cards from discard. But the majority of the time, BS is used for card selection; which is not actually interactive. It facilitates interaction, but the type of interaction it facilitates is determined by the play-styles of the deck - not by the nature of BS.

DRS, on the other hand, is directly interactive, and interacts the same way in pretty much every deck that plays it. It makes for same-ish decks.

Per mtg top 8 for the full 2011 year the following fair decks without brainstorm but with > 1% meta share are:

Merfolk 7%
Zoo 7%
Goblins 3%
The rock 4%
Those of those decks were struggling by 2012 - Maverick Summer. Can't really blame cantrip.

More relevantly, How many fair decks are not running DRS? U/R Prowess at 3%. And Prowess plays quite a bit differently than all the BUGx midrange (and Grixis midrange/tempo). Prowess is a border line aggro deck.

Virtually every fair deck in the format runs BS & Delver, or both. So if we were to ban one of those cards, why chose the card that enables our only classic control deck as well helping combo stay relevant? Are we trying to maximise splash damage?

Crimhead

05-17-2018, 09:36 PM

The argument is that Recall fits into many (strategically) different decks which can coexist in a strategically balanced meta.

Looks weak to me. But Recall would go in Control, Midrange, Combo... Strategic derversity...

But there is no evidence that decks of all those styles would actually be competitive. Your just pulling that conjecture out of your ass.

Dice_Box

05-17-2018, 10:36 PM

But there is no evidence that decks of all those styles would actually be competitive. Your just pulling that conjecture out of your ass.
We are talking about recall here. I would bet the GDP of a small nation they would be competitive. Not that it was ever really the argument. The argument was that arguments used in defence of Brainstorm have to be about abstractions, because when arguments made on things such as, well, numbers, facts and metrics are used we have to ignore them. You want a debate on that one go talk to Aaron, it was his fucking tweet that said exactly that.

Also as for talking out of said ass, did you read the title of thread your posting in? What else did you think happens in here? Honest and frank discussion and debate with people who have any wish other than to amuse themselves and fit into tribes of which to attack the other side? Come on, your a prick, but your not a fool.

Nielsie

05-17-2018, 11:00 PM

As somebody primarily interested in PvP interaction, I don't care if your cards come from Silvan Library, BoB, Brainstorm, Faithless Looting, or redundancy. I care about what those cards are - threats, answers, lock pieces, combo pieces.
Wait a moment? Are you serious? You never blew up a Sylvan Library or BoB? You never surgicalled a Loam? You never revoked a LED?? This makes no sense...

Virtually every fair deck in the format runs BS & Delver, or both. So if we were to ban one of those cards, why chose the card that enables our only classic control deck as well helping combo stay relevant? Are we trying to maximise splash damage?
That's because you don't believe other decks will finally be able to perform. Decks that are just not good enough in a format dominated by Brainstorm. I believe that brewers will finally start again with a blank slate and not just with 4 BS, 4 Ponder, 4 Fow and a bunch of blue fetches.

tsabo_tavoc

05-18-2018, 04:43 AM

Chopping BS is just harming a few decks who rely on it as a tool to get rid of clunky chaff, but isn't really neutering the fundamental advantage the blue shell has over the rest. It would need banning the top 2-3 cards of that shell at once, to feel a shakeup. I however doubt, that this is going to happen ever, as the outcome would be a drastic backlash of the community.

I agree with your assessment on the blue shell advantage, but it does not mean Brainstorm should not be axed.
It is dangerous to group Brainstorm together with other cantrips, as Brainstorm clearly stands out. Brainstorm is between cantrips and Ancestral Recall! Sorry if some people do not like the analogy, but let's see the fact:
A cantrip draws you 1 card, and has +0 CA
Brainstrom draws you 3 cards, and has +0 CA
Ancestral recall draws you 3 cards, and has +2 CA

Banning any real blue cantrip does not make much sense: Ponder can be replaced by Portent, Preordain by Serum Vision, for example. Yes they are downgrades in terms of card selection, but you get the basic draw 1 card, +0 CA.
But try to replace Brainstorm, you get worse selection, draw 2 fewer cards, and only keep the +0 CA aspect. I have no doubt blue cantrip shell would still work without Brainstorm, but it will be much fairer and therefore less dominant. Legacy welcomes powerful strategies, and welcomes the blue cantrip shell. I just can not agree with people pointing fingers to a B/G creature to fix the problem, like they did to a 1G creature, while the problem lies in a U instant. Blue mages, please give Legacy some justice.

PS: I have seen Brainstorm as the problem since the beginning of the thread, and only get softer during some new card releases that can be perceived as Brainstorm hoser (for example, Spirit of the Labyrinth). Do we really want to face the Vintage situation that they ban all the Artefacts before touching the Workshop?

Crimhead

05-18-2018, 06:38 AM

Wait a moment? Are you serious? You never blew up a Sylvan Library or BoB? You never surgicalled a Loam? You never revoked a LED?? This makes no sense...
Yes I have. With answers, which are what you use to the interact. The other engine itself is not an interactive tool - it sets interactions.

That's because you don't believe other decks will finally be able to perform. Decks that are just not good enough in a format dominated by Brainstorm. I believe that brewers will finally start again with a blank slate and not just with 4 BS, 4 Ponder, 4 Fow and a bunch of blue fetches.
If the DRS/Cantrip fair decks take a hit, something fair that was held back will be able to perform to a more competitive level. I don't personally care if it's Punishing Maverick, Merfolk, Affinity, Thresh, Prowess, or Infect. Those decks are all sufficiently different from the BUGX midrange which is dominating the fair-deck sector.

I'm not a interested in choosing which fair decks benefit from the ban. (If I were to choose, I would want to see faster tempo and aggro - not just a different flavour of "midrange grind" please).
But I do care about preserving combo and hard control. BS does more work by miles than DRS at supporting those styles. To me, that's more important than making KotR (or Goblins, or whatever) great again.

We just have different values.

Crimhead

05-18-2018, 06:51 AM

Not that it was ever really the argument. The argument was that arguments used in defence of Brainstorm have to be about abstractions, because when arguments made on things such as, well, numbers, facts and metrics are used we have to ignore them.

You want a debate on that one go talk to Aaron, it was his fucking tweet that said exactly that.

Only "saturation" metrics, if I recall ArFo's comments.

Arguments based on play-styles diversity (a foreign concept to you, apparently), are at the forefront. You consistently ignore this PoV, because you can't (or won't) imagine anybody could actually care about that more than engines.

You're not a fool either, so you must be purposely closing your mind to this.

We are talking about recall here. I would bet the GDP of a small nation they would be competitive.
They won't all be competitive if one style rises above the rest. Do you honestly believe if we unleashed Black Lotus that fair decks would even stand a chance? Lotus slots into fair decks easily enough, but that doesn't mean they could compete with the combo and prison decks that would truly abuse Lotus.

Also as for talking out of said ass, did you read the title of thread your posting in? What else did you think happens in here?
Sometimes Intellectual honesty happens here. There is no excuse for anything less in a public discussion forum.

Edit - why do you think I want to keep BS legal? You sure as hell aren't listening to my stated reasons, so you must have a theory? You know I have zero interest in playing the damn card...

FGCmtg

05-18-2018, 06:54 AM

Still wondering why Top was banned... Every major paper event since the ban has had every round go to time++.

Yup, I'm in agreement with this. Rounds just aren't any shorter with top banned.

I'd quite like to see top unbanned for format diversity (nic fit, doomsday, painter, cloudpost etc) with counterbalance banned to prevent the lock returning to miracles, which will make it weaker to combo and delver and means that not everyone would have to play decays. I think terminus is a key card to have access to as one of the few ways shaman and delver can be kept up with, alongside being a clean answer to true name and leovold.

Top is/was such a sweet card to play with (and against imo, lots of interesting mind games and play patterns) and it's a shame it's gone.

FGCmtg

05-18-2018, 07:13 AM

I decided to back up my previous post with some numbers. I'm on a train and bored so why not?

Per mtg top 8 for the full 2011 year the following fair decks without brainstorm but with > 1% meta share are:

Merfolk 7%
Zoo 7%
Goblins 3%
The rock 4%

Guess how many fair decks without brainstorm have > 1% meta share now? (Note: I consider thalia decks prison not fair)

So, Merfolk is still played but is a worse aggro/control deck than Delver against much of the field due to the requirement of having several threats which cost 2+ mana, as opposed to one young pyro/true-name/angler/delver and free disruption (with cantrips to tie it all together, sure, but those were played alongside werebear and nimble mongoose) Delver was printed in 2012 and thresh became the best deck, since then Delver has remained aggro/control king.

Zoo died to batterskull, 2011, and terminus, 2012.

Goblins is still played, and has the same problems as always - loses to fast combo decks, which have become more powerful due to new printings (griselbrand, 2012, and past in flames, 2011).

The rock - fair point here, whilst people still play jund, it is essentially worse pile because of leovold, jace, countermagic and of course, cantrips. The rock probably died when they printed shardless agent in 2012, which fell out of popularity last year.

Most of these decks were killed by new printings, not just because brainstorm exists.

Also - how is a Thalia deck not a 'fair' deck? Thalia encourages you to play a creature deck and punishes cantrips and combo decks. Is this just because it's not a vanilla zoo creature or it wasn't printed in Alpha like lord of atlantis?

Lemnear

05-18-2018, 08:06 AM

Also - how is a Thalia deck not a 'fair' deck? Thalia encourages you to play a creature deck and punishes cantrips and combo decks. Is this just because it's not a vanilla zoo creature or it wasn't printed in Alpha like lord of atlantis?

Because you are making a nutshell argument, undermining the fact that Wasteland/AetherVial/Port/GhostQuarter/etc aim at the opponent never getting a foot on the ground while you keep cheating manacosts.

FGCmtg

05-18-2018, 08:34 AM

Because you are making a nutshell argument, undermining the fact that Wasteland/AetherVial/Port/GhostQuarter/etc aim at the opponent never getting a foot on the ground while you keep cheating manacosts.

Sure, but goblins and merfolk have played all of those cards (minus ghost quarter in the case of merfolk afaik, goblins has played gq), and those were two of the 'fair' decks mentioned in the original post, so I don't see those as distinguishing factors.

Lemnear

05-18-2018, 08:43 AM

Sure, but goblins and merfolk have played all of those cards (minus ghost quarter in the case of merfolk afaik, goblins has played gq), and those were two of the 'fair' decks mentioned in the original post, so I don't see those as distinguishing factors.

This fair/unfair metric is bollocks by default.

Every decks aim is to minimalize the opponents options to interact with your win condition, no matter if its discard, counter, landdestruction, Prison elements, swarming, hexproof, whatever. If your opponent has no answers to your wincon, he loses. Just that simple.

FGCmtg

05-18-2018, 08:55 AM

This fair/unfair metric is bollocks by default.

Every decks aim is to minimalize the opponents options to interact with your win condition, no matter if its discard, counter, landdestruction, Prison elements, swarming, hexproof, whatever. If your opponent has no answers to your wincon, he loses. Just that simple.

Sure, so why doesn't Thalia count as a card that is played in non brainstorm decks which aren't combo based is my question. I think there is far too much reminiscing about a time where legacy was a different game to play, where the cards played, and specifically creatures played, were from a different age of magic.

Those cards have been outclassed. The port/waste/vial deck is no longer goblins, it's dnt. The blue aggro/control daze/fow deck is no longer merfolk, it's delver. This is due to new printings, not brainstorm existing in the format.

kinda

05-18-2018, 09:03 AM

So, Merfolk is still played but is a worse aggro/control deck than Delver against much of the field due to the requirement of having several threats which cost 2+ mana, as opposed to one young pyro/true-name/angler/delver and free disruption (with cantrips to tie it all together, sure, but those were played alongside werebear and nimble mongoose) Delver was printed in 2012 and thresh became the best deck, since then Delver has remained aggro/control king.

Zoo died to batterskull, 2011, and terminus, 2012.

Goblins is still played, and has the same problems as always - loses to fast combo decks, which have become more powerful due to new printings (griselbrand, 2012, and past in flames, 2011).

The rock - fair point here, whilst people still play jund, it is essentially worse pile because of leovold, jace, countermagic and of course, cantrips. The rock probably died when they printed shardless agent in 2012, which fell out of popularity last year.

Most of these decks were killed by new printings, not just because brainstorm exists.

Also - how is a Thalia deck not a 'fair' deck? Thalia encourages you to play a creature deck and punishes cantrips and combo decks. Is this just because it's not a vanilla zoo creature or it wasn't printed in Alpha like lord of atlantis?

@fgcMVP: I think you're points are right (except on thalia) but you're omitting important details. Primarily that brainstorm and to a lesser extent other cantrips are enabling the cards you mentioned like delver and terminus. Both are modern legal but hardly oppressive...arguably even bad in the format.

Merfolk: Yeah I despise delver...which you know obviously. Notable exception though is when it's played in a transformational sb, then it's of course sweet*. Banning either brainstorm or ponder+preordain would make delver much worse. It wouldn't be obvious anymore to run it over mongoose or goyf right?

Zoo: Batterskull isn't helpful but it wasn't a death blow either. They had lots of ways of getting rid of stoneforge and then winning before batterskull dropped. Banning brainstorm would end terminus I imagine, not sure if ponder+preordain would do the trick?

Goblins: Combo isn't the issue, 2011 was about the time I did well with goblins at a few upstate NY larger events and I don't remember ever beating a mystical tutor deck or led dredge. Non combo decks including counter top used to be much better matchups. Similar story here in a hit to cantrips would hurt terminus/mentor/delver.

Rock: Yeah, again a hit to cantrips make the cards you mentioned worse, especially leovold.

Really? Thalia is definitely a prison card, it's a thorn/sphere card on legs. It combines with other cards like wasteland and prelate to stop players from playing the game.

FGCmtg

05-18-2018, 09:18 AM

@fgcMVP: I think you're points are right (except on thalia) but you're omitting important details. Primarily that brainstorm and to a lesser extent other cantrips are enabling the cards you mentioned like delver and terminus. Both are modern legal but hardly oppressive...arguably even bad in the format.

Merfolk: Yeah I despise delver...which you know obviously. Notable exception though is when it's played in a transformational sb, then it's of course sweet*. Banning either brainstorm or ponder+preordain would make delver much worse. It wouldn't be obvious anymore to run it over mongoose or goyf right?

Zoo: Batterskull isn't helpful but it wasn't a death blow either. They had lots of ways of getting rid of stoneforge and then winning before batterskull dropped. Banning brainstorm would end terminus I imagine, not sure if ponder+preordain would do the trick?

Goblins: Combo isn't the issue, 2011 was about the time I did well with goblins at a few upstate NY larger events and I don't remember ever beating a mystical tutor deck or led dredge. Non combo decks including counter top used to be much better matchups. Similar story here in a hit to cantrips would hurt terminus/mentor/delver.

Rock: Yeah, again a hit to cantrips make the cards you mentioned worse, especially leovold.

Really? Thalia is definitely a prison card, it's a thorn/sphere card on legs. It combines with other cards like wasteland and prelate to stop players from playing the game.

I suppose I just don't care about banning the cantrips, and I spend a lot of time working out how to beat the metagame as it currently stands, because that's what the game is at the moment.

So, a summary, yes brainstorm makes terminus much better, it doesn't really make delver that much better and it'd still be better than merfolk. I suppose the main reason I don't want to ban brainstorm is because banning brainstorm makes force of will decks less viable/significantly worse, which means a large part of the format devolves into br reanimator mirrors, which sounds like hell to me. It's still better to play most things over tarmogoyf, as angler and young pyro would still be much better cards that don't have a negative value proposition when matched up against fatal push.

What do you think is stopping goblins from being t1? It has favourable matchups vs pile, miracles and delver. It loses to all the combo decks more often than not, I would say your sample size is v small.

Yes Thalia is a prison card, designed to punish cantrip decks and combo, which are a part of the format, because vanilla creatures are bad. See you later ;)

Lemnear

05-18-2018, 12:19 PM

I think there is far too much reminiscing about a time where legacy was a different game to play, where the cards played, and specifically creatures played, were from a different age of magic.

There is no doubt about it, however it's a natural phenomenon, as language and definitions within the game are passed down over player generations and most players who entered the format/game within the era of MaRos NewWorldOrder, don't even know the decks, cards and powerlevel which formed mentioned definitions in the first place.

To some extend we can be thankful that todays format isnt looking like the one 12 years plus ago, on the other hand we have to question if the stoneage criterias/language isn't a relic of the past as well. There are still plenty of people around who call DnT an aggro deck based on running mainly creatures or call Burn a combo deck because of the lack of beforementioned card type. The fair/unfair discussion is just an outstandingly cringeworthy leftover in my opinion, implying that there are ACTUALLY decks playable which do not actively try to prevent the opponent from playing their deck as they planned.

Phoenix Ignition

05-18-2018, 12:55 PM

The fair/unfair discussion is just an outstandingly cringeworthy leftover in my opinion, implying that there are ACTUALLY decks playable which do not actively try to prevent the opponent from playing their deck as they planned.

You mean like dredge and burn?

Parcher

05-18-2018, 01:27 PM

You mean like dredge and burn?

In the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, Therapy is one of the best spells in Magic at disrupting any plan the enemy might have. If you can do it multiple times in a turn, especially in the first two turns of the game, you don't even need to be skilled with it.

Lemnear

05-18-2018, 01:42 PM

You mean like dredge and burn?

Do Cabal Therapy, Pyrostatic Pillar, Eidolon, Price of Progress, Ensnaring Bridge & co suddenly no longer meddle with your opponent?

Finn

05-18-2018, 02:46 PM

Do Cabal Therapy, Pyrostatic Pillar, Eidolon, Price of Progress, Ensnaring Bridge & co suddenly no longer meddle with your opponent?

