[Free Article] Is "Vintage Too Fast" or in a Golden Age? SMIP

[Smmenen]

Another consideration that should be taken into account are the returns to innovation, which are much less for Vintage than other better supported formats.  I'm not actually sure which way this cuts; for Vintage one may feel the format is stagnant because it's not worth the time to innovate (infrequency of tournaments, low prize support compared to GPs and Pro Tour feeding events), while for Legacy or other formats the additional incentives to innovate may cause a format to be 'solved' more quickly.  Look at the way the SCG circuit of Legacy opens has homogenized the American Legacy metagame, or the way the SCG circuit of Standard Opens pushed Stoneblade from being a simple 'best deck' to being the most dominant deck of all time.  This same effect is probably most visible on Magic Online, where the phrase 'hive mind' is fitting.

One thing that's missing from those sorts of analysis is time scale. 

In the short run, it's hard for masses of people to switch decks because of both entrenched investments and skill sets.  Yet, over longer periods of time, there are clear metagame shifts.

I would posit this: If there were no new printings or changes to the B&R list, you would see clear shifts about every 9-12 months in Legacy.   Specifically, I would say that one of the top tier decks would drop out, and a new one would replace it.  Metagame change is slow in Vintage because of the things I just mentioned, but it happens.   

Again, of COURSE new printings create faster change that would occur without new printings, but even without new printings or B&R list changes, the metagame would continue to evolve, barring dominant tactics (aka Thirst).

You see that this is a claim much reduced in scope, yes?

Not really -- my claim was framed as a refutation of the claim that Magic metagames will eventually stagnate without exogenous changes in the card pool.  I was basically disagreeing with this:

Will it settle into a rut if WotC doesn't keep blessing us?

I'd say yes. As decks are refined and the number of unexplored possibilities diminishes, the format will naturally stagnate. That's the way of pretty much all games.

[AmbivalentDuck]

evidence takes the form of both facts and logical reasoning

Clearly you're not a Bayesian empiricist.  Without sidetracking into a debate on epistemology, Bayesian inference is mathemagically guaranteed to converge to the ground truth while "logical" reasoning is not.

The difference is the impact of misinterpretation of the original facts on the two systems.

[DubDub]

Actually, one factor neither of us mentioned is card availability.  How different would Legacy look if Moat and Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale weren't so expensive?  How different would Vintage be if fully powered decks didn't cost an arm and a leg?  Would Null Rod fall away because no one 'wants' to play it, or would it be stronger because everyone is powered?

This again I could being a factor favorable or unfavorable to stagnation, difficult to say which, and possibly one or the other depending on the card pool, but it at least should be recognized as an additional reason why any real metagame will differ from a theoretical metagame at equilibrium.

[Delha]

I'd say yes. As decks are refined and the number of unexplored possibilities diminishes, the format will naturally stagnate. That's the way of pretty much all games.

I'd challenge that.  Is Chess like that?  Is War (as in, real life war) like that? I don't think so.

How much groundbreaking new strategy has appeared in chess lately?

In the last 100 years (in a game that is hundreds of years old), there have been dramatic changes in the preferences various people have for certain opening sequences.  These openings are basically like a metagame.

100 years is not "lately" in my book. Maybe if we were talking about tectonic activity or the like, but not for a game like this. How much groundbreaking new work has happened in say, the last decade?

What's the last new deck you can name that wasn't born as a result of new printings or B/R changes? For that matter, how many competitive decks can you think of that weren't simply the evolution of another deck?

Actually TONS.

When I created Stax in 2003, all of the lock parts had been printed long before. Workshop was unrestricted in 1998.  Stacker and TNT had been popular, but no one had put 4 Smokestack, 4 Spheres, 4 Tangle Wires and 4 Welders together into the same deck.   None of those cards were recent printings.   I was the first to put those 4 cards together in quantities of 4 each.  

When Rich Shay created the Remora deck a few years ago, all of the key cards -- Remora/meditate - etc. had been printed in the previous decade!  (Even the Psychatogs and Old mans of the seas!)

The Meandeck Tendrils deck was created by parts that had already long seen print.

The list goes on and on...

So in other words, the most recent decks you can name are (in order) 3 years old, 7 years old, and 11 years old? More than anything else, that just reinforces my point that Vintage is a format where the older established decks more often than not simply crush the incumbents.

Also, as a side note: While Shaymora was developed using only long existent cards, you conveniently ignored the other half of my question. I asked what's the last new deck you can name that wasn't born as a result of new printings or B/R changes.

...The Theory Behind the Deck

Several months ago, Wizards grasped the Vintage metagame in its hand and shook mightily. The result of restrictions, unrestrictions, errata, and new cards was that established archetypes needed to be reevaluated, and that new Drain builds began to emerge. Personally, I have in the past few months sampled a plethora of Drain-based archetypes yet found none to be ideal.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Rich or downplay how awesome it was that Shaymora got created. All I'm saying is that the impetus for it's creation can be attributed to outside forces, which was my entire point in the first place. Innovation certainly can happen in a vaccuum, but in practice it's prompted by something external.

Instead of responding to what you said, let me put it in affirmative terms:

Even with a defined, static card pool, Magic metagames are infinitely dynamic.   The main reason for this is that people don't devise strategies based on abstract power, but to beat expected opponents.

Your claim effectively boils down to "change begets change", which I don't dispute. However, consider what happens when one party does not (even though it is in their best interests to do so). The motivation for others to change is now diminished, and as the system is circular, more people stop changing, which in turn makes more people stop changing, and the metagame eventually stagnates. There is no unseen perpetual motion machine for metagames. As time goes on, energy (motivation to change) will bleed, and result in people playing suboptimal decks because they feel it is "good enough". People can certainly dream up new ideas and successfully jump start the engine, but the system naturally progresses towards stability. This is why I believe that there is a tendency for equilibrium(s) to eventually be established.

...You have, what I consider to be a naive view of Magic:  The "there are objectively best decks/strategies,etc" view.

You are mischaracterizing my position. I don't believe in a Final Evolution of decks within a cardpool, or an objectively best deck.

Instead, Magic is HIGHLY contextual. You can take the same card pool and produce totally different results.  

That's because In Magic, you don't play to beat the card pool, you play to beat what other players are playing!  

Put simply: Even without changes to the card pool, as tournament results become known, players WILL devise new ways of defeating what's there.     That's because, in order to maximize your chances for winning, you want to be able to defeat what your opponent's throw at you.  

That's what drives change.  There is no equilibria point in Magic because the Magic card pool is sufficiently large that you can always create new niches.    that is, if Deck A, B, and C are best performing, you can devise strategy D.  And once you do that, then people will have to beat ABC & D, and then devise strategy E, and so on, ad infinitum.  

yes, B&R list changes and new printings drive change faster, but that's because they dramatically expand the range of possibilties (because each new printing creates thousands of new synergies), but even without those changes, Magic metagames are infinitely dynamic.  

Metagames in Magic don't stagnate.   That's one of the great myths of Magic.   As long as people want to win, they will be trying new approaches, and when those approaches are successful (as they inevitably will be), the metagame evolves.

1. From a purely theoretical standpoint... By definition, a limited cardpool will contain a finite number of 75 card combinations (albeit a staggeringly large number). From there, the number of different strategies drops sharply due to overlap and flat out non-viable sets (eg. any list lacking the means to achieve Rule 104 conditions). While the number of potential strategies is still massive, it's factually impossible for new ones to appear ad infinitum as you claim.

2. In practice, I understand we're not realistically going to exhaust all the possibilities in a given lifetime. However, even if we treat new approaches as functionally infinite, the rate of introduction for those new strategies is low. For every player who scratchbuilds a new list, there are dozens who maintain the status quo. Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently.

3. As metagames mature, all established decks will gravitate towards the most effective ways of dealing with each other. New decks will arise, and these may well establish themselves as long term contenders. That said, due to overlap in strategy, several new decks will be crushed before ever making a notable impact on the metagame. This splash hate makes it increasingly difficult for pioneers to find purchase, and they are forced to deviate further and further from strategies that follow conventional theory. Both of these exacerbate the issue mentioned in #2.

