Okay, here is what you don't seem to understand about Brainstorm. It is one of the pillars of this format. Take it away and the format literally collapses.
Vintage is the only format that has pillars. The pillars in vintage is what screwed vintage up, only because if you’re not playing with a pillar you are screwed. If brainstorm was a pillar in legacy then there should be no argument that legacy is a 56 card format and 4 brainstorms.
Force of will is not a pillar in vintage, if it was the format would have folded 5 years ago (based on SCG’s prediction in their blog asking wizards to reprint FoW). It is true that force of will can screw over 1 & 2 turn combo decks but players had been using other alternatives. like daze… and in a sense daze had been more of a combo stopper then force of will.
Dual are also no pillar. Players do play mono color decks and some are accepting shock lands as a cheap alternative.
If brainstorm is a pillar (as you suggest) then what are the other pillars? If bolt was banned, format will still exist and burn still playable. If dual lands were banned, players will be playing shocks, I would also believe the format will still exist if FoW is banned, only because players had been using alternatives.
@Land
I do not believe for a moment that if you take away Brainstorm the format collapses. I would like to see any proof you have of such an event waiting to be.
Also your pillars are wrong, in no given order:
Duals
Land control (Wasteland, Port)
Answers (Force, Decay)
Brainstorm is just another card, it's no more a pillar than Goblin Lackey is.
We dont have pillars in legacy. Vintage is the only format with pillars (and that pillar topic that wizards made was to defend why Oath of Druids, workshop, mana drain are never going to be restricted.
I do agree that brainstorm is equal to goblin lackey
By Pillars, I mean Legacy would be very much reduced as a format if you took out Force, Waste or the Duals. I feel like these cards are the defining aspects of this format. The mana to play what you like, the answer to stop the greed and the police card that let's it all happen without letting it lose control.
It's not the same as Vintage I agree, but I would be happy to call those three things "Pillars" of Legacy without a hint of irony or sarcasm.
By Pillars, I mean Legacy would be very much reduced as a format if you took out Force, Waste or the Duals.
I guess we'll see in 10 years. I do suspect those cards will reach a point that players will choose an alternate card (therefore you'll be looking at a soft ban)
I feel like these cards are the defining aspects of this format. The mana to play what you like, the answer to stop the greed and the police card that let's it all happen without letting it lose control.
The defining aspect of legacy is the ability to make almost any deck with the most cards MTG has to offer that can compete with almost any other deck. Modern has nothing of a card pool compaired to Legacy and Vintage dont have the open freedom of creativity.
It's not the same as Vintage I agree, but I would be happy to call those three things "Pillars" of Legacy without a hint of irony or sarcasm.
I think everybody else wants to do the same, but when I read the article it seemed to me a confession on why they cannot restrict such and such in vintage.
The pillars have a pretty clear meaning in Vintage. They are the cards around which the top tier decks are built. Traditionally, they are Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, Mana Drain, Null Rod, and Dark Ritual (although this last one has fallen to the wayside of late). Using any of these cards in a deck tends to discourage using the other cards in the same deck. For example, decks running Workshops generally won't run Drain or Ritual. In that way, the pillars are isolated from one another. This isolation helps to give definition to the individual decks within Vintage.
Cards like dual lands aren't considered pillars, just like the Power 9 aren't considered pillars. These cards are certainly staples. They certainly define the eternal formats as a whole, but they don't particularly give unique definitions to the individual decks within a format. When talking about pillars, you can ask and answer questions like, "What is typically in a Workshop deck?" But it doesn't make sense to ask, "What is typically in a dual land deck?"
In the same way, Brainstorm and Force of Will aren't pillars either, although the case could be made for Force since it somewhat dictates the color of the rest of your deck.
Fine, semantics. I used the wrong word. Brainstorm, FoW and Dual Lands are staples of Legacy. IMO, the biggest staples of Legacy and as such will NEVER be banned.
The pillars have a pretty clear meaning in Vintage. They are the cards around which the top tier decks are built. Traditionally, they are Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, Mana Drain, Null Rod, and Dark Ritual (although this last one has fallen to the wayside of late). Using any of these cards in a deck tends to discourage using the other cards in the same deck. For example, decks running Workshops generally won't run Drain or Ritual. In that way, the pillars are isolated from one another. This isolation helps to give definition to the individual decks within Vintage.
Cards like dual lands aren't considered pillars, just like the Power 9 aren't considered pillars. These cards are certainly staples. They certainly define the eternal formats as a whole, but they don't particularly give unique definitions to the individual decks within a format. When talking about pillars, you can ask and answer questions like, "What is typically in a Workshop deck?" But it doesn't make sense to ask, "What is typically in a dual land deck?"
