[Free Article (?)] So Many Insane Plays Podcast #1: Flusterstorm, Tezzeret, & Mo

[Smmenen]

Kevin Cron and I have produced the first ever Vintage podcast.  

Kevin and I cover three specific Topics:

1) We talk in detail about Flusterstorm from Commander, and how awesome it is.  

2) we talk about errata policy, Lotus Vale, etc.

3) We talk about the Bazaaar of Moxen Finalists, and analyze the two Tezzeret decks.

Check it out, and let us know what you think:

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011/06/so-many-insane-plays-vintage-podcast-1/

Just click play and listen!

[Troy_Costisick]

Steve,

Just listened to this after following the link on your sig.  I listen to quite a few MTG podcasts, and I have to say that this is one of the best episodes I've listened to in a while.  You guys did a great job deeply analyzing the issues you chose for your episode.  I have several comments, but it's too late for me to write them now.  I'll send them to your GMail account when I get the chance.  Thanks for taking the time to do the podcast.  It was really great.

Peace,

-Troy

[Onslaught]

Any plans for this to be made available through iTunes? I have no idea what the process for that is, so never mind if it's cost prohibitive or something. 

[CHA1N5]

Episode 1 is up on MTGCAST now.  Unfortunately, their site has had stability issues for the past 24 hours and I can't find the direct link at the moment.  Once it's running again, our podcast series will have its own RSS feed that you can add to your preferred podcast software.

Episode 2 is in the can and pending editing and posting.

[Troy_Costisick]

MTGCast is back up, but all the podcasts they loaded yesterday appear to be gone, along with all the posts people made with them. 

[Smmenen]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I LOVE how Quiet Speculation has the podcast set up.  It's so simple and easy to listen to.  All you literally have to do is click play from the web browser.

Doing a regular podcast is going to serve very well in place of doing a weekly column.  I couldn't possibly do a weekly column anymore, and this is a perfect substitute!   It allows us to be detailed in our analysis and discussion, without having to take the time to write out everything, edit it, etc.  Talking is so much easier!   It's also great that you can listen to it on a smart phone, at the gym, during work, etc.  It's just like a radio broadcast!!!

So Many Insane Plays is back!

[LSD25]

very nice cast.  appreciated the kuhnian interpretation of mtg paradigms.

in regards to errata, i think precedent and functionality are good measures, however, i think intention would be the best standard if it was acheivable.  I would add that the ability to correctly apply precedent arguments on a per card basis is just as difficult as trying to find the original intention of a card.  I imagine there are opposing precedents for each investigation or re-development of a card, or even the rules.  If one were to try and avoid power level creep through the errata process, a conservative estimate of original intention could suffice, however, the johnny's may consider this to be almost malicious to the game; and arguments to the brokeness of one function over another may become insurmountable. 

i look forward to future casts.

[Metman]

I just listened to the entire podcast.  Nice job guys.  It was very informative. 

I really liked the portion on Flusterstorm.  When the card was spoiled it made my head hurt thinking of the different scenarios it is good and not good in.  The analysis was great. 

Jace v Tezz?

I'll take Jace.

[Onslaught]

Streaming this to an iPhone worked ok, but if it's free to toss these up on iTunes that would be great. If a podcast is on iTunes, you can download it directly to your phone and keep it instead of potentially having it cut off streaming when you lose signal or something.

Anyway it was a good listen, and good job using a Rush song for the intro.

[swawagon]

I listened to the show and left thinking: 26 mana and 8 Planeswalkers, and the basic UB Key/Vault/Tinker/Blight shell... sounds like a deck...

[Guli]

Thanks man! It was very fun to listen too. Also it made me think about Null Rod. Workshop could easily run this card if it feels this is necessary instead of Metalworker. In response to Turbo-Tezz of course.

Sadly you didn't cover the role and options of Fish. If Workshop goes Null Rod to adapt, would this make life easier for Fish? Hard questions. Oh and about Flutterstorm, has a place in Fish or not?


Keep it coming!

[Joblin Velder]

Sadly you didn't cover the role and options of Fish.

Yeah, he left out Parfait and TnT, too.

[CHA1N5]

Episode 2 should be up on mtgcast this weekend!

Thanks again for the feedback:  let us know your ideas for future topics.  We plan to cover detailed analysis of specific decks and matchups in the near future, as we gear up for the Vintage Championship.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Kevin Cron and I have produced the first ever Vintage podcast.  

Really?  Like the ones I@n and I did years ago?

[Joblin Velder]

Kevin Cron and I have produced the first ever Vintage podcast.  

Really?  Like the ones I@n and I did years ago?

OH SHIT GOT REAL.

[Guli]

Sadly you didn't cover the role and options of Fish.

Yeah, he left out Parfait and TnT, too.

I am talking about the ones that get TOP 8 results. For example see http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=1450

[DubDub]

About 50 minutes in there's a brief discussion of my position on Lotus Vale.  Reminder, I think the Oracle text would be best as:

Lotus Vale
Land
When ~ enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you sacrifice two untapped lands instead.
  : Add three mana of any color to you mana pool.  This ability cannot be activated if ~'s ETB trigger is on the stack.

Kevin seems to indicate that he believes a Stifle-able Vale would not match original functionality, but he doesn't expand on that point.  I'm curious how potentially never having Vale enter the battlefield (possible with the current errata) better matches original functionality than my proposal?  The trigger was originally written, and originally functioned, as a 'when comes into play', which suggests that it did actually come into play.

