All B/R update speculation.

[Dice_Box]

I agree its busted, but this is a format filled with busted cards. Saying something is busted is akin to saying its playable. Meh. That is far from news to anyone. I mean, there are not many decks in Legacy that are not playing something that is not "Busted".

[Grillo]

Just ban brainstrom and print this:

Ideas everywhere - 1
Instant

Draw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order.

[testing32]

Maybe it's because I'm coming from Vintage and am used to see a Problem per sé with the same cards being present in many decks especially if they are pure support-cards. A few years ago every non-Workshop, non-Oath Vintage deck in Vintage basically started with 4 Dark Confidants and no one had a problem. During the Golden Age of Vintage half of the format played Scroll/Brainstorm/Ponder and we had a plendid Vintage community despite of these "fix slots".

What appears to be constantly undermined in the discussion is that the Cantrips aren't keeping Tarmogoyf and Lackey and Wild Nacatl out from the format, but it' in fact the Powercreep. UR replaced RUG because Nimble Mongoose and Tarmogoyf doesn't cut it anymore thanks to Delver, Swiftspear and Pyromancer. Lackey can't get past DRS. Would this change if these cards are found via Preordain instead of Brainstorm? Nope.

Don't mistake me for being fine that a) blue decks these days basically build itself, b) Tempo and aggro have better carddraw than control decks (My worst fear for Legacy ever was that tempo decks get access to real cardadvantage - to name Gush) or c) all that comes without real tradeoffs - but even worse - even allowed these decks to cut down colors for even more stable manabases.

WotC can undo that development if they wish. They can reintroduce graveyard-matters-cards like Mongoose, Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker as reasons to splash colors. They can do this pretty easily without the format collapsing end of January, give the format more time trying to adapt or get going with relevant printings in BGW

I agree with you on the topic of power creap and card design decisions. I would much rather WotC print high power level cards that can't easily be splashed or you have to make hard deck building decisions to take advantage of them.

The problem is that they have shown no interest in doing this at all. The brainstorm hate cards they have printed are no where near the power level they need to be either. Where we are now was four years in the making. I don't want to be stuck with this meta for another four while they try and print solutions which I don't think they will do anyways.

I also think that you underestimate the power of brainstorm in these good blue decks.

[Ingo]

UR replaced RUG because Nimble Mongoose and Tarmogoyf doesn't cut it anymore thanks to Delver, Swiftspear and Pyromancer. Would this change if these cards are found via Preordain instead of Brainstorm? Nope.

They are all cantripcreatures, reducing cantrippower would reduce their power as well. But I agree that other decks like Miracles, or Storm, would take a far harder blow in the banning of brainstorm than they would.

give the format more time trying to adapt or get going with relevant printings in BGW

Those are two alternatives instead of a ban. But I think neither is realistic.

I feel like Wizards are really on a one-way cantrip, when I see new developed cards like Monastery Monk (it even makes SDT a killcon), or Reality shift, which isn't only good at exiling opposing creatures but also to cheat fatties into play after cantripping them on top of the library. So I suspect the format will adapt even more in the favor of blue shell decks.

Ofcourse, we haven't seen the entire new expansion yet. But I think the gap between blue shell decks and others in terms of power and flexibility has become so big, it would need one hell of a card being printed to restore some variance. This doesn't mean there aren't any decks that can keep up with these blue shell decks. A deck like RG Lands (with cheap tutors like gamble or crop rotation) feels like it can keep up just fine. But these kind of decks remain lonely mountains because of cardprice and cardspecificness, being surrounded by a wide blue ocean of cantrippyness.

[Barook]

Maybe it's because I'm coming from Vintage and am used to see a Problem per sé with the same cards being present in many decks especially if they are pure support-cards. A few years ago every non-Workshop, non-Oath Vintage deck in Vintage basically started with 4 Dark Confidants and no one had a problem. During the Golden Age of Vintage half of the format played Scroll/Brainstorm/Ponder and we had a plendid Vintage community despite of these "fix slots".

