Discussion: Teams and Type One

[Akuma]

This thread is pointless and should be closed by a moderator. Everything that needs to be said has been said (more than once). Teams are entitled to their privacy.

The only problem is that once someone CHOOSES to participate in an OPEN, supposedly HIGH PROFILE EVENT, one has CHOSEN to give up that privacy. I applaud players like Phantom Tape Worm (Marc), I briefly met him at Gencon last year and he is indeed a solid player and a boon to the community. He has kicked some serious a$$ lately, and he has done it the good old fashioned way, by outplaying his opponents.

If you want to keep your tech secret, play in your backyard with your friends.

[Triple_S]

If a TO decides to publish decklists, that is perfectly fine.  If a TO opts not to publish decklists then people don't have to release if them if they don't want to.  

Personally, I'm hoping you start having Lotus tournaments in your backyard so PTW can win those also.

[Klep]

If a TO decides to publish decklists, that is perfectly fine.  If a TO opts not to publish decklists then people don't have to release if them if they don't want to.  

If the TO refuses to publish any decklists for a major tournament, that's a different issue, and means DrSylvan has a head to collect.

[TracerBullet]

If a TO decides to publish decklists, that is perfectly fine.  If a TO opts not to publish decklists then people don't have to release if them if they don't want to.  

Personally, I'm hoping you start having Lotus tournaments in your backyard so PTW can win those also.

El Jefe is more than invited if and when I organize one... We're still sitting at Unl Moxen, so it might be a ways down the road.

[Akuma]

@Triple_S - Since I'm only reading what you write, I don't know whether you are serious serious, or if you are taking it easy (I hope it's the latter). The TO did not CHOOSE not to publish the decklists, he was requested to do so. Again, no big deal, I don't really care, I'm not interested in any 'secret' tech, that kind of thing does not affect me in the least.

I would not mind it one bit if PTW played in a local tournament (LA area). I enjoy playing the GAME of magic, I'm a competent player, and I would love to play a few matches with Marc (PTW).

[Smmenen]

I want to get this thread back on topic.  

The basic question I want to put forward is this:

How Do we Best Encourage the Innovation of New DECKS and New Technology

I have long believed that people respond to incentives.   I also believe that Type One is under-developed.

With those two notions it isn't a far leap to suggest that a message board can only take deck development so far.  The only answer, I contend, is the development of serious teams.

[Mixing Mike]

Well, we could organize a tourny with only one or two representives of each team say once every three months and have a battle of the teams.  That may help the development of serious teams.

[Shades]

Yeah, we had the Idea too. Battling with the Dutch-> Wohoo.

[Akuma]

@Steve -
I think the way to encourage innovation and technology is through competition. Teams are definitely a solid part of this equation, especially with the rise of rivalries. The rise of proxy tournaments (accessibility) and interest in Type 1 are all good signs. The more people we 'recruit', the more innovation the format will enjoy. Show people that this is an enjoyable endeavor, because you sure as hell won't be making a living doing this.

Good publicity is key. "Hey look, a Type 1 article, hmm, that looks pretty interesting, maybe I can give it a try." It has been said that the reason WotC publishes results is to get people to buy more cards. That's true, but another way of saying it is that WotC does this to get more people to play the game. Your SCG articles are excellent for this format. I have lost count of the amount of times I have played against Smmenen.dec, and you know what, I'm not bothered by it one bit. Were these games more entertaining and worthwhile than playing against wellwisher.dec, definitely.  

But in the end, all competition is driven by incentive. Type 1 will remain "under-developed" because the incentive to play this format is not too high. What's your incentive? The competion, the prizes (I highly doubt it), the people you interact with and meet, etc.

[Smmenen]

I think it depends which incentives we are talking about.  You are right that some incnetives aren't there - but others are.

The tournament side of the equation is growing.  I disagree that the prizes are not a good incentive.  Winning a $300 prize with the amount of effort needed to do so is a GREAT DEAL.  To do the same in T2 requires not only that you put in the tremendous effort needed to qualify for the Pro Tour (which you can spend a mere fraction of to practice to win a Mox), but also perform well on the Pro Tour - which requires many multiples of the testing to qualify.  

Winning a many hundreds of dollar painting at Gencon is a tremendously solid prize.