In the same way, Brainstorm and Force of Will aren't pillars either, although the case could be made for Force since it somewhat dictates the color of the rest of your deck.
Thanks it does make some sense, I wish I could find the original article that wizards posted on Pillars... I swear I thought Oath was a pillar, but it was years when I saw the article. I do remember mana drain, workshop and null rod but I also believe it was a confession on why wizards is never going to restrict those card.
Bazaar of Baghdad is interesting because for years the card had no use until wizards created Dredge. The card jumped from 15 dollars to 300 dollars over night.
Anyway all I could find is some one's post on the subject
Brainstorm have always been the top played card in Legacy, according to mtgtop8.
It went from 4-of in 52,2 % of decks in 2011 to 4-of in 67,7 % of decks for the last 2 months, and 4-of in 76,5 % of decks for the last 2 weeks!
More, of the top played cards, Brainstorm is the only card played in 4-of in every deck every time.
Thanks. I wished we had some information before 2011, and I would love to see the percentage of decks playing Mental Misstep (during it's short run and compare it to brainstorm)....
What is really interesting is the top 10 list. 2011 7 out of 10 cards are blue related, 2012/2013 8 out of 10 is blue related, 2014 9 out of 10 is blue relate (oh the one spell not blue related is wasteland)
It's a good thing DCI (wizards) banned mental misstep so they can restore color balance... maybe we'd be looking at 10 out of the top 10 all blue related... [yes I'm being sarcastic]
Thanks. I wished we had some information before 2011, and I would love to see the percentage of decks playing Mental Misstep (during it's short run and compare it to brainstorm)....
I wanted to isolate the Mental Misstep period (I remember it was from may to september 2011), but there are too much events. Anyway while picking some, not all decks (even blue decks) play Mental Misstep.
We all should remember that Mental Misstep was also banned prior to Innistrad, and I think DCI wanted to avoid the embarassment of having a format full of Snapcaster Mage + Mental Misstep.
I don't think the banning has anything to do with Snapcaster coming. If they banned MM for Snapcaster then they are admitting that they knew Snapcaster would be playable in legacy. Sure a legacy player can see Snapcaster being playable but there was no guarantee that the card was playable or even good until it was shown in a tournament. And if wizards was making cards that was intended for legacy then Delver casting cost could had been 2cc.
Wizards received a lot of hate mail for Mental Misstep because players in general dont like interruption when they play cards, and free counterspells are the worst. So I strongly believe, if Force of Will was never invented and it just came out today, players are going to send wizards hate mail for that card too, and it'll force wizards to ban FoW.
To me the main problem with an "omniplayed" Brainstorm is that it's stifling deck creativity, notably in the aggro decks category.
Aggro being blue is the main offender. Aggro shouldn't be blue. Aggro shouldn't be Delver decks which are rewarded with Treasure Cruise simply for playing cards, Treasure Cruise adding ressources to otherwise exhausted blue aggro decks.
Blue had aggro cards before Delver but the 1cc casting cost and 3/2 flying beat stick is a major attraction. And it's hard to beat. Treasure Cruise seemed to work well with U/R Delver because the deck plays a lot of cantrips that fills the graveyard fast and the deck dont care too much about the graveyard. A good number of other decks are not accepting the TC hype.
As for stifling creativity, I do agree with you on this. The problem is pet decks. Yeah, I'm calling all those brainstorm players threatening to quite for the format if wizards bans brainstorm as pet deck players. There are too many of those players threatening to quite legacy if brainstorm is banned. But I wonder what format are they going to go to? I think this is a false threat. It's annoying and childish. There no pillar cards in Legacy (the pillar concept was intended for vintage).
Players that are attracted to Legacy are not attracted to the format because of the duals, force of will. brainstorm.... they are attracted to the format because it offers the most cards and the most 'playable' decks. The problem with brainstorm, it is reducing the number of 'playable' decks. It's so silly because of brainstorm, players are thinking that black vise is a safe card. Fact is if you remove brainstorm, nobody would be asking to unban black vise.
It would be interesting to see if brainstorm gets banned in 2015. I have my doubts because too many pet decks are entwined with brainstorm... but the problem is we are becoming a 56 card format and 4 brainstorms. (your link seemed to show evidence that brainstorm playing is growing popularity year after year)
My guess BS will not get the hammer next year.
However I find strange that most people find perfectly normal, OK and cool to play 4 Pyroblast MD.
This is why I'm thinking that wizards is going to unban something next month and if it doesnt change the brainstorm progression (which I doubt unbanning any card would) then wizards has to accept that brainstorm is the new ban bar (something has to be more busted then brainstorm to be banned) or brainstorm is going to be banned and pet deck players has to suck it up. (again... where are they going to go?)
