[Premium Article] So Many Insane Plays - The Trouble with Shahrazad

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/16839_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Are_You_Down_With_OP_The_Trouble_With_Shahrazad.html

Editor's Blurb:

Monday, December 15th - Down the years, Vintage Maestro Stephen Menendian has championed the cause of many maligned cards, cards that have been banned, restricted, or have received errata. Today, he brings us the story of Shahrazad, banned but not forgotten, and presents the argument for its reintroduction into Vintage…

[Troy_Costisick]

Nice article.  I agree that restriction solves all of WotC's problems with the card and is much preferable to banning.  Here's to the unbanning of Shahrazad!  Oh, and if I haven't said it before, I really appreaciate your work on Time Vault.  It's added a whole new dimension to the game as a result.
Peace,

-Troy

[Prometheon]

I still think that this article was pointless.

Also, comparing to Shahrazad to Time Vault is apples to oranges. Time Vault had its functionality ruined by errata, whereas Shahrazad's functionality is problematic no matter how you look at it.

You talk about space concerns not being an issue because dredge and desire both take up a lot of extra space as well. Not a fair argument. Imagine a hypiothetical tournament where every deck (or a large percentage of them) was playing Shahrazad. This wouldn't happen, as the card sucks, but it theoretically poses a very real space problem. Saying "Desire and Dredge take up a lot of room, Shahrazad just takes up more" does not remove the fact that it takes up a lot of room. An arbitrary line has to be drawn somewhere, and Wizards has chosen to draw it at Shahrazad. It doesn't "threaten the integrity of the format" or any such nonsense as there is no possible slippery slope to go down. It's the ONLY subgame card that exists. It's not like we're worried about Erayo getting banned because you need to flip it, and chaos orb set a precedent for rotating cards...

Realistically, I'll get over one pointless article. I'm not upset so much about the content as I am about the opportunity cost. Rather than read an article that won't change anything, about a card I (and most other people) don't care about, I could have been reading something interesting. Is anyone geninely upset that Shahrazad is banned, or is this just an abstarct tirade about "the nature of Vintage?"

[LordHomerCat]

You might add a link to the article in your post Steve.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Actually, I was disappointed by the banning simply because Wizards fixed something that wasn't broken.  And honestly, if someone f-ed up a tournament by stalling out multiple rounds with Shahrazad.dec, what happened in the parking lot after the tournament would itself fix the problem.

Also, Shahrazad is interesting in the context of Extract.dec.  Ie. You change the it to:

WW, Sorcery, Extract 2 cards from your opponent's library and/or up to 4 cards that share a name. Roll a six-side die.  On a roll of 5 or 6 (maybe 6?), you lose half your life, otherwise your opponent loses half their life.  Beg the nearest judge for a delay of game penalty and almost certainly have no chance to play game 3.

Honestly, the card could never be competitive outside a strategy that just needs time to do ______ to the opponent's library.  Even in white weenie, WW creatures typically need to play a disruptive role.  See Jotun Grunt for an example of a barely played 1W 4/4 that has some disruption abilities and probably will deal 10 damage on average to an opponent when it resolves.

By comparison, removing the Tezz, Time Vault, and Robot from Tezz.dec or getting an opening to Extirpate the tendrils from Ad Nauseam might be playable in the future, even at the cost of WW and 10 life.  I mean, so what if you die to the Tendrils in a subgame...it's still gone.  Note "future," not now.  Though, honestly, Tidehollow Sculler, Extirpate, Mesmeric Fiend, and Hide/Seek have bordered on playable already.  A future 'Extract' variant might be quite good.  Maybe a compelling reason to play with unbanned, unrestricted Shahrazad.  Since that deck is annoying and disruptive to tournaments if multiple subgames happen, which is actually optimal give the overall strategy, unrestricted Shahrazad should never be a reality.