[Smmenen]

evidence takes the form of both facts and logical reasoning

Clearly you're not a Bayesian empiricist.  Without sidetracking into a debate on epistemology, Bayesian inference is mathemagically guaranteed to converge to the ground truth while "logical" reasoning is not.

The difference is the impact of misinterpretation of the original facts on the two systems.

Have you ever played Sudoku?   Logical reasoning is certainly a way of knowing.  

If a room is empty, and two people walk in, and one walks out, we can logically deduce who is in the room without empirical observation of the room.

You frequently ignore or downplay these kinds of observations, which are just as valid as empirical facts.  

[Smmenen]

1. From a purely theoretical standpoint... By definition, a limited cardpool will contain a finite number of 75 card combinations (albeit a staggeringly large number).

Just as there are a finite number of chess moves.  

From there, the number of different strategies drops sharply due to overlap and flat out non-viable sets (eg. any list lacking the means to achieve Rule 104 conditions).

But that's the thing: in Magic, again, you don't design decks to beat every single possible deck, just as Chess moves aren't made, from the opening position, to defeat every single line of play.   They are designed to beat expected lines of play.  

In chess, you select opening squences (openings) that are metagamed against likely opening sequences from opponents.

Similarly, in Magic, you select archetypes that are metagamed against what you expect in a tournament.

You are talking from a perspective of Magic divorced from tournament settings.  In a tournament, there are a limited number of players and strategies present.   Magic metagames may evolve infinitely because what people play will shift as they each try to defeat each other.  

Your claim effectively boils down to "change begets change", which I don't dispute. However, consider what happens when one party does not (even though it is in their best interests to do so). The motivation for others to change is now diminished, and as the system is circular, more people stop changing, which in turn makes more people stop changing, and the metagame eventually stagnates. There is no unseen perpetual motion machine for metagames. As time goes on, energy (motivation to change) will bleed, and result in people playing suboptimal decks because they feel it is "good enough". People can certainly dream up new ideas and successfully jump start the engine, but the system naturally progresses towards stability. This is why I believe that there is a tendency for equilibrium(s) to eventually be established.

I don't think that describes reality.   Even if 99.9% of players don't change, it only takes 1 player to devise a new deck that beats existing decks, then prove so repeatedly, and eventually people will jump over to it, if they want to win.   Change may be slow, but it happens.

I don't disagree that change can be slow, but it's certainly change.   That's why i disagree with your original claim. 

[credmond]

A pool of water goes stagnant if the rate of influx is too low, not just when there is absolutely no influx. There's a tipping point that's well above the point of absolute no influx. Similarly, Vintage can go stagnant if it reaches a point where it relies on fairly low levels of change.

[Delha]

I don't disagree that change can be slow, but it's certainly change.   That's why i disagree with your original claim.

I think I already addressed this with my below statement:

2. In practice, I understand we're not realistically going to exhaust all the possibilities in a given lifetime. However, even if we treat new approaches as functionally infinite, the rate of introduction for those new strategies is low. For every player who scratchbuilds a new list, there are dozens who maintain the status quo. Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently.

[coldcrow]

I'd prefer if you to not talk about chess, cause you seem to not know alot about it.

Just some facts:
- The starting position of chess is equal. Can't be said about a magic match with different decks.
- Chess does not include probabilities.
- Even if there are sometimes more than one more or less equal possibilities, playing to beat "expected lines of play" is foolish and easily refuted. Do not confuse with actually preparing for expected openings or opponents, which is mostly done on top of ones repetoire. To compare openings to a metagame is equally foolish, since you have to expect any and every (serious) opening if you play at a tournament, not just big blue or dredge.
- In addition to that, top players mostly look for positions which aren't analyzed to death yet and let me tell you something, their number is shrinking fast.
- A good example is magnus carlsen: a great factor  of his success is not fancy play, or overhwelming memorization of openings, no it is the ability to actually squeeze out even tiniest advantages in apparently "easy" or "equal" positions, often endgames.

If you have any doubts about my qualification I'd be more than happy to play realtime blitzchess vs you.

[Smmenen]

I don't disagree that change can be slow, but it's certainly change.   That's why i disagree with your original claim.

I think I already addressed this with my below statement:
list

2. In practice, I understand we're not realistically going to exhaust all the possibilities in a given lifetime. However, even if we treat new approaches as functionally infinite, the rate of introduction for those new strategies is low. For every player who scratchbuilds a new list, there are dozens who maintain the status quo. Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently.

Yeah, but it only takes a vanguard to create metagame changes.  It takes one metagame entrepreneur to overhaul the entire system.  99% of players can continue to play the exact same list, and the 1% innovators will move the system through their success.  We see it in technology all the time.
 
It only takes one player in a top 8 to change 12.5% of a top 8.   

Equilibrium is a binary: either the system approaches it or it doesn't.   Magic metagames almost never do.  They are highly dynamic complex systems.  Card pool changes just accelerate that change.  

[Smmenen]

The list goes on and on...

So in other words, the most recent decks you can name are (in order) 3 years old, 7 years old, and 11 years old?

OK.  OK.    Maybe I'm wrong.   Maybe new decks only come about through new printings.   Maybe it takes a Laboratory Maniac to make Doomsday playable again.   Maybe it takes a Lodestone Golem to make Workshop Aggro good.   Maybe the only reason that decks that emerge without new printings or B&R list changes is fluke -- the very rare instance of cards being overlooked, forgotten, and passed over, wrongly.

But I'm not wrong.

You want a recent example of a deck that came about almost entirely because of direct changes in the metagame and not new printings?   You want an example of a deck that emerged -- more recently -- without any new printings precipitating it?  Sure, I can cite decks from 9 years ago.  But how about THIS ONE !

This is a perfect example of a deck that has basically emerged because of the changing composition of the metagame.   Josh played his deck and won two straight tournaments, and it was perceived to be a fluke.   Then, eventually, after winning a third, players realized -- 'hey, maybe this isn't a fluke.'  Now, it's winning like wildfire in the US.   It won the Meandeck Open the weekend before last.  And it just won the NYSE -- placing 3 of the top 4.   

Sure, new printings make metagames evolve faster -- but they are incredibly dynamic even without them.  As metagames evolve -- as the system moves forward -- it will produce new opportunities for innovative designers to exploit gaps and weaknesses.   That's precisely why I played Mono Blue Control in Vintage Worlds in 2004.  It's not because mono blue had new printings, but because there was a metagame weakness that I sought to exploit.   Landstill is serving that role now.   

You wanted a modern example: You got one.  And it's a good one, because it illustrates my point exactly.   The idea of a 'stagnant' metagame, imo, is oxymoron.  Metagames can only stagnate if there is a truly unbeatable tactic (to use Sirlin's framing), or, if no one is actually trying to win. 

[diopter]

[Ban Standstill. It's not real Magic, not playing spells for a while and attacking with lands. And it's winning.]

Anyroad. Didn't Merchant Scroll go from obscure 1-of to pure busted in the space of one article. That was right in the middle of probably one of the most dry Vintage eras ever - the era of 4 Brainstorm 4 Drain dominance.

I don't know about this "what if the never printed anything again" stuff but I'm pretty sure Vintage will just continue changing as it always has and always will.

[Delha]

I don't disagree that change can be slow, but it's certainly change.   That's why i disagree with your original claim.

I think I already addressed this with my below statement:
list

2. In practice, I understand we're not realistically going to exhaust all the possibilities in a given lifetime. However, even if we treat new approaches as functionally infinite, the rate of introduction for those new strategies is low. For every player who scratchbuilds a new list, there are dozens who maintain the status quo. Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently.

Yeah, but it only takes a vanguard to create metagame changes.  It takes one metagame entrepreneur to overhaul the entire system.  99% of players can continue to play the exact same list, and the 1% innovators will move the system through their success.  We see it in technology all the time.
 
It only takes one player in a top 8 to change 12.5% of a top 8.   

