Ban on Brainstorm: Yes or No (Post Snapcaster Mage)

[Humphrey]

I say unban MM, then you can ban BS

[DragoFireheart]

I say unban MM, then you can ban BS

Snapcaster Mage

Mental Misstep

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

-So is Tarmogoyf. And Force of Will. And Stoneforge Mystic. And Entomb. And every other card worth playing. They're all "more powerful" than jank like Grizzly Bears.

Powerful card != ban worthy. Give a better argument.

I think somewhere you became confused.

You asked why Delver was more a reason to ban Brainstorm than Snapcaster, as I said. There's the reason. Delver is more powerful than Snapcaster.

I'm not sure how you got grizzly bears into it but I doubt you are, either.

-Your reading comprehension is pretty awful IBA.

lol

I guess Snappy and Delver have nothing to do with blues recent success. Oh no, couldn't be those two new cards...

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7118

Nope, must be brainstorm...

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...8&iddeck=51698

Yup, must be brainstorm!

Speaking of reading comprehension.

I actually said explicitly that Delver and Snapcaster have pushed the power level of Brainstorm, in, for instance, the preceding post.

But it's a bit silly to suggest banning Delver or Snapcaster over Brainstorm because of that.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Snapcaster Mage

Mystical Tutor

[DragoFireheart]

I think somewhere you became confused.

You asked why Delver was more a reason to ban Brainstorm than Snapcaster, as I said. There's the reason. Delver is more powerful than Snapcaster.

I'm not sure how you got grizzly bears into it but I doubt you are, either.

- Let me rephrase my question since I confused you:

Why should Brainstorm be banned?

lol

Expected.

Speaking of reading comprehension.

I actually said explicitly that Delver and Snapcaster have pushed the power level of Brainstorm, in, for instance, the preceding post.

-Neither have pushed the power level of brainstorm. Both are simply good cards and have pushed blue decks.

But it's a bit silly to suggest banning Delver or Snapcaster over Brainstorm because of that.

Yup, it's silly to ban the cards that are causing problems! Lets instead ban something else!

A 3/2 U flier is fair apparently. Doesn't break power creep or anything.

[TheDarkshineKnight]

Delver of Secrets is more powerful than he otherwise would be BECAUSE of Brainstorm. Without Brainstorm, Delver would not come online as consistently as he does.
Snapcaster Mage is more powerful than he otherwise would be BECAUSE of Brainstorm. There are few things that make a deck more consistent than having access to eight Brainstorms.

Take away Brainstorm and both cards become significantly less powerful, although still strong.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I'm all for the banning of it. I would like to see a variety of decks rather than just UW Stoneforge BS and Tempo.

Although I have to agree that Snapcaster is the problem. I'm really pissed seeing the land not printed though ... that would be way less busted than the Mage.

[DragoFireheart]

I don't even know why I bother trying to argue. You don't want to be convinced: you've already made up your mind.

Just ban Brainstorm and go the route Modern is going. Just stop pretending your arguments make any sense.

[Leftconsin]

I'm all for the banning of it. I would like to see a variety of decks rather than just UW Stoneforge BS and Tempo.

Although I have to agree that Snapcaster is the problem. I'm really pissed seeing the land not printed though ... that would be way less busted than the Mage.

This. The original card wouldn't have seen Legacy play.

[UnderwaterGuy]

Nothing needs to get banned. Snapcaster and Delver are just blue's share of the new power-creeped creatures. They will join the ranks of Wild Nacatl, KotR, Goyf, SFM, etc.

It doesn't make sense to ban a card because it is good. Every card played in Legacy is good. Banned cards are the ones that destroy the format and restrict the playable decks to an extremely small pool. Right now we have a ton of decks that place well in tournaments and many strategies and colors are viable. We don't need each color to show up in exactly the same amounts. Green is as prevalent as blue now anyway.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Nothing needs to get banned. Snapcaster and Delver are just blue's share of the new power-creeped creatures. They will join the ranks of Wild Nacatl, KotR, Goyf, SFM, etc.

It doesn't make sense to ban a card because it is good. Every card played in Legacy is good. Banned cards are the ones that destroy the format and restrict the playable decks to an extremely small pool. Right now we have a ton of decks that place well in tournaments and many strategies and colors are viable. We don't need each color to show up in exactly the same amounts. Green is as prevalent as blue now anyway.

All the decks that play Nacatl, KotR, Goyf and SFM lose to a turn 1 Delver.

