With little updates in Standard this week, I figured there is no more perfect time to talk about one of the most controversial cards in Strixhaven’s Mystical Archive: Brainstorm. It’s a card that helps define Legacy, that Modern players have been clamoring for, and Historic players never thought would enter the format. Which is pretty clear since I have seen many players Brainstorm lock themselves out of a game and concede much earlier than they should. Brainstorm may be one of the more powerful cantrips in the entirety of the game, but can only reach its true potential when the deck and player are ready for it.
The Lock
So what actually is the dreaded Brainstorm Lock that people keep talking about? Put simply, putting two dead cards on top of your library with Brainstorm leaves you with two cards you will be drawing that you would rather not be drawing into, essentially wasting 2 draw steps. However, this is not always the case. For example, if you start with a hand full of cards you want to keep and all 3 draws from Brainstorm are just as keepable, then you don't mind drawing into two keepable cards later on. The odds of this happening however are very low. Most of the time what ends up happening is the Brainstorm puts back 2 cards that are either dead in the matchup (sweepers in a control mirror) or spare lands you do not need. Wasting precious draw steps to draw into useless cards or lands can be devastating in a format like Historic where every card matters and if you want to make the best of your Brainstorm, you have to avoid this lock as much as possible.
How Do We Avoid the Lock?
The traditional way in Legacy is with card shuffling effects that cost 0 mana, such as the Onslaught and Zendikar fetch lands. Unfortunately, the only competitively playable fetch land in Historic is Fabled Passage, which sees the land coming into play tapped on the first 3 turns of the game. This means that in order to best make use of our Brainstorms, we have to get a little creative with how we deal with the top of our library.
Shuffling our library is still an option, but nowhere near as good as is it in other eternal formats as shuffling either costs mana (Field of Ruin), time (Fabled Passage), or just cannot fit in every deck (Solemn Simulacrum). On the other hand, Scry and Surveil are two keywords that directly interact with the top of our library, and cards like Preordain have often been used in conjunction with Brainstorm to conveniently Scry away the 2 cards put back and draw fresh. The two that come to mind here are both Omen of the Sea and Discovery // Dispersal as they do exactly what Preordain does, just at 1 extra mana. While Omen of the Sea does see a tremendous amount of play in Yorion decks, both pale in comparison to the power of Brainstorm and are not seeing wide enough play to consider this.
Hopefully I have not discouraged you from playing this card yet, because the next few ways of manipulating the top of your deck I have found to be incredibly effective. Abundant Harvest served as a preview card for Modern Horizons 2 and is currently an amazing way to filter through our own Brainstorm. If in desperate need of a land, Abundant Harvest can filter past the 2 nonlands put back by Brainstorm and guarantee a land hit while placing the rest to the bottom of our library, leaving us a fresh deck to draw from. The same is true in the opposite scenario, being able to filter through 2 lands we just put back in order to guarantee a nonland draw and a fresh library. Narset, Parter of Veils offers another efficient way to get out of a Brainstorm lock by activating its loyalty ability. Placed in the right deck, an activation can still almost guarantee you a card even with 2 lands being placed back on top. Additionally, the passive ability on Narset is brutal against other decks hoping to resolve their own Brainstorm as it forces them to only draw a maximum of one card while putting 2 cards back on their library, turning all opponents Brainstorm’s into card disadvantage.
These last two cards, Stitcher's Supplier and Search for Azcanta both mill cards from your own library allowing you to draw fresh from most Brainstorms. I mention these last because Stitcher's Supplier usually wants to be placed in graveyard decks away from most cantrips that do not involve the graveyard, and Search for Azcanta only mills one card at a time. However, people are still finding success with both cards.
When Should I Brainstorm?
Brainstorm is unique as a powerful cantrip as it can be cast at instant speed, unlike its other powerful counterparts (Ponder and Preordain). However, just because the card is an instant, does not mean you should always be casting it at your opponent's end step. Doing so can leave you forced into drawing one of the cards you put back on top of your library as many of the ways to reset your deck are sorcery speed. Before casting your Brainstorm you have to decide what you want to do with it: are you looking to clean up your hand by getting rid of some bad cards in game 1? Or are you desperately looking for an answer to an opponent's threat? If you are looking to replace some unnecessary cards in your game 1 matchup then you should wait for an opportunity to reset the top of your deck, which means usually casting it at sorcery speed, then casting something like Abundant Harvest. If you are desperately looking for an answer, then you have to decide how much time you realistically have left, and what answer you are looking for. Casting a blind Brainstorm in this situation can be devastating if you have no way to reset the top of your deck. Not finding the answer you were looking for while drawing 2 dead cards can seal away most games as a loss. It is then up to the player to evaluate the risks at hand and then find a way to resolve their Brainstorm so that it looks at the most cards, while having a contingency plan of resetting their deck at the ready, just in case.
It would be impossible to be able to touch on every way you can reset your Brainstorms in Historic, but I hope that outlining why and when you would want to cast one of Magic’s most powerful cantrips was helpful! I hope you do some experimenting of your own and let me know in the comments any new ways you found to reset your Brainstorms. Good luck!