I'm at the point of dropping 3 Price of Progress for 3 Pryoblast in my burn deck too
My guess BS will not get the hammer next year.
However I find strange that most people find perfectly normal, OK and cool to play 4 Pyroblast MD.
This is why I'm thinking that wizards is going to unban something next month and if it doesnt change the brainstorm progression (which I doubt unbanning any card would) then wizards has to accept that brainstorm is the new ban bar (something has to be more busted then brainstorm to be banned) or brainstorm is going to be banned and pet deck players has to suck it up. (again... where are they going to go?)
I'm at the point of dropping 3 Price of Progress for 3 Pryoblast in my burn deck too
Here is why I have a MAJOR problem with your Brainstorm bashing.
The following decks all play Brainstorm and all have totally different play strategies.
Delver variants
Stoneblade varients
Show and Tell varients
High Tide
TES
Miracles
You cannot lump all these decks together. They all play differently.
It's like saying dual lands have to go because they're in every deck. The theory is absurd.
And then you have a crap ton of decks that are viable that don't play Brainstorm at all.
Jund
Burn
Sneak Attack
Lands
Pox
MUD (Top 8 GPNJ)
Death and Taxes (recently won an SCG)
Maverick (Recently won an SCG)
Painter
Elves
And this is why Brainstorm will NEVER be banned because it is NOT stifling deck diversity. I totally reject your hypothesis and as long as you continue to bring up "56 cards and 4 brainstorm" I will continue to point out how absurd this is.
To say that Brainstorm will "Never" get banned is setting yourself up for possible disappointment. While I do not wish to see it banned, I feel it likely will end up so at some point. If the treads keep going as they are, that point may be sooner rather than later. It's will be a sad day should it come and I would not say that that day is a certainty to never arrive. I mean, I would have bet that it was a dead certainty that R&D would never print a draw 3 for 1 again...
Honest (related) question. Why did they print Spirit otL in Born? It could be seen as an attempt to neuter BS in Legacy. At the time it had no relevance to Modern or Standard. It could have been a future tolerance card for Modern, or made specifically with TC in mind for Std/Mod 9 months later. In Jace's last days in Standard they tried to hurt it with specific cards. They seemed to give SotL every chance- vial-able, E tutor-able, and it still does not see much play.
I don't really have strong opinions one way or the other on BS, but I would like to see Vise unbanned, I feel it is a Land Tax type ban- relevant once, not as much now. Unbanning would boost certain prison decks, which does not seem harsh when other decks are drawing 3 for 1 whilst looking for treasure.....
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Let's be clear on something: were Brainstorm banned, most of the decks that play it would simply slot in Ponder or Preordain. Just going by the Turbo Xerox principle, the main function for these cantrips is to simultaneously lower the land count and increase consistency. Ponder would likely shoot to the top most played card as it is the understudy.
Obviously Brainstorm does way more than just your traditional cantrip, everything outside of washing laundry and taking over the real world, but its most unique function is the movement of cards from the hand back into the library. A lot of combos would suffer from this loss, as well as some fair archetypes like Stoneforge and Miracles.
That said, the decks would all still survive and simply need to put up with some poor draws they can't easily fix, which is really not the worst thing considering non-blue decks also have to do this. Death and Taxes can't shuffle equipment back yet is a fine deck regardless. I play Reanimator and can snap tell you I'd slot in 4x Preordain since I'm already playing Ponder. I'd run a few more loot effects to keep my hand clear of fatties, but Reanimator would still be as oppressively powerful.
It's also for these reasons that Brainstorm should and would not be banned. By itself it's too close to a regular cantrip (read: without a shuffle effect), and plenty of other cards warp the format in favor of blue (Daze/Force/Ponder/Pierce/etc.).
Honest (related) question. Why did they print Spirit otL in Born? It could be seen as an attempt to neuter BS in Legacy. At the time it had no relevance to Modern or Standard. It could have been a future tolerance card for Modern, or made specifically with TC in mind for Std/Mod 9 months later. In Jace's last days in Standard they tried to hurt it with specific cards. They seemed to give SotL every chance- vial-able, E tutor-able, and it still does not see much play.
That's almost like asking why was Eidolon of the Great Revel was made.
I do believe R&D is not a bunch of idiots when it comes to cards outside of block/standard. I think they make cards with the intent to attract the older players. Sadly they wont admit it.
So it was assumed that Spirit would balance out brainstorm last year.
Brian DeMars believes the Spirit was designed to combat Brainstorm. He also believes Brainstorm should be banned, and thinks banning of Mental Misstep was a mistake. This article was written almost a year ago and the brainstorm numbers are still growing.
