Posts made by Smmenen

@brianpk80 said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@smmenen said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

Brian Kelly is on record stating that he would add like 10-15 cards to the restricted list (including Show and Tell and Dack Fayden!), and ban a number of cards on top of that.

That's correct. I believe play experience is more important than fetishizing the length of the restricted list. This view, as you acknowledged with your own links above, is much more consistent with the most successful years of Type 1, a period where the dominant narrative was so focused on sanity and fairness that I, of all people, could barely get anyone to entertain the idea of unrestricting Fork.

Absolutely, but it is precisely that history that shows us how wrong and wrong-headed your preferred approach is.

The Restricted List reached it's zenith in January, 2004, with 54 cards after years of over-restriction (it now sits comfortably at 46 cards).

In 1999, 18 cards were restricted in a single restriction announcement. Did 18 cards really need to be restricted that fall? Did Doomsday, Dream Halls, and Mind Over Matter really need to be restricted? No, but the DCI used your approach, of restricting cards on power level alone, without any reference to tournament play or results. The consequence? Countless players were denied the opportunity to build interesting decks that they would have enjoyed. Imagine the Doomsday decks that could have been built before it was unrestricted in 2004! Imagine the Dream Halls decks that could have been tried.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We've tried your way, and it was a disaster, denying players access to cards that had no justification being restricted. They were no threat to the format, but would have made it much more interesting and diverse.

In my view, today's entrenched decadence is the product of years of official sustained neglect and an unchallenged hyperlibertarian narrative.

I would suggest, instead, it's a result of sustained engagement and a much more careful and nuanced undestanding of the game, metagame evolution, and better grasp of data. DCI management today - over all formats - is far more sophisticated than it was during the Type I era.

Suffice to say, and as suggested by the table I linked above, I do not share that vision. Instead, I think that the [Restricted List should be as small as possible]

And I think it should be whatever length is necessary to maximize enjoyment. I'm not embarrassed by or apologetic for that perspective.

But how do we do that in a way that isn't predictably biased in favor of blue decks?

As I said above: "a preference for what you call "fairer" or less swingy games is really just a gussied up way of expressing prejudice against fast combo decks, Dredge, and Shops, and a preference for blue decks. A format more centered around decks like Bomberman, Landstill, Leo decks, etc. may be your idea of a good format, but it sounds like dispiriting to me."

The main problem with your approach, of giving primary weight to how decks "feel" and "interactivity" is that it's hopelessly biased against most of the Schools of Vintage Magic, especially those that aren't blue.

@nanakini said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:
I also know the format has been around here for a long time and it's still alive, but I think it's probably very difficult for new players to get in and stay, because as soon as the excitement from playing such powerful cards wears off, there is not much left (at least for me).

Really? There isn't much left? How about the most complex and intricate lines of play offered any format?

Vintage is not a friendly format for new players, but that's because it's the deepest format. I enjoy Old School formats immensely, but they can't come close to Vintage in terms of the depth and range of the lines of play that Vintage can offer on a consistent basis. The tutoring, library manipulation, draw and cantripping make Vintage an enormously skillful format, and quite punishing for dabblers or novices.

What does Vintage offer after you get used to the power level? It offers only the most intricate lines of play with the starkest deck choices of any constructed format. The separation between decks like Dredge, Dark Petition Storm, Ravager Shop Aggro, and Oath, to take but 4 examples, could not be more stark, and that starkness can't be found in other formats in combination with the depth of the lines of play offered.

@hrishi said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

My biggest question here is what are restrictions actually for? Are they to bring problematic decks and metagames in line or are they a tool to shake up and create a metagame? It feels like, more and more, some people want restrictions to create a "better" metagame and to shake up the format. I've always said restrictions should only be used as a last resort.

Obviously, I agree entirely. But Brian Kelly, like Brian Weissman here, has a different vision.

Instead of using the Restricted List as a tool of last resort, and only to curb the most egregious and obvious case - as Sirlin explained in his famous essay in "playing to win," the two Brian's would have used the Restricted List to curb strategies and decks that are not only proven to be problematic in the metagame by objective standards, but that they feel violate some subjective principle of "fair play."

Thus, a Brian Kelly or Brian Weissman Restricted List for VIntage and Type I respectively, would be much, much longer than current restricted lists. Brian Kelly is on record stating that he would add like 10-15 cards to the restricted list (including Show and Tell and Dack Fayden!), and ban a number of cards on top of that.

Suffice to say, and as suggested by the table I linked above, I do not share that vision. Instead, I think that the Restricted List should be as small as possible, with a sharp eye on promoting metagame diversity broadly speaking.

I agree. But in the absence of such a survey Tournament results are the only empirics we have, and neutral, without strategic bias. A preference for “interactivity” generally expresses itself As a preference for blue decks, which is a problem as I just illustrated.

