US and European Vintage, Will the gap ever close?

[LoA]

you say that a powered player has an automatic advantage against unpowered, ok thats right in your metagame, were there aren't any different deck rather then the deck you usually plays.

I assume English isn't your first language--no big deal but I'm not 100% clear on some of your points.  Would I be correct to say characterize this statemate as, "Ok, that's true in your metagame in which there aren't any new archetypes other than the standard assortment?"

Power always helps, against new types of decks and old.  Yes, a Fish deck did manage to get into the T8 at Worlds, and that's fantastic.  I'm pretty sure that deck would have benefited by the inclusion of an Ancestral though.

in a metagame when u KNOW there are people with p9 and you haven't it, you can choice to fill your deck with some cards against p9

chains of mefistofele? null rod ? pyropillar?

You can do this, but it won't guarantee you any success.  Chains has seen some play in decks recently and I think it a pretty decent card in Type 1 for the simple fact that everyone ends up drawing more cards than they should.  However, by your logic Waterbury would be full of decks running hate.  I'll grant you that Fish contains a certain degree of hate, but aside from that hate decks have not done well at Waterbury in general--even hate decks with proxied power, which I imagine would be better at hating out the other powered decks.

the missing of proxy made a different metagame just because the unpowered player has a different strategy, it means different decks.

it means that a goblin can kill a powered keeper , but if no one plays goblin obv keeper is a more safe deck.

I agree, if you don't have power you need to develop different decks/strategies.  Control becomes almost dead in a non-powered environment with the possible exception of Parfait.  I've lost to Goblins with my fully-powered Keeper before, but it's not a match I'm terribly concerned about.  I have broken acceleration, cards like Balance, and Exalted Angel.  The very things I rely upon to win this matchup is the fact that I have power and the Goblin player does not (see: Zherbus' breakdown of proxy vs. non-proxy rounds).  Moreover, how is the Goblin player going to fare in a field that may include decks like TPS and Dragon?

i think is right the choice to do some tournamente proxy allowed, but not all.
because i don't want to see another type 2 format with the same 4 deck.

So some players should be at an advantage just because of where they live?  If I'm the only powered player in my region and I'm a nasty SOB, I'll beg TO's for sanctioned tournaments because they favor me.  If evey tournament is un/limited proxy, then things like matchups, playskill, and luck will determine the winner, which sounds a lot like other formats.

I'm not crazy about Type 1 becoming another Type 2 either, but it has a lot of things going for it that Type 2 doesn't.  First, sets never rotate out so the cardpool in always growing.  In Type 2, once the best block deck is established PTQs become a contest to see who can break the mirror.  Looking at the top 8 at World's, I see a pretty diverse, healthy metagame.  Keep in mind that a 4CC and some Dragon decks just missed the cut as well.  New cards will bring new innovation with them.  Yes, there are some tried and true archetypes in Type 1 but that doesn't mean things are becoming vanilla.

@Gaea:  It's pretty easy to post how decks will win with God-hands.  I suppose someday I'll draw Dark Ritual x2, LED, Burning Wish, Tendrils of Agony, Mox Jet, Lotus and my opponent won't have a Force of Will handy.  But that doesn't really mean much of anything.

[Zherbus]

Zherbus
you say that a powered player has an automatic advantage against unpowered, ok thats right in your metagame, were there aren't any different deck rather then the deck you usually plays.

in a metagame when u KNOW there are people with p9 and you haven't it, you can choice to fill your deck with some cards against p9

You're entirely missing the point. On a basic fundimental level, HAVING GOOD cards has an advantage over NOT HAVING GOOD cards. It's the reason people can make a living off chase rares and not Pale Moons.

it means that a goblin can kill a powered keeper , but if no one plays goblin obv keeper is a more safe deck.

this is the difference between usa and UE.

I have absolutely no idea what you said until this point...

i think is right the choice to do some tournamente proxy allowed, but not all.
because i don't want to see another type 2 format with the same 4 deck.

BUT look at the top 8's! Look at DrSylvans hard data! Hell, in my 30-49 person tournament data there are 21 different decks among the top 8's on only 6 tournaments for July. 21! Of two of the three proxy tournaments I dismantled, there were 8 different decks in EACH top 8. In August, there are 13 in only 4 tournaments. You clearly need to do more research.

then about the shifting of meta:

if every people in your meta run proxy is obvoius that no one will ever face a deck that goes off your
usual decks and so some archetipes are in a better position than others,
for ex: fish against zoo is not easy for the fish player , but zoo < stacker so stacker has an advantage .
now stacker is > unpowered , and if starts mw's ---> trini he is next to win with 90% of the field. so stacker is dominant in italy.

