[Free Article]Initial Thoughts on Winners/Losers in 3rd Gush Era

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Here I talk about my initial impressions concerning the unrestriction of Gush and Frantic Search and who/what will be affected:

http://mtgvintage.blogspot.com/2010/09/winners-and-losers-in-3rd-gush-era.html

Brief Synopsis:

Cards like-

 

and

 

I think will be winners, while cards like-

 

...will be losers.  Of course, there's more there than just that.  Enjoy!

Peace,

-Troy

[Sextiger]

I agree with you that:
-Blood/Magus of the Moon could be pretty ridiculous
-Shop decks will continue to do very well
-Rogue Decks could be well off, especially the hate decks with maindeck artifact destruction, burn might be a decent strategy since it can hit Gush players life totals hard and burn off Jace/Golems/Confidants/etc
-Mystic Remora will be great

I disagree with you on your overall evaluation of Gush.  While some Gush decks will make a nice comeback, (Gush Tendrils probably the most obvious since it did not even run Scroll when it was legal and -3 Brainstorm just becomes +3 Preordain), most won't become anywhere near dominant as they were in the past. 
1. Mystic Remora was not even used during the Gush era, it can annihilate Gush now if they are forced to play into it.
2. Spell Pierce makes Gush a lot less scary in the early game.  A turn 1-turn or turn 2 Fastbond was scary as hell, the only spell that could hit it before was Force but now most decks are packing three-four Pierce, not to mention Nature's Claim. 
3.  The Brainstorm restriction, more than Scroll in my mind, will be the biggest hindrance to a new wave of Gush dominance.  Tyrant Oath, for example, was hit VERY hard by the Brainstorm restriction.  The deck will often hit some very shit draws and depend upon Brainstorm for filtering.  Unlike normal Oath decks which run See Beyond/Jace, Tyrant Oath does not have the slots or the mana to cast those spells, often leaving you with a Tyrant in hand. 

As for Frantic Search, I can MAYBE see a resurgence of Slaver, if not for nostalgia value.  Some fresh new tinker targets in Scars could spice it up a bit. 

[Grand Inquisitor]

Mystic Remora was not even used during the Gush era

Not accurate:

http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=770&d=7

Rogue Decks could be well off

I think this is one of the most opportunity laden times I've ever seen in a T1 metagame cycle.

[Sextiger]

Well, barely used, ironically, I was just looking at that list the other day and forgot when it was actually around. 

[Troy_Costisick]

2. Spell Pierce makes Gush a lot less scary in the early game.  A turn 1-turn or turn 2 Fastbond was scary as hell, the only spell that could hit it before was Force but now most decks are packing three-four Pierce, not to mention Nature's Claim. 

One thing I left out of my article was that I believe- if Gush catches on- that Vintage games are going to go longer.  When Gush was re-introduced to the format back in 2007, it really slowed the format down.  The Gifts era was pretty fast, but Gush brought some balance.  People sometimes don't remember that because they think that Flash won every game on turn 1 every time...except that it didn't.  But anyway, the more Gush decks we see, the slower the format will become (not necessarily a bad thing).  The reason is, as you say, the early game is dominated by Spell Pierce and Duress effects.  Those cards will have to be played out before the real action can begin.

3.  The Brainstorm restriction, more than Scroll in my mind, will be the biggest hindrance to a new wave of Gush dominance.  Tyrant Oath, for example, was hit VERY hard by the Brainstorm restriction.  The deck will often hit some very shit draws and depend upon Brainstorm for filtering.  Unlike normal Oath decks which run See Beyond/Jace, Tyrant Oath does not have the slots or the mana to cast those spells, often leaving you with a Tyrant in hand. 

The more I'm testing these decks, the more I'm finding you're right.  The Gush engine, as many of us have said in our advocation for its unrestriction, is just not as explosive as it was in the Golden Age.  Things are going to be quite different this time around.

Peace,

-Troy

[TheBrassMan]

I'm pretty confused by some of the things being said in this thread

When Gush was re-introduced to the format back in 2007, it really slowed the format down.

I'm kind of baffled by this.  Like pretty much everything here, this is just my word against yours, but "slowed down" was not my experience during the 2nd Gush era, and I played in (and placed well in) most major North American tournaments during this time frame.  This is not to say that you didn't play, but I'm not sure how you could have come to that conclusion if you had.  Flash obviously brought the average game length down, but Gush itself was just faster than Gifts.