That said: here's the immediate counter-argument.  Let's say my name is 'Asshole' and I want to cast restricted Shahrazad *many* times in one game.  I take the Sharuum-Oath engine, mod it so that Spellweaver Helix will imprint Raven's Crime and Shahrazad, and bring it to a tournament.  The quality of the deck aside, you *will* manage to Oath up the full combo at least once every 2-3 matches.  Now, you can conceivably resolve Shahrazad 2-3 times per turn.  Given that you almost certainly had non-'Asshole' targets available like Yawg Will, Demonic Tutor, and Time Walk (all of which could likely win you the game on the spot), you're being a real douche by doing this.  Now, you've effectively 'unrestricted' Shahrazad since it will go off many times before the game ends.  As long as the card is in the format, it can be abused to emotionally punish opponents and TOs, despite the losses that using it *will* bring.

So, given that there's no valid reason to use the card at present other than being a douchebag...  As far as tournament magic is concerned maybe it should be banned.

[Katzby]

Also, Shahrazad is interesting in the context of Extract.dec.  Ie. You change the it to:

WW, Sorcery, Extract 2 cards from your opponent's library and/or up to 4 cards that share a name. Roll a six-side die.  On a roll of 5 or 6 (maybe 6?), you lose half your life, otherwise your opponent loses half their life.  Beg the nearest judge for a delay of game penalty and almost certainly have no chance to play game 3.

You are speaking somewhat cryptically, here.  I think that you are referring to the old ruling with Shahrazad regarding the fact that if cards got RFG'd while you were in the subgame, those cards would stay in the RFG zone after you returned to the parent game.  If that's the case, you should know that that is actually an outdated ruling.  Take a look at this ruling from gatherer:

7/15/2007 At the end of a subgame, each player puts all cards he or she owns that are in the subgame into his or her library in the main game, then shuffles them. This includes cards in the subgame's removed-from-the-game zone (this is a change from previous rulings).

This ruling was spelled out a little more clearly in the 10th edition rules update that went into effect on 7/13/2007: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/af186

Rule 506
This rule covers subgames. According to the current rules, when a subgame is finished, all the cards in the subgame are shuffled back into the respective main game libraries... except cards removed from the game in the subgame. Those cards stay removed from the game. That means that if you suspend a card in the subgame and the subgame ends, the card remains suspended and ticks down until you get to play it for free in the main game. Or, at least, that's what some people believe. Others have been questioning whether it's supposed to work this way, still others wondered if it worked the other way (suspend in the main game, play in the subgame), and this has been an active topic among rules gurus recently.

In my opinion, the suspend interaction violates the spirit of the subgame. The subgame is a completely separate, isolated Magic game, and cards aren't supposed to cross the boundaries from one game to the other (unless you use a Wish, which is explicitly getting something from outside the game you're in). This is a loophole caused by increased use of the (increasingly inaccurately named) removed-from-the-game zone. The nice thing about being the Magic Rules Manager is that my opinions have a funny way of becoming the truth, and this section has been rewritten to stop those shenanigans, and hopefully to be clearer overall. (For obvious reasons, no one had paid much attention to this section in a while. The only cards that create subgames are Shahrazad and Enter the Dungeon.)

So, Shahrazad was actually nerfed a few months before it was banned.  In my opinion, unbanning this card is only half the battle, since I'd also like to see its functionality restored to that from before the 10th edition update.  However, I'm sure that sentiment is well outside of the scope of Steve's article.


Katzby

[AmbivalentDuck]

Oh, wow, it's been completely nerfed then making it little more than a bad direct damage spell.  I didn't even see that update.

If it has no hope for legitimate usage, you're stuck choosing to fix the card by banning or by letting savage beatings take place in the parking lot after tournaments.

I mean, the card is simply disruptive to organized play and lacks application to any reasonable strategy as there are better ways of dealing the damage.  That said, making this truly disruptive takes setup and repeated usage, and will probably be punished as pure 'delay of game' one way or another.

