ravager and workshop

[Smmenen]

First turn Workshop / Trinisphere (if played right) allows the opponent no opportunity to mount a defense or even begin an offense, even more damaging than the first turn Necro in most respects.

This is a lie.  Even assuming that you have no Force of Will, first turn Mishra's Workshop, Trinisphere generally offers the opponent multiple opportunities to win.  Even barring Wasteland or Force of Will, there is usually at least one opportunity to recover on the draw.  

The problem is this:
* People play with too many nonbasics
* People are playing decks that rely on tempo or efficiency - like Fish or GAT.  
* People have few or no maindeck ways to deal with artifacts.  

The simple truth is that there is basically only one play that doesn't involve a restricted card that nothing, as a practical matter, can really recover from after Mishra's Workshop, Trinisphere which is NOT followed by Wasteland or Force of Will: and that is Smokestack.  Tangle Wire will permit you to play Oxidize, etc.  Juggernaut does no more than 10 damage before you can play a spell - enough to find a way to stop it.  Most players in this tack are using Juggernaut.  Unless they have two Juggernauts, something as simple as oath of Druids will shut them down unless they have a preemptive Seal of Cleansing or STP.  

Against most decks that go: Workshop, Trinisphere.  The simple play of playing 3 Islands and Energy Flux or Island, Island, Volc Rack and Ruin will, at worst, leave you at 5 life and give you another turn to play Control Magic or deal with the remaining threat.

The truth is that much less than half of the Workshop decks out there run Smokestack, and as a result, much fewer have the folllow up play that breaks an opponent's back.

[Milton]

I think your analysis is overly simplistic.  I have never been in a game where an opponent cast a first turn Trinisphere and then cast a creature and did nothing for three turns other than swing.

As for the problem of land: How many decks run enough LAND (not mana) to have three LAND out on turn three (barring an opponent wastelanding)?  Remember, you can't use Moxes or any other artifact acceleration, and no Tutors or Brainstorms to find land either.

List one deck that has a good chance of three of any land by turn three.  I'll guess that the odds of three land by turn three in a typical Type I deck are slimmer than the odds of the first turn Workshop / Trinisphere.

[Smmenen]

Obviously they are going to be doing stuff, but that stuff is like playing Goblin Welder, Crucible (which shouldn't be relevant if you have a heavy basics deck), Moxen and other non lethal stuff.

Most Blue based control decks can draw three land in their first 11 cards (third turn assuming you are on the draw, as we are).  It only requires 18 land to have 3 lands in every 10 cards.  Having 17 is probably good enough to have a better than 50% chance of having seen 3 land by your third draw (having seen 11 cards).

My team specifically designed our oath list to be able to get three land by turn three that aren't Wasteable.  That doesn't mean it always happens, but it is rather consistent.   When you run 5 Islands, 5 Fetchlands, a Trop on top of 4 Orchards and LOA and a Strip and two Wastes of your own, that is plenty of land.

Decks that don't have a good chance of getting three land on turn three should perhaps rethink their land configuration.

[Milton]

When you run 5 Islands, 5 Fetchlands, a Trop on top of 4 Orchards and LOA and a Strip and two Wastes of your own, that is plenty of land.

Decks that don't have a good chance of getting three land on turn three should perhaps rethink their land configuration.

Good point.  Amend the above to say "Decks that don't have a good chance of getting two Basic land and one non-basic (that can be used once to cast one spell before being Wasted) should perhaps rethink their land configuration".  That's what happens.  Fetchland for Basic, play another Basic and then, on turn three, you have your one chance to play your non-basic and cast a spell.  One spell.  If that one spell is an Oath, then it doesn't matter I suppose.

Look, do you really think Workshop would still be unrestricted if it was a $10 card?

[MuzzonoAmi]

Yes, and for a variety of reasons. First of all, we have the fact that it now serves much the same role as Force of Will - keep combo in check (which Forces are becoming increasingly ineffective at)  and being an enabler for an entire archetype. Workshop actually outpreforms Force here, because it fosters both Aggro and Control decks. The card itself does not warp the metagame in any way other than towards artifacts (most of which would be unplayable otherwise) which is not a problem.  The decks are kept from dominating by their own inconsistency - and this inconsistency is largey why 5/3 and other Stacker variants are more popular in the States than Stax is; the ability to win now and not have to worry about your opponent's Wastes (which can cripple Stax if played correctly) or other removal makes up for the fact that you may run into a lack of playable spells at one point, since once your threat is removed, there is a fair chance that recurring it or casting a new one will actually end the game as opposed to simply undoing your opponent's actions, which may or may not win you the game.

Furthermore, from proxy tournament we can tell that Workshop's availability largely irrelevant in it's presence in decks. Tons of people are playing them, but most aren't good enough to win.

