Stormcount 6 is pretty much deadly in a decent constructed Legacy Mind's Desire Storm deck. Believe me this
Unbanning Desire is stupid ... and I say this as a storm player
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Stormcount 6 is pretty much deadly in a decent constructed Legacy Mind's Desire Storm deck. Believe me this
Unbanning Desire is stupid ... and I say this as a storm player
I'd love to Desire into Eldrazi, Eldrazi, Progenitus, Iona, Grisly.
Heck, I'd love to Desire into 12 dragons as well. That and Dragonstrom would be a fun (casual) deck.
Are people discussing a potential unban of Mind's Desire?
Have you read the card!?
32/32 brainstorms at the invitational in the top-8. Move along everybody, nothing to see here.
I agree on moving along. Invitationals are basically useless as a datapoint for either the Standard or Legacy metagame because so much of what decided that Top 8 had absolutely nothing to do with what Legacy deck they were playing.Quote:
Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE
Yeah I wasn't paying enough attention to the tourney structure. Top8 isn't even legacy so it's pointless to look at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Seth
Ban Brainstorm unban Frantic Search. It's the only way.
I'd like Worldgorger Dragon added to the mix then for shits and giggles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quasim0ff
Well, you can at least shortcut Gorger or Penalty the player if he durdles. I'm not convinced the card presents still a problem for tournament play without Bazaar of Baghdad setting up the combo and filtering for the kill. Gorger plus Animate Dead is "just" infinite mana, if we ignore the remaining Problem of it forcing a draw unless you have a second creature in your graveyard to target. I'm sure the later still outweights the potential benefits of seeing it back legal. Forced draws are a no-go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuke is Good
I'm pretty sure Nuke had a Worldgorger Dragonstorm Desire hybrid in mind when thinking about WGD.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Wow. I think I'll build that just for fun. Multiple WGDs each removing everything all over again and again and again...
This is the 6 lists that went 8-0 or 7-1 at the invitational, for those complaining about lists and things from the invitational. Still somewhat irrelevant because of the structure.
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...decklists.html
Not sure if this is a thing really but I noticed this:
Maybe the circular discussions are ignored since we don't actually involve anyone who matters and because no sane person can spend very long in these threads.Quote:
fermtgbvb asked: I know you are not the person who is in charge of this, but isn't there any way we can "give feedback" or "contact" someone who is in charge of the B&R list? I feel like it should be a bidirectional decision and not unilateral, I believe players probably have most knowledge about eternal formats and should be listened to.
You can always send me emails through the link in my columns and I will pass them along to the people who make the decision. I will stress that those people very much listen to the public and are always interested to hear what the players think when deciding what to do.
To the people mocking my mention that combo decks could survive on looting effects; I:
A) Did not suggest banning brainstorm. FFS.
B) Am merely pointing out that Looting is one possible way to fix the issue *were it banned*. Certainly one can use other cantrips. IMO; a deck like Storm which already uses the grave could instead dump garbage in the bin; as could other resilient combos.
My argument is *solely* that combo can survive just fine with or without BS; as evidenced by Modern and Vintage if nothing else. I don't think Grave-hate would be any more effective on "Loot storm" than it would be on current storm, other than Loot Storm being more convenient to go the grave route. Storm would still have tutor/wish chains to get around the grave hate and keeping a hand based on a Tormod's Crypt sucks if you don't hate on the chain.
@PasterofMuppets
You misspelled your name. I think the mods can fix it.
For reanimator, loot gets a yes. For storm and the rest, it will be sensei (majority already run Ponder) since it digs deeper and card quality is important. If they ban Brainstorm, be prepared to face an inititial slew of storm and reanimator until people start overloading their sideboard with hate.
Edit:
Am I the only one who thinks U/R Delver is overpowered? They have the most agressive and undercosted beats, tons of direct damage, removal, and red blast against blue combo. I expect a rock, paper, scissors format of U/R Delver, Counterbalance and TNN-blade for a while.