[Norm4eva]

That said: here's the immediate counter-argument.  Let's say my name is 'Asshole' and I want to cast restricted Shahrazad *many* times in one game.  I take the Sharuum-Oath engine, mod it so that Spellweaver Helix will imprint Raven's Crime and Shahrazad, and bring it to a tournament.  The quality of the deck aside, you *will* manage to Oath up the full combo at least once every 2-3 matches.  Now, you can conceivably resolve Shahrazad 2-3 times per turn.  Given that you almost certainly had non-'Asshole' targets available like Yawg Will, Demonic Tutor, and Time Walk (all of which could likely win you the game on the spot), you're being a real douche by doing this.  Now, you've effectively 'unrestricted' Shahrazad since it will go off many times before the game ends.  As long as the card is in the format, it can be abused to emotionally punish opponents and TOs, despite the losses that using it *will* bring.

I realize this isn't the main point of your argument, it's the counter.  But I think it's worth pointing out that this fails in the face of the Magic axiom "There are no bad threats, only bad answers."
It's not like subgame.dec couldn't rise up, get hated on and continue the trend in Vintage that has persisted for so many years.  I mean, fuck, people got pissed about Dredge because it didn't even seem like it was playing the same game as the other player; the deck just works so differently from every other deck in the format.  I don't believe that's still true, I mean or at least you don't tend to hear the bitching and moaning you used to.  People finally figured out how to play against it and it because just another good deck.

The suspend trick seems like just some dumb cute tricks to me, I mean, good they cleared THAT shit up, can't have anyone playing Shade of Trokair during a subgame only to have it WRECK that poor long.dec player in the main.

I'm pretty sure there's no rule that says you must build your deck to win.  It seems like it's a no-brainer, I mean who doesn't build a deck to win?  What makes a 2 - 0 win more acceptable than a first game win and a second/third game Shah into infinity?  It's not like shitstomping the meta like Flash, so I don't see the difference between losing to 'Shah combo' and losing to Tendrils; you can either deal or you can't.  There are no bad threats.

[AmbivalentDuck]

The problem isn't that somebody will inevitably lose to Shah.dec and be pissed about it.  The problem is the other people in the tournament waiting for each match to be finished.  Who cares if Shah.dec beats a given player?  The problem is that Shah.dec defeats organized play. 

But I think it's worth pointing out that this fails in the face of the Magic axiom "There are no bad threats, only bad answers."

I absolutely agree.  Is the answer penalties for the delay of game (directed at individual transgressors) or banning (directed at the card itself)?  I'm guessing Steve would answer that you shouldn't punish cards for what people are doing.  And honestly, I'd agree: Shahrazad may be an attractive nuisance, but it would never be the underlying problem.


Getting Shahrazad unbanned is probably worthwhile.  I also think it would be interesting to get 1996 World Champion and Shichifukujin Dragon unbanned, even though both are technically very unattainable.  Proposal and Fraternal Exaltation don't really make sense in the context of competive magic, and Proposal raises thorny questions about the impact of state law on the ability to propose marriage.  Splendid Genesis is technically attainable and sensical.  The creation of formal multiplayer rules means that it may technically be possible to unban it with the addition of DCI rules to decide how evaluate the outcome of a three-person game. 

[LUPO]

So, given that there's no valid reason to use the card at present other than being a douchebag...  As far as tournament magic is concerned maybe it should be banned.

That sums it up pretty perfectly.  I played against a horrific WW Shahrazed deck at a SCG once and nearly threw my opponent out the window.  I was so frustrated by the pointlessness of the subgame within a subgame I actually had to ask my opponent if he was serious.  I am convinced that the point of his deck was to bother people into submitting.  Imagine this,

WW
Force your opponent to listen to a really annoying sound that you create or he loses 10 life.

Goes right up there with trinisphere for me, ruins torneys.