Also, like Mental Misstep in Legacy, Flusterstorm may be the best answer to Flusterstorm.  You guys didn't really get into that.

Big thanks for creating the series.  This was really awesome!

[CHA1N5]

Kevin Cron and I have produced the first ever Vintage podcast.  

Really?  Like the ones I@n and I did years ago?

(Steve is relatively new to podcasts:  as producer and consumer.) 

Kevin seems to indicate that he believes a Stifle-able Vale would not match original functionality, but he doesn't expand on that point.  I'm curious how potentially never having Vale enter the battlefield (possible with the current errata) better matches original functionality than my proposal?  The trigger was originally written, and originally functioned, as a 'when comes into play', which suggests that it did actually come into play.

At the time it was printed, the ruling was that, while Lotus Vale was in play, it could not be activated until it's CiP cost was paid.  The closest analogy to that scenario, within the current rules, is to have the card not in play before its cost is paid.  You could make a very complex adaptation whereby the land enters play buy doesn't have the mana ability until 2 lands are sacrificed, but I'm sure that few people embrace such complexity just to have the land "be in play" for a brief period:  the issue is the mana production without paying the cost.

Also, like Mental Misstep in Legacy, Flusterstorm may be the best answer to Flusterstorm.  You guys didn't really get into that.

I mentioned it once, in passing, but you can bet that will come up again if Flusterstorm is a consistent presence in the metagame.  In an uncertain environment, no one will include Flusterstorm in their sideboard for that purpose.  We'll see.

Big thanks for creating the series.  This was really awesome!

Thank you.

[DubDub]

The issue is the 12/12 without paying the cost.

Right?

I totally understand that having a reference to the stack on a card is unconventional (it may just be Time Stop's reminder text that has it currently).  But I had felt that this was a change we would have seen around Zendikar block, as a tie-in to the introduction of the Landfall mechanic.  At this point I have no expectation of actually seeing a change, since there's no particular external motivation like Landfall (when it was new) to push a change over the top.

I feel like probably a not uncounterable-Black-Lotus but stifleable-Vale would be fair and interesting in the Vintage context.  It would probably also break into Legacy to a small degree (and there Mental Misstep would be in place to punish abusive use of Stifle).  I don't think a works-with-stifle-Ruins would be played at all in Vintage or Legacy.

[MaximumCDawg]

I was happy to see Steve take a more measured and less strident approach to Vale and friends in this podcast than he has on the forums.  Rather than saying, "it will destroy the format!" he suggests that it would unhealthy in the long term.  He hedges against his lack of data by suggesting that it may not be a problem right away, but eventually, he's confident that SOMEONE will break it SOMEHOW.  Fair enough.

But then he says something very, very interesting.  He 's bothered that allowing Vale and Co. to work as functioned would "elevate those cards to the highest echelons of magic" or something very similar, and that this "unprecedented" and a bad thing.  Says who?  I agree WotC shouldn't be printing new Moxen willy nilly, but doesn't this suggest a sort of discriminatory bais against any card daring to challenge the established Power 9? I bring it up because, to me, it sounds like an old man shouting for the kids to get off his porch and turn down that dang-nabbit music - resistence to change simply out of intertia.

Anyway, DubDub, according to the Vale-Orb-Master of Arms thread over at Wizards, apparently that eratta does NOT restore original function.  Apparently you couldn't respond to an enters-the-battlefield trigger with ANY fast effect.  That being the case, stifle just plain wouldn't work in pre-6th.  I'm not saying I disagree on the eratta you suggest - I agree actually - but it has the loathesome quality of being neither textual NOR functional.  It's sort of a half-way between the two compromise that one would only make out of power-level concerns.

[DubDub]

Anyway, DubDub, according to the Vale-Orb-Master of Arms thread over at Wizards, apparently that eratta does NOT restore original function.  Apparently you couldn't respond to an enters-the-battlefield trigger with ANY fast effect.  That being the case, stifle just plain wouldn't work in pre-6th.  I'm not saying I disagree on the eratta you suggest - I agree actually - but it has the loathesome quality of being neither textual NOR functional.  It's sort of a half-way between the two compromise that one would only make out of power-level concerns.

Then why does Phyrexian Dreadnought behave differently?  It just seems rather arbitrary to have them work differently, which suggests that they like that Stifle-Nought works, but don't like Stifle-Vale.  I think Stifle-Vale would be pretty interesting without introducing the brokenness of Black-Lotus-Vale.

[MaximumCDawg]

Then why does Phyrexian Dreadnought behave differently?  It just seems rather arbitrary to have them work differently, which suggests that they like that Stifle-Nought works, but don't like Stifle-Vale.  I think Stifle-Vale would be pretty interesting without introducing the brokenness of Black-Lotus-Vale.

Oh, I totally agree.  Dreadnought just works as the text implies.  Vale almost (but not quite, Ankh of Mishra says hi) has its original function.  Still, saying this is "arbitrary" is a bit much.  If by "consistent" you demand that WotC chooses either text or function and applies to universally, then, no, it's not consistent.  But it isn't exactly "arbitrary" because they do have a justification: they're terrified of Vale's power level, just like Steve.

[DubDub]

I think we're covering the same ground that was covered in the Vintage issues forum thread, and like I said, at this point I don't seriously expect a change so I don't think it's necessary to debate the point.