[Free Article] Smmenen's Look at the Restricted list

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8952

I am very conservative when it comes to restrictions and I use a carefully designed rubric of dominance/distortion.  Based upon my own tests, I believe that a restriction probably should be made.

Check it out and then speak.

[Lost In Admiration]

This article was amazing, probably the best I've read on the subject.  You seem dead on about Welder.

[jcb193]

Doesn't one have to consider how many Goblin Welders/Mana Drains/ MWS were actually played in addition to their results.  If you are strictly looking at empyrical evidence of Top 8's (in America only), don't you have to consider percentage of these cards in the field too?

Interesting article.

[Smmenen]

Doesn't one have to consider how many Goblin Welders/Mana Drains/ MWS were actually played in addition to their results.  If you are strictly looking at empyrical evidence of Top 8's (in America only), don't you have to consider percentage of these cards in the field too?

Interesting article.

Read this article where I lay out my restriction framework:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8382

[Royal Ass.]

I agree that Workshop (as well as Bazaar) shouldn't be restricted as it would lead to a Drain dominace like you alluded to.  I don't think any of the Three powerful four-ofs should be restricted.

  However, you didn't talk too much about Trinisphere, which I believe leads to a field where you must either play with FOW or Ritual based combo in order to even have a chance.

[Chamelet]

Do you have the numbers of Thirst for Knowledge? Since it plays as 4-of in every Welder deck... (sometimes as a 3-o though).
Don't you think that the draw-engine is the problem? Since TfK draws AND helps Welder. Wouldn't Welder be a little less efficient if you couldn't just drop a huge artifact in the graveyard while drawing 3 cards?
You would still have Intuiton and the fact that Welder hurts counter strategies a lot, but I guess it could be slowed down to a reasonable level if TfK got axed.
What do you think?

[Moxlotus]

This article was amazing, probably the best I've read on the subject.  You seem dead on about Welder.

I've never thought about it before, but Welder really does pass the Skullclamp test.  There were plenty of ways to destroy artifacts in Type 2, like Welder, but its raw power is too much.  Welder is the card that makes TFK nutty, TFK is just a good drawer like Intuition/AK.  

If a card needs to be restricted I believe it should be Welder and  Welder alone. It would not kill any major archetype, it would just weaken all of them.  Control would still exist in Tog and possibly 4cc and maybe something else.  5/3 and prison would lose their back up plan-their main plan would be unaffected, but as soon as the first wave is stopped they can't change every Mox back into a beater.  

I think that hitting Welder may be what the format needs.

[onelovemachine]

My question is: why restrict workshop?  Workshop to my knowledge hasn't been the card that gets everyone bitching.  Trinisphere on the other hand tends to upset people.  Granted it would be less powerful without four shops in a deck, but workshop itself, other than being a ridiculous amount of mana accel, doesn't do anything that makes me whine except play first turn trini.  

On manadrain I agree that it is exactly what you stated: a pillar of vintage and has no need to go away if all we are trying to do is stabilize a metagame.  Even though I don't play manadrain currently, I still feel the need to keep it around.

On dark ritual I have this question for you: do you feel that players gravitate towards manadrain or shop over ritual based on ease of play or perhaps consistency?  Does that make it any more or less powerful than those two.  Is your policy that if it isn't currently offending the metagame it doesn't need to go?

[Smmenen]

This article was amazing, probably the best I've read on the subject.  You seem dead on about Welder.

I've never thought about it before, but Welder really does pass the Skullclamp test.  There were plenty of ways to destroy artifacts in Type 2, like Welder, but its raw power is too much.  Welder is the card that makes TFK nutty, TFK is just a good drawer like Intuition/AK.  

If a card needs to be restricted I believe it should be Welder and  Welder alone. It would not kill any major archetype, it would just weaken all of them.  Control would still exist in Tog and possibly 4cc and maybe something else.  5/3 and prison would lose their back up plan-their main plan would be unaffected, but as soon as the first wave is stopped they can't change every Mox back into a beater.  

I think that hitting Welder may be what the format needs.

Restricting Welder would actually make control alot stronger.  Workshop would no longer be able to weld in 3sphere or smokestack.  Mono Blue would again be viable, despite oath.

[Matt]

You seem very upset that people just plain like Mana Drain more than Workshop.

[Smmenen]

If Welder were restricted:

* the most stable turn 1 combo deck, belcher dies
* control/goth slaver dies (unless they can make it work with 4 intuition -> Will, Walk play the lone Welder)
* Workshop loses its most potent weapon against control, but loses nothing against combo
* Mono blue becomes viable again.