I think Phoenix Ignition called you out on this one, Lemnear. Call the spade what it is. With the exception of the original Sligh deck from 1996, pretty much every aggro ("fair"?) deck has had some form of dedicated disruption for particular expected opponents. The primary gameplan of these decks is pretty darn linear though. They do not want to spend cards disrupting unless they HAVE TO.

That said, I think Lemnear has the general principle correct. This is the way debate goes in here. PI, do you even disagree with his central premise? I know I do not. I think he nailed it. Fair/unfair is no longer especially valuable nomenclature. Lemnear was victimized by the GOTCHA moments that typify this thread. In a very real way, Burn and Dredge are the exceptions that prove the rule. They are both outliers in terms of how strange the gameplay is and how very not tier 1 they are. They are not exemplars of the Legacy format, but more of a garnish.

I think I could make a full-throated argument for how any deck in Legacy is unfair. In fact, I think having that "unfair" angle is the ticket price for entry into this format.

Lemnear

05-18-2018, 03:09 PM

I take no offense in being called out if i, like often enough, am a bit too bold sweeping over a topic like the fair/unfair discussion or grouping "drs + blue Shell" decks generously together even if we all know there are differences

You all have a wonderful weekend :)

Dice_Box

05-19-2018, 08:51 AM

Only "saturation" metrics, if I recall ArFo's comments.
He also said it's a pillar. No point past that is there. The argument is over.

Arguments based on play-styles diversity (a foreign concept to you, apparently), are at the forefront. You consistently ignore this PoV, because you can't (or won't) imagine anybody could actually care about that more than engines.

You're not a fool either, so you must be purposely closing your mind to this.
I don't think "Play styles" is a reasonable argument. They all do the same thing with the card. The card has one reason for being in these decks. It's not like when Loam was played in the sideboard of some decks as a way to resist Wasteland and played as an engine in others. Brainstorm decks all use the card to do the same thing. There is no diversity in use.

They won't all be competitive if one style rises above the rest. Do you honestly believe if we unleashed Black Lotus that fair decks would even stand a chance? Lotus slots into fair decks easily enough, but that doesn't mean they could compete with the combo and prison decks that would truly abuse Lotus.
Seeing as to how the most effective deck in Vintage for ages was Delver, I think it could manage. Also turn one TNN backed up by Force, daze and Spell pierce does feel like a line that would be effective yes. You even get Recall of those nasty Prison decks.

Sometimes Intellectual honesty happens here. There is no excuse for anything less in a public discussion forum.
Your on the internet... Have you seen what happens here? At all? Like, never in passing even heard of 4chan?

Edit - why do you think I want to keep BS legal? You sure as hell aren't listening to my stated reasons, so you must have a theory? You know I have zero interest in playing the damn card...
You believe it does more good than bad for the format and you believe that it's not one all dominate force, but a nuanced group of forces. You ignore that those forces are held together by one dominate force though arguing that it's not a single card that is the issue because ANT and SnT exist as very diffrent decks. An argument I find as shallow as a toddlers pool.

kinda

05-19-2018, 11:50 AM

I suppose I just don't care about banning the cantrips, and I spend a lot of time working out how to beat the metagame as it currently stands, because that's what the game is at the moment.

So, a summary, yes brainstorm makes terminus much better, it doesn't really make delver that much better and it'd still be better than merfolk. I suppose the main reason I don't want to ban brainstorm is because banning brainstorm makes force of will decks less viable/significantly worse, which means a large part of the format devolves into br reanimator mirrors, which sounds like hell to me. It's still better to play most things over tarmogoyf, as angler and young pyro would still be much better cards that don't have a negative value proposition when matched up against fatal push.

What do you think is stopping goblins from being t1? It has favourable matchups vs pile, miracles and delver. It loses to all the combo decks more often than not, I would say your sample size is v small.

Yes Thalia is a prison card, designed to punish cantrip decks and combo, which are a part of the format, because vanilla creatures are bad. See you later ;)

That is what the other threads on here are for. This one is for remembering the good old days when Kird ape was in a tier 1 deck and then blaming drs. There is a sub thread too for organising pitchfork collection.

I'm not convinced delver without brainstorm (or ponder+preordain even) is still better than merfolk is against the field. I could be wrong...it would be much closer at least.

Well yeah goblins is terrible against combo like I said. This was the same back when I played it. It was tier 2 or 3 by then already. No one really wants to go into a big event trying to optimise their chances and then pick a deck that rolls over to a fifth of the format.

Haha yeah...congrats on 4-0. You're lucky you dodged quillspike...

tescrin

05-19-2018, 12:27 PM

That said, I think Lemnear has the general principle correct. This is the way debate goes in here. PI, do you even disagree with his central premise? I know I do not. I think he nailed it. Fair/unfair is no longer especially valuable nomenclature.

They are valuable when speaking in generalities like "Your deck will lose to all Unfair decks." Why? Because it's a way of saying "you have too much aggro/removal and no reliable interaction."

In the same way, people who design a deck lacking in removal without a high-tempo plan (T2-3) can expect to reliably lose to Fair decks.

In general, Unfair are weaker to counters and Fair are weaker to removal. Certainly there is a spectrum, but if you have no counters and no discard*, you will lose to every unfair deck reliably. If you have loads of Counters and Discard but no removal, you will lose to fair decks reliably. It's not useful in lots of other ways, sure, but it's specifically useful for pointing out general weaknesses.
* I do understand that D&T doesn't fit this well, but give me a break when we're speaking in generalities.

To be clear, I agree that aside from that it's fairly useless. But if you want to say "Well.. your deck is weak to Dredge, Burn, Storm, S&T, Reanimator, Elves, MUD, Stompy, [...]" you can say "your deck is going to have issues with Unfair decks {thus} you should add some Counters/Discard in place of some of your creatures/removal and sideboard cards should be mitigating those rather than being removal piece 27"

Matsu

05-21-2018, 03:50 AM

To heat up the discussion. Let have a look at the top 4 during Team Mixed in Toronto

1st Czech Pile - Lucas Siow
2nd Czech Pile - Brian Braun-duin
4th Grixis Delver - Noah Walker

Hmm, I hope for a non blue deck in the other 4th position.

I still think Fetchlands should go.

Edit: ha, found it, a non blue deck. No need to do anything with legacy. Format saved.

4th Elves - Robert Smith

But still 16 DRS in top 4 :laugh:

JDK

05-21-2018, 05:11 AM

Well, MKM Hamburg had 1 Elves, 2 Red Stompy, 3 Dark Depths, 1 Belcher and 1 Miracles in the Top 8.

You can hate BS all you want, but this Top 8 looks like Aids to me.

pettdan

05-21-2018, 05:45 AM

Well, MKM Hamburg had 1 Elves, 2 Red Stompy, 3 Dark Depths, 1 Belcher and 1 Miracles in the Top 8.

You can hate BS all you want, but this Top 8 looks like Aids to me.

So, in a Brainstorm dominated meta, why would you be unhappy with this top8? You have Brainstorm, you should be happy, right? Same comment applies to the previous post, btw.

I have to comment on this, becacuse I would interpret this differently than you, in fact exactly oppositely. I know I may be wrong, but this 180 degree opposite interpretation should be adressed.

What you seem to not like about this top 8 is that it seems polarized. It consists of decks that could be described as preying on cantrip decks. For Blood Stompy I think that is overly apparent, Turbo Depths can be discussed. So, what you don't like is that people play strategies that are relevant vs Brainstorm. It could be an immediate consequence of Brainstorm being a very good card.

And to try to explain one basic thing. I think very few people actually hate Brainstorm. It's a fun card, and no one gets hurt (except for the sometimes excessive cantripping, it happens that people spend minutes looking at the top 3 cards again and again, but I think this is peripheral). What I personally don't like is the polarization of the format that I think it creates. The frustration directed towards the card is probably just a symtom of an unhappiness with the meta being overly polarized, oppressive, monotonous.

Megadeus

05-21-2018, 08:24 AM

Well, MKM Hamburg had 1 Elves, 2 Red Stompy, 3 Dark Depths, 1 Belcher and 1 Miracles in the Top 8.

You can hate BS all you want, but this Top 8 looks like Aids to me.
This top 8 seems to be on the plan of, brainstorm is too good to not play unless you just go really fast. It's a strategy that works from time to time. How many people were in this event? How many rounds? I'd be more impressed if this were from an 8 or more round event

JDK

05-21-2018, 08:26 AM

What you seem to not like about this top 8 is that it seems polarized. It consists of decks that could be described as preying on cantrip decks. For Blood Stompy I think that is overly apparent, Turbo Depths can be discussed. So, what you don't like is that people play strategies that are relevant vs Brainstorm. It could be an immediate consequence of Brainstorm being a very good card
Stop putting words in my mouth or telling me what I "like".

I never said I don't like people playing relevant strategies against Brainstorm*. What I don't like about this Top 8 is the large portion of rather linear strategies (if they happen to be good against Brainstorm or not is irrelevant for this point). Linear strategies lead to less diversity in gameplay, which is funny, considering what is being said about the "blue shell".

*Sidenote: I play Lands.

@Megadeus
Google "MKM Hamburg". Afaik it was 9 rounds + Top8

pettdan

05-21-2018, 08:42 AM

Star|Scream

05-21-2018, 08:54 AM

Brainstorm in 7/8 Top 8 decks: Ban brainstorm, oppressive!

Brainstorm in 1/8 Top 8 decks: Obviously these decks prey on brainstorm, ban brainstorm, oppressive!

Megadeus

05-21-2018, 09:08 AM

All of those decks are generally favored against 4 color shit pile (maybe not belcher but that's a coin flip deck). Those people probably wouldn't be on such linear strategies if they weren't good in the meta. I can tell you from personal experience my Maverick deck is favored against most of that top 8, and I know dnt and such non blue decks are good against them. I'm not saying simply brainstorm, but 4 color pile at least struggles generally speaking

Dice_Box

05-21-2018, 09:11 AM

Brainstorm in 7/8 Top 8 decks: Ban brainstorm, oppressive!

Brainstorm in 1/8 Top 8 decks: Obviously these decks prey on brainstorm, ban brainstorm, oppressive!
It's always best to look at trends and not single data points. It's why you never see me quoting single finishes. They are too easy to rip apart in either direction with but another single finish and it's not like we lack for those to pick though and find one you want to argue your slant.

If a top 8 today was for whatever reason 2 Goblins, a Fish and 5 Delver it would mean shit on its own. Well other than I owe two goblins players a high five. That would not stop it being debated like it's a holy relic.

pettdan

05-21-2018, 09:22 AM

This discussion seems extremely irrelevant to me (probably I'm missing something), anyway, since I posted recently I feel inclined to respond. I agree with Dice_box, of course, two tournaments does not make a trend. Star|Scream, who was argued for a ban recently? I could not see any such statement on this page (especially not as a consequence of a single tournamnet). Regarding the representativeness of these two top 8's, is anyone in this thread surprised to find Grixis Delver, Czech Pile, Moon Stompy and Turbo Depths dominating in a set of two top 8's? I think not. If we are not allowed to discuss trends, what is left to discuss...

kinda

05-21-2018, 01:45 PM

Brainstorm in 7/8 Top 8 decks: Ban brainstorm, oppressive!

Brainstorm in 1/8 Top 8 decks: Obviously these decks prey on brainstorm, ban brainstorm, oppressive!

All the top 8 decks at hamburg (except belcher which is an outlier) have a 4% or higher meta share per mtgtop 8. It's odd I agree but as dice_box mentioned it's one tournament, and it still fits the overall meta picture right now of blue shell decks plus chalice decks plus very quick combo decks (thalia decks and lands are absent). It's one event that will not noticebly change meta share %'s. Now if it continues...another story entirely possibly.

PS: It does seem to me that thalia isn't doing great at the big events.

Lemnear

05-21-2018, 02:56 PM

Well, MKM Hamburg had 1 Elves, 2 Red Stompy, 3 Dark Depths, 1 Belcher and 1 Miracles in the Top 8.

You can hate BS all you want, but this Top 8 looks like Aids to me.

As Julian won it with elves, he might be able to enlighten us about the field. Are the Lists online already?

On a general note, the meta is so inbreed with 21%+ DRS+BlueShell that running overspecialized predators might be somewhat viable despite 4c's/Grixis' usually stable curve and mana. We will see how Grixis/4c reacts to this event.

kinda

05-21-2018, 03:00 PM

As Julian won it with elves, he might be able to enlighten us about the field. Are the Lists online already?

On a general note, the meta is so inbreed with 21%+ DRS+BlueShell that running overspecialized predators might be somewhat viable despite 4c's/Grixis' usually stable curve and mana. We will see how Grixis/4c reacts to this event.

Yes they are: http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/2018/05/20/six-spicy-legacy-lists-from-sundays-main-event/ .

phonics

05-22-2018, 01:21 AM

The linear decks are just consequence of the warped meta, because if you are playing for a longer, more interactive game, there are very few decks that operate on a similar level of consistency, versatility and efficiency that grixis DRS offers. Any deck that isnt a linear combo/ stompy deck that only draws one card a turn is being pushed out of the format.

MorphBerlin

05-22-2018, 06:14 AM

As Julian won it with elves, he might be able to enlighten us about the field. Are the Lists online already?

On a general note, the meta is so inbreed with 21%+ DRS+BlueShell that running overspecialized predators might be somewhat viable despite 4c's/Grixis' usually stable curve and mana. We will see how Grixis/4c reacts to this event.

I thought DRS was soo good, that even the 4c mana base fights through wastelands and blood moons? And now they are the natural predators?

JDK

05-22-2018, 08:05 AM

@JDK: So, I make a comment about how we can observe a polarization and that it seems bad for the meta. And you reply that it is the linear strategies you don't like. Well, maybe these are two sides of the same coin?
Me: "I don't like apples"
You: "You don't like fruits."
Me: "No, I just don't like apples. I still like pears etc."
You: "Well, they are all fruits, so you don't like fruits."

Nielsie

05-22-2018, 08:30 AM

Me: "I don't like apples"
You: "You don't like fruits."
Me: "No, I just don't like apples. I still like pears etc."
You: "Well, they are all fruits, so you don't like fruits."
I think what pettdan meant was that because you want Brainstorm to be a thing, you are now getting very linear strategies that prey on it. You can't have one without the other, or something of that nature.

To continue bad analogies: Legacy is a fruit salad, you want pears in it, but the fruit salads that have pears all come bundled together with apples.

Lemnear

05-22-2018, 08:42 AM

I thought DRS was soo good, that even the 4c mana base fights through wastelands and blood moons? And now they are the natural predators?

So far this is an outliner and no way a benchmark for the meta by itself. We need to sieve trough the lists and data to see if the DRS+BlueShell players weren't just simply slacking in regards to answers to Lands & Co.

Sidneyious

05-28-2018, 05:04 PM

Jesus Christ why don't you all just change the name of this topic to ban brainstorm.

Pages and pages of dribble about brainstorm and drs.

Dice_Box

05-28-2018, 05:15 PM

Jesus Christ why don't you all just change the name of this topic to ban brainstorm.

Pages and pages of dribble about brainstorm and drs.
Fuck, that is a really tempting idea.

Finn

05-30-2018, 10:49 AM

Bithlord

05-30-2018, 11:00 AM

While the conversation in this forum in particular tends to be circular (due almost entirely to transient Magic players with outsized opinions), I feel the the extended conversation is largely warranted. Brainstorm's effect on the format and its peculiar status as having immunity on an island that has booted plenty of cards that Brainstorm caused the banning of, is a strange element of eternal formats. Legacy really is the Brainstorm format, warped inexorably around its presence. There is a lot to discuss about it.

I would argue that it's not "the brainstorm format". It's the "brainstorm and fetchland format". both are oppressive in their own fun and unique way.

WashableWater1

06-04-2018, 04:27 AM

I would argue that it's not "the brainstorm format". It's the "brainstorm and fetchland format". both are oppressive in their own fun and unique way.

Is “oppressive” the word you’re looking for here?

kinda

06-04-2018, 08:16 AM

Is “oppressive” the word you’re looking for here?

I think so, according to merriam webster:

Definition of oppressive
1 : unreasonably burdensome
2 : tyrannical an oppressive government
3 : overwhelming or depressing to the spirit or senses

1 and 3 seem right :smile: .

Oppressive with Brainstorm meaning you either have to play it or be fully prepared to try and beat it. Most people will do one of these two but that doesn't mean it's not oppressive. There are a number of cards still on the banned list that wouldn't require near the effort to beat than brainstorm.

Lord Seth

06-04-2018, 08:21 AM

While the conversation in this forum in particular tends to be circular (due almost entirely to transient Magic players with outsized opinions), I feel the the extended conversation is largely warranted. Brainstorm's effect on the format and its peculiar status as having immunity on an island that has booted plenty of cards that Brainstorm caused the banning of, is a strange element of eternal formats. Legacy really is the Brainstorm format, warped inexorably around its presence. There is a lot to discuss about it.Which cards did Brainstorm cause the banning of? The banned cards I see that are most "associated" with Brainstorm are Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Sensei's Divining Top... all of which also got banned in formats that didn't have access to Brainstorm, so it seems silly to claim Brainstorm caused their banning.

Barachai

06-04-2018, 08:27 AM

Which cards did Brainstorm cause the banning of? The banned cards I see that are most "associated" with Brainstorm are Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Sensei's Divining Top... all of which also got banned in formats that didn't have access to Brainstorm, so it seems silly to claim Brainstorm caused their banning.

Sensei's Top, miracles loses a disproportionate amount of power and consistency from a brainstorm ban (as compared to other blue decks). Card was fine outside of the miracles shell.