I know you're Italian. I know there's a language barrier. I'm not saying this to be an asshole here, but I really have a hard time reading what you're typing.

[skecreatoR]

I think, as a dane and as a Vintage player, that it's a fun fact that the swedish people makes so much fun of the american metagame because of their own metagame.

If your Stax truly is the deck that can beat every other deck, it probably would be played as well in the states.

Your metagame consists of Stax and decks prepared for that match. That is not healthy. That is what every magic player know as: "WotC will have to restrict something", and that is definitely not the right answer. Sweden should stop thinking their metagame, with its onesided results and decks, is the right metagame, and should start actually improving their own metagame to something that is worth attending. I don't honestly think USA has the problem, I think sweden has it. And I also think they will figure it out.

Note: Not saying swedish players are bad or anything, just thoughts.

[Moxlotus]

I think he is trying to explain the dominance of Stacker in his metagame.  However simply saying that power>nonpower would have sufficed.  Also I have edited my 2nd post on the second page to address a side issue on this thread.

[Gaea]

@LOA

when an unspoilered player knows that in his metagame he will face lots of TPS and dragon he just set his deck to beat them, for example some guys here in italy play a sligh monored with 4 pillar, 3 null rod, 2 shaman maindeck and vs they're just nuts! Vs dragon a monored can side in only tormod's crypt, usually 3 or 4 or hope to kill the dragon with a bolt + pyrokinesis (sometimes happens ) but the other decks such as zoo and fish can support more hate (naturalize, stifle ecc...)

about god-hands or so believed...:

do you really think that for a deck that run every card 4x the hands wich i described can be defined god-hands? i don't agree with you...
If a trinisphere comes into play on first turn (an you know how many ways we have to do this...) we have a lot of deadly card combination to kill pur opponent while he can't play a single spell:

crucible (3 copies) + strip effect (5 copies)
smokestack (4 copies)
metalworker (4 copies)

ecc...
won't you be able do draw them? i think maybe you do not understand and play 3sphere just using a third of his potential, try to use it in a serious mud or wmud and tell me how many times after a 3sphere you didn't drop a serious menace

@zherbus

Quote:
it means that a goblin can kill a powered keeper , but if no one plays goblin obv keeper is a more safe deck.

this is the difference between usa and UE.  


I have absolutely no idea what you said until this point...

He was trying to say that if in your meta you can ignore sligh, zoo, or goblin decks we can't do the same in europe cause to our no-proxy-tournaments

[dexter]

@ skecreatoR

Okay, what happened during the danish championships? The swedes were there and won 2 moxes with staxx.

What happened at sydcon in malmo, where there were alot of danish players  that what from i understand are some of the best t1 from denmark, in 2 out 3 big t1 tournaments? the first were won by staxx. second were a tps split from your danish tps´ decks, and day 3 were 3 staxx in t8 and a 4th would have been haven he not conceded to a friend cuz he was to tired to play.

doesnt that tell you something?

[JACO]

I'm aware that the English language is certainly a barrier of communication here, but this thread has to be the worst example of net-speak, lack of punctuation and capitalization I have ever seen on TMD.

Moving on, let us address one of the primary reasons that Stax-type decks are so strong in Europe to begin with. The majority of tournaments that I have seen are sanctioned, which means there are quite a few people playing with unpowered/'spoilered' decks. This inherently makes a first turn Misrha's Workshop>Trinishphere opening even more powerful than it already is. This is one of the reasons that Stax is so powerful in Europe, and yet nobody has addressed this point (unless I have missed something amongst all of the broken English).

Stax-type decks are very powerful in nearly any Type 1 metagame, especially one laden with unpowered decks. Things like first turn Trinisphere or Smokestack, or even Wasteland + Crucible are very effective lock components against powered decks, and are even more powerful against decks which have less acceleration and are more reliant on their precious lands.

[patronvoidmage]

I had nothing to do with the development of "Old Faerie Men". Evilkin and Dejan (Dan) Rosu talked me into playing it, and i just happened to do well with it.    

Dan has been trying to post as olddanofthesea, but has been unable to for some reason.  

<gunpoint>Dan did not put me up to this</gunpoint>

[Grand Inquisitor]

I've been here since Fall of '02, and I can say that it is completely obvious how much convergence has occured over the course of TMD.

Although this may be off topic, it's also obvious:
1) how much quicker new cards are assimilated
2) how much faster metagame 'holes' are exploited, and
3) how 'institutional knowledge' has built up so that new innovations are more marginal.

Regarding specific regional metagames, I can really only comment on my own: the north east (Concord, Waterbury, GameMasters, RI, Capecod, Syracuse, and of course, Hadley).

