All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by JDK

Cutting it in half would assume they always have the turn 1 kill...

That's why I wrote:

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True, but it's the turn 1 kill that matters most in regards to Force of Will.

Of course, things get even more confusing when we consider that the replacement for Brainstorm would be either Preordain or Ponder (depending on if you're already playing Ponder), which digs as deep or even deeper than Brainstorm. It's difficult to evaluate how much that affects things, because while it deeps as deeply, you don't necessarily have as much information, i.e. knowing you need to get that Force of Will.

But the fact of the matter is that regardless of how one looks at it, it's actually a very small number of games that would be lost if not for Brainstorm being able to find the Force of Will, as it presumes you have Brainstorm, can cast Brainstorm, don't already have Force of Will, and aren't in a situation where using Ponder or Preordain to find the Force of Will instead would be tenable.

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Originally Posted by Admiral_Arzar

My point is that if WOTC wants to ban a card, one GP top 8 is all the justification they need (and a few games in the magic online practice room). Therefore, saying people are all up in arms about one GP top 8 as if that's not enough of a criteria is disingenuous.

On an unrelated note, I'm going to postulate (once again) that the solution to Legacy's staleness is to fix WOTC's recent mistakes. Sure, Brainstorm is busted and everyone knows it. When I started playing Legacy back in 2010, the format was only around 50% blue, as opposed to 70+ as it is today. Blue has always had the best spells, but historically had to play other colors for creatures. The reason blue dominance has increased by more than 20% in the last 4-5 years is largely because of creature printings. Delver of Secrets is the best aggressive one-drop ever printed, making tempo insane and traditional swarm aggro irrelevant. True-Name Nemesis is a horrible abortion of a card that belongs in an "Un" set, which continued Delver's work of giving blue the best creatures. Griselbrand isn't blue, but everyone knows that it really costs 2U. That guy turned a goofy tier two deck that occasionally got there into a format-oppressing monster that has not been anything less than tier one ever since (not to mention supercharging other A+B combo like Reanimator). Honestly, the only broken spell that's contributing to the delinquency of the format is Terminus. Ban those four cards, the shit hits the fan for a few months, and then I believe the format would be much more diverse and pleasant - all without touching any sacred cows.

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Thing is, Blue still does have to play other colors for creatures. What creature-based Brainstorm decks are there that aren't running non-Blue creatures? All of the Delver decks are running non-Blue creatures, Stone-Blade is running Stoneforge Mystic, BUG is running non-Blue creatures, etc. Blue decks still do play other colors for creatures. The only decks that don't that I can think of are Merfolk (which doesn't play Brainstorm and isn't that great) and Miracles (which isn't creature-based to begin with).

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Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Ponder made a huge difference in the evolution to the heavy blue shell meta also and Preordain is close enough that having Brainstorm plus either of the other 2 of them around is going to keep things deep blue.

If WotC really wanted to fix the format while maintaining Brainstorm they'd have to ditch Delver, TNN, Show and Tell, Terminus, Ponder and Preordain. That would knock the blue shell back hard enough that it was no longer the consensus choice as head and heels above the format.

Or they could just ditch Brainstorm and see what happens. I'd rather they did that first to see if we got back to the 50/50 meta or better.

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This x100000. Cantrips that don't have a high power level (Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand) aren't really worth running on their own as you need to chain together to have a semblance of variance reduction, while cantrips with high power levels (Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain) are not only extremely good on their own but when in harmony just outclass every other form of CA the game has to offer. Notice every list starts of with those 12 cantrips? They play to each other strengths. Out of that list I would like to see Delver off of it, because as much as I hate Delver I have just come to accept it as the next evolution of Threshold. Like Goyf pushed out the Bear, Delver pushed out the other crap.

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Originally Posted by Kanti

This x100000. Cantrips that don't have a high power level (Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand) aren't really worth running on their own as you need to chain together to have a semblance of variance reduction, while cantrips with high power levels (Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain) are not only extremely good on their own but when in harmony just outclass every other form of CA the game has to offer. Notice every list starts of with those 12 cantrips? They play to each other strengths. Out of that list I would like to see Delver off of it, because as much as I hate Delver I have just come to accept it as the next evolution of Threshold. Like Goyf pushed out the Bear, Delver pushed out the other crap.

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I would like to point out that most decks don't run Preordain. Brainstorm always, Ponder usually, Preordain much more rarely.

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Originally Posted by JDK

"Well, here’s how the games went: Someone played a land. Then the opponent did. Then someone attempted to impact the board. Then the opponent played some sort of disruption. Then there were more lands. Eventually someone had more business cards than their opponent had disruption and won. So diverse."

Spot the differences!

