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Don't you think it's kind of dramatic to suggest that the fate of an entire format rests on one card?Quote:
Originally Posted by JanoschEausH
If they ban Brainstorm one of a zillion other 1cc or 2cc blue cantrips will become next best and take it's place.
No other cantrips offers the same mix of card selection and card filtering though. do you know how shitty storm would be if you couldnt brainstorm to swap lands for other stuff to get hellbent, or how awkward control would be without the ability to protect 4-drops/counters from discard etc. Brainstorm, alongside Wasteland, and Force of Will, at least, are pretty much pillars of the format.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
I'd be interested what other pillars do we have. (If the pillars thing is even real.) Goyf? Maybe back in 2010.
Uhm, got it: Delver.
Storm is 3% of the meta right now according to mtgtop8.com. Hard to see how doing anything at all to them has a major impact on the meta.Quote:
Originally Posted by wonderPreaux
4-drops and counters get protected by counters. Brainstorm to hide a card from discard is the single factor that most invalidates discard as a playable archetype.
Look, Brainstorm is the every card. It does so many different things that you either play it or you play Elves, Burn or D&T at this point. That's not a healthy card in the meta. It shouldn't be available if it's an auto-include in most top 8 lists. That's exactly the type of card that WotC has always claimed they'd ban if it presented itself. Well, it's presented itself.
Just look at all the mechanics that are broken by Brainstorm.
Top of the deck (Delver, Miracles)
Shuffle effects (fetches, SFM)
Filling the graveyard (Delve, Goyf)
Spell triggers (Pyromancer, prowess, storm)
Discard defense
Whenever Wizards explores this kind of design space, Brainstorm will always be the best companion card. Treasure Cruise is ridiculous, but it's possible that both it and Brainstorm are broken.
The thing invalidating discard as an archetype is the fact that it's actively terrible. Pox has been around as an archetype for ages and has never generated more than a niche following or token performances despite being more oppressive than a pure discard deck. This happens because it has no way of pressing the positional advantage it generates, and by the time you change the deck enough to capitalize on your disruption, you're playing BUG, Deadguy, Jund, or Junk.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
As for this being an opportunity to ban Brainstorm, the only way you could conclude that the metagame shifts coinciding with the legality of Khans are cause to ban Brainstorm instead of Treasure Cruise is if you already had it out for Brainstorm. I'm opposed to bans in all but the most egregious circumstances on the principle that the banned list should be as small as possible while still differentiating Legacy for Vintage and Modern and having the format not fall apart from brokenness, but Treasure Cruise is severely broken, and my opinion hardens the more I'm playtesting for GP NJ. So many blue-deck matches come down to who resolves Cruise more, and the sudden surge in UR Delver is almost completely attributable to how good Cruise is at fueling Young Pyromancer and Monastery Swiftspear. The fact that it powers up the other blue archetypes is just icing on the cake.
I never liked Delver and wouldn't mind it being banned, so I can use my Flying Men again! However I seriously doubt it's ban worthy though.
Lets play a minigame. Find the broken card. 4 possible starting hands:Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
http://i.imgur.com/iIJ4SJZ.png
http://i.imgur.com/MaMl3Y5.png
http://i.imgur.com/OHV5STd.png
http://i.imgur.com/5vVcHZX.png
No the thing invalidating black as a core is pretty much brainstorm. Thoughtseize is a very strong card, and Cabal therapy too. If you weren't certain to whiff against blue decks 50% of the times, you'd see much more black around.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
No one is arguing for discard as the strategy of a deck, but as the supporting pillar, much like FoW + Daze are the supporting pillar of every blue strat that allow it to be good against everything.
Fixed that for you!Quote:
Originally Posted by MGB
I don't know how many people have actualy noticed but lately the core of blue decks isn't anymore 4 Brainstorm, 4 Force of Will. 3-4 Ponder is now in every blue deck too. This format is getting pretty damn stale when about 12-16 cards overlap in 70% of the meta...
Certainly Brainstorm is the most bannable card among those followed by Ponder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nielsie
Something will have to happen eventually. The alternative would be to print cheap draw hate cards.
Something like Notion Thief, Chains of Meph. , Spirit of the Labyrinth on steroids. Maybe an artifact for in the mold of Relic of Progenitus.
Relic of Card Draw Hate (1)
T - When target player draws a card that is not the first on his turn, he draws no card instead.
1 - Sacrifice Relic, target player can't draw cards this turn besides the first card. Draw a card.
Maybe add a static clause to it "players can't draw cards on their opponents turn" with some additional wording to prevent abusing otherwise symmetrical effects like Wheel of Fortune.
