vintage truths.list

[nataz]

ignoring the very real philosophical debate of truth/knowledge/community information, is there a list of vintage truths?
To be fair, any and all points can be disputed (more philosophy there that i'm conveniently going to ignore), but basic ideas such as theses shift the burden of proof on to anyone who deviates from them.

Is there such a thing as above, and how many can you come up with?
I can think of a number of points, but I am curious what other people think.

To start the ball rolling :

1) Brainstorm + Fetch rates in the top 5 vintage draw/search* engines .: Brainstorm should be considered in any blue based deck with fetchlands, or conversely fetchlands should be considered in any blue based deck with Brainstorm.

2) Blue based decks should play both Ancestral Recall and Time Walk. .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

3) Black Lotus makes any deck better .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

4) You should always play first .: never win the roll and opt for the draw

[MacDad_TN]

How about;

1.) Any deck playing black should play with Yawgmoth's Will.  This should replace another business card if necessary.

[Fubar]

3) Black Lotus makes any deck better .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

Maybe tag the on-colour moxes to this one?

How about;

1.) Any deck playing black should play with Yawgmoth's Will. This should replace another business card if necessary.

Does every deck that touches black want yawgwin?  What about decks like stax\modular?  What about decks that are using hate like planar void?

[AmbivalentDuck]

2) Blue based decks should play both Ancestral Recall and Time Walk. .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

Time Walk is suboptimal at converting cards in hand to more cards, mana, and storm.  Unless untap/attack phases are useful, you should not play it.  For many decks, this is not the case.

[Zias]

I agree with Ambivalent Duck, Time Walk is useless in some blue decks; primarily combo in which it is the most expensive cantrip in the deck....a cantrip that kills your storm.

[sean1i0]

2) Blue based decks should play both Ancestral Recall and Time Walk. .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

Time Walk is suboptimal at converting cards in hand to more cards, mana, and storm.  Unless untap/attack phase are useful, you should not play it.  For many decks, this is not the case.

WTF??  I would definitely agree with the statement that any blue deck should run Time Walk and Ancestral Recall.  How could you argue that Time Walk is "suboptimal" at anything?  Especially when, so far, no one has argued with the idea that you should always go first given the opportunity.  In a format where most games are decided by say something like turn 5, tacking on an extra turn to your side of the field for 1U is totally sick!

As for the list of truths, I would like to add that if a deck has black, then it should either have demonic tutor in it or have a damn good reason why it doesn't.

[Null Rob]

I also agree that any deck running blue should play Time Walk.  Even in Storm Combo decks, Time Walk wins RIGHT NOW when you have a Necro on the table (as opposed to a turn later without the Walk), a very valid reason to run it especially when the modern control decks have their own combo finishes, and you may never get that untap step you need to win.

[Englishman_in_NH]

Do people really consider combo a "blue-based" deck, or just a deck that runs blue?

Personally I don't think of combo when people ask for the "blue-based" decks.

[MacDad_TN]

3) Black Lotus makes any deck better .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

Maybe tag the on-colour moxes to this one?

How about;

1.) Any deck playing black should play with Yawgmoth's Will. This should replace another business card if necessary.

Does every deck that touches black want yawgwin?  What about decks like stax\modular?  What about decks that are using hate like planar void?

I would definately say that most, if not all of them do.

[AmbivalentDuck]

WTF??  I would definitely agree with the statement that any blue deck should run Time Walk and Ancestral Recall.  How could you argue that Time Walk is "suboptimal" at anything?  Especially when, so far, no one has argued with the idea that you should always go first given the opportunity.  In a format where most games are decided by say something like turn 5, tacking on an extra turn to your side of the field for 1U is totally sick!

Decks with few permanent mana sources have no use for an extra untap step.  Belcher is a good example, even those arguing for Ancestral and Tinker do not argue for the inclusion of Time Walk.  Fish, on the other hand, uses both its attack phases and untap steps to great effect.  I wouldn't feel uncomfortable arguing that Time Walk is better than Ancestral Recall in U/b Fish.

