[Premium Article] Another Vintage Year in Review

[Smmenen]

About the restriction of trinisphere. I think there has not so much been a change in the strength of the deck (sphere of resistance can be as troublesome as trinisphere) as there has been a change of how lucky the deck can be. Turn one trinisphere could be deadly for many decks and there was absolutely no skill in playing that turn one, just a little luck. With sphere, skill has become more important. So i like the current metagame as i have the feeling that good players come on top instead of sometimes lucky players.

These are ambiguous concepts.  What do we mean by strength?  How do we measure it?  I think that the fact that Turn One Trinisphere could just win games was evidence that it was insanely strong.  To saythat and then say that 2sphere is just as troublesome is silly.  2Sphere can be as troublesome in the right circumstances or against the right deck, but I don't think anyone can sanely say that Trinishpere wasn't more objectively powerful.

Also, why do you think that turn one trinisphere is not a skill intensive tactic?  Just because you have to be fortunate to draw it does not mean it is not skill intensive.  Skill involves more than a decision to play a card.  I think the more important skill is often deck choice.  Turn one trinisphere is a play that will come up a calculable amount of the time.  The decision to play a deck with that play may involve some considerable skill in evaluating the metagame and expected opposition. 

The decision to play a deck should be based, in part, upon expected win percentages which are heavily derived from expected ability to execute a certain range of tactical plays.  Workshop Trinisphere may win games without tactical skill, but that doesn't make it a "lucky" or skillless play any more than me drawing FOW is a lucky play.  It's a calculated play. 

Just because Trinisphere can be relatively simple at a tactical level doesn't mean its overall use is not skill intensive. 

[BigMac]

And how many people do you actually think are thinking this way. I think the people that pick up a deck because other people say it is good or has so many random wins is enough for them to pick a deck. Not everybody has a mathematical approach to magic. Some people do it on feeling. Some people do it on experience. But picking a deck is hardly a skill. It is knowing what you can play, what you are familiar with and knowing what to expect and how to play against that. Percentages are irrelevant as skill is way more important than any percentage anybody can throw at me. Knowing what to do in what situation and what your deck can do to answer certain threats.

I agree trini is more powerfull than Sphere of resistance. However, sphere of resistance has a better synergy with the deck as tanglewire works better with it as you can tap sphere but tapping trini would spell doom. So for both cards there is something to say. But again, turn 1 trini is stronger than turn 1 sphere.

Perhaps trinisphere is skill intensive to play it well, but the randomness has nothing to do with skill. Having a kiler hand with any other deck still requires skill to kill somebody. Turn 1 trinisphere has nothing to do with skill. Having to think about it wheather or not an opponent has a FoW has nothing to do with that. If you can you will have to play the Trini as the FoW player needs to FoW it or die. So when you can play trinisphere turn one you always do.

[Smmenen]

And how many people do you actually think are thinking this way. I think the people that pick up a deck because other people say it is good or has so many random wins is enough for them to pick a deck. Not everybody has a mathematical approach to magic. Some people do it on feeling. Some people do it on experience. But picking a deck is hardly a skill. It is knowing what you can play, what you are familiar with and knowing what to expect and how to play against that. Percentages are irrelevant as skill is way more important than any percentage anybody can throw at me. Knowing what to do in what situation and what your deck can do to answer certain threats.

I agree trini is more powerfull than Sphere of resistance. However, sphere of resistance has a better synergy with the deck as tanglewire works better with it as you can tap sphere but tapping trini would spell doom. So for both cards there is something to say. But again, turn 1 trini is stronger than turn 1 sphere.

Perhaps trinisphere is skill intensive to play it well, but the randomness has nothing to do with skill. Having a kiler hand with any other deck still requires skill to kill somebody. Turn 1 trinisphere has nothing to do with skill. Having to think about it wheather or not an opponent has a FoW has nothing to do with that. If you can you will have to play the Trini as the FoW player needs to FoW it or die. So when you can play trinisphere turn one you always do.

