[Discussion] The Consequence of Speed

[jpmeyer]

Hopefully, this thread won't turn into a list of cards that people want restricted.

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.

I plucked this thread out of the restriction thread here because I had been thinking a bit recently about just what happens to a format with a fundamental turn of 2.  I think that it's pretty clear that Type 1 has a fundamental turn of 2, since combo tries to kill turn 2, Oath craps out a creature turn 2, Control Slaver Welds comething into play, etc.

Since turn 2 is the turn that you want to shoot for when it comes to "winning the game," that means that if you get a good draw, there is ony one other turn that you can win on--turn 1.  Similarly, a "bad draw" sets you back even worse.  Now, instead of having the (usually) typical 3-ish mana on turn 1, you won't have that much until well, turn 3.

It's a pretty common belief that one of the best ways to get ahead in a format is to be just a smidge faster than the fundamental turn--and when you combine that with the best answer of all, a turn 1 kill, that seems awfully scary.

Thoughts on how to apply these ideas?  Should decks throw out the notion of versatility and just try to "win" on turn 1, maybe with Force of Will to back them up?  Should the fundamental turn somehow get scaled back to turn 3?  Is there even a way to scale the fundamental turn back to turn 3?  Should this thread be locked the poster warned for posting something somewhat related to the B/R list?

[Cuandoman]

Dude, yer already banned.

[rvs]

With Trinisphere running rampant, I would say the best you can do is hope to win the die roll, and do something broken first. Either that, or jump on the workshop-bandwagon and play either Stax, or a good alternative (The Tinker Deck! ). I don't think the turn2 notion should be scaled back. I'd say that's what makes vintage the format we love, and pushing it back further would relegate it to extended levels with more expensive cards in my opinion.

[Raph Caron]

JpMeyer asked:

Should decks throw out the notion of versatility and just try to "win" on turn 1, maybe with Force of Will to back them up?

Isn't that what we have right now? If not, we're closer to it than ever before. I just hope the format doesn't become deckbuilding/coin-flipping masturbation too much.

Should the fundamental turn somehow get scaled back to turn 3?

I think it should be turn somewhere between 2 and 3, to keep playing skills relevant.

Is there even a way to scale the fundamental turn back to turn 3?

Probably not, but things can be done to make fast starts less frequent.

Should this thread be locked the poster warned for posting something somewhat related to the B/R list?

Nah, these are the only discussions I enjoy!

[Machinus]

Well JP, you should consider how the fundamentals are going to keep changing. Turn 2 has not always been the focus of Vintage.

Let me extrapolate your ideas some. If turn 2 is the "key" time period for deploying a specific strategy, with better draws being turn 1 deployment (double blue or something else), and worse draws being turn 3 deployment (under a trinisphere), then there is only one direction for the format to go in, and that is faster - and that means higher probability of deployment on turn 1.

Conder the serious concern that as WotC prints new cards, the overall quality and speed of available tools has to constantly increase. Taking into account their well-known love affair with on countermagic and efficient disruption, over time the "critical mass" of restricted brokenness is going to shift the fundamental turn forward.

Think of it like this: the rate at which viable control elements are being created is much less than that at which acceleration elements are being created. WotC dropped storm, belcher, and affinity on us in the last two years, and it is the prison elements that are keeping decks like that at bay. If we think of things like CotV as being part of this, then the speed of the format really is a problem that, if it isn't bad right now, it is going to be in the future.

This means that cards like trinisphere are actually going against this trend, and are good for the format.

[virtual]

This means that cards like trinisphere are actually going against this trend, and are good for the format.

I agree that Trinisphere, as a heavy duty sphere of resistance, could be good for the format.   However, given the availability of lock components to follow it (smokestack/maybe crucible), it is actually speeding up the format more than slowing it down.

Sphere of resistance and Trinisphere's original intents both seem to be different ways of making fewer spells cast each turn.  Trinisphere though has become a thorn in Vintage's side, because a Turn 1 Trinisphere, acts as a 2 turn timewalk, with strips/wastes acting as more.  Smokestack or crucilbe can make that a semi-infinite turn timewalk.  

