[Premium] In The Know #1: Vintage Scenarios

[Vegeta2711]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11370.html

It's the first of a series of articles based on Knut's limited series, except about Vintage. I take 2-3 good players (In this case Rich Shay (The Atog Lord), Demonic Attorney (Demonic Attorney), Peter Olszewski (DicemanX) ) and poke them for opinions about certain play scenarios. The player set may change depending on who wants to possibly lend an opinion or not. As I said in the article, I'll try to get one of these up every 2-3 weeks (Maybe one every week for periods I'm not busy).

P.S. Dice, if you don't have premium I'll send you a copy of the article. You contributed, you can obviously see the end result.

[Ged]

There's nothing to say, except 'thanks for the great article'.
It seems I'll renew my scg subscription after all.

[dicemanx]

I really like these types of articles where something concrete is discussed as opposed to theoretical vacillations.

I liked reading Oscan Tan's work in the past because of the game logs (which admittedly could use editing, but at least he had the right idea). Smmenen's best I thought was when he examined specific match-ups and illustrated how games played out in the first few turns. Veggies' article focuses on a single decision, but is just as informative and interesting as we get to see application of theory instead of saying "trust me, this is how it works".


Good job Josh, and I look forward to future efforts like this. (And yes I do have premium )

[Moxlotus]

Sweet-now I have 2 reasons to stay premium.

Write infy of these articles.  I loved it.

[Juggernaut GO]

I get the feeling that star city posts 1 vintage premium article a month, just to string along the few vintage players that subscribe.  However, it was better then reading yet another stupid article about what to do with X card pool at the most recent sealed event.

[TheBrassMan]

I love the concept for the article (and surely anticipate another) but the situation you chose could have been slightly better.  The subpar "pitch thirst to force a welder" play kind of muddled up the article for me, but it introduced opponent's playskill and representing aggro-tinker into people's thought processes, and if that's what you were going for, then that's perfectly reasonable.  Either way, the fact that all 4 of you essentially chose the same play made the the article less interesting than it could have been.  The "right play" in this case seemed a little obvious, and the reasoning the players used was very similar (though certainly not identical). 

If you plan on writing another article of this sort (and I hope you do) I think it would benefit from a slightly more controversial play decision.  Perhaps try talking to players who approach the game differently.  For instance, I find Meandeck members to play much more aggresively than the Reflection members you talked with.  Even though disparity wouldn't help settle which play is "ideal," getting inside the heads of people who consistently put up results, and being able to objectively compare why what they do works, would be an absolutely amazing resource.

[unknown.root]

i agree, with everyone who has posted before, great article, worth paying for, but why doesn't SCG post more of these great articles.

anywho read this morning,

kevin

[TheBrassMan]

i agree, with everyone who has posted before, great article, worth paying for, but why doesn't SCG post more of these great articles.

They can't post what no one submits

[pyr0ma5ta]

I'm a total scrub at magic, but I got the answer correct in this case.  The play is obv obv obv since his play really only makes sense if he's holding Gifts, no thirst, and is probably holding either Tinker or tutor for Tinker, with no Titan in his deck.  Tapping out just can't be right, so the play has to be at the minimum welder, go.

Edit: great article though, it was helpful to see what the "masters" of the game think.  Keep it up veggies

[Vegeta2711]

I love the concept for the article (and surely anticipate another) but the situation you chose could have been slightly better.  The subpar "pitch thirst to force a welder" play kind of muddled up the article for me, but it introduced opponent's playskill and representing aggro-tinker into people's thought processes, and if that's what you were going for, then that's perfectly reasonable.  Either way, the fact that all 4 of you essentially chose the same play made the the article less interesting than it could have been.  The "right play" in this case seemed a little obvious, and the reasoning the players used was very similar (though certainly not identical). 

If you plan on writing another article of this sort (and I hope you do) I think it would benefit from a slightly more controversial play decision.  Perhaps try talking to players who approach the game differently.  For instance, I find Meandeck members to play much more aggresively than the Reflection members you talked with.  Even though disparity wouldn't help settle which play is "ideal," getting inside the heads of people who consistently put up results, and being able to objectively compare why what they do works, would be an absolutely amazing resource.

Originally I just wanted to put out a situation that would make you actively think. The idea wasn't to make a difficult situation to ilicit different responses from the people being asked, just what thought processes they'd go through to figure it out. The numbers of players I asked was semi-limited, because I had no idea:
A- Who was going to do it other than the people I knew.
B- How much stuff they'd write / how in-depth would their responses be.

But certainly I'll be doing some that are more difficult, eventually. 

