That's right. Also the fact that prices have shifted the way the article (the one marske has linked) outlines has a few extra drawbacks. First, you can hardly trade for chase mythics. Few people would consider any of the trades described in the article. Second, and this is related to the first point, limited becomes less and less rewarding. While before you could open or win a number of relatively valuable cards, now you have a very low chance of opening the jackpot and a high one of opening zonks. Finally, the "upside" of mythics that other cards have become cheaper does not help you in any way if you need the chase mythics to be somehow competitive. So, in my opinion mythics hurt the game significantly on several levels.

Wow, this is an outstanding artilce for sure and it will be highly relevant for quite a while. Thank you, Mr. Probasco.

Sure: http://forums.starcitygames.com/showthread.php?43826-Discuss-Innovations-ManaLeaks-Banning-Survival-and-Saito

Oh, it makes a lot of sense. You just don't like it and you obviously disagree. That's fine with me, but it still does make a lot of sense.


Yes policies can change, but there never was a policy declared, and therefore never have been any announced changes. I agree with Shockwave. Why should they ever stick to a policy? It is not in their economic and not in their general interest, as it would limit their options.


This claim isn't ignorant. It's simply the truth. What's the evidence, you ask? First, there simply is no statement by the DCI where they define a policy for the management of the banned and restricted lists. Second, that they used the justifying terms in different ways/with different meanings to back up different decisions shows that they don't care if anybody evaluates their actions by comparing them to their previous decisions (If you didn't notice that's what Steven is doing in his article and has done in the past). So my statement is neither foolhardy nor shallow but simply true.



Yes it is very likely that Smmenen is better informed than we are, but he is not a member of R&D or the DCI. I think you don't see what's going on here. Smmenen's voice was considered by the DCI in the past and he had influence on their decisions. Now he drove a pretty tough and convincing argument on the SCG forums vs. Chapin and if I'm not mistaken also Kibler. It seems that he was then banned from SCG’s forums. Chapin used all channels (his column, the podcast and the video blog on SCG.com) to repeat his take on the matter over and over again. The DCI went with him and the crowd he spoke out for and not with Smmenen. This article here is as much directed at the DCI as it is at the community. Part of what Smmenen is trying to do is to win back credit with the DCI he probably lost with his weekly column on SCG.com.

Even though you concede that Smmenen has no perfect insight regarding the DCI’s internal logic, all in all your rants against me and what I said come down to “what you say is ridiculous, shallow, foolhardy and stupid because Smmenen obviously thinks otherwise and has written an article”. That’s not enough to convince me.

Why, if I disagree?

See, the point is, I don't think there is a method involved and that it's noble but eventually futile to try and find one. I come to this conclusion after having read Stevens article as well as his work on that subject in the past, in conjunction with the DCI's actions. Steven tried hard to find the logic behind DCI actions, only to be contradicted time and time again.

The truth is the DCI never formulated a specific policy they want to enforce, because this is not what they do, and not what they are interested in. The DCI is obviously not concerned about evaluations of their actions according to precepts. They do whatever they think is best, and then try to come up with a justification the players are likely to buy.

By the way, there's no need for your aggressive language.

I really don't know anymore, if there is any method behind the DCI's madness at all. Somehow it seems like this:

1. A big part of the Legacy Community cried for Survivals restriction.

2. Pat Chapin, a prolific, respected and therefore influential Magic-writer, made himself the mouthpiece of those people.

-> Survial is Banned. Justification: Format diversity; contributes to dominance. (why not Vengevine? In print, standard legal Mythic Rare.)

3. 500 and some people voted in a poll.

-> Timespiral is unbanned. Justification: Adding a new deck (format diversity). (Translated: Giving people a probably broken combo-card to appease them for axing survival.)

It seems that the DCI is simply watching the peoples mouths, and those of some people are watched more closely than those of others. Then the DCI makes a decision they afterwards justify using terms like "dominance" and "diversity", failing to use these terms in a consistant manner.

Maybe I'm just confused, but this is the impression I'm left with by these recent developments.

haha, yeah. I remember trading the only Force I opened to my 4 years older brother for some junk I thought to be great by that time. I was thinking, "ok this is a counter you will never play for 5 and losing two cards to get rid of one (which you can only do the time it's cast) cannot be good." It's even more funny when you come accross this very ratio in eternal forums and articles every few years.

Also, really nice article by the way.