I still feel that banning fetchlands is the best way to change the Legacy metagame, people would tell me I'm an idiot. I'm not saying it, but I will strongly imply it. Nerfs half of the modern Tempo shell without removing the core cards (like Brainstorm) from other strategies. Yes certain combo lists would take a hit too, but artifact lands are banned in Modern to stop from over-enabling Affinity. Fetchlands over-enable low-threat high-tempo decks by hitting two points of consistency at once.
"Paster" would imply that I paste muppets to things and wouldn't rhyme.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
There are a lot of people calling it "The best delver deck in the format", which.. I don't know. It's not good at what Delver is supposed to be good at (Disrupting combo) and it completely folds to Maverick as far as I've seen. The issue is that the deck is the SneakShow of Delver decks; I.E. you can pilot it with an uneven amount of mistakes/experience compared to it's cousin decks. It's more a Burn deck with better game against Delver and friends than it is a Delver deck; and as such is very linear and easy to use. My first go with it I was easily ~4-1 against an experienced RUG Delver pilot (who's gone to 9th at an SCG) and 2-0'd a Zombardment deck (who's gone Top8 a time or two) without having ever goldfished the deck once; in fact I think that day of practice was my first Legacy Brainstorm/FoW experience as well (which is to say; it's not my experience running blue decks that made UR Delver run smoothly.)Quote:
Originally Posted by death
This is all a long-winded way to say "UR Delver is Burn 2.0." The lines of play *can* be more complex (G2 against zombardment I had been stuck holding a trio of dazes over the game. I was way behind, but landed a second swiftspear, double-bolted while triple dazing my self and doing a clean 18 in a turn.) I think of it as a Burn deck that trades game against non-blue fair decks for game against Delver variants. I certainly don't consider it much better (if at all) against combo than Burn.
All that said, it's flipped the format a bunch because it is a smooth deck to run, beats up on Delvers, and has reasonable game against the field without as much of the stigma; countering it is paramount for decks to do and I think the field has scattered to deal with it and TC in general while combo is mopping up.
Citing hasty typos: The thinking man's argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pastorofmuppets
Good sir, I mean to imply that you mixed up the first letters of Metallica's CD name, Master of Puppets; which you clearly did not intend. Rightfully surprised you overlooked this I was merely suggesting you get a mod to fix your unfortunate name before too many people notice the egregious error. I hope we can remain best friends.
Perhaps he just sees it as his duty to bring forth the good word of Jim Henson to our felt friends?
I think UR Delver is kind of an affront to Delver as a whole. Granted, I hate the card, but UR these days is so far away from what the "Delver" deck does that I honestly feel it should be called "UR Pyro".
The thing is, the Delver name holds firm regardless of if it is deserved. The RUG list in Vintage is still called Delver even though it normally cuts one or two copies for other cards. So while Delver himself may not be the star of the show any longer, you can sell movie tickets on his cameo and advertising is better for it
Just a few comments. Don't take them too seriously as I haven't played much legacy in the last few months.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
I don't think the deck folds to Maverick. Specially when you play 2 chain lightnings main.
It's true that a resolved Thalia in the first couple of turns will ruin your day. But past that, I think the match is pretty even.
Also, I think that it's true UR Delver is bad at stopping combo, but only in game one. There are lots of sideboard options for games 2/3. Still, loosing game one is a biggie.
This.. so much truth in there.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
Also, trying to stay "on topic"..... Ban Delver.
I'ma do my best not to turn this into a wall of text. Bear with me.
7 years ago Legacy had a varied meta that had a wide range of lists in play, many of which were top tier or close to that. Tribal Aggro, Combo, Control of many sorts Straight Aggro were all represented in the meta and the cards they used to create the effects were wide and varied.