As much as people say that T1 will never be serious unless it's on the Pro Tour - I think the fact that the format isn't on the Pro Tour is a tremendous incentive to play it - and play it well.  It means that you can do well without having to deal with the assholes that people complain about in other formats - becuase people's livilihood isn't on the line.  

The other thing T1 has going for it is that it is arguably the most fun format to play.  I think the incentives, in terms of prize structures, are growing by leaps and bounds.

The incentives to develop teams are really low at the moment.  The first problem is geography.  It's hard to develop a solid team unless you are in the same geographic area.  That's the only way you can test alot in real life.  The problem with that is that a geographically centered team will then be competeing against each other for the most part becuase most tournaments are local.  Columbus, Hadley, Dulmen, Carta, etc.  

The sole reason to bring up this thread is to argue that permitting people to withhold decklists is a critical incentive needed to stimulate the development of teams.  Others include - touranments with good payout, growing number of tournaments with good payout, proxy tournaments so that anyone can play whatever they want, and large scale tournaments like Gencon that draw people from everywhere.

[PucktheCat]

Steve, I don't think anyone in this thread has argued that teams shouldn't be allowed to build decks in secret.  The issue arises when people withhold decklists that they take to large events and do well with.

Think about this in the context of intellectual property law, because it is clearly related in many ways.  Intellectual property exists to ensure that a creative individual has some chance to make a return on his invested time and energy, which encourages people to take the risks associated with innovation.  But, because intellectual property is simply created to encourage innovation specific limits are placed on it to keep it from doing the opposite.  After a bit of time the rights expire, allowing others to make use of the original idea and add their own contributions and making sure that the original inventor doesn't become complacent and continues to make positive contributions.

The exact same model applies in the discussion here.  Secrecy helps the format if it ensures that the people that do the work have a good chance of getting a return on that investment, but it doesn't serve the format if it lets people stop innovating and keep winning.

The only question is were the line should be drawn, how much return is required to compensate the innovative deckbuilder for his time.  

Winning a $300 prize with the amount of effort needed to do so is a GREAT DEAL.

As you say yourself, $300 is quite a good prize for the amount of time that most people are going to put into testing and the prizes at some tournaments are much larger, so it seems reasonable to expect that after they get their chance at a tournament the format doesn't need to protect their privacy to encourge them to innovate, and in fact doing so will simply discourage them from continuing to innovate and limit the development both of their creation and the format as a whole.

Finally, note the point that Ric Flair made in his post: the primary thing most people get out of intensive team play is skill, not tech.  Skill is a very important element of this game, much more important than the usually minor innovations that are termed "tech."  The players that use pre-chewed decklists have only half, or less, of the benefit time spent testing.  In that way a team-tester can get a return on his invested time even if he posts his thoughts to the internet in a daily blog.

Leo

[Wsauret]

After reading this thread I felt compelled to bring up an anology that has some lose ties to type one (not claiming a 1 to 1 corespondance).

Open source software. If you look into the development and innovation in the open source scene you will see that in many (almost all) cases you can get software which is comparative to the copyrighted (and thus generally expensive), for free through open source.

This apparently goes in the face of the idea of incentives if looked at as narrowly as it has been by most up till this point, because obviously they are getting no money for putting in all those hours into an open source project. However, there are also non-tangible incentives to take into account, like reputation, and what could be refered to as "scene points". In many cases those incentives do as good of a job at motivating someone as does money (because of course, money isnt everything).

Finally it should be noted that the game is played for different reasons some people enjoy the theory and deck building side, others the actually playing and interaction side, and then there are others who simply enjoy wining. I personally, enjoy the theory and deckbuilding side the most, I could careless about even playing the deck more then a couple times past the point of testing, much less actually wining anything with it (except when wining is used as a gague of the deck's success and thus the skill of the deckbuilder). What does this have to do with the topic? Well generally I would be inclined to think that many of the theorists would have no problem with an opensource T1 scene, nor would the more casual people who enjoy playing a deck regardless of winning. It would appear that mainly the people who take issue with an open source scene would be the ones who play for the competition (and in the end to win). I feel however, that opensouce decklists are perfectly compatable with the desire to win, because nothing really changes from how it is now, everyone will just be playing better decks (because of more thorough development *ideally of course*).

