[Premium Article] So Many Insane Plays - This Is Vintage, Afterall Oath v. Flash

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15692.html

Editor's Blurb:

Monday, April 7th - Today’s So Many Insane Plays sees Stephen Menendian walk us through one of the most pertinent Vintage matchups in the modern metagame. Tyrant Oath is putting up excellent results worldwide, and the power of Flash is simply undeniable. Who’ll take the crown in this battle of the titans?

[portland]

Interesting stuff Steve, especially the increasingly popular storm switcheroo. Think there will be a lot of second guessing in weeks to come.

Shame the Fastbond was such a factor, but this is type I, it was restricted for a reason.

[dicemanx]

I appreciate the effort Steve as I always enjoy articles that focus on dissecting actual games, but unfortunately the quality of the games themselves was a miss here. The Oath deck drew into way too many good restricted  cards (Fastbond, Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Yawgmoth's Will) for us to glean any useful info from the games, making it almost impossible to evaluate the strength or validity of any decisions made by either Flash or Oath - for instance, the possible decisions on Flash's first turn was notable, but of little consequence as you even admitted in the article that it wasn't really possible to determine what, if any, optimal lines of play there were. The analysis that was present, such as discussing that Ponder sees 4 cards over Briainstorm's 3 or discussing the merits of playing Ancestral ahead of Brainstorm was rather on the trivial side.

I'd suggest being a little more discriminatory when selecting which games make it into the articles, because the blow-outs don't really teach us very much. When I wrote the WGDX vs GAT article I had to discard the blow-outs because they didn't really give any interesting insight. I was really surprised by your comment in the article afterwards that the games were "interesting".

[Rock Lee]

an interesting read. I will admit I skipped past the mechanical game itself and looked more to your comments. With T Oath's plan moving into Storm combo post board, I'm sure flash could develop some interesting plans to counter it.

Oath siding out of the Oath plan expresses Shay's knowledge that pure Oath versus Flash is a losing battle.

[fury]

I appreciate the effort Steve as I always enjoy articles that focus on dissecting actual games, but unfortunately the quality of the games themselves was a miss here. The Oath deck drew into way too many good restricted  cards (Fastbond, Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Yawgmoth's Will) for us to glean any useful info from the games, making it almost impossible to evaluate the strength or validity of any decisions made by either Flash or Oath - for instance, the possible decisions on Flash's first turn was notable, but of little consequence as you even admitted in the article that it wasn't really possible to determine what, if any, optimal lines of play there were. The analysis that was present, such as discussing that Ponder sees 4 cards over Briainstorm's 3 or discussing the merits of playing Ancestral ahead of Brainstorm was rather on the trivial side.

I'd suggest being a little more discriminatory when selecting which games make it into the articles, because the blow-outs don't really teach us very much. When I wrote the WGDX vs GAT article I had to discard the blow-outs because they didn't really give any interesting insight. I was really surprised by your comment in the article afterwards that the games were "interesting".

I find the effort to simulate real matches against two archetypes very interesting, provided we simulate it with some realism. Two ways may be explored : the first is to simulate a lot of games, for instance with a software like Magic Workstation, and select the more significant games, where archetypes use all their power to achieve victory (that was the purpose of my "educational games" in my articles WGDX vs Flash/Ichorid/Stax ; I wanted to show how the WGD build may react against a particular deck); the second is to build games which show the proper reactions against some opponent's threats.

For instance, the matchup Flash vs Tyrant Oath may be build as followed in some realistic way (statistically speaking) :

1) Oath's hand : Forbidden Orchard, Mystical tutor, Duress, Mox, Oath of Druids, Brainstorm, Force of Will.
2) Flash's hand : Summoner's Pact, Polluted Delta, Merchant Scroll, Flooded Strand, Tropical Island, Echoing truth, Force of Will.

Hands are not broken, but both archetypes must set up their resources correctly by anticipating the opponent's moves to  achieve victory. The tutors are here to show how people can reach solutions to the opponent's threats.

But I know the exercise is very difficult, and I would suggest the first way : simulations of plenty of games, and a selection of the most interesting ones.

[wiley]

A few things about this article. 

First, I definitely liked the fact that you went to Rich to make sure you had the proper boarding plan for oath against your deck, go cross team cooperation! 

Second, even though it ended up irrelevant, the discussions of the various lines of play for both decks were valid for the particular point in the game, and are relatively common decision trees to begin with.  These are the sort of things that need to be in a primer article, and they were discussed in depth here.  Even though the end result was bad for flash it is admittedly not the fault of the deck, oath simply overpowered it, which happens in vintage from time to time.