Tribal Aggro: Goblins, Merfolk, Affinity (well, artifacts are a tribe, sort of)
Combo: Belcher, Iggy Pop, Spanish Inquisition, Aggro Loam, High Tide
Control: The Rock, Landstill, Quinn, Stax, Enchantress,
Straight Aggro: Burn, Deadguy Ale, Tempo Threshold (yes it was very much an aggro list in 2007, like an unrefined Canadian Threshold), Dredge
All of these lists were capable of showing up and sweeping a tourney on the right day and all of them did. There was no best list in the meta and more importantly there was no best shell. There wasn't a group of 12 cards that you built around to have the best chance to win. Each of the lists above shared at most 4 to 8 common cards with the other lists in the archetype, with LED, StP and Lightning Bolt showing up at the top tables as often as Brainstorm did and usually not in the same lists with it.
This was a good meta to play in. It was balanced and while some lists (Goblins primarily) always threatened to become "the" best list none of them ever quite got there. You could dust off any of the lists above and make a 1 or 2 card change in it and you were likely playing something competitive on the day.
Today in place of that meta we have:
Combo: Elves, ANT, TES, S&T
Control: Miracles, Blade variants, D&T
Straight Aggro: Delver, Burn
I'm not going to differentiate Delver into the multiple lists that play it because they all share the same shell of 20+ cards alongside Delver. I will note that many Blade variants incorporate Delver as a win-con.
The point is that we're down from 15-20 (I know I missed some in 2007) tier 1 or near tier 1 lists to about 9 lists with some fudging for the Delver lists because most of them actually have 4 to 8 cards that are different than the common Delver shell.
In 2007 there were a half dozen lists, maybe a third of the tier 1 meta, that used Brainstorm and only 1 that incorporated anything like the blue shell as we know it now (that being early Tempo Threshold).
Today all top tier lists (apologies to MUD but it ain't top tier) but Elves, D&T and Burn incorporate Brainstorm and at least 12 other cards of the blue shell. The meta routinely produces 6 to 8 lists in the top 8 that include 4 Brainstorm and at least 8 other cards from the blue shell.
This is a horrific reality in today's Legacy environment. We've become compressed into very few playable lists outside the blue shell because the blue shell is too good at what it does. It has taken over the meta and squeezed out most of the archetypes that would otherwise be viable by replacing them with a blue shell variant of the archetype.
It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers only Brainstorm is the lead doppelganger and it's blue shell mob has taken down the crowd one by one.
7 years ago? You mean during the time counterbalance and Tarmogoyf ruled the format? I believe factual errors are evident within your post, sir.
Flames replaced. -zilla
It would be interesting to compare the percentages of blue decks now and then if we had data available from back then - because it certainly increased quite a bit from 52% before Delver to 70+% where we are now.
Has the format always been so heavily blue-centric (notwithstanding blue mistakes like Flash and MM) or has this been a rather recent development due to blue-related OP cards?
We have been bitching about it since almost the beginning (And the issue predates Legacy). Does that count?Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
This is total BS, the shares of those decks were not that high. Threshold made up a larger single percentage than any one deck does now. People raved about the health of the meta before TNN and it was 40% RUG and Jund.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
People complain about the penetration of blue in the format, but the difference now is that blue decks have enough easily-accessible hate to fight anti-blue decks like Dredge, Goblins, or Merfolk. I don't think it'd be too hard to bring decks like that back up to par. Even if they do make it there, however, blue decks with fetches for half their landbase with Brainstorm and Dig/Boat are practically running 50-card decks. Giving off-blue consistency is hard, and the only way to make up for it is threat density.
Or maybe Gobs should start running 8blast?
*tips fedora* We can be best friends, m'lady.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
I honestly think the two biggest offenders in the current metagame are TNN and treasure cruise (both happen to be recent blue cards) because both fundamentally break two of the pillars of the game: combat interaction and the fact that card advantage has to come at a reasonable cost (this is why ancestrall recall is fundamentally broken). I will admit that Delver and deathrite shaman might be in the same category because they are too cost effecient but they are are answered by almost every 1 cmc removal spells as well so Im ok with them.
TNN is just a horrible design: I would be surprised to find someone on the Source that actually enjoys playing with the card. TNN single handidly killed goblins and most midrange decks. TNN+ equipment is just womp..
