@protoaddct said in February 12, 2018 Banned and Restricted Announcement:
@smmenen said in February 12, 2018 Banned and Restricted Announcement:
Disagree completely.
No offense, but it sounds like you are not well informed on the role that data plays in this debate.
This debate has been going on for some time and has a much wider breadth than peoples implementation and interpretation of data alone
The issue, as you framed it, is whether data analysis has a role in Vintage Restricted list debates. Your position is that it should not. Mine is that it should.
Your posts reveal a lack of understanding of how data has been used in these debate, by the community and DCI.
The explanation is simple: when a deck become too large a part of the Top 8 metagame, it begins to dominate the format. Note: we don't care about metagame %. A deck could be 80% of the metagame, but 0% of Top 8s and sub 30% win percentage. What matters is win percentage and Top 8 penetration.
This is not true at all. If a rouge deck has 3 seats in 2 major events and just happens to luck its way into top 8s from favorable pairings, it would have disproportionate representation in said top brackets. I doubt that alone would be enough.
Again, you are displaying your ignorance.
A single Top 8 does not and has never prompted the DCI to restrict a card. When I say "% of Top 8s" we are talking about large samples with many Top 8s included. I simply do not know how this could have escaped you.
This debate was kick -started by Chubby Rain's post, which aggregated many Top 8s from Vintage Challenges. But the gold standard is work like this: http://themanadrain.com/topic/476/vintage-metagame-report-april-to-june
In that post, Matt aggregated THIRTY ONE different Top 8s.
So, No, a "rouge" deck (it's spelled "rogue" by the way) could not luck it's way into a disproportionate share of Top 8s. That's why we NEVER look at a single Top 8 result. We aggregate Top 8s into as many results as we can, and we look and track the result over time. In other words, we try to make sure that the deck is dominate over many months and multiple tournament regions before the DCI takes restriction.
And yes, the DCI based it's restrictions of Mentor and Thorn on Top 8 data, as I just showed. And it's done this before.
Likewise if a deck is completely over represented in a field, mathematically the percentage it would place in top 8 would be larger and its win rate would steer closer and closer to 50%, but once again I doubt that alone would be enough to merit action alone.
Think again: The DCI just took action in Standard because of Win Percentages.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-15-2018-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2018-01-15
Read carefully.
"Fun" is not entirely subjective. The core element to fun is meaningful choice: meaningful deck choice, meaningful game choices, etc. To have fun, players need meaningful choice among decks. This requires a diversity of decks. When a deck is monopolistic or dominant, there is no meaningful deck choice. Therefore, data is integral to B&R discussions. It's the main purpose of them.
Fun is the closet thing I can think of to a purely subjective thing.
I said NOT ENTIRELY. Which means, of course, there is a large subjective element.
But there is also a large consensus that certain formats are not fun. To wit: Format's dominated by a single deck are not fun. "Meaningful choice" is a necessary element to a fun Magic format, by broad consensus.
The analog is anti-trust law. To keep markets competitive, the government prosecutes harmful monopolies. In Magic, the DCI bans or restricts cards from dominant decks.
My grandmother would mindlessly pump nickels into a slot machine in Atlantic City week after week. No choice, No decision making, basically no agency at all except to decide to do it or not to do it, yet to her it was completely fun, while to me I cannot think of much anything I would want to do less.
Magic is not slots. There are different standards for fun in Magic than slots.
If the DCI uses Top 8 data to make restrictions, why the hell would the Vintage community separate data and B&R restriction discussion? That makes absolutely no sense.
Because some of us do not agree with this methodology.
It doesn't matter whether we agree or not. It's the methodology that the DCI uses, and IMO justifiably so. So, asking ourselves not to speak in the vernacular of the DCI is foolish, and a kind of epistemology of ignorance.
Data tells us the results of what is, not the results of what could be, and for some of us that is more relevant. I am of the camp that would much rather see a large restricted list that provides more opportunity for viable brewing in the format. My ideal vintage is a format that has as many decks as modern, a price point for some lists with a low end similar to standard, and vintages depth of in game decision making. I think restricting shops would help get us closer to that paradigm, which is what I would like to subjectively see. The data bears out the fact that the format is not what I want it to be more so than anything else.
So, if the data tells you that, then why are you against using data in B&R list discussion? That seems ridiculous given what you just said. Your posts are incoherent and barely make sense. I'm surprised, because I haven't seen or don't recall this kind of behavior from you before.