While its long been the stereotype that up here we cling to our mana drains with clenched fists, this really hasn't been the case for about 6-9 months.  Strangely, it was dragon's dominance that really opened up the floodgates, but ever since then, I've seen plenty of good workshop and aggro.  I remember, specifically, going to a Hadley power tournament in the spring, and facing workshop decks 4 out of 6 rounds.

Regarding Stax, we have plenty of it.  People haven't really been paying attention, and tourney data hasn't been readily available unless you were there, but this summer two hadley-ites have been littering the T8's and picking up lots of power with a home-grown stax list, and of all things, madness.

Me, I'm stubborn.  I'll be at home, debating whether serum visions is better than sleight of hand, and humming to myself about card advantage.

[Smmenen]

first of all i want to kill the thought that null rod kills of staxx, it slows it down a little but still null rod doesnt effect the key cards in the staxx deck like smokestack, trinisphere, tangle wire, workshops and so on, during the time i played staxx i won multiple games even though my opponent dropped round 1 null rod, just smoke em out.

second compare the builds of staxx from sweden and the one who t8 gencon u will notice big differences, first of all the gencon player has choosen meditate as it carddrawer instead of thirst, the thirst is just so much better, the mana cost is the same and okay it draws only 3 cards and u have to dump one but still do you really need a couple of more trinipheres smokestacks etc when u already have a couple on the table? and when u got an active welder thirst is even nicer, meditate on the other hand is a card that when u play it scenarios are. 1. u are probably winning the game since u can afford to give an extra turn. 2. u are probaly loosing the game and desperatly searching for an answer, meditate isnt a carddrawer u want to cast unless u have a solid lock. the staxx from gencon maindecked darksteel ingots for reason unkown, it does pretty much nothing excepts costs 3 and dies from null rod, at best it gives u random color mana at random time but probably mostly just smokestack food. other very odd cards i find when i look at the maindeck of "gencon" staxx are cards like balance, demonic tutor and hurkyls recall?!? he misses cards like winter orb, triskelion in maindeck and karn. the decision not to play triskelion in a what seems to be an meta infected by welders and fish decks seems very odd to me,  he doesnt care about mana acc lands like ancient tomb which is excellent complement for the workshops as for example casting thoose carddrawers, the mana looks more or less like hes trying to play a combo deck of some kind... if most of the american staxx looks like that i understand these things i hear about staxx draws inconsistly and soo on...

Not running Balance in Stax is wrong, imo.  If Balance were unrestricted, this would be the deck that would run 4.  Hurkyl's is to bounce your opponents moxen so that they can't work around your Trniisphere.  And Demonic Finds STRIP MINE and Balance.  If you didn't notice, Strip Mine is RIDICULOUSLY powerful in this deck.  I still think that 4 cards >> 2 that Thirst gives you.

[Whatever Works]

I have heard that Europe doesnt allow proxies in most tournaments, and if this is true it is probably a large region the US metagame is more deverse.
Areas without Proxies create the situation of "haves" vs. "have-nots" and this can distort a metagame severally. When NE started raising the # of proxies alloud in tournaments the quality of decks was seriously improved, and many new decks were represented by players in most cases would have been limited to playing G/red, or an unpowered Hulk etc...

The limited metagame that is some areas in Europe could be caused from the deck of choice vs. the budget decks with hate for that deck (I have seen this in some top 8 lists), and the rest of the field might contain a few other Tier 1 decks, but they still are severally outnumbered.

Kyle

[Ihatetarts]

Not running Balance in Stax is wrong, imo.  If Balance were unrestricted, this would be the deck that would run 4.  Hurkyl's is to bounce your opponents moxen so that they can't work around your Trniisphere.  And Demonic Finds STRIP MINE and Balance.  If you didn't notice, Strip Mine is RIDICULOUSLY powerful in this deck.  I still think that 4 cards >> 2 that Thirst gives you.

´

Tell me Stephen, is there any particular reason why balance is so savage in stax?  Hurkyll i think is totally redundant, tangle wire is more than enough to lock down the opponent until he gets smoked out.  As for thirst vs meditate, do realise that you do skip a draw step with meditate.

[Willforce]

i'm sorry for my english...i cannot tell more than this.

it's very difficult for me to understand what you guys wrote, and now  i think is the same for you.

@JACO  you says what i say in my bad english concerning
 reason about stax's strong in europe. but power> unpowered is not the only one.

the only thing i want to point out is that my post is not a defense for our metagame; that post wants to underline WHY the metagame is different, and for this reason i wrote some examples.
the fact that i don't like proxies as the USUAL WAY to play magic is only my idea.