Treasure cruise- the fact that I can sit down and watch one of the best miracles players in the world in Joe Losett lose back to back to U/R delver decks is just wrong. Miracles, A hard control deck with a card which normally destroys fast aggro decks in counterbalance, where ideally control > aggro, losing to U/R delver, which is one of the fastest aggro decks, shows me how overpowered treasure recall is...
I would gladly ban TNN and cruise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emo
Actually, there are people who genuinely like TNN. But then again, there are also people in the world who enjoy sex with donkeys... :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Emo
Completely agree on TNN.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emo
I'd argue having to run so much air in your deck and forcing yourself to cantrip poorly is a real cost to Cruise. Instead of casting ponders and brainstorms for optimization on their own, people are firing them off ASAP just to draw more of the same in hopes that cruise will get them above what a more patient cantripping deck can manipulate towards. Cantripping in Canadian Threshold or Storm is vastly different from UR delver.
Hell, most decks that are running 4x brainstorm/ponder/probe/cruise are forced to run most of the remaining slots as removal/reach + creatures. This leads them exceedingly vulnerable to combo decks or chalice archetypes. Whether or not this is enough of a cost depends on the format but I think this is fine for Legacy. I think we'll see the UR delver inbred forked bolt meta get taken advantage of so they have to start respecting combo to the point creature based strategies can't be easily bowled over.
It's a game of variance: Lossett didn't have it and his opponents both did. That doesn't mean Lossett didn't play worse overall or is a worse player or miracles is bad in the matchup or UR is overpowered for going against your preconceived notions of how the matchup usually unfolds. If you want a deterministic game where the better player always wins, magic isn't what you are looking for.Quote:
Treasure cruise- the fact that I can sit down and watch one of the best miracles players in the world in Joe Losett lose back to back to U/R delver decks is just wrong. Miracles, A hard control deck with a card which normally destroys fast aggro decks in counterbalance, where ideally control > aggro, losing to U/R delver, which is one of the fastest aggro decks, shows me how overpowered treasure recall is...
And enough of this rock, paper, scissors justifications, they aren't useful. Oversimplifying every possible collection of 75 into 3 neat boxes and saying everything in box A beats box B will only leave you frustrated. And anyway control lost to aggro, which lost to combo, which lost to control. Not aggro loses to control.
While I agree with you that TNN is bad card design, and Cruise is too strong, you are wrong. Gobs has been dead for a while, even though it seems every new card kills it. Mid range still exists, and is still good. Why should miracles get to just roll ur delver? Even if we simply magic to rock paper, scissors, aggro was always scissors to control's paper.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emo
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tammit67
Ok fair enough, I may have oversimplified the last argument by using the Joe Lossett example and the incoming criticism is due- My point is that treasure cruise alone makes aggressive strategies resilient to most control strategies, the ability to refill your hand for one U, undermines the whole idea of control slowly establishing incremental card advantage. I have now seen many instances where lands struggles and loses more often then not to delver strategies. I am not advocating some hard rock paper scissors lock, but the whole beauty behind magic and metagaming is that there has to be some weakness or downside to most strategies; treasure cruise really makes delver decks universally good by giving the most aggressive decks the most effective form of card advantage. The major downside to combo decks is hate, but now the major downside to aggressive decks is no longer running out of gas or reach: they are almost perfectly suited to fight every deck in the field G1, even maverick. I do agree with combo decks being able to handle U/R to some extent, but in SB matches these delver strategies easily can side in cards to make them favorited with flusterstorms and more counter magic to goldfish even harder.
p.s. My point is that treasure cruise seems too inherently powerful because it makes many decks too resilient-
Fetches, Brainstorm and Cruise are probably not okay to all be in the same format.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emo
other than the fact that TNN has the complete wrong color identity he's a good creature for the format. He should really be green imo or at the very least white. Green is the AGRO color... and yet all of its creatures are practically outclassed by TNN...Quote:
Originally Posted by Emo
people will just start running relic of progenitus main and not only will it kill cruise decks but it'll kill DRS, reanimator, and lands. Best part is that when you aren't playing against those decks it cantrips! so while treasure cruise is good, its really only good in decks that plan to cast it late game, or built to cast it early game because of fast spells. You can't just stick it anywhere. The cost of building your deck to be compatible with it is the reasonable cost. you can't really compare it to ancestral because its conditional. although its not a difficult condition its still conditional.
