If there is a card we should ban, it should be terminus. One mana instant wrath effects should have never been printed. It's been a while since we've seen a viable aggro deck in legacy.
Cheers
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If there is a card we should ban, it should be terminus. One mana instant wrath effects should have never been printed. It's been a while since we've seen a viable aggro deck in legacy.
Cheers
Plain awesome that you dug that up :)Quote:
Originally Posted by LOLWut
Honeslty, two of those are mistakes. I still contend that Snappy would have been a much better fit for Red, though I have no doubt that it also fits in Blue. And TNN should have been pre-emptively banned, IMO. Clique might have been a better fit in Black, but it also works in Blue. Delver is also a mistake, but I can live slightly more with that one.Quote:
Originally Posted by ahg113
As for the side discussion on DTT, I agree that ti's a very potent card, but there are only a few decks that improve with DTT (blue-based combo springs to mind), and it's still as good a spell as Cruise, but it's not as raw-power as Cruise.
There, want to shake up the format for real? Ban Ponder, Preordain, Terminus, and Show and Tell. I doubt a new slew of blue decks would dominate as much as those that around right now. I don't understand how Show and Tell isn't banned but Survival is, in the sense that Survival got banned because better and better targets kept coming out/would come out and rather than ban Vengevine (rather than ban Grisel/Omniscience) they banned Survival (Show and Tell).
Why ban Ponder and Preordain instead of the card that's clearly better than both? Ponder and Preordain are much closer to the power level of Elves' engines, GSZ, Confidant, Library, Top, etc. than Brainstorm is. You're suggesting the same damn course of action that caused a neverending series of bans with Necro.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanti
IMO, there is room for "Keep Necro" style bans when the card is less oppressive - ie. if not everyone is playing, say, Survival, a few creatures on the banlist are worth keeping an interesting engine. With Brainstorm, though, we're not far from literally everyone playing it, and it's not that it works with specific cards for strong results, it just makes nearly any deck better.
You can just ban Brainstorm and Ponder and the format will shift to become substantially less blue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanti
Yes, Preordain will then become an auto-include in every blue list, however the overall number of blue lists will decline dramatically. It's about the consistency alongside the denial and lately the problematic creatures and Show and Tell. Remove the extreme consistency from the equation and the format becomes a much more balanced experience. Aggro becomes real again. Control remains viable. Aggro Control is what suffers when extreme consistency is removed from the equation because those are the lists that rely on sorting out 10-10-10 quickly and always from a low land base that is prone to bad draws in the absence of a bunch of good cantrips. Fast combo suffers when extreme consistency is removed.
Right now Legacy is dominated by blue-based Aggro Control with Combo and a single Control list as the only other really viable options.
Cute. The same people with the same arguments like before the TC ban ... should I copy & paste the last 30 pages and the whole discussion about Preordain + SDT still being miles better than Zoo.dec?
... how exactly does the terminus in the hand opener get turned into one mana instant wrath? Seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerios
Cabal Therapy on self, naming terminus with Noxious Revival? Obviously.Quote:
Originally Posted by nedleeds
The problem with Survival was that it led to a massive reduction in strategic diversity. There is a big difference between a top 8 full of Brainstorm and a top 8 full of survival. Towards the end of the Survival format the best aggro deck was a Survival deck (the GW survival variant), so was the best combo deck (the Ooze version) and the best control deck (the blue version).
People clamoring for a Brainstorm ban are trying (or are going to try) to draw parallels by saying that best aggro = Brainstorm Delver, best control = Brainstorm Miracles, and best combo = Brainstorm Omni, and it is perhaps a valid comparison in terms of format saturation but nowhere near the same in terms of actual gameplay. The strategies and endgames of these decks are all completely different. It's not at all like late 2010 where the only viable decks could all kill you by cycling through Rootwallas and Vengevines. The way a Delver deck plays out is very different to the way a Miracles deck plays out and this means the format is still enjoyable to watch and play. If you're honestly trying to suggest that every blue deck is "hurr durr cast Brainstorm, everything afterwards is trivial" then I think you're delusional.
By that logic we could also ban fetchlands.Quote:
With Brainstorm, though, we're not far from literally everyone playing it, and it's not that it works with specific cards for strong results, it just makes nearly any deck better.
I agree that Brainstorm is clearly the best card in legacy right now by a significant margin, but I won't agree that power level is a good enough reason to ban a card. If the card is so powerful that it eliminates strategic diversity and leads to a bunch of degenerate mirrors (Survival, Flash), then sure - get rid of it. But having all the best decks be Brainstorm decks is no more of an issue than all the best decks being fetchland decks. A lot of decks are improved by adding Brainstorm. A lot of decks are improved by adding fetchlands. Why is this an issue?