@brianpk80 said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

I do object to the over-reliance on metagame % not only because it seeks to disparage subjective experience but because the raw data itself is corrupted by players' choice and attendance level. For instance, if I decide an afternoon nap would be preferable to playing a challenge, Oath of Druids suddenly has a 25-50% lower metagame representation. Who even knows what happens to the win rate. If two Shop players attend a wedding instead of a Vintage event, there is likewise a palpable decrease. Since these attendance variables happen all of the time, imagining that the results %'s prove whatever it is we might be tempted to believe is its probative value is absurd.

If that's how the DCI handled such data, you might have a case. But the DCI's use of data to inform it's management of formats is much more sophisticated. They aggregate data to statistically significant levels. The DCI does not use a single or even a handful of events to conclusively determine win rates. Again, look at Ian's July B&R announcement.

Even Matt and Ryan's (apparently now defunct) monthly analysis aggregates data from weekly to monthly and even quarterly data to wash out alot of statistically insignificant noise. Your complaint here is less to do with data itself, then the misuse of data, which is a valid complaint.

That's actually why win % percentage is a superior metric to Top 8s. Top 8 data is a function of representation and win percentage, but when win % can be got, and the DCI can and does get it - it's the next best thing. But the use of win % addresses one of the two key concerns you raise: if you aren't in attendance, and no one else is playing Oath, then Oath's win percentage isn't impacted by your 'nap.'

Ian's article illustrates that they can use MTGO to collect algorithmic win percentage for decks in any format at statistically significant levels.

The reason data is important is because it's objective: it's a way to go above the bleating din of shouting voices, who rarely seem to agree on anything when it comes to Vintage. And no wonder, as the Vintage player base is factionalized into competing "Schools." Such data sorts out what's actually doing well from what players perceive, since perception is so often wrong.

Contrary to what you are suggesting, in the long history of Vintage, the 'subjective experience' has, more often than not, been the standard for DCI management. And, it's resulted in countless absurd and unnecessary restrictions, impairing the well deserved fun of countless victims, players on the wrong end of these restrictions who suffered as a byproduct of them.

The darkest eras of this format were the times in which the DCI was more often than not captured by the loudest voices in the format, the bleatings of players like Oscar Tan or Brian Weissman, complaining about how "unfun" non-blue decks were, and resulting in surveys like this one:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/5980_You_CAN_Play_Type_I_108_The_State_Of_The_Metagame_Address_The_Charts.html

Was there anything Weissman didn't want to restrict? From that table, it's hard to tell.

At one point, Weissman threatened a boycott unless Mind Twist was banned - a tactic that actually proves successful in 1996.

No one is trying to 'disparage' subjective experience. But the problem is that there is no neutral way to fairly adjudicate results on the basis of this. That's why it's subjective.

But even if we could quantify it, say, using a survey that asks players on a 10-point scale to rank whether they consider a strategy 'interactive' or not, there is a tension between regulating decks on that basis and the other aim for promoting strategic diversity.

The July Vintage Challenges Top 8s were as follows:

28% Shops
19% Turbo Xerox decks (Jeskai Mentor, Esper Mentor, Delver, and Pyromancer)
19% PO
9% Eldrazi
9% Dark Ritual comibo decks
3% Dredge
3% BUG and BUGr Control decks and Aggro-Control Decks

Suppose I was taking a subjective survey ranked those strategies as follows on a 10 point 'interactivity' scale using your mode of thought, I might rank them as follows, with 1 being the least interactive, and 10 being the most:

Shops - 2
TX - 7.5
PO - 3
Eldrazi - 3.5
Dark Ritual Combo decks: 1.5
Dredge - 2
BUG & BUGr - 9

Basically "1s" are reserved for glass cannon combo decks and trinisphere like prison decks, and 10s are for highly interactive control decks.

As this exercise illustrates, a preference for what you call "fairer" or less swingy games is really just a gussied up way of expressing prejudice against fast combo decks, Dredge, and Shops, and a preference for blue decks. A format more centered around decks like Bomberman, Landstill, Leo decks, etc. may be your idea of a good format, but it sounds like dispiriting to me.

Part of what makes Vintage so special is its explosiveness and more bomb throwing than an ISIS convention. Similarly, prison decks like Shops today, Nether Void in the past, and Winter Orb decks before that, have always been a part of this format, although I wish there were fewer of them these days.

As between a format that has 6-7 very different strategies, some of which are highly 'interactive' according to a subjective scale or fewer starkly different strategies, but all or most of which are highly 'interactive' according to a subject scale, I would take the former over the latter any day of the week.

The logical conclusion of your complaints suggest that you want a format with a much lower power level over a format that is truly strategically diverse (that is, not all blue or grindy blue-ish decks) and that attack along very different dimensions.

Our long format nightmare, which really began around 2011 or 12, when Grafdigger's Cage and cards like that begin pushing out all of the great big mana decks from the format, is finally ending, and Vintage is finally escaping the grasp of the Turbo Xerox and Workshop hellscape it's been in for far too long. PO is really the reason why.

