@themonadnomad
Here is the current T2 win that is easier to assemble than the T2 wins of shop decks in the past. This is because they require less restricted pieces than before.

T1 on the draw -(8 cards)Workshop, Inspector, Sol ring Or Black Lotus Or Mana Crypt, 2nd Inspector, steel overseer, ravager, ravager, ballista

T2 - draw a card play whatever it is, land or artifact. The card is pretty much irrelevant. Activate overseer, attack with two 4/3 inspectors, two 2/2 ravagers, one 2/2 ballista. 14 damage. Then finish off with ravager/ballista machine gun. Well over 20 damage T2, only 1 restricted mana producer required.

There are more t2 kills than this though that are easier to assemble than the older ones. When you start adding fleetwheel cruiser into the mix it can get just as silly. On the draw- T1 workshop + lotus or ring or crypt + double inspector + ravager. T2 ancient tomb + ballista + double feetwheel. attack for 17, finish off with ravager/ballista machine gun.

@vnayin Oath + orchard + mox on T1 does not outright win on T2 like shops does.

It can, and in most cases the opponent can't beat whatever big fatty pops out of the oath, so it is effectively over once the trigger resolves, and happens way more often than the above situation.

@vnayin It's not terribly hard for a blue deck to deal with inferno titan popping out(2 out of 3 targets in the current best oath deck are inferno titan). I agree that If they manage to hit griselbro it is pretty much always GG because drawing 7 cards is good.

How about Land + Lotus + D rit + bargain? still more common (in terms of odds of having the cards in the opening 7) than the above line with shops and wins turn 1. The point here is not that a turn 2 win with shops isn't powerful, but that this is vintage and if you get the perfect set of cards to win on turn 2 1-2% of the time that should just be part of the format.

Who cares how easy it is for shops to win on turn 2? That seems totally besides the point. Shops decks contain a deadly cocktail of disruption and pressure that hamstrings opposing decks in the first couple of turns and then wins the game before they can recover.

@bobbyvictory said in The Curious Case of Mishra's Workshop:

Here is the current T2 win that is easier to assemble than the T2 wins of shop decks in the past.

What is the probability of having these eight cards in your open hand on the draw?

@evouga That was exactly my point. Bobby was saying that it was ridiculous that shops could win on turn 2 when it assembled the rube goldberg machine, but really that's just vintage. Most decks should have some probably of a turn 2 win, or at least heavy control by turn 2. As for shops containing a deadly cocktail of disruption and pressure, the pressure has increased, but the disruption isn't nearly as good. This makes bombs like serenity, energy flux, by force, kataki or something like toxic deluge way more easy to cast. Its really hard for a shop deck to stop the opponent's plan nowadays, so it needs to be aggressive to have a chance, if you come with a good plan for shops you can win.

Restrict phyrexian metamorph

@vnayin If you don't have the mox, your serenity/flux doesn't matter because you'll have died before serenity goes off or before casting the flux. Those are not really reliable solutions. Kataki hasn't been good since ballista came out. For deluge, you need the mox.

I'm not saying shops shouldn't have a T2 kill. Almost every deck has one outside of jeskai tokens. The problem is that shops' Inspector T2 kill happens much more frequently than any other deck's T2 kill because it requires less restricted cards to power out. Every other decks T2 kill requires either more restricted cards or variance to go highly in their favor.

Examples
T1 blightsteel, T2 win(multiple restricted cards, can't have blightsteel in hand)
T1/T2 vault/key wins(multiple restricted cards needed)
T2 dredge win(double bazaar opener, perfect graveyard mix from dredging)
T1/T2 outcome/storm win(needs multiple restricted cards in hand + the perfect draws)

All of these above require a much higher level of variance to occur thus making them extremely uncommon when compared to shops t2 kill.

@bobbyvictory Have you actually done the hypergeometric equations for the odds off those hands?

Your scenario of a workshop (1 of a 4 of), 2 inspectors (2 of a 4 of), 2 ravagers (2 of a 4 of), lotus sol ring or crypt (1 of a 3 of) overseer (1 of a 4 of) and ballista (1 of a 4 of) is really really rare. You might as well just complain about turn 1 Trinisphere because over the course of a large event I guarantee that leads to way more wins than that turn 2 play. I'm guessing if you actually did the math it would be comparable to the rarity of the other T2 wins.

Also, turn 2 vault key doesn't take much, right like key can be a 4 of and you can do it off of tomb (4 of) key (4 of) and vault (1 of), which is easier than yours, and all artifacts too, but just doesn't happen....