I only write on this forum because the DCI only listen what is written on this Forum, concerning T1. So i hope that writing about Europe's metagame here will be a way  to make this metagame watched by DCI.

i'm not interest in "how fair is the have\have not  situation" because this is a choice made by Wotc in reprinting policy.

i'm  doing my best  in order to destoy language's  barrier

[LoA]

the only thing i want to point out is that my post is not a defense for our metagame; that post wants to underline WHY the metagame is different, and for this reason i wrote some examples.
the fact that i don't like proxies as the USUAL WAY to play magic is only my idea.

Fair enough.  I disagree about the proxy thing, but I can understand why Stax looks more attractive in a lower-powered environment.  If there was a drop-off in proxy tournaments around here and aggro became more popular I would probably play Stax or combo.  If no one is there to dump a handful of Moxen on turn 1, your Tangle Wire looks a whole lot better.

[CoBra]

So, the Gap exists and is here to stay, i think. Maybe we shouldn't cal it "gap", but "difference".
US metagame usually allows Proxies: this led to a more homogenous metagame, fewer rogue deck to worry about in a tournament.
EU metagame (Particularly Italian, wich I know better) generally doesn't allows Proxies, so we can see lots of Not-So-Rogue, Metagamized Unpowered Decks like Sligh, Zoo, Goblin, FCG and so on, and powered palyers just can't ignore them thinking "Chances i meet one of this decks in a tourney are poor".
In the US, playing is hard since every deck can play some broken and change a game in a turn.
In the EU, playing is hard since you'll never have an idea of what you'll meet, and deckbuilding and sideboarding are utterly important.
Just my 2 cents, of course

[Gabethebabe]

The chances of having 2 workshops in your opening hand is 1.86%

No, it is not, it is 5.93%

0 workshops in opening hand of 7: 60.05%
1 workshops in opening hand of 7: 33.63%
2 workshops in opening hand of 7: 5.93%
3 workshops in opening hand of 7: 0.38%
4 workshops in opening hand of 7: 0.01%

and while we´re at it, if your opponent goes first:

0 workshops in opening hand of 8: 55.52%
1 workshops in opening hand of 8: 36.26%
2 workshops in opening hand of 8: 7.61%
3 workshops in opening hand of 8: 0.60%
4 workshops in opening hand of 8: 0.01%

[MaxxMatt]

I appreciate a lot the comments of Zherbus, LoA and JACO, because AT LEAST they tried give some credit to the differences between our different fields, without denying their inherent value.

I agree with you all that 5-7-Proxy-Tourneys can improve the quality of decks and can gave better results to skilled players but without complete sets of p9. This is so simple to realize that I can't understand why there is so much claim around the Proxy vs. No Proxy argument.

On the other hand, reading some of your lines, I realized that you have a few misconceptions about "What Is a Non-Proxy Tourney".



The worst stereotype that I hope to be able to clean from your mind, with my future works on TMD, is:
( reading Zherbus' lines ) We can't face a lot of Powered Decks during the Swiss' Rounds because there are usually more Unpowered Decks rather then Powered ones.

Especially because I "live" and play in a country with only Sanctioned Tourneys, I can assure you that we always have more the 60% of Powered Decks at our tourneys. And this percentage doesn’t take into account the various "partially-powered" or "semi-powered-decks".

Even if it could be difficult to belief, ALL our t1-players always try to buy/win/steal/ the needed pieces of power to play at an high level at our tourneys ESPECIALLY because without them there are only a few and real lucky possibilities of Top8ing. If Vintage in our country would remain so highly considered, I'm sure that the next year, all our "aficionados" would play Powered Decks to win our huge prizes at our weekly tourneys.

I didn't play a lot IRL, because of my "Non-Magic-Related-Affairs" but I can't remember a single tourney, here in Italy, where I faced more than 2 Totally-Unpowered-Decks in our Swiss' Rounds.

My reports spoke for me nowadays and in the past, but I always tried to suggest HOW many powered-decks we have at our tourneys.
And these are FACTS not only WORDS.


On the other hand, I would be considered stupid negating the existence of this "un-powered-army"...    But,  what I have noticed about them is an extraordinary thing: They aren't our "Bye" and a lot of Tier1 can have some difficulties on dealing with their strong and heavily metagamed choices.  FCG, Ur-Phid, RG-Beatz, Fish, GoBBo, Affinity, DARgon can be easily adapted to face the tier1.