If I wanted to play a format of grindy games of Magic every round, I would play Legacy. The reason we play Vintage is because of the thrill of the format, and the tremendous strategic diversity. The myriad shades of blue decks don't make Vintage great. What makes Vintage great is the stark strategic diversity. It's that you can play against a Dark Ritual Bargain deck one round, Dredge the next, a big mana blue deck like PO after that, and a Jeskai deck and Landstill after that. A format in which I played against decks clustered around the control and aggro axes all day long, like BUG, Oath, Kolaghan's Command or Subterranean Tremors decks, Landstill, and Bomberman, would be a poor Vintage indeed. The only thing that I can imagine being worse than that is playing against Shops and Eldrazi all day long.

While I always thought Cabal Therapy was over the line, I never hated playing against Dredge the way I do this year.

Not even in 2009? I remember players really hating Dredge around that time. Back then, players had so few diverse answers to hate out Dredge. It was basically: Did you have Leyline and/or Jailer? If not, you probably lose.

If I were able to have surveyed players back in 2009, I imagine the hate for Dredge today, even accounting for your opinion here, is far less intense or extreme than it was back then.

@brianpk80 said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@smmenen said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@brianpk80 said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@ribby said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

I look forward to Smennen’s kids digging up this thread in 20 years and tracing it as the origin of why Bazaar was restricted.

Generally agree with Brian’s points. I continue to hold the opinion that in some form Dredge is necessary for Vintage so that players don’t just get to play Slaver with 15 free SB cards and call that “skill”. But even this is too much.

Agreed. I don't want to destroy any deck; I just believe the "big four" could all use some toning down, ie, Equally Distributed Sanity.
None of this will come from fanciful metagame % analyses; Wizards themselves said this year that they don't abide by them so it's time to stop playing make-believe with numbers.

Can you cite this? To my knowledge, the DCI has ever said that they don't look at relevant performance metrics when making decisions.

What is this straw man? I never said they "don't look" at metrics; I said they don't "abide" by them, which is objectively correct given their decisions and admissions re: Mishra's Workshop are not in accordance with the numbers you revere.

Well, your phrase "fanciful metagame % analysis" isn't exactly precise phrasing to pin down your meaning. But I assumed you were making the same point as you made earlier (in post 57), where you said:

"And the solution will have nothing to do with poring over metagame %'s which has been the wrong lens, but more obviously now that Wizards outright said it's subordinate to other factors, namely promoting our happiness. Inducing players to follow this narrow mathematical analysis has misled the community. Analyzing results %'s and then fabricating an arbitrary system of thresholds to pretend what life would be like if the DCI actually used it is fanciful and absurd."

In other words, you have a disdain - if not outright objection - to "poring over % of the metawgame," which you state is "the wrong lens."

I'm simply saying that % of the metagame matters. A reasonable person reading your post could interpret it as asserting the opposite. I realize that isn't what you said, but you've repeatedly criticized statistical analysis, and in terms that suggest you have a disdain for it, and that the DCI shares that view. I'm simply pointing out that, irrespective of your views, the DCI repeatedly and frequently uses statistical analysis - especially Top 8% and win % - to analyzes metagames.

That's just a fact. And they use that statistical analysis to inform their decisions. That's also a fact.

Aaron Forsythe, on twitter, said that the format is managed for the Vintage community, but they have never refuted the notion that performance metrics matter.

You would have a point if I'd said they don't "matter." It's very easy to refute manufactured statements!

Again, see above, and your quote in post 57. Sure, you didn't say "statistics don't matter." But you've said things like "poring of % of the metagame is the wrong lens." Which may reasonably interpret to suggest that it shouldn't matter, or shouldn't matter very much. And you said a number of things like that.

I don't think there is any real evidence of 'malaise' other than it being the summer months when folks are on vacation.

There's "testimony," silly. You can say you like the metagame, but it's insulting to state the no one feels any malaise. I do. My friends do. Local events have been dwindling all year, before summer, and the metagame was stated as the reason. Do we not count for some reason? If so, what is that reason?

I didn't say that no one feels "malaise." What I'm saying is that there isn't much evidence of it, beyond your testimony here, which, of course, is just anecdotal or localized, or reporting what a handful of people said at one or a small number of events. If someone gathered systematic testimony over a diverse geography, that would be another matter.

But the performance & enrollment in the Vintage Challenges, popularity of the Vintage Leagues, etc. all suggest no decline in the popularity of the format.

And, if there is a "malaise," or people not playing because of the format, is there any way to untangle the role that Shops dominating for 8 years has played? Because that's why Chris Pikula, Dave Williams, etc. don't play this format anymore.

I just find it hard to believe that the format is suddenly - the summer of 2018 - worse than it's been the past few summers, where it's been truly abysmal. At least the format is more diverse and open than it's been in the better part of a decade. There are more deck options of varying kinds of strategies or "schools" if you will, and the Vintage Challenges and Vintage Leagues show no evidence of decline compared to, say, this past spring or winter. If anything, the format is much better off now than it was a year ago. And I don't think that's really disputable if you read Ian Duke's comments about the format on August 28, 2017.

