All B/R update speculation.

[Dice_Box]

IBA.

By default people can say what they like, they don't need you to talk for them. Also banning a card right after a hatebear was printed to answer it is foolish

[Barook]

Also banning a card right after a hatebear was printed to answer it is foolish

Except it has quickly become clear that said hatebear is actually pretty underwhelming. If it had flash, then we could talk again, but as it stands, it doesn't really get the job done, especially since D&T is pretty much the only deck that can run it.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

IBA.

By default people can say what they like, they don't need you to talk for them.

When you toss an opinion out into the public domain, you lose the right to complain if that opinion is analyzed, both for its own literal content and for its implications.

Also banning a card right after a hatebear was printed to answer it is foolish

Oh wait does someone actually think SoL is going to nerf Brainstorm? That's adorable.

Did you know that that acronym has another meaning?

[Dice_Box]

I will agree that if you speak you can be analysed. But that does not give any one the right to make blanket statements that flat disregard a wide range of discussion points and views. Analysis of a point and flat disregard of a point is far from the same thing.

I never said I thought Spirit would stop Brainstorm, my post simply said "Change has acurred, give it time." This is legacy, we let the format adjust here before banning cards here. Will Spirit do anything? Unlikely. Would it be right to give it no chance at all? No, that's not what we do in this format.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

By the definition of how Wizards times its banned list announcement, there will always be change happening when changes to said list can occur.

I would say that if you think anything will alter the dominance of blue other than alterations to said list at this point, you are living in a fantasy world.

[btm10]

At least we agree on something. So do you really want Combo Winter-scale bannings of good Blue cards to reduce its dominance? Because I seriously think that that is what it will take. To start, I'd bet you'd need to hit Delver and TNN, and probably Brainstorm as well. And that's just the first round. Is this really what you want?

[Dice_Box]

I am under no delusions that anything will change Blue from being the top dog. What I will argue is that the banning of Brainstorm is not going to do much to stop blue. With Ponder, Force, Stifle, Daze, Delver, SnT, etc still in the format, taking out Brainstorm will not do much to cut blue down at all. Yes I understand the amount of power that would be cut from blue with the banning, but that will not make any meaningful change overall.

The only way that the other colours will close the gap is with new printings. There is just too much of a difference between blue and everything else that the banning of one blue card, even if that card is Brainstorm, will not have much effective. I am not advocating for a Blue dominated format. I play Red and green. What I am advocating is a printing of new and powerful cards that help close the gap. But since I live in reality, I will take Spirit as a nice first step and see what comes next while not holding my breath.

[testing32]

I am under no delusions that anything will change Blue from being the top dog. What I will argue is that the banning of Brainstorm is not going to do much to stop blue. With Ponder, Force, Stifle, Daze, Delver, SnT, etc still in the format, taking out Brainstorm will not do much to cut blue down at all. Yes I understand the amount of power that would be cut from blue with the banning, but that will not make any meaningful change overall.

I think you guys are underestimating how good brainstorm is.

How about we start with that and give it 6 months and reassess where we are.

[Barook]

Yes I understand the amount of power that would be cut from blue with the banning, but that will not make any meaningful change overall.

Bans aren't only used to remove toxic cards from formats, but can also be applied to nerf certain stuff without making it completely unviable.

Wizards isn't going to print cards in other colors that rival Brainstorm's power since BS is already off the charts. More card selection in other colors is nice and all, but cards rivaling BS aren't going happen (and blue decks would pick up said cards anyway, get the best use out of them and even further blue's dominance, like it happened every fucking time).

Hoping that Wizards cares enough about Legacy to release a volley of cards that make Brainstorming miserable in a reasonable timeframe to save the format from the blue tsunami sounds pretty lousy.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Holy shit I did not stay up til 7 am compiling the data for you assholes to just chuckle-fuck your way through the thread saying, "Hrmm, but maybe Brainstorm isn't the culprit, how can we know, how can anyone know anything hrm hrm hrm."

Repeating on a theme I hit on a couple of years ago, let's examine the performance of individual cards within the top 16 of large events for which we have data. For this I am using SCG opens since TNN became legal at the beginning of November, and the two Legacy GPs since (with the GPs counting double to reflect larger size.) I would have included the BoM data if it were available but their site sucks.