Reading the previous posts, I realized that some of my friends tried to explain that it is really more complex to prepare a Tier1.dec to face and win against both Tier1 and Unpowered-Decks, rather then thinking only on winning against other Tier1.
It is a bit simple and not always true, but I'm sure that a lot of US. players would add different cards to their sideboard if they would fly over here to play in our field.

-----------------

I think that JACO is half right on his last sentence about the MW's predominance here in Europe.

Of course, playing with an Artifact.dec against an Unpowered.dec usually is a bye. This is clear and simple.

On the other hand, if we talk about Artifac.dec vs. Powered.dec, the inner reason because of that predominance, primarily consist on the time needed to all the players to react to those builds. I noticed that a lot of players didn't try to PREDICT HOW to face them and simply they played one of their pet decks, without changing a single card.

This laziness let a lot of Artifact.decs to capitalize their advantage, winning more than they should have done.




--------------------

I fear that LoA and Gaea touched a good point to discuss.

If MW.dec are predominant "somewhere", I think that this fact has always to be addressed to the strong plays that those decks can produce far more easier than any other decks

I don't want to restrict nothing at this moment. I'm really proud on saying this and I'm really satisfied by the evolution of every decks.

On the other hand, there is a thing that SHOULD BE underlined and that usually remain silent.

I noticed that a lot of matchups are badly changed and a lot of the skills needed to win some of them aren't required anymore.



-Every deck that involves 3Sphere&CoW can win simply by luckily nullifying the opponent's entire deck with 2 single moves. No Brain Needed.
-Every Control Mirror is reduced on resolving CoW first. No skill needed, No Brain needed.
-Almost every decks had the capability to win reducing to a minimum the need of interaction ( combo, artifact and even control are some examples)


And this is really sad, because some game situations lack at all the good old thrill that is usually involved on playing MtG, leaving only some "skills with the dice" or "some skill on shuffling"...

[Gaea]

@kyle

the metagame can be modified also by the number of proxies... you play in america, in a proxy metagame, right? so when you study your deck and your side do you think to a decent way to beat a monored sligh or an unpowered dragon or an aGRro zoo? we got also prices for unspoilered, or unpowered as you would like to call them, players so a 13 years old guy with a good deck and without any power can win also a p9.

I will write the deck breakdown we have in our area so maybe you will discover that we as many arechetipes as you and maybe more...

@ stax with hurkyl and balance

omg these cards are just shit in this deck... you use balance while your main scope is to have board advantage, so you lock down your opponent and then suicide with a balance... and why the hell you use hurkyl??? aren't you able to manage 1 or 2 mana artifacts??

@ LOA

yeah try to beat the italian zoo, the guys are so frightened by mud and artifacts in general that they will side 7/8 artifact hate in addition to what they have maindeck (usually 2/3 mutation, 2/3 rack and ruin, pulverize ecc....) but if you're so convinced that ws trini resolves every problem....  

and if someone has some time to lose reading... here is the list of decks of our last tournaments:

TURIN 05/09 114 people

PRISON
5 stacker
3 welder mud
2 stacks
1 welder mask???

CONTROL
5 keeper
4 hulk smash
4 WS slaver
2 4C control
1 monoU
1 control slavery
1 control fastbond
1 UW control
1 UR scepter
1 UWR control
1 UWB control
2 oath
1 T1T

AGGRO CONTROL
5 UR fish
2 CBkiodo
1 Benga kiodo
1 URW fish
1 madness UG
2 BR hate

COMBO
10 tentrix UB
9 dragon
3 cobold tendril
2 tentrix URB
1 draw 7
1 cycle

AGGRO
3 madness URG
2 madness RG
2 reanimator
2 zoo
1 WW
1 goblin
1 mask UB
2 monoblack
1 sligh
1 rebels

AGGRO COMBO
3 food chain
3 affinity
2 vengeur masque
1 enchantress
1 elves

Genova 29/08 91 people

Combo 18

9 Tentrix (8 UB)
6 Drago
3 Kobold Tendril

Aggro Combo 3

2 Food Chain
1 Mask

Aggro 26

7 Sligh
5 Stacker
5 zoo
4 MonoBlack (2 Splashed)
2 Goblin
2 Affinity
1 Stompy

Aggro Control 17

7 Fish (6 UR/1 UW)
4 Madness URG
2 UR Scepter
2 Chill Benga's Kiodo
1 Welder MUD
1 Madness UG

Control 23

4 4C-Control
4 Keeper
4 Hulk (1 Scepter)
3 T1T
3 ST4KZ
2 Control Slaver
2 Workshop Slaver
1 Mono Blu
1 3C-Control

Random 3

1 ElfGeddon
1 Black/White
1 Black/Red

so you see that we have not only unpowered and scrubby decks cause to our non-proxy tournaments  

[Necropotenza]

Especially because I "live" and play in a country with only Sanctioned Tourneys, I can assure you that we always have more the 60% of Powered Decks at our tourneys. And this percentage doesn’t take into account the various "partially-powered" or "semi-powered-decks".

