All B/R update speculation.

[nedleeds]

A Ponder ban is a compromise to both parties: the blue cantrip cartel is dealt with

So ban the worse card, that's played in lower numbers because? again? Pillar something? Would quit? Modern?

Edit: forgot about Why not just ban Island?

[Adryan]

I think argueing in favor of a Brainstorm ban has the same level stupidity as denying the fact that blue is the most powerful color in legacy. But that's not the fault of Legacy, that is just what comes out when you give the best mechanics in a card game to one color. Card selection, card draw and the best form of disruption in one color is just very stupid design.

I don't see how banning Brainstorm would do anything good to the format. Even in Modern combo decks are very consistent and they don't have Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Show&Tell etc.

If they ban Brainstorm, and non blue decks increase a lot in numbers, i don't care because i will now play combo decks and enjoy so many free wins. Combo decks don't lose a lot when Brainstorm gets banned, because we just have to look at Modern when you could play Storm with Rite of Flame, Preordain etc.

It was a very consistent Turn 2, Turn 3 deck, even Ascendancy combo nowadays with shitty cantrips is a consistent Turn 3 combo decks. When Brainstorm gets banned, only the amount of masturbation in Legacy will increase.

[btm10]

So ban the worse card, that's played in lower numbers because? again? Pillar something? Would quit? Modern?

Edit: forgot about Why not just ban Island?

While I disagree with you on almost everything else you say in this thread, I agree that a Ponder ban is just dumb. Banning it serves no practical purpose from anyone's perspective aside from death.

[death]

So ban the worse card, that's played in lower numbers because? again? Pillar something? Would quit? Modern?

Edit: forgot about Why not just ban Island?

There lies the problem, Ponder is not strictly worse. It's strong in its own right, I may argue that Ponder is the glue that binds the cantrip cartel shell.

A Ponder ban is a good compromise: the blue cantrip cartel is dealt with, Brainstorm/ Preordain/ Gitaxian Probe/ Delver/ Young Pyromancer and delve all get nerfed in the process, give less incentive to play blue and allow players to gravitate towards SDT and Sylvan library.

In a vacuum, Ponder or even Sensei's Top and Sylvan Library (since they are permanents) are much better enablers/ manipulators. Brainstorm forces you 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?

Lastly,

If Brainstorm gets banned, you kill off dozens of innocent blue-based decks, whether you like them or not, are also part of a healthy meta as well as non-blue decks.

Edit

Of all the idea floated, this one has the most chance of being the lest useful.

My statement is still in the context of a "Treasure Cruise and Ponder ban" of course. I'd be inclined to believe your statement if you 1) actually work with R&D OR 2) have playtested every deck with Preordain (as proxy) and not once in a single game cringed.

[Dice_Box]

There lies the problem, Ponder is not strictly worse. It's strong in its own right, I may argue that Ponder is the glue that binds the cantrip cartrel shell.

Your a fool if you think banning Ponder will do all that much at all. Of the Blue cantips, Ponder is the easiest one for people to replace since most decks can just slot in Preordain in its place. No, Preordain is not as good, but it is good enough to make the impact felt minimal.

Of all the idea floated, this one has the most chance of being the lest useful.

[nedleeds]

While I disagree with you on almost everything else you say in this thread, I agree that a Ponder ban is just dumb. Banning it serves no practical purpose from anyone's perspective aside from death.

Who are any of us to argue with death, a primordial force in the universe. Other than Ponder > Brainstorm is pretty absurd. I guess your fetchless Suppression Field / Leonin Arbiter deck works better with Ponder but I think in the context of the card pool most people agree Brainstorm is universally a better cantrip. Strictly better. The slope is very steep.

[FoolofaTook]

There lies the problem, Ponder is not strictly worse. It's strong in its own right, I may argue that Ponder is the glue that binds the cantrip cartrel shell.

