[Article] Forsythe on B&R

[andrewpate]

Oppressive web of combo?  What was the last major tournament where combo won?  Or where more than two combo decks made the top 8 even?  There is no oppressive web of any deck right now, but if you made an argument that there were, it would be Workshop.

Also, I have used Lotus Petal to cast Academy Rector, Fastbond, and others many times.  The any-color aspect really is what throws it over the top.  That, and the fact that it costs zero, allowing it to add to Storm, synergize with Yawgmoth's Will (granted, Ritual does these things also), power Tolarian Academy, sack to Tinker, sack to Goblin Welder, and, possibly most importantly, do something Ritual cannot dream of doing:  provide you with a color you don't already have access to.  Just look at Extended, where Birds of Paradise is good.  The problem faced by decks that want access to any color of mana is that they have to run plenty of green, because they need to be sure to have it when they get ready to cast a Birds.  It is the one color the Birds can't get you.  This is why, even if black didn't have the best card drawers (Necropotence and friends) and the best tutors, you would still have to run a lot of it in any combo deck just so you would have it to cast Ritual.  This is a design constraint imposed by Ritual but not by Petal and combines with the other above factors to make a Petal a better restriction target.  I stand by my earlier claim that no unrestricted accelerant is better than any restricted accelerant.

It's time that we sack up and admit that most t1 games should have meaninful turns after turn 1. I'm not saying we should gut combo ruthlessly, but we should at least make random turn 1 wins as rare as possible.

I don't even know how to address this.  It seems that you have a personal conception of what would make Vintage most fun, and you are asserting it as some sort of self-evident maxim.  I happen to like figuring out that I can Mystical Tutor for Vampiric Tutor before I cast Brainstorm, then Vamp for Black Lotus before I cast Ancestral Recall for the Black I need to cast Bargain and go off.  To me, that's good Magic, and it's good Magic when I lose to it, too.  Still, contrary to your implicit assertion, turn 1 is not the fundamental turn in Vintage.  I have seen "land, go," "land, mox, go," and "land, go, Brainstorm eot" at least as often as I have seen "Workshop, Mox, Trinisphere" or "Lotus, Mox, Mox, Mox, Hurkyl's Recall, Lotus, Mox, Mox, Mox, Tendrils" in recent months.  As many have said, the Belcher/MeanDeath matchup goes to time almost as often as the Oath mirror does.  This is a sign that the format is healthy.

Think of it like Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling.  The two guys in the ring are unimaginably powerful.  Alexander Karelin could tear any college wrestler in half without unbuttoning his blazer.  But to watch two of those guys, it doesn't look that different from the NCAA version.  They struggle, then suddenly someone wins.  Similarly, even a weak Vintage deck like Food Chain Goblins could wipe the best Standard Ravager Affinity deck off the face of the planet, as could a 4cc deck.  But if you watch those two decks face each other, it doesn't really end faster than a Standard game.  4cc trades removal and permission for FCG's bottomless threat count, and then, suddenly, just like Karelin's famous Reverse Body Lift, the 4cc player runs out of spells and the Goblins go off and deal 100 damage in one hit, or the FCG player runs out of little red men as the control player drops an Exalted Angel and seals the deal.  Sometimes, this can take quite a long time, especially as both of those decks have large numbers of tutors and library manipulation effects, forcing many careful, potentially game-breaking decisions.

In short, our power level is high, but it is high across the board.  As I and many others have said, cards should be restricted if you need to play them to win, either because they go in every deck (Black Vise) or no deck can reliably beat the deck they do go in (Gush).  I still have not been persuaded that I can't win without Workshops, since I didn't run Workshops at the last tournament I was in and I definitely won some matches, including against Workshops.  Granted, I did have Drains, but I can honestly say that at that particular tournament there were exactly two games I won using Drain that I truly believe I would have lost if I'd been using Counterspells in those slots.  It was play skill that won most of my games, as it almost always is in Type 1 right now, barring a few broken starts that even Block Constructed decks are sometimes capable of.  And I don't mean that to say that I'm some kind of super player, I mean it to say that no matter how broken you say Ritual is, 99+% of all Magic players would go 0-2 drop if they played Meandeck Doomsday at a SCGP9.

[Smmenen]

And I don't mean that to say that I'm some kind of super player, I mean it to say that no matter how broken you say Ritual is, 99+% of all Magic players would go 0-2 drop if they played Meandeck Doomsday at a SCGP9.

Why do you say that?  Isn't the deck, mostly, relatively simple?

[goober]

This is why, even if black didn't have the best card drawers (Necropotence and friends) and the best tutors, you would still have to run a lot of it in any combo deck just so you would have it to cast Ritual. This is a design constraint imposed by Ritual

Yes, a design constraint made in your imaginary world without tutors and Necro.  Right now we are not in that world, so it is not an issue.

If we keep restricting everything people get angry about, we're going to eventually move along to a format where there are enough restricted, broken cards to force everyone to play the same deck, essentially a 5-color control monstrosity along the lines of Carl Winter's Revenge list, packed to bursting with restricted bombs.

