All B/R update speculation.

[Echelon]

It's even funnier how little play those cards see.

/sarcasm.

[bruizar]

It's even funnier how little play those cards see.

/sarcasm.

Easy to solve, just scale the power level or give additional utility. Deathrite Shaman shows how mana dorks can be made relevant even in eternal by giving him additional utility.

EDIT:
Those examples don't reduce variance for non-blue decks, so I wouldn't actually advise to go that route (Hate bears only go so far but the structural problem here is that non-blue decks need a way to reduce variance that isn't splashable in blue).

[Barook]

Brainstorm is a huge part of the reason why many Modern players are tempted by Legacy, and some of them do in fact make the jump these days.

People exaggerating the appeal of Brainstorm sometimes sound like it is a supermodel who will suck your dick at instant speed if you pay .

Legacy has far more to ofter than just "Brainstorm this" and "Brainstorm that". It's pretty ridiculous how many people think it has to be the center of the entire format.

As far as hatecards are concerned, they're doomed to fail at being truely effective as long as they aren't also instant speed and cost 1 mana at best. I doubt something like this would be "too good", aside from fucking you over for casting Brainstorm (which would actually be a good thing):

Inquisitor's Familiar
Creature - Bird
Flash, flying
Players can't draw extra cards.
1/1

Against any non-draw deck, it's just a glorified Suntail Hawk with Flash. Hardly format-breaking, just really punishing against any cantrip due to generating CA if not removed.

[bruizar]

Barook: That card would definitely see play. It's basically half of what Notion Thief does for a quarter of the price.

[M+1]

Legacy has far more to ofter than just "Brainstorm this" and "Brainstorm that". It's pretty ridiculous how many people think it has to be the center of the entire format.

Why, sure. I guess I should have said better cantrips. And I do think that is one fine quality of Legacy, and something that can draw more players to the format (from Modern, in particular).
I recently played Vintage for the first time in many years. The best unrestricted cantrip there is Preordain.
Modern has... I actually don't know what cantrips Modern has access to, but I am pretty sure none of them have supermodel quality.
Legacy has the best of the best in the cantrip department, and yes that IS appealing to me and, I guess by your words, a pretty ridiculous amount of people.

Well, I am banning myself from this thread for a while. Let's see what happens in Prague and the Brainstorm GP.

[Lemnear]

Fetches would not get banned. Neither would Wasteland. At that point they might as well ban duals if they had.

Goyf isnt anywhere near the percentages of the most played Modern cards. Actually not even in the top 20 most played cards now.

Mystical Tutor, from what I hear, was all over the place in European metas and, imo, the lynch pin of the best deck since Legacy Flash: Reanimator.

It wasn't me who made the blatant dumb claim that WotC just looks at copies of card X in Top 8s for their banning decision.

The three examples picked by me just underline, that it isn't the case. I'm not interrested to discuss the exact timeframes in which Tarmogoyf as a killoption was oppressive in Legacy/Modern. At least for the Legacy part, you can get an idea if you start reading this thread from the start

[maharis]

People exaggerating the appeal of Brainstorm sometimes sound like it is a supermodel who will suck your dick at instant speed if you pay .

haha. That's because almost every key deck in the current Legacy metagame revolves around Brainstorm's unparalleled ability to sculpt hands, so it might even be better than that!

It prevents threat-light tempo decks from flooding. It lets S&T players trade extra fatties for action + protection or Storm players trade mana for business. It lets Deathblade play two Wastelands in a four-color deck without fear of color screw. It lets Miracles hide their conditional cards or draw them on demand.

You could ban Delver. But eventually the tempo shell of BS+Ponder+Force+Daze would find some other threat.
You could ban Terminus. But eventually some other conditional OP wrath will be printed and Brainstorm will let them shuffle away redundant copies until they can use it.
You could ban Treasure Cruise. But then they'll just use Shared Discovery with their YP tokens. (Probably not, but it is possible that both TC and BS are broken, by the way).
You could ban fetchlands. But that would just make manabases more expensive and more subject to variance while rendering Brainstorm mostly unplayable anyway.

[Lemnear]

You could ban fetchlands. But that would just make manabases more expensive and more subject to variance while rendering Brainstorm mostly unplayable anyway.

Aha. And who are you to decide that banning Brainstorm is better than banning Fetchlands which would also hurt Ponders ability to cherrypick a card if you can fetch afterwards? Give me a reason other than "uhhhhh, money", because the format IS already fucking expensive

If you want to deliver a blow to the cantrip shell for some reason, do it right.

[testing32]

I think we have debated this enough. Based on the overwhelming evidence and weak arguments against it, my vote for the next B&R announcment is:

Ban: BS
Unban: Frantic Search, Mind's Desire, Bargain

[Lemnear]

I think we have debated this enough. Based on the lacking evidence and no intent to discuss arguments rather than throwing around unrelated numbers, my vote for the next B&R announcment is:

No changes

Fixed

[testing32]

Fixed

Sell your foil brainstorms now.

[bruizar]

I think we have debated this enough. Based on the overwhelming evidence and weak arguments against it, my vote for the next B&R announcment is:

Ban: BS
Unban: Frantic Search, Mind's Desire, Bargain

Frantic Search <3 Finally some real broken plays

[bruizar]

I wonder how many people would attend unsanctioned legacy events where the tournament organizer, as a matter of experiment, would unban a certain card for 1 event (could be a nice change for when the meta is stuck for a long while and tournament attendance declines).