Equilibrium is a binary: either the system approaches it or it doesn't.   Magic metagames almost never do.  They are highly dynamic complex systems.  Card pool changes just accelerate that change.

Stop being obtuse. Every single time you address my arguments, you conveniently ignore a key component. As I stated in the quote, Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently. Your argument was accounted for before you even responded. To repeat it yet again: The vanguard of innovators can certainly shake up a metagame through their innovations. I never disputed that. My claim was that it doesn't typically happen overnight, and it doesn't preclude the settling out of said metagame while they work.

The list goes on and on...

So in other words, the most recent decks you can name are (in order) 3 years old, 7 years old, and 11 years old?

OK.  OK.    Maybe I'm wrong.   Maybe new decks only come about through new printings.   Maybe it takes a Laboratory Maniac to make Doomsday playable again.   Maybe it takes a Lodestone Golem to make Workshop Aggro good.   Maybe the only reason that decks that emerge without new printings or B&R list changes is fluke -- the very rare instance of cards being overlooked, forgotten, and passed over, wrongly.

But I'm not wrong.

You want a recent example of a deck that came about almost entirely because of direct changes in the metagame and not new printings?   You want an example of a deck that emerged -- more recently -- without any new printings precipitating it?  Sure, I can cite decks from 9 years ago.  But how about THIS ONE !

That deck's three years old as well.

This is what I would call the official Blue/Red Landstill Primer. My name is Josh Potucek and I have been playing landstill for about three years in vintage and about five years in legacy with great success and would like to share some of my experiences and knowledge about landstill.

To be clear, I don't feel that in any way detracts from the accomplishment. In fact, I consider the dedication required to refine a deck over the course of three years to be more telling of a person's character than experiencing a sudden epiphany. But let's look at what I asked for again. I asked for a NEW deck that wasn't born from releases or B/R changes, and you even reference this yourself towards the beginning of the response. A deck that's been tuned over that long a time period is indisputably no longer new. As I'm certain you know, refinement is very different process than building something from scratch.

If you want your arguments to hold water for more than two seconds, give me some real answers. Post something that actually addresses the points I've made instead of just twisting around them.

[serracollector]

There are periods of stagnation in magic due to man's inherit ability to be lazy.  Yes there are some of us who look at the entire card pool, and try to come up with something innovative and competitive, but I don't think its just our inherit laziness that tells us " but decks X, Y, and Z already are the best so why try to make others", but also players online.  I don't know how many decks I have made and posted on this site, and gotten the response "it doesn't have y will, tinker, workshop, or bazaar, it sucks".  This pessimistic and 1 sided view of magic from MOST players is what leads to the stagnation of magic.  Even when a "new" deck is made, 99% of the time it is still made around said y will, tinker, workshop, or bazaar.  Thus they are the "pillars".  So yes, there are lots of options for innovation in MTG, and Vintage most definitely, but these idea's are usually crushed under the assumption that unless you play with a set key number of cards, that your deck will "suck".

Also, IMO, one of the biggest factors to Landstill coming back is the lack of Wasteland/Strip in Big Blue decks, and the printing of jace TMS.  He singlehandedly replaces all 4 Ophidians, and 2-3 Morphlings in the BBS decks of old by himself. 

[2nd_lawl]

evidence takes the form of both facts and logical reasoning

Clearly you're not a Bayesian empiricist.  Without sidetracking into a debate on epistemology, Bayesian inference is mathemagically guaranteed to converge to the ground truth while "logical" reasoning is not.

The difference is the impact of misinterpretation of the original facts on the two systems.

Have you ever played Sudoku?   Logical reasoning is certainly a way of knowing.  

If a room is empty, and two people walk in, and one walks out, we can logically deduce who is in the room without empirical observation of the room.

You frequently ignore or downplay these kinds of observations, which are just as valid as empirical facts.  

What if the 2 people had a child while they were in the room. YOUR STORY HAS HOLES MENEDIAN.

on a happier note this thread has made me want to play vintage again.

[Smmenen]

I don't disagree that change can be slow, but it's certainly change.   That's why i disagree with your original claim.

I think I already addressed this with my below statement:
list

2. In practice, I understand we're not realistically going to exhaust all the possibilities in a given lifetime. However, even if we treat new approaches as functionally infinite, the rate of introduction for those new strategies is low. For every player who scratchbuilds a new list, there are dozens who maintain the status quo. Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently.

Yeah, but it only takes a vanguard to create metagame changes.  It takes one metagame entrepreneur to overhaul the entire system.  99% of players can continue to play the exact same list, and the 1% innovators will move the system through their success.  We see it in technology all the time.
 
It only takes one player in a top 8 to change 12.5% of a top 8.   

Equilibrium is a binary: either the system approaches it or it doesn't.   Magic metagames almost never do.  They are highly dynamic complex systems.  Card pool changes just accelerate that change.

Stop being obtuse. Every single time you address my arguments, you conveniently ignore a key component. As I stated in the quote, Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently. Your argument was accounted for before you even responded. To repeat it yet again: The vanguard of innovators can certainly shake up a metagame through their innovations. I never disputed that. My claim was that it doesn't typically happen overnight, and it doesn't preclude the settling out of said metagame while they work.

There is no need for name calling.    The point that you made was already built into my counter argument.   

The fact that not every attempt is a success is already built into the point I was making.   If every attempt was a success, then Vintage would have a very rapid metagame evolution. 

The fact that it doesn't happen overnight is something I already acknowledged.   However, it happens.   The fact that it happens, without respect to new printings, means that Vintage continues to evolve, regardless of new printings or changes in the B&R list.

Neither the rate of introduction, the rate of success, nor any other fact can change the fact that, contrary to what you said about games naturally stagnating, Magic is a naturally dynamic game.  Magic metagames can't stagnate, since the incentive to win -- if sufficiently powered -- will never let that happen.

 It may happen on a scale that makes it difficult to observe -- like how a small hand on a clock doesn't appear to be moving when we look at a clock, but it is. 

The list goes on and on...

So in other words, the most recent decks you can name are (in order) 3 years old, 7 years old, and 11 years old?

OK.  OK.    Maybe I'm wrong.   Maybe new decks only come about through new printings.   Maybe it takes a Laboratory Maniac to make Doomsday playable again.   Maybe it takes a Lodestone Golem to make Workshop Aggro good.   Maybe the only reason that decks that emerge without new printings or B&R list changes is fluke -- the very rare instance of cards being overlooked, forgotten, and passed over, wrongly.

But I'm not wrong.

You want a recent example of a deck that came about almost entirely because of direct changes in the metagame and not new printings?   You want an example of a deck that emerged -- more recently -- without any new printings precipitating it?  Sure, I can cite decks from 9 years ago.  But how about THIS ONE !

That deck's three years old as well.

Your accounting is a little bit strange.   I'm kinda curious where you got the 3 year old figure from. Landstill is alot older than 3 years old.   It won an SCG in 2005, so that makes it at least 6 years old.   The point isn't how old a deck or idea is.   The point is that (almost) no one was actually playing it because the metagame wasn't ripe for it.

There are tons of old deck ideas that are no longer any good, and then, because of a changed metagame, suddenly become viable metagame predators.   

At this point, your argument is one of semantics, debating what is meant by 'new.'  Very few people would deny that Landstill is essentially a new metagame player, which is what I mean by "new."   

Is Landstill, as a concept, new?  Hell no.  It's been around since the printing of Standstill.  But it's seen virtually no play in Vintage for years, and certainly no major success.   Simply saying that "Landstill isn't a new deck" doesn't change the fact that, in the context of the Vintage metagame, is it a new deck.  It's not a new idea, but no one was playing it.   

It would be like if someone resurrected and retrofitted/modernized Rector Trix.  Sure, you could say that's not a "new deck," but in the context of the Vintage metagame, it would be new.  The metagame is not ripe for that deck, since existing graveyard hate is so strong against it, and Acedemy Rector is weak against Shops.

