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

[Dzra]

Part of the reason Blue (and Brainstorm) is so dominant is because many of the best players recognize that Blue gives them the most opportunities to use their skills. Many non-Blue decks tend to be very draw-dependent. Pros play Blue because they want to give themselves the option to outplay their opponents. There are a lot of balance issues why Brainstorm is cornerstone in the format that I won't get into here. However, just on a practical level, the reason Blue is such a presence isn't because Blue is that overbearingly overpowered, but because Blue gives good players the opportunity to play to the best of their abilities.

[CorpT]

Part of the reason Blue (and Brainstorm) is so dominant is because many of the best players recognize that Blue gives them the most opportunities to use their skills. Many non-Blue decks tend to be very draw-dependent. Pros play Blue because they want to give themselves the option to outplay their opponents. There are a lot of balance issues why Brainstorm is cornerstone in the format that I won't get into here. However, just on a practical level, the reason Blue is such a presence isn't because Blue is that overbearingly overpowered, but because Blue gives good players the opportunity to play to the best of their abilities.

Playing Brainstorm and shuffling away 2 irrelevant cards for a particular matchup while keeping cards that are relevant isn't skill. It's pretty obvious.

[Roman Candle]

Part of the reason Blue (and Brainstorm) is so dominant is because many of the best players recognize that Blue gives them the most opportunities to use their skills. Many non-Blue decks tend to be very draw-dependent. Pros play Blue because they want to give themselves the option to outplay their opponents. There are a lot of balance issues why Brainstorm is cornerstone in the format that I won't get into here. However, just on a practical level, the reason Blue is such a presence isn't because Blue is that overbearingly overpowered, but because Blue gives good players the opportunity to play to the best of their abilities.

I feel like this is just an example of affirming a disjunct. Just because good players like to play blue because it gives them more options does not mean that blue isn't overbearingly overpowered.

[sligh16]

Playing Brainstorm and shuffling away 2 irrelevant cards for a particular matchup while keeping cards that are relevant isn't skill. It's pretty obvious.

This. The argument that Brainstorm is a very difficult card to play/ skilltester of the format etc. is just a myth. This argument is overrated IMO.

As someone said, the real skilltester of Magic should be how to build/tune your deck against the metagame.

[Dzra]

Blue is easily one of the most skill intensive colors. Some of the most skill dependent plays lie in Blue. Yes, it's not overly difficult to look at your hand and put the least two useful cards back. The difficultly is planning moves ahead and knowing when the best time to Brainstorm is and what two cards you can put back to optimize the next X turns. It's very subtle, it's not the most glorious card by any means. Force of Will is another card that requires tough decisions (about what to pitch or if the card disadvantage is worth the counter).

The only other cards that require a lot of skill to maximize are targeted hand disruption and tutors. Even Sensei's Divining Top isn't nearly as skill intensive as Brainstorm because like you said, it isn't hard to shuffle away your two least useful cards. Using Top is fairly obvious. Do I have open mana? Yes? /top

Someone playing Blue will have more opportunities to both make great plays and awful mistakes. It doesn't mean Blue is infinitely better, it is just how the color works. The Zoo player is more or less forced to roll with what they draw and their plays are fairly straight forward. That's not saying that aggro players are worse, but it means that Blue players will have more opportunity to outplay their opponent then a Zoo player.

As someone said, the real skilltester of Magic should be how to build/tune your deck against the metagame.

Also, one of Legacy's selling points is the lack of an easily defined metagame. What does building a metagame breaking deck in Legacy mean? You have to be prepared to face any of 20 very different decks in a given tournament.

[Bahamuth]

A bad on Brainstorm would mean that TES/ANT/DDFT would be worse than faster lists that run next to no cantrips. This is degenerate because it forces the game into more coinflip situations than the current case. Another reason to keep Brainstorm.

What the hell is the deal with SCM being broken all of a sudden? 3 mana + landdrop is extremely expensive for a Brainstorm. I remember hearing people say SCM is better than Confidant. That's just so much bullshit.

[sligh16]

Blue is easily one of the most skill intensive colors. Some of the most skill dependent plays lie in Blue. Yes, it's not overly difficult to look at your hand and put the least two useful cards back. The difficultly is planning moves ahead and knowing when the best time to Brainstorm is and what two cards you can put back to optimize the next X turns. It's very subtle, it's not the most glorious card by any means. Force of Will is another card that requires tough decisions (about what to pitch or if the card disadvantage is worth the counter).

