Workshop and Drain

[Machinus]

I believe we all know that the card is REALLY broken, and just how much by now, but it's one of those type 1 staples...

Maybe this is for another thread, but people haven't been complaining very much about workshop lately, and that card is more abusable than drain. It's a good sign that we've gotten used to shop, and depend on it. No one has touched shop in this thread, where 6 months ago the hate for shop was all over the place.

[Saucemaster]

Maybe this is for another thread, but people haven't been complaining very much about workshop lately, and that card is more abusable than drain. It's a good sign that we've gotten used to shop, and depend on it. No one has touched shop in this thread, where 6 months ago the hate for shop was all over the place.

It's almost as if some artifact, some major artifact that Workshop frequently powered out too early, got restricted or something.  Weird. 

[Machinus]

Maybe this is for another thread, but people haven't been complaining very much about workshop lately, and that card is more abusable than drain. It's a good sign that we've gotten used to shop, and depend on it. No one has touched shop in this thread, where 6 months ago the hate for shop was all over the place.

It's almost as if some artifact, some major artifact that Workshop frequently powered out too early, got restricted or something.  Weird. 

Yes, I was alive on march 1st. But people were gunning for shop, not that card - and there were a few players who had accepted both. Drain is comparable in power and necessity to shop.

[Jacob Orlove]

Drain is comparable in power and necessity to shop.

Drain is much, much stronger than Workshop. They're "comparable" in the same way Frantic Search is "comparable" to Twiddle.

[Machinus]

Drain is comparable in power and necessity to shop.

Drain is much, much stronger than Workshop. They're "comparable" in the same way Frantic Search is "comparable" to Twiddle.

It isn't that easy to say which one is more powerful. Drain has a lot of different applications, and it performs them well, and it is therefore a popular card. Workshop has a much more limited role, but it is very powerful at what it does. Shop decks are harder to design and harder to play, and they suffer more from hate. The analogy you made in your post is flawed, as one of those cards is restricted while the other is terrible. Shop and drain are both extremely strong cards. The popularity, and dominance, of drain decks has reached a very high level, but the metagame is not going to be this way forever, and drain is not going to decline because it will be restricted. Workshop decks need more time to develop, and the rest of the metagame needs time to adjust.

[Jacob Orlove]

My example was hyperbolic, but the relationships are illustrative. Workshop is a great card, sure. Good enough to drive T1 decks, even. Mana Drain, though, does everything Workshop does, and more. Both give you mana acceleration, but Workshop often doesn't gain you any tempo, because they can answer your newly cheap artifacts with genuinely cheap spells like Rack and Ruin, Rebuild, or Energy Flux (or my personal favorite, Oxidize). Mana Drain, though, not only stops your opponent's game plan (often a functional time walk), but also gives you a huge mana boost on your own turn--often (not always, but often) enough to win the game. Comparing FS and twiddle, we see the extreme advantage of a card that does two things at once (card filtering and untapping your lands) versus just doing one thing (untapping your land). Both cards were, at different times, a part of the best extended combo deck of their time, but it's clear that Frantic Search is on a completely different level from Twiddle. News flash: Mana Drain is head and shoulders above Workshop.

Empirically, Workshop decks have only rarely been on par with the Drain decks. The only times Mana Drain has not been the best deck in the format is when combo (yes, I'm counting GAT) has dominated, and then the DCI steps in.

[Machinus]

My example was hyperbolic, but the relationships are illustrative. Workshop is a great card, sure. Good enough to drive T1 decks, even. Mana Drain, though, does everything Workshop does, and more. Both give you mana acceleration, but Workshop often doesn't gain you any tempo, because they can answer your newly cheap artifacts with genuinely cheap spells like Rack and Ruin, Rebuild, or Energy Flux (or my personal favorite, Oxidize). Mana Drain, though, not only stops your opponent's game plan (often a functional time walk), but also gives you a huge mana boost on your own turn--often (not always, but often) enough to win the game. Comparing FS and twiddle, we see the extreme advantage of a card that does two things at once (card filtering and untapping your lands) versus just doing one thing (untapping your land). Both cards were, at different times, a part of the best extended combo deck of their time, but it's clear that Frantic Search is on a completely different level from Twiddle. News flash: Mana Drain is head and shoulders above Workshop.

