Countering Gush is often the death knell of dedicated control vs. Gro.

You're basically complaining to complain and now resorting to making baseless character assumptions. Good luck man.

Complaints about narrative are fair but when the meta naturally gravitates towards the most competitive of archetypes and subsequently the players get tired of said archetypes - a switch up is probably for the best unless you want to keep the assumedly incorrect narrative rolling.

Arguments about meta representation are rapidly becoming wearisome. You're just not going to get an accurate representation of paper meta on MTGO even excluding player bias, meta constraints, and the minuscule sample size. At the end of the day VSL is about displaying the most interesting Vintage content and Dredge/Workshops just isn't that for the majority of the MTG playerbase. The match ups tend to be fairly repetitive and lacking in interaction - this more than anything else feeds into preconceived notions about the format.

Workshops and Dredge have gotten plenty of screen time. I see no issue in trying to mix things up as neither deck is particularly interesting to watch on stream (outside of corner cases). After all isn't the point of VSL to expose the masses to this great format, introducing them to a wide spectrum of viable play?

There's a lot of talk about player retention and generating Vintage hype; perhaps being more supportive of an open VSL instead of bitching about individual Vintage privilege/bias is the play.

Update the forum software, better functionality and GUI.
Push content creation in house; fund articles, videos, blogs, etc (condense as much as possible from sites like PureMTGO, MTGGoldFish, SCG, CFB).
Community build, organize VSL viewing parties using a VOIP like Discord or Mumble (example).
Leverage incidental access, open up that trading forum - create multiple reasons for visiting the site, content, discussion, trading/sales, etc. - This is a big reason why Facebook seems to work, people already access the site at a high interval for reasons unrelated to MTG.

Hint: it's partially the medium.

You're never going to pull people away from sites like MTGtS. Specifically aiming for that goal does nothing for the community we are actually trying to serve.

Regarding quality discussion; from my perspective most of this lies in the lack of content. Content has always been a rather hard thing to produce in meaningful quantities on a consistent basis. Surface level, content creation seems to be hampered by the frequency at which the format is shaken up by either B&R changes or printings that are actually able to penetrate the format. Throw in the cyclical nature of Vintage, in that most everything has been discussed into the ground regarding established archetypes and you can see why discussion suffers.

On a serious note, creating buy in is one way to motivate individuals to post quality content. How to develop that buy in, I'm unsure but a good way to start would be to remove individuals who really add very little to common discussions and tend to alienate individuals who are here for the long haul. ::coughing:: ^^^

+1

This has nothing to do with being "elite". Admin email is actually a pretty common method of user registration for forums as it's one way to deal with BOTs; particularly if you're running on outdated software like this version of SMF. FWIW... if this is the upper limit to an individual’s patience and willingness to engage a community, then perhaps this is the exact kind of user who will bring very little to the table – thus no real loss.

Edit: I will agree that a weeks long lag time is unacceptable.

Again, not to completely derail you but the Adept System is not something this site should be proud of. To even approach some sort of individual metric system as apposed to that of individual discussions would be a massive failure in my book.

Yeah, there's a few Facebook groups.

This coupled with head bumping between "pros" and some of the adepts on this site did a number on our "high quality" user base. If anything, I'd go as far as to say poor moderation is what helped kill TMD. Quality discussion is self regulating when you use multiple tools, moderation is one of those tools but it's no substitution for building a quality foundation.

It seems less to do with separating ones self from the crowd (that's done best by solid posting) and more to do with creating a buy-in and ownership. While it seems like an irrelevant amount, from my personal experience individuals are far more inclined to follow through on something when they have a vested interest in doing so. I.E. less likely to deal with shitposting comparatively to an open site like MTGSalvation. The idea isn't to be exclusionary, if anything we want all the people but just the ones who care enough. 5$ one time fee for creating an account won't break banks and helps support the site, the opportunity cost is low with major potential gains from simple vetting.

What's it like to be a "hasbeen"?

This was totally unnecessary - Full Warning for inflammatory posting.

Given this is your third Full Warning for inflammatory posting this year, and you have also received a Verbal Warning for similar conduct, you are banned from TMD for 1 month. This is a first ban. If or when you return, please post civilly, or don't post at all.

-Godder

You mean you got the beat down by Sammich.

Mike, land go hasn't been a valid tatic against Workshops in years.

Chalice is awful because it compresses the ability of decks to both condense their CMC and reasonably jump mana curves simultaneously.

