[Premium Article] So Many Insane Plays - Playing With Fire

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15812.html

This article is basically a longform essay on some of the biggest issues now in Vintage design.

Here's the editorial blurb:

While the current Vintage metagame is perhaps the most vibrant we’ve ever seen, it’s safe to say that there are a number of core strategies that pepper the format. However, while these strategies appear simple at face value, some are more tricksy than others. Did you know that Tyrant Oath isn’t actually an Oath deck? Or that Quirion Dryad is a Storm card? Let Stephen explain all…

[The Atog Lord]

Did you know that Tyrant Oath isn’t actually an Oath deck? Or that Quirion Dryad is a Storm card?

Steve, those are both incorrect statements. I don't have premium, so I'm not sure exactly how you're going to try to explain them; but this being an open forum, I feel confident responding without needing premium to do so.
Tyrant Oath is very much an Oath deck. It can win without Oath, but that enchantment wins the majority of games that the deck wins. That, along with its playing a full set of Oaths, means that it is in fact an Oath deck. Is it different from other Vintage Oath builds? Sure. But it is by no means not an Oath deck.
Now, as for Dryad having Storm. Of course she doesn't have Storm, and not just like how Chub Toad doesn't have Bushido. You can spread out the turns for the Dryad, something Storm does not let you do. Storm needs to be done all at once, whereas the Dryad has no such requirement. Further, she counts only certain spells, and not all spells like Storm spells do.

[Smmenen]

Did you know that Tyrant Oath isn’t actually an Oath deck? Or that Quirion Dryad is a Storm card?

Steve, those are both incorrect statements. I don't have premium, so I'm not sure exactly how you're going to try to explain them; but this being an open forum, I feel confident responding without needing premium to do so.
Tyrant Oath is very much an Oath deck. It can win without Oath, but that enchantment wins the majority of games that the deck wins. That, along with its playing a full set of Oaths, means that it is in fact an Oath deck. Is it different from other Vintage Oath builds? Sure. But it is by no means not an Oath deck.
Now, as for Dryad having Storm. Of course she doesn't have Storm, and not just like how Chub Toad doesn't have Bushido. You can spread out the turns for the Dryad, something Storm does not let you do. Storm needs to be done all at once, whereas the Dryad has no such requirement. Further, she counts only certain spells, and not all spells like Storm spells do.

I, too, feel confidant that my statements are true.  Since a great deal of the article deals with those two questions in long essay form, I will be happy to hear your specific thoughts on my assertions when this article becomes free.

[wiley]

Taken at face value the statements in the blurb are certainly incorrect.  However, the explanations in the article are sound and have merit.  It may have been better to craft the opening statement to indicate better the main focus of the article, the engines of vintage.  I don't think the current wording accurately portrays that.

Overall I thought it was a very good article and accurately addresses the common complaint of "why are there so few archetypes in vintage" or "how can you call it a completely different deck when there is only a 5-10 card difference in lists?"

Vintage most definitely has the greatest, most powerful and flexible engines of any format.  Therefore it is of little surprise that there would be many ways to utilize the power of such engines.  If you were to take a parallel from the automobile industry you could look at a Honda Civic Si Sedan (http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-si-sedan/price.aspx) and an Ariel Atom (http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/), both have the exact same engine but put to wildly different uses.  Much the same can be said for the gushbond engine or workshop engine or mana drain engines in vintage.

[Polynomial P]

Very interesting article Steve. I must say that these articles are why I still subscribe to premium. I am a bit surprised that you didnt mention psychatog since it almost fits having storm even more than Dryad. Psychatog rewards you for having played spells and works retroactively like storm: Storm counts the number of spells played that turn, whereas Psychatog counts what you've put into the grave and any card advantage you have created over the course of the whole game. Neither storm cards nor Psychatog need to be in play while you are doing what the deck is supposed to do...which makes for the obvious analogy.

[MadManiac21]

I, too, feel confidant that my statements are true.  Since a great deal of the article deals with those two questions in long essay form, I will be happy to hear your specific thoughts on my assertions when this article becomes free.

