IBA.
By default people can say what they like, they don't need you to talk for them. Also banning a card right after a hatebear was printed to answer it is foolish
Printable View
IBA.
By default people can say what they like, they don't need you to talk for them. Also banning a card right after a hatebear was printed to answer it is foolish
Except it has quickly become clear that said hatebear is actually pretty underwhelming. If it had flash, then we could talk again, but as it stands, it doesn't really get the job done, especially since D&T is pretty much the only deck that can run it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
When you toss an opinion out into the public domain, you lose the right to complain if that opinion is analyzed, both for its own literal content and for its implications.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Oh wait does someone actually think SoL is going to nerf Brainstorm? That's adorable.Quote:
Also banning a card right after a hatebear was printed to answer it is foolish
Did you know that that acronym has another meaning?
I will agree that if you speak you can be analysed. But that does not give any one the right to make blanket statements that flat disregard a wide range of discussion points and views. Analysis of a point and flat disregard of a point is far from the same thing.
I never said I thought Spirit would stop Brainstorm, my post simply said "Change has acurred, give it time." This is legacy, we let the format adjust here before banning cards here. Will Spirit do anything? Unlikely. Would it be right to give it no chance at all? No, that's not what we do in this format.
By the definition of how Wizards times its banned list announcement, there will always be change happening when changes to said list can occur.
I would say that if you think anything will alter the dominance of blue other than alterations to said list at this point, you are living in a fantasy world.
At least we agree on something. So do you really want Combo Winter-scale bannings of good Blue cards to reduce its dominance? Because I seriously think that that is what it will take. To start, I'd bet you'd need to hit Delver and TNN, and probably Brainstorm as well. And that's just the first round. Is this really what you want?
I am under no delusions that anything will change Blue from being the top dog. What I will argue is that the banning of Brainstorm is not going to do much to stop blue. With Ponder, Force, Stifle, Daze, Delver, SnT, etc still in the format, taking out Brainstorm will not do much to cut blue down at all. Yes I understand the amount of power that would be cut from blue with the banning, but that will not make any meaningful change overall.
The only way that the other colours will close the gap is with new printings. There is just too much of a difference between blue and everything else that the banning of one blue card, even if that card is Brainstorm, will not have much effective. I am not advocating for a Blue dominated format. I play Red and green. What I am advocating is a printing of new and powerful cards that help close the gap. But since I live in reality, I will take Spirit as a nice first step and see what comes next while not holding my breath.
I think you guys are underestimating how good brainstorm is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
How about we start with that and give it 6 months and reassess where we are.
Bans aren't only used to remove toxic cards from formats, but can also be applied to nerf certain stuff without making it completely unviable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Wizards isn't going to print cards in other colors that rival Brainstorm's power since BS is already off the charts. More card selection in other colors is nice and all, but cards rivaling BS aren't going happen (and blue decks would pick up said cards anyway, get the best use out of them and even further blue's dominance, like it happened every fucking time).
Hoping that Wizards cares enough about Legacy to release a volley of cards that make Brainstorming miserable in a reasonable timeframe to save the format from the blue tsunami sounds pretty lousy.
Holy shit I did not stay up til 7 am compiling the data for you assholes to just chuckle-fuck your way through the thread saying, "Hrmm, but maybe Brainstorm isn't the culprit, how can we know, how can anyone know anything hrm hrm hrm."
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
Oh I totally agree that what I explained was a pipe dream. But I do not think that there is much that can be done without taking an axe to half of blues much played cards. I would love to see more cards printed that raise the power of the other colours, not lower the biggest. But I can also understand that I may have a view that is not shared by others. Regardless it's my view. It's also one of the reasons I am looking at a 6 month break from playing the game each week and only playing at the big monthly events. Come back, reexamine the format and see if my opinions are still the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
Sometimes an outsiders viewpoint sees more than someone involved in a situation.
IBA: You would find your posts are more productive in getting your point across if you were not so abrasive. Right now, you give the impression that your a tool with a superiority complex. If you toned it down you would find yourself a respected member of this community since you seam to be intelligent enough to both make a point and defend it. If only you did not attack those that disagree with you. No offence meant, only making an observation here mate. You can do more around here, you just have to tone back on the aggression.
I don't understand how anyone seriously thought it would be an effective answer to brainstorm in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Rather than wholesale banning of blue cards, I'd really like to see them break blue's monopoly on the stack. That said, since they print mostly filler, it would take a long time for anything meaningful to show up.
