[Podcast] Eternal Durdles. Getting the Banned back together.

[taconaut]

Just finished the cast, was a great listen!

The thing that stuck out to me was the driving principle of "I want more cards to be playable."

You might've been talking more about True-Name Nemesis than Brainstorm in that context, but let's say it was about BS; what cards do you think would become more playable if brainstorm is banned?

I agree that brainstorm is overpowered, but I don't think removing it changes anything with respect to the minimum power level required for Legacy. Even if you make cantrips worse, whatever you want to play still has to be able to beat: Elves, Lands, DnT, Czech Pile (and other midrange goodstuff decks et al), and others, and in exchange, you're dismantling decks like Storm or Miracles that rely on the unique interactions brainstorm has to be playable. I do think you acknowledged that in your post in the thread here, but I think it's under-considered in general is discussions about the banlist. Legacy has a high floor and a long history, so a huge amount of stuff is going to be invalidated whether Xerox is good or not.

If anything is going to make the texture of Legacy more same-y (which I would argue it currently is not, and wasn't pre-top ban either) it's getting rid of synergy decks to make way for more goodstuff decks.

[haganbmj]

Just finished the cast, was a great listen!

The thing that stuck out to me was the driving principle of "I want more cards to be playable."

You might've been talking more about True-Name Nemesis than Brainstorm in that context, but let's say it was about BS; what cards do you think would become more playable if brainstorm is banned?

This is something that comes up often in car rides with my group. The general feeling is that every deck starts with the 25-35 best cards, the 20 required lands to support that, and the remainder is generally made up of whatever the flavor of the month is. The decks more often than not build themselves because there aren't really trade offs so much as clear winners.

My biggest ones are
- Why would you play other reanimation targets when you can get a Griselbrand?
- What creature slots in better in your aggressive blue-centric deck than Delver?
- Why would I want to play an aggressive creature deck without blue?
- Is cutting black worth losing access to Deathrite? Thoughtseize?
- What's the harm in playing Decay when my mana just works?
- Is goyf, clique, etc worthwhile when I could play (or have to play against) a true name?

The point maharis brought up about blue-based strategies being more prone to get playable cards is interesting. The shell kind of allows slotting in some new hot card and just making it work. With enough redundancy in your draw spells and some baseline protection in force of will / probe / discard you can make some one-of or ability work more easily than in some other style of deck.

[maharis]

thanks again for the feedback again everyone -- I was on vacation last week so couldn't keep up too much.

I thought it was interesting how we got a pretty detailed explanation from Wizards on what they want Vintage to be in their restriction announcement on Monday. I still don't feel like we've ever gotten something like that for Legacy. I believe one of the reasons B&R discussions are so contentious here has to do with that.

For example, I agree from a philosophical standpoint with Megadeus' point that Brainstorm is singularly OP among the cantrips and probably should be gone. The problem is I don't even feel like it's worth discussing because it hasn't happened by now, and so many other cards have fallen to preserve it I can't imagine it ever happening unless Wizards decided to scrap the whole banned list and start over (which I also think they are loath to do).

But that doesn't mean that people should be ostracized for bringing it up. Many people resent the implication that not playing a deck with Brainstorm makes you stupid. I actually think it's the opposite. Brainstorm de-emphasizes skills like hand evaluation, sequencing, and deck construction. I'm just not sure enough that it does so to a such greater effect than Ponder or Preordain that it would be worth the massive shitstorm of a banning.

But it is hard to just ignore it, especially while there are still bricks on the ban list. When they ban cards... Gheizen mentioned Cruise and Dig... you could add Top too... clearly Wizards has identified that card selection is the most powerful thing to be doing in the format and the last three bans have all gone after some aspect of it... but even then you always trend toward 65-70% cantrip decks. It would take a fundamental reorganization of the format to make a real dent in that.

The point maharis brought up about blue-based strategies being more prone to get playable cards is interesting. The shell kind of allows slotting in some new hot card and just making it work. With enough redundancy in your draw spells and some baseline protection in force of will / probe / discard you can make some one-of or ability work more easily than in some other style of deck.

Not only that, but the sheer volume of cards that synergize with cast-cheap-spells-and-use-fetches printed in the past few years is insane. Young Pyro and Gurmag Angler allow you to use the same consistency shell to grow horizontally or vertically... those cards aren't even blue. Mentor just had to be restricted in vintage and if that shit ever takes off here it's going to be miserable. I mean theoretically a blue Wasteland deck could use Ramunap Excavator's effect to great success -- keeps cards like Daze and Spell Pierce alive longer, etc. But they don't even need to do that to get big advantages. Like literal crucible of worlds that attacks isn't good enough for the blue shell because for the same mana cost you can just get a Prowess machine that synergizes with 12 cards in your deck instead of 4.

Just finished the cast, was a great listen!

The thing that stuck out to me was the driving principle of "I want more cards to be playable."

You might've been talking more about True-Name Nemesis than Brainstorm in that context.

Both of these points above are the reason we started with TNN and not Brainstorm. Kneecapping Brainstorm probably has the same effect as TNN, but one is a) more likely to happen and b) more likely to pay off in immediate dividends. TNN allows the blue decks to not just win in consistency, but also to win on the battlefield. But it's not the only culprit: the token makers, delve creatures, and Baleful Strix hurt here as well.

I've been playing the esper delver list that's been circulating a bit. I do it because I like Lingering Souls. The deck plays Lingering Souls because it's good against TNN specifically. But last night I played against Maverick and I actually lost to a double-Knight plus Jitte draw because I couldn't just brick one of them in combat. My four spirits couldn't beat that draw. Had I been playing TNN instead of Souls, that massively OP board on the other side would've just been shit. I'm not going to make the change, though, because there's enough TNN out there that I don't have to worry about Knight. But I think Knight is a much more interesting card that encourages other kinds of decks.

[DarthVicious]

(Brainstorm-related stuffs)

I wouldn't say people get ostracized for bringing up The Great Brainstorm Debate, but the simple fact is that every possible argument for/against/indifferent towards its banning, including my comments and yours, have already been brought up on this site in previous threads. As passionate or dispassionate as some of us are, on either side of the fence, there isn't anything new for anyone to say that hasn't already been said multiple times.

However, I think the only reason it keeps coming up is, like you said, it's hard to ignore. Friggin everyone and their little sister's ex boyfriend's brother is playing the card.

True-Name is worse than Brainstorm in my opinion. Another herp-derp-look-i-win card like Dread of Night vs D&T, Iona vs mono color, Chalice vs half the format, etc. Except its a lot harder to interact with if you're not running black.