Re: All B/R update speculation.
Wow, we're still not over the MB Red Elemental Blast thing from what I have read the last pages? Is it sooooo hard to compregend that REBs in tempo lists like UR Delver is NOT FOR BATTLING OPPOSING BRAINSTORMS but the ONLY viable out against TNN/Counterbalance in that colors in addition to FoW? Everyone who ever played a tempo related deck can verify that TNN/Counterbalance is about the worst that can happen.
I'm baffled that people still think the numbers of Brainstorm + REBs or those of Brainstorm + FoW are somehow connected. They are not gentlemen. You play REBs against blue threats other cards in that color can't economically handle, while FoW + Ponder + Preordain + Probe (+ SDT) still prevent you from dying against T1 Combo decks
Edit: also a big applause for not reading the last 10 or so pages of an active discussion, but jumping in by repeating the same old "arguments" we read dozens of times before from other people who did not bother to follow the threat either. There are the same arguments and counter-arguments coming up every 4 pages, because no one bothers to read the fucking arguments before they make their posts.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
H
Not sure if that was directed toward me, but if we could actually come up with something vaguely intelligent to send, I'd say it couldn't hurt.
Not sure if there is even a slight chance of this happening, last time we did a poll during the Snapcaster season, 80% voted not to ban Brainstorm. So I doubt this effort would garner needed support.
To really nerf blue, they would need to get rid of both Brainstorm and Ponder. Like Tao mentioned. Not just Brainstorm, otherwise blue will still be the preferred color because Ponder + Preordain is still strong.
With Brainstorm and Ponder gone, Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole will become strong and Treasure Cruise will likely be used to fight discard. Without Miracles, aggro decks will resurface. Belcher could make a comeback replacing blue-based combo because it's consistent and fast enough even without the cantrips.
Edit — Maindecked REBs/Pyros just demonstrates how overpowered and greedy UR Delver can be. I'm sure this is not only about "REB your Brainstorm" because Brainstorm and REBs have been around since the birth of the format. I believe the red blasts were mainly there for:
REB your Treasure Cruise, on my main phase I cast my Treasure Cruise.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
death
Not sure if there is even a slight chance of this happening, last time we did a poll during the Snapcaster season, 80% voted not to ban Brainstorm. So I doubt this effort would garner needed support.
To really nerf blue, they would need to get rid of both Brainstorm and Ponder. Like Tao mentoned. Not just Brainstorm, otherwise blue will still be the preferred color because Ponder + Preordain is still strong.
With Brainstorm and Ponder gone, Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole will become strong and Treasure Cruise will likely be used to fight discard. Without Miracles, aggro decks will resurface. Belcher could make a comeback and replace blue-oriented combo, because it's consistent and fast enough even without the cantrips.
The point is (and ever was) that Blue decks would streamline into Delver/TNN/SFM strategies which are already 40% of the current metagame. I see no reason you couldn't pick up a Preordain+Probe+SDT+Counterbalance+SFM+TNN+FoW deck and still slay combo and non-blue aggro. CounterTop existed before Ponder was even printed, just saying. Sure I can't predict if CB will be still the shitz, but the card selection and creatures still remain a problem non-blue cannot match.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
If Brainstorm and Ponder were both banned the likely effect would be the revival of non-blue midrange lists. The lesser ability to find tempo threats and answers as easily would lead people who wanted to play blue towards more controllish endeavors also.
The higher CC blue and artifact spells that are in disfavor in Legacy at the moment would rebound some. You'd have more Cunning Wish, more Intuition, more Gifts Ungiven and a likely return of spells like Fact or Fiction and Meditate to more than casual play. These all dig for counters in the mid game fairly effectively (Gifts Ungiven finds Force of Will, Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce and Spell Snare at a key moment against combo for example.) You might even see Cryptic Command join the Legacy party in the midrange control meta that would begin to develop.
We don't realize how hard the tempo shell squats on the metagame at the moment despite the fact that it over-achieves in getting to the top tables. We don't see all the mid-range lists that it makes ineffective because people just don't play them much any more. We still see combo but it also is less played than you'd expect because it does not have a favorable matchup against blue aggro control. Flat out aggro other than Burn is extremely rare because it preys on slower lists that have been pushed out of the meta by tempo.
Wotc should make the corrective move of putting blue back into a control role. It would still occupy the anti-combo, anti-control space that is it's natural niche while enabling the return of aggro and mid-range.
