[Podcast] The Brainstorm Show episode 28: (Fatal) Push It

[Patrunkenphat7]

New episode is up; we discuss Fatal Push, various BUG brews, and blue cantrips.

http://www.thebrainstormshow.com/podcasts/episode-028-how-to-fatal-push-it-real-good-in-legacy/

[Quasim0ff]

About that Joe Cool shoutout?

[lordofthepit]

About that Joe Cool shoutout?

Wow it's like he doesn't even acknowledge Joe Cool.

[Patrunkenphat7]

We will give Joe Cool a shout-out if we receive a donation from either clergymen or Joe Cool himself.

[thefringthing]

Seriously un-Cool.

[LarsLeif]

Nice Standstill list. I've been playing almost an identical copy (and writing a lot about it in the UGBx Standstill thread here on thesource) for some time. :)

It does have some trouble against delver actually (more than you would believe by looking at the list), but agreed that it is strong.

[CabalTherapy]

New episode is up; we discuss Fatal Push, various BUG brews, and blue cantrips.

http://www.thebrainstormshow.com/podcasts/episode-028-how-to-fatal-push-it-real-good-in-legacy/

While I told a friend today that I don't listen to podcast, I thought about trying it out. Only listenend to your last part though since I am not that into
creature removal.
I am all in for making your last point about color balance a mendatory listen before anyone posts on the BR threads. Good job.

[ironclad8690]

Regarding the color pie discussion: it used to be that playing blue meant you had a better game vs combo, but it came at the cost of giving up points to creature based aggro and midrange decks. See zoo, dead guy ale, goblins, rg survival, etc.

Force of Will used to be much worse against these types of decks, you didn't have Jace or ancestral vision to bank on to recover the card advantage loss, and over the long game the non blue fair decks could somewhat reliably count on grinding out the natural predators of combo. This made for a fun metagame where the rock paper scissors was more like non-blue midrange/aggro (of which there were tons of viable strategies), tempo and control decks, and combo.

Contrast this with the top 32 of Louisville. The best aggressive decks and midrange decks are now blue, along with the best control and combo decks. This leads to a very homogenous set of cards being played, and less interesting gameplay, as games are often decided not by the construction of ones deck, but rather by one deck having a stronger draw of the same cards than the other.

People argue that decks like death and taxes or lands or 4c Loam are viable tier 1 options, but they all suffer from some truly horrendous matchups which always keep them from remaining at the top tables consistently, not to mention trump cards from their supposed "prey" (largely tnn).

Now, I have come to appreciate the intricacy of the current format, and I enjoy playing it. But it pales in comparison to the amount of fun I was having with Rg survival or zoo or junk or dead guy back then. I think that is the main gripe people have with the "blueness" of the current format. Maverick gave people a taste of the old days. Jund gave people a taste. D&t and 4c Loam continue to herald the flag of these types of decks in today's metagame. But they are all less viable than their older counterparts were at their peak.

Just my 0.02

Edit: really enjoy the podcast and the sick decks though. Keep up the good content!

[Zombie]

The points Wilson made feel like listening to "no the best card in the format for 12 years straight still being undisputedly so is fine guys" for the Nth time over. Logic aside, starting with "okay this concern is arbitrary and we'll toss it aside as irrelevant" is not exactly doing it favours? The argument basically boils down to wow skill, Brainstorm good, that's life. A bit tipsy as I am, it's nails on a chalkboard.

To put it in a way: Control deck and combo deck, give an engine. Lands and Elves, you get Loam and Glimpse+GSZ+Visionary. Both give you consistency, but the consistency engines themselves are both plainly different as in use different cards, but also have a very different texture to the basic play decisions that get made. Miracles and Storm are, despite being worlds different in some startegy category - stamping sense and really employing their Brokestorms differently in practice, still far, far more alike in the texture of their consistency plays than the two green examples given before.

It's not only about the balance of some assigned strategy categories - the game could be wildly balanced between a card that says "Opponent can never play anything ever (we have an academic win condition somewhere in the deck)", "If you have this card and another card in hand, you win" and "opponent can't play anything for three turns, ~CARDNAME deals 7 damage to each opponent when it enters the battlefield and every upkeep" and the format would be technically diverse but also just a miserable piece of shit where you lose the second your opponent resolves a card. That's kinda the Brainstorm problem: There are no consistency engines. There is The Holy Consistency Engine of Ultimate Skill and Diversity-Promotingness and that's it. It's just boring as shit, on that front. Calls to ban Brainstorm (Note: not every good cantrip ever printed) are pretty much on the grounds that the card is homogenizing and stone cold retarded and has been the best thing to do in the format for years and years and years and years and years on end and completely blatantly so - it's just a ridiculous card and way stronger than a good chunk of the Banned List. Preordain and Ponder are likely fine. They're far more in line with the raw strength of GSZ, Loam, Elves' engines, Zombie nonsense and sheer redundancy than Brainstorm is. It's an attempt to restore some kind of balance, not force everyone to play N_Land_X_Kavu.dec

Though I guess "It's a 100% human construct, it's not something tangible in the gameplay experience" says it all.

Human construct. Step your heartless EV machine game up, folks.

Screw getting to play different engines against each other, screw consistency feeling different from deck to deck.

Hail Skill.

Hail Brainstorm.



EDIT: I mean, Pauper's as goddamn Blue a format as it gets. Look at the top three decks:

Murasa Tron (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/558707)
Mono-U Delver (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/558706)
UB Flicker (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/558715)

Some others:
RG Tron (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/557977)
Kuldotha Tokens (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/558714)
Affinity (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/558712)

Diversity.
Of.
Engines.

[Spam]

Yes, YES!! Hail skill. Legacy is such a fun format for this exact reason: you play well, you win, with variance having still some impact.
On the other hand, take a look at modern, you will see how "Fun" is to loose to a topdeck to many times.

P.S.
Having 24567 different strategies doesn't equal a fun format.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Thanks for the great discussion on the thread. I want to clarify one thing - my point was specifically regarding game balance and Brainstorm's role in Legacy format balance, not necessarily the fun level or general health of the format with other factors taken into consideration. I feel "medium" on the format right now and do not like how good Mentor Miracles is in the hands of a competent pilot. That said, I think Fatal Push and Leovold have shaken things up a bit if you can stomach continuing to cast Brainstorms. I'll gladly battle any Miracles pilot with our BUGstill list.

The skill point - I'm not arguing for Brainstorm because it's some great skill-testing card by itself (although it can be) - I am saying that the way Legacy decks are constructed as a whole allows players to leverage skill more than any other Magic constructed format. If you take away blue cantrips and Force of Will like I hear others in the community suggesting then you get a more color-diverse format that plays similarly to Modern.

[meffeo]

Yes, YES!! Hail skill. Legacy is such a fun format for this exact reason: you play well, you win, with variance having still some impact.
On the other hand, take a look at modern, you will see how "Fun" is to loose to a topdeck to many times.

P.S.
Having 24567 different strategies doesn't equal a fun format.

Amen, bro.


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