It also means that the opponent cannot counter spells you play on those turns.  So effectively, you get a free xantid swarm for those turns.

So Trinisphere is actually making the format faster.  Slowing it down may be fine and actually good, but I think that's why no one is asking for Sphere of Resistance to be restricted along with Trinisphere.  (Chalice may do this by forcing a higher diversity of cc spells)

[Toad]

I think it should be turn somewhere between 2 and 3, to keep playing skills relevant.

If playskills are irrelevent with the current speed of the format, why do we always see the same players Top8'ing, regardless of what they are playing?

[Raph Caron]

If playskills are irrelevent with the current speed of the format, why do we always see the same players Top8'ing, regardless of what they are playing?

6 rounds of swiss.

Rounds 1 & 2 : you beat bad decks and bad players (that's where skill matters the most).
Rounds 3-5 : You win 2 matchs thanks to your explosiveness. You lose 1 due to your opponent's explosiveness.
Round 6 : ID

Top 8 : The winner is determined by luck, matchups, mulligans and finally, skill when both players don't have broken first turns.

Quite (over)simplistic but that's the way I would explain it.

[Komatteru]

Cards I want restricted:
1) Island
2) Plains
...

Ok, just kidding.

I don't see turn 2 as the turn where someone wins the game (the rest being formality).  That's not why its the fundamental turn.  Its the fundamental turn because it's the first chance, really, for someone to do something of significance.  Granted, there are decks that can do something pretty big on turn one, but even those decks are limited in that they only do that something around 30% of the time, whether its a first turn Trinisphere/Crucible/Juggernaut or a win by combo.  Getting to 3 mana is the magic number in our format.  Having 3 mana at your disposal generally allows you to cast anything in your deck, which means you can start "depolying your strategy," as Machinus said.  On turn 1, you aren't that likely to have that mana, as you need 2 Moxes or a Lotus.  If you don't have 3 mana on turn 2, you're getting a slow start, which means your opponent has a window of opportunity to turn the game in his favor.  Having a good turn 2 is like getting out of the blocks in a race.  Type 2 is like the 800-m dash: the game is pretty long and there's lots of opportunity to make up lost ground if you can recover fairly quickly.  Our format is like the 100-m dash: it's over pretty quick, and getting out of the blocks can make all the difference, because you don't have a lot of time to make up for small early losses.  You can do it if you really pour it on afterwards, but it certainly makes life more difficult for you.  If you put the pressure on your opponent early and make him deal with your threats, you stand a much better chance of winning the game.  Over in the other thread, someone responded to my concept here as turn 2 being the most important, and then the rest of the game is one player trying not to lose the game.  That's not it.  Turn 2 sets both players along their strategy.  Whoever gets farther natually has an advantage.  The game can be over as early as turn 2 depending on how big that advantage is, but if you do something more than "land, go" 2 turns in a row, you should be able to make a game out of whatever your opponent throws at you, assuming your deck is well built.

[Smmenen]

I'm going to have to come down and say that discussion about the fundamental turn is interesting, but not very relevant.  Why?

Becuase the "format" is really nothing more than what happens in Type One tournaments.  And in Type One tournaments, there are simply too many variables to be concerned about what the important turn is.  Mulligans, odd draws, etc all change the actual important turn of a match.  If you could somehow select a subset of tournament matches and sample what the fundamental turn was than this might be a relevant discussion, but as such it seems to be too theoretical to be practical at best, and misleading at worst.

As for the neverending Trinisphere discussion.  Here is the harsh reality: nothing said or done here will have any impact on the question of whether it finally gets the axe beyond influencing top 8 data.  If Trinisphere continues to grow in top 8 data, it will be restricted.  If not, it won't.  It's that simple.

Consequence of speed?  Probably not much actually.  The format can have the potential to be extremely fast and yet be very slow - witness Fish this summer.  It all depends upon what is good and what is winning.

