All B/R update speculation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner

Honestly? Delver should have never had flying as efficient as it is. Color really doesnt matter except in terms of the card pool available to supplement it, but an evasive 3 power 1 drop in any color means that most spot removal cant trade favorably with it, and most legacy playble 1 drops cant block it. This then means that the possibility of them overextending into a terminus or other sweeper unlikely.

As someone who defended TNN's right to remain unbanned, I should say that Delver comes down two turns earlier with the same power once flipped, and typically TNN is rarely the only creature on the board, making sweepers much more viable.

---

TNN has no right to anything, except getting burned at the stake. At least I can point any removal ever at Delver and it will die.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zombie

TNN has no right to anything, except getting burned at the stake. At least I can point any removal ever at Delver and it will die.

---

Not all removal has to be pointed... There are plenty of answers for it, some coincidentally also working well against decks like Elves! and UR Delver, which is seeing a lot of play at the moment.

TNN never has been nor ever will be a big problem - it's still only a creature. Put it in front of a Moat and it weeps. Is it a silly card? Yes. Is it overpowered? No, not by a long shot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zombie

TNN has no right to anything, except getting burned at the stake. At least I can point any removal ever at Delver and it will die.

---

By that logic, Nimble Mongoose should have been banned a long time ago.

Sure Delver dies to most things, but it is never a favorable tempo advantage for the one removing the delver. Combine this with the fact that Delver cannot be blocked efficiently either (best options for trading/walling it are at least 2 cmc) means that riding a single Delver to victory isnt exactly unfeasible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zombie

Uh. Brainstorm is an indicator of the format's blueness.

---

Is the idea behind this thinking that format should be 20% of each color, or ~17% if you count artifacts in? If not, I don't get it. If yes, I don't get it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zombie

1. Brainstorm itself. The card is busted.

---

Agreed. I wouldn't expect less from eternal staples.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zombie

2. Brainstorm's strength and versatility encourages everyone to play blue. This is a problem because of the starkly limited supply of blue lands and because ubiquitous cantrip shells homogenizes play patterns a ton.

---

People want to play strong decks, I get it. I just don't see it as a problem and I haven't seen anything mature or credible that states otherwise.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zombie

3. Brainstorm actively counteracts things like discard that could traditionally be used by other colors to offset blue's consistency advantage for no real investment and enables pretty disgusting unmulligans that weaker card selection spells like Ponder, Preordain and GSZ just can't, or are way slower or more conditional to do (Ancestral, Confidant, Elves' draw engines).

---

Sure. I guess there are many, many powerful cards out there and some of them just happen to be the best at their jobs. Since it's legacy we are talking about here, I don't know what to say to that. Cards are powerful, broken even, but it's hard to say that about a cantrip even when it's a really good cantrip.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hopo

Is the idea behind this thinking that format should be 20% of each color, or ~17% if you count artifacts in? If not, I don't get it. If yes, I don't get it.


Agreed. I wouldn't expect less from eternal staples.


People want to play strong decks, I get it. I just don't see it as a problem and I haven't seen anything mature or credible that states otherwise.



Sure. I guess there are many, many powerful cards out there and some of them just happen to be the best at their jobs. Since it's legacy we are talking about here, I don't know what to say to that. Cards are powerful, broken even, but it's hard to say that about a cantrip even when it's a really good cantrip.

---

When you think about it this way, why ban anything? Why do we have a banlist? Unban the whole thing because where do you draw the line? Obviously nowhere...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hopo

Is the idea behind this thinking that format should be 20% of each color, or ~17% if you count artifacts in? If not, I don't get it. If yes, I don't get it.


Agreed. I wouldn't expect less from eternal staples.


People want to play strong decks, I get it. I just don't see it as a problem and I haven't seen anything mature or credible that states otherwise.



Sure. I guess there are many, many powerful cards out there and some of them just happen to be the best at their jobs. Since it's legacy we are talking about here, I don't know what to say to that. Cards are powerful, broken even, but it's hard to say that about a cantrip even when it's a really good cantrip.

