Query: Do you think there is a lack of consensus about Basic Propositions In T1?

[PucktheCat]

Steve, I had a long post about factors leading to odd deck designs in Vintage, but I deleted it.  My main point is this.  Game theory (from my limited understanding) says that if you have two alternate strategies, each of whose success is dependant on my opponent failing to guess your strategy, you should choose between the options randomly.  In other words, in paper, rock, scissors the only rule for choosing is not to be predictable.  Now, obviously Magic isn't as simple as paper, rock, scissors, but I think that in T1 there are more decks that are at roughly the same power level than other formats.  The depth of the card pool has a leveling effect because so many absurdly powerful strategies exist.  That means that a larger component of the game is the rock, paper, scissors element.  Unpredictability is a virtue.

Consider Welder in 5c Stax as a case in point.  It is at least possible that the following set of premises is correct:  If everyone knew I was going to play Welder, Welder would be bad (Darkblast, Pithing Needle, and so on).  If everyone knew I wasn't going to play Welder, that would be bad to.  If this is the case, and it may be, then I would be best off to decide in paper, rock, scissors fashion, randomly, whether to include Welder or not.  It may be that it isn't the case - Welder might be good enough that the hate isn't enough to discourage you or bad enough that even in a metagame without Welder hate you wouldn't play it - but my scenario is at least a real possibility.

This isn't, of course, to say that Gilded Claw is a good deck.  It isn't.

Leo

[iamfishman]

No offense to Juggernaut Go, but I think the same thing when I see his decklists.  I just can't possibly see how they are objectively correct. 

I'm not saying this sarcastically, I'm dead serious.  I don't think he cares an ounce about objectively correct and perfers winning with the WTF factor.  Travis is the kind of guy who will play Jugeernauts even in a field where Juggernaut is terrible, simply because he wishes to win on his own terms.  Call it noble or call it bull-headed, that's how he rolls.

If I am wrong Travis, please let me know.

I just wanted to clear that up, since, I do agree that people are not the best in the world at explaining their descion making process.(c'mon...I teach proof based Geometry...I'm all about defense of an argument.)

[Juggernaut GO]

shock value is always > then winning.  Winning comes a real close 2nd though.

Objectivity is totally for people that went to college for more then 1 semester, this does not include me.

[defector]

I don't see much cause for alarm personally. Creation can be a messy process and the format has recently been flooded with cards and players. It will take a while for things to sort out and settle down. This is the "bull market" phase, and after enough experience has been gained by new players and the new cards are properly contextualized, we will see a settling of sorts. I'm not saying it will become a four deck metagame, we may well end up with an eight or ten deck metagame, which is all the better for the diversity of the format. Once that happens, of course we can include one or more two new decks as the metagamed control decks surface out of the chaos. This isn't so different from what happened in the late nineties when the format went from people that couod play powerfuk cards to people that could play. Be patient, the truths of the game haven't changed, thay are just a litlke shook up right now.
defector

[Moxlotus]

Everyone is really attached to their own ideas.  We all want to prove each other wrong most of the time.

True.  Also, the format is so broken that most of the time we don't even realize what small changes in the deck helped us win the game because the game ended with "hay guyz, I ripped Will, replayed 4 moxen and Academy, and drew 19 cards, double Time Walked and slavered him 7 times lolz".  You don't notice it was the Darksteel that wasn't eaten by Mox Monkey to allow you to cast the game winning Will.

Also, its so easy to remember the game where [card] was the one thing that could help you and you topdecked it, so you really don't want to cut it ever.

[Tanadan]

Is it possible that the format is just getting to be more like every other format ie. the people who are good players and deckbuilders don't bother with forums apart from inside their own team, and just playtest with other people they know are good? I don't frequent the Type 1 forums here much anymore, so I can't answer this question, but: How many people who have made Top 8 at various recent tournaments are actually active posters here? Does that number tell you anything?

Apart from Steve, of course. You seem to have a great desire to _write_, not just play and succeed, so that the world at large understands your thought-processes. It reminds me a lot of Zvi.

[Dozer]

Knowledge is power in my opinion.  We (as a community) need more players who have taken the time to learn about the WHOLE format, not simply about their pet favourite deck that "[insert either Andy, Steve, Brian, or Robert's name here] T8'd SCG with!".

That's precisely the reason why I am usually not posting in Combo or Stax threads. I do not have as much time as I'd like to spend on Vintage; even though it is my hobby, it is a recreational one, despite all tournament orientation. I feel that I cannot contribute to TPS discussions because I have no experience with the deck. I can participate in discussions on areas that I know something about, mainly control(lish) decks and Burning Wish/ Gifts decks because I have been playing those and my team has been developing mostly in that direction.

I think, though, that Steve's original question is very, very valid: Are the basic propositions clear? I think they very much are not. The basic rules of Vintage deckbuilding have gone lost on some and others never heard of them. And I'm talking about basic stuff as mana optimization (Vintage mana bases are often heavily misbuilt), 4-of's, useless singletons (even if they are cute), counter-suites and removal options as well as metagaming, tweaking and the knowledge how the basic brokenness skews this format.