I would argue that the number one skill in vintage right now is margin analysis.  Every deck and every card slot has an opportunity cost.  I think we don't do it explicitly, but people make rough implicit estimations like this all the time.  HOw do you decide how many Gorilla Shaman to run or Crypts to put in your SB?  Unrestricted Trinisphere makes it more worth while to play a WOrkshop deck since you have a gauranteed nuts hand X amount of the time.

I honestly thought that the restriction of3spher would kill Stax not because Stax wasn't good, but because without being able to stupidly win about one game every match or so, it wouldn't be able to actually win enough matches to be viable. 

Being able to weigh, accurately, the opportunity cost of one deck over another at the margin and in light of expected metagame is a huge skill.  It involves knowledge of in game play, metagame, and sideboard strengths that reflect knowledge of in game play. 

[Lou]

I would argue that the number one skill in vintage right now is margin analysis.  Every deck and every card slot has an opportunity cost.  I think we don't do it explicitly, but people make rough implicit estimations like this all the time.  HOw do you decide how many Gorilla Shaman to run or Crypts to put in your SB?  Unrestricted Trinisphere makes it more worth while to play a WOrkshop deck since you have a gauranteed nuts hand X amount of the time.

I think this is a big reason as to why we need a developed metagame.  It makes these choices much more important, and rewards the players that are doing there homework.

[Moxlotus]

I would argue that the number one skill in vintage right now is margin analysis.  Every deck and every card slot has an opportunity cost.  I think we don't do it explicitly, but people make rough implicit estimations like this all the time.  HOw do you decide how many Gorilla Shaman to run or Crypts to put in your SB

I can't agree with this more.  The most annoying debates to get into with teammates are times when you have 5 slots and 2 cardnames.  How do you divide the slots?  3/2 or 2/3?  Maybe even 4/1 or 1/4.  It is so hard to determine that because maybe once in 10 games will it make a difference, and even if it does that one time, the next 3 times the selection matters it could work the other way.  This is when you have grind out dozens of test games.  And if its a metachoice then you better guess the right metagame and if it changed since the last tournament.

[BigMac]

And all of your testing and calculating will not prove to me that the majority of people choosing a deck will do so. The majority, how ever important your statement will be, chooses a deck because somebody on TMD (or any other site) said it was good and he doesn't care why or how. This thinking makes that person less knowledgable as to how this build was made and will change a few cards to his liking going past your mathematical assessment of the perfect build. And still they can do well because they are decent to good players because in the end the margin of one percent or even 5 percent will not matter every tournament. It will matter when you play a hundred, or a thousand games, but during a tournament of 7 rounds of swiss with top 8 the most you will play is 30 games, and i have to play the first time in a tournament that i actually have played all three games of a match every single time. this means with a five percent deviation you will need 4 tournaments to get that deviation once. And people are not counting the times they didn't succeed in winning, they are counting the times they did succeed. I never hear anybody scream how many times they didn't make top 8. So when i can make 3 out of 4 times top 8 with a build only considering the numbers, hell i will take those numbers any time of the day and not need to calculate it over and over. By the time i turn pro i would still like these numbers as i know i can always fall back on my playing skill and do not need the math skill perse. Playing skill is way more important than a build to perfection. As a build to perfection still needs to be played correctly.

Do not get me wrong. The basis of a biuld truely is important. But not to the last 2-5 cards. These cards make a difference but not as big a difference as the core of the deck. These cards may surprise somebody once or twice a day, but in the end they do not win a tournament, good play (and a little luck) will.

[Smmenen]

When I said margin anlaysis was the most improtant skill in vintage, I wasn't just talking about deck construction - I'm talking about the marginal benefits of Control Slaver over gifts, the marginal benefits of a five color mana base in uba stax versus a two color mana base, the marginal benefits of oath over gifts oath, etc, etc. 

People make this analysis even if there information is limited. 

Every deck has an opportunity cost - not just the cards. 

And I would argue that in this metagame those 2-5 cards matter a great deal more than they ever have.

[Moxlotus]

The majority, how ever important your statement will be, chooses a deck because somebody on TMD (or any other site) said it was good and he doesn't care why or how. This thinking makes that person less knowledgable as to how this build was made and will change a few cards to his liking going past your mathematical assessment of the perfect build.

This is what I refer to as "donating to the prize pool."  Good for them.