Your response might be: well, all that can be true, but I was being quite literal, and Lanstill ISN'T NEW.    That answer isn't sufficient, and here's why:

We are debating whether metagames shifts and change.  Your claim is that they don't; that metagames naturally stagnate without introduction of new cards or changes in the B&R list.  You said that as decks become more refined, the metagame changes less and less.   

The reason we are talking about new decks is because we are talking about how metagames change.  If an old idea is modernized, retrofitted, and reintroduced in a serious way into the metagame, it drives change JUST AS MUCH as if an brand new deck, which is a product of new printings, has.  The metagame, far from stagnating, is evolving. 

In that respect, Landstill is most definitely a new deck in the context of the debate over whether metagames change.   Landstill has introduced a brand new upper tier archetype into the metagame. 

This is what I would call the official Blue/Red Landstill Primer. My name is Josh Potucek and I have been playing landstill for about three years in vintage and about five years in legacy with great success and would like to share some of my experiences and knowledge about landstill.

To be clear, I don't feel that in any way detracts from the accomplishment. In fact, I consider the dedication required to refine a deck over the course of three years to be more telling of a person's character than experiencing a sudden epiphany. But let's look at what I asked for again. I asked for a NEW deck that wasn't born from releases or B/R changes, and you even reference this yourself towards the beginning of the response. A deck that's been tuned over that long a time period is indisputably no longer new. As I'm certain you know, refinement is very different process than building something from scratch.

If you want your arguments to hold water for more than two seconds, give me some real answers. Post something that actually addresses the points I've made instead of just twisting around them.

If you were to poll Vintage players last month and ask them if Landstill was a Vintage deck, the vast majority would have said no.   Same for Rector Trix or Survival or MaskNaught.   

Landstill's success is a product of changes in the metagame (recent) that make it a sharp metagame predator. 

[Delha]

There is no need for name calling.

   
Well, there are really only two possibilities:
1. You failed at reading my posts and overlooked criteria I'd set forth.
2. You read it properly, but chose to partially ignore those criteria.

I asked for a new deck whose creation was not predicated on new printings or B/R changes and you named Shaymora, which was explicitly created in the wake of B/R changes. If you weren't being obtuse, what justification do you give for naming decks that clearly violated the parameters I described?

I said that stagnation is the lull between the surge of changes caused by innovation, and you essentially said that innovation causes surges of change. If you weren't being obtuse, why would present part of my own claim as if it were an opposing argument?

The point that you made was already built into my counter argument.

The fact that not every attempt is a success is already built into the point I was making.   If every attempt was a success, then Vintage would have a very rapid metagame evolution. 

The fact that it doesn't happen overnight is something I already acknowledged.   However, it happens.   The fact that it happens, without respect to new printings, means that Vintage continues to evolve, regardless of new printings or changes in the B&R list.

Neither the rate of introduction, the rate of success, nor any other fact can change the fact that, contrary to what you said about games naturally stagnating, Magic is a naturally dynamic game.  Magic metagames can't stagnate, since the incentive to win -- if sufficiently powered -- will never let that happen.

 It may happen on a scale that makes it difficult to observe -- like how a small hand on a clock doesn't appear to be moving when we look at a clock, but it is.

You are still pretending part of my argument does not exist. As I've stated repeatedly now, stagnation need not be perpetual. We both clearly agree that innovation is not always immediate. The difference between our positions is that I am simply stating that a metagame that stabilizes is stagnant until some form of innovation (or an outside force) shakes it up again. Your position is based on the premise that stagnation is always permanent, which is a ridiculously narrow usage. Nevertheless, in the interest of moving on, let's say that the change in a given metagame stayed at minimal levels for a long period of time (say five years) before someone successfully brewed up a list to shake things up. Since you refuse to label that dormant period before the innovation came around as stagnant, what term would you use to describe it instead?


Re: Landstill Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, I'll drop this one. My point was if a player has been tuning the same list over 3 years (per the quote from Josh Potucek's primer), that deck certainly isn't a new creation. It's the end product of a long period of refinement, not something spurred by the current metagame. While you failed to provide a deck that met my criteria, that's more telling of an oversight in the wording of my question that anything else. The deck is indisputably an example of things being shaken up without being prompted by new printings or B/R changes.

[Shax]

Mental Misstep, Flusterstorm, and Jace, TMS are big players in Landstill. These new printings make the deck way better than it usually has been. Mental Misstep is amazing if it resolves. Flusterstorm knocks out Storm players, and wins counter wars. Jace is broke. Landstill is a good choice because it can man handle Big Blue and Shops almost second to none. Not many decks can beat those 2 decks consistantly like Landstill can. You can auto-scoop your Dredge matchup for more power against those two matchups or give yourself some Fish/Bob/Lodestone/Metagame hate.

I assume Landstill to be a good deck to play in large tourneys that have byes, like Vintage Champs since you can spot dodge some Dredge in the first few rounds. (Except Mark of course) Landstill is def. not too fast for Vintage.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

I asked for a new deck whose creation was not predicated on new printings or B/R changes and you named Shaymora, which was explicitly created in the wake of B/R changes. If you weren't being obtuse, what justification do you give for naming decks that clearly violated the parameters I described?

So you won't be happy until he gives you a brand NEW, never before seen stack of cards? Something that does not mirror any established tier, something that does not make use of any established engine, something entirely NEW? New is a pretty relative term chum. Landstill is NEW as it may have existed but wasn't viewed as a viable stack until recently. Same with Shaymora. Let's put this to the test. You walk up to someone a couple weeks back and ask them what they expect to play, they say "Stax, Gush based decks, possibly Dredge and Doomsday depending on the size of the event". You ask them now and you may get "Stax, Gush based decks, Landstill, possibly Dredge and Doomsday". Woah. A modified, NEW answer.

You want to complain that something- in your incredibly narrow sense of the word- NEW has not come about? Good luck with that. You must not have much experience with the format? This isn't a rotating world where every year you get entirely different decks based on the newly released sets. Things are established in vintage. Might actually need to either update your definition or just play type 2. You'll be very happy there.

[Delha]

I asked for a new deck whose creation was not predicated on new printings or B/R changes and you named Shaymora, which was explicitly created in the wake of B/R changes. If you weren't being obtuse, what justification do you give for naming decks that clearly violated the parameters I described?

So you won't be happy until he gives you a brand NEW, never before seen stack of cards? Something that does not mirror any established tier, something that does not make use of any established engine, something entirely NEW? New is a pretty relative term chum. Landstill is NEW as it may have existed but wasn't viewed as a viable stack until recently. Same with Shaymora. Let's put this to the test. You walk up to someone a couple weeks back and ask them what they expect to play, they say "Stax, Gush based decks, possibly Dredge and Doomsday depending on the size of the event". You ask them now and you may get "Stax, Gush based decks, Landstill, possibly Dredge and Doomsday". Woah. A modified, NEW answer.

You want to complain that something- in your incredibly narrow sense of the word- NEW has not come about? Good luck with that. You must not have much experience with the format? This isn't a rotating world where every year you get entirely different decks based on the newly released sets. Things are established in vintage. Might actually need to either update your definition or just play type 2. You'll be very happy there.

Read the damn post.

I said Shaymora didn't count because it WAS EXPLICITLY CREATED IN THE WAKE OF A B/R CHANGE, not because it "wasn't new".

The "new" reference was in regard to Landstill. Besides the fact that you also misunderstood why I discounted Landstill, I also admitted it was poor wording on my part. I said I was wrong already, get off your fucking high horse.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Read the damn post.

I said Shaymora didn't count because it WAS EXPLICITLY CREATED IN THE WAKE OF A B/R CHANGE, not because it "wasn't new".

The "new" reference was in regard to Landstill. Besides the fact that you also misunderstood why I discounted Landstill, I also admitted it was poor wording on my part. I said I was wrong already, get off your fucking high horse.