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Ho ho, you got me! #MightAsWellBanLands

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

Thing is, Blue still does have to play other colors for creatures. What creature-based Brainstorm decks are there that aren't running non-Blue creatures? All of the Delver decks are running non-Blue creatures, Stone-Blade is running Stoneforge Mystic, BUG is running non-Blue creatures, etc. Blue decks still do play other colors for creatures. The only decks that don't that I can think of are Merfolk (which doesn't play Brainstorm and isn't that great) and Miracles (which isn't creature-based to begin with).

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Right. In fact, if Delver wasn't blue, it's entirely possible the metagame would be even less "diverse."

People go to great lengths to tell you how strategically different BUG, RUG, UWR, and Grixis Delver are. But if Delver was red, there might not even be a BUG tempo deck.

Most of the arguments presented for Brainstorm apply to Necropotence as well. Can we have Necropotence legal in Legacy please? It's a fun and skill-testing card. It fuels different strategies and is incredibly fun.

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Originally Posted by maharis

Ho ho, you got me! #MightAsWellBanLands

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Originally Posted by HrishiQQ

Most of the arguments presented for Brainstorm apply to Necropotence as well. Can we have Necropotence legal in Legacy please? It's a fun and skill-testing card. It fuels different strategies and is incredibly fun.

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How about we ban false equivalencies, since we have the under-reach and the over-reach here. back-to-back, even

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Originally Posted by nedleeds

Seems pretty straight forward really. The frustrating part that makes it even more irritating is there are several bad cards still banned, and the most recent unbannings are not even played.

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You ignored my last post, so I'm going to ask again - do you not think it's obvious that Brainstorm exists in an area outside the normal banlist criteria? I like debate as much as the next person, and think that the banned list should be used to shake up the format with occasional bannings and unbannings, but it's pretty clear to me that Brainstorm will never be banned, and I can't see any point in arguing about why it should be.

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Originally Posted by sjmcc13

If anything it is an argument to keep brainstorm, because a deck with Fow and not Brainstorm is going to run more blue, and possibly more countermagic to compensate for the selection loss of losing brainstorm. leading to a bluer format.

Though why bother with this discussion, at this point it is almost all zealots arguing on both sides and not listening/considering the opinions of the other side.
If any card is The Problem with Legacy right now it is probably Delver. Legacy is a multi-color format the only real hindrance to making 3 color decks is the $ investment 4 color decks are easy enough to build as well. In a format where 3 colors is trivial the norm should be 2-3 color decks. Blue has historically been the best support color in Magic which leads to many of those 2 and 3 color decks running blue to support the decks strategy. This is most of what is referred to as the blue shell. Fow, BS, Ponder, etc are pretty much the best support cards in legacy.
Delver + the blue support spell list creates the core of a aggro/control deck type that invalidates to many aggro decks, and reduces the diversity of the format.

Fortunately this is not enough to make the decks all the same, as there is enough room to make the other colors used matter and this allows a BUG Delver to play allot differently from a RWU Delver list. even though they share a decent # of cards. However it is still causing the aggro archtype to be to focused on a single card, which is in the color that should be the weakest for aggro decks.

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Saying any single card is sitting on the format is silly, especially when the card you're blaming is a creature. Delver strategies are enabled by the same thing that has enabled non-Fish blue aggro-control strategies forever - the ability to substitute cheap library manipulation for lands. The fact that this approach is spreading to midrange and control when it used to be confined to aggro-control and combo is (I suspect) the cause of the most recent angst, and the biggest issue with new deckbuilding is that anything outside of the established deckbuilding paradigm is going to be too inconsistent to succeed or too light on either threats or disruption to have a reasonable chance against the field. There are a ton of decks that you can take to a tournament if you just want to smash aggro/tempo decks, or combo decks, or grindy midrange and control decks, but you're going to be giving up points against some portion of what you aren't targeting in order to achieve that with any sort of consistency.

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I think the source of the divide is a total lack of imagination among some players. Look at the imaginary “top 8” from the Brainstorm-less GP:
First of all, this vision where the format would go from 100% blue decks to arguably none (depending on your build of Post or Lands) is insane hyperbole. Right, we take Brainstorm out and all of a sudden blade and tempo and Show and Tell decks are COMPLETELY dead! Look at the strangling of format diversity!

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You took a very narrow part of that post completely out of context. The point wasn't that banning Brainstorm would turn the format into that (which I stated explicitly) but rather that due to the somewhat rock-paper-scissors nature of how different strategic archetypes interact in Magic there will always be an incentive to play 'the best combo deck' or 'the best control deck', and people will always be complaining that they can't have success with a worse version of whatever those decks are. Banning Brainstorm doesn't change this fact at all. Sure, it will make the current best decks look different (or become different decks entirely) but this isn't necessarily a positive or negative change.

