I don't want to rehash the arguments about Brainstorm in this thread because they've been done to death and, being frank, I think on the face any argument that Brainstorm isn't ban-worthy based on performance is simply delusional.
The only really compelling argument I've heard from people is that Brainstorm is an iconic Legacy card that people have a lot of love for, and it would hurt the format's brand, in essence, to ban it.
I have a lot of sympathy for this argument and want to talk about how that would be implemented; the first implication that would have to be accepted from that is that if a deck is a problem in the format, you might only ban the second or third most powerful card in it if it means protecting an iconic card, one of the set list of classical cards that's just not legal or viable in any other format.
Some implications in list terms would seem to me to be:
- Don't ban Brainstorm; ban Delver instead.
- Unban Survival and ban Vengevine
- Unban Mystical Tutor and, if you're really that terrified of anything, ban Ad Nauseam (although again the numbers never supported a banning in this period of Legacy anyway, so really just unban M. Tutor)
And can this be retrofitted to other cards on the B&R list, and if so onto which cards (besides the obvious non-problem cards of Mind Twist, Land Tax and Black Vise.)
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
That is the dumbest arguments I have ever heard...protect from banning because its an iconic card.
If the card is overpowered or wraps the format, it deserves to get banned.
"Deserves" isn't a very useful compass. The card doesn't deserve anything, it's not like it has moral capacity. The question is; is it better for the health of the format to ban not the most problematic cards but the cards that will least be missed? I think there's a fairly compelling argument that can be made that it is.Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Yes, I think just as there are pillars of Vintage (cards like Workshop, Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Null Rod, etc. that are significantly stronger than many restricted cards, but are unbanned nonetheless to allow for different archetypes), there should be pillars of Legacy.
In my opinion, Brainstorm is the strongest card in the format and probably better than at least half the cards on the banned list. However, I would tolerate this because it is powerful in its consistency, rather than its degenerate potential. It sees play in combo, control, and aggro-control, so it's not accurate to describe decks as being a "Brainstorm decks" the way you could describe "Mystical Tutor decks" or "Survival decks".
I am sick of the blue dominance in the metagame, but citing something like "75% of the decks at X were blue" is a bit misleading because of the multi-colored nature of the format, enabled by duals and fetches. At that same tournament, it's likely that 60% of the decks also played green.
I oppose a Brainstorm ban, although I can see why it's being discussed. I would be very disappointed if it got the axe, but I would still play Legacy (and switch back to Zoo and smash face).
No, but Wizards should become more open to the possibility of banning creatures. Vengevine and not Survival. Snapcaster/Delver and not Brainstorm. Iona and not Mystical.
I agree with a more aggressive creature banning principle. Magic has been around for 18 years and yet the playable creature base in legacy predominantly consists of cards created in the post Tarmogoyf era. Why is it that a majority of the creatures used in the game are less than 4 years old? Power creep is the issue that should be discussed here.
Some ideas for "pillars" of Legacy: Aether Vial, Lion's Eye Diamond, Tarmogoyf.
"I'm willing to imagine a TES where Past in Flames replaces Ill-Gotten Gains entirely, and we just don't play Diminishing Returns." - me, 29/09/2011
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I can see where he's coming from.
Ok, this is probably a horrible example, but let's say Wizards took a serious interest into Legacy and decided that it was in everyone's better interest balance-wise to ban the dual lands. Why? Because they prohibit making any other lands printed worth playing. There will never be any other lands as good as them for color fixing so why keep them in the format when you can ban them and have room for expansion of the choices or some crap. You can just imagine some argument like that.
What would happen in that scenario is people would go into convulsions and heart failures would abound. Remember even Extended kept the duals around just for sheer love of them way past the mark where they should have rotated out. Extended flat died after they did rotate too. No one liked that format except the occasional oddball. Testing for it was miserable and let's face it, it was flat boring as sin.
The other hand has it's problems also. I personally loved Survival of the Fittest and am one of those people who didn't have a problem with that whole Vengevine thing. I never actually understood that one. That deck flopped and failed every week around here, but we have an obscene amount of grave hate also in this meta.