Wrong.  Synergy is a good thing, not all restricted cards have great synergy.  Look at highlander, they are not always 5 color monstrosities with all the restricted cards.  Highlander is exactly the format you expect this to turn into at worse, and it isn't what you predicted.  It is actually a lot of fun, and deckbuilding is very challenging.  Instead of having to use 20 or so cards+mana you need to come up with around 50 different cards which all work together well enough.  I find that far more challenging, which equals more skill, which is great.

[Ultima]

Still, contrary to your implicit assertion, turn 1 is not the fundamental turn in Vintage.  

I highly disagree with this statement.  True there are control games that do have slow turns but when most games, not all, but most games are decided after turn 1, its a turn 1 format.  If you are not doing something nuts or ready to counter something on turn 1, you'll almost always lose in this format.  Its relatively easy to notice in testing and Doomsday is just as much a contributor to this as Workshop.

To be fair, I disagree with the statement that most magic players would go 0-2 drop with Doomsday at a SCG tourny.  The deck may be difficult to play, but that doesn't mean its a deck most people will just lose with.  The lack of players and innovation in the combo genre as compared to others as always given combo a rough time.  The DCI restricted the hell out of Long and that wasn't taking nearly as many wins as GAT was before it took the axe.

[Smmenen]

This is why, even if black didn't have the best card drawers (Necropotence and friends) and the best tutors, you would still have to run a lot of it in any combo deck just so you would have it to cast Ritual. This is a design constraint imposed by Ritual

Yes, a design constraint made in your imaginary world without tutors and Necro.  Right now we are not in that world, so it is not an issue.

If we keep restricting everything people get angry about, we're going to eventually move along to a format where there are enough restricted, broken cards to force everyone to play the same deck, essentially a 5-color control monstrosity along the lines of Carl Winter's Revenge list, packed to bursting with restricted bombs.

Wrong.  Synergy is a good thing, not all restricted cards have great synergy.  Look at highlander, they are not always 5 color monstrosities with all the restricted cards.  Highlander is exactly the format you expect this to turn into at worse, and it isn't what you predicted.  It is actually a lot of fun, and deckbuilding is very challenging.  Instead of having to use 20 or so cards+mana you need to come up with around 50 different cards which all work together well enough.  I find that far more challenging, which equals more skill, which is great.

But how many people have really tried to break Highlander?  I'll bet I could build a combo deck that would win consistently on turn two.

It's been done. Combo is absolutely the deck to beat in highlander, because everyone only has one force.
-Jacob

[VGB]

It's been done. Combo is absolutely the deck to beat in highlander, because everyone only has one force.
-Jacob

And 1 Misdirection, and 1 Foil...

And depending on who goes first, 1 Daze, Disrupt, and Stifle.

[Grand Inquisitor]

From above:

Why do you say that? Isn't (doomsday), mostly, relatively simple?

From your SCG article:

The only problem is that Doomsday is extremely difficult to play

I was sort of enjoying this until, in addition to the above contradiction, it got entirely off topic.


From where I stand the B&R list has been handled extremely well over the last two years (i.e. modern vintage).  If I had to pick out duffs, I would mention Earthcraft, which they've consequently rescinded, Gush, because some metagames figured out how to beat GAT, and it would have been interesting to see what other solutions to the deck existed given enough time, and burning wish, since it's been proven that there are close approximations (deathwish), and lion's eye daimond was the real offender.

Outside of these highly arguable (please don't) occasions, they've done a credible job.  I think doomsday is a wait and see, but so far it looks simply good, not over-powering.  I agree with others that Channel is completely out of the question, and that regrowth could be dangerous.

There's always going to be contention because people have pet cards/decks, and because people have bad individual experiences (i.e. losing badly to trinisphere in the T4).  I don't think it's worth it, in this thread, to talk about specific cards' restrictions, but instead more of a general discussion of how they've handled the list to this point.

As Steve has said, I think it's important that they maintain a high threshold for restriction.

[Smmenen]

I would add that I think DDay is extremely difficult to play perfectly - in that you have to find extremely bizaare combinations of 5.  But to play it, 80% of the time is relatively simple.  

I would like to reiterate Andrew's point about Workshops.  

I still have not been persuaded that I can't win without Workshops, since I didn't run Workshops at the last tournament I was in and I definitely won some matches, including against Workshops. Granted, I did have Drains, but I can honestly say that at that particular tournament there were exactly two games I won using Drain that I truly believe I would have lost if I'd been using Counterspells in those slots.

I really agree with this.  I own workshops, yet what have I played this year?  Meandeck Oath, Mono Blue (at gencon), Tog at CCC and SCG I(sadly for me there), and Dday at SCG III.  I own WOrkshops, yet haven't played them since Newington in April.  If I didn't think I could win with other decks or think other decks were better, I'd play Workshops.