Lord Seth

06-04-2018, 08:45 AM

Sensei's Top, miracles loses a disproportionate amount of power and consistency from a brainstorm ban (as compared to other blue decks). Card was fine outside of the miracles shell.Sensei's Divining Top was banned in Extended. Brainstorm was not legal at the time, I believe. It was also banned in Modern, but admittedly it never proved itself to be an issue as it was banned at the very start (though the same is also true of Skullclamp, of course).

Barachai

06-04-2018, 10:15 AM

Sensei's Divining Top was banned in Extended. Brainstorm was not legal at the time, I believe. It was also banned in Modern, but admittedly it never proved itself to be an issue as it was banned at the very start (though the same is also true of Skullclamp, of course).

They were banned for different reasons there than for legacy; in legacy, the primary motivator for the ban was its utility in a specific deck, namely miracles, which happens to be a deck that specifically values brainstorm over the other cantrips in ways that other xerox decks do not. Speculative, but without brainstorm there is a real possibility that miracles could never have achieved what it did, thus sparing Top.

Finn

06-04-2018, 09:33 PM

Megadeus

06-04-2018, 11:18 PM

And it is seeming like DRS is next on the list to fall because of brainstorm (as it currently stands now it's probably the most bannable card anyway)

Lord Seth

06-04-2018, 11:37 PM

Seth, on this site, possibly this thread, a few years ago I asked the Miracles players to weigh in on an extended conversation about what Miracles would look like without Brainstorm. In a strange twist, everyone seemed to agree. Miracles could not exist without Brainstorm. Interestingly it apparently can exist without Top. And yeah, there was also a good conversation about Treasure Cruise's dependence on Brainstorm just before it got axed and another one months later just before Dig got banned. They have been carving up the format to keep Brainstorm in it for a long time.The fact that Treasure Cruise was blatantly overpowered in a Brainstorm-less format would seem to indicate that banning Treasure Cruise was not an attempt to ban around Brainstorm, as the card was clearly quite overpowered even without Brainstorm. Ditto with Dig Through Time. Heck, Modern doesn't even have Ponder or Preordain, and Treasure Cruise was still abusive just off the back of Serum Visions and Thought Scour. So the idea that Treasure Cruise was in any way dependent on Brainstorm, and/or was banned to avoid a Brainstorm ban, appears quite silly. Top is a little more plausible, but it seems there were time concerns involved in it as well, which a Brainstorm ban wouldn't fix.

MorphBerlin

06-05-2018, 02:57 AM

Dice_Box

06-05-2018, 03:31 AM

Mate, you didn't understand the mantra of this threat: "All problems that Legacy ever had, has or will have come down to Brainstorm" :laugh:

Not quite true. Mental Fuckup was its own massive and independent issues.

tsabo_tavoc

06-05-2018, 03:46 AM

The fact that Treasure Cruise was blatantly overpowered in a Brainstorm-less format would seem to indicate that banning Treasure Cruise was not an attempt to ban around Brainstorm, as the card was clearly quite overpowered even without Brainstorm. Ditto with Dig Through Time. Heck, Modern doesn't even have Ponder or Preordain, and Treasure Cruise was still abusive just off the back of Serum Visions and Thought Scour. So the idea that Treasure Cruise was in any way dependent on Brainstorm, and/or was banned to avoid a Brainstorm ban, appears quite silly. Top is a little more plausible, but it seems there were time concerns involved in it as well, which a Brainstorm ban wouldn't fix.

I see merits in both arguments of Finn's and yours.
I am sure as innocent as Brainstorm still appears to many people today, the banning of Cruise, Dig, and Top was not intended to save Brainstorm. However, all the blatant overpowered cards people pointed to were banned, and they still do not realize Brainstorm is THE culprit, and that's why the past lessons are so valuable.
Would Cruise be still broken with Brainstorm banned? Likely, but it is not an excuse for Brainstorm being safe. Moreover, a lot of cards are considered broken in Modern, but completely fine in Legacy, e.g., mana accelerators, Artifact lands, and what, I found Jitte is banned in Modern! The idea to make Modern slower makes Cruise a much more powerful card. Remember there were arguments fast Legacy combos with consistency (reads Brainstorm) keep Treasure Cruise in check. Again, not arguing Cruise would be safe for Legacy, but rather a comparison with Modern does not tell much.
You also agree Top is more clear cut that would be perfectly fine in Legacy without Brainstorm. I did not shed tears for Cruise or Dig as they are at least blue, but Top is a big loss for the format. By depriving other colours an efficient (and fair) card selection tool, the necessity for blue is even more (or you go more linear and redundant). I hope Top can serve as a big lesson for Legacy, and Brainstorm can be dealt with before more mistakes happen.

WashableWater1

06-05-2018, 05:42 AM

I think so, according to merriam webster:

Definition of oppressive
1 : unreasonably burdensome
2 : tyrannical an oppressive government
3 : overwhelming or depressing to the spirit or senses

1 and 3 seem right :smile: .

Oppressive with Brainstorm meaning you either have to play it or be fully prepared to try and beat it. Most people will do one of these two but that doesn't mean it's not oppressive. There are a number of cards still on the banned list that wouldn't require near the effort to beat than brainstorm.

That sounds less like "its oppressive" and more like "I dont like it".

And it is seeming like DRS is next on the list to fall because of brainstorm (as it currently stands now it's probably the most bannable card anyway)

Deathrite Shaman is bannable because of "grumble grumble brainstorm grumble grumble"? Whats the correlation there? The way you worded this makes it sound like you believe there are a huge number of banned cards that would be fine without brainstorm. I can think of one.

Lemnear

06-05-2018, 06:34 AM

However, all the blatant overpowered cards people pointed to were banned, and they still do not realize Brainstorm is THE culprit, and that's why the past lessons are so valuable.
Would Cruise be still broken with Brainstorm banned? Likely, but it is not an excuse for Brainstorm being safe.

Fun fact: Brainstorm, Ponder, Treasure Cruise, DRS and DTT would all be pretty mediocre cards without Fetchlands.

tsabo_tavoc

06-05-2018, 07:48 AM

Fun fact: Brainstorm, Ponder, Treasure Cruise, DRS and DTT would all be pretty mediocre cards without Fetchlands.

Fetchlands are a big mistake. They are 10 cards though, and hence very inconvenient to ban. I do hope they are banned one day, or if never, at least Brainstorm.
Fetchlands are not doing good to Modern either, but WotC loves them to sell Master sets.

Whitefaces

06-05-2018, 08:38 AM

Megadeus

06-05-2018, 08:57 AM

Lemnear

06-05-2018, 09:05 AM

It's amazing people still get a kick from pointing out how good fetchlands are with DRS and cantrips etc. It's like it's some secret that they're graciously unveiling for the rest of us.

Is it so untrue that it fits to ridicule the point made or is just too painful to admit, that Brainstorm isnt the reason TC/DTT/DRS are broken, but Fetchlands being the cause for Brainstorms/Ponders/DRS'/TCs/DTTs powerlevel?

Dice_Box

06-05-2018, 09:22 AM

It is possible that cards can be broken independently of one another.

Brainstorm Ape

06-05-2018, 03:11 PM

Fun fact: Brainstorm, Ponder, Treasure Cruise, DRS and DTT would all be pretty mediocre cards without Fetchlands.

Brainstorm and DRS, yes, but the others not so much.

Even without an external shuffle source, Ponder is insane. It gives you so much card selection for so little investment. Certainly it gets better when you can look at the top 3, take the 1-2 you want, and then shuffle away the chaff with a fetch, but it's still an amazing card without fetches. It's a high pick even in (powered) cube.

The Delve spells are an interesting case as well; I'm not certain fetchlands are what make them broken. While every fetch activation makes a pseudo-Lotus Petal, that alone isn't going to fuel Delve spells all that quickly. Cheap/efficient spells (including cantrips) fill up the yard so much faster than 1 land drop a turn could ever hope to. The example of Khans/BFZ standard supports this line of thought; practically every deck was running 10+ fetches and the Delve spells weren't broken in the least. When the format revolves around 3-5 CMC creatures, graveyards just aren't filled as quickly as in formats that center around 1 CMC spells (and retarded shit like GitGud Probe).

Lemnear

06-05-2018, 03:57 PM

Brainstorm and DRS, yes, but the others not so much.

Even without an external shuffle source, Ponder is insane. It gives you so much card selection for so little investment. Certainly it gets better when you can look at the top 3, take the 1-2 you want, and then shuffle away the chaff with a fetch, but it's still an amazing card without fetches. It's a high pick even in (powered) cube.

The Delve spells are an interesting case as well; I'm not certain fetchlands are what make them broken. While every fetch activation makes a pseudo-Lotus Petal, that alone isn't going to fuel Delve spells all that quickly. Cheap/efficient spells (including cantrips) fill up the yard so much faster than 1 land drop a turn could ever hope to. The example of Khans/BFZ standard supports this line of thought; practically every deck was running 10+ fetches and the Delve spells weren't broken in the least. When the format revolves around 3-5 CMC creatures, graveyards just aren't filled as quickly as in formats that center around 1 CMC spells (and retarded shit like GitGud Probe).

Without the ability to cherrypick and shuffle away the rest, Ponder would be significantly worse and i would go as far and start comparing it Preordain in terms of powerlevel.

Delve spells are indeed a more complex case as they are just the top of the pyramid build by Brainstorm, Ponder, Probe and Fetchlands. I feel its more like Fetches break the cantrips which create the groundwork for Delve with the ever same [T1 - Fetch, Ponder] + [T2 - Brainstorm, fetch].

WashableWater1

06-05-2018, 04:28 PM

“Treating dandruff by decapitation”

Lord Seth

06-05-2018, 06:33 PM

Couldn't you say this about probe too? Banned in modern, restricted in vintage, but legacy players are like, man this card is totally fine and makes really interesting games!No, you couldn't accurately say it about Probe. Because the statement was about cards banned in Legacy; as Gitaxian Probe wasn't banned in Legacy, arguing "the banning of Gitaxian Probe in Legacy was not a way to avoid banning Brainstorm" is a complete non sequitur because Gitaxian Probe isn't banned.

Stevestamopz

06-05-2018, 09:56 PM

Couldn't you say this about probe too? Banned in modern, restricted in vintage, but legacy players are like, man this card is totally fine and makes really interesting games!

No, you couldn't accurately say it about Probe. Because the statement was about cards banned in Legacy; as Gitaxian Probe wasn't banned in Legacy, arguing "the banning of Gitaxian Probe in Legacy was not a way to avoid banning Brainstorm" is a complete non sequitur because Gitaxian Probe isn't banned.

https://media.giphy.com/media/glmRyiSI3v5E4/giphy.gif

Lord Seth

06-06-2018, 01:00 AM

https://media.giphy.com/media/glmRyiSI3v5E4/giphy.gifAre you confused by his statement, or my response?

My argument was that it was goofy to argue that Treasure Cruise was banned to avoid banning Brainstorm when one can point out that Treasure Cruise was able to be insanely good with much weaker cantrips. Then they said "couldn't this argument apply to Gitaxian Probe?" The answer is no, because Gitaxian Probe isn't banned, so of course it doesn't apply. So, essentially, the argument is:
"Treasure Cruise wasn't banned to avoid banning Brainstorm, which can be demonstrated by Treasure Cruise being insane in Modern, where it didn't have Brainstorm."
To try to argue this could be used with Gitaxian Probe would be saying "Gitaxian Probe wasn't banned to avoid banning Brainstorm..." which doesn't make sense because Gitaxian Probe isn't banned. Unless I'm misunderstanding what they were saying?

Erdvermampfa

06-06-2018, 01:04 AM

Why overcomplicate things then the actual state of affairs is so blatantly obvious? BS, Probe, Ponder are all broken beyond repair and need to be removed from the format asap.

WashableWater1

06-06-2018, 01:59 AM

Why overcomplicate things then the actual state of affairs is so blatantly obvious? BS, Probe, Ponder are all broken beyond repair and need to be removed from the format asap.

Maybe its because a vast majority of people dont agree with that assessment

Lemnear

06-06-2018, 05:11 AM

Maybe its because a vast majority of people dont agree with that assessment

I think it's undeniable, that Brainstorm and Ponder are warping the format around themselves, if paired with free shuffle effects. There is also no question that decks without these tools suffer from variance significantly more, which is relevant in tournaments.

There is only disagreement about the consequences towards the format and solutions.

Megadeus

06-06-2018, 07:44 AM

I think it's undeniable, that Brainstorm and Ponder are warping the format around themselves, if paired with free shuffle effects. There is also no question that decks without these tools suffer from variance significantly more, which is relevant in tournaments.

There is only disagreement about the consequences towards the format and solutions.
This. The argument is no longer whether or not these cards are busted. All of them are banned or restricted in every other format for a reason.

HSCK

06-06-2018, 08:19 AM

Mr Miagi

06-06-2018, 08:44 AM

Lemnear

06-06-2018, 09:02 AM

Except you know, the vast majority of people actually playing the format. The posters in this thread should just make their own legacy without all those cards and be joined by the five other people that might play it.

I am 100% sure the "vast majority" knows that the blue shell is overpowered.

However these players split in different camps. Some are fine with there being a best shell if strategic diversity remains (arguably not the case atm), some others want different shells to perform equally, while the next group just wants specific decks to be better positioned. I mean there are even people who enjoy BUGx mirror matches all day. Everyone their opinion.

Agreed.

Now go and put a poster outside of Wizards HQ (as someone did for TOP) :wink:

There is a next to zero chance that "Brainstorm" is written there, because I am not in favor of chopping the Hydras head just to see a new one being grown in 3 months. If one wants to act, go for the root not the sprout.

Bithlord

06-06-2018, 09:51 AM

Maybe its because a vast majority of people dont agree with that assessment

I think that's a fair statement. The majority of people don't think they should be removed form the format. that's not ht same as them not being broken though. Legacy is a format of broken things. Is the cantrip suite more broken than the other broken things? I dunno, but WotC has made it clear that the cantrip suite is a "pillar of legacy", whatever that means, and is thus untouchable.

Dice_Box

06-06-2018, 09:54 AM

Except you know, the vast majority of people actually playing the format. The posters in this thread should just make their own legacy without all those cards and be joined by the five other people that might play it.
That, or do what I do, play Chalice, Wasteland, Crucible and whatever else I can so you can't play and I can. Now you can watch me as I play with myself and you can't do shit. Fairs fair. If I made a new format I would have no one to slowly drive crazy as I sadisticly cut off their ability to play for my own amusement.

My answer to Brainstorm these days, be that dick everyone here bitches about who's not fun to play against. It's not like we had two massive threads about why Chalice needs to be banned and all I was thinking is "Hey, your tears make great lube."

Finn

06-06-2018, 11:12 AM

Sometimes I just don't care about whether I agree with Dice_Box. I like the way he says it.

taconaut

06-06-2018, 12:36 PM

This. The argument is no longer whether or not these cards are busted. All of them are banned or restricted in every other format for a reason.

Why not play those formats, then? Legacy is strategically diverse and fine the way it is; I personally am glad there is still a format that allows for multiple approaches, including the option to play cards to reduce variance. Formats feeling different is a good thing, not an anomaly.

The thing about discussing fetches as a ban is that they are one of the things keeping duals from being thousands of dollars - if you think legacy decks are expensive now, just wait until you need four seas to cast your Grim Birds of Lavadise.

Mr. Safety

06-06-2018, 12:45 PM

The thing about discussing fetches as a ban is that they are one of the things keeping duals from being thousands of dollars - if you think legacy decks are expensive now, just wait until you need four seas to cast your Grim Birds of Lavadise.

Other dual land options will actually become more viable. Think Blooming Marsh and Darkslick Shores; both of those will go up in price and be seen more. They aren't fetchable, which is what holds them back, but without fetches they would become overnight staples. Land types would still be relevant (ie Island for Daze), so some decks wouldn't have any real reprieve (and would cause the spike you are looking at for Volcanic Island due to needing it for Daze.) However, many other strategies will just ignore the true duals altogether. Why play fetchable duals without fetches? A format as low to the ground as legacy would snatch up all those fastlands in a hurry. You want to make other dual-land options viable in legacy? Ban fetches.

taconaut

06-06-2018, 01:01 PM

Finn

06-06-2018, 02:25 PM

Other dual land options will actually become more viable. Think Blooming Marsh and Darkslick Shores; both of those will go up in price and be seen more. They aren't fetchable, which is what holds them back, but without fetches they would become overnight staples. Land types would still be relevant (ie Island for Daze), so some decks wouldn't have any real reprieve (and would cause the spike you are looking at for Volcanic Island due to needing it for Daze.) However, many other strategies will just ignore the true duals altogether. Why play fetchable duals without fetches? A format as low to the ground as legacy would snatch up all those fastlands in a hurry. You want to make other dual-land options viable in legacy? Ban fetches.

This seems to me to be an ideal situation for Legacy. I'm not advocating anything, mind you. But if duals (or fetchies or both) are gone, you get Legacy all of the sudden become a showcase for all of the lands ever printed. You get hard decisions on which lands to include in your deck. That seems to me to be a very good outcome to strive for. Is there a version of this scenario in Modern?

As a side note, I have continuously advocated having more fun with lands with stuff like:

*****
Lagoon to Return to
Land - Island

Lagoon to Return to is Blue
Lagoon to Return to enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~this~ enters the battlefield, discard two cards then draw a card.
*****

*****
Slopes Under the Tree Line
Land - Forest Mountain

Indestructible
When ~this~ enters the battlefield, lose 1 life.
*****

Lands of this sort have a specific function specific to Legacy that is situationally excellent, but generally not as good as the typical options. I would love to see a Legacy-specific expansion, or even Eternal-specific, not legal in Standard, that has such interesting cards in it. I suppose it would take too much playtesting for them to push the envelope with so many cards.

Mr. Safety

06-06-2018, 03:47 PM

Sure, they might see more play, but they're still (almost) strictly worse, so to be truly competitive you'd need to load up duals first.

