These are the products where they tend to sneak in a card or two specifically designed for Eternal. IE Containment Priest, Flusterstorm, Dack Fayden, Leovold. It looks to me like they tried to make this card relevant to the token strategies in Eternal without actually coming close to addressing the problem.
Outside of that failed objective though, it is a cool card.
It's a cool card that has some application in token world, but if this is their attempt at addressing the situation, we are out of hope. They must not understand how much more it takes to resolve the situation. The Cat would need haste and hexproof to even begin to do what it's supposed to do reliably. Mentor is so ridiculously overpowered that an answer card should be a powerhouse. A card that answers a problem needs to be more efficient than the problem or more powerful than the problem in the context where the problem is involved in game play. The over-powered aspect in that circumstance is inherently balanced by the fact that the answer card is far weaker when the problem card is not present.
@islandswamp said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
When R&D is designing cards, their goal is "sell as many packs as possible". They absolutely do not have time or motivation to give two poops about Vintage. Maybe they give half a poop on a good day, because they have Grandpa Belcher in the office nowadays, but realistically Standard is their bread and butter, with also a little casual play (Commander, Conspiracy, Un Sets).
Wizards prints cards specifically for Vintage every now and then.
Lodestone Golem was one example. They also print cards specific to Legacy + Vintage like Containment Priest, Flusterstorm, and Dack Fayden. Neither the primacy of Standard nor the desire to sell boosters are responsible for their failure to address taxing.
I prefer the more resilient versions for several reasons. Though I haven't been able to join as many Dailies this month as I was in May, June, and July, I had a lot of success then with lists that walked the line between Paradoxical control and Cantrip Gush-Delve.
The main reasons I've preferred the Paradox lists with a Mentor win-con that are not "Opal Soup" are:
I like it a lot. It might not slot into any existing deck right now but the card itself has a lot of possibility in the future. One of the most clever things about is recognizing the constraints of Rebound. You lose out entirely if the spell is countered (pilots with Narset PW experience can attest), so they designed him in a way to make the Rebound ability even stronger.
It also illustrates that Ojutai and Dromoka rule the planes. Silumgar is a malevolent incompetent fool and Atarka is clueless when it comes to Vintage.
Also, @Smmenen, I regret I was tied up with other obligations and didn't have an opportunity to address your last response. It seems we have a clear understanding of each others' positions.
It's easy to print cards that eschew taxing without much creative effort. It would be preferable if Wizards printed cards that were conscious of the taxing problem. The main issue with that right now is that this has been the best argument since 2010. No one has any faith left that this will happen or patience for that matter. This is doubly confounding because they now have a specific venue for printing Eternal legal cards that have no effect on Standard or Modern (Conspiracy, Commander). The fact they have refused to utilize this has been a repeated slap in the face for those of us that believed issues regarding Standard and Modern were the biggest practical barriers to effective printings.
It's an act of extreme generosity that Mishra's Workshop is unrestricted despite being so over the line in every objective metric. The corollary to keeping it around is that more of the toys end up having to be regulated. If there are complaints about a restricted list with Lodestone Golem, Thorn, Revoker, and Chalice, we should wonder "would we rather unrestrict two or three of those and restrict Mishra's Workshops?" I would hope the answer would be no.
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
Except that's what I disagree with. And this is not a philosophical disagreement. It's not a disagreement over style, tone or values. This is a factual one:
The reason I so carefully showed you that data was to illustrate this point: For four full years, Gush was fine - it was below 15% of the metagame on average that entire time. It wasn't until Khans that Gush started acting out.
This is a point of distinction we have. I have less faith in data because the many factors that skew something like tournament results render them untrustworthy specifically as a source for gauging an individual card's power or offensiveness. To illustrate, if a card like Ancestral Recall were unrestricted but a period of time existed where, for whatever reason, decks containing 4 copies were below a certain threshold, that has no bearing, for me, on whether the card is something that should or should not be restricted.
This isn't a case of facts being in dispute. It is an actual philosophical difference. Your view measures a card's restrictability as a function of the quantity of appearances it makes in a series of tournaments that are recent in nature, relative to other cards doing so or the total pool of played cards. It focuses almost exclusively on a specific metagame at a specific point in time, namely, the present. I assess cards' restrictibility in terms of their effect on game play, raw power level and relative power level vis-a-vis other existing cards, and intangibles like "fun" factor and "outrageous!" factor, the appraisals of which elude verbal capture and recall the Supreme Court's obscenity test from the 1960's, "I know it when I see it."
By this metric, a card like Show and Tell would earn a red flag despite the fact that there's no activity in the current metagame that supports doing so. Because subjective card choice and deck choice considers other factors than simply winning, tournament results have less probative value regarding a card's power level or offensiveness for me. The fact that a card is not the flavor of the month does not establish by itself that the card is not restriction worthy. When a card with potential for abuse becomes one that is actually abused, that card's inherent power did not rise when it began to see play. It was static whether played or unplayed. Actual heavy play and abuse is a secondary effect of the underlying power level and abuse potential. In essence, Gitaxian Probe was as broken when released in the Spring of 2011 as it was when it was restricted in April of 2017. New printings may of course effect the relative or contextual power level or offensiveness of a given card, but again, that power level is still my primary focus rather than popularity, the happenstance of what a particular group of human beings is playing at a given moment in time.
Additionally, my view on what is acceptable in Vintage is more conservative while yours is more libertarian. This may be a product of having been reared in the 1990's during an era of heavier restraints and then leaving the format sporadically for years at a time and returning with culture shock. I don't think your perspective is unreasonable or that mine is objectively superior. However, we are not having a factual dispute but instead are reaching dissimilar conclusions due to philosophical differences.