Okie dokie, let's try this again. I'd have to agree that the metagame will always be stagnant based on the defined engines and automatically included staples of the format. It may seem ridiculoulsy narrow, but unfortunately that's the position vintage has found itself in. You claim things are shaken up following whatever and then stabalizes in stagnation, but in reality that is just the illusion that the stagnation wasn't there throughout it all. The DCI actually can't do anything to upset this. They will never, ever print anything on the power level of the first years of printing. They'll print risky things, but nothing will ever challenge those established cards. The very fact that these engines and auto-includes exist will make the format forever stagnant at it's base level. No amount of innovation can change that. The closest thing to disrupting said stagnation is to tweak it in an unexpected way. One could agrue that that innovation disrupts the stagnation temporarily, but if you look at the bigger picture you'll see that nothing every really changes. The cards that have established the format always come from the early sets. Anything else merely compliments that base. In that sense, stagnation is permanent.

And the horse has cancer. Hope you feel just a little bit worse about that one.

[Delha]

Okie dokie, let's try this again. I'd have to agree that the metagame will always be stagnant based on the defined engines and automatically included staples of the format. It may seem ridiculoulsy narrow, but unfortunately that's the position vintage has found itself in. You claim things are shaken up following whatever and then stabalizes in stagnation, but in reality that is just the illusion that the stagnation wasn't there throughout it all. The DCI actually can't do anything to upset this. They will never, ever print anything on the power level of the first years of printing. They'll print risky things, but nothing will ever challenge those established cards. The very fact that these engines and auto-includes exist will make the format forever stagnant at it's base level. No amount of innovation can change that. The closest thing to disrupting said stagnation is to tweak it in an unexpected way. One could agrue that that innovation disrupts the stagnation temporarily, but if you look at the bigger picture you'll see that nothing every really changes. The cards that have established the format always come from the early sets. Anything else merely compliments that base. In that sense, stagnation is permanent.

It's pretty amusing to me that your last post was berating me for using a definition of new that you considered excessively narrow, but here you're openly doing the same for stagant. I can see where you're coming from, but I think that using the label that way largely invalidates it for practical use. The same things happens with the word ideal. You're never going to find a truly ideal candidate while hiring for a job (since that would be someone work doesn't eat/sleep/get paid/etc), so we just use it as shorthand for "near the top end of what we could reasonably expect". In that sense, I'm using "stagnant" to refer to the bottom end of range, rather than as an absolute state (which upon consideration, might be what Steve is doing).

And the horse has cancer. Hope you feel just a little bit worse about that one.

He's a jerk, he deserves it. I'd know, I've got the same horse and take him out for a trot pretty regularly.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

It's pretty amusing to me that your last post was berating me for using a definition of new that you considered excessively narrow, but here you're openly doing the same for stagant. I can see where you're coming from, but I think that using the label that way largely invalidates it for practical use. The same things happens with the word ideal. You're never going to find a truly ideal candidate while hiring for a job (since that would be someone work doesn't eat/sleep/get paid/etc), so we just use it as shorthand for "near the top end of what we could reasonably expect". In that sense, I'm using "stagnant" to refer to the bottom end of range, rather than as an absolute state (which upon consideration, might be what Steve is doing).

Ah I see where you're coming from. You're right in that regard. Ignoring the bigger vintage picture does give that practical use of the word that makes for compelling arguments against/ for the b&r list, which is always on the mind of the community. In that sense how would you differentiate between stagnant and stable? As much as I would argue that stagnation is always present, I would definitely look at whether or not the format was stable. In this case, I feel the format is stable and therefor very healthy. Nothing needs to be done just yet imo, but it comes from the balance between stable and stagnant.  

And the horse has cancer. Hope you feel just a little bit worse about that one.

He's a jerk, he deserves it. I'd know, I've got the same horse and take him out for a trot pretty regularly.

LOL! Tip of my hat to you, sir  

[nineisnoone]

I'd say yes. As decks are refined and the number of unexplored possibilities diminishes, the format will naturally stagnate. That's the way of pretty much all games.

I'd challenge that.  Is Chess like that?  Is War (as in, real life war) like that? I don't think so.

How much groundbreaking new strategy has appeared in chess lately? I'm not being facetious, I honestly don't know much about high end chess. From my understanding, a great deal of top end chess play has turned into memorization of board states. I'm not claiming that grand masters are just sitting down and going on autopilot, but shortcutting like that is certainly an effective way for people to speed up their play while on the spot. Humans may not be good at analysis of complex systems, but we have proven to be good at pattern recognition.

Magic isn't like chess though. Chess is a game where the game is 100% known, i.e. there is no hidden knowledge, only hidden decisions. But since those decisions are all predicated on known knowledge, there is an objectively correct decision.

Magic is not chess, it's poker. Pattern recognition will only get you so far, because there are inherent unknowns to the game. That's why something like Dredge is good for the format. It FORCES you to address unknowns more than any other deck in the format.

This creates variability because it heightens player choice over objective knowledge. I think of it like a variation of Force of Will. Force of Will forces (no pun intended) you to address unknowns. Otherwise, you could just play turn 1 solitaire games of "win the match." You don't know whether or not the opponent has Force or doesn't. As such, you have to adjust your deck to beat it. This forces sub-optimal plays/decks due to diluting your deck.

Unfortunately for Force, the obvious answer to Force is "run Force." As such, I really don't buy the "Force keeps Vintage honest" because it does just as much to keep it dishonest by allowing turn 1 wins + protection as often as negating turn 1 wins.

However, Dredge ultimately fulfills the promise that Force fails to do by keeping decks honest. A decision a player makes to play a specific deck, fundamentally impacts you in a way that you can't know, but only anticipate. This means that you can't optimize, not because of knowns like Mana Drain being better than Counterspell, but because of unknowns originating from player choice. You have to make a decision based on unknowns due to Dredge, and this fundamentally creates variation and diversity because "optimal" is no longer meaningful.

Think about this. What's the best answer to Force of Will? Force of Will. Anything else would be too slow. So what happens? People run Force of Will. What's the best answer to Bazaar? Leyline of the Void. That's the source of diversity.

Without Dredge (yes, exaggerating here), Magic would be like playing Poker without the ability to fold, and hence bluff. And what is Poker without that? It's just turning over cards, pattern recognition, and a little bit of the luck of the draw. Woo~. Whenever people want to go to the "glory days", that's always what I see them wanting. And while it's more complex than the poker example, it's still just pattern recognition.

Dredge forces you to call it's bluff and raise them those hate cards and playtesting. If you raise wrong, you are underpowered against a deck that ignores your hate. If you raise right, you win. But you have to go away from your comfort zone. You have to gamble on cards you don't want or fold on cards you do want. Dredge does that and nothing else compares.

The only way I would by that this is not the case and that this is not good for the format is if you do not consider deck building/choice as an integral part of magic. Again, which is what the glory day people want. The same control/combo decks playing against each other. And sure, we can say within that world there is variation and decisions, and it can be good for what it is. But it will not be good with regard to the value of deck building.

[Smmenen]

There is no need for name calling.

 
Well, there are really only two possibilities:
1. You failed at reading my posts and overlooked criteria I'd set forth.
2. You read it properly, but chose to partially ignore those criteria.

I asked for a new deck whose creation was not predicated on new printings or B/R changes and you named Shaymora, which was explicitly created in the wake of B/R changes. If you weren't being obtuse, what justification do you give for naming decks that clearly violated the parameters I described?

I didn't ignore the criteria.   Shaymora is an example, IMO, of a deck that was not created based upon new printings or changes in the B/R list.  As I said:

When Rich Shay created the Remora deck a few years ago, all of the key cards -- Remora/meditate - etc. had been printed in the previous decade!  (Even the Psychatogs and Old mans of the seas!)

You offered this quote from RIch Shay's primer as a rebuttal:

..The Theory Behind the Deck

Several months ago, Wizards grasped the Vintage metagame in its hand and shook mightily. The result of restrictions, unrestrictions, errata, and new cards was that established archetypes needed to be reevaluated, and that new Drain builds began to emerge. Personally, I have in the past few months sampled a plethora of Drain-based archetypes yet found none to be ideal.

Yes, we can point to Time Vault's re-errata as laying the conditions for making this deck good, but Time Vault was errated in October of 2008, and this deck wasn't unveiled until late January/February, 2009.  