[sean1i0]

Belcher is a special case and there I agree with you.  However, Time Walk is just an overly powerful card in decks like GrimLong.  When you play GrimLong versus someone, you're basically giving them 0-3 turns to do something to either significantly set you back or just straight up win.  By casting Time Walk, you effectively narrow their window down to 0-2 turns.  Belcher is the exception, not the norm.

[Brutha]

1) Brainstorm + Fetch rates in the top 5 vintage draw engines .: Brainstorm should be considered in any blue based deck with fetchlands, or conversely fetchlands should be considered in any blue based deck with Brainstorm.

It is generally considered a bad idea to play Brainstorm a Fish deck with Standstill.

3) Black Lotus makes any deck better .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

The old Gay Fish lists couldn't use Black Lotus, because of the card disadvantage that resulted from the Lotus.

I think Oncolor Moxen and the Demonic Tutor in black decks would be better truthes

[Scott_Limoges]

How about;

1.) Any deck playing black should play with Yawgmoth's Will.  This should replace another business card if necessary.

Not always true...Yawg's will is not played in dragon.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Time walk isn't run in  Stax, nor is it in Dragon. Walk is defintely not an auto include in all decks that pack blue. It IS however, in most blue-BASED decks.

[dre4m]

Most 5c stax builds run neither time walk nor yawgmoth's will, as they typically end up as dead cards that you can't cast with shop mana.  While both are undeniably spectacular single cards, one must take into account that a deck must be able to capitalize upon their use.  In Stax, for instance, where your graveyard is accessable via welder, the only use you might have for a Will would be to recur your Ancestral, a tutor, or a welder that got killed somehow.  If you have access to this much nonshop mana, the game has probably already progressed to a point where you will be clearly winning anyhow.  I can see a situation in which you might yawgwin a tutor to win the game, but producing five plus non shop mana is never easy, so it would be a very rare situation.

[jpmeyer]

Decks should be made as redundant as possible.

[Zomar]

If you are playing blue and a large amount of blue cards, you better have a very good reason not to be playing force of will.

[pyr0ma5ta]

It is a general truth that if you are not running a 4-of of one of the following cards in your deck, you are (probably) not winning.

Mishra's Workshop
Mana Drain (and fow)
Dark Ritual
Bazaar of Baghdad

[nataz]

if you shift this,

Mishra's Workshop
Mana Drain (and fow)
Dark Ritual
Bazaar of Baghdad

into this

Mishra's Workshop
Mana Drain
FOW
Dark Ritual
Bazaar of Baghdad

You get to include decks like oath and fishy into your consideration.

Hey guys, so far so good,  but there are a lot more out there. If you have to, go simple, or if you are feeling up to it, go [balls]deep.
 

[Rapalaman1]

Most 5c stax builds run neither time walk nor yawgmoth's will, as they typically end up as dead cards that you can't cast with shop mana. While both are undeniably spectacular single cards, one must take into account that a deck must be able to capitalize upon their use. In Stax, for instance, where your graveyard is accessable via welder, the only use you might have for a Will would be to recur your Ancestral, a tutor, or a welder that got killed somehow. If you have access to this much nonshop mana, the game has probably already progressed to a point where you will be clearly winning anyhow. I can see a situation in which you might yawgwin a tutor to win the game, but producing five plus non shop mana is never easy, so it would be a very rare situation.

In my experiences playing 5c Stax I would say that Yawgmoth's Will definately deserves the spot. It can totally shift the board position in your advantage, and can dig you out of a late game hole. One of the best strategies against control if you get an early lock piece countered and know the game is going to go long (beyond 6 or so turns) is to just keep playing threat after threat and draining out those counterspells and when you get Will, if it's not countered , you win for the same reason every deck wins when it plays Yawgmoth's Will, their library is essentially in their graveyard.

Also, another truth that sometimes gets overlooked is table/pile shuffling. IMO this should be done in between every game, no exceptions. Make the most of the 3 minutes given for shuffling.

