How healthy is the format?

[troopatroop]

Just wondering, seriously now, how often is your Brainstorm choice skillful/thought provoking? I'd say in 70% of decks it's "draw 3, throw back 2 lands or land + Progenitus, crack a fetch," in 20% of decks it's "draw 3, throw back that silver bullet you don't need + land, crack a fetch" and in 10% it's "find more lands, throw back irrelevant cards in this matchup, crack a fetch."

I love brainstorm, I don't want it banned, but let's not fool ourselves, the last time I was confused by a brainstorm must have been 5 years ago.

You probably missplay it on the regular, but don't see it at all. Sometimes you want or NEED to get rid of two cards, and not just 1, which asks for a mainphase Brainstorm + Fetch. If you're doing it EOT with a mana open, even that could be wrong. Seriously, the people who can't see billions of Brainstorm lines are the kids that can't actually play this game. Mistakes don't always lose you the game, and they're often lazily glazed over.

After a Brainstorm, if you have a card thats bad in the matchup you're playing, or in the moment, or as the game goes on, you potentially made a mistake. That's alot of pressure to be perfect. Yes, sometimes the best line is clear, but not always. Downplaying the complications of Brainstorm is like saying "look at me, I'm so smart" with a kick me sign on your back. Don't be that guy, Brainstorm almost asks you to predict the future.

And this is all eclipsed by timing its casting. As a firm believer of Wild Nacatl + Brainstorm, I'll tell you, it's a big fucking headache.

[Phoenix Ignition]

You probably missplay it on the regular, but don't see it at all.
Yeah, you're probably right. Immediately dismissing my opinion because you think I'm bad is better than using your brain to think about it. Or maybe I just put more credit in the random Sourcer than I should. It really isn't that difficult to know which cards in your hand you're going to need if you know what every deck plays. I guess some people don't just memorize decklists though, so I can see why you'd have to "predict the future" instead of considering simple probabilities.


Sometimes you want or NEED to get rid of two cards, and not just 1, which asks for a mainphase Brainstorm + Fetch.
Really? Do people think you have to cast instants at end of turn still? I thought it was obvious that you could also choose to cast it like it was a sorcery, and choose not crack a fetch after a Brainstorm if you determine that you like all the cards, but then again, I might be giving people more credit than deserved. I also assume people play correctly and don't crack their fetches immediately, since the shuffling effect itself is extremely powerful, even in saving you from Jace fateseals, but if you want to assume that the people reading this site are the lowest common denominator then go for it.


If you're doing it EOT with a mana open, even that could be wrong. Seriously, the people who can't see billions of Brainstorm lines are the kids that can't actually play this game.
Ah yes, they must be kids that can't actually play this game. I would be impressed if you could see billions of brainstorm lines, but then again that's not what a grandmaster does. For example science (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-mind) has shown that the grandmasters in chess don't consider all possible decision trees, because a majority them are just obviously incorrect. I believe the same is true in Magic, there are many sources (http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316172324) that agree with this hypothesis. I may have incorrectly assumed that brainstorming is a majority of the time a simple concept, but for someone who hasn't played this game their entire life, I suppose that's not the case.


Yes, sometimes the best line is clear, but not always. Downplaying the complications of Brainstorm is like saying "look at me, I'm so smart" with a kick me sign on your back. Don't be that guy, Brainstorm almost asks you to predict the future.
Just like poker players are asked to predict the future? Just like chess players? Does no one else actually consider what might happen since they know both their deck and the opponent's deck, to at least 90% certainty? You know to keep removal against decks that have creatures bigger than yours, you should know what to keep against every deck you play against because there really aren't any rogue decks anymore. And you know what? Brainstorm is still at least 50% of the times "Draw 3 cards, throw 2 lands back, crack a fetch."


And this is all eclipsed by timing its casting. As a firm believer of Wild Nacatl + Brainstorm, I'll tell you, it's a big fucking headache.

Wild Nacatl? I don't understand. But anyway, if you guys are having troubles figuring out how to best play brainstorm you should play UW Tempo for a few weeks. That deck is one of the hardest decks to play well, and Brainstorm decisions will make and break you every step of the game. But here are some tips:

1. Hold cards that won't help you when you're playing them (you can always brainstorm them away later). Added bonus: Holding cards makes your opponent more wary of playing things, so those extra lands that won't help you cast anything can now be used for +cards with a brainstorm or a virtual threat to the opponent.

2. Brainstorm should rarely be used early unless you really need to set up for something. It doubles as finding lands early, but it's primary use should be as a mid-late game Ancestral Recall. To have this work it requires you to keep 2 cards in your hand that you don't want.