Go read the Reviving Tog thread if you need persuasion that Welder isn't insane.

[Komatteru]

On dark ritual I have this question for you: do you feel that players gravitate towards manadrain or shop over ritual based on ease of play or perhaps consistency? Does that make it any more or less powerful than those two. Is your policy that if it isn't currently offending the metagame it doesn't need to go?

In my opinion, people just prefer to play Mana Drain.  Ben and I have gone over this a few times, and I'm surprised that it's never come up in your discussions with him (maybe you don't talk about combo theory enough, heh).  If you're going to a big tournament, most people do not make combo their first choice.  Often, even when combo is very good (like now), people still decline to play it.  Why?  Combo always has more consistency issues than any other type of deck.  Even if you play perfectly, it is still possible to get screwed.  I've heard complaints about Desiring for 9 with TPS and flipping up absolute garbage--that shouldn't happen, but occasionally it does.  When you take combo to a tournament, you have to accept that it will crap out on you occasionally.  I usually figure that I will lose one round to bad luck -- perhaps one game, I draw terrible, or something just goes wrong, and in the other game, my opponent just beats me (which happens too), or I screw up somehow.  However, even ultra-consistent control decks can lose to random bad luck (mana screw one game and triple wasteland in the next game, for example), but I don't think I've ever heard a control player honestly expect that it's going to happen.  Ben and I have discussed straight-swiss tournaments, and how combo is not a good choice at all to play in such a tournement for the exact reasonI just mentioned.  Thus, when you play combo, you have assumed the risk that there's a good probability that you will lose a round to bad luck, or even to a small misplay that magnifies itself tremendously and causes you to lose.  You hope that that round occurs early, so you get a chance to rebound from your loss, but there is no telling that it won't occur in round 1 of the T8, causing all your hard work that day to get flushed right down the toilet.  You hope it doesn't, but if it does, you accept it and move on.

This doesn't even get into the easy of play complications.  As I mentioned bad luck as a much more likely source of a loss when you're playing combo, small mistakes tend to be more amplified in combo than in other decks.  Sure, you have brokenness to fall back on if you do succeed in fucking up, but that is, a luck thing as well.  You misplay something, and then proceed into topdeck mode.  If you topdeck terrible cards (I know I've topdecked like 5 artifact mana in a row before a couple times), then, if your opponents deck is well built at all, you are more than likely going to lose.  This is an example of where error propagates luck: you screwed up, and then bad luck kicked in (your deck didn't give you anything remotely capable of fixing the situation you created), and you lost.  Your error put you into a position where you allowed luck to become a factor.  It's losses like this that will leave you scratching your head: how big was your misplay, and how obvious was the correct play that you failed to make?  If you had made the correct play, would you have won?  Or wouldn't it have mattered?  If you debate about playing Ancestral Recall or Wheel of Fortune, and the top 7 cards of your library are all land, and you need to win this turn (with nothing good in hand), it doesn't much matter what you do -- you still lose.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Because combo induces situations where the correct play is not at all obvious, or forces you to choose between two situations that seem equivalent on the surface, playing combo can often be tiring, and if you're not really dedicated to wanting to play combo, you will have trouble focusing by the end of the day.

The thing is, most players don't have that dedication to combo I just described.  It might be fun to play combo for them for a while, but when they just get screwed a couple rounds in a row, they just decide that they're more comfortable playing Mana Drain and the consistency it brings.  Mana Drain decks have a reputation for being slightly easier to play than combo decks, but that really isn't the point of the matter (all T1 decks are difficult to play, it's just that some are harder than others I guess).  A choice of deck needs to be a combination of what suits your playstyle and what's good in the current meta.  If a creature-based aggro deck were the best thing in the meta (and such a deck were to be significantly popular), for example, I still wouldn't play it because I'm notoriously bad at having to deal with creature combat.  That sort of deck might be the best deck in the environment, but it doesn't suit my playstyle at all.  Furthermore, I know that I'm taking a deck I neither care for nor one that is suited to my style, so I'm already doomed to failure, because those two facts are engrained in my subconscious.  The long and the short of what I'm saying here is that Mana Drain decks suit more people than any other type of deck (for whatever reason, really, which is mostly irrelevant).

Now, as for Shop decks.  Those also have been known to have consistency issues.  I, personally, hate the decks, as I think they're total piles.   When they get the cards they need, they win.  If they don't, they lose.  There's no real draw engine to get the pieces, so you have to work with what you're given.  In addition, people hate the very existence of Trinisphere and will refuse to play it (much like how I hated Sligh back in the day and refused to play it no matter how good it was).

