Quote Originally Posted by somethingdotdotdot View Post
Another question: Have you considered replacing brainstorm with ponder lately?
Dafuq did I just read?

I appreciate the thought and time you put into your explanation, but Ponder - while a good card - can not compare to Brainstorm, especially in decks that have a certain number of redundant cards built into them. Brainstorm sculpts hands, Ponder can only do so much to fix them. On top of that, Brainstorm is instant, helps a lot against Discard, is insane with shuffle effects and has pretty good odds of one day curing cancer.

tl;dr: It seems you want to play Ponder mainly for the shuffle effect - however, shuffling with Ponder is something you often try to avoid in the first place. I agree that using Top over the course of several turns sometimes leads to desperate need for shuffling but that's what Fetchlands etc. are for. Brainstorm on the other hand, is on a completely different level and undoubtedly the most powerful card in all of Legacy. Play it.