I honestly believe this is one the best Vintage environment we've had in years. Certainly better than the nightmare we had for the last 5 or so years where Shops was just dominating every event. Shops is still too good for my liking, but PO has been pretty amazing for the format, bringing back 'big blue' players and strategies.

I have different experiences, as does Andy, our resident Shops guru. I feel Shops is one of the easier decks to control (which says a lot, since it's not "easy" per se) due to PO and Dredge executing plans that minimize your agency even more. Andy thinks Shops has felt more uphill than ever this year, due to PO.

Of course: Shops is finally getting under control. It's gone from literally 45% of Vintage Challenge Top 8s last summer, to 28% this summer. That's a tremendous improvement, and the decline is, in part, a result of PO's rise.

PO has actually given the Vintage format something that is decent against Shops. That's a good thing. But that doesn't mean that Shops isn't still too good. Decks can have weaknesses and still predominate to an unreasonable degree.

PO is really important for the format, as it's helping keep Shops somewhat in balance.

Compared to that, this format is actually much better. It's more diverse, and it's more interactive, and in my experience at the SCG P9 tournament in June and the few leagues I've played more recently, it's more fun.

How are "Tap Bazaar, lol, Force ur Dredge hate" or Paradoxical Outcome more "interactive" than Jeskai Mentor, Bomberman, UW Landstill, Oath of Druids, Workshops or Dredge pre-Pitch/Hollow One? That makes no sense. The format is more overrun with blowouts now than it has been in a while.

When Shops plays a Lodestone Golem, Spheres, and fast threats turn after turn before you can do anything about it, that is literally the definition of non-interactive. Shops are the most non-interactive strategy in any format, past or present. Their entire purpose is to prevent the opponent from doing anything relevant by making it hard for them to play spells.

The matches I've played against PO in the least few leagues have been miles better than average matches against Shops over the last 7 years, in terms of interactivity, and having players make meaningful choices. Like in the finals of the NYSE V Open, where I lost to Ryan Glackin because he literally emptied his hand on turn 1 or 2 with Shops.

My matches against PO have actually been fascinating. It's been a test of iron wills as I play Stony Silence and battle over playing around it, or gradually Fragmentize their artifacts as they try different angles of attack. They are so fascinating they would actually make a great article.

I'm sorry that you aren't enjoying the metagame, but it's at least much better than it was a year ago this time, and that isn't really debatable. The 2017 Summer was one of the most putrid Vintage metagames of all time, as Ian Duke pointed out in his DCI announcement on August 28. And it was followed by the most disastrous Vintage Champs Top 8 of all time: 5 Shops and 3 Oath. Not a good look for the format. The SCG P9 Top 8, and the latest Vintage Challenges, look amazing by comparison, despite Shops still being half of the Top 8, and 100% of the finals. It was still more diverse. And so are the Vintage Challenge Top 8s since. Much more so.

@oestrus said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@smmenen If what you say is true, and you're you so I'm inclined to believe that it is, then there is a huge disconnect between the Leagues and the Challenges. The Leagues are just saturated with Outcome decks.

I probably played three leagues in three weeks and in the 15 matches I faced outcome twice, maybe 3 times. I did face Brian Kelly playing his brew with Armasaur ,but I have faced far more xerox style decks.

That said, each of the matches I played against outcome was exceptionally close.

@brianpk80 said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@ribby said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

I look forward to Smennen’s kids digging up this thread in 20 years and tracing it as the origin of why Bazaar was restricted.

Generally agree with Brian’s points. I continue to hold the opinion that in some form Dredge is necessary for Vintage so that players don’t just get to play Slaver with 15 free SB cards and call that “skill”. But even this is too much.

Agreed. I don't want to destroy any deck; I just believe the "big four" could all use some toning down, ie, Equally Distributed Sanity.
None of this will come from fanciful metagame % analyses; Wizards themselves said this year that they don't abide by them so it's time to stop playing make-believe with numbers.

Can you cite this? To my knowledge, the DCI has ever said that they don't look at relevant performance metrics when making decisions.

Aaron Forsythe, on twitter, said that the format is managed for the Vintage community, but they have never refuted the notion that performance metrics matter.

In fact, just the opposite. The last major restrictions in the format explicitly cited Top 8 data: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/august-28-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-08-28

"Recently, both the paper and Magic Online Vintage metagames have been in an unhealthy place due to the prevalence and performance of two decks: Shops and Mentor. Data from twelve recent Vintage Challenges reinforces this, with 40% of the Top 8 decks being Shops and 30% being Mentor. Both decks feature strategies that are powerful, stifle diversity, and can be frustrating to play against."

