The Ten Principles of Vintage, Redux

[Machinus]

I suggested that he rewrite this article a little while ago, and he did! Here it is:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12723.html

[Moxlotus]

The only thing I disagree with is Principle #4.  I believe Null Rod deserves a spot on that list.

Wow--so much of the main principles have changed.  Format defining cards, nobody cares about LoA, Blood Moon is absent, StP is in 1 deck.  Type 1 has matured and has come a long way.

[Lou]

I liked this article Steve.

I have thought a bit myself about principle four before, and I think you are spot on. Aside from fish (and I think Null Rod is included here), which tries to hose the other "four corners of vintage (Mana Drain, Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad and Dark Ritual)," I can't think of one top tier deck that doesn't use one of those four cards.

Travis and I have talked about this a little bit. I think the "four corners of vintage" are the new metagame clock.

[Storm]

Thanks.

It's really nothing I haven't said before - but it's more concisely stated in a single place. 

Yeah, Machinus gave me the idea to rewrite it. 

[BreathWeapon]

I think Null Rod, Kataki, War's Wage and Chalice of the Void esq cards deserve to be considered as a cornerstone of the metagame, there are decks that don't use Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Mishra's Workshop or Bazaar of Baghdad in favor of Null Rod; I don't think the "Fish" philosophy is ever going to leave this format.

[Liek]

The only card in a Fish deck that can be put into Principal #4 is Aether Vial. The cards Steve listed (Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad,) are all cards that let their corresponding decks "do something." Aether Vial makes the Fish deck do things, while Null Rod, Chalice of the Void, and Kataki do not make the deck function, they are simply disruption pieces that appear in the deck.

Aether Vial, however, is the actual backbone of the Fish deck, and would be the only card in the archetype that could be considered an edifice. But, since most Fish decks don't play Aether Vial, it's hard to include the card in such a list.

Anyways, I Ctrl-F'd the article, and the word Oath does not appear anywhere. This seems silly to me.

[Dante]

I think Null Rod, Kataki, War's Wage and Chalice of the Void esq cards deserve to be considered as a cornerstone of the metagame, there are decks that don't use Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Mishra's Workshop or Bazaar of Baghdad in favor of Null Rod; I don't think the "Fish" philosophy is ever going to leave this format.

Those cards you listed are not cornerstones of the metagame in the same sense - they don't DO anything on their own.  One of the main purpose of Drain is gaining huge amounts of mana to do broken shit, just as much as it is counterspelling things.  Same with Ritual, Workshop, and Bazaar - they all push their own plan of attack.  The Fish plan isn't a plan, it's "stop the oppenent from massively broken plays while beating them with creatures" plan.

Fish falls into the "anti-Will" category.  Replace "will" with "other broken shit" for broken decks that don't run Will (like Workshop decks and Dragon).

@ Oath not appearing - it's an article about principles, not every card that matters needs to show up by name.

[Anusien]

Even though it didn't teach me anything really, I like this article.  The sort of fundamentals articles that you keep writing are a good introduction to the format, and these sort of things need to get rewritten every now and again to stay current.  It's not glorious, but it is very nice for the format to have around.

[desolutionist]

I think Null Rod, Kataki, War's Wage and Chalice of the Void esq cards deserve to be considered as a cornerstone of the metagame, there are decks that don't use Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Mishra's Workshop or Bazaar of Baghdad in favor of Null Rod; I don't think the "Fish" philosophy is ever going to leave this format.

Fish will never leave the format, but it will also never contain cards that dictate the metagame.  (It seeks to counter these)

[Storm]

so what do you all think about Mike Flores reply to my article and his comment about Chapin's forthcoming series on Vintage?

[Dante]

where exactly are said comments?

[Roxas]

Dante: Click the "talk about this article in our forums" or whatever link at the bottom of Steve's article. 

I think Flores' comments (or, rather, his apparent restatements of Chapin's comments) were interesting and somewhat make sense, but at the same time they seemed little more than a fancy way of saying that good cards win the game unless the opponent casts better cards, and the "good cards" are Ancestral, Tinker, Gifts, Will, and so forth.

I do think that your mention of "misattribution" is noteworthy, however, and may have some practical applications in actual gameplay. While I'm pretty sure most players know that, as Flores was trying to explain, a resolved Ancestral is an "I win" and should be countered or otherwise dealth with if possible, there are cards with more subtle effects that aren't quite so obvious. This is important to look at, as players only have so many counters and thus need to optimize their threat assessment. For example, I may have been guilty of this myself in that situation thread in which I undervalued Dark Ritual when casting Cabal Therapy against Long, opting to name Brainstorm instead. A "threat assessment" going over which spells to give the most attention in each big Vintage deck might make a good topic for Steve or someone else to write about.

[Moxlotus]

It sounds like he's saying Ancestral wins you the game because its amazing and unless your opponent plays an amazing card or something you will win.  Sounds like a big "duh" to me

I am writing an article in which the title will be something close to "The Vintage Paradox.  How Vintage is the most and least skill intensive format"  I should be done within the week.

