[Premium Article] SCG Chicago Day 2 Report

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15078.html

Round by round analysis of SCG Chicago with reflections on "win-more" cards and the difficulty of not going to time.  Also, more format commentary. 

[OwenTheEnchanter]

Excellent article Steve! A well written report with some nice matchup analysis and interesting new card choices.

I especially enjoyed how you went into depth discussing the time issue in vintage events. The way I see it you make valid points that are all correct BUT in vintage the turns are naturally longer and the games are naturally shorter, turn-wise at least. When I played Gush I came very close to unintentional draws a few times so I can see your reasoning. Adding 5-10 minutes to each round to prevent draws and make tournaments run more smooth would be awesome but im not sure if its necessary.

- Owen

[The Atog Lord]

I don't have Premium, so I can't comment on the content of the article.

What I can comment on, however, is the length of rounds in Vintage events. The length is perfectly fine. There's no reason for three games of Magic to take any longer than fifty minutes.

Magic and its rules make no discernment between "simple" and "complex" plays, as they shouldn't. No matter how "complex" you might believe your deck to be, it is your responsibility to know your deck such that you can make plays in a timely manner.

Vintage needs not longer rounds, but better enforcement of Magic's slow-play rules. A player taking too long to make a decision should result in a Judge stepping in. Do you really want every Star City to run until four in the morning?

I tend to play some of the most complex decks in Vintage, and almost never have unintentional draws. There's no reason players can't make his decisions in a timely manner. I know that some Vintage players take a while to resolve their spells, but the fault is with them and not with the format.

[Anusien]

Huge props for being able to say, "I screwed up specifically like this.  Here's what I'm learning from it."

I'd love to hear you talk about clock management, since it seems like a big problem.  How are you learning to do it better?

[Smmenen]

I don't have Premium, so I can't comment on the content of the article.

What I can comment on, however, is the length of rounds in Vintage events. The length is perfectly fine. There's no reason for three games of Magic to take any longer than fifty minutes.

Owen responded to a point I made out of context.  Lest you think I"m suggesting that rounds go to 60 minutes, here is what i wrote:

Vintage tournaments seem to have a disproportionate amount of instances of people going to time. Beyond that, an additional five turns can easily be upwards of 20 minutes, even when played at a reasonable pace. Vintage may be the fastest format in terms of turns, but it is easily the slowest format in terms of time.

The banning of Shahrazad in Vintage and Legacy was partially explained as a way to address decks that are designed to stall and eat up time. At the Invitational, one of the reason that Mike Turian gave for restricting Gifts Ungiven was the fact that it takes so much time to play. People have to find four cards and then the opponent has to make a decision. This takes time, sometimes a lot of it.

While a silly reason on its face, Vintage formats have serious logistical issues that take up quite a bit of time that aren’t generally faced in regular Magic. The reasons are many.

First of all, mulliganing. Vintage decks mulligan a lot. And mulligan decisions in Vintage are never simple. It’s rarely because you don’t have a land. It’s more often tactical or strategic mulligans. In fact, there is a deck, a very good deck, in Vintage where almost half of its game is mulliganing. Vintage Ichorid uses the "mulligan man" a.k.a. Serum Powder to find Bazaar of Baghdad. The pile shuffling, side shuffling, and opponent shuffling in between each round of mulligans takes time, and a lot of it. Vintage players’ mulligan decisions are also generally conditioned upon whether an opponent mulligans. Very often I’ll be in a situation where I will be initially inclined to mulligan, but if my opponent mulligans to 5, I will decide not to.

The second thing that takes time is the shuffling. Most Vintage decks shuffle their library about once per turn. Every single Vintage deck, with very few exceptions, tutors. The most common cards in Vintage are Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand. It’s not that finding the right land takes time so much as the shuffling that follows it. New cards like Ponder only add to this.

Finally, the execution. Lots of Vintage decks take forever to win, even once they have the game locked up. I noticed that actually winning with GroAtog takes a lot of time. From the moment I cast Yawgmoth’s Will to the time that I Time Walk and Cunning Wish for Berserk can take 10 minutes or more. The tutoring, shuffling, drawing, and decision trees take time to walk through. I could easily play 15 spells in between those two moments – Fastbond, Gush, Gush, Gush, Gush, Brainstorm, Ponder, Demonic Tutor, Brainstorm, Merchant Scroll, etc, etc.