That in former times, these lessons were ingrained in most posters on these boards. There were less radical ideas and more "Kernel"-discussions about really fine and detailed points of single decks. People wrote pages on single cards; these days, they write paragraphs on decklists. Not exclusively, but the in-depth discussion has made way to a broaded scope -- which is not necessarily a bad thing, but something to keep in mind. The scope is so broad, though, that every deck idea is built on different assumptions which the author has to explain before we can understand his thinking behind the decklist. I credit this to the loss of Rakso's articles.

Yes, you read that right: Vintage is missing Oscar Tan, or at least another figure in a hilarious hat who explains the tedious basics with examples from actual Vintage games. Rakso's articles went a long way in given Vintage players a common knowledge base; everybody knew that even though the articles were skewed from the control point of view, reading Rakso also taught fundamentals of the Vintage game. I think currently, there is no Vintage writer out there who does that. Most players who also write have progressed far beyond explaining those basics, and that goes obviously for Smmenen, but for Veggies as well as Brassman and the other occasional Vintage writers. We have no regular article series on our beloved SCG that makes Vintage accessible as a format for new players. Sure, they can browse through Rakso articles, but that's not really a concise way to get some fundamentals down. There are other great resources, but they all are from the past.

Actively searching for basic content is rare, and it would do a lot of players good to stumble across an SCG frontpage article that teaches or at least explains Vintage basics. This lack appears so serious, to me at least, that I have been compelled to write articles like that myself for a while now. Unfortunately, I cannot invest the time it would take to do it properly at the moment, because as a full-time student going towards graduation my time is too limited to do something as regular as that series would have to be.

the people who are good players and deckbuilders don't bother with forums apart from inside their own team,

This may certainly an issue, but it doesn't really pertain to the topic. It's not about sharing adavanced know-how, it is about how even the basics go amiss. Good players on a forum do not necessarily enlighten new players. The talking "at" each other instead of "to" that Steve mentions may well be a result of that knowledge gap; if the new players do not understand the basics on which the experienced ones criticize their decks, but the experienced ones take them for granted, mutual understanding will be very difficult unless someone explains the underlying assumptions to everybody involved.

Dozer

[bebe]

I'm just loving this converation. It proves Steve's point. There is no consensus because there is no real discussion. In the old days there was a pretty broad view of looking at new ideas. I wrote at least three Extreme Vintage articles on decks that were outside of the mainstream ( granted a few became mainstream eventually ). People responded with insights and detailed analysis of why a card should or should not be in a particular deck. They did not insult or flame. They discussed.

Today no new deck that has not already won at a major event seems to be given any credit. We need the tesserac approach to deck building again. We need to look at the unravelled pieces as well as the whole. Dicemanx correctly pointed out that many new decks are scoffed on these forums. I post more in casual forums then regular forums now to avoid the flaming ( admittadly all my decks have a casual look to them). And Dicemanx - my highlander did make top eight. My mask did make top eight and my new deck  when i decide which top play will compete.

The principles of good deck building have not changed. Its the assertations that have. Its the hyperbole that has. I applaud anyone who uses Juggies in every deck. Just show me how you can make them work and Iim all for it.

I'm with Steve, too, looking at gilded claw. I have no issues with one ofs if you have a consistent way of finding these silver bullets and a reason to have these silver bullets in your deck. Otherwise it makes no sense to me either but I'm willing to listen to any explanation as to why its included. I fully intend to use a single Seal of Cleansing in my next deck. Steve wants only two gifts in any given deck.

Yes, any deck sporting power can go broken at times in Vintage. This is a given. Which is why bad cards make into decks - remember the infamous Atog deck! I like the fact that I can come to a tournament with something that is completely unexpexcted - I want to win with a Rainbow Efreet. But I understand that this is not a tier one deck. It's a deck with numerous other weapons, a lot of power, some control, a bit of hate that randomly chooses a win condition. Anyone can get lucky and Tinker/Colossus - it does not make your build the optimal one.

And just to make a point I continually harp on - net decks are NOT the optimal build for your meta. My decks may or may not suit your meta. Deck building is not black and white. We do need consensus though. We need to agree to give insight with our critiques. We need to agree to actually read what someone is trying to get accross. We need to stop generalizing everything. We need to be respectful of the old goats and the newbees. This is the consensus I would like to see.

[M.Solymossy]

I know I've been warned for writing something on these forums for dan, but I think this is onehundred percent justified!

HunterKiller403 (7:11:11 PM): "You guys are completely hypocritical, petty, and just plain ignorant about a lot of this. You won't even have this flamefest where Angry can speak in his own defense. Talk all the shit you want, the fact is that these 'horribly random' decks he keeps throwing together seem to keep winning power more consistantly than half the things discussed in this thread."