The reason why today's shop is the fastest shop in the history attributed to the multiple restrictions in the past few years.

People were whining being locked out and could not play magic. Lock pieces restricted. Now shop becomes an affinity comparable in modern, and now it is complained too explosive.

It is unbelievable that modern can handle affinity but vintage cannot handle shop, given shop can rarely tax you from playing any hate cards like energy flux or Huryl's recall or likes. Or, are blue mages so uncomfortable to pack more removals instead of pyroblasts?

I understood some prefer blue vs blue all the day like in legacy, but it is vintage and kicking shop out of the top tier won't make the meta 'healthier'.

@jsakpc Vintage has mishra's workshop + ancient tomb, modern has neither. THis increases the rate at which shops can dump their hand. Vintage also uses ballista.
YOur opponent either has the card they need in the first 3 turns or they don't. Hurkyl's doesn't help much at all since shops can drop it's entire hand again the following turn due to foundry inspector being busted. It literally only buy's 1-2 turns.

I'm suprised how many players complain about shop's power.
As Jsakpc said, the deck follows the B&R list, and good builders found an extra-agressive list, and that works great.
People seem not to admit that a NON-blue deck wins. Where is the problem, i mean, really ?
Is ravager shop unbeatable ? Absolutly not. Is it really good ? Of course; but did it won all tournaments for years ?
Don't you think that an Oath deck can't beat shop ? I've watch the semi between Rich Shay and Pat Fehling, on Inferno Oath. On g1 Fehling kept his 7 hand with : Library,underground sea, Fow and probe. No oath; of course you can hope there is no wasteland or stripe mine, hope your opponent kept a non-agressive hand, hope you draw ancestrall on your lib activation, find G source+oath ...but that hardly happens.
I would really like to know if Brian Kelly would have kept this hand against ravager shop. IMO this hand was great ... against a blue deck.
On g2, Fehling controls ravager with needle, kills threats with grudge and harcasts Griselbrand, everything seemed good...but there was metamorph in Shay's hand. How good it must be to metamorph Griselbrand ! So it was really close but metamorph wins only because Shay was able to cast Chalice on 2. IMO both played well that game but Shay had magic gods by his side.

And this will be my conclusion : of couse Top8 players are really good, but other players are very good too, you need to be lucky to reach top8 and win a tournament, just look at Kelly's 1/4 : 2 dig and almost nothing to play(and compare with 14 draws on grisel activation and finding the answer to avoid a lethale attack of Fehling's grisel by flashbacking his grudge on metamorph).

@francois-f You are correct that shops has not won all the tournaments for years, However, Shops has been taking up 25%-50%(more at champs) of top8s from the last 2 years and shops won almost every single big event in the states over the last year. This type of consistency and performance proves that the deck is way too good.

@jsakpc said in The Curious Case of Mishra's Workshop:

I understood some prefer blue vs blue all the day like in legacy, but it is vintage and kicking shop out of the top tier won't make the meta 'healthier'.

I suspect, though don't have hard data, that many "dissatisfied" vintage players are actually legacy players who started playing vintage out of prestige and to look like cool kids. As result, these players use blue decks because most of the cards in those decks are transferable between vintage and legacy. So choosing between adopting to a new to them format or insisting on changing the format, naturally they prefer the format to be changed to suit their preferences. Therefore, there is a notion that the Workshops deck is too strong and unbearable for the format.

@bobbyvictory said in The Curious Case of Mishra's Workshop:

@jsakpc Vintage has mishra's workshop + ancient tomb, modern has neither. THis increases the rate at which shops can dump their hand. Vintage also uses ballista.
YOur opponent either has the card they need in the first 3 turns or they don't. Hurkyl's doesn't help much at all since shops can drop it's entire hand again the following turn due to foundry inspector being busted. It literally only buy's 1-2 turns.

With respect, I have to disagree. Modern affinity is a turn-4-clock deck while vintage ravager aggro is a turn-3. And modern is a format where force of will, wasteland, time walk etc are illegal but in vintage we can play moxen ourselves. There is nothing about the tempo. Vintage TPS can win in turn 1. It is not the case that shop doesnt allow interaction but simply some players rather play magic on stack thank deal with the board. The proposition of shop being too broken, imho, is just a disguise of their preference.

@jsakpc Are you serious? Current Shops decks are based almost entirely on tempo. They don't have enough prison pieces to effectively function as a prison deck.

@chronatog This is elitist and frankly wrong. The notion that Workshops is too strong comes from 3 years of metagame data...