Survival does have a flaw with development though. They are right in saying that eventually it would get broken again with the printing of another creature that breaks it's symmetry. It would happen. Maybe not quick, but it would. It's like how Bazaar of Baghdad was borderline playable during it's time and considered serious crap for the most part, but is silly broken now.
Though I do wish they could see the problems created by newer cards and ban the culprit instead of it's older cousin who's been fine up until that point. Vengevine was my favorite one to cite for that. It's a creature that has an ability that triggers for free. Ummmm, did they forget how good free shit is? Anything for free is always worth looking at. Lion's Eye Diamond was serious crap during it's day, now it's borderline broken. Why, because it gives you free stuff. High cost, but high reward, of course it eventually would start being powerful. I personally think Vengevine will get broken again and I doubt it's all that far off. LED is probably already being watched, but it doesn't win enough SCG tournaments for anyone to care yet. Pfft.
Now Mystical Tutor is an example of a card that fits the other way. Mystical is seriously a matter of Ad Nauseum. Let's face that one. That deck was amazingly good and seriously easy to pilot and not a single person other than the people who played it, liked it. I'll give people credit for Doomsday stacks and building storm the old fashioned way, but I really hate Ant. It's a little too easy. And....Mystical took the heat for it. Pfft. reanimator argument not withstanding. Reanimator would be frigging insane with Jin Gitaxias and Mystical for the Entombs nowadays though so I guess it's a good thing it's toast. It's an example of a card that eventually did break itself. It sucks, but Jin gitaxias didn't break Reanimator. It could be argued that Entomb never should have come off, but they do like to hate on the storm decks.
To me, I would lean toward no. No iconic status for protection for bannings. Cards are printed everyday that can accidentally break older ones. They don't test for it, though I am sure they do bother to think about it a little.
Delver is pretty dumb. Nacatyl in blue, good job. Did they really think a one blue mana 3/2 flyer in blue wouldn't be good? I can hear the limited argument, but that one was coming a mile away. Once you noticed that it wasn't like the werewolves, you got it. I could live with that as a banning without the whole Brainstorm argument.
Lastly, sadly, I would ban Brainstorm if things are going to stay at status quo, that or start giving the other colors some cards worth using. Fetches did give that card a ton of power. It's definitely a matter of a card that eventually broke itself with newer cards being printed to boost it. Weird to think that once upon a time, Impulse was by far the better pick for your control deck. I'd rather see White or Black get some serious loving and have some actual competition for it instead. Split Second Duress would be nice. : ) Reactive white cards that did something besides toss damage around? Blah, blah. blah. You get the idea.
Legacy does have pillars. They just change more often.
I agree that the newer card should be banned for the most part. Losing survival because of vengevine was really sad. Just shows whoever is calling the shots doesn't care about the format's (game's?) rich history.
I don't see them caring about the format, really.
Also, choosing what is icon will get subjective pretty quickly unless you define what it is. Maybe start with, card age, card presence in top 16s and how consistently and for how long. Then pick cards people like.
Force of Will Control
Swords to Plowshares and Bolt Agro
LED combo
?
Lackey tribal, Lord of Atlantis tribal with permission.
Fun to think about. I like the mana drain's forum how it is divided bt deck type.
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I would like to point this part of your argument, because it reminds me of the "dogma" problem that Legacy as an eternal format has. It seems that just for being an eternal format, some people (dunno how many, I would like to know, for sure) think that it's fine and actually, they don't want to change the fact that blue is the best color. This seems, to me, like a dogmatic and selfish way to think.
It's like thinking that riches should remain riches, and poors should remain poors, because it has always been like that. I know everyone has a favorite color, but true diversity, in my opinion, should come from a power balance between them.
Ye youre right, but if Wizards tries to help, the chance that they mess up the whole thing is way bigger, so im fine with this meta... Id just love to see a lil less Tempo but thats just subjective... I think its fine.