[The Atog Lord]

There are no absolute truths in vintage, except perhaps this one.

[Jacob Orlove]

There are no absolute truths in vintage, except perhaps this one.

An excellent use of your 666th post, but not quite true. You can find quite a few absolute truths here. In theory, we can build on those to uncover more principles of the format (although at this point it's essentially impossible to say that anything is absolutely true).

[Das_Boot]

I think that some are missing the point of the thread.  This is not supposed to be absolute; rather, it simply places the burden of proof on those who deviate from it.  Therefore not running Time Walk in Belcher is perfectly acceptable even if we have Time Walk in any blue deck as a truth, because those who omit it clearly have proved why it is not optimal.  Ditto with Will in Dragon.  Honestly, I think these rules maybe can help some of the lists that are considered suboptimal by the community by leading the creator to explain why he is breaking these rules, leading to productive discussion as opposed to "Arcbound Crusher sucks wtf!!" vs "I have won more power, therefore Crusher is optimal."

[nataz]

There are no absolute truths in vintage, except perhaps this one.

mm, your turn to be clever?

ill skip ahead a little to where I was going with this. If there are any philo majors out there that want to chime in and yell at me, feel free to do so (especially if they are philo-law, where I draw most of my experience with this from)

in an attempt to be brief:

Basically, I am fishing for arguments to use as examples in the context of a Philip Bobbet (constitutional interpertation) type analysis. To anyone familiar with him, basically I am looking for modalities.    

for example, take one of my first statements:

3) Black Lotus makes any deck better .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.

this would be the second layer argument, however the first layer (or modality) would deal with tempo (modality 1) at the expense of card advantage (modality 2)

in this case, the tempo gained by black lotus so outweighs the card dis-advantage that most decks should play it. The only decks that should not play it are decks that can not generate enough tempo consistently to outweigh the card advantage.

What I'm not doing is making empirical measurements (that I'll leave to the argument of interpertation)

What I am doing is introducing to myself to a more organized way to think about magic theory.

//

anyways, just ignore this if you want, I really want some more raw opinions.  


oh and yea,

I think that some are missing the point of the thread.  This is not supposed to be absolute; rather, it simply places the burden of proof on those who deviate from it.

what he said

[forests failed you]

if you shift this,

Mishra's Workshop
Mana Drain (and fow)
Dark Ritual
Bazaar of Baghdad

into this

Mishra's Workshop
Mana Drain
FOW
Dark Ritual
Bazaar of Baghdad

You get to include decks like oath and fishy into your consideration.

Hey guys, so far so good,  but there are a lot more out there. If you have to, go simple, or if you are feeling up to it, go [balls]deep.
 

Add Chalice of the Void to this list.

[Buttons]

Add Chalice of the Void to this list.

Chang:  3 Chalice SB.

[magus888]

Mono colored decks in vintage = bad, especially black.

[PucktheCat]

Every deck must either play a lot of artifact mana, have a lot of hate for artifact mana, or both.

I intentionally didn't refine "a lot" because beyond Black Lotus and the on color moxen there is some room for reasonable disagreement over exactly which and how many fast artifact mana go into specific decks, but I would say that I would be very surprised if any list that doesn't run a symetrical mox hoser (Chalice or Null Rod, basically) was optimal with less than 6 fast artifact mana.

Leo

[Shock Wave]

There are no absolute truths in vintage, except perhaps this one.

What he said. Some of the implied "truths" in this thread are rather absurd.

[Mark_Story]

I don't know if mono-coloured decks being sub-optimal is true at all.  Uba stax is pretty mono, and it handles itself quite well.  Furthermore, monoU was quite the deck back in the day. 

I don't think that chalice deserves to be on the list of format defining cards.  Sure it is important.  But it is almost nothing without the moxen and fast mana that the other cards (drain. shop) create.  Hence its non-existence in any other format.  Chalice is only important because the other cards are important.  Removing chalice doesn't make the other cards less powerfull, but remove the accelerants and chalice ceases to be important or defining at all.