If wizards wants a White sorcery for WW that simply says opponent loses half their life, then let them print it.  Shahrazed should go right up there with the original wordings that came out of Gary Gayax's basement...

AWAY

Steve, I generally agree with much of your theory and enjoy your articles.  This one was quite a disappointment.

[LotusHead]

Steve, I generally agree with much of your theory and enjoy your articles.  This one was quite a disappointment.

I am totally appreciative that Steve writes article after article, week after week on Vintage on the (probably) second biggest MTG site (after wizards own site, which is blessed with 4 vintage articles a year: B/R updates)

Even though I don't care to pay for premium, I certainly appreciate that Steve gives light to certain issues. (I was fine with whatever DCI errata affected Time Vault, until they originally nerfed the Fusilade/Lodestone Myr combos with it. But even I can't remember how many erratas ago that was. Steve brought to light issues with Time Vault, and lo and behold, it works kinda like Time Vault should now! )

The unneeded banning of Sharazad always bugged me (as I didn't see it as a problem, like, ever) and the DCI Banhammer on it was unfair to the card.

It was worse that the restricting of Trinisphere (which happend before I took up shops myself), as at least Trinisphere got played and had an impact on the game.

Steve: Write what you want, your voice is heard.

[Harlequin]

How about gaea's blessing?  I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who advocated Banning Gaea's Blessing.  But with an arbirarily amount of storm + Brainfreeze gaea's blessing creates a gamestate that cannot be resolved in normal DCI protocall for shortcutting loops.  This technically "breaks" the game because no turns will advance, and no known outcome can be determined, and no player is even clearly at an advantage or disadvantage.  Any method used to move from the first copy to the final copy is an illegal method of shortcut according to the DCI. 

Suppose I'm playing doomsday, and I feel like a first to 2 with 50 mins is a little too random for me so as a method to increase the number of games it takes to win I decide to have my Doomsday sideboard is 1 Tidespout Tyrant, 1 R/D, and 1 Sharazaad.  And my "combo" is to use Mind's Desire -> research, to return, research, Tyrant, sapphire, yawg.  Use yawg to get lotus-sapphire infinite blue recast and RFG Desire, Then use a research loop to get infinite storm and infinte free spells, then loop R/D + Sharazaad and cast it 1,000,000 times.  Now the game just chaged from first to 2 match with a 50 min time limit to a first to 5 with no time limit (becuase now we play subgames until a winner of game 1 is decided which will inturn decide the match).

Edit: removed and added to the post below...

[Smmenen]

How about gaea's blessing?  I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who advocated Banning Gaea's Blessing.  But with an arbirarily amount of storm + Brainfreeze gaea's blessing creates a gamestate that cannot be resolved in normal DCI protocall for shortcutting loops. 

Can someone verify this?

This technically "breaks" the game because no turns will advance, and no known outcome can be determined, and no player is even clearly at an advantage or disadvantage.

Huh?   

 Any method used to move from the first copy to the final copy is an illegal method of shortcut according to the DCI. 

Huh?

Suppose I'm playing doomsday, and I feel like a first to 2 with 50 mins is a little too random for me so as a method to increase the number of games it takes to win I decide to have my Doomsday sideboard is 1 Tidespout Tyrant, 1 R/D, and 1 Sharazaad.

What are you talking about?  "First to 2?"

 And my "combo" is to use Mind's Desire -> research, to return, research, Tyrant, sapphire, yawg.  Use yawg to get lotus-sapphire infinite blue recast and RFG Desire, Then use a research loop to get infinite storm and infinte free spells, then loop R/D + Sharazaad and cast it 1,000,000 times.  Now the game just chaged from first to 2 match with a 50 min time limit to a first to 5 with no time limit (becuase now we play subgames until a winner of game 1 is decided which will inturn decide the match).

Wouldn't you just lose all of the subgames automatically for having no library? 