To end this long drawn out post (which has certainly strayed from the original point), I would like to point out that as seen in the success of the open source software scene, the elimination of the idea of "intellectual property" and "copyrights", does indeed work, and that only refering to the microsoft model of software creation does limit ones ways of thinking. Applied to T1, to believe that decklists are intellectual property and thus they can be withheld, can work (as does microsoft), but also, so can sharing everything with everyone. So what would determin which is better since they can both work quite well? Well pragmatically, it would be better to be sharing with the collective as in theory, this would lead to a faster evolution of decks, and everyone would then be playing with a higher level of decks compared to the "intellectual ideas" scenario.

I appologize if it is hard to follow this post, I do indeed explain things much better verbally then I do on paper,

Wesley

[Smmenen]

Steve, I don't think anyone in this thread has argued that teams shouldn't be allowed to build decks in secret.  The issue arises when people withhold decklists that they take to large events and do well with.

Think about this in the context of intellectual property law, because it is clearly related in many ways.  Intellectual property exists to ensure that a creative individual has some chance to make a return on his invested time and energy, which encourages people to take the risks associated with innovation.  But, because intellectual property is simply created to encourage innovation specific limits are placed on it to keep it from doing the opposite.  After a bit of time the rights expire, allowing others to make use of the original idea and add their own contributions and making sure that the original inventor doesn't become complacent and continues to make positive contributions.

The exact same model applies in the discussion here.  Secrecy helps the format if it ensures that the people that do the work have a good chance of getting a return on that investment, but it doesn't serve the format if it lets people stop innovating and keep winning.

The only question is were the line should be drawn, how much return is required to compensate the innovative deckbuilder for his time.  

Winning a $300 prize with the amount of effort needed to do so is a GREAT DEAL.

As you say yourself, $300 is quite a good prize for the amount of time that most people are going to put into testing and the prizes at some tournaments are much larger, so it seems reasonable to expect that after they get their chance at a tournament the format doesn't need to protect their privacy to encourge them to innovate, and in fact doing so will simply discourage them from continuing to innovate and limit the development both of their creation and the format as a whole.

Finally, note the point that Ric Flair made in his post: the primary thing most people get out of intensive team play is skill, not tech.  Skill is a very important element of this game, much more important than the usually minor innovations that are termed "tech."  The players that use pre-chewed decklists have only half, or less, of the benefit time spent testing.  In that way a team-tester can get a return on his invested time even if he posts his thoughts to the internet in a daily blog.

Leo

I think your analysis is correct, but the conclusion you draw is wrong.  I think the biggest flaw I've seen in most of the posts in this thread, including your own, is that they generally seem to come from a perspective of one who has not worked heavily on a team before.  Without that experience, it's difficult to see the argument's on the other side.  With that experience, they flow naturally.

The assumption hidden in "test" you propose demonstrates this.  You say "The only question is were the line should be drawn, how much return is required to compensate the innovative deckbuilder for his time."

Once you realize that a deck isn't the product of one person, then extra difficulties arise.  I don't want to draw any further analogies between captialism, or software, apt as they are, becuase I think discussing the details is important here.

But if a team designs a deck, of which 2 people test in a first major tournament, then if one person wins, only one person gets to reap the reward.  The next big tournament, the rest of the team has to fight their own tech.  

Do you see the problem?  What movitation does the rest of the team have to help someone for Origins, if they are only going to be playing at Gencon - and risk having to face their best suggestions/technology.  It is destructive to the very openness and completely frankness that teams require.  

The only way a team works is if no one holds back tech, if everyone is forthright, and trust is maintained.  You make your argument, quite logically otherwise, as if a team is a unitary person.  It is not.  But like I said, I understand why you are arguing from that perspective.

The alternative to keeping decklists secret, is simply that teams hold back their best decks for the final event - thus slowing innovation in the format further.  
 
The other element that is missing from your application of your own test, is a problem that has recurred throughout this thread.  It is the assumption that if a team can hold back tech, it will discourage innovation further.  Your point about skill bolsters this.  The fact of that matter is that that is wrong.

