Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
I don't know what to tell you if you don't think the mix of top decks we have right now represents a wide variety of approaches to the game! It seems to be obviously true to me and obviously false to you, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree.Originally Posted by Stevestamopz
If you want Brainstorm to get banned, just play a Brainstorm deck. The more people that play Brainstorm decks, the more 32/32 Brainstorm top 8's we have, the sooner Brainstorm is likely to be banned. The people who do the most work at keeping Brainstorm legal are the players who don't play the card.
There are lots of cards I want banned, but I don't know of banning them would be healthy. True-Name Nemesis is a kick in the balls to decks I enjoy, but now Merfolk (which was huge when I started and then disappeared) is making a resurgence. I like tribal. I want to see it do well. In a different sense, I want DTT banned - the fact that blue gets the best toys sticks in my craw. At the same time, if all "blue" decks move towards a certain shell, that can only mean good things, because it makes that strategy much easier to attack. Now blue decks are stuffing their decks with air instead of business, and Thalia, Chalice, and prison strategies (in theory) are good.
In that vein, I want unbannings, and not ones that are 'safe.' Sure, Earthcraft should come off. So should Black Vise. But would those matter? Give me Survival. Give me Goblin Recruiter. Give me broken toys.
I want legacy to be more like chess than poker. Randomness and luck is a negative thing for me in magic, its not fun. Ah, got to love brainstorm.
Dual lands aren't going anywhere. If anything, nonblue duals will pick up in price. Nobody is selling their dual lands; you aren't losing value unless you cash out on Tuesday. Some idiots will out of spite, probably. But they're DUAL LANDS. They'll recover in a few months. Might drop the vendor prices a little bit, but people who are waiting to buy in will have more incentive. Same with FOW.
Combo is still combo. Oops, SI, Belcher, Dredge are nonblue combo decks that get a meta boost. ANT/TES will test weaker cantrips, I doubt they will completely vanish.
Thoughtseize is rotating out of Standard, the increased Eternal supply will counteract the possible price jump.
Blue has been the most played color in Legacy since 1953. It's the fact that your deck comes with a prebuilt 12-card Legacy kit that sucks.
Vintage recovered from the Brainstorm restriction. No reason Legacy can't.
I said this 50 pages ago.
Unban Balance!! :)
What number are we shooting for exactly? Given that there are always players, even players who call magic their profession, who insist on going against the grain, Brainstorm has reached a level of ubiquity that I didn't think was actually possible. Four years ago it was above Skullclamp-in-standard numbers and no one batted an eye. If current trends continue, it will be unrestricted Black Lotus by this time next year. All the arguments, data, and prognostications have become a waste of time. You're asking rednecks to stop eating beef.
I never said that they were leaving, but I just bought an unlimited Savannah for 40 bucks. I can't help but think that with Brainstorm gone, my revised volcanics drop to 2008 levels (80 each). Cool for those who want them now but can't afford to pay the high costs, but for myself and all other true blue players (see what I did there?), may feel differently, as you might imagine.
FTFYCombo is still combo. Oops, SI, Belcher, Dredge are nonblue combo decks that get a (HUGE) meta boost. ANT/TES will test weaker cantrips, I doubt they will completely vanish.
Sure. For a while. Eventually, though, dealers and a growing number of eternal and modern players will soak them up and again the price will rise, especially if Brainstorm gets the ban hammer.Thoughtseize is rotating out of Standard, the increased Eternal supply will counteract the possible price jump.
Pre-built? Brainstorm has been a favorite of mine since before legacy was even a thing. I've played since the days of 1.5 and when FoW was in Extended, so for some the work has been done for them, but I, as a dedicated blue mage since a lifetime ago, have earned the right to play these cards. I enjoy them. If you don't like brainstorm, prove it. Drop the cash for a set of Chains of Mephistophiles and play the game. I don't care if I lose, as long as I get to play the cards I love. That's why I'm a proponent of this format. It is literally ALL I play. It is also the only format I am left with that will allow me to play my set of silver-signed, Japanese Ice Age reprint Brainstorms (they are so cool, and I didn't buy them signed, I got them signed).Blue has been the most played color in Legacy since 1953. It's the fact that your deck comes with a prebuilt 12-card Legacy kit that sucks.
