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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
talpa
Strangely I saw this objection coming and the answer is already there, in the names and tournaments results: those deck were chosen by strong players and piloted to strong finish in big events.
Your always going to have outliers, that's why we notice them. The idea when using data is not to hand pick points, but to look at trend lines. I can agree each of these decks individually in the hands of skilled individuals did well, but again, single points of data do not an argument make or help anyone in isolation.
I can hand pick data to make a point too, look at the times Lands had done well to argue its the best deck in the format. If you ignore all the other data points it would seem I am right. But I would be wrong. It's a good deck but, regardless of my desire for it to be, it's not the best.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
I can hand pick data to make a point too, look at the times Lands had done well to argue its the best deck in the format. If you ignore all the other data points it would seem I am right. But I would be wrong. It's a good deck but, regardless of my desire for it to be, it's not the best.
How can you refute the point that "these decks are unplayable" without handpicking data? It's not argued that they are the best decks, its argued that the statement that they are unplayable are false.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
The idea when using data is not to hand pick points, but to look at trend lines
First of all, as already said by JosefK, when you are willing to refute a universal proposition you need just one counter-example.
The whining was "you can't play this deck and have success" (hell, it was even worse, it was "it doesn't exist a deck in this color-pair") and showing that the deck can win a big tournament is enough.
Then, as I said, I don't believe in trends: people follow personal tastes, fashion etc. and is limited by deck availability. So the fact that a deck is more played than another doesn't strictly demonstrate anything. For example, in Europe we knew how strong miracle was (and how the ponder list was the better) ages before US people realized that. Also, why are european, american and asian metagames so different if the format is the same? :D
Why is online magic different than paper one? Because a deck "strength" isn't the only parameter (nor it even has meaning in a vacuum without considering the metagame).
Last but not least, you actually don't have data to infer a deck strength if you can only look at top lists. Without considering the skill of a player, if you wanted to assess "a deck" performance, you should have access to all results. Which only wizard can do, on MTGO.
If you instead look only at the "winners" and can't compare who they are with "how many of them there were in the metagame", you have a distorted perception. Because if the metagame in a certain tournament was dominated by a deck, it could have a predominance in the top by mere chance (big numbers) and not because it was strong.
I know some people that do this kind of analysis when they have access to ALL decklists in a certain tournament... and as I said, the last big tournament in Italy showed a WORSE result for miracle and grixis than others archetypes (average points of all players aggregated by deck type).
And yes, Lands is a strong deck in general, won that tournament in particular and even had a good average point between all those who played it.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
talpa
LOL the biggest epic fail :laugh:
There are tier decks for this color combinations :cool:
Also I'd love to understand what difference do you mean to underline between "white green" (2nd in your list) and "green white" the last in your list :laugh::laugh::laugh:
WR - Red Taxes -
example list Nick Tucker 18th/810 SCG Open Worcester
WG - Maverick -
example list Tristan Pölzl 6th/194 MKM Series Paris
WB - Deadguy Ale / Pikula -
example list Owen Watson 16th/187 SCG Duel for Duals
So...um...to clarify...all a deck has to do in order to be considered competitive with miracles etc. in your opinion is get 16th/187 at 1 event? I've got a sweet competitive deck then for you to crush your next event with: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=19908&d=328765 .
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kinda
So...um...to clarify...all a deck has to do in order to be considered competitive with miracles etc. in your opinion is get 16th/187 at 1 event? I've got a sweet competitive deck then for you to crush your next event with:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=19908&d=328765 .
Agreeing with your point, of course..
I think we can all agree, after a little bit of reasoning, that the competitiveness of a deck is not defined by its ability to be good on a single occasion, but rather to be consistently good. Of course a deck with 20 Forests and 40 Grizzly Bears could win a 15 round tournament vs decks with 20 lands and 40 spells if these decks only draw their spells and no lands. It just needs to get lucky. Winning a single tournament, maybe once a year even, is not a necessarily a testament of a deck's strength and competitiveness. Regularly winning tournaments, on the other hand, is. This is also a large part of the reason why Brainstorm defines most competitive decks in the format.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MorphBerlin
I respect your efforts, but the ban-everything-until-maverik-is-great-again crowd will never stop bitching how unfair good blue is. (You can also insert another bad pet deck there)
I don't know but I have the impression that only a subset of the people who want to improve format diversity are longing for a travel back in time in terms of meta changes. There are some who do, I for example don't see it that way.
