All B/R update speculation.

[FoolofaTook]

If they don't ban anything they're basically going to be saying that most of the cards we own that were Legacy playable as of approximately 1/1/12 are no longer playable. That'll be really depressing because it will mean that the printing of just a few cards took down a host of others that were in really interesting lists for a period of years.

I'm not talking Werebear, I'm talking Nimble Mongoose. I'm not talking Nevinyrral's Disk, I'm talking Pernicious Deed. I'm talking about Wrath of God, Supreme Verdict and Damnation. I'm talking about Sinkhole, Vindicate and Oblivion Ring. I'm talking about Crime // Punishment and Raven's Crime. I'm talking about Back to Basics and Bitterblossom. I'm talking about all manlands not named Mishra's Factory, Mutavault or (Bl)inkmoth Nexus. (Why do these guys get by when all the others don't? Because they activate for just and the meta has now become too fast for slower manlands to matter.) I'm talking about any black spell that doesn't meld smoothly into the blue shell, and it's very possible that will include Jund staples like Liliana of the Veil and Dark Confidant as well.

Jund has become redder as the overall meta has become bluer, surprise, surprise...

People worried about losing Brainstorm need to understand that I've lost dozens of playable staples over the last 3 or 4 years to just a few blue prints and few cards that were grabbed by the blue shell. My playable Legacy collection has shrunk to a small fraction of what it was in 2011. I'm a brewer and it's of no interest at all to me to try to shoehorn whatever the next powerful cards are into some variant of the blue shell. That meta is like a pale copy of what we had before WotC went insane.

[Lemnear]

Its power depends on the cards it can fetch, and power level has increased alot in recent years, Gatecrash-Journey into Dicks era aside. The cards it can fetch on average have become alot more powerful.

Fantastic, how this argument should apply to Brainstorm which lets you see your top 3, but isn't an argument if it comes to Survival which lets you search your whole library.

For the same reasons Brainstorm and Ponder were restricted in Vintage years ago, simply because the cards they could dig for were too powerful.

There it is again! The stupid Vintage parallel, which sets Delver, SFM and Terminus in a line with broken shit like Necropotence, Mind's Desire, Balance, Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoths Will! Maybe we should ban DRS and Jace because they are banned in Modern as you obviously think that formats and bannings are somewhat connected!

[Barook]

Fantastic, how this argument should apply to Brainstorm which lets you see your top 3, but isn't an argument if it comes to Survival which lets you search your whole library.

There it is again! The stupid Vintage parallel, which sets Delver, SFM and Terminus in a line with broken shit like Necropotence, Mind's Desire, Balance, Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoths Will! Maybe we should ban DRS and Jace because they are banned in Modern as you obviously think that formats and bannings are somewhat connected!

Who was talking about Survival? If it ever becomes unbanned, it would still need to be watched closely.

As for the Vintage parallel: Different format, different problems, different answers. Are you denying that the power level of Legacy hasn't picked up? Why not mentioning Griselbrand and its ilk when talking about power level? Why has the percentage of blue decks/Brainstorm increased from 50% in 2011 to 70% of what we have now?

[AznSeal]

And before that it was SFM + Batterskull ... and before that it was Survival+ Vengevine...

Jesus Christ, people should stop acting like Goblins, Zoo and shit were top decks just recently and blame the CURRENT printings. This isn't getting us anywhere ... sorry ... forgot in which thread I am



Terminus would be so "less oppressive" that people would simply switch them for SFM + TNN ... as mentioned 5 times in 3 weeks

I agree. And TC, Brainstorm, etc would be less oppressive if people played REB or an equally broken draw engine like loam, or elves. Hell, or if people played a deck based on taxing people.

But alas, people want to play their pet decks, and then complain when they get shat on. They need to realize the meta changes and to be competitive, you need to adapt.

I love Goblins. I'd play it all the time if I could. Then I moved to Elves when Goblins became shit.

[DLifshitz]

TC is idiotic, but please gimme "no changes" just to have a good laugh here

What I expect will happen is that TC will be banned both in Legacy and in Modern, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and feigned shock. Then for years to come we will hear about how WotC caved in to the crybabies.

So, yeah, either way things will be funny.

[maharis]

I agree. And TC, Brainstorm, etc would be less oppressive if people played REB or an equally broken draw engine like loam, or elves. Hell, or if people played a deck based on taxing people.

But alas, people want to play their pet decks, and then complain when they get shat on. They need to realize the meta changes and to be competitive, you need to adapt.

I love Goblins. I'd play it all the time if I could. Then I moved to Elves when Goblins became shit.

REB is actually a poor answer to Brainstorm in non-blue decks. It forces you to play reactive in decks that are generally proactive. It's good as an escape hatch for TNN, Show & Tell or Counterbalance (if you can resolve it), but even those cards have more fitting answers at the moment. It's not as easy as just jamming REB into your deck.

