All B/R update speculation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jafar

So what do you suggest instead?

Ban Brainstorm and EVERY other cantrip close to power of brainstorm? We could leave U shell only with cc>3 or more draw cards?

As said before by other users the previous build of RUG (the close deck to UR before delver was printed) weren't so oppressive like is UR now.

Anyway an effective move by WOTC could be UNban some cards to give nonU shell some raw power that lacks at the moment: survival? Workshop?

Bye

---

Its not potency thats the problem though. Its consistency. And the cards banned for consistency typically produce too much consistency, more so than Brainstorm (the tutors, possibly Bargain since we already have BargainBrand but thats power with consistency, and Survival).

Not arguing against that Delver is a good choice to ban in the short term. Just saying unbanning anything except maybe survival isnt going to help except to make non blue more like toddler with a rocket launcher.

Here's a post i did in the other topic to explain why survival is not a card that get more degenerate with time , but quite the opposite.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gheizen64

There's a big difference between an engine card like survival, and cards like SnT or Tinker or Reanimate. First, it doesn't cheat mana, with the exception of Vengevine and Madness cards. Second, its power don't get better for each good creature that get printed, but for each new creature that do something specific with the discard/graveyard interaction. Third, Survival want your deck to be filled with creatures, ideally at least 15 of them for survival to be a reliable engine (like force, but with creatures).

Those are crucial points.

Because in general, new good creature and spells that are in general better in non-survival decks will vastly outnumber the new creatures that fit in the very narrow subset of "abusable with survival". This mean that on average, survival don't get better, it get worse with time. This was exemplified with Survival history before the printing of Vengevine. When 1.5 was younger, TnT decks, and tradewind survival decks were actual decks, but with time, efficient threats, cheap countermagic, better disruption made so that those strats were no longer as good as before. Getting an answer for G, and hardcasting it, wasn't as good when the opponent deck was either absurdly redundant so that you couldn't get a good answer with SotF, or too fast for SotF to matter.
As such survival got positioned worse with time, at least until Vengevine got printed, at which point a deck that cheated 3 4/3 haste on turn 3.5 on average was too good in the legacy format of that time.

Since Vengevine was printed, other new creatures that got printed abusable with Survival? Legends, if you consider the retainer combo (which is still slow by legacy standards and also Griselbrand isn't good in Survival because you have a deck full of creatures and not of spells you can chain), then what? Reclamation sage is good i guess and SotL is a good hatebear as well. Panglacial Wurm? I honestly can't name a good interaction that wasn't already there or superior to Ooze/Devourer or Retainer /Legend.
On the other hand, many creatures that are really good against and outside Survival got printed:

True-name nemesis, an absurdly strong wall against VV, pratically unbreakable with any equip. Not as good in survival decks because of the mana intensive requirements, and it isn't worth paying 1GG and discard a card to tutor for it.
Containment Priest, a 1W 2/2 flash, that while good vs a lot of the meta, simply exile 3 creatures on cast vs Survival. A good silver bullet for survival decks, but shut off the VV engine, making it really situational.
Delver of Secrets, aka the strongest cheap beater ever printed. On offense, it ignore your vengevines, posing an actual clock when coupled with burn, and on defense it trade with a Vengevine. In Survival decks this is useless because you want to run as many creatures, where delver want a lot of spells, and want to be casted T1, not tutored for.
Young Pyromancer, an almost infinite supplier of token blockers vs non-wonder vengevines variants. Again, this card is bad in survival because it sinergize with spells, not other creatures.
Deathrite Shaman, the strongest mana elf ever printed, and widely played, with the ability to remove your vengevines in response to madness triggers. This is actually good in survival decks, but much moreso against it.
Batterskull with Stoneforge Mystic, allowed for midrangey/control decks like Patriot, to lay down extremely fast 4/4 vigilances lifelink to effectively block Vengevines, especially coupled with the bounce ability. This is also actually good in survival decks, but more against it.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , basically made D&T a competitive deck, and combined with any equipment from SFM it can block Vengevines all day long. Again, a card that is good in Survival because it encourage you to play creature, but not as good as in other decks because it slow down your survival if you play it before SotF, or come down usually too late if you tutor for it. This is probably the most debatable creature of this list however.

Ignoring creatures, some really good SB cards that kill survival were printed , like RiP.
The best card drawing spells printed in years, TC and DTT, are nonbos with survival both because they exile cards you usually need, and because they sinergize with decks full of cheap spells, not decks full of creatures.

