All B/R update speculation.

[FoolofaTook]

All the arguments for keeping Brainstorm basically come down to "I want to play with the card." Using that standard as the criteria for play worthiness Ancestral Recall would be in the format as a 4-of.

Some people argue that losing the card would effectively do nothing to the blue shell, and then many pages later that it would destroy many popular lists.

Some people argue that specific lists would go the way of the dodo if Brainstorm was banned. That those lists are squatting all over the format and cyclically dominant at this point doesn't seem to matter in those analyses.

Some people argue that replacing almost all of the non-blue shell lists with more consistent blue shell lists that do the same thing isn't a problem. They miss the fact that many non-blue shell lists were never replaced with a blue shell analog because it isn't possible to replace what those lists did in a cantrip heavy list.

Some people argue that a format that is effectively 56 cards long and moving rapidly towards 52 cards long is not a bad thing as long as many different varieties of lists can be powered by the 4 to 8 always there cards.

What it really comes down to though is that people want to play with Brainstorm. Which goes back to the first sentence above. If we're going to make cards legal based simply on popularity and ignoring power level there are many highly entertaining cards that people can't play with right now because they allegedly or actually break the power level of format.

[Barook]

Admittedly part of it was because Thoughtseize as a card was much more powerful then anything else in standard (card wise or what you could be doing) at the time, but that kind of makes my point.

I still think Thoughtseize should be looked at in terms of Eternal and not Standard. And Modern clearly shows that hand disruption isn't broken, even with the absence of Brainstorm hide-and-seek tactics.

Some people argue that losing the card would effectively do nothing to the blue shell, and then many pages later that it would destroy many popular lists.

Some people argue that specific lists would go the way of the dodo if Brainstorm was banned. That those lists are squatting all over the format and cyclically dominant at this point doesn't seem to matter in those analyses.

I'm still waiting for a list of decks from said people that would instantly die when Brainstorm gets banned, in a way e.g. Survival or Flash lists did with their respective bans.

[Lord Seth]

In raw numbers, sure mutavault saw a lot more play, but Thoughtseize was apart of the two most dominant decks in that standard, esper and monoblack, decks like boss sligh existed to exploit the fact those decks relied on Thoughtseize to pick apart their opponents hand.

Esper and Monoblack were not the two most dominant decks. The most dominant decks were Monoblack and Monoblue. There was no contest there; those decks were pretty consistently #1 and #2 the entire season, in that order.

Esper, on the other hand, was a subtype of what was generally #3 (though not as consistently #3 as the aforementioned decks were #1 and #2), UWx Control. Esper and Azorius were the primary builds there, with which one to go with depending mostly on personal preference and metagame considerations (it really went back and forth as to what was considered the superior version).

Calling Monoblack and Esper "the two most dominant decks in that Standard" is completely incorrect when Esper was a subtype of a deck that wasn't #2 to begin with.

[Dark Ritual]

I still think Thoughtseize should be looked at in terms of Eternal and not Standard. And Modern clearly shows that hand disruption isn't broken, even with the absence of Brainstorm hide-and-seek tactics.


I'm still waiting for a list of decks from said people that would instantly die when Brainstorm gets banned, in a way e.g. Survival or Flash lists did with their respective bans.

Miracles dies instantly with brainstorm banned. Doomsday does as well. Canadian thresh wouldn't survive. The only decks that could really survive are blue midrange strategies and even those are suspect. All blue based combo takes a big hit. I seriously doubt the metagame would be as diverse as it is right now if brainstorm was banned as options in nonblue decks are pretty sparse.

[kombatkiwi]

All the arguments for keeping Brainstorm basically come down to "I want to play with the card." Using that standard as the criteria for play worthiness Ancestral Recall would be in the format as a 4-of.

This is perhaps the most moronic strawman I have ever seen, not only because following your logic any argument for banning Brainstorm could equally be reduced to "I don't want to play against the card".