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Whatever. Anyway, here’s what this view is missing: Currently, Brainstorm + fetchlands is SUCH an efficient draw engine that a deck that doesn’t play it is at a significant disadvantage. People play BG with U. They play Stoneforge Mystic with U (and only the extremely tight and metagamed list of D&T has any success as an exception). They play Cloudpost with U. They play Entomb and Reanimate with U. And before someone links me random decks that top 8’d without doing that, the point is that 76% of top decks play this engine. No one plays 2 Brainstorm for value, no one plays 4 Brainstorm and 0 fetchlands. When you start building or brewing a serious deck, the only place to begin is 4 Brainstorm, 8 U fetches.

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This isn't necessarily a problem when the 4 Brainstorm 8 Fetchlands beginning can lead you in many different (or at least a few distinct) directions, which I believe is the case currently.

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What is offensive is people saying that this represents “strategic diversity.” What they really mean is “Storm really needs Brainstorm, and it doesn’t win through the attack step, and even though 2/3 of cards in Alpha mention creatures or are creatures, I can’t bear the fact of actually using creatures to win a game.” That’s fine if that’s your opinion, but:

1) Your opinion doesn’t really matter when it comes to evaluating how busted a card is.

2) There might some other sort of Storm list that isn’t as reliant on Brainstorm to win that is more viable in a post-Brainstorm world.

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I can't discuss this paragraph because I have no idea what you are trying to say.

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3) Some people disagree on what represents strategic diversity. I played two matches the other night. I was on esper control and my opponents were on RUG Delver and Storm. So that’s combo, aggro, and control, right? Well, here’s how the games went: Someone played a land and cantripped. Then the opponent did. Then someone attempted to impact the board. Then the opponent played some sort of disruption. Then there were more cantrips. Eventually someone had more business cards than their opponent had disruption and won. So diverse.

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Literally any game of Magic can be described with this mundane, matter-of-fact language. Sans the word 'cantrip' you could be reporting on a game of Standard. That's only an important distinction if cantrips are inherently bad, which they aren't.

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And yes, this stifles the format. There hasn’t been a new archetype developed to any sort of success or fruition that didn’t play this engine since Zombardment, and that only had a few weeks in the sun before getting obliterated by Avacyn Restored’s white miracle cards and RTR’s printings of DRS and RIP. Any new card released has to work with the blue shell or it’s practically a blank. I’ll tell anyone that listens that Courser of Kruphix in a format with GSZ, Sylvan Library, and Top is actually ridiculous, but they don’t believe it. Why even bother trying to build a deck that has a long-term incremental plan to gain card advantage when I can just Brainstorm and fetch?

In such a huge card pool, there are probably tons of reasonably efficient draw engines that can be explored and fleshed out. This doesn’t have to be Modern where any efficient card selection/advantage is banned. Modern has lots of different problems that frankly don’t mean anything to whether or not Brainstorm is bannable in Legacy.

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Instead of saying that "Any new card released has to work with the blue shell or it’s practically a blank" it's much more honest to say that "any new card released has to be better or as good as 20 years worth of other printings for it to be playable". Surprisingly it isn't very difficult for a card to work in "the blue shell" because when mana is so good it's not difficult to construct your deck in a way that can support a 1 mana blue spell. If you want to use underplayed draw engines and 2/4s for 1GG then there is nothing right now stopping you from doing that. "This thing isn't as good as the best thing and therefore the best thing is too good" is not an argument.

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Anyway, without Brainstorm, cards that come up in this thread a lot like Grisly Salvage and Sylvan Library are less of a joke. Tax-Rack and Dark Confidant might be able to come back. For all we know the Necromancer’s Stockpile-Shambling Shell engine might be breakable. In addition, there are means of attrition that can be explored like Pox which right now is pretty much a non-starter because trying to resource-deny decks that are so good at drawing cards is almost impossible.

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Again, "this thing isn't as good as the best thing, therefore the best thing is too good" is not a valid argument.

Pox decks are very good against some Brainstorm decks but not others, because not all Brainstom decks function in the same way.

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I understand that Legacy card prices and GP attendance are high, and there’s an aspect of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But you know, I’d like to think we are better than that, and we can as a community see when something is out of control. We did that with Treasure Cruise, and there’s often a counterpoint that when a card gets out of control that it’s Wizards’ fault for power creep. But it’s always because the card slots into a Brainstorm-engine deck too well. Treasure Cruise. Delver of Secrets. Terminus. Griselbrand. Emrakul. And even from the OP of this thread: Tarmogoyf & Counterbalance. How did Vengevine get Survival banned but Delver didn’t get Brainstorm banned? People actually want to ban a French vanilla creature instead of a spell… that is insane! And if it would take the banning of Delver, Terminus, Griselbrand, and Counterbalance to make Legacy embrace other draw engines so that every match isn’t just cantrip-till-fundamental-turn, what’s the real message we’re sending to Wizards? Don’t push cards because it might break Brainstorm again?

This probably won’t convince anyone and I probably just wasted my time writing it. But maybe the draw engine view will help some people see why this is not about banning an innocuous cantrip like Formation, this is about banning a ridiculous card advantage engine like Yawgmoth’s Bargain.