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I mean do these people now 4c-Loam? It's like a competitive, good maverick :laugh: But I guess it's too unfair because of Mox Diamond and Chalice, these people only enjoy the pure Maverick expirience.
I don't know why, I could guess that if you want a Chalice strategy then Eldrazi is better and if you want a Loam strategy then Lands is better. Personally I like Maverick better, it seems to me that it should be more consistent and maybe unique and in my view more fun, but none of that really matters in this context.
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Edit: The denial of the competitiveness of the decks you lsitet even when you provided data of TopX finishes at big events made me laugh as well :laugh: Ban everything until this one guy, how probably just sucks at magic can top 8 an event with his pet deck :laugh:
See my comment above! This is, in my view, a misunderstanding of what competitiveness means.
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Also no word about D&T which has always been competitive and get's new playable creatures in like evey set... Also to unfair because of the Taxing/Controlling Elements I guess.
There has been plenty of word about D&T in relation to Brainstorm. Thalia is often referred to as one of the few cards that can interact in a meaningful way with Brainstorm.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kinda
So...um...to clarify...all a deck has to do in order to be considered competitive with miracles etc. in your opinion is get 16th/187 at 1 event? I've got a sweet competitive deck then for you to crush your next event with:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=19908&d=328765 .
What do you mean with the phrasing "competitive with?" As strong as X? Good against X?
I'm not doing comparisons (like in more (less) competitive than). I'm simply saying that a deck that makes top16 in a big event is "competitive", by the very definition of "competitive" as "being able to win". Even more so if few people play it. You just CAN'T BE LUCKY FOR 15 ROUNDS CONSECUTIVELY with a "non competitive" deck
Also, as we already explained, we weren't "saying" anything. We were just "refuting" an obvious idiocy (choose yours: "a legacy GW deck does not exist", "maverick is not a deck", "maverick can't win a tournament" etc etc).
EDIT: Oh! And of course I like the deck you linked.
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Originally Posted by
pettdan
I think we can all agree
No I don't. And I think you are purposely denying the evidence and choosing a straw man to fight with.
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Originally Posted by
pettdan
Of course a deck with 20 Forests and 40 Grizzly Bears could win a 15 round tournament
Really? Please show me the historical record. I think this actually proves MY point.
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Originally Posted by
pettdan
Regularly winning tournaments, on the other hand...
...depends (not only, but surely also) on how many people play it.
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Originally Posted by
pettdan
the competitiveness of a deck is not defined by its ability to be good on a single occasion, but rather to be consistently good
No, this is a definition of how consistent a deck is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pettdan
This is also a large part of the reason why Brainstorm defines most competitive decks in the format.
Yes, Brainstorm gives consistency. Not competitiveness. (Brainstorm is not the only way to have consistency, but it is a [very] good one).
A deck that has consistency and strength is more likely to put up results. A deck that is consistently bad just looses. Plenty of way to put 4 brainstorm in a shitty deck and make it shittier.
Also if you were the best player of the world and were playing the most competitive and consistent deck in a Grand Prix and I had to bet between you winning it, or anyone else of the other 800 players winning it I'd bet against you. If everybody plays brainstorm, of course brainstorm shows up in top8.
(I'm not saying brainstorm isn't good of course; why everybody is playing brainstorm is a completely different question. But when someone doesn't, he can still win; and of course we had two dragon stompy in birmigham, didn't we? How many brainstorm deck do you think were there and how many dragon stompy?)
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
It's always funny how Italian people seem to like to be provocative, or I think they like it, well I like it too.. ;)
I think some of your arguments fall all by themselves, like Brainstorm not being related to competitiveness is a point I think you will have a hard time driving home among anyone playing this format for a couple of years.
When it comes to competitiveness, we can consider different levels or types of competitiveness. Splitting hairs like this is however not meaningful for this discussion. If you want to define every deck that ever won a tournament as competitive, that is fine, I think 99.9% of the users in this forum will have a different perspective than you. You can have that perspective, it just isn't very useful when discussing the format. I'll provide two links below to threads where you can read up on decks that the forum in general considers competitive, these are two methods for deciding on competiveness of decks and probably the best ones we have access to right now with the limited data we have. I suggest you ask them to add your definition of competitiveness in these threads and see how they respond.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...-Probe-Banning
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...Deck-Selection
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pettdan
I think 99.9% of the users in this forum
Don't care. When everybody says 1+1=3 everybody is just wrong.