[M]

In Denmark, Workshop based decks (Stax mostly) make up about 40% of any top 8. From what I understand it is even higher in Sweden, but they probably have more playsets. So in this part of the world the trend continues. TPS in the hands of a skilled player can and does compete, but Workshop/Trinisphere/Crucible soft lock followed by Smokestack hard lock is clearly dominating. It's fine that Wizards will 'keep an eye' on trends, but I am not sure how exactly they plan to do that, since trends in US and Europe seems to be moving in different directions. On this website I see many strange new decks lately, constructed "to be played with five proxies", a concept that is totally irrelevant here in Denmark where players tend to borrow (or even rent) power for the big tournaments.

[dromar]

I'm not necessarily favoring more restrictions, but I really doubt that more restrictions would turn type one into a single deck format of 5 color mostrosity. As has been stated before, in this thread I think, there's some merit to consistency too. So there will always be a choice, between the 5 color monstrosity (which I'm sure would be viable) and something much more consistent, albeit inherently less broken. For example, no one is crying over the power of black lotus, but it's definitely powerful. It's not a big deal because it's not consistently being played on the most important turn.

I don't claim to be an all-knowing Magic Guru, but I feel safe saying that turn one is THE turn in type 1. That's the best time to take advantage of the opponent. For instance, turn 1 trinisphere stops the opponent pretty well, but turn two trinisphere is not nearly as powerful, because the opponent already played their moxen, sol ring, crypt, lotus, whatever; or possibly even won with their combo deck. All turns are important, but turn 1 is surely the most important of all turns.

And if this hypothetical 5 color monstrosity was a combo deck...

It's been done. Combo is absolutely the deck to beat in highlander, because everyone only has one force.
-Jacob

... it still wouldn't matter, because type one is definitely NOT highlander, which means 4 force, among others. They're not gonna restrict FoW, for reasons that have been stated a billion times over.

[Komatteru]

I don't claim to be an all-knowing Magic Guru, but I feel safe saying that turn one is THE turn in type 1. That's the best time to take advantage of the opponent. For instance, turn 1 trinisphere stops the opponent pretty well, but turn two trinisphere is not nearly as powerful, because the opponent already played their moxen, sol ring, crypt, lotus, whatever; or possibly even won with their combo deck. All turns are important, but turn 1 is surely the most important of all turns.

Well, actually, most people consider turn 2 the fundamental turn in Vintage magic.  Aside from a first turn 3 sphere or occasional Belcher (or DeathLong) win, most of the interesting stuff happens on turn 2.  That's when Mana Drain mana typically becomes active and that's about when control starts drawing cards.  First turn Welders become active.  Workshop decks begin finishing the lock on turn 2 (since turn 1 may have been spent on that Trinisphere or a Crucible), aggro decks pump out a bunch of threats on turn 2, and combo tries to win the game (TPS and Doomsday may wait another turn, but DeathLong should be ready, Belcher better be winning, and Dragon can also win on turn 2 without much effort), Null Rod mana becomes active, etc.  Just because one card exists that comes down on turn 1 without nearly as much effectiveness on turn 2 doesn't mean that turn 1 is the fundamental turn.  Most decks get amplified on turn 2, not turn 1, which is usually spent setting up for the big turn 2.

[dromar]

Well, actually, most people consider turn 2 the fundamental turn in Vintage magic. Aside from a first turn 3 sphere or occasional Belcher (or DeathLong) win, most of the interesting stuff happens on turn 2. That's when Mana Drain mana typically becomes active and that's about when control starts drawing cards. First turn Welders become active. Workshop decks begin finishing the lock on turn 2 (since turn 1 may have been spent on that Trinisphere or a Crucible), aggro decks pump out a bunch of threats on turn 2, and combo tries to win the game (TPS and Doomsday may wait another turn, but DeathLong should be ready, Belcher better be winning, and Dragon can also win on turn 2 without much effort), Null Rod mana becomes active, etc. Just because one card exists that comes down on turn 1 without nearly as much effectiveness on turn 2 doesn't mean that turn 1 is the fundamental turn. Most decks get amplified on turn 2, not turn 1, which is usually spent setting up for the big turn 2.

You make a strong case, but it seems indeterminable which turn is more important: the turn welder becomes active, or the turn you get him out (or fail to).  If you don't get him out on turn one, turn two isn't all that big.  The Mana Drain and Null Rod Scenarios seem pretty solid, though. Turn two is definitely very important, possibly even more so than turn one.

[dicemanx]

Well, actually, most people consider turn 2 the fundamental turn in Vintage magic. Aside from a first turn 3 sphere or occasional Belcher (or DeathLong) win, most of the interesting stuff happens on turn 2.

We must keep in mind though that the fundamental turn is not the turn that a deck wins (unless it's ridiculously fast combo), its the turn in which the deck "does its stuff". Many T1 games are long drawn out affairs, with frequent game swings/changes in fortune. Rarely do I sit down to play a game with the thought that it will be decided almost immediately (turn 1-2), with the rest (playing the game out until one side actually wins) being a formality. If thats the case, then, as Smmenen pointed out, part of being a skilled player in T1 is to concede in such a situation, especially against a weaker player or against a favorable match-up, to give yourself more time for games 2 and 3.