The problem with this idea is that to save a single card you'd hose what blue does in the normal course of business, which is to cantrip and draw extra cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quizzlemanizzle
Much better just to get rid of the card that is most abusive in that circumstance. It's not Treasure Cruise, because we already had 60-70% Brainstorm penetration before Treasure Cruise was printed. It's Brainstorm. That's what feeds the 60-70% blue meta in the final tables.
I think hosing blue card draw is better than banning stuff.
Black graveyard engines (core black ability) have many hate cards and nothing to fight through since WotC still has not managed to print cards that combat gy hate by for example putting exiled cards back into the GY.
The card draw hate they printed so far is just too fragile and in specific colors.
I like hate cards more since that shifts the powerlevel a little towards Jund or Team Italia and other non-blue strategies. Just banning Brainstorm for example would imo just result in the same decks still being on top just not playing Brainstorm.
The fact is that format needs hate cards in the worst way against blue. It's mindboggling to think how much saturation there is in the meta of Brainstorm/Ponder/Force of Will/Treasure Cruise but the hate cards you see that punish those cards in sideboard are very very few (Thalia, Spirit of the Lab, Notion Thief, Chains of M.)...
Also unban Black Vise and Mind Twist god damn it! Black Vise is perfectly reasonable and Mind Twist also and even got worse due to Treasure Cruise basically countering a big mind twist.
Harsh hate cards just make for miserable gameplay. Yay I resolved RIP I wons such skill wow. Is fun cackling once, gets old pretty fast. Then again, people play Show and Tell.
Or think about Dredge.
Banning brainstorm does very little to improve the internal inconsistencies of non-blue decks. Instead of un-mulligans and hiding cards from discard via BS, blue would use the second best cantrip (Preordain?) and still be miles ahead speaking of filtering for CQ and situational solutions. Until other colors get these tools which should be present in the game that wishes to be more than a Random Numbers contest, not much will change.
Inb4 "but blue would absorb those CQ effects" and "color balance doesn't matter". Why would blue absorb anything when it already has its own tools? And if the color balance is unimportant, then why it shouldn't be there?
Ok, blue part of color pie, blah, blah, color of trickeries, wutnot... The color pie is more than blurred in this moment in time, and in fact it maybe ceased to matter long time ago, at least ever since blue has everything.
But I worte this several times before and I'm not going to repeat myself again. The reasons why this situation sucks (be it price of blue duals, etc.) were already listed, moreover I'm starting to dislike how WotC are having fun of the players' base when they repeat the old mistakes (7/7 flying lifelink Yawgmoth's Bargain) and add absurd cards to the pool with a clear reasoning that "they're blue, that's what blue does" while other colors get jackshit so you're either limited to hatedecks, topdeck roulette, blue splash or semi-casual builds; elves will forgive.
Similar cards exist, e.g. Riftsweeper. Their weakness is that it's a hate against hate which is ridiculously crappy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quizzlemanizzle
SotL would have been so much better being a 2/2 with flash
Agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nielsie
Wouldn't the same cantrip mafia blue decks just all then play 4 of these? Furthering the inbreeding. This would be an auto include and would reduce deck building space from the ~48 cards down to ~44 cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quizzlemanizzle
The card holding all the insane 18 land mana bases, keeping targeted discard in the gutter, and providing unequalled ability to unmulligan almost any hand with a fetchland is brainstorm. It's power level is an order of magnitude higher than Cruise or Ponder, it's saturation is also double. Anyone calling for a Cruise ban and not Brainstorm is delusional or feels ban criteria shouldn't include 'Cards I like'.
#skillintensive #pillaroftheformat #formatstaple #reducesvariance #goplaymodern #everyonewouldquit #somethingnonsensicalaboutvintage
Captain Obvious? Doesn't die to -1/-1 effects like Golgari Charm, Electrickery, Zealous Persecution AND with an additional ability without costing more? It's like saying "damn! SFM would be better if it had shroud!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Nielsie
Hand 1 is a keeper since you'll either fill your yard enough to cruise or certainly find Brainstorm with that many Ponders. While you are doing all this you'll surely flip your 3/2 flyer for U.Quote:
Originally Posted by Humphrey
Hand 2 could be a keep on the draw. You'll see another card, and then hopefully get your Island and see 3 or 3+1 random from Ponder. On the play it still might be fine, since you play the cantrip mafia and only have to put like ~18 lands in your deck there's a good chance your Ponder shows you some gas. Maybe it shows you pitch magic and a card to setup Delver and you're fine with just giving that a go. You also have another fetch if the 3rd card on Ponder is poop.
