Article -- The State of the Metagame Address

[Jaapmans]

Quote (SliverKing @ Oct. 23 2003,13:40)...they only NEED one to win, so why bother?...

I see your point when it comes to restriction. But what about banning?

[LemanRuss]

From VideoGameBoy:

All I got from both articles was that it is a blatant, desperate attempt to make Keeper tier 1.

Keeper is tier 1. Isn't it fun that Oscar is the only one who claims for Chalice's restriction while this is now one of the most powerful components of Keeper?


And for those who are not sold on the fact that Type One games are now won (theoretically speaking) before turn 3, they should play in true tournaments before speaking.


Oh, and by the way: did anyone see the last italian's great T1 tounament's top8 ? Just to witness how diversity Workshop offers today.

[jeek]

Quote (Jaapmans @ Oct. 23 2003,07:44)

Quote (SliverKing @ Oct. 23 2003,13:40)...they only NEED one to win, so why bother?...

I see your point when it comes to restriction. But what about banning?

Wizards only bans cards from Type I as a complete last resort, as to ban a card from Type I is to ban it from Magic altogether.

[brianb]

By and large, I agree with the sentiments Oscar expressed.  The goal of the restricted list should be to promote the widest possible variety of playable t1 decks.  In an ideal environment, control, creatures that swing, combos, and all sorts of hybrids would be able to compete.  In order to keep the format alive, we need new players.  That means that decks that are easy to build and to play (ie use the attack phase) need to be able to hold their own, and with proper metagaming and good play maybe even win once in a while.  Bringing the aggro decks back means the fundamental turn needs to come back to turn 3.  Turn 1-2 kills should be uncommon--only possible in decks that sacrifice resiliency and consistency to get that kind of speed.  Here's my best stab at a restricted list to make it happen.

Restrict:
Mishra's Workshop: 3 mana turn after turn is just plain overpowered--makes broken starts the norm rather than the exception.  It also creates a design problems for new cards.  Cards like chalice that are borderline problem cards get pushed over the edge when fueled by workshop.

Chrome Mox: It's a shame.  I'd like to try this in rack tax decks (and in 1.5), but I don't think combo should get 4.  If lotus petal couldn't stay, this can't either.

Burning Wish: I'm for restricting all the playable tutors.  It may be a lost cause, but we need to make it harder for decks to find exactly the cards they need--make it harder for degenerate decks to fight off the hate--make them devote deck slots to situational answer cards rather than having the luxury of wishing up something in a pinch.

Cunning Wish: Ditto.  You shouldn't be able to devote a huge portion of your deck to a draw engine and then use cunning wish to either find your kill, draw even more cards, or bail you out of problems.  Cramming so much versatility into one card allows too much degeneracy in the rest of the deck.
Intuition: Ditto
Spoils of the Vault: Ditto

Academy Rector: Ditto--it has become, like tinker, a tutor and acceleration combined.

Mana Drain: restrict all of the above and you'll slow the format, which plays too much into the hands of keeper.  Even Oscar admits that mana drain is fairly easily replaced in keeper.  What restricting it will do is ease some of the pressure on every other deck to cram its mana curve down to a point--especially important since chalice will seriously punish decks that do so.

Keep:
Chalice: Watch it closely, but let it stay for the time being.  Hosing combo and decks that rely too much on certain cards is a good thing.  The downside is the utter hosing of most current cheap aggro.  I think aggro decks can play around it, though, if they diversify the mana curve a wee bit and/or run answer cards.  So long as you slow things down a bit with the other restrictions and yank mana drain, the speed hit they take won't hurt quite as much.

Lions Eye Diamond: I really like this card and am happy to see it getting play.  Madness is just cool.  Even Long is a okay to have around, so long as it can be checked a bit.  Taking burning wish and allowing chalice should (I'd hope) be enough to keep it from dominating too much.  But if burning academy variants were still overpowering (and it might be), lion's eye would be the next card in line to axe.

Dark Ritual: This would be a restriction of last resort.  Dark ritual is a problem in Long (which can be dealt with otherwise) and in fast rector decks (better to restrict the rector).  It would be a shame to lose ritual negator, ritual hyppie, ritual duress hymn, ritual duress rod, second turn ritual abyss, ritual masticore, etc.  These dark ritual plays are a balanced, fair way to give budget players a little t1 speed.  Even a ritual-powered yawgwin isn't so bad (so long as you can't build your deck to make it happen consistently on turn 2).

Mask: Good card in a cool deck.  There are enough answers to mask that it doesn't need restriction--errataing it would be preferable to restricting it if something absolutely HAD to be done.

Bazaar:  Watch, but keep.  It's very strong, but I'm not sure it needs to go yet.  There are answers to the bazaar and the tempo you lose by playing it at least partially offsets it's substantial power.  If dragon would dominate (given other restrictions) then maybe restrict bazaar.

Psychatog: If you take away intuition, cunning wish, and mana drain, the tog doesn't seem so broken.\n\n

[jpmeyer]

OK, I can't resist any longer.  My list:

Restrict:

Spoils of the Vault: It's a 1cc, instant-speed tutor that CANNOT be used fairly, since you can't use this in any deck outside of a combo deck because you can't give the other player another turn.

Chrome Mox: This is 0cc mana accelerant, that unlike Mishra's Workshop, can be used to cast your restricted cards.  You don't even need to imprint anything onto it if all you want to do is up your Storm count, either.