People who want to keep Brainstorm around are not opposed to the idea of their opponents also casting Brainstorm.
"I want to play with this card and I am also okay with an environment where everyone else is playing this card" is not a statement that applies to 4-Ancestral.format

[Quasim0ff]

Pretty sure Storm, Show and Tell based decks, miracles would be unplayable to fringe (at best) if brainstorm was banned.


Are people seriously comparing standard environments to legacy? The formats are nothing alike, besides sharing a few cards that are legal (and played) in both formats: Fetchlands and Thoughseize.

[Stevestamopz]

The format doesn't need brainstorm to be banned to be healthy.
The format just doesn't need brainstorms 5-12 in Ponder, Preordain and Dig Through Time.

Ban: Ponder, Show and Tell and Dig Through Time
Format solved.

[rubblekill]

The format doesn't need brainstorm to be banned to be healthy.
The format just doesn't need brainstorms 5-12 in Ponder, Preordain and Dig Through Time.

Ban: Ponder, Show and Tell and Dig Through Time
Format solved.

What about miracles? With these bans it would be (even more) dominant. Terminus/top have to go imho
Edit: Terminus OR top

[Stevestamopz]

What about miracles? With these bans it would be (even more) dominant. Terminus/top have to go imho
Edit: Terminus OR top

Ban out any part of Miracles and then Legacy becomes the Solitaire format. No thanks.

[Lemnear]

You're still salty about the time I called you a cunt hey?

Good work proving me wrong.

Nah, I used the term "boyfriend steve" as a winged word, but it was clear that someone who once called me "cunt" alongside other less appealing descriptions, takes this as a personal attack based on his random username. It wasn't, be asured. It however reminds me that you insulted me now twice with that word and threw the first punch in addition. Too bad I'll tend to forget unimportant users on this board or the nonsense they spit pretty fast

[Zombie]

Ban out any part of Miracles and then Legacy becomes the Solitaire format. No thanks.

O_o

[Julian23]

Ban out any part of Miracles and then Legacy becomes the Solitaire format. No thanks.

It's fearful statements like this that makes me question where you have been before Miracles was around. Without Miracles, we're in great shape to return to what Legacy used to be known for before Miracles arrived: highly interactive creature combat + a bunch of combo that you accounted for in the sideboard.

[Stevestamopz]

It's fearful statements like this that makes me question where you have been before Miracles was around. Without Miracles, we're in great shape to return to what Legacy used to be known for before Miracles arrived: highly interactive creature combat + a bunch of combo that you accounted for in the sideboard.

I was on hiatus from playing magic, but do you honestly believe that the meta will just revert back to what it was like in 2012 or whatever year it was that Miracles broke out? Combo/noninteractive decks have become more streamlined and harder to disrupt. Having a hard control deck keeps that in check. Proof? The entire Modern format.

Flames removed. Keep it civil or don't post. -zilla

[Zombie]

I was on hiatus from playing magic, but do you honestly believe that the meta will just revert back to what it was like in 2012 or whatever year it was that Miracles broke out? Combo/noninteractive decks have become more streamlined and harder to disrupt. Having a hard control deck keeps that in check. Proof? The entire Modern format.

What will happen is that the combo decks will start eating each other by becoming faster and faster - these fastest ones are then free food for tempo decks because they're too fragile, and combo settles into the current speed bracket of TES/ANT/Elves. Tempo will continue to eat bad combo pilots alive but go about even with the best. More tempo => Midrange decks start emerging because tempo decks are their food. At which point people try to go over the top on the battlefield and bring in the decks that eat midrange decks (Nic Fit, Elves), and lo and behold, these midrange and "broken-range" decks are weak to... fast combo!

It's like playing RPS with 2000 dollar rocks :O

Tempo > Combo > Midrange > Tempo

[btm10]

A medicore player playing Miracles >= A good player playing anything else

On a substantive note, do you think a ban is necessary yo deal with Miracles, and if you do, what do you think it should be? I know that you've alluded to Terminus in the past, but if WotC decides that Miracles should get hit the target would almost surely be Top.

[Quasim0ff]

So I replied to hyperbole with hyperbole and I'm the one who doesn't have facts to support their opinion?