You can't lower your CMC to avoid Chalice at zero because it walks into Chalice on one. You can't expect to jump the curve to avoid Chalice on one because of Chalice on zero.

It's a complete shit show and the ability of the archetype to deploy two pieces i.e. Sphere and Chalice on the first turn is just format breaking. It isn't fun to play against and the persistent nature of Chalice isn't particularly challenging from a game play perspective.

It's bad from the perspective of format health and getting people to actually sit down for a game. In other formats even the most high varianced archetypes allow people to actually play something representing a game of MTG.

People who think this was a poor decision on WotC part either are delusional, vested in the archetype to a point of being blind, or just haven't played enough high level Vintage to understand.

Chalice is the best choice. Golem brought Workshops back into the fold after years of mediocre printings. Removing it would be a huge barrier to the competitive ability of the archetype. This nonsense about the archetype being dead and strong staples like Tangle Wire being relegated to an irrelevant existence are so tiresome. The archetype hasn't lost a card since 2006, it's time to grow up.

All I ask is that you actually sit down and test with and against Workshops in a competitive environment. Right now I can say with pretty decent confidence that a lot of individuals in this thread haven't since the BnR changes.

Seriously /end thread.

It does? I believe I said 100% correct. Within the context of modern Vintage, restricting Chalice is 100% the correct choice if your goal is a healthy meta that still contains Workshops.

How do you feel about Survival of the Fittest being banned in Legacy upon the onset of Vengevine? Clearly Vengevine was the problem, why did they choose Survival?

FWIW, the only thing truly hilarious here is how seriously you continue to take yourself after 15 years of spewing utter nonsense. It's no wonder Daniel Chang and a known cheat are your bffs.

Classic Stevemantics.

Yes Steve, some of what you say is true. Except there is a more than fair argument that restricting Golem takes Workshops out of the format whereas Chalice brings it back in line. Golem is infinitely more reasonable to answer than Chalice and is a threat that makes the archetype competitive in modern Vintage.

Ridiculous, have you met Mental Misstep and Force of Will? Seriously guy, trading one for one and two for one, once or twice a game - OUTRAGEOUS. Clearly the boogieman of the format, needs to be restricted. It's unreal that you think a permanent lock piece that's as interesting as an episode of the Kardashians, has it's symmetry completely broken open by Mishra's Workshop, and requires a one time investment of zero or two mana is deserving of restriction. It's like you haven't played a game of Vintage in the past 10 years. Dear sir, I believe it's time you get good and just run Ingot Chewers.

Why bother?

Opinion:

Chalice is all that needed to be done. It was 100% the correct choice out of potential candidates. It lowered the frequency at which the archetype could deploy two lock pieces on turn one (shutting out the opponent completely) – now this only happens with above average hands instead of mediocrity plus Chalice, as it should.
Workshops as a whole is still tier one but will most likely require some retooling, time will tell.
It’s still early to open up this kind of discussion; the metagame is not even close to established.


Oddly enough, what Chalice has done to the format since 2005. Except this time, one does not get punished on both ends of the spectrum. Yay meta gaming!

Uh. It's Monday.

This card is beyond busted. The fact that it's been flying under the radar is surprising. In modern Vintage this guy is a relevant and better positioned JtMS. All of his modes are viable and it isn't Flashback, his second ability allows you to cast any card from the graveyard this includes alternate casting costs. His first ability allows him an immense amount of longevity considering his starting loyalty and the ultimate is actually relevant and can end games in a prompt manner.

I didn't make the last one but I was told the Pusheen was far too small in size.

You're just 100% incorrect. A 2/2 split seems very prudent in  an unknown meta and despite what you may believe blue based decks still make up a large % of any given meta game. Cavern is a gigantic pain in the ass for a number of control decks.

You'll be happy to know there's plenty more out there.

You crackers be nuts. Pro tip bro, do some Magiccards.info before you give into the urge to post yet another useless SCD thread about a garbage card that a bunch of tryhards on this forum will argue semantics and it's validity in CAVERNHUMANSBOMBEROATH for the weeks to come.

Here, let me intro you to Mizzium Skin. A card you mentioned but failed to realize is superior.

Edit: For more shit talking.

FIFY

Impulse does... 1 more card...

@Storm, could you explain to me the merits behind basic Plains?

Oh is it running Force of Will somewhere? I must have missed that in the list.