I doubt the relevance of such a newly defined statement if the important and overpowering point is that we are not operating in a vacuum. If you reference Duress in your article as an option to play over Intuition-AK, then why didn't you also include how well Duress sets up Yawgmoth's Will? It does a much better job than Intuition. No it's not better in a vacuum, but casting Duress to clear the way for Will is much better when the only thing stopping your Will is what you just Duressed away. It also only costs 1 mana, and not 5.
I think there's an interesting debate contained in this. Here's how I view the point:
1) All other things being equal, if deck A is more powerful than deck B in a vacuum, it is a stronger deck than deck B is. This is the guiding principle of Steve's point.
2) All other things are NOT equal. Everyone acknowledges this. Tournament play, which is all that matters, is not played in a vacuum, and you can't simply ignore your opponent. Specifically, Rich doubts Goth Slaver's (deck A's) flexibility in adjusting to constantly changing metagame conditions, and feels that its extra power is undercut by its perceived inability to sufficiently adapt.
3) Steve disagrees. He thinks that Goth Slaver, while it is a tighter decklist than Control Slaver, still has enough flexibility to adapt to the metagame while still being able to leverage its greater inherent power.
4) Obviously this is an issue that can only be settled by actual gameplay. This involves both sides testing, and a close look at tournament results. Steve points to his own (and generally, Meandeck's) testing and the Waterbury results. Rich has a valid counter in pointing to his own numerous top finishes and constantly evolving decklist, which certainly displays a great deal of flexibility (and it certainly helps that he's and undoubted master at adapting his deck to the expected metagame).
So right now, I see it as a stalemate. I'm not sure we're going to be able to solve this one simply through discussion, because I think this is one of those questions that can really only be solved by testing and more tournament results. My personal experience is that Goth Slaver *is* flexible enough
so far, but there's going to be a limit at some point to how much it can adapt, and I have no idea where that limit is. My instinct is that if the metagame changes to the extent that you need more slots to shore up your metagame position than Goth Slaver affords, you're probably playing the wrong deck in the first place, and might be better served by simply changing decks entirely.
I fully understood the point he was making.
As you said the statement "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" is conditional upon all things being equal. Once we get to step #2 in your flow, we must reapply that to step #1 and we then realize that the condition upon which step #1 hinges is false, that is all things are not equal and consequently the statement thereafter is not necessarily true or false - it's just not relevant.
That's false. The only relelvant question is: Is the benefit of running AK greater than the cost? That's it. The analysis that Goth Slaver is more powerful in a vacuum IS relevant to that. HOWEVER, it is not logically necessary to accept that point to conclude that the benefit of AK engine is worth the cost. That's where you and Chris were getting tripped up. It was simply a supporting point and in no way necessary to the conclusion that Goth Slaver is better becuase the AK engine is worth it.
In simple wording, "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" means absolutely nothing. Arguing theory and having a catchy slogan all is fine, but the statement is clearly an illusion with no real application. I would assume it would mislead a great number of people unable to see through the smoke, though.
That's, again, false. Objective power is most definately a relevant question. Objective power is measurable and it has an application. It is one factor, among many, that you should consider in determining which deck to play. Objective power is often measured by goldfishing, Goldfishing helps identify, as I said, intra-deck synergies that should be considered in weighing final design questions int he cost/benefit analysis. It is not determinative, as I said, but it helps. All information helps. I talked with Rich about this and the problem is that you simply can't goldfish with Control Slaver - it doesn' t make any sense to do so. BUT, you CAN With Goth slaver. You can play out the whole game in solitare in a way that you can't with Control Slaver becuase the decks, in some ways, are so different.
This "analysis" you speak of is merely a subjective statement conjured up by yourself to confuse the simple-minded.
A statement based upon being in a vacuum is certainly fine to make, and mind you I never said it wasn't true (although I couldn't care less whether it's true or not). However, there are several problems associated with basing a deck's power level on being in a vacuum and trying to use that as a means to hype your other arguements.
In a vacuum, Jayemdae Tome is stronger than Ancestral Recall. Why not? It draws more cards than AR does. A deck with 4 AR and a deck with 4 Tomes can both draw a lot of cards in a vacuum. Only one, however, will win consistently when they are played against each other. A secondary conclusion is that the one who can ultimately draw more cards in a vacuum is not necessarily the one to actually do that in reality.