If you play Necropotence and draw 12 cards, it will take you more than a minute to figure out what to pitch and when you go off the next turn, it will take you some time to actually kill the opponent. You may do quite a bit of tutoring and shuffling and interactive disruption before you finally win with Tendrils or Empty the Warrens.

The Vintage Championship at Gencon used to have 60 minute rounds until recently, and I think that greatly resolved many of the problems.

At every Vintage tournament I’ve attended in the last year, the problem of "slow-play" has always been mentioned and the sounding rhetoric against it has been strongly pronounced.

This leads me to one critical point: I am beginning to think, moreso than I can ever remember, that one of the critical skills in Vintage is "knowing when to scoop." This can make the difference between drawing and winning a match. In Vintage, I believe that you must sometimes scoop games that you would never scoop in other formats because your percentage chance of winning may be greater than negligible. You could have a 10% chance of winning a match from a certain game state, but the correct play may still be to scoop, and often will be.

The second lesson that all of this bears upon – and one that it has taken me some time to learn and fully comprehend - is that "win-more" cards are not necessarily cards you shouldn’t run. As I’ve explained, execution matters. Let me break this down.

[Yare]

On the topic of shuffling, I often feel that players shuffle excessively after mulliganning (that is, they shuffle as if they have just ended a game and need to reshuffle the entire deck.  They pile shuffle, overhand shuffle, pile shuffle again, etc.  This is ridiculous; it takes an incredible amount of time.  Is the deck not already random enough that shoving the seven cards in and smashing the deck together a few times is enough?  This seems like the obvious target for reducing wasted time in matches, at least in my opinion.

Maybe people don't see this everywhere, but I have seen it time and time again.

[The Atog Lord]

Ah, I see, Steve. What you wrote makes a lot of sense. Thank you for clearing that up.

[OwenTheEnchanter]

Did not mean to misquote you Smemmen, but it is my personal opinion that an extra 5 minutes onto every round wouldn't hurt anyone and itd eliminate some of the unintentional draws and make for a more smooth tournament in that in that last round playing for t8 instead of only the X-0 players being able to draw as a result of multiple players being X-1-1 or X-0-2 being paired up/down and forced to play more people can draw. But thats just my two cents.

- Owen

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Man for the love of... its NICOLAE! Second article man- get it straight! Also, I didn't play green or Goyfs but I betcha just had me confused with someone else...

In all seriousness, nice article. Tis good to see some insight into play styles and all dat jazz. What was up with the Owen T8 comment? Was that a joke or spite or ?

Time management is an amazingly important aspect of vintage gaming. I can agree with the comments about knowing what you have to do, but sometimes not knowing what you're opponent is up to can be seriously distracting to maintaining that train of thought which can certainly lead to some longer decision- making processes.

We'll meet again, and hopefully next time I won't be so predictable and will actually put up a decent resistance to yer savageocity 

[LordHomerCat]

Man for the love of... its NICOLAE! Second article man- get it straight! Also, I didn't play green or Goyfs but I betcha just had me confused with someone else...

It took like 5 tries before he got my name right, so don't get too mad =p

I enjoyed the article a lot, and commented on the win-now card for Gro in the SCG thread, but to summarize:  Tog was really good for me over empty, and ate goyfs, juggernauts, and sphere-wielding opponents all day in addition to berserking for the win after a big Will.

As for that Owen comment, well, until experience proves otherwise, he's been quite the dancer at P9's.  I would doubt Steve made that comment out of spite given the respect he has for Owen's skills.


