All B/R update speculation.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Hackneyed, now that's a word you don't hear/read everyday

[rufus]

According to that StP is bad against every creature costing 1 mana, you break even on cards, on mana and your opponent gains life.
#needbetterremoval

Swords doesn't effectively discourage people from playing inexpensive creatures, or provide any direct advantage against decks playing them. In fact, I would think that swords has gotten weaker as creatures have gotten better. There is a bit of a tempo argument to be sure, but without considering more expensive cc creatures, would you rather play 8xDelver of Secrets or 4xDelver of Secrets/4xSwords to Plowshares?

An alternative way to look at it is, if you cast Brainstorm and it gets hit by a REB, does that make the Brainstorm seem like a bad move? I don't think so.

[H]

The third option is to just accept the fact that blue is better than the other colors in Legacy and Vintage. It's not like Legacy has the residual consistency engines that Vintage does in Mystical, Vampiric, and Demonic Tutors, and Merchant Scroll doesn't have Ancestral Recall or Gush-level targets in Legacy (or it would also be banned). The major shift in the meta in the past two years (and perhaps longer) is the advent of a widely playable card advantage engine. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but it's such a major change that any bannings (and probably even obvious unbannings as well) should wait until after Dragons of Tarkir is released at the absolute earliest. If anyone thinks that the Treasure Cruise meta is solved, they're nuts. I'm not even totally convinced that we wouldn't be better off with some sort of banning, but I think that Treasure Cruise is a much clearer target than Brainstorm.

You've haven't read enough of my posts, or them well enough, to realize that I have accepted the Blue is the best color. In fact, I acknowledge that it both is and should be the best color. I don't "hate Blue."

What has, and probably will continue to, concern me is how much better Blue is. That power level is because of Brainstorm and my point has been, over and over again, that I disagree with the idea that Legacy should be defined by any card or cards that are demonstrably more powerful than any other(s). Again, that is what Vintage is predicated upon and is exactly what Legacy was conceptualized on to avoid.

[wonderPreaux]

Don't you think it is kind of funny that both absolutely agree with each other that Brainstorm is not the problem but that they have completely different opinions about what the problem is? The cause of MD REBs are just those super powerful cards that you somehow always draw in the right situations and that mysteriously disappear from your hand when you don't need them... but the problem is certainly not Brainstorm.

You just arbitrarily tacked on the card selection issue to blame Brainstorm. How many wrong situations are there to have a blue Chalice of the Void that can hit multiple CMC and the only way an opponent can know for sure what it's on is to risk cards over and over? How bad is opening with a Threshold Ancestral Recall? It's still an ancestral recall and all you have to do to enable is... play cards? wow, tough requirement. The worst an invincible creature is going to be is when you happen to be paired against combo. These cards are amazing on their own and you don't think I'd catch that you're just trying to brush that aside?

As much as you might like to pretend otherwise, there is no amount of card selection, on it's own, that will win you the game. I've never gotten a MODO or judge notification telling me "hey, we noticed how often you were able to use fetches to cherry-pick Ponders or do 'perfect' Brainstorms, so, we're giving you the win". It actually doesn't happen. Again, there is a direct correlation between blue getting actual bombs like true card advantage instead of selection, (or in the case of Dig, both selection and true advantage), mini-Progenitus and the increased popularity of Blue omni-Chalice combo that goes along with the increased representation of REB effects. Card selection doesn't win a game on it's own, having powerful cards to select is what does win you the game, and blue keeps getting handed ridiculous cards to select. You yourself just said they're "super powerful", after all...

[Barook]

Neither Brainstorm nor Ponder violates fundamental rules of Legacy by enabling too-fast kills or a single overly dominant deck or even a single dominant archetype.

What about Mental Misstep then? It actually slowed the format down and there were no overly dominant decks (otherwise, the current meta is even more-loopsided if one wants to interpret it that way).

Its only faults were making the meta too blue (Et tu, Brainstorm?) and "going into every deck" (except Brainstorm puts up the same numbers now, if not slightly more, like MM during its heydays).

Strictly numerically speaking, the ban of Brainstorm is absolutely justified.

[rufus]

No, but removing Brainstorm is going to push the format more toward midrange creature strategies than it already is by significantly handicapping combo. This is especially true since Wizards' main route to cards for Legacy and Vintage seems to be printing more obnoxious hatebears. I'd rather have "everyone plays blue, but can take any strategic angle the want" than "Combo is bad, and do everything through creatures".
...