This is why I said:

At this point, your argument is one of semantics, debating what is meant by 'new.'

You could basically say that nothing is new, since every deck can be traced to the printings that preceded it.  Thus, you could take my example of Stax, created in 2003, and point to how Workshop was unrestricted in 1998.   The point, which I think most people appreciated, is that 99% of the cards in Shaymora were ancient: Mystic Remora, Meditate, Old Man of the Sea, Psychatog,

Moreover, going to long primers and excerpting a few choice quotes to support your claim that these decks aren't "new" doesn't prove that they aren't new metagame players.

You quoted the Landstill primer, and Josh Potucek' saying that he's been working on his deck for three years.  That doesn't mean that his deck was actually good or a real metagame player.   And you used that, incorrectly, as the measuring stick for the deck's age (as I already pointed out -- Landstill is much older as an idea/archetype).  

It's not just that you are playing a semantics game, and trotting out a few out-of-context quotes from the authors of the decks, it's that you take away all context, especially context that matters for this discussion.

Shaymora wasn't simply a product of B/R list changes.   It was good because it was a strong predator of the Tezzeret decks that emerged following the errata on TIme Vault and the printing of Tezzeret.   Shaymora wouldn't have been nearly as good -- just like Landstill -- if was just a result of changes to the existing card pool.  Both decks became effective because of changes in the METAGAME, not in the card pool.

I think this is where you are getting constantly tripped up -- you are putting too much weight into what the authors of these decks are saying, and not truly understanding how these decks emerged as metagame relevant.  I don't know whether that's becuase you don't have alot of deep understanding of the format or some other reason, but I think that's the case.  Perhaps its just because you still don't really understand how Vintage (or magic) metagames evolve.

Let me try to explain one more time:

The metagame is a complex system of elements - a concatenation of relationships.   As the metagame evolves, and different decks ascend and others descend, the metagame interfaces the array of potential decks differently.  The metagame has different leverage points, weaknesses, and strengths.  

A good example: in 2004, I surveyed the VIntage metagame.  The top 3 decks just before Vintage Worlds were 4c Control, Stax, and UWB Fish.   I played mono blue control specifically to abuse B2B because, since the printing of Onslaught fetchlands, the top three decks in the format had never been so weak to Back to Basics.  I played all three archetypes on my way to a Vintage Championship top 8 that year.  

Landstill has risen to the top not because of the daring and ingenius design of Josh Potucek, but because the metagame -- as a complex system -- has evolved in ways that make it susceptible to the intervention of Josh Potucek's well designed and perpetually tuned attempt to exploit it.  It's BOTH Josh's deck, AND the evolving metagame system -- and how those two things interface - that makes Josh's deck strong -- not just the fact of Josh's deck.

I used to keep a list of every single deck idea in Vintage ever conceived or attempted in a forum on my team boards because I sometimes think of deck strategies as seasonal fruit.   I can't find it but I once wrote an article for SCG where I basically described decks as seasonal fruit: some are ripe, some are rotten, etc.  When a metagame is ripe, it means that a deck interfaces favorably with the current metagame system.  Then the metagame system adjusts, and it becomes weaker.  

Basically, we are all part of a great metagame market.  We each try our wares.  Most of us bring to market the product we are used to making (i.e. good at).  Sometimes, if the conditions are right, we make a huge profit (see Josh Potucek), just by fortuitious luck or happenstance.   Othertimes, we analyze the market, and we design a product for the market.   This is the example of my mono blue deck.   Both things happen, but what's notable is that in the case of the former, it's often described as a case of the latter (when that's really not what happened).

Every single person who enters a tournament presumably thinks they have a chance to win or at least compete.   Sometimes that means playing a deck they are good with, but is not original.  Sometimes that means tweaking an existing deck (which can happen in many different ways -- adding a color, changing a color, changing a few key cards or changing a few non-key cards).  And sometimes it means the introduction of a new strategy or synergy (i.e. Doomsday + Maniac).   Whatever the case may be, the collective decisions of dozens if not hundreds of people drive change in an evolving metagame.  

The system -- the metagame -- is MORE or different from the sum of its parts.   Individual decks may not have certain weaknesses or strengths that the metagame as a whole has in general.   It's how that metagame interfaces with potential entrants that matters.  And, as the metagame naturally evolves, the answers to those questions change -- that is the strengths and weaknesses will change, and the potential for entrants changes, deck  by deck.

I said that stagnation is the lull between the surge of changes caused by innovation, and you essentially said that innovation causes surges of change.

That's not really what you originally said.  

Will it settle into a rut if WotC doesn't keep blessing us?
I'd say yes. As decks are refined and the number of unexplored possibilities diminishes, the format will naturally stagnate. That's the way of pretty much all games.

Your original premise -- to which I objected -- was that games naturally tend towards stagnation, and that Wizards is needed to prevent that from happening.  I can't speak of all games, but I think that this is 100% false for Magic.

Now you are representing yourself as saying that stagnation is merely the 'lull between surges of innovation.'  That doesn't seem to square with what you originally said.   Regardless of whether it does or not, the issue is whether you concede that this innovation can happen or does happen without changes in the card pool.  

I firmly believe it does.   I tried to illustrate this with a simple thought experiment:

Suppose you only have the Alpha card pool, and it is November 1, 1993.   Suppose you have the modern B/R list.   Let's say a best deck emerges.  Another deck will emerge to beat that best deck.  Then another deck will emerge to beat that deck.

That's the essence of Magic: a complex, dynamic Rock, Paper, Scissors.  It's complex because another deck will emerge to beat two of the three decks, with weak matchup against the third.   And so on.  

It is undoubtedly true that one of the great drivers of change in Vintage is new printings and changes to B/R list.  I've asserted this before many times.  But it's not the only driver.   New printings by themselves dont create metagame change.   Even new printings that create highly synergistic combos.  

***It's only when those synergies interface positively with the extant metagame that the metagame changes***

You conveniently glossed over these key points/conceptualization/understanding of the game.  

Let me put it simply: you say: "stagnation is the lull between the surge of changes caused by innovation."  Your metaphor gets it wrong.   Metagame evolution isn't a surge between lulls.   It's more a constant churn.  

Your metaphorical imagery, I think, underscores your lack of understanding of how change works in Vintage.   I don't think my description is going to necessarily help you 'get it.'  It may just require a gestalt shift on your part, or, perhaps, a deeper engagement with the format in tournament settings.  Whatever the case may be, your original description is not the same as what you are saying now, but you are still misunderstanding how change occurs in this format.

Your surge metaphor may be appropriate for changes in the card pool -- especially new sets, but even when new sets aren't unfolding in the field, the metagame isn't stagnating (nor does it tend towards that) -- it's constantly and continuously churning.

[Delha]

Re: Shaymora
I readily admitted a few post back that in hindsight, my question was too narrow. That doesn't change the fact that you failed to provide a satisfactory answer to it. In fact, you're still not answering it. I didn't ask what made Shaymora successful, I asked what led to its creation.

I'll also repeat that I'm ready to drop this point. I've said THREE TIMES now that I was wrong about it. If you want to keep going, that's fine, but let's be perfectly clear: I'm not the one dragging this out.

I said that stagnation is the lull between the surge of changes caused by innovation, and you essentially said that innovation causes surges of change.

That's not really what you originally said. 

Will it settle into a rut if WotC doesn't keep blessing us?
I'd say yes. As decks are refined and the number of unexplored possibilities diminishes, the format will naturally stagnate. That's the way of pretty much all games.

Your original premise -- to which I objected -- was that games naturally tend towards stagnation, and that Wizards is needed to prevent that from happening.  I can't speak of all games, but I think that this is 100% false for Magic.

Now you are representing yourself as saying that stagnation is merely the 'lull between surges of innovation.'  That doesn't seem to square with what you originally said.   Regardless of whether it does or not, the issue is whether you concede that this innovation can happen or does happen without changes in the card pool.

