[Article] Unlocking Vintage

[Vegeta2711]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14695.html

Featured inside: An interview with Yare
I ponder why so many suboptimal decks are being played
General observations on GAT
A quick look at "Look at me! I'm a Dragon!" Flash by Methuselahn

[Implacable]

Once again, you've produced a great article!  I really enjoy both your style and the subjects.  Keep covering off-beat decks.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I'm a big fan of your work, and I agree with much of this article, but I think there's some points you make that are really difficult to defend:

As for my main issue with playing Stax over Flash or GAT, it’s mostly that the die roll is so important to the deck. Cards like Sphere of Resistance, Strips (Including Ghost Quarter), and Aven Mindcensor all can be devastating, but the deck’s strategy seems inherently flawed at this point in time. If GAT gets a chance, it’ll just throw down a creature and let it grow while playing small cantrips. Plus it has the ultimate trump to mana denial in Fastbond, which means you don’t even get a game if the GAT player happens to lay one down early. Flash wins at 1U, so mana denial isn’t exactly an epic strategic position to take even if you’re on the play. Goblins have basics, Goblin Lackey, and Aether Vial, so it’ll ignore the normal Stax BS. Ichorid obviously destroys the deck, Leyline of the Void or no.

This whole paragraph seems like a strong misrepresentation of Stax.  While the die role is important against Flash, waste effects, spheres, and many other common plays by stax are still problematic if not game ending for GAT if they dont' have the right mix of cards.  I agree that fastbond is often game winning against stax, but I find it doesn't come up enough to influence the overall matchup.  Having seen Ray play the ichorid match many, many times, I can tell you it's a highly interactive and probably about even matchup.  Flash is an issue, but outside of that, Stax's game plan, when it works, is one of the best in the current meta.  I think the real problem for stax is what it's always faced: consistency.

3. Playing Library of Alexandria

I think LoA is at one of its strongest points in recent history.  The GAT mirror can be largely influenced by LoA, and Gush allows LoA to come back online quickly.  Since the only real combo deck is Flash, LoA will often be game over if left unchecked against other archetypes as GAT can use its tutoring power to recoup tempo through either time walk, fastbond, or even black lotus.  Not to mention that one of your teamates and T1 Champ runner up (it was in the winning deck too), Shay, wouldn't be caught dead without the card.

The biggest issue with playing any other deck is there’s really no strategic reason to do so except for being better with that particular deck than any other...there’s no practical point. Skill can only make up so much ground

Your nonchalance in declaring orthodoxy superior to both metagaming and skill is stupefying.  This is especially odd coming from someone who recently championed Goblins as a metagame solution.  Goblins is synergistic, adaptable, powerful, and tough to hate, while leveraging its own hate on the format; it's a great metagame deck.  There's any number of other decks in the format right now that fit that mold.  Are they tier 1?  No.  Are there reasons for playing them?  Certainly.  I won't go any further except to say that there are choice few people who write strategy for our format and command that small spotlight.  They should have a care for their influence and perhaps deliberate longer on such sweeping declarations.

[Vegeta2711]

This whole paragraph seems like a strong misrepresentation of Stax.  While the die role is important against Flash, waste effects, spheres, and many other common plays by stax are still problematic if not game ending for GAT if they dont' have the right mix of cards.  I agree that fastbond is often game winning against stax, but I find it doesn't come up enough to influence the overall matchup.  Having seen Ray play the ichorid match many, many times, I can tell you it's a highly interactive and probably about even matchup.  Flash is an issue, but outside of that, Stax's game plan, when it works, is one of the best in the current meta.  I think the real problem for stax is what it's always faced: consistency.

That's a fair criticism and I really don't have an answer for it. I'm merely going off my experiences playing with/against the deck. The majority of people in my metagame have ditched the deck for GAT and other various hate decks, so yeah, not exactly the greatest subgroup to go from.

See I don't think vs. the majority of players/builds, which I'm always referring too when saying stuff like this, has a chance in hell against itchy. Ray is clearly not most people with Stax and I expect the results to be different.

Not to mention that one of your teamates and T1 Champ runner up (it was in the winning deck too), Shay, wouldn't be caught dead without the card.