Legacy 2006 World Championships
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Mag...gacy06/welcome
183 lists
35 Goblins
20 Threshold
16 High Tide
12 White Weenie
12 Burninator
8 Deadguy
5 Survival
5 Aluren
4 Faerie Stompy
4 Iggy Pop
4 Affinity
4 Landstill
3 White Rock
3 R/G Beats
3 Salvager Games
29 Rogue lists undefined
Somewhere between 49 and 57 of the non-Rogue lists included a playset of Brainstorm, depending on whether Affinity and Faerie Stompy were playing the set or not. 20 Threshold, 16 High Tide, 5 Aluren, 4 Iggy Pop and 4 Landstill.
The final 4 included 8 Brainstorm in Threshold and High Tide. The other two who made it were Goblins and Deadguy.
Then Tarmogoyf was printed and by the Gen Con 2007 Championships Threshold was about half the field in the final 32. Why? Because Goblins couldn't get around Tarmogoyf reliably. The blue shell scooped him up and became half of the top 32. Why? Because the predictability of the blue shell made a cheap big beast with no other attributes one of the best cards in the game. The cheap big beast with no other attribures gave the blue shell it's spearhead.
Essentially every other development in Legacy since then has been an offshoot of that basic arrangement.
Or maybe this shows how insane was the printing of tarmogoyf at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
I don't know why, but people seems ok with insanely strong creature cards and always complain about enchantments or instants. Back in 2006 we could still play Survival, but after the printing of Vengevine people preferred to complain about the enchantment instead of the creature. As a result they killed the deck.
Today we have the same problem with Delver and Emrakul. People keep saying that Show and Tell shoud be banned because of Emrakul, but nobody have considered the ban of a 15/15 that also makes coffe for you... same could be said for Delver that is dominating the fields. I can't really see how bannig cards like brainstorm that actually gives many 1.5 decks a chance to survive would give more variety to the format.
Legacy dose not have broken cards like necropotence or yawgmoth bargain that need to be banned in order to made the format playabe. No, legacy needs a rebalance for his low cost/hig permforming creatures.
So, ban Emrakul, Vengevine, Delver, True-Name Nemesis and many other insane and cheap creatures that made so much relevant drawing a single stupid card in this format. And give us back cards like survival that without those insane creatures is just ok.
The big creatures that reanimator and SnT use wouldn't be much of a problem if it weren't so easy to circumvent the casting cost. And there's a whole library of big creatures that pay off with SnT like Grisselbrand, Progenitus, Darksteel Colossus, or Jin-Gitaxias.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spam
No, they won't. Never. People could have played Spell Snare, Pithing Needle or all forms of graveyard removal against Survival of the Fittest as well, but refused to run obvious metagame answers because of them being "narrow". They prefer ranting and bitching in forums so WotC removes their need for metagaming and bans cards in question.Quote:
Originally Posted by apple713
In other words Brainstorm is 50% of the metagame since 2006/2007 despite people claiming that in 2006/2007 the metagame was sooooooo healthy and diverse .... laughable as I mentioned many times before.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
You don't get the reasoning for the SotF ban, don't you? It's totally pointless if you ban Emrakul or Griselbrand if WotC keeps going with their creature power creep and the next absurd creature is right around the corner. We saw SFM replacing Tarmogoyf which replaced Werbear. We saw Griselbrand and Emrakul replacing Akroma and Spirit of the Night as the best cheat-into-plays. All you can do at this point is cutting the enablers, but banning S&T which is at least symmetric is kinda pointless if you have Sneak Attack, Through the Breach and Quicksilver Amulet as possible substitutes. We have the same problem with the blue cantrip shell. Bannings are pointless if you can only marginally weaken the broken archetype. All WotC can do is powering up the broken shells opponents ... and they suck doing soQuote:
Originally Posted by Spam
Brainstorm hinders the 1.5 lists in competition because it makes the tier 1 lists so strong and consistent that the 1.5 lists become either slow disruption, mid-range or 1-trick ponies by comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spam
Extreme consistency helps the strongest mix the most because it increases the chance the strong mix will jell and roll the field. The problem is that there's only one real method of achieving extreme consistency in Legacy and that is card draw and selection and with a few corner cases excepted the blue shell has the monopoly on card draw and selection.