Amen!

I completely agree with this quote and what MaxxMatt has said in his post.
In Spain, as in Italy, we don't support proxy tourneys. All of the tier 1 decks and powered decks must have in mind all the randomness they could face in the early rounds of a tourney. There's more fully powered decks (and partially ones) than budget decks, though, and that says a lot about our T1 community. We want to have a highly competitive T1 scene and that's why a LOT of people have been buying power and expensive cards to improve their decks. We have even converted some hardcore T2 players into hardcore (or ocasional) T1 players, growing our player base at a steadily pace.

The last tourney I attended I only faced ONE unpowered deck in a total of 10 rounds.

[Toad]

He was trying to say that if in your meta you can ignore sligh, zoo, or goblin decks we can't do the same in europe cause to our no-proxy-tournaments

We just have non proxy tournaments in Paris. And when I go to these tournaments, i don't build a sideboard with Sligh, Zoo or Goblins in mind. I NEVER take these decks into account, since you can outbroken them pretty easily. I would never waste a SB slot for COP:Red or Sphere of Law in my Keeper sideboard. Last tourney we had in Paris, 0 Sligh and only a couple of Suicide Black showed. No proxies does not mean bad decks.

Tell me Stephen, is there any particular reason why balance is so savage in stax? Hurkyll i think is totally redundant, tangle wire is more than enough to lock down the opponent until he gets smoked out. As for thirst vs meditate, do realise that you do skip a draw step with meditate.

and

@ stax with hurkyl and balance

omg these cards are just shit in this deck... you use balance while your main scope is to have board advantage, so you lock down your opponent and then suicide with a balance... and why the hell you use hurkyl??? aren't you able to manage 1 or 2 mana artifacts??

Do you realize that Kevin Cron, the guy who was playing the Stax deck at GenCon, is one of the pioneers of the deck? He's been playing it for more than a year, he Top8ed at GenCon last year with it, and he surely knows what he is doing. Balance is REALLY good, It's definitly a skill-tester but It win games on its own. And Hurkyll's Recall, while being quite random, has multiple advantages and an excellent synergy with Trinisphere and Crucible of Worlds.

[Gaea]

@Toad: maybe in your dream land you do not have sligh monored, you don't consider them maybe beacuse in your state good players plays only powered decks.... it's funny but try to face a good sligh player with a good sligh list and then you will cry of having put a single sphere of law in your side

and stop defining sligh or zoo bad decks simply because french people are not good at playing them...

just another question: if you unpowered players don't bring sligh or zoo wich deck they bring? random shit? wow so i understand why you understimate them so much, and maybe this is the reason why italian players are better than the other europeans or you forgot dulmen and barcellona?

My brother made a lot of top8 with stacks decks and believe me hurkyl recall is just a scrubbish choice, the player who create a deck it's not always the best to develop and play it

The chances of having 2 workshops in your opening hand is 1.86%

No, it is not, it is 5.93%

0 workshops in opening hand of 7: 60.05%
1 workshops in opening hand of 7: 33.63%
2 workshops in opening hand of 7: 5.93%
3 workshops in opening hand of 7: 0.38%
4 workshops in opening hand of 7: 0.01%

and while we´re at it, if your opponent goes first:

0 workshops in opening hand of 8: 55.52%
1 workshops in opening hand of 8: 36.26%
2 workshops in opening hand of 8: 7.61%
3 workshops in opening hand of 8: 0.60%
4 workshops in opening hand of 8: 0.01%

and the % of having 3 mana on first turn? you know i haven't got only ws to drop a 3sphere:

ancient tomb mox
lotus
mox mox mox
random land mana vault
random mox vault
mox mana crypt
ancient tomb sol ring

ecc...

Please don't be hypocritical! the %of having 3 mana on first turn is a lot higher of what you told and the same can be told for the "2° workshop" that can also be a tomb plus a mox played before trini or a waste + a crypt played before ecc...

a little personal note: magic is not mathematics  

bye

[Gabethebabe]

@and the % of having 3 mana on first turn? you know i haven't got only ws to drop a 3sphere:

This my spreadsheet cannot handle  

Please don't be hypocritical!

Who exactly are you calling this? Me? I just corrected some incorrect numbers, that´s all.

a little personal note: magic is not mathematics  

Not =, but they´re more related than you´d like to believe.

