[Podcast] Everyday Eternal: The Brainstorm Blues

[Koby]

http://www.eternalcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/EverydayEternalEpisode26.jpg
Link! (http://www.eternalcentral.com/everyday-eternal-podcast-episode-26-the-brainstorm-blues/)

In episode 26 of #EverydayEternal Matt Pavlic (sdematt), Julian Knab (@itsJulian23), and Jacob Kory (@MTGKoby) discuss two things key to the long term existence of Legacy. First, Matt rebuts a recent article claiming that Brainstorm is too dominant in Legacy. Later the guys discuss the recently announced Grand Prix schedule for 2015 which includes 50% more Legacy events than last year! From there, the cast discuss their recent attempts to break the format, including a new Lands deck for Jacob and a revamped New Horizons deck for Matt.

(Duration: 1:17:16 — 70.7MB)

0 : 00 : 51 The omnipresence of Brainstorm
0 : 10 : 51 Organized Play Announcement: 3 Legacy Grand Prixs for 2015 Season!
0 : 29 : 37 Plays of the Week
0 : 39 : 26 What are you playing now, and why?
1 : 06 : 58 Underplayed cards
1 : 07 : 46 General tomfoolery and outro

Other Show Notes

- Leaving Legacy for a Modern Mistress, by Jeff Hoogland (http://themeadery.org/articles/leaving-legacy-for-a-modern-mistress)
- North American Defeatism and the Dominance of Brainstorm (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28402-Article-North-American-Defeatism-and-the-Dominance-of-Brainstorm)
- 2015 Organized Play Announcement (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/2015-pro-tour-and-grand-prix-schedule-revealed-2014-08-02)


Lands deck that Jacob Kory played:

3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Verdant Catacomb
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 Thespian Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Tolaria West
3 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Bojuka Bog

3 Intuition
3 Crop Rotation
3 Punishing Fire
4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Smokestack
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb
4 Mox Diamond

SB:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Sphere of Resistance
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Krosan Grip
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Cursed Totem

[Mr Miagi]

I really enjoyed the Podcast, keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to next one :smile:

As for the German card names, nothing beats the: Wurmspiralmachine! (German cards should have an exclamation mark at the end, just for additional flavor when pronouncing :cool:) = Wurmcoil Engine

[Julian23]

I remember someone asking for an episode on Aggro in Legacy. We decided to postpone this topic as it didn't fit in this time and would require quite a bit more volume than doing a short single subject on it.

[danyul]

I'll see all you guys at GP Seattle!

Also I used to play Armageddon in Elves. It beats up control decks pretty damn well.

My play of the week: Blocking a Lord of Atlantis with Visionary, bouncing Visionary with Symbiote, and aiming the Symbiote untap at a Phantasmal Image. #blowout

Somebody should make an app that translates MTG phrases into German. I would use it as a soundboard at regular REL events.

[(nameless one)]

I really enjoyed the Podcast, keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to next one :smile:

As for the German card names, nothing beats the: Wurmspiralmachine! (German cards should have an exclamation mark at the end, just for additional flavor when pronouncing :cool:) = Wurmcoil Engine

This makes me wanna build an all German MUD or Workshop deck.

[nedleeds]

Lodestone Golem is close to Magnetogolem. Which would make for a killer alter.

[Finn]

Does anyone know why these Lands decks don't play Candelabra with Academy Ruins/Gamble (instead of Intuition) to search it out? It gives you so many options for cutting a land. You get virtual copies of Maze, Port, Grove, whatever.

I have fooled around with such a build, but I am not in the know for all the matchups and such. Can anyone clear that up for me?

[Koby]

Does anyone know why these Lands decks don't play Candelabra with Academy Ruins/Gamble (instead of Intuition) to search it out? It gives you so many options for cutting a land. You get virtual copies of Maze, Port, Grove, whatever.

I have fooled around with such a build, but I am not in the know for all the matchups and such. Can anyone clear that up for me?

From a theoretical standpoint, Candelabra offers more uses from Maze of Ith and Port.
From my own experience so far, there had been a lot of mana chokes for this deck. I found myself severely constrained on mana for Port + Loam + Tolaria West tutoring + PFires recursion. The cases where I had enough mana was because of Exploration. In all other cases, I was wishing I could continue to accelerate.