This is logical, but I think you'd also see an influx of modern players attempting to port over their mana-bases (sans fetches.) Are fastlands/buddy lands strictly worse than true duals? Of course they are, but when you can't fetch duals you will have to incorporate many more dual lands to make up for the lack of consistency. Likely more basics as well.

Just an example: UR Delver (simple one.) Instead of 10x Fetch, 4x dual, 4x basic it would turn into 10x dual (some mix of Spirebluff Canal, Sulfur Falls, Steam Vents) and 8x basic. Brainstorm ramifications aside, even with 4x Volcanic you would still have to find at least 6 more duals to even get close to a reasonably consistent 2-color mana-base. Three colors? Aye-aye-aye, that would be rough. It's obvious how important fetchlands are to the legacy mana-base formula. I could easily see someone in modern buying into 4x Force of Will (not too bad really, considering) and just using their modern duals (practically everything else in the deck is modern legal.) It will be a little painful for Steam Vents/Daze, but fetching a shock untapped is 3 life already in modern.

I am not advocating the ban of fetchlands; just doing an exercise.

WashableWater1

06-06-2018, 05:15 PM

I think it's undeniable, that Brainstorm and Ponder are warping the format around themselves, if paired with free shuffle effects. There is also no question that decks without these tools suffer from variance significantly more, which is relevant in tournaments.

There is only disagreement about the consequences towards the format and solutions.

Lotta buzzwords here. If the format is so warped, why is the most popular deck just over 10% of the metagame, and a ton of other decks are hovering around 4-7%. Its not like you can't play non-blue decks, there are a pile of viable alternatives. Its actually about as far from problematic as I can imagine.

Megadeus

06-06-2018, 05:51 PM

Except you know, the vast majority of people actually playing the format. The posters in this thread should just make their own legacy without all those cards and be joined by the five other people that might play it.
Tusks held a team event where one of the formats the cards Frantic Search, Earthcraft, Mindtwist, Survival of the Fittest, and Goblin Recruiter were all legal in normal legacy. The winning deck in that format? Just normal legacy UB Reanimator. We played a gentleman's Mind Twist in the side board of elves but couldn't come up with a reason to play mind Twist over Natural Order

Ronald Deuce

06-06-2018, 08:43 PM

Tusks held a team event where one of the formats the cards Frantic Search, Earthcraft, Mindtwist, Survival of the Fittest, and Goblin Recruiter were all legal in normal legacy. The winning deck in that format? Just normal legacy UB Reanimator. We played a gentleman's Mind Twist in the side board of elves but couldn't come up with a reason to play mind Twist over Natural Order

So someone played an established deck and beat a bunch of brews? I think I saw that happen once.

Megadeus

06-06-2018, 08:51 PM

So someone played an established deck and beat a bunch of brews? I think I saw that happen once.

Yes Nedleeds on Reanimator defeated Alphastryk's Frantic Search High Tide deck, multiple mind twist brews, and even the incredible overpowered Goblin Recruiter Goblins. Point is goddamn unban some of these pieces of shit so we can fucking play them at least locally (since they're all fucking terrible and wouldn't make an impact in any other event). My team played elves and we didn't even consider playing Survival or Earthcraft because they are awful. Fuck just let us have these god awful toys. I know Land Tax, Dragon, and Black Vise have completely warped and ruined everyone's fun, but let me have some more toys

Watersaw

06-06-2018, 09:56 PM

Why not play those formats, then?

This thread really needs a drinking game.

WashableWater1

06-07-2018, 12:19 AM

Yes Nedleeds on Reanimator defeated Alphastryk's Frantic Search High Tide deck, multiple mind twist brews, and even the incredible overpowered Goblin Recruiter Goblins. Point is goddamn unban some of these pieces of shit so we can fucking play them at least locally (since they're all fucking terrible and wouldn't make an impact in any other event). My team played elves and we didn't even consider playing Survival or Earthcraft because they are awful. Fuck just let us have these god awful toys. I know Land Tax, Dragon, and Black Vise have completely warped and ruined everyone's fun, but let me have some more toys

I feel like the reason to not unban the stuff thats probably fine is because it doesnt really gain much either way it goes. We either have Scenario A, where they're as bad as people think they are so they dont make a splash, or Scenario B, where it turns out there exists an unforeseen deck that ends up being busted with them. When the gains are so low and the potential cost is so high, even if its unlikely that the banned cards are broken it still makes sense to keep them there. Except Earthcraft.

Lord Seth

06-07-2018, 12:24 AM

This seems to me to be an ideal situation for Legacy. I'm not advocating anything, mind you. But if duals (or fetchies or both) are gone, you get Legacy all of the sudden become a showcase for all of the lands ever printed. You get hard decisions on which lands to include in your deck. That seems to me to be a very good outcome to strive for. Is there a version of this scenario in Modern?To a certain extent. The fetchland+shockland manabase is the standard in Modern, but you do see dual lands other than those see play for the simple fact that unlike the dual lands, the shocklands come with a drawback, so the fetchland+shockland synergy isn't as powerful in Modern as the fetchland+dual land synergy is in Legacy. A lot of decks will therefore run a few copies of fastlands or checklands.

So for example, if we look at the Top 8 of the last Modern SCG Open:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19333&d=322831&f=MO

Setting aside Humans, EldraziTron, and Affinity lists due to their fairly unique manabases, you'll notice that while the fetchlands and shocklands are the most popular lands in the other decks (Burn, UWR Control, Jund), all of them are running some dual lands outside of those. The Burn deck is running Inspiring Vantage; UWR Control decks are running Celestial Colonnade, Glacial Fortress, and either Spirebluff Canal or Sulfur Falls; and the Jund deck is running Blackcleave Cliffs, Raging Ravine, and Twilight Mire.

You'll see this pattern continued for spots 9-16. All of the decks running dual lands, all of them, are running at least some non-shock/non-fetch dual lands. Shock+fetch is the staple and most of their dual lands will be one of those two, but the other dual lands can sneak in a few spots whereas they're basically nonentities in Legacy outside of Horizon Canopy and Grove of the Burnwillows.

All that said, the Modern manabases aren't really that much of a "hard decisions"; the number of decisions regarding manabases is relatively small. For example, the only difference between the manabases of the two Top 8 UWR Control decks is rather small (one is running a Spirebluff Canal instead of a Sulfur Falls), and the only difference between the two Jund lists in the full Top 16 is (outside of slightly different fetchland choices), one adding a third Raging Ravine.

Lemnear

06-07-2018, 01:27 AM

Lotta buzzwords here. If the format is so warped, why is the most popular deck just over 10% of the metagame, and a ton of other decks are hovering around 4-7%. Its not like you can't play non-blue decks, there are a pile of viable alternatives. Its actually about as far from problematic as I can imagine.

This implies that 4c, modern era Team America variants & Co are actually different decks based on switching Gurmag Angler to Leovold, running 2 more lands and similar minor changes. I don't buy it as I mentioned in the past. These decks are about 70% identical in terms of cards and play.

"Viable" isn't quite the most clear term you could pick. What does it mean? "Maybe snatching a T8 spot"? Then yeah, you can play Stompy, DnT and Lands, but it's a gamble on how good you draw/stack/cheat through the tournament against all the decks with library manipulation and draw, while you live off the mercy of your topdeck. The sheer T8 and metagame data at hand indicates that you are better off just playing blue shell + DRS, if you want to win anything. That's one of the issues (if not THE problem by itself).

WashableWater1

06-07-2018, 02:26 AM

This implies that 4c, modern era Team America variants & Co are actually different decks based on switching Gurmag Angler to Leovold, running 2 more lands and similar minor changes. I don't buy it as I mentioned in the past. These decks are about 70% identical in terms of cards and play.

"Viable" isn't quite the most clear term you could pick. What does it mean? "Maybe snatching a T8 spot"? Then yeah, you can play Stompy, DnT and Lands, but it's a gamble on how good you draw/stack/cheat through the tournament against all the decks with library manipulation and draw, while you live off the mercy of your topdeck. The sheer T8 and metagame data at hand indicates that you are better off just playing blue shell + DRS, if you want to win anything. That's one of the issues (if not THE problem by itself).

So 4c runs red and K Command, Jace and Snapcaster Mage while Team America runs Delver, Tarmogoyf and Daze. If you're talking BUG Control vs 4c control, I'll give you that they're pretty similar, except that BUG control has mostly been supplanted by Czech Pile.

Viable means: They top 8 tournaments with some frequency, and if you take them to a tournament you have a reasonable chance of doing well. Its a pretty commonly used term. If you are attempting to imply that running cantrips COMPLETELY eliminates consistency issues, thats simply wishful thinking. They reduce it but do not eliminate it.

If you look at the non-blue decks that tend to do well pretty frequently, they improve their consistency in two major ways. Elves, Lands, Depths, Maverick, and to some extent Death and Taxes all improve consistency through running Tutor effects. The other side of the coin is through redundancy. Decks like Moon Stompy, Eldrazi Stompy, BR reanimator and Dredge all improve consistency through running a variety of cards with similar effects, I.E. Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon or Reanimate, Exhume and Animate Dead.

The metagame data suggests that the blue shell is a solid place to start building a deck. However, in no way is it impossible to build a good non-blue deck. Furthermore, the blue shell represents a huge swath of decks, many of which employ vastly different strategies. The blue cantrip shell expands the number of viable decks immensely. If you're upset that inconsistent decks aren't great anymore, that's ok. But don't play it off as being an issue with the format. Its an issue with the decks.

MorphBerlin

06-07-2018, 05:05 AM

So 4c runs red and K Command, Jace and Snapcaster Mage while Team America runs Delver, Tarmogoyf and Daze. If you're talking BUG Control vs 4c control, I'll give you that they're pretty similar, except that BUG control has mostly been supplanted by Czech Pile.

Viable means: They top 8 tournaments with some frequency, and if you take them to a tournament you have a reasonable chance of doing well. Its a pretty commonly used term. If you are attempting to imply that running cantrips COMPLETELY eliminates consistency issues, thats simply wishful thinking. They reduce it but do not eliminate it.

If you look at the non-blue decks that tend to do well pretty frequently, they improve their consistency in two major ways. Elves, Lands, Depths, Maverick, and to some extent Death and Taxes all improve consistency through running Tutor effects. The other side of the coin is through redundancy. Decks like Moon Stompy, Eldrazi Stompy, BR reanimator and Dredge all improve consistency through running a variety of cards with similar effects, I.E. Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon or Reanimate, Exhume and Animate Dead.

The metagame data suggests that the blue shell is a solid place to start building a deck. However, in no way is it impossible to build a good non-blue deck. Furthermore, the blue shell represents a huge swath of decks, many of which employ vastly different strategies. The blue cantrip shell expands the number of viable decks immensely. If you're upset that inconsistent decks aren't great anymore, that's ok. But don't play it off as being an issue with the format. Its an issue with the decks.

Dude, your trying to argue with way to much reasoning... This threat has become a shitshow of indivuals screaming their opinions in trump-eque way... We only talk hyperbally here, please no differentiation...

"All decks running Blue and DRS are the same" - thats the level we are talking here

Lemnear

06-07-2018, 05:58 AM

"All decks running Blue and DRS are the same" - thats the level we are talking here

Except no one said that. I was talking about the streamlining into BUGx and the massive overlap of cards, which makes listing every variant as an individual deck kind of a weak point.

It's not that MtgTop8 and other data collection sites differ between TES, ANT, TnT or other storm variants either when painting the metagame pie charts. So why we list the likes of BUGx Control, 4C, Czech Pile and more seperately, other than using the many, little, split percentages as a strawman to call the format diverse? For me many of the decks listed are no distinctive subtypes, but "flavors" of the same midrange deck which can seamlessly blur into tempo or control by just switching your blue creatures with other blue creatures and altering your secondary disruption. It's outright fine to disagree with my decision to not relabel a deck based on running SCM or YP in its secondary creature slot.

MorphBerlin

06-07-2018, 06:32 AM

Except no one said that. I was talking about the streamlining into BUGx and the massive overlap of cards, which makes listing every variant as an individual deck kind of a weak point.

It's not that MtgTop8 and other data collection sites differ between TES, ANT, TnT or other storm variants either when painting the metagame pie charts. So why we list the likes of BUGx Control, 4C, Czech Pile and more seperately, other than using the many, little, split percentages as a strawman to call the format diverse? For me many of the decks listed are no distinctive subtypes, but "flavors" of the same midrange deck which can seamlessly blur into tempo or control by just switching your blue creatures with other blue creatures and altering your secondary disruption. It's outright fine to disagree with my decision to not relabel a deck based on running SCM or YP in its secondary creature slot.

Your argument was not between BUG Control and 4C/Pile (these diferent names for the same deck, you have to use this kind of shadyness in your arguments allready because you can't find a third deck? Can I use Storm and ANT as different decks now too?). Your argument:

switching Gurmag Angler to Leovold, running 2 more lands

Saying Gixis Gelver and BUG contrl/4c are the same because "they add 2 lands and replace gurmag with leovold" s just utter BS.

If I tell my local storm players that ANT and TES are the same deck they will stongly disagree but it sure would be the same deck under your premise, all stompy decks are lands+chalice+stuff, all decks running dark depths+stage are the same pile, S&T+Reanimator all the same because it doen't matter how you cheat Griselbrand into play.

Whitefaces

06-07-2018, 07:47 AM

Czech Pile is just Grixis Delver with Kicker.

Dr_D

06-07-2018, 08:15 AM

If I tell my local storm players that ANT and TES are the same deck they will stongly disagree

They're just delverless delver decks tbh.

MorphBerlin

06-07-2018, 08:48 AM

They're just delverless delver decks tbh.

In the end they are all brainstrom+x decks I guess...

Mr. Safety

06-07-2018, 09:41 AM

To a certain extent. The fetchland+shockland manabase is the standard in Modern, but you do see dual lands other than those see play for the simple fact that unlike the dual lands, the shocklands come with a drawback, so the fetchland+shockland synergy isn't as powerful in Modern as the fetchland+dual land synergy is in Legacy. A lot of decks will therefore run a few copies of fastlands or checklands.

So for example, if we look at the Top 8 of the last Modern SCG Open:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19333&d=322831&f=MO

Setting aside Humans, EldraziTron, and Affinity lists due to their fairly unique manabases, you'll notice that while the fetchlands and shocklands are the most popular lands in the other decks (Burn, UWR Control, Jund), all of them are running some dual lands outside of those. The Burn deck is running Inspiring Vantage; UWR Control decks are running Celestial Colonnade, Glacial Fortress, and either Spirebluff Canal or Sulfur Falls; and the Jund deck is running Blackcleave Cliffs, Raging Ravine, and Twilight Mire.

You'll see this pattern continued for spots 9-16. All of the decks running dual lands, all of them, are running at least some non-shock/non-fetch dual lands. Shock+fetch is the staple and most of their dual lands will be one of those two, but the other dual lands can sneak in a few spots whereas they're basically nonentities in Legacy outside of Horizon Canopy and Grove of the Burnwillows.

All that said, the Modern manabases aren't really that much of a "hard decisions"; the number of decisions regarding manabases is relatively small. For example, the only difference between the manabases of the two Top 8 UWR Control decks is rather small (one is running a Spirebluff Canal instead of a Sulfur Falls), and the only difference between the two Jund lists in the full Top 16 is (outside of slightly different fetchland choices), one adding a third Raging Ravine.

There are two distinct conversations going on here, but I really like this one. I think your evaluation of modern mana-bases is spot on...now imagine no fetchlands for modern. I think it recovers much faster than Legacy because it is already using non-fetchable duals. Legacy on the other hand scrambles for the same real estate that was before only used in Modern. True duals are still better than shocks, but we're not actually sure if shocks are better than other options (fastlands/buddy lands.) In fact I would argue that it wouldn't become a situation of 4x every shockland needed and then other duals. I think it would be some number of shocklands, a higher concentration of fastlands in low-curve decks (like burn), and a higher concentration of buddy lands in higher-curve decks (jeskai control.) Most of the mid-range strategies like jund will probably lean on the filter lands (a la Twilight Mire) a lot more. Affinity, Tron, Eldrazi, Humans...they scoff and carry on as usual. All of this assuming a no-fetch environment.

Lemnear

06-07-2018, 09:45 AM

Your argument was not between BUG Control and 4C/Pile (these diferent names for the same deck, you have to use this kind of shadyness in your arguments allready because you can't find a third deck? Can I use Storm and ANT as different decks now too?).

Is it really needed to list all the variants of BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control decks, because it seems that giving just a few example of the same ~45 card core being split up under different names is not enough?

AnT, TES, TnT & Co are always grouped together as "storm" in every metagame analysis (same as various Stompy decks) to make it easier to see what slice the supertype occupies in the metagame.

I merely question, why we can't have the BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control decks grouped together as well to see the actual share the core has in the field compared to other supertypes, but split them up in half a dozen subtypes to cloak the fact that its more than 1/4 of the field.

If I tell my local storm players that ANT and TES are the same deck they will stongly disagree but it sure would be the same deck under your premise, all stompy decks are lands+chalice+stuff, all decks running dark depths+stage are the same pile, S&T+Reanimator all the same because it doen't matter how you cheat Griselbrand into play.

For the third time: I did not say its "the same". I questioned why similar decks and cores are usually grouped together in metagame charts (like your mentioned storm, stompy, Loam, etc decks), but we don't see that for the BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control decks.

Edit:
MtgTop8 literally differentiates between...

- 4c Stoneblade (aka Deathblade)
- BUG Control
- BUG Midrange
- 4c control
- Grixis Control
- Delver BUG
- Grixis Delver

...which make up for ~28% of the field, yet people point to the "diversity" of the field in order to claim that the BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control shell isn't putting up concering numbers

taconaut

06-07-2018, 10:12 AM

This thread really needs a drinking game.