Empirically, Workshop decks have only rarely been on par with the Drain decks. The only times Mana Drain has not been the best deck in the format is when combo (yes, I'm counting GAT) has dominated, and then the DCI steps in.

It has already been established that drain performs two roles while shop performs one. That doesn't necessarily make it more powerful. Drain pays a price for its power, and that is reactivity. You have to interact with your opponent in order to get the most out of the card. Smart players and good deckbuilders are aware of drain, and can play cards like welder and duress to counter its effects. Drain decks are forced into a control/X role, which means playing defense in the early game. This is often a weakness of it's own, and like the many sideboard (rebuild is maindeck tps...is that it?) cards you listed to use against workshop, there are many cards that can incapacitate a drain deck, even ones that are maindecked. Cards like duress and xantid swarm perform roles within their own deck types that successfully counter the effects of drain. Welder serves this purpose really well. Tangentially, many cards can counter the support cards of drain decks, making mana drain MUCH less powerful. REB, obviously, as well as harder to use cards like chains and tormods. Drain decks are weak against efficient aggro-control decks, which as I mentioned before, need more time to develop (beyond ugw threshold) in the new metagame.

Workshop doesn't have the limitation of interactivity. You can't play around workshop except by using your land drop for the turn, or by sacrificing your hand to stop the lock. Shop performs its role as a really broken accelerant immediately - there is no interactivity there. Crucible adds to the consistency of shop decks, and makes it possible for them to continually cast much bigger threats. It doesn't perform the role of strong disruption that drain does, and it doesn't have the synergy with the huge number of cards that drain does. However, the acceleration it provides makes decks like stax more than powerful enough to compare to drain decks.

Drain decks have historically been the most dominant, but they are easier to build and easier to play. The US vintage metagame has only had a few major tournaments since trinisphere left, which I don't think is enough time for the next generation of decks to emerge. The question becomes whether or not the versatility of one card means that it will end up as a stronger choice than the other. Right now I don't think that this is true.

[Gabethebabe]

Shop decks are harder to design and harder to play, and they suffer more from hate.

Agree with two out of three. Playing Workshop decks features a lot less play decisions than about any other deck. Less decisions ==> Easier to play.

[rvs]

Shop decks are harder to design and harder to play, and they suffer more from hate.

Agree with two out of three. Playing Workshop decks features a lot less play decisions than about any other deck. Less decisions ==> Easier to play.

Actually, they feature about the same amount of decisions. I would almost say the Workshop player has a bigger decision to make, since often, it's mulligan decision is more complex than the decision the drain-player has to make. Also, it is not like the Drain player has to carefully plan out how to develop his board as much as the Workshop player. He can just drain w/e on turn2 and explode using that mana on turn3. I don't see how playing a workshop deck well is easier.

[Machinus]

Shop decks are harder to design and harder to play, and they suffer more from hate.

Agree with two out of three. Playing Workshop decks features a lot less play decisions than about any other deck. Less decisions ==> Easier to play.

Mulliganing is a huge part of playing workshop decks, and contributes in a large way to the degree of difficulty in playing them. Shop decks typically have MUCH less draw then drain decks, which means each decision they make with the cards they have is more important, since they likely won't be getting second chances with them. During the course of the game, while your mana productiona, and tempo (unless you play against decks with significant nonbasic or artifact hate), is top notch, your disruption isn't. The shop deck has far few tools available to upset specific aspects of the opponent's game plan, and if the opponent's strategy starts to execute properly, there is little, if anything, it can do about it. If you play 5C stax, then you sacrifice consistency and pressure for explosive power and disruption, which worked well in syracuse and may again in the future.

I agree with rvs. It wasn't easy to draw the first turn trinisphere hand, but even when you did, you had to take advantage of the (albeit very large) opportunity to take control of the game. If the deck failed to do so, it was one rebuild/rack&ruin/wasteland away from getting screwed. How hard it is to tap two islands and get a whole turn of free tempo? There are something like 8+ spells in any slaver deck that can savagely take advantage of the drain mana. Tog and Oath behave similarly. It is this aspect of the two cards - the ease of execution - that makes drain more prevalent. There are other factors, like possible synergies and versatility, but the strategy of workshop decks is very difficult (without trinisphere, it's back to regular levels) to design and execute in the early game.