Unlike normal Oath decks which run See Beyond/Jace, Tyrant Oath does not have the slots or the mana to cast those spells, often leaving you with a Tyrant in hand.

I'm not understanding this statement.  "This deck loses brainstorm" and "this deck has no empty slots" are statements in direct opposition - they can't both be true (and one of the statements definitely is true).  Though I do not think that See Beyond/Jace are at all necessary for a successful Oath list, I don't see how you could possibly say the deck doesn't have enough mana to play a spell that costs 1U, when the deck was specifically designed to play 2 drops - some of which have been cut anyway due to the restriction. 

[Tha Gunslinga]

The Gush meta was characterized by turn-1 to turn-3 kills, for the most part.  It was horrible unless you were playing Gush.

[Sextiger]

For Oaths sake, if your forced to run crap like See beyond, your dramatically slowing down the gush engine, which makes you wonder why you would be playing Tyrant Oath in the first place.

[Klep]

It's just flat-out wrong to say the format slowed down the last time Gush was introduced.  I had to switch from Cabal Therapy to Duress in Belcher in order to be more proactive because I just couldn't count on Belcher being the fastest deck at the table anymore.

[Troy_Costisick]

It's just flat-out wrong to say the format slowed down the last time Gush was introduced.  I had to switch from Cabal Therapy to Duress in Belcher in order to be more proactive because I just couldn't count on Belcher being the fastest deck at the table anymore.

There we go.  What better evidence could there be that the format got faster than Belcher decks having to switch to Duress?


Anyway, don't take my word for it.  I'm just repeating what some guy named Menendian said here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35887.msg499428#msg499428

That whole thread is awesome, but to quote the relevant part,

Secondly, the “golden age” point comes about from several ideas. First of all, the 2006 and first half of 2007 metagame was defined by the Pitch Long and Meandeck Gifts metagame, which featured dominance of two decks that basically won most tournaments.  Eventually, the decks were fused into one monster decks with Gifts and Dark Rituals.   It was a hyper fast Combo-Control metagame.

The unrestriction of Gush let Aggro control back into the format.  SCG Chicago featured a huge raft of Aggro decks.  The format slowed dramatically.   People forget, but the number of turns in the Pitch Long/Gifts metagame was much fewer than it is today.

Seems not much has changed.  People forget very quickly.

Peace,

-Troy

[TheBrassMan]

I'm just repeating what some guy named Menendian said here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?

So I have to know - do you actually agree with what he said?  Were you there and had similar experiences?  Or (as it sounds) are you just regurgitating what Menendian wrote.  I know a few TMDers who are very vocal about "how Gush used to be" without having ever played a single match with the card - which has been one of the most frustrating things I've seen on these boards in recent history.

As for Menendian's point, which I am to assume from your post is the same as your own - I simply disagree with that assessment.  There were aggro decks in the early gush days, because we hadn't figured out stronger lists yet - but these were only aggro decks in the sense of "attacking to win"- they were still killing on turns 1 to 3.  

Unfortunately this is a case of he said-she said.  Menendian designed and piloted what he calls an "aggro control" deck to a finals split at Vintage Champs, and that certainly affords him some credibility in the discussion.  Similarly, I designed and piloted the deck that won SCG Richmond, and designed the deck which my teammate Justin Timoney won Waterbury with.  The finals of those two events had less than 12 turns between them (that's both matches combined).

Stephen is more than entitled to his interpretation of the era, but it should not be assumed that his viewpoint is in any way indicative of the experience everyone had, or is somehow a consensus opinion.

None of this however, really addresses what will happen now, as obviously the card pool is different.  Many of Troy's predictions make sense, with the caveat that I think it's a mistake to differentiate between "gush" and "drain" or "oath" decks.  

I'm also not sure how gush makes rogue strategies any better or worse than they have been, but I'll leave that to the rogue deck designers.

We'll have a lot more to go on soon enough.

[Troy_Costisick]

I'm just repeating what some guy named Menendian said here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?

So I have to know - do you actually agree with what he said?  Were you there and had similar experiences?

Did you bother to check my posting activity from that time period before you asked that question?  I was more active then than I am now, and it was definately my most active time since the 1999 mass restrictions.