Third, I would like to pose a question.  What would improve the deck (Flash) to better allow it to control flexible, consistent and quick combo decks such as Oath or Tropical Storm?  The new flash's biggest difference from the old versions is that the game goes more and more in favor of flash the longer it goes, instead of the opposite as with the sliver kill.  Is there a way to make flash into a more controlling deck (this seems laughable with the 8 turn 0 hard counters it already runs, but 4 of those require you to be able to combo for them to be effective)?

Fourth, do you believe that Ichorid is more prevalent than Platinum Angel?  I ask this because of the inclusion of bile urchin, I understand that manaless ichorid is a poor match up for flash, but I don't believe that it would be worth sacrificing ways to win through common hate to beat one archetype.  What are your thoughts on this now that you have been able to test urchin some?

PS: Since this is probably the first time I have commented on one of your articles (I think) I would like to say that I got premium just for your articles, I have always found them interesting and informative.

[JewLightning]

It was a very interesting read, and even though the games were a blow out from Oath's side I still find the testing relative because broken stuff does happen. I am also curious about the Bile Urchin decision, the card to me seems sub-optimal compared to Mogg Fanatic because of Platinum Angel, but I could be wrong? I was wondering if you have had a chance to test the Mana Ichorid Vs. Flash, and if you have how has that worked out? Also, from what you have seen come June 1st will players be no longer able to play with Flash?

Brennen

[Purple Hat]

I'm gonna jump in with the stupid question cus I've been on a bit of a hiatus, but why is bile urchin better vs ichorid than mogg fanatic?  I'm not seeing it.

[AngryPheldagrif]

I'm gonna jump in with the stupid question cus I've been on a bit of a hiatus, but why is bile urchin better vs ichorid than mogg fanatic?  I'm not seeing it.

Hardcast off Underground versus only castable off Lotus/Ruby/Petal.

[dicemanx]

I'm also not sure why the hard-castability is relevant, unless you're specifically hedging against having Fanatic + Snatcher in hand (or perhaps plan to dispense with Snatcher altogether). I have a feeling though that the difference between Fanatic and Urchin is largely negligible. Curiously enough, would hardcasting a Fanatic impede the opposing Flash combo? Might be relevant in the mirror if that is the case.

[ErkBek]

Curiously enough, would hardcasting a Fanatic impede the opposing Flash combo? Might be relevant in the mirror if that is the case.

No it doesn't. You can just Flash out Body Snatcher, Carrion Feeder, and Fanatic to win through an opposing fanatic.

I'd think Fanatic is better vs. Ichorid since you can sac it to RFG Bridges. The chances of the Ichorid player not being able to win the game because they are forced to make less than 20 creatures seems highly unlikely.

[Purple Hat]

I'm gonna jump in with the stupid question cus I've been on a bit of a hiatus, but why is bile urchin better vs ichorid than mogg fanatic?  I'm not seeing it.

Hardcast off Underground versus only castable off Lotus/Ruby/Petal.

why does this matter vs ichorid though?  I get the whole hard castable vs. not argument, I'm just not sure you care since you now have 7 ways to deal with a fanatic in hand (3 ways to cast him, 4 brainstorms to put him back) and if you're playing thought sieze you can even thought sieze him into the yard before going off.  so while I'm not sure you care, I'm sure this is not only relevant in the ichorid matchup, but steve's article says:

I’ve cut Mogg Fanatic for Bile Urchin. It can’t kill Platinum Angel, but it is better against Ichorid and it is actually castable off Underground Sea.

and I can't see a way that it's better vs ichorid.

[Tha Gunslinga]

You can pop it to kill Bridges.  Fanatic can too, but you can cast Bile Urchin much more easily.  For reference, the latest ICBM Open top 8 featured 1 Ichorid and 0 Platinum Angels.

[wiley]

Change the "and" to "as" in the sentence quoted from Steve's article and it makes more sense.  With the urchin you have a window of opportunity to cast it far greater than that of fanatic because of color.  I am simply unconvinced that you should expect to see more Ichorids in any given tournament than Platinum Angels.

Though, the latest ICBM shows the format is moving away from Platz, so maybe I am simply jumping at shadows.

[GUnit]

One tournament doesn't prove anything. There are more viable decks that play platinum angel than ichorid, even if they don't get played at tournaments hosted by ICBM.

[Smmenen]

and if your metagame features more platinum angel, you should play Fanatic, obviously.