[Toad]

@Toad: maybe in your dream land you do not have sligh monored, you don't consider them maybe beacuse in your state good players plays only powered decks.... it's funny but try to face a good sligh player with a good sligh list and then you will cry of having put a single sphere of law in your side

and stop defining sligh or zoo bad decks simply because french people are not good at playing them...

I define Sligh or Zoo as bad unpowered decks simply because these are not decks that win. Just browse on Morphling.de and tell me when is the last time some Sligh Top8ed in a major tournament. Let me guess... Around 2002? The skill of the player has nothing to do there. A great player with Sligh will always lose to a standard Belcher player. It is not a question of skills, It's a question of brokeness. Your "french people are not good at playing them" is definitly not an argument. It just shows a serious lack of arguments from your side.

Note that at the last tourney I went I faced a Zoo-ish 4cC-hate deck featuring 4 maindeck Gorilla Shaman, 4 maindeck Dwarven Miners, 4 maindeck Pyrostatic Pillars, lots of burn aside with 4 Blood Moons and 4 Red Elemental Blasts in the sideboard. I won. With 4cC. I had nothing relevant for that matchup in my sideboard aside from the standard Swords to Plowshares and Disenchants.

just another question: if you unpowered players don't bring sligh or zoo wich deck they bring? random shit? wow so i understand why you understimate them so much

Gay/Red, Fish, WTF/r, UG Madness, Landstill, Food Chain Goblins are all nice unpowered decks. Dragon can be played on a budget too.

and maybe this is the reason why italian players are better than the other europeans

I wanted to reply to that, thought hard about what I could say, but the only thing that came to my mind is "LOL". Sorry.

Note that I just faced one Italian player in my life, Enea Salvaderi. This was in the semi finals of the last big tourney I went (back in February methinks) and I won 2-1. And he was playing Stax. I'm pretty sure he would have won at least game 3 if he had been able to Balance the board.

Sidenote from my moderation role here. Please Gaea, try to be more civil in your posts.

[LoA]

yeah try to beat the italian zoo, the guys are so frightened by mud and artifacts in general that they will side 7/8 artifact hate in addition to what they have maindeck (usually 2/3 mutation, 2/3 rack and ruin, pulverize ecc....) but if you're so convinced that ws trini resolves every problem....  

Sometimes I wonder if the coder of the "rolleyes" smiley will become the next Alfred Nobel.  He invented something great, but it gets misused and causes more problems than he anticipated.

I haven't seen an Italian Zoo decklist, but it seems like an answer to a Stax-heavy metagame.  How does this Zoo deck vs. TPS or heavy control?  If they've devoted the bulk of their sideboard to Stax, those match-ups might prove difficult.  That's one of the nice things about playing in proxy tournaments: you have to take lots of different possibilities into account.  

I'm not convinced that Workshop/Trinisphere is an answer to every problem--I don't think I've ever claim that.  I've argues on other threads that there are answers to that opening.  I guess I'd continue that train of thought and mention that if you expect that next Saturday, you need to make sure your deck can handle it, one way or another.  My earlier reply to your example was to point out that the example, while possible, isn't going to happen too often; my thanks to Gabethebabe for providing some numbers.  I'm not going to crunch the numbers, but the chances of getting at least 2 Workshops, 1 Crucible and 1 Metalworker in your opening 8 cards looks like it's below 4%.  I can live with a deck busting out something like that 1 in 25 games.  Besides, I play with Force of Will  :lol:

a little personal note: magic is not mathematics

I wish I could agree, I really do.  Magic is a game and is fun and I try not to take things like trading too seriously.  If I've got some sweet cards I know I'll never use, I'll trade them undervalued to kids because it makes them happy and the game is more fun for everyone involved.

However, there is a lot of math involved in deckbuilding.  The reason your deck is 60 cards is math.  To an extent, when I cast Brainstorm with the hopes of seeing a Force of Will, that's math or at the very least, my chances are better for having a 60-card deck.  When I'm trying to determine paths to victory in a given match, that's all about probability.

[Ihatetarts]

Do you realize that Kevin Cron, the guy who was playing the Stax deck at GenCon, is one of the pioneers of the deck? He's been playing it for more than a year, he Top8ed at GenCon last year with it, and he surely knows what he is doing. Balance is REALLY good, It's definitly a skill-tester but It win games on its own. And Hurkyll's Recall, while being quite random, has multiple advantages and an excellent synergy with Trinisphere and Crucible of Worlds.

Min kuk i din röv!!!

Anyways, I think you are giving Kevin Cron abit too much credit here.  At least Gaea provided a good reason for not running balance, while you and smmenen have only provided opinions and nothing to support the case of balance.  Until you provide a good reason why balance/hurkylls belongs in stax, I am going to assume that Kevin Cron DOESNT have a clue about what he is doing.

and again:

Min kuk i din röv!!!