And, when looking at other formats, the DCI has gone ever further and examined win percentages in excruciting detail: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/july-2-2018-banned-and-restricted-update-2018-07-02

"Here are the win rates of the most popular decks on Magic Online Competitive Leagues, taken as a snapshot from mid-June. While these numbers can fluctuate from week to week as the metagame churns, they're representative of the ranges we've been seeing over time. Note that the decks are automatically clustered by archetype through a computer algorithm, not manually categorized."

In short, performance statistics play a very large role in the DCI's management of organized play formats. That doesn't mean that they are the only thing that matter, but they do.

On a separate point, the format right now is actually pretty great, imo. The Top 8 of the Vintage Challenge yesterday shows how diverse and balanced the format is: pretty much every archetype made top 8. Qualitatively, pretty much every match I've played lately has been high quality.

I don't think there is any real evidence of 'malaise' other than it being the summer months when folks are on vacation. Pointing to one or two events in one city or region is not evidence of a worldwide "malaise." The Vintage Challenges seem to be doing quite well. The SCG P9 tournament earlier this summer was a success considering the location. I have little doubt that the fall Vintage events will do just as well, if not better, than previous years.

I honestly believe this is one the best Vintage environment we've had in years. Certainly better than the nightmare we had for the last 5 or so years where Shops was just dominating every event. Shops is still too good for my liking, but PO has been pretty amazing for the format, bringing back 'big blue' players and strategies.

The Vintage format was pretty awful from Khans (November, 2014) until really the spring of this year, where it was pretty much in the stranglehold of Shops decks in that entire period, and to a lesser extent TX decks. The Vintage Championship last year was one of the worst disasters I've ever seen, with a Top 8 that had just 2 strategies, and even worse, had 5 Shop decks.

Compared to that, this format is actually much better. It's more diverse, and it's more interactive, and in my experience at the SCG P9 tournament in June and the few leagues I've played more recently, it's more fun.

I agree that PO and Dredge aren't too good, but the data lend some support to the view that Shops are still too good. Shops in the January and August Vintage Challenges have the exact same Top 8 penetration at 32-33%.

In any case, I don't believe that the 'feel' of the metagame in terms of whether a metagame feels more or less interactive really drives Vintage tournament attendance. If we could survey players in different points in time and ask two questions:

1. Rate your level of interest in the Vintage format or enthusiasm based upon the current metagame with 1 being the least, and 10 being the most.

2. Rate the degree of interactivity you feel exists in the current Vintage format or metagame with 1 being the least and 10 being the most.

I would expect that there would be zero statistical significant correlation, or possibly even a weak negative correlation between those two questions. That's because I think other factors are far more important.

Personally, I think one of the best metagames ever was the metagame where TPS was the best deck (June 2008-Sept. 2008), and not far behind that, where Grim Long/Pitch Long was. Or, another great metagame was when Necro decks were best.

Or, conversely, some of the intensely villified Gush metagames were probably among the most interactive in the history of the format, but nonetheless hated for "pushing out" other blue strategies.

I don't doubt that some folks are unhappy with the metagame, and may use that as a reason not to play paper magic right now, but that's a very small sample size, and there doesn't appear to be any decline in the Vintage Challenges from a longitudinal perspective that supports the view that this particular metagame (PO/Shops/etc.) is worse than any other particular one.

@brianpk80 said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@vaughnbros said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

@brianpk80

Brian, let me shift the debate a bit here and focus on the "6 sideboard cards" portion of the argument. If say tomorrow Wizards comes out and restricts: Stinkweed Imp, Golgari-Grave Troll and Serum Power (all fairly exclusive cards to dredge) would you stop playing 4 Tormod's Crypts + 2 Spyglass in your Oath sideboard altogether? Would you stop playing Containment Priest and/or Grafdigger's Cages in your non-Oath decks? If so, what would you replace these cards with and how would they help you to combat the growing problem of Ballista Shops and Outcome storm?

Like I said above, I'm not advocating toning Dredge down because I need help not losing to other decks. I'm opposed to the fact that it's run amok without intervention for far too long now and creates near universal misery in a format people play for fun.

Is there any empirical evidence to support this claim? It's hard to tell since the total numbers aren't published, but it looks like Vintage Challenge attendance is roughly in range of where it's been all year. Hard to see any drop off.

And only 1 out of 28 Top 8 decklists from July was Dredge. It appears as though there were only 2 Dredge decks in the top 8s of the last 5 Challenges.

The only deck that looks like it might still be too good is Shops, which was 32% of Top 8s in July. The next best performing deck was PO, which was 21%, and included both PO Control and PO TPS decks.

@t1darkrit said in Schools of Magic Taxonomy Question for Vintage:

I think your "schools" approach feels a bit... shoehorn-y at times (in that Rob Hahn might not translate that well to

Having said that, as a combo player combo decks by their very nature are very disparate in a way control and aggro really aren't. Decks like ProsBloom, Metalworker, Doomsday, Dredge, etc. function so differently it's hard to categorize them together. Speaking of which, was there a Type I combo deck before Type II ProsBloom hit the scene? If not, maybe that's a good place to start.