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Cruise and Survival got banned because they pushed the format into a direction where one strategy was significantly more powerful than others.

If Memnite was a 20/20 people most people would agree that it would be ban-worthy, it doesn't matter what a card's type is. (Not trying to say Delver or Goyf are worth banning just that this line of reasoning doesn't make sense).

People are listening to you (I bothered to reply) but you're comparing Brainstorm to Bargain, are you really surprised that people aren't agreeing?

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How about we ban false equivalencies, since we have the under-reach and the over-reach here. back-to-back, even

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10/10

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

This isn't necessarily a problem when the 4 Brainstorm 8 Fetchlands beginning can lead you in many different (or at least a few distinct) directions, which I believe is the case currently.

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It is still a problem, as the format isn't as diverse nor deep as it could be. It's like the Necropotence analogy others are bringing up; there's lots of different ways to build around The Skull, but the resulting format wouldn't be as interesting as a Necro-free format. When one method of achieving consistency (be it through card advantage or selection) is clearly superior to the rest, the format stagnates. And this is what the Cantrip Cartel, particularly Brainstorm, does to Legacy; the best method of achieving consistency is clearly borne out by all the top 8s the Cartel completely swamps.

Compare the way Blue decks achieve consistency with non-Blue archetypes. Most of these decks have to build around specific card advantage/selection engines or mechanics. Things like Goblin Ringleader, Life From the Loam, the Dredge mechanic, Green Sun's Zenith, Entomb, Enchantress, etc. Some decks, like Merfolk or Burn, rely on pure redundancy to be consistent. But no matter how they achieve consistency, most all non-CantripCartel decks have some restrictions in how they build their deck, trading flexibility for consistency. You can't really jam Lighnting Bolt, Eidolon of the Great Revel, or Young Pyromancer into Goblins. Similarly, any card that can't be played (in some fashion) from the graveyard won't really fit in Dredge.

But U/x/y decks don't really have this problem. They can jam in whatever they want, to a point. U/x/y Tempo/Aggro decks are a collection of goodstuffs, tailored to the meta, kept together by cantrips and an extremely tight manabase (that likely wouldn't be feasible without the abundance of cantrips). The top-tier combo deck as of late, S&T builds, are basically a shell of Blue cantrips wrapped up with a A+B combo and a meta-specific protective package. Miracles pretty much lives and dies by the Cantrip Cartel. Imagine a format in which they couldn't easily place Terminus spells that ended up in hand into their library via the wonders of Brainstorm.

Going back to the Necro analogy, it's like Trix, Mono Black Control, or Knights of Stromgald Aggro; different strategies, same driving force behind everything. That might be acceptable to some folks, but don't begrudge others who want a better, more interesting format with lots of varied archetypes all running in more divergent manners.

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Originally Posted by nedleeds

WotC on Banned Cards:

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Cards are usually banned from play if they enable a deck or play style that heavily skews the play environment. What does that mean? If the card were legal, a competitive player either must be playing it, or must be specifically targeting it with his or her own strategies.

Some cards are banned because they have proven to simply be too powerful in their respective format. While hundreds of hours are spent rigorously playtesting sets before their release, the complexity of Magic makes it nearly impossible to accurately predict all the ways the new cards interact with older ones.

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Are you actually saying that you base your years long crying spree on that, particularly vague statement which explicitly doesn't state any strict ban criteria? Now how did that pan out for you?
I don't know when it all went super awkward, but I guess it's around the time when you started to imply that people are maindecking red blasts to counter Brainstorms.

I understand that it's difficult to let go of the idea that Brainstorm is a very playable card. What I don't understand is why that is a problem. It only makes sense if you read the above quote and leave out all the words that express conditionality and interpret them as absolutes.

It must be annoying as hell to lose all the time when your friends play Brainstorm and you don't but that has little to do with the card itself. There's no cantrip like Brainstorm but I really stuggle to see how a single support spell can raise such a shitstorm. This might be on the slippery side of the slope, but I can easily see people starting this same crusade when all good cantrips are nerfed and they realize that GSZ does somewhat the same thing in some decks.

I think there should be some radical changes to keep things intresting enough.
Unban many cards or ban many cards.


Unban many cards (you really think they are any better than Show and Tell?):
Survival of the Fittest
Goblin Recruiter
Black Vise
Necropotence
Oath of Druids

Ban many cards:
Show and Tell
Lion's Eye Diamond
True-Name Nemesis
Brainstorm

Feel free to flame.

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Originally Posted by maharis

Ho ho, you got me! #MightAsWellBanLands

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I am not sure, if you really didn't get the point, but I will gladly point it out to you:
The way you broke down a "boring" game to imply Brainstorm takes away diversity can be applied to any game, so the flaw in your "argument" is the lack of impact Brainstorm has on this.