Preordain's scry fixes almost everything that Ponder does, being a 3 card dig for relevant cards when you need it instead of a 4 card dig, a way to put unwanted cards on the bottom of your library - which is something Ponder can't do except in exchange for a blind draw, and a valuable feeder for delve and threshold and all the rest. It's not quite as good but it works as a replacement. Nothing replaces Brainstorm on anything like a 1-for-1 basis at this point. It's much more powerful than the instants that people might choose to replace it. It's much more powerful than Preordain.

If you take Ponder out of the meta you have effectively made almost no change at all. If you take Brainstorm out the blue shell needs to look for other mechanisms to do what it did and they will not find those in the current card selection.

Blue shell as it stands:

Brainstorm
Force of Will (90% of blue shell lists)

Ponder (83% of blue shell lists)
Treasure Cruise (53% of blue shell lists)
Gitaxian Probe (52% of blue shell lists)
Daze (43% of blue shell lists)
Spell Pierce (39% of blue shell lists) x2
True-Name Nemesis (31% of blue shell lists) x2
Delver of Secrets (30% of blue shell lists)
Dig Through Time (29% of blue shell lists) x2
Jace, the Mind Sculptor (25% of blue shell lists) x2

If you remove Ponder then Preordain just slides into the slot to replace it, probably without much reflection by the people making the change. The lists that currently use both Preordain and Ponder are mainly combo lists and they'll get hit harder than the normal blue shell list because none of the other 1cc cantrips digs 3 deep and gives you the choice of the 3 on the turn you cast it.

If you remove Brainstorm then everything gets shaken up because Brainstorm is in every blue shell list. Merfolk is not a blue shell list because it does not include any of the cantrips in the standard builds. The only cards from the shell that are in every Merfolk build are Force of Will and True-Name Nemesis.

[Lemnear]

He thinks the fact that 70% of people are running blue in the first place is the problem, not the fact that blue is strong lol................

That 's what I'm talking about: we have no fucking clue about how many players Register blue decks. We only know that close to 70% of the decks that made it into the web via Top 8/16/32 are blue and there is no differentiation between the Top 8 of a 9 player event and a 4k player event.

Lol indeed.

[Zombie]

The format is fine. Nobody just has the balls to try something new or create something interesting.

This argument is stupid, disingenuous and aggravating as hell. It's always used because it's convenient and asks people to prove a negative.

[death]

Ban Island is a dumb and overused counteragument as well.

Volcanic Island+Scalding Tarn has now replaced Underground Sea/Polluted Delta as the most powerful (expensive?) land/fetch combination in eternal.

I would only consider intelligent suggestions like "ban Volcanic Island" from here on out.

[Megadeus]

Do the people advocating a ponder ban realize that it can't put back your miracles/dead red blasts from your hand? Brainstorm means you have to worry about such things more as well as hiding combo pieces from discard. Banning brainstorm leaves the blue decks with two powerful cantrips, but suddenly they actually have to thinkabout whether or not it is worth it to run that narrow answer. Plus it will strengthen discard to the point where maybe decks that rely on black disruption get to make a decent comeback.

[sdematt]

That 's what I'm talking about: we have no fucking clue about how many players Register blue decks. We only know that close to 70% of the decks that made it into the web via Top 8/16/32 are blue and there is no differentiation between the Top 8 of a 9 player event and a 4k player event.

Lol indeed.

A lot of the problem is not having good data to analyze events. If a large tournament, say, greater than 128 people, had all of the decklists posted and tracked, you could see how many people enter the tournament with a blue deck running what list, and follow the matchups and see where they end up. Although unlikely, there's more of a problem is 5% of the field enters with blue decks and takes 70% of the top 8 rather than 70% enter to take 70% of the Top 8 slots.

Ideally, you construct a tournament with equally skilled players, with equal numbers of each deck, and see what the Top 8 looks like, but that's not really possible.

