All B/R update speculation.

[Chatto]

Regarding "blue gets everything":

That's simply not true:
Blue got Delver, which is undercosted and an efficient beater - Even though it's directly related to the sciency stuff - Spells.
Blue got True Name, which was simply a mistake from the get-go.

Blue has easier ACCESS to all the stuff, the other colours get, due to the function of the colour.

Two effective beaters, with easy access... You do know what you are saying, right?

[Barook]

Then look at Death and Taxes, it also manages to do quite well and also isn’t particularly fucked over by variance because it employs so many more or less interchangeable threats in revoker, thalia, stoneforge mystic combined with its land-package.

D&T is inconsistent, otherwise it wouldn't be an On/Off DtB. I'm suprised it didn't fall out of the DtB section this month again. That's why people are currently exploring splashes to be less dependent on the mercy of the Draw Gods.

The main reason D&T does well is its raw power against the blue meta. Pit it against something like Elves instead, and it completely falls apart since its disruption package does little to nothing.

[Quasim0ff]

Two effective beaters, with easy access... You do know what you are saying, right?

I'm arguing that Delver is blue, albeit undercosted.
I'm also arguing that True Name, as a design, is just terrible.

[FoolofaTook]

and you have gone to a deck which brainstorm is by far best in

Why wouldn't you do this though? If there's a best card at managing the variance in Legacy why wouldn't a person decide to play 4 of them and then gravitate from there to the best list possible once you've made that basic decision?

Answering my own question, it comes down to personal tastes and the desire to win (or alternately to be not embarrassed by your own list in competitions that run many rounds.)

This reduces the number of playable competitive Legacy lists dramatically. If you want to be competitive at the highest levels you are either playing Brainstorm or you are playing something mono-color with many pieces that are redundant. For the last 2 years that has meant you're playing something with Brainstorm plus many other cantrips or you're playing something with Brainstorm plus a lot of permission. Alternately you're playing mono-green, white, red or artifacts.

Those are the choices if you want to be consistently competitive in Legacy at this point. Red-Green no longer gets the job done, neither does Green-White with apologies to Maverick which folds to too much of the meta to be in that tier. Red-White Boros, which has some of the best creatures and removal spells in the game and also has the burn option hasn't been good since Tarmogoyf was released in Future Sight. Black doesn't figure into the meta beyond a splash color in anything at all these days, with Storm combo the closest fit and only then with a full set of blue cantrips installed beside it.

The fact that we can put Delver in a wide swathe of the potential Brainstorm-blue shell lists further pulls the meta into a fetal curl in terms of innovation in competition. True-Name goes in the other blue lists that play creatures. That makes blue shell plus either Delver or True-Name about half the overall meta at this point.

Then we have Stoneforge Mystic plus equipment and Tarmogoyf and we're done. We've just described more than half of the lists that will see competitive play in Legacy at this point.

30k+ cards and the competition comes down to a small handful if you want to be consistent enough to win through many rounds. Stray a few cards off the path and you're an X-3 drop without a prayer. Most of the time you're an X-3 drop anyway but Brainstorm and the blue shell give the illusion that you can avoid that fate and so everybody flocks to them because they are just a bit better at producing a positive result.

[maharis]

Ugh, so many things in this thread irk me something terrible. There’s this whole (false) dichotomy of either you’re with us or against us in regards to blue. Like, either people see themselves as inherently non-blue mages because they detest that blue is the supposed best color (it certainly has been at points in the game) and they don’t want to play what the mainstream plays or people see themselves as Spikes and choose – rather thoughtlessly – to play blue because they believe it is the best color and so offers them the best chance to win.

I suggest you look at the "DECKS TO BEAT" section on this site, and then report back as to which color is most represented in the DECKS TO BEAT.

What I don’t like is this notion of “reducing variance” as something that blue is just better at because of cantrips. I’d like to quote Julian Knab from one of the earlier EE podcasts where he said that, effectively, what we are all trying to do is reduce variance. I mean look at Elves. The deck is insanely consistant. It will hardly ever fail to kill by turn 3 or 4 if unopposed. And it can even power through disruption many times in the same time frame. It achieves this without any cantrips whatsoever.

Stop right there:
Glimpse of Nature
Elvish Visionary

It has some tutor-esque cards in Green Sun and Natural Order but mostly, it gets to be this consistent because it is playing SO many cards that all work towards the same game plan.

Then look at Death and Taxes, it also manages to do quite well and also isn’t particularly fucked over by variance because it employs so many more or less interchangeable threats in revoker, thalia, stoneforge mystic combined with its land-package.