HunterKiller403 (7:25:57 PM): theres at least 4 or 5 guys who just say Gilded Claw is bad
HunterKiller403 (7:26:08 PM): ive never seen any of them posting on my threads
HunterKiller403 (7:26:28 PM): ive never heard from any of them interested in my latest list to test with or try out
HunterKiller403 (7:26:48 PM): ive never seen them post an ACTUAL argument against it on ANY board

He has a point:  For Example: 

I agree with Smemmycakes looking at gilded claw. I have no issues with one ofs if you have a consistent way of finding these silver bullets and a reason to have these silver bullets in your deck. Otherwise it makes no sense to me either but I'm willing to listen to any explanation as to why its included.

None of you have played his list.  He's a good player, and his deck is good.  Smemmen, I totally respect you, and Bebe I respect you, just as I respect any SERIOUS vintage player, but you really shouldn't talk. Dan had an article about gilded claw go up on Star City, and then he top 8ed the tournament with it after running through 3 different tournaments with three very different meta's with it.  He doesn't feel like making another article because you really SHOULD put the deck together and see how ridiculous it is.



I do respect you smemmen, but you really shouldn't flame my teammates when they can't defend themselves.  I know it wasn't a blatent flame, but HE still took it as one.
And whose fault is it he isn't here to answer for himself?  His own.  I don't expect to see any more messages relayed for people who have been banned.
-Klep

It's also worth pointing out that it's precisely because he takes stuff like this as a flame that he's banned.
-Jacob

[Tha Gunslinga]

What I see from Gilded Claw.dec is the same situation I'm in, a whole Burch of great ideas that may or may not be working together. In this case they won't be working together. My advise is to be patient and work your ideas out before you post ridiculous crap without a thought out plan of defending your arguments. I also believe there is more reason to the quality, or lack there of, we've seen but that would probably start some flames so I won't get into that.

How exactly do you know they won't be working together? They seemed to do ok for the several pieces of power and innumerable T8s the deck produced. He has defended his card choices and strategies in every thread, but I rarely see any of you over on SCG discussing them.

That's what I see when I see Juggernaut Go and Angry Pheldagrif decklists. I see lots of 2ofs and 1 ofs like March of the Machines and random crap that makes absolutely no sense. I don't think they have actually tested, with a sufficiently large sample size, the utility of those cards and they are just throwing these one ofs in and claiming their deck is good.

But they still manage to win so many tournaments. Furthermore, as said before, I don't see you in the threads giving advice and questioning card choices.  Frankly, Dan has won or split for a LOT more than almost anyone in this thread, and I think top-8 results speak for themselves.

AngryPheldagrif says I often play bad decks. He asserts that, but I would like to get into a substantive debate on that question. If my decks are bad, then he should explain why. He should say how they have poor matchups in a certain percentage of the metagame. I always go out of my way to justify my deck choice.

So he calls decks bad. He's famous for blanket statements like that. I do the same thing all the time.  Stax is terrible.  Gifts is terrible.  Black Lotus is card disadvantage.  To substantiate his point a little further, you often play new and quirky decks like Doomsday and GrimLong. Though you made top 4 with each of those, very few other players have had success with them (though GrimLong is still very new, just taking the example of the other 3 players who played it).  Doomsday died a quick death after you played it once.  Perhaps this doesn't make these decks 'bad' per se, but doesn't quite elevate them to consistent tier 1 level. As for his opinion on GrimLong, he and others have talked about the metagame for it and such many times.

It's just a basic principle of magic to get used to the rule of four. Restricted cards spoil Vintage players and confuse them about this, but in the end, consistent decks win tournaments.

The rule of four is a complete abstract that hardly covers every single part of every single deck excepting restricted cards. I'll be perfectly honest and say that I'm sick of hearing that his deck is bad because it runs so many non-four-ofs. Is Control Slaver bad because it runs only 1 or 2 Gorilla Shamans? Wouldn't 4 be strictly better by your definition? Call his deck random if you want, heck, I can even agree with you to an extent, but I want some more substantial and less theoretical reasons the deck is bad.  Running random copies of stuff makes people play around stuff that might not be coming.  If you play 4x Daze in Fish, your opponent has to play around Daze.  If you run 1x Daze, 1 Stifle, 1 MisD, and 1 Cunning Wish, then they have to play around all 4 of those, and for all they know you have 4 MisDs.

As for AngryPhelddagrif, he seems to have a tendency to declare a lot of decks that most people consider as proven archetypes to be "dead" or bad.

Perhaps we need a new word for this, like 'hibernating' or 'comatose' rather than 'dead'. Could decks like Control Slaver be dominant and tier 1 in the future? Absolutely. His declaration that Control Slaver is 'dead' right now is based on a very lengthy analysis of the current metagame and matchups, coupled with it's lack of success lately as compared to decks like Stax and Oath.  Control Slaver IS dead.

And as for Angry, he recently declared Control Slaver as a dead deck in the SCG forums; hopefully he learns how to play magical cards some day.

I am saddened that I have to read through posts like this and then see AngryPhel called 'childish'.  Control Slaver didn't top-8 at Starcity, despite being represented by a decent number of people.  It IS dead, at least for the time being.