The fact that the blue shell now encompasses aggro control, mid-range control, combo and has moved into the fast aggro space with the Delver lists and UR Delver in particular is what makes Legacy a stagnant format. Trying to figure out the 8 to 20 cards + on-color blue lands that need to shift in order to make a list successful is not a rewarding meta at all. It punishes players who just don't like the blue shell and rewards people for playing cards for no reason other than raw power level and the fact that they combine well with the blue shell. It's a meta that creates best card lists and rewards people for accumulating high-priced Legacy staples instead of mastering how to play with an enormous card pool that has answers for almost everything and at times surprising synergies from areas not-well explored.
Watching WotC over the last 4+ years, since Jace Uber Alles was printed, I've gotten the distinct feeling that they've lost touch with their own game. They've got a hidden agenda related to eternal play that is most likely related solely to the preferences of a few powerful people who have bottlenecked the game.
That's how games lose favor over time and eventually go away. The lessons of the Jace Standard apparently didn't get through to everybody who makes the decisions on which cards are printed and which remain legal to play in competition.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
The point is (and ever was) that Blue decks would streamline into Delver/TNN/SFM strategies which are already 40% of the current metagame. I see no reason you couldn't pick up a Preordain+Probe+SDT+Counterbalance+SFM+TNN+FoW deck and still slay combo and non-blue aggro. CounterTop existed before Ponder was even printed, just saying. Sure I can't predict if CB will be still the shitz, but the card selection and creatures still remain a problem non-blue cannot match.
Not sure on which side of the Brainstorm fence you're in. But your statement suggests blue overall is OP and would remain likely so post-ban.
CB-Top existed before Ponder, yes. Joe Lossett doesn't even play a single Ponder. But can CB-Top exist without Brainstorm?
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Originally Posted by
FoolofaTook
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
H
I gave up actually trying to urge people to actually be constructive, because it seems that the overwhelming sentiment here isn't about actually having productive discussion. Instead it's to nit-pick opposing points and then use strawman and ad-hominen arguments to further lower the level of conversation.
Well written.
What's the story of Reconnaisance card?
Also, I'd love if DCI ban BS in Legacy and unrestrict it in Vintage. I really don't think that in a format with 4 Shops/Bazaars legal a dig-three cantrip should be banned.
And unrestrict Poder.
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Originally Posted by
wonderPreaux
Being liked has nothing to do with the discussion about Brainstorm. I'm saying some people play lower-tier lists because the experience playing the deck is more enjoyable and thus they perform better because they like doing what theyre doing. On paper, I don't think Infect is as good a deck as some of the other decks there, in the hands of someone who really enjoys and/or has a knack for Infect, though, it's whole different story.
Except that Infect isn't bad deck, and it plays blue including Brainstorm. :eyebrow:
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Originally Posted by
pettdan
Regarding color, you mention yourself that several archetypes use Brainstorm. I think color is more relevant than archetype. Note that I discussed only color, not archetype.
[edit: I see now that I mentioned archetype when discussing who should have access to the anti-Brainstorm card, it was not referring to who was actually playing the Brainstorm]
Regarding effect, discard is generally less powerful than card draw. Discard is a defensive mechanism (irrelevant late game usually), while card draw/selection helps you win. I think we can agree that the mulligan is an important and powerful game mechanism that is available to all decks and is needed for balanced games. Discard is not imo too good for black, it's rather the opposite: black is relevant primarily due to the discard. Without it black would be a less relevant color. My argument is that an effect similar to the mulligan is too strong for a single color.
You'll be informed that color identity doesn't matter and then you'd be told that spreading the effect into other colors is breaking the color identity. By the very same ppl, preferably. Commense cj in 5, 4...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FoolofaTook
The fact that the blue shell now encompasses aggro control, mid-range control, combo and has moved into the fast aggro space with the Delver lists and UR Delver in particular is what makes Legacy a stagnant format. Trying to figure out the 8 to 20 cards + on-color blue lands that need to shift in order to make a list successful is not a rewarding meta at all. It punishes players who just don't like the blue shell and rewards people for playing cards for no reason other than raw power level and the fact that they combine well with the blue shell. It's a meta that creates best card lists and rewards people for accumulating high-priced Legacy staples instead of mastering how to play with an enormous card pool that has answers for almost everything and at times surprising synergies from areas not-well explored.
This was brilliant post!
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
Wow, we're still not over the MB Red Elemental Blast thing from what I have read the last pages? Is it sooooo hard to compregend that REBs in tempo lists like UR Delver is NOT FOR BATTLING OPPOSING BRAINSTORMS but the ONLY viable out against TNN/Counterbalance in that colors in addition to FoW? Everyone who ever played a tempo related deck can verify that TNN/Counterbalance is about the worst that can happen.
