@desolutionist said in Eternal Extravaganza 7 Results:

Glackin is the new Will Mcgrann

Is that because everyone misspells his last name now too?

Thank you for putting this together, it's really nice to be able to look at this post and get a run-down of what happened.

@garbageaggro said in Vintage Challenge - 9/9/2017:

It is interesting that the shops decks have such a high win rate here. The last 3 days there haven't been any 5-0 shops decks in the leagues and fewer than 5 decks posted.

According to the "all the league results in one place" thread

Another day with only 4 lists. It's worth noting that the selection mechanism makes league results an inexact metagame snap shot. If there are fewer than 5 decks however it means that there were no 5-0s from any archetypes not seen here.

In my opinion, the number of 5-0s is not the best indicator of whether a deck is doing well at a macro-level. I know that this is the only public data available, but if one deck goes 5-0 in one League and then 1-4 in the next and another deck goes 4-1 in one and 4-1 in the next, which did better? I think Workshops is much more of a 4-1 or 3-2 deck rather than a 5-0 deck since the B&R.

Vessel of the Void - 3
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a charge counter on Vessel of the Void
Whenever a player casts a spell with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Vessel of the Void, counter that spell.

Duosphere - 5
Artifact
Spells cost 2 more to cast.

@desolutionist said in The Relative Values of Data:

Vintage was a better format when the data collection was more limited (before MTGO). There were more threads about strategy then and less threads about complaining because people had hope that they could win the next tournament if they put enough energy into it. (Still True today but people don't do it; they just go with the win percentages and call it a day)

In my opinion, the problem is not that there is more data collection, but that every time the data gets posted it seems like half of the replies are people trying to interpret the data to support their position on the format and the other half is people telling those people they are wrong to do this and should stop.

I am a firm believer in positivism and negativism being infectious.

I have gotten and repressed the urge to post more frequently on TMD in the last few months because I know that the people who disagree with me are going to speak louder than those who agree with me. I don't feel like wasting my time trying to change the minds of people who will not agree with me, may never even understand my point of view and will likely not disagree with me in a manner that leads to a productive conversation.

I enjoyed listening to this, especially the thought-provoking conversation about whether Thorn or Sphere should have been restricted. Thank you very much for making it.

My take as a Workshop pilot given the way that Shop decks are built currently and for the foreseeable future is that Thorn's restriction hurt Workshops more than Sphere would have. I don't want to say more about this out of fear that I will compromise my competitive advantage, but I agree with Kevin's points from a Shops perspective.

With that said though, @Smmenen, I thought that your commentary on what this restriction means for Eldrazi as well as what it may have set the format up for is the biggest problem. Thorn was an integral part of the White Eldrazi deck as well as the recent iterations of Colorless/Tribal Eldrazi. As someone who did not play either of these decks for more than a few games, it seems like this loss is catastrophic, especially given the expected rise in Outcome.

Personally, I think that if Workshops rose to the top when the dust settles in the next six months that Sphere would be the next restriction, to further down this path of reducing the flexibility of lock pieces with which Workshops can use. I hope this isn't the case and know this isn't the ideal venue for a full fledged B&R discussion.

I'm really excited to be able to spontaneously play tournament matches of Vintage on a daily basis!

@Smmenen

I apologize for not fully articulating my point of view about group think by saying that I think that Shops and Mentor being perceived as the best decks helps to perpetuate the problem because they are the most played decks and unsurprisingly the most successful decks. If there was a larger sample size of players who had made the Top8 of Challenges then I think you could argue that the MTGO meta was efficient, but a large percentage of the Top8s are made up by a small percentage of the players per @p3temangus in the Turbo Xerox thread,
"25% of the Top8s are made by 6 players
50% of the Top8s are made by 16 players
75% of the Top8s are made by 33 players
53 individuals made Top8".

It's impossible to say whether the Top 6 or 16 players would have Top8d the events that they did if they hadn't played the decks that they did, but success begets success.

Because there is so much data available on MTGO I think people such as yourself have put too much stock in the data because there aren't even TO reports on TMD for events like the 53 player TDG Luau, while there is data ready for consumption every day on MTGO.

My opinions about why I don't want to play in Daily events are truly just my opinions. I think that if Daily events did not post decklists or would let you choose whether your list was posted or not they would be improved. I don't want to give away my new technology for free just because there is an event to play in. One could say that this is pointless and to some degree they would be right, but the element of surprise is a real thing. It's not to say that one cannot succeed while playing what everyone knows they will be playing, because I am a testament to this not being the case. However, while people know 50 of my 75 before we sit down, the 25 they don't know can drastically change how the match goes.

There are plenty of people who are playing in Daily events because this is their only avenue to playing Vintage on a daily basis and many of those people are more than happy to try out new and crazy ideas, but I can't be the only person who doesn't want to play their current Champs list in a daily event for fear that their list will catch on.

You are certainly allowed to complain about the format, but the idea that you are excused in doing so because others did it is childish. You're right, I didn't make a post telling others to stop campaigning for Gush to get restricted; I didn't post at all because I was tired of hearing people complain. For someone who takes posting on this forum so seriously, I am somewhat surprised that you spend so much time and effort blaming others for what happened. My general point on the matter was that the current Vintage environment could be improved by people spending more time building, testing and discussing new decks than complaining about how overpowered Monastery Mentor and Workshop decks are.

@KingLeovold said in The Downside to Vintage on Magic Online and GroupThink:

Thanks for your insights! While the things you listed are indeed downsides MTGO is incredibly valuable for vintage for two main reasons. One is the cost. As someone who did not get into magic until about 6 years ago the cost of real life power is astronomical. I could play literally any deck with any card for less then the price of a couple of paper moxen.