[JACO]

I liked the format, and thought it was certainly well written, but the article was not thought provoking at all. What  I mean by that was, it was totally obvious what the seeminly correct play was. Like Peter, I would have kept the Ruby in hand, both for bluffing and in the event that my opponent decides to drop something like Gorilla Shaman. You might not know what kind of Gifts your opponent is playing, or if he is even playing a true Gifts deck at all. It is certainly possible that they could drop Gorilla Shaman and eat your Ruby, which would be a total waste of a play. Even if you have 'perfect information' and know that this isn't true, it still makes more sense to hold onto the Ruby, in light of the fact that you play Brainstorm and Thirst for Knowledge.

In short, I very much enjoyed the format, but would try to come up with situations that you know are going to elicit different responses, based on available options and/or the complexity of the situation that you present to the different players.

[Vegeta2711]

I liked the format, and thought it was certainly well written, but the article was not thought provoking at all. What  I mean by that was, it was totally obvious what the seeminly correct play was. Like Peter, I would have kept the Ruby in hand, both for bluffing and in the event that my opponent decides to drop something like Gorilla Shaman. You might not know what kind of Gifts your opponent is playing, or if he is even playing a true Gifts deck at all. It is certainly possible that they could drop Gorilla Shaman and eat your Ruby, which would be a total waste of a play. Even if you have 'perfect information' and know that this isn't true, it still makes more sense to hold onto the Ruby, in light of the fact that you play Brainstorm and Thirst for Knowledge.

So the exact play was so obvious that somehow we manage to have a disagreement of playing the Ruby vs. not playing it.  :lol: But yeah, like I said, first article = something not incredibly difficult.

Kidding aside, if you want to come up with a scenario this isn't stupidly hard, go ahead and ship it to me and I'll probably use it down the road.

[Disburden]

I find it funny that a lot of players are going with the Ruby into Welder, go play.

I would've actually held on to the Mox and Welder until I know it would've been a more effective play for me, provactively. When playing Slaver, or Gifts (With Vault-Fusillade) I try to play as patiently as possible until I know I can beat face. In no way am I a Vintage Adept or a Pro-Tour guy, but I think it pays off in the long run to be more patient and sit on unbroken fetches in the control match up.

Not playing moxen can help out when having to cast thirst without any Slaver, Trike, Pentavus. Although I do find that holding on to Moxen is better when playing Gifts with TFK, since there is less effective plays with the spell.
Overall, I might have played the moxen if I thought it would bluff that I have a Shaman in hand, waiting to be effective for me and swing the matchup. But I mostly think sitting on my hand and just passing the turn, waiting to Drain, and being patient would've been more of my style in this situation. Casting Welder would be for more effective situations (facing Colossus, knowing I can dump robots or Slaver, etc), especially if I thought my opponent had Welder hate in hand.

I actually loved the article, I understand the simple question due to this article being the first of the set. It seemed like a nice intro into a stream of articles to come. Good lead in.

Can't wait for more.

-Nick

[Vegeta2711]

I find it funny that a lot of players are going with the Ruby into Welder, go play.

I would've actually held on to the Mox and Welder until I know it would've been a more effective play for me, provactively. When playing Slaver, or Gifts (With Vault-Fusillade) I try to play as patiently as possible until I know I can beat face. In no way am I a Vintage Adept or a Pro-Tour guy, but I think it pays off in the long run to be more patient and sit on unbroken fetches in the control match up.

Not playing moxen can help out when having to cast thirst without any Slaver, Trike, Pentavus. Although I do find that holding on to Moxen is better when playing Gifts with TFK, since there is less effective plays with the spell.
Overall, I might have played the moxen if I thought it would bluff that I have a Shaman in hand, waiting to be effective for me and swing the matchup. But I mostly think sitting on my hand and just passing the turn, waiting to Drain, and being patient would've been more of my style in this situation. Casting Welder would be for more effective situations (facing Colossus, knowing I can dump robots or Slaver, etc), especially if I thought my opponent had Welder hate in hand.

I actually loved the article, I understand the simple question due to this article being the first of the set. It seemed like a nice intro into a stream of articles to come. Good lead in.

Can't wait for more.

-Nick

The thing is if you already have the advantage in the match, you have to give a compelling reason as to why you'd assume the passive role when your clearly the aggressor and Welder has already been shown to have a higher value to him than yourself.

Thanks to all for the good word. I was hoping to make Premium worth something again for Vintage players.

[GAUDARD]

I to found it informative. It would be nice to have plays that people have actualy done, and critique them. Preferably from large events in later rounds. And plays that are both successful and unsuccessful.

[Vegeta2711]

I to found it informative. It would be nice to have plays that people have actualy done, and critique them. Preferably from large events in later rounds. And plays that are both successful and unsuccessful.

That's pretty terrible though, you not only have perfect information then, but your not under any sort of time pressure. Shit I'd need to people to accurately remember and write stuff down... ugh, logistics nightmare. I'm pretty sure that's what coverage would be for.

If someone wanted to do that, they could go right ahead though it might be intresting, but I'm probably never touching that.