[Discuss]SCG Syracuse, the Metagame, and the Cosmos at Large

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Previously, Control Slaver dominated the metagame and invoked the chicken little effect in the vintage community, touching off a new wave of restriction talks. The most recent top 8 decks out of 136 people featured only one CS and two $T4KS. Ironically, the winning version doesn't even play goblin welder, the center of a few discussions for a while now. Furthermore, Lam Phan, of Canadian Nationals fame piloted an odd aggro-control deck somewhat reminiscent of Gro and UW weenie. Perhaps even more divergent is the Sensei2 deck. Who would have thought tight sight would be good in type 1? Control elements in the form of one-color-less 4cC and Landstill were also a surprise, while the return of Dragon was not so much.

Is this a fluke? Did Lam Phan win with a bad deck because he's a good player? Is anyone going to test any of this before joining in the chorus of incoherent logical fallacies that generally follow in a thread like this? Only time will tell.

obligatory link to the info

[erictehfatz0r]

I think that everyone was so hyping Control Slaver that the ones that found solutions, instead of playing CS, made the top 8. People only talk about tier 1 decks, but my opinion is that there can never be tiers in Type 1 since there are entirely too many foils to any other deck, and one deck might win in one meta, but not in another, and so forth. I think these results are a shot of reality to the Vintage world, that there aren't 3-4 top top decks.

It's my philosophy that a viable deck can never be completely shut out of a tournament, it depends on your experience with the deck. Congratulations to the winners and to Kevin for another slash to his win list, and for piloting a great deck.

[Kasuras]

It seems Kevin replaced his Welders with Spheres, the only reason I would say this being a good idea is perhaps in a metagame with a lot of combo. He won though, and other than Dragon: no combo to see in the t8. I have no idea how the rest of the field looked like, neither do I know the reason behind this change. I'd love to know though, especially not having any Hanna's Custodies combined with the lack of Welders made me frown.

The second deck seems rather strange: no basic land! But considering the fact that it is aggro, he is a good player (as people say) and his sideboard with infinite artifact hate.. I can imagine.

Vedalken Shackles was the first thing I noticed in the 3CC deck; it seems quite solid and pretty good and I'm delighted to see Damping Matrix in a deck again. He does run Decree of Justice instead of Exalted Angel though, which makes me guess he metagamed for lots of control.

Jeff Anand's list looks like a regular list of Slaver although I'd love to see his sideboard and know his matches since the metagame seemed to be flooded with control slaver hate judging by the t8 decks. That land is an interesting choice.

About the sensei deck.. I don't know. I've been looking for a kill condition for about 5 minutes until I saw that lonely Brain Freeze. I don't know.

And of course the return of Dragon was good to see as well.

Judging by these top 8 decks, apperantly lots of people thought the metagame would be floooded with control slaver. Was this true? A mass of artifacts must had been expected as well.

[o]

Just looking at the top 8 would almost make you think that it was a fake, but if you examen it closely you begin to understand a lot of important things.

The top 4 decks all played white in them.  When was the last time that happened?  I think the dominance of CS has caused people to remember how good things like Swords to Plowshares and Meddling Mage are.  I expect to see more of them in the future.

Stax was obvious and played by a good stax player.   It was a somewhat odd decklist, but Kevin Cron knew what he was doing.  We notice swords in his list.

Landstill is really striking, but it really isn't so bad when played by a good player.  4 MD swords here.

Bird Shit looks like shit, but it is basically fish with less critters and more conterspells and disruption.  4 swords and mages.

4CC without red was a brilliant choice.  Again 4 mages, and 1 sword main and 1 sword sb.

The CS deck looks normal and probably was just played very well.

Sensei Sensei is crazy.  I tried to look at it as a combo, but couldn't see it happening.  It has a lot of control in it, but it combos out for the win, so I guess it has a faster potential win than say 4CC.

Dragon and stax will both return to the metagame soon, and you will see more in the T8.

[Smmenen]

Kevin has been working on tuning Stax for one purpose: how to beat Control Slaver.  The build and configuration he has emerged with is a product of intensive team and two fisted testing.  

I'm sure Kevin will write up a report, but I'll try to explain it a bit and elaborate on what I saw in his plays.  

