Cantrip Theory

[Fallen_Empire]

This one goes out to all my U brethren, especially blue combo players.

Why isn't a deck stacked with intuitions and recalls better than a deck with brainstorms and ponders. With intuition you can directly fetch the cards you need every time, and recall can also pick up the cards that intuition put in your graveyard that you need I've been brewing and the combination of intuition and recall is very powerful, seems more focused than wishing the three top cards on your library are what you need, over and over again.

While intuition is well known, seems like recall is super underrated. Thoughts anyone?

[Koby]

Mana efficiency.

[Echelon]

B/c Brainstorm/Ponder cost 1 mana and Intuition/Recal (at least) 3..? And Legacy is a format where decks both have a small manabase and the tendency to run Wasteland or where turn 2 is their fundamental turn..?

[Dice_Box]

Have a look at the two Lands builds. One runs Gamble, the other Intuition. Both for more or less the same reason. Gamble is the weaker card, but the more widely played. The reason? The speed you can trigger it and follow up with the target of choice.

[Spam]

Card velocity is a reason, but keep in mind that effects like surgical extraction have pushed cards like intuition out from the format.
Being blown out by a surgical is no fun.

[Lemnear]

One word: Speed.

Its just as simple. Before you cast an Intuition for 3 mana, a player with Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain/GitaxianProbe fires 6 cantrips and has seen half of their deck to find their combo. On top of that you also get better landdrops, more disruption, etc

[rufus]

It's worth remembering that Brainstorm can find more than one card too.

[ESG]

With intuition you can directly fetch the cards you need every time, and recall can also pick up the cards that intuition put in your graveyard that you need I've been brewing and the combination of intuition and recall is very powerful, seems more focused than wishing the three top cards on your library are what you need, over and over again.

While intuition is well known, seems like recall is super underrated. Thoughts anyone?

Intuition works only if you have three or more copies of the card you want to tutor up, or if you have functional equivalents, such as three removal spells equally good in the situation. The graveyard is a common zone to be attacked, so it's not great to rely on recursion to get you there. Can you give us more insight into your testing? What are you playing against, and have you tested your brew in some live events?

[thecrav]

Have a look at the two Lands builds. One runs Gamble, the other Intuition. Both for more or less the same reason. Gamble is the weaker card, but the more widely played. The reason? The speed you can trigger it and follow up with the target of choice.

Not just casting cost but ease of that casting cost. Intuition requires that you add Blue to the Deck. Lands already wants to play Red for Punishing Fire, so there's no additional pain to the manabase to play Gamble.

[Megadeus]

I mean up until turbo marit lage was the plan lands played 2-3 intuition and 0 gamble fairly frequently

[nedleeds]

Tempo, value, where you wanna be, theorycrafting and flexslots.

[slave]

brainstorm protects from discard


....worth mentioning

[Lemnear]

brainstorm protects from discard


....worth mentioning

Which implies that the wielder of the discard Spell had no reason to cast it other than as a value play. It's not that brainstorming in response to a discard Spell is without doubt

[Fallen_Empire]

Intuition works only if you have three or more copies of the card you want to tutor up, or if you have functional equivalents, such as three removal spells equally good in the situation. The graveyard is a common zone to be attacked, so it's not great to rely on recursion to get you there. Can you give us more insight into your testing? What are you playing against, and have you tested your brew in some live events?

I haven't been able to play locally but I am planning on it when I get some time away from work. I'm also fairly new to the legacy scene after a 10 year magic hiatus. Call me crazy but I really am committed to building a workable mono-blue painter deck. I've been net-decking and in doing so have had a lot of issues with sneak and show match-ups. Having to deal with Emrakul time and again got me thinking that a solution would be to mill myself and go some type of laboratory maniac route, either with thought lash (which can keep you alive a few more turns against 15/15's ) or with temple bell main deck. *There are other cards like leveler that can drain the library. Temple bell is good because it can trigger the draw when the library is empty without having to wait until my next draw step, or force my opponent to draw when their whole deck it milled and Emrakul's abilities are on the stack.

The problem with relaying on the self mill as a win condition is that there are only 4 copies of Laboratory Maniac in the deck, and they are hard to defend. This is where I feel intuition has its place: to fetch the manaic, grindstone, or even the painter when needed. Blue does not have to my knowledge a lot of help to bring creatures back from the graveyard. I can only think of controvert- which is 4 mana and sucks because the creature has to have been in play, recall, and wait for it... Triassic Egg. I really like Recall because with Intuition I get access to the Maniac, if it gets countered or abrupt decayed I can still bring it back. Not only that but now I can go get all the sideboard hate aka ensnaring bridge. 3 mana is probably a lot for legacy but I'm running lots of sol lands and lotus petals.

Hat tip to the guy who mentioned surgical extraction, way to crush dreams bro.

[ESG]

I haven't been able to play locally but I am planning on it when I get some time away from work. I'm also fairly new to the legacy scene after a 10 year magic hiatus. Call me crazy but I really am committed to building a workable mono-blue painter deck. I've been net-decking and in doing so have had a lot of issues with sneak and show match-ups. ....

OK, this is diverging from the thrust of the original post and is turning into deck development. You might try Noxious Revival, which could replace a copy in your Intuition pile and would still be playable in an all-blue deck. I think that would be faster than Recall. You might also want to peruse the Skilled Maniac thread in the New and Developmental section, since that deck runs Laboratory Maniac and Thought Lash: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28272-Deck-Skilled-Maniac

Since you are in Seattle, I recommend coming by Card Kingdom on Monday and/or Mox Boarding House on Thursday to try out your brew in competition. You'll learn a lot about the format by playing live matches, and I think some of the Legacy veterans can give you more advice on card choices, etc.

[T-101]

The big thing is cost. 3 is a hell of a lot in Legacy. If you aren't playing fast mana, you could easily be dead before you even attempt to cast something that costs 3. Lets say you do survive to cast it, now you have to resolve it. Daze, Force, Spell Pierce, and others will punish you for using your whole turn to try to cast it.

You mentioned you haven't played much Legacy. I suggest you play several games with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and 8 fetchlands. You might not believe that Brainstorm and Ponder will get the job done, but after you try it, you might believe it.

[rufus]

...
You mentioned you haven't played much Legacy. I suggest you play several games with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and 8 fetchlands. You might not believe that Brainstorm and Ponder will get the job done, but after you try it, you might believe it.

And remember brainstorm/ponder *BEFORE* fetching.