All B/R update speculation.

[Blastoderm]

Everytime I see a post of "This format looks so varied" I see it framed in the form of an apologist or child trying to prove a point he knows he is losing. If the format was in fact so varied we would not be pointing out the situations where it looks that way to try and overlook the many shitty times it does if the format is so varied, why are the same decks consistently at the top tables? Why does the DTB section rarely change much? Why is it that decks running the same core set of cards do objectively better?

Honestly, how varied is this format really? One data point does not a trend make. If you want to look for trends, there is a thread stickied in the DTB section that has the information your looking for. It's not painting such a rosey, blinders on picture as this single data point you wish to pin your views on.

This.

The coverage on the Wizards site is similarly abysmal. Every paragraph they try to convince the reader that the format isn't 95% blue. They even took some pictures of people playing goblins, elves, enchantress etc... with captions: "See?? People don't always play brainstorm/force of will".

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Imho this is very balanced format:

elves, pox, infect, death and taxes, merfolks, goblin, lands, storm, show and tell, delve.deck (canadian, team america), miracle, junk, grixis, MUD, reanimator, dredge, cascade.

Let's tally out the winners. Decks using Brainstorm are in bold type because, hey, that's what this thread is all about, right?

U/x/y Delver: xxxxxx
S&T: xxxx
Miracles: xxx
D&T: xxx
Elves: xxx
BUG (non-Delver): xxx
Junk: xx
Reanimator: xx
Pox: x
Storm: x
Goblins: x
Merfolk: x
Lands: x
Infect: x
MUD: x
Dredge: x
Stoneblade: x

Besides Junk and Reanimator, no non-DTB made more than one showing, with DTBs being the most represented. Brainstorm-using decks were 21/35 of the winners (drunkposting, so there may be counting and/or taxonomic errors)...a real improvement at only 60% penetration.

This "meta", as presented by the GPT winners, doesn't look terrible (not great; way too much Blue and fast combo), but I have my doubts as to how much these results reflect the overall Legacy metagame. For one thing, 5 round GPTs with single-elimination are very different from typical tournaments that run more rounds of Swiss; different decks might be better poised in this environment, yet have zero chance in a 12+ round GP. Years ago, I used to Dredge a bit, and as anyone who has played the deck can tell you, it's a lot easier to put up 5 great rounds in a row than to put up an X-1-0 record at a large, long event.

Not to mention, the competition level of these events may be suspect. While it might be fair to assume that missing sideboards in some decklists are due to clerical errors or misreporting, it's also possible that a lot of players might have just been winging it in these events. Who knows how many effective byes a player might have had, with folks coming in with stuff like The Cure or Nourishing Lich for yuks.

Bottom line, I think thinks like Day 2 showings, win rates, and more data to come out of the GP will probably provide a clearer picture. Let's hope some sweet, new tech bursts onto the scene, but if not, I would hope the culprits of metagame stagnation are clearly represented in the Top 32 so the banhammer can strike them down.

[CutthroatCasual]

Not to mention, the competition level of these events may be suspect. While it might be fair to assume that missing sideboards in some decklists are due to clerical errors or misreporting, it's also possible that a lot of players might have just been winging it in these events. Who knows how many effective byes a player might have had, with folks coming in with stuff like The Cure or Nourishing Lich for yuks.

You don't know how correct this statement is. Just today on stream, I watched a 6-1 Miracles player make three incorrect plays in one game.

[Gheizen64]

I found this quote pretty enlightening from the official WotC coverage:

First up, there are two cards that have a massive influence on Legacy: Force of Will and Brainstorm.

My own personal opinion is that Force of Will is powerful and ubiquitous enough that under normal circumstances it would be banned ... if it wasn't the safety valve of the format. ...

Brainstorm is more subtle. It says draw three cards, but you have to put two of those back. What that does do is provide enormous consistency to draws. Draw too many or too little lands? Brainstorm will smooth that out. It becomes even more powerful combined with an ability to shuffle the unneeded cards away from the top of the library such as any fetch land.

Note how he say that Force is in his opinion so powerful and ubiquitous that it should be banned (but it isn't because it's a safety valve for the format), but then he completely gloss over the fact that brainstormm is even more powerful and ubiquitous. BS isn't going anywhere.