Could you elaborate? I meant that as an honest question, not a dismissive comment. It really does seem like the optimal strategy for people like Mega. If you want:

- cantrips to be bad
- creatures to be the best thing you can be doing
- the combat step being the main thing that matters
- color diversity but not necessarily strategic diversity
- faster metagame changes
- less consistency on a game to game basis
- more regular banning of powerful cards

Then there are formats literally designed around these constraints. Legacy, fortunately, is not, but many of these posters want it to be. Why? If these are things you want, standard is specifically made to be that way, and so is Modern. I'm not trying talk down to anyone, I'm trying to figure out why someone would continue to rail against a status quo that many people enjoy rather than just seeking out the thing that caters to their preferences (and has more WOTC support and a larger player base to boot).

pettdan

06-07-2018, 10:38 AM

Could you elaborate? I meant that as an honest question, not a dismissive comment. It really does seem like the optimal strategy for people like Mega. If you want:

- cantrips to be bad
- creatures to be the best thing you can be doing
- the combat step being the main thing that matters
- color diversity but not necessarily strategic diversity
- faster metagame changes
- less consistency on a game to game basis
- more regular banning of powerful cards

Then there are formats literally designed around these constraints. Legacy, fortunately, is not, but many of these posters want it to be. Why? If these are things you want, standard is specifically made to be that way, and so is Modern. I'm not trying talk down to anyone, I'm trying to figure out why someone would continue to rail against a status quo that many people enjoy rather than just seeking out the thing that caters to their preferences (and has more WOTC support and a larger player base to boot).

Arguing for more diversity is not equivalent to arguing for your list, it just illustrates your perception of the discussion which is in my view very limited. I tried to summarize some points a short while ago, however not yet touching on the argument that nothing needs to be banned. On that topic, my guess is that most people actually are bored by the large amount of Grixis X/Y being played against other decks or each other in most events, it is making coverage less interesting; maybe this is not representative, maybe it is. Anyway, I suggest you have a look at it to realize why someone would consider the banning of a strongly polarizing card to actually enable more strategies to be played (this sentence already explains it, but if you need more input to understand someone else's view, look below).

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?14662-All-B-R-update-speculation&p=1041289&viewfull=1#post1041289

I'm also surprised that no one here has tried to summarize the discussion in a way that would help move it forward over the several years that this topic has been discussed. Or is there such a summary? Please reference it, thanks! If not, maybe you can help me add more perspectives to this summary I made so a more representative version can be written. I'm afraid I still did not add the comments provided directly after posting it.

Edit: actually, if someone could write a concise summary on why nothing needs to be changed, that would be very nice, I'd like to add it (with a reference) to the post.

Ace/Homebrew

06-07-2018, 11:10 AM

I'm also surprised that no one here has tried to summarize the discussion in a way that would help move it forward over the several years that this topic has been discussed. Or is there such a summary? Please reference it, thanks!.
Summary of 19410 posts:

A: Ban Brainstorm!
B: But I like playing with Brainstorm.

A: But ubiquity...
B: But strategic diversity...

B: Go play Modern.
A: Go to hell!

(repeat)

MorphBerlin

06-07-2018, 11:18 AM

Edit:
MtgTop8 literally differentiates between...

- 4c Stoneblade (aka Deathblade)
- BUG Control
- BUG Midrange
- 4c control
- Grixis Control
- Delver BUG
- Grixis Delver

...which make up for ~28% of the field, yet people point to the "diversity" of the field in order to claim that the BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control shell isn't putting up concering numbers

At this point we have to agree to disagree, those are 6 Different Decks to me (BUG Control/Midrange is one to me). Yes the diffences might be small, but they are still very relevant or why are 4C and Grixis Delver cleary the best decks of those listed even if they are all the same.

If you want to differentiate by playstyle the I would sill make these "UBx Midrange" and "Delver Variants" even though that is allready a very braod definition

You sound like your only resonable meta split would be Aggro, Midrange, etc... But thats honestly not how legacy works.

taconaut

06-07-2018, 11:32 AM

Summary of 19410 posts:

A: Ban Brainstorm!
B: But I like playing with Brainstorm.

A: But ubiquity...
B: But strategic diversity...

B: Go play Modern.
A: Go to hell!

(repeat)

Person B here is clearly reasoned and scholarly, unlike Person A. :tongue::laugh:

WashableWater1

06-07-2018, 01:59 PM

Is it really needed to list all the variants of BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control decks, because it seems that giving just a few example of the same ~45 card core being split up under different names is not enough?

AnT, TES, TnT & Co are always grouped together as "storm" in every metagame analysis (same as various Stompy decks) to make it easier to see what slice the supertype occupies in the metagame.

I merely question, why we can't have the BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control decks grouped together as well to see the actual share the core has in the field compared to other supertypes, but split them up in half a dozen subtypes to cloak the fact that its more than 1/4 of the field.

For the third time: I did not say its "the same". I questioned why similar decks and cores are usually grouped together in metagame charts (like your mentioned storm, stompy, Loam, etc decks), but we don't see that for the BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control decks.

Edit:
MtgTop8 literally differentiates between...

- 4c Stoneblade (aka Deathblade)
- BUG Control
- BUG Midrange
- 4c control
- Grixis Control
- Delver BUG
- Grixis Delver

...which make up for ~28% of the field, yet people point to the "diversity" of the field in order to claim that the BUGx BlueShell+DRS aggro-control shell isn't putting up concering numbers

This is why I hate using numbers. You can make them say whatever you want if you frame them correctly. Sure, this pile of five distinct strategies is 28% of the metagame if you decide to group them together. If one deck was putting up 30% of the field, yes it would be concerning. But it’s not. You just lump stuff together to be able to say “look, the numbers PROVE my opinion is correct”.

ANT and TES get lumped together because there isn’t enough TES to be a meaningful metagame portion. Moon stompy variations are lumped together because you fight them all roughly the same. They aren’t exactly strategically diverse.

PirateKing

06-07-2018, 02:19 PM

Yeah funfact: Decks that use lands to make mana and use that mana to cast spells constitute 99.98% of the meta game. Thanks Manaless Dredge, keeping things diverse!

Lemnear

06-07-2018, 02:29 PM

At this point we have to agree to disagree, those are 6 Different Decks to me (BUG Control/Midrange is one to me). Yes the diffences might be small, but they are still very relevant or why are 4C and Grixis Delver cleary the best decks of those listed even if they are all the same.

Sure, I am totally fine, if you and others see more differences than I do. Personally, most of the differences in the BUGx decks appear to be smaller than between ANT/TES, LegendMiracles/PonderMiracles, various Stompy decks, Loam variants and more, yet all but the BUGx ones are/were commonly thrown together for metagame analysis reasons. It somewhat irks me that we don't do such for a core with (imo) so much overlap and a ~28% meta share as a whole, because the 28% would have quite a weight in discussing the effect DRS + BlueShell has on the format. At least thats my 0.02$.

Edit:

This is why I hate using numbers. You can make them say whatever you want if you frame them correctly. Sure, this pile of five distinct strategies is 28% of the metagame if you decide to group them together. If one deck was putting up 30% of the field, yes it would be concerning. But it’s not. You just lump stuff together to be able to say “look, the numbers PROVE my opinion is correct”.

ANT and TES get lumped together because there isn’t enough TES to be a meaningful metagame portion. Moon stompy variations are lumped together because you fight them all roughly the same. They aren’t exactly strategically diverse.

I personally can't tell you by looking at the decklists at MtgTop8 where some BUG Control end and the Czech Piles or Grixis Controls start, so if you see 5 different decks despite the site listing them as several archetypes (often with just 1% metashare!) that's fine with me, but feels like a smokescreen in the discussion about the supertype/core and it's effect on the meta.

We had people raging in the past that 72% of decks ran Brainstorm even if the decks were spread across several color combinations and strategies. We had UBR, BUG, RUG, UR, UWR, UW, UB, UW plus the whole non-blue slice as well as combo/Tempo/midrange in their colors. Now 28% of the meta are BUGx. That's almost 53% of ALL Brainstorm decks in the format. Just let that sink in.

WashableWater1

06-07-2018, 04:52 PM

Sure, I am totally fine, if you and others see more differences than I do. Personally, most of the differences in the BUGx decks appear to be smaller than between ANT/TES, LegendMiracles/PonderMiracles, various Stompy decks, Loam variants and more, yet all but the BUGx ones are/were commonly thrown together for metagame analysis reasons. It somewhat irks me that we don't do such for a core with (imo) so much overlap and a ~28% meta share as a whole, because the 28% would have quite a weight in discussing the effect DRS + BlueShell has on the format. At least thats my 0.02$.

Edit:

I personally can't tell you by looking at the decklists at MtgTop8 where some BUG Control end and the Czech Piles or Grixis Controls start, so if you see 5 different decks despite the site listing them as several archetypes (often with just 1% metashare!) that's fine with me, but feels like a smokescreen in the discussion about the supertype/core and it's effect on the meta.

We had people raging in the past that 72% of decks ran Brainstorm even if the decks were spread across several color combinations and strategies. We had UBR, BUG, RUG, UR, UWR, UW, UB, UW plus the whole non-blue slice as well as combo/Tempo/midrange in their colors. Now 28% of the meta are BUGx. That's almost 53% of ALL Brainstorm decks in the format. Just let that sink in.

So in your 28% BUGx decks you have included 2 Grixis decks and an Esper deck. You have lumped midrange, aggro and control into one category. Its not a meaningful number. Its just the number you get when you add up metagame percentages of a couple different decks. I dont see how its alarming that 53% of the brainstorm decks are... also running black.

The UBx control decks are quite similar in a lot of aspects. BUG and Czech Pile are sort of variants of the same deck. Grixis Control can be a variant, basically Czech Pile with more bolts, or it can be a Punishing Fire deck, or it can be a Pyromancer deck. So its kind of 3 different decks under the same banner. BUG Midrange is pretty close to BUG Control, but typically runs more creatures and is looking to play a faster game. Sometimes it's the deck that evolved out of 4c stoneblade, running jittes and more TNN's. Thats sort of its own deck that gets lumped in with everything.

Ronald Deuce

06-07-2018, 06:30 PM

Then there are formats literally designed around these constraints.

Thank the gods someone finally said it.

I'm not interested in demanding that people choose different formats, but telling people who hate staples to play Modern has never been anything but a valid recommendation. Pretty much literally what the format's there for.

(Obviously there are parameters adherent to this, but the point stands.)

You sound like your only resonable meta split would be Aggro, Midrange, etc... But thats honestly not how legacy works.

Isn't that the thing that makes Legacy so awesome? Not arguing with you here, but I'm curious as to whether anyone else feels that way. I like attacking along the Q axis; X, Y, and Z are for basics.

Thirding a B&R drinking game.

Watersaw

06-08-2018, 11:14 PM

Thank the gods someone finally said it.

I'm not interested in demanding that people choose different formats, but telling people who hate staples to play Modern has never been anything but a valid recommendation. Pretty much literally what the format's there for.

(Obviously there are parameters adherent to this, but the point stands.)

Isn't that the thing that makes Legacy so awesome? Not arguing with you here, but I'm curious as to whether anyone else feels that way. I like attacking along the Q axis; X, Y, and Z are for basics.

Thirding a B&R drinking game.

Like hell I'm going to try and play enchantress in Modern. Trying to get value off do-nothing girls is even worse when they come out a turn later without protection.
Actually, I'm going to be blatantly selfish for a minute. A lot of these decks that people want to see in legacy (for mostly personal reasons, no doubt) have already been determined to be too good for modern. They had to ban Green Sun's Zenith, Dread Return and Cloudpost for Christ's sake. Punishing Fire Stoneforge Mystic and Dark Depths all got the axe. Even Seething Song, a triple-costed Dark Ritual, was considered oppressive [EDIT: bad example. To my limited understanding Storm is playable]. Legacy is the only ecosystem where these decks can exist even theoretically. Well, and Vintage I guess. But the novelty of going Sanctum > Armageddon > Balance cannot be worth the effort of playing against thorns and moxen, even with Earthcraft.

Anyway, I'm gonna get the ball rolling and say you drink whenever you see the word "ape."

pettdan

06-09-2018, 09:21 AM

Is it just me, or... (probably it is)

We are mostly discussing banning a single card, maybe 4 at a maximum, and potentially unbanning a few. Suggesting that people discussing these tiny adjustments should play another format instead, meaning removing thousands of cards, is in my view so far fetched that it's difficult to interpret as anything but an attempted provocation. Which is not worthy of a response.

A suitable response might be something like: there is a format where playing broken cards is encouraged, it is called Vintage, you go play it..

non-inflammable

06-09-2018, 04:40 PM

Is it just me No...

We are mostly discussing banning a single card Yes...

and potentially unbanning a few Yes, but I'd want more than a few for exploring new deck ideas and we can get SDT back...

There is a format where playing broken cards is encouraged, it is called Vintage, you go play it.. Gonna have to quote that from now on...

if BS is "OK" for Legacy and provides "strategic diversity" then try playing decks without BS for a few months or a YEAR and then post up your ideas for the format.
Or maybe you just need a crutch and BS is the ONLY card in Legacy that can do what it does.

How's this: a 6, 9 or 12 month conditional ban on BS and an unbanning of several suspects for a similar duration?
It's not a permanent ban, just a ban long enough for the right people to gather data on how much Legacy would suffer without BS :rolleyes:

WashableWater1

06-09-2018, 11:01 PM

No...

Yes...

Yes, but I'd want more than a few for exploring new deck ideas and we can get SDT back...

Gonna have to quote that from now on...

if BS is "OK" for Legacy and provides "strategic diversity" then try playing decks without BS for a few months or a YEAR and then post up your ideas for the format.
Or maybe you just need a crutch and BS is the ONLY card in Legacy that can do what it does.

How's this: a 6, 9 or 12 month conditional ban on BS and an unbanning of several suspects for a similar duration?
It's not a permanent ban, just a ban long enough for the right people to gather data on how much Legacy would suffer without BS :rolleyes:

I’ve played DnT for the last 3 Years. I just 6-2d day one of scgcon with Elves. Brainstorm is fine.

non-inflammable

06-10-2018, 12:52 AM

Brainstorm is fine.

ahh shit; my bad, just close this thread already.

it's fine

Last night at FNM Legacy, I was the only non-bluestew deck in the room; yeah, it's fine...

Megadeus

06-10-2018, 09:41 AM

Ronald Deuce

06-10-2018, 11:02 AM

It's just so night and day on how powerful brainstorm is compared to anything besides maybe chalice of the void is in this format. If you haven't played both blue and non blue extensively I could maybe see why you don't realize this, but if you have you're either not being objective or you're just lying to yourself

Dredging out people who really think this yet play Grixis feels awesome.

WashableWater1

06-11-2018, 03:56 PM

Megadeus

06-11-2018, 04:24 PM

So, what you’re saying is that when you played tier 1 blue decks they felt more powerful than tier 2+ non-blue decks? That’s not exactly shocking.

Yes. Because those decks don't play brainstorm. What was the old joke? Deadguy Ale tier 2. Add brainstorm and force and bam you get Esper Stoneblade which is tier 1. jund Tier 2, drop red add brainstorm and shardless agent and bam you had a tier 1 deck. Same with burn going to UR Delver for awhile. I think there was another example I forget. But it was a painful truth to the format.

Secretly.A.Bee

06-11-2018, 04:31 PM

So, what you’re saying is that when you played tier 1 blue decks they felt more powerful than tier 2+ non-blue decks? That’s not exactly shocking.I play DnT and my experience is different from the experience of Megadeus. I don't mind playing against blue without playing it myself. I feel like my cards are more powerful than many of the cards in blue decks, but I have to leverage them the correct way to win. If I don't, the blue cards and whatever else the cantrips find punish me and I will lose. Having said that, I don't lose more because they play blue, not because I do not; when I lose, I can often see things I could/I should have done that would have given me other opportunities to change the outcome.

Brainstorm is a very difficult card to play. I don't think I will ever be upset about it being in this format. Please, continue to complain, that seems to be largely the reason of this thread, it's tons of fun to read.

WashableWater1

06-11-2018, 06:14 PM

Yes. Because those decks don't play brainstorm. What was the old joke? Deadguy Ale tier 2. Add brainstorm and force and bam you get Esper Stoneblade which is tier 1. jund Tier 2, drop red add brainstorm and shardless agent and bam you had a tier 1 deck. Same with burn going to UR Delver for awhile. I think there was another example I forget. But it was a painful truth to the format.

Aren't all three of those decks soft to combo? Whatever the case, playing underpowered decks and complaining about how underpowered they are is sort of unimportant data. There are tier one decks that dont run brainstorm. If you compare tier 1 brainstorm decks to tier 1 non-brainstorm decks, they're pretty close. That tier 1 brainstorm decks outclass decks that were maybe good 5-10 years ago doesn't tell us that brainstorm is too good, it tells us that the underperforming decks are past their prime.

kinda

06-11-2018, 07:18 PM

I play DnT and my experience is different from the experience of Megadeus. I don't mind playing against blue without playing it myself. I feel like my cards are more powerful than many of the cards in blue decks, but I have to leverage them the correct way to win. If I don't, the blue cards and whatever else the cantrips find punish me and I will lose. Having said that, I don't lose more because they play blue, not because I do not; when I lose, I can often see things I could/I should have done that would have given me other opportunities to change the outcome.

Brainstorm is a very difficult card to play. I don't think I will ever be upset about it being in this format. Please, continue to complain, that seems to be largely the reason of this thread, it's tons of fun to read.

It's not exactly a secret that thalia decks, chalice decks, and quick combo decks are viable format options.

Rascalyote

06-11-2018, 08:03 PM

Secretly.A.Bee

06-11-2018, 09:33 PM

It's not exactly a secret that thalia decks, chalice decks, and quick combo decks are viable format options.It seems to be to some in this particular thread.