While I may be able to at least read arguments for restricting Trinisphere, the very idea of restricting Workshop is unhealthy.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Since a numeric assertion was made about occurrences, I'll step in, since I'm writing the Oct-Nov article right now. Significantly more than half of the Workshop decks are playing Smokestacks. The lock component-Workshop breakdown looks like this:

In terms of copies per Top 8:
May., Jun., Jul., Aug., Sep., O-N.
_7.5, _6.7, _8.8, 10.0, _9.3, 10.9 Chalice of the Void
____, _0.4, _4.6, _8.2, _7.3, _7.3 Crucible of Worlds
_2.0, _2.3, _7.0, _5.4, _4.6, _7.2 Smokestack
_3.5, _6.1, _8.4, _9.6, _6.8, _9.2 Trinisphere

_4.2, _6.0, _9.8, 11.4, _7.5, _9.8 Mishra's Workshop

So about 70%+ of the Workshop decks play Smokestack as well, in the eight T8s I've got since my September article. The last time that the less than half figure would apply was in August.

Soon, there will be more data, and enlightenment will spread over the internet.

EDIT: Corrected numbers.

[Smmenen]

When you run 5 Islands, 5 Fetchlands, a Trop on top of 4 Orchards and LOA and a Strip and two Wastes of your own, that is plenty of land.

Decks that don't have a good chance of getting three land on turn three should perhaps rethink their land configuration.

Good point.  Amend the above to say "Decks that don't have a good chance of getting two Basic land and one non-basic (that can be used once to cast one spell before being Wasted) should perhaps rethink their land configuration".  That's what happens.  Fetchland for Basic, play another Basic and then, on turn three, you have your one chance to play your non-basic and cast a spell.  One spell.  If that one spell is an Oath, then it doesn't matter I suppose.

Look, do you really think Workshop would still be unrestricted if it was a $10 card?

That would be an even more compelling reason to keep it unrestricted.  It would be more omnipresent and more understood and thus more hated.  Keep in mind that even with a $10 Workshop, you need FULL power to be able to play Stax or 5/3.  So it's not like 5/3 would be as prevalant, as say, Fish.

Workshop doesn't even come REMOTELY close to being played enough to be restrictable.  Sylvan's data for O-N has Workshop and Trinisphere only a card more than Mana Drain in top8s.  Mana Drain had 5 decks in the SCG II top 8 but the only reason it didn't have more at SCG III was becuase oath got massively hated out.  

As for the land thing, if you don't have lots of basic lands, then you deserve to lose unless you are playing combo.

My original point remains:

Even assuming that you have no Force of Will, first turn Mishra's Workshop, Trinisphere generally offers the opponent multiple opportunities to win. Even barring Wasteland or Force of Will, there is usually at least one opportunity to recover on the draw.

The problem is this:
* People play with too many nonbasics
* People are playing decks that rely on tempo or efficiency - like Fish or GAT.
* People have few or no maindeck ways to deal with artifacts.

[Milton]

Workshop doesn't even come REMOTELY close to being played enough to be restrictable. Sylvan's data for O-N has Workshop and Trinisphere only a card more than Mana Drain in top8s.

A very compelling point, but how dominant was Long when it's components got the axe?  Did LED and Burning Wish go because they had massive T8's, or because the potential was there to totally break the game wide open?

I don't know.  You make some very good arguments, but I don't want to be told that I HAVE to play non-basics and HAVE to play Force of WIll and HAVE to play Artifact Hate while I am told a deck (or card) isn't format distorting.  After a while the "it's not format distorting" argument falls by the wayside when entire new decks are designed specifically to beat it, because that's what you have to do to win tournaments, but, by the way, Workshop decks aren't that good...  It is an argument that just doesn't hold water with me.  

I'll conced, though, that Workshop isn't as dominant in the results as some make it out to be.  I'll also concede that there are consistancey issues with most Workshop decks.  But, please agree that it's a format defining deck and a format defining card.

Anyway, good argument.  I have to sleep now.

[Smmenen]

If it makes you feel any better, I'm privy to the most uptodate data - ten tournaments from Oct and Nov of 50+ players.

Workshops: 98
Mana Drains 95

That's 9.8 and 9.5 Workshops and Mana Drains per top 8, respectively.  I would consider dominance to be somewhere around 20 consistently per top 8 on average.  

Think about this for a moment.  Oct-Nov is the BEST Workshop results EVER.  EVER! Yet it barely beats out Mana Drain.  

If that's as good as Workshop can put up next to mana drain, imagine what happens if Workshop is restricted LOLOL!  How would that impact the mana drain decks?

[Toad]

Look, do you really think Workshop would still be unrestricted if it was a $10 card?

I do, because the more people play with Mishra's Workshop in a given metagame, the worse It becomes. Sure, you can go Workshop, Trinisphere, but what if the opponent answer with Workshop, Crucible of Worlds? You've wasted your first turn and lost a card (Trinisphere will never matter there for your opponent).

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

As for the probabilities fro drawing those necessary three lands till turn 3:

11 Fetches/Basics, 11 cards drawn, 32.15% of drawing 3+ of these lands.
19 lands overall, 11 cards drawn, 75.38% of drawing 3+ lands.

