All B/R update speculation.

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm tired of this. Anyone want to crusade against the 'restart the game' effect on Karn Liberated instead?

The "debate" about Brainstorm, cantrips, and blue in this format in general has been stagnant for years. There is literally nothing new one can say that has not already been said; the same arguments on both sides get trundled out every time, then people flame each other with increasing intensity until the announcement drops, and when nothing is changed they slink off to continue the cycle again later.

That is, if you’re pro-Brainstorm, you’re working with the following:

• Brainstorm is skill-testing;
• Anti-Brainstorm cards exist in the format (like Chalice);
• Non-blue decks can make top eight (cite recent T8 here);
• Brainstorm enables many different kinds of decks;
• Players are just results-chasers and could beat Brainstorm if they were less lazy/stupid/netdecking/whatever.

If you’re anti-Brainstorm, pick and choose from the following:

• Top eight data show that Brainstorm/Brainstorm decks are very dominant;
• Brainstorm reduces variance unduly (relative to non-Brainstorm decks);
• Historically, non-Brainstorm decks do not have much impact or staying power in the format, beyond the obvious issue with no Legacy deck ever truly being dead.

The rebuttals to all of these points are pretty straightforward, so I’m not really going to go into them at length here. As usual with these sorts of things, the sorts of arguments a person advances are less interesting as arguments and more interesting for what they reveal about the psychology behind making and managing a fun format. What do you want your format to be about? Arguments about deck variety usually carry some pretty hefty implicit assumptions. Is it more important for different styles of deck to be represented – that is, control, aggro, midrange, combo, etc. – or is color balance more important even if many of those decks end up being amorphous midrange blobs (see: Standard)? Adherents to the former will tend to favor the argument that Brainstorm enables many different decks, while proponents of the latter will see Brainstorm as an oppressive blue scourge. Similarly, arguments about variance and skill generally come down to whether you want to play chess or poker; that is, do you believe that there is any skill in reacting to random events, or do you believe that randomness is something that allows less-skilled players to steal free wins they shouldn’t have gotten?

Where you fall on those spectrums is probably a pretty good predictor of where you’ll land in the Brainstorm debate. There isn’t really a right or wrong answer to those questions because they’re mostly an issue of what an individual finds fun, and forcing people to give a priori reasons why their version of fun is superior to all others is tedious and also an unhealthy thing to do in a gaming context.

In an ideal world I'd like to just impose a moratorium on discussion of this topic, but you really can't get away from how blue the format is if you know anything about it at all, so that policy would just turn into a protracted game of whack-a-mole with people's gripes (and spoiler season...oh god, spoiler season...). At least we have this thread as a quarantine zone.

[danyul]

Such a smart post. I'm sorry you had to filter through so much dumbness in order to write it.

[ironclad8690]

Probably no one, especially considering it's a clue on the future of the storyline. Karn will probably return back in time and save Mirrodin from the dark tide of Phyrexia.

I really hope this happens.

[Dice_Box]

I doubt it. I always thought that ability was a representation of the second chance Karn was given when Venser gave up what little life he had left to restart Karn as the Silver Golam again.

[Darkenslight]

I really hope this happens.

Nah, it'll probably be Karn vs Ugin.

On a more serious note, here's what I think will happen on Monday:

Treasure Cruise is banned
Vengevine is banned
Survival of the Fittest is unbanned
Black Vise is unbanned

The Vengevine one will be the most contentious, but I can easily see that being the case if you get a Survival unbanning.

[Nielsie]

I am pretty sure nothing will happen on the B&R and in the case I am wrong and Wizards does decide to do something they will f#*k up anyway and ban/unban the wrong things, giving blue an even more dominant stance on the meta.

@Teveshszat: according to your formula, the most powerfull cantrip in the game is I guess Lim-Dûl's Vault? It can dig 5 cards for as many times as your life total allows you. CMC amd Instant or Sorcery speed is not important according to you, so just use the Vault in your upkeep and profit! Why does nobody play this as a four-of, am I on to some obscure, never before found tech?

[Lemnear]

I am pretty sure nothing will happen on the B&R and in the case I am wrong and Wizards does decide to do something they will f#*k up anyway and ban/unban the wrong things, giving blue an even more dominant stance on the meta.

@Teveshszat: according to your formula, the most powerfull cantrip in the game is I guess Lim-Dûl's Vault? It can dig 5 cards for as many times as your life total allows you. CMC amd Instant or Sorcery speed is not important according to you, so just use the Vault in your upkeep and profit! Why does nobody play this as a four-of, am I on to some obscure, never before found tech?