On the slow play topic, well, its a very tricky issue.  Personally I have found that I am MUCH faster with GAT now that I have been playing it for so many months.  I only had one ID on the weekend and rarely managed to go to time (although I would have against TK day 1 if we'd had to play a third game).  I don't think there is a need to increase round times, but the slow play is the big problem (plus people not scooping when they should).  The thing is, its so hard to detect in all but the most outlandish circumstances.  I mean, if I take about a minute per play but I make 25 plays in one turn, its basically means we can only play one real game in that match and the other two either are blowouts or we time out.  There has to be somewhere that we can speed up or at least be forced to speed up, but I just have such a hard time seeing it.  Again, day 1 against Tommy was probably as slow as I played all day, mostly because of how close and difficult the games, were, but in my two matches against him I can only think of one place on each side that would probably have been called slow play (him Necroing for like 7 extra cards, and me deciding whether or not to go for a desperation Will, both in the same game).  I mean, the thing is that both these were by far the most complicated points of the game and everything else tended to go pretty quick, so those games averaged out to a pretty brisk pace.

On that whole turns vs. time thing, Vintage should be a lot better at not drawing.  I mean, if there are less turns in a game, then 5 turns in vintage is the equivalent of playing 10 in standard, so we should be more able to finish up in the last 5.  Honestly, just saying that the games take about the same length but each turn is longer should lead to many less ID's (altho probably more overage time at the end of each round).

[Drummer79]

I haven't been on the forums lately, but you misquoted the name of the event.   Though they were in attendance briefly on Sunday, Sunday's event was NOT in fact SCG's, it was Mystic Gaming.  Thus it being called the Vintage Mega Weekend.  Star City Games Saturday, Mystic Gaming Events on Sunday. 

You seem to be upset when people mis-quote you, I was upset when I read that you dropped the name of the event, and cost my organization advertising by a major over site.  I hate to seem petty about this, but in fact, you are wrong in calling it SCG Chicago Day 2.

As for the article, well written, and ICBMers are notorious for exactly what he did by not scooping up the cards and letting you in.  They are an alright group of guys, but not so much when situations like that come up.  Case and point...  TK and I can both draw the last round at an event, and he chooses to play me for position instead of letting me eat like I wanted, oh well..   And recently, Dan Carp is playing Jerrett Rocha in a Pastimes event, and last round, the entire top 8 can draw, but Dan chooses to play Jerrett instead of just drawing and letting Jerrett take a break after 5 rounds of Stax.  Both players were totally within their rights, however, it's a reputation they have, and in my opinion, it makes them look like a team of greedy players.

As for the time change suggestion, from a TO's standpoint, I would never run 60 minute rounds in swiss.  I have read in the past what you have written about how much time is spent shuffling, and how many decisions are there to be made, but we all do it.  I used to play Keeper back in the previous era, and had a control/combo that went for infinite turns with Burning Wish and Time Walk, with Recoup and Mirari.   VERY slow deck to set up, however, I managed to finish every round in reasonable time, even when a single turn involved casting 10 spells with 4 or 5 copies made, which including using a lot of dice and counters to show the number of turns "floating."   I have had brainstorms that mean I either win or lose a game depending on the decisions I make.  They do take longer, but not 10 minutes.  Not more than 1 minute is even close to acceptable.  I remind players in a match with them that I need them to make a decision.  I will push when they take an excessive amount of time.  Judges need to be called more often to watch for slow play.  If we all do our part to both play at a more acceptable pace, and not allow other players to slip from that, this problem will go away.

[Inflex]

As for the article, well written, and ICBMers are notorious for exactly what he did by not scooping up the cards and letting you in.

If you're going to get all uppity about Steve misnaming the event, how about you guys stop getting the facts completely wrong. I was there and talked to the ICBM guys after they calculated the standings. Steve had zero chance to T8. Zero. Zilch. None. Tony had no reason to scoop to him and quite frankly I am sick of reading about people getting all indignant that their opponents refuse to grant them an unearned win or draw. You have no right to expect either and opponents are fully within their rights to demand to play things out. You cited ICBMers for not scooping as though it is some horrible unsportsmanlike action. Until people like you stop treating Vintage as a good old boys club and start treating it like a real format it will never get taken seriously.

[k1x]

As for the article, well written, and ICBMers are notorious for exactly what he did by not scooping up the cards and letting you in.  They are an alright group of guys, but not so much when situations like that come up.  Case and point...  TK and I can both draw the last round at an event, and he chooses to play me for position instead of letting me eat like I wanted, oh well..   And recently, Dan Carp is playing Jerrett Rocha in a Pastimes event, and last round, the entire top 8 can draw, but Dan chooses to play Jerrett instead of just drawing and letting Jerrett take a break after 5 rounds of Stax.  Both players were totally within their rights, however, it's a reputation they have, and in my opinion, it makes them look like a team of greedy players.