I don't really have strong opinions one way or the other on BS, but I would like to see Vise unbanned, I feel it is a Land Tax type ban- relevant once, not as much now. Unbanning would boost certain prison decks, which does not seem harsh when other decks are drawing 3 for 1 whilst looking for treasure.....
The banning of Land Tax was a big puzzle from the start. Nobody understood why the card was banned to begin with and it was no surprise when the unbanning of land tax did nothing to the format.
I do have a problem with unbanning of black vise because it punishes slow players.
Here is why I have a MAJOR problem with your Brainstorm bashing.
We are not brainstorm bashing anything. There is 4 years of data that is showing that more and more players are playing brainstorm and less other cards. Now I did not make a law that we must ban cards to balance a format color... wizards did when they said they banned Mental Misstep because the format was too blue. Well Brainstorm has made the format more bluer year after year. Lets talk about those cards that are not playing brainstorm..
The following decks all play Brainstorm and all have totally different play strategies.
Delver variants
Stoneblade varients
Show and Tell varients
High Tide
TES
Miracles
You cannot lump all these decks together. They all play differently.
It's like saying dual lands have to go because they're in every deck. The theory is absurd.
And then you have a crap ton of decks that are viable that don't play Brainstorm at all.
Jund - The deck that got to 8th place had 2 Chains of Mephistopheles in the main
Burn - The recent printing of Eidolon of the Great Revel has made the deck attractive. The last time Burn did something was on the Richmond open (a month ago) and it was ranked 30. The only evidence I'd noticed was a growing popularity to UR Delver and I would assume that more burn players are moving to that deck. Lets see what happens in another month or so.
Sneak Attack - Do you mean Sneak and Show? I had not seen a Sneak Attack deck without Show and Tell/Brainstorm in a long long time.
Lands - Got 4th a week ago, not bad, too bad it's costly.
Pox - 7th place a few weeks ago.
MUD (Top 8 GPNJ) - main deck Chalice of the Void & Trinisphere can do a lot of damage...
Death and Taxes (recently won an SCG) - Spirit of the Labryrinth
Maverick (Recently won an SCG) - Spirit of the Labryrinth
Painter - Grixis Painter (I didnt see any non blue painter deck.)
Honest (related) question. Why did they print Spirit otL in Born? It could be seen as an attempt to neuter BS in Legacy. At the time it had no relevance to Modern or Standard. It could have been a future tolerance card for Modern, or made specifically with TC in mind for Std/Mod 9 months later. In Jace's last days in Standard they tried to hurt it with specific cards. They seemed to give SotL every chance- vial-able, E tutor-able, and it still does not see much play.
WotC very likely printed spirit of the labyrinth as a sphinx's revelation hoser in standard and thought of cantrips in modern/legacy/vintage as an afterthought. Card needs flash to be good indeed. Otherwise it's poor.
WotC printing more draw 3's for just U would not at all surprise me. Look at shared discovery. WotC loves to experiment with card design. Treasure cruise is not going to be the last draw 3 for U in the game I would bet money on that. Might take a long while before they print another one but it's heavily likely to be done in the future I would say.
If you ban brainstorm it really does nothing. If you have a problem with blue being the dominant color in eternal just look at the cardpool available to eternal and see how many blue cards are powerful in comparison to the rest. Vintage is a prime example of this. They have restricted a great many blue cards there and blue is still the best not close. For legacy to be brought down to the power level of red in legacy you'd have to ban a whole lot of cards for example because the powerlevel difference between blue and red as colors is enormous.
Soldier never has anything constructive to add to expect him to be reasonable is to expect that ancestral recall will be reprinted into standard. Maindeck pyroblasts in burn is incredibly bad. Just need to draw a burn spell to win oh look pyroblast that does nothing hooray I lose. Sounds fun.
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We will find out. I do see a growing issue and I'm not the only one that sees this. I do believe wizards had been trying to control brainstorm while not alienate legacy. And 4 years of data is undeniable.
That's why I'm thinking wizards is going to unban something this round. (sure I'm guessing just like you are guessing there is no ban coming).
If there is going to be an unbanning, I'm leaning towards Earthcraft, only because the deck that plays Earthcraft will not play brainstorm.
I do have a problem with unbanning of black vise because it punishes slow players.
I think you mean it punishes control players, which is what it is supposed to do. Judges punish slow play.
That would be great if true, but I think control will have more fun with Black Vise. What I mean by slow players, I mean players that are not puking their hands.
Maindeck pyroblasts in burn is incredibly bad. Just need to draw a burn spell to win oh look pyroblast that does nothing hooray I lose. Sounds fun.