I'm baffled that people still think the numbers of Brainstorm + REBs or those of Brainstorm + FoW are somehow connected. They are not gentlemen. You play REBs against blue threats other cards in that color can't economically handle, while FoW + Ponder + Preordain + Probe (+ SDT) still prevent you from dying against T1 Combo decks
Edit: also a big applause for not reading the last 10 or so pages of an active discussion, but jumping in by repeating the same old "arguments" we read dozens of times before from other people who did not bother to follow the threat either. There are the same arguments and counter-arguments coming up every 4 pages, because no one bothers to read the fucking arguments before they make their posts.
I played the format from day 1 on. I really liked Legacy and it hurt when I made the decision to stop participating in it a few months ago because of Brainstorm completely stifling any form of creativity without any improvement being in sight. So I just bursted into the thread like this because I tilted when I saw that apparantly now MD REBs are common and saw some people STILL claimng that BS is not OP.
There IS no discussion if BS is banworthy. It is an ultra-synergistic, low-costed, ultra-low-drawback, high-upside card that in terms of numbers dominates a format more than any other (not later on banned) card in the history of MtG ever did and it does that now for extremely long period of time. There is fucking nothing to discuss so I won't bother reading that discussion. I dont imagine losing any information of value, I am just here to express my anger about MD REBs.
Nonetheless I find it interesting how you claim that TNN/CB is the worst that can happen to a Tempo deck. Now what about cards like Pernicious Deed, Chalice of the Void or Smallpox? They are far worse. But the decks that feature them are unplayable because they lack the consistency that Brainstorm (+Ponder) gives them. So you won't see any MD Annuls because there are not enough targets and there is your connection between numbers of BS and numbers of REBs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
The point is (and ever was) that Blue decks would streamline into Delver/TNN/SFM strategies which are already 40% of the current metagame. I see no reason you couldn't pick up a Preordain+Probe+SDT+Counterbalance+SFM+TNN+FoW deck and still slay combo and non-blue aggro. CounterTop existed before Ponder was even printed, just saying. Sure I can't predict if CB will be still the shitz, but the card selection and creatures still remain a problem non-blue cannot match.
I am lost. Maybe I miss something but it looks like you are really arguing that the third and 4th best blue cards are still OP and thus banning the best and second best is pointless?
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
death
Not sure on which side of the Brainstorm fence you're in. But your statement suggests blue overall is OP and would remain likely so post-ban.
CB-Top existed before Ponder, yes. Joe Lossett doesn't even play a single Ponder. But can CB-Top exist without Brainstorm?
It's funny you have to ask :)
Blue is overpowered in terms of card selection and it EVER WAS. Claiming that this fundamental blue strengh is suddenly a Problem or a problem at all considering its weaknesses in other aspects of the game is ignorant towards the games history and colors identity.
If you want more draw control, play SDT or splash blue, if you want creature removal splash white or red, if you want disenchants splash white or green.
I've never heared blue players moaning that they have to splash colors for removal, but the RWG fraction every time it comes to stack interaction or draw-control. Pathetic. As if colors matter in a world of color-fixing, fetches and duals.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
The problem now is that we have a critical mass of powerful spells available to blue alongside a critical mass of blue draw and selection.
There are three divergent path Legacy could be placed on at this point.
1. Legacy becomes a blue format with most lists using elements of the blue shell for consistency and occasional outlier lists alongside pet decks top 8-ing now and then.
This is the path we are on. It appeals to a wide range of players and it drives off many more players who don't like the competition it creates. It limits participation in Legacy dramatically, a fact that we're seeing in front of us each week at 8-20 person weeklies as opposed to the 30-40 person weeklies as recently as 2011. Young people aren't buying into Legacy as much because the price of cards is no longer something you can reasonably ask for as a birthday or holiday present.
2. WotC chooses to ban a select set of power cards that mesh well with the blue shell in an attempt to bring blue back under some semblance of control, trying to drive it down to under 50% of the meta game.
These cards are not hard to identify if you look at things carefully. Delver of Secrets, Lion's Eye Diamond (splash damage to Dredge), Show and Tell, Entomb, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, True-Name Nemesis and Treasure Cruise should do the job for now.
WotC would cling to the hope that Miracles and Stoneblade lists would not just become dominant in that meta, a hope unlikely to be realized but we'd be on the ban good things path already and WotC would be sloping downwards on it with a cyclical ban requirement as cards became dominant. There would be huge pressure on WotC with each print and reprint cycle not to print something that broke the eternal formats again until it was banned. The design space would be critically impaired moving forward under that pressure.