I don't think Candelabra offers any value in this deck. It's already good enough to just push for a quick Dark Depths as a kill-con, and that should probably be emphasized more.

I think the changes for the list I played would be:
-1 Smokestack
-1 Creeping Tar Pit
+1 EE
+1 Thespian Stage (going to 2)

[lordofthepit]

Excellent podcast!

I've put together some graphs on SCG Open Attendance, and I've expanded it to include Standard, double Standard, and Modern as well. I'm including it since you made some reference to SCG attendance figures for different events:

http://i.imgur.com/ziwvdfS.png

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't see how it's disingenuous to say that "blue is the best" when non-winning decks can run blue? But I do see how it's disingenuous to say, "Brainstorm, Ponder, etc.." when what people are actually saying is "Brainstorm."

Also I have presented information on card/deck performance within top 16s several times and people have ignored it. The Hatfields, when they had the data, showed that the blue decks do in fact have good EV generally speaking and the "cute" decks like Nic Fit or sporadic fan favorites like Affinity and Burn, don't.

So yeah this is basically a pile of awful arguments, "Americans are reluctant to play bad decks that are disfavored, if they don't want to play blue." Uhhh, okay.

Ugh wow I thought people were done pretending that Brainstorm was such a skill testing awesomely skillful card, what the fuck.

Oh okay it's the stuff about how Americans don't innovate that we demonstrated was stupid bullshit in the other thread, I'm glad this could be repeated. Wait this just sounds like a quote actually, is this the same guy? Is this plagiarism or just ignoring the fact that all these decks you're claiming were developed in Europe weren't?

[thecrav]

Excellent podcast!

I've put together some graphs on SCG Open Attendance, and I've expanded it to include Standard, double Standard, and Modern as well. I'm including it since you made some reference to SCG attendance figures for different events:

*image cut*

I think I asked this on Reddit, too, but is there anyway I could get the source data for this from you?

[Lejay]

http://www.eternalcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/EverydayEternalEpisode26.jpg
Link! (http://www.eternalcentral.com/everyday-eternal-podcast-episode-26-the-brainstorm-blues/)
You never add an "s" to "Grand Prix"

[iamajellydonut]

You never add an "s" to "Grand Prix"

That's right. You add many "s"s.

[ahg113]

You never add an "s" to "Grand Prix"

While accurate, the post is misplaced. The knowledge shared shall not produce a relevant addition to the observable condition of man.

To wit: Never spite eat a stale lava cake at a crestfallen restaurant.

That nugget of know-how will save wallets, and hopefully lives.

[bakofried]

Death and Taxes is credited to Finn...who as far as I know lives in Florida. Built and kept working on the deck throughout it's lifetime. So why the blame on the silly uninnovative Americans? Sure it was adopted more readily in Europe but credit where credit is due.

[sdematt]

While accurate, the post is misplaced. The knowledge shared shall not produce a relevant addition to the observable condition of man.

To wit: Never spite eat a stale lava cake at a crestfallen restaurant.

That nugget of know-how will save wallets, and hopefully lives.

Jaco posts the titles, so, I blame Jaco ;)

Sure, I'll give credit where credit was due, but I believe it was phrased specifically not just who created a deck, but also where it was more popularised. If that's not what I had said in the cast, it's what was said in the article.



-Matt

[nevilshute]

Great episode this time (well I'm usually very happy with every episode!). I think it's great that you took the time, Matt, to write your rebuttal article.

In terms of the North America vs Europe thing it feels to me like much of peoples' impression on the NA scene is based upon the SCG-open circuit. While an awesome vessel for the format it does seem like a majority of participants prefer the luke warm comfort and safety of middleground, creature based strategies, i.e. delver and/or blade decks.

A few casts ago (I believe when you had Carsten Kotter on - and btw when can we have him back? :smile:) a point was brought up by - I think - Sean and/or Carsten about the reason for this difference being how many participants in the Sunday opens are dedicated standard players (as opposed to a larger gathering of dedicated eternal players in Europe) and therefore prefer decks that play out more like standard, i.e. casting creatures and turning them sideways.