[Ellomdian]

I wonder how many people would attend unsanctioned legacy events where the tournament organizer, as a matter of experiment, would unban a certain card for 1 event (could be a nice change for when the meta is stuck for a long while and tournament attendance declines).

All the people who emphatically feel that Legacy is un-fun with Brainstorm legal.

I think they should post the announcement here - all 7 of the people in the world who feel that strongly could attend!

[FoolofaTook]

You could ban Delver. But eventually the tempo shell of BS+Ponder+Force+Daze would find some other threat.
You could ban Terminus. But eventually some other conditional OP wrath will be printed and Brainstorm will let them shuffle away redundant copies until they can use it.
You could ban Treasure Cruise. But then they'll just use Shared Discovery with their YP tokens. (Probably not, but it is possible that both TC and BS are broken, by the way).
You could ban fetchlands. But that would just make manabases more expensive and more subject to variance while rendering Brainstorm mostly unplayable anyway.

I'm on board with banning Brainstorm however I think Delver also should get hammered. It's not that the blue shell wouldn't find another threat, because they would, likely one of the existing ones pushed aside by Delver, however that threat wouldn't be at the same level of brokenness that Delver is.

Lands turn 1. Quickly gets evasion and is pumped to a meaningful clock. Pitches to FoW so extras in your hand will save the first one now and then. It's just too good. It's one of those cards where you really do have to play it or plan against it.

Brainstorm warps in many other ways and is just too powerful overall. It's a card that must be included in almost all lists of the color as a 4-of, is never tuned out because no matchups to date have made it worse than any sideboard cards and discourages many edge strategies that can't incorporate a splash for blue.

[FoolofaTook]

All the people who emphatically feel that Legacy is un-fun with Brainstorm legal.

I think they should post the announcement here - all 7 of the people in the world who feel that strongly could attend!

How many people aren't playing Legacy because the blue mana base is a $2000+ proposition?

How many would play if they could spend $1000 on the mana base but won't do it because that'll just get them a truly inferior list to the blue shell?

[Amon Amarth]

The blue decks keep getting better but at least this time the cards are in flavor. Small consolation. I don't want Brainstorm banned though. I'd rather they unbanned cards to help other decks to compete against the blue decks. Survival and Recruiter would do that. I don't think anything else on the banned list could accomplish that without being horribly overpowered. It'll never happen with how conservative WotC is with the Legacy B&R list which is sort of the a blessing honestly. One only need look at Modern to see how well it works out when Wizards tinkers with formats obsessively.

[maharis]

Aha. And who are you to decide that banning Brainstorm is better than banning Fetchlands which would also hurt Ponders ability to cherrypick a card if you can fetch afterwards? Give me a reason other than "uhhhhh, money", because the format IS already fucking expensive

If you want to deliver a blow to the cantrip shell for some reason, do it right.

Yeah. By banning the most powerful card in the shell.

All the people who emphatically feel that Legacy is un-fun with Brainstorm legal.

I think they should post the announcement here - all 7 of the people in the world who feel that strongly could attend!

I have a lot of fun playing legacy. This is the banlist discussion thread. If you don't like reading people's opinions on what should be banned, read another thread.

I'm on board with banning Brainstorm however I think Delver also should get hammered. It's not that the blue shell wouldn't find another threat, because they would, likely one of the existing ones pushed aside by Delver, however that threat wouldn't be at the same level of brokenness that Delver is.

Lands turn 1. Quickly gets evasion and is pumped to a meaningful clock. Pitches to FoW so extras in your hand will save the first one now and then. It's just too good. It's one of those cards where you really do have to play it or plan against it.

Brainstorm warps in many other ways and is just too powerful overall. It's a card that must be included in almost all lists of the color as a 4-of, is never tuned out because no matchups to date have made it worse than any sideboard cards and discourages many edge strategies that can't incorporate a splash for blue.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Right now Delver is an easy target for WOTC because the deck isn't called UR Brainstorm and the card has been a lightning rod since it was in Standard. (Of course, the problem cards were the ones that enabled an easy flip and protection there, too, but whatever).

I just am fundamentally opposed to banning a creature that simply is an efficient attacker and blocker in Legacy. Once you take out a creature that only attacks and blocks, every creature with an ability gets put on notice. Specifically, I would rather take multiple hits off a Delver than let these creatures untap once:

Deathrite Shaman
Stoneforge Mystic
Dark Confidant
Young Pyromancer
Metalworker
Mother of Runes
Goblin Lackey

And I would rather a random opponent topdeck a Delver than a Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, True-Name Nemesis, or Vendilion Clique.

I just don't see a creature that dies to almost every commonly played removal spell for 0 value other than combat to be that dangerous. What makes it dangerous is the practical fait accompli that a turn 1 Delver flips turn 2 with multiple protection spells in hand. That is only possible because we are living in Brainstorm's world.

[sdematt]

I wonder how many people would attend unsanctioned legacy events where the tournament organizer, as a matter of experiment, would unban a certain card for 1 event (could be a nice change for when the meta is stuck for a long while and tournament attendance declines).

We'll be trying this out locally soon. I'll let you know how it goes :)

-Matt

[testing32]

We'll be trying this out locally soon. I'll let you know how it goes :)

-Matt

But, what about the planeswalker points!?!?!