You know what the term "cantrip" involves a card to replace itself? LDV would be a hell of a card if it had the Phrase "draw a card on it"

[Bobmans]

You know what the term "cantrip" involves a card to replace itself? LDV would be a hell of a card if it had the Phrase "draw a card on it"

That would be like Doomsday + Gitaxian Probe in one card without having to remove the rest of your library...

[Nielsie]

You know what the term "cantrip" involves a card to replace itself? LDV would be a hell of a card if it had the Phrase "draw a card on it"

Ofcourse, I am just sceptical about his formula and his comparison of Brainstorm to other cards. He only cares about digging cards from the library, so LDV makes a world-class 'cantrip' on your upkeep, always finding whatever card you want. Hell, it almost feels like a Demonic Tutor that way.

What I wanted to make clear is that you can't compare the cantrips only on how deep they dig. You have to account for everything they do, the whole textbox, the sorcery vs instant, the CMC and even their color. Otherwise your comparison means nothing. A car brings you from point A to B, a bicycle brings you from point A to B. Are they the same thing? Are they doing this the same way? Are they always the correct tool? Do they reach the same places in the same time?

[Echelon]

What I wanted to make clear is that you can't compare the cantrips only on how deep they dig. You have to account for everything they do, the whole textbox, the sorcery vs instant, the CMC and even their color. Otherwise your comparison means nothing. A car brings you from point A to B, a bicycle brings you from point A to B. Are they the same thing? Are they doing this the same way? Are they always the correct tool? Do they reach the same places in the same time?

You don't have to look at every single aspect. It doesn't matter if my car's red or blue, it'll drive me from A to B all the same. The only thing you need to do is to define context. In this case, the context is "We're resolving this spell" and the question is "How many cards do we see when card X resolves?", which lets you neglect a number of things.

You also manage to misunderstand the term cantrip. The first guy was comparing 2 cars, you chose to compare a car and a bicycle. LDV does not replace itself, so it is not a cantrip (the same as a bicycle isn't a car since it misses a number of vital components to be classified as one).

[nevilshute]

The "debate" about Brainstorm, cantrips, and blue in this format in general has been stagnant for years. There is literally nothing new one can say that has not already been said; the same arguments on both sides get trundled out every time, then people flame each other with increasing intensity until the announcement drops, and when nothing is changed they slink off to continue the cycle again later.

That is, if you’re pro-Brainstorm, you’re working with the following:

• Brainstorm is skill-testing;
• Anti-Brainstorm cards exist in the format (like Chalice);
• Non-blue decks can make top eight (cite recent T8 here);
• Brainstorm enables many different kinds of decks;
• Players are just results-chasers and could beat Brainstorm if they were less lazy/stupid/netdecking/whatever.

If you’re anti-Brainstorm, pick and choose from the following:

• Top eight data show that Brainstorm/Brainstorm decks are very dominant;
• Brainstorm reduces variance unduly (relative to non-Brainstorm decks);
• Historically, non-Brainstorm decks do not have much impact or staying power in the format, beyond the obvious issue with no Legacy deck ever truly being dead.

The rebuttals to all of these points are pretty straightforward, so I’m not really going to go into them at length here. As usual with these sorts of things, the sorts of arguments a person advances are less interesting as arguments and more interesting for what they reveal about the psychology behind making and managing a fun format. What do you want your format to be about? Arguments about deck variety usually carry some pretty hefty implicit assumptions. Is it more important for different styles of deck to be represented – that is, control, aggro, midrange, combo, etc. – or is color balance more important even if many of those decks end up being amorphous midrange blobs (see: Standard)? Adherents to the former will tend to favor the argument that Brainstorm enables many different decks, while proponents of the latter will see Brainstorm as an oppressive blue scourge. Similarly, arguments about variance and skill generally come down to whether you want to play chess or poker; that is, do you believe that there is any skill in reacting to random events, or do you believe that randomness is something that allows less-skilled players to steal free wins they shouldn’t have gotten?

Where you fall on those spectrums is probably a pretty good predictor of where you’ll land in the Brainstorm debate. There isn’t really a right or wrong answer to those questions because they’re mostly an issue of what an individual finds fun, and forcing people to give a priori reasons why their version of fun is superior to all others is tedious and also an unhealthy thing to do in a gaming context.

In an ideal world I'd like to just impose a moratorium on discussion of this topic, but you really can't get away from how blue the format is if you know anything about it at all, so that policy would just turn into a protracted game of whack-a-mole with people's gripes (and spoiler season...oh god, spoiler season...). At least we have this thread as a quarantine zone.

`
Loved this post, +1

I would like to respectfully disagree with you (partially). When I really got into legacy which was in the summer of 2012 and for at least the following year, my memory of the b/r discussions were - as far as ban-wishes were concerned - centered around Show and Tell. It was only about one year ago - as far as I recall - that people started talking about Brainstorm. And I remember initially it felt like the general reaction was something like "get real..." It is only within the last year or so that the ban or don't ban brainstorm discussion has really gathered steam and only in the last few (maybe six?) months that people have really started to get aggitated and debated fiercely.