I know a few TMDers who are very vocal about "how Gush used to be" without having ever played a single match with the card - which has been one of the most frustrating things I've seen on these boards in recent history.

Nice of you to just assume I'm one of those people.  I didn't play with Gush, I played against it outside of a couple of times with MS Paint because I thought Painter's Servant was such a cool card.  And I loved having Gush for an opponent.  I played TMWA, 9Sphere.dec, Flash, R/G Beats, and even WGDX a time or two.  It was a great time to play rogue decks and I took advantage of that every chance I could.

As for Menendian's point, which I am to assume from your post is the same as your own - I simply disagree with that assessment.  There were aggro decks in the early gush days, because we hadn't figured out stronger lists yet - but these were only aggro decks in the sense of "attacking to win"- they were still killing on turns 1 to 3. 

You're disagreement with his assessment doesn't really matter to me.  His assessment, and mine at the time, was based on tournament data.  And have no idea what deck attacks to win on turn 1.  Are you talking about Flash instead of Gush in that sentence?  It's totally unclear.

Stephen is more than entitled to his interpretation of the era, but it should not be assumed that his viewpoint is in any way indicative of the experience everyone had, or is somehow a consensus opinion.

I don't know anyone haughty enough to say they're speaking for every individual when it comes to Magic.  He didn't in that thread.  And I'm not in this one.  But generally speaking, the introduction of Gush slowed down the meta in 2007.  If Gush becomes a player in this meta, I look for it to slow down again (not that this current meta is fast by any means).

None of this however, really addresses what will happen now, as obviously the card pool is different.  Many of Troy's predictions make sense, with the caveat that I think it's a mistake to differentiate between "gush" and "drain" or "oath" decks. 

Well, that's a fair point and one that would certainly be a good debate.  The DCI doesn't make much of distinction between them either.  Honestly, I'm shocked that they did something to actually encourage people to build blue decks despire my and especially Stephen's lobbying to do just that.

Peace,

-Troy

[TheBrassMan]

Woah there slugger.  I wasn't attacking you or assuming anything, that's why I asked instead of saying "you're just copying people!"  I'm kind of confused as to how anyone could think that environment was slower, but I have no reason to think you're lying if you say you were playing then.

And have no idea what deck attacks to win on turn 1.  Are you talking about Flash instead of Gush in that sentence?  It's totally unclear.

Sorry for being unclear.  I was referring to GAT specifically with that statement, and including games in which you play Time Walk once or twice on the first turn as "turn one kills."  Alternatively some GAT decks (like my own) ran a single copy of Tendrils or Brain Freeze, which could also kill on turn one.  Of course turn 2 and 3 kills were more common than turn 1s, that's pretty much always the case.

Obviously Flash sped up the format too, but I wasn't specifically referring to it there.


Since we both played during the same era and had such radically different experiences, this will just have to be one of those many situations in magic (in life?) where two people just silently think the other person is crazy and go about their business.

Personally I'm gearing up my decks for a faster, more explosive metagame, but two people disagreeing on how to approach the environment isn't exactly new or unexpected - it's half of the game.

[Tha Gunslinga]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2007-09-16&end_date=2007-09-16

Sure seem like fast decks to me.

[Troy_Costisick]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2007-09-16&end_date=2007-09-16

Sure seem like fast decks to me.

Point to where I or anyone in this thread said the decks were slow.

[Vegeta2711]

Point to where I or anyone in this thread said the decks were slow.

The unrestriction of Gush let Aggro control back into the format.  SCG Chicago featured a huge raft of Aggro decks.  The format slowed dramatically.   People forget, but the number of turns in the Pitch Long/Gifts metagame was much fewer than it is today.

Let me guess, now you'll argue decks aren't the format. You're right, this thread is awesome, but for all the wrong reasons.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Point to where I or anyone in this thread said the decks were slow.

When Gush was re-introduced to the format back in 2007, it really slowed the format down.

It did not slow the format down.  Gifts decks were not routinely killing on turn 1-3.  Gush decks were.

[Troy_Costisick]

Point to where I or anyone in this thread said the decks were slow.

The unrestriction of Gush let Aggro control back into the format.  SCG Chicago featured a huge raft of Aggro decks.  The format slowed dramatically.   People forget, but the number of turns in the Pitch Long/Gifts metagame was much fewer than it is today.