That is a pretty preposterous claim. We take the format seriously and it shouldn't be expected that you will be drawn into top 8. Drawing into top 8 is an agreement between two players and if it helps out your team to play it out and give them, or yourself, better standings so be it. We certainly aren't greedy because we help out teammates by playing it out when others would draw in. In the case of SCG, this issue has been covered several times and we don't need to revisit it.

Inflex is correct in his last post that people need to stop treating vintage like it's a "boys club" (whatever that means) and treat it like a real format. Would you talk bad about any pros for not scooping your friend in because it helped out their teammates? Certainly not, just because this is vintage doesn't give anyone the right to be scooped to or otherwise.

[GUnit]

Expecting your opponent to draw you in to the detriment of his own teammates is asinine.

[Khahan]

Whats wrong with refusing to scoop and forcing people to play to draw in so they EARN their wins?   

[dicemanx]

Whats wrong with refusing to scoop and forcing people to play to draw in so they EARN their wins?   

Morally, there is nothing wrong with such behavior. However, if you're the type of individual that is recognized as someone who doesn't perform this sort of favor for others, then such favors will not be provided to you in turn. Now there might be a whole host of reasons why this might not be critical to you - if you're much stronger than your peers, or have very strong teammates , the the likelihood of you benefiting from reciprocity diminishes. However, many will scoop because they wish to have such an action reciprocated for their benefit in the future when they are in the more disadvantaged position. Perhaps some do not wish to receive such gratuity regardless of their strength or their number of teammates, but they are hardly oh higher moral ground for refusing assistance.

Inflex is correct that having someone scoop or concede a draw to you isn't some sort of right, nor is it some sort of moral requirement - it is simply strategy that has relevance for future events.

[OwenTheEnchanter]

it's a reputation they have, and in my opinion, it makes them look like a team of greedy players.

Interesting you put it this way lets look back 24 hours ago to the MTGChicago.com Mox events at COD. . . round 5 Rhyno Vs AJ they can both certainly draw in and make t8 but Rhyno chooses to play it out in an effort to get Drummer79 into 7th-8th place on tiebreakers.

So before I continue lets recap, Drummer79 feels ICBM is a greedy team for not 'always intentionally drawing when the position presents itself' and yet he advocates to his teammate TO AVOID AN INTENTIONAL DRAW WHEN THE POSITION PRESENTED ITSELF.

NOTE: When I was 1-2 (yes, beleive it, I went 1-2) I got paired up vs a 2-1 and I scooped knowing I had no shot of making t8 and he could draw in the very next round, does this sound like a team or greedy players?

In that match, AJ leaves the match to go to the bathroom and the people left around that game are Rhyno of GWS (playing) and Drummer79 of GWS (judging). When AJ returns he sits down and resumes play, immediately the sly Rhyno asks "how many cards are in your sideboard?"

A question I have never asked in all my tournament experience, its an awkward question that serves little to no purpose, if you think someone has the wrong # of cards in their sideboard then pile shuffle their deck after they sideboard and do a mental count. Its far less conspicuous and gets the job done. So obviously between AJ leaving and returning something flagged Rhyno to ask this absurd question.

So Drummer79 does a count stops, tells AJ "we took a Brainstorm from your graveyard and put it on the bottom of your library . . . as a joke."

This is UNACCEPTABLE FOR ANY JUDGE TO DO AT ANY TOURNAMENT OF ANY LEVEL. Especially since Drummer79 was in the event and had vested interest in the outcome of that match.

So they discover that AJ has a 61 card maindeck and a 14 card sideboard and of course immediately Drummer79 "the penalty for this offense is a game loss" and obviously AJ is dumbfounded "I counted my sideboard before I left and it was 15 I have done nothing wrong and you guys admitted to manipulating my library when I was gone." The entire time Rhyno with a smile on his face plays defenseless "well I did nothing wrong and I have no idea why your library is 61 and sb 14." IF YOU DID NOTHING WRONG WHY ASK YOUR OPPONENT TO COUNT HIS SIDEBOARD! Drummer79 was stern, "the penalty for this offense is a game loss"

This is UNACCEPTABLE FOR ANY JUDGE TO DO AT ANY TOURNAMENT OF ANY LEVEL. Especially since Drummer79 was in the event and had vested interest in the outcome of that match.