This isn't what I'm saying (it might be what some other people are saying). My point, which was not as clear as it should've been, is that Brainstorm is on the rise because Blue is on the rise in general, and Brainstorm is Blue's best card and is run in nearly ever blue-based deck. So if a Top 8 is split BUG/SnS/Miracles/ANT/Blade Control/Lands/UWR Blade/UWR Delver, then BS is going to occupy a ton of slots no matter what. Now a Brainstorm ban may knock ANT or Sneak and Show out of contention, but other than that, do you not think that at least 1 Delver variant and 1 Blade variant would still be top-tier? Do you not think that Miracles would just switch to a 4 Top + card advantage engine and be almost as good, especially since its main competition also loses Brainstorm? What rises up into the combo slot? Jund? Has anything really changed unless the other blue cards are also banned?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
Staple != Broken.
IBA's data shows that Brainstorm is heavily used. What it does not show is whether this has a negative impact on the format.
IBA doesn't actually care so it's not a big deal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I think all this shows is that if one card being banned could piss the most people off by affecting they're decks it's brainstorm.
Ban Brainstorm, ban Delver, leave True Name-Nemisis.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
The writing is on the wall.Quote:
Originally Posted by ahg113
The issue was never blue. It's WotC. They don't care about Legacy nearly as much as the Source.
Can I, or can I not have nice things? When I play Legacy, will I forever be subject to listening to the blues? That would eventually make me so sad.Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
Step 1. Ban Brainstorm.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Face-roll with Belcher!
"Go play Modern if you want a blueless format HUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR!"Quote:
Originally Posted by ahg113
As soon as fast mana and ESG, LED, & B.Wish become Modern legal! #unbanChromeMox #unbanRiteofFlame #unbanSeethingSongQuote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
I love how Belcher is quoted as the format's boogeyman when it comes down to "Ban Brainstorm" discussions. This argument is zero merit:Quote:
Originally Posted by ahg113
FoW is still legal. If they go for the T1 kill on the play, only the FoW in your hand will help since you have no mana to cast Brainstorm. If you're on the play, Ponder and other cantrips can dig just as deep for FoW, if not deeper in Ponder's case. Can't dig for FoW in response to Belcher going off? God forbid somebody has to think through their lines of play instead of brainstorming in response like a trained monkey while claiming "Brainstorm takes skill".
Blue doesn't go suddenly extinct without Brainstorm and every deck has the option to run Mindbreak Trap in the sideboard if it considers Belcher a problem.
Just to clarify, you're saying a better business model is-Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
Step 1. Steal Underpants
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!
What exactly are you trying to clarify by quoting a South Park joke about stealing underpants?Quote:
Originally Posted by ahg113
That my Belcher comment is part of an ongoing joke to originate, the source material of which is an underpants joke from South Park.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
Belcher (non-blue) winning on turn 0 is bad, but with TES or AnT (blue'ish) winning turn 0 is ok. I got nothing really. I agree with you, just wanted to smile.
I however am a fan of clarified butter, or maybe just butter in general, delicious.
Blue doesn't go extinct. Control and Tempo go extinct. In their place, you have a Blue-based midranged deck that looks like Junk but with True-Name Nemesi.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
Despite all the BS discussion, TNN is the first card to go. That goes without question.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
I get that you think TNN is ruining the format, but it seems that you've expanded your rage to include all of the high quality blue cards. Is a "swing with my 5 creatures because control can't find enough answers" format really what you want?Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
BELCHER! #ftwQuote:
Originally Posted by btm10
For some reason, certain people seem to be on a crusade to end Blue's dominance in Legacy. As opposed to TNN, which most can agree is a poorly designed card for multiple reasons, the argument for banning Brainstorm mostly revolves around the arbitrary idea that we should want less Blue decks in the format simply because they are Blue.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
Brainstorm is probably the most egregious card for a particular format ever seen in the history of Magic. And that includes the Summer of Skullclamp. IT is, without a doubt, the single most powerful card in Legacy. There is literally nothing that comes close to the filtering that BS can do. TNN gets some splash hate, and Delver is probably the stupidest mistake that Wizards made, color-wise. This is my fundamanetal issue with the meta; that decks without BS must rely on having a ton of redundancy, whereas Blue decks can just shove BS, FoW and almost anything else and call it a day.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
I feel like there's almost no risk when playing Blue in Legacy, be it combo, control or aggro (with the only exception being Merfolk, who have other means of gaining card advantage), whereas there's considerable risk when you don't play Blue.