3. Don't crack fetches unless you really need that land. Shuffle is an extremely powerful ability to have whenever you need it, much more so than thinning your lands out by 1.

[Purgatory]

I see a lot of posts in this thread claiming that the format is unhealthy because colour X (blue, obviously) is stronger than colour Y (red, mostly), and even though I can hardly disagree on this point, I think it is really beside the point. In a format where you can reasonably play any two- or three-colour combinations in your deck, with the plethora of fetches and duals, the archetype matters a lot more than colour(s) of decks when discussing if a format is healthy or not.

Judging a format's health on whether or not all the five colours are well-represented throughout is arbitrary, at least to me. I'd say that Legacy right now is a format where you can pick up and play both aggro, control, combo and midrange (and varieties in-between) and that's the way I like it. What colour(s) you end up in while constructing a deck for a tournament is of less importance, though I might be biased, since I tend to wind up in blue all the time, and thus have no real reason to complain.

[Zilla]

Wild Nacatl? I don't understand.
Nacatl's requirement of 3 mana types often means cracking fetches earlier than Brainstorm would prefer you to. Basically, in the first 2 or 3 turns of the game, using Brainstorm optimally is frequently in direct conflict with using Nacatl optimally.

Incidentally, this is one of the biggest reasons I'm not a fan of Nacatl + Brainstorm, even though I really want to be.



I see a lot of posts in this thread claiming that the format is unhealthy because colour X (blue, obviously) is stronger than colour Y (red, mostly)
To be fair, people are claiming that color X (blue) is better than all the other colors, which is arguably a problem, particularly if blue's relative power level continues to get more and more disparate.

[SpikeyMikey]

To be fair, people are claiming that color X (blue) is better than all the other colors, which is arguably a problem, particularly if blue's relative power level continues to get more and more disparate.

I think that it's relatively inevitable that blue is going to get stronger in comparison to other colors as more sets are printed. Unless they make Force of Will in other colors, blue is necessarily going to have to hold as a check on combo. Blue dips too far, combo comes back and blue becomes the only option. And for the DrJones' of the world, Modern is there to prove that the format would indeed fall into combo v. combo without Force. The other free counters out there are better suited to combo (with the exception of Foil and Thwart, but one is *too much* card disadvantage and the other can't be used T0).

Right now, I think you're seeing a dominance of blue because of Mental Misstep. Not because it's so good, but because the decks that do best against the metagame are the ones that ignore it. Everyone is running it which means everyone is NOT running Spell Pierce which means Natural Order is the best spell in the format. Until people stop playing with Misstep, NO RUG and Stoneblade are going to be difficult to beat consistently because the decks that beat them either run 4xPierce (NO) or play heavy control (Stoneblade).

I think the format is just fine right now. It's not a matter of the format being stagnant, it's a matter of people being incapable of innovating well. You've got a lot of inertia going on there. I mean, it doesn't matter if you've got people creating solid decks, if other people can't wrap their heads around how to play them or just don't pick them up at all, you won't see the format change.

You want to beat NO RUG and Stoneblade? Play BUG Landstill. Don't run Mental Misstep. Run Counterspell, Force and Pierce. Pack 8-10 removal spells with at least 1 reusable removal (Darkblast, Shackles, EE/Ruins). Play some discard.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I think that it's relatively inevitable that blue is going to get stronger in comparison to other colors as more sets are printed. Unless they make Force of Will in other colors, blue is necessarily going to have to hold as a check on combo. Blue dips too far, combo comes back and blue becomes the only option. And for the DrJones' of the world, Modern is there to prove that the format would indeed fall into combo v. combo without Force. The other free counters out there are better suited to combo (with the exception of Foil and Thwart, but one is *too much* card disadvantage and the other can't be used T0).

The brilliance of this being wrong now is that every color DOES have a ghetto FoW vs. most combo decks in Mental Misstep. The very card every non-blue player wanted for years finally came and now all anyone can do is complain. Mental Misstep is extremely relevant vs. any combo deck I can think of when backed up by a fast clock or secondary hate. Yes this includes Show & Tell because having played the deck in an event I can tell you having a Ponder or Brainstorm get Misstepped when you needed to win in the next 2 turns because your opponent is bearing down is a rough situation.



Right now, I think you're seeing a dominance of blue because of Mental Misstep. Not because it's so good, but because the decks that do best against the metagame are the ones that ignore it. Everyone is running it which means everyone is NOT running Spell Pierce which means Natural Order is the best spell in the format. Until people stop playing with Misstep, NO RUG and Stoneblade are going to be difficult to beat consistently because the decks that beat them either run 4xPierce (NO) or play heavy control (Stoneblade).