Let me guess, now you'll argue decks aren't the format. You're right, this thread is awesome, but for all the wrong reasons.

Nope.  You've got it all wrong.  Slow is a relative term.  Just saying slow without any context either means nothing at all or it means slow in compated to all tournament level Vintage decks ever.  No one said anything of the kind.  The Gush era decks were slower in winning than the decks in the era that preceded them.  But I would say they were much faster at killing their opponent than the decks we have now, especially Time Vault decks.  I would never call decks of that era slow.  But I would definately say they were slower than decks in other Vintage metas, particularly the 06-07 Gifts era.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Gifts decks were not routinely killing on turn 1-3.  Gush decks were.

Gush decks were faster, as far as I remember.

[Blue Lotus]

if Gush catches on- that Vintage games are going to go longer.

I'm not sure how you are going to explain that one away. But I'm interested to see you try.

I mean maybe Gush slowed down the format once. But I don't know how you can say it is going to do that again. Thats what everyone is saying. What the meta was the last time gush was unrestricted is irrelevant. What is, however, is the speed of decks now and the speed of gush decks.

[Troy_Costisick]

You know what?  I can't believe you guys totally suckered me into drerailing my own thread.  Normally, I'm more vigilant about that sort of thing.  The issue of deck speed is entirely outside the content of my my article and the purpose of this thread.  It's a good debate, but if anyone wants to continue it, let's start a new thread in the General Strategy or Vintage Issues forums.

Thanks,

-Troy

[Sextiger]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2007-09-16&end_date=2007-09-16

Sure seem like fast decks to me.

Haze of Raze shook up the format in ways we can only imagine. 

[Demonic Attorney]

I don't normally chime in on these debates, but I have to say that when I read the original post stating that Gush slowed down the format, I had to then check it twice more to ensure I wasn't misconstruing it.  From someone else who had some success during both the Gifts and Gush eras, the claim that Gush slowed down the format does not line up with my own experience at all.

First, the mana cost of the format-defining plays put Gifts farther into the late game than Gush.  Gifts costs 4.  Fastbond costs 1.  Gush costs 0.  I had to do some setup to make sure I could play, defend, and utilize Gifts Ungiven.  Once Fastbond hit the table in a Gush deck, the game was probably over.  Once Gush decks started running Oath of Druids and Storm-based win conditions instead of Quirion Dryad and Psychatog, the format became even more defined by early-game offense.

Second, the Gifts era saw control bases that, as I remember them, were a lot stronger than in the Gush era.  At Waterbury IX, most Gifts decks ran 4 Force, 4 Drain, and some combination of Duress/REB/Misdirection.  Many times in the Gush era, decks ran 4 Force and something like 3 Duress, and that was it.  Running that many counterspells in your own deck obviously makes you slower, and playing in an environment suffused with counterspells in opposing decks forces players to be more careful in making their move.

Third, and this depends even more on my own anecdotal experience, players were a lot more conservative in the Gifts era.  I think this was due to the prevalence of Mana Drain.  If your spell got Drained into a Gifts, you were probably dead.  Since people were running fairly robust control engines (at least relative to Gush decks), a lot of Gifts players were pretty conservative and invested a good bit of setup time to jockey for position and make sure their offensive move got there.  In the Gush era, many matches came down to who got Fastbond + protection (sometimes just Fastbond) out there first.  This led to profoundly more aggressive play.

[Juggernaut GO]

You guys are all just babbling about decks that really have no impact any more.  Any donkey could have played flash or 4x brainstorm/merchantscroll/gush.dec and make a top8.  What does it matter whether or not you consider it fast or slow?

I'll personally be surprised to see if gush has any impact at all at my tournament with all the 13sphere decks rolling around.  Considering the last one I ran 4x gush was legal.  Maybe gat can take this one down too.

[meadbert]

Third, and this depends even more on my own anecdotal experience, players were a lot more conservative in the Gifts era.  I think this was due to the prevalence of Mana Drain.  If your spell got Drained into a Gifts, you were probably dead.