I'm not sure if it's that bad, at least we know the card has a 50% target - and we all know players are fetching basics once you hit them with alternative bolt... (although I believe the number of blue playing has grown to a 85%)
Brian DeMars believes the Spirit was designed to combat Brainstorm. He also believes Brainstorm should be banned, and thinks banning of Mental Misstep was a mistake. This article was written almost a year ago and the brainstorm numbers are still growing.
It isn't easy to take that article seriously. Not even only the Brainstorm stuff. Things like
I don't like the argument that "everybody can play it" as reasoning for Misstep being banned either because there are already lots of cards that fit that description: Wasteland, Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm. (Let's be fair—most people play blue decks.)
Yup, "everyone can play it" is pretty weak. How about you address the actual argument people use: everyone DOES play it. When you start seeing Wasteland in High Tide, Sensei's Divining Top in Merfolk, and Brainstorm in Elves!/Burn/Death & Taxes, come back and talk. Then
Does Show and Tell violate at least two of my rules for why cards ultimately get banned? Yes. The card costs too few mana for what it does, and it enables a very broken combination by cheating cards into play that simply end the game. Check.
Uhh. First of all, doesn't that first rule apply to half the Legacy staples in existence? And that second one...oh man. Get rid of Natural Order too. Ban Sneak Attack. No more Hypergenesis. Reanimate? It seems he just doesn't like cards that cheat big creatures into play. But you have to draw the line somewhere. I don't think anyone wants to ban Fist of Suns. If only there were an objective way to measure which cards are too powerful...OH! I know! Tournament results! Why didn't he mention tournament results? He could have...oh...wait. I see why he didn't mention that. (and by the way I say this as someone who WOULD like to see Show and Tell banned, but at least I'm being honest that I just hate the Yugimon monsters; I'm don't try to imply that the deck is actually too good...because it really isn't)
Now, moving on to the Brainstorm talk (btw he was actually against banning Brainstorm in this article) I love the way that he just counts the number of Brainstorms. This is what people always do, and whenever someone points out the decks, it just goes ignored. I always have to remind myself that Stoneblade variants, High Tide, all Delver, Storm, and Sneak & Show are all the same deck because of Brainstorm. It isn't easy, but I'm learning. One time, I swapped out Shardless Agent/Ancestral Visions/Brainstorm/Force of Will in my Shardless BUG deck for Bloodbraid Elf/Hymn/Sylvan Library/Punishing Fire to make a Jund deck, and although the playstyle of the deck remained similar, the deck was totally different because their borders were colored differently and my LGS meta became diverse.
Here is why I have a MAJOR problem with your Brainstorm bashing.
We are not brainstorm bashing anything. There is 4 years of data that is showing that more and more players are playing brainstorm and less other cards. Now I did not make a law that we must ban cards to balance a format color... wizards did when they said they banned Mental Misstep because the format was too blue. Well Brainstorm has made the format more bluer year after year. Lets talk about those cards that are not playing brainstorm..
Four years of data? Great. When was Brainstorm printed again? Oh wait...shouldn't we have...ten years of data? Brainstorm has made the format "more bluer year after year." That's pretty impressive considering I think it has the same text as when Ice Age was released? You know what helps to make the format not "more bluer year after year?" How about not printing a 3/2 flyer for U. How about not printing a 3/1 prevent all damage-unblockable-hexproof for UU1? How about not making U7 Delve draw three cards? Wizards banned Mental Misstep because Misstep by itself increased the meta to those levels of blue. Brainstorm is not singlehandedly making the format this blue. The format is this blue because of Brainstorm+Ponder+Force of Will+Delver+True-Name+Treasure Cruise+Show&Tell+Jace+Counterbalance+Daze+Probe+Clique+other blue cards that are not tier one like EVERY CARD I listed is. Brainstorm providing good card selection isn't bad-that's what blue does and why Brainstorm was not problematic for the majority of Legacy's history. The problem is when you give blue things it shouldn't have like Delver.
The following decks all play Brainstorm and all have totally different play strategies.
Delver variants
Stoneblade varients
Show and Tell varients
High Tide
TES
Miracles
You cannot lump all these decks together. They all play differently.
It's like saying dual lands have to go because they're in every deck. The theory is absurd.
And then you have a crap ton of decks that are viable that don't play Brainstorm at all.
Jund - The deck that got to 8th place had 2 Chains of Mephistopheles in the main
Burn - The recent printing of Eidolon of the Great Revel has made the deck attractive. The last time Burn did something was on the Richmond open (a month ago) and it was ranked 30. The only evidence I'd noticed was a growing popularity to UR Delver and I would assume that more burn players are moving to that deck. Lets see what happens in another month or so.
Sneak Attack - Do you mean Sneak and Show? I had not seen a Sneak Attack deck without Show and Tell/Brainstorm in a long long time.