In contrast, cards like Tinker and SnT surely get better with time because of the accelleration part. That means that the subset of really good and mana intensive creatures/artifacts that get printed over time are usually bigger than those of cards that are good against it, like Containment Priest.
And in fact, Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Inktide Leviathan are all pretty recent printings, and i wouldn't ever bet on those card getting worse over time like i would on survival.


Survival is a card that thrive on very specific conditions: low combo presence to give it enough time to assemble its own combo, and low power-spells in general. The more high-power spells a format has, the less survival is interesting because you want to play as many spells as possible. Creatures get better with time sure, but even creatures, as we saw, have to be in a specific-subset to be relevant in SotF decks, whereas the newest creatures that have seen play in this format have been all of the kind that are actively bad in SotF and good against SotF (Delver, TNN, Containment Priest, YP), or good in survival but better in other decks (DRS, SFM+Batterskull, you could make a case for Thalia too).

With TC and DTT printed, there has never been a time where SotF power level relative to the rest of the format card pool has been lower since it was banned.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemnear

I play Elves, Miracles and storm, so don't see me as one-dimensional here. Even if I feel pretty competent to build a working storm-shell without Brainstorm within days, I would have a headache to fix decks like Miracles or S&T or even fringe decks like Foodchain. I do care about all these decks and the colateral damage dealt just because people want Delver to become a bit worse, otherwise I would sit here and say "ban Brainstorm, so I can rock the field with Elves!". It seems that either some people can't comprehend that the loss of BS has different impact on various decks running it (from a need to streamline to stay viable to complete extinction) or just give a fuck. The arguing with Delver, which is the archetype which predictable would have minimal problems adapting (See Modern), is dumb and shallow. If you want to push the blue shell back into midrange or control to battle with Loam and Miracles for it's spot in the metagame instead of dominating the first 4 turns, you need to remove Delver from the metagame and give Tempo players the painful choice between Goose & Goyf or Treasure Cruise

---

The problem isn't delver (which is around the 4th or 5th best card in those decks). And the point is also to weaken Miracles and S&T. BS has higher penetration than mental misstep. That is the problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gheizen64

Here's a post i did in the other topic to explain why survival is not a card that get more degenerate with time , but quite the opposite.

---

... and we explained why this is bullshit. WotC keeps printing creature power creep and you ignore that this fact automatically makes Survival more and more potent. You argued that DRS can remove Vengevines from the Graveyard, that Griselbrand off Sneak Attack is stronger as a combo and that TNN can block Vengevines endless, but simply ignore that DRS can also power Survival & creates a lifegain engine every time you cycle a creature, that Retainer + Griselbrand/Emrakul is a cheap trick combo to add to a survival deck for basically no cost at all in terms of deckbuilding and that Survival enables you to drop a fucking TNN turn after turn to stall and overwhelm your opponent which gives a fuck about graveyard-hate like DRS/RIP unlike the KotR+Vengevine combo you tried to argue with in the other thread.

Edit:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testing32

The problem isn't delver (which is around the 4th or 5th best card in those decks). And the point is also to weaken Miracles and S&T. BS has higher penetration than mental misstep. That is the problem.

---

I don't know if it qualifies as a "problem" if the card isn't actively stifling decks like Mental Misstep did with Storm, Countertop and Goblins. The fact that Brainstorm is not banned despite having its Status for years, supports that idea. Survival for example made other aggro decks like Zoo obsolete, Mental Misstep made decks with critical 1cc spells unplayable and was so strong in preventing T1 combos that people dropped even FoW. A lot of Legacy bannings boiled down to that. You can look at Oath or Tinker to see the same concept.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemnear

... and we explained why this is bullshit. WotC keeps printing creature power creep and you ignore that this fact automatically makes Survival more and more potent. You argued that DRS can remove Vengevines from the Graveyard, that Griselbrand off Sneak Attack is stronger as a combo and that TNN can block Vengevines endless, but simply ignore that DRS can also power Survival & creates a lifegain engine every time you cycle a creature, that Retainer + Griselbrand/Emrakul is a cheap trick combo to add to a survival deck for basically no cost at all in terms of deckbuilding and that Survival enables you to drop a fucking TNN turn after turn to stall and overwhelm your opponent which gives a fuck about graveyard-hate like DRS/RIP unlike the KotR+Vengevine combo you tried to argue with in the other thread.

