On Blue [Archive] - Page 2

maharis

11-28-2014, 09:48 AM

Color-related differences are also strategy-related differences. Sure we could have 5 different colors, perhaps even more if that's what WotC wanted. But if they all play the same (think of this as Planar Chaos color shifts for same 60 card deck), then there is no true difference other than aesthetics.

And that is the problem with Delver archetype: all of them are similar strategies with one common color that comprises a large part of the competitive environment (see the decks that made it to Day 2 at GP NJ). Delver does more to make the format stale than Brainstorm does, as Brainstorm can at least make fringe-playable decks more consistent and is found in more than just Uxx Tempo.

Delver is just the best Brainstorm wincon at the moment. The most players will always gravitate toward the best shell. The first SCG after Delver was legal had 24 Brainstorm in the top 8 and 0 delver. The format was plenty blue before people picked up on Delver.

BBD and Kassis both used Young Pyromancer to great effect. In fact you could argue that an evasive threat in the form of Delver is the only thing keeping BUG on the map at this point because of the ground stalls Young Pyromancer produces. Then we'll talk about banning Young Pyro, then Stoneforge Mystic. The real problem is Brainstorm.

Yes, or he stared into the eye of mordor a little too long.

Edit: and why do people think "ban brainstorm" is a casual/competitive arguement? It's not.

If anything these are competitive players who don't want to play suboptimal no bs lists and don't want to play the same stale crap every week where "different decks" are <15 cards different.

thankyouthankyouthankyou.

testing32

11-28-2014, 09:53 AM

Delver is just the best Brainstorm wincon at the moment. The most players will always gravitate toward the best shell. The first SCG after Delver was legal had 24 Brainstorm in the top 8 and 0 delver. The format was plenty blue before people picked up on Delver.

BBD and Kassis both used Young Pyromancer to great effect. In fact you could argue that an evasive threat in the form of Delver is the only thing keeping BUG on the map at this point because of the ground stalls Young Pyromancer produces. Then we'll talk about banning Young Pyro, then Stoneforge Mystic. The real problem is Brainstorm.

Well said. I'm also completely fine with unbanning cards to help out storm. I love that deck and there are lots of cards on the lists right now that aren't as good as bs that could help.

What do you want? Frantic Search, Bargin and Desire? Take them all and have a blast. There are tools to fight storm if it starts to get too good.

Bed Decks Palyer

11-28-2014, 10:13 AM

This is a pretty fun paragraph, considering an Ancestral Recall was just printed.
Really? I never knew... So we got not only Treasure Cruise, but also another draw3 and this time even instant? Crap, that's a bit too much.

This is the only thing that matters and every other approach to competitive tournament legacy should be classified as casual. Which apparently is something the people who are so concerned about colour"balance" are not willing to accept.
The suggestion for banning Brainstorm is not because it is blue. It's suggested because it's everywhere, it's by far the best card in the format and you basically don't ever want to not have it. The bigger the event, the more the card's power shines. The color complaints are because such a powerful card is blue. You have to play blue to have the power and consistency.

And that one card and it's cousins being everywhere creates a repetitive play experience where people dance the same cantrip dance over and over again. Without Brainstorm the power discrepancy between blue's style and other colors' styles would be a lot less and thus encourage people to play other colors, which even if they end up playing similar strategies will have a different feel to them, which then ends up in a less monotonic feel and more fun.

I mean, let's face it. None or next to none of us are getting paid to play this game - in fact we pay exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege. I'm as competitively minded as anyone, and playing just for the lulz holds no appeal for me. But I play competitively because it's fun and satisfying, not because I'm following some robotic, relativistic ideal of it. If the standard play experience becomes so monotonic as to not be fun anymore, what's the goddamn point in a 1500 euro pile of cardboard?

TsumiBand

11-28-2014, 10:18 AM

(Lemnear's angle on cherrypicking) is the only thing that matters and every other approach to competitive tournament legacy should be classified as casual. Which apparently is something the people who are so concerned about colour"balance" are not willing to accept.

No, you've got it backwards.

We have a format that represents a massive cardpool across 2 decades, with the finest effect-to-mana ratios in 5 colors and all that is colorless. In spite of that, a single color has shown itself to lend the three most widely recognized archetypes (aggro, control, combo) such an array of tools that to play without those cards requires an insane amount of justification.

I would buy your argument if we had a demonstrable "5 color good stuff" deck, even if it ate its own feces when Wasteland shows up, but even that deck would lean more on Brainstorm, Force of Will, and Ponder in order to keep its head above water. We know this because decks with Islands do not deviate from that core and they entertain a high success rate, again in all three major archetypes.

This, in a game where there are allegedly five colors with varying strength in the different game zones, where there is intended to be a diversity of affinities, only to consistently see the same core of cards in a single color enabling most or all lines of play in those zones and archetypes and most importantly in those decks which are played most successfully - that defies the concept you invoke in defense of the pervasive Blue core. It points out the dissonance between the game's intent and its execution. Where Legacy the format closer to the game's intent in this regard, there would be no need for this conversation. However, Legacy as a format does not reflect this game's intent regarding the five colors, and many players view this as problematic.

Lemnear

11-28-2014, 10:21 AM

Except this statement says nothing. Care for strategies, cards, and effects rather than colors? So you'd be fine if all black cards were banned because all you care about is strategy? Certainly the other four colors can satisfy your strategic needs.

Or do you enjoy some of the strategy that comes with playing black cards specifically?

What about the people who enjoy the strategy of flipping Delver and blowing up everything in its way for 7 turns?

What about the people who enjoy old-style Goblin strategies? You've indicated there's no place for them.

What about the people who enjoy Survival of the Fittest-based toolbox strategies? Same as above.

This discussion is about balancing the format to make it accessible and enjoyable to the most players possible, not satisfying Lemnear's own personal need to do whatever with cardboard.

You consistently say that banning Brainstorm would cripple two decks, Storm and Miracles, specifically. You say people want to do that so they can play their own "pet decks." So you suggest banning other cards that won't impact Storm or Miracles. How are you only concerned with "strategy, cards and effects?" You only care about preserving what you want.

I don't care what color card x has I want to play for it's effect. If it's manageable for a manabase to add a certain card, we do it. The 4c monstrosity that Deathblade is, is the prime example right next to bUrg Delver. If WotC decides that pro-active disruption is in blacks-color-slice and I want it for my strategic need, I play black manasources.

The same principle I used for card-effects also applies to strategies. If a strategy is warping the metagame into playing either it or against it, we need to think about if that's still healthy. We can sure argue, that TC warped the metagame atm, but we can also argue, that the metagame still not adopted to the challenge, but rather joins the hype-train. This forum is an excellent example with people suggesting to splash TC in every deck right after Bobs success with his UR Delver, rather than thinking about handling it. So if a strategy proofs over time that it's oppressive by invalidating other playable archetypes, bannings are to consider. It has nothing to do with people enjoying a certain strategy like Goblins, Storm, Miracles, S&T, whatever and it has ESPECIALLY nothing to do with colors.

But ... it has something to do with people bitching about certain effects not being in their favored color-slice and not tailor made for their strategy. Have you ever heared a storm player moaning that PIF is Red and not Black or that mana-acceleration in now red instead of black? No, because tjey splashed red mana in their former UB decks to play the best cards available! Did they cry that there is no solution in UBr to handle counterbalance? No, because they fucking splashed green for Abrupt Decay! Lets pic my favored example, Goblins again, which is no longer a DtB because players refuse to adjust the fucking Mainboard because "non-goblin non-creature cards are bad with Vial and Ringleader". Splash black for discard! Play some REBs! Play Eidolon! Play Karakas + Thalia! You don't want to adopt any of those ideas/angles/options and still stick to your 2004 mana-denial plan with a 3+cc manacurve against Delver, SFM, S&T, Storm, Miracles and TNN? Fine ... go fucking slaughtered by the whole metagame of 2014!

I have no clue what kind of wierd image you guys have of "balanced". Throughout the thread I keep asking for it and all I got as response was spoiled brat logic of "all colors should be equally!". This ain't Miss America 2014, gal! The fact is that we have all 5 colors represented in most Top 8s, so I seriously hope we don't have to waste our time discussing that color x is unplayable in general. Do you give a shit about the playability of mono green Beasts.dec because it dies to the current metagame as a result of not running cards that adress the issues? No you sure don't, but you suddenly care about mono-red goblins? Why? Where did you draw the line? Because it WAS a deck in the last decade? That's nothing but hypocrisy, dood.

I mentioned several times that the removal of Brainstorm would hurt multi-piece combos like SneakShow, Storm, FoodChain or Miracles MUCH more than the blue Tempo and midrange shells, because of various reasons I'm not gonna repeat for every User individually. As the blue tempo and midrange shell is more than 35% of the whole metagame and substitutes to brainstorm are very potent as long as we have Fetchlands around, I cannot see how banning Brainstorm should "diversify" the metagame if you accept the eradication of several deck concepts to slightly lower the power level of blue tempo and midrange which will stay on top because of the supreme card selection and threats.

I'm sorry if you have troubles with my thinking pattern not being that one-dimensional as "brainstorm is played in Storm, so banning it is bad". Maybe you want to adress the points I actually made instead the ones you think I should I have made if I had an IQ of 70

Bed Decks Palyer

11-28-2014, 10:31 AM

I'm sorry if you have troubles with my thinking pattern not being that one-dimensional as "brainstorm is played in Storm, so banning it is bad". Maybe you want to adress the points I actually made instead the ones you think I should I have made if I had an IQ of 70
You should maybe stop with this, don't you think? And maybe spend some time reading what the other people write.

The suggestion for banning Brainstorm is not because it is blue. It's suggested because it's everywhere, it's by far the best card in the format and you basically don't ever want to not have it. The bigger the event, the more the card's power shines. The color complaints are because such a powerful card is blue. You have to play blue to have the power and consistency.

And that one card and it's cousins being everywhere creates a repetitive play experience where people dance the same cantrip dance over and over again. Without Brainstorm the power discrepancy between blue's style and other colors' styles would be a lot less and thus encourage people to play other colors, which even if they end up playing similar strategies will have a different feel to them, which then ends up in a less monotonic feel and more fun.

Star|Scream

11-28-2014, 10:33 AM

Lucid argument....

^^ He's right, you know.

Lemnear

11-28-2014, 10:44 AM

You should maybe stop with this, don't you think? And maybe spend some time reading what the other people write.

The suggestion for banning Brainstorm is not because it is blue. It's suggested because it's everywhere, it's by far the best card in the format and you basically don't ever want to not have it. The bigger the event, the more the card's power shines. The color complaints are because such a powerful card is blue. You have to play blue to have the power and consistency.

And that one card and it's cousins being everywhere creates a repetitive play experience where people dance the same cantrip dance over and over again. Without Brainstorm the power discrepancy between blue's style and other colors' styles would be a lot less and thus encourage people to play other colors, which even if they end up playing similar strategies will have a different feel to them, which then ends up in a less monotonic feel and more fun.

I have never heared that Vintage players ever complained that all non-dredge/workshop decks running SoLoCryMoxen and near-all running Ancestral, Walk, Will, etc. ever created a boring and repeditive experience.

MTG is STILL not chess. Not every match begins by moving a pawn.

Zombie

11-28-2014, 10:44 AM

Yes, or he stared into the eye of mordor a little too long.

Edit: and why do people think "ban brainstorm" is a casual/competitive arguement? It's not.

If anything these are competitive players who don't want to play suboptimal no bs lists and don't want to play the same stale crap every week where "different decks" are <15 cards different.

This bears repeating: There are many, many hats one can wear, many jobs for people to do. A game designer's/balancer's job is to make a fun game that can withstand cutthroat competition if it's meant to. A tournament player's job as a competitor is to do what he thinks gives him the best EV within the rules. A person playing games in his free time wants to have fun playing the game. A TO is concerned with rules' clarity, enforceability, whether games can be finished on time and so on. A spectator wants variety and interesting situations. Maybe storylines too.

And that's the thing. My color balance comments are not from a tournament player's point of view.

When I don my tournament player hat, I look to tune my pile of little pointy-eared gits so it can take the tournament and grind so I'll hopefully see good enough lines to do well at the event.

But when I don my "guy spending his free time" and "spectator" and "game designer" hats, I see disaster and monotony. And that's kind of the thing. I'm not complaining as a competitor because as a competitor my task and mindset is always the same. What do I own, what can I borrow, what's the best 75-76 I can cobble out of those and get enough practice with? Ban something from Elves, for example, and it's not the competitor in me that is going to be angry. He is just going to scour forums and tinker and see if the archetype is salvageable and if not, move to something else.

The part that would be angry with it and ask if it's worth it anymore is the "free time" guy, because he loves Elves and doesn't like the feel of blue near as much (though he's fine playing stuff like Team America or Storm). The game designer might also be angry because there's much worse stuff in the format, but ultimately he might understand - half the deck is straight from a who's who of the banned lists, after all.

So that's the thing. Please stop glorifying yourselves as some pure competitive spirits if you don't want Brainstorm banned and say others just want to play their shitty pet decks, because it's not the competitor in them speaking: Quite rightly, too, because it's not the competitor's place in to speak, but rather the game designer's. The only thing the competitor might take issue with is if the ban compromises the integrity and skilltesting nature of the format, which it would not because Ponder, Preordain, Ancestral and JTMS are cards in addition to all the nonblue card selection whose relative value would go up, up, up.

Adryan

11-28-2014, 10:50 AM

Maybe we need something to come off the banlist that hurts Delver decks. I would suggest Vampiric Tutor (Mystical Tutor is blue, and that is a drawback and wouldn't stop the maindeck REB without thinking about it) is a good unban, because it would make Storm really powerful. Then maybe more non blue decks with Vampiric Tutor will show up to fight the fair deck, who now have to dilute their deck with maindeck Flusterstorm to fight Storm.

Maybe i'm wrong and the format will be utterly broken with 4 Vampiric Tutor, but we can at least think about it.

EpicLevelCommoner

11-28-2014, 10:51 AM

Delver is just the best Brainstorm wincon at the moment. The most players will always gravitate toward the best shell. The first SCG after Delver was legal had 24 Brainstorm in the top 8 and 0 delver. The format was plenty blue before people picked up on Delver.

BBD and Kassis both used Young Pyromancer to great effect. In fact you could argue that an evasive threat in the form of Delver is the only thing keeping BUG on the map at this point because of the ground stalls Young Pyromancer produces. Then we'll talk about banning Young Pyro, then Stoneforge Mystic. The real problem is Brainstorm.

Stop using this slippery slope fallacy, as not only is it absolutely missing why Delver is oppressive, but it also can be applied to the so called Cantrip Cartel.

Yes, I agree that Delver is the best archetype with Brainstorm, and that Brainstorm is the best card in Delver. The data I posted a few pages ago suggests so.

However, for the health of the format, we should explore options that increase deck diversity as opposed to card diversity, .and banning Brainstorm wont do that.

Bed Decks Palyer

11-28-2014, 11:01 AM

Gheizen64

11-28-2014, 11:04 AM

I have never heared that Vintage players ever complained that all non-dredge/workshop decks running SoLoCryMoxen and near-all running Ancestral, Walk, Will, etc. ever created a boring and repeditive experience.

MTG is STILL not chess. Not every match begins by moving a pawn.

All those cards you listed are effectively banned in Vintage. Players don't complain about a repetitive experience in Vintage because they WANT to play with restricted cards, even if that create an essentially repetitive format.
Legacy players in theory don't have to play with 30+ identical cards lists. Legacy is the format where you can play cards from all the eras of magic, but without having to play 40+ identical cards lists because of some design mistakes of the past. We're getting there however, with TC and probe adding to the cantrip cartel.
Ironically, Vintage players whined a lot about Workshop because it stop them from playing SoLoCryMoxen, Recalls, walks etc... then Dack got printed and everyone was happy.

Lemnear

11-28-2014, 11:25 AM

All those cards you listed are effectively banned in Vintage.

Do you, occasionally, read your own nonsense?

Vintage what? Sry, man, I don't give a fuck about that format.

And because you don't care about my argument, that makes it invalid? Is this a repeating pattern in this discussion?

Gheizen64

11-28-2014, 11:39 AM

Do you, occasionally, read your own nonsense?

You disagree with the notion that whenever a card is deemed too good in Vintage it get restricted, and what happen in every other format in the same circumstances is banning, so Restricting is effectively "banning" a card because it's too good, with the difference that Vintage can't actually ban card for power level reasons because that's what Vintage is?
It seems a pretty simple concept to me honestly. I'll try to be more clear:
All those cards you listed were deemed too good for Vintage, so they got restricted. Yours was a false equivalence, if it was. A better equivalence should've been: " do you hear Vintage players complaining about everyone playing 4 x FoW and 4 x MM or 4xcardthatisplayedeverywhere and say that those should be restricted?".
Because Vintage players whining about the same exact cards they play Vintage for make little to no sense :laugh:

tyriion

11-28-2014, 11:44 AM

Really WotC should ban Brainstorm, Ponder, Treasure Cruise and Sensei's Divining Top. It's not like blue would suffer from having no ways to look at cards after that and it's not like anybody else's options would get better, they'd just be playing on a more even field with blue-based lists. The format without cantrips or rather meaningful interaction with the top of your library is called modern. So I'll make the argument 'go play modern' for you.

Other than that there's 20 years of magic cards. Are colors going to be balanced? Are individual cards even going to be balanced? I guess you can pretty safely say no. There will always be a strongest card (perceived or real) and that card will be played in a competitive environment. And legacy tournaments have become about making sure you get the stuff from your deck you want when you want it, because your stuff is powerful. Don't like it? Play even crazier stuff without card selection and try to get lucky. Can't win? No one saw that coming but that's the way it is.

If you want to change the meta game, why stop at banning brainstorm? Ban everything that was registered at GP NJ, that will give you a wonderful new meta game to play legacy in. I for one much rather play with more options than less, both in card choices (but BS forces you to build your decks like this..... but so do other cards) and in matches. Brainstorm allows you to do fun stuff instead of just hoping for that top deck and drawing blindly while the guy opposite you does the same. Otherwise we could all just play standard, wizards gives a crap about that format, so if you cry hard enough what you want, maybe they will give it to you there.

Bed Decks Palyer

11-28-2014, 12:46 PM

MTG is STILL not chess. Not every match begins by moving a pawn.
Sure.

It starts with "Island, Ponder".

Adryan

11-28-2014, 01:23 PM

Sure.

It starts with "Island, Ponder".

Is there any skilled player (some GP Top 8's, PT grinder etc.), who hates on blue and wants Brainstorm to be banned? Magic already has enough RNG in the other formats, with dangerous skill territory (a lot of Hearthstone decks are more complex, less RNG than most Standard& Modern decks).

Before we start banning BS, or other blue consistency tools, why not give other colors consistency cards instead and let everyone have fun? If Wotc bans BS, they'll have no reason to print such cards in other colors.

I have a strong suspicion, that the people who want to ban Brainstorm are just bad players, who want to decrease skill in legacy. If you want more undeserved wins, there are plenty of other formats that are easier than Hearthstone. Go try them out.

aluisiocsantos

11-28-2014, 01:35 PM

I agree on not banning brainstorm, but it always goes down to the skill argument, and that one is always tricky.

I mean, just how many people keep terrible hands because of brainstorm? I wonder where the real skill is at.

Dice_Box

11-28-2014, 01:36 PM

Yes, there is. Chris Pikula answered 'Brainstorm' when asked live on stream what he thought should be banned.

Gheizen64

11-28-2014, 01:49 PM

Is there any skilled player (some GP Top 8's, PT grinder etc.), who hates on blue and wants Brainstorm to be banned? Magic already has enough RNG in the other formats, with dangerous skill territory (a lot of Hearthstone decks are more complex, less RNG than most Standard& Modern decks).

Pikula and Smennen both though that banning brainstorm would benefit the format. Pikula thought BS should be banned, while Smennen only commented that he thought that it would benefit the format in term of strategic options but didn't express an opinion. In general smennen has always been pretty conservative on banning and more liberal on unbanning. He was one of the strongest anti-survival ban activist for example:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19482-Article-Why-Survival-Shouldn-t-Be-Banned-But-Will-Be-Anyawy

I have a strong suspicion, that the people who want to ban Brainstorm are just bad players, who want to decrease skill in legacy. If you want more undeserved wins, there are plenty of other formats that are easier than Hearthstone. Go try them out.

I was found out boys! Time to run to hearthstone!

HammerAndSickled

11-28-2014, 01:54 PM

"Benefit the format" means different things to different people. It is clear that banning it would increase color diversity, weaken combo and tempo decks, and decentralize the metagame. But it would also decrease the amount of skill required in the format, increase the power of "goodstuff" midrange, perhaps allow noninteractive decks like Stax to flourish, and lower the average amount of decision points in a game, thus making it less interesting at a high level. The supporters of both sides think that they're "benefitting the format," and they're both right. It just depends on which of these you value most.

ReAnimator

11-28-2014, 01:56 PM

Also someone previously in this thread mentioned that two of the Top 8'ers of the GP also thought it should go and was too good (paraphrasing).

Most good and skilled people i've talked to who play legacy regularly (and other formats too) seem to think it's absurdly powerful and way above anything else, but being the spikes that they are, are happy to play it for as long as it's legal cause it's the best thing to be doing by far and everything else is not even close or worth considering (except elves). Most would not shed any tears if it went other than for selfish reasons. There was never a compelling reason to not play Jace/SFM in standard before the bannings if all you cared about was winning, regardless of how much you hated the deck or cards. BS is the same way.

I haven't sleeved up a non BS deck in legacy in a super long time other than for fun low stakes events, despite my dislike for it and wanting it to be banned. There just aren't any compelling incentives to not run it if you care about winning and it is legal in the format.

When Flash was legal I top 8'd and won a bunch of local events in the lead up to the GP, at no point did i think it was fair or good for the format, but it was nonsense to not be playing it if i cared about winning.

Koby

11-28-2014, 04:54 PM

Is there any skilled player (some GP Top 8's, PT grinder etc.), who hates on blue and wants Brainstorm to be banned? Magic already has enough RNG in the other formats, with dangerous skill territory (a lot of Hearthstone decks are more complex, less RNG than most Standard& Modern decks).

Before we start banning BS, or other blue consistency tools, why not give other colors consistency cards instead and let everyone have fun? If Wotc bans BS, they'll have no reason to print such cards in other colors.

I have a strong suspicion, that the people who want to ban Brainstorm are just bad players, who want to decrease skill in legacy. If you want more undeserved wins, there are plenty of other formats that are easier than Hearthstone. Go try them out.

I would not weep if Brainstorm is banned. I don't think it helps Legacy that the top 80% of the decks are basically the same 40 cards. That's bordering on Vintage "Big Blue" territory and is the reason why Thirsti For Knowledge, Ponder, and Brainstorm got restricted in one fell swoop.

I would be less for a Brainstorm ban if WotC actually made more relevant cards. Instead we got:
Treasure Cruise
Dig through Time

:\

Amon Amarth

11-28-2014, 05:12 PM

I don't ever see Blue becoming less dominant just because it is the sole home of flexible countermagic and cheap filtering/card drawing spells. Another factor is the prevalence (or perception of) of fast combo and most decks without Islands just don't stand a chance. Fear is a powerful motivator.

I'd rather bring up the power level of other color through unbans rather than trying to nerf Blue. For example, I think Memory Jar would make MUD decks a lot better and it's abuse in combo decks is much less likely because Ad Nauseum is so much better.

Legacy is much more fun when you can play more cards.

iamajellydonut

11-28-2014, 05:13 PM

I would not weep if Brainstorm is banned. I don't think it helps Legacy that the top 80% of the decks are basically the same 40 cards. That's bordering on Vintage "Big Blue" territory and is the reason why Thirsti For Knowledge, Ponder, and Brainstorm got restricted in one fell swoop.

Brainstorm, Flash, Gush, Merchant Scroll, and Ponder were the ones restricted in one fell swoop and largely for unrelated instances. The restricting of Brainstorm and Ponder were banned because of each other with purely coincidental timing with regards to anything else. Flash was restricted because Flash. Gush was restricted because Gush. Merchant Scroll was restricted because Flash and Gush.

Thirst for Knowledge was restricted some time later to stem the tide of Time Vault, and was done so without any impact or influence.

testing32

11-28-2014, 05:18 PM

I have a strong suspicion, that the people who want to ban Brainstorm are just bad players, who want to decrease skill in legacy. If you want more undeserved wins, there are plenty of other formats that are easier than Hearthstone. Go try them out.

Jon Finkel when asked what card he would ban he said brainstorm. I think he is pretty good.

If you want a format where everyone plays with the same pieces and the best player that day always wins, you should be playing chess.

Lord Seth

11-28-2014, 05:44 PM

This is a pretty fun paragraph, considering an Ancestral Recall was just printed.And yet it's still worse than Brainstorm.

I have never heared that Vintage players ever complained that all non-dredge/workshop decks running SoLoCryMoxen and near-all running Ancestral, Walk, Will, etc. ever created a boring and repeditive experience.

MTG is STILL not chess. Not every match begins by moving a pawn.Nitpick, but not every game of Chess begins by moving a pawn. 1.Nf3 is a reasonably popular opening move.

phonics

11-28-2014, 05:52 PM

Before we start banning BS, or other blue consistency tools, why not give other colors consistency cards instead and let everyone have fun? If Wotc bans BS, they'll have no reason to print such cards in other colors.

Its no secret that blue is the strongest color, and has access to the vast majority of deck manipulation, this is something that has been known since the game has come out, yet wizards has only done things to exacerbate the situation, printing blue cards that have no business being blue, cards like DTT and cruise or extremely aggressive creatures that blue based decks can splash and exploit easily. If this is what they have done in the past 20 years to 'address' the problem, what makes you think they will do so in the future?