Also maybe that's precisely why this forum doesn't have any more real interesting contents on the competetive threads.
Oh, and by the way I'd bet you are speaking of those WHO WROTE, not of "everybody who plays legacy" LOL
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pettdan
these are two methods for deciding on competiveness
No, as I already said these can define which decks are winning, which doesn't mean ANYTHING if you don't know the distribution of how many of each one was playing in the first place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pettdan
I think some of your arguments fall all by themselves
Yeah, yeah. Refute them. No, you are just shifting the discussion from "maverick is not a deck" to "brainstorm is good" which was not the question.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
H
I don't think the historical record reflects the idea that the Blue was ever not the best color in Magic.
I agree, but historically that dominance was on the back of it's spells, and it's creatures were generally pretty meh.
Now, that dominance is on the back of it's new creatures and it's old spells.
That was pretty much my entire point. If other colors had spells to the level of blues spells, then blue wouldn't be dominant, because the creatures are all about the same now, and are waaaay ahead of what they used to be.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bithlord
It is what it is, but I'd just once like to see them make an "oops that was way too powerful" mistake that *isn't* blue.
Edit: que argument over whether DRS was one such mistake :P.
This was an interesting statement to me - I wonder if part of the reason this never seems to happen is that it is much harder to make a creature in other colors that is extremely powerful, but not in an obviously busted way, and not in a way that would break standard.
This sort of thing came up in the Shitty Card Creation thread the other day - if the prompt is, "design a guy that would make Plateau competitive," the things that would come close are just completely unprintable on first reading, like:
RW, 5/5, Human Knight; Haste, Vigilance, Creatures and Lands your opponents control enter the battlefield tapped. Non-creature spells your opponents control that target ~ cost 1 more to cast.
Like, that card maybe could be good enough for a Legacy beatdown deck, but it can still get countered, plowed, pushed, etc., and BUG would probably still be the place to be. Like an earlier poster said, many of the playable cards in Legacy are the "mistakes," and the mistakes that would follow the color pie in non-blue colors are just much more obvious, and less likely to make it through development. By contrast, R&D looks at something like Delver and figures, "man, this is pretty hard to flip, right? Seems fine" without ever trying it with brainstorms/forces/dazes in their deck, or looks at TNN and goes "Oh yeah people will have three opponents with 40 life when they play this guy, surely one of the other two will help out?"
Deathrite Shaman may have been the perfect example of this phenomenon: they figure, "oh, lands are rarely in the grave, this might fix once in a while" and "two damage a turn isn't all that much, we print guys with much bigger power than that, plus you need instants and sorceries and there aren't a ton of those either" and then it turns out to be nuts in formats where neither of those assumptions hold.
All that being said, I feel like it's only a matter of time before they print, "1W, 2/2, Human Advisor; Your opponents can't play noncreature spells." Someone at wizards has a huge boner for hatebears...
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bithlord
I agree, but historically that dominance was on the back of it's spells, and it's creatures were generally pretty meh.
Now, that dominance is on the back of it's new creatures and it's old spells.
That was pretty much my entire point. If other colors had spells to the level of blues spells, then blue wouldn't be dominant, because the creatures are all about the same now, and are waaaay ahead of what they used to be.
A fair point, but Wizards is not going to forsake Blue in every other actually supported format, just for the sake of Legacy.
Not to mention that if Blue creatures weren't any good, Blue decks just use other color's creatures, just like they did pre-Innistrad and even all the way back to the original Thresh decks. See this very thread years ago about how Tarmogoyf should be banned as well.
The only solution is to ban nearly every cantrip that is worth playing. And honestly, that is a shitty solution, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that there are actually people who like them. It doesn't really matter if you frame it as people like liking OP shit, people like powerful cards in any Constructed format. There is even a whole format predicated on the idea that people like to play degenerative stuff, because it's powerful (Vintage). If you don't, then you play Limited.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JosefK
How can you refute the point that "these decks are unplayable" without handpicking data? It's not argued that they are the best decks, its argued that the statement that they are unplayable are false.