Similarly, the costs of the AK engine are not readily apparent in a vacuum. Only when an opponent sits down across the board are all the costs and benefits brought into the equation. This is not to say anything about the quality of the AK engine itself. That is beside this point. The point is you can say anything you want about Goth Slaver being more objectively powerful in a vacuum, in goldfishing, in a binder, or even in my ass crack but none of that can be applied to what happens when the AK engine is played against an opponent and that is the only thing that matters.
To provide an example from a realm outside of the game, masturbating is effectively goldfishing but hopefully I don't need to explain how that is irrelevant when a partner asks for gratification. Hopefully you wouldn't do the same thing that you would normally do in a vacuum...
From my point of view, your statement may as well say Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful masturbator. I wouldn't try to disprove it just like I'm not trying to disprove that Goth Slaver may be more powerful in a vacuum. The point is: so what? Nobody plays in a vacuum.
Ultimately, goldfishing is an excellent learning tool, we both agree. It is only useful for learning how a deck's cards interact with it's other cards though. It is not useful for learning how a deck's cards interact with the opponent's cards. I always goldfish an unfamiliar deck before playing it against an opponent. Never do I base any conclusions on goldfishing though. The opponent's decks absolutely must be taken into account in order to determine whether the AK engine is worth the the costs, and at no point should AK's usefulness in a vacuum be used as a legitimate reason to include it or not. Maybe if half the games we played at a tournament were goldfished then I would give more credit to your statement, but that's not true. Every single game in a tournament is played against an opponent, and thusly every test game that should be used to determine AK's usefulness should also be against an opponent. If you determine AK's usefulness based upon evidence discovered in a vacuum, your evidence is flawed.
Most importantly, and the primary reason you are making a false statement is this:
Speed is relevant. Speed is a measure that has many purposes. Faster decks can slow down and in doing so leverage their speed to trade for power. In other words, you can slow down a fast deck and often leverage that speed into a more powerful play next turn. With meandecck tendrils, the goldfish rate is mostly turn one, but if you slow it down, you can make your hand more resilient to their countermagic on turn two becuase you can then over power them with too many threats. The same principle applies here. The faster your goldfish the more inherent burst of power you have that can be leveraged into a more dominant midgame position.
I agree. That is why I said tempo is a huge factor in the mirror earlier in the thread.
There are 2 main ways Control Slaver wins:
1) Casting Yawgmoth's Will
2) Activating Mindslaver
While Goth Slaver may perhaps be able to accomplish the first objective more often, Control Slaver is by far better equipped to accomplish the second - and the one better able to leverage power as you described because it doesn't have the AK engine slowing it down.
That is what I meant by saying I don't see the relevance of such a newly defined statement. Concerning the rest of what you quoted here, it seems you didn't respond to the main point I tried to make that Duress is an example of a card that may not be strong in a vacuum, but it certainly is a good card in actual gameplay. I saw no reference in the article to even a passing thought that Steve has played anything but Intuition-AK in the deck. I saw nothing that showed me he has played the deck with other possible cards that may set up Will better than Intuition-AK, and I can't assume otherwise. I saw no critical analysis of Intuition compared to other cards that may also set up Will better than what Intuition-AK currently does.
That's what the point of this thread is for. My article wasn't to assert conclusively that AK engine is superior - it was to suggest that those who don't like it might be able to get the same things out of the Goth Slaver builds that they like out of the other builds. Getting into the specific card analysis is way beyond the scope of the article. It is much more suited for a direct dialogue, say here, to talk about individual card valuations. I know very well the value of Duress in control decks to protect will.
Your audience, however, may not know the value of Duress in control decks to protect Will.
At the very least, mentioning a counter-arguement before another person can make it is a persuasive tool to support your position. :)
Ultimately, yes, tournament results are the best factor in determining whether AK should be run or not. Are you aware of any such numbers? I am.
Absolutely you can point to a million tournaments won by Rich Shay. But that doesn't not prove that AK engine isn't better. Why? Becuase as I said in my response to Chris, you can win 100 games with Abyss, but you might have won 101 with Moat. Moreover, the Waterbury generally provides the most convincing evidence and would have to be given by far the greatest weight. But I'd rather not go down this road becuase, it, like the debate about my clarity in writing, will distract from the only relevant question: is AK worth the benefit? And the only way we can persuade the other side is by presenting convincing arguments for our positions. I think the burden is clearly on the non-AK players to explain why they think its better without it given my claim that they can get all the cards they want into their decklists if they just work a bit harder at it. The top two decks at the Waterbury prove this: both had great metagame choices: md darts and Wishes. [/quote]
I can also point to a large number of tournaments won by people other than Rich Shay, yet still without the AK engine.