We need to decide if we are talking about goldfish speed or how games actually played out.  Gifts frequently rewarded conservative play, but with GAT you wanted to drop Dryad ASAP and starting beating.  When turn 3 rolls around if you are going to miss your land drop you Gush.  There is no leaving 2 mana open to Drain.  The result is that while Gifts has a faster goldfish than GAT and Tyrant Oath the games played out more slowly.
I remember GAT lists with 8 Duress/Thoughtseize and 5 Force/MisD to go with a bounce spell.  That is more disruption that Meandeck Gifts, Drain Tendrils or Pitch Long packed.
During the Gifts era I remember local top 4s where there were Meandeck Gifts, Ritual Gifts, Pitch Long and Drain Tendrils.  Drain Tendrils was the most controlling and could still goldfish by turn 4 most of the time.
The GAT era saw decks like Mud and R/G Beatz suddenly become competitive where as those decks would have been trashed in the Gifts era.

[Rico Suave]

There is a lot of crack being smoked in this thread.

The 2nd Gush era was a coming of age.  In this era we learned that a Quirion Dryad is to Gush as a pump knight is to Necropotence.  Like Necro before it, Gush took an evolutionary leap and we discovered its true identity as a broken combo engine and not just a good card draw spell.

I too have a difficult time understanding people who thought the Gush era was slower than Gifts.  Maybe you need to stop playing the metaphorical pump knights.  

[Troy_Costisick]

You guys all act like Gush decks always had Fastbond in their opening hands and never had to dig for it.  Or that Dryad could kill someone in just two attacks because no one ever bounced, killed, or blocked it.  Or that no one ever played Echoing Truth and bounced all the Goblin tokens from EtW.  Or that MUD, Gob-Lines, Fish, and R/G Beatz didn't exist during the Golden Age.  Or that Tyrant Oath was able to assemble its combo in the first 2 turns of every game (LOL).  Or that MS Paint played all those red blasts just for show and could get its combo pieces out and activate them right off the bat time after time.  Or that all it took was one Slaver activation to win.

To be fair, there was a debate during that time over whether or not the format was getting faster.  But when people talked about format speed back then, they talked about Flash and Ichorid decks which were totally hosed by LotV being a 4-of in every sideboard.  That's where the speed came from, and your answers to those decks had to be equally speedy. But that doesn't mean that the games in the 2nd Gush Era were faster (measured by number of turns each player gets) than in the Gifts era.  They just weren't.

I'm not comparing Golden Age decks to now.  Obviously, they were faster back then.  What wouldn't be if you could play 4 Brainstorms?  But the time that has passed since June '08 has made it seem like the format was blistering fast back then.  And it was.  But it was even faster before that.  Creature decks had no shot against the Gifts decks- at all.  When Gifts was restricted and Gush was taken off the B/R List, suddenly creature decks could compete.  This was even MORE true when Thorn of Amethyst was printed incentivizing creature decks. 

[Klep]

You guys all act like Gush decks always had Fastbond in their opening hands and never had to dig for it. 

This is actually a discussion BrassMan and I were having with Anusien the other day in IRC.  The fact is in this format (and even more so in that format, when Brainstorm was still unrestricted), finding your singletons is largely a trivial affair.  Even if you don't see your Fastbond, it's generally because you saw something even better like Ancestral or Will.

To be fair, there was a debate during that time over whether or not the format was getting faster.  But when people talked about format speed back then, they talked about Flash and Ichorid decks which were totally hosed by LotV being a 4-of in every sideboard.  That's where the speed came from, and your answers to those decks had to be equally speedy. But that doesn't mean that the games in the 2nd Gush Era were faster (measured by number of turns each player gets) than in the Gifts era.  They just weren't.

I didn't switch to Duress in Belcher to deal with Ichorid.  Flash was one of the reasons, but the fact is that every blue deck that ran Gush was suddenly a threat to go off as fast or faster than I could.  Before Gush, I could reasonably expect that whenever my opponent was playing blue, I could count on being faster than them.  Saying the format was faster before Gush was unrestricted is just plain wrong and if you think it was, you are wrong.

[nataz]

Klep,

to be fair you mean every deck that ran Gush/Merchant Scroll/Fastbond/4x Brainstorm/3-4x Ponder ...

I suspect gush is less engine, more card draw now, but if it was up to me I certainly wouldn't have unrestricted a card thats blue, and draws 2 cards for free in principle.

[Anusien]

BrassMan and I both realized that a lot of Gush decks we had fond memories of didn't run 4 Merchant Scroll, much less 4 Ponder.