[dromar]

the fundamental turn ... its the turn in which the deck "does it's stuff"

Hmm... That makes sense too. In 4cc, the turn you play Yawg's WiN is pretty important.

Maybe we could just say that every turn is important, though some more than others, depending on what is played, and who gains the most advantage from the turn. After all, if not every turn were important, Time Walk wouldn't be nearly as good.

[majestyk1136]

Also, I have used Lotus Petal to cast Academy Rector, Fastbond, and others many times.  The any-color aspect really is what throws it over the top.  That, and the fact that it costs zero, allowing it to add to Storm, synergize with Yawgmoth's Will (granted, Ritual does these things also), power Tolarian Academy, sack to Tinker, sack to Goblin Welder, and, possibly most importantly, do something Ritual cannot dream of doing:  provide you with a color you don't already have access to.

Bah.  Maybe in the past lotus petal has been used for the random green or white mana, but if accereration were the issue you have access to unrestricted ESG.  Decks like Rector Tendrils where you were using the petal for random colored mana are strictly inferior to today's storm combo decks.  Petal's power as all of the things that you listed including the fact that it is a baby ritual make it too good as a 4-of.

 This is why, even if black didn't have the best card drawers (Necropotence and friends) and the best tutors, you would still have to run a lot of it in any combo deck just so you would have it to cast Ritual.  This is a design constraint imposed by Ritual but not by Petal and combines with the other above factors to make a Petal a better restriction target.  I stand by my earlier claim that no unrestricted accelerant is better than any restricted accelerant.

What?  No unrestricted accelerant is better than any restricted accelerant?  This is debatable at best.  Most of the good accelerants have gotten the axe for good reason.  The thing is that each of them has gotten the axe in their proper context.  Ritual has only relatively recently taken its proper place as a combo piece.  For years it was the relatively innoccuous collaborator in bad decks like sui black.  Now it is a wrecking ball worthy of catching a FoW in a lot of cases to prevent death.

It's time that we sack up and admit that most t1 games should have meaninful turns after turn 1.

I don't even know how to address this.  It seems that you have a personal conception of what would make Vintage most fun, and you are asserting it as some sort of self-evident maxim.  I happen to like figuring out that I can Mystical Tutor for Vampiric Tutor before I cast Brainstorm, then Vamp for Black Lotus before I cast Ancestral Recall for the Black I need to cast Bargain and go off.  To me, that's good Magic, and it's good Magic when I lose to it, too.  Still, contrary to your implicit assertion, turn 1 is not the fundamental turn in Vintage.  I have seen "land, go," "land, mox, go," and "land, go, Brainstorm eot" at least as often as I have seen "Workshop, Mox, Trinisphere" or "Lotus, Mox, Mox, Mox, Hurkyl's Recall, Lotus, Mox, Mox, Mox, Tendrils" in recent months.  As many have said, the Belcher/MeanDeath matchup goes to time almost as often as the Oath mirror does.  This is a sign that the format is healthy.

I'm sorry if my conception of what you've described above is relatively simple mathematics for most magic players, but if you know you need Lotus to win the game and you have Mystical and Brainstorm in hand the solution becomes pretty clear pretty quickly.   That being said, even the turns that look like 'land, go' may not be game over for that player, but their opponent has got to be licking their chops at that point because they know that their opponent has almost no gas and that double force hands are rare at best.  Look at the most recent numbers that came out from Pip.  He said something interesting to me: He said the only thing that would surprise him about force of will is when its use approaches 32/top 8.  What does that tell you?  Turn 2 and its drain mana likely don't matter if you don't stop the opening play which is likely fatal.  I mean heck, an opening turn of Duress/Unmask could be fatal for you if your combo opponent opens his turn 1 with it.  Sure, the game didn't really end on the first turn, but did it?

Think of it like Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling.  The two guys in the ring are unimaginably powerful.  Alexander Karelin could tear any college wrestler in half without unbuttoning his blazer.  But to watch two of those guys, it doesn't look that different from the NCAA version.  They struggle, then suddenly someone wins.  Similarly, even a weak Vintage deck like Food Chain Goblins could wipe the best Standard Ravager Affinity deck off the face of the planet, as could a 4cc deck.  But if you watch those two decks face each other, it doesn't really end faster than a Standard game.  4cc trades removal and permission for FCG's bottomless threat count, and then, suddenly, just like Karelin's famous Reverse Body Lift, the 4cc player runs out of spells and the Goblins go off and deal 100 damage in one hit, or the FCG player runs out of little red men as the control player drops an Exalted Angel and seals the deal.  Sometimes, this can take quite a long time, especially as both of those decks have large numbers of tutors and library manipulation effects, forcing many careful, potentially game-breaking decisions.