You seem very upset that people just plain like Mana Drain more than Workshop.

See, this raises another issue.  It's ok to prefer Mana Drain, but it is important to recognize that it is really, really broken.  I've owned a set of Mana Drains since 1998, and I have never once thought the card was fair.  The place we've gotten to right now is that people seem to think there's a right to play with Mana Drain, and that Mana Drain should win.  Neither one of those are true.  Mana Drain might always be around, but that doesn't always mean it will be the best thing around, and when something challenges it, that doesn't mean that that challenger is anymore unfair or stupid than Mana Drain is.  For years, people complained about Counterspell in T2, and how good blue was.  In Extended right now, all the cards people complained about are there, and no one plays them. Why? Because those decks are no longer good.  I'm not saying that Mana Drain is no longer good, but that there are cards that exist that can challenge the crown-wearing champ of the past 10 years of Type 1.  In the formats where people play land that doesn't tap for blue mana, no one seems to complain about the lack of blue, and often, the diversity is praised (note: this doesn't really apply to T2 right now, and don't turn this thread into a format war comparison).

A while ago, Smmenen posed the question: What would be so terrible about a format without so much control?  No one seemed to have an answer for that.  Would it be better, worse, or just different?  Remember that different does not imply betterness or worseness.  

I'm not advocating that anything be done to Mana Drain in the slightest, but asking you to think about the card a little more.  In more ways than one, Mana Drain is the card that helps to define the format, for what that's worth.  Perhaps a different definition wouldn't be terrible.  Think about it.  What would that definition look like if, for example, Weissman had never created The Deck and Mana Drain didn't reign at the top from 1995 until...well, now (and we can argue that it's still at the top, and I think it is)?  Think of the ways Mana Drain has forced deck construction and the way it has molded the enviornment. Clearly, most people think that this is ok, but when another card comes along that forces Mana Drain to readjust itself, that doesn't seem to be ok.

I'll close this with two things I found of interest in Dr. S's last piece:

In my view, this paralysis of normal debate is a bigger problem than whatever metagame distortion exists. My November/December results went up shortly after the December 1st announcement, with a statement beseeching the audience to just give up the issue until it was closer to March 1st, when more data would be available. But so many people have ignored that plea that I can't help but think the issue will survive any period of waiting. It's not a problem that will evaporate when the next new deck shows up, because no one cared in the slightest that four Control Slavers were in the Waterbury Top 8, but they totally freaked out at three Workshop decks in SCG IV.

The top performing archetypes are Ritual, Drain, Drain, Workshop, Drain. You can see a definite record high of Ritual, but not of either of the other two ubercards. Trinisphere and Workshop are at their lowest points in quite some time. What I want to know is: what happens when the results say "okay", but no one will stop whining, even a month before a restriction announcement?

Right now, the Type One (or Vintage, as the kids are calling it these days) metagame is defined for the most part by Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, and Mishra's Workshop. The freaky thing is that my own results show the former doing the best overall, but it is obviously the others that earn indictments for foul play.

Right, the article.  I liked the piece, and I do have thoughts on the whole Joblin Welder thing.  For now, I'll say that Welder is an interesting case.  We need to look beyond the fact that it's a creature and get to the heart of the card: it's undercosted and allows cheating on costs, as JP said in his article.  It, for the most part, is Tinker (with limitations) on a stick.  Many decks can abuse it.  That might be something we're ok with, it might not be.  The fact that it is a creature must be ignored.  I mean, we're complaining about Trinisphere and a host of other artifacts, and despite a propsed solution of "play maindeck artifact hate," no one wants to do that.  Playing creature removal in T1?!? Unspeakable!  Never mind the fact that such creature removal would be directed solely at removing Welders from play...that's a bit of distortion if I haven't heard it before...

-JD

[JACO]

Steve, this was an interesting article, as usual. I think there are a couple of points about your idea for the basis of restricting Goblin Welder that are worth debating.

The first point of contention I would like to raise is this:

While there are lots of tournaments out there, a few tournaments stand out as a competitive notch above the others: The Vintage Championship, the StarCityGames Series, and the quarterly Waterbury

While these tournaments are certainly high caliber, you are only taking results from a very compact region (the Midwest and East Coast of the US). It is well documented that the majority of players in this region tend to lean towards playing whatever blue based control deck is popular at the time. Before it was Psychatog, and now it seems to be Control Slaver (of various incarnations and tweaks) that everyone is playing there. So of course this is going to lead to an abundance of Goblin Welders in the Top 8 of those regions.