Ephemeron

06-13-2018, 12:06 PM

How about the reverse though, Reanimator dropped blue and its cantrips and became a better deck.

I disagree that in the abstract RB Reanimator is better than UB Reanimator. RB is a faster deck, which has become necessary in a meta where DRS's meta share is so large combined with the fact that Reanimator decks can almost never reasonably beat an active DRS. I also think you've seen more examples of RB Reanimator doing well because it's one of the cheaper decks in legacy to build, so that makes it appealing to people just getting into the format - RB Reanimator probably has a bigger share of the meta over the past year than UB Reanimator had at any time in the past few years.

I doubt that if DRS gets banned you'll continue to see RB Reanimator played anywhere near as much as it is now. The deck is trading a TON of resiliency and flexibility to become faster and more of a glass cannon because it needs to be able to go off turn 1 or turn 2 as frequently as possible to beat DRS.

Noctalor

06-13-2018, 01:22 PM

I've had success at large legacy events (7+ rounds) with Enchantress, Maverick, Deadguy Ale, 4 Color Loam, Storm and Show and Tell over the past 6~ years plus I've played a few different blue fair decks, and the blue decks are far more powerful and consistent because of the cantrips it's insane. It's just so night and day on how powerful brainstorm is compared to anything besides maybe chalice of the void is in this format. If you haven't played both blue and non blue extensively I could maybe see why you don't realize this, but if you have you're either not being objective or you're just lying to yourself

Absolutely right, those (http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=&nhigh=&from=&to=&player=ivan+fuseri&aname=&dname=&format=Noformat&main=&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on) are my tops (not all of them but most), you can clearly see that i played almost anything that legacy can offer, and blue decks are just better than non blue deck, except for a few exceptions, which are truly as good or even better, but super based on metagame shifts, that can become absolute garbage over night (prime example, lands).

Sure thing, if you want to have a better WL% over time, you got to play blue, still, you can do good enough without playing it if you prefer, even if there are metagame from time to time where playing non blue is almost impossible.

Darkenslight

06-13-2018, 04:40 PM

It seems to be to some in this particular thread.

I don't think anyone is outright saying that they aren't viable.

What a number of people, me included, are saying, is that the blue core elliminates some of the variance that you'll get, when compared with other viable decks.

That last part is the key. You'll sometimes see Elves! or D&T die to its own variance - for example, hitting a ton of lands or only one land for the entire game. Or you'll see a mono-red Stompy deck die to its Ancient Tombs, as it's their only permanent mana source.

Blue decks reduce that happening because of the core interactions between Ponder, BS and fetchlands. It's why playing only 7 or 8 colored sources of mana is entirely viable for blue decks, whereas most other viable decks have between 12 and 14 colored sources of mana. That's where the power lies. It means that you can play more business spells and fewer sources, knowing that that variance of being screwed or flooded is less relevant.

Does that make sense?

Zombie

06-13-2018, 04:49 PM

It's even simpler to state:

Nonblue decks work if they are fast combo, or attack the cantrip shell (Chalice, Thalia). There is next to no room for building nonblue decks that do not attack the cantrip engine as a strategy and try to do their own thing instead, ie. use another consistency engine or just more pieces of interaction - enacting their own strategy. The strategy must necessarily include attacking the cantrips since the cantrip shell is far and away better than competing consistency engines.

kinda

06-14-2018, 03:15 AM

MorphBerlin

06-14-2018, 04:34 AM

Tylert

06-14-2018, 04:36 AM

tsabo_tavoc

06-14-2018, 05:44 AM

I think that the discussion around bannin or keep brainstorm in the format is interresting.
It is true that the blue shell gives consistency and allows some diversity. It is true also, that it makes blue decks better than any other option (And i think that we have the results to back it up).
whatever, i would like to see what would be legacy without BS. Would it open a path for more non blue decks that would not be combo or anti-cantrip ones? would it make blue decks a non viable option anymore??
I don't think unbanning cards will change anything to the situation.

PS: i've been playing death and taxes for a long time (since 2010) and I'm pretty sure that banning brainstorm would make my deck less strong (after all, we're a meta deck).

Loud applaud! Most unban candidates would do nothing to the meta, and my biggest opposition is to people suggesting ban X to solve Legacy rather than Brainstorm.
Banning Brainstorm would hurt blue combos much more than fairer blue decks (some plays Cursecatcher before any cantrip). Ponder and Preordain would still be the best consistency engine that I would not worry blue being out of favour. Reducing consistency from blue combos would give nonblue decks a much better chance to fight against them, especially the black decks with their Thoughtseize being relevant again.

Watersaw

06-14-2018, 06:27 AM

Elves? Lands?

Both have a turn 3 kill that doesn't require going "all in."

FGCmtg

06-14-2018, 07:29 AM

Instead of banning brainstorm, hasbro could at least unban the cards worse than brainstorm. I would propose:

Earthcraft
Mind twist
Frantic search
Goblin recruiter
Survival of the fittest
Hermit druid
Fastbond

There might be others worse than brainstorm but it's harder to say.

There is zero way Hermit Druid and Fastbond are weaker than Brainstorm. Both cards essentially win the game immediately once resolved in the right deck.

Survival is a monster - since it's been picking up in Vintage recently and feels absurd play against, even if I have 7 directed graveyard hate cards and disenchants, I'm putting that as way too good.

Frantic Search is definitely a very powerful card but seeing as it doesn't kill immediately by itself and I haven't played against it with any regularity I can't really comment.

Recruiter is banned basically for time concerns, same as Top.

Earthcraft and Mind Twist are probably fine, and are contextually weaker than Brainstorm in an average Legacy game.

But seriously, HERMIT DRUID AND FASTBOND?

Lemnear

06-14-2018, 07:48 AM

Banning Brainstorm would hurt blue combos much more than fairer blue decks.

Ponder and Preordain would still be the best consistency engine that I would not worry blue being out of favour.

Reducing consistency from blue combos would give nonblue decks a much better chance to fight against them, especially the black decks with their Thoughtseize being relevant again.

Yeah, you'd punish blue based combo decks like SnT while leaving DRS+BlueShell+Goodstuff pretty much unharmed and Ponder+Preordain+Probe as the obviously best shell for consistency, which non-blue engines still can't compete with.

How should that make the metagame more diverse, if you chop down combo decks and make DRS+Ponder+Preordain+Probe an even more obvious choice to select?

P.S. calling discard irrelevant because of brainstorm is a wack argument by itself. Every Duress, Thoughtseize, Hymn or Therapy played in the format just discredits the claim.

kinda

06-14-2018, 07:58 AM

There is zero way Hermit Druid and Fastbond are weaker than Brainstorm. Both cards essentially win the game immediately once resolved in the right deck.

Survival is a monster - since it's been picking up in Vintage recently and feels absurd play against, even if I have 7 directed graveyard hate cards and disenchants, I'm putting that as way too good.

Frantic Search is definitely a very powerful card but seeing as it doesn't kill immediately by itself and I haven't played against it with any regularity I can't really comment.

Recruiter is banned basically for time concerns, same as Top.

Earthcraft and Mind Twist are probably fine, and are contextually weaker than Brainstorm in an average Legacy game.

But seriously, HERMIT DRUID AND FASTBOND?

Lots of cards win the game when resolved but that hardly makes them better than brainstorm. It's a 2 mana creature that has to untap to do anything and uses the gy. So literally every interaction spell stops it...swords...fow...leyline of the void...lightning bolt...thoughtseize t1. It would be playable i imagine but I doubt better than brainstorm.

So Fastbond was a loose inclusion...idk what the deck would look like.

I was on the ban survival train when it was legal but now decks run lots of ways to interact with it md. Drs...decay...phyrexian revoker...and gy hate is stronger. Surgical/lotv in particular. Similar to druid it would be good but hardly a necessary card to play i imagine.

FGCmtg

06-14-2018, 09:17 AM

Lots of cards win the game when resolved but that hardly makes them better than brainstorm. It's a 2 mana creature that has to untap to do anything and uses the gy. So literally every interaction spell stops it...swords...fow...leyline of the void...lightning bolt...thoughtseize t1. It would be playable i imagine but I doubt better than brainstorm.

So Fastbond was a loose inclusion...idk what the deck would look like.

I was on the ban survival train when it was legal but now decks run lots of ways to interact with it md. Drs...decay...phyrexian revoker...and gy hate is stronger. Surgical/lotv in particular. Similar to druid it would be good but hardly a necessary card to play i imagine.

Just put Fastbond in Lands to start, I guess some deck based around Diminishing Returns and fast mana and storm would appear at some point, or something equally as broken.

Shallow Grave Druid kills immediately, with the upside of you can just cast it. So it's a higher success rate Griselbrand for fast combo decks that you can cast.

I had Vintage dredge hate when playing vs it (rips, cages and priests, and plows for vengevines, disenchants for survival, plus forces, drains, pierce...) the card is silly.

(Yes, there is definitely hyperbole and exaggeration in this post, but that seems to be the primary mode of discussion in this thread)

ReAnimator

06-14-2018, 09:42 AM

With the printing of Hollow One, no one should be clamouring for Survival to come back.
Which was always the problem, the more creatures and interactions that get printed the better Survival gets, it will only get more powerful over time.

P.S. calling discard irrelevant because of brainstorm is a wack argument by itself. Every Duress, Thoughtseize, Hymn or Therapy played in the format just discredits the claim.

While certainly not irrelevant completely, the protection BS affords decks by hiding pieces on top of your library to save them from a Duress or Seize is certainly one of the contributing reasons that those discard spells aren't as powerful in the format as they could be.

frogczar

06-14-2018, 10:18 AM

NeckBird

06-14-2018, 10:21 AM

Ya know, I've seen Legacy players use the insult of, "Go play Modern," whenever it's suggested something might actually be too powerful for Legacy or should be banned. Do people not realize that if you unban Fastbond the format will literally be 100% Fastbond vs. anti-Fastbond decks? Do you really just want to turn Legacy into an even shittier version of Vintage? Oh yeah, let's unban Survival of the Fittest cause Deathrite Shaman exists because obviously Survival decks won't just play their own Deathrite Shamans.

If anything, this thread proves there isn't a single group of players that's worse at evaluating banned lists than Legacy players.

Lemnear

06-14-2018, 10:25 AM

While certainly not irrelevant completely, the protection BS affords decks by hiding pieces on top of your library to save them from a Duress or Seize is certainly one of the contributing reasons that those discard spells aren't as powerful in the format as they could be.

My issue with the original statement is that it implies discard is next to unplayable, despite us knowing how oppressive Probe/Therapy/Pyromancer was/is at times and also despite Duress/Hymn/Therapy being staples in countless decks.

Sure, Brainstorm MIGHT be used to mitigate some damage (instead for fixing your draw/hand, like with the classic T2 BS into Fetch), but that does not affect the viability of discard at all. I have never heared any decent storm or Grixis player whinning, that their discard is trash and unplayable, because their opponent was hiding FoW on top. Discard IS absurdly powerful despite Brainstorm.

ReAnimator

06-14-2018, 10:55 AM

My issue with the original statement is that it implies discard is next to unplayable, despite us knowing how oppressive Probe/Therapy/Pyromancer was/is at times and also despite Duress/Hymn/Therapy being staples in countless decks.

Sure, Brainstorm MIGHT be used to mitigate some damage (instead for fixing your draw/hand, like with the classic T2 BS into Fetch), but that does not affect the viability of discard at all. I have never heared any decent storm or Grixis player whinning, that their discard is trash and unplayable, because their opponent was hiding FoW on top. Discard IS absurdly powerful despite Brainstorm.

In storm the discard is strong cause you can win in the same turn as your discard, so hiding a counter on top isn't as useful unless you can then draw it again that turn.

But as a disruptive element, like in a jund or midrange or "fair" deck, targeted discard is certainly lacking especially vs 2 card combo decks like S&T etc.

The meta isn't in a place like that so much right now mostly with S&T and Reanimator being pushed out of the format for the most part, but a few years ago this absolutely was a thing and a reason that non blue disruption wasn't really a viable strategy in playing legacy.

Again, not saying discard isn't playable, it certainly is, probably more so now than it has in years, just that BS is a thing that makes it less good, to some degree. So i agree with you that the original statement isn't accurate.

Finn

06-14-2018, 10:59 AM

I was just reading Cedric Phillips’ comments in the state of magic thread. What struck me was the bit about too much shuffling to cover Legacy. Considering how helpful it was when scg hosted Legacy every week, and how bad it has been since they ended it, in think we should seriously consider that to be important information. I would have simply considered it an interesting thought until I realized that BANNING ALL TEN FETCHLANDS would seriously curtail the strength of Brainstorm without the need to ban it. And at the same tome we give scg a strong argument for hosting legacy tournaments on a regular basis again.

taconaut

06-14-2018, 11:09 AM

Both have a turn 3 kill that doesn't require going "all in."

So? They still show that there are alternative engines that don't directly attack the cantrip shell. Killing your opponent is a great way to stop them in Magic.

I actually don't think Survival would be a big deal if it were unbanned, even with Deathrite Shaman still legal. What are they going to do that's more broken than what already happens in Legacy? OK, cool, you played a two mana enchantment that doesn't do anything until you put another mana into it, at which point it probably still doesn't do anything unless you have another mana? Then, even if you do your cool thing, what, now you've got some 4/4s or something? Griselbrand is legal, Tendrils of Agony is legal, Show and Tell is legal...plus, they can needle you, decay you, use their deathrite on your 4/4s, multiple copies of survival aren't really great, sometimes you draw a hand of a bunch of unplayable Rumbling Baloths and just die...I dunno, I'd be excited to be proven wrong, but I just don't see it.

**Edit to respond to Finn who snuck in under me:

What struck me was the bit about too much shuffling to cover Legacy. BANNING ALL TEN FETCHLANDS would seriously curtail the strength of Brainstorm without the need to ban it. And at the same tome we give scg a strong argument for hosting legacy tournaments on a regular basis again.

As I have mentioned before, banning Fetches would be a huge deal, potentially making Legacy much more interesting/physically quicker and easier to play/etc, but no amount of additional SCG coverage support will make up for $1000+ duals, which is what banning fetches would create.

If the reserved list didn't exist, it'd be an attractive option (outside of the ugliness and inelegance of banning ten cards), but the financial realities related to the fetches and duals makes it unfeasible.

NeckBird

06-14-2018, 11:27 AM

Bithlord

06-14-2018, 11:31 AM

As I have mentioned before, banning Fetches would be a huge deal, potentially making Legacy much more interesting/physically quicker and easier to play/etc, but no amount of additional SCG coverage support will make up for $1000+ duals, which is what banning fetches would create.

Banning fetches *dramatically* reduces the value of land types on the non-basics, and instantly increases the number of viable alternatives for most decks.

Edit: I should say, increases the design space of viable alternatives. Fastlands are the only ones that are really viable currently, if fetches were banned. Checklands could make a brief appearance.

Megadeus

06-14-2018, 12:24 PM

In storm the discard is strong cause you can win in the same turn as your discard, so hiding a counter on top isn't as useful unless you can then draw it again that turn.

But as a disruptive element, like in a jund or midrange or "fair" deck, targeted discard is certainly lacking especially vs 2 card combo decks like S&T etc.

The meta isn't in a place like that so much right now mostly with S&T and Reanimator being pushed out of the format for the most part, but a few years ago this absolutely was a thing and a reason that non blue disruption wasn't really a viable strategy in playing legacy.

Again, not saying discard isn't playable, it certainly is, probably more so now than it has in years, just that BS is a thing that makes it less good, to some degree. So i agree with you that the original statement isn't accurate.

This. Every deck that plays discard that actually puts up results besides Depths also plays counters or just kills ( in storm case). I know as a deadguy/rock player I've died many times after I turn 1 thought seize, opponent brainstorms, hides relevant things, then kills me next turn. Discard is good in the format, but as it turns out it's best with brainstorm

kinda

06-14-2018, 01:00 PM

Just put Fastbond in Lands to start, I guess some deck based around Diminishing Returns and fast mana and storm would appear at some point, or something equally as broken.

Shallow Grave Druid kills immediately, with the upside of you can just cast it. So it's a higher success rate Griselbrand for fast combo decks that you can cast.

I had Vintage dredge hate when playing vs it (rips, cages and priests, and plows for vengevines, disenchants for survival, plus forces, drains, pierce...) the card is silly.

(Yes, there is definitely hyperbole and exaggeration in this post, but that seems to be the primary mode of discussion in this thread)

A slightly better exploration or as part of a clunky multi card combo doesn't sound world shattering. This was probably the most questionable of the 7 I suggested though. I'd still be very surprised if people chose to play it over brainstorm...though maybe some bonkers deck would run both and make it unclear which is better.

Your druid stormy deck doesn't sound like it's beating grixis delver or pile. It would probably be comically good vs chalice and thalia decks though. Even more so than Fastbond, druid decks would likely run both druid and brainstorm making the choice non existent...but I doubt if you could only pick one of the two that anyone would pick druid over brainstorm.

I have no idea what the vintage version looks like. The old survival legacy deck was very durdly if didn't find/resolve survival.

taconaut

06-14-2018, 01:58 PM

Isn't a common stereotype of Legacy that you get combo killed on turn 1/2 and/or die to Force of Will? You mentioned Griselbrand, Tendrils, and Show & Tell all of which do this. No mention of how other fair decks beat Survival outside of cards that would be played in a Survival deck. The reason Survival should remain banned is because it consolidates the fair decks far more than Deathrite is doing now. There is zero reason to play any other fair deck besides the best Survival deck if its unbanned.

This is a very reasonable question to ask - the reason I mentioned those cards specifically is to address the (alleged) combo aspect of survival, and how it's not a big deal, which it sounds like you feel is a fair point.