In short, our power level is high, but it is high across the board.  As I and many others have said, cards should be restricted if you need to play them to win, either because they go in every deck (Black Vise) or no deck can reliably beat the deck they do go in (Gush).  I still have not been persuaded that I can't win without Workshops, since I didn't run Workshops at the last tournament I was in and I definitely won some matches, including against Workshops.  Granted, I did have Drains, but I can honestly say that at that particular tournament there were exactly two games I won using Drain that I truly believe I would have lost if I'd been using Counterspells in those slots.  It was play skill that won most of my games, as it almost always is in Type 1 right now, barring a few broken starts that even Block Constructed decks are sometimes capable of.  And I don't mean that to say that I'm some kind of super player, I mean it to say that no matter how broken you say Ritual is, 99+% of all Magic players would go 0-2 drop if they played Meandeck Doomsday at a SCGP9.

Other than some hilarious wrestling anecdotes involving thinly veiled homoeroticism coming to mind, this sparks some thought. Sure, you don't need workshops to win.  I completely agree.  But you do need one of either Shops, FoW, or Dark Rituals to get in the door.  Forget all this silliness of other pointless combos like dragon, because they're slower, less reliable and easier to disrupt than the good ones packing Rit.  Forget other kinds of control because they are utterly pointless to play without FoW because turn 2 won't come or will be meaningless without the "glue."  Forget other types of workshop fueled decks because first turn sphere wrecks most combo and makes it darn hard for control to recover if it resolves.  What further evidence do we need?  Turn ones wasted on "land, go" spell trouble and we all know it.  Your first turn had better damn well do something to proactively stop your opponent from doing what they're trying to do or you better have a killer hand full of stoppers.

@j_dizzle:  The first turn is the turn when you are likely to have the most effect on the board for awhile as you get the opportunity to turn your only resource at that point (cards in hand) into permanents on the board to affect the game state.  Following your logic a person might assume that turn 3 is even more critical than turn 2 because at that point you've played your third land and have 3 times the casting power as on turn 1.  T1 turns this conception on its head by allowing us to skip land drops through moxen or denying our opponents mox drops with Sphere etc...

[Moxlotus]

In Denmark, Workshop based decks (Stax mostly) make up about 40% of any top 8. From what I understand it is even higher in Sweden, but they probably have more playsets. So in this part of the world the trend continues. TPS in the hands of a skilled player can and does compete, but Workshop/Trinisphere/Crucible soft lock followed by Smokestack hard lock is clearly dominating.

Why don't more people play decks that beat Stax decks then?  Are people not metagaming?  Is another possibility that the best players are playing WS decks and would probably win if they played any top deck?

[Komatteru]

@j_dizzle:  The first turn is the turn when you are likely to have the most effect on the board for awhile as you get the opportunity to turn your only resource at that point (cards in hand) into permanents on the board to affect the game state.  Following your logic a person might assume that turn 3 is even more critical than turn 2 because at that point you've played your third land and have 3 times the casting power as on turn 1.  T1 turns this conception on its head by allowing us to skip land drops through moxen or denying our opponents mox drops with Sphere etc...

There's no underscore in my name.

Anyway, turn 2 is important because its really the first turn you get a solid chance to establish tempo for yourself.  If you miss it, then your opponent can take a pretty good lead.  When you have a really solid second turn that goes a good way toward putting yourself where you need in terms of board position and/or card advantage, you're in good shape.  If you do nothing with your second turn, then anything your opponent does is better than what you did, and he can take an edge in the game depending on what he did.  If your second turn consists of land, Brainstorm, and your opponent casts Thirst for Knowledge on your end step and then drops a Welder into play, things aren't really that great for you. Most decks set themselves up for the second turn, usually with something like Brainstorm or Duress on the first.  If player A casts something, and player B Drains it (which becomes active on turn 2), that's a decent tempo boost right there, then add all the neat things that get cast from Mana Drain mana, and player B has established some pretty good tempo.  Let's re-examine Fish, the best tempo based deck of recent memory.  Take a good look at what the casting cost of nearly everything in Fish is: 2.  The deck was designed to have a solid turn 2 that made the opponent deal with whatever it put out.  It could even do really amazing things like drop a threat (Cloud of Faeries), disrupt the opponent (Wasteland), and set up the draw engine (Curiosity)--all of this ideally happened on turn 2.  When you look at the other decks in the format, most are designed to pump out something fairly significant on the second turn. Anything that costs 4 is an obvious second turn bomb for Workshop decks, and Mana Drain mana is the thing for control (which fuels the draw and anything else needed).  While the game can be a long, drawn-out affair (10 turns is nearly forever in our format), a large portion of that time will be one player trying to regain the tempo lost in the first few turns.  The more successful he is, the longer the game goes.  Meanwhile, the player in control of tempo will keep doing things to keep it his way.  The more successful he is, the shorter the game is.  In any case, by turn 5 or 6, one player is in pretty solid handle of the game and is going through the formality of ending it with some beatstick.  If one player can surmount a large tempo mountain, then the game can be realistically over by turn 3 or 4.