I hazard to draw more analogies here, but a team which effectively has a "monopoly" on the format, will not want to have to beat its own tech.  Instead of innovating at all, it will do nothing.  It will find the most successful deck it can find, net deck it, and play it well.  In that environment, innovation is for chumps who want to waste their time.  I think the Paragons is a classic example of this.  A group of Keeper players can exercise dominance over the format by simply playing a widely available decklist better than most everyone else.  Innovating to beat your self is narcisstic and stupid unless you really, really love the format and don't mind losing to your own suggestions becuase they are playing "my" version of the deck.

Which leads me to my second to last point.  A team is not good enough.  What is needed are teams in competition.  The effect of competition between teams is to encourage in-team innovation becuase teams won't have to beat just themselves, but each other.  What is actually needed are several fully functioning teams.  This creates group solidarity, competition, and is an engine to internal innovation.  With a single team, a team that has their best decklists reported will have to modify to beat their own lists.  But, when a team has to face other teams, the probability that they will be dealing with new decks goes up dramatically.  Then fightin your own technology is much less important - coming up with the objectively best list is tweaked for an expected metagame.  

You see, in my opinion, the very best deck to take to any tournament isn't a well metagamed decklist.  It is a brand new deck.  Surprises have won time and again.  Last year this time, the Paragons went into lockdown mode and shushed compeltely talking about Tog.  I deleted my Tog thread and we promoted other decks.  The result was that Tog won Gencon (although Shockwave's surprise hit Dragon did quite well).  (speaking of surprises...).  The heavily promoted Stax and Mask did quite well, but the even more hyped Rector fizzled in the final rounds.  Surprises - good surprises, win tournaments and push us forward.  

Most decks are easy to hate out - but bust out Workshop Slavery, STax, Dragon, etc for the First time, and you will pwn.  What is needed are more of these sorts of decks.  The only way to get that on a more frequent basis is to encourage the development of Teams.  Permitting teams to withhold decklists strengthens team solidarity and openness during a season.

Finally, as to the question of how long a team should be able to sit on a decklist (i.e. get a return on investment under your analysis), I think the answer to that is a full season.  The only real season in Type One is the summer convention season.  The NE tournaments certainly are something, but Type One doesn't realy change that much, and the technology at those tournaments aren't really relevant for the "next big event" since the next big event is the next quarterly Lotus tournament.

[Gothmog]

But if a team designs a deck, of which 2 people test in a first major tournament, then if one person wins, only one person gets to reap the reward. The next big tournament, the rest of the team has to fight their own tech.

Do you see the problem? What movitation does the rest of the team have to help someone for Origins, if they are only going to be playing at Gencon - and risk having to face their best suggestions/technology. It is destructive to the very openness and completely frankness that teams require.

If this is how your "team" works than I seriously question your definition of the term.  Its sad enough when people in this format, with its payouts that mean people can't quit their day jobs, won't help each other on this website because of competitiveness.  It makes you wonder how you define team when you have that same attitude with teammates.  This website could (and does to some extent) promote great new decks and new tech if everyone looked at this as a noble competition and not cutthroat win-at-all-costs.  

No one lives or dies on this competition.  No multimillion dollar shoe deals are signed.  For the vast majority of us, big tournaments are a fun way to spend a weekend with friends and healthy competition.  Why not help that other guy with his/her deck?  So it makes him better, you're the better player with the better deck, right?  Building the decks and finding the tech is at least half the fun, right? So in any given tournament, you lose to his better deck because he's inevitably luckier than you; that happens to everyone.  If you're in the format because you really enjoy it and the competition there will be more tournaments.

I know I'm horribly naive, but it is possible to be very highly competitive and want to win and still have a friendly, helpful format.  This website could very easily be the vehicle for that type of format.

[Smmenen]

You've strectched my statement.  I'm talking about incentive structures here - not hard and fast rules of behavior.  Everyone has different predelections, the question is, on the whole, how to encourage a certain kind of behavior.  I'm not saying that in the absence of what I propose poeple won't behave in the way I'd prefer, I'm just saying it's less likely.  Do you see the subtle difference?

[Gothmog]

You've strectched my statement. I'm talking about incentive structures here - not hard and fast rules of behavior. Everyone has different predelections, the question is, on the whole, how to encourage a certain kind of behavior. I'm not saying that in the absence of what I propose poeple won't behave in the way I'd prefer, I'm just saying it's less likely. Do you see the subtle difference?

I definately see the difference.  My only point is the high profile members of the site seem to have wanted to promote extreme competitiveness on the site in my view to validate the quality of the format.