But one thing you are ignoring is the large tournaments held outside this area, which doesn't do justice to the rest of the world. In much of Europe, and especially Italy, they seem to have quite a developed metagame, and routinely host tournaments that are as large or larger than many of the ones you have used for your sampling in the article. There are an average of 96.00 players attending the SCG events, and there are an average of 103.29 in the Italian tournaments, which are held about 3 times a month! I would not discount the results that these European regions are displaying.

Here is a breakdown of all of the tournaments in Italy that I could find in the past 6 months, listed in descending chronological order.

Torino, Italy - February 13, 2005
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
16 Goblin Welder
16 Brainstorm
16 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
11 Duress
4 Mana Drain

Milano, Italy - February 6, 2005; 77 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
4 Goblin Welder
23 Brainstorm
28 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
18 Duress
12 Mana Drain

Alessandria, Italy - January 30, 2005; 91 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
20 Goblin Welder
19 Brainstorm
20 Force of Will
7 Dark Ritual (*3 in a Dragon deck)
7 Duress
4 Mana Drain

Torino, Italy - January 9, 2005; 103 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
4 Goblin Welder
24 Brainstorm
28 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
17 Duress
16 Mana Drain

Massa, Italy - December 19, 2004; 151 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
8 Goblin Welder
23 Brainstorm
24 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
22 Duress
16 Mana Drain

Alessandria, Italy - December 12, 2005; 48 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
8 Goblin Welder
20 Brainstorm
20 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
21 Duress
12 Mana Drain

Milano, Italy - December 5, 2004; 91 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
16 Goblin Welder
19 Brainstorm
20 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
11 Duress
8 Mana Drain

Genova, Italy - November 21, 2004; 69 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
12 Goblin Welder
19 Brainstorm
20 Force of Will
4 Dark Ritual
10 Duress
8 Mana Drain

Torino, Italy - November 14, 2004; 142 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
20 Goblin Welder
12 Brainstorm
12 Force of Will
4 Dark Ritual
11 Duress
8 Mana Drain

Milano, Italy - November 7, 2004; 58 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
4 Goblin Welder
30 Brainstorm
32 Force of Will
12 Dark Ritual
18 Duress
16 Mana Drain

Milan, Italy - October 24, 2004; 89 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
12 Goblin Welder
16 Brainstorm
16 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
11 Duress
8 Mana Drain

Bologna, Italy - October 17, 2004; 74 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
12 Goblin Welder
8 Brainstorm
20 Force of Will
0 Dark Ritual
10 Duress
8 Mana Drain

Torino, Italy - October 10, 2005; 100 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
12 Goblin Welder
16 Brainstorm
16 Force of Will
8 Dark Ritual
18 Duress
8 Mana Drain

Piacenza, Italy - September 26, 2004; 239 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
8 Goblin Welder
20 Brainstorm
20 Force of Will
4 Dark Ritual
18 Duress
16 Mana Drain

Torino, Italy - September 5, 2005; 114 participants
Numbers of card in this Top 8:
20 Goblin Welder
8 Brainstorm
16 Force of Will
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Mana Drain

Total Copies in All Major Tournaments (15) in Italy in the Last 6 Months:
176 Goblin Welder (11.73 per Top 8)
282 Brainstorm (18.8 per Top 8)
308 Force of Will (20.53 per Top 8)
99 Dark Ritual (6.60 per Top 8)
207 Duress (13.80 per Top 8)
148 Mana Drain (9.87)

There are more Duress in Italian Top 8's in the last 6 months than Goblin Welder. I will try to do Spain, Germany, and other Euro regions later tomorrow or this weekend when I get back.


The second point of contention I have is this, in regards to your explanation of Goblin Welder:

The card that raises red flags in my view is Goblin Welder. Look at the card count...It is no answer and it is no critical component of deck construction. It is no fixer.

Goblin Welder is a fixer. It allows people to play cards that cost more than 3 mana and not have to worry about getting owned the next turn after somebody Mana Drains something. What most people are not taking account for in their arguments is the fact that, for the most part, Goblin Welder is not a splashable card (I'm willing to cede that Charbelcher is an exception to this; but I'm not concerned with the power of Charbelcher). Welder is a card that decks, corresponding card choices, and synergies all have to be built around. You can't just throw it in any deck and expect it to be great; the deck (usually) has to be taylor made for it.

The third, and final point I'd like address is this:

Any measure of distortion in Vintage surely must recognize that 18 copies per Top 8 is beyond the pale...it sure as hell passes the Skullclamp test.