Another case in point: Time Walk costs 2 mana.  Time Walk is one of the top 5 tempo cards printed (when used properly).  You'll also notice that the other best tempo cards cost 2 or 3 mana -- perfect for playing on turn 2 in our format.

[dromar]

Take a good look at what the casting cost of nearly everything in Fish is: 2.

I wouldn't say that proves that turn two is most important. I would say that proves that the deckbuilder didn't want anything to be more expensive than standstill. Also, interaction with Cloud of Faeries makes the 2-slot packed.

Another case in point: Time Walk costs 2 mana. Time Walk is one of the top 5 tempo cards printed (when used properly). You'll also notice that the other best tempo cards cost 2 or 3 mana -- perfect for playing on turn 2 in our format.

Many of the best cards are perfect for playing on turn two, but that's also not necessarily because turn two is the most important turn. It's because all the best cards are undercosted and overpowered: Ancestral, Time Walk, etc. And most cards that are undercosted cost between 0 and 2 mana. Turn two could be considered important because so many tempo-bombs are played then, but, using your player A/B example, it doesn't matter if the opponent follows up with his/her own tempo-bombs.  So, by this reasoning, the REALLY important turn is the first turn in which one player plays tempo-bombs, and the opponent doesn't, giving the first player a lead. And from there, as you explained, it's one person trying to win, and the other person trying not to lose. (Offense/Defense)

[M]

Why don't more people play decks that beat Stax decks then?  Are people not metagaming?

Sure we are metagaming. TPS is the deck to beat Stax because of the maindeck Hurkyl's Recall and Rebuild (In response to some people in that private forum: TPS has maindeck artifact removal, helloo!?). But TPS has other uses for those Rebuilds and Hurkyl's Recalls, it uses them to go off and win. And that's what really makes the deck viable: That its maindeck Stax hate is not dead against other decks. Maindecking 2 StP is fine because they can save your life and are almost never dead AND they provide tempo. Using three mana to take out two 0CC artifacts is technically card advantage, but it is also a huge tempo loss. If you start maindecking multiples of a card like Rack and Ruin (one of the few cards that can singlehandedly swing the game your way against Stax IF you ever get to three mana) then you will have much worse matchup against many other decks that may run artifacts, but don't invest mana in them. Imagine topdecking two Rack and Ruin against Food Chain Goblins, for example. Most decks have at least Colossus to hit with StP.

Now, if the Workshop was cheaper than it currently is (or if we played with 10+ proxies) then it wouldn't be so bad because a lot more people would be playing with shops (the best answer to Workshop, Trinisphere is not FoW or Wasteland, it is a Workshop of your own!). In that sort of metagame I would imagine maindeck Rack and Ruin being strong. But the reality is, we are not infested with a billion Stax decks, its just that those Stax decks that we do have, win a lot. You can't make your way to top 8 by beating up Workshop decks, but if your plan is to win the tournament then you are going to have to beat them sooner or later.

Is another possibility that the best players are playing WS decks and would probably win if they played any top deck?

Yes it's possible, but in my opinion not likely. I thought of a way to prove that it isn't so, but I don't think its possible to prove either way, since (generally speaking) the best players ARE playing Workshop decks (if they have a playset) and we can only guess what would happen if they weren't. My guess is that other players with Workshop decks would win more, and become the best players :)

[Moxlotus]

The Italians are able to adjust to WS with Tog-the deck that is suppposed to suck.  Tog without wastelands.  Ws is beatable and I don't see why Stax continues to dominate if people would just play decks that beat it-unless like I think that the best players are just playing Stax and would have a good chance at winning with any top deck.

[Smmenen]

Why don't more people play decks that beat Stax decks then?  Are people not metagaming?

Sure we are metagaming. TPS is the deck to beat Stax because of the maindeck Hurkyl's Recall and Rebuild (In response to some people in that private forum: TPS has maindeck artifact removal, helloo!?). But TPS has other uses for those Rebuilds and Hurkyl's Recalls, it uses them to go off and win. And that's what really makes the deck viable: That its maindeck Stax hate is not dead against other decks. Maindecking 2 StP is fine because they can save your life and are almost never dead AND they provide tempo. Using three mana to take out two 0CC artifacts is technically card advantage, but it is also a huge tempo loss. If you start maindecking multiples of a card like Rack and Ruin (one of the few cards that can singlehandedly swing the game your way against Stax IF you ever get to three mana) then you will have much worse matchup against many other decks that may run artifacts, but don't invest mana in them. Imagine topdecking two Rack and Ruin against Food Chain Goblins, for example. Most decks have at least Colossus to hit with StP.

Now, if the Workshop was cheaper than it currently is (or if we played with 10+ proxies) then it wouldn't be so bad because a lot more people would be playing with shops (the best answer to Workshop, Trinisphere is not FoW or Wasteland, it is a Workshop of your own!). In that sort of metagame I would imagine maindeck Rack and Ruin being strong. But the reality is, we are not infested with a billion Stax decks, its just that those Stax decks that we do have, win a lot. You can't make your way to top 8 by beating up Workshop decks, but if your plan is to win the tournament then you are going to have to beat them sooner or later.

