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

[Roman Candle]

Riddle me this: if Brainstorm is so powerful for blue decks, then why does the only competitive mono-blue deck (Merfolk) not use Brainstorm in more than 19 top eight decks in the past 4 years?

Hasn't this been answered ad nauseam in the other thread? Merfolk should be playing brainstorm and just because people top8 without it doesn't mean its optimal.

Also when the hell did "blue hater" become an offensive name?

[Zunam]

Hasn't this been answered ad nauseam in the other thread? Merfolk should be playing brainstorm and just because people top8 without it doesn't mean its optimal.

Are you really suggesting that no one tried it in Merfolk and that the reason for it not being played is that people just didn't realize that it would make the deck better?

Merfolk has reasons for not playing it but it is certainly not that people doesn't realize its power.

[4eak]

Imho, it is an uphill battle to defend Brainstorm in Merfolk. Brainstorm is awesome, but not in Merfolk (at least not in my experience).

Outside of the discussions of whether or not Brainstorm will or should be banned, I'm wondering what the Legacy metagame would look like without Brainstorm. What decks crumble, weaken, improve, and rise to the top both directly and indirectly because of a (hypothetical) banning of Brainstorm?

Combo decks and blue-based aggro control decks seem to be the largest losers. Do they merely weaken or crumble without Brainstorm? I'm not sure who the winners would be.

Merfolk, for example, thrives because it preys upon Brainstorm-using decks, and if Brainstorm got banned, Merfolk's presence would likely diminish. That might seem counterintuitive, as Merfolk's matchup against decks which previously relied on Brainstorm would be greatly improved, but the decks which used Brainstorm may have been keeping Merfolk's predators at bay. Assuming the presence of previous Brainstorm-using decks would diminish, and Merfolks predators became less vulnerable or more abundant in the metagame, Merfolk may weaken. Merfolk would be both less necessary in the metagame and more vulnerable.

It is an interesting thought experiment. It kinda reminds me of that No-goyf tournament we had here on MTS.


peace,
4eak

[Roman Candle]

Are you really suggesting that no one tried it in Merfolk and that the reason for it not being played is that people just didn't realize that it would make the deck better?

Merfolk has reasons for not playing it but it is certainly not that people doesn't realize its power.

I'm suggesting that people hear other people say Brainstorm is bad in merfolk and copy lists without Brainstorm without really testplaying it for themselves.

What reasons does Merfolk have for not playing Brainstorm?

[DragoFireheart]

I suspect that non-blue combo and aggro-combo decks would rise. Chalice stompy decks would appear since if you can't use brainstorm, may as well play a deck that doesn't use it anyways. Zoo and Maverick would also go on the rise. I think the meta would speed up quite a bit, ensuring that Goblin decks stay dead. Merfolk would die off as there are less people playing blue. Belcher decks might appear in larger numbers since it has to worry less about someone having the ability to have FoW turn 1 when on the play.

It'd be interesting to say the least.

[DragoFireheart]

I'm suggesting that people hear other people say Brainstorm is bad in merfolk and copy lists without Brainstorm without really testplaying it for themselves.

What reasons does Merfolk have for not playing Brainstorm?

Their deck is already highly redundant. They also don't run fetchlands and those that do have really bad mana bases (2 colors with 4 wastes and 4 manlands? Ouch).

[Roman Candle]

Their deck is already highly redundant. They also don't run fetchlands and those that do have really bad mana bases (2 colors with 4 wastes and 4 manlands? Ouch).

Let's not pretend that all cards in Merfolk are equally good at all times. For example. Merfolk plays lands.

Also I really doubt its that difficult to play fetchlands in Merfolk... You can be monocolored and play fetches.

[Zunam]

My guess it that the best Aggro decks would be dominating (Zoo, Goblin, Maverick).
These are just the Best at what they do and will not allow any magical rise of other Aggro decks just because of the Banning of Brainstorm.
Stormcombo will struggle except for maybe Belcher and SI which could become the decks to beat Aggro.
Rock/Junk style deck Aggro-Control will rise a bit but still loose to both Ultra-Fast Combo and won't do too well against dedicated Aggro.
Merfolk will disappear as will controlish StoneBlade Decks or Control in general.