(If you want the tl;dr skip to the last chart)

Consistent with the data from last time, Brainstorm and Force continue to be both ubiquitous and highly performing at every level of the tournament data. It might be easy to gloss over but the combination bears dwelling on; usually the more popular a strategy is, the more you would expect diminishing returns as people prepare counters to that strategy. This is in fact a large part of what drives the change in the metagame, as many decks come and go (the data bears witness to the dramatic death of Maverick and Death and Taxes as relevant contenders, for instance.)

It won't let me post the excel sheet because this forum sucks but here's a snapshot of the raw data:



Here's how it breaks down in graph form, showing step by step advancement of each card from top 16 to wins:















Note: I included Karakas in colorless, because, land, and it could be run in any color deck; but it is probably has a 1:1 correlation with white decks and should be included as a white card. Well, I'm not fixing the data now, it's almost 7 am. Modify your perceptions of the colorless/white balance as it suits you.



And finally, averaging together the performance of all measured cards without weighting for field presence (so Brainstorm and Stifle affect performance equally):



Some take aways from the data:

- Red is the least played but best performing secondary color, although for reasons already mentioned with more of a red presence this might change as you get diminishing returns.

- TNN has probably had an extensive impact on the meta, but is not actually the primary beneficiary of this change, being an underperformer compared to most blue cards. Goyf has certainly suffered for its presence, and green as a whole.

- Wasteland continues to be probably drastically overplayed, the hype over Deathrite isn't really justified, Clique is actually a better performing three drop than TNN probably reflecting combo's presence, and Loam and P-Fire should see more play.

- Once-greats or at least promising cards that showed up too little to compile reliable data include Elspeth, KotR, Faithless Looting, Young Pyromance, B-Wish, pretty obviously Geist, Goblin Lackey.

And ultimately:

It shouldn't be surprising, because the data just confirms what most people should already know: Blue is dominant as a presence in the format, and still underplayed relative to its performance. What this means is that the primary reason blue isn't more played is probably just people refusing to play blue.

No particular engine or kill condition can be reasonably blamed for blue's dominance, although Delver seems like its most efficient kill condition. Blue simply has an arsenal of very efficient cards in every role at the moment. But at the core of these decks is the combination of Brainstorm and Force of Will, and very few people would suggest that Force of Will is a problem in the format.

There is no reason to believe that blue's ongoing and ever-increasing dominance over the format would be significantly checked by the banning of any single other card rather than Brainstorm, so if you think a format where the metagame is entirely blue-based into perpetuity is bad, you should be advocating either a banning of Brainstorm or a comprehensive banning of a number of problematic blue cards, probably something like Delver, TNN, SnT at a minimum.

[Dice_Box]

Bans aren't only used to remove toxic cards from formats, but can also be applied to nerf certain stuff without making it completely unviable.

Wizards isn't going to print cards in other colors that rival Brainstorm's power since BS is already off the charts. More card selection in other colors is nice and all, but cards rivaling BS aren't going happen (and blue decks would pick up said cards anyway, get the best use out of them and even further blue's dominance, like it happened every fucking time).

Hoping that Wizards cares enough about Legacy to release a volley of cards that make Brainstorming miserable in a reasonable timeframe to save the format from the blue tsunami sounds pretty lousy.

Oh I totally agree that what I explained was a pipe dream. But I do not think that there is much that can be done without taking an axe to half of blues much played cards. I would love to see more cards printed that raise the power of the other colours, not lower the biggest. But I can also understand that I may have a view that is not shared by others. Regardless it's my view. It's also one of the reasons I am looking at a 6 month break from playing the game each week and only playing at the big monthly events. Come back, reexamine the format and see if my opinions are still the same.

Sometimes an outsiders viewpoint sees more than someone involved in a situation.

IBA: You would find your posts are more productive in getting your point across if you were not so abrasive. Right now, you give the impression that your a tool with a superiority complex. If you toned it down you would find yourself a respected member of this community since you seam to be intelligent enough to both make a point and defend it. If only you did not attack those that disagree with you. No offence meant, only making an observation here mate. You can do more around here, you just have to tone back on the aggression.