Greetings
I'm not certain whether or not iconic cards should have protection from bans, but creatures certainly shouldn't have it. If you look at the power creep of the post Tarmogoyf era and the number of 2cc creature choices that were just literally wiped off the face of the map because of it, I think it would've been far more prudent to ban that card in its prime to create format diversity. Delver is certainly pushing that envelope in an even more extreme direction, because what other aggressive 1 drop are u/x decks going to run after it that don't require a 4c manabase or Threshold?
You have absolutely no idea how formats work. You, and people like you, are the ones that destroyed Standard and ushered in the modern era of card design.
It has NOTHING to do with favorite colors and haves and have-nots. Frankly, your opinion sucks. You can't see beyond your own desires to see what actually creates a healthy and balanced format. Because balance doesn't come from color balance, it comes from strategy balance. You want a format where blue control isn't the best strategy? Go play Modern. The only decks running counters in Modern are the Zoo decks. And the format is stagnant and people hate it. You want another format where blue control isn't the best strategy? Play Vintage. Enjoy your Dredge vs. Workshop vs. Storm. Of course, occasionally, you'll still have to play against Landstill control, but that only makes up a small percent of the field. Be sure to tell everyone you play how nerfing blue leads to greater diversity.
Any time you have an extended card pool, broken strategies are going to come up. And it's not a linear progression, it's an exponential progression. Think of the number of different, viable, combo decks out there. I could name half a dozen without thinking about it. VIABLE combo decks. And lets say you get your foolish wish and control (aggro control, really, because true control was already hit) is hit hard enough that it drops down to 20% of the metagame. Blue occupies a perfectly fair 20% of the metagame. Those combo decks are now gods. I mean, they can go toe to toe decently with control as it is. It's not like they autolose to a single counterspell. Even Belcher can shrug off a single Force if you give them a few turns.
So you ban all the combo cards that are giving you problems. And instead of seeing High Tide and Tendrils and Hive Mind, you start seeing Dream Halls and Aluren. So you ban those. And new combos spring up in their place. And even after you've gotten rid of all the "combo" decks, 70 or 80 bannings down the road, your midrange decks are going to be even less powerful. You'll see legacy turn into the bad-tapout-control/GR-Ramp-into-inevitable-bullshit/terrible-one-drop-aggro pattern that Standard always falls into.
I see what you did there, and largely I share this view. It's way too easy for (new) players to get sucked into the "Blue > all" dogma, I for one discarded it with the inception of Legacy's split from Vintage and have never felt that was a mistake, in this format; other formats will disagree.
But I thinking you missed the forest a little bit; there is something to be said for watching the way colors implement different aspects of their strategy over the last several years. I tend to think of blocks like Onslaught and Mirrodin when I encounter this kind of argument; TGS (Mono-White Control) was an actual deck in Onslaught, and the very next block saw a metagame Mono-Green Control deck emerge, simply because artifacts were everywhere and Green's ability to hate on them could turn Affinity on its head if it didn't gain the advantage via Skullclamp.
While I don't disagree that Legacy is going to harken to certain lines of play more than others, it's not wrong to say that those lines of play tend to align themselves with certain colors.
But let's not pretend for a minute that a 3/2 flyer for U is somehow destroying fucking Legacy either. Any Blue deck that is trying to beatdown is immediately comparing itself to Merfolk, and Merfolk isn't exactly ruining the aggro matchup. Zoo is still more redundant that a deck with 16 Lords and 16 counters. The people who are trying to use Delver as an excuse for playing Counterburn are doing precisely that, and they are still playing a weaker aggro/control strategy with crappier creatures and sacrificing a PoP-proof manabase to do it.
The biggest issue with stuff like this is, people that tend to make the anti-Blue arguments also tend to have NO IDEA how Force of Will is letting them play their guys-and-burn deck in the face of good combo. The minute you figure that out you should probably start giving the hard-earned Wins to control players with a smile, knowing that they are the reason people pause before bringing RetardedCombo.dec to the tournament.
I'm with you, Mikey. In particluar though, wouldn't banning Brainstorm take the combo decks down a notch along with control?