Loam is a fine draw engine in a fair meta, but is very soft to combo decks. Elves is a solved deck that is one printing away from obsolescence like any non-blue deck. D&T is a fine deck but you can clunk right out with it due to its complete lack of library maniuplation or selection other than SFM.

[Ellomdian]

But alas, people want to play their pet decks, and then complain when they get shat on. They need to realize the meta changes and to be competitive, you need to adapt.

Legacy is great, because any time you put something on the shelf for a while, odds are that you can pull it back down next year and either it's better because the environment has shifted or because new printings make it stronger. The problem is that people have an expectation that because they have invested so much time and $$$ into decks that the same 73 cards should work just as well, week in and week out, for years.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Fantastic, how this argument should apply to Brainstorm which lets you see your top 3, but isn't an argument if it comes to Survival which lets you search your whole libraryfor the cost of and a creature card..

ftfy.

Bingo! Shit, why I never thought about something that clear?!
Now would you help me a bit with my new deck and fill the empty slots? So far I'm at:

4 blue feces
4 other blue feces
4 blue duals
4 other blue duals
4 BS card
4 Ponder card
4 TC card
4 FoW card

that's 28 left for your creativity, more than enough...

Nah, you need 4 more lands and then Preordains, everybody loves some Preordains. Now list the 20 remaining cards and name me the deck, that's what I call a challenge!

[Daize]

Pfft just because a specific line-up is strong and viable and a LOT of people jump on the band-wagon doesn't mean it's unbalanced. Choosing your cards & deck with regards to the metagame is... pretty much what games with any predictability on the metagame are about, and whether it's "not playing card X or combo Y because it's too slow [in the current metagame]" or "playing stifle because it's awesomely good against fetchlands", "playing blood moon because everybody tends to play non-basic lands" or the same for Chalice and others.

By the time that there are no means to fight a specific deck/card, that's when I would worry. Of course, I'm not the one to tell you guys what you should do. I don't have the feeling that Brainstorm, nor Treasure Cruise is overpowered - there are enough answers. There are just a lot of people who choose this route.

[Adryan]

Pfft just because a specific line-up is strong and viable and a LOT of people jump on the band-wagon doesn't mean it's unbalanced. Choosing your cards & deck with regards to the metagame is... pretty much what games with any predictability on the metagame are about, and whether it's "not playing card X or combo Y because it's too slow [in the current metagame]" or "playing stifle because it's awesomely good against fetchlands", "playing blood moon because everybody tends to play non-basic lands" or the same for Chalice and others.

By the time that there are no means to fight a specific deck/card, that's when I would worry. Of course, I'm not the one to tell you guys what you should do. I don't have the feeling that Brainstorm, nor Treasure Cruise is overpowered - there are enough answers. There are just a lot of people who choose this route.

My magic crystal ball says that Treasure Cruise will be banned in every format. Brainstorm on the other hand will stay.

[Daize]

Meh, that'd be sad. I rather hope that, totally flavourwise, one of the other "guilds" or whatever in the last set of Khans comes with some not-too-specific Delve hate, DRS style. That would be a lot more interesting than just a simple ban. Although personally that would hurt my Manaless style a lot :(.

[Finn]

Honestly, without access to stupidly efficient cantrips, Treasure Cruise is probably not broken.

[Lord Seth]

Honestly, without access to stupidly efficient cantrips, Treasure Cruise is probably not broken.

Replace that "probably" with "definitely." Its lack of presence in Standard shows that pretty well.

[Kanti]

Ok, so basics here. I began with 3/4 of the decks are blue and feature the same card filtering mechanic as the primary engine of the deck. These include combo, control, and aggro decks.

Being able to augment the draw step with cantrips is NOT always better than other ways to design a deck or else every format would have our issues. The opportunity cost of that is mana spent, extra card in the graveyard, etc. Yet of all the thousands of different ways you could conceivably construct a magic deck, this particular method continues to occupy majority of top 8 spots. It was not always thus.

How is this hard to understand?

Just wanna comment on this, though the quote is a couple of days old. Being to able to augment the draw steps with cantrips hasn't always been better, but Serum Visions, Ponder, and Preordain have not always been around. If anyone thinks BS/Index/Opt could somehow be compared to BS/Ponder/Preordain then they are delused. I think Magic was always moving towards this direction, and that in any eternal format, running a cantrip shell would make the best deck. Combo, control, and tempo all use it greatly, and if any other format had access to such good card selection they would use it. Since so many comparison are being drawn there is a reason all the cantrips were banned from Modern (though trying to draw any relatives from the Modern ban list is almost impossible. That thing is longer than a Cadillac). It's because unless you are doing something broken as hell (hah, yeah right, it's fucking Modern. Dream on!) like playing 12post the cantrip decks will probably make it to the top.

tl;dr= The best cantrips have come out in recent years. They blow older cantrips out of the water. It's Turbo Xerox all over. Only this time it's Turbo-Turbo-holyshitI'mgoingfast-Turbo-someoneslowmedownplease-Turbo-ohlookIfoundmyGoyf-Turbo Xerox.