[Scordata]

Ever since Survival got the ax (and it was well deserved,) it seems like a good third of the posts I see on this forum are not dedicated towards moving the format forward, but rather, steering it backwards.

Every few months threads keep popping up about Ban this! and Ban that!

Not very constructive for what is supposed to be the premiere legacy forum.

There's a whole slew of strategies that laugh at delver/snapcaster. Some of them start with Thoughtseize, some of them Knight of the Reliquary, and others with Ichorid.

Do you guys know that if they ban Brainstorm, decks like Burn and Belcher will be tier 1? Imagine HAVING to mulligan to a force of will or such, because blue can't reliably do what it's supposed to do?

Yes, Brainstorm is the best card in legacy. Does that mean it should be banned? Surely there is a next best card - maybe it's Swords to Plowshares. Should we ban that, as well? After all, stp invalidates creature strategies.

I promise you, if brainstorm is banned, combo will take over the metagame - your petdecks wont stand a chance.

[Vacrix]

Can everyone calm down? There is natural power creep and there is 'corrective' power creep. You don't necessarily need to ban Brainstorm just because aggro control is still doing well. Just stop trying obviously ineffective corrective power creep attempts like Mental Misstep. Thats was just stupid on WotC's part. It just fucks up the metagame and then a new one emerges... like this one which is further fucked up because it had to correct from MM, and then Delver/Snapcaster changed the metagame once again. Now does that mean we have to immediately turn to corrective measures? Hell no. Everyone is freaking out because Brainstorm is a classic Staple. Thats all. I'd suggest a discussion about power creep ensue instead and the implications it has on classic staples.

Imagine cards like the following as effective (debatable obviously) corrective power creep measures, arbitrary names:

Demon (B)(B)
Creature
Whenever you draw a card, lose 2 life.
Whenever your opponent draws a card you may scry 1.
4/3


Shaman 1(W)(W)
Creature
At the beginning of your upkeep, scry X where X is the number of plains you control.
2/2

Scry mechanics could balance out the colors that don't really have the consistency properties of cantrips like Brainstorm. These are just random examples but scry is a good one, and also cards that don't work well with cantrips, like the first card, could be employed to improve the archetypes that don't run cantrips... or just create new archetypes.

I'm not saying either of these cards are the godsend solution to the 'problem' of Brainstorm in an emerging era of Snapcaster/Delver; however, a discussion of effective, corrective powercreep measures ought to ensue in a thread like this where one of the format's defining staples is getting attacked for being too powerful in a new age of powercreep.

[CorpT]

Nothing needs to get banned. Snapcaster and Delver are just blue's share of the new power-creeped creatures. They will join the ranks of Wild Nacatl, KotR, Goyf, SFM, etc.

It doesn't make sense to ban a card because it is good. Every card played in Legacy is good. Banned cards are the ones that destroy the format and restrict the playable decks to an extremely small pool. Right now we have a ton of decks that place well in tournaments and many strategies and colors are viable. We don't need each color to show up in exactly the same amounts. Green is as prevalent as blue now anyway.

Since Innistrad:

SCG decks with 10% of a color:
Blue: 82
Green: 56
White: 47
Black: 40
Red: 30

Total: 96

Blue is in 85% of the winning decks. Red is in 31%. But I'm sure that's ok with you.

[menace13]

Since Innistrad:

SCG decks with 10% of a color:
Blue: 82
Green: 56
White: 47
Black: 40
Red: 30

Total: 96

Blue is in 85% of the winning decks. Red is in 31%. But I'm sure that's ok with you.

When if at any time has it been closer in Legacy?

[CorpT]

When if at any time has it been closer in Legacy?

So because it's always been that way, it's ok? I've done previous runs of the data and it has been getting worse over the years. It has been trending towards blue dominance for awhile. Which means it's never been this bad, but it's always been pretty bad.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Brainstorm doesn't need to be banned.

The only problem with the format is that non-blue decks don't have good enough tools vs. fast combo decks.
When combo shows up the best option is to play blue. Non blue decks become much less viable.
When combo doesn't show up many non-blue decks become viable but blue is still good.
When blue doesn't show up combo is good and once again it's a bad idea to be packing non-blue non-combo decks.

The main problem is blue is always good, while combo that beats aggro and aggro that beats dedicated blue are often bad choices. Blue is always a safe bet.