So we have to wait 6 months to hear your rebuttal? /sadpanda

I have to wholeheartedly agree with Rich on this point. Oath is the engine that runs that deck; without it it could not run the tyrant/reclamation kill. While it may be unlike past oath decks in that it does not HAVE to use the attack step to win the game, I have seen Oath players beat for 2-3 turns with Tyrants while facing an opponents empty board.

Quirion Dryad is also in no way STRICTLY a storm card for many of the reasons Rich listed. Unlike storm combo - which has very few natural counters - Dryad faces many, many more obstacles. All creature removal, bounce, and simple blockers stop it from winning the game.

It's inherent flexibility to also allow gat players play a "small ball" strategy of swinging for 3-5 for several turns to win makes it much different than the necessary "long ball" strategy to win with storm combo - you MUST go off and cast 9-10 spells before you can win with Tendrils.

Dryad also was never a storm card in the Dryad-still list Houdlette took to the Waterbury finals, nor the slew of Dryad Hate decks that put up solid numbers over the past couple years.

I'd really like to here you rebuttal steve, as these presumptions are close to your "FoW is Bad" level.

[wiley]

After reading through the article again (slow day at work) I think the blurb would more accurately reflect the article if it were changed to this

While the current Vintage metagame is perhaps the most vibrant we’ve ever seen, it’s safe to say that there are a number of core strategies that pepper the format. However, while these strategies appear simple at face value, some are more tricksy than others. Did you know that Tyrant Oath isn’t just an Oath deck? Or that Quirion Dryad is also a Storm card? Let Stephen explain all…

As Stephen already said, the entire article is crafted to explain these assertions, so it's kind of hard to sum it up without spoiling the whole article :/  That said I would also like to hear his rebuttal, if only to see how good of a word smith he can be.

[Smmenen]

I, too, feel confidant that my statements are true.  Since a great deal of the article deals with those two questions in long essay form, I will be happy to hear your specific thoughts on my assertions when this article becomes free.

So we have to wait 6 months to hear your rebuttal? /sadpanda

I have to wholeheartedly agree with Rich on this point. Oath is the engine that runs that deck; without it it could not run the tyrant/reclamation kill. While it may be unlike past oath decks in that it does not HAVE to use the attack step to win the game, I have seen Oath players beat for 2-3 turns with Tyrants while facing an opponents empty board.

Quirion Dryad is also in no way STRICTLY a storm card for many of the reasons Rich listed. Unlike storm combo - which has very few natural counters - Dryad faces many, many more obstacles. All creature removal, bounce, and simple blockers stop it from winning the game.

It's inherent flexibility to also allow gat players play a "small ball" strategy of swinging for 3-5 for several turns to win makes it much different than the necessary "long ball" strategy to win with storm combo - you MUST go off and cast 9-10 spells before you can win with Tendrils.

Dryad also was never a storm card in the Dryad-still list Houdlette took to the Waterbury finals, nor the slew of Dryad Hate decks that put up solid numbers over the past couple years.

I'd really like to here you rebuttal steve, as these presumptions are close to your "FoW is Bad" level.

FoW is bad LOL?   Who said I said that?

The premium articles are free in three months, not six.  In the meantime, you are free to spend $5 and read it. 

Also: what Wiley said. 

[MadManiac21]

Ok, your hands are tied ...

Would anyone else care to take a shot at defending Steve's position?

Oh and:

After reading through the article again (slow day at work) I think the blurb would more accurately reflect the article if it were changed to this

While the current Vintage metagame is perhaps the most vibrant we’ve ever seen, it’s safe to say that there are a number of core strategies that pepper the format. However, while these strategies appear simple at face value, some are more tricksy than others. Did you know that Tyrant Oath isn’t just an Oath deck? Or that Quirion Dryad is also a Storm card? Let Stephen explain all…

These concepts would follow from the current need for competitive vintage decks to essentially be highly flexible hybrids in order to effectively compete. Having one narrow path to victory leaves you open to rolling over to one set of hate (ala Ichorid/graveyard removal). It would be perfectly fine to say that Tyrant Oath isn't just an "Oath" deck in the classic sense because it has evolved to include combo measures. You also could consider dryad having a storm like threat of it "winning the game after you cast a bunch of spells in one turn".

While this sounds understandable, Steve's original statement seems inherently false.