In my view, it would be healthier to promote the format itself and how much fun it is, as well as the high level of competition you can expect.  If the format keeps growing and attracting new people (especially good players of other formats) to start playing, that will lead to innovation.  The step you're looking for is then refinement of decks to be as good as possible, and for that you want teams.  Teams will help, but a forum like this one can help also.

I think our biggest problem is we all "know" so much.  This is strictly better than that, you have to maindeck card X, not card Y, the card pool is only 300 cards, etc.  If we stepped back and pulled our egos out of it for a while, we'd see there really are a lot of ways to get someone from 20 life to 0 in this game and there would be more innovation.

I couldn't help but laugh as I was 5-1 in 6 rounds of swiss in a 60+ person tournament and sat down across from a guy for round 7 that was playing a very good mono-R deck.  I got a chuckle thinking about what the TMDers would say about this match, we were both 5-1 in the tournament!

Teams aren't the only way to get where you want to go.  A bunch of helpful teammates would be invaluable to anyone who really wants to compete.  This site is also invaluable and could be even more so, but we all have to get a little "dumber" to have it be so.

[Smmenen]

[quote="Gothmog The step you're looking for is then refinement of decks to be as good as possible, and for that you want teams.  .[/quote]


But you see, that's not what I'm looking for.  I'm looking for a way to stimulate the development of NEW decks.  NOT making old one's better.

I'm a bit disturbed with our format at the moment.  There should be twice as many new decks this year, and half as many archetypes making top8s.

[Vegeta2711]

Ok, now this is boring. Noone has talked about anything new for like 2-3 pages and some people are just flat-out being ignored. So someone either close this or introduce something new.

[Smmenen]

That's blatently false.  The previous page was, in my estimation, the most in-depth, insightful, articulate, and useful thus far.  This issue is finally clearing the emotional response and getting to the meat of the matter.

At least give some people a chance to respond.  Puck the Cat probably hasn't even read my reply to his post.  I thought both posts were of high quality - and just because something is "boring" doesn't make it not useful.

Your post did little to advance the thread either.

[Vegeta2711]

That was a pretty little edit man. ^o^ The change in tone was certainly different from what was there before.

Everyone has -made- whatever arguements they had at this time.

You also, once again, misread my statement. Boring was basically - the last set of posts haven't really made any new points. We're just rehashing some of the specfics that have been already said.

The actual 'meat of the matter' was plain for everyone to see by the end of page 2.

[Smmenen]

Jabs about "edits" are inflammatory.  You missed the subtleties raised by the Puck the Cat and my response - I also refocused the questions that this thread should raise in the middle of that page.  The earlier debate had been about whether secrecy helps teams and the importance of teams.   The shift in the debate has now been about how to foster new decks as a reason to create conditions appropriate to teams.

Even if, for the sake of argument, the same matters was being rehashed, so what? This is an important issue (the issue of teams and innovation, not secrecy) that needs to be explored fully - in each of its facets and explained in different ways for the purposes of clarity and comprehension.   Repetition is not an evil if it assists understanding.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Perhaps we shouldn't be "disturbed" by the lack of new decks, and instead ponder that the card pool might be close to fully explored. It might be more rational to expect that most improvements will now come as addons and modifications to pre-existing archetypes than as full-blown new decks, simply because the barrier to entry is now higher.

I have in the past made a list of every card that intrigued me in every expansion as potentially useful. I read every card. Probably the most abusable old ones left are Infernal Contract, Meditate, Transmute Artifact, and Seething Song--as a fallible man I'd guess there's probably a couple pretty good cards I missed, but remember I'm not the only one who has done this. Remember that Hermit Druid combo you suggested on old TMD that could kill second turn lots of the time with FoW in it that still wasn't good enough? That's how a lot of potential decks are. They have a maximum shelf life of one surprise win before everyone asks Jebus what the trick is and they learn how to Wish for whatever card they already had to deal with it.

Though we are obviously underabusing Noble Panther. ph34r.

So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that we don't find all that many new decks, since we only have the trickle of new material to use, and compared to other formats an even narrower segment of that trickle is relevant to us because most of it is strictly outclassed. Additionally, since there are so many decks already extant, it is much more likely that a new card will propel one of them to reappear rather than carve out a whole new niche. (Because no post in this thread would be complete without a frivolous analogy to tangential subjects, in biology we might expect that newly discovered species fit into a known genus rather than create a whole new one, just like new decks in Type One.)