---

You evidently didn't read my post.

EDIT: i've edited since you're clearly being confrontational about this and i'm not here to get provoked into writing shit. I'll pass.

Survival was sooo degenerate card that its numbers declined and declined over the years until it saw nigh zero play when Vengevine came out and safed it from oblivion. Saying that SotF is broken while defending BS seems inappropriate. but I guess that it's about that elusive term "broken".

Turn2 BS->AdN? Oh, it's just a Legacy, we're used to play powerful decks. Go play Modern.
Turn2 SotF, pass? Oh, that's some broken stuff right there, swing the banhammer without delay!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testing32

The problem isn't delver (which is around the 4th or 5th best card in those decks). And the point is also to weaken Miracles and S&T. BS has higher penetration than mental misstep. That is the problem.

---

Stop citing the penetration of Mental Misstep and Brainstorm as a reason to ban Brainstorm. Mental Misstep wasnt banned because it was in every deck regardless of color; it was banned because of how it completely warped the format. Banning brainstorm would do the same thing as leaving mental misstep unbanned.

Delver, on the other hand, has been warping the format around it ever since its inception. Even though they may play differently, the various Delver archetypes have a similar core (Delver, Brainstorm, Force, Wasteland minimum) which causes a higher penetration of multiple cards, which would suggest that the combination of those cards (aka the decks themselves) is oppressive as to one individual card.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gheizen64

You evidently didn't read my post, since Survival isn't getting more and more potent automatically, but quite the opposite. But it seems you're fond of calling everything i write "bullshit" or just say i'm writing useless things, while never trying to post a single point of data or anything, just baseless dismissal. Do survival did anything to you? You can tell us.

---

I played GW Survival myself, was upset as it got banned, but over the years I realized why it was still the right thing to do. I call bullshit if you list cards and argue how they damage Vengevine, but in fact would be likely played alongside Survival if it was legal. Your whole argumentation stretched over two threads simply ignores this possibility and roots soley on "Survival is fair because we have outs to returning Vengevines!" but gladly dodges the fact that GW Survival was so good, because it had an excellent aggro plan B if your opponent shuts down your graveyard, in form of hardcasting a flurry of KotRs and Vines

Edit:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer

Survival was sooo degenerate card that its numbers declined and declined over the years until it saw nigh zero play when Vengevine came out and safed it from oblivion. Saying that SotF is broken while defending BS seems inappropriate. but I guess that it's about that elusive term "broken".

Turn2 BS->AdN? Oh, it's just a Legacy, we're used to play powerful decks. Go play Modern.
Turn2 SotF, pass? Oh, that's some broken stuff right there, swing the banhammer without delay!

---

That is too easy. Take a more honest look at your examples:

Turn 2 AN: costs 5 mana - if countered, you lose - if it resolves, you likely going to win via combo

Turn 2 SotF: costs 2 mana - if countered, you just smash faces with creatures which get more powerful with WotCs continuous power creep - if it resolves, you likely going to win either via combo or with creatures which get more powerful with WotCs continuous power creep

Fact is: every deck with more than 16 creatures is better by running Survival, as every Dark Ritual deck would be better by running Necropotence, as any Countertop deck would be better by running Tinker, as any anti-creature control deck would be better by running Oath, as any combo deck would be better running Demonic Tutor. That is degeneration. That is that makes WotC ban cards

Quote:

---

I don't know if it qualifies as a "problem" if the card isn't actively stifling decks like Mental Misstep did with Storm, Countertop and Goblins. The fact that Brainstorm is not banned despite having its Status for years, supports that idea. Survival for example made other aggro decks like Zoo obsolete, Mental Misstep made decks with critical 1cc spells unplayable and was so strong in preventing T1 combos that people dropped even FoW. A lot of Legacy bannings boiled down to that. You can look at Oath or Tinker to see the same concept.

---

Of course brainstorm is actively stifling decks. Pick any non-blue, non-elf deck.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner

Stop citing the penetration of Mental Misstep and Brainstorm as a reason to ban Brainstorm. Mental Misstep wasnt banned because it was in every deck regardless of color; it was banned because of how it completely warped the format. Banning brainstorm would do the same thing as leaving mental misstep unbanned.