My quote above wasn't referring to the original response I gave CDawg. It was in reference to the excerpt below, to which you responded verbatim "Yeah, but it only takes a vanguard to create metagame changes". As can be clearly seen, I had already taken for granted that metagame shakeups come from the innovation of a few pioneers. The quote you're talking about here was made in support of my claim that you were being obtuse and dodging my points instead of directly addressing them. The fact that you did so yet again, and in response to my making that complaint in specific... perhaps I should thank you for proving me right.

2. In practice, I understand we're not realistically going to exhaust all the possibilities in a given lifetime. However, even if we treat new approaches as functionally infinite, the rate of introduction for those new strategies is low. For every player who scratchbuilds a new list, there are dozens who maintain the status quo. Even among those pioneers, not every attempt is a sucess, and not every success is immediate. This can easily mean that long periods go by where the metagame remains unchanged. This period, which can be accurately described as one of equilibrium or stagnation certainly exists, even if not permanently.

Your original premise -- to which I objected -- was that games naturally tend towards stagnation, and that Wizards is needed to prevent that from happening.  I can't speak of all games, but I think that this is 100% false for Magic.

Since you think I've got such an inaccurate view of how it all works, let's figure out what parts we agree on at least. To start, here's how I see the cycle of change vs stagnation: Something shakes up a metagame, and there's a flurry of activity. Things gradually calm down as players gain familiarity with the decks in the field (and answers/strategies employed against them), until something shakes it up again. Do you disagree with this?

Let me put it simply: you say: "stagnation is the lull between the surge of changes caused by innovation."  Your metaphor gets it wrong.   Metagame evolution isn't a surge between lulls.   It's more a constant churn.

Innovation may be a constant churn, but the new decks generated have an impact on the metagame that manifests in bursts. Look at all the decks you've created. When you debut a hot new list in a big tournament, do you typically watch it slowly take hold? Of course not. It blows up and a couple weeks later, you're seeing it all over the place. Everyone scrambles to find answers, then things back calm down (at least for a time).

[Smmenen]

Re: Shaymora
I readily admitted a few post back that in hindsight, my question was too narrow. That doesn't change the fact that you failed to provide a satisfactory answer to it. In fact, you're still not answering it.

It only seems like I'm not answering it because you aren't paying attention to my answer.   You are misunderstanding my answer.   

Your next response illustrates this:

I didn't ask what made Shaymora successful, I asked what led to its creation.

As if they are different?

They are the same thing. 

Are you reading my responses or simply glossing over them?   I explained this, quite carefully, in my prior post. 

The conditions that led to Shaymora being designed and attempted in tournaments ( (1) the card pool changes, followed by (2) metagame changes) are the conditions that made it successful.   

Again, it wasn't just that the B&R list changed, but that the metagame became good for Shaymora.   A big part of what made the metagame good was the emergence of certain kinds of Tezzeret control decks, that Shaymora would predate.

The fact that you didn't seem to understand this is what prompted me to say:

It's not just that you are playing a semantics game, and trotting out a few out-of-context quotes from the authors of the decks, it's that you take away all context, especially context that matters for this discussion.

I'll also repeat that I'm ready to drop this point. I've said THREE TIMES now that I was wrong about it. If you want to keep going, that's fine, but let's be perfectly clear: I'm not the one dragging this out.

You have a funny way of conceding a point.  My response has been prompted, in each case, by you saying *I* have failed to answer your question. 

I said that stagnation is the lull between the surge of changes caused by innovation, and you essentially said that innovation causes surges of change.

That's not really what you originally said. 

Will it settle into a rut if WotC doesn't keep blessing us?
I'd say yes. As decks are refined and the number of unexplored possibilities diminishes, the format will naturally stagnate. That's the way of pretty much all games.

Your original premise -- to which I objected -- was that games naturally tend towards stagnation, and that Wizards is needed to prevent that from happening.  I can't speak of all games, but I think that this is 100% false for Magic.

Now you are representing yourself as saying that stagnation is merely the 'lull between surges of innovation.'  That doesn't seem to square with what you originally said.   Regardless of whether it does or not, the issue is whether you concede that this innovation can happen or does happen without changes in the card pool.

My quote above wasn't referring to the original response I gave CDawg.

So what?   

Your quote is an elaboration of your understanding of the issue.   I quoted your original post, in which you asserted your view of how the metagame changes (or not).  It was this quote which I disagreed with and prompted my response.   

Your response to CDawg is an elaboration of your understanding of the same issue, and a useful counterpoint since it employs a metaphor that I think captures the issue inaccurately.

 It was in reference to the excerpt below, to which you responded verbatim "Yeah, but it only takes a vanguard to create metagame changes". As can be clearly seen, I had already taken for granted that metagame shakeups come from the innovation of a few pioneers.

Yes, but your position is that this doesn't happen outside of changes in the B&R list or new printings.  At least, that's what you said in your first post in this thread, which prompted me to reply. 

Your original premise -- to which I objected -- was that games naturally tend towards stagnation, and that Wizards is needed to prevent that from happening.  I can't speak of all games, but I think that this is 100% false for Magic.

Since you think I've got such an inaccurate view of how it all works, let's figure out what parts we agree on at least. To start, here's how I see the cycle of change vs stagnation: Something shakes up a metagame, and there's a flurry of activity. Things gradually calm down as players gain familiarity with the decks in the field (and answers/strategies employed against them), until something shakes it up again. Do you disagree with this?

Yes, I disagree with that. 

Are you reading what I wrote in the last page or are you just looking to see if you can fit a square peg into a round whole?   

The reasons I disagree with that should be more than clear if you had actually read what I said in this thread, post after post after post.   

Let me recap it for you:

Initially, I said:

I think magic metagames are alot like markets.  If you buy into equilibria theory (i.e. classical economices), then you may think that Magic metagames eventually approach an equilibiria (or multiple possible equilibria).  I don't think so.

I actually think that Magic metagames are infinitely dynamic, even without any new printings. 

And then later, I elaborated:

Even with a defined, static card pool, Magic metagames are infinitely dynamic.   The main reason for this is that people don't devise strategies based on abstract power, but to beat expected opponents.

Let's just start with a hypothetical.  Suppose you only have the Alpha card pool, and it is November 1, 1993.   Suppose you have the modern B/R list.   Let's say a best deck emerges.  Another deck will emerge to beat that best deck.  Then another deck will emerge to beat that deck.

That's the essence of Magic: a complex, dynamic Rock, Paper, Scissors.  It's complex because another deck will emerge to beat two of the three decks, with weak matchup against the third.   And so on. 

It is undoubtedly true that one of the great drivers of change in Vintage is new printings and changes to B/R list.  I've asserted this before many times.  But it's not the only driver.   New printings by themselves dont create metagame change.   Even new printings that create highly synergistic combos. 

***It's only when those synergies interface positively with the extant metagame that the metagame changes***

 Magic is HIGHLY contextual. You can take the same card pool and produce totally different results. 

That's because In Magic, you don't play to beat the card pool, you play to beat what other players are playing! 

Put simply: Even without changes to the card pool, as tournament results become known, players WILL devise new ways of defeating what's there.     That's because, in order to maximize your chances for winning, you want to be able to defeat what your opponent's throw at you. 

That's what drives change.  There is no equilibria point in Magic because the Magic card pool is sufficiently large that you can always create new niches.    that is, if Deck A, B, and C are best performing, you can devise strategy D.  And once you do that, then people will have to beat ABC & D, and then devise strategy E, and so on, ad infinitum. 

yes, B&R list changes and new printings drive change faster, but that's because they dramatically expand the range of possibilties (because each new printing creates thousands of new synergies), but even without those changes, Magic metagames are infinitely dynamic. 

Metagames in Magic don't stagnate.   That's one of the great myths of Magic.   As long as people want to win, they will be trying new approaches, and when those approaches are successful (as they inevitably will be), the metagame evolves. 

Then, I explained my position EVEN further:

Think of it like a market.   You have thousands of entrepreneurs, all trying to find a niche in the market.   Only a few succeed.  There will be thousands of attempts to predate the metagame, and very few that actually succeed in doing so.   The most successful versions – the leading tip – drives metagame change. 