To be clear: that's not how I classify decks within the "Combo School." The combo decks that are included in the "Restricted List Combo School" follow a very specific play pattern that includes: lots of mana acceleration, a high density of restricted cards, and a number of tutors (often unrestricted), and either a big mana or storm finisher (e.g. Fireball, Kaeverk's Torch, Tendrils of Agony), or recursive elements (like Twister loops or a bigYawg Will). Thus, decks in this school include: Pre-DCI Lotus/Twister decks, 1997 Prosperity Vice, 1997/8 Doomsday (recursion deck with Timetwister), 1998-2002 Academy, 2002 Burning Long, 2003-2008 TPS, 2005-6 Grim Long, Burning Oath, Dark Petition Storm, etc.

These are decks that follow the basic play pattern of: 1) generate lots of mana -> 2) draw or otherwise see lots of cards -> 3) play a critical mass finisher. They feature as high density of mana, and very few finishers (a single Fireball or Tendrils often). And they very often use disruption to protect this plan, like Duress, Defense Grid, Abeyance, City of Solitude, Xantid Swarm, Force of Will, etc. But if you map 2002 Burning Long and 2015 DPS, it's basically the same scaffolding, just different cards in that slot. No different with other Schools, like comparing 1994 The Deck with 2002 Keeper, except that the win conditions change (i.e. Morphling over Serra Angel, etc.)

Combo decks that are focused on assembling two random cards don't fall into this school.

ProsBloom was never a tournament level Type I deck because you didn't need Cadaverous Bloom.

That being said- in your position, I'd focus on the decks. Tell us when new, interesting things happened that changed the way we think about and play Vintage (or even Magic as a whole). Tell us those stories. Weave together the fabric of the format by showing us the world as it was when it changed greatly. What was it like when Comer figured out how to Xerox? How did it change the landscape? Which darlings did it kill? Which did it foster? How does it influence what we're doing today? The same for Shops (the more control variants, the ones today are really just Zoo decks imo) and Dredge and Oath and Control (the Deck, of course, comes to mind!). The schools can be your invisible scaffolding, that which guides you in delivering the stories, but they need not be the exoskeleton that binds the body from the outside and is all that's visible to the onlooker.

In any case, I do all of these things, but the Aggro Shops decks are still very obviously Aggro O'Brien School decks, which played with 4 Juggernaut and 4 Juzam in some cases.

Thanks to everyone who replied: it affirmed my inclination, which is to take a hybrid approach rather than trying to insist upon a player name for each school.

Hola,

I'm in the process of reviewing the chapters from my "History of Vintage" series, and some issues have arisen (or more precisely, have always been present, but never fully resolved), that I thought I'd present to you to weigh in on.

First of all, if you aren't familiar with the concept, here you go:

http://classicdojo.org/school/schooldex.html

The most important link is the April '96 link (the 7th link down), which is the version 5.4 of Robert Hahn's Schools of Magic. In it, he identifies 6 Schools: Weissman, Kim, Handelman, Chang, O'Brien, and Maysonet.

If you've followed my History of Vintage series then you know that I borrow a great deal from his attempt to delineate different strategic concepts as a trope for the history of Vintage. With the benefit of hindsight, we see that some of the "schools" he identified as such are less schools than broadly used fundamental principles. Thus, of his original "6" (or 4 depending on which version of his SoM you are reading), I argue that only two are really "schools" as such: The Weissman and O'Brien Schools.

Now here's where things get interesting. I argue, throughout the series, that there are 6 Schools of Type I/Vintage Magic, in the sense that Hahn defined them (I'm not going to get into a debate over his definition - just read it for yourself): 1) Weissman, 2) O'Brien, but also: 3) The Reanimator School, best represented by Dredge today, 4) A Combo School (represented by decks like DPS today, but used to show up as Prosperity Vice, the first Doomsday deck, Recursion Twister, etc.), 5) a Turbo Xerox /Comer School (represented by decks Jeskai Mentor or Delver before Gush was restricted again), and 6) the Lestree School (which was represented by Bertrand Lestree's proto Zoo deck, and later by the mid-1990s Zoo decks, Monkey, May I, etc.

These Schools do not encompass the entirety of Type I or Vintage. His metaphor or analogy breaks down, as you can see, with the onset of Necro summer (if you look at the original link above). I don't think he fully realized why at the time (although I have). The main reason is that the Schools Analogy doesn't really work with you have a singular, unique and idiosyncratic card that does really powerful thinks. Thus, cards like Necro - cards that can power up a variety of strategies, but produce unique functions in Magic, can't generate schools in the same way that the other Schools can.

Thus, there are always strategies that lay outside of these schools, because they are singular/idiosyncratic, like Painter Combo, etc. I don't want to debate this point, either.