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Originally Posted by Jamaican Zombie Legend

It is still a problem, as the format isn't as diverse nor deep as it could be. It's like the Necropotence analogy others are bringing up; there's lots of different ways to build around The Skull, but the resulting format wouldn't be as interesting as a Necro-free format. When one method of achieving consistency (be it through card advantage or selection) is clearly superior to the rest, the format stagnates. And this is what the Cantrip Cartel, particularly Brainstorm, does to Legacy; the best method of achieving consistency is clearly borne out by all the top 8s the Cartel completely swamps.

Compare the way Blue decks achieve consistency with non-Blue archetypes. Most of these decks have to build around specific card advantage/selection engines or mechanics. Things like Goblin Ringleader, Life From the Loam, the Dredge mechanic, Green Sun's Zenith, Entomb, Enchantress, etc. Some decks, like Merfolk or Burn, rely on pure redundancy to be consistent. But no matter how they achieve consistency, most all non-CantripCartel decks have some restrictions in how they build their deck, trading flexibility for consistency. You can't really jam Lighnting Bolt, Eidolon of the Great Revel, or Young Pyromancer into Goblins. Similarly, any card that can't be played (in some fashion) from the graveyard won't really fit in Dredge.

But U/x/y decks don't really have this problem. They can jam in whatever they want, to a point. U/x/y Tempo/Aggro decks are a collection of goodstuffs, tailored to the meta, kept together by cantrips and an extremely tight manabase (that likely wouldn't be feasible without the abundance of cantrips). The top-tier combo deck as of late, S&T builds, are basically a shell of Blue cantrips wrapped up with a A+B combo and a meta-specific protective package. Miracles pretty much lives and dies by the Cantrip Cartel. Imagine a format in which they couldn't easily place Terminus spells that ended up in hand into their library via the wonders of Brainstorm.

Going back to the Necro analogy, it's like Trix, Mono Black Control, or Knights of Stromgald Aggro; different strategies, same driving force behind everything. That might be acceptable to some folks, but don't begrudge others who want a better, more interesting format with lots of varied archetypes all running in more divergent manners.

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Well said, and cuts right to the heart of the matter.

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Originally Posted by btm10

I like debate as much as the next person, and think that the banned list should be used to shake up the format with occasional bannings and unbannings

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no, it should not

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Originally Posted by Teluin

no, it should not

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Care to supply a reason for that?

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Originally Posted by btm10

Care to supply a reason for that?

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Because Modern is a shit format and no one wants its awful core philosophies imposed on other formats?

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Originally Posted by iGrok

I would like to point out that most decks don't run Preordain. Brainstorm always, Ponder usually, Preordain much more rarely.

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Right, but nobody doubts that if Ponder or Brainstorm were banned alone that Preordain would become the go-to to keep the cantrip engine running and most likely as a 4-of in every list that ran it. In addition, the extremely consistent blue combo lists almost always run at least 3x Preordain already as their 9-11 cantrips.

If you want to knock the blue cantrip engine off of it's perch as the indisputable consistency engine that must be run in most serious lists then you have to remove the best cantrips, which are Brainstorm and Ponder. A cantrip engine that ran Preordain and Serum Visions or Thoughtscour as its main foci would be much less consistent and much less omnipresent in the meta. That's the point of the exercise: not to remove the blue cantrip shell entirely, just to bring it back to the meta to the point that other things can compete with it for consistency.

Of course what would happen in that event is that we'd get a GP top 8 with 20 Sylvan Libraries and WotC would immediately emergency ban Sylvan Library. Because, yes... That's how things really are. They should sweep the minders clean and start over. Fresh eyes, fresh world view.

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Originally Posted by iamajellydonut

Because Modern is a shit format and no one wants its awful core philosophies imposed on other formats?

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My only gripe with Modern is that the disruption is way too weak without Force and the cantrips are too unreliable. Not having to worry about facing the same metagame continuously is a feature, not a bug. I'm not saying the format should be nuked from orbit, but I'd be 100% ok with banning Brainstorm, or Top, or Goyf, or anything else if it was obviously going to be for a year or two.

Modern would be fine with about 3 reprints: Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares or Innocent Blood and Wasteland. That would give control a real counterspell to build around. It would give the format another real creature solution and make Lightning Bolt less ubiquitous in the process. It would stop the mid-range combo madness dead in it's tracks.

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Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Modern would be fine with about 3 reprints: Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares or Innocent Blood and Wasteland. That would give control a real counterspell to build around. It would give the format another real creature solution and make Lightning Bolt less ubiquitous in the process. It would stop the mid-range combo madness dead in it's tracks.

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Not so sure about Wasteland in a format with shitty duals, too oppressive. But agree on the rest. I'd play Modern for sure if I could play an actual, old-school control deck. I'd hate losing to some creature based combo like Twin.

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Originally Posted by Amon Amarth

I'd play Modern for sure if...