Feel free to insult me in Swedish but dont cry if you get the banhammar then.
This user has been banned.
Toad

[Zherbus]

Especially because I "live" and play in a country with only Sanctioned Tourneys, I can assure you that we always have more the 60% of Powered Decks at our tourneys. And this percentage doesn’t take into account the various "partially-powered" or "semi-powered-decks".

I do not doubt that your percentage varies from my example. My point is being missed over semantics. I don't care if you have 75% powered decks because anything LESS than the 100% that proxy tournaments allow will make every player running full powered have that much of an advantage. If you face just one unpowered player in 7 rounds of swiss, that's still one major advantage over one player - that's still one round of having an advantage that would not exist if it were a proxy environment.

We can even plunge ourselves in to the ever-popular "...but but but we run hate cards!". SO WHAT?! Those hate cards allow you to do well versus archetypes, not powered decks as a whole. Null Rod shuts off power, but it doesn't stop a Sundering Titan. Chains stops card draw, but it doesn't stop Dragon from going off. Bloodmoon hurts non-basics, but that's certainly not going to help against the decks that ignore that.

My point is, that if you have a variety of powered decks then hate decks don't work. That's why you don't see many in the top8's.

[bebe]

My point is, that if you have a variety of powered decks then hate decks don't work. That's why you don't see many in the top8's.

In fact many powered decks run hate. CoWs/Strips are pervasive and I noticed that Rods, Flux, Blood Moon and B2B were a presence in powered decks as well. I cannot say how many times CoV has ruined my day and Workshop decks run them -  so running hate is not exclusive to budget decks.

I think this discussion has degenerated into as debate of how best to build Stax - these are meta considerations that you find and I think it is best left to its own thread. We all play decks designed to beat what we expect to face so there will be anomalies in evry build as there should be.

Budget decks are a pet project of mine but I must say this - I've never placed high at a sanctioned and premier event with a budget build. Yes, it can be done. A Fish deck won our latest premier event wothout power but when he facd my deck I blew him away because my power gave me an advantage. He got good match ups in the top eight and was a fiend at topdecking CoWs every match.  So I imagine if you are lucky you can win with a budget build but I would never meta for these rogue decks. You should blow them away with any Tier 1 powered build.

[wonkey_donkey]

The oxymorons here are simply marvellous...

good sligh player with a good sligh list

stop defining sligh or zoo bad decks

if unpowered players don't bring sligh or zoo wich deck they bring? random shit?

And here comes the aggression...

italian players are better than the other europeans or you forgot dulmen and barcellona?

Then there's this:

My brother made a lot of top8 with stacks decks and believe me hurkyl recall is just a scrubbish choice, the player who create a deck it's not always the best to develop and play it

No, but the person who develops the deck is likely to be the best to play it. On the other hand, the credentials of "my brother" holds little to no sway here, unless you're Oliver Ruel or Sebastian Zink or something.

Please don't be hypocritical

Oh ho. Ah hahaha. Oooh. Heehee. Ah. Sorry. In short, ROFL.

Sorry, but if you post something controversial without enough though, then expect to be taken to shreds.

Now, so that this post has some merit to it other than trying to point out uncivility (is that a word?) in someone's post, the gap is explained largely by 1 main factor. The metagame in america is more developed (although this does not automatically equate to 'better' or 'more interesting') due to the presence and wide use of proxies. I think Zherbus put it very well here, describing why a gap exists and why far stranger decks can take off in Europe and T8.

I don't care if you have 75% powered decks because anything LESS than the 100% that proxy tournaments allow will make every player running full powered have that much of an advantage. If you face just one unpowered player in 7 rounds of swiss, that's still one major advantage over one player - that's still one round of having an advantage that would not exist if it were a proxy environment.

Allowing proxies would bridge the gap, but I must say that it's quite interesting as it is that you have good examples of less-developed, more diverse metagames in Europe. Speaking from the perspective of someone who struggles to play much IRL, it's nice to see something different and something that evolves at a slightly odd rate. I'm no purist, and I feel that the so-called perfect metagame is something that is far more fun to be striving for rather than actually reaching it.

Tom

[shaq]

Proxy tournaments are to magic what porn is to film history.

[Zherbus]

Thanks for your insight, Shaq. You've done it and won an arguement with a single nonsensical metaphor. I'm astounded at the arguements that have been given in response to the well-thought out and presented arguements. It's people like you that make discussion so worth while.

Sarcasm aside, either post something useful or don't post at all.