I know the real reason why you don't want to go down any road that talks about numbers or tournament results: because they're not in your favor. Regardless, if you don't want to bring up numbers, fine. I don't need them.
As a Control Slaver player, I can certainly tell you that it is not in my best interest to cut down to 3, much less 2 Thirsts as you suggest to make room for Intuition.
I'm not sure about this. I think two is too few, I agree with you there. But three Thirsts seems doable to me. Four Brainstorms and three Thirsts, plus simply discarding at the end of your turn after drawing an assload of cards (as Goth Slaver is wont to do) seems reasonable to me. And Stephen pointed out that cutting the fourth Thirst would be a rare occurence, and almost never correct. So we're discussing fairly extreme conditions.
I'm glad you wouldn't cut any Thirsts and would instead call it a rare occurrence. Regardless, Steve was discussing the 3rd Intuition vs. the 3rd TFK in his article,
This statement is a plain lie. The first three TFK were in my "essentials" list and therefore I never ONCE said that the third TFK was cuttable.
To quote you in this very thread:
"That isn't to say that you won't run Thirst 4 - but if it came down to Intution 3 or Thirst 3, I would think long and hard and probablyo cut the third Thirst."
Is that what you call essential?
You did conveniently ignore the rest of my reasoning for TFK. It is for tempo reasons that TFK is so good. Fish would beat Tog based purely on tempo, and Control Slaver does much of the same. I don't see how taking away that aggressive tempo only to replace it with something slower is going to help accomplish anything.
Again, no one is talking about cutting out TFK from the deck entirely. I was simply making the piont that if push came to shove, I'd rather have the third Intuition than the 4th TFK.
Again, for emphasis:
"That isn't to say that you won't run Thirst 4 - but if it came down to Intution 3 or Thirst 3, I would think long and hard and probablyo cut the third Thirst."
Cut back to 3 Welder? Welder essentially lets the deck bypass the drawback of this concept called the casting cost of artifacts, all for a measly R. In most instances I'll look at a Mindslaver in my hand that wouldn't normally be playable until 6 mana, but suddenly it's hitting play when I'm at 3 mana (Thirst-Welder) and suddenly Welder is the red Ritual here. That's not counting the times it's recurring Black Lotus either. Why would I want to run only 3 of a card that lets me basically ignore the casting cost of such a powerful card that it lets me take control of the opponent's turn. There's no doubt this deck is so powerful because of the synergy between Welder and Thirst. Running less than 4 of either one is akin to running less than 4 Dark Rituals in a Tendrils deck.
And running four Welders doesn't count all the times when you play a first-turn Welder who does nothing but sit on the table looking pretty until turn three or four. Does that happen often? Not particularly, no. Do you almost always want four Welders? Absolutely. But the point is that, especially in Goth Slaver, you rarely want or need one on turn one. With the number of cards this deck sees, Welder is like Psychatog: you're going to see one when you need it. And you don't need it until you're ready to win. I usually find myself dropping Welder until turn three so that I can drop him and keep up Drain mana or (with a Mox) three mana for Intuition or Thirst on my opponent's end step. Again, you know the deck quite well and I know we're all aware of this. But this is exacerbated in Goth Slaver by the fact that often the deck's Plan A is simply to cast YawgWill on turn four, play a Welder, play a Time Walk, then go apeshit. Stephen wasn't kidding when he said that Goth can frequently be considered a YawgWill deck. Goth Slaver views Welder more like Psychatog than it does like Dark Ritual.
It's blatantly obvious that a Dark Ritual effect is greater than a Psychatog effect.
Just because a first turn Welder is inactive for a turn or so doesn't mean that it isn't bringing in a Mindslaver when it does become active. In the example you provided, by all means cast Intuition-AK during my end step.
You just have a fundamentally flawed understanding of how Goth Slaver works. The deck doesn't jsut sit there and wait for welder to work. Often with Goth Slaver I won't even play a Welder until I've cast Yawg Will and Time Walk out of it and then Welder. The analysis comes down to: would you rather have the 4th Welder or another draw spell: i.e. 3rd Intuition or Fact. A definate amount of the time, I'd rather have the draw spell with Goth Slaver. Moreover, the example you gave with Mindslaver is rather puzzling as almost all of these decks only run one Slaver, and at most two. Welding in Pentavus or PLatinum Angel is a weak manuever for Goth Slaver given what it can do.