[Purple Hat]

in short Steve's point is that dryad is essentially a storm kill condition because dryad decks are, above all else, designed to play a high volume of spells as early in the game as possible and Dryad is a storm card because it rewards the simple playing of spells.  Tyrant oath is, in the view of Steve's argument, a storm deck that plays oath as a way of countering the natural foils to the storm strategy.  I'm not quite explaining his argument about oath as well as he does, but it's along those lines.  he compares the core of the gush storm decks like TTS and NLD to Oath and GAT and comes to the conclusion that the decks are, in large part, unified by the strategy that drives all storm decks, thus he makes the claim that Tyrant oath is a storm deck in disguise as it were.

If we look at storm as a strategy rather than a mechanic then Steve's statements make more sense.  Steve's article is obviously much more clearly thought out than this and has better examples, but this is what I understood him to be saying.

[hauntedechos]

I do not see how Steve's statements are false.  Tyrant Oath is NOT just an Oath deck, it really does have the ability to go storm combo games 2-3, as it has most of the cards needed to do so.  Sure it's not a streamlined Storm deck, but the ability is more than just possible, it just requires the pilot to be adept at playing Storm Combo with a less than Tendrils focused deck.

I also agree that while the mechanics and how Tendrils is played are almost identical (in terms of the decks it finds a home in and how they are played in a game).  Dryad requires you to fetch Timewalk (like you fetch Tendrils or draw into it) and swing for lethal.  The routes to victory are slightly different in aspects of Dryad requiring you to swing and Tendrils requiring BB00, yet the fundamentals are the same, they both require you to cast mass spells to get the damage to lethal.

One could mini Tendrils and Yawgs for the second Tendrils, much the same way that one could cast a number of spells then Yawgs for the remaining spells needed to pump Dryad for lethal.  If not Yawgs to pump dryad, then Timewalk for the second swing.  It is a comparison that suggests (to me at least) that the approach to playing either is not so different, once you get your head around it.  It's getting your head around these concepts that I think Steve is trying to communicate.

Ultimatly for me, I see that the issue at hand is looking at the fact that current decks seek to abuse Gush Bond and that each has the ability to do similar things that other decks are doing.  Look at the Oath to Storm comparison, more and more both decks are really functioning the same way, save that Oath has a much more flexible plan in the shape of Oath itself, yet with Show and Tell it doesn't need to run Oath, it simply chooses to in a meta fraught with doods.  Steve talks about how Tidespout is the Dark Ritual of Oath and I believe it!  the dork allows you to create storm by bouncing 2 moxen, or Sol ring or whatever and then deck the opponent instead of dealing Lethal, yet games 2-3 that Brainstorm can become Tendrils, while not disturbing the decks needs.  The idea is that while Dark Ritual is the accelerator, Tide Spout is the facilitator, in the end the same thing happens and requires the same answer to stop it.

In the case of Dryad vs. Tendrils, again there are striking parallels, either you have the card that stops timewalk or bounces Dryad (ok you got me, there is another answer to Dryad you don't have to Tendrils) or you lose, because the pilot will be aware of the board position and will "storm Dryad" to a level appropriate to game state and then Berserk in your face, or swing outright if no dorks are present.  The same is the case for Storm, I am going to make sure you don't have the Force on my accelerator, then go off.  Leaving you with only one option, Stifle.

I really think that the frame of mind that Steve is trying to get everyone into, is very helpfull and should not be picked apart like this.  At a very basic core, I think that pilots of lesser knowledge could really gain form this.  To pick things apart from technical levels seems to just miss the point he makes.

Haunted.

[The Atog Lord]

The statements in the blurb are as false as the statement "All Dogs are Cats." Are there some dogs who have qualities which may be viewed as feline? Yes. Are there instances of dogs and cats acting in similar ways? Yes. However, despite the fact that Dogs and Cats may be similar, to equate them is absurd.

Is Tyrant Oath just an Oath deck? No. Is Tyrant Oath an Oath deck? Yes. Therein lies the difference. Tyrant Oath can approach the game from a number of ways, not just through Oath. But it is built around Oath, and dedicates not less than 11 slots in the maindeck to using the Oath engine.

