All B/R update speculation.

[guillemnicolau]

You are probably not aware but you are also just repeating one the same irrelevant arguments that people keep brining up time and again. Saying that people would just go on and complain about the other cantrips in the format is nothing short of ridiculous seeing how Brainstorm allows you to play highly situational cards with high impact; something that all other cantrips are very bad at or at least require some building around such as Top. And this comes from someone who doesn't mind whether Brainstorm stays legal or is banned...your "reasoning" just makes anyone who really wants to discuss things open-minded look really bad when talking about Brainstorm.

It's just that I don't like when people just post "40/40 brainstorms in random top8, please ban", and I gave that random "ponder, top" argument to answer it.
But I really believe that Brainstorm is a card that rewards good players (not like Show and Tell, to give an example), and that is really good, but can be fought. And people who think that is too good, maybe should just play it, I don't know, what's the problem with playing it?

Also, when was the last time they released that Chess expansion pack?

That was just an example of a game known by all of us to explain my point of view..

[Ace/Homebrew]

Also, when was the last time they released that Chess expansion pack?

Knightmare Chess by Steve Jackson Games.

All interesting table games have some playable items that are better than others, so what? That's part of the game's identity. I don't see anybody complaining ... because in Chess the queen is too good.

It was actually the opposite...

Initially it could move only one square diagonally. About 1300 its move was enhanced to allow it to move two squares with jump onto a same-colored square for its first move, to help the sides to come into contact sooner.

During the 16th century the queen's move took its modern form as a combination of the move of the rook and the current move of the bishop.

Source

[nedleeds]

I suspect that if Dig isn't a problem now then it would be with Brainstorm and Ponder banned. Weakening the cheap card selection options just makes Dig that much more powerful relative to what's available, and I don't think that Sylvan Library, Top, Standstill, Ancestral Visions, or Preordain+Opt/Serum Visions/Sleight is likely to compete effectively with Thought Scour+Mental Note+Snapcaster Mage+Dig. We already saw something similar during the late Cruise era and were luckily spared the worst of it. Without Brainstorm and Ponder I don't think other CA/CQ engines would be able to keep up.

I think Dig would still be good. But there's good, and there's a card so absurd that 64 of 64 deck spots possible were taken by it in a non-trivial size event. 32 of 32 were taken by it in a grand prix. 28 of 32 were taken by it in a prior grand prix, the 8th deck packing 6 red blasts (painter). Brainstorm going would hurt 2 card derp combo pretty badly, it would hurt the miracle mechanic. Maybe Dig could pick up the slack but again you are still stuck with 2 Omni in your opener with no way to flush them. Only time would tell but I would postulate that blue shell decks would lose some percentage points and you'd see less ponder/dig because there might actually be (GASP!) a deck without blue in it in a GP top 8. So many of you are discounting just how much better Brainstorm is than Treasure Cruise, DTT, and even Ponder and those 3 cards are REALLY good.

**** Every Other (non basic land) Card in the History of 1.5 With this level of dominance has been banned ****

If I wanted a format with 10-15 slots that are basically must plays, I'd play Vintage. Which I do. Legacy is not Vintage. Vintage is the dark place where the most absurd cards in Magics history lurk. 1.5 is a place where I can use cards from all the sets I've ever bought without the burden of Magics most absurd mistakes.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

I think Dig would still be good. But there's good, and there's a card so absurd that 64 of 64 deck spots possible were taken by it in a non-trivial size event. 32 of 32 were taken by it in a grand prix. 28 of 32 were taken by it in a prior grand prix, the 8th deck packing 6 red blasts (painter). Brainstorm going would hurt 2 card derp combo pretty badly, it would hurt the miracle mechanic. Maybe Dig could pick up the slack but again you are still stuck with 2 Omni in your opener with no way to flush them. Only time would tell but I would postulate that blue shell decks would lose some percentage points and you'd see less ponder/dig because there might actually be (GASP!) a deck without blue in it in a GP top 8. So many of you are discounting just how much better Brainstorm is than Treasure Cruise, DTT, and even Ponder and those 3 cards are REALLY good.