Delver, on the other hand, has been warping the format around it ever since its inception. Even though they may play differently, the various Delver archetypes have a similar core (Delver, Brainstorm, Force, Wasteland minimum) which causes a higher penetration of multiple cards, which would suggest that the combination of those cards (aka the decks themselves) is oppressive as to one individual card.

---

Taking 14/16 slots, forcing people to play blue and main deck REBs isn't warping the meta? Please.

A question for you guys. If Brainstorm and TC were reversed (TC had been around for 15 years, BS was introduced last month) and BS put 14/16 in the top 16 would you still have the same stance? I seriously doubt it. You are making an emotional argument not a logical one. It's like trying to have a facts based discussion with a religous person.

There was talk to TC being banned last week and its numbers are no where near brainstorms, not even close.

Edit: Some more food for thought. What is the 2nd best card in legacy? I honestly don't know. Ponder, wasteland or FoW probably. Brainstorm is head and sholders above those cards.

Now, think what would happen if WotC unbanned Demonic Tutor. Would it be better than brainstorm, than brainstorm currently is compared to the 2nd best card (ponder/fow/wasteland). I seriously doubt that.

Would it have more penetration than brainstorm currently is? I doubt that as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner

Stop citing the penetration of Mental Misstep and Brainstorm as a reason to ban Brainstorm. Mental Misstep wasnt banned because it was in every deck regardless of color; it was banned because of how it completely warped the format. Banning brainstorm would do the same thing as leaving mental misstep unbanned.

---

The reasons of the Mental Misstep ban were two-fold, as officially stated, so stop coming up with your own explanations:

a) It goes into every deck (suprise, Brainstorm has now a higher penetration than Mental Misstep (75% vs 73% if you look at the October DtB numbers), since MM actually didn't go into every deck!)
b) It made the format too blue (again, we're more even more blue now than during the MM era).

As for your last statement, of course the meta would change without Brainstorm because the meta is warped around Brainstorm. Higher consistency, discard protection, instant speed digging for answers, semi-mulligans with shuffle effects, tricks with the top of the library (Delver, Miracles, AV, etc.) - it simply does too much for :u:, and that at instant speed, even making mana denial less potent compared to sorcery speed cantrips.

The current meta is a) play Brainstorm, b) play a deck that punishes the blue Brainstorm shell, c) play Elves or d) play a non-blue fringe strategy that completely ignores the opponent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testing32

Of course brainstorm is actively stifling decks. Pick any non-blue, non-elf deck.

Taking 14/16 slots, forcing people to play blue and main deck REBs isn't warping the meta? Please.

A question for you guys. If Brainstorm and TC were reversed (TC had been around for 15 years, BS was introduced last month) and BS put 14/16 in the top 16 would you still have the same stance? I seriously doubt it. You are making an emotional argument not a logical one. It's like trying to have a facts based discussion with a religous person.

There was talk to TC being banned last week and its numbers are no where near brainstorms, not even close.

---

so much wrong with this post I dont even know where to begin.

A card being present in 14 out of 16 decks isnt warping the format. 14 out of 16 decks being the same or similar is. Take a look at Thragtusk back when Innistrad was in standard. If you ran green, you ran Tusk. But it didnt hurt the meta: in fact it pulled it away from a hyperaggro meta by allowing control more time to stabilize.

And the fact is that we have had Brainstorm for quite some time now, which pretty much proves that itself isnt the problem since it has yet to be banned. Even if it wasnt printed until recently, I would still reach the same conclusion, albeit because I firmly believe Delver is the issue, not Treasure Cruise.

whining > brewing right ? and that's not a speculation, just a fact. Oh well. At least Lejay tried.
But yeah let's keep harping on banning BS for the next 452 pages, it's an higher cause and something so MUCH more productive. And with a brand new argument in each answer it is so interesting.

I know, i know i might no contribute to the conversation either and i am just stating the obvious but apparently 452 pages of obvious doesn't stop anything from going on and on again.

at least you are on your way to achieve Animate Dead + Worldgorger Dragon.

an endless loop. but that gives a draw remember ? nothing too useful.

good job.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner

so much wrong with this post I dont even know where to begin.

A card being present in 14 out of 16 decks isnt warping the format. 14 out of 16 decks being the same or similar is. Take a look at Thragtusk back when Innistrad was in standard. If you ran green, you ran Tusk. But it didnt hurt the meta: in fact it pulled it away from a hyperaggro meta by allowing control more time to stabilize.

