All B/R update speculation.

Wasn't sure what my opponent was on but he goes first and drops an island; I kept a hand with one strong play and a few middling cards. On my turn 2, I cast my strong card. Opponent casts brainstorm, cracks a fetch and casts a second brainstorm and force of wills my spell. My opponent got to draw 14 cards to my 9.
If this seems fair to you, tell me why. Maybe legacy should just be renamed the "BS Format"?

Challenge yourself and go make and play a no "BS" deck.
Play your no "BS" deck for an extended period of time and post about your experiences. Did you not feel intensely skillful?

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Originally Posted by non-inflammable

I kept a hand with one strong play and a few middling cards.

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There's the problem.

It happens to everybody, too. Just because Brainstorm isn't a middling card doesn't mean Brainstorm decks don't end up playing with hands full of middling cards, nor does it mean that they find what they're looking for every time. Cantrip into cantrip into cantrip into losing the game is a thing.

I could tell any number of stories like, "I played Cabal Therapy and named Chalice of the Void, and my opponent topdecked one the next turn/had a Thorn of Amethyst instead," or "I opened with a Duress, taking Green Sun's, and he topdecked Gaddock Teeg." I could also tell any number of stories like, "I opened with Swamp, LED, Ritual, Ritual, Therapy, Probe, Infernal Tutor." None of these is out of the ordinary, and none has any reason to be considered more aggravating than the other. Drawing cards is great when you draw the cards you need. When your opponent doesn't need to draw five extra cards to shut you out of the game, the supposed advantage of drawing those cards is diminished quite a bit.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the most "degenerate" and "unfair" decks in the format don't play Brainstorm, Ponder, or Force of Will.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

I've lost far more games because my opponent had brainstorm than chalice. I had an opponent keep a ponder/brainstorm 5 land hand. He casts ponder, shuffles. Draws land. I thought seize, take brain storm. He rips another brainstorm off the top. I lose the game because my opponent skillfully kept a shitty hand and skillfully put back lands and shuffled them away because it's such a skill intensive card.

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I've been playing storm vs D&T and discarded their Thalia and they top decked one the next turn. I guess Thalia should get banned.

See what I did there?

Your anecdote is...just that, an anecdote. People have bitched about opponent top decks since the beginning of MTG. Plenty of people lose to chalice all the time...but just to be clear I'm not arguing for a chalice ban. Btw, was that an admission you are too bias to objectively discuss brainstorm?

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Originally Posted by rlesko

Yet, the reward is much greater for the chalice player. the chalice player literally can win the game just by casting it on turn 1. So, I would certainly hope that a spell that can consistently be cast on turn 1 and win the game on the spot would require more concessions than a card that doesnt protect itself, doesn't stop 50% or more of your opponents deck, and doesn't win the game by itself.

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While the deck CAN do this, it's taking certain liberties to have this play. It's not as consistent as a "Normal" deck, it will often be playing about 50% mana and have horrible top decks, mulls hurt and you have to do that often thanks to the inconsistent nature of the deck. To top it all off you get blownout by a card like Decay or a Delver if your on the draw or just Force. It's no sure thing. Not at all.

Chalice is strong, is it so strong that it's a widespread issue? No, because even at its strongest meta penetration, in the most effective Stompy shell we have ever seen, it's still slipping in percentages to other decks that it "Wins against turn one".

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

While the deck CAN do this, it's taking certain liberties to have this play. It's not as consistent as a "Normal" deck, it will often be playing about 50% mana and have horrible top decks, mulls hurt and you have to that often thanks to the inconsistent nature of the deck. To top it all off you get blownout by a card like Decay or a Delver if your on the draw or just Force. It's no sure thing. Not at all.

Chalice is strong, is it so strong that it's a widespread issue? No, because even at its strongest meta penetration, in the most effective Stompy shell we have ever seen, it's still slipping in percentages to other decks that it "Wins against turn one".

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I agree with you about all this. I just think that the added consistency of Brainstorm and Ponder don't make the cards oppressive for anyone to face, so I don't think their use is an issue, either. I have a feeling that one of the core points of contention in the argument is that there's a difference in playstyle between people who like cantripping and fetching to find stuff they're looking for and people who prefer to play cards that are more proactive, like Chalices or Thalias: the first group likes to dig up cards they want to play, and the second group wants to prevent their opponents from doing that (and Miracles players like being able to do both). Somewhat conjectural and doubtless oversimplified, but I can see why people might feel strongly about this. I just think that dichotomy might be why it feels like people are talking past one another; I don't like to get shut out of playing cards on T1-T2; other people presumably don't like my building a hand they can't beat (or T1-2ing them).

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

I agree with you about all this. I just think that the added consistency of Brainstorm and Ponder don't make the cards oppressive for anyone to face, so I don't think their use is an issue, either. I have a feeling that one of the core points of contention in the argument is that there's a difference in playstyle between people who like cantripping and fetching to find stuff they're looking for and people who prefer to play cards that are more proactive, like Chalices or Thalias: the first group likes to dig up cards they want to play, and the second group wants to prevent their opponents from doing that (and Miracles players like being able to do both). Somewhat conjectural and doubtless oversimplified, but I can see why people might feel strongly about this. I just think that dichotomy might be why it feels like people are talking past one another; I don't like to get shut out of playing cards on T1-T2; other people presumably don't like my building a hand they can't beat (or T1-2ing them).