In a blue meta do we want to somewhat enable 1.5 lists that are blue at the expense of preventing all but a few non-blue lists from joining the competition? Especially given that the tier 1.5 blue lists aren't really that good?
Deadguy is extremely consistent at disrupting and trying to manage the opponent's ability to play the game early on. It has a few consistency issues related to its disruption mechanisms often not being good in multiples in the opening hand and the need to play 4-of's to achieve its effect anyway. It has issues with Brainstorm being an overmaster spell against most of the best hand disruption effects it runs. This on top of the normal disruption of it's game plan that counters, in particular Daze and Force of Will, present.
In a meta dominated by the blue shell Deadguy's consistency is much less valuable because the blue shell basically overmasters it as a concept. RUG Canadian, which incorporates the blue shell, is superior in almost every way to Deadguy which does not.
Burn is extremely consistent at dealing damage early on in the game state. It has a few consistency issues related to land distribution and a few cards that represent the potential for damage (Price of Progress and Fireblast) but that can actually be problematic to get effective damage off of depending on the draw and what the opponent is playing. It has no draw or card selection to speak of because in order to get its effect into play consistently it needs damage spells that get cast each turn. There's no time for durdling around if you want to win on turn 4. Again, it has issues with Brainstorm in particular because the ability to dig deep for a counter on turn 3 or 4 when you're about to lose prevents some losses that would otherwise occur. It has issues with counters in general but those issues are aggravated by the ease with which the blue shell finds its answers. It has real issues after sideboarding because the blue shell always has a couple of cards to bring in to manage the damage. It's not much better than a 50/50 matchup game 1 because it really depends on the initial draw given that Burn has no good way to sort out bad draws whereas the blue shell is all about that.
Against combo Burn will often have issues and lose but in the absence of the blue shell the combo lists would have less consistency and Burn would win some off of the combo players inability to find his combo fast enough, a state of affairs that just doesn't exist right now with Brainstorm and Ponder helping out.
In a meta dominated by the blue shell Burn's consistency is much less valuable because the blue shell will turn almost every bad Burn draw into a loss and will occasionally pull out a win from it's own bad draws.
Aggro creature shells are a time-honored part of the meta. In this Legacy meta there is no R/G Beats list. Why? Because the blue shell has driven them all out of business. Combo has become too efficient at finding their wins early. Unlike Deadguy and Burn, Zoo has no really effective way to interact with very fast combo lists, summoning sickness prevents that and makes them a turn slow most of the time. RG Beats competed just fine with combo, although it wasn't a favorable matchup, until Brainstorm became part of almost every combo list, joined by Ponder and often Preordain also. Reanimator was a hellish matchup for Zoo, but again this was the blue shell gluing everything together to make it so fast that a simple aggro theme could not compete. Mystical Tutor got banned to try to fix part of the problem and Ponder just slid into the Reanimator lists as the replacement.
What were the targets for Reanimator that overmaster R/G Beats as concept? Blazing Archon, Empyrial Archangel, Inkwell Leviathan, Iona, Shield of Emeria and Sphinx of the Steel Wind. Not an Emrakul or Griselband in sight yet and R/G Beats was already dead courtesy of the blue shell.
Blue shell = OP against 90% of lists not running it.
Did you even read that post?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
32-37% of the non-rogue decks, with a worst case of 47% of the deck lists if 100% of Rogue decks played a set of Bs (which is extremly unlikely) if no where near BS being 50% of the field, the #'s suggest 40% or less, and in a format with that much mana fixing, ~40% is right where it should be if 2 color decks are the average.