First of all, Kevin's list is not at all in the vein of traditional stax in terms of locking you down and winning large.  He has basically designed stax to be like Fish: corner the opponent and limit his options and then win small.  
Kevin has identified, either through observation or testing, specific pressure points that the primary decks in this metagame have and he is running counter-intuitive cards to exploit them.  In his intensive Goth Slaver testing, he found that Goth Slaver could often play around Trinisphere in many, many circumstances but found that the specific combination of cards he chose to run to be profoundly effective.   Why?

As the metagame has shifted to adapt the presence of Trinisphere, it has ironically become weaker against Sphere of Resistence in the ways that Kevin finds threatening.  In his estimation, the cards that Stax loses to generally cost three mana: rack and ruin, Intuition, Thirst for Knowledge,   or cost two: mana drain or are free: Force of Will.  

Against all but the very final card, Sphere of Resistence is most effective.  In other words, Kevin has designed his Stax list NOT to just shut you down, but to stop you from answering his threats.  It is a premeptive strike.  Mana Drain under Sphere of Resistence costs 3.  Rack and Ruin, Intution, and Thirst all cost FOUR.  MOreover, with 2 sphere of Resistence in play, good luck.  

Second, Kevin probably has the best grasp on SBing of anyone I've seen in this entire format.  I've urged him to write an article on it (he's written a fine article on Mana Drain http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=7063 )
Kevin does something I've seen few people do - he evolves his deck concurrently with his SB so that his SB is basically a direct and functional extension of his deck.  Most people design a deck first and then prepare a sb second as two separate steps.  If you can see Kevin's SBing strategies, they are often counterintuitive, again, but very well though out.  If anyone needs a reminder, remember Kevin's play at Gencon in 2003 where he ran DIVERT in his Stax sideboard as an answer to Artifact Mutation and it got him into the top 8 by Diverting an Ancestral in the final play?  

Third, Kevin's play is a sight to behold with Stax.  I truly wish you all could have been there becuase I'm still aghast.  I watched Kevin win a game against Landstill that I would have written off - even in the finals, LONG before.  Kevin won with Stax after THREE, count them, THREE, Nev's Disks blew up in his face.  How?  He did it by careful planning and timing.  Most Stax players, including myself, play very aggressively in terms of the bombs we drop.   Kevin sandbags cards like you wouldn't beleive and as a result he pwns midgame decks.  His match against both Eli and the Finals demonstrates this.  

His SB is as bizaare as the Maindeck, but it is very well thought out and very counterintuitive.

On the metagame: although there were reps of all the major teams and most of the major geographic areas, Canada's presence overwhelmed this tournament.  I played, in six rounds, against 3 Canadians and Kevin played against 7, I think.  Their metagame is extremely random and they have imported it here.  It remains to be seen who will be the better (or the worse) for it.

Re: my oath list: my oath was completely new.  It's called Neo-Meandeck Oath and was designed to beat Control Slaver.  You can probably figure out most of the cards I had in it from the match coverage.   (see my match against Andy the Brassman).

Finally, we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Pete and the SCG Staff for amazing coverage.

[Nefarias]

On Kevin's play: It really was quite amazing. I was incredibly interested to watch him because I scrubbed out with Stax earlier and wanted to learn as much as I could. His deck was so original and very cool, and he played it so well, and his Lotus/Twister are proof of that. I also totally agree with the Sphere of Resistance thing. I was totally owned by Rack and Ruin in particular, and Rebuild as well. I definitely learned a lot. Congratulations to him.

On the Jeff Anand's CS: I went up with Jeff, and I'm pretty sure the SB was very standard. From what I remember: 2x Lava Dart, 3x Sphere of Resistance, 1x Echoing Truth, 3x Rack and Ruin, 4x REB. Something like that, nothing too techy. He's been using Boseiju for a bit now, and really likes it (in one game, he Tinker'ed through Chalice for 3).

On Sensei Sensei: It's not nearly as bad as it looks. I believe only three people were playing it (Keith, plus iamfishman and GI), and they were all towards the top (of course, it was three good players). It has the whole 4x Force 4x Drain control thing going, plus it outdraws other control. Then when it's ready it just comboes off. The win condition is fine because they draw the whole deck, so they have plenty of backup. As for Blessing, there is Stifle in the board and Recall. This could be really solid. Hopefully someone who knows more about it will voice out here.