Hand 3 is fucking fantastic since it has Brainstorm and 2 fetches. you get to Ancestral and maybe save an Ancestral for a couple of turns later oh ... and you get a flying 3/2 for U.
Hand 4 is fantastic also you are likely Cruising on the 3rd or 4th turn with a flipped delver.
In order of power
1) Brainstorm
2) Ponder
3) Delver
4) Cruise
Cruise is the biggest brick in your opener, the worst to have multiples of in your opener and is subject to graveyard disruption.
Misty. Just keeps comming :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Humphrey
Also how comes reading this thread often invokes in me an unparalleled urge to punch people?
Treasure Cruise just has incidental strength that makes it a powerful card turns three and four when you're most likely to cast it. The fact that you really invest nothing into turning each card in your graveyard into a colorless mana aside from playing cheap spells is what fuels its broken nature.
Sure, Brainstorm is powerful and always has been. It's also multifaceted and in the end is a strictly more powerful card than Cruise. People are just hungry to play Cruise because it's new, and while I get it that it's incredibly powerful, its popularity will fade slightly when folks adjust to beating strategies that splash it only for good measure. It doesn't fit in all decks the same way, which is why I kind of feel the madness will fade slightly after the GP.
I just don't think it's ban-worthy. Drawing three cards at sorcery-speed realistically on turns three or four - even for a single blue mana - just doesn't sell me on a ban. People thought the same thing about Griselbrand, and that's still here.
For me, personally, I think Show and Tell is easily the most broken card in Legacy no matter how symmetrical it may be. And it's still in the format.
#rektQuote:
Originally Posted by nedleeds
Misty x2, Delver x3, Brainstorm, and anything is better than all of those hands. Shoot, even Misty x2, Delver x3, Ponder, Treasure Cruise is still better than hand one, two, and three.Quote:
Originally Posted by Humphrey
isn't a lot of the rationale for banning brainstorm that W and/or G and/or B midrange can't compete? if you wanna ban cards to support other cards you like, i see no reason not to argue for keeping cards in the format to support other cards you like. i would miss being able to play combos that aren't all-ins like Dredge/Charbelcher, for instance. That reason why Brainstorm has such saturation is that it does contribute to many decks being playable, since most of the complaints are about Delver/Cruise decks, why take away the card that enables combo and control, as opposed to the literal flagship card (imo, Delver)Quote:
Originally Posted by nedleeds
if you want to ban something to stop the all-terrain blue concept, take their clock away. we've had the 1-mana draw-3 by turn 3/4 concept for a while in ancestral visions, cruise is just somewhat higher variance in that you can top-deck it, but otherwise it feels somewhat tame. As for Brainstorm, I would argue that it enables as many decktypes as it suppresses-by-opportunity-cost, and arguments for banning/keeping it would pretty much always boil down to what your personal vision of the metagame would look like, in other words, cards you like
I don't think this is true though. I do think Preordain would be the replacement for Brainstorm but it isn't half as powerful as Brainstorm is. You can't draw and keep multiple cards with it. You can't hide stuff on top of the library with it. You can't use it plus fetches to shuffle away trash for good stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer
I think the prospects of non-blue lists would go up dramatically with the banning of Brainstorm. I think they'd still be the best lists in Legacy for the most part but right now they're the Godzilla-stomping best lists and that would likely go away.
WotC has been completely disingenuous on what it is that they try to accomplish with the cards they print and the cards they ban. It's embarrassing at this point. They need better internal consistency than they've shown in the past.
WotC just don't care or is terrible at this format. Land Tax needed what, 3 years to come of the list and saw how much play? Grim monolith also needed a couple years iirc, and the worst thing is that whenever wotc unbanned one of those turds they'd rant on how good they are and how scared they are of their format-warping effect, all of this while they see play as 4 copies in the span of an year. And both Mind Twist and Vise are on the list, cards that would play an amount of play comparable to Mystic Snake in this format.
Well regardless I'm glad no one thinks Show and Tell is ban worthy anymore. Now lets hurry up and ban Brainstorm so the format can collapse.