Wouldn't that be like running MD RiPs right now? Or running MD SotLs? etc..? People *are* trying; the top 8's don't show it (much) because it doesn't matter if you have a 1-mana answer to said-thing if you could just run the thing yourself. The best way to counter something that's too powerful is to play something on the same power level; if the only things that are on the same tier are the same cards then you "have to" play that card. The Principle of Least Effort applies here. Why fight the uphill battle of trying to answer 1 mana cards with conditional 2-mana cards when you can simply play the same shell?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Further, these kinds of answer cards can't support your own deck's plan; rather they're simply trying to "gotcha" the opponent, but if you draw them at the wrong time they were not only weak against your previous opponents but they didn't do anything now either. If you simply run a coherent shell it works better. It's like running -1/-1 effects in the main. It's not terrible, but there are a number of decks and situations that just don't care. So you strengthen some subset of MUs while weakening every other.
What's more, the card in question is a card that allows you to get rid of dead cards; so if you see someone Chains-ing you; you may just BS in response to drop your garbage. It is easier (and more reliable) to simply copy the opponent at that point.
As an anecdote; I was trying 2 Chains for a while. Of course Murphy's Law applies and you fight D&T, D&T, Merfolk; or you don't draw it, or it just gets countered, or they already brainstormed, or you lose tempo, or you were already winning. The cards you suggest people play don't push you towards winning; they help keep your from losing; which means you still have to not only have the less consistent deck, but you have to draw better now that you're sporting do-nothing cards.
Except that BS is worlds more powerful than the other cantrips. That's the crux of the argument. No one is calling for a ban on Opt, Preordain, or Ponder; people are saying that the:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
-instant speed (there are no other U-cost dig 3s at instant speed)
-tuck effect (there are no other efficient tuck effects in the game)
are the problems. Digging three for U isn't the issue (in legacy) and never has been (in legacy.) The other cantrips don't do what BS does; because BS functions in several ways. You're playing ignorant of this fact and focusing on the part of the card that no one gives two hoots about.
The changes in the meta were brought by the printing of newer cards namely SFM, Terminus, Abrupt Decay, DRS, etc. The older aggro, aggro-control, and control strategies were simply outdated. Terminus rendered non-blue aggro obsolete. Miracles almost made ANT, Reanimator and Elves obsolete. Abrupt Decay made Dreadnought obsolete, Painter decks soon. People crying about Show and Tell being dumb do not understand why a few even choose to play the card at all, the CMC 3 means less vulnerability to being hit by Counterbalance. Reanimator needed Show and Tell against DRS by the way. Storm and Reanimator splashing green for Abrupt Decay just goes to show the impact Counterbalance has made. Ban Counterbalance?
Those saying Vengevine should have been banned are forgetting Recurring Nightmare and the Survival + Loyal Retainers combo. One card versus a dozen creatures added to the banned list seems more logical. Same reasoning why Mystical Tutor alone was banned. Show and Tell is bannable, but only if it consistently dominate majority of the top 8, like Survival did. Only then DCI will take a course of action. You will see more UR Delver/Jeskai Ascendancy in the following months in the top 8. Treasure Cruise is Ancestral Recall 2.0, courtesy of fetchlands and 0-1cc spells. It's that stupid.
I'll add that Treasure Cruise invalidates Hymn to Tourach, Liliana's discard ability, Jace's fateseal and Bob's draw engine.