[rozetta]

We seem to have these "Is the fundamental turn too low?" discussions every now and then. I seem to remember they are often spawned when prison decks are on the upswing. Of course it is something interesting to talk about, but in the end, I think this relates highly to the metagaming discussions going on right now - things will adjust (as Smmenen already mentioned). I think the mere fact that there are so many already known decks in Type 1 makes the metagame turn around quite often - this is something we might see more evidence of next year specifically within the SCG series results. The fact is, there will be periods of time where Type 1 has a fundamental turn as low as turn 2, but even during those times, there are more than a handful of decks that can be played with success at any given tournament.

[Fishhead]

I think that it's pretty clear that Type 1 has a fundamental turn of 2, since combo tries to kill turn 2, Oath craps out a creature turn 2, Control Slaver Welds comething into play, etc.

I don't think this is true.  Each example in turn:

1) Which of these combo decks has a fundamental turn of 2: Doomsday, Dragon, Belcher, TPS?  Dragon is way slower than turn 2, and TPS or Doomsday are only going off on turn 2 with good draws and good play; on average I look at them as closer to turn 3.  Belcher is the one that I would say has a fundamental turn of 2 (or faster, more like 1.5).

2) Oath is notoriously slow, despite its potential to draw Orchard+Oath and just win.  It's like saying Tog's fundamental turn is 2 because it can put a Tog on the table then.  Why have Intuition + AK in the deck if your fundamental turn is 2?

3) For Slaver, you aren't going to be welding much unless you resolved a TfK, which means 3 mana the turn before (and 4 to activate the Slaver for instance.)  Despite the potential for broken plays every now and then, I don't think any control deck can be said to have a fundamental turn of 2.

[Rico Suave]

3) For Slaver, you aren't going to be welding much unless you resolved a TfK, which means 3 mana the turn before (and 4 to activate the Slaver for instance.)  Despite the potential for broken plays every now and then, I don't think any control deck can be said to have a fundamental turn of 2.

I disagree.

While casting a first turn Welder and a second turn TFK (land, land, mox is fair) can weld in something cool, I don't think Control Slaver cares so much about discarding an artifact to weld so much as it cares about drawing cards.  I think the reason C.Slaver would have a fundamental turn of 2 in this scenario is because in many games, it's not the Welder that wins - it's TFK.  So what if it takes until turn 3 to weld in the slaver and use it?  The game was won turn 2.

Additionally, I think Mana Drain's oftentimes explosive boost is an even better example of a turn 2 play, since the huge tempo swing it creates will result in you winning.  This is why decks like Tog can use Intuition-AK and still have a fundamental turn 2, because when you cast Drain you need somewhere to put the mana.  While Intuition-AK is strong, if you win a game like that it's because of that Mana Drain on turn 2.  

What does Force of Will do to your fundamental turn?  

None of this assumes the deck draws anything beyond a lone Mox either.  I don't think these kind of plays are uncommon, unless we aren't playing the same C.Slaver.  I'm curious why you think the fundamental turn is that high, because I've only seen the format get faster and faster lately...

[Milton]

I prefer the term 'ideal' to the term 'fundamental'.  Ideally most decks will have a turn two play that will drastically swing the game.  Rarely they will have a turn one play that will drastically swing the game.  Mostly, though, we see very few games decided on turn two.  In many cases games go long, and multiple decisions affect game play.  This is, in fact, a good thing because it rewards play skill.

JP is on to something, though.  The game is fast right now.  And it's pretty random.  These two combine to make reactive decks basically unplayable.  Right now, either you play something quick, or you get locked down by Trinsiphere, Welder, Oath, Back to Basics...  The only really viable reactive deck is Mono Blue, and that's good because of it's consistency and redundancy.

Wizards has printed too many fast creatures, great artifacts and ultra efficient card drawing spells and hasn't bothered to print efficient reactive spells to deal with them.  Either that or we haven't figured out a way to make good reactive decks with the existing card pool.  Also, R&D prints great cards with significant disadvantages, but those disadvantages turn into advantages in Type I.  Think Orchard, TfK, Dragon... even Trinisphere.  

The reactive spells haven't kept pace, which has sped-up the game and made the combo-control elements of Oath or Stacks really devestating.