**** Every Other (non basic land) Card in the History of 1.5 With this level of dominance has been banned ****

If I wanted a format with 10-15 slots that are basically must plays, I'd play Vintage. Which I do. Legacy is not Vintage. Vintage is the dark place where the most absurd cards in Magics history lurk. 1.5 is a place where I can use cards from all the sets I've ever bought without the burden of Magics most absurd mistakes.

X100

Eventually, we'll hit a point where Brainstorm is literally a must-play if one wants to compete. Honestly, brushing off the fact, or acting as though it isn't relevant, that 100% of so many of these top winning lists rely upon Brainstorm is absurd. The entire format is warped around it. Every other time this has happened, the enabling card in question was axed. One single card should not solely define and shape a healthy format, the fact that so many say "Without Brainstorm Legacy would no longer be Legacy" is in itself an indication of how dominant and busted the card is.

[FoolofaTook]

X100

Eventually, we'll hit a point where Brainstorm is literally a must-play if one wants to compete. Honestly, brushing off the fact, or acting as though it isn't relevant, that 100% of so many of these top winning lists rely upon Brainstorm is absurd. The entire format is warped around it. Every other time this has happened, the card was axed. One single card should not solely define and shape a healthy format, the fact that so many say "Without Brainstorm Legacy would no longer be Legacy" is itself an indication of how dominant the card is.

Right, and what we're seeing right now is not normal in that regard. If this percentage of lists had been blue shell in 2010 Brainstorm would have been axed. The question we need to ask is whether or not WotC cares enough about Legacy to take care of the format or whether they have other motives and considerations.

[rufus]

...
But I really believe that Brainstorm is a card that rewards good players (not like Show and Tell, to give an example), and that is really good, but can be fought.
...

How, pray tell, does one effectively fight brainstorm without playing tax effects?

...
And people who think that is too good, maybe should just play it, I don't know, what's the problem with playing it?
...

Considering that's just as true about Treasure Cruise or Black Lotus it's not much of an argument against putting it on the ban list.

[Lemnear]

Eventually, we'll hit a point where Black Lotus and Moxen literally a must-play if one wants to compete in Vintage.

Fixed. Just to show reality and that it's not a problem itself

Honestly, brushing off the fact, or acting as though it isn't relevant, that 100% of so many of these top winning lists rely upon Brainstorm is absurd. The entire format is warped around it. Every other time this has happened, the card was axed.

Wrong. Get the fucking idea out of your head that numbers are the defying parameter or WotC banned FoW and Fetches as well. You don't want that; WotC does not either.

They banned cards which were so effective that they streamlined decks into ONE DIRECTION in big numbers like TC did, turning the whole metagame into a Delver + TC aka aggro/control galore in different colors. They banned Survival because it streamlined all decks with 12+ creatures into Survival decks. They banned T4K in Vintage because it turned all blue decks into T4K/Drain/Tinker decks. Brainstorm has not the effect of streamlining decks in itself and Brainstorm+Ponder fuels in fact very different strategies in Legacy which is something Vintage never offered thanks to the various compact combos in that format which were easy to include in every blue decks in multiples and responsible for WotCs overreaction by restricting 5 blue staples at once

edit:

Right, and what we're seeing right now is not normal in that regard. If this percentage of lists had been blue shell in 2010 Brainstorm would have been axed. The question we need to ask is whether or not WotC cares enough about Legacy to take care of the format or whether they have other motives and considerations.

#ColorEquality #MissAmerica #RecordAttendenceIsNoSignOfPlayersEnjoyingTheFormat

[Stinky-Dinkins]

And people who think that is too good, maybe should just play it, I don't know, what's the problem with playing it?

Because I don't want to have to. Then it's not fun anymore, playing a deck you don't enjoy playing because otherwise you simply can't compete isn't everyone's cup of tea.

[maharis]

2 Combo A
1 Combo B
3 Combo C

5 Control A
1 Control B

2 Tempo A
2 Tempo B

Looks fine to me.

7 archetypes in top 16.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t[C1]=leg&start_date=2010-12-05&end_date=2010-12-05&event_type=SCLO

10 archetypes in top 16. Tempo/aggro, control, midrange, combo all represented.