NOTE: When AJ returned he even said something to the tune of "whatever I can't possibly lose this game" this should help show a motive for why someone would turn away from strategy to technicality when looking for his route to victory.

The person at the tournament in charge of supplying the prize and getting the venue comes over to straighten out this mess and he sees something is wrong. Starts to get into the specifics of what actually happened and at that point Rhyno offers and ID and the match ends. Sketchy to say the very least.

I admit ICBM has been known to 'dreams crush' or play out matches when there is an obvious reason for us to do so AKA get another teammate into t8, have better positioning in the t8, and even eliminate rival teams members from t8. All are legitimate reasons and if doing everything legal in a tournament setting to increase your placing garners you the reputation of greedy then so be it.

-Owen

[Inflex]

it's a reputation they have, and in my opinion, it makes them look like a team of greedy players.

Interesting you put it this way lets look back 24 hours ago to the MTGChicago.com Mox events at COD. . . round 5 Rhyno Vs AJ they can both certainly draw in and make t8 but Rhyno chooses to play it out in an effort to get Drummer79 into 7th-8th place on tiebreakers.

So before I continue lets recap, Drummer79 feels ICBM is a greedy team for not 'always intentionally drawing when the position presents itself' and yet he advocates to his teammate TO AVOID AN INTENTIONAL DRAW WHEN THE POSITION PRESENTED ITSELF.

NOTE: When I was 1-2 (yes, beleive it, I went 1-2) I got paired up vs a 2-1 and I scooped knowing I had no shot of making t8 and he could draw in the very next round, does this sound like a team or greedy players?

In that match, AJ leaves the match to go to the bathroom and the people left around that game are Rhyno of GWS (playing), Soly of GWS (spectating), and our favorite Drummer79 of GWS (judging). When AJ returns he sits down and resumes play, immediately the sly Rhyno asks "how many cards are in your sideboard?"

A question I have never asked in all my tournament experience, its an awkward question that serves little to no purpose, if you think someone has the wrong # of cards in their sideboard then pile shuffle their deck after they sideboard and do a mental count. Its far less conspicuous and gets the job done. So obviously between AJ leaving and returning something flagged Rhyno to ask this absurd question.

So Drummer79 does a count stops, tells AJ "we took a Brainstorm from your graveyard and put it on the bottom of your library . . . as a joke."

This is UNACCEPTABLE FOR ANY JUDGE TO DO AT ANY TOURNAMENT OF ANY LEVEL. Especially since Drummer79 was in the event and had vested interest in the outcome of that match.

So they discover that AJ has a 61 card maindeck and a 14 card sideboard and of course immediately Drummer79 "the penalty for this offense is a game loss" and obviously AJ is dumbfounded "I counted my sideboard before I left and it was 15 I have done nothing wrong and you guys admitted to manipulating my library when I was gone." The entire time Rhyno with a smile on his face plays defenseless "well I did nothing wrong and I have no idea why your library is 61 and sb 14." IF YOU DID NOTHING WRONG WHY ASK YOUR OPPONENT TO COUNT HIS SIDEBOARD! Drummer79 was stern, "the penalty for this offense is a game loss"

This is UNACCEPTABLE FOR ANY JUDGE TO DO AT ANY TOURNAMENT OF ANY LEVEL. Especially since Drummer79 was in the event and had vested interest in the outcome of that match.

NOTE: When AJ returned he even said something to the tune of "whatever I can't possibly lose this game" this should help show a motive for why someone would turn away from strategy to technicality when looking for his route to victory.

The person at the tournament in charge of supplying the prize and getting the venue comes over to straighten out this mess and he sees something is wrong. Starts to get into the specifics of what actually happened and at that point Rhyno offers and ID and the match ends. Sketchy to say the very least.

I admit ICBM has been known to 'dreams crush' or play out matches when there is an obvious reason for us to do so AKA get another teammate into t8, have better positioning in the t8, and even eliminate rival teams members from t8. All are legitimate reasons and if doing everything legal in a tournament setting to increase your placing garners you the reputation of greedy then so be it.