And the fact is that we have had Brainstorm for quite some time now, which pretty much proves that itself isnt the problem since it has yet to be banned. Even if it wasnt printed until recently, I would still reach the same conclusion, albeit because I firmly believe Delver is the issue, not Treasure Cruise.

---

So many tautologies in this post...


"A card being present in 14 out of 16 decks isnt warping the format. 14 out of 16 decks being the same or similar is."

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Let's expand this to criminals: A gun being in the hand of 14 of 16 shooters isn't causing gunfire during the robbery. 14 of 16 shooters owning guns is causing the gunfire. :confused:


"the fact is that we have had Brainstorm for quite some time now, which pretty much proves that itself isnt the problem since it has yet to be banned."

I.e. Just like prior to being banned, Flash, Survival, and Mystical Tutor all had *never* been banned before and therefore were never problems? Let's expand this to criminals - the fact that they haven't been arrested yet means that they can't possibly be committing crime? :cry:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ryO!

whining > brewing right ? and that's not a speculation, just a fact. Oh well. At least Lejay tried.
But yeah let's keep harping on banning BS for the next 452 pages, it's an higher cause and something so MUCH more productive. And with a brand new argument in each answer it is so interesting.

I know, i know i might no contribute to the conversation either and i am just stating the obvious but apparently 452 pages of obvious doesn't stop anything from going on and on again.

at least you are on your way to achieve Animate Dead + Worldgorger Dragon.

an endless loop. but that gives a draw remember ? nothing too useful.

good job.

---

You want to brew. I'll brew with you. First, we want our "brew" to win so lets start with a solid base 4 BS/4 Ponder/4 FoW/2 REB/2-4 TC. We are going to need lands in our sick brew so lets put us down for 16-22 of those.

Sweet, now we have ~20 slots left. How would you like to innovate and break the format from here? The possibilities are endless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner

Stop citing the penetration of Mental Misstep and Brainstorm as a reason to ban Brainstorm. Mental Misstep wasnt banned because it was in every deck regardless of color; it was banned because of how it completely warped the format. Banning brainstorm would do the same thing as leaving mental misstep unbanned.

Delver, on the other hand, has been warping the format around it ever since its inception. Even though they may play differently, the various Delver archetypes have a similar core (Delver, Brainstorm, Force, Wasteland minimum) which causes a higher penetration of multiple cards, which would suggest that the combination of those cards (aka the decks themselves) is oppressive as to one individual card.

---

Mental Misstep was banned because it made the format more blue than ever, literal words from wotc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemnear

I played GW Survival myself, was upset as it got banned, but over the years I realized why it was still the right thing to do. I call bullshit if you list cards and argue how they damage Vengevine, but in fact would be likely played alongside Survival if it was legal. Your whole argumentation stretched over two threads simply ignores this possibility and roots soley on "Survival is fair because we have outs to returning Vengevines!" but gladly dodges the fact that GW Survival was so good, because it had an excellent aggro plan B if your opponent shuts down your graveyard, in form of hardcasting a flurry of KotRs and Vines

---

Ok i'll try to be more specificly clear. Playing every creature + Survival isn't an actual plan, so you have to actually choose which creatures goes in an actual survival list. If you're arguing that every good creature go in survival lists you're just wrong, because survival as a simple tutor in goodstuff.deck is worse than GSZ. It's way slower (1GG to fetch the first creature), not as versatile as GSZ for getting both accelleration and threats quickly, and require you to have a creature in hand to start. Those are all important points.
The strenght of survival is the ability to be an engine, with Vengevines, and Retainers/Ooze. You can make the survival plan your primary or secondary plan of the deck, but it's harder to make it secondary because of the amount of slots and sub-optimal cards it require, unlike the blue shell for example, that don't make you play "bad" cards at all.
So you can't simply take generic Maverick.deck and put Survivals in it, you have to put also the engine within it, else Survival isn't worth it.

And here come the first point: you're sacrificing slots for survival. Simply because survival isn't worth it unless you cheat vengevines, or legends, or oozes.
And this bring also a quick consequence: your aggro plan is obviously not as good as a really good aggro decks, since you have several 4 cmcs (don't take me wrong, Vengevines are really good, but playing multiple 4cmc cards is not something you want to do in disruption-light decks, or against delver/burn decks) and legends, and 1/1s to trigger out VV. So you can't just play Maverick and add Survivals, you have to sacrifice a consistent amount of slots to it, making your "B" plan of beatdown worse. This isn't Vault/Key level of compact obviously.