I'm not convinced at all that having 12-20 copies of a card in the Top 8 on a regular basis is a cause for concern. And by my figures from Italy above, I'd wager that there's not going to be nearly 18 copies per Top 8 when we start to look at the rest of the world's large tournaments. If that number starts getting to be 26-32 regulary (and it's not named Force of Will), only then does it reach Skullclamp in Type 2 levels of play, where action should be taken. Once people start accounting for Goblin Welder when the build their main decks (i.e., maybe start including cards like Lava Dart, Fire/Ice, Swords to Plowshares, that can handle Welder with ease), as they have in other regions, I don't think we'll see the call for the restrictions that we are right now. While Goblin Welder is certainly the most powerful creature in the game right now, I don't think it's something the community can't adjust to dealing with. The United States is just starting to have the problem Italy was early last year with so many Welders. We're new to seeing so many around, so it is shocking to us; until we learn to include cards to deal with it, and get on to the next phase of Vintage. We don't need restrictions; we just need thought and planning in our decks.

Again, good article Steve. I'm interested to hear what you have to say in regards to what I brought up above, because I think that you and I actually share a similar view of the format at the moment.

[E Face]

I mean, we're complaining about Trinisphere and a host of other artifacts, and despite a propsed solution of "play maindeck artifact hate," no one wants to do that.  Playing creature removal in T1?!? Unspeakable!  Never mind the fact that such creature removal would be directed solely at removing Welders from play...that's a bit of distortion if I haven't heard it before...

-JD

I totally agree with the last point that JD has... Nearly every deck that is competitive in the current state of Type One is either running Gobl!n Weld3r or running an answer for him. Even the deck that won SCG IV had a maindeck solution to welders, but his wasn't to stop welders from running a muck in his opponents deck, it was to stop welders from running a muck with his own artifacts. Some decklists were noted at running Tinker/DSC as a last ditch effort for a win, but with most decks running welders, it makes the tinker pathetic unless the "Tinkerer" has his own welders or an answer to welders. Alarms should have sounded (if they already didnt) when Rich Shay (i think he was the first to notably use them) used Lava Darts from the side against any other deck running GobW3L and proceeded to trounce the competition with his virtual "Welder Advantage".

The pure fact is, Goblin Welders are more than simple graveyard recursion. They are, like JP said in his article, insane mana production, counterspell evasion, artifact destruction nullifying, and opponent disruption all rolled into a one casting cost creature that is reuseable turn after turn. When you look at it like that, it is easy to see why Gobl!n Weld3r is so highly played and why his restriction is always going to be on topic as long as he stays unrestricted. A distorting thing to note is also that creature removal right now is not even being called creature removal. It is more often than not called an answer to goblin welder, and when that starts happening, distortion is evidently apparent.

I dont even wanna hear the word Trinisphere mentioned again either... thats another day and another heated discussion

[virtual]

"In my eyes, it's simple.  

Prison is the deck that has a strangle on all of the archetypes.  (the answers to it being 4x force of will or 4x workshops...  If you consider that, these top8 numbers just make sense.  )

Control beats Prison.  

4x force of will, 4x welder is a good answer to Trinisphere, or as good as one gets.  Less random wins, and control can let good players previal.  Also, that's all the NE plays...

The foil for control isn't a viable deck because of the sphere.  The metagame can't adjust to beat it because you have to play a resiliant mana base, and pitch counters...(or workshops of your own) aggro control can't afford that mana base...

-Virtual

[Gabethebabe]

I happen to like the format as it is. I am all against any type of restriction. That the meta in the US has a heavy Welder weight is no reason to start up those restriction type of discussions.

I fear that restricting any card at this moment, let it be Drain, Workshop, Welder, Trini, Ritual, Intuition, Aysen Highway or whatever card you´d like, leads to distortion of the format that is currently in a balanced (but fragile) state. I think one restriction will initiate a cascade reaction.

So maybe you don´t like that monoblue is not playable? Well, IMO monoblue is still quite playable and I´ve actually seen it put up some decent results in europe. And if monoblue is dead. So what? Fuck monoblue. Some years ago people couldn´t imagine vintage without Sligh being viable. Well, at this moment Sligh is deader than dead. If monoblue joins the cemetery, doesn´t mean the format is distorted. A distorting format can not be judged by *any* particular deck being viable or not.

Welder is not in the category that e.g. Lin Sivvi was. So leave it alone, please. It is a measly 1/1 that dies to all removal cards that exist in the format.

Slaver player use Welder as counterbait to force through the draw spells (read: Thirst). Those are the real problem, if any problem exists.

[Windfall]

I have to admit, Steve, I liked the article.