These two decks run a lot of 4-ofs and nearly all of their cards are good nearly all of the time (this is an exaggeration of course, but you get my point). Will they be screwed by variance from time to time? Absolutely. Will decks running Brainstorm be screwed by variance from time to time? Yes, absolutely. Can we say which type will be screwed the most often? I don’t know. But it is an illusion to think that running 8-12 cantrips will eliminate variance or even reduce it to an insignificant level compared to something like Elves and Death and Taxes.

I also cringe when I hear people go on about Miracles as if it’s this deck that completely gets to cut out variance in a game of magic. Yes, it has many effective tools to help reduce variance but it also desperately needs them because it is susceptible to drawing complete bricks in it’s opening 7 or off the top of its library during each draw step. Yes, Sensei’s Diving Top is exceptionally good at reducing variance in that you basically get to choose each turn between 3 cards instead of being forced to draw the top card. That is a massive difference, but even that doesn’t eliminate variance.

And people seem to forget about the opportunity cost of playing 12 cantrips. Instead of cards that impact the board or your hand you are drawing cards that let you look at other cards. In some scenarios that is awesome and a lot of the time you will get rewarded but sometimes you won’t as your cantrips will show more cantrips and as you are spending mana doing this and not really getting anywhere your opponent is untapping and wastelanding you or deploying a must-answer threat.

I suggest you listen to the latest EE podcast where the best Miracles player in the world characterizes the deck as unencumbered by variance, and says "you want as few cards with text as possible" (my apologies to Phillipp if I am getting the phrasing wrong). Playing tons of cantrips is never as bad as depending on redundancy, especially in any properly constructed deck with enough shuffle effects.

I have to bold this:

There's nothing wrong with wanting to reduce variance. That's also not what the discussion is about. The discussion is whether or not Brainstorm is too powerful for the format. Considering 76% of winning lists start with 4x Brainstorm and some amount of blue-producing lands, and given the reasons for banning cards including Treasure Cruise, Mental Misstep, and Survival of the Fittest, the discussion is certainly valid.

Finally, people quote these numbers, 76 % of the meta is playing Brainstorm. Well, what can we do about that… Brainstorm is the brand of Legacy. Look at when SCG did their marketing leading up to GP Jersey. It was all about Brainstorm-swag and whatnot. When someone is standing on the outside looking in and trying to decide where they want to start with Legacy, a lot of the time they are going to look at Brainstorm, Force of Will and so on because these cards have so much hype surrounding them and they are played a lot. And so it becomes like a (vicious) circle. Yes, 76% of winning lists might play brainstorm, but if that reflects the amount of players bringing brainstorm decks to tournaments then there’s nothing conspicuous about it. If the percentages line up between winning decks and decks represented all told at a tournament then where is the problem? We cannot surmise that because 76 % of players choose to play a deck with brainstorm, that it is at the same time the correct decision.

Brainstorm is the brand of Legacy because it is the most powerful and therefore most played card in the format.

The reason an ever-increasing number of people play blue decks is because any other draw or selection engine is strictly inferior or so linear as to be unadaptable. Things like Glimpse in Elves or Loam in lands are great, but they go nowhere. (Yes, occasionally aggro loam shows up, but so does Maverick. That's how statistics work.)

Rather than focusing on these emotional responses to the discussion, such as "everyone wants to reduce variance" or "Brainstorm is the brand of legacy," we should actually discuss whether or not the card's power is outsized. I would love to hear an argument that it isn't broken.

[Blastoderm]

Delver is the problem... not brainstorm.

[Teluin]

Here's what the naysayers really seem to want: Top to become the best option for sculpting a hand since every colour can use it - then being able to bitch about the huge price tag it would have as a result.

[nedleeds]

<snip>elves blah blah</snip> It achieves this without any cantrips whatsoever.

Huh? It's hard to take you seriously when you say things like this. Elvish Visionary and Glimpse (along with Wirewood) form the best raw card draw in the format.

Then look at Death and Taxes, it also manages to do quite well and also isn’t particularly fucked over by variance because it employs so many more or less interchangeable threats in revoker, thalia, stoneforge mystic combined with its land-package.

It does lose to variance and not drawing colored lands, or land flooding, or drawing 3 thalias. Just because it makes top 8's doesn't mean it doesn't get hammered. But you're just wading away from the thesis

Brainstorm is a significantly more powerful card than cards currently on the Legacy banned list. Even if some of those cards were to be unbanned Brainstorm would drown them in usage rate.