A card that appears 32/64 times was banned the next week. A card that appeared 44/64 times even then is still running wild and has now reached full saturation.

I think Dig would still be good. But there's good, and there's a card so absurd that 64 of 64 deck spots possible were taken by it in a non-trivial size event. 32 of 32 were taken by it in a grand prix. 28 of 32 were taken by it in a prior grand prix, the 8th deck packing 6 red blasts (painter). Brainstorm going would hurt 2 card derp combo pretty badly, it would hurt the miracle mechanic. Maybe Dig could pick up the slack but again you are still stuck with 2 Omni in your opener with no way to flush them. Only time would tell but I would postulate that blue shell decks would lose some percentage points and you'd see less ponder/dig because there might actually be (GASP!) a deck without blue in it in a GP top 8. So many of you are discounting just how much better Brainstorm is than Treasure Cruise, DTT, and even Ponder and those 3 cards are REALLY good.

**** Every Other (non basic land) Card in the History of 1.5 With this level of dominance has been banned ****

If I wanted a format with 10-15 slots that are basically must plays, I'd play Vintage. Which I do. Legacy is not Vintage. Vintage is the dark place where the most absurd cards in Magics history lurk. 1.5 is a place where I can use cards from all the sets I've ever bought without the burden of Magics most absurd mistakes.

Exactly. If Legacy was meant to be like vintage where grossly overpowered strategies should be dominant, there wouldn't be a banned list. But there is a threshold, so Legacy and Vintage are different.

It's not like WoTC has never managed formats this way. I remember when they made Extended that was basically type II plus dual lands so you could play fun decks without getting screwed by your mana base or blown out by overpowered decks.

You are probably not aware but you are also just repeating one the same irrelevant arguments that people keep brining up time and again. Saying that people would just go on and complain about the other cantrips in the format is nothing short of ridiculous seeing how Brainstorm allows you to play highly situational cards with high impact; something that all other cantrips are very bad at or at least require some building around such as Top. And this comes from someone who doesn't mind whether Brainstorm stays legal or is banned...your "reasoning" just makes anyone who really wants to discuss things open-minded look really bad when talking about Brainstorm.

Also, when was the last time they released that Chess expansion pack?

You are right that Brainstorm's instant speed and interaction with the whole hand top of the library is a key reason it's an auto-4 of.

However, it's getting increasingly difficult to justify not playing decks with 4 ponder as well. New cards only enter this format if they synergize with a cantrip-heavy shell. Cruise, Dig, Mentor, Swiftspear, and Tasigur... are there any other cards from Khans block that have made any amount of a dent in Legacy? And all of them depend on players already filling the GY with noncreature spells. Theros gave us nothing that fits with that strategy so it's panned as a failure. RTR gave us DRS which synergizes with a cantrip/fetch heavy format, INN gave us Snapcaster and Miracles. Even the other cards you could argue have impacted the format in that time -- Abrupt Decay and Liliana of the Veil maybe the only examples -- are neutered by the cantrip engine's ability to help people recover.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

Fixed. Just to show reality and that it's not a problem itself

It is, which is exactly why I don't play Vintage and haven't for years. Legacy and Vintage are designed from the ground-up to be starkly different formats. Vintage lives and breathes on a few broken and overpowered cards. It's getting to that point now in Legacy, with Brainstorm.

Brainstorm has not the effect of streamlining decks in itself and Brainstorm+Ponder fuels in fact very different strategies

Oh please. It enables a relatively tiny handful of strategies to the exclusion of countless others. Even so, you're missing the point - who the Hell wants to play in a format where the only competitive strategies are the "Brainstorm Approved!!!!" strategies?? Lame. Lots do obviously, those who love playing decks powered by Brainstorm. If you do, I'm happy for you - that leaves everyone who doesn't out in the cold.

