All B/R update speculation.

[nedleeds]

miracles is only a thing because of brainstorm. You ban brainstorm, miracles are barely fringe playable.

ftfy.

[Adryan]

I would really enjoy a format, where a lot of the blue shell is banned and people bring their Goblins, Zoos and Nic Fit decks to a Legacy Grand Prix to give quite consistent byes to combo players. I mean for reference, just look at the very first Modern Pro Tour. The combo decks were very good, fast and consistent, even without Brainstorm etc.

Dark Ritual. dec with Serum Visions vs Goblins is still not a fair fight.

I always kind of enjoy my play experience whenever I play a combo deck vs a fair non blue deck. Feels like playing a Vintage control deck vs a Standard Control deck. They play sweet 5 mana dragons and you just kill them with Time Vault.

[Barook]

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.

Like the Survival Judge Promo?

@nedleeds Miracles would probably die off with either banned.

[LOLWut]

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.

Blue's comparative strength against non-glass cannon combo is overstated. If I'm on Storm or Omni, I'll take on most decks with blue over MUD any day. Same with Sneak & Show but with Death & Taxes. Plenty of combo decks fear discard more than counter spells. Hell, Burn probably scares stuff like Storm and Painter more than a lot of decks with blue. Merfolk and U/B Tezz are no slouches if we're including blue decks without Brainstorm. Obviously blue is awesome, but the way you said that, ehhhh.

.
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.

False choice, really. We don't have to listen to randoms on the Source posting in their boxers, or listen to fly-by "professionals". People like Bob Huang, Philipp Schönegger, Phillip Braverman, Carsten Kotter, and Julian Knab (as well as pros who are also Legacy aficionados) are well-known and knowledgeable, assuming WotC can be bothered to do more research than checking tweets of pros they know.

[JDK]

Yeah, Wizards should totally listen to people who have been playing 1-2 decks over several years for their objective thinking about banning cards. /sarcasm

[dsck]

Slow players can take their time just as well with preordain/ponder/brainstorm/sylvan library/jace. WOTC just needs to be way more strict about slow-play and give judges more power to punish for it.

[JDK]

How often do you use resolve a Brainstorm and how often do you use a resolved SDT? SDT goes the extramile. At least one activation per turn. At least...

When you have a deck like Omni or Miracles though, things get out of hand.

[CutthroatCasual]

How often do you use resolve a Brainstorm and how often do you use a resolved SDT?

Well most of the time you Brainstorm with Jace so...

[MGB]

Slow players can take their time just as well with preordain/ponder/brainstorm/sylvan library/jace. WOTC just needs to be way more strict about slow-play and give judges more power to punish for it.

Look, you can play slowly with any deck in any format. But SDT decks are slow by their very nature. Any time you have repeated activations and repeated Brainstorm effects for one mana means that you increase alot more thinking and decision-making and thus TIME into the game.

If you ban Top, a huge majority of these time-consuming processes are just ABSENT from the format. The entire Legacy format speeds up, tournaments finish on time, and people have more fun (except the few people who liked to play Miracles, and even these guys will likely move on to some other Ux control deck and not even care in a few months time).

[Barook]

What was the meta penetration of Vengevine Survival before it got banned?

[nedleeds]

What was the meta penetration of Vengevine Survival before it got banned?

You mean the one with Brainstorm to shuffle away extra SotFs?

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckd...p?DeckID=35558

or G/w Maverick

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckd...p?DeckID=35503

or Madness Aggro

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=35427

or Combo

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckd...p?DeckID=35557

Look ... mid range, aggro, combo decks! They're all different guys! Survival is just the fabric of the deck, pillar of the format, skill intensive, background noise.

Top 8 was 4 decks on Survival, 5 on Brainstorm. This was pre-Green Sun's Zenith, Delver, Revoker, Abrupt Decay.

Look at the sideboards ... they are a joke. 1 Faerie Macabre. Survival would be sweet but wouldn't touch Brainstorms level of 80-100% penetration.

[Fatal]

I was thinking about Sensei's Divning Top vs Brainstorm, which ban would open meta.

Let's see which decks runs both cards:

SDT:
Miracles
Nic Fit
Imperial Painter
Doomsday
(some builds of Jund)
12Post

Brainstorm:
All blue decks except Fishes (Merfolks), I'm probably too lazy to write them down - important all DTB except D&T runs it.

I'm not a huge fun of staling with SDT. SDT stalling for 10 years, I think I get used to it, specially after U/w Control became Miracles instead Moat/Humility control.
SDT isn't blue - it's colorless every deck can run it, there are non-blue decks which need them - like Nic Fit or Painter. Brainstorm is blue, sure it's running in Legacy since it's called Legacy and before (1.5) and even on old Extended, but now blue has also much more to offer then card selecting and permission - flying Nacatl, CA with DTT, S&T has much stronger targets etc..