---

Except it isn't a cantrip but essentially a :

- draw 3 if u have a fetch
- activate miracle engine
- activate delver engine
- dodge discard engine
- free mulligan engine
- shuffle bombs back into deck engine (relevant with entomb and Oath) + activate counterbalance in a pinch

Ponder, the next best thing there is can do maybe 2 of those things (aka activate delver and miracle), while increasing consistency (dig 3 deep as BS) but is nowhere as good as brainstorm at doing those things AND STILL SEE PLAY AS 4-OF IN MOST BLUE DECKS.
But hey it's a cantrip! Yes, demonic tutor is a cantrip too by that definition then.

Same shit, different day. Same lame tired arguments for why brainstorm isn't bannable. #ItMakesLegacyFun #SkillIntensive

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nielsie

When you think about it this way, why ban anything? Why do we have a banlist? Unban the whole thing because where do you draw the line? Obviously nowhere...

---

This. And the Demonic Tutor quote too...

Look, I'm all for consistency, and I dislike topdeck wars, mulligans to three and all other stuff that BS prevents, but I cannot understand why people cannot see that BS is level above all other cantrips in Legacy. This isn't "ban BS" argument, in fact I got mixed opinion on the card, as I like to play with (the set of) it, but I cannot be blind to its power.

Enter "blue chokehold" and "price of duals" and all usual things right here...

No one is arguing for even color split. Combo is going to need cantrips to find pieces and control is naturally going to be blue because of counters. But, aggro and midrange being blue too is bullshit.

Current top 8 decks:
1º Miracle Control
2º UR Burn
3º DeathBlade
4º Team America
5º Elves
6º Patriot
7º Reanimator
8º OmniTell

I'd want to see top 8 decks like this:
1º Miracle Control
2º UR Burn
3º Jund
4º Goblins
5º Elves
6º Death and Taxes
7º Reanimator
8º ANT

I don't want to be forced to play one color and 8/12 specific cards to win.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hopo

Is the idea behind this thinking that format should be 20% of each color, or ~17% if you count artifacts in? If not, I don't get it. If yes, I don't get it.

---

Nobody claims that the format should be a perfect 20% of each color. That's just unrealistic. But 76+% of the format being blue isn't healthy.

Wizards banned Mental Misstep for exactly that reason:

Quote:

---

R&D wanted a card that could help fight combination decks, and could also fight blue decks by countering cards such as Brainstorm. Clearly printing a card like this has a lot of risk, but there is also the potential for helping the format a lot. The risk is mitigated, because if it turns out poorly, the DCI can ban the card.

Unfortunately, it turned out poorly. Looking at high-level tournaments, instead of results having blue and nonblue decks playing Mental Misstep, there are more blue decks than ever. The DCI is banning Mental Misstep, with the hopes of restoring the more diverse metagame that existed prior to the printing of Mental Misstep.

---

The two reasons they banned MM were:
1) It makes the meta too blue - except Brainstorm is one of the main reasons the current meta is even more blue than during the Mental Misstep era.
2) It goes into every deck, no matter the type - again, the same applies to Brainstorm. It does currently see play in a higher percentage of the meta than MM ever did, and as a full 4-of at that.

And that doesn't take into account how busted the card is.

Again, you can bump that up to the complete Delver + FoW + Daze + Brainstorm + Ponder-shell.

Add in at least 14 assorted fetch & duals/basics and you've got 34 set-in-stone cards of over 50% of the decks out there. Looks healthy *cough*.

Or cut Delver and get 30 set-in-stone cards in over 70% of the current meta, lol. And yes, this is me saying that that entire shell should be banned, perhaps along Delver - just to stir things up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Echelon

Again, you can bump that up to the complete Delver + FoW + Daze + Brainstorm + Ponder-shell.

Add in at least 14 assorted fetch & duals/basics and you've got 34 set-in-stone cards of over 50% of the decks out there. Looks healthy *cough*.

Or cut Delver and get 30 set-in-stone cards in over 70% of the current meta, lol. And yes, this is me saying that that entire shell should be banned, perhaps along Delver - just to stir things up.

---

Banning FoW + Daze, unlike a Brainstorm ban, would actually increase the number of T1 glass combo decks by a good chunk.