LED/Dark Ritual: For all of you that will cry about Madness and Suicide, just remember Necropotence and Gush.  There are "fair" ways to use many cards, and there are "unfair" ways of using the same cards.  Making a 4/4 trampler or a 2/2 flier is fair.  Making most of a combo deck's cards essentially free is not.

Unrestrict:

Fork/Voltaic Key: derf

Regrowth: Maybe it's just me, but I can't see any real good usage for this card outside of using it as a way to Intuition for restricted cards.  Otherwise, Regrowth is a tutor for spells you've already cast, and with the high power level of Type 1 cards you shouldn't need to have to cast your same spells over and over again in order to win.

Mox Diamond: Mox Diamond is not an accelerant.  It is a fixer.  You cannot cut land to add Mox Diamond to a deck like you can with Chrome Mox.  This makes it weak in combo (because of your low land count,) in almost all control decks (since you can't afford to lose the card,) and in almost all aggro decks (since you can't afford the mana flood.)

Braingeyser/Stroke of Genius: Honestly, has anyone played these in the last two years?  Scrying and AK are better card drawers and Tendrils is a better kill card.

Fact or Fiction: Why is this restricted while AK, Skeletal Scrying, and Deep Analysis are not despite all of them being of a similar power level?

LoA: See the LoA thread.  This card is only good in control decks, and then only good in mirrors.  Actually, I take that back--this might be fun too in the Fish mirror as well.

Doomsday: This deck is insanely difficult to set up, and with Dark Ritual restricted it just gets harder to pull off.

(and Earthcraft/Entomb but since it's agreed that these are for 1.5 they don't really count.)\n\n

[Saucemaster]

Quote But, I don't understand what they're arguing against. What exactly is "casual" and what are we avoiding? What the hell did Ferrett mean when he said I implied people play "casually but seriously?"

Since Rakso seems to be having problems understanding exactly what "casual" denotes, let me try to get at the concept by way of a few quotes that exemplify "casual" Type 1 thinking very well:

Quote You want to be comfortable that you can hide in a cave for a month or two, and know you can still dust off your Type I decks from the shelf and have something to come back to, unlike Type II where the same deck may well be completely obsolete or illegal already.

Quote So qualified, you should be able to play a certain deck forever in Type I, where nothing rotates out. Just don't expect your list to be identical to its 1995 version, or keep its 1995 metagame position.

Quote Since I see the same broken artifact mana acceleration and eight free counters that parallel Duress or Unmask, I think this is as rogue in principle as a "The Deck" build that kills with a Phelddagrif.

Quote I mean, we now have a format where a 2/1 for one mana has long since been too weak.

Sound familiar?  (As an aside, note that quote 1 and the implication of quote 3 are incompatible.)

All of these imply (or explicitly state) a desire for something that, given the Type 1 card pool, is only going to be true of a casual, non-competitive format.  You don't want the metagame to shift rapidly?  Too bad.  It's a feature of competitive formats.  Even with the current unprecedented level of innovation in Type 1, it moves incredibly slowly relative to any of the other competitive formats.

You want a certain archetype to remain forever viable in Type 1?  Sorry, but certain strategies are at an inherent disadvantage relative to other strategies.  Aggro without some combo or control options is just not good enough in Type 1 anymore, and you know why?  Because given the card pool of Type 1, it's an inferior strategy.  As soon as control starts beating it with any regularity, aggro's day in the sun is over.  Casual players rail against the loss, because yes, aggro is fun to play and yes, it was once a mainstay of Type 1.  Competitive players may regret the loss, but they move on.

You get tired of seeing the same broken mana producers and disruption spells in every deck?  You know what?  They're there for a reason.  Assume we got rid of them all.  You know what happens then?  The next-most powerful crop of cards will rear their ugly heads and we'll see THOSE in every deck.  That's SO FUNDAMENTAL a feature of competitive metagames that I'm truly surprised Rakso even mentioned it.

Note that none of this actually addresses what we should or shouldn't restrict, whether the metagame is too fast, etc.  What I'm attempting to do is support Steve's point: there's a divide in Type 1 right now between the "Old School" casual and the "New School" competitive.  You can be part of the New School and still think that the format is too swingy, hate Long, even hate Workshop--that's fine.  But Oscar's Old School.

[erik]

Amen. If I gave you a dead animal to wear on your head, would you please start writing for SCG instead of    ?

[leakycow]

I guess I'm "old school."  Hell, I can barely watch sports nowadays, longing for the more-substance-than-flash days of Larry vs. Magic when I was growing up.  I haven't bought a new-release CD in 10 years.  The war in Iraq showed nothing in common with the trench-jumping I have in mind when I think "war" (at least that example of change is a good thing.)

I've played magic long enough to know that the old Channelball stigma of Type 1 was mainly exaggeration and misunderstanding.  I'm not going to say that in 2003 it's evolved into a Channelball reality (I don't play in tourneys, so I can't speak to that) but I do maintain that the game has sped up so damn much that it's lost a lot of the fun.  I know that fun is a throw-away byproduct of competition for a lot of people.  That's fine with me...I can live with it.

Interaction appeals to me.  I like facing off against an occasional combo deck, but when you can run an entire gauntlet of top-level decks played by IGNORING what its opponent does on the other side of the table (most combo decks, many proactive prison decks, the recent surge of combo-aggro decks) it loses its fun factor.

I don't agree with everything in the starcity article, but many of the points are right on with my feelings of Type 1.

Enjoy.