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Mhh, no. It's not against Ponder, or cantrips in general. I mean:

5 lands, double Brainstorm? Entirely reasonable, or at least not a ridiculous stretch. Your whole hand will be different T2.
5 lands, double Ponder? Reserve a ticket to the madhouse.
5 lands, two whatever in near any deck? Reserve a ticket to the madhouse.

It's not about cantrips, it's not about finding cards. It's about Brainstorm and the ability to replace half a hand for one mana. Ponder can't do it, Preordain can't do it. Thoughtcast kinda can but you can't have a hand that full of chaff. Glimpse can do it, but it can only do that to a hand of GAS.

It's like if they introduced Ancestral into the format, people complained that it was fucking nuts and others said maybe some people just like draw spells and others don't.

I am probably not a normal person, but i very much prefer facing chalice, blood moon, smokestack, armageddon, or every lock piece/uninteractive card you could think of rather than facing blue decks. In fact i play the aforementioned cards very often and never, NEVER play blue because playing blue feels like cheating.

I'm absolutely glad that the power level on non blue shells has been boosted a little bit in recent years, but i totally know that if i want to win a big event i have to play blue. People complain about chalice/blood moon just because these cards create bad experiences, but is so obvious that the power level of brainstorm is so high that it isn't even comparable.

And you should also realize that the presence of cards like chalice in the format is directly proportional to the presence of blue cantrips decks. What can i do if i have to beat brainstorm? well, i guess i must hope to draw well and resolve cards that don't make my opponent do anything, even if i have high deckbuilding restrictions. What can i do if brainstorm is not in the format anymore? well, i guess i can try doing normal things without lock pieces and try to win a game of magic without being ridiculously outclassed by my opponent who casts ancestral recall.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

It's not about cantrips, it's not about finding cards. It's about Brainstorm and the ability to replace half a hand for one mana. Ponder can't do it, Preordain can't do it. Thoughtcast kinda can but you can't have a hand that full of chaff. Glimpse can do it, but it can only do that to a hand of GAS.

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Oh, don't forget that it also protects the cards in your hand from discard while also finding answers/gas at instant speed. Pretty normal card, why are people complaining, right?

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Mhh, no. It's not against Ponder, or cantrips in general. I mean:

5 lands, double Brainstorm? Entirely reasonable, or at least not a ridiculous stretch. Your whole hand will be different T2.
5 lands, double Ponder? Reserve a ticket to the madhouse.
5 lands, two whatever in near any deck? Reserve a ticket to the madhouse.

It's not about cantrips, it's not about finding cards. It's about Brainstorm and the ability to replace half a hand for one mana. Ponder can't do it, Preordain can't do it.

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That's too shallow as Ponder/Preordain/Probe can dig for Brainstorm and then fix your hand. Keeping 5 lands (or similar bricks) and 2 Ponder is therefore absolutely fine

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

That's too shallow as Ponder/Preordain/Probe can dig for Brainstorm and then fix your hand. Keeping 5 lands (or similar bricks) and 2 Ponder is therefore absolutely fine

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While I'm not on the ban brainstorm train; you don't get to use this as an argument for keeping brainstorm. The idea that Brainstorm isn't so much better than Ponder because Ponder can be used to find brainstorm is a circular-reasoning argument. In any deck without brainstorm, said ponder hand is quite likely bad.

EDIT:
On the topic at hand, I did find it odd when I noticed the recent DTB section. We have Shardless. Then we have four decks that are prison variants; unheard of that you'd even have one in the dtb section 3-4 years ago (when miracles was a Maverick counter and not an everything counter.) Not too long ago, in the Delver-Everywhere variant of legacy; legacy was much more about tight play and counter battles. Instant speed tricks, you get the idea. It looks like Legacy has become powerful-standard.

As much as people are whining about blue right now; that's a depressing DTB section. I'll admit that they all play quite differently; but none of them are real Combo decks; and it wasn't Aggro that did it. Normally I'd expect a meta like this to be prone to combo blowing it out since it's a slower lock-piece based format. I am personally on the "I'd rather have the Storm/Sneak/Delver/D&T/Shardless" type of format than this one I think.

But given how even with blue being totally shat on in the DTB section and people are *still* whining about it..
It's not the format we want, but it's the format we deserve.

For crying out loud, don't read too much into this month's update. It's a botch job from two months of next to no data duct taped together and spot welded into place. Come back next month and tell me what you see.

The information I would take out of the current list though is that when events are shorter (ie when overall consistency matters less) prison strategies are more effective. But when you look at 7+ round events the internal inconsistencies kick them up the arse.

Non productive? Yet look at 75% of this topic
Legacy gets bans because of "op", modern gets bans because of popularity.