I won't speak for what happened before 2012, and obviously this is just my own experience of how things have been, browsing this thread and it's ditto on salvation. To me the process went something like this:

Summer 2012: people are upset Griselbrand gets printed. Proponents of a Griselbrand ban are quite vocal. There is an obvious connection between Griselbrand and Show and Tell and quickly the Griselbrand-must-be-banned contingent seem to shift towards wanting Show and Tell banned (there might have been a contingent wanting SnT banned for a while before that, I don't know). For the next good while it seems like the card most are upset about is Show and Tell.

November 2013: True-Name Nemesis is printed. Before it is even released there is a contingent of players that seem very upset about this card, and that doesn't seem to ameliorate once released. The debate now starts to shift, not only from banning Show and Tell towards banning TNN instead, but also a rhetoric of "this is the final straw... blue has been getting the most powerful <insert card-type> for too long, now they get this beast". It seems to me that it is this shift and this rhetoric that starts people having a proper go at Brainstorm citing it as the root cause of blue's dominance. Perhaps feeling that if Brainstorm would just be banned then cards like TNN, Show and Tell and Delver (basically - fun or unfun - cards that have been very popular and have saturated top-32 finishes in large legacy tournaments for a long time) would see less play.

2014-15: the clamourings to have Brainstorm banned are more boisterous now than I can remember them being at any point during the past 2½ years.

[Nielsie]

You don't have to look at every single aspect. It doesn't matter if my car's red or blue, it'll drive me from A to B all the same. The only thing you need to do is to define context. In this case, the context is "We're resolving this spell" and the question is "How many cards do we see when card X resolves?", which lets you neglect a number of things.

You also manage to misunderstand the term cantrip. The first guy was comparing 2 cars, you chose to compare a car and a bicycle. LDV does not replace itself, so it is not a cantrip (the same as a bicycle isn't a car since it misses a number of vital components to be classified as one).

*Sigh* Still missing the point... Let's take Amass the Components. According to Teveshszat's formula this card is better than Brainstorm. Do you agree with that assesment?

[Teveshszat]

wonderPreaux
You are entirely incorrect. So long as you have cards in deck that aren't STP you don't ALWAYS draw STP. Increasing your odds doesn't mean your odds become 100% and saying so as an argument is misleading and ignorant. Cantrips DO NOT give you what you need all the time, they are an investment in redraws at getting the card, they CAN and DO fail to find what you need.

People only seem arrgogant if you don´t have the abilities to understand them.
Increasing my odds is exactly what it should do. The goal is increasing my odds to the critical point were the percentage becomes high enough to draw the card in every game I need her. Thats the reason why you sometimes can just play 3 copies or even 2 because you just need to find 1 copy in the given time.
I never said it gives me 100% chance what I said and what you are trying to ignore is that it gives so much consitency that
I don´t have trouble in finding an out in time because of the cantrips.
The reason for this is that acutally either it replaces it self or even thins the libary by 1 or 2. And yes they can fail but that is not really likely that they do because if you build the deck right the statistics supports the claim that you should find your answer lets say 7 out of 10 and thats exactly why these cards are giving everyone who plays them a big advantage.

Nielsie
@Teveshszat: according to your formula, the most powerfull cantrip in the game is I guess Lim-Dûl's Vault? It can dig 5 cards for as many times as your life total allows you. CMC amd Instant or Sorcery speed is not important according to you, so just use the Vault in your upkeep and profit! Why does nobody play this as a four-of, am I on to some obscure, never before found tech?

Because you use the formula wrong. It displays the change of the percentage to find a card when you draw x cards. Lim Duls vault doesn´t draw even a single card and can´t be evaluated with this formula. One real expection is the Sensei´s Diviningtop because he has the potential Brainstorm draw effect since you look at 3 cards and draw 1 of them. You could see that if you look at 3 cards and draw 1 it is the same like drawing 3 cards because it digs as deep as the draw.

[Echelon]

*Sigh* Still missing the point... Let's take Amass the Components. According to Teveshszat's formula this card is better than Brainstorm. Do you agree with that assesment?

You're still ignoring the context used, "We're resolving a 1 CMC cantrip". In the vacume (i.e. no context, just plain old cause and effect) you're projecting Enter the Infinite or any other card that draws your entire library would obviously be the most powerful cantrip. And, looking at the effect at face value, that is true. However, when making use of a proper context you can put things into perspective.

Also, it isn't "his" formula, the calculation made is standard hypergeometric distribution.