You show trends. On a technical level they are all playable, they are legal in the format. My issue is not with the point but with picking out single data points and arguing they mean anything in isolation. That is not have stats work. You want a large sample size and then find the trends. We have a very large sample size (The amount of games we see reported is very high) with no trend towards these decks seeing any kind of widespread success. (Other than Lands.) WR DnT was a thing, then they got a White Recruiter and it went away.
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Originally Posted by
talpa
Then, as I said, I don't believe in trends: people follow personal tastes, fashion etc. and is limited by deck availability.
You what? Really? Yes, there are limits due to external factors, but you really want to debate trends? I would suggest that the price of Tabernacle shows a trend in the uptake of Lands upon its success. The spike in City after Eldzari hit it big... People follow these trends. I get what your saying, that external factors play a large part in peoples choice and directions, but trends are a thing. Like, you don't have to believe in them, wont stop them any. I don't have to believe in cars, I think its best that I still should check for them before I cross the road.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
talpa
I know some people that do this kind of analysis when they have access to ALL decklists in a certain tournament... and as I said, the last big tournament in Italy showed a WORSE result for miracle and grixis than others archetypes (average points of all players aggregated by deck type).
Got a link for that? Sounds like my kind of time waster for tonight. Would be cool to dig though. Thanks.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
The fact that cantrips and card selection (and, more broadly speaking, "draw cards"-abilities) only really and relevantly exist in Blue is a problem that eternal formats will have to live with, I guess. But that problem is compounded by the fact that the other "best" abilities and effects in the game are also to be found in Blue, or have been absorbed/cannibalized by Blue, over the last years. The original sin is, of course, stack interaction/being able to counter spells and abilities. Unless instant speed discard (quite ridiculously only to be found in Blue via Piracy Charm) becomes a thing, there's no better way to not make your opponent fuck you up with a single, yet crucial spell, that the other colours simply cannot match. WotC's answer to that - printing "can't be countered" bioler-plate on various cards - is a shitty band-aid "solution" for that particular problem, although I admit don't know how to fix it either. That cat's been out of the bag for too long already. However...
Blue has superior protection and evasion (True-Name Nemesis and all the "can't be blocked"-shit), often comes with Flash and Flying tacked on, and has hexproof on some of its critters to boot. What do the other colors get that blue won't? Haste, First and Double Strike, Trample, mana production built-in, Delve (ignoring the banned U clusterfuck of cards from a few years ago, Blue still gets the "better" kind of Delve on one of its fatties: on Cryptic Serpent). Did I forget anything relevant?
I think something's gotta change in how properties that WotC perceives to be OK on Blue cards are distributed over the colour pie, historical precedent be damned. And they need to do so in a way that precludes (predominantly) Blue decks from splashing those cards.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Honestly, there's lots of "cute" attempts to make a force of will cycle that gives each other color the ability to counter things it's good at fighitng against. But, you know what/ F that.
We need a legit "force of..." cycle.
Force of hate: 3BB. You may discard a black card and pay one life to play this spell without paying it's cost. Counter. Target. Spell.
Force of fire.
Force of unity.
Force of (nature is already taken).
hell, you want to show how "superior" blue is, fine. Take away the casting cost, and may the discard and pay life the only way to cast it. Literally nobody casts force for 5 mana anyway...
But, like you noted, stack interaction AND card draw are "locked in" to blue's part of the pie. So, while blue gets to eat little bits of everybody elses pie, nobody gets to share in blue's part.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
On a technical level they are all playable, they are legal in the format
Well, that's a way of understating it. Are they "just legal" in the format as it would be something like 20 forest and 40 2/2s for two mana, or can we agree they are just a tiny bit better? :cool:
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Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
You what? Really? (...) I get what your saying, that external factors play a large part in peoples choice and directions
So we understand each other. Let's avoid pretending the contrary.
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Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
Got a link for that? Sounds like my kind of time waster for tonight. Would be cool to dig though. Thanks.
No I don't. I can post an image with the elaboration, though
https://imgur.com/a/p4613LV
https://imgur.com/a/p4613LV
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
Bithlord
Literally nobody casts force for 5 mana anyway...
Hasn't played enough miracles.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
talpa
So we understand each other. Let's avoid pretending the contrary.
Your looking at half of what I am saying. Your claiming people don't follow trends, they just play entirely on external factors. I am saying that I agree those factors exist, but that also trends matter. Regardless of your personal belief in them.