With respect to the fair decks, without having seen whatever survival pile emerges, I still think I would rather be on the Czech or Grixis plan if you have me the choice of one of those or Survival head-to-head. Does taking a turn off to cast an enchantment that doesn't do anything immediately line up well against Spell Pierce or Abrupt Decay?

I feel like the threats are so efficient, and the cantrips so consistent, that even having survival wouldn't put you in an insane place against the top decks as they stand, and it wouldn't restrict deckbuilding options. Would it really make sense to play more than, say, two Survivals in your deck? Would it be better than Brainstorm or even GSZ? I have my doubts (though again, I hardly ever play fair decks outside of limited, so I am open to being wrong).

Banning fetches *dramatically* reduces the value of land types on the non-basics, and instantly increases the number of viable alternatives for most decks.

Edit: I should say, increases the design space of viable alternatives. Fastlands are the only ones that are really viable currently, if fetches were banned. Checklands could make a brief appearance.

I think that is somewhat true, but even if they didn't have the land types, coming into play untapped and making two colors is still better than any other dual, which means that you would still max out true duals before anything else, even if fetches were banned. If OG duals didn't have basic land types, no one would play checklands in the hypothetical fetchless format, either.

I think the diversity of manabases would increase somewhat, sure, but you would ultimately still need a critical number of duals to be competitive.

Bithlord

06-14-2018, 02:52 PM

but you would ultimately still need a critical number of duals to be competitive.

Absolutely. It's not a solution (to the dual land issue) in and of itself. It opens doors, though. Type-less duals in a supplemental set could be a thing. it would also de-homogonize decklists somewhat, since you can no longer rely on 10+ of your lands being able to hit literally any color mana you need.

But, realistically, banning fetches wouldn't be done to address OG dual scarcity. It would be done to address the cantrip shell / brainstorm dominance. the affect on dual land usage would be known, but ancillary.

Megadeus

06-14-2018, 02:59 PM

It would be interesting to actually have to build shuffle effects into your deck like play stone forge or more tutors or something. Maybe even evolving wilds. I'm unsure though because blood moon and wasteland get a pretty solid boost too. Though at the same time you then probably up the number of basics you run allowing you to more often naturally draw out of a moon lock

tsabo_tavoc

06-14-2018, 05:07 PM

My issue with the original statement is that it implies discard is next to unplayable, despite us knowing how oppressive Probe/Therapy/Pyromancer was/is at times and also despite Duress/Hymn/Therapy being staples in countless decks.

Sure, Brainstorm MIGHT be used to mitigate some damage (instead for fixing your draw/hand, like with the classic T2 BS into Fetch), but that does not affect the viability of discard at all. I have never heared any decent storm or Grixis player whinning, that their discard is trash and unplayable, because their opponent was hiding FoW on top. Discard IS absurdly powerful despite Brainstorm.

The original statement is Thoughtseize would be relevant again in nonblue decks against blue combos, does it still knock your nerves :smile:

Like ReAnimator and Megadeus have said, decks such as Jund and Junk being viable would diversify Legacy. Jund should have a good matchup against Grixis cantrips, even with Brainstorm. They don’t show up because of a zoo of combo decks, especially the good ones with Brainstorm.

Watersaw

06-14-2018, 09:58 PM

So? They still show that there are alternative engines that don't directly attack the cantrip shell. Killing your opponent is a great way to stop them in Magic.

I actually don't think Survival would be a big deal if it were unbanned, even with Deathrite Shaman still legal. What are they going to do that's more broken than what already happens in Legacy? OK, cool, you played a two mana enchantment that doesn't do anything until you put another mana into it, at which point it probably still doesn't do anything unless you have another mana? Then, even if you do your cool thing, what, now you've got some 4/4s or something? Griselbrand is legal, Tendrils of Agony is legal, Show and Tell is legal...plus, they can needle you, decay you, use their deathrite on your 4/4s, multiple copies of survival aren't really great, sometimes you draw a hand of a bunch of unplayable Rumbling Baloths and just die...I dunno, I'd be excited to be proven wrong, but I just don't see it.

**Edit to respond to Finn who snuck in under me:

As I have mentioned before, banning Fetches would be a huge deal, potentially making Legacy much more interesting/physically quicker and easier to play/etc, but no amount of additional SCG coverage support will make up for $1000+ duals, which is what banning fetches would create.

If the reserved list didn't exist, it'd be an attractive option (outside of the ugliness and inelegance of banning ten cards), but the financial realities related to the fetches and duals makes it unfeasible.

Here,

It's even simpler to state:

Nonblue decks work if they are fast combo, or attack the cantrip shell (Chalice, Thalia). There is next to no room for building nonblue decks that do not attack the cantrip engine as a strategy and try to do their own thing instead, ie. use another consistency engine or just more pieces of interaction - enacting their own strategy. The strategy must necessarily include attacking the cantrips since the cantrip shell is far and away better than competing consistency engines.

Both of these decks fit into the first category, giving up some speed for the ability to fire again and again or threatening to just turn dudes sideways for a few turns Like God Intended. Lands also plays some resistors out of the board.

Not to say a Survival unban would be The End of everything we know and love, but didn't we spend the last year of so hearing how a sorcery-speed value spell that does literal nothing until you untap is OP and must be banned? I was pretty mellow on legalizing Survival but now I'm not sure.

Lemnear

06-15-2018, 04:35 AM

Like ReAnimator and Megadeus have said, decks such as Jund and Junk being viable would diversify Legacy. Jund should have a good matchup against Grixis cantrips, even with Brainstorm. They don’t show up because of a zoo of combo decks, especially the good ones with Brainstorm.

That's a lot of "ifs" assuming that

a) no non-brainstorm combo deck would be viable to keep Jund/Junk down.
b) Jund/Junk would actually be able to compete with Ponder+Preordain+Probe in regards to stability.
c) all blue-based combo decks would vanish without adapting.

I think that's far too optimistic, given that combo isn't big atm and Jund/Junk still can't profit from the sheer numbers of Grixis & Co in the meta. I can't quite see how these decks should be able to beat Grixis & Co with their usual method of "going big" if the DRS+BlueShell pile has a history of slapping 3cc and 4cc spells despite Daze and Wasteland being everywhere.

P.S.:

It's quite ridiculous to suggest killing of countless A+B combo decks as well as half the tempo archetypes, to "diversify Legacy" by MAYBE improve the position of certain other decks. It's outright possible that you achieve the opposite and just reduce options

taconaut

06-15-2018, 12:44 PM

Both of these decks fit into the first category, giving up some speed for the ability to fire again and again or threatening to just turn dudes sideways for a few turns Like God Intended. Lands also plays some resistors out of the board.

Not to say a Survival unban would be The End of everything we know and love, but didn't we spend the last year of so hearing how a sorcery-speed value spell that does literal nothing until you untap is OP and must be banned? I was pretty mellow on legalizing Survival but now I'm not sure.

I don't think Lands playing resistors in the board is a counterargument; the point of sideboards is to adjust your main plan based on the meta.

As for the other point, it seems like you want to:

- not play cantrips or have your opponent playing cantrips
- not play fast combo
- not play blue in the abstract (but this might just be related to the first bullet)
- kill your opponent by attacking them with creatures
- play mostly spells that interact

Again, without any disrespect, why not play Modern or Standard, or even Limited? All of those formats are literally designed around the constraints I listed. Legacy is awesome because it is one of the few remaining formats to not be bound by those preferences.

Wizards caters to the "fair dudes and removal" approach in every other non-EDH and Vintage constructed format, so if they start making Legacy like that too, players like me (and many others) have to decide between shelling out an insane amount of money for Vintage (and then get shops'd anyway) or play multiplayer (and I love EDH too, it just doesn't fill the same niche Legacy does).

I'm not sure which sorcery-speed thing you are referring to? But yeah, I could totally be wrong, but I strongly suspect survival would not really do anything in Legacy as it currently exists - the card is super cool and I love playing it in Cube, but I dont think it would be competitive with what we already have.

Barachai

06-15-2018, 12:51 PM

Again, without any disrespect, why not play Modern or Standard, or even Limited? All of those formats are literally designed around the constraints I listed. Legacy is awesome because it is one of the few remaining formats to not be bound by those preferences.

Wizards caters to the "fair dudes and removal" approach in every other non-EDH and Vintage constructed format, so if they start making Legacy like that too, players like me (and many others) have to decide between shelling out an insane amount of money for Vintage (and then get shops'd anyway) or play multiplayer (and I love EDH too, it just doesn't fill the same niche Legacy does).

Modern can be a real **** format for playing "fair dudes and removal". Really only Standard/Limited cater to such an approach.

I think the desire is to play "super-powered fair dudes and removal", which is admittedly a bit of a tall order (though I cannot deny the appeal).

tescrin

06-15-2018, 01:39 PM

On the Jund Junk thing; it's really just a problem of Force. Force of Black n Green isn't a thing and it won't be; as will any on-the-stack-interesting-spell.

To make it properly competitive we need a Duress that is instant speed; preferably with an Unmask clause to pitch.

One thing I could see being an interesting green spell:

G - Polymorph Counterspell Thing
Exile Target (noncreature?) Spell. Its owner may reveal cards from the top of their library until they reveal another Spell with converted mana cost less than or equal to the exiled spell. If they do they may cast that card without paying its manacost. Place all revealed cards on the bottom of their owner's library in any order.

That would enable basically all of the non-U decks to interact on the stack in a new and meaningful way: Turning your spell into a different one. It's CDA like force, so you'll often be careful about using it. It's better against Cantrip/Combo decks than it is creature decks, etc.

The whole problem with non-blue is not T0; it's the stack. You either did something good enough to get to your next turn, or you die and you have no recourse. Aside from Surgical or another couple fringe cards; it's because Wizards shit the bed in regards to Blue and are unwilling to give instant speed interaction to other colors. That counterspell would enable REAL games between nonU midrange and Elves, REAL games between nonU midrange and SneakShow. The difference isn't even if you have it in hand; it's how they play.

When combo has to "respect you" because they haven't seen your hand yet or they know you can do something in their turn; they don't just shit in your neck with no repercussion. It's a real game. When you can only screw them on your own turn, they can therefore do whatever they want on their turn, meaning if they can win it's as simple as tapping their mana.

But we won't get cards like that. We won't get instant speed targeted discard (even with restrictions). We won't get stack interaction outside of Judge's Familiar and Mana Tithe which are 7 and 10 years old or so respectively.

Seriously though, B- Instant Duress would even be enough to even the odds by quite a bit I'd wager; even though it's pretty garbage compared to Force.

Lemnear

06-15-2018, 01:57 PM

Stuff like Lifeforce, Avoid Fate, Guttural response, Pyroblasts, REB, Rebuff the Wicked, Burnout and others are non-blue counterspells

Ace/Homebrew

06-15-2018, 02:58 PM

Stuff like Lifeforce, Avoid Fate, Guttural response, Pyroblasts, REB, Rebuff the Wicked, Burnout and others are non-blue counterspells
What's the difference between the ones you've mentioned and the following cards?

Cancel
Counterspell
Dissipate
Dissolve
Forbid
Force of Will

Lemnear

06-15-2018, 03:06 PM

What's the difference between the ones you've mentioned and the following cards?

Cancel
Counterspell
Dissipate
Dissolve
Forbid
Force of Will

This isn't a discussion about card quality. It's just pointing at the fact that there is non-blue stack interaction to combat combo decks like SnT

Claymore

06-15-2018, 03:37 PM

Zombie

06-15-2018, 04:12 PM

I think Wizards is starting to spread some of blue's pie out - Oath of Nissa - but the counter magic/stack interaction portion certainly is not moving at all. I feel like it's the most powerful ability in the pie chart, and not having it spread out is kind of a limitation of the game in general. Especially when other color abilities - powerful creatures, hand interaction - are now getting moved into blue anyway (Delver, Clique, True Name).

Not to mention that Blue by itself is able to handle any type of card in the game, whereas other colors have inherent limitations (artifacts, enchantments, creatures, etc).

Yeah, pretty much every green draw ever printed is attached to a body driving the cost up a ton or is self-terminating to the point of actively bottoming other copies of green draw, which means it just can't hope to compete with the constant uplift a cantrip shell provides. Glimpse is basically the only thing, and people have used Lead the Stampede in Pauper with similar intent - just make the card straight broken with a high creature density. But that has far more other costs than blue. Because hey, blue.

Can I have my flying/reach deathtouch Visionary already?

Bithlord

06-15-2018, 04:12 PM

it's because Wizards shit the bed in regards to Blue and are unwilling to give instant speed interaction to other colors.

This is totally, and completely, correct. Counter-spell being a locked into blue ability is what leads to this. If it weren't, we could see alternative "force-esque" spells:

Red: 3RR - Counter target instant or sorcery spell. You may sacrifice a creature instead of paying the manacost of RedForce.
Green: 3GG - Counter target artifact or creature spell. You may sacrifice a land instead of paying the manacost of GreenForce.
Black: 3GG - Counter target spell. If you do, you lose life equal to the CMC of target spell. You may pay X life instead of paying the manacost of Blackforce, where X is the CMC of target spell.
White: 3WW - Counter target spell unless it's controller pays mana equal to it's CMC. You may discard a white card and pay 2 life instead of paying WhiteForce's manacost.

Templating issues, probably need the exile clause, but you get the gist. CounterSpells should be in all colors, just like creature removal of some sort *is* in all colors.

pettdan

06-15-2018, 05:01 PM

As for the other point, it seems like you want to:

- not play cantrips or have your opponent playing cantrips
- not play fast combo
- not play blue in the abstract (but this might just be related to the first bullet)
- kill your opponent by attacking them with creatures
- play mostly spells that interact

Again, without any disrespect, why not play Modern or Standard, or even Limited? All of those formats are literally designed around the constraints I listed.

The problem with your argument is that every one of those assumptions are false, only talking for myself of course. (Some warrant further discussion, sure, but are in principle wrong).

I think I included that part in the summary of the discussion that I've posted and linked to twice in this thread, recently, and I still think everyone should consider the merits of a shared problem description with opposing views briefly summarized, it could help saving lots of time by avoiding misunderstandings, it would help us progress the discussion and mutual understanding of others' views AND help introduce less frequent readers. Well, that's it for this time..

Lemnear

06-16-2018, 04:24 AM

Can I have my flying/reach deathtouch Visionary already?

Pls, a flying, deathtouching "Infernal Tutor for a random card in your deck"?

Lord Seth

06-16-2018, 02:58 PM

Not to say a Survival unban would be The End of everything we know and love, but didn't we spend the last year of so hearing how a sorcery-speed value spell that does literal nothing until you untap is OP and must be banned? I was pretty mellow on legalizing Survival but now I'm not sure.What sorcery are we talking about here?

kinda

06-16-2018, 03:11 PM

What sorcery are we talking about here?

I'm guessing deathrite shaman?

Lord Seth

06-16-2018, 04:21 PM

I'm guessing deathrite shaman?Ah, that would make sense.

The description isn't true, though. Deathrite Shaman doesn't do "literal nothing" until you untap because a 1/2 is capable of blocking.

Fox

06-17-2018, 08:25 AM

I think we can all agree that, to help non-blue get countermagic, they must unban SDT and ban Counterbalance. One must never forget the power of the MonkeyBlast (sometimes also called Force of Ape) which Painter decks would levy. There's no need to make some new :3::r::r: FoW variant as it already exists @Bithlord.

Any time people are unhappy about the state of legacy, deep down it's probably because they don't have enough Painter in their meta. :cool:

taconaut

06-17-2018, 11:36 AM

The ban Brainstorm camp wants to remove the one card that seems to homogenize the format into: cards that use Brainstorm to achieve superior consistency, and decks that try to fight that consistency advantage. The latter has been limited to decks using Chalice/Thalia/Vial or super redundant decks such as Lands/Elves/Burn. A third category is graveyard based combo or synergy decks. These people think that a meta defined by Brainstorm and anti-Brainstorm strategies is too narrow, and that removing Brainstorm would weaken the blue shell enough that other competing strategies than the anti-Brainstorm and graveyard-based strategies would flourish. The anti-Brainstorm camp values a diversity of the format that enables other strategies than those that use Brainstorm, different as they may be, and those that try to compete with Brainstorm. Such other strategies could be the Rock, Nic Fit, Painter, Maverick, Zoo, Pox, Goblins, Cloudpost, any glass-cannon combo deck, Jund, and above all the decks that haven't been invented due to the blue shell supremacy. This would include diversity well beyond strategic diversity.

I bolded the parts of your summary that are relevant, and that align with the assumptions I made. You establish a legacy phylogeny of:

- Cantrip Decks
- Cantrip-Hate Decks
- Graveyard-based Combo or Synergy Decks

Then, you say you don't want to play those. OK, that reflects these assumptions:

As for the other point, it seems like you want to:

- not play cantrips or have your opponent playing cantrips
- not play fast combo

Then, you cite a list of other decks you DO want to play; this is commendable, because many of the other Ban-Brainstorm camp people simply decline to do so. I was happy Barachai addressed this as well, because it's true that some of the unfair decks in modern give "duders&removal.dec" a hard time, too. Your list was:

Such other strategies could be the Rock, Nic Fit, Painter, Maverick, Zoo, Pox, Goblins, Cloudpost, any glass-cannon combo deck, Jund, and above all the decks that haven't been invented due to the blue shell supremacy.

With the exception of "glass cannon combo," these reflect the following assumptions:

As for the other point, it seems like you want to:

- not play blue in the abstract (but this might just be related to the first bullet)
- kill your opponent by attacking them with creatures
- play mostly spells that interact

So I feel very safe with my list of assumptions, and have read from the summary you're citing.

...a possible interpretation would be that the players in the pro-Brainstorm camp value the technical aspects of the playing experience higher, while players in the ban-Brainstorm camp value the format diversity and room for innovation in deck building higher.

