forests failed you
De Stijl
Adepts
Basic User
Posts: 2018
Venerable Saint
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« Reply #7 on: November 15, 2012, 12:16:31 pm » |
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Thanks for the positive feedback.
To reiterate, I pick my match ups for these articles based upon looking at two decks that placed in the top four of the biggest tournament for the week that I write the article. So, while I understand that UR Landstill w/ Chewer has a better match up against MUD, that wasn't what people were playing and performing well with the week I wrote the article. It is really the only way to be objective. If I played MUD V. Landstill and just made a Landstill deck to beat MUD we wouldn't learn as much by playing the games. It keeps things, at least in my mind, more objective and realistic based on what people are actually playing--as opposed to what people say they are going to play (8 cards for Dredge, 8 cards for Shops) but in practice rarely ever actually do.
I think that it is concerning that a deck like Workshop has such a high win percentage on the play. When I did my Grixis V. Martello analysis the die roll was the most important factor in determining the winner of that match. In my analysis I concluded that the match up felt like it was, in general, about 50-50, but that the person on the play was probably favored at a 75-25 clip. Shop is of course the biggest offender of this phenomenon, because of its nature--but, I also think this is a trend for all decks in Vintage in general. If you think about it, the extra card one gets for being on the draw is supposed to offset the advantage of tempo associated with being on the play. In Vintage the one extra card really doesn't come close to offsetting the tempo because the format and the games are very fast. The thing about Vintage is that the games, because of the cards, are largely about quickly creating blow outs where the opponent really doesn't have too much of a chance to come back from the advantage acquired once it has been done. Think about it, every good deck takes advantage of this in one way or another.
Lodestone, go.
Standstill, go.
Bob, go.
Bazaar, go.
Oath, go.
It is hard to come back from these things because the generate advantage so quickly and are difficult to undo. Once one reaps the benefits of these types of plays, it is difficult for an opponent (who doesn't have an even more powerful draw) to get back into the game. For instance, lets look at Dark Confidant. In a mirror match how much better is Bob on the play than on the draw. I can play mine out, and then my opponent has to choose to kill it or play his own Bob. If he plays his bob, I will get my card first, and then have an opportunity to kill his, whereas if he wants to kill mine before I draw he has to give up the ability to play his. It is just one of a million examples of being on the play being strategically much better than the draw.
Or, the difference between playing standstill on the play before my opponent can cast their Dark Confidant, or on the draw after they have played Dark Confidant. My biggest issue with the format, that was perhaps only partially realized when I wrote my criticism of the format "is vintage too fast," is that I think I was right to criticize that there was a problem with the way that games of Vintage play out, but perhaps framed my argument incorrectly. I did stress, in that article, that games tended to quickly spiral into blow outs where the opponent had very little chance of coming back--that games tended to lack, for lack of a better phrase, "a going back and forth" between who was winning. Once somebody started winning, they simply won.
I am not sure if this is necessarily good or bad. I don't like it, but others might enjoy one big fight and the game ends. What I don't like is that starting to win, and then the linear progression toward winning, tends to be highly predicated upon being on the play. If most decks try to create blow outs, if most decks once they have started winning don't really give opponent's much room to fight back into a game, and most decks try to start getting ahead on turn one, then it is really no wonder that being on the play highly dictates who will win a match of Vintage.
In most formats, one would hope that being on the play or draw would give a player an equal chance to win the match. If not the random act of rolling a die has tremendous implications in what should be a high skill game. I have heard people make the claim that in Standard or limited going first equates to about a 51-49 advantage, in general, for a match win. Which is pretty small. In Vintage the importance of the die roll is pronounced in an extreme way--with Workshop being, of course, the most extreme example.
As I have already stated, Workshop is only the most obvious offender because as you play against it and can't play your moxes, or play a single card, it is obvoius that if you had been on the play the game would have looked vastly different. Yet, a lot of match ups are subtly like that. It is my opinion that the format in and of itself has evolved to a point where with the cards available playing to create a blow out is the best strategy, and that being on the play only skews this phenomenon in more obvious ways.
When I said it was fast, and I have reiterated this a zillion times, I didn't mean that every deck won on the first turn--I said that the games very quickly progressed down a path where a player is ahead and the opponent simply cannot likely come back into the game. Once again, i can't specifically say if it is good or bad. As a rule, it isn't what I enjoy in a game of Magic--but, a lot of people do have the "its vintage and broken stuff happens" attitude. Some people point to format diversity as a way of proving that the format is healthy. And while there are a bunch of different decks, and at least Workshop isn't as dominant as Thirst for Knowledge Tezzeret; I'm not willing to buy into the fact that just because there are eight different decks that can blow somebody out in an efficient manner, means that the format as a whole is healthy. The other problem is that short of a largescale sweeping string of restrictions, I don't actually think that it is possible to effect a meaningful change to the way that games play out.
The more powerful the cards that get printed the more pronounced this "you can't battle back into the game-ness" is going to become. I won a SCG Power Nine by Oathing up Arkoma and Ancient Hydra. We now Oath up Yawgmoth's Bargain. You could get back into the game against an Akroma, but can you realistically get back into the game against Griselbrand? Hardly.
I refuse to get super invested in arguing about it one way or another, because I will play regardless of if they change anything or not. Here is my actual argument, so that people can actually argue with what I am saying, rather than pick out pieces and take them out of context:
The importance of being on the play is heightened to a point where it is often the determining factor in a game of Vintage. Being on the play or draw, should, ideally give a player an equal change of winning (not taking good and bad match ups into consideration), which is to say, a player should not be heavily disadvantaged mere because they lost a die roll, or some other random action that has little to do with playing a skill game. One reason I have isolated, as a possible cause for the play being better in Vintage than other formats, is that of the playable decks in Vintage, most of them once they have gotten ahead give an opponent little chance to battle back and take the lead away. (It isn't IMPOSSIBLE, just unlikely--Think Lodestone on play, Standstill go, or I have a Griselbrand GL). Also, I do not see "Diversity" as the determining factor in whether or not a format is healthy and fun to play. It is one factor, but not the only one, and in my mind not even the most important one.
Rather than argue that I suggested a possible way to fix it, which I don't care if they restrict cards or don't, is there any other realistic way to take the emphasis off getting a huge advantage for being on the play. Also, plz don't tell me "Ben Carp wanted to be on the play with Landstill, see the play isn't THAT good" because I am 100% certain taking the play in Vintage is rancid, compared to the other option.
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