I don't think it's arbitrary to consider a healthy metagame one that doesn't involve 90% of decks requiring one specific color. If the culprit was one of the other four colors, the argument would be the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
I think you forgot about Necropotence. And unlike Necro and Skullclamp, Brainstorm isn't an engine card, it's a cantrip. An excellent cantrip, but it's still just that. Blue has had this ability forever, and banning Brainstorm is just going to lead people to run Opt, Portent, Serum Visions, Preordain, or Impulse in those slots. It will not fundamentally change the dominance of Blue as a color, because the third and worse string cantrips are still worth running when there isn't better manipulation available. I ask again - why do you want to make Legacy a format dominated by a bunch of mediocre creature-based strategies?Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkenslight
BS is a cantrip in the same way ancestral recall isn't cantrip: it isn't. BS WOULD be a cantrip if didn't actually draw you 3 and just peeked 3.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
So we have succesfully concluded that reducing variance in what most often amounts game of luck is a good thing in order to produce consistent results. Whilst I don't agree with the assesment that cutting brainstorm would "kill control" or whatever the rallying cry of the week amounts to, having the third option of decks with situationally useful cards held together by card selection makes for a more interesting game than one that only amounts to various implementations of goodstuff and non-interactive decks. At least the crowd harping for the ban of Force of Will had the actually valid argument of it being disproportionatly good in combo decks to fall back on after the usual tiresome tirade against ubiquity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkenslight
As for decks tending to look alike, that is probably more due to inertia than anything else. Between the large cardpool to build decks from, the unknown factor that is the opponents deck and virtually infinite amount of gamestates that can result between the two it's pretty much impossible to deduce what an optimal iteration of a magic deck looks like so people tend to go with what seem to have worked previously. Same reason why most pillar cards of the format generally needs a few months to pick up speed. Same reason why even Merfolk decks already running fetchlands still don't tend to include brainstorm. Same reason why "objective power level" (sic) of a card is a downright useless metric to gauge whether it should be included in a game or not.
I would consider a healthy metagame one that doesn't have 56 card decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
That's like complaining that a healthy metagame shouldn't be primarily decks with 20 land and 40 nonland cards. Or 60 in general. Why must all decks be 60 cards? Ban them!Quote:
Originally Posted by testing32
It's not at all like that. Wizards has for the 20+ years they've been running this game posited the stance that decks should vary from each other in their entirety. It is an entirely new thing to argue that decks should all start with 4x of the same card. When formats have come remotely close to being as dominated by one card as Legacy is by Brainstorm, bannings have ensued.
And Brainstorm involves a lot less skill in its execution than Ponder or Portent. What it does do is undo much of the penalty of previous bad decisions.
Brainstorm does reduce the amount that your current hand is determined by luck, but reducing luck is not the same as rewarding skill.
Is that... not what we have? In what way would these theoretical decks be more Junk-ish than, say, Esper Blade?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
Anyway, no, control and tempo do not need Brainstorm.
It is not arbitrary, it is precedent. There is an established precedent that the color wheel should be somewhat balanced within a metagame, that this is desirable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
"Heavily used" is a cute way of saying, "As close to absolute dominance as is realistically possible."Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
No, that has nothing to do with getting my point across, I get my point across with data and rhetorical reasoning. This is just something people say when they're feeling raw about how I'm talking to them in particular.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Oh golly gee I would thanks for the advice mister Dice_Box, join date March 2013.Quote:
Right now, you give the impression that your a tool with a superiority complex. If you toned it down you would find yourself a respected member of this community
Necro never achieved 90% that I'm aware.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
Those cards are laughably worse than Brainstorm, this is an invalidating argument.Quote:
banning Brainstorm is just going to lead people to run Opt, Portent, Serum Visions, Preordain, or Impulse in those slots.
GP Paris - No Brainstorm top 8
3rd - Painter
16th - Elves
21st - Painter
25th - Death and Taxes
29th - Dredge
34th - Elves
35th - Merfolk
39th - Elves
Maybe we can start doing what vintage champs does where you win a better prize if you aren't running power except we do it with brainstorm.