Hey random person I've never heard of in my life, thanks for the flame you fucking jerk.

See: above

My point is that if a player has the audacity to declare a deck like Slaver a "dead archetype," there is clearly something wrong with that player's thought process. Am I just the luckiest player ever to split a Mox Jet in a 40 person field playing a "dead archetype," or is it possible that Angry is actually just wrong and doesn't know what he is talking about?

So if Slaver never T8s a single tournament again for the duration of Vintage's existance, there will still be something wrong with his thought process? I will be honest and say that I don't think that splitting a small tournament validates a decks viability, least of which because that must make his decks pretty decent. And I do believe there is a distinct difference between being wrong and being mentally ill, just an idea.

BTW if you think Burning Slavery is a bad deck feel free to explain why in the actual forum where it is being discussed, rather than just making random unsupported ascertians in a completely unrelated forum for no apparent reason other than to start a flame war. I can see very clearly why you 'like' Angry so much.

I don't see you coming over and explaining why AngryPheldagrif's decks are bad. Maybe his comment was a little out of line, that doesn't mean you have to stoop even lower to respond.

 

But I guess its the same in every sport were people and teames compete trashtalking is a part of the game.

He may be harsh in his judgements and hold decks in contempt, but trust me, he's just as hard on his teammates as he is anyone else, including Steve.

A tad offtopic, I refuse to post in SCG because that place is a fucking brothel of loud obnoxious assholes. But I digress.

I've heard the same thing said about TMD and worse. SCG is no worse than any discussion board about anything. You will always have your idiots, 'loud obnoxious assholes', and every other kind of poster there is. It's not by any means exclusive.  What it really means is that the moderators on Starcity should do a better job, amirite?

And once again, its a question of logics, so there should be no discussion about this

Au contraire, there should always be discussion. We're playing Vintage, where stupid things happens and nothing is predictable. If there's one thing I believe more than any other, it's that we must continue to discuss, argue, and disagree. The second this format becomes cut and dried, and there's a 'consensus', if the second this format dies. Disagreement and discussion breed innovation by nature. Innovation leads to change, and Magic is merely the nature of change, is it not?

 

While Angry probably hasn't tested enough,

How would you know how much he tests?

If we can justify something with logic, then there's no reason why we should have any disagreement.

I can't say this enough: there is a severe lack of logic in Vintage, and for good reason. We shuffle up to randomize our decks and draws. Entropy will forever defeat logic by definition. Logic says that the better deck will win. But is the winning deck by definition better?

This isn't, of course, to say that Gilded Claw is a good deck. It isn't.

I read your entire post, appreciating and agreeing with the gist of it. What is the point of adding this on? Your post contradicted several of the main arguments used against his deck, and then you reverse and take a random shot at it. Justify your position.

And whose fault is it he isn't here to answer for himself? His own. I don't expect to see any more messages relayed for people who have been banned.
-Klep

I just read through a bunch of posts lamenting the 'lack of discussion' going on, yet how does preventing a simple reply solve this? I hardly think it jeopardizes the thread, forum, community, or anyone in particular.

[Smmenen]

I was hoping that Dan would email me or PM me, but he hasn't.

This isn't about Dan or any individual person.  Dan's comments are what made me think about the issues contained in this thread.  This is not the place to bash dan or anyone else.  I was merely contextualizing my thought process so it wouldn't seem so abstract and out-of-the-blue.  I have also front paged his deck on SCG for tommorrow so poeple can talk about it. 

[Zeke]

During the "boom" of Vintage in 04 it seemed like the entire community was pulling together to further the format.  Tournaments were getting a lot of promotion, the SCG p9 tournaments were pulling everyone together, united in their need for further promotion.  Decks were being tuned by everyone, and thoughts were being thrown out en masse for others to run with.  Then, for some reason, all that seemed to stop.  The only time we ever heard about a deck was heard about or discussed was well after it was debuted in a tournament.

Now, I agree that teams do want their secret tech to be hidden until they storm a tournament with it so that they can win money/cards/etc...that makes perfect since.  I remember at one point during 04 that the monday after origins there was a smmenem article about MonoU.  It was a pre-tournament report, before he had even gone to the tournament.  He detailed all of his tests, his card choices, cards he had tried, cards he thought about trying...it was very comprehensive.  Rarely do you see something like that nowadays.  I haven't really seen an article like that in a long time.

This revealing of decks post-tournament has somewhat created a demand for results.  A deck or idea doesn't even seem to be considered worthy of anyone's attention unless it has shown results in a tournament.  And unfrotunately, not everyone has the skills necessary to improve a deck design to make it tournament worthy, or good enough to place high enough in a tournament.  This seems to stifle quite a few ideas that others may not think of or even consider just due to the fact that, while quite innovative, not developed enough to be tournament worthy. 