Bed Decks Palyer

11-28-2014, 05:52 PM

Before we start banning BS, or other blue consistency tools, why not give other colors consistency cards instead and let everyone have fun? If Wotc bans BS, they'll have no reason to print such cards in other colors.
That's what I asked for, but I was told that the color doesn't matter. By the crowd that says that CQ is one color's territory. Go figure.

I have a strong suspicion, that the people who want to ban Brainstorm are just bad players, who want to decrease skill in legacy. If you want more undeserved wins, there are plenty of other formats that are easier than Hearthstone. Go try them out.
So to support your claim you preemptively mark all potential opponents as bad players. Good job...
Btw, what¨s hearthsotne? I do not read it for the first time, is that some MMORPG from the world of Magic?

Lord Seth

11-28-2014, 06:01 PM

Btw, what¨s hearthsotne? I do not read it for the first time, is that some MMORPG from the world of Magic?A quick Google search would give you the result, but the answer is that it's a digital TCG that Blizzard Entertainment (y'know, the World of Warcraft guys) make. I haven't played it myself so I can't comment on how it is, but it does seem to have a reasonably high popularity with over 20 million user accounts (not sure how many people actively play it, though). I've seen a lot of Magic players say that they hope this competition forces Wizards of the Coast to get their stuff together with Magic Online.

iamajellydonut

11-28-2014, 06:22 PM

A quick Google search would give you the result, but the answer is that it's a digital TCG that Blizzard Entertainment (y'know, the World of Warcraft guys) make. I haven't played it myself so I can't comment on how it is, but it does seem to have a reasonably high popularity with over 20 million user accounts (not sure how many people actively play it, though). I've seen a lot of Magic players say that they hope this competition forces Wizards of the Coast to get their stuff together with Magic Online.

It's a freemium game. Of course it's popular. But it has not given and will not give Magic a run for its money any more than Starcraft did. And it will have no influence on MTGO any more than Duels of the Planeswalkers has.

Hearthstone requires no resource management, has 30 card decks, "hero powers", a much smaller card pool, no stack, no instants, and its cards are patched. Have fun relating any of this to Magic: The Gathering. The only thing that's comparable to Magic is that Hearthstone has creatures with power and toughness, but even that similarity doesn't go far as the mechanics for both are different.

Adryan

11-28-2014, 08:00 PM

After playing Storm for the first time in my life, without the feeling that i suck at playing it, i kinda want Brainstorm to be banned. I always get a fuzzy feeling when people play Badlands into Deathrite. Want more people who play non blue decks. Feels like bringing a machine gun to a knife fight. Never have done that before, but i guess it does feel good.

Lemnear

11-28-2014, 09:21 PM

Nitpick, but not every game of Chess begins by moving a pawn. 1.Nf3 is a reasonably popular opening move.

Touché, sir. ;)

btm10

11-29-2014, 12:01 AM

Dice_Box

11-29-2014, 12:35 AM

Can you elaborate?

"Now that I feel I am a competent Storm player, when I play against a deck without permission I ask myself, 'Should I lose one of these cards to discard, how best can I goldfish to victory or should I just leave a mana open and null his discard all together?' It feels unfair, because while my oppoent may try his hardset, his most potent effect of stripping something of consequence can be mitigated with a card of mine at instant speed. Lastly, even should he hit something and leave me without a play, my filter effects let me replace it at speed and often win anyway."

HammerAndSickled

11-29-2014, 06:24 PM

Barook

11-29-2014, 08:16 PM

It's a freemium game. Of course it's popular. But it has not given and will not give Magic a run for its money any more than Starcraft did. And it will have no influence on MTGO any more than Duels of the Planeswalkers has.

Hearthstone requires no resource management, has 30 card decks, "hero powers", a much smaller card pool, no stack, no instants, and its cards are patched. Have fun relating any of this to Magic: The Gathering. The only thing that's comparable to Magic is that Hearthstone has creatures with power and toughness, but even that similarity doesn't go far as the mechanics for both are different.
I can't agree with Wizards not caring about Hearthstone - it will slowly bleed them dry since many new players would prefer the smoothness of Blizzard's client instead of investing hundreds of dollars into the PoS Wizard delivered.

FoolofaTook

11-29-2014, 10:29 PM

I do sympathize. I played "fair blue" at the last Star Ciry Open I attended (UWR Delve "Gold Digger") and playing blue against nonblue opponents felt tantamount to a bye. I played against Goblins, DnT and Deadguy and all three matches felt unloseable: at no point was I threatened and even when they had a sort-of roadblock (Thalia, Sculler) Brainstorm usually found an answer and fixed the problem. Hell, I kept a hand with 5 lands double Brainstorm more than once and within two turns my hand was all permission and a Jace. Not that this always happens, and playing Blue vs Combo or Blue vs Blue was interesting and a great game, but Blue Fair vs Nonblue Fair was anything but.

Yep. Play blue shell or play combo because if you do neither you're just whistling past the GY match after match until you get the unfixable mulligan or run into a blue-based list that blows you out on their draw.

It's just a really ugly meta to play in right now unless you like the blue shell or like fast combo. D&T is an exception if they manage not to run into the wrong lists but that's a big if.

Barook

11-30-2014, 01:59 PM

Yep. Play blue shell or play combo because if you do neither you're just whistling past the GY match after match until you get the unfixable mulligan or run into a blue-based list that blows you out on their draw.

It's just a really ugly meta to play in right now unless you like the blue shell or like fast combo. D&T is an exception if they manage not to run into the wrong lists but that's a big if.
D&T is still way less consistent than blue decks. The main reason D&T is a good deck right now is because it thrives against blue decks.

HammerAndSickled

11-30-2014, 03:35 PM

^Not necessarily true anymore, in the era of blue decks maindecking 6-10 removal spells and threats that match up well against DnT (SFM/Pyromancer). Playing the Delve deck I never felt like I was behind in any game I played against DnT. Any card or advantage they have against you is severely outweighed by Brainstorm fixing draws.

Gheizen64

11-30-2014, 08:27 PM

Atlanta has 8 delvers and 8 SFM in T16. 44 Brainstorms, 40 Ponders. 4 Treasure Cruises. 7/8 Red blasts (not sure i counted this correctly). Lot of combo too, 1 SnT, 2 Storm, 2 Reanimators, 1 Elves

FoolofaTook

11-30-2014, 09:15 PM

Atlanta has 8 delvers and 8 SFM in T16. 44 Brainstorms, 40 Ponders. 4 Treasure Cruises. 7/8 Red blasts (not sure i counted this correctly). Lot of combo too, 1 SnT, 2 Storm, 2 Reanimators, 1 Elves

Right, so the cards that define that top 16 are the blue consistency cards. They're what are finding all the broken stuff in time for it to turn into blowout wins.

TsumiBand

12-01-2014, 08:28 AM

testing32

12-01-2014, 08:36 AM

It kills me that maindecking REBs is only just becoming a practice that isn't written off as strictly bad.

I mean historically it's been a conceit that Blue should dominate Eternal formats because Vintage can't actually get rid of cards that don't say 'ante' or involve dexterity. Legacy actually gets to incarcerate offenders; by that metric alone we should at least be capable of avoiding the "Blue vs. Anti-Blue" dynamic. That kind of metagame has led to bannings previously; Skullclamp vs anti-Skullclamp decks, Jitte races, etc.

I agree, but I think that it's pretty clear that WotC isn't going to do anything. The color imbalance has been a problem for a long time. They have printed 1/2 measures to try and fix the situation (Notion Thief, Spirit) rather than actually doing what is required to solve the problem because they are afraid of blow back.

I have also lost all faith in WotC when it comes to actually managing the format through legacy related printings. I mean, how high do you have to be to think that printing TNN, TC and Dig is a good idea for the format? I realize that they don't test for legacy but it takes 5 minutes of critical thinking and not a whole lot of testing. I had hopes when they started bringing in solid legacy players into their R&D team that things would improve, but I haven't seen any positive movement yet.

Gheizen64

12-01-2014, 08:56 AM

The five tournament i've listed, which are the last 5 over 160 players legacy tournaments (Prague sadly has only the T8 online), had 56 Delvers being placed, or 14 Delvers decks being played in 5 T16. That's an average of 2.8 Delver decks for each T16. That's 17.5% representation, hardly "dominating" anything imho.

Just as an exercise i've checked SFM. From the most recent to less recent: Richmond : 20 SFM. GP NJ: 14 SFM. Columbus: 14 SFM. Japan: 4 SFM. Oakland: 3 SFM.
That's 55 SFM, just 1 less copy than delver, and apparently on a steady an upward trend.

Numbers are far too low and for far too short of a timeframe to justify a ban for Delver, especially considering how much it's played because it's the new burn deck.

Adding Atlanta to the list we get:

Last 6 Tournaments over 128 players on TC (excluding Prague because it doesn't have a T16):

64 Delvers in 6 tournaments, 16 Delver decks in 6 tournaments, or 2.67 average Delver decks per T16 (or 16.67% representation)
63 SFM.

Do you use any data other than what suits you? Even as vehement as I am concerning a Delver ban, I used the data provided by the Council for the current month and came to the conclusion that Delver as an archetype is the most popular and Brainstorm as a card is the most popular. And the fact that Delver made up a considerable portion of the decks that made it to Day 2 should indicate against most of the Day 1 meta, Delver had the best chance at getting to Day 2.

Also, Uxx Tempo existed before Delver: Candian Threshold (or RUG Delver now) and Team America Tempo (or BUG Delver now).

Delver decks are played in obscene amount, UR especially because it's cheap. And they represent 16.67% of the T16. Penetration doesn't seems that good to me especially if the rumors of 1000+ UR Delvers decks in GPNJ are true (which means 25%+ only of UR delvers, ignoring BUG).
If someone could provide the data on how much just UR delver is played i think you could get a good idea on how much the deck is good at penetrating the field; my guess? It's not good because everyone metagame against it.

I also have the hunch that the cantrip cartel get better penetration compared to Delver, and despite it.

M+1

12-01-2014, 09:24 AM

The color imbalance has been a problem for a long time
Except it isn't a real problem.

Imbalance of colors is a non issue for Legacy. The format is totally fine. Latest SCG Open has 8 different decks in top 8. All the five colors are represented. Not equally, of course, but they are all there somewhere. They are all playable. Winning decklist contains 1 maindeck Pyroblast. I am totally fine with that. Maindeck Pyroblasts makes blue decks weaker, and nonblue decks stronger. This is simply the metagame adjusting itself. How is that even a problem? Pyroblast is an awesome card. Beautiful art. I don't see a problem. I see a vibrant, self-managing format that doesn't need "managing" to please a semi-casual crowd, obsessed with their unreal expectations of Core-set level color equality in a format which sums up the best of 20+ years of Magic, and is exploding with deck diversity.

Star|Scream

12-01-2014, 09:43 AM

I'm confused. Aside from budget reasons or personal color preference, why wouldn't you want to start your decks with the cards that will make it as consistent as possible?

Zombie

12-01-2014, 09:53 AM

I'm confused. Aside from budget reasons or personal color preference, why wouldn't you want to start your decks with the cards that will make it as consistent as possible?

Of course you want to. That's the damn problem: Apart from a couple exceptions, blue is the thing to play, and in my and many others' opinion that's horrible game/format design. I'll outline some reasons below because someone pulled the "competitive blue player vs. silly casual with kavu.dec" card again:

Except it isn't a real problem.

Imbalance of colors is a non issue for Legacy. The format is totally fine. Latest SCG Open has 8 different decks in top 8. All the five colors are represented. Not equally, of course, but they are all there somewhere. They are all playable. Winning decklist contains 1 maindeck Pyroblast. I am totally fine with that. Maindeck Pyroblasts makes blue decks weaker, and nonblue decks stronger. This is simply the metagame adjusting itself. How is that even a problem? Pyroblast is an awesome card. Beautiful art. I don't see a problem. I see a vibrant, self-managing format that doesn't need "managing" to please a semi-casual crowd, obsessed with their unreal expectations of Core-set level color equality in a format which sums up the best of 20+ years of Magic, and is exploding with deck diversity.

This bears repeating: There are many, many hats one can wear, many jobs for people to do. A game designer's/balancer's job is to make a fun game that can withstand cutthroat competition if it's meant to. A tournament player's job as a competitor is to do what he thinks gives him the best EV within the rules. A person playing games in his free time wants to have fun playing the game. A TO is concerned with rules' clarity, enforceability, whether games can be finished on time and so on. A spectator wants variety and interesting situations. Maybe storylines too.

And that's the thing. My color balance comments are not from a tournament player's point of view.

When I don my tournament player hat, I look to tune my pile of little pointy-eared gits so it can take the tournament and grind so I'll hopefully see good enough lines to do well at the event.

But when I don my "guy spending his free time" and "spectator" and "game designer" hats, I see disaster and monotony. And that's kind of the thing. I'm not complaining as a competitor because as a competitor my task and mindset is always the same. What do I own, what can I borrow, what's the best 75-76 I can cobble out of those and get enough practice with? Ban something from Elves, for example, and it's not the competitor in me that is going to be angry. He is just going to scour forums and tinker and see if the archetype is salvageable and if not, move to something else.

The part that would be angry with it and ask if it's worth it anymore is the "free time" guy, because he loves Elves and doesn't like the feel of blue near as much (though he's fine playing stuff like Team America or Storm). The game designer might also be angry because there's much worse stuff in the format, but ultimately he might understand - half the deck is straight from a who's who of the banned lists, after all.

So that's the thing. Please stop glorifying yourselves as some pure competitive spirits if you don't want Brainstorm banned and say others just want to play their shitty pet decks, because it's not the competitor in them speaking: Quite rightly, too, because it's not the competitor's place in to speak, but rather the game designer's. The only thing the competitor might take issue with is if the ban compromises the integrity and skilltesting nature of the format, which it would not because Ponder, Preordain, Ancestral and JTMS are cards in addition to all the nonblue card selection whose relative value would go up, up, up.

Bed Decks Palyer

12-01-2014, 10:04 AM

I bet €20 that in no more than hour there'll be a "leave your casual shell" type of comment answering what Zombie posted.

Except it isn't a real problem.
Except it is. The boring repetetive experience is not what I expect from my life. And a hobby.
Feel free to enjoy this highly variable and manifold gasmeplay with games that 99,976 % of time start with "blue dual, cantrip". Yeah, what a thrill.

Lemnear

12-01-2014, 10:18 AM

Did you just requote yourself from just 3 pages back, Zombie?

Blue was overpowered since alpha as Carsten already outlined and MaRos NWO-concept made it even better. You can not undo 20 years of design just because you suddenly feel the 5 colors should be equally strong and share the power level of cardsection which was ever Blues primary trait. It's not that anyone ever tried if Commune with Nature was potent enough as green card selection for example. I'm convinced most players don't even try to find alternatives to the blue shell anyways

Edit:

Except it is. The boring repetetive experience is not what I expect from my life. And a hobby.
Feel free to enjoy this highly variable and manifold gasmeplay with games that 99,976 % of time start with "blue dual, cantrip". Yeah, what a thrill.

The only thing that is really repetitive are your comments in this thread. I adressed this nonsense already twice and you literally said, you don't give a fuck about counter-arguments anyways. It's fascinating that you comment about the experience people have in the current metagame despite not having played in a tournament for more than a year afaik.

Star|Scream

12-01-2014, 10:27 AM

Of course you want to. That's the damn problem: Apart from a couple exceptions, blue is the thing to play, and in my and many others' opinion that's horrible game/format design. I'll outline some reasons below because someone pulled the "competitive blue player vs. silly casual with kavu.dec" card again:

This bears repeating: There are many, many hats one can wear, many jobs for people to do. A game designer's/balancer's job is to make a fun game that can withstand cutthroat competition if it's meant to. A tournament player's job as a competitor is to do what he thinks gives him the best EV within the rules. A person playing games in his free time wants to have fun playing the game. A TO is concerned with rules' clarity, enforceability, whether games can be finished on time and so on. A spectator wants variety and interesting situations. Maybe storylines too.

And that's the thing. My color balance comments are not from a tournament player's point of view.

When I don my tournament player hat, I look to tune my pile of little pointy-eared gits so it can take the tournament and grind so I'll hopefully see good enough lines to do well at the event.

But when I don my "guy spending his free time" and "spectator" and "game designer" hats, I see disaster and monotony. And that's kind of the thing. I'm not complaining as a competitor because as a competitor my task and mindset is always the same. What do I own, what can I borrow, what's the best 75-76 I can cobble out of those and get enough practice with? Ban something from Elves, for example, and it's not the competitor in me that is going to be angry. He is just going to scour forums and tinker and see if the archetype is salvageable and if not, move to something else.

The part that would be angry with it and ask if it's worth it anymore is the "free time" guy, because he loves Elves and doesn't like the feel of blue near as much (though he's fine playing stuff like Team America or Storm). The game designer might also be angry because there's much worse stuff in the format, but ultimately he might understand - half the deck is straight from a who's who of the banned lists, after all.

So that's the thing. Please stop glorifying yourselves as some pure competitive spirits if you don't want Brainstorm banned and say others just want to play their shitty pet decks, because it's not the competitor in them speaking: Quite rightly, too, because it's not the competitor's place in to speak, but rather the game designer's. The only thing the competitor might take issue with is if the ban compromises the integrity and skilltesting nature of the format, which it would not because Ponder, Preordain, Ancestral and JTMS are cards in addition to all the nonblue card selection whose relative value would go up, up, up.

But the format only exists for competitive play. If you want to be a "game designer" you can create a format that you feel suits your playstyle. If you want a format that's more based on "feels" then there's EDH. Arguing on a competitive website to ban a wildly popular card that has been the defining card since the inception of the format isn't going to get you very far.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 10:30 AM

I'm convinced most players don't even try to find alternatives to the blue shell anyways

This is definitely not true. Players look for variety and then get their teeth kicked in at large events going 3-3 drop when they're not playing the blue shell and then they wind up playing the blue shell because 3-3 drop is a terrible place to go consistently.

People play the best cards, sacrificing card power only for consistency when they have too.

My experience has been that when I try to play something that isn't in the blue shell it eventually breaks down to at some point in the tournament process. Even lists like Burn and D&T aren't immune to the bad draw that knocks them out. They have no way to fix built in because they're not playing 8 blue cantrips that let them look at 3 cards on the top of their pile and see exactly how bad things will get if they don't fetch or shuffle.

The number of times I've Pondered in mid-game and seen 3 lands on top is beyond count at this point. That's a shuffle and live situation most of the time. A non-blue list is going to lose the game over the next 3 turns probably 90% of the time in that situation.

Lemnear

12-01-2014, 10:34 AM

Gheizen64

12-01-2014, 10:37 AM

I'm confused. Aside from budget reasons or personal color preference, why wouldn't you want to start your decks with the cards that will make it as consistent as possible?

I agree, let's unban Vampiric tutor. Demonic too, so i cna play with 9X of any singleton i run, max consistency ez game :cool:

Bed Decks Palyer

12-01-2014, 10:43 AM

The only thing that is really repetitive are your comments in this thread. I adressed this nonsense already twice and you literally said, you don't give a fuck about counter-arguments anyways. It's fascinating that you comment about the experience people have in the current metagame despite not having played in a tournament for more than a year afaik.

I wrote I give a fuck about Vintage. Learn to read.
The "afaik" part is wrong. Know more.
You addressed nothing. What I gathered from this thread is that you're stubborn to admit that there's any trouble with power of blue shell simply becasue it feeds your pet decks. Nice discussion.

The Problem is arguing based on a personal idea of an ideal and color balanced metagame which was already absurd 1995 due to the Legendary Keeper-concept
So, you're not arguing on personal idea? Is this some god-given knowledge you spread? Truly, start a BS sect, man...

aluisiocsantos

12-01-2014, 10:44 AM

Most people getting into competitive legacy will likely look at the top strategies and just adhere to it.

It works like this in most competitive games, specially fighting games, where the diversity is similar. If a famous player wins with Yun in SF4 peope will cather to play Yun online and in tourneys. Same happened to Fei Long and Crimsom Viper for a time. Magic is the same.

You only STICk to a different solution if you were there before. You are likely NOT going to start playing legacy and build a Maverick deck if you first take a look at random SCG tourney or top decks on tcdecks.net first. Chances would be dude will start getting a blue shell since you can interexchange it so easily into ALL the DTBs.

nedleeds

12-01-2014, 10:49 AM

Balrog. All day.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 10:50 AM

The Problem is arguing based on a personal idea of an ideal and color balanced metagame which was already absurd 1995 due to the Legendary Keeper-concept

The meta wasn't completely unbalanced in 1995 the way that it is portrayed to be at this point. There were no free counters and there were only 2 cantrips available and both of them were restricted to 1 per deck. You also had a singleton Demonic Tutor to go find them and people often did. That's a big difference between 4-8 free counters and 4-12 cantrips depending on what you're playing.

The problem in the Legacy meta at this point is that blue has gotten major consistency and power upgrades over the last 20 years and the other colors have not. Red hasn't even gained much because the infusion of good cheap red spells has been matched by the loss of Black Vise, Wheel of Fortune and the Moxes and Lotus to fuel broken openings.

Why has blue gained so much compared to the other colors? Because the very thing that WotC identified as the problem, the ability to look at and draw a lot of cards, has been enhanced over what the status quo was in 1995. Because blue easily incorporates any other broken card that costs just one of another color to cast. Because blue now can find the most broken cards in the meta much more consistently than the colors they were printed in can find them.

You have to have played in the 1994-1995 meta to understand just how balanced it really was. I played in numerous 128+ person tournaments over that year and a half period and you were just as likely to see Burn or White Weenies or combo in which the only blue cards were a singleton Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Time Twister and Recall win as to see any list playing counterspells of any sort win.

WotC decided that the power 9 was too powerful and the expense was locking out new players and that dual lands stole too much design space from their R&D team and they tried to fix all of that in one fell swoop with the format split.

I'd rather that a singleton AR, TW and TT existed in Legacy than the current stable of free counters and card draw/manipulation. it would be a better meta to play in.

And yeah, when people got their hands on Ancestral Recall they won a lot. Guess what? If I'm not playing blue and you resolve Brainstorm you're fairly likely to win also and you can do that multiple times in a game without Regrowing or Recalling your lone AR.

Julian23

12-01-2014, 10:51 AM

nedleeds

12-01-2014, 10:52 AM

I agree, let's unban Vampiric tutor. Demonic too, so i cna play with 9X of any singleton i run, max consistency ez game :cool:

Ancestral as well, then the 4 x Missteps to counter the recalls, vamps and other missteps. Pretty soon we'll have a 30 card format instead of the 48 card format we have now. But everything will be consistent so even the worst player can gimp his way to the perfect hand.

Zombie

12-01-2014, 10:57 AM

But the format only exists for competitive play. If you want to be a "game designer" you can create a format that you feel suits your playstyle. If you want a format that's more based on "feels" then there's EDH. Arguing on a competitive website to ban a wildly popular card that has been the defining card since the inception of the format isn't going to get you very far.

Yeah, doesn't seem to get me anywhere. But I must say I don't think you got the point of the post. It's not about "based on feels" (which btw sounds a lot like the "shitty pet decks" argument to me). It's that wanting to improve a format's color balance has, for emphasis, zero, jackshit and nada to do with the format only existing for competitive play. There's no overlap on a Venn diagram if you were to draw one. Color balance is of no issue to the tournament player part of us - it's just looking for EV.

But we're not some Platonian ideals of a tournament player, and many people are unsatisfied by the complete and utter lack of color balance and resulting lack of different gameplay texture. Furthermore by all quantifiable standards Brainstorm is fucking absurd, and it's easy to see that it's a large contributor to the aforementioned monotony.

Banning Brainstorm will not decrease the skill-intensiveness of the format because weaker, but still strong card selection is abundant in blue, and is even harder to use than Brainstorm is oftentimes. The competitive integrity of the format would not suffer while color diversity and capability for self-expression would increase. The format would still be competitive, just as it is now. We can still look for EV, and it would still test skill much as now.

The suggestion to go play EDH for the feels or invent some format no one else plays, though? Those would concretely decrease the competitiveness of the Magic I play. I want to play to win, to tune, test, look for the EV, which is why I want to improve a competitive format like Legacy so it's more diverse in ways that matter to me without sacrificng that cutthroat attitude once I sit onto the table.

Star|Scream

12-01-2014, 11:01 AM

I agree, let's unban Vampiric tutor. Demonic too, so i cna play with 9X of any singleton i run, max consistency ez game :cool:

The difference is you're arguing to BAN a card that has defined the format since the beginning. That's a really tall order.

frogczar

12-01-2014, 11:02 AM

I see that even when a great article is thoughtfully written pointing out everything that's wrong with Legacy currently that The Source posters will still come out in droves to deny reality.

Brainstorm is broken and it's stifling legacy. End of story. Disagree? Read the article a few more times.

If you want Legacy to thrive, get on the ban Brainstorm bandwagon and be pleased when it finally does get banned. If you want players to continue to leave the format then by all means continue your delusional rant against reality and keep white-knighting Brainstorm's continued existence in the format.

I will go back to cubing and casual now since Legacy is still "all blue all the time".

testing32

12-01-2014, 11:03 AM

The difference is you're arguing to BAN a card that has defined the format since the beginning. That's a really tall order.

Why should how long a card has been legal matter at all? If it's a problem than it's a problem.

nedleeds

12-01-2014, 11:10 AM

Star|Scream

12-01-2014, 11:16 AM

I see that even when a great article is thoughtfully written pointing out everything that's wrong with Legacy currently that The Source posters will still come out in droves to deny reality.