[miss_bun]

I think proxy tounaments have everything to do with this.  While everyone has different ways of deciding what deck to build, and different ways of building and playing it, most ppl who're willing to put forth the time and effort required to build a $2000.00+ deck generally tend to make more reasoned choices than those who just have a bunch of dual lands and proxied power.  Owning a black lotus doesn't make you a good deck builder/player (or vice versa,) but i think there is a high positive correlation.    A totally honest review of this year's tounaments needs to take things like that into account, I think.  Basically what I mean by that is that a T8/win with a proxied deck says a lot more about the power of the deck (as opposed to pure skill of the player) than a deck piloted by a skilled veteran.  What I mean by that is that a there can be a well-built and well-played version of a subpar deck, and that deck can beat a poorly-built and -played version of a deck that is overall better suited to the metagame.  And what I mean by that is that I don't know anything about anything, but I like typing stuff.   :shock:

~sarah

[BigMac]

This is what I refer to as "donating to the prize pool."  Good for them.

This is a very degrading remark as i see it. People reading this could be offended and this attitude is precisely the thing that will scare people away. So you scare them away and in doing so remove them from the 'prize pool'. This attitude is part of the reason less people participate in vintage.

[Moxlotus]

This is what I refer to as "donating to the prize pool."  Good for them.

This is a very degrading remark as i see it. People reading this could be offended and this attitude is precisely the thing that will scare people away. So you scare them away and in doing so remove them from the 'prize pool'. This attitude is part of the reason less people participate in vintage.

And you didn't quote what I was talking about:

The majority, how ever important your statement will be, chooses a deck because somebody on TMD (or any other site) said it was good and he doesn't care why or how. This thinking makes that person less knowledgable as to how this build was made and will change a few cards to his liking going past your mathematical assessment of the perfect build.

You did not like Steve's assessment because random people would just take a deck because someone told them it was good.  Well, the assessment is off by people that will probably have no chance of making top 8 which means their deck choice doesn't matter as much since they will probably lose because "they don't are less knowledgable as to how the build was made" and those choices will be probably be wrong.  If they are playing a deck they don't know that well, and making changes to a deck they don't know well--they are donating to the prize pool.  Sorry if I sounded harsh but its the truth.  I was not directing this at anybody so I don't think I am scaring anybody away.  I'm encouraging people to NOT DO THIS and instead learn to play the decks.

[BigMac]

The problem i have is that people start flaming new ideas and new cards. Next to that i think a few cards are less important than the play skill of a person. So encouraging people to learn to play a deck is good, flaming card choices is not.

Mathematical looking at those cards they will only show up so many times. Sometimes good and sometimes bad. As an example i can use an opponent of mine. He was playing a five colour staxx version with fastbond. Most people (including me) think that fastbond in staxx sub par. At the time, if he had not drawn it he would have lost that game against me. Now, because of it he won the game. So for him at the time it was working well enough. A lot of cards that are considered subpar will do well enough over the course of a day.

The other thing i was talking about is that however mathematically perfect a build is, it is a game of interaction and most games have that interaction. The problem lies in the fact that people play differently from expectations. This makes your gameplan sometimes somewhat flawed. Either because you do not think about interaction or because it is some other interaction. As an example, there used to be a chess player winning a lot because he sometimes didn't play the best play but the second best play on purpose to throw of his opponent. This not only costs time (more important at chess) but also throws people of guard letting them think you are going to do something completely different. This will actually win you games and matches in the long run. So subpar may not be so bad.

[Komatteru]

Most people (including me) think that fastbond in staxx sub par. At the time, if he had not drawn it he would have lost that game against me. Now, because of it he won the game. So for him at the time it was working well enough. A lot of cards that are considered subpar will do well enough over the course of a day.

I believe someone once addressed this in an article (Ellis maybe?).  How one of the signs of a master deckbuilder is that he realizes that there are cards that don't belong, even if they do win games from time to time.  Sometimes cards are randomly amazing and people are reluctant to cut them because they've won games because of them, but somehow manage to ignore all the other games where it did nothing to help out.  Such things recall my arguments for why I don't play Ancestral Recall in Belcher.