That's a pretty big supposition. I'm not sure about creatureless combo, but there are combo decks like Elves! that are viable without brainstorm.

[Lemnear]

On the point of iconic cards, though, the only true iconic cards of Legacy in my opinion are the 10 ABUR dual lands. Brainstorm became heavily played while I was away from the game (I left before Odyssey) and I understand that it became a very important and popular card, but to me the soul of this format is the ability to play any color combination without drawback.

this is a pure romantic point of view, but was never actually true. New printings ever defined which color combination defined the cream of the crop and rendered others second tier. Every colors has/had it's natural weaknesses aka a drawback running it.

STP is also a reason why creatures are being pushed now. For years you could get Time Walked by STP because your creatures did nothing and anything good cost so much that it being swordsed EOT was essentially a wasted turn. STP is the most narrow removal spell that's played in Legacy which is why it's the target here (as people want to whine about being "forced" to play "narrow" cards). But really most removal played in Legacy is incredibly flexible and potent. The two other commonly played spells are Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay. As we all know spells are more powerful than creatures generally anyway, and there is only one color that can interact with spells on the stack effectively. The only reason most Legacy decks aren't creatureless or play only 1-2 creatures is that they have been pushed.

I agree here. Plows however lost their appeal once most creatures-to-beat have 3-or-less-toughness and you can use it for reach, so it's never dead unlike Plows. The topic of flexibility expands to Decay which can handle all forms of permanents, so why is REB so special if it not only handles permanents like the beforementioned but also expands it's capabiliy to the stack with the downside of being only good against blue spells/permanents but being as dead against non-blue as Decay is against 4cc permanents and spells on the stack?

I'm not going to do the math on potential REB targets vs. potential Swords targets or situations, but I think we're seeing where the line is drawn: You wouldn't mainboard REB even if you only expected 50% blue penetration because having a dead card in potentially half your matches is bad enough to make a difference. But if you're playing at a 4 round local and the card will be good in 3 out of 4 matches because penetration of blue is 75%, well there you go. Let's not forget that the best way to deal with a dead REB is to brainstorm-shuffle it away. I will never forget the satisfaction of playing deadguy vs. miracles and winning a preboard game because he never drew a Brainstorm to ditch his two Pyroblasts in hand to. That's the kind of price people should be paying for playing narrow cards that Brainstorm eliminates. Bet he wishes he had run two more STPs! Incidentally, he won both sideboard games.

I keep asking, how this is different from Plows? If you expect that 80% of your opponents try to kill you with creatures, maindecking creature removal is valid and sound for most people. Why is it unreasonable to maindeck Blasts if 80% of your opponents threats are blue (S&T/Delver/TNN/Counterbalance)? It is not.

#REBforBrainstormOnly #MetagamingAgainstBlueIsDevilsTrait #IfREBbeatsBrainstormAndBrainstormIsOverpoweredDoesREBbreakTheUniverse?

If Brainstorm was banned Ponder would immediately become the best card in Legacy and would hit whatever penetration Brainstorm is at now in the short term as people just move cards around. I am fine with this because as powerful as Ponder is it is not close to Brainstorm.

Ponder and Preordain can still fix greedy keeps and offer better card selection than anything non-blue, ergo remain the top choice for constructed tournament play and would change nothing for consistancy questions of blue vs. Non-blue. You remove the un-mulligan ability of brainstorm-running decks and all decks which are glued together with Brainstorm from the format (Miracles/Combo) without improving the position of non-blue decks against the cantrip+FoW shell feat. TC/TNN/SFM/Delver.

It isn't the question IF you nerf the blue shell with the move, but if the result on decks, players, tournament apperance and metagame is a positive one.

It shrinks the pool of effectively playable cards and Legacy matches begin to look the same. Look at what's happened to black staples over the past few months to a year. Dark Confidant, Liliana of the Veil, Deathrite Shaman, Thoughtseize and even though it's not black, Wasteland have been pushed out of the format, even in BUG. In 2013 Deathrite Shaman was the most played creature (31.3%) and Tarmogoyf was second. Both Jund and BUG were solid strategies that held back Delver of Secrets (20%) strategies. In the past two months, Tarmogoyf is played at a 14% rate. Traditional RUG is a second-tier deck and BGx — even BUG — is gone because attrition can't fight raw advantage (Young Pyromancer, Treasure Cruise and cantrips). What's the point of packing wasteland when for the cost of U your opponent can just find their next land?