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Without addressing specific cards, I don't think it would be a bad policy for Wizards/DCI to consider certain cards 'pillars' to archetypes and actively avoid banning them if there are alternatives or they aren't broken.
No your opinion sucks -_-
First of all your scenario of a format with only 20% blue is flat out stupid. I know that technically what you said was right but if we use numbers let us use those numbers that are important. Most decks are two or three colored so a perfectly balanced format would have each color included in over 40% of the decks. And that is not even what anyone wants. It would still be okay if blue was in over 50% of the decks, or 60%. One color has to be the strongest. But the current situation is that blue is in somewhere between 80% and 90% of the decks and that is not good.
Your claim that Combo would be too good once blue decks are less played is wrong too. Even in your contructed color balanced format scenario Brainstorm takes a special role. If those Combo decks that you say would run wild in such a format have no access to Brainstorm then the Combo matchup of other colors would become much stronger.
Black in particular would get much stronger against Combo because you can't hide your Combo pieces from Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach and Cabal Therapy anymore. But also other colors would have a much easier time because the Combo decks can't search their solutions for (Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist, Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, ...) so easily anymore. The Legacy pool gives all colors decent ways to combat Combo decks and as a result the Combo decks would not run wild by any means.
Of course blue would by its nature still be the best color to combat Combo but it also would still be 60% of the Metagame so there is no reason to get worried.
I also can't see the point of your references to other formats. The mutilation of the Modern format has nothing to do with Legacy. I don't know what kind of idiot decided that Blazing Shoal deserves to get banned but unlike Modern Legacy will still have Force of Will, Stifle, Daze, Wasteland, Hymn to Tourach and Cabal Therapy to keep Combo in check and make further bannings unnessecary.
Subjectively speaking, yes, they should. The biggest reason I still play Magic is for nostalgic purposes, with the number two reason being the strategic aspect. If WotC were to ban a card I truly found iconic, I would be heavily disincentivized in playing. If WotC were to ban a card I found iconic that doesn't come close to belonging on the ban list, an example being Brainstorm, I would be even more disincentivized.
Objectively speaking, no, not necessarily. They should take precaution in curtailing another Vintage-esque situation from happening, but they should do what's best for the game. It's really a case-by-case basis type of deal IMO.
@IBA- I was totally planning on allowing you to join Team Jack, but because of your crusade against Brainstorm, you're not invited anymore.
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I do wish they would just give the other colors something more than the usual crap.
What do we keep seeing them print?
Red gets better and better burn, but still stays subpar compared to Lightning bolt. Annoying. Luckily they finally have been getting some slightly better creatures than the old days. Goblin Guide and such.
White gets new and improved White Knights over and over again and some random damage redirection variants as usual. Thank god for planeswalkers and Elspeth or else White would still only be known for Swords. cough, Land Tax.
Black is the poor stepchild who showed everyone what Necro could do and got beaten to a pulp for it. No Necro Black! You get more Juzam variants! No Juzam, fine then, you get Negator variants.
Green has finally got it's day and got some really good critters. Still a little subpar as far as spells go, but it's gotten much better. I was really happy to see Scavenging Ooze printed. That's the best thing Green has gotten since Tarmogoyf. Goyf was almost a little overboard for it's time and it's still outclassing a ton of stuff. Ooze was something green has needed for a long time. Sorry, but Night Soil just wasn't cutting it.
Brainstorm is damned good, it just needs some competition. Do you really think these U tempo decks would be the top dogs if Necro were still around? Shit no. Necro is way overpowered, but a nice version of Greed with a cheap casting cost would sure make a difference. Personally, that's what I think needs to happen. We need a cheap cc Greed. Something as good as that would make red worth playing again too. Tip the balances back to the other colors in certain matches. I liked the Rock, Paper, Scissors, Wood, Spock game.
I would love for this to happen, with or without the banning of brainstorm.
If a reasonable compromise can be made, I would rather see iconic cards protected. Though, I don't believe such a stance inherently protects brainstorm.
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