Legacy is doomed. SCG jumping on board the "Ban Brainstorm" wagon. :(

[DragoFireheart]

It's difficult to quantify whether each combo archetype is more hurt by the loss of BS. The issue with NO/SNT style decks is you often draw too many dudes, and you never really want to. Drawing Progenitus in any NO shell is really bad, which is part of why Brainstorm is so good there. The fact that you can no longer hide good cards from Hymn hurts all combo decks immensely as well (I've won games with Spiral Tide vs. triple Hymn draws out of Junk largely because of the power of Brainstorm).

Alright fair enough. I still disagree that control decks are hurt less than combo but I agree that any deck using brainstorm and then losing it for Ponder/Preordain would be worse off. I simply disagree with the degree of how much those combo decks would be weakened by. I'm not denying that Brainstorm is a powerful card, but if the goal is to balance the format and not merely weaken blue then I feel that banning Brainstorm is the wrong way to go about it.

As for your point about Maverick - that deck is basically a blue hate deck. It is designed to beat the blue matchup at the expense of the combo matchup. However, with blue as strong as it is there isn't much combo in the format right now, making Maverick an amazing metagame choice. Even extremely resilient decks like Spiral Tide have great difficulty fighting through the new breed of Snapcaster-powered tempo decks. Case in point - I don't think I ever lost a match to Canadian Threshold with Spiral Tide pre-Snapcaster (they were all very close, however). The new RUG Tempo lists are a very difficult matchup though - Snapcaster + REB is absolutely backbreaking.

Merfolk has a very poor matchup against Maverick (and any other non-blue aggro floating around). It's never been that great against Canadian Threshold, and a lot of the new breed of Snapcaster and Stoneforge - powered blue decks aren't easy matchups either. The day where Merfolk can mop up all the blue decks in the format that don't play lots of red cards is gone, seemingly.

-Can you see the pattern here?

[UnderwaterGuy]

Does anyone else really like the current format and think no bannings are needed?

I've only been playing/following Legacy for about a year but I think right now there are a lot of high quality decks that can compete with each other. Since the banning of Misstep we've seen plenty of different decks take top spots and we've seen the game shift towards predators of last week's top decks.

It seems like we have a well balanced format that will keep shifting. FoW and Brainstorm are staples in this format and they are important pieces. Removing Brainstorm will make many decks weaker and reduce the consistency of all those decks. Why do so many want to play with weaker cards?

[CorpT]

Removing Brainstorm will make many decks weaker and reduce the consistency of all those decks. Why do so many want to play with weaker cards?

We should just ban Mountain, Forest, Plains and Swamp and make things easier for new players. That way they wouldn't even try to play a non-Blue deck.

[Admiral_Arzar]

-Can you see the pattern here?

Yes. I was amazed when WOTC was n00b enough to print Snapcaster (in blue!) but I guess not entirely surprised. I can only imagine how stupid the format would be if Misstep was still legal.

It seems like we have a well balanced format that will keep shifting. FoW and Brainstorm are staples in this format and they are important pieces. Removing Brainstorm will make many decks weaker and reduce the consistency of all those decks. Why do so many want to play with weaker cards?

I don't support a Brainstorm ban. I won't bullshit about how it's integral to the format or I'd quit without it. I'd just be annoyed that the combo decks I like to play would be weakened. However, 80% blue decks in tournaments is not a "balanced" format (Yes, I'm aware that the percentage at the most recent SCG wasn't that high).

[Mr. Safety]

This is just my opinion:

In a world with instant-speed communications and regular legacy tournaments, I think the legacy metagame (globally) is one big mish-mash of self-fulfilling prophecy. We hear that Mental Misstep is banned, therefore we assume combo will rise up, therefore we decide to play control to keep combo in check. Before combo is even played in the next tourney, it's nerfed. Back to a control-heavy metagame with a handful of aggro and combo decks filling in a few slots.

I feel the same about Brainstorm. In a theoretical world, banning Brainstorm means that control decks are weaker, therefore I should be playing combo, but if combo is on the rise, I should be playing control. Maverick steps in to take advantage of the control decks. We're back to the beginning...self-fulfilling prophecy.

[UnderwaterGuy]

what

[Mr. Safety]

what

Put another way, 'perception is reality'. It doesn't matter if the second-guessing you are doing is right or not, it accomplishes the same end.

[UnderwaterGuy]

Put another way, 'perception is reality'. It doesn't matter if the second-guessing you are doing is right or not, it accomplishes the same end.

Sorry, my post was directed at CorpT but you were faster than I.