The question I want to pose is this: Do you feel it is important that each school, following the convention of Robert Hahn, be associated with a "name" of a player, like "Weissman," "O'Brien", etc.? Or, would you rather have the name follow the strategic classifications more familiar to the format? Like "Reanimator", etc.

I ask because it is difficult to identify the 'founder' of, for example, the Reanimator School. Mark Chalice created the first Reanimator deck on record, but Alan Comer created the first modern version of it, structured around 4 Bazaar, 4 tutors to find etc, etc. But Alan Comer also created the Turbo Xerox concept. So, the School could be called the "Comer School" or the "Turbo Xerox" School or something else entirely.

It is especially difficult to peg the "Combo" School to a particular name. There isn't really a single person who really focused their energies on this school for a long period of time during the formative years of the game. Maybe Chapin to some degree. But he played many decks.

Let me know your thoughts.

http://mtgcast.com/mtgcast-podcast-shows/active-podcast-shows/so-many-insane-plays/so-many-insane-plays-episode-81-core-set-2019-review

Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian review Core Set 2019 for Vintage.
Contact us at @ManyInsanePlays on Twitter or e-mail us at SoManyInsanePlaysPodcast@gmail.com.
0:01:00: The Announcement
0:05:00: Team VSL Reflections
0:11:30: Dominaria Report Card
0:35:05: Remourseful Cleric
0:43:00: Mistcaller
0:45:00: Sai, Master Thopterist
0:51:45: Tezzeret, Artifice Master
1:00:00: Infernal Reconing
1:06:43: Alpine Moon
1:10:15: Amulet of Safekeeping
1:17:10: Meteor Golem
1:20:00: Nicol Bolas, the Arisen
1:25:40: Runic Armasaur
1:36:37: Isolate
1:39:55: Nexus of Fate
1:41:42: Chromium the Mutable
Links:
– Core Set 2019 Image Gallery

@brianpk80 said in Brian Kelly is actually responsible for the Unrestriction of Mishra's Workshop:

It was me, though I doubt a random thread there had much impact on the decision it predated by ~3 years.

No no Brian, we’re not letting you off that easy.

Your second post was written in 1997, the same year that Mishra’s workshop was unrestricted!

There was no three-year gap between your posts and the DCI’s decision. If anything your posts are the proximate cause.

Possibly.

I've found a record of Brian Kelly lobbying for it's unrestriction in 1996 and 1997.

Check it out:

Post 1: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy/gaOB0QoXsqc/W8mxbGt-zw8J

Post 2: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy/yS5NKq1KpNY/d1qn6fId9yUJ

Wow.

@ Brian: You thought you could hide this from us, but even after twenty years, my sleuthing skills uncovered your misdeeds

I kid, but it is funny to think that you might have actually swayed DCI opinion in this ancient era, with long term unintended consequences that could hardly have been fully appreciated.

@aelien said in [Podcast] SMIP # 80: SCGCon Power Nine Results and Battlebond Review:

I was confused that there was no thread aout this thing, when i found it a few weeks ago on EC.
Please always make a post like this as soon as a podcast is released, i think many people find it solely through tmd.

I was on vacation out of the country, but @CHA1N5 could have done so

Went live a week and a half ago, but here it is:

​Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian discuss the results of the SCGCon Power Nine tournament, and review Battlebond for Vintage.

Play
Podcast (somanyinsaneplays): Download (Duration: 2:42:26 — 102.7MB)

0:01:00: Announcements
0:10:00: Team VSL Update
0:41:40: SCGCon Power Nine Results
1:05:30: Kevin’s Tournament Report
1:19:00: Steve’s Tournament Report
1:54:00: Stunning Reversal
2:01:00: Sentinel Tower
2:12:45: Spellseeker
2:25:15: Archon of Valor’s Reach
Total Runtime: 2:42:26
Show Notes
– SCGCON 2018 Power Nine Deck Lists

Contact us at @ManyInsanePlays on Twitter or e-mail us at SoManyInsanePlaysPodcast@gmail.com.

@evouga said in My Condolences to The Academy:

As usual I greatly enjoyed the VSL last tonight, and especially the first match of LSV vs Brian Kelly, though it's too bad the "home teams" won't be going to the finals.

LSV got very lucky during multiple matches, but his performance last night, and all season really, has been extremely impressive. It has cemented my opinion of him as a master of the game, independent of format. Is there anything we can learn from his play? Is he taking lines the "Vintage experts" don't?

I don’t think there’s any doubt that he took unique & prescient lines of play in the match up against my team.

Although, there is also no doubt that the deck he played was a completely rogue option, and which involved inherently unusual lines.

I know well the difference between what is and what should be. But over the decades of my involvement in this format, management of the restricted list has moved much closer to what should be than what was.

My entire previous post was based upon how the format should be managed, not how it is currently managed. And implicitly a critique of your preferred approach, which leads, in my opinion to too many restrictions.