Yeah the upside of having him as a teammate is I can actually see what he thinks of it.. So quick correction about that statement, Shay has been considering cutting LOA for a while now. He made an extensive post on our boards, which if he wants to he can post here, but I'll summarize.

Basics are better vs. Stax
You almost always want to hit the first two Island in the GAT match and between 4 Duress and 4-7 blue pitch spells your card quantity can rapidly fluctuate or cause bad choices because you want to try to keep LOA online. If it does get online it's obvs good, but many times that's an exercise in futility vs. just trying to kill the other guy.
Quick combo decks, of course, don't care about Library.

FWIW, at the last Myriad tournament he played at he cut LOA outright.

I think this point is actually really easy to defend. A lot of people play LOA because it'll give you a freebie wins at times. Unfortunately that's changed from a couple games a tournament to more like one assuming your playing right. Remember that you can still win the end by donking it up and the extra LOA rips bailing you out and unless you have somebody standing over your shoulder, you'd probably never notice. It's fine if you think LOA power ratio is still worth playing it over a Basic Island, but considering the speed of GAT it's difficult to make the assertion it'll just suffer because one in however many games it won't have LOA in it's opener instead of a basic over the course of a tourney.

Your nonchalance in declaring orthodoxy superior to both metagaming and skill is stupefying.  This is especially odd coming from someone who recently championed Goblins as a metagame solution.  Goblins is synergistic, adaptable, powerful, and tough to hate, while leveraging its own hate on the format; it's a great metagame deck.  There's any number of other decks in the format right now that fit that mold.  Are they tier 1?  No.  Are there reasons for playing them?  Certainly.  I won't go any further except to say that there are choice few people who write strategy for our format and command that small spotlight.  They should have a care for their influence and perhaps deliberate longer on such sweeping declarations.

Here's the thing I've learned over the past month.
1. GAT is the best deck, I don't think that can be disputed at all.

2. GAT leverages playskill as well, or better, than any other deck you can play. It gives you valid options at almost every stage of the game, has an inherently powerful strategy and topdecks that are nearly as strong as any other deck in Vintage.

3. You can't really hate GAT out. What's there to attack? The mana? The blue cards themselves? The grave? All will cause some amount of damage to the deck, but not wreck the core strategy it employs. Not to mention attacking the core strategy directly requires battling through multiple disruption spells and not dying in the meantime to a threat. It takes nearly everything a deck has got just to keep GAT in check unless the strategy is just to actually win the game before GAT gets going. You can be really good at a deck and that'll make up for some variance, but then that begs the question of what if you focused on just getting good with GAT? I think Rich already showed us the answer to that. You get to apply the skill you have in conjunction with the best deck in the format.

So yes, in the face of decks that are clearly better than everything else, I think orthodoxy is the way to go here. Like I said, this isn't fighting games or chess or something. Skill only gets you so far when you want to play a metagame deck vs. GAT, you simply can't overcome normal variance without a large draw and tutor base. Nearly all of the metagame decks I've seen don't have that. GAT does. 

Are they tier 1?  No.  Are there reasons for playing them?  Certainly.

Like what? Serious question, not sarcasm.

I can play Goblins better than I can play GAT, but I'd be hard pressed to come up with a good reason to play the deck over GAT. I have a favorable record vs. GAT in testing, about 50/50 vs. Flash (Which I think would go lower for me had we tested more) and I smash Ichorid and Stax. Why wouldn't I play the deck? Because it still relies a lot on the opening hand and certain cards just 'being there' for certain matches. That's the main reason for my statement. You need things to just naturally go right with these types of metagame decks to truly succeed. GAT runs so much search and so much business due to it's design and the unrestriction of Gush that things naturally go right more often and when they don't, you have options to try and dig yourself out of a hole.

That help explain my position a bit more?

[Purple Hat]

Quote
3. Playing Library of Alexandria

I think LoA is at one of its strongest points in recent history.  The GAT mirror can be largely influenced by LoA, and Gush allows LoA to come back online quickly.  Since the only real combo deck is Flash, LoA will often be game over if left unchecked against other archetypes as GAT can use its tutoring power to recoup tempo through either time walk, fastbond, or even black lotus.  Not to mention that one of your teamates and T1 Champ runner up (it was in the winning deck too), Shay, wouldn't be caught dead without the card.