On 3cc: I don't really think calling it 4cc without red is accurate. Yes, it is a control deck, and it is three colors, but they seem totally different. They're like ten cards off each other.

On Landstill and Bird Shit: I have no clue. They are both solid players, no doubt, but Mental Note? Eternal Dragon? Akroma's Vengeance? (A side note: Landstill was BrassMan's opponent for the round seven he never showed up for.)

Overall, this was a great tournament, which showcased a bunch of new decks, new trends, old decks reemerging, and great players. Starcity put on a great show, even though the venue and judging (save Pern) left a lot to be desired.

[Razvan]

The BS deck (garbage, bird crap, whatever you call it), is a deck that's designed to take advantage of the state of the format. In my opinion, Lam designed it to make fun of all the people that get uptight about how Bazaar, Workshop, Drains, Welders and such are too powerful and need to be restricted. At least that's how it feels.

You have to watch how the deck plays. It runs on free counterspells, really cheap creatures, and a lot of really cheap disruption. It has been on a tear in Canada too, and it's no surprise that it went that far. I think everyone in our group would have gladly gone 0-2 or 0-8 just to see Phil Stanton have a heart attack when doing the Type 1 card usage round-up.

In an environment with Slaver, Oath, Stax and other "optimized" decks... this deck works really damned well.

[Samite Healer]

Jeff Anand's list looks like a regular list of Slaver although I'd love to see his sideboard and know his matches since the metagame seemed to be flooded with control slaver hate judging by the t8 decks. That land is an interesting choice.

I have no idea why they didn't post my sideboard.  Perhaps they forgot.

Sideboard:

3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Lava Dart
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Echoing Truth
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Coffin Purge

I played against 8 completely different decks during the day, which I suppose is the sign of a relatively healthy and interesting format.

Round 1:  Hulk with Chalice
Round 2:  U/B/G Dragon with Eternal Witness
Round 3:  Food Chain Goblins
Round 4:  Mattuzio's Workshop/Drain Control Deck
Round 5:  TPS
Round 6:  Lam Phan's Bird Shit deck
Round 7:  4CC
Round 8:  ID (would've been the #2 deck)
Top 8       Kevin's Chain Stax

As was already stated, Boseiju is simply amazing in Control Slaver, as it keeps winning me games I should be losing.  With Triple Chalice I forced through Tinker, got Slaver, and emptied Seth Levy's hand and yard.

In addition, against Lam Phan I won because I hardcast FoW on his StP because his last card in hand was Daze and I was tapped out.  If it was any other land I would've lost that game.

[Dr_Tongue]

Interesting deck lists, a welcome change indeed. Stax with Stp?Who'd a thunk it    . Congrats to all and especially those who built "non typical" decks. Good job guys.

[Danzig]

Stax with Stp?Who'd a thunk it  

Looks familiar though.

[StarOrc]

In addition, against Lam Phan I won because I hardcast FoW on his StP because his last card in hand was Daze and I was tapped out.  If it was any other land I would've lost that game.

Not to say that Boseiju is badl. I've really wanted to test it since it came out but have been somewhat reluctant as I was unable to find room and when I did find room I put in an Ancient Tomb and its been very very good so far. This land would have worked the same way with the Daze as Boseiju did and it doesn't come into play tapped.

The top 8 decks were very interesting to see. I was completely convinced that Control Slaver would take this tourney as well. I guesse the meta adjusted enough to keep it from winning, but it still showed up in the top 8.

Congrats to everyone who did well.

Peace

Corey

[Shock Wave]

Is this a fluke? Did Lam Phan win with a bad deck because he's a good player?

What a silly question to ask. That's like asking:

"Did Steve Mennendian lose with a good deck because he's a bad player?"

or

"Did Kevin Cron win because his opponents played poorly?"

The mentality of so many of the people that play this format is so linear that it's not surprising to hear comments such as this. If I had posted Lam's list incognito in the newbie forum before the event and claimed that it had a great matchup vs. Slaver and that it would make T8 in Syracuse, I would have been mocked so badly. It's really pathetic, to be honest. Get your heads out of your asses please.

[Freelancer]

The problem is that 99% off the 'new' decklists in the newbie forum don't have any platesting behind them, or are just plain terrible (for obvious reasons, curves starting at 3 mana without acc. etc.)...