[rufus]

.... But since I live in reality, I will take Spirit as a nice first step and see what comes next while not holding my breath.

I don't understand how anyone seriously thought it would be an effective answer to brainstorm in the first place.

Rather than wholesale banning of blue cards, I'd really like to see them break blue's monopoly on the stack. That said, since they print mostly filler, it would take a long time for anything meaningful to show up.

[btm10]

Holy shit I did not stay up til 7 am compiling the data for you assholes to just chuckle-fuck your way through the thread saying, "Hrmm, but maybe Brainstorm isn't the culprit, how can we know, how can anyone know anything hrm hrm hrm."

This isn't what I'm saying (it might be what some other people are saying). My point, which was not as clear as it should've been, is that Brainstorm is on the rise because Blue is on the rise in general, and Brainstorm is Blue's best card and is run in nearly ever blue-based deck. So if a Top 8 is split BUG/SnS/Miracles/ANT/Blade Control/Lands/UWR Blade/UWR Delver, then BS is going to occupy a ton of slots no matter what. Now a Brainstorm ban may knock ANT or Sneak and Show out of contention, but other than that, do you not think that at least 1 Delver variant and 1 Blade variant would still be top-tier? Do you not think that Miracles would just switch to a 4 Top + card advantage engine and be almost as good, especially since its main competition also loses Brainstorm? What rises up into the combo slot? Jund? Has anything really changed unless the other blue cards are also banned?

[DragoFireheart]

Staple != Broken.

IBA's data shows that Brainstorm is heavily used. What it does not show is whether this has a negative impact on the format.

IBA: You would find your posts are more productive in getting your point across if you were not so abrasive. Right now, you give the impression that your a tool with a superiority complex. If you toned it down you would find yourself a respected member of this community since you seam to be intelligent enough to both make a point and defend it. If only you did not attack those that disagree with you. No offence meant, only making an observation here mate. You can do more around here, you just have to tone back on the aggression.

IBA doesn't actually care so it's not a big deal.

[John Cox]

I think all this shows is that if one card being banned could piss the most people off by affecting they're decks it's brainstorm.

[ahg113]

This isn't what I'm saying (it might be what some other people are saying). My point, which was not as clear as it should've been, is that Brainstorm is on the rise because Blue is on the rise in general, and Brainstorm is Blue's best card and is run in nearly ever blue-based deck. So if a Top 8 is split BUG/SnS/Miracles/ANT/Blade Control/Lands/UWR Blade/UWR Delver, then BS is going to occupy a ton of slots no matter what. Now a Brainstorm ban may knock ANT or Sneak and Show out of contention, but other than that, do you not think that at least 1 Delver variant and 1 Blade variant would still be top-tier? Do you not think that Miracles would just switch to a 4 Top + card advantage engine and be almost as good, especially since its main competition also loses Brainstorm? What rises up into the combo slot? Jund? Has anything really changed unless the other blue cards are also banned?

Ban Brainstorm, ban Delver, leave True Name-Nemisis.

[DragoFireheart]

Ban Brainstorm, ban Delver, leave True Name-Nemisis.

The writing is on the wall.

The issue was never blue. It's WotC. They don't care about Legacy nearly as much as the Source.

[ahg113]

The writing is on the wall.

The issue was never blue. It's WotC. They don't care about Legacy nearly as much as the Source.

Can I, or can I not have nice things? When I play Legacy, will I forever be subject to listening to the blues? That would eventually make me so sad.

Step 1. Ban Brainstorm.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Face-roll with Belcher!

[DragoFireheart]

Can I, or can I not have nice things? When I play Legacy, will I forever be subject to listening to the blues? That would eventually make me so sad.

Step 1. Ban Brainstorm.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Face-roll with Belcher!

"Go play Modern if you want a blueless format HUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR!"

[ahg113]

"Go play Modern if you want a blueless format HUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR!"

As soon as fast mana and ESG, LED, & B.Wish become Modern legal! #unbanChromeMox #unbanRiteofFlame #unbanSeethingSong