Is another possibility that the best players are playing WS decks and would probably win if they played any top deck?

Yes it's possible, but in my opinion not likely. I thought of a way to prove that it isn't so, but I don't think its possible to prove either way, since (generally speaking) the best players ARE playing Workshop decks (if they have a playset) and we can only guess what would happen if they weren't. My guess is that other players with Workshop decks would win more, and become the best players

M, I assume that you are a Swede.

Your environment appears caught in a resource war.  Sorry.  Allow more proxies.  

I also think you just aren't trying hard enough.  Try a mono blue list like I played at Gencon, or add chalices if you want.  You will find yourself winning more than losing against Stax.  Back to Basics and Energy Flux are huge threats and you have FOW and Wastelands.  

Energy Flux is one of the strongest Artifact hosers that one can play.  Mishra's Workshop can't tap to pay for your artifacts.

[andrewpate]

Other than some hilarious wrestling anecdotes involving thinly veiled homoeroticism coming to mind,

Oh, because ad hominem arguments are savage tech.

I think that Moxlotus hit on a good point, saying that maybe it is just good players with Workshop decks.  It seems unlikely to me that they are dominant in Sweden just because the Swedes have more developed tech than we do, or whatever.  We allow more proxies than they do, as Steve pointed out, so shouldn't that mean that we have more people using better decks, thereby giving us the best gauge?  Of course, the argument does exist that 5 proxies keeps percentage attendance of Workshop decks down because they are hard to proxy but many people do come who proxy easier decks.  Regardless, we have plenty of Workshops in the states and they are not dominating in any unacceptable way.  There are many Workshops in Europe as compared to, for example, very few Mana Drains, so it stands to reason that a lot of Stax decks would do well there.

[Conan_barberarn]

Your environment appears caught in a resource war.  Sorry.  Allow more proxies.

I don't think that will help the problem. As M pointed out, it would probably result in even more people playing STAX as people in Sweden thinks it's the best deck. Ok, so eventually some would start playing RoR maindeck but is that really something we want? That would be like in t2 Ravager vs the rest.

I also think you just aren't trying hard enough.  Try a mono blue list like I played at Gencon, or add chalices if you want.  You will find yourself winning more than losing against Stax.  Back to Basics and Energy Flux are huge threats and you have FOW and Wastelands.

The reason I stopped playing U/R Phid (and mono Blue) was because it had such a rough time against STAX (this was quite a while ago though). STAX simply has to many threats in the first turns that you cannot counter. Look at theese:

Smokestack=> you havent enough perms to survive this.
Tangle Wire=> you cant counter his next threat.
Welder=> it doesnt matter if you caounter or not if this guy is active
Titan, Trisk, Karn and Slaver => They kill your phids and sometimes even more perms+ they win the game and are well out of Keg range.
TFK, Jar and Tinker=> Gives him card advantage and Jar+Tinker are must counters
CoW=> Make your wastelands (and to some extent BtB) useless.

Your Kegs are almost useless as removal as it takes an eternity to get to 3or 4 counters to blow away anything exept welder. Your real advantage is imunity to wasteland but smokestack will still be there...

Energy Flux is one of the strongest Artifact hosers that one can play.  Mishra's Workshop can't tap to pay for your artifacts.

Sure it's good and so are BtB too but the way I see it you should almost be on your way to winning if you can muster 3 mana main phase anyway. The problem is getting there...

Both BtB and Flux can be played around without to mush trouble. He really only needs one artifact to stick around (Smokestack) for him to seal the deal.

In overal I wouldnt give monoU more than a 50-50 against STAX. There are better options if you want to take them down. Dragon and c-Slaver (with wastelands) are the best options we've discovered in Sweden. The three most important components for beating STAX is IMO: wastelands, FoW and a stable manabase which includes red so you can carry RoR sideboard.

/Gustav

[M]

For the record, I am a Dane.

Your environment appears caught in a resource war.  Sorry.  Allow more proxies.

Yes it is to some extent a resource war, but most people here are content with that. They buy, borrow, and rent cards. Or they choose to play without power and compete for special prizes. Don't you have your own resource war, as in "what is todays five proxy deck of choice"? Besides, I don't think that proxy/no proxy is the issue here. Or is it? Most players I know who own a playset of shops choose to play with them. Because frankly, not playing with your own shops is considered a waste of resources. It is not that Stax decks and variants are particularly interesting, surprising or challenging to play (no offense to Stax players worldwide intended) but Workshop/Trinisphere/Smokestack is just so broken that leaving your shops at home to play something else and less broken is considered silly, at best. Maybe that is part of the explanation why US players aren't proxying up 4 workshops as much as they should be (from my point of view). They can play some flashy, interesting new tech-deck of the month without having to worry about losing part of what they invested in 4 Workshops. I know this doesn't apply to you Smmenen because you already said that you do own a playset of shops, but all I am saying is that maybe my environment (of savage resource war) has developed a more realistic notion of what is broken.