[LordHomerCat]

"first to 2" is the current tournament format.  It's what people refer to as 'best of 3' but it's not technically best of 3 since you can draw games in there, and you have to keep playing until someone gets 2 wins or time runs out.

[AmbivalentDuck]

@Harl: you can set up an infinite loop with Mind's Desire, Sins of the Past, and 2x R&D in the D-day combo.  With that in place, it would be trivial to bring in Brain Freeze with arbitrary storm and Gaea's Blessing.  You could also technically expand this so that you can have an infi loop of Shahrazad and Heros Remembered.  You keep losing subgames, but gain 20 life after each one anyways.

The Desire kill was kinda tricky to set up, though.  You'd have a hard time getting this past anything but Ichorid since their Leylines make this infi easier to get started.

[Harlequin]

Here's an artical about that topic:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35530.0

The thread has sorta two prongs:
1) mathematically what is the probability matrix to get from differant starting states to different end states, along with there probability given an "infinate" (or more correctly a 'steady state') marcov chain.

2) What would the judge declare, what can they declare, what can they not declare.

The conclusion to #1 ends up being:

Prob (D'=d) = d / Sum(all possible d's)
So for a 52 card library the possible value of d = 52, 49, 47, ... , 4, 1   therefor the sum of all d's = 18 + 3(17*18/2) = 477
So using the formula above:
Prob( D'=52) = 52/477
Prob( D'=49) = 49/477
Prob( D'=47) = 47/477
...
Prob( D'=4) = 4/477
Prob( D'=1) = 1/477

Basically saying there is a higher chance that the brain frozen player will end with a high number of cards in the deck, and a linearlly decreasing chance that they will have less cards in thier library for each group of 3 cards.

The answer to #2 is a bit more convoluted:  A few things were fairly clear... Shortcuts that involve a comperable probability modle (using another randomization model to derive the outcome that has a similar or identical distribution) are somewhere between 'thin ice' and DQ'ably illegal.  Mathematically if you -were- able to resolve the stack then the game would continue with no player being in a determinable advantage.  (for example we don't know now if the frozen player will have 52 cards, or 18 cards, or 3 cards left in the deck AND outside of bless we don't know what those cards will be).  This means that both players still have a decent chance to win the game, however the judge is not able to say Win, Lose, or even Draw.  From what It sounds like, most judges are leaning towards some form of slow play - but the question is who should get the penalty?  and would you change your answer if the freezer -knew- there was a blessing involved?  What if they freeze themself knowing they have a blessing in thier own deck? 



To further explain the Doomsday idea let me simplify the problem to a mathematical game of chance:
You roll the 100 sided die.  If the value is greater than value-X, you have a choice.  You can either Roll twice and have 1 sucess = a win; or you can choose to roll the dice 9 times and if you get 5 sucesses you win.  What value of X is the break-even point ?(where either method yields the -same- winning chance).  The answer is alot higher than I thought it would be.  The break occurs between 71 and 72.  71 and below all favor the "Win 1 of 2" choice, where 72 and above favor the "Win 5 of 9" choice.

So back to our Doomsday player.  They are in a situation where they can cast any spell in thier RFG pile an infinite number of times.  They have two choices at this moment in time.  Go for the win card... lets say its tendrils.  Or cast Shahrazad 9 times (which will kill someone and expire the 50 min round).  They have the choice to A) earn the win now and go to game 2 and 3 in an attempt to win the game.  or B) cast the the Shahrazad 9 times and have unlimited time* to win 5 of the 9 sub games which will cause the player who loses 5 of those games to lose**
What the game above tells us is that if you feel you have a better than 70% chance to win a game - your best bet is go with the shahrazad plan.  However if you feel the match is closer than that your best bet is to take the +1 win as is and bet on winning 1 of the next 2. 

* - wrinkle 1:  if time is called durring a sub game I'm not sure if it is counting those turns.
** - wrinkle 2:  I neglected that the act of casting doomsday halfs your life already.  So you actually have to win 5 out of 8 (as if they started with a free sub-win).  It throws off the calculation but the break even point will still exist.  But its location changes.