Finally, people quote these numbers, 76 % of the meta is playing Brainstorm. Well, what can we do about that… Brainstorm is the brand of Legacy. Look at when SCG did their marketing leading up to GP Jersey. It was all about Brainstorm-swag and whatnot. When someone is standing on the outside looking in and trying to decide where they want to start with Legacy, a lot of the time they are going to look at Brainstorm, Force of Will and so on because these cards have so much hype surrounding them and they are played a lot.

Who fucking cares? If Necro were legal it would be on the sleeves. But it's not because it's broken and it would be in 75% of all the decks as a 4 of, Necro would be a 4 of in control, in combo, and in aggro. And who cares what some standard chub thinks about the banned list, he doesn't even know how most cards work or know 2% of the card pool, if you put Dark Ritual on the fucking sleeves the know nothings would be just as excited to play in the deep end of the pool. Really, every reasonably experienced Magic player except certain limited zealots would rather play the more expansive older more exclusive format (assuming WotC manages the banned lists).

edit: read next 5 posts. what maharis said

[iGrok]

Full disclosure, I play brainstorm.

###
I really wish that Grisly Salvage was B/G hybrid instead of BG. Something like that is needed to bring a little more conistency to non-blue decks. That's what really separates Legacy from Vintage - restricted cards, by their nature, make decks less consistent. This leads to more one-sided blowouts, I think Randy Beuhler said, "1/3 of games in vintage are decided by the opening hands. You figure you go 50/50 on those, and the rest are really interactive." (paraphrased). Most legacy decks are much more consistent. Blue decks get consistency with cantrips, especially Brainstorm, Red uses a bunch of essentially identical cards. B/G/W don't have the same consistency enablers. Their cards are generally more powerful individually, and they get more tutors (GSZ, Crop Rotation, Entomb, Stoneforge), but the tutors are more expensive than cantrips, which makes B/G/W slower.

But the solution shouldn't be to ban Brainstorm. That just makes Legacy less consistent. The solution should be to print better consistency enablers in B/G/W. Grisly Salvage is exactly the type of card I want for consistency in B/G decks, it just costs too much.

I grew up playing StarCraft. That game had a bunch of ridiculously overpowered units and abilities. Shortly thereafter, the expansion Brood War was released. This added several new, powerful units to each race. But it was balanced because when everyone is OP, no one is. When StarCraft II, came along, all of the units were made less powerful individually, and the result was a loss in tactical decision-making. Players essentially just make big deathball armies and slam them into each other.

So how does this relate to Magic? Brood War is Legacy. I want to play powerful things, and have my decisions and tactical play decide the outcome. StarCraft II is Modern. We just jam our decks against each other without interacting and see who wins.

Play Brood War, not StarCraft II. Don't nerf blue, bring the other colors up to its level.

[Kanti]

Saying Brainstorm is not a bit overpowered compared to other cards is a bit silly. In a vacuum though Brainstorm is not format breaking, and can be competed with. Alongside other extremely powerful cantrips like Ponder, Preordain, and Gitaxian Probe things get out of hand. There are 29/32 Ponders in that top 8. Why isn't anyone bringing that up? I get that you hate Brainstorm, but I don't understand wanting to ban it before exploring other options.

I also think solving this problem has a lot to do with how we approach problem solving as individuals, if we are more conservative (change, vs no change), if we are reactive or proactive as people. So maybe instead of there being "blue" and "non-blue" mages there are just really different sentiments on how to adress the problem of <60% of the meta running BS+Ponder.

[Dice_Box]

Best deck for consistency and selection in the same package is Goblins (Pre Dig) but sadly the Mana costs make it a joke.

To say that the answer is "Make everything else as broken" I feel is both unwise and misses part of the problem. I used to think like that, then I came to an understanding, whatever you print you risk Blue only being stronger for it. Colour is not a boundary, you print something in another colour and thanks to the fixing in the format it will not matter. If it is strong enough it will be absorbed into Blue.

Also my comment about Goblins is not there to just be an ass, it is make a very potent point. If you make something that is strong enough to be played you also need to make it cheap or it will be overlooked. You make it cheap you can see it being used in splashes with little worry or bother. Decay is likely the most colour intensive and expensive card printed these last few years that sees solid play and its something a strong Blue deck was happy to accept.

The answer is not "Make everything equally broken", I do not know what the answer is but that is not it.

