All B/R update speculation.

[festeringGAB]

what about SBAN MindTwist? :P

[MGB]

Those last few days, I've seen several calls for banning SDT based on "quality of coverage" of all things (basically, watching players activating SDT seems less exciting than players taking turns turning their guys sideways). People are comparing SDT to Second Sunrise in Modern (disclaimer here, I was also against banning Second Sunrise in Modern for "logistic reasons") or to Shahrazad.
Examples : Brian Braun-Duin @SCG (behind SCG paywall)
Ryan Overturf@Quiet Speculation

What are your thoughts here, not really on the subject of banning SDT specifically, but on invoking "logistic" or "coverage quality" reasons for a ban, as far as Legacy is concerned ?

I, personally, would welcome the banning of Sensei's Divining Top with my eyes open and my head bowed in silent, transcendent ecstasy like the Second Coming of our Savior Mr. J.H. Christ.

I've already detailed a number of times on these forums that banning SDT brings nearly zero negatives to the format and brings a number of great positives. There's almost no downside to banning SDT and plenty of upside.

[Memories of the Time]

I, personally, would welcome the banning of Sensei's Divining Top with my eyes open and my head bowed in silent, transcendent ecstasy like the Second Coming of our Savior Mr. J.H. Christ.

I've already detailed a number of times on these forums that banning SDT brings nearly zero negatives to the format and brings a number of great positives. There's almost no downside to banning SDT and plenty of upside.

I'm not against banning SDT, but i fear there won't be a control deck that could compete with delver.deck =/

[Barook]

Power reasons for the ban aside, it has been always questionable why it's acceptable for SDT to stall in Legacy while it wasn't in Extended (and Modern).

Also, looking at the poll, we've come full circle.

I'm fully expecting a DTT ban (otherwise, screw this format for the time being, and fuck Erik Lauer for being a lazy PoS). SDT has a 50% chance to go either way.

The more interesting question is what gets unbanned in their stupid "prisoner exchange"-style bans. Arguments for Mindtwist/Black Vise/Earthcraft could be all made, although my money is on Black Vise and Earthcraft as "new deck enablers bla bla bla".

[iamajellydonut]

There's almost no downside to banning SDT

Except that, quite contrary to popular belief, many people actually enjoy Miracles and/or playing with Top.

Though it may be what you consider to be hell on wheels, the truth is that so many more people consider it a fucking blast to play with.

[testing32]

Power reasons for the ban aside, it has been always questionable why it's acceptable for SDT to stall in Legacy while it wasn't in Extended (and Modern).

Also, looking at the poll, we've come full circle.

I'm fully expecting a DTT ban (otherwise, screw this format for the time being, and fuck Erik Lauer for being a lazy PoS). SDT has a 50% chance to go either way.

The more interesting question is what gets unbanned in their stupid "prisoner exchange"-style bans. Arguments for Mindtwist/Black Vise/Earthcraft could be all made, although my money is on Black Vise and Earthcraft as "new deck enablers bla bla bla".

I agree with your assessment. Banning DTT won't do anything. Banning Top would shake things up quite a bit though.

[wcm8]

the truth is that so many more people consider it a fucking blast to play with.

We call such people sadists.

[Crimhead]

I dislike bans for logistic reasons, but I also dislike matches going to time and being decided prematurely. It's a lesser of two evils question, but for me logistic based bans are worse than draws and ill-decided matches; certainly when SDT is a necessary support for the only traditional hard-control deck viable in today's meta. That's just my opinion.

I do think this is a bad time to be asking this question! SDT is the central pillar in an omni-present deck which many people hate with a passion and/or feel is oppressively OP. People want Miracles nixed so strongly that some would welcome its banning forany reason.

For a better discussion on logistic based bans, choose a card which casuses logistic problems but which nobody would possibly want banned for any other reason (or hold off and ask again if and when SDT falls somewhat out of favour). Given the current state of Legacy, you simply aren't going to get many unbiased opinions on anything which relates to the banning of Top.

[CorwinB]

I dislike bans for logistic reasons, but I also dislike matches going to time and being decided prematurely. It's a lesser of two evils question, but for me logistic based bans are worse than draws and ill-decided matches; certainly when SDT is a necessary support for the only traditional hard-control deck viable in today's meta. That's just my opinion.

I do think this is a bad time to be asking this question! SDT is the central pillar in an omni-present deck which many people hate with a passion and/or feel is oppressively OP. People want Miracles nixed so strongly that some would welcome its banning forany reason.

For a better discussion on logistic based bans, choose a card which casuses logistic problems but which nobody would possibly want banned for any other reason (or hold off and ask again if and when SDT falls somewhat out of favour). Given the current state of Legacy, you simply aren't going to get many unbiased opinions on anything which relates to the banning of Top.

Fair enough (and for the record, I agree with your position on logistic bans), but I mentioned SDT because it is the plat du jour as far as banning talk is concerned, and as such relevant to the conversation. I'm not sure there are other cards that can cause the issues people have with SDT that see regular play in Legacy.

[nedleeds]

Banning DTT will do almost nothing other than shuffle the deck chairs among the dominant Brainstorm combo deck, the dominant Brainstorm control deck and the dominant Brainstorm aggro deck. Treasure Cruise's banning really didn't do much in the eyes of people not interested in masturbating with the same 8-16 cantrips for 45 minutes and playing free spells.