Instead of urging attempts to 'innovate' when in fact that's what everyone is already obsessed with and generally cannot do thanks to the high power level, I think it would be more productive to emphasize the benefit of teams for playtesting purposes and development of a common understanding of matchups. These playskill-related issues are the far less recognized element of victory, and they are what will bring the format more respect, too.

What leads you to expect that there should be "twice as many new decks this year"? You obviously believe this very strongly since you are "disturbed" by it not happening, and I am curious what makes you expect such a high level of useful innovation.

[PucktheCat]

Steve, I think we are speaking the same language here, so let me see if I can close the gaps we have remaining:

I agree that I am collapsing individual creativity and group creativity, but I think it is a defensible position.  A team choses to build its decks in common, presumably, because it is more efficient than doing it alone.  If that is the case then the total innovation investment is lower than with an individual creator.  If only one of the players on the team then goes on to play the deck then the total return on the investment will be equal to a single deckbuilder.  That means the team as a whole is farther ahead than a single deckbuilder would be.  They invested less for the same return.  In practice, of course, at least some of the time multiple team members will play the same deck at its debut and each of them will have a crack at prizes, dramatically increasing the expected returns.

The obvious reply to this line of reasoning is that the team as a whole expends effort and a single player reaps the benefit.  This is true (to a point) but that is hardly an insurmountable problem.  When a group forms an agreement to work in common it makes sense for that group, which presumably already has a degree of trust and communication, to think about equitably distributing the product of its labor.

Now that I have laid out my theoretical arguements let me provide a concrete example of what I mean.  In High School I played, and play-tested, with a group of 3-4 players I knew.  We were, effectively, a team.  Two of us were very good friends, and we often collaborated in building decks.  Since our collections were limited and we refused to play suboptimal variants we often only had one deck for the two of us in a tournament.  I was the better player, so I would almost always play the deck while David, my friend, would hang around and do a lot of trading.  Effectively the system ended up like this: I would find a deck I was interested in, we would play and refine it, David would trade for the cards we needed and I would play the deck in a tournament, usually to a good finish.  Since David put in playtesting time and often most of the valuable cards as well, but I was winning all the prizes, we repeatedly had a version of the problem you are describing.  Our solution was simple, split the prizes, often with David buying me out of my half of a card.

I am not suggesting that this is the solution for the T1 teams that are out there today, things get more complicated than what I described above, but I do think that as long as a team, as a unit, is being compensated for their effort (in some cases much better than an individual) then the format needn't go out of its way to further protect that teams rights.

Leo

Edit: Here is a follow-up on the point you make later in your post about secrecy bringing us forward.  I think that is bunk, pure and simple.  There is no doubt that secrecy wins tournaments - that is exactly the problem.  Since secrecy can devestate the unprepared there is a strong incentive to maintain secrecy as long as possible.  That secrecy delays and stalls the development of the metagame by preventing players from adapting to the best decks.  Take your GenCon example.  Rector Tendrils/Trix was the current fad on the boards, so people examined it and found its weakness - Coffin Purge.  That is development and innovation.  Meanwhile, Hulk, a deck that can also be metagamed for (albeit less effectively) was ignored due to secrecy.  The metagame rapidly compensated afterwards, and Dragon and Long both became hot as "Hulk killers," but the developments were delayed because the dynamic of the metagame - back and forth between opponents - was missing.

Now both Dragon and Hulk were kept secret only until the tournament, then made public there, which means the above mentioned delays were a result of the built in compensation for innovation that we have been discussing.  What would have happened if they had not been released then?  It is impossible to speculate, but it seems likely that Deep Analysis and Sol Ring wouldn't have made it into Hulk as quickly and that Dragon might have languished in obscurity for a few more weeks or months.  Compensation for those variations would have been delayed too, and so on.

[JACO]

There is already a great degree of polarization about team secrecy and whether or not decklists should be held, and mainly it is a select few have recently done well that have chosen to withhold their decklists from the public, and as a result have attempted to justify their actions. SliverKing and the rest of Team Shortbus, where would you have gotten your ideas for 7/10 had you not been testing Slaver and every other deck that is publicly shared?