Again, I understand that you don't agree, but strategically diverse is the only truly relevant kind of diverse. Legacy is currently strategically diverse, so there isn't any reason to ban a card to get more colors (or some other arbitrary diversity measure) than there are now.

With respect to the deck building innovation, that has less to do with any one card and more to do with the weight of 25 years of the best cards ever printed (minus completely busted things like P9) being available in Legacy. It's difficult to innovate with new things because the best things have been the best things for a while, and Wizards is much more careful now about what they print. If you're interested in a format that changes more quickly, I'm happy to report that there exists a format that not only removes entire sets on a regular basis, but also bans cards on top of that! As a bonus, that format also has no cantrips, and is largely based on the combat step! Welcome to Standard.

I personally hope they try to give legacy the diversity that I am envious of modern for.

I whisper once more unto the indifferent ocean, "why not play Modern, then?"

pettdan

06-17-2018, 12:19 PM

@Taconaut: that's a nice long post! I see you address my attempted summary/overview, thanks, I'll get back to you but it'll be a few days as I'm travelling, going to wedding etc.

Megadeus

06-17-2018, 12:21 PM

I for one have made a switch to modern but it isn't the same. That said in Atlanta our weekly event has dwindled down to ten people when it was in the high teens to mid twenties for a couple years, and apparently today's monthly event has 6. Format is garbage and still losing popularity

kinda

06-17-2018, 12:23 PM

Yeah I started playing modern a few months ago for the first time since 2015...it's OK but legacy is clearly more fun imo.

Bithlord

06-17-2018, 12:34 PM

Barachai

06-17-2018, 12:40 PM

I may be missing some obvious sarcasm, or something, but I'm not sure how unbanning another blue counterspell engine solves the "all counterspells are locked into blue" stupidness.

Because he wants to reinstate a red counterspell engine and ban the blue one, least thats how I read it (ban Counterbalance, unban Top).

Secretly.A.Bee

06-17-2018, 01:01 PM

Fox

06-18-2018, 09:49 AM

Ban terminus, unban top. Then, Abrupt Decay; the card printed to deal with CounterTop lock, would be relevant again, control decks wouldn't have to be the grindfests they are currently, and tempo decks like Grixis Delver would have a true nemesis again in the form of an actual heavy control archetype. Furthermore, decks like nicfit and painter, alongside several others, would get their Brainstorm back and partially close the gap in power-levels between blue and the rest of the color pie.

So this is something I've talked about in this thread before, but just because a spell can kill Counterbalance doesn't make it ok (and in the case of Decay, we also know DRS use increases). In the last few pages we've talked about ideas of Unmask at instant speed, and something the legacy community needs to acknowledge is that Counterbalance is on-board instant speed Hymn that never goes away and it protects itself - it just keeps hitting over and over and over until their opponent finds an uninteractive card. All countermagic is effectively instant speed discard, but Counterbalance is particularly egregious.

Specifically the opponent cannot really play magic until they find Vial, Cavern, Counterbalance, Decay, Boseju, or Chalice...even the decks without these run cards like K-Grip and Exquisite Firecraft. So Counterbalance is format-warping and it stifles creativity due solely to its poor design of infinite value; the kicker though is that the card that enables it is a free combo piece 'cause you can't really kill it [SDT], it creates virtual card quality, and replaces itself - now SDT is quite poorly designed, but by itself it's pretty harmless. When SDT and CB are together, you're insane to think "I'm gonna outdraw miracles and find my Decay..." and that Terminus is the only reason they're beating you. The reason fair decks lose to Terminus is that they don't Surgical targeting Swords to Plowshares, instead they do stuff like keep in Mother of Runes and then play their second card right into any wrath ever printed - these cards keep getting cheaper or faster [i.e. instant speed], so it's really only a matter of time before they recombine instant speed with undercosted.

We can keep going on about how you think Terminus is the card to ban, but you can't seriously think that any creative space for non-blue counterspells will ever exist (and compete) against Counterbalance the card. There's no point to pretending we're playing a fair, stack-interactive game of magic if someone has access to :u::u: win the game forever. The SDT unban is something that should happen though - wotc needs to make a coordinated effort to not effectively kill non-blue countermagic approaches in legacy. Painter was never a huge archetype but it was non-blue counterspells; it's not a good look to ban that, even if unintentional.

DarthVicious

06-18-2018, 10:07 AM

Secretly.A.Bee

06-18-2018, 10:23 AM

Not to mention the other card printed to punish Top, Deathrite, and ever-present fetchlands: Harsh Mentor.

They just banned Top before Mentor got the chance to prove himself.Fully agree. I had pre-ordered my JP set for RW Taxes and they hadn't even arrived when the ban happened. It would have given that deck the edge it needed to be the best imo. Slaughtering Miracles AND Elves.
So this is something I've talked about in this thread before, but just because a spell can kill Counterbalance doesn't make it ok (and in the case of Decay, we also know DRS use increases). In the last few pages we've talked about ideas of Unmask at instant speed, and something the legacy community needs to acknowledge is that Counterbalance is on-board instant speed Hymn that never goes away and it protects itself - it just keeps hitting over and over and over until their opponent finds an uninteractive card. All countermagic is effectively instant speed discard, but Counterbalance is particularly egregious.

Specifically the opponent cannot really play magic until they find Vial, Cavern, Counterbalance, Decay, Boseju, or Chalice...even the decks without these run cards like K-Grip and Exquisite Firecraft. So Counterbalance is format-warping and it stifles creativity due solely to its poor design of infinite value; the kicker though is that the card that enables it is a free combo piece 'cause you can't really kill it [SDT], it creates virtual card quality, and replaces itself - now SDT is quite poorly designed, but by itself it's pretty harmless. When SDT and CB are together, you're insane to think "I'm gonna outdraw miracles and find my Decay..." and that Terminus is the only reason they're beating you. The reason fair decks lose to Terminus is that they don't Surgical targeting Swords to Plowshares, instead they do stuff like keep in Mother of Runes and then play their second card right into any wrath ever printed - these cards keep getting cheaper or faster [i.e. instant speed], so it's really only a matter of time before they recombine instant speed with undercosted.

We can keep going on about how you think Terminus is the card to ban, but you can't seriously think that any creative space for non-blue counterspells will ever exist (and compete) against Counterbalance the card. There's no point to pretending we're playing a fair, stack-interactive game of magic if someone has access to :u::u: win the game forever. The SDT unban is something that should happen though - wotc needs to make a coordinated effort to not effectively kill non-blue countermagic approaches in legacy. Painter was never a huge archetype but it was non-blue counterspells; it's not a good look to ban that, even if unintentional.Whatever, CounterTop combo has been fine for over a decade, and only after the printing of an instant-speed 1 mana board wipe was it oppressive. Abrupt Decay is a fine answer as are red blasts, krosan grips, Thoughtseize and your own countermagic. Furthermore, instant-speed targeted discard? But CounterTop is broken. Okay.

Instant-speed discard is something I've thought about for a very long time, back before I could afford Force of Will as a teen. It's a terrible idea. It, too, would become oppressive.

Whitefaces

06-18-2018, 10:26 AM

Michael Keller

06-18-2018, 10:59 AM

Fully agree. I had pre-ordered my JP set for RW Taxes and they hadn't even arrived when the ban happened. It would have given that deck the edge it needed to be the best imo. Slaughtering Miracles AND Elves.Whatever, CounterTop combo has been fine for over a decade, and only after the printing of an instant-speed 1 mana board wipe was it oppressive. Abrupt Decay is a fine answer as are red blasts, krosan grips, Thoughtseize and your own countermagic. Furthermore, instant-speed targeted discard? But CounterTop is broken. Okay.

Instant-speed discard is something I've thought about for a very long time, back before I could afford Force of Will as a teen. It's a terrible idea. It, too, would become oppressive.

The banning of Top was, as I'm sure you're aware, due to the issue of time. Regardless of the card's contemporaries when it was legal in competitive Magic, it created too many headaches for judges and forced tournaments to go two to three hours beyond their anticipated end time. There are people who are skilled using the card, and I can see why those people would want it kept, but that's just not the reality of the situation.

There's just too many people that take too long continually when activating the card.

Secretly.A.Bee

06-18-2018, 11:01 AM

Not to say that there aren't other sweepers, but imagining the current state of Legacy with Terminus banned seems even more miserable. It's the only thing really keeping these DRS/Leo/TNN etc decks in check.

The UWx decks would turn into CounterTop Mentor too, both of these approaches seem a lot less appealing to what we have at the moment.

You mean the decks playing a measly 14 creatures, 4 of which are 1/1's and another of which are 1/2's, and then another 3 of which are 2/1's? Yes, those guys need kept in check in ways that generic targeted removal and traditional 4cmc-ish mass removal spells just can't handle.

Leovold is pretty good, but dies to everything and often is an over-costed Baleful Strix; Often draws you a card and dies. Mentor in Miracles generally gets more value than Leovold in any BGx mid-range list that isn't Aluren or Food Chain Griffins.

Also, it's pretty hard to take that argument seriously from someone who often plays miracles. It seems you may be biased?

I own miracles. I do not play it.

Edit: @Michael Keller: Sure, I remember that is what the release said. I don't always take wizards at their word, especially when I looked at the meta saturation of Miracles at the time of the banning (super high saturation). But I digress, I will say I agree that it may take too long to resolve an activation of SDT. However, a functional reprint fixing it's short-comings should be in the pipeline. It did help in closing the power gap between blue and the rest of the color pie.

Mr. Safety

06-18-2018, 11:13 AM

Furthermore, instant-speed targeted discard? But CounterTop is broken. Okay.

Instant-speed discard is something I've thought about for a very long time, back before I could afford Force of Will as a teen. It's a terrible idea. It, too, would become oppressive.

I don't mean to pick a fight, but how in world is an instant speed discard worse than Force of Will? What does one do that the other doesn't? Lets say Thoughtseize was an instant. How is this more oppressive? The only thing I could think is that it would be played *with* force of will and give it a critical mass of 'fuck you' to combo. Is this what you mean by oppressive?

EDIT: We have instant speed targeted discard already, albeit in challenging colors: Mardu Charm.Vendilion Clique also if you want to compare effect and not actual ruling, which sees plenty of non-oppressive play.

Secretly.A.Bee

06-18-2018, 11:45 AM

I don't mean to pick a fight, but how in world is an instant speed discard worse than Force of Will? What does one do that the other doesn't? Lets say Thoughtseize was an instant. How is this more oppressive? The only thing I could think is that it would be played *with* force of will and give it a critical mass of 'fuck you' to combo. Is this what you mean by oppressive?

EDIT: We have instant speed targeted discard already, albeit in challenging colors: Mardu Charm.Vendilion Clique also if you want to compare effect and not actual ruling, which sees plenty of non-oppressive play.

I'm happy to discuss, I don't feel like you are picking a fight, and that is exactly what I mean. Anytime you want to print something like instant speed targeted discard that is playable in Legacy (Mardu charm is not and Clique isn't actually discard, nor does it create actual card disadvantage for your opponent), you must first assume blue will add it to their repertoire. Furthermore, it's a big fuck you too almost all decks that aren't pure control, not just combo. I wouldn't mind them printing something like what we are discussing, I just believe it will be very difficult to assimilate this concept into a real card that doesn't become part of the problem. I'd love to be wrong, I like discard. I think hymn is one of the most fun and tilting spells you can cast off non-blue Mana.

Mr. Safety

06-18-2018, 12:25 PM

I'm happy to discuss, I don't feel like you are picking a fight, and that is exactly what I mean. Anytime you want to print something like instant speed targeted discard that is playable in Legacy (Mardu charm is not and Clique isn't actually discard, nor does it create actual card disadvantage for your opponent), you must first assume blue will add it to their repertoire. Furthermore, it's a big fuck you too almost all decks that aren't pure control, not just combo. I wouldn't mind them printing something like what we are discussing, I just believe it will be very difficult to assimilate this concept into a real card that doesn't become part of the problem. I'd love to be wrong, I like discard. I think hymn is one of the most fun and tilting spells you can cast off non-blue Mana.

Fair enough, that's what I figured. I think in order to be both playable and non-oppressive it would have to balance a drawback, like 'if you control a basic swamp you may cast this as an instant.' That might come close, but how hard is it to include a basic swamp? If it cost 3 life rather than 2 maybe, or if you have to exile a black card to play it as an instant. Still probably too good, lol. What a quandary...

Pay 2 life, exile a black card, and control a basic swamp. Yay Pox!

EDIT: For non-blue mana tilters, I'd have to go with Cabal Therapy as my favorite.

MechTactical

06-18-2018, 01:41 PM

Not to mention the other card printed to punish Top, Deathrite, and ever-present fetchlands: Harsh Mentor.

They just banned Top before Mentor got the chance to prove himself.

Not to mention reprinting cards they are intent on banning. Maybe they should do a masters illegal set; here’s all the shit you can’t play or won’t be able to soon.

Fox

06-18-2018, 02:15 PM

here’s all the shit you can’t play or won’t be able to soon.

Sounds like MM2 where they ban the value cards right after they release it.

taconaut

06-18-2018, 02:39 PM

The banning of Top was, as I'm sure you're aware, due to the issue of time.

Top is not currently legal, plenty of rounds still go to time
All it takes is one match going long. There might be some legitimate arguments for banning top, but I just don't buy this one.

DarthVicious

06-18-2018, 03:04 PM

Not to mention reprinting cards they are intent on banning. Maybe they should do a masters illegal set; here’s all the shit you can’t play or won’t be able to soon.

From the Vault: Mistakes

Top is not currently legal, plenty of rounds still go to time
All it takes is one match going long. There might be some legitimate arguments for banning top, but I just don't buy this one.

Because everyone loves watching their opponent stare at the same three cards for 10-20 seconds multiple times within each and every turn. It's like when an NFL team gets ahead by more than 3 points, they run the ball constantly just to eat up the remainder of the clock. Win game one in 10 min, draw game two out for 30 more.

"Oops that's time. Guess I win, 1-0-1."

Whitefaces

06-19-2018, 06:46 AM

You mean the decks playing a measly 14 creatures, 4 of which are 1/1's and another of which are 1/2's, and then another 3 of which are 2/1's? Yes, those guys need kept in check in ways that generic targeted removal and traditional 4cmc-ish mass removal spells just can't handle.

Leovold is pretty good, but dies to everything and often is an over-costed Baleful Strix; Often draws you a card and dies. Mentor in Miracles generally gets more value than Leovold in any BGx mid-range list that isn't Aluren or Food Chain Griffins.

Also, it's pretty hard to take that argument seriously from someone who often plays miracles. It seems you may be biased?

I own miracles. I do not play it.

Now I'm confused. Is DRS a format oppressing monster or 'just a 1/2'? Creatures are so pushed these days and the format is so fast and efficient. If it was as simple as point and click removal then Delver wouldn't be dominating the way it is atm.

You'll have to take my word for it, it's honestly not biased. Pre-ban I played mostly Shardless and Delver and only picked it up properly after, and play a bunch of other decks at locals and online.

taconaut

06-19-2018, 09:30 AM

Because everyone loves watching their opponent stare at the same three cards for 10-20 seconds multiple times within each and every turn. It's like when an NFL team gets ahead by more than 3 points, they run the ball constantly just to eat up the remainder of the clock. Win game one in 10 min, draw game two out for 30 more.

"Oops that's time. Guess I win, 1-0-1."

I get that this is hyperbole to make a point and it's coming from a position of personal taste in the texture of Magic games, but there are rules in Magic for Slow Play and Stalling, and you can always call a judge if you think your opponent is doing either.

If your opponent is playing at a reasonable pace and taking legitimate game actions (and spinning top is one of them), and you can't kill them in game two in forty minutes, that's on you. That strategy is also risky for the Miracles player, because if you do happen to turn the corner sometime in game two, they have to hustle or they're going to get a draw.

You might not like it when people play cantrips or spin top, but I think it's a thousand times more miserable when somebody just goes, "ancient tomb, chalice on one" and then kills you with whatever goofy-ass spaghetti digimon costs 2C with zero relevant play decisions. Fortunately, each of our personal tastes don't dictate the ban list (though, unfortunately, someone's did with respect to SDT), and people still get to play what they personally like, and occasionally have to play against something they don't.

Secretly.A.Bee

06-19-2018, 10:56 AM

Now I'm confused. Is DRS a format oppressing monster or 'just a 1/2'?

No, this is called being intentionally dense, my friend; and I guess Treasure Cruise is just an 8 Mana sorcery?

When discussing removal, a creature with several good abilities is easily summed up as 'just a 1/2' because of the context in which he is being considered unless one of those abilities lends itself to that discussion. Is there a reason to consider him more than 'just a 1/2' within the scope of the discussion?

Come on, we can have strong opinions and intelligent conversation without having to stoop to fallacious reasoning and illogical scenario framing.

Creatures are so pushed these days and the format is so fast and efficient. If it was as simple as point and click removal then Delver wouldn't be dominating the way it is atm.

Grixis Delver is dominating because of DRS. Czech Pile is only possible thanks to DRS. There's a key difference in the two decks, and that is their ability to protect their threat. The efficient countermagic that delver plays is the reason that the format-warping elf wins more games for that deck.

You'll have to take my word for it, it's honestly not biased. Pre-ban I played mostly Shardless and Delver and only picked it up properly after, and play a bunch of other decks at locals and online.

I will this time, but if you think a 1cmc, (conditionally) instant-speed board wipe is healthy for this (or any) meta, you will have a hard time getting me to take you seriously at all, ever. Miracles would be just fine with ratchet bomb or EE, I even think you would be fine with just Verdicts and Entreat.

If a board wipe costs less than 4, it should obviously have a draw-back: Bontu's Reckoning, Toxic Deluge. Yours costs 1, and I can't convince myself it has a drawback at all.

Good morning,

-ABC