Stroke unrestricted

[dicemanx]

Long.dec DID (potentially) dominate before Trinisphere.

This is a very amusing statement, especially when preceded by your warning of "danger - bad logic!".

Maybe if people finally learned to play mono-R Burn with 4 PoP *properly*, it would very most likely DEFINITELY dominate too. Why? Because I'm right and therefore it is beyond contestation. If you have supposed "evidence" to the contrary, then you're very likely most certainly not playing the deck correctly.


On another note, not restricting Trinisphere (and some component of Belcher) is hardly detrimental of course; all it means is that we have yet another three months of playing games that that will be purely decided by retarded coin flips (they won't be frequent, but they will exist to an appreciable degree). It won't sour my taste for T1, but it's just a part that I can do without.

[Revvik]

On another note, not restricting Trinisphere (and some component of Belcher) is hardly detrimental of course; all it means is that we have yet another three months of playing games that that will be purely decided by retarded coin flips (they won't be frequent, but they will exist to an appreciable degree). It won't sour my taste for T1, but it's just a part that I can do without.

If it makes you feel any better, if they were going to restrict Trini, then now would've been the optimal time.  It's not as if restricting it now would disrupt a tournament "season" (which we sort of do have) or anyone's plans with a deck during.
As things stand now, unless something truly drastic happens, I don't see it happening.

It's ok though - I'm fine with playing the game on WotC's terms  

Slightly more on topic, what impact could four Stroke of Genius have (or any quantity greater than 1)?  

My personal belief is that barring a heavy Oath metagame, BBS-style Blue and decks in that style could use it as a major Drain sink, possibly even attempting to use it in the same way that it abused Fact or Fiction in the old days.
However, I can't find many uses for more than say, two of the wretched thing, which is probably why it was unrestricted, but I'm open to suggestion on the matter.

[Hi-Val]

This is a very amusing statement, especially when preceded by your warning of "danger - bad logic!".

Maybe if people finally learned to play mono-R Burn with 4 PoP *properly*, it would very most likely DEFINITELY dominate too. Why? Because I'm right and therefore it is beyond contestation. If you have supposed "evidence" to the contrary, then you're very likely most certainly not playing the deck correctly.

I don't know if this sweeping straw man argument is an attack on me just based on previous disagreements we've had. If you think I didn't adequately back up my arguments, I can see that, but I thought that it was assumed that the strength of Long was just public knowledge. To rectify this, let me quote Randy Buehler himself:

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.

From here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/rb102

Looks like even the people at the top knew that Long was far too good for the environment. If you have evidence that would show that, on a timeline in which the majority of the players in the environment could play the deck adequately enough (as we assume when looking at whether Stax/Control Slaver/4cc would dominate), that Long would NOT dominate, I'd enjoy reading it.

I'm not sure how 4 POP burn could EVER goldfish a kill 60% of time on the first turn or throw down a strong enough lock in the early game as BBS did to prove how it would dominate. Since you use that in your pity example, do you have anything to back it up, or was it just a bad analogy?

[dicemanx]

Doug, you keep digging yourself into a deeper hole with every post.

I'd like to know exactly how I straw-manned you. Perhaps you require clarification of what a "straw-man" means?

You do make a very interesting connection between:

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.

And:

I thought that it was assumed that the strength of Long was just public knowledge.

Of course, you conveniently softened up from "(potentially) dominating" to Long simply being "strong" (whatever that means). I'd like for YOU to convince us that Long would have dominated, rather than your redirection by putting the burden of proof on me:

If you have evidence that would show that, on a timeline in which the majority of the players in the environment could play the deck adequately enough (as we assume when looking at whether Stax/Control Slaver/4cc would dominate), that Long would NOT dominate, I'd enjoy reading it.

So now I have to prove to you that Long WOULDN'T dominate? This is all very interesting, because that is EXACTLY the idea I was trying to get across in my post - I didn't mean that mono-R burn would dominate, but that it would be impossible for you to prove that it wouldn't. The fact that you think it was some personal attack and that I somehow tried to "straw-man" you is a cheap way of trying to get out of the logical nonsense you wrote in the first place.

When Long was around back in December, people had a tough time winning with it. They *seemed* quite competent with the deck, and they did pull off ridiculous first turn wins, but they did get screwed by hate frequently enough (CotV, FoW, and Null Rod were particularly problematic). But of course, they probably played the deck wrong, so the argument is airtight  with respect to Long being a dominant deck, right?


Now I don't know for sure if the deck would be a problem or not. I don't know what the truth is. You are convinced that it would be dominant, and that is fine - I might actually agree with you. But don't pretend like there is evidence to back that assertion because there is NONE. The axing of LED and Wish was pre-emptive, and based either on gut-feeling that the deck would eventually become too dominant/distorting, or the notion that having an unacceptably high high 1st turn goldfish rate is simply unacceptable. The reason that I raise this issue is that there are so many people that argue that if a card or deck archetype is not dominating/distorting, it shouldn't be touched. Well, that apparently is not the only criteria when making decisions regarding the B/R list.

[Toad]

Stroke of Genius has been unrestricted.
Trinisphere has not been restricted.
Period.

There is really no point in keeping this open now. Some like the new B&R, some don't. Just live with it.

Closed.