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Originally Posted by
talpa
Thats good enough, thanks.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
Your looking at half of what I am saying. Your claiming people don't follow trends, they just play entirely on external factors. I am saying that I agree those factors exist, but that also trends matter. Regardless of your personal belief in them.
No, I was implying that I was exaggerating when saying trends don't exist at all. I just think that the REAL trends in magic are way more difficult to exactly identify than someone seems to think
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
All Talpa argument's are personal arguments, theory that has to be proven (italy metagame data where are? prove wiht an aggregate data please) and his own percpetion so it's just moving the focus from the point.
At the moment the point is:
Is blue shell always in more than 50% of the top8? why?
Is blue shell chosen by more player than other shells? why?
Is the format wrapped around blue shell? why?
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
talpa
No, I was implying that I was exaggerating when saying trends don't exist at all. I just think that the REAL trends in magic are way more difficult to exactly identify than someone seems to think
No, I don't think so. Not to sound like I am against you on everything, I just, I don't think so.
Avacyn Restored comes out May of 2012. Miracles gets 163 points that month (Its more Countertop Control then real Miracles). Mav and Threash get the lion share. This holds kind of steady for long time, no one really having worked out the best shell for the deck. Early 2014 this changes. People know what the build is, shit turns and the trend picks up. The deck flys and it will leave the DTB totals twice until the removal of Top from the format. You can see where the tread starts, where it picks up and where it is adapted.
That was not hard for me to work out, I just opened my spreadsheet and had a look. Trends in Magic are not hard to spot. Card Prices, deck retention, win percentages and other decks dropping off are all really easy to see in the data. Because we have so much of it. Would you like a copy of what I have? You might find it all useful.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zulabnar
All Talpa argument's are personal arguments, theory that has to be proven (italy metagame data where are? prove wiht an aggregate data please) and his own percpetion so it's just moving the focus from the point.
At the moment the point is:
Is blue shell always in more than 50% of the top8? why? Blue is historically the best color in magic, and this is an eternal format. Why wouldn't you want to play the best cards? Also FOW gives you a fighting chance game 1 against almost any deck.
Is blue shell chosen by more player than other shells? why?Blue is historically the best color in magic, and this is an eternal format. Why wouldn't you want to play the best cards? Also FOW gives you a fighting chance game 1 against almost any deck.
Is the format wrapped around blue shell? why?Blue is historically the best color in magic, and this is an eternal format. Why wouldn't you want to play the best cards? Also FOW gives you a fighting chance game 1 against almost any deck.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zulabnar
All Talpa argument's are personal arguments, theory that has to be proven (italy metagame data where are?
LOL Again: just posted
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zulabnar
just moving the focus from the point.
You are. If you had wrote "blue is good" I wouldn't have bothered responding. But you said "this and this are unplayable color pairs". That was wrong obviously. And I just refuted that (and easily so)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
Trends in Magic are not hard to spot. Card Prices, deck retention, win percentages
If you want to share it could be interesting thanks.
But I still don't think those kind of trends indicate so easily what the "best" deck is.
I agree miracle was OP and deserved a ban. But for example our (from Italy) perception was completely different from what you just summarized. You were "late" from our POV on each phase of the deck life. First of all we had deck with terminus as soon as it was printed. We identified the 4ponder list as the best quite soon. We had a few among the greatest players winning everything with that deck and others developed early a personal and strong hate against the deck. We hoped for a ban two years before it happened; when they finally hit top we were actually no longer expecting and both metaga and opposing deck lists were adapted to confront miracle dominance and had been so for long time.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
talpa
If you want to share it could be interesting thanks.
But I still don't think those kind of trends indicate so easily what the "best" deck is.
I agree miracle was OP and deserved a ban. But for example our (from Italy) perception was completely different from what you just summarized. You were "late" from our POV on each phase of the deck life. First of all we had deck with terminus as soon as it was printed. We identified the 4ponder list as the best quite soon. We had a few among the greatest players and others developed early an hate against the deck. We hoped for a ban two years before it happened; when they finally hit top we were actually no longer expecting and both metaga and opposing deck lists were adapted to confront miracle dominance and had been so for long time.
I was not debating the best deck point, just that these trends are easy to see. Standard and price changes almost always show the way things are going. I can tell you what is likely to be the most popular deck in Standard just by looking at inflections in price data. Not that I can tell you what that deck would itself be doing. That would mean giving a shit about Standard and I don't.