I think this leads to an overrepresentation at any given open of these decks. Leading to an apparent abundance of them in top-8s as well, skewing the picture making them seem like strictly better decks. Nearly all of these middleground decks are 2-3 colour blue decks. This is Again something that could go some way towards explaining why there is a perception that "Brainstorm decks are the best decks in legacy".

I remember (and this is even after Thomas Enevoldsen and Michael Bonde put two Death and Taxes decks in the Strasbourg GP top-8, Thomas of course winning it) the commentators on the SCG-stream being pretty vocal in their belittlement of the deck... In particular I remember Cedric Phillips (whom I really like as a commentator) comment on a Death and Taxes vs Esperblade match that "talent beats synergy" or something to that effect. Basically hinting at how this deck with all its bad cards (they seem to have a consensus on the commentator team that Flickerwisp, Phyrexian Revoker etc are bad cards in a vacuum) doesn't really stand up to a deck filled with such individually powerful cards as Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Dark Confidant, Brainstorm etc. I think these sentiments permeate.

I'm not really sure why it is, that decks such as Miracles, Elves and Death and Taxes (only one of which has islands) saw so much play, for so comparetively long a period of time in Europe while being on the fringes in the US. But there seems to be a trend right now, that something happens on the European legacy scene... and then 3-6 months down the road something similar happens in the US. Watching the last open finals from Dallas which had Bug Delver vs Miracles felt a bit like... "oh yeah, that was what was happening at GP Paris 6 months ago" :smile:

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You are hand-waiving together a pretty huge distinction!

"I've noticed that Europeans are more likely to be innovative and try to come up with new decks, Europeans developed decks p, q, r, s and t, while Americans only developed decks u and v. Maybe that's why Americans are unhappy with the metagame."

"q, r, s, are all American developed and t is just an Extended port, so really the only European deck in your list is p."

"Well what I mean is that they play those decks more."


The argument that Europeans are more likely to play non-Brainstorm decks is a VERY different argument than the one that Europeans are more likely to try non-Brainstorm decks. The latter is pretty demonstrably wrong by virtue of the fact that almost all of the top tier decks have originated in the US.

And if you're going to give credit where credit is due, it'd be nice if you actually did that and edited your article and added a note to the podcast to reflect that the decks you say where developed in Europe actually weren't and have at best been "popularized" there.

[KIP_NZ]

Julian your burn on Matt of "Everything in Canada has to be indoors cause if you go outside you'll be eaten by a polar bear or freeze" was a thing of beauty. Who said German's can't make the comedy :laugh:

[Plm]

I don't want to add to the flame beetwin the new world VS the old world, but ...

People should stop refering at the SCG meta as the us meta.

Reading is tech :
"Three Steps Forward, and Two Steps Back: North American Defeatism and the Dominance of Brainstorm," a rebuttal by Everyday Eternal host Matt Pavlic.

Look at the current decks in the Legacy metagame on a world scale – where did they originate? Who designed them? Where were decks tuned and popularized? Miracles, Shardless BUG, Imperial Painter, Patriot Delver, Elves, Death and Taxes, Nic Fit, OmniTell, and others are all European creations or saw many more finishes in Europe before people caught on in America.

Yeah everybody is friend now ! The decks were created by USA citizens but the SCG crowd ignored them.

Now we can get on why brainstorm is broken and why delver and nemesis are okay.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Reading is tech :
"Three Steps Forward, and Two Steps Back: North American Defeatism and the Dominance of Brainstorm," a rebuttal by Everyday Eternal host Matt Pavlic.

Look at the current decks in the Legacy metagame on a world scale – where did they originate? Who designed them? Where were decks tuned and popularized? Miracles, Shardless BUG, Imperial Painter, Patriot Delver, Elves, Death and Taxes, Nic Fit, OmniTell, and others are all European creations or saw many more finishes in Europe before people caught on in America.


Wow, you're right! Reading is tech!

[Barook]

The latter is pretty demonstrably wrong by virtue of the fact that almost all of the top tier decks have originated in the US.
Could you list all of said decks including their creator, then?