Well, do you have some sort of statistical data to support your claim? :)

If not, then it's your opinion, which is fair - I personally think Miracles is good vs RUG too, and shardless is a grindy matchup, sure, but in no way unwinnable.

[Julian23]

On a substantive note, do you think a ban is necessary yo deal with Miracles, and if you do, what do you think it should be? I know that you've alluded to Terminus in the past, but if WotC decides that Miracles should get hit the target would almost surely be Top.

They could ban pretty much any of the core cards depending on how much they wanna push back Miracles. Obviously Brainstorm or Sensei's Divining Top would kill the entire deck outright; which in my opionion wouldn't be a bad thing to begin with. Terminus probably wouldn't kill it but probably push it back deep into tier2.

What a lot of people are missing is that a lot of the "No bad matchups" quality of Miracles comes through access to Entreat the Angels. Seeing Entreat go, a lot of matchups would become outright bad instead of just "unfavorable"; this includes but is not limited to Death & Taxes and Shardless BUG.

If it was up to me though, I will still opt for Top. It's just a miserable card to have in any environment.

[btm10]

They could ban pretty much any of the core cards depending on how much they wanna push back Miracles. Obviously Brainstorm or Sensei's Divining Top would kill the entire deck outright; which in my opionion wouldn't be a bad thing to begin with. Terminus probably wouldn't kill it but probably push it back deep into tier2.

What a lot of people are missing is that a lot of the "No bad matchups" quality of Miracles comes through access to Entreat the Angels. Seeing Entreat go, a lot of matchups would become outright bad instead of just "unfavorable"; this includes but is not limited to Death & Taxes and Shardless BUG.

If it was up to me though, I will still opt for Top. It's just a miserable card to have in any environment.

I think you're basically right here. I'm not convinced yet that we won't see more of a shift toward decks with good Miracles matchups, but if/when the time comes Entreat and Top are the most reasonable targets. In my experience Entreat is what makes BUG Delver a favorable rather than quite poor matchup for Miracles (in addition to the decks you already named). My big hangup on hitting Top is that decks like Imperial Painter rely on it too.

[Lemnear]

I think you're basically right here. I'm not convinced yet that we won't see more of a shift toward decks with good Miracles matchups, but if/when the time comes Entreat and Top are the most reasonable targets. In my experience Entreat is what makes BUG Delver a favorable rather than quite poor matchup for Miracles (in addition to the decks you already named). My big hangup on hitting Top is that decks like Imperial Painter rely on it too.

I suspect people waving torches for Terminus share the mindset with people calling for Vengevine bans. If you want to seriously mess with the deck concept you need to hit SDT and not Terminus, which would be simply subsituted (maybe with Pyroclasm feat. more Entreats) while the fundamental core of actual and virtual cardadvantage created by SDT (perfect draws & in combination with Counterbalance) remains intact. As mentioned, it appears to be the same concept of chopping Vengevine just to see Survival of the Fittest paired with Retainers+Emrakul instead.

You need to get to the root of the potential problem and Terminus is nothing but the surface which gets people mad which run 3+ creatures right into it. Heck, I don't have a grief against the deck myself for the moment ... just saying

It's fairly amusing that no one moans about Counterbalance, but Terminus. Gives a clear picture which part of the playerbase is complaining lol.

[Barook]

Don't wait but fucking read it. I wrote down a selection twice, goddamn and called your kind out to present me a working non-BS Miracles/SneakShow/Tempo list as you guys claim NO DECK WOULD DIE BUT SLIGHTLY NERFED.

Miracles is likely, S/S maybe, too. (Two of the biggest format oppressor gone? That would be a gift for the format.)

But the claim that Tempo dies seems ludicrous. They would probably have to run 1-2 more lands, have Preordain instead as second cantrip of choice, Delvers are slightly less likely to flip and that's it. God forbid tempo players have to plan their turn instead of sitting on their ass keeping until bad things happen. The basic strategy of the deck (cheap threats who get there while you disrupt the opponent in the meantime) is completely unaffected by that.