If this would be a desirable Meta: I don't know, maybe...

[Zunam]

Let's not pretend that all cards in Merfolk are equally good at all times. For example. Merfolk plays lands.

Also I really doubt its that difficult to play fetchlands in Merfolk... You can be monocolored and play fetches.

You are listing what Brainstorm does but not why it would make Merfolk better. Yo have to ask yourself: Is changing the deck (so that it runs fetches; cuts whatever cards to fit Brainstorm) really worth the effect Brainstorm is providing? Have you tried it?
At least I didn't like it at all (which doesn't necessarily mean anything but was enough for me to discard the thought of running it).
That also doesn't mean that Brainstorm is good card in general so let's start discussing the topic again.

[Jim Higginbottom]

I would definitely quit playing legacy if brainstorm was banned.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'm going to explain right now that it's a bad idea to look at cards only in terms of function, outside of power level. Like StP is StP because of its efficiency, flexiblity and cost. If StP were banned tomorrow, a lot of decks would pick up Path to Exile, but many wouldn't because some decks care about that drawback a lot more. And if, God forbid, both StP and PtE were banned tomorrow, very few decks would start playing Sunlance and Condemn.

So simply saying that banning Brainstorm will just cause people to swap out those slots 1-for-1 for Top or Ponder is misguided at best.

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

Having done these numbers several times over the years, there's been a steady and creeping growth of blue as a percentage of winning decks since virtually the time it was created.

I did the numbers over a year ago in this thread, most recently, before Survival got axed.

At that point, with Vengevine decks, many of them without white, dominating, we had seen the first downward tick in blue for a while, but it was still around 65% of the field. Now it's up to about 75% in one year, and I honestly think blue is probably being underplayed atm. We're already seeing a decline in Zoo's numbers, for instance.

[Misplayer]

I'm not sure when it happened, but Legacy became the format of Chicken Littles at some point.

Weekly SCG 5k decklists for people to overanalyze has probably contributed to this. I'd be more interested to see what % of the field played Brainstorm and did well with it over multiple large tournaments versus other cards/archetypes. If there were 5 Burn players out of 500 and one made top 8, versus 50 Uxx Tempo players and 2 made top 8, which says more about a deck's ability to win in a given metagame? Did the Burn player have good matchups all day, or rip Price of Progress every time he needed it, or sneak in on fortuitous breakers?

My point is that there's so much variability in every game of every matchup of every round of every tournament, that it's only so worthwhile to use Top 8s and Top 16s as a basis for arguing the banning of a card that (a) is played and so many archetypes, and (b) doesn't have a powerful effect on the game-state.

What I would be interested to see is the results of some matchup-by-matchup testing that could give insights such as "Tempo RUG was able to consistently win versus [goblins,zoo,whatever deck is allegedly being pushed out by Brainstorm] on the back of the card selection and quality provided by Brainstorm", "[Non-blue Deck X] is not worth playing because adding blue/Brainstorm would improve it's worse matchups and turn it into [existing blue deck]", or "[Non-blue Deck X] is not worth playing because it has a bad matchup against blue decks, and it can't be adjusted to beat a blue metagame without fundamentally changing it".

I still think that the almost weekly lists that are published are as much to blame as anything for decks you're going to face at any given tournament. People (myself included) will go look at what's placing at large events, figure that deck must be good (it probably is) and go play it. Then, 50% of the field does the same thing, and likely 50% of those decks will make the next top 8 provided they have an even matchup against the rest of the field. When combo cropped up after the banning of Mental Misstep, everyone picked up something blue because conventional wisdom is that blue beats combo. I guess now that blue is everywhere, the field must either think that nothing has a favorable matchup against all the flavors of blue, or people would rather play Tempo RUG or UW Stoneblade than something like Maverick.

tl;dr - no, because I like to play blue and Brainstorm.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

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.

In the long run we're all dead, as Keynes said. Why shouldn't Wizards actively shape the format to improve it?

I see a lot of people applying a lot of bad and flawed economic theories to the metagame here. First it was efficient market theory, and now it's the belief that the metagame is self-correcting if given enough time.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Weekly SCG 5k decklists for people to overanalyze has probably contributed to this.