As for late on the data points, likely yes. But I was using only one set of data, my DTB spreadsheet without looking at lists themselves, how they changed or other external factors that would be used to adjust ones understanding of the situation. Now imagine your a 22 year old kid playing Standard hopping to make it big, your going to be tuned into all these other data points. (That I doubt you or I personally give a shit about, because who's trying to go pro playing Legacy?) Hell just think about the amount of data teams pour over before a PT. Testing and looking at the lines. So much shit in such a small space.
Lastly, I am not talking about what needed a ban, just the data. I picked Miracles because it has a defined start and end point on my data that makes for the cleanest point of reference, not to make a statement on the deck itself.
Spread sheet link. Its all really basic and public info. There is nothing here that should be new to anyone but the data is all in one place. I do like this sheet.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bithlord
If other colors had spells to the level of blues spells, then blue wouldn't be dominant, because the creatures are all about the same now, and are waaaay ahead of what they used to be.
Sorry to jump in here, but I don't think this is true. I would even claim otherwise and call the available, format-relevant blue creatures these days BETTER than most you find in other colors.
It's quite hard to find anything better than Delver, Snapcaster, TNN, Leovold, etc in their respective roles without blue mana symbol.
So to double-down on the matter: I think there is a base to argue that after DRS' ban, blue has the best cardselection tools, best permission AND the best creatures of the format.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
It's quite hard to find anything better than Delver, Snapcaster, TNN, Leovold, etc in their respective roles without blue mana symbol.
So to double-down on the matter: I think there is a base to argue that after DRS' ban, blue has the best cardselection tools, best permission AND the best creatures of the format.
This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?
I feel like in addition to the general confusion over (or the simple failure to acknowledge) the difference between card diversity and strategic diversity, there's a popular assumption that a card's presence in X% of the top decks is evidence that the card is busted, when it's at least as likely that the other 56 cards in those lists are already excellent without it.
And I'm totally not telling what I (a total pro, for super serial) think is the best card in Legacy, except to say that it isn't Brainstorm.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ronald Deuce
This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?
It is the best card at what it does. Other cards would replace it but its a step down in power. Its like losing Swords and replacing it with Oust. Sure it fits in the slot, but the power level has changed in your decks.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
It is the best card at what it does. Other cards would replace it but its a step down in power. Its like losing Swords and replacing it with Oust. Sure it fits in the slot, but the power level has changed in your decks.
Thanks for the response!
I'm in total agreement, but I'm wondering how much of a difference it would actually make to replace Brainstorm with the next-best cantrip. I'm interested in discussing the degree to which the power level of "Brainstorm decks" (not necessarily your words; I'm just being expedient) would actually fall if Brainstorm were banned. At this point, I'm not sure it would really do that much, but I also tend to think in terms of the worst-case scenario.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ronald Deuce
This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?
I feel like in addition to the general confusion over (or the simple failure to acknowledge) the difference between card diversity and strategic diversity, there's a popular assumption that a card's presence in X% of the top decks is evidence that the card is busted, when it's at least as likely that the other 56 cards in those lists are already excellent without it.
And I'm totally not telling what I (a total pro, for super serial) think is the best card in Legacy, except to say that it isn't Brainstorm.
Its just that we have reached a convergence where Blue almost has direct access to the best of everything, and what it doesn't it can splash fairly easily and brainstorm is the best card in the format. Roughly a decade ago when blue decks weren't as prevalent, blue was played because it answered combo (force) and had the best consistency. With that, if played well, they could maneuver around other strategies that often had stronger cards but weaker consistency. At the time, brainstorm still was like 45-50% of the top table meta (compared tot he 70+% earlier this year, don't know what it is like now). Now that these other decks have lost favor since blue has gotten access to much better cards, majority of the format is just these blue decks splashing the best cards dancing around each other until one exhausts their resources or one top decks better after both have exhausted their resources.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ronald Deuce
Thanks for the response!
I'm in total agreement, but I'm wondering how much of a difference it would actually make to replace Brainstorm with the next-best cantrip. I'm interested in discussing the degree to which the power level of "Brainstorm decks" (not necessarily your words; I'm just being expedient) would actually fall if Brainstorm were banned. At this point, I'm not sure it would really do that much, but I also tend to think in terms of the worst-case scenario.