If I take Hale's account of Steve's article, then Steve is saying that Oath is a Storm deck. He is also saying that decks using Dryad are Storm decks. By that logic, almost any good deck would be a Storm deck. Doesn't a Goblin deck win by casting as many spells as possible as early as possible? Doesn't a deck with nothing but Mountains and burn spells win by casting a certain number of spells as quickly as possible? If I'm playing an Elf deck, is not my objective to put my spells on the stack as quickly as possible?

A deck that is trying to run through its spells quickly is not a Storm deck. It is just a deck mindful of tempo. The only decks which do not attempt to drop their spells quickly are Ichorid and very reactive control decks.

Steve's argument, then, is essentially that Cats have fur and are warm-blooded. Dogs have fur and are warm-blooded. Therefore Dogs are Cats. What he misses is that two different classes may both be subclasses of a single superclass. In this case, Cats and Dogs are both Mammals, and therefore share common characteristics.

In the case of Vintage decks, Storm decks tend to be subclasses of Tempo decks, which seek to maximize their mana utilization and cast their spells early and often. Tyrant Oath is also a Tempo deck, and so is Goblins and so is GAT. If my understanding of Steve's article is correct, then Steve is conflating Storm decks with Tempo decks, and that is the source of this issue.

[LSV]

Just last weekend I played a Storm deck (Gush Tendrils with Doomsday) that had Quirion Dryads in the sideboard. http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35759.0

One the one hand, it supports the connection that Dryads are akin to Storm spells, as they fit neatly in a deck that can only win through Tendrils game one. Still, the deck shifts greatly once Dryads (and Dark Confidants) come in. Instead of winning through a Storm turn with a bunch of spells plus Tendrils or Dryad, you just focus on sticking a Confidant or Dryad and cantripping Ponders or Brainstorms until they die. Granted you still finish a fair number of games post board with Tendrils, but Dryad usually plays a bit differently. Sometimes you do Yawg Will, play a Dryad, play a ton of spells and a Timewalk, but most often Dryads hit for 4-6 damage a turn for a number of turns.

That being said, I liked the article and thought that showing the basic connections behind all of these decks was interesting.

[Smmenen]

The statements in the blurb are as false as the statement "All Dogs are Cats." Are there some dogs who have qualities which may be viewed as feline? Yes. Are there instances of dogs and cats acting in similar ways? Yes. However, despite the fact that Dogs and Cats may be similar, to equate them is absurd.

Is Tyrant Oath just an Oath deck? No. Is Tyrant Oath an Oath deck? Yes. Therein lies the difference. Tyrant Oath can approach the game from a number of ways, not just through Oath. But it is built around Oath, and dedicates not less than 11 slots in the maindeck to using the Oath engine.

If I take Hale's account of Steve's article, then Steve is saying that Oath is a Storm deck. He is also saying that decks using Dryad are Storm decks. By that logic, almost any good deck would be a Storm deck. Doesn't a Goblin deck win by casting as many spells as possible as early as possible? Doesn't a deck with nothing but Mountains and burn spells win by casting a certain number of spells as quickly as possible? If I'm playing an Elf deck, is not my objective to put my spells on the stack as quickly as possible?

A deck that is trying to run through its spells quickly is not a Storm deck. It is just a deck mindful of tempo. The only decks which do not attempt to drop their spells quickly are Ichorid and very reactive control decks.

Steve's argument, then, is essentially that Cats have fur and are warm-blooded. Dogs have fur and are warm-blooded. Therefore Dogs are Cats. What he misses is that two different classes may both be subclasses of a single superclass. In this case, Cats and Dogs are both Mammals, and therefore share common characteristics.

In the case of Vintage decks, Storm decks tend to be subclasses of Tempo decks, which seek to maximize their mana utilization and cast their spells early and often. Tyrant Oath is also a Tempo deck, and so is Goblins and so is GAT. If my understanding of Steve's article is correct, then Steve is conflating Storm decks with Tempo decks, and that is the source of this issue.

My point about Dryad is, essentially, that it prefigured storm.