Brainstorm is broken and it's stifling legacy. End of story. Disagree? Read the article a few more times.

If you want Legacy to thrive, get on the ban Brainstorm bandwagon and be pleased when it finally does get banned. If you want players to continue to leave the format.

Even though more people are playing it now than ever?

iamajellydonut

12-01-2014, 11:16 AM

I still don't understand what we're complaining about. Are we complaining that blue is so oppressive you can't top-four a local event or are we complaining you can't win an SCG with a non-blue deck?

Tom Ross plays (spoilers) Infect. He has played Infect for the past three millenia and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. When you sit across from Tom Ross and look at your opening hand, there's no question of "well, is he playing Infect or his patented Junk Swans list", because he is always playing Infect. Infect is pretty much the most miserably pitiful combo deck ever, and yet it's the only deck that Tom Ross plays. And Tom Ross shits on everyone.

Yes, this Adonis, this Cadillac of men, his weapon of choice is pretty much the equivalent of a sword carved out of a bar of soap. Day in. Day out. Wakes up next to your wife, kicks your wife out, and kicks on Infect.

I don't mean this to be an advertisement for Tom Ross. I honestly don't give two shits about the guy, but I do recognize his achievements. My point is that he's predictable player with what could be argued to be a suboptimal deck choice, and yet he still gets there. Not because he plays blue, but because he is a phenomenal player. You don't just stick blue into a deck, call it done, and go onto top 16 an open. But playing the best deck will help. Like Delver. Like Miracles. Like Elves, Death and Taxes, Stick a Fattie... These are the current best decks. Ban one of them and the professional dudes will just switch to the next best thing. And the next best thing. And the next best thing. Remember fucking Goyf? You didn't have to win with Goyf. People won without it all the time, but most still preferred him because he was the best. Now it's Delver. Or Brainstorm or whatever you want to blame. Get over yourselves.

Affinity was banned because it was oppressive at every level of play. Jace and Stoneforge were banned because they were also oppressive at every level of play. Brainstorm and Delver aren't oppressive at any level of play in any format. They're simply the best. And before them was Stoneforge Mystic. And Goyf. And Flametongue "The Mother Caresser" Kavu. There will always be a best. And in two years from now we'll be complaining about whatever aggressively costed creature is printed in Return to Ravnica: The Reckoning.

That being said, if you can't be competitive at a local event with your Bears.dec or some other pet deck (Junk Swans), that's not blue's fault. That's you being shit.

iamajellydonut

12-01-2014, 11:19 AM

#formatdefining #pillaroftheformat #idquit

Whatever the fuck format defining means (nothing most likely) isn't a ban criteria. Maybe I think Survival of the Fittest was a 'defining' card of the legacy format. It's been competitive since the formats inception. Has had dozens of end games ranging from combo, graveyard, aggro. Didn't stop them from banning it.

And banning Survival of the Fittest was indeed a mistake, but I don't see why we should repeat that mistake.

Star|Scream

12-01-2014, 11:29 AM

bruizar

12-01-2014, 11:32 AM

The meta wasn't completely unbalanced in 1995 the way that it is portrayed to be at this point. There were no free counters and there were only 2 cantrips available and both of them were restricted to 1 per deck. You also had a singleton Demonic Tutor to go find them and people often did. That's a big difference between 4-8 free counters and 4-12 cantrips depending on what you're playing.

The problem in the Legacy meta at this point is that blue has gotten major consistency and power upgrades over the last 20 years and the other colors have not. Red hasn't even gained much because the infusion of good cheap red spells has been matched by the loss of Black Vise, Wheel of Fortune and the Moxes and Lotus to fuel broken openings.

Why has blue gained so much compared to the other colors? Because the very thing that WotC identified as the problem, the ability to look at and draw a lot of cards, has been enhanced over what the status quo was in 1995. Because blue easily incorporates any other broken card that costs just one of another color to cast. Because blue now can find the most broken cards in the meta much more consistently than the colors they were printed in can find them.

You have to have played in the 1994-1995 meta to understand just how balanced it really was. I played in numerous 128+ person tournaments over that year and a half period and you were just as likely to see Burn or White Weenies or combo in which the only blue cards were a singleton Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Time Twister and Recall win as to see any list playing counterspells of any sort win.

WotC decided that the power 9 was too powerful and the expense was locking out new players and that dual lands stole too much design space from their R&D team and they tried to fix all of that in one fell swoop with the format split.

I'd rather that a singleton AR, TW and TT existed in Legacy than the current stable of free counters and card draw/manipulation. it would be a better meta to play in.

And yeah, when people got their hands on Ancestral Recall they won a lot. Guess what? If I'm not playing blue and you resolve Brainstorm you're fairly likely to win also and you can do that multiple times in a game without Regrowing or Recalling your lone AR.

There was hardly a best deck back in1995 since magic forums werent ubiquitous as they are today. There was thedojo, and usenet, which nearly no one used. To say anything about a metagame in 19945/1995 is meaningless because the concept of netdecking had yet to take off. I played during this time, and i can tell you that the meta differed significantly from shop to shop, let alone from city to city, country to country, or continent to continent. Lemnear once again has no clue of what he's talking about.

The Dojo is a now defunct Magic: The Gathering site that featured articles and tournament reports. Started by Frank Kusumoto aka The Sensei, it was one of the earliest Magic websites, active from 1995 to 2001. It was the only website at the time that attempted to aggregate the best of MTG-L and USENET and organize it in an easier to read format. In the course of doing this some writers noticed the website and what the The Dojo was doing and submitted their work directly to the website, reasoning that their work would actually get more exposure on The Dojo rather than get lost in the sea of posts on MTG-L. The first iteration of The Dojo was hosted on Netcom's amazing 1 mb of space each user received with their account and the address was http://www.netcom.com/fkusumot/index.html. The first post on the nascent website was an aggregation of many USENET posts concerning the NECRO deck, with an introduction, observation and conclusion sections written by Frank Kusumoto and posted in October of 1995. This was quickly followed by articles on Cade's "The Prison" and Weissman's "The Deck". The Dojo remained a small hobbyist website but started receiving attention by some PT regulars (Adam Maysonett, Rudy Edwards and Chip Hogan in particular) and from some tournament organizers and card dealers, most notably David Doust.

Adryan

12-01-2014, 11:40 AM

I think the main reason, why blue is so good is that it has the best tools to fight combo. Banning Brainstorm would surely decrease blue decks, but it would also increase the number of Combo decks. I've talked to some very good Storm players and they all agree, that Storm would actually be better in the format without Brainstorm. It loses Brainstorm, but it will also get more non blue MU's.

If you want a format where blue is not so heavily played, the only viable solution in my eyes is to ban Brainstorm, fast mana and some broken combo enablers, so that Combo can't kill you before Turn 3.

iamajellydonut

12-01-2014, 11:49 AM

If you want a format where blue is not so heavily played, the only viable solution in my eyes is to ban Brainstorm, fast mana and some broken combo enablers, so that Combo can't kill you before Turn 3.

Sooo... Modern?

M+1

12-01-2014, 11:57 AM

#formatdefining #pillaroftheformat #idquit

Whatever the fuck format defining means (nothing most likely) isn't a ban criteria. Maybe I think Survival of the Fittest was a 'defining' card of the legacy format. It's been competitive since the formats inception. Has had dozens of end games ranging from combo, graveyard, aggro. Didn't stop them from banning it.

This preemptive arguing stuff is getting old. How about:

#blueoverpowered #colorbalance #nonbluenotcompetitive #maindeckpyroblastwtf #48carddecks

Are all your arguments now flawed?

I do agree with unbanning Survival, that would be so sweet.

maharis

12-01-2014, 12:09 PM

I've talked to some very good Storm players and they all agree, that Storm would actually be better in the format without Brainstorm.

haha, you should read what they say in these threads. I don't care either way about Storm, we already have to ban a bunch of fun cards because that stupid mechanic was printed, what's a few more? I'd love a format where the keyword is banned and we can play Suicide Necro again.

Even though more people are playing it now than ever?

I suggest you check out some of the recent discussion in the prices & reprints thread. GP NJ is an outlier with regard to attendance and SCG has sent a clear signal about their long-term view of Legacy by severely reducing the amount of large-scale Legacy events it runs.

There was hardly a best deck back in1995 since magic forums werent ubiquitous as they are today. There was thedojo, and usenet, which nearly no one used. To say anything about a metagame in 19945/1995 is meaningless because the concept of netdecking had yet to take off. I played during this time, and i can tell you that the meta differed significantly from shop to shop, let alone from city to city, country to country, or continent to continent. Lemnear once again has no clue of what he's talking about.

In addition, the nature of collecting has changed significantly since that time period as well. It's one thing to get a solid decklist, it's quite another to be able to order all the cards for it as well. In a game with caps on the number of playable pieces, restricting the amount of truly playable pieces will lead to stagnation even sooner.

The suggestion to go play EDH for the feels or invent some format no one else plays, though? Those would concretely decrease the competitiveness of the Magic I play. I want to play to win, to tune, test, look for the EV, which is why I want to improve a competitive format like Legacy so it's more diverse in ways that matter to me without sacrificng that cutthroat attitude once I sit onto the table.

"But I want to play Brainstorm because it's already the best! Why should I learn a new skill when I can test my skill already?"

I still don't understand what we're complaining about. Are we complaining that blue is so oppressive you can't top-four a local event or are we complaining you can't win an SCG with a non-blue deck?

Tom Ross plays (spoilers) Infect. He has played Infect for the past three millenia and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. When you sit across from Tom Ross and look at your opening hand, there's no question of "well, is he playing Infect or his patented Junk Swans list", because he is always playing Infect. Infect is pretty much the most miserably pitiful combo deck ever, and yet it's the only deck that Tom Ross plays. And Tom Ross shits on everyone.

Yes, this Adonis, this Cadillac of men, his weapon of choice is pretty much the equivalent of a sword carved out of a bar of soap. Day in. Day out. Wakes up next to your wife, kicks your wife out, and kicks on Infect.

I don't mean this to be an advertisement for Tom Ross. I honestly don't give two shits about the guy, but I do recognize his achievements. My point is that he's predictable player with what could be argued to be a suboptimal deck choice, and yet he still gets there. Not because he plays blue, but because he is a phenomenal player. You don't just stick blue into a deck, call it done, and go onto top 16 an open. But playing the best deck will help. Like Delver. Like Miracles. Like Elves, Death and Taxes, Stick a Fattie... These are the current best decks. Ban one of them and the professional dudes will just switch to the next best thing. And the next best thing. And the next best thing. Remember fucking Goyf? You didn't have to win with Goyf. People won without it all the time, but most still preferred him because he was the best. Now it's Delver. Or Brainstorm or whatever you want to blame. Get over yourselves.

Affinity was banned because it was oppressive at every level of play. Jace and Stoneforge were banned because they were also oppressive at every level of play. Brainstorm and Delver aren't oppressive at any level of play in any format. They're simply the best. And before them was Stoneforge Mystic. And Goyf. And Flametongue "The Mother Caresser" Kavu. There will always be a best. And in two years from now we'll be complaining about whatever aggressively costed creature is printed in Return to Ravnica: The Reckoning.

That being said, if you can't be competitive at a local event with your Bears.dec or some other pet deck (Junk Swans), that's not blue's fault. That's you being shit.

Tom is a good if not great player, but Infect is a good deck. It is a good deck because it incorporates the raw draw power and protection of the blue cantrip shell. If he was winning with BG infect playing Howl from Beyond, that would be something to talk about. But the point of the entire thread is that starting with the blue shell gives you the best chance to win.

And there's the pet deck accusation at the end. I've seen you in the Jund/Rock threads a lot. You know that those decks are what people are referring to as pet decks, right? It's not all people showing up with Orcish Artillery-sligh decks. It's strategies that are shut out with every new printing, even in their own colors. Deathrite Shaman is great in our decks! It's even better in BUG, because the BUG deck will never get color screwed or fail to draw the removal to break the deathrite war.

I played Junk all summer to a very nice win % against blue decks. Then I showed up at Eternal Weekend and lost three out of four die rolls in a row. I was 3-1-1 in games I was on the play, but I lost every single game on the draw to blue decks. That's part variance, but of course that means that the decks best at reducing variance are at a competitive advantage. Which means that the best choice for a deck is always the blue shell. Ask Megadeus why he played storm and not deadguy this week.

Magic is not supposed to be completely a skill game, even at the competitive level. It's supposed to appeal to a broad range of personality types and allow you to play a range of strategies. It incorporates variance into its design with the resource system.

And I know there are people who like knowing that everyone's on the same theme. But eventually it will get boring/inaccessible for a mass to the point where attendance will fall, prize support will be reduced, and there will be little reason to fire Legacy at all.

btm10

12-01-2014, 12:13 PM

Blue was overpowered since alpha as Carsten already outlined and MaRos NWO-concept made it even better. You can not undo 20 years of design just because you suddenly feel the 5 colors should be equally strong and share the power level of cardsection which was ever Blues primary trait. It's not that anyone ever tried if Commune with Nature was potent enough as green card selection for example. I'm convinced most players don't even try to find alternatives to the blue shell anyways

I think some people have tried, but that when you're looking at nonblue card selection/library manipulation the actual deckbuilding (and therefore testing) gets more complicated, requiring a substantially larger time investment in a nonblue deck just to get it optimized than starting a list "4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder". An example in green is that while Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile are run in Jund and Enchantress, respectively, the optimal green card selection package is probably some split between the two because Guile+Library+shuffle effects allow you to look at tons of cards and Guile+Bob is an incredibly broken draw engine, while Sylvan is much stronger on its own. Finding the optimal Guile/Library split, number of shuffle effects, other draw/manipulation tools (Bob, Sterling Grove, Enlightened Tutor, etc) all take a substantial time investment and are still worse than Brainstorm and Ponder.

That being said, there are things that green does way better than blue (have good creatures, remove artifacts, lands and, post-Onslaught, enchantments), so its card selection shouldn't be as good. Other colors do have to work harder to be as good as blue, but they can do a good enough impersonation to be competitive. I absolutely maintain that a major limitation on the success of nonblue decks is the fact that fast combo exists and that nonblue decks don't get to run Force of Will. Since I think that fast combo is desirable in Legacy from a game design perspective (which I'll address more fully below), Force is necessary to keep it in check. Once you think that some minimum number of decks has to run Force to stop fast combo from running rampant, you're implicitly accepting that blue is going to be run by players who want to maximize their chances of beating fast combo in addition to those who are attracted to its other characteristics. If you're running a deck without Force of Will, you're agreeing to give up (potentially a lot of) points in your combo matchups to improve your noncombo matchups. While the large number of people running blue isn't completely attributable to the desire for Force, it's equally true that Brainstorm isn't the only factor either.

This bears repeating: There are many, many hats one can wear, many jobs for people to do. A game designer's/balancer's job is to make a fun game that can withstand cutthroat competition if it's meant to. A tournament player's job as a competitor is to do what he thinks gives him the best EV within the rules. A person playing games in his free time wants to have fun playing the game. A TO is concerned with rules' clarity, enforceability, whether games can be finished on time and so on. A spectator wants variety and interesting situations. Maybe storylines too.

And that's the thing. My color balance comments are not from a tournament player's point of view.

When I don my tournament player hat, I look to tune my pile of little pointy-eared gits so it can take the tournament and grind so I'll hopefully see good enough lines to do well at the event.

But when I don my "guy spending his free time" and "spectator" and "game designer" hats, I see disaster and monotony. And that's kind of the thing. I'm not complaining as a competitor because as a competitor my task and mindset is always the same. What do I own, what can I borrow, what's the best 75-76 I can cobble out of those and get enough practice with? Ban something from Elves, for example, and it's not the competitor in me that is going to be angry. He is just going to scour forums and tinker and see if the archetype is salvageable and if not, move to something else.

The part that would be angry with it and ask if it's worth it anymore is the "free time" guy, because he loves Elves and doesn't like the feel of blue near as much (though he's fine playing stuff like Team America or Storm). The game designer might also be angry because there's much worse stuff in the format, but ultimately he might understand - half the deck is straight from a who's who of the banned lists, after all.

So that's the thing. Please stop glorifying yourselves as some pure competitive spirits if you don't want Brainstorm banned and say others just want to play their shitty pet decks, because it's not the competitor in them speaking: Quite rightly, too, because it's not the competitor's place in to speak, but rather the game designer's. The only thing the competitor might take issue with is if the ban compromises the integrity and skilltesting nature of the format, which it would not because Ponder, Preordain, Ancestral and JTMS are cards in addition to all the nonblue card selection whose relative value would go up, up, up.

I think you're right about different hats being necessary in different contexts, but I think even a game designer approach can lead to the conclusion that a Brainstorm ban is unnecessary. To pick up a theme from earlier posts, BS really does support the combo segment in a unique and valuable way even if it does so by pushing people toward playing blue in multiple ways (by the "need for FoW" mechanism I discussed above, and by providing superior card selection). Since the first mechanism is unfixable without implementing a Modern-like policy of banning key components of combo decks that win before a clearly defined turn, we're left looking for ways to address the second mechanism. One way is to remove part of Brainstorm's supporting cast, most likely Delver of Secrets. I don't like this option because all Delver is is an evasive 1-drop. Sure, it's very good at being a beater, but it dies to every removal spell ever except Darkblast and Searing Touch, and even those can kill it in principle. Another option is one or more unbans to power up decks with strong matchups against blue-based control, midrange, and tempo decks, likely meaning Earthcraft to power up Enchantress and/or Survival to re-create recursive creature toolbox and aggro-combo decks. There's a substantially weaker argument for unbanning Black Vise to this end, but weaker only in the sense that Vise itself is likely too weak to make an impact.

Most interestingly, I think that Wizards might be able to address several problems with Legacy at once with an Event Deck. When SFM was banned in Standard, it was allowed in the unaltered Event Deck that it was included with. A similar conditional unban of powerful library manipulation or draw spell in the context of a powerful-but-not-broken Legacy Event Deck could lower the barrier to entry into Legacy while also allowing for a powerful nonblue spell to receive both a sort of trial unbanning. My initial feeling with this suggestion was to unban Necropotence or Demonic Consultation only in the context of a monoblack or black/green Event Deck, but Survival in a green-based Event Deck might be better because one can imagine a scenario where data from the Event Deck's performance could be used to argue that a fully unbanned Survival deck would be either ok or not ok, whereas unbanned Necro is an obvious combo engine even if it's powerful-but-not-broken when it's filling the hand of someone playing The Rock. As I write this, I think that allowing a banned card in an Event Deck where you're required to keep say, 60-70 of the 75 cards constant seems like an experiment worth trying from all angles: format accessibility, color balance, and generating actual data for banned list decisions.

iamajellydonut

12-01-2014, 12:25 PM

And there's the pet deck accusation at the end. I've seen you in the Jund/Rock threads a lot. You know that those decks are what people are referring to as pet decks, right? It's not all people showing up with Orcish Artillery-sligh decks. It's strategies that are shut out with every new printing, even in their own colors. Deathrite Shaman is great in our decks! It's even better in BUG, because the BUG deck will never get color screwed or fail to draw the removal to break the deathrite war.

I've called Junk/Jund/Rock pet decks on multiple occasions. I'm aware they're in a bad place. However, it doesn't stop me from rolling a weekly with them or having fun at an Open.

maharis

12-01-2014, 12:25 PM

I think some people have tried, but that when you're looking at nonblue card selection/library manipulation the actual deckbuilding (and therefore testing) gets more complicated, requiring a substantially larger time investment in a nonblue deck just to get it optimized than starting a list "4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder". An example in green is that while Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile are run in Jund and Enchantress, respectively, the optimal green card selection package is probably some split between the two because Guile+Library+shuffle effects allow you to look at tons of cards and Guile+Bob is an incredibly broken draw engine, while Sylvan is much stronger on its own. Finding the optimal Guile/Library split, number of shuffle effects, other draw/manipulation tools (Bob, Sterling Grove, Enlightened Tutor, etc) all take a substantial time investment and are still worse than Brainstorm and Ponder.

That being said, there are things that green does way better than blue (have good creatures, remove artifacts, lands and, post-Onslaught, enchantments), so its card selection shouldn't be as good. Other colors do have to work harder to be as good as blue, but they can do a good enough impersonation to be competitive. I absolutely maintain that a major limitation on the success of nonblue decks is the fact that fast combo exists and that nonblue decks don't get to run Force of Will. Since I think that fast combo is desirable in Legacy from a game design perspective (which I'll address more fully below), Force is necessary to keep it in check. Once you think that some minimum number of decks has to run Force to stop fast combo from running rampant, you're implicitly accepting that blue is going to be run by players who want to maximize their chances of beating fast combo in addition to those who are attracted to its other characteristics. If you're running a deck without Force of Will, you're agreeing to give up (potentially a lot of) points in your combo matchups to improve your noncombo matchups. While the large number of people running blue isn't completely attributable to the desire for Force, it's equally true that Brainstorm isn't the only factor either.

I think you're right about different hats being necessary in different contexts, but I think even a game designer approach can lead to the conclusion that a Brainstorm ban is unnecessary. To pick up a theme from earlier posts, BS really does support the combo segment in a unique and valuable way even if it does so by pushing people toward playing blue in multiple ways (by the "need for FoW" mechanism I discussed above, and by providing superior card selection). Since the first mechanism is unfixable without implementing a Modern-like policy of banning key components of combo decks that win before a clearly defined turn, we're left looking for ways to address the second mechanism. One way is to remove part of Brainstorm's supporting cast, most likely Delver of Secrets. I don't like this option because all Delver is is an evasive 1-drop. Sure, it's very good at being a beater, but it dies to every removal spell ever except Darkblast and Searing Touch, and even those can kill it in principle. Another option is one or more unbans to power up decks with strong matchups against blue-based control, midrange, and tempo decks, likely meaning Earthcraft to power up Enchantress and/or Survival to re-create recursive creature toolbox and aggro-combo decks. There's a substantially weaker argument for unbanning Black Vise to this end, but weaker only in the sense that Vise itself is likely too weak to make an impact.

Most interestingly, I think that Wizards might be able to address several problems with Legacy at once with an Event Deck. When SFM was banned in Standard, it was allowed in the unaltered Event Deck that it was included with. A similar conditional unban of powerful library manipulation or draw spell in the context of a powerful-but-not-broken Legacy Event Deck could lower the barrier to entry into Legacy while also allowing for a powerful nonblue spell to receive both a sort of trial unbanning. My initial feeling with this suggestion was to unban Necropotence or Demonic Consultation only in the context of a monoblack or black/green Event Deck, but Survival in a green-based Event Deck might be better because one can imagine a scenario where data from the Event Deck's performance could be used to argue that a fully unbanned Survival deck would be either ok or not ok, whereas unbanned Necro is an obvious combo engine even if it's powerful-but-not-broken when it's filling the hand of someone playing The Rock. As I write this, I think that allowing a banned card in an Event Deck where you're required to keep say, 60-70 of the 75 cards constant seems like an experiment worth trying from all angles: format accessibility, color balance, and generating actual data for banned list decisions.

These suggestions are definitely legitimate, but I can't help but think they just continue to ignore the core problem, which is Brainstorm is orders of magnitude more powerful than the rest of the Legacy card pool. Banning it is the most elegant solution to the deck diversity problem. Sure, some decks will falter, but many decks have faltered after bannings in the past. Protean Hulk and Vengevine have no home in legacy, for example. Attempting to create workarounds and exceptions simply to keep some archetypes alive because they need a card more than other more oppressive archetypes that also need the card just creates a jumbled, confusing format.

EpicLevelCommoner

12-01-2014, 12:29 PM

I think you're right about different hats being necessary in different contexts, but I think even a game designer approach can lead to the conclusion that a Brainstorm ban is unnecessary. To pick up a theme from earlier posts, BS really does support the combo segment in a unique and valuable way even if it does so by pushing people toward playing blue in multiple ways (by the "need for FoW" mechanism I discussed above, and by providing superior card selection). Since the first mechanism is unfixable without implementing a Modern-like policy of banning key components of combo decks that win before a clearly defined turn, we're left looking for ways to address the second mechanism. One way is to remove part of Brainstorm's supporting cast, most likely Delver of Secrets. I don't like this option because all Delver is is an evasive 1-drop. Sure, it's very good at being a beater, but it dies to every removal spell ever except Darkblast and Searing Touch, and even those can kill it in principle. Another option is one or more unbans to power up decks with strong matchups against blue-based control, midrange, and tempo decks, likely meaning Earthcraft to power up Enchantress and/or Survival to re-create recursive creature toolbox and aggro-combo decks. There's a substantially weaker argument for unbanning Black Vise to this end, but weaker only in the sense that Vise itself is likely too weak to make an impact.

While I agree with most of your logic, the part in bold really irks me. Dies to removal should never be an valid argument without proper context. In this case, Delver does die to most spot removal, but since it has flying, it provides an evasive clock that can't be blocked effectively by most legacy-playable creatures. The result? If you don't have a removal spell (or two in case it is Forced or Dazed), then you're stuck in top deck mode while your opponent is fully capable of riding a bugman to victory.

Star|Scream

12-01-2014, 12:59 PM

btm10

12-01-2014, 01:05 PM

While I agree with most of your logic, the part in bold really irks me. Dies to removal should never be an valid argument without proper context. In this case, Delver does die to most spot removal, but since it has flying, it provides an evasive clock that can't be blocked effectively by most legacy-playable creatures. The result? If you don't have a removal spell (or two in case it is Forced or Dazed), then you're stuck in top deck mode while your opponent is fully capable of riding a bugman to victory.