Look at the SCG Boston that NO RUG and UW Stoneforge were all over, since that seems to be the main point where people on here decided those 2 decks were unstoppable monsters and something needs to be banned. Over 50% of the meta was blue and over 25% of the meta was either Stoneforge w/ blue or NO w/ blue. Is it really that surprising when 25% of the meta is 2 strong deck types and those 2 decktypes dominate the top 8? I mean zero people played Enchantress which has a pretty good game against NO-Rug I hear and is not to shabby vs. UW Mystic either, at least in my testing they both go around 55-65% favorable depending on sideboard (and most accepted lists run 0-2 answers for a resolved enchantment). All of 4 people ran Loam which has been pretty viable recently. Meanwhile atleast 25% came in with no chance to win. I mean Elves, Beltcher, Ad Nauseum, TES, ect. might as well have paid their entry fee and went home, then add to that all the clueless kids who had terrible sideboards that we will never see. Let's face it, only 50-60% of the people at this event had a chance to top 16 going in, and probably 60-75% of them were playing some form of blue aggro-control deck. It's not that no other decks are viable it's just the easiest path from round 1 to top 8 is to take an accepted list like NO RUG or UW Blade and metagame it to beat everything else by switching out a handful of cards and changing the SB. No testing required.



I think the format is just fine right now. It's not a matter of the format being stagnant, it's a matter of people being incapable of innovating well. You've got a lot of inertia going on there. I mean, it doesn't matter if you've got people creating solid decks, if other people can't wrap their heads around how to play them or just don't pick them up at all, you won't see the format change.

You want to beat NO RUG and Stoneblade? Play BUG Landstill. Don't run Mental Misstep. Run Counterspell, Force and Pierce. Pack 8-10 removal spells with at least 1 reusable removal (Darkblast, Shackles, EE/Ruins). Play some discard.

Exactly. There are decks that beat the DTB but no one seems to be playing them.

[Lemnear]

Let's face the facts: Meerfolk, Zoo and U/W/x Stoneblade are the top 3 Decks in Legacy atm. A format nearly without Combo but with lots of counterspells. I believe that mental misstep isn't more horrifying for combo than Counterbalance was but less popular because of a simple fact: Meerfolk and Zoo are easy-to-play turn3/4-kill decks and don't punish your lack of concentration after 5 or more hours playing. Misstep did not kill Zoo and Meerfolk like some people want us to believe. I don't understand what's unfair in trading a card and 2 Life/2 Cards and One life against a wild nacatl ... Doesn't Nacatl dealt it's damage here?

Aside from that I want to talk a Bit about snapcaster mage. This guy will make the format much bluer. Together with Lightning Bolt it outclasses Grim Lavamancer in RUG and the pure fact that it doubles all available brainstorms, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, spell snare and surgical extraction is pure nuts! How you want to fight such a deck?

Example that happend during testing SCM instead of ancestral Vision versus TES in turn 4 after starting with blade: Orim's chant->misstep(2life), dark Ritual->SCM->flashback misstep(2life), LED, rite of flame, rite of flame, Burning wish->FoW(pitch snare)

One more turn and I would have stopped him even cheaper! This guy's a counterbalance on feet that doesn't affecting your deckbuilding in a cc-manacurve. Spell snare will be a Must-4-of. This could be very critical for Zoo and Combo like TES...

[Beatusnox]

would have gone 7-2 with belcher if i had my leds. just putting that out there. Also, i dislike where the format is heading towards, what is stronger U/w or U/G/x. But i like being the combo underdog

[Zilla]

Let's face the facts: Meerfolk, Zoo and U/W/x Stoneblade are the top 3 Decks in Legacy atm.
If we pretend that NO RUG didn't exist this might be true.


I don't understand what's unfair in trading a card and 2 Life/2 Cards and One life against a wild nacatl ...
It's not unfair. But it's definitely very very good. There's no arguing that Misstep has changed the face of the format in a drastic way. Whether or not that's a good thing is wide open to personal preference.


Aside from that I want to talk a Bit about snapcaster mage. This guy will make the format much bluer. Together with Lightning Bolt it outclasses Grim Lavamancer in RUG and the pure fact that it doubles all available brainstorms, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, spell snare and surgical extraction is pure nuts! How you want to fight such a deck?
I think you're overestimating its worth. It's a very good card, but it's not as nuts as you think it is. What would NO RUG drop to play this card? Vendilion Clique? I don't think it will. The two creatures don't really serve the same role at all. Ponder? Maybe. I don't think there's really anything else it wants to cut for them. It needs its green creatures for GSZ and NO, it needs the little removal it has to get to the late game and clear blockers, and it needs the counter package to protect NO.