3. WotC chooses to ban the best blue shell consistency tools and endeavors not to print cheap easily used card selection and draw again. They choose to keep blue as the best source of card draw and selection but they limit the gross consistency that is present now so that it does not become the only realistic choice in a non-vintage eternal meta.
This is a much sounder alternative because it's easy to look at a card and know whether or not it breaks some simple rules on cost, drawing and selecting cards. The design space is not as impaired as it would be under a no power cards mandate.
The best meta by far would be the third described. The worst would be the second. Unfortunately I suspect that we will get the first instead and Legacy numbers will continue to dwindle at locals and with that the format will be in decline.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
There' also a possibility that people start to brew a real anti-U metagame police (field gendarmerie?) style of piles that prey on Your Usual Island decks. Nice metagame there, Raffinity much?
And even if this works, it's still pretty demotivating to tinker with the limited amount of viable cards just to see the next blue sick stuff vomited each four months.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Essentially. Like us Atlanta people have said, we used to get 30-40 for weeklies. Now that store doesn't even run legacy and no weekly type event fires unless half of the tournament is Tusk members. It's not for lack of cards. Many people CAN play legacy in the area. They just choose not to because it's become stale.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bed Decks Palyer
There' also a possibility that people start to brew a real anti-U metagame police (field gendarmerie?) style of piles that prey on Your Usual Island decks. Nice metagame there, Raffinity much?
And even if this works, it's still pretty demotivating to tinker with the limited amount of viable cards just to see the next blue sick stuff vomited each four months.
This is the prisoner's dilemma though. If many people play inferior anti-blue lists then yes the meta will slowly self-correct over time, however each of the people playing the inferior list (Sylvan Plug for example) will suffer poorer results than they would just playing a blue shell list.
The anti-blue lists for the most part are much cheaper than the blue shell lists and they should be seeing a lot of play. However it is disheartening to lose matches randomly to bad draws when you see others with much more predictable draws advancing. In a meta where nobody had highly predictable draws that would just be bad luck and so on.
In a meta where you can make your consistency much higher by playing a particular shell the choice becomes between playing that shell and not playing at all for many people. That's where we're at right now.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bed Decks Palyer
There' also a possibility that people start to brew a real anti-U metagame police (field gendarmerie?) style of piles that prey on Your Usual Island decks. Nice metagame there, Raffinity much?
And even if this works, it's still pretty demotivating to tinker with the limited amount of viable cards just to see the next blue sick stuff vomited each four months.
That happened at our store when half the field wouldbe chalice/blood moon decks. Which I have no problem with, but 1) it's obviously inconsistent, and 2) at a local level people just got tired of it and quit playing
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
It's funny you have to ask :)
Blue is overpowered in terms of card selection and it EVER WAS. Claiming that this fundamental blue strengh is suddenly a Problem or a problem at all considering its weaknesses in other aspects of the game is ignorant towards the games history and colors identity.
If you want more draw control, play SDT or splash blue, if you want creature removal splash white or red, if you want disenchants splash white or green.
I've never heared blue players moaning that they have to splash colors for removal, but the RWG fraction every time it comes to stack interaction or draw-control. Pathetic. As if colors matter in a world of color-fixing, fetches and duals.
This point is a bit disingenuous and/or wrong. Good threats exist in all five colors. Solid creature removal in three. Artifact removal, likewise. Enchantment removal exists in two colors if you need to solve the problem permanently. Those numbers are four and three if a temporary relieve is fine.
That's very different from consistency tools for which you have one and a half options basically - cantrip cartel and GSZ/Library/Top(/Bob) which are an order of magnitude weaker than the cartel - the power level difference between those is much more than the ones between RWB removal options, GWR disenchant effects and blue bounce's efficiency as a temporary relieve for the aforementioned. All of those tend to solve the problem with comparable resource efficiency. But compare those nonblue options to Preordain and Ponder and they can maybe compete. Brainstorm+fetch, not even close.
Basically: Want removal? Don't play UG (monoG if temporary is enough). Want disenchants/shatters? Don't play UB (or monoB if temporary is ok). Want good threats? Any color is fine. Want good card selection? Play blue, a specific green list. Green goodstuff and you're maybe okay too. That's it. It's far more constricting than the other things because good consistency tools are way, way more concentrated in one color and one narrow green deck than those other things.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Megadeus
That happened at our store when half the field wouldbe chalice/blood moon decks. Which I have no problem with, but 1) it's obviously inconsistent, and 2) at a local level people just got tired of it and quit playing
We're still going through this process at my LGS. If I play 3 or 4 rounds on a night I will generally see one anti-blue list, 2 blue shell lists and either D&T, Elves, Burn or Merfolk (I don't consider this a blue shell list because it only plays Daze, Force of Will and TNN out of the blue shell, eschewing Brainstorm, Ponder, Stifle and Delver of Secrets.)