We all know the basic elements of storm, i.e. the technical definition.  It's every spell played in a turn.   However, if you take the most relevant aspects of that definition, you find that Dryad actually fits them quite well.    Relevance here is measured by practical importance.   For example, Quiron Dryad does not count spells an opponent played in a turn.   If you were to evenly divide up the elements of storm in some objective sense, you might give alot of weight to that component.  However, no storm deck ever designed *plans*, as a strategic matter, for opponents to play spells.  In fact, the general hope is that your opponent *doesn't" play spells because if they did, they would likely be trying to disrupt you from going off.    Similarly, the fact that Dryad doesn't count green spells is similarly irrellevant as: a)  there is only really one other green spell in your deck besides other Dryads.   Thus, the most substantial difference between Dryad and actual storm mechanic that Dryad lacks is the fact that artifacts don't count towards storm.   The one drawback that storm has that Dryad doesn't is the fact that Dryad retains its counters.   

Just as importantly, there are a great number of ways in which Dryad resembles the storm mechanic.  First of all, it is a card that rewards you for playing lots of spells.   Cantripping into cantrips into Gush into Duress, for example, is a chain of plays that Dryad likes.    The more spells the better.  The same is true of storm.   Also, the fundamental ways that it interacts with Yawgmoth's Will - the replaying of a number of spells, is actually identical to real storm - it's the same reason that Tendrils is good with Yawg Will. 

Is Dryad in fact a Storm card?  No.  But it shares 95% of the relevant similarities and in fact is fueled by similar engines that it can be explained as a card that essentially prefigured storm.   GAT was the first real deck to abuse Yawgmoth's Will in modern Vintage.   Keeper and Kai Budde's Trix and decks like that all used Yawg Will, but none used them so effectively, ruthlessly and efficiently as a weapon and as a strategy as GAT.   From the emergence of GAT, alot of Vintage development can be seen as a trajectory of abusing Yawg Will.   

Part of the point of the article is to get people to think about things in a different way.   Alot of human information is dictated by the frame.   The stories we tell about reality does not simply explain it, it actually constructs reality for human perception.   By asserting, in a somewhat polemical way, that Dryad is a storm card, it's an attempt to explain why Dryad is not simply a conventional creature.   It's showing that part of the reason that Dryad is a good card is because of its storm properties.   Granted, those properties are not one to one, but they are sufficiently similar in terms of basic operation and relevant particularities that they justify the assertion that Dryad is actually a variant storm card.   For example, what if there were a mechanic called Cyclone that was identical to storm but didn't count spells your opponent played?  Technically, it would not be a storm card.  However, it would be sufficiently similar that we could, in the right context and at the right time, justifiably assert that it is like storm.   Dryad is a couple of iterations removed from that hypothetical, but not so much as might appear at first glance.   

I would have hoped that you would have enough trust in my intelligence and capacity to discern and analyze Vintage than to think that I was saying Dogs are Cats Rich .   

In any case, this is much more exhaustively explained and contextualized in the article.

[arctic79]

So let me get this straight, there is nothing here other than a theoretical debate about the catagorization of cerain cards that are prevelant in Vintage.  No offense to Steve, but it's the age old debate of "you say tomato I say Tomaato" when you come down to it. (not that there is any thing wrong with a good theoretical discussion of cards).  We all know the merits of why Dryad is a better then conventional creature card, in the end does it matter if it's classified as a storm card or not?  Really how much can you disect it?

[nineisnoone]

It's funny that this article came out now (though tragically I'll still have to wait for it to be free), as I was screwing around trying to build a R/B Strom deck with Thunderscape Familiar, and I was trying out different storm cards, namely at the time Storm Entity. The (almost) literal storm creature. And after constantly being underwhelmed with how it performed, I realized... well jeez why don't I just play Quiron Dryad?  Seeing it that way it's easy for me to see that Dryad is a storm creature.  Imo it is a fairly obvious point(and I am quite surprised it is even being argued against) when framed in that context.

Explaining Oath is much more difficult though.  Sure, Tidespout Tyrant can storm for the win, but facially the deck is Oath->Upkeep->Win.  But just like Dragonstorm isn't a burn deck, if Tyrant Oath is a storm deck, it's not because of Tyrant. 