Actually, it was a lot easier when we had Deckcheck.

[Aggro_zombies]

Actually, it was a lot easier when we had Deckcheck.

Eh, not really. Deckcheck sampled a much larger number of tournaments and so there was more likely to be variation in the data, allowing for a more well-rounded look at the metagame. With only one data point (the last SCG T16), it's much easier to come up with a skewed picture of the metagame and assume that strategy X is too dominant/unbeatable/needs a banning.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I mean it was easier to get a broader look at the metagame.

I agree that the SCG Opens alone give a very narrow and somewhat stifled look at Legacy, there's a big SCG echo chamber effect.

[KevinTrudeau]

I want to ban Brainstorm.

This isn't necessarily directed at you, but everyone in this thread. I have two questions (and this is assuming that the blue decks in question have reached a point of unanswerability in the current metagame with making a specific deck to prey upon it e.g. Affinity, anti-Affinity)-- are you positive that banning Brainstorm would prove to be more effective in mitigating the dominace of blue over banning and/or unbanning something else? Have you fully considered the potential repercussions of a metagame without Brainstorm?

[Mr. Safety]

Its funny because both Survival of the Fittest/Vengevine and Brainstorm/Snapcaster Mage issue can be resolved by using graveyard hate as a deck building standard.

I mean if decks can put creature removal on the main, why not graveyard hate?

I like this post...in a format as diverse as legacy, dedicating maindeck slots to graveyard hate may just be the most pragmatic approach to the entire situation.

Kudos for this post, Oh Nameless One.

[DragoFireheart]

Well, Zoo decks main-deck artifact/enchantment hate ala Qasali Pridemage. Why not do the same for graveyards by using creatures?

[Aggro_zombies]

This isn't necessarily directed at you, but everyone in this thread. I have two questions (and this is assuming that the blue decks in question have reached a point of unanswerability in the current metagame with making a specific deck to prey upon it e.g. Affinity, anti-Affinity)-- are you positive that banning Brainstorm would prove to be more effective in mitigating the dominace of blue over banning and/or unbanning something else? Have you fully considered the potential repercussions of a metagame without Brainstorm?

Here's what I think:

• Snapcaster gets worse. Not being able to draw EOT for three limits Snapcaster to flashing back removal or Spell Snare/Pierce on the opponent's turn. Snapcastering on your turn for Ponder/Preordain is probably not good enough when you could just run Top and get a similar effect every turn for 1.
• Storm combo gets worse. Ponder and Preordain are not as good in storm combo because they put fewer cards into your hand on your combo turn. I don't know how much worse that would make these decks, but they would likely take a significant hit.
• Blue tempo does not get significantly worse. You lose the ability to dig for counters on an opponent's turn, but since most of your counters are either free or one mana, tapping a bit on your turn to set up a counter wall is not a significant cost. Furthermore, for what these decks are trying to do, Ponder and Preordain are not that much worse than Brainstorm.
• Blue control does not get significantly worse. These decks care more about drawing three and then shuffling away chaff, but you still have access to Top to sculpt draws. We might see people turn to stuff like Predict to plug the gap a little bit, but I don't think losing Brainstorm takes a ton of wind out of these decks' sails.
• People will abandon blue because it is perceived to be much worse now. Format talking heads will likely proclaim the death of blue because of the loss of Brainstorm means there's no true "draw three" in the format anymore. Losing Brainstorm is a hit to blue control because, despite the fact that casting Brainstorm nets you no increase in hand size, your hand's card quality goes up much more from casting it than from casting Ponder/Preordain. However, the perception of blue's weakness will likely cause a shift in the meta, with people either leaving the format (as Nightmare has threatened to do, IIRC) or people choosing "non-real" decks like Zoo or whatever.

Make no mistake: losing Brainstorm is a big, but not insurmountable, deal. Blue gets worse, but not significantly so. However, I think banning BS will snap people out of autopilot and lead to less blue, which accomplishes the goal of a diverse meta even if BS doesn't need to be banned in an objective, "in a vacuum" sense.