I've noticed recently a bit of confusion and conflict over win conditions. They are for the most part pedestrian debates over preferance, but once in a while, questioning a card's right to be qualified as a "win condition" floats to the surface of the conversation. There is an important discussion here that needs to happen.
I noticed the trend rather recently in a Tog thread. There was bickering over DSC's merit as compared to toothface's when Smmenen, in his typical drive-by fashion, announced that Yawgmoth's Will was the win condition in Tog (and by implication, Tog is not) without bothering to explain why this is true. Now, I'm going to come back to this claim later and address definitions, but I'm glad Smmenen made the post as it alerted me to a problem with the way the term "win condition" is now being used and the root cause of much disagreement here on TMD. In essence, I have come to feel that as players have improved, they have come to associate winning the game and the cards that do this with creating the crushing advantage every good deck is designed to create rather than with reducing an opponent's life total or library. As more and more people made this connection, they began changing the way they justified slots with the big picture in mind and that card's direct contribution to winning, rather than it's isolated role as a bomb or silver bullet.
Of course, we all know why cards used to be justified in a vaccuum, it starts with K and conjures images of Filipino law students in coonskin hats. It's this era that, if my recollection serves, the term win condition was adopted into the Magic glossary. At the time (the keeper era for those of you riding the short bus), the win condition slot was specifically for cards you used to finish a crippled opponent. According to this archaic definition, Psychatog is the quintessential win condition. When things are going right, everything has already been done to win the game before you care about your tog and his only job is to swing for a lot of damage. He does not help create this favorable situation, and he is not used in the process of executing your primary game plan. He is put to use after the fact, because the comprehensive rules don't force players to concede when they have clearly lost the game. The important thing to note here is, though nothing is ever certain in type 1, the win with game control takes place before the "win" with Tog or serra/morphling/fireball/stroke/'pod/insertfotmbadcard. The win condition is phase 2 of winning, when the important work is done during phase 1.
What I want to convey is the difference between a deck successfully carrying out a strong gameplan and winning the game-- put another way, the difference between winning a game and ending a game. If your deck is well built, the two are in essense the same, but according to game rules the game does not neccecarily end when your plan has worked. However, that doesn't mean you haven't won, you just have some paperwork to take care of before you can cash in your victory.
Stax is a great example of a 2 phase gameplan in which the second phase of giving the nod to the comprehensive rules is mostly extranious to the main function of the deck. You know you've won when you lock your opponent down. Though your opponent is still getting turns, the game can really only end one way, and the 20 damage you deal at that point is pretty much incidental. You have made a successful attempt to carry out your game plan of locking your opponent out of the game, and as far as the players are concerned, you have ended it. While this is not the same definition of victory that the comprehensive rules gives us, my first and most important point is that a strong game plan being executed perfectly is for all intents and purposes victory.
I attempted to convey this concept in the Tog thread I mentioned earlier by classifying tog as a "win enabler." My post went basically misunderstood. The point I was trying to stress is the same as the one above. Playing Tog is not what Tog does to win. Tog's game plan typically involves yawgmoth's will, but even that is a means to an end. Your goal with a Tog deck is to control the game and have a critical mass of cards in hand/graveyard. When the tog deck has board control, the ability to prevent further threats, and sufficient resources for tog to eat, the game is over. Putting psychatog into play does not equate to winning. He is a "win condition" in the tranditional sense because he takes a game-plan success (phase 1) and from that position deals his 20+ damage in peace (phase 2). Phase 2 is neccecary, of course, but it is not the most important part of your gameplan. Phase 1 is the part of the game that includes an active opponent, phase 2 is the part of the game that it is very difficult to lose from. Reaching phase 2 is the main function of a good deck, what it does during phase 2 is almost beside the point. As seen with Stax, the phase 2 plan can be very janky indeed, and it doesn't even matter. The phase 1 plan removed your opponent from the game.
The term win condition itself is ambiguous. What does it mean to win a game? Does it mean you fulfill a set of logical necessities - such as reducing an individuals life to zero or decking them? If so, what makes us assume that the actual card we term the win condition is such? How is Psychatog more crucial to winning than the turn one Brainstorm? Every card contributes to winning - in some degree.
To talk about the actual card that executes this - that fulfills the logical directive of the game, is not wrongheaded, but misfocused.
What matters is strategy when talking about magic. In my view, Yawgmoth's Will and anti-Will decks are the dominant vintage strategy.