Things get more complex when that magic number X changes as a result of boarding.  For example lets say you have a slight advantage game 1, so you are 55% in your favor.  To win 5 of the next 9 you're looking at about a 37.9% chance of failure if you force them to stay un-sided.  This means that if your opponent has a better than a 62% chance to win post board, you should definately take the 5 of 9 option. Otherwise you're looking at around 38.4% chance of failing to take 1 of the next 2 games.  So looking at the game now you could say: you roll the die once and if you get better than X, you can choose to either roll twice and have to be -Y- or roll the dice 9 times and have to be X five times.  You can solve the break even Y for any X based on taking the square root of the prob( of 5 of 9 with X). 

The crazy part of this is there is no clear "yes" or "no" for the shahrazad plan.  In many cases you are only a theoretical 5% away from both players thinking that the shahrazad mode gives them a probability advantage.  This means that both players would ~want~ to play out the 5 of 9 scenario.   

As to the lose the game problem, they change Shahrazad so you return all cards in the face up RFG zone to your library for the sub game.  No more extract, tormods, or suspend tricks.  The only cards you don't get are the cards in play.

[Smmenen]

As to the lose the game problem, they change Shahrazad so you return all cards in the face up RFG zone to your library for the sub game.  No more extract, tormods, or suspend tricks.  The only cards you don't get are the cards in play.

Wow... I don't even know where to begin.

Your answer to my specific questions is so de-contextualized that I am not even sure if it is an answer.   This was the only one that was comprehensible as an answer to the questions I posed. 

Your point, as I read it, was that you could create an arbitrarily large number of consecutive sub-games using Doomsday, such that it would prevent the original game from ever being played out.   My answer was that you would have no library, so you would automatically lose each sub-game.

Your answer is not an answer to that.  It's simply saying, if they changed the rules, then you wouldn't lose the sub-game.   Well, yeah, but that makes your scenario not a problem. 

It might be easier, if instead of ramble on about something, to actually specifically link your answer to the questions posed. 

[Harlequin]

I thought they did change the rules (above I missed the 'd' and ment to say they changed the rules).  I miss read the rule change, I guess cards RFGed durring the sub game return to the main game - but not the other way around (card RFGed from the main game get returned to the library for the subgame). 

Reguardless you have infinite R/D's so you could re-stock your deck with all your RFGed cards before the shahrazad resolved.

And again, you're not quite getting the reason this would be good for you.  It's not to draw the match - its to play 9 unsided subgames in place of the normal 1 unsided and 2 sided games.  Your goal is to use the 9 subgames as your way to determine the results of game 1.  Game 1 will be won either way by Shahrazad damage.  Who ever wins 5 games first will win game 1.  And because time has expired who ever wins game 1 takes the match.

[Smmenen]

And again, you're not quite getting the reason this would be good for you.  It's not to draw the match - its to play 9 unsided subgames in place of the normal 1 unsided and 2 sided games.  Your goal is to use the 9 subgames as your way to determine the results of game 1.  Game 1 will be won either way by Shahrazad damage.  Who ever wins 5 games first will win game 1.  And because time has expired who ever wins game 1 takes the match.

But you won't!  You'll lose very quickly each of those games as you can't draw an opening hand, and then lose game 1, for having no library. 

[Norm4eva]

How about gaea's blessing?  I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who advocated Banning Gaea's Blessing.  But with an arbirarily amount of storm + Brainfreeze gaea's blessing creates a gamestate that cannot be resolved in normal DCI protocall for shortcutting loops.  This technically "breaks" the game because no turns will advance, and no known outcome can be determined, and no player is even clearly at an advantage or disadvantage.  Any method used to move from the first copy to the final copy is an illegal method of shortcut according to the DCI.