After those thoughts I think hammering brainstorm would give a spin much better then SDT, Miracles should exist, but not so strong as now, banning SDT would just kill it, banning brainstorm would change all decks so same changes for all of them, and miracles still can compete, but you just can't reshuffle Terminus/EtA from opening without Jace, which would give a way for aggro to have a window before SDT stack the pipe.

[CutthroatCasual]

(except the few people who liked to play Miracles, and even these guys will likely move on to some other Ux control deck and not even care in a few months time).

I'm pretty sure it's more than just a "few."

[CutthroatCasual]

I was thinking about Sensei's Divning Top vs Brainstorm, which ban would open meta.

Let's see which decks runs both cards:

SDT:
Miracles
Nic Fit
Imperial Painter
Doomsday
(some builds of Jund)
12Post

Brainstorm:
All blue decks except Fishes (Merfolks), I'm probably too lazy to write them down - important all DTB except D&T runs it.

I'm not a huge fun of staling with SDT. SDT stalling for 10 years, I think I get used to it, specially after U/w Control became Miracles instead Moat/Humility control.
SDT isn't blue - it's colorless every deck can run it, there are non-blue decks which need them - like Nic Fit or Painter. Brainstorm is blue, sure it's running in Legacy since it's called Legacy and before (1.5) and even on old Extended, but now blue has also much more to offer then card selecting and permission - flying Nacatl, CA with DTT, S&T has much stronger targets etc..

After those thoughts I think hammering brainstorm would give a spin much better then SDT, Miracles should exist, but not so strong as now, banning SDT would just kill it, banning brainstorm would change all decks so same changes for all of them, and miracles still can compete, but you just can't reshuffle Terminus/EtA from opening without Jace, which would give a way for aggro to have a window before SDT stack the pipe.

And this post brings us back to the realization that NOTHING WILL GET BANNED. Wizards missed their window to ban Brainstorm. It should have happened years ago.

[MGB]

I was thinking about Sensei's Divning Top vs Brainstorm, which ban would open meta.

Let's see which decks runs both cards:

SDT:
Miracles
Nic Fit
Imperial Painter
Doomsday
(some builds of Jund)
12Post

Imperial Painter, Doomsday, Jund, Nic Fit and 12Post all run SDT as a tertiary tool and no more than a 1-of or 2-of except in the rarest of circumstances.

All of those decks are fringe Tier 2 strategies, and all of those decks could still play at peak efficiency or near peak efficiency even without Top.

Brainstorm:
All blue decks except Fishes (Merfolks), I'm probably too lazy to write them down - important all DTB except D&T runs it.

I'm not a huge fun of staling with SDT. SDT stalling for 10 years, I think I get used to it, specially after U/w Control became Miracles instead Moat/Humility control.
SDT isn't blue - it's colorless every deck can run it, there are non-blue decks which need them - like Nic Fit or Painter. Brainstorm is blue, sure it's running in Legacy since it's called Legacy and before (1.5) and even on old Extended, but now blue has also much more to offer then card selecting and permission - flying Nacatl, CA with DTT, S&T has much stronger targets etc..

After those thoughts I think hammering brainstorm would give a spin much better then SDT, Miracles should exist, but not so strong as now, banning SDT would just kill it, banning brainstorm would change all decks so same changes for all of them, and miracles still can compete, but you just can't reshuffle Terminus/EtA from opening without Jace, which would give a way for aggro to have a window before SDT stack the pipe.

The difference between Brainstorm and Top is that the effects of banning Brainstorm would have wide, and far-ranging implications that aren't entirely predictable, whereas the effects of banning SDT are very simple to predict: No More Tier 1 Miracles deck, but very little else is affected heavily.

[Lemnear]

Hammering Brainstorm would give a spin much better then SDT, Miracles should exist, but not so strong as now, banning SDT would just kill it, banning brainstorm would change all decks so same changes for all of them, and miracles still can compete, but you just can't reshuffle Terminus/EtA from opening without Jace.

I'm so sick of this bullshit popping up every ~3 pages again and again and again. The idiocy in this thread is just amazing.

[JDK]

Well most of the time you Brainstorm with Jace so...

Woot?

[LOLWut]

Yeah, Wizards should totally listen to people who have been playing 1-2 decks over several years for their objective thinking about banning cards. /sarcasm

Better to get input from people who have been playing a format for several weeks, with 1-2 decks, than people who have been playing a format for several years, with 1-2 decks, I guess. Certain ignorance trumps possible bias.

[Adryan]

Very delicious stuff in here. I would love to know the jobs of the majority of people in this thread.

[Lemnear]

Certain ignorance trumps possible bias.

Well put, sir. Remembers me about Brad Nelson claiming Survival + Vengevine kills turn 3 which was quoted several times at Testament that the card is too strong as one of the Main arguments.

I still have never heared of someone dying to Vengevines turn 3.