Tog was a good finisher for Yawg Will for four reasons:
1) Yawgmoth's Will is most powerful when you recur draw spells and fill your hand. Drawing fuels Tog. There is inherent synergy between Tog and Will that far outweighs the dysnneryg of emptying your yard.
2) If you resolve Will, then you can protect Tog by default.
3) Will generally enables you to play Tog, Walk, and Wish Berserk over the course of two turns. YOu only need 5 mana if you have Lotus.
4) The Wishes are great because they help protect you in the early game, are flexible solutions and therefore help you protect and find Will (indirectly by protecting yourself).
The thing is, Tinker is a better plan that does the same thing. Tinker is better than Tog because turn one or two Tinker is good, TOg is not. You don't need Berserk either. Will plus Tinker is the same principles, but now condensed into fewer cards.
This part of the concept links well into established magic theory (you probably thought by now I was going to talk and talk without citing anyone you actually believe!). If you haven't, go read Smmenen's artice Interactivity in Vintage.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9779.htmlThe main conclusion drawn here is that non-interactive gameplans are strategically superior to interactive gameplans.
In simpler terms, the less your deck depends on things you cannot control, such as your opponent, the less weaknesses your plan has. When strategically comparing the merits of interactive and non-interactive decks in light of my own writing above, we can see more clearly why this is so. An approximation of victory is reached when your phase 1 gameplan, such as the stax lock, succeeds. That plan creates a sufficient advantage to remove your opponent from further participation in the game. When your deck NEEDS your opponent to participate in the game, then victory is uncertain right up until a comprehensive rules win is achieved (or you yourself are removed from participation in the game). In essence, strategically interactive decks attempt to move directly to phase 2 without the certainty of victory a strong phase 1 provides. Without a large disparity in the power of the cards available, no amount of tuning and synergy will ever make up for this loss of strategic superiority.
Well put. I was very intrigued by the Flores article. I think he had it backward. It wasn't that decks that force interaction win. It's decks that prevent your opponent from interacting with you that win. That's why Force of Will is best in combo decks and aggro-control and combo-control.
However, when Steve tried to classify cards and strategies as interactive or non-interactive, he found he also had to differentiate between offensively interactive and defensively interactive. He concluded that the best decks use defensive interaction in order to minimize their overall interaction.
Not exactly. I said that the best forms of interaction are proactive interaction and counterspells - which can be both proactive and reactive. I didn't use the word defensive, because it is too ambiguous, in my view.
Proactive disruption is like 3Sphere. Reactive is like Wasteland or Swords to Plowshare. Force of Will is inherently reactive since it has to respond on the stack, but it is often Offensive. That's the problem with using the word defensive/offensive.
Most decks in Vintage are capable of applying their cards as disruption should the need arise, and succeeding in phase 1 depends in part on being prepared for that. A deck strives to end its opponent's participation in the game, which leaves you free to cause a win according to game rules. Once they can't stop you, you have won. Offensive interaction is strategically inferior as it adds an extra dependance to your deck, but a lack of defensive interaction is a form of offensive interaction.
You get the point, but your terminology is mixed up.
When your plan requires something from your opponent, even (perhaps especially) for them to do nothing, you have given your opponent an extra chance to interfere with your game plan. While a strategically non-interactive plan is objectively stronger than a strategically interaction-dependant plan (all other things being equal), a gameplan which is unable to consistantly ignore or work around the metagame's hurdles is not a strong one. I want to point out that carrying out a strong gameplan involves actually completing your objectives. A loose farmiliarity with Meandeck Tendrils shows that a non-interactive, fast, effective gameplan simply isn't good enough when it is unable to defend itself. A requisite of a strong gameplan is its security in the presence of a competent opponent.
The typical defensive-interaction slots in Vintage begin with Force of Will. Other counters usually serve other primary purposes such as acceleration (drain) or disruption (daze), but all of them can be applied as defensive interaction when the pilot feels that is the best use of his cards. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and postulate that the main use for countermagic is when one player attempts to make the transition from phase 1 to phase 2. We know from JP that countering the tog is too little too late. Your countermagic has two purposes, primarily to ensure you can make a successful attempt to reach phase 2, and secondarily to prevent your opponent from doing so first.
If you take one thing away from everything I write here, make it this. You are free to win and supremely unlikely to lose when your opponent is no longer participating, so make your gameplan one that stops your opponent from participating.