I have done a large 180 in the past few weeks of playing Magic.  As a long time lover of combo, I hated Trinisphere for a long time.  I was a strange player that always wanted to try out every deck and get good with them.  In the end I went back to the Mana Drains.  Though you never fail to point out that I made my way into the top 8 by "accident," you must admit I still did well in the Swiss for an "unknown player of TMD community."  It wasn't just me, it was the deck - Control Slaver is insane, and I will now be the first to admit it.  It's funny to look at the field right now, to see so many people playing it, when I was one of like three at Gencon that did so.

Now, I've been playing Stax for awhile, and I'm realizing that it has a lot of weaknesses.  I just played like 40 games, with and without sideboard, against Slaver and Slaver won most of them.  In the matchup, Slaver's Welders are better than Stax's, and without a turn 1 Trinisphere, Slaver is just too broken.  Even with Trinisphere, Slaver can still win.  I really want people to play the matchup as much as I've been doing to realize just how good a game Slaver has against Stax.  Oh, and TPS wrecks it too most of the time because Rebuild is ridiculous.

Thus, I now believe that Workshop and Trinisphere are only busted turn 1 while on the play.  In Vintage, there are a lot of first turn plays that are busted.  Unless you follow it with a Smokestack or a Crucible/Strip Mine, you can still lose!

I don't think there is a huge problem with there being a large number of Goblin Welders, as it's just a good card.  The 1/1 creature is not really the problem I have, but the deck (Slaver) is.  If it gets restricted, fine.  If not, fine.  I would just hate to see Stax lose the ability to use Welder because another deck (Slaver) is out of control.

As far as Dark Ritual goes, only time will tell if it's too good.  I am not going to get angry and hate out Ritual because TPS happens to beat the deck I'm working on at the moment.  However, I do believe that decks that can combo out without fear of disruption do prevent the format from growing.  I also believe that hitting Goblin Welder will weaken the other decks that can stop combo by using Trinispheres, Mindslavers, or Platinum Angels.

     ~Mark B.

[Nazdakka]

This was certainly a well written article, but you've got to remeber that this is an opinion piece. In particular, if you play close attention, you'll notice that the dataset used for the stats is rather curious: Instead of using Dr. Sylvan's metagame reports, Steve has compiled his own, and he's also used November-December as opposed to December-January. He has also used entirely NE/Mid Western data, where there has been a lot of Control Slaver lately. The result: There's a lot more Welders in his data than Dr. Sylvan's. (Dr. S placed Welder as the 14th most common card as opposed to the 6th).

If Welder popped up at the rate you claim in Dr.S's data, then you might have convinced me. As it is though, you've done the opposite.

[Nehptis]

Another good article and interesting read.  As a TOA Combo player I'm all for the Restriction of the Welder.  However this post at SCG is something worth discussing:

majestyk1136: "It would seem that the evidence of the "dominance" of Goblin Welder has revealed a fundamental flaw in Vintage Deckbuilding if nothing else: People haven't given in to the idea that it would be smart to run a little bit more Maindeck creature removal (if applicable to your deck)....... that I would think that the format would find the proper answer to hate out a 1/1 without having to lean on the crutch of restricting a man."

As decks have moved further and further away from pure Aggro, has the T1 community moved so far away from worrying about creature threats that we have all but dismissed the need for creature removal in our decks?  I think majestyk has a strong argument here.  Perhaps we are just being "pompous" in our deck building strategies and saying to ourselves I don't need to worry about creature removal, T1 has no creatures that can kill me.  Along comes a 1/1 that is causing all kinds of dismay when realistically a simple Smother or its like would kill it.  (I realize that there is always going to be the problem of killing the Welder and then having it recurred by a Y Will.  But that's a whole different discussion.)

[Conan_barberarn]

If you want to reliably kill creatures you have to run more removal than they have creatures. Let's say he has 4 welders which you want to kill before they become active, then you would need atleast 5+ removal cards with cc preferably no higher than that of the creature (i.e cc 1). The problem here is that no deck can run 5+ creature-removal cards and not be slowed by them. IMO, a cc 1 creature shouldn't be so powerfull that it can win the game once it gets active.

/Gustav

[Chamelet]

If a card needs to be restricted I believe it should be Welder and  Welder alone. It would not kill any major archetype, it would just weaken all of them.

It would kill Control Slaver. Which is a major archetype.

If restricted, Welder would pass from extremely good to unplayable. Who would play with a Tinker that has summoning sickness?
Anyway, Lava Dart is a awesome Welder answer. It kills 2 Welders (or 1 if it's countered once). Just play with one Dart MD and 1 or 2 Side.