Hi there! Great article, many thanks! As I said in the thread about Brassmans article, I'm trying to break Riddlesmith too. Atm my list looks like a hybrid of your last and Brassmans. Compared to your last list, here are the main differences (choice of lands aside):

- Helm of Awakening    
- Brainfreeze
- Lotus Petal              
- 2 Repeal                  
- Rebuild
- Time Twister

+ DSC
+ Top
+ Spell Pierce
+ 2 Hurkyl's Recall
+ 2 Slots I'm not sure about (Candidates: Nature's Claim, Mindbreak Trap, Cunning Wish, Imperial Seal)

Here's my reasoning:

The Deck doesn't need neither Brain Freeze nor Helm of Awakening. The Plan of my version is
a) to assemble Vault/Key ASAP
b) Tinker/Robot
c) to cycle into a huge Will -> You win with Vault/Key and/or Robot, or if you play it you can still Cunning Wish for Brain Freeze

Lotus Petal is the weakest accellerant, as it is a one-shot giving only one mana and I feel I don't need it given the number of artefacts I run.
Repeal is nice and does some tricks, but vs MUD/Staxx it's useless and I feel that Hurkyl's Recall does way more.
Rebuild is too expensive imo and with three Hurkyl's we should be ok and they also help us to cycle into Will faster.
Twister doesn't help me with my Will-plan and gives my opponent cards which I don't like at all with this deck . Definitely an excusion if you are to go down my route and cut Freeze/Helm. However, it helps with Dredge game one I suppose.

DSC provides a win condition and is still the fastest beatstick if unanswered, and it is able to win more games at random (from any position) than Brain Freeze. Also, like Brassman said, it has a nice synergy with Riddlesmith as it is shuffled back in.

Top: You can't have enough of those in this deck. You want one early, two cycle really fast (Brassman's article) and the rest can be dumped. My idea of running Mishra's Baubles in place of two tops was garbage, of course.

Spell Pierce / Mindbreak Traps / Nature's Claim: Phele said it, this deck is in no version I have seen so far the fastest arround and needs more disruption. Therefore I'd pack at least all 4 copies of Spell Pierce if not even adding maindeck Traps to have more disruption for opposing control or combostrategies that are either more disruption heavy and/or faster. Claims of course help vs Null Rods, Oath of Druids, Leylines and everything brown.

Cunning Wish: I love Cunning Wish dearly, because of the flexibility it offers by providing access to Ravenous Trap / Mindbreak Trap / Nature's Claim game one and also let's you grab Brain Freeze. However it's clunky at 3cc, and I already dismissed Rebuild for that reason. But Cunning Wish is even more clunky as you effectively have to add the cost of the spell you fetch on top. After all, it doesn't seem a good call, at least in MUD/Staxx-heavy metagames.

In contrast to Cunning Wish, Seal is a card that probalby just should be in the list because it helps you find Fastbond / Will / Tinker / Vault/Key / whatever. The card disadvantage shouldn't be that much of a problem in this deck.

cheers.

//edit: spelling

Wow, that sure is a great article. I completely agree on what is said about Gush and TfK and am happy to see someone paying attention to the combination of Gush and Riddlesmith. Maybe it would be worth testing to replace the maindeck freeze with a Cunning Wish and some Tops with Baubles (as I think they are really good with the riddler).

Nice article. I agree with what was said about sense and effects of the reserved list. Power should be reprinted in the interest of vintage.

But there is also one thing that makes me wonder. It was said in the article that the whole discussion primarily concerned Legacy, and that wizards want to support Legacy and save the format from sharing Vintage's fate. Is this the confirmation that they don't care much about vintage and have more or less given up on the format?

I disagree here. Trap dodges their sidebord hate. Especially when you are running tops, I think Trap is the best hate vs Ichorid. Ichorid can only take it with Unmask and only if it is in your opening hand. Additionally your chances of holding force against this are as good as their chances to have Unmask. During the rest of the game Trap's instant speed beats their sorcery speed discard. Most of the time you can even prevent them from bringing a single sacc outlet to the table if you respond with Trap to the triggers of Ichorid and Narcomoeba after dredging.

//Edit: And while Leyline and Needle need to be there at the beginning of the game and stick around until the hate arrives, the ichorid player never knows if you have a trap or not and you have 2 -3 turns (depending on who goes first) to dig it up via tutors.

@ Gandalf and those sharing his oppinion: Of course I could be wrong, but I'm not convinced yet. Like Red Irish said "we'll have to agree to disagree" for now, as I don't think this issue can be resolved via discourse.

In any case it would be a shame if oath was restricted, as it would just kill another archetype.

Oath does not get you a single piece of the combo. After resolving two oath triggers the oath player should have won anyway. Weather with attacking creatures, Reclamation/Will or a combo with Tidespout Tyrant doesn't matter. Vault/Key is unnecessary in each of this cases.


What has the fact that this deck has won some tournaments to do with anything? I could argue that Tezz has won way more tournaments.