The second reason MTGO is incredibly valuable to vintage is that there are lots of games that can be played in a short span. There are no vintage tournaments anywhere near me, sanctioned or proxied. The only way that I can play vintage on a regular basis and improve is through regular play. MTGO presents that on a consistent basis.

One last thought on the Vintage Challenges. I personally would be more willing to try new deck ideas because the odds of placing and getting my money back are much higher than in dailies. I have a hard time not playing either shops or mentor in a daily.

Just my two cents. Thanks for the post!

You're totally right, Magic Online makes Vintage a lot more accessible, I may have undersold this exceptionally important piece. My post was more a critique of the way that Vintage is structured on Magic Online than that it's a thing.

I apologize in advance if this theory has been stated elsewhere, I admittedly did not spend the time to read all 122 posts in the Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor thread, especially given the length of some of the posts.

With that out of the way, I think that Magic Online has negatively changed Vintage because of the structure of the events. I also think that "community wide discussion" has hurt the community as a whole.

1. My biggest complaint is that the decklists for Vintage Dailies are posted for 4-0 and 3-1 decks. While there are players who take these events as a point of pride and want to see their name and deck posted as much as possible, it cuts down on innovation. I look at a Daily as a testing session, but why would I test with my list for Vintage Champs or another big tournament in an event where my list will be posted for public consumption if I do well? Additionally, if I played something new and creative that did well then my list would be copied or metagamed against by the others in the event. This strategy is widely accepted, but in my opinion it invalidates the metagame. It's analogous to filling your maindeck with Grafdigger's Cages and Containment Priests because you're about to play in an 8 man tournament with 2 Oath and 2 Dredge decks. There's nothing wrong with this strategy of course, but analyzing this data and presenting it as useful is asinine. I wish that after the tournament you could opt whether your list would be posted or not, so people who wanted to try out new things without losing their edge could do so and those who wanted glory could get it. As it currently stands, Vintage moves faster than it ever has, but it's all micro rather than macro changes which rewards people tuning existing decks rather than designing new archetypes.

2. Vintage Challenges are usually 40-50 player events and reward the Top 32 players. The problem with this prize support is that it encourages people to play known commodities. If my goal is to win prize, why would I play something new and innovative rather than Mentor or Ravager Shops? I get that this is not all or even most player's goals, but when the Vintage Challenges happen every week, the prestige level is low. Mentor and Ravager Shops are powerful enough decks that if played well should at least be able to yield a 4-4 record. If you play a brew then maybe your chance of catching everyone by surprise and winning the event is higher, but your chances of going 2-6 are also much higher. From a value perspective, it makes sense to play a deck with a high floor, which feeds into the notion that we're in a two deck metagame.

3. This critique pertains solely to TMD and Facebook, but people need to stop complaining about Vintage being so awful. I agree with the ideas that Monastery Mentor is very good and Gush/Probe getting restricted did not do enough to slow down the Delve engine, but complaining about it just turns people off from wanting to play. The Vintage community by and large has spent significantly more effort complaining about the format and squabbling over who thought Gush getting restricted would "fix" the format than it has in trying to address the problem at hand.

If instead of focusing on whether Mentor should get restricted, the Vintage community instead worked to build a good Leovold or Paradoxical Outcome deck then Vintage would be a much better and more inviting format.

I feel obligated for whatever strange reason to give my $0.02 on the whole "State of Vintage" debate.

First though, I want to express my thanks to Matt, Ryan, and everyone else who helps put together data like this. I have been longing for data like this for far too long and put together Metagame breakdowns which paled in comparison to this back in 2010-2014. I know how much thankless work must go into this and I want everyone who helps with this to know that I appreciate the work they put in.

Vintage is a strange format in that it is an eternal format defined by the most powerful cards from the dawn of Magic which also incorporates and in some cases is shaped by the newest sets. I think for a long period of time this was not entirely the case, blocks like Kamigawa and Ravnica didn't completely change the landscape, but now it seems that every year something new comes out and completely rocks the Vintage world.

My point in saying this is that most Vintage players can point to a year and subjectively declare that, "Vintage was best in year ____". No one is wrong in saying this, maybe you loved the format in 2005, 2009, 2011, 2014 or 2016; regardless, you're not wrong for feeling that was the case. Unfortunately, Vintage is never going to be the place that it was in 2014 again before Khans came out, it doesn't matter how much you dislike what the Delve cards did to Vintage, they're not going to be un-printed. Personally, I loved the metagame immediately before Khans came out, but who really cares, Vintage is never going to be the same as it was until someone holds a "2014 Vintage Tournament".

Arguing about whether Vintage was a better format when Mana Drain is a strong card is a fool's errand. I think that trying to shape the B&R to make something like this a reality could work out really well, or it could be disastrous and given that nobody really knows what will happen if they restrict X or when something format altering is printed in 2018, it might be best if everyone stopped fighting about the B&R.

I think that Vintage is approaching a point where there are going to be people who play "Modern Vintage" and then there is going to be those who want to play "_____ Vintage" similarly to how people play 1993/94 Magic. I would probably play in an event like this, but I like being able to brew new decks and seeing how the new sets change things, so ultimately I'm going to be playing Vintage for the foreseeable future. I doubt that WOTC will do something like restrict Workshop, Bazaar or Force, but if something is viewed as oppressive I envision WOTC restricting or printing cards to prune back the plant so to speak, with the hope that they don't completely kill it.