The only match I steve lost all tournament included a game he lost to scott limoges simply because he played turn 1 LOA in the mirror and never caught back up after scott duressed him.

think of what gat wants to do.  it wants to play turn 1 island, cantrip/duress, tun 2 island, cantrip/threat/drain mana/tutor, turn 3 spells, gush, island.  at what point in there would you be better off dropping LOA than an island?  turn 1?  you now cant gush or drain til turn 3, turn 2?  same thing...turn 3?  you've just given up even more tempo....

[Grand Inquisitor]

he played turn 1 LOA in the mirror and never caught back up after scott duressed him

I'm sure steve would admit that on the play in the mirror LoA is not great.  I doubt he kept his hand based on the strength of LoA, and I'd have to know more about what happened after turn 1.  Did Scott have a really aggressive hand?  This is the strongest reason I can think of for cutting LoA: that duress is extremely popular right now and is a critical part of the mirror.  However, whereas Gifts would be forced to abandon LoA after this, GAT can go about it's game plan, and then gush back up to LoA range almost inadvertantly.

See I don't think vs. the majority of players/builds, which I'm always referring too when saying stuff like this, has a chance in hell against itchy. Ray is clearly not most people with Stax and I expect the results to be different.

Good point.  However, Staxless has a number of nontraditional card that help swing the matchup; Ray outlines some of these in the latest Myriad results thread:http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=34068.0.  Kowal also mentions a match from Stratford that he actually won that involved him battling through multiple pieces of workshop hate.  I'm certainly not saying Ichorid has a poor shop matchup, just that there's plenty of design options stax can take to bring the matchup closer to parity.

Shay has been considering cutting LOA for a while now

Ok, this is a direct contradiction of what he said at ELD's, admittedly a couple months ago.  I'm quite curious to hear what his reasoning is, if he's willing to share.

Quote
Are they tier 1?  No.  Are there reasons for playing them?  Certainly.

Like what? Serious question, not sarcasm.

Let me get back to you on this.  I'm not saying this because I can't think of reasons right now, but I haven't tested seriously since Stratford, and I'd rather have more empirical backing for what I plan to say.

Thanks for your candid responses.

[Smmenen]

Quote
Are they tier 1?  No.  Are there reasons for playing them?  Certainly.

Like what? Serious question, not sarcasm.

Let me get back to you on this.  I'm not saying this because I can't think of reasons right now, but I haven't tested seriously since Stratford, and I'd rather have more empirical backing for what I plan to say.

Thanks for your candid responses.

I can think of answers to this question.   Lots of decks can beat GAT as it is designed at any given moment.   That is definitely the case.   Strip out the anti-Ichorid stuff from the GAT sb and Ichorid is practically unwinnable.   

The problem is that GAT is probably the best deck for making minor adjustments that neutralize counter strategies.   

Historically, many decks have emerged to attempt to tackle GAT.   Stax actually was developed in response to GAT.   Ducktape was rebuilt by the Germans as the metagame solution to GAT.   My team and I built upon the work done there and really made Stax good.  http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/5273.html

GAT added red and the matchup switched.

Also, out of California, Rector was initially built as an anti-GAT deck.  But the tog decks found solutions, particularly coffin purge, and GAT once again was on top.

historically and at present, decks can beat GAT, decks that are well metagamed, but GAT is the deck best positioned to make adjustments and neutralize the metagame threat.

All of this is laid out in my article a couple of months ago: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14475.html

[Grand Inquisitor]

historically and at present, decks can beat GAT, decks that are well metagamed, but GAT is the deck best positioned to make adjustments and neutralize the metagame threat.

Right.  However, this can be used to describe most of the blue-based combo control decks at their peak.  Tog, Slaver, Gifts, all had great resilience in addition to their power.  Perhaps GAT is the best of the lot, but this ability to adapt to hate isn't exclusive.  While the adapting deck may stay the same, the fact that the hate deck is changing doesn't mean that its metagame role is futile.  What I was contending (and, what I think Veggie was refuting) was that hate decks get to play a proactive role in this dynamic, and that they can be successful at doing so.  Do you agree, Steve?

[Smmenen]

It's certainly possible.  It would be folly to assume that GAT is dynamic, but the hate decks are static.

  However, in terms of the historical record, no deck has really shown capacity to do what you describe.   