Lands - Got 4th a week ago, not bad, too bad it's costly.
Pox - 7th place a few weeks ago.
MUD (Top 8 GPNJ) - main deck Chalice of the Void & Trinisphere can do a lot of damage...
Death and Taxes (recently won an SCG) - Spirit of the Labryrinth
Maverick (Recently won an SCG) - Spirit of the Labryrinth
Painter - Grixis Painter (I didnt see any non blue painter deck.)
Vintage is the only format that has pillars. The pillars in vintage is what screwed vintage up, only because if you’re not playing with a pillar you are screwed. If brainstorm was a pillar in legacy then there should be no argument that legacy is a 56 card format and 4 brainstorms.
Force of will is not a pillar in vintage, if it was the format would have folded 5 years ago (based on SCG’s prediction in their blog asking wizards to reprint FoW). It is true that force of will can screw over 1 & 2 turn combo decks but players had been using other alternatives. like daze… and in a sense daze had been more of a combo stopper then force of will.
Dual are also no pillar. Players do play mono color decks and some are accepting shock lands as a cheap alternative.
If brainstorm is a pillar (as you suggest) then what are the other pillars? If bolt was banned, format will still exist and burn still playable. If dual lands were banned, players will be playing shocks, I would also believe the format will still exist if FoW is banned, only because players had been using alternatives.
We dont have pillars in legacy. Vintage is the only format with pillars (and that pillar topic that wizards made was to defend why Oath of Druids, workshop, mana drain are never going to be restricted.
I do agree that brainstorm is equal to goblin lackey
And what format would they play?
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
It's not the same as Vintage I agree, but I would be happy to call those three things "Pillars" of Legacy without a hint of irony or sarcasm.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
I guess we'll see in 10 years. I do suspect those cards will reach a point that players will choose an alternate card (therefore you'll be looking at a soft ban)
The defining aspect of legacy is the ability to make almost any deck with the most cards MTG has to offer that can compete with almost any other deck. Modern has nothing of a card pool compaired to Legacy and Vintage dont have the open freedom of creativity.
I think everybody else wants to do the same, but when I read the article it seemed to me a confession on why they cannot restrict such and such in vintage.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Cards like dual lands aren't considered pillars, just like the Power 9 aren't considered pillars. These cards are certainly staples. They certainly define the eternal formats as a whole, but they don't particularly give unique definitions to the individual decks within a format. When talking about pillars, you can ask and answer questions like, "What is typically in a Workshop deck?" But it doesn't make sense to ask, "What is typically in a dual land deck?"
In the same way, Brainstorm and Force of Will aren't pillars either, although the case could be made for Force since it somewhat dictates the color of the rest of your deck.
Semantics. SMH.
Thanks it does make some sense, I wish I could find the original article that wizards posted on Pillars... I swear I thought Oath was a pillar, but it was years when I saw the article. I do remember mana drain, workshop and null rod but I also believe it was a confession on why wizards is never going to restrict those card.
Bazaar of Baghdad is interesting because for years the card had no use until wizards created Dredge. The card jumped from 15 dollars to 300 dollars over night.
Anyway all I could find is some one's post on the subject
http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3027366
If anybody can find the original article posted on wizards of the cost... please post it I would love to read it
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
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Thanks. I wished we had some information before 2011, and I would love to see the percentage of decks playing Mental Misstep (during it's short run and compare it to brainstorm)....
What is really interesting is the top 10 list. 2011 7 out of 10 cards are blue related, 2012/2013 8 out of 10 is blue related, 2014 9 out of 10 is blue relate (oh the one spell not blue related is wasteland)
It's a good thing DCI (wizards) banned mental misstep so they can restore color balance... maybe we'd be looking at 10 out of the top 10 all blue related... [yes I'm being sarcastic]
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
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I don't think the banning has anything to do with Snapcaster coming. If they banned MM for Snapcaster then they are admitting that they knew Snapcaster would be playable in legacy. Sure a legacy player can see Snapcaster being playable but there was no guarantee that the card was playable or even good until it was shown in a tournament. And if wizards was making cards that was intended for legacy then Delver casting cost could had been 2cc.
Wizards received a lot of hate mail for Mental Misstep because players in general dont like interruption when they play cards, and free counterspells are the worst. So I strongly believe, if Force of Will was never invented and it just came out today, players are going to send wizards hate mail for that card too, and it'll force wizards to ban FoW.
Blue had aggro cards before Delver but the 1cc casting cost and 3/2 flying beat stick is a major attraction. And it's hard to beat. Treasure Cruise seemed to work well with U/R Delver because the deck plays a lot of cantrips that fills the graveyard fast and the deck dont care too much about the graveyard. A good number of other decks are not accepting the TC hype.
