@LotusHead Congrats on a confluence of positive life developments.

@nedleeds said in Vintage Challenge - 6/10/2017:

@ChubbyRain said in Vintage Challenge - 6/10/2017:

Sigh, are we really going to have to do this every week Ryan and I put one of these out?

@nedleeds - 69% of decklists on MTGGoldfish play 4 Brainstorm in Legacy. 64% of decks in Standard play 4 Attune the Aether. 62% of Vintage decks play 3.6 Mental Missteps. Force of Will actually sees more play that Mental Misstep @4.0 and 65% of the metagame. In any format, you are going to get cards that play pivotal roles in multiple archetypes as they simple do what they do better than alternatives in the format. Do you think that Force of Will should be restricted in Vintage? Do you think Brainstorm should be banned in Legacy? The question is, what effect does the card in question have on the two key metrics WotC cares about when evaluating format health: metagame diversity and interactivity? Try to construct an argument taking into account those factors rather than simply regurgitating statistics from a single event.

Anyone else want to have a go?

Sure. Brainstorm should absolutely be banned in Legacy, it 32/32'ed a GP and has come close several times. Given the refuse on the banned list (Mind Twist, Earthcraft, Goblin Recruiter ...) I don't think anyone is debating the merits of banning Brainstorm, the counter argument is some combination of 'pillar of the format', 'format defining', 'skill intensives', 'everyone would quit' and 'go play modern'. If Legacy was played at the Pro Tour it'd have been banned long ago. It'd be like Bazaar 32/32'ing Vintage Champs (worm can opened).

As for Force of Will vs. Misstep this is my opinion but Force of Will requires more deck building constraints at design time and a more difficult card to use at runtime. It has a far steeper opportunity cost than Misstep. I've never felt like other decks playing Force of Will has constrained my deck building experience like Derpstep does. Force of Will shouldn't be restricted.

So my overarching point was that Vintage is Missteps and Thorns which speaks to the diversity argument. Again, my opinion ... one Misstep would diversify (clap) the blue deck builder (copiers) suite of counterspells similar to what we had 3-4 years ago and play one for ones that deal with Thorn (Pierce, Snare, SS). Thus hopefully muting Thorns impact and leaving some design space to resolve sorcery speed one mana spells without wanting to throw your deck across the room (or Misstep that Misstep).

Maybe every deck becomes +3 Flusterstorm ... even that is fine with me. Flusterstorm comes with its own host of deficiencies. At least I could cast a one mana creature again in Vintage again without Cavern of Souls.

But I'm probably in the minority. I thought Misstep and Probe should have gotten restricted and Gush should have stayed and then let's see what shakes out. Mentor would be much more killable. Substituting cards with text vs. Thorns would help push back against the natural predator. Other decks could pop up in between.

I hate Misstep too but before it becomes restricted, there needs to be a better way to manage the 1 CMC design defect discard (Thoughtseize/Duress) and the Voltaic Key problem.

@Smmenen

Love the deference shown to the format's history.

@Topical_Island said in Vintage Challenge - 5/29/17:

Likewise, I am not comfortable assuming that their reasoning which they keep unknown to us, is one scrap better than what they are willing to print. I will not incentivize their lack of transparency. If they have good reasons to do something, they should put those reasons down in print. Otherwise, those don't exist to me. I'm happy read the reasoning they provide. I think that reasoning, especially the reasoning involving player feedback, is irresponsible and pretty bad. And my prediction is that their bad reasoning will lead to bad decisions, as secretive, and ineffectual decision-making so often does.

The "realist" side of me thinks the reason for any recent change to the B&R list is just "Someone made a phone call."

I think we, as primary Vintage players, have the Vintage metagame in our headspace far more than the DCI does, which is not an insult to them, but merely a concession to the fact that they are managing multiple other formats while many of us focus exclusively on Vintage (which is the correct focus for a Magic player, IMO).

Smennen:

They went further and offered predictions.

Even if there were unstated reasons behind the restrictions, if their predictions turn out to be wrong, it raises the presumption that their reasoning (whatever it was - whether it was what they said or something else entirely, unstated) was in error or misguided. That appears to be the case there.

A governing body acting on imperfect information with imperfect analyses and procedures... sounds very business-as-usual for most human institutions.

It depends on your values. I think it's clear that, in general, Vintage players prefer fewer restrictions rather than more.

I'm confident if the arguments for play experience v. the aesthetic appeal of the restricted list's size were fully fleshed out and weighed by the community, the former would win. The -ban list- is already at 37 cards so any pretense that Vintage is a format where "everything is playable" is already dead on arrival.

I would certainly scorn and fear a cascade of restrictions precipitated by these badly reasoned and badly implemented restrictions.

"There's nothing to fear but fear itself." :-P

The DCI has essentially invited complaining and whining on an unprecedented scale now. Any restriction that isn't strictly necessary is one too many, IMO.