Context is certainly required, but being a creature - and being susceptible to the most prevalent form of removal as a result - is an important part of that context. While there are examples of creature being banned in Standard and Modern, the Modern ban of Deathrite Shaman is probably the best point of comparison. In Modern (as I understand it as a non-player) the metagame with DRS revolved completely around BGx decks to an even greater extent than it does now. In the context of Modern, where decks are slower and less efficient at finding answers, lines like turn 1 DRS into turn 2 Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf or turn 1 DRS, turn 2 Liliana of the Veil are immensely damaging to an opponent, and in contrast to a regular mana dork like Birds, DRS provides whole-game utility so one topdecked in the mid-to-late game isn't a marginal or dead draw, which exacerbates BGx's consistency advantage in that format. In contrast, Legacy decks have a much higher capacity for library manipulation and card drawing than do their Modern counterparts and getting hit once with a flipped Delver doesn't set you back nearly as far as facing turn two Liliana or Thougthseize + Tarmogoyf from an attrition deck. Similarly, no Delver deck is anywhere near the (relative) power level of Raffinity or Caw-Blade at their heights. You can make the argument that Delver contributes to the bluing of the format, but I'd say it's a tertiary cause at best, and of all the causes it's the easiest for the format to manage on its own.

EDIT:

These suggestions are definitely legitimate, but I can't help but think they just continue to ignore the core problem, which is Brainstorm is orders of magnitude more powerful than the rest of the Legacy card pool. Banning it is the most elegant solution to the deck diversity problem. Sure, some decks will falter, but many decks have faltered after bannings in the past. Protean Hulk and Vengevine have no home in legacy, for example. Attempting to create workarounds and exceptions simply to keep some archetypes alive because they need a card more than other more oppressive archetypes that also need the card just creates a jumbled, confusing format.

Sorry I missed this initially.

Elegance aside (and I'd argue that banning is a less elegant option than unbanning), Hulk and Vengevine, as well as DRS, SFM, and Ravager, are/were components of unquestionably dominant single decks. Brainstorm is played in every deck that runs blue and isn't Merfolk, and differences of opinion on this being a feature or a bug are the irreconcilable differences of the sides in this debate. I look out and see dozens of different decks running Brainstorm, all doing strategically different things. Delver is the most strategically monolithic, but Miracles, Show and Tell/Reanimator, ANT/TES, Blade decks, and even fringe players like Food Chain and High Tide are all different decks and playing with or against one bears little resemblance to playing with/against the others. I can't speak to your feelings on this or to the feelings of anyone else who wants to see Brainstorm go, but I do think that we'd see a fall off in diversity if the card gets banned. I think we'd see little change in the relative positioning of Delver decks and that Miracles would be completely or partially replaced by a similar UW or UWr control deck as the ability to throw back unintentionally draw Miracles goes away (well, effectively goes away because Dream Cache is terrible), but we'd lose a lot of non-Belcher/non-Oops All Spells combo, potentially even including Reanimator. And that is too high a price to pay to make the relative positioning of Maverick or Dega, or any other nonblue creature-oriented deck more viable.

iamajellydonut

12-01-2014, 01:06 PM

It's a perfectly valid argument. It's an evasive creature that can be killed by anything and takes 6 turns to win the game. That's not banworthy.

That's far from flawless criteria.

maharis

12-01-2014, 01:39 PM

I've called Junk/Jund/Rock pet decks on multiple occasions. I'm aware they're in a bad place. However, it doesn't stop me from rolling a weekly with them or having fun at an Open.

Fair enough, and I largely agree with this.

But: Take a Junk deck and remove green. You get "pet deck" Deadguy Ale. Add Lightning Bolts. You get Dega, another "pet deck." Add blue cantrips. Welcome to the DTB section, Esper Stoneblade!

Replace the red cards with blue cantrips in Jund. Sick BUG deck, bro!

That's the "color diversity" issue people are talking about. It's not that blue the color is so OP that every serious deck has blue cards in it. It's that some blue cards are so OP that every deck has specific blue cards in it. If you want to play a Stoneforge deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Young Pyromancer deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Tarmogoyf deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Dark Ritual deck, play blue cantrips.

And then it becomes, well everyone's playing blue cantrips, why would I ever not want to play a one-mana counterspell for them? So it becomes blue-red-X. Then BUG becomes a "pet deck." Four of the top 8 at yesterday's open and 7 of the top 16 were blue-red decks.

Sloshthedark

12-01-2014, 01:58 PM

I think the main reason, why blue is so good is that it has the best tools to fight combo. Banning Brainstorm would surely decrease blue decks, but it would also increase the number of Combo decks. I've talked to some very good Storm players and they all agree, that Storm would actually be better in the format without Brainstorm. It loses Brainstorm, but it will also get more non blue MU's.

LOL gimme names, please!... ignoring these people will save me a lot of time

UBx Storm is THE best BS deck, not close, do you realize permanent based disrupton is much harder to overcome than a counterspell? and in fact many nonU MU's are way harder (better said random) than U? and present TC metagame is the best one for Storm in years?

these threads do not disappoint a single time...

cogitoergosum

12-01-2014, 02:10 PM

"Brainstorm is broken and it's stifling legacy"

"Brainstorm is orders of magnitude more powerful than the rest of the Legacy card pool. Banning it is the most elegant solution to the deck diversity problem."

I have seen this line of thought presented by many people that support the banning of brainstorm. However, I feel like the conclusion is false. Brainstorm is indeed powerful, probably the most powerful card in the format (but there is always a most powerful card). However, does the existence of brainstorm stifle deckbuilding? Limit viable options? I would say the exact opposite, that the existence of brainstorm promotes deck diversity. Here is a list of deck running BS from the MTGS Established decks, which I think we all can agree are decks that can win local tournaments: Reanimator, DDFT, ANT, SNeak and Show, Cephalid Breakfast, High Tide, TES, Omnitell, TinFins, UR Painter, Hive Mind, RUG Delver, BUG Nicfit, UR Delver, Bant, Bug Delver, Grixis Delver, Deathblade, Esperblade, UW Stoneblade, UWr Miracles, UWR Delver/Pyo, Bug Control, Landstill.

That is 25 decks that play brainstorm, and I'm sure there are more. Although some people will surely clamor about this being a bad sign, I think it is great! Look at all those different decks you can play!

Now, let's looks at established decks that eschew BS: Lands, Stax, Tezzerator, DnT, Pox, MUD, Burn, Affinity, Maverick, Walking Dead, Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, Nicfit, The Gate, The Rock, Red Stompy, Green Stompy (Lejay), Jund, 4c Loam, Deadguy, Zoo, Forgemaster, Dredge, Manaless Dredge, Enchantress, Spanish Inquisition, and Painter.

Now we see 26 non-BS decks. Again, many options to play if you don't want or can't afford blue.

Now, I know these are not all top flight decks, but I have seen a lot of these do well at local tournaments in the last year, and considering that is where the most legacy is played, I think it is most important.

TL;DR Yes, BS is super powerful and present in most of the top (tier 1) decks, but it also enables a huge swath of decks across different archetypes, which IMO is very good for the format.

btm10

12-01-2014, 02:19 PM

Fair enough, and I largely agree with this.

But: Take a Junk deck and remove green. You get "pet deck" Deadguy Ale. Add Lightning Bolts. You get Dega, another "pet deck." Add blue cantrips. Welcome to the DTB section, Esper Stoneblade!

Replace the red cards with blue cantrips in Jund. Sick BUG deck, bro!

That's the "color diversity" issue people are talking about. It's not that blue the color is so OP that every serious deck has blue cards in it. It's that some blue cards are so OP that every deck has specific blue cards in it. If you want to play a Stoneforge deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Young Pyromancer deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Tarmogoyf deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Dark Ritual deck, play blue cantrips.

And then it becomes, well everyone's playing blue cantrips, why would I ever not want to play a one-mana counterspell for them? So it becomes blue-red-X. Then BUG becomes a "pet deck." Four of the top 8 at yesterday's open and 7 of the top 16 were blue-red decks.

Sorry I missed your earlier post; I've responded now.

But to this - I think we're in the early stages of a pretty large metagame shift, that URx is the deck/color combination of the moment, and the performance of URx decks right now has more to do with bandwagoning, perception, and hype than it does long-run metagame fundamentals. The RUG Delver list that finished second at SCG Atlanta could easily have been run card-for-card pre-Khans and also finished second. SB Pyroblast isn't exactly new tech, especially in a deck that struggles against a resolved Counterbalance or True-Name Nemesis. From what I can tell in my testing, people have moved away from BUG for reasons not well supported by data and will likely pick that color combination up again if people keep doing well with UWR, UR, and RUG, all of which BUG is a natural predator for. Other well-built BGx decks are similarly well positioned aside from having rough combo matchups.

TsumiBand

12-01-2014, 02:32 PM

People invoking hyperbole vis-a-vis fighting games are forgetting that characters still get banned, both socially and officially, in various games. Be honest - you've watched some asshat put a quarter down, shuffle up and play Eddy Gordo, and sighed under your breath. Eddy Gordo, while being fun as shit to play if you actually know what you're doing, also rewards players for just mashing the hell out of your kick buttons and Tebowing. As for SSF2T Akuma, his US competitive ban exists for a variety of reasons, but power is assuredly among them.

Banning effects which are potent to the point of upset exists almost universally in games of all sorts. This isn't anything new or exciting. Boxing prohibits any punches below the belt. You can't throw elbows in a lot of combative sports (depending on which ones we're referring to of course). In football you cannot grab a face mask. Chess disallows you to act as the middle-man in a simultaneous chess game (where you simply mimic the opposite opponent, thereby tricking them into actually playing each other and guaranteeing you at least attain 1W-1L). These had to be executed by someone somewhere before they could be reviewed and appropriately nixed in their respective sports - after all, the rules at the time didn't say you *can't* do them.

The realm of possible movements in real life is orders upon orders of magnitude greater than your possible card selections in Magic: The Gathering, and so all manner of "unsportsmanlike" maneuvers which are not strictly defined by the rules of their respective games are left to arbitration as they're witnessed. However, we are able to observe winning decklists, percentages, ratios between colors and cards, and see which lines of play and which card choices are being made, and for what reason.

Again I'll point to Skullclamp.metagame. There was a point in Mirrodin-legal formats where every aggro deck under the sun, any deck with creatures at all, was packing Skullclamp in order to facilitate a huge card advantage jump in the face of multiple game states. Opponent Wraths? Sounds good; draw two. Opponent chump blocks? Sounds good; draw two. Opponent never triggers Skullclamp? Seems real good; deal more damage, or just equip irrelevant guys as your threats increase and maintain board presence while drawing cards. And of course, Affinity could do whatever-the-fuck with it; it was Ravager food, it was a way to turn Thopters and Frogmites into profit, it was a giant mana sink for board states where you could afford to sac a dude or two to go drawing for moar cards (and your opponent was probably losing life to Disciple of the Vault while this was going on). Elf-clamp, Goblin-clamp, Affinity, Affinity, White Weenie + Skullclamp, oh yeah goddamn Affinity. If you weren't setup to either nuke it or play it, you were at an extreme disadvantage. It was banned in nearly every format it became playable in, save Vintage and EDH.

Skullclamp is actually a really fairly good analog to Brainstorm, inasmuch as the argument against color diversity is concerned as Skullclamp may as well be played in any creature deck and grants similar (though obviously not all) benefits as Brainstorm. After all we may as well all splash for Brainstorm, right - the argument so far is that it's a good card, we should all play good cards if we're really serious about playing the game, and that diversity exists in a metagame with the same 40+ cards per deck, as long as they have different "other spells" that actually make the opponents' life total change. And hey we got all those fetchlands lying around for a reason - you don't like your deck's consistency when paired up against a pile with Blue cantrips? Fucking play Blue, scrub - take out your deck's 16 worst cards and play Ponder, Brainstorm, Preordain and Force of Will. Now adjust your manabase accordingly, and that's your goddamned deck right there. Something something big boy pants. Something something competitive player. Now play it and shut the fuck up.

But enough hyperbole out of me I guess - I fail to see how anyone can actually accept a format that's being overrun with a color across multiple decks as being representative of a healthy metagame per the game's stated intent and design - that is, to have five colors and artifacts which any given player can build their deck from to try and win the game. The bad habit of hubris emerges when we just accept that Blue is Blue and Eternal is Blue and we should all just shut up and play Blue because everything else is less consistent and to choose to do otherwise is indicative of sleeving up a pet deck. There is a dissonance between the game's intent, its design, and its execution. That by itself is an argument for reconsideration of the available format tools, not a reason to say "welp it is what it is, can't change it, play blue or be mad bro"

EDIT: This is probably the best summation of this whole "pet deck vs good deck" thing.

Take a Junk deck and remove green. You get "pet deck" Deadguy Ale. Add Lightning Bolts. You get Dega, another "pet deck." Add blue cantrips. Welcome to the DTB section, Esper Stoneblade!

Replace the red cards with blue cantrips in Jund. Sick BUG deck, bro!

That's the "color diversity" issue people are talking about. It's not that blue the color is so OP that every serious deck has blue cards in it. It's that some blue cards are so OP that every deck has specific blue cards in it. If you want to play a Stoneforge deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Young Pyromancer deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Tarmogoyf deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Dark Ritual deck, play blue cantrips.

And then it becomes, well everyone's playing blue cantrips, why would I ever not want to play a one-mana counterspell for them? So it becomes blue-red-X. Then BUG becomes a "pet deck." Four of the top 8 at yesterday's open and 7 of the top 16 were blue-red decks.

iamajellydonut

12-01-2014, 02:41 PM

Fair enough, and I largely agree with this.

But: Take a Junk deck and remove green. You get "pet deck" Deadguy Ale. Add Lightning Bolts. You get Dega, another "pet deck." Add blue cantrips. Welcome to the DTB section, Esper Stoneblade!

Replace the red cards with blue cantrips in Jund. Sick BUG deck, bro!

That's the "color diversity" issue people are talking about. It's not that blue the color is so OP that every serious deck has blue cards in it. It's that some blue cards are so OP that every deck has specific blue cards in it. If you want to play a Stoneforge deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Young Pyromancer deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Tarmogoyf deck, play blue cantrips. If you want to play a Dark Ritual deck, play blue cantrips.

And then it becomes, well everyone's playing blue cantrips, why would I ever not want to play a one-mana counterspell for them? So it becomes blue-red-X. Then BUG becomes a "pet deck." Four of the top 8 at yesterday's open and 7 of the top 16 were blue-red decks.

This is a fair enough argument. I am inclined to add Brainstorms more often than I'd like to admit, but it still sounds like a bitter resentment that different pet decks aren't viable.

For how long have Lands players been trying to get their pile recognized as a legitimate deck instead of just a bumbling heap of stall-and-collapse? Now it is viable, kicking ass left and right, and still all we do is complain that our eight year stale Get There Goyf pile isn't up to snuff in 2014. Lands, Punishing Maverick, and various forms of Loam have proved themselves time and time again to be competitively viable at large scale events, not to mention Elves and Death and Taxes. These decks exist, they're real, and they have the power to slug it out for eight, ten, twelve rounds. No one can say that their Blue Pile is better than any of those non-Blue Piles on a grand scale. Not like any given Delver deck knowing they have a fair chance to roll Jund or Rock if they just play optimally.

I can play Loam, and did play Loam, or Maverick and remain competitive in a blue-dominant format. That's good enough for me. Anyone who remains embittered despite these options being available, anyone who resents that they must play Delver or be gimped, is an idiot.

EpicLevelCommoner

12-01-2014, 02:44 PM

Context is certainly required, but being a creature - and being susceptible to the most prevalent form of removal as a result - is an important part of that context. While there are examples of creature being banned in Standard and Modern, the Modern ban of Deathrite Shaman is probably the best point of comparison. In Modern (as I understand it as a non-player) the metagame with DRS revolved completely around BGx decks to an even greater extent than it does now. In the context of Modern, where decks are slower and less efficient at finding answers, lines like turn 1 DRS into turn 2 Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf or turn 1 DRS, turn 2 Liliana of the Veil are immensely damaging to an opponent, and in contrast to a regular mana dork like Birds, DRS provides whole-game utility so one topdecked in the mid-to-late game isn't a marginal or dead draw, which exacerbates BGx's consistency advantage in that format. In contrast, Legacy decks have a much higher capacity for library manipulation and card drawing than do their Modern counterparts and getting hit once with a flipped Delver doesn't set you back nearly as far as facing turn two Liliana or Thougthseize + Tarmogoyf from an attrition deck. Similarly, no Delver deck is anywhere near the (relative) power level of Raffinity or Caw-Blade at their heights. You can make the argument that Delver contributes to the bluing of the format, but I'd say it's a tertiary cause at best, and of all the causes it's the easiest for the format to manage on its own.

True, and in all honesty the problem with Delver (i.e. evasive clock for minimal card and mana investment) is nowhere near unbearable for the format (otherwise, it WOULD be everywhere every time). However . . .

EDIT:

Sorry I missed this initially.

Elegance aside (and I'd argue that banning is a less elegant option than unbanning), Hulk and Vengevine, as well as DRS, SFM, and Ravager, are/were components of unquestionably dominant single decks. Brainstorm is played in every deck that runs blue and isn't Merfolk, and differences of opinion on this being a feature or a bug are the irreconcilable differences of the sides in this debate. I look out and see dozens of different decks running Brainstorm, all doing strategically different things. Delver is the most strategically monolithic, but Miracles, Show and Tell/Reanimator, ANT/TES, Blade decks, and even fringe players like Food Chain and High Tide are all different decks and playing with or against one bears little resemblance to playing with/against the others. I can't speak to your feelings on this or to the feelings of anyone else who wants to see Brainstorm go, but I do think that we'd see a fall off in diversity if the card gets banned. I think we'd see little change in the relative positioning of Delver decks and that Miracles would be completely or partially replaced by a similar UW or UWr control deck as the ability to throw back unintentionally draw Miracles goes away (well, effectively goes away because Dream Cache is terrible), but we'd lose a lot of non-Belcher/non-Oops All Spells combo, potentially even including Reanimator. And that is too high a price to pay to make the relative positioning of Maverick or Dega, or any other nonblue creature-oriented deck more viable.

In regards to elegance, the most elegant solution is to not unban cards to fight potent archetypes, but to print new cards to fight them. I'd rather not see Vampiric Tutor unbanned, at least not with cantrips in existence (particular G.Probe), but I'd like to see some more options for stalling against Delver.

12-01-2014, 02:47 PM

EDIT: This is probably the best summation of this whole "pet deck vs good deck" thing.

Yeah, what you said.

I was pretty ambivalent to the idea of keeping or banning Brainstorm, sometimes I play it, sometimes I don't, but now I just want them to ban it so the irrational-Brainstorm-lovers and Blue apologists will hopefully just quit.

Fact is, I love Brainstorm and I love Blue. If you love Blue, Vintage is what you should play, since there Blue should have it's rightful dominance due to the Restricted List. Legacy should be more balanced by it's very definition.

Lemnear

12-01-2014, 03:00 PM

This is definitely not true. Players look for variety and then get their teeth kicked in at large events going 3-3 drop when they're not playing the blue shell and then they wind up playing the blue shell because 3-3 drop is a terrible place to go consistently.

People play the best cards, sacrificing card power only for consistency when they have too.

My experience has been that when I try to play something that isn't in the blue shell it eventually breaks down to at some point in the tournament process. Even lists like Burn and D&T aren't immune to the bad draw that knocks them out. They have no way to fix built in because they're not playing 8 blue cantrips that let them look at 3 cards on the top of their pile and see exactly how bad things will get if they don't fetch or shuffle.

The number of times I've Pondered in mid-game and seen 3 lands on top is beyond count at this point. That's a shuffle and live situation most of the time. A non-blue list is going to lose the game over the next 3 turns probably 90% of the time in that situation.

Because nonblue decks don't run fetches for shuffle ...

Gheizen64

12-01-2014, 03:05 PM

A bit old, but it's always nice to remind us of the nice little things, like the official theme song for legacy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ugkg9RePc)

Lemnear

12-01-2014, 03:23 PM

I've talked to some very good Storm players and they all agree, that Storm would actually be better in the format without Brainstorm. It loses Brainstorm, but it will also get more non blue MU's..

Both sentences are plain wrong. I'm eager to know who spits out nonsense like this. Storm can't adjust their protection/gas/business properly without Brainstorm, but Delver and Co. can still use Ponder/Preordain/SDT to dig for counterspells.

Edit:

Yeah, what you said.

I was pretty ambivalent to the idea of keeping or banning Brainstorm, sometimes I play it, sometimes I don't, but now I just want them to ban it so the irrational-Brainstorm-lovers and Blue apologists will hopefully just quit.

Fact is, I love Brainstorm and I love Blue. If you love Blue, Vintage is what you should play, since there Blue should have it's rightful dominance due to the Restricted List. Legacy should be more balanced by it's very definition.

...and if you want a format without Ponder/Brainstorm/Preordain/SDT/S&T/etc. there is also already one to pickup

12-01-2014, 03:30 PM

People invoking hyperbole vis-a-vis fighting games are forgetting that characters still get banned, both socially and officially, in various games. Be honest - you've watched some asshat put a quarter down, shuffle up and play Eddy Gordo, and sighed under your breath. Eddy Gordo, while being fun as shit to play if you actually know what you're doing, also rewards players for just mashing the hell out of your kick buttons and Tebowing. As for SSF2T Akuma, his US competitive ban exists for a variety of reasons, but power is assuredly among them.

Banning effects which are potent to the point of upset exists almost universally in games of all sorts. This isn't anything new or exciting. Boxing prohibits any punches below the belt. You can't throw elbows in a lot of combative sports (depending on which ones we're referring to of course). In football you cannot grab a face mask. Chess disallows you to act as the middle-man in a simultaneous chess game (where you simply mimic the opposite opponent, thereby tricking them into actually playing each other and guaranteeing you at least attain 1W-1L). These had to be executed by someone somewhere before they could be reviewed and appropriately nixed in their respective sports - after all, the rules at the time didn't say you *can't* do them.

The realm of possible movements in real life is orders upon orders of magnitude greater than your possible card selections in Magic: The Gathering, and so all manner of "unsportsmanlike" maneuvers which are not strictly defined by the rules of their respective games are left to arbitration as they're witnessed. However, we are able to observe winning decklists, percentages, ratios between colors and cards, and see which lines of play and which card choices are being made, and for what reason.

Again I'll point to Skullclamp.metagame. There was a point in Mirrodin-legal formats where every aggro deck under the sun, any deck with creatures at all, was packing Skullclamp in order to facilitate a huge card advantage jump in the face of multiple game states. Opponent Wraths? Sounds good; draw two. Opponent chump blocks? Sounds good; draw two. Opponent never triggers Skullclamp? Seems real good; deal more damage, or just equip irrelevant guys as your threats increase and maintain board presence while drawing cards. And of course, Affinity could do whatever-the-fuck with it; it was Ravager food, it was a way to turn Thopters and Frogmites into profit, it was a giant mana sink for board states where you could afford to sac a dude or two to go drawing for moar cards (and your opponent was probably losing life to Disciple of the Vault while this was going on). Elf-clamp, Goblin-clamp, Affinity, Affinity, White Weenie + Skullclamp, oh yeah goddamn Affinity. If you weren't setup to either nuke it or play it, you were at an extreme disadvantage. It was banned in nearly every format it became playable in, save Vintage and EDH.

Skullclamp is actually a really fairly good analog to Brainstorm, inasmuch as the argument against color diversity is concerned as Skullclamp may as well be played in any creature deck and grants similar (though obviously not all) benefits as Brainstorm. After all we may as well all splash for Brainstorm, right - the argument so far is that it's a good card, we should all play good cards if we're really serious about playing the game, and that diversity exists in a metagame with the same 40+ cards per deck, as long as they have different "other spells" that actually make the opponents' life total change. And hey we got all those fetchlands lying around for a reason - you don't like your deck's consistency when paired up against a pile with Blue cantrips? Fucking play Blue, scrub - take out your deck's 16 worst cards and play Ponder, Brainstorm, Preordain and Force of Will. Now adjust your manabase accordingly, and that's your goddamned deck right there. Something something big boy pants. Something something competitive player. Now play it and shut the fuck up.

But enough hyperbole out of me I guess - I fail to see how anyone can actually accept a format that's being overrun with a color across multiple decks as being representative of a healthy metagame per the game's stated intent and design - that is, to have five colors and artifacts which any given player can build their deck from to try and win the game. The bad habit of hubris emerges when we just accept that Blue is Blue and Eternal is Blue and we should all just shut up and play Blue because everything else is less consistent and to choose to do otherwise is indicative of sleeving up a pet deck. There is a dissonance between the game's intent, its design, and its execution. That by itself is an argument for reconsideration of the available format tools, not a reason to say "welp it is what it is, can't change it, play blue or be mad bro"

I'm going to just quote this whole thing again, because it seems like no one wants to address your points (which are 100% correct).

Let's just get the hashtag trending: #UnbanSkullClamp2015

...and if you want a format without Ponder/Brainstorm/Preordain/SDT/S&T/etc. there is also already one to pickup

I never said I wanted any such thing. It's a nice strawman to construct for someone else, but it's not going to work on me. I never even said Blue shouldn't be the best color. It just shouldn't be the overwhelmingly dominant color in Legacy is my point.

thefreakaccident

12-01-2014, 03:34 PM

On top of it's current state, they should reprint delver with shroud and uncounterability. That'd be fair. Maybe give it a pump ability. Also, why not give true-name, on top of it's current abilities, make it an 8/8 with all of morphlings abilities? At least then morphlings abilities would be in the game again. That sounds like so much fun with all the countermagic in the world.

iamajellydonut

12-01-2014, 03:40 PM

Because nonblue decks don't run fetches for shuffle ...