-Matt

[death]

Do the people advocating a ponder ban realize that it can't put back your miracles/dead red blasts from your hand? Brainstorm means you have to worry about such things more as well as hiding combo pieces from discard. Banning brainstorm leaves the blue decks with two powerful cantrips, but suddenly they actually have to thinkabout whether or not it is worth it to run that narrow answer.

I'm perfectly aware since 1999. I can also fathom the collateral damage a Brainstorm ban could do to a vast number of legacy archetypes and the format since this card is essential, in conjuction with Force of Will, in keeping the format at equilibrium.

Banning Brainstorm, while keeping Ponder legal doesn't make the format safe, in fact it would be disastrous.

Plus it will strengthen discard to the point where maybe decks that rely on black disruption get to make a decent comeback.

Brainstorm and Duress have co-existed since 1999. There is no comeback needed really. Discard only started underperforming after the release of Treasure Cruise.

I'll add that Treasure Cruise also invalidates Hymn to Tourach, Liliana's discard ability, Jace's fateseal and even Dark Confidant as draw engine.

[Richard Cheese]

A lot of the problem is not having good data to analyze events. If a large tournament, say, greater than 128 people, had all of the decklists posted and tracked, you could see how many people enter the tournament with a blue deck running what list, and follow the matchups and see where they end up. Although unlikely, there's more of a problem is 5% of the field enters with blue decks and takes 70% of the top 8 rather than 70% enter to take 70% of the Top 8 slots.

Ideally, you construct a tournament with equally skilled players, with equal numbers of each deck, and see what the Top 8 looks like, but that's not really possible.

-Matt

The rest of the problem is that nobody from WotC reads this thread, and likely never will. Everyone can e-whine until they're blue in the face (fingers?), but unless someone's going to start a serious effort to make Legacy visible to someone that actually matters, they'll just keep seeing attendance records broken at GPs and assume that everything is great.

[H]

A lot of the problem is not having good data to analyze events. If a large tournament, say, greater than 128 people, had all of the decklists posted and tracked, you could see how many people enter the tournament with a blue deck running what list, and follow the matchups and see where they end up. Although unlikely, there's more of a problem is 5% of the field enters with blue decks and takes 70% of the top 8 rather than 70% enter to take 70% of the Top 8 slots.

Ideally, you construct a tournament with equally skilled players, with equal numbers of each deck, and see what the Top 8 looks like, but that's not really possible.

-Matt

I was really fascinated to see what the results were going to be when Jaco said he was going to publish every list from Eternal Weekend. I think he was a bit ambitious in trying to get that many done, as I am sure real life and other factors have made it very hard to accomplish.

It unfortunate, because that was a rare opportunity to see an entire metagame of that size. I wonder if he needs help or if he's just abandoned the whole idea (not that I would blame him).

[sdematt]

The problem is most TO's don't have the time to do it. I know I don't do it for all the tournaments I host, but since I'm hosting a 40 man this Saturday, I'll make the effort to type the lists up. How's that sound?


-Matt

[Megadeus]

If nothing else, at least post archetypes?

[Dice_Box]

If nothing else, at least post archetypes?

I agree with this. I can care less what changes X,Y and Z made to U/R Delver, knowing how many copies of given decks is as useful in a large scale event as knowing what is in them. I mean, most of the time the core is unchanged and only say 6 to 8 flex slots make up the difference before sideboarding.

[H]

The problem is most TO's don't have the time to do it. I know I don't do it for all the tournaments I host, but since I'm hosting a 40 man this Saturday, I'll make the effort to type the lists up. How's that sound?


-Matt

I can't blame TOs for not doing it. I was at at NYSE Open and saw them typing decklists the whole day and they didn't even finish all of them. That was only 92 decklists, I cringe at the idea of typing 300+ for each event at Eternal Weekend.

I wonder if some OCR software is sophisticated enough to be able to scan handwritten decklists in and get some kind of reasonable data?

[death]

Do we really need sophisticated softwares or any of Zuckerberg's EdgeRank algorithm for that matter to solve this? SMH