I also think you just aren't trying hard enough.  Try a mono blue list like I played at Gencon, or add chalices if you want.  You will find yourself winning more than losing against Stax.  Back to Basics and Energy Flux are huge threats and you have FOW and Wastelands.  

Energy Flux is one of the strongest Artifact hosers that one can play.  Mishra's Workshop can't tap to pay for your artifacts.

Gustav already adressed some of the objections I was going to raise, so I will just stress this point:
Energy Flux is strong, but you need three mana to get it into play and when it does come into play, it doesn't even help you if there is a threat. For that reason alone I would say Rack and Ruin is probably better. Now, the problem of getting to three mana in the first place from under a Workshop/Trinisphere/no FoW opening is very hard. You probably have it all figured out, so I will just say how I see it and you can correct me if any of this is wrong. First you have to drop a basic or a fetchland or a strip. You can also waste his shop if you have a strip, but then you still have to hold or draw three more lands, that is 4 lands in 11 cards, so your deck should have at least a 22/60 land ratio, and that still only gives you a 50% chance. But if he played a Mox before the Trinisphere then he only needs to draw two more lands to get back into the game after you strip his shop, or 3/10 which is a lot easier than 4/11. Plus he could easily have played a Sol Ring/Crypt, or Lotus, or two Moxen, or he could hold or draw another Workshop, and then you're just screwed. Regardless of whether you're screwed or not at this point, the second land you play should also be a basic or a fetch, or a strip. Only the third land you play can be wasteable.
So the "optimal" anti-Stax landbase would look something like this:

5 Duals/LoA/other
5 Strips
12 Fetchlands/Basics

That much land would allow you to strip away the shop and still have a 50% chance of getting back into to the game on your own turn 4, that is if he does nothing else broken until then.

I will try harder :)

[Vegeta2711]

They can play some flashy, interesting new tech-deck of the month without having to worry about losing part of what they invested in 4 Workshops.

So.True.

Wow, someone else finally noticed it and you actually said it.   Props.

[dexter]

im just gonna say

yay, wotc have noticed the retardness of having non restricted 3sphere / ws

[Smmenen]

To be honest, I'm a little confused by what you said, genuinely.

Isn't the point of innovation that people continually develop new "flashy" decks?  But I do that not so I don't have to worry about Workshops, but becuase I beleive that developing new decks, constantly, is the key to my and my teams tournament success.  Suprise is a most potent weapon - more so that Workshop, Trinisphere, imo.

5 Duals/LoA/other
5 Strips
12 Fetchlands/Basics

I consider something close to that the optimal mana configuration for control decks, period.  And not just becuase of Trinisphere/Crucible, but becuase of a) Fish, b) other control decks with Wasteland, and c) back to basics/blood moon.

[andrewpate]

I don't have much to add to what Steve said, except to point out that I, too, have Workshops and have not used them recently.

[cssamerican]

I also think you just aren't trying hard enough.  Try a mono blue list like I played at Gencon, or add chalices if you want.  You will find yourself winning more than losing against Stax.  Back to Basics and Energy Flux are huge threats and you have FOW and Wastelands.  

Energy Flux is one of the strongest Artifact hosers that one can play.  Mishra's Workshop can't tap to pay for your artifacts.

Gustav already adressed some of the objections I was going to raise, so I will just stress this point:
Energy Flux is strong, but you need three mana to get it into play and when it does come into play, it doesn't even help you if there is a threat. For that reason alone I would say Rack and Ruin is probably better. Now, the problem of getting to three mana in the first place from under a Workshop/Trinisphere/no FoW opening is very hard.

Your opponent will get the hand your describing much less often than you will get a Force of Will and a blue card. The senarios you are giving are the worst case and unlikely to happen frequently. Magic is a games where you just have to play the percentages. For example, in my testing BUG Dragon just destroys Stax. Can Stax lock me out immediately and win? Yes, but if they don't I win an insane percentage of the time, and I can assure you Stax can't lock you out from the start of the game more than 33% of the time. If it could everyone every where who could would be playing Stax.

[effang]

For the record, I am a Dane.

You said in sweden you guys can rent cards? What is that like? What kind of rates are we talking about? What kind of insurance does the renter have against play wear, etc.

Very curious about how this would work and if it is a viable business or just friends lending to friends.

====

Also, why do we continue to discuss the best way to combat 1st turn trinisphere? I thought that it was pretty much a given for almost every deck if faced with turn 1 sphere.  This isn't just because the trini is there, but rather because they went first, played their mox/lotus, and their workshop, and next turn will be beating you down while you'll have a simple land...

If we were talking about how to battle a first turn trini on the draw, that would be much more relevant.  Rack and ruin seems like a much stronger option, given that you can expect to hit a land and a mox drop much more likely.