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All roads lead to a shitty ban list.

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Originally Posted by Amon Amarth

I'd play Modern for sure if I could play an actual, old-school control deck.

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Unfortunately Wizards seems to have decided that old school control decks are un-interactive and un-fun...

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Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Modern would be fine with about 3 reprints: Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares or Innocent Blood and Wasteland. That would give control a real counterspell to build around. It would give the format another real creature solution and make Lightning Bolt less ubiquitous in the process. It would stop the mid-range combo madness dead in it's tracks.

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Yeah, Modern really deserves Swords>Snapcaster Mage>Swords, or having every Abzan deck runs swords. No thanks. And to go back to the crappy discussion, I'll reiterate to ban Ponder and Preordain. Ponder is strong as hell, and Preordain would just take Ponders spot as it strong as hell as well. Having decks run x4 BS, x4 Serum Visions, x4 Sleight of Hand/Probe though, I can live with that. Things can compete with that. Yes, you could just ban Brainstorm as well, and have a bunch of sad people, including myself.

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Originally Posted by Kanti

Yeah, Modern really deserves Swords>Snapcaster Mage>Swords, or having every Abzan deck runs swords. No thanks. And to go back to the crappy discussion, I'll reiterate to ban Ponder and Preordain. Ponder is strong as hell, and Preordain would just take Ponders spot as it strong as hell as well. Having decks run x4 BS, x4 Serum Visions, x4 Sleight of Hand/Probe though, I can live with that. Things can compete with that. Yes, you could just ban Brainstorm as well, and have a bunch of sad people, including myself.

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I guess you need to be a bit ignorant to think that Serum Visions and Slight of Hand join Brainstorm rather than SDT. You take away Ponder and Preordain just to see it replaced with SDT. Period.

We have long passed the point where banning a cantrip or even two could break blues supreme card selection monopol. Even if you chop BS and Ponder, SDT+Preordain+Probe or Probe+Preordain+DigThroughTime just laught at non-blue card-selection

Regards the few Modern related posts.

Please make no statements over a format, which you obvious have never played (otherwise you wouldn't make such statements). Modern has its own problems, reprinting stuff like Wasteland, Swords and co doesn't solve those problems.

Greetings,
Kathal

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I guess you need to be a bit ignorant to think that Serum Visions and Slight of Hand join Brainstorm rather than SDT. You take away Ponder and Preordain just to see it replaced with SDT. Period.

We have long passed the point where banning a cantrip or even two could break blues supreme card selection monopol. Even if you chop BS and Ponder, SDT+Preordain+Probe or Probe+Preordain+DigThroughTime just laught at non-blue card-selection

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Do you think it would have been better to ban BS and Ponder in, say, 2010? (genuine question, not snark)

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Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Modern would be fine with about 3 reprints: Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares or Innocent Blood and Wasteland. That would give control a real counterspell to build around. It would give the format another real creature solution and make Lightning Bolt less ubiquitous in the process. It would stop the mid-range combo madness dead in it's tracks.

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Counterspell wouldn't magically make control good, because it has the same problem so many good cards for control have: Any boost control might get out of it would be negated by the boost Twin would get out of it. I'm not against Counterspell being in the format, but I don't see it as making control better than Twin.

Swords to Plowshares would be interesting, but again I don't think it's that real a benefit to control decks. It's not that much better than Path to Exile, though as a GR Tron player I'd be happy to see people playing it because I'd actually prefer people to be using that on my Wurmcoil Engines than Path to Exile.

Innocent Blood I agree with.

Wasteland is important in Legacy because otherwise the dual lands would have basically no drawback. In Modern, they all have built-in drawbacks, so Wasteland seems like too much. Though if it would mean they could unban Cloudpost and I'd be able to pay 12-Post in Modern, I'd personally be okay with it, though that doesn't necessarily mean it'd be good for the format.

I'm also not sure how any of this would "stop the mid-range combo madness dead in its tracks." As I noted, Twin wouldn't be made any worse by these (heck, it might become better), and Junk/Jund (the main midrange decks) would just play Wasteland themselves. Would actually help them to shore up the Tron matchup, which has always been an issue for them.

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Originally Posted by sjmcc13

Unfortunately Wizards seems to have decided that old school control decks are un-interactive and un-fun...

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Control decks have actually been pretty good in Standard for the last few years, the issue is that the cards that make it work in Standard don't really work very well in Modern. Sphinx's Revelation fueled UWx Control decks to a ridiculous degree for two years in Standard, but it's too slow to do much work in Modern.

I would unban Black Vise so fast. It would put a nice clock on control decks or decks that just sit back and wait to strike.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I guess you need to be a bit ignorant to think that Serum Visions and Slight of Hand join Brainstorm rather than SDT. You take away Ponder and Preordain just to see it replaced with SDT. Period.

