Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
This argument somewhat fails when you note that people, with money on the line, still decide to play Infect or other "lower-tier" lists. Is it truly unbelievable that people just like to play or have an affinity for a list, and that list just happens to include Brainstorm? and of course, you're glossing over the fact that there was miracles, delver, stoneblade, bug control, storm, sneak and show, infect, omni-tell, and reanimator by just saying they "selected brainstorm".Originally Posted by nedleeds
"people who disagree with me are stupid" - great argument. You also extrapolate to the extreme about maindeck blasts, theyre mostly run in tempo and control lists. This makes sense when you consider that economical answers to threats is worthwhile for both such decks, and that a string of blue threats has recently been added (Cruise, Dig, TNN) on top of existing threats like Jace and Delver. Tempo and control always play efficient answers, i dont see anyone crying that creatures are op because of so many maindeck bolts or StP, so why are REBs suddenly so strange? It just means Blue relatively recently gained some threatening cards. If you remove the ridiculous off-color-identity threats like delver/tnn or cruise/dig, you get back to a point where other colors have angles of greater efficiency than blue (cost-efficient beaters, extracting value from the graveyard, etc) and thus blue is curbed while retaining its thematic cohesion.
Why Brainstorm and not Force? According to TC data, Brainstorm was played 1413 times and Force was played 1334 times in November.
Because no-one with a brain believes that force is a problem card. Half the time you board force out for a reason...
OP was using card omnipresence as proof of brokenness, problemness, and need-to-be-banned-ness. The same scientific guidelines for proof don't apply for a different card with almost exact numbers? Goalposts a-moved! PS I've seen more Forces and Cruises Red Blasted than Brainstorms Red Blasted. PPS Force shouldn't be banned either.
Because Brainstorm is still the one seeing more play. Additionally, it's extremely likely that Force of Will wouldn't be as omnipresent if Brainstorm wasn't around.
Also in terms of omnipresence, it's worth remembering that the number of decks running Force of Will in their main deck after sideboarding can decrease substantially depending on the matchup. The same can't be said for Brainstorm, which is basically never boarded out.
FoW also wouldn't be as powerful if you had to dip into other colors to have effective threats instead of playing Delver/TNN and fistfuls of counters as a whole wouldn't be as powerful w/o Cruise/Dig to break the countermagic interaction by removing the need to exchange at parity or carefully evaluate opposing threats. Not necessarily disagreeing with you, I just also think the the threat thing is important context for what makes FoW powerful here.
Barely. 94.4% of the bigger number is a statistically insignificant difference.
It's also extremely likely that Brainstorm wouldn't be as omnipresent if Force of Will wasn't around.
The almost equal numbers don't lie. The negative points that Force garners on the community ban scale for being somewhat inflexible and getting boarded out are surely cancelled out by the negative points BS gets on the ban scale for being so generic that it can help so many different strategies, regardless of the match up, in this comparison.
And in another wash, Brainstorm is more "bannable" because there are other very similar blue cantrips that could be slotted in its place, while Force is more "bannable" because it's a singular effect that a deck must play if it wants to do that, but also less "bannable" because that uniqueness is cool.
If someone's going to point to saturation as proof positive of a ban being necessary, another card having pretty much the same numbers that are somehow excused by extenuating circumstances should indicate that the original card's saturation can have extenuating circumstances too. If everyone can accept that numbers can't be accepted at face value, and discuss why one card's inherent qualities and extenuating circumstances are inferior or superior to another card's, that would be a more advanced discussion.
One card keeps fast combo in check while the other gives decks of that color a higher level of consistency (and therefore better results) than decks that choose to not play that color
Wouldn't "Force of Will gives decks of that color a better combo match up (along with other uses) and therefore better and more consistent results than decks that choose to not play that color. It also requires a deeper commitment into that color." be a factual statement?
Again, I'm not advocating a Force ban.
How is Infect a "lower-tier"-list when said player won two Invitationals in a row with it? Why would he play something else when roflstomps the competition with it?
As far as messaging goes, Erik Lauer is responsible for managing the B&R lists.
I can't find his Wizards E-mail right now, but his Twitter is @ErikLauer. Good luck with getting an answer in that regard, though.
You can be good with a list and still have it be not the best list in the room. As I said, some people might have a liking or affinity for a particular archetype. In fact, I find it kinda weird that you left out when you quoted my post, seeing as how it answers your inquiry rather effectively...How is Infect a "lower-tier"-list when said player won two Invitationals in a row with it? Why would he play something else when roflstomps the competition with it?