If you're talking about Player A (Storm) vs Player B (deck + blessing), Blessing is incredibly easy for a Brainfreeze.dec player to just play around FTW if they know what's coming, or if they have the mana to go get Remand while Blessing's on the stack.
If you're talking about Player A (Storm + Blessing) hitting themselves with the Storm, the rules that I've seen don't seem clear on how to handle a loop with both mandatory actions (Blessing's ability) and optional (targeting yourself with Brain Freeze).  All it says is that whenever actions are optional, Player picks a arbitrary number and simply acts as if it's happened that many times.  I've seen no rules about handling 'mixed' loops.  This is actually a rather interesting conundrum.

It does go a way to illustrate how difficult it can be to remove every given wrinkle from the game in regard to avoiding draws.  You can ban subgame.dec if you want, but there will always be a way to build a deck that is designed to go 1 - 1 - 0.

[Akuma]

I can't say that I enjoyed this article very much. Seems like way too much on something that is not really terribly interesting or relevant. Maybe if you had discussed other topics along with this one...

Re: Shahrazad
I don't see why this was banned, any Vintage player who isn't totally brain dead would just concede the sub-game immediately making Shahrazad a burn spell for WW.

It is no secret that I abhor post June 20th Vintage, maybe you could write about restoring this format to what it should be. Everyone talks about how Vintage is the format that lets you use "all of your cards", but it should be equally as important for it to be the format that lets you use "all of the strategies", not this Highlander bulls*** we have now.

Or you can write an article for the casual gamer on the differences between modern Vintage and Highlander 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Your point, as I read it, was that you could create an arbitrarily large number of consecutive sub-games using Doomsday, such that it would prevent the original game from ever being played out.   My answer was that you would have no library, so you would automatically lose each sub-game.

Untrue.  You choose the 8 cards that will constitute your opening hand and library using two R&Ds.  You could trivially set up infi Shahrazad loops within Shahrazad loops just by putting the full Mind's Desire -> R&D combo in the 8 cards.

So, 8 cards:
Mishra's Workshop, Black Lotus, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Street Wraith, Scroll Rack, Mind's Desire, R&D

With either a seven or eight card hand, you're guaranteed to go infinite if your opponent doesn't have turn 0/1 disruption.  So far, we're looking at standard Doomsday with 5 'wasted' cards in the sideboard:

1x Sins of the Past
1x R&D
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Shahrazad
1x Heroes Remembered

@Akuma
Doomsday has enough control components that unless you realize what's going on and concede game 1 *very* quickly, having won game 1 was sufficient to take the match from you.  Just playing out the combo takes considerable time and wouldn't formally be delay of game.  When I played Doomsday in tournaments without any 'monkey business' and went for the Tendrils kill as directly as possible, it still took a good deal of time.  And remember, the Doomsday player himself could concede the infinite string of subgames and nail you with Tendrils in the main game during the last 'turn' of the round.

[Harlequin]

And again, you're not quite getting the reason this would be good for you.  It's not to draw the match - its to play 9 unsided subgames in place of the normal 1 unsided and 2 sided games.  Your goal is to use the 9 subgames as your way to determine the results of game 1.  Game 1 will be won either way by Shahrazad damage.  Who ever wins 5 games first will win game 1.  And because time has expired who ever wins game 1 takes the match.

But you won't!  You'll lose very quickly each of those games as you can't draw an opening hand, and then lose game 1, for having no library. 

Suppose you also run 1 Reitterate in your board, and therefor can cast infinite researches to restock your deck.

The goal is not to say: I win all the sub games, its to set up a scenario where both you and your opponent decide its in thier own best intrest to allow the subgames to decide the fate of the main game.  My argument has nothing to do with drawing any game.

* the issue that I see now, is that even if you could get the shahrazads on the stack in the main game you could actually end up winning that game no matter what... which I guess makes this scenario never in your opponent's best intrest. 

