One does not simply Brainstorm into Mordor.
Tinkering with some crafting theory. Here
Wait, what?
Have you ever actually played Maverick against combo decks? You fear Belcher. That's pretty much it. Sure, you'll get nuked by the god hand on turn one every once in a while, but that's true even of decks with FoW. The truth is, when you live to take your second turn (which is usually), you're very unlikely to lose to combo.
I've never lost a match to Maverick with Spiral Tide (that I can remember). The matches are generally very close, but I get there every time, even though that deck rarely wins before turn 4. Sure, out of non-blue, non-black aggro decks Maverick has the best combo matchup. That doesn't mean it has a favorable combo matchup.
Speaking of which (not to derail the thread or anything), what is Maverick NOT good against? It seems to have at least decent matchups across the board (aside of Belcher et al. obviously).
To be fair, Maverick has a way better (non-Hive Mind) combo matchup than a lot of other decks that are known to have a favorable control matchup like e.g. Goblins or Dredge.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
I agree with majikal regarding the Maverick vs Combo analysis. It's dreading that first turn kill that's a problem. Once Maverick takes a second turn, there should be enough anti-combo pieces in play to slow them down significantly.
Examples:
Turn 1 Hierarch, Turn 2 GSZ for Teeg
Turn 1 E-tutor (Canonist, Thorns), Turn 2 play it
Any hand that cannot setup one of those lines should be mulliganed. The deck is not designed to be able to stop a turn 1 combo kill however.
Burn, Elves (altho it's possible to win), Hive Mind, UW Land-still.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Yeah, I'm familiar with it's anti-combo lines of play (I've gotten to play against it a number of times lately as a friend of mine picked it up). I think most of these are much stronger against traditional storm combo then they are against Spiral Tide though. I'm thinking about picking up the deck myself though, as anything that beats blue tends to make me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Beating Blue decks has to be the most satisfying feeling in Magic.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I would like a "Ban Brainstorm? - Yes or No" poll.
I don't think Brainstorm is bannable yet. I would however, like to see some more tools to fight Blue in the next 3 sets WITHOUT giving more broken cards for blue.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
No we are talking about the issue with the Source coming up with a thread every few weeks talking about how blue/blue-cards are way too powerful in Legacy and cry for bans or cry against bans.
I'm a little annoyed by all these personally. I'm really happy where Legacy is at the moment. Even if I feel Mental Misstep still deserved a few more months to prove itself, I think Brainstorm has more than proven itself to be a fair card in YEARS. We all know it's a powerful card, but there are many such cards in Legacy (Vial, Force, NO, LED, Tendrils, Dark Ritual).
If you can whine about Brainstorm being brokenly powerful, then you can whine about anything really similarly. Brainstorm is the MOST POWERFUL cantrip in the format, but you can't compare it to other cards that function differently e.g. Ad Nauseam is the most powerful draw-spell, LED/Dark Ritual the most powerful accelerant, FoW the most powerful counterspell. Why is brainstorm in almost every blue deck sans Merfolk? Because blue is an important color in eternal formats (due to the presence of decks that want to kill you i.e. combo/aggro), and being blue, you are naturally playing a suite of cantrip/counters (by definition and nature of playing blue).
If the blue color pie functioned anywhere different, then the need for Brainstorm would not arise. In general, it's not even the color-pie functions that determine why Brainstorm is played in blue deck. It's really the format's nature that makes brainstorm a highly powerful and demanded card because it greatly improves consistency against a sea of decks that want to kill you. Brainstorm is as unfair as Vial is unfair for blue decks. If we can assign a value to Vial against blue decks and a value to Brainstorm against Legacy decks, I would say that Vial will clearly win (it generates free resource, makes all spells 'uncounterable', gives all creatures 'flash' etc).
TLDR: A card can be powerful but that doesn't mean it has to be banned or it's broken. There are examples of broken cards that should be banned, thankfully those are already on the list. Brainstorm is powerful, but nowhere broken. If it was truly broken, then non-brainstorm decks would not have a chance (which is not true e.g. Goblins/Mefolks/Zoo/Maverick etc). Brainstorm gives you an edge, but it's not broken the way Flash/Survival was i.e. you either played Flash/Survival or hate against it. I don't see much hate against Brainstorm (Chains is a great example that if Brainstorm was truly broken, non-brainstorm decks would find itself wanting to pack brainstorm-hate cards like Chains to fight it, or they chose to play Brainstorm). It's not like people are terrified of Brainstorm to the point they would play Chains, as opposed to being terrified of Flash/Survival enough to play much narrow hate when those cards existed.
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
In a void, on a one to one comparison yes, all those cards are equaly powerful. But that's not the case. So everything else you said makes no diference when we talk about decks/archetypes and not cards by themselves.
Also, your comparison "Aether Vial against permission" vs. "Brainstorm AGAINST THE WHOLE FORMAT" made me smirk.
"Want all, lose all."
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