Card/Deck Brainstorm as a lynchpin

Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I have an inkling someone (maybe me!) made this thread before, but w/e.

Jason Waddell said:
Okay, Brainstorm is great in multiples, and it works with so many interactions. You have decks with Cascade, shuffle effects, Miracles, Delver, Augur of Bolas, Dark Confidant, etc., and it sets up all of those and is super skill intensive. I love it. I don't run any Ponder / Preordain anymore.
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Converting some of the blue card filtering into Brainstorms substantially improves many cards and could maybe enable a whole theme?
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Well, basically what this seems to amount to is "decks with blue use a lot of other colors' cards better". Is that the desired effect? The card is certainly interesting enough to play and compares favorably to the alternatives. Their is little downside to other then deciding if this is what we want and ensuring the supporting cast is still good without brainstorm.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
yeah to say nothing of Miracles.

how many brainstorms? 8/450?

are we gonna use the top effects in addition to fetches, or are we gonna add more fetches (say 25/450) to compensate?
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Love me some Brainstorm, obviously. Maybe it's time to keep working on my Brainstorm-unrestricted Vintage cube...
 
Dougggggg

Dougggggg

Reigning Draft Champion
I love the idea of adding more things to do with Brainstorm. The card adds more decisions when coupled with ways to shuffle or utilize the top of the deck. Doesn't do anything insane or broken but is a solid role player in any deck it is a part of (in the right cubes that is).
 
CML

CML

Contributor
I'm on board with buffing blue by buffing the "Brainstorm package." The question is how to develop it:

-Is a weak interaction with Lash Out enough to justify Lash Out's inclusion?
-Is synergy with a card I don't otherwise like in Future Sight enough to justify Future Sight's inclusion?

Basically I'm wondering what we're adding in the name of Brainstorm. Here's some ideas from http://magiccards.info/query?q=o:"top+card+of+your+library"&s=cname&v=card&p=2:


Augury Adept
Countryside Crusher
Crown of Convergence
Delver of Secrets
Mul Daya Channelers
Pain Seer
Sarkhan the Mad
Scrying Sheets
Temples

Also wondering how many Brainstorms is a good density. 6/360? 8/450? What are we cutting for them?

How many extra fetches are we running? What are we cutting for them?

Do we want more top-of-library manipulation cards like Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top?

Does this make Blue tempo worth another look?

Etc
 
Dougggggg

Dougggggg

Reigning Draft Champion
I really like that last bit about making blue tempo work. I think it is a big part of the puzzle in actually reaching the place where we can have Delver of Secrets be a card that you windmill slam in a cube draft. Regrettably, I don't know the other part.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
In a brainstorm cube I would run Terminus but not Entreat the Angels.

I don't think you need more than 20/360 fetches to make Brainstorm useful.

It opens up mutli-Delver if you want that, but there's been some debate over whether that's desirable. I love the Sarkhan the Mad, Dark Confidant style interactions.

There are probably very few borderline cards that make the cut as a result of having Brainstorm around.
 
Changling Bob

Changling Bob

How many blue picks can you make brainstorm fodder before you end up with them getting picked up for value everywhere and blue not reeeally having enough depth left to do anything else?
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Most people already run Preordain/Ponder/Brainstorm, and all of those can be converted at no cost. I could probably run 5 and not really notice an impact. Does blue need depth to do other things if it can filter all day long?
 
Changling Bob

Changling Bob

I mean, currently my list has none of those three cards. Its probably just my personal preference to not let blue be broken (also known as: blue), except that blue has bounce, which is probably too good in my cube, and clones which obviate some things I'm not entirely happy about. Maybe I'd be better off with filtering stuff, but until I'm playing regularly and mystic speculation and/or thought scour don't do what's needed, I'm just going to ignore things being good.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I'm really okay with "splash for card selection", because those games sound really fun. Who doesn't want to get a Brainstorm / Courser / Domri deck going?
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Changling Bob said:
I mean, currently my list has none of those three cards. Its probably just my personal preference to not let blue be broken (also known as: blue), except that blue has bounce, which is probably too good in my cube, and clones which obviate some things I'm not entirely happy about.
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I've started to dislike clone effects in cube - except for those that are reasonably costed - because they let the owner too easily piggyback off of their opponent's hard work, for very little investment. Even as someone who would take Phyrexian Metamorph and Phantasmal Image really early, I never got much satisfaction out of copying someone's best six drop and beating them down with it.

Bounce, though. Bounce is sweet! Most bounce spells aren't overpowered - well, maybe some are - so I'm surprised to hear that they're too good in your environment. They're usually slightly worse than straight removal in taking out problematic creatures, but make up for that with their versatility. I like to run a decent amount of bounce to give blue more options, as I find they can be fun, skill-intensive cards. Do they tend to be too good in tempo or control decks in your cube?
 
Changling Bob

Changling Bob

Eric Chan said:
I've started to dislike clone effects in cube - except for those that are reasonably costed - because they let the owner too easily piggyback off of their opponent's hard work, for very little investment. Even as someone who would take Phyrexian Metamorph and Phantasmal Image really early, I never got much satisfaction out of copying someone's best six drop and beating them down with it.

Bounce, though. Bounce is sweet! Most bounce spells aren't overpowered - well, maybe some are - so I'm surprised to hear that they're too good in your environment. They're usually slightly worse than straight removal in taking out problematic creatures, but make up for that with their versatility. I like to run a decent amount of bounce to give blue more options, as I find they can be fun, skill-intensive cards. Do they tend to be too good in tempo or control decks in your cube?
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Yeah, no, I'm running rights of replication, clone and vesuvan shapeshifter.

Also I don't have a play group to test with, so I can't be sure bounce is too good, but I run a bunch of auras and +1/+1 counter stuff, so I can see them being super blowouts if you stack too hard. Counterplay: don't stack too hard. But then there's also a bunch of ETB effects, so sometimes it's bad. I dunno, I'd have to play with it to see, and that's unlikely to happen any time soon. (yay for intellectual exercises)
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
Yo, how good is Domri? I play him in E-Domain, but...
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My friend runs him in his "retail limited on roids" cube and even without any synergy other then "Jam in as many creatures as possible" he was decent enough for a deck slot. I've considered running him. With topdeck manipulation I can't imagine him not being awesome. The flexibility of drawing a card or killing is dude is brutal, even if both need a little set-up its not hard to craft around it.
 
anotak

anotak

domri is straight nuts, i just temporary cut him from my cube because he was holding control down too much
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
Yo, how good is Domri? I play him in E-Domain, but...
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Domri is def worth a slot

The way cantrips end up being taken in my Cube is every blue deck will have a couple, and nobody will splash for them. This is fine with me.

Brainstorm takes a lot more work than the other cantrips since it's so bad without fetches (or some other way to abuse it like Miracle), I dunno how this affects our design choices but it's something to keep in mind. I would not run Brainstorm in a deck with fewer than 3 fetches / miracles.

I really think U being the best color in conventional cubes comes from the other decks failing to do anything t1-t3, the singleton format, power-maxing, and so on, in my Cube it could really use a buff or two. Sure, Brainstorm is the best card in Legacy, but have you seen a fair Blue deck try to beat Punishing Jund? Well, that's the Cube experience over here
 
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