DRS, Wasteland and Co are hot bad suddenly. It's just a temporary effect of UR Burn and it being overplayed. Tarmogoyf got replaced by SFM like Tarmogoyf replaced Werbear at his time in Ux decks. BUG is a victim of hive mind thinking. DRS+Hymn+TC mauls plenty of decks, but somehow people think that Hymns cardadvantage is useless if your opponent CAN UNMAKE it with TC *shrug*

I think there are far fewer people who find Brainstorm so crucial to their enjoyment of Legacy than there are people who would like more options for competitive cards. Even people who enjoy playing Brainstorm or blue in general appreciate a more open field.

didn't we have a poll 1 or 2 years back which revealed the complete opposite? Didn't the Vintage Apocalypse and the decaying playerbase gave evidence that the opposite is quite true?

[death]

Cards like Snapcaster, Delver, Treasure Cruise and the miracles mechanic are balanced by design. Combining these cards with Brainstorm and Ponder however, is what makes them unfair. DCI can ban every new card that pushes blue dominance, but that would prevent us from playing with new toys thus make the format stagnant.

It's really not that hard to let Brainstorm and Ponder go. Blue won't suddenly become the worst color without these 2 cards. Think of

• Accumulated Knowledge
• Ideas Unbound
• Impulse
• Long-Term Plans
• Omen
• Peer Through Depths
• Serum Visions
• Spy Network
• Strategic Planning
• Telling Time
• Uncovered Clues

[Lemnear]

What about Mental Misstep then? It actually slowed the format down and there were no overly dominant decks (otherwise, the current meta is even more-loopsided if one wants to interpret it that way).

Its only faults were making the meta too blue (Et tu, Brainstorm?) and "going into every deck" (except Brainstorm puts up the same numbers now, if not slightly more, like MM during its heydays).

Strictly numerically speaking, the ban of Brainstorm is absolutely justified.

You chose to ignore the fact that Mental Misstep was a staight middlefinger in the face of combo for all colors so strong that people who ran blue REPLACED FoW with Misstep for this exact reason and could still use it to protect their threats from Plows/Bolts?

A zero investment card to harass combo AND removal for all colors? Sounds veeeeery positive for the metagame

[Barook]

You chose to ignore the fact that Mental Misstep was a staight middlefinger in the face of combo for all colors so strong that people who ran blue REPLACED FoW with Misstep for this exact reason and could still use it to protect their threats from Plows/Bolts?

A zero investment card to harass combo AND removal for all colors? Sounds veeeeery positive for the metagame

Like Wizards gave a fuck about that. They gave us their reasoning behind the ban.

Sure, it upset you, but we could also go on how Brainstorm is a straight middlefinger to discard, mana denial, etc.

That doesn't change the fact that the official reasoning behind banning Mental Misstep (blue percentage in the meta, ran by too many decks) apply to 100% to Brainstorm, too.

[H]

Ponder and Preordain can still fix greedy keeps and offer better card selection than anything non-blue, ergo remain the top choice for constructed tournament play and would change nothing for consistancy questions of blue vs. Non-blue. You remove the un-mulligan ability of brainstorm-running decks and all decks which are glued together with Brainstorm from the format (Miracles/Combo) without improving the position of non-blue decks against the cantrip+FoW shell feat. TC/TNN/SFM/Delver.

It isn't the question IF you nerf the blue shell with the move, but if the result on decks, players, tournament apperance and metagame is a positive one.

The problem I have with this thinking is that there will never be any change. If Brainstorm were banned, would Ponder/Preordian take it's place? Naturally. Is that a good or bad thing? We don't know. To me it makes no sense to make a move against what is not the most powerful offending card, if you are going to make a move.

P.S. I like your rephrasing of my "Brainstorm deck" phrase which you said had no merit. "Brainstorm-running deck" is exactly what I meant by my original statement,

Have you come around to realize that a dichotomy of presence versus non-presence could be valid?

[Lemnear]

The problem I have with this thinking is that there will never be any change. If Brainstorm were banned, would Ponder/Preordian take it's place? Naturally. Is that a good or bad thing? We don't know. To me it makes no sense to make a move against what is not the most powerful offending card, if you are going to make a move.

P.S. I like your rephrasing of my "Brainstorm deck" phrase which you said had no merit. "Brainstorm-running deck" is exactly what I meant by my original statement,

Have you come around to realize that a dichotomy of presence versus non-presence could be valid?

I did not thought about the phrase much, but I still think that grouping decks as "Brainstorm decks" without losing a word about the role of the card in the respective decks is quite ignorant. You can talk about "blue cantrip shell vs. rest" in terms of reducing variance, but "brainstorm deck vs. No Brainstorm deck" is off.