The colour pie argument ("blue is too good") has no validity either. If there was a hypothetical format where you had to use one of 5 monocolour core set precon decks and the blue one was way too good, then this would definitely suck! Everybody is playing the same 60 cards, all the games play out the same. That situation isn't entertaining to watch or play. This is in no way comparable to current legacy though. Even though GP Kyoto hit the 32/32 Brainstorm count,
the top 8 was:
ANT
Omni
Grixis Delver
SFM/Mentor Miracles
URW Stoneblade
Legend Miracles
RUG Delver
Omni
Another way of looking at it is
1 Combo A
2 Combo B
2 Control
2 Tempo/Aggro
1 Midrange
If the top 8 in our blue-neutered alternate universe was somehow this instead:
SI/Charbelcher/Oops
12 post
1-Drop Zoo
Lands
Jund
Lands
Big Zoo
12 post
How is this an improvement? You still have
1 Combo A
2 Combo B
2 Control
2 Tempo/Aggro
1 Midrange
And people complaining that Nacatl is way stronger than any one-drop creature deserves to be, and that board wipes cost too much mana, and wtf no way should Cloudpost be allowed to exist in the format because one day Wizards is going to print an expensive colourless card that just pushes it over the edge!
I would have zero problem having a top 8 that looked like my nonblue hypothetical, and in no way am I trying to suggest that banning Brainstorm would turn the format into that overnight, but I don't understand why pushing the format in that direction is so desirable when the format we have currently is equally balanced in terms of available strategic options.
@nedleeds
Yeah, you can brainstorm it back but you should know better that there are other ways to set up a miracle. :)
Regarding the issue on the cantrip cartel, I think the level of consistency it gives players is one of legacy's attractions. Sadly, not all colors can have the same level of consistency.
I also don't understand why we argue on deck diversity based on colors (ie: blue deck, green deck etc) instead of archetypes.
Cheers
Treasure Cruise and Mental Misstep saw play in a bunch of different decks, so by that standard, those bans were unjustified.Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
I do think that the prevalence of the cantrip shell is in no small part a symptom of the format's over-reliance on Force of Will.
No there isn't, not when the Miracle is drawn prematurely or in your opener. Ask a Miracles pilot if he would keep, Island, Strand, Terminus, Ponder, Brainstorm, Top, Counterbalance on the play in the blind?Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerios
I don't I argue about color much at all. I argue that one card has 100% usage in a GP Top 8, and if it were Survival, or Lion's Eye Diamond it would be banned. But the sacred cow is allowed to roam free and shit all over the countryside. The counter argument to 100% saturation is just hyperbole like "pillar of the format", "glue", "would quit", "play modern", "consistency".Quote:
I also don't understand why we argue on deck diversity based on colors (ie: blue deck, green deck etc) instead of archetypes.
WotC on Banned Cards:
Seems pretty straight forward really. The frustrating part that makes it even more irritating is there are several bad cards still banned, and the most recent unbannings are not even played.Quote:
Originally Posted by wotc
Force of Will is fine.
Treasure Cruise favoured a particular archetype of deck (UR(w) Delver) far more than others, reducing strategic diversity.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
MM also negatively warped the format by nerfing all archetypes that relied on 1 mana spells. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing as an isolated statment it turned out that it created a narrow metagame dominated by blue-based Natural Order decks, so again, it was banned because it reduced strategic format diversity, not because it 'saw play in a bunch of decks'.
Edit:
If Survival or LED saw 100% GP saturation and you wanted to ban them I would probably agree with you, because from a gameplay point of view those cards do very different things to Brainstorm and it is likely that such a format would be highly degenerate.Quote:
I don't I argue about color much at all. I argue that one card has 100% usage in a GP Top 8, and if it were Survival, or Lion's Eye Diamond it would be banned. But the sacred cow is allowed to roam free and shit all over the countryside. The counter argument to 100% saturation is just hyperbole like "pillar of the format", "glue", "would quit", "play modern", "consistency".
Again, if Polluted Delta or Volcanic Island had 32/32 GP top 8 results, would you want to ban those?
It's ludicrous to claim that support for Brainstorm is all in the form of baseless buzzwords like "pillar" or "glue" and in the same sentence attempt to argue for its banning by labelling it a "sacred cow".
If Survival or Lion's Eye Diamond had 100% usage in a GP top 8, it would mean that the top 8 consisted entirely of the same archetype. The same cannot be said of Brainstorm.Quote:
Originally Posted by nedleeds
Doesn't matter. If it was 3 Storm decks, 3 Arrogant Wurm Aggro decks and 2 Dredge decks LED should be banned according to the text below that you (and WotC themselves) seem to want to ignore.Quote:
Originally Posted by iamajellydonut
WotC on Banned Cards:
Quote:
Originally Posted by wotc
So are you trying to argue that banning Brainstorm would make the format healthier/more fun/more diverse/more interesting or are you simply trying to hold wizards accountable for some kind of "Simon Says: Ban this card"Quote:
Originally Posted by nedleeds
If it's the latter case do you also support the reserved list? I want things to happen for the benefit of the game, not because 'WotC says this'.
If I may ask Nedleeds, from your point of view, why does Force get a pass and Brainstorm does not while both cards fit into the quote from WotC your posting. What is the divide for you?
I don't want to put words in Nedleeds mouth, but FoW gets a lot of slack because it's purely a reactive counter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box