I think it has to do with the other reasons I list in my treatise on GAT.  Specifically, GAT is going to be the most consistent and flexible deck, and have the most inherent card advantage due to the gro concept.   In short, what draw engine is more efficient than the triple threat of Brainstorm + Fetchlands, Scroll + Ancestral, and Gush?  What deck can ensure that it finds the right threats before GAT finds the right answer with Brainstorm, tutoring, etc?   Also, GAT isn't going to run out of answers before you do, it has less mana in the deck.   What deck runs less than 20 mana besides Ichorid?   Etc, etc.

Let me be clear that I agree with pretty much everything i read that josh wrote in the article, if not word for word, then in gist.   

I think the library question is very tricky, and probably the one place that i part agreement.

I'm a library hater.  I think the card is weak, weak, weak.   And I've written elsewhere, particularly in my gifts articles from last year, that almost every time I played library it would have been better as a blue land to play Brainstorm.   

I think GAT is the great exception.   If library is going to be good, it's going to be good in GAT for reasons already mentioned.

that said, there is a huge caveat.   it's proper usage may be much trickier than people realize.    I played library against scott, as hale said, and I lost.    I possibly could have won that game if I had played a different land. 

However, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't have had library.   what that means, I think, is that I misused library.   turn one library may be the wrong play in a lot of hands where it is present.

in my finals match of the prelims against TK, i played turn one library.  he proceeded to keep me off it with duress and then another duress.   If i had played something else, I could have Brainstormed in response to his first duress and done alot of other aggressive things and played library later to help me seal the deal.   I would like to have seen how the game would have played out if I hadn't dropped t1 library.   It didn't do anything for me, but I ended up winning the game anyway.

The things that make library bad may simply mean that turn one library is not an auto play, but that doesn't mean it should be cut from the deck entirely.  it just means it needs to be used very judiciously.   

one other thing i disagree with josh about is the GAT mirror.  It's by far the most fun matchup in vintage for me.   it's incredibly intense and often very different.  sometimes both players get the control hands and the matchup is a classic control match.  sometimes its a tempo match (like my finals with Rich), and other times its a combo mirror.   

[Purple Hat]

Pre edit: oops, you're both named steve...@smennen:

I don't want to quote your whole post but even in your match against me at gencon, we played out a few turns and then you dropped library, gushed back to 7 and took the free draw....but it was turn 4 and the game was already over by that point since you were gushing for cards and I was scrambling for answers.  I feel like the only time you can really play library in gat is like turn 3 if you don't have gush or turn 5 or later.  I just don't think that at either of those times if I have 7 cards in hand and there isnt' some completely dire board state that I'm not already winning that game.  The ability to get back to 7 cards just doesn't really matter that much because on turn 5 if your deck is functioning the way it usually does you've either got like 5 cards in hand and library does nothing or you're winning the game without library.

Hale

[Grand Inquisitor]

library does nothing or you're winning the game without library.

I can certainly see this being the case sometimes.  However, I don't think it can be used as the general view of library.  Library on the draw is still extremely strong, especially in the mirror.  Also, midgame library set up can either force an unready opponent into aggro mode, or, if they can't find a threat, completely blow them out.  LoA is especially powerful in GAT compared with Gifts, because you can use (multiple) Duress to keep an opponent off balance while you gain advantage.

[Purple Hat]

library does nothing or you're winning the game without library.

I can certainly see this being the case sometimes.  However, I don't think it can be used as the general view of library.  Library on the draw is still extremely strong, especially in the mirror.  Also, midgame library set up can either force an unready opponent into aggro mode, or, if they can't find a threat, completely blow them out.  LoA is especially powerful in GAT compared with Gifts, because you can use (multiple) Duress to keep an opponent off balance while you gain advantage.

except that in the mirror if your opponent can't find a threat you're gonna blow him out anyway, and I'd always rather be playing an island of some sort on turn one than playing out my library for the reasons I said above.  especially if I have the option to duress since it's such a key card in the mirror.

[Smmenen]

Library is very good in the mirror, in general.   That alone is reason to keep it in. 