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
A better analogy would be someone who behaves perfectly well for four years, who is polite, a perfect gentlemen/gentlewoman, never cross, and a perfect father/mother/sister/brother/husband/wife/employee/boss, etc.
But then starts hanging out with the wrong people who are heavy drug users or heavy drinkers, and he starts acting out on the job and at home two and a half years until you put them in a treatment facility or a jail.
That's Gush. Good guy, bad company.
You can't behave exceptionally well for four full years and then claim he's a rotten egg.
Thoroughly enjoyed.
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
You point towards the quantifiable monetary investment that Workshop players enjoy as a critical factor. But I fail to see why that is more important than the much more valuable time investment that players make with specific archetypes or engines.
My time, as everyone's time, has an economic component or value to it. Those investment, for pretty much everyone, is far more valuable than the far more nominal value of $2-3K in Workhshop as a physical card or form of capital.
Acknowledging the truism that everyone's time is valuable is not inconsistent with opposing a Workshop restriction. In addition to the lost financial investment, over a decade of scholarship, study, and design would be out the window. An entire culture and role identity (dedicated Shop players) has been built around the foundation of 4 Mishra's Workshops as a fundamental presence in the format, for nearly two decades. It's an ad hoc case.
Secondly, it's inconsiderate to blithely write off $4,000 as no big deal. I don't own any Workshops now (the last time I won one, I couldn't get rid of it soon enough, distasteful robot maker that it is) but I'm aware that we live in a declining country where fewer than half of the citizens have $500 to cover an unexpected emergency. I would describe a dismissal of that concern for people who own Workshops as "draconian," but I know Dromoka and Ojutai take issue with the use of that term due to their heritage. :-D
And perhaps most significantly, in my view restricting Mishra's Workshop would be the largest seismic event in B&R history causing lost confidence, disillusionment, and a self-compounding cycle of retirements and less TO support.
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
That's not true, either, Brian. Black Vise was restricted twice as well.
That's correct, my mistake. It has no bearing on the argument though, which is that Gush is an inherently problematic card and more pertinently that there is very little chance that the DCI is going to give it a fourth opportunity to remind us of what already known.
What would Gush itself say if it were to be anthropomorphized?
Gush: "I promise I have changed my ways. I'll behave this time."
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
While you may call Hangerback[sic] Walker a "milquetoast" printing, it was the precipitating event for a slew of top tier blue pilots like Demars, Shay, Mastriano and Ito to switch to Workshop decks in the 2015 Vintage Championship.
That's not accurate as the reason blue mages made the switch was because the objective raw power level of Shops was so far above the other contenders in the metagame that not playing Shops was deemed to be an impediment for players whose primary goal was to win the event. This raw power level can be attributed to 4 Workshops, 4 Chalices, and 4 Lodestone Golems more than anything else. Hangarback Walker was a cute 2x that gave the deck an edge in the mirror while being mediocre to irrelevant in most other match-ups.
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
If Rich's theory in the OP is true, they certainly did. Rich's theory is that as TX decks surge, so do Shops in predation. If Cruise, Dig and Mentor all boost TX decks, then, according to Rich's theory, Shops are propped up accordingly.
While any deck becoming a better choice due to fortification by recent printings may make its predator a good metagame call, the strengthening of a prey deck is not what justifies actual restrictions in its predator. That would be silly. In fact, the opposite should be true. Let's illustrate:
Griselbrand makes Oath of Druids stronger.
Storm preys on Oath of Druids.
If Dark Ritual were restricted, it would be because of Griselbrand.
The illogic speaks for itself.
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
My point, however, was that there is no linkage between the removal of power level errata on Time Vault and a creeping neglect of the format. The years 2010-2014 were a wonderful period for the format.
No, late 2008 until circa mid 2011 was an abysmal period in Vintage history defined by taking unlimited turns and winning with one swing, which was obscene but then became an accepted norm allowing further obscenities to become justified and normalized (including LSG+Chalice). The prevailing pushback was "[If you don't like driving three hours to lose on Turn 1.5, go play Legacy]" and that was antithetical to growing the format.
The printing of Mental Misstep enabled decks like Bomberman and Landstill to compete at a high level and in 2012, Cavern of Souls opened up a lot of exciting design space. The format became more enjoyable than it had been previously even while several ailments still persisted without treatment.
@Smmenen said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:
Gush performance by quarter: <snip>
Yes, Gush became a more popular choice after M14 (Young Pyromancer) and the Tarkir block. Dig through Time and Treasure Cruise raised the profile of Gush decks and certainly did play an... important role in realizing their own restrictions. :-D They additionally precipitated the restrictions of Gush and Gitaxian Probe by drawing so much of the player base's attention to those cards that were already previously broken. However, Treasure Cruise and Dig through Time were not implicated in the restrictions of Lodestone Golem or Chalice of the Void, nor should they have been.
As I didn't hear any response from you regarding the reason we treat Mishra's Workshop differently than we treat other cascading problematic cards like Tolarian Academy, I'm hopeful you found the explanation persuasive.
I am sincerely curious if you intend to campaign specifically for unrestricting Gush. I don't have any quarrel with you (the contrary--I respect your intellect and contributions) but it doesn't escape attention that if you do want to assemble a unified majority to support your cause, it might help to build bridges and use effective persuasion techniques instead of villainizing persons with whom you disagree, including the DCI. The mumblings about a conspiracy to revive Keeper/Control Slaver are off the wall and that ultimately discredits some of the points you make that are legitimately worthy of consideration.