[FoolofaTook]

How is a format where everybody effectively kills by turn 4 better than the current format?

I'd offer a competing vision in which people built synergistic lists that played off of both their plays and the opponents plays and in which the list builders weren't constrained to one of a small number of archetypes and card hives.

If you give BGW the enablers to play the cantrip game but don't give them effective ways to interact with the stack you haven't changed anything. You've just sped the game up even more and you've now made blue counters even more valuable than they previously were. If you give BGW effective ways to interact with the stack then you've just created blue shell clones and everybody plays the equivalent of Delver or Storm combo, just in different colors.

The way to make the game better is to lessen the consistency for everybody and widen the playable card pool in the process. Then you wind up with games that can go over quickly with great draws but that also can stall to the opponent's denial or to their own draw petering out for awhile. You get real value out of 4cc and even 5cc cards because the game isn't guaranteed to go over before they become playable. You don't have to win the game with any play over 3cc as is generally the case now.

It's the huge emphasis on the first 2 or 3 turns that makes Legacy such a boring repetitive experience at this point. That's what makes the games flow so similarly and it doesn't lessen the luck element much. It just means that when you get unlucky you lose every time.

What Legacy needs is to have Sylvan Library be the best card consistency option in the game. It needs Standstill to be the best card advantage. It's fine with Tarmogoyf being the best creature. It's fine with Eidolon of the Great Revel being the best aggro tool. It's fine with Umezawa's Jitte being the best equipment. It's even fine with Hymn to Tourach being the best early disruption although it is possible Hymn would be back-breaking in a less consistent format.

Everything I just listed (with the possible exception of Hymn) is easy to interact with from the opponent's position but also extremely powerful in your plan. None of it happens turn 1 and none of it is pervasively hard to interact with the way the cantrip engine is.

[nedleeds]

At least you are honest and admit the card is on a completely different level. If we're being honest if Grisly Salvage was {B/G} it'd be a blue card ... what's better than Brainstorming back chaffe and Salvaging it away and recouping the card and building delve fuel. The cantrip cartel makes mana base building a joke as well, we've got decks with UU, BB, and G with no basics going X-1 in 8+ round events. To make a card not blue at this point requires making it GG, or RRR, BBB etc.. But I understand your overall point, you enjoy a homogeneous but more consistent experience. I'd argue even losing Brainstorm, Ponder and Preordain are still far and away the best card quality spells in Legacy. But you'd hamper the miracle mechanic, you would once again make spot discard (and all the SKILL INTENSIVE that comes with it) powerful, and most of all you'd power down 2 card combo (Show). I think blue would still be the dominant color.

[Patrunkenphat7]

At least you are honest and admit the card is on a completely different level. If we're being honest if Grisly Salvage was {B/G} it'd be a blue card ... what's better than Brainstorming back chaffe and Salvaging it away and recouping the card and building delve fuel. The cantrip cartel makes mana base building a joke as well, we've got decks with UU, BB, and G with no basics going X-1 in 8+ round events. To make a card not blue at this point requires making it GG, or RRR, BBB etc.. But I understand your overall point, you enjoy a homogeneous but more consistent experience. I'd argue even losing Brainstorm, Ponder and Preordain are still far and away the best card quality spells in Legacy. But you'd hamper the miracle mechanic, you would once again make spot discard (and all the SKILL INTENSIVE that comes with it) powerful, and most of all you'd power down 2 card combo (Show). I think blue would still be the dominant color.

You can play an 8 Blood Moon deck to beat greedy manabases with no basic lands. The tools exist in Legacy to beat a variety of decks and strategies.

The problem is still this opinion that the colors need to be balanced for whatever reason. Let's say each color was equally represented in Legacy, but the format was 80% midrange decks. Would you consider that balanced? Just curious.

[Megadeus]

You can play an 8 Blood Moon deck to beat greedy manabases with no basic lands. The tools exist in Legacy to beat a variety of decks and strategies.

The problem is still this opinion that the colors need to be balanced for whatever reason. Let's say each color was equally represented in Legacy, but the format was 80% midrange decks. Would you consider that balanced? Just curious.

Sure. You can play a deck that does that and then shits on itself a few times throughout the event and you end up X-3.

[rufus]

...If you give BGW the enablers to play the cantrip game but don't give them effective ways to interact with the stack you haven't changed anything. You've just sped the game up even more and you've now made blue counters even more valuable than they previously were. ...

The fact that playing cantrips slows down the game plan is really the only primary drawback that they have. If people play more of them, that will make the meta slower.