I'll attempt to illustrate the difference between a gameplan that ends phase 1 and a gameplan that attempts to rush to phase 2, as well as why the latter is weaker, with the gifts-oath hybrid. The deck essentially has 2 gameplans. The first is the traditional Meandeck Gifts combo-control plan which represents a strong phase 1. It removes the opponent from the game by presenting very few vulnerabilities until it is ready to force through either a lethal tendrils or a time walk recursion chain with Darksteel Collossus on the board. The second plan is to Oath up the big man and try to race your opponent. The important difference here is the shift from phase 1, gaining an insurmountable advantage and phase 2, killing your opponent takes place at extremely different positions of strength.
The traditional plan builds mana and card advantage plus aquires a Gifts Ungiven during phase 1. This plan is very hard to stop, which is probably its greatest strength. Phase 1 is complete when you can go from laying land and drawing cards to killing your opponent without passing the turn. Your phase 2, as well as most of your vulnerabilities, are presented in a non-interactive (effectively) single turn, which prevents your opponent from interacting with you outside the desperation move of trying to counter your spells, which the deck accommodates for and can deal with.
The oath plan is very different. It makes its transition to phase 2 and, according to theory, probably expends its countermagic by playing and activating Oath of Druids while its opponent is still very much in the game. The gifts-oath (goat?) player's opponent is left with many options and several turns. They are still capable of interacting with the game state, so in an ideal world it is safe to say the gifts-oath player made their transition to beatz mode prematurely. Instead of carrying out a gameplan that results in winning at his leisure, that player has carried out a gameplan that results in racing his opponent's answers. This is clearly an inferior choice when made from the same board position.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing the gifts-oath hybrid. I'm well aware that in the real world of real games, there isn't always an opportunity to set up a perfect lock or complete stranglehold and you are forced to compete for advantages. I am also aware that Magic is a game of averages and there are situations that call for attempting to race your opponent rather than shut them down. However, I wanted to show why in a format with the best, most broken cards and fastest, surest gameplans, your primary plan of action should be the best it can be. That includes flexibility, which is the ability to win outside of ideal circumstances, but it also includes the ability to create a win scenario as opposed to a merely favorable scenario.
So, back to the start of the post, the term "win condition." Taken in its traditional meaning, the win condition is the card or combo that actually causes the game to end, but what it has come to mean is the scenario you are striving to create which your opponent cannot recover from. Rich Shay has called a slaver activation a "reasonable enough approximation of victory" and in most cases this is a truism. While Slaver doesn't actually end your opponent's participation in the game, it should allow you to minimize it to an insignificant level. It is admittedly imperfect, but usually strong enough not to matter. Compare the result of a Slaver activation to the result of a Goblins god-hand in Legacy. In both cases your opponent has choices, but they aren't going to be strong enough or soon enough to matter. This is where the line blurs between racing a deck and controlling a deck. If you are moving faster than they can cope with, you have controlled them in that you have taken away their ability to stop you.
So, what's a win condition now? That's an elusive question to answer. In a deck that had 58 cards that help you not lose, it's easy to point out the cards that cause a win, but we don't really agree with that concept anymore. These days you'll probably see at most 8 cards dedicated to not losing, spread between Force of Will, removal, and bouce, and 52 cards that help cause a win. This is an improvement, but it puts some old terminology out of context. What's a win condition now? The correct answer is most of your deck.
So I'm here to encourage Vintage deckbuilders and innovaters to bring to the forefront of their minds something that has always been there, and that is the way we win games. I want to reinforce concepts that have been important, but maybe not as united as they should have been by reminding people that Win Right Now is always better, and that controlling the game means winning the game, and that you win when your opponent can no longer stop you from winning. Whether through speed, a combination of speed and disruption, or pure disruption, your goal is not only do deal your 20 damage but to make sure your opponent can't do a thing about it. I'm writing to remind our community to keep their goals, and their action plans for achieving them, in the forefront of their thoughts.
I want to encourage deckbuilders to look at their decks from the opposite end, by seeing what their win situation is, and then putting together a 75 card machine that forces that situation to occur. Because when that is done well, you have a good deck on your hands.
Your analysis of Gifts-Oath is quite good I think. I would caveat that I never got to finish working on the deck. It was far from ready when it was released. I had some ideas, but have since moved on.
I think that the best way to get to stage two is to either play Will or to use a prisonesque strategy which prevents Will from resolving. Force of Will and Drain are the best cards at fueling and protecting Will, generally - particularly now that Drain decks are so fast relative to traditional combo like TPS and Long.