As far as messaging goes, Erik Lauer is responsible for managing the B&R lists.
I can't find his Wizards E-mail right now, but his Twitter is @ErikLauer. Good luck with getting an answer in that regard, though.
I left that part out because it wasn't important to me, since it was the argument of "lower-tier" list rubbed me the wrong way.
Ross Merriam likes Elves, that's why he was one of the two non-blue decks. And Elves is the only non-blue list aside from D&T that can keep up with blue Brainstorm decks due to two draw engines and two tutor engines.
Jeff Hoogland chose D&T because he fucking hates Brainstorm, but he scrubbed out before the Legacy portion started.
And what has being liked by people to do with being OP? If popularity was a reason to keep broken cards around, we still would have Survival today.
Being liked has nothing to do with the discussion about Brainstorm. I'm saying some people play lower-tier lists because the experience playing the deck is more enjoyable and thus they perform better because they like doing what theyre doing. On paper, I don't think Infect is as good a deck as some of the other decks there, in the hands of someone who really enjoys and/or has a knack for Infect, though, it's whole different story.
It sure does. Otherwise, we wouldn't have hundreds of pages of discussion why Brainstorm should be banned or not, because looking at the sheer numbers, it puts Mental Misstep to shame nowadays.
Pet decks (and the related expertise) and cost reasons are probably the main factors why the meta isn't completely Brainstorm decks + Elves yet.
Ok, let me clarify, I, specifically, the person whose comment you took issue with, was talking about pet decks and not Brainstorm. Though I tend to agree that a lot of the clamoring for or against Brainstorm is driven by favoritism of various decks, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that in this very thread more than once.
I haven't read the whole thread, sorry if I'm missing relevant previous discussion in this direction! I wanted to give my view on the Brainstorm question since I too have been thinking about it.
The problem with Brainstorm as I see it is that it allows what could be viewed as a rules change applicable only for players of blue decks. The rules change would be that this particular category of players are allowed up to four semi mulligans during the course of a game. During this semi mulligan not all cards in hand are put back, the player gets to keep the X-3 best ones, which is imo substantially better than a full mulligan. The sacrifice when performing this instant speed mulligan is a blue mana. Cheaper than an ordinary mulligan it would seem, available in the midgame (when one mana is less important than earlier), possibly more powerful AND repeatable. Even if it isn't more powerful I still feel that all players deserve the same access to mulligans.
If there was a way to punish people for playing this card, and it was available to many deck archetypes, I would not compare it with a rules change. Perhaps something like a spell that can be cast for free when an opponent with an island in play is going to draw three cards and the caster of the spell doesn't have an island in play, with split second, cancelling the draw but not any return of cards, allowing the caster to copy the effect for himself. Spell also castable for 1 (any color but blue) to just cantrip.
I feel like thats an exaggerated way to look at a card both being effective and having a color. By that logic, is discard like a rule change for black saying you get to make the other player partial mulligan? Also, Brainstorm IS available to many archetypes, there are tempo, control and combo decks that play Brainstorm. It's just that some people call all decks, regardless of strategy, that include Brainstorm in them "Brainstorm decks". Note that that completely ignores archetypes and makes little sense.
Regarding color, you mention yourself that several archetypes use Brainstorm. I think color is more relevant than archetype. Note that I discussed only color, not archetype.
[edit: I see now that I mentioned archetype when discussing who should have access to the anti-Brainstorm card, it was not referring to who was actually playing the Brainstorm]
Regarding effect, discard is generally less powerful than card draw. Discard is a defensive mechanism (irrelevant late game usually), while card draw/selection helps you win. I think we can agree that the mulligan is an important and powerful game mechanism that is available to all decks and is needed for balanced games. Discard is not imo too good for black, it's rather the opposite: black is relevant primarily due to the discard. Without it black would be a less relevant color. My argument is that an effect similar to the mulligan is too strong for a single color.
Force stifles colour distribution far more than Brainstorm does. For Brainstorm to work all you need is a Blue mana source, for Force to work all you need is 20 main deck Blue cards.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
I am done with arguing in this case. If people can read the stats and play games without coming to the conclusion that BS is OP I can't do anything.
For the other blue cards, I would just ban Ponder but that is certainly worth discussion. Banning Ponder (like all other formats) alongside BS has the great advantage to reduce the effectiveness of Delver, Snapcaster, Treasaure Cruise and Dig through Time. Jace should imo be on the watchlist for bans, too, because for a 4-drop he is just too dominant once active. TNN does not seem like a problematic card to me, he is good but nowhere close to being imba.
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