[Barook]

Just like the dude who wrote for WotC's site in the last GP who didn't even mention Brainstorm in the Top 5 MVP cards because he didn't want Brainstorm banned:

That's not funny at all

[Gheizen64]

Just like the dude who wrote for WotC's site in the last GP who didn't even mention Brainstorm in the Top 5 MVP cards because he didn't want Brainstorm banned:

That's not funny at all

Holy shit the cantrip cartel is real lmao

[Gheizen64]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...ame-2015-07-05

For those who care, 77.3% of day 2 is blue decks which runs the cantrip cartel (not including merfolk).

[testing32]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...ame-2015-07-05

For those who care, 77.3% of day 2 is blue decks which runs the cantrip cartel (not including merfolk).

It's fine, this format is skill testing. Everyone plays the same cards and they reduce variance. It's like chess with pictures and words you don't have to read.

[Fatal]

@Gheizen64
Agreed, it isn't balanced, each of this deck running same core.

Name, number of decks, % of day 2 meta
Miracles 28 17.2
Omni-Tell 16 9.8
Grixis Delver 12 7.4
Sultai Delver 11 6.7
Grixis No-Delver 10 6.1
Storm 9 5.5
Infect 8 4.9
Temur Delver 7 4.3
Elves 6 3.7
Shardless Sultai 5 3.1
4-Color Delver 5 3.1
Lands 5 3.1
Reanimator 5 3.1
Stoneblade 4 2.5
Death and Taxes 4 2.5
Jund 4 2.5
Maverick 4 2.5
Aggro Loam 3 1.8
Burn 3 1.8
Merfolk 3 1.8
U/R Delver 3 1.8
Sneak and Show 2 1.2
MUD 2 1.2
Cloudpost 1 0.6 -dunno if it's mono Green it's not running only 0,6% so not too much as mistake.
Dredge 1 0.6
Esper Mentor 1 0.6
Goblins 1 0.6
Total: 163 100.0

[Dice_Box]

Total: 127 of 163: 77.914%

If someone tells me this is balanced I really, truly want a better reason then "But they are not the same deck". The issue is the inbreeding, not that the kids have different hair colours.

[MGB]

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Haha if "professional" players start tweeting about it wotc might actually take action. This is the only chance something happens, which is pathetic.

[rufus]

It seems like Counterbalance is much more of a problem card than SDT in terms of power level.

[Barook]

I'd welcome a SDT ban. Miracles makes nonblue aggro a joke and doesn't exactly encourage diversity among control decks, too.

That doesn't mean that DTT shouldn't go, too.

[MGB]

It seems like Counterbalance is much more of a problem card than SDT in terms of power level.

Counterbalance is only a thing because of SDT. You ban SDT, Counterbalance is barely fringe playable.

This is exactly like Survival of the Fittest. Survival was busted by Vengevine, but Surivval would always be playable (just like SDT would always be playable even if you removed Miracles and/or Counterbalance), and eventually future printings would make it broken again. So Wizards did the right thing and just axed the engine - Survival.

In this case the "engine" is Sensei's Divining Top. Without the Top, Miracles and Counterbalance are much less predictable and much less broken. The correct thing to do here is to ban the Top, and watch Miracles fall to Tier 2 status and open up vacancies for a whole crop of different decks.

To iterate a list of negatives and positives that a Sensei's Divining Top ban would bring:

You ban Top, the negatives are:

- Miracles players no longer get to play the best deck in the format and crush the competition.

The positives are:

- Less slow play in tournaments by default because 90%+ of players are not super fast experts, and never will be
- Less sketchy play because constant library manipulation opens things up for this
- Less "JUDGE!" for slow play watching, which means more judges are available to help other players rather than waste time watching a Miracles player
- A different variety of blue control decks becomes viable and opens the format up to more experimentation, because right now, there is no reason to play any blue control that isn't Miracles
- A different variety of aggro decks that just got demolished by Terminus becomes a little bit more viable. Maybe they show up in tournaments, maybe not, but no Terminus gives them a better chance than now
- Tournament rounds are shorter because of the absence of Miracles players dragging things out

[Adryan]

Given the fact that Wotc has been pretty consistent with their bannings throughout the past, I think anyone who has big hopes for a SDT ban will be disappointed.