The only other cards that require a lot of skill to maximize are targeted hand disruption and tutors. Even Sensei's Divining Top isn't nearly as skill intensive as Brainstorm because like you said, it isn't hard to shuffle away your two least useful cards. Using Top is fairly obvious. Do I have open mana? Yes? /top

Someone playing Blue will have more opportunities to both make great plays and awful mistakes. It doesn't mean Blue is infinitely better, it is just how the color works. The Zoo player is more or less forced to roll with what they draw and their plays are fairly straight forward. That's not saying that aggro players are worse, but it means that Blue players will have more opportunity to outplay their opponent then a Zoo player.

Regarding the skill/difficulty argument, I agree that blue gives more options in the card manipulation aspect of the game, but at the same time I think that the "outplaying" comes from the overall tree of decisions that the player has to make, regardless the color he is playing. Blue, as a color gives more opportunities to outplay the opponent because it gives you Brainstorm and Force of Will, two cards that seem tough to play as you say, but in reality most of the time they are no brainers. "Brainstorm on my turn to maximize digging, put back 2 useless cards, fetch" "Pay 1 life, remove the worst blue card in my hand: counter threat".

I'm not advocating the banning of Force of Will, but I still believe that the argument of Brainstorm being a difficult card to play, same as Force of Will, is incorrect, or at least overrated. It seems to be an illusion that's still alive.

Also, one of Legacy's selling points is the lack of an easily defined metagame. What does building a metagame breaking deck in Legacy mean? You have to be prepared to face any of 20 very different decks in a given tournament.

Yes, diversity is Legacy's biggest selling point. Metagaming may be relegated to local shops where you know which decks you're going to see for sure. But as now, where is that diversity? Looking at tournament data it seems that even Standard is more diverse than Legacy right now.

[aCatNamedBootsy]

I don't know if Ari, Liam, or Bryant have spoken in this thread, but I'll speak on behalf of Storm players in case they haven't.

I've actually asked Bryant last week (as well as a handful of other local Legacy players) at FNM about it and he told me that if they were ban Brainstorm, he personally would quit playing. He said that he plays Legacy so he can play things like Brainstorm.

[Dzra]

So, help me understand the "ban Brainstorm" argument. Blue is the strongest color because it gives players more options and flexibility. Ban one of Blue's strongest and most defining cards so that people will play less Blue. Ban Brainstorm. Now, Blue is still the color that gives players the best opportunity to outplay their opponent. We better ban something else. On and on, until we arrive at Modern.

How about instead of calling for "ban this, ban that" they print some cards that will help offer other colors the same opportunities that Blue decks have? Scry is a great mechanic to do this, but I'm sure that they can come up with others. Blue is not too powerful. Blue just does things that smart players want to be doing. The answer is not to weaken Blue by banning good, skill-intensive cards. The answer is to print more good cards in other colors that allow non-Blue players the opportunity to play well.

Green Sun's Zenith is good because it gives players the chance to make the right or wrong choice. Do I GSZ t1 and accelerate? Do I GSZ later and get a beater? Do I have to use it to grab a hate bear? Thoughtseize is another good card because it tests a player's knowledge and rewards the farsighted player. We need more non-Blue cards like this. The correct answer is not Modern's approach of "ban every card that allows for a complex decision tree until we arrive at fair," it should be "Blue is good because it allows for complex decisions and rewards a player for having more experience and knowledge... let's try to incorporate that into the other colors as well."

[Smmenen]

Here are my two cents:

I generally oppose banning cards in Legacy. However, I think the DCI should have banned Brainstorm instead of Mental Misstep.

Brainstorm's chief problem is that it dramatically increases the opportunity cost of not running blue. Banning Brainstorm would reduce the opportunity cost of not running blue, and increase the marginal utility of other colors. If Brainstorm were banned, then players would be more likely to choose other colors as a secondary or tertiary color over blue.

Brainstorm's unparalleled ability to put good cards into your hand and put garbage back ontop makes it an auto-include in any combo deck in the format. Brainstorm is the one card you can find throughout every major combo deck in the format: from Hive Mind, to Natural Order, to TEPS, to Ad Nuaseam, to HIgh Tide, etc. Force of Will is not as important to those decks as Brainstorm is. Force of Will can be replaced by Thoughtseize or Duress. Brainstorm is the only card that can turn superfluous Pacts into the right mixture of mana acceleration.