I haven't seen a (good) deck yet with more than 11 basics/Fetches (aside from MonoU, of course) and 19 seems to be a reasonable number of lands to assume in opposing decks. That's 26 sources including complete jewelery.

These odds are part of what makes Dragon that good vs turn 1 Trinisphere, btw. It can regularly still draw extra-cards when Trinisphere hits to assure vital landdrops.

As for Juggernaught being more played than Smokestack, it's not my fault people don't play better cards. That Trinisphere STILL wins is what should arouse our curiosity.

As for restricting Workshop, that would be rather harmful. What it does is making rather expensive spell PLAYABLE in the format. Just about nothing with a CC over 3 would be played in T1 without Shop. That is simply not the problem. Trinisphere is. Workshop would still be strong on the back of Crucible and Chalice, but far less random. At least the opponent gets the option of acting in a limited window, even though with cut down options. That's tough but acceptable. Being reduced to an observer for three turns is not with what some decks can do.

As for the original intention of the threat, Workshop-Prison definitly fits the description - you can't kill it with a single restriction. It can be toned down a bit to take some of the randomness, though.
Their main argument vs taking out something in Affinity was that people would be annoyed if the deck was still one of the best in T2 and therefor the restriction would seem uneffective.
That is far different in T1. We thrive on having multiple viable decktypes, many of them restriction-weakend versions of super-powerful decks (Long->Death Long, GAT->1-Gush-GAT/Tog*, 4-FoF-Keeper->Scrying-4CC). I don't think most people would have Stax die completely (well, ok, maybe that's just me), as it is a deck that feels "correct" in T1. I just don't want it to be winning randomly in a lot of games, because of a two-card both unrestriced combo.

*I know Tog didn't evolve out of GAT. It still is like a toned down version of the deck in many respects.

And for the argument about  the play-level of Vise vs 3Sphere, 3Sphere is only played in Workshop, because nothing else can cast it turn 1 consistently. Is it really better if only a special deck is allowed to play 4 Vise istead of all decks? Just for the viability of that argument. IF Trinisphere is as good as often as Vise, it doesn't matter if only one deck can use that early game swing card.

[Smmenen]

Those numbers don't mean much becuase the key question is:

Having 5 Fetch and 5 basics and X Wastelands, what is the probability of getting TWO of those in the first 11 cards.  Becuase the third land can be a non basic.  

Meandeck Oath runs 10 Fetch/basics. And Goth Slaver has 5 Islands, 5 Fetchlands and 1 Darksteel Citadel, which might as well count.  Meandeck Titan is the same.

[Dr. Sylvan]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8551

[Elric]

Look, do you really think Workshop would still be unrestricted if it was a $10 card?

I do, because the more people play with Mishra's Workshop in a given metagame, the worse It becomes. Sure, you can go Workshop, Trinisphere, but what if the opponent answer with Workshop, Crucible of Worlds? You've wasted your first turn and lost a card (Trinisphere will never matter there for your opponent).

While I agree completely with the idea that any given Workshop deck would not be as good if Workshop cost $10, I don't agree that Workshop would be less dominant as a result.  It seems to be that under most reasonable (if vague) assumptions- primarily, tournaments are not "very long" and hate cards for Workshop are not "incredibly powerful", then if Workshop cost $10 it would show up in far more top 8s than it does right now (except for maybe the few largest US tournaments, which seem to draw enough Workshop fully powered players to make it closer to the appropriate proportion of the metagame).

Even though each workshop deck would be worse (since it makes up a larger proportion of the metagame and can be metagamed against or hated more easily), workshops would also be a larger proportion of the metagame.   Thus, you would expect the number of workshop decks in each top 8 to go up, although not proportionally with the number of workshop decks now being played.  Even if some Workshop decks are “paper”, the foil to other workshop decks “rock”, a lowered cost of Workshop would result in a lot more “paper” being played, and would cause it to take up more top 8 spots.

We could test this hypothesis if someone decided to run a long series of big, say, 5 proxy tournaments where everyone was allowed to proxy Workshops without it counting against that limit.

[Toad]

We could test this hypothesis if someone decided to run a long series of big, say, 5 proxy tournaments where everyone was allowed to proxy Workshops without it counting against that limit.

We sometimes have unlimited proxy tournaments here in Paris. This means people have the luxury to play a Workshop deck if needed. Two facts :

* Workshop decks are not over representated in these tournaments.
* Workshop decks hardly Top8 because people expect them and metagame properly.

[TheWhiteDragon]

For God's sake fellas, can we quit with these "neuter workshop deck" threads?  Plain and simple, the format is varied enough where not everyone is playing workshop.  The day that 90% of a field is workshop and the entire T8 is trini.dec, then we can restart this thread.  As long as different archetypes continue to win and be viable, there's no point in axing something, when the axing will most likely cause more of a distorting wake than leaving the B/R list as is.