The DCI is finally listening to concerns of Vintage players after nearly a decade of neglect. Most of the restrictive changes they've made have had positive long term impacts on play experience and format appeal, even if a few had a tumultuous initial adjustment period. The unrestrictions of Regrowth, Gifts Ungiven, and Thirst for Knowledge were good calls as well. I anticipate at some point in the future we'll all be grateful that Monastery Mentor and "laughs-at-Treasure Cruise" Paradoxical Outcome are appropriately limited to 1x as well. This is not apocalyptic.

It might be helpful to consider that the actual mechanisms and processes behind the scenes that result in B&R changes are unknown to us and the explanations given more likely constitute public relations than transparent windows into the actual routine and objectives. The official explanations for the restrictions of Gush, Gitaxian Probe, and Chalice of the Void were saturated with problems and quite fallible. That doesn't necessarily mean the reasoning behind them was equally porous. While dissecting the official explanations has intellectual value, it's not a full substitute for attacking the actual reasons behind a decision, because they are unknown. The conclusion we can reach is that the official explanations are specious, which is not surprising given their role as PR.

On the bright side, I don't think eventual restrictions of Monastery Mentor, Paradoxical Outcome, or Thorn/Phyrexian Revoker are possibilities to be met with fear or scorn. A lot of the allowances of past 8 years in Vintage have been beyond the pale by historical standards. I enjoy seeing a gradual comprehensive restoration of sanity. :-)

I remember that there was no subject matter to "memorize" and the gist of the LSAT was to assess general problem solving ability and critical thinking skills. The result of that was that there wasn't exactly anything needed to "prepare" for it. Someone could go in cold and do just as well or better than someone who spent a lot of time stretching their brain on practice exercises beforehand. Consequently, I don't know how much value there would be in dedicating serious time to preparing. My advice would be to avoid stressing over it, sleep well, eat appropriately, have coffee if you drink it and take the test with a relaxed frame of mind. From reading your posts here, you've never demonstrated a bankruptcy of observational, critical, or synthesis skills (quite the contrary) so I would cursorily anticipate you being able to achieve better than average results on most days.

@nucleosynth said in Deck Names on MTGGoldfish:

@BazaarOfBaghdad said in Deck Names on MTGGoldfish:

@desolutionist said in Deck Names on MTGGoldfish:

@Brass-Man

Just a catalog of tournament results. ... mtgoldfish cycles them out of the database.

Partially true, if you click on a user's name, it still has a record of all their decklists that were ever live on the site.

Also, if you search for a particular card in decks, you can set a date range going backwards in time arbitrarily far. For instance: http://bit.ly/2qBw1R1

What I love about that link is that even there, the first deck listed is "Nahiri Control" by someone called brianpk80...

Also, there is a tendency to vaporize my results into thin air. Two 4-0's from last week have now vanished into the ether and the result from TPG last month should be first place, not second. This is pretty consistent with the movement on VSL to assign the origin of every deck I play to a different creator. Fortunately, I've received so much goodwill from the community that it's more of an amusement now than an actual headache.

:-D

Welcome back!

By Force
Time Walk
Demonic Tutor
Gifts Ungiven

He would probably give Gifts and Time Walk, in which case Gifts for:

By Force
Hurkyl's Recall
Jace, Vryn
Yawgmoth's Will

He'll have to give you By Force and Hurk's, at which point you destroy his board, take another turn and play Dig through Time in peace with Hurkyl's in hand. If he chooses anything wrong, he loses to Will.

Good questions.

I think there can be a successful Oath deck out there right now, but it needs a lot of focus and testing to generate the optimal configuration of creature package, counter package, draw suite, removal suite, planeswalkers, Dredge plan, PO plan, Null Rod choices (run it, ignore it, fight it), TV/Key choice, Karakas plan, and managing the triumvirate of intrinsic self-inflicted wounds: automilling, useless cards in hand, and death by Spirit token.

Punishing Oath Emrakul/Griselbrand is formidable overall, and can run Null Rod/SS but is slightly soft to combo and soft to Karakas.

Saheeli Oath transfers the issue of useless draws away from the creatures but then moves that onto a combo piece that is generally horrible by Vintage standards. We call her the "blue Bridge from Below."

Gush Oath was smooth and consistent but now Gush is restricted.

Auriok Oath is likely good right now with the right supplements but can't be tested on MTGO where many of us get some portion of our testing experience.

Landstill/Oath decks seem as fine as ever, attacking on two distinct axes. Still, it has the "Treetop Village, go" thing going on.

Evil Oath decks might offer a lot. By Evil Oath, I refer to prison-esque strategies that can use Sun Titan, Trinisphere, Rod, and land destruction to help combat a natural predator which is combo. I've started looking into a preliminary build but am not sure whether it will be ready in time for something like the NYSE.

Overall, it takes a long time to get Oath "right" and there is a lot of analysis and balancing that must occur. The end result can pay off spectacularly but a lot of the format's mental energy is being poured into neo-Mentor, Big Blue, Paradox, Shops/Eldrazi, and Dredge atm.