Oath is really just a function of people thinking Dryad is too slow, and then dealing with that.  The difference between Dryad and a traditional storm card is that you have to play the card first, not last.  This is important as it makes the deck slower because it has to "wait" to have Dryad in play before it storms in any useful way.  Usually in a storm deck you have a hand that is of the proper balance and density, and you just storm the heck out of your deck.  Often you just do this blindly.  This is why Long decks require a higher threat density.  You're trying to storm into your win condition, rather than your win condition being backed up by storm.  This is different than GAT where there really isn't much of a point to Gush+Bond the heck out your deck unless there is a Dryad on the board.

Of course after Dryad, the next card that was tried out was Tarmogoyf.  Imo this was mostly because most Blue-based decks just ran 1-2 bounce spells which screwed over Dryad (forcing it to lose its counters), but only being a speed bump for 'Goyf (which is an arguable storm card in its own right, rewarding spells cast before it, but only to a certain degree, but doing so more permanently than Dryad).  However, proper removal (Swords) would soon creep into side/mainboards and the upside of 'Goyf was overshadowed by Dryad's ability to win in a flurry.

Oath is the latest (and maybe final) card that was tried out in the slot.  Psychatog probably would have been explored more as an option, but costing 3 mana would require a larger mana base which cuts into cards for the Gushbond storm engine.  But Oath is 1G, just like Dryad and 'Goyf.  It even has "summoning sickness" just like a creature.  However, it avoids the answers to Dryad (generic bounce, i.e. you can just replay it with it's strength intact while a replayed Dryad will only be a 1/1) or 'Goyf (creature removal). 

Of course, why is (or simply is) Tyrant Oath a storm deck?  Or more importantly than what label it gets, why does it run a storm engine?  Well, now we turn back to the a deck like GrimLong.  Normally, the deck plays some draw spells, maybe a Draw 7 here or there, a bunch of Rituals, hopefully a Yawgmoth's Will to do it all over again, and then Tendrils for the win.  While that is not exactly what Tyrant Oath does, it isn't that far off.  There aren't any Draw 7's, but there is Yawgwill and Gush+Bond nets you 2 cards and 2 mana for only 2 life and 1 card.  As a point of comparison, Dark Ritual+Wheel of Fortune nets you 7 cards for 1 mana (+2 from Ritual -3 from Wheel) and 2 cards.  This means that GushBond relatively nets you +2 mana but -1.5 cards (averaging the 7 cards from Wheel of Fortune between both Wheel and Ritual) over Long.dec.  2 mana for 1.5 cards isn't bad, but Night's Whisper isn't Ancestral Recall by a long shot. 

What does that mean?  Well, a storm engine just doesn't compress play (i.e. more actions per turn), it compresses the deck.  I mean if you had 20 spells in your deck that's only effect was "20 blank spells are added to the stack, these do nothing other than count as spells", they wouldn't be played (at least not the way they are now).  The spells generate mana, draw cards, and tutor for specific cards.  Even if you have the Tendrils in your hand, you're looking for the rest of your hands to generate enough mana and draw enough cards so you can cast enough spells to make it lethal. 

You're not storming just to storm.  You're storming in search for something, whether that be the win condition specifically or just mana generators and draw spells to generically keep up the storm count.

Tyrant Oath is Oath in a storm deck, or rather it storms to Oath or just Oaths.  It doesn't matter that Oath doesn't have the word "storm" or even the word "spell" written on it.  It doesn't matter anymore than Yawgmoth's Bargain or Necropotence don't have those words written on them either.  Yes, you can draw into cards that let you storm for the win off them, but that's just a formality really.  If I'm testing out a deck that runs Necropotence, once I play it and untap, I don't bother figuring out how I won the game. The question is pedantic. 

The funny thing about Tyrant Oath is that it's a storm deck with a necessary storm count of zero.  It's really Bargain for 1G.  If you can cast it, then cast it.  Tyrant Oath runs Forbidden Orchards to supplement Oath, like GrimLong runs Rituals to cast Bargain. I don't care what I stormed to, I just cast Bargain.  Don't mistake how much storm you made with what that stormed found.  A storm engine consists of a mana, draw, and search.  Through this process (almost invariably through Yawgmoth's Will), you generate some excess.  You use this excess to win the game.  Tendrils wins the game after this because it basically shadows the storm that found it.  Dryad wins the game with this because it essentially grows along with the storm that protects it.  Even though Oath isn't shadowing or growing with the storm, it is still taking advantage of the storm either it found it or is protecting it. 