Also, I see GSZ as the "new" Brainstorm. Don't really see green decks competing in the future unless they are main-decking 4 GSZ's. I feel like another tutor is coming and then you guys can start talking about the "Green" shell. And then people with combine shells and make a UG Tortoise Shell deck with 4 main-deck Shelldock Isles and we will all be fucked.

tl;dr again, Ponder, Preordain, and friends are incomparable to Portent, Index, Mental Note, Opt, etc. They are in a different league altogether. Being able to augment your draw step with cantrips isn't always better, it's just better when those cantrips are Brainstorm, Ponder/Preordain.

[Zilla]

Consistency is a good, necessary thing. Its a bad thing though to have it monopolized by one color.

Why? It's splashable in literally every deck, which is why virtually every archetype is represented in this format at a competitive level. Would you have a problem with Brainstorm if it was colorless?

[Kanti]

Because when I look at the color pie I see 5 pieces of the same size. Not half a blue pie. And no one is "splashing" for Brainstorm. Brainstorm decks do splash colors though, depending on what threats they want to find with their Brainstorms. Let's not get it twisted.

[Finn]

...Would you have a problem with Brainstorm if it was colorless?

I certainly would! If every deck is improved by a card, is that not a crystal clear case of a broken card?

It is not a question of strategy. Yes, Miracles and Storm have radically different strategies. It is a question of tactics. I want a format with tactical options as well as strategic ones. How screwed up is it that UR, a deck with only twelve creatures in it is more consistent and faster than the ones with 32, oh and it has the four Ancestral Recalls for the long game? That entire deck is nothing without the ability to chain spells each turn. The cantrips are so good at what they do (because the "cost" of including them is so low compared to the benefits) that you get a single best tactic powering every archetype - even the ones that they should be terrible in, like aggro.

Remember when Zilla Stompy would kick decks in the nuts for too much durdling? Intuition into AK or slow-ass Thirst for Knowledge were terrible against a decent aggro deck, but excellent against other control decks. There was that price you pay for having them, and you would not dream of putting them in an aggro deck. There is no such price today, so the tactic is ubiquitous. I want the option to have an engine power my deck, or go straight aggro, or mana ramp, or whatever - hell I want the option to not use blue. But I can't. Those decks make up a tiny fraction of the meta because they are considerably less consistent than THE ONE tactic.

[Barook]

Why? It's splashable in literally every deck, which is why virtually every archetype is represented in this format at a competitive level. Would you have a problem with Brainstorm if it was colorless?

Cards that are auto-includes and lead to 56 card decks are in the "BAN ASAP"-category. See: Mental Misstep.

So yes, it would be a problem. Although Brainstorm has essentially MM levels of representation anyway, despite being colored.

[Chatto]

I agree. And TC, Brainstorm, etc would be less oppressive if people played REB or an equally broken draw engine like loam, or elves. Hell, or if people played a deck based on taxing people.

But alas, people want to play their pet decks, and then complain when they get shat on. They need to realize the meta changes and to be competitive, you need to adapt.

I love Goblins. I'd play it all the time if I could. Then I moved to Elves when Goblins became shit.

Of course you have to adapt, but I think that most people want to make their own desicions: nowadays to adapt almost always means playing the Blue-shell. And why is that? Because those cards can be used in a variety of decks, so the investment isn't that big over the course of the years to come.

I too love Gobbo's (that's why I would like for the unbanning of GR, which of course is a dream), and have recently switched to RG Combo Lands, because I could affort it (despite having to get a Tabernacle, pretty weird huh?). If this is the trend regarding the Blue-shell, I think we will lose a lot of variety. And yes, I like being competative, but not at the cost of everything.

[Lemnear]

Cards that are auto-includes and lead to 56 card decks are in the "BAN ASAP"-category. See: Mental Misstep.

So yes, it would be a problem. Although Brainstorm has essentially MM levels of representation anyway, despite being colored.

Isn't this a slippery slope to take for every colors competitive shell? White decks from D&T to Blade to Maverick start with 4 SFM and 4 Plows (even in some Miracles we see the SFM!). No one complains about that. Green/Black decks start with 4 DRS and 4 GSZ. I still hear no one complaining. I could also point to most red decks and Lightning Bolt. No competitive deck starts from the scratch with 60 undefined cards. Period.

Honestly, without access to stupidly efficient cantrips, Treasure Cruise is probably not broken.

To do this you have to ban Brainstorm AND Ponder AND Preordain. The joke however is that the deck still seems to work without those cards if I look at Modern.