It's not about recovery. The format is "healthy" as long as there are at least roughly as many new players joining as there are leaving. It's about maintaining a level of enjoyment. Something the format is currently showing is that people enjoy brainstorm, and maybe I'm biased, but 32/32 says I think not.Vintage recovered from the Brainstorm restriction. No reason Legacy can't.
From my phone. I do my best, dammit!
@Secretly.A.Bee
If you bought your Duals for 10 cents each, or however much they cost back in 1999, why do you care if they tank? This is a card game, not the stock-market. Wouldn't you much rather have Legacy FNM's and a massive influx of new players, be they both returning older players or players who want to play something a bit more interesting than standard/draft?
Your whole post just reeks of self righteous selfishness.
So what you're saying is that if Legacy Top 8's turned into 32/32 Siege Rhino 2.0, I get to sit back and laugh because I bought the cards for a junk shell and "earned" the right to shit on the format?
Just so we're clear: answering in the positive or the negative will make you look like something of a twit.
Also, as much as everyone in the M:tG community likes to play finance, you all know real markets exist, right? You don't need to play with your stocks, children.
I too am a "true" magic player. I only enjoy playing with my cards if I know they're worth more than what they were when I paid for them.
Edit: nm. Go buy Risk. It's essentially what you would prefer this game to be.
From my phone. I do my best, dammit!
Last edited by Secretly.A.Bee; 09-26-2015 at 03:09 AM.
The whole meta statistics argument for banning brainstorm is worthless imo. Why is "variance" more valued than plain good gameplay?
I think people aren't opposed to the game having tools to reduce variance. People (who want a ban) feel that there should be more options for variance reduction; and a better balance of power between those options. Outside of cantrips, these are the following viable options:
- Loam (card advantage) plus Crop Rotation & Gamble (Tutors).
- Glimpse (card advantage) plus NO & GSZ (tutors).
- Redundancy
Options 1 & 2 only fuel one deck each, where option 3 fuels Burn, Merfolk, and D&T (and one could argue that Burn isn't very good). Other consistency tools like GZS + KotR; or GSZ + Bob + BBE, are generally outclassed by Cantrips and the other more specialised engines (though GSZ + KotR + Loam might be competitive - 4cc Loam hasn't been sufficiently put to the test). Raw redundancy also enables fewer decks than it did in the past.
Personally I don't care as much how the top decks are able to mitigate variance and achieve consistency. To me it's much more important what those decks are trying to consistently do. How those decks interact with one another, what threats and answers they run, and the angles from which they approach the game are (to me) the defining characteristics of the decks and the true measure of diversity/variety.
But for other people, how a deck accomplishes consistency is apparently a much bigger deal, and they want to see more variety in these engines - particularly with regards to midrange and "good-stuff" enablers. Ultimately nobody is right or wrong here - we just want/expect different things from Legacy and measure its health by different criteria.
It would be nice If we could get along and discuss our differences of opinion in a productive way with the goal of better understanding rather than trying to prove who's opinion is better. But a number of factors are preventing this:
- Some players don't care about format health and only care about the positioning of the deck(s) they like. This applies to both sides of the arguments.
- Some people are emotionally (and financially) invested in the future of the banned list (with regards to certain staples). Such emotions can increase hostility and reduce calm rationality.
- Some people are just less capable of logical/critical thinking (and/or less capable of expressing/interpreting these concepts with language).
- Some people are intentionally disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
- Some people are just trolls looking to stir the shit.
If we could eliminate these problems we could have quality discourse about what makes different match-ups diverse, what's good for the format, etc. A man can dream.
Variance is a big draw for this game. Some strategists prefer Bridge over Chess (myself included). Variety =/= poorer game play.
The problem with most meta stats is that they don't necessarily reflect a deck's actual positioning. Inclusion in the DTB section =/= being tier one. This is explicit in the DTB philosophy thread (1st post).
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
Well, what i hate the most in this game is by far 1-mulligan 2-manascrew 3-manaflood. Its just not fun at all losing without being able to play actual magic, which is something brainstorm helps a great deal with. So i really hope it never ever gets the axe, i wold pretty much be left with nothing (i dont enjoy any other format, limited is cool but you only get to actually play like half of the games).
Even Lands.dec gets mana screwed once in a blue moon. This variance will never go away 100%.
