"why so many feel that the Vintage meta-game is bad". It's easy to get that feeling when reading vintage related posts on the internet. But it's just that the internet is for whining. Everywhere, all the time, whine whine.
One of the reasons I love the so many insane plays podcast is that they are so full of enthusiasm, like all the time. Enthusiasm is rare on the internet and it's very easy to be shot down when trying to be enthusiastic about something.
If you don't like current vintage, take a break and come back some months later, play legacy or old-school. Try playing the decks you feel contempt for. Do something. Hell, even talk about in one thread someone else started. Don't create a new thread with the same whine. It's poisonous.
Enthusiasm > whine.

Well guess I wrote a whole post and ending up with whining about whining.

I think people are overeacting and needs to calm down. LSG was restricted because shops continued to be overrepresented even after chalice restriction. 38 % in februari on mtgo according to CHA1N5. It's understandable that MTGO results are the most reliable to WotC and one could argue that WotC have no reason to care about non-sanctioned events at all.

The reactions were much the same after the chalice restriction. Everybody talked about a combo winter that never came. Everybody blamed the VSL. Some believed color-shops would make a return. Known shop-player said he would quit vintage, it seems he is quitting now again. Hear me on this... nothing will change (almost).

That said, i'm dissapointed that there was no real shakeup of vintage. I would have liked to see mental misstep, gush, and dark petition restricted in addition to LSG. My prediction for the future is that the metagame will stay the same, dredge-gush-storm-shops metagame with some oath-big blue-hatebears that needs luck with it's matchups to win.

@evouga It also makes dack fayden unable to come down before turn 3, and harder to protect with misstep.
I think this card will be huge in control mirrors. And obviously vs combo.

What's your verdict on the oath package? To me it seems kind of strange that you dedicate 8 cards to the oath package, and do not bring it in vs stax, i understand that it's because the lack of orchards but still, that's a lot of sb-space.
If i read correctly, it seems like you only oathed once during the daily. I wonder if those 8 sideboard slots would have been better as something else?

If you own 3+ underground seas in paper you can sell one and get a complete vintage deck. Not really a waste of money, an unused underground sea is on the other hand a waste of money (imo). For me buying into mtgo is the best magic related thing i done in a long time. Only wished more people in europe would do it so i could play the vintage league's at 'strange' times. Currently only playing legacy because of that. Local paperscene is almost dead, old-school thrives but vintage was even more dead before that started.

@wagner said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

When a new blue card gets printed, everyone is super happy to have a new toy, but when a new hate card gets printed, people throw a tantrum because they can't use their toys like they want.

If this is true, then why are you opposed to it? Everyone being super happy seems better than everyone not being happy.

My opinion: The problem with most hatebears is that they do not add anything interesting. When i started playing vintage it was purely because of the interesting control mirrors and the occasional combo matchup. To a really small degree other decks existed like sligh/suicide/stacker etc. But they were the uninteresting matchups that were handled by tutor for moat/balance mostly. This uniqueness of vintage was what made me start playing it over say standard and extended. That's why I'm not happy when new hatebears gets printed. I know this is subjective, but still it's how I feel.
I also know that hatebears are not really a viable strategy in today's vintage meta. But that don't stop people from playing it because hatebears are high variance decks and when they get lucky and draw the right hate they can win, and winning feels good so people think it could be viable. This results in a kind of 'landmine' feeling when I face someone in a tournament and they happened to have t1 thalia of cavern.

@fsecco
I was not the one calling them "lesser", that came from the post i quoted which implied that these "lesser" decks should have their piece of the pie...

Don't recall i said that any creature deck is dominating? All i said was that there is more creatures now than before and that i don't like "hatebear" matchups.

I actually hate complaining and very much prefer enthusiasm. I saw this thread, read some post i agreed with saying that they dislike "hatebears" and what came next was a flurry of posts arguing about "blue mages this blue mages that". Suddenly someone implies that everybody should love change, love the new creature focused development or else they are equal to
"People on top with all the privileges have been there long enough that they don't understand the lower class is actually struggling to get to their level. "
Seems absurd to me...

@shopsaholic said in How much shake up is too much:

TL:DR - War of the Spark didn't shake up the format and an actual shake up would be cool as long as the resulting metagame was balanced.

Top 8 stats for decks with fow without bazaar 3 challenges before WAR

April 28: 6/8
April 21: 4/8
April 14: 6/8

Top 8 stats for decks with fow without bazaar the 3 last MTGO challenges (after WAR, excluding the one that was immediately after release)

May 12: 2/8
May 19: 2/8
May 26: 2/8

Out of those 6 decks, 5 played narset...
There could be tons of reasons for this, people want to try new things etc. But it seems strange to argue that WAR didn't shake up the format...

I've been thinking about how turbodepths in legacy play ESG and crop rotation to be even more turbo. It feels like if you play ESG then seeds of innocence gets a lot better. But i guess crop rotation is to big a liability with so much misstep around.