Your post makes sense

[CorpT]

Sorry, my post was directed at CorpT but you were faster than I.

Your post makes sense

You said:

Removing Brainstorm will make many decks weaker and reduce the consistency of all those decks. Why do so many want to play with weaker cards?

What you missed was: "Removing Brainstorm will make many Blue decks weaker and reduce the consistency of those decks."

That's the whole point. Right now, it is stupid to play a deck without Brainstorm. Like it was stupid to play anything without Jace and SFM last Standard. I, and a lot of other people, think that is stupid. Why make a format where one color should be played to the exclusion of all the others?

My comment was just an extension of this. Why not just ban non-Island basics and be done with it? It's effectively being done, but people on the "Brainstorm is good because it gives consistency" bandwagon forget that there are other colors besides blue. I don't hate blue. I play it all the time. I just don't think a format should require you to play Blue (or any other color).

[SpikeyMikey]

It's difficult to quantify whether each combo archetype is more hurt by the loss of BS. The issue with NO/SNT style decks is you often draw too many dudes, and you never really want to. Drawing Progenitus in any NO shell is really bad, which is part of why Brainstorm is so good there. The fact that you can no longer hide good cards from Hymn hurts all combo decks immensely as well (I've won games with Spiral Tide vs. triple Hymn draws out of Junk largely because of the power of Brainstorm).



As for your point about Maverick - that deck is basically a blue hate deck. It is designed to beat the blue matchup at the expense of the combo matchup. However, with blue as strong as it is there isn't much combo in the format right now, making Maverick an amazing metagame choice. Even extremely resilient decks like Spiral Tide have great difficulty fighting through the new breed of Snapcaster-powered tempo decks. Case in point - I don't think I ever lost a match to Canadian Threshold with Spiral Tide pre-Snapcaster (they were all very close, however). The new RUG Tempo lists are a very difficult matchup though - Snapcaster + REB is absolutely backbreaking.

Merfolk has a very poor matchup against Maverick (and any other non-blue aggro floating around). It's never been that great against Canadian Threshold, and a lot of the new breed of Snapcaster and Stoneforge - powered blue decks aren't easy matchups either. The day where Merfolk can mop up all the blue decks in the format that don't play lots of red cards is gone, seemingly.

So you can't beat the new decks with existing decks. But the new decks are hardly unassailable. You simply have to look and see where the weaknesses are and exploit them. Both neo-TA and neo-C. Thresh run threat light and land light. They focus heavily on mana denial with Stifle/Waste/Daze. They rely heavily on their graveyard. So play 25 mana sources and main Extirpate/Surgical Extraction/Scavenging Ooze.

I beat neo-Thresh silly last night with the first iteration of a WBR deck I designed. I Vindicated and then Extracted his Trop and then Wasted and Extracted his Volc. At that point, the deck literally cannot cast spells. There are only 2 different colored mana sources, both non-basic. Makes Blood Moon look pretty attractive, neh?

Bring back New Horizons. They've got the same disruption package except one has Plow and the other has Bolt. I don't care how many Bolts or Stifles you Snapcaster, a Terravore is an insurmountable threat in that matchup.

There are plenty of directions you can go to beat the top tier without abandoning matchups against the rest of the field. And if your combo matchup suffers a bit because of changes you made? If your Zoo matchup falters? Well you can't beat everything and those decks aren't as popular or as successful.

[Tao]

Brainstorm OBVIOUSLY has to be banned. For arguments read what IBA is saying. I planned to go to GP Amsterdam but blues retarded overpoweredness had left me so frustated that I didn't go and stopped caring about developing something. It wouldn't have been better than a generic BS/Snapcaster deck anyway so why bother.
I wouldn't mind if they were axing Jace TMS, Ponder, Top and Preordain too while they are at it.

[John Cox]

You said:



What you missed was: "Removing Brainstorm will make many Blue decks weaker and reduce the consistency of those decks."

That's the whole point. Right now, it is stupid to play a deck without Brainstorm. Like it was stupid to play anything without Jace and SFM last Standard. I, and a lot of other people, think that is stupid. Why make a format where one color should be played to the exclusion of all the others?

My comment was just an extension of this. Why not just ban non-Island basics and be done with it? It's effectively being done, but people on the "Brainstorm is good because it gives consistency" bandwagon forget that there are other colors besides blue. I don't hate blue. I play it all the time. I just don't think a format should require you to play Blue (or any other color).