I have written an article that illustrates my feelings of why it is necessary to engage in the public exchange of ideas and information, as this can only help the community. I'll leave you all with some samples from that article:

Wizards of the Coast and the DCI made the decision to publish this information because they want Magic to be considered a serious and competitive game, much like chess. That is why they (intelligently) pushed for a broadcast contract with ESPN2, and that is why they constantly update their Sideboard web site with information that is accessible to anyone who follows the game. This sparks interest in the game, and allows competitors unfettered access to some of the top performing decks in a given format. Similarly, the organizers of the World Poker Tour have secured broadcast rights with cable networks to get their product out to the masses, and have created a great web site that is constantly updated with results and information.

This type of open discussion is often referred to as 'open-sourcing' in the computer field, and is used to help work the bugs and flaws out of software programs. Software such as Linux, Apache, PGP, and many more are first developed and created, and they are then shared with the public. The public picks apart the information that is shared, and any flaws that are found are exposed through public testing, and then typically corrected. This makes the software better, stronger, and more resilient to hate and hackers or crackers over the long run. While competitors can see the inner workings of the software, it is for the betterment of the software, and for the betterment of the public. The public exchange of ideas by Magic players is parallel to this, as decks and card choices become optimized after a concerted public effort. Only after exposing something to find all of its weaknesses can it be revised and made to exist in its most optimal form.

All decks are 'rogue' until they are discovered and widely accepted to be a playable deck. Teams alone are not responsible for all of the best or most often played decks, and they never will be. Behind any good team is at least one great deck builder, and in fact many of the better deck builders work alone. While teams may word hard to develop and tweak decks in private they should be afforded this secrecy while developing the deck, but once they have performed successfully in tournaments this information should become public domain.

While teams are great for the format and are good at developing, testing, and tweaking ideas, without the public information store these teams would have little to base their testing on, and would be stuck with very few ideas. To argue this point is futile and without merit. The public exchange of information is what leads to rapid development and growth, and this is why people look to tournament results and decklists.

Check out the article in its entirety here: Team Secrecy and the Public Information Store.

And there was much rejoicing. -Dr. Sylvan

Don't start or respond to flames. Post edited. PM me with any questions if you don't understand why I edited it the way I did.

Hyperion

[Triple_S]

How about you put up results?

And would you please provide the name of the team you are on and the contributions it has made?

[Akuma]

I totally agree with JACO on this matter. I read his article and a lot of things are right on (not to mention the things he said on his post).

[Dozer]

The alternative to keeping decklists secret, is simply that teams hold back their best decks for the final event - thus slowing innovation in the format further.

So what? This is how Team CAB handles new tech -- we decide on  a tournament we want to win, and take that deck there. Afterwards, it gets published, and that's fine. Also, if you withhold decklists, you aren't exactly advancing innovation, either. The effect on the metagame is widely the same, only that if decklists are just withheld instead of not played, rumors spread about what the new tech might have been. That's not really helpful in terms of innovation.

Also, cutting into the same groove as Dr. Sylvan, what makes you think that T1 needs rapid innovation? What does it matter if new decks and modifications come out every two months or every two weeks? There is no need for rapidly changing decks as long as there is innovation going on at all. I completely agree that the format should not stagnate. Innovation is necessary. But I am fully content with seeing new decks or ideas every 2-3 months, because nobody stands behind all of T1 and hits us with the whip of "format rotation".

This also leads to an answer to your initial question: Do we need teams to create new decks? I would reply yes. But I also think that TMD could fulfill pretty much the same function. I'll elaborate:
Teams have basically two functions:
a) Providing testing partners, i.e. having a group that meets regularly to test.
b) Providinç brainstorming material to create new decks, and subsequently test them.
Both functions could be provide by the TMD community if we decided to do so. If everybody here would work on the same deck and test it, the effect would be the same as if a team did that. Problem is, if something is developed on TMD, it is (and I am generalizing this point) not possible to play it successfull anymore, because everybody woud know the ins and outs of the deck in question. Winning with such a deck is very very hard. So, we split up into team, which meet once a while, maybe even have their own internet forum and produce decks and tech to win tournaments.