[Grand Inquisitor]

except that in the mirror if your opponent can't find a threat you're gonna blow him out anyway

Maybe you're misunderstanding me; by threat I mean Dryad/Tog.  You're right that if my opponent gets land flood it's win more.  However, if they draw a reactive hand (which happens often post board when rebs, etc come in) LoA will allow you to steadily gain advantage against a counter wall you may not have been able to break.  The only threats I usually go after (gamestate depending) when I have an active library are Time Walk, Fastbond and Yawgwill.  Even Ancestral Recall is borderline if I need to use FoW.

[Purple Hat]

Library is very good in the mirror, in general.   That alone is reason to keep it in. 

I hear people say this, but I've never actually seen evidence of it myself.  I don't see games being won in the mirror because of library, however I do see games being lost in the mirror because of the sacrificed tempo.

except that in the mirror if your opponent can't find a threat you're gonna blow him out anyway

Maybe you're misunderstanding me; by threat I mean Dryad/Tog.  You're right that if my opponent gets land flood it's win more.  However, if they draw a reactive hand (which happens often post board when rebs, etc come in) LoA will allow you to steadily gain advantage against a counter wall you may not have been able to break.  The only threats I usually go after (gamestate depending) when I have an active library are Time Walk, Fastbond and Yawgwill.  Even Ancestral Recall is borderline if I need to use FoW.

I didn't misunderstand you.  If your opponent doesn't find a source of damage in the mirror you're gonna blow him out on pure tempo.  Dryad early in the game in the mirror is an amazing play because she can frequently go the distance and because she forces your opponent into a defensive role.

[Grand Inquisitor]

If your opponent doesn't find a source of damage in the mirror you're gonna blow him out on pure tempo.  Dryad early in the game in the mirror is an amazing play because she can frequently go the distance and because she forces your opponent into a defensive role.

In a finals against Rich Shay a couple months ago:

me - land, mox, dryad
him - loa
me - land, dryad, gush
him - land, duress
me - cantrip
him - land, mox, scroll>truth>win counter war>gush>loa>win

Having played dryads since 2002 I've seen this happen lots of times.  There are definitely times where you can outrace loa, but, especially now that every build runs 4x scroll>truth, it's much more difficult.  My experience is that mirrors are more often won through comboing off, not tempo beats like in the Gencon finals.

[Smmenen]

There are definitely times where you can outrace loa, but, especially now that every build runs 4x scroll>truth, it's much more difficult.  My experience is that mirrors are more often won through comboing off, not tempo beats like in the Gencon finals.

the GAT mirror is won by the line of play that will most successfully produce the desired result: winning the game.

that is something that is determined on a case-by-case basis.   Many GAT mirrors are won through control followed by combo, but if you, as a GAT player, feel that you can win through tempo with a better chance than through eventually combo, then that is what you should do.   

The advantages that help a tempo beatdown are often conducive to the control line of play.   It's the pilots decision as to which route will be most productive.   With the hands I drew, I could have opted to play control/combo instead of aggro/control, but the path to victory was much clearer with the latter line of play, esp. in game 2, when I was already up a game and could afford to make the more aggressive, but possibly riskier line of play.  Game 1 of the finals against shay is a great example.  I had a hand that was perfect for going either control, combo, or beatdown.  I molded my decisions based upon what Rich had.   He had Tog and Dryads.  If I had played control, i risked losing to his beatdown.  If he had lots of countrspells, I would have played alot differnetly and it could have been a long control match.   

[Setnakt]

Personally I don't prioritize Library in the same slot as another basic. I either run the 2nd basic main (over the 6th fetch or something) or I don't. I would still consider Library to be in the same slot as an off-color mox. Ultimately, I use it as a colorless mana source that happens to randomly activate into awesome mode and be an uncounterable engine. If all it does is cantrip, then you still used a cantrip, and have an extra random mana source on the table.

I agree that Library isn't what it used to look like; but it's still the same card. I just don't emphasize it as an engine over whatever gameplan happens to be most useful. Usually the opportunity to abuse it becomes obvious; the rest of the time you should just try not to force a gameplan that won't work for the moment. I've had at least one game against Stax where they didn't find a Waste for my LoA fast enough and I just ripped through my deck and raced out of their soft lock. That may be anecdotal but the fact that it's another mana source that can also help win you the game should be what is understood about Library.

10 years ago or so it was probably powerful as Yawg Will, and far more important in the control mirror. Some people might now be underwhelmed by it, recalling that legacy. However, so long as you're not still stuck in that mindset, Library should still prove its utility.