@craw_advantage said in Proposed New Mulligan Rule for Mythic Championship London:

@cambriel said in Proposed New Mulligan Rule for Mythic Championship London:

I'm trying to find the MTG Arena angle that's almost certainly behind this, but I'm coming up blank so far.

It's because of the e-sports push. They took some criticism at whatever PT it was last year after LSV anticlimactically exited the top eight when he had to mull to four. Non-games like that are bad for the streaming numbers, which is what they're focusing on now.

Still, that is probably the only game I remember from that PT...

@stormanimagus
I don't think the deck will have high enough powerlevel, but as a long time fan of tax-rack in general (currently playing it in premodern) and parfait i like the interaction between land tax and Lavinia. I know i'm gonna try some brew with tax-rack, mox diamond (always good with land tax, but also more ways for t1 lavinia). Blue for fow misstep daze and the regular good blue cards. Enlightened tutor + toolbox package. Something to kill their lands, maybe cataclysm. And a kill condition, maybe belcher + tinker + blightsteel. I know i played blueberry parfait in a tournament a long time ago and had a lot of fun.

I do think it will be hard to make it viable when on the draw and opponent starts with 2+ moxes. Stony silence is kind of a nonbo with scroll rack.

@fsecco
I was not the one calling them "lesser", that came from the post i quoted which implied that these "lesser" decks should have their piece of the pie...

Don't recall i said that any creature deck is dominating? All i said was that there is more creatures now than before and that i don't like "hatebear" matchups.

I actually hate complaining and very much prefer enthusiasm. I saw this thread, read some post i agreed with saying that they dislike "hatebears" and what came next was a flurry of posts arguing about "blue mages this blue mages that". Suddenly someone implies that everybody should love change, love the new creature focused development or else they are equal to
"People on top with all the privileges have been there long enough that they don't understand the lower class is actually struggling to get to their level. "
Seems absurd to me...

@wagner said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

The more I read here, the more I agree that blue mages are living in a bubble. They don't want do run situational answers, they don't want to adapt, moreso, they don't want to be challenged, they only want to do what they've been doing forever and play between themselves as the top decks. They see creature decks as inferior and losing to one of them as an annoyance, like it's something that shouldn't happen (while doing nothing to prevent it from happening).

It's really making me think about social classes. People on top with all the privileges have been there long enough that they don't understand the lower class is actually struggling to get to their level. When there is a creature that COULD have an impact and shift the metagame (but ultimately never does in a major way), they panic at the idea that "lesser" decks might get a piece of their pie, because that would mean changing what they've been doing, and change is scary.

Ehm, yeah, really social classes....
Vintage is a format among others that's played for fun. I don't see why you expect everyone that loves vintage to want vintage to change? I think we all can agree that creature strategies are more viable in vintage today than 10-15 years ago, and the trend seems to be that it will become more viable. Why do i have to see that as a good thing? Why should "lesser" decks get a piece of the pie? There will always be "lesser" decks.

What i see is that some people came to this thread stating that they dislike the current design direction with it's focus on "hatebears". Then a group of people starting to claim that "it's unfair!! you have this and that" etc etc.

Instead of demanding that i should adapt to and embrace change, please respect my opinion that i don't like "hatebears" because matches that include those rarely brings me any enjoyment. I do respect that people feel different, even tho i can have a hard time trying to understand why people who love playing with creatures focuses so much on the format that historically has had the fewest viable creature strategies.

@wagner said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

When a new blue card gets printed, everyone is super happy to have a new toy, but when a new hate card gets printed, people throw a tantrum because they can't use their toys like they want.

If this is true, then why are you opposed to it? Everyone being super happy seems better than everyone not being happy.

My opinion: The problem with most hatebears is that they do not add anything interesting. When i started playing vintage it was purely because of the interesting control mirrors and the occasional combo matchup. To a really small degree other decks existed like sligh/suicide/stacker etc. But they were the uninteresting matchups that were handled by tutor for moat/balance mostly. This uniqueness of vintage was what made me start playing it over say standard and extended. That's why I'm not happy when new hatebears gets printed. I know this is subjective, but still it's how I feel.
I also know that hatebears are not really a viable strategy in today's vintage meta. But that don't stop people from playing it because hatebears are high variance decks and when they get lucky and draw the right hate they can win, and winning feels good so people think it could be viable. This results in a kind of 'landmine' feeling when I face someone in a tournament and they happened to have t1 thalia of cavern.

@evouga It also makes dack fayden unable to come down before turn 3, and harder to protect with misstep.
I think this card will be huge in control mirrors. And obviously vs combo.

I've lost with storm trigger on the stack but not being able to click "same targets" fast enough. I've no problem with that, i just need to play faster. Time is a resource that needs to be managed well.
That said, when i combo off and my hellbent opponent instead of f6ing (or just at least pass priority 'normally') waits an arbitrary amount of time at every priority pass to make me miss seconds i think it's a bit annoying. But still, it's not at problem if i play quickly the whole game.

Awesome! Even if i have no interest in even trying to qualify for the pro tour this feels like a great move.