I also disagree with the hybrid theory propagated here. If you are saying that your primary strategy is Vault/Key, then I don't see any use in running oath as a second win plan. Oath as a strategy eats up a lot of slots, and none of those cards do have synergy with your primary strategy vault/key. On the contrary: both strategies compete for Tutors. And the cards the oath strategy is replacing, like Tinker, Confidants, Gifts etc. are crads that have synergy with Vault/Key and provide alternative ways to victory as well. To make things worse running oath as a second win plan even disrupts your own manabase, because even though orachard produces mana of any color, you can never use it carelessly because it is a potential wincondition for your opponent. If you think Tezz is missing the mana-flexibility of Orchard, maybe City of Brass could fix this problem. I'm not saying oath is a bad strategy. But I think to mix up strategies that exist parallel to each other within the given deck, without having any synergy, is.

My bad, I inserted the wrong card name. I meant Serum Visions has the better synergy with the top-deck tutors and Dark Confidant. As you not only don't "loose" one card with the tutors (the one you have to put to the bottom of the library with sleight of hand), you can also dodge Confidant damage with scry.

Still, what you are saying sounds convincing.

But doesn't Sleight of Hand synergize better with the top-deck tutors and Dark Confidant?

That sure is the stronger defense. Nevertheless most of the article you wrestle with captain obvious and to me it seems you're loosing there. Obviously there are people who like the article. I, personally, expect more of your premium articles as you have done better in the past.

How weak.

Because of the title, I expected something new. So I was disappointed to find an article explaining how your Grow list works, a deck that was already featured in similar form in previous articles. Sorry, but this looks like a filler. Besides some changes to the last list and the new name there's nothing new in there. This is definitely one of your weaker articles.

Sure, some will miss some cards and others mitght argue about others, but all in all this list is a really useful tool. Good job.

I don't know, this really sounds like a fake. Did you see the kicker effect? Come on, there's not even a source given here.

//Edit: Ok, they have it on mtgsalvation. Well lets wait and see if it turns out the way it's spoiled.

I really feel different about this. The errata of time vault warped the format (nobody can deny that one) and this errata is no good either, effectivly eliminating another archetype, even though one not seeing play at the moment. In my opinion power level errata is not a bad thing in itself, if it helps to make the format more interesting. If cards were designed crappy, it doesn't help a bit to restore their original dysfunctionality.

I'm sorry that you can't afford your favorite car, but your comparison is lacking at best and aside of this is missing the point completely.

After all, Magic is a game. Even at competetive level. To play it, you need other people playing with you. As far as tcgs and tournaments are concerned you want as many people as possible playing with you (prices,...). And because of this even the players owning power have an interest in keeping all those proxi-using players in the game (or at least most of them). The real question is, how to deal with the downsides of proxies.

About your last point 'Politics, Magic and Vintage comboed': this is really ridiculous. You can't take an isolated minority with its special interests as a marker for the direction a society develops. Congratualtions that you realized there was a problem with the American housing market, but maybe you should read a bit more of your paper than just the headlines. But as I guess that the whole issue of your post was to insult the Americans on this forum, it doesn't matter anyway.

Sorry for my poor research before posting. But what would I cut? You already stated that you like to have all 8 Duress effects, but one or two of them and/or maybe the third Drain would be possibilites.

Hi,

I think the version of the deck featured in the last turnament report seems a bit better. Why did you cut the 4th Mox? More Moxen would enable you to put down confidant/goyf on turn 1 more often and help you to utilize tinker more regularly. If I remember correctly, you concluded last time that you would need 2 Tops to better control the damage done to you by your confidants (4 Fow, Misd, Gush & Levi...). Why did you go back on that one?

I would have cast Jar first here, because you would have been able to cast the tinker the turn after if Jar was forced (same goes for fact or fiction if you draw into a mana source).

Wow, I never dreamt that I would register here to defend Stephen Mendendian...

...but for me, the recent articles are the reason why I will get premium. In my opinion innovation is just what vintage lacks, and it's a good thing that there's someone who publicly tinkers around with all these new cards from the new set. And besides the new set, when I looked at that parfait-list I thought 'wow - that's different' and played around with it a bit and had a lot of fun - even though I will most likely not take it to a tournament.

Those lists might not be perfect, but they ARE a startingpoint for tweaking. Why do people always expect everything to be perfect? OK, I don't get the use of courier's capsule either, but we always need to keep in mind that certain card choices are based on individual experience, opinion and preference. There might be arguments pro and con, but there might not always be a terminal line of argument to determine the definitely best choice for a certain slot. So why don't you guys just take these lists, test and tweak them the way you like, maybe argue about choices - and if you find they're crap just dump them (although I must admit that those one-syllable answers are really annoying and not helpful in any kind of discussion).

Oh, and about this 'types of articles' thing - maybe a mix would be best. This would annoy all of your critiques equally in respect to their personal preferences

But right now innovating is the right thing, so stay with it for a while longer Stephen.