We have long passed the point where banning a cantrip or even two could break blues supreme card selection monopol. Even if you chop BS and Ponder, SDT+Preordain+Probe or Probe+Preordain+DigThroughTime just laught at non-blue card-selection

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Takes the place of Sleight for sure. You can't just get too greedy though in a world with Dig through Time as that card will pick up the pieces as long as you are chaining cantrips into one another, which becomes a lot harder with SDT. Delver decks will also not be running Tops as it is too mana intensive, so yes, there are decks that would run Ponder or Preordains underpowered cousins. Dig through Time isn't a "cantrip" per say, as it's providing actual CA, so I woudn't class as a replacement to a banned Ponder/Preordain, but rather just accept that Dig though Time will come to be run by almost every deck running Brainstorm, fetchlands, and other cantrips, so it will come to be run by almost every deck (Ha!).

tl;dr Not really, as though a Probe/Scour/Sleight/Serum are individually weaker than SDT it helps feed DTT, which is ultimately stronger for a lot of strategies. More midrangey decks will opt to be using SDT and still run DTT, though.

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Originally Posted by Darkenslight

Do you think it would have been better to ban BS and Ponder in, say, 2010? (genuine question, not snark)

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I say that the powerlevel of Impulse and Brainstorm should have given WotC a clue about the potency of blue cantrips. They did not learn, printed a "fixed" Brainstorm in Ponder and later banned it + Brainstorm in Vintage just to print a "fixed" Ponder in Preordain and later banned it and Ponder in Modern. See a pattern? Mind we also got Probe and SDT at certain times between. They should have taken a second after the Vintage ban and think about their Road to Redundancy.

At this point, banning a certain cantrip to weaken the blue shell is as pointless as banning Lightning Bolt to weaken Burn.dec

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

At this point, banning a certain cantrip to weaken the blue shell is as pointless as banning Lightning Bolt to weaken Burn.dec

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Says the guy who cries that Storm would die without Brainstorm. :rolleyes:

Brainstorm provides a bunch of unique benefits the other good cantrips don't:

- instant speed
- protecting key cards from discard
- replacing chaff in hand with fresh cards

Thus the comparison is rather lacking. Without those benefits, it wouldn't be the sacred cow of the format to some people and blue would certainly get hit in terms of powerlevel without it, even if it's just replaced by Ponder and Preordain as the new cantrips of choice.

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Originally Posted by Barook

Says the guy who cries that Storm would die without Brainstorm. :rolleyes:

Brainstorm provides a bunch of unique benefits the other good cantrips don't:

- instant speed
- protecting key cards from discard
- replacing chaff in hand with fresh cards

Thus the comparison is rather lacking. Without those benefits, it wouldn't be the sacred cow of the format to some people and blue would certainly get hit in terms of powerlevel without it, even if it's just replaced by Ponder and Preordain as the new cantrips of choice.

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Pfff ... I'm able to build a storm deck which easily works without Brainstorm and said it before. Would help if you read peoples comments instead of putting them words into their mouth. I was talking about the variety of decks which would shrink if BS would be gone as Miracles, SneakShow, Aluren and a dozen other decks would possibly struggle to maintain their gameplan.

Keep your Captain Obvious to yourself. We can read the card. What about bringing some actual arguments that the card is harmful for compeditive play? I mean real arguments and not ones grounded on your own personal taste of how Legacy should look like. All I hear from the likes of you is the childish bullshit of "color equality" and "metagame is broke if Zoo/Goblins is unplayable" as if we're at a fucking Miss America Contest

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Originally Posted by Barook

Says the guy who cries that Storm would die without Brainstorm. :rolleyes:

Brainstorm provides a bunch of unique benefits the other good cantrips don't:

- instant speed
- protecting key cards from discard
- replacing chaff in hand with fresh cards

Thus the comparison is rather lacking. Without those benefits, it wouldn't be the sacred cow of the format to some people and blue would certainly get hit in terms of powerlevel without it, even if it's just replaced by Ponder and Preordain as the new cantrips of choice.

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Actually the instant speed is what makes brainstorm fair. If it was a sorcery people would misplay it far less often. :tongue: I'm kidding, but not at 100%. The point is that often you shouldn't cast brainstorm at instant speed, unless you really need it, because it reaches his maximum power level when it's cast at sorcery speed. So, for me the instant speed isn't what makes bs awesome. "Frankly the card is too good to be cast" wrote Sacher in an old article. A brainstorm with the right timing could be as good as ancestral recall.

I agree that the comparison brainstorm/bolt is lacking because the difference in power level between brainstorm/ponder is much bigger than the one between bolt/suboptimal-bolt.

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Originally Posted by frafen

I agree that the comparison brainstorm/bolt is lacking because the difference in power level between brainstorm/ponder is much bigger than the one between bolt/suboptimal-bolt.

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Congratz for missing the point completely. It's not about powerlevel but about redundancy of effects at this point.