You know what else RUG has that Deadguy doesn't? Nimble Mongoose (which is more resilient to spot removal than anything in Deadguy) and Tarmogoyf (which is better at being a beater than anything in Deadguy). Deadguy actually has great consistency tools in being a redundant deck, having Bob, and having SFM. The reason it's not widely run is that it can't run countermagic, and the discard from Deadguy is worse than D&T's better hatebear package against combo and is both less consistent and lower power than reducing the black to a splash and adding green for Goyf/KotR and playing Maverick.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
You're seriously complaining that Burn has consistency issues? Burn is the most consistent deck in the format. Even UR Delver or 4-Ponder Miracles can wind up with a do-nothing cantrip hand that takes a turn or two to straighten out. Burn just runs 40-41 almost-identical cards and 19-20 lands, and builds splashing blue for Treasure Cruise don't seem to be outperforming the mono-red versions. Brainstorm isn't what stops Burn from being a better deck (and it's already pretty good) - the inherent limitation of being minimally interactive is what hurts burn the most.Quote:
Burn is extremely consistent at dealing damage early on in the game state. It has a few consistency issues related to land distribution and a few cards that represent the potential for damage (Price of Progress and Fireblast) but that can actually be problematic to get effective damage off of depending on the draw and what the opponent is playing. It has no draw or card selection to speak of because in order to get its effect into play consistently it needs damage spells that get cast each turn. There's no time for durdling around if you want to win on turn 4. Again, it has issues with Brainstorm in particular because the ability to dig deep for a counter on turn 3 or 4 when you're about to lose prevents some losses that would otherwise occur. It has issues with counters in general but those issues are aggravated by the ease with which the blue shell finds its answers. It has real issues after sideboarding because the blue shell always has a couple of cards to bring in to manage the damage. It's not much better than a 50/50 matchup game 1 because it really depends on the initial draw given that Burn has no good way to sort out bad draws whereas the blue shell is all about that.
Against combo Burn will often have issues and lose but in the absence of the blue shell the combo lists would have less consistency and Burn would win some off of the combo players inability to find his combo fast enough, a state of affairs that just doesn't exist right now with Brainstorm and Ponder helping out.
In a meta dominated by the blue shell Burn's consistency is much less valuable because the blue shell will turn almost every bad Burn draw into a loss and will occasionally pull out a win from it's own bad draws.
You realize that mono-black or some Bxy Reanimator would kick the shit out of R/G Beats or Zoo just as well as UB Reanimator does, right? It would just run different consistency tools like Buried Alive, Read the Bones/Night's Whisper, Life from the Loam, or Gamble alongside things like Unburial Rites/LED or Dark Ritual and then have easy access to Abrupt Decay to fight DRS and Cage postboard. The blue cards make Reanimator better able to fight opposing countermagic and graveyard hate, but the difference between how well UB Reanimator and BX or Bxy Reanimator would beat even the most tuned dedicated beatdown deck is marginal at best.Quote:
Aggro creature shells are a time-honored part of the meta. In this Legacy meta there is no R/G Beats list. Why? Because the blue shell has driven them all out of business. Combo has become too efficient at finding their wins early. Unlike Deadguy and Burn, Zoo has no really effective way to interact with very fast combo lists, summoning sickness prevents that and makes them a turn slow most of the time. RG Beats competed just fine with combo, although it wasn't a favorable matchup, until Brainstorm became part of almost every combo list, joined by Ponder and often Preordain also. Reanimator was a hellish matchup for Zoo, but again this was the blue shell gluing everything together to make it so fast that a simple aggro theme could not compete. Mystical Tutor got banned to try to fix part of the problem and Ponder just slid into the Reanimator lists as the replacement.
What were the targets for Reanimator that overmaster R/G Beats as concept? Blazing Archon, Empyrial Archangel, Inkwell Leviathan, Iona, Shield of Emeria and Sphinx of the Steel Wind. Not an Emrakul or Griselband in sight yet and R/G Beats was already dead courtesy of the blue shell.
I think of everyone here, Lemnear is the least likely to feign ignorance of what Brainstorm can do that other cantrips can't. Even putting aside his (compelling) argument that the collateral damage to a Brainstorm ban is unacceptable, the fact that it won't even accomplish its desired goal of improving the relative positioning of nonblue decks pretty much invalidates arguments for a ban. The other factors that drive people to favor blue - not simply rolling over to combo most prominent among them - are still going to be present without Brainstorm, and decks running cantrips+Treasure Cruise are still going to be the most consistent decks. Brainstorm isn't the sine qua non or blue being the best color in Eternal formats; blue being at the top of the pile is an unavoidable consequence of the game's history.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin