Is Slaver Too Good?

[Ric_Flair]

Ged:

1) It seems that availability of workshop is an issue. If it were printed in large amounts (like, for example, Tog), wouldn't it be a bit (lot) more represented? It's almost impossible to make a workshop deck in a 5-proxy tournament, unlike Hulk.

For better or worse this is not a criterion they use to take action.  I think that this is a good policy for the following four reasons.  

In American Constitutional Law there is this idea that we all use--the slippery slope.  Basically the argument is that while the first step in the process, step A is fine, it rapidly and uncontrollably leads to step B and C both of which are less acceptable.  Furthermore, there is no clear line to separate the okay from the unacceptable.  This argument is the classic slippery slope argument.  While everyone agrees that there are just too few Workshops out there, where do you draw the line?  How do you stop things that are good and somewhat less rare from being restricted?  If Workshop goes then what about Mana Drain?  And if Mana Drain goes then what about Berserk?  And so on and so forth until Force of Will, which had a small print run in comparison to any Tempest forward card, is on the chopping block.  

The second reason why this is not an acceptable criterion is because it is looking to a non-game element for restriction.  The essence of the restriction is that it imbalances the game as it is played.  The lack of a card is not something that imbalances the game as it is played.  It has nothing to do with it.  It may imbalance ACCESS to a given card, favoring the wealthy, but that is not the purpose of a restriction.  If there were only 5 Pale Moons in existence no one would complain.  This leads to a second problem.  The problem here is that Workshop is very good.  But if you played against it a lot you would realize that it is beatable and while good it is not imbalancing, or at least not to the level warranting a restriction.  In other words lack of experience with the card makes people think it is much better than it is.  If everyone could run it we would see that it is not THAT broken.  And the stats bear this out.

The third reason is that restricting cards for this reason would be wrong is that it would be an administrative nightmare.  What qualifies as sufficiently available?  How does Wizards control or define that?  For example, what if there were 10,000 of a card, but 5,000 were all of a sudden damaged by an act of God, would this require DCI action?  This is taking the issue to an extreme, but it is in the extreme where we most easily see the absurdity of an argument.  Add this to the following problem:  with the increased print runs and the hording that goes on, some cards might be scarce in terms of cards printed today, but were in fact not that big of an issue.  Force of Will is an excellent example.  They printed TONS, it was an uncommon.  But now everyone knows how good they are.  I like many other people will never get rid of my last playset, so this means they are unavailable.  This, in turn means that there are 4x Forces of Will off the market where x is the number of Vintage players.  How can this be factor into the problem of using availability as a reason for DCI action?   It can't .  Does print run determine availability?  Or is it age?  Or is it actually number of cards on the market?  It cannot be some intuitive sense that there are too few.  That is a recipe for disaster.

Fourth and finally, if availability is a criterion for restriction then the whole format of Vintage is ruined.  Availability is an issue and Wizards does consider it, that is why there are other formats like Standard and Block.  But the moment they restrict a card because of availability they ruin one of the elements of Vintage.  We like it because of the exotic cards.  Exotic cards are the core of the format, take them away and we are left with something we don't like.

2) I'm not sure I agree with (or understand) the 2nd point you're trying to make - All you need to stop a workshop.dec is FoW AND Wasteland? Isn't that a proof of a 'brokeness'?

No you misread what I said.  I was trying to show, in light of the definition I tried to craft in my open letter, why Workshop is not so fast that it generates an early game swing.  Here is what I said:

Note just how difficult it is to meet this standard. I am not saying a card warrants action from the DCI when it is the focus of a deck with a lower fundamental turn than the fundamental turn of the rest of the decks in the format. In order to warrant DCI action, the card must give rise to a deck that is faster than most of the cards, not even decks, in the format. In other words, the deck has to be so fast that almost no card in the format can stop it, since none of them can be played for effect in time. That is blindingly fast. Showing such domination based on actual tournament results would prove to be difficult, as it should be. As I stated before, banning or restricting a card should be done as a last resort, but sometimes it is necessary.

The mere fact that Force of Will exists means that in order for a card to be responsible for an early game swing in Vintage it has to be SUPER fast and consistent.  Force can be cast even before you lay a land.  So cards have to be consistent Turn 1 wins or near wins.  Add to this that Wasteland can kill a Workshop on Turn 1 as well and you see that it does not fit what I tried to outline as early game swing based on previous DCI comments and card restrictions/bannings.

I was NOT saying that you had to have both these cards to beat Workshop.  You can beat Workshop in a million ways, which is another reason why it does not need a restriction.

I hope those answers help.

[Ged]

@Ric

1)

1st reason - Isn't a part of every restriction a 'slippery slope' sindrome? Some cards move up in their 'broken' status as a fact of neutering some other cards.

2nd reason - While I agree with what you said, isn't the line 'And the stats bear this out.' a bit misleading. Stats are like that because of availability. Wouldn't the stats be different if Workshops were printed in Mirrodin block?

3rd & 4th reason - I'm not, in any way, suggesting that restriction of Workshop should come from its rather low availability, but its power level.

Following your reasoning from the previous post, if there were only 10 Ancestrals ever printed, they wouldn't deserve restriction? If not, would you still consider that card 'broken'?


Once again, I'm not in any way supporting Workshop restriction, this is just a discussion of a posibility of a cards 'broken' nature which balances itself with the lack of the real cards. Workshop serves just like an example. It all boils down to: The card is 'broken', but doesn't need restriction. Is it possible?



2)
No discussion here. I just misunderstood what you meant.

[Ric_Flair]

Ged:

Slippery slope does not occur in restrictions.  Restricting Wish did not result in the restriction of all similar cards.  In fact, they specifically did not take down Cunning Wish.  Furthermore, there was a clean, clear line of reasoning that resulted in Burning Wishes restriction that could not be easily extended to other cards--namely that Burning Wish allows you to recur powerful sorceries like Yawgmoth's Will.  Thus there was no slippery slope with that restriction.  Furthermore, if they continue to use Steve's test and the early game swing thing, they will avoiding slippery slope type arguments.

If Workshop were winning every event it was played in, then maybe I would concede that the stats were misleading.  But it doesn't.  Even when top players like Kevin Cron and Steve play them they don't win all the time.  Furthermore, in hihgly powered environments Workshop does not win all the time.

Finally as far as the 10 Ancestrals are concerned, you entirely missed my point.  It should be the card, not its availability, that determines whether it is restricted.  10 Ancestrals, 10 million Ancestrals or whatever, that card is restricted.  The same sort of logic works on Workshop.  It is not good enough, regardless of availability.

As far as broken and restricted.  Broken is a stupid term.  It is overused and by this time virtually meaningless.  As such all I care about and all we can talk about is whether the card is worthy of a restriction.  Debating brokenness is pointless.

As a side note, I think that while this thread is not going anywhere fast, it is using the right sort of language and analysis.  If this is the way these threads shape up in the future, I think it is a good thing.  The discussions of personal sentiment and thoughts on bah rokenness are stupid and meaningless.  These threads work best with good, close investigation.  Plus they don't spiral out of control as easily.  Note that we have yet to have a person ADAMANTLY for restricting anything.  This comports with the format right now.  Nothing is screaming out to us.

[CSeraph]

Going back to Swanky's description of Context and Metagame bias - the latter seems reasonble//self-evidently true. Contextual brokeness, however, is a valid standard for restriction that the DCI uses all the time - LED is a terrible card in most decks, a strong card in Madness and a broken card in Long, for example. Gush was fine in stasis/turbo-land and not at all fine in Grow-A-Tog. The list goes on.

Do note that this is a theoretical point - I don't favour restricting intuition, or any Tog card at the moment.

[Ric_Flair]

Contextual brokenness is nothing new.  It is part of Steve's test.  Let's look at Steve's test and the early game swing test:

Is the card the key factor in an dominant deck?
Is the card a key factor in a deck that is excessively metagame distorting?
Is the card too powerful on its own?

Does a card create an unrecoverable early game swing?

Contextual brokenness is nothing other than criteria 1.  Furthermore, lets look at what the DCI said and Randy's reasons for restricting LED.  The DCI said:

Some fast mana cards are easier to abuse than others, but recent advances in deck design have shown that even the drawback on Lion's Eye Diamond isn't severe enough to balance a zero-mana artifact that gives you three mana.

Randy said:

A month ago when we were trying to decide whether any cards needed to be added to the Type 1 Restricted List, we put together a copy of “Long.dec” and did some goldfishing. Our version could kill a goldfish on the first turn 60% of the time – an absurdly high percentage of the time, even for Type 1. The public was also complaining about this new deck so we concluded that we clearly needed to do something about it

and

Lion’s Eye Diamond has been around for years, and it has shown up from time to time in combo decks that have some way to recurse them (usually via Timetwister or Yawgmoth’s Will) and thus use LED mana to pay for lots of spells. Long.dec was the latest of these decks and probably the most efficient at abusing LED, but it was by no means the only one. Cards that provide more mana than they cost are simply too powerful in Type 1, and it doesn’t seem to matter how severe their drawbacks are.

Based on these comments I think it is clear that criteria 1: Key card in a dominant deck, and the early game swing factor are the reason why LED was restricted.  I would further assert that in fact the early game swing criteria was the most important one because while fast Long, for various reasons, was not dominant.  There were just too few people that had the cards, the desire, and the skill to play the deck correctly.  As a result it was no where near GAT levels of dominance.  It was, as Buehler pointed out, WAY too fast.

There is no such thing as contextual brokenness outside of Steve's first criteria.

[defector]

We need to start enjoying this era rather than decrying it.  The strength of Tog and Slaver have allowed Rector and Keeper to still have a place in the game.  Running hate has never been more futile, how slavable your deck is seems almost invers to how strong you are versus Tog or Rector or Dragon.  Nowadays we'll see a top 8 with 5-7 different lists init, some i've seen(smaller scale than sylvan quality toureny, but still), that have 8 distinct decks in the top 8.  Diversity is a good thing and right now restriction would hinder rather than help it.  Remember restriction is good to the extent that it promotes a varied and open metagame.  By varied I mean that there are many Tier one decks(currently I see 4-5) and open means that the meta is such that it can accept new builds without automatically ruling them out.  In the last six months we've seen slaver go from "whatever to top deck", that is a good sign not bad one, since Tog was declared king we've seen madness rebuilt post long restriction, O stompy invented, slaver invented, and Rector revitalized.  I fusking love this, and don't want GAT or not, Keeper or not, Long or not.  This is the even keel we've been looking for, I hope it stays this way for a long time.
defector

[Dr. Sylvan]

Nowadays we'll see a top 8 with 5-7 different lists init, some i've seen(smaller scale than sylvan quality toureny, but still), that have 8 distinct decks in the top 8.

Quantifying the diversity so far:

232 Top 8 decks in 6 months
43 archetypes (average of ~5.3 appearances)
24 archetypes with three or more appearances
14 archetypes that average more than 3% of the decks in a monthly report
7 archetypes that average more than 5% of the decks in a monthly report

NO deck that averages more than 8.3% (Hulk) of a monthly report.
NO deck with more than 21 (Dragon) appearances.

Diversity is a good thing and right now restriction would hinder rather than help it.

CAN YOU SEE HE IS SERIOUS LIKE EBOLA IS SERIOUS?

Trust me, guys, you'll know when there's quantitative reason to be worried. I'll put it in my sig and everything. I mean, I'm not exactly conservative with my B&R ideas here (oh man Ferrett changed my title on that one :p ). I consider it my gift to the community to forestall 90% of the 'restrict X' conversations before they begin. Which means I'm all anxious for there to be one, because arguments are fun when I'm the one with all the numbers. ;-D

Until then, permanent Black Lotuses, tempo swings the size of Smmenen's articles, and combo decks that make you run a little graveyard hate are all a-o-kay.

[Zanetanos101]

Nowadays we'll see a top 8 with 5-7 different lists init, some i've seen(smaller scale than sylvan quality toureny, but still), that have 8 distinct decks in the top 8.

Quantifying the diversity so far:

232 Top 8 decks in 6 months
43 archetypes (average of ~5.3 appearances)
24 archetypes with three or more appearances
14 archetypes that average more than 3% of the decks in a monthly report
7 archetypes that average more than 5% of the decks in a monthly report

NO deck that averages more than 8.3% (Hulk) of a monthly report.
NO deck with more than 21 (Dragon) appearances.

Diversity is a good thing and right now restriction would hinder rather than help it.

CAN YOU SEE HE IS SERIOUS LIKE EBOLA IS SERIOUS?

Trust me, guys, you'll know when there's quantitative reason to be worried. I'll put it in my sig and everything. I mean, I'm not exactly conservative with my B&R ideas here (oh man Ferrett changed my title on that one :p ). I consider it my gift to the community to forestall 90% of the 'restrict X' conversations before they begin. Which means I'm all anxious for there to be one, because arguments are fun when I'm the one with all the numbers. ;-D

Until then, permanent Black Lotuses, tempo swings the size of Smmenen's articles, and combo decks that make you run a little graveyard hate are all a-o-kay.

I must agree that there is not really a reason to be worried right now, the meta seems perfectly diverse to me.  The fact that the meta seems a little fast right now (and probably is) doesn't mean that we need any kind of restriction update.  We need restriction when for instance everyone is playing GAT, and we did get a restriction (Gush).  The format is healthy, just load your SB up correctly and you should be fine.

[Imzakhor]

I wouldn't consider a 'Meta' to ever be diverse. Diverse implies a finite listing, however long, of legitimate archetypes. Thus Type 1 is not at my personal favorite state.

When archetypes make up the vast MINORITY of decks that T8, then the Meta can be considered rich... Forget diverse. Nothing would make me happier than to see a Poison deck stand up to a WGB Spiritmonger deck at Origins... Even if I held neither in my hand.

This, however, will not be the case until a drastic change to how cards are restricted takes place. Truly Drastic, like allowing only 8-10 singles from the BnR list in a deck, and restricting ALL cards from Alliances and earlier (basically at about the same time that they started realizing how good creatures must be to be viable, and they started making cards good more consistently).

[Machinus]

I don't think people really understand what is intended when our format is described as being "diverse." Being able to play something you like because there are multiple competitive decks in the format is not an intelligent method for determining how to balance it. The stability and health of the metagame has absolutely nothing to do with your personal preference for playing Draw-Go, or Sligh, or whatever. Good players enjoy winning and take a liking to things that win. The strength of the format, or the "metagame", is determined from simply the number of cards, card interactions, or decks, which are all concentrated closely in a similar power bracket. It's quite irrelevant if Tog has a higher raw power base than Landstill, because Tog does not win every tournament and every game and make people quit magic. There are many decks which can all beat each other, and they are all clustered at this power level. Stompy winning games, wtf? But thats a GOOD THING - it means that your options are open as a deckbuilder and a player, that a single strategy or decklist is not so out of control that is it tearing tournaments open. At the moment, some would say that we have FIVE AXIS metagame with MORE THAN ONE deck on each axis. This is exceptional. The diversity of the format comes from the viabilty of each of the cards in the available pool. The new artifact block has provided us with more new toys than we have had since Saga; combined with the surge in interest, innovation, and discussion about Type 1 recently, we get a varied and balanced field. If there was ever a time to keep our mouth's shut about the B&R, due to the extremely remote chance that the DCI is listening, that time is NOW.

[Danzig]

I'm vaguely keeping my eye on Mindslaver. We'll see after 5th Dawn.

[Ric_Flair]

@Imzakhor

This, however, will not be the case until a drastic change to how cards are restricted takes place. Truly Drastic, like allowing only 8-10 singles from the BnR list in a deck, and restricting ALL cards from Alliances and earlier (basically at about the same time that they started realizing how good creatures must be to be viable, and they started making cards good more consistently).

They already did this.  It is called Extended.  Realistically though, suggestions like this are pretty hard to take seriously, because they essentially gut the format, or create a new format, something that NO ONE wants.

When archetypes make up the vast MINORITY of decks that T8, then the Meta can be considered rich... Forget diverse. Nothing would make me happier than to see a Poison deck stand up to a WGB Spiritmonger deck at Origins... Even if I held neither in my hand.

William James once said the only questions worth asking are those that make a difference.  I would take that a step further.  The only language worth using is language that expresses difference.  Here what is the difference between diverse and rich?  Furthermore, why add unncessary jargon to Magic, a subculture rife with too much jargon already.

Both of your major comments made no sense.

[jpmeyer]

A large of number of suggestions that people make regarding rotating sets or banning cards or whatnot basically say make Type 1 into a format that already exists, like Type 1.5 or Extended.

[defector]

Just saying thank you to Dr. Sylan for putting the numbers where my mouth is.  I don't follow the concerns that came after my last post, type 1 is supposed to be fast and is supposed to have degernate scenarios.  That's part of the fun, throwing Mind's Desire for six is really neat, even if I only have one legal copy in my deck.  Wathing everyone wondering who's going to Desire first/better to win each and every tourney is a different situation.  I play type one as a partly powered pplayer because our situtation is more exciting and rich than any other format.  Reading Type 2 and extended reports tells me that this "a small number of archetypes" dominte the format arguemnt could be applied to everywhere, not just us.
thanx,
defector

[OPColby]

When you have an academy deck that dominates every other deck in the format, and the only way to win is to play an academy deck and sideboard 15 cards for the mirror because everyone else will be playing it:  this is when a card needs to be restricted.

When everyone is playing the same deck with subtle variations and different sideboards:  this is when a card needs to be restricted.

When over half of a sideboard consists of cards for the mirror, or cards are put in the MD for the mirror, and it wins a tourney:  this is when a card needs to be restricted.

There are three top decks right now, and I'm sure we all know them:  Tog, Slavery, and Dragon.

Three decks, each of which do different things, is a good metagame.

Other decks can most certainly win, however.  I remember a recent tournament in which the finals was played between Oshawa Stompy and a Ur Landstill deck.  Needless to say, the Oshawa Stompy deck won.

I play a Ur Landstill.  Why?  Because it can beat each of the three super-decks fairly consistantly.  My sideboard has dragon-hate and green-hate.  Everything else I can deal with.  The Stompy's player's worst matchup was a sligh deck, even though he faced a Tog.

The enviroment right now is not slanted as to favor a particular deck.  Five decks that I've just mentioned all do very well in the arena.  I play Landstill.  Could I play Tog if I wanted to?  Sure.  Could I play Slaver?  Sure.  Could I play Dragon?  No, because I hate that deck...but that's a different story.  :)

I go with Landstill because I like the theory of complete board control with no gimmicks.  Nevinyrral's Disk is also one of my all-time favorite cards.  However, if I had to play Dragon to win, I would.  Same with Tog and Slaver.  But I don't need to, so I don't.

Would I like Workshops to be restricted?  Yes.  Personally, I hate the card.  How do you get more broken than a reusable black lotus which can't be countered?  However, is it so broken that everyone needs four to win, or that anyone who has four will automatically win a tourney?  No.  This is why I believe the enviroment, as it stands right now, is perfectly fine.  It's also why you'll see me in the top eight with my Ur Landstill, God-willing.  :)

[Ric_Flair]

OPColby:

Would I like Workshops to be restricted? Yes. Personally, I hate the card. How do you get more broken than a reusable black lotus which can't be countered?

I think I answered this question in this very thread.  If you disagree, tell us why.

[InsaneScrub]

I would like to applaud you all on the excellent articles and discussions you all have been posting with well thought out writting.  It is discussions like this that we should have regularly on TMD.  Keep up the great work.