I just don't get what is the problem with blue being the most played colour - flavor aside, of course. I guess people are more casual than I have thought. In general when talking about competitive gaming, you should play with what you think is the most powerful deck and that's what people are doing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Barook

Banning FoW + Daze, unlike a Brainstorm ban, would actually increase the number of T1 glass combo decks by a good chunk.

---

Because things like discard, Leylines, Mindbreak Trap and whatnot suddenly don't exist anymore? I knew this arguement would be the first thing to be said, lol. Even as an Elves!-player, I can stop that shit dead in it's tracks. Blue shells are for pussies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hopo

I just don't get what is the problem with blue being the most played colour - flavor aside, of course. I guess people are more casual than I have thought. In general when talking about competitive gaming, you should play with what you think is the most powerful deck and that's what people are doing.

---

It makes the meta mindnumbingly boring. I don't even want to know how many times I got a hit naming FoW on a blind Cabal Therapy, even in games where I wasn't sure what my opponent was playing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Echelon

It makes the meta mindnumbingly boring. I don't even want to know how many times I got a hit naming FoW on a blind Cabal Therapy, even in games where I wasn't sure what my opponent was playing.

---

It would be fair to call that issue mostly subjective. Also, pretty much all other formats have quite strict decks to beat and established matchups. I'm not sure why legacy can't have such.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hopo

It would be fair to call that issue mostly subjective. Also, pretty much all other formats have quite strict decks to beat and established matchups. I'm not sure why legacy can't have such.

---

Because of the 50%+ overlap in cards and roughly 90% overlap in gameplan..? And yes, I'm generalizing rather fiercely here. Delver X, in its entirety, boils down to stall the early game as long as you can and finish the game as soon as possible. To do so, each build uses the same 20 with 6 to 10 extra in-color creatures and 16 to 20 extra "stallers", ranging from burn to spotremoval to discard to mana denial. Same plan, different means.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Echelon

You aren't quite getting the point. It isn't that people don't like others playing cantrips, it's the quality of that specific cantrip in conjunction with fetchland.

With that being said, perhaps WotC should run a policy where if a non-land card shows up >50% of all possible slots in all top 8's of all registered tournaments w/attendance of >129 players or so for more then 1 year, it'd merrit an auto-ban. This year FoW gets banned? Perhaps next year, some broken-ass combo card (b/c FoW isn't there to keep it in check anymore mayhaps) and so on. The meta would change regularly and problems'll be fixed by WotC if the community doesn't manage to fix it themselves.

Anywho - death to Delver, FoW, Daze, Brainstorm and Ponder! That's a solid 20 I see in roughly 50-75% of my matches at the moment. So boring!

---

Force gets banned, next year half the format dies and Beltcher, Burning Wish, Laboratory Maniac, ETW, Dread return, ect, become issues. That sounds like a really bad format.

Force is the one card that if it got banned, I would leave. I don't enjoy playing against it, but then again who enjoys dealing with the Cops? But, when shit hits the fan your glad they are there. Force stays. I can lose Brainstorm, TC, Delver, some number of Elves and whatever else a deck I will stay. At Force though, I draw the line.

You need to refine your idea.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Force gets banned, next year half the format dies and Beltcher, Burning Wish, Laboratory Maniac, ETW, Dread return, ect, become issues. That sounds like we need to change our sideboards.

---

Fixed that for you.

Seriously, each and every one of those glass cannons can be anwered without FoWs/Dazes. I honestly don't see the problem. Stifle, Leyline of Sanctity, Leyline of the Void, Tormod's Crypt, Chalice of the Void, Ethersworn Canonist and god knows what else won't cease to exist. Heck, perhaps we'll run Gemstone Caverns so we can cast answers when our opponent is on the play for all I care.

If you think force is an issue, you're an idiot. It's barely even a good card.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megadeus

If you think force is an issue, you're an idiot. It's barely even a good card.

---

I never said it's an issue, you might want to pay more attention to what you are reading before saying such silly things.

I called it boring, which isn't a measure of card quality. I did say it isn't the do-all end-all answer everybody thinks it to be. I merely stated there are more answers available to us as a community then just FoW, but that seems to fall on deaf ears.