I would LOVE to play 4x Black Vise against all this Treasure Cruise-fueled blue nonsense. But agree, it's pretty obvious they don't even pay attention to the format considering how many obvious unbans there are. Most of the cards on the list that aren't obvious Vintage brokenness are less busted than things we have available now anyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
Sure yeah, that's right. My point was that while BS is op, it still shines also because non-blue sucks hard in CQ dept. And that's the trouble, because you may ban BS and cut down the consistency of ex-BS decks, thus making the non-blue better postioned, but it still does very little about the fact that they'd still suck, although it won't be that glaring compared to the old, pre-ban Brainstorm decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
While making blue worse improves the metagame position of non-blue (I hope that no one chimes in with "color balance doesn't matter"), it still doesn't miraculously improve the "4x land, 2x KotR, 1x random" opening hands which are a pest to enjoy. In short: I'm all for consistency, as it's more funny to play the game than mull to oblivion or topdeck like crazy. And still, this isn't "give us non-blue Brainstorms", it's just me wondering why the concept of CQ/CA that seems to be extremely important in a game of variance and skill, is kinda limited to one color only, while the company designing the game clearly wants to sell all other remaining colors; insert something about marketing here.
Btw, while Twist and Vise are weak, and they might be unbanned right now, I'd much rather see SotF come off the list. Just please, don't do it before I purchase the set...
I'd also love to have Vise back, although I don't think it would do much against Cruise, at least in the UR deck. Every time I playtest with that deck Cruise ends up being part of a mini-combo turn to power Swagspear up to 4/5 and make a bunch of tokens and enable another cruise next turn.
Id probably play vise in delverdecks lol. This card provides random autowins like wasteland against slow hands.
Yeah, this. I just don't know what to cut from RUG, seems like either Mongoose (as it's slow) or Goyf (as it's expensive) or maybe some mix of them; Goyf's big (although cmc2 sucks) and Mongoose is hard to remove. I may always BS-shuffle away the one that's situationally inappropriate... d(-_-)bQuote:
Originally Posted by Humphrey
There's a chance that if any bans are put into motion, WotC would rather take out Brainstorm than a newer card like Cruise. While Cruise is certainly the topic du jour, let's not forget how slowly they move when it comes to Legacy. Removing Brainstorm from the format weakens the boogie-men archetypes of the format, while "dealing" with the problem at hand.
As for unbanning, the following are all safe candidates for removal:
Black Vise
Mind Twist
Earthcraft
All this said, we could just be in store for another year of ~nothing changing~
What's with this assumption that non-belcher/dredge combo decks would instantly implode and wither away from the face of the Earth the moment Brainstorm is gone? Other formats have had perfectly functional Brainstorm-less Storm decks over the years, shouldn't be impossible to construct a good Storm deck sans BS. Harder? Probably. Impossible. I highly doubt it. Also...Quote:
Originally Posted by wonderPreaux
*cough*
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...2556&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...1095&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...0529&type=card
*cough*
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...8193&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...5859&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...5241&type=card
*cough*
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...1559&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...3671&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...0027&type=card
I keep telling this to people that want Vise back. The chance that it would do anything good to the format is miniscule, chances are it'd either do nothing or be incorporated into Delver and make life hell for people. It's a risk for basically no probable benefit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Humphrey
They don't listen :/
Fixed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Humphrey
If blue tempo decks get everything good forever I only think it's fair that Necro gets unbanned.
There are no lists that consistently hold 5+ cards from turn to turn however that's only half the story with vise. The other half is play a vise and then wasteland and stifle you to death, which certainly would happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
You're right about UR Delver not caring about vise against it. Since they don't play wastes and stifles they probably wouldn't play it either.
If youre relying on a 4-of like SnT or Infernal Tutor or entomb, or other disproportionately powerful cards you want Brainstorm so as not to get sniped out by random Thoughtseizes. If you need a balance of certain pieces, say not-too-many lands for hellbent, or just enough untaps for High Tide, you need a way to adjust the balance. brainstorm-less combo is possible but not as viable unless all your cards are equally proportionately effective (elves), consistently interactive inherently (dredge) or built to go off t1 so as not to be vulnerable to drawing too many lands/fatties/rituals (belcher/oops).Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombie
combo decks like storm, reanimator, omni tell etc are held up by brainstorm to filter and protect the various pieces. you COULD try to play without them, but you suddenly start losing a lot of games to preventable circumstances like random topped discard, land flood/screw, etc.
*also, considering elves has a poor matchup against storm and a few other combo decks, and has as many silver-bullet hate cards as storm might face, its likely not the best example for you to start coughing up regarding the topic
Getting sniped out by random Thoughtseizes should be an element that everybody has to consider. It's not like Thoughtseize is unreasonably costed at 2 life plus black mana for a 1-for-1 trade. It's just one of the things that blue doesn't have to worry about most of the time due to Brainstorm.Quote:
Originally Posted by wonderPreaux