[Gheizen64]

Banning sdt would be stupid because it would be another victim of the cantrip cartel and the cantrip cartel would still roam free zzzz

Not to mention it's one of the few good manipukation tools outside of blue,like sotf before it. If you have to Ban it just rename the format bluegacy and be done with it

[nedleeds]

It's old extended, banning Hypnotic Specter, then Mana Vault, then Dark Ritual ... and Necro was still the best aggro deck, the best combo deck, and (Oath aside) the best control deck. By the time they banned the card with 70% usage nobody cared, and they were numb from the staleness.

[Barook]

Banning sdt would be stupid because it would be another victim of the cantrip cartel and the cantrip cartel would still roam free zzzz

Not to mention it's one of the few good manipukation tools outside of blue,like sotf before it. If you have to Ban it just rename the format bluegacy and be done with it

Barely any deck outside of blue utilizes SDT as manipulation tool. We're talking about the 3-4% non-Miracle decks (and 1-2% non-blue decks) of the entire meta here. The collateral damage is neglectable in the grand scheme of things.

SDT is best utilized in blue decks, just like many other cards that are absorbed by blue, like Mental Misstep or REB/Pyroblast.

[CutthroatCasual]

Tricky one. Miracles and SDT in particular are responsible for a large chunk of matches going to time and ending in draws in compeditive Environment and this became even worse now that Miracles is a top contender in the metagame and presenting ~17% of the metagame. In Lille I barely finished a match against a Miracles pilot in time, despite me playing fucking storm, because he was using SDT every eot and after every Fetchland he cracked on top of using it to setup Counterbalance which means that he was looking at the top 3 cards and tanking AT LEAST TWICE per cycle and taking a minute off the clock for each turn cycle. No one should be surprised if the card gets flak if you see this bullshit several times over a weekend on camera

Call a judge. It shouldn't take more than 10-15 seconds to resolve a routine spin-Top. By routine I mean EOT or after a fetch. A non-routine one would be if the other guy resolves a spell and it changes the entire boardstate. Those spins should still resolve in less than 30 sec anyway.

[Memories of the Time]

Barely any deck outside of blue utilizes SDT as manipulation tool. We're talking about the 3-4% non-Miracle decks (and 1-2% non-blue decks) of the entire meta here. The collateral damage is neglectable in the grand scheme of things.

SDT is best utilized in blue decks, just like many other cards that are absorbed by blue, like Mental Misstep or REB/Pyroblast.

Mentor? =D
100% Agreed

[nedleeds]

Barely any deck outside of blue utilizes SDT as manipulation tool. We're talking about the 3-4% non-Miracle decks (and 1-2% non-blue decks) of the entire meta here. The collateral damage is neglectable in the grand scheme of things.

SDT is best utilized in blue decks, just like many other cards that are absorbed by blue, like Mental Misstep or REB/Pyroblast.

Barely any decks exist outside of blue period. Brainstorm is a 4 of in 80% of the field? So it's rather self fulfilling to point out that top is used primarily in blue decks. Everything is used primarily in blue decks. All collateral damage is negligible outside of the 80%, I mean if they banned Swamp it would have less impact than top.

[Barook]

Barely any decks exist outside of blue period. Brainstorm is a 4 of in 80% of the field? So it's rather self fulfilling to point out that top is used primarily in blue decks. Everything is used primarily in blue decks. All collateral damage is negligible outside of the 80%, I mean if they banned Swamp it would have less impact than top.

Top feeds the prime anti-creature deck of the format. With it gone, I expect the blue penetration would be reduced to a certain extend, although it would still stay at a retarded high level.

And Top was never utilized that much outside of blue decks, even before the format started to go full retard with Innistrad.

[MGB]

Call a judge. It shouldn't take more than 10-15 seconds to resolve a routine spin-Top. By routine I mean EOT or after a fetch. A non-routine one would be if the other guy resolves a spell and it changes the entire boardstate. Those spins should still resolve in less than 30 sec anyway.

I'm sorry but this is just unrealistic and silly to expect the few Judges that work Legacy events to attend to every Miracles player playing slowly.

It is such a strain on tournament organizers and judges to be expected to watch over these situations when simply banning a single card can eliminate 80%+ of these problems by itself. Legacy judges around the world would benefited by this ban so much! '

And not to mention, if Legacy judges are freed from having to "watch for slow play", then they are far more available to handle other problems that need attention, and thus the overall tournament experience will be improved for everyone.

[nedleeds]

Top feeds the prime anti-creature deck of the format. With it gone, I expect the blue penetration would be reduced to a certain extend, although it would still stay at a retarded high level.

And Top was never utilized that much outside of blue decks, even before the format started to go full retard with Innistrad.

I'm saying I feel like top would be played outside of blue decks if Brainstorm wasn't around to break the Miracle mechanic. It's a good card, it can provide consistency at a slow pace. It's fantastic with Land Tax, it's fantastic with Veteran Explorer. It's just pointless to play those cards because Brainstorm breaks the Miracle mechanic so fucking savagely. Brainstorm feeds the prime anti-creature deck of the format. Nice double Terminus opener. It also feeds the prime combo deck (Omniape), the prime aggro deck (Delver).

[MGB]

I'm saying I feel like top would be played outside of blue decks if Brainstorm wasn't around to break the Miracle mechanic. It's a good card, it can provide consistency at a slow pace. It's fantastic with Land Tax, it's fantastic with Veteran Explorer. It's just pointless to play those cards because Brainstorm breaks the Miracle mechanic so fucking savagely. Brainstorm feeds the prime anti-creature deck of the format. Nice double Terminus opener. It also feeds the prime combo deck (Omniape), the prime aggro deck (Delver).

How much weaker would Omnitell be without Brainstorm?