Even if GSZ is one-shot, the greater amount of flexibility, much cheaper mana cost, and the ability to work without other specific cards in your hand put it far and above Survival as a "fair" tutor. It's the ability to double as an engine to cheat things into play that make Survival a strong card, without it, it's nothing amazing. And thanks to its speed, GSZ is better at getting answer creatures like Ooze or Qasali. Ooze is especially egregious. With survival, to remove 1 card from a grave with Ooze it cost 1GG+discard a creature+1G+G. If you want to get a cheap answer, survival isn't clearly the best choice here.

If your survival recurr plan is shut off via RiP for example, you don't only have 10+ bad draws in your deck, but you've probably also lost a mana + cards investment. Your "plan B" of aggro is nowhere as good when a big chunk of your deck are now subpar (Walla, Memnite, hardcast VV, Retainer) or simply uncastable cards (Iona/Devourer, Elesh but she's actually just 7 mana so castable if you get Cradle). Also, other decks "aggro" plans are now considerably faster or stronger with Delver, TNN and Pyromancers around, so by relative power levels, your beatdown plan get even worse.

Also, just for a mental exercise, what do you cut from a Maverick List to fit 3 VV, 1 Walla, 1 Memnite, 1 Retainer, 1 Elesh Norn, 4 Survivals? That's 11 cards. The Ooze shell is similar, but slightly slower and Devourer is crap by itself compared to Iona/Elesh which are sometimes hardcastable. You could probably cut the punishing fire suite, that's 4 cards. Then moms? A zenith or 2? It's easy to see why your beatdown plan can't be as good as actual non-survival lists.
Opportunity cost is absolutely relevant for SotF.

Punishing Maverick; Fabian Gorzgen

Spells (22+13=35)	Lands (25)	Sideboard (15)
2 Aven Mindcensor 1 Birds of Paradise 3 Deathrite Shaman 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Mother of Runes 1 Noble Hierarch 1 Qasali Pridemage 2 Scavenging Ooze 3 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Gaddock Teeg 1 Batterskull 3 Punishing Fire 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Umezawa's Jitte 4 Green Sun's Zenith	1 Dryad Arbor 1 Forest 1 Bayou 3 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Horizon Canopy 1 Plateau 2 Savannah 2 Taiga 1 Thespian's Stage 3 Wasteland 4 Windswept Heath 3 Wooded Foothills 1 Karakas 1 Dark Depths	1 Null Rod 1 Pithing Needle 1 Tormod's Crypt 1 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Phyrexian Revoker 1 Reclamation Sage 2 Choke 2 Engineered Plague 1 Oblivion Ring 2 Enlightened Tutor 1 Gaddock Teeg 1 Bojuka Bog

Or a non-punishing variety:

Maverick; Noel Thompson

Spells (24+13=37)	Lands (23)	Sideboard (15)
1 Birds of Paradise 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Mother of Runes 2 Qasali Pridemage 1 Scavenging Ooze 1 Scryb Ranger 3 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Gaddock Teeg 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Batterskull 1 Sylvan Library 3 Abrupt Decay 3 Swords to Plowshares 1 Umezawa's Jitte 4 Green Sun's Zenith	1 Dryad Arbor 1 Forest 1 Plains 2 Bayou 4 Savannah 2 Scrubland 1 Tower of the Magistrate 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Wasteland 3 Windswept Heath 1 Karakas	1 Scavenging Ooze 2 Engineered Plague 1 Crop Rotation 1 Krosan Grip 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Gaddock Teeg 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Life from the Loam 4 Thoughtseize 1 Toxic Deluge 1 Bojuka Bog

Again those list are incredibly tight. If you remove too many creatures, you may have too little for survival to work efficiently, if you remove removal spells, you lose in flexibility and the ability to answer troublesome permanents. And it's not even only that, but if you for example remove Mom, your beatdown plan is considerably worse and more subsceptible to removal, even if you gain the ability to go off with Vengevines etc...