[Teveshszat]

Echelon
Also, it isn't "his" formula, the calculation made is standard hypergeometric distribution.

Right.

Nielsie
*Sigh* Still missing the point... Let's take Amass the Components. According to Teveshszat's formula this card is better than Brainstorm. Do you agree with that assesment?

Nope as Echelon said we are discussing cards which actually draw addtional cards or replace themself. You could argue that Vault becomes better as soon as you get a draw effect to actually draw the card for you but without the card is worse than every 1 mana cantrip we have.

[Nielsie]

You're still ignoring the context used, "We're resolving a 1 CMC cantrip". In the vacume (i.e. no context, just plain old cause and effect) you're projecting Enter the Infinite or any other card that draws your entire library would obviously be the most powerful cantrip. And, looking at the effect at face value, that is true. However, when making use of a proper context you can put things into perspective.

I am not ignoring the context but Teveshszat is. I am merely asking about his magical formula which proves that Brainstorm is not more powerfull than other cantrips.

I asked him how he takes into account things like CMC and Instant speed or all the other things Brainstorm does. He was saying those things are not important and that is what I am disputing:

Actually yes that is what I do. the instant speed doesn´t matter because I dicuss consitancy percentages which are indepandant from the time you play the card. What I compare is the ability how much cards you see/draw for each cantrip and how high the percentage is that you get the card you need with them.

I agree with you that you simply can't compare a card as Brainstorm in a vacuum. I doubt you can compare any meaningfull Magic card in a vacuum. But that is exactly what many people always do, like Teveshszat. You have to factor in everything, even all the little details. This is very dificult (read: impossible) for a game as broad as Magic Legacy. I think this is also why we always end up having this discussion in the first place and why it amazes me that some people can predict how Legacy will look like if Brainstorm would be banned.

I am being accused of comparing cards in a vacuum, I only gave those examples because that is what Teveshszat is doing. When comparing Brainstorm with other cantrips you have too look further than the simple premise of how deep it digs. How does Preordain help you when an opponent Hymns you? Now think again when you have Brainstorm in hand. This is only one example of many numerous ways that makes Brainstorm unique amongst cantrips, don't ignore those aspects.

[Tao]

People only seem arrgogant if you don´t have the abilities to understand them.
Increasing my odds is exactly what it should do. The goal is increasing my odds to the critical point were the percentage becomes high enough to draw the card in every game I need her. Thats the reason why you sometimes can just play 3 copies or even 2 because you just need to find 1 copy in the given time.
I never said it gives me 100% chance what I said and what you are trying to ignore is that it gives so much consitency that
I don´t have trouble in finding an out in time because of the cantrips.
The reason for this is that acutally either it replaces it self or even thins the libary by 1 or 2. And yes they can fail but that is not really likely that they do because if you build the deck right the statistics supports the claim that you should find your answer lets say 7 out of 10 and thats exactly why these cards are giving everyone who plays them a big advantage.

What you don't get is that only win percentages matter when you compare decks, not consistency, not any other concept. And a deck with higher consistency through cantrips does not automatically have a higher win percentage than decks without cantrips. Consistency is just one part of it.

[Echelon]

I am being accused of comparing cards in a vacuum, I only gave those examples because that is what Teveshszat is doing. When comparing Brainstorm with other cantrips you have too look further than the simple premise of how deep it digs. How does Preordain help you when an opponent Hymns you? Now think again when you have Brainstorm in hand. This is only one example of many numerous ways that makes Brainstorm unique amongst cantrips, don't ignore those aspects.

I'm done with this discussion, this shows you haven't the foggiest why Tev is making those calculations, what he's trying to explain with them, what a context is (nor what a vacume is, funnily) and how all of these concepts relate to one another. Continueing this is a pointless excercise in futility.

What you don't get is that only win percentages matter when you compare decks, not consistency, not any other concept. And a deck with higher consistency through cantrips does not automatically have a higher win percentage than decks without cantrips. Consistency is just one part of it.

It's just a tool he uses in deck building, nothing more than that. The same as I use it to determine what happens when I run more/less lands in a given deck.

[Zombie]

btw, if it's ok for a card to be absolutely everywhere as long as it powers all sorts of decks, can I have Skullclamp?

[Dice_Box]

Ofcourse, I am just sceptical about his formula and his comparison of What I wanted to make clear is that you can't compare the cantrips only on how deep they dig. You have to account for everything they do, the whole textbox, the sorcery vs instant, the CMC and even their color. Otherwise your comparison means nothing. A car brings you from point A to B, a bicycle brings you from point A to B. Are they the same thing? Are they doing this the same way? Are they always the correct tool? Do they reach the same places in the same time?

I love this post, because it reminds me why Opt is played so much more than Ponder and why Preordain sees so much love in Legacy.