Goth Slaver is the only kind I've seen that runs one Mindslaver. Control Slaver has always run at least two. Please, don't confuse the two.
Welder is also useful for recurring Black Lotus, Moxen, and other artifact mana to provide a mana boost - enough to cast a spell that wouldn't normally be playable that turn if it weren't for Welder. Many games he will do nothing for a while, like you said. That is especially true for Goth Slaver, which isn't meant to abuse Welder. Control Slaver, however, finds a way to abuse it because the broken card here is Welder - not AK.
If I played a "useless" Goblin Welder first turn I'll respond with Thirst, weld in Slave, take your turn and use Will for my own good. Unlikely? It takes 7 mana, whereas your Welder, Intuition-AK play is 6. As far as tempo is concerned, those plays are VERY close in terms of when they happen during a normal course of the game. You tell me which one wins.
Again, you example is extremely puzzling considering that you probably only have one Slaver, or at most, two. Your chances of going turn one Welder turn two Thirst dropping slaver and welding it in is extremely low.
Once again, Control Slaver doesn't run less than two.
Yes, the chances of that particular play are low. The point is:
Of course it's a powerful early play. The point is that by running 4 Welders and 4 Thirsts, those plays will happen as often as they possibly can. Cutting back on either card will only disrupt the natural flow of the deck and make it more difficult to achieve it's goal.
But that is met by, predictably, a statement that I don't understand the deck.
Again you simply don't understand the goal of the deck. This isn't control slaver - it's Goth Slaver. Instead of maybe getting to Slave you, Goth Slaver wants to outdraw you by a huge margin, and then fucking obliterate you with a massive will.
This clears up your stance on the question: would you rather Slave somebody or draw 3. Yet I am the one with a misunderstanding. Oh the irony.
If you can find another slot to cut besides TFK or Welder, I'm all ears.
What I am saying and what the Waterbury results bear out, is that you can get all the agility and flexibility from intelligent design. The deck is not so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could not play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants. The examples I provided were merely possible ways to approach the deck to acheive that end.
Taking out the double negative:
"The deck is so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants."
Steve put the second negative in the wrong place. Let me rephrase it. Here's the question: "Is the deck so tight that a player the calibre of Rich Shay cannot get all the agility and flexibility he wants if he plays Intuition/AK?"
Here's Steve's answer: "No."
The sentence was slightly flawed, but cut Steve some slack, guys. He writes more articles, more frequently, than anyone else on this sight. They can't *all* be perfect, and (IMHO) he's still the single best writer on the Vintage scene.
Good. That's one improvement down, now let's hope this trend continues.
You didn't answer the question though: can Rich Shay make Goth work with the agility and flexibility he wants?
This is the question I hope, FINALLY, we can get to. Instead of arguing about Rhetoric - can we PLEASE start addressing this issue? I've put forward my arguments, now instead of critiqing the clarity of my article (which you have successfully done) or arguing minor/ancillary points that don't directly bear (whether one deck is objectively more powerful or the debate over goldfishing), let's address the only central issue in this whole debate: Is the benefit of AK worth the cost?
Rich has already said that the AK engine is not worth the costs. I suppose I wasn't clear enough when asking what else to cut besides Welder and TFK, but let me make it clear:
I would rather activate a Mindslaver than draw three cards. By putting in the AK engine, I decrease the chances by which I can consistently activate Mindslaver, and replace that consistency with the effect of drawing three cards.
My point is that as far as I can see, there's no way besides testing and tournament play that we can actually evaluate which is more important, and to what degree the objective power of a deck is mitigated by interactive considerations.
Fine. You want to argue tournament play? Only 12% of winning Slaver lists run AK. Only 12%. That means over 7x as many lists don't play AK that do play it.
You can find the numbers
here courtesy of jeek. Of course, you'll have to scroll to the bottom to find AK.
Tournament results *and testing*. My personal belief is that very few people on either side of the table have actually done enough testing with both builds. The tournament results so far are biased by the fact that so many more people are *playing* the Intuition-less builds, so testing is the next natural step.
