@JACO @hierarchnoble Yeah, I'd prefer to buy a physical book, so I'm waiting for an edition update.

I pet my Juzams also

@dshin said in [Article] 100 Matches with the Best Deck in Magic: @smmenen said in [Article] 100 Matches with the Best Deck in Magic: Actually, Max's article is a devastating argument against the case for restricting Misstep. Restricting Misstep will just replace those slots with other cards that are bad against Shops, so restricting Misstep will have no net effect on Shops. Restricting Misstep won't make Shops weaker in the metagame. If Missteps get replaced by Pyroblasts, that indeed will have little effect on the blue-vs-blue match, and also on the blue-vs-shops match. However, there can be effects on other matchups that can theoretically have cascading effects. Misstep differs from Pyroblast in that it has utility against non-blue decks, some of which might match up favorably against shops. For example, Vintage Lands. Restricting Misstep could make a deck like Vintage Lands more playable, which could force shops to devote more sideboard slots to that matchup, which could weaken shops as a whole. As it stands, shops decks are effectively able to pack hate against Vintage Lands without using up a single slot in their 75. Instead, they are packing the required hate in the 75 of their blue opponents. Vintage.. Lands!? Well, since that deck couldn't be any less playable than it already is, I guess you're right. The only thing restricting Misstep accomplishes is that even more start playing red in combination with blue than what we already see right now. Color combinations like UWB will get pushed out in the dark.

I since changed the file, so I had to reconstruct it as best as I could recall. It would help if I could just link to the Results site, but alas, no entry on February 10th...

@womba said in Math and Max: A statistical analysis of "100 Matches with the Best Deck in Magic": Additionally, I had MULTIPLE OPPONENTS keep cards like Mental Misstep and Gush in against me, on the draw no less. Good points added. It's generally not right to keep Misstep in but I figured I would add that Oath pilots should generally keep 1 (possibly 2) in post sideboard due to the importance of stopping Grafdigger's Cage. If they weren't on Oath, they probably have no excuse aside from "I just had so many Pyroblasts and Flusterstorms I didn't have enough cards to take out" in which case, again, no excuse. :-D

It's pretty surreal that the series is almost done. I literally have one chapter left to finish writing, and the other three are under various stages of editing. That said, I'm still putting the call out there for players to: spot errors share anecdotes or stories that might be used in the main body or in an endnote identify big tournaments I missed send photos or graphics we can include These chapters are dirt cheap - just spare pocket change - so I really hope that folks can help crowd source these answers. The chapters will need to be reformatted for the book, and so we'll be doing another edit through all of them for the book. But once that's done, and the book is published, it will be too late to add or correct anything. I'm hoping that this book will be a definitively history of the format to be enjoyed by all Magic players for years to come. So PLEASE be sure to help with the items above. Anyone complaining that I missed something will be immediately directed to this thread in a few months, when the book is finally published.

@smmenen said in [Premium article] History of Vintage - Schools of Magic: 2012: And modest, too, I see. ;) I learned from you. :)

I had a chance to finish the last part of this one earlier in the week and enjoyed it very much. I tested two of the new creatures in Oath, Azor and Zacama. I complemented Zacama with the Auriok Salvagers set up since he's quite the impressive infinite mana-sink. I also read recently that someone played Zacama in a local event and had some success. Overall though, I would say he is win-more. He is able to seal the deal in positions where just about any other large creature would be able to do the same, but with few distinct strengths over the others and several weak spots, although when he does win big, it is fun and sensational. We don't always have the luxury of abundant developed board states that can activate him effectively, he's soft to Jace, can be overrun with creature armadas, and there's no way of determining the correct course of action with Oath of Druids on the stack. What I mean by that is that against Workshops, in certain situations for instance involving Tangle Wire, during my upkeep I would have to make a decision about whether to fetch a land, whether that should be a Tropical or Tundra, and then decide if, given limited resources, I should anticipate Auriok Salvagers appearing and produce white mana or Ancient Grudge going into the yard and produce green mana. Orchards and potential future life loss complicate the equation. With Zacama, you have no idea whether he'll actually appear and you can't predict whether you should tap the lands prior to Oathing and if so, which color(s) they should produce. If you don't tap one or two lands if that is all the mana available mana, you might not even be able to activate him once that turn cycle, which is abysmal. The best thing he did for me was to destroy a Stony Silence before he got Plowshared; at that point I may as well have just Oathed up a Reclamation Sage. I used him once to destroy a Rest in Peace, but the Salvagers plan was superfluous at that point so it was again, win-more. He was fun to have in play and scored style points, but Inferno Titan outclasses him in nearly every way. Even when I hardcast him on a very developed board and destroyed a Containment Priest and non-disruptive Thorn of Amethyst, it accomplished nothing substantial beyond what an Inferno Titan would do for 66% the price. Azor on the other hand is surprisingly functional in combo metagames. There are several things that could have been done in design to make him stronger (these sets do have the whiff of "let's scale the power down") but his ability has kept me alive v. Combo decks during that critical post-Oath turn where few creatures other than the obscenely uncastable Griselbrand would. He wants a Tolarian Academy supporting build in order to use the Sphinx Rev ability but even without that he was not horrible. It bears noting that his Silence effect can be reactivated with a Jace bounce + replay, which is sometimes the correct move.

I like scenarios, seems like a segment you could put in every episode as a single scenario. I would love to hear episodes that retell the history of Vintage, like your premium article series.

Well, this article is certainly relevant again. It may even be useful data mine to see what metagame preferences prevailed in the Roanoke tournaments.