Or at least that's my take.  I could be way off.  It was an interesting thought (for me at least).

[wiley]

As far as the Oath argument goes it could be looked at like this:

Imagine oath as a boat with twin propellers, each propeller is attatched to it's own engine.  One engine is oath of druids and creatures, the other engine is cantrips and a storm card.  Ideally your opponent is straight ahead and there are no obsticles in the way so you run both engines at a harmonious speed that will get you to your destination (win the game) without breaking the boat on any unseen obsticles (counter walls, disruption in general). 

However, it is rare that the opponent will be straight in front of you so you adjust the engines, revving up on one and toning down on the other in such a fashion that you curve in line with the opponent and reach the endgame safely.

This might mean you attack with 2 5/5 fliers or you gush bond and cantrip your way into a crippling brainfreeze, sometimes switching plans midway.  The two engines are as close to completely harmonized as I have ever seen and the deck has great power because of it.

[Smmenen]

So let me get this straight, there is nothing here other than a theoretical debate about the catagorization of cerain cards that are prevelant in Vintage.  No offense to Steve, but it's the age old debate of "you say tomato I say Tomaato" when you come down to it. (not that there is any thing wrong with a good theoretical discussion of cards).  We all know the merits of why Dryad is a better then conventional creature card, in the end does it matter if it's classified as a storm card or not?  Really how much can you disect it?

This is precisely the danger of trying to explain a small snippet of an article to people who haven't read it.   This is a long-form, polemical essay of which the whole Dryad discussion is merely a small snippet.   If I were to recapitulate the article in its entirety, what would be the point of writing the article?   The most important part of the article is a discussion about how Gushbond decks are hybridizing and the consequences of that move and the way it has occured. 

[hauntedechos]

@ Steve:  Your article made sense to me.  I got what you were saying, it's about getting your head around the incredible similarities proposed.  I Have played TSOath and played it very much like how I would play my TTS deck, with slight adjustments for game play of course.  The deal is, I can play both decks with similar play styles and this is enabled by the incredible similarities in the engines.  Adjustments made are in consideration of looking for one of four Oaths instead of Dark Rituals to go off.  The idea for me (before this article was written) was that the similarities lend themselves to easy adjustments in game play.

When playing GAT, where I fell  short, was that I failed to look at Dryad in that manner.  I did understand the slow roll way of playing Dryad, however it was the failure to realize that I could actually set up a "storm" style win, by understanding that I needed to fetch Time Walk to make it all work.  I think that trying to look at things by strict rules, one misses the point that Steve is trying to make.  You cannot argue that Dryad doesn't have enough similarities to Tendrils that you couldn't port your understanding of Storm to your advantage when playing GAT, seriously.  It's the same thing as with TSOath, while knowing that you have so many of the same tools as a "storm deck", you can really play it out the same way.

Haunted.

[xycsoscyx]

All I have to say is: All dogs are cats!  There, I said it!!!

Honestly, great article.  I think the people complaining about your blurb really do need to actually read the article.  It explains things a lot more, he isn't just saying "it's not an Oath deck" (despite his blurb), he's trying to explain the engine behind the deck and explore how it works (going as far as saying that it doesn't really work like a traditional oath deck).  I'd really suggest shelling out $5 to read the article (worth it over waiting 3 months), as it has a lot of insight into how the decks work.

[arctic79]

I understand completely, even though I have not shelled out the $5 to read the premium articles which I promise I will do, the discussion in this thread has not even come close to the meat and potatoes of your article (apparently).  I guess it's a case of coming in half way through the conversation for most of the people responding to the header.

[Grand Inquisitor]

This is precisely the danger of trying to explain a small snippet of an article to people who haven't read it.

While this danger is real, I think the discussion that this thread has generated is beneficial to the community even above and beyond your original article (which I really enjoyed, and, for those who haven't read it, is internally consistent and coherent).  It uses the Gushbond engine as a platform to discuss what we all feel to be true: that T1 has become a combo/engine/tempo centric format.  Since, by a large margin, Yawgmoth's Will facilitates this better than any other card, Steve opens the door for another great discussion by mentioning in clear terms that:

From the emergence of GAT, alot of Vintage development can be seen as a trajectory of abusing Yawg Will.