I don't believe it. Rich has offered to test with members of Meandeck, yet nobody has answered.
Perhaps you'd like to test against him. Or maybe Smmenen would would like to back up his theorizing.
Intuition is only slower than TfK when you're considering it as a draw engine. I know it's been said many times by many people besides myself, but Intuition really only finds AK in those cases where the deck can afford the tempo loss *anyway*. In almost all other cases, Intuition is simply an instant-speed tutor for a 3-of. In this role, it's not actually comparable to any card in Control Slaver, since Control Slaver doesn't even have a card that functions in this way.
No, it's not comparable to anything in Control Slaver because it uses tutors to put exactly what you want in hand, and not the worst of 3.
Keep in mind, I've played variants with Intuition-AK and with just Intuition. Intuition, as a tutor, is weak and not nearly as strong unless the rest of the deck is built around it, which means AK at the very least.
I also think you're underestimating Goth Slaver's ability to recoup lost tempo. Tempo does win games, in Type 1 more than any other format, but this deck in particular can do just what Psychatog used to, and make up for its lost tempo in spades. Giving up tempo in order to recoup it with interest later in the game has always been one of the fundamental principles guiding Control decks in all formats.
I also am not underestimating the deck. I am quite aware that both decks run very broken cards, and in no way am I saying that Goth Slaver can't win due to drawing more off AK. I've done it a lot myself.
However, your example regarding Tog doesn't make sense. Tog would also try to give up early tempo and recoup it with interest later (I played Tog ever since JP first introduced it), but it would lose to Control Slaver because it gave them enough time to activate Mindslaver and just win. While Goth Slaver can compete using TFK, the fact remains that the AK engine is still too slow to matter in the face of a Slaver activation. Tempo is precisely the reason why I do not run AK.
Not to mention those times when Intuition is actually more tempo-positive than TfK is, namely any time you have a potentially active Welder.
There's no denying that Intuition can abuse Welder. But Intuition can't abuse Welder AND draw 3 cards like TFK can. TFK also puts an artifact of choice into the graveyard, and not give your opponent the choice of what goes to the graveyard or not.
Except that Goblin Welder isn't always a Dark Ritual effect, and that in any case the Ritual effect is *identical* no matter what turn it's cast on, as long as it's cast on the turn before you want to Weld something. There may be times when you want to weld on turn 2, but god-hands aside, they're actually a rarity. You are much more likely to jockey for position for a turn or two and THEN start welding, and that's the position in which Goth Slaver often finds itself, and where it Intuition helps it excel. For that purpose, the 4th Welder, while frequently desirable, is not strictly necessary.
The difference is, I Weld things on turn 2 to gain a tempo boost. Something as simple as Welding in one Mox for a tapped Mox is a Time Walk in mana development, let alone the times I'm Welding in Black Lotus on turn 2. Unless you consider drawing Black Lotus and Welder to be a "god-hand" (which I don't).
Welder is powerful even without large artifacts to Weld in.
In the example I provided, if I resolved a Welder on turn three, holding enough mana to either Drain or cast Intuition or TfK, and I cast Intuition on your endstep, what in the world makes you think I'm going to Intuition for AK? I don't require anything LIKE 6 mana (which in any case is a full turn faster than your 7 mana), I just need that three mana on your endstep, and then I get to weld the juicy artifacts I Intuitioned for on my turn. We're not comparing 6 and 7, we're comparing 4 and 7. And as far as tempo is concerned, those plays aren't anything near close in terms of when they happen during the normal course of the game.
And with only 3 Welders you're not going to play them as often as Control Slaver will.
Or, since Duress is being compared to Intuition here, I could just as easily Duress and leave UU1 open (assuming we both got the same mana start, which isn't safe to assume because Goth Slaver runs less mana). What do you do then? If you Drain the Duress, you can't cast Intuition until next turn, which will only play into my own Drain. Cast Intuition, and I'll Drain it while still resolving Duress. Either way, your Drain will at best provide 1 mana while mine will start at 2, and like I said tempo wins the mirror.
We can talk all day long about examples.
My point here? Let's not say "X deck has won more lotuses than Y deck" because those results are skewed by how many people play them. The more essential question is what has a better matchup versus all the decks in a field.
Right. The rest of the field. Tell me how Intuition is better than Duress against combo. Tell me how Intuition is better than Welder against Workshops. Tell me how Intuition is better against Fish than Platinum Angel and Trike.