[H]

I did not thought about the phrase much, but I still think that grouping decks as "Brainstorm decks" without losing a word about the role of the card in the respective decks is quite ignorant. You can talk about "blue cantrip shell vs. rest" in terms of reducing variance, but "brainstorm deck vs. No Brainstorm deck" is off.

Of course there has to be more analysis, but again, there has to be a first step. Lets say you wanted to see how many decks ran Brainstorm in a given top 16. First thing you would do is select all the decks containing Brainstorm. You wouldn't first decided how many decks rely on Brainstorm as a filter, a tempo tool, an element to put Miracles on the top of the deck, because that list does not answer the question we first asked, "how many Brainstorms were present?"

That's fine analysis to do as a second, third or so on, step, after we parse the data.

[btm10]

What about Mental Misstep then? It actually slowed the format down and there were no overly dominant decks (otherwise, the current meta is even more-loopsided if one wants to interpret it that way).

Its only faults were making the meta too blue (Et tu, Brainstorm?) and "going into every deck" (except Brainstorm puts up the same numbers now, if not slightly more, like MM during its heydays).

Strictly numerically speaking, the ban of Brainstorm is absolutely justified.

Other than what it did to combo, I have no problem with Misstep. We've pretty clearly seen that precedent is a relatively poor guide for what will or won't be banned/unbanned, or even printed (looking at you, Griselbrand).

Like Wizards gave a fuck about that. They gave us their reasoning behind the ban.

Sure, it upset you, but we could also go on how Brainstorm is a straight middlefinger to discard, mana denial, etc.

Brainstorm doesn't mess with those things on nearly the level that Misstep hosed combo (and 1-drops in general).

DRS, Wasteland and Co are hot bad suddenly. It's just a temporary effect of UR Burn and it being overplayed. Tarmogoyf got replaced by SFM like Tarmogoyf replaced Werbear at his time in Ux decks. BUG is a victim of hive mind thinking. DRS+Hymn+TC mauls plenty of decks, but somehow people think that Hymns cardadvantage is useless if your opponent CAN UNMAKE it with TC *shrug*

Indeed, aside from the SFM point. I think Goyf is more a casualty of BUG's decline in popularity than it is of SFM's superiority, but that's VERY off-topic.

You've haven't read enough of my posts, or them well enough, to realize that I have accepted the Blue is the best color. In fact, I acknowledge that it both is and should be the best color. I don't "hate Blue."

What has, and probably will continue to, concern me is how much better Blue is. That power level is because of Brainstorm and my point has been, over and over again, that I disagree with the idea that Legacy should be defined by any card or cards that are demonstrably more powerful than any other(s). Again, that is what Vintage is predicated upon and is exactly what Legacy was conceptualized on to avoid.

I'm sorry my post came across that way, I actually do recognize that you're more moderate in your calls for changes to weaken blue. I don't think that Blue's power level as a color is a problem though. I'm concerned about the power level of Treasure Cruise as an individual card, but I'm not even convinced that Cruise needs to be banned.

[Lemnear]

Of course there has to be more analysis, but again, there has to be a first step.

;)

Edit: More seriously, I don't think grouping is the right "first step" to paint an accurate picture of the issue but leads to more hyperboles

[H]

This thread is already well past that...

[Lemnear]

This thread is already well past that...

Better? :)

[H]

Edit: More seriously, I don't think grouping is the right "first step" to paint an accurate picture of the issue but leads to more hyperboles

What part of what I presented is hyperbole though? That Brainstorm is the best card in Legacy? Or that Legacy shouldn't be defined by obviously superior cards?

[Lemnear]

What part of what I presented is hyperbole though? That Brainstorm is the best card in Legacy? Or that Legacy shouldn't be defined by obviously superior cards?

No, it lead to the point where people did not care for your second or third step anymore, because arguing on the "Brainstorm vs. non-Brainstorm decks" hyperbole (and the 70% penetration) was so handy and simple. For me its too bold and shallow.

[H]

No, it lead to the point where people did not care for your second or third step anymore, because arguing on the "Brainstorm vs. non-Brainstorm decks" hyperbole (and the 70% penetration) was so handy and simple. For me its too bold and shallow.

Well, I can't help that people are lazy. It also seems handy and simple to say: "strategic diversity" and drop the mic, as if somehow that dichotomy (which I am not sure is any more real than "color diversity") is the end-all, but people do it.