The people playing the anti-blue lists don't play as often as the blue shell, Elves and D&T players. Burn and Merfolk are the cheap alternatives and people playing them are mainly doing so for budget reasons, and they'll tell you that now and then.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
I don't think that the "blue shell" is preventing new people from buying in. I think what is preventing people is the cost, specifically of basic format staples like duel lands and FoW. Everyone at my LGS stops to watch when a few of us are playing legacy and would love to play, but don't have $1,000-$2,000 kicking around to get them into the format (yes I know, some decks are less, but not everyone wants to play Merfolk or Burn). Reprints to bring these staples down to semi-sane levels would do wonders for participation in the format.
The meta needs time to adapt to new cards before bans are considered. TNN was huge, and while still part of the metagame, it's much smaller now. I think it would be smart of us to see if Treasure Cruise will also decrease once it's not the hot new thing everyone wants to try out. There was even a big burn resurgence recently (that was fairly successful I might add with many top 8s) with Eidolon of the Great Revel, and that seems to have declined significantly (a card that is not blue I'd note). People like playing with new cards and trying them out, even in eternal formats.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FoolofaTook
The problem now is that we have a critical mass of powerful spells available to blue alongside a critical mass of blue draw and selection.
There are three divergent path Legacy could be placed on at this point.
There is a fourth path, I believe, which it seems likely that wizards are pursuing: trying to find suitable anti-brainstorm cards that will help balance the meta. Notion Thief and Spirit of the Labyrinth are recent prints offering functionality in that direction; the previous similar card created would be Chains of Mephistopheles and that was a long time ago. Now suddenly we have two of them over a short span of time. Spirit of the Labyrinth is seeing some play but not enough. I guess they'll continue making meta balancing hate bears.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pettdan
There is a fourth path, I believe, which it seems likely that wizards are pursuing: trying to find suitable anti-brainstorm cards that will help balance the meta. Notion Thief and Spirit of the Labyrinth are recent prints offering functionality in that direction; the previous similar card created would be Chains of Mephistopheles and that was a long time ago. Now suddenly we have two of them over a short span of time. Spirit of the Labyrinth is seeing some play but not enough. I guess they'll continue making meta balancing hate bears.
If they're going this route they need to go away from bears and towards enchantments. The blue shell has no problem at all finding creature removal if they need it. If they had made Spirit of the Labyrinth like the gods, with Indestructible and only a creature once devotion to white was 2 or more it would have been effective hate against card draw. As a 3/1 enchantment creature it dies to every removal spell in the format that can hit a creature or an enchantment. It dies to all the -1/-1 sweepers.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FoolofaTook
If they're going this route they need to go away from bears and towards enchantments. The blue shell has no problem at all finding creature removal if they need it. If they had made Spirit of the Labyrinth like the gods, with Indestructible and only a creature once devotion to white was 2 or more it would have been effective hate against card draw. As a 3/1 enchantment creature it dies to every removal spell in the format that can hit a creature or an enchantment. It dies to all the -1/-1 sweepers.
Yes, it seems like it needs some improvement to have a noticeable impact on the meta. With Aether Vial and Mother of Runes in the deck it seems to be good enough to run. Without those it's very easy to find a way to deal with it, making it quite peripheral and not having the metagame effect one could hope for. It doesn't really need to stay around for long though, if it can stay in play while the stack clears that's good enough. A resolved brainstorm with a Spirit in play is pretty devastating. A too good version (?) would be Spirit with flash and protection from a color of the caster's choice until end of turn. I think it probably should have had flash, like the containment priest.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LOLWut
Barely. 94.4% of the bigger number is a statistically insignificant difference.
Statistically insignificant differences, to my knowledge, are only applicable when extrapolating numbers from a smaller representative sample, e.g. polls. We have data here that isn't really extrapolation, so "statistically insignificant" seems an irrelevant claim to make.
Quote:
It's also extremely likely that Brainstorm wouldn't be as omnipresent if Force of Will wasn't around.
That's true. However, Brainstorm is still the bigger offender in terms of omnipresence and is less important in regards to stopping the format from being overrun by Goblin Charbelcher-esque decks.