[forests failed you]

Pat Chapin is god.  I can't wait until he comes back.
Pat Chapin and EDT playing Vintage in Michigan??  How busted is that.

Michigan will actually be the new NE if that happens.
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that Recall wins the game unless an opponent plays something more busted.  Ancestral is just tempo, and there are a lot of other cards that abuse tempo.  Perhaps more than Recall.
Interesting article Steve.

[Lou]

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that Recall wins the game unless an opponent plays something more busted.  Ancestral is just tempo, and there are a lot of other cards that abuse tempo.  Perhaps more than Recall.

I think I agree with Brian here. Sure Recall is fucking busted and huge and all that, but I don't think it wins games the way Flores has been told.

[Komatteru]

The way Flores makes it sound is that if you resolve Ancestral Recall on the first turn, you will win the game with relative ease.  That might not be what he means, but that is the way he comes across.  He makes the concession that "Well, if your opponent doesn't do anything else good in the meantime."  However, I maintain that this is not much of a concession at all!  It would be similar to saying that if you play Dark Confidant on turn 2 in Standard, and your opponent plays no creatures or removal spells until turn 5, you will win.  Obviously, by that time you will have attacked for 6 from Confidant alone and built up a steady stream of other threats from the extra cards you have drawn, so you should win easily.

I know I've lost plenty of games where I've resolved turn 1 Ancestral.  Sometimes, I can't resolve my next big threat, or the Ancestral didn't give me a mix of what I needed--it handed me all mana (and I could have used another threat), or it handed me all threats (and I was light on mana, meaning I couldn't play the threats quick enough to matter).  I know I've beaten a ton of opponents who played a turn 1 Ancestral as well.  It wasn't like in everyone of those games I played Tinker for DSK the turn after that Ancestral or anything.  I was able to outmuster the tempo from Ancestral with any one of several cards (maybe Smokestack, or Duress)--like the ones Steve listed in his post on the SCG forums.

I think Mike Flores simplifies things too much.  He tends to equate card and tempo advantage with winning, but forgets that there are infinite other cards that can steal all the thunder from Ancestral back even quicker than it was gained.  Ancestral followed by the dropping of three Moxes is completely trumped and negated by an opposing Null Rod.  Null Rod wouldn't even be considered a broken card, just merely a good one.  Futhermore, Ancestral does have a high probabilty of failure, and unless Pat Chapin is really lucky, surely Ancestral must go wrong for him more than he recalls.

I also agree that Black Lotus wins more games than anything else.  Brian Demars used to keep track of how many games in which he had turn 1 Lotus.  I think he was up to something like 37 in a row or something outrageous, last I heard of it (some time ago at that).  I know with combo, I tend to win about 95% of the games in which I resolve an opening hand Lotus on the first turn.  With Stax, I know I've got a similar track record of winning games, as having 6-8 mana on the first turn with Stax is just horribly unfair, and usually just leads to such a board advantage that an opponent without his own Lotus just can't keep up. 

[klu]

The problem with the lotus in stax is a bit different because it won't stay as a permanent mana source. So, if you kept a had with only 1 mana lands and try to resolve a cap or an uba mask with bazaar in hand, facing a fow or a bounce causes you to loose the game. A friend of mine was so upset by that "1shot mana" that is not a permanent and that made him loose many game against fow or any bounce (chain of vapor) that he put his lotus in the sb ... only for the combo match up. At the beginning, it was a joke but he never missed it in the appropriate match up.

I really aggree with Moxlotus on this :

"The Vintage Paradox. How Vintage is the most and least skill intensive format" I should be done within the week.

A broken hand can lead anyone playing baddly and doing mystakes to the win.. But once you face a good opponent, or any broken game, the only way to win is to do a few enough wrong plays and take a slight advantage on each mystake he could do.
I've won a bunch off games (and tournaments) watching my opponents loosing alone... Last top8 i've played, i finished second. But it was not because my opponent was better, it was because I did give him the game by doing mystakes.

In fact, facing a broken opponent don't allow you to do any mystake if you want to have a chance to win. In revenge, if you are broken (like resolved ancestral in the 2 first turns) you are allowed to do some little mystakes and still win against an average player. To win a tournament, you must be skilled enough not to play in wrong ways. to win games, you can  be only broken.
kLu

[vroman]

Ive found that black lotus is far from the strongest mana source in ubastax.
I would rank them as:
workshop#1
workshop#2
workshop#3
mana crypt
mox ruby
workshop#4
sol ring
black lotus
X mox#1
X mox#2
X mox#3
mana vault
X mox#4
all other lands

color mana just isnt that important in the deck, vs losing a permanent and putting an artifact in the yard at possibly inoportune time. I board out lotus against welder decks. Ive lost plenty of times to: win roll, mtn+lotus->uba mask, and they drop turn 1 welder.