Playing creature removal in T1?!? Unspeakable! Never mind the fact that such creature removal would be directed solely at removing Welders from play...that's a bit of distortion if I haven't heard it before...

Playing MD with a card to remove a threat that is present in most decks of a metagame is NOT distortion. It's Metagame!
You can't expect to solve all matchup problems with SB sollutions. You have to spare some slots MD to metagaming. IF you can't, than sorry, you will probably lose to welder.
Everyone put Seal of Cleansing MD against Oath and nobody complained about it. The MWS deck that won the touney right after the Oath rise had 3 (THREE) Seals MD. Why don't you play 2-3 Lava Darts-Fire/Ice MD?

Just to mention 3sphere:
Many people are playing more Basic Lands and Fetch's right now. This is due to Crucible. And I think it's healthy.
But if 3sphere wasn't there, would the Crucible impact be that much? I mean, the Wasteland recursion is only unanswerable if it follows a 3sphere. That means: 3sphere is helping make the format healthier, by making people play with more basics. And keeping combo in its place, but that's another story.

[epeeguy]

Playing MD with a card to remove a threat that is present in most decks of a metagame is NOT distortion. It's Metagame!

Actually, it can become a distortion if it gets to the point where you are either playing the card or playing an answer to the card.  This is what happened with Skullclamp (you either played it or played against it) in Standard and, presumably, was going to happen to Extended (especially post rotation).  While including cards that are good against other decks can be a sign of a good metagame call; when it becomes very much a polarized approach, where it is all or nothing, then that most certainly is becoming distorting.

[cssamerican]

Playing MD with a card to remove a threat that is present in most decks of a metagame is NOT distortion. It's Metagame!

Actually, it can become a distortion if it gets to the point where you are either playing the card or playing an answer to the card.

Please tell me your not saying that you should not have to remove a creature to win games. That is insane!

People are acting like Goblin Welder is the only creature in the game! Hell, the only decks that don’t use creatures are storm decks. This format always ran creature removal that is until now. Now people are crying Goblin Welder is too powerful, RESTRICT, RESTRICT! The reason Goblin Welder isn’t über strong in Italy’s metagame is because Tog has access to creature removal spells maindecked  :shock:,  which is something that doesn’t seem to exist in the Northeast American metagame. I personally feel that nothing needs restricting at this time; in fact I am hoping some things get unrestricted.

[Hyperion]

I enjoyed the article and it had a number of good observations. But I agree with JACO that 18 Welders/Top8 bracket over 6 touraments isn't enough to establish clear distortion to the point that it needs to be restricted.

Not only is that not anywhere close to Skullclamp-level dominance (if I'm not mistaken, it was showing up in 28+ copies per Top 8), but we've seen time and time again that Vintage is a more robust and adaptable format than we give it credit for. Therefore, the same standards for Skullclamp in T2 shouldn't be directly applicable to Vintage either. I think the thing to do is give it a few more months (heck, why not just wait until after Gencon) and make absolutely sure there's a problem before taking such drastic action.

Sure, Welder is a really strong card, maybe borderline in terms of acceptability, but it's also been responsible for most of the innovation we've seen recently! I think you yourself said somewhere else that there's no incentive to continue innovating if things just get restricted to the point that Mana Drain control decks dominate as they have in the past. How is this any different?

[Revvik]

I feel Windfall was right on target here.  Understanding of the decks is pretty key to understanding the effect of restricting a component of it (also key to recognizing what makes their broken plays powerful and how to work through them).

I said this in another thread somewhere, but I'll say it again here.  Restricting Goblin Welder would kill archetypes.  Welder may have the Skullclamp problem, but here's what we would be losing:

Workshop Aggro (to a minor extent, Workshop Aggro does need Welders to function on Vintage power levels)
Stax (Recurring of lock parts is the nail in the coffin, otherwise the opponent is given too many chances to break free and win undisrupted)
Control Slaver (a very powerful control deck with boring mirrors that I would not be sad to see go, but in reality there is no true need for this deck to be killed off)
Cerebral Assassin (while not dependent on Welders entirely, this deck as we know it would cease to exist)

I think a mass-kill on that level just does not need to happen.  If the higher-ups feel Control Slaver is a problem, I don't feel the need to hinder several other fun, competitive (yet non-dominant) Vintage archetypes.

I also feel that Trinisphere does not need to go, but that Crucible of Worlds (which has very subtle, vast, game-ending power) and to a much lesser extent Thirst for Knowledge (which I feel is incorrectly costed) OR Intuition are more likely candidates.  

Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Mana Drain are all on par with what I feel the power level of the format should be. This coupled with the fact (unfortunately) that they are as much of an investment as the Power Nine should make them untouchable (this would be much easier to accomplish if WotC was a little more careful in which artifacts and draw spells they printed).

Welder should definitely be watched, as I have no doubt that the little guy's power will someday be unacceptable, but today is not that day.
If I were given the choice, I would only touch Crucible and keep an eye on Welder and Thirst, because I am having a lot of fun with the format as it is, even though I play none of the decks that are on the receiving end of these "dominance" complaints.

[Smmenen]

I don't think there is a huge problem with there being a large number of Goblin Welders, as it's just a good card.  The 1/1 creature is not really the problem I have, but the deck (Slaver) is.  If it gets restricted, fine.  If not, fine.  I would just hate to see Stax lose the ability to use Welder because another deck (Slaver) is out of control.
     ~Mark B.

Just a "good card."  Reading your posts about the dude in the Tog thread would lead anyone to think that it is an amazingly broken card.

To answer Jaco's point, I think that you need to look at the results in the data I actually chose.  The results reflect not Control Slaver, as you might think, but mostly Workshop decks and secondarily Control SLaver.  

My view is basically that the format has become Welder decks and non welder decks.  I think something I should have been absolutely more clear on is that most of the top 8 decks havce widely different Welder decks.  You can look at an Italy top 8 with 24 welders with 4 Workshop Slavery and 2 Welder mud and then a Top 8 at Richmond with 4 Aggro Workshop decks, and then a top 8 in the NE with 6 Control SLaver.  In each top 8 there were 24 welders, but totally different decks.   I also consider Hanna's custody in the Richmond data to be a basic substitute.  

To other people: I think there are serious methodological problems with Dr. Sylvan's approach.  There is no logical reason (or statistically compelling reason) to start with 50 people.  Morever, he takes all data and treats it equally regardless of the number of proxies or the competive difficulty of the tournament.  I chose the tournaments which I beleive were the most competitive regardless of their geographic location.  I looked over the italy data and other data and I found only more evidence to support my view.   I think that our threshold for distortion has definately been met and it is concerning because I don't think the number of welders can actually get higher in the data becuase of metagame dispersion.

[MrZuccinniHead]

Great article, but I would hate to see welder go.

I mean, there are viable non-welder control decks in Oath and Tog.  And there are viable non-welder combo decks besides Belcher.  This, to me, makes Welder an issue for workshop decks mostly.  If they lose welder, they lose their resiliency, and lose all the progress they made in the past year to overcome their "inconsistency".

also, like someone said, you have to tailor-make your deck with welder.  Skullclamp, on the other hand, could go in ANY decklist with creatures.

[Smmenen]

Workshop Aggro (to a minor extent, Workshop Aggro does need Welders to function on Vintage power levels)
Stax (Recurring of lock parts is the nail in the coffin, otherwise the opponent is given too many chances to break free and win undisrupted)
Control Slaver (a very powerful control deck with boring mirrors that I would not be sad to see go, but in reality there is no true need for this deck to be killed off)
Cerebral Assassin (while not dependent on Welders entirely, this deck as we know it would cease to exist)

I think a mass-kill on that level just does not need to happen.  If the higher-ups feel Control Slaver is a problem, I don't feel the need to hinder several other fun, competitive (yet non-dominant) Vintage archetypes..  

.

The reasons you site here only add further credence to my argument that Welder is Skullclamp - it is distorting becuase it is in most good decks.  Since it is not something that makes the format more consistent like Brainstorm or FOW or a key card used in deck design, doesn't anyone else find its omnipresence troubling?

Incidentally, restricting Welder would be like nuking the format without having to restrict more than one card (for people who are unhappy)

[CMass]

Respectfully, that is a piece written by a budding lawyer rather than a statistician or scientist.  Could you possibly have chosen your data set more selectively?  Europeans don't know how to metagame, and the only tournaments that matter occur in the Northeastern US.  Restrictions would have global ramifications, but let's only examine data from one distinct geographical area.  I think not.  Duelmen and the larger Italian tournaments leap to mind as being worthy of analysis and having readily available data, but they are glaringly omited.

You also take for granted that everything hinges on your own definition of "distorting" and on the logical contortions necessary to make Mana Drain acceptable.  Drain is ok because people like playing it?  It seems people like playing Goblin Welder, too.

[Mixing Mike]

Incidentally, restricting Welder would be like nuking the format without having to restrict more than one card (for people who are unhappy)

How is that Steve?  By restricting Welders you still have a lack of player interaction via Trinisphere and Ritual's.