What appears to be constantly undermined in the discussion is that the Cantrips aren't keeping Tarmogoyf and Lackey and Wild Nacatl out from the format, but it' in fact the Powercreep. UR replaced RUG because Nimble Mongoose and Tarmogoyf doesn't cut it anymore thanks to Delver, Swiftspear and Pyromancer. Lackey can't get past DRS. Would this change if these cards are found via Preordain instead of Brainstorm? Nope.

Don't mistake me for being fine that a) blue decks these days basically build itself, b) Tempo and aggro have better carddraw than control decks (My worst fear for Legacy ever was that tempo decks get access to real cardadvantage - to name Gush) or c) all that comes without real tradeoffs - but even worse - even allowed these decks to cut down colors for even more stable manabases.

WotC can undo that development if they wish. They can reintroduce graveyard-matters-cards like Mongoose, Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker as reasons to splash colors. They can do this pretty easily without the format collapsing end of January, give the format more time trying to adapt or get going with relevant printings in BGW

Wizards introduced alot of mistakes in the last few years. While they were quick to fix the Mental Misstep disaster, everything from Delver onwards was basically left unchecked.

Problem is the road ahead for Wizards is clear - printing powerful blue stuff to keep the color attractive in Standard. This includes things that blue isn't supposed to do from an Eternal point of view (e.g. efficient beaters) or things that are maybe harmless for Standard or Modern, but get broken in half once the Eternal library manipulation comes into play.

I doubt Wizards is going to stop printing dumb blue-related shit anytime soon, with the mistakes accumulating and not going away due to Wizards' non-action. Banning all the dumb shit would be a blessing for the format, but that's never going to happen.

One of the more realistic actions that could help is at least banning the enablers. Like it or not, Brainstorm promotes fair things and dumb shit alike. Being able to get rid of chaff with shuffle effects, protecting key cards from discard and instant speed are also the major offenders that make Brainstorm outperform any other cantrips by a mile.

[Lemnear]

The irony is that Treasure Cruise is totally unexciting in Standard, but broken in Legacy. It is possible to print awesome blue stuff which doesn't make the cut in Legacy like Consecrated Sphinx or Cryptic Command for standard to keep the colors even in limited, draft and even Standard. Conditional costs are too easily broken in Eternal formats and WotC should knew that after Tombstalker in case of Treasure Cruise.

[death]

In a vacuum, Ponder or even Sensei's Top and Sylvan Library (since they are permanents) are much better enablers/manipulators. With Brainstorm you are forced to put back 2 cards and draw miserably on consecutive turns. Ponder's ability to see 4 cards and shuffle your library is unmatched. Ponder into Ponder is 6-8 cards deep, broken much?

[Dice_Box]

No card in Legacy is messured in a vacum. If it was, then Gofy would be worth nothing at all as a 2 drop 0/1.

[death]

Tombstalker has delve. Check. But he doesn't fuel your graveyard like Treasure Cruise does. A resolved TC is basically free delve minus 4.

Conditional costs are too easily broken in Eternal formats and WotC should knew that after Tombstalker in case of Treasure Cruise.

Tombstalker was mediocre at best. Please stop mentioning the card. The newer cards were printed to make an impact in Standard, if these cards ever break eternal formats, that was not their intended purpose.

[btm10]

The irony is that Treasure Cruise is totally unexciting in Standard, but broken in Legacy. It is possible to print awesome blue stuff which doesn't make the cut in Legacy like Consecrated Sphinx or Cryptic Command for standard to keep the colors even in limited, draft and even Standard. Conditional costs are too easily broken in Eternal formats and WotC should knew that after Tombstalker in case of Treasure Cruise.

This is true. I agree that Tombstalker was totally safe (even tame), but it would've seen more play at 7B rather than 6BB because of the decks that wanted it (BUG variants, mostly). The first Tombstalker also made it much harder to cast the second, unlike Dig and Cruise which usually make the second easier to cast than the first.

All that being said - why not just hit Cruise, unban Earthcraft or Survival, and move on? This seems like something that almost everyone here agrees on, which is an unusual occurance. I'd even be happy with ban Cruise and no further changes. We'd actually see how Dig and Swiftspear (along with FRF) impact the format, and getting even two players out of a block is great for Legacy. The fact that they've been overshadowed by how totally busted Cruise is really unfortunate.