-Owen

I'm missing the part where Drummer79 follows the rules and DQs himself and Rhyno for interfering with a match state, cheating, lying to a judge, misrepresenting game state, and about ten other rules.

[Tabasco]

I was there and agree with what Inflex and Owen have to say about the matter.  Tampering with someone's deck, and THEN finding something actually wrong with the it or the sideboard, is shady.  The fact that they actually tried to give him a game loss shows poor sportsmanship and a lack of respect for the game and its players.

That aside, I feel that I was perfectly in my right to not scoop to Smennen.  I came to play Magic, not to bicker for 10 minutes prior to the start of the match to decide whether or not I wanted to concede.  Maybe if those 10 minutes had been spent playing the game, we might have finished the match or at least resolved a Brainstorm.

[The_spooky_kid]

As for the article, well written, and ICBMers are notorious for exactly what he did by not scooping up the cards and letting you in.  They are an alright group of guys, but not so much when situations like that come up.  Case and point...  TK and I can both draw the last round at an event, and he chooses to play me for position instead of letting me eat like I wanted, oh well..   And recently, Dan Carp is playing Jerrett Rocha in a Pastimes event, and last round, the entire top 8 can draw, but Dan chooses to play Jerrett instead of just drawing and letting Jerrett take a break after 5 rounds of Stax.  Both players were totally within their rights, however, it's a reputation they have, and in my opinion, it makes them look like a team of greedy players.

We are notorious for not scooping or drawing last round? Some people actually enjoy getting something out of paying there $25-30 entry fee, and I don't mean a piece of power. I like to play magic. If I can help one of my friends by potentially knocking someone else out, good.  THere is a reason it is called a top 8.  They are the best 8 out of the tournament, big deal if they have to earn it.    We take the game very seriously, and put a lot of time and money into what we do and the results show it.  It isn't greedy to want to win a tournament,or be successful at what you enjoy doing.

[Grapes17]

I was there and agree with what Inflex and Owen have to say about the matter.  Tampering with someone's deck, and THEN finding something actually wrong with the it or the sideboard, is shady.  The fact that they actually tried to give him a game loss shows poor sportsmanship and a lack of respect for the game and its players.

That aside, I feel that I was perfectly in my right to not scoop to Smennen.  I came to play Magic, not to bicker for 10 minutes prior to the start of the match to decide whether or not I wanted to concede.  Maybe if those 10 minutes had been spent playing the game, we might have finished the match or at least resolved a Brainstorm.

I was at the table when the Tom Foolery happened, and both you and Owen are wrong (to a degree). NO ONE messed with AJ's deck. Not a finger was laid on his deck. They took the bottom card of his graveyard and put it at the bottom of AJ's sideboard. The person supplying prize, the judge, AJ's opponent, and me all saw this, and will swear by it. Perhaps it was wrong to mess with AJ.

But on the other hand, AJ just looked at the judge and stated "I'm going to the bathroom, watch my stuff" and walked away from the match. He didn't ask for permission, he just did it. In any other tournament, the judge would have most likely given the player some sort of penalty for walking away from the match without the consent of the judge.

So to "get back" at AJ, they were going to play a joke on him, and make him think something was up, and then just correct it afterward. Again, NO ONE touched AJ's deck, just his grave and board. And you're right, asking your opponent to count their board is fishy, and that is why they didn't count before doing it. They had assumed that everything was straight to start with. The count was just going to be part of the joke. But then it turned terribly wrong when we found out that AJ was infact playing with an illegal board.

Take what you will from this, but we (TO, Judge, Opponent, and Me) know for a FACT that AJ had an illegal board. No question. Even if both sides did something wrong, I still think the illegal board trumps any Tom Foolery that took place.

[Drummer79]

We were wrong in what happened that day... it was dumb I screwed up.  The situation was fixed, AJ top 8ed.
I felt like we all moved on from it.

Also, I'd like to apologize to the ICBM guys about the greedy comment.  I understand wanting to play, and when it benefits the team.  Playing again reminded me of that.  I haven't been there for a while.