I do agree with that to many players tend to ask; bad deck, with good player? while the truth is that good decks with bad players don't win*, same with bad decks/good players*...The good players with good decks (lotsa playtesting) tend to do well and end up in the top 8...

That said I absolutely LOVE this T8, it is so full off innovation, new decks emerged and old decks revised...This is just another proof that there is SO much more to be discovered...



*: Occasionally this will happen but not often enough to be considered usefull (this sounds weird but I can't find the correct word for it...)...(every deck/player has a chance in any given tournament)

[Vood]

"Did Kevin Cron win because his opponents played poorly?"

I did loose to kevin cron in round 6 because I played Poorly.

I was playing my kamigawan slaver against him. First game, I was pounding with Platinum angel and was planning to attack with welder the last 2 turn for the kill. I announced my attack too fast and forgot to attack with him.

I made another error in second game, playing mindslaver with 3 mana and 1 fetch left. Viashino Heretic destroyed the slaver while fetching.

My high point during that match was playing gifts ungiven and having Kevin give me ancestral recall and tinker  

[jpmeyer]

On Sensei Sensei: It's not nearly as bad as it looks. I believe only three people were playing it (Keith, plus iamfishman and GI), and they were all towards the top (of course, it was three good players).

I forget exactly how the final standings turned out, but both of them might've been able to top 8 if they hadn't taken unintentional draws earlier in the tourney.

[Saucemaster]

For my money, Lam's deck (and Sensei Sensei, the Top/Sight deck) was one of the coolest parts of the tournament.  That shit was hot, and while being a good player obviously contributed to Lam's success (duh), I'd urge everyone to test his deck.  It's like a Fish-Gro hybrid without Dryads.  Which might sound strange, but seriously, give it a whirl.  It's solid.

[jpmeyer]

I liked Lam's deck a lot, since it got around one of the biggest problems that I thought Fish had, in that its creatures were often really easy to kill with cards like Lava Dart.

[Vood]

On the metagame: although there were reps of all the major teams and most of the major geographic areas, Canada's presence overwhelmed this tournament.  I played, in six rounds, against 3 Canadians and Kevin played against 7, I think.  Their metagame is extremely random and they have imported it here.  It remains to be seen who will be the better (or the worse) for it.

Not knowing our metagame doesn't mean it is "Extremely" random. In Quebec side, bomberman has been the hotness making several top 8s in the latest 50+ players tournaments.  The build that was developed has a bye against Oath and Dragon unless it is unlucky.  We came with a strong team of 6 players with it anticipating a lot of Oath and dragons deck due to Control Slaver being dominant lately.

Lam's deck is a surprise and a new deck called Disco Stax posted a respectable 5-2-1 record. Shockwave workshop control deck also did very well. Mud attack was 5-1 when he got match loss for a forgotten lotus (Deck 60 cards, decklist 59. Level 3 rules are harsh on that) in round 7 against kevin cron. My build of Slaver  with Disrupting Shoals and Gifts ungiven (5 kamigawa cards, therefore I named it Kamigawan Slaver) did 6-2. The built was meant to win the mirror.

I would say that US metagame is not as varied as other parts of the world and that Canada's presence made this tournament much more interesting in the results.

[Pern]

match loss for a forgotten lotus (Deck 60 cards, decklist 59. Level 3 rules are harsh on that)

Random deck checks and missing the start of the match took several people out.
Both Brassman and Richard of the Lotus-free decklist
(sorry, I don't know what your name is on the Drain)
could have made top eight but for their rules losses.

Lord Of The Goats got bombed on drawing extra cards
after allowing his opponent to undo a similar action the game before.
If he'd called the judge, the match would have been his instead.

There were many warnings for technically sloppy play.
I have no doubt that there were some flawed judge calls as well.
There always are.

As the format gets more serious,
people really have to tighten up their shit,
on both sides of the judge call.
Losing to something other than your opponent's play
or your own play simply should not happen.

(judge hat off, spectator hat on)

Todd from Ct played the Future Top deck as well.

Lam Phan topdecks like a god.
I saw him rip some amazing series of cards, more than once.
Reminded me of Kowal's mono-blue winning Waterbury back when.
It was really fun to watch him play.

[xrobx]

On the judging/technicallity notes, a few things were quite unsportsman like and upsetting.