To reiterate: banning Brainstorm should make the format more diverse in terms of color selection, since it is the best blue card in the format, it will reduce the opportunity cost of not running blue.

[dontbiteitholmes]

This thread only tells me one thing. 76% of people in the poll are against banning brainstorm but easily 60% of the post are pro=banning Brainstorm. The vocal minority is alive and well.

[Gheizen64]

Here are my two cents:

I generally oppose banning cards in Legacy. However, I think the DCI should have banned Brainstorm instead of Mental Misstep.

Brainstorm's chief problem is that it dramatically increases the opportunity cost of not running blue. Banning Brainstorm would reduce the opportunity cost of not running blue, and increase the marginal utility of other colors. If Brainstorm were banned, then players would be more likely to choose other colors as a secondary or tertiary color over blue.

Brainstorm's unparalleled ability to put good cards into your hand and put garbage back ontop makes it an auto-include in any combo deck in the format. Brainstorm is the one card you can find throughout every major combo deck in the format: from Hive Mind, to Natural Order, to TEPS, to Ad Nuaseam, to HIgh Tide, etc. Force of Will is not as important to those decks as Brainstorm is. Force of Will can be replaced by Thoughtseize or Duress. Brainstorm is the only card that can turn superfluous Pacts into the right mixture of mana acceleration.

To reiterate: banning Brainstorm should make the format more diverse in terms of color selection, since it is the best blue card in the format, it will reduce the opportunity cost of not running blue.

This was my position pre-Innistrad too, and someone (sorry it was also a very good article but my memory is shit) wrote an article that synthesized my thought perfectly (basically it said you don't lose to MM, you lose to the BS reshuffling those MM lategame, also, with BS gone, MM would have lost its biggest target. It also said MM effect on the format wasn't bad as the amounts of different decks were more or less the same, with more pure control and less storm).

After innistrad, having MM legal isn't really an option (and i think WotC did ban it also because they noticed the interaction between the two cards).

[sligh16]

How about instead of calling for "ban this, ban that" they print some cards that will help offer other colors the same opportunities that Blue decks have? Scry is a great mechanic to do this, but I'm sure that they can come up with others. Blue is not too powerful. Blue just does things that smart players want to be doing. The answer is not to weaken Blue by banning good, skill-intensive cards. The answer is to print more good cards in other colors that allow non-Blue players the opportunity to play well.

I'm completely sold on this idea, but the problem is that is the "difficult" solution. It would make R&D mess with the color pie giving blue mechanics to other colors (yes please), the repercussions would be long term, and lastly, probably the cards printed would not even reach the power level of Brainstorm.

There's nothing I like more for Legacy than diversity, and I'm actually regoiced when I see an obscure deck/card making top 8. For me, that is what makes Legacy so beautiful. But it sucks when you see that at least 50% of top 8 decks start with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Force of Will.

[Intet's Attendant]

So, help me understand the "ban Brainstorm" argument. Blue is the strongest color because it gives players more options and flexibility. Ban one of Blue's strongest and most defining cards so that people will play less Blue. Ban Brainstorm. Now, Blue is still the color that gives players the best opportunity to outplay their opponent. We better ban something else. On and on, until we arrive at Modern.

How about instead of calling for "ban this, ban that" they print some cards that will help offer other colors the same opportunities that Blue decks have? Scry is a great mechanic to do this, but I'm sure that they can come up with others. Blue is not too powerful. Blue just does things that smart players want to be doing. The answer is not to weaken Blue by banning good, skill-intensive cards. The answer is to print more good cards in other colors that allow non-Blue players the opportunity to play well.

Green Sun's Zenith is good because it gives players the chance to make the right or wrong choice. Do I GSZ t1 and accelerate? Do I GSZ later and get a beater? Do I have to use it to grab a hate bear? Thoughtseize is another good card because it tests a player's knowledge and rewards the farsighted player. We need more non-Blue cards like this. The correct answer is not Modern's approach of "ban every card that allows for a complex decision tree until we arrive at fair," it should be "Blue is good because it allows for complex decisions and rewards a player for having more experience and knowledge... let's try to incorporate that into the other colors as well."

Listen to this guy. We need cards in other colors that reward skillful play via manipulation (what blue is known for) or else people will continue to play the blue cards that do just that (FoW, Brainstorm, Ponder, ect)

[nwong]

It would make R&D mess with the color pie.