All I can see in regard to that topic so far is alot of hyperbole and dickwaving without concrete data. Since I assume you have said data, showcase them and we can all be happy.

[Matsaya]

"Three Steps Forward, and Two Steps Back: North American Defeatism and the Dominance of Brainstorm," a rebuttal by Everyday Eternal host Matt Pavlic.

Look at the current decks in the Legacy metagame on a world scale – where did they originate? Who designed them? Where were decks tuned and popularized? Miracles, Shardless BUG, Imperial Painter, Patriot Delver, Elves, Death and Taxes, Nic Fit, OmniTell, and others are all European creations or saw many more finishes in Europe before people caught on in America.
Wow, you're right! Reading is tech!

Wow, you're right! Reading is tech!

[Phelix]

havent heard the cast yet.

havent read any posts.

just wanted to say.


GOOD JOB ON THE LANDS THERE!:smile::smile::smile::smile:

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Wow, you're right! Reading is tech!

And we know which the author means because they then go on to say that only a few decks are American (wrongly.) Hey, guess what, conversational implicature exists, isn't that a load off everyone's mind?


Could you list all of said decks including their creator, then?

All I can see in regard to that topic so far is alot of hyperbole and dickwaving without concrete data. Since I assume you have said data, showcase them and we can all be happy.

There's a lot of discussion about it in this thread. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28402-Article-North-American-Defeatism-and-the-Dominance-of-Brainstorm)

[nedleeds]

Efficient white creatures with oppressive mana denial was built by James Wong at the Georgia Tech student center food courts in 1994. None of you invented anything. You just had the free time to post it on a message board, write a primer and answer dumb questions.

[Barook]

There's a lot of discussion about it in this thread. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28402-Article-North-American-Defeatism-and-the-Dominance-of-Brainstorm)
That's extremely vague since people attribute it to different people. And what are "almost all top decks", as you claim it?

[Dragonslayer_90]

When I listened to this podcast and Koby was talking about Hoogland's style as a competitive player, I was waiting for him to call him a scrub. Then it never happened. I guess Mr. Kory's more classy when it comes discussions with voice :confused: But either way, I don't think of Mr Hoogland as a pure spike. I think he's got a good amount of Johnny in him as well as he tends to gravitate towards rogue and/or non-tier one strategies. What he plays in modern, UR Delver, is Tier 1.5 at best. I'm guessing he's frustrated with legacy because he feels like he cannot actually play below Tier 1 decks and expect to win.

[Koby]

GOOD JOB ON THE LANDS THERE!:smile::smile::smile::smile:

I did use your list as a model. (No Thickets, Smokestack) Never played Miracles so Smokestack was not exercised, and for that I was sad.


When I listened to this podcast and Koby was talking about Hoogland's style as a competitive player, I was waiting for him to call him a scrub. Then it never happened. I guess Mr. Kory's more classy when it comes discussions with voice :confused: But either way, I don't think of Mr Hoogland as a pure spike. I think he's got a good amount of Johnny in him as well as he tends to gravitate towards rogue and/or non-tier one strategies. What he plays in modern, UR Delver, is Tier 1.5 at best. I'm guessing he's frustrated with legacy because he feels like he cannot actually play below Tier 1 decks and expect to win.

I don't think Mr Hoogland is a Scrub, but rather his playstyle lends to scrub decisions and mindsets (deck selection, setting up walls to limit his potential, ideas about competitiveness, etc). He is a skilled player with a very specific way to approach Magic formats. Given enough motivation to go beyond these limitations, he could conceivably be a Pro Tour caliber player. I do find the irony of his strong mathematics background and his frustration with variance in the game of Magic to be quite comical.

[Teveshszat]

Hello,

for funy German Names of magic cards there was also the Spirit Monger called Röhrender Reliops which makes Sens when you read it from the back
as Rörhender Spoiler or the good old Samenschaukel Hexe which is called Seedcradle Witch in English.

for the podcast a whole I like it and think it is a good start in showing were the problem really liy in our Legacy Metagame.

Best Regards Teveshszat