In order to continue to improve and further the format, people need to be more open to ideas from more people, they need to be willing to try out just about anything, not just dismiss something.  It's hard to say something is going to be bad if you haven't tested it or attempted to improve it.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I'm quite impressed with alot of the discussion that has been going on in this thread.  I agree with many of the things mentioned by previous posters- JD had a good point when he said that we are really more interested in winning an argument than in anything else, as well as bebe's post- it's true that there can often be a lack of understanding of the basics of magic when it comes to newer players (and he is also correct that there are very few recent articles on these topics- it seems that people write articles about decks specifically and not broader more general articles on magic or type 1 theory), and that although it is almost a cliche, it is true that type 1 is quite different from other formats.

I think that overall more effort could be made by many players to understand the points of view of others, and as well, conversly, that a great deal more effort could be made by many players to explain their point of view.  I also think that the mannar in which people post is important as well- because what we believe is the truth to us, we often state our opinion as absolute fact, which can pose a problem even if it is supported.

The truth is that there are always going to be disagreements over certain issues, and it's best to accept that and not get hung up on one particular thing; people in general should look beyond the surface of what first stands out to them, for example instead of critizing a card choice that looks really bad or a shakey mana base looking at the overall strategy of the deck- obviously this is a simplistic example, but I think it gets my point accross.

I think that tolerance for other people's ideas and points of view is what is necessary; understanding that you can simply agree to disagree, to use another cliche.  It sounds really simple, but I often think that it is difficult for people to accept each other's points of view even when they differ.

[nataz]

The depth of the card pool has a leveling effect because so many absurdly powerful strategies exist.  That means that a larger component of the game is the rock, paper, scissors element.  Unpredictability is a virtue.

-example

I thought that was a great point, it certainly made me stop and think.

This of course is except for the random hate at the end.

[Elric]

Steve, I had a long post about factors leading to odd deck designs in Vintage, but I deleted it.  My main point is this.  Game theory (from my limited understanding) says that if you have two alternate strategies, each of whose success is dependant on my opponent failing to guess your strategy, you should choose between the options randomly.  In other words, in paper, rock, scissors the only rule for choosing is not to be predictable.  Now, obviously Magic isn't as simple as paper, rock, scissors, but I think that in T1 there are more decks that are at roughly the same power level than other formats.  The depth of the card pool has a leveling effect because so many absurdly powerful strategies exist.  That means that a larger component of the game is the rock, paper, scissors element.  Unpredictability is a virtue.

Consider Welder in 5c Stax as a case in point.  It is at least possible that the following set of premises is correct:  If everyone knew I was going to play Welder, Welder would be bad (Darkblast, Pithing Needle, and so on).  If everyone knew I wasn't going to play Welder, that would be bad to.  If this is the case, and it may be, then I would be best off to decide in paper, rock, scissors fashion, randomly, whether to include Welder or not.  It may be that it isn't the case - Welder might be good enough that the hate isn't enough to discourage you or bad enough that even in a metagame without Welder hate you wouldn't play it - but my scenario is at least a real possibility.

This is a great post.  One note about game theory: it predicts that you should choose between options with a set percentage chance of choosing each individual option and that this choice shouldn’t be predictable. 

Consider the following scenario: there is a pre-existing matchup between Stax and OtherDeck.  Stax has the choice whether to play Welders and OtherDeck that the choice whether to play Welder-hate.  Stax is better off in the case when it plays Welders and OtherDeck doesn’t play hate, or in the case when it doesn’t play Welders and OtherDeck does play hate.  Depending on the respective payoffs of each of the four possible choice combinations (Welders/ no Welders) & (Hate/ no Hate) it is possible that the optimal set of strategies is for Stax to play Welders with any constant probability X(0,1) and to have OtherDeck play hate with any constant probability Y(0,1).

I’d like to add that Magic isn’t a game of perfect information and even games of perfect information aren’t necessarily well understood.  Chess is a game of perfect information.  From the starting position in a chess game you know that with perfect play one of the following results will hold A) White wins, B) The game is a draw or C) Black wins. 

However, chess cannot be solved explicitly because there are too many possibilities for the moves that players can make.  Furthermore, while all chess games begin from the same position in Magic you don’t even know the conditions that the game begins with (since you don’t know the contents of your opponent’s deck or his hand). 

As such, you have to deal with all possible decks that you can build, all possibilities for the cards you draw (and other random elements), all possible decisions that you can make and the dependence of all of this on the opponent’s deck choice, his cards drawn, and all of his decisions (whether these things are hidden or not).

Given all of this, I’d ask the following question instead: Why do Magic players ever agree on anything?

[Smmenen]

We have data that tells us that some strategies are inferior to others.  We have data which suggests that some cards are better than others.  And in other cases, it is a matter of logic.

For instance, Concentrate versus Ancestral Recall.  One is strictly superior to the other when evaluated through the lens of efficiency. 

But most importantly of all, it isn't that we need to agree so much as agree on a framework for analysis. 