One, hearing of the way the opponent reacted when Lord of the Goats (Alex) accidently forgot to discard a third card for TfK and activated a bazaar, drawing 2.  This is bound to happen in high end T1 tournies yes, but in such a manner is not necessary.  He is a very nice player, and if his opponent were to make a mistake (I believe this actually did happen, and Alex let it go), he would say 'okay, I know you didn't do that purposely, so you may undo it.'  When a player yells "JUDGE!!!!" when you make a silly mistake like activating a bazaar before your third discard, it shows what kind of a player they really are and they are clearly just trying to advance based on other players unfortunate mistakes.

Another great example of this is when some idiot (I do hope this player is not from Canada, and if so I appologize for misrepresenting our attendence) was playing against a very respectful player (Mark Sims), and called a judge because apparently Mark was playing with marked cards :\   The judge came over, had mark take his mox out of its sleeve to see that the card was slightly bent.  Mark informed me he received a game/match (can't remember) loss for this, and had to use a proxy mox instead.  He showed me the card, and it looked like any other played mox, and yes it did have a slight bend to it, but NOTHING that could possibly warrant the decision of a judge to give him a loss for playing with marked cards.  Mark shrugged it off and managed to top 8 anyways.    Good job Mark. On the same note, I heard that the same player was bitching and trying to get another opponent a game loss, because the opponent had DIRT on his card sleeve.  The judge came over, inspected the card saying, "There doesn't appear to be any apparant pattern to the markings of this dirt..."  and that was that.  Please people, this is no way to play magic, and you should really be ashamed of yourself if you conduct yourself in a manner this way; it is very unsportsmanlike.

On a happier note, this was one of the best tournaments I've ever played in.  I was glad to see and meet many great T1 players, and had an awesome time.  The metagame I went against was flooded with CS and stax, but maybe that was just my lucky/unlucky pairings  I did see a variety of decks which was really cool, and got to play with many different people.  I'd love to return to syracuse, although the town itself is quite difficult to navigate, and play another SCG tourny.  SCG's prices and trade in prices were sick!  It was great to see a vendor actually giving fair prices on things, and amazing customer service.

There's so much to be said for this tournament, and such limited space to say it in.  It was an amazing experience and I urge others to attend these SCG events.  Waterbury is next on my (and other local TO players') list, as well as the big event; GENCON.  

Congrats to everyone for attending, and big congrats to the players who managed to squeek by and into the top 8.  Lam, you continue to amaze me with your undefeated entry into the T8, and Kevin, you do appear to be the godfather of STAX.  On a side note, Kevin managed to plow through my RG zoo deck that was metagamed to own his, and CS style decks (which it did, minus my matchup with him).  The coolest card I saw there was probably the devastating orim's thunder he cast on my root maze, killing my last hope and forever monkey, gorilla shaman.  Boo earns.

[virtual]

Kevin does something I've seen few people do - he evolves his deck concurrently with his SB so that his SB is basically a direct and functional extension of his deck. Most people design a deck first and then prepare a sb second as two separate steps. If you can see Kevin's SBing strategies, they are often counterintuitive, again, but very well though out. If anyone needs a reminder, remember Kevin's play at Gencon in 2003 where he ran DIVERT in his Stax sideboard as an answer to Artifact Mutation and it got him into the top 8 by Diverting an Ancestral in the final play?

I'm not sure this is the right place for this, however I would be very interested in seeing what Kevin's method of SBing versus some common decks is.  Looking at his SB, I seem to run into the delta-p problem, for instance seeing ground seal, choke, and the maindeck chains, and not knowing what I would side versus control slaver.  I'm guessing it may depend on if the opponent is playing the more goth version or not... anyways, similar questions to this abound for his other sideboard choices, and it would be enlightening to see what he says about his sideboarding, or at least how he sideboards in various matchups.  

-Virtual

[slowdowntubby]

To clear things up, I got a match loss in rnd 5 for a marked mox ruby (it has a warp at the top middle obviously from too much riffle shuffling). My opponent (who was one of the Quebecers playing Bomberman) claimed that he could cut to it every time while he was shuffling my deck. This mind you while he was holding the deck vertically and so close to his face that he probably could have read the card names anyways. But whatever, a marked card is a marked card anyway you cut it and apparently at REL3 that's a match loss. Obviously if I had known beforehand that the card was considered marked I would have just proxied it (I was playing 0 proxies).