It's not that they have shuffle effects, it's that nonblue decks don't have a way to abuse those shuffle effects and gain consistency. Which brings us back to other colors needing a way to generate general and cost-efficient consistency.

Lemnear

12-01-2014, 03:42 PM

I never said I wanted any such thing. It's a nice strawman to construct for someone else, but it's not going to work on me. I never even said Blue shouldn't be the best color. It just shouldn't be the overwhelmingly dominant color in Legacy is my point.

You mistook me. I just remembered the talk in one of the B&R related threats where people wanted to neuter blue by banning BS/Ponder/FoW. It wasn't a point on you but rather at the Sentiment of color dominance itself making a bad play experience

thefreakaccident

12-01-2014, 03:45 PM

Because nonblue decks don't run fetches for shuffle ...

The nonblue deck can easily shuffle straight into that situation foolofatook was talking about.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 03:45 PM

When SFM was banned in Standard, it was allowed in the unaltered Event Deck that it was included with.

This exception was a result of WotC being blind to their own Standard meta when they created the event deck. They just didn't understand that they were creating a one list meta at the time they made up the event deck.

One of the things that stands out about the way the eternal formats are managed is how little reality is involved in the management process. WotC has lately chosen to say very little about eternal formats, which is a wise move, because when they talk about them they inevitably wind up saying things that they then can't follow up on well - particularly as they print new cards that will force the meta to shift.

What could possibly have been running through R&D's head when Treasure Cruise was printed? Think about it.

thefreakaccident

12-01-2014, 03:48 PM

This exception was a result of WotC being blind to their own Standard meta when they created the event deck. They just didn't understand that they were creating a one list meta at the time they made up the event deck.

One of the things that stands out about the way the eternal formats are managed is how little reality is involved in the management process. WotC has lately chosen to say very little about eternal formats, which is a wise move, because when they talk about them they inevitably wind up saying things that they then can't follow up on well - particularly as they print new cards that will force the meta to shift.

What could possibly have been running through R&D's head when Treasure Cruise was printed? Think about it.

Cruise is actually being run less than DTT TBH. Especially in control.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 03:50 PM

It's not that they have shuffle effects, it's that nonblue decks don't have a way to abuse those shuffle effects and gain consistency. Which brings us back to other colors needing a way to generate general and cost-efficient consistency.

Non-blue lists have exactly two playable ways to achieve a semblance of the kind of library manipulation with fetches that blue does: Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top. Both methods are at least a turn slower than blue and with Sylvan Library two turns slower in most cases.

Non-blue lists have a few other unplayable ways to achieve a semblance of the kind of library manipulation with fetches that blue does: Mirri's Guile, Conch Horn and Scroll Rack. The first one does not replace itself the way all the blue cantrips do and thus provides a turn of disadvantage for the potential advantage moving forward. The latter two are just too slow and in Conch Horn's case not powerful enough to play in the format.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 03:52 PM

Cruise is actually being run less than DTT TBH. Especially in control.

Treasure Cruise hasn't been fully explored yet. It's going to be a 40% card like Ponder before we're done. It's just that people haven't completely optimized with it yet. Dig Through Time is a bit broken also but big blue control is unlikely to re-emerge as a major threat in the format except in the guise of Miracles and it's really hard to fit Ponder and Dig Through Time into that kind of list together.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 03:56 PM

Because nonblue decks don't run fetches for shuffle ...

In the absence of Sensei's Divining Top or Sylvan Library there's no point to running a fetch for shuffle because you aren't going to know what's on top anyway. A blue shell player will know the card on top of his library fairly often, although probably not 50% of the time. A non-blue shell player will only know the top card of his library occasionally and often the opponent will have the same knowledge because an effect is keeping it face up for both players to see.

It's just not the same game when you're playing a linear list based on blind internal consistency vs any kind of list that has foreknowledge of the top 3 cards on their library periodically and also has the ability to replace cards in hand with cards from the top at instant speed and then reshuffle.

12-01-2014, 04:00 PM

You mistook me. I just remembered the talk in one of the B&R related threats where people wanted to neuter blue by banning BS/Ponder/FoW. It wasn't a point on you but rather at the Sentiment of color dominance itself making a bad play experience

Fair enough. I don't want a neutered Blue, I'm fine with Blue being dominant, it is overwhelming dominance that I disagree with. Blue's will always be better than every other color, I just believe that in Legacy there should not be overwhelmingly good cards. That's why Vintage has "pillars" because it is defined by the Restricted List. I don't think that Legacy should be defined by Brainstorm, because it has devolved largely to Brainstorm decks and the few non-Blue decks that can possibly compete with that.

Brainstorm has just become far too much of an easy-button, both from a deck-design and game-play perspective for me.

bruizar

12-01-2014, 05:03 PM

Why aren't people hating on fetch lands? Suppression Field makes Brainstorm a pretty terrible card when it costs 2U instead of U to fix you. Fetchlands enable Brainstorm and also cause inequality with dual lands and the reserved list. Keep Brainstorm and do something about fetch based mana bases.

testing32

12-01-2014, 05:10 PM

bruizar

12-01-2014, 05:14 PM

btm10

12-01-2014, 05:14 PM

Fair enough. I don't want a neutered Blue, I'm fine with Blue being dominant, it is overwhelming dominance that I disagree with. Blue's will always be better than every other color, I just believe that in Legacy there should not be overwhelmingly good cards. That's why Vintage has "pillars" because it is defined by the Restricted List. I don't think that Legacy should be defined by Brainstorm, because it has devolved largely to Brainstorm decks and the few non-Blue decks that can possibly compete with that.

Brainstorm has just become far too much of an easy-button, both from a deck-design and game-play perspective for me.

I guess I just disagree on the easy-button thing. I see too many people screw up their Brainstorms (and, to be honest, Ponders as well) all the time, either by casting them when they don't need the effect, keeping the wrong cards, putting the wrong things back, shuffling or not shuffling inappropriately, etc. There are a lot of ways that a Brainstorm can go wrong; it's extremely subtle, but these sorts of incremental advantages are what Legacy is (or should be) about, right?

In the absence of Sensei's Divining Top or Sylvan Library there's no point to running a fetch for shuffle because you aren't going to know what's on top anyway. A blue shell player will know the card on top of his library fairly often, although probably not 50% of the time. A non-blue shell player will only know the top card of his library occasionally and often the opponent will have the same knowledge because an effect is keeping it face up for both players to see.

It's just not the same game when you're playing a linear list based on blind internal consistency vs any kind of list that has foreknowledge of the top 3 cards on their library periodically and also has the ability to replace cards in hand with cards from the top at instant speed and then reshuffle.

Non-blue lists have exactly two playable ways to achieve a semblance of the kind of library manipulation with fetches that blue does: Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top. Both methods are at least a turn slower than blue and with Sylvan Library two turns slower in most cases.

Non-blue lists have a few other unplayable ways to achieve a semblance of the kind of library manipulation with fetches that blue does: Mirri's Guile, Conch Horn and Scroll Rack. The first one does not replace itself the way all the blue cantrips do and thus provides a turn of disadvantage for the potential advantage moving forward. The latter two are just too slow and in Conch Horn's case not powerful enough to play in the format.

Isn't the answer then to run better consistency tools? Have you even playtested a nonblue list with Guile and Library recently? I've been playing with it in Enchantress since just before Khans came out and it's great once you get both active, not that either is bad alone. Guile/Bob or Sylvan/Bob completely mitigates the whole "Bob can kill you" thing by guaranteeing that you never flip a BBE or other expensive spell. Guile/Sylvan + Fetchland lets you see six cards in a single turn for zero mana, as do two Guiles or two Libraries, albeit with some mechanical complications in the the latter case. Tax/Rack may be too slow for Legacy, but I'm somewhat skeptical of Scroll Rack being too slow in general.

This exception was a result of WotC being blind to their own Standard meta when they created the event deck. They just didn't understand that they were creating a one list meta at the time they made up the event deck.

One of the things that stands out about the way the eternal formats are managed is how little reality is involved in the management process. WotC has lately chosen to say very little about eternal formats, which is a wise move, because when they talk about them they inevitably wind up saying things that they then can't follow up on well - particularly as they print new cards that will force the meta to shift.

What could possibly have been running through R&D's head when Treasure Cruise was printed? Think about it.

Do you have a real, relevant point here? R&D has said that they don't playtest for Eternal formats, nor do they take Eternal formats into account when designing cards. Treasure Cruise basically isn't played in Standard as far as I can tell.

apple713

12-01-2014, 05:16 PM

I'm confused. Aside from budget reasons or personal color preference, why wouldn't you want to start your decks with the cards that will make it as consistent as possible?

2 things: first not everyone has access to white, second its near impossible to make a conpetitive deck that doesnt use activated abilities at all.

Aven mindsencor is great in conjunction. Check out the white stompy deck in new and developmental.

bruizar

12-01-2014, 05:25 PM

Everyone is complaining that it is too easy to splash other colors with Blue. Brainstorm lives and dies by the presence of fetch lands. Splashing is done using fetch too. So if that is the core issue here, unfetchable, but powercreeped versions of duals need to be printed so that people rather run those instead of a fetch based manabase. Think grove of the burnwillows and horizon canopy. You don't have to make it an entire cycle.

Quick example of what I mean

BadderLands
T: B or R
Whenever your opponent loses life, he loses 1 more life.

This makes burn better, works well with groves of the burnwillows (jund colors) and makes tendrils of agony better by making each copy deal 3 instead of 2. This is probably too powerful, but the concept should be clear. If you have blue lands that operate along these lines (being better in multiples), there will be less space for fetch lands and therefore Brainstorm becomes more unreliable.

Unstable Volcano
T: U or R
Comes into play with 1 explosion on it
T: Remove 1 explosion counter from Unstable Volcano, it deals 2 damage to target flying creature.
When you tap Unstable Volcano for mana, if it doesn't have an explosion counter on it, add one colorless mana to your mana pool.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 05:26 PM

Isn't the answer then to run better consistency tools? Have you even playtested a nonblue list with Guile and Library recently? I've been playing with it in Enchantress since just before Khans came out and it's great once you get both active, not that either is bad alone.

They're both terrible in multiples in anything BUT Enchantress where you frequently get to draw another card when you play them.

Don't start with the strawman arguments at this point. If Sylvan Library was a good card people would be playing it in multiples in a lot of lists and that just doesn't happen. Even Jund plays it just one time, which makes it a random effect when it shows up.

12-01-2014, 05:32 PM

I guess I just disagree on the easy-button thing. I see too many people screw up their Brainstorms (and, to be honest, Ponders as well) all the time, either by casting them when they don't need the effect, keeping the wrong cards, putting the wrong things back, shuffling or not shuffling inappropriately, etc. There are a lot of ways that a Brainstorm can go wrong; it's extremely subtle, but these sorts of incremental advantages are what Legacy is (or should be) about, right?

The fact that people misplay things doesn't really prove a point though. My point is not that you can't misplay a Brainstorm, my point is that it is far too easy to keep a bad hand with too many situational cards, then realize and fix it with a Brainstorm. Or keep a very marginal hand and suddenly it's a good hand after a Brainstorm.

Also, its far too easy to make a Blue deck with situational cards that, due to Brainstorm, you can just recycle into fresh, probably more relevent, cards.

apple713

12-01-2014, 05:48 PM

The fact that people misplay things doesn't really prove a point though. My point is not that you can't misplay a Brainstorm, my point is that it is far too easy to keep a bad hand with too many situational cards, then realize and fix it with a Brainstorm. Or keep a very marginal hand and suddenly it's a good hand after a Brainstorm.

Also, its far too easy to make a Blue deck with situational cards that, due to Brainstorm, you can just recycle into fresh, probably more relevent, cards.

Brain storm easily create an advantage, however brainstorm can create a significant additional advantage if played correctly.

12-01-2014, 06:17 PM

btm10

12-01-2014, 07:08 PM

"It's so skillful!" is really not an good basis for why a card should be legal in a format. The fact is Brainstorm is head-and-shoulders above every other card in Legacy in terms of power-level. Also, the fact that people believe they are "outplaying" their opponent by remembering to shuffle bad cards away after a Brainstorm or remembering to put a Miracle back on top is really laughable, considering how nuanced and actually skillful this game could be.

The fact remains that people make these mistakes all the time. I also don't see the "unmulligan" function as problematic, and would much rather see the format grow in color diversity by unbanning rather than banning.

They're both terrible in multiples in anything BUT Enchantress where you frequently get to draw another card when you play them.

Don't start with the strawman arguments at this point. If Sylvan Library was a good card people would be playing it in multiples in a lot of lists and that just doesn't happen. Even Jund plays it just one time, which makes it a random effect when it shows up.

You give people too much credit. If you're in nonblue Gx or Gxy and are having consistency issues and aren't running multiples of Sylvan or Guile, you're doing it wrong. The first guarantees that you won't draw the second unless you want it and the ability to stack multiple triggers with fetchland activations is extremely powerful. Moreover, if you're having consistency issues, you want the highest probability of drawing your consistency engine, so running multiples just makes sense.

EpicLevelCommoner

12-01-2014, 07:20 PM

12-01-2014, 07:32 PM

The fact remains that people make these mistakes all the time. I also don't see the "unmulligan" function as problematic, and would much rather see the format grow in color diversity by unbanning rather than banning.

I agree that I would rather not have bannings as opposed to unbannings but frankly that won't close the gap between the power level of Brainstorm and everything else. Neither is shit printings like Notion Thief or Spirit of the Labyrinth.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 08:24 PM

You give people too much credit. If you're in nonblue Gx or Gxy and are having consistency issues and aren't running multiples of Sylvan or Guile, you're doing it wrong. The first guarantees that you won't draw the second unless you want it and the ability to stack multiple triggers with fetchland activations is extremely powerful. Moreover, if you're having consistency issues, you want the highest probability of drawing your consistency engine, so running multiples just makes sense.

Yes but the consistency those cards give you is far out-weighed by the tempo loss and card disadvantage that it takes to play them.

Why does Jund only play 1 Sylvan Library? Because tapping out on turn 2 to do absolutely nothing to the opponent is a horrible tempo loss. Why do they not run multiples in case the opponent gets rid of the first one? Because tapping out on turn 2 and turn 3 just to play Sylvan Library is a losing play in this meta. If you let the opponent get to turn 3 without having done much to them and you're not playing counters you're in really bad shape.

The more important question is why BLUE doesn't play multiple Sylvan Library. Think about it.

Lemnear

12-01-2014, 08:37 PM

The more important question is why BLUE doesn't play multiple Sylvan Library. Think about it.

Why should blue in general Splash green mana for library Manipulation rather than for the threats anyways? It's like asking why Burn.dec doesn't Splash Black for creature removal...

TsumiBand

12-01-2014, 09:14 PM

@ TsumiBand: The difference between banning a card in Magic and banning a character in a fighting game is that you don't play with a single card in Magic. Banning Brainstorm would be the equivalent of banning the Hadouken/other projectiles in the Street Fighter series.

Having said that, I'm currently on the fence concerning the Brainstorm issue: it could be banned, but I doubt it would have the desired effect some are hoping for.

Fneh.

It wasn't my metaphor - it was a response to people attempting to make the comparison in the first place.

We could split hairs about whether Brainstorm is more like a character or a move, but that just confuses the metaphor further. The point I'm getting at is the act of removing lines of play to enhance diversity is commonplace.

FoolofaTook

12-01-2014, 10:23 PM

Why should blue in general Splash green mana for library Manipulation rather than for the threats anyways? It's like asking why Burn.dec doesn't Splash Black for creature removal...

Why don't the blue lists that DO splash green play Sylvan Library in multiples? It's permanent card manipulation and the potential for card advantage and people should be rocking it in the blue shell if it's really that good. It's not like the blue shell doesn't glom on to just about any really strong card that costs only one non-blue mana. Why not Sylvan Library?

Think about it.

And yes I'm aware that some BUG variants play a singleton Sylvan Library for the control mirror. None of them play anything like a play set though.

That's because Sylvan Library is just too slow to be worth the investment in most lists that include green let along blue.

TraxDaMax

12-01-2014, 11:05 PM

Glad I'm not the only one thinking:"wth is DeMars talking about?"

Also, why would you look at the game as a game that should have 5colors equally strong?
Think about it, this is impossible.
The only way this could be possible is if every color had the same cards and in that case we wouldn't even need"colors" to define anything.
Whatever they print, it will never be better then what blue has or stands for as a color and if they do manage to do it, people will be bored with that after a while.
Read Karsten's article, it reveals some innovative new lists that stay away from blue yet still perform.

Hopo

12-02-2014, 02:16 AM

Why don't the blue lists that DO splash green play Sylvan Library in multiples? It's permanent card manipulation and the potential for card advantage and people should be rocking it in the blue shell if it's really that good. It's not like the blue shell doesn't glom on to just about any really strong card that costs only one non-blue mana. Why not Sylvan Library?

Think about it.

And yes I'm aware that some BUG variants play a singleton Sylvan Library for the control mirror. None of them play anything like a play set though.

That's because Sylvan Library is just too slow to be worth the investment in most lists that include green let along blue.

Yes, in the same way Fact or Fiction is pretty slow nowadays AND IT'S BLUE HELP ME GOD. And like was said and even quoted by yourself: because if you play blue, you likely already have all the manipulation you need. No need to cram in the second best alternatives from other colours - or even the worse blue ones.

Think about it.

Bed Decks Palyer

12-02-2014, 02:59 AM

Even though more people are playing it now than ever?

So what?
It's about promotion. People buy anything if you'll do good enough promo. Knowing this, you'll understand that no numbers of people on GPs say anything on health of format. More doesn't necessary better. By that logic, we would all eat shit because millions of flies can't be wrong - right?
Make a good promo and people will buy anything. Look, they even voted Adolf Fucking Hitler for reichskanzler.

That being said, if you can't be competitive at a local event with your Bears.dec or some other pet deck (Junk Swans), that's not blue's fault. That's you being shit.
This argument is valid!

I have seen this line of thought presented by many people that support the banning of brainstorm. However, I feel like the conclusion is false. Brainstorm is indeed powerful, probably the most powerful card in the format (but there is always a most powerful card).
I'd love if people ceased to write the obvious. Please...

However, does the existence of brainstorm stifle deckbuilding? Limit viable options? ...a huge swath of decks across different archetypes, which IMO is very good for the format.
For example the price of blue duals, the monotonous gaming experience, the.. oh shit, we've already were at this, right?
A huge swath of Miracles, Herp and Win, Strom and five versions of Delver. Impressive.

Hopo

12-02-2014, 03:06 AM

A huge swath of Miracles, Herp and Win, Strom and five versions of Delver. Impressive.

Where does this idea come from, that you should have dozens(?) of viable decks? It's nonsense. No matter what the card pool is, most cards and decks just end up being inferior to others.

eays

12-02-2014, 04:25 AM

I'm going to get away slightly from making an argument to analyzing part of what I think is the challenge we're running into here as a group. You all can chime in if you think I'm way off base, but this is what I'm observing and what I feel is the root of the problem.

Much of the discussion on this issue seems to have moved from "is blue overly dominant and overly represented in the current metagame" to "blue is overly represented and dominant in the metagame, but is that a bad thing", and this is such a core and fundamental question to who we are as magic players and our philosophy of what the game should be about and what legacy should be about that there is no way to come to a conclusion that satisfies both parties.

For example, some people seem to give zero craps about color diversity and color balance and do not think the blue cantrip/countermagic shell being overly represented is a bad thing, in fact much of their play enjoyment comes from the tools this blue shell affords and it's one of the main reasons they play legacy. These people also are happy as long as the format contains what they perceive as "diversity of strategies", meaning there is combo, control, aggro/tempo, and midrange, regardless of whether or not these decks all play the same color or core of cards (overlap of over 70% in some cases is irrelevant to them as long as there is this distinction). Then you have people who fall on the exact opposite side of the fence and things like color balance and a diverse card pool full of tons of unique decks where they can play what speaks to them is tantamount to their enjoyment of the format. A suite of cards that are basically required for your deck to be tier 1 is opposed to what they want the game to be. These are basic and fundamentally different philosophies of the game, much like Democrats and Republicans hold a core set of fundamentally divergent views from which all policy and decision making stem. And it seems to be with the same voracity that each party defends their view.

Then you have people who are just pure spikes through and through who don't care what the format is as long as they can play what they perceive as the giving them the best chance to win. These folks don't have much skin in the game. I would say that very few people are purely spikes though and many of these folks tend to lean towards vocal "there's nothing wrong w/ the format" side of things because they already own a 3000 dollar blue deck that is taking them to the top and a challenge to that status quo would be an inconvenience for them.

These fundamental starting points/points of view held by legacy players is not something that is going to change and I think that's what makes this such a difficult problem. There is obviously a group of legacy fans of consequential size that really are sick and tired of where the format is being pushed, while at the same time there is still an entrenched group of quite probably equal or greater size that is satisfied with the current format and enjoys the direction legacy is headed in.

Zombie

12-02-2014, 04:26 AM

Fneh.

It wasn't my metaphor - it was a response to people attempting to make the comparison in the first place.

We could split hairs about whether Brainstorm is more like a character or a move, but that just confuses the metaphor further. The point I'm getting at is the act of removing lines of play to enhance diversity is commonplace.

Besides which because Preordain exists banning BS is closer to being a balance patch than a ban.

Glad I'm not the only one thinking:"wth is DeMars talking about?"

Also, why would you look at the game as a game that should have 5colors equally strong?
Think about it, this is impossible.
The only way this could be possible is if every color had the same cards and in that case we wouldn't even need"colors" to define anything.
Whatever they print, it will never be better then what blue has or stands for as a color and if they do manage to do it, people will be bored with that after a while.
Read Karsten's article, it reveals some innovative new lists that stay away from blue yet still perform.

You don't need them to be equally strong. That's fantasy. But you also don't need one color to be The One Color To Rule Them All.
To continue with some of the fighting game analogies here, in MvC2 the top4 dominates the game. They're clearly the best, and they're the best by far. Your team doesn't have some of them, have fun in the losers bracket. It's pretty much where blue is atm, though a few nonblue lists can stay competitive over the course of a long event.

In contrast, King of Fighters 13 has a couple characters that are clearly the best. The difference, though, is that they are not the best by far. The difference is plain and clear but just not all that large compared to the next best stuff. That is where blue would probably end up without Brainstorm.

EpicLevelCommoner

12-02-2014, 04:32 AM

aluisiocsantos

12-02-2014, 06:52 AM

TraxDaMax

12-02-2014, 07:07 AM

Besides which because Preordain exists banning BS is closer to being a balance patch than a ban.

You don't need them to be equally strong. That's fantasy. But you also don't need one color to be The One Color To Rule Them All.
To continue with some of the fighting game analogies here, in MvC2 the top4 dominates the game. They're clearly the best, and they're the best by far. Your team doesn't have some of them, have fun in the losers bracket. It's pretty much where blue is atm, though a few nonblue lists can stay competitive over the course of a long event.

In contrast, King of Fighters 13 has a couple characters that are clearly the best. The difference, though, is that they are not the best by far. The difference is plain and clear but just not all that large compared to the next best stuff. That is where blue would probably end up without Brainstorm.
Well even this would probably be too late. You would have to equally up the power of all non-blue cards and then still there would be an ugly duckling who nobody wants to play with.
If you look at cards as cards instead of colors the "one ring(color) to rule them all" doesn't make any sense.
Basicly everything in the world has best and worst. If they wanted magic to be a paperrockscissor game where colors trumped each other and playing each one had an advantage towards the other they should have reconsiderd the power of some cards. But to me it seems like they are fine with blue just being that dominant color or they wouldn't have print Delver, Treasure Cruise, Ponder, Geist, TNN, Gprobe etc... in the last 10 years.
The real issue I think is the frekking restricted list. How on earth this still exists leaves me clueless. I have a collection of tier1 legacy decks, and I wouldn't give a damn if they would finally knock those duals off the list, even if my duals dropped to ten bucks.
This however is what I think drives most people to "hate" on blue because not everybody has a fair chance to compete because blue duals are just disgusting in price.

Zombie

12-02-2014, 08:19 AM

Well even this would probably be too late. You would have to equally up the power of all non-blue cards and then still there would be an ugly duckling who nobody wants to play with.
If you look at cards as cards instead of colors the "one ring(color) to rule them all" doesn't make any sense.
Basicly everything in the world has best and worst. If they wanted magic to be a paperrockscissor game where colors trumped each other and playing each one had an advantage towards the other they should have reconsiderd the power of some cards. But to me it seems like they are fine with blue just being that dominant color or they wouldn't have print Delver, Treasure Cruise, Ponder, Geist, TNN, Gprobe etc... in the last 10 years.

The other option is that they're just incompetent and/or don't give a shit about Legacy.

The real issue I think is the frekking restricted list. How on earth this still exists leaves me clueless. I have a collection of tier1 legacy decks, and I wouldn't give a damn if they would finally knock those duals off the list, even if my duals dropped to ten bucks.
This however is what I think drives most people to "hate" on blue because not everybody has a fair chance to compete because blue duals are just disgusting in price.

Not the case for me at least. I like playing with cantrips occasionally (Storm/Delver), though doing broken things with creatures a la Elves/RecSur/Pod is more my thing. I just think Blue is too strong relative to other colors, that it's not good format design and that taking blue down a notch wouldn't cripple the skill-testing aspects of the format or blue's fundamental nature while making it more possible for other colors to fight/equal blue, that's it.