So if we take the literal definiton of 'storm' and instead replace the abstraction of what T1 has become, Quirion Dryad is indeed its herald.

To Rich's credit, I feel the Oath as storm issue is still muddled.  Oath is effective in the metagame exactly because it is not a storm card.  Where as dryad, tog, goyf, and tendrils all proved superior to earlier versions of Oath when using the Gushbond engine, they all fell to the sphere phenomonon that Steve brings up in his article.  The solution to workshops as a metagame deck against Gushbond, was to use oath as a  answer to any kind of permanent disruption.  This allowed people to leverage the best engine with a cheap answer to the best metagame reaction.  The fact that brainfreeze, as a storm card, is chosen as the finisher relates to T1 and the Gushbond engine in general, not to Oath and Tidespout Tyrant (although there's obviously synergies with Tyrant).  Instead of dogs and cats, it's the tail wagging the dog.

Nice article Steve.

[iceage4life]

I think the problem is people are taking the "hook" of the article and without reading the article.  This is basically taking a sound bite and discussing it without context.  Honestly doesn't sound very fruitful to me.

[Demonic Attorney]

I think the problem is people are taking the "hook" of the article and without reading the article.  This is basically taking a sound bite and discussing it without context.  Honestly doesn't sound very fruitful to me.

The problem seems to arise from the "hook" itself.  It strikes me as similar to a newspaper that put on its front page "PRESIDENT BUSH TO BE IMPEACHED" and then went on to say in the actual story, "if articles of impeachment pass in the House, which looks unlikely."  I understand the importance of trying to get readers' attention, but overstating the thesis to suggest a point that isn't actually made in the article seems unnecessary. 

[Smmenen]

Keep in mind that I don't write those blurbs.   

[BruiZar]

My point about Dryad is, essentially, that it prefigured storm.

We all know the basic elements of storm, i.e. the technical definition.  It's every spell played in a turn.   However, if you take the most relevant aspects of that definition, you find that Dryad actually fits them quite well.    Relevance here is measured by practical importance.   For example, Quiron Dryad does not count spells an opponent played in a turn.   If you were to evenly divide up the elements of storm in some objective sense, you might give alot of weight to that component.  However, no storm deck ever designed *plans*, as a strategic matter, for opponents to play spells.  In fact, the general hope is that your opponent *doesn't" play spells because if they did, they would likely be trying to disrupt you from going off.    Similarly, the fact that Dryad doesn't count green spells is similarly irrellevant as: a)  there is only really one other green spell in your deck besides other Dryads.   Thus, the most substantial difference between Dryad and actual storm mechanic that Dryad lacks is the fact that artifacts don't count towards storm.   The one drawback that storm has that Dryad doesn't is the fact that Dryad retains its counters.   

Just as importantly, there are a great number of ways in which Dryad resembles the storm mechanic.  First of all, it is a card that rewards you for playing lots of spells.   Cantripping into cantrips into Gush into Duress, for example, is a chain of plays that Dryad likes.    The more spells the better.  The same is true of storm.   Also, the fundamental ways that it interacts with Yawgmoth's Will - the replaying of a number of spells, is actually identical to real storm - it's the same reason that Tendrils is good with Yawg Will. 

Smmenen: How would you categorize the mechanic of Mogg Sentry in regards to this discussion on storm

[Smmenen]

Should I contextualize your question?

To answer your question in context: I would not count those because implicit in my analysis was the fact that GAT was a highly played deck and that its basic strategy of building to yawg will and then winning without necessarily needing yawg will prefigures almost all modern storm decks.    Therefore, Dryad is the storm kill in a storm deck.   Those cards were never played in Vintage.

To answer your question a-contextually: Mogg Sentry does not resemble the storm mechanic because it is reliant upon opponent playing spells.  The storm mechanic is built into decks that are designed to play many spells, often hoping that the opponent plays few.

[BruiZar]

Thanks for clearing that up. My opinion is that although the mechanic is so much alike, it's still very different. Proves 1+1 is not always 2