My problem stems from the fact that a kid with a piece of paper stuffed into the sleeve of his foil welding jar (why it was there I don't know) was given a warning for basically the exact same infraction. This because he was a kid whose deck the judges had helped with before the tourney.

And then you get the players with marked sleeves who only got warnings. It was my understanding that a marked card and marked sleeve are one in the same when your whole deck is in sleeves... am I wrong?

Combine that with some other stellar rulings and it adds up to some pretty mediocre judging. How about these hits:

A judge rules that you can respond to the triggered ability of saccing a lotus for mana.

With Samurai of the Pale Curtain in play, a judge rules that cards discarded to thirst for knowledge are removed from game, along with the thirst.

And my favourite, in a match between player A & B, someone playing a match next to them notices that player A has apparently stolen player B's goblin piledriver with a gilded drake. Problem is this happened two turns ago. So the judge is called over and rules that both players are to go back in time and redo the two turns! How cards in hand and board position was determined is anybody's guess but back in time they went anyways.

Oh, and when I went to appeal my match loss to the head judge I was told I was lucky I didn't get DQed. How nice!

THis from the same judge who threatened to DQ Lam if he asked a second time if we could start our top 8 match. A real barrel of fun that guy was.

And for the timed top 8 matches, did I hear correctly that matches that went to time would be decided on highest life totals? I was too stunned at the time for this to register but was that really the case?

Anyways, despite the shoddy judging I did have a great time at this tournament and met some great people to boot. Of course winning a mox for my troubles doesn't hurt. The highlight of the whole day was definitely seeing Lam just tear through the field with his deck, which as can be expected some people in this very thread are already calling a pile. Granted it does look like a pile on paper, and Lam is someting of a sack (Razvan has photo evidence from our t8 match to prove it), but once you start playing against it and realize that yes, you do have to FOW mental note, you'll see why he went 7-0-1 in the swiss, and probably could have won the whole thing if he had had a little better luck against bob in the semis.

By the way, I count at least 7 Canadians in the top 16 (possibly 2 more - Dany Laberge sounds awfully Quebecois and maybe Richard Myrand too). Go team Canada!

[Vood]

Vintage gets serious when you have thousands involved.

Level 3 rules enforcement is applied. If I do stupid errors, I expect my opponent to get me a game lost. If he doesn’t, then it’s his loss. People will always try to bend the rules when there is that much money involved. Take by example forgetting to discard to thirst. If you let that go, maybe next time people will take advantage of that fact and try to transform thirst into ancestral hoping you will not notice. How do you draw the line? How many people will get you a game loss because you forgot to sacrifice to stax? Would you let it go? I know players who play stax and are always on the lookout that you will forget. What about stalling just enough so you get a draw. I got burned by that too many times. You get pissed off, you tell yourself you will never let anything go anymore. I know it sucks, but that's the way it works now.

The only time I would let go is when I am playing against a good friend. My best friend got a match loss for forgetting his black lotus on the list. Did he cheat? No. Did some people ask for a deck check? Maybe. Who knows? I am pretty sure some people will ask for deck check just in case.

I've heard the story about the bend mox. I was told that the guy noticed it and cut the deck 3 times, always cutting right at the mox. If you are able to see exactly where is the card, doesn't that make for a marked card? I am 100% sure this was not intentional, but the rules are the rules. It’s white or black, never grey. I am pretty sure that just replacing the card by a proxy and getting a warning would have been sufficient. It didn't warrant a game loss. But what you do when it is intentional? If you only get a warning, some people will try it out every time and get away with it.

We have rules that are strict and harsh for a reason. It forces us to play better and it reduces cheating. That is the only way we have to ensure a safe environment. I don't blame anyone for calling a game loss. It is part of the game. It's the same for all form of competitions.

Blaming people for calling a game loss because you did an error is what I consider unsportsman. The only one you can blame, is yourself.

[Saucemaster]

Blaming people for calling a game loss because you did an error is what I consider unsportsman. The only one you can blame, is yourself.

Vood, while I agree with the gist of your post, I think you need to reread slowdowntubby's post.  He isn't complaining about the match loss--he accepts that.  What he's complaining about is that the judges were wildly inconsistent in determining the punishments for identical infractions.  If one player is playing with marked cards and is simply given a warning, and another player is playing with marked cards and is given a match loss, something is obviously very wrong with the judging.  It doesn't matter whether they believe the infractions were accidental or purposeful.  As you pointed out, it's black and white.  The judges HAVE to give the same punishments for identical infractions.  And they weren't.  I think slowdowntubby has a valid complaint.