It will definitely see play in U/W Blade Control, but I have doubts about its role in NO RUG.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The brilliance of this being wrong now is that every color DOES have a ghetto FoW vs. most combo decks in Mental Misstep. The very card every non-blue player wanted for years finally came and now all anyone can do is complain. Mental Misstep is extremely relevant vs. any combo deck I can think of when backed up by a fast clock or secondary hate. Yes this includes Show & Tell because having played the deck in an event I can tell you having a Ponder or Brainstorm get Misstepped when you needed to win in the next 2 turns because your opponent is bearing down is a rough situation.



Look at the SCG Boston that NO RUG and UW Stoneforge were all over, since that seems to be the main point where people on here decided those 2 decks were unstoppable monsters and something needs to be banned. Over 50% of the meta was blue and over 25% of the meta was either Stoneforge w/ blue or NO w/ blue. Is it really that surprising when 25% of the meta is 2 strong deck types and those 2 decktypes dominate the top 8? I mean zero people played Enchantress which has a pretty good game against NO-Rug I hear and is not to shabby vs. UW Mystic either, at least in my testing they both go around 55-65% favorable depending on sideboard (and most accepted lists run 0-2 answers for a resolved enchantment). All of 4 people ran Loam which has been pretty viable recently. Meanwhile atleast 25% came in with no chance to win. I mean Elves, Beltcher, Ad Nauseum, TES, ect. might as well have paid their entry fee and went home, then add to that all the clueless kids who had terrible sideboards that we will never see. Let's face it, only 50-60% of the people at this event had a chance to top 16 going in, and probably 60-75% of them were playing some form of blue aggro-control deck. It's not that no other decks are viable it's just the easiest path from round 1 to top 8 is to take an accepted list like NO RUG or UW Blade and metagame it to beat everything else by switching out a handful of cards and changing the SB. No testing required.



Exactly. There are decks that beat the DTB but no one seems to be playing them.

Despite the fact that I'd like to see Brainstorm banned for power reasons, I agree that the apparent dominance of blue right now is mostly caused by an unwillingness to play other colors/groupthink. The SCG Open circuit in particular produces an echo chamber effect in which certain cards/decks are viewed as being somehow objectively good or bad independent of results. And I think a lot of these judgments are based on what makes someone feel good versus what actually requires skill to play. I mean having played all the decks in question, I think UW Batterstill is a Hell of a lot easier to play than Zoo, which is easier to play than Goblins, which is easier to play than Enchantress. For that matter I think Thoughtseize is a much more skill-testing card than Brainstorm, but it's not going to get the love because it's easy to feel you fucked up with Thoughtseize, whereas playing a Brainstorm helps you feel better about your bad mulliganing decisions etc..

[Richard Cheese]

Despite the fact that I'd like to see Brainstorm banned for power reasons, I agree that the apparent dominance of blue right now is mostly caused by an unwillingness to play other colors/groupthink. The SCG Open circuit in particular produces an echo chamber effect in which certain cards/decks are viewed as being somehow objectively good or bad independent of results. And I think a lot of these judgments are based on what makes someone feel good versus what actually requires skill to play. I mean having played all the decks in question, I think UW Batterstill is a Hell of a lot easier to play than Zoo, which is easier to play than Goblins, which is easier to play than Enchantress. For that matter I think Thoughtseize is a much more skill-testing card than Brainstorm, but it's not going to get the love because it's easy to feel you fucked up with Thoughtseize, whereas playing a Brainstorm helps you feel better about your bad mulliganing decisions etc..

Completely agree with all of this.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Despite the fact that I'd like to see Brainstorm banned for power reasons, I agree that the apparent dominance of blue right now is mostly caused by an unwillingness to play other colors/groupthink. The SCG Open circuit in particular produces an echo chamber effect in which certain cards/decks are viewed as being somehow objectively good or bad independent of results. And I think a lot of these judgments are based on what makes someone feel good versus what actually requires skill to play. I mean having played all the decks in question, I think UW Batterstill is a Hell of a lot easier to play than Zoo, which is easier to play than Goblins, which is easier to play than Enchantress. For that matter I think Thoughtseize is a much more skill-testing card than Brainstorm, but it's not going to get the love because it's easy to feel you fucked up with Thoughtseize, whereas playing a Brainstorm helps you feel better about your bad mulliganing decisions etc..

This.