Bed Decks Palyer

12-03-2014, 09:17 AM

Where does this idea come from, that you should have dozens(?) of viable decks? It's nonsense. No matter what the card pool is, most cards and decks just end up being inferior to others.
This idea comes from having fun. Nowadays Legacy is as diverse as concrete prefabs, thrilling like brass music and less funny than heartburn.
Fortunately I got other things to solve...

TsumiBand

12-03-2014, 11:45 AM

Where does this idea come from, that you should have dozens(?) of viable decks? It's nonsense. No matter what the card pool is, most cards and decks just end up being inferior to others.

So, there's no guaranteeing that a hypothetical "equal playing field" would necessarily give rise to more or less decks than are currently viable -- the emphasis would be more on the paths and options and deck vs. deck breakdown of just how these matchups play out.

Really the discussion could be summed up by asking what the real difference between all these Blue-based decks actually is. Let's start by using stats from mtgtop8.com and throwing away non-fetchlands (they are part and parcel of the situation) or cards that show up in smaller than 3-ofs on average. This is the unaltered top 10 played cards in Legacy.

Card Decks Per Deck
Brainstorm 70.0 % 4.0
Force of Will 66.2 % 3.8
Ponder 58.2 % 3.7
Volcanic Island 51.6 % 2.8
Scalding Tarn 46.3 % 3.6
Flooded Strand 43.2 % 3.3
Misty Rainforest41.5 % 2.7
Wasteland 39.4 % 3.5
Polluted Delta 38.7 % 3.2
Treasure Cruise 38.3 % 3.2
Daze 36.6% 3.8

Now look at the cards that meet my criteria - cards that are fetchlands AND cards that are 3.0 or higher in average number per deck.

Card Decks Per Deck
Brainstorm 70.0 % 4.0
Force of Will 66.2 % 3.8
Ponder 58.2 % 3.7
Scalding Tarn 46.3 % 3.6
Flooded Strand 43.2 % 3.3
Polluted Delta 38.7 % 3.2
Treasure Cruise 38.3 % 3.2
Daze 36.6% 3.8

Doing this eliminates Wasteland, and possibly unfairly, but let's forget that for a moment. These cards don't just represent the "best decks", they speak to the mechanics of each matchup. The majority of decks are playing free counterspells (Force/Daze), are playing everything that Brainstorm represents (card filtering/discard protecting/topdeck enabling/etc) along with shuffling effects (Ponder/fetchlands) and draw spells. If we're homebrewing and we want a proven foundation, look no further:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Treasure Cruise

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

We know that the deck will probably want to play at least 20 land counting those fetchlands, though all those cantrips can push you into the 17-18 range. Still, let's forget for a minute that we're trying to assign any colors outside of Blue - since the argument seems to be that color is irrelevant - and we'll assume our brewer starts with 20 land. That adds 8 cards to the deck. That's 40 cards. That's 2/3rds of our "new deck".

Now of course this is just the starting point, and indeed the deck will probably consider Wasteland and juggle the numbers around - there's a reason that the majority of these spells don't get played as 4-ofs in 100% of decks they appear in (save Brainstorm). But what are we actually suggesting the delimiter is for breaking ground between "different decks" actually is - one-third of the deck? 20 cards makes a completely different deck? I mean, we *say* it does, we insist it does; we can build versions of Miracles, Delver, High Tide, Tight Sight, Stoneblade, S&T, and so on by starting here and strictly adding cards, not taking away anything.

+ Delver, Pyromancer, Lightning Bolt, Gitaxian Probe -- hooray, Delver
+ Terminus, Entreat the Angels, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Swords to Plowshares -- ohai UW Miracles
+ High Tide, Dig Through Time, Cunning Wish + Brain Freeze, Turnabout -- <3 you High Tide
+ Show and Tell, fatties, Dig Through Time, Sneak Attack -- </3 you SneakShow

etc etc etc.

I mean shit we can just start throwing out cards with a decent mana-to-effect ratio and calling it a deck. Brewing is easy, kids!

+ Kird Ape, Lightning Helix, Goblin Guide, Rift Bolt - Temur Sligh
+ Noble Hierarch, Rhox War Monk, Vendilion Clique, Stoneforge Mystic + equipment - Bant Beats Take 46
+ Delver of Secrets, Baleful Strix, Moroii, Thought Devourer - Suicide UB Flying Stuff That Will Totally Win Just You Wait God Dammit

We keep saying that this makes a new deck, or that this changes the dynamic enough to make the difference in matchups, but the point of fact is you're not playing against threats, you're playing against gas. We have long accepted the saying in Magic that bad threats do not exist; only bad answers. Protect one Cloud of Fairies for 20 turns and you've won the game; increase its power, and you only need to protect it for less time. The question is less about which cards are the game-enders at that point, and more about who sticks their wincon and how. And we know how they stick; they stick because answers get answered in Force of Will and Daze. They stick because they get drawn more often in Brainstorm and Ponder and Treasure Cruise. They stick because the answer to the answer is answered in a combination thereof. They stick because Brainstorm negates critical discard spells that would have prevented them from being cast. There are no bad threats, only good engines.

rufus

12-03-2014, 12:22 PM

If we're homebrewing and we want a proven foundation, look no further:

..

The presence of such a shell isn't - by itself - a color problem. If there were a similarly potent and reliable shell of low or alternative casting cost spells in other colors then things would be balanced.

TsumiBand

12-03-2014, 12:26 PM

Lemnear

12-03-2014, 12:28 PM

So, there's no guaranteeing that a hypothetical "equal playing field" would necessarily give rise to more or less decks than are currently viable -- the emphasis would be more on the paths and options and deck vs. deck breakdown of just how these matchups play out.

Really the discussion could be summed up by asking what the real difference between all these Blue-based decks actually is. Let's start by using stats from mtgtop8.com and throwing away non-fetchlands (they are part and parcel of the situation) or cards that show up in smaller than 3-ofs on average. This is the unaltered top 10 played cards in Legacy.

Card Decks Per Deck
Brainstorm 70.0 % 4.0
Force of Will 66.2 % 3.8
Ponder 58.2 % 3.7
Volcanic Island 51.6 % 2.8
Scalding Tarn 46.3 % 3.6
Flooded Strand 43.2 % 3.3
Misty Rainforest41.5 % 2.7
Wasteland 39.4 % 3.5
Polluted Delta 38.7 % 3.2
Treasure Cruise 38.3 % 3.2
Daze 36.6% 3.8

Now look at the cards that meet my criteria - cards that are fetchlands AND cards that are 3.0 or higher in average number per deck.

Card Decks Per Deck
Brainstorm 70.0 % 4.0
Force of Will 66.2 % 3.8
Ponder 58.2 % 3.7
Scalding Tarn 46.3 % 3.6
Flooded Strand 43.2 % 3.3
Polluted Delta 38.7 % 3.2
Treasure Cruise 38.3 % 3.2
Daze 36.6% 3.8

Doing this eliminates Wasteland, and possibly unfairly, but let's forget that for a moment. These cards don't just represent the "best decks", they speak to the mechanics of each matchup. The majority of decks are playing free counterspells (Force/Daze), are playing everything that Brainstorm represents (card filtering/discard protecting/topdeck enabling/etc) along with shuffling effects (Ponder/fetchlands) and draw spells. If we're homebrewing and we want a proven foundation, look no further:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Treasure Cruise

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

We know that the deck will probably want to play at least 20 land counting those fetchlands, though all those cantrips can push you into the 17-18 range. Still, let's forget for a minute that we're trying to assign any colors outside of Blue - since the argument seems to be that color is irrelevant - and we'll assume our brewer starts with 20 land. That adds 8 cards to the deck. That's 40 cards. That's 2/3rds of our "new deck".

Now of course this is just the starting point, and indeed the deck will probably consider Wasteland and juggle the numbers around - there's a reason that the majority of these spells don't get played as 4-ofs in 100% of decks they appear in (save Brainstorm). But what are we actually suggesting the delimiter is for breaking ground between "different decks" actually is - one-third of the deck? 20 cards makes a completely different deck? I mean, we *say* it does, we insist it does; we can build versions of Miracles, Delver, High Tide, Tight Sight, Stoneblade, S&T, and so on by starting here and strictly adding cards, not taking away anything.

+ Delver, Pyromancer, Lightning Bolt, Gitaxian Probe -- hooray, Delver
+ Terminus, Entreat the Angels, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Swords to Plowshares -- ohai UW Miracles
+ High Tide, Dig Through Time, Cunning Wish + Brain Freeze, Turnabout -- <3 you High Tide
+ Show and Tell, fatties, Dig Through Time, Sneak Attack -- </3 you SneakShow

etc etc etc.

I mean shit we can just start throwing out cards with a decent mana-to-effect ratio and calling it a deck. Brewing is easy, kids!

+ Kird Ape, Lightning Helix, Goblin Guide, Rift Bolt - Temur Sligh
+ Noble Hierarch, Rhox War Monk, Vendilion Clique, Stoneforge Mystic + equipment - Bant Beats Take 46
+ Delver of Secrets, Baleful Strix, Moroii, Thought Devourer - Suicide UB Flying Stuff That Will Totally Win Just You Wait God Dammit

We keep saying that this makes a new deck, or that this changes the dynamic enough to make the difference in matchups, but the point of fact is you're not playing against threats, you're playing against gas. We have long accepted the saying in Magic that bad threats do not exist; only bad answers. Protect one Cloud of Fairies for 20 turns and you've won the game; increase its power, and you only need to protect it for less time. The question is less about which cards are the game-enders at that point, and more about who sticks their wincon and how. And we know how they stick; they stick because answers get answered in Force of Will and Daze. They stick because they get drawn more often in Brainstorm and Ponder and Treasure Cruise. They stick because the answer to the answer is answered in a combination thereof. They stick because Brainstorm negates critical discard spells that would have prevented them from being cast. There are no bad threats, only good engines.

Now show me the Miracles, S&T, High Tide, non-tempo lists that run Daze and Treasure Cruise.

Fact is that all that Daze+TC lists fall into the tempo/blade slice of the metagame pie which is up to 38,3% of the metagame and blue control & combo-control being 66,2% - 38,3% = 27,9% of the metagame and blue combo like Storm 70% - 66,2% = 3,8% of the metagame and non-blue decks still marking 30% of the whole field (according to that data).

Given the fact that Lightning Bolt is 34,6% of all decks, which boil mostly down to URx Delver and Jund and Delver itself being in 30,4% of all decks and Karakas finding a spot in 25,6% of all decks, we get a pretty clear picture of the metagame. Afaik Arid Mesa only finds a place in UWR Blade and Miracles and it making 23,9% gives us also an idea about the relation between Miracles and UWR Blade if we look at the number of FoWs, Flooded Stands and Lightning Bolts.

All we can say for sure is that the strategic slice of blue Tempo/Blade marks close to 40% of all 70% of Brainstorm-decks in the format and that non-tempo/Blade Brainstorm decks share the SAME representation (~30%) in the metagame as non-blue decks.

Blue Tempo/Blade 40%
Non-Blue 30%
Blue Control/Blue Combo/Blue Combo-Control 30%

This is the point you guys should care about: the decrese of strategic diversity

Star|Scream

12-03-2014, 12:45 PM

He's right, you know. Nice statistics, but not all decks that play the "blue shell" play daze or treasure cruise.

TsumiBand

12-03-2014, 12:46 PM

Now show me the Miracles, S&T, High Tide, non-tempo lists that run Daze and Treasure Cruise.

He's right, you know. Nice statistics, but not all decks that play the "blue shell" play daze or treasure cruise.

You caught the bits where I admitted that there would necessarily be some adjusting and that they were "versions" of popular decks, right? Like you literally looked at two aspects of my text wall that Lemnear bolded and made them more important than they actually are.

Here's a better question - show me someone who wouldn't recognize a UW Miracles list on the basis it has Daze or Treasure Cruise in the main. As if the choices are so binary that the presence of a single card prevents the deck from registering as a Miracles deck, simply because it has a different 4-of in the main. That's kind of the clincher in the argument right there -- if we're seriously thinking that 4 different cards in the main make the difference between deck classifications after putting in 30 - 40 standard Blue cards and their lands. These aren't really very different decklists, if that's your contention.

I mean take a look at this decklist (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8642&d=249397&f=LE) that took 2nd place - it's Miracles, oh but wait it has 3 Force of Will in the fucking sideboard. So shit man, the maindeck is different, it can't be Miracles can it?! God dammit all, these losers and their loose naming conventions, gonna confuse the hell out of me until I curl up under a bowl of soup and cut myself to sleep.

You're lost in the same point I'm trying to make about our expectations for diversity - whatever diversity, in color or strategy or what-have-you - if you're honestly going to piss and moan over a demonstrative point I made wherein decks can be identified as their fine-tuned namesakes without doing anything besides borrowing the top Blue spells in the format - not per decklist, but in the whole fucking Legacy format - and subbing in a couple of playsets of cards and calling the whole thing a separate deck. As if the Miracles strategy just turns into a giant Cher-shaped pile of donkey sauce if there's a goddamned playset of Daze in the main. Christ on a crocodile.

maharis

12-03-2014, 12:48 PM

The presence of such a shell isn't - by itself - a color problem. If there were a similarly potent and reliable shell of low or alternative casting cost spells in other colors then things would be balanced.

But then the game would be totally different. No one is arguing that the effects aren't blue. (And the blue creature "mistakes" like Delver of Secrets or True-Name Nemesis or Snapcaster Mage don't break the 30% barrier). They are arguing that the effects are so strong that it's a mistake to start anywhere else for deck construction if you are serious about winning. And that weakening that shell is important to keeping Legacy a vital format. There is little incentive not to play the best blue decks. Not even just to play a blue deck like Aluren.

apple713

12-03-2014, 12:57 PM

Now show me the Miracles, S&T, High Tide, non-tempo lists that run Daze and Treasure Cruise.

Fact is that all that Daze+TC lists fall into the tempo/blade slice of the metagame pie which is up to 38,3% of the metagame and blue control & combo-control being 66,2% - 38,3% = 27,9% of the metagame and blue combo like Storm 70% - 66,2% = 3,8% of the metagame and non-blue decks still marking 30% of the whole field (according to that data).

Given the fact that Lightning Bolt is 34,6% of all decks, which boil mostly down to URx Delver and Jund and Delver itself being in 30,4% of all decks and Karakas finding a spot in 25,6% of all decks, we get a pretty clear picture of the metagame. Afaik Arid Mesa only finds a place in UWR Blade and Miracles and it making 23,9% gives us also an idea about the relation between Miracles and UWR Blade if we look at the number of FoWs, Flooded Stands and Lightning Bolts.

All we can say for sure is that the strategic slice of blue Tempo/Blade marks close to 40% of all 70% of Brainstorm-decks in the format and that non-tempo/Blade Brainstorm decks share the SAME representation (~30%) in the metagame as non-blue decks.

Blue Tempo/Blade 40%
Non-Blue 30%
Blue Control/Blue Combo/Blue Combo-Control 30%

This is the point you guys should care about: the decrese of strategic diversity

actually, this is great for players who like to build decks to crush others in the format. Having 40% of your matches a bye is pretty nice.

Star|Scream

12-03-2014, 12:58 PM

You caught the bits where I admitted that there would necessarily be some adjusting and that they were "versions" of popular decks, right? Like you literally looked at two aspects of my text wall that Lemnear bolded and made them more important than they actually are.

Here's a better question - show me someone who wouldn't recognize a UW Miracles list on the basis it has Daze or Treasure Cruise in the main. As if the choices are so binary that the presence of a single card prevents the deck from registering as a Miracles deck, simply because it has a different 4-of in the main. That's kind of the clincher in the argument right there -- if we're seriously thinking that 4 different cards in the main make the difference between deck classifications after putting in 30 - 40 standard Blue cards and their lands. These aren't really very different decklists, if that's your contention.

I mean take a look at this decklist (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8642&d=249397&f=LE) that took 2nd place - it's Miracles, oh but wait it has 3 Force of Will in the fucking sideboard. So shit man, the maindeck is different, it can't be Miracles can it?! God dammit all, these losers and their loose naming conventions, gonna confuse the hell out of me until I curl up under a bowl of soup and cut myself to sleep.

You're lost in the same point I'm trying to make about our expectations for diversity - whatever diversity, in color or strategy or what-have-you - if you're honestly going to piss and moan over a demonstrative point I made wherein decks can be identified as their fine-tuned namesakes without doing anything besides borrowing the top Blue spells in the format - not per decklist, but in the whole fucking Legacy format - and subbing in a couple of playsets of cards and calling the whole thing a separate deck. As if the Miracles strategy just turns into a giant Cher-shaped pile of donkey sauce if there's a goddamned playset of Daze in the main. Christ on a crocodile.

Your point was that there is no strategic diversity because all blue decks use the same 40 cards, and we pointed out that, no, they do not. No point in having a hissy fit now. Lol I picture you just pulling out your hair going nuts reading this. It's a game!

Lemnear

12-03-2014, 01:12 PM

Fatal

12-03-2014, 01:48 PM

Actually compare facts now vs 3 years back - there was a format Legacy - now it's too focused one similar shell which push people back from playing.

Richard Cheese

12-03-2014, 02:04 PM

Your point was that there is no strategic diversity because all blue decks use the same 40 cards, and we pointed out that, no, they do not. No point in having a hissy fit now. Lol I picture you just pulling out your hair going nuts reading this. It's a game!

Doesn't really seem fair to try and frame the conversation on "all blue decks" since there are pretty distinct archetypes that all run Blue for card selection/quality. And you'll always be able to find exceptions to the rule, sometimes even in high-placing lists.

Still, you're trying to tear apart an argument based on some poor wording and oversimplification, but I think the point is just that there's a lack of diversity in the format. I can't say whether that's actually true without some kind of analysis and comparison to past formats, but it's just silly to go "aww shit your statement isn't 100% accurate therefore it is 100% wrong" (I think that's actually called the "fallacy fallacy")

Michael Keller

12-03-2014, 02:12 PM

Yes but the consistency those cards give you is far out-weighed by the tempo loss and card disadvantage that it takes to play them.

Why does Jund only play 1 Sylvan Library? Because tapping out on turn 2 to do absolutely nothing to the opponent is a horrible tempo loss. Why do they not run multiples in case the opponent gets rid of the first one? Because tapping out on turn 2 and turn 3 just to play Sylvan Library is a losing play in this meta. If you let the opponent get to turn 3 without having done much to them and you're not playing counters you're in really bad shape.

Unless that first or second turn consists of dropping a Chalice for one or Trinisphere.

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. People are so quick to rush to the conclusion that the game is over by turn two or three because of "X,Y,Z" reason. That's just simply not true. There are a myriad of dynamics involved in any given game-state that to assume playing something as dangerously innocuous as a Sylvan Library spells the end of the game for the playing casting it, when in reality the card in conjunction with the right setup and followup can be incredibly scary.

Again - far too many variables involved to assume it's a lost cause. Counters don't really do anything themselves without something to really protect, otherwise they're nullifying your spells at the cost of 1 for 1 - and sometimes 2 for 1 with possible tempo loss or disadvantage. This is why traditionally aggro decks enjoy feasting on control decks, because they can't keep up with them. If you know your opponent is representing counters, what do you do - sit back and let them drop a threat and protect it? Timing is key, but so is playing to win and not to lose.

Star|Scream

12-03-2014, 02:23 PM

Doesn't really seem fair to try and frame the conversation on "all blue decks" since there are pretty distinct archetypes that all run Blue for card selection/quality. And you'll always be able to find exceptions to the rule, sometimes even in high-placing lists.

Still, you're trying to tear apart an argument based on some poor wording and oversimplification, but I think the point is just that there's a lack of diversity in the format. I can't say whether that's actually true without some kind of analysis and comparison to past formats, but it's just silly to go "aww shit your statement isn't 100% accurate therefore it is 100% wrong" (I think that's actually called the "fallacy fallacy")

Except that's not what I did.

Richard Cheese

12-03-2014, 02:37 PM

Except that's not what I did.

What did you do then? I'm having trouble interpreting your previous couple posts any other way.

Edit to say that sounds more abrasive than I intended. I guess if you are taking Tsumi's posts very literally then it makes more sense to go after those specifics. My guess based on his reply though, is that he was trying to get at a broader point.

Maybe it makes more sense to say that blue has a far greater number of cards that you better have a damn good reason for not including when you build a new deck.

eays

12-03-2014, 02:39 PM

Except that's not what I did.

Yep that's pretty much exactly what you just did.

Lemnear

12-03-2014, 03:05 PM

Still, you're trying to tear apart an argument based on some poor wording and oversimplification, but I think the point is just that there's a lack of diversity in the format. I can't say whether that's actually true without some kind of analysis and comparison to past formats, but it's just silly to go "aww shit your statement isn't 100% accurate therefore it is 100% wrong" (I think that's actually called the "fallacy fallacy")

The issue is, that the previous oversimplification delivers a wrong base for the followed, bold argumentation, which, once more in this thread, focused on the color alone (the later being my personal problem with the statements).

rufus

12-03-2014, 03:08 PM

Okay, sure. Point me to another one, in a different color.

I'm not sure it exists. (I'm in the 'print better non-blue cards' camp.) I do think that green/black is getting closer with cards like Deathrite Shaman, Green Sun's Zenith, and Abrupt Decay. Adding some kind of 'free' hard counter could make that very strong and reliable.

TsumiBand

12-03-2014, 03:10 PM

Your point was that there is no strategic diversity because all blue decks use the same 40 cards, and we pointed out that, no, they do not. No point in having a hissy fit now. Lol I picture you just pulling out your hair going nuts reading this. It's a game!

If you thought I was angry, you have no idea what you're talking about. It says right there in my signature that I'm silly. I'm silly! I can be silly-angry! It's like not-really-mad except with emphasis on words and slipping in curse fucking words for no particular bitch reason.

Also though, as long as we're talking about oversimplification, if you think that my point was "all blue decks use the same 40 cards" then you're vastly oversimplifying what I was trying to say. Fine, you want Tsumi use more different words, Tsumi use more words for say same thing again.

There was, within the last couple of years even, a point during which there was no discernable Blue shell. Even Brainstorm's vaunted 70% penetration as a 4-of in all decks it appeared in was not a guarantee in the most competitive lists; the biggest pointer to that being Merfolk. Merfolk players would go back and forth on whether or not Brainstorm was worth the include, and reasons ranged from "it isn't a Merfolk" to "it's redundant in this list" to "if I have to pick between Dismember and Brainstorm, I choose Jitte" and all this other crazy crap that's well-documented on the Merfolk thread.

That doesn't mean that there was no cantrippy list of things to borrow against, it just means that it wasn't pervasive to the point of pushing out Blue decks that didn't bother with playing the cantrips yet. It meant that playing Blue was not nearly as synonymous with today's debated "shell" as it once was. There was a clear consensus on which cards were playable and could/should be considered staples, but even once upon a time people debated the use of spells like Portent in decks like CounterSlivers/Meathooks because it hadn't coalesced to the point it has today.

Now all this would probably be fine, if it were true of the other colors. Why does this matter, at all, that other colors should have such a reliable touchstone of core cards? It sure as hell didn't used to. Taking a look at any Goblin list and then going back to Sligh/Burn/etc proves that playing Red did not mean you played the same X cards if you intended to be successful at a GP.

On a smaller, but just as frustrating a scale -- Tarmogoyf. The neverending splashes for that stupid little bastard. *That* was a problem card; it was literally too good not to play in a ton of decks, across archetypes. There were combo decks playing the little shit. Goblin lists that splashed Green for it. Any given control deck had to play it because it was a 6/7 for :1::g:. There was a long stretch of time where a deck without Tarmogoyf was flatly regarded as suboptimal, and deckbuilding was 56 cards and Tarmogoyf. A lot of people got pissed off about that too; he's not really a good control creature and he does nothing for combo decks apart from raising the Storm count, but he's too good to ignore. He even fucking blocks himself in the mirror. Like Umezawa's Jitte and Mental Misstep, Tarmogoyf was one of its own best answers. That *sucked*. It still sucks, because price memory and I just want to play 8-Blast-Kird-Ape.dec and it's like "where's le goyf?" and I have to point to the ones on the wrong side of the glass counter at the LGS.

As for White and Black, their 'core' of cards is so deck dependent that really the precious few staples either color entertains at a given time is too small to do more than lend support to a deck that isn't monocolored. Yes there are good mono-White decks, that's not the point; the point is, a deck with Plains does not have more than maybe 3 cards that you have to have a great reason not to be playing in your main - Swords to Plowshares, Stoneforge Mystic, maybe like Path to Exile, arguably Mother of Runes if you're running creatures, but that's conditional... And maybe of all the Black cards in the world the only one that should really be strongly considered for Random Decklist #415 is Thoughtseize, apart from that you don't even start a decklist and assume that Dark Ritual is a good include. Deathrite Shaman is hard to count as a single color staple, but even that guy for his potency isn't an auto-in for 100% of decks with Swamps.

The point is, the core of either color is so much less consolidated than Blue's primary go-to spells, that you wouldn't see anyone badgering you to play a given spell in every list. There's just no call for it; even Tarmogoyf's popularity has faded in favor of utility creatures like DRS and Scavenging Ooze and whatnot. The problem is that if you're starting from step 0, and you're building a deck and it has any of the other four colors of mana in it, you cannot nearly as easily say "it's a mistake not to play _______" whereas if you're playing Blue, it is quite often a glaring oversight if you are not playing at least *some* of all of the aforementioned cards.