For instance, there is a raging debate on my team about whether Long should have basic lands and fetchlands.  The quesiton is very narrow because it resolves to metagame considerations (meaning fear of wasteland) versus the necesstity o mulligan because you have bad colors (say an Island when you need black).  The problem is that players don't even agree on a framwork for analysis - they just assert that they are right and someone else is wrong.  Or, more commonly, that card a is Shit and your deck is shit, etc. 

[Komatteru]

For instance, there is a raging debate on my team about whether Long should have basic lands and fetchlands.  The quesiton is very narrow because it resolves to metagame considerations (meaning fear of wasteland) versus the necesstity o mulligan because you have bad colors (say an Island when you need black).  The problem is that players don't even agree on a framwork for analysis - they just assert that they are right and someone else is wrong.  Or, more commonly, that card a is Shit and your deck is shit, etc. 

Is that a strong point of the discussion or a weak point?

[onelovemachine]

Is there a lack of consensus on the fundamentals of vintage?  Clearly.  Is that a bad thing, not necessarily.  If I were to start a query thread asking players what the best card in vintage is or what the best unrestricted card was, how many dissentient ideas and opinions would show up?  This is a good thing.  If the people playing the format differ in opinion on the most important and basic assumptions laid out years ago by people like the paragons, then the format is sure to be interesting with many decks built on varying deckbuilding principles.  

But most importantly of all, it isn't that we need to agree so much as agree on a framework for analysis.

This is exactly the opposite of what I am saying, actually.  We as a community absolutely do not agree on this framework for analysis.  If we did wouldn't we all be playing the same deck?  I don't believe this to be a negative thing at all.  The members of my team feel very strongly that the way we envision the format is correct.  We have a variance in the decks we play too: fish, tog, slaver, gifts, dragon, belcher, grimlong, but even with the multitude of decks we play one thing is sure:  we would never have built decks others have created.  For example, workshop aggro, choke oath, uba stax all things we would not have been working on based on our individual styles/ ideas about vintage in general.  

Workshop aggro we think is terrible, but we can be beat by it.  Uba stax we think is really good, but we can beat it playing the decks we are known for.  I think a lot of players have an affinity for a particular style of deck.  I generally stick to mana drains, but I wouldn't play an oath deck with drains because it plays differently from the other style of drain decks.  I understand gifts, slaver, tog, tps(when it wasn't gifts like it is now), because they have a similar feel as they progress through any given game.  I understand that style of deck.  Put workshop aggro or fish in my hands and you will wish you had a camera to record the trainwreck in progress.  My point is that players make decks work.  Brian Demars was playing 3cc for awhile and winning with it.  But in one of our local power tournaments, he was decimated by a less skilled player playing a good version of tog.  When he asked me why that happened and what he could do to fix it I said play a different deck.  It wasn't 3cc winning it was Brian.

When asked if I thought grimlong was a truly "good" deck I said no.  It is decent in my opinion, leagues above deathlong, but it wasn't grimlong that top eighted at Chicago.  It was Smmenen.  Good players win with bad decks every day.  Dan Carp kicked the crap out of me in the last round of swiss before one of the last few Chicago's playing a deck that I personally have no respect for.  It actually just came down to playskill more than anything else.  This has to be kept in mind for all sorts of things.  Playskill will carry a player to a top 8.  If a player won with march of machines in their deck, then clearly they could have put a better card in its place and done just as well. 

Basically players not agreeing makes our metagame interesting.  Why is New England a bunch of control mirrors?  Why is Europe behind by several months (or ahead depending on who you look at)?  Why is Canada completey random?  Regional ideas cause regional metagames.  People on the east coast U.S. have ideas descending from the Paragons of Vintage, Zherbus, Oscar Tan, Carl Winter, Steve Menedian.  I don't think there is any reason to be confused by seemingly random decklists.  Instead, just dismiss them and stick to what one and one's team know and feel is correct. 

[Juggernaut GO]

I see the word paragon going around alot, I do not understand?   It was a team of olden times?  can someone explain please, this was before my time when I had quit magic.

[Komatteru]

Workshop aggro we think is terrible, but we can be beat by it.  Uba stax we think is really good, but we can beat it playing the decks we are known for.  I think a lot of players have an affinity for a particular style of deck.  I generally stick to mana drains, but I wouldn't play an oath deck with drains because it plays differently from the other style of drain decks.  I understand gifts, slaver, tog, tps(when it wasn't gifts like it is now), because they have a similar feel as they progress through any given game.  I understand that style of deck.  Put workshop aggro or fish in my hands and you will wish you had a camera to record the trainwreck in progress.  My point is that players make decks work.  Brian Demars was playing 3cc for awhile and winning with it.  But in one of our local power tournaments, he was decimated by a less skilled player playing a good version of tog.  When he asked me why that happened and what he could do to fix it I said play a different deck.  It wasn't 3cc winning it was Brian.