[Smmenen]

And again, you're not quite getting the reason this would be good for you.  It's not to draw the match - its to play 9 unsided subgames in place of the normal 1 unsided and 2 sided games.  Your goal is to use the 9 subgames as your way to determine the results of game 1.  Game 1 will be won either way by Shahrazad damage.  Who ever wins 5 games first will win game 1.  And because time has expired who ever wins game 1 takes the match.

But you won't!  You'll lose very quickly each of those games as you can't draw an opening hand, and then lose game 1, for having no library. 

Suppose you also run 1 Reitterate in your board, and therefor can cast infinite researches to restock your deck.

The goal is not to say: I win all the sub games, its to set up a scenario where both you and your opponent decide its in thier own best intrest to allow the subgames to decide the fate of the main game.

This conversation is hilariously bad.

I say:  But what about A?

You say: don't worry about A, the goal is Z.

I say: I know what the goal is, but what about A??

You say: the goal is Z.

You are talking past me.   I know what the goal is, I understand that, but my point is that the goal doesn't matter if it can't be achieved.

Your initial example didn't explain how it could be achieved.   Doesn't that seem like a gaping, big hole in your entire analysis from the outset?   

It's compounded by the fact that you never answer questions directly.   It seems almost as if you are so intrigued by some minor detail that you miss the forest for the trees.   That's not a criticism, but an observation.   

[Harlequin]

I admit that this has crossed the threshold into absurdity.   But let me back up to 1,000 feet and start over. 

I feel like somewhere, there exists a situation where you could use sharazad to extend the normal tournement limitations in such a way that it would be favorable to both players to do so.  Right now games are limited to: First person who wins 2 games, or 50 mins and 5 additional turns.  Shahrazad gives you and your opponent the ability to concentually break these rules.  Tournement be damned!

Doomsday was my inital method to get to this end, but as you have pointed out (despite my band-aids) that path has too many pot holes.   

[Norm4eva]

Okay okay wait.

You guys are talking about a subset of cards in the game which could potentially achieve Z, the goal, whatever you want to call it.

Is the issue really specific cards, or rather the fact that Z can be achieved at all?

Are we strictly discussing the implications of a Vintage set up to abuse Shahrazad, or are we talking about the implications of a deck in Vintage that can be built specifically to win the first game, draw the second and never see the third?

[Harlequin]

No, I'm talking about a situation were you alow pose this question to your opponent:
"I could win game 1 right now, and we move to game 2.  Or, I could create a situation where game 1 will be decided by a 5 best of 9 sub-games instead.  We get unlimited time, but cannot sideboard.  You can concede now and we can go to game 2 with sideboard - or we can let this match ride on our best of 9 instead.  Its up to you."

[AmbivalentDuck]

The Doomsday setup works just fine for that.  You show your opponent the Shahrazad and Tendrils in your sideboard and give them the choice.  With 4 copies of R&D between your main and SB, you can guarantee that you'll start the Shahrazad subgame with at least 15 cards, and realistically probably many many more.

Doomsday strongly prefers non-sideboarded games in most cases.

[arctic79]

My head hurts reading this.  I have a few questions and observations.
1. Are you still not bound by floor rules dictating 50 min. rounds + 5 turns regardless of the sub-game?
2. Unless you are a complete asshole, why run this theoretical deck?
3. Anyway you cut it Shahrazad is a bad card. (ie impracticable)
4. Shahrazad was probably banned for the exact reasons that are being put forth in this thread, the chaos and the fuzziness it creates in the rules.
5. Did I mention Shahrazad is a bad card.
6. If an opponent played this deck against me I would take the DQ and punch him in the face.

[Akuma]

Why is everyone talking about all of these possible scenarios, sub-games, removed cards etc.?

Player A: Cast Shahrazad.
Player B: Ok, I don't have a counter, it resolves.
Player A: Okay, sub-game?
Player B: Sub-game, that would be stupid, I concede and lose X life.