You say that like they don't do it all the time.

Delver of Secrets says hello.

[sligh16]

You say that like they don't do it all the time.

Delver of Secrets says hello.

It's your interpretation.

I'm saying that it's difficult because when you mess with the color pie you must be extra careful, or you will end with cards that become warping (phyrexian mana) or taking your own example, a card that should have never been blue.

[Admiral_Arzar]

It's your interpretation.

I'm saying that it's difficult because when you mess with the color pie you must be extra careful, or you will end with cards that become warping (phyrexian mana) or taking your own example, a card that should have never been blue.

I don't think this one is "his interpretation." The color pie quite clearly stated that blue doesn't get ridiculous aggressive creatures. At least, that was back when the thing was designed, nowadays it just says "blue gets everything except direct creature kill, but we made that colorless so who fucking cares?"

[Borealis]

Part of the reason Blue (and Brainstorm) is so dominant is because many of the best players recognize that Blue gives them the most opportunities to use their skills. Many non-Blue decks tend to be very draw-dependent. Pros play Blue because they want to give themselves the option to outplay their opponents. There are a lot of balance issues why Brainstorm is cornerstone in the format that I won't get into here. However, just on a practical level, the reason Blue is such a presence isn't because Blue is that overbearingly overpowered, but because Blue gives good players the opportunity to play to the best of their abilities.

I agree with this statement for the most part. I also think many of the pros and grinders on the SCG circuit play blue simply because it's their favorite color, like many other magic players. Also, it's easy to be lazy and stick with a deck that has multiple answers in it (and access via Brainstorm, etc.) for multiple strategies. But I don't think Brainstorm or Blue is particularly harder to play than any other color for anyone who has a decent grip on the format. I've been playing Junk for quite some time now, but recently invested in some Blue duals. After hundreds of activations of Sensei's Top, Sylvan Library, Bob, Life from the Loam, Knight of the Reliquary, etc., I can tell you Brainstorming is pleasantly easy. Sure, I probably suck at it compared to Bertoncini, but give me a couple weeks and it will be second nature. Anyone can play Blue, it just takes a certain mindset. Don't overlook the cards that everyone else has access too that require at least as much skill. Do I take 0, 4, or 8 from Sylvan Library this turn? Do I flip SDT for that top card on my opponent's turn, even though I need to fetch to cast the card? Do I sacrifice all my mountains for the game-winning Fireblast, even though he might be holding a Force of Will (or Brainstorm into FOW??). All Legacy players have tough decisions to make.

I do agree that Blue probably provides the best chance at fully utilizing your own playskill to it's max, but in many cases I would argue that it is actually easier to play Blue, once you are comfortable with the format and all it's interactions. Either way, banning Brainstorm is just stupid, and I see no need for it. As a player who is looking forward to using this "Broken" card more frequently, I've also never felt oppressed by seeing it on the opposing side when playing Zoo or Junk. It's just a card that does stuff. Jace? Hated it for ages. Batterskull? Stupid when it connects. Consecrated Sphinx? Jin Gitaxias? Snapcaster? Really? But not Brainstorm, no issues with it at all.

Ban Snapcaster, maybe after a few months if it's still off the charts popular in Top 8's. Or just don't ban anything at all. The format is FINE. Brainstorm is no more powerful than the deck it's in and the pilot casting it.

[Dzra]

I don't think they'd be messing with the color pie that much more than they already do/have. Sylvan Library, Magma Jet, Sensei's Divining Top are all cards that perform the type of library manipulation usually left to Blue. Cards like Green Sun's Zenith and Thoughtseize are also good cards for making fun and complex plays.

The issue remains that the "Blue shell" still provides the most options and flexibility and because of dual lands, why wouldn't Blue be the first color of every deck I make? In a world where all the colors provided similar opportunities to maximize playskill and minimize variance, it wouldn't be an issue. Blue (and Brainstorm) is not overpowered in the classic sense, there's just not many good reasons not to play it.

Cards like Knight of the Reliquary, Wild Nacatl, and Green Sun's Zenith show me that WotC is working on the issue. I wish they'd pay more attention to Red and perhaps Black as well though.

[Zombie]

One small Brainstorm annoyance:

Opp Thoughtseizes, in response Brainstorm the good stuff away, have fun Thoughtseizing not-relevant stuff out. Ponder and Preordain don't allow for that, which I think is a good thing.