The solution isn't to ban anything, but to give aggro slightly better options vs combo (the ones that exist now are pretty bad). A fixed Misstep would do that, there are plenty of ways of doing this, most notably prevent it from hitting permanents and maybe allow it to only be played for alt casting cost if user controls no islands. Combo already has plenty of options vs. blue, the matchup is not unwinnable and if there were more non-blue decks running around blue would have to use more resources to account for these decks which would make players balance more between hating on spells and worrying about Knights and Nacatls. Combo already has the tools to play around fixed Misstep when it's not backed up by other significant disruption. With aggro becoming more viable the non-blue decks would have to use more resources to account for their matchup vs. other aggro and midrange decks and could devote less spaces to something like a fixed misstep to hate on combo.

Preferably the format would be a lot more tuned to how well a player could balance the need to hate on all different types of decks and blue would not be the default choice just because you're scared that if you don't run it you'll scoop to combo.

[Intet's Attendant]

Brainstorm doesn't need to be banned.

The only problem with the format is that non-blue decks don't have good enough tools vs. fast combo decks.
When combo shows up the best option is to play blue. Non blue decks become much less viable.
When combo doesn't show up many non-blue decks become viable but blue is still good.
When blue doesn't show up combo is good and once again it's a bad idea to be packing non-blue non-combo decks.

The main problem is blue is always good, while combo that beats aggro and aggro that beats dedicated blue are often bad choices. Blue is always a safe bet.

The solution isn't to ban anything, but to give aggro slightly better options vs combo (the ones that exist now are pretty bad). A fixed Misstep would do that, there are plenty of ways of doing this, most notably prevent it from hitting permanents and maybe allow it to only be played for alt casting cost if user controls no islands. Combo already has plenty of options vs. blue, the matchup is not unwinnable and if there were more non-blue decks running around blue would have to use more resources to account for these decks which would make players balance more between hating on spells and worrying about Knights and Nacatls. Combo already has the tools to play around fixed Misstep when it's not backed up by other significant disruption. With aggro becoming more viable the non-blue decks would have to use more resources to account for their matchup vs. other aggro and midrange decks and could devote less spaces to something like a fixed misstep to hate on combo.

Preferably the format would be a lot more tuned to how well a player could balance the need to hate on all different types of decks and blue would not be the default choice just because you're scared that if you don't run it you'll scoop to combo.

Essentially this. Blue is the most popular color because it is the most balanced color, in that is offers both excellent defensive cards and decent offensive cards (Delver, Snapcaster).

Red and green are almost strictly offensive colors, and thus fold to any kind of combo decks.

But I do think that Snapcaster is actually worse for the game than Brainstorm. It is a Grizzly Bears, with flash, with an excellent etb ability.

I think Stoneforge, Snapcaster, Goyf, and Confidant have all ruined the legacy game. Making creatures as powerful as these was just not a good idea. It is also ridiculous, almost hypocritical, to give blue excellent creatures while at the same time not giving the other colors excellent defensive cards. Blue is slowly becoming more and more (at least in eternal formats) the color that does it all.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Essentially this. Blue is the most popular color because it is the most balanced color, in that is offers both excellent defensive cards and decent offensive cards (Delver, Snapcaster).

Red and green are almost strictly offensive colors, and thus fold to any kind of combo decks.

But I do think that Snapcaster is actually worse for the game than Brainstorm. It is a Grizzly Bears, with flash, with an excellent etb ability.

I think Stoneforge, Snapcaster, Goyf, and Confidant have all ruined the legacy game. Making creatures as powerful as these was just not a good idea. It is also ridiculous, almost hypocritical, to give blue excellent creatures while at the same time not giving the other colors excellent defensive cards. Blue is slowly becoming more and more (at least in eternal formats) the color that does it all.

Yeah they do need to chill the fuck out with blue for a while and make more non-blue weapons for eternal. I actually like all the cards you listed, hate to admit it, but there it is. I think Snapper is slightly overrated right now. He's really good, don't get me wrong, but I don't think he's the end all creature people make him out to be. I think in time he'll fall off a little like Goyf has over time.

[UnderwaterGuy]

Since Innistrad:

SCG decks with 10% of a color:
Blue: 82
Green: 56
White: 47
Black: 40
Red: 30

Total: 96

Blue is in 85% of the winning decks. Red is in 31%. But I'm sure that's ok with you.

You skewed that data dramatically to favor you.

Red may be more than 10% of only 30 decks but I expect it is in dramatically more decks in lower percents.

Why don't you provide more information if you have it so available? If your data is so strong and convincing you shouldn't need to manipulate it and be vague.

Also, I'm absolutely ok with blue being in 85% of those decks (whichever decks they are). It's ridiculous to decide that each color must be exactly equally represented. The format shifts and it isn't the end of the world. Bans aren't needed.