As for stifling creativity, I do agree with you on this. The problem is pet decks. Yeah, I'm calling all those brainstorm players threatening to quite for the format if wizards bans brainstorm as pet deck players. There are too many of those players threatening to quite legacy if brainstorm is banned. But I wonder what format are they going to go to? I think this is a false threat. It's annoying and childish. There no pillar cards in Legacy (the pillar concept was intended for vintage).
Players that are attracted to Legacy are not attracted to the format because of the duals, force of will. brainstorm.... they are attracted to the format because it offers the most cards and the most 'playable' decks. The problem with brainstorm, it is reducing the number of 'playable' decks. It's so silly because of brainstorm, players are thinking that black vise is a safe card. Fact is if you remove brainstorm, nobody would be asking to unban black vise.
It would be interesting to see if brainstorm gets banned in 2015. I have my doubts because too many pet decks are entwined with brainstorm... but the problem is we are becoming a 56 card format and 4 brainstorms. (your link seemed to show evidence that brainstorm playing is growing popularity year after year)
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
This is why I'm thinking that wizards is going to unban something next month and if it doesnt change the brainstorm progression (which I doubt unbanning any card would) then wizards has to accept that brainstorm is the new ban bar (something has to be more busted then brainstorm to be banned) or brainstorm is going to be banned and pet deck players has to suck it up. (again... where are they going to go?)
I'm at the point of dropping 3 Price of Progress for 3 Pryoblast in my burn deck too
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Here is why I have a MAJOR problem with your Brainstorm bashing.
The following decks all play Brainstorm and all have totally different play strategies.
Delver variants
Stoneblade varients
Show and Tell varients
High Tide
TES
Miracles
You cannot lump all these decks together. They all play differently.
It's like saying dual lands have to go because they're in every deck. The theory is absurd.
And then you have a crap ton of decks that are viable that don't play Brainstorm at all.
Jund
Burn
Sneak Attack
Lands
Pox
MUD (Top 8 GPNJ)
Death and Taxes (recently won an SCG)
Maverick (Recently won an SCG)
Painter
Elves
And this is why Brainstorm will NEVER be banned because it is NOT stifling deck diversity. I totally reject your hypothesis and as long as you continue to bring up "56 cards and 4 brainstorm" I will continue to point out how absurd this is.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
I don't really have strong opinions one way or the other on BS, but I would like to see Vise unbanned, I feel it is a Land Tax type ban- relevant once, not as much now. Unbanning would boost certain prison decks, which does not seem harsh when other decks are drawing 3 for 1 whilst looking for treasure.....
I was listening to the So many Insane Plays cast the other week and the idea of a Leyline that hosed Draw came up, I like that. Maybe it's time.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
Obviously Brainstorm does way more than just your traditional cantrip, everything outside of washing laundry and taking over the real world, but its most unique function is the movement of cards from the hand back into the library. A lot of combos would suffer from this loss, as well as some fair archetypes like Stoneforge and Miracles.
That said, the decks would all still survive and simply need to put up with some poor draws they can't easily fix, which is really not the worst thing considering non-blue decks also have to do this. Death and Taxes can't shuffle equipment back yet is a fine deck regardless. I play Reanimator and can snap tell you I'd slot in 4x Preordain since I'm already playing Ponder. I'd run a few more loot effects to keep my hand clear of fatties, but Reanimator would still be as oppressively powerful.
It's also for these reasons that Brainstorm should and would not be banned. By itself it's too close to a regular cantrip (read: without a shuffle effect), and plenty of other cards warp the format in favor of blue (Daze/Force/Ponder/Pierce/etc.).
That's almost like asking why was Eidolon of the Great Revel was made.
I do believe R&D is not a bunch of idiots when it comes to cards outside of block/standard. I think they make cards with the intent to attract the older players. Sadly they wont admit it.
So it was assumed that Spirit would balance out brainstorm last year.
Here is an interesting article
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27801_Thoughts-On-The-Banned-Restricted-List.html
Brian DeMars believes the Spirit was designed to combat Brainstorm. He also believes Brainstorm should be banned, and thinks banning of Mental Misstep was a mistake. This article was written almost a year ago and the brainstorm numbers are still growing.
The banning of Land Tax was a big puzzle from the start. Nobody understood why the card was banned to begin with and it was no surprise when the unbanning of land tax did nothing to the format.
I do have a problem with unbanning of black vise because it punishes slow players.
We are not brainstorm bashing anything. There is 4 years of data that is showing that more and more players are playing brainstorm and less other cards. Now I did not make a law that we must ban cards to balance a format color... wizards did when they said they banned Mental Misstep because the format was too blue. Well Brainstorm has made the format more bluer year after year. Lets talk about those cards that are not playing brainstorm..