[Revvik]

I prefer watching the opponent's game plan (usually a good idea, although some people forget since their decks are designed to make the opponent irrelevant) and just remind him.  Noticing a failure to discard to Thirst for Knowledge is pretty easy, and although it is hard to prove malice in such a case, I find it very hard to justify calling a judge over.  I hate to see Vintage reduced to petty rules squabbles - I am perfectly comfortable with the fact that people make mistakes, and honestly, the majority of them are just that.

Calling a judge over in an attempt to get someone a game loss is pretty dickish.  Very few things should be deserving of that.

Despite my leniency towards issues like this, I've only ever been drawn to time once, and I highly doubt that it was due to stalling, since I know who it was on these boards and believe him to be above that (but not above playing combo   )

As far as the quality of judging goes (and I'm just going by what I've read here), WOW.  I've read terrible rulings on Saumrai of the Pale Curtain and Yawgmoth's Will (Yawgmoth's friggin' Will even) and the inconsistencies in punishments, and it seems like a drastic reversal of what I saw in Chicago.

[Vood]

My post was not targetted at anyone. I support slowdowntubby with his complaint at 100%. When judging is poor, everything breaks down. Slowdowntubby didn't complain at all for the match loss, he was just revealing how bad the rulings were.

[Pern]

Iconsistent rulings are the worst.
Two of the judges were very inexperienced,
which is rough when they're handing out Rel 3 penalties.
Some of these rulings were not inconsistent, however.

To clear things up, I got a match loss in rnd 5 for a marked mox ruby (it has a warp at the top middle obviously from too much riffle shuffling).  .....  

And then you get the players with marked sleeves who only got warnings. It was my understanding that a marked card and marked sleeve are one in the same when your whole deck is in sleeves... am I wrong?

A card you can cut to or a pattern of markings,
such as all your Mana Drain sleeves have a similar dirt spot,
is Marked Cards Major, match loss.
Markings such as random dirt with no apparent corellation
fall under Marked Cards Minor, caution.

A judge rules that you can respond to the triggered ability of saccing a lotus for mana.

With Samurai of the Pale Curtain in play, a judge rules that cards discarded to thirst for knowledge are removed from game, along with the thirst.

These are horrible rulings.

And my favourite, in a match between player A & B, someone playing a match next to them notices that player A has apparently stolen player B's goblin piledriver with a gilded drake. Problem is this happened two turns ago. So the judge is called over and rules that both players are to go back in time and redo the two turns! How cards in hand and board position was determined is anybody's guess but back in time they went anyways.

I was first call on this one, and bumped it up to the head judge.
It was obviously a mess.
What would you have done?

[Saucemaster]

My post was not targetted at anyone. I support slowdowntubby with his complaint at 100%. When judging is poor, everything breaks down. Slowdowntubby didn't complain at all for the match loss, he was just revealing how bad the rulings were.

My fault, then, sorry!  I had assumed that you were directly responding to slowdowntubby.  Maybe *I* should be the one reading more carefully?

[aTn]

On the metagame: although there were reps of all the major teams and most of the major geographic areas, Canada's presence overwhelmed this tournament.  I played, in six rounds, against 3 Canadians and Kevin played against 7, I think.  Their metagame is extremely random and they have imported it here.  It remains to be seen who will be the better (or the worse) for it.

To me, it is not clear what you mean by 'random' and frankly, correct me if I'm wrong, but if find your usage of the word slightly arrogant. I for one prefer a diverse metagame to one where the preparation for a tournament is given by the answer to the question: How can I adapt such and such archetype to beat Slaver ? (This situation is hypothetical, I am not targeting anyone in particular).  I also find that a rich metagame is one that favors the exchange of ideas rather than give only a few individuals (or teams) the right to build new decks that will be accepted by the community.

[outpost1]

Hi all,

I am fully aware of the complaints being posted on this (and other) Syracuse threads. Please know that I have already taken steps to ensure that the problems that occured this past weekend will never happen again.

I thank all of you for your continued support, and look forward to seeing everyone in Chicago!