[Lemnear]

Because I don't want to have to. Then it's not fun anymore, playing a deck you don't enjoy playing because otherwise you simply can't compete isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Seriously, when did you enter Legacy? The format is basically pretty damn blue since Fetchlands and Brainstorm were paired which was in 2002 and the seperate B&R list management aka the birth of modern Legacy in 2004. Complaining about the core of the format for more than a decade is stupid and only next of trying to make your personal idea of "fun" an argument.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

Seriously, when did you enter Legacy? The format is basically pretty damn blue since Fetchlands and Brainstorm were paired which was in 2002 and the seperate B&R list management aka the birth of modern Legacy in 2004. Complaining about the core of the format for more than a decade is stupid and only next of trying to make your personal idea of "fun" an argument.

When? Just last week. I registered here the same month you did just to mess with your head.
I started playing MTG when Revised was released, and have been playing Legacy since its inception as a format.

There's a vast difference between a single color being more powerful (and blue is, but it's always been) and a single card being overwhemingly dominant. Never in the history of the format has such a overwhelming percentage of decks relied upon Brainstorm as their their catalyst. To pretend as though having damn near every winning deck feature a strategy "Brought to you by Brainstorm!" has been par for the course in this format for the past 11 years is fucking asinine.

[Lemnear]

It is, which is exactly why I don't play Vintage and haven't for years. Legacy and Vintage are designed from the ground-up to be starkly different formats. Vintage lives and breathes on a few broken and overpowered cards. It's getting to that point now in Legacy, with Brainstorm.

Are you trying to draw parallels between Brainstorm on the one side and Tinker/YawgmothsWill/AncestralRecall/etc on the other? Set Brainstorm into relation to Moxen and Tinker & Co. in relation to SFM/Delver if you want to have a point for discussion in regards to the cards roles as win-cons or generic support.

Oh please. It enables a relatively tiny handful of strategies to the exclusion of countless others. Even so, you're missing the point - who the Hell wants to play in a format where the only competitive strategies are the "Brainstorm Approved!!!!" strategies?? Lame. Lots do obviously, those who love playing decks powered by Brainstorm. If you do, I'm happy for you - that leaves everyone who doesn't out in the cold.

oh yeah, Brainstorm oppresses Combo, Control, Aggro-Control ... wait! It doesn't?! It fuel them?!?! If you don't want to play in a format which is JUST THAT WAY SINCE ITS INTRODUCTION then be the change you want to see! Don't complain that it's "lame" and not "fun" and despite it's DECADE OF BEING WHAT IT IS, claim it has to change because of your personal taste. Honestly, how is your day going?

[Friendly Mod Reminder: Personal attacks are not okay! One can express one's distaste for another user's arguments constructively, without having to resort to calling them a dummy dumb drop. - A_Z]

[Watersaw]

oh yeah, Brainstorm oppresses Combo, Control, Aggro-Control ... wait! It doesn't?! It fuel them?!?! If you don't want to play in a format which is JUST THAT WAY SINCE ITS INTRODUCTION then be the change you want to see! Don't complain that it's "lame" and not "fun" and despite it's DECADE OF BEING WHAT IT IS, claim it has to change because of your personal taste. Honestly, how is your day going?

To be fair, Dig Through Time kinda does the same thing and people are calling for its head. Different tempo, combo, and control decks have all been known to run it, so it has been proven that it supports multiple types of decks. The only condition being you don't run Rest in Peace and can afford .

Okay, so it doesn't fit into EVERY deck, but you get my point.

[clavio]

Always the same discussion... Brainstorm is a great card that rewards good players and punishes bad players

This is totally untrue. Brainstorm is easy to play, certainly easier than spells like Ponder. Even when there are "skill intensive" Brainstorms it's so powerful that you can't actually fuck it up too badly.

[Teveshszat]

To be fair, Dig Through Time kinda does the same thing and people are calling for its head. Different tempo, combo, and control decks have all been known to run it, so it has been proven that it supports multiple types of decks. The only condition being you don't run Rest in Peace and can afford .

Okay, so it doesn't fit into EVERY deck, but you get my point.

To be fair people are calling for such cards because they are to lazy to think of ways to deal with them. A DDT ban is not justified and all the haters are just people who have given up on the brainstorm hate train and try to hate another blue card because they have to make some card resposible for their difficulties with the format.