When asked if I thought grimlong was a truly "good" deck I said no.  It is decent in my opinion, leagues above deathlong, but it wasn't grimlong that top eighted at Chicago.  It was Smmenen.  Good players win with bad decks every day.  Dan Carp kicked the crap out of me in the last round of swiss before one of the last few Chicago's playing a deck that I personally have no respect for.  It actually just came down to playskill more than anything else.  This has to be kept in mind for all sorts of things.  Playskill will carry a player to a top 8.  If a player won with march of machines in their deck, then clearly they could have put a better card in its place and done just as well. 

Is your point that there are no good decks, only good players?  If not, what defines a "good" deck then?

[onelovemachine]

No, no no.  Not at all, Justin.  There are good decks.  It is just difficult to discern at times what is truly good and what is simply winning.  My point about Steve and his top eight with grimlong is that Steve probably could have piloted cs, gifts, stax, dragon or who knows what else to the same finish based on playskill.  That makes it difficult to tell how good grimlong is from an outside perspective basedon results alone.

[Zeke]

I see the word paragon going around alot, I do not understand?   It was a team of olden times?  can someone explain please, this was before my time when I had quit magic.

I'm fairly certain that Team Paragon was the original T1 team that included members of Shortbus and Meandeck.  The team split mostly due to areas which people came from...namely the northeast consisted of Meandeck and Shortbus is...wherever they are 0_0...

[Machinus]

Meandeck took all the talent, Shortbus now plays WoW.

[Dozer]

It is just difficult to discern at times what is truly good and what is simply winning.

This is what Smmenen was aiming at. How do we actually discern what is truly good, and what is simply winning? If we do not have the same framework of reference, then what is good becomes arbitrary. We can not look at results only to determine what is good; as you correctly pointed out, playskill plays a huge part in that. Dan Carp is not the only example, and he even admits on the SCG forums that his deck isn't "a good deck". Look at Bigmac's success with TPOath. Many dismiss the deck, or TPS in general, as outdated (just take a look at the TPS thread). It still does well in the hands of a competent player, especially if it is a good build. And what exactly constitutes a good build of a deck is at the moment slightly blurred.

If we take our "good decks" only from T8's, the perception will be flawed. The best process to make "good" decks (with an eye on tournaments, obviously) is to build them according to the basic rules:

* Maximize the cards and percentages, not fiddling around with "metagame slots" or random "hey, it'd be cool to kill someone with this"-cards.
* Build a resilient manabase that fits the deck's aim.
* Observe the general rule to prefer quality over coolness; be inventive if you can guarantee at least the same quality as established wisdom provides.
* Test the deck against a gauntlet and see if it is winning its fair share of games (at least 12 out of 20 against any deck),
* and note what it is good against and what it is bad against (is there a 4/20 and a 16/20 matchup?).

Only then should metagaming come in. But if a deck starts out already teched out based on theory, it will immediately be dispatched as "bad", because it does not look like an optimal build at all. From the above points, #1 + #2 can be analyzed from a list only, because many posters here do have enough experience to tell that from a list only. Point #3 can often be handled in the same way, although sometimes testing is needed to prove a point, and points #4 + #5 require testing.

Every deviation from those basics (mainly, maximizing your deck's numbers) needs to be proved with results, and I prefer extensive testing results to tournament results in most cases. How often have we looked at T8 lists and thought "my god, what a horrible build", or (to put it positively) "oh, what an interesting idea"? Those two are related and lie closely together. One man's tech is another ones mistake. On some cards, this will never be solved because they may be equally good (think TfK vs Merchant Scroll in Gifts). In some cases, it is blatantly obvious if a card is a mistake or clever tech.

How to agree which is which is very difficult, but contrary to onelovemachine, I support Smmenen that we need at least a common framework for analysis and some common conceptions of what is "good" and what is "bad".

Dozer

[Razvan]

Maybe, just maybe, a deck is good in one locale, and bad in another?

Workshops seem to do well in Chicago.

I dare any maniac to try to take a workshop deck and make it work in Toronto. It's better now, but it used to be that in at least 3 of the 6 rounds, you'd face decks that had 20+ cards (maindeck and SB) dedicated precisesly against workshop. The other 3 rounds, you might get "lucky" and either play Shockwave (or someone of his calliber), or decks with ONLY 10+ cards dedicated precisesly against workshop.

The reason vintage is not doing as well at the moment is that people seem to be fixated in finding this one deck that's the answer to all of life's problems, and VERY VIOLENTLY attack anyone that dares say anything different.

Take Control Slaver. Phenomenal deck, and it works well against strong decks. But what does happen if you face, say... elves, fish, burn, goblins, oath? It often goes down the drain. You slaver burn.dec... and do nothing, since they just topdeck burn before you can get the kill in.

You want an environment, where every deck is an established deck, where every deck follows a certain process, where every deck is composed of the best cards, the optimal build.

The mistake you make is that you assume there's an optimal build. There isn't.

You assume that there is a best deck. There isn't. Show me a deck, and I can show you a locale where it would get absolutely gunned down and hated out. People keep shutting decks down that they assume is not a good deck, but in reality, it's just a knee-jerk reaction with little backing.

Another thing. Smmennen, you say that 2004 was a good year, and 2005 wasn't?