To get more in the specifics with your post:

Quote:

---

I call bullshit if you list cards and argue how they damage Vengevine, but in fact would be likely played alongside Survival if it was legal

---

I said why those cards would NOT be played alongisde Survival. If you want to tell me that Delver, Pyromancer, or TNN would be played alongisde survival, then i think you're off a bit. I explained why in my previous post that you evidently skipped:

Quote:

---

True-name nemesis, an absurdly strong wall against VV, pratically unbreakable with any equip. Not as good in survival decks because of the mana intensive requirements, and it isn't worth paying 1GG and discard a card to tutor for it.
Containment Priest, a 1W 2/2 flash, that while good vs a lot of the meta, simply exile 3 creatures on cast vs Survival. A good silver bullet for survival decks, but shut off the VV engine, making it really situational.
Delver of Secrets, aka the strongest cheap beater ever printed. On offense, it ignore your vengevines, posing an actual clock when coupled with burn, and on defense it trade with a Vengevine. In Survival decks this is useless because you want to run as many creatures, where delver want a lot of spells, and want to be casted T1, not tutored for.
Young Pyromancer, an almost infinite supplier of token blockers vs non-wonder vengevines variants. Again, this card is bad in survival because it sinergize with spells, not other creatures.

---

And i also said that while some new creatures can obviously be played in Survival, they're better in non-survival decks or good against survival, something that you seems to again have skipped completely, with each card with an explanations on why i think those cards are a relative loss in power level for survival, and not a gain:

Quote:

---

Deathrite Shaman, the strongest mana elf ever printed, and widely played, with the ability to remove your vengevines in response to madness triggers. This is actually good in survival decks, but much moreso against it.
Batterskull with Stoneforge Mystic, allowed for midrangey/control decks like Patriot, to lay down extremely fast 4/4 vigilances lifelink to effectively block Vengevines, especially coupled with the bounce ability. This is also actually good in survival decks, but more against it.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , basically made D&T a competitive deck, and combined with any equipment from SFM it can block Vengevines all day long. Again, a card that is good in Survival because it encourage you to play creature, but not as good as in other decks because it slow down your survival if you play it before SotF, or come down usually too late if you tutor for it. This is probably the most debatable creature of this list however.

---

So i can safely say that your calling "bullshit" should be a bit more argumented because to me, all those points about those creatures i presented seems pretty strong. Or if you want to show me a Pyro, TNN, Delver Survival list, then go on, i'd be honestly impressed if you managed to get a good list because the conflict between what those cards want and what survival want seems insurmountable to me to be honest.

To answer another point from your post more in detail:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemnear

Your whole argumentation stretched over two threads simply ignores this possibility

---

But this is clearly not true, because i didn't ignore the possibility of Survival playing new craetures, i simply proposed reasons for why playing a lot of the new best creatures along vengevines isn't good at all, basically:

- Survival as a plain creature tutor isn't worth it for some of them because of the mana constraint and time constraint
- opportunity cost is too big because you want to run a lot of creatures with SotF, but a lot of spells with some of those creatures
- some of those creatures are actually incredibly fast and cheap win conditions that want you to protect them with your spells, not to play other creatures

So you can see i never ignored this possibility. In fact, it was the whole point of my post: Survival is getting relatively worse because there are more creatures worse with SotF getting printed, than creatures good in Survival decks. This has been the case for the largest part of Legacy history before the printing of vengevines, another point that you seems to have skipped, cue RecSur, Tradewind Survival, and Tool and Tubbies decks which were faded out by Blue tempo variants and other combo decks, until VV got printed at least.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemnear

... and roots soley on "Survival is fair because we have outs to returning Vengevines!" but gladly dodges the fact that GW Survival was so good, because it had an excellent aggro plan B if your opponent shuts down your graveyard, in form of hardcasting a flurry of KotRs and Vines

---

Again, this is not what i said at all. What i've said is that the plan of returning vengevines isn't as good as before because of the new factors existing that weaken the vengevine beatdown plan. This is a matter of opportunity cost, if your combo plan isn't as autowin as it used to be, the trade for losing consistency, options and redundancy get worse. And in turn this make survival as a card worse. For example, Delver burn decks are now often faster than straight Vengevine beatdown which win around T4.
I also never dodged the fact that survival was also an aggro deck, i simply posited that that "plan B" by today standards is much worse than it was because (a) decks now have new, extremely efficient threats that don't fit in survival decks, and (b) that survival decks, by concession of fitting a consistent engine in them, have already a worse aggro plan compared to conventional Green based aggro decks like maverick. Your "excellent" plan B, is not "excellent" anymore by modern standards, it's simply a plan B. Probably around Elves! beatdown plan.

