I was hoping that middle section would provoke some debate - apparently no one has a problem with my insinuation that we're a community of crybabies?
Let me expand on what I stated in the article... prior to getting back into Vintage, I spent two years playing PTQ formats and Standard; these formats rotate and have considerable metagame adjustments, often staggaringly fast adjustments. Extended in particular has a meta that moves VERY quickly through PTQ seasons. This past Extended season is a great example. Elves dominates Pro Tour: Berlin; Faeries rises to put it in check at Worlds and quickly establishes itself as the top deck, as the blue control deck usually does. Isn't it interesting that Blue/black artifact control decks have dominated the past two Extended seasons, and Blue/black control dominated TSP block season while Blue/black Faeries dominated Lorwyn block? It isn't just Vintage that's dominated by this color configuration. End aside.
TEPS and Affinity shine for brief moments to attack unprepared Faeries decks - powerful linear decks that are easily checked by a prepared SB. G/B midrange performs for a few weeks, but is only really well-positioned against Faeries. Graveyard hate keeps it in check. Finally Zoo muscles its way into the meta; the powerful one-drops pose a legit threat to Faeries. Because Zoo isn't linear, it requires actual adjustments from Faeries, which reopens the way for decks like Elves, as Elves isn't hosed by one specific card but rather by a prepared field in general. At the end of the season, the triangle of Faeries / Zoo / Elves establishes itself, with outliers like G/B and Slide that prey on some specific parts of the triangle but are weak to some 2nd-tier strategies themselves.
Consider Standard this summer... Elves combo wins some Nationals, and Kithkin gets a lot of buzz and some juice from Honor of the Pure, and within a week, the whole field shifts to 5C Control. Gradually the field opens back up, and decks like RDW / Blightning begin to see more play (as they have game against 5C). As 5C decreases in meta % and changes focus away from the sweepers that put Elves combo in check, Elves begins to reemerge.
Why didn't this happen with Tezzeret earlier in 2009?
First, Tezzeret isn't a linear deck. Simple sideboard additions aren't sufficient to keep it in check. Second, the type of decks that are effective against Tezzeret aren't generally or historically popular with the vast majority of Vintage players. Ichorid is the perfect example of this trend; 5C Stax is another good example. If the Vintage meta shifted like that of Extended, Standard, or Block, we would've seen a fast and immediate shift whereby Ichorid surged in number. Ichorid is a natural predator for unprepared Tezzeret, which runs countermagic that is ineffective against Ichorid, and lacks Wastelands to destroy Bazaar or creatures to break Bridges. A surge in Ichorid would have necessitated adjustments by Tezzeret that would have weakened it in other match-ups - TPS for example - leading to a natural meta adjustment. 5C Stax has also shown itself to be a predator for Tezzeret when configured correctly. Finally, the ICBM open showed that certain Null Rod strategies - including BUG Fish and G/W(/b) aggro - could beat unprepared Tezzeret.
So what's happened since TFK's restriction? It isn't simply that TFK significantly weakened Tezzeret, because lists w/o TFK won some major events when the card was still unrestricted. However, draw engines used in place of TFK certainly pushed Tezz players out of their comfort zone. Further, the Steel City Vault deck's creation was a direct result of the rise of Null Rod strategies two weeks prior at the ICBM event. Rather than create an adapted Tezzeret list - also shown to be possible, as this year's Vintage Champs list would prove - SCV attacks on a different axis completely by using Grudge, Welder, and Draw 7s in place of a draw engine like TFK, Remora, Bob, or Thoughtcast. Interestingly, nothing prevented the development of SCV prior to the Steel City tournament, except that the deck wasn't really "necessary" - necessity being the mother of invention.
Before TFK was restricted, I didn't believe that its restriction was in any way necessary, because I didn't think it did enough to Tezz and I felt it would hammer the final nail into the coffin of every other blue deck. Although I still think TFK's restriction only mildly weakened Tezz, experimentation with other decks
due to the restriction of TFK seems to have finally forced the Vintage meta to adjust.
Now, we see Tezz lists having to adapt to Null Rod, playing cards that weaken them against a varied field - which is exactly what we see in top 8s since July. We're seeing top 8s with Tezz, SCV, 5C Stax, various Shop builds like B/R and Shop Aggro, TPS and Drain Tendrils, Ichorid (both Mana and Fatestitcher) and various Null Rod strategies including Fish (notably BUG Fish and Noble Fish), and G/W and G/W/B decks - and other decks like Oath and Elves can also do well against a varied field.
Or, all of that could be wrong - restricting Thirst broke Tezz and now its just "a deck" among many viable decks.
Thoughts?