The thing is that's not the case, I would gladly play TES in a format without brainstorm because that deck looses almost nothing. Even if ponder was also banned, I could play preordain and Gitaxian probe and keep the same fundamental turn. The only negative effect ANT and TES get from loosing brainstorm is increased vulnerability to duress, however they also play that card so I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

[nedleeds]

The natural predator is Chalice decks (Stompy / Staxx variants), but Chalice decks are notoriously fragile and mulligan prone (and don't have Brainstorm to salvage unkeepable hands).

[SpikeyMikey]

Brainstorm OBVIOUSLY has to be banned. For arguments read what IBA is saying. I planned to go to GP Amsterdam but blues retarded overpoweredness had left me so frustated that I didn't go and stopped caring about developing something. It wouldn't have been better than a generic BS/Snapcaster deck anyway so why bother.
I wouldn't mind if they were axing Jace TMS, Ponder, Top and Preordain too while they are at it.

See, it's not about whether not Brainstorm is too good for the format. It's about fuck blue. Why? Because I said so.

Seriously, if you're advocating for a Legacy ban on PREORDAIN, you've maybe had too much kool aid.

[TheArchitect]

I wouldn't mind if they were axing Jace TMS, Ponder, Top and Preordain too while they are at it.

I would stop playing magic entirely if that happened. Modern looked really cool but they ruined it with the last bannings and Standard is still standard. Brainstorm is what makes legacy, legacy.

And for the record, I rarely even play decks with brainstorm, but its what makes the format interesting.

Wizards wants everyone to play Zoo, in every format. Banning Brainstorm (or other blue cantrips) just helps them with that format ruining goal of theirs.

[Intet's Attendant]

Instead of banning Brainstorm, they could give other colors better card selection and maindeckable ways to interact with combo. I don't know what they could reasonably print that would hold a candle to what blue has, but in the mean time they could stop giving blue new power cards in every set and take a look at making the other parts of the color pie meaningful in eternal formats.

This.

Give the other 4 colors ways to interact with spells and at least some decent card drawing or tutoring. The minute wizards decided that only blue should get counterspells was the minute that blue become the dominant color. Interacting with instants/sorceries should be something every color can do or they will get blown away by combo.

I propose that printing a counter-spell type card for every color would be the best way to do this. It wouldn't even be very difficult.

Examples:

Natural Snare - G
Instant
Counter target blue or black spell.

Fiery Will - R
Instant
Counter target instant spell. Fiery Will deals damage to you equal to its converted mana cost.

Taxation Trap - 1W
Instant
If an opponent controls more lands than you, you may pay 0 rather than pay ~ mana cost.
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 1.

Tourach's Treaty - BB
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller discard 2 cards at random
(black probably doesn't need counterspells as much since discard works almost as well vs instants/sorceries)

Boom! It's only a start, but by giving all 5 colors counterspell or pseudo-counterspells would go a long way in helping to balance the color pie.

[Michael Keller]

Brainstorm OBVIOUSLY has to be banned. For arguments read what IBA is saying. I planned to go to GP Amsterdam but blues retarded overpoweredness had left me so frustated that I didn't go and stopped caring about developing something. It wouldn't have been better than a generic BS/Snapcaster deck anyway so why bother.
I wouldn't mind if they were axing Jace TMS, Ponder, Top and Preordain too while they are at it.

...Obviously.

[TheArchitect]

I don't think "anti-blue" cards is a good solution. Look what happened with mental Misstep!


There's all this complaining about brainstorm, if only there was a black enchantment for 2 mana that totally pooped on brainstorm and other cantrips...

[Intet's Attendant]

I don't think "anti-blue" cards is a good solution. Look what happened with mental Misstep!


There's all this complaining about brainstorm, if only there was a black enchantment for 2 mana that totally pooped on brainstorm and other cantrips...

Chain of Mephistopheles?

[Admiral_Arzar]

i don't think "anti-blue" cards is a good solution. Look what happened with mental misstep!


There's all this complaining about brainstorm, if only there was a black enchantment for 2 mana that totally pooped on brainstorm and other cantrips...

i c wut u did there...

Chain of Mephistopheles?

You're not good at this sarcasm game.

So you can't beat the new decks with existing decks. But the new decks are hardly unassailable. You simply have to look and see where the weaknesses are and exploit them. Both neo-TA and neo-C. Thresh run threat light and land light. They focus heavily on mana denial with Stifle/Waste/Daze. They rely heavily on their graveyard. So play 25 mana sources and main Extirpate/Surgical Extraction/Scavenging Ooze.

Obviously. I was referring to my experiences with one particular deck (Spiral Tide) agains the new crop of blue decks, rather than trying to generalize. I'm currently trying to think of a way to play all swamps and maindeck Leylines, actually.