Do you know how some people say there was never a war John McCain didn’t support? Unfortunately, that’s my perception of your views of potential restrictions. I think most of vintage players are more concerned with having a smaller restricted list than the considerations that you seem most concerned about.

@chubbyrain said in JULY 2, 2018 BANNED AND RESTRICTED UPDATE:

As for the PO debate, the salient quote is:

@smmenen said in JULY 2, 2018 BANNED AND RESTRICTED UPDATE:

Years ago I wrote a long post or article that attempted to delineate the various facets of fun, and came to the conclusion that the key to fun is “meaningful choice.” This concept applies to deck selection, in-game play, sideboarding, etc.

Strategic diversity doesn't reflect the degree of meaningful choice of in-game decisions.

I know that. But what I have said over & over is that a policy of maximizing one can undermine the other - that is what I mean when I say that the various facets of fun can be in ‘tension.’ The way to resolve this tension is to decide which are most important.

IMO, metagame diversity is most important. A restriction that makes players feel more interactive but dramatically reduces metagame diversity would be a bad choice. I am not necessarily referring to PO here.

Also, a schemata that gives too much importance to ‘counterplay’ is biased in favor of blue decks with countermagic. Metagame diversity is both a more objective AND strategically neutral criterion. That is not to discount other considerations, but it is to be clear about their relative importance.

I think we discussed this a bit on Twitter. I personally feel that PO leads to uninteractive gameplay. I think that impacts my enjoyment of the format to a degree (I have not played it much recently, though that is influenced by factors independent of the format). If I was the only person playing to format, I think WotC should restrict PO. However, I am obviously not the only person playing the format. From the facebook group and this thread, I think it's pretty clear that I'm in the minority. So be it. Again, WotC has an interest in maximizing fun on the way to maximizing profits. If a clear majority of Vintage players enjoy PO or are indifferent, my personal thoughts on the matter should be overruled. End result: At this current time, PO should not be restricted.

I agree with your conclusion, but fundamentally disagree with your reasoning. Although the goal should be to maximize fun, this should not be a democracy. As I’ve said many times, that approach encourages factionalism/tribalism, where different ‘schools’ of players lobby to use B&R Policy to restrict strategies that predate or are favored against those schools, and B&R policy becomes little more than interest group politics.

That's a horrible model. B&R policy should be based on neutral standards, not just objective facts. Thats why there is a policy maker instead of just a poll. They should act in our best interests, not for our desired interests. It’s like when goverment taxes us even when we dont want it. Its for our own good. So is resisting popular calls to restrict.

@chubbyrain said in JULY 2, 2018 BANNED AND RESTRICTED UPDATE:

Edit: @Smmenen? I actually think the restrictions of Gush, Mentor, 2 Delve spells, and 3 lock pieces have created more entertaining and interactive games with more diversity in deck selection. Hinging an entire formats health on one card seems frankly absurd.

My belief is that restricting PO would basically rewind Vintage back to last November, which was a disaster, but after all those restrictions.

What changed since was that PO with Hurkyls has been retuned to trump Shops, opening up the metagame.

Restrict PO, and you go back to the format as it was last November.

Thats why i said the following on twlink textitter & earlier in this thread:

Paradoxical Outcome is the glue keeping the Vintage format & metagame balanced & diverse.

It’s Shops predator. Restrict it & the format goes back to the hot mess it was for the preceding 5 years. Restricting it is a bad idea, especially since it is not remotely dominant.

PO strategies are the proximate cause, in my estimation, of this opening up of the metagame.

Edit:

On a general note, the users saying that "fun should never be factored into B&R decisions" are making emotional appeals to an arbitrary sense of justice and not dealing with reality. It's pretty clear that Wizards takes fun into consideration when designing sets and managing formats. It's a game, not a court of law. The purpose is fun, not justice

Im not sure whether you are referring to my posts, since I never said any of the statements you are arguing against. I agree with the premise that the purpose of DCI policy is to promote fun.

To be clear, fun has many facets, but there is broad consensus that fun formats provide diverse competitive options.

Years ago I wrote a long post or article that attempted to delineate the various facets of fun, and came to the conclusion that the key to fun is “meaningful choice.” This concept applies to deck selection, in-game play, sideboarding, etc.

Therefore, the interest in promoting format diversity is actually serving the ultimate goal of fostering a fun format. Thus, when I say that metagame diversity is the primary and most important ground for restriction, I am essentially saying the same thing as the pupose of restricted list policy is to promote fun, not the opposite.

The problem is that multiple facets of ‘fun’ can be in tension. Restricting cards on grounds other than competitive balance & strategic diversity ultimately risks reducing the one ground that virtually everyone believes is a prerequisite for ‘fun.’

I am not categorically opposed to restricting cards on grounds other than dominance (see http://www.eternalcentral.com/so-many-insane-plays-suggested-banned-and-restricted-list-updates-2018/ for a fuller elaboration of my views on B&R Policy). But the bar should be high, since any restriction on grounds other than dominance is likely to undermine format strategic diversity.