[Evenpence]

Ive found that black lotus is far from the strongest mana source in ubastax.
I would rank them as:
workshop#1
workshop#2
workshop#3
mana crypt
mox ruby
workshop#4
sol ring
black lotus
X mox#1
X mox#2
X mox#3
mana vault
X mox#4
all other lands

color mana just isnt that important in the deck, vs losing a permanent and putting an artifact in the yard at possibly inoportune time. I board out lotus against welder decks. Ive lost plenty of times to: win roll, mtn+lotus->uba mask, and they drop turn 1 welder.

Vroman, my ranking is pretty similar to yours, although I don't understand Workshop #4 being that far down - I just say that Workshop is more important than any card in the deck.

My list goes like this:

Workshops
Mana Crypt
Sol Ring (I don't know how you can put Ruby above Sol Ring)
Black Lotus (I've won so many games off Lotus it's retarded - Sol Ring is only slightly better imo)
Mox Ruby
Other Moxes
Mana Vault
Mox Diamond (Yes, I'm currently running this card and I'm never looking back - this card is retarded good, and you should run it Vroman)
Red Lands
Colroless Producing Lands
Grim Monolith (not running this, but it can be put in the deck if you're short on a single proxy or something)

Mana Vault and Mox Diamond are extremely close to switching places.  The only reason I have Vault at a higher position is because it allows for Turn 1 insane plays easier.

The most important cards in the deck, imo, in order are:

(Trinisphere?)
Workshop
Bazaar
(Strip Mine?)
Welder
Chalice
Smokestack
Wire
Uba
Duplicant
Crucible
Gorilla Shaman (if he's even in here) (in multiples, like two of him, he's right below wire)
Wasteland

I don't know how to rank restricted bombs, like Trini and Strip - I have no idea where the other cards would be with them in the mix.  My friends and I were just talking about what cards are the most important cards in each archetype, and how to rank them, so I figured I'd write this.  Good timing.

[froz3nn]

everyone is saying that sometimes ancestral gives you shit, but think about if you had not played recall. That would mean for the next 3 turns you would be drawing the uncastable/unwanted spells. Its almost as if ancestrall is like when you brainstorm and then fetch the jank away compared to brainstorming and then for the next 2 draws you are getting the shit you didnt want.

[Storm]

Pat Chapin is god.  I can't wait until he comes back.
Pat Chapin and EDT playing Vintage in Michigan??  How busted is that.

Michigan will actually be the new NE if that happens.
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that Recall wins the game unless an opponent plays something more busted.  Ancestral is just tempo, and there are a lot of other cards that abuse tempo.  Perhaps more than Recall.
Interesting article Steve.

Are you prepared for Pat Chapin to come in and shake things up?   

Last time he touched Vintage, he changed alot.  However, this time, I think he may run  his mouth and lead us to the wrong conclusions.  We'll see.

[Moxlotus]

I'm skeptical when anyone says they will do something insane to vintage.  Vintage is so retarded, it is so hard to make it stupider.  People flipped out when SCG announced their Shooting Stars tournament, and nothing new came there.

[Storm]

Ive found that black lotus is far from the strongest mana source in ubastax.
I would rank them as:
workshop#1
workshop#2
workshop#3
mana crypt
mox ruby
workshop#4
sol ring
black lotus
X mox#1
X mox#2
X mox#3
mana vault
X mox#4
all other lands

color mana just isnt that important in the deck, vs losing a permanent and putting an artifact in the yard at possibly inoportune time. I board out lotus against welder decks. Ive lost plenty of times to: win roll, mtn+lotus->uba mask, and they drop turn 1 welder.

Yes, but lots of things are true of stax taht aren't true of other decks: for example, Ancestral REcall is no where near as good and most stax decks don't run time walk. 

[Dante]

Are you prepared for Pat Chapin to come in and shake things up?   

Last time he touched Vintage, he changed alot.  However, this time, I think he may run  his mouth and lead us to the wrong conclusions.  We'll see.

Last time he touched Vintage, as compared to now, was like when bacteria were emerging from the pond as compared to 2006.

That was Type 1, this is Vintage.  Pat helped start that transition with the nail in the Keeper coffin.

[Storm]

ALL,

Check out what Randy Buehler and Kevin Cron said in the last two posts:

http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=292893&start=25&sid=839470595be62eb3fd839edd47689e4e


I'm surprised more of you weren't following this conversation - it cuts right to the core of Vintage.

[Dante]

More people would probably be aware of it if it was in the Vintage forum, not the Article and Site Feedback forum.

[desolutionist]

The argument is kind of trivial. 

My final assessment is that skill is not and by the tone of the responses to Stephen's article, cannot be "King." At best it is the tiebreaker.

My final assessment is that Mike Flores doesn't play Vintage.

[Moxlotus]

I submitted a 6 page article on skill in Vintage.  I'm pretty proud of it.  Hopefully it will be up next week.