2004 was Mirrodin.

2005 was Kamigawa.

Maybe a corrolation can be traced from that?

And I wouldn't worry too much about the current state of affairs. We are going through a random phase in the evolution. Vintage people are very polar about anything, jet-set, and stubborn in their ways. We are arguing about nothing really, with concepts that make no sense to anyone else, or even to most people here.

[Juggernaut GO]

I like to drink nyquil before a big tournament

[rakso]

I guess I'm wondering though: do we have fundamental disagreements on basic ideas in Vintage that would have been foreign last year?  If so, how do we get around that?

You wait for the Canadians to invade an American tourney and show up with the tech you laughed at?

Seriously, I think you answered your own question when we had dinner... that thing you described as the "Featured Writer Effect."

[xrobx]

I guess I'm wondering though: do we have fundamental disagreements on basic ideas in Vintage that would have been foreign last year?  If so, how do we get around that?



You wait for the Canadians to invade an American tourney and show up with the tech you laughed at?

Seriously, I think you answered your own question when we had dinner... that thing you described as the "Featured Writer Effect."

Or let them beat you with nimble mongooses! Haha...on a more serious note...

I believe dozer said it well when he made points about solid deck construction.  Obviously there's a combination of foundational knowledge in magic, and knowing how to seemingly make your opponent play cards you want them to play, but it does come down very much to probability and "luck of the draw."

I recently made a topic post about tinker and will, which was shutdown right away.  I tried to look at the fundamentals of why these cards are shaping and defining our format, but the idea was nuked by a mod with a trigger-happy-clicking finger.  A little too much clicking?

In all seriousness, the format is fine.  Yes, things are confusing, people remain confused, and sure decks will be built that are garbage.  The problem is many people DO NOT understand the fundamentals behind decklists, and attempt to play them and miss very important play strategies, as they may figure every deck plays the same.  If you don't understand the deck you're playing, don't play it. 

Creation of new ideas/decks is great, as it only leads to further development.  Yes some cards are strictly better than others at accomplishing a similar goal, however, with the large number of severly powerful cards to play with, there are many possibilities to go many different routes.  Optimization on goal orientation is very important, which may not be preached enough.

[Zeke]

Another thing. Smmennen, you say that 2004 was a good year, and 2005 wasn't?

2004 was Mirrodin.

2005 was Kamigawa.

Maybe a corrolation can be traced from that?

I agree completely.  Mirrodin meant lots and lots of artifacts, which is vintage's best friend.  Kamigawa was full of..um...legends.  Yeah...we all know how much t1 loves legends...

[absolute]

During the "boom" of Vintage in 04 it seemed like the entire community was pulling together to further the format.  Tournaments were getting a lot of promotion, the SCG p9 tournaments were pulling everyone together, united in their need for further promotion.  Decks were being tuned by everyone, and thoughts were being thrown out en masse for others to run with.  Then, for some reason, all that seemed to stop.  The only time we ever heard about a deck was heard about or discussed was well after it was debuted in a tournament.

Now, I agree that teams do want their secret tech to be hidden until they storm a tournament with it so that they can win money/cards/etc...that makes perfect since.  I remember at one point during 04 that the monday after origins there was a smmenem article about MonoU.  It was a pre-tournament report, before he had even gone to the tournament.  He detailed all of his tests, his card choices, cards he had tried, cards he thought about trying...it was very comprehensive.  Rarely do you see something like that nowadays.  I haven't really seen an article like that in a long time.

This revealing of decks post-tournament has somewhat created a demand for results.  A deck or idea doesn't even seem to be considered worthy of anyone's attention unless it has shown results in a tournament.  And unfrotunately, not everyone has the skills necessary to improve a deck design to make it tournament worthy, or good enough to place high enough in a tournament.  This seems to stifle quite a few ideas that others may not think of or even consider just due to the fact that, while quite innovative, not developed enough to be tournament worthy. 

In order to continue to improve and further the format, people need to be more open to ideas from more people, they need to be willing to try out just about anything, not just dismiss something.  It's hard to say something is going to be bad if you haven't tested it or attempted to improve it.

I somewhat disagree with this point of logic. Many individual events have been won on the backbone of decklists that were posted far prior to the tournament (even the vintage champ's list was posted prior to Gencon). Saying that team forums and competition has stunted the growth of the format is naive. Gifts was something that was considered by a relevant enough amount of people to be good before the accepted decklist was spawned. Sometimes it's hard to create good initial results, and decipher which 'potential cards' will actually live up to their hype. 

Another thing. Smmennen, you say that 2004 was a good year, and 2005 wasn't?

2004 was Mirrodin.

2005 was Kamigawa.

Maybe a corrolation can be traced from that?

I agree completely.  Mirrodin meant lots and lots of artifacts, which is vintage's best friend.  Kamigawa was full of..um...legends.  Yeah...we all know how much t1 loves legends...

Although it seems Kamigawa brought Meandeck the best top 8 appearance it has had to date.