[nedleeds]

To be fair, Dig Through Time kinda does the same thing and people are calling for its head. Different tempo, combo, and control decks have all been known to run it, so it has been proven that it supports multiple types of decks. The only condition being you don't run Rest in Peace and can afford .

Okay, so it doesn't fit into EVERY deck, but you get my point.

Let's look at the inception of split legacy, by Brainstorm deck I actually mean a deck with 4 Brainstorms here.

GP Philly 2005 (38%)

3 Brainstorm decks, Brainstorm makes a 12 card appearance.

GP Lille 2006 (50%)

4 Brainstorm decks, 16 card appearance.

GP Columbus 2007 (63%)

5 Brainstorm fueled decks (including 3 flash combo decks, 3 was enough to get Flash banned) 20 appearances.

GP Chicago 2009 (50%)

4 Brainstorm decks, 16 out of 32.

GP Madrid 2010 (63%)

5 Brainstorm decks, Entomb is legal as well, 20 appearances.

GP Columbus 2010 (63%)

5 Brainstorm decks, now we're getting warm.

GP Providence 2011 (75%) heating up!

6 Brainstorm decks at GP Mental Misstep

follow this trend and it's 28/32 at Paris, 32/32 Kyoto and so on.

... also of note 7 of 8 on Mental Misstep was sufficient to get that POS banned ... and then it's all downhill, there's a double DNT / Merfolk top 8 but it's pretty much been a fucking Brainstorm orgy since.

[nedleeds]

This is totally untrue. Brainstorm is easy to play, certainly easier than spells like Ponder. Even when there are "skill intensive" Brainstorms it's so powerful that you can't actually fuck it up too badly.

Always the same discussion, Brainstorm worshippers acting like its the holy fucking grail of skill, and the only thing keeping donkeys from winning at legacy, never actually refuting or debating it's power level which is what the banned list is about. Yawgmoth's Will is a real skill tester also.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I wonder what would happen if WOTC decided to print sorcery-speed Brainstorm in the next set, and then banned the real thing. Would it be as dominant? It would certainly make Thoughtseize/Hymn/etc. relevant cards again, while still enabling a lot of the plays that make real Brainstorm powerful. However, being at sorcery speed it would require some planning and - dare I say - skill to be used correctly rather than the default "Brainstorm in response to whatever I don't like" play that is almost always the correct choice.

EDIT: Of course, this would likely have to be in a special product, or at least wait until fetches are out of standard to avoid wrecking it.

[Ellomdian]

The tragedy of the blue shell is that it has invalidated a huge number of cards that are powerful enough in a vacuum to play in Legacy but not powerful or synergistic enough to get one of the limited slots available in the blue shell.

No, the 'tragedy' is that you feel that the health and 'fun' of an eternal format is arbitrarily increased by increasing the percentage of playables. I'm sorry that your favorite shitty card du-jour was outmoded sometime in the mid '00's.

Like playing a spell before you tap your mana or the change to the mull rule from having to take all your mulls at once and then pass priority so your opponent can do the same?

I mean, 2 of the best procedural changes to tournament play for both clarity of communication and fairness, ever? Sure, I'm good with them, even if people (falsely...) believe they resulted directly from specific notorious incidents. And, FWIW, most people don't understand how to cast a goddamned spell anyways - up until last year, I bet you would have incorrectly used Convoke, according to the letter of the rules. The reality of paper Magic is that people really don't appreciate how many "SHORTCUTS" (emphasis mine, because it's an important word when discussing rules) are actually taken in a 'normal' game.

<DoubleTap>

Now removing Mana burn because of bad players would probably be a example of worsening the game because of bad player abilities.

Removing mana burn made cards like Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Mishra's Workshop, Mana Drain, etc. less challenging to play as they made you also consider life lost of you had excess mana. They also often required (or at least suggested) certain deckbuilding concessions to give yourself mana sinks if you were likely to end up with excess mana floating around on a regular basis. I'm still not sure how I feel about the elimination of mana burn.

I love it when people complain about removing Mana Burn. It reminds me of when people complained about removing Interrupts. And complaining that people don't need to run Sinks anymore; no, watching people Voltaic Key a Voltaic Key was super elegant. These are the kind of people who have CML's Durdle Manifesto tattoo'd on their arms, in some obscure language, and they correct your pronunciation of stupid words.