That said, Lands mulligans very well - Loam makes for some speedy recoveries! GSZ + Dryad Arbor helps decks get land when they need it but a utility creature or threat when they don't'. Burn sometimes runs mana-sink options. Vial helps mitigate mana-screw, and if played with Wasteland and either Port or Mutavault, mana flood is not so bad either. Frankly Ponder + Preordain will still go along way to fix draws and overcome land heavy or land light openers.
I'm fine with BS in the format and I think legacy is great. But I reject the idea that without BS the format devolves into a crap shoot.
Also, mulliganing well is a skill. If most of the best decks rarely need to mulligan, I'm not sure that enhances game play. Risk management makes for interesting dilemmas. Of course we can't have risk management without an element of (calculated) risk!
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
What i really don't understand is that people who defend the ubiquitous shell of 4x brainstorm 4x ponder 4x dig do so arguing that legacy is healthy because there is strategic diversity.
I hope you realize that there would be strategic diversity also without brainstorm in the format. In modern there is strategic diversity and they don't have any of the good cantrips. The only peculiar thing brainstorm guarantees is enabling broken decks with situational cards (miracle cards, daze, delver....) just because you can get rid of unwanted things in your hand when you want.
So, would you rather play a format with strategic diversity where you have to play at least the same 12 cards in any deck, or a format with strategic diversity where you can do a lot more things without this restriction ? If your answer is the first, well, honestly i don't think you are a person worth discussing with.
Sometimes reading opinions in this thread actually hurts.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
- Some people want a minimalist and hands-off banned list out of principle. This means not banning cards unless the format actually lacks strategic diversity. This is more or less where I'm at.
- Some people feel (right or wrong) that strong cantrips enable more diverse strategies than they are holding back. Really this is too complex to determine from theory alone, but people have different hunches/suspicions.
You may disagree with both of these perspectives, but you should at least be able to understand/sympathize with them. Otherwise you are not making a genuine effort to see the opposing POV; which would make you the person who is not worth discussing with.
Eh? I play Lands, and that deck is a beast. Also, as I said, the degree of strategic diversity is in question. We can't accurately predict the state of the meta if highly played staples were to disappear. The choice is not as clear-cut as you present it to be.
Supremacy 2020 is the modern era game of nuclear brinksmanship! My blog:
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com
You can play Lands.dec in EDH too! My primer:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...lara-lands-dec
Never thought I'd say this, but this post is very good. A nuanced and very balanced breakdown of where people are coming from.
One breakdown about the strategic diversity thing: Most people seem to define it as "when people are going to win the game and/or whether the fundamental strategy is fast beatdown, grinding or broken things". I would like to break it down a bit further, or at least add color to the picture.
First I'll hop onto fighting game land. On the surface, Street Fighter 2 and 4 look really similar and people will often say that both are too defensive. Yet people will usually hate one and love the other game. Why? Because they focus on different kinds of defense - in 4, getting in on someone from across the screen can be laughably easy, but once you've closed the distance, actually landing a hit on them is very complicated. SF2 is just the opposite: If someone's on in your face, you're shitting your pants because you can't do shit. But unlike SF4, tools to control your own space - to prevent the opponent from getting close - are really, really, really good. So it ends up being the case that talking about "defensiveness" doesn't actually speak of the issues 2 players have with 4, for example. The "defensiveness" is too high a level of abstraction, the words become too generic, too big. They end up meaning so much they lose the ability to discriminate.
I think it's kind of similar in this case - people are speaking of a really, really high level, high abstraction concept about strategic diversity, it is true enough at the highest level of abstraction. But take a step down the abstraction ladder, when what's important is not only the ends you want to achieve, but the tools and methods you achieve them with. Not down examining game state specific tactics let alone the mechanisms of a card's operation. Higher than that. Step 3 on a 4-step ladder.
At that level of definition, one of the most important defining factors of a strategy is the engine (if any) that powers the deck. Different engines have a very different feel to them and are an important focus of interest for people. At that level, you can't just help but notice you want to be playing the cantrip cartel as the enabling engine in all but a small number of narrow (albeit competitive) cases. It doesn't help that the engine isn't colorless but blue, and that running colors has actual deckbuilding costs, which further restricts what you're likely to want in a well-tuned deck. Legacy could be a beautiful format with a lot of different interesting engines to explore, but practically it's Cartel (everything), Loam (4c Loam, Lands), Elves or bust, and Elves hasn't really been the best-positioned deck in a long time.
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