Can we agree that SDT, Probe, DTT and Preordain are still much better variance-reducing-tools than Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library and all what would be achieved by banning BS and/or Ponder is making the powerlevel gap a bit smaller only? Does Zoo get a significantly better shot at winning against Blade.dec if the blue deck uses DTT+Probe+Preordain to filter for SFM/TNN rather than Brainstorm+Ponder? I consider the effect too marginal to cause a mayor shift in the metagame other than eradicating the decks what really rely on BS for their functionality, but all that has been said several times in this thread before

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Congratz for missing the point completely. It's not about powerlevel but about redundancy of effects at this point.

Can we agree that SDT, Probe, DTT and Preordain are still much better variance-reducing-tools than Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library and all what would be achieved by banning BS and/or Ponder is making the powerlevel gap a bit smaller only? Does Zoo get a significantly better shot at winning against Blade.dec if the blue deck uses DTT+Probe+Preordain to filter for SFM/TNN rather than Brainstorm+Ponder? I consider the effect too marginal to cause a mayor shift in the metagame other than eradicating the decks what really rely on BS for their functionality, but all that has been said several times in this thread before

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This is a ridiculous argument that insults the intelligence of the people you're asking to make the comparison.

Is a card quality/advantage device that draws a single card at sorcery speed worth as much as a card that draws three at instant speed and then returns two to the top of the library? Is a card quality/advantage device that takes 2 of the top seven at the cost of :u::u: plus 6 required cards in the graveyard worth as much as the card that lets you look at and potentially keep 3 off the top of the pile for just :u:?

Gitaxian Probe and Dig Through Time are both fine options and both broken in their own way but nether of them is close to Brainstorm's value and neither of them is as good at sorting as Ponder is.

Could you build a list that used the 3 cards above as your cantrips and win with it? Of course you could, but you couldn't win at the level you will with the two :u: cantrips that let you start sorting well on turn 1 and are instantly redeemable for a look at the top 3 or 4 of your pile whenever you draw them down the road.

Preordain is a wonderful cantrip but you only get to look at the top two cards of your library before you make the choice as to whether to blind draw the third. That's not close to Ponder's value.

Your attempts to make the difference between Brainstorm, Ponder and the rest of the pack trivial are insulting to anybody who has to read through them over and over again as you continue to try to fog the power level issues.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Congratz for missing the point completely. It's not about powerlevel but about redundancy of effects at this point.

Can we agree that SDT, Probe, DTT and Preordain are still much better variance-reducing-tools than Mirris Guile and Sylvan Library and all what would be achieved by banning BS and/or Ponder is making the powerlevel gap a bit smaller only? Does Zoo get a significantly better shot at winning against Blade.dec if the blue deck uses DTT+Probe+Preordain to filter for SFM/TNN rather than Brainstorm+Ponder? I consider the effect too marginal to cause a mayor shift in the metagame other than eradicating the decks what really rely on BS for their functionality, but all that has been said several times in this thread before

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I think that you can't speak of redundancy of effects without considering the power of those effects.

Yes, I agree that SDT, Probe, DTT and Preordain are better variance-reducing-tools than guile/library. It's what blue does, and it's right.
The ban of brainstorm shouldn't aim at reducing the gap between blue and non-blue variance-reducing-tools. Instead it should be aimed at reducing the power gap between blue and non-blue strategy.

You consider the effect af that ban too marginal, and I'm not saying that you couldn't be right. But I think that there is also the chance that you are undervaluing the hit that blue would take with the loss of 4x pseudo-ancestral recall.

Actually if I should bet on Zoo or on Blade.dec (with DTT+Probe+Preordain) I would choose Zoo. That cantrip configuration looks too weak.

No BS would also reduce a lot of OmniTell power , and Show and Tell in general as a strategy. Plus black would become a relevant support color again. But noo, let's argue about the fact that blue would still play ponder and preordain so it would be pointless. Remind me of those people who rather do nothing that try to do something good because of "moral integrity", bah.

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Originally Posted by Gheizen64

No BS would also reduce a lot of OmniTell power , and Show and Tell in general as a strategy. Plus black would become a relevant support color again. But noo, let's argue about the fact that blue would still play ponder and preordain so it would be pointless. Remind me of those people who rather do nothing that try to do something good because of "moral integrity", bah.

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Because not everyone agrees that the Banning of the card would be "Something Good". Moraltiy has nothing to do with that, its opinion. I myself would rather see a shorter ban list over a longer one. Unban things until there is nothing "Safe" left on that list and then come back to me with suggestions on what to ban.

Latest SCG top 8: 5 Jace control decks, 1 show and tell and 2 prison decks.

Edit: top 16: 8 Jace control decks, 1 show and tell, 2 tempo and 5 prison decks.

Dig Through Time confirmed insane? These delve cards have proven to be very strong indeed.