Getting rid of mana burn was a simple power-level upgrade for a lot of old cards, and it only made, like, 2 cards worse. Changing the wording of the cards you mentioned to "you may add up to" would have accomplished the same thing, and it would have been in line with the templating changes that were popular at the time. It also grossly simplified phase transitions, since you didn't have to track whether you were floating mana into an open stack in response to an end-of-phase action.

<Reload>

How, pray tell, does one effectively fight brainstorm without playing tax effects?

Given the majority of people in this discussion, it's certainly not by showing up to your LGS and actually playing Magic!

How, pray tell, does one effectively fight Reanimator and Dredge strategies without playing Graveyard Interaction?

Most of the people I know who play DnT are ecstatic that Thalia is a walking, talking Sphere.

Exactly. If Legacy was meant to be like vintage where grossly overpowered strategies should be dominant, there wouldn't be a banned list. But there is a threshold, so Legacy and Vintage are different.

It's not like WoTC has never managed formats this way. I remember when they made Extended that was basically type II plus dual lands so you could play fun decks without getting screwed by your mana base or blown out by overpowered decks.

Why is this so hard?!?!?! Vintage and Legacy are not the same format - they have separate ban lists, largely because the play patterns influenced by the available cards in each format have particular strengths and weaknesses. However, for the purposes of this discussion, they are both 'Eternal' formats, as is Modern - by definition, the formats will get more 'Powerful' and have fewer 'Best' cards over time. WotC manages Modern (so far) by purging the top of the list regularly, leading to the kind of format people believe Legacy would be if Brainstorm were banned - one were there is a higher percentage of 'playable' cards.

Either you want to play (or let's be honest about the context of this discussion, armchair QB) a format with the best available cards underneath an arbitrary 'Fair' waterline, or you want that waterline to be lowered continuously.

And when the Hell was Extended "Type 2 and Dual lands?" Because the Dual Land exception to extended allowed me to play Stasis in decks with cards from Planeshift, and an Enchantment from Ice Age and a Sorcery from Urza's Destiny. I may have to put on my Internet-Archaeologist hat for more discussion on the Good Old Days if this requires more discussion...

He's (lemnear) so full of shit...
... also of note 7 of 8 on Mental Misstep was sufficient to get that POS banned ... and then it's all downhill, there's a double DNT / Merfolk top 8 but it's pretty much been a fucking Brainstorm orgy since.

I feel like I need to add "Mentions Mental Misstep in a BnR discussion outside of documented context" to my list of Legacy Logical Boogeymen, right next to "Argues that Survival isn't OP."

You effectively neuter your argument when you mention it, since volumes of digital ink have been spilled, from the actual source, about why they banned it.

Always the same discussion, Brainstorm worshippers acting like its the holy fucking grail of skill, and the only thing keeping donkeys from winning at legacy, never actually refuting or debating it's power level which is what the banned list is about. Yawgmoth's Will is a real skill tester also.

I would hope that it's pretty well documented that I fall into neither camp (since you omitted the other one, you know, the ones who claim that Brainstorm sodomized them at an event 5 years ago because it wouldn't let them win with their sweet, sweet Dragon tribal deck.) I don't actually have to even try to refute it's power level, since it's clearly one of the most (if not the most) abstractly powerful thing you can do in the format. All I have to do is state that I don't actually have a problem with it, since that's the nature of Eternal formats, and that I enjoy playing the format (even though I don't cast Brainstorms on the Reg, currently, gasp!) A decade ago, I had trouble finding any kind of traction getting people interested in Legacy, and now I can expect to find a dozen people available for a sanctioned event pretty much weekly.

It continues to amuse me that the majority of people who scream for blood and post 8/8 16/16 whatever results are people who haven't played a sanctioned game at one of those tournaments in years. Guess what? The people who play in a LOT of tournaments are the people who typically value consistency over power level. If people who championed non-Brainstorm strategies bothered to play in more than an event or 2 a year, they might seen increased Win percentages, and we'd have more non-Brainstorm decks placing highly.