[jpmeyer]

Wizards has printed too many fast creatures, great artifacts and ultra efficient card drawing spells and hasn't bothered to print efficient reactive spells to deal with them.  Either that or we haven't figured out a way to make good reactive decks with the existing card pool.  Also, R&D prints great cards with significant disadvantages, but those disadvantages turn into advantages in Type I.  Think Orchard, TfK, Dragon... even Trinisphere.  

The reactive spells haven't kept pace, which has sped-up the game and made the combo-control elements of Oath or Stacks really devestating.

Not only that, but frankly it would be very difficult to print better reactive cards at this point.  They can't print anything better than Swords to Plowshares, Duress, or Oxidize because these are as cheap as you make an effect while still making it cost mana.

[Milton]

Not only that, but frankly it would be very difficult to print better reactive cards at this point.  They can't print anything better than Swords to Plowshares, Duress, or Oxidize because these are as cheap as you make an effect while still making it cost mana.

So, perhaps the meta is just too random for reactive decks.

[Sylvester]

There are other problems than CC with reactive cards: For one, the lack of versatility or of proactive controllish permanents. If you can't make it cheaper, you can still make it be more often a Right Answer (more versatile), or longer (permanent). Cheaper card advantageous(?) reactive cards could be useful, but I doubt it, since we have more than enough card drawing. In other words, control can't find enough the right answers fast enough, rather than simply not being able to cast them quickly enough.

[Smmenen]

Not only that, but frankly it would be very difficult to print better reactive cards at this point.  They can't print anything better than Swords to Plowshares, Duress, or Oxidize because these are as cheap as you make an effect while still making it cost mana.

So, perhaps the meta is just too random for reactive decks.

Like they say, no bad threats, only bad answers.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Just a quick note on something mentioned earlier in this thread.  I am not sure if the critical turn is even 2.  Even if you can do something broken turn two, it is often what you do turn 1 that makes it broken.  Here are some examples of broken...

Turn 2 thirst, swap titan for mox (requires a welder played on turn 1)
Turn 1 tinker/colossus
Turn 1 duress, pulling trinisphere, that allows storm to go off turn 2
Crucible/strip - requires turn 1 Trinisphere to be really broken
Turn 1 mox, orchard, oath
Turn 1 mask/nought
Turn 1 combo win

In essence, turn two broken plays are often enabled by your first turn "substantial play."  A turn 2 Trini can be asstastic, a turn 2 welder is often too slow, a turn 2 mask/nought may be too slow, going off turn 2 is no good if you can't duress your opponent's turn 1 trini.  Basically, I'm saying the critical turn is turn 1 in T1 today (not that the game ends on turn 1, but control of the game is attained in turn 1).  If I can win turn two, but my first turn play is "land, go," I may as well just concede in many cases, because my opponent will most likely do something stupidly broken or disruptive or just flat out win on his turn 1.  I don't think the format can be any faster than turn 1, but I think it'll get to the point where there are two options - better pitch-counter magic to negate broken first turn plays, or every deck will have to win/do something stupidly broken turn 1 every game.  This second scenario is damn close to what we have currently.

[Fishhead]

In essence, turn two broken plays are often enabled by your first turn "substantial play."

And, following this logic to its inevitable conclusion, your first turn "substantial play" is enabled by your opening hand.  So the fundamental turn in Type 1 is zero.  

[Azhrei]

And, following this logic to its inevitable conclusion, your first turn "substantial play" is enabled by your opening hand.  So the fundamental turn in Type 1 is zero.  

Am I to understand that this hasn't been extremely obvious to everyone for over a year and a half?

[theorigamist]

And, following this logic to its inevitable conclusion, your first turn "substantial play" is enabled by your opening hand. So the fundamental turn in Type 1 is zero.

And following this logic to its inevitable conclusion, your opening hand is enabled most often by proper deck construction.  So the fundamental turn has nothing to do with actual turns in Type 1.  In other words, deck design is very important.  And I'll save Azhrei the post and say right now that this should have been obvious to everybody since forever.