Storm would likely be a goner and Miracles would take a gut punch. All the Control (Who dont need to set up top decks) and Tempo decks I feel would be fine. Not happy, but they would live.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ronald Deuce
This prompts me to ask a question of the denizens of this thread that's been at the back of my mind for a while now about the skull-rupturingly awesome elephant in the format: Is Brainstorm so widely played because it's the best card in the format, or are the decks that run Brainstorm all (or mostly) exceptionally well-built decks that would include the best cantrip simply as a matter of course?
The fact that Brainstorm is 53%, Ponder 51%, Polluted Delta, 47%, Scalding Tarn 35%, Misty Rainforst 31% and Flooded Strand 29%, pretty clearly shows that the format has no problem in form of Brainstorm but with a whole core.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
phonics
Now that these other decks have lost favor since blue has gotten access to much better cards, majority of the format is just these blue decks splashing the best cards dancing around each other until one exhausts their resources or one top decks better after both have exhausted their resources.
The event horizon of the degenerstion of Legacy was the printing of Ponder. That literally doubled the amount of high quality card selection in decks as you no longer had only a ~41% chance to find a fixer for your draws in your starting grip. The moment it was legal tempo dropped mental note and control dropped stuff like Fact or Fiction. Everything melted into one core
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
The fact that Brainstorm is 53%, Ponder 51%, Polluted Delta, 47%, Scalding Tarn 35%, Misty Rainforst 31% and Flooded Strand 29%, pretty clearly shows that the format has no problem in form of Brainstorm but with a whole core.
While this is true at some point you have to pick your battles. The you can't honestly want to take out all the cantrips just because they do work. You have to accept that's part of Legacy.
My issue is that Brainstorm itself I feel is too powerful, but I accept that the shell will remain. I feel removing Ponder or Preordain is stupid and I would argue against such actions. Not because I don't think these cards would not just slot in, I know they would, but because the power drop is enough. We don't need to kill Legacys identity.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
The event horizon of the degenerstion of Legacy was the printing of Ponder. That literally doubled the amount of high quality card selection in decks as you no longer had only a ~41% chance to find a fixer for your draws in your starting grip. The moment it was legal tempo dropped mental note and control dropped stuff like Fact or Fiction. Everything melted into one core
I pretty much agree with that, but it also makes me wonder why portent was essentially unplayable (and largely still is outside of miracles), I assume part of it was that the value of consistency wasn't as high back then, and the card efficiency overall wasn't low enough to benefit from having that much consistency, and also that portent doesn't give you any card velocity, or the ability to chain multiple cantrips in a turn like ponder does.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dice_Box
While this is true at some point you have to pick your battles. The you can't honestly want to take out all the cantrips just because they do work. You have to accept that's part of Legacy.
My issue is that Brainstorm itself I feel is too powerful, but I accept that the shell will remain. I feel removing Ponder or Preordain is stupid and I would argue against such actions. Not because I don't think these cards would not just slot in, I know they would, but because the power drop is enough. We don't need to kill Legacys identity.
You know that I am not in favor of removing Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain or however deep you wanna go to weed out the cantrips, because it's a deep, deep hole you have to dig to achieve a parity to other colors cardselection tools.
I would be very careful with the "identity of Legacy", as many users consider the cantrip shell as such, which ultimately means that nothing should be done and we all just accept that "cantrip shell + killoption of choice" is supposed to stomp everything else. It's not hard to see that pretty much a decade of stagnant Ponder/Brainstorm/Fetch dominance has already bored out far too many players and will hurt the format even more due to prices as an additional factor. "Boring and expensive" isnt a cool mix too keep a format thrieving
Quote:
Originally Posted by
phonics
I pretty much agree with that, but it also makes me wonder why portent was essentially unplayable (and largely still is outside of miracles), I assume part of it was that the value of consistency wasn't as high back then, and the card efficiency overall wasn't low enough to benefit from having that much consistency, and also that portent doesn't give you any card velocity, or the ability to chain multiple cantrips in a turn like ponder does.
You had opt, serum visions, Mental note, Impulse and predict to fill the role. All got essentially replaced by Ponder and even the classic control draw a la Fact or Fiction or Standstill got pushed out because they were no longer good enough.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
To be honest, I'd prefer that they raise the other colors up to parity, rather than ban blue down to parity. But, there is no way that will ever happen because how could you do it without jsut making the blue cards in other colors?