[nedleeds]

Can we stop pretending Survival is a balanced and fair Magic card? It is the second most broken Green Spell ever printed (citation needed) after Fastbond.

You pretty much submarine your credibility when you don't mention channel, or oath.

Edit: I scrolled to the next page.

[tescrin]

Tombstalker has delve. Check. But he doesn't fuel your graveyard like Treasure Cruise does. A resolved TC is basically free delve minus 4.

Tombstalker was mediocre at best. Please stop mentioning the card. The newer cards were printed to make an impact in Standard, if these cards ever break eternal formats, that was not their intended purpose.

Whoa now. Tombdaddy is still good. He was used in a T1 list (TA) less than a year ago. He was never "mediocre at best" and I pummeled a few players with him last week at a local. He's not anything near Cruise, but that's like comparing Goyf to Recall. IMO Stalker is still viable contingent upon black being good. Obviously cruise and/or BS being gone would make black much much better again (not that it's not used in 2/5ths of the DTB.)

[Lemnear]

Tombstalker had never the Glory to be paired with Probe and got a mayor hit with the release of Jace. But that's not the point; the point is, that Tombstalker was easily castable for BB without much effort and that this fact should have made it clear that Delve is no safe mechanic

[death]

Whoa now. Tombdaddy is still good.

Agreed. In fact, I'm probably the only one who runs 2 Tombstalker, in Eva Green.. with 4 Dark Confidants.

That statement was made to make an impact and to address Lemnear's post

[Meekrab]

Tombstalker had never the Glory to be paired with Probe and got a mayor hit with the release of Jace. But that's not the point; the point is, that Tombstalker was easily castable for BB without much effort and that this fact should have made it clear that Delve is no safe mechanic

There was a 6/7 for 1G in the same set, so it's not like they have a good grip on what 'safe' means.

[Zombie]

There was a 6/7 for 1G in the same set, so it's not like they have a good grip on what 'safe' means.

Was Goyf a big player in Rav-TS standard? Didn't play back then, but he was hilariously irrelevant to TS-Lor/Sha-CS Standard.

[testing32]

http://tcdecks.net/tierdecks.php

Top 10 tier decks in December -
1 Non-blue deck (burn)
9/10 decks running BS and Ponder
8/10 decks running BS, Ponder and FoW
7/10 decks running Volcanic Island

This is not a healthy format.

[Lemnear]

http://tcdecks.net/tierdecks.php

Top 10 tier decks in December -
1 Non-blue deck (burn)
9/10 decks running BS and Ponder
8/10 decks running BS, Ponder and FoW
7/10 decks running Volcanic Island

This is not a healthy format.

"This system gives each archetype one point for each round of the tournament based on it's asistance and one point for each round won in the top 8."

Now pair this with the counting tournaments: Link here

You see that you have plenty of local events with down to 8 players counting if you browse the performances of NicFit for example through the month. There are 4 NicFit placings (4th of 21, 16 of 44, 5 of 102, 2 of 9) which was enough to make 24th on the ranking.

It's hilarious to define top decks based on absolute numbers played and 9 Player event top 8s

Edit: another nice one: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15591

[sjmcc13]

Was Goyf a big player in Rav-TS standard? Didn't play back then, but he was hilariously irrelevant to TS-Lor/Sha-CS Standard.

It saw a fair bit of play, I forget how much but I know it saw play.

[Finn]

"This system gives each archetype one point for each round of the tournament based on it's asistance and one point for each round won in the top 8."

Now pair this with the counting tournaments: Link here

You see that you have plenty of local events with down to 8 players counting if you browse the performances of NicFit for example through the month. There are 4 NicFit placings (4th of 21, 16 of 44, 5 of 102, 2 of 9) which was enough to make 24th on the ranking.

It's hilarious to define top decks based on absolute numbers played and 9 Player event top 8s

Edit: another nice one: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15591

I don't know what the word "asistance" is doing in that sentence. So I tried replacing it with "inches while erect" and found that it made considerably more sense.

On another note, I used this TCDeck's points and simply tallied how many of the points in testing32's top 10/ I discovered that 94.2% of those points were earned by decks whose primary color is blue.