Those things are all pretty clear when you start brewing with survival. The opportunity cost isn't negligible, in fact, it's big by modern legacy standard. And to be honest that's what i like the most from Survival: the fact that you can't play goodcards.deck with it, but you have to build around it consistently, using Vengevines or abusing the graveyard in other ways (Like welder TnT which was one of my favourite legacy decks). You can't play URg burn delver with survival, or miracle Survival, or storm survival etc... The decks enabled by survival are by far and large decks defined by the card itself, completely NEW decks in the current legacy metagame. You will have some similiarity with Maverick lists, or stompy lists, but a vast amount of card would be different, and this is a huge breath of fresh air for the metagame.
To add on this, a lot of cards that are good against survival are also the kind of cards you can easily play maindeck because they hit a lot of different strategies: needles, Containment priests, Oozes, DRS, Wear//Tear, Spell Snare etc...

EDIT:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemnear

Edit:


That is too easy. Take a more honest look at your examples:

Turn 2 AN: costs 5 mana - if countered, you lose - if it resolves, you likely going to win via combo

Turn 2 SotF: costs 2 mana - if countered, you just smash faces with creatures which get more powerful with WotCs continuous power creep - if it resolves, you likely going to win either via combo or with creatures which get more powerful with WotCs continuous power creep

Fact is: every deck with more than 16 creatures is better by running Survival, as every Dark Ritual deck would be better by running Necropotence, as any Countertop deck would be better by running Tinker, as any anti-creature control deck would be better by running Oath, as any combo deck would be better running Demonic Tutor. That is degeneration. That is that makes WotC ban cards

---

First this isn't necessarily true. Blue-based decks, even if they were to run 16 creature, wouldn't still run survival. Example? 3 TNN, 4 SFM, 4 Delvers, 3 SFM, 2 Snapcaster mage + blue shell.
D&T would just probably run 4 Containment priest or something else main and ignore survival. Would Elves! run survival? It's probable but it wouldn't be the main strategy of the deck.

Second, even in creature heavy lists like Maverick, running survival has an opportunity cost: you'd have to cut removals, or utility creatures like Mom. If the meta get too hostile for it, it's possible the opportunity cost isn't worth the possibility of the combo anymore, and survival may actually be just detrimentals for those decks.

Third, how many 16+ creatures lists are dominating the format? The format has been dominated for years by blue strategies, and for good reasons. Even if a survival lists managed to get on top of the format by crushing all "fair" decks, it would still have unfavourable matchups against a lot of combo decks, be them SnT or storm, because you aren't disrupting a lot when you run 4 survival + 16 creatures.

And finally, the argument you just said is way more true for brainstorm than for survival. Every combo deck that run blue is better with brainstorm, every dark ritual deck that run blue is better with brainstorm, every anti-creature deck that run blue is better with brainstorm, and any countertop deck is better with brainstorm. So no, i don't think that could count as a reasonable argument for banning a card.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testing32

Of course brainstorm is actively stifling decks. Pick any non-blue, non-elf deck.

---

Ok, I have G/R Combo lands in my hand right now, what should I do with it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Ok, I have G/R Combo lands in my hand right now, what should I do with it?

---

Play with it whenever your LGS has a casual night.

Edit: when brainstorm gets banned you can bring it to a real event since you won't need to play brainstorm to win anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testing32

Play with it whenever your LGS has a casual night.

---

Haha. You should give it more credit. Loam is one of the best draw cards in the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner

so much wrong with this post I dont even know where to begin.

A card being present in 14 out of 16 decks isnt warping the format. 14 out of 16 decks being the same or similar is. Take a look at Thragtusk back when Innistrad was in standard. If you ran green, you ran Tusk. But it didnt hurt the meta: in fact it pulled it away from a hyperaggro meta by allowing control more time to stabilize.

And the fact is that we have had Brainstorm for quite some time now, which pretty much proves that itself isnt the problem since it has yet to be banned. Even if it wasnt printed until recently, I would still reach the same conclusion, albeit because I firmly believe Delver is the issue, not Treasure Cruise.

---

The key thing is that the logic behind the three most recent bannings can all be applied to Brainstorm and Force of Will right now. IF you do not think that that is an issue, then there's something gravely wrong.

Regardless of format Penetration, Force must stay.