Don't like legacy because of cantrips, go play modern.

Take out good filtering and all legacy blue decks look like modern decks.

Then we blue players will e complaining about op aggro, discard, removal, vial/cavern.

Decks like dredge will be top dog so all will complain about that.

Delver will die, fow becomes useless because nothing viable to pitch, jace drops like a rock.

Tide decks, useless
Storm, useless
Muc useless.

Legacy would have 2-3 blue decks and face hundreds of non blue decks and just fold.

All this because people on I'm assuming digital magic hate facing 3 decks.

Sure your paper meta may be different and you can't ever count large events as the meta as a whole.

So why? I don't get it, legacy is built on the most powerful cards as a budget alternative to t1.

That's like saying you want to live in socialist Russia and destroy everything the founding fathers and soldiers fought and died for.

A simple post of "Go play modern" is as productive as a post saying "Go fuck yourself" and will get deleted as fast. If all your going to do in your post is quote someone and then throw in a comment basically saying "I don't agree with you so leave the format", then yea, your being unproductive.

If you have an issue with that take it up the chain.

No I never said to "go f yourself", legacy is a format where we have the best cards available to us.

The best draw spells for blue is cantrips, weather you shuffle them away or not they are still the best.

If I wanted to say go f yourself I would, but I didn't.

If you want "legacy without blue being good because of just cantrips" then modern is the format for you.

You can't play maverick because your opp used a brainstorm and you lost or countered your spell. I hear this all the time from modern players, "if that's how you want to win" whine whine whine, maybe now you saw the deck, know what to expect after seeing other decks. Build your deck to beat thoes even if it goes against what the majority says it has to be and you win.

Then the majority is wrong, my burn deck I regularly lose. Even if I went with the majority I'd still lose because some non blue or even non green/black based decks have better resilience.

I've tuned my burn deck to not have any interaction because that amount of interactivity cost me games.

Maybe I should get some volcanic island and stuff brainstorm and ponder in place of the 8 creatures in use that if they were filtering id be a house. Then they cry ban brainstorm because he's not just top decking.

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Originally Posted by Sidneyious

No I never said to "go f yourself".

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I didn't say you did. I said" X is as productive as y".

Telling somone "I dont agree with you, in a thread made for debate, feel free to leave this format as opposed to us debating" is not useful. If you don't want to debate don't. But don't engage if that's not what you want.

I still don't get why "Brainstorm is retarded" means "You hate cantrips."

"Council of Judgment is badly designed" means "You hate removal."

"Lotus is broken" means "You hate mana acceleration."

"Cruise was awful" means "You hate card draw."

"Chalice nongames are dull as fuck" means "You hate hate cards."

"Show and Derp is bores me to tears" means "You hate combo."


I'm starting to learn this more proper way of thinking, I think.

Seriously, though. Hating one card or thinking it's too good does not imply hating an entire category of cards or wishing to see them gone. FFS.

Gentlemen, someone might explain me why Mental Misstep is banned and two permanent versions of "you can not play 1cc spells anymore, sry" are dominating the format and no one seems to question the health if the format is Chalice vs Counterbalance vs Decay

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Originally Posted by Sidneyious

Don't like legacy because of cantrips, go play modern.

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these aren't the droids you are looking for...

"BS" is the problem, not cantrips.
unban treasure cruise or dig through time and i'd even welcome an unban on mana drain for shits and giggles.

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Originally Posted by non-inflammable

these aren't the droids you are looking for...

"BS" is the problem, not cantrips.
unban treasure cruise or dig through time and i'd even welcome an unban on mana drain for shits and giggles.

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I agree with you. Hating BS isn't hating cantrips. And since Treasure Cruise is a sorcery, let it play. If BS were a sorcery, it wouldn't be as offensive.

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Originally Posted by ahg113

I agree with you. Hating BS isn't hating cantrips. And since Treasure Cruise is a sorcery, let it play. If BS were a sorcery, it wouldn't be as offensive.

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If discard, as a mechanic, didn't exist it [discard] wouldn't be as offensive, and Brainstorm's instant speed presumably wouldn't seem to be so offensive.

At some point the anti-Brainstorm camp is simply arguing for no [blue] combo in the meta, which turns into not running FoW, which turns into the most offensive combo decks running rampant...and now you have turned legacy into a turn 1 format.

As far as Treasure Cruise goes, it is an absolute diversity killer as it leads to only 1 type of Delver deck with significant increases in meta share. DTT is a better designed card from the promoting diversity standpoint....among blue. Legacy is subjectively more fun with DTT around, but it's unhealthy in that it pushes out fair decks. For some reason combo recognizes DTT is unhealthy overall, but fair decks continually advocate changes that are entirely at everyone else's expense.

If you want to be disgusted with a blue card, you're much better off ranting about Counterbalance (the Time Vault of legacy) and Gitaxian Probe - neither of these cards should be legal. As a side note, you can't possibly advocate a return of TC/DTT without giving Probe the axe, the card is especially absurd there.