Jund - The deck that got to 8th place had 2 Chains of Mephistopheles in the main
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=77754
Burn - The recent printing of Eidolon of the Great Revel has made the deck attractive. The last time Burn did something was on the Richmond open (a month ago) and it was ranked 30. The only evidence I'd noticed was a growing popularity to UR Delver and I would assume that more burn players are moving to that deck. Lets see what happens in another month or so.
Sneak Attack - Do you mean Sneak and Show? I had not seen a Sneak Attack deck without Show and Tell/Brainstorm in a long long time.
Lands - Got 4th a week ago, not bad, too bad it's costly.
Pox - 7th place a few weeks ago.
MUD (Top 8 GPNJ) - main deck Chalice of the Void & Trinisphere can do a lot of damage...
Death and Taxes (recently won an SCG) - Spirit of the Labryrinth
Maverick (Recently won an SCG) - Spirit of the Labryrinth
Painter - Grixis Painter (I didnt see any non blue painter deck.)
Elves - Elves is awesome...
Sorry I'm not seeing a diverse format.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Then open up your eyes.
There will be no bans in January, sorry to say.
WotC printing more draw 3's for just U would not at all surprise me. Look at shared discovery. WotC loves to experiment with card design. Treasure cruise is not going to be the last draw 3 for U in the game I would bet money on that. Might take a long while before they print another one but it's heavily likely to be done in the future I would say.
If you ban brainstorm it really does nothing. If you have a problem with blue being the dominant color in eternal just look at the cardpool available to eternal and see how many blue cards are powerful in comparison to the rest. Vintage is a prime example of this. They have restricted a great many blue cards there and blue is still the best not close. For legacy to be brought down to the power level of red in legacy you'd have to ban a whole lot of cards for example because the powerlevel difference between blue and red as colors is enormous.
Soldier never has anything constructive to add to expect him to be reasonable is to expect that ancestral recall will be reprinted into standard. Maindeck pyroblasts in burn is incredibly bad. Just need to draw a burn spell to win oh look pyroblast that does nothing hooray I lose. Sounds fun.
Currently Playing:
Retired
I think you mean it punishes control players, which is what it is supposed to do. Judges punish slow play.
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
We will find out. I do see a growing issue and I'm not the only one that sees this. I do believe wizards had been trying to control brainstorm while not alienate legacy. And 4 years of data is undeniable.
That's why I'm thinking wizards is going to unban something this round. (sure I'm guessing just like you are guessing there is no ban coming).
If there is going to be an unbanning, I'm leaning towards Earthcraft, only because the deck that plays Earthcraft will not play brainstorm.
That would be great if true, but I think control will have more fun with Black Vise. What I mean by slow players, I mean players that are not puking their hands.
I'm not sure if it's that bad, at least we know the card has a 50% target - and we all know players are fetching basics once you hit them with alternative bolt... (although I believe the number of blue playing has grown to a 85%)
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Now, moving on to the Brainstorm talk (btw he was actually against banning Brainstorm in this article) I love the way that he just counts the number of Brainstorms. This is what people always do, and whenever someone points out the decks, it just goes ignored. I always have to remind myself that Stoneblade variants, High Tide, all Delver, Storm, and Sneak & Show are all the same deck because of Brainstorm. It isn't easy, but I'm learning. One time, I swapped out Shardless Agent/Ancestral Visions/Brainstorm/Force of Will in my Shardless BUG deck for Bloodbraid Elf/Hymn/Sylvan Library/Punishing Fire to make a Jund deck, and although the playstyle of the deck remained similar, the deck was totally different because their borders were colored differently and my LGS meta became diverse.
Four years of data? Great. When was Brainstorm printed again? Oh wait...shouldn't we have...ten years of data? Brainstorm has made the format "more bluer year after year." That's pretty impressive considering I think it has the same text as when Ice Age was released? You know what helps to make the format not "more bluer year after year?" How about not printing a 3/2 flyer for U. How about not printing a 3/1 prevent all damage-unblockable-hexproof for UU1? How about not making U7 Delve draw three cards? Wizards banned Mental Misstep because Misstep by itself increased the meta to those levels of blue. Brainstorm is not singlehandedly making the format this blue. The format is this blue because of Brainstorm+Ponder+Force of Will+Delver+True-Name+Treasure Cruise+Show&Tell+Jace+Counterbalance+Daze+Probe+Clique+other blue cards that are not tier one like EVERY CARD I listed is. Brainstorm providing good card selection isn't bad-that's what blue does and why Brainstorm was not problematic for the majority of Legacy's history. The problem is when you give blue things it shouldn't have like Delver. This doesn't even relate to what you quoted.