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

[MaximumCDawg]

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.

I'm fascinated, and only partly because debating esoteric logic theories as applied to Magics almost as nerdy as debating physics as applied to the Star Wars universe.  Can you spin off a thread to elaborate more?  I've seen your previous models of deck design, so I assume you're a philosophy or math major, and have interesting things to say about the topic.

[Killane]

Seconded. Please hold the debate in public. It's facinating.

[Ego_Sum]

It seems that I arrived a little late to the party, but just read the article fewa hours ago, with tat said let' s be on-topic...

First of all congrats, once again, for your great job with the article, and though I may agree with you that vintage have not real speed issues (after reading this whole discussion I should also say that Dredge is not a necessary Evil, because it is not an evil indeed, and the metagame is not stagnant but maybe stuck in a big bunch of staples, both cards and strategies, but this is maybe due to the facter that some cards are just too powerful to be ignored), I may say that something is wrong in this “Super New Golden Era”.

Since I know of MtG the whole community agreed that vintage was settled on 4 columns, and each column should be represented in a similar percentage in a HEALTHY metagame (as you all may know those columns are: Workshop, Drain/Force of Will, Null Rod and Dark Ritual, maybe for the modern Vintage we should add the 5th being Bazaar). Current metagame objectively lacks of 2 of those Pillars, sure some decks with dark ritual, eventually, make good results, or in occasions Null Rod Decks (and with Null Rod deck I mean fish-like, MUD-Rod are in the Workshop Pillar) are seen in tops, but the truth is that their success ratio is, BY FAR, lower than the one of the FoW and Workshop (and now MUD) pillars.

There is no clear way to solve this, because, due to its nature, those decks have many dificulties to live in a metagame of Golems, Remoras, Gush, Missteps, Mindbreak Traps, Flusterstorms, Jaces, Tinker (into Colossus specially), Dismember, … But it seems pretty obvious that the foundations of vintage have changed, and hence the diversity is not as much as you are describing, and this is because vintage modern metagme is being held by only 3 pillars.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Justin]

My 2 cents,

I've been playing since the tail end of Legends (with the exception of 2 "breaks" where I sold all my cards, only to reacquire everything and then some). I'm absolutely thrilled with the following somewhat divisive things & I just figured I'd throw them out there:

1. The restriction of Brainstorm (blue has plenty of toys. Feel free to flex your decision making skills everywhere else in the game)
2. The current Gush/Merchant Scroll balance (restrict the tutor before it's target seems like good policy)
3. The removal/reversal of power level errata (for the most part this has been great)
4. The removal of mana burn (this did not need to be simplified. However it did not add anything to the game that I find myself missing)
5. The tremendous amount of relevant goodies that Vintage has been fed for the last few years in new sets
6. The staggering amount of engines, win conditions, & hybrid builds that are available (with ever-adjusting viability due to new printings & interactions)
7. The new card frame & general quality of the art & flavor in more recent sets
8. Foil reprints of vintage/legacy staples or old school favorites with new art & frame.

I've never felt more excited about the format or more anticipation to see the newest crazy brew to get posted & it's ripples on the metagame. There are truly wild interactions & strategies that you could have never dreamed of while slinging bolts at berserked flying men.

I've also have not seen the ship sink, despite the recurring manic responses to printings, bannings/restrictions etc. These things are best taken as a challenge, discussed & overcome as a community rather than seen as the end of our beloved game. Wizards, in my opinion, have been very good in dealing with imbalance after the lessons learned in Mirrodin Block & have been (imo) great with regards to giving us Vintage players cheap elegant solutions to many of the format's gripes. Far better than at any other time in the game's history.

One final thing I'm thrilled with is the quality of the discussion among the community. Article content & discussion have continued to improve by leaps and bounds as the more savvy & well spoken of us M:TG players have led the charge, and I believe a good deal of love should be shown to businesses like SCG for their support of not only the game but our eternal formats & communities.

This is, in my opinion, a golden age of Vintage. I can't remember a time where it has been this fun since I was first learning to turn Ball lightnings sideways before my parents came to get me lol. Good times.

-Justin