Since teams are usually smaller and thur more flexible than the TMD community, they can develop faster if they dedicate themselves to it. And since they break out new tech, they will be more successful. But that by itself is NOT innovation. Seen from the point of view of the metagame, innovation needs to meet another criterion in addition to "being new": it needs "publicity". Innovation is always related to change, and what change in the minds and metagames of the other players can come from techy decklists that nobody knows? None, the only thing that profits is the respective team's winning rate.

That results in innovation and (team) success being on two different sides of the seesaw. With maximum innovation (including publicity, which is required IMO), the team's success will be at a minimum. To balance this out, I think that jp's often reiterated solution is the best: Teams must always be a step ahead of their own inventions. That enables them to publish their decklists at the first tournament they use it. Secrecy after that point is contra-productive in terms of pushing innovation.


So, no innovation without publicity. Before becoming public, new developments are just "secret tech", which do not benefit the metagame or the format. And the format should be (and actually seems to be) a concern even to the secret-keepers among us.

Dozer

[racetraitor]

I just have to say that  I whole-heartedly agree with Dr.Sylvans last post. The boost in interest and development for type1 has been going on for several years now, and I think it's safe to say that there aren't enough LED'esque hidden gems left to spawn the amount of new decks being called for. The shift in what's defined as a "new deck" show this as well...nowadays it's akin to adding 4 brainstorm to WS, when it used to be like "ach Hans,  maybe ze Workshops are playable, no?".

Adding a playset of Exalted Angels to Keeper or Gush MD to Hulk is on the same page. They are the results of fine-tuning during extensive team-based playtesting, not lone deckbuilding wizards conjuring up things. Even if you do come up with a good idea based on the interaction of some old and overlooked cards, and playtest it within a team, you rarely get something that can compete with the established Tier 1 & 2 decks. There are no forgotten Psychatogs or Mindslavers, so I think we would do best to stop looking at the past and more rapidly embrace newer sets instead. Mirrodin block has been a huge improvement in this aspect, we no longer maintain that snobbish "type2 cards suck" attitude and are able to give things a chance before dismissing them. We are better at spotting potential synergy within our 300-cardname metagame because we have had a couple of years of separating the wheat from the chaff.

I think we all agree that TMD has a great part in this, because no matter how good your team or is, it still needs a larger framework to work within. Ideas are voiced, put to test and conclusions are drawn through the free flow of information, the more participants the better, since good ideas need bad ideas to define themselves against. It might not help you win that big tournament next weekend like focused testing would do, but it will help you in the long run by making sure there are big tournaments to go to in the first place...

[SliverKing]

There is already a great degree of polarization about team secrecy and whether or not decklists should be held, and mainly it is a select few have recently done well that have chosen to withhold their decklists from the public, and as a result have attempted to justify their actions. SliverKing and the rest of Team Shortbus, where the fuck would you have gotten your ideas for 7/10 had you not been testing Slaver and every other deck that is publicly shared? Did you create those Slaver lists yourselves, or did you bite them directly from Europe when the started popping up all over Morphling.de Top 8s? Frankly, I think the act of withholding decklists or even requesting that your decklist be withheld is an act of complete cowardice.

I never said that posting decklists to the internet for the benefit of the whole community wasnt a good goal and an important part of everyone pushing the format forward.   After GENCON I plan on posting not one list, but a series of lists of my deck construction over the past several months, complete with card discussion, matchup analysis and all the other stuff that everyone on this site uses to further their understanding of the format.  But if I choose to withold that, thats my fucking business...  
I've put in *ALL* the work on my deck; I'll release it when I"m goddamned ready to and not one minute before.  
Decklists and public information are critical to the format growing in quality, but you'll all survive if a list that hasnt won a single major tournament gets withheld another month or 2 while its CREATOR tries to work out the kinks.
If thats not good enough for you, too bad.

Don't start or respond to flames. Post edited. PM me with any questions if you don't understand why I edited it the way I did.


Hyperion

[PucktheCat]

Decklists and public information are critical to the format growing in quality, but you'll all survive if a list that hasnt won a single major tournament gets withheld another month or 2 while its CREATOR tries to work out the kinks.

SilverKing, I don't know who your anger is directed at, but I haven't seen anyone in this thread who thinks that lists that haven't made their debut at an event need to be shared.  The entire question is whether those that have been successful already should be kept secret.

Leo