I think Force should get in other colors, because that's more or less the only way to stop turn 1 decks.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ronald Deuce
Thanks for the response!
I'm in total agreement, but I'm wondering how much of a difference it would actually make to replace Brainstorm with the next-best cantrip. I'm interested in discussing the degree to which the power level of "Brainstorm decks" (not necessarily your words; I'm just being expedient) would actually fall if Brainstorm were banned. At this point, I'm not sure it would really do that much, but I also tend to think in terms of the worst-case scenario.
The ceiling on Brainstorm is so much higher than any of the other cantrips. We shouldn't even really be calling Brainstorm a cantrip; its a whole different beast because it let's you shuffle away bad cards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
The fact that Brainstorm is 53%, Ponder 51%, Polluted Delta, 47%, Scalding Tarn 35%, Misty Rainforst 31% and Flooded Strand 29%, pretty clearly shows that the format has no problem in form of Brainstorm but with a whole core.
Right. But the idea wouldn't be to eliminate that whole core. The point would be to remove the best part of the core so that other sets of cards could compete with it.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Just checking everyone is aware that the only thing that has been discussed in the last 5 millennia in here is Brainstorm/Ponder, and that WotC have explicitly said they won't ban Brainstorm. Maybe it'd be more interesting/useful to discuss other cards?
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
Purple Blood
But the idea wouldn't be to eliminate that whole core. The point would be to remove the best part of the core so that other sets of cards could compete with it.
This is a pointless and jaring discussion as countless posts in this thread have outlined a hundred times, that this approach results into you having to ban 5-12 cards and even more over time.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Purple Blood
The ceiling on Brainstorm is so much higher than any of the other cantrips. We shouldn't even really be calling Brainstorm a cantrip; its a whole different beast because it let's you shuffle away bad cards.
Right. But the idea wouldn't be to eliminate that whole core. The point would be to remove the best part of the core so that other sets of cards could compete with it.
This seems to be something many don't seem to get. Brainstorm is far and away much better than ponder. Those of us that think brainstorm should be banned don't think ponder and preordain should also go, just the one that is clearly busted.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Megadeus
This seems to be something many don't seem to get. Brainstorm is far and away much better than ponder. Those of us that think brainstorm should be banned don't think ponder and preordain should also go, just the one that is clearly busted.
I think it's because we call brainstorm/ponder/serum visions etc. all cantrips. Brainstorm isn't a cantrip, it's a 1 mana edh style partial mulligan you can take at any stage of the game. It's very different than all the spells like ponder/green Sun's Zenith/portent which charge a 1 mana premium in exchange for you getting to choose what you want the card to be.
@Hermit_druid: There is no way you finished reading the nourishing lich thread already...stop slacking. There will be a quiz tomorrow.
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Re: All B/R update speculation.
I used to be of the opinion that Ponder/Preordain would be fine, just axe Brainstorm and we'll be fine, we have Library and Loam and GSZ and Bob as competition and it should be fine. Over time, I've come to think it won't be enough. These are, as best as I can tell, facts of life:
Observation 1: Every card game ever printed with custom decks has "see a lot of cards" as the best strategy, or a fundamental pillar of the best strategy. Whether it's a MTG, whether it's Netrunner, whether it's a deckbuilder. Doesn't matter.
Observation 2: Cantrips "underread": That is, cantrips that look really bad can actually still be very competitive with cards with other functions that read a lot better. Consistency isn't exciting, but it is insanely powerful.
Observation 3: Brainstorm is by far and away the best card in its class, and articles have been written for ages about how it's the best thing to be doing in Legacy, before Innistrad was even released and changed the format forever.
Now, what that means:
Corollary: Cantrips are of a proper power level when they look like they suck.
Corollary 2: If you are excited about reading a card selection spell or a draw spell (and it's not a CA-neutral card that costs at least 2), it's probably busted.
Corollary 3: That said, if there is a problem, it has to be with cantrips as a class because of the above. Every other engine just falls short, and by Observation 1, will define the best strategies and leave us where we are.
I like Ponder, I like Preordain. They're fun cards. They're also completely bonkers, and the format overall would probably be better off with them being axed in addition to their big brother. This should ideally not be done in one fell swoop - I'd like a competitive cantrip shell. But it probably has to read like a boring pile of jank to be appropriate.