... To make a card not blue at this point requires making it GG, or RRR, BBB etc.. ....

These seems like examples of the specious "blue is good so the other colors can't be" argument.

Because of the associated tempo cost, decks only have so much space for card quality and tutor effects. So there is a diminishing impact for additional high quality filtering effects. (Though it's unclear where the saturation point is.)

[Megadeus]

These seems like examples of the specious "blue is good so the other colors can't be" argument.

Because of the associated tempo cost, decks only have so much space for card quality and tutor effects. So there is a diminishing impact for additional high quality filtering effects. (Though it's unclear where the saturation point is.)

It's more of an example that if a card doesn't have some sort of color restrictions like being CC or CCC (where C=Non Blue) or having a clause built into it requiring some non blue Color Restriction (See: Green Sun Zenith), the blue decks with 8+ cantrips can very easily absorb the card into their game plan.

[FoolofaTook]

The fact that playing cantrips slows down the game plan is really the only primary drawback that they have. If people play more of them, that will make the meta slower.

Cantrips don't slow down the game plan. They're the mechanism that creates turn 2 and 3 wins for combo. They're the mechanism that creates consistency for aggro control early on. They're the best ways to set up defenses for the lists that want to do that with an eye toward an inflection point win in the mid-game.They're the best way to draw a win in the mid-game if things have stalled out. They speed things up in most games because they allow people to find the thing they need faster. They also encourage risk-taking in the initial hand with an eye towards a faster win.

[iGrok]

I think it's important to distinguish the two types of Brainstorm decks - Blue Combo (Turn 4 or earlier) and Blue Beats (Turn 4 or later).

Grisly Salvage at B/G would certainly get splashed into Blue Beats. But Salvage can't get anything that directly affects the stack or finds more cards, which means it can't find the blue cards in the deck. What makes the cantrip shell so good is that A) you can chain them together and B) they all pitch to Force. Salvage does neither. It finds threats, it can't find more card advantage.

As far as Blue Combo, Show & Tell, ANT, Tide and co won't splash for Salvage. It's not as good for their non-creature-based strategy. Reanimator might, that's about it.

If you give BGW the enablers to play the cantrip game but don't give them effective ways to interact with the stack you haven't changed anything. You've just sped the game up even more and you've now made blue counters even more valuable than they previously were.

Cantrips slow the game down. They make all of your cards cost more. Their point is to trade mana efficiency for card efficiency. And as noted above, B/G/W filter makes counters less good in those decks. As far as countering salvages, no one ever counters cantrips. You pull a Great Sable Stag, Loxodon Smiter, or Thrun off a Salvage (and recognize that the pool of uncounterable creatures will only grow), feels good. You can even run Skylasher now that you can dump him if you don't need him, and fill your GY to feed your Scavenging Ooze or Goyf.

If you give BGW effective ways to interact with the stack then you've just created blue shell clones and everybody plays the equivalent of Delver or Storm combo, just in different colors.

I agree. Blue (and occasionally Red) are the Lords of the Stack. GW is for fucking the stack - Uncounterable green cards and taxing white ones. And Black is for preventing the stack with discard.

The way to make the game better is to lessen the consistency for everybody and widen the playable card pool in the process. Then you wind up with games that can go over quickly with great draws but that also can stall to the opponent's denial or to their own draw petering out for awhile. You get real value out of 4cc and even 5cc cards because the game isn't guaranteed to go over before they become playable. You don't have to win the game with any play over 3cc as is generally the case now.

That format sounds like Modern, which isn't a format I want to play.

The biggest issue is that now that DTT exists, they can't print Salvage at B/G. Fuck Delve and the horse it rode in on, cards are OP as shit.

[FoolofaTook]

I agree. Blue (and occasionally Red) are the Lords of the Stack. GW is for fucking the stack - Uncounterable green cards and taxing white ones. And Black is for preventing the stack with discard.

There aren't enough uncounterable green cards and none that are cheap enough to matter in this meta. White tax works to an extent but it loses over the long run to blue consistency and it loses to other extremely consistent lists that are hard to tax, like Elves. Black preventing the stack with discard is a joke. Remove Brainstorm and Sensei's Divining Top from the meta and it might not be but the idea that black discard has any effect at all on the stack at this point is ridiculous. The only effect it has on the stack is triggering a Brainstorm when the opponent has the option and the circumstances warrant.

The only effective hand disruption that are played from the hand at this point that interfere with the stack are blue counters, Vendilion Clique and Vines of Vastwood.