The card has been around for ages in Legacy, and the slow play problems are not something new. So unless Legacy becomes a PT format (never....), SDT won't get banned, because it is not too powerful.
From a money perspective it does not make any sense to ban SDT. A lot of people play Miracles and would be really pissed if their expensive deck gets completely destroyed. That would turn into a lot of butthurts, players quiting Magic or simply reduce the number of packs bought. And what do they get if they ban SDT? Will people be happier and buy more packs? I don't think so.

The only realistic ban would be Dig Through Time, which can happen or not happen.

Also Ponder and Brainstorm would for sure get banned if this format was a PT format, but it is not. It is just a casual format, that has a big fan base and Wotc does not want to piss of the Legacy fan base. I think there are more people who enjoy playing with the cantrip cartel than people who want a casual format with color diversity.

It is also impossible to get color diversity in both Eternal formats, because of Wotc design decision of the color wheel. Non blue colors suck if you want to be good against a wide open field. If you play non blue, you just have to hope that you don't run into any combo decks, which are both horrible and quite uninteractive matchups.

Edit: I think there are quite a few other very good Control archetypes possible with Legacy's card pool. They don't get discovered, because Legacy is not a PT format, so there is very little incentive to build and test them for professionals.

[btm10]

Given the fact that Wotc has been pretty consistent with their bannings throughout the past, I think anyone who has big hopes for a SDT ban will be disappointed.

The card has been around for ages in Legacy, and the slow play problems are not something new. So unless Legacy becomes a PT format (never....), SDT won't get banned, because it is not too powerful.
From a money perspective it does not make any sense to ban SDT. A lot of people play Miracles and would be really pissed if their expensive deck gets completely destroyed. That would turn into a lot of butthurts, players quiting Magic or simply reduce the number of packs bought. And what do they get if they ban SDT? Will people be happier and buy more packs? I don't think so.

The only realistic ban would be Dig Through Time, which can happen or not happen.

Also Ponder and Brainstorm would for sure get banned if this format was a PT format, but it is not. It is just a casual format, that has a big fan base and Wotc does not want to piss of the Legacy fan base. I think there are more people who enjoy playing with the cantrip cartel than people who want a casual format with color diversity.

It is also impossible to get color diversity in both Eternal formats, because of Wotc design decision of the color wheel. Non blue colors suck if you want to be good against a wide open field. If you play non blue, you just have to hope that you don't run into any combo decks, which are both horrible and quite uninteractive matchups.

I think you're basically right on everything except the amount of butthurt that would result from a Top ban. Miracles ports pretty readily into UWr Blade once you have Tundras, Forces, Jaces, and Volcs so it's not like they're saddled with a bunch of unplayable chaff that they have to sell at a large loss - they'd just have to switch decks. Some folks would be upset, but I do think most would keep playing Legacy and we wouldn't hear too much about it.

[LOLWut]

Haha if "professional" players start tweeting about it wotc might actually take action. This is the only chance something happens, which is pathetic.

I think we can all agree that if someone high profile should be listened to, it should be Legacy experts, and not these Standard and Limited careerists. It makes me think of what American TV used to do during the World Cup, bringing in some baseball or football guy who watches soccer for a week a year who'd be like, "Have they thought of making the goals bigger so there'll be more goals??"

[Bobmans]

Sensei's Divining Top getting banned, after a couple of thousand playmats are gave to the players and Michael Sutfin signed like at least x thousand, would be pretty hilarious.

[btm10]

I think we can all agree that if someone high profile should be listened to, it should be Legacy experts, and not these Standard and Limited careerists. It makes me think of what American TV used to do during the World Cup, bringing in some baseball or football guy who watches soccer for a week a year who'd be like, "Have they thought of making the goals bigger so there'll be more goals??"

.
There aren't a whole lot of high profile "Legacy experts". I'd take the Magic intuition of Pros over the opinion of randoms on The Source 100% of the time if I were the DCI, so the public statements of LSV and Edel are probably the most influential statements regarding Top that have been made this B&R cycle.