 Magic is only infinitely dynamic because this process recurs indefinitely: 1) there are best decks (i.e decks that perform best against the field under tournament conditions), and 2) people will devise new strategies to beat the best decks as well as the extant field.   Most of the time, they will fail.  Sometimes, they will succeed.   This starts the process all over again 1->2 ad infinitum.

[...]barring really extreme circumstances, magic metagames are naturally dynamic, without changes in the card pool.   Yes, the card pool creates change faster, but that's far from the only way in which Magic metagames evolve. Magic metagames are complex systems that are constantly evolving based upon the natural dynamics of predator/prey relationships throughout them, and almost never reach static equilibria.

You said:

There is no unseen perpetual motion machine for metagames.

I guess you haven't heard of the invisible hand? 

So, I tried to explain it, from the ground up, one more time in the hope that you'd get it:

The metagame is a complex system of elements - a concatenation of relationships.   As the metagame evolves, and different decks ascend and others descend, the metagame interfaces the array of potential decks differently.  The metagame has different leverage points, weaknesses, and strengths. 

A good example: in 2004, I surveyed the VIntage metagame.  The top 3 decks just before Vintage Worlds were 4c Control, Stax, and UWB Fish.   I played mono blue control specifically to abuse B2B because, since the printing of Onslaught fetchlands, the top three decks in the format had never been so weak to Back to Basics.  I played all three archetypes on my way to a Vintage Championship top 8 that year. 

Landstill has risen to the top not because of the daring and ingenius design of Josh Potucek, but because the metagame -- as a complex system -- has evolved in ways that make it susceptible to the intervention of Josh Potucek's well designed and perpetually tuned attempt to exploit it.  It's BOTH Josh's deck, AND the evolving metagame system -- and how those two things interface - that makes Josh's deck strong -- not just the fact of Josh's deck.

I used to keep a list of every single deck idea in Vintage ever conceived or attempted in a forum on my team boards because I sometimes think of deck strategies as seasonal fruit.   I can't find it but I once wrote an article for SCG where I basically described decks as seasonal fruit: some are ripe, some are rotten, etc.  When a metagame is ripe, it means that a deck interfaces favorably with the current metagame system.  Then the metagame system adjusts, and it becomes weaker. 

Basically, we are all part of a great metagame market.  We each try our wares.  Most of us bring to market the product we are used to making (i.e. good at).  Sometimes, if the conditions are right, we make a huge profit (see Josh Potucek), just by fortuitious luck or happenstance.   Othertimes, we analyze the market, and we design a product for the market.   This is the example of my mono blue deck.   Both things happen, but what's notable is that in the case of the former, it's often described as a case of the latter (when that's really not what happened).

Every single person who enters a tournament presumably thinks they have a chance to win or at least compete.   Sometimes that means playing a deck they are good with, but is not original.  Sometimes that means tweaking an existing deck (which can happen in many different ways -- adding a color, changing a color, changing a few key cards or changing a few non-key cards).  And sometimes it means the introduction of a new strategy or synergy (i.e. Doomsday + Maniac).   Whatever the case may be, the collective decisions of dozens if not hundreds of people drive change in an evolving metagame. 

The system -- the metagame -- is MORE or different from the sum of its parts.   Individual decks may not have certain weaknesses or strengths that the metagame as a whole has in general.   It's how that metagame interfaces with potential entrants that matters.  And, as the metagame naturally evolves, the answers to those questions change -- that is the strengths and weaknesses will change, and the potential for entrants changes, deck  by deck.

But, you just basically ignored that entire explanation, and NOW ask me to define how my position differs from your?   I've already set out my understanding, repeatedly, in contradistinction to yours.

Let me put it simply: you say: "stagnation is the lull between the surge of changes caused by innovation."  Your metaphor gets it wrong.   Metagame evolution isn't a surge between lulls.   It's more a constant churn.

Innovation may be a constant churn, but the new decks generated have an impact on the metagame that manifests in bursts. Look at all the decks you've created. When you debut a hot new list in a big tournament, do you typically watch it slowly take hold? Of course not. It blows up and a couple weeks later, you're seeing it all over the place. Everyone scrambles to find answers, then things back calm down (at least for a time).

That's not at all how it works.

There are literally thousands of metagame participants that are driving change every time they enroll in a tournament.   

As I said:

Every single person who enters a tournament presumably thinks they have a chance to win or at least compete.   Sometimes that means playing a deck they are good with, but is not original.  Sometimes that means tweaking an existing deck (which can happen in many different ways -- adding a color, changing a color, changing a few key cards or changing a few non-key cards).  And sometimes it means the introduction of a new strategy or synergy (i.e. Doomsday + Maniac).   Whatever the case may be, the collective decisions of dozens if not hundreds of people drive change in an evolving metagame.   

All three (or more) of those kinds of decisions drive evolution in the metagame system.  Even as players just tweak decks, they move the metagame system in different directions with different strengths and weaknesses.   

As I said:

It may happen on a scale that makes it difficult to observe -- like how a small hand on a clock doesn't appear to be moving when we look at a clock, but it is. 

It's difficult to see how the thousands of individual decisions shift the metagame, since the shift isn't always salient until its been exploited, but the shifts are occuring.   Far from happening in bursts, it's a constant churn.

The "bursts" you are talking about are merely the more salient features of an already churning metagame. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

evidence takes the form of both facts and logical reasoning

Clearly you're not a Bayesian empiricist.  Without sidetracking into a debate on epistemology, Bayesian inference is mathemagically guaranteed to converge to the ground truth while "logical" reasoning is not.

The difference is the impact of misinterpretation of the original facts on the two systems.

Have you ever played Sudoku?   Logical reasoning is certainly a way of knowing.  

If a room is empty, and two people walk in, and one walks out, we can logically deduce who is in the room without empirical observation of the room.

You frequently ignore or downplay these kinds of observations, which are just as valid as empirical facts.  

What if the 2 people had a child while they were in the room. YOUR STORY HAS HOLES MENEDIAN.

I had PMed Steve regarding exactly this point: "logic" without mathematically correct treatment of the uncertainty in observation does not necessarily arrive at valid conclusions.

[Smmenen]

evidence takes the form of both facts and logical reasoning

Clearly you're not a Bayesian empiricist.  Without sidetracking into a debate on epistemology, Bayesian inference is mathemagically guaranteed to converge to the ground truth while "logical" reasoning is not.

The difference is the impact of misinterpretation of the original facts on the two systems.

Have you ever played Sudoku?   Logical reasoning is certainly a way of knowing.  

If a room is empty, and two people walk in, and one walks out, we can logically deduce who is in the room without empirical observation of the room.

You frequently ignore or downplay these kinds of observations, which are just as valid as empirical facts.  

What if the 2 people had a child while they were in the room. YOUR STORY HAS HOLES MENEDIAN.

I had PMed Steve regarding exactly this point: "logic" without mathematically correct treatment of the uncertainty in observation does not necessarily arrive at valid conclusions.

The point is that evidence can take the form of reasons as well as empirical evidence.  

Motivations, understandings, ideas, explanations, etc. can't all be reduced to math.  You are being too reductionist to try to reduce logic or reasons to math.   And logic is not simply deductive, it's also inductive (probabilistic and/or inferential).  

And, uncertainty can never be eliminated.   That's Heisenberg/Bohr (or, if you will, Godel).   This is, in any case, a philosophy of science/math debate -- not a Magic one.  

 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Motivations, understandings, ideas, explanations, etc. can't all be reduced to math.  You are being too reductionist to try to reduce logic or reasons to math.   And logic is not simply deductive, it's also inductive (probabilistic and/or inferential). 

And, uncertainty can never be eliminated.   That's Heisenberg/Bohr (or, if you will, Godel).   This is, in any case, a philosophy of science/math debate -- not a Magic one.

Reductionism is unrelated Bayesian inference (though it frequently gets recruited by reductionists).  This is a very in-depth debate whose relation to MtG hinges on the people following it understanding how the "logical" and "Bayesian" approaches to AI and game AI differ.

I strongly recommend that we not have this discussion in public.