As for my "let's play deckbuilder" post -- the point was never that all decklists contain the same 40 cards, the point is that a player is at their leisure to employ this Build-a-Bear strategy without actually doing anything that sets them wildly apart from other lists. Getting hung up on whether or not Daze or Treasure Cruise is literally in 100% of lists is a red herring; I was never saying they do or should appear everywhere, and I did precisely what I said I'd do with the statistics. You can see in my post that by the time you get down to Treasure Cruise and Daze, it's dropped from Brainstorm's 70% of decklists to almost half that (38% for TC, 36% for Daze). I didn't obfuscate anything. I just suggested a premise for deckbuilding wherein a random brewer could simply look at the top 10 cars being played in Legacy right now and build a core of cards which only requires minimal shifts to take on roughly the same identity as a swath of decklists. Your focus on the specifics is simply missing the point.

What you *should* have been focused on was the fact that I declared a deck with no Forests in it a Temur Sligh deck. What a fuck up! That stupid Kird Ape is a POS 1/1, either that or that Lightning Helix is going to chill in-hand, uncastable, until I eventually try to draw my 61st card.

Star|Scream

12-03-2014, 03:45 PM

Yep that's pretty much exactly what you just did.

Nuh uh

12-03-2014, 04:08 PM

I really don't get why we need all these statistics and bullshit banter when the whole crux of this argument, as I have stated before, is that Brainstorm is obviously, and by a large margin, the best card in Legacy.

Why should there be a card that is so head-and-shoulders better than every other card in Legacy? This is not Vintage, there is no argument that somehow Brainstorm cannot be removed from the format. The idea that the format would cease to exist is also incredibly laughable. Would there still be a "best" card in Legacy? Probably, but the debate would be far more open and far more dependent on the meta, as it realistically should be.

The idea that there is some sort of hidden, secret Brainstorm defeating technology that has existed forever but that everyone who plays Legacy is just incapable of "innovation" and therefor can't find it, is patently absurd. What evidence do you base this off? There is tons of evidence that Brainstorm is the best card and that decks running Brainstorm have a much higher chance to win tournaments than decks that don't. That is why more people play Brainstorm than any other card, because it's the best answer to the best card in Legacy which, again, surprisingly is Brainstorm. Remind you of any card banned in recent memory?

The problem is that you don't beat Brainstorm decks by trying to "get" them with shitty situational cards. That is exactly what Blue decks want you to do, so they can beat you with all their other cards that are just better than yours. You beat them by being more consistent. The easy-button way to be more consistent in Legacy is to run Brainstorm.

EDIT: I don't even remember if I meant to post this in that other thread, or the other other thread. I don't even care, it's the same shitty discussion everywhere...

FoolofaTook

12-03-2014, 04:13 PM

Unless that first or second turn consists of dropping a Chalice for one or Trinisphere.

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. People are so quick to rush to the conclusion that the game is over by turn two or three because of "X,Y,Z" reason. That's just simply not true. There are a myriad of dynamics involved in any given game-state that to assume playing something as dangerously innocuous as a Sylvan Library spells the end of the game for the playing casting it, when in reality the card in conjunction with the right setup and followup can be incredibly scary.

Again - far too many variables involved to assume it's a lost cause. Counters don't really do anything themselves without something to really protect, otherwise they're nullifying your spells at the cost of 1 for 1 - and sometimes 2 for 1 with possible tempo loss or disadvantage. This is why traditionally aggro decks enjoy feasting on control decks, because they can't keep up with them. If you know your opponent is representing counters, what do you do - sit back and let them drop a threat and protect it? Timing is key, but so is playing to win and not to lose.

Ok, I'd make two points in response to this:

1. No lists that are tier 1 or anywhere near that include multiple Sylvan Library. So the very competitive lists have decided that trying to drop a Sylvan Library on turn 1 or 2 is not worth the investment of putting enough copies in the list to reliably see it in your first couple of turns.

Now, you can argue that this is because the blue shell is so much better at seeing cards early on that any competitive player is going to play that shell instead of trying to squeeze multiple copies of Sylvan Library into a list to try to get a slow semblance of that predictability. I wouldn't take issue with you if you made that argument.

The question remains though that if Sylvan Library is worth the investment in resources to play it then why doesn't the blue shell routinely include at least 1 of it when they are already splashing green? My answer to that would be that Sylvan Library just isn't good enough at straightening out the draw early and that's what the blue shell is trying to do.

2. The lists that are near tier 1 that do include a singleton Sylvan Library have it in for the mid-game more than the early game. It gives them an asset to drop when cards in hand have been significantly reduced on both sides that allows them to look deeper into the pile and to be able to get some semblance of the value out of fetchlands that the blue shell has almost right off the bat.

If they have it in the opening hand they might play it out but that's not what they're looking for. If that was what they were looking for they'd have multiple Sylvan Library in the list in the first place.

The problem with Sylvan Library is that it costs :1::g: and it doesn't do anything at all until turn 3. That's a big problem. If there was an alternative that cost just :g: it'd be more in line with the Legacy value required however it would still do nothing the turn it was cast, unlike all of the blue cantrips. If somehow it was made to be nearly as good as them anyway as a permanent then the blue shell would just find a way to incorporate it if that's what its value dictated.

FoolofaTook

12-03-2014, 04:16 PM

@H

The reason the "secret" anti-Brainstorm technology is not used is that the best way to find it and get it into play would be with... Brainstorm.

12-03-2014, 04:20 PM

@H

The reason the "secret" anti-Brainstorm technology is not used is that the best way to find it and get it into play would be with... Brainstorm.

Which proves my exact point. You don't win with secret technology or shitty situational cards, you just run Brainstorm and your deck is better at beating Brainstorm.

maharis

12-03-2014, 04:27 PM

Unless that first or second turn consists of dropping a Chalice for one or Trinisphere.

Those are backbreaking plays in the meta, but they are hard to pull off (it requires drawing one of at least two separate four-ofs in a deck of 60 cards) and they constrain your own card choices in order to prevent dis-synergy (is that a word?)

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. People are so quick to rush to the conclusion that the game is over by turn two or three because of "X,Y,Z" reason. That's just simply not true. There are a myriad of dynamics involved in any given game-state that to assume playing something as dangerously innocuous as a Sylvan Library spells the end of the game for the playing casting it, when in reality the card in conjunction with the right setup and followup can be incredibly scary.

Again - far too many variables involved to assume it's a lost cause. Counters don't really do anything themselves without something to really protect, otherwise they're nullifying your spells at the cost of 1 for 1 - and sometimes 2 for 1 with possible tempo loss or disadvantage. This is why traditionally aggro decks enjoy feasting on control decks, because they can't keep up with them. If you know your opponent is representing counters, what do you do - sit back and let them drop a threat and protect it? Timing is key, but so is playing to win and not to lose.

This I do agree with. I can always tell when I'm playing someone who understands Legacy. If I ever untap with a Sylvan Library that they could've Thoughtseized, Forced, or Decayed, they don't understand the most important thing in the format, which is card selection.

Sylvan Library is clearly the best green card. It is the closest thing to Necropotence that's legal in Legacy (even counting Griselbrand IMO, since you can Show or Reanimate lots of backbreaking creatures). The thing is, though, that it is a permanent you need to resolve and untap with. It also does nothing in multiples barring corner cases where you draw a card off the first activation or crack a fetch between. On the other hand you can draw multiple cantrips and they are always good, and they give you advantage immediately. One is worlds better than any other, and that is a card that should be banned.

TsumiBand

12-03-2014, 05:19 PM

Has anyone actually tested a Brainstorm-less version of anything that exists? Or run a no-BS gauntlet?

While I might try to argue against the prevalence of the same cards all over the place - I did it when it was Goyf, when it was Misstep, knew it would happen with Clamp back in the day, it's well within the MO of WotC to move against cards that warp formats and answer themselves better than other cards can - one thing I've personally never done is tried out the imaginary BS-less (and possibly Ponder or Preordain-less) meta.

Ultimately, everything else is just talk until a group actually attempts this. As with any of the other changes we talk about before or as they appear - the uniqueness rules, the m10 rules, the printing of various tech like Spirit of the Labyrinth, Treasure Cruise, etc etc etc - talk's cheap. Someone point me in the direction of some existing data that verifies the existing pros/cons of such a format. I'm not talking about the Modern metagame, don't be a smartass - there are worlds of difference between the formats, more than is given credit when people say "urrr u want dis format u go play Modren, eat my pennis"

btm10

12-03-2014, 05:59 PM

I really don't get why we need all these statistics and bullshit banter when the whole crux of this argument, as I have stated before, is that Brainstorm is obviously, and by a large margin, the best card in Legacy.

The issue with this line of reasoning is that there isn't a clear bar for banning the best card in the format with or without Brainstorm. The cards that are banned (justifiably banned - I'm not talking about Black Vise or Mind Twist) on power level alone are pretty heinously overpowered: Balance, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Time Vault, Mana Drain, and maybe Yawgmoth's Will are the only ones I can think of that wouldn't directly contribute to a too-fast-for-Legacy or otherwise dominant deck and are banned just for being way too good.

In the absence of Brainstorm, I absolutely guarantee that we'd see almost all of the decks currently running Brainstorm as library manipulation simply stick the next best unused cantrip in its place and continue along, and the likelihood that we're back here in a year with people complaining about Ponder being the best card in the format is very high. If we're going to ban a card for being too good, that card had better hold up well in comparison the cards I listed above, and I seriously don't think that Brainstorm is on that level. It's really good, but not that good.

Richard Cheese

12-03-2014, 06:28 PM

The issue is, that the previous oversimplification delivers a wrong base for the followed, bold argumentation, which, once more in this thread, focused on the color alone (the later being my personal problem with the statements).

Right, which is why I replied to Star|Scream's huge oversimplification of your post rather than to you directly. You clearly took issue with the reasoning/delivery, but seemed to be agreeing with the sentiment of "diversity is going down".

On that topic, I'm wondering if this isn't just an inevitable result of a format with a large player base and a card pool that's relatively stagnant. There are just some cards that are the best at what they do for the cost. Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt, Dark Ritual, StP, Show and Tell, Force of Will...the list is pretty long. As time goes on though, we keep adding to that list with things like Delver, Deathrite, Terminus, Gitaxian Probe, Abrupt Decay, Treasure Cruise, True-Name, and so on. The bigger the list of really great cards gets, the more decks are going to essentially start building themselves.

Not that there isn't still a tremendous amount of room for innovation, but goodstuff.dec is always going to be the easier option. When all your cards are excellent on their own, your deck is more forgiving and needs less optimization or tuning for a given meta.

I think the problem that most people have is that blue just has more of the really excellent cards than any other color. That doesn't really bother me much in and of itself, I just hate that it's getting good creatures now. I think Delver does more harm than anything to the format by being absurdly good, but also forcing a bunch of constraints on deckbuilding (and for decks trying to prey on Delver decks as well).

TsumiBand

12-03-2014, 06:35 PM

It isn't as if there aren't fallacies in saying that people would hop from Brainstorm to Ponder to Preordain as the next best card to whine about. That slippery slope has yet to be fully explored - and not only that, but I don't believe anyone is arguing that Blue should be left with 0% access to deck/card manipulation. It just doesn't need to be to the point where its capability to reduce variance renders decks so much more stable with it than without it that the cantrip suite stands head-and-shoulders above any putative "color staples" in other colors.

The thing about Ponder as well, is that unlike Brainstorm it isn't going nearly as far to make discard a terrible game mechanic. Responding to Thoughtseize and Co. with a Brainstorm is a big chunk of the reason that playable, excellent one-mana discard spells aren't very fucking good at all, and that sucks. Brainstorm on its lonesome keeps Black from exerting a major piece of its color pie. It's true that the other P-spells make topdecking the same card easier, but Brainstorm has been saving asses for a long long time, and that's fucken shitty. Especially in the color of countermagic; save your counters for things that need countering, but "counter" the Thoughtseize with your draw-3. It's a "functional analog" to a counter, inasmuch as they aren't getting the card they should have hit, but they still get a single card out of your hand. It's just whichever one you decide you need the least, which makes the spell that much less impactful.

tescrin

12-03-2014, 07:22 PM

I have to say something about Lemnear's comments on combo:
-Storm existed in *modern.* In multiple variants.
-Modern is basically all combo at the top tier

Saying that you can't survive without Brainstorm is fucking stupid. Saying you can't survive in a world of Thoughtseize-being-good when that's the premier anti-combo piece of Modern is fucking stupid.

I won't step in on the debate of the rest of it but combo has proven to find ways of being reliable without needing a "LOL HAMMER-TIME"* spell. It doesn't have to hide it's cards when Ponder and Preordain are good and around. As can be seen by Elves being the premier combo-deck in Legacy right now; combo can survive; even in a meta of 70% FoW.

*Can't touch this

Seriously, we have obvious evidence of a format without Brainstorm and Force of Will. Force is something combo already gets around, BS is something modern doesn't have while hatebears, discard, and midrange are everywhere. There's no reason to think that combo will have any difficulty *whatsoever* post brainstorm era.

EDIT: But I should say that despite what that sounds like, I have no ill will towards FoW nor am I taking a side agianst Brainstorm; rather, Lemnear's argument is just a crock of shit and it needs to be pointed out.

Lemnear

12-03-2014, 07:43 PM

I have to say something about Lemnear's comments on combo:
-Storm existed in *modern.* In multiple variants.

where did I say anything about Storm and Modern?

-Modern is basically all combo at the top tier

no, it's not

Saying that you can't survive without Brainstorm is fucking stupid.

never said that. Present me the quote or stop that bullshit

Saying you can't survive in a world of Thoughtseize-being-good when that's the premier anti-combo piece of Modern is fucking stupid.

never said that either. Are you on Drugs?

Seriously, we have obvious evidence of a format without Brainstorm and Force of Will.

no, we have no "evidence" how Legacy looks without FoW and Brainstorm because Legacy was Born with FoW in it's cardpool. I hope you are not that stupid and see Modern as your "evidence", as the format has not to deal with Duals, S&T, LED and the other crazy pre-8th-Edition stuff, nor has it cards like Vial, Jace or SFM in it's Pool.

Force is something combo already gets around, BS is something modern doesn't have while hatebears, discard, and midrange are everywhere. There's no reason to think that combo will have any difficulty *whatsoever* post brainstorm era.

I won't repeat the stuff I said a thousand times before for you, Jack

EDIT: But I should say that despite what that sounds like, I have no ill will towards FoW nor am I taking a side agianst Brainstorm; rather, Lemnear's argument is just a crock of shit and it needs to be pointed out.

My arguments are shit? Look at yours above, kid: Strawmens everywhere. Ridiculous

12-04-2014, 06:28 AM

The issue with this line of reasoning is that there isn't a clear bar for banning the best card in the format with or without Brainstorm. The cards that are banned (justifiably banned - I'm not talking about Black Vise or Mind Twist) on power level alone are pretty heinously overpowered: Balance, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Time Vault, Mana Drain, and maybe Yawgmoth's Will are the only ones I can think of that wouldn't directly contribute to a too-fast-for-Legacy or otherwise dominant deck and are banned just for being way too good.

In the absence of Brainstorm, I absolutely guarantee that we'd see almost all of the decks currently running Brainstorm as library manipulation simply stick the next best unused cantrip in its place and continue along, and the likelihood that we're back here in a year with people complaining about Ponder being the best card in the format is very high. If we're going to ban a card for being too good, that card had better hold up well in comparison the cards I listed above, and I seriously don't think that Brainstorm is on that level. It's really good, but not that good.

Remember it's four Brainstorm we are really discussing. If I had a choice between four of Brainstorm or four of any of those above cards, only Balance, Recall and Time Walk are what I would call demonstratively better. In isolation, Time Vault, Mana Drain and Will are great cards, indeed, broken cards, but they aren't necessarily all that much better in multiples. Vault is a great two card combo, but fragile and easy to disrupt. Drain is great, but is still a UU counterspell. Will is dead in a good number of hands, especially in your opener if it doesn't have Lotus. I doubt I need to add much on why Balance is the most absurd Magic card ever made, or why Recall or Walk are good.

It's been demonstrated many times before, 4 Brainstorm is far and away the best way to build a Legacy deck. It's not even close. Why are people not "innovating" and playing things to beat Brainstorm? They are, the answer on how to consistently beat Brainstorm is to consistently play Brainstorm.

It isn't as if there aren't fallacies in saying that people would hop from Brainstorm to Ponder to Preordain as the next best card to whine about. That slippery slope has yet to be fully explored - and not only that, but I don't believe anyone is arguing that Blue should be left with 0% access to deck/card manipulation. It just doesn't need to be to the point where its capability to reduce variance renders decks so much more stable with it than without it that the cantrip suite stands head-and-shoulders above any putative "color staples" in other colors.

The thing about Ponder as well, is that unlike Brainstorm it isn't going nearly as far to make discard a terrible game mechanic. Responding to Thoughtseize and Co. with a Brainstorm is a big chunk of the reason that playable, excellent one-mana discard spells aren't very fucking good at all, and that sucks. Brainstorm on its lonesome keeps Black from exerting a major piece of its color pie. It's true that the other P-spells make topdecking the same card easier, but Brainstorm has been saving asses for a long long time, and that's fucken shitty. Especially in the color of countermagic; save your counters for things that need countering, but "counter" the Thoughtseize with your draw-3. It's a "functional analog" to a counter, inasmuch as they aren't getting the card they should have hit, but they still get a single card out of your hand. It's just whichever one you decide you need the least, which makes the spell that much less impactful.

Yep, that.

People will always whine about whatever they lost to last week, that's not what this is about. I actually want all the Blue decks to just add Preordain and keep it moving. I am not trying to reduce the number of viable Blue decks, I am trying to reduce the gap in power level between the best card in the format and everything else. Preordain is not even close to Brainstorm in power level. Ponder isn't either. Blue would be fine though, which is what I want. I don't want a neutered Blue, I want a more reasonably powered Blue.

EpicLevelCommoner

12-04-2014, 06:48 AM

M+1

12-04-2014, 07:55 AM

It's been demonstrated many times before, 4 Brainstorm is far and away the best way to build a Legacy deck. It's not even close. Why are people not "innovating" and playing things to beat Brainstorm? They are, the answer on how to consistently beat Brainstorm is to consistently play Brainstorm.
Whoa. Brainstorm is not THAT good. I mean, yes it is good, one of the best cards in Magic for sure, but that you need to play with Brainstorm to "beat" it (or more accurately, beat the strategy of Brainstorm decks) is simply not true. If it were THAT good, Merfolk would add Brainstorm and fetches. But the deck would be weaker from it, because Merfolk is not playing the Brainstorm strategy.

The Brainstorm, or cantrip strategy type of decks is about two things: 1) Adding consistency, and 2) Reducing the number of other types of cards in the deck, instead relying on cantrips to find what you need, when you need it. Ever since the earliest incarnations of Threshold decks, this has been a proven, powerful strategy in Legacy. But it is NOT without weaknesses. It is possible to attack the strategy by attacking the cantrips, and by taking advantage of the fact that these decks are usually threat-light, so threat-light that one well timed Liliana can take over the game, for example. Death and Taxes is the current best deck at figthing the cantrip strategy, but all colors have tools to do this - even blue.

One of the things that makes fighting the cantrip strategy so hard is consistency. I will admit that it is difficult to achieve the level of consistency that Brainstorm - fetches give you, almost for free. I happen to believe that same consistency is a major reason that Legacy is so popular, and the powerful cantrips is one thing that makes Legacy truly different from Modern, and draws some of the Modern crowd to Legacy over time. I would love to see more consistency tools from Wizards in nonblue colors in the future.

I am not saying that fighting the cantrip strategy is easy, far from it, and it certainly has gotten even harder after the printing of Treasure Cruise (which I personally would like to see banned before other cantrips, because it dodges a lot of the usual cantrip hate, such as Chalice of the Void), but it is possible. Please don't say that it isn't possible, or that playing Brainstorm is your only option if you want to win in Legacy. It is hard, yes, but that is not the same thing.

Lemnear

12-04-2014, 08:22 AM

Maybe we could contact Caleb Duward or whoever did the Banned Series on Channel Fireball and request a semi-comprehensive test ban session?

With all respect for him as a person, I found his deckbuilding within the "banned series" pretty "suboptimal" and would step back from him to build decks for a post-Brainstorm metagame.

12-04-2014, 08:51 AM

Whoa. Brainstorm is not THAT good. I mean, yes it is good, one of the best cards in Magic for sure, but that you need to play with Brainstorm to "beat" it (or more accurately, beat the strategy of Brainstorm decks) is simply not true. If it were THAT good, Merfolk would add Brainstorm and fetches. But the deck would be weaker from it, because Merfolk is not playing the Brainstorm strategy.

Why is the fact that Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm the ultimate proof that Brainstorm is not the best card? Since when is Merfolk the litmus test for how to build a Blue deck? We all know why Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm, that's a red herring.

I am not saying that fighting the cantrip strategy is easy, far from it, and it certainly has gotten even harder after the printing of Treasure Cruise (which I personally would like to see banned before other cantrips, because it dodges a lot of the usual cantrip hate, such as Chalice of the Void), but it is possible. Please don't say that it isn't possible, or that playing Brainstorm is your only option if you want to win in Legacy. It is hard, yes, but that is not the same thing.

I disagree completely, I think that Cruise is far more interesting than the easy button of Brainstorm x 4. I never once said that the only way to win is by playing Brainstorm, I said the best way to win is to play Brainstorm, because it's the best answer to Brainstorm. Many people have tried to fight Brainstorm with Chalice of the Void, go look at the result and see how that fairs over the long-term though. Long term results show us that Brainstorm is the best card and the best solution to the best card.

catmint

12-04-2014, 08:57 AM

posted the same thing in the B/R thread but here is more action. :)

my intension is to get away from "endless brainstorm" discussion to how can we make wizards care....

My personal opinion on the subject matter:
There are people who say things are fine - just innovate or "the format is meant to be completely blue".
Others want to see brainstorm (or fetchlands) gone to weaken the blue shell.
Some people think cards like Treasure cruise, DTT, Delver and Nemesis are mistakes.

I am personally leaning towards the third group.

Brainstorm is awesome and supports all types of different strategies/decks. It defines the format and I want to keep it.
I still enjoy the format and there is room to innovate and hate - however there is not enough incentive not to be blue and I don't see why blue should have the best aggressive creature and the most resilient creature. Blue should have the best card draw but the delve mechanic is just way to synergistic with all the cheap cantrips, so DTT and Cruise are imo a tad too powerful for the format.

It all comes down to wizards not giving a damn.

If I could decide I would unban a lot, ban some of the recent blue mistakes and print some fair blue hate (blue can't splash) and I think everyone would welcome those things. I understand that wizards does not want to test/develop for legacy, but it would be very easy for them to loosen up a lot with their banning/unbannings to keep things moving outside of blue power creep.

Maybe the community can start making wizards care somehow.
They are coin operated so with a new way to better monetize from the legacy community we might get more love.
I am sure I am not the only one who is willing to pay to keep this awesome format alive and moving.
Any ideas?

M+1

12-04-2014, 09:22 AM

Why is the fact that Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm the ultimate proof that Brainstorm is not the best card? Since when is Merfolk the litmus test for how to build a Blue deck? We all know why Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm, that's a red herring.
I never said it wasn't (one of the) best cards, only that is not so good as be an auto-include in any competitive deck (even blue decks), but rather only in decks that choose the cantrip strategy.
You say "we all know" why Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm, but your words kind of lead me to believe that you don't.

I don't think we well ever get around some cards simply being the best of a certain color, or strategy, so I don't know why you keep pushing that "best" button. Have you ever seen a burn deck without Lightning Bolt, or a white control deck without some number of Swords to Plowshares. Those cards are also the very best at what they do, doesn't mean we should ban them for that.

maharis

12-04-2014, 09:42 AM

Ace/Homebrew

12-04-2014, 10:09 AM

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Treasure Cruise
4 Daze
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Red Elemental Blast

Am I doing it right?
Did I top 8 yet?

EpicLevelCommoner

12-04-2014, 10:14 AM

Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm because it's already consistent via redundancy (i.e. 8 Lords, 12 Tempo-Counters, 8 mana denial (4 if no ports), 4 Phantasmal Image), much like Burn or Elves! are.

And that is the key factor I'd like to point out: any deck can be consistent if you shove it full of redundant options, but that decks loses its ability to fight a varied meta. Conversely, if playing against a meta full of the same, redundant lists, then capitalizing on Brainstorm to save you from a lack of redundancy can cost ya because there won't be enough of particular answer to "dig for" every time.

Still on the fence regarding a ban on anything, and would prefer new answers to be printed to change the meta "naturally".

Lemnear

12-04-2014, 10:21 AM

12-04-2014, 10:23 AM

I never said it wasn't (one of the) best cards, only that is not so good as be an auto-include in any competitive deck (even blue decks), but rather only in decks that choose the cantrip strategy.
You say "we all know" why Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm, but your words kind of lead me to believe that you don't.

I don't think we well ever get around some cards simply being the best of a certain color, or strategy, so I don't know why you keep pushing that "best" button. Have you ever seen a burn deck without Lightning Bolt, or a white control deck without some number of Swords to Plowshares. Those cards are also the very best at what they do, doesn't mean we should ban them for that.

Every color has it's best cards, Blue's best card is the best card, regardless of color. Did you ever wonder why the highest consistently-placing Lightning Bolt deck runs Brainstorm? Or why the highest consistently-placing Swords to Plowshares deck run Brainstorm?

Why play Thoughtseize, Dark Confidant, SDT for your disruption, card selection and advantage when you could just play Brainstorm, Ponder, Force of Will? Then you can sprinkle in whatever so-called blue "mistakes" you want (SCM, Delver, TNN, Jace, Cruise) but really what makes the deck such a better choice is the cantrips and the free counter.

Free counters are often can be played around. What is almost impossible to play around is the added consistency that Brainstorm adds. You can try to simulate it with redundancy, but it almost always a pale approximation. Why else does anyone think Brainstorm is the highest played card?

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Treasure Cruise
4 Daze
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Red Elemental Blast

Am I doing it right?
Did I top 8 yet?

Pretty close my man, :cool:

Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm because it's already consistent via redundancy (i.e. 8 Lords, 12 Tempo-Counters, 8 mana denial (4 if no ports), 4 Phantasmal Image), much like Burn or Elves! are.

And that is the key factor I'd like to point out: any deck can be consistent if you shove it full of redundant options, but that decks loses its ability to fight a varied meta. Conversely, if playing against a meta full of the same, redundant lists, then capitalizing on Brainstorm to save you from a lack of redundancy can cost ya because there won't be enough of particular answer to "dig for" every time.

Still on the fence regarding a ban on anything, and would prefer new answers to be printed to change the meta "naturally".

Ding, ding, ding. Glad at least one person gets it.

M+1

12-04-2014, 12:02 PM

Every color has it's best cards, Blue's best card is the best card, regardless of color. Did you ever wonder why the highest consistently-placing Lightning Bolt deck runs Brainstorm? Or why the highest consistently-placing Swords to Plowshares deck run Brainstorm?
That is certainly true. The point I was trying to make, however, is that you don't ban a card just for being the best at what it does, or for being the best of a color for that matter. Just about any deck that cares about creature removal is going to run either Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, and/or Abrupt Decay (just an interesting fact: notice how blue is the only color missing on that list). The power of each of those three cards is high above anything else in the creature removal department. Should they be banned for that? Certainly not. Brainstorm is simply the best cantrip in the game, and nothing really compares to its power level as a cantrip, I agree on that. However, I don't think that is sufficent reason to call for a ban. Since many decks care a great deal about the concistency that cantrips offers, many decks are going to splash blue just for this consistency, since the other four colors are severely lacking in that department.

Every color has it's best cards, Blue's best card is the best card, regardless of color.
There will always be a best card, you know.

12-04-2014, 12:37 PM

M+1

12-04-2014, 01:22 PM

It is not the only answer.
Repeating your claim many times does not make it true.

12-04-2014, 01:32 PM

It is not the only answer.
Repeating your claim many times does not make it true.

If Brainstorm is an issue (and I believe there is a case that it may well be), Wizards has not demonstrated to me that they are either capable, willing, or interested in printing anything new to address that. The only logical step then would be a ban.

btm10

12-04-2014, 01:38 PM

Remember it's four Brainstorm we are really discussing. If I had a choice between four of Brainstorm or four of any of those above cards, only Balance, Recall and Time Walk are what I would call demonstratively better. In isolation, Time Vault, Mana Drain and Will are great cards, indeed, broken cards, but they aren't necessarily all that much better in multiples. Vault is a great two card combo, but fragile and easy to disrupt. Drain is great, but is still a UU counterspell. Will is dead in a good number of hands, especially in your opener if it doesn't have Lotus. I doubt I need to add much on why Balance is the most absurd Magic card ever made, or why Recall or Walk are good.

I left Will as a maybe because there's a reasonable argument that it's only banned because it would supercharge Storm. And while that's a pretty good arguement on its own, I do think we'd probably see LED as a 1 or 2 of in some Midrange/Control lists to generate massive bursts of CA; it's not hard to clear the way for Will with Thoughtseize or make sure it's already safe with Gitaxian Probe. Vault is broken because there are way too many cheap ways of untapping it. The fact that you can run 4 Tinkers for both it and Key only make it more dangerous. So it probably is more of a combo piece ban than a purely power level one, and I'm wrong about that.

I do disagree on Mana Drain, though. Drain would exert a much stronger influence on deckbuilding than Brainstorm by making cards with CMC > 3 almost unplayable unless they're blue and have a large colorless component to their costs or straight up win the game like Natural Order. That's a much more onerous deckbuilding restriction to put on the format than "run blue to be the most consistent".

Brainstorm is the best card and if you want to consistently beat Brainstorm decks, the answer is to run Brainstorm yourself. That is format warping. It's fine that Blue decks get better consistency. My "issue" is how much more consistency they are getting. Ponder and Preordain are a joke compared to Brainstorm.

Ponder is hardly a joke compared to Brainstorm. If anything it feeds consistency more by giving the option for digging deeper and has a lower skill cap because you can't get Ponder-locked. The loss on Ponder is the "unmulligan" and "hide from discard at instant speed" functions, and while losing those function does make Ponder worse than Brainstorm, it's still silly to suggest that there's some sort of massive power level gap between the two cards and that Ponder-less decks that currently run Brainstorm wouldn't just substitute Ponder for Brainstorm on a one-for-one basis while going on being substantially more consistent than decks that don't run Ponder.

12-04-2014, 01:58 PM

I left Will as a maybe because there's a reasonable argument that it's only banned because it would supercharge Storm. And while that's a pretty good arguement on its own, I do think we'd probably see LED as a 1 or 2 of in some Midrange/Control lists to generate massive bursts of CA; it's not hard to clear the way for Will with Thoughtseize or make sure it's already safe with Gitaxian Probe. Vault is broken because there are way too many cheap ways of untapping it. The fact that you can run 4 Tinkers for both it and Key only make it more dangerous. So it probably is more of a combo piece ban than a purely power level one, and I'm wrong about that.

I do disagree on Mana Drain, though. Drain would exert a much stronger influence on deckbuilding than Brainstorm by making cards with CMC > 3 almost unplayable unless they're blue and have a large colorless component to their costs or straight up win the game like Natural Order. That's a much more onerous deckbuilding restriction to put on the format than "run blue to be the most consistent".

Fair enough, I have no data, or will to playtest those cards in Legacy decks. I just play them in Vintage. I still think the Brainstorm is Legacy is on par with the power level of those cards in Vintage, which is in-and-of-itself a false dichotomy, but I'll just leave my sentiments at that.

Ponder is hardly a joke compared to Brainstorm. If anything it feeds consistency more by giving the option for digging deeper and has a lower skill cap because you can't get Ponder-locked. The loss on Ponder is the "unmulligan" and "hide from discard at instant speed" functions, and while losing those function does make Ponder worse than Brainstorm, it's still silly to suggest that there's some sort of massive power level gap between the two cards and that Ponder-less decks that currently run Brainstorm wouldn't just substitute Ponder for Brainstorm on a one-for-one basis while going on being substantially more consistent than decks that don't run Ponder.

Ponder is good, in fact, it's very good. It's still no where near the power level of Brainstorm. The exchange of cards is a huge portion of Brainstorm's power and it's not just because you can put back lands and get spells or hide something from discard. You can put back equipment and get it later with a SFM, you can put back an Instant or Sorcery and flip an Delver, you can put a Miracle back to cast it. Ponder might help in the second two situations, but only if you have one of those in the top 3. What's in your hand is in your hand then and that seems lots more fair to me.

I guess I have to repeat it every post, but I am ambivalent to a ban. I feel there is a strong case for banning Brainstorm, but there are fair points against it too.

maharis

12-04-2014, 02:01 PM

FWIW, Ponder, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, and Brainstorm are all restricted in vintage, but Ponder is played 13% less than those three (the percentages are weird because of the restricted list, but here's the data, look for lines 24-26 and 33: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/vintage/full/all). So even it would literally take only one slot in a deck, Ponder is shaved more than those cards.

The ability to unmulligan is Brainstorm's strongest feature and that is why the blue decks are so dominant. Non-Brainstorm decks are forced to go down cards before the game starts at a much higher rate. This lowers their win percentage since it is very hard to win at such a disadvantage with regularity. Removing brainstorm isn't about killing blue, it's about tapping the brakes on the blue decks, and making them mulligan slightly more accomplishes that goal.

TsumiBand

12-04-2014, 02:13 PM

The thing is, though, that Ponder is already in almost as many decks as Brainstorm, and in many lists side-by-side. So there's still a gap in the field; even if Ponder only doesn't "unmulligan" or "neuter target discard effect", forcing players away from the litany of plays that Brainstorm enables is still a big step down in power. If you look at the one-mana cantrips getting played right now, it's basically Brainstorm, Ponder, and then you have to slide waaay down the scale to find Preordain appearing in like 10% of decks. So, what, like, maybe people up the number of SDTs and/or Preordains, and maybe they re-examine Serum Visions or Sleight of Hand or - Stoya forbid - Portent. Strongly doubt that a Ponder/Preordain/SDT package that much a kissing cousin to the Brainstorm-driven suites we're used to seeing.

IMHO the thought of giving Black discard spells a leg-up is more than enough to convince me that someone somewhere should at least sit and test such a format before jumping to conclusions about whether or not Ponder is just going to replace Brainstorm (when their overall penetration is fairly similar; 69% Brainstorm, 58% Ponder).

12-04-2014, 02:22 PM

The best part of a TsumiBand post often is not the fact that it's true, but the Easter Egg you get to find, :laugh::cool:

Barook

12-04-2014, 02:22 PM

Ponder is hardly a joke compared to Brainstorm. If anything it feeds consistency more by giving the option for digging deeper and has a lower skill cap because you can't get Ponder-locked. The loss on Ponder is the "unmulligan" and "hide from discard at instant speed" functions, and while losing those function does make Ponder worse than Brainstorm, it's still silly to suggest that there's some sort of massive power level gap between the two cards and that Ponder-less decks that currently run Brainstorm wouldn't just substitute Ponder for Brainstorm on a one-for-one basis while going on being substantially more consistent than decks that don't run Ponder.
What exactly has a Brainstorm-lock to do with skill? Seriously? A trained monkey can put cards back with Brainstorm and shuffle them away with fetchlands.

By that logic, decks without library manipulation would be the ultimate skilltester. The only difference between a Brainstorm-lock and normally drawing like shit without library manipulation is that you know that you're fucked when Brainstorm-locked. It also amazes me that some people seriously consider a Brainstorm-lock as actual drawback of the card. At the very least, you still dig one card deeper.

Bed Decks Palyer

12-04-2014, 02:42 PM

The best part of a TsumiBand post often is not the fact that it's true, but the Easter Egg you get to find, :laugh::cool:

Yeah, I love his posts. All of them.

FoolofaTook

12-04-2014, 02:56 PM

So, what, like, maybe people up the number of SDTs and/or Preordains, and maybe they re-examine Serum Visions or Sleight of Hand or - Stoya forbid - Portent. Strongly doubt that a Ponder/Preordain/SDT package that much a kissing cousin to the Brainstorm-driven suites we're used to seeing.

Portent might get a re-evaluation in a situation in which the choice was whether to go with a strict cantrip like Preordain or add in another option, to monkey with your opponent's pile as well, with cards 5-8 in the suite. Preordain is clearly the better card as a cantrip, because it gives you the card the same turn you cast it. However in the absence of Brainstorm maybe you want the option to look at the opponent's pile and shuffle away a Show and Tell or Hymn to Tourach when you're not sure about how your hand stacks up vs the opponent the following turn.

Cabal Therapy also works well with Portent, since it gives you some information on what the opponent's hand is likely to contain a turn down the road, assuming you don't see something that has to get shuffled away. Even in today's meta Portent might have some value in UBx shells. Hit them with targeted discard and watch them Brainstorm in front of your Portent.

frafen

12-04-2014, 02:59 PM

That is certainly true. The point I was trying to make, however, is that you don't ban a card just for being the best at what it does, or for being the best of a color for that matter. Just about any deck that cares about creature removal is going to run either Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, and/or Abrupt Decay (just an interesting fact: notice how blue is the only color missing on that list). The power of each of those three cards is high above anything else in the creature removal department. Should they be banned for that? Certainly not. Brainstorm is simply the best cantrip in the game, and nothing really compares to its power level as a cantrip, I agree on that. However, I don't think that is sufficent reason to call for a ban. Since many decks care a great deal about the concistency that cantrips offers, many decks are going to splash blue just for this consistency, since the other four colors are severely lacking in that department.

There will always be a best card, you know.

Brainstorm is not simply the best cantrip. For example there is not the same relationship betwheen swords to plowshares/path to exile and brainstorm/ponder because while the white cards both do the same thing (remove a creature with a drawback) the blue one do different things. I know that at first sight ponder and brainstorm seem close but it's wrong.

Brainstorm is a way to gain (pseudo) card advantage (aka "unmulligan" -draw 3 and than shuffle away 2 bad/dead cards). A well timed bs (with a shuffle effect) is much closer to ancestral recall than ponder (funny thing is that sometimes bs is actually better than ancestral). That's the "unfair" thing about brainstorm. You will never get (pseudo) card advantage via lightning bolt, ponder, sdt, abrupt decay...

Ponder is hardly a joke compared to Brainstorm. If anything it feeds consistency more by giving the option for digging deeper and has a lower skill cap because you can't get Ponder-locked. The loss on Ponder is the "unmulligan" and "hide from discard at instant speed" functions, and while losing those function does make Ponder worse than Brainstorm, it's still silly to suggest that there's some sort of massive power level gap between the two cards and that Ponder-less decks that currently run Brainstorm wouldn't just substitute Ponder for Brainstorm on a one-for-one basis while going on being substantially more consistent than decks that don't run Ponder.

I belive that you are underestimating the "unmulligan" function. A stupid example: you are plaing against storm, cast brainstorm, put 2 removal on top and than play a fetch/shuffle. Congratulations, the bs you just casted was exactly as good as an ancestral recall. Ponder is not close.

M+1

12-04-2014, 03:13 PM

What exactly has a Brainstorm-lock to do with skill? Seriously? A trained monkey can put cards back with Brainstorm and shuffle them away with fetchlands.
Putting aside the question of which cards to put back, which is a test in which I think your trained monkey will find itself outperformed by most humans most of the time, there is the question of when to play Brainstorm if you don't have a shuffle effect ready, since it can sometimes be a gamble. Ponder, not so much. I am sure that is what bt10 meant.

By that logic, decks without library manipulation would be the ultimate skilltester. The only difference between a Brainstorm-lock and normally drawing like shit without library manipulation is that you know that you're fucked when Brainstorm-locked. It also amazes me that some people seriously consider a Brainstorm-lock as actual drawback of the card. At the very least, you still dig one card deeper.
Of course it's a drawback. Brainstorm takes up actual card slots in a deck, you know. You play cantrips instead of other cards, counting on them to find what you need, when you need it. Sometimes it fails.

sjmcc13

12-04-2014, 03:32 PM

I do disagree on Mana Drain, though. Drain would exert a much stronger influence on deckbuilding than Brainstorm by making cards with CMC > 3 almost unplayable unless they're blue and have a large colorless component to their costs or straight up win the game like Natural Order. That's a much more onerous deckbuilding restriction to put on the format than "run blue to be the most consistent". Umm, aren't they already almost unplayable due to the speed and efficiency of the format. Which is why Abrupt Decay is so good, because it kills pretty much every threat.
Wouldn't Drain actually increase the # of spells playable because it would fuel some of the bigger mana cost spells and make them actually playable.

Though I might be biased since I completed a set of drains ~ 10 yrs ago and want to play with them.

Bed Decks Palyer

12-04-2014, 03:42 PM

Ace/Homebrew

12-04-2014, 03:50 PM

The best part of a TsumiBand post often is not the fact that it's true, but the Easter Egg you get to find, :laugh::cool:

I'm just hoping I don't get fired for Googling 'Stoya' at work... :mad:

12-04-2014, 03:57 PM

Umm, aren't they already almost unplayable due to the speed and efficiency of the format. Which is why Abrupt Decay is so good, because it kills pretty much every threat.
Wouldn't Drain actually increase the # of spells playable because it would fuel some of the bigger mana cost spells and make them actually playable.

Though I might be biased since I completed a set of drains ~ 10 yrs ago and want to play with them.

I took the bait once, not doing that again.

So, if we can agree that it's the power what makes a card a "metagame warping mechanism", and if we can agree that this is the overall reason to ban cards, might we finally come to some conclusion about BS, one that might be chosen of these three possibilities:

- it's not op, thus it should remain in format
- we don't know
- it's op, lets ban it.

No more monkeys returning lands to shuffle them away, no more "it allows more archetypes than it suppresses", no more "I'd quit if they (don't) ban it", no more color-related stuff - although I need to admit that I really dislike how they push color blue, as it leads to repetetive boring gaming experience -, no more of these things. Simply:

Is BS too strong or not?

While I am not wholeheartedly for the ban, I think we don't know exactly, but data almost certainly points to "it's OP."

I'm just hoping I don't get fired for Googling 'Stoya' at work... :mad:

:laugh:

Luckily I still retain all my pre-marriage knowledge. As far as Easter Eggs go though, that is a pretty nice one to find. :wink:

cogitoergosum

12-04-2014, 04:01 PM

FoolofaTook

12-04-2014, 04:58 PM

I suppose this tournament is relatively small (45 players), but non blue decks dominated. Only 8 brainstorm in the top 8. http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=8644&f=LE

Edit: Just thought it was interesting to share. Not saying this single tournament proves anything.

It's a good site and the one I use when I'm looking at archetypes.

All 2011 lists: http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=61

All 2012 lists: http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=6

All 2013 lists: http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=80

All 2014 lists: http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=81

What it documents is a meta heavily defined by Brainstorm and Force of Will in which the percentages of said dominance are creeping up year after year. This is because WotC keeps printing good cards and Brainstorm continues to be the best way to find them and protect them and Force of Will continues to be the best way to protect them and to stop opposition use of them.

Brainstorm and Force of Will were in just over 50% of all Legacy top 8 (4) lists in 2011. They're in just over two-thirds of all such lists now. They'll be in about eighty percent of all such lists in 4 years. By that time Underground Sea will be a $700 card and the other blue lands will be close. Plateau will be only a $100 card. Yay Plateau!

EpicLevelCommoner

12-05-2014, 07:50 AM

It still surprises me how many facets of BS is the community willing to discuss, while there's clearly one and only thing (right?) that needs to be evaluated when speaking of potential ban: is the card overpowered?
And inb4 "but we ban only warping cards, not op ones", well, that's not entirely true: warping cards are those powerful ones, amirite? Except for strange stuff like Shahrazad and Falling Star and Rebirth, are there cards that warped the field by any other aspect that their power? I guess that power of Tinker, Will, Survival, etc. was what "forced" the people to play them, not e.g. art or w/e else.
So, if we can agree that it's the power what makes a card a "metagame warping mechanism", and if we can agree that this is the overall reason to ban cards, might we finally come to some conclusion about BS, one that might be chosen of these three possibilities:

- it's not op, thus it should remain in format
- we don't know
- it's op, lets ban it.

No more monkeys returning lands to shuffle them away, no more "it allows more archetypes than it suppresses", no more "I'd quit if they (don't) ban it", no more color-related stuff - although I need to admit that I really dislike how they push color blue, as it leads to repetetive boring gaming experience -, no more of these things. Simply:

Is BS too strong or not?

Phrase in bold for emphasis: what of Mind Twist and Mana Drain remaining banned? Or perhaps you'd like to explain why Griselbrand remains unbanned despite being a reanimatable Yawgmoth's Bargain on a body?

Power is not the sole reason why a card is banned or stays banned (even ignoring gimmicks like conspiracy, dexterity, ante, etc.). In the end, it comes down to what's fun for the majority of players (regardless of competitive level). And, as Modern ban policy has indicated, that boils down to how long a given game lasts (i.e. why absurdly powerful cards like Power 9 are banned, despite the fact that anyone that could run them would run them) and how diverse a given meta is (i.e. why cards like Flash, Bazaar of Baghdad, Frantic Search, Tolarian Academy, etc. are banned). Now, I'm not gonna lie: power is a big part of why these cards even see the banned list in the first place. But it's how that power impacts that meta (just like to say again that we play with decks, not individual cards) whether for the better or for the worse, and right now Brainstorm+Ponder helps more decks than it hurts.

To answer your question though: it's strong, but not too strong.

12-05-2014, 08:17 AM

But it's how that power impacts that meta (just like to say again that we play with decks, not individual cards) whether for the better or for the worse, and right now Brainstorm+Ponder helps more decks than it hurts.

To answer your question though: it's strong, but not too strong.

I was initially totally against banning Brainstorm but in looking at and analyzing the metagame data, I think it is really Brainstorm that is holding down innovation, because no matter how much you innovate, your creation is probably inferior to a Brainstorm deck. I think the community has really optimized those builds to a point that there are so few gaps that Brainstorm is now it's own best answer and I don't believe that's healthy.

It isn't as if I am gnashing my teeth and pulling out my hair over it, I just feel like the Legacy meta is not really all that healthy where Brainstorm is so overwhelmingly dominant.

While people want to misconstrue the fact that I am saying that banning Brainstorm as merit, I often play Brainstorm, so it isn't as if I just have some irrational hatred for it. In fact, I love Brainstorm, but what my feelings tell me and what the data tells me are definitely at odds.

iamajellydonut

12-05-2014, 08:37 AM

Last edited by H; Today at 08:18 AM. Reason: Putting commas where, they don't, belong...

And you didn't even fix it!

Anyway, of all the arguments for banning Brainstorm, "I don't hate the card, but I think it's really good" is probably the weakest. There are a few reasons, but the more popular reason is that there will always be a new "best" card that will see too much play. And there's also the consideration that Brainstorm isn't oppressive, which is a fact that counts for quite a bit. Stoneforge Mystic and Jace were stifling and oppressive. Affinity was stifling and oppressive. Cards have been banned and will be banned for a variety of valid reasons. From being oppressive to just being broken like Yawgmoth's Will. But "they were really good and we felt like it" has never been a justifiable reason. That's how the Survival of the Fittest we all lament over got banned, and it's the reason no one likes Modern.

sjmcc13

12-05-2014, 09:13 AM

I think the community has really optimized those builds to a point that there are so few gaps that Brainstorm is now it's own best answer and I don't believe that's healthy. Then you do not understand what Brainstorm does, Brainstorm is not an answer to Brainstorm. Brainstorm + shuffle effect is the most popular answer to the problem of deck consistency. The other real option is deck redundancy which tends to leave you with less options in game, but a much more consistent deck that is faster because it does not need to waste as much resources fixing its hand. Brainstorm allows you to run a more varied and random deck with more answers at the cost of speed and consistency when you do not draw a Brainstorm. It means you are less likely to fold when thrown a curve ball.

I honestly wonder if we went back to the old Paris mulligan rules where the first one was free, how much would that help deck consistency, because the more consistent your deck is on its own, the less Brainstorm does for your list when you add it in.

Dice_Box

12-05-2014, 09:17 AM

While I am not wholeheartedly for the ban, I think we don't know exactly, but data almost certainly points to "it's OP."

Popularity is not a measure I would be willing to use to argue if a card is too powerful, is just a measurement to say that a card IS powerful.

AznSeal

12-05-2014, 10:18 AM

I was initially totally against, banning Brainstorm but in looking at and analyzing the metagame data, I think it is really Brainstorm that is holding down innovation, because no matter how much you innovate, your creation is probably inferior to a Brainstorm deck. I think the community has really optimized those builds to a point that there are so few gaps that Brainstorm is now it's own best answer and I don't believe that's healthy.

It isn't as if I am gnashing my teeth and pulling out my hair over it, I just feel like the Legacy meta is not really all that healthy where Brainstorm is so overwhelmingly dominant.

While people want to misconstrue the fact that I am saying that banning Brainstorm as merit, I often play Brainstorm, so it isn't as if I just have some irrational hatred for it. In fact, I love Brainstorm, but what my feelings tell me and what the data tells me are definitely at odds.

There is no such thing as a brainstorm deck. There are decks that run brainstorm. Aluren is nothing like Delver which is nothing like Sneak N Show.

12-05-2014, 10:34 AM

And you didn't even fix it!

Anyway, of all the arguments for banning Brainstorm, "I don't hate the card, but I think it's really good" is probably the weakest. There are a few reasons, but the more popular reason is that there will always be a new "best" card that will see too much play. And there's also the consideration that Brainstorm isn't oppressive, which is a fact that counts for quite a bit. Stoneforge Mystic and Jace were stifling and oppressive. Affinity was stifling and oppressive. Cards have been banned and will be banned for a variety of valid reasons. From being oppressive to just being broken like Yawgmoth's Will. But "they were really good and we felt like it" has never been a justifiable reason. That's how the Survival of the Fittest we all lament over got banned, and it's the reason no one likes Modern.

You should have seen it before I edited it then, :laugh:

Then you do not understand what Brainstorm does, Brainstorm is not an answer to Brainstorm. Brainstorm + shuffle effect is the most popular answer to the problem of deck consistency. The other real option is deck redundancy which tends to leave you with less options in game, but a much more consistent deck that is faster because it does not need to waste as much resources fixing its hand. Brainstorm allows you to run a more varied and random deck with more answers at the cost of speed and consistency when you do not draw a Brainstorm. It means you are less likely to fold when thrown a curve ball.

I honestly wonder if we went back to the old Paris mulligan rules where the first one was free, how much would that help deck consistency, because the more consistent your deck is on its own, the less Brainstorm does for your list when you add it in.

The general answer to beat Brainstorm decks is to match their consistency. The best way to do that is to run Brainstorm.

Popularity is not a measure I would be willing to use to argue if a card is too powerful, is just a measurement to say that a card IS powerful.

The data doesn't show it as merely popular, it shows it as fundamentally more likely to top 8 a tournament. Now, if you want to make a case that this is because of it's popularity, you can do that, but you need to show how the data supports your premise. Mind you, I do believe that premise has some merit, but I feel there is more going on, but I can't prove it without data.

There is no such thing as a brainstorm deck. There are decks that run brainstorm. Aluren is nothing like Delver which is nothing like Sneak N Show.

OK, you got me, they are nothing alike, except they all run Brainstorm and some number of other Blue cards? :eyebrow: